Session Zero Heroes - A TTRPG Actual Play Podcast
Speaker B: Jasmine, oolong, green and white. Long ago, these four teas were skilfully brewed at the blissful brew. Then everything changed when the shop's popularity threatened its existence. All Mr. Okeron, the shop's owner and tea master, could do was to recruit four teenage orphans to learn his trade and staff his shop. A year has passed since the orphans were hired and although their skills have progressed, they still have a lot to learn before they can brew anything. But I believe that they have the potential to make the blissful brew the greatest tea shop in the world.
Speaker C: The scene opens on all of you standing inside of a large room. Various, pews lining large, windows have sunlight shooting in through it, but it's kind of a deep orange sunlight as it's kind of nearing towards the afternoon. The late afternoon. Yes, the golden hour. Exactly. Your now dead friend Mr. Okaron lays motionless inside of a stone casket. And, the rest of you, as well as a number of community members, are all lining these benches that I previously mentioned. And a man at the front of the room is finishing up his long winded speech about Mr. M. Okaron and his service to the community and the amazing tea shop that he ran and just how generally nice of a guy that he was, how kind hearted he was. The doors of the area suddenly swing open, the big, like, double heavy double doors or whatever. And you all turn because it's quite loud. And there's Madame Yang standing there in the doorway and she says, is the.
Speaker D: Ceremony not over yet?
Speaker C: And turns to let the door close behind.
Speaker E: I feel like Brock is feeling a bit remorseful in that, he felt he could know, helped Mr. Okeron as well, during the fight, but he was just too tunnel visioned on the coyote boars.
Speaker C: what about Guohan? What's Guohan feeling right now?
Speaker F: I guess he's feeling sort of regression, like he's closed off, feeling a bit lost.
Speaker C: Okay, what is Bill Dor feeling right now? Like he's a failure.
Speaker E: He swore to himself he wouldn't let something like this happen again, and now he's going very much on a slippery slope.
Speaker C: what about Mika?
Speaker A: I would say that she is definitely feeling different emotions on the inside than she does on the outside. She was probably closer to Mr. Oprah than she let people believe. But I would say on the outside she's more stoic. And then on the inside, I would say she's pretty much just like in denial of the whole situation.
Speaker C: And a man approaches you and he begins to tell you or talk to you all. And he says, my name is Mr. Wu and, I represent a government office that's responsible for items to be passed on to others when someone passes away. You four were the closest to Mr. Okaran. given that he owned a tea shop and had a number of tools and utensils and et cetera, as well as, of course, the building space itself, it seems that it's a little bit up in the air as far as, who it's supposed to go to. unfortunately, we couldn't find a will. Legally speaking, I can't technically hand off anything to you. That was his.
Speaker F: Well, what's going to happen to the tea shop? The lady over there?
Speaker C: And he points over to Madame Yang and he says, she was inquiring about it as well. It seems that she has some interest in possibly purchasing the building itself, the tea shop and the various resources within. So, again, I just wanted to let you all know, if a document isn't presented by the end of the.
Speaker D: Week, one week's time, eh? I suppose I'll be seeing you all then.
Speaker C: She turns and starts to head towards the door as well.
Speaker A: Yeah, we can't. Mavie, yang, take over.
Speaker C: You hear a voice from the darkness. The darkest corner of this small temple area.
Speaker F: Go over here.
Speaker C: Sure enough, there's a man in a dark cloak mysteriously sitting in this dark corner, almost invisible. he takes off his hood. He's got long, dark brown hair, very masculine features.
Speaker F: He says, my name's otra, but most.
Speaker C: People just call me Strider.
Speaker F: I was, actually a good friend of ogrons.
Speaker C: He, wanted me to give you this. He gives you a letter. It's like a sealed envelope with, like, a wax Seal on the back. It's just a letter to all of you. but it basically just talks about how much he cared about all of you. He felt that there was something that might happen that might cause him harm or possibly death. And he wanted to make sure. He was scared to keep the will in the house or in the tea shop. And so he's hidden it and he wants you all to find it. Who's Bill? This specific one is for you. Strider leaves.
Speaker E: Oh, I can read it while we walk. I guess back to the shop. It says, bill, my boy, you're tried and true. I now bestow a gift to you. When on the seas, a ship we met and a pirate ship we were beset. You and I were taken captive on an island where we adapted, although in danger we resided and quietly our time abided until the moment of opportunity. You and I escaped in unity. Return yourself to island shores and the next clue will soon be yours. Return to the past. Look through the back. Use the flame in your heart to reveal the map. And once you arrive, don't forget about the tea bill. You remember where you were on the boat with me. You created a combo so strange in my mind it did in print. So look to your creation of mango and mango. And that's where it stopped.
Speaker C: So you head back to the tea shop.
Speaker E: You guys should know the full story to be able to help me with this because I'm completely lost, honestly.
Speaker C: Well, we were captured by pirates.
Speaker E: Mr. Okran and I were when we first met. It was a weird trade deal is what happened to us. It was some fire nation general that organized the whole trade deal as well.
Speaker C: We got put on a pirate ship.
Speaker E: And then we helped the pirate crew for a day. Mr. Okra made them a bunch of tea and I swabbed the deck and also knocked out a guy with a bow staff, so. Always been good at that, I guess. and then we escaped on a dinghy with a bunch of his tea and we landed on the shores not too far from here. In that dinghy. I don't know. Just reading this, it says, return yourself to island Shores and the next clue, still New York.
Speaker C: So part of me thinks that if.
Speaker E: We went back to the exact same spot where know washed up, that might.
Speaker C: Be where we go.
Speaker E: I'm going to hand it to Guohan the riddle.
Speaker C: And as you go to hand Guohan the piece of paper, you can kind of feel a little bit of the heat from the candle in the middle of the table that's giving you guys light. And as the map passes by and that heat kind of emanates towards it, you notice some sort of scribbles on the back of the paper. You bring it a little bit closer to the candlelight and you realize that on the back of this page is a map leading to an island. Island known as Whale Tail island. So that's where this map seems to be leading you.
Speaker E: Should we head down to that shore, see if we can find anything?
Speaker A: Do we have enough time?
Speaker F: Looks like we're going on a trip, guys. I gotta go pack a bag for Dilbert.
Speaker C: You wake up the next morning. To some extent, this has reignited some of the fire that might have been lost by, the depressing circumstances. You head out and one place that you know of in town that offers sort of travel assistance. It's like a travel agency. And you're like, okay, well I'm not necessarily going on a paid vacation per se, but I'll go check it out and see if they can give me information. Maybe you arrive and there's the lady at the front desk. There's somebody talking to her. And rather than her greeting you, this person just turns around. It's an old man, he's crooked almost at a 90 degree angle of his back. turns around and sees you all.
Speaker F: And he says where are you three go for going? Where are you headed? Are you going on vacation?
Speaker A: Whaletail island.
Speaker F: We don't really offer much of,
Speaker C: Water travel here at our agency but we could get you across the mountains to the shores.
Speaker F: It's right over by Shin village.
Speaker C: That's where you want to go.
Speaker E: How long does a trip like that take us?
Speaker F: Oh, if you go my way, usually it only takes about a day.
Speaker E: We only have six. And can you start taking us there now?
Speaker F: Yeah, of course I can.
Speaker C: I'm ready to go.
Speaker F: The name's Rooney. All right, on our way.
Speaker C: And he starts to lead you guys through. And it's a pretty straightforward shot to the mountains themselves. It's pretty uneventful until about like four or 5 hours through. You guys, start to notice that there's like a pathway that started to become carved out into the mountains.
Speaker E: Why aren't we walking on this path?
Speaker C: Why are you taking us over here?
Speaker F: Oh yes, it's under construction right now. See, just up ahead.
Speaker C: And he points and you can see some dust that seems to be rising like a dust cloud.
Speaker F: They're working on a way through the mountain but it's not done yet.
Speaker C: You do eventually come up to where the cloud is kind of rising from and sure enough, there's a bunch of what look like earthbenders that seem to be like stomping the ground and moving rocks and stuff out of the way as they're making this pathway through. As you guys are leaving the scene of the construction work in your wake, you suddenly hear a huge explosive sound and you can feel the rocks and such around you, rumbling and shouts and screams coming from over in the construction area.
Speaker A: My fox dog starts running towards it.
Speaker E: All right, I'll run after it. No one else will.
Speaker F: No, I'm running after.
Speaker C: As you guys make your way up towards the construction site, you see before to you a giant collection of rocks that seems to all be combined to itself as if a humanoid shape with two arms and two legs, no real head per se. but on the top of where the head would be is a small red gem that glints inside the sunlight. And as, Rooney approaches, and you guys are all seeing know happening below you in the ravine where they were digging out, he says, oh, my gosh.
Speaker F: It'S a mountain spirit.
Speaker C: As it starts to just smash, smash, smash through this construction zone. Obviously angry for some reason.
Speaker E: I'll hop down and try and help the construction workers.
Speaker C: All right, sounds good.
Speaker E: Brock's not an observed type of guy.
Speaker C: You're in the scene, you're standing there. Some of the, dust cloud has kind of, like, overtaken you. You cough a little bit as you wave a little bit out of your face.
Speaker E: So I guess as I get down there, I'll try and help as many of the people that the earth spirit is not attacking.
Speaker C: Zeke is just watching. Bill's just watching.
Speaker E: Same here.
Speaker C: All right.
Speaker F: Guohan's gonna just move to save cover, make sure there's nothing above him that's gonna ruin him.
Speaker C: So back over to Connor. Connor, you've pulled some people out of the way, gotten them kind of a safe distance away. There's still maybe like, three workers that are, like, battling this thing actively.
Speaker E: I guess I'd have to just go and help the three workers as well.
Speaker C: All right.
Speaker E: I mean, I can't just leave them hanging.
Speaker C: All right.
Speaker E: So I will ask what is my best way in? As in, like, into this fight square?
Speaker C: Yeah. So you can kind of tell there's, like, a direction to its movements. So that suggests that it has a front and that's where it's attacking at. and it has a back and it doesn't seem to be aware, even though it doesn't have, like, a head and eyes, it doesn't seem to be aware of what's behind it. So if you were able to get behind it, you'd probably be in a better position.
Speaker E: Yeah, I guess. What can I use to inflict the most damage?
Speaker C: Something about that gem that's sitting kind of almost on top of where its head would be seems significant to you. The fact that it's so contrasted and so different from the rest of its just rock body. It really feels like that holds some sort of significance over this creature or spirit or whatever it seems to be.
Speaker E: So what I'm going to try and do is I'm going to try and climb up some piles of rocks behind it. I'm going to try and jump on top of it, and, I will try and strike the gem, and I will try and dislodge it.
Speaker C: So you use that to get yourself on top of this rock monster. it definitely takes notice that you're there. Like, it can feel you on it. And so it kind of, like, is confused. It's moving around, but you've managed to land on it in such a way that you get a nice, stable position. It's a big creature, so it's definitely enough of a platform for you to steady yourself on.
Speaker E: I will get on top of this thing.
Speaker C: Okay.
Speaker E: And it's squirming around, trying to shake me off, and I'm just starting to wail away at the gem on top of its head.
Speaker F: Okay.
Speaker E: Or on top of its body.
Speaker C: It's freaking out. It's nervous, and it's becoming less and less, you could almost say connected. You're actually watching as you're slowly pulling this gem out. You can see some of the chunks of rock actually falling from its body. Yeah. The rest of you three are seeing him, like, riding cowboy on top of this rock monster.
Speaker F: I want to assess the situation. I think Brock's gonna die. What here can I use to help Brock? I'm gonna say in. So what's my best way down the side of this mountain?
Speaker C: you do see a fairly thin but flat rock that you almost wonder if you could sled down the side of this hill safely and quickly. additionally, there are a number of sort of outcroppings of rock that if you wanted to, you might break into chunks. And using your earthbending, maybe kick or throw towards the monster to give a distraction while he tries to rip this gem out of its head, I will.
Speaker E: Attempt to destroy this gem.
Speaker C: You raise your hand above your head. You come down hard, as, earthbenders do. They don't fear the rock as it's coming towards them, per se. So you feel very confident as you come down. You break the rock. As your fist makes contact with it, the gem itself breaks free, from the creature's head. It flies up. As it does, the creature starts to kind of, like, wobble and so on.
