Podcasts about Ryn

Previously on Saga of the Jewels…The life of seventeen-year-old RYN, bookish son of a wealthy landowner, changes forever when his hometown is destroyed by the EMPIRE and everyone he has ever known is killed. He discovers that the Empire are seeking TWELVE PRIMEVAL JEWELS which grant the power to manipulate different elements, and that his father had been hiding the FIRE RUBY. Ryn sets out to take revenge on the Imperial General who killed his family and retrieve the Fire Ruby, and along the way meets NUTHEA the lightning-slinging princess, SAGAR the swaggering skypirate, ELRANN the tomboy engineer, CID the wizened old healer, and VISH the poppy-seed-addicted bounty hunter. Together the companions decide to find all of the Jewels in order to stop the EMPEROR from finding them first and taking over the world. They have thus far succeeded in retrieving the Fire Ruby, borne by Ryn, and the Lightning Crystal, borne by Nuthea. They have now come to the land of FARR where they intend to compete in a hand-to-hand fighting tournament in order to attempt to win its grand prize, the EARTH EMERALD…EPISODE THIRTY-SEVEN: STRANGE TALES OF TWO STRANGERSOne night before the Tournament.Cid eased himself back into the comfy cushioned chair in the corner of the manse's dining area and sighed in relaxation.“Ahhhh…”He lifted the mug of tea that he had made for himself and inhaled deeply through his nose. Sweet and minty, with a hint of citrus. The Farrians were good at tea.It was too hot to drink quite yet, so he just sat like that for a while with both his hands around the mug, letting it warm them, enjoying its fragrance.Bliss.He had certainly earned a day off. They had all been training hard at the direction of young man Vish–even Cid. Although he was not planning to fight in the tournament–nothing could appeal to him less–he had joined in with the others' training for the sake of the exercise, and because he wanted to show willing and that he was one of the group. Although due to his age he had not been able to keep up to anything like the pace of the whippersnappers, the Shadowfinger had still put him through his own paces, and Cid had ached all over when he had woken up this morning. He had needed the break.He stretched his legs out and drew in another deep breath of steaming tea.It had been a good day off, too. He had spent it wandering the city with his Granddaughter and young man Ryn, looking in the different shops and visiting the different ornamental gardens, chatting about everything and nothing–the Jewels, their prospects in the upcoming tournament which would start tomorrow, where they would go next if they managed to secure the Earth Emerald. It had all been very pleasant.And now, to have an evening to himself, just to sit and rest while everyone else was out, free for a while of their bickering and squabbling and the different attractions that simmered between them…it was as though all the children were out for the night and so he could enjoy himself in peace. No, he corrected himself, it was as though all the grandchildren were out for the night and so he could enjoy himself in peace.“Heh,” he chuckled to himself. “Don't forget just quite how old you are, old man Cid.”He took a sip of the tea, now just about drinkable, and let it slide deliciously down his throat.He tipped his head back in the chair and shut his eyes, allowing himself to be lost in the sweet taste and the comfort of relaxing in this chair, without having to think for a few moments about the quest, or the danger they were all in, or how the fate of Mid rested on their shoulders, or how to keep this band of younglings alive for another day, or the terrible things he knew they would have to do that he didn't want to think about. He might even take a nap in this chair, or fall asleep early for the night...Bliss, he thought again.From across the manse, the sound of the front door bursting open. Commotion. Shouts. The voices of the two boys, arguing.Oh no.Cid opened his eyes and sat up straight.Ryn and Sagar exploded into the dining room.“Cid!” Ryn began at once, running up to him and launching into a manic report. “Nuthea and I went to see a play and there was a Jewel-wielder there possibly two and she told us not to make a scene but then Sagar was really really drunk and came to find us because he and Elrann found some other jewel-related person in a pub but then he went up on the stage and got in a fight so I had to go up too but then we had to give away that we had elemental powers and the lead actor got angry and attacked us and–!”“Woah, woah!” Cid interrupted him, like he was soothing a spooked chocobo that he had lost control of. “Slow down, lad! One thing at a time! Tell me what's happened, slowly.”“Don' lissshen to him!” said Sagar, almost falling over himself as he stumbled over to one of the chairs at the dining table and sat clumsily astride it, putting his arms out to steady himself and then draping himself over the table. “He'sh telling it wrong! There wash a man singing about the Jewelesh, like he knew where they all were, so we went to find the prinshesh and the pup an' tell ‘em, but then there wash thish dragon, an'…”The pirate ran out of steam, and now he did go over, his head lolling forward onto the table and hitting it with a smack, then stopping there.A short pause, and he began to snore loudly.Cid turned back to Ryn.“You try again,” he said. “Slowly.”“Um. Hello,” said a young female voice.Standing in the doorway was a short girl in a pale green ballroom-dress, with deep green hair cut short into a fringe and a bob, and huge, glittering green eyes. Her skin was very pale indeed, and she was wringing her hands. She looked as though she had just been through some sort of trauma.“Oh!” said Cid. “I didn't notice you there. Hello, young lady. Please, come in, have some tea, take a chair!”Cid poured the girl a drink from the stove while Ryn got her a chair to sit on. The girl took the tea gratefully and perched on the edge of the chair. She was trembling, Cid noticed, little ripples forming in the mug of tea, which she clutched tight like she was holding onto the hand of a protecting parent.Definitely trauma, he thought with his Healer's mind.When she was settled, Cid sat down at the table too and bade Ryn do the same.“Now,” he said to the boy over the sound of Sagar's snoring. “Tell me slowly and carefully what has been happening and why you have brought back this poor young lady to the manse.”“Well–” began Ryn.The front door banged open again.“Grandfather!” came Nuthea's voice from the entry hall. “Grandfather, are you up? There's some things I've got to tell you!”She ran into the dining room, followed quickly by Elrann, followed by another newcomer: a man in a hooded grey traveller's cloak with a lute-case slung over one shoulder, and the unusual contrast of dark skin and deep blue hair, which hung in thick locks down either side of his face.An Umbarian, Cid thought. The Sapphire-keepers. This one is far from home…“Hi, pops!” said Elrann cheerfully, taking her own seat at the table. “Some stuff's been going down. Oh,” she said when she saw the green-haired girl, “spirit-girl! You made it! Welcome to the party.” She smiled with her eyes shut.When Nuthea also saw the green-haired girl seated at the table, she said, “Ah, you managed to bring her back, Ryn. Well done! Are you okay?” she asked the girl.“I'm f-fine,” stammered the girl. “Um…who are you?”“I am Princess Nuthea Kaleutheanna of the Matriarchy of Manolia,” Nuthea announced proudly. “I identified that you were employing spirit projection in that play and asked my friend here if he could set up a conversation with you.”“You mean the guy asleep over there who jumped onstage and attacked my dragon projection?”Nuthea deflated a bit. “Um, no. That part wasn't planned. I meant my friend Ryn here. The one who, er, attacked your colleague's lion projection.”Cid thought it best to interject here. “Excuse me, young ones, but could one of you please explain to me slowly and plainly what is going on, and why you have invited these two strangers back to our residence?”“Right,” said both Ryn and Nuthea at the same time. They looked at each other. “I'll explain,” they each said again simultaneously.“You go,” said Ryn, ceding the floor at last to Nuthea.“Alright,” she said, accepting without another word, “what's happened is that–”The front door banged again, cutting her off.Who's left? Cid thought. Oh yes. Young man Vish. At least he should have managed to keep himself out of trouble, without poppy seed.There were no shouts or cries this time, just the slow thud of Vish's footfall across the entry hall towards them.But the footsteps were irregular, and heavier than usual. It sounded like he was staggering, like he might be injured.Maybe that was why everyone stayed silent, listening to the erratic noise of the footsteps.Vish appeared in the doorway, a framed black figure.He just stood there for a moment, looking at all of them. He was breathing heavily, his loud, ragged breaths practically matching the volume of Sagar's snoring, as he slumped against the doorjamb.Vish fell forwards onto his front onto the floor, hitting it with a light thwap.That was when Cid noticed the spotted trail of blood behind him, and the blood that was soaking out from him now onto the floor.“He's hurt!” Cid cried, leaping up immediately and rushing over to the fallen Shadowfinger. “Quick, boys, help me get him onto his back!”Ryn and the newcomer Umbarian, whose name Cid didn't even know yet, carefully pulled Vish over onto his back.The Shadowfinger groaned as he went over, not with pain, but what sounded like…pleasure.Oh no, thought Cid, not for the first time that evening, as he knelt next to Vish.“What's happened?” asked Nuthea from somewhere behind him. “Is he going to be alright?”“Quiet,” Cid commanded irritably. “I'll know in a moment.” He didn't like snapping but he needed to concentrate.The first thing he did was take off the Shadowfinger's black gloves, which were slick with blood. There were no cuts or marks on the tan skin at all–it was smooth, delicate even. Just black discolouration at his fingertips—but that came from the poppy addiction. He examined the folds of Vish's tunic. There was no sign of a wound or of blood leaking through it anywhere. He put a hand over Vish's heart. It was beating regularly. Fast, granted. But regularly.Cid looked at the Shadowfinger's face. The man's eyes were closed and the tautness of his cheeks indicated he was smiling underneath his head scarf. The Healer pulled back one of the man's eyelids with a thumb, and his growing suspicions were confirmed. The pupil underneath was huge, dilated so big that it practically filled the whole of his eye with blackness. Vish giggled quietly in whatever state of consciousness he was in.“He's fine,” Cid pronounced, getting to his feet and shaking his head with disappointment. “This is not his blood; it's someone else's. Maybe several people's. He's not hurt. He's just had a poppy hit, that's all. An absolutely massive one, from the looks of things. Possibly several seeds at once.”Shocked silence.He sighed. And I thought that he had been making process.“Um, who is that guy?” said the green-haired girl.Cid turned. She had gotten up from the table and was standing as far away as possible from them all against the wall at the other end of the room, practically cowering.“Oh, please don't be alarmed, young lady,” Cid said. “This man is just an ex-Imperial bountyhunter who we enlisted to help us on our travels.”“He's a what?!” exclaimed the girl, standing up stick-straight and pushing herself even harder back against the wall. She looked as if she was about to run out of the room at any moment.“Don't worry,” Nuthea said, holding out her hands in a calming gesture, “it's quite alright. He's safe. He's on our side. He's saved our lives many times.”The girl stared down at Vish, mouth curling in horror, then looked up at Nuthea. “Who are all of you?” she said. “I only came with him–” she pointed to Ryn–“because he rescued me from Zigfrid's lion and because I can't go back to the troupe now! Unless you explain who you all are and what you're doing I'm getting out of here!”“Yes,” spoke up the Umbarian with the lute. “I would very much like to know who all of you are and why you have invited me here as well.”“Alright,” said Nuthea, “I'll explain to the two of you, then we can explain to grandfather why we've invited you each here. But do come and sit down, please.”Nuthea offered the girl her chair again and with some reluctance she crept back over and took it, reclaiming her tea, but her gaze kept darting back to Vish.“Don't worry about him,” Cid said in an effort to reassure her. “He will be out for a while. And he won't harm any of us. He's clearly used up his energy from the hit to walk back here. He is on our side.”The girl's lopsided grimace indicated she was not reassured in the least, but she stayed where she was for the moment.Cid, Nuthea, Ryn, Elrann and the Umbarian all took seats at the rectangular wooden table too, joining the girl and the snoring Sagar. They left Vish on his back on the floor to sleep off his poppy hit.“So who are you all?” asked the Umbarian. “And what are you doing staying in a government residence in the second-but-topmost level of Shun Pei?”Nuthea began her explanation for the newcomers. “We're a group of friends who are searching for some objects called the Twelve Primeval Jewels. We have two already, and four of us have elemental projection powers from touching different jewels.” Cid wouldn't have led with that, though it sounded as though his travelling companions had practically revealed as much to these two newcomers already. But why?Nuthea proceeded to work her way through the whole party and explain how she had met them and how they had ended up coming along on the search for the Jewels, beginning with her and Ryn meeting in the brig of an Imperial Airship, and ending with VIsh agreeing to work together with them in exchange for being kept in supply of poppy seed. She told them the story of how they had thus far managed to retrieve two Jewels and what they were doing in Farr in pursuit of a third.When she had finished, she looked at the two newcomers as if expecting some sort of response. The Umbarian tapped his lips, looking thoughtful, but the green-haired girl just continued to stare blankly.“Okaaay then…” the girl said eventually. “But what does any of this have to do with me?”“Well, young lady,” said Nuthea, “—what is your name, by the way?”“Riss,” said the green-haired girl.“Well, young Riss, when I saw that dragon appear in the play you were in, so lifelike, I suspected Jewel-magic must be involved.”The girl looked at the floor. “Ah. So you know.”“Yes,” said Nuthea. “You have touched the Spirit Carnelian.”Cid took in a sharp breath, but he tried to mask it.The girl looked up at Nuthea, and she did look very much to Cid like a little girl then–a confused, lost, alone and afraid little girl–despite being a bit older than a child. “Is that what it's called?”“That is what my people call it,” said Nuthea, “and what I believe most peoples who possess knowledge of Jewel-lore call it. How did you come by it?”The girl glanced around at all the members of the party in turn–those of them who were awake at least. She still sat tight-lipped, wide-eyed and pale. “You wouldn't believe me even if I told you…” she said quietly.“Try us,” Cid encouraged her gently. “You have heard some of our stories, and how unbelievable and outlandish those are. I think you will find it hard to surprise us.”Riss drew in a quivering breath. “Well… okay then…” Her green eyes took on a far-away look as she began her story. “I am originally from Suria. My father died of an illness when I was small. My mother raised me by herself, but she struggled. Ever since I was little, I never really fitted in. Rather than joining in with everyone else's games, I liked to go off by myself and play my own games in my imagination. I would go exploring in the woods and hills and valleys and make up my own stories. One day when I was twelve, I was out in the woods, and it was like I heard this voice whispering to me…”Riss paused and came back to the room for a moment, biting her lip and glancing around at her audience. She looked as if she was afraid of saying something foolish.“Go on,” Cid prompted her kindly. He had begun to suspect where this was going.“This voice began whispering to me, just my name at first, and then it started to tell me to follow certain directions. So I followed it. It was like one of my imaginations, one of my stories had come to life. I followed it, and it led me to a particular tree. It was a really big one, an oak I think, with a huge thick trunk and lots of branches that spread into the branches of the other trees. A little way up in the trunk was a small hollowed-out hole, the kind that a squirrel or a bird might nest in. The voice told me to look inside it, so I did, and inside I found a small, smooth, orangey-brown jewel. I took it, and when I touched it I felt a surge of…energy go through me, and from that moment I was able to summon spirits.”Quiet descended, punctuated only by a sleep-snort from Sagar.Cid could see the tension in every line of Nuthea's body, how she held her jaw tight, how she sat rigid on her chair. She must be exerting a huge amount of self-control not to burst out and ask the question that was surely also burning on her lips straight away.“Riss…” his granddaughter addressed the girl slowly. “Do you still have the jewel?”“No.”Cid felt the disappointment settle on him like a cloak. He saw it settle on Nuthea too.“Where is it?” Nuthea asked the girl.“He has it.”“Who?”“Zigfrid.”“That pompous lead actor from the play?” asked Ryn.The girl nodded.Nuthea didn't quite prevent all of her frustration from leaking into her voice. “How did he come by it?” she asked.The girl pulled her head back and pushed her chair away from the table a little, looking again as if she might run off at any moment. She must have sensed the trio's frustration.“Why does it matter?” she asked suspiciously. “What's it to you?”Cid stepped in again, speaking in as soothing tones as he could manage. “Do not worry, young lady; you are not in trouble–least of all with us. We are not angry with you, only at the situation. As my Granddaughter here has told you, we are searching for the Jewels, but not for our own gain. We are seeking to find them to protect the world from those who might use them for harm. That's why we're interested.”The girl relaxed a little at that, but only a little. “Alright then…” She resumed her story. “Once I started summoning the spirits because of the stone, my village kicked me out. Even… even my own family didn't want anything to do with me. They called me a witch, and a sorceress, and said that if I didn't leave they would have to…” She paused, and bit her lip, not able to say whatever had been going to follow. “That was quite a few years ago,” she went on. “So I left. I set out on my own, and got by by myself living in the woods, calling the spirits to help me. But then one day I came upon a traveling troupe of Manyiro performers that were passing through. I followed them, and hid to watch one of their play rehearsals, and I was spellbound. I suddenly realised: this is what I want to do. These people got to make up stories and pretend to be in them, but they weren't hated or kicked out for it–other people even loved them for it. They were even respected for it. I knew I had to join them. So I found the leader of the troupe and I showed him what I could do–summoning and commanding spirits…” She faltered again.“And how did he respond?” prompted Cid again, though he had an inkling.“He was impressed,” said Riss. “So impressed that he let me join the troupe straight away, seeing how spirit-summoning could make him and his performances even more famous. But he only let me join on one condition.”“You had to tell him how you learned to summon the spirits and show him how to do it too,” guessed Ryn, just as Cid had.The girl nodded. “Exactly. And after he found out about the jewel, he forced me to give it to him. I taught him how to summon spirits with it, and he got very good at it.”“And that's why he still has it,” said Nuthea.“Yes…” said Riss, “but that's not quite the whole of the story. After a while, some of the other actors in the troupe got jealous of my abilities, and wanted to know how I got them. Until tonight Zigfrid had never revealed to anybody else that he could do it too, you see. And he had sworn me to secrecy about the jewel, but when I told the others that I couldn't tell them how I got my powers or show them how they worked, they got angry with me. They ganged up on me–it was like what happened in my village all over again. So I went to Zigfrid and told him that I wanted the jewel back, and to leave the troupe, but he wouldn't give it to me, or let me. He told me that the jewel was his now, and that I had to stay in the troupe and summon the spirits for him so that we could keep up our reputation. I tried to call a spirit to fight him off and get back the jewel, but by that time he had grown too powerful at summoning himself. He summoned his lion and he…he pinned me down, and made me promise that I wouldn't leave the troupe.”The girl stopped her story again. Or maybe it had finished. Her bottom lip started to tremble.Cid couldn't help himself from wincing. What a horrible ordeal the girl had been through.“It's alright,” Nuthea said to her. “You're safe now. Truly, you are among friends here. You can trust us. We won't hurt you, and we won't force you to stay with us like Zigfrid did. But you can stay with us if you like, for as long as you like, if you have nowhere else to go. You'll be safe with us.”“Thank you…” said Riss as she looked at the floor. A tear escaped down her pale cheek.Cid looked away out of respect for the girl.Uncomfortable silence.“Fascinating,” said an unfamiliar, low, slightly musical voice.Cid started. The Umbarian. He had almost forgotten there was a second stranger here with them as well–for a time all of his attention had been focused on Riss.“What is?” asked Ryn.“Your story, young lady,” the Umbarian said to Riss. He had a gentle, deep yet singsong voice. “It is extremely difficult to track down information about the Spirit Carnelian. There are not very many songs or tales about it, and the ones that do exist are very vague. But your story confirms that it is indeed real. I should very much like to see you summon a spirit sometime, if you will permit me a demonstration.”The girl stiffened at that, and did not reply.Cid's hackles rose too.“And who are you?” he asked the man. “Can someone please explain why this gentleman has been invited up here, too?”“I think that's my cue,” said Elrann from her place at the table, “seeing as pirate-man is out for the count.”Sagar grunted in his sleep at Elrann's mention of her nickname for him, murmured irritably for a bit, then went back to snoring peacefully.“Yes,” said Cid, “do please explain, young lady Elrann.”Elrann folded her arms. “Welp, pirate-man and I were out in a tavern having a few drinks when we heard music-man here singing a song while he played his lute. (That's why I'm calling him music-man, you see–it's sort of his defining characteristic and I can't actually remember his name.) He sang a song that mentioned all of the Jewel-thingamies that we're searching for, so when he finished pirate-man and I went up to him to talk to him. It turns out he knows loads about the Jewels. Like loads. So pirate-man thought we better introduce him to the rest of you, in case he can help us. Pirate-man was very drunk at this point, so he just sort of took off to go and find farmboy and princess-girl at their play, and music-man and I just sought of tagged along.”Cid ran his tongue along the back of his teeth. He was instantly wary. Hadn't Elrann and Sagar considered that this man might have purposes contrary to their own, that he might be working for the Empire, or someone else?On the other hand, the Umbarians weren't exactly known for their fealty to the Empire–far from it. In fact they had fought many wars to keep their northern borders secure against Morekemia, and the two nations were always fighting over the little strip of land that fell between them. Cid decided he would give this Umbarian a chance–for now. He could reprimand Elrann and Sagar for their lack of caution later.Nuthea addressed the man. “And how did you come by all your knowledge of the Jewels, um…sorry, I don't know your name either?”The man flashed a toothy grin from underneath the hood of his cloak, which he still hadn't taken off even though they were indoors. “I am called Quel,” he said.“Pleased to meet you, Quel,” said Nuthea.“A pleasure.” The lutisit began his own tale. In contrast to Riss, he seemed extremely comfortable telling it, as if he was used to regaling assembled audiences with stories, which if he was a traveling musician and bard Cid supposed he was. “As you may know, my people possess one of the Primeval Jewels–the Water Sapphire. I myself have the good fortune of being Sapphire-touched.”Everyone sat up straighter at that.Alright then, thought Cid, so he's laying all his cards on the table straight away. That's good.“Woah, cool,” said Elrann. “I didn't even know that!”“May you show us?” said Nuthea.“Of course,” said Quel. He looked around for a moment, then his gaze settled on Cid's mug of tea. He flicked his fingers up in a subtle motion, and the tea rose up out of the mug, staying suspended in the air like a pale-green translucent snake. A few flourishes of his wrist, and the snake danced through a few twisting circular motions, before Quel flicked his fingers back down again and Cid's tea re-deposited itself in the mug.Cid looked down at his drink and frowned. He wasn't sure that he wanted to drink it any more. Although it had probably gone cold long ago anyway.Well, at least we know he's not lying about being Sapphire-touched… Cid thought.“That,” said Elrann. “Was. Awesome! It was like you had an invisible spoon! You're a true spoony bard!” she added, referencing some joke Cid wasn't in on.The boy Ryn fidgeted in his chair, shifting his weight.“Very impressive indeed!” said Nuthea. “So what brings you to Farr, Troubadour Quel?”“My people possess the Water Sapphire, and we use it to hold our own against the Morekemians, who now have, from what I have heard, the Fire Ruby.”Cid deliberately made sure he did not look at Ryn, but he saw Nuthea shoot the boy a glance. Silly girl.“We have long known that the Maker created other Jewels, but since we were safe with the Sapphire and the world was in balance, we had no interest in them.”“Hang on,” said Ryn, “what do you mean ‘the Maker'? Who is the Maker?”“That's what they call the One,” Nuthea informed him.Ryn's youthful face wrinkled up with perplexity. “Are they the same God?”“Some say so,” said Nuthea. “Others disagree. We believe some different things about the One, and the Jewels, but we agree on lots too.”“That is correct.” Quel nodded. “What we agree on is that the Maker created the Jewels, although we disagree on what will happen if they are all gathered together. I believe that Manolians think that tremendous power will be bestowed upon the gatherer, do you not?”“That's right,” said Nuthea.“Whereas we believe that when they are all gathered together by someone with good and pure intentions they will provide the key to rescuing Mid from a great danger and evil.”And you're likely both right, thought Cid, though he didn't say it. But there's more to it than that…“So what do you think will happen if someone with dangerous and evil intentions gathers them all together?” asked Ryn. A pertinent question.“Yeah,” chipped in Elrann, “like, say, the Emperor of Morekemia?”A highly pertinent question.Quel rubbed his upper lip, then patted it. “I am not sure,” he said at length. “Though I would rather we did not have to find out.”“Well, we're definitely in agreement about that,” said Nuthea. “Lady Elrann said that you sang of many things regarding the Jewels.”“Yup,” confirmed Elrann. “He sang a song about all of them, even saying where some of them are.”“Tell us,” said Nuthea eagerly. “How did you come to have such knowledge?”The newcomer did not answer straight away, but merely looked at Nuthea, then around at Ryn, Elrann, and Cid himself, passing his fingers back and forth over his lips again, as if he was sizing them up, pondering how much to reveal.Tell us everything, Cid silently implored him.The stranger's gaze came to rest on Riss, the summoner girl, who now sat still, her feet drawn up onto her chair so she could clutch her knees. She had told all, eventually. Or so we hope.The stranger patted his lips, and appeared to reach a decision.“Some years ago,” said Quel, “we began to hear rumours that Morekemia were sending out agents into the world to try to collect information on the whereabouts of the Jewels. It appeared that the Emperor had realised that they were not just an obscure legend, but that they were real. Some such agents came to Umbar, though fortunately we were able to identify them and root them out before they discovered too much. They managed to confirm that we were in possession of the Water Sapphire, which some people knew anyway, but they didn't find out anything about where it was kept. Soon after this begun to happen, the Chief of my tribe sent me out into the world to gather knowledge of the Jewels myself. It had been my ambition to become a wandering bard anyway, and I was soon to embark upon my travels, but this mission gave me an extra purpose to travel for. Over the last ten years I have wandered all over Mid, paying my way by learning and singing songs, and spoken to people, getting to know the local cultures and slowly gathering information about the Jewels. I've been to Morekemia itself. I've been all round Dokan. I've been to the Velt. I've been to Frikia. I've been to Rakali. I even travelled the Waste, for a brief time. And I am nearly due to return to report back to the chief of my people what I have learned.”“So why did you come to Farr?” Nuthea asked him. “Many people know that the Earth Emerald is here already.”Quel dipped his head, flashing his smile again for the clever question. “Yes, princess–or should I call you my ‘cousin' in the faith? That is true. But the Crossroads of the East is a fantastic place to meet travellers from all over Mid. In any case, I have been to many other places, but few are so fruitful for learning rumours and gossip, and for encountering people from other lands, as Shun Pei. I have managed to fill in a few gaps in my knowledge of the Jewels since I came here. It's also a very good place to hitch a ride home. Sooner or later there will be a ship flying for Umbar, or somewhere near it, and I will make my way onto it to return and report back. In fact, I need to get back there as soon as possible.”“Why?” pushed Ryn.“After my stay in Farr I had originally planned to return from here to Dokan. The one Jewel of which knowledge had eluded me throughout my journey for a long time was the Fire Jewel.”Well done, Orvis, thought Cid. You did your job well.“But then a few months ago I heard word that the Empire had found the Fire Jewel and were putting it to use. My mission became more urgent. Now that I have completed my search for as much knowledge of the Jewels as I have been able to gather, with the missing piece filled in, I seek passage home.”“Why are you telling us all this?” said Ryn, the bearer of the Fire Ruby, unbeknownst to the newcomer. Or does he know?“Well,” said Quel, “you say you have two of the Jewels. If you are seeking to protect them from the Empire, we share a goal.” The lutist held out his hands in sincere imploration. “Will you come with me to Umbar, to lend us the use of the Jewels you have, and keep them safe?”The party were quiet.Cid knew what he thought, but he did not want to take charge. He watched his granddaughter and the boy to see how they would respond.“Maybe…” Ryn said after a moment. “I think we had better pay this Umbar a place visit in any case, and speak with your people's rulers, but maybe only after we've got the Earth Emerald and the…Spirit Carnelian. What d'you think, Nuthea?”The princess, who had been staring off at nothing for a moment, came back to herself.“What? Oh. Yes. Completely. We must pay a visit to Umbar as soon as we can. We will be needing to obtain the Water Sapphire, after all.”Quel bristled a little at that, but apparently it did not irk him enough to draw a protest.Unexpectedly, Riss, the new girl, spoke up. “Why do you sing about the Jewels?” she said to Quel. “Isn't that dangerous? Doesn't it attract attention to you, and to them?”The lutist shrugged in his cloak. “Perhaps a little,” he said. “But it's not as though my song gives very much detail away. It's quite cryptic, really. People don't pay too much attention to the words of songs sung in taverns, anyhow. And actually I've found my song has just enough about the Jewels to be a very good way of flushing out other people who know about them, or who are seeking them… as it did tonight.”Quel smiled, and his blue eyes glittered.“Yeah,” said Elrann, “'s'pretty crazy how Sagar and I ended up in the same pub as you, and you chose to play that song, and we heard it and all. This sort of thing keeps on happening…”“It is the Will of the One,” Nuthea said confidently. “The One must have brought us together.”“It is the Will of the One,” Cid agreed, confident of this too.“As the Maker plans it,” said Quel, the Umbarian version of the phrase.Pregnant silence.The party all waited expectantly for the voice of scepticism.It did not come.“Oh yeah,” Ryn said, “that's right, Sagar's asleep. Well, basically, I think you guys can join up with us.” He nodded to Riss and Quel briefly in turn. “Welcome to our team.”“Your…team?” said Quel.“Our team?” said Elrann.“Well, yeah,' said Ryn, rubbing his arm. “We are basically a kind of team, aren't we? We team up in finding the Jewels. That's not so difficult to get your head around, is it?”“We need some kind of team name, then,” said Elrann. “What's our name?”“I'm not sure. I'll work on it.”“So what is your plan of action?” asked Quel. “Our plan of action…” he corrected himself, trying out the alternative pronoun with some hesitation. “I need to return to Umbar as quickly as possible in order to tell my people what I have found out about the Jewels, and you can discuss keeping them safe along with the Water Sapphire with my Chieftain there.”“You need to get the Carnelian first before you do that,” said Riss.“Actually,” said Nuthea, “our first priority is the Earth Emerald, and the tournament.”“The tournament?” asked Quel. “The one that's being held in Tenkachi from tomorrow? The one that everyone's talking about?”“Yes,” said Nuthea. “The Governor of Farr hasn't made this public yet, but the grand prize for the winner of the tournament is going to be the Earth Emerald. We are entering in order to win it. Winning it is our first priority. Then we will worry about finding a way to claim back the Spirit Carnelian from Zigfrid, and visiting Umbar to discuss how best to keep the Water Sapphire safe.”“Alrighty then,” said Elrann. “So all we have to do is beat a load of people who fight as part of their religion in a hand to hand combat tournament, steal a rock from a crazy actor who can make giant lions appear with his mind, and persuade Quel's people who have guarded the Water Sapphire for centuries as their most precious treasure that actually they're better off handing it over to us. Oh, and then find the remaining seven Jewels-thingamies.”“Exactly,” said Nuthea.“This is gonna be a piece of cake,” said Elrann. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit sagaofthejewels.substack.com

