S1:E47 – Granny's Maize

Theater of the Mind is for adults. Ears only. Listener discretion is advised. Welcome to Theater of the Mind presents Retribution episode 47. I'm Mike. I'm your dungeon master. And this week's question from the Ultimate RPG campfire card deck by James Zomato is, what is something that you would hate to do for real but find fun to imagine yourself doing?

My name is Amanda, and I'm playing Mel Kelly. Mel, being a really active person, kind of opposite of that, thinks it would be really cool to be, like, a concert cellist. She just has this fantasy of her in her mind in this, like, flowing black concert dress and her pretty blonde hair and just standing up there with the cello that's bigger than she is, making pretty music. The problem is, is that Mel's tone deaf. Her rhythm is meh. And the idea of sitting still long enough to learn anything, to master it to that point is absolutely just abhorrent to her. Except she wouldn't use that word because that is a $5 word. Melalena is $3 words.

It's icky poo.

All the classically trained directors and whatnot. Conductors are like, yep, that was icky poo.

I'm Jeremy. I play Elliot Brandybane. And Elliot Brandybane. The idea of skiing high up on the mountains on a clear, brisk day above 10,000ft and out of the smog, I mean, that sounds really good to him, but he would never do it because it's cold and it's snowy, and that's bullshit.

Especially if we trudged across the mountains.

Yeah, dude.

No fun. No fun.

We did a good amount of snow experience in Rocky Mountain national park on our way through.

Yeah, fuck that, right?

Yeah.

I am Brunel. I am playing Ulnock Vaga Johnson. And Alnax lived this, actually. So he used to think it was really cool to, like, imagine fighting monsters and thinking he could overcome his fear of, like, spiders and giant spider creatures and he could just, like, imma stab this spider in the face. And then when he had to do it, it was very, very, very, very, very, very scary and hard. But, you know, mission accomplished. I got through her by just talking a lot of shit and pretending I wasn't scared, but I was terrified.

The disco distraction helped.

Yes, that did help.

I did take quite a bit of time.

You just went Mario superstar. And I was like, what the hell is going on over there?

Yeah. And then you were unconscious, and it wasn't a problem.

It's amazing how much less terrified you are when you're unconscious.

Hello, I'm downs And I'm playing James o' Brien in. And James has an overt fear of the ocean. Cause the ocean's scary. There's a bunch of shit in there. Even before the end of the world, that was super scary. But most in particular would be wakeboarding. Cause he doesn't want to, like, hydroplane on his face. That sounds painful.

Until this exact moment, I hadn't.

Skipping your face across the water.

Yeah. I hadn't thought about what horrible things are in the ocean now.

Oh, I'm sorry.

I'm fine with that.

That had not. Had not occurred to me.

Zombie shark.

I'm Casey Weingarten. I play Emory Lee. And Emory's not, like, actively scared of the ocean, but I think, like, scuba diving is something that she thinks looks like a lot of fun, but is.

Probably.

Not something she would ever talk herself into doing. And she also was born and raised in a landlocked state and hasn't had many opportunities arise where that's even been an option. But yeah. And additionally, similar to Olnak, I think ghosts were theoretically very cool until she met them and became very scared of them.

That was.

Don't be a fool.

That wasn't Olnock.

No, no. Similar to your answer now, though.

Oh, I see.

I see.

And Emerie is now relatively traumatized by ghosts.

And if you'd like to know who Dante is, subscribe to our Patreon.

Nice. Thank you.

Shameless plug.

I don't. Oh. Amoritar is pretty sure that the idea of going for a vacation is actually nowhere near as cool as a vacation will actually be. Being around that many idle people, just chilling with no purpose is kind of the antithesis of him. So he's pretty sure he'd try to go on vacation and he'd just end up conquering the beach.

If he met the things that live in the ocean.

My sandcastle is bigger than yours.

Or the moms who take their kids to the beach.

Can you imagine being a subordinate of Amortar? It's like, okay, so he's taking a nice break, and you go to the beach, and he's out there punching a squid in the face or something.

I don't know. I was gonna say, I have this mental image. By the end of the vacation, one of the really bossy moms has her kids, like, okay, everybody lined up, arms out, and a moritar's like, in that line. And he just gets sprayed down with spray sunscreen. Okay, close your eyes.

We're gonna need more sunscreen and a ladder.

No, keep your mouth Closed.

Ooh, don't eat this. This isn't like the cheese. I know it comes in the can. Very similar, but this is not the cheese.

At the risk of a Moritar just becoming an Avatar character, I think it'd be a lot like when Azula and all of them go to the beach and they win volleyball.

Yeah, she's really competitive. And into it, everybody's like, dude, chill.

Yeah, I'm definitely appreciating the image of Immortar smashing a kid's shit sandcastle and pointing at his own Beautifully crafted. This land has been behind him.

Still got a helmet on. Got the gauntlets, but he's got surf trunks.

I don't know about wearing armor to the beach. It's a lot of sand and a lot of backpacks.

That's a Moritar. He's gotta look cool.

It's part of it.

Dude.

I hope he get a ration.

I hope you get sand. Please.

So we tried this in the last episode of the side quest again. If you want to know what that was, listen to us on Patreon Shameless plug number two. Where instead of me saying hi low or whatever, I roll and whoever rolls closest to me tells the tale from the last episode.

Recap.

And I rolled a 10. Fuck, that's perfect. 10. So whoever's the tennis.

17.

14. 2.

15.

12.

12.

12 takes it.

Yep. So last time we tried to get off of the interstate and hide and we're trying to get through a cornfield to get to a house to shelter from a wicked storm that was on its way through. Instead we ended up lost in a corn maze where there was various things that we were encountering. Mostly scarecrows. And each path took us to a different place. There was five paths going from each of these places and it did not logically make any kind of like sense. I mean, logically it makes sense, but like physically in like the material world that should not have mapped out the way that it mapped out.

M.C. escher paintings.

Yeah, exactly. So having been lost in the corn multiple times and fought scarecrows and mud men and sheltered from a tornado underneath the busted ass tractor, we are still stuck in this corn maze, I think in the clearing with the scarecrow.

And we fought as the evil, the main scarecrow and the mudmen.

Yep.

Amel tried to fly above the maze.

And just got more corn.

I still think it should have worked.

Like I said, magic. Magic logic and material logic, those are two very different things.

And incidentally, we may have heard a rumor that we are in fact, in Nebraska.

Yes. Yes. Yeah. Well, that's the one major adjustment from last episode. I said Kansas. The road kicked north, northeast. It doesn't go due east.

Like, I thought we were on 76 and not 70.

Yeah.

Most of us thought, you know, it's a wide open, flat space. There's corn, there's tornadoes. We probably thought it was diseases.

I'm sure that's most of the Midwest.

Yeah. I was gonna say we could have gotten all the way to Ohio before I noticed the difference.

This is the category known as Kansas.

This whole area.

Yeah. We've got Kansas. Our Kansas, Nebraska.

Our Kansas.

I said that.

Oh, you did. Okay.

Way to go.

We have just offended all of the people who live in the Midwest. Sorry, guys.

I tell you to come for us, but you have to get over a mountain to do it.

Good luck, flatlanders.

We have the high ground.

We do. We have the high ground and we can breathe in it.

Yeah.

Which is.

And we know how to realize. You have until somebody's not from this elevation, bruh. It's a big difference.

That's why they sell those cans of air.

Yeah. Yeah. When you see the NFL players gasping.

Yeah.

And getting freaking respirators on the sidelines.

Yeah.

I ran up the stairs and. Gunnison, it's only a couple thousand more feet. I. I was about to pass out.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It'll kick your butt.

Yeah.

Yeah. The 30 flights of stairs up on the Palmer Divide kicked my ass.

Yeah. 7,000ft.

Yeah, I know. And my thingy counted it. It was 30 flights. Carrying boxes.

What's the technical term for the thingy?

The app on my phone that measures the steps you take.

Okay. I was just curious what you used.

Pedometer. Yes. Thank you. The thingy, the pedo.

