You guys, one thing that I did not anticipate about having a
vegetable garden is how much I was going to become like a
desperate vegetable dealer to everybody in my life.
Nice. True.
I've been, I've been dealt vegetables, Yeah, dealt
vegetables on this. I told Noel I said I'm not
coming over to record unless you will take one to do zucchini and
some kale from me. And I was forced to take it
before Cat would come through the.
Door I was, I said. You got to take these off my
hand. Threatening to run away.
I kept threat. I now like Juniper.
You. You told us that story about how
a new old people would leave zucchinis in unlocked cars.
What? It happened to somebody at the
church because everybody at church would grow zucchini
specifically because which is really funny because it's.
Easy to grow. It's part of going to church.
OK, but that's what they say. But I grew 3 things this summer.
Tomatoes, Peppers, zucchini. Guess which one has died
immediately? My zucchini.
It's. Easy to grow, but you need a lot
of space to grow. It does not grow well in pots.
Well, mine didn't even sprout. Like they didn't even.
They didn't even. Oh, that's just, I mean, if you
were doing it from if you were doing, this is no longer funny.
This is just gardening talk with juniper.
Yeah, but like when you're when you're doing it from seed, like
you have to start a dozen of them and maybe one will sprout.
That's just like. Oh.
That squashes baby. So listeners at home, jot that
down. Jot that.
Down there will be a test later. There will be a test later about
starting plants from seed versus buying seedlings from a good
nursery, which I always actually recommend if you.
Get any of this wrong by the way?
We will put. Zucchinis in your car?
We will. That's actually, yeah, that's
that's your punishment. That's the so the story is that
the many ladies at church all had zucchini gardens and they
all had 1,000,000. They were all called millions
zucchini. They all had names.
Zucchini, all brothers. Yeah.
And. They were all brothers.
They were all plant brothers, all called millions zucchini.
Yeah, OK, I'm taking notes. Nobody would take their zucchini
because everybody was so fucking sick of zucchini.
It was like too much, like nobody wanted any.
And so like literally. Actually, Oh.
My God I remember this because you kept making fucking zucchini
bread. Like again and again and again.
Yes, that's why, because we were given so many zucchini that all
I could do with it was make zucchini bread.
But also people would like leave it was like a small town.
So everybody like does shit like leave their doors unlocked and
shit like that. So people would leave their car
doors down like rolled down in the summer so they don't get as
hot the windows. And then the church ladies would
drive by and drop bags of zucchinis into people's open
windows of their cars, literally to just to get rid of that.
Yeah. And I understand where they're.
Yeah, I understand where they're coming from this.
Shocking behavior. No, I get it now, because
that's. What it's like.
I currently have sitting on my kitchen counter.
I have 5 zucchinis. I just gave 2 to Noel.
I have another six that are currently like within days of
being ripe and then another, maybe another 6 after that that
will be ripe in another week or two.
Wow. Keep your windows closed, boys.
I'm going to give you all the yellow squash I mean.
I will take. I like zucchini.
I'll take some. I'll, yeah, I'll take.
Some too, Kat. If I haven't found a, use for
and by the time we next see each other.
Yeah, I'll take some and then a couple days later I'll give you
some zucchini bread. Beautiful.
Listen, I'll I'll take it. I also have.
Zucchini bread is great, yeah. Zucchini bread is always.
It always hits. It always hits.
I also have a lot of kale so you might get AII.
Take some kale. I did kale from seed this year
and I had four seedlings that were doing so good and I was
like, I know I need to pull two of these because I don't need 4
kale plants, but then they were doing so good so so I didn't
want to you. Want to murder?
Them live short so now I have 4 kale plants and they are choking
out other things in the bed because.
Speaking of being choked out in bed.
Hey. No, there's.
Something you want to tell us about?
Speak more on that. Speak more on that, Noel.
I just was giving Kat an opportunity.
To say let's split, let's in the dark.
No, I know, but I want to hear more.
She didn't take. It I didn't take it because I
didn't know that's what you were doing.
I thought you were just making. What else?
It was so shocking.
It was so shocking, Noel. I'm sorry, I shocked.
Didn't shock me at all. Yeah, it made perfect sense.
Errol was. Right on board with me, Errol.
It wouldn't. Shock you, this is part of our.
Professional business, our rapport, yeah, that's.
True. That's true.
Well, anyway, speaking about our rapport, let's play Blade from
the Dark, all right. All right, everybody, have you
been taking notes? Question one, what types of
plants are best to start from seed versus getting at a nursery
raw? Hi, I'm Kat and I am your GM and
that stands for Garden Master. Oh, Garden Master, should you
grow garden inside or outside? You got it right.
It's sweet, Noel. And I flee Pepper.
On the podcast, that's your question.
Yeah. And she's a rail Jack.
True or false, you should never pull leaves off your basil
plant. Wrong.
My name is Juniper. Oh, and I play Valerian and he's
a slide. Nice.
Wrong. You should have anticipated what
the question was going to be already.
My name is Errol and I play Friedrich Weiss, a Leech.
Nice. True or false leeches can be
found in the garden. True, true.
I've seen you there. Correct.
No. OK, let's get into what happened
last time. Last time you manipulated Ancon
Pepper's way into the suncreen contest.
You sabotaged a current contestant who is allergic to
bees, Valerian. You saved her life in disguise
as a clergyman, establishing yourself as a miracle worker.
And then you use that reputation to recommend Pepper or Pepper A
as a replacement in the contest and to get yourself placed as a
judge. Another of the judges is a hero
in Apatreya called Adrosties, who wields a legendary sword.