Ellen Langer is an influential American psychologist and social scientist who bridges mindfulness, aging, health, and decision-making. Dr. Langer's insights challenge conventional views on aging, health, and personal capabilities, promoting a more mindful and engaged approach to life & happiness. Ellen emphasises the importance of active engagement and choice, and how our beliefs and perceptions can significantly affect physical health.Learn more about Ellen and read her books! Keep up to date with Peter on SubstackKeep up to date with Kasia!If you would like to support the podcast please consider our PatreonExecutive Producer: Rachel BarrettThanks to our volunteer researchers Hendrik Dahlmeier and Mihika Chechi, and Chris van Ryn!And special thanks to Suzi Jamil! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Wayne Hsiung is an animal‑rights and environmental activist. He co‑founded Direct Action Everywhere and focuses on “open rescue” efforts - publicly removing suffering animals from factory farms to provide them medical aid. Wayne recounts various direct action efforts and the legal battles stemming from these actions.Learn more about Wayne subscribe to his substackLearn more about Anima International as mentioned in this episodeKeep up to date with Peter on SubstackKeep up to date with Kasia!If you would like to support the podcast please consider our PatreonExecutive Producer: Rachel BarrettThanks to our volunteer researchers Hendrik Dahlmeier and Mihika Chechi, and Chris van Ryn!And special thanks to Suzi Jamil! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Previously on Saga of the Jewels…The life of seventeen-year-old RYN, bookish son of a wealthy landowner, changes forever when his hometown is destroyed by the EMPIRE and everyone he has ever known is killed. He discovers that the Empire are seeking TWELVE PRIMEVAL JEWELS which grant the power to manipulate different elements, and that his father had been hiding the FIRE RUBY. Ryn sets out to take revenge on the Imperial General who killed his family and retrieve the Fire Ruby, and along the way meets NUTHEA the lightning-slinging princess, SAGAR the swaggering skypirate, ELRANN the tomboy engineer, CID the wizened old healer, and VISH the poppy-seed-addicted bounty hunter. Together the companions decide to find all of the Jewels in order to stop the EMPEROR from finding them first and taking over the world. They have thus far succeeded in retrieving the Fire Ruby, borne by Ryn, and the Lightning Crystal, borne by Nuthea. They have now come to the land of FARR where they intend to compete in a hand-to-hand fighting tournament in order to attempt to win its prize, the EARTH EMERALD…EPISODE THIRTY-SIX: HUNTING FOR POPPYOne day before the tournament.Vish was pissed off.As he stalked the stone-paved streets of some lower level of this wretched Farrian city, weaving in and out of the milling crowds, their inane chatter filling his ears, the hot noonday sun beating down on him, his limbs ached with longing and his heart was full of craving.Damn the old man, he thought to himself. Damn the boy for having mercy on me and allowing me to live when they defeated me outside Nont. Damn the poppy. I want the poppy. Damn Veln for betraying me. Damn them all to whatever hells may or may not exist.Another wave of craving hit him, right in his guts and loins, and he visualised himself taking a small black poppy seed and placing it into his mouth. Just as he had done a thousand times that day already, he imagined it coming to rest on his tongue, recalled its intense, sweet taste permeating his mouth. He imagined swallowing it, and the torrents of pleasure that would surge through his body as a result.But no true taste, no true pleasure came–only a shadow and an echo of past tastes and pleasures that left him hollow and wanting real poppy and in need of replaying the whole routine in his mind again.He bumped into someone, banging his face right into them.“Hey, watch where you're going!” said the big brutish man with a bush of beard. Probably Dokanese.“I apologise,” said Vish, holding up his hands, not meaning it at all but wanting to move this latest irritant along as quickly as possible. “My mind was elsewhere.” That much was true at least.The man's fat face softened, but only a little. “Well, be more careful next time, Aibarian.” Apparently the man was well-travelled enough to judge Vish's nationality just from the small strip of skin visible from within his head covering. Perhaps by his style of dress too. The man walked off, leaving the Shadowfinger to his flashbacks and his poppy cravings.He walked on, and another craving-wave rolled through him.Actually, Vish reflected, he knew that at least one hell did exist. He knew it existed because he was experiencing it now.For some stupid reason he had agreed with the old man to space out his poppy hits, which meant that he couldn't have one today.In an effort to focus on something other than his imagining taking poppy again, he tried to recall the conversation he had with him earlier that day.“Now master Vish,” the old man Cid had said to him at his door when the Shadowfinger had gone to see him to request some more poppy earlier that morning, “you know we agreed that you would start spacing out your hits and wait a bit longer until the next one.”“I've changed my mind,” Vish said. “I want one now.”“But you agreed to this.”Why had he agreed to it? He couldn't even remember any more.“Maybe I did,” he said “but I've changed my mind. Give it to me now.”“Vish, you can't just go back on your agreement like that so easily. You know, some poppyheads give up poppy all in one go, just stopping ‘cold chocobo', and never go back. If the physical withdrawal symptoms can be managed safely, that is actually the best way to do it.”“What?!” Now the old man wasn't just talking about spacing out the hits; now he was talking about stopping them altogether! “There is no way that I would ever do that.”“It might be the better way for you to do it. Ask the One. Ask the One to help you, to relieve you. He will.”“I don't believe in your ‘One', old man.”“Just try it. He believes in you.”That had really pissed Vish off. “Don't give me that poodoo! Just give me my poppy, old man! I don't believe in your ‘One'! He's not real! What has he ever done for me? Where was he when my mother threw me out on the streets of Saudran to fend for myself? Where was he when I was begging and stealing and fighting among the street rats? Where was he when I was doing all the terrible things that I've done just to stay alive, and then to get my next poppy hit?”The old man, to his credit, had at least gone quiet for a moment at that, and bowed his head slightly in sympathy.“I do not have an easy answer for you,” Cid said. “All I can offer you is that I believe he saw those things happen, and that he felt them with you, that they grieved him, and that he has given you a way out of that life, now.”Vish considered the old man's words for a moment. There was a certain…appeal to them. But they just seemed unreal to him. They seemed like an invented fantasy. Reality was much crueller.“I want my poppy, old man. Give it to me. Now.”Cid sighed. “No. You may be able to make your own choices, but so am I, and the poppy belongs to me. I am choosing not to give it to you now, and I'm sorry, but that's the end of the matter. You need to begin to learn that you can survive, and even begin to experience some peace and enjoyment, without it. One week. That is my concession. You can have some more poppy seed in one week.”The old man closed the door in Vish's face.Vish seethed, fury filling fibre of his body, along with the longing for the poppy, in fact only another expression of it. For a moment he considered bashing down the door, overpowering the old man, slitting his throat, and then stealing his whole poppy supply and running away from the group.And he had almost done it.But he hadn't.Why didn't I do it? he thought now as he traipsed the cobbled streets of Shun Pei. He should have just done it!But he hadn't done it, he discovered, because somewhere, in a miniscule corner of his darkened mind, a tiny little shred of hope had appeared. The smallest sliver of a ray of hope had formed; hope that he might actually be able to come off the poppy one day and be freed of his all-consuming constant desperate craving for it.Damn the old man for planting that hope! And damn me for not being able to completely let go of it!Part of him, somewhere, remembered what it was like not to know the poppy, not to be consumed by the longing for the poppy. Part of him, somewhere, remembered what it was like to experience the joys of life unadulterated by craving and poppy. The memories of happiness were few and far between, but they were there: The play of warm sunlight on the back of his uncovered neck. The gentle morning breeze tickling his skin. Laughter, the company of friends. The touch and kiss of Eflana, his consort when he has been working for Veln. Maybe he could get his enjoyment of all of those things back?Vish stopped in his tracks.Instinctively, his feet had led him to a shopfront.More of a stall, really. The doors of a battered wooden shed opened right onto the dusty street of this level of the city. In the opening they created stood a rickety table with all different sorts of herbs, roots, and plants arrayed on it, which hung from the doors as well. Crushed up powders in jars. Different coloured liquids in stoppered-up bottles. The pale purple flowers of some exotic plant, plucked and laid out in little earthenware bowls.Behind the table hunched a withered old crone with a hump-back and a crooked nose, dressed in the brown robes that seemed to be worn by most of the Farrians on this level.“Medicines!” the woman screeched when she saw Vish had stopped, to clarify what exactly it was that was arrayed before him. “Get your medicines!”When Vish approached her she said “Looking for something in particular, good sir? There a specific ailment that's troubling you?”Vish chose his words carefully. As far as he knew, poppy was outlawed in almost every single nation of Mid, including Farr, because of how it tended to make people addicted to it and ruin their lives, not to mention the side effects of making one particularly strong and agile during a hit.“Do you have anything for a…headache?” he said slowly.“Headache?!” said the woman. “Why, you need crushed minofin root, of course! You run out? Only one gold piece for a jar! Eat a spoonful every hour till you feel better, which will be soon!”Vish eyed the small jar of yellow powder that the woman held up to him and shook so that it danced around in a cloud. He was not impressed. He was not convinced that the powder would have any kind of effect on anyone, let alone on him.“That's not what I'm looking for,” he said. “Do you have anything…… stronger?” He pulled down the front of his face-scarf down a little, just enough to expose some of his blackened mouth.The woman narrowed her eyes at him as she regarded him over her crooked nose.“I am sure I have no idea what you mean,” she said quietly.Damn, Vish thought and tugged the scarf back upHe turned away from the stall and almost walked into a large Farrian man almost as rotund as he was tall. Again.The man he had bumped into earlier.“I know just what you mean,” said the man in a gruff voice. His dark hair was thick on top and he had an untidy beard which covered his mouth, both of which were unusual for Farrians. Were it not for his narrow eyes it would have been hard to place him as Farrian at all.“Oh?” said Vish, his curiosity piqued. The man had followed him for some reason. Perhaps he had known him for a poppyhead somehow.“Yeah,” said the man. “Come with me. But keep your distance.”The man ambled off and Vish waited for a few breaths, starting to tremble slightly at the expectation of possibly being about to get his hands on some poppy. Then he took one last look at the crone in the shopfront, who scowled at him, and followed after the man.He kept about ten paces behind the man as he made his way past other citizens of Shun Pei, past other stalls, before finally turning off the main thoroughfare and slipping down an alleyway between two particularly large earthen buildings.It was secluded in the alleyway, and dim, the buildings on either side blocking out lots of light. The perfect place for a poppy transaction.Vish strode into the alley calmly.Sure enough, when he got about half way down it, the big Farrian stopped and turned round, and when Vish reached him he said, “So you want to buy some poppy?”“Yes!” Eagerness made the words trip quickly off Vish's tongue behind his face scarf. “How much?”“How much you willing to pay?” said the man.Foolish, Vish scolded himself. I should have just offered a price. “How much poppy do you have?”The man held up a hand, a little dark ball pinched between his thumb and forefinger visible even in the dimness of the alley, and Vish's mouth began to water.“One seed. For you…” The man hesitated, licking his lips. “...fifty gold pieces.”“Fine.” Vish was pretty sure he was being ripped off, despite not normally having to buy poppy, but he didn't care. It wasn't like it was his money anyway. He just wanted to get his hands on the poppy as quickly as possible.He reached into the folds of his black tunic and drew out the common purse of the traveling party, which he had stolen before he had come out on this walk after some fool had left it out in the dining area of the manse.When the man took the coins and saw how many more Vish had in the purse, his eyes bulged.Ah, Vish thought.“Actually, friend,” said the man, “you know what? I'm thinking that maybe you don't need the poppy after all. Maybe we keep the poppy, and we also take that gold off your hands.”“‘We'?” said Vish.The big man's pupils reached beyond the Shadowfinger.Vish turned. On cue, two more men made their way down the alleyway towards him, each of them with drawn straight swords, in the Farrian style. No doubt that first man behind Vish had a weapon stashed somewhere as well.“I am thinking you will hand over that money now, friend,” said the first man from behind him, and a point pricked Vish's back, “and we may think about letting you live. Or you can put up a struggle and we can kill you and take it anyway. I would not recommend it though. You are outnumbered, three to one, and you have nowhere to run.”Vish sighed. He had wondered earlier if something like this was going to happen today.He reached for his own sword on his back. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit sagaofthejewels.substack.com

