1021 – Cauldron, Cauldron in a Cauldron |Tales of Lady Witchbeard Ep 12

Notable Language:

• What hath I wroth?
• Arr & Arr
• One last Poofy Poof

Notable Culture:

• Speak n Spell
• Richard Blais
• Wylie Dufresne

Notable Talking Points:

• Out my ears, out my mouth, out my brain
• The consequences of misusing a Portal Stone
• Friendship / being yourself is the greatest adventure you can have

Episode 1021 – Cauldron, Cauldron in a Cauldron | Tales of Lady Witchbeard Ep 12

 

[START OF RECORDING]

 

SCOOTER:    Hey, are you up all night…oh, whoops.  Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, friends beyond the binary, my patron peeps, got mixed up there.  Started too early putting you to sleep ‘cause I’m so excited to go off-topic.  Thanks, patrons.

 

INTRO:    [INTRO MUSIC] Hey, are you up all night tossing, turning, mind racing?  Trouble getting to sleep?  Trouble staying asleep?  Well, welcome.  This is Sleep With Me, the podcast that puts you to sleep.  We do it with a bedtime story.  Alls you need to do is get in bed, turn out the lights, and press play.  I’m gonna do the rest.  What I’m going to attempt to do is create a safe place where you could set aside whatever is keeping you awake.  It could be thoughts on your mind that you’re thinking about, thoughts about the past, the present, or the future.  So, thoughts, it could be feelings, anything coming up for you emotionally that…yeah, you’re experiencing.  So thoughts, feelings, it could be physical sensations, changes in time, temperature, routine.  Could be something situational.  Could be something else.

 

Whatever it is that’s keeping you awake, I’m here to keep you company and take your mind off of it so you could fall asleep.  The way I propose to do that is to send my voice across the deep, dark night.  I’ll use lulling, soothing, creaky, dulcet tones, which means my voice is a little bit different, pointless meanders, and superfluous tangents, which means I’m gonna go off-topic, I’m gonna be talking about one thing, then something else will come up, then I’ll get mixed up, then I’ll go back, then I’ll be like huh, why does that sound like that?  You ever notice?  Then I’ll go…then I’ll try to get back to my main point, then I might do some expository dialogue.  Then I’ll do some backstory, then I’ll say is there a way for me to talk, not show?  To talk and show at the same time?  Show, not tell.  That’s what…something.

 

That’s an old truism.  For me, it’s talk and…I’m like…there used to be this toy called a Speak &…Speak & Say or Speak & Spell.  I don’t know; Spell & Speak…something.  ET used one to call…phone home.  You can still see it if you go on the ET ride in Orlando.  I’m not kidding; worth the price of admission, in my opinion, the ETQ…just to see that.  I don’t think ET’s there.  ET already set it up on…’cause ET was so smart.  ET set it up on auto-dial.  Again, later in life, in our present day, some company with probably some clout politically said hey, let’s sell some…whatever, car warranties using that same technology that ET pioneered.  So, somewhere out there, ET, in another…is saying…is probably having a couple pieces of Reeses and saying oh, boy.  What hath I wroth, or whatever?  What wroth I hath, the wrath I wrote, or whatever.

 

I don’t know.  I don’t have those fancy old words.  Oh, what am I talking about, though?  Oh, welcome to Sleep With Me if you’re new.  A couple things I want you to know; this podcast is something that does take some getting used to.  One, because of course, you might be skeptical or doubtful if you’ve tried other stuff to put you to sleep.  Two, it’s just…it is very different, so most listeners say hey, it took two or three tries for me to get used to the podcast and realize huh, this podcast is a little bit different here.  So, give it a few tries if you like.  If you definitely don’t like the show already, go to sleepwithmepodcast.com/nothankyou.  There’s organizations there and other sleep podcasts, other sleepy audio.  But so, that’s one thing to check out.

 

What else is there that you could check out is…oh, I got mixed up all of a sudden.  My brain just slowed down.  Oh, so, a podcast that puts you to sleep.  I said some other stuff and it went right out one…went out my mouth and out my ears, out my mouth, out my brain.  So, I’m glad you’re here.  Takes a few tries to get used to.  I thought I had a tangent, that it was really good, that I was gonna go back to it.  Literally is gone.  So, I guess I could get back to the point.  So, if you’re new, give this show a few tries.  See how it goes.  The other things that can really throw people off if they’re new; structure of the show, the style of the show, and the purpose of the show.  So, let me give you to the purpose of the show right upfront.  When I say upfront, I mean seven minutes and ten minutes into the podcast.

 

So, I make this show for two reasons; one, because you and your sleep are important, and you deserve a good night’s sleep.  You deserve a safe place where you could rest and get comfortable, and drift off into sleep.  You really do deserve that.  That really is important, and it’s important to me if I can help.  I can’t help everybody, but if this podcast can help you get a bedtime routine, have a bedtime you maybe feel neutral about that you don’t dread…maybe you say well, at least I got that podcast to listen to and I have my bedtime routine now; I learned that from Sleep With Me…that your life will be better.  I just literally got a e-mail from somebody that was telling me the same story that is so important to me.  They said yeah, my life became a little bit more manageable and I built from there.  Now I’m doing this stuff.  That’s a miracle.

 

It really is to me, because I’ve been on the other side of it.  So, if I can help you slowly build and get the sleep you need, make your life a little bit more manageable, that’s the greatest gift I could ever…it makes me almost speechless.  The greatest honor I could ever be a part of.  One of the reasons is because I’ve been there tossing, turning, mind…last night, oh boy.  Normally what I read at bedtime does not keep me up, but last night my brain kept processing what I was reading for hours and hours and hours.  So, yeah.  I’ve been there.  So, that’s why I make the show.  You deserve a good night’s sleep.  You deserve a bedtime you could look forward to, or at least not dread.  I’ve been there, so I know how it feels, or at least I can relate to something similar.

 

The other things that throw new listeners off is a kinda twofold thing of the show.  It’s a podcast you don’t really listen to.  Some people think this is gonna be a straightforward bedtime story and something more that you pay attention to, and then I get to a point, and then you fall asleep.  This is more a show that’s like an upgrade from background noise.  You say well, it’s a little bit better than background noise ‘cause you could listen to it, but the irony is you don’t have to.  You could listen to it, but knowing that you could listen to it kinda is what makes the podcast work.  Knowing that it’s there but…if you need it, but you don’t need it…if you don’t need it, you could sleep right through it, is part of the show.  It’s also a podcast that doesn’t really put you to sleep, which kinda goes along with that.