Perhaps another memento, maybe for the taking, perhaps, maybe.
We'll see, we'll see. And finally, the Sun Queen
contestants took part in the first event, an archery contest,
which Friedrich rigged so that Pepper and the low class
contestant Dora would do extremely well.
The others did passively well too, except for Princess
Olympia, who sucked. And that brings us to now.
The people in the stands roar with delight as the archery
contest concludes and then fall into a hushed silence to await
the results. Pepper, you and the other ladies
have been brought to a backstage area and Friedrich, you are
still in the 2nd row of the stands posing as Lady Pepper's
father And Valerian. You are in the judges box and it
is time for you to give archery scores to these five lovely
contestants. Several servants come by and
give each of you judges a wax tablet and a stylist to mark
down your scores on how these young women have done.
And is it out of 10? Yeah, out of 10.
OK. Obviously I'm going to give
Pepper and Dora both 10 out of 10.
Hell yeah. Because like, they just really
did it. I'm going to give the Princess 7
out of 10. Wow, that's.
High. She's dead.
She's really shitty. Well, I want, I don't know,
maybe I should do 5 out of 10 then.
I mean, it depends what you're trying to do.
I want to capitulate to her, but I don't want it to be too
obvious. Maybe like a six then?
Seven seems too crazy. OK, we'll do 6.
And I just kind of want to piss heavily off.
Have we and Fotina both do the same right?
Yeah, but they both did pretty good.
Yeah, they did really good. So I'm gonna give Fotini 8 out
of 10, OK? And I'm gonna give Peppolina 7
out. Of 10 OH.
Is this like anonymous judging? I'm assuming I have to put it
forward. It is cumulative judging, but
it's not necessarily anonymous like if somebody asks.
Sure, sure, sure. They'll know.
OK, But a servant comes back by and he collects your tablets
from you. And another one of the temple
acolytes stands there and does some math.
And then the announcer kind of runs up and they talk for a
second. And then he runs back out to the
center as the stage is being set up.
And he ascends onto the top of the stage and he says, good
people, the scores are in. Coming in at the top of our
scores is the humble and beautiful Dora Deny and.
How does the crowd react to that?
Yeah, yeah, I think the crowd is a very mixed reaction to this.
The common folk in the higher sections of the Coliseum, they
are going absolutely ape ship feral, whereas the aristos
around you, Friedrich, are hissing, they're hissing in
displeasure. Cool, there's spigots on me.
Yeah, there's spigots on you. It's cool.
I can't wait till after this. We're going to meet up with
Friedrich and he's just going to be covered in substances.
Yeah, I'm going to. Take up an emotion point for all
the substances. Following closely after her is
our mysterious new beauty, the Lady Pepperon.
Yo. How's crowd?
Like that, everybody, like, collapse a normal amount.
They don't know you, Pepper. Yeah, but they're loving your
energy. Yeah, next is our beautiful
Princess Olympia. She may not have.
She may not have scored highly, but she has scored highly with
the judges. The crowd gives a confused
amount of applause. Yeah, she's still got my lowest
score. Which means yeah, Which means
the other judges. Coming up next is Pavlina
Evradiki, followed then by Fotini Parsifoni, Our Lady of
the Temple. That's.
Wild. So that's switched from what?
Switched from what I did. Yeah, so they like her better.
Interesting Ambassador. There are some politics here
that you. Are not pretty.
Aware of. Well, I'm starting to understand
their bitchiness. Pepper.
You hear all the scores being announced in the waiting room
that you are in, and you're being served like some fruit and
some watered wine and you have servants waving palm fans to
keep you all cool. Oh well, like as soon as we are
even vaguely like in the tunnel to going out, Pepper would like
run up to Dora and be like, wow, that was amazing.
I cannot speak to the skill that I just played today.
I truly am no great master with the bow.
I only hunt rabbits with it. Well.
That's more than I hunt with it. That's amazing.
I suppose perhaps the Goddess truly is with me today.
I look around at the others to see what their reactions are.
Olympia comes up on Dora's other side and she like loops her arms
through Dora's and says, well then, if the goddess is with
you, then I shall be with you too.
Come, let us refresh ourselves. And Fotini and Pavlina give each
other sort of that like side eyed look of like oh this bitch.
And they follow behind, silently and sullenly.
Fotini, Bobini. Fotini, Bobana.
Bobini, Bobana. When the scores are announced
and you guys hear the scores being announced and Olympia
still comes in 3rd despite everything, Pavlina gets up and
just throws down her cup of wine and and storms off to like
there's not really anywhere for her to go so she just sort of
storms off to stand by the entrance with her arms crossed
waiting to go out. I think Pepper would want to go
over to her and be like, hey, like, is that what you expected?
I suppose so. Of course, the perfect Olympia
will be rated highly no matter how poorly she does.
How is she perfect if she sucks at archery?
You ask a very salient question, Lady Peppera.
I mean, she seems really nice and obviously she's extremely
hot, don't get me wrong, but it does seem really unfair.
Yes, her sweetness and her beauty will cover up any other
flaws that she may have. Huh.
Does Olympia seem surprised or is she like embarrassed or
Olympia? Has absolutely no compunctions
about her elevators. She's just like, OK, whatever.
She's like, oh, of course I'm. Me, that's what happened.
Yeah, she's saying, oh, the goddess has blessed me.
The goddess has blessed me to be doing so well despite doing so
poorly. OK, yes, she thinks absolutely
nothing of her privileges, Right.