Dasho Dechen Wangmo is a prominent Bhutanese public health leader and former Minister of Health, she has championed universal health coverage, mental health, and disease prevention, and gained international recognition as President of the 74th World Health Assembly, advocating for vaccine equity and global health solidarity. Dechen played a pivotal role in navigating Bhutan through the COVID-19 pandemic. Under her leadership, Bhutan achieved a 94% vaccination rate within four days and maintained one of the world's lowest death rates.Keep up to date with Peter on SubstackKeep up to date with Kasia!If you would like to support the podcast please consider our PatreonExecutive Producer: Rachel BarrettThanks to our volunteer researchers Hendrik Dahlmeier and Mihika Chechi, and Chris van Ryn!And special thanks to Suzi Jamil! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Dean Spears is an economic demographer and development economist, co-author of After the Spike: Population, Progress, and the Case for People. Dean explores the future of global population trends, noting that depopulation is now the most likely scenario, and the inherent ethical considerations of reducing the population and the practical implications for global challenges like climate change.Learn more about Dean and read his books!Keep up to date with Peter on SubstackKeep up to date with Kasia!If you would like to support the podcast please consider our PatreonExecutive Producer: Rachel BarrettThanks to our volunteer researchers Hendrik Dahlmeier and Mihika Chechi, and Chris van Ryn!And special thanks to Suzi Jamil! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to "Effective DevOps," the podcast that dives deep into the cultural movement transforming software development and operations. Hosted by authors Jennifer Davis and Ryn Daniels, this podcast explores how DevOps is a way of thinking and working that enables individuals and organisations to develop and maintain sustainable work practicesDiscover the four fundamental pillars of effective DevOps: Collaboration, Affinity, Tools, and Scaling. Jennifer and Ryn, drawing on their extensive experience and insights from companies like Etsy, guide you through real-world stories and practical advice to foster human cooperation, thoughtful critique, and effective collaboration within your organisationLearn why culture is paramount for tooling and technology success, helping you accelerate business value and enhance employee satisfaction. Whether you're a manager or an individual contributor looking for actionable steps, this podcast helps you build bridges and navigate your own DevOps journey effectively. Tune in to understand how these principles can be applied to any organisation, from startups to large enterprises and government agencies

Meg Smaker is an American documentary filmmaker known for her immersive storytelling and exploration of complex global issues. Meg shares the impactful experiences from her life, including being kidnapped in Colombia, interacting with Somali pirates, and exploring motivations behind terrorism. Her most notable work is the 2022 feature documentary The UnRedacted (formerly known as 'Jihad Rehab'), which examines the lives of former Guantánamo Bay detainees undergoing rehabilitation in Saudi Arabia, and the complexities of de-radicalisation programs. Despite facing severe backlash, censorship, and cancellation attempts, Meg remains committed to bringing these human stories to light while upholding her integrity and commitment to the truth.Read the New York Times cover story on Jihad Rehab & The Shameful Cancellation of Jihad RehabListen to Meg on the Sam Harris PodcastGet in touch with Meg and support her film https://jihadrehab.com Keep up to date with Peter on SubstackKeep up to date with Kasia!If you would like to support the podcast please consider our PatreonExecutive Producer: Rachel BarrettThanks to our volunteer researchers Hendrik Dahlmeier and Mihika Chechi, and Chris van Ryn!And special thanks to Suzi Jamil! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Previously on Saga of the Jewels…The life of seventeen-year-old RYN, bookish son of a wealthy landowner, changes forever when his hometown is destroyed by the EMPIRE and everyone he has ever known is killed. Ryn discovers that the Empire are seeking TWELVE PRIMEVAL JEWELS which grant the power to manipulate different elements, and that his father had been hiding the FIRE RUBY. He sets out to take revenge on the Imperial General who killed his family and retrieve the Fire Ruby, and along the way meets NUTHEA the lightning-slinging princess, SAGAR the swaggering skypirate, ELRANN the tomboy engineer, CID the wizened old healer, and VISH the poppy-seed-addicted assassin. Together the adventurers decide to find all of the Jewels in order to stop the evil EMPEROR from finding them first and taking over the world. They have thus far succeeded in retrieving the Fire Ruby, borne by Ryn, and the Lightning Crystal, borne by Nuthea. They have now come to the land of FARR where they intend to compete in a hand-to-hand fighting tournament in order to attempt to win its grand prize, the EARTH EMERALD…EPISODE THIRTY-FIVE: ACT TWOOne night before the tournament.As soon as the red velvet curtain went down for the interval, Ryn turned to Nuthea from where he sat next to her and said “What do you mean she's Jewel-touched?”He had tried to ask her while the play had been going on but it had been too difficult to talk in whispers without disturbing the people around them and making a scene–a different scene to the one happening on the stage, that is–so she had repeatedly shushed him, to his obvious frustration.“What do you mean?” he pressed her again, now he had the opportunity. Everyone else around them was talking about the spectacle of the first half of the play they had just watched.Nuthea brushed her hair out of her eyes. She felt slightly lightheaded. But she didn't need to call the answer to mind. She had been going over and over it in her head ever since that lifelike dragon had appeared on stage.“One of the Jewels…” she answered him, speaking quietly so that they wouldn't be overheard, but not so quietly that Ryn couldn't hear. “...the ‘Spirit Carnelian'...is supposed to grant the gift of being able to ‘summon' creatures from the spirit realm… to give physical, animal shape to projections of spirit. Not very much is known about it, except that, and it's thought that the Jewel has been lost for many thousands of years. There are very few mentions of spirit-projectors in the lore; you have to go back centuries to find even a single one, and even then the references are somewhat…mythical. Some argue that the Spirit Carnelian has never been found since the One hid it somewhere in Mid or that it doesn't exist at all–”“Well then how would anyone know about it?” Ryn butted in, interrupting her flow.Nuthea frowned. He could be so annoying sometimes, speaking over her. “Well, these are ancient legends we are talking about, obviously. Their origins are shrouded in distant time. But we can trust the sacred texts of Oneism. They have been right about the other Jewels so far, after all...”“So why do you think that actress has touched the ‘Spirit Carnelian'?”“You saw that dragon, Ryn. It was real.”“You don't think it could have been some sort of stage trick, or made out of something else?”“Well, there's only one way to find out, isn't there?” She had decided this while they had been watching the play.“Alright then,” said Ryn, and stood up.Nuthea grabbed his arm, horrified. “What are you doing?” He's trying to be heroic, isn't he? For my sake. Oh dear.“You want to go and talk to her, don't you?”“Yes, but not now! If she is Jewel-touched, we will need to speak with her at length–ask her where she made contact with the Carnelian, whether she knows its present location, and so on...” Perhaps whether she even has it, Nuthea thought. “That will take some time, more than we will have during this interval, and if the second half of the play is delayed then we will cause a commotion and draw attention to ourselves. We should wait until the play has finished, then go and find her backstage.”“Okay.” To her immense relief, Ryn sat down again.They waited for the second half of the play to begin while the other members of the audience chattered excitedly around them, mainly about the dragon and how impressive it had been. From what Nuthea could overhear, the other audience members were convinced that it had been some sort of a trick, as nobody had been known to tame a real-life dragon before, at least in living memory.Her attention drifted away from the chatter. If we do get to speak to this young lady, which we must, how will we convince her that we know about the Jewels?Normally she would make a small display of her lightning projection, but there she faced the problem that she was still blocked for some reason, and her conversation with Cid hadn't unblocked her. It had been nice to be distracted from all of that by the play, and then by the appearance of this spirit-summoning girl, and not to have to think about her lightning projection being blocked for a while.Nuthea sighed. She would have to rely on Ryn again to make a display of his fire projection in order to convince the girl that they had knowledge of the Jewels, just as she had done when they had been trying to gain an audience with the Governor.“Are you alright?” Ryn said to her, apparently having noticed her sighing.“Hm?” said Nuthea. “Oh, yes, thank you, just thinking…”She didn't want to take advantage of Ryn, but it was very useful having him around for occasions such as this.The trouble is, I don't want to lead him on, either…Was she leading him on? Why had she agreed to come to see a play with him? She had made it very clear that this wasn't a signal of any kind of romantic interest. But then again, going to see a play with someone was quite an intimate activity in itself, regardless of what one called it…wasn't it? And Sagar had been so rude to her; she had to admit that at least in part she had agreed to go with Ryn in order to spite the skypirate. That wasn't really fair.All of this would be a lot easier if she knew how she felt about Ryn.The trouble was, she didn't know how she really felt about him. He was her friend, for sure, and they had been through a lot together. They had already forgiven each other for a lot. And he was sweet, and sometimes charming, and sensitive. And handsome, in a youthful, boyish sort of way.But it was just too confusing and muddled to contemplate anything like that so soon after…so soon after her mother's death. She had enough to think about at the moment, what with that, and finding the Jewels, and being blocked…Just then a clear bell rang from somewhere behind the curtain, signalling that the second act of the play was about to start.When complete quiet had fallen on the audience and the last of its chatter had died away, the curtains came back up.Zigfrid Alantherous was waiting behind them at centre stage in his finery, and immediately launched into a monologue about how he was going to find the Princess to rescue her from the Evil Dragon and save the kingdom which she represented.Nuthea wasn't able to pay proper attention to it. She hadn't been able to pay proper attention to the plot of the play ever since the green-haired girl had come on and summoned the dragon. She let it wash over her, waiting for the next appearance of the green-haired girl, waiting for the end of the play when they would go and find her to talk to her, contemplating how she would explain their plight to her and wondering what sort of attitude the girl would respond with.Eventually, the green-haired girl reappeared on the stage.She ran on from stage left, with big, deliberate movements to unconvincingly communicate that she was tired; huffing and puffing and overacting.This time the dragon followed her, its menacing green form pursuing her from offstage, powerful limbs pumping.The girl turned, then swooned, putting the back of her hand to her forehead and letting out a bad excuse for a falsetto scream.In response, the dragon reared its head and roared, opening its jaws to issue a plume of green flame into the air.The audience gasped.The dragon was more convincing in its acting than the girl was.Now Zigfrid sauntered onto the stage too, sharing a scene with the girl for the first time.The audience clapped.“Fear not, Princess!” he declared. “Now that I have found thee I will save thee from this fell beast!”He drew his fake sword–well, at least Nuthea assumed it was fake–and brandished it at the dragon, leaping forwards to do battle. Fortunately for him it didn't simply breathe fire on him there and then and burn him to a cinder.Somebody in the audience yelled.Wait, why were they yelling?Nuthea twisted round in her seat.Other people were turning too, distracted even from the spectacle unfolding before them onstage.At the back of the playhouse near the doors, someone was causing a commotion.A flurry of irritated protests and shouting had started in reaction to it.“Oi!”“What do you think you're doing?”“Hey, I paid good money for this seat–get off me!”Someone was stumbling over the rows of playhouse chairs clumsily, banging into people, knocking them over when they stood up to get out of their way, making all manner of fuss.Someone with an eye-patch, a ponytail and a somewhat fetching high-collared coat.Oh no.“Prinshesh!” yelled Sagar. “Pup! We've gots to show you shomething!”He was followed closely by purple-haired Elrann, and seemingly also with someone else in tow–a stranger in a grey cloak with their hood pulled up over their head, carrying a lute case and barely managing to keep out of harm's way as Sagar dragged him by the hand across the playhouse audience towards them.“What in the hells is he doing?” whispered Ryn.Nuthea's cheeks were hot. “Just pretend we don't know him,” she said, turning back round and covering her face with a hand. She had enjoyed being anonymous, and not a princess from another land on a life-and-death save-the-world quest, for once this evening. That anonymity was potentially about to be ripped to shreds.“Too late,” said Ryn. “He's spotted us. Anyone would recognise that golden hair of yours a mile off.”Sure enough, Sagar was making a beeline straight for them, Elrann and the hooded stranger following close behind. As he barged past people or stepped over them or just knocked into them they were yelling and shouting and swearing at him. There was nothing for it–the pirate had definitely seen her and Ryn.“Prinshesh! Pup!” Sagar repeated when he finally reached them, a trail of cursing and irritated theatre-goers in his wake. His breath stank of alcohol. “I've got to tell you shomething! Thish man knowsh about the Jewelsh!”“Sorry about this,” said Elrann a bit more quietly as she arrived next to him. She was red in the face, uncharacteristically flustered. “He got it into his head that he needed to talk to you straight away. I tried to stop him but he kept blowing me off. Er…literally……”“Never mindsh that,” Sagar slurred. “Thish man! Thish man shang a shong about the Jewelsh!”“What is he talking about?” said Nuthea to Elrann.“Excuse me,” said a loud voice from behind them, “but how very dare you interrupt my play?”They all looked up at the stage as quiet fell upon the playhouse once more.Zigfrid Alanthereous stood with his hands on his hips, his brows knotted in a look of pure righteous fury. The green-haired girl didn't seem to mind so much–she stood nearby, close-lipped and vacant, looking…bored even. The dragon appeared to be waiting patiently in place, perfectly still, for the interruption to be sorted out.“Do you know how much work has gone into putting on this masterpiece of theatre?” Alantherous went on, still in a stage voice though he was presumably no longer reciting rehearsed lines. “How many times I've been over these words, perfecting them? How much craft has gone into the creation of this dragon?”“Holy poodoo!” Sagar said in response. “There'sh a kufeing great dragon up there! THERE'SH A DRAGON UP THERE!” he broke into a shout. “SOMEONE'SH GOT TO SHTOP IT!”Without further warning Sagar jumped up and called the wind to aid him, bashing into several of the audience members in front of them as he flew towards the stage.He landed clumsily in front of the wide-eyed Alantherous, tripping over his own legs and hitting the stage with a roll, then crashed into the actor.“Agh!” screamed the man-who-was-pretending-to-be-a-king, going down in a flutter of blue hair and clanging fake armour.The green-haired girl backed away to one side of the stage, watching them, a bit more animated now. The dragon remained poised in place next to her.Somehow Sagar made it to his feet first and drew his two swords, almost wounding both himself and Alantherous in the process.“BACK, YOU FOUL BEASHT!” he screamed. “DEATH AND GLORY!”He ran at the dragon, pulling his swords back to strike.Nuthea looked on in horror as, on the stage in front of them, the dragon opened its long jaws and breathed bright green flames at Sagar.The skycaptain yelped and jumped backwards, swinging his swords across his body on reflex and making a gust of wind blow the flames back before they could reach him.“It'sh a fire breather!” he cried as the flames subsided. He turned his head to face the audience. “Ryn! Get up here, Ryn! We need your fire-powersh!”Ryn had his head in hands.“Go!” Nuthea said to him, thinking quickly. “You need to de-escalate this as fast as possible! I can't help you because I've become blocked in my lightning projection. We need to calm this down so we can talk to that girl. Don't tell anyone who I am or about our quest!”Ryn took his hands away from his face and blinked with surprise, probably at the revelation that she was unable to cast lightning at present, but then regained his composure and nodded acknowledgment.“Right,” he said, and dashed forwards, pushing past other audience members to get to the stage and Sagar.Nuthea shook her head.Boys. How can they be so stupid?“Er”... said Elrann nearby. “Should we go after them?”The engineer wore a wobbly grimace. Next to her stood the man in the hooded grey cloak that she and Sagar had brought in with them. He had dark skin and sparkling deep blue eyes, like the ocean reflecting sunlight.“Hey lady!” a man in the row behind them yelled at Elrann and the man all of a sudden. “Guy! Sit down! We're trying to watch the play!”“Yeah!” said someone else. “This is great! I didn't realise they were going to use stooges planted in the audience!”They think this is part of the play, Nuthea realised.She quickly scooted up in her chair and pulled Elrann down by the hand to sit next to her in Ryn's old seat. The mysterious new stranger followed suit, taking off his lute case and placing it on the floor in front of them, sitting down next to Elrann so that they squeezed in, three people to two chairs.“No, we don't go after them,” Nuthea whispered to Elrann, her eyes on the stage. Ryn had reached it, and leaped up onto it to join Sagar, the green-haired girl and Zigfrid. “At least not yet. I don't want to give away that I am here in Farr. News will travel fast, and it's too dangerous. The Empire cannot know of my whereabouts. And we need to keep an eye on that green-haired actress. I think she's Jewel-touched. Depending on how this goes, we may need to go after her once the play is finished.”“Oh right; I see,” said Elrann. “Alrighty then. Let's see what happens. This is Quel, by the way.” She gestured with a thumb towards the hooded stranger.“Hello, Quel,” Nuthea said to him.“Hello, miss,” said Quel in an Umbarian accent. He gave a little wave from his side of Elrann.“I am sure you have a good reason for bringing him along,” Nuthea said to the engineer, “and that you will explain everything once this fiasco is over?”“Yep!” Elrann smiled. “Sure do, and sure will!”“Alright then,” said Nuthea. “Keep an eye on the green-haired girl, like I said.”“Okeydokey.”With that, she sat back in her chair and watched utter carnage unfold in front of her.*Ryn landed on the wooden stage with a thump, extinguishing the flames around his feet just in time to avoid setting it on fire. His knees absorbed the shock as two little stabs of pain.“Sagar!” he tried calling again. “What in the name of the One are you doing? Get off the stage!”Sagar had his swords out and was waving them around haphazardly in front of the huge green dragon, so obviously drunk it hurt to look at him. He twisted around to address Ryn.“Whadyou mean, pup?” he slurred indignantly, almost falling over from the twist. “Theresh a bloody great dragon here! We need to kill it before it eatsh the prinshesh! Death and glory!”He continued round into a full turn and threw a clumsy swipe at the dragon, which merely took a step backwards, but also bared its teeth and growled, black smoke issuing from its nostrils.A little way away the green-haired girl stood wide-eyed and pale with her mouth open, fists in tight balls. She looked as though she had absolutely no idea what to do.“What do you think you are doing, you insolent wretches?” the lead actor, Zigfrid, shouted at them from his own place on the stage. “How dare you interrupt my great debut Farrian performance! Get off, both of you, now, or I will have Riss here set the drake on you!”“Er, I'm sorry, sir…” Ryn fumbled his words. “My friend here–”“Whadyou mean ‘what are we doing'?” said Sagar, turning on the actor and swaying slightly in place. He pointed behind him with his sword. “Hash everyone gone blind? There'sh a kufeing great dragon here to be shlain!”“That dragon is a part of my magnum opus!” said Zigfrid, quivering with anger. “The magnum opus which you are interrupting and ruining!”“Your magna wha'?” said Sagar.“The play, you fool! My great work! The dragon is part of the show! It won't hurt you! Now get off my stage or I will hurt you! If you don't get off now and stop interrupting my play I will run you through, you drunken fool! This sword is real, you know!” The armoured actor rattled the blade that hung from a belt at his side.Sagar's eyes bulged. “A challenge!” He lifted his sword up and pointed it at Zigfrid. “You musht be in kahootsh with the dragon! I will shlay you too if I musht!”“Sagar, don't–” started Ryn, holding up his hands.“Ahwoooooo!” howled Sagar, rushing forwards.Zigfrid spread his feet and drew his own blade even as Sagar reached him.One, two, three clangs, and their blades locked in front of them, each of them staring into the face of the other.Wow, thought Ryn. Not bad. He can handle a sword. Or at least, he can handle a drunk Sagar.Sagar seemed surprised too, from the fact that he didn't react right away. But then he made a pushing motion with his free hand and wind gusted into Zigfrid, sending him tumbling heels-over-head back across the stage.The audience whooped.They were actually cheering and applauding, almost all of them. One large man in the front row was practically falling out of his seat with excitement. A good number of rows back, Ryn spotted golden hair. Nuthea. Her mouth was a tight line and her head was tilted down slightly. She stared daggers at him from across the theatre. End this now, her stare seemed to say.“Godsdammit!” swore Zigfird, clambering to his feet with a clanking of tin armour over on the far side of the stage where Sagar had gusted him to. He had dropped his sword and lost his crown somewhere on the way over. “Nobody upstages Zigfrid Alanthreonusson! I don't know how you did that, but you've forced me to do this, you rampaging plebian!”The actor flicked back his blue hair, then thrust forward two hands, palms outstretched.“LEO!” Zigfrid yelled, loud and theatrically.There was a flash of light, and an enormous blue lion appeared on the stage in front of him, complete with flowing mane.Ryn blinked in shock.He had seen pictures of lions in books, but he didn't think they were meant to be as big as this. It was nearly the same size as the dragon on the other side of the stage.It had very pale blue-tinged fur, almost white, but its thick, rugged mane was a deeper, royal blue. Its facial features were almost human, but for the feline nose, Ryn could see from the other side of the stage near Sagar. Like the dragon, its big black eyes had a personality to them.It crouched low now, terrible strength gathering in the bulging muscles of its legs, tensing its huge clawed paws, scratching the stage.How is this happening? Ryn wondered. Then he realised. The Spirit Carnelian that Nuthea mentioned. Zigfrid must be Jewel-touched too! He's summoned a spirit!Sagar's forehead contorted into a skew-whiff frown.“LEO, KILL!” shouted Zigfrid.The lion roared, bass and brutal, and pounced at Sagar.“No!” Ryn called out at the same time as someone else.The dragon sprang towards Sagar too from the other direction and smacked him to one side with a leg.The skypirate tumbled over the edge of the stage, bounced on the floor, rolled a couple of times and landed on his back at the feet of the front row.The audience went wild. The large man in the front row, whom Sagar had landed in front of, seemed to almost be wetting himself with excitement.Two inhuman roars echoed through the theatre.The massive blue lion was standing up on its hind legs, its paws locked against the clawed feet of the dragon. It snapped at the dragon's neck, but the dragon drew back its head, then darted in to bite at the face of the lion, who backed off in turn. The two of them wrestled and writhed, roaring and snapping at each other, trying to land a bite on the other's body.The animals broke apart and crouched a few paces away from one another, panting and growling from their bout.“Riss!” shouted Zigfrid across the stage, radiating fury. “How dare you combat my summon with your own to defend that barbarian?!”“You were going to kill him!” the girl yelled back in a horrified voice, the first thing that Ryn had heard her say since he had been up onstage. “He didn't deserve that!”Zigfrid shook with fury. “Disrespect! You will be disciplined for this, child, make no mistake! Leo, put down that dragon!”The lion crouched low once more to pounce.Ryn had very little idea what was going on, but he knew whose side he was on.As the lion leapt to attack again, Ryn put out his hands and shouted “FIRE!”Flames blossomed in the air and rushed over the lion.It stopped in its tracks immediately, shrinking back and covering its face with its paws, making a mewling, whining sound.Ryn ceased the flames.Guilt pulled at his guts immediately. He had scorched the lion's fur brown and black. But it had been about to hurt the dragon, and possibly the girl, hadn't it? And it's just a spirit. Isn't it?“What deviltry is this?” said Zigfrid, then promptly fainted. He keeled over backwards and hit the stage with a smack. The blue lion disappeared at once.The audience went crazy. They gave a standing ovation, almost all of them getting to their feet, holding up their hands, clapping and hollering so that the noise of their praise filled the theatre.“You can project fire?” said the girl over the din, staring at Ryn across the stage, eyes like two green-tinted full moons.“Er, yes,” Ryn said simply.The girl nodded, and something in her eyes seemed to betray a decision. “Please, quick, follow me!”The girl ran off the stage, past the curtain which hung to one side of it, then down some steps that led from backstage to a door.Ryn sprinted after her, got halfway down the steps, then remembered.“Wait a second!” he called after the girl. “I just need to get something!”He turned and ran back onstage, where Sagar, having somehow managed to sheathe his swords and climb back up even in his drunkenness, was beaming at the applauding crowd, waving at them, and taking bows as they whistled and hollered and cheered.“Come on, Sagar!” Ryn grabbed his hand and yanked him off the stage, back down the steps and through the door after the green-haired girl.“They love me!” Sagar declared as Ryn pulled him along. “They love me!”The stage door banged shut behind them. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit sagaofthejewels.substack.com