Speaker F: I'm going to look at those rock colonnades or whatever on the side of the hill. I'm going to attempt to take out the small piece of stone that's holding the pillar up, or get, like, a small rock, like, get momentum, to roll into that and to cause some.
Speaker C: Sort of avalanche, you rush over to one of these outcroppings that sort of angled at just the right spot on the top of this hill, that you're sort of on, and you break out a chunk of it, allowing the brock to tumble forward and start rolling down the hill. As you mentioned, Brock, you have just ripped the gemstone out of its head. And as it wobbles and starts to destabilize, you leap off this beast. You've got the giant gem in your hand, and, the beast is down. As it hits the ground, all the rocks that make up this spirit, as they said, just sort of start to roll away.
Speaker F: Oh, I think I might have seen or heard stories about something like this. This is just a theory, mind you. But I think what you've got there is known as the heart of the mountain. Some say that the heart of the mountain homes a guardian spirit, and each mountain has one.
Speaker E: Well, if we're all cursed about this, I'll take the blame for that. I will say a big ol oops on that.
Speaker C: So you guys all get a good night's rest. you, wake up the next morning. And so you guys continue on through the mountain range. And slowly but surely off in the distance, you can see the outskirts of chin village. I'm going to just head out. So, good luck to you guys.
Speaker F: Bye bye.
Speaker C: And he turns 180 degrees to walk his 90 degrees self back through the mountains.
Speaker E: What if we start by checking where me and Mr. Okeron first showed up here on the boat? And if we can't find anything there, then we can go talk to pirates, the. Sorry, rather, the traders, around here, the ship captains, and get us a boat.
Speaker C: you guys make your way to the beaches of chin village. I, mean, you look at the map again, and it's not showing any kind of x or anything on the beaches of chin village. It does cross through chin village like the dotted line, but the x is at Whaletail island. And eventually you approach, what seems to be a massive festival going on. And people are celebrating, and there's little shop vendors that are selling. They're selling all sorts of like, they look like sea serpent masks, kind of like different colors and such like that. There's people selling food. There's people selling what look like fancy wood blocks that kind of have, like, a rounded shape to it. There's a lot of people wearing green, and there's a lot of people wearing red. And you notice that people wearing green seem to be avoiding or maybe in a small one person to one person disagreement with somebody wearing red. There's like a big podium or whatever. there's like a big pillar, like a short pillar, like for putting something on, right? And somebody walks out wearing some very nice fancy clothes.
Speaker G: Attention, everyone. It is time for the festival's proudest tradition, the revealing of the scales. Before I reveal the scales, I want to thank the people of Quinchao village for joining us here today for the festival and bringing their scale along with them. As always, since it is Chin village's time to shine, I will be revealing the scale bestowed to us. The green scale.
Speaker C: And he pulls back the curtain, and everyone gasps. And you guys are kind of unsure as to why they're all gasping. And inside of this glass case that he has set on this pedestal, there's a large, red, sort of ornate scale. Look, everyone's gasping. And then you start to hear people throughout the crowd saying, where's the green scale?
Speaker F: Where is it? Someone's stolen it.
Speaker G: Everyone remain calm. We are sure to find the green scale. I'm sure it was a simple misplacement. Never fear.
Speaker C: There are two mayors, each from a different town, standing up on the stage. They are panicking. the one mayor seems to be, like, trying to calm everybody. He's waving his hands around.
Speaker F: Guys, maybe we should get out of here before things get any crazier. Let's try to get a boat.
Speaker C: All of a sudden, the mayor looks over towards you, and he says, them?
Speaker G: Who are they? Quick, grab them.
Speaker C: And a group of guards surrounds you, and, he says, bring them to me. So as they lead you back behind the stage, he insists that the guards search all of you, search them for the scale, and they give you quick pat down. And he says, no scale. And they say, no scale.
Speaker E: Sir, why is this scale such a big deal?
Speaker G: Shui shui is the great serpent spirit that resides in the waters immediately surrounding Qin village. And spanning all the way to Quinchao village. She is incredibly powerful and has chosen Qin village as her home. And to prove this, she has left us with her beautiful green scale.
Speaker C: And then all of a sudden, the other mayor, the female mayor, comes bursting back. She wears all black.
Speaker D: That right there is a bold faced lie. You know as well as I do that the red scale, which is the true scale, mind you, was given to Quin Chow village and has been deemed her home, not chin village.
Speaker C: And they start to bicker back and forth.
Speaker G: Oh, yes. My apologies. The important matter right now is to find the scale that has been stolen so the festival may go on. I feel as though I can trust you to help us find it, if you would be so willing to help us. If you do, I will ensure you have free travel to whale tail island. You see, the festival we're holding takes place every year, but not always in the same place. Siwan Shue shui gifted chin village with her beautiful green scale. Apparently, Quincha village just so, happened to produce their phony red scale at the same time. Rather than start a war over which scale was the real one, as Shueishuei's scale was supposed to represent peace, we decided to simply alternate which village would hold the festival each year, with the respective village presenting their scale. I can gather up the suspects that I have some suspicions about as far as having something to do with this case. And you can talk to them one by one in my office, perhaps putting.
Speaker C: A lot of trust in four outsiders you've just met.
Speaker G: M I don't have much choice.
Speaker C: And he holds out his hands to shake, and, you notice that he has black gunk all over his hands, maybe like ink. He looks down at his hand and he sees the ink and he goes, apologies.
Speaker G: That must have happened earlier.
Speaker E: Of the people on this list, how many people do you know have had access to this shard? The scale?
Speaker G: Let's see. There was me, of course, but, I obviously didn't do it. Then you have Councilwoman Lin. Councilman Young has a key to the storage building where we keep the scales during the festival. Of course. There's Cato. He's the guard for the storage building, so of course, he had access to the scale. There's also Mayor Yu. When she and her people of Quinchao village arrived, she and I visited the storage building to place their fake red scale in there. She was accompanied by Councilman Huan, who is her right hand on the council.
Speaker E: So, this morning, when you checked on it, can you recall, exactly what happened?
Speaker G: yes, of course. So, this morning, Councilwoman Lin and I were running around ensuring that everything for the festival was ready when the people of Quinchao village arrived. I met with Mayor Yu and Councilman Huan, who joined myself and lind to the storage facility. Keita was already there keeping guard. He used his key to let us in. Mayor Yu set her fake red scale down on the pedestal next to where we keep the true scale, which was in its case, covered over with a thin cloth, which is part of the reveal. Then the four of us left, and Kato locked the door behind us, and that was that.
Speaker E: Who's to say that, Mr. Squid? Ink? Hands over here. And I point at Wu very unapologetically. Who's to say that this guy didn't take it and put it in, like, an ocean thing. And that's why he had a running with squid. That's why he's got black ink on his hands. Unless you can explain the ink.
Speaker G: Oh, yes, I can absolutely explain that for you. See, earlier, after I met with Mayor Ewan, secured the scales at the storage facility, I realized I had forgotten my scroll with the speech I had prepared for the unveiling ceremony. So I rushed back to my office, and in the process of grabbing it, I knocked over my ink wellen and spilled ink everywhere. That's how it got all over my hands. Wait, may you is gone. Perhaps she has stolen it and is trying to hide it. Quick. Guards, find Mayor Yu and bring her to me promptly. I will be at the storage facility with the detectives.
Speaker E: I think you took it.
Speaker F: That's what he just said.
Speaker E: Oh, that's a double meaning because, yes?
Speaker F: Is this guy's name mayor? Me?
Speaker C: No, his is Wu.
Speaker F: He is me.
Speaker C: And I am. Oh, gosh. No, you did it. No, I didn't. I say, not you. You can do this, Abbott.
Speaker F: All night.
Speaker C: So he takes you guys over to a facility. It's a very basic stone hut. it's a one floor. It's not very big. It's basically just a small storage facility. It has no windows. It just has one door. And it is an iron door with a lock, like a space for a key. you arrive there, and you see mayor Yu is standing there arguing with the guard that is standing there. And you can hear from a distance. She's saying, you don't understand.
Speaker D: I must get inside because I need to check on Quin chow village's scale.
Speaker C: This is when you guys arrive. And, of course, mayor, mayor Wu.
Speaker G: Says the criminal does return to the scene of the crime.
Speaker D: If you must know, I came here to ensure the red scale is still safe, as your storage facility is obviously not as secure as you promised me.
Speaker C: Then, of course, they start bickering.
Speaker E: I guess we're just going to go.
Speaker G: In and, Mr. Cater, if you'd be so kind as to allow us entrance to the facility.
Speaker C: He opens the door, and you guys go inside. inside there's a number of just kind of boxes that are all nailed tight shut, scattered across the room. Some of them have, like, big, heavy blankets over, them. Mayor Wu walks over and he points at it and he says, yes.
Speaker G: So as you can see, atop this pedestal here is where we keep the scale in a glass case. Now the facility is really where the security measures are focused. The glass case does not feature a lock. It's more there to keep the scale from getting dirty and such. Anyways, a white cloth normally sits on top of the glass case and it is removed during the ceremony.
Speaker F: Mr. Mayor because I did actually kind of notice something at one point. I was making my rounds around the storage facility as I do. I was on my 27th round in fact and all of a sudden I heard some weird jingling sound of some kind. but by the time I got over here there was nothing there but I did see something running over into the bushes just past, right over there.
Speaker C: And he kind of points off to the distance, not too far off, maybe like 2020, 30ft.
Speaker F: Like I said, I don't know what it was but he's just somebody wearing black.
Speaker C: It looked like.
Speaker F: Let's take a look at this stone pedestal here. Glow and approach it and look for.
Speaker C: Any hidden panels, compartments you feel around the entire pedestal. You're looking for any obscure divots or anything sort of out of the ordinary and you don't seem to find anything on the pedestal. But as you are checking the sort of the bottom of the pedestal where it touches the ground you do notice a couple of footprints or rather boot prints. Do the shoe prints that were spotted, the heavy set ones, do they lead out the door?
Speaker F: Yes.
Speaker C: Do they lead towards that bush? So you are following these footprints and as you follow them you realize they do lead out towards the bush. Is there anything in the bush? there is nothing that seems to be in the bush except cloth inside that seems to be smudged with some sort of black substance.
Speaker G: Perhaps whoever stole the scale has black.
Speaker E: Residue on their hands.
Speaker G: Mr. Now I can see where your mind is going and the conclusions you are making but again, I assure you I was not the one that stole the scale.
Speaker C: That's what they all say.
Speaker E: I feel we need to see your office. Mr. Wu.
Speaker F: We'll meet the suspects in your office. Yeah, call them all there right now. That's an order.
Speaker G: Okay.
Speaker C: He turns to Cato and he.
Speaker G: Says, kato, since the green scale is no longer here your duty guarding this area is over. Your new order is to go and find these people.
Speaker C: At this very moment you are being led back by Mayor Wu to his office and he has sent Councilwoman Lin to go out, his kind of assistant, second in command to go find the key suspects that he believes could be involved in this case and bring them to his office. So all of you shortly, are led to a fairly ornate, kind of town center style building, that's a little bit taller than all the rest, a little bit more decorative than all the rest of the buildings around it. You're led Inside, and shortly after taking a couple of hallways, find yourselves in some sort of a courtroom.
Speaker G: This is my office, or rather, the council room, which my office is connected to.
Speaker C: As you guys finish, looking around his office and start to step outside, the door flies open to this area, and in walks councilwoman lin.
Speaker D: Keto and I have brought you everyone you requested, sir.
Speaker C: Before you stands a number of people. You have councilwoman Lin. She goes down the line and introduces each of these people to you.
Speaker D: This right here is Ley, and you.
Speaker C: See before you a man. He's wearing very drab, kind of semi ruined clothing. If you were to approach him, he smells very much like seawater. In one hand, he holds a fishing rod. He falls to his knees, and he says, please, I beg of you, please.
Speaker E: Return the great shuei shui scale to us.
Speaker C: Standing next to him is another very well dressed man. He also stands fairly upright.
Speaker E: Yes, apologies. My name is Councilman Young. As a councilman, the act of theft is quite beneath me, so I can't imagine any reason for me to be here at this moment.
Speaker C: Standing next to him is a very stocky man. He wears a sort of a long cloak and skirt, and he has kind of a, leather apron over top, and he wears large leather gloves. He has some black substance kind of on his face. Looks like some kind of ash as well. He's holding a large hammer, but something that would be used more as a tool as opposed to a weapon. Yup.
