Zach Glass Okay, hello everyone and welcome to the Ask The Once And Future Nerd for Book Two chapter eight already a change of scenery. I'm Zach joined as always by Christian, Christian Kelley-Madera Hey everybody! Zach Glass Hey Christian. Christian Kelley-Madera Hello Zach Glass And welcome. Welcome everyone. We're discussing a change of scenery, which is Book Two chapter eight, I'm going to give my usual announcement, which is, if this is your first time listening to The Once And Future Nerd welcome, we're very happy to have you, this is going to be the most spoilery of spoilery episodes. So I would recommend starting, perhaps somewhere else. I'll also say a quick hello to our fans joining us on the live stream on YouTube. We do these q&a episodes live on YouTube at the end of each chapter. If you're listening on the podcast feed, it's too late to join this one. But you can join us for the next one for the next chapter. Welcome, welcome. Welcome, Christian. How are you doing? Christian Kelley-Madera Good. How are you doing? Zach Glass I'm doing pretty good. I'm excited to talk about this chapter. This was a pretty cool chapter. Would you like to get right into it? Christian Kelley-Madera Yeah, let's do it. Zach Glass So this chapter, it starts with sort of the resolution of the the deal that Regan had made with Red Ren the pirate and drops off the party and then sees the party transporting towards the west. So a change of scenery is an aptly named title. And much of the interest in this chapter is what's happening sort of on that on that transit across the mountains from both our main party as well as, and perhaps even more so from our secondary party containing Mag Uidhir and Traft and Arden, the Annihilator. And the most exciting part of this chapter, as is evidenced by the artwork that those on the YouTube can see on the stream right now by our excellent artists. John Flanagan is the introduction of the dragon. Christian, what do you want to say about the dragon? Christian Kelley-Madera Oh, we... so I think we've been asked about dragons since we hinted that dragons exist in like, book one, chapter one. And we just needed to kind of find the right, right time to introduce a dragon. So we obviously you know, this was set up a little bit in the last chapter, we knew that...Or was it I can't...I think at some point, episode one was in uh, I don't know. Anyway, we've planeed to have this dragon for a while. And this felt like the right time to, to bring it to finally introduce them. And I think they're a really, really cool, interesting character that we had a lot of fun writing. Zach Glass Yeah, you say we've had this in mind for a long time, if I'm not mistaken. The very first day you and I sat down over those those wings to start sketching out maps, I think we were already planning out what what the dragons would be like, so this has been a long time in the making. And I'm excited that we're finally here. I was excited, we got to do a lot of sort of going back to the the lore and the world building, which is always my favorite part when we were crafting, what their their personality would be like their traits, what they're interested in. So I thought that was a pretty cool experience. And I think it's a pretty neat thing we get to experience that the sort of the, the way that the dragons sort of interact with time is very different from the ways that humans interact with time. And even Mag Uidhir who is ageless in a way as a undead re reliving being still cannot experience time even remotely the same way as the dragon which I think, personally, I think is fascinating. Christian Kelley-Madera Yeah, I think and having, you know, my, my interest in, in philosophy in the past, like, one of the questions that comes up a lot in, in philosophy that I think is interesting is like, you know, persons, like, you know, some sort of sentient being, that has an inner life but but interacts with the world in a very, very different way than we do and what that beings inner life is like, like, there's a famous philosophy essay called, what is it like to be a bat? That's, that's about this. So I think it's kind of cool to have this. This creature that is like is a person you know, but has a very different material experience of the world than humans do, or even than elves do. Zach Glass Yeah, it's it's been really, I think, we've had fun crafting this, this idea and we spent You know, some some really fun conversations sort of arguing back and forth about, well, you know, if the dragons see, you know, group culture in this way, what does that mean about the fact you know, the striker and his solitary? How are they, you know? How are how is this dragon in particular understanding their solitude in the context of the timeframe of a dragon and so forth. So I don't know if we want to go into some of this lore stuff now Christian, or if we want to hold it back for another time? Christian Kelley-Madera Um, we can we can do a little bit. I don't want to spend the whole the whole time just on on the one question, but yeah, let's let's get into it a bit. Sure. Zach Glass So So I think I think one of the things that we were discussing in the background scenes, or behind the scenes, that's the word for it, is that these dragons are not by nature solitary creatures. But the timeframe that we've all experienced in the story so