Akkad Pt 3
Taking Our Bows
Our quartet of time dynamos face down Frizz Quilang for swapping out the bows of the Akkadian army on the eve of this historic battle. Will our heroes trick Frizz into revealing his plans and will they be able to do anything about it?
The Game
This Game was played using the Mavericks system. An RPG utilizing a deck of cards to tell the story and put fate in the hands of the players. It’s a story-forward roleplaying experience that encourages the players and dealer to work together to create the story. Check out the System Reference Document on Itch.io
https://the-indecisionist.itch.io/mavericks
The Cast
Stella Cheeks is @stellacheeks on Instagram and Bluesky. Check out her other podcasts, Not Your Demographic, X-Treks, and Spooky Thirties.
Sara Moore is @pixiesandpins on all social media channels and at Pixies and Pins.com. You can also check out her Sarah’s Table livestreams on twitch @pixiesandpins.
Omar Burgos is @Taleweaver Check out his work on the Tale of D20s TTRPG channel. More information at https://ataleofd20s.com/
Ben Banks is @Dj_blindian on Instagram and Soundcloud
I’m Ansel Burch and you can find me @TheIndecisionist on all of the meta properties and on Bluesky.
———
Special thanks to Cameron Evesque Davis for the song you’re hearing now and at the beginning of the podcast. Find her work on Soundcloud https://soundcloud.com/cameronevesquedavis
This show is an Indecisionist Production. Go to Indecisionist.com to find more of my work including my monthly gaming event, TTRPG Pickup Con, and my other time travel podcast, Time 2 Party.
As you travel at one second per second, take some time out for these intrepid adventurers. They may be in trouble, but only for the time being.
Transcript
Ansel Burch 0:06
I welcome adventurers from across time and space. Five creators have been brought together from across the internet for one purpose and one purpose alone, to travel through time and have a good time doing it. When big changes happen to the timeline, the change attracts other time travelers like gravity, they won't be able to move past it until they fix whatever was messed up. So our heroes are stuck together, but only for the time being. You
Hoover back real quick. Let's reintroduce our cast of characters before we jump back into the story as it was going. Hi,
Sarah Moore 1:11
my name is Sarah Moore. My pronouns are she her. And you can find me all over the internet, at pixies and pins, and my website, which is pixies and pins.com, and I've got, like, a whole lot of stuff going on all over the corners of the interwebs in game development and actual play. So go find me there. And today, I'm going to be playing Elena Rhodes, who is a Hollywood starlet who is also somehow a time traveler.
Stella Cheeks 1:40
Hi, I'm Stella cheeks. You can find me all over the internet, doing podcasts and in real life, taking my pants off for money.
Sarah Moore 1:48
So good.
Stella Cheeks 1:48
It's not inaccurate. My character's name is Aixxa Zelar. She is a time traveler from space,
Ansel Burch 1:57
from space.
Ben Banks 1:59
Hey, I'm Ben. I'm a DJ, a photographer, and just regular nerd. I'm playing Mason Rockwell. He's a mountain of a man, but he's got a soft heart, and he is a down on his luck Private Eye who thinks that this is all a drunken stupor, but it turns out that it's actually real, and he is in ancient Mesopotamia right now.
Ansel Burch 2:21
Oops.
Omar Burgos 2:22
My name is Omar Burgos, aka Taylor. Find me on https://ataleofd20s.com/, and I am playing the feline cat Pharaoh, Pharaoh biscuit. Terry is my Rick on fellinius Percival, but you can call me whiskers.
Ansel Burch 2:39
Let us begin with whiskers, who has just discovered a strange person on the battlefield between Akkad and Kish. You had just decided that you were going to split off from the battle to take Friz quilan somewhere. I think that for the sake of comedy, that you probably over mastered frizz and got to choose where you were going to go, because that's how cats work. Where do you think you go with frizz? Do you head over towards the medical tents, where you know that your other time travelers went? Or would you like to explore a different part of this battlefield? He's
Omar Burgos 3:19
too vain to have noticed them. He's not used to running into the other tribe travelers. He is going to head over to the medical tempt, but to the back so it's private, so they could probably easily hear and see this. But he doesn't. He's not aware of them quite yet, as he just hops off of Sargon and just walks expecting him to follow, he puffed up and he just like pitter patter, because he's used to being in the desert. That's his domain. The world is your sandbox. Exactly scratches a little bit, probably uses like a little little sandbox, and before making his way over to the back, the less crowded area, or private area of the medical tent. And I'm sure that these tents are made out of like the thinnest of material, so their shadows could probably be seen and they could probably be overheard by anyone actually listening.
Ansel Burch 4:12
I like that. Yeah. So we join you in this tent, as I think you probably were able to sort of skitter in, but frizz has to pull aside the edge of the tent, and we get to see him in profile as the light hits him from behind. And I think that you can tell that there is something about the way that this guy looks that is more than his physical body, the outline that you see as he pulls the curtain of the tent away is different from the outline that you would see without that silhouettes effect. So
Omar Burgos 4:52
I could definitely tell there's this is even though he looks like he's from here, he's most likely not. There's something out extra. Dictionary then, yeah, there's, there's like,
Ansel Burch 5:03
there's an illusion going on of some sort. Yeah, good. And it's not like he's significantly bigger or smaller, just like the outline is different.
