The Glass Cannon Podcast - Giantslayer Episode 326 Part 1 - A Couple Things Happened

Episode Date: May 17, 2022

With the Storm Tyrant defeated, the heroes face a series of critical decisions as the seven year Giantslayer campaign that launched the Glass Cannon Network comes to its long-anticipated conclusion! For more podcasts and livestreams, visit glasscannonnetwork.com. To become an official member of the Naish, subscribe today at http://www.jointhenaish.com. Want to be a part of Glass Cannon Nation? Follow us at twitter.com/glasscannonpod instagram.com/theglasscannon facebook.com/glasscannonnetwork tiktok.com/@glasscannonnetwork Get the best apparel and gaming accessories in the biz at https://glasscannonnetwork.com/store If you enjoyed this, we have several other series featuring Call of Cthulhu - Time For Chaos Delta Green - Get in the Trunk Pathfinder 2E - Glass Cannon Live! Strange Aeons Pathfinder 1E - Legacy of the Ancients Traveller - Voyagers of the Jump and so much more! Join us every Thursday night for Campaign Two of The Glass Cannon Podcast – a playthrough of the Pathfinder 2E Gatewalkers Adventure Path! Videos premiere on YouTube Thursday nights at 8PM ET with a companion podcast available at midnight. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey, I just got us a new Coca-Cola Spice. Nice. What's it taste like? It's like barefoot water skiing while dolphins click with glee. Whoa, let me try. Nah, it's like gliding on a gondola through waving waters as a mermaid sings. Nah, it's like Coca-Cola with a refreshing burst of raspberry and spiced flavors. Yeah. Try new Coca-Cola with a refreshing burst of raspberry and spiced flavors. Yeah.

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tea latte includes dairy. You are listening to the Glass Cannon Network, the premier source for role-playing game entertainment. Previously on the Glass Cannon Podcast. And the first such game is a tug of war, which traditionally pits the Hope Knife receiver, in this case Ruby, against Trinow's best defenders.

I am playing as Baron, who is a wandering vigilante. Sergeant Lork Irontusk. Lork. Lork. Sort of an aging ranger in the militia. My character's a human witch. Her name is Gormley Call. Gormley?

Gormley. My character's name is Galabras Finn. And then he was sold to a traveling merchant who carried him, carted him halfway across the continent to the town of Trunel. It seems as if you are the only ones that have the potential to stop this growing threat. If this storm tyrant, Volstis, is gathering an army of giants in some hidden valley, we are all doomed. Is it a human body?

You see a humanoid young female who appears to be trapped within the tree. Della. Della Reese? What's her last name? Not Della Reese. Della Narn. Della Narn. Giant dragonflies, shadow rat swarms, I get that.

But a translucent teenager? I'm out. My name is Nestor Coyne. Coyne by name, Coyne by nature as my old dad used to say. I am Sir Willemette Keswick, son of Emmett Keswick, Earl of Highbury. Oh, I am sorry. I hope my ramblings didn't disturb you. My memory isn't quite what it was. I've forgotten to introduce myself at all. My name is Pembroke.

Pembroke? Yes, just Pembroke. Pembroke? Yes, just Pembroke. Well met, my friend. I am Orphas Norcim. I seek unimaginable power. Allow myself to introduce myself. Classic. I am Therese Alcind.

Hello, my friend. One by one, she addresses the infants. You are the one who shall walk through time. I call you Farzadir. You are the one who watches over time. I call you Pudia. And you are the one who shall master time. I call you Brandia.

Oh! I should probably introduce myself. Oh, yes. Don't be alarmed. I didn't want to interrupt. My name's Rasmus Tass. And, oh, boy. Rasmus Tass.

This is a real unique opportunity. I just, I don't often get to talk to people that don't kill their victims and dip their hats in their blood and wear them on their head. So this is nice. This is really nice. You're Briella. 20 years ago, you nursed my unit back to health. All these years, I wondered if you would ever come back. And here you are now.

Not 20 years too late. 20 here you are. Now. Not twenty years too late. Twenty days too late. She is gone, and now you will never meet her. Who? Your daughter! What? What is her name? Her name is Shael. What should we name him?

The mother smiles and says, Silvermane. Oh. The sparkling blue eyes of the infant open for the first time to look up at them both. And somewhere, deep, deep behind those eyes, Lork's eyes open as well. Oh my god. And, you know, you scan your eyes across the room, and like I said, you see mostly dwarves,

except towards the back is a hulking figure of a man. Pembroke ambles up with his cane, and I'm sorry, I was told that your name is, and he says the word, for four bears. You have nothing to fear if you are foe to the giants. You find no friend of the giants here. You might know me already as Dolgreath Deathbringer. Perhaps you've heard that name. I've never met you before, but I feel as if our fates are intertwined.

It is seen. My name is Adriel Ashpeak. Oh! What? What? My name is Jimmer Hardy. I have been sent by Shandley

Finstock of the Finstock Mercantile Concern, and I have come to retrieve the remains of the boy. We move through the crowd, into the middle, and I have come to retrieve the remains of the boy. We move through the crowd into the middle and see a woman, clad in mostly rags, with white, almost translucent skin. Where is my daughter? Brander, you must know, has spent all of his time twisting the wheels of fate in his favor.

The biggest one among them is holding your adopted son by his hair on his knees in front of him. And he slits his throat and Gormley falls. Oh, God. Her back snaps in half and she dies. Reaches out, stabs Ingrahild with his first attack. Ingrahild is permanently dead.

Umlo permanently dies. Permanently dies. He is at negative 30. Della takes 55 points of damage and is permanently dead. Oh, my God. He grips Della's lifeless body in his claws. Goodbye for now. And flies out of the cathedral.

Oh my god! He turns, looks at Pembroke, and then the scythe cuts him down. Permadeath. Permadeath. 159 points. Jesus fucking Christ

Plus 4 sonic You're such a dick 34 points Of fire damage Yeah Pembroke is reduced To ash and bone And it's gone

That is the most Damage I've ever seen rolled on 8d6. Barazza is dead. Oh, my God. You see Dalgrith get up there, and you see her wallop him with the chain. His poison courses through his veins. He falls, slow motion. Hits the ground,

and dies. Your skin is completely torn from your body. What? What? What? Tightness. Shove it up his ass.

His grip loosens and he dies. Your oracle friend sacrificed himself to keep me safe from Volstice's ever-vigilant eyes. Your time in this world ends here! All enemies of the Storm Tyrant shall perish! I am the law, and the law can't be killed. It has not entered his imagination

that some of the very pawns he discarded have re-entered the game. Just then, rising up from down below, is Galabras Finn. What? Shia still on the ground, just looking up at it. What? What are you?

He is the Chosen One A great storm is coming But the tide has turned We go in search of our dear companion We called her Gormley We hear the sound of footsteps and see torchlight casting flickering shadows on the walls Walls that are covered from floor to ceiling in pictographs of footsteps and see torchlight casting flickering shadows on the walls, walls that are covered from floor to ceiling

in pictographs and hieroglyphs. And walking down the hallway, we see Silver Tusk. To his left is Galabras, and floating just above the ground, to his right, is Gormley.

This is why I needed you. For I... I cannot defeat Volsters. The only chance of that happening is your friends. But should they succeed, well then, I'll have what I need. I realize that mastering time isn't rewriting it to fix history's greatest errors. It's ending it.

Completely. Jimmer Hardy wakes, sitting before him on what may have once been a small pew, his Brander. He says you, I believe, are going to hold a rather auspicious role in my final journey. The time has come! All of your battles will pale

in comparison to this! My reign has just begun, and your blood march ends now! I will distract him with what little strength I have left. God himself has chosen us this day. And this is for Pembroke and Ferrada, Gormley, Jazzamule, and look, Barry Cuddy

Jr. You offered us no room in your world to exist. Well, I offer you none in mine. Oh, shit. You line up that shot and we see in slow motion the bullet exit

your muzzle and fly towards Volstis. And it hits him right between the eyes. And he falls. All of a sudden, all of you hear the loudest single explosion you've ever heard. And the entire castle, even though you're not standing on it, shakes. And it starts to go down. Oh my god. The orb of Dragonkind lands on the ground, and we just see Brander, and Brander just looks up at the sky.

This will all be over soon. The adventure ends now. What's up, everyone? It's your old buddy, Troy LaVallee, coming to you with the final intro. Remember when we did these every week? I had a two-second thought earlier today that maybe I'd skip doing an intro and just let the ep speak for itself. But then I thought of the intro to episode 100 and 200 and how I still get emails to this day about how much those messages meant so much to so many people. So obviously, I had to do one for this auspicious occasion.