far is a drop in the bucket to this dragon such that it doesn't think of itself as a solitary creature, despite having been in this one cave, isolated for, you know, many centuries by the context of the humans living there. So I found that super interesting. That's the that may be me personally nerding out a little bit, but I found that interesting. And so in this, in this chapter, we got to see the beginning of some, some negotiation, some discussion between Mag Uidhir who already experiences time differently from the living humans along with the dragon who's on the whole different timescale. And so I think that that set us up for some really exciting things moving forwards. Christian Kelley-Madera Yeah, I think they're, they're fun. They're a fun duo. You know, I think when there's these interactions that are kind of like a little bit discretionary in terms of like, are we going to delve into this interaction that when the personalities line up in a in a way that is interesting to me, I that's when I love to to explore something and I'm actually I'm not saying everything I want to say because I've genuinely forgotten which scenes are in which chapter because we're doing post on chapter nine right now. But yeah, I think they're a fun pair and I think you guys are gonna like what what what keeps happening with with the dragon. Zach Glass Yeah, and now I'm going to have to go double check after this recording. We might be cutting out a big chunk of this for the audio of the podcast feed if I already spoil too much accidentally. This does lead us to a question off of our Discord channel. We got a bunch of great questions off of our Discord. And if anyone would like to join the discord you can look on our website there should be a link to join the fully fan made fan run discord - Christian and I pop in occasionally, but it's mostly awesome fan discussion, but Sen on the discord asked, what is our favorite dragon myth or folklore? Christian? Do you have any any inspirations for the dragon here? Any of your favorite stories? Christian Kelley-Madera Yeah, so something that I was like, I wanted the dragon to be somewhat grounded and like, like they're like, the magic is in how long they can live, but their actual biological processes kind of make sense. Science was so kind of in my head. And there's a question on YouTube chat right now about whether the dragon is feathered. And yes, dragons are feathered in our in our universe, because I think my idea was like, there was not a cataclysm that extincted dinosaurs in, in Iorden. And so this is just like this very, very old reptile had a chance to, like, keep getting bigger and develop intelligence. Hence the feathers. So that's something that interests me that kind of concept of dragons. And the other thing that I think is really cool, is I read somewhere that like for a while. We didn't know how spiders were able to eat other bugs because they're, their fangs are made of chitin. And bugs are made of chitin. So like, how do the fangs like how do they eat through chitin with their fangs? And it turns out that spiders kind of absorb the very trace amounts of metals Is that are just like present in in the world. And those kind of end up getting funneled by some process I don't understand into the end of their fangs. And that's how they're able to puncture chitin. And I think I don't know whether I honestly I don't know whether I thought of this or I saw a Tumblr post a million years ago that that stuck with me, but an idea of like, you know, it's it's usually part of European Dragon Lore that they hoard treasure. And so the idea that it's like, oh, no, they actually have to eat a lot of metal, in order and it like goes to like their armor plating into their, their teeth. And that's an important part of why they're, they're as strong as they are. Zach Glass Yeah, I just want to throw in quickly, I apologize to the live chat, I had the wrong tab open. So now I can see the live chat as well. And shout out to the live chat. I'm happy to see all of you here. So so the chat is, is discussing what you were mentioning about the lack of the extinction of what we would think of as dinosaurs and how that influences the world building. And that's exactly what we were excited about. So we're happy, you're you all are excited, engaging with that idea, as well. And it's sort of the as, as we've seen in our world, which I think is sort of an interesting twist, the there's not dinosaurs roaming around everywhere, we have gone through all those, you know, the stages of evolutions and different species rising and falling, but the dragons did go through that evolution and become a whole species, you know, obviously very intelligent, very intentional species, so to speak. And they're the ones who sort of remain from that era. Yeah, Christian Kelley-Madera I think there's probably something to be said, partially to get us out of the problem that is being correctly identified on chat of like, how would intelligent primates have ever evolved, if there were dinosaurs around? I think there's something to be said for, like, some shit with the atmosphere where it's just very hard to support, like, really, really, really big land animals and dragons have some particular quirk that was like, Okay, this is the species that like, this is the version of big, big reptiles that made it probably the