Omar Burgos 5:16
As he walks over and over there before he even be speaks, he immediately turns around and gets and like on his like sits up and upright with his paws in front as he stares daggers at for his colon. So let's cut to the chase. As they say, Who are you and how did you get here? The Eye of Horus shows me what you truly are. And kind of, because he doesn't really see he's kind of bluffing a little bit, but he's trying to pull like, call him out.
Ansel Burch 5:48
Yeah, let's go ahead and draw for that. Let's, let's, oh
Omar Burgos 5:52
my god, oh my goodness, I beat you by what.
Ansel Burch 5:57
I drew two and Oh, Mark got a three. So, yeah, congratulations. Yeah. I think you're able to absolutely over master this guy, and he is not gonna call your bluff on this. If you are so clever, then I suppose you'll know that I am a time traveler, not from this place, and so as I assume you also are not, I must implore you not to mess up the timeline with your shenanigans. Something is already a miss here,
Omar Burgos 6:45
Hmm, yes, of course, I've known I'm the great Pharaoh. Whisketer is my Reich, and Fellini is, first of all, I knew you were a time traveler, as he looks, to try to play it off.
Ansel Burch 6:59
Well, then you are, if you are not from this time, and I am not from this time, and that woman with the camera crew is not from this time, then that tells me that something is very, very wrong here.
Omar Burgos 7:15
But women with the camera crew who, as he searched around, looking, searching for this other anomaly that could be here because following or that's what he has to stop as
Ansel Burch 7:25
well. I don't know how you missed them, but they are probably in one of the other medical tents.
Stella Cheeks 7:32
In the background, you just hear me and Elena going,
Ansel Burch 7:36
yeah, absolutely not. Neither the neither whiskers nor frizz actually bothered to look around the room that they are currently
Sarah Moore 7:48
in. In my brain, you guys were literally right next to my bed. We
Ansel Burch 7:51
certainly could be like, no more than, like, five feet away or something. He'd like, you ducked in the back and like, there's priests in the way, and all of this sheer self importance, just a huge wall of self importance.
Omar Burgos 8:11
I do want to ask him, aren't you the one who made those composite bows? They don't belong here.
Ansel Burch 8:22
What? Do you mean? The the boat, the bows that are here are perfect. The bows that are here are the ones that belong here. I'm certain of it. No. How could they have composite bows this early in history? That's That's wild. What, what madness.
Omar Burgos 8:43
You are an idiot, aren't you?
Ansel Burch 8:46
You're an idiot.
Omar Burgos 8:51
Composite Bows was an inventor for many, many years, and you have brought it here, and you are the one who is effing up the timeline.
Ansel Burch 9:05
I think this will be the thing that attracts the attention of everybody else, if you haven't already caught on to them as he goes watch,
I have never been so insulted. I I take great pains to ensure that all of my travelings through time are flawless. I've never, I've never stepped on a single blade of grass that wasn't already bent Elena
Sarah Moore 9:33
from feet away, literally right. Just so close. It's just gonna go, hey. You're saying stuff so close to these priests here who are definitely from here, maybe we don't did like nobody read the script. No. Nobody like you're saying the secret part out loud, my man, I
Ansel Burch 10:08
think we get the comedy beat of him. Like looking at whiskers, looking at you, looking at whiskers, looking at you, like hard flips.
Omar Burgos 10:17
Whisker blush is a little bit strange cat blush,
Ansel Burch 10:21
realizing that, fine. Perhaps I'm not immunity. Well, right then, let's well, you led us here. Let's find a different, quieter tent. The command tent is probably empty right now. Well, Sargon is out on the battle. What? All right, I am his trusted advisor.
Sarah Moore 10:39
No, you're sure, sure, super trusted. I'm with you. Lead away. I mean, we don't. We don't know where to go.
Ansel Burch 10:48
That's right, you don't. That's you be lost without me. Don't forget it. He like turns, hopefully leaves. Did
Sarah Moore 10:54
not say that, did not say that. Just gonna follow out before you
Stella Cheeks 11:01
get up. I just offer to because I, I think the fail part is me ripping out the thing, but then I do, like a pretty okay, patching up, and then, oh, absolutely,
Ansel Burch 11:10
yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 11:11
Do you need me to carry you? Or can you walk on your own? I think I'm
Sarah Moore 11:15
okay. I think I can. I think I can walk. So who's, uh, the cat? Is that? Your friend, broody broody friend in the corner. Is it raining on him currently? What's happening might be his time
Stella Cheeks 11:30
travel device.
Sarah Moore 11:33
Oh, somehow interesting across your eyes. What's you just right across. What's your name, peek
Ben Banks 11:41
out from the shadow. I'm a Mason. Hey,
Sarah Moore 11:45
hey Mason. I'm Elena. This is aixa. Yeah, we, I've, yeah, I've spoken after I'm here. Yeah, cool. You want to go follow the cat with
Ben Banks 11:55
us? Or, guess I you also see the cat. We're just confirming that.
Sarah Moore 12:01
Just like as soon as you said, I guess she turns around and walks out the back of the tent. I think
Ansel Burch 12:07
the cameraman to you and says, Just pretend we're not here. Oh, I haven't
Ben Banks 12:12
even noticed you guys at all. I have not been paying so many other weird shit has been happening. Do you guys see the cat?
