Unknown. Gilgen raises a concern about the fact that your only food source is dependent on a man succeeding in a complex ritual who had just vanished an hour prior. Taking his concern, he decides to spend the day venturing south to find the water source that might contain fish. Reluctantly, but determined, he bids farewell and makes his journey. Sirill and Armando stand. They have just made their way to the windmill. A familiar sight outside. All right, taking another look at the uh windmill. Um looking at serial. We'll kind of uh walk over. Um well, all right. Looks like uh it's just the two of us now. Um what you got planned? I know we got a a lot to get through, but uh what can I do? Uh make make me useful. Oh god, I [ __ ] love this bug beam. Well, good morning first of all. Second of all, thank you for accompanying me. I thought a bit about it long in the night. I thought about the construction of this wind. How the sails take energy from the wind. How the the rotors spin. How the axles turn to perform work. Work greater than that my meager hands could supply. I'm looking to spend some time to try to study, maybe even miniaturize it for use in a workshop. I see. Mitigate its construction for a minimized use. All right. Yes. Unfortunately, with the destruction of Sunrest there, I've lost use of Master Tots's laboratory. It seems to be in trouble. And I am going to attempt to provide some means to recreate the tools necessary for me to continue my creative endeavors. I see. Well, uh, by all means, I mean, I don't have much prospect, um, out here right now. If I could be helpful of any way, um, let me know. There possibly is a use. I have one. If are you familiar with plants at all? Crops, the agricultural fields of study. Like [ __ ] trees and wheat and [ __ ] Like corn and wheat. Yes. Going to scratch his chin. Well, I was never no farmer. But how hard could it be? Are you familiar with Well, let me let me better direct you here. I am looking uh at this large field. I understand from a rudimentary glance that not much is living yet in it. And although young master Gilligan has gone off to provide us fish, perhaps there are seeds. Uh, I confess some of the some of the things that I am looking for here are flowers for use in the alchemical trade. If you are at all inclined towards the natural studies, I would ask that maybe you can pick some for me. Find some vivacious plants that have persisted through the ages. I suppose flowers seem to be a hot topic around these parts. Uh, I guess I can go pick some flowers if that's what you [ __ ] need. I would be most grateful of you. Also, if there is any food to be salvaged from these fields that would prove useful in our journeys to wherever it is we wish to go, you do wish to leave, correct? Well, yeah. I mean, can't stay here forever. There's things to question. There's places to go. I simply asked because there did not seem to be that same urgency when we were inside the teapot and Master Paradigm was mourning the loss of his family and previous life and you were staring at stars. What were you looking for? I guess I was I was just taking everything in. H I've run myself so exhausted asking questions, following leads and fake leads. And I guess I just needed a second to not think and just let this place wash over me. I just say I guess I'm just exhausted. So that's why I'm happy to at least do some mundane [ __ ] today and get my mind off everything. Is this not Do you have no questions of your own yourself ready and willing to move forward? I get it. We all do. But do no questions run through your mind? Uh the mysteries that will befall this place. This is your home, isn't it? Not here. No. But I take one look at you and I see you running yourself ragged, asking questions about the movement of stars and histories that have passed us in moments, decades gone. And I to to what end do you proceed do you pursue these things? to the end of the road. What is it that you did for Mr. Copper? I don't believe I was ever quite clear. Your son seems to be some type of career. But you and the old man, I did not see you perform any such service, but he held you in high regard. We shared ideas and such. Um though we had only known each other for such a short time, the things that we spoke uh resonated with both of us. Um it became very clear that our intentions would fall in line with one another. Well, that's a nebulous answer. What what is it that you do exactly is what I am getting at so that I perhaps may find better use of you in our ventures. Well, before all this, before Sunrest or any of this I I was a private investigator. Me and me and my boy, we had our own kind of system. We played by our own rules and we would help people and solve mysteries. That that's all we needed. I see. So the pursuit of your curiosity is is your profession. And you are a workaholic it seems. I don't look at it as work. It's more like passion that I get to do all every day. And if money throws in my way every now and then, then so be it. Well, my to answer your earlier question, my inclination to leave this place so immediately is because a man cannot sustain themselves on curiosity. I have certainly grown the thin in my pursuits of greater beauties and inventions and flights of fancies with the sciences, the motion of inmoving objects just the possibility of creation. I've lost myself to this passion many times. But in a comfortable workshop in a in a town where food was not so hard to come by, I I fear that if we linger on your curiosity and so Master Paradines's morning that we will starve before we can reach any location that could afford us comfort. We can pick through the ruins here in Sunrust if you wish, but at some point the goodwill of uh Butcher will run dry. Yeah, of course. and and I I want to leave and I think just as much as bear I think we just needed a little bit of time um to figure things that we haven't really stopped um since we started here anyway. It feels like even though it's not the best time for it, it feels like the first time I get to actually take a deep breath and rest properly. I know the circumstances would have you twisted on such but it is what it is. But it is our main goal. And plus, uh, don't you want to investigate Sunress any regard? There could be something there. There's such a rapidity to your speech. It is, it is quite endearing. Take a breath. You're surrounded by nature and all of its natural beauty. Maybe picking flowers would be good for me to unwind this tension within you. Yeah, maybe I will go pick some [ __ ] flowers. Then he'll light one of his half cigarettes. He's running low and getting nervous. He's worried about his cigarettes more than his food um count. Sarah will see you uh picking at a broken cigarette and plug one of the few that he has remaining on him out of his coat pocket and offer it to you. I look down and back to you. Yeah, thank you. Thank you. Um, it's one thing that's also going to run out over here, but not the top of the chain, I guess. Thank you. Now, perhaps if we are to venture to a habitable town, we will be able to be reprovisioned with such luxuries. Until that time, I will attend to studying this marvel of the land. Good. Good. I'll uh I'll keep my hands busy for now. Um you give me a holler. Uh he'll light up the smoke and just take a large inhale. He's been like almost conservative with his smokes. He takes a fat drag. Just lets that sit and he'll uh start heading for some flowers. The device in front of you is extremely large. However, a bit rudimentary. There are gears and a few moving uh axles or um long rods. Seems that the the propeller catches the wind and it spins the center rod that catches a gear which spins a rod going vertical and upon that it mashes up the grain underneath. If you were to have a propeller and a rod, you would be able to create a moving rod clockwise as viewed from above. Okay. Um, could I in the study of this, could I expend focus through either discovery or knowledge to apply the schematics of something like this windmill to a smaller structure that could do similar work using gears and the power of of wind. Um my my intention is to try to add the uh the if we're still going by like contraption. Is is there a way to mini miniaturaturize what this would be like the um the construction down to the level of a contraption? You would have to be adept because that would be one degree away from the kind of knowledge and you'd also not be able to gain the knowledge on the windmill unless you're adept in discovery. But you can okay use your know your generalist knowledge of this is a thing that turns and makes thing move to start your own project. But you can't rely on the knowledge having the knowledge of that project. you you'd effectively have to make a prototype or fail forward to make a miniaturized version of this. Okay. Um taking a step out um or or destroy the thing. You could destroy the thing and then gain the knowledge, but you'd have to disassemble the entire window. Oh [ __ ] Uh so if it is possible to um to gain knowledge of windmills or devices that operate like windmills or a a blue So creating a blueprint I would need to try to recreate it myself. Is that what you're saying? Yes. Or destroy it. which would be a a longterm like many hours worth of progress because it's a solo engine, right? Yeah. You you would have to have you'd have to turn the windmill into the windmill parts the scrap and then you can discover on the scrap and then you gain the blueprint. Okay. I think I'll do the u the other method where I I will try to gain the knowledge of the wind and then and then try to replicate it in a smaller scale. Okay. Make me a mind check. After scouring the windmill up and down, making sure to check every nook and cranny for any device or essential parts to the overall function of the windmill, you were able to gain the knowledge of windmills or wind powered turbine devices. All right, that is the span of 20 minutes. I'm going to go over to Mondo around you. There are a few flowers. Uh mostly weeds, dandelions and other small white flowers, few petals. Nothing large, nothing beautiful. Seem to grow out of the cracks and shrubbery around you. Okay, I'll uh I'll spend the time kind of collecting as much as I can kind of hold um however in that time. Then I'll kind of head back with that. For now, I will put it I'll put the flowers in the back of Frederick for now. And then uh I'm going to go investigate the field. Um I'm just going to sift through the soil. Uh check the kind of till the soil, see how it uh looks, see if there's any like leftover seeds or anything like that. Just kind of um yeah, spend a lot of time going through the soil. The soil is a bit barren. It is hard and gravel-filled dirt. There are some seeds still stuck in the wheat. However, they seem to have calcified with age. They're more akin to rocks than they are a soft seed or nut. Yeah. Okay, that makes sense. Okay. Um, after spending any amount of time, is there any decent ones that I think I can work with? Uh, roll me a mind. I believe you're also plus four. Go four. Out of all of the crops, you are able to secure a seed from one of the wheat. It seems the least damaged with time. There's still a little bit of a softness to it. Although your lack of understanding of these things can't guarantee that it would be able to grow or be planted. Mhm. Okay. I'll um I assume most of the ground is like um completely extractive of any like you said it looks almost like more like gravel dirt than actually like moist dirt. Um, there's patches of grass there, but the dirt is very dry. If you need a pebble, you can find them pretty easily, but if you need something that's um able to provide sustenance, it would be very difficult. I'll just um fetch around for like a handful of soil that's just half decent just to put the seed in for now. Um, and I will bring that back to Frederick as well. Get that in with the flowers. Once that's done, I'll uh head over towards the windmill. 