Peter.

No, no, not that. That's not acceptable.

That'd be like dropping a Geiger counter onto a mobile. It would just go nuts.

The police have those.

They should, if they existed.

If that was a thing.

Yeah.

Yeah.

No, that. No, not that. Not acceptable.

All right, so you guys are in a small clearing of corn and there is most of a scarecrow nearby.

I hate mazes.

This is the one that we attacked, correct?

Yeah.

The one still on the stick, still together?

More or less.

We didn't destroy it.

It is not gone. It's just beat to shit. Yes. All right. You have tried thoroughly to burn super soaked straw and that's not working out well.

All right. Fuck this scarecrow.

I'd rather not. That sounds painful.

Wow.

You got the sigh from Elliot.

Actually, I don't think Elliot's still a little bit matted. I don't think he probably even looked. He probably didn't even react to the comment.

I guess that was very recent.

It wasn't very long. He's still kind of mad.

Yeah. That was all of.

Couple days.

Yeah.

I was gonna say it's a very fresh.

Yeah.

Mel looks at James completely sopping wet and bedraggled and covered in mud and rolls her eyes.

I'm sorry.

So hard.

I'm sorry.

It's just a reflex. Just who I am.

I'll work on it.

Okay.

Work on it.

So.

Just look at that.

Well, as far as I can. I don't know where to go. As far as I can tell, these paths are practically random. So I think we should just take the left path until we get to the Rock.

Welcome to the Rock.

I don't have anything better, so. Sure, let's do it.

The leftist path from the Scarecrow takes you to a clearing with. Where did it go? Where is it?

Oh, God, the world. It didn't render.

You are in a small clearing with a basket toppled over that was holding onions.

I'm gonna plant one. I wanna plant one.

What kind of onions?

Sweet Vidalia.

Sweet Vidalia. I want to plant an onion. I think we should plant them. Maybe that'll cause a circle of life.

See? And I think that. I think that we should. I think we should make our way to the tractor. Try to get the tractor started, hook it up to a plow and plow our way through this fricking maze. And you can fall behind and plant onions behind us.

I don't think that tractor's gonna start.

I don't think that's.

I haven't given up. I think we need to check it closer.

We have the max, considering working tractors don't start right now. Why would that start?

You know what? Fair point.

Well, it's.

Maybe it doesn't have an electric starter. Old tractors didn't have electric starters. You cranked them by hand like a.

Jack in the box.

Unless the transfer, though.

Nice. Except for they didn't make the cool.

Da dink, da dink, da da, da, da dink.

You know, as someone who was probably around when the first tractors were built, I'll take your word for it.

I beg your pardon, young lady. I'm not that old.

Mel attempted to cast vicious mockery because she has no magic.

It did not work.

Man, tractors would be so much sketchier if just occasionally, something popped out that.

Actually legitimately happens that occasionally Happens especially when running old tractors. Sometimes parts just fly off randomly.

Sometimes wasps make nests in parts of them.

Yeah. No, that is a legit risk that you run with tractors. Especially if you've got a swather.

Yeah.

Parts of that will just fly off. No apparent reason.

I've seen some videos of them, like, trying to crank start vehicles or, like, the heavy duty engines. And it just kicks the tool that they use to try cranking the thing. It just kicks it out.

Yeah. So if you ever have to crank one, you do not wrap your hand completely around the bar and you just stand over it. No. Yeah. And you don't stand over it. You put your thumb on the same side of the bar. Your other four fingers are. So if it kicks out, it'll kick out of your hand and not rip your thumb off. To the listeners at home, this is, in fact, true. This is. You had to make sure you did not put your thumb on the wrong side because it could take your thumb off.

Everybody learned that the hard way. 100%.

Yeah.

Very similar issue with trying to kick start.

It's just important that this knowledge is passed on to the younger generations.

On that note, protect your fingers.

You have successfully planted one sweet Vidalia onion.

Yay. Maybe we'll have more Vidalias before we go. Since magic, I don't want to be.

Here that long that we have a.

Freaking onion the first time through this part of the maze. Taking the right path from the onions takes us to the plow. Taking the right path from the plow takes us to the tractor.

We should take the onions with us.

Remember, if we're trying to get to the tractor.

I'll grab the onions. I'll grab the onions.

Okay.

Sure. Why not?

Gotta do it, dude. If you're gonna plant them, we're gonna need onions. You never know.

Are we gonna plant an onion in every single stomach?

Works.

If it gets us out of this goddamn maze, I'll do it. I'm not.

Some people leave breadcrumbs.

Some people leave just dropping onions.

They have layers, like our many personalities.

Aw.

Is that how onions grow? Is it in the dirt?

I don't know.

Yes. Sorry.

As opposed to potatoes that just grow fucking anywhere.

I know.

Where's the soil? They don't care.

We'll do a crash course on vegetable physiology later. Nice.

Onions are like parfaits, though.

Not really. Yeah, no, it's a Shrek reference.

They got layers.

Two layers.

Got poppets.

Never mind anyone.

You know what?

Fuck you guys.

All right, so we take the right path.

No to self, Celsius does not have cocaine.

Or if it does, he needs to drink a lot more of them.

Maybe that's it.

Maybe I just have an extra extremely high tolerance. Or I'm rotting off, like, three hours of sleep for the last two days.

Anyway, we make it back to the yellow plow.

Yep.

Plow looks the same as the last time I saw it.

Yes, it is a very yellow plow, freshly painted with a scratch.

Is there like, there's another layer of paint underneath the scratch? Right. So it's like they bought it used.

Used it, and then painted would reasonably appear that way.

Yes.

Which is strange.

Who now paints a plow?

Maybe they wanted to spruce it up a bit.

But why yellow?

You're gonna be dragging it through the dirt anyway.

It scrapes the paint right off of it.

Maybe they wanted to increase the resale value.

If I had to worry about, like.

The high visibility of the tractor, I think someone buying a plow would be a lot more suspicious of what's under that paint and not want to buy it.

Okay.

Is this paint holding the rusticity?

Should I plant an onion here, too?

If you feel like it, I will.

I'm gonna plant an onion.

You plant an onion. Plant it right in the middle. Where do you plant it?

I'm gonna plant it. Right? Yeah, Right in the middle of the yellow plow.

Right in the middle of the yellow plow.

So that if it ever moved, it would dig up the onions. Because Mel doesn't understand how plows work.

All right. You achieved that task.

I do that.

All right. Okay.

So we have the tractor.

All right? You take the rightest path again, and you end up at a very rusted, decrepit tractor.

All right, I want to investigate this tractor very closely and see if we can figure out any possible way to get it to start.

Roll investigation 19. You.

I have zero to my investigation.

Can I two.

I don't have to get a tractor.

It's easy.

It's whatever.

I roll 17. I got worse.

So you are a billion and 10% confident. There's no start in this tractor. Tires are dry rotted out. They're gone. It looks like maybe this tractor operated in, like, the 40s. Maybe.

I know what's wrong with it. Ain't got no gas in it.

I mean, that's probably also true.

I mean, I'm just not helping.

You can see through what you think the gas tank was.

It has a stock of cord through it.

But what you do see is most of the paint's pretty well weathered off. But on the side where they would have written a branding, most of that's gone, but you do see the letter M dang near at the end of that logo. Brand, whatever you want to call it.

All right, guys, we have an M.

We have an M. And we have a yellow plow. And we have a Vidalia onion.

We have V. Why V? Why? We just keep checking the rest of these places and see if anything. We didn't investigate a whole lot. We did not investigate.

We didn't know.

Let's go find. Let's just go to the other ones.

And we're still looking.

Investigate them when we get there.

I don't think we've seen them.

I think. I think we've pretty thoroughly investigated that, scarecrow, because that was very suspicious.

I investigated with my freaking sword.

Yeah.

I don't think there's much else to find.

That is what I meant.

We delved its depths to my ability.

Yeah.

So that, to my memory, leaves us that mud pit. And the rock.

And the rock.