Speaker H: My name's way. Not really sure why I've been called here to this lineup. I don't even like this old festival. This whole thing is a bunch of baloney, if you ask me.
Speaker C: As he speaks, he kind of motions with his hands, and you can kind of hear a number of things jingle on his body. As you see, he's got a number of pieces of metal or keys or et cetera, kind of just strapped to him in different places. Obviously, you have Mayor Yu. Not too far away from her, you see another very stiff looking man, standing, very forthright.
Speaker F: Yes, the name's Juan. Councilman Juan, that is. Needless to say, I'm absolutely furious about the proceedings and handlings of today, and I feel as though we need to all be more concerned about the red scale as it is real.
Speaker C: next to him, you see a small, old crookedy man who is shoving some pie into his face. And when he notices that you look at him, he quickly hides the pie into his cloak, and he pulls out a small bag of crackers and starts munching on those instead.
Speaker H: What are you looking at?
Speaker F: Where even am I?
Speaker C: Ah, finally, the last character in front of you. He is a very well dressed, kind of plump man. he's starting to get some balding on the middle kind of. Of his head.
Speaker G: Well, hello. My name is Nia. I am a traveling salesman from the village of Qin sho. I would like to establish that I must be innocent, as the scales which are represented by both villages are my primary source of income.
Speaker C: You are free to ask any questions that you might have or make any observations that I can maybe give some hints to.
Speaker E: I got some questions for Mr. Wei.
Speaker H: Yeah.
Speaker E: I saunter up to the man.
Speaker F: He looks up, at you, and.
Speaker C: He puffs out his chest.
Speaker H: He says, what do you want from me, big boy?
Speaker E: I was about to ask, are you a blacksmith?
Speaker H: Yeah, I make all sorts of things. Weapons, tools, doors, door locks.
Speaker E: So you don't seem too into, this whole festival here, sir.
Speaker H: No, but I don't like it. It's a bunch of hullabaloo. It's a bunch of lies to make money off of the people.
Speaker E: I see. So, during all these festivities, was anybody coming into your shop, or is.
Speaker C: It just kind, of a slow day for you here today?
Speaker H: Well, I, typically use the festival day as a sort of catch up day where I can finish up a bunch of the orders I've got on my list without getting any new orders in throughout the day.
Speaker E: Nobody really saw you until just now. Is that a fair assessment, sir?
Speaker H: I suppose that's a fair assessment.
Speaker E: You seem to have, some disdain towards the scale here, sir.
Speaker H: Oh, yeah. That scale is a big old phony, though.
Speaker E: Which one's the real one?
Speaker H: Neither of them is real. They're both fake.
Speaker C: And to this mayor, Yu and Wu both Go.
Speaker F: The audacity.
Speaker E: So, anybody else want to take a.
Speaker C: Crack at this interrogation? Hey, you and I point over at the guy sobbing in ash. Do you know. Do you have a boat? Yeah, I've got a boat. You know how to sail it? Yeah.
Speaker E: How many can it fit? It can hold about four people in it.
Speaker C: We just need you to take the. What is it called?
Speaker F: Whale.
Speaker E: Whaletail island.
Speaker C: Whaletail island. I will happily provide passage to and from Whaletail island to anyone that can.
Speaker F: Return the lost scale to our village. Mayor Wu.
Speaker G: Yes?
Speaker F: I need something from you.
Speaker G: Okay.
Speaker F: I need you to send somebody to the kitchen and bring back a jar of cinnamon.
Speaker G: Okay.
Speaker F: And a glass of milk.
Speaker C: Councilman, young rushes off, to go get the things, and a couple moments later, he returns.
Speaker F: Thank you. And I drink the glass of milk. Oh, man, that pie made me thirsty. And then I go over to Cato. Kato. Oh, yeah. Come confer with me. You heard a coughing at some, Oh, yeah, yeah, I think I did.
Speaker C: there's a little bit. That's what alerted me. And then I came running over and.
Speaker F: You heard a jingling?
Speaker C: Oh, yeah, lots of jingling.
Speaker F: I go over to the first person in line to, Lee. I scoop a big thing of cinnamon. Open wide. Yeah. Ah. I stick the spoon down his throat. I look to Cato, and he coughs. What do you, didn't, really sound like that. That was a bit too much phlegm in that one.
Speaker E: So we need four spoons to sort of expedite the cough test.
Speaker F: Oh, man. We're gonna need your first three favorite spoons.
Speaker E: So can we kind of just line them all up and just at the same time just shove spoons of cinnamon into their mouth?
Speaker C: You wanted, wei the blacksmith.
Speaker E: You wanted councilman young.
Speaker C: Councilman young, Mayor Wu. The three of you stand across from four individuals. You prepare four spoonfuls of cinnamon. You stick it into mayor Wu's mouth, and you, councilman Young goes.
Speaker F: Wei goes, all right, I'm gonna need some jumping jacks.
Speaker E: But everybody else get a jumping.
Speaker C: Mayor Wu, he seems to have some keys on his person. councilman Young also has keys on his belt similar in number. Of course, Kato wearing some fairly heavy armor and having some weaponry.
Speaker F: Oh, jeez, I'm really jingling.
Speaker C: Wei the blacksmith, he also has a copious amount of jingling. And Kato looks over at him and.
Speaker F: He goes, man, you're jingling about as much as I am.
Speaker C: Mayor Yu, the other, also, she has a variety of jewelry on her person. so she jingles a little bit. It's a very light jingling. and then naya the merchant, he, too, jingles quite a bit when he jumping jacks. And that's about it. Everybody else seems to be fairly just cloth movement.
Speaker E: Can we just have the guard shake down all of these people simultaneously? This hurts my brain. Can I try earth bending in a way that sort of shakes everybody down at the same time.
Speaker C: You stomp the ground and twist your foot, which causes the sand or stone underneath their feet to sort of become coarse and then quickly resolidify, sealing their feet into the floor. And then as they start to kind of panic a little bit, you slam your other foot down, which raises a platform into the air and immediately twists in such a way that cause. Or you use your arms to kind of twist it in such a way so that they're all sort of upside down to some extent. No scales fall out?
Speaker F: No.
Speaker G: Excuse me, Mr. Brock. This investigation is turning into torture.
Speaker C: You shake and you shake and you shake, and they're all crying out in anger and some fear, and many.
Speaker F: Put me down.
Speaker C: A voice cries out, all right, it was me.
Speaker H: Please, I did it. Just put me down.
Speaker C: You look and you see way the blacksmith called it.
Speaker H: That's right. I did it. I had to show the people that he wasn't real.
Speaker C: And he reaches into a hidden pouch inside of his apron, and he swings his arm down, and he throws the scale at the ground with all the force he can muster. As the, scale hits the ground, fragments start to break off and shatter in every direction as it starts to almost disintegrate upon touching the hard floor. And everybody's just frozen, stunned.
Speaker E: We found your scale.
Speaker F: You're welcome.
Speaker C: See you later. And Mary Yu finally speaks up, and.
Speaker D: She says, I knew it. Their scale was fake. No scale from a spirit beast would possibly shatter in such a way. It's obviously a glass replica. I knew it.
Speaker H: Oh, yeah, that scale is a big old phony. Neither of them is real.
Speaker F: Well, then I guess we'll just have to test that.
Speaker C: So they're headed to the ball. So the people from Chin Village are.
Speaker F: Like, let's go see the scale. Let's go destroy the scale.
Speaker C: You guys are following as this mob sort of makes its way to the facility. You just see this group of angry people walk out of the facility carrying the glass casing that has the red scale inside of it. And they seem to be starting to make their way towards the town square. And eventually they make it to the town square. And Mayor Wu stands up in front of him, and he says, people of.
Speaker G: Qin and quing Chao village alike, I'd like to garnish your attention for the moment. We've decided as a group that we are going to test the reality of the red scale once and for all.
Speaker C: And he just chucks it straight at the ground.
Speaker F: And mayor, you screams out, no.
Speaker C: As it falls and shatters onto the ground. And everyone goes.
Speaker H: And now we know that both the scales were fake and these two.
Speaker C: And he points at both the mayors.
Speaker H: One of the perpetrators of the whole thing. They've been lying to you good folks all this time. So now I ask all of you, what are we going to do about it?
Speaker C: You see, the two mayors are whispering to each other at the moment, and they step forward and they say, congratulations.
Speaker G: Yes. You solved the mystery of the fake scales. Yes, that's it. we've had this contest going for years, unbeknownst to all of you. Be sure enough, these strangers, and of course, way, was also involved in solving the mystery. Well done to all of you. You've won the contest. Yes, and next year, we're going to do it all again. But we will switch it up, make it a new mystery. That way it keeps things fresh every year.
Speaker C: But what about Shui Shuei?
Speaker G: Ah, yes, well, Shue shue will always be there watching over us, whether or not we have her scales.
Speaker C: Oh, okay.
Speaker F: Paray shui shuei.
Speaker C: And you watch as the festivities kind of start to go back to normal a little bit.
Speaker D: Well, that was a bit awkward, to say the least. I suppose things are in order. Well done in solving the mystery. I'm sure we can get someone to get you over to Whaletail island right away. Lei, would you mind taking these wonderful folks to Whaletail island?
Speaker C: Oh, yes, of course.
Speaker D: Thank you very.
Speaker F: Right.
Speaker C: and eventually, you push your way through that crowd and you find yourself at, the docks. And with that, you guys take off into the waters towards the island in the distance that you know is Whaletail island. As you guys are approaching, the waves kind of hitting against your boat. As you guys make your way towards this island, and it gets larger and larger as it comes closer and closer to you. You can see in the distance, kind of off on the left coast of this island. there seems to be a flagpole that outcrops from a sailing vessel. you're a little bit more towards the right section of this island's coast, so you're not going to collide with this pirate ship or land where the pirates may be set up. But you do assume that there are pirates that are actively on this island. After a few moments, you eventually do near the sandy beaches of whaletail island, or at least the sandy beaches where you're landing. It's got a very pirate y cove kind of a feel to it, right? And looking at your map, you're able to see where it is that you have landed on the map and where you need to go next. So Bill, I guess, starts leading the way. Stuff looks familiar. a little bit. I mean, obviously, it's a bit more overgrown. You're in a bit of a different area than where you remember. And you look at the map and some of the maybe rock formations or some of the details on the map, you're like, oh, I think that's where we originally landed at. Is the x near, like, the coast? No, it's actually kind of, like, north of the middle of the island. And from what it looks like, the x is there in the forest. So what I'm suggesting we do is.
Speaker E: Just walk around the outside of the.
Speaker F: Coast so we don't have to go.
Speaker C: Through the middle, run into any pirates we don't need to mess with. Know, even though I was a great pirate, they probably remember me for how great I was.
Speaker F: Pirate? Wait, you were a pirate? Yeah.
Speaker C: Well, for, like, a day or.
Speaker E: Yeah.
Speaker F: Oh. Sweet. Yeah.
Speaker C: And my name is definitely Bill Dore, so don't question that again.
Speaker A: The more you say that, the less I believe you.
Speaker C: Okay, fine.
Speaker F: You want to know my real name? Okay.
Speaker C: It's Ash. Okay. My real name's Ash. Thank you. I prefer Bill. Following the map, you eventually find yourself near, a cave. You enter into the inside of the cave and discover a large chamber with a massive hole in the center of the ceiling where sunlight enters through at the top. The cave is large and has giant gem like stalagmites which refract the light that comes in through the top of this cave, across the entire cavern. Although it's incredibly beautiful, to add to this beauty, there are plants that have sprung up thanks to this light, this sunlight that's able to get inside of this cave all throughout the cave, crawling up the sides of the rocky walls, as well as filling the entire floor with various foliage. that seems to almost be organized in a really interesting way.
Speaker F: And what are all these bushes here? take a closer look as you.
Speaker C: Kind of lean down towards it. So you recognize a lot of these plants that are in here, as stuff that Mr. Okaran used in the blissful brew tea shop. I think we just start sniffing till.
Speaker F: We find some mint. Oh, yeah, guys, just follow our nose.
Speaker C: Guo, you and Bill both manage to sniff your way over to the mint. And sure enough, as you approach it, you can see a small corner of what looks like a wooden box. Seems to be peeking out from the mint leaves. you open it, up and inside, you find a small stone tablet that seems to feature a map like drawing on it. But when you look at the edges of this tablet, you feel as though maybe it's been broken and there might be more pieces to it. Additionally, you find a small letter on the back of this letter. It says, to Bill. And then there's another letter that's folded similarly with a stamp on it. and this one says, to Guao. And that's everything that's in the box. Bill's reading it himself, sentimentally first, and then he's going to read it to everyone.