because they have a structure, they have a bunch of like air bladders that they use for the fire breathing. So it's probably got something to do with that. That's my story. And I'm sticking to it. Zach Glass I do think that it also the social aspects do play some part of it. Cause we're by I think, and Christian, you could tell me if I'm wrong by the time the humans as you know, evolved primates are around, there aren't so many of the large non sentient dinosaur species left. So it's almost more like, you know, this, the sentient species of dragons sort of encounter an alien species almost, so to speak, that they on their timescale get to see evolve into where they are. Christian Kelley-Madera Yeah. Zach Glass The chat is discussing a dragon convergently evolved with a penguin. This is a very funny image. I'm not sure if there are any penguin dragons in our world, but I guess we'll find out Christian Kelley-Madera we'll find out eventually. Zach Glass We also received a discord question from agoneezer, apologies if I'm mispronouncing your name. Christian Kelley-Madera Agonizer, maybe? Zach Glass Agonizer. That That sounds then that sounds right. Um, what is the power level of dragons versus mages? And I think that's a really interesting question. I don't know that. Well, I guess we haven't seen yet in the story, whether the dragons are accessing magic in the same way that that Jen is, for example, right. We've we've sort of set out that the as, as Christian was mentioning, there's a very like biological and chemical reaction to the, you know, the flying aspect with those air bladders and the fire breathing aspect and the, the consuming the metal and so forth. So it's not necessarily just a, a raw magic. I think I think it will be interesting to explore and discover how that plays out. Christian Kelley-Madera Yeah, I mean, I think the idea is that a dragon could probably like, kick most asses that it wanted to, because aside from it's just like, sheer biological strength and natural armor they're. You know, as I understand them, they are at least as intelligent as humans, if not more, so there's no reason that they couldn't also do magic. Zach Glass That is true. They are likely more more so intelligent than humans, I would say Christian Kelley-Madera yeah, you don't you don't want to get on a dragon's bad side. I think. Zach Glass Yeah, I think I think we've we've very, very thoroughly discussed the dragon aspect of this chapter. The chat is asking, I wonder if sapient mammals are to dragons what finches are two humans, whether it's just like, ooh, watch that go. And I would say this is this is starting to get to slightly on the spoilery territories. Ah, this is this is a question that we will start to discuss and I'm very excited to discuss it. But that is that is an excellent question. I'm glad you brought that up. Otherwise in this chapter one of the things that I'm excited for is we're starting to I don't think this is too much of a spoiler but the main party is moving west of the mountains as well. We get what I think is a very funny moment where Nelson references the mines of Moria and we're sort of all prepped for all this you know, bad stuff to happen in the trip. And they just get there. This is one of one of the subtle humors that I really enjoy. Christian Kelley-Madera They almost, and they - is this that chapter? Yes, they Yeah, they almost have an exact Mines of Moria moment where Billy knocks a suit of armor down the the well and the only reason that they're not totally screwed is because the dragon he happens to awaken is A) busy and B) doesn't eat sentient creatures anymore. Zach Glass Yeah, so I don't know if that was as obvious as intended in in the episode but the way we envision this, these were happening like, simultaneously and like less than a mile apart from each other, our party like barely by the skin of their teeth, mist, Mag Uidhir and the dragons. interactions going on there. There was I think there was one moment in this one where just like Mines of Moria. Billy knocks over some some coat of arms and it clutters down. But then all's well, which I think is hilarious. The YouTube chat just to follow up, they are mentioning that beavers incorporate iron into their teeth, which is pretty awesome. They're also discussing another episode of this chapter, which was for no and Jethro meeting up, which I think is also quite fun in a very creepy and inducing way. Yeah, I both both Jethro and Renault are very interesting to me as I'm the the lore and magic nerd. And that gives us a chance to really play around with what the magic allows. So I'm, I'm very excited about that. And we'll we'll see where that goes. Yeah. So so the chapter as we were discussing, there's this convergence where we've got the main party just passing by Mag Uidhir under the mountains and then at the same time, we're all moving physically closer to the town of three bridges where First Snow is hanging out, and we did see some some movement in this chapter where First Snow address the Federation Council, it didn't quite go her way. Christian, do you have anything you want to mention about that? Christian Kelley-Madera Um, no, I mean, I think it's, you know, like, I don't want to get too spoilery but I think it's like pretty clear the chess pieces we're moving into into place and I, I really love First Snow and Steady