20 minutes passes. As you uplift a small boulder, you're able to find a little bit of mulch underneath. It is the wetest dirt you're able to find. You place the seat in it and a dozen dandelions that are fresh in the back of Frederick. You see that Sirill has finished uh moving around and looking at things and he's standing in the center of the room. All right. Well, um good news and bad news. Mostly bad, but good news is I found some flowers at least to work with. Uh put them in the back of Frederick. Uh, as for the field out there, it's the soil is as barren as we might thought, but it seems like there's one lone seed survivor. It could be. Um, might be worth it, but it's in the back of Frederick as well. But, uh, what are you getting up to in here? As I had indicated previously, I was studying this marvel to try to see if I could make designs on it on a small scale, one that perhaps I could mount on the back of Frederick, much like the tree that resides there. Now for the purposes of alchemy as well as the rotational force that I may be able to apply in the usage of machining tools, shaping of metal, bending it to my will. You reckon you can get a Yeah. Yeah. You reckon you can get a device like this um to run Frederick? Well, the mysteries of Frederick still elite me. He seems to be an engineering feat one comprised of alchemical components as well as possibly magical the geometry of its legs and joints do still elude me. I suppose she is sort of a marvel. To answer your question, it may take years of studying to be able to augment this in any way. I suppose we should just be grateful for the gift that Sam has left us. It is true. We'd be pretty [ __ ] without it. Well said. I take it you flower picking went well. Well enough. I grabbed as much as I could, I guess. The back of Frederick, if you want to take a look. Nothing fancy, but flowers, they fit the criteria. Certainly. Walk around the back. I take a look at the u the dandy lens. See you see 12 dandelions and a handful of mulch kind of placed on the seat and there is a seed resting on top. Excellent work. Are you sure you are not a survivalist or a botonist of sorts? Uh nope. Never really. Uh I don't like the outdoors but I never found myself in it. Um, but I mean it's just for looking for [ __ ] I mean, you know, you got the hard part, so thanks. Well, I can see that it's done you some good. Your speech is slowed. Your breathing is more steady. You're not as frenetic as you had been prior. Yeah, the Sig really helped. I suppose that's true. Well, if you were a botist, you could uh perhaps grown your own tobacco or whatever it is. Is it these things? Perhaps if I finally settle down somewhere, but till that point, pick them up on the road. But, uh, certainly not going to be able to grow anything here, but they want to take the soil, it seems. [ __ ] no. We'd have to remulch the whole place. Uh, all the soil has lost its integrity. Then let us take what we can from this desolate city and continue on our adventures. Would you? Very well. To the upper city then. Very well. To the upper city. It's just past noon. Take you about 30 minutes to get to the upper city from where you're at. Leave you at 100 p.m. You going to make the journey? Yeah. Yeah. Frederick climbs the side of the stairwell with relative ease. Despite the steep slopes and angles, he is ma he manages to fit just barely and handles the rocks and debris well. You make your way up to the cliff side of the upper city. What lies in front of you is a stretched out plateau. There are ruins about. In front of you, there is signs of war and battle. There are no corpses. There are just remnants of munitions and armor. It looks more like a natural disaster had taken place rather than a war. There's a severe deficit of corpses, skeletons, rot, or any smell other than rust. Where the hell are all the bodies reclaimed by nature? Perhaps it has been decades. Suppose you think there'd be a couple bones or something. Skull. Watch your step. I wonder if uh anything at Echarts made it. Oh, Eerts is in the lower city. Yeah, we are in the much coveted upper city. It was just a thought I had. I have a strange feeling that that mirror might have survived amidst so much rubble and destruction of properties down to their foundations. I I highly doubt a glass meter would be able to make it through this. Seemed different, but that don't matter now, I guess. something. When I'm looking through all these pieces of scrap, I couldn't tell a good piece from a bad. What are you looking for? Sarah will take out his hand loop and bend down over the uh pieces of armor and and weaponry looking to see if any of this metal is rusted beyond use or salvageable. Most of the metal is not rusted beyond use. However, the wear and tear is apparent by rain, dirt, dust, battle damage. Could perhaps be bent into shape or reforged. However, it is heavily worn. you get this like um the slight tinge of a a sensation of an understanding that the wounds are rather odd. Um your ability to differentiate between the kinds of wounds caused by weapons is um we'll say amateur-ish at best. However, there there are a few marks on the armor that are a bit uncanny, unnatural shapes, curves, and piercing marks that don't seem that they they don't seem to correlate to any kind of weapon that you've seen before. Does it look familiar at all for me? To you, it is even stranger. As somebody who has investigated wounds and bodies, these markings were made by something uh that you either don't understand or is unnatural. I have never seen such damage and I've seen a lot of corpses in my day. This is like something else entirely. Now, we still have very sparse information about the nature of the conflict that happened here. Whether it was the opies of the Whitewood or the Whitewoods itself, even if it was, how's it possible? Sarah will continue to take a look at the other bodies for similar signs as well as whatever this contraption is here all around you. It seems as if somebody had taken an entirely functional military, stripped the bodies and every ounce of blood from them, mangled the armor, and scattered them about as if in the wake of a hurricane. The device in front of you is heavily damaged. Seems to have been some kind of projectile thrower. Is it still is it still armed? Is there any projectile munitions still inside of it? There are none. from my phil familiarity with uh constructing triggers before. Uh is the construction of this like I mean is this a ballista that is remarkable at all or resembling at all the um like the triggers that were from old? No, it is a bit more rudimentary than any of the Olmite technology that you've seen. It's a more of a classical weapon. Even the construction seems um a bit haphazard. Uh the wood isn't the most evenly cut. Um there are uneven nails throughout all of it. It seems functional, or at least at one point was. Uh perhaps with a lot of engineering you'd be able to make it functional again, but why bother? It seems as if this was made out of desperation. Yeah, that was my question. If it looked like it had it was not a piece of equipment that was um part of a the armory of a standing like nation, but something that was cobbled together like out of desperation. Yep. Gotcha. Uh the firing uh mechanism is this like is this spring pulled? Is there It's a projectile crank is a large crank that pulls back and it fires all of its projectiles at the same time through like a tension. Yeah. Okay. Um This is this is fundamentally different from my familiarity with the Olymp cylinders. I'd like to spend some time studying this. All right, I'll do uh one light activity. I'll put you down for 10 minutes. Uh roll me mind. Okay, I'm going to focus this Bondo, as you follow Sol around, as you follow Sierroll around and start looking at the debris as well, coming to a similar but bit more of an uncanny understanding of just how strange these marks are uh you see that Sirill's attention is enraptured by this device as he begins to almost climb up and down over it, looking at every corner. Have I ever seen anything like this before? Uh serial tweaking out or the um ballista? The ballista. I was gonna say you saw him do this 30 minutes ago. Uh the that depends on your familiarity with technology. Um you come from like a Victorian ballista, but this is like a multi multi- ballista. That's a very fancy um archaic piece of weaponry. Okay. Um, anywhere around the area, is there any remnant of like of a like remains or anything like even a splat of like dried blood somewhere like any any anything of that uh nature? Zero. Absolutely. Like not even a speck. Okay. Not a single drop of blood. What is also I mean perhaps in 40 years all the blood could have evaporated or dried but usually corpses leave traces at least enough for a well-trained detective to see for sure. Okay. Um that's really [ __ ] weird. It's almost like uh Do do I see articles of clothing? You do. There are a bit of tattered inner wear on the armor. A lot of it is ripped. Uh nothing pedestrian. You don't see any dresses or underwear or anything. It's um mostly the inner padding of armor. [ __ ] Can I Man, how do I I think No, I already I think I've already spent my uh I was going to ask if I can get a clue. Um but I think I already spent that today. It's on a dude day, right? It's only No, you spend focus to get clues. So you guys can hang out for 10 minutes, regain your focus, and then you can throw it at um all the art stuff um which is all the detective stuff. Um okay, you do you have one stamina. If you blow that, you and Sirill are at zero. And if you don't eat, you're going to start suffering negative consequences every single day you rest uh until you starve and die. I don't want to use uh stem unless I have to. I wise. However, if you don't eat, you lose it anyways. So, you're just one day behind cereal in terms of starving to death and dying. One day is pretty good. I mean, that what that means I get to watch him die. So, day without cereal. I'm I'm gonna eat that. I'm gonna eat that cap before I [ __ ] Okay. [ __ ] Are you going to try to get a clue from the ballista? Uh, I was actually going to try and get a clue from the [ __ ] the clothing. Okay. Like it ties into like, you know, why where are the bodies? Like why why is the only thing left over like the clothes of the people? Stuff like that that vibe. As you actually spend the time to deeply analyze the clothing, as if you were looking for something, answers or perhaps more clues, you notice that the tearing on the clothing looks more akin to being pierced by odd objects rather than any conventional weaponry. almost as if somebody had taken the clothes and stuck them through the branches of trees and removed them. The tears are almost never uniform, never in the same place, sporadic, distant from one another. There's no blood either. There are no large that's the the first thing that comes to mind. Um there are no large or accurate piercings at any of the vital parts. They are sporadic and covering random places across the cloth. That is [ __ ] what? What? Um, what would you say I could call this clue? Unconventional wounds. Can I continue to tinker with