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The Song of Squelchfoot · Rotgrind - Narrative Declaration

• and we're back uh fellow fellow fredheads in chat please post t-owl bean as often as continue on thursday what's up hello what's up what's up game master yeah so so as we we left um after tannhauser had dealt a decisive electric blow to the vast form of the rot driven crawdad a incorporeal spectral figure of pictern squelchfoot appeared and pictern indicated i just i wasn't feeling that good i must have must have just had a case of the of the manies is that really you pictern well yeah of course it's me who else would it be i go to well i mean sometimes people do think i look a little bit like billimus but billimus doesn't play the pipes you know these pipes here they're very good but oh i'm not feeling so good oh i think i'm out of eight something bad me you know i gotta sit a spell why why would you come sit with me i got a campfire over here just just beyond this house yonder come on come on insight check uh you mean perception oh yeah wrong game game wrong punish her yeah i will i will i will give you disadvantage on this road that's just what could you put us on the grid so we can have a thing to look at oh just throw pictures token on i could do that i could i have to you know load it all up and stuff and or i could just go to here yeah that works good job on the on the edit there on a bonder it's pretty good right flawless that's vick flawless 10 out of 10. that's just vick don't worry about it yeah can i make a perception check yeah you can make a perception check absolutely you can do anything you want yeah i would like to make a perception check thank you sure sure vick is very tired she's going to cough on blood and perception check yeah yeah everyone it's like i love the sense motive moment by the way oh my yeah yeah oh thank you oh that was me i thought i rolled the three no no no i i love the sense motive effect the this seems sus i want to make a sense motive followed me the but hey can i make a sense yeah i don't trust it either i want to make a sense motive too the wrong i don't trust your motivation either yeah um all right so volley and tannhauser there's there's something weird uh rahua you your your um antediluvian uh insight allows you to recognize that picturn squelchfoot has no idea what's going on or what has gone on and it's just kind of sitting down like like some kind of fragment echo in fact as you as you gaze you you get the the clear insight that this is the the tangled remains of picturn's soul stuff his atma which has uh now sort of coalesced back into his form here picturn how much do you fire is nice how much do you remember of the last well how many i guess the last few hours even a few minutes well you know i remember that we went yeah you know we went into that into that swamp well you found me in that swamp that was that was the that was the important thing i was i was i was in a bad place you know i i should have said something about that when i when i first met you i mean we were busy there were all sorts of gribbly grabblies in the swamp those were no good but you know it's uh hey come on come on come on friends sit sit down you know i should have done this the the first night we were together you know i i talk a lot i i it's kind of a coping mechanism that i have really you know but you know kickturn what's the last thing that you remember well you know i was going into the swamp together that you know gotta gotta find something i think it was but but that that don't matter you know my friend sit down sit down see what we gotta what we gotta do here is something i should have done like i said on the first night on the first night i should have done this i i wanted to ask you know about y'all about your histories about you know like like what brought y'all together and what what motivates you and all that you know i got a bit of time so why don't we why don't we hear some stories from y'all ruhu is a bit conflicted because he he wants to tell him very much what is going on but he also wants to respect the fact that he doesn't know and give him this little bit of peace and rahua looks to his party members for any kind of visual i guess go ahead of what to do it's like does this guy he he doesn't know he has no idea he might know more than you think i say we honor this wish and like all of you are kind of back just by the edge of the houses where you know you you see picturn is kind of like poking at this this fire and the you can see the light of the of the rose wound the immense sort of wound of the sky up above kind of shimmering down here everything still has this strange intangible property but pictures getting the fire going is this all that's left of him it's it's some remnant of what picturn was or in this case may still be but not for very long unfettered by the infection that beset him from all accounts it seems like he doesn't remember anything beyond when we last first met him possibly shortly after that point he was consumed entirely and whoever this was of him was suppressed under creeping sick that ate away at the rest of him evidently eating his memories too i i would second what tan hauser had said and at the very least honor his request have a little heart to heart as it were for we if we have to break the news to him right now i'm with tanny uh his dad's not gonna be uh sorry good all right well hey fire fire's ready y'all why don't y'all cook come come on sit down all right you know i used to sit up back here all the time oh star and that's just like these are great you know didn't think i'd i'd be able to to come back to this farm you know oh you know not not since those those those folks from radaman came oh they they they burn the whole thing down from where uh give me a society check society my society is okay oh natural 20. hey yeah um volley you definitely recognize the name of radaman radaman is one of the inheritor lands uh the nations of the inheritor lands specifically it's like the area that's almost just due east of where outset is sort of the the the large sort of crag uh foothills and mountains that separate outset from the the rest of the perdomen continent on the other side of them is this area called radaman that is uh filled with like minor bandit lords and it's it's an impoverished nation that's really known for having a couple like mines and and such in the foothills but they've all since all dried out and the people there have really just turned to banditry oh well i'm glad you get to see it again bud i'm gonna oh yeah sit down next to the fire with him it was a nice place i died to run though when those folks from radaman came oh it was an awful time i haven't seen my family since you know it was okay though it was only a couple couple summers uh after my mom passed after the tar lung got her oh how much of your family is left big turn oh i don't know when the folks from radaman came we all just ran in different directions i found myself with one of them caravans uh going through going through the hills and i ended up in in outset and you know i thought i thought i'd make make myself something something part you know prior to all this happening it's a funny little little thing but prior to all this happening uh my mom you know like i said she had the tar lung real bad so she was in the bed and one day bill and miss came and got me and said oh mom wants to talk to you it's it's the it's gonna be the talk the last talk and i knew i knew so i went i went back home and i stepped up first of all mom said take off your hat indoors so i took off my hat indoors like you do and then then she said pick turn there's there's two there's two important things i need you to know two important things one you're good at playing those pops so never give up playing those pops i take that that's why i play these pops see the other one well the other one was she said pick turn my boy there's there's two types of people in this world there are those who have destinies and they go on to do great things and their names are gonna be remembered and then there's the people who help those people with their destinies people who you know aren't sung in the story sometimes maybe even they're the ones singing the stories you know pick mom mom said that you know both those types of people are important in their own way and it's not a bad thing to be someone who you know helps the people who got those big destinies it's an okay thing that was the last thing she said to me before the tar lung god well you know that was that and then like i said a couple years later the folks from radaman came and you know i had to go our separate ways so that you know then i came down to it and that's why i have these pipes and i just kept piping you know now you folks you you know i said some mean things you know i i know i did and i apologize i take ownership i said you were all bad people that that's not true that's not what i believe see i believe i believe people here in this world i'm tying right now ever you know with everything going on you know that that weird rot stuff what's that all about anyways a rock that's strange i hope i never have to deal with it but you know that rot stuff you know with all that i don't think there's there's good or evil people i think there's just people being people so when i when i say that sort of stuff to you i i didn't i that came from a from a dark place you know sometimes i just i just got it all bottled up in me you know now like i said day one what i should have done should have asked all you what your stories are you know i keep on talking so so i'm just gonna i'm gonna shut my my little cornhole here why don't you tell me about yourselves you know i don't know much about you i know tanhouser you got a revolution and or and you were you're looking for your dragon friend i don't know why or what makes that important i mean you're the only tree person i've seen uh you know victrix you're you're kind of new here um but you know i'm sure you got some good stories about baldrick too you know baldrick was there from beginning and then valley i i