Oh, and Pavlina, like, looks back over her shoulder Olympia
and rolls her eyes. I'm sure it's that hero.
He is of course going to try and court the most privileged lady
among us and try to elevate her above the rest of us.
Oh, but you'll see. The piece that I am to perform
will surely catch his eye. Then he'll have no thought for
Golden Olympia. So this is the Bachelor.
Oh, rattlesnake sound. Pepper nods and she says.
You know, I've thought about it, but I don't think I'll be using
my musical piece to seduce that guy, whoever he was.
But you on the other hand, I think you'll really like my
piece. It is all the good that you are
not trying to catch his eye for. There's enough competition in
that field. Who else trying to get with him?
Oh, only every single woman in the entirety of Appetrea.
He is the golden hero returned from the battlefields
victorious, bringing wealth and glory to our lands, and he has
been blessed by the gods to wield their sword.
Oh, a special sword. Oh yes, they say it has been
passed down from master to student all the way back from
the times of the gods. Wow, it sounds like it has a lot
of memories attached to it. Oh, I'm sure, though it also has
a lot of blood seeped into the steel.
No problem, make sure it's been wiped off so you keep your chin
up, Pavlina and Pepper gives her a little bop under the chin.
I think you're going to do great.
Thank you Lady Pepper, you do well to ingratiate yourself with
me. These bitches.
Do pepper winks. OK, so now you are all LED out
onto the stage and each of you are handed your instruments as
you walk out for the next event is music.
Damn, is it all in one day? It is all in one day.
Oh my God. Yeah, dude, it's a lot.
So with your fingers aching from the bowstring, you are now to
put fingers to instrument strings.
Do you guys have anything that you want to do to try and
sabotage the other contestants or give Pepper an advantage?
I have plans not to sabotage the contestants, but to sabotage the
judges judgement. Tell me.
So one of my items that I think
I'm going to choose to bring is something called Trance Powder
I. Was literally going to suggest
the same thing where genius is Oh my God OK.
So you've got trans powder? So I have trans powder and my
thought was I'm. Turn them all trance, sorry.
I'm going to turn all. Of.
Them all trance. I'm I'm not specific.
What's that fucking guy's name? It is Gavriel Androstis,
Valerian and one other priest OK, whose name is is.
Bobangle. Bobangle.
Bobangles.
Yes, bobangles. Bobangles.
OK, so I have in my in my pocket.
What's the word A dis is the Spencer dispersal.
Are you habitualizer? You have one of those like a
little humidifier that you can put essential oils.
Yes, I have an essential oil humidifier in the full of a tiny
ball and it's full of trans powder and, and I'm going to let
it, I'm going to let it all out. As the contestants come out for
the next round, I surreptitiously throw it on the
ground away from me enough that I won't be affected by it.
OK, what action would you like to roll?
OK, I would love to use Prowl survey or hunt.
I think Prowl you could because you're trying to sneak, you're
trying to sneak. This yes, yeah.
I don't want it to be obvious that I have set off a trans
powder bomb in the judges. Sure.
Yeah, I can help you with this, I think.
How about I have helped you to create this device that
disperses the powder. And so instead of it being like
a bomb, it's maybe just like a small little like incense
device. In fact, maybe I've compressed
the powder into a lovely little blue incense stick.
It could be like a religious, you know, ritual where you're
just saying a little prayer to your lovely little incense.
Yes. So I think I'll take one stress
to assist you. Watch me get like all ones you
guys. You can do it.
My highest is a four. OK, you succeed, but there is a
consequence. You have planted this and it is
going to go off just at the time that you expect it to.
The problem is you do not clear the area.
Oh, so I'm also in the trance. So I'm going to give you a level
1 harm that is Trance. Oh, interesting.
So what does trans powder exactly do?
It induces a pleasant hypnotic trance when inhale.
So I'm like, hi, yeah, you. Are you?
Are you're? Suggestible.
You're high, you're suggestible. So is everybody else.
Everybody else around you. OK, so right now you are still
doing OK, but you are suddenly like on the rope.
Don't as fuck. All right, so as all of the
judges are put into this trance, the ladies are LED up onto the
stage to perform their pieces of music.
I'm just going to go ahead and roll Fortune rolls again for
each of them. Olympia goes first again and she
is doing a piece on the Liar and holy shit she is bad.
Oh, no, no. Olympia has no skills.
Olympia just she beefs it hardcore.
Her fingers hurt so much from lebow strings and she just keeps
missing notes. And it's it is not, it is not
good. It is not good.
And then Pavlina, she is playing a instrument that is called a
Pandora, which she does pretty good.
She does actually really quite well, and she performs this
beautiful piece, a exaltation of Aloysia Fotini.
She is playing a instrument called an aulos, which is A2
pronged flute, and she does a passable job.
It's not great. She's dual wielding.
It is almost kind of the fault of her instrument, because it is
a a very powerful instrument, but not necessarily a very
pleasant instrument. Sure.
Dora is playing a harp and she does pretty good.
It's not bad. It's not great.
The people up in the upper seats, though, they really love
it. It's a, it's a rousing sort of
folk tune. It's not very well suited for
the sort of like, highfalutin society that she's in right now,
but the people love it. And now Pepper.
Yeah. How do you do?
Give me a fortune roll. Are you doing anything to help
besides the trance powder? Everybody is in a weird stupor.
I think like I can just roll straight up and down.
Because Pepper would have. Assured them that she's good to
win. Right, she's got it.
OK, she. Has it covered?
What is it? Is it a one?
I got a one Fuck. Fuck.
All right, So I think basically what that means is Pepper plays
something that is deeply sad and depressing.
