June 26, 2025 • 31 mins
Phantom Nirvana is a short-form Dungeons & Dragons live-play podcast packed with action, dark fantasy, and immersive storytelling. Follow the cast of players as they face eldritch mysteries, high-stakes quests, and perilous battles under the guidance of their Dungeon Master. With shorter episodes and a focus on intense moments, this series delivers a thrilling D&D adventure where every roll of the dice could lead to doom or glory.
Music in this episode by: Sun Umbra, Turntrie and Sagey
Warning: Contains dark themes that may not be suitable for all audiences. Instagram @phantomnirvana
Email phantomnirvana@gmail.com
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_00 (00:01):
Close your eyes and open your mind.
This is Phantom Nirvana, aDungeons& Dragons podcast.
Be advised, this story containsdark themes that may not be
suitable for some audiences.
And now we present PhantomNirvana.
UNKNOWN (00:19):
Phantom Nirvana
SPEAKER_03 (00:44):
What you are
SPEAKER_00 (00:45):
about to hear is the seven of us playing Dungeons and
Dragons.
Most of this is improvised.
Please enjoy the story.
This is Season 2, Episode 1, TheGray Desert.
You stand together in the Museode Prado.
(01:07):
You're standing in front of thepainting, and you're watching it
crumble to sand.
You're shoulder to shoulder justas you were before.
You breathe heavily.
Your eyes follow the sand as itspreads thinly across the floor
before you.
It is matte gray.
(01:27):
There is a sun stain on the wallin the shape of the painting.
One day in the summer of 1998,you all walked out of the
convenience store Axel hadpurchased ice cream for the
group and you laughed togetheras you unwrapped the cones and
(01:48):
popsicles and strolled aroundthe side of the building.
You all paused and looked at theposter tacked to the wall
outside.
There was a missing girl.
Her name was Rachel.
You remember her from band.
She played flute.
The poster had been there allsummer and they hadn't found her
and you wondered if they everwould.
(02:09):
Some people said she drowned inthe river or was kidnapped.
or that she ran away.
Some kids said she was abductedby aliens.
Whatever happened to her, itwasn't good.
After a moment, Lucas reached upand pulled down the poster and
crumpled it up and threw it inthe dumpster.
Rachel was gone.
(02:32):
You blink and come back to themuseum and look around and
several other paintings in thegallery have crumbled to sand.
The lighting is strange.
There is other structural damageto the walls.
The floor is cracked and uneven.
It's like an earthquake has hitthe museum.
There's a tepid closeness to theair.
(02:55):
You wear the same clothes youwore to the museum, the same
clothes you wore to the funeral.
Mal, you still clutch thecrystal, and Marcus, you pat
your pocket and feel the kazoo.
You look around at each other,and then back at the room.
There are two exits to thisgallery room.
(03:17):
One you recall leads backtowards the entrance of the
museum.
You hear the sound of a tickingclock, but there's something off
about it.
It's too slow.
Your brain anticipates the nexttick, but it comes half a beat
later, startling you.
(03:39):
Is everybody okay?
Where are we?
Back in the museum, but it lookslike, I don't know, wherever we
were, and this crumbling dust isinfiltrating the real world.
See, that'll happen when youtake LSD.
Just pop a multivitamin.
(04:00):
That'll help out.
I really want to do that again,though.
I haven't seen that much firesince, like, Woodstock 1999.
That was crazy.
Is this real?
Is this back to the real world?
What?
Listen, you guys, this has beengreat.
This has been good.
I think I'm going to head out,though.
Axel starts walking towards theexit.
(04:21):
Let's get out of here.
I'm going to.
We're leaving?
Have there been any windows upto this point?
No.
Where are you going to go?
To my dog.
It seemed like...
lucas said it was somehow up tous to save the world or
(04:41):
something and we failed the lasttime and there would be another
chance but no you're out he gaveme the box with the drugs in it
i mean that was a pretty wildtrip but you know i there's no
more it's empty there's no moreof it Mal's going to start
(05:01):
walking down the walls to anyframed paintings that are still
there that aren't checking themout, like putting her hands up
against the paintings.
As you touch the first one, yourhand sort of smooshes against
the canvas, and it gives way alittle bit, and you can feel
that your fingers sink into itlike Play-Doh.
(05:23):
Come over here.
Check this out.
The painting that you happen tobe touching is of two...
Giants locked in combat.
They're standing over a village.
SPEAKER_03 (05:34):
Did anyone come to see?
Can I show
SPEAKER_00 (05:36):
you?
Yeah, I think we all cometogether.
Yeah, I think Axel turned aroundand he's kind of like, hey,
that's wild.
Are we still high or was thatall real?
This feels pretty fucking real,Axel.
Yeah, usually it does.
But it's been a few days andusually most things are over by
(05:57):
now.
He's kind of like fidgeting andpanicking a little bit.
I don't think any of us knewwhere we've been, but we're not
back.
We're back, but we're not back.
That's the question, I think.
This is either some sort ofin-between space, or this is the
new back.
When we were in the other place,and we were looking for the
(06:18):
entrance to the temple in thewoods, we couldn't find the
entrance, and then I just feltit.
Like I could sense it.
Try doing that again.
Okay.
I cast Detect Magic.
At that moment where you wouldfeel the spell kick off, nothing
happens.
You have the same sense of theroom around you that you
(06:40):
normally would.
Nothing.
I got nothing.
What about you, Mal?
Can you do that thing thatyou've been doing?
SPEAKER_01 (06:47):
Mal grabs her rock and holds it
SPEAKER_03 (06:50):
out in front of her and thinks
SPEAKER_00 (06:52):
eldritch thoughts.