know you're a captain but you know i don't know you're captain of oran uh pipes up and looks at valley going i've always wondered what uh what happened to your ship valley oh uh that's not really all that nice a story um maybe neither was my mom dying and those folks from radaman coming but oran will uh kind of look at valley going a lot of stories aren't nice miss valley but what defines a person and kind of what experiences kind of grow from it and it kind of helps us understand more of you so we can you know understand each other more especially since we've well natanical since died together and valley's gonna just kind of sit down next to the fire just kind of lower herself next to it and all right well if you want the story i can give you the give you the essential parts of it i guess nick'll sit down next to her and balance herself with the the glaive because she's also not feeling terribly great there you go now everyone's fired all right hold on i gotta go put my cat outside before i start doing emotional things she's clawing my leg oh no well anyway i lost my dog come here start tearing up start stealing your socks i don't know if chad has ever had a uh a cat that would just like just grab your socks and tear them off and run away i don't think i'm the only one who's had that but i've had a cat named chi he would do that uh odo's cat loves just attacking and murdering people's feet and the animal has been deposited all right yeah volley is going to just kind of uh seat herself in front of the fire just kind of shifty eyed between pink turn and the rest of the crew all right well it's only because this is sort of of well because you asked big turn and i'll honor that wide-eyed smiles nods doesn't say a word intently listening oh god volley kind of shifts and runs a hand through her hair takes the hat off it's obviously a very fidgety very nervous kind of energy airships are i'll preface it with this airships are rare in time there are maybe a handful of them anywhere and for a long time my people have taken to the skies to avoid the rod so those who are entrusted with the captaincy of an airship are important people where i come from people that need to be brave and smart and good leaders and that's what my mom was um i come from a little place down or a little place south of what uh in the south of perdoma a mountain range up against the coast um a little city known as a yesa and um well my mom was a fantastic captain she she she really pulled through for our people she managed to you know not a lot of stuff comes down that far south so we've sort of had to turn to whatever we can do to survive and she was the captain of our only airship she was brave and strong and a good leader and i wanted to be just like her but uh well something happened when i was young um a few years ago really and there was an accident an attack mom lost both her legs and an arm and most of her will to fight but somebody had to still pilot the ship somebody had to step up somebody had to had to be captain volley and that was me for a little bit it was quite the honor and admittedly it it went to my head i thought that i was god damn near the most important person in time i was untouchable up in the air at least i thought and well a few years passed i wasn't a good captain my adventures were barely that successes barely got us half of what we needed to survive and failures saw lives and livelihoods lost i wasn't really worthy of being called captain volley so they threw me off dumped me right on outset's doorstep for the tyrant's guild to find it wasn't hard and that's where you found me drunk off my ass and still swearing that i was worthy of being a captain so that's the story has anybody got any alcohol or no druids have like a crate water and there needs to be a crate boo spell they'll be like uh vick vick'll have her covered yeah and oren oren will we'll kind of come over and give valley a hug you know just kind of comforting and like pat on the back going like well well i like you being captain miss valley okay yeah i sort of kept the name it's not really mine Ornn will kind of look down a little bit then look at her and then go like well Miss Valley after everything we've been together so far I think you burned it well maybe I still don't think I'm half the Captain Mom was I don't even know if even if I found the old crew if I'm capable of taking back over I don't even know if Mom knows yet but she was Captain Volley that's how she made her name she was the dread Captain Volley terror of the skies hero to our people and there always had to be a Captain Volley you know that when she was injured somebody had to keep the name up keep the legend going that's what I was supposed to do so it's not my name my name is Vina I'm just her kid the nepotism hire isn't that something Vick's gonna just like reach over and punch punch her on the shoulder gently ow ow ah quit that doesn't suit ya she'll pull out a little brown very murky looking bottle from her pack and pass it over your name's what you make of it doesn't really matter if it's yours or not you are who you are up to you to pick your name right guess so I'm gonna take the alcohol take a long drink you don't really think my first name is sir right I was willing to I was willing to accept that as long as you don't forget it that's all that matters so yeah now you know the dirty details and uh if you see the ship I guess you can't really blame the crew for chucking me off bastards as they might be well to me anyway Captain Vina sounds like a better name regardless of the name your experiences have made you the greatest captain I've had the distinction of serving with I know by journey's end your legend will likely more than eclipse that of your mother you have that potential the spark the heart I believe that you have learned the cruel lessons of your past pain is among the most poignant to teachers but as Tannhauser said you have come to learn from that and are not necessarily shackled by the circumstances of your own origin but you set out and begun making your own legend your own life though you may not be dread pirate Vali there is no reason you should necessarily bear the weight of her own legacy when it is not one you necessarily wish to own for yourself I would think you are doing just fine in cultivating your own legacy in time whether you too would be a dread pirate Vina or someone sung about in more dulcet tones in the taverns and pubs across outset that is your story to tell one which I think you have a firm grasp on the pen and I am eager to read alongside you as you write thanks all of you there's well might be a smear on the pavement without you guys it's been it's been an incredible journey so far and there's not enough I can say to thank you guys we're more than a crew we're well I'd hope we're friends by now right save your thanks for Baldrick Blue I don't know shit about you but you know you're pretty cool regardless I guess you can pass on the message asshole I'm sure in the arm she'll she'll pat your shoulder and then take her flask back but uh well satisfied Pigturn yeah yeah that was that was you know that was I'd say real nice but you know it's that's a lot to take in you've gone through stuff you know it's it's important to get that off your chest sometime tell people let people in if all you're doing is bottling up everything now it's just not gonna go well you know but hey hey hey you know good enough for me but you know this is about y'all what about you what about you Tanhauser where are you from what's what drives you party for Tanhauser story time my story is not exactly an elegant or pretty one and though I will tell it regardless at behest of our fallen comrade I admit there is a reason I am at times closed lipped about it very well honor compels me I am Tanhauser born slave of the tyrant lord Golgotha in the inheritor lands I myself and thousands of my cohorts toil away underneath the reign of the lord tyrant under the auspices of the black papacy tending to the great raiding farms and making sure Golgotha's domain throughout the badlands under lord Golgotha I learned well the meaning of blood and flame and I knew just as well the tuck of a master's leash but fortunately among the other children I was uniquely vicious I grasped the talent of arcane and to me the machines of ancient sesgorin sung sweetly in my grip they didn't teach me how to read though well in full enough to recognize the patterns on passing merchants to read the barest of ship manifests but my violence and hatred saw me rise high I went from a lowly slave soldier to a raid master alongside my coterie of fellow soldiers no soul was safe in the desert and to my own neck where laid the painful lash I slapped it on thousands and I knew ecstasy from it I saw those passing spy I saw our rivals and foes and I ground them into the dirt I let them bloody I let them broken on the sands and I won great and many prizes for my elegance and cruelty but the life of a slave soldier even a raid master is hollow how many countless crimes did I commit how many men women and yes even children did I consign to the leash did I consign to the crucifix did I leave headless and screaming out animated coaching by the apparatuses granted to our masters but such adrenaline can only keep a soul satiated for so long and soon one couldn't help but see the leash you killed to escape it but always it was there and it was there one callow morning where I happened upon a bounty that would change my life forever an individual from the city of outset one traveling a scholar of sescoring mysteries those who's who's I had but a curious affinity for her guards were nothing but she herself they did not resist indeed they calmly accompanied us and I had a feeling that some strange unseen gambit was inevitable and I took it upon myself as raid master to see to it she was interrogated but it was not I that gave that gleaned information it was I that gave it but whereas countless other passersby of the inheritor land saw only a cruel and bloody bandit Zale looked at me with eyes that recognized the child raging beneath it all she did not