This is like just music, like not singing, Right?
Yeah. OK.
Yeah. She comes out and she's kind of
showboating, like listening for the crowd, like hyping them up.
And then when she starts playing, it's really slow.
Like, like she plays like one note and then waits really long.
And then the next note is like another really long note that's
really just like low and depressing.
I just want to say up in the judges, Valerian is losing his
shit. Like he's laughing.
Yes, he is loving this, and he unfortunately is high, so he
doesn't have the wherewithal to crack down on that as much as he
normally would. But he loves this isn't his type
of shit. Yeah.
And she plays like several more like dark minor chords.
And then she smiles out at everybody and bows.
And there was a very tepid applause for you.
Yeah, malaria is the loudest. To be clear, Peppers wasn't bad,
but it was really. It was just really
inappropriate. It was just really sad.
Friedrich liked it too, then. All right, contestants are
escorted off the stage and Valerian, you are in the judges
booth, high as a kite with everybody else.
He was also high as a kite. And Androstus goes, I am
intoxicated by sweet music. Not so much the last one, but
the fair ladies and their fairer notes make my mind so heavy.
My friend that the last one. It really moved me.
I've not heard music like that since my ordination into.
The priesthood. I came from a small town, very
strange practice but though it's like home to me, it makes me
feel so seen and good. And the high priest next to you,
Valerian is just staring at the sky and he's just sort of
staring up open mouth at the sky.
He is completely out there. And so like the the wax tablet
is offered to him and it's like they have to poke him a couple
of times before he gets in and then he just.
Can valerian reach over and be like let me help you with that
mess that I can handle this for you if you need.
Yes, absolutely. And you take it from him and and
you, you mark down your scores. How do you?
For him and me, I gave Olympian 7 because I'd want to look part
of the crowd. Have Lena gave her eight?
OK, I gave Fotini 6, Dora 7 and obviously Pepper 10 with a
beautiful death ballad. Fair enough.
OK, so the announcer comes back out after the scores have been
tabulated and he says fair people, please join us next door
for the charioteering. But first, I will tell you how
things stand. Leading the pack now is the
fiery and perhaps melancholy Lady Peppera.
And the crowd goes confused, and people are starting to sort of
elbow each other and be like, what is going on with these
judges? This is getting kind of weird.
And so it is Peppera. And then Olympia, Havlina,
Botini and Dora has fallen to the bottom, I'm afraid.
That's not right. Not yet.
I saw that coming. Yes.
And so now join us at the Hippodrome for the chariot
races. The chariot races.
Hey guys, it's sleepy hour. It's me, Juniper, sleepy hour.
I'm on my lunch break. That's the sound of my pills
rattling around in a bottle. Because I just picked them up
without thinking. Because I'm tired.
Because I've been up until 1:00 in the morning for two nights in
a row and the first night it wasn't my fault and the second
night is because I was reading fan fictions so it was my fault
and I'm paying for the consequences of my actions right
now while I record this mid roll.
Hope you guys are having a good time.
Hope you guys are awake and that you've had coffee or that you
haven't had coffee. If coffee does weird stuff to
you, I have some friends that coffee does weird stuff to you
and I'm an embed. OK, let's get into the mid roll
and stop doing whatever this is. Thanks for listening everybody.
Here's the mid roll news merch. Well, OK, there's merch coming.
I can't say anything about it, but I've seen some stuff and
it's pretty cool. But you know, I mean, I'll keep
my little lippies sealed until it's time.
But there's some merch coming. There are quarterly prints are
coming out for patrons. So keep an eye on your little
mailboxes for all that good stuff.
And then as always, we are doing new stuff this summer.
It is the summer of streams. My dog's about to bark.
Just just just, it's fine, Don't worry about that.
But it's the summer of streams, so we're doing a wonderful thing
that's going to last much longer than just this summer called
Riverdale Roulette, where we are all listening to episodes of
Riverdale completely out of order.
And then we are coming together. Oh, baby, it's OK.
What was I saying? We are listening to episodes of
Riverdale in a random order. Oh, there it goes again to try
and try to figure out what Riverdale is about.
I think we just had our third episode officially episode #2
because we started on episode #0 and they air every other Monday
at 6:30 PM Central Time on our Legend Lark YouTube channel.
And Speaking of YouTube and social medias, but we have them.
We have Tumblr, blue sky, Instagram, Reddit and a fan run
discord. And we are legend lark pod
everywhere on literally just like if you just search up
legend Lark like you'll find us. You guys know how the Internet
works. Like that's you, just you just
look it up. We'll be there.
And the other place that you can find us, there's one other place
you can find us and it's called Patreon and you can go on to on
Patreon and you can find us there and you can support us on
Patreon financially if you so choose, which allows us to do
cool stuff like send our patrons things in the mail.
There's a quarterly prints tier and every quarter you'll get,
I'm literally so tired, you guys.
This is not a bit like I'm really genuinely, I was going to
take a nap over lunch and then I remembered I had to do this and
I was like, and I made myself an iced coffee and here we are.
Anyways, you could go to our Patreon and get prints.
Every quarter we send out new prints.
Errol and I take turns each quarter making little beautiful
arts and sending them out and you can get them sent directly
to you. And then we also have another
fancy tier. You can get access to our live
streams because in addition to every deal roulette, we do also
monthly live streams that are exclusive to Patreon.
And let me tell you the do you think that we don't have a
filter right now? Like boy, how do you you don't
have a filter on live streams. It gets crazy, it gets crazy.