Ansel Burch 12:19
Sorry. Stella. Different
Stella Cheeks 12:22
flavor. When I wave to Mason, my hand is definitely still a little covered in blood by, like, weird. And then I notice the blood on it, and then I start
Ansel Burch 12:31
cleaning and falling out. Really stands a stand out on your like, super pale skin, too. Amazing. All right, so let's cut to the command tent of Sargon the Great as you guys sort of all trail your way over, following trail your way following qui Lange, yeah, so I think this tent is pretty opulent. You know, this is the tent of of somebody who fancies himself a conqueror on the eve of his first conquering. He's done a lot of, like, political machinations before this moment, but this is, like, this is him cementing his legacy sort of thing. So he's, he brought all his stuff, as you come into this tent, there's like a couch and a table and a bench, and, you know, a bunch of like boxes to store his shit in, and probably, like clothes on, whatever the Mesopotamian equivalent of a hanger is. And you know, he's probably got, like an outfit for accepting the surrender of the commander of the Kish forces set aside with like a headdress in the whole deal that's different somehow from the fancy warhead dress that he was wearing just a second ago. Like this is, this is a this is a space that is just full of expectation. I would love to say that
Sarah Moore 14:02
somehow, in the walk over Elena's team has changed her, Oh, sure, yeah, she's not in torn and bloody anymore.
Ansel Burch 14:14
You were off camera for a moment. That's enough. Correct? Do you think you're in a totally different outfit now, 100% same outfit. Okay, so it's not a continuity error, no, no. Costume change. Yeah,
Sarah Moore 14:25
this is, yeah, this is the, the change into the white dress in Raiders, so the Lost Ark, right? You know? So she, she, then that'll when that gets messed up, then we'll see her in another costume. So she's, she's just like, moved on to something else. Now,
Ansel Burch 14:44
I love it. Okay, fantastic. So, yeah, so you come into this, into this very opulent space and frizz sort of wheels on you as soon as you come through the door. Who do we think is the first one to like? Part the tent flaps whiskers,
Omar Burgos 15:06
was definitely following behind. Quickly he would part it. But he's a cat, so it's not part.
Sarah Moore 15:12
That's true. That's not a big party. Yeah, there's a small little part of the
Omar Burgos 15:17
bottom, actually, I actually kind of rewind that he would stop before entering waiting for someone to part it for him. Oh, yes, and he waits expectingly.
Sarah Moore 15:33
Yep, I would, I would argue that maybe it's one of Elena's crew that parts it.
Ansel Burch 15:41
Oh, I like it so that you get like a big, dramatic silhouette moment before you walk in. Yeah,
Sarah Moore 15:48
Elena and the cat at her feet suppress suddenly. I don't know how that happened, but she's embracing it,
Omar Burgos 15:56
all right, the cat
Ansel Burch 15:58
in a headdress. Mind, you know, yes.
Sarah Moore 16:02
Could couldn't be a regular cat. She wouldn't share billing with her regular cat.
Ansel Burch 16:09
Very interesting silhouette of the two of you in this doorway. So as you come into this room, I think this is the final card in our conflict spread. Oh, this is how we end this conflict.
Sarah Moore 16:23
Not great. Don't think it is good for me.
Ben Banks 16:31
King of Clubs, all right, six,
Ansel Burch 16:35
four dog paws, okay, we got a four. We got a four of puppy paws, a three of puppy paws, six of diamonds and a king of puppy paws, I have a six of spades. So ultimately, you are all gonna come out on top by virtue of that king. But everybody else, thanks. Buddy text. So
Sarah Moore 17:00
Ty goes to the runner. Who's the runner?
Ansel Burch 17:04
Ty goes to the player. So
Sarah Moore 17:05
then I don't,
Ansel Burch 17:09
oh, yes, so you don't get taxed, correct? I
Sarah Moore 17:11
got taxed earlier. I was like, I'll take another arrow. I guess I just put this on
Ben Banks 17:21
your poor costumer. Yeah,
Ansel Burch 17:22
right. Just now. For those of you who are getting taxed, keep in mind that whatever penalty you're taking in this moment can be emotional. You know you're gonna take a blow to your pride or whatever. We can figure out what that is in the in the play, in the storytelling of it. But ultimately, I think it's going to come down to Mason and Elena to win the day. But obviously all four of you are going to participate in this final scene between you and frizz. So I know that frizz is trying to get you guys to go away. But of course, we all know that in order to do that, you have to clear the whatever's wrong with time. So he has sort of a complicated goal in this scene. What are you guys trying to do? And what do we think the story is that gets us there?
Omar Burgos 18:19
I do think that at least Rs is trying to kind of make sure he use him to do what he did, to convince him to talk to Sargon, get all the weapons back and leave. Is his game like, do the work for him. Basically.
Sarah Moore 18:39
Elena is pretty sure that he's the thing that's causing us, like, that's causing the problem, like you are. You're cocking it up, dude, probably from being maybe an a pompous idiot. So I think she wants to just, like, find out what he wants, so she can pretend to give it to him, so she'll so he'll leave.
Ben Banks 19:01
Okay, yeah. And I think Mason just wants to find a way to get home, or just figure out what's going on. And he's noticing that his companions are, like, very much focused on frizz and, like, eyeing it up and down. So he's like, his training is kicked in. It's like, okay, this is not, maybe not an enemy, but this is definitely, like, an adversary, because if my so called allies are looking at him with scrutiny, maybe I need to be kind of figuring out what's going on as well. And
Ansel Burch 19:28
I I like the something has just occurred to me that I think makes sense in this moment that will help us tell this story. Mason's a detective, right? He interviews and interrogates people as a job. I think Mason can spot a guy lying from a mile away, and this dude has not said anything true in like five minutes. Interesting. There is something. There is something he knows. That he is intentionally not telling you.
