Critical Role & Sagas of Sundry - Relics and Rarities Ep. 1 - The Haunting of Benthem Manor with Matthew Lillard

Episode Date: June 17, 2024

A mysterious letter summons four adventurers to an unassuming curio shop called Relics & Rarities. They are recruited by its owner, Professor Roundland, who sends them to investigate the disturbances at Benthem Manor. Featuring special guest Matthew Lillard! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Sweet vanilla, smooth caramel maybe, or white chocolate mocha. Whichever you choose, delicious coffee awaits. Find Starbucks Rappuccino drinks wherever you buy your groceries. Relics and Rarities is sponsored by the Rook and the Raven, whose unique disc-bound tabletop gaming notebooks grow and evolve throughout your entire campaign. Find your mischief and misadventure only at the rook and the raven.com. Hello adventurers. A few weeks ago, you received a very strange letter, and the interesting thing about it,

was that it was written in ink that only you could read. You showed it to other people and no one else could see the writing on this piece of paper. And in it, it told you to go on this quest to find a few magic items. As you started on that quest, you met each other and you went and successfully found these items of which you have now brought with you today. You received another letter shortly after that, inviting you to this address, which is surprisingly for adventurers, a kind of awkward little curio shop in the middle of a small town called,

When you come into the Curia shop, you're greeted by this plump, cheery little old gnome woman. She says, hello, dearies. My name is Professor Roundland and welcome to relics and rarities. You must be the adventurers I ordered. Oh, yes. As ordered, here we are. Fantastic. Please come, have a seat.

Welcome. So she invites you to come in and sit down. And she says, yes, as you see, we have lots of interesting things here. And we are very impressed with what we have seen of your adventuring past. Well, of course. Yes, we've been watching you for quite some time. And in fact, Viros, I know you hail all the way from Azure Haven, my liege.

Oh, well, you've heard about that then. Yes, that's where I hail from. I didn't know you a royalty. Now, we've talked about this, you see? Among drinks, we might have forgotten. Yes, that's what happened. I can't say that I'm surprised a lot of women watch Viros a lot of the time.

Oh, so, so true. And Beryl the Brutal, the Brutal. We are so honored to have you in our presence. You're welcome. And Annabella? I am very ready to go on a mission for you. Oh my. But before we came in, you just said

you were gonna rob her for everything that she's has, right? No, no, no, no, no, she didn't say rob. Oh dear. I said, Barrow. Barrow, yeah. Well, don't you worry at all, because there will be loot in store for you. Oh.

And of course, Ricky, we have encountered you on both sides. of our investigations. I'm very glad to have you on our side of the table. Well, thank you for your service is rendered, and I'm happy to be of service to you, Ricky Huckster. We are honored and blessed to have you here. Look at how little he is. You always do that.

Sorry. Sorry. I suppose I should tell you a little bit about myself. As you know, my name is Professor Roundland, and I was one of the editors on the renowned compendium of curiosities. In fact, I am one of the few people with the only first edition copy. Oh.

Yes, of course. However, after I completed my work on the compendium, I started to notice all of the terrible things that were happening in the realm. And so I used my contacts with my adventurer friends, and we formed a little brigade of sorts, calling ourselves the R&R brigade. Oh.

Yes, rest and relaxation. It's very important. That or perhaps relics and rarities, which is of course what the compendium comprises. They both start with R as well, you see. Yeah. That's good. Anyways, we would like to extend an invitation to you

to perhaps do some work for the R&R. Well, now, we obviously are very valuable people. This we have noticed, yes. And it might be worth our time if there was some exchange of goods or money. I understand, yes, adventurers, you are not free. Unfortunately, the R&R is a non-profit organization. What does that mean?

However, if you complete your quest, as you are out doing your missions, you may keep any of the loot that you find. Aha. But no loot from here, like the first edition. Unfortunately, the first edition is very, very rare. I know. Well, I challenge you to find it.

Oh, a challenge. A challenge. I like challenges. Let's flip some tables now. Oh dear, oh dear, not quite yet. Yes, all right. Now I suppose I should tell you the reason why I have gathered you all here.

You may have noticed that some very strange things have been happening around this region. Of course there was the red tide when all of the marine animals, the mutilated bodies washed up on shore. Very, very strange indeed. And then the corpses were disappearing from the abbeys before anyone could be interred in the earth. They just went missing. Now truth be told, we sent many of our spies out to try and gather some information, but very few of them returned. We are now wary of your safety on these missions.

We ended up seeking out an oracle that we have spoken with before, a seer. Her name is Sarah Bentham, hoping that she could give us some guidance in how we could possibly solve these problems. Unfortunately, we received this letter from her wife instead. Annabella. Professor Rowland, I am so grateful to hear from you. Unfortunately, I write with bad news. Sarah is changed. I'm not sure how to explain it.

She barely speaks and won't get out of bed after dark. And then she is cruel and destructive. This is not the kind of true-hearted woman I married. I have tried all that it is at my disposal medically. She has not responded well. I fear I am beyond my depth. Now you know me to be a reasonable, perhaps even cynical person, so you will believe me when I tell you what troubles her is not of this world.

Strange things happen here at Betham Manor, unspeakable things. Someone or something is having my beloved and I am powerless to stop her. Sarah speaks highly of you. I know she would do anything to help your cause. Please send help. I am sure she will do whatever she can. Warm regards. Dr. Mary can be.

Oh dear. As you can see, we are quite distressed by this news. Sarah has been an invaluable asset to our brigade. Unfortunately, it seems that something is harming her. At this point, before you go on your quest, I would like to introduce you to an Alistair Goldenfang. Oh, you're dang good messrs. Hello to you as well.