Sure enough, nothing happens.
When you hold it out and posejust so, it just is a rock in
your hands, a crystal in yourhands.
Meanwhile, Mal has beencontinuing to go painting to
painting, looking to see ifthere's a painting that's
peaceful.
(07:12):
They all seem pretty gruesome,right?
Yeah, in this particular room,most of it is pretty rough
stuff.
There's scenes of gore, fantasyviolence.
Which gallery had thelandscapes?
I think one of the other roomsprobably had the landscapes,
yeah.
Some of the paintings in thisroom have crumbled to sand, just
(07:32):
like yours.
Not all of them.
There's probably three or fourin this room that still are
intact.
Is there anything about thosethat we can see that's in common
amongst them?
Yeah, they're all oil paintings.
They're all going to be 16thcentury.
You've got one that depicts abattle between a group of sea
(07:55):
gods, aquatic creatures battlingin the surf.
I put my hand up against theocean.
You touch it and it feels cold,but it's that same Play-Doh sort
of smoosh as you press your handinto it.
You're seeing another one thatdepicts, looks like there are
some hags.
(08:15):
They are battling with a manwith a short sword, maybe
casting a spell.
One of them's pleading for theirlives.
There's some ghosts in thebackground, ghostly figures.
Marcus sits on the floor backagainst the wall in a corner or
somewhere and just, head in hishands, does not.
(08:36):
Axel's furiously trying to turninto an animal, a cat.
Just standing there, just...
You know, and really hard.
Yeah, it's not happening.
Unfortunately, the spells youwere able to cast in the fantasy
world are not working here.
You're all kind of doing yourown thing.
(08:57):
And after a little while, youare startled because standing in
the doorway is a pair offigures.
They are humanoid figures.
They're hunched.
And they're facing away fromyou, looking out of the doorway.
And very slowly, they turntoward you.
(09:21):
And they have no faces.
No eyes, no nose, no mouth.
Just featureless ovals on theirheads.
Nope.
I know a couple things.
Hunched isn't good.
Facing away from you, not good.
No faces, really not good.
And you're sort of spread outthroughout this room exploring
(09:43):
or sitting in the case ofMarcus.
And you see this and they startto shuffle towards the nearest
person, which happens to beAxel.
Hello?
No answer.
I'm going to reach out and grabAxel by the arm and pull him
away.
I'm Sir Axelson, shorts wearer.
(10:05):
Who might you be?
And as you pull him away, theycontinue to shuffle at the same
slow pace across the room.
One of them moving now towardsSam.
Sam is wasting no time backingup away from this.
If you're all backing away fromthem, they sort of move you
towards the other opening in theroom.
(10:26):
Was that the one?
It was the one towards theentrance.
Oh, okay.
Can Marcus try to fire his shortbow at one of them?
You reach for it and it's notthere.
Must be a Monday.
And now you're all sort ofcrowded around the opening to
the next room and they're movingtowards you past the broken
(10:47):
benches, past the cracked floor.
SPEAKER_03 (10:51):
Yeah, can we get the fuck out
SPEAKER_00 (10:52):
of here?
I think it's time to get out ofhere.
It's time to run.
So you move to the next room.
It is portraits.
A room of portraits.
And you kind of look around.
Look for what was an openingto...
the metal detector to get out ofthe museum, but is now gone.
And it is just another archeddoorway into another room of
(11:18):
paintings.
And these creatures, thesehumanoid creatures continue to
shuffle through the doorwaytowards you as you move through.
You can see in this room thatseveral of the paintings have
crumbled to sand as well.
And as you turn around, there isanother figure standing there.
It is a humanoid figure dressedlike a nurse, very obese, large,
(11:45):
a lot of grease on the chest.
It's a female figure wearing apaper bag that has a first aid
symbol drawn on it with whatlooks like red paint or blood.
It's over this individual'shead.
and its arms are blackened.
It looks like they've been stuckinto a fire, and this thing
(12:09):
extends its arms towards you andbegins to shuffle towards you.
The feet are looking likethey've been cut.
The ankles are cut and bloody,and there's trails of blood as
this thing moves towards you.
These faceless figurescontinuing to shuffle,
corralling you towards the nextopening and the next doorway and
(12:30):
the next room.
SPEAKER_03 (12:33):
My thought is a portrait is never going to be
too crowded.
What do you think?
SPEAKER_00 (12:36):
Sure.
And I like our odds better whereI knew how to fight and y'all
had powers than this nightmare,whatever this is.
SPEAKER_03 (12:48):
So we want to take a look at the portraits that are
right around us.
SPEAKER_00 (12:51):
Okay.
You're moving towards aportrait.
This is sort of an abstractstyle portrait.
You can see that the face isbroken into different geometric
shapes.
Nope, I think we want realism.
Okay, you move quickly towards apainting that depicts an older
man.
He's wearing sort of like a softcap.
SPEAKER_03 (13:14):
How about this?
Do we have one of those like,you know, a rich lady covered in
jewels with like drapery andstuff?
Anything like that up in here?
SPEAKER_00 (13:21):
Yeah, I think you look around and you're seeing
something more Renaissance, likea woman in a poofy dress sitting
in a parlor.
There's food stacked around andshe's got, she's sort of a
little portly and she's smilingin a funny way.
She looks happy.
Let's go.
So you run towards the paintingand you, what, press your hands
(13:45):
up against it?
SPEAKER_03 (13:46):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (13:47):
You get that same Play-Doh feeling.
You push through.
Axel jumps in head first.
Okay.
