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Episode 261: Edge of EterniThree
101 Plays5 days ago
Hello, Podwalkers, and welcome back to another episode of the Goblin Lore Podcast! Alex and Taya are closing in on the End of the Edge! Some Spider-Man is also discussed
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As promised, we keep Mental Health Links available every episode. But For general Mental Health the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) has great resources for people struggling with mental health concerns as well as their families. We also want to draw attention to this article on stigma from NAMI's site.
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Opening and closing music by Wintergatan (@wintergatan). Logo art by Steven Raffael (@SteveRaffle)
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Transcript
Introduction and Episode Overview
00:00:00
Speaker
um um
00:00:09
Speaker
are are
00:00:28
Speaker
Hello, Podwalkers, and welcome to another episode of the Goblin Lore Podcast.
Story Series Discussion and Website Mishap
00:00:33
Speaker
ah We are here once again to to talk about story, a common thing for us. But this is, ah well, this is one the first, I think this might be the first set we've ever had to do three episodes to cover the story. And we're hoping that we get it done in three.
00:00:50
Speaker
um So why don't introduce myself? I'm Alex. Phone on nowhere. Phone in Discord. Phone in the Goblin Lord Discord. You did it again. You did it last week, too. I'm getting further, unfortunately. I'm almost saying the word of the website.
00:01:05
Speaker
yeah my my My pronouns are he, him. And ah for for an opening question, we were...
Comic-Con Previews: Spider-Man and Avatar
00:01:14
Speaker
Well, well why don't you introduce yourself, then we can do our opening question. Hey, I'm Taya. Taya Transcends on Blue Sky, or you can find me on the Discord.
00:01:23
Speaker
Pronouns are she, her, they, them. And we had a hard time coming up with a question for this week. It was tough. But... you know Then I thought of you know all the stuff that was just previewed at SDCC and thought, why don't we talk about something there?
00:01:41
Speaker
ah We got a bunch of Spider-Man cards and ah few Avatar cards. Yep. Right.
00:01:52
Speaker
Which, yeah, they couldn't even wait until after pre-release weekend was over before they hit full on with the Spider-Man.
Product Release and Fan Impact
00:01:59
Speaker
Yeah, literally, the pre-release. like Like, Edge of Eternity is not even for normal released for normal retail sale, and we have a whole lot of preview cards already.
00:02:12
Speaker
Yeah, it's less than, you know, it's it comes out less than two months after edge of Eternity's launches. It's kind of ridiculous.
00:02:24
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, just the... Continuous march of product, but we're just supposed to talking about things that we're saying. Let's talk about something interesting.
Spider Punk Card Analysis
00:02:32
Speaker
Yeah, there's some fun stuff in here. So the one the card I just want to mention real quick is Spider Punk. this is a It's a 2 and 1 for 1 red. It's a spider human hero. Don't care. It has Riot. Okay, whatever. Other spiders you have control have Riot. Don't care.
00:02:51
Speaker
Spells and abilities can't be countered, and damage can't be prevented. This is exactly what I want for my mono red Imodane deck. i don't want I don't want my stuff to be countered, and I don't want damage to be prevented.
00:03:07
Speaker
And this does all of it for two. I don't care about any of the other things this card does, but I also needed cheaper spells in the deck. So this fits pretty good in that. And Yeah.
00:03:19
Speaker
Yeah. yeah There's, there is a lot of words on this two mana card. There are.
00:03:28
Speaker
Uh, that, yeah, that's, that's a cool one. And, and the art is pretty sweet. There's a couple of versions of
Card Art and Gwen Stacy Discussion
00:03:34
Speaker
it. The art is sweet on all of them. ye Yeah. I see that's, that's pretty universal for this set so far, at least what we've seen that.
00:03:44
Speaker
It's common that some of the bigger, flashier things are released early, but there is some really good looking art here. What about you? Was there anything previewed this weekend you were interested in Yeah, i'm I'm thinking I'm going to go with Gwen Stacy.
00:03:59
Speaker
Which the yeah The two face. The the flip just the one called just Gwen Stacy. Yeah, Gwen. Yeah. Yep, exactly. As opposed to the one called Ghost Spider Gwen Stacy, comma Gwen Stacy or, you know.
00:04:13
Speaker
Oh, well. i like It's common that we get multiple, especially when we only get one site. so I think it's good that we get multiple versions of the characters. I think that's cool. Yeah, there's three of her. There's also Spider-Gwen Free Spirit.
00:04:26
Speaker
Yeah. has says and And that one, i suppose, combining the two, like, less confusing name, but... the Most of the time the names are fine to differentiate them, but that is just a little odd. Two of her cards are mythics. Two of her cards having basically the same name.
00:04:43
Speaker
But regardless, anyway, the the the flip version I'm i'm talking about is 2-1 for one in a red, actually just like the the card you were talking about. when Gwen Stacy enters, uh, exile the top card of your library. You may play that card
New Card Mechanics: Transformation and Impulse Draw
00:04:57
Speaker
for as long as you control this creature and then has two blue, red, white transform, uh, Gwen Stacy activated as a sorcery. And then that is pissing me off so much. They've slapped that on all these, trend all the transforming card from final fantasy, uh, set. And now they're slapping in all the ones from this set.
00:05:15
Speaker
Oh, activated as a sorcery. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, so it's on the flip side, 4-4, Flying Vigilance, Haste. Whenever you play a land from exile or cast a spell from exile, put a 1-1 counter on Ghost Spider, remove two counters from Ghost Spider, exile a card from your library. You can play it this turn.
00:05:32
Speaker
And so other than I just realized has haste and thus could slot in the Sonic the Hedgehog deck that i've I have recently brewed but haven't put together yet, which is a weird sentence to say...