Cognitive neuroscientist Tali Sharot explores the role of optimism in our lives, examining why individuals often maintain personal hope despite collective anxiety. She explains the concept of optimism bias, how anticipation shapes happiness and memory.Learn more about the Digital Diet and download the chrome plug-inKeep up to date with Peter on SubstackKeep up to date with Kasia!If you would like to support the podcast please consider our PatreonExecutive Producer: Rachel BarrettThanks to our volunteer researchers Hendrik Dahlmeier and Mihika Chechi, and Chris van Ryn!And special thanks to Suzi Jamil! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Joshua Greene is an experimental psychologist and neuroscientist, and Professor of Psychology at Harvard University. Joshua shares insights into how evolutionary psychology underpins group cooperation and the challenges of expanding moral circles. Josh also reflects on his personal feelings of hope and commitment towards fostering a more unified and cooperative society.Learn more about Josh and read his books!Learn more about Giving Multiplier (code LIVESWELLLIVED)Learn more about Tango & sign up for The GameKeep up to date with Peter on SubstackKeep up to date with Kasia!If you would like to support the podcast please consider our PatreonExecutive Producer: Rachel BarrettThanks to our volunteer researchers Hendrik Dahlmeier and Mihika Chechi, and Chris van Ryn!And special thanks to Suzi Jamil! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this edition of the Flavors of Northwest Arkansas podcast, we talk with Chef Miles James- he of Ella's at Inn at Carnal Hall, Inn at the Mill, James at the Mill, 28 Springs, and currently? MJ's Pizzeria. We'll hear from him shortly, but first?!?! FOOD NEWS! Not the night that we wanted here locally at the James Beard Awards. Chef Matthew Cooper's new restaurant Ryn will officially open tomorrow! Archie's Sandwichery opens soon. We'll hear from the owner! Bloom Cheese Collective has started their soft opening week. We'll hear when they open for good! Sicaru Coffee Roasters opened last week. We now have a Peruvian restaurant in Rogers. Queen Donuts should open soon in Fayetteville. Taqueria Guanajuato just opened in a new location. A new tea shop is opening soon in Fayetteville. Miles James grew up in Northwest Arkansas and went to the U of A. He got his first job in a legendary Fayetteville restaurant when he was 14, and from there, he was hooked. After college, he decided on culinary school and then learned from some of the top chefs in the northeast and around the world. Chef James has some great stories about that. Why did he come back to NWA? Opportunity, both professionally and personally. At the tender age of 26, he came home to open James at the Mill and Inn at the Mill in Johnson. His trajectory and life changed immensely because of 3 guests just having lunch one day. That's when things truly took off. What a great story that is, and you'll hear it from him. And finally, his current baby, MJ's Pizzeria. He'll tell the story about how it started, and how they survived Covid. Also, I couldn't believe it when he said it, but next month will be a decade for MJ's- 10 years! And something's on the horizon for the place. Chef James will tell us that and much more, and that's next here on the Flavors of Northwest Arkansas!    

Cyan Banister is an angel investor and entrepreneur renowned for her early investments in transformative tech companies such as Uber, SpaceX, DeepMind, and Postmates. Banister's path to success was unconventional, she experienced homelessness as a teenager and dropped out of high school.Through self-education and determination, she became a self-taught engineer, holding key roles at a cybersecurity startup acquired by Cisco for $850 million.Cyan emphasises themes of empathy, love, and personal growth, and the healing power of philosophy in overcoming adversity and trauma.Learn more about CyanKeep up to date with Peter on SubstackKeep up to date with Kasia!If you would like to support the podcast please consider our PatreonExecutive Producer: Rachel BarrettThanks to our volunteer researchers Hendrik Dahlmeier and Mihika Chechi, and Chris van Ryn!And special thanks to Suzi Jamil! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Slavoj Žižek is a Slovenian philosopher and cultural theorist known for his provocative blend of Marxism, Hegelian philosophy, and Lacanian psychoanalysis, he remains one of the most influential and polarising intellectuals in contemporary thought.Slajov gets into several complex and thought-provoking topics including but not limited to; the catastrophe of love, political philosophy, critiques of both historical and contemporary interpretations of communism, and ultimately whether the pursuit of happiness should be the goal in life.Keep up to date with Peter on SubstackKeep up to date with Kasia!If you would like to support the podcast please consider our PatreonExecutive Producer: Rachel BarrettThanks to our volunteer researchers Hendrik Dahlmeier and Mihika Chechi, and Chris van Ryn!And special thanks to Suzi Jamil! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Cass Sunstein is a prominent American legal scholar, behavioural economist, and professor at Harvard Law School. Cass explores the concept of nudging and libertarian paternalism, addressing ethical concerns around manipulation and autonomy. He reflects on climate justice, the moral duties of high-emission countries, and global accountability in climate policy.Learn more about Cass and read his books! Keep up to date with Peter on SubstackKeep up to date with Kasia!If you would like to support the podcast please consider our PatreonExecutive Producer: Rachel BarrettThanks to our volunteer researchers Hendrik Dahlmeier and Mihika Chechi, and Chris van Ryn!And special thanks to Suzi Jamil! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Previously on Saga of the Jewels…The life of seventeen-year-old RYN, bookish son of a wealthy landowner, changes forever when his hometown is destroyed by the EMPIRE and everyone he has ever known is killed. Ryn discovers that the Empire are seeking TWELVE PRIMEVAL JEWELS which grant the power to manipulate different elements, and that his father had been hiding the FIRE RUBY. He sets out to take revenge on the Imperial General who killed his family and retrieve the Fire Ruby, and along the way meets NUTHEA the lightning-slinging princess, SAGAR the swaggering skypirate, ELRANN the tomboy engineer, CID the wizened old healer, and VISH the poppy-seed-addicted bounty hunter. Together the companions decide to find all of the Jewels in order to stop the EMPEROR from finding them first and taking over the world. They have thus far succeeded in retrieving the Fire Ruby, borne by Ryn, and the Lightning Crystal, borne by Nuthea. They have now come to the land of FARR where they intend to compete in a hand-to-hand fighting tournament in order to attempt to win its grand prize, the EARTH EMERALD…EPISODE THIRTY-FOUR: THE NIGHT I MAKE IT WITH A WOMANOne night before the tournament.Sagar shoved the door of the public drinking house open and let Elrann go in first.“What a gentleman,” she quipped as she walked past him.“I'm a pirate second, gentleman first,” Sagar lied, grinning. Need to be on my best behaviour tonight, he thought as he followed her in. Tonight is going to be the first night that I make it with a woman. No rudeness. No brawling. No showing myself up. I need to impress her.It was dim and cosy inside the pub, the only light coming from the orange flickers of a log-fire in the hearth. At this evening hour it was almost full, mostly of Farrians, but also some travellers from other lands–a big burly Aibarian, a smattering of Rikalian traders in colourful ponchos, and even a Morekemian, from the looks of her long braid, though thankfully not an Imperial–she must be an exile or a runaway. In one corner a lute player sat shrouded in shadows underneath a hooded cloak, picking the strings of his instrument with his fingers and softly singing the words to some sky-shanty. Perfect. Just the right mood. I chose well. Well done me.They found a table with two seats, not too far from the bar, and took them.In spite of himself, Sagar's mouth was dry. This was going to be the night that he first made it with a woman, but he wasn't quite sure where to start–or at least he had forgotten where he was meant to start. If he had ever known.Elrann regarded him cooly with her purple eyes.“Aren't you going to offer to buy me a drink?”“What? Yes! Of course! I mean, of course I am. I was just waiting for you to tell me what you wanted. What do you want, woman?”“What I want is for you to stop calling me that.” She likes it really. “But in the meantime, since you're offering, pirate-man, I'll take a rice-wine.”“Rice-wine?” Sagar said. “What in the hells is that? Don't you want a good ale?”“You won't get one here,” said Elrann. “Farrian ale tastes like chocobo-piss. It's famous for it. They're very good at their rice-wine, though. Try one. You'll see.”Sagar grunted, then went and ordered their first two rice-wines from the bar. While the Farrian bartender fetched them for him, he reviewed his plan of attack.Alright. I know she's interested in me 'cause she agreed to come to the pub with me in the first place. And we've made it here–it wasn't some sort oftrick. Trouble is, I don't know what I'm supposed to say to make things progress. So instead, I'll just get really, really, really drunk. That'll do it. Agenius plan. It was a good thing he had swiped lots of coin from Cid for thisevening.He took their drinks back to the table and clinked glasses with Elrann.The rice-wine tasted like…liquid fermented rice. It was strong.Elrann sighed contentedly and wiped her mouth.Sagar's face stretched in astonishment. Where he had only taken a sip, the woman had downed the whole of her glass in one gulp.He became aware that he should probably be saying something. What?Complement her on her drinking ability. That was the sort of thing he had talked about with his crew, when they had still been alive.He opened his mouth to do so.“Shut up,” said the woman, holding up a hand. “Whatever you're about to say, pirate-man, shut up. I've got something I need to talk to ya about. I've been putting it off for a while, trying to find the courage, 'specially cause if I've misjudged things then this is going to be mighty embarrassing for me, but I can't wait any longer, and this seems to be my opportunity.” She looked around for a moment, as if checking that nobody else they knew was in this pub. They weren't.Wow, that was easy, thought Sagar. I must just be that irresistible. He was aware that he was being uncharacteristically un-talkative. But that seemed to be working for him at the moment. Maybe he had been playing this all wrong. Maybe the best tactic was just to sit back, keep hit mouth shut and let her come to him.The woman was looking at him. Apparently he needed to say something.“Yeah?” he said in as nonchalant a manner as he could muster. “What is it, then?”“Pirate-man…” said Elrann. She looked him in the eyes again. “Sagar… As you know, I've been fascinated by airships for a long time. And as you've probably worked out by now, I have a bit of a fascination with airship pirates and captains as well.”Hope was truly stirring in Sagar's chest now, and in his loins, but he kept his cool and kept up his relaxed skypirate-captain exterior. He wore it easily, as easily as he wore his awesome leather Captain's Coat that he had inherited from his father. He was a professional at this, the best around.“Yeah?” he said nonchalantly.“Yeah, I do…” said Elrann. She sighed, looked over at the bar, caught the barman's eye, held up two fingers and pointed at their table, then gave him a thumb-up when he had acknowledged what she wanted. How does she do that? She turned back to Sagar. “And…well, what I'm trying to say is that there's a reason I do.”“I'm sure there is,” said Sagar, grinning. He leaned back a little in his chair, getting comfortable, and folded his arms. Play it cool. Don't overcommit. You're doing everything right, you dark cochobo.Elrann frowned slightly at him. “Yeah, there is. And the reason is…the reason is that my Mum… my Mum once told me about who my father was. Ya see, my mother was a rice-farmer from Zerlan who lived with her parents until I came along, and apparently my Dad…my Dad was a famous pirate skycaptain who slept with her once when he put into port in Zerlan.”Sagar frowned a little at that. He hadn't been expecting this. It threw him a little. Okay, so she likes me 'cause of her Daddy issues. That's a bit weird, but I can get on board with it. Whatever launches her airship. I've got my own Daddy issues too, most people do, though they don't affect me in quite the same way… She was looking at him. He needed to say something again.“Yeah?” he said, a touch less nonchalantly than before.The barman arrived with two more drinks and set them down on the table before shuffling off again.“Pirate-man…” said Elrann, grasping her second drink, “what I'm trying to tell you is…don't you see what I'm trying to tell you?”A vision of taking her back to her room at their lodgings flashed through Sagar's mind. He grinned. “I think I might be starting to catch on…” He lifted his first glass of rice-wine to his mouth for another sip.“Sagar…what I'm trying to tell you is that I think I might be your half-sister.”The rice-wine sprayed out of Sagar's mouth in a shower. Most of it went on his trousers. Some went on the table. Some went on Elrann.A pause.“What?!” he said.A pause.“WHAT?!!” he exclaimed.A pause.“WHAT?!!!” he shouted.The background chatter of the pub stopped, and the other drinkers all turned in their seats to look at him. Even the lutist stopped his playing and singing for a moment.“Nothing to see here folks!” Elrann said to the room. “Just a little revelation about a potential long-lost sibling!”The drinkers went back to their drinks, the lutist to his lute, in apparent acceptance of this.Sagar, meanwhile, had frozen.His mind had gone slow.Fascination.Airships.Pirate-skycaptain.Half-sister.“Whaaaaaaaat?” he said one more time, much more quietly but very high-pitched, to the woman.“Think about it,” Elrann said to him, leaning in and keeping her voice low. “My father was a famous pirate skycaptain. My Mum never told me his name, and I'm not even sure that she ever knew his name, but she did tell me that he was the captain of a pirate airship, and that he wore a ponytail and a long leather coat, among other things. That's why I've always had a fascination with airships and skypirates–because of hearing about my Dad. When I put two and two together was when pops said that your father was a pirate skycaptain. Ya never mentioned that yaself. I reckon that your Dad, the one who travelled around with pops for a while, must be the same as my Dad.”Sagar stared at nothing at all. He was struggling to process this. Fragments of words and images danced around in his mind. Memories of his father, in his long coat and ponytail, boasting about his amorous conquests to the men. The times he had flown into or over Zerlan as part of his Dad's crew. Had he even been on the voyage when this had happened, too young to remember it, or to naïve to be aware of it? Had Elrann really been conceived by the same person, under similar circumstances that he had? But then…urgh! Why had he been attracted to this woman if he was partly related to her? He couldn't have been!“No,” he said eventually. “This is crazy. You're crazy. There's no way that we could be related!”Elrann cocked her head. “Did your father have a long ponytail, like you?“Well, yeah, but–”“And did he own a long brown leather coat?”“Well, yeah. This one, actually. He gave it to me when he handed the Wanderlust over to me. But that doesn't mean anything! There must be plenty of pirate skycaptains that have ponytails and long leather coats!”Elrann raised a single purple eyebrow at him.Sagar took another drink from his glass, and this time downed what was left of it. The wine stung the back of his throat, but he didn't care.“I don't believe it…” he said. “I won't believe it…”“Yeah,” said Elrann, “I'm not exactly thrilled about it either…” She looked him up and down. “But there's just too many coincidences. I suppose we don't know for sure, but until we find out for certain there's a chance that we are related. There's only one way to do that, though…”“What do you mean?” said Sagar, genuinely puzzled. The wine was starting to settle him into a fuzzy haze, but now he only felt depressed in it.Elrann hesitated. “What I mean is…if we could find your father, we could find out for sure if he's…if he's my father too. You said you inherited your coat from him, and you've hinted before that you flew with him…if you know where he is, we could go and find him and ask him ourselves?”“Ah,” said Sagar. “That's what you mean. Well, sorry, woman, but I don't know where he is.”Elrann's face fell. “How come?”“You're right, I did fly with him for a long time. I was raised on his ship, in fact–on board the Wanderlust, by his crew. I never knew my Mum. Apparently whoever he fathered me on didn't want me, so she just dumped me on him instead. I didn't even know that he was my father till I came of age. I thought I was just some orphan they'd picked up somewhere to work as a cabin boy. Then one day he told me he was my father, that he was retiring from piracy, along with most of his crew, and that he was giving me his ship to inherit, along with some coin to recruit a new crew with and make a start in piracy myself. Then we set down in Imfis, he bought a light craft, and buggered off into the horizon. That was the last I ever saw of him.”“Oh,” said Elrann, now staring off at nothing, just like Sagar had been while he had been telling his story. “Well…” she said after a moment, “that's a shame… I'd hoped that you would help me be able to find him…”The two of them fell silent, looking into their drinks, and the chatter of the other drinkers and the playing of the lutist in the corner swept over them.Sagar took another drink. Well, some evening this has turned out to be. I'm hoping to bed the woman, and it turns out we might be related! Course, it's only a ‘might' but….urgh! I can't sleep with someone who even might be my half-sister! Can I?His train of thought paused for a moment.No!He took another drink to drive him further into his rice-wine haze and away from his misery.The musician in the corner picked up the volume a bit, picking the strings more loudly and starting to sing a sad, lilting song. The wistful tones reflected his mood pretty well.What do I do now? I guess it's back to the drawing board. I'll have to try with the princess again. But that seems like a closed door right now. Rrrr… He looked around at the other drinkers in the pub. I wonder if there's anyone in here who would—All of a sudden Elrann sat up straight, raising her head, and twitched, like a wolf that had been alerted to something.“Hey!” she said.“What is it?” Sagar said, putting a hand to one of his cutlasses.“Did you hear that?”Sagar strained his ears. All he could hear was the other customers chatting, and the lutist singing his song.“The singer!” Elrann said. “He's singing about those magical Jewel-thingamys that we're trying to find on our quest!”“He is?” said Sagar.“Yeah! Listen!”They listened as the lutist came back round to the chorus of his song, singing in a clear, lilting voice:Ruby is Fire,Lost, not foreverSapphire is Water,Umbar's true treasureCrystal is LightningManolia's joyDiamond is LightThe Maker's great ployOnyx is DarknessIn depths of a pitShell seals the windIf you can catch itEm'rald is EarthenYou'll find it in FarrMoon is a pearlIn the light from a starMeteor is MetalFound in fixed fortressCarnelian is SpiritA summoning sorceressStone is the NatureThat silently growsAnd Void is a secretNobody knowsTwelve Peoples of MidAnd Twelve Jewels there areTo rescue herIn her most desp'rate hourWhen gathered togetherThe Twelve Jewels from afarThe Maker will make knownThe truth of his powerAs the lutist finished the long chorus, leaving only the notes of the strings he continued to pluck, Sagar and Elrann looked at each other.“By all the gods I don't believe in, you're right!” Sagar said.He stood up.Elrann grabbed his arm immediately. “What are you doing?!” she said.Sagar frowned at her. His vision had taken a short moment to catch up with him when he had stood up. “What do you think I'm doing? We need to go and talk to him about how he knows about the Jewels!”“Sit down,” Elrann hissed at him through gritted teeth, and yanked him back into his chair. Damn, but she was strong.“Hey, what gives, woman?” Sagar said. His vision had taken a moment to catch up with him when he sat down as well.Elrann looked over each of her shoulders. “Don't you see?” she said to him quietly. “Nobody else has noticed that he's singing about the Primeval-Jewel-Thingamies, or at least nobody else cares. Only we recognised it. And princess-girl's mission…our mission…is top secret and super important and stuff, isn't it? We don't want to attract attention to it or to ourselves by making a big fuss out of it and going right up to that guy straight away, do we?”Slowly this clicked into place in Sagar's mind. “Oh. Right. Yeah, well, I wasn't going to talk to him straight away, was I? I was…I was getting up to go to the privy.”Elrann snorted. “Yeah, right. You've barely had two drinks. I can see that you can't hold your liquor, but your bladder can't be as weak as that.”“Hey, look here, woman–”“Shut up,” said the woman with a wave of her hand. “Listen. You're right, we need to talk to that guy.” She glanced over at the hooded lutist, who had finished his Jewel song and was starting a new one, singing more quietly than he had before. “But we need to wait until he's finished playing. Then we go over to him all casual like, alright, and say that we really enjoyed his music, we chat with him a bit, and then we ask him about where he learned that song about the Jewel-thingamies. Got it?”Sagar's head swam. He didn't like how this evening had unfolded so far. But somewhere he knew that what the woman was suggesting was sensible.“I s'pose,” he said. “But what do we do in the meantime?”“What else?” said Elrann. “We stay here and keep drinking.”She gestured to the barman. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit sagaofthejewels.substack.com