You jam your head through thispainting and you are able to see
this inky blackness and starsand this universe around you.
It is as if you are suddenlypoking your head out of a
(14:09):
spaceship or something.
SPEAKER_03 (14:10):
And my one arm is there?
SPEAKER_00 (14:12):
Yeah, right, and the arm is there to your right,
wiggling fingers.
It feels cold, the dead cold ofspace.
What part of me is still outsideof the painting?
The rest of your body.
Probably only your head isthrough.
Okay.
He's like his arms are pull himout.
I'll grab him by the back of thecollar and yank him.
(14:35):
OK, as you pull him out.
you see an arm extend after himout of the painting.
It reaches out and it sort ofclaws its way down and around
and grips the frame.
And then another arm comes outand around and grips the other
frame and pulls through and aleg and another leg.
And it's that same arm and legcreature crawling out of the
(14:59):
painting that you just stuckyour head through.
And it starts to writhe its wayout.
This hairy center rolls rollingout and thumping down onto the
ground in front of you there.
This nurse, this wretched nursecreature is sort of shuffling
towards you, these facelessthings.
They're corralling you towardsthe opening, the next room.
(15:21):
Guys, run.
Run.
We're gone.
Josh runs.
I've never put my head in aworse thing.
That was awful.
The next room are abstractpaintings.
And there are several of themthat depict people on stilts
that are walking through desertsand people who are dangling from
(15:42):
ropes.
And you're looking around forsomething that looks normal, I
guess.
Maybe something that might besafe.
What were you looking for, Mal?
Habitable, I think.
Navigatable, yeah.
And you come across a fairlybarren landscape of a...
Desert, The Oasis in the Desertby Antal Ligeti, 1862.
(16:06):
Mark his points and says thatone.
And all of these creatures,these faceless, these facelings,
this nurse, the arm and legmonster, they are corralling you
towards this one piece of art.
All of you there standing backedinto the corner around this one
(16:27):
desert painting.
SPEAKER_03 (16:29):
Mal's going to do the same she did with the
portrait and just press a handthrough.
SPEAKER_00 (16:32):
There is an ease to how it opens.
It opens much simpler.
There's a warmth, and as youpress It's as if you can feel
the wind of the desert on yourskin and your hair, your arm as
you push through.
Marcus just walks through.
He pushes his way through.
All of you are entering.
(16:54):
Axel goes in feet first thistime, horrified of what he saw.
Okay.
What about Josh?
Josh, after seeing Axel gothrough, goes through feet first
too.
SPEAKER_02 (17:07):
And
SPEAKER_00 (17:10):
Sam's going to follow with his hand on Josh's
shoulder and checking to makesure Mal's coming as well.
You're tumbling in.
Upon entering the painting, youare rolling now through your own
minds, flashing on distantmemories of desert scenes in
your own lives.
A band trip to Palm Springs bybus.
(17:33):
The bus broke down in the MojaveDesert and the kids had to kill
time in a place called JoshuaTree.
Walking through a littlespiritualism store together.
Little indigenous items there onshelves.
smelling the burning incense andseeing dream catchers and
tapestries and candles floatingaround you, little carved
(17:56):
statues of faceless mother andchild in an artful embrace.
Stepping back outside the shopand feeling the intense blanket
of heat from the sun, you tumblesuddenly into a new reality.
SPEAKER_03 (18:11):
You
SPEAKER_00 (18:13):
open your eyes.
All around you are long rollingdunes of endless gray sand.
There are several rockoutcroppings.
The sand all around you, it'smatte in color.
Dunes and distant hills.
(18:33):
There is an occasional breezethat blows gouts of curling sand
into the air.
You see as you look around theoccasional burnt out tree, dead
and limbless.
The bark blackened, they standas strange sculptures dotting
the landscape.
The smell is clean with a faintsourness.
(18:54):
Something far away is rotting.
You look around at each otherand realize that you have been
transported back to that otherrealm.
Remembering what it felt like toinhabit this body, you look at
yourselves and you are onceagain your fantasy characters.
Yeah, you stand in a semicircleand take each other in.
(19:15):
You wear the same simple clothesfrom before, but you seem to
have several items on yourperson from before.
Now, briefly, can you justdescribe what you each see as
you look around to each other?
And let me know if anything haschanged about your physicality.
Let's start this time going theother way with Mal.
All right.
Mal is a tall, lean person.
(19:40):
Pixie haircut, half drow, grayskin, pointy ears with a very
deadly dagger.
Thank you very much.
And a chunk of amethyst as afocus item.
Ready to party.
What about Sam?
Sam Campbell.
Sam looks familiar to hisfantasy self that you've been
(20:02):
spending the last several dayswith, which is very close to
real world Sam Campbell, brownhair, a little bit thinner.
His, his gut a little, a littlebit, a little bit wider and his
face a little, just a little bitmore wrinkled.
Okay.
A little bit around the eyes.
You think Sam burns in the sun?
(20:26):
Oh, absolutely.
Okay.
Okay.
Cause you're feeling the sun.
I mean, there is, there iswarmth.
There is heat.
It is all around you beatingdown on you.
How about Axel Reagan?
What is Axel looking like?
Well, Axel is very much the sameas he was before.
Very small, very silver-haired,wearing incredible jorts.
(20:50):
I think he puts the hood of thecloak on to mask himself from
the sun almost immediately outof, you know, reflex.
He's used to this climate.
Okay.
And Marcus Burkett, Kevin?
Marcus in the fantasy realm isabout six foot.
Youthful half-elf.
Black hair, a little bit of grayin it, and Marcus looks tired,
(21:15):
depressed.