this thing? Oh, you've been tweaking this whole time. Yeah. Uh, 10 minutes has passed for the both of you. Yeah. Sarah's going to continue like he's going to check all of the barrels where I don't know The projectile had been um launched from. Is this thing loaded? Did I see it? Was it cranked all the way up? It had been released and fired. There are no projectiles in it. And it is slack. You would need a new um hand and rope in order to reload it as a fray with time. Okay. Um, I'm going to continue to uh tinker with it, crank it over here cranking it and uh and I'm going to continue to uh to try to study this thing and I will focus some more on it. The device seems ra rather rudimentary. However, you're able to pick it apart in your mind and understand that it's very simple. It's just been scaled larger to accommodate more projectiles. It's almost like a simple crossbow, however, designed to throw more weight. The use of metal bands as well as more tension on the rope. 20 minutes has passed. Well, it seems I've gleaned that the machinery within this piece together device almost seems desperate. I believe I can miniaturaturize it. Perhaps make a handheld one that could fire several projectiles. Perhaps those teeth on the stake. Since we are without use of a of our cylinders, we lack the ammunition. I have since now or until now lacked the time to investigate how to press them. What what are you looking for? Um he'll look around um at the battlefield. Uh well, I mean, isn't it strange that the there's no remains of any bodies here? There's nothing. It's not even a speck of dried blood. Nothing. It's it's almost like ah you see he to say um I guess I don't know um put on the [ __ ] list of [ __ ] that going on that I got to figure it out. But none of this is going to be useful to us now. I mean, it's like you said, yeah, it's great. We can make use of this ship, but more not going to matter if we starve to death out of here. I suppose that is true. Is your curiosity of the upper city Satan? That does not seem to be much less to inquire about. Well, I mean, it's it's all it's all under the same umbrella. It's something happened here, everywhere. Yes. A war. Jen's war. Yeah. War. I don't even know how far into this war they even got. I think the war was over before it started. I confess I have a small and growing curiosity. As it was described, he was a golem, a a machine inhabited by perhaps a soul. What do you soul? What do you are you familiar with this? Which part do you speak? Which do you mean? the golden shad that his temple was in the center of the valley. Isn't there like a lake there or water at the center? Sarah will pull out his map which he has in his index. The map in front of you looks a bit different than the last time I had. The valley is the same shape and size. It responds to the same touch and has the same label over it as it had prior. Still says Half Moon Valley. However, the image in front of you shows more of a barren wasteland than it had prior. Most of the terrain is in its similar place. The lake and the rivers, however, they are a bit smaller. More of the towns and land masses are covered with small depictions of brambles and forest. There are some parts in the northernmost hills that are barren of grass and the southernmost hemisphere of Half Moon Valley is littered with markings of trees and brambles. There are four towns that stand out. The top left there is a small marking with the depiction of Silverun. The terrain around it seems unaltered ever so slightly perhaps. Uh a few days travel in each direction. There's a large ruin which is also covered in brambles to the left in the place that once was High Tower. A small dot in its centermost part has the word opportun written on it. To the south and center, just by the lake in front of it, it says Gold Vein. It is the largest town on the map, although there are only a few markings of what is presumed to be houses or depictions of civilization. Far to the northwest, even further than Silverun, up towards the edge of the valley, there's a town by the name of Elab. E L L A B Y. The map does not resemble as it was before the 45 years. Seems perhaps it reflects the topography of this place in the present. To begin with, that works for us. To begin with, Sirill is holding out to you a scroll where the images and texts move with some kind of fluid hocus pocus in front of you. They're responsive to his touch and extremely accurate is a bit uh uncanny magical item. That ain't no parchment of map. That's some hocus pocus hogs washy waggy. See how it's moving up and down like that? I wouldn't trust it. Well, certainly a lap that can change its features is a wondrous thing indeed and useful if we are to use it to navigate our way out of this some seemingly barren valley. But as you had as you had remarked, the legs are still here. They are a bit diminish, but they are still remaining. Very well. Is there Oh, what the [ __ ] is What is your Sirill is just casually standing on the back of his discarded armor. What is your Where is our destination? I have a couple in mind, but certainly it cannot be here. Where exactly would you want to go? Well, as Master Baradine is magically inclined, and every person who seems to know anything about what is occurring here tends to be from Ableton. I would imagine that your curiosity would lead you there. A place of learning, sages, wizards, and witches. Mostly witches, but yeah. You could say that that [ __ ] cat pop out of nowhere. Um, it looks like it. Yeah, I I the cat and then I look to Sir's just watching you talk. I catch your glance. Are you hungry? I Well, yes, but it just it's looking at me like it's listening. It got to give me the eB. You do not sound too enthusiastic to come to Ableton. Where would you wish to go then? Well, uh, he'll point to your hocus pocus. Um, one of these runes here. Got to got to have some answers, right? One of these runes. What is all this who dicker? There are two major ruins that are apparent on the map as you look at it. In the center of the lake, it seems that there is a collapsed um almost like a tree that had been cut in half. There are large um obstructions poking out of the ground at the center of the lake and a tower that is leaned and sticking out of that. And then then there is a tower sticking out of the middle. Almost like you cut a tree or a piece of broccoli in half and it falls over right next to it. Uh and then there's the ruins of high tower over to the left. There are little bits of um could either be collapsed civilization or maybe rocks. It's difficult to tell with the map. Um perhaps ruins as what looks to be Sunrest seems to be a large plateau rather than any marking of civilization. I I didn't know it could do this. I didn't either. Well, no point lolly gagging. Is there anything else here we need or the circle retracts the index back into itself and place it back into its code pocket. Well, most of the material here is scrap and I lack the proper tools to really process them. I could take a bit back and hopefully with the rigging of a windmill I can or a wind turbine something that can turn gears and maybe I can construct a for these swords and some sorted straps. I'm just thinking aloud. But my point remains. Baradine seems impassive to whatever the world is doing around him. And your son will follow you wherever you wish to go. At least from my rudimentary assumptions. So the question becomes, where would you like to go? It's a good question. There's something that certainly nothing here. Nothing but discarded artifacts of a brutal age. And lingering in this barren valley will not provide us with substance to really indulge your curiosity for longer than maybe a couple of books. Unless you are taken to hunting with no hunting implement. No, certainly not. I believe there's many points of fancy, but before any decisions are made, araments, rations, these things need to be acquired. When we've got our bearings, when we're all together at once, we will make this decision as a group. You would leave it to the will of the disaffected old man and your son. I think I think the old man's got a good thought every now and then if we hear him out. Nice. Well, I will respect your wishes as the navigator of our our vessel. I require a direction. The truth of the matter is that my heart says Ableton, but I I don't know. Um I feel like there's many routes of which we can take, but uh first we need to survive. We don't need no point of direction if we got empty stomachs. Yes. And perhaps even if we visit one of these remaining towns such as Gold Vein, we could resupply. We could stock up in on that. That is the whole things needed to indom your fancies. As long as you can run Frederick and we can find fish, we'll be all right. Sarah will start sifting through the metal bodies for anything useful. No, that's up to you. What do you want? Uh going through, let's say I I'll start going through this file for here. Um, do they have personal effects on them or uh a gold or anything of interest on them? Uh, you can spend uh 10 minutes sifting. A cursory glance tells you not likely. However, all of these things seem to be each individual's personal effects. Um, if you want a decayed arrow or broken arrow head or any piece of scrap metal, I'll just categorize it as scrap metal at this point. Uh, you can sift through and dig deeper, but it'll cost you 10 minutes. Um, yeah, I think I'll I think I'll work through I'll work through just this file to get a representation of what's happening here. Uh if if there's any any valuables, any gold, um you could take those or any other things of interest. Um for the ballista, are there any bolts that are seen that have been fired anywhere in here? As you take a look, see that over here there are a handful of ballista bolts sticking out of the ground. However, even at a cursory glance, you see that they they don't numerically match the amount of holes. Okay. He will in furthering his study of ballistas, we'll take one and reinserted into one of the the holes of the ballista just to kind of gauge um the loading of these things. It's front loed and it fits in rather adequately. It bumps up against the metal band in the back. Nice. Curiosity cited he will return to going through this body these bodies for the next 10 minutes. Um, and I think the last thing I would do here after that is concluded is probably take cloth. Maybe even from the flags. Uh, the flags are they made of like I don't I don't know what would they be made of? Uh, they're they're like a canvas, pretty thick cloth. They're worn, teared, old, and a bit hardened over time. I'll grab a number of them because I want stocks of canvas for purpose of the windmills uh windmill uh sales as well as just thread would be useful. Uh you get five stocks of hardened canvas. You find 12 kibble. They're old and tarnished around the edges, much different than the kind that you carry. although kibble nonetheless as they stick together magnetically. And you also find one oof stone. Okay. He'll pocket them. Uh keeping them separate from the saddle bag with the alchemy stones in. All righty. It is just past 1:30. Armando, I believe I've exhausted my interest up here. I think we've been through everything we needed to. Um, did you want to glance by the the lower town just check on certain places of interest just to see I'm going to jump in here. The upper city is much of the same. However, there is a small patch of looks to be um perhaps surviving buildings. It is more of a dense is a denser collection of rubble. Uh everything else is a wasteland much