Episode 23: The Antimagic Essence

Armed with the final essence, the team returns to Lambence to complete the orrery. The world outside the skyscraper has changed as the effects of destroying Exanimus befall the region, and the stakes get uncomfortably higher. Both Lambence and our wayward party must scramble to make preparations, or risk losing their last chance of going home.

Content warnings for this week’s episode include coarse language and light sexual references.

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Dungeon Master, Editing, and Community Manager is Tyrone Cross      

Noah is Steven Edwards

Timothy is Olive Jerome

Lucille is Rosemary Ochtman

Magnolia is Jorja Odd

Elias Moffat is our Content Producer, Narrative Consultant, and Transcriber

Theme song is “Belly of The Beast” by Lily Harnath and Henry Lucas (@lilyharnath & @henrylucas5)

We’re on the lookout for a couple of people to join the team as a Community Manager and Transcriber. Send us an email if that sounds like you!

Email us at portalquandary@gmail.com 

Sound effects used in this episode include:

Rabble Meowing 2 - timtube

Magic_byMondfisch89 - Mondfisch89

bass200000000003322 - levelclearer

siberia - levelclearer

SupernovaLarge - aj_heels

Baby Goat Bleating - OBXJohn

Magic - RICHERlandTV

Beating Wings - Juskiddink

Nostromo17 - levelclearer

Fire - mmutua

Battle - levelclearer

This podcast was recorded on the lands of the Wurundjeri people and produced on the lands of the Awabakal, and Wurundjeri people. Portal Quandary acknowledges and pays respect to our traditional custodians and to their past and present leaders. 

The story, all names, characters, and incidents portrayed in this production are fictitious. No identification with actual persons (living or deceased) is intended or should be inferred.

Transcript

Jorja/Magnolia: Portal Quandary has some content warnings. You can find them in the episode description.

Tyrone/Dungeon Master: And you see the storm above stop heading into that essence, and you sort of see it rise back up, I guess, back up into a cone. Rise back up into the sky into a sort of implosion as it spreads out. I want to say it's like a supernova. That’s what I’m picturing in my brain. Like, it implodes out and spreads across the land. 

[energy builds to an explosion, then tinkling can be heard]

[portal SFX}

Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Comicon is not going the way Noah expected it to. Sure, the cosplays are great, and the Lego selection is adequate, and Sam should be on the way fairly soon - that, at least, is within expectation. The purple glowing void he’s in? Not so much. He can’t see anything from the convention now, except - is that another cosplayer? They must be trapped here same as him. They’re dressed as some lizard-creature, green scales and horns. Noah doesn’t recognise what from. 

Steven/Noah: Hello! Hey you! 

Tyrone/Dungeon Master: The cosplayer doesn’t turn around, but curiously, something bright pops up over their shoulder. Noah squints a little, bringing a hand to shield his eyes. After a second he realises it’s the flaming form of. . . a cat. The lavalike pupils of the cat fix on Noah and across the way, he watches their little mouth open to unleash a meow. 

[cat meows]

Tyrone/Dungeon Master: The engineering that must have gone into that is remarkable. Noah wonders if the cosplayer will show it to him. They finally seem to realise Noah’s there, their bulky frame turning to face him. The cat lets out one more meow

[cat meows]

Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Its flames growing dimmer and dimmer. The cosplayer grips the cat in one arm and waves enthusiastically to Noah with the other. Noah opens his mouth to call out again, but in a flash, the cosplayer drops out of sight. The only sign they were there to begin with is the faint yowl of a surprised cat echoing across the wind.

[cat meows]

Steven/Noah: What was that supposed to be? Maybe they’ll be at the cosplay competition later.

Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Something glints in the corner of his eye. Keeping his arms out to hold steady in the gale, Noah watches as a strange object floats lazily past. It’s made up of different metallic rings and glowing marbles spinning along the rings. It hovers for a moment where the cosplayer was, then abruptly drops, following them down and out of sight.

Steven/Noah: Huh. 

Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Before Noah can question it, the purple fades to black and a conch echoes.

[conch horn]

[portal SFX]

You’ll see as the magic spreads out over the land - you’ll look to where Lamence is - and you’ll see that Glamos has completely surrounded the city now, and the way you came from Neptis, Glamos is growing through. 

Theme Song: [rock music plays]

Finding home in the belly of the beast, to make it home we can’t accept defeat, so roll the dice and come along with me, finding home in the belly of the beast

Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Hi, welcome back to Portal Quandary. We’re up to episode twenty-three.

Jorja/Magnolia: Woo, woo, woo,

Rosie/Lucille: Woo.

Tyrone/Dungeon Master: You guys have just gotten the final piece of the orrery. You’ve got the anti-magic essence (that’s the name of the episode by the way) and you’re just chilling in the lobby. Cleary and Oberon chatted to you on the phone, what’s up?  But once again, for the final time this season, we are going to freeze.

[magic ringing]

Tyrone/Dungeon Master: And we’re going to talk about our level up.

[peaceful, light music plays]

Tyrone/Dungeon Master: You guys are up to level seven.

Jorja/Magnolia: That’s weird, I’m up to level ten.

Olive/Timmit: What?

Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Crazy.

Rosie/Lucille: Lucille doesn’t believe in levels.

Jorja/Magnolia: Yeah, she absolutely does.

Rosie/Lucille: Just hierarchies.  

Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Would anyone like to volunteer?

Jorja/Magnolia: Yep, Magnolia is feeling very protective and centred within herself that she can expand outwards, and she feels like she can protect people better if they’re around her from, I don’t know, magical means.  

Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Wait, this isn’t Aura of Warding?

Jorja/Magnolia: It’s Aura of Protection. 

Tyrone/Dungeon Master: You’ve just got a really strong aura.

Jorja/Magnolia: Yeah, my aura’s really pink. 

Olive/Timmit: Pink is what you want to go with here?

Jorja/Magnolia: I don’t know, love.

Steven/Noah: That’s an Avatar reference. ‘My aura’s never been pinker.’ I see you, I see you.

Jorja/Magnolia: Yep. Thank you.

Rosie/Lucille: It’s very off topic, but has anyone watched the new one on Netflix? Is it any good?

Olive/Timmit: I have not. I have not heard brilliant things.

Rosie/Lucille: I’ve heard brilliant things today, so I-

Tyrone/Dungeon Master: I’ve heard mixed reviews. That sounds like you’re offering yourself up to talk about your level-up.

Rosie/Lucille: Well, Lucille did in fact level up. Yeah, so basically Lucille’s just got some more stuff to fuck with people. If we want to get really into it, she might be able to, I don’t know, you might say magically twist a space, make people fall through a vortex, appear somewhere else, which will be a bit of fun. Yeah, that’s pretty much it. 

Tyrone/Dungeon Master: I’d like to think this comes from the enormous surge of magic that just rippled through everyone.

Rosie/Lucille: She’s like, ‘My gosh, the fuckery that I can achieve with this.’   

Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Speaking of fun magic, maybe the magic bitch?

Steven/Noah: *in a reporter’s tone* Hello, magic bitch.

Olive/Timmit: *in a reporter’s tone* Hello there, this is magic bitch. [regular] this level up I’ve gotten a few cool, little spells with the surge of the magical potent energy washing over me - over Timmit. All of the flames adhered to his skin and melded over into this sheen, shield-esque sort of thing, and his mind has been expanded to the possibilities of reaching in and altering what people know and understand, so that will-

Tyrone/Dungeon Master: He’s shiny.

Olive/Timmit: Shimmering splendid.

Rosie/Lucille: Like a Pokémon.

Olive/Timmit: I concur with that. 

Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Noah, darling. What about you? What’s happened for level seven?

Steven/Noah: Got some health. Got a new spell slot. Learned a new spell. 

Jorja/Magnolia: Woo!

Olive/Timmit: Woohoo!

Steven/Noah: Noah! He’s also feeling very smart. You may even say ‘genius.’

Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Crazy. Is he going to share that genius with those around him?

Steven/Noah: Depends. Maybe. We’ll see.

Olive/Timmit: You may call me genius.

Steven/Noah: I don’t know what else you want me to say. That’s all that happened.

[laughter]

Tyrone/Dungeon Master: No, that’s beautiful. 

Steven/Noah: I was looking back, and I was like, ‘Nothing fucking happened.’

Jorja/Magnolia: I got one thing.

Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Yeah, you guys all got one thing.

Olive/Timmit: Yeah.

Tyrone/Dungeon Master: And with that, time unfreezes once more. 

[magical ringing] 

Tyrone/Dungeon Master: You guys are just chilling in the lobby. Are you guys going to hurry anywhere, or are you just vibing? You might just take a seat on the dilapidated lounges.

Rosie/Lucille: I’m going to cast Find Familiar.

Tyrone/Dungeon Master: You remembered.  

Olive/Timmit: That will take an hour.

Rosie/Lucille: Wait, what?

Olive/Timmit: It takes an hour to cast.

Tyrone/Dungeon Master: I did give it to you for- Hmm, for the point of expediating, it just takes now. It’s fine.

Olive/Timmit: What if I want to do things for an hour?

Tyrone/Dungeon Master: It depends what it is. Are you going to bring Goaty?

Olive/Timmit: I don’t know, I’ve got to find out.

Tyrone/Dungeon Master: And yeah, Goaty flutters into existence.

Rosie/Lucille: I wouldn’t call it a flutter. I would say Goaty clomps into existence. Like, ‘Don don.’

[goat bleat]  

Rosie/Lucille: Like more clompy, with hooves. 

[tapping on the desk followed by a goat bleat]

Rosie/Lucille: “Goaty, oh how I’ve missed you.” I don’t know what’s happened to Lucille’s voice.