So I think that maybe the maybe the storytelling that we want to do in this moment is, how do we get to the answer of what he's lying about, like, how do you break him? I kind
Omar Burgos 20:22
of want to, because this will play into my failure here. If whiskers will hop on and say there's a table or something there, just to bring himself to closer to the level of everyone, because he also doesn't trust this character and is trying to get him to do this. Yeah. So phrase Colin, you have done something that must be reversed. You and your idiocy have caused a mess. And I need you to in an the camera crew, with their with their, like last cameras, as it's the sun is kind of hitting in there is bouncing off small beam of light. And he says, and then, and if you do not do I say, I will wait a second. My dreaded Nemesis has returned. You will not escape me this time. And then, oh my god, jump
Ben Banks 21:21
out of it,
Omar Burgos 21:23
no, and he's distracted, so he is not helping in the situation at all. Love
Sarah Moore 21:29
it so much. Yep, gotta chase that
Ben Banks 21:32
light. And then with my with my success, I think I'm gonna step in where whiskers and just slam my giant fist on table. My All right, friends, come on, let's talk man to man. What's going on? What do you not hold it like? Are you supposed to be here? Are you like us, just kind of out of time? What's going on here?
Ansel Burch 21:50
I died. I don't know what you're talking about. What you could possibly be insinuating you all, if there are, there are seven of us here, eight, eight of us here. I don't know why you would think I'm the one causing this time jam. You
Sarah Moore 22:05
gave them all the weapons. You just loudly said in the other tent that you gave them all of the wrong weapons. I gave them
Ansel Burch 22:14
those weapons to fix it. They're not the right weapons. How could they? How could they possibly be using the composite bow in this time of history. Really, do you? You really think that that's something they're capable of here?
Ben Banks 22:32
Look, pal, I can spot a lie a mile away. You haven't said a truthful thing since we entered this tent or since we met you. So yeah,
Sarah Moore 22:39
and you did something to the cat.
Ansel Burch 22:45
The cat came that way. I I didn't do anything to that cat. Well, if anything that cat has done things to me, I
Sarah Moore 22:55
can we hold on. Hold on. I'm gonna pull my camera crew aside. Nasty. Can I Can you roll it back, please? I want to see, I want to see what he was doing.
Ansel Burch 23:07
Oh, I like this. That is a cool concept. Uh, what are we looking for?
Sarah Moore 23:16
Whatever he's hiding from us, whatever is making him so squirrely, if he caught it, yeah,
Ansel Burch 23:24
uh, let's do a card pull. Let's see if your camera crew caught
Sarah Moore 23:29
to a card pull. Come on, puppy. Beat
Stella Cheeks 23:37
by one. Yeah,
Ansel Burch 23:38
buy one. All
Sarah Moore 23:40
right, all right.
Ansel Burch 23:44
No, Neville, wishes, perhaps not the best way to say goodbye. No,
Sarah Moore 23:48
Neville, it is not your fault. You are supposed to be you're right. You are supposed to be focused on me, and you were doing your job, and you're doing a wonderful job. I know I understand that, and I know that, and you're doing great, but like, I know we talked about, like, when I'm doing, like, costume changes and stuff, it's okay for you to get B roll and maybe, like, he clearly identified himself as a bad guy in the film, right? It's okay to get close ups of the bad guy. No, it's okay. Hey, you are doing so good. And I know that this is like, kind of new for you, because it, you know, we just promoted you up to to your own DP, but like, you're, I'm really proud of you. Okay, thank
Ansel Burch 24:32
thank you. I just, if I'd known we were gonna do battle scenes, I'd have brought the wide lens.
Sarah Moore 24:38
I know, what did we say? Always bring the wide lens to always bring your whole kit, right? That's what we say at the beginning. Yeah, we did say that at the last meeting, and that's okay. I just really, I thought we were I know. I know. Hey, yeah, yeah, you're right. You're right. Let's bring it back in, back to one, right, back to one, yep. Okay, great. Let's RIA just. If we could just, we could just reset the light a little bit, little bit over with the bump. Thank you so much.
Ben Banks 25:05
Okay, all right, less on me. If we could, if I could just hop in a little bit less
Sarah Moore 25:09
on Mason. Hey, Mason, you know what? If you want to do that, if you could just, we'll soft we'll soft focus. You will rack you out, right? You'll be a little out of focus. Would that be okay? Great. Okay, yeah, that works for me. So back to you, frizz, is your name? Is that right? Am I saying that? Right? Great. Okay, cool. What is it that you were hiding? I bet you've got a super normal name. I was asking a very normal question. You You made it weird? You're the one that made it weird. Oh,
Ansel Burch 25:40
God. Why is it always Why is it always me? Why is it always me? With you guys,
Stella Cheeks 25:45
my name is aixa, just in the middle of this conversation. See, perfectly normal name, aixa
Sarah Moore 25:50
is a delight. They pulled an arrow out of my leg, and you have only caused me problems. What is it that you are hiding from us?
Ansel Burch 26:02
I don't think I like your tone.
Sarah Moore 26:05
Oh, but my tone is perfectly appropriate for what is going on here. So tell me what you're hiding.