Speaker A: Well, I'm salty. I only got a box for apparently my fox.
Speaker E: Where's your fox dog business?
Speaker C: There's something hidden.
Speaker A: Follows me around everywhere.
Speaker E: You ever figure out his name?
Speaker C: Po guao has his own letter. did you want me to read it?
Speaker F: Yeah. Guao, you're up next, my friend. When we first met, you were still working for the carnival. I know that we all have things in life we look back on and despise or wish never happened to us. But always remember that those experiences are there to strengthen us.
Speaker C: And the fact that we push on.
Speaker F: Shows that we are stronger than the things that try to hold us back. Never let anyone or anything hold you back. Lo. The coming quest of this hunt will rely heavily on you, my boy. But don't think that doesn't mean you won't need your friends. I have three instructions for you. One, look down to the bottom for your next destination.
Speaker C: Two, read between the lines and seek.
Speaker F: Out an old friend of mine. And three, remember the tune. You'll need it again soon. Pull some strings to hear the music ring.
Speaker C: There are a series of letters, kind of randomly throughout your letter that are written in a red ink. Mmayuyiny. And U.
Speaker E: Bill clears his voice to read the letter.
Speaker F: And well done, Bill. I knew you'd remember our first encounter. I'm a man who never forgets his tease. In this box, you will find a piece of the map that, when placed alongside the rest of the pieces, will allow you to find the will that I have left behind. Also, once you do find the will, and I know you will, and take the tea shop for yourselves, remember this cave. I encourage you to make good use of it. And always remember two things. Treat nature with nurture and kindness, and it will show you thanks. And always make sure to invest in the long term rather than make single use of your efforts.
Speaker C: Mika, you are holding the box that was given to you because people thought that was the only thing that was left from Mr. Okuron. You notice a, small, sort of, like, extrusion at the bottom of the box, that causes your fox dog to get uncomfortable and unable to sit in the box because it's kind of poking it a little bit. So it climbs out, and you see that there's a small metal, sort of insignia at the bottom of it. The small metal thing in the box seems to be one of those, like, made in whatever. And it reads made in Yudao, which is a small city that you know of that's in the earth kingdom. the second thing that you notice as you're bringing it over here is you can feel something on the side of the box that seems to kind of protrude ever so slightly. And there's sort of like a pull string, almost obviously.
Speaker A: okay.
Speaker C: You pull it and you hear a small melody. Does ring familiar to something you remember hearing back in the day and even playing on occasion back in the day when you were in the circus. Kind of a common circus tune.
Speaker F: It's the ticket sales theme.
Speaker C: How long were you in a carnival for?
Speaker F: All my life. Basically, my parents sold me to this carnival, so I just had to do whatever they told me. Guys, looks like we're going to Udao.
Speaker E: We're on Whaletail island. That's at the very bottom of the map. Udao is in the earth kingdom, you said?
Speaker F: Yes. Think we're supposed to meet somebody there.
Speaker C: Mayu.
Speaker E: Yinyu.
Speaker C: You hear a voice from behind you at the entrance of the cave.
Speaker F: A bunch of kids just chilling in a cave on my island.
Speaker C: And as you turn around, you see a large group of pirates all blocking the entrance to the cave, staring at you.
Speaker E: Should have kept moving and not trauma dumped. This wouldn't have happened.
Speaker C: They have captured you, and they are taking you back to their ship. They take you aboard, and they tie you up, just kind of binding your hands and your legs and then kind of letting you sit down on the ship. the captain starts to pace back and forth in front of you, and he says, you kids, you thought you.
Speaker F: Could hide your secret about the treasure.
Speaker C: From us, but what you didn't realize was that calconi. And he points at one of the crewmates. He's a very well dressed. He is like frilly clothes on. You almost could wonder, out of game that he probably belonged to Prince's, like, band.
Speaker F: yes. Calconi was in chin village, and he.
Speaker C: Noticed your whole escapade and overheard some conversations about a, secret hidden treasure you guys are headed towards.
Speaker F: Well, we believe it's possible we're supposed to go to Udao. Load up. Get ready to sail. We are headed to Udao.
Speaker C: Once you guys are on the water, he looks around, he says, all right.
Speaker F: First of all, for the business of what kind of benders are you? Got to know that before we get any further, it's important.
Speaker C: But if you give me an answer I like, I'll, untie you.
Speaker F: Untie the lot. If they're just a bunch of earthbenders.
Speaker C: And non benders, they're not gonna cause us any trouble out here on the sea.
Speaker F: That does mean we can put them to work. Alright, break.
Speaker D: Go.
Speaker F: Get to work. Hey, what, what's your name?
Speaker C: My name is Captain Rockfoot. I'll tell you the story.
Speaker F: Once, not too long, ago, I used to be known as Captain Luckyfoot, but then we were attacked by a, ah, creature straight from the depths of hell. We call it Kuma. The gator shark leapt onto our boat, bit off milucky leg and jumped right back into the waters to feast on it.
Speaker C: All right, so with that, you eventually finish your meal, you bring it upstairs and the entire crew kind of collects around this big old pot of food that you guys have prepared. and everybody kind of starts to spoon out bowls of this delicious stew and you guys all are called over. The captain seems to allow you guys to eat with the crew. the captain occasionally will shout, like.
Speaker F: Well, we're already on our way, so what's the point? And stop it now.
Speaker C: And then he'll say, I don't think.
Speaker F: That there is much of a treasure for us to hide at the animal.
Speaker C: They seem pretty questionable. all of a sudden, you hear another character, somebody that you haven't met yet, he's a bit younger, you might have at least seen him, but you haven't talked to him or whatever the case, he shouts out, captain.
Speaker F: Captain, I see it. It's here.
Speaker C: And the captain immediately just freezes and he turns his head and he says, you see what, zazu? He says, it's the beast. All of a sudden, it leaps from the waves and you see this massive, hulking gator shark fly through the air, over the hole of the ship and back into the water on the other side. And the captain shouts out, it's him.
Speaker F: It's Kuma. Everybody to your stations. Kill that gator shark. let's call you interns, I don't know, find a place on the ship where you can help.
Speaker C: All things considered, helping the crew in this moment is probably with your best interest, because the last thing you want to do is end up in the water with that thing.
Speaker E: Can I grab some harpoons, and then go down to the cannons.
Speaker C: So, you grab two harpoons. They're fairly heavy, so you grab one in each hand, and you kind of take off running down to the ship's, core.
Speaker F: Whoa. Grabs his mop, looks down at it and tosses it aside and goes. And grabs a bow and arrow.
Speaker E: Bill, door.
Speaker C: What are you doing?
Speaker F: Harpoon.
Speaker C: You're grabbing yourself a harpoon, getting ready, because it's like a bow step, pointy at.
Speaker A: All right, Mika, I am going to run to the, front of the ship, okay. And just stand there for a moment.
Speaker C: Brock, you're running down to the cannons with the harpoons. What are you doing?
Speaker E: Can I load the harpoons into the cannon? That was the worst that could happen, right?
Speaker C: So downstairs, you run into a young guy up front. His name is Zazu. Based on the context clues you received from the captain shouting back at him. he's a younger man. he's wearing, like, a fire nation headband on his head. His hair is kind of spiked up. He's got black powder, like, all over his face and hands. And his clothes are pretty dirty. He's like, oh, hey, how's it going? Are you helping me with the cannons?
Speaker E: Yeah, I'm down here to help with the cannons.
Speaker F: All right, so cannons are loaded.
Speaker C: They're ready to go. We just got to get this thing just right. We got to make sure that we hit him. Okay. So you load up. There's a cannon already in there, but you just jam one of those harpoons into the cannon, hoping for the best harpoon that you jammed in. He is also impaired, as he now has a harpoon jammed into his side. the cannonball fires out and slams into the water, causing a massive sort of explosion, and it causes the gator shark to go flying into the air, for guao. And, well, actually, all the other three of you, you can see this happen. You see this giant gator shark fly up into the air. You are going to be doing your bow and arrow. So your arrow flies out with key accuracy, slams into the shoulder of the beast, which goes, very angry. Bill, you are also advanced in attacking. You see Guao successfully shoot an arrow at this beast flying through the air, and you feel like you should be equally, if not more capable than Guao to hit this beast. So you focus for a moment. You curl that out, sort of to prove to yourself and to prove to everybody else that you are capable. This harpoon flies through the air, slamming into the beast, hitting him. in sort of the ribs area. Mika, what are you up to over at the front of the boat?
Speaker A: I'm invasion observing who's around me, I.
Speaker C: Guess, currently around you. you see an earthbending woman. She is holding a harpoon. She's kind of probably in like, her late 40s. she's wearing sort of the green garb that a lot of earthbenders seem to, wear.
Speaker A: I will help the lady.
Speaker C: What do you say to this woman as she's getting ready to hurl this harpoon towards this creature?
Speaker A: You're so awesome.
Speaker C: and she looks over at you and she says, well, thank you, and she turns back to what she's doing, her hand, and you could see like a little smirk in her face.
Speaker F: And she pulls back, far back and.
Speaker C: Hurls this thing towards the creature, which is swimming towards the boat at this point, and he's already landed back into the water. And you m see it go into the giant fin that comes out of the water with that, you've kind of created or gone an entire round with, this creature, who now swims underneath the boat, and you can feel the entire ship move as it does. So he is going to, simply dive under the water. You don't see him, and when he comes back up, it looks like he has ripped out all the arrows and harpoons that were stuck inside of him.
Speaker E: Could I do a defensive maneuver of.
Speaker C: Putting down a defensive net?
Speaker F: Net is an option, but we need more firepower. Time to pull out all the sacks.
Speaker C: All right, well, everyone's pretty dang distracted right now, so nobody's stopping you from running to the captain's quarters and bursting through the unlocked doors. You look around the room, you see a number of different things. There's a wardrobe, there's a bed, obviously, which of course, some, you think maybe some things could be stored under the bed. You're not sure. And then there is a chest. Like a large, almost treasure chest esque looking chest.
Speaker F: Whoa. Opens the wardrobe and picks out a funny hat to wear. I picked the one with the biggest, floppiest feather. And then I open the chest.
Speaker C: Actually, you do see a sack of something. It's kind of heavy. It feels like maybe there's like some kind of sand or something inside of there. But you grab that sack of earth and you rush on out of there. It's like a medium sized sack full of dirt and rock and gravel and so on. This is mostly small rock, but I mean, with earth bending abilities, you have a lot of leeway with that, and.
Speaker F: I run back towards the battle.
Speaker C: A sack and a hat. The captain's going to be pissed. All right, so everybody else was doing advance and attack. I'm going to make a loud yelling noise, and he's going to get real scared. So I'm assuming you're throwing the net first before you scare it away. I orders the office, loud noises that scare him into my net. He is now unable. You make some loud noises and having being trapped, he's freaking out, he's panicking.
Speaker E: In that case, I will fire the cannon. So you do.
Speaker C: So, ball again shoots out of this cannon, slams into the water, knocking it up in the air, preceded by a harpoon that goes flying and jams itself into the netted creature. everybody else watches as this netted monster comes flying out of the water, flailing about, trying to claw its way out of this net. Mika.
Speaker A: Hey, dude, give me your bow, okay?
Speaker F: Please.
Speaker C: I have no idea what I'm doing.
Speaker A: Okay, why don't you go, like, sit in the back of the boat or something?
Speaker C: As, you're readying this bow, the woman next to you, you feel a reassuring hand on your shoulder. She says, you caught this last fire away. And your arrow flies straight into the netted mess that is this gator shark. sinking into its form, it untangles itself, causing even more exhaustion, on itself. And then it quickly turns and starts swimming intensely towards the boat. And he slams into the side of the ship, causing a massive hole to open up inside the hole. Everybody begins to panic as they're thrown about on the ship. in every which way, the captain has the wheel, he's trying to steer it, sort of maneuvering around, but also staying within range of the shark, the gator shark. And, yeah, try to keep it so that people can fire at it and do whatnot. Brock, go ahead.
Speaker E: Where is this guy?
Speaker F: Right, okay.
Speaker C: Yeah, so he slammed into the boat, and then now he's swimming away. It looks like he might be gearing up to do another one.
Speaker E: So I grab the harpoon and leap off the boat.