Olive/Timmit: From the brink of death she is a changed woman.

Steven/Noah: [in a stereotypical old lady voice] She’s level seven now, but once again old.

Jorja/Magnolia: And immortal.

Olive/Timmit: Nothing can touch me.

Rosie/Lucille: Anyway, Lucille’s just going to hug Goaty a bit too much.

Olive/Timmit: So, are we just going to wait here for Cleary, or…? 

Jorja/Magnolia: Didn’t she say she is where she was? Aren’t we going to meet her?

Olive/Timmit: Yeah, I’m pretty sure we’re meeting her where we dropped off. 

Jorja/Magnolia: Yep, which is not in this building.

Olive/Timmit: Yep.

Jorja/Magnolia: So we…

Olive/Timmit: Okay.

Rosie/Lucille: She’s got my goat cloak.

Jorja/Magnolia: Gloak. 

Tyrone/Dungeon Master: She’s got more than that. She’s got all her shit, but not on her person. It’s in the safe back home. 

Rosie/Lucille: So far away.

Jorja/Magnolia: Well, we better get going.

Olive/Timmit: Let’s go then.

Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Let’s go girls. [sings the opening tune from Man! I Feel Like a Woman! By Shania Twain.

Olive/Timmit: [continues the tune]

Tyrone/Dungeon Master: So, we’re taking a good ol’ stroll down the Melbourne street?  

Jorja/Magnolia: Yep.

Olive/Timmit: Yarp.

Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Beautiful. As we’re heading down - I don’t know if there’s any expediency about our trip?

Jorja/Magnolia: I’ve got a slight hustle on.

Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Just a slight one. You can see Cleary in the distance, and you can see even where she’s standing Glamos is growing over Exanimus. So where we was standing in Exanimus was now Glamos.

Rosie/Lucille: Have they tried just cutting it?

Tyrone/Dungeon Master: I think we’ve had this conversation. Yeah, they tried burning it.

Rosie/Lucille: Okay, I thought it would be an idea.

Olive/Timmit: Hey, not a bad idea.

Steven/Noah: Not a good one.

Tyrone/Dungeon Master: And you can see some of the outer skyscrapers, like some of the twenty floor buildings - whatever - where they once were standing is now tall trees in their place, and Exanimus is now becoming a grove.

Steven/Noah: We should probably hurry up. 

Jorja/Magnolia: Yep.

Olive/Timmit: Agreed.

Steven/Noah: *whispering* Fire.

Olive/Timmit: What was that about fire? Huh? What?

Steven/Noah: Jesus Christ. Skittles’s boots of fire are going to propel him forward and he’s going to start flying through the air. 

Tyrone/Dungeon Master: [cartoonish plane take off noise]

Steven/Noah: Fucking [cartoonish plane take off noise]

Jorja/Magnolia: Oh shit, I’ve got a broom. Jiji!

Steven/Noah: You can just fly. 

Rosie/Lucille: Yeah, I’m just flying with my little goat. Carrying Goaty.

Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Argh!!

[laughter]

Olive/Timmit: Click my heels together. “Go, go, go!” 

Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Cleary is going to fly up in the air to meet you all. She’s going to grab whoever’s hands are closest. I feel like Magnolia is going to volunteer.

Jorja/Magnolia: Yes.

Steven/Noah: I don’t think any of us would want to get in the way of that. 

Jorja/Magnolia: You better not.

Tyrone/Cleary: Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god. You guys are okay! There was an explosion right exactly where you were. Are you guys fine? 

Jorja/Magnolia: Yeah, we’re chill.

Olive/Timmit: Honestly feeling really good.

Rosie/Lucille: I’ve been better, but I’m good. Yes. 

Tyrone/Cleary: We did warn you, yes? Exanimus is really awful for fairies, right? 

Rosie/Lucille: I mean, it was pretty not great, but I feel like we all came out on top. 

Olive/Timmit: We actually came out from the lobby.

Rosie/Lucille: Shoosh. 

Tyrone/Cleary: So what did you guys see? Oh my god. We haven’t really explored in Exanimus before. We just have your eye witness accounts now. Tell me everything you saw.

Rosie/Lucille: Well, someone got chopped up.

Jorja/Magnolia: Yeah.

Steven/Noah: Yeah, Hymnbo got shredded.

Olive/Timmit: There was giant razorblade wielding, teeth eating machine that just ripped right that poor guy up.

Rosie/Lucille: And the building was alive and it killed me and now I hurt. 

Tyrone/Dungeon Master: She’s just going to go really solemn. She’s going to be like:

Tyrone/Cleary: I’m sorry. Are you guys okay?

Rosie/Lucille: Yeah, it’s chill. 

Jorja/Magnolia: I’m fine.

Steven/Noah: We knew him for like half a day. 

Rosie/Lucille: I’ll just rest and then I’ll heal because that’s the way the game works.

Jorja/Magnolia: The game of life.

Steven/Noah: I think she was talking about the way Hymnbo being shredded and how that makes us feel emotionally.

Rosie/Lucille: Oh yes, Lucille has emotions. Yes, yes. Yes, yes, it was sad.

Steven/Noah: We’ve already got one autistic, emotionless person. We can’t have another one.

Olive/Timmit: Whom-bo?

Jorja/Magnolia: No, Hymnbo.

Olive/Timmit: Oh right, Hymnbo. No, I didn’t know him.

Steven/Noah: One name, like Cher.

Tyrone/Cleary: Wait, did you guys not say anything about him…

Jorja/Magnolia: -Bo. We thought it best not to.

Rosie/Lucille: We were a bit preoccupied with the building killing us.

Steven/Noah: I do recall the first time we met Timmit that he wasn’t exactly ready to receive new information. Particularly about, I don’t know, humans disappearing. I don’t think he was ready for that news, so we kind of skipped over it. 

Jorja/Magnolia: I also don’t know how to describe what he was to Timmit in a way that wouldn’t scare him more. 

Olive/Timmit: Yeah, all very valid points. I mean if you had told me yesterday I probably wouldn’t have been ready, so yeah. That checks out.

Jorja/Magnolia: And also I wasn’t sure if he was possessed or under threat, so I thought it was probably best to let Timmit go in not knowing any ties.  

Tyrone/Cleary: Well, it seems like you have his violin as a memento at least, right?

Rosie/Lucille: Oh, that’s so morbid.

Olive/Timmit: Yeah, that’s right. I do have his violin. I mean, it’s pretty good. It’s really in tune. He knew what he was doing, but yeah it goes alright.

Tyrone/Cleary: So, the building attacked you? What was it doing to attack you?

Jorja/Magnolia: It was mostly idle threats and messing with the elevator buttons. 

Olive/Timmit:  Not to mention it was draining us of our will to live, but yeah.

Rosie/Lucille: Yeah, you know, just killing me a little. That was fun. I saw my husband. 

Jorja/Magnolia: Ooo, what?

Tyrone/Cleary: Yeah, what was that? 

Rosie/Lucille: Well, not really him. His room. I saw his room. It was like he was there. I feel like I saw him there as I was in the depths of dying. I feel like I miss him a little. It’s… I wouldn’t say sad. I wouldn’t get sad, but I just don’t feel very good, you know?

Jorja/Magnolia: Okay… Well, I saw my room too, but it wasn’t like, ‘Oop, dead parents,’ or anything like that. Are you okay?

Rosie/Lucille: Yeah, I’ve got Goaty. That’s all I need.

Olive/Timmit:  Sorry, I mean, we’re going to take a step back. Dead what?

Jorja/Magnolia: Oh no, my parents aren’t dead, but I didn’t visions of anyone close to me or anything bad happening to them.

Rosie/Lucille: I think I was just dying a little. You know, those nice, little death hallucinations. 

Jorja/Magnolia: Oh yeah, I know the ones.

Steven/Noah: Of course, the death hallucinations.

Jorja/Magnolia: Yeah, from the first episode. 

Steven/Noah: Of course.

Olive/Timmit:  I’m just going to look to Cleary and be like, “What the fuck?”

Tyrone/Cleary: Did any of you guys see anything as well?

Jorja/Magnolia: Just my room.

Olive/Timmit:  I saw the lobby of the building that I started working in. 

Tyrone/Cleary: So it used illusions of your memories against you?

Olive/Timmit:  It seemed to be, yeah.

Tyrone/Cleary: To trap you. To lure you in there, I guess. Somewhere comforting.

Steven/Noah: Didn’t work on me, I’m too smart. 

Jorja/Magnolia: Yeah, I just pushed the button and didn’t let anyone go into my room.

Rosie/Lucille: I didn’t hug the goats.  

Steven/Noah: Just fell unconscious in the stairwell.

Rosie/Lucille: Just a wild night, you know?

Jorja/Magnolia: Typical Tuesday.

Steven/Noah: Yeah, but Noah didn’t see any visions. He never-

Tyrone/Dungeon Master: No; however, something I neglected to mention before this moment is the memories of the portal coming back to you.

Steven/Noah: Sure.

Tyrone/Dungeon Master: It’s up to you if you want to discuss that with anyone. 

Steven/Noah: Fuck them. Anyway, stop developing your characters. Glamos is at our feet.

Jorja/Magnolia: I assumed I was moving this whole time.

Rosie/Lucille: Oh yeah, I’m flying while I’m crying. You ever do that?

Jorja/Magnolia: Yeah, all the time.

Tyrone/Cleary: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Let’s get back to Lambence while we keep talking. That sounds like a wise idea.

Olive/Timmit:  Go, go, go!

Steven/Noah: *whispering* Fire.