River as characters. And both great performers, April and Aaron, who are criminally underused up until now and so I'm very excited for getting to spend some more time with them in future chapters. Zach Glass Yeah, it's going to be great. Chat agrees chat is very happy with First Snow, and is excited for the convergence. I'm excited for the convergence. Also, it's been the way the way that the pacing of our show goes it always feels like everything takes a little while to get there but in in real like in show time, not that much time has passed. It's just you know, in the audio medium, it takes a while to to include this. Christian Kelley-Madera And particularly our production cycle, but this comes up this comes up literally every q&a I feel like of like yeah, it's been like a month and a half in plot time, which makes the show now a period piece because it started in like 2012. Zach Glass Chat is also bringing up in particular the interactions between Nelson and First Snow, and I honestly haven't even thought about that yet. But that is going to be a lot of fun. I think there Their character interactions will be very interesting. Which I think brings us kind of naturally to the the next set of questions we've received on the discord from Sen and from Pika Blue, which was about the new outro music, which is also something we've been sort of sitting on and working on for a while, and we're very excited about So, Christian, do you want to talk for a bit about this? Yeah, Christian Kelley-Madera yeah, of course I do. Um, yeah. So we knew we were, you know, we knew we were headed to, quote unquote, the West for a while. And I, I am a sucker for spaghetti westerns. If you don't know what a spaghetti western was, it was westerns, they were made the mostly made in like the 60s. They were made in Italy and Spain by Italian filmmakers, which is part of why they're called spaghetti, westerns. And also, because for their time, they were incredibly bloody, but also very cheap. And so it's kind of a joke that like the blood looks like spaghetti sauce, because it does. But these were kind of the first movies that I saw that was like, Oh, this has a really distinct visual style that I am, I am in love with. And my favorite film composer of all time, is Ennio Morricone, who I think he only passed away a couple of years ago. And he's one of those composers who, you know, his work even if you don't know his work, because among a huge body of work, he did compose the score for the good, the bad, the ugly, which if you've ever heard the [whistles] that would that he wrote that. So and I, he has a huge body work. And it mostly was he's mostly famous for spaghetti westerns, but he's done like he did the untouchables, he did the thing. A lot of stuff. And I was always kind of in awe of, he just has these, he makes these arranging choices that have no right to work nearly as well as they do. For example. He is as far as I know, he was the first one to kind of use, like a twangy electric guitar in a Western score, like that classic Telecaster sound. Which doesn't make sense when you like, why would you have an electric instrument in a film set before electricity, but like, now, when you hear that sound, it sounds like a Western, because he his work is so ubiquitous. And so I love just the the, the textures and the arrangement choices of his scores. So when we way, way back, when we knew that we were going to head in this direction, I said, you know, I think it would be cool to do a Western version of our, of our theme song. So I went to Tom Lee, who was our like main music director and composed our main theme and said, Hey, this is, this is what I have in mind. I sent him a playlist of Ennio Morricone. It's like, do you want to rearrange the our main theme in this style? And not only did he rearrange it, but he he basically recorded the whole thing almost entirely. He sent it kind of as a demo. But it was a demo with with all the stems of every instrument and there were it was a combination of like every instrument that he could play, he played so all the guitars are him I think the the whistling and the bamboo flute are him actually playing the rest are MIDI, and then we were feeling like the the MIDI trumpet was a little too perfect and computer sounding. So our very own Zach Glass went and recorded an actual trumpet part. Which I think makes the whole thing sound a lot more human and is is great and it's actually in the final mix. You're hearing Zach's real trumpet layered with the MIDI trumpet because the the humanness of Zach's track was better but the the MIDI trumpet added a lot of brightness that really cut through the mix. So then I took all of Tom's stems. I took Zach's trumpet part and I did like kind of my own mix of it. I threw in some effects to make it sound like a crappy 60s movie soundtrack. And yeah, I think I think it's really rad and I'm excited to get to use it some more. I Um, let's see. I don't know, do you? Should I play the ...Should I play the choral stem? Or should we talk about something else first? Zach Glass Yeah, let's let's set it up for a second just to so we have the context. I also want to say as far as I know, I think my trumpet playing in that outro is my first appearance in a main plot episode. Christian Kelley-Madera I think that is right. You also played trumpet on the studio version of