00:05:46
Speaker
for magic, but this is the the world we live in and it's, said it can be fun. One of the things that, the the Ghost Spider side in particular, but suppose both sides sort of do this, that is interesting to me. that The whole impulse draw thing that Red has been doing for a while now, where you exile cards from your library and then you can cast them, it's a mechanic that I have been, i don't know, leery is hard, maybe is is a weird way to refer to it as, just because if the card dies or a lot of those are until end of turn, you can you can end up milling, or you're exiling stuff off your library and not having access to it.
00:06:21
Speaker
Like just straight up, it isn't as good as draw, which we know, but that's part of why it fits red's mechanic and it's not costed the same as drawing a card. Anyway, the whole point here is because Gwen actually builds off that mechanic, gets 1-1 counters whenever you're doing this, both exiles the cards and has a reward for doing it.
00:06:41
Speaker
That immediately makes me more interested in playing around with mechanics similar to the aforementioned Sonic, who incentivizes creatures with haste and flash. Yeah, that that was a really cool design space. Yeah.
00:06:55
Speaker
and The other thing to mention about this card is this is that we just got these this weekend, but these are the first cards that are transforming and double face modal cards. You can cast them either way.
00:07:08
Speaker
Oh, oh, I didn't realize. That's why they have mana costs on the back. Oh, God, why didn't I? That even occurred to me there was a mana cost on the back. Yikes. Well, I'm glad you pointed that out because I totally would not.
00:07:22
Speaker
It's taken me a long time to figure that one out. Okay, cool. That makes the card even more interesting mechanically and all the others in the set that are are similar. But again, like for me, some it's there's an interesting mechanic here. There's a payoff for a mechanic that exists.
00:07:40
Speaker
Makes me more interested in that mechanic that I have mostly been ignoring. Nice. Well, we have more story to talk about, and we're going to have to go through this quicker than we did last week if we want to get through our last four episodes.
Episode Eight Analysis: Characters and Timeline
00:07:55
Speaker
Yeah.
00:07:58
Speaker
So we are at episode eight here. um The very, very end. So to to jump in we're going to mostly jump in. if i would...
00:08:09
Speaker
If you have not caught up on the Edge of Eternity story, i would I would say go listen to either listen to our previous episodes or read the story or both as as you desire. Or listen to the story. You've got plenty of options.
00:08:21
Speaker
There is. Yeah. And as I learned last week, and I think I mentioned in our our last episode, i learned not only is the audio on the website, but it is also in a lot of podcast feeds. So can just put it on a phone and leave your house and listen to it in a car or a bus or whatever, which is how I caught up on the story.
00:08:39
Speaker
But so we are we end episode seven in revision 13, and the last scene is Halea killing our two you know two of of our are protagonists, killing Sammy and killing Tan.
00:08:56
Speaker
And then the last line, the last thing she sees before her eyes lose focus is the object glowing with a faint pink light. And then we come into episode eight in revision 14,
00:09:07
Speaker
fourteen which by this point in time, I hadn't quite caught onto it somehow. That meant that the object, I mean, I knew contextually in the story, the object changed the story, but i it wasn't occurring to me that the revision, that's what the revision numbers were tracking. Oh yeah.
00:09:25
Speaker
That was later. but So yeah, so we pick up in, in this time, instead of, Leah being able to kill them, um, ahpha stunned her with a, um, a, uh, syringe of, uh, tranquilizers essentially, um, by stuffing it through the hole in his hand. So it would pass through her armor.
00:09:52
Speaker
a Yes. and And we, we come into, i believe they're, they're flying. Oh no, they're, they're running. They're not yet. There's still these two running towards one. Yeah. Yeah.
00:10:05
Speaker
And this is when Afriel says, she killed you. I saw
Protocol 7 and Moral Dilemmas
00:10:08
Speaker
it, but she didn't. I think I don't know. because So Afriel knows that there was a change to the timeline, but it's just confused in his head.
00:10:17
Speaker
Yes. and And like within the story too, they're all sort of just, they were all like episode six, seven-ish, just starting to understand that this was a thing that this rock could do.
00:10:29
Speaker
Because I love the next line. You should put that rock back in stasis. Yeah. Very casually. uh sammy looks around an alarm that's the casual that comes before violence yeah so yeah um yeah and afra says i guess she was going to kill me but she wanted to change something is and then they they start to talk about this like is this something we can do is this something the rock can do
00:11:00
Speaker
And here's where Tanook is the one who kind of mostly has the the best idea what's going on. in and, yeah know, Afriel asks, is that something I could do? And Tanook says, yes, but you might not like the price.
00:11:15
Speaker
So as we already know, we we know that one, one of these revisions completely wiped out a colony of 20,000 people. yeah, yeah.
00:11:25
Speaker
and yeah and And that that also. but Why do I tend to suggest we put the rock away? yeah And then we, over Hylia's comm unit, we hear Vondam announcing that they're going to Protocol 7 in two minutes, which, as we discussed last episode, is when they basically obliterate the object and anything near it.
00:11:53
Speaker
Yep. Which, which ah Sammy asks, what's Protocol 7? And Elfriel just surmises, I think that's when they kill us all. Context clues are are pretty helpful there, I think.
00:12:06
Speaker
Yeah. And.
00:12:11
Speaker
They have some more back and forth, like is the rock can get this out of here or whatever. And yeah. Yeah, this is a bad idea. Tanook shouts from the back from above. This is a really bad idea.
00:12:24
Speaker
yeah We're dead already there. Sammy says our chances of flying out of here or are zero. So how much worse can things get? And then we have a page break. and Yeah. So yeah.
00:12:35
Speaker
so yeah Yeah, so... Yep, so this is this is them. They didn't get to refuel, and they're just going to try to get out of here, because seems like they have less than two minutes.
00:12:49
Speaker
Yep, and then they decide that maybe they'll use Halea as a hostage to get through, but she's already woken back up because her armor has injected a counteragent to the drug.
00:13:02
Speaker
Yeah, I love love the the line right before the next section. gladiator intrudes between them and taps the main dis display. like Looking for a hostage, Leah says. And even then, it says she remembers killing the human in the car, but that must be wrong. They got up and ran to the cockpit.