But what the hell can I say in this intro that hasn't already been said? When I think about what this seven-year endeavor has done to my life, to all of our lives, I can't help but think about how so many others will go on this adventure with us for years and years to come as more and more people discover the GCP. What seems so fresh to us now at the end will eventually feel like a memory, like so many of those early eps do now to all of us. But years and years from now,

people can still come upon this adventure and take it with us, and it will feel new to them. And if a message I put into an intro hit home for a bunch of people years ago, then hopefully those messages will continue to resonate with people for years and years and years to come. So then I think about my children, children that I didn't have when we recorded episode one and how maybe someday they'll listen to all 326 of these. 326 of these. So, Archer and Dash, if you're listening,

and any other little ones who may come along to the LaValley Brood in years to come, this intro today, this message is for you. Hey, it's Dad. What's going on? I'm sure you know by now that your dad worked very hard for a long time to try and make it in the entertainment business. Can you believe it wasn't until this podcast that I was finally able to make an inroad? Now, the journey to get here was brutal. There were a lot of years where I had literally no money. I didn't know where my next meal was going to come from.

And it was a good chunk of time where I wasn't even sure where I was going to sleep either. Things were really hard. But I kept pushing. I kept trying to follow my dreams, as cliche as that sounds. I worked horrible jobs to barely make ends meet. And then I bartended 14-hour shifts, getting home at five in the morning only to sleep a few hours, get up and do it all over again. And though I had options to perhaps make my life easier by settling for well-paying but soul-sucking jobs,

I never settled for anything less than what I wanted, even if that meant suffering. Now, while I don't recommend you or anyone needs to take a path like that, it's important to me that you know how significant this podcast has been to the story of my life. Of course, by the time you're listening to this, I imagine I'll have accomplished stuff that even while I'm recording this message, I could have never dreamed of. If you asked me seven years ago, if I thought I'd be here,

I'd have laughed. So who knows what other crazy things will happen in the next seven. So who knows what other crazy things will happen in the next seven. Maybe I'll finally get the TV show I always wanted or a lead role in a major motion picture. I used to do in my life, if I distill it down to the absolute essence of what I really, really wanted to do, I wanted to entertain people. I wanted to make people laugh and hopefully inspire them in some small way as well. And this podcast has allowed me the chance to do those things a thousand times over. And hopefully it has continued to do so for a long time. But no matter what I do in life, as I'm sure you know, you boys and any brothers and sisters that may come along

will always be my favorite creation. And I hope you'll always follow your hearts and do what makes you happy, even if it's hard, especially if it's hard. Actually, while I'm recording this right now, I'm looking out the window and you guys are just playing in the yard together. Three, almost four, Three, almost four. One, almost one and a half. And you're just playing in the yard together. No matter how hard life gets, never stop playing.

I never did. And things are pretty damn good because of it. Your daddy loves you. And I hope you enjoyed this adventure as much as so many others who have listened to it and as much as we did creating it. To Joe and Skid and Matthew and Grant, thank you for sticking by me, for offering so much of yourselves and your lives to this endeavor, and for putting up with my insanity knowing that it comes from a place of unrelenting desire to leave a mark upon this world. And to all of you out there in the nation, even the ones I may have turned off over the years with my outspoken, irreverent way of just being me, thank you. Knowing that our stories have impacted you in any way are my dreams made

manifest. And finally, to my amazing wife, Samantha, Sam, if you ever creep in on this intro, you little creep, you know I love you more than anything in the world. And I don't know if the nation knows that there is no Glass Cannon podcast. There is no Glass Cannon network without you, your support since day one, without even fully understanding what the hell it is we do when we close the doors and roll dice and put on headphones. Your support has been beyond anything I could have ever asked for. Thank you for all of your sacrifices to making this happen. The march to the end has finished, and we have reached the end of the road. So please enjoy the final episode of our giant slayer adventure.

The first of many adventures of the glass cannon podcast episode 326. A couple of things happened. Can you imagine how long the storm tyrant's penis must have been. We could check right now. That was our chance. How tall is a storm giant? Are they pretty tall? 17 feet?

No, 20 feet tall. 20 feet tall. So like, even if he was underserved down there, it's got to be a foot and a half wide. Welcome to this episode. Yeah, it's too bad. If you expected anything different, don't know why you're still here.

It's too bad we stopped casting these parts. We would have had to cast a separate actor just to play his cock. It's Milton Berle. We just have to cast a separate actor Just to play his cock Just Milton Berle We'd just have Milton Berle I just looked up how tall A Tyrannosaurus Rex was And the Storm Tyrant would be taller

Than a Tyrannosaurus Rex Get out of here But what if the Tyrannosaurus Rex needs to get like cookies on the top shelf And gets on its tippy toes They're kind of like hunch forward man Question, did they ever find a fossilized dick i believe giants didn't have peonies no the dinosaur no dinosaurs i didn't believe that's what i meant to say i don't believe the dinosaurs you don't believe in dinosaurs you heard it here first folks matthew's more of a genesis guy i'm gonna i'm gonna say a fun word for everyone to go Google.

Because I think dinosaurs had cloacas. Oh! You know, hyenas have cloacas. Do they really? Yeah. And they often rupture while they give birth. Wait. I didn't know this.

Dinosaurs weren't... That's why they laugh. They have to laugh. Or they'll cry. They have to laugh. never gonna see a hyena in the same way again so that's why do you know that you have to wikipedia redirected me to pseudo penis yeah yeah like a cloaca is so much more than a suit yes i know seven years and we barely talked about the

size of these giants i know it held off for far too long you you did have you had a creature once urinate on baron's face that was the closest to actually describing it did i do that you also had a running joke about renfall's massive fouls yeah no. No, Renfall had said that the... He was talking about the... The cloud dog. Tyrant's massive fouls. Because you're like, what does he do when he showers? He hangs it from his massive fouls.

Oh, so we talked about this before. Yeah. We're just retreading old ground. No, but I want... This is a clip show. I want a real ballpark figure of how long this thing is. Let alone the thickness.

All separate issues. Is it like a chevy tire wait in terms of thickness like that i don't know well i want to start with a light note today because i imagine my intro into this will be really heavy so i wanted to uh go straight into uh toilet humor humor Because that's where we began We began in the toilet What were the early Did we go right for the toilet? Like right out of the gate or were we like nervous to go to toilet?

We got blue pretty fast I have a vivid memory On that first day of recording I think it was the first day of recording If it wasn't the first day it was the second day Of Troy singing a song he improvised on the spot That went something to the effect of Penis jokes for all my friends

Oh really? That was day one? That was in the top first ten eps I think Penis jokes for all my friends I think there was a second There was like what we do while we're playing Pathfinder Well there's this old thing In like stand-up comedy

Is like sometimes Acts will get bluer later in the show. Once they know they got you, then the last ten minutes will be sex and stuff like that. But then there's another school that's like, if you feel confident in your material, start blue.

And then you've got the balls to start blue. I got the balls to start blue. You got the balls to start blue. So that's why I got the balls to start blue. You got the balls to start blue. We haven't even talked about his balls. Oh, God. Anyways. Let's get off giant penises.

You first. All right. Well, wait. Did he end up ever choosing a suitor or stringing anybody along? Like, did he have a romantic relationship with Nalbia? I don't think they, in my mind... Or was she just worshipping him, and that's as far as it got? I think the way it's written is, like, she's hoping that she can seduce him.

But they weren't betrothed. They were not betrothed. In fact, he is just, he's a real workaholic. He was so focused on... He's married to his work. Yeah, he's married to his work, so focused on his work, but in her mind, she felt like if she could just prove her worth to him,

um, she would, he would take a shine to her. She got a lot better shot than a Grenzel deck. That's for sure. So she betrayed her brother and just let him die. She's not even like, it was not even like an inkling of a romance.

Who will write her tragedy? Matthew, Matthew, Matthew. Yeah. The tragedy of of nalbia the first hard pass did she did she fall to uh she plummet to the earth below where did her body end up um it's it's still falling slowly as the magic dies but But at a certain point, that magic will die and she'll just keep going. Splat! I just got to think of so much stuff. Giant stuff smashing through the roofs of

cottages. Yeah. Like all over this part of Galarian. Yeah, if people didn't know where the castle was, it's just follow the route of destroyed orphanages. Every single orphanage along the way has been pummeled by debris falling from the castle. Why do you think we dropped Dogby's body

off the side of the castle? Yeah. Oh, come on. He's still there. He's fine. That's how he wanted to go. He's gently reposing. Who cast gentle repose? No one. He's rotting in the engine room. And it's hot in there and it smells, Joe. It's humid. It is. You were like, let's take him to the hottest room in the still my favorite joe turned to me with like genuine uh gratitude

after everyone just shat on dalgrith for like 10 minutes and then i gave a little speech and joe was just like thank you so much grant it just shows classiness as a person like well i'm sure with everything that's going on right now, you guys can be like, hold on, hold on. We've got to grab the bodies. Unfortunately, throwing him off the castle probably would have been a far better death or a far better consecration of his body

than what's going to happen to it now. It's a far, far better thing I do than I remember the rest of the quote. But you know what I'm talking about. Then throw them off. How's everybody feeling today? This is the last time we're going to do this. Don't know if you were aware.

