S1:E27 – A day about town

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Welcome to Theater of the mind, episode number 27. My name's Mike. I'm your Dungeon Master. And this episode's question from the ultimate Campfire RPG card deck by James D'Amato is what was your first heartbreak like? Who was it with? And have you ever broken someone else's heartbreak?

My name is Amanda and I am playing Mal Kelly. Mel I'm going to say that Mel had a steady boyfriend, probably like junior senior year of high school or something like that. And before she went off to college, let's not get into details, but basically things got a little bit rough and he failed to follow through on some promises, which is, in case you haven't noticed, kind of like a don't do that to Mel because it really ticks her off. And then the asshole had the guts to gaslight her, which is another one of those don't do that to Mel. It really pisses her off. And then they went their separate ways. And that's probably why Mel so far has not been engaged since, because so far all of the men in her life have just pissed her off. She might have broken somebody else's heart. She doesn't know. She didn't ask and they didn't tell her.

I'm Jeremy, I'm playing Elliot Brandybane. And Elliot's first heartbreak was in elementary school. There was a neighbor girl that had moved in from out of town and Elliot just thought she was the prettiest thing. And she was his first kiss when they were like fifth grade and except for he missed and kissed her on the nose because he shut his eyes and went in with his eyes shut. It didn't work well. Well later when they went to high junior high school, she wouldn't talk to him anymore. And it broke his damn heart. And for probably and this was unbeknownst to Elliot, but he was one of the last days that he rode the school bus his senior year and there was a girl that had ridden on the school bus with him for like three or four years. And on his last day she walked up to him and said, you know, I've liked you all the years we've been on here and you've never looked at me once. And Elliot wasn't quite sure what to do cause he had stuff on his mind. He was headed into the military and kind of shrugged and walked away. Hindsight says that he might have broken that poor girl's heart. And unfortunately time has made it him that he doesn't remember her name.

Yeah, just shrugs and like, okay, whatever.

Okay, thanks for letting me know.

Have a way.

Bye.

I dated that guy once.

She said something sooner.

Oh, oh, yeah, no, I joined the Air Force. Oh, okay. Bye.

Sorry.

No, literally, unfortunately, I do get that. But I, I, I get it's not. Doesn't make it easy.

Yeah, but that's one of those like, well, maybe you should stop pursuing me when you sign that contract.

No, I'm not moving to Texas.

That's not gonna happen.

I am.

Brunell are playing all knock Vaga Johnson and all knocks. First heartbreak isn't as early as elementary school, but it is late middle school, say eighth grade when his first girlfriend broke up with him. So that he didn't really know how to handle that. We know from previous backstories that romantic relationships have not been swimmingly well for olnock, but, you know, that was his first one. Just being broken up with was hot. And it hurt. Right? He acted like it didn't. Cause, you know, that's just, that's what we do, you know. But it did. It hurt. And then whether he's broken hearts or not, he can say with defeat, definitive and decise precise, decisive, fucking whatever word. Anyway, all of them absolutely has broken hearts. There was a girl by the name of Winter in his junior year of high school that he tried to break up with in person. But she wouldn't fucking let it go over the phone. So he had to break up with her over the phone. And it was very awkward and she was very upset and she cried. He didn't care anymore. Cause she was an asshole. But, you know, definitely broke her heart.

We say, sorry, I'm really more of an autumn.

No, because this isn't my color. This is based off of a real person. So no, he can't say that.

Yeah, I was gonna say, do we learn more about our characters or each other? On I totally made that at 4:00.

Had to kick Winter out of his car because she was being very difficult on a particular date night. Anyway, it's not important. That's a story for another time. The most decisive heartbreak, though, will be.

Addressed at another time.

Ooh, intrigue.

It's a bad one. Anyway.

Hello, I'm Downes and I'm playing James O'Brien. And James had his heart broken in high school pretty late in the game, you know, went to the carnival beginning of summer, senior year, and went with his high school sweetheart to the carnival and tried to win her a stuffed animal. Failed miserably at it. Because they're rigged.

Yes.

And decided that he was going to break into the carnival later, steal it, steal a present for her, and then went to give it to her the next day and found her with another guy.

That bitch.

Bastard cheated like an animal.

Did he keep it or did he burn it?

Oh, he burned it, of course. And then led to James.

Life of crime, it says. Beginning of his villain arc.

He ran away from home.

No.

Then after the whole culinary school debacle, Jim's was beginning his life moving from town to town.

That was the best sound.

Try to stir my coffee.

It spilled on me. All right.

I forgot what I was saying after this.

What about culinary Culinary school?

Deboss.

Yeah. And he was making his way from town to town. A diner that he was working at for quite a while. He was making good friends with a gal that was working back there, too. She was a line cook. Swore that they were gonna leave together. But one of his attempts to acquire things went south, and he had to skip town and wasn't able to get to her before he had to leave town.

I find that incredibly hard to picture. All of your heads go so smoothly.

I can't picture you every time. There's no way he could fail.

Are you sure his background is thief?

His background is attempting thief.

Attempted thievery, attempted attempted theft.

He's got a long record of breaking an engine.

He occasionally leaves the building with the thing that he went for.

Occasionally.

Someone.

At the very least, a thing.

You know, Also, the only reason why that. That whole liquor store thing went south is because someone else made noise.

Hey, you know.

You sure it was someone else?

I'm pretty sure it was.

I was pretty sure it was you, but, you know, maybe I'm wrong.

I don't remember.

But anyway, yeah, James wound up having to skip town before he was able to meet back up with her.

Cool. I'm Casey. I play Emery Lee.

Cool.

I didn't know how to follow that. I'm sorry. Emery has the high charisma. I struggle. I think Emery hasn't had a lot of serious relationships. I think that she had a couple of flings in college with one girl or another that just kind of didn't really go anywhere and weren't very serious. And then she didn't stay in school and kind of fell out of contact with her college friends. And so I don't think that she was necessarily heartbroken by any of those, but I think sometimes she gets a little wistful thinking about, like, well, maybe if things had gone another way, things would have been different.

But the what ifs really catch up to you.

Yeah, exactly. I think that in high school she probably broke a couple people's hearts because again, before you realize that you're queer and you're trying out relationships with people and they don't work and you're not into them, it hurts people.

Yeah, it is very hard to be that clean.

Yeah.

So I don't know why I'm not into this.

I am not at all.

For me, you're really into it.

Bye.

Yeah, hers is a different version. Like, sucks to suck.

Right?

Like later.

Yeah.

I've got to be honest though. That can happen another relationship in like straight relationships too. Absolutely into this. And I totally never want to kiss you again. Absolutely.

Yeah. Yeah. It's not exclusive to the queer experience.

But it's just harder.

You disgust me.

Right?

Like, yeah, well, I mean, not necessarily, but extreme.

But there's definitely moments where you're like, I'm really sorry, but no, this is.

No, I thought so. I thought maybe, but no. So let's, let's move on. Oh, that really hurt you. My bad. I'm going to not talk to you again. Sorry.

Can we shake on that? Just friends? No. No pen pals? No. Okay, bye.

Okay.

I'll just disappear from your life forever. Ok, fine.

We don't have to talk.

It's cool.

So, yeah, awesome. I too don't know how to follow this.

It's weird. It's weird.

Yeah. Glad to know that we're all relationship challenged.

Frankly, what's harder is when you've had more life experience than your character and you're like, yeah, no, that doesn't apply.

I gotta walk it back.

Where?

Okay, how far?

And just to be fair, this is a group of people who very quickly and willingly abandoned their lives to go on a cross country jaunt to do a magical quest to save the world.

BIP is almost, of course, relationally challenged.

It's true. Nobody expected us to be normal.

Yeah.

None of us went kicking and screaming.

We didn't have people waiting for us at home.

So just leave the bowl here.

No contact.

It's like that chick working for NASA who's going to get launched into space and she knows she's not coming back and finding that big surprise by, oh, you don't have a husband. Yeah, no, this is a person who doesn't have earthly attachments. Yeah.

She's like, launch me into space, I don't care.

Right.

Like there's she doesn't got much going for her, I would imagine.

I'm not depressed though. But like, you know, I don't have kids because I don't drink espresso. Oh, yeah.

No attachments for sure.

Cool. Let's go ahead and roll for recap.

Yeah, recap. Like five episodes.

Five.

Seventeen.

That 20. Where the fuck was that last episode?

Six 12.

I rolled another 11.

All right, all right.

So that's me.

You actually earned this right now.

I did not. Just by virtue of having notes.

I'm sorry. I'm like.

It's like I did my best. I think halfway through, stop. And James.

I don't remember what happened after that.

So I was at least cognizant for the last episode. Yeah.

So this last episode kind of covered our travel between the horse rescue and Kremling. So we were following the Colorado River. We used some cool new travel rules for some skill challenges. James saw a flaming flying horse with a rider go from east to west across the sky that we're fairly certain is as Ash Raphael. Then Mel confronted her patron in the shadows right outside of camp and punched him in the gut and dislocated his elbow and told him to fuck off. Elliot learned a cool new spell and we finished our travel, arrived in Kremling. We're planning on going into town to accomplish a couple goals. And we are currently being approached by a woman with a rifle on a horse.

Also, old Knock and James learn that we cannot fly, but apparently Melanie can like float down like a freaking fairy.

She knows how to land without hurting herself. That's more. That's more how that went.

I was gonna land on Ulnagh, but there's not enough cushion to. That's.

I probably would have broke your fall. You'd have been all right.

Oh, you would have broken something.

You both would have taken that 15 damage.

Right? You would have still taken the damage and all.

Nux would have taken it twice.

Yeah, that's where we left off.

Excellent. So yes, a let's say late 30s, early 30s. Each woman is coming up and on horseback. She has a rifle resting on her thigh with barrel hand. Sheriff. Right in the folks kind of pose.

Does she have like one of those stars, like old school, the deputy?

No, she's not. She's approaching you guys. This is very clearly not an aggressive, but it's very clearly directed at you guys. She is coming to you. And she hollers out as she's approaching. Howdy, folk.

Hello.

Yeah, we have a wave.

Yep. Mel waves enthusiastically as bubbly as she could manage.

Hi.

Howdy.

How you doing, ma'am?

I feel like I need to point out that before we entered city limits, we pocketed the broom and got Jacob back on a horse.

Absolutely.

Probably the first time in like three days.

He's super sad. He's all bummed out. Right.

Yeah. Jacob's on the horse in front of me. Low whatever.

He's probably got blisters in places.

Yeah.

I can understand why he doesn't want to get off of it though.

What brings you folks to our small town here?

We're mostly passing through on our way east. So this was. Try not to take the interstate. Lots of mess down there.

So understandable. We've had a lot of folks coming up from that direction. We haven't had anybody coming out from middle of nothing.

We got a little crossed up.

Yeah. Yeah. You guys took a. At least recently a hard trip up this way. There's not a whole lot of anything you're coming from.

Beautiful ride though.

Yeah, I believe that. A lot of good hunting territory.

Yeah.

Now you guys are just wanting to pass on through.

Pretty much. We were hoping maybe to make use if there's any kind of forge, blacksmith, mithery. Kind of make use of some of that.

But we should probably check the horse's shoes too while we're here.

Other otherwise we're pretty much moving on through. Not planning on sticking around very long.

We'd consider barter for some odds and ends. Our companion here could use a change of clothes. He was in a kind of a rough spot when we picked him up. Yeah, you know, a few other type things.

Weird time of year to be dressing up for Halloween.

Like he's like. We said he was in a rough spot and made do with what he could find.

Fair enough. Fair enough. Well, welcome to the town of Kremlin. If you're looking for a farrier, we got a. Got a makeshift farrier set up up on the north side of town here. Moved them up. We moved one into town here. It's kind of makeshift. It wasn't really intended for that purpose. We used to prefer to ride our dirt bikes. ATVs out here, but they ain't working no more. So to bring the farrier out from the ranches and a little bit closer in town, we do have the Kremlin Mercantile open. Feller named Phil Dunlaps out there. He's got some. Some of the way of clothes. Not exactly gonna be your. Your high flutin places like a. Like a Kohl's or a Target, but Might be able to get you hooked up with some Fred.

Oh, I need a cowboy hat like that.

You think we could find another pair of boots for you? All knocks and she wore out your old ones.

Yeah, it's crazy how that happened.

That was. That was crazy. I think they had some worse boots.

Out there if you didn't wolf down your food so much.

Yeah, most awkward response to that comment I could possibly imagine.

Yeah, so we got. We got a couple odds and ends. We might. Might be able.

Okay, pick up now if you folks end up needing some sleep, the Blue River Inn is accepting guests currently sleeping in.

That might be. That sounds fantastic.

My boy Chance, I think is who's working up there. All right. If you guys need a bite to eat, the big Rifle Cafe is open. Feller named John McCann and can hook you up with some grub. And the farrier's name is Phil.

All right, Phil, was the guy at the.

Ma'am your name?

All right, my name. I'm Liz Duchenne.

Nice to meet you, Liz.

Nice to meet you folks as well.

Yeah, we're. I'm Emery. That's Mel, Elliot, Olnock, James, Jacob and Jeff.

Wow, that's a lot of chase.

Yeah, we got a lot of chase.

Pleasure to meet you folks. I will say there's not a whole heck of a lot here. We're pretty much just hunkered down taking care of ourselves out here.

Yeah, for sure.

We're getting a lot of folks coming up from the. From the south, from the east, trying to get away from big cities. That's what we're hearing. That's what we're hearing.

Is. Is there anyone from out east still in town?

Oh, without a doubt. I'm sure you'll run into them either at the cafe or the hotel.

We'll have to keep an eye out then cuz we're heading that direction. It might be worth getting some recent news out of those areas.

Yeah, if that's the direction you're wanting to head, I would recommend talking. What you guys coming from back west you got. Is there any. How's things out that way?

We haven't caught too terribly many of the towns we. Last major place we stopped at was Rifle. They're doing okay out there in Rifle.

Got a nice bartering system going.

Yeah, they ran into some odd happenings with some wild animals, but that has since been under control. Have you had anything like that happen here?

Well, there's. There's tail cougar taking down some beer and down. You know folks, dogs go missing On a regular.

Are there rare cougars? Is that a thing here?

Cougars. Here is where they were.

Sorry. She's been. She's been on a horse for a minute.

What the hell does that have to do with anything?

All right, well, that's good to know. Well, I mean we'll probably definitely take it on the in if there's Cougar.

Yeah. I don't want to go camping, but is.

Is there. Is. Is.

Would there happen to be like a hospital around?

Yeah, yeah. We got the Kremlin health camp. Hospital's a bit generous, but you know, we can patch up most wounds and whatnot out here.

Cool.

And any. Any. Any strange happenings.

At the hospital? What do you. What do you ask?

I. I don't really know what you've experienced up here, but if I'm going to be honest with you, we've dealt.

With some weird stuff.

Oh, that's the one.

Yes.

Those are the ones. We're not trying to.

I wasn't sure if you. I didn't. I didn't want to sound crazy.

We're still not used to the whole those things being a common conversation and.

We really didn't want to scare you off if that hadn't been a thing that had happened yet. And so we were trying not to bring it up.

Oh no. Yeah, no, that's an issue.

Okay.

We just don't go to any of the outlying ranches anymore. Cuz you're a little fun grab bag that you don't know what you're walking into anymore. That's fair.

So that's something we need normal conversation about just now. I know this is amazing. Have you run across like any were creatures? Not here creatures, but were creatures. Or what about bears with wings or an owl head?

Yeah, we ran into a bear that had like the face of a big ass owl. I know it sounds weird, but we've already. Zombies are a thing we've done.

We've done zombies. We did some weird scary black ghost critter things.

Stay away from those.

Yeah, they hurt. If you have silver.

I feel like Emery involuntarily shutters on.

We'll say if you haven't figured this out yet. If you have silver, that hurts those things.

Yeah. We started burying the dead with silver stakes.

Okay.

To keep them nailed to the top.

Yeah. Y'all catch on quick. That's good like this.

Yeah, we appreciate that.

There's not a lot of us. We can't afford for the dead to make more dead of us.

That is the problem.

We run out of folks mighty quick.

Yeah.

Even I know that's not good math.

Yeah. At our peak, we were at about 1600. Wow. Fair few folk decided to leave town because, again, there's a lack of resource out here. We got water. You can grow stuff if you work really hard. It's a hard area to grow in. Very rocky soil, very arid, and a.

Very short growing season.

Yeah. So there's a lot of folk that decided it'd be better to just be. Move on. We still. There's still some of us.

It's good to know. So full disclosure, then. We're looking for some kind of forge setup so we can work on silvering some of our weapons. We have a couple that we defend ourselves with, but we're trying to kind of expand. We've got. We've got our own silver.

Oh.

But.

Okay.

Just need. Got very small setup for working with at the moment.

Very.

A lot easier to do in a larger permanent setup.

Fair. Yeah. Our farrier there, he's been turning out. Turning out a bunch of silver nails, silver arrowheads, things of that nature. Once we got on top of the initial issues, we haven't seemed to have a whole heck of a lot of currents. That said, we pulled out just about every book in the library had to do with supernatural. And we've done just about everything that any of them books said you should do. Our burial processes are quite extensive now. They take a hot minute.

Sorry. Do you guys have a list of supernatural things that does and does not actually work?

We're not sure what is working.

Just kind of doing all.

Something in our soup. Oh. Keep you dead.

Patent pending.

We salt the corpse. We nail it down with spikes. We soak it in holy water.

We cut its head off.

Yeah, we cut its head off. We've been pulling out the canines, so.

A whole smattering of.

We've been binding their wrists.

Not worth. Just like burning the bodies.

We've done that some. Every now and again, the ghosts come back.

Really? Oh. And they don't. From the other one. From those they haven't. All right, that's good to know.

If we're full disclosuring and whatnot with, like, the whole zombie thing. There's a group of individuals that are way up that way that you probably shouldn't deal with.

Zombies.

No, no.

Cultists.

Yeah, it's a cult that they kind.

Of worship the zombies. It's kind of not great.

Yeah. And there's a chance they might head this way. I suggest getting rid of them. To the best of your Abilities socially or otherwise. Whatever. Fortune.

Yeah, we.

How will we recognize him?

Well, we rescued Jeff from them.

They wear those kinds of robes, Jeff.

I'm supposed to watch out for the folks you're bringing into my town.

Well, just this one. And he's performed. Yeah, that's the right one.

He helped us escape from them. And we helped him escape from them.

Yeah, we helped him escape. Je. Jeff, show him.

He's a recovering cultist.

Got to go to. See.

That'S where you learn to get. You. Get yourself respect back.

He does. He picks his head off as you start talking. Liz, visibly shocked by the sheer volume of scar. Visible scar tissue on the back of his head.

He didn't want to stay there, I don't think.

Yeah, no, it looks rough. Y'all. Y'all worship zombies.

It. They worship the guys that create the zombies.

Yeah.

Yes, yes.

Like your stereotypical.

I mean.

Yeah.

Yeah, I guess. Yeah, Jeff, you probably can answer that better.

It's quite complicated, as most cults are.

Yeah. How much do the heads want me to fill her in on?

I would say the basics, buddy. I don't need to go deep.

Like paint a picture with a really big paintbrush on a very small canvas.

I like that metaphor.

I'm proud of that.

Well, there's a new God named Moratar. He's got an under God named Lord Ashraphael. They bring dead people back to form his army, and he's going to conquer your country.

At least that's what the cult believes.

Yeah, that's who we're running.

Because it happens a bunch of times and not here.

How is she taking it?

Yeah, she's.

It sounds insane. We know they're a cult. They like the guy that creates the zombies. They are bad news and they hurt people, and those are the important things to know.

And zombies, frankly, are. I mean, we. With everything else that's gone on, this is not as unbelievable as we want it to be.

No, that's fair. There's a lot of. A lot of crazy. Crazy shit going on out here.

I feel like we should just leave it at that.

Yep. Yeah, that's probably good.

You can stop talking, Jeff. That'd be great.

Well, okay. So they all wear black robes, like this guy.

Some of them wear red robes.

Some wear red robes especially.

Stay away from those guys.

Red robes are the scary ones.

Yeah. The other ones are, man, they're.

The black robes are the underlings. The red robes.

Gotcha.

Candlesticks work great on him. It's fine.

You see a horse?

That's on fire. Do not engage.

Yeah.

Absolutely not.

Remember that whole thing where I said leave it at that?

I felt like that was a necessary warning.

Short version is that the zombies are only the tip of the bad stuff. Iceberg. And we are very much trying to both not be involved and also keep you from being involved. Hence the warning. We will also endeavor to spend short period of time here.

Hope we will make as little waves as possible.

Hopefully be on our way tomorrow.

Fantastic. That's the kind of folks I like.

So we should probably stop this conversation before we talk ourselves out of a nice, warm bed.

Yes, yes. And a foundry, which we need more than the warm bed. I can't even believe I'm saying this.

So. Well, folks, as you can see, this ain't a particularly large town. I can guide you around or. Pretty sure you guys can find your way. Look for the paved road. Most of the places I told you about. Sonic.

Cool. All right, well, thank you very much.

If anybody asks, Liz said you're good to be around. We are kind of trying to check who's coming in and out.

You know, that's a good fair.

Oh, it's fair. So, all right, y'all have a good rest of your day. Maybe I'll see you later.

Yeah, thanks.

You as well.

Have a great day, ma'am.

Kind of waves the rifle barrel general, like, not at you. Just kind of shakes it in your direction and puts the horse off at a. Rides off in a leisurely fashion as if she is continuing her perimeter check.

That's what she's doing.

Oh, it was so nice to have a normal conversation with a human being. Not trying to kill us.

Not having to explain that magic is real. Really?

Well, not necessarily, because they still didn't understand the whole weird owl thing. To be fair, I don't really fully accept the whole.

They already knew about the zombies, though, so that's ahead of rifle.

You know, I'm not gonna lie. If you had told me before the power went out that there were giant bears that lived in the forest that had beaks and wings, I might have believed you. Like, I don't know what lives in the forest.

Not those.

As a chef who spends the majority of his time in a kitchen, I can say with absolute certainty that before all of this, those didn't exist.

Well, I don't know. Maybe it's like those fish that they thought were extinct for, like, a millennia.

Well, that's because that's the ocean, and the ocean's terrifying.

What? Oh, my God. Can you imagine what must live in the ocean now.

Oh my God.

They're by the actual sea monsters.

Ooh, glad we're in a landlocked state.

Could the Kraken be real?

Oh, don't put that out there.

Just like that. There you hear a little bell at the Kraken coastal.

That's really bad. For all of my fellow navy guys that were in the ocean.

Do their ships even work at this point?

They would not. No, they're nuclear powered, but all power is out.

Worse and bigger problem, they're just hanging.

Out in the ocean.

I never thought I'd say with a.

Kraken or is big enough.

Yeah, I'm sad to say it. They were before the Kraken.

The Kraken might be a blessing, honestly.

Well, let's hope that they're Kraken lacking.

It will be well fed.

Unfortunately, we ride into town in silence after that terrible joke.

Hey, Jacob, maybe they have more books. Do you think that. What else do you like to read besides Captain Underpants?

What?

Sorry, I was just going to mention that we still have the Spider man comics and whatnot too.

No, I just thought he might want something new, fresh.

Yeah, I don't know. I don't honestly read a whole lot.

Oh, well, maybe we'll find something that.

Is now the American pastime. Yeah, I think.

Well, we don't have time for that.

The last time there was a baseball game, a dude walked out of a portal, so.

Fair point.

Actually, I thought that was a sports ball game.

No, that was baseball.

I'm pretty sure that's sports ball.

All right, well, I think first stop maybe to the inn and then book a room, drop off some stuff and then take the horses to the farrier.

Yeah, actually, you know what? Maybe we should just go straight to the farrier. That way in case something goes off, we still have all of our. I don't know.

I mean, if I'm. If I'm going to be working on stuff there, it's going to take me a while, so you guys would be better off doing other stuff around town while. While I'm silvering stuff.

Okay.

I assume we've been checking the horses like every day, right?

Oh, every time we stop. Every time we stop, we check horses.

So it's not like. Like, whoops, this one looks like it threw a shoe like three miles ago.

All right, so you guys make your way. We settled on farrier or hotel first?

I think so.

Hotel. Holidays.

We would know if. We would know if the horse is needed.

I mean, the shoes are getting wore it. It Wouldn't hurt to replace them.

All right, cool. I think it's worth ditching a good chunk of our stuff.

And Elliot says I could do it, but I only do about three horses a day. And that's not while we're traveling a good shore. Could do all of them in one day.

Yeah.

So you guys basically head de north whopping six blocks.

So the other end of town, are.

We uptown or downtown?

And you find yourselves on Park Avenue, which is also Highway 40, which is also Main Street, I think. Yeah, yeah. And I lied. I apologize to any of our listeners in Kremlin. They have more paved roads than I thought they did.

Oh, wow. Wow.

They're getting big from all they started.

Paving at Grand Avenue. Oh, Grand Avenue, Eagle Avenue, and then Park Avenue. Oh. Six patrons, five patrons.

Fancy.

But it's also pretty obvious that you hit the highway because CDOT's in charge of the highway. The paving quality is noticeably different. I'm not gonna necessarily say better, but it is noticeably different when you hit the highway. There's like painted lines and stuff. Again, I don't say any of this to Bash, just facts. And one block due west, you guys find yourselves at the Blue River Inn. And you can see the Blue River Inn has got a. They've kind of made a makeshift stables out of the building next door. It used to be an auto repair shop. Not a lot of need for that anymore. So they've. You can see that they have wheeled all the vehicles they could out of the way and they've just. It's not what you would consider like great stables. There's definitely not enough stables for everybody in the hotel to have one, but it's something. And it is a single store. Nope. Two story building with a big old red hotel sign up front.

Figured the sign would be blue.

Yeah.

It'S probably a historical site now because it's been up since the 60s or something else that's like. Honestly not that I know any towns that do that.

And it's got a couple of cutesy little shops on the first. So there's a florist, a haberdasher, and then, yeah, like I say, next door they've taken their auto repair shop and they've turned it into a makeshift state.

I'm definitely gonna stop, hop with that haberdasher and get myself a cowboy hat.

Okay, so you guys go into the hotel?

Yeah, I think so.

Yeah.

There is a young blonde man behind the counter. Looks very reminiscent of the horse backed, rifle carrying woman. And he says, welcome into the Blue River Inn.

Are you a chance?

I am.

We ran. We ran into Liz outside of town. She mentioned you by name.

Ma. Yeah, she tosses my name around. Yeah. Yeah. So all right. You've already gotten the pre qualification or whatever you want to call it. You guys are going to be in town then? Yeah, if mom told you my name.

At least for the afternoon and evening.

Yeah, we're hoping only to be here for one night, so.

Okay.

Well, we would love to book some rooms.

How many are you looking at?

How? Well, I guess the best question first would be how are we bartering for these kinds of things? What are you guys taking as payment?

Yeah, we're going to need six beds.

Six beds?

Yeah.

Seven, I mean, I guess.

Oh, seven beds?

Yeah, I mean I got about. Jacob can pull up a couch or something.

Jeff's paying for his own bed with.

Jeff has nothing.

I mean. Okay. Jacob and I will share a room.

And I'll just have him pull up.

A couch or something.

We have a roll away.

Perfect.

Don't have to make beds. That puzzle.

Next episode Find out how will they all sleep in the inn tonight?

Really Enough. I don't feel like that's very intriguing.

Adequate accommodations for a party of this size. We're taking barter. Do you guys have anything worth bartering? We're taking. We're willing to trade in silver. We're willing to trade in some gold. Silver is the preferred though. Gold. Gold doesn't seem to have a whole lot of use yet, but we'll take it because it's. You know, things are going to come back eventually. We hope. Gold at least used to matter for some reason. Yeah, we could work on the favor system. We've been doing a little bit of that, but we prefer. Save that for the folks we know.

Yeah, understandable.

We're some pretty mean coffee roasters if you've got a place in town.

You know, the folks over at the Big Rifle Cafe might could use that.

Okay.

But unfortunately they don't pay for hotel beds either.

Makes sense.

Yeah. Well, give us a second. Hold on. We gotta kind of confer a little bit.

I need to find.

He goes into a NPC loading screen.

Just say circle above his head.

Starts going through his default animations.

Well, we've got some silver ore. Yeah.

I don't necessarily want to give up our silver resource though.

Well, that's true if we.

Especially if we're going to be doing some arrows with it. I'd like to keep some on hand that we.

I agree.

However, if all we end up of value. We unfortunately don't really have time to do the work. So if we end up having to pay and if the only thing we've got was the silver, I say trade the ore off first and keep the already processed silver for our work.

Yeah, that makes sense.

Yeah. I don't know much else. What we currently really have to trade.

We've got those gold coins.

Wait, didn't we have somebody that could fix something?

Oh, yeah. You can mend things.

Broken. That's something we could probably do fairly quickly.

Yeah.

Those are the only ideas I have on what we got really to trade.

Okay.

Are we really going to want to flaunt magic stuff?

I have kale chips.

If we can trade kale chips, that'll be the best.

I've got to be honest, I haven't tried to eat them in a while, but I have them.

Those are now zombie kale chips.

I'm just so excited. Nobody landed on my pack at the cults place, so they didn't even get crushed.

Those went bad before you opened.

Oh, they're fine. They don't expire for like another month. It says so right on the package.

I think we'll turn back to chance and say, all right, so we've got a couple of options here. I've got some pretty handy fixing skills. I'm real good at mending whatever needs mending. I would be happy to do some work trade that way. We do have some silver ore with us. Silver? Like unprocessed silver? It has not been refined yet. Bad joke not acknowledging it. I'm breezing right past and we got some gold coins.

Oh, and if we're trading skills, I could give everybody some rudimentary martial arts lessons.

Yes. So, I mean, I would much prefer the work trade. That would be the easiest option for us. But we understand if there's not much around that is useful in that way and it's truly like things that you thought were broken. Broken and could not be fixed. Like, I can probably figure that out.

Unless they're electrical, nobody can fix it.

Oh, not electrical, but yep.

Got your hopes up there, buddy. I saw it. I'm sorry.

Yeah, no, that would be pretty.

If the screen's crack ship, it's like magic.

Well, we have. I think we got some broken stuff. We could maybe make that work for some of the beds. Got silver or.

Yes.

I don't know how to smell.

It's useful for trade with other people though. Like you don't have to smelt it yourself.

Traded in for some silver Nails from the farrier. Whose name I said? Bill. Bill.

Bill.

Bill. The farrier. All right. Yeah, I think between. What are we talking about? How much silver? Talk like a pebble. Are we talking about older?

Smallish. Smallish piece.

Smallish piece.

We'll say a couple hand size.

Okay. I don't know if that's a lot or not. I don't know how much silver's in, but we'll say that honestly. Our back stairwell, the outside stairwell, has it been safe for a long time. All right, you think you can fix that? If you could get that safe, we'll pull it square. You can get it at least usable. We'll trade it in silver.

All right.

If you get safe, then we'll just be square.

Let's go. See what I can do about that then, and we'll get back to you.

All right, I will be here.

Well, back in a few.

Oh, God.

I feel like you're having a hard time adjusting, buddy.

This town was boring before.

Now you can't even ride the dirt bike.

Can't ride the dirt bikes, can't watch tv.

You could go rafting and then hike back.

Oh, yeah, no, I'm getting farther and farther from home very fast.

Very fast. You know, and those rafts are heavy.

You should try to organize. The weather's getting nice. You should try to organize baseball game in the afternoons.

Yeah, Yeah, I think we have enough.

Yeah. There you go.

I know it's not much consolation, but the rest of the world is not much better than here. If anything, this. This place is kind of haven to what's out there.

I miss boring.

It's nice to have a peaceful place.

Yeah, boring is not a horrible thing.

Luckily, y'all aren't trying to kill each other like they probably are in Denver, so.

Yeah.

God, some of the stories I'm hearing from there.

Well, I mean, it's Denver. They were all trying to kill each other before anyway.

Well, that's true.

Them city folk. Crazy folk. All right, let me know what you guys find with that stairwell, and I'll be here. Oh, hey, sorry there, listener. I'm still trying to learn how to drive. It's not going super. But before I go again, Ms. Mel and Mr. Elliot told me to tell you guys that you should go to their link tree in the podcast description and follow them on their social medias, which is odd because they should know that computers are broke. But they also said you should follow them on their Patreon, which is currently free, but we'll have some awesome bonus content. Coming soon. Also, I heard from Emery that we are trying to show support to other creators in the TTRPG space. So we will be showcasing more content like James D'Amato's Ultimate RPG Campfire Card Deck to help show some alternative sources. And as always, the crew wanted me to tell you to support your local game store. Without them, this hobby wouldn't exist in the way it currently does. They also wanted me to make sure I tell you thank you for your continued support. We very much enjoy getting to share our story with you, and we hope you enjoy listening to it. But it's starting to get dark and the smell gets worried when I'm gone for too long, so bye.

All right, so we'll go around back, take a look at the stairwell. Mending is only a can trip. Depending on how bad the stairwell is, we might have to do a little bit of physical labor on this as well.

Hold pieces up together to. To do the mending.

It's rough.

Yeah, we're just going to have to do a lot of mending.

Do you want. Do you want me, like, is this something like if with enough time roll Mending takes one minute to cast with. With enough time.

Like an inch or.

A foot in any dimension.

So I mean, basically one break per casting of the spell.

Okay.

So if, like. I don't know, I'm think picturing of stairwells. If you've got, like, beams broken, if you get it pushed back together, you could do like, one piece at a.

Time, I'd say with a couple of folks helping physically position, knock down.

Okay, so we probably spent like half an hour on this thing and then. Well, I think James, run up that thing, test out its sturdiness.

Why me?

I'll run up it.

I'll do it.

I'm late.

I'll do it. I'm just.

We should make all knock, honestly.

No, no, no, no. We need all knock to help push things into place.

Yeah, all knocks gonna fifi fuck it up.

Okay, fine.

Like, not falling off. Shit. So.

But that would test its stability and safety.

Okay, how about we start with me. If it works for me, then we go to James, and then we'll go to all knock lab.

Progressively get heavier.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay, perfect.

Test it out.

I'm gonna run up and down the stairs a couple of times.

A feather fall.

Yeah, it's. It holds.

Okay, James, Kara, run up and down the stairs.

And then I walk, you know, like pushing down on each step.

I like the music Roll.

For squeaky stairs.

You only do acrobatic so I'm surviving.

It's. It's more on the magic side. Right.

That's.

What.

Like, if we have enough time, I can just cast it a shitload of times.

Yeah.

I mean, we could decide whether or not. James.

Perception.

That's not one of my good ones.

How about investigation?

That's not much better. Can I have advantage? Because people are helping me.

Sure.

Yeah.

We're all staring at it, doing that whole thing where you look at it.

Intelligence is not my spell casting here. I did not stat this character with that. Well, I didn't roll well.

Okay.

Can I intimidate the stairs into working.

Up and down specific step.

I would like to persuade them it.

Works as well as persuading the path. Did.

Or trying to stealth past a mountain.

Yes.

We'll say you did a pretty. You. You wouldn't necessarily.

If you let me use my spell casting modifier. It's a 12.

Okay. Ever.

So I didn't roll great.

Yeah. I mean, it doesn't. We'll say it doesn't necessarily look great.

Yeah.

It's not the prettiest thing ever.

Ah.

It just needs new cold paint.

You weren't. You guys are in a group of structural engineers, so maybe not all the support beams got fused back to one of the original. Might be a little wonky Tetris, like pasta noodles.

But everything's attached and it's not falling off the building.

Right.

Never trusted stairs. They're always up to something or down to no good.

Terrible.

But yeah. So you guys are returned to chance.

Yeah.

He comes out, he takes a look. He's like. Oh, they look a hell of a lot better than they did before.

Was his name Chase? No, it's been ch. Oh, I'm sorry. I must have misheard.

I might have missed.

Now I may have misheard.

I wrote it down.

It's chance now.

Okay.

There's a chance. It was Chase. Ah.

But not a Chase. It was.

No, I wrote it down.

Sorry. That. That's me.

Now that we've said his name a couple of times, I apologize.

Yeah. I might need a. Might need some sanding and some new.

Paint, but should hold at least something that if things go sideways, folks can get out of this hotel alive.

Yeah, We.

That's really the goal here.

That's preferable.

Absolutely.

Weirdly, now that we don't have to worry about health inspectors, this all matters because if you get injured, you might just be screwed now. So stay that way. So thank you, folks. Yep. You guys are. We got accommodations for you tonight. That's squared away.

Perfect.

Awesome.

Thank you very.

We appreciate that.

Haha.

And complimentary of staying here, you get to use the stables next door.

Oh good.

We do. It's. It's byoh.

Yeah, yeah, we're happy to do the.

Bring your own horse or bring your own own hay. I mean of course we'd bring our own horse.

I meant hay, but I guess both.

Oh I. I heard it as horse.

Yeah, I heard horse.

Yeah, of course. Bring your own horse. What do I need to stay b y. Bring your own horsey.

Hay.

Horse and hay.

Oh we got. We got both. We got enough hands to take care of the horses. We just need place to put them.

We don't have a stable boy or nothing. But it's at least it's a place that I personally lock at night so your horses are secured inside safe.

Perfect.

I relatively speaking we do not guarantee anything.

Guarantee there's some weird going down don't exist.

Fair. Understood.

But with that said, young man, if anybody ever comes up to you in a creepy way and offers to sign a contract, read your terms and conditions. That's my life advice now.

All right.

Read the rules.

Thank you young lady. I will do that.

Sorry I've been hanging around Elliot to block.

Got to hand out the wisdom when you can. Yeah, well I think we'll probably take our room keys. We've got some business want to do in town while we're around people.

Just out of curiosity, how many rooms were we able to procure?

Enough.

Cool.

You got rooms that you're all going to sleep really comfy tonight.

Okay.

Three probably.

Three.

That's with a rollaway. Yeah, they're all twins. There's two twins per room. So it's the shiny and a roll away.

Cool.

Cool. So you have lodged. You want to go to the ferrier next chance tells you exactly how to get uniform area. You guys are able to make it all the way across town up the two more paved roads takes you to the edge of Kremlin.

And on the way up there I'm going to tell Emory farriers are going to have you know, blacksmithing equipment because that's how they do their job and luckily all the stuff they use, it doesn't involve electricity anyway. Yeah so he's going to be pretty busy so you guys should probably see if you can talk him into letting you do some work while he's working on the horses.

Awesome. Yeah.

Flutter your eyelashes after somebody, that's my job. She's the reception.

I'm the good cop, bad Cop.

Yeah. I persuade them, she deceives them.

If I thought it would do any good, I'd flutter my eyelashes put. I'm pretty sure that's not gonna help.

Please don't flutter anything at anyone after this morning.

That's why I'm hanging out in the back of the group back here.

So his directions lead you directly to the school in town. That's. You can see the school's got a cool little mini book, live background behind it. Not unlike, honestly, the desert here. It's very, very similar junction just. Sure. But you can. I mean, it's pretty easy to figure out where this dude's at. Loud clinging noises and a pillar of some smoke coming up. So you guys are able to find Bill the blacksmith. And he's. He's working away. He's got a. He's got a. He's got a coal furnace set up, a big round dish with a lot of charcoal briquettes. You can see right now he's got his tongs and he's got a hunk of steel. Iron or whatever. Caught a hunk of red metal right now that he's stirring around for the coals. He's very focused, watching. Watching his color on that right now. So he doesn't hear you folks coming up.

Hey.

I'll be with you in just a minute.

Okay.

Gets it to a nice cherry red, not quite turning orange yet. Pulls it out and beats on it for a bit, keeping a real nice rhythm as he's going. Tang, tang, tang. Hitting the anvil when he's not moving. Just keeping his arm going in a constant pop, pop, pop, pop. And he makes it go from basically a square briquette to steel. He looks at it. You can see he's analyzing stuff on it. And he sets it down. It's pretty well dark, dark red. Now he sets it on the anvil. Comes on over to you folks. Can I do your fur?

We've got a couple of. Couple of things. First thing is we want to get our horses reshoed.

All right.

All right.

We've been on the road for a bit and figure it's about time. Yeah.

It's reshod.

Reshod. I'm not the horse expert. He's the horse expert.

That's okay. I'm. I'm coaching. I'm coaching.

Gotta keep the dishings on to the youth. I appreciate.

Yeah. And beyond that, I was hoping I could maybe borrow your smithing section up. We've been. We know you guys have had some issues with the undead here. In your town, we've been trying to keep ourselves armed against them as well. Us. We're looking. I want to get a couple of our weapons silvered and ready.

Fair enough. Fair enough. I. So we. Let's start off with the business here. Reshotting. How many plus all seven.

Yeah.

If there's any of them that if the shoes look okay, they might need reset, but if they're. I'm guessing the ones I've looked at are pretty wore. If you can reset them, reset them. If not, it's. I'll. I'll trust the farrier's judgment on which ones needs reset and which ones need replaced.

I appreciate that. Let me. Let me look at what we're. What we're looking at here. Start talking. I mean, a maximum 28 shoes. They only got four feet. And they all got four feet. You ain't got any tripods after this.

That's good.

Seen enough weird shit. I wouldn't be surprised if bipedal horses were.

Haven't seen those yet.

Sometimes they fly, though. Keep an eye out for those.

You know what. Okey doke. Shredder.

I wonder if those lizards had shoes.

I don't think they.

I don't think you have just shot lizards.

Oh, what you chodama? That's flesh.

Yeah, they don't got. They don't have hooves.

Ow.

Maybe they had like, little protective thingies over their claws, you know, like they do with cats.

Hey, kids, focus.

We're working here.

Right, right, right. Business.

He. He's. He. He. He's already got one of your horses leg up. He's got himself his little. He's just got his file in his hand and he's kind of digging around trying to dig out a little bit of dirt just to see what he's looking at here. He makes his way through, takes him half hour, take a look at all the horses thoroughly comes back over, and we'll say. We're gonna say he rolled five of you. Your seven shot or five purses worth of shoes need to be shot.

20 of the 28 shoes need replaced.

So he tells you that. What. What do you folks got?

Well, first and foremost, I have some smithing experience. I'd be happy to do some work, help you get some stuff set.

She's also really good at fixing things that you'd think would be completely broken, but, like, super fix.

Yep, I've got that as well.

All right.

Other than that, we've got a little bit of gold and we've got a little bit of silver.

Ore, Gold, A little bit of silver ore. Okay.

So if you've got work that needs done, I'm, you know, I'm happy to spend the rest of the day here helping you work through it while my friends are off doing and other business in town.

If we could. Could you borrow the smeltering device? I don't know. I'm not.

I could refine what ore we've got, too.

Well, I was thinking, like, if you were gonna work on our weapons.

Oh, yeah. I'd have to. Yeah.

Yeah.

So she could borrow your facilities for a short period of time for our own work. That would also be very helpful.

Okay. Well, you say you can fix stuff that I thought would be broken?

Yes.

Like what?

Like a broken pair of tongs.

Say, like me, I think maybe, like, I just. Like.

Like, if I was trying to, I got some knives that are cracked. That's so unfortunate.

I think so. Absolutely.

All right. You could do it without my forge?

Yes.

So I could be working. You can fix my knives somehow?

Yep.

All right.

It's hard to explain until you see it happen.

I had a feller from Denver come through, swore up and down that he knew how to forge some shoes. Every one of them cracked. Now, I could reforge them back down into a billet, shape them back out into shoes again, but if you could just make them shoes in one piece.

I should be able to.

Okay. Then they'll just need the grooves set in for the nails and the holes set. You didn't get that far. He broke almost every one of them when he was trying to set the first hole.

I mean, I've never made a horseshoe, but I. Like I said, I've got smithing experience.

I.

Could you show me where they need to go and I can get the rest of them done?

All right. All right. All right. Well, here, fall. He leads you back into the actual school. And you see, he's actually got, like. He's turned the main office area into his storefront, so to speak. So he's got collection of shoes, clutching some blades, and then in the back, he's got himself his trash barrel of broken bits. It's not filled with scrap iron, but there's a. There's a healthy collection of broken shoes and knives and the like.

Yeah.

Oh, also, real quick, Bill, there's a bunch of us that don't have a lot to do, so if you need anything like shoveling coal, kind of drudgery, kind of heavy work, we can be working on that.

Extra hands?

Yeah, yeah, just a bunch of Hands to do stuff like that.

Or if you. If you want us all just out of the way out the forge.

Whatever's best for you buddy.

There you okay. Well.

Would James. Would you be able to sharpen sometimes knives and things? I know how you love sharpening things. If you weird way to see. I I. I don't know. I just. I. I don't.

Yeah, I can. I can hone some stuff.

That big boy there looks like he could be packing a better kind of phrase. Gopher. Yep. Oh. I lift heavy things. There's where I need. Here's where I obviously a little bit of help at the forge. Awesome. If you know how to magically make broken knives. Not broke no more.

Yep.

Dope.

That's exactly the Turner phrase I would use.

And I thought you seem the right age for that.

I meant the magically mending but yeah. Oh oh that too.

I approve of the lingo n the.

Youth'S vernacular with it. Bill.

Grandson'S staying with me. He don't get to leave now. So I'm not gonna lie.

Is that. That that was that what that whole could I do your fourth thing came from? Because frankly that was different but charmingly so.

I'm glad it was charming. I've got back out at my ranch. I. I was a farrier out at a ranch before the folk in town suddenly need any more. Back out at my ranch I got healthy amount of rebar. I use that to stick on the end of my billets when I'm forging them out. This is a hell of a lot harder down without my attack welding.

No.

I've also got a couple more sets of tongs, a couple more hammers. I brought what I needed for fair. I'll allow it. Folks are needing all sorts of metal work so I got my. I got my other pallets out back range. Got a decent stock scrap metal for my couple. You folks wouldn't mind running out to my ranch. I'll tell you where it is. Grab that. That'll be awesome. Save me a trip.

Question. What else is up with your ranch? We heard that a lot. Well no. We heard that a number of the ranches have said spent abandoned due to undead and other people.

I haven't personally made the trip back a couple weeks.

Oh, okay.

Did you un Jacob wanna stick around here then?

Are you sure? We should split up.

Get stuff done. Quaker.

But that's up to the group.

If your ginger colored friend there can sharpen knives that'd be mighty helpful.

He is good at that.

Maybe we help out and then go out or. I. I don't know. I.

That is fair.

Like in bigger numbers.

How far. How far out is the ranch? Because it's run out there first.

A specific amount of time away.

That'll probably kill a good chunk of the afternoon. Be getting back pretty close to back full on.

Yeah. I mean, that's not ideal. Most of you guys could go and then catch the rest of the work later in the afternoon, but then we'd miss out on some prime shopping time.

I mean, right?

And I want to buy a hat.

Damn it. You need one?

Yeah, thanks.

I mean, when you buy that hat.

Bro, could you get me some boots done?

Just in case there's. There's anything out there.

I was.

I got a carry rebar, I thought.

But I mean, I'll be here. He can hang here. He's got his books.

Yeah.

This place is a school. There's all sorts of shit for a kid to be here.

Oh, that's a fair point. Hey, go find some more books. Do you mind?

Yeah, they got a library.

But wait. No, wait, but stay close. Like, don't wander off.

Find some books and then come back.

Yeah, Mel's, like, over here. Wait. Oh, yeah. Go find Bo. No, wait. Don't wander off. No, wait. Stay inside of Emory at all times. Or is that close enough?

Yeah.

How do you keep a close eye on a child?

I don't know how to follow all these instructions at the same time.

I know. I.

Which one do I pick?

I don't know.

Oh, this poor kid.

I can go find a boy.

Go, go. Just stay within sight of us.

Okay?

We'll get you a book before I get started.

Don't worry, okay?

We'll figure it out. So we'll do that. James will sharpen some knives and then.

Honestly, if you were willing to, I could use an afternoon off. If I show you at a fairy. Make a. Make a shoe.

I would prefer to have the experienced farrier shoe our horses, but they are after that.

I'm not going to. I'm not going to ask you to put them on.

No. Yes. Okay.

That you could hurt the animal. I'm going to put them on.

Yes. Thank you.

But if I were to give you an example shoe, could you make more of it?

Probably, yeah. Yes.

This cheap, soft. I don't know if they're hard.

Have you heard of them?

No. They're usually. It depends what you want to do with them, but generally, no. You can forge knives out of horseshoes.

So it's hard in a bowl. Okay.

Just Talk me through the process. I'm pretty sure I can figure it out.

Okay. Because I could honestly use an afternoon. I don't think I've swung the hammer this much.

Yeah, it's a lot of work.

Yep. We had like seven horses at the ranch. I'd have to ferrier down again. I have to take care of an entire town.

Yeah.

That. You definitely needed an apprentice working with you.

That's sick.

Building muscle. Yeah, well, let's work that out. You tell these guys where to pick up stuff. Stuff. I'll work on some of this. Jeff and Jacob can read some kids books in the corner.

Yeah, well.

Oh yeah, let's have the ex cultist.

Jeff can hang out with him while I'm.

There's no way this can go back nearby.

Yes, that's probably fine.

We can keep the NPCs at the.

Forge with no else. Try hard not to be overly like.

Do background animations when you speak.

Yeah, exactly. Exactly.

Turn a page.

Yes. Yeah, that's because Jacob's reading it to Jeff and he has to sound out every word to read out loud.

Yeah. So Jeff can't help.

Yeah, yeah. And then. Yeah, you guys go grab stuff from the ranch and then get some shopping on. If we're not shoeing the horses right now, you could probably take them and get back faster.

Yeah, I think we'll need to take them to get the material.

I ain't caring that shoes.

The horses with the best shoes.

Well, yeah. Well, okay. So we've got three of us and two pack horses. So we can take five of the seven, leave the other two that he can be working on and then we'll take those and.

Cause you saw that he had like. He's got some shoes.

Yeah.

But nowhere near what he needs to do with this.

Cool.

We'll just make sure that we don't leave the two horses that don't need shoes.

Right?

Yeah. Well, you guys go do that and I'll just start.

Cause no, in this group you're right.

Awesome.

Emery starts by digging through the can of scrap and just mending stuff back together.

So he watches you put the knife together and then let go and it stays that way.

You said magically mending shit. That's exactly what it is.

He hand it. Hand it to James. James starts grinding an edge on it.

Yeah.

Little assembly line going.

Yeah.

He did bring out pedal power grinding.

Move that I'm not good with. I'm good with like holding. Yeah.

Oh, that's not sure. Yeah, Just realigning the teeth.

You Learn how to sharpen them properly.

You'll catch on. You'll catch on quick.

Culinary school. I never used a freaking wheel.

No, but you use like whetstones. Yeah.

It's the same concept. It's just a mildly different shape.

Yeah.

If I'm not mistaken. It's even got like water in the bottom that it's.

Yeah. There's a dozen ways they do it. But. Yeah. It's one of the ways. Someone was just an old coffee can on top of the hole. Poked in it. You just don't. It would just kind of stream water as it spun.

There you go.

Yeah. There's a bunch of different ways they're done.

Yeah. Emory's just going to go ahead and get started on what needs started on here.

Miles. Perfect day. Giving Jacob more conflicting directions before someone.

Leaves their boy alone. He'll be all right.

And then as far as the smelting is concerned. Have you done it before?

I watched YouTube videos back when YouTube was functioning.

Okay. I could show you how. I would appreciate that because I am learning. Michael is learning is some chemistry.

Yeah.

That I did not realize. I got a whole list here.

Yeah. Don't. Don't do this for real.

No. This sounds awful. That says a lot of work that I. Yeah. To the extent of. How the. Did they figure this out? How did they ever discover this?

There's a reason. We had a stone age before. A bronze Age.

No. But cool. So.

My work's not the interesting part here.

You get to beating the. Out of a metal.

Yeah.

He is a phenomenal teacher.

Hell yeah.

Rolling that 20.

Because he's nice. Yeah.

Just for the sake of roll a what it was intended to learn.

Yeah.

Usually we'll give you a proficiency because you are a metal worker. It's not like he's teaching somebody who's never seen.

Let me.

Intelligence.

Efficiency. So 3020.

Oh. So yeah. He's able to show you quickly how. How it goes about.

I watched some YouTube videos. It's just the intricate chemistry bits that I'm.

This is the. The casting theme.

Oh, okay.

So you're learning how to. How to make.

Yeah. All right.

He's. He pulls out. He's got the. I'm sure they got a name. Basically calipers with the pointy bit. So he shows you how to scribe where the nail holes will go. He shows you how to use the horn of the anvil to round out the bar stock to make it horseshoe shaped. All the things.

Cool.

It's the extent of line.

Yeah.

Those are things he does. And he shows you how to make a prep. He's got. He's got. It looks like tongs. There's like a point on one of them. He shows you how to use that to hit it. Put divot in the shoe. And then he does some other. A shoe. Maybe he does or doesn't pardon them as per the needs of these horses.

Yeah, he tells me what it needs, what needs to happen. I'm like, all right, cool.

And you, you're immediately like, fuck, yeah.

This is the jam.

I know exactly what you're doing.

Yeah.

And James is sharpening the fuck out of some knives and the trio take off in the direction of the ranch he tells you to go to. And it gives you phenomenal directions because the angry. This man is injurious.

Incredible at getting his book passed.

Yes.

You will take exactly this many steps to the left. Take exactly this many steps.

Oh, shit, that's a paint you're writing. So it's actually going to take this.

And then Mel wanders off in the opposite direction. I swear he said we needed to go this way.

I've received those good directions from people sometimes and it's so nice. Like, oh, thank God.

He's able to tell you cardinal directions.

And landmarks that actually exist.

Yeah, yeah. Landmarks that are still there. Not landmarks from 30 years ago. Turn left at the spot that the ranch with red house used to be.

Turn right next to the cow.

Yeah.

Go by the porch with the stove on it.

Yeah.

Actual directions I've received.

Electric stove.

The porch with the stove on it.

Fireplace stove. Cooking stove.

So you guys want to do the shopping on the way to the ranch or you want to get the ranch out?

Let's get that. Get the horses back and then shop.

All right, so, yeah, you guys head out. We'll say it takes 30, 45 minutes. Right. Time to get out there. Here. Say it's like about an hour ish trip out there. And yeah, you guys show up. It's a. It's a pretty cliche ranch. It's not. It doesn't look like Elliot's, but it doesn't not look like Elliot's. All the same things are there, more or less. It's got a barn that probably could have used a new roof probably 10, 15 years ago, but he's got a bunch of just stuff. And you can tell that's his junk drawer barn. He's got a nicer storage shed. Up through the house, he's got another small ranch style house. And so you guys head into his Workshop. You're able to find what he's looking for? Was an organized man. Well organized shop. Can I get a reception? Check.

12.

Pass right.

17.

Okay. Bell.

Thank God we said a competent version.

I've never been accused of that before.

Mel, whilst you guys are gathering up, unfortunately, you're grabbing ship that's all metal. Surrounded by metal. You're not. And you don't think you need to be. So you're not being particularly quiet. You're making a bit of noise, especially bul. Not grabbing the rebar. The guy. Well, knock trips. At one point, Death launches it across the shop. So it's not quiet. But on one of Mel's trips out to the horse to drop off a thing, you hear a door slam in the house.

What the fuck was that? Mel, who happens to be standing maybe next to hopefully a horse that she had been riding, draws out Elliot's machete because she's feeling terrible. Guys, I heard something.

Guys, we see each other.

When we heard that, she's just through them.

Okay, if we can see each other, we know that none of the three of us. Okay.

And you guys are in a work. You're in a workshed outside. This is from Knox.

Gotcha. That's weird.

I'm assuming you didn't leave anybody here. We didn't ask, did we?

We didn't.

We did not.

Let me. I'm going to grab my bow and get a handful of arrows out. Handy to get to.

Yes.

He puts a couple back and pulls a couple silver ones. He says, man, I like this quiver. This is handy. Let's go check that out real quick.

What if we just ignore it and pack the horses faster?

Well, we.

We could do that or we could.

Go check it now. Stupid do critter.

Well, he said he ain't been here in a couple of weeks, so that's weird.

All right, let's go do it. Grab my fireman's axe.

All right, so what, you guys heard a bang on the door? You guys drawn some weaponry? What are you doing? Going to the house.

Just walk up to the front door, look through the windows.

All right, you walk up, you look through the windows. Let's have a fresh. Either perception or investigation. Doesn't matter. All right.

Ooh. Nat 20, 22.

5. You're doing awesome.

6.

Fuck that. Nice. All right. Olmax, vaguely aware that he's on a porch.

You're trying to look who? Stained glass on the door.

Is this the front?

Mel realized standing on a cellar. And Elliot peeks inside and he sees something Moving around pretty quick inside this building. And he sees it sinking. Oh, great. Go ahead and roll.

Good. Dirty 20.

Good one.

1925.

Yeah, he's always ready to go.

Let me find out what that is next.

Oh.

Oh, we're.

That's it. That's it. Damn.

Cliffhanger.

That is a good cliffhanger.

Theater of the Mind is Jeremy Arfston as Elliot Brandymaine. That's the old guy. Amanda Arfston as Mel Kelly. That's me. Michael Burnell as Olmach Barger Johnson. That's the Wolfman. Michael downes as James O'Brien. He's our cook. Casey Winegarden as Emery Lee. She's the disco sorcerer and our conscience. And Mike Schock as your dungeon master. We release new episodes every two weeks, so our next episode will release on November 10th. If you want to follow us on our social media and our 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 paid membership, as well as referral link to Epidemic. Sounds pretty sweet, right? That'll also get you a one week trial period to this excellent platform. 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 Redwood.

By Rimmed Klong, Soundtracks Reminiscing by Stephane Carlain, Calming Horizons by Stephane Carlain, A Forest Melody by Tellsonic, and Secrets in the Dark by Alan Carlson Green.

The feat of the Mayan theme ad break and outro were written by Mike Schop. All people, places, events, etc. Are used in a fictitious manner. Any similarities to people, places, etc. Are purely coincidental.

With the yoga pants conversation.

Yeah, that was gold, though.

That worked out great.

I'm pretty sure that was in Game, not like between.

I think that was prior.

Yeah, that was leading into it.

That wasn't.

Yeah, that was characters attract. That was Downs being an idiot.

I'm sorry I traumatized you, but I'm not sorry that I took.

I. I walked right into it.

Fair. All right, this episode's question, what was your first heartbreak like?

You son of a bitch.

All right.