00:13:20
Speaker
ah She realizes it must be the object at work. Again, they're they're all kind of, they're seeing it enough and things are happening enough. They're all starting to cotton onto this at this point now. Yeah, and she she's she's talking about she had the pendulum. She thought she was armored against this, but her little idea of using this prayer didn't work for her. Mm-hmm.
00:13:46
Speaker
So the
Debate on Survival and Next Moves
00:13:50
Speaker
and this is also where she says, well, we're all supposed to be dead, Protocol 7, because they were supposed to just enact it immediately. They weren't supposed to...
00:13:57
Speaker
Give her time to get out. Yeah. Which is kind of what the message seemed to be saying. Yeah.
00:14:06
Speaker
But, uh, so the, uh, the, the summit ship just starts leveling the, uh, the city with its lasers. Uh, and they, this are they, they start in, uh,
00:14:23
Speaker
enacting their protocol seven, which is just kill everybody and everything. It doesn't matter what their relationship to this object is. yeah Yeah. You have a line from Halea's point of view.
00:14:37
Speaker
says all else is light, a clean light, a pure light, but not a good light. Yeah. Dog is killing everything. Yeah. Yeah. And so they take off and Hylia is like, ah why haven't they killed us too? And he says, I think they don't want to kill you.
00:14:55
Speaker
Sammy replies, you know, there, Hylia messages, sir, Vondam and says, you you cease fire on the city. I have the object.
00:15:12
Speaker
And, He says he knows and they're going to keep pace with you until you can kill the crew and force it down.
00:15:21
Speaker
ah and then she's like, you have to destroy the ship. I've been exposed to the object. And he's back. Comely, Halea will retrieve the object and return it in stasis. Bring that ship down.
00:15:34
Speaker
and then she's like, sir, you're killing every coven site. You're murdering their children. You cannot spare me. So he's completely broken protocol. And the fact that he's murdering everybody but leaving her alive.
00:15:45
Speaker
ah And expecting her to take over the ship and bring it down.
00:15:53
Speaker
Yeah. And this is she's already was having some struggles, but this is, this is definitely a turning moment for her. Yeah. Her relationship with the, the sum and in particular, this, this particular, this faction.
00:16:11
Speaker
Yeah. And she even says, sir, kill me. If the object is worth so much, if the sun, some requires that I protect the innocent and I must die before the innocent. It's ridiculous to kill them all while letting me live. It's hypocritical.
00:16:23
Speaker
If they must die, then kill me to kill me to kill me too. ah And there's no answer. And captain Sammy's just like, may take this as permission to make my escape?
00:16:38
Speaker
Yep. Um, so they do take off uh yep
00:16:48
Speaker
and uh Tanook manages to find something to help them get out yeah uh that is uh helps gets get get get the got the guns of Kavaron to target these ships the the free company ships mmhmm um So, ah you know, then we cut back to, you know, after they they make their
Character Growth and Motivation
00:17:16
Speaker
escape, they cut back into the ship and and Captain Sammy declares ah that both of his passengers are guests, which means they can't kill each other under Molo mess.
00:17:29
Speaker
and So this is the first time they really get to kind of sort things out and, you know Continue that enemy to lovers thing going on between Aphriel
00:17:46
Speaker
and Halea. A lot of back and forth, about both about their conflicting fates, both about how and why they have sort of denied and broken with that, and back and a lot of back and forth there.
00:18:02
Speaker
Yeah, and then they also talk about that but
00:18:07
Speaker
Afriel doing the white crime. And he said, that's basically, that's the the computer told him it was the only way he could survive. Yeah. And you kind of have, and, and even when they're not arguing necessarily, um, Halea is, is trying to reckon with what she saw. So like, she's talking about,
00:18:28
Speaker
Vandermeer obeying the sum at every step he obeyed it, he didn't trust himself, so he made himself a vessel for it. The sum commanded him to obliterate that settlement. She's like, and I can't find a way that it would be wrong, but I know it's wrong.
00:18:40
Speaker
Like, even if those Kav had been rendered, you know, malign and subtractive, so what? What could they do against our our organization? and We could have waited until they did something actively evil to destroy them.
00:18:54
Speaker
We could have found a better way. would have been right to spare them and give them a chance. And and she just can't wrap her head around it. And that's...
00:19:06
Speaker
and and there's this little thing where she has, what is when she microwaving them with? Is this of her gladiator? did she have some other tool? oh No, it's like that. and It's that like a microwave weapon they have built into their suits. That's right. And so somebody says something, something silly or whatever, it makes fun of her. And then she just microwaves.
00:19:27
Speaker
She makes waves him only for a moment. He yells. It's just like, yeah, kind of a continuous thing. And then there's moments later in the story, too, where it's like she thought about microwaving. Yeah. but it's just Love that is just like how she expresses her her mild displeasure.
00:19:44
Speaker
And then my favorite part of the whole story is is they eventually ask Sammy what they do. And Sammy's just like, I look for my cat. And then they start looking at pictures of Sammy's cat.
00:19:57
Speaker
we
00:20:02
Speaker
Yeah, that's just. Yeah, that's a that's a great bet. And then we have it. We have this line. but Halea doesn't like how ordinary he sounds when Afriel is just talking about the cat. People who turn stars into abscesses in reality should not be permitted to care about cats.
00:20:17
Speaker
Yes, I do. I do also like the note where Halea is like, I'll help you look for the cat. It's what it nights would do in in stories. Yeah. Yeah.
00:20:29
Speaker
yeah
00:20:32
Speaker
And I imagine that's a moment because she looks defiantly at both of them, but they can't see her face. She feels stupid and alone. And it doesn't quite say it, but I think it's there's some subtext that had anybody made fun of her for that, she'd have microwaved them.
00:20:44
Speaker
Yeah. And so Hylia wants to destroy the object. but Sammy's like, no, I have to have something to give the metal man.