Lawrence Krauss is a theoretical physicist and cosmologist renowned for his work in particle physics, cosmology, and science communication. Krauss explores the idea of cosmic insignificance and the absence of inherent meaning in the universe, emphasising the importance of appreciating the rarity of life, whilst exploring fundamental questions about the universe and human existence.Learn more about Lawrence and listen to The Origins PodcastKeep up to date with Peter on SubstackKeep up to date with Kasia!If you would like to support the podcast please consider our PatreonExecutive Producer: Rachel BarrettThanks to our volunteer researchers Hendrik Dahlmeier and Mihika Chechi, and Chris van Ryn!And special thanks to Suzi Jamil! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Previously on Saga of the Jewels…The life of seventeen-year-old RYN, bookish son of a wealthy landowner, changes forever when his hometown is destroyed by the EMPIRE and everyone he has ever known is killed. Ryn discovers that the Empire are seeking TWELVE PRIMEVAL JEWELS which grant the power to manipulate different elements, and that his father had been hiding the FIRE RUBY. He sets out to take revenge on the Imperial General who killed his family and retrieve the Fire Ruby, and along the way meets NUTHEA the lightning-slinging princess, SAGAR the swaggering skypirate, ELRANN the tomboy engineer, CID the wizened old healer, and VISH the poppy-seed-addicted bounty hunter. Together the companions decide to find all of the Jewels in order to stop the evil EMPEROR from finding them first and taking over the world. They have thus far succeeded in retrieving the Fire Ruby, borne by Ryn, and the Lightning Crystal, borne by Nuthea. They have now come to the land of FARR where they intend to compete in a hand-to-hand fighting tournament in order to attempt to win its prize, the EARTH EMERALD…EPISODE THIRTY-THREE: THE PRINCESS AND THE DRAGONOne night before the Tournament.Ryn sat down next to Nuthea on one of the simple wooden chairs.Around them, about a hundred or so people were sitting on their own chairs too. The hubbub of the chattering crowd enveloped them like a warm blanket.The wooden seat was hard and uncomfortable, but Ryn barely noticed it. His pulse was quick inside his head and his heart fluttered about inside his chest. It was all he had been able to afford from the common purse, anyway. The balconies had been far too expensive.I'm out on a date with a princess, he thought. No, a Queen. We may not be ‘exploring the possibility of a romantic relationship', but that's still what this is. We're spending time with each other just to spend time with each other.He was terrified.Don't mess this up.He was keenly aware of her presence at her side, like a fire burning in his peripheral vision. Should he say something? Was he meant to say something? He didn't know what to say.He didn't even know if he should be looking at her. Were there even any ‘shoulds' in this situation? Instead, he stared straight ahead.Over the many heads of the people sat in front of them–mainly short, stocky, tanned Farrians, but also people from other countries–he could see the raised wooden stage at the front of the room. At the moment it was bare and unoccupied, though on the wall at the back of it had been depicted a forest of tall trees with thick trunks and curved, finger-like branches reaching up to the ceiling of the play-house, bedecked with myriad painted-green leaves.“Tell me what this play is about again, Ryn?” said Nuthea next to him.A bolt of shock spasmed through Ryn and he nearly fell off his seat. He coughed on purpose and tried to make it look like it was the cough that had unsettled him, but he wasn't sure how successfully he managed it.He glanced at her. She was still expecting an answer from him, her eyebrows raised quizzically.“Er,” he said. “I'm not entirely sure. It's called ‘The Princess and the Dragon'. It looked pretty good from the poster–it had a very detailed picture of a fire-breathing dragon and an armoured knight fighting it.” Ryn had liked that. That had been what persuaded him to change plans from taking Nuthea to a tavern to taking her to a play. That and the fact that Sagar was going with Elrann to a tavern and he didn't want to accidentally end up in the same one. “All I know is that it's being put on by a traveling theatre troupe that just got into Shun Pei. They're meant to be very good. They're called the ‘Manniro' or something.”“Oh, the Manyiro!” Nuthea corrected him. Of course she knew the proper pronunciation. Of course she had heard of them before. “I've seen them perform many times in the palace when they were passing through Orma!”Poodoo. Ryn had dared to hope that he had found something special that Nuthea had never experienced before.Perhaps sensing his disappointment, Nuthea said “They are excellent. The Manyiro are a traveling people group who make their living by performing plays. They're the best at what they do in the whole of Mid. Have you never seen a Manyiro performance?”“Er…” Ryn decided he might as well tell the truth. “...no. I don't think they ever came to Cleasor…” He had seen plays, of course, and been in silly little ones put on in his schoolhouse or the village hall. But no, he had never seen a Mid-famous traveling play-acting people-group perform before. Of course Nuthea had.“Well you are in for a treat,” said Nuthea. “I love watching the Manyiro perform. They are masters of their craft. This will be a great way to relax and take our minds off things before the Tournament. Good choice, Ryn.”Ryn brightened a little at that. He wanted so much for Nuthea to enjoy this. He also wanted so much to tell her how he felt about her…but one thing at a time.“Have you seen this particular play?” he asked her, wary.“No, I don't think I've ever seen ‘The Princess and the Dragon.'”Phew. That was something, at least. “Well, the poster for it looked really good.” Idiot. You said that already. Or something like that, anyway…Their conversation lulled. Ryn looked at the empty stage again. When was this play going to start?He cast around in his mind for something else to talk to her about. He couldn't risk Nuthea growing bored. She had to enjoy this evening. This evening with him. Especially if she ever ended up going to a tavern with Sagar as well…But his mind had gone blank. What should he say to her?He remembered something. Something that he had been wondering about for a while. Yes, he could try that.“Nuthea?”“Yes?”“When you project lightning, why do you shout the word ‘bolt'?”“Ah, yes.” She appeared to take this as a signal to switch into lecture mode, but Ryn didn't mind–at least she would be talking, which would buy him time to come up with more interesting things to say. “That's called a ‘focus-word'. They're not essential to use to project your element, but those who train in the use of Jewel-gifts usually end up employing them. You will find that when your mind is more focused, concentrated, or engaged, you will ‘spell' (if you call it that—everyone has different names for it) more effectively and powerfully. So one technique that was developed very early on was to utter a word around which to focus the mind when you are ‘spelling', or projecting, or manipulating your element, or whatever you want to call it. Naturally, the best word to use is the word most closely associated with whatever it is that you are projecting. So, when I am projecting a lightning bolt, I shout ‘bolt'. I would have taught you about focus-words before, but you seemed to be using them anyway.”“That's right…” Ryn said, thinking back to the first time he had manifested fire, in his hometown, Cleasor, the day the Empire had attacked. “When I projected for the first time, I shouted ‘fire!' when I did it, as far as I can remember. I just did it, without having to be told to do it. And I've been doing it instinctively, ever since then.”“There you go,” said Nuthea, nodding approvingly at him like a pleasing pupil. “See? That is your focus-word for projecting your element, naturally.”“But sometimes I've noticed you say the word but you don't finish it properly—it changes into a sort of shout.”Nuthea's nod became knowing rather than merely approving. “Yes, that does happen too. When you are casting a large spell—channelling large amounts of mana—the focus word is even more helpful and necessary to keep the element under your control, but it can be hard to get all of it out because the toll on the body from the projection is so great. So sometimes when I cast a particularly large lightning bolt, or series of lightning bolts, I lose control and the word loses its shape… I'm working on it, but at the use of certain levels of magic it becomes virtually possible not to let out a shout or even a scream at the end of the word. So sometimes it sounds a bit like ‘boltah' or ‘boltaragh' or even ‘boltagah'.”Ryn pondered this. “Thanks, that actually makes a lot of sense. I guess I should carry on using focus words to help me focus my ‘fire'.”“Absolutely. Captain Sagar and Grandfather Cid use them too—I'm sure you've heard them. I don't know if Sagar was ever taught to use them–he probably just uses them on instinct too–but I'm sure Cid has specifically trained in using them. And as you practice and train and get stronger and more proficient in your gift and your mana capacity grows, you may find yourself developing different projection techniques as well, for which you may want to use different focus words. I haven't developed any myself yet but I know Grandfather has several, for different techniques in manipulation of the element of light which gives energy to all living things: ‘cure', ‘heal, ‘syphon, even just ‘raise'. He has been practicing for a long time and has a very large mana pool. He is very proficient in his gift.”“I think I may have actually starting doing that already…” Ryn realised out loud. “Once when I fought Vorr on the train in Imfis I suddenly found myself shouting ‘fireburst' and I projected this really big and hot flame attack... It was more flame than I had ever projected before, and possibly ever have since. In fact, I don't think I've ever managed to project fire with the same intensity and ferocity since then… I can't quite explain it; it's still fire, but it's like it comes from a different part of me, a deeper, more desperate part of me…”“Aha,” said Nuthea, her eyes lighting up like a teacher unlocking a revelation in a star pupil. “That was certainly a different focus word and technique, but it may also have been what we call a ‘limit break'.”Ryn's brow crinkled. “A limit break? You mentioned that once before. What's a limit break?”Lecturing just came so naturally to Nuthea. “‘Limit break' is the name that people have given to another kind of elemental projection, when you are absolutely exhausted, or hurt, or wounded, or depleted of mana, but you need to project for whatever reason, usually because you are fighting for your life, and you intuitively draw on your soul's deepest, hiddenmost reservoirs of mana to unleash a massive, unprecedentedly powerful attack. It's a known phenomenon. It's actually a sign that you are progressing in your projection, because in the long term it increases your mana capacity and proficiency in your gift. But in the short term, after the attack is spent, it leaves you completely exhausted. It's like destroying a muscle only for it to grow back stronger—the best way to train and get stronger. That's why it's been called a ‘limit break'—because when it happens you go past your mana capacity limit and ‘break it', but then once you have recovered it means your mana limit is permanently bigger afterwards.”Ryn nodded. “That makes sense too… After the time I used my fireburst on Vorr, I was definitely exhausted, until Cid healed me. But once I was healed, I somehow felt stronger, and my fire has come even more easily since then. Thanks Nuthea, you've explained a lot to me.”“No problem at all.” The princess's blue eyes glittered. “I'm quite jealous of you, actually. I've never actually performed a ‘limit break' myself yet, even when I've been in life-threatening situations. Even when…even when my mother died.” She paused for a moment and Ryn worried she was about to start crying, but then she swallowed and carried on talking. “I've had to rely on increasing in skill solely through the regular kind of practice, which still works more slowly, but doesn't provide the big leaps forward that limit breaks can give. And I can't even do that lately, because… Well, never mind. You really are doing very well in your training with your gift, Ryn.”Ryn was about to ask her why she couldn't train in the regular way with her gift at the moment but then she smiled at him brightly, and his heart nearly broke its limit.A hush fell upon the playhouse all of a sudden and the chattering of the rest of the audience died away.In his reverie, Ryn's first thought was that somehow the whole world had gone quiet before Nuthea's smiling beauty, but then he heard someone behind them whisper “Shhh! It's starting!” to their neighbour, who had still been talking quietly, and he realised that the play was finally beginning.A man walked onto the stage and stood front and centre, facing the audience. He was very tall–well over seven feet, Ryn reckoned–and well muscled, with tanned skin, a strong chin and blue curls that came down to his shoulders.A flash of insecurity twinged in Ryn's chest. What had he been thinking? Surely this was the sort of man that Nuthea would be attracted to, that she was destined to end up marrying. Not a naive pussywillow greenhorn farmboy.The man was even dressed in the part of a princely suitor. In a royal blue tabard thrown over shining chainmail visible on his arms, and with a spiked golden crown to top it all off, he looked like one of the Kings of Old Efstan.Ryn fidgeted in his seat.The actor-king held his hands up–a gesture with which he brought the audience to total silence, commanding the room, capturing the attention of everyone in it. He launched into his opening soliloquy.“Ladies and gentlemen!” spoke the man in an affected and well-educated voice, so loudly that it resounded clearly through the whole playhouse. “My, but thou art in for a treat tonight! Travel with me, if thou wilt, to the ancient island kingdom of Efstan, where our tale takes place tonight. In this tale, I, Zigfrid Alanthreonusson, First Among The Manyiro, shall play Prince Pendafigion of Efstan, famed Dragon Slayer of old. In the course of the action I shall rescue the fair maiden Princess Frionessa, played by Riss Aronwy, from the clutches of the foul and fell drake Kandraug. Ladies and Gentlemen, I give thee: The Princess and the Dragon!”He bowed, then made a subservient, flowing gesture with his hand as he walked backwards to the right off the stage.A moment later a couple of different male actors strode onstage dressed in peasants' clothing, beginning some kind of banterous dialogue in the same poor imitation of an Old Middish dialect that ‘Zigfrid Alanthreonusson' had used.At this point Ryn stopped paying attention to what they were saying. He had too much else on his mind to think about.He risked a sidelong look to his left at Nuthea. She was completely transfixed by the play, that huge smile still spread on her face but now directed toward the stage, utterly oblivious to Ryn sneaking a look at her to check how she was finding it. He was glad she was enjoying it at least.Could I ever make it with Nuthea? he thought to himself again. She's not just a pretend play-princess, she's a real-life princess. Or am I just deluding myself here? Was she attracted to that actor who was on before? What am I doing here? I should be training for the tournament, practicing my flames, getting better at swords with Cid, not wasting my time here trying to court a princess I won't ever have a chance with…The play rambled on with the two peasant-men continuing their dialogue, setting the scene and warming the audience up, Ryn supposed. They got a few chuckles and chortles from some of their more obvious jokes. Ryn didn't see what all the fuss was about, really. So these were meant to be the greatest players in the whole of Mid? They weren't that different from the amateur players he had seen at home, really… Sure, their costumes were very well-done and detailed, and their script had probably been honed for hours on end, and they had probably learned all their lines perfectly off by heart, and they were quite convincing in their performances, and these two were now getting quite a few laughs from the audience but…so what?Maybe Ryn was just being bitter…The lead actress walked on.He knew she was the lead because she was dressed like a princess. She wore a long flowing pale-green gown with sleeves that came down to her hands, a sparkling necklace made of diamonds–fake or real, Ryn couldn't tell–and a crown of her own, a yellow-gold tiara much like the circlet that Nuthea wore, only more ornate with a raised front inlaid with coloured gemstones.In the case of this actress, however, that was where her princesslyness ended. She actually looked a bit too young to be the counterpart of the male lead, barely a teenager, and certainly too young to be playing his romantic interest.There was also something distinctly…off about her. As she walked stiffly to the centre of the stage, an awkward grimace barely concealed from her face underneath her bob of shocking green hair, it didn't take Ryn very long to work out that she was feeling uncomfortable and that she didn't want to be there. Either that or the character she was playing was supposed to be feeling awkward and uncomfortable, but somehow Ryn doubted that. It would help for figuring it out either way if she had had any lines yet, but she hadn't.What's the deal with this actress?She had stopped in the middle of the stage, but facing to the right, the same pained, slightly scared expression still on her face.The audience was silent, but not because of her charisma. She didn't have any. Maybe everyone else was also curious as to what this young girl who apparently couldn't act very well was doing on the stage in a Manyiro play.The actress's eyes fluttered very slightly, Ryn noticed.From the right of the stage, on walked a dragon.Ryn gasped along with the rest of the audience, everyone sucking the air out of the room all at once.The dragon didn't look like it was made out of any kind of material or like there were any people inside it. It was covered all over in glistening green scales that glittered brilliantly in the light from the candles in the chandelier that hung from the ceiling of the playhouse. About the height of two men and the length of two chocobos, it had four legs that ended in vicious black claws which gripped the wood of the stage, two wide wings tucked into its flanks, and a long snout filled with interlocking, knife-sharp teeth, from which a wicked forked red tongue flashed out moment by moment. Set in its head, underneath a pair of curved, dark horns, were two massive, golden-pupiled eyes that had personality behind them.It looked utterly real. In fact, Ryn was pretty sure that it was real.How had the Manyiro players managed this? How had they caught and tamed a dragon to perform for them?In response to the dragon's appearance, the princess-actress fell back to the ground in ‘shock'. She still did it in a wooden way though, like it was a pre-rehearsed fall, and her mouth hung artificially open in an expression of pretend surprise.The audience didn't seem to care. Instead, they sat enrapt, in full silence, just like Ryn was.Nuthea looked as enrapt as everyone else.Ryn's curiosity got the better of him. He leaned over towards her a little and whispered, as quietly as he could manage while still being heard by her, “That's amazing. How do you think they're doing that?”To Ryn's surprise Nuthea turned to look at him, wrenched away from her fascination at the spectacle. The colour had drained from her face; her eyes were stuck wide.“Not ‘they'; ‘she',” the princess said. “Ryn, I think that girl is Jewel-touched.” This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit sagaofthejewels.substack.com