The mud pit with the dead deer in it.

Yep.

So keep going right. And find the mud pit or whichever.

Way we need to do to get.

To whichever way we go. Let's take the right path. That seems to be working out for us.

The rightmost path takes you to a clearing with what's left. Left of a scarecrow.

Yeah. I was gonna say I thought we were taking the leftist path.

We did. Well, the leftist path from here took us. Hey, did anybody disappear?

No.

Well, that's good. Maybe we accomplished something.

You don't feel the need to make a wisdom check?

That's good.

I never feel the need to make a wisdom check.

James does. He just ignores it, which is probably a bad idea.

All right, well, the. What was the first one we did? First one we did was second from the right, and that took us to the rock. We haven't been there this time yet either, so.

All right, I agree.

Take that. Go to the rock.

You enter a clearing with a rather large. Rather large rock in the middle of it.

Investigate the rock, everybody.

Also investigate the rock.

All together now.

16 I nat one 11 dirty 20 faceplant into the rock.

Yeah. You slip in the mud.

22.

Nell is about to punch the rock to see if it's real, and then rings it.

And then Oldnock hits it.

And then Olnok hits it and rings it. And she goes, oh, it's there. Yep.

Nope.

That's a real rock.

I just believe the rock's existence.

Ulnock believes that this is, in fact, a metal Carapace.

Not realizing that was his head that made that sound.

When we said, use your head, that's not what we meant.

And then the three of you, that rolled pretty well, see that on the backside of the rock, there are six lines running in series, horizontally engraved white lines into this rock.

Like lines down a road? Kind of.

Yeah, kinda.

Gotcha.

Are they all the same length?

Yes.

Okay. My first thought seeing that was like words, but hangman is in like six way or word. Yeah. Okay. Hangman. Yeah.

Oh, God. If we get it wrong, do we get attacked by.

We've already been attacked. Maybe the person who got it wrong became the scarecrow.

I. Oh, that's. I don't like to think about that. That's haunting. Well, there's. So there's six clearings that we've been in, right?

Yeah.

We've got the scarecrow, the onions, the plow, the tractor, the rock, and the mud pit.

Okay, so we have S for scarecrow, V for fidelia, Y for O for onion, M for tractor, and dead for deer, D for deer.

Dead for deer. Dead deer.

Deer. Dead deer.

I'm sure that makes a word. Oh, and R for rock.

Sturdy.

The thing about the sturdy.

Yep, We've established that it's a sturdy rock.

Uldok.

Smiley concussed.

Starty.

Olock's trying to pry the rock open where the dotted lines are.

Guys, it's not working.

It's perforated.

You're gonna.

I don't think the rock is perforated.

Should I hit it with my hammer?

No.

The thing that was notable about the plow is that it's yellow.

Yeah, so we have yellow. V for fratalia, O for onion. Okay, fine. O for onions.

You can roll an attack if you want to.

Now, is it T for tractor or is it M? Because there was an M on it.

No, it's just a tractor.

Okay, but is it M for mud pit or D for deer?

Or is it P for pit?

So, writing Scorpi, Writing these letters out? I'm not getting anywhere with a D on there. So.

Storty. Stordy door.

I got soy term.

Maybe it's the name of the people who own the house.

Is that a fertilizer brand?

You know what? I'm a goddamn rancher. I'm not a freaking crossword puzzle guy.

You've also gotta ask me, oh, what is that? My rots.

I just learned.

What's that guy called?

I just learned how there's a name.

For the people that make the crosswords. It's a Very.

Oh, my God.

Nerd. There's like six people in the world.

That make them the Riddler.

There's a. It's a name.

I believe that, but I don't know that I've ever heard what that's called.

Yeah, it's probably in a press word somewhere.

Yeah, it's in a.

What's my job?

I just learned how to do word searches properly, like, what, four weeks ago.

Yeah, Mel did. Yeah.

Yeah.

Mel is the only person to. Brute force word searches.

But I can spell.

Spell.

Penguin. Now.

You can spell what with it?

Penguin. Now.

Penguin. Oh, okay, I've got it. It's Stormy.

Yeah, yeah, sure.

It's R for rock.

Where's the V for Vidalia?

M for mud. O for onion.

It's Latin.

T for tractor. S for scarecrow. Y for yellow. So that's S, T, O, R, M, Y, stor.

Cool.

Okay. Write it on the rock.

Write it on. I don't. What's. What's writing it on the rock gonna do?

Well, there's dotted lines.

Filling the dotted lines.

And maybe the rock will open and we'll be.

What?

Are we gonna step into the rock?

All right.

I don't know. I just don't want to be cold and wet.

Emery pulls out one of her chisels from her blacksmithing and carves Stormy in the rock. Does anything happen?

No.

Does the rock split open?

No. Okay, there's a small crack.

Small crack.

Does it match the indent of Ulnag's head?

No, that one was bigger.

Okay, cool. That we had writing.

It wasn't there and we're still lost. I mean, so all of these relate to places.

It does. What? So that's that. If Stormy would be Scarecrow. Tractor. Onion.

Uh huh.

That was our rock.

I kept doing that.

Yeah.

Mud pit.

Mud pit.

And then the yellow plow.

But can you get to those in that order? I thought we weren't getting to them in that order.

We haven't gone to them in that order, but that doesn't mean we can't. We know there's five paths that branch out from all of these.

So which path leads to the scarecrow?

The one that just came from.

I can try. That last time we doubled back, it took us back to the same clearing that we started from.

We started over and saved the.

I know I'm not good at this. Mel eats another ear. Of course.

I mean, we can follow paths and eventually get back to the scarecrow.

Don't eat too much of that, or else you won't have to roll like Elliot does.

Bell's blinking blankly at James. Okay, you couldn't hear that much of one thing.

Make tummy hurt.

No go poop no more.

No go poop Very well.

Oh, that one.

Okay.

Yeah, yeah.

Kind of like whoever said that laughter is the best medicine has never had diarrhea before.

That's fair.

At that point, Belle picks up a small rock and chucks it at James.

Head.

Roll for attack.

16.

That hits.

That's your. It knows your Marshall damage. Oh, that's right, because you get Marshall damage no matter what you're throwing.

Mel's hurt James a few times.

That's gonna be six points of bludgeoning damage. I'm going to evade that.

How to use my reaction to use. Uncanny dodge. I'll take half damage.

Hey children, knock it off.

He's being rude.

Yeah, so what?

James is like mid hand up with like a thing of mud.

We just about got killed by a freaking.

He's got like three hands tornado.

Let's get the hell out of here and then y' all can just have the scuff up somewhere else.

Yeah, I would like to not be in this fucked up corn maze anymore.

James is gonna use the mage hand to do like the. I'm watching you with his, you know, the pointing at the eyes, you know.

Mel sticks her tug out at him.

We. We find our way back to the scarecrow.

Okay.

Through multiple paths. I'm sure it takes us to get there because we don't have a direct one from the rock to the scarecrow yet.

You have not figured out one from the rock to the Scarecrow yet? No, that's correct.

But we figured out something else and did that.

I mean there's several. There's several from the rock that we haven't done yet. We could just pick one of those and try to get to the scarecrow. We've got one, two or four.

Four.

I like four.

Four's a fun number.

Okay, so we take the from the left path. Four.

Is it because of golf?

Yellow plow four.

No.

Okay.

Okay. What happens if we go backwards?

Yellow plow.

Uh huh.

That is so annoying. I hate that.

We're at the back of the ward. We gotta go to the front of the ward.

We tried four.

Have we tried path five?

No.

From the yellow plow hill. Yes, I believe you've tried from yellow plow. You have tried path five. That'd be the rightest path.

Yeah.

So we're wanting to go from Scarecrow to.

Oh, I fully fucked this map.

I thought five Would be the second to rightest path is what I thought. So I must be misunderstanding.

What's going on? We just took path four, and we ended up with a yellow plaid.

Yes. 1, 2, 3, 4, A. Each one has five options.

Oh, five options.