fear me she pitied me and I had not felt the sensation before then she spoke to us about the marvels of ancient Zescoran she told us of lands far from the sands ones not ruled by oppressors and petty barons but one of stone one still ruled with an iron grip but one loosened enough to allow dissent to intermingle betwixt its fingers she told me much much and then she told me more Zale had come to Zescoran to find a particular item one she believed that would help her in unseating a tyrant in her far off mysterious city and I spat on her for it but shortly before we reached camp I realized the wisdom of her words I realized that far beyond that hellish place I grew up in where I had countless other souls like me souls who had the liberty of choosing their occupation souls who grasp on to the most precious thing of all liberty freedom and of course the last of which Sale fought for her whole life equity I was no match for her and neither was my coterie and so it was that we fought back the sting of the leash and rather than bring her to lord gal gotha we set her free and we ran like madmen through the desert sands trailing behind us the great machines the ones lined with razors and spinning spikes that had once been at my command they sailed behind me and they cut through my fellows they cut through us all and I could hear that familiar hollow laughter that I had echoed in my own throat so many times chasing behind me and I knew soon all would be lost in a last ditch effort to ensure something meaningful would come from our rebellion I threw myself before the machines and I was ripped asunder barely alive not an ounce of flesh left and for emphasis he moves his mechanical fingers somehow zale's magic saw me survive when next I gained consciousness I was floating in a tube amidst her laboratories in that far off city and there it was that I was taught all the things I had lusted for in my life I was taught philosophy I was given an education a purpose my eyes were laid bare to the concept of trespasses and crime and I knew my soul would be irrevocably stained unless I devoted my every waking moment every waking second to a dream grand enough to undo my sin I became Lady Zael's apprentice I followed her for many a year and I did all I could to learn from her all I could to protect her but as happens so often for us revolutionaries time was merely fleeting luxury while I was away on business her laboratory would be burnt to cinder the only living person left to continue Zael's dream was me and I will continue it I will see to it that children will not have to grow up choosing between death and pain I will see to it that this world of imbalances is reorganized I will see freedom and liberty triumphant I will see a greater future carved asunder and while I may not know those honeyed words of Zael or her elegant quandaries I know cruelty and so I will visit upon the cruel that which they hath beckoned me and somewhere amidst the blood and mutilation I hope to achieve Zael's dream and should I fail comrades I hope one of you will bravely carry our sword well I can't lift a sword very high but I'll do my best well your best is all that matters thanks I'm glad I'm glad you expect me to use it real real big like because that would knock a will or we'll put a hand on Tanhauser's shoulder just kind of you know calming him down bit there because obviously he's assuming he's reaching dreadful memories and just kind of nod to him I imagine you all likely think less of me knowing that but such is the way of this world I have not given a solution for lesser crimes than I horn will uh will kind of not really nod he'll just kind of like motion his head of acknowledge going there's a lot of things Mr. Tanhauser that you know I don't think any of us are really proud of but what matters are the actions that you're currently doing now here you understand and you wish to go forward and even though it might be replaced with metal Mr. Tanhauser he'll kind of take his wooden hand and kind of tap near his or motion near his chest and go it might have been replaced but at least the spirit's still in there and that's the most important thing that you need to retain and I'm glad to at least helped you in some small way and I think we still will without all of you I would have staked it all in some insane gambit thinking that I still had the deafness of body that I possessed as a younger man and I would have wasted my second chance no no revolution can be built without comrades and you have all been my true companions even you picked him especially you well that's just well isn't this fun y'all getting it all out there like this no I wouldn't call it fun it's kind of small wonder that Baldrick kind of likes hanging out with you they talk like that all the time shit dude come on oh oh Vic you got you gotta have some fun story about Baldrick right you can share with the class right you gonna share come on can I really talk so can I really give an embarrassing account of Baldrick and what he got up to while he's not here I mean be real with me do I strike you as the kind of bitch that would do that you kind of want the real answer fire yeah you know the answer you know the answer god damn all right all right all right fine it was I can tell you a little fun thing about him let me tell you he is I have not known him forever he's kind of not kind of new to me if I'm being honest with you we've known each other for a couple years now you know as he's probably told you or you may have learned last time him and I parted ways he tried to poison me and by that I mean he did poison me I just didn't die to it because fucking arsenic's pussy shit should kind of just scratch her nose at that one uh man what the hell you know what you motherfuckers want to hear about the time he poisoned me and why the fuck we got to that point that does sound rather funny it turns like nodding enthusiastically all right all right so dig this so here's how this works so naturally he's coming out onto the solitude probably want to say a couple years back because this is the last time he came out here to try and ditch the law but he figured he could do two birds with one stone now he's telling me all this after the fact uh he picks me up around a few miles out of zable zaps i was doing trapping at the time because you know you gotta live out here it's not exactly easy land out here fucking sucks you've walked in so he comes up to me with a band of three fucking weirdos behind him uh what the hell were their names i remember one of them one of them uh her name was kedden rutherford she was some kind uh she was some kind of like uh mage blade sellsword whatever the hell they they knew each other they were pals or whatever uh what the hell else there was there was this weirdo called merket the salubrious real like whacked out cleric like you know you know how like in uh hey tree she turns to rahua yes you like you like the anarchy right well it is a part of me and i a part of it so yes so you may not know this because uh you're you know probably not the kind of guy to take part in this but you know that in outset some of the lesser groups that you know pray to the anarchy and look to it for power they take part in some kind of like ritual where they drink sacramental wine that's been laced with amphetamine i'm familiar with some of these rituals yes but well not necessarily step on your own story you get the gist so then you get the kind of cleric that you'd expect to drinks you know that kind of stuff then you got this guy it was like turncoat or something his name was ah crap what was his name Vostoy Kilburn Warrant Officer Kilburn didn't know the guy myself but apparently Baldrick had assembled him the whacked out cleric and his pal Kedden to come out into the solitude with him because this warrant officer Kilburn he had some details on something that was going down deep in the solitude now not sure if you know this about this swampy green shithole but there's a lot of bandit tribes I don't know if you guys ran into any of them on your little leg of the trip mate I've been living out here you just you tend to you tend to run into a lot of them jumping from arm candy to arm candy you know between clans trying to figure stuff out and earn a living but there's a lot of them you won't find them out in the open and they usually hide in like dirt caves and hollowed out logs and other kinds of garbage just like kicking around but at the time about I want to say a month prior to him coming here there was a big dust up in a wide open field came to be known as the clash of the four banners it was it was ugly it was between four bandit crews there was brick boys bruisers the rusted bucklers the shovelers and haguefort glories now you're not going to hear about them anymore because they literally beat themselves against each other so hard that that battlefield was strewn with most of their people now in the middle of that dust up they managed to upturn a whole bunch of stuff from uh well because you kind of probably guessed if you'd been looking around too hard there's a lot of relics and salvaged crap kicking around from the last time someone tried to siege outset well their dust up lots of mages hurling fireballs and blowing shit up unearthed quite a find so the site had two things of real value to the tyrant's guild them being corpses for resurrecting labor and you know perfect tight salvage now that's some interesting stuff right away right gotta figure that so i mean i figure that sure yeah it's all it's all useful shit and mr kilburn happens to be uh a little pissy that he doesn't get to uh be paid for locating all of it because he and his scout team were the ones who found it so he naturally turns coat and winds up in the hands of baldrick he comes out he needs a little bit of muscle so you know she taps her own bicep through her own armor what better muscle out here than one of the best well well versed mercenaries since Vager the bolt so i'm out here so we're getting to work on this we're we're laying out their plans baldrick's chatting with kilburn and kedden trying to figure stuff out merket's doing