So if you want more of this for some reason, you should check
out our Patreon. And I need to thank some people
who've already done that. So let me just thank some
Patreon members and their names are as follows.
Anthony Velarde, thanks for joining.
Arsalan Menhaj, thank you for joining.
And thank you especially for joining at the annual price.
That is awesome. And we love to see that.
And you are a star and a winner. And you're going to go far, kid.
Thank you Adarkins and Kel City. That's one person.
I I I think thanks for joining M Sandish.
Thank you foster. Thanks very much.
Skies chaser. Thank you so much for joining
and JPI like your cat icon, you're all equal in the eyes of
the Lord and thank you so much for supporting us on Patreon.
It really means a lot to us and it's like literally keeps us
alive and doing stuff that we love to do, like make this
podcast. So thank you guys very much and
I'm going to, I'm so tired. I'm going to respond to Spotify
comment. Let me just pull up the Spotify
comments. Oh, you guys should just comment
on our Spotify episodes because I read all of them.
I think we all read all of them and they're amazing and we love
to see them. And also we pick one every
episode, so every other week to respond to in the mid role.
And if you leave a comment, you just might get responded to.
That could be an incentive or a cautionary tale.
A threat one might say. So take it as you will.
And today I am going to respond to Pigeon Kicker 9000.
That's a really mean name. I hope you don't kick pigeons.
That is fucked up. Anyways, jumping for joy at the
antics of these glorious freaks. Everything about these
characters is so, so fun to me and I'm excited to see how the
heist shakes out. Smiling sunshine emoji.
Thank you Pigeon Kicker 9000, You have no idea.
Like how much the antics have not even begun.
You just have a big storm coming.
You've got no idea, but I'm so glad that you're liking it
podcast so far and all the new characters you guys support for
the new characters has been really awesome and it helps us
feel confident in our choices to play characters that we've
played. So thanks.
Thanks, guys. Oh, God, I do everything.
I've met, did some stuff out of order, but I think I've got it
all. Mostly.
Mark is completed. Message to Chantelle.
OK, finally, at last, at the end of all things, there is the
message to Chantelle. Chantelle, I loved to see you
the other day. It's been a while since we hung
out, and I really liked going to see Superman with you.
It was a really good movie and I had a great time.
And the code word is. Keep it glimpy.
The sleeper agent is active. Get out of here.
Join us at the Hippodrome for the chariot races.
Man, can us judges even walk over there?
Great question. I think Valerian can make it,
but I'm worried about what was his name.
Master Gabriel, he has to be sort of gently escorted.
I think Valerian will help with that.
He'll kind of be like, come this way, master the blessings of
Alosia. They flood us so strong
sometimes it makes it hard to think and move through this
sinful world. Get there together.
Yes. And Adrasa seems to be doing
like pretty OK. He's a big, strong guy.
He. Strikes me as a guy who's used
before and has the muscle mass to handle.
It yeah, he can handle it. Friedrich, the Colosseum is
emptying out as everybody is moving to the Hippodrome.
As a member of a family of one of the contestants, you are
given a priority escort so that you are able to get to the
Hippodrome ahead of the crowds. Do you want to do anything in
this time here as everybody is moving to the next location?
Cool. OK, well, let's see.
You said I get to go ahead of the crowds.
Yes. And I'll remind you that you,
like you said before, you got architectural plans for these
buildings. Yes, but then I do have the
escort with me so I have to keep that in mind too.
Yeah, you might have to do an action role to say.
That you need to go poop? Yeah.
Yeah, you may have to tell them that you need to poop.
Yeah, wait, what? Do we have left?
We have charioteering and what are the other two?
Tactics and poetry. Poetry.
Yeah, that's right. I mean, I'm down to drug some
horses. Is there an?
Anesthesiologist role to choose the dose to.
Choose the correct dosage. No, I don't.
Because we want to drug the horses, but horses are so easy
to kill. Well, yeah, I'm going to have to
get away from my escort and then I'm going to have to find a way
to drug these horses in such a way that I'm not noticed doing
it. Right, so it sounds like you
need to do an action role, perhaps a prowl.
Exactly. Position will be risky standard.
So if it doesn't go well, there's a consequence.
Yeah, I mean, if I'm caught drugging the horses, that'd be a
big fucking problem for sure. Should I be trying to push
myself or get any assistance? Or I can give you a Deborah's
bargain that you do not have an exit strategy after you get in
with the horses. Interesting.
You would basically you would have.
To cut one open and live inside it like a ton.
Yeah, you would have. You would have no easy way out
of the staples. I mean, yeah, I'll take it.
I'll. OK, take an extra die then.
Devil's bug. Exciting.
This is our first. Is this our first?
I think. This is our first devil's.
Bug. My first devil's bug.
OK. So that's OK.
Highest was a 5. OK with a complication so you
slip your escort. As you get into the stables,
Friedrich 2 guards come and stand next to the door.
OK. So they're you're stuck.
So that was the devil's bargain. The complication I think is
going to be as you look upon all of these horses, you go, shit, I
don't know which horse goes to which chariot.
There's no indication there of which horse goes where.
So what do you do next? Oh my God.
Well, this is an interesting predicament.
I mean, you know, can I do anything to try to increase my,
yeah, my, my horse knowledge? You could survey or study the.
I think I'll study these horses. Study them horses, Friedrich.
Yes, all right. And I've got 2 points in.
Study. I will say this is controlled
standard effect. Oh, highest is a four.
All right, Yeah. So as you are standing there,
Friedrich, looking at all these horses, and finally, you kind of
like, figure out like, oh, OK, they have color-coded bridles.