 

I’m here to keep you company whether you’re awake or asleep, and if you can’t sleep, I’m here to keep you company to the very end of the show.  So, I’m here if you need me.  Kinda that’s what works about the podcast, or one of the things, is I’m here if you need me.  You don’t need to listen or pay attention, really.  So, that’s those things.  Then the structure of the show also throws people off, and the show’s designed in a very deliberate manner to just meet the goals of the podcast.  Once you become a regular listener, you could kinda repurpose it or play around with it and see what works for you.  But the show’s set out in a very deliberate way.  It starts off with a greeting; friends beyond the binary, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, and then I normally say something silly if I can think of something.

 

That’s so you feel welcome, you feel seen, and you say oh, okay, this is a lighthearted, silly place to kinda relieve some of that bedtime dread.  Then there’s support, support for the show so the show can come out for free twice a week.  That’s…the patrons and the sponsors make that possible.  Then there’s support for listeners if you have extra needs right now, and then there’s support for the community around the show and all the communities around the show.  Then there’s the intro which we’re in now, and the intro’s about twelve to twenty minutes long.  For some people, it feels like it’s part of the business at the beginning of the show, but it’s really a show within a show.  It’s a pre-show, I guess.

 

It’s like a really good queue at a theme park or something, where it serves a dual purpose; it kinda lets you know where you are, where I explain how the podcast works and stuff like that, but it also provides a transition between wake time and bedtime.  It eases you into bedtime.  For a lot of listeners, it’s part of their bedtime wind-down.  Maybe they’re getting ready for bed, maybe they’re in bed getting comfortable, or maybe they’re in their room or somewhere else doing some sort of other calming activity.  But that’s a role the podcast kinda serves with the intro.  It is a thing…it’s…you could fall asleep to it.  Some listeners do, and they’re looking so cute and cozy, and some listeners skip it.  But most listeners use it as the twilight period of their evening.

 

Then there’s, again, sponsor support for the show between the intro and the story, and then there will be our bedtime story that’s about, whatever, twenty-five, thirty minutes into the show.  That kinda is the bedtime story to put you to sleep tonight or to listen to if you can’t sleep, and that’ll be the Tales of Lady Witchbeard.  Then there’s thank-yous at the end of the show.  So, that’s the structure of the show, that’s why I make the show.  I know I was talking about something silly at the beginning, but now I have no idea what it was, which is pretty funny.  Like, I literally have no access to it.  It came out my mouth and is gone into the dreamy ether.  But I’m glad you’re here.  I really hope you give this show a few tries and kinda see how it goes.  I really hope I can help you fall asleep.  Thanks again for coming by, and here’s a couple of ways I’m able to do this for you for free twice a week.  Thanks.

 

Alright, hey everybody, it’s Scoots here.  It’s time for another episodically modular episode.  Actually, not just any episodically modular episode; our final episodically modular episode of our series Tales of Lady Witchbeard.  So, you could listen to this episode first.  I’m gonna try to give you a little bit of background, but I do want to get to the episode, ‘cause this is the last episode of the season, other than there will be another episode after this where we recap the making of the series.  But yeah, you could listen to them in any order, though if you…though maybe if you listen to Episode 11 first and then 12…I don’t normally do this, but right now, just listen and barely pay attention.  Then you say well, I wanted to listen.  I say yeah, then tomorrow or during the day when you need a break, listen to Episode 11.

 

Then tomorrow night, fall asleep to Episode 11.  The night after that, you can fall asleep to Episode 12 again.  So, then you don’t even have to…then when you listen to Episode 11, you already know how it turned out.  So, it’s like…this is like positive on positive on positive.  But if you were gonna listen during the day, I would say listen to 11 first, then 12, or in any order after you listen to 11.  But for bedtime…this…it takes even less pressure off.  You don’t barely have to pay attention.  Normally I say you could listen to them in any order, but I gotta maintain a modicum of honesty, that…just don’t pay attention.  Just barely listen if this is your first Lady Witchbeard episode.  Now, if it’s not, you could listen to them in any order, even if you said well, I missed Episode 11.

 

I say well, if you listen to two other episodes, no problem.  But if this is your very first, I just wanted to tell you that to give you extra reassurance that this will be a unrelated, confusing bedtime story that you could make sense of at another time when you’re more rested.  That being said, Tales of Lady Witchbeard are…is the tales of Lady Witchbeard.  She’s a witch and she’s a pirate.  She lives in the world of the thirteen seas, and that’s where our story takes place.  It’s a realm that’s a bit different than ours, though it has a lot of things that are similar.  It has thirteen seas where we have multiple seas; not thirteen.  Definitely not thirteen.  Maybe a little bit different, but where…so, okay, who’s Lady Witchbeard?  That’s the thing I was supposed to be answering, right?

 

She lived in a witch world, another realm, witch-based realm, where there was all witches.  She worked in a witch-based economy.  She decided that’s not for me, then she found a way to portal to this thirteen seas, found out about piracy, loved it, and was one of the great pirates of the thirteen seas for a time.  Then she met me, or my…what do you call that?  My fill-in, but there’s a…not…proxy’s the wrong word too, but a fictional representation of me, a real one though, to her.  We went on an adventure years and years and years ago.  Turned out pretty exhausting for Lady Witchbeard because after the adventure concluded, I was scattered across time and space and she had to go collect me.  So, after that, she needed some R & R.  This makes me laugh every time thinking about it, but you know.

 

How many times have I said it without the joke part?  That’s just the punchline.  You could fill in the joke yourself ‘cause Lady Witchbeard’s a pirate.  You know what I mean?  But she was getting some R & R, and Antonio’s laughing.  That’s why I’m laughing; not because I think it’s funny but because he’s trying not to…if you’ve ever seen…I’ll tell you what; people think kittens are cute, or that kind of stuff on YouTube, and I realize Antonio can’t do this, but if you ever saw a video of Antonio Banderas trying not to laugh at something completely silly that shouldn’t even be funny at all, I mean, the cuteness scale would break.  All of a sudden, stuff with rainbows…they…it would be something that happens on a weekend.  They’d say, what happened to Hello Kitty and all those companies…just shut down on Monday.