Tezzeret's Intentions and Past
00:20:54
Speaker
And then they're like, what's the metal man? And that's just a great discussion like he's a human made out of metal.
00:21:01
Speaker
A cyborg?
00:21:04
Speaker
Sammy wobbles her hand I thought he was a cyborg but he disagrees yeah and so they're back and forth back and forth and then the last line is ah Sammy smiles a slow secret smile I told you he's a wizard
00:21:19
Speaker
And if you had been reading this at the time, don't know how the spoilers lined up. You may not know who this character is, but I think I certainly did by the time I reading this. Yeah, Tesserit was the first thing they spoiled. Oh, that's true.
00:21:33
Speaker
so Yeah, they they were really excited to show everybody Captain Tesserit. Yeah. ah Like, look, he's he's a colorless walker now.
00:21:45
Speaker
Okay. I don't know. It's a cool card. and It's a cool concept, but yeah. Yeah. So then, then we, that we bring to brings episode nine.
00:21:56
Speaker
We're still in revision 14 when we are specifically in act four as well. No, I forget there's acts that it breaks it up into too. And we get another scene between Hylia and Afriel where they're talking about their faith and their duty.
00:22:13
Speaker
And, you know, they're they're starting to break down their stereotypes of each other a bit.
00:22:22
Speaker
Yeah. Which is...
00:22:28
Speaker
Yeah, it's good. It's good. yeah It's also nice to to kind of have that contextualization of of these two different faiths that apparently, like, we get this little glimpse at this one span of time in this one system in this whole section of the universe that is whatever, the edge.
00:22:47
Speaker
But presume, like, from everything that I see written in here, it looks like these two groups are conflicting with each other across a vast amount of space.
00:22:58
Speaker
Yeah. And then at the end of the discussion, we get Sammy chimes in on the air and says, Hey, you two, the metal man's here. Come out present yourselves or he'll present you. And by the way, don't call him the metal man or tell him I call him the metal man. He prefers the name Tezzeret.
00:23:14
Speaker
Yes. And then you get the that picture of Tezzeret sitting in a throne or a captain's seat. Yeah. Yeah.
00:23:27
Speaker
And Tezzeret's ship just appeared out of nowhere and grappled the Serena. Yep. and And one thing it says about Tezzeret's ship is it has no way to move, and yet it does because the Metal Man wills it.
00:23:43
Speaker
Tezzeret even has his own unique ship that doesn't follow the physics. It works off magic. Yeah. Yeah. Which is kind of fun to see the, you know, that that one little drop of fantasy into this sci-fi setting too.
00:23:59
Speaker
and And also how he sort of contextualizes things. Because like one of the the first words he says, he is he looks at Halea and says, you wear a wealth of metal. What did you do to earn it?
00:24:13
Speaker
and I love her response is I just survived, I suppose, which he says has right beams a fine answer. Yeah. You know, that fits that fits desert too.
00:24:25
Speaker
Yeah. That's he's always been a survivor no matter what else happens. Yeah. You know, that's so he's got a lot of respect for other survivors. He's always done whatever he needed to save his own ass.
00:24:39
Speaker
Yeah. And is what he he talks to Afriel and it basically comes to a similar thing or or he's just like, well, I wanted to live a little longer and Tezzeret. Good. And just the line, oh, the metal man is delighted.
00:24:52
Speaker
Yeah. and And then he references Lonelore when talking to Tanook. Before that, though, there's a line I want to talk. You know, after the financial line from Halea, or when he's when he replies to financial, Sammy Swallows, Tezzeret's interviews with new minions are always volatile.
00:25:13
Speaker
Yes. Yes. Sammy knows exactly how Tezzeret views everybody else. Yep. Yep. No, it's it it was fun. Tezzeret, I have to say, is a character i have not seen in a lot of stories, in some fairness, and he's always been cast as kind of not a great... as an end as as an antagonist and villain, but not really well played on the screen.
00:25:40
Speaker
I have actively disliked Tezzeret since the first time he was in story. Okay. I really do not like Tezzard as a character. i was hoping he'd get completed and finally get something for he deserved because he always gets away.
00:25:56
Speaker
yep He always gets away without paying the price for what he's done. yes But that didn't happen. But this story made me a lot more interested in Tezzard as a character. He was just snarky and amusing and had that just like pure, I survived, I survived, you know, the invasion. i can do anything I want, which with a dark steel body, he pretty much can do anything he wants.
00:26:26
Speaker
Yes. and And also, like, enough allusions to his his background for the readers, mostly, because these folks don't know anything he's talking about.
00:26:36
Speaker
No. any Any frame of reference, any reference he has, they have no frame of reference for. none None of the the magic universes we know it exists within this bubble of of the edge, of where the edge is.
00:26:54
Speaker
And so, yeah, it's that honestly, that's just a little bit of of a fan service in a way. Every time he references Noir or something, because he's like the one person we know.
00:27:05
Speaker
listen but yeah, so it's it's just they they kind of have this conversation. So he starts talking to Sammy and just asked, do you have do you you brought my prize?
00:27:18
Speaker
And so they they start to talk about what this thing can do. And he said, oh, it changes the past to suit its purposes.
00:27:26
Speaker
They're all gone now. And and yeah, it has read. again, they're going back and test it as well. if If Memonon is correct, those folks are there just elsewhere living different lives that the.
00:27:40
Speaker
the The orb chain or the object changed the the trajectory of their lives so thoroughly that this place looks empty, but the people are actually somewhere else. Yeah, and Sammy's like, well, Halea says, that basically still destroyed their lives. It's been replaced with a counterfeit or fabrication. And Tezzer, it's like, counterfeit memories and atrocity years spent differently at crime.
00:28:03
Speaker
What have they lost? What have they sacrificed? Nothing. This world is so soft, Sammy. There is such an excess out here that your churches go to war over what will happen in 100 trillion years. And then he responds, he grins, I like it here. Yeah.