And you remember that Pepper, her color was assigned as red
because it, you know, went with her hair.
And so as you're looking at this, a boy comes up and he
says, Sir, Sir, I don't think you're supposed to be back here.
Oh, I'm, I'm so sorry. I got too much sangria.
I got turned around. Let me think, let me think.
How am I going to get rid of this fucking kid?
Poison. Or damn eye blind.
We have, you know, small coinage money.
Right, you do. I think maybe better to try and
bribe the kid. OK.
All right. And then the action would be I'm
thinking maybe Sway? That sounds about right, yeah. 4
is the higher. 4 is the higher okay?
So you succeed with another consequence.
Okay. It's like a rabbit hole.
That's the. Front of this game as you fail
forward, I think the child takes your coin and he says oh okay
Sarah. Well about your business.
However, I am going to fill another section of the clock for
suspicion. Got it.
Something weird is going on. And how full is that clock it
is? Half.
Full and how how many sections is it 6 so.
You have three more sections of that clock that could fill.
It seems fine. So yeah, what is the best kind
of horse drug? I mean I feel like it might be
good to just trans powder them because I feel like that's not
as strong and less likely to make the horses high.
Well, yeah, better than killing the.
Horses. No, I mean, yeah, that's true.
And then As for Dora, I mean, we don't have any specific plan to
like get the crown from Dora if she does win.
Yeah, but we might be able to do it.
Laver's making many alliances in the house because she doesn't
want to be kicked out of the villa on night.
Two. Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, so. That makes sense.
Yeah, I'll go ahead then. And I will sabotage all horses
except for Dora and Peppers. OK, you've sabotaged these
horses. You've used an item for that, so
I'm not going to make you roll an action roll for that.
You've drugged some horses. And now I'm going to hide myself
in the hay. You're going to hide in the hay.
OK, I'm gonna make you do one more action role for that, to
hide yourself. Well, as you hear footsteps in
the hall and the groom's coming, being like, hurry, hurry,
they're coming. It's almost time.
Let's get these horses hitched up.
Prowl to hide, Yes. All right.
Oh, good. Thank God.
OK, yes, so I actually my higher one is 1/6.
OK. The guys are with you today.
Being small is good. You are just a little guy and
you like Scrooge Mcduck dive into the hay and you are
completely hidden as the grooms come and get these horses.
I do mention like come on girl, move move.
What is with these horses? I want to say I feel like I
would have drugged them, you know, lightly, because I don't
want it to be insanely obvious that they're drugs.
They're. Just a little slowed down, yes.
The grooms are kind of like, oh, they must have gotten into the
festival spirit. Perhaps they've had too much
wine as well. All right, so while all of that
was going on Pepper, you are LED through the street in another
procession, through the streets to the Hippodrome which is
nearby, and another crowd waits there to cheer you on.
You are LED directly through the archway of the Hitch Rodrome,
through its gates and to a waiting chariot, yours painted
bright fiery red, with your horses that look alert and the
others horses look a a bit weird and dazed.
You are dressed in golden armor and given a magnificent crested
helm, except for Dora, whose armor is a plain leather painted
with accents of bronze in her helm, which is a bronze helm
instead of gold. They can't keep getting.
I am making eye contact with each one of my opponents and
winking at them and saying good luck.
And Dora sidled up to you a little bit and she says truth be
told this vent frightens me. I know not how often you have
attended this in the past, but this is where there are many
injuries. Oh well, I take her hand and I
look at her right in the eyes, and I say, Dora, I have it on
good authority that Aloysia is watching out for us.
And she smiles and and nods and squeezes your hands.
And then the announcer comes to the center of the arena and he
makes a big announcement. He says no.
Those of you who are not lucky enough to see the 1st events of
the day must certainly be excited.
Let me hear you. Brown.
Brown, brown, Brown. Now this our most exciting
event. Our fine ladies will complete 5
laps around the Hippodrome if they can.
Anyone who is unable to complete the five laps will be
eliminated. The first to finish five laps or
the last woman standing shall be the victor.
So no judging on this. One, no judging.
It's straight up and down shins. Got it.
All right, so I'm going to roll for the three women whose horses
have been drugged, and we'll see how bad they do.
I'm going to roll two die for each of them and take the lower.
I didn't drug those horses for nothing.
Olympia Yeah, Her horses are just slow.
They are slow and distracted. Pavlina kind of the same.
She is going, yeah, yeah. And the horses are just not
responding to her. And then Fotini, her horse, is
scared by something and veers off wildly and crashes in.
She crashes into Pavlina's chariot and both women are taken
out of the race. 2. Two laps in.
Does that mean they're disqualified from the whole
festival? They are just disqualified just
from the race unless they are too injured to go on.
Let me just go ahead and make a fortune.
Oh my God. Pavlina's still in it.
Fotini is not. So her chariot crashes into
Pavlina's and she is sent flying and she just eats dirt dead and
when she sits up she has a a big gash in her forehead that is
just bleeding. Oh my gosh.
Damn and. Her leg is at an awkward angle.
Oh. Shit.
Oh, Valerian's cheering he's having.
He's like, sounds like he's making WWE.
Audience like he's right at home with this shit.
He is. I mean, he's still high.
He is also still high. All right, so Dora is also going
to roll and oh shit she didn't have disadvantage but she rolled
A1. Her Cherry gets tied up behind
the crash and she lags very far behind Pepper.
If I use a skill, do I get? Can I get more?
Yeah, if you want to roll an action roll instead of a fortune
roll here. Maybe finesse to just like,
finesse my horses. Yeah, I think that that would
work for driving. Seabiscuit that shit.