 

All that other cute stuff; cute.com and Cute, Cute, Cutie-Q, Cutie-Poos.  They all shut down.  Oh, ‘cause Antonio Banderas broke the cuteness scale on…so, anyway.  But oh, so, Lady Witchbeard needed to recover some R & R, and you know, I don’t usually…if you could fictionally giggle with a celebrity, which you get to do vicariously through this podcast, I highly recommend it.  It doesn’t get any better.  I mean, maybe actually giggling with a real celebrity and not imagined.  But see how good it is?  Giggling with an imaginary Antonio Banderas.  Sleep With Me podcast, since 2013.  So, she was resting, and then I took her…we got…went on another adventure to find a version of Brandy from the song Brandy, by the band whose name escapes me.  It’s like, Long…I don’t know.  It’s three words that make up their name.

 

Working Lights or something.  I’m sorry.  I really can’t think of it.  The Winding…no.  That’s my brain.  I talk…don’t worry; Episode 13, I’ll talk about the song.  So, we went to the thirteen seas ‘cause there was a version of Brandy in the thirteen seas, uncovered a plot to…that was to gelatinize the sea by Brandy and a conqueror of worlds, maybe some demi-gods and goddesses; they were gonna gelatinize all thirteen seas to gelatin, to Jell-O.  Not in a good way.  Like, Jell-O for everybody; all you can eat.  Everybody loves Jell-O.  No, no, no; like, no more swimming, no more commerce except where we make canals in the Jell-O.  Also, if you live…if you were gonna use the sea for anything, you get my drift.

 

We worked to stop it with the help of Don Dankle, the man who loved the sea, whose name was Wiltz, or the man who loved the sea, but Wiltz for short, or a silent M at the beginning.  We worked together, had some adventures, and tried to stop Brandy and this witch conqueror.  Hasn’t been going good.  Then Lady Witchbeard and I, we left Don Dankle, who was from the Pirate’s Guild, down…there’s a drain.  You’ll hear about this, I think.  They’re planning…they need this drain to…they’re gonna use this drain in the thirteenth of the thirteen seas to spread the gelatin…because there’s three ingredients to this gelatin; well, four.  One, sea water.  Two, another one; binding agent.  Don’t know what that is, but…Newty-Poo, the poo of newts.  This is not edible Jell-O or gelatin.

 

Some would say it’s actually not gelatin because it doesn’t have all the…I guess Newty-Poo may, ‘cause they say well, technically, gel…and I say okay, thanks.  Thanks, food scientists.  Richard Blais…first time I got a call from Richard Blais, and I said, this is what you call me about, my misuse of gelatin on the podcast?  But so, first, Richard Blais shout-out in the history of the podcast, probably.  If I would have remembered Wylie Dufresne’s name earlier…sorry, Richard.  I would have said Richard and Wylie Dufresne separately contacted me.  That was these…by the way, these terrible jokes, they crack Antonio up, so that’s why I keep rolling with them.  So then, what happened?

 

Oh, so, yeah, Richard Blais and Wylie Dufresne, various other chefs, they said…I said well, it’s a slurry then, whatever, because they’re using some sort of cassava root.  So, cassava root, newt poo, a binding agent, like a binding…and they said by the way, this…and I said yeah, it’s not…this is…said, they’re not cooking something; they’re gelatinizing an…entire oceans.  But so, that’s their plan, as confusing as it is.  It’s a very good plan.  I mean, objectively.  Even though I can’t explain it, that doesn’t mean that plan’s not good, because clearly…so, they’re using waterfalls.  I mean, here’s the thing; Willy Wonka did it, so back it up, Dufresne and Blais.  Put some of that smokey stuff that comes in the cooler in there, and maybe some of those…drop some balls.

 

Hold your nitrous; that’s what I meant to say, because yeah, just like Willy Wonka in some sense, they’re using the waterfalls that go to the Thirteenth Sea to churn up all this cassava root.  Then it goes through this drain which is…where it’s activated by the binding agent.  Goes out the drain and spreads through the thirteen seas, because that drain returns to this…all seas, I guess.  Technically, all the water in the thirteen seas eventually passes through this drain, but it won’t once it’s gelatinized.  They’re using birds and witches to distribute the Newty-Poo, but they haven’t done this yet.  They’ve done…they have the binding agent in place.  It’s a screen over the drain.  I think they’ve…well, no, no; they…well, now I’ve just…I’ve gone from exposition…or I’ve gone from back…I’ve exposed myself in my exposition.

 

But so, yeah.  So, we’ve gotta stop them, I guess, basically.  We went to a place where pirates go to retire, like pension…pirates on a pension in the thirteen seas.  They got a lot of great systems there we could learn from.  It turns out, if you’re in the Pirate’s Guild, of course, if you pay, whatever, 10% or 20% or whatever the companies that hire you, you get a pension.  Part of the pension, it comes with not just a financial pension, a place to retire, a safe place.  So, we went there, a hidden place where pirates retire, to take them all out of retirement to try to stop this plan.  That’s where we left off.  Lady Witchbeard and I, all these retired pirates, we were resting, but then we set sail in three ships to save the thirteen seas via piracy with retired pirates.

 

No longer retire…well, I guess I could say they’re still retired from piracy because they’re not getting paid for this.  This is the truest piracy.  The truest form of piracy is piracy of the heart.  I don’t know what that means.  Antonio didn’t laugh at that one.  So, this is…that’s it.  This is our…the final tale, the final…ladies and gentlemen, friends beyond the binary, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, here’s Mr. Antonio Banderas.  Ah, thank you, Scooter.  The ladies, the gentlemen, the boys, the girls, the friends beyond the binary, it’s time for another tale of Lady Witchbeard.  Splish, splash.  Yeah.  Thank you, thank you, thank you for making me laugh and listening and sleeping, all of you.  Goodnight.  Thanks.  That was Mr. Antonio Banderas.  This is Tales of Lady Witchbeard.