Ansel Burch 26:18
What do you think you do to push him. Like, do you have any any leverage on him, or anything you want to do, aside from just sort of insisting what is? Um,
Sarah Moore 26:32
yeah, he looks really just uncomfortable in general. Is that correct?
Ansel Burch 26:36
Yeah, this room has made him very uncomfortable. Yeah, cool. I'm gonna
Sarah Moore 26:41
walk around, gesture at my camera crew. Obviously they're gonna follow me around. I'm just gonna start touching everything. And I'm gonna, like, pick up something and like, it's breakable, and like, toss it up and down. And like, this is not his stuff. Just like, start like, like, looking like, oh, maybe drop it like, just sort of like, good, ratcheting, just messing with stuff. And then probably wind my way around until I'm like, very in his space, just right up in there. You know, I just, I feel like you're hiding something, and I think you want something from us. Seems very much like you want us to leave, and like we're not gonna leave until we know what's going on. You need to tell us,
Ansel Burch 27:48
I have this under control. I if you would all just go, go into the city enjoy a roasted meat on a stick they're
Sarah Moore 28:01
gonna put my hand, hand on his chest. Chris, no, no, you gotta tell us. I moved the camera that that cat's gonna come back just a moment. Yeah,
Ben Banks 28:18
and I lean in and I point to I see his bloody hands, and I'm like, we have ways of making you talk. Okay, that's what happened to the last person that withheld information from us. She can manipulate circulatory systems. Is that what you want? You want your circular system all fucked up? She can do that.
Ansel Burch 28:36
I think he's gonna make eye contact with aixa and be like, I clearly you are the same one here. Can you help me to help all of you? If you want to leave you, you need to let me fix this. I
Stella Cheeks 28:50
think because I pulled a low card and I technically failed, um, that maybe I'm not picking up on the fact that he's a villain and I'm like, we're all time travelers. We're on the same team. Yeah. Um, so I will just say,
Speaker 1 29:06
well, that's why we're here. We're here to fix this. How are we supposed to fix this? It's an
Sarah Moore 29:10
excellent question. She
Ansel Burch 29:12
knows what's up. Look, if I if I tell you what's going on, will you stop juggling that vase? Sure. Okay, because I'm pretty sure that one's in a museum.
Sarah Moore 29:27
Well, maybe
Ansel Burch 29:30
we're just gonna put it down on the table. And
Sarah Moore 29:35
you first,
Ansel Burch 29:40
I have come here to write a book on war, tactics, technologies, techniques. My were in my time. All of the wars have already happened, so we don't have a lot of. Writing about it,
Sarah Moore 30:01
but Elena slowly puts it down. I
Ansel Burch 30:07
was the one who convinced them to use this, the wooden bows. So sorry, because did you really? Did you create other time traveler has been here and given them the wrong bows. See, there you are. Haha, not my
Sarah Moore 30:20
fault. You created some sort of time jam that is calling a whole bunch of time travelers here for a book deal.
Stella Cheeks 30:37
Technically, he said he was just writing a book. He does not have an advance. I
Sarah Moore 30:40
do you not even have a did Vance?
Ansel Burch 30:46
Look, it's hard to get published at the end of time. Are you writing this on spec? There's not a lot of people printing or reading books. Frizz.
Sarah Moore 30:56
Did you come back here mess everything up and you're just writing the book? Are you gonna Self Publish? Oh my god. Oh my god, I might. There's nothing wrong. Oh my god. I need you to be so super honest with me right now. Phrase is, this
Ansel Burch 31:09
a blog? I don't think I know what a blog is. Are you publishing? It's for my published journals. Oh, Jesus. Can
Stella Cheeks 31:16
I leave it to Mason and just whisper, since you are the investigator, maybe we can figure out how he time traveled here. If we figure out how, then maybe we can figure out how to send him back.
Ben Banks 31:34
That's, that's, that's good. That's good. I like that way of thinking is, is it hypocritical that she's calling them out for a book deal when she's clearly doing this for a movie role? Is that? Is that the minutiae we need to be getting into right now? We
Sarah Moore 31:51
are we the best. We are not the bad guys here. We did not mess this up.
Ben Banks 31:58
Okay? I didn't. I didn't think I understand. I'm still
Speaker 1 32:02
she seems to at least have funding, which does seem to be different.
Ben Banks 32:09
Okay, I think sounds good. So I will try to investigate on how to how he time traveled here. So, okay, yeah,
Ansel Burch 32:18
uh, your understanding of time travel machines is pretty minimal, so I'm gonna leave this up to a CR draw. Let's see if you can spot his, his mechanism. Is there a way that I could, like assist this?
Unknown Speaker 32:32
Because we absolutely
Stella Cheeks 32:34
okay. We're doing it together. If he,
Ansel Burch 32:37
if he brings you into this task, absolutely you can do it together. So it's gonna be whoever the two of you gets the higher card. Well,
Stella Cheeks 32:45
it's not me. I have a jack.
Ansel Burch 32:48
It is you. Oh, nice. Sadly, also not Yeah, also Yep. So I have a jack compared to a five and a three. So unfortunately, you guys are not able to identify his time travel mechanism. This doesn't stop the other two from doing the same later. Yeah,
Ben Banks 33:06
so how I got here was by a pocket watch.