his praying nonsense and i'm i'm spending time getting the lay of the land picturn raises his hand what's up just one question was baldrick wearing the bucket at the time yeah he was it was a different model it was i think that one was actually more of a bucket this one the one he wears like the one you guys saw him wearing recently that thing that was not the one he was wearing last time i think the other one really was a bucket but it had the same kind of eye slot if you can believe that okay thank you you ever notice he has a proclivity for the bucket she's kind of turning to the rest of the party for this one yeah i always thought that was weird why would he take it off what if someone tries to shoot him in the head i don't know he must have figured out that a bucket's not very imposing so we actually had an actual helmet made problem is it still looks like a fucking bucket stupid dumbass you ever have a reason he tell you that he wears it or just one of his quirks i didn't really ask because what people wear is really kind of their own business or what they don't wear and she kind of points her pinky over towards uh her pinky finger over towards rahua it's your business you could wander around here nude or fully plated all you want it doesn't matter to me none as long as you can pull your weight and you know to his credit that guy could pull his weight i ain't never seen an alchemist quite as quick witted as that guy for as much as he sounds like a goddamn buzzing engine just crapping out but beside that uh where the hell was i all right so we're plotting this nonsense out we're plotting out this whole deal of ambushing this survey team and naturally since the survey team's coming out here they also have to pull all their dependents and their you know camp followers and crap because you know you're gonna be out here in the solitude a while studying a big nasty battlefield resurrecting dead bandits to serve as labor and cracking open busted ass siege weapons for any kind of loot you can find so we start setting up for the ambush baldrick's getting everything squared away in position we've got everything we need me and our little five-man band is ready to take on this 40-odd something survey group and all their dependents now i need you to understand something that battlefield every bandit clan that got wiped out there was like 60 to 70 people strong these were some of the biggest bandit crews that were out here at the time and of course they beat their brains out trying to kill each other so a bunch of dead littering the field so we get started on all this and i really hate giving him credit on this one but the plan went off without a fucking hitch we started laying into him and kedden are wrecking shit he's direct the that warrant officer kilburn he's directing all of us around to hit the most important locations hitting the mess tent hitting any barracks type location they'd set up we we hit every single target we needed to in their set up camp and we trounced the bastards we wiped them out they were done for when we were through with that there were any tyrant's guild goons that could hold a weapon like sprinted into the swamp after that their little survey site was now a big smoldering crater or you know a bunch of them i guess so that was a good start to things but naturally we've got now this weird like we got this dependent train that we've got sitting around here and baldrick is trying to coordinate with kedden to figure some stuff out and we've been sitting out here for a while so everyone's nerves were a little frayed because i don't know if you noticed this but the solitude's not a nice place him and kedden were not really on speaking terms after a little incident involving some busted alchemical goods frankly i was pissed off at that freaking cleric because he just he kept mouthing off about how great the anarchy was and just he was insufferable and kilburn was no better roses either he's he's a suck-up tyrant skilled goon so whatever so we're we're picking through stuff and baldrick is trying to figure out a good way to deal with the dependents because uh he didn't really particularly like the idea of butchering a bunch of you know random family folk and camp followers that's not his deal because especially because we're not an army at war we're five people but this is a problem he wasn't considering at the time if we left any of their crap lying around like their tents or any other other nonsense laying around it'd be a very easy find for any tyrant's guild people that come back so while he's coordinating with all the civvies and doing what he needs to do all those city folk are nice and far away from their tents i elected to well burn down the tents i trashed all their stuff i took a torch and i burnt anything that wasn't a person because i knew i would have to deal with mr high and mighty about the decision later now naturally as soon as they started going up kedden kind of ambushed me and started slugging the shit out of me so we're getting into this dust up in the middle of the mud we get pulled apart by baldrick and the warrant officer and we start bickering for a bit baldrick seemed to be oddly pissed off at me for ruining these guys's chance of survival out here and it's like well why'd they come out here baldy did you forget that part he had he has a real freaking vendetta against the tyrant's guild but he doesn't really seem to think too hard about the the side effects of what he does he's he's kind of he's kind of adult like that i guess but you know to his credit he basically didn't want to kill any of them so i said to him pointedly well they're out here now it's up to them they'll figure it out so the five of us start heading back to zappel zapps to do our parting ways and pay each other him and kedden actually started chatting a bit more after all that was uh eh probably made up at some point in between all that garbage anyway we get back we settle up he pays me he pays the warrant officer and i ain't ever seen that bastard since and the uh the cleric i think he split up and went somewhere else i have no idea where he's at now and baldy and kedden they went back to outset simple as i take a swig of my beer i'm laid up for a week with probably the worst case of food poisoning of my life easy enough right not sure what the deal was with him and kedden honestly i remember what i don't remember their actual real relationship come to think of it she kind of grips her own chin as she's thinking about it but but but you got over the food poisoning right oh it's just it was just a little arsenic it sucked i was puking my guts out but i still lived that was the arsenic looks over to like orin i like how you made picked her an ass going like it's like oh and i got shot did you live he survived right yeah that matter yeah him and uh him and kedden boy those two were some they were real good pals ain't seen kedden obviously because uh last i heard from uh based on i think oh no i remember what happened there was like a decree that came out it was like announcing the deaths of some kinds of subversive elements uh oh yeah that's right it was in uh tyrant's guild weekly decree they usually send out these like flyers and missives announcing the deaths of seditious like people like murderers and rebels and shit yeah wasn't wasn't really looking too hard but i did happen upon her name in that so i guess she probably got axed well last time we talked after that uh i don't know i think baldrick was starting to come around to my way of thinking on some things yes he's uh i guess he's uh not quite so high and mighty as i thought wow wow that was a lot like pokes volley right that was a lot right that was a lot why didn't we do this on the first night we should have done this on the first night i don't think he would have told you honestly he doesn't really like talking about anything pertaining to uh crap in the past you'd be you'd be more easy to get blood from a rock yeah oh i think he'd open up to me big wide picture and smile no at that point i wouldn't have said shit about me and well based upon what you said danny i don't think you would have been excited to share either no i don't typically lead with the raid master bit you want a real hoot you should probably try asking about his college education sometime because he hasn't even told me that i always knew he went to college he seemed like that type yeah real funny doesn't really strike you as the college type does he i mean he's got he seems formally educated he's a highly educated individual i'd be surprised if he didn't go yeah yeah college is overrated anyway i didn't go i'm doing perfectly fine as i can tell she kind of leans back a little bit and and bumps shoulders with volley i uh look at vick's character sheet and take a look at her intelligence stat what do i see uh vick's intelligence is 10 okay that explains it i'll give you a hint also her wisdom is also 10 good for her good for her good went to the fighter the fighting school of fighting and reading is overrated anyway don't fucking worry about it i can hardly read shit as it stands letters are bullshit made up by the government to keep you down well it helps to read the wanted posters you ever hear that birds actually aren't real what what yeah they're all enchantments yeah speaking of birds she kind of leans over towards orin bird boy you ain't said crap this entire time and every time i speak up it seems like you want to shut up you want to you know speak you go ahead and tell a story little yeah you tell us a story well i was i was hoping not to go because well yeah orin kind of kind of kind of bundles up a little bit well um well my journey kind of came through from a long way from here really it took me several years to reach outset basically my because my dad basically runs in a pretty much a caretaking area up in the vajal mountains it is where basically we just follow the greening way we follow the ways of nature either its brutalistic portions or for its caring nature we try to give the shirts off our backs to those in need but we make sure we can provide for ourselves but there is where we