 

Lady Witchbeard, so, that didn’t…that part of the plan didn’t really work, huh?  That wasn’t your best plan, though.  That’s why we have our ships and we’re meeting.  So, the plan was to confuse the birds with cannons and stuff so they wouldn’t spread the Newty-Poo.  It seemed like they knew you were gonna do that, so…what…I guess I’m here listening.  What are we gonna do next?  Correct, Daw.  They knew…that plan was to make them think that was our plan.  So, I’m gonna come up with a plan.  Let’s just sit here for a second and take a breath, and we’ll go over my next plan.  Or we could just go over…because…Daw, I know what you’re gonna say, and yeah, I’m struggling with it, too.

 

So, I know we talked about it earlier and then my speech didn’t go well, that somehow Brandy and the conqueror of worlds and possibly these…this goddess of the sea and the goddess of Middle Earth or the Under Earth or whatever we’re referring…post-Earth, may have merged their powers.  But there was a couple things I couldn’t quite get my hat around, as we may say in the witches’ business.  Wouldn’t we say your striped…you don’t wear striped stockings because…but wouldn’t we say…couldn’t we say striped stockings?  I guess we could, Daw, but…so, one thing that’s been troubling me is the fact that they’ve been one step ahead of me.  They’ve bested me at every turn.  I was saying how…why does this keep happening?  I feel like I’m at my best.  I don’t feel like I’m distracted.  I feel like I’m focused.

 

I felt like with three ships of pirates, pirates that have lived a full life of piracy, but still, very strong seafarers.  Okay, Lady Witchbeard, I just have a question, though; we’re loading on a bunch of giant rocks or…well, as big as the rocks as these pirates can carry onto the ship.  Yeah Daw.  And water, sea…we’re filling some of the holds of the ships with seawater.  That’s part of what I’ll…but you’ve gone in the way of my talking, Daw.  I’m sorry, Lady Witchbeard.  Don’t be sorry.  So, they’ve been a few steps ahead of me.  But I also was confused of how…and there’s still stuff I may never understand, Daw, and I guess we have to accept that.  Like why the witches didn’t listen when you gave them an ultimatum and the other pirates?  No.  You were right on that, Daw.

 

I shouldn’t have given them an ultimatum, especially if you’re in the throes of another charismatic figure or figures or layers of charismatic figures within one being.  Probably best not to give ultimatums to somebody like that, or just to make people choose sides was a mistake.  I was wrong and it cost us some time.  But again, Daw, one thing I’ve learned is we’re still flowing forward.  So, looking back at that, other than as a way to inform my future decision-making…would be indulgence.  But a question I had, Daw, was that the witches…at this point, a large portion of the witch world, our witch realm, are here on these ships, controlling the ships, using the power of Earthsea, as you would say, and pulling barges behind them along with wind power, but they’re supplementing that.

 

The conqueror of worlds, who, yeah, seems to be fused now with Brandy and then they’re taking the power from Wiltz, or they’ve already taken Wiltz’s power, they’re probably…they probably already have that drain thing in place, and I don’t know if Don Dankle’s been able to slow them down or whatever.  Clearly they have, ‘cause we’re looking at…their ships were paused.  But so, moving all these witches between worlds, and possibly these different layers of godlike beings, we’ll say, it got me thinking about this other myth.  Then it got me thinking about the Brandy song, particularly what you were fixated on, Daw, because there’s something…a myth in the witch world that we all take as truth, but it’s a truth we…that we just kind of always relied on, is that the way the portal cauldrons work, Daw, is by something called the portal stone.

 

We always thought…even…I guess even I never thought about it.  I assumed that the portals worked by magic, but then even as I learned about magic, I learned magic could be concentrated in things.  Again, this is too much of a tangent to go on in this…current circumstances.  But that anything with…casting a portal cauldron spell, you’re…you notice we didn’t…we haven’t really…we’ve gone to your world, Daw, through the transverse plane, or when I’ve had a cauldron…if I go to your world, I go to the witch world…like, to get to the thirteen seas, we went…I don’t remember anymore, Daw, ‘cause it’s been quite a time with you, once again…if we went through the transverse plane or not.  But the transverse plane’s different than portals.

 

All portals connect to the witch world, even if you’re just not really going there, because the portal stone is there.  So, my cauldron in your world would have been connected to the witch world, which I would have then connected to the thirteen seas.  Do you understand, Daw?  I think…yeah, Lady Witchbeard, kind of in a similar way, the internet just works.  So, you’re saying the portal cauldrons just work, but because of the portal stone.  Yeah, I don’t know if I…did I talk in my sleep?  Did I say that already?  But yeah, so, there’s this portal stone and there’s legends about it, that there’s one stone that enables this, and that the stone doesn’t like people…again, I guess I gotta stay focused, Daw.

 

But there’s a lot of myths about it so that people don’t go back in time and go changing history, that there’s all…a lot of the myths that they would tell us were the consequences of misusing the portal stone, and things that you would say in your world based on the movies you talk about, which we don’t need to discuss at this moment, Daw.  There’s conundrums of time and travel through time and space.  Somehow…I don’t understand the conquer of worlds part, but Brandy hasn’t run afoul of any of those rules.  But the idea of moving all of this stuff says to me that she is in possession of the portal stone.  I guess that I have to assume…and maybe somehow that’s why she’s a focal point.  I think that she’s wearing it around her neck.  I didn’t realize that this whole time.

 

It was just in front of us the whole time, the answer, because of your song and the one thing you were fixated on, Daw, that…this is where…I hate using your movies again, Daw, but like The Matrix, that there isn’t really…synchronicity, Lady Witchbeard?  That’s probably a higher way of saying it, Daw, but yeah.  So, Brandy must have the portal stone.  Another reason I think that is because…again, giving people an ultimatum isn’t the best thing, but taking all of the witches out of the witch realm and then saying you might be here, I don’t think they realize that they’ll be gelatinized, probably.  But you don’t want to be cut off from home, so that’s a pretty ultimate motivator.  She has them in this realm; she has the portal stone, and they can’t get it from her.