like this. Okay. Wait. So there are remaining intact, not intact but uh less destroyed buildings in the upper city. There is. Yeah. I was thinking like sweet spots like um like um Eards or Cotons or like something um one of the places we know. I think we I think it's one of the first things I looked for and he said that like everything is leveled in the lower city. Is that accurate? Yeah. The lower city buildings are just footprints. Can you assist me with loading some of these sheets and other large plates of metal into the back of Frederick Frederick for use later in constructions? Very well. Um, I'll give you a hand. Is there um weapons on the ground? Like is there a sword? Yeah. There's countless weapons all over the place. Different kinds, different makes. They're hundreds. I want to find a just like a nice sword that looks like um better condition compared to like the best that I could get out in these times. The sword that you find was from the same corpse that Sirill had found the oath stone on. The blade is made of a material that apparently doesn't tarnish well. There are a few spots that are discolored. However, it seems to have enough of an edge where if you swung it at something, you could probably deal some damage with it. Upon its hilt is the symbol of a what looks to be a paw that is grasped around the pommel. Other than that, the sword is um it is honest in its construction. It is not uh too well ordained. You see, he um he kind of holds it like as if he would holding a sword for the first time and like kind of swinging it around. Um that's quite the fancy. I've always wanted a sword like this. I don't know the first thing about it. I swings at something, I guess. But he'll notice the the sigil. Um s you do you you don't happen to recognize a sigil like this? Do you hear the the paw here? Well, considering there was an O stone this belonging, perhaps it belonged to an O of But no, I don't recognize this maker's mark or the emblem that has been used. Interesting. I'll uh it's a shada. But would you are you are you turning away from the projectile arts of war? I saw your experience in the yard at Cobworth. I don't blame you. No, it's not that I want to veer away. It's more It's nice to have options, right? You don't happen to know how to swing a sword, do you? Do you know swordsmanship? No, unfortunately not. The my umbrella is more of a deterrent, like bearing one's fangs with no intention to actually scuffle. I see. But if need be, I the sharp end goes into Yeah, I think I got that far. Certainly could figure it out. We'll we'll get there. Um I'll uh he'll kind of look for like a hilt to like put it in um to wrap around his waist. And uh if he can, he's going to try and find another sword that is that looks lighter, like looking for a lighter sword. He's thinking to find something for Gillian. Oh, you're able to find one. It's a bit less um nice, I suppose. However, it's slim peggings out here. Yep. Okay. Are there any intact bows or anything like that in there? However, damage to the strings and as well as damage to the arrows around uh would make them uh repable but not immediately usable. Okay. Uh crossbows at all there are uh similar situation with the the rope and the status of the bolts. Okay. Uh then Okay. So 10 minutes for going through the bodies. Um, are we spending another 10 to gather weapons and these chunks of scrap armor and throw them into Frederick and then we then we'll leave? Yeah, sure. Okay. Um, I will I will look for uh a a bow and if I can find some arrows and a crossbow and and if I can find bolts as well. and the uh and then just pieces of scrap metal from armor and shields. But you managed to find a bow that is in very good condition. However, the string has lost its uh tautness. a crossbow as well. Among them, you find 15 arrows that have yet to be expended and two bolts that have yet to be expended. Okay. And um how many how much stocks of uh scrap metal would you say? Uh an infinite amount. It just depends on how much. It's 10 stocks per 10 minutes. It'll take you a minute to pick up the armor with Armando and then drag it over to Frederick, throw it in the back, stick it in a pile, and then come back. Yeah, I I would like some armor uh or some scrap metal to do engineering [ __ ] with. You want spending 20 minutes? uh on like 10 minutes for the weapons and then 10 minutes for the uh for the scrap metal for I'll do whatever I can to help that. All righty. All right. He said five stocks have a scrap uh 10. Okay. Tossing everything in the back compartment. Got it. Got it. As as you and um Armando are lugging the pieces of scrap metal um callously walking in the direction and over the cat as if it is just some [ __ ] ornament. Um both of your arms are occupied. The cat will jump at Armando. Ah, little [ __ ] As he jumps at your waist, he manages to get his head in the lip of your pocket. Uh, he bites down on something and will proceed to run. You [ __ ] bastard. What is it when I preach in my pocket? Uh, as you reach in your pocket, you leave Sirill on his own with a heavy piece of a man's armor as it hits the ground. Um, is a card. The card the library the library card is gone. He took the library card and he just made off with it. Eh, yeah, he's in full sprint. little [ __ ] [ __ ] Try and catch up. No, [ __ ] that. I'll lo I lose that. Unfortunately, I only win when I pin it down. Okay. Uh, returning to Frederick. Toss everything in the back. Hop on the front. Aim it towards the U buildings of interest. You make your way over to the ruins. Along its side is the water source that had created the waterfall and the river that you had collected. Clear enough, I suppose, water from earlier in the day. All around you are the tattered remains of buildings, most of which have collapsed in upon themselves. There are trees growing about in the cracks, old tattered pieces of cloth, broken glass. The ghost town is eerily devoid of dead men and perhaps the tales that they cannot tell either. Well, where do we start? any workshops or any shops that Oh, you disappeared. Hey, there you go. Can I go to any place that might have materials intact that we may take to soften our hard journeys ahead? Let's kind of enter the plaza just kind of look for any any buildings that look um not totally collapsed in. Um if there's any obvious shops or anything like that. There are a few buildings that are not entirely collapsed in per perhaps uh enough to enough space on the interior uh akin to a small closet little places you can squeeze through but uh there are no buildings that stand upright in their entirety. It's also difficult to differentiate what is and what isn't a shop as age has uh taken its toll on the the colors, the signs. There are a few things that you can make out. There is a pub over to your left and that that building is a bit clear enough. Uh, everything seems like some kind of storefront or perhaps uh home on its second floor that people live in. I'm going to I'm going to do what I can to try and find um foods that might have or that will be all right. Like a like honey if there's any like honey that I could find or packed beans. Where is the pub? The pub is this building right here. I'll start there. Uh the black void. Yeah. Okay. I'll count this. As you squeeze your head in through one of the cracks, a large enough crack that you can see the interior, most of it is obscured by the roof. You kind of see around the angle that around an angle of the corner that there is a the flat part of a bar. There are shingles and dirt uh debris all laid about. It'll be difficult to navigate the interior of this place. All right. See? Go ahead, S. if you wanted to look for something. Oh, yeah. Are you are you entering? Are you trying to scream and follow? Is is there um any signs of like an upper floor from the outside? There was an upper floor that is mostly now the ground floor. That makes sense. Okay. I'll um Sorry. Was the door open? Uh the door is open. Yeah. Okay. Uh that doesn't help you with the large beam in front of it. Yeah. Right. Uh you could potentially navigate the entirety of this building or well most of what you can see of this building in this side around the corner. Uh however, you'd be crawling the entire time. uh crawling underneath the beam, crawling under to get on top of the bar. Crawling on top of the bar and then back to wherever that leads. I'll uh I put like all my [ __ ] down basically. Um and I'm going to start crawling in there real slow and careful and try and get to like where I think um again like he's going to look for stuff that he thinks that would last like honey. He's going to look for that. Let me just pull up your inventory really quick. When you say you leave all your belongings in, you have access to his entire wiki inventory page. Sorry, I mean you have access to your new inventory page on the wiki. You're able to uh wrigle underneath the initial pillar that has fallen with a bit of ease. You almost bump your head on the other side and keep prone to the floor. You shuffle over to the bar and you're able to get on top of it. Behind the bar, there's a lot of bricks and shingles and debris that would have to be sifted through, although you're unable to get a good enough angle to sift through it without leaning over the bar with one arm trying to swat at the bricks and other pieces of stone. However, underneath the bar, within arms reach, is a large selection of liquor. Few of the bottles have shattered and cracked and are empty. They don't even smell like booze anymore, but a few of the bottles are completely sealed and very drinkable. [ __ ] On the other side, past the bar, you can see a entrance to a an alleyway at the back of the bar that is open due to a large crack in the wall. As soon as he sees the liquor, the the cravings just start circling back all the old habits and then he gets nauseous and oh [ __ ] Uh as he'll kind of make an excuse to himself that it might come in handy. But um I'm going to try and grab one of the bottles of booze. Those are calories, my my friend. That'll keep us alive. You're able to grab it. It is a large um growler. It's the size of a uh you could cradle it. It's like the size of a child. Holy [ __ ] Uh you're able to maneuver around and get through the building holding it and using your other arm primarily to move yourself. Uh however, you can only take one with you. Okay, that's fair. Um I don't see any like honey or anything. Uh you do not. Nothing preserved. Okay, I'll uh I'll take what I got. I bring it outside. Um I'll kind of Uh while you're inside and Sirill is um flirting with your belongings, um cat guy approaches and he will look at serial a bit uh disgusted as in his mouth is a looks looks to be a paper rectangle as he will place it on the ground amongst the pile of other belongings. He'll then back off. Sarah will pick it up and take a look at it. It looks very similar to a HIK identical in size. However, on the back there is um uh on the back of the card on the card's face, sorry, on the card's face is a blank white with a trim around the edges. On the back of the card, there is a symmetrical design from one diagonal to the other. Uh, in its center, the symmetry is interrupted by a white mask with a smile and upturned eyes on its face. Does is this the expression that I've seen performed when like divination mages are practicing their work? No. Um, Sirill will Sarah will pick up the books, Silent Valley of Witches and Haven. Those are the books that you had on your person, right? Yeah. Okay. He's going to slide the uh he's going to slide the library card