Okay. I thought so. You're coming in the six.

Got it, got it, got it, got it, got it.

But it just boots you back.

Gotcha. It just restarts.

Okay, the far left one was from yellow tractor.

Yellow plow.

No, no, from the scarecrow.

Wait, it's a yellow tractor.

The far left one was the onions.

Correct.

From the scarecrow. The far left one was the onions.

Path one. All right, Path one and path four takes us to the rock. From the scarecrow.

Correct.

Path forward as the rock.

Yes.

Which one took us to the yellow plow?

We don't have one from the scarecrow to the yellow plow yet.

Okay.

As far as I know, are we wanting to go.

So you're missing 2, 3, 5 from Scarecrow.

Yeah, we're missing 2, 3, 5.

Well, okay, if we're at the plow, if we go rightest path.

No, we're not to yellow plow yet.

We are currently at yellow plow. We took four from the rock, and that got us to yellow plow.

But if we go rightest path, it'll eventually lead to the scarecrow.

Yes.

Yes. Rightest path from yellow takes you to.

Tractor, and rightest path from tractor takes us to scarecrow so we can get there.

Okay, so we get to scarecrow, they get to scarecrow.

So to go back to the tractor, we should take path number five. Because we're trying to go stormy, right?

Yep.

Yeah.

So we're gonna start at the scarecrow, take the rightest path, which you go to tractor.

I don't. We haven't gone from scarecrow to tractor before.

Okay. We're trying to figure that out.

Yes.

So it would be.

So from the scarecrow to the furthest right.

Yeah.

Okay, so path five takes you to yellow plow.

Yeah. No, we needed path four.

Maybe path four is the rock from scarecrow. So we go from yellow plow to tractor, back to scarecrow. We have not done three from scarecrow yet.

Let's try that.

Three takes you to the tractor.

Yay. Okay, now we need tractor to onions. Oh, we've never done that before.

But what if we're holding the onions? Does that count as the pack?

Yeah.

No, no, no.

So from the tractor.

Just trying to find.

We have done five to the scarecrow.

Yep.

I think that's it.

What if we do now you keep.

Just taking that path once you get it.

Uh huh.

What if we do two? We haven't done two.

Let's do two from the tractor.

Let's take two, that takes you to the onions.

Hey, good.

Not hay onion.

Okay, now we have to go from onions to rock. Have we ever done that?

No.

Oh, fuck.

We know five from onion. I don't think we've gone anywhere else from the onions yet.

No, I don't think so.

So we've got one through four. Who wants to pick?

I say four.

Four. We take path four from the onions mud pit. Okay. Balls.

That was close. We need rocks.

We're at stom stomp stomach.

Okay, from mud pit, we take five to get back to onions.

Okay.

And we try path three from onions.

Three takes you to the tractor.

Nope. Okay, we go from the tractor to two, which gets us back to onions.

Yes, you are back to the onions.

Does that take count or do we have to start up scale?

We're gonna have to start over.

Okay. But we at least know which way to go now.

Okay.

You guys ever feel like we're just going in circles?

Yes.

Yes. We completely feel like we're going in circles.

We did four. Three. Okay, so two from the onion.

Let's take two takes you to the scarecrow.

Okay, so we go back to the Onion and Go1.

How are you going to the scarecrow?

We were at the scarecrow.

How are you going to the onions? Sorry.

We're going to go path three, which should take us to the tractor. Path two, which should take us to the onion.

There. Yep.

Two.

We've done two. That's tractor.

Let's try one.

Oh, I'm sorry.

Path one takes you to the rock.

Aha.

Yay.

Sorry. Going from tractor to onions. What number was that, tractor?

Two.

Two. Okay.

All right.

Now we just need mud pit.

Three, two, one. Okay.

Rock to mud pit.

We know that one. That's five.

Okay, we'll do that.

Five takes it to the mud pit.

So we've pit to yellow plow.

We have not done mud pit to plow yet.

3.

I'm just throwing at 9.

Path 3 from the mud pit.

We've not done that. Takes you to the yellow plow.

Holy crap.

Yeah.

Yay.

Or he gave it to me.

We got mixed up a couple times in there. And finding the right paths. So we find our way back to the scarecrow and we go past three and then two and then one and then five and then three and that spells out stormy.

And this time when you enter the clearing with the yellow plow, instead of five paths laid out before you, you just see one wide opening.

I'm getting on my horse and I'm getting the hell out of this goddamn corn maze.

Should we bring the onions?

Fuck the onions.

Fuck the onions.

I don't want.

Just drop them in a way.

Go.

I could plant the rock.

Come on, Charlie. Come on, Jacob. Let's get the hell out of here.

Only if you do it fast or otherwise. We're leaving you here.

Okay, I'm going.

All right.

Mel chucks an onion.

We're throwing onions now.

So you find yourself coming out of the corn and into a front yard. There is a weathered picket fence with a quaint off white single story house. The paint's pretty well worn, so there is definitely spots where it is just wood colored. But a well worn truck sits to one side and a wooden storm door is barely hanging onto the hinges on the front of the house. Several of the windows are broken and a mostly intact trampoline is upside down on the roof. On the right side of the building, your right side of the building, you can see doors angled down leading presumably to a storm. Storm cellar.

Does it look like this? Are we still. Is it still storming pretty good?

Yeah, it's still pretty good.

All right, let's head over to the storm cellar. Let's go get down there.

What are we gonna do with the horses?

Is there any other outbuildings or.

Yeah, you see bare bones. Carport type stuff. Carport.

All right, let's throw them in the carport.

Cool. It's better than. It's something better than just straight up outdoors.

Sorry, guys.

And God's a roof kinda.

Yep. We put them in the carport and make our way back to those cellar doors.

If hoping the storm doesn't raise the roof.

Yep. So we're hoping. All right.

You are at the storm door. At the cellar door.

Let's try to open.

Does it. Yeah. Does it open if we pull on it?

It's barred.

It's barred.

Resistance someone.

Hello.

I will knock on him while you knock. I'm gonna like stomp on him.

Pop on. Startle me as my hands right there.

We're people. If you're people, we would like to come in. It's very wet out here.

Oh, I'm gonna disguise elf.

All right, Mr. Elf.

Disguise elf? Yeah, Disguise elf. Okay.

That's a new spouse elf called disguise elf.

He's the only one of us that has it.

I look very similar. Just my skin isn't as green. I don't have the ears and I have a very chiseled physique. It's my spell. I can do what I want with it.

Spitting image. Except for. Got it.

This is what James wishes he looks like. Got it.

I just have soaked good looks, I guess. Smoldering good looks.

Yeah. Instead of looking bedraggled and wet. It's like when they make models look wet to make. Make them hotter. You know.

It works whatever it is.

That was a phrase. I'm sorry.

I don't know where.

I don't know how I got there.

But that was almost really dangerous. Eh. That. Some hot tea almost came out the nose.

I did kind of kill Amanda, so.

Amanda's dead. Mel down. Mel down. Death saved.

I'm good. I'm good.

I'm good.

From inside you here.

Hello.

I'm kind of just hold on. You hear shuffling sounds. Somebody slowly making their way up some very clearly old sounding wooden stairs. Lot of creaking. Very distinct sliding grinding sound of wood on wood. And then. Okay. It should be open.

Elliot will grab one of the doors and heave it open.

Yeah.

Perfect.

These things can be heavy. I know.

We'll just. Yeah. Make our way inside.

Down at the bottom of the stairs you see a kindly old lady, older woman standing down there. She's got a wooden bar in her hand. And as you folks start making your way down the steps, she hands the bar up to you guys so you can rebar the door behind you.

I'll go lastly at the door because it's probably heavy.

Yeah. It's not light. It takes some effort.

Ma'. Am. I'm Elliot. Brandy Bain. These are my friends. Emory James Olnox, the big guy back there and Mal Kelly. That's Jacob, the boy with the broom. He likes to clean stuff. And that's my dog Charlie. He won't bite. Thank you for letting us in. It's nasty out here.