 

Okay, Lady Witchbeard, so I get the feeling you’re going somewhere with all this, like to a great plan.  The only…but I have a big…I do have a big ‘but’ about this.  Okay, Daw, that’s not the time for that.  But I know what you’re gonna say, so, I’m accepting of that.  We’re gonna go over my plan, which I’ve been thinking about and processing and sitting quietly on, the only plan that could possibly save the thirteen seas and everyone.  But yeah, that they’ll know that my plan…they’ll expect it.  Yeah, I understand, Lady Witchbeard.  So, let’s go over your plan, and then we’ll figure out what to do.  Okay, Daw.  It’s just hard for me to think about that I have a plan that seems foolproof.  So…and what they would expect and how they’ll be expecting it, and how…I don’t know.  I feel like this is a really, really, really solid plan.

 

So, I guess I’m slow to get rid of it, but here’s the plan, Daw; we have three ships.  The plan would be a double-feint where we’re gonna dress everyone on the ships like me, including you, and we’re gonna kinda use different techniques, and one of the ships will make a direct…now, all the ships are weighed down, which hopefully would create a third level of distraction.  So, we’re gonna send one ship on the direct, which they will expect is a distraction, and that would be…the ship, of course, I would be on, but they wouldn’t expect that because they wouldn’t expect me to go after them directly.

 

Then you will sweep in, in a way, as this…another distraction from the side of the falls, but in a way that shows that you made one small error in your calculations, so that they do think it’s you, but that they would also assume that it was…I used that as another distraction.  Then I would sweep in, which I wouldn’t be in there, but the ship that they would think I was on would then sweep in from a third direction.  Also though, because they have the portal stone, they must have a large portal cauldron on their ship, a large cauldron that…the same one we’ve seen.  It must be very linked to the portal stone, or even craft…I don’t know, Daw, but I know that on their main flagship, that’s where Brandy is and these other beings that are layered within Brandy…that I would come up through the portal.

 

Well, that’s actually the real plan; hold on.  So, then what I would assume would happen is that the ships would pick up pace to go over the falls and that Brandy would spur that along by any means necessary, seeing our distractions and instead of dealing with us, rushing things along.  Now, really what I would be doing is creating an illusion.  So, I’d be using a lot of magic, a lot of powerful magic, a few things I picked up from Wiltz to create an illusion of the falls within the mist.  Hopefully with all these misdirections, it would just throw things off enough, and I think it would, and there would just be enough rush that Brandy would send things over the falls, but it wouldn’t go over the falls.  There is one powerful stream that I would be guiding the ships into that would send them all into a bay.

 

Now, this would be the key, Daw.  This bay is not that far; it’s…the closest bays to the lower seas.  It has a very…it has one of those things where it’s a wide opening, but on the way leaving the bay, it’s very narrow.  It’s built, again, in the same mounds we were looking at.  So, it’s kind of like a funnel.  You go in through this wide thing; it gets more and more narrow as you go in.  I think I can make it…anyway, the ships would go in, then we could…you two ships would go break off from the action after…once this is…once you start seeing the ships disappear over the falls, you would break off from the action.  This would be the same time I would come up through their portal to deal with them.  You would seal those ships inside that bay with the cannons.  The pirates, they’re good to go.

 

These are great pirates; very good aim with cannons.  So, you would seal the ships in that bay by closing it off with the cannons.  Then eventually we would deal with those ships, but they would be closed off in that bay.  I know it wouldn’t be watertight, Daw, so we could have some gelatinization, but not the full gelatinization of the sea.  Then I would go over the falls.  I would also…I think there’s gotta be cassava root on that ship, so we would go over the falls.  Brandy and whoever’s layered within Brandy; the conqueror…whatever, I think I can handle them.  But also, they’d…we’d be in a gelatinization.  As soon as the…so, the…once the ships are gone, the illusion would dorp, but we’d be also locked in, but we’d be close…they would have moved away form where they thought the falls were, but they would really…moved closer to the falls.

 

Then we’ll go down the falls and let the things fall where they may.  But between Don Dankle and the gelatinization and myself, I don’t think they’ll be prepared to go over the falls, which is a guaranteed trip…like, especially if you’re locked in with me, it’s a guaranteed trip to the big farm or wherever…the sea beyond the sea.  So, that’s my current plan, Daw, at this time.  Okay, Lady Witchbeard.  Give me a second to pace around, okay?  Dear Lady Witchbeard, I guess I’m…it feels like I was just talking to you moments ago, and I know you said this is a one-use pen only.  It’s a feather, but I could send you a goodbye letter if I kept it safe in my pocket.  Then you would get the letter, and you would also…you also send me a letter, but I can’t get my letter ‘til I send you a letter first, ‘cause I guess…so, I’m interested to see this feather write its own letter.

 

But dear Lady Witchbeard, I suppose I should recap everything that happened and how we got led to say goodbye, as you…that’s what you told me to do.  You said after…and thank you for listening to my plan.  I mean, I don’t know if my favorite part of my plan was when you…before we enacted my plan, you said I was right and that we were outmatched and that even though you had an amazing plan…and I know it was difficult, because you almost went back on it a few different times, especially after I told you my plan, but that we couldn’t stop them.  I said yeah, we can’t stop them, Lady Witchbeard.  We have to join them.  But not in the way that you…that…I don’t know if that’s a proverb or a idiom, but it’s a say…I know it’s a saying ‘cause people say it; if you can’t beat them, join them.

 

But I said, join…and I think that’s what the gods did with Brandy, maybe.  That’s funny that we had this adventure and we don’t even know all the answers.  But maybe you do now, where you are, but we…you had your plan, which we just talked about.  It felt like seconds ago, but now I’m here on the shore of the lake, not at the bed and breakfast, and not that…so, you had your plan and you said okay, Daw, what’s your plan?  I said well, it was surrender, Lady Witchbeard, ‘cause you have to surrender your…you have to be willing to surrender.  Of course, I constantly have to be reminded of that, and that there’s a difference between surrendering and giving up.  But we…not to…if you can’t beat them, join them.  If you can’t beat them, surrender to the fact you can’t beat them.

 

You were listening to me talk about this, but of course, there was a couple complications.  So, we had the idea that the portal stone…Brandy was wearing the portal stone, and that was the one piece of my plan that I didn’t have.  You had the best plan and you were willing to abandon it and let go, which there was no way…there…even if they thought about it, they…even if they anticipated it, obviously, clearly they think the same of me as you, but they didn’t think…they don’t think…they think as highly of me as you think of me, or maybe a little bit less, but they didn’t think as highly of you as I do.  So, I think that’s a win for me.  They thought you would go with…that you wouldn’t…and you almost did; you almost gave up on my plan or chose an alternative plan that you thought of.