found uh found gorgamunger he was an abandoned hatchling he was very sick and he was alone uh in several caves near near some of the mountain ranges where we lived and i was tasked with learning of the greening way and how to help take care of people and to understand loss if he was to ever die by killing him back to health and then taking care of him he gorgamunger is actually the reason why i don't have my arm anymore and he kind of gestures with his wooden arm as i was learning my my practices throughout the clan the um basically gorgamunger as he got older was obviously you know dragons are not really born to be or certain ones are fairly feral and if quickened to anger he would lash out and that's how he took my arm away but i learned that it was part of his nature i didn't rebel against him or or try to lash back out at him that i tried to understand him and so forth that he further in gained trust in me after he calmed down and became quick friends but as i was learning through years and years of my apprenticeship gorgamunger was missing one day normally he would go out to hunt or we would teach him to hunt and so but once we thought he was independent we let him go but he didn't come back for months so for that we went out to go investigate we found that he was taken away and of course he was under our charge and he was part of our family me and some of our clan farron and yellix we went out to go find him i was still way too young to go out but for every every strix in the mountains are soon after they kind of reached the age of 16 go out into the world to explore and to help and for me i was to help sailors and it seemed to be a pretty good teaching method to sail across the seas all the way up here we tried to follow his trail all throughout the isles which are eastward of the continent of mari and through there we follow the trail where gorgomer was taken and we eventually learned that poachers took him that somebody with a lot of money hired a bunch of people to come in and find a dragon and apparently ours was easy catchings so after tracking him down and so apparently someone got wind of us trying to track down gorgomonger and that's where the hunter came there was this someone in armor who tracked me and my friends down and he's there's a reason why i'm alone up here this this knight killed both of my friends to try to stop us from following the trail as apparently we were the loose end and the only evidence showing that this that gorgomonger even existed at least anybody and i've and me not knowing what to do at the time i couldn't help my friends so the knight killed both of them and i was left alone to do the mission of finding gorgomonger and bring him home since i'm the one who raised him i took it as a personal mission to do so so i hopped the ship the ship sailed across the oceans and i found my way here i have no idea of outside anything outside of the mountains i was just kind of thrust in here to grow up as quick as possible and a lot of sacrifices were made and farron tried his best to teach me but you know he didn't have enough time and yellix after farron was killed didn't have enough time to teach me the rest of the world either so i just had to learn as i go and so now when i finally came here i was lost i had knew nobody had no trail known nothing i just only knew they took gorgomonger here and you know scared and alone i pretty much disguised myself as an animal and tried to keep to the streets but of course the poachers came i assume again and i ate them in defense i didn't want to leave any evidence i transformed myself into a beast and killed them both and tried to hide the evidence until you know i was locked up with you guys and i tried my best to kind of keep a happy appearance because you know everything my dad seemed to make everything okay when there was a smile and so did farron but it's kind of hard to smile now because as we've gone through here my entire purpose was to come here and save gorgomonger and even though i have my friend's scarves and he'll point to the scarf on his neck and the scarf has like a bunch of designs on it you know these pretty much tell the story of someone's life many milestones and and these aren't even my milestones the only one i have is is kind of you guys and he'll kind of show a bit of the scarf and he'll kind of like show like a very crudely stitched version of everyone on the scarf and it's only like like one square that's kind of like attached to it and he goes and i was hoping to add gorgomonger on it but you know i don't even know what to do anymore you know i failed to save my friends probably know that night it's still about hunting me and i failed to save my friend so all i could really think of to do is to make sure i don't lose you guys either or just go home and tell my father i failed and hand over the scarf that isn't even mine i haven't even earned mine yet well i think you've earned it i'm gonna kind of take the end of the scarf and run my hand over the stitching did you do this yourself no one half is farren's and the other half is yelux's the but that's you and you'll kind of point there it's garbage yeah it's just blue stitchy with a smiley think of like a crude crayon drawing in stitch form and you know it has all of you and stuff and that's he's just a little guy well this i hold up the uh the part that he stitched this is all you this is your story you're forging something pretty beautiful you know you're telling your own story one that well one that deserves more of this you've been incredibly brave and strong far stronger than you give yourself credit for let's tell you what once we get back to outset let's get you a new scarf start from zero keep this one of course but you have a story worth telling Oran you're so incredibly special but i think you've earned it Oran will nod and and uh he'll take the scarf back and he'll go yeah that'll that'll be nice and well i think gorgamonger still has a place on it it may not feel great losing him like that but what you did for him was well it was a mercy people that did that to him that made him the way he was he was in so much pain and misery that i think he was happy that his friend was there with him at the end Oran will nod and obviously with no words because you see that he's kind of all choked up and he'll you know he'll just kind of nod he'll just kind of like become a ball of wings and feathers bird puts a hand on his shoulder Oran Vali is not a failure despite her mutiny nor am I for failing to protect Lady's Ale nor are you for what happened to Gorgamonger you're far from it you are the best of us and your story ends in triumph I will see to it Oran will he'll kind of take out the tooth basically that he took from Gorgamonger and you know kind of look over to Tannhauser or Vali and he'll go yeah thank you everyone and he'll just kind of like just kind of stare at the tooth basically as he kind of looks over at Rahua and goes like well something one thing I've always been curious about is I've never seen anyone you know especially made of wood before besides me you know where did you come from Rahua what's your story well Orrin while I have talked to some circumstances of my own origin I do not believe I've mentioned more than my current state of being I cannot say that I am the latest in a line of roguish captains clans of renown operating in secret soldiers of fortune or rebels who eked out their cause among the violence of this world rather I am something closer to the genesis of a life's work crystallized into a moment extending forward forever my worldline as you know it began in the mind of a being of low station and lofty ambition someone who saw the dying of the light even as the whispers of darkness were but suggestions rather than certainties in the minds of many this being scorned and damned by circumstances in society beyond his control refused to submit and through that will held fast the hope no certainty that it would escape the end that had laden weight its entire life that it would bear witness to the salvation of the world we knew or watch it fall into decay not as a victim but a spectator on the outside not privy to the ur cancer that takes everything else before it so the being now styling themselves as a self appointed king began their work to find the mechanism of their own transcendence consuming libraries of arcane knowledge plundering secret lore and sealing the blueprints of forbidden sciences from anyone who lacked the foresight to know of the king's true motivations and their movements with time the king would gain a following of their own right those who wanted to escape from the forthcoming endless night and like the king sought apotheosis these acolytes now organized into the cult of the lidless eye toiled and accelerated its work king's work tenfold as they devised a tool a great machine that with the right preparations would ferry them to a state of existence to rival the gods themselves to look those divinities square in their eyes and speak truth to power and ask why there's nothing that has been done why there has been no escape or do that work themselves and what the gods would not they labored they lived and died but ultimately succeeded their sigils inscribed incantations poured and profane said and boards prepared on the night of the ritual of exodus as it were the cult assembled as they did and conducted the final preparations chanting and chorus as with final preparations made the machine they had toiled on for so long and through generations flickered to life first a gentle thrum then screaming and finally silence in its wake that king who had cried defiance to the world beyond he the only who remained was instead met by a tear not shed by himself but by the face of creation now staring back destruction gave way to creation as something entirely new would unbeknownst even to itself be the answer that that king had sought while I took form but three years ago I do know that I have lived far longer as long as the stars have swam in the ebon gulf above us and Rahua will gesticulate and actually if need be cast prestidigitation as the starfield