Speaker C: Everybody freezes. You fall through the air and land right on the nape.
Speaker E: Yes. So I'm on there.
Speaker F: So what's the deal with this grappling harpoon?
Speaker C: Like a harpoon gun with a rope attached to it, and it is at the back end of the boat.
Speaker F: So I go up to the guy who's on it and I say, you're taking too long. let a guy with a fancy hat take over. Yeah, I'll try to shoot it at the beast.
Speaker C: Okay, Mika, you were going to also do advanced attack, right?
Speaker A: I was going to use my water bending skills, squeezing like a python as.
Speaker C: You stretch out your hands to try to control the water. It's just too strong of a current for you to be able to kind of control this much water. You, find it difficult to sort of get a hold on it, which works out in your favor in the sense that this lady doesn't seem to know what you're doing. She's actually a little bit confused because she doesn't see any water, really, like, getting moved around in an unnatural way. She's not going to suspect that you are a waterbender. So, once again, the gator shark is going to swim towards the boat and slam into it. Everybody is shaking again. Rock is having a time of his life right now. He is broccoli standing on top of the very beast you all are trying to, destroy.
Speaker E: Well, first I will strike. The way I want to strike is I will take the two harpoons, I will excalibur them into his neck, and then kind of jump on him to make sure that they're, like, they're really.
Speaker F: In there, really deep in there.
Speaker C: All right. You're snapping off the tips of the harpoons inside of the monster. Her. So it can't just rip the harpoon out. Moving on to Guo. You have the grappling spear gun.
Speaker F: I, don't want to hit brock. Let's see. I aim for the tail, but sure.
Speaker C: Enough, Guo's aim is true and slices right into the tail, piercing straight through and sort of like grabbing on the other side because harpoons kind of have that protrusion. so it is, like, sufficiently grabbed. You can see the rope that leads all the way back over to the ship. you have essentially lassooed, this beast.
Speaker E: Guo.
Speaker F: Yeah. Guo's gonna try to start reeling bad boy in.
Speaker C: Bill, you got a harpoon in hand. You hurl that harpoon towards the beast, it flies true. Mika, you've got your bow and arrow in hand, or your bow in hand. At the arrow, at the ready, firing it in. You could fire two arrows if you want. I'd be down with that.
Speaker A: Obviously, two of them at the same time.
Speaker C: You take a second arrow, and your earthbending friend is standing next to you, and she says, oh, you're pretty confident, I see. And you fire both arrows, both of them flying towards the gator shark. Brock, you quickly dodge, diving behind the, fin that sticks out of the water, both of them right where you were standing moments ago. It comes down to the gator shark's turn. But as, you hold on, it thrashes in the water a couple of times, and it just pulls against the rope that's jammed into its tail, and it finally just gives up.
Speaker F: Captain. Captain. We got him. We caught him.
Speaker C: And, everybody starts to cheer, and they're excited as they see this, the non moving creature. And sure enough, they pull it onto the ship. They lay it out before you. It's this massive, massive, hulking creature. The captain pushes his way through the crowd, and he looks at it, and.
Speaker F: He, well, look who got theirs.
Speaker B: So after waking up the next morning, the ship approaches the city of Yudao and begins pulling into the docks, where they plan to leave the ship and our gang, along with a group of pirates led by the captain, who will follow them ashore and continue to seek.
Speaker C: Out the alleged treasure.
Speaker B: Of course, our heroes don't want these tag alongs. And so they decide to leap off the rear of the ship into the waters below and swim themselves the short distance to the wooden ship docks awaiting for him.
Speaker C: All of you manage to reach the docks. You pull yourself up out of the water. there's an old fisherman looking dude, but not so much old. I don't know, maybe middle aged, just, kind of sitting there fishing. He's looking at all of you as you pull yourself up from the dock, and he just goes, oh, I never.
Speaker F: Seen fish like you before.
Speaker C: Terrified, clutches his bucket of fish and jumps into the water. So you guys quickly find the square, per se, the big bustling area. One thing that you start to notice is that, there's definitely become a very heavy fire nation population in the area. You, see fire nation guards, you see businessmen and businesswomen wearing fire nation. The red garb with the little flame insignia on them. It seems like a normal city. Everybody seems, for the most part, happy.
Speaker F: Yeah. Is there any other tea shops or herbal ingredient shop?
Speaker C: And then you kind of come around to the front of it, and the sign above the door reads, hot leaf juice company. But whatever the case, you approach the front counter, or maybe one of the servers. Anyone in particular?
Speaker E: What about an old person who's drinking tea?
Speaker C: Sure, there's plenty of those there.
Speaker E: Any of them playing pie show?
Speaker C: sherp?
Speaker F: Yeah, Bill.
Speaker E: Go insert yourself into their pie show conversation. You do this all the time with old timers. So I'm gonna walk over to some older earth people, and, I'm going.
Speaker C: To examine the board, as I walk up to it, you walk up and you say, close game. And both of them pause, holding the first piece that they have to put on. And they look at you and they're.
Speaker F: Like, I guess it could be.
Speaker C: What you make it. I mean, since two seasoned pie show players like yourselves, it's going to be a close game.
Speaker F: My name's Gray, and this is my associate foe.
Speaker C: And both of them kind of motion for you to sit with them, and.
Speaker F: They'Re like, so you're knowledgeable, about the game. Would you like to sit and watch us play?
Speaker C: I can't stay long.
Speaker E: We're here looking for someone.
Speaker F: Who are you looking for? My yu. Yin yu.
Speaker C: And as you say that name, the pieces just kind of slide out of their hands, and they both have kind of these gaping open mouths, and they quickly look around, and they kind of lean in, and they say, I don't.
Speaker F: Know where you're from, but it is not wise to shout the name Mayu Yinyu when the Fire Nation is around. Why? You're asking about him, but you don't even know him.
Speaker C: Well, I was sent to talk to him.
Speaker F: By who?
Speaker E: his name was Okaron.
Speaker C: And one of them is like, okaron.
Speaker F: I think I remember Okaron. He was the traveling team merchant Grey. Oh, you're right. Foe he was. Oh, he was a very nice man. He played pie show with us. If you're an associate of Mr. Ogron, then there's no reason not to help you. he's a good man, and I believe he's close friends with Mayu. I believe he mentioned something about him performing at some event he was doing or something like that. But, it's fairly important that you not speak that name loudly or much at all in public. He is, an entertainer, of sorts. But he's also a leading member of the local rescue team squadron here in Udao.
Speaker E: rescue from what?
Speaker F: Look around you. Can't you tell?
Speaker E: I see fire nation.
Speaker F: They've come in, as ambassadors. They've started to integrate into the politics. They started enacting certain rules and laws that befit their purposes and their ideas, and, they're starting to kind of push us earth nation citizens out.
Speaker E: So what is the rescue squad doing?
Speaker F: Well, they're trying to stop them. If you are searching for mayu yinyu, mayu yinyu will find you. Try the performance hall.
Speaker C: Thank you, gentlemen.
Speaker E: And Bill's going to stand up from his seat and reach to give them.
Speaker C: Both a handshake, they shake your hand and then, just before you let go of foe's hand, he pulls you closer.
Speaker F: He's like, bill, be careful. Fire nation is always listening.
Speaker C: So you guys head out, and you kind of just start making your way down the dirt pathway. In the distance, you can see a very ornate, beautiful building. There are large fabric outdoor curtains that kind of hang from the various windows and such. It's a very classy building. There's a wall that kind of goes around it. It's not super high, maybe like 8ft or so. Inside you can see there's some greenery that's very well kept. definitely feels like a very classy place.
Speaker E: We're sopping wet still, probably for sopping wet teenagers.
Speaker C: You guys approach, there's a back entrance and it's sort of like a stage left exit kind of a thing. It's got sort of like, some kind of a sign on it that says actors only. So you guys step through this side door and you guys find yourself on the sort of back stage. You can hear a woman is on stage at this very moment and she seems to be singing in a very high sort of opera esque voice. It's not a performance. It's not like a big show at the moment. It's probably somebody rehearsing.
Speaker E: Is there anybody else backstage or is she the only person here?
Speaker C: Yes, actually, there is somebody else backstage. There's somebody, holding a clipboard. And right now they don't notice you because they are very intently going through the names. And it's kind of dark back here, but you can see just past them. It seems like there's a line of other people that has begun sort of behind other women, some young, some old, all dressed in sort of, dressy kimonos.
Speaker E: So this is like an audition of sort. So, Mika, you can go in that line. Blend in.
Speaker A: I'm literally soaking wet. These ladies are in beautiful kimonos.
Speaker E: Yeah, that's your stick.
Speaker A: I'll just use my water bending skills.
Speaker E: Pull the water off yourself and get in line.
Speaker C: All right, so as you guys are walking towards it, this man turns around. he's kind of an older guy. He's got kind of a long goatee that hasn't quite started to gray yet. But the wrinkles around his eyes and his cheekbones kind of protruding, definitely suggests age and sort of frailty. As you guys walk to the back of the line, you get some looks of disdain from the various women that are lined up.
Speaker E: So you are auditioning?
Speaker A: You guys told me to.
Speaker C: Do you actually get in line? Are you dry at this point?
Speaker A: Yes.
Speaker C: She dried herself.
Speaker E: While we're walking the rocks that Brock has, could I bend them into the shape of a clipboard? Because you can get anywhere with a clipboard.
Speaker C: So you guys find the green room, and sure enough, there are a number of snacks and drinks in here. And there is one person sitting in there. It's just a young woman. she's not dressed in a kimono. She's dressed in just kind of casual clothes. She has her hair up in a ponytail. she has big rimmed glasses on, and she also is holding a clipboard. And she kind of looks up as she sees the three of you walk in, and she goes, oh, are you here for the job?
Speaker E: Since I have my official clipboard, I.
Speaker C: Could just be like, oh, I was.
Speaker E: Just escorting these guys here. And then, can I keep looking around?
Speaker F: you could do that. Absolutely.
Speaker C: On that, yes. So she believes that you are somebody important. she says, ah, have you always worked here?
Speaker E: I'm kind of new around here, but they put me on here, and these guys came and found me and said they were looking around for you, so I just came and dropped them off. I just started working in the acquisitions department, where we're looking for, all those new actors and such.
Speaker C: Oh, well, then you and I will probably be working quite closely together.
Speaker E: Yeah, it appears that way.
Speaker F: Yeah.
Speaker E: I'll see you around.
Speaker C: I'll see you around too. And she just kind of blushes, and she just watches as you lead off, and then she just kind of looks at her clipboard. Who's in? Oh, in charge. Well, it's a little bit up in the air right now. previously, it was, an individual. You may have heard of him. His name was Mayu Yinyu. but he is since. How do I say this? gone into some activities the theater doesn't necessarily want to directly support, but he's no longer involved. Brock, are you just, like, waiting outside?
Speaker E: I think I've just kind of been wandering around looking for Mayu yinyu.
Speaker C: There's dust around what looks like a perfect shape of a picture frame in certain spots. And then, of course, the wall behind where this picture frame would have sat is, like, completely clean. So, yeah, just to, imply that the artwork has since been removed, probably of my.
Speaker E: Can I go back into that interview room?
Speaker C: You step inside, and, actually, she's standing right there by the door. She was kind of, like, walking out just as you walked in and you both bump into each other. Her glasses fall off onto the ground.
Speaker E: Can I reach down and grab it with her? Like the rom coms, both your hands.
Speaker C: Touch each other as you both reach for her glasses.
Speaker E: So what happened to Mr. Yinyu last? He was one who sent me out.
Speaker C: he announced that during a performance, he sang a piece that alluded to the idea that he was involved in a sort of rebel organization here in the city. And apparently there were some leading individuals from the Fire nation here, and, they kind of picked up on his subtle message and they were not happy. he disappeared after that. He went into hiding, I guess. The Fire nation has a very large prison structure that they've actually built. Kind of on the outskirts of town, actually.
Speaker E: Oh, what's your name?
Speaker C: my name's Sonuma.
Speaker E: Sonuma, okay. I'm Brock. Nice to meet you.
Speaker C: Meanwhile, all this is happening. Mika, it's finally your turn.
Speaker A: I kind of stumble out on the stage and then strat to the middle.
Speaker C: You see a very rotund, man and woman both sitting out there. they both look at you intently.
Speaker F: And the woman says, well, go on. What will you be performing for us today?