This is the finale of our Giant Slayer adventure. Last week, we talked about different emotions going in. This is actually it. This is it. After we're done, there's no, we'll see you next week. Now, we'll be back with more content that's for sure more content everybody should be really excited about but the giant slayer adventure ends today for us we have we have we've been taking bets on how long this episode

is going to go everyone took the over everyone took the what was Everyone took the over. What was the line? The line started, I believe, at four and a half hours. It opened at four and a half? It opened at four and a half. Matthew immediately took the over. That's smart. You want to get the over. Then I talked to you and you were like, no way. Like, it's not going to break out that way.

It's going to be sort of just endings in that last episode. And this is like many weeks before we recorded even the anti-penultimate episode so i went back on cannon fodder when skid was on and i lowered it to three and a half hours oh man so skid took the over so vegas must have been going crazy yeah so then i was like all right yeah maybe why am i listening to try get the same trap every time? So then Grant was on fodder and I raised it to five and a half. Wow. I was way under that, right? I think you took the over.

I took the over? You might have taken the over. I don't think I would have. I'll go back to the tape. I don't remember. So now the line's at five and a half? The line is sitting now at five and a half. It closed at five and a half?

And from what you have said over the last two hours of shitting yourself with nerves before starting this episode, I really think the over is going to hit. So smash that over, everybody. I don't. As a Dallas Cowboys fan, it's stupid people who bet on the over because of past results. I don't think we'll go over five and a half hours. No way.

It's soulless people that bet on the under. Soulless? And that is a fact. Yes, it's true. Really? Gamblers don't like under bettors. It's like betting on the no pass line it's not done in 326 episodes a hundred and some odd episodes for

androids and aliens all the live shows we've done all the streams troy has never come in at under his estimate it's never once never once but i don't have an estimate today you kept asking me like what's the estimate because i'll add three hours to that you told me how many pages of notes you have i do have a lot of pages of notes i have 55 pages of notes that's so preposterous i had 53 before i got in here a couple hours ago but i just 55 pages is the length of a finished edited and published well it's a little bit of adventure path chapters some of it are just little smiley faces to keep me happy halfway through, and some drawings. There's a lot of stuff here.

And there might be stuff that I don't even use. I just wanted to be prepared, and I wanted to make sure that I kind of touched on everything that I wanted to touch on, and made sure that I gave you guys the opportunity to touch on that. So yeah, there are a lot of notes, but you never know. They could go go fast the funny thing is that listeners in the

future already know how long this episode yeah they see it and now we're right on the yeah but we have no idea we had to cancel we basically cancel our dinner reservation yeah we had to do we were all going to go out to dinner together we already canceled it we didn't it's not gonna happen all the restaurants we wanted to go to are closed on a monday so we can't go to those but i think when this wraps up in seven or eight hours we might be hungry and we're like you know what kids are already asleep let's go well that point it's gonna be tuesday and the restaurants will be wait let's get some taco bell late night menu we never got the grandma pie we were gonna get a grandma pie we're gonna order a grandma pie mid-up i may have it be part of the episode that would you'll just hear like the dial tone ring

text nick tell him to go pick it up and he would drop everything he would that was fun what was it was uh we were doing uh androids and aliens at one time we he brought us some beer or something and he just popped pop by for the end of the episode that was awesome it was like the wacky neighbors like kramer like coming in it was it was awesome kj jaz Jazzy Jeff showed up. When I was in high school, I was doing a play, and I died at the end of the first act. So I then, during intermission, ordered a pizza. I had to come on for the Dream Ballet in the second act.

The very beginning of the second act. Who can forget the Dream Ballet? And then I... And it was... I had tested out the time. Cluster with that one fast. I don't know why he said it. It was West Side Story. The Dream Ballet is a thing.

He could have said anything. It was the Dream Ballet. Did the Spandau Ballet happen as well? Ordered the pizza at intermission, went and did the Dream Ballet, got off from the Dream Ballet, pizza arrived, and I spent the rest of the second act eating that pizza. And it was the best theatrical experience of my life. That's amazing. That does sound pretty good. I love having off stage times like in shows like that it's the best everyone i was doing a show drama i was doing a show in denver like right before i moved here and

i brought my playstation 2 like another thing because i i had like an hour and a half like between scenes and so for it was a huge show so yeah we were playing through uh onimusha i think like playing in shifts it was it was awesome it was so great do you know when we started this show seven over seven years ago for us uh only one of us was married yes yes only really yeah only great first yeah yeah you're with me joe and I were all engaged and got married in 2015. Yeah. That year. Yeah.

And I know that because Matthew was talking about writing his vows and I didn't even know you that well because I, you weren't even, uh, invited to my wedding, but we had become so friendly over that year. I did ask you to watch my cats. I trusted you to watch my cats. I you to watch my cats i did watch i did watch your cat but like we had all uh i i really just i'd only hung out with grant one time before the first recording uh and you maybe twice and i was all at joe's house during like football parties we had hung out a bunch of times we played pathfinder society too yeah but you only stood out

detroit twice that's how unremarkable you are, is what he's saying. Right. You weren't super memorable, so it felt like twice. As I pointed out at a recent live show, we watched the Giants win a Super Bowl together and we were the only Giants fans in the room. Thinking of that, the last thing I'll think about is your presence at that party. My team had just won the Super Bowl.

Were you one of the people that dumped Gatorade on me? I believe it's your team collectively, the both of you. Why is it just your team? Oh, that's true. We were rooting for the same team. We were the only two Giants fans in the room. We might have even hugged.

We might have. Shocking. Let's look at the tape. Was that on Instagram? I can't remember. That's what this episode is going to be, just looking back at memories. But yeah, only Grant was married, and now There are Multiple marriages And multiple children Multiple children

Don't you love that In the credits of video games In particular But movies have it too They have all the like Babies that were born During the course of Production babies

Production babies Yeah And despite the clamoring For it By the Then unnamed Naish Six plus years

Not a single one Of our spouses Or significant others has ever gotten on a mic on this podcast about anything Pathfinder related. And most of our spouse and significant others have never touched a role playing game or listened to the show or listened to an episode of the show for the past week. I've been trying to communicate to my wife, the meaning behind it.

And every time I tell her, I know she has no idea how significant this is. In not only like our collective life, but like my life up until this point. This is like something I'm actually going to complete.

And I don't think it's quite landed on her yet. It's a real bummer. It's a real bummer. It never will. Speaking of people that have no idea what happens on the show is my mom the only family member loved one that's made an actual appearance on the show multiple appearances yeah yeah mary burger is a saint mom i love it in person and telephonic yeah yeah multiple appearances yeah yeah my sister uh my well Yeah. Multiple appearances. Yeah. Yeah. My sister, uh, my,

well, two of my sisters already listen. My last thing, my sister in New York, she finally did start listening. She's on episode 87 or something now. Wow. She's,

she's really enjoying it. Well, don't tell her that we're ending the show. I know. It's like, why bother continuing? It's going to be over. Spoiler alert, it ends.

And it's not ending the show, right? It's ending this story. Ending the story. This story. Another story is starting next week. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

If you're listening to this and wondering what the hell is going to happen in two nights on, it's May 19th, right? Yeah. In two nights. It's Thursday, May 19th, 8 p.m. Eastern, live on Twitch twitch but we'll release it later here on the feed we're going to do like a goodbye party we're going to talk about everything you know i can't imagine we'll rehash too much of what we're talking about right now

but we're going to go through the whole story and talk about our memories and whatnot it's gonna be real fun if you go too far over the time people are still not going to be able to physically finish it unless they listen to it on two times speed. That's true. If this is a 49 hour episode, they're really screwed. You're going to listen to it quickly in order to catch up in time for that goodbye party. Can I make a request for that

show? Yeah. You said we're going to talk about everything. Yes. Now I'm nervous. Everything was in quotes when I said it. Well, I only want an answer to a question you've raised. Could you call our friends at Paizo

and get an actual figure on the size of a Storm Giant's penis? I could probably get an answer by the end of this app. Average. I'll text Mona right now. Mona, are you at the office? Can you go around and take a survey?

Surely they have that information in a binder or something. Yeah, sure. If no one asked before, I'd be shocked. Yeah, we'll talk about that. Yeah, exactly. Like, I wouldn't be surprised at all if he was like, actually, there was a piece done on this in Dragon Magazine in 1998. James Jacobs wrote about this in the back matter.