 

But oh, so to get to my plan; so, the biggest question was the thing with the portal stone.  Then I had other questions for you, but first I wanted to talk…I said well, what are my influences so that you would have an idea of…’cause I talk about a lot of this stuff to you, then I realize well, you’ve never seen these shows.  Also, maybe I’m not always paying full attention, which that is also true, right?  It’s that I can only remember or hear what I want to hear, right?  Of course, it was hard to say goodbye, which I’m glad we got to do with these letters, because you said it’s…that you tried to keep me focused on the plan.  Also, it seemed like we all had a little bit of tension ‘cause none of us thought this would work, but that it could work; that was…that door was open just a crack.

 

I know your plan relied on a backup plan of self-sacrifice, which is what all the good…that’s what heroes or heroines do, is…but what they didn’t anticipate and that I knew was there was something more, that you would choose self-sacrifice first.  Not that that’s the easy way out, but saving the world and being remembered forever is a little bit interesting.  So, you know, my…so, I tried to walk you through Doctor Who and Loki.  I don’t know, maybe I was distracted by Loki just ‘cause I’m still try…I mean, it’s been like, two or three or four months, but my brain’s still trying to figure it all out because I don’t know when I’m gonna be able to see another season of it.  But then, we’ve talked about the TARDIS before ‘cause the cauldrons are like a TARDIS.  That’s when I asked the next question.

 

We talked about my influences…is what was possible, but I was pretty sure it was possible; was like, can we stretch the…can the TARDIS or the cauldron, in this case, could it be turned…could the TARDIS be turned inside-out?  I don’t know.  I’m sure there was a Doctor Who episode about it, but I said well, there is some sort of outside power, because it’s always there.  People can’t just go in it.  They always…somehow it fits in even though it doesn’t fit in.  So, my thing was, could we pull…could we stretch the cauldron?  Then you said I’m sorry, Daw.  I said well, we’re doing a cauldron within a cauldron, cauldron, cauldron.  We’re taking some parts of your plan and we’re gonna use them, but I also knew what I didn’t want…how I did not want things to turn out, too.

 

I know that the one thing I didn’t want…like you said; what’s…the beginning of the season, you said what’s more powerful…is love worth more than gold, or what’s worth more than gold?  Love.  You said silence.  But I know in our hearts that there is something worth more than gold, and in Brandy’s case and the gods’ case, it was kinda power or control, you would think, but even in our case, I said well, there’s something we don’t want to give up.  They’re still…they would be like okay, of course Lady Witchbeard’s not gonna give that up.  She’s a witch-pirate.  She became a witch-pirate by choice, so that won’t even occur to her.  She would rather do something to leave…to go to the big farm in the sky or the big sea in the sky before she’d give up being a witch-pirate.

 

They knew that I would give up to the big farm or whatever, but before I would give up on our friendship and say well, what are the odds I’ll never see Lady Witchbeard ever again?  So, that was our biggest advantage, and also the fact that they would assume we would use a good plan versus my plan, which is a flawed plan.  Oh, with something that’s big, of course we needed a plan.  So, I guess a key part of my plan was going over the falls.  Instead of stopping all the sava root from going over the falls, then being…then going through the screen on top of the drain which would activate the ingredients, then start the gelatinization process once it went to…once that part of the…the sava root sea would then start to mix with the sea that had been sprinkled with Newty-Poo.

 

I said okay, we have to go over the falls and let their plan work.  We can’t…we have to join them in that sense.  We thought the ships would speed up to get towards their destination to…but then they would eventually slow down because they would assume you were doing your mirage plan, right?  Also, I said wait a second, don’t the…don’t all the witches onboard know they’re gonna go over the falls?  So, then they would slow down even more once they realized oh boy, we’re not sending…there’s no way for us not to go over the falls.  This is a convenient solution for the conqueror of worlds and Brandy, or Brandy-conqueror of worlds now, and the sea.  Conqueror of the sea and worlds and realms that all those witches would go over the falls as well, and down the drain, and also get into…be part of Jell-O Jiggler.

 

So, at some part of that process, we know that that would not be good for anybody.  So, okay, so back to my plan; so, go over the falls.  Part of my plan, I guess not Part 1 of my plan.  But that was part of my plan, or a key part; go over the falls, let them start the process of gelatinizing the sea, except for one thing.  We would have a portal cauldron.  So, we would have a three-way drain, was the plan.  Well, yeah, that was my plan; send…so, there’s…on the drain there was the screen which…the activator, then the drain.  They just put the screen on top of it.  We would put the…Brandy’s portal cauldron, the big one that got all the witches here, below that and if we needed to, stretch it out around the rim.

 

So, we would have to transmit the…we’d have to portal the portal cauldron which you said could be done, but it would take a lot of magic which would kind of alert them to something that was happening.  But again, you said well, they would think I’m conducting this illusion.  But I said no, no, no; then also, you’re gonna come…so, I said okay, can you create an illusion of a portal cauldron?  Then we drop the…so, here’s the plan, Lady Witchbeard; I guess I could just do that.  You pop up from their cauldron.  While you do that, they’re gonna think you’re an illusion, but really…’cause they’d be like well, there’s no way Lady Witchbeard would just pop up on our ship.  That doesn’t make any sense.  You would also create an illusion of their…the portal cauldron around their cauldron, right?

 

You would be making a speech, but your speech would be…again, you’d also be using that thing to tell the witches hey, create some air bubbles pretty soon.  Get ready.  This would…then they would think hah, Lady Witchbeard’s really…she’s try…this is her trying to…’cause then the third ship, they…because then our ships would be headed towards them.  So again, they would think we were still using your plan and that this was just a ruse.  They would also sense that an illusion was happening, so they wouldn’t be aware that the illusion was really the cauldron and not you.  So, you would be on their ship, but they wouldn’t even be…and you’d just be talking.  You’d be seeming like you’re an illusion.  I guess you’d have to be prepared, but they would probably just ignore you.