Speaker 1 33:10
Oh, yeah, I thought you got here from a dream. Yeah,
Ben Banks 33:16
that is true. So I look at phrase, I'm like, Are you dreaming? Is this a dream for you. Well, it's
Ansel Burch 33:22
a dream. Now I think it's a nightmare.
Sarah Moore 33:24
Okay, okay, you don't have to be dramatic. The
Ben Banks 33:27
sleuthing I could do,
Omar Burgos 33:30
I think at this point, out of this, the finally, the cramark has moved it so that way the light has disappeared, and
Ansel Burch 33:38
as they spun around, you got the whole room, and now you're finally like,
Omar Burgos 33:46
and in being the intelligent, wise historian that he is, he whiskers. He gets extremely angry at hearing the composite bow, and looks over and his like his fur, like, begins to stand like that, much for his pink cap, but like, his hair is like stands on his back, and he gets really angry, he will use one of his magical abilities that he has, which is transforming into a human way to form. It's a cat but, but a full on five foot eight, so he's closed because he has, like the kilt, like armor below, but he turns into more of like a of standing on his hind legs cat and steps up, and he has more of this war, like Egyptian pharaoh war presence steps up and grabs fair phrase about a cloak or whatever he's wearing like just girls around the and pull them close to you, and with his fangs just bearing, goes he you say, bring these bows. Composits was invented for another 1000 years in a whole nother area of this world. You will undo what you've done, or you will face the wrath of the pharaoh of Egypt and try to kind of threaten him to do he says, and like, have his claws out at the ready,
Ansel Burch 35:13
just so I can picture it. Are we talking like Idris Elba in cats? Humanoid cat,
Omar Burgos 35:24
I would be think of more like a like, like, if like, like Tom from Tom and Jerry, like, how, if he were to stand fully up, he's like a cat, but he's fully like a cat person, but he just more of like, no cats can't stand on their legs, like that. So he has stronger legs, and he's tall, like, five foot, not 10 and all that. Not like looking like a human. He's still clearly a cat. Yes,
Sarah Moore 35:49
Elena, like gestures to Neville to like, Scooter, like, get this shot. This is good shot. Get in there.
Omar Burgos 36:00
And I would like to see if antenna would threaten him, like having my claws to his neck, like it's like pulling his appel close to me to get him to realize this and undo the damage you've done. Or else
Ansel Burch 36:10
I like it. So let's go ahead and do a draw to see if he reveals his time travel mechanism to you.
Omar Burgos 36:19
All right, I've got an eight. I have a queen of spades and and it has the, what if we deem it the boob that ally, yep.
Ansel Burch 36:32
So you get to draw another one and choose the better of the two you're already winning. So you can only make it better.
Omar Burgos 36:39
A five of spades we'll get. So does that go in discard pile?
Ansel Burch 36:42
Yeah, all of those can go in the discard all right. So fantastic. So with your queen, if you must know, I've only got enough Corona tons to get back to my time from here, if you want to fix it so bad, then go back and stop me. Why don't you?
Sarah Moore 37:02
Oh, great. Okay, hey, friends. I know he probably said that as, like a throwaway line, but, like, we can absolutely do that. We can just go back and stop him from coming here. Wait what? This is not should. Wait what? Yeah, he, he he just, I mean, this is a classic villain move, right? He's monologuing, but he's telling us exactly what we need to do. In order to defeat him. We just have to go back and stop him from coming here.
Unknown Speaker 37:31
Can you control the way you travel through time?
Ben Banks 37:36
Yeah, and yeah, he said he only had enough croutons to send himself back. So,
Sarah Moore 37:41
right, but we're not him. We'll just, we'll just go where he's, think, I think she's going to, she's gonna do the thing where she's, like, rapidly talking so much that, like, perhaps somebody will answer a question, what? When they should not, right. She's like, great. So, like, he's gonna, he came here. He did the thing with the Bose. He did that these wants to write the book deal. So he's obviously got to get back. I'm sorry. Where were you from again? The End of Time, right? Yeah. So we've got to, he's got to go back. We got to go back to the end of time. I'm so sorry. I forget because you're going to go back and publish this book, this book that you have been writing so importantly, and they're gonna want to read it. My published journals, yes, yes. And your published journals at the end of time. But like the location, like, I know you're from time wise, from the end of time. Like, you know, obviously we're all from different places, but like the location of it's like, where's
Ansel Burch 38:34
where would we be? There's only one location at the end of time. Great. After the dilation, it all.
Sarah Moore 38:42
I've told you too much. I know after the dilation, and then there's only one place to go. So if we go there, it turns around. We go there, and we stop him from coming here. Then not only do we stop all of this stuff from happening, but then also nobody has to read his published journals. So I feel like this is, like, a a win, win all around you. Out. You ready for a team up?
Omar Burgos 39:08
Would he have the quantitron device, something like on him? What I would know that from that, oh,
Ansel Burch 39:13
I think now that he's called it out, you can spot that he's got like, like a big bulge in his pocket or something, or no, it's he's wearing Mesopotamian clothes, so we don't have pockets. He's got like, a super obvious, like, bag that he's carrying around that he's been, like, really careful with. Now that you think about it, you're like, Oh yeah, I guess he has been really, like, guarded about that bag with,
Omar Burgos 39:42
like, my cat, like nimbleness, can I grab it if I could still play on the queen that I had and, like, kind of grab and says, do you mean this? And kind of just have it in my hand, tossing it up and downs amazing.
