Jason recaps the events from Agents of Edgewatch S1|28: Food Glorious Food!
I have to admit, I was honestly surprised this week’s episode managed to be an entire episode. On one hand, the Adventures of Seth and Vanessa (primarily) richly deserved the spotlight, but the rest of the surrounding episode was just so weird and random, I didn’t think there was enough meat on those bones to put a full episode together.
Speaking of which, I fully expect this to be the first episode of our show ever to be banned by PETA, given our obvious delight in the eating of animals. Even fictional ones. Coincidentally, I nominate “It’s not cannibalism if you sell it to other people instead of eating it yourself.” for our next T-shirt quote.
But let’s rewind. We start with a very short bit of real business, as we have to retrieve the remaining loot. And… OK, let’s be honest, Steve ends up just giving us a mulligan on this one by having the ochre jelly spit the remains out on the floor outside the pit.
And sure enough, despite the ribbing from John and Chris, it’s upgrade time for Basil. MY SWORD-CANE!
First, there’s getting the striking rune for free; that’s almost good enough right there. Saves me, what… 130 gold or so? But then there’s the fact that it also has a poison reservoir. Granted, I took a look at the poison table and poisons can get pretty pricy – the more you spend the more damage you do AND the higher the DC to save against the poison – so it’ll probably have to be a trick for special occasions, but added damages and status bonuses could come in handy. The ability to strike with the scabbard is nice, but without the extra feats to use multi-attack without penalty, that’s mostly going to be good for mixing up damage types. And just as a point of pride… it’s a unique weapon. No one else in this multiverse version of Golarion will ever have this particular weapon. OK, it’s not an artifact on the level of the Hand of Vecna or Baba Yaga’s Hut, but it’s still kinda neat that it’s the only one of its kind.
For the record… I was sincere that I wanted to be fair about the issue. I did also get the +1 healer’s kit AND Pratchett’s spellbook, so I didn’t want to be greedy. But let’s draw some boundaries around that: my offer was more “what do I have to give up to make sure I get this?” rather than “one of you guys can have it”. I was absolutely going to walk out with that sword-cane. Fortunately though, despite their early razzing, the rest of the team was cool about the fact that it was my signature weapon, and therefore I had dibs.
Though… gotta say, I wouldn’t mind having the suit as well, though that’s more for aesthetics than practical value. Just seems useful to be able to hide the fact that you’re wearing armor and blend in, given our adventures so far. Having said that, whenever we hit Level 5, I’m going to bump my STR, which will give me access to heavier armor anyway, so I wouldn’t have it for very long anyway. So maybe it’s not that important.
After we get done with the official business… well, the show basically just jumps the rails for the duration. That’s not meant as a complaint; actually, it was kind of fun. There are times where I feel like our group is a little TOO goal-oriented and it would do us some good to let our collective hair down a little. It was also the closest we’ve come to capturing the spirit of the Three-Ring show, which isn’t surprising considering Vanessa (along with Seth) was one of the two ringleaders of the merriment.
Now, you’ll note I was kinda quiet for this part. Part of it was that when people first started talking about food, I got hungry and got up to get a snack. You’ll note there’s a part where Steve asks for my help coming up with names and I don’t respond: I’m pretty sure I was in the kitchen making a PB&J sandwich at the time (aka The Snack of the Gods). For the rest of it, I think Steve kinda pegged it in the intro: this dungeon had been so mentally taxing that once we were done, I just kinda crashed mentally, put it on auto-pilot, and was content to “bask in our victory” or whatever. (Ignore those scurrilous rumors that I was selfishly thinking up names for my new blade!)
Also, sometimes discretion is the better part of valor with roleplay. Sometimes, if someone else is really feeling it and you don’t necessarily know what you’d add to the scene, sometimes you just sit back and let them go off and appreciate the performance. Some of my passivity was that too – Seth and Vanessa were on such a roll I became a listener in real-time.
Now, I remembered most of Seth and Vanessa’s main in-character riff on different foods and such, and the general emphasis on Frying All The Things. What I forgot was the side conversation. You know: the one that dabbled in bugbear cannibalism and ostensibly humane treatment of livestock that actually sounds WORSE than just killing animals for food. Yeah, we’ll just cut pieces off the animal and heal it; I’m sure that won’t be physically traumatic or emotionally scarring in any way. And hey, we even got our first bleeped word in – I don’t THINK “ever”; I feel like Steve might have done it once or twice back in Dead Suns – but it definitely hasn’t happened in a long time.
Once the Fryer-Fest has run its course, we head back to the station, and it’s time to get our final attaboy from the boss and say goodbye to Sharky – at least for now. Keep in mind, there was never a formal endgame for Sharky, so the idea to make Sharky a cook was all off the top of Vanessa’s head. SOLD! Sharky’s going to learn to cook. I’m not sure if we’ll be bringing Sharky back someday, but both Bob and Vanessa added a fun little dimension to the show while they stopped by.
So there it is… Book One is in the… well… books. We managed to hit Level 4 and should be well on our way to Level 5 and – as we’ve mentioned before – it only took like 3 or 4 days of in-game time. So we’re kind of badass. Next week, we’ll get started on a brand new chapter in the adventure, with new challenges that ought to get us to Level 10 by the middle of next week in-game. That’s how this works, right? As always, feel free to drop by our Discord channel or other social media and let us know what you think of the show. Thanks for listening and we’ll see you next week.