uh into one of the pages of of Silent Valley, which is Yeah. Um and he's going to place that back down, but he's going to hold on to Haven. You're going to take Haven. He's going to pull out his index and he's going to place Haven by the by the other page that is within there that he suspects might be related. You're placing the book in the index or are you taking the page out of the index and placing it in the book? Is there a way to take books out of the index, I guess, is the question. Is there can I like reach for the page that's in the index and and pull it out or pull any book out that I've placed in uh with enough frustration you you are you manage to figure out that you can pinch the screen and then you can pull the book out. It's sort of like um pressing in on a DVD player or something when it pops out. Okay. If I um so if I remove this page um the page that was already in the index with the um the poem about the the rabbit. Uh, does it seem that the pages resemble the same kind of material, same kind of like vellum or whatever that the Book of Haven is printed on perfectly. Uh, pen writing is the same. So, yeah, he's going to place the page inside of the book Haven and then push them both into like the pages arrange themselves in order the initial page of the book as well as the second page that is in the index and they read as if they were one book. Okay. Um, let's see. Going through whatever else you have in take a look at um the letters that he has on the Copper Worth letter. Ear's letter uh Copper Worth's letter about Shushine to Luke Cladio. Yeah, it's the same as it had been prior. you have full access to any um written information Armando. Gotcha. Uh and then he's going to hold on to um he's gonna he's going to keep the silent belly which is in in one hand with the library card in and keep an eye on the uh the cat suspicious while he waits. The cat looks at you with a similar almost reciprocal aura of suspicion or perhaps disgust. Seems that the cat has um a resting disgusted face. Perhaps he was just born like that. Perhaps he's always grumpy. Do you have any food in your pockets, Armando? I don't I don't think so. Okay. I shouldn't, right? Get the cat drunk. Um, yeah, both those both those scenes are included. So, we'll move back to you, Armano. I'm just kind of uh I'm coming up to the door with a giant bottle of booze. Um holding it out for uh cereal. Um grab this hand. Grab this hand. It's a It's a big one. Is there a handle on that jug? There is. He'll hook the umbrella handle on the handle and uh start pulling me down. He's not crawling in there. kind of help push it up and then get it out. And I put it down, start sweating a little bit. I don't know the uh the use yet, but uh perhaps it'll come in handy somehow. Oh, yes. The liquid diet. On the surface of the growler says Mr. Tummy's tummy rubby rum. You have a gallon of, if the advertising is correct, uh, extremely high proof rum. God, [ __ ] You have enough to kill this cat like eight times over. We can marinate this thing. Um, what do I see as far as my stuff? Uh, Sarah. Well, a book. Yeah. But two books are missing. And he's going to hand over the other book with the library cards conspicuously standing out like almost like a bookmark inside of it. And everything else he'll begin picking up and handing back to you. Okay. As long as everything looks fine, he won't um he won't think much of it just from a glance at it. Uh, they'll start putting all the [ __ ] back. Well, that's one giant bottle of Tell me rum. That's a It's an all right start. Shall we continue and leave this here? Would you like to secure the your old pastime within the belly of Frederick? and squints at the cat. We got to tuck it over here. Kind of safe by this box. All right, let's [ __ ] go. Looking for any other buildings that they'll enter. most of the same. There are makeshift entrances or perhaps entrances that could be made. A lot of the buildings are well in ruins. Okay. any uh any places that look opulent in the upper city here that all of these buildings looked must have looked very opulent at one point in time. Um, are there any that look safe to enter and poke around with looking for either workshops or houses that would have been in great stature once when they stood upright? That would take a long time. That would take about an hour. You'd have to go to each building, figure out what it once was, or perhaps go on your gut based on what you think it might have been. Find a way to poke around inside either through broken window or little triangle that is made out of collapsed um support beams and take a look inside and then rinse and repeat until you find what you're looking for. Uh this would be measured in hours rather than 10-minute increments. Okay, might might not be worth um so he's going to continue to find uh continue to walk about and trying to see if there are any any outwardly visible and identified in the spaces. Not trying to calmly navigate them. Um, what time of day is it at this point? It's um 2:30 p.m. Do we have a gauge of how long days were here before? When is sundown? Sundown is around nine. And what time was it? Sorry, it's uh 2:30. Okay, so many of these structures have succumbed to the ravages of time and may prove dangerous to enter and dirty. I've just bathed that. I don't I don't know how well worth it it would be either, but if we just scout it out a little bit, um we could bank on Gilly, hopefully finding some fish and at the very least if we need to come back here, we could do that. He'll continue looking for any clear signage or uh tools thrown about nearby collapsed buildings. any other like better intact buildings with points of egress that wouldn't require him to crawl in his hands and use. Would you like to take the hour? I think so. Is it just completely silent while we're walking in? It is. There's a there's a bit of a rustle through the wind and there's a bit of a rustle from where you came from, but other than that, um, it's cold and quiet. It's there's a still cold almost as if um, it might even be psychosmatic from the tone of the ghost town. Sarah looks it's like fairly uncomfortable by the silence. Armando's tail whips nice and low as he looks around. Also a little on edge. You're able to find a workshop as it didn't have any walls or ceiling. It looked to be a impromptu constructed enclave outside. There's debris covering a lot of it. C torn canvas and shingles as well from the nearby roofs. But inside the workshop, you're able to make out um a large saw as well as some metal working and woodworking devices. Okay. Um, does there look to be anything like a uh like a crucible for melting metal? No. Okay. Um, could you give me a description or how do you want to handle the tools? Uh, the tools in the shop itself do not look native to its surroundings. It looks like this had been built more recently than the finer work of the buildings around it. Uh it it has decayed in the same manner as the rest of the buildings almost as if it blends in but it is clearly something that had been built much later than the decadence or what once was decadence. So this workshop was built while this place was ruined. Good chance. Yeah. Or just prior. I will uh represent this space as the workshop as you can walk freely inside here and these are kind of like just overhangs. Most of this is collapsed. Well, it seems that maybe they're worse if sunfall and they're not perhaps trying to rebuild here. a craftsman. Master T's name was on the memorial, but can't think of any others that I had encountered. Anyone else? Well, if someone did inhabit here, that would require them to have the materials needed to apply their trade, but as well to to live here. Uh can we investigate uh investigate further signs of the life of like recent if this place has been recently um come through. There are no signs of life. There are no wellworn foot pads. There are no droppings. Um, nothing. Your hypothesis is about pretty much ruins. Your hypothesis about um this place potentially being a vehicle for reconstruction for the town is cut short when you see next to the saw and a lot of the woodworking tools are piles of what look to be arrow shafts unfinished. Well, certainly these could be handy. I could get that crossbow and that bow and working order if I'm able to find f find enough twine there. I can help you look with that. I mean, how hard could a crossbow be, right? Yeah. Point and shoot. Yeah, I'm sure even you could do that. Perhaps so. Uh, are there any other raw materials here or other processed materials that are here in the workshop? Uh, do you want to take time searching? There's plenty of crates and odds and ends. There's hammers and um, yeah. Uh, yeah. any any tools uh or uh if if you can call them machinery uh well Todd's had like a machinist workshop of sorts with clamps and things like that. Any tools that I don't presently possess uh as well as uh any raw materials. I would be interested in knowing what those would be. Uh there's a large foot pedal saw. the uh band um was made of some kind of rubber or some kind of plant-based material and that has all faded away. Uh if you're able to replace the band, you'd be able to get the foot pedal saw running. Um that would allow you to make something like your table much less chunky, more accurate. Like if you wanted to make a table that perfectly fit the inside corner of Frederick, kind of reduce some space or something, you could use a saw like this. Um it's it's for tackling the large wood cutting problem. There's also planes and small sanding uh elements as well as um and plenty of essentially if you want a woodworking tool, ask me for it and I'll let you know if it's here. Okay. Um, can I do that outside of session when I have a chance to? Yeah, on my uh session notes, I'll just put woodworking tools. Uh, for metal working tools, what do you got? Uh, there are hammers and um metal sanders. You know, like those sticks with the teeth on them, the really fine teeth. like pipes. No, files. There's metal files. Files. Okay. Oh, this is a gold. Um, raw materials in the crates and things like that. Uh there's a crate of 100 arrowheads. They seem to be in fine condition. And how many um how many completed shafts were there? Uh there's about a thousand 1,000 shafts. Yeah. Suppose a 100 and 100 No 100 arrow heads. So 100 chafts, 100 arrows should that should do us quite well if you are up for hunting. Going to have to at some point. So I reckon it'll come in handy. Yeah, you're looking at that saw there pretty interestingly. Yes, if you would be able to help me haul this back to Frederick. you find a box of um alongside those of raw fletching. However, it's unprocessed and you'd have to meticulously adhere it to the back of the shaft. Um it's a light activity per arrow. Being inexperienced, it would take you 10 minutes to sort of squish the fletching, stick it on the back, and press it in. Okay. Is how is it affixed with glue? Is there glue here? Uh there's a notch on the back. So it's uh manually a fixed. Gotcha. And he said one one arrow per short uh activity. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Uh I will I will take the fleshing as well like straw. Can we just estimate a sufficient amount to match 100 to 100? Yeah. Yes. So that's easy enough. Okay. It is about 3:00. You have almost exactly 6 hours before um Belinda's request to Baradine needs to be fulfilled. All right. Um Sarah with the aid of Armando will haul those materials back and these sorted tools uh that he was looking for. Um are you taking the saw? Yes. Okay. How how hefty is it? Uh it's [ __ ] It'll take both of you and you'd be moving extremely slowly. It'll take you 30 minutes to bring that back to Frederick. Okay. How would that be alleviated by use of the uh we met at all? Uh yeah, that would uh chalk it down to 10 minutes. We'll do that. Yeah, I think it's certainly worth it. Yeah. Um sounds good. Is there are there any is there any reading material any letters any documents string around this place? There is not. Gotcha. There is a piece of paper. Uh most of it is frayed and worn. Uh it looks like on its front are tally marks. That's it. Just telling. Yeah. Okay. Um we'll take the time to return those materials, the um tools, the files, the pipets, uh the woodworking materials, all those things we'll talk about later. Um, Armando, Armando, do you have an appetite to continue this truth to find food here? We got time to kill and uh I'm I'm baking on my boy getting us some food. Uh, as far as hunting, I mean, if there are cats roaming around here, there's got to be something. There's some way they're surviving. The rodentits or bugs, I don't know, something. But I've heard an area mouse while we've been traing about things rooms. I haven't either. It's eerily quiet, but to be expected. I think it seems like this is handy for your work and I couldn't be put to much other use. It's better than sitting around smoking cigarettes, I guess, till my boy gets back. So, yeah, I'll help. Well, I should hope that he returns fruitful the bounty of the river here. Perhaps we can have a drink of that rum. Yeah. a celebration of a hard desert. Maybe later. Let's food and water first. Uh then we'll get there. Are you going to retrieve it? Certainly. Okay. Well, then uh there are yet more buildings to explore. I can we can return and make Kent and I can begin puzzling out these materials done to me by the light master. Very well then. Just uh let me know how it can be uh useful. Well, we've yet to explore in these buildings here to see if there are any supplies or other things. Maybe one last one last lap. Take another hour and then we can begin to camp. Kind of looks at the sky to gauge the sun. Um, all right. I worship me. I was starting to get a little tired. Okay. Um, so returning all the materials to Frederick, coming back with a wheelbarrow, and heading towards uh this this area here since we've kind of mopped about everywhere else. The buildings up to the north are much of the same. Seems that the place you had been searching for is one of the only buildings that remains mostly intact due to it not technically being a building. There are a few remnants of uh what had once been gardens, um public places, uh squares, but it's very difficult to differentiate them from their intended purpose versus the rubble that they now lie in. In the in the places that uh were old gardens, are there any living plants? So, there are there are a few weeds uh more of the same dandelions that Arondo had been picking through. Okay. And serial will gather as much living plant material as you can as you can. Um, well, to fit a uh to fit the wheelbarrow, you can fill a wheelbarrow full of dandelions, but that would take you an hour, maybe two. Uh, can we say I do it for 30 minutes? Uh, yeah. Yeah, I can give you um 100 dandelions. Sounds correct. Oh, hell yeah. It's just jug. Um, wheeling around the corner here to where the jug was stored. Is it a cylinder? It is. Yeah. All right. He's going to lift it up and um plop it in the wheelbarrow and start revealing it back. Are there any flags or other other kinds of heraldry that is like tattered or identifiable here? It's difficult to tell. A lot of it is grayed. The colors changed with time. Uh a lot of the awnings of the buildings had different colors. You can tell just one is a bit more yellowish of a gray, one is a bit more reddish. Uh they most have either dissolved with time or hardened into almost a thick canvas. Okay. Um I think I think I've exhausted what this ruin can provide. Very well. You think everything we got is I got the rum there then. Okay. Then we'll move back into Frederick and start going back to U. Oh. Um, did we did we encounter any sealed barrels? Any barrels that look like they were watertight? Uh, you did not. Okay. Uh, Arondo went past a couple. Went past a couple what? Uh, sealed barrels. They're mostly a part of the wall in in the building, the pub. Yeah, they could be full perhaps. Um they could be empty. Getting them out would be uh very difficult, but uh definitely doable. Okay. As this notion strikes me, I'll ask Armando if he sees any barrels or anything that could contain good deals of water. Well, there was um I think some sealed ones in the pub there. They were a little um out of the way, but possible to to sustain if you so wish. My line of inquiry is so that we do not pollute our drinking water and the water meant for the quenching of the heat from Frederick's use of the stones with fishes from your son's expedition. If we could acquire one more barrel that could contain water tightly, it would be an incredible boom. And perhaps even if he kept live fish in there, it uh they may hold a bit longer than dead fish would. I believe it worthwhile venture. All right, we can uh we can go back. It'll take some time. I'm going to be careful with this. So, I'll let me get my overalls on. Sarah Sarah will will go to the back of Frederick and neatly fold his nice coat and slacks. Well, he'll keep the slacks on and then he'll pull his uh his overalls, his work uniform, come back with his uh come back with his box of tools. There's a couple ways to to skin a cat here. The barrels are behind the bar and they make up the wall of the behind the bar and the roof is collapsed in towards the bar making like a triangle. So you can kind of climb on top of you can crawl on top of the bar. You could you could get it you could get access to the barrels from the outside by walking up the roof like a ramp, digging aside a lot of the debris and trying to lift a barrel and then move it down the the slope. or you can try to get it accessed on the inside and pull it through the little labyrinthine um exit towards the crack in the front. Uh anything else and you're talking about moving weight that's um just too heavy. You can't move uh stone beams that size. At least I don't think you have the capacity to. I don't think so either. M with the with the new tools that we got like the long saw, would we be able to um to create a to create a path or loose uh sections of like supporting structures of the roof that like kind of like a control demolition where we can this the saw isn't something you can really angle. It's like a pottery wheel where you kind of place it down and there's a little there's like a foot pedal on it. Um Oh, your the long saw was the uh the the foot operated thing. Okay. Yeah, it's a it's a st it's like a crafting station kind of thing. Um, and maybe if you had 10 dudes, you could pick it up and kind of turn it on its side, but gotcha. Uh, if you want to if you want to scavenge barrels to gain access to them, do you sort of have uh unless you think of something creative? Um in my mind there are two primary routes uh of equal difficulty just different applications of difficulty. Uh one is about more precision and pulling and the other is more um smashing and hacking. We're not very good at smashing or hacking but pulling a heavy object. Are we never good at that? I'd say as a group we have the strength of like a a fat 13year-old. That's very true. You're pretty strong. You're stronger than serial. Maybe if you really put your back into it, you're worth about two zeros. Hell yeah. Well, if you can if you can provide the muscle, I can guide you in the precise motions. Yeah, I'll I'll be the muscle. Just [ __ ] look out for me and just give me direction. Okay. Uh, have we encountered any rope uh traveling through here? Um, there's rope all about. Uh, none of it looks good. Um, perhaps feasible. You pulsing them from the walls, the the overhangs that have uh pieces of debris on them. Are you taking the um hole underneath the bar, turn around the corner, then move it out the front route? What do you think, Armando? You've been in there. Would there be enough space for these barrels to pass? Yeah, I think so. It's kind of like the Roma I passed through. I think it's doable. I will trust your estimations. So, I guess we're pulling it through the through the rebel, huh? Yeah. So, they're all behind the bar, right? They are. Yeah. Okay. There's Thankfully, there are some at floor level. Means if you're able to get it out, you could just roll it all the way to this wall and then you start the struggle of pulling. Getting it out is a problem and then pulling is a problem. But you can even with one hand just roll it half the distance. Okay, there is no way in hell that you alone are going to be able to get this out of the wall. From a quick um estimate, I kind of look um uh maybe this might be a little bit more jam than I expected. Uh do you have anything I can level with like a crowbar or something out there? Um on the upside, it seems the barrels are full. Oh well. Um it seems they are full. Uh, am I able to tell what's in it? No. Do I see the seal? Uh, sealed evenly around the edge. There's a um like a nozzle on the front. Okay. Uh, there's no label or anything. These beer kings. Uh, yeah. BRKesque, but like a barrel turned on its side stuck in the wall with a with a tap on it. Casks. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Um, uh, so when you say that they're lining the wall, can I identify if these are structurally integral to keeping the wall upright? If one were to be removed, would the wall? No, they're they're fit into sockets made out of wooden like trussing on the wall. Um, so if you were to remove all of the kegs, the wall would still stand. However, it might not considering that the building is wanting to fall in that direction. Well, if all we need are the barrels and there is a tap. Can we not empty them? Or at least enough so that they are easier to move. We have a lot of liquid in this sucker. But um I suppose we could do that. Sarah will turn the tap on on one of them that's uh near ground level. It gives you a hard time, but you manage to twist it and it uh opens itself rather rapidly as the floor is now covered in a 3 in of wine. Oh, it's wine. [ __ ] Probably [ __ ] stinks. The entire place smells like wine. Oh, [ __ ] horror. The cat will sprint inside and as you're leaning over uh to undo the as the wine is pouring out, the cat will stick its feet in it and walk over and begin drinking the wine. What the [ __ ] He just keeps I watch it. I just watch it drink wine. He He doesn't stop. He just What the [ __ ] I would have said that it was this was a shame to go to waste, but at least it seems that he is enjoying it. I think I'm high off of wine fumes. Okay, Sarah is going to continue to assist Armando with trying to remove this cask from the wall. Uh, now that it is a bit lighter, I presume Arondo is able to remove the cask from the wall now that it's empty by himself. Oh, yeah. It is. It's light enough to manipulate. [ __ ] yeah. All right, I'll uh I'll grab it. Take it out. All right, you have one wine cask. I'll put If you want to get another cask out, it would take 30 minutes per cask if you want them empty. If you want a full cask, both of you would have to roll against it and it would take about three hours. 