Speaker A: I'm going to do an interpretive dance. Yeah. And I just kind of look at them like, are you going to play something?
Speaker F: Do you have anything specific?
Speaker A: Literally anything? I'm just going to move my body, like, different watery ways.
Speaker C: Okay. Very water tribe. You're starting to get out of breath, but you're committing to this dance. And it is interpretive. They are absolutely flabbergasted as they watch, as you do these wave motions to the point where you seem like you are water. And they see these, the clothing that you're wearing. It's not the fancy kimonos that the.
Speaker F: Other girls were wearing.
Speaker C: It's something that really suggests water tribe. And so they're seeing this pairing of the attire mixed with the cultural forms that waterbenders use. And they're astonished.
Speaker F: It was beautiful.
Speaker C: they clap and they say that.
Speaker F: But was quite impressive. I've never seen anything like that. Where in the world did you come from? Where did you learn to dance in such a way?
Speaker A: I'm just very in tune with the water.
Speaker F: You absolutely are. Please. Yes.
Speaker C: All of a sudden, as they're getting excited and everything like that, an owl cat flies into the theater and swoops down low just past the heads of this man and woman that are congratulating you. The, creature sort of flies low, and you notice a small piece of paper fall from one of its talons.
Speaker A: I'll grab that.
Speaker C: You catch this piece of paper. At the moment, with everybody swinging and the craziness going on, it doesn't quite feel like the time to read it.
Speaker A: I was pretty proud of myself and more happier than I have in the last couple days.
Speaker E: Did you get the job?
Speaker A: Did I get the job? Is that even a question? Obviously, Brock, I got the job. Oh, wait, guys. I also got a note. This weird, like, outcast thing just came swooping in and dropped something, and I picked it up.
Speaker C: So you open up the note, and you're surprised at the amount of writing that's on it? It's in very fine print, but it's also very well written, and it reads. So you want to speak to Mayu? Unfortunately, we, the udao faction of the rescue team squadron, will need to see proof that you're not a fire nation spy by hitting them where it hurts in a way that no fire nation sympathizer would dare to do. Luckily for you, I'll give you a choice between the three. Pick one and attach it to the owl, and we'll send the details for the task. Do the task, and we'll tell you where you can talk to Mayu. And you see three bold options below. One, sabotage. Two, steal. Three, break free. As you circle sabotage, you look up because you hear a noise, and it's a. As the owlcat swoops down and lands on sort of just like, a pole, like a part of the wall.
Speaker A: I'll tie it.
Speaker C: You guys are outside the theater as the hour of noon kind of starts to draw near, your owlcat returns with a new note. It simply says, there's a factory in Udao that has been repurposed to make large scale weapons. We need you to break into the facility and, hit them in several key points in order to severely disable it.
Speaker E: Nothing a trusty clipboard can't get us into.
Speaker C: On the backside of the note, it lists the three areas of this factory they need you to disable. Right. The furnace, the assembly line, and the casters. the facility itself has, it's large, it's massive. It does not have a huge amount of side doors or windows. Instead, it has two men guarding the large iron front gates, both dressed in fire ocean garb.
Speaker E: I go up and say, I'm with OsHa, sir. I'm here to do a little check of, your construction site, make sure everything's up to code.
Speaker F: You see it from OSHA. What exactly is Osha?
Speaker E: I go onto these sites, and I make sure that your workers are safe, not in a dangerous situation while, they're making what appears to be a roof here for this building. Yeah, I'm going to have to bring out my whole Osha here. So if you give me ten minutes, I'll be out of your hair. We'll all be out of your hair in about ten minutes here. All right, so we'll go up to the roof.
Speaker C: They are definitely patching up a. They've removed a whole section, a hole, like, H-O-L-E section in the roof. You look inside, you can see all the way down to the production floor. There's people in there working. there's a large furnace. You see metal going into this furnace, and then you see shovels that are pulling it out, gets moved over to one of the assembly lines. It gets dumped into the various casters. The casters are what form the metal into the pieces that are then transported over to the production crew, who put the pieces together into these large scale sort of machines.
Speaker E: I got to come here and, check out the hole that you guys are working on. Just make sure everything's all right. And I just climb down the hole, bro. I flaunt the power of the clipboard wherever I go.
Speaker F: All right, guys, maybe we can find some uniforms.
Speaker C: You notice sort of like a doorway. It's just one of those swinging doors, kind of like what you'd see at restaurants that lead into the kitchen, kind of that sort of setup. and you see a couple of people walk out of them, and they are actively retying their aprons on. So you guys head back there. As you open the door, there's a couple of people eating. They kind of see you come in, and they kind of look at you a little bit, like, funny. Like, who are these people? They're not wearing the aprons and stuff, but they don't really question you. You see another door, just, another swinging door. You see two sets of them. Each one has a plaque above the wall. One of them kind of shows the depiction of a man, and one shows the depiction of a woman. You open up one of these drawers, and you find, some common person's clothes. That's not what you're looking for. So you continue opening more, some of the other drawers, and sure enough, eventually you find some aprons that match the ones that everybody else out there are wearing. additionally, you find some very heavy gloves, able to sort of resist heat to some extent, just because they're such a heavy material. And you also find some, hats to protect your hair. You find some boots as you guys step out from what was basically the break room. you see another individual not wearing an apron, but rather wearing some finer clothes with a, same hat but not the same rest of the clothing. And he is also wearing a clipboard.
Speaker F: And he says, you four.
Speaker C: And then he sees Brock's clipboard.
Speaker F: He goes, oh, sorry. You three get back to work. What are you doing? Your break's been over for a good five minutes now. Sorry.
Speaker E: I was holding him up.
Speaker C: And he comes walking over and he.
Speaker F: Says, let me see that.
Speaker E: This is not for your eyes, sir. This is above you. My clipboard is larger than yours.
Speaker C: There we go.
Speaker E: I am more important.
Speaker C: He's going to back down, but he's going to keep watch. he now dislikes you. You are that coworker that he couldn't necessarily deny that you might have more power than he does. But man, he's going to find a way to shut you down.
Speaker F: Let's go back into the break room and eat some people's lunches.
Speaker C: That would really spark things, man. Next thing you know, you start walking around.
Speaker F: Great idea. That way we cause discourse.
Speaker C: He's like, oh, yeah. You start walking around to the employees and you're like, you guys ever heard of a thing called union? You got these three underling employees standing in front of you waiting to be assigned some work.
Speaker E: I'll tell Guohan. you go over to the assembly line. Mika, you go over to the furnace.
Speaker C: Mika, you make your way over to the furnace and immediately, the closer you get to it, the more you're hit with the just emanating heat that comes off of it. It is a massively hot fire. there is a few people that are manning this furnace area. you see people that are kind of overseeing the metal that goes into it. they'll kind of make sure that it's in the bins. It's not sticking out in any way that would make it bump up against the furnaces. They're operating this massive bellows, that's pushing air into the heat. And of course, every time that they press down on these bellows and the air goes shooting into this furnace, you can feel that heat emanate even more as kind of the air pushes the heat outwards, and helps to keep this fire going. obviously you know that your goal is to sabotage this furnace. Obviously. Nearby you can see the assembly lines. there are the assembly lines where people are putting the things the pieces together. There are the assembly lines where people are putting this broken up pieces of m metal onto, or like, the ore for the metal. And that's what's getting transported into the furnace itself, potentially.
Speaker A: Take one of those broken pieces of metal and try and tear the fabric.
Speaker C: And you find a long piece of protruding metal. It looks like it could have been an old spear of some kind, possibly. but it's kind of bent and warped.
Speaker A: I am going take it and hide it within my skirt dress thing.
Speaker C: Nobody notices around you. You do this. as you are doing this, somebody over on the bellows collapses. They're just sprawled out on the floor. They're completely unconscious. one of the sort of manager people, in fact, it's the same one that was just giving brock some crap just moments ago, comes rushing over and he points at you and he says.
Speaker F: I need you to run bellows.
Speaker C: He kind of follows off after the employee that passed out. As he's being hauled away by, like, a guard, he's just kind of pulling him by his arms. You, take hold of the bellows, kind of following in suit with the other person that's doing it.
Speaker A: I'm just here to reach around and.
Speaker C: Just poke a hole.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker C: Sure enough, as you lift up, you stab very carefully. I'm imagining you have the spear kind of hidden by your leg. And so you kick your leg out in such a way that it kind of shoots the spear out from underneath your skirt and pokes it into it so that definitely nobody would see that you do this. you kick so hard that the spear actually pokes all the way through this bellows and out the other side. And as you push down, the air just kind of comes out the side and it deflates really quickly. So the other person on the other side just kind of, like, falls really quickly to the ground and then scrambles to get up.
Speaker F: And they're like, oh, no.
Speaker C: They just have no idea what to do in this situation. And they're really worried about getting in trouble.
Speaker A: I'm gonna panic with them.
Speaker C: everybody's panicking at this point. They're freaking out. They're shouting back and forth at each other. The furnace is definitely down right now. let's jump to the casters. Bill, you're on the casters duty. you approach, you see these large stone or various stone casters. They are just, inlaid with sort of a shape for a specific piece of whatever these things that they're building is. As they move on a conveyor belt. Like much of the things in this, room, as they move by sort of the other end of the furnace, there's some containers that go into the furnace. They pull out the molten metal, and then they dump it into these casters. the casters come around a long ways to get to your area, giving, the metal some time to cool. Your job, as you look around and see the other people working, is to turn this caster upside down and make sure that the metal comes out of it. Anything that happens to the casters would cause a lot of problems.
Speaker E: How do you break a caster?
Speaker C: You see that over on the side? there are some hammers that are used. you watch as one of the employees, they're shaking the caster. It's not coming out. So they go over, they get a hammer.
Speaker E: Is there a sledgehammer?
Speaker F: Yes.
Speaker E: Okay, I'm going to grab it. I'm going to walk over to my stand. I'm just going to kind of lean on my sledgehammer.
Speaker F: I'm going to be like, hey, what's.
Speaker C: Going on over there? Some of the people kind of, like, glance over at you, but they look a little like they don't want to glance at you because they're worried you might glare at them again.
Speaker F: I'm not gonna leave my station. That's how you get in trouble. I know the clipboard guy.
Speaker C: I'm gonna point at Brock.
Speaker E: I just kind of nod back at him, give him a thumbs up. I'm just gonna look up for my clipboard, and I'm just going to look at, I'm just going to point at bill.
Speaker C: They all look at you, and they.
Speaker F: Say, what do you want us to do?
Speaker E: Just run over there, see what they need help with.
Speaker F: What about the casters?
Speaker C: I got it. And sure enough, a, fairly large migration of the caster department starts to head over to go see what's going on over at the bellows.
Speaker F: All right?
Speaker E: And then I'm going to put the.
Speaker C: Sledgehammer on my shoulder and start walking towards the caster. Particles flying up towards him as he's plowing through with a big old smile on his face. Whoa. You're over at the assembly line station. This is technically before all this craziness has gone on, but as you approach, you see people with a number of various tools. You take a piece, you put another piece in it, you take a bolt, and you tighten that on it. And then you set it down, and each person looks like they have kind of more of a specific. They grab very specific pieces that are on the assembly line.
Speaker F: Let's grab a whole tool belt. All right. So, this assembly line, is it made out of. Is it like a belt?
Speaker C: Yeah, it's kind of just like a sort of a rotating belt. So, you actually see on either side, these assembly lines, there's literally a dude that has to just crank the assembly line. That's just all he does all day, is just cranks the assembly line so that it's constantly moving.
Speaker F: So I'm going to take the crowbar and try to pry off, like, the side of the assembly line, like, the guard that's keeping all the stuff on the belt.
Speaker C: You start doing this, and somebody approaches you. He's holding a clipboard. Actually, you know, it is the same guy as before.
Speaker F: There's, like, one manager guy that's been.
Speaker C: Working here in this area, and he.
Speaker F: Says, what exactly are you doing? Oh, I just got to take this fender off here to lube the bearings. Sorry about that. I, didn't mean to confuse or get, into your business. yeah, you do what you gotta do. So, Guo's gonna use the hammer now to, like, well, he's just gonna crawl underneath this part of the assembly line, and he's gonna take the wrench and just start untightening bolts underneath there.
Speaker C: Okay.
Speaker F: He's going to take the bolt completely off, and then just, like, chuck it.
Speaker C: You pop it off, and as you do, things start to buckle a little bit on the assembly line, and you can hear it just to, like, a stop. This is happening just as the massive distraction over at the bellows is happening. they've all gone to investigate the bellow.