Oh yeah. It's terrible out there. My name's Edna May, though most just call me Granny May.

Pleased to meet you, ma'. Am. I'm gonna help him get this door closed and we'll make more proper introduction.

Absolutely. I'm glad to see you folks are doing okay. I'm pretty gross out there.

Yes.

Understatement.

We're basically dripping mud at this point.

Especially those of us that got eaten by mud men.

Yeah.

We see her kind of shuffling around the cellar basement, kind of poking her head into boxes and looking. And eventually she finds a couple more Coleman lanterns and pulls them out, fills them with can fuel sitting nearby. Get some lit. Hangs them from some random nails in the rafters.

Nice. We were very glad to actually make it to the house here.

Yes.

Man, that is quite the messed up cornfield you got out front there.

Yeah.

Oh, that's a terrifying cornfield. But I can't take any ownership over it. We just were seeking shelter from the storm ourselves.

And this is not your house.

Oh no? No sir.

Who's we?

As you're talking, you see her kind of look over to her side and your eyes follow hers and you see a couple of folks seated kind of leaning back against the wall on their boots. Sitting on their boots, leaning against the wall.

Hi.

Hello.

I'm Elliot Brandybane. Pleased to meet you.

I'm afraid they're probably not gonna answer ya.

Are they deaf?

They did not make it. They did not make it through the corn maze in one piece.

Oh no.

We should we kick them out.

What?

Matt, you can't just kick.

Dead things come alive.

What if those are her kin?

Ma', am.

Don't pay any attention.

I'm a reason why we don't wanna.

Have to kill him again in front of Granny Mae.

It's a reasonable concern.

Yeah, but not this second.

You're aware of like other things that go bump in the night nowadays.

They come back to the light and.

They try to get through.

I mean, if she went through the same corn maze we went through.

Yeah, we got. I don't. I don't know. It looks like you guys had a pretty rough time. You're not looking.

Uh huh.

I mean, no insult.

No, no. That was not fun.

Yeah, we were once. We were trying to figure out the puzzle. They got lost once. Disappeared on me.

Oh no.

By the time they came back, they was being chased by a scarecrow. He got his claws. Indeed. Unfortunately, while we were waiting out the worst of that tornado, they they they.

That scarecrow was no joke.

Yeah, he's a pretty nasty guy.

And that tornado was awful.

I'm not gonna lie. I'm mildly impressed with you folks surviving that storm Outside.

We were under the tractor.

Ah, that was kind of the best place we could find to weather it at all.

There wasn't much else out there. Yeah.

That sucked and blew at the same time.

Yeah, it was pretty loud.

Yeah.

Anybody else's ears ringing?

Huh?

That's your tinnitus.

No, it's just me again.

Okay, now that checks out. That tracks.

Oh yeah. No, they. They didn't make it. But they're no kin of mine. I appreciate your concern. They Were just my traveling companions, so.

Yeah, we can chuck them out, right?

Bless you.

Where were. Where were you traveling to?

We were headed to the small town of Carson, just on the other side of Omaha. We had a feller on horseback about a week ago, I reckon, came through town and was assuring us that the small town of Carson had managed to figure out how to get the lights back on.

That's a.

Where are you. Where are you from?

Most recently from Denver.

It rode all the way from Carson, Iowa to Denver.

Yeah. He seemed to be trying to spread the good news.

If you were, was he wearing red.

Robes or funny religious symbols?

No, just cowboy hat, pants and a shirt.

Was he, like, painfully awkward in that? I read the book on socializing, but I've never done the thing.

No, that's an odd description.

I'm not even sure what you're trying to say.

Hey, I'll be honest with you, young lady. I spoke with him for all of about 30 seconds. He said, hey, I'm spreading the news. Folks in Carson have got the lights on. You should. You should make your way that way.

He didn't say anything about how they got the lights back on.

No power.

Maybe.

Maybe it was missed. Maybe it's a bubble of good normalness.

That'S kind of suspicious.

I'm trying to be optimistic.

He set the lights back on as if they had went off.

Oh, yeah, that's a good point.

Point. No.

What did you say? Why they came all the way from way out there to Denver and why.

Carson's trying to get people there in the first place?

Can't be that big.

I wonder if they got somebody who can do some mumbo jumbo to get stuff working. Working? Quote, unquote.

So what made you leave Denver but.

Yeah, up your whole life on the word of somebody you met for 30 seconds.

Well, I don't know if you folks have been anywhere near Denver, but it's worth uprooting right now.

We may have avoided it.

It's the first thing that sounded like good news I've heard in quite a while. Denver's pretty much toasted and so make our way. Carson way. These folks. The lady there, Janet, her boy goes to school at Notre Dame, so she was kind of making her way that way.

Okay. Jeremy has no idea, but Elliot would know. Is Notre Dame in Carson? I have no idea.

Oh, no. Notre Dame's back east, isn't it?

Yeah, Notre Dame's somewhere.

Elliot would totally know. He would watch college football. But Jeremy has faintest idea.

Watch college football. Sorry. Not Nebraska. Is that in Massachusetts?

Indiana.

Indiana.

Okay.

Okay. Indiana.

So it's along. It's. They were in the same general direction.

Got it, got it.

Sorry. Notre Dame.

Yeah. Notre Dame is the college. Notre Dame is the cathedral.

I mean, I pronounced the same.

They're not.

They're really.

Notre Dame is Notre Dame.

Are they spelled the same?

Yes, because we had to Americanize it.

That's fair.

I. I just. I really.

We've done done that with a lot of French names, like cities and stuff like that. Yeah.

It'S supposed to be lacrosse.

I guess it's Lacroix.

Or should be like lacrosse.

Like Le score.

Never mind. Anyway.

Well, no, the town.

Okay.

Lacrosse we are talking about like, it's spelled L, A, C, R, O, I, X.

Yes, it's Lacroix.

Is it Lacroix?

No, incorrect French.

Okay.

That's how you would pronounce it. The name of the city is La.

Croix, but it's sometimes pronounced La Crosse.

It's like if you go to Arkansas and tell them that you're coming or and say, you know, something about being in Arkansas, they get all pissy with you.

I had somebody ask me for directions to Fruita one time. So.

Who hated the way I say Lancaster. Lancaster. I'm like, lancaster. Lancaster. I'm like, whatever. We're saying the same thing. He's like, no, we're not. I'm like, but we are anyway.

Tomato, potato.

That's a tomato potato. What?

Ma'? Am. You guys. You guys walked a long way to get out of here.

We were. While we're on horse back. Got our horse and a mule tied up outside.

Oh, we must have missed them. We put our horses in the carport.

That would have been smart. We just tied up and got the heck out of there.

No, that's fair. Yeah, that was probably smarter.

It was pretty scary, not gonna lie. But, you know, that's. My goal is to just keep headed east and see.

Well, Carsonetz. Is it in southern Iowa?

Perfect.

We think it might be kind of on the way.

It should be.

My understanding is it's not too far off of Interstate 80 here.

Well, that's the direction we're headed.

Yeah. We're going to be following i80 for a while. I mean, if you need some company on the road, it's. I wouldn't want to travel alone these days.

I sure would, if you wouldn't mind. I mean, I know I'm not looking like a whole heck of a lot, but I'm surprisingly spry.

How old does she look like? 1 to Elliot. I forgot his name for a second. How old does she look?

She's a fair bit older than Elliot. This woman is granny.

That's impressive.

She's got a cane, but she doesn't look like she's using it for full weight bearing or anything, you know?

Gotcha.

She's waving it around to make her point points almost as much as she's using it for stability.

She's probably absolutely beating somebody in the head with that thing.

Definitely. You see some dents and whatnot down it. It's some solid, thick wood. Interestingly, it looks like it's due north of Macedonia.

Macedonia don't go.

Not the same.

You know.

You were stationed at a boat.

I think we need a break. I'm tired, I'm wet.

I thought you meant irl.

Yeah, yeah. These old bones are aching when the storms come through.

I can make some food. Do we have anything that's not soggy?