at his center his very core expands outwards his well kind of smokiness this starfield now like a projection in front of him and he's moving his hands around as energies profound and unknowable begin moving around the starfield oh shit we're cosmo canyon backstorying most do not think of the cosmos as alive you might see yourself as one might see yourself anyway but maybe you are right the cosmos is not a creature rising at dawn and sleeping at dusk the universe does not stroll into town and buy a roast to entertain guests nor a trinket to give a friend so i suppose that in the sense of the singular self the universe is not alive and thus as a singular entities without purpose across the yawning maw of creation life in all forms sprung forth in but a cosmic instant as gods coalesced from protomatter into transcendent beings beyond our comprehension and gouts of roiling starfire cooled giving rise to worlds without number and life as you know it took its first steps towards an uncertain and unknowable future what for us in flesh is an incalculable length of time is as brief as the blink of a littlest eye to the universe every sunrise and sunset the squall of a summer storm giving way to the calm of rainbow the cadence of life unto death as natural as breathing to the world around us and the unceasing movement to and fro of creatures great and small the blood coursing through its infinite figure each and every star streaking across the night sky the panoply of nature and harmony and moment of repose contentment or safety you may feel every single one a gift given by the universe to itself worth more than any coin could ever hope purchase I don't mean to ramble but do you see existence is as singular as it is plural it is every experience and movement of reality that was or will be while we may think of ourselves as children of the universe we are just as much creator as the created every gift it gives to us it gives to itself it lives in every moment of living the joy of life is in existence experiencing itself even if it doesn't know it as an entity as you or I do we are one in the same but with different perspectives allowing the universe to experience that same singular moment in an infinite number of ways and that my friends is a beauty we can only begin scarcely so to comprehend I was a part of everything I was everything you Tannhauser Oran Bali everyone even you Pictern and I didn't know the endless fantasy of life until I myself began to live to live to in knowing this fantasy I have come to some understanding the mantle of responsibility upon my frame I willingly bear from my my king my creator all of creation is our lives in concert a symphony with infinite players with a song so transcendentally beautiful that only our soul may hear it as we move onward stanza by stanza discord and order waltz together and carry time onward a dance eternal that the rot threatens to silence for all this world's good and ill the revolution of order unto disorder I will see to it this song will never cease to conduct it and guide its players from behind the veiled podium of perception you too all of you and Rahua looks out to his friends assembled before him have done so much so much more than you know and are destined to do so much more as we work towards goals unknown but in service of this collective obligation your worldlines too will endure and I will continue to tender them and others in this garden as I have it will be done for it can be no other way this I state and thus it shall be ooh wee and I thought the bake sale was a story wow and your story is no less beautiful than that because it's just part of that grander symphony oh I don't know about that you sell yourself short but you are no less grand in your own experiences I'm kind of short though no you know it's funny it's funny you know I realize I never told you you know that that whole story oh oh boy that was a whole what a what a what a series of events you know oh gosh I you know like I said the folk from Radiman came right a couple years after my mother passed and I just ran I think you know we all ran hopefully other squelts has got to be out there I know it and eventually I found myself announced I forget if it was with a caravan or a boat it all kind of blurs together you just kind of go from place to place and oh boy it just sort of happens right and you know I found myself announced and I didn't really fit in there I thought okay well maybe I'll make it out in the in the solitude right I go out in the solitude that that's a place where you can kind of make a name for yourself you can kind of do some things out there you know find some people to tell stories about and then come back to outside and then I could tell those stories a lot of people they didn't like the bake sale stories in fact they didn't like a lot of my stories I think a lot of why I was trying to impress my stories upon a lot of people as well just because you know I just wanted someone to listen to them but I really came out finding the stories for other people so that they would listen to me telling the stories about those people I went with a caravan you know I thought oh we get some caravan garden it'd be good well there was oh there was this moment there it was all good and I just kind of kind of all clicked and I realized to myself I realized at that exact moment that I didn't need this caravan you know what I didn't I didn't need to tell other people's stories you know what if I got by on coppers telling stories about the bake sale I was gonna go do that right so so you know this this came to me and I'm not ashamed to admit it I was actually taking a leak at the time I was away from the caravan just taking a bit of a leak in my own thoughts and I said to myself you're gonna go back there tell them caravan folks what's what's what after you're gonna go back to outset and you're gonna tell stories about the farm but well what ended up happening was well I came back and there was a whole event happening there were there were folks attacking the caravan you know now that I think about it I think those people we saw at the blaze camp it was them and they got these little fire gremlins that were all like you know I got I got shot I got hit by some crossbows it was bad now you know me I got a quick word that can usually you know clean up some wounds but it was hectic and I thought you know I need some medical supplies this is real bad so I went to I went to the caravan and oh I got this this this chest had a medics guild symbol on it I just opened it up and I'm like all right what do you got for me well it had something for me it was not what I expected and I don't remember much after that I woke up every everyone was gone well dead dead actually they were all dead I was kind of alone smell of smoke on the air and I didn't know what to do I just just decided I'd pick a direction to walk figured I could get back to Zabble Zaps or you know somewhere and just started walking and that's when you know there was all this mist that came up and I had no idea where I was and I just decided you know what I gotta figure this out right I gotta figure out where to go and I thought I was in the right direction but then this thing this thing came out of nowhere you ever seen like one of them big cats you know the real big ones not the house cats they got but like a big cat any of you ever see this yes yeah yeah so it was like one of them but it was made of other stuff it was made of rocks and air and there's a little bit of fire I think there was even some water and I was I was hallucinating clearly and this thing it it chased me for a while and it was doing all sorts of weird things it was chasing me left and right and it's kind of forcing me along and at the end of it all I found myself alone in the swamp surrounded by mist had no idea where it was lost my direction entirely so I just I just played my pipes I just played my pipes and I thought you know if I have to go out in this swamp because that cat thing is going to eat me or because something in the swamp is going to eat me well you know that's that's probably how it's going to happen that's fine I'll go out play my pipe just like remember two things my mama told me about you know one destined people and two to the pipes well pipes so I started y'all came through that mist that's how you and I you know if I was a better person I would have told y'all what happened and what really happened but I just said oh no I got lost with a caravan I didn't tell you about the gooey stuff I didn't I didn't tell you about the the rock fire water air cat you know you would have thought I was crazy so I just I just I'm glad glad we got to have this talk here it's good just don't go pinching me again with those big damn claws I don't know what you're talking about I don't know I got no claws here I'm just a bull but you know it's a beautiful thing really and as like this conversation is going on can all of you give me a perception check must I yes you do and that 20 oh 19 for 30 oran got a natural 20 19 for 34 Vic is fading in and out of reality she's probably gonna actually take a nap she's probably taking a nap during the midst of all this no she dozed off as Gandalf the gray well Gandalf the white once said you know no no actually it was Gimli but the sun is rising and as this conversation is going on you can see that in the background the sun is starting to rise up in the horizon this picture and sort of looks at all of you smiling and he actually stands up as the the last embers of the fire start to go to go out well you know it's morning time and my mom she says you always gotta work hard in the morning so I gotta go help her out you know cause she'll get awful angry if I don't but you know it's nice it's nice catching up and having this talk you should have done it on the first day but that's okay you just sometimes you have regrets but then you just move on and just make them gets that's what I always say but you know I don't want to I don't want to go off you know without without anything right cause you know that's another thing that the squelch family has you know