Ansel Burch 39:59
I. Apple, get this? I How do you put that down? It's very important, if you, if you break that, I can't leave, and you all want me to leave so badly.
Omar Burgos 40:16
Ah, then what say fellow time travelers, we have the means till they put the stop to this escapade, this abomination to the timeline. Wait,
Ansel Burch 40:28
don't, don't activate it. Here are you. I only have enough Corona tons to get home once. I'm
Sarah Moore 40:38
gonna pick up the vase that he made me put down and say, ready to dash, and then I'm just gonna throw it at him. Oh, so that we run out. He didn't want it to break. He didn't
Ansel Burch 40:51
want it to break. So, yeah, I think he's he goes to catch the thing. This is a pull. We already know you're successful. Okay, so I don't think we're gonna make this a pull. Okay. I think I
Sarah Moore 41:04
was ready. I was like, we could pull it, see what happens. I
Ansel Burch 41:07
would, I think I would like to play on both your time travel mechanism and frizzes in this moment. Oh, because you time travel through the power of scripting, yeah. So of course, when you exit a door is the easiest time for us to edit in your time travel correct.
Sarah Moore 41:29
So ready to go?
Ansel Burch 41:32
Where do you guys go? Do you go back to when frizz arrived in Mesopotamia? Or are you going to frizz's home timeline, and keep in mind the gravity of the time jam, as we've called it this time is gonna try and keep you here. Ooh,
Omar Burgos 41:54
so you're saying it'll be harder to go to his time than to go yes back before
Stella Cheeks 42:00
he said that he only had enough to get back once for him, so he might be looking for his What did you call him croutons? So maybe, and he thinks that we're going back to his planet. So maybe, if we just go back in time here and stop him here,
Sarah Moore 42:17
hmm, he'll like, before he's giving out all the stuff.
Stella Cheeks 42:21
Yeah, he'll think we're going to his planet. So he'll try to catch us, stop us there, but we're actually here, so he'll get lost in time. Love that
Sarah Moore 42:30
we just have to be careful how long we say, so that we don't run into ourselves.
Unknown Speaker 42:37
Good point.
Ansel Burch 42:40
You did learn earlier he's been here for a few weeks, so you do have time, if you did do that,
Omar Burgos 42:48
and I have an idea that would put a stop to him from when he to make sure he doesn't cause any more issues in this time period.
Sarah Moore 42:58
All right, well, then I think there should be a camera wipe
Ansel Burch 43:04
to bring us back here, so we camera wipe to that city over there two weeks ago. What
Stella Cheeks 43:10
does it feel like to travel through time in a way that is not the way our characters travel
Ansel Burch 43:15
through time? That is a great question. It probably feels super weird. Yeah, I given that you usually travel through beam. And I mean, who knows what Mason thinks time travel normally feels like, aside from a hangover and or confusion, just wild confusion. How does whiskers normally travel? Like? Do you have control over it, or is it just sort of like the The gods have called you to this time?
Omar Burgos 43:48
Exactly the gods, they open up the doorway, the ankh appears, and he just gets pulled through, like it's not even that he walks through, which is kind of he gets like claws and then drags back whenever he doesn't want to go. So that
Ansel Burch 44:01
might be more comfortable for you. For whiskers, yeah, because you just like, go through a door and you're like, Oh, we're in a different place. Now, cool. Yeah,
Sarah Moore 44:12
I would, I would also say for flavor, that you are all in slightly different clothes. Oh, of course, they are your clothes, but like, just a little different, just like,
Ansel Burch 44:32
and you all now have makeup for camera.
Sarah Moore 44:35
Yeah, you all look wonderful.
Ansel Burch 44:40
It's like 30s makeup for camera. So it's, it's like slightly color corrective,
Stella Cheeks 44:46
which looks insane on my, like, really pale skin.
Omar Burgos 44:49
Yeah, if there's some sort of reflective surface when we arrive, whiskers would definitely just look around, look at it and just idle. Himself, just for a moment. He's very vain, so he just kind of just appreciates how beautiful he is at this moment, right now,
Ansel Burch 45:06
there's just like a polished piece of metal that there's that's the mirror for this location. Okay, so you've traveled back in time to when he arrived. And I think, given that this is, we've concluded the conflict. You've you've won at this point. So this is just putting a little button on our story before we call it a day. So how do you think you stop him at the moment that he's arriving like if you see him beginning to materialize? What do we think happens to him? Well,
Stella Cheeks 45:38
I do look alien, and now I have terrifying 30s makeup on. So I think that I don't look good. I think I look kind of scary. So,
Ansel Burch 45:52
and you'd be great in black and white? Yeah,
Stella Cheeks 45:53
I'd be really good in one, like a one of the monster movies. And this is totally up to the gang. So if we don't like this, we can do something else. But I like the idea of, like, literally, like, jump scaring him to the past. He, like, steps out, and he's like, No. And then this is like,
Sarah Moore 46:11
I love that, like, the wrong timeline, yeah, that the idea that he would think he was in the wrong place. Because why would you be there? Yeah, why would jump scare him away with 1920s
Stella Cheeks 46:21
cinematic makeup. Be in ancient mess, and you
Omar Burgos 46:25
couldn't go and he can't come back, because that was the last one. He used it because he got so scared, instinctively, like and then he's back, and now he cannot return.