00:28:21
Speaker
And they're all just confused because, again, they don't quite have a frame of reference of what he's of why he is saying this. They don't understand his the multiple massive wars he's been a part of.
00:28:35
Speaker
Yeah.
Tezzeret's Plan with the Endstone
00:28:36
Speaker
And just, you know, from growing up on Esper and everything and just he has always had, you know,
00:28:46
Speaker
and then being bolus as many and everything, he always seems to have the short end of the stick that somehow come out in the ahead in the long run. I i too and do you love the line, too, where he says something to Sammy, and then Sammy says, Yes, my lord, Sammy says, testing out the phrase for irony.
00:29:04
Speaker
Tesserit does not seem to detect any irony whatsoever, but he pauses in his drift toward the companion. Raphael. Yeah. Yeah.
00:29:17
Speaker
I like this line. So they talk a little bit more about the rock and they're like, wait, after I'll for protest, it called me the chosen one. And
00:29:27
Speaker
while Tessert's talking, Tessert's like, I've set this whole thing up so it would chose me as its conduit. And so it chose me as conduit. And then after I was like, wait, but it called me the chosen one. And Sammy's like, well, me too.
00:29:41
Speaker
And then April's like, did you get a hole too? No, i Sammy says I did not get a hole. Yeah. And then I get, again, we get a little, uh, uh,
00:29:53
Speaker
fan service for for the old time magic players. Retezzeret says, the same mistake the Dominarians made with the Merari, mistaking the power it granted for the purpose it sought. And then he says, yes, it needs a chooser, but the one who chooses pays the price. I'm not interested in paying for the end stone.
00:30:10
Speaker
I'm interested in selling it. Yeah.
00:30:16
Speaker
And that's the first time it gets named to be a stand. mean, is like, is that what they call it? Yeah, it's just like, well, that's what... is is it's It's what your people call it, isn't it, boy?
00:30:27
Speaker
<unk> yeah cause The stone from the end? Yeah. Talking to Afriel in that case. Yeah, talking to Afriel. Yeah. yeah ah Yeah, which but ultimately as they're going back and forth, what he makes clear is that his plan was to He saw that something was making changes and he decided to find it so that he could lead it to where it wanted to go because he assumed it would be the property of some powerful being.
00:31:05
Speaker
So that was he goes through this plan or might jump in ahead. Yeah, you're jumping ahead a little bit. First, that there's a discussion. Aaliyah is like, you can't, use it's a trap.
00:31:16
Speaker
ah gar You can't take it. it'll Whatever it'll do is going to hasten the end of all life. And Aphriel is like, and the beginning of a better world, because they're still bought into their religion. They haven't shaken their religion.
00:31:29
Speaker
They just have started to question some aspects of their faith. And then Tezzeret Sneer's coldly looked at his practice as a practice near a better world. Is your world so terrible? You have no idea how much worse things could be.
00:31:43
Speaker
I have the power to walk between realities and still could not escape the tyrant to rule me. I've been branded by masters who made and devoured entire species like cattle. I won't flee to a better word world. I'll stand and face whoever would rule me. Never again will I serve. Thus the end stone has come to me as it desired and as i required.
00:32:02
Speaker
He spidered his ah hands against the Slaices Field because I want nothing from it.
Character Decisions and Revision 15
00:32:08
Speaker
Yes, thank you. Sorry, that that is what I was trying to try yeah build toward.
00:32:12
Speaker
Like his, Tezzeret's desire here is to see what this thing is because, again, I've been branded by masters who devoured species. he wants to He wants to see what this is. And I'll stand and face whoever would rule me.
00:32:30
Speaker
Yeah, that never again will I serve and that whole time. It's like, okay, okay, fine, Tezzer. I'm starting to begrudgingly not hate you yeah There's another line a little bit further down that I like that is i want to speak with it Captain Sammy Tezzer says with good cheer. Not so long ago, I would have grafted it onto my body. Now I prefer to vet my improvements more thoroughly. Yeah.
00:32:59
Speaker
yep You know, he doesn't just stick anything out after his whole fiasco with the ah the portal almost killing him. He doesn't just stick anything in his body. and
00:33:11
Speaker
Yeah, there are a lot of fun little references to things like that with him.
00:33:20
Speaker
And then we get it another one of these choices.
00:33:28
Speaker
is like where to bring the stone there there is a reference here i don't want to miss
00:33:36
Speaker
oh this is toward the end we've we've already passed this a little bit but one of the um one of the lines tezzeret says to them at some point when or is this oh nevermind never mind never mind now i'm jumping way ahead All right.
00:33:52
Speaker
Yes. Yep. Sorry. was just looking at my notes, and I forgot how long this episode was. so keep going. yeah I need to actually... there There's... we hit the We hit a choice, like you say. um And there's actually a whole bunch of refusal, and I'm going to have to read those because they weren't in the oh online or the red the red story. So I don't. they're they're They're kind of fun. This one, I actually, i think I did sit and read this one at work. So this ultimately, again, we have. but Notice we enter revision 15. We don't know what has changed, though.
00:34:25
Speaker
Yes. And so like one of the choices here because the. the And the Tezzeret is trying to figure out where to go. And so he drops a crystal over a map.
00:34:36
Speaker
And the voice, the narrator that is talking to us, asks, could you guide it to this place near Uthros? Like it tells us where to put the crystal. And if you say yes, it continues the story.
00:34:47
Speaker
And then there's like seven options of no... And it has a little bits of story of how that changes the story, where if you tell it instead, let's take the final pledge into Sothera.
00:34:59
Speaker
it There's a little bit of story. There's nine refuses. Never mind. There's nine refuses that kind of change things a little bit. And so that it's it's fun.
Infinite Guideline Space Station and Director Mantis
00:35:10
Speaker
I like it. i come on They all end the story.