Serpent scroll. Serpent skull. Number two. Back matter. It was back matter. Christ child's eyes. I still want that to be an AP. i will be on my deathbed and if i need to smile i'm gonna tell my family members to just whisper the christ child's eyes in my ear so the the goodbye party will be thursday and then next week

what happens on my for my tuesdays well uh monday through thursday for the next uh few months we're going to be releasing our strange aeon show right from the beginning when we started in la in 2018 where and then the next show was at pax unplugged in philly and then we went to dallas and chicago like four episodes a week we're going to drop and those are like over two hours long so like if you've got the type of job where you can listen to stuff and you've never listened to these you'll have a blast if you're like i cannot listen to 10 hours of new content a week that's fine too because eventually we're going to be caught up with our tour and we're going to start releasing new episodes like we did with sidecast side sesh so we're going to do them

as a stream and then release the show and skid came up with great ideas like you need to do a recap for people that don't want to listen to the 38 episodes that are going to come before the new fresh episode and so we will release that um in sometime in august before we start and it'll get you caught up on strange a.m it's like one like little recap episode it's like you could if you wanted to start from this point just just listen to this like little short episode it'll walk through the story up to now you can just start from from there if you and we are in book two right now yeah we're about to end book two and when we start book three we're also switching to pathfinder second edition we've had the writer of book three convert it to second edition so we're making the switch and that's happening

really really soon so you're going to get the best of both worlds little pathfinder one little pathfinder two and a story that we're all in love with. That's what's going to happen then. But now we've got to talk about what's going to happen now. I asked you and you guys started talking about other stuff. How are people feeling?

I'm feeling mostly excited. Sad? Sure. Nervous? Yup. But mostly excited. I'm excited to tell this story with you guys today. That's where I'm at. I'm also excited to end it. Everything needs to come to its natural end artistically. Yeah. Yeah. I don't want to keep doing something until it just fizzles into crap.

You know, I definitely want to have an ending. So i i am i am excited for that but i'm nervous about uh you know i i want to i said this in a um earlier and with skid before you guys got here skid and i were here alone we were just saying that like sure we want to do it as his tradition we walked in our shirts are on the hook in the back there by the entrance. You're essentially painting each other with chocolate. With our tongues. Yeah, we were just saying that we want to do well in terms of how we execute the narratives of these characters that we love so much. We hope that it ends well for them.

And if it doesn't, even if the results are not what we wanted, we still want it to be done well. And if it doesn't, even if it, even if the results are not what we wanted, we still want it to be done well. And that is on us and stressful. And I can't imagine how stressed you must be. That's what I keep using as comfort because I'm like, there's no way I could be as miserable or torn up inside as Troy. Yeah. The old, it could be worse. Yeah, exactly. I could be Troy. So I take comfort in that Grant how you feel you're you're an emotional guy nostalgic guy I think like me how you feeling I think it feels unsettling to have one of the primary sources of constancy I've had in my life begin to disappear even if it is going to continue through a new and exciting path,

as you just talked about. Outside of being married to Angel for all this time, this has been one of the things that I could always count on. I would always know was there. And I turned to Joe and Skid as I was mopping up after their chocolate lovemaking. Sure.

Thank you for playing that part. No problem. He also does that shirtless. Yeah. I mean, it's hard. You real pro but um i i turned to both of them i was like i imagine this must be what it would feel like to see like your child get married you know like there's there's there's good things about that there's exciting things about that but it's exciting things about that. But it's a passing of a torch. It's something leaving your grasp and becoming its own thing entirely, of course.

And I've always been on the side of like, whatever happens on the show, it's up to them to decide. It doesn't matter really what our intention was and all this stuff. But it's gone. It used to be in my hands and now it's not. And that is something that takes some time to process. Yeah. The good thing is it'll always be there i think i was just listening to stuff over the past week to kind of get me back in the zone and and also remember certain continuity things wishing that i had like a team like george rr martin's to make sure i was getting continuity right and like it

it's so fun to go back and i think i don't know if we'll go back and listen to all 326 but they'll always be there which is nice it's, well, we're finishing and we'll just throw out the hard copies of the final files. Like, it's always going to be there. Yeah, it is nice to have, to leave something behind. Like, I don't know how long or how fervently people will be interested in actually listening to it, but it'll be there. I was, when I was coming in, I did a instagram live video and i emailed you guys i'm like if you want to go live today i think it'd be fun like time capsule to have and before i did it i was sitting in traffic and i brought it up and i saw yours and i had it on mute because i was

driving and i just saw your face and i started to get emotional just looking at your face because i could see it on your face that you were getting emotional yeah yeah so i was more i was more emotional that uh christos greek steakhouse is close it's close it's more about the steak i honestly like it hasn't sunk in i think i i just it's just so like kind of focused on you know whatever goal is ahead and i i just i don't know like i i don't think it'll sink in until maybe, I don't know, a week or two from now. Yeah. There's always that delayed response. I think that's normal. Matthew, I think there's a chance Joe, Skid, Grant, and myself, uh, well up today at certain

points. I think that that's certainly going to happen as a, a cold heartless individual do you think as an emotionless husk yes as a shell of someone that feels the things that most humans feel do you think there's a chance that you get emotional today apparently not you're really priming him for some deep sentiments no are you someone that like like watches something like it just it happens uncontrolled like do you get emotional or you thank god are you someone that cares about anything do you see meaning anywhere anywhere I'm excited

I like skid you like skid I do too I enjoy skid very much I said like skid I too think it would be a delayed effect where I'd be like wow that was weird that was 326 episodes and now we're done with that story

yeah god it's just thinking about when we started it feels like a million years ago a million years ago like seven years you look at it doesn't seem that long but when i think about where i was in my life you know and i'm sure you do the same that seems like a hundred lifetimes ago especially pre-marriage pre-kids that's obviously but like my god just working shit jobs doing stand-up remember like coming episodes being like i just had a real bad set no all right let's go i was like the temping as i come from my temp job it's just so miserable all the time and yeah a hundred lifetimes ago and it was seven years and i think that also if you

just look at it in the perspective of a group playing Pathfinder, like when we started, we were, I remember you saying like, if no one listens to this, I'll listen to this. Because listening back to your jokes that you make when you play with your friends, like to be able to record those and listen back to them is awesome it's such a cool record to have right to be able to record a session and listen back to it and know exactly what was said in that moment or exactly what happened to even have a chance at continuity because if you did the had the time to do the work is cool but then if you think about that like we never stopped doing this and we never gave up and we're actually finishing it and we will have an entire adventure path every session of every minute of every session not one second of gameplay not recorded yeah yeah it's cool really cool it's pretty cool yeah 326 episodes seven years people have been posting like have you seen this youtube clip of these guys and playing the same campaign for 40 years like wow that's wow that's pretty impressive seven years people been posting like have you seen this youtube clip of these guys and playing the same campaign for 40 years like wow that's wow that's pretty impressive seven years is a

long time too yeah yeah and i bet you most of those people don't have recordings of their 40 years of their gameplay you know to be able to look back and know exactly what happened is really fun i think all of us have said in different ways uh troy mentioning all of us becoming married a lot of children have been born on this show several postgraduate degrees skid all right skid has talked about uh you know no longer needing to go to a job he doesn't like anymore i think we've all experienced our lives becoming improved through this process even though parts of it have been hard getting to know a lot of the listeners who have allowed us to pursue this. And I still look back, I look back at old photos and recordings and I, you know, I've since become sober since I started the show and lost 70 pounds and made my

life a lot better. And a lot of that was because being on the show with all of you and sharing it, having other people listen to it and having the type of, um, analytical eye that sometimes you're afraid to give to yourself, that having this audience was a nice way to look forward to be able to say responsibility to them and, and just having that sounding board. So, yeah.

And, and not wanting to hear, you know, me do anything stupid, like, uh, when another character died on another show. Um, hear you know me do anything stupid like uh when another character died on another show um so having that experience has been um really great in my journey and i think all of us have stories

like that we all have stories where we're so happy to have been able to been on this show and to share with all of you because it's helped us grow as people yeah we're absurdly lucky in a number of ways as a result of this i remember after the first live show i'm making air quotes that we ever did at the geekery hq yeah that we went to that bar afterwards and just like interact it was i think it was the first time i'd interact with listeners and just like people telling us how much it meant to them and what the doyle's pub was it i always pinpoint that moment people ask me when did you know that this was the thing i always say it was that day and i was like wow it was very wild yeah yeah just showing up grant and i showed up earlier

there were people lined up outside like what the fuck what do we say to them yeah we yeah we we learned that day how to like park like in different places because sometimes you don't want to see folks until it's time for the show yeah it was wild i we i gave matthew the keys to my car you forgot the thing we forgot a thing like an amp or something and then matthew went and got it and then he was like uh i didn't park the car's just like outside and i just like ran out to get in the car to go park it and all these people were like joel bryant and i just like turned i was like i don't know any of those people this is very weird and scary and that they flew in more than half of them flew in from all over the country.

Hawaii was the furthest away, I think. So yes, that was exciting, but I will also pinpoint to Matthew's point and your point together that it was at Doyle's that I was like, we're making something that means something to people. You know what I mean? Something that means something

to people, and then it just sort of changed everything for me. That's why it was so important to me that we never missed a week for so long. You know, it took, uh, my almost dying during COVID with my, my bursitis that turned into a bad reaction to medication, to liver damage. We got to miss a week. And then it's like, all right, good. The streak's over.