Rutger Bregman is a Dutch historian, author, and public intellectual renowned for his progressive ideas on social and economic reform.Rutger emphasises that living well means taking meaningful, practical action to address global issues—not just raising awareness. Drawing from his books Humankind and his initiative The School for Moral Ambition, he advocates for channeling ambition into social impact, encouraging career shifts toward solving major problems. He promotes ideas like universal basic income, effective altruism, and combating factory farming, while exploring how power dynamics influence moral choices. Watch the Profit For Good conference live stream from Amsterdam on June 11Learn more about Rutger and read his books!Keep up to date with Peter on SubstackKeep up to date with Kasia!If you would like to support the podcast please consider our PatreonExecutive Producer: Rachel BarrettThanks to our volunteer researchers Hendrik Dahlmeier and Mihika Chechi, and Chris van Ryn!And special thanks to Suzi Jamil! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Previously on Saga of the Jewels…The life of seventeen-year-old RYN, bookish son of a wealthy landowner, changes forever when his hometown is destroyed by the EMPIRE and everyone he has ever known is killed. Ryn discovers that the Empire are seeking TWELVE PRIMEVAL JEWELS which grant the power to manipulate different elements, and that his father had been hiding the FIRE RUBY. He sets out to take revenge on the Imperial General who killed his family and retrieve the Fire Ruby, and along the way meets NUTHEA the lightning-slinging princess, SAGAR the swaggering skypirate, ELRANN the tomboy engineer, CID the wizened old healer, and VISH the poppy-seed-addicted assassin. Together the adventurers decide to find all of the Jewels in order to stop the evil EMPEROR from finding them first and taking over the world. They have thus far succeeded in retrieving the Fire Ruby, borne by Ryn, and the Lightning Crystal, borne by Nuthea. They have now come to the land of FARR where they intend to compete in a hand-to-hand fighting tournament in order to attempt to win its grand prize, the EARTH EMERALD…EPISODE THIRTY-TWO: TRAININGSix days until the Tournament.Nuthea surveyed the garden area of the little manse they had been given to lodge in.A wooden boundary-fence marked off an area about twenty metres wide and long. A patio floor of cream-coloured stone reflected the heat of the Farrian Summer morning sunshine. Aside from that it was bare except for a little ornamental pond and some potted plants off in the far corner.This will have to do, she thought.She regarded her troops, as she was coming to think of them: Ryn, Sagar, Elrann, Vish and Cid all stood shoulder-to-shoulder in a line facing her.She hadn't even asked them to do that; they had just done it naturally when she had called them outside. She would make a fighting squad of them yet.“Okay, team,” she said. “The Governor has said that we can enter four people into the tournament, without us even having to go through the qualifying heats. So the first thing we need to do is choose which four of us will enter.”“Well obviously I'm the first choice,” said Sagar, putting his hands on his hips and sticking out his chest a little.Nuthea saw Ryn open his mouth but she jumped in first. “May I just remind you, Captain Sagar, that the Governor has told us that this will be a tournament of unarmed combat?”The pirate deflated ever so slightly, then frowned. “So what? I'm still the best fighter among us. Well, maybe joint best. I suppose the scumsucker is alright at fighting too…”“I have a question,” said Ryn, ignoring Sagar and putting up his hand like a school pupil. “Will we be allowed to use our elemental projection powers?”“I…” Nuthea hesitated. “I'm not sure. I didn't ask about that.”“Of course we will,” said Sagar. “Now that they've got the Emerald, you can bet your arse that the Farrians will be using theirs. Hells, I wouldn't be surprised if they enter Baldy into the tournament. Didn't the Governor guy say that he was their strongest monk? And now he's got earth powers, there's no doubt he'll use them…”Sagar's voice trailed off. He was seeming less and less confident by the moment.“Well if that's the case,” spoke up Elrann, “then I think it's pretty obvious who we're going to enter, isn't it, princess-girl? I mean, I can handle myself in a fight, sure, but I much prefer to have my pistols and whip with me. I'm not so sure that I could take on a trained fighter as strong as monk-man, especially when he's got earth powers now. The logical choice for who we enter is: you, farmboy and pirate-man, because of all your Jewel-thingamy-powers, and the bountyhunter because of his badass fighting skills.”Yes, thought Nuthea, that is the logical choice, except what you don't know is that I'm blocked.“How does everyone feel about that?” she said out loud.Sagar folded his arms and nodded, clearly still trying to communicate an air of nonchalance.“I'll fight,” said Ryn, rubbing his hand.“Shadowfinger Vish?” Nuthea said.Vish shrugged. “You know what I want. As long as you give it to me, I will fight for you. I have fought in ‘tournaments' before, and won them.”“You have?!”“Yes. Both before I became a slave to the Empire, and since.”“Well,” said Elrann, “that settles it then, doesn't it?”“Hold on,” said Nuthea, “let us give everyone a chance to speak. Grandfather, do you wish to fight?”Cid's bushy eyebrows rose. He looked surprised to even be asked. “Oh goodness, no, Granddaughter, I'm getting too old for this sort of thing. I am happy to sit this one out.”“Even though you are more experienced than the rest of us and might not have to face the same obstacles in preparing for the tournament?” Nuthea tried to convey extra meaning through emphasis of the word and a tip of her head to one side.Cid's eyes glittered, and she knew he had understood her. “Ah. Yes; even so. Do not worry. We have a week–I'm sure that is plenty of time for you to improve and to overcome any obstacles you might be facing in the way of your peak performance.”Nuthea nodded, taking his meaning in turn. “Then it is settled. Unless a better idea presents itself for whatever reason, myself, Ryn, Captain Sagar and Shadowfinger Vish will enter the tournament to compete for, and win, the Earth Emerald.” She turned to Vish. “Shadowfinger Vish, you are clearly the b…'' She paused, not wanting to set Sagar off again. “You are clearly highly proficient at hand-to-hand combat, especially when elemental projection is taken out of the calculations. Will you train us in what you know of unarmed combat?”Vish's eyes were blank and unreadable above his face scarf as the rest of them awaited his response.“Will you give me poppy?” he said to Cid in return.“You know that you are meant to be coming off of it,” said Cid, “which is what you really want, remember? But yes, as part of withdrawing slowly, you can have some poppy in a week and a half. After the tournament.”The Shadowfinger was silent again, his eyes still blank.“I will train you,” he said at last.“Thank you,” said Nuthea.“Poodoo to that!” said Sagar, throwing up his hands. “I don't need any fighting lessons, especially from an ex-Imperial scumsucker like him. I'm off to go and find myself a drink.” He began to stalk towards the manse, then stopped. “You coming, woman?”Elrann's brows knotted. “Why would I be?”“Cause you agreed to go for a drink with me the other night?”Elrann scratched her chin. “Oh, right. Yeah, but not now. We said we would go in five days, on our day off from training before the tournament starts. I want to train with the others and see what the bountyhunter has to teach us.”“Whatever,” said Sagar, “suit yourself.”The door slammed behind him as he left the garden-courtyard. He was beginning to irk Nuthea somewhat.She refocused on the task at hand. “Here we go then,” she said, “Vish, you swap with me.”She traded places with the Shadowfinger to join the end of the lineup next to Cid, and Vish took the place in front of them all, facing them.The rest of them awaited Vish's first instruction.Vish sighed deeply, a sound like the last breath going out of a corpse.“Alright, listen,” he said in his slightly exotic-accented, guttural tones. “I am good at fighting, but not for the reasons you think. When the…untrained think about schooling in the fighting arts, they imagine it is all about learning special routines and practicing certain steps, like learning to dance. And there is some of that. But a fight, a real fight, is not like a dance. In a real fight, any routines you might have learned, any special techniques with grand names like the monk performed, any semblance of control or poise you might have, go out the window, and you just become another animal trying to kill all the other animals to stay alive. And the fastest, most brutal, most vicious animal is the one that kills first, and so the one who gets to stay alive a little longer. Do you understand?”Nuthea blinked at the Shadowfinger. It was the most words she had ever heard him say all at once. He clearly knew, and thought, a lot about this subject.None of the others said anything either. They must be as surprised as she was.“I will assume that you do understand,” said Vish, giving them all a withering look. “All that said, there is some advantage to be had by rehearsing certain routines and steps, not because in an actual fight it will be possible to replicate them exactly, but because by rehearsing them strength is built, and because your unconscious memory might mean that small elements of the routines are reproduced in combat by reflex in potentially effective ways. All of you, stand with your feet shoulder-width apart and bend your knees slightly.”They did so.“Now bend your arms at the elbow and make fists with your hands, with your thumbnails pointing up, like this.”They did so.“Good. This will be your first rudimentary practice exercise: punching. Now, with me, twist your fist round and punch the air in front of you, alternating right and left hands. Right! Left! Right! Left!”Nuthea punched the air along with the others, falling into the rhythm of following Vish's commands easily enough. She had done something similar to this with Evisca, her swordmistress at the palace, when she had been taught weaponry as a teenager, before she had been allowed to handle a blade. It seemed like a fairly basic exercise, but presumably Vish would work up to the more advanced techniques.Just then a bright blazing ball of fire shot past Vish and crashed into the fence several feet behind him, burning a hole in it and setting it on fire.“Oops,” said Ryn.“What in all the hells of all the gods are you doing?” Vish snapped at him, shouting through his face covering. He hadn't moved an inch in response to the fireball, but he was furious nonetheless.“Sorry…” stammered Ryn. “I just suddenly thought ‘Hey, what if I combined this punch with a fire projection?', and then I accidentally did it…”Nuthea put a hand over her face.It seems this is going to be even more difficult than I had anticipated…*Four days before the Tournament.Huld worked his way carefully through the forms of The Circumference Of The Earth, as he had done thousands of times before, only this time whenever he came to a transfer of energy, he combined it with some variety of manipulation of the training room's earthen floor below him.He stamped down hard with his right foot, completing ‘Replanting The Tree', and as vibration rippled through his foot he willed a square block of earth to rise up out of the floor in front of him.Improvising, he stepped forwards with his other foot and delivered ‘Rooted Strike' to the earthen block with his left fist. As he connected with the block, he willed it forwards and it shot pleasingly along the training room floor before exploding against its stone wall in a shower of dirt.Huld remained still in his battle pose, breathing heavily. Sweat clung to him. It was quite an exertion adding earth manipulation to his normal battle forms, he had discovered. Though it was worth it. And he had discovered he was very good at it. Who else was there better suited to incorporating the powers granted by the Farrian Emerald into his fighting manoeuvres? He had always been first in his class growing up at the monastery, even if that was because he had something to prove which the other novices did not. He had made it into the elite tier of monks privileged with watching over the Emperor, the Greenrobes. And he had been selected to be the Emperor's personal bodyguard, not anyone else. It was entirely appropriate that he be the first in Farr in two generations to be granted earth manipulation abilities and to train with them, and that he should be highly skilled at doing so.He should be happy.And yet, he couldn't quite relax into it.Something was bothering him, throwing off his focus.What?The foreigners.He came out of his stance from Rooted Strike and sat on the floor for a moment to catch his breath, wiping the sweat from his brow with the back of his hand.The thought of the foreigners had been throwing off his focus slightly, lingering at the back of his mind like a fly buzzing just on the edge of his hearing.It wasn't that he was afraid of losing to them in this tournament the Governor had organised, he thought as he looked at the scuff marks his earth-block had left on the far wall and the pile of brown dirt and dust it had disintegrated into from the force of its impact. He wasn't.He knew he could beat every one of them in single hand to hand combat, even the ‘ex'-Imperial Vish. Even the fireboy with his flame projection abilities, which were apparently super effective against creatures of earth and so probably also against people who were ‘earth-aligned' as Huld now was.He had watched each of them carefully during their time in the Shrine, and studied their fighting styles closely. The Imperial was highly trained, ruthless and dangerous, to be sure, but he was still no match for Huld. And the boy was almost completely untrained. He appeared to have very little hand-to-hand fighting prowess at all, if any. If Huld stayed out of the way of his fire attacks, which he was confident he would be able to do more than easily, then defeating the boy would be a walk in a peace garden.No, it wasn't that which was bothering him. It was something else about the foreigners…What, then?He blinked with surprise at the realisation.It was that, after spending the better part of two days with them, after being stuck inside the Shrine to Eto with them and having to work together with them to make their way to the top of it, solve its puzzles, escape from its traps and defeat the Earth Elemental, he had found that in the end they were actually not that bad after all.Blessed Eto, he thought, I even almost liked them by the end…It was a difficult revelation to stomach. Raised in a monastery in the second-but uppermost level of Shun Pei, Huld had always been kept safely away from the filthy foreigners who travelled and traded in the lower levels, whom he viewed as a barely necessary evil that the Governor only allowed into the city for economic reasons. His ambition, insofar as he had been allowed to nurture one, had always been to move up, not down, in Shun Pei, and until recently he had been entirely successful in it.But now that he had actually spent some time with some filthy foreigners, they didn't seem that bad after all. They were still ‘filthy', to be sure, with their vulgar expressions and their crude attempts at fighting and their strange customs and gods.But, he had found, they had also turned out also to be people just like him. Of course they were. They talked and laughed and joked and had good ideas and bad ideas, strengths and weaknesses. How could he have not seen that before?And if they were people just like him, maybe what they were proposing to do wasn't so stupid and wrong after all? Maybe it would be the most sensible course of action to just give them the Emerald so that they could hide it from Morekemia and join it together with the others in order to stop the Emperor?“Impressive,” said a voice from the entry doorway to the training room.Huld started, recognising the voice, then immediately shifted himself into a kneeling bow, touching his forehead to the floor.“My Lord Governor!” he said, cheeks heating with the secret knowledge that his master had taken him unawares while he had been entertaining such ridiculous thoughts. How long had he been watching?“Up,” the Governor commanded.Huld got to his feet and stood straight as the Governor walked onto the floor of the training room, hands held behind his back. He wasn't wearing his hat, and his shaved head shone slightly in the light from the candles that stood in their sconces at the four corners of the room.The Governor stood a few feet away from him. “So, you have started combining your forms with your new earth-manipulation gift.”He's been watching me for a while, then. “Yes, Lord Governor. Did…did I do wrongly?”“No,” the Governor said calmly. “Show me.”Huld masked his surprise. “Yes, Lord Governor.” He spread his feet and dropped into chocobo stance, took a deep breath, then began the first movement of The Circumference Of The Earth, bringing his left hand up and into a descending arc–“Not like that!” the Governor barked impatiently. “Show me properly! Try and hit me, you fool!”Unable to hide his surprise this time, Huld's serene mask broke into a puzzled frown. “Lord Governor?”“Am I speaking some language other than common?” the Governor said, frowning above his formidable jowls. “Try. And. Hit. Me.”Huld gulped. He had heard rumours that the Governor had trained in the fighting arts, but his master had never commanded him to do anything like this before. Still, he could do nothing but obey.Better to make it a reasonably gentle strike. Nothing too impactful. Huld had been first in his class, after all, he reminded himself again, and was Farr's best soldier-monk, by the Governor's own boast.Hoping to get this embarrassing ordeal over with quickly, Huld crossed the floor that lay between him and the Governor in four quick steps and aimed a simple close-fisted punch with his right hand at the Governor's chest.The Governor's left hand whipped out to block the punch, palming Huld's forearm away, then before Huld knew what was happening the Governor had brought his hand around and back to himself in a circle, then thrust it out again at Huld's chest.The floor hit Huld hard in the back.He coughed a couple of times, chest smarting where the Governor had struck him.He floored me, Huld thought as he inspected the muddy brown of the training room ceiling, which he had never seen from this angle before. He actually floored me. With one punch!“I meant that I wanted you to try and hit me with an earth manipulation attack,” the Governor said.Huld got up and brushed himself down. The rumours were true, then! More than true. Huld hadn't ever been floored like that before, not even in his early years of training at the monastery. The Governor was an incredibly skilled and strong fighter. He had humiliated Huld with a single blow while barely batting an eyelid. Huld had better do what he was being asked.No longer pulling his punch, he performed the same move as he had improvised at the end of The Circumference Of The Earth, stamping the ground to raise up a large square block of earth from it, then punching it.The earthen block shot towards where the Governor stood a few paces away……then stopped dead still in place in front of him.“That is more like it,” said the Governor from behind the block.What?Huld had expected the Governor to leap out of the way, or to hit the block and explode it with a blow. Not stop it.The block shot back along the ground towards Huld.“Catch it!” yelled the Governor.Huld almost didn't react in time, but just before the block of earth made impact with him he got his hand up and reached out with his mind, willing for the earthen block to stop. It came to rest about an inch from his face.“Good,” said the Governor from somewhere behind it. “Dear me, Huld, one little surprise and all your training almost goes out of the window. Return the block to the ground.”Huld wasn't sure what the Governor meant, but when he thought about it he realised what he was being ordered to do. He willed the block downwards, back into the floor, and it moved at his mental command, rejoining the earth that they stood on, sinking down to become a part of it again.Across the floor, the green-robed, stocky form of the Governor stood still, hands behind his back. His master favoured him with a half-smile from one side of his mouth.“That's it,” he said. “Don't be so surprised that I have earth manipulation abilities too. I've had them since long before you retrieved the Emerald.”I'm more than capable of defending myself, Huld suddenly remembered the Governor saying back in his chambers when the foreigners had been there last. He had wondered then what that comment had meant, but he had never imagined the full extent of its implications.“But how, Lord Governor?” he asked.“Who do you think it was that placed the Emerald in the Shrine to Eto in the first place?” the Governor snapped irritably. He began to pace slowly back and forth across the training room floor as he spoke. “I did, as a young man, when ordered to do so by Governor Restra. I was a monk like you once, Huld. I swore the vows of service. But one's service to Farr can take a Farrian to many different places. After I hid the Emerald in the old Shrine, I was ordered to change my name and begin a political career. By the time Governor Restra's term of office finished, he had so manoeuvred me that I was his obvious successor, so the High Council voted to put me in charge.”“If I may be so bold, Lord Governor…” Huld said, “...why?”“Because the knowledge of the Emerald's whereabouts and how to obtain it was too important to entrust to anyone but the Governor of Farr. I grew too old to be able to retrieve it myself, though I do still retain, ahem, some fighting skill.”Huld's back twinged. The Governor certainly did retain some fighting skill.“However,” the Governor continued, “I knew I could count on you to retrieve it for me.”Huld thought of telling him how much the foreigners had helped, but he decided to hold his tongue. He continued to listen like an obedient soldier, though he wasn't sure where this was going.“Governor Restra thought to hide the Emerald away,” said the Governor, “because he thought that would keep Farr safe from those from elsewhere who would seek to steal it, and because he thought its power was too dangerous to be used. Do you understand?”Huld nodded. “Yes, Lord Governor.”“But he was wrong,” said the Governor.Huld held his jaw shut tight to hide his puzzlement.“Restra thought that it would benefit us to hide the Jewel away, where nobody could get to it, not even us! I too once thought as he did, and as you clearly do too now.”Huld opened his mouth to protest.“Do not deny it!” the Governor barked, cutting him off. “As I say, I once thought as you do too, but I see now that Governor Restra was foolish and misguided. We hid the Emerald away, and filthy foreigners came asking for it anyway. And not just any regular old filthy foreigners, but foreigners with their own elemental manipulation abilities!” The Governor spat loudly onto the floor in front of him, as if it had made a foul taste in his mouth just to speak of them. His spit landed in a little puddle and began to seep into the earthen floor. “And they tell us that the Emperor of Morekemia has learned of the Jewels too, and is looking for them! What is the correct response to this, I ask you?”Silence held the training room. Huld thought that the Governor's question had been rhetorical, but then he realised a response was expected.“Ah,” he said. He weighed his options carefully. “To fight, Lord Governor?”“To fight!” said the Governor. He had stopped pacing and stood looking at Huld now, his green eyes verdant and wild as he raised his chin. “Thank you, Huld! There is hope for you yet! Yes, ‘to fight'! Why should we sit by with our nation's Primeval Jewel hidden away in a temple while the rest of the world runs around after the others, squabbling with themselves over who gets the most territory? If we had continued to do that, it would only have been a matter of time before some filthy foreigners came looking and retrieved it for themselves, or grew strong enough to conquer us with their own Jewel-powers! The Jewels are not to be hidden, Huld, they are to be used! If we make use of the Emerald, there will be no nation that can overthrow us!”Huld's jaw was starting to ache from how hard he was holding it tight. Discomfort churned in his stomach. The Governor had grown increasingly animated as he had been speaking, working himself up into a most un-Farrian passion. He knew that the Governor was a hot-tempered and impatient man, but he had never seen him like this.He had to do it. He had to voice his objection.“But Lord Governor…” Huld said carefully, “it seems to me from my experience with the foreigners that certain Jewel-elements are vulnerable to attack from others–”“Nonsense!” erupted the Governor, almost shouting now. Huld should not have questioned him. “You only think that because you are young in your earth-gift. Properly trained, a Farrian earth-wielder is unbeatable. How could we not be? We are the greatest fighters in the whole of Mid! Fighting is our very way of life! It is arrogant of any other nation to even think to hope that they could challenge us, let alone Morekemia! This is what you must demonstrate at the tournament in four days' time. When you defeat all of those foreigners in combat, you will show not only our citizens but the whole of Mid that Farr is supreme and that we will not be bested in combat. News of your victory and your abilities will spread to the other nations, and nobody, not even Morekemia, will think to challenge us militarily! And even if they do, we will be waiting for them, and we will crush them with our earth manipulation. Our army will be more than ready to do so once they have all been touched with the Emerald and trained by you as their Military Commander!”Huld bowed his head. “Yes, Lord Governor,” he said. Huld could see no other appropriate response. He knew of no other. Military Commander, he thought. That was a step-up even from ‘Personal Bodyguard to the Governor'.“Good,” said the Governor. “Now come. You have clearly taken to earth-manipulation quickly, just as I did. You have the basics well enough, but I have the advantage of many more years of training in fighting with earth. There are a number of advanced techniques I have to show you. And you will no doubt invent your own. That manipulation you performed on the foreigners in my chamber, for example–hardening the earth around their feet–was clever, but I have long since moved far beyond things like that. Let me show you. Take Dragon stance.”Huld did so, positioning himself side-on to the Governor, pulling one fist back low with a bent elbow for the ‘tail', and holding the other one up with his arm at a right-angle, with two bent fingers jutting up out of his fist, the ‘horns' of the dragon.“Good,” said the Governor. “Now, watch.”The Governor began to demonstrate his advanced techniques, training him, and Huld followed obediently, making the movements that his master prescribed and holding back from showing his astonishment at the techniques, participating wholeheartedly.Well, almost wholeheartedly.In the soil of his heart, a tiny seed of doubt had been planted. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit sagaofthejewels.substack.com