Tyrone/Dungeon Master: And Cleary’s just muttering to herself in the flight the whole time. Loud enough so that you can hear her, just not to anyone in particular. 

Tyrone/Cleary: Okay, so it was draining you of magic, and then it was using illusions of your memories, so where exactly did they come from? How exactly did it know? And you said this place looked like Melbourne, so…

Rosie/Lucille: Sometimes I think it’s the GPS.

Tyrone/Cleary: The what?

Rosie/Lucille: The GPS. 

Tyrone/Cleary: What’s that?

Rosie/Lucille: Government Programmed Schemes is what it stands for, and it’s something that they brought in for us back in our hometown, and it basically tracks us everywhere and it gets in your head, and I refuse to use it, but I think when I went into the city to get my groceries that it got me, and that’s how all this has happened. I think I’ve just figured it out. It’s the GPS.

Steven/Noah: Lucille’s not vaccinated, is she?

Rosie/Lucille: No, no, no. Absolutely not.

Jorja/Magnolia: I’m just going to wait for Lucille to keep talking, but as she flies off - you know how they do - and I’ll tell Cleary, “That’s not at all what that is. Just so you know.”

Tyrone/Cleary: I’ve just sort of learnt to not take what she says too seriously.

Jorja/Magnolia: Okay, perfect.

Steven/Noah: Especially not when she’s flying crying.

Rosie/Lucille: Lucille’s hearing is not good enough because she’s old, so she’s not hearing any of this. She’s just still going on about the GPS. “The Government Programmed Schemes.”  

Steven/Noah: I don’t think it’s her hearing. I think it’s something in her brain. Like a selective hearing.

Rosie/Lucille: Yeah, that sounds about right.

Tyrone/Cleary: So, my working theory at the moment, I guess, is that it was eating the magic that it was eating from you and turning that into physical manifestations. 

Jorja/Magnolia: Sounds good.

Olive/Timmit: Yeah, pretty sound. 

Steven/Noah: Woah.

Tyrone/Cleary: I’m going to write my thesis on that. 

Steven/Noah: You have collegiate education here?

Tyrone/Cleary: Yeah? Is there something wrong with that?

Olive/Timmit: Wait, hang on. You haven’t already done your thesis? How old are you?

Tyrone/Cleary: Never ask a woman her age.

Olive/Timmit: You’re not- You’re a fairy.  

Tyrone/Cleary: And a woman.

Olive/Timmit: Alright, I stand corrected. But seriously, how old are you?

Jorja/Magnolia: Dude, come on. 

Tyrone/Cleary: Just a few hundredorthousandyearsold.

Olive/Timmit: Huh, and still no thesis. Interesting.  

Tyrone/Cleary: Look, if Kyros doesn’t come back then that’s me, and if I’m to keep my job as Head of Research and Development then I need to keep writing papers.

Jorja/Magnolia: So Timmit, how’s your thesis?

Olive/Timmit: Oh, I finished mine in four months. 

Rosie/Lucille: Was it good though?

Olive/Timmit: Yeah, it was pretty good. I’m working in one of the most prestigious law firms in all of Pangea. 

Rosie/Lucille: *mocking gibberish*

Jorja/Magnolia: But it is a law thesis. It’s not like it’s…

Olive/Timmit: Yeah, they are different. I couldn’t do anything sciency. If Noah threw something at me, I’d just be lost.

Rosie/Lucille: Law people just make it up. 

Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Everyone except for Lucille, as you’re flying over Glamos, you’re going to feel the magic come up through Glamos and into your various magic items: the boots, the broom, and Skittles’s fire gems, and you feel a little speed boost, and you’ve basically doubled in speed.

Olive/Timmit: Oh shit. “Go, go, go, go, go.” 

Steven/Noah: *whispering* Fire.

Jorja/Magnolia: Mine’s just on. Are you turning yours off and on? Do you stop everytime someone talks?  

Steven/Noah: I stop to listen. I’m still a gossip. 

Jorja/Magnolia: You hear someone talk in the background and you’re like, ‘Oop?’

Steven/Noah: I’m telepathic. I don’t need to do that.

Tyrone/Dungeon Master: So, we get to Lambence very quickly, although Rosie and Cleary are struggling to keep up.

Jorja/Magnolia: I help. 

Rosie/Lucille: *sobbing* I’m trying. 

Steven/Noah: One fairy on each arm.

Jorja/Magnolia: Yeah.

Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Are you going to share the broom?

Jorja/Magnolia: Yeah.

Tyrone/Cleary: Should we go back to the orrery and put it in now?

Olive/Timmit: Yeah. I mean, yeah we probably should. With Glamos and the expediency of it, but we should probably get our things back first just in case.

Steven/Noah: ‘We would like our personal affects first and foremost.’

Olive/Timmit: ‘I’ve signed out of the building, I've put down my signature, now I need my items. ‘

Tyrone/Cleary: Good thing they’re both in one place. In my room. In my workshop, not my room.

Steven/Noah: We nearly got invited into her room.

Jorja/Magnolia: I know. My heart skipped a beat.

Steven/Noah: Even better, we get to go to her workshop. 

Jorja/Magnolia: Ooo.

Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Beeyonce. Beeyonce has been here the whole time.

Jorja/Magnolia: And I’ve been here the whole time. 

Tyrone/Dungeon Master: There’s so many fucking little characters I’ve got to keep track of.

Jorja/Magnolia: Yeah, my dog’s dead. 

Steven/Noah: Woof.

Jorja/Magnolia: Haha.

Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Beeyonce’s back. 

Tyrone/Cleary: Alright, we’re here in my workshop. We’re here in my workshop now. That’s how travel works.

[laughter]

Steven/Noah: Meanwhile, in the workshop.

Tyrone/Dungeon Master: *mimicking the sparkling transition music*

[sparkling transition sound]

Tyrone/Cleary: Okay, so here’s your bag back and everything else that I’ve forgotten. 

Jorja/Magnolia: Thank you.

Tyrone/Cleary: Here’s your ring and your pearl of power and all the other things.

Olive/Timmit: Thank you.

Tyrone/Cleary: And here’s your goat cloak.

Rosie/Lucille: Gloak!

Tyrone/Cleary: The gloak, yes. ‘Gloak’, I love that. 

Rosie/Lucille: I didn’t think of it.

Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Is that all I had of yours?

Rosie/Lucille: “Yes, I’m just magic by existing.” I don’t know what’s going on with Lucille’s voice today. It’s bogan, and then it goes to this.

Olive/Timmit: Death changed her. 

Steven/Noah: She’s turning into a goat. 

Rosie/Lucille: She’s been away for too long.

Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Noah, did I have anything of yours? 

Steven/Noah: No, you just kept Beeyonce for me. 

Tyrone/Dungeon Master: She’s here. She’s queer.

Steven/Noah: Get used to it. 

Tyrone/Cleary: The orrery? Is that what we… What do you guys want to do? 

Olive/Timmit: We should probably make sure that this thing works, right?

Steven/Noah: Fire it up.

Rosie/Lucille: We need a sacrifice. 

Tyrone/Cleary: What? Why?

Rosie/Lucille: To put into the portal.

Steven/Noah: No, this is a different kind of portal. It’s okay Lucille. 

Rosie/Lucille: Oh.

Steven/Noah: It’s not like your mirror.   

Tyrone/Cleary: Oh I see.

Steven/Noah: *whistles, with the tone of calling someone crazy*

Tyrone/Dungeon Master: There’s been an addition added to the orrery, so there’s an extra little stem out. Compared to when the first prototype was made.  Now there’s a fifth planet.

Jorja/Magnolia: Does it flow seamlessly, or is it shoddy? Can you tell?

Tyrone/Dungeon Master: It’s clockwork, so you can see the string come from the centre bit in the planet. It’s not seamless. It doesn’t seem to reject it. Nothing immediately happens. It’s kind of anticlimactic to be honest - putting in the final piece of the puzzle, and you’re just staring at it like, ‘Okay.’

Steven/Noah: It didn’t explode.

Olive/Timmit: That’s a good sign, but how do we turn it on? 

Rosie/Lucille: Usually I find there’s an on button.

Tyrone/Cleary: So you’ve got to use these little dials at the button. They’re the… 

Tyrone/Dungeon Master: What did I say?  

Tyrone/Cleary: They’re the X, the Y, the Z, and the time axis. Four different dials at the bottom that you put them in.

Steven/Noah: Completely ignored. 

Tyrone/Dungeon Master: I didn’t even realise that time.  

Steven/Noah: But I can just picture Cleary sitting there in front of this orrery, and Lucille’s just rambling on about shit, and she’s like, ‘So yeah, anyway.’

[laughter]

Rosie/Lucille: GPS! On button!

Tyrone/Cleary: It’s got dials at the bottom for the XY, Y, Z, time axis.

Tyrone/Dungeon Master: I’m pretty sure that’s what I said before, and then, yeah, the sun in the centre is the on switch when you want to. Do you want to…?

Olive/Timmit: So, is this designed to take us to one specific place, or to wherever we need to go? 

Steven/Noah: You put in the coordinates. X, Y, Z, time.   

Tyrone/Cleary: So, now we need the coordinates to your place, but it isn’t that simple. I can’t just open up the portal to anywhere right now. I kind of need a big energy source.

Olive/Timmit: How big?

Tyrone/Cleary: Maybe like the whole planet big. Like, you know the thing that’s covering the whole planet right now?    

Jorja/Magnolia: All of Glamos?

Tyrone/Cleary: Yeah.

Olive/Timmit: So, we need to tap Glamos into this machine?

Tyrone/Cleary: Yeah, so we’ve got to go out into the fields and power them up.  

Steven/Noah: How did you get it to work last time? 