Speaker F: Okay. So then I just take the hammer, and I start whacking the crank, but.
Speaker C: You bend it horribly into, like, a warped situation, and you do this from piece or section to section until all the sections have sort of a different problem that's wrong with them. It's, the four of you have completed your task. You've sabotaged your pieces. Yeah. How are you getting out of here?
Speaker E: I mean, I got the clipboard.
Speaker F: I'm just gonna walk out the front door.
Speaker E: Walk out the front door.
Speaker C: There's the two guards that are just outside the door, and they say, hey.
Speaker F: what's, where are you guys going?
Speaker E: I just got some four new hires. we got to take them on a full tour, and I got to take them on the outside. Just, show them around.
Speaker C: what's going on in there?
Speaker F: Oh, inside?
Speaker C: Yeah.
Speaker F: There's, like, shouting and stuff.
Speaker E: there's some of those company disputes. Some people wanted to ask for dental insurance. Could you imagine if we had dental? That's why we got these new hires. They don't know about the union.
Speaker F: Anyway, sorry, don't mean to bother you. have a great, I don't.
Speaker C: Know, rest of orientation. And as you guys are making your way down the path, you can start hearing escalated shouts and such from the factory as more and more things. You start to see. actually, the billowing smoke from above starts to dissipate ever so slightly. And you notice there's quite a significant less amount of that smoke. and as you walk away, proudly, a voice emanates from behind you and he says, hey, that one's pretty well done in there. And you turn around. Standing before you is a fancily dressed man in ridiculously colorful clothing. And he says, the name's Mayu Yinyu. It's great to meet all of you. Where are you guys from? What made you so interested in the, Well, myself and the rescue team squadron.
Speaker E: We worked for Mr. Okuron and, Mr. Okuron.
Speaker C: Now, see, there's a guy. There's a guy. There's a guy right there. There's a guy, there's a nice guy. Good guy. Still running that tea? Get that tea shop opened up. I'm just kidding. I know he got that tea shop opened up.
Speaker F: I saw him a couple of weeks ago.
Speaker E: Mr. Okaron, right?
Speaker C: He's dead. This guy has been pretty, know, smiley and chuckly and real charismatic. But, you definitely see a, real sadness kind of fall across his face.
Speaker E: How'd you know him?
Speaker C: Oh, man, me and Okaron, man, we went way back. He came to, you dao. I was performing. but I had a sore throat. Anyway, so, he gives me this.
Speaker F: Tea, and he's like, this will fix you right up.
Speaker C: He does a pretty good impression of, Mr. Oak run. And, I drink that. And, man, I don't think I ever sounded better. I'm not going to lie to you. Yeah, man, I'm going to miss that guy.
Speaker E: But he, for some reason, carefully hidden his will behind a series of riddles, puzzles I got Will scavenger hunt, and you were the next clue.
Speaker C: Interesting. Well, that would explain the weird package I got from him. A couple of weeks ago, he sent me this weird package. I opened it up and there was a Columbia in there. There was like a weird letter in there, and it mentioned something about some kids that would come asking for it.
Speaker E: Do you have that Columba on you?
Speaker C: All right, so that's where things get a little bit complicated. Hey, we're really close to that factory. Why don't you guys come with me back to the base? He leads the way and he takes a few twists and turns, but he kind of keeps you guys just on the outskirts of the city. So he takes you over close to the edge of the cliffside and he pulls back some bushes and you see what looks like one of those mail shoots, kind of like what you saw in the avatar shell, right. the mail shoots that they use to move little slides that they can send packages all across the city on, right. And they got one of these mail shoots and they got a little cart on the top of it's pretty wide, large cart. You could probably fit a few people in it. there's like maybe three of these carts sitting up there. And he's like, all right, this is how we get to the base.
Speaker F: Hop on in.
Speaker C: So you're able to push yours onto the, track, and that kind of, again, inertia kicks in and you guys start going down. It is a pretty wild ride, but as you guys kind of come around this curve, you can see that what it does is it kind of just shoots you right into the side of the cliff. There's a big opening and you just go right inside. And sure enough, eventually, you can see a light at the end of the tunnel. And as you guys come to the end of that, it opens up into this massive cave. As you guys kind of slide into this, you can see, small buildings actually passing by you as you kind of come in. And you see people, there are people in there. There's hundreds probably of people that are inside of this cave. And eventually your cart slows to a stop and there's kind of like a little end of the track section as it slows. and as you guys reach that, there's a couple of guys, earthbenders there wearing earthbender uniforms. And as you guys get out, they kind of like use some earthbending to kind of start pushing the carts back up the mail chute. Welcome to the rescue team squadron base. I'll take you guys over to kind of the main area. You, guys can meet the other important people like myself, and, yeah, we can, kind of get you guys informed on what the plan is. There's training areas where rebel soldiers are working on their fighting styles and their bending. there's medical bays where healers are taking care of the weak and sick. Not all of them. You can look and you see that not all of them are rebel soldiers. Some of them are just kind of general citizens. There's children, there's elderly, Earth kingdom, water nation, et cetera. Just individuals just kind of seem to exist here. So as you guys, continue following Mayu, you come to what looks like a big, kind of open concept facility, where there's a big circular table kind of in the middle of this space, and there's a number of individuals that are kind of bent over it. And as you guys enter, you see a map of what looks like, it's kind of a 3d map, actually, because, again, earth bending. It's all little, like stone miniatures, and they're all kind of analyzing it or pointing out spots and talking to each other. And as you guys are walking in here, Brock, you actually notice a familiar face here.
Speaker F: Oh, do I?
Speaker A: Yes.
Speaker C: You see, Sora, your friend who helped you break out of prison, and you hear a shout out, oh, my gosh.
Speaker D: Brock Lee, what in the world are you doing here? Did you finally decide to join up with us? Right now, we're in the middle of a planning session, actually. I'm glad he can make it. What's going on?
Speaker C: And Mayu looks at me. He's like, hey, yeah, I, found these kids. they kind of answered our little, like, help wanted ad. Mayo yinyu kind of starts pointing everybody out, and he's like, well, I better introduce all these guys. all right, so right over here, you got general ming. he's kind of the lead figure. And standing before you, you see this very stern, gray bearded Earth kingdom dressed. You know, he's got a lot of badges on his earth kingdom armor. Then mayo points at Sora, and he says, this is Colonel Sora bola. it sounds like Brock. You guys already know each other, so, I mean, that's kind of helpful. you guys see Sora, she's actually about your age, but she, too, wears some very nice earthbending kind of military clothes. She has a couple of badges as well. They're different badges. If you look back closely, they're different badges than what the general has. Mayu continues. He points over, he says, this is a, major Sato, and Sato is wearing a waterbender. He is also an older man, very thin, unshaven. He has these large, wide brimmed glasses on, and he reaches up and he adjusts them with one of his central fingers, like some sort of anime protagonist. He points over to the next person. He says, this is Captain Lena. And you see a woman standing there, and, she gives you all a smile, and she's like, hey, it's great to see you guys here. It's great to have, some more, people helping us out. she just seems like a bright person. The clothing she has on doesn't elude that she's part of any particular nation. It's sort of like gray colors. He continues. He says, over there we got Dr. Takahashi. He's our medic. And you see another man. He's, just kind of standing at attention. He's just got a nice smile, but he seems very silent, and he just gives you a very kind nod. Next up, we got, engineer Nakamura and technician Kim. I mentioned them both together because. And they kind of, like, put their arms around each other and they wave. It's a nice couple. They're like, maybe in their 40s, early 40s, because they're together. They're married. so, yeah, Nakamura and Kim, they're like, wow, it's so great, so great to have you guys here. It's always great to see you next generation taking part in what we do around here. And then, of course, we get back to myself, mayu yinyu. I'm kind of, the voice, some say, the face of the rebellions. I lead a lot of the protest stuff. some of the more like putting up posters that say up yours to the Fire nation. That kind of good stuff. Sora steps forward and she says, so.
Speaker D: A basic rundown of the current situation. This is actually our new permanent base that you're currently standing in. It's a lot better than our old base, which was actually above ground. And because of that fact, it didn't really work out too well. See, about a week ago, the Fire nation actually caught onto our activities and discovered our base. So we had to flee down here, which wasn't a huge issue, except for the fact that in our hurry to leave the old base, we left some pretty important plans and documents behind. If the Fire nation gets their hands on them, we're going to be in hot water.
Speaker E: Is that where our music box is?
Speaker C: Mayu steps in. He's like, yes, that's where I left the Columba.
Speaker A: Everything that comes out of his mouth, I feel like is a lie.
Speaker F: Mayu yinyu seems like a great guy to me.
Speaker A: Mika, quote, you love everybody.
Speaker F: That's not true. Well, for one, the carnival owner, because he treated me like a garbage slave dog and a lot of words. Made me do all sorts of nasty stuff.
Speaker E: I don't know, I just think you're not very trusting, Mika.
Speaker A: why would I be?
Speaker C: The general continues.
Speaker F: He says yes. the specialist isn't expected until tomorrow morning, so we have a narrow window tonight to break into the facility.
Speaker E: Specialist is, a fire nation guy?
Speaker F: Yes.
Speaker E: Do you know who it is?
Speaker F: Yes.
Speaker C: Our sources tell us that they've called for none other than Wang Long. We've had dealings with him quite a few times, actually. Sora, you're familiar with him?
Speaker D: Know him? He was a guy Brock and I had to get through in order to escape that prison camp.
Speaker E: You were in the prison camp? If I remember right. Well, last I heard of the guy, he was taking a bunch of weapons over to the earth kingdom to go destroy countrysides.
Speaker C: So, timeline, you got this guy, Wang long, becomes some sort of big shot for whatever reason in the fire nation has a bunch of big mass weapons of destruction built over the fire nation, brings them across the water into the earth nation, uses them to attack the village that Brock apparently lived at, turned it into a prison camp where Brock was held. We send Sora in to bus him out and, well, I guess the rest is history. That's the biggest difficulty that we've been having with the rescue team squadron is he just keeps attacking these border cities, these small little cities out on the outskirts of the earth kingdom, and they just claim that we're dealing with pirates or we're doing this or stopping criminals. Know so and so is a refugee from the Fire nation mainland and all this other so, you know, higher ups in the earth kingdom just don't take it seriously. So we got to move fast.
Speaker E: Yes, tonight.
Speaker C: I'll go. you guys go. Mika. You hear a voice?
Speaker A: No.
Speaker C: As you turn around and it simply says, mika. And you turn around and none other than your dad. And he sees you and his legs literally just like, tremble, and he just falls. Like, he just buckles. He can't keep him up anymore. and he just holds out his hands.
Speaker F: He's like, mika, is that really you?
Speaker A: I just fall to the ground where I met.
Speaker C: He picks himself up and he just runs over to you and he gives you a big old hug.
Speaker F: Mika. I never thought I'd see you again.
Speaker A: I thought you were dead.
Speaker F: I thought you were dead.
Speaker A: You're the one who disappeared in a giant avalanche.
Speaker F: I woke up at the bottom of the mountain covered in snow, and I spent days just digging through the powder in hopes that you were okay. But I don't understand. Where did you go? How did you get here?
Speaker A: I found some old man, and he took care of me for a while.
Speaker D: I worked at his tea shop for a while.
Speaker F: You worked at a tea shop?
Speaker A: But he's dead.
Speaker F: Oh, I'm sorry to hear that. I wish I could have had the chance to thank him for taking care of you.
Speaker C: You guys spend some time kind of sharing your stories up until this point. Back and forth. He says, well, we were actually getting ready to head out. I wasn't sure if Mika was going to come with us. I mean, you'll still be here when we get back, so, not to, like I said, pull her away while you guys are having such an important reunion, but, he can just come with. I recruited your dad. It's going to be interesting. Mayu continues to lead you guys on. As you guys approach the area where this rebel base is located at Mayu, yinyu stops and he says, quiet.
Speaker F: I hear something.
Speaker C: And he looks over at Mika's dad, and he gives him a nod. And using some of the very, capable, sort of water nation trained stealth tactics, Mika's dad kind of just disappears into some bushes very quietly, and he comes back and he says, I'm not sure what happened, but it seems we're too late. The specialist, Wang Long, is already here?
Speaker F: Yes, it seems like Wang has already arrived, but it doesn't look like they fully unloaded their gear. So there's still some time to sneak in and recover the plans, if we're quick about it. What can we see from here, guys?