But like, it was so important to me because one, I remember before we gotta miss a week and then it's like all right good the streak's over but like it was so important to me because one i remember before we even started a podcast like mark maron the godfather of podcasting at the time was like the two things uh one of the two things is never miss a week because that consistency is one thing that'll put you in the top one percent of podcasts never miss a week and and of course we did uh eventually have to take some time and it was better for our mental health health overall uh but i think we're so much even pre-covid certainly during covid and now in this quote-unquote post-covid era there is so much uncertainty the fact that we could always deliver something even if you didn't like the app every single week that consistency always meant so i think it was critical to establishing

ourselves if nothing else just knowing that once once we had like established that kind of credibility then it's just like okay you know you can you can take a week off or two here and there but that's always going to be our last choice you know so it's mark maron i have to write to yes to say you might have ruined he used to live like a few blocks from here i ran into him on the subway one time did you tell him that he inspired us it was before we started this it was actually really funny i like i saw him on the subway and i won't get into this whole thing but i saw him on the subway and i thought i knew why he was there. And I, it turns out I didn't, but I was just like, should I talk to him?

It's just like, nah, don't bother him. And so, uh, we both got out, we both happened to get off at a 59th street and I was just like, oh, there he goes. I guess, well, there goes my chance. We both went up, uh, opposite ends of the same staircase and I saw him on the landing. I was just like, oh, okay. So I was like, I didn't know, I came up behind him, I like tapped him on the shoulder. He's like okay so like i was like i didn't know i came up behind him i like tapped him on the shoulder he's like oh he like jumped and like turned around fell down the stairs i was like i was like blood pouring out everywhere oh my god

you ran away and this is like 2003 i could have destroyed podcasting before it even started. The glass cannon multiverse. And I said, excuse me, you're Mark Maron, right? He was just like, yeah. And I realized I didn't have a follow-up. So we just stared at each other for a second. He's like, what's your name? I'm so sorry.

But we had a really nice talk after that. But I was just like, I was so embarrassed. What's your name, little boy? What's your name? You're a big boy yeah it's like as if as if he owes you money or something i felt so bad like i clearly frightened him so badly and i felt so bad you should have served him with papers yeah well this is from your ex-wife see you in court see you in court sir well you know even though this story is going to come to an end uh you know we're going to keep producing stuff uh glass cannon 1.5 is happening next week uh and then 2.0 will be happening uh in the future and there's a lot to be excited about from the network, but the network all began with this podcast.

And now it is time to end this story. So we will begin today's story by ending the overall story and jumping one last time into the old imagination copter tickets please it's getting a little rickety that copter we went to the sphere a few episodes ago we tucked the spear away put it into storage put the tarp over the sphere but i uh I got the keys to the copter today. We're taking her out for one last... The Huey, as they call it. Imagination. So they already came out with a new model of this

Huey, but we're still on the old one. We're still on the old one. We love a good classic. We're going to hop in the copter and we're going to take it where copters go. The sky. Where eagles fare. I was like, on circle tours of Manhattan Isle. We're going around.

This is the Statue of Liberty. We are going to take it to the sky. And so you should imagine endless sky. We're so close to the clouds, it looks like you can just pluck them out of the air, put them in your pocket. And for a moment, all is calm until suddenly we see a figure just

fall through the air. Now we pan back and from a distance we watch as this small body just twists and turns, plummeting downward at an incredible speed. We close in on the figure and see them struggling to regain their composure as they're hurtling toward their death. They compact their body into a ball and try to regain control and then burst their limbs out and suddenly take flight, now going up and against

gravity. Their view shifts from the open sky ahead of them and the ground thousands of feet below to an inverted cone made of rock connected to a giant floating castle.

Adriel Ashby. Oh, there he is. Flies against these 50, 60, 70 mile an hour wind currents. His robes just flapping behind him toward the bottom of the castle where he spies an open propulsion duct just beneath the base.

He presses his arms to his side to cut down on wind resistance and points his legs as he darts towards the duct. The speed with which he darts inside allows him to cut through the windstorm within, and he enters what appears to be a labyrinthine maze of passageways deep below the castle. of passageways deep below the castle. Adriel, ever vigilant, as Grant has always played him, reaches down and notices the dust has been disturbed very recently. Perhaps within hours,

many people were down here, as well as other creatures, larger creatures. He continues making his way through the ducts, following these footsteps until he senses a great battle took place here recently. There is a pool of blood near an intersection of the ducts, still fresh and warm to the touch. With caution, he continues walking until he turns a corner and spies what looks like the giant exoskeleton of a spider.

From far away, Adriel waves his hands, but senses no life coming from the creature. He moves toward it, detecting strong magics surrounding it until he is face to face, staring through the dull eyes of the dead spider to see a magical glass bead within a six inch diameter globe, faintly glowing with a single light. Looking beyond, he sees that it's connected to another globe, slightly larger, that swirls with a glowing green substance the likes of which Adriel has never seen. He is no alchemist, but in that moment he understands the power of what lies before him. He looks up to the ceiling, up to the heavens, where moments ago his companion, Sir Will, was thrown from the back of the great red dragon, Naximara,

looks up through the ceiling, where, presumably, his other allies are doing all they can to stop the storm tyrant from enacting his plans for world domination. And then he looks back to the bomb. He then backs up about ten paces or so and sits on the floor as he's done countless times before

he reaches into his robes and pulls out two candles placing them to either side of him with a snap of his fingers both candles flicker and burn staring ahead of him he reaches out his hands so that they're just above the flames.

Then he closes his eyes and takes a long, deep breath. From there, we travel back in time. Back outside the walls of good old True Now. Where we see a lone figure approaching the main gate on horseback.

After a chat with the guards, he's allowed through. The gates of True Now open to reveal a young, barren red heart. Riding into the inner quarter of True Now open to reveal a young Baron Redheart riding into the inner quarter of True Now, taking it all in for the first time. He walks through the streets and gets mostly

friendly looks. Maybe we see a bit of a snarl on Baron's lip at the unusual number of half-orcs milling about his natural enemy. As he's trotting through the streets, he passes by a sanctuary, and a voice calls out to him. It appears you've come a long way, adventurer. It appears you've come a long way, adventurer.

Baron looks in the direction of the voice and sees an old half-orc man sitting on a bench. Weeping sores and scars cover his face, along with burn marks, and it appears as if he's blind. Baron takes a drag from a cigarillo that's in his mouth, blows out one half, and then kind of rotates it from one end of his mouth to the other and says, as a matter of fact, I have. But how do you know that? Although I lost my eyes

long ago, my sight has never been better. I am Catrezra, and this city is now my home. What brings you to True Now, young dwarf? Nothing in particular. I'm, uh, just passing through. Hmm, yes. Leaving a place of familiarity, no doubt

To walk an uncertain road I have trod that path as well May I be so bold as to ask what it is you seek? Frankly, I don't know I was asked that right before I left I reckon that's what I'm trying to figure out. Seems here's as good a place as any to figure that out. Yes.

True Now is a great place to start an adventure. The hills within these walls have seen much over the years. Imagine Baron just looks around, takes it all in, Imagine Baron just looks around, takes it all in, and sees a pyre along the southern rocky tip of the main hill of Trunau ablaze. Ah, yes, that is the flame of the orc hordes in the holds of Balkson, our soldiers risk their lives to recover the bodies so that the enemy cannot turn them into skeletal mockeries.

We burn the bodies in that flame. During times of siege, the pyre stays lit to give courage to the defenders and strike fear into the hearts of our enemies. It's not lost to Baron at this point either that catrejera seems uh like he's blind and the fact he's able to sense that

baron saw that and tell him about it without a word being shared between him freaks him out a little bit yeah like when you first came in you saw him and he thought maybe he was blind you didn't want to presume but as you start talking with him and looking at him, it's clear that whatever has happened to his face here has also taken his sight away. So I imagine that's pretty creepy that one, he knows you're a dwarf. Two, he knows what you're looking at as you're taking in the city. But in a world of magic and the divine taking place there, that is unusual at first. and the divine taking place there. That is unusual at first, and then Baron accepts it,

and he just kind of takes in everything and says, This place doesn't look under siege to me, though. Not much of anything really going on. No, but two members of the militia were found dead last night about a mile outside of town, torn limb from limb. Yeah, well, what do you expect from orcs? They're monsters. Well, while that prejudice will win you many friends here and true now, it was no orcs that killed those men.

There are great evils in this world beyond either of our comprehension. It is seen. Wow. Your chill runs up your spine. The wind picks up as he says that. And you don't know now the significance of that. I don't even know if Baron at the end of 325 knows the significance of it is seen.