00:35:14
Speaker
Yeah, they all end it in not how the story should be ending according to this, which I think might be where revision 15 comes from. Yeah, is because this this is the basically the stone has made it happen. So they chose to do what it wants.
00:35:28
Speaker
Yes. And so or or perhaps like the the crystal was dropped randomly and the stone just changed it until it hit where it wanted the crystal to hit.
00:35:39
Speaker
Yeah. ah yeah So then we go to infinity and beyond, which is what it says in parentheses for revision 15. Yeah.
00:35:49
Speaker
yeah And so they, they start talking about some like basic tech that Tezzeret seems quite amazed by. because How do I make it show the last thing I displayed before I rolled it up?
00:36:01
Speaker
Kind of almost having like an, you know, an an old person trying to learn new technology, trying to have somebody explain this to him. Yeah. Because they're trying to build the plan, which was all his pomp and circumstance was cut a little bit down by him not quite understanding how to use like a basic display technology that exists in this place.
00:36:27
Speaker
And fight finally, the metal man achieves the image he wants. So then we cut to infinite guideline, which is the space station. and It's the five color space station. That's basically the center of commerce in the um system.
00:36:46
Speaker
hu And we get a point of view from director Mantis. Yes. So we we finally get a little bit with the bug people. Yes. And they're running the, ah they're, they're the ones running the station.
00:37:04
Speaker
and there, there is a bit I like when they're talking back and forth with their, one of their co-workers, they're like, you are correct. Manta says among your idiots, there is no shame in being wrong only in staying wrong.
00:37:15
Speaker
Yes. Which, uh, that if people did that more often would be a good thing. yes And they're talking about the massacre on Kavaron where there are 6,000 dead.
00:37:31
Speaker
Yeah, that this this would be an ordinary day on the disintegrating runes of this homeworld. It kills a lot of cav. Then the next line down, we like but these cav weren't killed by home. yeah Free Company has violated its terms of its agreement with Pinnacle.
00:37:46
Speaker
Yeah. Make war on your religious rivals. Contain the conflict to the inner system.
00:37:53
Speaker
And so there's there's some consideration here between Mantis and their checkmate and what they should do.
00:38:06
Speaker
Ultimately, they don't pinnacle their their organization, and they themselves don't have the power to fight those religious factions. No, they could like refuse passage to their ships. Yes.
00:38:19
Speaker
The infinity column. which is Which is what allows ships in and out of the system. so it's like Ultimately, they don't have power to force the company out. They can't arrest them or pursue them, but they can deny passage, which is in a way more powerful, but also sort of less powerful.
00:38:39
Speaker
It's a weird state to be in. Yeah. ah And... A little bit later, they talk about... I do like this line, too, where she's not sure to do. so She will use the site of the column to stir up semantic associations, hoping to spark a new idea like a calf or a human would.
00:39:05
Speaker
that's That's one thing that exists here. and Not a lot of... Normal magic story or a lot of fantasy doesn't. Some, but a lot of the thing that I think is more common in sci-fi is where you have these sort of species cooperations, but then also finding where there's these ridge lines between them where things are just different for them and how they learn to kind of work with or around to mitigate some of that.
00:39:31
Speaker
or learn from each other like this, where that may be thing that Mantis wouldn't find natural normally, but it's like, I'm out of ideas. This works for them. Let's see if this can work for me. And that I found really interesting about just this story as a whole, that that there's a bunch of little things like that kind of peppered throughout. Mm-hmm.
00:39:55
Speaker
and So yeah, then they... find some information about this artifact, the, the object, the the end of stone. Yeah. They also apparently have serve on them in custody. He came and turned himself in.
00:40:10
Speaker
Yes.
00:40:12
Speaker
And they're also, um they're, uh, they also are curious about the hole in his head. um and their medics had inspected it. Uh,
00:40:27
Speaker
found it It could develop several complications, facial paralysis, seizures, mental fatigue.
00:40:38
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. And ultimately, his he's here to kind of to give them a warning that violence might be starting to escalate between the two factions.
00:40:50
Speaker
Yeah.
00:40:53
Speaker
and yeah The free company has been covertly moving fleet elements from other tasks toward infinite guideline to provide to develop a blockade. If you haven't detected the engine burns, it's because of, well, leaves the implication. And that this is like an interesting...
00:41:11
Speaker
piece of of how this or this other organization, how Pinnacle is set up. Now, Mantis immediately turns to Checkmate, says, I resign my post as director of the Infinity Gauntlet guideline, effective immediately.
00:41:23
Speaker
Order an audit of our strategic surveillance and check any footage by summists on the crew. because And then Checkmate acknowledges it, inherits the post, becomes director, Infinite Guideline, and then appoints her Checkmate.
00:41:38
Speaker
Which... She's genuinely surprised by the director wants her director wants her to stay on, even given her conflict of interest, because a summist is checkmate on a station compromised by summist infiltrations, is the which is why she stepped down.
00:41:54
Speaker
And the fact that the director wanted her to remain shows trust and value.
Impending Conflict and Strategic Positioning
00:42:02
Speaker
And oh the the whole reason the Monoist warship is that they're basically going to blockade the system to keep the object from escaping. And the free company is going to do the same thing. Yep.
00:42:16
Speaker
Yes, because this um is the only way out. This infinity pillar. its Column. Column, thank you. yeah The infinity column is the only way out of of the system.
00:42:32
Speaker
this is This is the faster than light sort of travel that allows them to to go to other systems. And so, yeah, Vondam, there's a little more conversation about what forces are moving and how and and why. But basically the the point is he's like, we're moving things because they're moving things, which causes them to move things because we're moving things. And yeah all in all, there's probably going to be some conflict soon. and Yeah, and Vondam's basically like, it doesn't matter if they throw away the war in Sothera as long because the artifact is worth more yeah is worth more to them than the fate of Sothera by itself.
00:43:13
Speaker
Yeah, the artifact could turn more than one battlefield, making it more more important than this battlefield. Yeah. And then she confirms that he would kill anyone contaminated by the artifact.