Oh God cool I got 2 fives.
Hey, all right, you succeed with a consequence.
I'm going to say the consequence is that as you are going by with
your undrugged horses that are listening to what you say, the
other women kind of realize again that something's not right
here. Like there is something weird
about their horses that is not weird about yours.
And I'm going to fill in another section of the ladies suspicion
clock. How's that one doing?
That is also now 3 out of 6. So in the end, Pepper, I think
you win. You sail by these women.
Olympia comes in second, Dora comes in 3rd, and the other two
are disqualified due to the crash.
So as you know, she crosses the finish line, Pepper, she doesn't
stop. She keeps going until she comes
to the place where the crash is. She wants to check and see if
everybody's OK. Pavlina is absolutely irate and
she is just screaming at Fotini for being a clumsy oaf.
And you'll never be anything more than a lowly priestess and
a Loisia does not favor you. And she is.
She is just tearing into this poor concussed girl.
Who's leg is like broken Yeah are.
They like medics of some kind. Temple acolytes are coming to
take Fotini off the field. OK.
And then Pepper kind of avoids looking at Fotini and her
wounds, and she holds a hand out for Pavlina and she says, come
on, you can ride with me. She gives a haughty sniff
towards Futini and she accepts your hand and gets up onto your
chariot behind you and. Pepper calls out.
Futini, I hope you feel better. Valerian, what have you been
doing? Honestly Cat, this was a free
tournament for him so he has been doing absolutely nothing
except having a good fucking time.
This is the judge. Yeah.
With the hero the. Type of shit that he also would
have done like back in his home world, like he for sure held
like horrible tournaments like this nice.
And so he is just like at home. Are you eyeing up that sword
though? Oh.
Yeah, he is eyeing up the sword. Yeah, but he's waiting.
He's waiting for he's. Waiting for the opportune
moment. Yes.
And Adrasis, he's also really into this, like, yeah.
I want to try a little while. We're laughing and and cheering
and jubilation. I just want to put my hand on
his knee. Oh, what does he do?
How does he react to that? Very casually.
Oh. He glances down at your hand on
his knee. And I suppose you are like this
really. I'm incredibly charming.
You are. And I have not done anything to
him you have, except for make him high.
But he's fine with it, and he doesn't know it was me.
He flashes you a little smile and he says, did you know your
eyes are the same color as Aloisia's sun as it flashes her
warning to sailors in the dawn. It's an unusual color I don't
think I have ever seen. It's like.
My parents told me that I was blessed by Aloisia's red sun.
It could very well be. And he takes a sip of his wine.
OK. You guys have a little thing.
Or I was just sussing him out because I want to know if this
guy's gay. You know.
It's ancient Greece, everyone. Greece, everybody is gay, and
also I was. Going to say bye.
One of my many potential angles to get the sword.
You are, I know. And multiple swords.
All right, so, Pepper, you and the other women are escorted
back to the Coliseum. The rest of them travel on foot,
except for you, Pepper, who are taken up in a chariot by the
hero Adrostis himself. And he holds out his hand to you
in a very gallant way. And he says, hold on tight my
lady, we will ride fast. I don't take his hand, but I to
chariot and I go wow that's so cool.
And he? I gave him a pat on the back.
And he he gestures for you to like, hold his waist and be
like, hold on tight. Blairon gives you a thumbs up
from the Oh yeah. Yeah, right.
Pepper does that. She, like holds on.
And you can see Pavlina is giving you the dirtiest look.
I give her a look like I don't know what am I supposed to do?
He takes you back through the streets.
You guys ride ahead of the losers and he's holding the
reins in one hand and waving at the adoring crowds with the
other. Cat is his sword.
Yes, it is belted to his waist again.
Cool, cool, cool. Just making sure.
Pepper clocks that, but she's going to say, you know, I've
been talking to the other girls, addressed this and a lot of them
seem really, really into you. While you say that as though you
are not. Well, I mean, you're a very
handsome man. I don't want to get in anybody's
way. I don't want to step on
anybody's toes, you know? I will tell you a secret then.
Yeah, I have already made plans to propose marriage to whoever
wins the contest today. I see.
I had hoped it would be fair Olympia, for her father's lands
are many and her beauty is so famed worldwide, though Pavlina
is also and perhaps more beautiful.
But Lady Peppera, you have been in most unexpected surprise.
Most welcome. That's so interesting.
It's true Olympia does have huge tracts of land.
I guess I'm just wondering like would you really propose to
anyone who won? Oh well, it would not be proper
for me to propose to the Hella Dora.
Our standing is too far apart. But of the other contestants,
yes. Though perhaps it is best that
the Lady Fontini is no longer participating as she has already
been pledged to the temple. That's so interesting.
Well, I'll be sure to listen, listen to that question if I
win, and I will listen to it with my ears, yeah.
I hope that you would listen to it with your heart, my lady.
Pepper, just like, nods at at his proclaimment of heart,
listening. She's really not about this for
once. All right, we'll come back to
that, Friedrich. Yeah, you are still in the
stable. Indeed, indeedly so.
Indeedly so. So I think once everybody is
kind of moved off and the horses are being brought back, I would
say you probably have an opportunity to get out of.
There. Awesome.
OK, maybe another prowl. Yeah, that sounds about right.
We'll try prowling and just see how that goes.
We'll. See how the prowling goes?
All right, you've been a pretty sneaky boy so far.
We'll do our best. OK, so the highest is a three.
What does that mean to get? That is a failure, my friend.