I've got some onions.

They might have anything that's not soggy.

They might have put like a little. The people that lived in this house might have put like a little propane burner down here. Like a little camping.

Do they have some propane and some propane accessories?

Tell you what, I'll move past Edna a little bit and see if I can poke through the boxes and find something like a little, like a little camping. Like, I have one that like screws onto like a tiny. Like the backpacking stove, basically something you can basically warm a pot of something on.

As you're moving past her, she kind of braces.

Brace for impact.

Try to do it delicately. Kind of catch yourself on your shoulder. Get a pretty solid electric shock there.

Oh. Like ouch.

And it's loud. It's one of those. That's loud enough you can actually hear it.

Yeah.

Like one of those bug zappers.

Wow. Sorry about that. That was ouchies.

Are you ouchies? Are you feeling a little electrically charged?

Yeah.

You're not gonna disco, are you?

Not really. I'm not. So, Edna, one thing you're gonna have to know if you travel with us is that we're a hot mess. Let's be honest. We're hot mess. That's not wrong. But what I was going to say was that some of us have picked up some abilities. You've seen magic, you've seen weird stuff. You were stuck in that maze. So I can do magic and stuff. And she asked if I'm going to explode because sometimes I can't always control.

Because your elf might Blow.

Sorry, I was about to sneeze. Apologies. Kiss you taught after the laughing at the hot mess. Some of the, Some of the White Russian went up my nose.

It just, it just, you know, it felt fitting.

You should know when you travel with.

Us for a hot mess. This is true every day.

That's understandable in times of turmoil. You know, people don't always put their best self forward.

And also our friend James here doesn't. He's wearing a magic disguise right now.

He's not that.

He's turned greenish and grown pointy ears recently.

And a pot belly.

Yeah, quite the chiseled.

And Jacob is not really fond of house cleaning.

He.

The broom flies.

Oh, I like it. Boy, he knows how to do chores.

Yeah, but the broom flying is actually a lot of fun.

I thought it was a little strange that you were still the exact same amount of damp that you were when you came came in. What else is starting to dry?

Oh, dang it. It doesn't change.

Yeah, that's all right. I've got a touch of magics as well.

How, how do you do? Like plant stuff?

No, I, I, I had, I could, I could kill them.

No, don't do that.

Could try it on the corn before we leave.

Do you have a spell or do you have a book with spells? We ran into somebody who had a book with spells in it. And when nobody knew what they were.

Saying, almost writing them down couldn't hurt, but.

Except for it made his pants warmer.

I don't have one of those.

Oh, no. Oh, no. Did somebody come to you with a long lengthy contract that you failed to read?

Oh, sweetie, I'm retired. Nobody tries to take money from me no more. I ain't got none.

That's gonna happen every time.

Well, it wasn't money. It was your soul they wanted.

But anyway, option a whole lot anymore either. It's almost spent.

I don't. Souls never lose. Anyway, we could get soul security for your soul.

I don't know if they could give me much for I've only got probably another like 5, 10 years.

Hers was worth unlimited topic text.

The point of a soul is that it's eternal, not toxic.

Okay. Anyway, anyway, it depends on the book you read. Anyway, anyway.

No, no, I haven't, I haven't made. No, no, no.

Do you blow up occasionally? Yeah.

Oh, no, sometimes I do it on purpose away from me. And sometimes stuff goes a little crazy.

Oh, God.

We have another one.

Yeah.

You've got magic like me then. That's kind of how mine works too. I can just kind of do it and sometimes I just. That just slips.

Yeah. Yeah. Crazy stuff happened.

Weird. I haven't met someone else that has. That. We ran into some. Some folks from the magic world that is part of ours now. And that's why magic exists now is that there's a magic world that has, like, collided with ours kind of.

I feel like we should kind of ease her into this slightly.

Well, anyway, they knew more about magic than we did, and they called it wild magic.

Yeah, that's a. Tracking. Tracking. That's a fitting name for it. It's pretty wild.

It is. Yeah.

I'm gonna take a nap.

Yeah, I need to rest. Stop.

You two can talk about the. How souls work.

I'm taking a nap now that we've confessed our magic souls.

How souls work.

Don't talk to me about that.

I'm sorry, sweetie. You're gonna have to speak a little louder.

These ears are how souls work.

Whilst they're having existential conversations, I'm gonna.

See if I can find a proof.

Yeah. And I was gonna search for food if that would be possible to do investigation checks.

I'm burning two hit dice and healing up to full health.

Okay.

Ulnock would like to try something, but I don't know which stat with this would be.

I want to see not 20.

Cause I noticed that that bar she handed me was quite heavy and she handed it up to everybody else. And she's also like 90. That doesn't make a lot of sense to me. I want to know if that would be like perception or.

That would probably be an insight. Yeah. Yeah.

Did you check to see how much it can bench.

She swole.

Elliot.

She's gonna burn three hit dice for short rest. And he'll keep. He'll heal completely up.

Perfect. I got a. I got a 19. Searching for. On an investigation, looking through boxes and down here to see if we can find like a little camping stove.

Yeah, you definitely. They have propane stove, camping supplies. They're in pretty rough shape. You could tell it was well used. But you do have access to one. There's a little bit of juice in the bottle.

Cool. Might be able to heat these rations just. Just enough to be palatable.

And I was hoping to find emergency rations or something like that because this is a storm shelter of some variety. And I got a 26 total. Not 20.

You find MREs manufactured in Vietnam.

Those big boxes of emergency rations.

Yeah, the Costco buckets.

Oh, yeah. There you go.

You're able to find one of those? Most of Everything in here is spoiled. You're noticing as you're looking around there's quite a bit of water dripping through. And as you're looking, Granny Mae does say. Granny Mae does say that the upstairs is pretty much shot. The roof wasn't much of a roof anymore.

And there's having a trampoline on there is probably not helpful.

There's a lot of water damage. This place has clearly been vacated for a while.

So if there was dehydrated food. Food. It's not.

Yeah, it's rehydrated in the worst way. Yeah.

But we'll say you find enough edible that you don't have to burn a ration.

Cool.

Awesome.

My perception was 15. I put well 14. Just minus one. Did I put that together?

You know, you did see her struggle a little bit with it. It wasn't like she one handed palmed it up there. So nothing that stretches.

Got it.

Like she's maybe a little more spry than your grandma was at that age kind of a thing. But nothing freakish. What?

Jesus.

My grandmother died at that age.

It's old.

It's not that unusual, guys.

No, it's not. It was just the way you said it. I am. I'm burning five hit dice to get up to full.

Perfect.

That's what it takes.

I did not realize you were in that bad of a whole shape.

I was at 20 out of 44 hit points. That mudman fucked me up.

Oh that's right. You got swallowed too. Uh huh.

Yeah. I burned two and probably didn't need to.

You know, some people take mud baths to cool down.

You know, I would settle for not being muddy anymore. My clothes are drenched in it. It is everywhere. And as it's drying it sucks.

I just would like to be dry again.

It's like stuck in your hair.

I just wanna. I wanna rate a clothing store.

What would you know about that?

Well, when I had hair.

Back in.

The day, Mel's a little bitter about the amount of. Mel's bitter about the amount of yuck she's had to clean out of her hair because of ulnock. And so she will take every bald joke that is handed to her there.

Emory, some people pay a lot of money for a mud treatment like that.

You matter.

To be fair that they almost suffocated it.

I was going to say you are equally as muddy as she is. You were also swallowed by a human.

Yeah, but I'm not complaining about it.

Well that's fair.

So you have.

It's going to make me look Younger facial.

That's all in my pocket.

Oh, you're still a guy.

I've got so many other things in my pockets.

You're just a flatterer. And he'll flutter his eyelids very dramatically.

James is going to plug his ears with his normal hands and use the mage hand to continue making food.

Elliot, stop picking up older women.