00:43:29
Speaker
And would you destroy the station and the eternity column trapping yourself in so there in order to prevent artifact from escaping? And Sir Bondin replies, yes, again. Yes. and And also what I believe it was talked about before we got to this point of view, but the this is also where our the Karoo and the Sariva are headed.
00:43:50
Speaker
This is where the artifact wants to go. Yeah. Yeah. Well, they will be headed there once they actually can fix the ship. They still need to do that first.
00:44:02
Speaker
Uh... Um... Yeah, because that's ah over the past few days because we get back to the ah we get back to the crew and it says, ships have gone to war over the Srema's uncertain drifting vector. Somehow ah they learned about the Endstone, but they seem less concerned.
00:44:19
Speaker
Yeah, the Monoists learned of the about the Endstone, but both seem less concerned about hunting down the Srema than with closing their only way out. And so that gives them a little bit of leeway to... get their ship fixed, but doesn't really help with the whole step two part of the plan. Yeah.
00:44:37
Speaker
And that's when they talk about like Sammy's like the the stone wants to go to infinite guideline, but that's where everybody else is. so
00:44:47
Speaker
And Sammy just like Sammy is not ready to be rescued because Tezzer has a whole repair crew coming to get them operational again. Yeah.
00:45:00
Speaker
and I think Sammy would just rather sit out this battle that's coming. I love this line too. They're kind of, I think Sammy, Sammy and Tanook are talking for a little bit, but then there's a line where I think Sammy's kind of like,
00:45:15
Speaker
thinking about what how how they're going to try to get out of this. There's just a line that says, for Tezzeret, this is all a project of self-improvement. He has a bad habit, he says, of falling under the control of dark gods. This time it'll be different.
00:45:29
Speaker
It's just... Yeah, that's, again, a fun little reference to his past. Yeah. ah And then there another line about Tezzeret. I really like you. Sammy has a plan. It's a great plan. Maybe the best plan they've ever devised.
00:45:45
Speaker
Tezzeret's plan was to use the end stone to force their way on the infinite guideline, wishing away every ship and person in their path. Then the stone would change the pinnacle crew aboard infinite guideline into corrupt cronies. Observing it to Tezzeret, the man loves corruption. He loves cronies.
Ship Repairs and Alliance Formations
00:46:00
Speaker
He loves consortia, but most of all, he loves metal all good references to his past sammy's picked up on all of that yeah hasn't even had to read all those stories yeah yeah and i just love some back you know yeah back and forth but more thinking more meditations and then you just get to the simple line sammy's plan is to ask for help yeah Yeah.
00:46:27
Speaker
Then you see what that means. And basically Sammy's plan is to ask for help from everybody and hope that nobody realizes that they're talking to everybody.
00:46:39
Speaker
hmm. Which honestly is probably a plan that that Tezzeret would be proud of. Yeah, is kind of how they how they go through this.
00:46:51
Speaker
Mm-hmm. ah then they get you know Then there's a talk between Sammy and Tanook where Tanook's basically asking Sammy if they can actually leave the system without Miri. Mm-hmm.
00:47:06
Speaker
And Sammy's like, yeah, but I have to know, she's my cat. It's not a silly thing. Yeah. Yeah. And um they wouldn't have thought it was silly if she were my sister or my mother or my wife or my friend or my comrade from a war. And the only other person who described the worm speaker or a complete stranger I fell in love with at first sight.
00:47:27
Speaker
You know, if I spent the rest of my life chasing these hypotheticals, it'd be decent, faithful. It's just because she's a little cat, people think, well, maybe she's not quite a person. She doesn't deserve devotion the way a sister or a lover a comrade would.
00:47:42
Speaker
But I love Sammy so much. And then they talk about, you know, how a cat would be lesser to a human like human is to a Drix or a god.
00:47:53
Speaker
Yeah. I said, would that change anything? Shouldn't we treat lesser things better than we treat ourselves? Wouldn't you hope if there were gods that they would chase you across the stars just to make sure you were all right? Even if Miri's less than me, somehow I have to treat Miri the way I would be treated by a god. And I love Tanook's response.
00:48:11
Speaker
A better god than that rock.
00:48:15
Speaker
yeah And they're basically like, if they pull off their plan, they know that they're going to be on the top of the bounty boards for the Sunstar Company and the Monoliths. Yeah. Which would make getting back here to look for Miri very difficult. But ultimately, Xami decides that it's not impossible.
00:48:35
Speaker
They can still do that. But right now, there's slightly more. There's a very pressing thing in front of them and all of them. and that they need to help every everybody move through this, and then they can worry about coming back to try to to find Mirri.
00:48:57
Speaker
And then we get some more between Halea and Aphriel basically talking about, you know, Halea asks him if it isn't his duty to return the stone to his people.
00:49:09
Speaker
And they have more talk about faith. There's a lot of talk about faith in this story. Considering how, you know, how the two major factions are both religious fin factions factions, it makes a lot of sense. Yeah,
00:49:27
Speaker
yeah and then and then we get ah ship <unk>lvori the It's a weird looking ship. Yes, yes it is.
00:49:39
Speaker
The Avil and Vivori are weird too. Yeah. And then start getting some repairs on their ship. Yeah.
00:49:51
Speaker
And this is where we we see Memnon, which I couldn't help but read as a reference to Memnark, but maybe it isn't. Yeah. And then this is, there's a really interesting part here when Memnon is...
00:50:07
Speaker
andon is You sent Captain Sammy and a crew of six to retrieve the artifact. Where are the other two? Six. Six. Are you implying that four of my crew retroactively vanished?
00:50:18
Speaker
If they vanished, Memnom says, they probably weren't very important. Their masks flashed a smile of delight. But I merely named the minimum crew required to run the ship. Are you flying too short? ah Four short, Snook says. These two aren't crew. They're advisors, Aprile suggests.
00:50:33
Speaker
Hostages, Leah says.