Elizabeth Barnes is an author and Professor of philosophy at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, she reflects on her unconventional journey into philosophy, and her experience living with disabilities. Elizabeth questions conventional views on disability, advocating for a more nuanced understanding of wellbeing, and shares how philosophy helps her find comfort and meaning in life's challenges.Learn more about Elizabeth and read her books!Donate to The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's ResearchDonate to The Davis Phinney Foundation for Parkinson'sKeep up to date with Peter on SubstackKeep up to date with Kasia!If you would like to support the podcast please consider our PatreonExecutive Producer: Rachel BarrettThanks to our volunteer researchers Hendrik Dahlmeier and Mihika Chechi, and Chris van Ryn!And special thanks to Suzi Jamil! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this week's edition of the Flavors of Northwest Arkansas Podcast, we're in Fayetteville at Calle Latin Cuisine interviewing chef Fernando Castillo. But before we hear from him?!?! FOOD NEWS!! Onyx will open a shared space in the Fayetteville Square, and they'll be serving much more than drinks. Brightwater officially opens its artisanal butchery program and butcher shop. We'll hear from Butchery Instructor Travis McConnell. Mermaids has locked in a new spot in Rogers. We'll tell you where that is. Roll and Fold in Rogers has closed, but is open under a new concept. Ryn in Bentonville will do a documentary, and you can get involved. The Fat Chef MAY not be closing after all, but several things have to go right. They're popping bottles at Tusker's Tavern in Fayetteville Calle Latin Cuisine in Fayetteville will be a year old in April. Owner and Executive Chef Fernando Castillo is originally from Puebla, Mexico, and at the age of 20, decided to move with a friend to New York- he'll tell you why. Also, why did he end up coming to Fayetteville from New York? It wasn't as popular a destination in the early 2000's.     On the food side of things, he'll talk about his influences, including stealing a recipe from his Ecuadorian wife. Kind of. That's in this edition of the Flavors of Northwest Arkansas.

Talk of herbal detox comes up every spring – some years, earlier than others. We field a lot of questions from people asking our opinions on detox protocols, bowel cleanses, liver flushes, you name it. So, in this episode, we're giving you our fundamental thoughts on the topic.Ryn wrote you a poem that sums up our perspective. Here it is:The Don't Oxif you think you need a detox,hear & heed the Don't Ox –listen well when he talks,when he says:Don't.don't you doubt your liver!,and the action it deliversin concert with your kidneysto clean your blood.if you feed your body rightlyif you sleep you well a-nightlyif you walk when sun shines brightlyyou'll keep inner waters clear.you don't need to haunt the potty –you just need to trust your body:give it nicely more than naughtywithout force and without fear.if you taste a bit of bittereat some greens at every dinnerthen you'll run that inner riverin a flow, but not a flood!now every day's a detoxand our good old friend the Don't Oxis sure when we hear “purge” talkwe'll remember:Don't.Listen to the episode for the elucidation and explanation of everything that's contained in this poem!Perhaps you will adopt the Don't Ox as a personal mascot, too.

On this episode of the CritRPG Podcast I talk with Dungeon Core Online Author Ryn, AKA Jonathan Smidt to talk about streaming, drinking and the Wild West. -------------------------------------------We have our own website now! It has all the info you need, a merch store, and more!https://critrpgpodcast.com/If you want to listen to the entire podcast without ads, PLUS at least ONE HOUR of additional content for EVERY EPISODE, consider subscribing to our Patreon!https://www.patreon.com/critrpgpodcastFind my own books and other links herehttps://linktr.ee/madix3I am active in these Discords and Groups! Check them out if you want to discuss LitRPG and progression Fantasy novels! https://linktr.ee/critrpglinksFor business inquiries: critrpgpodcast.social@gmail.com-------------------------------------------Ryn's SeriesElemental DungeonDungeon Core OnlineElemental GunslingerResonance: D.E.D. ExorcistAcedBooks MentionedHe Who Fights With MonstersDungeon Crawler CarlHeretical FishingBeware of ChickenFirth ChroniclesElf EmpireMimic & MeEverybody Loves Large ChestsSupport this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/critrpg-a-podcast-about-litrpg-progression-fantasy-and-their/donations

Ryn is tookiethings on Instagram. Tookie things are small special things. Ryn learnt to sew from her mother but you'll need to listen or watch how her mother went that extra mile at night to help Ryn and her sister learn to sew. Her makes are so eye catching and she's a great SewOver50 follower to get inspired by. You'll enjoy how Ryn meticulously plans her makes. And yes she does sew for your children. Make sure you follow Ryn on Instagram. Thanks Ryn for letting us know how helpful Sandy's LIVE about using Instagram was so helpful to you. Make sure you head over to SewOver50 highlights to learn more about Instagram.

We've started a Patreon! Dashers who join our patreon will get access to our discord, behind the scenes content, exclusive mini arcs and one shots (including the Hammershold Arc!) and much more! Join the adventure now to guarantee a second season! go to patreon.com/dashaction With Tarun down and the Ryn approaching, the team still faces the threat of their attackers, but will they all make it out of this one? Tune in to find out!

Happy New Year!!! Welcome to 2025, and thanks for listening to our first podcast of the year, we appreciate you being here! I know that there are folks out there that are kicking off the year with a dry January, and we wish you all the success... However, here at the Flavors of Northwest Arkansas, we toast to the New Year with Sassafras Springs Vineyard and Winery... we'll talk with them in a minute. But first- Food News! Wanted to start with the Yankabilly Smokehouse- the former food truck at the Boardwalk in Springdale is now open inside Mothership on Emma. They've been up and going for 3 weeks and co-owner Aaron Kemper told me that they have some big plans for the spring, and it might involve their outdoor stage. 2025 will also be bringing some new restaurants and concepts to our area, and there are plenty that we're excited about: We kick it off with the Handshake coming to South College in Fayetteville. It's one of the 2 concepts coming from the Conifer team this year.. Former Conifer GM Hope Ray is a Fayetteville native and will be at the helm for this one. Just like Conifer, the menu will be gluten-free and have a heavy emphasis on being locally sourced. It will also have a market with locally sourced meat, veggies and more. The building is taking on a significant remodel, so it will take some time. The other concept from Conifer was announced a month ago, RYN. It'll be in Bentonville, and will be a farm-to-table tasting menu restaurant in a renovated farmhouse right next to their farm. They also plan to have events on their surrounding land. Yeyo's Executive Chef and Owner Rafael Rios got busier in 2024 as he became part-owner in downtown Springdale's Bauhaus Biergarten... He'll get even busier this year, as he'll be opening Casa Magnolia directly across Allen Street from Bauhaus. According to their website, outside of the café, they'll have a Two Friends Community Book kiosk, art, coffee, clubs, ice cream and more... We'll let you know when we hear about a grand opening date. Bentonville Chinese Restaurant Wu Zhao is projected to open later this month. It'll be owned by Blu Fresh Fish Marketplace's Barry Furuseth, Vincent Yao Lim, who's executive chef and known as the Wolf of WOK Street in Australia with millions of social media followers, and former champion of Netflix's Zumbo's Just Desserts, Catherine Zhang. We talked with them on November 13th, if you want to hear that episode. They'll be opening next door to Mezzaluna in downtown Bentonville. Sadly, yesterday was the final day of service for Mermaids in their current location in Fayetteville. I did receive confirmation yesterday that they're still targeting April for their opening date at their new location... still no confirmation yet on the location but will let you know once it's set. Sassafras Springs Vineyard and Winery is many things... a winery, a wedding venue, a retail space, a restaurant, a place to stay and more, but it certainly didn't start out that way. Co-owner Cheryl Long and GM Drew Gorton detail for us the journey to what it is today. They're mother and son of a family-run business, and that cast continues to grow. They have some wines that have won impressive awards in some of the biggest competitions in the US. How did they learn to make wine? You'll hear that story. Equally as important, how do they bottle it? They started off bottling by hand. It's been an evolution for sure, and they recently made a huge investment in it. Finally, we ask all of our guests what their last 24 hours was like- they had a great, albeit frazzling story! Listen wherever you listen to podcasts!

On this week's edition of the Flavors of Northwest Arkansas podcast, we're in Springdale where we interviewed the 3 owners of Rein Sushi & Hibachi. We'll talk to Raynor, Bari and Avery shortly, but first... Food News!! Some big food news came down yesterday. James Beard nominated Chef Matthew Cooper and the folks at Conifer announced a new endeavor on Monday night- It's called RYN! It will be a farm-to-table tasting menu restaurant, and like Conifer, it'll be gluten-free. Also like Conifer, they'll support local farmers and purveyors, providing fresh, and sustainable ingredients. If you listened to Conifer's podcast with us in March, you heard Chef Cooper break the news that they'd have their own farm soon. Well, that farm will be right outside the back door, and they'll be growing much of their own food right on the farm. They also hope to provide community events and much more. It's set to open next year. We'll have more info as it becomes available and catch up with Chef Cooper next year. The Ozark Beer Company's release of its heralded Bourbon Double Cream Stout, or BDCS, went live Monday, and as of last night, they were still selling it on their website. It's a smaller run this year, so it won't last long. You can pick up your orders in their taproom starting December 28th. There are few things I like more than fun food & Bev promotions, and one smacked me RIGHT across the face the other day on Instagram. Black Apple Hard Cider is having a Short Girl Appreciation night, where they'll short your tab 10% if you're a female under 5-foot-2... it runs from 5-10pm on Tuesday December 21st... don't forget, they have a full cocktail program now to go along with some of the country's best cider. Speaking of cocktails, if you're in the Siloam area, Park House Kitchen & Bar has come out with their holiday cocktail menu! That Peppermint Mocha White Russian and Smores Old Fashioned have my attention. Check it out on their social media... Now to Rein Sushi & Hibachi... to be so young, what a past these folks have. There are 3 owners, Reiner Wibowo, Averie Mattix and Bari Abe, and they're super-tight. Reiner and Bari are both originally from Indonesia but met in Harrison, Arkansas, where they both met Averie and started a popular business there that they'll talk about. Later, they got the itch to open in an area where they liked to go on their off days, Northwest Arkansas. This is their 2nd business here, but the first one was purposefully short-lived, while they were looking for a place to set up their dream business... By the way, there are some unique menu items that we get to the bottom of! Check out Reiner, Averie and Bari on this edition of the Flavors of Northwest Arkansas!

Ryn Gargulinski is an award-winning author, artist, and speaker dedicated to helping others live freely and joyfully.   She founded the Sanctuary of the Wild Souls which aimed at guiding individuals to rise above mediocrity and reach higher states of consciousness.   Ryn has written over ten books, including her memoir How to Get Through Hell on Earth Without Drinking a Keg or Kicking a Garden Gnome.   Ryn emphasizes helping people reconnect with their true selves and break free from self-imposed limitations.   She explains that her work is driven by personal experiences, and she channels insights from her spirit self when writing.   Ryn also stresses the importance of establishing a sanctuary for the soul daily to set a positive tone.   In addition, Ryn highlights the need to remain open to possibilities rather than being fixated on specific desires. LinkedIn: Ryn Gargulinski  Website: Sanctuary of the Wild Souls   Check out our CEO Hack Buzz Newsletter–our premium newsletter with hacks and nuggets to level up your organization. Sign up HERE.  I AM CEO Handbook Volume 3 is HERE and it's FREE. Get your copy here: http://cbnation.co/iamceo3. Get the 100+ things that you can learn from 1600 business podcasts we recorded. Hear Gresh's story, learn the 16 business pillars from the podcast, find out about CBNation Architects and why you might be one and so much more. Did we mention it was FREE? Download it today!

Whitney Cerak and Laura van Ryn were involved in a tragic accident in April of 2006. They were both students at Taylor University in Indiana, when a van they were riding in collided with a semi truck a top speed and several people were killed instantly. In the aftermath, a mistake was discovered, leading to a heartbreaking revelation for both the Cerak and Van Ryn families. Whitney and Laura's story gained significant media attention and raised discussions about identity and loss. Their experiences were later chronicled in books and a documentary, exploring themes of forgiveness and resilience. Find the book here: https://a.co/d/bl5Zuri Click here to join our Patreon.  Connect with us on Instagram and join our Facebook group.  To submit listener stories or case suggestions, and to see all sources for this episode: https://www.inhumanpodcast.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Varför har Donald Trump blivit så populär? Den konservative statsvetaren Claes G. Ryn som är bosatt i USA ger här sin syn på saken. Inläsare: Staffan Dopping

IF YOU'RE SEEING THIS IN JULY 2024, USE CODE "LAVENDER" AT CHECKOUT TO GET 20% OFF ANY OF OUR COURSES OR PROGRAMS!This originally aired as Episode 139 of the Holistic Herbalism Podcast. We're replaying it in June 2024 because of the increase in interest in cognitive troubles associated with COVID. Don't despair - you can take steps to protect your mind!Here' s the study mentioned in the intro: Quan et al. Post-COVID cognitive dysfunction: current status and research recommendations for high risk population. Lancet. 2023;38.Maintaining a sharp & healthy mind has always been one of the things people ask us about most often. Whether it's a nagging difficulty recalling words, or a tendency to forget why you walked into a room – or more seriously, a relative showing early signs of dementia – lots of folks are wondering if there are herbs for cognitive decline prevention. And here's the good news: there are!When we're trying to diminish the risk of dementia, herbs can help in a few different ways. For one, they can improve circulation to the brain, bringing in fresh oxygen and nutrients to keep the nerve cells well-fed. They can also protect those nerves and thus stave off senility, by reducing inflammation and improving nerve communications (both chemical and electrical).But keeping your mind agile and avoiding Alzheimer's isn't something you can accomplish just by taking some supplements or drinking some tea – even with the best herbs in the world. You've got to feed your brain – get those omega-3s! And perhaps most importantly, you need good restful sleep, and plenty of it. Lack of sleep is probably the single biggest contributor to diminishing mental acuity; good quality sleep is the best guarantee of a healthy brain & mind. Herbs can help here, too – to ease the transition into sleep, to deepen sleep, and even to help you dream.Herbs discussed in this episode include: rosemary, sage, tulsi, ginkgo, gotu kola, & lion's mane.Our Neurological & Emotional Health course includes more material about preventing cognitive decline, as well as a whole host of herbal and holistic strategies to support healthy nerves, brain, mind, and emotions. This self-paced online video course includes access to twice-weekly live Q&A sessions so you can connect with Katja & Ryn directly. It includes a lengthy discussion of herbal pain management strategies, too!As always, please subscribe, rate, & review our podcast wherever you listen, so others can find it more easily. Thank you!!Our theme music is “Wings” by Nicolai Heidlas.Support the Show.You can find all of our online herbalism courses at online.commonwealthherbs.com!