Singing Sister. So we may... Zach Glass I don't think that made it into the main plot. I think that was just the studio version. Christian Kelley-Madera Yeah, we may have used it as background at some point, but I'm not sure. Zach Glass Oh, you that may be true. But yeah, so So every everything you said, Tom, Tom is incredibly talented. I just wanted to mention what you said about the the electric guitar in a Western. I'm not as connected to film as you are. But my mom watched a lot of TV Westerns when I was younger. And I always think of that guitar. That's just the the sound that I expect to hear. And like, it never occurred to me that that's weird, but Christian Kelley-Madera Right, exactly, exactly. It's like it is weird, but it's not because you're so used to it. Zach Glass Yeah. So So, as Christian mentioned, Tom recorded all of these parts on his own, layered them all - well, Christian did the layering, but one of the things that Tom recorded was a choral part that's all himself recorded and dubbed over itself. And it just sounds so fun on its own. So if the tech works, right, Christian, would you like to Christian Kelley-Madera Yeah, I'm gonna play that. And I'll give even a little more because like, this was such a great insight by Tom to pick up in Ennio Morricone scores because he would use vocals, but not in a normal way. Like there's a part in The Good, the Bad and the Ugly theme where it's clearly a guy yelling, trying to sound like a coyote. Like it doesn't sound like a coyote. It sounds like a guy yelling like a coyote. And reportedly, like when Ennio Morricone would do concerts, there would be a guy who's just like, sitting there with all like the violin players and the bells players, you know, sitting there in his tuxedo, no instrument, and when the time came, he would just stand up and go ah ah ah ah ahhhhh, which I love. And so Tom is like, Oh, let me just really use vocals in kind of avant garde ways. I mean, here's this is Tom recording, four part harmony and layering each of the parts three times and then smushed together I just think that rules. Zach Glass That cord at the end is so much fun. Christian Kelley-Madera Yeah. Zach Glass Yeah, um, I will I will also say I was very excited to get to play trumpet on this. I haven't seriously played trumpet in many years. So I was sitting downstairs in my basement looping this you know, 30 second bit of trumpet for hours and hours and hours. I, I had a lot of fun with it. I also got a and it was also in my basement, which contributed to some of the the sound not being as bright as we were hoping and I apologize for that. But I think I've recorded something like 100 takes through it. And sent Christian, a few of them. And actually Christian, did you I don't even know this. Did you pick the one take that I sent you? Or did you layer a couple of me over it? Christian Kelley-Madera I think I comped together maybe two or three I think like I think maybe I liked the intro better from one take and the outro better from another take so I think I just spliced those together if I remember Zach Glass Yeah, that's kind of what it sounded like to me. Chad was talking about how the ha! and the hoooooo from that track sounded like Skyrim vibes. Yeah, I could see that. Christian Kelley-Madera Yeah. But when you hear it when you hear with the mix, and there's also like a whip in there it's just... it's not super loud in the mix, but it's there with the whip which I also love and something else I want to call attention to here - right there I would that was I really wanted to preserve that from Tom's demo when I when we mixed it but there's this like, I don't even know how to describe it. There's this like, spike in the higher frequencies when he hits the acoustic guitar chords really hard. Which to my ear is reminiscent of either like spurs jingling or a revolver loading. And I think that's like I mean, it's perfect for a Western and it wasn't like a sound effect. It was just the instrument happened to sound that way which I really really love. Zach Glass Yeah. One One thing I want to shout out also about this theme music on the on the discord. It was also pointed out that a podcast called The Amelia project, often does this sort of style variations on their theme. I have to say I personally have not listened to the Amelia project, I'm sorry to say. So so in this case, this was not the our specific inspiration. But I do kind of love that they do that and in concept and I had a lot of fun with us doing this. I don't know if I can say we're going to do many more of these. This just happened to fit so well with what was happening in the plot at the moment. It did. It was very it was very plot driven our decision to do this the the chat is asking if we have cowboys does gunpowder exists in the world? Christian Kelley-Madera Yeah, explicitly. Yes, there aren't firearms. But there is... Regan has referred to it as thunder dust a few times and I think the idea is like it's a very, very early gunpowder like, you know, the earliest formulations of it, but no, no firearms because actually like, until you have like rifling and you know, machining and replaceable parts and stuff, a repeating crossbow is probably going to be more effective than like a really, really, really good advanced crossbow is probably going to be more effective than a very early firearm. Zach Glass