How about Josh?
Josh is just over like four feettall.
He's got shaved, stubbly hair, apatchy, terrible beard, and a
just a nose that's been brokentoo many times, a scar over his
(21:39):
left eye, and a solid pot belly.
Like, you know, when you knowit's a beer belly, it's one of
those.
It's just like, you know, asolid tank of a stomach.
It's a round sort of a globe ofa tum.
You could balance your cup
SPEAKER_03 (21:58):
on it.
Yeah.
Yes,
SPEAKER_00 (22:00):
you could.
Okay, so you're all there.
In the desert, you're lookingaround and you see two things.
First off, you see that in thedistance is what looks like an
oasis with palm trees.
And it is settled beside a largeoutcropping of rocks.
(22:21):
And there is what looks like acaravan.
There are tents in varyingsizes.
Some are little huts and othersare as large as circus tents.
And it's somewhat obscured bythe billowing trees.
blowing sand.
The other thing that you see asyou're glancing around at your
feet is that at the center ofthe group you see something tan
(22:45):
and smooth buried in the sand.
Hey, what is that?
I cast Detect Magic.
And boom! That thing fires off.
You can see the waves of magicalenergy emanate from you in a
very pleasing way.
Does
SPEAKER_03 (23:04):
detect magic make things light up?
SPEAKER_00 (23:07):
Yeah, let's say it does.
I like that.
It makes things light up.
So let's see.
Probably the flail of Inoguwould light up on Sam's body.
You're holding that.
If you sense magic, you see afaint aura around any visible
creature or object in the areathat bears magic.
Yeah.
But only you see it.
UNKNOWN (23:25):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (23:26):
That is true.
He would also see what?
The amethyst would probablyglow.
Mal's amethyst.
Whatever this is that'spartially buried under the sand
is not glowing.
And I don't think the range isenough to hit the caravan.
That's pretty far out there.
The thing is the sand doesn'tglow?
It does not, no.
(23:47):
What about Josh's hands?
Do those glow?
Yeah, because they've got what?
You put those in your pockets,you could be arrested for
carrying concealed weapons.
UNKNOWN (23:57):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (23:57):
What is it?
Just because they're so awesome?
They're just so powerful.
Are you saying that Josh hasmagic fingers?
I don't think they glow, no.
Oh, darn it.
All right, so Marcus is, well,it's not magic, but that is, and
that is, and I think whateverpowers I had in the other place
(24:24):
are back, so...
No way.
Axel turns into a camel.
What does it look like when youpop into a camel?
Like, is it just you pop andsuddenly you're a camel?
Yeah, I think what we did lasttime was it makes like a like
(24:44):
like I just instantly right intoit.
Okay, look up the stat block fora camel in 5e while we're doing
this.
Is it a white camel?
Yeah, I'm assuming it's white.
Yeah, you know, we got to keepthat canon, right?
Okay, you're a camel.
Everyone reacts to this how?
(25:04):
I think timing wise, Mal was onher way down to like observe the
object just as this happened.
So just saw the shadow shiftfrom little Axel shadow to great
big camel shadow.
Love that.
that's great what noise docamels make right
SPEAKER_03 (25:24):
okay okay
SPEAKER_00 (25:24):
all
SPEAKER_03 (25:28):
right all right
SPEAKER_00 (25:29):
this is actually a common joke in my family so my
my mom's from egypt and so likewe're egyptian and so we talked
about that and the sound thatcamels make are you ready it's
SPEAKER_02 (25:40):
what
SPEAKER_00 (25:41):
yeah is that for real Look it up.
They go.
Wow.
They've got this weird tonguebladder thing that they inflate
to try to intimidate or it's amating thing.
But they're weird, disgustingaliens.
They are the weirdest.
OK, Reagan, let's hear your bestcamel.
(26:02):
Oh, gosh, I wasn't expectingthis.
Yeah, you were.
You dirty dog.
You wanted to be a camel.
So let's hear it.
Give it to me one more time.
What does it sound like?
It's roughly like a lot oftongue and a lot of growl.
SPEAKER_03 (26:22):
Perfect.
SPEAKER_00 (26:23):
That is actually perfect.
That is actually perfect.
Josh thinks it's adorable andgoes and starts petting Axel's
neck.
Yeah, he has to jump a littleeach time he does it.
Are you a one hump or two?
Is there a difference between adromedary and a camel?
I don't know.
One hump, for sure.
(26:43):
Axel's a one hump guy.
Okay.
Two might be more fun.
We could settle down in therebetween the humps.
But, you know, to each his own.
I don't know how they'd do it.
Mal kneels down and knocks onthe thing on the ground.
What does it sound like?
It makes sort of a hollow thumpsound.
Like maybe a tonk tonk sort ofsound.
(27:04):
And she hits it.
Some of the grayish sand sort ofslides off of it.
and reveals more of it.
And you can see that there isanother of these ovules that is
under the sand, right next tothe first one.
Marcus walks up and steps onone.
(27:27):
It crunches like what it is,which is an egg.
You jam your heel down into thisthing, and it gooshes underneath
your boot.
And you've got this runny yokeand viscous white all over your
shoe as you draw it out.
(27:48):
And all around you, the sandstarts to billow like air is
being released from beneath thesand.
And out from beneath the sandcome curling and whirling these
large...
Fire-like creatures.
They spin and swirl up, and theystand all around you.
There are three of them, these.
(28:08):
They look like snakes.
They're, like, on fire, though.
You can see that their heads,and they've got these big
whiskers.
They have, like, these bigflaming whiskers that come off
of their faces.
And these snake-like bodies.