3 hours. Oh, no. Sorry. One hour 1 hour. Okay. Uh 30 minutes versus 1 hour. And how what's the How much time do we have left? Uh it's currently 3:30. You have till 9, but the journey will take you an hour. So you have eight uh you have four and a half hours to spend if you want to make it back to Baradine. So we could roll for four casks. You could uh full cast. What do you think, Ler? Uh if you had the inclination to try to save one of these casts, I would absolutely. Okay, we could do at least one. Yeah, never mind. My [ __ ] lamprest does not matter. Amato, you put your entire back into lifting this cask out. And uh Sirill kind of paws at the edge a little bit, getting his his nails underneath the uh metal rivet. But it seems that he's putting more effort into pretending like he's trying to pull really hard than he is actually pulling really hard. Are you even pulling at all? I'm doing my best. I sure. You don't sound like you are, [ __ ] Ah. And he'll slam it down. Oh dear. They're quite heavy, aren't they? He's [ __ ] gassed. He's hungry. He's looking at the cat like he's a [ __ ] couple of drumsticks. The cat has been drinking wine for 30 minutes. What the [ __ ] I think that's some kind of mutant. Perhaps your son will have and his spry youth will be able to better haul assemble these in. If you are looking for a parting drink before we leave, Sunrest. Perhaps we can stop by the pub on the way out. The cat is Yeah, maybe later. The cat is drinking so much wine, the volume has lowered by about an inch on the ground. What the [ __ ] Uh, would you like to attempt to pull out the cask again? Uh, sure. So, this will be an hour now. Yep. If you insist. Let's do it. Serial actually puts a little bit of noticeable effort. However, your arms are a bit tired from the previous attempt. You're able to weasel it about halfway out of the wall. Okay, we'll weasel it out and then we'll we'll take a a a break and get our gas back a bit, our breath back, and try it again. Ammo, you're really giving it your all. You're you're pushing yourself. Uh Sirill seems to have uh seen you taking a break and realized that maybe, you know, the next attempt would need as much effort and is much similar to the first attempt. Uh, the barrel barely slides out. Although with if both of you put your mind to it and really stressed yourself, you could pull it out and then proceed to roll it down and move it out. Sarah will will take a moment to step back and evaluate the path that we had rolled previously and looking for more efficient uh egresses for the barrel of wine. He will focus and direct the the barrel efficient. I will expand a focus to help with guiding us out. You could give Armando the focus if you'd like. Oh, is that a thing you can use? Uh, now it is. Yeah. In this situation, if you're if you're like, "Hey, let's go at this angle." You put a little bit of hand. Yeah, I'll I'll do that. There. Hey, there we go, baby. We're drinking tonight. [ __ ] Yes. No. for the brain. For the first time, Sirill's um engineering mind and advice is actually sound advice, as it helps guide your strength to push the barrel out of its cubby. The cat will calmly walk over the barrel and resume drinking and give you space for you to roll it out and out of the crack. Outside the bar, you have a barrel turned on its side, filled to the brim with fresh wine. [ __ ] yeah. It is 5:30 and No, it is 6:30. So, we got to start hitting the road soon. You have an hour and a half. Well, well done. Let's hoist this in, head back to camp, and Oh, great. We'll log everything up. [ __ ] he'll get in Frederick and then just [ __ ] like lie down on one of the seats just [ __ ] exhausted. So, we turn back up a camp um and try to make neat piles using the the chest that we had previously. Acquired um sorting the arrowheads and their fletching into like a small I don't know ballistic weapons workshop. Not by workshop, I mean on top of the the crate that contains all the material components. Um the portion of the back of Frederick is largely like this real estate is largely full of all of the [ __ ] that we just like uh you're you fill the quarter of of Frederick. It just piles of like random old metal. Just a hundred arrow shafts and like a Yo, we can There we go. Oh my god. Oh yeah, the boy. Uh let's do let's do let's do Gilgan returns from the fishing trip. Um, uh, I was gonna say say hey to daddy, but that's a little [ __ ] weird. Uh, just in case you have to go books and then we can tackle the, uh, alchemy stuff. All right. As you settle in and you return all of your loot to the inside of Frederick and you end up at the place that you had began, you see a familiar face dawn the back door. as Gilligan returns from his fishing trip empty-handed. Oh boy, you made it back safe. That's uh better than the last time you left on your own. He'll step into Frederick and he'll say, "Unfortunately, I haven't had any luck with um any fish. It seems the waterways are completely devoid of such things, unfortunately." But interestingly enough, I've sort of encountered some entryways on the southern side of the plateau since these um rivers seem to give way to waterfalls. There's um I found a way into the sewer system of the city or whatever is left of it. Uh I don't know how much perhaps some interesting items could have fallen below there to scavenge from but um I wouldn't know if it would be worth the venture. I leave up to uh your judgment father and uh you two of course Mr. Zero. Well, it's it's at least good to know. Uh I just glad you came back safe. Uh it was a long shot, but it didn't come without its information. So, thank you, boy. As your father speaks to you, the there is a very thick stench of wine surrounding him and the and the cat for some reason. Oh, dear. You didn't you don't tell me you you were able to secure some some wine. You found alcohol. It was all we could find, boy. It's Trust me, it's not my I I would rather prefer clean water, but this is the best we got. Uh well, I suppose can't be too choosy in a situation like this. The wine will have to do. No bread and cheese, but wine will suffice. Supplies for the energy we need and perhaps the relaxation that your father needs. He's been quite wound up. Mhm. Looks away. There's a gallon of uh liquid in front of you, Gilligan. It says um Mr. Tummy's Tummy Rubby Rum. This is interesting. Just rum, huh? Yeah, it was a real uh real fancy find. That's right. probably sweeter than the dickens, though. Seems like uh you've made out with quite with quite the treasure trove for yourself, father, if nothing else. Everything else but food and water, boy. unfortunately. But maybe it's best we just head for the city thing. It's nothing else. That place seems like or Goldstein seems like the only place that has a proper or some semblance of civilization living and making do. Yes, you are indeed sensible, young Gilligan. Civilization calls. However, we must await for Mr. paradigm to exit his tree. Ah, has he not returned yet? No. But the matter of the sewers is quite interesting. If if it were the case that they were a safe haven for people, I suspect may have sought refuge there. There may be supplies down there, as well as the supplies of my former master. Mr. Slept. Oh, that's true. Maybe that one bear looking fella. He had uh his workshop down in the sewers, didn't he? Maybe some of his things are still down there. Is that any luck? Oh [ __ ] that's a good point. Yes, the the day is late. the I have still some work to do to prepare the ash necessary for master Veradine to ensure that we can eat in our ventures to wherever we go. I believe your father and I have discussed the matter of venturing to Ableton. Is that correct, Armaldu? I don't believe we settled on the matter, but we hadn't, but it was a place of interest. It would require us to leave the valley, but per the map that I have been so luckily afforded, the valley is largely barren. The streams and lakes seem to also be so. Whatever happened here may have ruined the landscape. But fear not with the monsters or creatures that inhabit some what they call it half the the valley. Uh, I have acquired a bow and a crossbow, and your father has procured for you a sword. In addition to the ones that I provided you previously, maybe you will keep my hand on this one. Ah, sweet. Maybe it'll come in handy. I should hope. I should hope not. I should hope that we do not have to utilize them, but we are strangers in a odd new place. Could come in handy. Couldn't hurt to have options, defenses. We could uh we could practice with each other. Boy, I got myself a fancy old sword. We could um we could try and learn together. Oh. Oh. Uh, you've taken in uh interest in art of the story, father. That's Well, I'm surprised honestly. Yeah, I've never been one for it, but I don't know. I always kind of thought swords were kind of cool and I I figured when I look at the three of you I mean I don't really want Baradine in front of me and [ __ ] serial like means gee like this cat could [ __ ] roll through those two someone's got to stand strong uh in front of everybody and well why might as well be me and and that means I'll have to get myself into situations Well, if if you wish though, father, I'll I'll train with you. Very well. It's good to have uh options when we're pinned against the wall. At least we can rely on this. You see, guns run out of ammo. And well, I don't know the quite limit of your threads yet, but at least this all we need is stamina. He nuts. Try some basic stuffs on the tree. see how it goes. I could slay that cat. That cat's intriguing. We'll pause it um routine of trying to suck every last bit of wine out of its wet fur and we'll look up at you for a second and then look back down, continuing its business. Has the cat been drinking? It's quite fun to find. Oh dear. Well, if nothing else, maybe it will be fattened by its consumption and with our lack of other food. It may be an emergency. Emergency food. My well, Mr. My experience with drunkers has taught me that there can never really be too much wine. I doubt he'll be satisfied, but uh hoping. Yes, we'll see how long your father lasts at that bar. I fear he may drain a quarter of it by the time we reach Conway on his own. Seems like Yeah, guess I'll have to fight the cat for it. Wonder how that'll turn out. That ferocious cat. Should we name it? Do you name your food? I'll uh I'll leave you to that then. Uh you can I I'll take care of Sel. I think my father's waiting for me. You'll uh approach. Ding ding ding. He's like taking it and like lightly pressing it into like the branches and stuff like he's going back and forth. you get a good feel for the blade. It is something that you're now able to balance in your hand rather than kind of wiggle around. A lot of the footwork that had been trained to you or taught to you by Mr. Slow is now coming into fruition. you're able to change your stance and balance yourself so that you're able to balance the blade and give more accurate strikes. Blade is a bit dull though and not going to cut cleanly through any of the larger branches. Okay. I know we had a bit of um extra time. Um I think we had like a leftover hour or something. Could I just use it to train with the sword? Yeah. Okay. Uh you have I'll do that. You have two hours left because the last 30 minutes beyond will get back and then it'll take you that much time to get to where you met Belinda. Oh, perfect. Okay. I'll uh I'll do that for the two hours and Gilly if you want to join in at all in the training, you know, feel free. Uh for sure. I'll probably spend your last bit of time with you. Okay. Brinko, what kind of weird sounds do you want to see me do? I have a couple of bad. I don't know. What are we working with? What do we have to