Yeah, but I think Regan either had or bluffed having thunder dust in a very early episode, I believe, Christian Kelley-Madera Yes. Yeah, it's an accessible thing. Like he then like, I believe she uses it to, like, you know, just blow stuff up, which is also her kink that is part of canon Zach Glass 100%. Um, so moving on from the theme song, which, as much as I hate to move on from it, because both Christian and I had a ton of fun with it. One thing that I forgot to bring up from the episode, which we have to touch on, and thank you to the live chat for reminding me of this is in this chapter. We do see Ardel Redmoor get captured by pirates. Yes, which is just a very, very happy cathartic moment, I think. Christian Kelley-Madera Yeah. Zach Glass I think that we set it up. As a reminder for those listening that Ardel ended up trying to stow away on the boat of the same captain, who our party had just recently stowed away from and ended up getting caught by Ren in exactly the same way that our party had gotten caught by and is very funny to me. I really enjoy that. Christian Kelley-Madera I do feel for Otto Olafson, this one was really not his fault. Zach Glass I also I was I was scrolling back through the script. And I believe this chapter was where we had Ardel trying to barter with someone with a donkey. Christian Kelley-Madera Yes. Zach Glass And, and he was, it was was trying to barter with that ass, which was a very cheap joke that we wrote. Christian Kelley-Madera Such a stupid joke. Sometimes you write something and it's like, Oh, my God, I'm better than this. But no, I'm not. There's one. Oh, I'm not okay. There's one in nine. Boy, oh boy it is so thoroughly in the category of I'm better than this. Wait, no, I'm not. Zach Glass Do you want to spoil it or wait for it? Christian Kelley-Madera No, It's worth waiting. Zach Glass It is it is worth waiting. But I did just want to mention. It is unfortunate. Unfortunately, we do see Renault and Jethro, sort of melding their powers and sort of rising up in power, but we balance that out with a healthy dose healthy dose of comeuppance to Ardel which I'm very happy about. I believe there was something else in the chat that I wanted to call out. I'm just scrolling back for a moment. They were discussing Billy and gents magic development, as well as Nelson finally getting to delve into his dreams. I'm also excited for Nelson to delve into his dreams. This is, you know, something that that we've been sort of building towards very slowly as well, and I'm very excited about that. Is there anything else that Christian you can think of that we were intending to discuss? Christian Kelley-Madera No, I'm getting absolutely roasted within an inch of my life on on chat, which is fine. Was that our was that our list of of questions? Zach Glass That? Let me double check. There was one fun and a little silly question about how many elves does it take to change a light bulb? Which I don't even know if it's, it's worth diving deep into that. But But how many Elves does it take to change a light bulb? Christian Kelley-Madera I think we should aspire to have a good punch line for that by the next Ask. As I said, I think that's that should be the goal. There is that there is that bit I think it's the beginning of seven where Jen is trying to like hold Regan's attention and she's just she starts a joke. And she's just like, Yeah, I don't know why I thought I was just going to come up with a punch line on the spot. Zach Glass The chat is pointing out something that Christian I don't know if you actively thought about, but I had forgotten about that. The Ardel is now captured by the same pirates, for whom Arlene had improvised that Maddy Groves. Christian Kelley-Madera That was explicitly on my mind. Zach Glass Oh, excellent. Christian Kelley-Madera Yeah. Zach Glass I'm glad that was on your mind. Yeah. That is that is exciting to see. Chat is talking about how they hope terrible, terrible things happen to Ardel. Christian Kelley-Madera They will, yeah. Zach Glass And don't worry, we do too. In our world, the bad folks don't always get their comeuppance. But this was one time where we knew that Ardel needed to get his comeuppance but good. And we as the listeners need to experience that comeuppance. In the most thorough way. Christian Kelley-Madera Yes. Zach Glass So I believe that's it for the questions we had prepared. If the live chat has anything else they want to be asking or discussing. Please feel free to chime in and we will extemporize on the moment. While you're thinking of questions, there is one thing that Christian wanted to bring up briefly going into chapter nine. Christian Kelley-Madera Yeah, so it has, it could turn into a bit of an elephant in the room if I don't. So, yeah, I mean, it's not it's not so much of a spoiler to say that we're going into this kind of like Western arc. And you know, for I think a lot of you probably also listen to the Adventure Zone, they just finished up a Western arc. That alone would be fine, except that. In that TAZ Arc, Erika Ishii played a tavern owner named Lulu, which was short for Louise. And it just so happens that you're also going to meet in our show a tavern owner named Lulu, which is short for Louise. It's a It's we... this is one of the downsides of our production cycle take like we had the script long before TAZ came