And you are now in combat withthese three beasts.
fire snakes, and I would likefor you to roll initiative.
(28:30):
Oh my god.
Axel is a freaked out camel.
There won't be that much combatthis time.
UNKNOWN (28:40):
Play with the way I got to.
SPEAKER_00 (30:34):
Thank you for listening to this episode
Close your eyes and open your mind.
This is Phantom Nirvana, aDungeons& Dragons podcast.
Be advised, this story containsdark themes that may not be
suitable for some audiences.
And now we present PhantomNirvana.
UNKNOWN (00:19):
Phantom Nirvana
SPEAKER_03 (00:44):
What you are
SPEAKER_00 (00:45):
about to hear is the seven of us playing Dungeons and
Dragons.
Most of this is improvised.
Please enjoy the story.
This is Season 2, Episode 1, TheGray Desert.
You stand together in the Museode Prado.
(01:07):
You're standing in front of thepainting, and you're watching it
crumble to sand.
You're shoulder to shoulder justas you were before.
You breathe heavily.
Your eyes follow the sand as itspreads thinly across the floor
before you.
It is matte gray.
(01:27):
There is a sun stain on the wallin the shape of the painting.
One day in the summer of 1998,you all walked out of the
convenience store Axel hadpurchased ice cream for the
group and you laughed togetheras you unwrapped the cones and
(01:48):
popsicles and strolled aroundthe side of the building.
You all paused and looked at theposter tacked to the wall
outside.
There was a missing girl.
Her name was Rachel.
You remember her from band.
She played flute.
The poster had been there allsummer and they hadn't found her
and you wondered if they everwould.
(02:09):
Some people said she drowned inthe river or was kidnapped.
or that she ran away.
Some kids said she was abductedby aliens.
Whatever happened to her, itwasn't good.
After a moment, Lucas reached upand pulled down the poster and
crumpled it up and threw it inthe dumpster.
Rachel was gone.
(02:32):
You blink and come back to themuseum and look around and
several other paintings in thegallery have crumbled to sand.
The lighting is strange.
There is other structural damageto the walls.
The floor is cracked and uneven.
It's like an earthquake has hitthe museum.
There's a tepid closeness to theair.
(02:55):
You wear the same clothes youwore to the museum, the same
clothes you wore to the funeral.
Mal, you still clutch thecrystal, and Marcus, you pat
your pocket and feel the kazoo.
You look around at each other,and then back at the room.
There are two exits to thisgallery room.
(03:17):
One you recall leads backtowards the entrance of the
museum.
You hear the sound of a tickingclock, but there's something off
about it.
It's too slow.
Your brain anticipates the nexttick, but it comes half a beat
later, startling you.
(03:39):
Is everybody okay?
Where are we?
Back in the museum, but it lookslike, I don't know, wherever we
were, and this crumbling dust isinfiltrating the real world.
See, that'll happen when youtake LSD.
Just pop a multivitamin.
(04:00):
That'll help out.
I really want to do that again,though.
I haven't seen that much firesince, like, Woodstock 1999.
That was crazy.
Is this real?
Is this back to the real world?
What?
Listen, you guys, this has beengreat.
This has been good.
I think I'm going to head out,though.
Axel starts walking towards theexit.
(04:21):
Let's get out of here.
I'm going to.
We're leaving?
Have there been any windows upto this point?
No.
Where are you going to go?
To my dog.
It seemed like...
lucas said it was somehow up tous to save the world or
(04:41):
something and we failed the lasttime and there would be another
chance but no you're out he gaveme the box with the drugs in it
i mean that was a pretty wildtrip but you know i there's no
more it's empty there's no moreof it Mal's going to start
(05:01):
walking down the walls to anyframed paintings that are still
there that aren't checking themout, like putting her hands up
against the paintings.
As you touch the first one, yourhand sort of smooshes against
the canvas, and it gives way alittle bit, and you can feel
that your fingers sink into itlike Play-Doh.
(05:23):
Come over here.
Check this out.
The painting that you happen tobe touching is of two...
Giants locked in combat.
They're standing over a village.
SPEAKER_03 (05:34):
Did anyone come to see?
Can I show
SPEAKER_00 (05:36):
you?
Yeah, I think we all cometogether.
Yeah, I think Axel turned aroundand he's kind of like, hey,
that's wild.
Are we still high or was thatall real?
This feels pretty fucking real,Axel.
Yeah, usually it does.
But it's been a few days andusually most things are over by
(05:57):
now.
He's kind of like fidgeting andpanicking a little bit.
I don't think any of us knewwhere we've been, but we're not
back.
We're back, but we're not back.
That's the question, I think.
This is either some sort ofin-between space, or this is the
new back.
When we were in the other place,and we were looking for the
(06:18):
entrance to the temple in thewoods, we couldn't find the
entrance, and then I just feltit.
Like I could sense it.
Try doing that again.
Okay.
I cast Detect Magic.
At that moment where you wouldfeel the spell kick off, nothing
happens.
You have the same sense of theroom around you that you
(06:40):
normally would.
Nothing.
I got nothing.
What about you, Mal?
Can you do that thing thatyou've been doing?
SPEAKER_01 (06:47):
Mal grabs her rock and holds it
SPEAKER_03 (06:50):
out in front of her and thinks
SPEAKER_00 (06:52):
eldritch thoughts.
Sure enough, nothing happens.
When you hold it out and posejust so, it just is a rock in
your hands, a crystal in yourhands.
Meanwhile, Mal has beencontinuing to go painting to
painting, looking to see ifthere's a painting that's
peaceful.