 

That would be kinda key, is that they’re ignoring you and you’re just kinda going on and on and on.  Now, you’ll also be kind of secretly hopefully using magic or getting ready, ‘cause we have to get Brandy’s necklace, obviously, ‘cause that’s got the portal stone in it.  Meanwhile, I and whatever pirates we can turn into birds will be getting Newty-Poo and heading for the ship, and splashing the whole ship with Newty-Poo.  Then all…so then, while all this is happening, everything’s going over the falls, which I don’t think Brandy’s too worried about, because she’s got multiple levels of godhood.  Again, this will only make her more confident, if we splatter Newty-Poo all over her ship, as many of the…I think the witches will get the idea the closer they get to the falls.

 

We just have to get them the message that you’ll keep saying ‘get the Newty-Poo on the ships now’, which again, she’ll just think okay, well, it doesn’t matter when the seas start to gelatinize.  It’s not gonna gelatinize fast enough.  It’ll still be a slur even if you…we get the ships covered in Newty-Poo.  Then when they go over the falls and start to mix with the Thirteenth Sea, I don’t think it’ll harden fast enough.  They’ll just be like okay, this isn’t really gonna work, or this’ll just slow our plan down.  ‘Cause originally, my plan was just to do that, they’d we would clog the drain.  But I said no, they have to anticipate that you would have figured that part out.  Also, the power of the drain, I think it has enough suction even to suction Jell-O…like, even maybe Jell-O Jigglers?  I don’t know.

 

Or that it won’t be able to process ‘til it slows down.  It’s rapidly moving.  You know what I mean.  Anyway, Lady Witchbeard, this is…I don’t know if I…I can’t believe you gotta read this as a letter.  So, okay.  So, the basic plan was you would be an illusion.  You’d have illusion over their cauldron, but the cauldron wouldn’t be there yet.  But also below their cauldron, we would have a portal cauldron.  So then, after I and the birds arrived, then the ships would start to go over.  The hardest part was getting Brandy’s necklace, which turned out not to be so hard because since I was covered in Newty-Poo, I slipped…it was a bit chaotic on the ship.  Again, Brandy wasn’t really worried because she had the upper hand, and also she thought all of this was misdirections, and she had to kinda…it actually worked out as far as Brandy.

 

Said okay, all the witches have slowed down now.  That’s great, because they’re worrying.  Lady Witchbeard’s trying to tell them that…oh, Lady Witchbeard’s trying to gelatinize everything.  Probably won’t work.  Even if it did, they would be…just trying to tell them to do bubbles, so who cares?  Brandy had kind of anticipated most of this part of the plan, except for the cauldron within a cauldron within a cauldron.  So, that all really went pretty well.  Oh, so how…so, okay, so then…so, they let us come aboard.  They didn’t realize you were an illusion.  Then me and the pirates landed.  We got a lot of Newty-Poo.  The witches started to figure it out the closer they got to the falls, and they were trying to use Earthsea power.  So, Brandy was also focused on interrupting the Earthsea power which slowed them down.

 

But again, the power of the water and the falls; too strong.  So, that was like…everything was happening in slow motion.  You got the message to them; hey, call the birds back and have them dump the Newty-Poo on all of you.  Then, the splashing of the sea and the mist did start to gelatinize things, ‘cause I think…as it cover…get covered in cassava power, it create…air bubbles.  So, that’s what…I think what you were most proud of, is that I learned from this.  You said it to me, right?  Said Daw, you really paid attention…this adventure…these adventures.  I said yeah, a little bit.  When I was paying attention, yeah, those times I was paying attention, I…the times I was paying attention.  Also, we knew that they would still need Don Dankle to clean the drain, so…I don’t know.  I briefly saw Don Dankle wave at us.

 

So, then I got…I covered myself in Newty-Poo, then I got…covered myself in cassava root, then I hugged…slipped…fell down the stairs a little bit into the chamber Brandy and…that really worked out because I said…and this part, Lady Witchbeard, I don’t know what movie it was from, but it definitely was probably from a movie, my influences.  I said let’s have a hug, Brandy.  Brandy tried to…and this was actually my plan, Lady Witchbeard.  I was just afraid to tell it to you.  I said, we’ll figure out getting her necklace, ‘cause she’s gonna think you’re an illusion.  So, then I gave her a hug and she was…while I was doing that, you grabbed the necklace.  Then she realized you were real, but that was right at the…I mean, we kinda timed it, of course.  But that’s when we all started to go over the falls.  She started laughing.

 

It doesn’t matter anyway.  But that’s the point; once…then you slipped me the…then you and Brandy started kinda doing some light back and forth, but it was kind of hard.  You were just kind of faking it, so if it was a movie, it would have looked like that whole thing where Brandy was really…had the upper-hand on you permanently, because it certainly looked like that.  But again, that was all part of our plan.  Then that was when we did the cauldron drop, and the cauldron dropped to become another portal cauldron below the drain.  So, that was a cool bit of magic, which Brandy thought you were trying to counter her magic, but really you were using your magic to move the…and this was the part that Brandy did not expect, and I only know my part about how it turned out.  This was a part of my plan.

 

You said well, it is…it might be bad enough to work, Daw, because it is possible.  ‘Cause I really said okay, what if we can’t stop all this stuff from going through the drain, right?  We just gotta…we’re trying to do all these misdirects; why don’t we do a redirect via these portal…the portal cauldron, especially the…whatever, one powered by the portal stone?  So, I don’t know.  Everything happened really fast after that.  So, most of the witches gelatinized themselves in water bubbles, so…or their whole ships.  That theory held true, that it was…it made for smooth landings for all of them, because instead of going over the falls that were 100% water into water, they were…they had Jell-O Jiggler puff packs or whatever.  They landed and were encased in Jell-O Jigglers, and…but the…also with air bubbles.

 

So then, they…we all landed in the Thirteenth Sea.  Now meanwhile, we were kinda going back and forth with Brandy, or so Brandy thought, but I was already an illusion, but by the same time you dropped the portal cauldron.  This is where we should have said goodbye at the time, but you said okay, that’s…you’re a weak point, Daw.  We don’t…you have to give up, too.  So, I did.  I said well, if Lady Witchbeard’s willing to give up, I…clearly you’re leading by example.  It made it a easy choice for me to make.  I mean, not easy, but I couldn’t resist doing what was gonna work best, especially since you trusted me with the plan.  So, I flew…I became a bird and flew off before we hit the mist of the sea so I wasn’t gelatinized, and then I flew back to where I had stashed a set of Icarus wings, kid Icarus wings.