But something in the way he says that shakes you. Grant liked it. And whenever Grant can refer to himself in the third person, I consider that a good day. That's a win. Or Grant does, I should say. Yeah, and I think, too, Baron, for the first time, is talking to a half-orc that is insightful, magical, can see beyond human sight, humanoid sight, anyway. And he kind of feels bad for the first time that he said

like, look at those orcs, look at what they do. He's not realizing. But it still hasn't set in yet. Alright, old man. Well, I appreciate the heads up. Didn't mean any offense neither. I'm just looking for a chance to do

something. Some good, maybe. Well, I hope you find it, maybe. Well, I hope you find it, Mr. Redheart. Baron Redheart. Ah. Well, good luck,

Mr. Redheart. May you discover what it is you seek, and may your flame burn as bright as true nows. Maybe Baron nods, tips his cap, throws his cigarillo at his face.

Douses him in a flask of whiskey, throws him on top of the pyre in the distance, catches the cigarillo, trots along. Why did he do that? It seemed like things were going well. I guess I found my last calling. And you trot through now and we fade out of there.

And then we find ourselves once again. It's been a little while. Once again, it's been a little while. Back in Osirian, inside of the chamber where the first Pudir was tasked with recording all that his brother Farzadir saw when he walked through time. That same pyramid, that same chamber where Brander would accidentally kill his brother, Farzadir, and the same chamber where Brander would purposely kill one of Pudir's descendants. This pyramid was clearly a central monument in the druidic circle that took in the three children that came from the Council of Thorns when they made the ultimate sacrifice. Feyraza came from this circle,

as did the Pudir that Lork killed in the streets, whose family tried to run away, but could not run away from fate, even when they left Osirian for the Inner Sea. Now in this chamber, we see Galabras, Gormley, and who we've begun to call behind the scenes, Silvertusk. It's an internal designation. It's an internal designation, but I love it.

It's an internal designation It's an internal designation, but I love it And just walking about this room Staring at all of the scenes depicted on the walls There is so much recorded in this massive chamber You see scenes depicting the rise and fall of Tar Bafon The Whispering Tyrant You see scenes depicting Earthfall Sort of Big Bang Theory of Galarian That created the Inner Sea region Whispering Tyrant. You see scenes depicting Earthfall, sort of

Big Bang Theory of Galarian that created the Inner Sea region. You see moments showing how the Starstone's impact on the atmosphere blotted out the sun and brought on the Age of Darkness. You see Aradin, the last Cislante,

his birth and humble beginnings, his ascension to godhood, and his death and disappearance that shook the world. But you also see images depicting so many moments from your own lives and the lives of all the people that have been a part of your story. all the people that have been a part of your story. And before Brander left you here in, what was that, 300? Is that 300 that we

think it was? Before he left you here, he was still recording moments, clearly taking over where Poudir and Farzadir left off when their lines ended. I imagine weeks have passed since he left you here,

and you've just been looking at this great puzzle, trying to determine what Brander's next move will be, where he will go, and when, because the Master of Time has decided that to truly master it, he must end it. So, you've been studying this, looking at all these moments, and it's like a beautiful mind type thing. Maybe you've got your, or like Pepe Silvia,

for you always sunny fans out there, just like lines, threads, trying to connect everything, connect the dots between these. What have you been doing to try and suss this out between the three of you? You're so powerful at this point. You're all kind of beyond life in many ways. Silver Tusk is the one most grounded to our reality

while Gormley and Galabras have seen things in other realms. What are you doing to try and figure out what Brander's move is? I think at one point

Galabras sort of removes himself from the conversation and just sits upon the ground with his legs crossed. And maybe even for days, just sits there motionless with his eyes closed. Just sits there motionless with his eyes closed. Until ultimately his eyes open. Or no, his eyes don't open, he stands. And he moves closer to the images and he like places three fingers from his right hand on his butterfly tattoo on his chest like lowers his head and thought and then he lifts his head and now his eyes do open and looking at him from the distance like you they just look like milky just like no pupil

if you look closer you see it actually looks like like storm clouds and where his eyes would be. And he reaches out his outward palm of his left hand, sort of almost scanning it over all these images. And basically, like he has been accessing this shard of pure divine power that has been granted him by Desna. A bit of her own essence has been imbued inside him, and he accesses it to see many, many ends. And he's able, he's making the attempt to focus down on the one most likely to where he might be. What about Gormley?

I mean, Gormley doesn't really exist on the material plane anymore, right? She's kind of transcended. I like the idea that Gil Albers just sits there for days. As that happened, Gormley just kind of... Time has very little meaning to her anymore. She has no physical form to maintain. And I just like like the thing she goes through each one of these pictograms and just stares at it and takes it and like she's like she's the like like she's in an art museum just kind of staring and staring and staring into it and then she's kind of like hovers over to the next one

it just stares at it and takes it all and absorbs it and then just moves to the next one very systematically goes through each and every single one of them in the room you know just taking your time just trying to absorb as much information as possible she doesn't get tired i'm like i need a break my eyes hurt yeah they're like let me go take let me go step step away for a minute and come back to this puzzle with a new set of fresh eyes and she's pure essence man she just keeps at it oh i love that. What about Silver Tusk? Hmm.

I think he's the most, it's just so bizarre to say, but I think he's the most grounded of the three, at least at this point in terms of his existence in the regular world as a flesh and blood person who was reincarnated sure but it was a you know hundreds and hundreds of years ago so that's not something that's new to him his second reincarnation yeah his second reincarnation. You're welcome, by the way. Yeah, thank you. Did I ever say thank you? You never said that to me.

Glad you got it in. Not a car, not a coat. What the money is for? I think he is part of it is through the symbols. He has a ludicrous, absolutely ludicrous perception of reality. His ability to sense things in his area.

What's his perception? If he really puts his focus into it, it's plus 39. It's ridiculous. He can be super, super focused. And a part of that bonus comes from the template of Reincarnated Druid. It is part of the archetype's bonus that he can turn on this prescience kind of at times. I think he uses that partially with the symbols themselves. uh at times i think he uses that partially with the symbols themselves i think that he is so well traveled and also is cognizant of the fact that he knows things he doesn't understand

if that makes sense that like he's looking for familiarity in the symbols that he can't explain but that almost feel like an emotion right like it's something that would connect and then outside of the symbols i think while galabras is doing this for days then he needs to go and eat and sleep and all that kind of stuff and i think during that time he's doing a combination of leaving the pyramid entirely and just like maybe flying over the area as a bird, just like as a wild-shaped, looking for any signs of anything in the outer areas. And then ultimately, when he has that meditation time and can rest and prepare properly, I think he is doing greater scrying,

searching for Brander. So if it's not going to be these pieces of the puzzle, maybe if he's on this plane i could just find him like i have done before you know with scrying when in moments of brander's weakness when he's distracted and he fails to save uh maybe i could see a flash of him for a moment so uh he's trying to do that looking up greater scrying so it's it functions like normal scrying but it also allows you to detect alignment or detect magic or a message like send a message yeah you can talk through the scrying yeah you can also uh i think you can also like

understand like comprehend languages and stuff like that through the scrying. You can cast a spell right through it. So anyway, that's cool. So I just imagine these three heavyweights at this point would so much invested in, in, in the search for what Brander's plan is now that he's laid it out to you in no uncertain terms. Like you're so tuned into this. And I love this idea that you wild shape and fly around, because this is also the area where he spent his childhood, where he was reared and trained in his abilities. You know, he was an infant when he was taken away from the Council of Thorns in the Inner Sea.

So maybe there are clues outside as well. And so over the course of what seems like weeks, you feel as if you know the when and the where but not the how and so you think sorry the when and the where of where he intends to stop time

where he intends to do this yes but not the how or how you're going to stop him. You don't really know what you're up against, but you do. And again, this is just in,

in taking in what Galabras is doing, communicating with Desna, the goddess of luck, uh, Gormley, just having all the time in the world to look at this. And in many ways, uh,

Gormley was the maestro of all of this because you're the one that spoke to lork on the fucking uh what was that the plane the boneyard the boneyard this way and then you're the one that did it with glower so and then you have the power here grounded to this and the most wrapped up hundreds of years uh chasing Brander in a way you know that he's planning something in the holds of Belkson in an area north of the skitter mounds

and south of a monument known as the sleeper I want you to go to roll 20 real quick here and I have this clip that I've pulled from this have you ever been on the interactive map of Galarian it's like a google maps of Galarian you never get it to work

right so long since I've looked at it but yeah it's really cool there's a couple of them and this is the one that I think is better and so if you look like there's the skitter mounds over here to the west and then there's the sleeper and you see where true now is yeah and the kestrel

meeting the esk where castle farine is freedom town where malira was from er gear oh er gear and then over there to the to the east is vigil and last law you know i always thought when we started this adventure that we were gonna see this shit and i'm super bummed we never did because they really play it up and the players guy like the holds of belks and the holds i really thought we didn't the first thing you do is leave the holds of belks i know i know it should also it must be said whenever we bring up her gear that it used to be the sky settled citadel cold dukar yes yep so cool that it fell and became this other thing. The former dwarven city of Kolduka. I like to believe that we've done more for True Now in this adventure than any other adventuring party because it's really not written that way.