(07:12):
They all seem pretty gruesome,right?
Yeah, in this particular room,most of it is pretty rough
stuff.
There's scenes of gore, fantasyviolence.
Which gallery had thelandscapes?
I think one of the other roomsprobably had the landscapes,
yeah.
Some of the paintings in thisroom have crumbled to sand, just
(07:32):
like yours.
Not all of them.
There's probably three or fourin this room that still are
intact.
Is there anything about thosethat we can see that's in common
amongst them?
Yeah, they're all oil paintings.
They're all going to be 16thcentury.
You've got one that depicts abattle between a group of sea
(07:55):
gods, aquatic creatures battlingin the surf.
I put my hand up against theocean.
You touch it and it feels cold,but it's that same Play-Doh sort
of smoosh as you press your handinto it.
You're seeing another one thatdepicts, looks like there are
some hags.
(08:15):
They are battling with a manwith a short sword, maybe
casting a spell.
One of them's pleading for theirlives.
There's some ghosts in thebackground, ghostly figures.
Marcus sits on the floor backagainst the wall in a corner or
somewhere and just, head in hishands, does not.
(08:36):
Axel's furiously trying to turninto an animal, a cat.
Just standing there, just...
You know, and really hard.
Yeah, it's not happening.
Unfortunately, the spells youwere able to cast in the fantasy
world are not working here.
You're all kind of doing yourown thing.
(08:57):
And after a little while, youare startled because standing in
the doorway is a pair offigures.
They are humanoid figures.
They're hunched.
And they're facing away fromyou, looking out of the doorway.
And very slowly, they turntoward you.
(09:21):
And they have no faces.
No eyes, no nose, no mouth.
Just featureless ovals on theirheads.
Nope.
I know a couple things.
Hunched isn't good.
Facing away from you, not good.
No faces, really not good.
And you're sort of spread outthroughout this room exploring
(09:43):
or sitting in the case ofMarcus.
And you see this and they startto shuffle towards the nearest
person, which happens to beAxel.
Hello?
No answer.
I'm going to reach out and grabAxel by the arm and pull him
away.
I'm Sir Axelson, shorts wearer.
(10:05):
Who might you be?
And as you pull him away, theycontinue to shuffle at the same
slow pace across the room.
One of them moving now towardsSam.
Sam is wasting no time backingup away from this.
If you're all backing away fromthem, they sort of move you
towards the other opening in theroom.
(10:26):
Was that the one?
It was the one towards theentrance.
Oh, okay.
Can Marcus try to fire his shortbow at one of them?
You reach for it and it's notthere.
Must be a Monday.
And now you're all sort ofcrowded around the opening to
the next room and they're movingtowards you past the broken
(10:47):
benches, past the cracked floor.
SPEAKER_03 (10:51):
Yeah, can we get the fuck out
SPEAKER_00 (10:52):
of here?
I think it's time to get out ofhere.
It's time to run.
So you move to the next room.
It is portraits.
A room of portraits.
And you kind of look around.
Look for what was an openingto...
the metal detector to get out ofthe museum, but is now gone.
And it is just another archeddoorway into another room of
(11:18):
paintings.
And these creatures, thesehumanoid creatures continue to
shuffle through the doorwaytowards you as you move through.
You can see in this room thatseveral of the paintings have
crumbled to sand as well.
And as you turn around, there isanother figure standing there.
It is a humanoid figure dressedlike a nurse, very obese, large,
(11:45):
a lot of grease on the chest.
It's a female figure wearing apaper bag that has a first aid
symbol drawn on it with whatlooks like red paint or blood.
It's over this individual'shead.
and its arms are blackened.
It looks like they've been stuckinto a fire, and this thing
(12:09):
extends its arms towards you andbegins to shuffle towards you.
The feet are looking likethey've been cut.
The ankles are cut and bloody,and there's trails of blood as
this thing moves towards you.
These faceless figurescontinuing to shuffle,
corralling you towards the nextopening and the next doorway and
(12:30):
the next room.
SPEAKER_03 (12:33):
My thought is a portrait is never going to be
too crowded.
What do you think?
SPEAKER_00 (12:36):
Sure.
And I like our odds better whereI knew how to fight and y'all
had powers than this nightmare,whatever this is.
SPEAKER_03 (12:48):
So we want to take a look at the portraits that are
right around us.
SPEAKER_00 (12:51):
Okay.
You're moving towards aportrait.
This is sort of an abstractstyle portrait.
You can see that the face isbroken into different geometric
shapes.
Nope, I think we want realism.
Okay, you move quickly towards apainting that depicts an older
man.
He's wearing sort of like a softcap.
SPEAKER_03 (13:14):
How about this?
Do we have one of those like,you know, a rich lady covered in
jewels with like drapery andstuff?
Anything like that up in here?
SPEAKER_00 (13:21):
Yeah, I think you look around and you're seeing
something more Renaissance, likea woman in a poofy dress sitting
in a parlor.
There's food stacked around andshe's got, she's sort of a
little portly and she's smilingin a funny way.
She looks happy.
Let's go.
So you run towards the paintingand you, what, press your hands
(13:45):
up against it?
SPEAKER_03 (13:46):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (13:47):
You get that same Play-Doh feeling.
You push through.
Axel jumps in head first.
Okay.
You jam your head through thispainting and you are able to see
this inky blackness and starsand this universe around you.
It is as if you are suddenlypoking your head out of a
(14:09):
spaceship or something.
SPEAKER_03 (14:10):
And my one arm is there?
SPEAKER_00 (14:12):
Yeah, right, and the arm is there to your right,
wiggling fingers.