Hey there, listener. Thanks for letting me cut in here with a very brief ad break. Firstly, as we mentioned in the last episode, we are returning to the Grand Junction Comic Con. We are very grateful to the Mesa County Public Library for hosting this event and we look very much forward to sharing some of our wisdom with y'. All. As a reminder, the Convention is a two day event taking place on September 19th and 20th. This week's episode is a bit of a refreshing bite sized chunk, so I won't take up too much more of your time. But if you find yourself wishing for another bite, follow us on our Patreon. I'm currently elbows deep editing the August episode of The SideQuest, a second campaign that we are running in the same world, but with new characters and a new voice. We tried to focus on maximizing the fun on that side and I do think we've managed to achieve that goal. As always, your support is greatly appreciated. So if you like what you hear, please follow us on our social media, share us with your friends, and most importantly, enjoy the rest of this episode. So you have the crazy magic, huh?

Yeah, yeah, I do.

What have you had happen?

Oh, I almost killed all knock once while I was flashing bright lights at the same time. That was a crazy one. I made myself 4 or 5 inches taller. You see, I've had to hem all my pants here.

I just assumed you were trying to keep them dry. All right.

That's right.

The permanent.

That was that one.

No, no. My magic made me physically taller and I had to modify everything.

Remember the blue butterflies you went into battle with when we were fighting the zombies?

Yes. Twice. Twice I've summoned magical butterflies to flutter around. If I had a nuclear, wasn't there.

One with butterflies and then flowers? I mean immediately.

Yeah, yeah.

I just went full like.

Disney princess for a minute while we were fighting zombies. That was the best part.

Yeah, that was a little bit. That was the werewolf fight too. Yeah, I got my. Yeah, there's been. It's mostly. Mostly harmless, mostly not. But never like helpful.

That's fair.

Amel, didn't I turn you? I said I banished you to a different plane.

Yes. And then there was the time we were deaf for like an hour.

Oh, God. Yeah. We were deaf for. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Mel and I went deaf for an hour.

Teleport around.

I think that was. I think that was the other.

I think that was me and the other campus.

Oh, that's right. You. You and the other cast.

Yeah.

It's so hard to keep track.

It's. Yeah, we keep having wild magic sorcerers. It's like, who did the what?

It's. It's a fun sorcerer class to play.

For some reason. I did a magic and we all started speaking French for a couple days.

Oh, that's new. I haven't done that one yet.

That'd be fun.

I can't even remember French. If that happens to us. You guys, I'm sorry. I don't know. I don't know what to say.

I also made myself a jukebox for a while.

Oh.

Every time I opened my mouth, music came out.

Nice.

I wanted people around me. Had to start dancing.

I likes it.

Goodness.

Little dance party.

That must be awful weird stuck to.

Dance every time you hear music. How it sucked.

It does.

All right.

Yeah.

No, that's some weird magics.

Yeah.

What can you do on purpose?

I can. I. I accidentally shocked you here. But I can blast stuff with a giant bolt of lightning, which is very fun.

Sometimes she throws up fire at things. That's cool.

That one's pretty cool.

Oh, yeah, yeah. It's like, you know, like how dragons breathe fire. I can make myself do that.

Ooh, that's nifty.

I can give myself some protection. I can kind of like deflect some attacks and stuff, which helps. I love that.

Emery's like, you know how dragons breathe fire? I can also breathe fire. And the only part of that that we know is true is that Emerie can breathe fire.

Well, but dragons breathing fire is a normal fairy tale.

Dragons is that they breathe fire. Every single one. Some of them. That is a well known thing about dragons. And also the spell is called Dragon's Breath. I wanted to describe it appropriately.

You named it. It's not like you sat in a book.

Yeah, I named it after dragons who breathe fire. Also, it can be be other things, not just fire, but that's usually the most effective.

What do dragons breathe?

Other things.

I missed my spell.

The first one I did was fire, so I named it after the fire.

Sometimes I miss that spell I had that made people's nose bleed. That was fun.

Oh, I forgot about that.

Yeah, I was like, what?

That's called fist.

Well, yes, that works too.

But Olux Got that one.

Yeah, I got that one.

Yeah.

I also have fist, but I sort of liked playing with their head.

Also, throw hammer. Seems to work for that one.

I cast hammer.

And then James has some small fire spells, but. Yep.

Interesting.

And disguise elf, apparently.

Yeah. Disguise elf. I'm gonna rename that in here, actually.

That's still funny. Disguise elf. As far as we know, it only works on elves.

He's the only one of us that has it.

That's exciting. It's quite the list of magics you've got, young lady.

Yeah. What about you? What do you magic?

I can make real big fire.

Okay.

Real big fire. Is that spell name?

I can make a light bloop.

I don't know what that means.

What? Make a light, make a life.

I literally thought she just opened her.

Head and went bloop.

I can do that one too.

Yeah, I could make another hand. Hey, mage hand.

Hey.

And I wave with mage hand.

She waves with mage hand. I can fix clothes. Oh. I can electrocute that.

Got that one too. We've seen that.

The zippy's apple. Mm. But then I can make you feel better about it.

Oh, I like making that beat Interesting.

You know, Clear.

I heal ya.

Oh, Elliot can do that.

I can make.

Yeah, it's called bandaid.

No, that's what I do. I cast power range bandaid.

I can make myself real quick for a while. Mm. I could talk with the birds. Hey, I do that one.

I'm real quick.

I can make myself real hard to see. Oh, that's cool.

Oh, I can do that too, actually.

And then I can see things that can't be seen.

Interesting.

That sucks.

And I can make your magic not work too well. Oh, yeah. And other things.

So that last one might be helpful if I'm blowing up near you.

I've only ever traded on things from trying to do it on purpose, but yeah.

Are we gonna stay here tonight? In the strippy cellar?

Hell no. Let's get the hell out of here. I'm not gonna stay next to this cornfield.

I mean, is the storm still going?

It's dying down. You can tell.

Well, the food stuff is. I don't know what the fuck to call it. It's food. It's edible. I ate it and I didn't die.

All right, well, way to sell that one, chef.

I stuck.

It wasn't soggy, it wasn't moldy. It wasn't moving before or after I prepared it. It's warm.

Thanks. Go grab a bowl of it.

It's nice to Eat something warm when you're.

It is at that point an hour's gone by and I bamf back to elf form.

One thing worth noting about this lady that I haven't described is she's pretty tiny. She a little thing.

Oh, she totally. So on a scale from 1 to Mel, about how tall is Mel's taller?

Mel is average height. I am short. Mel is average height.

Average height for women in America is five foot two and a half.

That's average.

That is the exact average. I had a friend in high school that knew that because she was 5 foot 2 and 3 quarters and she was above average.

I was gonna say that's two still makes Mel taller than me. So.

Yeah, she's short.

Gotcha.

Like, you don't think she's breaking four and a half, five feet? She's. Aw.

She's not like a different.

I've never seen the top of an adult's head before.

She's human.

Hopefully she's got some short horses.

Ponies.

So before we leave this area, I don't want to leave bodies that are going to potentially come back and fight somebody.

I agree. We made a deal with each other that we'd make sure to dispose of the corpses the best we could if we had to. I made them promise me. Cause I didn't think they'd go first.

Well, in a supernatural world, it does make sense, I think.

Yeah. I think we should do a little ceremony and cremate them before we leave.

Yeah, I think they'd appreciate that. If you guys can help me carry them upstairs. I don't think I'm gonna pull that off.

Actually. That's a good idea, y'. All. If I drop before we get done, and then you can. I want you to cremate me.

Ditto.

Yeah, but no one's allowed to die.

Me too.

I've already done it. I've used up our one life.

If I do, someone has to use the mirror I have on and me call my sister.

Deal.

Can anybody use that mirror?

I assume so.

What's the password?

I wasn't given a password, so.

Okay, well, then you just can't die. That's just the rules then. Cause we can't call your sister.

We don't know what. No dying on. No dying for you.

All right, well, if I do, someone's just gotta try to let my family know.

And if anybody else morphs into an uncontrollable undead, we'll kill them.

Yep.

If I die, pose me into flesh. That's all I got.