But it's become such a symbol for our story. And so you've determined that something is happening in that area. And that's like the space between the skitter mounds and this monument known as the sleeper. It's probably about 80 miles. So it's a huge space. This is amazing. This is making me this is giving me serious Indiana Jones vibes now because it's like the union of the symbols is pointing to a geographic location. Yeah.

And it's like it it's just like, Alexandra! Like, Alexandra! Of course! I'm seeing, like, how we're putting these pieces together, and it's a geographic location, and it's right on, I mean, for Silvermane, that is like, it's right under his nose.

Yeah. That is his home. Those are his hunting grounds. That's where he goes flying around, watching the orc movements and stuff for True Now, you know? Yeah, he spent a long time hanging out in that area. For those of you who aren't looking at a map, the skitter mounds are just northwest of True Now. You see that area marked Skull Hill? Yeah. There, just to the north of trios so the skitter mounds are this it's a hilly area that even the orcs don't hang out in that

much because it's rumored to be full of unkeg nests and there's a lost fortress somewhere in the skitter mounds known as skull hill people think it's in that general area and the story behind skull hill is there was this sorceress named Akila, and she lived with this wealthy Osirian merchant who came over from Osirian to settle in the holds of Balxin. known as the Everwar. 44 AR, like early, early Galarian. And legend says that when Akila died, a ring that her husband had given her, this Osirian husband, released powerful necromantic energy into the world. And people think like if you find that ring,

you could do terrible things if you ever found the actual ring because her death alone unlocked this energy the sleeper the second monument or second area it's an enormous mountain with a huge sculpture of a dragon

wrapped around its entirety so the monument is built around an actual mountain and steam emanates from its mouth to this day and people believe it's because deep within the heart of the mountain uh on which it was built is the entrance into zingatash the uh gasash the thessalonian realm of gluttony so there are chambers you can like go in the mouth the mouth is as big as a house you can go in and go inside and maybe find this lost city but nobody

fucking goes there because it's cursed. One of the best sins, by the way, Gluttony. I got to get in on some more of that. That's a good one. So you've gotten to the point now where you know something

is happening there and you know when it's happening in about nine days' time, but you don't know the exact location and you have no idea what he's actually planning I like to think that

At a certain point During this time, maybe now you know Yeah, now you know where this is Happening and when, so you're biding your time Talking, making a plan And Gormley, from time to time You notice Silvermane a plan. And Gormley, from time to time, you notice Silvermane keeps

hanging out near certain images. Certain images that all depict the same character. That of a young, female, maybe a half-orc, maybe a quarter-orc, not quite fully a half-orc.

You might catch him just taking a finger and tracing it along the grooves of her outline on the wall. And you know that image to be the image of Cheyenne as you spent time locked to her consciousness. So you're watching this. And we'll cut from there to a camp. Somewhere in the wilderness. And we see horse-drawn carriages, carts broken down for the evening, a bunch of people milling about the camp. Some are sitting in a fire. Others are finishing

setting up their tents for the night. And you see that a lot of them are wearinge. Some of the tents even have a symbol of Sarenrae on it. Exiting one of these tents is Shael. She kind of comes out and looks at everyone and smiles. And then out of the corner of her vision, she sees something glowing in the trees to her right we cut back to you Gorms and you're now somewhere else in the pyramid

like you've got away from where Galabras and Silvermane are and you're alone in another room within the pyramid reaching out across the world

we go back to Shia we see her walking towards this glow it's a small green light and now she reaches over to her sword belt and like puts her hand at the h over to her sword belt and like puts her hand

at the the hilt of her sword and just keeps walking towards this little green light and then she turns and looks behind a bush where it's emanating

and sees a tiny glowing apparition of a green-stained scorpion. Gormley, you have established a channel between yourself and Shiael. Rather than physically traveling that distance, you can speak to Shia and how we will translate. Wow.

Wow. Wow. Shia, can you hear me? Oh, come on! Wait for it! What's up, kid? What's up, kid? We are in a time of

great emergency. And we need your help the Celtics are down 2-1 2-1 we got one game time's running out dude

dude I'm here with someone someone I don't think you've ever met but is an important fixture in your life I'm here with someone someone I don't think you've ever met but is an important fixture in your life I have a cousin

whose sister just got into habit isn't that also your cousin that may or may not be relevant you guys imagine gormley must not be able to hear this translation oh she imagines coming she's like this is going perfectly so well Oh, well. He doesn't speak. But perhaps I might be able to bridge a connection between the two of you so that you may meet.

And he says, he doesn't talk much, but he's special to you and he's sad. And she says, You speak of my father. What do you know of him? I thought that your connection to me was no longer active. That's correct. However, I did think

in this moment, re-forging that connection, if only for a few minutes. Don't worry about it. What would you have me... I forgot that I actually had an accent. What would you have me... I forgot that I actually had an accent. What would you have me do? I'm with my people,

the people that I set out with long ago before we were captured by the Frost Giants. We're making another go. We're heading to Corvosa, to the Chapel of Sarenrae, at least for me to figure out what my purpose in this world is. ago, we're heading to Corvosa, to the chapel of Sarenrae, to... at least for me, to figure out what my purpose in this world is, but if you're telling me there's a chance

to connect with this... this man, I... perhaps I shall abandon my quest and follow you. This is all very confusing. What would you have me do? Where would you have me go? We know that something is happening

somewhere near the skitter mounds in Skull Hill. We don't know exactly what or exactly where or exactly when. Perhaps if you meet us there, you might be able to meet this man. I'll text

you the Google map. Location. All right. Can you meet us there? She looks at her iPhone and looks where she is. She looks at the drop pin. She drops a pin on her location.

I will leave at first light. I don't know if my calling is going to be found in Corvosa or not, but this seems like where I should go now. All right. Thank you, Cheyelle. The fate of the world may be in your hands. I'll see you in nine days. And now he disappears.

See you on Patriot's Day. On Patriot's Day. See you on Patriot's Day. Socks are at 11 a.m. I don't under... I don't understand. I don't understand I don't understand I don't understand anything that the scorpion just said

he really didn't help translate and the thing is like she could have cast comprehend languages and would still have no idea because of the amount of colloquial references constantly being thrown out it's like Shaka when the walls fell. There's just no

frame of reference. He had this really elaborate plan at the end. He was talking entirely in like situational head of hands. Yeah, it was all... He understood all the words he was saying in Star Trek Next Generation but it just could... none of them put together made any sense to him at all.

She just stares at Howie as he starts to disappear and he says the square one mall is the best mall in Saugus. The best Saugus. And he disappears. Now that I understood. We shall have

to journey there. Saugus. It's nothing worth going to the best mall on the North Shore. So the next morning we see her with that same group of people. Maybe they're breaking down their camp and Shia is like building up

courage to speak to all of them. And she waits for a moment. It's like, excuse me, can I to all of them and she waits for a moment and is like excuse me, can I have all of your attention I know I've sort of taken on the role of the leader

of this group but we are all equals here, traveling to discover what it is that we are to do in this life. But I have to leave you all. A foul-mouthed scorpion came to me

in the night. And though I did not understand his words, I understood his meaning. And I know that this journey to the temple of Sarenrae and Corvosa is one that has been fraught with trials all of us here know how

the first attempt went the tribulations we faced as chattel for those frost giants but many of us survived and we thrived and we worked tirelessly to honor those we lost. That is why this second expedition is so important. And although I know all of these things, I have been called elsewhere.

Now, I do not ask you to abandon your journey, but I must go my own way. And if Sanre or any of the gods see fit to help me to reach this destination, I hope that afterwards our roads may meet up again. And as she says, this is like a hubbub amongst the other missionaries or whatever

and we see a a small figure step forward from the rest of the group a small gnome ah yes yes we do it's good old Nim Nim. Nim Nim! Oh, man. Anyone who took the Nim Nim appearance at over.5 is psyched right now. The prophetic. Psyched, prophetic. Oh, God, that's hilarious. Nim Nim, you step forward as everyone seems sort of lost with what to do. sort of lost with what to do.

So this is something I'm going to go into, like kind of what her backstory is. This is, I'm not going to do it in character because I don't think that she would have, she doesn't have the loquaciousness to be able to even explain. This is all like kind of going through her head, like as she's remembering it, like standing up.

Yeah. So Nim Nim, Nim Nim, Sam, Sam, Bellamere, it like standing up yeah so nim nim nim nim sam san belomir volano was the second daughter of a gnomish petty king who had fallen on hard times riddled with debt she herself had always been written off as a halfwit among the gnomish community due to her speech problems and her crippling shyness. But she was absolutely doted upon and adored by her older sister, Sayana Nim. The king, her father, managed to secure a fortuitous marriage for Sayana Nim with the scion of a much wealthier noble family.