It feels cold, the dead cold ofspace.
What part of me is still outsideof the painting?
The rest of your body.
Probably only your head isthrough.
Okay.
He's like his arms are pull himout.
I'll grab him by the back of thecollar and yank him.
(14:35):
OK, as you pull him out.
you see an arm extend after himout of the painting.
It reaches out and it sort ofclaws its way down and around
and grips the frame.
And then another arm comes outand around and grips the other
frame and pulls through and aleg and another leg.
And it's that same arm and legcreature crawling out of the
(14:59):
painting that you just stuckyour head through.
And it starts to writhe its wayout.
This hairy center rolls rollingout and thumping down onto the
ground in front of you there.
This nurse, this wretched nursecreature is sort of shuffling
towards you, these facelessthings.
They're corralling you towardsthe opening, the next room.
(15:21):
Guys, run.
Run.
We're gone.
Josh runs.
I've never put my head in aworse thing.
That was awful.
The next room are abstractpaintings.
And there are several of themthat depict people on stilts
that are walking through desertsand people who are dangling from
(15:42):
ropes.
And you're looking around forsomething that looks normal, I
guess.
Maybe something that might besafe.
What were you looking for, Mal?
Habitable, I think.
Navigatable, yeah.
And you come across a fairlybarren landscape of a...
Desert, The Oasis in the Desertby Antal Ligeti, 1862.
(16:06):
Mark his points and says thatone.
And all of these creatures,these faceless, these facelings,
this nurse, the arm and legmonster, they are corralling you
towards this one piece of art.
All of you there standing backedinto the corner around this one
(16:27):
desert painting.
SPEAKER_03 (16:29):
Mal's going to do the same she did with the
portrait and just press a handthrough.
SPEAKER_00 (16:32):
There is an ease to how it opens.
It opens much simpler.
There's a warmth, and as youpress It's as if you can feel
the wind of the desert on yourskin and your hair, your arm as
you push through.
Marcus just walks through.
He pushes his way through.
All of you are entering.
(16:54):
Axel goes in feet first thistime, horrified of what he saw.
Okay.
What about Josh?
Josh, after seeing Axel gothrough, goes through feet first
too.
SPEAKER_02 (17:07):
And
SPEAKER_00 (17:10):
Sam's going to follow with his hand on Josh's
shoulder and checking to makesure Mal's coming as well.
You're tumbling in.
Upon entering the painting, youare rolling now through your own
minds, flashing on distantmemories of desert scenes in
your own lives.
A band trip to Palm Springs bybus.
(17:33):
The bus broke down in the MojaveDesert and the kids had to kill
time in a place called JoshuaTree.
Walking through a littlespiritualism store together.
Little indigenous items there onshelves.
smelling the burning incense andseeing dream catchers and
tapestries and candles floatingaround you, little carved
(17:56):
statues of faceless mother andchild in an artful embrace.
Stepping back outside the shopand feeling the intense blanket
of heat from the sun, you tumblesuddenly into a new reality.
SPEAKER_03 (18:11):
You
SPEAKER_00 (18:13):
open your eyes.
All around you are long rollingdunes of endless gray sand.
There are several rockoutcroppings.
The sand all around you, it'smatte in color.
Dunes and distant hills.
(18:33):
There is an occasional breezethat blows gouts of curling sand
into the air.
You see as you look around theoccasional burnt out tree, dead
and limbless.
The bark blackened, they standas strange sculptures dotting
the landscape.
The smell is clean with a faintsourness.
(18:54):
Something far away is rotting.
You look around at each otherand realize that you have been
transported back to that otherrealm.
Remembering what it felt like toinhabit this body, you look at
yourselves and you are onceagain your fantasy characters.
Yeah, you stand in a semicircleand take each other in.
(19:15):
You wear the same simple clothesfrom before, but you seem to
have several items on yourperson from before.
Now, briefly, can you justdescribe what you each see as
you look around to each other?
And let me know if anything haschanged about your physicality.
Let's start this time going theother way with Mal.
All right.
Mal is a tall, lean person.
(19:40):
Pixie haircut, half drow, grayskin, pointy ears with a very
deadly dagger.
Thank you very much.
And a chunk of amethyst as afocus item.
Ready to party.
What about Sam?
Sam Campbell.
Sam looks familiar to hisfantasy self that you've been
(20:02):
spending the last several dayswith, which is very close to
real world Sam Campbell, brownhair, a little bit thinner.
His, his gut a little, a littlebit, a little bit wider and his
face a little, just a little bitmore wrinkled.
Okay.
A little bit around the eyes.
You think Sam burns in the sun?
(20:26):
Oh, absolutely.
Okay.
Okay.
Cause you're feeling the sun.
I mean, there is, there iswarmth.
There is heat.
It is all around you beatingdown on you.
How about Axel Reagan?
What is Axel looking like?
Well, Axel is very much the sameas he was before.
Very small, very silver-haired,wearing incredible jorts.
(20:50):
I think he puts the hood of thecloak on to mask himself from
the sun almost immediately outof, you know, reflex.
He's used to this climate.
Okay.
And Marcus Burkett, Kevin?
Marcus in the fantasy realm isabout six foot.
Youthful half-elf.
Black hair, a little bit of grayin it, and Marcus looks tired,
(21:15):
depressed.
How about Josh?
Josh is just over like four feettall.
He's got shaved, stubbly hair, apatchy, terrible beard, and a
just a nose that's been brokentoo many times, a scar over his
(21:39):
left eye, and a solid pot belly.
Like, you know, when you knowit's a beer belly, it's one of
those.
It's just like, you know, asolid tank of a stomach.