Speaker C: So, yeah, as you guys look, you can see against the sort of darkening, late, afternoon, early evening skies. You can see some of the lanterns have been lit throughout the facility, causing little areas to sort of pop against the darkness behind it. there's 1234 lights that shine at the front of this facility where you hide in the bushes maybe 100 yards or so away from, and you can kind of peek through and see the various fire nation soldiers bringing crates and some other things over to the front. They seem to be kind of unpacking. that's where Mayu yinyu kind of points these out. And he says, that was kind of where a lot of, the living areas were. There's a large building in the center on the east. Entire back end is, like, kind of the big main area. It's, a courtyard surrounded by, sort of a three story building.
Speaker E: I would like to assess the situation.
Speaker C: All right, so you remember seeing the diagram or sort of like the miniature setup that they had of this base. you kind of start to look over the base and you kind of associate, like, oh, yeah, okay. I see what they had back at the rescue team squadron. Their big, fancy table where they were talking about the plan. You can see how the building layout looks, based on. From memory. You remember that on the east and west side, all the way to the back, close to where the command center is, but not quite there. You remember there were sort of like living quarters or something along those lines in that three story building that sort of surrounded this courtyard. And they had windows. they mentioned that those windows were sometimes boarded up. But at the end of each building, on each floor, they had sort of a transition spot where there was a stairwell. And the stairwell was an open concept. mayu Yinyu turns to Mika's dad and he says, well, Mactuck, do you and I, maybe we could sneak around to the east side and the kids can sneak around to the west side, and that just increases the chances of, success. And, of course, for all of us. You see a little bit of hesitation from Mack tuck as he kind of looks over at Mika, like, oh, I don't really want to separate from everybody.
Speaker A: I grab his hand, kill squeeze before.
Speaker C: He leaves you, a squeeze back. And he gives you a nod and a smile. And he and Mayu yinyu run off towards the eastern side of the building to try to get around and kind of take the same route that you guys are going to go through.
Speaker E: I will attempt to take the rocks in Brock's rock sack and bend them onto the walls. So it's like rock climbing walls.
Speaker C: So, yes, you are able to make a sort of rock climbing wall. Whatever the case, you guys manage, to get to the top, hop in through this old, windowsill, and you enter into a very dark room. There's not a whole lot of light that comes through here. it sort of feels like an apartment room in a sense, just, like an old, rickety apartment room. There's a small bed in there and there's a dresser.
Speaker E: Did he tell us what we're looking for?
Speaker A: Planned?
Speaker E: In hindsight, we probably should have ironed those details out before splitting up.
Speaker F: Okay.
Speaker E: can I go to the door and open it?
Speaker C: Yes, absolutely, you can. And as you do, light starts to come inside, and you realize that they have lit lanterns along this balcony area. So you peek out and you can see the courtyard below you, and you can see that on the sort of ground level. There are a couple of guards that seem to be kind of patrolling along there.
Speaker E: What should we be on the lookout.
Speaker C: For when we go out of this door here? So you notice that there are a handful of guards that seem to have kind of spread out through this facility. They're already doing some preliminary searches, and of course, they're the ones that probably lit these lanterns that are spread out. And then you notice that on the second floor of this area, there's also somebody that seems to just kind of be making rounds. He's checking in all the little, apartment rooms that are on that floor. you wonder if maybe there's one on your floor that you just don't see at the moment because like I said, it's a big sort of semicircle.
Speaker E: Let's get moving, guys.
Speaker C: We're pressed for time.
Speaker F: Let's go.
Speaker C: Sure enough, you can see off in the distance there is, in fact, a guard on your floor. And he stands right in front of the double doors that you can tell open into that big center room, which is the command center.
Speaker F: Guys, look out. The wang gang's in the building.
Speaker E: Is there, like, side rooms?
Speaker C: You find maybe m three to four different rooms that all are unlocked and able to get into.
Speaker A: That represents the bathroom there, one unlocked close by the guard.
Speaker C: He'd be about 15 to 20ft away from it. What is your plan here?
Speaker A: Well, I want to make the water to come out of the apartment door. So this guard feels like something is amiss. He has to go check it out.
Speaker C: He is standing there. He's waiting, and then all of a sudden, he feels something touch his foot. He looks down, and he sees that there's water that seems to be running up, and it's on his foot. And he thinks this is strange. And he looks over and he's following where the water is coming from. And he sees it going into, or rather it's coming out of one of the apartment rooms. He goes to investigate it. He approaches one of the rooms. You guys are all maybe crouched into one of the open apartment rooms that Guo had discovered were unlocked. And you watch as he opens up the door to this room. He notices that it's locked. And so he shakes it a little bit, and he goes, oh, And he's not giving up. So he decides to kick it in. So it makes a loud crash as he does a little bit of noise, but the door flings open. You hear another guard shout over what's.
Speaker F: Going on over there.
Speaker C: And he looks out and he shouts back, no worries.
Speaker F: I'm just investigating something, and the door.
Speaker C: Was locked, and you hear the guards.
Speaker F: Shout back, oh, okay, no worries.
Speaker C: so he's obviously put them off of maybe noticing some noise. They might think, oh, it's just that guy that's dealing with that room. He goes into this room, and he kind of just disappears into the darkness as he's investigating this mysterious water run.
Speaker E: To the main door.
Speaker C: As you guys make your way over to the door, you look down over the balcony area, and you can see Mac took and Mayu Yinyu are on the second floor. And they peek out from opposite side from you guys, and they peek out from one of the apartment rooms. They see you guys, they give you guys kind of like a thumbs up. You guys reach the main doors of this command center, and you push them open. And inside is very similar to what you saw back at rescue team squadron base that you were just at. There's all sorts of scrolls and maps and all sorts of other things. No one's in here.
Speaker E: Can we jam the doors so no one can walk in?
Speaker C: I mean, there's definitely some furniture in here, obviously. There's that large table that I just mentioned. Bottom line, all four of you get around this table, set it in front of the double doors that lead into this room, and they are the only doors that lead into this room. Where is the Columba, and where are these alleged important plans that Mayu Yinyu is trying to find? You're kind of rummaging through some of these desks and drawers and such like that. You actually see it just sitting there on a chair in a corner of the room.
Speaker E: Where can we find plans?
Speaker C: You look around and you see, like, a variety of various scrolls and other documents and so on and so forth. It's really hard to tell which ones are plans and which ones could just be who knows what.
Speaker E: Is there, per chance in this room, like, one of those long tubes that you put, like, papers in. I'm going to just start, rolling up papers and just stuffing it inside the tube.
Speaker F: I got an idea.
Speaker E: I'm going to grab the. The ground and just sort of fling it up. Kind of like a mall has those sliding garage door type gates. Grab the floor and barricade all the papers behind said constructive wall. I'm, making sure they can't get to these papers while we try and go get someone who can maybe tell.
Speaker C: Us what we're looking for. So, as you bring up these walls, there's definitely a bit of a slamming noise that kind of emanates, and eventually you hear the double door. Somebody outside the double doors tries to open them. You hear the voice say, what's going on in there? Commander, is that you?
Speaker F: Yes. Who is that? I don't recognize your voice.
Speaker C: And the slamming against the door gets more and more violent, and then eventually there's a crash as he sort of, like, punches through the door. And then all of a sudden, he.
Speaker F: Goes, wait a minute.
Speaker C: Oh, crap. His arm that he just punched through the wall or the doors with is now kind of stuck.
Speaker E: I got this. And Bill's just going to walk up. So he punched through one of the double doors, right, and stuck in it. So Bill's just going to open up the other one and just whack him in the back of his head.
Speaker C: So you quickly pop the door open, he looks at you very confused, and immediately he is knocked out.
Speaker E: After I do that, can, like, head down that hallway and turn the corner and see if I see Mayu and McTuck.
Speaker C: They just came up the top of the stairs, and they seem to be running towards you.
Speaker E: Okay, I'm going to wave them over.
Speaker C: All right.
Speaker E: While he's doing that, can I pull the guard out of door and steal his uniform?
Speaker F: Sure.
Speaker C: Absolutely. McTuck and Mayu, they run by the corner. Then they look into the command center, and they see the other two waiting for him in there. And they're like, okay, he's got it covered.
Speaker F: Got the Columba. We weren't sure where the plans were. We just started grabbing everything, but there was too much. So Brock built this wall to protect him until you got here. Oh, yeah.
Speaker C: There's a handful of important documents I can grab real quick. Well, all things considered, I think we got just about everything. almost be tempted to just burn the rest.
Speaker E: I got this. It's my lantern.
Speaker C: So whatever the case, once we start this, we got to get going, because they're going to notice pretty fast when, a whole bunch of fire starts kicking in. As you guys run out, you hear.
Speaker F: A guard shout, hey, what's going on over there?
Speaker C: And it's the guy from across the way. When he's looking over at you, and he's kind of pointing at you guys, he looks over at Brock and.
Speaker F: He says, who are they? Stop them. I got them. Don't worry about it. I got them myself.
Speaker C: Yeah, you get them.
Speaker F: Get them real good.
Speaker C: Oh, look, they're going that way. They're going that way.
Speaker F: I got them.
Speaker E: And I just run.
Speaker C: You start to see some bright lights start to emanate from the command center as you know that your two adult coworkers in this mission have probably started the fire. And sure enough, just before you disappear into one of the apartment rooms that you guys came from, you look back and you see Mayu, Yinyu and, Mactuck sneak out of the room and start heading back over to the east side. One by one, each of you runs to the window, and you start climbing down onto the ground floor. You guys have reached the bottom. You're about to decide where to go. And sure enough, coming from around the building, you see Wang long himself. Wang long looks over towards you. He squints his eyes, and he sees you, Brock. And something in him. You can see something in his eyes. He recognizes you. He squints in a glare of hatred and distaste. Bill, you look back as well, and you have memories of this man and some of the experiences, both on the boat and even before the boat, that you remember him being involved with. they all come flooding back into your mind as you start to race away around the corner of the building. with your friends, you guys are able to escape into the darkness and eventually meet back up with Mayu, Yinyu and Maktuk. As you all, as a group, head back towards the slide. That'll take you back to the rescue team squadron. You guys arrive back at the rescue team squadron base, short of breath, partially from running all this way, and also from the big slide, exciting slide that you got to take for a second time, you're awarded with some medals of your bravery. You all become sort of honorary, members of the rescue team squadron. What you're left with is you have the kalimba, the next clue that's on your list that Mr. Okaran has left you. Having remembered the music box that was part of your last gift, and an instruction to Guohan that there was a series of notes, sort of a little diddy, a little song that he would need to play.
Speaker B: Hey, everyone. Skyler, the game master for benders and brews, and the creative director over at session Zero Heroes here.
Speaker C: I just wanted to give you a.
Speaker B: Quick outro before you head over to the next episode or call it a day. Firstly, thank you so much for listening to our show. It means so much to us to have such amazing people like yourself that enjoy the content that we produce. Without you, there really wouldn't be much point in all the work that we put into recording, editing, and sharing our TTRPG sessions with all of you. With that being said, we would love it if you would throw some love our way and drop us a review or a rating or whatever it is called, wherever you're listening to the show, based on whatever platform that allows you to leave reviews and leave recommendations. It means a lot to us to get to hear why you love the show we make, and it also helps the show reach other listeners as well, allowing us to grow our community. So if you're feeling especially generous, you could even go as far as to share our show to your friends and family who also enjoy TTRBG actual Plague podcasts. It's really expensive for us to be able to advertise and we don't do much of it, so it's a lot more help to have you guys share it with people that you know will enjoy it and then they can join in the community that we're creating. That would make you a session zero hero yourself. And additionally, we'd love to have you stop by on one of our various social platforms and interact with the channel. There you can find session Zero Heroes on Facebook, X, Instagram and Discord. We post all sorts of updates, clips, and even the occasional behind the scenes look at what we're up to. And if you're ever looking for information on SDH or you don't use a podcast streaming site but you want to listen to our shows, you could do so by checking out our website at, sessionseroheroes.com. And while you're there, you can find out about the cast and the crew that make our show and provide the players'voices in all of our area series. And if you're feeling especially cheeky, you can check out our merch store where we have a ton of designs and products to choose from, all of which help us pay the bills and keep the lights on. So once again, thank you all so much for listening. And remember to stay curious, stay heroic until we roll again.