out. We love TAZ, but this wasn't just trying to rip them off. It just for whatever reason, me and Erika Ishii both think that Lulu is just a tavern owner name. And yeah, you know, if I were going to, if I were going to write a character that were explicitly inspired by somebody else, I would be a little more subtle about it. Like for instance, if I were going to write a character based on you know, the 60s character actor Lee Van Cleef, I wouldn't call him Lee Van Cleef. I would call him say, Les Vanderburgh or something. Zach Glass Who would do something like that? Or perhaps a character inspired by Bruce Springsteen, who becomes Bryce Riverfell instead? Christian Kelley-Madera Yeah, yeah. Zach Glass Just a slight degree of abstraction. Christian Kelley-Madera Right, exactly. Zach Glass But yeah, this was an incredible coincidence. Truly just a coincidence. We swear that so that that is something that you all will hear and just wanted to mention that straight up off the bat. Christian Kelley-Madera Yeah. Oh, yes, there was the question about like, hiatus what like, do we want to get into programming stuff a little bit? Is that worth? Zach Glass Oh, yes, we should, we should mention that. It was asked whether we're approaching the end of Book Two, and what that potentially means in terms of subsequent hiatus. So I will say right now, Chapter nine, which is upcoming, is not the last chapter of Book Two. At the moment, these things may change as we write it, but chapter 10 is intended to be the conclusion to book two just says Book One had 10 chapters, I believe, Book Two is going to end up with 10 chapters. Chapter 10 is likely going to be a longer one. Christian Kelley-Madera Yeah. Zach Glass There was some thought of having it being as many as six or seven. But I don't want to commit to that. Christian Kelley-Madera Yeah, Zach Glass It is certainly going to be five, I think that's fair to say, Christian Kelley-Madera Yeah, it's gonna be a big 'un. Zach Glass It could be six. So if you're worried about a major hiatus, you've got chapters nine and 10. Before that comes up. Christian Kelley-Madera Yeah. And I think so, as of when you're hearing this. If you're, if you're watching live on on YouTube, this coming Sunday, we have two minisodes. Coming out, then the the cleaned up audio from this will go up two weeks later. And then I think we're going to try to have a little more bonus content in November, then we're going to probably take December off for the holidays. And then we'll hit the ground running in January with Book Two chapter nine, which is a five parter. So we have content through to next to May 2023. Already done. Zach Glass And while we don't want to over promise anything yet, the intention is to keep chapter 10 ready to go. Shortly thereafter, Christian Kelley-Madera Yeah, Zach Glass Likely the similar sort of thing we'll have, you know, a month of ask episodes, perhaps some minisodes, or more bonus content in between, but we're not, you know, knock on wood, not expecting a long break between nine and 10. After 10, I think that gets to be a little too far into the future for us to to make some tremendous promises. At the moment, I think it's likely that we'll have some sort of main plot break, whether that's just a full hiatus, if it's filled by minisodes, if anything else happens in between interviews or whatnot, we will see at that time. Christian Kelley-Madera But that's that's that'll be end of 2023, which will also bring us to our 10 year anniversary of making the show. Zach Glass Yeah. End of 2023, possibly even into 2024, which who can even conceive of the world existing at that point. So so so we can promise you, we're good through the end of Book Two. After that, we'll see what happens. Chat has asked if we're still planning on five books, Christian Kelley-Madera I just started sweating. Zach Glass I believe we initially said four, if I'm not mistaken. And whether we're still committed to that we'll see how how the plot goes in Book Three, we have as as we mentioned before, very rough broad strokes, plans for where the plot will go. But in terms of how long it takes to get there, we leave that until we actually start writing that. So for example, just to reveal a little bit more of the background, we intended for book two to be six to seven chapters. And we got to writing chapter six and realize we can't wrap this all up we'll sort of transition and six and wrap it up and seven, and we got to seven we said okay, this is not going to happen. Let's make it eight or nine. Christian Kelley-Madera Yeah. Zach Glass And then that quickly became 10. So how many books it takes to reach a satisfying conclusion to the story we'll see. I don't think we'll be satisfied with the story ending at the end of Book Two. I can say that fairly confidently. But we'll see where the where the where the plot takes us basically. Is that a fair answer, Christian? Christian Kelley-Madera Yeah, I think so. Zach Glass And I will say, one of the things that I feel like many people, us included, learned during the few years of very dramatic isolation during the worst of the COVID times is the importance of preparing the show in a way that is compatible with our respective mental health. And that, you know, we need to, you know, part of as, as you all likely know, we've now switched to this one, one a month system