it's it's it's just a thing we have so I'm gonna Vali if you if you would I'm gonna give these to you real quick and he extends his bagpipes towards you Vali oh just want you to hold on to these for a bit you know of course good yeah hold them gently probably squeeze a bit too tight to make that wakes up the fucking merc thanks thanks Vali appreciate it there you go all right there you all right well I'm uh I'm gonna get going now before you leave Picton yes at once there were two kinds of people in this world those destined and those not but I believe the amalgamate was sent by our sponsors or in some way is tied to them which means my friend you are the destined you are one of us no no no no no sir no sir that's not the meaning of the story see like my mama said oh she's calling gonna have to get going oh she's gonna be mad if I stay much longer but you know she said it's okay to not be one of the destined people it's okay to help them you know all I need is for you y'all to do great things you told me your stories you did great things so I'm gonna get going you just do great things and if you do great things well then that means I did a great thing and then we all did great things together right you're gonna come back this farm one day tell me all them stories you're gonna tell gonna find what happened your mentor you're gonna give Golgotha a little slap around his head maybe have a revolution or nine along the way I didn't understand much of what you said Rahua but I'm sure it'll sink in and I'll have some things to tell you about but I like stars they're pretty and for you Victrix I'm sorry you got poisoned and Oren you just think about what you got in life and you know what you want in life and you know when you got something even if it seems impossible you gotta go and take it don't give up don't give up okay for real though I gotta get going she's yelling can you hear she's hollering in the distance just one more thing alright but she's getting awful hangy I just want to ask Marishan for one thing you mind if I tell your story you're a part of ours and it feels wrong to leave you out oh yeah you go you go right ahead and just just tell them just tell them that you know I'll tell them all about Pictor and Squelchfoot and the bake sale and the bravest little bard we ever knew that's that's awful swell of you but maybe don't tell people too much about the bake sale that was a humdinger but next time you're around this farm I'll tell you the whole thing all right bye y'all and he gives this wave and turns and walks away and as he walks away the vision begins to shift and fade and you find yourself with everything somewhat dislocated and distended as basically everything seems to seems to pause all all of it and you look around and you have this one last look at the farm the squelchfoot family farm and as all of that happens you very quickly find yourself away from it you find yourself instead in a cave in a room that you had previously been in a grotto room a room filled with broken crates displaying the mark of the medic's guild a room that has a rushing waterfall at the edge and the waters here are now a crystalline blue despite coming from and knowing that they're coming from you know the fetid waters of the swamp you see just this this brilliant clear water rushing in and the entire place has just this absolute clean smell on the air the rot and other showings have entirely just disappeared from the walls here in fact it almost just looks like this place is entirely cleaned now all right well i'm gonna step out in front of the destined band of chucklefox and victrix going to sort of still holding the bagpipes put kind of one fist on my hip we learned a lot about each other today things that i'm sure were hard for any of us to talk about so now we keep moving forward i mean look at us where what a merry band of assholes we are a former warlord a shitty captain a tree made of star stuff and a little bird boy lost his way it's a wonder we've made it this far but we've made it we're here and i'm glad i glad that i have you guys oh captain my captain oh shut up i can't call myself a captain not of you people you keep that prophecy shit to your guys themselves i don't want no part of that oh sorry you're already knee dip you're already knee deep in this shit victrix oh come on i just want to cash out and leave you guys here or your storybook stuff you see oran having a little little little little cry face going on he kind of grabs everyone and brings everyone in for a group hug but excludes victrix that's that's fine she's she's leaning on her glaive because she fucking hurts yeah i'm gonna wrap my arms around everybody pull them in close or who will extend his big tree arms and pull everybody together sometimes destiny is foisted upon us huh greatness is that rarely a circumstance of birth but more often than not it is fate and we are more than tied together fate my friends orn will uh will take the uh kind of like slowly like tug the bagpipes away from volley if she allows it and kind of look over to tan hauser and kind of reach out to him and goes like what does it say i'll cast object whispers i don't know if you had anything written there soon but yeah no uh you channel the object whispers onto it and as you do so um there is there is a brief moment as you touch the psychic emanation and the the text that comes into your mind spoken and sort of read is simply i can't wait to tell you about the bake sale that son of a bitch he's done it again orinball uh i guess orin will start i like to say the held message that one chat member said is fuck you i will allow it not allow that no i will allow it i get to allow one so um i guess orin will start leaving everybody out uh i guess and go like well i guess i need to go tell ribius yeah i agree i agree i agree i agree i thought i turned that off here we go one more hands in everyone come here hands in put my hand in the center orin puts his wooden hand in i'm ready for the yugioh marker puts his mechanical hand in do we all have fake hands i'm just i have two real hands do i need to cut an arm off i'm sorry to steal your thunder there tan hauser was that or put my wooden hand in or it would feel left out too bad enough we all might be made of broken pieces but at least it makes us whole oh you poetic little shit vick is gonna pat volley on the shoulder better put both your hands in ball he's not here to put his in ha i'll put i'll put a second one in for baldrick all right well here's to moving forward here's to being chuckle fucks saddled with the weight of destiny here's to being friends here to rewrite rewrite the past used to being friends and a crew my comrades we've lost much in these dreadful swamps but we've gained much two legacies to carry forward and i hope a deep truth to our bond let's make those bastards pay for all those i don't want to step on your bit there's orin nope i just said he nods orin has no but keep going for all those who would use this vile disease to end all the beauty around us who have hurt us all in some way no price is too high and no consequence too great we shall endure for those who did not forever and ever onwards all right all right let's go what now yeah back to the back to the entrance of the cave you make your way through the grotto the water is here easily admitting you at this point you find yourselves traveling and making your way through the walls again have all cleared up any touch of the rot has disappeared evicted from this locale you soon find yourselves in the cavernous walls of ribius's area and as you do so you hear this almost like melodic humming it's like if angels sung it would sound like what you are hearing and as you walk in you see the great ribius the avatar of auntie drown sitting in a beautiful set of water like just this this gorgeous crystalline blue water and the immense immense toadlac creature its eyes dart towards you as you come in its upper mouth letting out this angelic chorus and then its middle mouth just going why hello there again ribius i feel i feel much better now seems you done did what you was gonna do in there we took care of it that we did are you feeling better yourself oh i do feel good you see the top mouth can't sing proper no more of them ooze and oars that's good to hear orna will kind of step up and go well now that we've kind of helped you with that rock can you help us with ours we've you know we've lost a lot and he will kind of look down at the fang that he has but he's then kind of look down at the at the bagpipes that valley is now carrying and he goes can you can you still help us oh i can certainly do my best i can you know now that i see you all you you made the rot lesser in this here place and that means i should be able to make the rot lesser on you even you child of the storm you were so close you were so close to being lost to us but i can bring you closer closer to the primal world and the primal magics and the truth to the nature yeah thank you that's good to hear no no thank you you came in you found whatever was in that there back grotto must have been something real bad to keep me now singing like that yes do you know who it was who delivered those boxes from the medics guild to your grotto oh that's just from the people the house they very generous the old accords mean they give us supplies my people store them the folk of the caibou like sodden earth they put them in the streams and they come down there i see you might want to care for them children of the blaze recently they they come and they break stuff they stop them from coming that's why they haven't been too many i thought i thought rivia's about to do a flurring int bit they come with axes they come with fire you may want to be careful about those medics guild boxes from here on out oh i guess i'll have the folks look you know that little one outside tashty they they good kid you should tell them to come on in here i want to talk to them at some point not now though but you tell them oh oh rivia's is down for the talking now i'm sure they'll be very excited now you want some help all right all right you come in