Heist Planning and Story Reflection
00:50:35
Speaker
um Memnom says, accomplices.
00:50:41
Speaker
good Perfect. Yeah. a And
00:50:53
Speaker
and then they have some more discussions about the Endstone. and And how Tezzeret met them. And yeah, then they're talking about the Endstone and some more religious things back and forth between Aaliyah and Aphraim until Tezzeret yells at them.
00:51:08
Speaker
Yeah.
00:51:14
Speaker
And then they talk about, you know, in a friend they're talking about, you know, Sammy's like Malomas is sacred, you know, and nothing's sacred, only useful Tezzeret smiles suddenly. But prove to me your guess right is useful. Go on, child captain. Consider it a test of metal. They mentioned another Tezzeret.
00:51:35
Speaker
Yes. can Consider it a test of metal was the a reference I needed to point out. Yeah.
00:51:43
Speaker
Yeah. That is so bad. That's what I thought. I have not read it, but I remember the hearing that that was a bad one. And i when I pull it up, I'm like, I think that's what this is. And I found it on MTG Wiki and it said, there were multiple things in the story that were not accurate to lore and all of this. was like, okay, I think this is the one I was thinking about. Yeah, I think like the first few chapters about Tezzeret's childhood is all good, but then it unravels quickly after that.
00:52:12
Speaker
There's all this stuff about Liliana and Bolas and everything. And it's all absolutely bonkers. And it's basically not canon at all.
00:52:25
Speaker
Yep. Except for Tezzeret's origin. That's basically the only thing that is. Yeah. All right. So we, yeah yeah, we basically, oh yeah, I love the very next line. The purpose of this heist is to steal a warp fairy from infinite guidelines.
00:52:42
Speaker
ah Yeah, so they kind of start to outline the heist. this this is their part So the whole point is the Serena doesn't have its own eternity drive. So it can't jump between star systems. So these are essentially like the Jedi strap-on hyper... Yes, the hyperdrive things....hyper engines they have in the Old Republic.
00:53:04
Speaker
Yep. Because their ships can't jump to hyperspace on their own.
00:53:11
Speaker
Uh, so yeah, these are basically slap on, uh, jump engines, uh, and they have to manage to steal one. And they're like, well, so what's the plan going to be? The plan is going to go tell them the truth.
00:53:24
Speaker
Yes, tell them the truth. But there's also some some parts that everybody is playing. of The conversation between a Sammy and Halea is like, I promised Tezzerot I'd convince you.
00:53:41
Speaker
ah They're upside down compared to Halea. ah so they end up staring imperiously down at each other. Don't make me a liar. You are a liar. I'm a truth engineer, Sammy Huffs. I need a better reason to trust you than trust me. Yeah.
00:53:57
Speaker
So yeah, they continue to to go back and forth and that, unless you get anything more to add, I think that's the end of this story. No, I've got to go read those refuse lines at some point.
00:54:08
Speaker
um Yeah. On the article, then there's a little more space because you have all those refuse lines at the bottom, but otherwise you can just take the link into story 10. Do you want to, Try to talk through this one.
00:54:21
Speaker
What do you think? We're an hour yeah we're already an hour in. and We've got two stories left. I think we're just going to have to make this a four-parter. All right. We've got a four-peat for this story then.
00:54:35
Speaker
Yeah, we've got two pretty dense stories. to but This whole story is dense. The audio recording for Chapter 9 is over an hour long. It's a long chapter. Yeah, 10's a little shorter and 11 is a little longer. So yeah, we'll see.
00:54:51
Speaker
Yeah, 10 and 11 probably you'll be ah might be just as long as this one, this recording. So all right then. Well, thanks for following us following with all this story talk. We have, I guess, one more. We'll hit this main story and then we're going to talk cards and Edge of Eternity. And by then, who knows how much we may have a bunch more Spider-Man by then Spider-Man story will be, Oh wait, we don't get any story. Yeah.
00:55:19
Speaker
Yeah. That's ah exactly. That was. fair Oh, it's. a Yeah. So I, you know, we're, we're lamenting a little bit that this may be lamenting is a wrong term that this is taking so many episodes for us, but honestly, I'm so glad we're get, we got this much story out of edge of eternities. I think we talked about it in one of our last story episodes, but yeah,
00:55:40
Speaker
we 11 main stories plus five side stories. I don't think we've gotten 16 stories for a set. Maybe ever actually. So it's, it's really nice to see them and putting more resources. We're getting recordings.
00:55:56
Speaker
They're still doing the recordings. Um, and, No shade to the people who did the previous recordings, but I think they're putting a little more attention to it because for some of our previous sets, I listened to some of the recordings on the website and you'd have a person like read, stumble over a word, stop, start the sentence again. And that just didn't get edited out.
00:56:14
Speaker
So it's like, I think they're putting more more attention to it and and putting more resources to it, which I'm really glad. so we At least for the sets, we have story. Like you say, there's there's the other problem where we have so many sets that are not in Magic's fiction anymore that we just don we don't get Yeah, we don't more story to Lorwyn after this in next year.
00:56:35
Speaker
yeah Yeah, because it's it's Spider-Man and then there's a Marvel set. No, it's Spider-Man and Avatar. Avatar, that's right. Spider-Man and then Avatar. Okay. Okay.
00:56:48
Speaker
Yeah, and Avatar knocked Lorwyn back. Lorwyn was supposed to come out this year, but Avatar knocked it back to next year. All right, well, cool. I think that's...
00:57:01
Speaker
it for this. i don't have a good way to close it, so I'm just going to push end. Goblin Lore Podcast. Thank you for listening. We can be found both on Twitter and Blue Sky at GoblinLorePod. Check out our link tree for our Discord and our discounts.
00:57:15
Speaker
We appreciate you listening and welcome feedback via social media or Discord. Until next time, Podwalkers, remember that goblins, like snowflakes, are only dangerous in numbers.