instead of our previous two or perhaps even three a month. And so far, this has gotten us through this year. This has actually been the most consistent run of episodes I believe we've ever had. Christian Kelley-Madera Yeah, Zach Glass it it feels very slow, but it has allowed us to make things more consistently and I say this to say, we now see the importance of you know if we've reached the end of Book Two and we need to take a hiatus in order to make Book Three, the best it can be, we're now less afraid of doing so. So, so, again, there may be a hiatus coming forward, but it will be in the interest of making things sustainable long term. I will say, though, just to mention this, it seems as though just some speaking anecdotally, with some folks when we returned at the beginning of this year, some folks' podcast feeds might not have picked us back up. So if you happen to know anyone who is no longer getting the updates, either let us know or just let them know that we're back. I don't know if it's an algorithm thing or something that burned us. But... Christian Kelley-Madera yeah, we're also trying to figure out why all of our episodes are out of order on Spotify, but we're like a couple degrees removed from that. So our power there is limited, unfortunately. Zach Glass But we are working on that and if anyone has any thoughts, please feel free to reach out on that. I will I will, the chat has circled back around a) the chat noticed my cat walking through the background, I would have grabbed one of them but they seem to both be asleep. Now. I don't want to bother them. But we did have a brief cat cam. Christian Kelley-Madera And now we're on to what dragons taste like, which is probably a good cue to wrap up. Zach Glass I mean, they're... it's an interesting question, but yeah, I think maybe maybe that's a that's a good point to wrap up on they had also asked briefly about whether the science of our magic system allows for the creation of magical atom bombs which also might be a little depressing way to end the stream at the moment. Christian Kelley-Madera Yeah. Zach Glass But with that, let's not go too deep into to consuming the sentient dragon species flesh but Christian, would you like to do any any shoutouts before we wrap up. Christian Kelley-Madera Weirdly, I got like a bunch of this this time. So let me try to keep them all in mind. So Ian, our narrator his production company is producing an audio drama anthology series that's going to be dropping soon. And they've just started a Patreon so if you search for viaBrooklyn on Patreon you'll find their their Patreon page and that the viaBrooklyn is the name of the company and the the audio drama anthology is called the Iron Anthology. Kat, yes, shout out to the creaky door for saving Yllodyk's life. I also I feel very strongly about that. Let's see what else we got. Shannon Harris. This was actually if you saw on social media, this chapter eight is going to turn out to have been Shannon's last chapter with us. You know the scheduling doesn't work for her anymore. But she's such a wonderful performer and we wish her the best and she is if you're in the New York area. She is starring or not starring-- She's one of May a major role in a show called Her Portmanteau, which is showing at the George Street Playhouse. And that is running through October 30. So that's cool. Shout out to Regina Renee Russell, who plays Nia and the dragon. She just directed her own version of the old Scottish Changeling murder ballad Tam Lin that is unfortunately done now as of the time you're hearing this so you can't see it. But shout out and congrats to Regina on that. And lastly, I want to shout out the user Sassmo on Reddit. I will confess that I often search on Reddit just to see if we're if our show is coming up in conversations or how our SEO is doing. And when we're talking about we usually come up on the subreddits you would expect you know r/podcasts r/audiodrama, r/fantasy... But Sassmo did go ahead and recommend us as something to listen to on a long drive on the subreddit for the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers. So if there are any union electricians, hearing my voice right now as a result of that, shout out to them and that is somehow all I've got Zach Glass I do I do want to quickly because you've reminded me also shout out Shannon. Shannon has been tremendous working with her has been an incredible treat she contributed to our writers rooms extensively she's you know she she gave a lot of her time and creativity to our show and we're very grateful for Shannon. Christian Kelley-Madera Yeah to put it put it simply there are some scenes that we absolutely would not have pulled off with without Shannon's very patient input. Zach Glass Sorry, I did just lose my my Discord for the moment so I think that means it's a good time as any to wrap up Christian Kelley-Madera I think so too. Zach Glass So thank you. Thank you everyone for listening. We really appreciate as always all of your listenership all of your your questions, your commenting, we really appreciate the live chat. This is always a lot of fun. And thank you for listening and we'll talk to you for the next Ask episode if not sooner for some special bonus content. Christian Kelley-Madera Thanks, everybody. Zach Glass Bye. Christian Kelley-Madera Adios. Transcribed by https://otter.ai