And Sayana insisted that Nim Nim form the mostly ceremonial role of captain of the queen's guard for the wedding ceremony. Nim Nim at this point had no business being on a battlefield and it was it was ceremonial so it wasn't objected to. Unfortunately the new groom to be was an absolute monster. He tormented and terrorized Nim Nim every time her sister was out of earshot. He made it clear that her existence was an embarrassment, and once he became king, he would lock her away to prevent further indignity on his name. And Nim Nim was too terrified of him to even tell her sister any of this, even in private. There was one scene I had pictured where her sister Sayana is sort of giving her, puts the ceremonial helmet on Nim Nim's head. And this oversized thing was completely ridiculous on her tiny body.

And she says something like, I feel stupid. And she has no stutter when she's just with her sister alone. And her sister is just like, no, don't say that. You are my hero, my little soldier. She gives her a big hug. My hero, my little soldier. She gives her a big hug. The wedding was held on the southern outskirts of the Shutterwood in an ancient circle of standing stones,

which was a place held in great reverence for gnomes on the Primal Plain. And the day leading up to it was bright and cheerful, although Nim Nim hated her helmet that her office required her to wear and absolutely dreaded what was to become of her once the marriage had been completed. The laughter and songs of celebration were broken by screams as a band of marauding hill giants fell upon the party. A trembling, terrified Nim Nim tried to come to her sister's defense but was struck full force by a giant's club and sent flying far from the scene. And when she finally woke, she saw the carnage,

dozens of gnomes dead, some half-eaten, any survivors carted away to an even worse fate. Lost, broken, and bereft of hope, she staggered off in the direction of the Tusk Mountains. For days after days, she forced herself to keep going, step after painful step, not really even knowing why. Finally, her exhaustion was too much, and she collapsed at the foot of the mountain.

And she would have died there. Except that she was happened upon by an ancient creature. And, in fact, for those of you who've listened to raiders of the last continent it is was one of the tortoise-like humanoids that saved colonel luther when he was attacked by the demon this ancient tortoise humanoid took pity on her saw some special power deep inside of her

took pity on her, saw some special power deep inside of her. Oh God. I actually, I had this whole scene like thought out too. He was just going to come by and like kind of just see her, see her dying and just sort of take pity on her, but write her off and just like start leaving.

So he says, uh, and then like, she was like, stand up and swing. And he'd turn back to her and say, he's like, little

creature, what are you? And she would say, I am a soldier. And he would say, he would see the promise in her. And he was just like, Well, little soldier, there is some strength deep within you. Let us see if we can find it together.

And so he takes her to his hermitage, like on top of the mountain and over the next several years training montage he trains her he trains her like he happens to be like he's you know countless thousands of years old he happens to be like the greatest expert in martial arts on the entire planet and he teaches her as a student, uh, for many years. And she finally finds herself under his tutelage. Like she, she finds a way to this,

this confidence and purpose, like under, under him, like as she learns like this, these martial arts, he eventually dies of old age. She's left alone again. And at this point she's just hopeless like she has nothing left and she wanders off into belks and just giving herself up to the bleaching

and when skirkotla's soldiers captured her she didn't even resist and that's where we met her wow so she didn't have like a sarin rey background or anything no no so this is what's going on um so what she wants to say is that i'm you know all this has happened to me you this group has given me purpose again she can't quite find it in herself and every time like she's not like fighting in fighting mode you can see her she just shrinks and she's just like she's holding like one arm with other hand she can't look anyone in the eye she's just like her her eyes are like cast down when she's awkward like she can she can barely like walk without stumbling she's so unsure of herself um but she pulls herself up and she

she sort of looks furtively at the crowd and she says like I will do it you will come with me Nim Nim she just nods why why would you risk your

life to come with me you don't even know where I'm going? You don't even know where I'm going. Hell, I don't even know where I'm going. And she gets like red as she's trying to express herself as to why she wants to do this. And you can see her like her mouth is moving like she wants to form words. And she just stops and she just looks at the ground. So it's like like i want to fight chael smiles knowing that she won't have to take this long journey into nowhere alone

and the people around nim Nim sort of one by one offer themselves as well. Like, I want to go. I'm going to go too. And I'm going to go. Seeing Nim Nim's strength, they all one by one decide to go with Shia.

Shia, finding hope in her and not the destination. So Shia smiles. And then once again, we enter the ducks below Iron Cloud Keep.

I'm so glad that happened. I was just imagining that Shia was going to walk away and then like once she was like i don't know a good mile away just a monster was gonna set upon the rest of her party we we we enter the the ducks below iron cloud keep, and you don't know how much time has passed. Just winding around those corners until we see the back of the bomb

housed within the exoskeleton of the giant spider. So we're coming from the other direction, and we push past and even through the bomb, seeing all of the connected elements of this thing, through the thorax, the abdomen, and the head, until we exit the other side and see beyond it, where Adriel Ashpeak had sat down to enter his deep meditation. The fires by his hands still burn bright,

but Adriel looks different. He's so deep into meditation, what you can discern of him is he looks almost frozen. You can't even see breath anymore his skin has taken on a different hue and texture even it looks like it's hard

it kind of looks like he's rotting from the inside out and that's what you would think if it weren't for the faintest bit of a shimmer or a shine to his otherwise altered skin.

And we leave there, and we come back to where we ended episode 325. The sound of explosions and chunks falling off of the castle as that bomb that was connected to the cloud diadem that Volsus was wearing

has exploded. The dead man's switch. The dead man's switch. The dead man's switch. Had you explored the lower areas of that tower below the cathedral, you would have found plans for the bomb. Old craft is the one that created it for Volstis. You would find the plans and all of this,

and that would give you bonuses to try and disarm it. Why did we avoid that area? It was timing. You guys were making such good time. It was like, why are we going downstairs? We've got to get out of here! Because they were chopping the chain and so you ran. Oh, down. Oh, okay. Yeah, below

that tower. You guys flew to the top and fought them on the artillery and then you started going down. And that was with the chainsaw. Sir Darlene of the chainsaw. She had a husky. I think a husky chainsaw. Lifetime warranty on that thing.

What a ridiculous game we're playing. That was one of the dumber ones. But without those plans, it was so difficult that even Nestor, we were like, this is too risky of a procedure. Oh, yeah. One mistake and you're all wiped out. Ba-ba! Ba-ba!

Maybe Metro would be able to get away with an Aether Step, but you see now the destruction that that explosion is causing. And Renfall has stopped playing his harp. And he's like, we have very little time oh your magics why am I laughing this is serious

oh your magics may allow you a chance to get away unscathed Zip a hole hole that I built crashing to the ground, could cause enough casualties to rival Volstice's reign had he succeeded. Listen, you fools. We must reactivate the Citadel's magical engine backup system. And it must be done quickly. the Citadel's magical engine backup system, and it

must be done quickly. Listen! Shut up! Head to the foundation block with all haste. You must have encountered it earlier. And you remember

that room that had the blocks that you guys had done magic device checks on, I think. The different symbols? Yeah, yes. And in words written. And we not 20 the shit out of it. The shit out of it. So you know exactly what he's talking about. And you know how to control it.

And he says, as Vosges focused on the battle, he stopped steering the castle. Those blocks must first be realigned to the cardinal points. And there, each of you touch a block, and then pronounce east, south,

west, and north in that order in giant and it will realign the balance. Do all of you speak fluent giant this deep into the adventure? No. No.

I do not. Fuck! Fuck's dick! Can we just slow down and can you maybe acknowledge the fact that we avenged your death? You have! But you're all going to die if this castle crashes! And even if you survive,

imagine the countless lives that will be lost when a huge fucking castle hits their town! You selfish fool! Seriously, Metro wants like an awards ceremony while we're pummeling to the ground! I just think we need to avoid catastrophizing the situation.

Dwarf! You must speak the language of your enemy, yes? I've learned a word here or there enough to get us through, I think. All right. Tell your friends what's north-south. East and west are in giant.

Go to the foundation block and do that. Then meet me in the engine room. Hopefully it's still there. And then together we will use all our power to try and direct the landing of this castle. Now this impact is inevitable, but hopefully we can direct it away from the innocent. Hopefully we can direct it away from the innocent. You may not survive, but you'll have saved the lives of thousands. And that's the end of part one.

Oh! You are parting it. We're parting it! I knew you were going to part it out. That's the set of places ending. I need water. I need cause light. I need cause light. Thanks for listening to the Glass Cannon Network. for more podcasts and live streams visit glass

cannon network.com and for exclusive shows and content you can't find anywhere else subscribe today at patreon.com slash glass cannon the glass cannon podcast is a glass cannon network production and is an officially licensed partner of paizo incorporated giant slayer is copyright 2015 giant slayer and the pathfinder adventure path are trademarks of Paizo Incorporated. Giant Slayer is copyright 2015. Giant Slayer and the Pathfinder Adventure Path are trademarks of Paizo. All Pathfinder images are property of Paizo and are used with permission.