cook with? I have so much [ __ ] just piled around in my corner of Frederick. I have 100 dandelions. I have everything that's in my inventory on the wiki. All right, let me check the wiki. Yeah, I think looking at the wiki is probably index smokes. Oh, there's more. I scrolled. Okay. Well, there's a lot here. Liquid one. I guess you could like identifi try identifying these re reagents because you just have the colors and sense of them. know what you're working what you have to work with. Yeah, I think I'm going to start making liquids uh and feed and creating a mixture of the liquid with whining feeding it to the cat to test some of these. Bro, he's going to either get like poison or he's going to like get hella superpowered. Yeah. All right. So, here's here's Mike the situation. In order to make a single stock of ash, you'll need 10 dandelions. You have 100. So, you can make 10 stocks of ash, or you can make the six stocks required for you to initiate the gathering of premium material over the course of an hour. That puts you at 1.5 hours to go. Five of that for travel. You have one hour of alchemy that if you succeed or fail will give you enough ash to do baradine circle. Okay. Um so sorry. How much ash is required for baradine circle? Let's start there. One stock. How many? One stock. But you need six to get it started in the first place. Okay, let me take a look at all the [ __ ] I'm carrying. So, right now we have 112 dandelion, 100 from the city, 12 from the uh from books picking flowers. Mhm. Um, so to to get it started, could could the trees around not uh are they living enough to to Oh, you started a fire prior. Um, you could attempt to gather a different kind of living living material from the trees, like a a freshly snapped branch or something from the actual tree itself. um that might be of a different rank which would maybe need less of them or save you a bit of time. Uh but if you want to guarantee you'd spend the hour and 60 dandelions and how much time do we have? Uh you have you have effectively two hours. Okay. 60 down Allons and and one hour. So, it leaves me one hour to do other experiments. Yeah. Is Okay. So, we're just Okay. All right. Uh let's burn the 60 and the hour for the ash for paradigm. Oh, that would be the ash to start the ability to that would be the ash to line the kiln to start the ability to actually do alchemy. Oh, okay. And then uh after Okay, so this is start the engine and then at the end of me doing whatever alchemical things that I'm looking to do, then we would sweep it out and that would be the ash that it uses. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Whether you succeed or fail, you have enough ash. It's just that you have right now you have an hour to spend on a chance of success to do anything you want. Okay. And are these long uh long activities or short activities? That depends on what you're trying to do. Okay. Uh let me give you my first experiment. Uh, I want to make a mold in the shape of a kibble cube. And so does that cons? Well, that's just shaping the ash that's in there into a mold, right? Or does that require more ash? Uh, you can shape the ash there into a mold, but you would need you would only have one stock of ash left. within the kilm, which mean you which means you need to burn an extra 50 dandelions. If that's your goal, you can throw um you throw 90 dandelions in there. That only gives you half an hour to do anything. So, what would your goal be with the kibble cube mold? Um, how long does it would it take to create prima from the the dandelions here or do I have sufficient material to do that? That would take 10 minutes. Okay. All right. All right. I'll do so. So we're looking at 1 hour 10 minutes. Um so that's making the mold um or is this separate? So creating the prima is first and then making the mold would be second, right? Uh that's a I'm trying to figure this out. Um, well, no, you you'd have to. So, you need the ash. You need the six ash as the starting requirement of creating the prima. So, you would need you would do the mold first. That would that would make the most sense. Or else you just spend extra time. Okay. Um, make the ash. Uh, make the mold. uh create the prima by and so the prima would have to be um a naturally occurring substance uh like more dandelions. Yeah, you could use all of your dandelions except for two of them. So you'd have two two dandelions left. Okay. Uh, then I will do so. Out of the kiln, you pull a cube of white odorless and seems to be a propertyless material. It is similar to chalk but less less flaky. Okay. Um, continuing to experiment. Uh, I don't need to add any additional hash. We're still good on that, right? No, you're still good. You have, um, six total. Okay. Um, in the mold in the shape of the cable cube, I'm going to I'm going to place the So, the mold should be big enough to fit the O stone. And I want to place the marine bonnet. I want to I want to turn this O stone into the shape of uh into the shape of the kibble cube. and and apply the printing material. Okay. You have a um you have a rectangular uh platform that is the mold. Uh it's even on the top because it is um flush with the prima material cube that is currently inside it. Directly on top you're placing the ove stone and you're going to put that in the kil. Yes. All right. I want to combine these two forms of currency for my edification. Uh, which property are you selecting? Do I select them? You do. Yeah. Oh, it doesn't mean you're you have to succeed by, you know, a lot. But um you choose a desire when you initially initiate it. Okay. So let me let me look these fields back up. Can you give me the uh the cheat sheet rundown really quick? Alto negretto citrina. Alto is about um properties the physics properties um how much space it occupies um things like gravity and [ __ ] like that. Um, negretto is uh energy. So if it has if it emits like lightning or something. Um, citrus is its ability to grow its ability to contain and direct life. And then rubidito is um the memory or the ability for the object to hold sentiment. Uh, we're doing rubidito. All righty. Because uh these representations of wealth, it is uh it's sentimental in nature. Like what is an Ostone? It's a representation of a of a promise, right? Of a deal that's been struck, a relationship born exchange. I roll as Gilligan. Oh, I'm selecting to. Did you see that rule? No. Okay. Uh, roll a roll a d20. Uh, you want this to be as high as you can possibly get this. Then we're focusing it again. I've expended three focus and one standing in this session. Yeah, you're running out of juice. Got to eat that catman. Lot of brain power in this episode. Almost an hour spent. As you open the side of the kil, the heat dwindles and returns to a cold state in almost an unnatural fashion. The oaf stone loses the color upon its surface and the indented groove on it on the upper side. And beneath it is no longer a cube of prima material, but something else entirely. Yeah, I'll I'll use my trusty stolen tongs to shake loose the uh the mold and disperse the ash around the kil. And uh Are you going to pull it out with your bare hands touching your skin upon the object surface? No, I'm using the Okay. The cube, it looks almost identical to a kibble in its size and almost in weight. However, it's as if somebody were to try to chisel their own kibble out of a gemstone. It is a a deep red with veinous lines that run through it that are brighter than the red. a almost uh orange or gold. I take out my hand and almost like a monle placing it up to my eye and examine it while it's in the tongues. Do I recognize this as some familiar gemstone? No. It's of a similar color to one of the powders that is in one of the the jars, but not quite. The color is about the same, but the translucency or or transparency is different. Uh, this gem is clear despite the veins inside of it, and the powder is opaque, although they're similar colors. Something else does catch her eye though, and it is of the oath stone. That material, now that it has been expended, is entirely identical to the material that Baradine has on his lapel as a flower. Oh [ __ ] Yo, he's going to walk over to the cat with the tongs touching the u holding the gem and he's going to kind of like nudge it towards him. The guy looks at it then looks at you as if um perhaps has no idea what's going on or perhaps is deeply judging you and every single one of the most intimate of your character flaws just passing. He pushes He pushes the gem into the cat's nose to sniff it. The cat will back up as he try to push it into his nose. Sarah will walk over to the wine cask and he'll put a drop of wine on the uh on the surface of the stone and then he'll walk back and and do the same thing. Placing the placing the stone up to its face. The cat will swat at it'll he'll he'll bat at it. He's lightly tapping it with his paw like as if it's u annoying him. And Sarah will take his handkerchief and well thinking better put it back in the pocket because I would stain it. He will put the cube down on his work table in front of him. uh placing the tongs to the side and then he will a thumb and index finger and lift it up react at all the skin. It does not Sarah will will take the tools and remove the O stone as well or what remains of the OO and place it um next to each other on the desk in front of them and then think deeply and contemplating. Uh, should I treat this similarly to an alchemy stone then? Yeah, this is an alchemy stone. Gotcha. Well, it it's not it hasn't been honed. It's not um it's not programmed to do anything effectively. Uh but under solids under um processing um a solid alchemy product will be unable to react with other materials without having high amounts of energy or agitation. Okay. Um, so he will do the first test which is to shake the stone. Nothing happens on your on your hardest back swing of shaking the stone. There is the slightest faint of a glow. That could have been your imagination. Okay. For Baradine Returns, I'm going, let's say right now, I'm going to cut a branch off this tree. I'm going to climb on the back of of uh Frederick. Take the saw and take this section here. You managed to cut off a branch. It's a bit heavy in your hand. Seems like a typical tree branch. For some reason, the branch progressively gets lighter and lighter the longer you hold it. Gets to a point where its weight almost matches the exact mass and consistency of paper sort of holding it. and the edge of the tree branch is angled downward as gravity is taking its pull. The leaves and the stems will begin to unravel and fall to the ground as they slowly transmute themselves into single pieces of paper that hit the ground and dissolve into ash. Seeing this, um, Sirill's going to go back in, return with, uh, a container and take leaves off the next branch, trying to catch that ash, seeing if the transformation still occurs inside of Doom. book class continue. By the time you return, the branch is beginning to regrow itself. Little pieces of paper are interlocking, folding and twisting outwards as if being made by the handiwork of some school child. The more it reaches out, the more that it folds in on itself, the more it takes the appearance of something real. As you experiment and you pull off leaves from the other branch, they behave as the branch prior had. Pull the leaves off and they slowly begin to lose weight in your hands. As the leaves will crumble into ash in the jar that you had prepared for them takes a few moments, minutes. Uh, the ash leaves the jar and the tree will begin to regrow itself.