When it comes to the A Quiet Place franchise we kept coming back to one big question: What are the biological factors that would allow these terrifying aliens who terrorize Earth to hunt via sound alone? The aliens, often referred to as “dark angels” in the films, have a number of distinct characteristics which will inform our questions. For starters, they're blind but incredibly sensitive to sound, which gives them an instinct to kill everything that emits the slightest noise. They are also incredibly strong and fast and they possess armored skin which protects them from most kinds of weapons, including bombs and fire. The only ways to kill them (so far) are to drop them into deep water (since they can't swim) or by emitting high-frequency sound which causes the armor on their heads to open and expose their only vulnerable part: their ears. In this episode we will dive into how this alien echolocation differs from what we see in animals native to our planet, and the environmental factors that might have contributed to how and why these creatures evolved as they did.  And then there are all the story elements to consider, from the sound design (and lack thereof) of the films themselves, the question of childbirth in a world where uttering a sound can get you killed, and much more. Oh yeah, and then you might want to find out who from the film thought this movie should have been called Don't Fart. It's all fair game in Does it Fly? episode 12!SUGGESTED VIEWINGThis episode is FULL OF SPOILERS, don't say we didn't warn you! So, we'd recommend you watch both A Quiet Place and A Quiet Place Part II. Keep in mind, we recorded this episode without having seen A Quiet Place Day One (in theaters now), so there's no spoilers for that film. And if you've seen the entire franchise and still need this creepy itch scratched, when watching A Quiet Place, Hakeem also thought about the 2018 film Bird Box (you can find it on Netflix) starring Sandra Bullock, where the threat is sight instead of sound—if you see the force extinguishing humans, you die. It's kind of creepy, but definitely a good horror watch before going to bed!FURTHER READING Do you want to delve a little deeper into the facts, concepts, and stories Hakeem and Tamara referenced in today's episode? Here are a few recommendations!Echolocation“Let's talk about the anatomy of these aliens... They are big and strong. Their limbs are incredibly long and at the end they have these claw-like hands... Their heads are made of these plates that open to reveal the fleshy parts underneath. But their exoskeleton and the plates on their head, those things are virtually impenetrable. So, in order to kill it, what they've discovered is, is that with the right high frequency pitch... The monster just freaks out all the plates, opens on his head, making it vulnerable, and then they can take it out.” See also: Engaging Silence: Behind the Daring Sound of A Quiet PlaceHearing in Cockroaches, Spiders, Elephants and Other AnimalsHow Cockroaches Experience the World“There are some animals that use air movements [to listen]. One of my favorites is one of my least favorites… I was a kid in New Orleans. And if you live in New Orleans, especially in the 1970s, you have to deal with a monster even scarier than the one in this movie… They're called roaches.” See also: Do Cockroaches have ears?The Earth's terminator Line“There's that ring that separates the light side from the dark side, what we call the terminator in astronomy. And at the terminator [on planets that do not rotate] there will always be incredibly strong winds. So you will need something like those big claw hands to just sit there against those winds.” See also: The Moon's Terminator LineProject Hail Mary“Andy Weir, who wrote The Martian which then became a movie with Matt Damon, also wrote Project Hail Mary, which I don't want to give too much of it away, but… a big part of the book is trying to figure out and understand the aliens' background [and] the kind of world that they come from.” How A Quiet Place Sound Designers Made Audiences Afraid of Their Own Noise“Ethan Van der Ryn and Erik Aadahl, who were actually nominated for an Oscar for sound editing for the first film… said:  ”By working on scary films as sound designers, we can become the puppet masters of the audience's emotions in an invisible way as opposed to the image. A great picture editor, Walter Marsh, had this wonderful saying along the lines of ‘images come in through the front door, but sound comes in through the back door'.” WANT MORE FROM DOES IT FLY? Can't get enough of The Boys, now in its fourth season on Prime Video? Well then you certainly won't want to miss our episode detailing how Starlight's powers might work!FOLLOW US!Stay in the loop! Follow DoesItFly? on YouTube and TikTok and let us know what you think! And don't forget to follow Roddenberry Entertainment:Instagram: @RoddenberryOfficial Facebook: RoddenberryTwitter: @Roddenberry  *Roddenberry Entertainment participates in affiliate programs and may receive a small commission for links on this page*For Advertising Inquiries: doesitfly@roddenberry.com

Join Finn and Ryn on a tranquil journey through magical floating islands, where ancient riddles and enchanting landscapes await. This soothing bedtime adventure is perfect for winding down and drifting into peaceful slumber, filled with serene moments and gentle discoveries. Your support is the cornerstone that allows me to continue crafting tranquil stories and meditations for you. For just $4.99 a month, you'll unlock an oasis of over 400 ad-free Listen To Sleep episodes, including 8 subscriber-only full length sleepy audiobooks like Winnie the Pooh and Alice in Wonderland. Ready for a more serene, uninterrupted listening experience? To subscribe, visit⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://listentosleep.com/support⁠⁠ To join my email group and get a bunch of goodies, go to ⁠⁠https://listentosleep.com⁠⁠. Sleep well, friends.

THIS IS SHOWING US WHAT COULD HAVE BEEN! CAN MVCI BE REVIVED?!? An amazing collaborative effort is underway to completely revamp Marvel Vs. Capcom Infinite's graphics. And it's being funded by none other than Maximillian Dood! Developer "Ryn" aka twitter.com/WistfulHopes began an effort to improve MvCI's graphics and, once Max got word of it, the project has gone into full gear. Check out the super beautiful beginnings of one of the most amazing glowups we've ever seen! == TIME STAMPS == 0:00:00 Intro 0:01:26 Ryn's Initial Phases 0:05:28 Maximillian Dood Steps In! 0:09:43 Progress Since Max's Funding 0:14:57 CLEARLY Graphics Matter! 0:16:48 Realism Is Overrated!! 0:19:44 The Video Game Industry Is In Trouble 0:21:40 Closing Thoughts Find the YouTube version of this episode here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m8--yd4qQGc Get the audio version of this episode here: https://soundcloud.com/ultrachentv/mvciglowup Soundcloud - https://soundcloud.com/ultrachentv Itunes - http://UltraChenTV.com/iTunes Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/4nOFXvdcuJng3Y14qK3CVF Join the UltraChen Discord! https://discord.gg/VAmkUdp Please consider supporting our Patreon! http://patreon.com/ultrachentv Twitch - http://twitch.tv/ultrachentv Twitter - http://twitter.com/ultrachentv James Chen http://twitter.com/jchensor https://www.twitch.tv/jchensor #FGC #Esports #Podcast

Recorded April 9, 2024 It's been nearly two years (August 2022) since Ryn has been on the podcast, so Meredith and Abe thought it would be a good idea to catch up with this beautiful person of Echelon and see what's new. We talk a bit about Eche-hubby, cheese straws and Big Parma (yes, you read that right), and instant Correction Corner for Abe, and we even talk about possible ways to redeem all your Ryn points! In addition to all the laughter throughout the episode, the lesson learned here is "Don't yuck someone's yum"!

Tiffany La'Ryn and King Gotit join the show and share how they built their YouTube Empire!Podcast is powered by @BlankitMedia and is available on all listening platforms (Apple, Spotify, Google podcast...)https://linktr.ee/everydayisfridayshowConnect with Everyday is FridayFollow Us On All Socialshttp://Instagram.com/everydayisfridayshowhttp://facebook.com/everydayisfridayshowhttp://tiktok.com/everydayisfridayshowhttps://twitch.tv/everydayisfridayshowhttp://twitter.com/edifshowFollow Your Favorite Hosts:Robiiiworld @robiiiworldTeddy2Stupid @teddy2stupid

Oh boy...are we ever in a bit of a pickle with this episode (hehehehe). The shenanigans continue with talk of pickles, bubble tea, sleep meditation and Echelon news. We also have the usual shoutouts and fun LB names, a bit of a different take on an experts segment with Reed, and a proper Did You Know! Buckle up for another fun episode! [00:00] Quick catch-up, and Meredith's anxiety [04:37] Abe's "trip" [05:29] Watcha watchin'? [09:20] Spring has sprung, and why Meredith hates summer [12:32] Meredith's birthday - and Abe's gift to her (and you) [23:30] Stop the presses! Abe tried something new! [25:51] Don't ask Meredith to store anything in a safe place! [29:05] Echelon News [46:08] Abe tries sleep meditation with Ryn [53:36] Fun LB names [55:51] Shout outs [1:01:54] Ask the Experts [1:11:30] Did you Know?

In this 3-part series Costi Hinn interviews pastor and author, Tim Challies, about the loss of his son, Nick, in 2020. Nick was a young man on the pathway to ministry and deeply loved by his family. He was engaged to Ryn, enjoying life, and going to school at Boyce College (Southern Seminary) when the Lord called him home suddenly. Tim has always been known for his faithful teaching and writing ministry (www.challies.com), but the Lord has seen fit to add a "ministry of sorrow" to Tim's life. This series will take a deep dive into the Challies family story, the aftermath of losing Nick, big questions about God's goodness, sovereignty, grief, and suffering as a Christian. 

The Creator is the recent film by Director Gareth Edwards, that features a sound design philosophy of Retro Futurism. The world is going to war over Artificial Intelligence and the robots, or simulants, powered by AI. Oscar Nominees for their sound work on The Creator, Erik Aadahl & Ethan Van der Ryn, give sonic life to multiple generations of futuristic robots, weapons and vehicles. Show Notes: https://tonebenderspodcast.com/249---the-creator-with-erik-aadahl--ethan-van-der-ryn/ Podcast Homepage: https://tonebenderspodcast.com Tonebenders Host This Episode: Timothy Muirhead

In his review of Claes G. Ryn's The Failure of American Conservatism, David Gordon points out that Austrian economic methodology is not a value-laden Jacobin experiment, but rather a workable explanation of how a successful economy works. Original Article: Jacobin Capitalism?

In his review of Claes G. Ryn's The Failure of American Conservatism, David Gordon points out that Austrian economic methodology is not a value-laden Jacobin experiment, but rather a workable explanation of how a successful economy works. Original Article: Jacobin Capitalism?

Today we reach the end of our apothecary shelves! This series started way back with episode 170 on Achillea & Acorus, and today in episode 227 we've finally come to Zingiber.Today's entire episode is all about ginger. (Yes, it deserves its own entire episode. If you don't already believe it, we will convince you!)We discuss Katja's evolving preference for fresh vs dried ginger in our tea blends at home, and some of the variations in activity between fresh vs dried ginger. We talk about quick topical applications of this wildly accessible herb, to relieve muscle aches, joint pains, and other musculoskeletal discomforts. Ryn takes time for an ode to candied ginger – yes, it's sugar, but there are plenty of reasons why it's excellent to have! You can easily make your own, too.Maybe you could put some chopped candied ginger into some ginger-chamomile cookies, eh?You can even grow your own ginger, if you're up for it!Finally, we mention some relatives of ginger, members of the Zingiberaceae: turmeric (Curcuma longa), galangal (Alpinia galanga), cardamom (Elettaria cardamomum), grains of paradise (Aframomum melegueta), korarima (Aframomum corrorima), “shampoo ginger lily / bitter ginger” (Zingiber zerumbet). These are all worth experimenting with and comparing to ginger – they have a lot in common, with some individual nuances. Watch out for “wild gingers” of the Asarum genus, though – those have risks of liver toxicity.Ginger's an herb we love so much, we probably mention it in every course we teach… but especially in the Digestive Health course! Learning to care for digestion is a critical skill for herbalists, and a place herbs can do so much good.Like all our offerings, this is a self-paced online video course, which comes with free access to twice-weekly live Q&A sessions, lifetime access to current & future course material, twice-weekly live Q&A sessions with us, open discussion threads integrated in each lesson, an active student community, study guides, quizzes & capstone assignments, and more!If you enjoyed the episode, it helps us a lot if you subscribe, rate, & review our podcast wherever you listen. This helps others find us more easily. Thank you!Our theme music is “Wings” by Nicolai Heidlas.Support the showYou can find all of our online herbalism courses at online.commonwealthherbs.com!

As we continue our week of looking at Joy, we're going to take time today to receive a fresh revelation of how God rejoices over us.   God not only loves you, but he likes you. He rejoices over you, just as you are. I hope and pray that you get a real, tangible sense of God's joy over you today as we create space in his presence together. Our Scripture for today comes from Zephaniah 3:17, and today's worship is This Is The Sound by Steffany Gretzinger. -- Thanks for listening to today's First15 Podcast. My name is Ryn, and I'm a part of the First15 Team. If you haven't downloaded our brand new First15 app, make sure to click the link in today's show notes to check it out! One of the new features that you can enjoy when you download the app is our Guided Prayers. We are adding new prayers to our library every month, so if you need a moment of peace with God, let these prayers be your guide!

Did you know you have the ability to stir and satisfy the heart of God, here and now? God has given us the ability to choose him here on earth, and nothing blesses the heart of God like his beloved people intentionally turning their hearts toward him. As we examine how to live an abundant life here on earth, today we'll search out what it means to choose to worship God in our daily lives.   Our Scripture for today comes from Matthew 4:4, and today's worship is Heal Our Land. by Kari Jobe. -- Thanks for listening to today's First15 Podcast. My name is Ryn, and I'm a part of the First15 Team. If you haven't downloaded our brand new First15 app, make sure to click the link in today's show notes to check it out! One of the new features that you can enjoy when you download the app is our Guided Prayers. We are adding new prayers to our library every month, so if you need a moment of peace with God, let these prayers be your guide! In today's First15 Podcast we wanted to give you a preview of a new Guided Prayer that our friend Hannah Smith wrote titled, “Renew me with your rest.” Oftentimes when I think about rest and peace I view them as one and the same. But as I read through Hannah's prayer, I began thinking about how often she refers to action that leads to rest and prays for the grace of God to help her find rest. The first time rest is mentioned in the scriptures is after the work of building the whole world and filling it with life was complete. Hebrews 4:11-12 says, “Let us therefore strive to enter that rest, lest anyone fall according to the same example of disobedience. For the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.” I love that this set of verses makes achieving rest an actionable thing. What I really love about understanding peace and rest rightly is that we can clearly see that peace is a gift from God that helps us endure as we strive towards entering into God's rest, and rest is the reward He gives us for having held fast to His calling. I pray today that this prayer reminds you that the work to which he has called us is holy and worthy, and that the promise of the reward of rest gives you the courage to keep going.   

Did you know you have the ability to stir and satisfy the heart of God, here and now? God has given us the ability to choose him here on earth, and nothing blesses the heart of God like his beloved people intentionally turning their hearts toward him. As we examine how to live an abundant life here on earth, today we'll search out what it means to choose to worship God in our daily lives.   Our Scripture for today comes from John 4:23, and today's worship is Where You'll Find Me by First15 Worship feat. Mark Alan Schoolmeesters. -- Thanks for listening to today's First15 Podcast. My name is Ryn, and I'm a part of the First15 Team. If you haven't downloaded our brand new First15 app, make sure to click the link in today's show notes to check it out! One of the new features that you can enjoy when you download the app is our Guided Prayers. We are adding new prayers to our library every month, so if you need a moment of peace with God, let these prayers be your guide! The prayer and worship of King David throughout the Psalms have stood the test of time since over 1000 years prior to Jesus' birth and remain some of the most beautifully powerful prayers in all of scripture. King David was careful to take time to delight in the Lord particularly when his heart was downcast. 1 Samuel 30:6-8 says, “And David was greatly distressed; for the people spake of stoning him, because the soul of all the people was grieved, every man for his sons and for his daughters: but David encouraged himself in the LORD his God.” And in several of the Psalms he begins his prayers with praise, recognition of his heart's truest desire, and rounds them out with self reflection. “Why are you downcast, O my soul? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God.” David's practice of acknowledging the beauty, majesty, love, power, and good intentions of the Lord toward him is what gave him the stability of mind to be able to be honest with God about reality while not losing hope. It is our prayer that this new Guided Prayer from our friend Laura Woodworth would serve to you as the first part of one of David's psalms when you have a difficult time finding the words for yourself, and that they would give you the foundation of faith that your heart needs to share with the Lord your concerns so that you can do so with confidence that he hears you, knows you, and is working in all things for your good and his glory.  

If our second devotional focusing on transformation, today we're exploring the ways in which God transforms us into new creations. Every day God longs to make us new, to forgive our sins and mold and fashion us into his likeness. May God do a mighty work today as we make room for him to move, and may we leave this focused time in his presence with a true feeling of being made new.   Our Scripture for today comes from 2 Corinthians 5:17, and today's worship is Never Be The Same by First15 feat. Ashley McCleery & Bryan McCleery. -- Thanks for listening to today's First15 Podcast. My name is Ryn, and I'm a part of the First15 Team. If you haven't downloaded our brand new First15 app, make sure to click the link in today's show notes to check it out! One of the new features that you can enjoy when you download the app is our Guided Prayers. We are adding new prayers to our library every month, so if you need a moment of peace with God, let these prayers be your guide!   The prayer and worship of King David throughout the Psalms have stood the test of time since over 1000 years prior to Jesus' birth and remain some of the most beautifully powerful prayers in all of scripture. King David was careful to take time to delight in the Lord particularly when his heart was downcast. 1 Samuel 30:6-8 says, “And David was greatly distressed; for the people spake of stoning him, because the soul of all the people was grieved, every man for his sons and for his daughters: but David encouraged himself in the LORD his God.” And in several of the Psalms he begins his prayers with praise, recognition of his heart's truest desire, and rounds them out with self reflection. “Why are you downcast, O my soul? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God.” David's practice of acknowledging the beauty, majesty, love, power, and good intentions of the Lord toward him is what gave him the stability of mind to be able to be honest with God about reality while not losing hope. It is our prayer that this new Guided Prayer from our friend Laura Woodworth would serve to you as the first part of one of David's psalms when you have a difficult time finding the words for yourself, and that they would give you the foundation of faith that your heart needs to share with the Lord your concerns so that you can do so with confidence that he hears you, knows you, and is working in all things for your good and his glory.

In the second day of our series on renewal, today we're going to invite God to renew our minds. Our minds are the gateway to our emotions, decisions, and perspectives. How we see the world around us, the assumptions we live with, the lies we believe, and where we choose to focus our attention, make all the difference in our daily experience. May God guide each of us down the path to renewing our minds in his presence, and through his word today, that we might experience a greater measure of abundant life in him.   Our Scripture for today comes from Romans 12:2, and today's worship is Sound Mind by Melissa Helser. -- Thanks for listening to today's First15 Podcast. My name is Ryn, and I'm a part of the First15 Team. If you haven't downloaded our brand new First15 app, make sure to click the link in today's show notes to check it out! One of the new features that you can enjoy when you download the app is our Guided Prayers. We are adding new prayers to our library every month, so if you need a moment of peace with God, let these prayers be your guide!   For the nights when you find yourself anxious, overly excited, or struggling for whatever reason and sleep seems to you like an unconquerable feat, know that you are not alone. Sleepless nights aren't always due to negative issues. Maybe you have something really exciting that you are looking forward to and the anticipation of it all becomes a canvas in your mind of endless possibilities. Whatever the reason, we pray that this new Guided Prayer by our friend Peyton Garland will help you invite God into the space that he already dwells, and open your heart both to release to him all that is on your mind and to dream with him about the possibilities. As you do, remember this invitation from scripture: "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light." Matthew 11:28  

As we continue our week on living in and pursuing the light, today we'll explore how we as God's people are called out of darkness and to the light. Our new inheritance as God's saints is to step out of hiding, and walk in full vulnerable honesty before God and man. May you be strengthened in grace and integrity today as you're re-envisioned toward your calling to the light.   Our Scripture for today comes from Ephesians 5:8, and today's worship is Let There Be Light by Hillsong. -- Thanks for listening to today's First15 Podcast. My name is Ryn, and I'm a part of the First15 Team. If you haven't downloaded our brand new First15 app, make sure to click the link in today's show notes to check it out! One of the new features that you can enjoy when you download the app is our Guided Prayers. We are adding new prayers to our library every month, so if you need a moment of peace with God, let these prayers be your guide!   Several times throughout scripture, we read stories about people who go through various struggles and bear witness to the story that God has woven through their determination, faith, willingness to yield to the Lord in prayer and to be courageous in all the ways that He calls them to be. The life, death, and resurrection of Jesus is the most compelling of them all as it tells the story of the God who loved his people and his creation so much that he chose to live among them, to sacrifice on their behalf, to redeem their lives, and to be and example of how to live in a way that honors the Lord, welcomes the kingdom of heaven in their lives, and anticipates the glory of the Lord in every beautiful way. It is our prayer that you would be encouraged today to seek the Holy Spirit and all his benefits as you journey with the Lord along the path on which he is leading you.