I don't care for that. You don't.
Care for that. So as you are trying to like
slip out of the hay, you just biff your timing.
Absolutely just biff it. And you hop out of the hay just
as a groom is bringing one of these poor drugged horses back
into the stable where you were hiding shit.
OK, OK, I'm thinking about my options here.
I will also say you can resist the consequences.
That's something we haven't talked about.
You can tell me about that. So what it will be is you will
be rolling in attributes, either insight, prowess or resolve.
I would say with this to resist, I would say this is probably
prowess to try and get out before this guy like sees your
face. That makes sense, yeah.
Automatically you suffer sick stress and then you will
subtract your highest die from your resistance role.
Oh, OK, so. Yeah.
So if you got a six, you would
take no stress? Yep.
And how many dice do I roll? For for for prowess.
However many pips you have in prowess.
OK, so I've got 2 pips in prowess.
OK. Makes me so nervous.
Got this. OK, my highest was a 5 Great I
only. Take one stress.
He sees that like somebody was there but you managed to get out
before he sees that it was you. Thank God.
And I think I'm going to take a little emotional stress point.
I am going to say this does tick up your temple suspicion clock
though. Yeah, we got to work on getting
that down. Yeah.
So you've got only two. Left. 2 left here and so
Friedrich, as you're making your way back, you notice someone who
catches your eye, who is slipping in just ahead of you.
You notice her because she's tall, like much taller than the
other women you've seen in this world, and pale, almost washed
out looking in this sun drenched setting.
She's wearing simple undyed servants clothes and as she
approaches one of the servants entrances there's a loud crash
behind you as someone knocks over the stall of a vendor
selling souvenir sun crowns made of woven and painted wreaths.
The guards turn their attention towards the commotion and you
see this woman slip in undetected.
Into the Colosseum, OK. Yeah, into a servant's entrance.
OK, well, I mean, I feel like we've got to know.
What I mean? The juicy Goss, right Valerians
got tactics covered. Is the thing tactics?
Covered. So like, there's no reason I
can't, yeah, investigate what's going on here.
And I have full confidence in Pepper's ability to do poetry.
Well, Oh yeah. You guys didn't rely on her to
do music and that. And that's why I have full
confidence well. Tactics is next, right?
Yes. So yeah, I can come back for
poetry. All right, well then, if you
want to follow her undetected, you'll need to make an action
role. Yes, and I'm going to use Prowl,
so let's go. I'm going to say this will be
risky standard. OK yes, so I am going to roll to
Prowl. Thank God.
Oh fuck yes. Oh my God I rolled A6 all.
Right you are. You stealthily prowl after this
woman and slip in just behind her while everybody's still
distracted from this big commotion of the stall being
knocked down and these Reed crowns being strewn all over the
street. So you follow this woman into
the shadowy corridors of the Coliseum servants entrance, and
as you're back there, she stands out even more so than she did
before, because now you can see her next to all of the servants,
which the servant class in this world is called the Hellots.
So the you're out next to all these Hellot servants who are
all, you know, they don't look like they got a lot of great
nutrition in childhood. Let's put it like that.
You might actually fit in better with the Hellots than you do
with the aristo that you are pretending to be.
So this woman being so very tall and so very pale next to all
these very tan. People who work in the sun.
People who work in the sun, yes. Or something about her really
isn't quite fitting in, but she slips through this crowd very
deftly. I bet she's from the train.
So you follow her all the way to a room where there are another
couple of guards, and you see her sort of stop there and she's
sort of assessing the situation, looking at these two guards.
What do you want to do? Where is she trying to get?
Into yeah, that's what I was. Going to.
Yeah. Friedrich, you don't know.
It's just a room that has two guards in front of it.
OK. She's sort of standing like
around a corner peeking out, like looking at this room or
this doorway where there's two guards standing there.
The guards are armed with Spears and short swords, standing in
front of the door, and they're looking, honestly pretty bored.
As you're watching her, you see her start to like Pat through
her clothes, sort of taking inventory of something that she
might have on her. Well my assumption is that she's
probably from a rival gang and we do need 3 artifacts and right
now we've only got our eyes on 2.
Yeah, you've got one more stop to get the next artifact, so you
don't have to get them all right now we.
Don't. OK, how about I do something to
distract the guards? OK, OK, so I am going to, I
think maybe a grenade's too extreme, so I'm going to go for
a smoke bomb. OK, So what I'm going to do is
I'm going to kind of slip a bit further away.
Maybe if there's like a hall, like throw it down the hall, OK.
And then from there, shout out like, oh good God.
All right, someone help? Let's make an action roll for
this. Yeah, yeah, Tinker's my best so.
OK, I'm going to say this is controlled with standard effect.
OK, another. 6 Excellent. Oh wow, you are doing great
today, Friedrich. Yes, you set down this bomb, you
set it off like put it in just the right spot and set it off on
a timer so you're able to like run further away and then do
your oh God. And the guards come, they sort
of look at each other and then they lean into the room for a
second and then they run off towards the smoke bomb.
And Friedrich, you were able to see the woman slip into the
room. I'd like to follow her.
You'd like to follow her. You do.
I won't make you roll for that because you've already
distracted these guards pretty Dang well.
And so you follow this woman into the room and you get in
there just in time to see her slit the throat of 1/3 guard who
was sitting in the room playing a little game on the table.
OK, yeah, I bet she's from the train.
Yep, and also on the table is the golden diadem crown.
Fuck the humble and beautiful Dora.
Hold on, let me find out. I have a last name for her.
The Explorer.