Before we cremate you. Yeah, deal.

Okay.

Put me in a. Put me in a. What the fuck's an hourglass? So I can be involved in the game nights.

We don't do game nights.

That's how you make haunted items.

All I ask those are reliquaries.

If I die, will you wash my hair? I don't want to go into the next life with dirty hair.

Yeah, we'll do that for you.

Thanks.

Heard of a funny story of a kid making sandcastles with his dad till his mom walked in and told him, put him back in the urn.

That's dark.

Wow. Jesus.

There's. There's a video that keeps coming up on the Internet where there's this girl, she's like, hey, dad, come on, we're gonna be late. Oh, I see. You're walking the dog. And she turns around on the stairs and her dad's hurt and the dogs are.

And there's a leash connecting the tool.

So dark.

That's horrible.

I love it.

Okay, okay. Anyhow, we help her take the bodies. Yeah.

While you guys are having this, she rifles through. You see her pull a couple daggers out. The. The lady of the group was wearing one of them Carhartt like hiking jackets, shirts. She reaches into the breast pocket and pulls out a small envelope and she tucks it into her bag and wrestles her bag on and says, all righty. Thank you folks for helping me carry him upstairs, because I can't.

Of course.

I was gonna ask a while back because you were talking about she being shortish. She looks human, right?

She looks like a really short grandma.

Okay.

You could try to roll something if you want to.

Yeah, if I could. Like, I don't know.

While he's staring at Edna May, we're scrounging the farmhouse while she was like.

Digging through pockets of whatnot. If I could take the time to, as nonchalantly as possible check her out.

That sounded wrong.

I should have rephrased that.

Yeah. So now James is picking up older women.

Go ahead and roll. Bad. So bad.

16 on a scale of 1. To Mel, how hot is she?

Well, apparently to James, quite frank. She's quite the foxy old lady.

Mel's starting to get a complex. If James would rather go off for the 80 year old woman. First she was turned down by Blake for a 16 year old. Now James is going after granny. Like Mel's getting a complex. Why aren't I pretty enough?

I didn't mean it like that. I would like. I investigated.

With your investigation. You see that she is wearing sturdy denim jeans.

Okay. They're blue. So she can go to Comic Con.

Silly joke for our group, dude.

Don't worry about it.

That was because we were supposed to.

We all have to wear blue jeans.

Blue jeans.

To Comic Con. And then we miraculously failed to come in uniform.

Gotcha. Yes.

Sorry.

That was a joke for me and Amanda. Apparently.

Apparently.

And for Gayle. If she listens to this. I got it.

Yes. All right.

Anyway, sorry, Derail.

She's incredibly short.

Okay, Established.

Yep. She does not have any scales or fur.

That's good.

She's got fairly healthy head of white hair.

Somebody poke her with a Silver Decker.

I don't want to do that. It might kill her.

Better we find out nothing later.

Anywho, you're gonna eat her.

What?

No.

Better to find out now than we'll eat her. II you gotta speak louder, young lady.

I know. I mumble a lot. I'm sorry, Granny.

Mumble, mumble. Wonderful conversationalist.

All right. You guys got a decent funeral pyre built up?

Yep.

Gretty makes her way up.

Get the bodies up.

Yep. She, you know, she stands near the pyre after you guys get them on and lit and all that. You can tell she's saying a couple words to them, but it's a very fairly private moment. She just kind of nods at the pile, heads around back and comes back forward. She's got total three horses and a pack mule. Pack mule's got a decent amount on it.

Well, around here you're pretty rich with that Bermuda you got.

Yeah, yeah. We're suddenly. I'm suddenly doing all right. Figure we'd bring the extra horses with us. Worst case scenario, we could sell them. Best case scenario, we have them if we need them.

Never hurts to have extra mounts.

No.

Yeah, exactly. Change a tire on a horse.

No, no.

Those are shoes.

We did this whole thing where Emery had to shoe.

Shoe them.

Shoe them.

Shoe them.

I don't know. Yeah, I shot my ass kicked by poltergeist.

Correct. She had to shod the horses, so then they could shed them.

Shed the shoes?

Shoe the horses. If you did it yesterday, they. Yeah, never mind.

They did it yesterday.

They shed the shoes. If they have got shoes on, then the horses are shod.

Yes. And when they shed the shoes, you shoo them. No, please.

If they shed the shoes, you shoe them again, and then they're now shod.

Oh, man.

This horse doesn't have shods.

You only shod them if they got a broken leg.

Now, wait, that's what I meant, but you can't exactly change a tire on a horse.

Never mind, let's just get moving.

Ambles her way up onto the horse. Pretty dexterous.

I'm gonna watch this. Cause a short person getting on a horse is quite a project.

It's an adventure.

She's surprisingly nimble for her age. She gets her foot up to the stirrup. It's pretty darn high up there. Stirrup, right?

Yeah, stirrup, yeah.

But a short person, the stirrup's gonna be about eye level as the problem. So usually you have to climb.

She hops. And as she's pulling herself up, her foot goes right on in.

Okay.

She's able to just basically pull up.

She is pretty damn light too, I'm sure. So like, Mal's watching this.

Yeah, Mal's watching this. Going, damn, I wish I was that cool.

You see, she's actually got a rifle holster on her saddlebags.

Scabbard.

It would be a rifle scabbard.

And she takes her cane and she slides it right into the scabbard. It's one of those hooked canes, like the one that you get yoinked off a stage with.

Ah, okay.

That's her beating stick.

So the hook sits just outside, so it's holding the cane right in place. She uses the retention strap to lock the cane in place.

She's like one cowboy hat away from any of them.

Mel absolutely attempts to get on the horse that smoothly and only succeeds in getting herself caught on the saddle horn.

You good. You good, Mel? I like bring mage hand over to like attempt to assist getting her up onto the horn.

Who's touching my butt?

Sorry. Sorry.

Well, ma', am, quite literally nobody.

Sorry.

Mel, tonight, when we get to camp, or no, tomorrow morning, I'll show you. Especially someone as dexterous as you. I'll show you how to get on a damn horse.

You don't put one foot up by your ear and then try.

I'll show you a better way.

I'll show you a better way.

Oh my God.

You ever see the movies where the like John Wayne just grabs the saddle and swings off the ground without putting. I'll show you how to do it.

And I'm not.

Yeah, well, you need to learn this.

You killed down to that one. This came out of left field. It's a very funny image. And Mel is like flexible enough that I can totally picture. Oh, no. God, like melting that shit. I may have attempted to to get on a horse like that once as a child.

A whole new definition of horsing.

Around.

I also got called on the saddle horn.

Yeah, you can totally do that.

Ah, my face hurts now. Good timing.

Well, you guys, you see much to your relief, a very clear driveway headed right back to the road.

Oh, good. Wow.

And you set off back onto i80.

Yep.

And that's where we'll call this episode Cool. Theater of the Mind presents Retribution is Amanda Arfston as Mel Kelly, Jeremy Arston as Elliot Brandybane, Michael Burnell as Ulnock Vargar Johnson, Michael Downes as James o', Brien, Casey Weingarten as Emory Lee and myself, Mike Schock as your Dungeon Master. We release episodes every two weeks, so our next episode will drop on August 31st, a most fitting of days as it's National Eat Outside Day, which for our heroes is actually really every day. If you want to follow us, our social media and website can be found on our link tree, which can be found in the podcast description. Also in the podcast description you can find a link to Pinecast, as well as our referral code to get you 40% off your first four months of a paid membership, as well as our referral link to Epidemic Sound, which gets you a one week trial period to their excellent platform. Our music this week was sourced from Epidemic Sounds, who we are not sponsored by under the Creative Commons license. The songs used in order are Tenuous Threads by John Bjork, Secret Light by Max Anson, Taking Me High, Taking Me Low, instrumental version by Gold Flow, and a Song instrumental version by Lars Lowe. The Theatre of the Mind theme Ad Break and Outro were written by Mike Shock. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of our collective imagination or are used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual events, places, or people, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.