 

I flew down and I was watching everything.  So then, yeah, everything went to plan, like I said.  Everything…well, I mean, I didn’t see what happened after that, but I would assume you and Brandy went back and forth.  The witches…as soon as they were landed, or at some point in the…because hopefully our message got through, the sea started…the sea full of cassava root with a little bit of Newty-Poo, but not as much, as was waiting on the other side of the drain.  I gotta imagine Brandy’s guard was still down, because this was going exactly how Brandy wanted.  Maybe if you followed my plan, you gave up, and Brandy probably used the fact that you were both starting getting encased in Newty-Poo goo, Jell-O Jiggler, to stop you from what she thought would be the last thing you would do.

 

I don’t even know how she was gonna counter that, but the fact that you were gonna do one last thing like a poofy-poof or whatever to at least take out Brandy to the big farm with you, Brandy would have been focused on stopping that.  So, some sort of sealant or something so that you couldn’t get magic out, but that didn’t matter at that point.  So, she was focused on keeping you sealed and magic-proofed or whatever.  You started to go through the drain.  I was watching all that part.  Pretty impressive because it didn’t look appetizing, but I thought it would be more like Jell-O colors, but I guess, yeah, it’s like newt poo colored, all going down the drain.  Brandy, again, there’s no way Brandy would have known on the other side of the drain was a portal cauldron.

 

I watched everything drain out, all the ships, all the barges, all the witches.  A whole lot of pirates, I guess, too.  All went down the drain, through the portal cauldron, and into the witch world, which is what our plan was; dump everything into the witch world.  You said there was something called the Great Wastes.  It was a old, dried out, giant inland sea or something.  I’m sure that got filled with some sort of gelatinous substance and ships and Brandy, but at that point, Brandy would have been in deep, deep newty-doo-doo, Lady Witchbeard.  So, I’m assuming everything’s good with Brandy.  Meanwhile, then I flew down.  I did say goodbye to Don Dankle, but I just made a caw, because you said don’t stop.

 

Go straight through the portal cauldron with the portal stone and pull it inside-out just like you asked with the TARDIS, so that you take it with you, but really, it’ll disappear behind you and I’ll be back in my world.  So, I’ll make the last trip through that giant cauldron.  Then I’m…then I stay here and I get rid of the portal stone.  So, yeah.  I mean, I guess, Lady Witchbeard, you said there was a limit, ‘cause I can see that we’re coming up…I didn’t realize magical paper and pen would have a limit, but I also want to hear what’s going on with you.  So, thanks for trusting me, thanks for being willing to give up piracy and have to move…kinda like move back home.  I mean, that’s a big move, Lady Witchbeard.  You really gave up a lot.  You gave up what you loved and you trusted me.

 

You trusted yourself, so I think that’s absolutely amazing.  So, I still have the portal stone.  I haven’t got…it’s gonna be safe, because you said…I can’t remember what you said.  You said keep it safe.  I don’t think you said to destroy it, because I was afraid if I hit it with a hammer, you know.  I’ll be honest; I wasn’t listening at that point because I had…I was so excited about my plan.  But I thought you said it would be safe in this necklace that you gave me that looks like a…kind of like a…I mean, it’s not…it’s made from a…some sort of magical cauldron material.  Cauldron drop is what I call it.  So, I miss you, Lady Witchbeard.  I’ll miss you forever.  I’m gonna keep sending you letters once I get my letter back from you, ‘cause I guess I would send you letters either way, if somehow Brandy ended up…things worked out for Brandy.

 

I mean, I know she’s gone from the sea and all the cassava root’s gone from the sea, and the Newty-Poo.  Also, I forgot that, yeah, Don Dankle…forgot that part of the plan, that the…whatever, that activator went with us, too.  But I miss you, Lady Witchbeard, and I have to hope we’ll see each other again.  But then, I guess part of making the plan work…I guess I’ll just imagine what it’s like in the witch world with you back in it.  Impossibly, some sort of sea…I don’t know if a gelatinous…what life on a gelatinous sea is like.  But I just want to know how you are, so that’s it.  Goodbye, love Daw, AKA Scoots, germ, your friend.  Okay.  Dear Scooter, goodbye.  I’ll miss you, my friend, more than I’ll miss the seas or piracy.  Thank you for teaching me to let go and that it is okay to be somewhat normal to be imperfect, to be bested.

 

I’ll be okay, but just okay.  I promise to learn to live without our friendship and not enjoy the silence, but I also hope that you learn that you don’t need these grand adventures that come up in so many of your cartoons and animated programs and movie films, because like those things told you, friendship and the adventure…the lesson in most of those was that friendship or being yourself are the greatest adventures you could have.  That’s what you taught me and I hope that you take that with you.  So, goodbye, my friend.  I assume you used up most of the magic writing me a extremely long letter.  I’ll miss you and I’ll think of you always.  Lady Witchbeard.  P.S. Yes, Daw, I’m going to bring the pirate’s life to the witch world.  P.S.S. Daw, I know you didn’t destroy the portal stone.  That is what I told you to do.

 

It did feel like you weren’t listening, but keep it safe until a time comes when it’s needed.  It must be used.  P.S.S.S. That time will be perfectly clear, Daw, 100%, without a doubt clear when you need to use the portal stone.  Not huh, I wonder if I should.  If you say that, it’s not 100% clear, without a doubt clear, like spelled out in front of you like this letter clear.  So, don’t open the necklace or use the portal stone or even think about it again.  Then we’ll see each other once again.  I mean, hopefully that time doesn’t come, Daw, but I’ll miss you.  Thank you for being my friend.  Lady Witchbeard, also I see that you’re probably dozing off, Daw, and I’m glad, ‘cause you deserve the rest.  I’ll be resting too, until I can bring full piracy to the witch world.  Goodnight from Lady Witchbeard to you and all of you out there.  I hope you got the lesson.  I’m not perfect; none of us are, and that’s okay.  Sometimes people expect you to be that way, and works out when you’re not.  I don’t know if that’s a lesson or just how we solved this, but I’m glad we got to take this journey together.  Goodnight.

 

[END OF RECORDING]

(www.leahtranscribes.com)