Tyrone/Cleary: Yeah, remember that bit where Kyros didn’t come back? Yeah… We powered it on like normal last time and that’s what happened.

Rosie/Lucille: How do we know this will fix it?

Tyrone/Cleary: My thousand years of thesis that just got put into question.

Jorja/Magnolia: That wasn’t her work. 

Tyrone/Cleary: That’s why my improved prototype now has the antimagic essence. 

Steven/Noah: I don’t like the word prototype.

Jorja/Magnolia: I’m sorry, what is Skittles? Sorry, what was Honey Boo Boo? What was Honey Boo Boo? 

Steven/Noah: A first draft.

[laughter]

Steven/Noah: And now she’s a shield.

Jorja/Magnolia: Interesting.

Olive/Timmit: Jeez, what a promotion. 

Jorja/Magnolia: Anyway, do you guys have a combine harvester? How do we do this? 

Olive/Timmit: I’m more concerned about if you tap Glamos into this machine, how are you going to stop the Glamos energy from spreading to different planes?

Tyrone/Cleary: So, we’re not plugging it in, I guess is what you’re saying. We’re just drawing in the power from around us.

Jorja/Magnolia: It’s not a USB, it’s wifi. 

Olive/Timmit: Got it.

Tyrone/Cleary: I don’t know what that means, but yes.  

Jorja/Magnolia: Neither does Lucille.

Rosie/Lucille: I was just going to say, I’m confused.

Steven/Noah: You can still get a computer virus through wifi. 

Jorja/Magnolia: Shut up.

Rosie/Lucille: Really? Like, in real life?

Jorja/Magnolia: Oh my god. No, in D&D. 

Tyrone/Cleary: Wait, so do you guys want to pump it up right now?

Olive/Timmit: No time like the present.

Jorja/Magnolia: I wouldn’t mind a little nap to be honest, but I also don’t know how pressed for time we are.

Tyrone/Dungeon Master: I did neglect to mention the time, which - it was sunset when we were inside the building, so with the fly back - we are well into the early hours of the morning. 

Olive/Timmit: Okay, so maybe a little rest would be okay.

Jorja/Magnolia: Because, don’t all your people need to be here for this? Awake and alert in case anything happens. 

Tyrone/Cleary: Yeah, you’re probably right. Yeah, and we should probably talk to the king as well, so we can figure out what’s happening with the travel with your guys and us and whatnot.

Rosie/Lucille: The king!

Steven/Noah: Oh my god. Also, if we fire this bad boy up, we might only have one chance to get everyone through. 

Tyrone/Cleary: Yep, in case it breaks again like last time. 

Steven/Noah: As this is only a prototype, so… 

Tyrone/Cleary: It’s V2, Mark 2. So, it sounds like a nap, and then to the king in the morning?

Rosie/Lucille: A healing nap?

Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Yes, a healing nap Lucille.

Rosie/Lucille: Yes.

Steven/Noah: We’ll put you to bed with Goaty and the gloak.  

Jorja/Magnolia: And we’ll get you a nice herbal tea.

Rosie/Lucille: I don’t like tea.

Jorja/Magnolia: Okay then.

Olive/Timmit: Fine then, we’ll get you a nice, warm cup of gocoa [goat cocoa]. 

Tyrone/Dungeon Master: You love tea, what the hell?

Rosie/Lucille: Yeah I know.

Tyrone/Cleary: I’ll put the orrery back in the safe, and we can reassess in the morning. 

Olive/Timmit: Okay.

Jorja/Magnolia: Okay.

Tyrone/Cleary: Good night.

Rosie/Lucille: Night.

Jorja/Magnolia: “Good night.” I am going to uncomfortably sleep in my armour because Magnolia is terrified that something is going to go wrong, because it seems like everything is really chill and nice.  

Tabletopped Ad Read: Welcome to Tabletopped. My name is Nick, and I think that fudging dice rolls is totally okay. Hey it’s me, Franco, and rolling for initiative sucks. I’m Daniel, and I think you should modify your first level characters as much as you want, and I’m Shade, and if your TTRPG hasn’t evolved into a LARP, you’ve done it wrong, and we all host Tabletopped - a TTRPG podcast about all things games and storytelling. - and sometimes we have game designers, professional researchers, and even the occasional owlbear. If this interests you, listen to Tabletopped every Monday wherever you get your podcasts. Tabletopped is a proud member of the Helios Network. 

Tyrone/Cleary: Good morning.

Jorja/Magnolia: Morning. 

Rosie/Lucille: *bleats*

Olive/Timmit: She’s done it! She’s become a goat! 

Steven/Noah: She’s fully transitioned.

Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Who’s up first? What are they doing? 

Jorja/Magnolia: I’ll be up second. 

Olive/Timmit: I’ll be up first, bright and early, and I’ll get some stretches in. Mess around magic a little bit, get some practice in, and then I’ll go out into the hallway and notice no one else is up yet, so I’ll stroll on down to- I assume there’s a common room or an area where we eat?

Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Go for a stroll.

Olive/Timmit: Yeah.

Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Yeah, I suppose there’s the dining hall. The mess hall- I wouldn’t call it a mess hall. The formal dining room.

Olive/Timmit: Yeah, the formal dining room.

Tyrone/Dungeon Master: I imagine you’re sitting at the end of a really long dining table and it’s just you sitting there.   

Olive/Timmit: It’s just that scene in The Incredibles where Mr. Incredible is sitting there in the giant conference room.

Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Oh that’s right.

Steven/Noah: AND THEN THE WALL OPENS UP, AND IT’S THE OMNIDROID NINE THOUSAND. 

Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Gasp. Okay, Magnolia. You’re awake.

Jorja/Magnolia: Ayo. I cast Find Steed in the morning.

Tyrone/Toby: *yawns* Good morning.

Jorja/Magnolia: But I’m going to change it. I’m going to change it because - he’s still going to be called Toby, and he’s still going to have the same colour palette and be a bit furry.

Tyrone/Dungeon Master: But is he Toby? 

Jorja/Magnolia: No, he is Toby because I say he is, but he’s going to be an elk.

Tyrone/Dungeon Master: What the fuck? What the fuck?

Steven/Noah: What a frameshift.  

Olive/Timmit: As you do.

Tyrone/Dungeon Master: He’s still got the same voice. 

Jorja/Magnolia: Perfect. “Hi Toby.”

Tyrone/Toby: Good morni- Something has changed.

[laughter]

Jorja/Magnolia: Yeah, I think I got more powerful, so you got more powerful. 

Tyrone/Toby: Um, sure. I waited for you, and then I blacked out until now.

Jorja/Magnolia: Yeah, some funky stuff happened, but we’re all good now. 

Tyrone/Toby: Okay, and then I woke up and I’m in this body now.

Jorja/Magnolia: Yeah, we’re more powerful. You and me together.

Tyrone/Toby: Alright, what’s our first mission?

Jorja/Magnolia: Scrounge up some scran. We’re going to have some breakfast.

Tyrone/Toby: To the dining hall. 

Jorja/Magnolia: Yeah. How tall are the roofs in this place?

Tyrone/Dungeon Master: I feel like it’s pretty extra because the rooms are just in this giant trunk of this tree, so I’m picturing castle height roofs.

Jorja/Magnolia: Because he is large. 

Tyrone/Dungeon Master: How big is an elk?  

Jorja/Magnolia: He’s classed as a large beast, so a normal person is medium. You take up five foot and five foot, so large is ten feet by ten feet.  

Tyrone/Dungeon Master: They’re big doors for fairies, so he’s probably just squeezing through the doors. Like a horse?I’m picturing he’s horse-sized. 

Jorja/Magnolia: Yeah.

Tyrone/Toby: Magnolia, I’m a bit stuck.

Jorja/Magnolia: That’s alright, I’ll help you out.

Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Who’s awake next?

Rosie/Lucille: Me.

Tyrone/Dungeon Master: What are you doing? 

Rosie/Lucille: I’m just patting Goaty. Just hanging out. I’ve healed, right?

Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Yes, everyone has gained the benefits of a long rest. Heal if you haven’t.

Rosie/Lucille: Oh, how exciting. Yeah, I’m just hanging out.

Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Oh okay, just hanging out in your room?

Rosie/Lucille: Just hanging out. I might eat some food. Eat some brekky.

Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Yeah? Are you going to leave your room and head to the dining hall? 

Rosie/Lucille: I shall leave my room and go eat some little foodies. 

Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Noah?

Steven/Noah: Sí.

Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Food? Is that what that is?

Rosie/Lucille: No, the sea is a body of water. 

Steven/Noah: Yes, Noah is going to make his way to the dining hall to get some food.

Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Yep, everyone comes and joins you, Timmt, at the dining hall.

Olive/Timmit: When Magnolia enters there’s this very pregnant pause as he eyes this creature, and you hear the distinct sound of his spoon dropping into a bowl, milk splashing over the edge. He places it down gently and just, “Mhmm, and who is this?”

Jorja/Magnolia: Magnolia is sitting on his back, but has her arms around his neck, giving him a hug the whole time. Just, “This is Toby. You don’t remember Toby?”

Olive/Timmit: Toby was much smaller the last time I saw him.

Jorja/Magnolia: Well, as I get more powerful, Toby gets more powerful. 

Olive/Timmit: Cool. Cool, cool, cool, cool, cool. Okay, yep. That’s neat. I- Hi Toby.

Jorja/Magnolia: He says hello.

Olive/Timmit: That’s neat. That’s very cool. Okay, yep.

Jorja/Magnolia: Don’t worry, he’ll sit away from you.

Olive/Timmit: It’s chill. It’s cool. I just need a minute to process, you know, the changes that magic and dogs and animals go through. It’s cool. It’s chill. We’re chill. It’s fine.

Jorja/Magnolia: Okay, it seems really chill, but I’ll still get him to sit just a little bit away from you.

Olive/Timmit: *whispering* Look, I’d really appreciate that. Thank you so much.

Jorja/Magnolia:  No problem buddy.

Tyrone/Dungeon Master: It sounds like we’ve got some nice grains and cereal with some milk for brekky.  

Olive/Timmit: Sure, I don’t know what fairies eat for breakfast, so I just assumed cereal.

Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Yeah, cereal sounds good. A bit of rations.

Steven/Noah: They’re called ‘Fairy Flakes.’

Jorja/Magnolia: ‘Fairy Loops.’

Rosie/Lucille: Do you think that fairies would get offended about fairy bread? Because it’s not like we eat human bread, so it would be odd for a fairy to have fairy bread. 

Jorja/Magnolia: Isn’t normal bread just human bread?

Steven/Noah: Yeah, they call it human bread. 

Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Their bread is just fairy bread by default. 

Olive/Timmit: ‘Can we get a couple of loaves of fairy bread for the table?” Just brings out plain bread. Not even any butter, just dry bread. 

Tyrone/Dungeon Master: I guess after a while of eating cereal in dead silence-

[laughter]

Olive/Timmit: No, I’d like to think we’re all discussing the plaintiff of fairy bread. 

Jorja/Magnolia: I’m telling Toby to slowly move closer. Exposure therapy. You don’t notice. He fully gets up, walks over, and then sits back down. You don’t notice.

Olive/Timmit: I told you it’s fine. See? I’m loving this. Hi Toby, how are you doing?

Jorja/Magnolia: He says, ‘Hungry.’  

Rosie/Lucille: Goaty, go and sit on Toby’s lap. 

Olive/Timmit: Don’t bring that thing anywhere fucking near me. 

Rosie/Lucille: Goaty sits on your lap.

Jorja/Magnolia: I move Toby away. 

Olive/Timmit: Hi goat.

[goat bleats]

Olive/Timmit: *gags* This is fine. This is cool. I can just pet its little head. Oh, I’m not touching its horns. No.

Tyrone/Dungeon Master: After a few minutes of tomfoolery, King Oberon walks casually into the dining room. He casually takes his place at the head of the table, and starts eating a bowl of cereal. 

Rosie/Lucille: Lucille sits up straighter.

Steven/Noah: Noah sits up gayer.

Jorja/Magnolia: Magnolia pays no attention.

Olive/Timmit: Timmit’s entire polar system is overflowing with nervousness with a goat in his lap. 

Rosie/Lucille: Oh, Lucille gets Goaty back and has Lucille on her lap sitting up straight because it’s a good look.

Olive/Timmit: Oh my god.  

Jorja/Magnolia: Toby moves closer.

Olive/Timmit: Oh, good morning Your Majesty. 

Tyrone/Oberon: Good morning everyone.

Rosie/Lucille: Good morning king.

Jorja/Magnolia: Morning.

Tyrone/Oberon: I trust we had a nice, successful adventure.

Jorja/Magnolia: Not dead yet. 

Olive/Timmit: What’s your definition of successful?

Tyrone/Oberon: Everyone seems to have come back alive.

Olive/Timmit: Oh, well then yeah, it was a success. 

Steven/Noah: Well…

Jorja/Magnolia: I guess one did die. Do you remember our friend Hymnbo?

Tyrone/Oberon: Yes?

Jorja/Magnolia: Yeah, dead as hell.

Rosie/Lucille: Like, real dead.

Tyrone/Oberon: Oh, I’m so sorry to hear that. I’m quite fond of his violin music.

Steven/Noah: I know, he’s completely torn up about it.

Rosie/Lucille: Woah. 

[laughter]

Olive/Timmit: I’ll take the violin out and do a *failure sound reminiscent of video game deaths*. I don’t know if that can be done on a violin, but I’ll give it a go. 

Jorja/Magnolia: I somehow arrange the pots and pans to go ba-dum-tss. 

Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Pots and pans?

Jorja/Magnolia: I don’t know, we’re in the kitchen, right?

Tyrone/Dungeon Master: We’re in the dining room.

Jorja/Magnolia: Okay, plates and bowls.

Rosie/Lucille: They shatter.

Jorja/Magnolia: I’m just punching them.  Ba-dum-shh.

Olive/Timmit: I’m not inviting anyone to an open mic night.

Tyrone/Oberon: Is it customary to have a funeral where you’re from? 

Rosie/Lucille: I won’t talk about what happens on the goat farm. 

Jorja/Magnolia: I think that’s for the best. Yes, but I think there are other issues to sort out first. 

Olive/Timmit: We can alert his next of kin when we get home.  

Jorja/Magnolia: Yes, because we definitely know who they are and how to contact them.

Tyrone/Dungeon Master: You remember any detail about him.

Jorja/Magnolia: Fabulous as fuck.  

Olive/Timmit: He was tall, and he was red, and he had horns.

Jorja/Magnolia: Very red.

Olive/Timmit: Very, very red. 

Steven/Noah: And now he’s very red. He had a thing for twinks.

Jorja/Magnolia: Yeah, there was one name that got thrown around I think. I can’t remember what it was.

Olive/Timmit: He played music.

Tyrone/Oberon: Alright, moving on to these other topics at issue then that you allude to. The orrery, how is that?

Rosie/Lucille: Sick.

Jorja/Magnolia: It’s kind of cool, yeah. 

Olive/Timmit: It’s safe.

Tyrone/Oberon: Is it operational? 

Olive/Timmit: Well, that’s what we’re waiting on you for, mate.  

Steven/Noah: It’s a prototype.

Tyrone/Oberon: Okay, well Moving Day was scheduled for three days from now, but it seems the situation has progressed a little faster than initially forecast.

Olive/Timmit: There is one catch, though. Cleary wants us to tap into the energy of Glamos to power it.

Tyrone/Oberon: Well, it’s a good thing it’s right at our doorstep now. We don’t have to travel far.

Olive/Timmit: That is a silver lining, but we were thinking if we get into a room with all of us and, I don’t know, someone who knows something about electrical engineering that you have here with the technology you have we could find a way to harness it. 

Steven/Noah: I can help.

Tyrone/Oberon: I’m sure Cleary and Noah can butt heads and get it going.

Steven/Noah: That sounds painful.

Tyrone/Oberon: Alright, we’ll wait on Cleary to see if we’re keeping Moving Day for three days time, or if we should expedite that process a little bit.  

Olive/Timmit: I’d probably just say have everyone ready to go. 

Jorja/Magnolia: Just in case.

Steven/Noah: Yeah, probably spread the word. Pack your bags.

Jorja/Magnolia: Cheryl!  

Steven/Noah: Actually, true. We’ve got the public radio. We could just tell everyone. Everyone’s listening anyway. *in a radio presenter’s voice* ‘For all you wonderful listeners at home, time to pack your bags’

Jorja/Magnolia: ‘Hello! This is an emergency broadcast.’

Olive/Timmit: Just key in with a ‘*radio tuning noise* This is an emergency broadcast.’

Jorja/Magnolia: ‘We’re all fucked. We’re going to die.’

Steven/Noah: ‘Brought to you by Beeyonce. Woah oh oh.’

Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Cleary struts into the room and plonks the orrery down on the table. She gestures at it to the king. 

Tyrone/Cleary: There you go. What have I missed?

Olive/Timmit: Breakfast.

Tyrone/Cleary: Oh, that’s good. 

Tyrone/Dungeon Master: She’s downing the cereal like:

Tyrone/Cleary: *mouth full* What did I miss?

Steven/Noah: We’re going to get this bad boy up and running. 

Tyrone/Cleary: *mouth full* You and me, we should work on the coordinates, yeah. 

Steven/Noah: Yeah, when you finish chewing.

Tyrone/Cleary: We’re going to have to need Lucille’s-

Rosie/Lucille: What!?

Tyrone/Cleary: We’re going to need your mirror. 

Rosie/Lucille: What for?

Tyrone/Cleary: To get the coordinates. 

Rosie/Lucille: Oh yeah, I can help. I’m pretty useful.

Steven/Noah: “We just need you to… Actually, we’ll get to that later.” She’ll do it right now.

Rosie/Lucille: Yeah, I’ll forget. I’ll forget. 

Steven/Noah: I’m afraid you’ll do it, and then we won’t get the mirror. ‘I’m not done with it!’

Olive/Timmit: ‘I’m looking at my goats!’

Rosie/Lucille: Sparkles.

Tyrone/Oberon: Yeah, the citizens will get their affairs in order. Was there any affairs that you need to take care of before you leave?

Steven/Noah: I’m going to telepathically speak to Magnolia and tell her to give Cleary a kiss.

Jorja/Magnolia: Magnolia visibly blushes for no reason. She’ll be like, “I mean, I should probably check on Cheryl’s to see if they need a hand or something.” She avoids eye contact from everyone.

Steven/Noah: He’s going to do one of those fake sneezes, and be like, “Weak!”

Jorja/Magnolia: Fuck you.

Olive/Timmit: Is there anything that you’re in need of assistance with, Your Majesty?

Rosie/Lucille: Suck up.

Tyrone/Oberon: Well, if these two are butting heads for the coordinates, it sounds like you’d like to tell the farmers to pack up and get ready?

Jorja/Magnolia: Yep.

Tyrone/Oberon: We’ll need to send word to the hunters as well that they’ll need to pack up early. Someone might need to fly to Theran.

Olive/Timmit: I could make the trip.

Steven/Noah: Where’s Theran?

Tyrone/Oberon: That’s a good point. It’s been taken over completely by Glamos. 

Rosie/Lucille: Are they dead? 

Tyrone/Oberon: They’re not dead. They just have to trek through Glamos to get back.

Rosie/Lucille: So, a lost cause. 

Tyrone/Oberon: I’m realising this is all futile as they would have needed to pack up anything else that they had, and the crop probably turned to reeds. Very well. Timmit then, I hear you’re quite chummy with Thaumus.

Olive/Timmit: I don’t know if you want to use the word ‘chummy’ and ‘Thaumus’ in the same sentence, but yeah.

Tyrone/Oberon: Perhaps you’d like to give her a hand then, and make sure the Moving Day squad is ready to move out. 

Steven/Noah: She’d want to butt more than heads. 

Olive/Timmit: I can do that just fine.

Tyrone/Oberon: Lucille.

Rosie/Lucille: I’ve got mirror.

Tyrone/Oberon: It’s true.

Steven/Noah: We need her secrets. She’s the only one with so many. 

Tyrone/Oberon: Should we get started then? 

Steven/Noah: Hands in, go team!

Rosie/Lucille: Goat team? 

Jorja/Magnolia: No.

Olive/Timmit: You ruined that.

Jorja/Magnolia: Magnolia’s hand was in, and then she takes it back out.  

Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Cleary’s in.

Olive/Timmit: I don’t want to…

Rosie/Lucille: Hands in, goat team.

Jorja/Magnolia: Toby puts his hand in.

Tyrone/Dungeon Master: I was going to say, there’s a hoof.

Jorja/Magnolia: It’s really close to Timmit’s.

Tyrone/Cleary: Three, two, one, team!

Jorja/Magnolia: Yay!

Rosie/Lucille: Woo!

Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Everyone roll me a d20 for luck. 

*dice rolls*

Steven/Noah: Eight.      

Rosie/Lucille: Five.

Olive/Timmit: Sixteen. 

Jorja/Magnolia: Eleven.

Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Team Thaumus, you’re going to head up to the tower, I suppose?

Olive/Timmit: Woo. Yeah, I’ll make my way up to the tower.

Tyrone/Thaumus: Hello, who is there?

Olive/Timmit: Hi Thaumus, it’s Timmit. 

Tyrone/Thaumus: Come in. 

Olive/Timmit: “‘Kay.” I’ll open the door and make my way in. 

Tyrone/Thaumus: And what do I have the pleasure of your company for? 

Olive/Timmit: I’m here to help out with getting the movers squad ready. 

Tyrone/Dungeon Master: It sounds like you’re just there as a removalist. 

Olive/Timmit: Yeah, I’m ready to move some furniture, let’s do it!

Tyrone/Thaumus: Oh, is it that time already? I thought we still have three days?  

Olive/Timmit: Well, we’re trying to figure out how to power it on, and if we get a chance we want it to be ready to go. 

Tyrone/Thaumus: Huh, okay. Damn, alright. Yeah, I’ll definitely need the extra hand then. I didn’t realise that I didn’t have the time. 

Olive/Timmit: We just kind of kicked it off this morning, so we’re just going to run with it.

Tyrone/Thaumus: Alright, well first things first, we’re going to be doing some incantations into the crystals in the city.

Olive/Timmit: Okay, alright, sounds easy. 

Tyrone/Thaumus: Okay, I’ll meet you at the top of the city. Goodbye.

Tyrone/Dungeon Master: She’s going to jump on the balcony. Oh, she's going to stand on the edge and just trust fall backwards.    

Tyrone/Thaumus: Bye!

Olive/Timmit: “Thaum-” Just going to stand there for half a second, look around, and then make my way over to the ledge and peer over. 

Tyrone/Dungeon Master: She’s already halfway over to the wall by now.

Olive/Timmit: Huh. Can I snoop around her room? 

Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Okay, roll an investigation.

Olive/Timmit: Alright. 

*dice rolls*

Steven/Noah: Yes, it’s Moving Day, so let’s look for sex toys in the horniest woman ever…

Tyrone/Dungeon Master: What does this one do? 

Olive/Timmit: Eleven.

Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Eleven… What are we…? Is there anything you’re really looking for? Are you looking for knick-knacks? 

Olive/Timmit: Just snooping around.

Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Let’s say you find her spellbook. I feel like that’s a nice thing for an eleven. It’s just sitting there open on the desk.

Olive/Timmit: I’ll flick through a couple of pages. 

Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Power Word Kill, Sunbeam…

Rosie/Lucille: Abracadabra.

Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Hold Person.

Jorja/Magnolia: Avada Kedavra.    

Olive/Timmit: *humming to self* I’m supposed to be helping.

Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Yeah.

Olive/Timmit: I’ll look towards the window and then run and jump out and cry out, “Go, go, go!” 

Tyrone/Thaumus: Timmit, darling, you're late!

Olive/Timmit: Alright, I’m on my way. Cool your biscuits.

Tyrone/Dungeon Master: The top of the wall, looking out over the beautiful golden field of reeds. You look out to where some of the places that you’ve been before were. You look out to Theran and see where the pyramid was and just see a triangular-shaped mound of earth. You can spy somewhere along there, you can see the hunters flying back towards the city. 

Olive/Timmit: Glamos does not fuck around.

Tyrone/Thaumus: It’s not a pretty sight, is it dear?

Olive/Timmit: I mean, I don’t know, it’s kind of beautiful in a way. Nature reclaiming the earth, but intimidating. 

Tyrone/Thaumus: If you’ve seen the amount of Moving Days I have, it’s lost all beauty to me. 

Olive/Timmit: I bet it would.

Tyrone/Dungeon Master: You look out to where the volcano was and you see, similarly, just a nice conical mound. Similarly, over where Neptis was where you just flew there’s no trace of forest actually. There’s no landmarks.

Olive/Timmit: Okay, alright, should we get started then?

Tyrone/Thaumus: Yes dear.

Tyrone/Dungeon Master: She’s going to point out a cabbage-sized gem, the closest one to you.

Tyrone/Thaumus: Okay, there’s five of those around the city walls, and we need to put all of our energy into that. Put all of our magical energy into that to power them up.

Olive/Timmit: Okay, easy done. What are we doing?

Tyrone/Thaumus: Basically, as powerful a spell as you can pump into it, darling. It’ll charge them up.

Olive/Timmit: Okay, I mean I can do…

Tyrone/Dungeon Master: I can do fourth-level spells now.

Olive/Timmit: I can do one fourth-level spell, and that’s it for the day, or I can do three third-level spells. “So, I assume you have more power than me. I can cover two if you want to cover the other three.”

Tyrone/Thaumus: That would be great dear. I’ll go flutter over here. And a one, and a two, and a fireball!

*flames SFX*

Olive/Timmit: Oh damn, she’s going Fireball. Oh shit. 

Steven/Noah: And you just snooped through her things.

Tyrone/Dungeon Master: What are you going to do?

Olive/Timmit: I will use Burning Hands.

Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Burning Hands?

Olive/Timmit: Yeah, so I’ll just be holding the gavel, and I’ll spin it around and give it a little twist, and then fire will ignite in my fingertips, and I’ll push it forward and ignite the gem in fire.

Tyrone/Dungeon Master: First-level?

Olive/Timmit: I’ll do them both at third. 

Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Damn son.

Olive/Timmit: You said powerful spells.

Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Yep, I did. She’s in the middle, almost above the Kingsgrove, and she’s just shooting down a Fireball to each one.

Jorja/Magnolia: One misses.

Olive/Timmit: Screams fill the air. 

Tyrone/Dungeon Master: And we’ll cut over to… I believe Magnolia was the next highest roll.  

Jorja/Magnolia: Yeah.

Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Where’s she going?

Jorja/Magnolia: She’s going to get on the public radio. “[radio] Dave, Cheryl, where are you guys at?”

Tyrone/Cheryl: [radio] Oh, how’s it going Magnolia?

Jorja/Magnolia: [radio] Pretty good, how’re you? 

Tyrone/Cheryl: [radio] I’m going great. We just had to bring in the cabbages from the farm because, you know, there’s no more farmland left to go. 

Jorja/Magnolia: [radio] That is true. So, where are you all at?

Tyrone/Cheryl: [radio] We’re just in the market now. Seeing if we can sell any of the cabbages.

Jorja/Magnolia: [radio] Alright, I’ll be there in a couple of minutes.

Tyrone/Cheryl: Oh Magnolia, how’re you going?

Jorja/Magnolia: Hello. I’m good. How’re you? How’s the kids?

Tyrone/Cheryl: The kids have been better, but it’s alright.

Jorja/Magnolia: Do you guys need help with anything? I feel like there’s some things that are about to happen and-

Tyrone/Cheryl: Oh, what sort of things? We’ve got Moving Day in three days.

Jorja/Magnolia: Yeah, that is coming up. Did you need any help preparing anything? Any of you guys…?

Tyrone/Cheryl: I mean, it’s just a regular Moving Day. We’ve done hundreds of these ones now. We’ve got to get all the supplies in.

Jorja/Magnolia: Yeah, I just feel like because Glamos seems to be cutting it real close, so I mean it’s better to be prepared, so can I help get it all started?

Tyrone/Cheryl: Oh, you’re stressing out over nothing Magnolia. We’ve done this many times before. I know this is your first- Oh, I guess it’s your second Moving Day now, but it’s nothing to worry about. We’ve done this plenty of times. The City Watch have got our backs.

Jorja/Magnolia: Yeah, this one’s a bit different. What do I need to do?

Tyrone/Cheryl: Why’s it different Magnolia?

Jorja/Magnolia: I don’t know if I’m allowed to say. I didn’t ask if we were telling you, but I want to make sure you guys are okay. Everything seems to be kicking off, so I’m just-

Tyrone/Dungeon Master: You hear a booming voice come out above the city.   

Tyrone/Oberon: Citizens of Lambence.

Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Cheryl’s like:

Tyrone/Cheryl: Is this what you were talking about?

Jorja/Magnolia: I think this is it.

Tyrone/Oberon: We have some updated news on the Moving Day. As I’m sure you’ve all seen, Glamos is here faster than the researchers have anticipated, and so we think it best for public safety if Moving Day happens tomorrow. Please get your things ready and please be prepared for new environments. We have some spectacular news to share. We are going home.

Steven/Noah: Get your fucking weapons. It’s going to be a massacre.

Tyrone/Dungeon Master: There’s hundreds of citizens now, being like:

Tyrone/Fairy Citizen: Yeah, I’ll take one of those cabbages! Yeah, yeah, yeah. Give me some food. I’m going to need that. Oh my god.

Jorja/Magnolia: Okay, you guys are going to be busy selling. What do I need to pack up from your guys’s stuff?

Tyrone/Cheryl: So, you get the cabbages, and you launch them at everyone who’s yelling.

Jorja/Magnolia: Done. I’m playing dodgeball. 

Olive/Timmit: Where everyone wants to be in the way of a cabbage. 

Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Someone’s there like:

Tyrone/Fairy Citizen: Hey, why does mine have a bite out of it?

Jorja/Magnolia: Shut up. It’s hungry work.

Rosie/Lucille: Nom, nom, nom. 

Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Fair. And our camera pans over to Cleary’s workshop.

Tyrone/Cleary: Hello team.

Steven/Noah: Greetings.

Rosie/Lucille: Hi.

Tyrone/Cleary: So, we need to get that data out of your mirror, Lucille. 

Rosie/Lucille: What data?

Steven/Noah: Lucille, what I want you to do is think of your goat farm and-

Rosie/Lucille: Yep, always. 

Steven/Noah: So, do nothing differently. Use your mirror, and we want you to look at your goats. 

Rosie/Lucille: Alright, I have to tell a secret, don’t I?

Steven/Noah: Yes, we will cover our ears so we’re not listening.

Rosie/Lucille: No, it’s alright. You can listen.

Steven/Noah: We weren’t going to cover our ears. 

Jorja/Magnolia: Turn the radio on.

Steven/Noah: Wow. 

Olive/Timmit: No, but do it.

[laughter]

Jorja/Magnolia: Please.

Rosie/Lucille: Once I went to the doctor. Not for a medical issue. I was just told that I had to go to get my vaccinations, and instead of getting the vaccinations - because I know that they put the GPS in the vaccinations - I stole them and I took them and I ran out of the hospital room with the vaccinations in my hand. Then when I got back to my goat farm, I split them out and took out the GPS’s, which I think were some of the metal things in there, and I buried them far, far away where no one can ever find them, so now they think that they’re tracking me, but it’s dirt. Did it work? Was that a good enough secret?

Tyrone/Cleary: Did you… Do you not listen to the doctors where you come from?

Rosie/Lucille: Oh, I don’t have to go to the doctors.

Steven/Noah: Lucille’s never had a medical issue in her life.  

Rosie/Lucille: And this wasn’t for a medical issue. They just told me that I had to go. For the vaccination, which isn’t a medical issue.

Tyrone/Cleary: Fairies are quite spritely, yes.  

Rosie/Lucille: Yes, and I’m a fairy.

Tyrone/Dungeon Master: The mirror works. The swirling starts to happen, and what goats are we thinking about today?

Rosie/Lucille: Oh, today we’re thinking about Sprinkles, Zappy, and Zinc.

Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Sprinkles, Zappy, and Zinc.

Rosie/Lucille: Yep.

Olive/Timmit: I like Zinc. Zinc sounds cool, like a cool goat.

Rosie/Lucille: Yeah, Zinc’s pretty cool. Very sun-protected. Thick coat.

Tyrone/Dungeon Master: That’s where he gets his name from. 

Steven/Noah: I picture you sitting in your living room and a new one was born, and you’re like, ‘Oh, what do we call this one?’ and there’s zinc pills - like supplements - sitting on the table. Like, ‘Zinc! Perfect.’

Rosie/Lucille: That’s exactly how it happened, but I don't take the supplements. I don’t need them.

Olive/Timmit: They were for your husband. Yep.

Rosie/Lucille: Yep, and I keep them there as a memento.

Steven/Noah: They’re buried out in the back garden with the GPS. 

Tyrone/Cleary: Alright, you keep holding them there. You think about them for as long as you can. 

Rosie/Lucille: I can do that.

Tyrone/Cleary: Alright Noah, are you writing down these coordinates? I’ll yell them out.

Steven/Noah: Sure.

Tyrone/Cleary: Alright.

Tyrone/Dungeon Master: I’m going to call out some fucking numbers. I’m going to make them up. 

Rosie/Lucille: *whispering* Don’t admit that. They'll know.

Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Why do we pretend that the numbers matter? We’re just going to be like, ‘Yep, the numbers that I said.’ I’m not going to be like, ‘Oh Steven, you wrote the numbers down wrong. You don’t get to go home now.’

Jorja/Magnolia: It’s four-twenty-sixty-nine. 

Steven/Noah: Heyo!

Jorja/Magnolia: Heyo!

Steven/Noah: I have written down some numbers.

Tyrone/Cleary: Beautiful, thank you Noah. Lucille, you can stop whenever you’d like. 

Rosie/Lucille: No, that’s okay.

Steven/Noah: No, I think you should keep looking. Keep looking in the mirror.

Tyrone/Cleary: Oh, but we need the data for Atrius now.

Steven/Noah: Do you have a second mirror?

Rosie/Lucille: It’s alright, I’ll help. What do I need to imagine now? Is it more goats?

Steven/Noah: Unfortunately, you’ll need to hand the mirror over.

Rosie/Lucille: What!? Excuse me!?

Tyrone/Cleary: Well, it’s based off of your memories, and you don’t have memories of Atrius, so I need to use it because I have the memories of Atrius.

Rosie/Lucille: Have you heard of  imagination?

Tyrone/Cleary: Not scientifically, dear, no.

Rosie/Lucille: Well, will this help me see the goats in person? 

Tyrone/Dungeon Master: I keep forgetting about that feature. About the goats being 3-D. 

Rosie/Lucille: Oh, I wasn’t thinking of that. I meant back home, but yeah, that’s cool too. 

Steven/Noah: Don’t make me cast a spell on you.

Rosie/Lucille: Don’t do it.  

Steven/Noah: I’m saving my spell slots for the final battle.

Rosie/Lucille: I’m saving myself, haha.

Tyrone/Dungeon Master: For the final battle. 

Rosie/Lucille: Yeah alright, you can have the mirror for a little bit, but only if I get it back and look at the goats, and go and pat the goats, and I can go and see my goats.

Steven/Noah: All of that is true, yes. 

Rosie/Lucille: Alright.

Tyrone/Cleary: Alright.

Tyrone/Dungeon Master: She’s going to reach over to one of her desks. She has several. She’s going to pick up a photograph-sized portrait of her and Kyros. Cleary and Kyros. She’s going to push it through the mirror because the mirror has two functions, and Rosie has never used the second function, where you can feed something of symbolic value into it.

Rosie/Lucille: No comment.

[laughter]

Steven/Noah: Goaty, get in the mirror.  

*dice rolls*

Tyrone/Dungeon Master: I passed the DC. What is the DC, it’s twelve?

Rosie/Lucille: I don’t know.

Olive/Timmit: She never uses that function. 

Jorja/Magnolia: Obsolete.

Tyrone/Dungeon Master: I’m pretty sure it’s twelve. 

Rosie/Lucille: It’s twelve. Oh, I didn’t even roll for this one. I just told a secret.

Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Secret and a roll, or sacrifice something-

Rosie/Lucille: You wrote: ‘Arcana DC twelve. If successful, tell a secret or sacrifice something important to me.’

Tyrone/Dungeon Master: You got a freebie out of me, you cheat.

Rosie/Lucille: I did.

Steven/Noah: I would have helped her anyway. No-one can fail a check as long as I’m around.

Rosie/Lucille: Wait, really?

Steven/Noah: Yeah.

Rosie/Lucille: Oh, heck yeah.  

Tyrone/Dungeon Master: That’s not fully true.

Rosie/Lucille: Also, I’m lucky.

Jorja/Magnolia: So, basically we don’t need to roll anything anymore. 

Rosie/Lucille: Just assume we succeed.

Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Roll the arcana check.

Steven/Noah: She’s lucky and I’m smart.

*dice rolls*

Rosie/Lucille: It’s eight. Oh wait, I’ve got arcana. I need to add something. Ten.

Steven/Noah: I suddenly have a flash of genius.

Jorja/Magnolia: Woah.

Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Woah, tell me about this.

Steven/Noah: Uh, she told the memory wrong. I added in a few details. 

Olive/Timmit: About the farm you’ve never been to.

Steven/Noah: It adds a four.    

Tyrone/Dungeon Master: ‘You know Lucille, I think you’re forgetting a bit about how Sparkles, and Sparky, and Zinc were there.’   

Rosie/Lucille: It was actually not them, I swear. I remember Sprinkles, and Zinc, and Zappy. 

Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Alright, and she’s going to feed the thing in that gives you an auto-success, so she doesn’t have to tell a secret.

Steven/Noah: If she had of failed though, I would have held her hand and feed the photo through the mirror properly. 

Tyrone/Cleary: Fuck, slight problem Noah. We need to find someone old enough to use the mirror. I’m a few thousand years old, but I’ve never been to Atrius. 

Steven/Noah: Where’s the king? Where’s the horny lady? What’s her name? Thaumus!

Tyrone/Cleary: Possibly the king. He might have been a child. We can talk to Oberon.

Steven/Noah: Can I just jump on the radio, and be like, “[radio] Yo, King Oberon. You there?”

Tyrone/Oberon: [radio] Yes. We really need to get you some private channel radios.  

Jorja/Magnolia: [radio] Na, this is sick. I feel included.

Steven/Noah: [radio] Yeah, it’s fine. Everyone can hear this. Do you have memories of Atrius?  

Tyrone/Oberon: [radio] That’s calling it back quite a while now. I have to think about me and father in the fields of Atrius together. Yes, my father, Oberon.  

Olive/Timmit: [radio] Oberon Senior?

Tyrone/Oberon: [radio] Oberon the Third. 

Jorja/Magnolia: [radio] So, you’re Oberon the Fourth?

Tyrone/Oberon: [radio] Correct.

Steven/Noah: Oh my god, you can count to four.

Jorja/Magnolia: [radio] Okay.

Rosie/Lucille: [radio] I did read this in a library book, but I forgot to tell you all.  

Steven/Noah: [radio] Thanks Lucille.

Rosie/Lucille: [radio] You’re welcome. 

Steven/Noah: [radio] We have a scrying mirror we need you to use.

Tyrone/Oberon: [radio] I’ll pop on down. 

Steven/Noah: [radio] Thanks.

Jorja/Magnolia: [radio] Wait, isn’t Lucille with you?

Steven/Noah: [radio] Sure is.

Jorja/Magnolia: [radio] Ah.

Rosie/Lucille: [radio] I’m doing great, thanks Magnolia. How’re you?

Jorja/Magnolia: [radio]  So good. Oh, I’ve got to throw some more cabbages. I’ll be back.

Olive/Timmit: [radio] Cabbages? What is going on over there? 

Jorja/Magnolia: [radio] You wouldn’t understand. It’s like Black Friday. I don’t know what’s happening.

Olive/Timmit: [radio] I thought I had the weirdest job today, but okay. 

Steven/Noah: I’m babysitting Lucille!

Jorja/Magnolia: Welcome to my life!

Rosie/Lucille: Hey! Who’s the baby?

Olive/Timmit: Giving me a rest for once.

Rosie/Lucille: Lucille’s like, ‘[radio] Now boys.’

Olive/Timmit: ‘No need to fight over me.’

Steven/Noah: [radio] So, yeah Oberon, about that private channel.

Tyrone/Dungeon Master: He’s going to pop down with his tea.

Tyrone/Oberon: So, I need to use this mirror?

Steven/Noah: Correct, we need the coordinates to Atrius.  

Tyrone/Oberon: Okay, I suppose this teapot is quite sentimental. I can pop that in the mirror, right?

Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Yep, the teapot goes in.

Tyrone/Oberon: Atrius…

Tyrone/Dungeon Master: And the room transforms to include a ten foot by ten foot square of a forest. Lucille and Noah, roll me a nature check.

*dice rolls*

Steven/Noah: A five.

Rosie/Lucille: Five. 

Olive/Timmit: Woof.

Steven/Noah: Oh, hold on. What’s my modifier for nature?

Rosie/Lucille: That was with my modifier. 

Steven/Noah: Oh, mine’s a plus four. I got a nine.

Tyrone/Dungeon Master: A nine? The forest seems like they might have similar foliage to you, but nothing you recognise. You’re not too knowledgeable on trees. 

Steven/Noah: No, that's that one.

Tyrone/Dungeon Master: No, and Cleary barks at you some more coordinates. Scribble scribble. And taking our camera perspective back up to Timmit. Hello.

Olive/Timmit: Greetings. 

Tyrone/Dungeon Master: You’re burning the jewels on the top of the wall.

Olive/Timmit: Yeah. I’ll lay out another little fire hands… I forgot the name of the- Burning Hands.  

Tyrone/Dungeon Master: And you see the jewels absorb the energy, you know, glowing with radiant light.

Olive/Timmit: I’ll call out on the public channel, and just assume that she’ll be able to hear me. Just, “[radio] Thaumus, how’re you going over there?”

Tyrone/Thaumus: [radio] Quite good. I’ve been done for a little while now already.

Jorja/Magnolia: I laugh into the channel.  

Olive/Timmit: Alright then, what’s next?

Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Can you roll me a perception check?

Olive/Timmit: Yeah, I can do. 

*Dice rolls*

Olive/Timmit: That’s a seventeen.

Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Timmit, as you’re looking out over these jewels that you’ve just done and the ones that Thaumus has done and further out into the horizon, you can see where Avos once stood there’s movement through the brush of the reeds further off. It looks serpentine to some degree.

Olive/Timmit: Thaumus, can you see that over there?

Tyrone/Dungeon Master: She’s looking out to where Neptis once was. She’s like:

Tyrone/Thaumus: Are you talking about that giant swarm of insects coming towards us?

Olive/Timmit: What? Insects? No, no, I’m talking about a giant snake thing out near Avos way.

Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Looking at Novis as well, you can see another shape off ninety degrees, roughly, from where you were. You can see a large mammal of some kind slowly making it’s way through the brush again. 

Olive/Timmit: Okay “[radio] Yeah, we’ve got a problem out here. This is for everyone. Yeah, we’ve got a little problem. A couple problems. There’s a few things. Help.”

Steven/Noah: [radio] Why are you doing this in the public channel?

Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Hysteria starts in the marketplace.

Jorja/Magnolia: [radio] Hey guys, you kind of fucked me here. I’ll try to help. Give me one minute.

Steven/Noah: Can I locate Magnolia at all?

Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Not yet because Timmit - still speaking frantically, fucking looking around  - looks over to where Exanimus was. To where, you know, that grove of trees that were once there. Where they started forming, and to the top where that skyscraper was A similar tree to the Kingsgrove - it’s got that same vibe about it - and trees don’t move, but it sort of seems like it’s slowly making its way towards you as well.

[upbeat electronic music takes over] 

Theme Song: [rock music plays]

Finding home in the belly of the beast, to make it home we can’t accept defeat, so roll the dice and come along with me, finding home in the belly of the beast

Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Thank you so much for listening to Portal Quandary. Portal Quandary is made possible by the following people: Myself, Tyrone Cross as Dungeon Master, Editing, and Community Manager, Steven Edwards as Noah, Olive Jerome as Timothy, Rosemary Ochtman as Lucille, and Jorja Odd as Magnolia. Elias Moffat is our Content Producer, Narrative Consultant, and Transcriber, and that theme song is Belly of the Beast by Lily Harnath and Henry Lucas. We’re on the lookout for a couple of people to join our team as a Community Manager and as a Transcriber, so if that sounds like you, slide into our DMs or shoot us an email, and that email is portalquandary@gmail.com. We’re also on a bunch of social media now including Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, Threads, and Patreon, all of which are @PortalQuandary. And this podcast was recorded on the lands of the Wurundjeri people, and produced on the lands of the Awabakal, and Wurundjeri people. Portal Quandary acknowledges and pays respect to our traditional custodians and to their past and present leaders. 

Theme Song: [rock music continues]

Finding home in the belly of the beast, (in the belly of the beast), to make it home we can’t accept defeat, (there’s no turning back) so roll the dice and come along with me, (come along with me, let’s go), finding home in the belly of the beast.

Olive/Timmit: Huh, and still no thesis. Interesting.

Rosie/Lucille: Hey, it took me two years. Kind of, not really. 

Steven/Noah: I don’t believe for a second that you are university educated.

Rosie/Lucille: Oh, this is Rosie not Lucille.

Steven/Noah: Oh, okay. 

Jorja/Magnolia: Still stands- No, I’m kidding.  

Rosie/Lucille: Honestly though.

-

Jorja/Magnolia: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter. My very elderly mother once- No. My- Not, it’s ‘My Very Elderly Mother Just Squashed Uncle Ned’s Parrot,’ but there’s no parrot now, so it’s just Uncle Ned.

Olive/Timmit: Poor Uncle Ned. That gives it a very different meaning.

Jorja/Magnolia: Yeah, you know.

Steven/Noah: Lucky Uncle Ned!

Jorja/Magnolia: Sign me up!

-

Rosie/Lucille: Did you know that ‘awful’ is derived from ‘awe-full,’ full of awe, but in a bad way. 

Tyrone/Dungeon Master: I did know that because it used to mean the opposite. It used to mean good shit, not bad shit. 

Rosie/Lucille: Yeah.

Jorja/Magnolia: You are awful. 

Rosie/Lucille: I was waiting for it. I was like, ‘Okay, who’s going to say it?’

Jorja/Magnolia: You just dangle it in front of me, and I go, ‘Mine.’

-

Rosie/Lucille: How much of this makes it into the podcast? 

Jorja/Magnolia: Zero percent. There’s actually never been a full episode put out. 

Rosie/Lucille: Na, put it out. Go on.

-

Tyrone/Cleary: Ah, what have I missed?

Olive/Timmit: Breakfast.

Tyrone/Cleary: Oh good. *makes sounds like she absolutely devours her breakfast like an animal.*

[laughter]

Jorja/Magnolia: I’ve never been so turned on. 

-

Tyrone/Dungeon Master: Brain, let me start again. I need to go to sleep.

Jorja/Magnolia: Night.

Olive/Timmit: Nap time.  

Tyrone/Dungeon Master: The brain transforms- The brain? 

[laughter]

Jorja/Magnolia: Take three!