It's a round sort of a globe ofa tum.
You could balance your cup
SPEAKER_03 (21:58):
on it.
Yeah.
Yes,
SPEAKER_00 (22:00):
you could.
Okay, so you're all there.
In the desert, you're lookingaround and you see two things.
First off, you see that in thedistance is what looks like an
oasis with palm trees.
And it is settled beside a largeoutcropping of rocks.
(22:21):
And there is what looks like acaravan.
There are tents in varyingsizes.
Some are little huts and othersare as large as circus tents.
And it's somewhat obscured bythe billowing trees.
blowing sand.
The other thing that you see asyou're glancing around at your
feet is that at the center ofthe group you see something tan
(22:45):
and smooth buried in the sand.
Hey, what is that?
I cast Detect Magic.
And boom! That thing fires off.
You can see the waves of magicalenergy emanate from you in a
very pleasing way.
Does
SPEAKER_03 (23:04):
detect magic make things light up?
SPEAKER_00 (23:07):
Yeah, let's say it does.
I like that.
It makes things light up.
So let's see.
Probably the flail of Inoguwould light up on Sam's body.
You're holding that.
If you sense magic, you see afaint aura around any visible
creature or object in the areathat bears magic.
Yeah.
But only you see it.
UNKNOWN (23:25):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (23:26):
That is true.
He would also see what?
The amethyst would probablyglow.
Mal's amethyst.
Whatever this is that'spartially buried under the sand
is not glowing.
And I don't think the range isenough to hit the caravan.
That's pretty far out there.
The thing is the sand doesn'tglow?
It does not, no.
(23:47):
What about Josh's hands?
Do those glow?
Yeah, because they've got what?
You put those in your pockets,you could be arrested for
carrying concealed weapons.
UNKNOWN (23:57):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (23:57):
What is it?
Just because they're so awesome?
They're just so powerful.
Are you saying that Josh hasmagic fingers?
I don't think they glow, no.
Oh, darn it.
All right, so Marcus is, well,it's not magic, but that is, and
that is, and I think whateverpowers I had in the other place
(24:24):
are back, so...
No way.
Axel turns into a camel.
What does it look like when youpop into a camel?
Like, is it just you pop andsuddenly you're a camel?
Yeah, I think what we did lasttime was it makes like a like
(24:44):
like I just instantly right intoit.
Okay, look up the stat block fora camel in 5e while we're doing
this.
Is it a white camel?
Yeah, I'm assuming it's white.
Yeah, you know, we got to keepthat canon, right?
Okay, you're a camel.
Everyone reacts to this how?
(25:04):
I think timing wise, Mal was onher way down to like observe the
object just as this happened.
So just saw the shadow shiftfrom little Axel shadow to great
big camel shadow.
Love that.
that's great what noise docamels make right
SPEAKER_03 (25:24):
okay okay
SPEAKER_00 (25:24):
all
SPEAKER_03 (25:28):
right all right
SPEAKER_00 (25:29):
this is actually a common joke in my family so my
my mom's from egypt and so likewe're egyptian and so we talked
about that and the sound thatcamels make are you ready it's
SPEAKER_02 (25:40):
what
SPEAKER_00 (25:41):
yeah is that for real Look it up.
They go.
Wow.
They've got this weird tonguebladder thing that they inflate
to try to intimidate or it's amating thing.
But they're weird, disgustingaliens.
They are the weirdest.
OK, Reagan, let's hear your bestcamel.
(26:02):
Oh, gosh, I wasn't expectingthis.
Yeah, you were.
You dirty dog.
You wanted to be a camel.
So let's hear it.
Give it to me one more time.
What does it sound like?
It's roughly like a lot oftongue and a lot of growl.
SPEAKER_03 (26:22):
Perfect.
SPEAKER_00 (26:23):
That is actually perfect.
That is actually perfect.
Josh thinks it's adorable andgoes and starts petting Axel's
neck.
Yeah, he has to jump a littleeach time he does it.
Are you a one hump or two?
Is there a difference between adromedary and a camel?
I don't know.
One hump, for sure.
(26:43):
Axel's a one hump guy.
Okay.
Two might be more fun.
We could settle down in therebetween the humps.
But, you know, to each his own.
I don't know how they'd do it.
Mal kneels down and knocks onthe thing on the ground.
What does it sound like?
It makes sort of a hollow thumpsound.
Like maybe a tonk tonk sort ofsound.
(27:04):
And she hits it.
Some of the grayish sand sort ofslides off of it.
and reveals more of it.
And you can see that there isanother of these ovules that is
under the sand, right next tothe first one.
Marcus walks up and steps onone.
(27:27):
It crunches like what it is,which is an egg.
You jam your heel down into thisthing, and it gooshes underneath
your boot.
And you've got this runny yokeand viscous white all over your
shoe as you draw it out.
(27:48):
And all around you, the sandstarts to billow like air is
being released from beneath thesand.
And out from beneath the sandcome curling and whirling these
large...
Fire-like creatures.
They spin and swirl up, and theystand all around you.
There are three of them, these.
(28:08):
They look like snakes.
They're, like, on fire, though.
You can see that their heads,and they've got these big
whiskers.
They have, like, these bigflaming whiskers that come off
of their faces.
And these snake-like bodies.
And you are now in combat withthese three beasts.
fire snakes, and I would likefor you to roll initiative.
(28:30):
Oh my god.
Axel is a freaked out camel.
There won't be that much combatthis time.
UNKNOWN (28:40):
Play with the way I got to.
SPEAKER_00 (30:34):
Thank you for listening to this episode
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