Ansel Burch 46:35
I think that's great if, if everybody likes that, I think that's that's our final scene. Is just the four of you standing in this place as frizz quilan steps out of his time portal. I think he does one of those, like old school Star Trek wipes. There's clearly some glitter that's being swirled in a in a vial, and video of him as being super imposed over this other video to create the effect of his appearance. When he finally does appear, he's in just slightly a different pose than he was in the like, materializing. It was a pretty good effect, but, you know, it, it's still coming. Yeah. So frizz like, shows up. He's like, Ah, yes, it shouldn't Mesopotamia. And he starts to, like, brush himself off before spotting you. Are you putting effort into looking extra scary?
Stella Cheeks 47:26
No, this is a total happenstance, accident. I think because I haven't looked into a surface like, I don't know what I look like. I just like, feel makeup on my face, and I'm like, this is weird. I
Ansel Burch 47:37
have a very important question for you, Stella, in this last moment as frizz appears, takes in the sight of you. Do you scream when he screams? Yeah, absolutely, so the both of you scream. He falls backwards out of time. And I think you can all feel sort of the time jam as it releases since, since none of you have like a machine maybe, well, actually, maybe Mason doesn't feel it. But since the others of you sort of travel via instinct, or, you know, things outside of your control, the three of you can probably feel this, this jam loosening its grip on you, Mason, I think your, your watch probably makes like a noise as something unjams. Do you this is a question for you. There is no wrong answer. Do you think that when the jam is cleared, your time travel just takes back over and puts you back where you were supposed to be traveling, or back home? Let's make that our final question, as we conclude, well,
Sarah Moore 48:43
Elena doesn't travel back until after the wrap party. I mean, obviously, like, we've wrapped the shoot, but there's still, like, important stuff to do.
Ansel Burch 48:58
We just invented a new way to make wine. It's,
Sarah Moore 49:01
yeah, yeah. And so there's, she's always, like, able to, like, she stays in each place long enough to have, like, a drink, and is a little bit of socializing, which looks different, I think, in a lot of places. But I also think it's maybe one of the times, maybe one of the only times that she feels like she's not on camera. So like she like, lets herself be like, kind of decompress a little bit truly. And then she as a, as an actress in the studio system. She doesn't get time off. So after that rap party, she is, she's travel. She travels by script to the next time jam. Um, yeah, whatever the the next issue is excellent.
Ansel Burch 49:56
Ben, how about you? How does, how does Mason? Exit this scene.
Ben Banks 50:01
So I think as the time jam fixes itself, the little pocket watch that he found randomly on a case he was working on starts ticking again, and then you slowly see fog, smog, pollution, and you hear that rift of jazz again as he's he does wake up in an alley and, like, looks around, kind of like, back, and then he, like, pulls out a cigarette, lights it, takes a puff, pulls out of a little flask in his pocket, takes a sip that kind of spits a little bit because it's hot, because he was in the in the desert. And he looks down to his shoes, and he sees that there's like, like, his whole outfit is like, dirty and dusty with sand and everything, but he got contact, takes a little bit of a sigh of relief, and it's like, I guess we gave frizz his just deserts, and then walks off into the into the night. So
Omar Burgos 50:53
whiskers at that moment begins to sweat and then turns back into like, in like a poof of magical smoke, his full feline form, his regular cat form. And as he the ankh just randomly appears. And there's a suction of air where he stands, he gets he could pull back, and he looks at everyone remember the name and thank and praise Pharaoh biscutarius merechum, very nice, and he's gets sucked in before the ankh closes in. He then walks a brilliant golden bridge that opens up to a doorway of an ark on the other side, hoping to go back home, but appears in yet another timeline where he has to continue to hope to find his home of ancient Egypt. And he sighs yet again, and then pitter patters to his next location,
Stella Cheeks 51:50
aixa, like the way that she came in, right that, like glitter, not glittery, like kind of that through a prism beam that, like really pale kind of rainbow starts to kind of shimmer around her, so she knows that it's like, you know, time to go home. She can't really control it. It doesn't happen right away. So it's like a little bit of a very dramatic scene setting. So I'm envisioning her scaring off frizz, not really understanding what happened, seeing all of the beam around her, and then turning around with her horrific face full of makeup and just waving her hand that she got most of the blood off. I'm just saying it was lovely to meet you all. I hope we meet again and then get beamed back up to throv, where I like the idea of getting beamed right back to the place where I was taken while he's with my best friend, who screams when he sees my face and I scream when he sees my when he starts screaming.
Ansel Burch 52:49
Yes, amazing. Thank you all for joining me for this first adventure here in our hopefully long time together. Thank you all so much. And join us again soon for our next set of episodes. Stella cheeks is at Stella cheeks on Instagram and blue sky. Sarah Moore is at pixies and pins on all of the social media channels, and at pixies and pins.com you can also check out her Sarah's table live streams on Twitch at pixies and pins. Omar Burgos is at tail Weaver. Check out his work on the tale of D 20s. TTRPG channel. More information at a tale of D twenties.com Ben banks is at DJ underscore. Blendian on Instagram and SoundCloud. I'm Ansel Burch, and you can find me at the indecisionist on all of the meta properties and on blue sky special. Thanks to Cameron ivesque Davis for the song you're hearing now and at the beginning of the podcast, this has been an indecisionist production. Go to indecisionist.com to find more of our work, including my monthly gaming event, TTRPG pickup con and my other time travel podcast, time to party as you travel at one second per second. Take some time out for these intrepid adventurers. They may be in trouble, but only for the time being. You.