front of me those of you who still got that rod on you or and uh yeah i guess orton kind of looks at volly and going like well let's hope we don't get it back fingers crossed and i take his little hand yeah he has good luck with that he's probably gonna like fucking puke on you or whatever i'll meet you guys out front take it easy vic walks off okay yeah she's gonna she's gonna peg leg her way out of there all right come close come a little bit closer yeah we we walk up very good very good and like this angelic voice is still coming from the the topmost mouth its head sort of bobbing its its bottom mouth closed its middle mouth talking all right all right you gotta wait for you gotta wait for you gotta and then out of nowhere immediately fast this bottom mouth opens and a tongue goes out and slathers over you orin and then over volley covering you in thick viscous matter and you feel this like dissolving like acidic feeling on your skin gold brand it's not pain but you just feel the sensation like you can hear the hissing sound on you as this tongue impacts you oh okay okay oh that's slimy can I uh can I make a rough R2 save save the not puke yeah sure okay you just tell me if I succeed or not one rolls he rolled a 15 on the die for a 29 uh he he holds off and as you you sort of both stagger back hacking coughing and having this go over all of you um you feel as though like you feel healthy like a person who you know has been sick but hasn't realized they've been sick and suddenly like comes out like wow I just feel better yeah like wow I didn't even realize how shitty I was before oh or especially you volley especially or and looks at valley's eyes they are completely clear valley your your eyes state they don't have the rod in them anymore none at all really not even a little I don't see any do I do I suspect there's anything in there like no evidence you see nothing it looks as though it's entirely cleared it's gone valley oh shit all right orange sounds like do you want us to stop calling you valley you know might be nice be called by my real name for a little bit I uh well I haven't exactly earned mom's title yet so or or nods and goes or nods and goes well it's nice to meet you Bina and Zoran nods and knows he has to update the overlay for our next episode I ain't doing it right now that shit requires photoshop you'll wait till next time we'll do it next time but uh close enough or looks down and looks at the talon that he was holding and uh oh yeah I kind of wish I I wish Gorga Manga wasn't so gone and we could have brought him here oh that what you want what yeah but Gorga Manga's dead now and all I have left of this oh I see things I see so many things you know I've been around the place for a while now you know how long I've been around here or looks around a while very very good but I've been around a very long while you know all the things I see I saw I was here before the them folks on the big continent they made their house on the moon I was here before that I was I was here before that little kid came and he took over the big city outset I I was here before his dad came and brought him up to the moon with him I've been here for a while now I've been here since before that awful rot showed up I'm hoping I'll be here after it too but in that time I see many things and well well I think what I what I see there is a little just a little bit of Otma just a little little bit of Otma in that thing there bit that didn't want to go didn't want to go back through the crucible of creation to that fundamental battlefield to that elemental churn though it wanted to stay here wanted to stay with you though you you want to you want to be closer with that one that one that you think is gone but he's right there with you or or nods and like can can you help me can you help me save him well that's going to depend a lot on you but you're a child of the primal that means you can do so many things oh he kind of looks at his other arm and stuff and if it requires something I I only gave him one arm I can I can give more if it helps help save Gorgamonger all right well I think you gotta take the plunge and we see what happens like plunge where the middle mouth closes and the angelic singing stops as the bottom mouth opens wide like a glistening cavern oh oh it's a vor stream I hate you you can find the worst way to destroy life as we know it oren looks and there's like and he can't deny him and he looks at valley or looks at veena now and he looks back at everybody else and somewhere in the distance off and he looks back at rubia sitting in there he is trying to talk with the middle mouth that isn't open on runs talon out and everything just like no pause and jumps in wings spread just kind of like just bird dive as if like a you know just right inside all right you know what happens we'll find out when we come back for our next episode everybody season two adventure two of rot grind I want to immediately say also you know since people were saying that after speakers yelling speech of backstory that I had to award a million xp I won't award a million but I will have our players now up to level eight so someday I'll learn how to talk into the mic without deafening people good exchange oh yeah I'm living for it y'all probably heard heard me crying like a baby the whole time yeah yeah on the moon oh yeah baldric is still level seven no no baldric didn't yeah yeah vick took his level i declared stolen dead get out of here you don't exist anymore yep sorry i'm still here okay but with that i'd like to reintroduce the amazing players who brought you today's episode starting off with odoroshi hello i was odoroshi i was playing vali or veena the sylph swash buckler you can find me on twitter at odoroshirider and not many other places unless you have a tumblr which you probably shouldn't um it was fantastic uh ending out this second season with y'all and i am so excited for more seasons of rot grind to come there has been a lot of very fun stuff revealed and i uh i'm along for the ride and i hope you all are too of course next up we have hulky crow that is me i am hulky crow you can find me at the usual places on twitter the narrative declaration community discord on a few other places such as in ogre popenings many wonderful productions i am so grateful to our other cast members here for including me on uh yeah i'm very happy we've not only made it to it gone past 30 episodes now and thank you to everybody for this wonderful journey and this story that i helped tell as well and i am so thrilled to get to do more stuff with you going forward as we move into season three and of course we have erendil howdy folks i'm erendil you can meet me at twitter at erendil you and the tumblr but you'll have to find me there and basically nowhere else hooray and this has been a lot of fun been enjoying how things are going it's fun to flip-flop between baldrick and vic and uh anyone who's like oh i can't believe baldrick missed out on the emotional moments like i got great news for you he is uh unlikely to be super changed by it unless they find a reason to badger him about it we'll get his ass that's up to them we'll see what happens but you'll have to find out when we come back from our big break because oh boy of course next up we have speaker of the d oh shit that's me hi i'm speaker d i've now with all of tannhauser's war crimes bear you can complain to me about it at super snake kick on twitter you can also see the lovely animations that erendil and i conspire to create on brother alpha puce's youtube channel through hunter the parenting half life zero viscosity and in general works of ogre poop and i have to say this has been a phenomenal session and one of my favorites yeah and i have been uh i have been your host for narrative declaration uh i am zorn the bear i play the uh strix druid oran and uh happily we're now level eight whole bunch of stuff's happening we've been going on for this for for years so far and i'm very excited for the next season and uh see all that is going to happen but of course none of this would ever happen without our illustrious game master thurston hillman oh hi it's me it's thirsty you can find me at all the things at on called gm um oh boy that's that's it for season two we are gonna be taking a bit of a break i'm i'm taking a weekend for one of our shows to go go go de-stress a bit and take a week off that is not hospital related for the first time since we've started this show yeah i'm excited um but overall i just want to thank everyone we've been really really really really really um just looking looking forward to getting this season done and jumping into season three season three is gonna take us back to outset and you know introduce some new and old faces and i i i say uh season three will be the point where a lot of the the story arcs will come together and you'll start to see that the grand tapestry um but you know we're also happy to get out of the mandatory poison swamp section of the dark souls uh inspired world so thank you thank you very much one and all for you know being with us and supporting us um you know i would i have to shill our patreon because if you're interested in this world that we've been you know building together as a team uh you know for just over a year now um you know we put out content there and we try to you know build this world out more and more every month with new stuff and you know your support we can't do it and i'm just so humbled to see all the the good vibes and just great great great people you all are and i love your faces yes i want to patreon everything narrative declaration dot com for everything your contributions matter your attendance helps us out a lot and overall the community has been amazing so with all that uh this will time the episode a bit but we will see you guys uh after our break and we will see you all next time on rock grind hope you guys have a fantastic evening and take care of yourselves so long farewell and we'll see you next time everybody sleep well yeah forever love yourself as you love the universe oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh