Critical Role & Sagas of Sundry - Episode 2: Bondmates | Overlight: Fractured Paradox

Episode Date: August 24, 2026

Fennel, Mat, Udos, and Thokmay discover what's at the end of the tunnel. A motley crew of Skyborn explorers encounter strange occurrences in their fractured, floating world. Using the Overlight RPG system, this kaleidoscopic fantasy crosses through colorful landscapes, with our heroes channeling the mythical Overlight to perform astonishing feats! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome back to Overlight, everyone. Hooray! Oh, yes, please. Hello, everyone. Happy Friday. Welcome, welcome. Short announcements today. We wanted to just thank Renegade Game Studios again.

They are the game developers and publishers of this beautiful Overlight RPG system. I wanted to call them out by name. So Paul Alexander Butler and George Holland are the game developers, the original artist is Kwanchae Moria. So thank you very much to the three of you for this gorgeous art and the wonderful world.

And then we also have Brad Bailey and Angie Lister who are responsible for our table. So they took the art that was created by Kwanchae, Maria for the original game and interpreted it so that we could have this gorgeous table for our game. So thank you all for helping to make this show happen. We also have a special edition, not a new cast member, but our cast member joining us

for the first time. That's right. Amy Vorple! Thank you. Thanks for having me. I was super stoked to jump into the fray. The fray of folk. We are very excited to have you in the fray of folk.

As is canon now. And so now that we have that all out of the way, we can begin episode two of overlight. Let's do it. Bondmates. Woo. Last we had our party. We had Udos, Tukme, Mott, and Fennell in a dark and slightly narrow tunnel in this cave system.

You previously had found the fractal temple. You had explored a little bit, and now you are trying to find Chenu, Tukme's lost companion. So as you were traveling down this tunnel, you could see down this dark pathway, there was something ahead. You saw just basically the edge of a Hamanu, you saw the shovel tusks, and you saw someone else. Chenu, is that you? And you hear down the hallway, oh, that's lovely, that's perfectly lovely.

Do me again, the way that I, your interpretation of me serving tea, do that. And, oh, yes, good, that is so me. What is going on here? It's a very weird situation. Yeah, Takma, she doesn't sound like she's in trouble. Right, uh, Chinu. Yes, continue.

This is, this, this, this is, uh huh. Yeah, this is Chenu. So I'll walk around the corner to see if I can get a look at Chenu to make sure it's her. Okay, so you walk towards, you're still in the tunnel, so you walk to the end of the tunnel, into this opening where you saw the edges of these folk, these people, and sure enough, who do you,

Who do you see? What does she look like? Yes, you see a gorilla-like, ape-like creature, dark grayish black with a kind of tuxedo-y, furry white chest. She is a fancy ape. If you could, apes don't wear lipstick, but if you could imagine that there was a little flush

to her cheeks and a little color to her lips, that is her. She almost looks like she's either wearing a tuxedo or an apron, a very matronly bipedal, gorilla-type character who stands, well, when she's standing, she is sitting now, but when she's standing, she stands quite, quite tall, over six feet.

Okay. Yeah, I wanna tap into our telecommunication. Okay. Oh, yo, so stoked to see you. I really, really am. Chinna, you had me very worried. Where were you? Yeah, I got hurt.

man. I got my ankle, like I fell in a ravine that, that, look, this is the, this is the bore that freaking, oh yeah, this is the bore that hit me. You should have come back to the tree. That is where I last saw you and that is where we are most likely to remede. Yeah. Well, I couldn't, because I got hurt and I could barely walk, but the bore was like, hey, come to my home and I was like, oh, but my bond mate. And they were like, don't even worry about it. And I was like, yeah, she'll probably be able to find me. Anyway, they nursed me back to health and we got a tea party. Oh, everyone, it is delightful to see you. Now, because you are not bondmates yet,

because I'm not bondmates, you had that conversation, but whenever you have those conversations, it is very strenuous and stressful. Oh, no, Alisa! So this time, I lie down. I'm not going to deduct spirit points, but I will. Okay, okay.

Until you are actually bonded. Yeah, that's fair. That makes a lot of sense. So you both kind of like, you have that conversation, Because you're so excited, you're like, let's just talk in our brains. Tap in, yeah. And afterwards you're just... Tap in and tap out.

I get really lightheaded. Ooh, dear. Yeah, this is Chenu, everyone. We're to be bond mates. Not quite yet, but soon, hopefully. Oh, yes, I hope so too. I see that you haven't, yes, you haven't been quite alone. Right, I made some new friends.

And how close are you to them? Well, I mean, we've... Well, it looks like you guys, we helped you, so we're gonna, right? We're... Are you safe here? Well, I'm playing games and having tea. That sounds safe.

At this point, you all realize that there's a looming presence in this place. And by the way, once you rounded the corner and then the rest of you filled in behind her into the opening, and you see that you're in a cavern. It's not quite as tall as the other place that you found in here, but it has a pretty high, maybe like 12-foot-tall ceiling. It's very homey and comfy. There are throw rugs that have been made out of things from the forest.

There's even a stove and a kettle. And you notice the shovel tusk has been listening this whole time, but there's also a hulking figure who has hung back and is just standing, leaning against the wall and watching and listening. What does this last figure look like? This is a tall, muscular pyroy woman. So she is wearing probably a vest of some kind that is like a strong, I want to say like a light leather material vest and short pants. She has some like warrior sandals, leather sandals,

and she has war bands that are like mostly red that are going across her arms and her legs. And you see even some tattoos that are of flames on her chest and neck. Hi, my name is Fennell. Chinna, who's your friend? Oh, do I know her name? Have we spoken?

You do know her name, it's Longgano. Well, yes, this is Longgano and this is her home. She has been lovely really, taking me in. healed my ankle. Then we had a tea party. She's pretty quiet, though. Would you like some tea? Yes, please.

Would you? All right, yeah, I'd love some tea. Longano goes down to the kettle, and she has multiple cups there, so she starts pouring you tea. Thank you, Longanow. What does the tea look like? It's a dark green tea.

It looks like just a bunch of, she found a bunch of herbs from the forest and made a fresh tea from them. Okay. So it's very herbaceous, made it slightly bitter. I will drink some of that, but sort of keep my eyes on her. Fennell drinks the whole thing in one sip,

just like down shots it. That was amazing. I don't trust her. That was very good. Well, her tea's really good. You should trust her. I don't trust her. Are you gonna say that to me or say that like I'm not here?

I like her. I appreciate your hospitality and everything, but why? You're pyroi. What are you doing here? Well, what are you doing here? You're Aramel. I'm helping my fellow Boniari. I'm helping Fennell.

And why is she here? Because this is her shard. This is... Bonnian. This is where I'm from. This is where my home. Liz and my hearth tree, which I got this nut from. This is my hearthwood nut.

Oh, it's beautiful. Thank you. Look at that. Look at you doing a good job on your nut. Thank you. I think maybe she's married to it. No, it's not a marriage. It's just a very important part of my life

and I never go anywhere without it. It's a bond. It's a bond. Oh, I know this. You, we know this. It is a bond. This is my bond mate. My bond nut.

Oh. Do you talk casually and filthily into your head to it as well? Not filthily, but casually, yes. I tell it everything. Oh, well, you. She does it out loud. Oh, yeah.

I whisper to it. We can hear it sometimes. It knows all my secrets. So do we. So do we. Oh, I can't wait to learn more. It seems as though you all helped my dear talk.

Find me. I can't tell you how lovely that just feels nice. You know, because she's a lot, she can be. What are you talking about? It's just surprising to me that, well, to be frank, that you've made friends. Okay, well, I'm also surprised, but you know, we don't have to ever talk about it ever again, you know?

She's a little dark, but there's nothing wrong with that. Thanks, Vennel. Yeah. It's quite refreshing sometimes, actually. Everybody has a little darkness, and that's okay. See, they understand. Oh, that's amazing. So you see the value in her just as I do?

Yeah, everybody has value. I love everyone. That is true. Wait, so do you not know that you're on Bunyan? Of course I know I'm on Banyan. Well, why are you surprised that I'm here? I'm a Banyari. I know. I'm sorry.

I just get kind of snippy. I'm not around other talking animals very much. Oh, no worries. Well, you're around us now, and now we're all friends. Okay. Do you not get much company down here? No, I've been here for a while, just by myself, me and Odgar. That's Ogger, that's my shovel tusk. Odgar, that's a really cute name. Well, he bite me if I pet him.

You know, there was a misunderstanding. That's why this all happened. And, Ogger's kind of playful, but because Ogger's pretty big and has very sharp tusks, he doesn't realize his strength sometimes, so I'm sorry again. That's all right. He does an impeccable impersonation of me. You really should see it.

Okay, but can I pet him? You know what I'm gonna do here? So Longa-No walks over to Edgar, and she very, she squares off her shoulders, and places her hand right in the center of his snout, like just on top of the ridge of his snout. And Adgar calms down and gets down on his haunches. And so you see the tusks are kind of framing Lungano very dangerously.

And she's like, okay, you can pet him now. Fennell, like, gets into the same stance that she's in, the, like, sort of squatting down, but because she's like a tree, it's very awkward. It's kind of like roots just going like that. this and she waddles over and just starts to pet him. Yeah, so high. Oh god.

Tree, octopus, tree spider. She's a lot of things. She just. And then I shuffle up behind Longa No, and I'm like, what did you, what are you doing with Odgar right now? I just have a way of calming him down. I don't like to calm him because we're in the woods

and we're far from home and, you know, I just want him to be free, be free, but sometimes things like this happen and he needs to be behaved. Why are you so far from whom? Well, I moved here just on my own a while ago, like a few cycles ago now, and Odgar was a baby. I just snuck him with me on the ship that brought me here. I had to leave Pyroy. It's just everything's about war and fearsome.

and I just, I don't care, I just want to chill in the woods, you know. Do you want more friends? Um, because I could take you back to my tribe, and they would all love to be friends with you. Oh, I, you know, I just kind of, I actually passed them a couple times. I, just the entrance to your hearthwood tree. It's really beautiful. I never wanted to disrupt. No, you can always come in. We love having new friends unless you're going to try and attack us, and then we're going to, you know, destroy you, but. Oh, no. I know. We love having new friends. I'm all about peace. Yeah, you should totally come. We're gonna go soon, I think.

I don't know. Oh, are we? We're gonna go see my tree. I also do not know. Oh. It's the best tree ever. It's the biggest and the best and the most beautiful.

That's where I got my dad. Well, not to be focused, but your folk does precede you as a very violent type. You might send forth a warning before you just simply invite. Now, you have only taken care of me, but likewise I'm trying to take care of you. Banyari and even my folk may not have, may not take so kindly to just seeing one of your folk.

Oh dear, I'm making a mess of this. No, no, I get it. That's why I made this, and she goes over to what looks like an actual entrance. You realize there is a bigger, taller, like a wider entrance. that both she and Odgar can fit through. So it looks like the front door and you came in the back door. Oh my, Lisa. Sorry, this is not always a family show.

So she walks over to the door and there's, you see there's a makeshift hook that's just kind of like a twig somehow, like in a crack of the rocks. Goodness, now you can't have nothing stuff. Okay. Oh, the back door crack. Wow. Hook, okay, I'm there.

There we are. I get it, I get it, yeah, yeah. This evolved real fast. Yeah, yeah. So she, you see that she pulls off, well it looks like a cloak that's made from vines and leaves, and she kind of whips it over her head

and puts it on. When I'm out exploring, I just wear this because I don't want anyone to look at me funny and be like, why is that pyroy girl here? It looks really good. Thanks. Wait, I have something. Wait, wait, so my people have a little garden

of these things that aren't really on any other part of the shard. So I take a couple of these and if I ever run into friends, you just have to present this to my tribe and they'll know. Oh, oh yeah. So if you just present that to anyone in my tribe, they'll know that you're a friend. Okay, thanks.

Don't eat it. No, you probably shouldn't. It's really poisonous. Oh, okay. You can touch it, but if you ingest it, you'll die. But they know that to eat it, right? Oh yeah, everybody knows not to eat it. Okay, all right.

I mean, you could just have one, and then you could get on the precipice and see what that feels like. Nope, or not. Or you could. Or you could. Not to poison yourself. Yeah.

Wait a minute, are you, I know you're Skyborn. You're all Skyborn, aren't you? Oh, I just noticed. Yeah. I just noticed that as well. Yeah, so, um. So Longa Noah is now looking deeply into all of your eyes and notices the iridescent irises that you all have, which shows that you're skyborne. And you notice that she has dark brown, deep, deep brown irises.

But you're not skyborn yourself. No, no. I was kind of warm to be, but, and I can do a few little things, like, you know, but, I know. I can do a few little tricks with the overlight, but like most people, if they concentrate, can do that. Is that how you and how you calm Odgers? Do you use your chroma? Maybe, I don't know. I mean, we kind of are bondmates too in a way.

You know, we're best friends, so. And she is at this point taking her hand off of Edgar, but Odgar is just looking up, waiting. He's very cute. Yeah, you should have seen him when he was a baby. Oh, my gosh. I need to. Do you feel any better?

about Longano at this point. I'm still on the fence as far as how I feel about Longano. I mean, I already gave her the berries, so she's a friend already. We just, we have all these new friends. We should go and see more of the, don't you want to see the hearthwood tree? And isn't it just quite a coincidence? It isn't surprising, I mean, Skyborn,

are pretty rare, and yet here all of us are. Yeah, I've never met this many Skyborn all at once. That's exactly why we shouldn't trust her. No, you know why, right? I'm still here, though, like, you can just say that to my face. I'm not afraid of you. You know why we're all destined to meet, right? No.

We were destined to be friends. Oh, yes. I think I got diabetes. I don't know what that is. I think it's a good thing, but I don't know. Okay. It has the word die in it, so I don't know. I'm gonna, ooh.

Shoot, I'm gonna channel, I wanna channel. Yeah, can we channel? Yeah, okay. Yeah, what would you like to do? It's so hard. Yeah. Hey girl, what up? Oh, you're telepathic.

That's what I mean, yeah. Hey girl. So this Udos, this Udo's guy, like I don't even know. What is your quong with him? I mean, do you have a quong with him? I mean, look, we're, it just seems like we're all on, the same thumbs up page and he's, you know, throwing some real negative energy.

That's a lot to say to someone like me, but, I think in every party there needs to be at least one person who's voicing a different opinion to challenge us all to think harder about a situation. Shit, yeah. Okay, I have to go. Okay, bye. Trade voices.

It's so much. Shit, yeah. We got to stop doing that. I feel like we could have just gone over there. I know I'm going to hear us and it would have been fine. You need to lose a spirit. So that comes from our shared spirit. You're not shared yet because you're not bonded.

You're not bonded yet. So you have separate spirit pools. Okay. And you just lost one. That was the most taxing shit you have your life. Wait, so how many, how many do you start off? I have 12 on my own. Okay, great, I have fewer.

So you have, you have seven, because our total's 19. Our total's 19, okay, got it. Dang, thank you. Dang, okay. But if one of us gets hurt, we both get hurt. So we each lose one? Yeah.

Okay, but also, what fun. To be clear, once you are bonded, this will not cost you. Got it. Cool. You really have to stop using that just like whenever you want. Like right now it's like an emergency thing, okay? Right.

It's just so fun. I mean, is it because it hurts? It makes me really dizzy and tired? I know me too, but live dangerously and all that. I won't do it. All right, all right. You have my word only in emergencies. What are you talking about? What are you doing? Um, uh...

We were talking about how good this is. tea is how herbaceous it is. It is. It was really good. I already finished mine. Flavorful. Does anybody know how to read tea leaves? No? Wait.

I didn't think so. I don't think it's not. It's not a chroma. Intuition, though. Could we? Oh, sure. Yeah. Performance or small? I have perception and intuition.

Does anyone want to miss Cleo on my tea leaves? Oh, what? Miss Cleo, my Tileys. Are they dark, Tileys? Yes. Well, every little bit of darkness is a piece of the void, perhaps I can see into it.

Did I just drink void? No, it's more... Constantly being filled and emptied of the void at all times, as it is the absence of everything and the culmination of all things. So, you're constantly drinking the void. Don't worry, Fenn.

I think this is just a really, really dark metaphor. But no, it's not, I'm serious, give me that. I don't like metaphors. So you take the little mug and, are you gonna, so you're gonna try to. Can I do a wisdom intuition? Is that okay?

Can I feel gross now. Oops. You didn't drink any void, you're fine. So that's two successes. Two successes. And, you're written that. No. Two total?

Okay. So you do get a luminous success. And so I'll let you, yeah, I'll let you. Tell the future by myself, Belisa. No. Oh, wow, that's not dark. I'm the GM now. Let me tell me. I see all the shards reconnecting.

and we're one planet again, like sometime in the next hour. No, what would you like me? Okay, so you peer into the mug, and at first it looks like just a random pattern of tea leaves, but then you do start to see kind of the outlines of what look like everyone in the room. Oh, I see, all of us in the leaves, Put together by the darkness, by the void.

But shadows. Is there any other details in it I can see? Or is it just us standing? So as you said, it's all, as you said, put together by the darkness, the void. All of the shadows or outlines of each figure are connected by a web of more tea leaves. Okay.

So it's like you see an image here and then some tea leaves connecting it to Udos and then Chenu and then Takme and then everyone in the room. Including. And shovel tusk. Shoveltesk, baby boy. This is a lot of baby boys.

I see figures here that represent each and every one of us, including the both of you. And we're all connected by gentle strands of remaining tea. He leaves. Oh, you already told you that, that's friendship. I think it's something deeper than that, Finnell. Nothing is friendship, nothing is deep.

Nothing is friendship. Nothing is not greedy. It's a void concept. No, nothing is deeper than friendship, nothing. Longa-no at this point walks over to Mott and just, I'm sorry, I've never seen a Turixium before. I mean, not up close, I've seen them flying in the air, but wow.

And I'd spread my wings. and I'm looking straight up. Yeah, Longa is very tall. Yeah, I've never seen a pyro either. Do you like, do you like my feathers and you like preens a little bit? Is this? Longono giggles.

You are kind of adorable. Thank you, you too. Is this flirting? Well they haven't exchanged any sort of dead creature so I don't think so. Is that how you flirt? Isn't that what you do? It is what you do.

We can hear you guys. Yeah. Can you give it? I've received, I've been on the receiving in plenty of times. You eat it, you like it. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to make it awkward. I just was curious. No, it's fine.

We just, we have a habit of saying things as if we're in different rooms. Okay. I didn't, hmm, anyway, it's very nice to meet you. Nice to meet you too. Are you, are you like one of those rangers? No, I'm a brood master. That's why I was so curious about your connection with Otker.

Oh. It's really beautiful, and I assume that it was a chroma or something. That's why I was so curious as to how you did it. No, yeah, we're just good friends. It's a strong bond you have. Yeah, yeah. You're a brood master, so where's your brood? Ooh, ouch.

Here! Oh, no, I'm sorry. I didn't mean it to be mean. It's us. I just, I assume you have, like, a brood? I don't know. Why is everyone looking at me? I simply, my ideals are not those of the people of my home.

And I feel connected to all things. And so I wanted to explore. And I met Fen here and then we bumped into Udos. And this has been a wonderful opportunity. You're my first Hamanu, Chetna. This is all just so wonderful. To what? I'm your first Humanu to what?

To meet me. To meet me. Oh. Yeah. Yes, I'm experiencing a lot of first life. myself. This is very odd. I didn't know that when we traveled to Banyan, we would, I mean, I knew we'd experience adventure, but not quite so many personal encounters, especially of other folk like us who do not subscribe to our native shards. I mean, yeah, we came here on a mission trip.

We were supposed to be converting people to Zenith monk orders, and I feel like we've really gotten off track. Whoa. Whoa there. What? Hello. Converting. Or, you know, like talking

openly about the orders in order to, you know, have more people, you know. Experience the overlight the way that we do. As the Skybourne do, as the Zetan order does. Well, it's a little complicated. The goal, yes, the goal is a little more close-minded than we like to be.

Well, we were sent here, or I was sent here and Chenna was nice enough to join me. I was sent here to. Oh, nice enough, I'm hungry to bond with you. Whoa. Coming in hot, Chinna. Whenever there's an outburst from Chenu, like, I step, like take a half step back.

You can kind of see my feathers just like fluff a little bit because I'm just still not entirely short. Everybody in this room pretty much, aside from Fennell, is larger than me. So I'm just kind of like, I'm also like, on the ground in a cave. I mean, Fennel's not great. Yeah, you are a tree, yeah.

Fennel herself is like that. The part of you I pay attention to is the little fuzzy. Yeah, that's someone with the face. Yeah. So yeah, I was sent here on a mission with my old, well, I don't know, it's complicated, but the Silent Stone Order of the Zenith monks and as part of my training to become a full-fledged

Zenith Order monk, but once we got here, you know, we started, talking and what we believe and what we subscribe to is just so different than what they value and want and they they don't even they never even want to talk about the void or what happens beyond the light or when the overlight's gone or not there they don't even want to think about it and that's all i want to think about and i i don't want to tell everybody around me that's that's all there exists wait yeah so you're not like other zenith monks?

I mean, there's a special order of zenith monks, but it's not really, I don't know, the word. Customary. Endorsed. Oh, right. Right, yeah. It's sort of new and progressive. Well, I would like to think so.

But not really what most people on my shard would approve of. Well, think of it like this, the skyborne. Well, they value the overlight. And for shadows to exist, well, you must have light. But because of light, there are shadows. There's not such a bad thing, is there? So, yes, I guess Takma is more interested. She calls it the void or you have the overlight.

Maybe it's the under dark. Wow, that's scary. But I'm into it. So you mean that those two things need one another? It's a balance. One does not exist without the other. And I think many people, when they think about the dark or what they understand of the dark,

they think of it as the absence of power. And Genu, and I believe it can be a source of great power and not necessarily the absence of all things, but maybe the culmination of every single color, every single person, every single skyborne, it can give us so much. Why would we pretend it didn't exist or ignore it or subscribe to the idea that it has nothing to offer us

when the darkness has so much to give? So, let's say. Wow. Right? That was a lot. Forgive me, no friends. But are you here on official orders from the Zenith temple?

Technically speaking, yes. Yeah. I'm just curious. I gotta say, it sounds like your ideals diverge enough from those of your fellows that maybe you're not here because you want to be. The war is over and both sides lost. Kingdoms were reduced to cinders, an army scattered like bones in the dust. Now the survivors claw to what's left of a broken world praying. The darkness chooses someone else.

tonight. But in the shadow dark, the darkness always wins. This is old school adventuring at its most cruel. Your torch ticks down in real time. And when that flame dies, something else rises to finish the job. This is a brutal rules light nightmare with a story that emerges organically based on the decisions that the characters make. This is what it felt like to play RPGs in the 80s. And man, it is so good to be back. Join the Glass Cannon podcast as we plunge into the shadow dark. every Thursday night at 8 p.m. Eastern on YouTube.com slash the glass canon with the podcast version dropping the next day. See what everybody's talking about and join us in the dark. I'm Anne Foster and I have never watched the show, Spartacus, Blood, and Sand.

And I'm Gina Barry and I've watched this show numerous times. On our new podcast, Nefer TV, we discuss TV shows and movies set in ancient history. This season, we are discussing Spartacus, Blood and Sand. Follow Nefer TV, that's N-E-F-E-R-TV, wherever you get your podcasts. Well, we're sort of stuck here now. Did you get banned from your shard? Udo's, you've talked about tact. Udo's coming in hot.

Honestly, it is a very important quality, and I think you should hold on to that. Yeah, you remind me a lot of pyroy back home. That's a compliment. Yes, I guess. It could be. You show, I mean, when you. But I wasn't the target of your honesty, it was a little bit refreshing and now less so.

I mean, we are not banned. We're just on a different course. This has all happened very recently. We met somebody while we were on Banyan that told us that he was a part of a special offshoot of the Zenith Order, known as the Void Shaman. And he would bond Chenow and I if we could get back, if we could get back to our shard and meet with him.

he would perform our bonding ceremony. To be frank, we have been sent to spread the word. But because we are now so far away, they do not know exactly the word that we are spreading. However, we definitely believe in it. What do we believe in? The void. Oh, right.

This all sounds very irregular. I'm into it. I mean, it seems that we all are somewhat irregular. I mean, here we are off of our of native shards and our Pairoy friend here has foregone her, a shards belief system and I guess you're the only one who's native here. Yes I am but I'm very willful. I'm kind of the only one.

Have you ever left Banyan? Once or twice, yeah. Wow, cool. But I like to come back because I miss the trees and I miss talking to them. You can't talk to trees on Pairo because there's not a lot. Yeah, mostly. lava and magma and rocks.

There's no nature. Yeah. Sounds vibrant. Yeah, I mean, it's not a terrible place. I shouldn't, I just didn't fit in very well there, you know? Like there are a lot of really great things about pyrite, you know? They love ritual, which I kind of like. Ooh, yes.

Yeah. It's hot there. It's really hot. There's lots of darkness. It's cold too though. Like if you're close to the magma, then it's hot. It's hot and it's warm, but then yeah, if you're away from it, then it's cold and dark.

A land of extremes. That's fitting for the pyroar people. No offense. Wait, going back a couple conversations, if we could get you to Zenith, would you two be bonded? I mean, or if we could find that person on Banyan? And at this point, I think I'd prefer to be bonded

with the pro-voyage shaman as opposed to someone else from, a very rigid silence monastery. It just didn't quite fit. Do you know where the shaman went? I don't know. I think he had business still on Banyan, but he said if we can't meet him here again,

that he would bond us back on Zenith. But it would definitely have to be something that happened in secret. Definitely. I don't think any of the standing orders would really approve of the void shaman. of the void shaman or of even how Chino and I came to be. Our bond would go against the regular practices of the Zenith Orders.

Let's go find him here. Yeah? You think he's still around? I don't know. Let's find out. Before we go, and before we've been just a little bit chastised by why we're here and how we don't fit in and maybe we're not the regular shaman, the monk,

Hamannu pair, what in the shaman What lands are you and you doing on a Banyan shard? Yeah, I'd like to know that too. Well, I'm a master builder. I'm a master of all things dealing with wood, metal. Actually, there's an underground of ships that are found all throughout all the different shards that my family has directly influenced. some of them has actually built them. So I'm actually trying to find them,

as well as explore other shards to see if I could find any other materials that I could might possibly use to maybe build better ships. He wanted to cut up my hearthwood tree, but I said, no. I just wanted to see what type of quality, type of wood, see if it would have some sort of oak, no, never? Nope. No. Excellent bat peddle.

there, though. And you have trust issues, apparently? It's not trust issues. My people, you know the core principle of my people, right? We seek to last. Yes, we seek to last. Self-preservation. Exactly.

So I'm not going to put myself in danger for, I'm sorry, any of you all. You're not like me. And yet you did enter into a pyrois slash shovel tusk layer. So look at you making strides. Yes, with caution. At this point, Ogger has kind of bumbled up lazily from his crouching stands

and gone over to the opposite side of the cavern and is, you now notice there's a big, like, bowl of food and a bowl of water, and now he's just like, loudly eating. It's very gross sounding sloppily. Were those ships robbed from your family? That is a good question.

I don't know. Don't know. That is a good question. Very good question. There are many Ormel pirates. Actually, my father was, my biological father was killed by an Aramol pirate. I'm sorry.

This isn't about me. I'm sorry. No, we didn't. You should. Sorry? Do you want to hug? No. Can I hug him?

You have to be gentle. No, thank you. Okay, he doesn't want one. Don't do it. I tried. before. Yeah. It was hilarious.

No, it was, it was kind of funny. Baby steps, baby steps. Just limbs everywhere. It was. I have too many. I have a drawing if you wanna see it late. You did? Lone Gunner looks down at your,

I wanna say it can. I made my roots like an asterisk because I went tumbling. Wait, do you all? We all have chroma too, like you're all trained in, wow. I would actually like, do we don't need to bring that out. Roll beastways and approach

Odgar while he's eating. Okay, oh goodness. Worst time to approach him. If it feels, I'm gonna laugh a little bit. Oh God, okay, let's hope you don't die. I was gonna say even if he dies. Maybe. One, two, and a flare.

Oh, okay. Not bad. So you got two, do you wanna bank that? Yeah, you should bank that flare. Yeah. Because you have a seven. Was that a seven? Or did you move it?

No, I moved it. Okay. You have a luminous success with two. And now you have a spirit point. Extra spirit point. So, okay, so, Adgar is and you kind of stride up, feeling kind of confident. And you take just the edge of your feather

and you gently massage behind. Oh, that's a caress for sure. Yeah, correct. I don't think I would put any part of me near his mouth or face. So just like, you know, like between his shoulder blades, more or less and just like gently stroke the center of his back while like cooing because I can do that because I'm a bird person. Also people can do that.

A little pigeon. Pigeon. Ku, Ku, Ku. Who's the birdmaster here? I mean, are we talking IRL or are we talking endgame? Mostly endgame. So, yeah, you go over and you start gently petting behind his shoulders, and he just keeps on. And Longano looks at you.

Whoa, wow, that's really impressive. This is what I trained in and part of the reason why I'm here. I- They are flirted. I can't hear you. I'm sorry. It really kind of ruins the mood. I'm sorry, most of the time it goes over my head.

I don't really know what flirting is, but now I know. Well, we can talk about it after you've seen it. I'm just gonna move up attention. Just take notes in your head and then ask me about it later. Okay. No, don't do that in it. You'll say wink out loud. Oh, I'm not.

Are we all linking? Oh, we sure can. We're all winking. Are we? We're all winking now. I'm trying, but you can't see it behind the mask. Fennell learned what's nodding. I thought we decided you on a Spider-Man man.

Yeah, but like eyes, one of them just was, the emotive, yeah. I think the, the, uh, I think what I decided is that it it's expressive enough that your body language can carry through the expression. It doesn't physically change. Ooh, yeah, you wink with your body. Oh, that's my body.

Yeah, it's one of the things, E, N, and, that full body wink. Can I use that as my chroma? It's just called full body winking. Full body winking? You learned a new croba. So, um, renegade.

So, it's weird having a lot of people here. If you want anything else, if you want some food or anything, I have some berries, not poisonous, that I forage for. Oh, yeah, is that Slop Trough? Is that up for grabs? Is that for anybody? What? What? She points over at where the pigs eating. Oh, oh, no, that's, uh.

Not recommended. Yeah, that's odd-gars food, but I can get you other food, too. Oh, right. Here, I'll get you guys some snacks. And she goes over to what's kind of a little kitchen area. It's just like a shelf made from a trunk of a tree that she's cut in half. So it's flat on top and she has like assorted little containers of things. So she goes over there.

You mentioned that that, you said, that is why I'm on Banyan. And you pointed at the shovel tusk. Is it to find more shovel tusks? It's too, to seize many. Do you just love them? I'm an animal enthusiast, I think. Shoveler? It's not just specifically shovel tucks.

So I come from the profession of broodmaster back on quill, but unlike the rest of the brood masters, I kind of think of our creatures as fully sentient and they feel as much as we do and are also filled with the overlay. Well, well, well, someone who thinks differently than the ones on their shard, and yet was the first one to poke a little tiny hole

into our story. I just like to know who I'm in the company of. All right. You're being real aggressive. Let's know. He just gave it. Oh man, I want to be, I want to tell him you right now. You can, but I'm gonna be mad.

And now that we all know, can talk in your head, so you're like, oh my God, just doing it to her again? I know, I won't. Yes, I am, I am being aggressive. He struck a chord. You struck a chord there. Now, you know, you triggered me.

I didn't mean to be so confrontational. I just, I'm very curious. I don't know if you've seen me writing notes down. I have documentation of pretty much every moment of our journey here, because I want to know as much about all the creatures of the shards as I can. and you are also creatures of the shard and also come from an order that most of us don't know much about.

Yeah, it's true. I mean, not a lot of information gets off Venice, you know. It's a private... Private zone. Yes, it's ceremonial and, yes, we're very focused on kind of a spiritual, religious aspect,

and only the ones who really study it can move forth in that aspect. I mean, I don't even know everything there is to know about the Zenith orders, because I haven't finished my training. They don't, they're very stingy without information, I guess you could say. Sometimes I'd like to think I know everything. I know I don't. That's true. The one thing on Banyan that I am just, oh, I can't wait to see, is the formation of water here is different. In Zenith, it's snow and ice, but here the water, it runs freely, it seems. But I have yet to see a waterfall.

Oh, we have a lot of them. I can take you to my favorite one. Yeah, there's some really great ones around here. Actually, I kind of know where your hearthwood tree is. It might be nice to go there. We should go! Do you want to go see my tree? Are you sure they're not gonna like be mad or there?

No, as long as you're with me, it should be okay. If anything, they would be mad at Ma'at, but he's already been through there, so it's fine. Wait, why would they be mad at you? What have you done? Well, it's not him, it's his species. We just kind of, we don't. We're not friends.

Yeah, that's a nice way of putting it. Historically speaking. There's a longstanding tradition. Of death. I'm, oh God. There's a whole group of Teryxians that we call outlanders that live on Banyan and still engage in guerrilla warfare attacking

the Boniari on a regular basis in the name of a war that for the rest of us ended ages ago. The more I learn about it, the less I enjoy folkism. I think that should be our new, destroy every folk. Well, no, the opposite.

I'm sorry. No, no, of course that's where your mind went. No, no, everybody is friends because we are all connected in the light and fairness. Oh, she's speaking a language. I'm learning. Okay, so don't. Okay, great.

Are there any folk that your Banyari friends actually are not scared of? The scared of the Traxian, they seem to be scared of the pyrroi. We're not scared of them. Mostly they just wanna fight. Oh. We're mostly compassionate here, but we're feisty.

We're feisty. And we're pretty good. A lot of them are really good in a fight. I don't know. We don't really have a lot of people come through who aren't Banyari. And since we're so deeply entrenched in the forest, it's kind of hard to get to us

unless you know where you're going. So we really don't see a lot of people who aren't Baniari. I think we get along okay with the RML. We don't see very many people. Hey. There you go. That guy, that's the one.

that you get along with the best? Well, they're kind of neutral. They're not, like, super hateful. Not this one. I can hear you. I didn't say anything. I think we've established we can out of here. Oh, I see what you're.

Oh, I see. I get it. Okay, I'm sorry. Again, I don't have a lot of people, friends or whatever. I don't get jokes. Don't you enjoy the banter? It's great, right?

It's pretty cool. We have a lot of banter. So Longa-known now has made you little goodie bags that have, like, Oh my gosh. She's the best host. By the way, in the Goody bags, well, she'll tell you this. She hands you the Goody bags.

So this is just like some assorted little treats that I like to make. There's this really good berry and bark that I grind together to make kind of like a little, I guess you would call it like a bar or something. I don't know. But yeah, I put them in to go bags because if we want to go to the hearthwood tree, then we can take them with us and have a snack. This is the best best. That is so kind of you.

I love getting presents. Thank you. And she goes over and like gas all of her roots around her in a hug, like around the trunk cover. On Longa, no, Pat's your tree side and is very touched. I see this gesture as kind of like an olive branch and like you're really cool and I trust you now.

So I think I want to go over to you and kind of, not hug you, but I'll give you a nice, little slap on the shoulder. Okay. Good looking. Thanks for the nuts. Y. Y.

Making progress. She gets very excited by this. Is that flirting? And she slaps you on the shoulder. I need you to roll. Oh, yeah. She's too strong. She's too powerful.

Oh, my God. I love it. I love her. I love her. Roll to stay on your feet. Stay on your feet. We'll make this an open test. I don't think we've done an open test yet.

So this is basically six-sided six. You're gonna, yeah, you're gonna do, what's your athletics might? Or actually, sorry, resistance might. My resistance is D8, and then my might is D10, right? You have like a D10, right? You're pretty strong, so you might stand up after this. Okay, he dies. She's gonna do four D10.

Four D10s and a- Well, sorry, you have your role. Athletics is my rule. So you can go. Go ahead and roll first when you're ready. D-10 and one spirit, okay. And so wait, yeah, you got. I got three D-10 and three six.

No, wait. D-8, right? Oh, I need D-8, I'm sorry. My bad. You got it, you got it. Three D-eight. Take that D-6. Okay, here we go.

Oh, nice. Not even better. Mike drop. I see one, two. Oh, good. A six. And that's another six, I think. Is this a six?

Yeah. The middle. Yep. You got three. and she gets, oh wait, sorry, this is also, this is by six, what is it? Oh, the highest die number. That's what an open test.

Oh. I hope that's correct. So nine, that sounds right. Yes, that's right, that's right. Thank you, okay. So, seven, six. Is that a nine or a six? That's a six.

I think it's a six. Yeah, it's a six. Okay, well, let me, let me. Player with the single highest die. Yeah, that's a six. Successes don't matter, right? Right, so unfortunately, That's Longano.

Wait, but he has a nine. He has a nine. Oh, is that a nine or a six? Oh, is that a nine? That's a nine. Okay, so Longano is very excited that now you've decided to be friends. And she like, you see like the breadth

of her arm span and just like, she has guns. She is a strong woman. And she like slaps you hard on your shoulder. And you kind of like are shocked by the strength, but you're fine, you stand up and you, You stay standing, you just kind of are like shocked by the force of it. Oh, I'm gonna know. It's quite a tap you got there.

What I'm a slap? My aunt, can I have a piece of paper? Thanks, sorry. I didn't mean to. Oh, I forget. What do you put in these berries? I just want to write down the different types of flirting. This one's aggressive.

I said mental notes. I can't remember. Aggressive. Flirted. Don't forget to write down the one where you bring them a dead animal. Would you like to go into more detail about that courtship method?

Yeah, you go and you slay something and then it shows that you're strong and powerful and that you're a provider and then you give it to them. Death flirting. And then they know those things. Well, it's also a form of gift giving. I mean, you don't, you're focusing on the death part of it.

Slend gift. Yes. Flirting. I'm learning a song. We have a number of animals on. No, I mean to give stuff. You could give plants instead of dead animals. Can also be friendship.

I like that stuff. Yeah. That's not exactly what we said, but sure. It's sort of like giving someone a responsibility. What a great gift. Question mark. I'm funny sometimes. I never know what's funny.

So, Odgar has finished slopping down his dinner and, or his lunch, times of day are funny here. It's still daylight out. So, and he kind of, again, lazily, he turns around now and you're still there stroking his, and he kind of just like gently make sure not to cut you with his scimitar tusks. We're both being careful with the other. Yes, you have very dangerous. Mutual respect is. What's happening.

Nice, and you're about the same height, funny enough. That is accurate. We're like eye to eye. It's large for a boar-like animal and for a bird. To be four feet tall is pretty large. That's true, that's true. So, yes, it's just go to the Hawthwood tree.

I can't wait for you to see it. It's so beautiful. Are you coming with Longano? I'd like to. I haven't gotten very close because again, I didn't wanna scare. No, just put the little berry in like here.

a bell or something, it's gonna be totally fine. Wait, we don't have berries. Oh yes, should we? No, you're all with me, it's fine. I'm this big scary pyroy, so. You're not, well, yeah, you are kind of scary, but in a good way. Thanks.

I wanna be scary someday. I bet you you could be scary. I'm only scared when, when, you're only scared? I'm only scared when, when I'm triggered by, well, adrenaline. Anyway, don't even worry about it. We really don't need to bring that up in front of people.

Yeah, it might be- It's really not pertinent. But if it, if it, right. We should go. Yeah, who else is ready to get out of these caves? I'm just so pleasant. Spread my wings as wide as I can. Yeah, all right.

You smack me in the face. Yeah, oh, sorry, sorry, talk, ma. It's okay. We should, we should, we should. Your elegance is stifling. I've heard that my whole life. From yourself. Oh, I heard that too.

So un-gono leads you all. Self-flirting. Ooh, that's the most kind of flirting. Really, truly. Agreed. I'm gonna remember that one. Always works off me. Let's go, I can lead the way.

I think I know where we are. Maybe. So Fennell rushes out with the other entrance now. Yeah. And you are now seeing the other side of the cave system. which if you remember, you went through the forest, you reached a denser part of the forest, you went through that and it became rockier

and more like dried dirt. And so now you are, I'm sorry, this is getting confusing, you were on the backside of the cave system then, and then you went in through the back, no, we remember the backdoor, ha-ha. Yeah, we remember that. Yes, the saga of the backdoor, ha-ha. This is a third side.

Yeah. So you haven't seen this side of the far. Three holes? No. Three. God damn it. What? No.

We were all. Who knows? No, never mind or dumb. This feels good at right. Like three holes in my mask. This feels appropriate. You're role playing just fine. It's all in you and the.

It's a role playing. To the hearthread tree. Wait! Side exit. I just start running. There is, hey, side exit. The emergency exit. Oh, man.

We're back there now? Oh, goodness. No. Okay. No. So you talk to say. Rule plane. You go out there.

And once again, you see a bit of rockiness and dirt, but again, it just gives way to dense forest. And so you all, oh, the shovel tusk comes along, follows behind, and the two of you have kind of been, bonded. Yeah, like the shovel test doesn't spend much time with other big animals, so.

What did you call me? Besides the pyro, which is a big animal, you know. But yes, usually it's just seeing birds and small other. And when he wants to play with other creatures, they usually run away. Fight back. Or, yes, run away or fight back. So you all reenter the forest now on a different side, but you recognize this forest now, or at least the lay of it,

and the feel of the ground beneath you, the soft, luscious dirt and grass. You see some more pockets of those strong vines that you now recognize can be very dangerous for small mammals. So you see you're clear of those. But fennel also kind of checks into each one just to make sure there aren't any more baby mids and cins. Lurking in there, caught. You do see some small birds fluttering around the trees, some butterflies. You just are taking in the beauty of this forest, this beautiful Banyan.

forest. And once again, you're making your way back through the forest towards your hearthwood tree. So the path that you were on before this, you know, path of finding Chenu, that's the same path that you will look for now. That is the path to your hearthwood tree. So you're all walking. And it took about an hour from, oh, that was a word. Yes. That was. That was. That was a... That was just me. I wrote. Oh, Long Conno has a makeshift thermist that she pulls out and she pours you a little

bit of tea. Do you need to clear your throat? Thank you, Longano. Oh, this is delightful. This is the same tea from before? Yep. You make a good cup. Thanks.

Complementing. Oh, right. Oh, goodness. Oh. You know, I left my... Exclamation mark. I left my shard. when I was 16, so I never really did the whole flirting thing.

So I guess I do it. That's cool. Neither have I. It's okay. Sometimes people just don't want to flirt. It happens. Maybe you'll... I mean, is there anyone back at your hearthwood tree that you like?

Yeah, Fen, you haven't mentioned really any of your friends or family back at the hearthwood tree. And now you have a toolbox of goodies that you can use on them. That's true. There's this one fern that I really like, but I don't think it's that kind of alike. I really like the little blue flowers that go around my house. I really like the hearthwood tree. But there's nobody that I want to aggressive flirt with. Well, that's a shame.

I have my trees around me. That's all I really need. My family's all kind of... Everyone on Bonion is really... Mellow. They're all really nice. Everybody gets along really well, but they just... I don't know.

It's like they don't have as much energy as I do, and I just kind of want to fight all the time. So you need some excitement. Yes. It wants excitement. Sometimes they go and fight when people come to us, but they just want to... They're very happy in their way of life,

and they, you know, tend their crops, and everybody's just content. intent. And they don't like technology. They just like to be very simple. But I want to learn everything. I want to know everything. And that's why I want to leave eventually. I just, I got to know. And, you know, now that you're all my friends, I can really tell you what my main goal is. So there's this tribe of Banjari. They're not really like my tribe, the Verthod root lords. We're all, we have the trees and she wiggles her little roots. But these, they're a different tribe. They're called the Whirlthings. And they're really, it's the saddest I've ever been when I think about them. Their earthwood tree burned and died. And so now they're all kind of dying as well.

And they can't have children. And they're constantly in pain. And there's not very many of them left. So I want to go out and I want to find Maybe if they have a nut somewhere for their tree And maybe I can plant it and then they're going to be okay And they'll you know be able to procreate and flirt And you know all the good

Do you does your nut need to be planted as well? No because I have my hearthwood tree It's still it's still alive and it's okay I can if I want but I like having it near me Because if I plant it on a shard then I have to go back To tell it all of my stories and stuff and it's just easier to have it with me. Why don't you just give them that nut?

Well, this is the nut for our tree. We're all connected to our tree, and we get these nuts as sort of a symbol of our connection. But it wouldn't do them any good to have a nut for our tree because they need their own. Well, are there any unbounded nuts? I don't know. There were some Skyborn, so they left.

And I'm wondering if maybe they have their nuts. but for the most part, the other nuts were destroyed when the whirlthing die. So, yeah. So your main goal is to help those. Can I roll folklore to see if I've ever heard anything about any of the evidence of the existence of a whirlthing? Sure, yeah.

Not in any of the histories that I've come across. Can I do that too, maybe on Zenith, if we ran across something like that? Yeah, if you heard about this for sure. One, two. Well, you don't have folklore, so you just get one D6 for that. Oh, yes, if you're untrained in it. Instead of getting three.

And then you can do three D8s for your wisdom. So that's four plus years. One, two. That's still two successes, Anna. Don't forget to roll your. Flare. She did. Oh, you did?

Yeah. And my mom. You got a flare. So do I bank that? Yeah, you can bank that because you already have two successes, so that's luminous, and you got two as well. I got two successes. Wonderful. Okay, so you, um, Ma, you definitely do remember in your Teryxian school learning, having read about the world things.

And, um, and also feeling, because you are a compassionate Teryxian, you remember when you were in school reading this story about how the world things were basically a casualty of war. And just as Fennell described, their hearthwood tree was burned by Teryxian outlanders and other enemies, and they've never recovered. And you remember feeling this sense of deep guilt and sorrow when you read that story. And that same guilt and sorrow fills you now, as you remember these things about it. And then Chenu, I almost called you Hamanu, sorry. Oh, good. It's like being like person.

I do like. I do like. Human. Hello, human. I also am human. Why do you, why you suspect me? We call us to do that, right? I love water.

Water and air. Come on. Delicious. So, Genu, you also, let's see. Well, do you have, yes. I'm trying to think.

Do you have any training or schooling that you remember this from, or maybe it was? So this would be just to see, like, basically I'm triggering into what she said that they left. And so I'm trying to think back if I saw any creatures that maybe were a little mammalian in a furry that didn't quite necessarily the way I see it belong on Zenith traveling in a group or alone, either scavenging or whatever they might be doing. Okay. So you remember, so on Zenith there are villages and there are taverns and, you know, cafes and things.

And so you were in a tavern one time with some Hamanu friends, and you did overhear, there was a Verthod root lord, funny enough, in that tavern, and it was a skyborn, so you had never seen that, so you were definitely eavesdropping the whole time, and you overheard them telling other people about the different types of Baniari, and there are several different species, and one of them is called the Whirl Thing. and I believe it does look like just full tree, right? Yeah, but they're, they sort of reflect their own earthwood tree, so it looks like they're still kind of embers along the sides of them.

They're like easily broken and they're like ashen. Ashen. Yeah, they have the glowing embers. It looks like a burning tree. And you wouldn't have seen it out in the world because the few world things that are, that do still exist are mostly on Banyan and maybe there's like one or two out in the world, maybe. But you did overhear a very detailed description of what it was. Yeah, if I remember correctly, it's almost like they're seasonal,

where every so often, like, small tribes of rural things are revealed by, like, the movement of the terrain. And just they climb out of the earth for brief periods of time before retreating back to hibernate. It's not a great situation. Yeah. And you know every time you're near one because they have this, like, aura of sadness around them and they make you sad. You just feel sadness in their presence because their plight is just so depressing. Yes, I've heard of this. Full stop.

So that's what I want to do. I want to get off the planet and I want to find one of their nuts and I want to plant it. You all are coming up to, you're almost back at the path now and you are, you are You roll a perception. Yay! I have this. So that's D-8s and D-6s, my friends. All right.

Wait, is this your first roll? Yeah. I did just roll. I did just roll. Oh, I should have said it back then. But it feels good, man. Okay, so dang. You got one?

One. Where's that other white dye? Yeah, just one. That is one success. Ooh. All right. So now, actually, I always. I want you all, the rest of you, to also do a perception check.

And yours is going to be a... Let me see. Hold on, hold on. Me? Nope. Nope. It's going to be special? Yeah.

Did you just... Oh, you just rolled that? I rolled that. I rolled 46 in the... You already rolled? Let's roll it the same time. Okay. Wow.

Did you get any success? Oh, nothing. Oh, one. I'm going to have you roll again because yours is a special one. Oh, my actual one. Yes, yes, yo? You're so excited. I feel like Fennell's just talking nonstop

about her people at this point. Okay, so you don't notice. And I'm paying only attention to Fennell, apparently. I've got a flam. Yay. Two successes. Two successes, and I'll thank this. You're going to do beastways.

Beastways. Uh-oh. Bloop-oop-y-bloop. Beastways compassion. Tell me more, yes. Did you get any success? I had no. Okay, so just Chenu, I believe.

Nope, I only had one second. I did, you had two. I had two. All right. And I got a flare, I just banked it. Oh, great. Oh, wow. What you got?

One, two, three. Oh, nice. So you got a luminous success. So Longa-Lo and Fenno are up front in walking along and chatting, just talking more about Pairoy and Banon and the differences and connectivity between the two folks. So we don't notice anything.

And then Udo's and Chenu are also now talking more and comparing heights too because you're both very tall people. I'm seven, too. I'm six-eight. I think I might be taller than you. By a hair. But you two are hanging back with the shovel test, and you say that I were good enough friends

that I'm just like sitting on it like you see like the like a hippo and a tiny bird like that way I can like draw and still talk to everybody too oh please yes am I getting jealous oh yeah mom right meanwhile I've been like well if she is taller maybe that's on her shoulder to sit on but this one you know what the difference is

the shovel test is wider so it's more like sorry Udo's is kind is very lanky, so you're kind of perched on a pole, basically. On a telephone pole. And the shovel test, at least you can like, relax. You can put your feet up on the shovel test. Like, Cleopatra. Yeah, it's more of a litter than anything.

I wish somebody had grapes to slow a lot of no one. Yeah, exactly. He didn't is bought. I mean, we have those poison berries. No, thank you. Nope, just a suggestion. So you, you, for some reason, you just sense a present. and maybe even hear a slight fluttering high up in the air.

You, however, not only sense the presence and feel the slight fluttering, but you hear the distinct, very high-pitched squeal of your good friend, your companion, high above the trees. Peely! And I just take off. I just dip out, like straight up.

You just fly straight up. What is it, Peelie? I don't know. I also don't know. So now the rest of you look up to see, everyone notices this because that was, yeah, that was pretty loud. So everyone looks up and sees your Teryxian blue, turquoise, reddish, feathered friend sky dancing almost

with a gorgeous jeweled dragonfly that is named Peely. Is it going to eat him? Is this flirting? Is that what that is? Is this flirting? Oh. Well, I don't know why you're looking at me as if I have all the answers. That bird man and his dead a dragonfly of flying.

That is what I see, what you see. So you reach Peeley, and Peeley is like, has basically a face, fuzzy face covered with my face. Oh, yeah, I forgot he was drunk on honey. Last time. Our honey suckling is called West. He was really, where is this? Yeah.

Peley is finally flying again, but was probably just laid out. Yeah. A little dragonfly hymnus. So he's softly beating his wings in jewel dragonflies, of which one Peely is, they can essentially release like rainbow shimmers from their wings. And they can use as a distraction, but he's just so happy that like the rainbow shimmers are like flowing off of him in waves. and I'm just like laughing and I'm also keeping pace with him softly beating my wings while like

just chatting with him and his face is like he looks all drug now he's face covered in nectar do these rainbow shimmers reach down like do they fall long? No they fade away it's like welding sparks or something yeah yeah so they dissipate before they hit the ground and you know I'm just like hey where have you been I told you not to just get lost in those glades what are you ridiculous You have to come meet her new friends. And Pele just kind of nozzles you and gets some nectar on you. Like wipe my face and I take his reins and lead him, and they're pretty long rains because we're both flying creatures.

But I don't trust him to fly straight currently. So I bring him back down but maintain about like 10, 15 feet off the ground above the crew. And I, this is Zochipili. He's my jewel dragon flying. I... So Peely lands. is probably about two feet off the ground, do you think? Two feet tall or how, what's the size?

He's probably like, maybe like off the table. He's probably like two feet tall. Right, so when he's standing on the ground. Yeah, a dragon fly the size of a large dog, like a very large dog. Very wide wingspan, right? So definitely smaller than the shovel test. But still, this is a pretty large dragonfly.

Yeah, like his eyes are probably like each about this big, which is super cool. That's a really big book. And when you say it's yours, does that mean you own it? No, he's... He's my closest friend, I would say. I was given him as a child to raise and turn into one of the beasts of burden on quill. But I didn't have the heart.

That's one of the reasons that I've gone for a walk about. Our creatures are just as such as important as we are. And this is my friends, Zocupili. I didn't want to send him out to the fields to drag, like, you know, plows and mine for ore. Like, he's not, he's my friend. He's not just a slave or a worker. Can I pet him?

Of course you can. Now, you both have seen Peely before, but you haven't gotten this close to Peely before. So on your travels, you both have seen this beautiful jeweled dragonfly, but usually it, now it's drunk on nectar, so it's feeling a little bit more, you know. He's a little saucy right now, so, you know. Sassy.

I'm going to write down. Wait, where do I pet it? You can pet him right behind his eyes and right actually like where his head meets his body, that segment there, it's soft. He likes being scratched there. Gentle. I don't know what a happy dragonfly would make as a sound.

but I don't like what I'm imagining. It's a very high-pitched squeal, so I think they can't even hear it, but you can. All of the beast-y type of people. And you probably maybe can too. So like, Ogger and Cheneu and I, and I'm like, oh, he loves it. He loves it.

He's so happy right now. How can you tell? He makes a very high-pitch. Oh, do you want to hear it? I have it in my head. I could transfer it directly. Yeah, all right. Please, don't.

Oh, my goodness. It's a delightful sound you don't think it would come from a dragonfly. Here we go. And it's in your head talking. Boop. Boop. Oh, I'm just so glad I can hear this.

Isn't it lovely? Totally worth losing non-spirit point. Oh no, wait, I would have exhausted you quite once again. And myself too. As much as I love it, it's not comfortable for me either. I'm sensing where our first shatter is going to be. Oh, yes. So now that this reunion has happened,

you all continue on your way towards the path. The shovel tusk looks a little weary of the dragonfly just because that's a new animal. This is not a bunch of. Onyaree species. This is from your home shard of will. So, yes. So this is very odd and very exciting for everyone.

Yeah, and then seeing Ogger's discomfort, I comfort Ogher and tell Peely to keep a little bit of distance. Like, stay above the trees, keep an eye out for us. But it's for the comfort of both of them. And also, he's still a little drunk. I want to ride him, but like, Yeah, you might fall up. Yeah.

Drunk driving is against the rules. So you all finally do reach the path that you were on before, but you've kind of done this to get back on the path. And you are walking down the path, again, just taking in the nature of it all and the beauty and the sounds. The shovel tusk is lumbering along and getting kind of tired,

so Longano pulls out her another little, just a thermos of water and gives the shovel test some water. You're just walking. Oh, Longanow, are these the vines and the fibers that you use to make your sleeping mat? Oh, yeah. Yeah, that's the one. Yes, it looks quite like, I'd love for you to show me how you did that. I'm quite the homemaker myself.

Oh, yeah, I love to weave. Those are really strong vines, too. Oh, perfect. Maybe perhaps I could craft a rope from them or make a doll even. Now the four of you recognize those as the same vines. Those are the same vines that we helped that animal.

The Nutan sin was trapped in there. They're really hard to cut. Are those vines some sort of sentience? Well, I mean, I hope not because I've been using them to build things. Oh, I don't think they're too hard to rip apart. I'm gonna try to just rip them part.

Okay. I hope you would. To maybe later craft a rope. Oh, really? Yeah, we really, we spent like an hour. If you can tear like tissue paper, I'm gonna lose it and be like, we're with the Hulk is on our team. All right, what, uh, I'm a huge friend.

What do I get? Athletics? What do resistance? Oh, yes, sorry. Boop-boot-boot-boop. Where are you? Ooh, can I brawl them to death? Because I am great at that.

Well, sure. Just wrestle them? Yeah, I just rip this apart. I could pull it tot and then use my giant gorilla fist to like, you know when you do that to paper or you like you pull it really taught and you can just do that like with your finger, that's my argument for why I can brawl it.

Okay. Do you know my favorite past time of poking holes in paper. Yeah, it's my favorite. No, I'm like, I'm going to see you brawl. Okay, yes. Like your example is not like people punching boards in half, but people fucking holes in. You know other fibers, material versus a fist?

I'm talking about a really tiny thing and a finger. That's my metaphor. So you're gonna do brawl and mites. Frames of reference, I bought. That's. Come on baby. Oh, baby.

There's a flare. There's a flare, but still only, yeah, only two. I see three successes. Oh, you do? You see three? Isn't it five, six, eight? Or 5.9. Do I get six?

No, it's six. So you got two in a flare, so you can bank that point. Or use it as a success on this one? Well, you can, but it's not going to get you to Radiant anyway. All right. So I'll bank it. Does that mean I get back my spirit point that I lost? Yeah, I think you've, oh yeah, and you get, because you've done that a couple times now.

Yeah, I lose it and I get it back. Yeah, that's right. Okay. Okay. So you pull down a section of the vine. You pull it. It gives, but you can now feel its strength. And then you try to punch it.

And it's just kind of like, you're able to, like, if you were to keep punching, you could pull off a full part of it, but it's very strong. So even this as a success, it's, you know. Oh, and you all said you've tried this before. Right. It took all four of us to pull it apart. Right.

But even comparatively, like, she was able to pull it much more than you all were. So. Well, I don't have time. I, you know, another time. You know what I do? So when they die off, they still stay pretty strong, so I just wait to find dead ones.

Oh, oh, they disconnect themselves. Eventually. Yeah. Like we all do. Eventually. Yeah. Yeah. I hope you use my body as some sort of

productive material after I die. Well, of course I plan to. Yes, yeah. If food, fuel, I'm sure your bones would make wonderful tools. Food! Her body rot and die and not use it for anything I can. Yes, we've discussed this before. It's not disgusting.

Waste not wanting it. Thank you. The Oramel gets it. Yeah, Zenith is a very harsh landscape. It would only make sense for- Oh, I would do it on Bonion too. I would do it on pier, a pyre. I would do it everywhere. High five.

And with that, we will take our break now. They seem upset. Would you eat her on a shard? Would you eat her on a shard? Would you eat her on a shot? A dead friend. Parished friend. We will be back in 10 minutes

for the next half of episode two of Overlight. Yes. Hello there and welcome back to Overlight. Episode two. Woo! Now I know it's true. I've trained my players to applaud when I say things. But you're supposed to give us a treat afterwards. Yeah.

Can I just full body wake instead? I would like one spirit points. You know what? I did forget to give you all XP after last session, so you all get one XP! Which we can afford nothing with that, right? Yeah, I know. So in this system you can, yeah, you can use XP

to basically level up certain things. You can buy new chroma, you can get training and different skills, so yes. Cool. I will be giving you XP and hopefully it will be enough to add some training to some things. Yeah. So is that like when we were allotting points pre-game

like so experience that is okay, cool. Exactly. Good to know. Yeah. All right. If there's anything else that you wanna discuss, okay, then we will jump back in. So we are on the road to the Verthod-Harthwood tree and we have a pretty big crew that's a mass now. So there's the five of you, and then we have two beasty friends, a jeweled

dragonfly who's hovering above, just above the tree line, and a shovel tusk who is lazily walking. So you travel along the road, and you travel, and you travel, and this is a long, pretty long journey. We knew it was going to be long because Fennell gave us a heads up before, that it would take a long time to get there. But the journey continues on. At some point, you do experience some nighttime, or some darkness, I should say, as the shard above just briefly obscures the overlight. And it's more like dusk. It's not complete darkness. But you are walking along for some time in that darkness, and you start to see some beautiful, not your, luminescent, like fireflies off, you know, on the tree line

and things like that. At some point you rest, you have a meal, you continue to talk and bond and learn what flirting is, things like that. I still don't know. Yeah. We should practice. Okay.

So you're having, you are in the mid-camp and you're having a dinner. But we should practice. I want to see. We're doing it. Are we doing it? Are we, is this flirting? Oh.

My eye got tired, I can't wink anymore. Oh no, let me do it for you. This is great. Looks good. You know what? I'm no longer surprised that you've made friends. Because I'm good at it? That's right.

Yeah. Great. Yes, you seem to fit right in. Well, I mean, we got close without a bonding ceremony. I think, you know, we just gotta find people that mesh with us. Right, right. Well, everyone at that monastery was so dull. They really were, and continued to be, I imagine,

unless they've all died. Right, right. Did you say they all died? What? Well, I mean, I don't know. Any species can get wiped out at any moment. Oh, I thought you said, because they all died. Oh, they could have. But I don't know.

Probably not. Maybe, though. Possibly. Maybe we're all dead right now. Most of the conversations with Takma seem to end up with the potential of something dying. It just seems to be like the way she engages with things. So don't really read too much into it.

Her people aren't dead. We're just talking about possibilities. Exactly. Yeah. I've only talked to her once. By design. That was enough. That's all she talks about.

Who does? I have a question for you. Yes. your people flirt. Well. So Fennell takes out her piece of paper borrowed from a little pencil.

We build monuments. Not large monuments. Smaller. You could say statues of some sort. Fertility icons? They can be. If you're having that issue, if you're having a problem. But more just...

What kind of problems? Issues of fertility. What does that mean? Like the world. You know how the world thing can't make more of itself? Yeah. That makes sense. Well maybe if we make it a fertility statue, that would help.

Maybe. Would we be able to make a forfeility statue? Maybe, but like as you have Beniori people. My people are from our, our M.L. Yeah. Yeah, we're from Vail. We're different. That's true. But I get the sense that Fennell is looking to flirt from every possible angle. I just want to know.

Just in case I ever feel like I want to. I want to know all the possibilities. Yes, you're going to come at them from all sides. All angles. Yes. That person won't know. No one will. No, you won't.

I'm an aggressive floater, I think. I don't know. So you build statues? Yes, yes. Statues. Tainu, what about you? How do my people flirt? It's a lot of hugging.

I'm a hugger. You're right. I am a hugger. I am a hugger. And sometimes you can interpret those hugs in a more romantic way. Is it like a more prolonged hug? Are you hugging like a specific part of them? No, it's a normal hug, but yes, maybe more prolonged. It's more about the emotional connection. Like this is a friend hug. Let me. And Longa No reaches over and hugs the shovel test. This is a friend hug too. What does a romantic hug look like? Again, it's with the emotion, and I don't quite have that emotion for any of you in the moment.

Me neither. Long, hug, question mark, question mark. Yes, you'll know it when you feel it. Let's just say that. Flirt with the void. Well, I think the relationship between me and the void is sort of more like an obsession. I never stop thinking about it. I'm always trying to connect with it. It enters my dreams as I sleep.

It fills every corner of my mind when I'm awake. That sounds very... intimate. Oh yeah, it's inside me all the time. Now that's section. And I'm inside it all the time. Being inside the void. One.

Is letting the void inside you. Yep, okay, we're doing it. Void. But if we're speaking of like a physical romance, the Zenith monks don't really participate. We're very focused, historically speaking, on our

studies and our work, and it takes a lot of time, attention, and physical energy and dedication to the orders. So. But every once in a while, you'll kill something. I didn't give it to someone special, but you know. So that's the death flirting gift flirting. But I don't know, I guess from the vibe I'm getting from all of you,

not an effective way to be doing that. I think it depends on the person. Wait, okay. You just gotta find a person who is totally happy to get your dead presence. That's love. That's love. I've seen traveling the shards, you know,

as much as I have, is that we all tend to have her own love languages. It's well, you know, that giving someone a creature that you slayed may not work for everybody. It sounds just as valid as any other way to express your care for another. How do Torexians flirt? A lot of grooming and preening,

and we all have really in-depth mating dances. I honestly have two left feet. I'd offer to show you otherwise, but I haven't had much luck in that way. But it's, there's a long process of you, you clear out a space within the forest on Quillarder Choosing, where you would like to to settle with your mate and you clear everything away, create a clearing essentially, a stage, if you will. And then you groom yourself to your most

lustrous sheen and you stand in that clearing and you dance until someone until you catch someone's eye. Performing arts. Hmm. Yep.

I've got a D6 in performance, so I'm still working on it. What does he mean D6? I don't know, but he sounded He's very proud of himself. Right. It doesn't, like six is not a high number. Mm-mm-mm.

I mean, it just is all relative, isn't it? It's average. That's true. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. Ooh. I don't have anything. I'm not to say. That sounds right.

I'm untrained in performance. Long ago, how do people flirt on pyroi? What? Oh, look at my own, Pyroi, don't laugh at me. Oh, yeah, so I don't know, on Pyroi, I, I guess there was this one other, uh, pyroy ethane. That's, that's the war band folk that I was a part of.

There's this one that I was like, just like crouched or like her little noodle limbs are called. Oh God, like the tree's still moving around. That's so scary. You're so scary. Thank you. You can be scary. Yeah, back home, there was this one other warrior type Who would always just pick a fight

At me, not like with me, but like in front of me Like if I was walking to ritual that morning He would make sure to like fight whoever he was standing next to And I thought it was so dumb, I don't find that impressive Sounds toxic Showing off Yeah Oh, okay

I don't think any of these are for me I don't know, we could work on our dance moves. Yes, you know what, you teased it long enough. I'm ready for a show. I wanna see. Dance, dance, dance, dance, dance. Dance, dance, dance, dance. Okay.

Dance. Oh! I want you to roll. So scary. Really? No, no, I couldn't. No, guys, not today. Oh my God.

Yes, you are treating in performance. Ooh, I do want you to roll performance compassion. Okay. Nice. I would say vigor, but no, let's just see you should. This is yours. You just, you like these friends, and you want to share your performance with them. A little drunk on nectar maybe.

Yeah. One, two, three, and a flare. Whoa. So we can make it four. You can make that. That's a radiant success. A real good dance. All right.

Everybody's looking at me. Everybody's looking at me. Yeah, so you play out your wings and you start tiptoe. That's just the beginning though. What happens next? Making those noises. Yep.

Yep. So it's like, God. Kanye's song, like all of the lights, except it's over light. But no one's saying that on the screen. Yeah, yeah, we're not doing that. Over the line. That's how you get, that's how you get.

That was less than three seconds, right? There's like four notes, we're good. Okay. Copy, right. Yeah, so transitions from the wings out, and then big sweeping motions of the wing and then trying to flare out so you can see all of the color

down to the roots of my feathers, just as large as possible. as possible. Exposing the, that's rare to see that type of, unless you're flying. You're right. Yeah. It's the undercoat. It's a very vulnerable position.

And then at the end of the performance where it almost becomes balletic at the end, with a few strong beats of my wings, I lift about five feet off the ground and do a single flip. And then I spin and gracefully land back on the ground, like crouched with my wings around me. And then one more. Oh, that's a lot. Delicately preen. Wow.

That was really pretty. Yes. Thank you. I usually don't like to show off for people, but I just feel really comfortable in your presence. Yes. What did you think long ago? Oh, that was really nice.

That's better than picking a friend. fight in front of me, so yeah. Oh, it's working. I'm gonna just underline that one. That one worked really well. I glare at Takma, and I'm gonna go check on Peely and just fly away. Okay, bye.

And Peely, yes, Peelie is resting in a nearby tree for the night. So, I'm gonna set up the camp the way I would. I'm basically a homemaker, so I can, even using dirt and our surroundings, I somehow make it a little more homey. I organize some leaves and some branches into kind of a cozy nook area.

If somebody wants to read some scrolls or parchment that they might have brought along with them, cuddle up with some hot-watery substance. And each of the bedding areas, I've kind of been able to fluff some pillows or add some extra soft petals or something to the bedding areas. Like I've turned down the sheets. Lovely. So, yes, so the group, where is everyone sitting or relaxing, lounging, or where are you all? You know that things, that thing that octopus do where they sort of like dig their way into the dirt a little bit?

Fennel does that with her roots. She sort of like down into the dirt. And then the willow bits sort of fan down and cover her. And she's just like asleep in the middle of this tiny tree. That is adorable. It's cute but also a little upsetting. Yeah. Everything.

She does. Yeah, that's why they say, oh. Cute but upsetting? Yeah. Cute but disturbing. And you flew away. Where's Udos? Yeah, I'm in my, thank you, by the way,

for this wonderful little kind of tent-like structure, but it's not big enough for me. So my feet are kind of just hanging out, but the important part is covered. My mask is covered. my upper body's covered. The important part. My face.

If I see that your feet are uncovered, I will build a makeshift tent for your feet. Just for the feet. Oh, thank you. I don't want to be rude. I don't want to be unappreciative. Oh. Very well.

And then I would just be assisting Chenu in setting up because I'd probably, we can't together a few times. I know sort of what your, what your aesthetic is. And how I can help. Yeah, there's a lot of pain. as much as I can find in the forest. Sure, you take some berries and you smear them on leaves

to make them more pink. Absolutely, yeah, definitely. Definitely. But yeah, when we, we probably like sleep, probably cuddled up. Aw. I'm the big spoon. I'm the big spoon.

Do you get to decide if you're the big spoon or not? I feel like. We trade off. We do trade off. We trade off, but I am the big spoon. I mean, look at me. I mean, sometimes it's nice to be held. Just because you're bigger, doesn't mean you don't need a good spoon.

That's true, yes. Yes, it is nice. Creatures of all size need a good spoon. That's right. And with that, you all drift off to sleep. With that last thought, creatures of all size need a big spoon. Aww. That message.

Tagline for the show. Change the title. And in the morning, you all wake up feeling pretty rested and renewed. Let's see. I feel like I should be apologizing for that bird. Sorry. You have time you snore.

I love how all the bird noises are now just not. Keep stepping on something. I've got a limo in the forest. It hurts so much. What even is this thing? So you all wake up and you, Longa No takes out her sack of foods and you all make up breakfast together. Longono pulls out her thermos and looks at it. I'm out of water.

We need to find water. I can find some, yeah. Yeah, we should. I mean, does anyone want to come with me to go find water? Thank you. If there's a waterfall, yeah, ideally. Maybe we can find you a waterfall.

Why don't you come with us? Yes. Well, what do you think? Shall we go? Family trip, family trip. Let's all just pack up and go and then look for a stream on the way. All right.

I know of a couple. Great. So you all pack up the camp and you look at it and you're like, yeah, this is pretty good. That would make some changes. Oh, yes. I definitely do take mental notes of where curtains and frills could be placed.

Yes, little, what are those doilies? Yeah, for next time. You just travel with doilies. Yes, when I have more time. Like camping doilies. That's right. Everybody has those. Every glass of glassy, hum-ball.

Glamping. Yeah, that's like ultimate glamping. Absolutely. So you all pack up and you make your way through the forest. You don't go straight back to the past. because you're trying to look for a stream. And sure enough, you come across this beautiful little stream that even has a small waterfall.

It's about three feet high. Oh, what it doesn't do this. What, it doesn't do this? Oh, they come much bigger. This is just a small one. Oh, really? Oh, yeah. There's a giant one that's like way up there.

It's super tall and we call it greenflow. Oh, I've heard tell of these larger ones, but this is tickling, this is itching my scratch. This is scratching my itch quite well, and it's also tickling me. It's itching your scratch. Maybe you should back up. Oh, no. Why is it doing that? Oh, that feels good is what I mean.

I like it. It would be good for a bath. Well, yeah, you could, you... No, say it, say it. Open book here, save space. What is it? I'm just saying you've been hanging out in a shovel test. for, I don't know, a long time.

I spooned with you all night. I know, and I didn't sleep at all. Oh, no. I think it's worth pointing out that considering the spooning, Cheon-New's not the only one who smells like a shovel-class. Well, well, well, a taste of thine own medicine. Longa-no just takes off her outfit and's like, I'm getting in. And she just gets into the stream.

gonna waddle over and put my roots in it. You guys can keep talking about who smells more like a shovel tusk. I always smell like a shovel tusk. I don't care. Tachma's going, she has really like baggy black robes and a hood, and she's just gonna look around of it and then just like rip them off. And she's not wearing anything underneath. She's, she's, yeah.

Yeah, it's just like, as soon as it's unbelted, it's gone. And she, and she's very, like, sinewy and like 1% body fat. and she sort of just like awkwardly jumps into the stream and starts like wiggling around. And I, yeah, Cheneu is also not wearing anything and she'll follow suit. I take everything off except my mask. Oh, that's so weird, but I like it.

Yeah, oh my god. No, no, we never take our mask off. You just never take your mask off, really? Never. What's under there? I don't know. Do you have a face off? Do you actually have a face?

Is it a mirror? What is that? It's a reflective piece of like a glass. It's like water, but on the wall. Yeah. I've seen water on the floor. Right. It would...

My reflection. Yes, your reflection. Yes, that's what we're going for. But like, without some bats. Oh, I think maybe they don't call them mirrors in... Unveil. Yeah, what are you guys talking about? Moor-roars.

How do you see yourself? What a... Moor... Mirror. Is it no way? Reflective thing. Yeah, reflective. You know, as the colors of the overlight

is reflected, so also might your personage be reflected. Oh! Yes, yes, yes. Those are Ramos. Ramos. You do know what a reflection is, though, right? Huh? A reflection?

Yes. Oh, you can let, okay. Yeah, yeah. Okay. So you've never seen your face? You could go over there and look down in the water and just kind of peek. You need help.

taking off your mouth? It's not something that I'm really too curious about. Have you ever, I've had my face, my whole life. Under the, what? I really need to see it. Can you clean under it? Are you like just sweaty and gross under there?

So while they're having this discussion, Takma has been like flailing around in part of this stream and she's walked back over, she's like dripping wet, stark naked and she has like two fish that she's like, she's like scrunched, like she's squeezed to death. and she's offering them to you guys. Is it even hungry?

Well, I can eat those raw, but I usually- I've been dying for protein. Yeah, I need protein. You should look that. You should look that. I said, I, um. I'll just start a pile over here and she goes back.

It just three. Thank you, Takma. Thank you, thank you. Thank you, Tukma. Roll, roll a D-10. One D-10? Yeah. Oh, no.

I don't know what this is gonna be, yeah? I love the idea of wild-eyed Takma just standing naked in the stream like, that's exactly, oh it's fine. Nice, yes, so Takma has gathered 10 fish. Yeah, nice. What's a pot? Sweet.

Yummy, thank you. You're welcome. This is the... Flirting, but it's not flirting. Oh, right. Well, I don't know. Yes, I think it's somewhat like a hug, the way that mine is.

Sometimes it's a friendship hug. If there's the emotion behind it, it could be wrong. romantic as well. I'm really confused. This feels like a friendship present. I can't forget with all of you at the same time, can I? Well, if you wanted, you probably could. In this case, I think she just wants to make sure we eat.

Okay. So let's eat. I don't eat fish. What do you eat? Lots of root vegetables. Lots of tibolistic. Lots of tubers. Duh.

Duh. Sorry. Good. But I will eat. And she like runs over and dives into a berry bush. You can just see the tops of this portray. Little three legs flopping around. Jenna will you get my back?

There you go. Fennell roll a d-10. Okay. A four. Okay, so you get pretty full from berries but you don't get terribly painfully full like you normally do when you dive into berry bushes. I do, I have a problem.

I am very gonna. of dealing with Takma's animal sacrifices, and I know that what would make her the happiest is to finish the meal. And so if there are any leftover, people are feeling weird about it, I will eat all of it that's there. When we could cook it,

then people might be more interested in eating it. Oh, yeah, yeah. I don't care. Oh, okay. I'm pretty full. I had enough fish. Thank you. That was good for me.

Thank you. Everyone ate that raw. Is that safe? We'll find out of me. Yeah, we'll see. Yes, it's definitely a different shot, isn't it? But no, yeah. Yum, yum, yum, yum, yum.

Like making sushi, cutting it all up. Oh, right. Oh, yeah. Oh, I probably do Etsy it up a bit. Etsy it up, Ontario. Etsy sushi, not what you want. That's where I order my sushi from. Gets to you in like three weeks,

and it's not very good. It's like a two-week processing. Salmon Doyley. Ooh. Mm-hmm. Yes. Oh, God. So you all have finished this meal with you polishing off the rest of what's left on the bones to honor your future bond mate and her...

Excellent work. Everyone loves you now. I mean, you have made so many friends. Really, really, I couldn't have done it better myself. Oh, thanks, Jan. I loved you before. Oh, great. She's just like spraying very...

Oh, God. Yes, fennel's, but she throws up. What's amazing about fennel is that, as we've figured out now, fennel is adorable, but in a disturbing way. And so fennel has berries smeared all over her, but it looks like blood. Yep, absolutely. Fennel is more like feral.

Wow. Yes. Upon seeing fennel, I walk into the shallows along the bank, and I start to just take a bird bath, like splashing up on me. McFennel, do you want to join me? Nope. Okay. I'm going to start to just gather the berries, like in a little sack and carry them out

so I can, like, divvy them out to my friends. These are really sweet, and they're a little bit tart, and they're very good. I have eaten so much fish. I'll see these for you for later. Are you a little bit? Yummy, yummy. Oh, boy. We should keep going.

Have you filled your water? Yes, I have. All right, I'm gonna fill my tea. And do I smell any longer? Well, you smell like a stream, which is a nice smell. And a little like fish, but that's also a nice smell. If I squish the berry on you, you'd smell like the berry. Oh.

Just like me. Right, right. By the way, it looks like you killed something and feasted on its innards. Yes, and in some cultures that might be considered very attractive. I can be like pirate. Oh, please, not that music. That music gives me nightmares from my childhood.

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It is. I'm not very good at it. So you all begin again on your way. You're dripping, drying for, you prefer. have shaken off the water from your feathers, but you all are now on your way back to the path to get to the hearthwood tree. I'm gonna help Chinu comb out some of her back here. You know, we're walking.

Oh, that's lovely, yes. Oh, right there, yes, perfect. Oh, is that not already done? Pretend like it's not done yet and just go at it. All right, whatever you want, Chinu. I'm gonna keep walking though. You know, that's happening as you're walking. Yeah, but she keeps stopping to like stamp her foot or something.

Just leaving a trail of fur that you've come back. Yeah. So you're, so now you are starting to recognize the terrain. You're getting very close to your hearthwood tree. I want you to roll a, I want you to roll a, I want everyone to roll a, no, I want you two to roll a folklore, folklore. Folklore wisdom. Yes, whizied dome.

Okay, great. Two. One imaginary. Where's my? Not a, okay. Oh man, oh man. All right, so. I don't know what he mean. So as you're walking along, you start to recognize the terrain. rain. And you tell the group something that many people don't know, but they've gained your trust.

So you decide to tell them how to identify the entrance to a hearth, hearthwood path. Usually it's covered and it's secret. But yours has a specific pattern of trees that you start to see. And so you tell them this. You point out like, oh, look at that. There's the fern and it crosses this way and it's on this diagonal. And then underneath is the, the roots and you just like describe to them basically the entrance to your hearthwood tree. And if you come at it at any other angle, you have to pass between those two trees, the ones that look like they're crossing and they've grown together. If you come on it from any other angle, all you're going to see is just a wall of green,

but if you come at it this way, you're going to see all of our little huts. We've sort of hidden them. So you have to come this way. Very clever. Fascinating. Lucky that we came this way then. Yeah, well, you have me. Using natural the camouflage of the environment to protect yourselves.

Absolutely. So now you're walking and you start to see the patterns that Fennell has pointed out to you. And sure enough, it's starting to give way to a, now we're veering off of the main path and it's starting to give way to the denser part of the forest. and we are entering the hearthwood part of the forest. And so you see these little that's-roof-huts that are, some of them have like berries and seeds spilling out of them, so some of them are storage facilities.

Some of them, you can see little hearthwood nuts being that are kind of stuffed in there to keep them protected. Some of them, you even see Harthwood, you even see what looks like babies as if you, like what you would have looked like as a baby, which would be a small

almost the size of like a mouse with a tree on its back and they're sleeping quietly and there are Verthods. You didn't notice them before, but there are Verthods all around you.

and they look like fennel. They are these Baniari Virthods. They have the red panda body and the roots underneath them and then the rest of the tree shoots above them. So they're varying in height and, but they're all like fairly small, like fennel. So you now have entered this area. She's going between door to door just saying,

hi guys, hi, how's your baby? Hello, nice to see you again. Oh, Finnell. Hi, hi, yes. roast them. Yep. She's just tossing berries into different doorways and saying hello. And like at one, she ends up getting a loaf of this grain bread. And she's like, oh cool, I'll put this in my sack. They like to trade here. It's very much a, like, there's no currency on Bonnion. It's all, like, trading. I don't have anything for trade. Do you have anything? Yes. That's where you're

wrong. You have, you have the word of the void. Remember that. And there are so many beings. just waiting to hear your voice and the logic of what the void can bring them. Right, right. We do trade stories sometimes. That's a type of currency here. Okay, so maybe, well, it's not really a story as much as it is like the truth, but, but yeah?

Maybe that. Or you could trade your fish. No, I didn't know them. Oh, they're all gone. They were so good and I appreciated every last bite. Okay, never mind. But I could go get some more. Yeah.

Okay. I'm the only, well, I mean, I'm not the only one, but a lot of them don't, you know, abstain from fish. I just don't eat fish. Sure. Maybe both, because we do have that mission, you know. I think this would be a really good time to spread the faith.

Well, that was our old mission, Chinu. Well, right, but I mean, it's kind of a new one if you want more people to believe in the void and for it to be, you know, a real thing. That's true. I don't want to pressure anybody to believe in the void. No, but you get so passionate when you talk about. I could always make you a flyer,

and then we could have a meeting place, and then if anyone is interested, they could come and listen to you talk. Yeah, maybe it could be called Void Lovers Anonymous. Okay, that sounds good. The two of you, Ma and Udos, roll a perception check. Now the rest of you are having you having this conversation so you do not notice anything else.

One. In this. I have nothing. I'm just gonna do three, six sided die. I have no perception. Oh, okay. Three six side of day. I have no perception.

Wait, if you're untrained, you get one. Yeah, you can take, so you would have four. So you can roll four. Yeah, perfect. I was distracting. And your spirit, Diane. I've been rendering our friend Fennell, trying to offer us berries.

That's really nice. Make sure the carry. Oh, it's me! That's really good. Covered in my berry blood. Okay. Okay. Oh, tweet it, you gotta tweet it.

Nothing. All right. And failure, absolute failure. Abtrak's failure, it's okay. I hurt myself somehow. I just tried to look around and oh man, really back. How did that happen? Oh God.

I looked inside my own body and I was scared at what I saw. Boy, that's some void stuff. You should look into the void church. Church of the void. The church of the void. Church of the void. It's more of a monastery, but yeah.

So I'm gonna have Udos, Chenu, Tukma, and Mott. Roll a resistance might. Oh boy. Just heck of D6s. All the D6s. So now this is, by the way, this is an open test. You do not know yet who you were ruling against. Uh, six is the highest.

Okay. My highest number is a four. All right. Oh, yeah, nine, baby. Great. Let's see what Udos gets. Does anybody have a 1D10 that I can? Yes.

Sure. But I want to give him a D10. Come on. Oh. Oh, in a flare, you get to add one, yeah. That's a 10. What is that? Is that a 10?

See from here. No, that's a 9. Oh my gosh, so zero means 10. So you have 11. You have 11, dope. Okay. All right, so, Matt and Takma, you all of a sudden feel very,

you feel a vine wrap around your arms and hold you in place. And the two of you are now held. What? I squawk. No! Oh no! You also feel this vine, but you instantly,

because of your strength and you, because of your size and you, I think it's, I see it happen to talk, but I think Udos is trying to distract me like, hey look at this and I can't right now, but it's actually the vine. You like, no, no, I'm busy. It just breaks, it falls off. Yeah.

And then Udos. I think I struggle with it, because I don't, I'm not that strong. I don't think I'm that strong. Don't be so hard on your son. I haven't looked to myself in the mirror. Here's the thing. You are very nimble.

Yes. So you are, you managed to shrug out of this vine that has tried to capture you. Doing a little bit. You dance out of her. Body rolling. Now, now you all, you two are caught now. Fennell is watching,

but you see from out of the tree line, you see a band of Verthod defenders Yes. Oh my gosh. Fennell. Did you Travis? Two of them are holding the other ends of the vines that have caught Takme and Mott.

There's clearly a bit of misunderstanding. You let my friends go. This is not okay. One of them steps forward and kind of eyes you, Fennell? Fennell? Yes. Fennell? I didn't know you're coming home, sister.

I'm sorry. Who are these people you're- They're my friends. Please let them go. Well, no. Do they know where our hearthwood tree is? Not yet. You're gonna show them our hardwood tree?

This is a Teryxian. You know what Teryxian's due to heartwood trees. He's a skyborn. They're all skyborns, we're all skyboards. He came because his main core is passion, compassion. He's nice. I've never met a skyborn Teryxian who is compassionate. Well, he helped me saving attention, so.

I want nothing but peace. I have nothing against the Bunyari people. I am here to get to know you and understand you, not to cause trouble. So, Velt, as his name is, kind of waddles. Velt is, looks exactly like Fennel, basically. But Velt, can't say this without giggling. Velt has taken mud and drawn little like warrior,

yeah, warrior lines on his face. I don't know if you've noticed. He says this as he kind of surfaced. around Mott and Takme. I don't know if you've noticed, but I'm the leader of the Berthod defenders now. Yeah, it's pretty cool. I mean, I thought you were gonna get it anyway,

but you know. Really? That's really sweet. Of course, yeah. You're one of the toughest defenders that we have. Why wouldn't they make you the leader? Yeah, because I stop other folk from coming and seeing our hearthwood tree.

You've successfully stopped me from sketching anything at the moment. I also would make you the leader if I had the choice. I just have a little bit of constructive feedback. back, the vines could be tighter. Okay. And he, like, one of his root signals to the person who's holding you and they tighten it. Right, that feels much tighter.

Great work. Well, they try to, but I like, I like, stick a girthy arm inside of the loop and like, so that it doesn't actually get tighter. Let's roll that. Okay. I mean, it would still get tighter. Your arm would just be trounce.

Well, no, like I do it out here and like, make sure that it's. Oh, you don't let it go. Yeah. Yeah, but I want you to roll that. Oh, okay, okay. You don't get to deploy the truth. No, no, no, you don't understand.

I just, I just do it. Did you let's have telepathic and guess that he was going to. No, no, no, no, no, I didn't do anything like that. What do I roll? Okay, I pass out. Oh, goodness. Okay, so you're, back to the void.

Let's, yeah. I'm gonna say, let's just make this athletic. Athletics bigger. Okay, athletics are bigger. Because you're flexing on them. Yes, okay, cool. Literally, literally. Well, literally you're flexing on me.

3D10s, 3D6s, and a fun D4. Oh y'all! This is an open test, remember so. Oh, all right. So it's six. I got VX7. All right, well, you manage to, as this Verthot defender is tightening,

you manage to get your guerrilla arm in there and prevent the tightening for now. And I make icon. contact at that day. With that Verthod defendant? Yeah, I look fiercer than any of you have ever seen me. Except me? Except, yes, except for, yeah, you saw this coming a mile away.

I've seen such a child. Yeah. So the Verthod defender just stares right back at you. And like drool comes out of my mouth a little. Chinu, your knuckles are like in my ribs. Well, at least it's me hurting you and not these puny little fur boys. Hey!

I'm gonna have you roll. You really need to cool your chest, Chinna? That's, I have no patience for someone hurting my friend. You're gonna roll, boop-bitty-boop. Where is it? You gotta roll to see how sick that burn was. I wanted to be an intimidate,

which we don't exactly have on here, so. Like a performance? Or persuasion? Yeah, I'm thinking persuasion might. Okay, persuasion would be one to six. Might y'all, or you're doing me a service. That is my G12. Okay, but that's still only four dice.

Plus, oh, is it an open test? Yes, it is. It's nine. Ooh boy, so you are staring off and growl off with this Burroth defender who's holding the vine. And then all of a sudden, the Verzaat defender just drops the rope and runs back into the forest.

I snapback out of it. There you go, you're free now, aren't you? free now, aren't you? Yeah. Thanks, Chinu. Can I keep this? But, and I glare at the guy. Yes, she can.

So, Velt, that's who you... Whoever was holding. Oh, that guy's gone. Oh, is this the same vine you were like trying... Chinu was like trying to get earlier? Yes, is this a ropey way? It is the same kind. Okay.

Here's that vine you one. That really worked out, didn't it? Oh, wow, thank you. That's it, yes. So, so... Velt sees this and looks off to where the, that Wertha defender just ran off and says, Lexel, you fired anyway.

Feltz, can you let him go please? They're not here to hurt anybody. They're not gonna tell anybody where the hearthstone tree is. Heartstone, whatever, you knew what I meant. I love that game. Do you like that said now? You've been away from home too long.

I have been away from home for a week. Hurthwood, herthwood. And the rest of the troops laugh. I'm gonna punch you in the face. Who, don't do that in front of my troops, okay? Don't, fennel. I'm fine like this if everyone's more comfortable that way. Branch fists performing.

Don't make me mind strike you. Don't make me mind strike you because I'll do it. Okay, fine, drop, drop it. And so that, for that defender drops. Listen, how about this? I will blindfold all of them when I take them to the tree so they won't know how to get there.

I like that idea a lot. I also like that idea a lot. Oh, on the subject of flirting. Ah, nice folds, really? Okay. You're learning so much, Fennel. Esclabation work, alright. I've learned a lot.

By the way, Longano has been covered in her cape, and she has made a makeshift cape for the shovel test, which is why they were not. And they've also been hanging back, because they were afraid of this exact thing happening. All right, belt. I'm gonna take them to the tree, and you can try and stop me.

But I'm gonna put a blindfold on all of them. No, it's fine. I'll help you. In fact, we'll escort you there. to make sure there's no funny business of people looking through their linefuls. Hey, why is that one have a mask? Well, that's kind of just his face.

Kind of me, man. Your face looks like that. Your face looks like that. You've seen the Aramel before? That's what they are. He's an Aramel. When have I seen the Aramel? They've been here once or twice.

God, do you not remember anything? No. Is your sibling always this focused? Yes. We're all very focused. It's okay. Trust me. Just trust me.

I'm very trustworthy. and if any of them finds out how to get there and they tell somebody, I'll just kill him. Okay. Takma is not waiting, has ripped off a bit of her black robe fabric and has tied it around her eyes and is ready to go. See, she's ready. Oh, lead me through the darkness.

Okay. She's gonna go take Takma's hand and be like, I'm gonna lead you over there, okay? Okay. All right, well the rest of you need some, wait, which hand? Blindfults. I don't know.

Either hand. I don't care. Oh, I just would like to know if I'm holding your weed little paw. Oh no, you're definitely holding my tiny little hand. Oh, okay. She can barely hold like maybe two your fingers. She's got tiny little paw.

She's got little beans. Oh, little tiny. Oh, my goodness. Except she has an opposable thumb. Oh, that sounds upsetting. That would be scary. That's the thing. What upsetting aspect of your character.

That's the theme of the night. But disturbing. Great. I'm here for it. Yeah, I'll do it. Yeah. I see that she's enjoying yourself quite long. Do you take extra fabric or grab some fabric

from somewhere, blindfolds? Get some vines. I've got some scraps of leather and so I hand them out. So you all devise a blindfold. Can I put these two leaves over the holes in my mask? Can I put berries in there? Not big enough. Just lick a leaf and put it on each eye.

She's gonna like go up to him and go close your eyes and just shove some leaves into the hole. to block them up. Oh. Sorry, I said close your eyes. I'm okay. All right.

Okay, so Velt walks around and does a check, like kind of like waves his branches in front of people's faces and things, especially for you tall ones, and tries to make sure you can't see. Okay. All right.

Let's go. I'm going to use a route to grab everybody's hand because I want to hold everybody's hand. Okay, so Fennell and Velt walk in the front. with fennel basically hand root holding everyone and the rest of the troops are kind of flanks around you also protecting you because you're walking and there's footfalls and things so they're just kind of nudging you your feet here and there gently to make sure you don't fall so you proceed down the path the rest of you do not see this but fennel you start to recognize the path home and you've been on the outskirts

of your the hearth hearth wood right you know I don't say it every which way you start to recognize along this path how the brush

starts to get lower the forest land is now starting to get lower and lower and lower as you up ahead see an opening in the trees and it's this beautiful

field with tall grasses and bushes and in the distance and you can see your hearthwood tree. I love it too. It's the biggest tree. You guys will be able to see it soon,

but not right now, but I can describe everything to you. We are passing a red toad stool, and then there's a blue one on the other side of the path on your left, and there's a bunch of flowers, there's some yellow ones over there to the left. I'm pointing to the left, and then there's a couple berry bushes

and some little blue flowers, I'm gonna take that one, put it in my book, and there's more. purple flowers over there. She's just like narrating all of the nature as you go along. See how even in the darkness we can see so much. Sure. Especially when we walk the path together.

So excited we're all doing this together. This is pretty special. I like having friends here. It's really nice. And so now you are out of the treason on the field. And sure as day, you can see your beautiful hearthwood tree. The trunk is the size of a house, and it's probably 40 feet tall. It is a gorgeous splendid tree.

And its branches reach out pretty far in all directions. It's kind of like the shape of it is like pointy at the top, and then it kind of like a Banyan tree. Isn't that a tree? It's like the Hawaiian. Yes, like it kind of like levels out in the middle and has long beautiful branches out in a disk and then it comes back down to the thick trunk.

And so now you are here. I'm gonna wait until we get right to the big roots, which are like a giant root would take up this whole room. And there's tons of little holes inside that you can crawl into the earth around and there's flowers everywhere, absolutely littering all sorts and types of wildflowers. flowers all over in a circle.

And a bunch of the bayon are already in the tree and up above and they're kind of singing to each other and she takes all your blindfolds off. And she goes, ta-da! Wow, that's beautiful. This is my tree. It's the most beautiful tree in the entire world. Wow, this is a really big tree.

Yeah. It's the biggest tree. I think I want to have our ponting ceremony here. At this tree? Well, I think we'd have to get permission from Banyari to use their train. There would have to be more bindfolds. Oh good, let's do it.

All in. Well, I can ask, you know, I can ask the elder, the elder Verthod. What you felt? Yeah, yeah. Okay. Okay. So Verthad scurries off and kind of commands

a troop to just stay nearby you in case you in case you anything. And so while, While he's away, you all start to take in this tree some more, and it really is a grand sight. You can see there are holes on the side of this humongously thick, wide trunk, and they're almost like windows where there are birds kind of sticking out, and kind of, sometimes there are a couple of birds in a hole on the side of the tree that have made a little nest and they're feeding their chicks. and it's just like an entire ecosystem all of its own. Is there a way to play with this tree? Play with it?

Well, not really. There are, however, come with me. And she leads you over one of the tall, like, looping roots that come out of the trunk and then back into the earth. And every couple of loops, there's like a little, a pool of water, and it has this really, really faint pale blue glow to it. and she goes and squats down in it and she goes, it's the sap.

You can eat it or you can just sit in it. It's really nice. It's a little sticky, but it feels very good. And this is kind of the closest you can get to interacting with it, I guess. It doesn't like talk. Well, Chinu's a really good climber. Oh, I am quite.

Should I climb it? You can. As long as you are respectful, you may want to bring an offering to the tree. Ooh. Are there any... That's you. I'm the others.

No. So when the tree dies, it's just, pieces of it disappear into the earth, and it becomes bigger. Does that make sense? Yeah, it recycles itself in a way? Yeah, it does. It keeps itself alive.

Chaynu, you walk up to the trunk, and you're walking along one of the routes, and you decide to give it. Yes, do you want to climb it? Yeah, I want to climb it, but so I was thinking, if there's anything you could catch and kill real quick. Wait, no, I have it, I have it, I have it, I have it, I have it, I have it, I have it, and she reaches into the sash that she's wearing and she pulls out

another fern that she's plucked and just put in there. So way up top, at the very, very, very top, you'll find an opening where all of the branches sort of like gather and there's a shrine there. Now, it's very respectful for you to take something and put it up at the shrine. It's a big stone. You'll still know it when you see it. So when you go up there, put this down and she hands you the little fern at the top. Then it'll be good offering. And then the others will see that you're there to bring an offering and they will be.

be happy to see you there, and they will know that you're all friends. Then we've got a little bit more of, I know, some levers to have our ceremony here. Do you want to, you want to ride up with me, piggyback style? Can I do it baby bear style? Yes, of course you can. So that's me getting on your belly. Like a koala bear baby? I don't know that koal bears are disgusting.

Quall bears are awful. All right. Or toots are so gross. This is, when I was describing the tree tour, I was like, it's the tree from Totoro. Oh, yeah, there are you. Oh, nice. Well, perfect, then I definitely do it to Trojaro style.

Oh, close to scale, maybe too far. No, yeah. So we've got it, we've got it. We've got it. Ooh. Beautiful, to the, dang, you're far.

Yeah, look at that. So, yeah, Matt, yes, Mott has been sketching the tree this whole time, and then Chenu, so Takmey comes to your belly and grabs, H. H is a ride. So let me have you roll Athletics Vigor.

Okay. That is 3D10s and 3D6s for me. Beautiful. Mm-hmm, hmm, who, whoa, whoa. La la la. Yes, dang it. One. Two.

There's two. There's one back here. Oh, great. You got two. Okay, two. Two success. Thank you. So you, the two of you,

now connected are you start to climb up the tree and you find some strategic foothold here and there you... Oh, I'm not gentle either I mean, I'm not like ripping anything apart

but I'm aping through the vine so I'm like I'm a heavy gorilla and I'm if there are branches I can swing on and like do some like gymnastics Tarzan stuff. I would say so with a luminous success Oh I mean it's I am delicately

climbing. No, no, no. You can swing, but I would say, let's see. You, yes, okay, so you see some vines, some vines hanging from the branches, and you are able to, like, expertly swing through. It doesn't look as cool as you want it to.

Okay, okay. But you also have Takami on your belly, so you're doing a really good job of not falling. Yeah, yes, yes. I'm trying to protect her at the same. same time. So maybe I am a little more reticent to a little more gingerly. But you are you are able to get up to the top of the tree and you get to a big thick beautiful branch towards the top near where that sacrifice would be deposited.

Mott, you, so now you've drawn your picture of the hearthwood tree and you start to see some of the detail up above. in like the canopy of the tree itself? Yeah. What do I see? You see, it's hard to tell from where you are, but you see these intricate, the way that some of the branches are growing towards each other is very intricate and delicate

and it's just a really beautiful natural pattern that you've never noticed before. Definitely not on quill. It's not like the tree's on quill. Okay, without a word I'm more or like. let's just fly up into the canopy. And depending on, like, the angle, the best angle to see it from, I mean, they're just like flying just beneath it, just like keeping, maintaining height, hovering, or I've landed

in the lower branch of the canopy to get a better look at it. Great. And Peeley flies up and follows you, and you're all just admiring. Is there any honeysuckle nectar or anything for them to get drunk on up here? Because I love the idea of my, of Zochie Peeley. Oh, the sap. The sap, yeah. Like, he just, whenever there's an opportunity,

my dragonfly gets wasted. So never mind, your dragonfly is drinking that sap. Yeah. So I've got up to look, I'm like, oh, oh, peely, oh. We just got here. It's like the sugar. He's, what was the words you used earlier?

Diabetes. Diabetes. Dibatiabitis. As the word diabetes. I just pictured it Baniari, Wilford Brimley, and it made me so happy. I think I'm so fascinated by this wood

that I wanna get my hands on it. The fact that it's like a renewable resource and that it's pretty much indestructible, think of all the things that I could build with it. Oh no. If he tries to move away, I will be watching him the entire time. You all, okay.

Have we all noticed that? Who knows? I'm being respectful. I'm trying to think of a convincing way to maybe get Fennell to give me some more. Good. Who knows? So you're looking around at the tree in the trunk,

and you're also really enamored with these giant roots. So as Fennell said, they extend for quite some time, like probably 100 feet foot long roots. They're longer than the tea. The tree is tall. That's hard to say about it. Than the tree is long. It's longer than the tree is tall.

Oh. Yeah. So the roots are these beautiful giant roots, and you're just kind of looking at it. You're just, some of them are as tall as you. You're just kind of like knocking on them. Fennell's checking you out too. And you also have the troops who are watching you,

but they don't know your intent like Fennell does. Penel's going to get out of the little syrup thing. It's more of a liquid, really. It's not like a super sticky syrup. She's going to get out of it and walk over to Udos and just hold his hand and stare at him. Aggressive handhold, yes. I'm going to write that one down.

too. Okay. Uh, Benel, this, this isn't flirting. No, I'm not flirting. Oh, okay. I think if I was flirting with someone, it would be a little more obvious.

No, I'm just holding your hand because I'm forcing my friendship on you. And also, I'm gonna watch you. Yes, well, I mean, I'd love to be friends, and friends share. No. This would be like me cutting off my arm and giving it to you.

But it would be like you. would grow back. No. You see, when you hurt, you remember when I told you about the whirl things? How when their tree died, they started to burn. If you cut off part of our tree, we would all feel it. I'm sorry. All of us. I would be in pain. So. I don't want to cause you any that's why you can't have any of the tree. If I could give it to you, I absolutely would. And I do know some pretty amazing trees that are only found on this shard, and I can definitely show you those. Please. Yes, I absolutely can.

Yes. I can show you to the elder trees too. Those can be used, but not this one. This is like our mother. No disrespect to your mom. She's pretty cool. She's sort of like, pat's a root. So at this point, Velt returns with Jimba,

who is the, I forgot the name I gave it before, the grand, not grandmaster, The, ooh, I don't remember. Chat will know. Elder, thank you. The elder. Elder Chief. The Verthod Elder, who is clearly an elder.

Now, up until now, you've seen Verthods of all ages, but you didn't necessarily know that based on the way they look because they all have similar shape and size. Lots of green, beautiful, scruffy green leaves. and their furrow is within the same shades of reddish, brownish, grayish, you know. But this elder has an all-shimmering silver gray fur, and its leaves are also kind of ashen colored. Not dead, but just, yeah, just kind of an ashen color. and it walks very astutely behind Velt.

So this is our elder. Her name is Jimba. And so Jimba is the one who could possibly perform a ritual for you if you wanted to do that. Are we still on the top of the tree, though? Oh, yeah. Yeah, so you two are still on the top of the tree. I want to talk to Jimba.

Maybe get a blessing from her to give me some of the tree. her wood. No. No, I mean, not her, not the hearth wood. Just some, any kind of, I mean, she's wise, she's been around. Yeah, we could find you things that aren't used anywhere else.

Something with, you know, durable material, something that could last. Absolutely. With the flexibility of like, say a pine tree. Yeah, absolutely. We got that. Jimba's ears perk up. But the strength of an oak tree.

You should, and she like, scoops up a whole handful of berries and passes them off. You should go talk to her, but give her those, because remember, everything is a treat. And you gotta be nice here. I will. Okay. Okay.

Okay. Hey, uh, do I like to do. I like to approach felt. Okay. And offer her these berries. So Jimba. I'm sorry, I'm sorry.

I like to approach Jimba and offer her these berries. Okay. So you approached Jimba with this handful of berries. And what do you say? Jimba. It is with the utmost respect that I give you these berries. Given to me from my friend Fennell as a sign of respect, I just want to express my gratitude and my generosity.

For your generosity, I like to appreciate you for allowing us to stay on your shard. So Jimbab is also very little, so she's looking up at you like this. But she still manages to be very stately and astute as she's looking up at you. So you're looking now. I will have you roll. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Persuasion. Ooh, untrained.

You know what, I'll throw you a bone. Performance. Okay. It's because of the berries. Can I get a bigger bone? Yeah, I was gonna give you a vigor. I was gonna give you a vigorous bone. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa,

this ain't for kids. Performance vigor, because you, yeah, this is, like you said, your legacy is your goal in life. So if you can get some amazing, very rare wood somewhere to build things with, this would help your legacy a lot. That's right. So performance vigor. Okay.

And D6, 3D6, okay. Wish me like, guys. Good luck. You got it. Wood luck. Yep. Oh, six. Flair. Yes.

Is that it? Oh, that's a nice. So is that, how many is that? Three or two. Two successes and a flare. Great, so you can bank that flare. You don't need it for, because you, oh, yeah, yeah. Sorry, you'll get a luminous either way.

So Jimba has looking up at this tall Oramel, masked Oramel, and looks over at Fennell. It's like, oh, Fennell, you know my child, there have been other Ormel who have come to this shard before and they just took and took and took. And they didn't ask permission, they didn't offer me berries. You are kind and you are respectful. and you are respectful.

And so I will have felt show you where there is some wood that you can take with you. Thank you, thank you. And in return, I wish to possibly build you something out of this wood that you give me. Oh, that would be very nice. We could use some more huts, maybe a hot tub.

Yeah, we like hot tub. Jimba was a hot tub, yes. Jimba's so cool. I love them. My wrist is so achy sometimes. She's my favorite Nana. I love her to come back. I'll integrate it with the hot springs that I saw along the path there.

That would be very nice. We would like that a lot. Fenna, look at you. You've gotten so big. You're covered with berry juice, girl. I am. Girl, what are you doing? I got too excited.

And I just see a lot of them. She used to do that a lot when she was a little, a little vert-out. I am, lucky. She would just dive, head. head first into a berry tree. They're my favorite. Well, I'm glad you haven't changed.

And they told me it looked like blood, so I would look fierce. Yes, you do look very fierce. Thank you. Now, Veld said that someone wants to be joined. Oh, yes, they're up. They're up in the tree canopy. I told them to go bring an offering to the shrine.

Oh, that's wonderful. All right, well, when they return, we can We can perform ceremony at our sacred hearth tree. Oh, do we need to find someone. Oh, who are you looking for? I think he's a zenith monk. They said that he was a shaman of the boy. Oh, yes.

You know where he is? He came by here. He always likes to come visit. Oh, oh. His name is Bend. Bend. Bend. Bend.

Bend. Bend. With a D, so it's weird. Put a D on it, Thai fans. Ben Deny. Yes, it's short for Ben Deny, actually. If you like it, then you show to put a Deney. Help me, Ben Deney, you are my only hope.

Yes, Ben came by here. I think he said he was off to Zenith after this. He was there going back there in a hurry because he had some people he needed to meet up with. Oh. Do you know if he's off the show? Chardonel? Oh, by now I'm sure he is. That was quite a bylaw ago. Do you know where on Zenith we might find him? Oh, I don't know. I've never been to Zenith. I would think that maybe,

I don't know, wherever he calls his home. Oh, bent. Okay, my friends, I've made all of these friends. It's amazing. My friends are trying to do a bonding ceremony, and they need him to do it. Right, well, oh, well, I'm not sure what to tell you, I'm sorry. It's okay, we'll find him. I could just say some words for them, since we are at the sacred hearth tree. Didn't I like that? Would you, would you be able to say some words for all of us? Because I think we're all, I have this weird feeling that we're all about to go and do something big.

I don't know. I'm still trying to find a whirlthing, hearthwood nut. So I think that we might end up leaving the shard to go and do all of our things together. You always were very curious about the royal things. I am. Well, and as you, so you all have noticed for the first time that Jamba's eyes are, the way that your eyes are iridescent, hers are as well, but they're even more deeply shimmering. And you've never, you realize you've never really seen very, very old sky. but now you're seeing in Jimpa's eyes that that's what she is.

Well, yes, I would be honored to say some words for all of you and your friends up there if they come down. Can they're going back. Really? There are coming back. No, you come up here. I can go get them. Perhaps we are coming on our way back down.

Yeah. So skipping ahead, you guys are coming. Yeah, sure, yeah. We placed it down together. we do a little meditation over the sprig that we were given and offer that up as a as a sacrifice per se. It's a really obvious shrine. It's like there's a flat portion where all the roots have, not the roots, the branches have come together and they sort of like sit like this so it can be, there's this little shrine built. There's like a, almost a fountain kind of

thing in the center. It's not very big, but there's little seating areas for tiny people like us and then a giant sort of, what's the word, obelisk of stone set up there. Cool. Yeah, it's really obvious. And when you deposit that sprig of leaf as the offering, you all, and everyone around the tree feels and senses the shimmering of the chroma, just this overlight energy kind of like makes you all feel like the tree accepted your offering and is like giving you a little overlight hug. Well, maybe one day we'll be bonded. It seems as if the tree agrees. I mean, it seems like everywhere we're going, we're getting support from all these new people and new places and new trees. I don't know. I think it's going to work out for us.

Yeah, I think so too, talk about, in fact, screw Zenith. Let's just stay on bunyan, let's stay on bunyan forever. I mean, yes, the future is a long time. Right, yeah. I'm getting ahead of myself, I'm sorry. Yes, well, one day we'll be bonded. Might be, yeah, it might be a little while,

but it seems to a one step closer. Well, we pledge to help you and. Oh, yes, sorry, now we go back. Yeah, now we're done. Well, he was up there too, but yes, let's say you all have. Oh, you were up there with your dragonfly. Yeah. Oh no, no, your dragonfly was drunk down stairs.

He's drunk down stairs. Yeah. So you all are back down now at the foot of the tree. And so Jimba has you all hold hands or roots or whatever you have to hold. All of my roots. You're targeting it all. Oh God, oh God, it hurts.

Fendil's very strong. And Jimba says a few words. Oh dear hearth word, verthod that gave us the nuts that we were birthed from. We thank you for this moment. We thank you for this time. We thank you. And your overlight that shines through you. Now please bond this party together and let them have peace, let them have adventure, let them have

love and safety and danger and anything their heart desires. And also these two who are to be bonded, let them find their monk and let Ben know that he can come back anytime he wants. Amen. Beautiful. And so after hearing these words, Jimba is like, and thank you for these berries.

These are very delicious. I'm gonna go soak my roots. You all have a wonderful time and I wish you well on your journey and she goes back into the tree line. Bye, phenomenal. See, just another sign that we're meant to be bonded. It's almost as if we cannot fail. At every turn, just mere success.

One right after another. I just want to let me know. I love Benyon. No, yeah, we could die at any moment. All of our friends could turn on us. The darkness could overtake the overlight and then were spilled into the abyss. Right, right.

We don't know our right arm from our left arm. And seeing that balance, there's a lot of the light in the dark. That's why you're good together. Because you had the balance. Good together, yeah. She means that you're doing a good job. Great.

And so. And so after this very lovely time that you've had at the hearthwood tree, you all do go back to the forest. Fennell you say hello to some more people, give some more hugs, and nuzzles to some more friends and family. You see your parents and everyone else who's there and loves you.

I'm gonna give my parents the last of the berries, which is like, she just upends her bag and it starts falling out all over their table. Oh, Bennel, you spoil us. You really spoil us, Bennel. I try. You won't need to go get food for a week. There's a lot of berries.

And so, and now you all feel, very renewed and you feel empowered to go have your bond sealed. And so if you would like, would you like to go to Zenith or where would you like to go next? Yeah. I wanna see this through.

Yeah, I kinda wanna see Zinnah. Oh, if that's possible then yeah. You just said you never wanna go there. Do you wanna see you for a? I mean, look, okay. I never want to. to not be on Banyan. We can't fail.

However, priority number one, remember when I said I was so hungry to be bonded to you? Right, I wish you would stop. It's devastating not to be bonded. All I want to do is telepathically communicate with you. It is my favorite thing. And just as you were about to do that again,

we end this episode. Oh, God. Thank you all. for watching episode two of Overlight. The world of Sonic the Hedgehog has been thrust into a not-so-dark, not-so-stormy, hard-boiled detective story that probably nobody saw coming.

Follow Sonic and the Intrepid Chaotic's detective agency as they take on their biggest case yet. This high-flying, action-packed adventure will take them across the world, fighting for every clodig in five. Talks and row! It's one heck. of a tale, which is good

because this story might be the only thing that can save their lives. Well, if that's all, I can just dispose of you. Wait, what? All will be revealed in. Sonic the Hedgehog presents

The Chaotic's case files. Listen now, wherever you get your podcasts. Now, before you go hunting, for something else to listen to, let me make it easy. I'm Mike Carruthers, host of a podcast called Something You Should Know, and I speak with experts about fascinating things that affect your life, from human behavior, relationships, health, science, and everyday mysteries.

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