Greetings. Hail. Alistair has some experience in matters with the other world. I think that means yes. That one smart, eh? You don't have to tell me. He is pretty intelligent. This is an excellent team.

You will be in excellent hands as well as with an excellent guide. So I walk in, I'm a 6'6 dragon-born golden dragon sorcerer. So he's huge and massive like 300 pounds. He's got a big maw with huge teeth. He's intimidating. For real. Possibly taller than you, even, yeah. Oh, he's massive.

Wonderful. So before you head out on this quest, as you may have noticed, things in this shop are not quite what they seem. I would like to offer you a gift. Oh. Viros. Yes.

Would you like to peruse the shop? You may choose anything that has a special tag on it. You know, I've noticed that one right next me's got a tag, you see. You should never grab the first thing. Exactly. like a strategy. Oh my goodness, I'm on fire. I'm so proud of him. He's coming off. You're very, watch the lantern. You're so tall. Oh yes, of course. Thank you.

Don't swing from it. He's going to pick what I want. Hey, look at that. It's got a ram's head. It's very strong, very tough. As you are on your adventures, I would advise you that you need not be worried of any pathway, any narrow pathway. Oh, useful. Very useful. My shoulders sometimes don't clear. doorways, you know, so that's helpful. Beryl, would you now like to cruise the shop? I can have something? You can take anything with a special tag for free.

You guys always ask me for money. Yes, this is a special situation. Oh, well, then I'm really excited. Shiny. I always picked the shiny. Annabella told me that things like this are usually valuable. Good girl. Please, oh, a very interesting item.

You can have it. For free? You may. I would encourage you to open it. speak some words and close it for another time. At some point along your journey. Annabella, would you like to choose something? One item.

One item. Wow. Wow. What did she find? Oh my goodness. That's awesome. Wonderful, Annabella. I'm sure you will find those very useful.

Whenever you are in the dark, I suggest you try them up. Ooh, nice. Very useful for you indeed. I can help you with this. Yes. Ricky Deer. Yes. Your turn.

I'm so very excited. Let me see. Now we've got some sheet music here, very interesting. A pocket watch. You know, I'm going to take the pocket watch. Oh, the pocket watch is one of my favorites. That took a very long time to find.

Oh. This, I suggest you wind it, and for an hour, time may seem a little different to you. Nice. Very useful indeed. Now, Alistair, my good old friend, please. I do the pick too. Anything with a first time.

Oh, I thought I didn't get. Like a dragon in a china shop. Unfortunately. Settle down. It might take a while. All right, I'm gonna take this pouch. Oh. I don't know what's in it, but I'm gonna take it.

You find that there is one gold coin in it, but I would suggest you look again a few minutes later. I look again a few minutes later. Another gold coin. Hey! Ricky. I should trade. I'll trade you.

I'll play you. I feel like that's gonna pay for itself over time. Like, what's that story you told me about chickens? That they're delicious. But if you eat the chicken, then you don't make money. But if you don't eat the chicken, then you get to keep making money. It sounds business.

It sounds business. I would say, unfortunately, at dawn, you may find yourself disappointed. I would betray my pouches of shite. I think I'm good. There, there, Dragon Man. It will be all right. I don't know how.

Thank you, Prince. You're trying to make you feel better. At this point, I think you are ready to begin your quest. Please follow me. What? No way. Wait a second. What?

Oh, the most incredible set ever. Oh, my God. Please. Enter our space. I knew it was there all the long. Oh my goodness. It's bigger on the inside. All right, all right.

All right, all right, Dungeon Master. Well, thank you so much, yes. All right then. Well played, D.M. Yes, they're very pleased. All right, now you all die. Yes, you can go home now, yes.

So yes, here you are on your way to Bentham Manor to save young Sarah. You have your guide, Alistair, with you. He will hopefully come in useful in this particular environment. You start out, Bentham Manor is on an island in the middle of a lake. you find a sort of large rowboat waiting for you at a dock where you're told to meet a Mr. Powell who greets you. He's sort of wrinkly and old gray hair and he beckons you. You all just fit in this rowboat.

I mean, with three very large people, he looks a little nervous and the whole thing sort of sinks. There you go. Um, little man. It doesn't change the weight, but you know. It all kind of sinks a little low and the little water splashes in. He looks nervous, but it's okay. And then he ends up handing one of the other oars to you so he can have a little extra help rowing across this lake. The first thing you notice is very, very foggy. You can't see very much in front of you at all.

Luckily, Mr. Powell seems to know the way. He looks at you and he says, Oh, I certainly hope you can help us with Miss Sarah. Can you describe what you've seen so far? Oh, I don't go in that house. I stick mostly to the grounds. That's my job. I keep the grounds.

terrible things happen to those who go in that house. Was there anything strange on the grounds, any strange plants that have propped up or died? Everything's been dead for decades. For decades, you say. Not much of a groundskeeper, are you? I'm afraid of being fired every day. I rake the leaves and I tend the weeds.

That rhymes, you know, that goes together. Sort of. It's perfect rhyme. Keep rowing, pretty boy. Okay, keep rolling. He continues to row. I like you. It's very silent.

All you hear is that little, psh, oh, that's good. As the oars go through the water. So I'll say, I have the ability to commune with spirits, which is why I believe I've been chosen for this adventure. So at some point when we come to it, I'm gonna need you to listen to me. Our very lives may depend on it.

Ghost spirits, they haunt me every day. You talk to ghosts? Well, yeah, everyone does. Oh, God. Like the spirits of your ancestors. Right. I have great respect for you, sir. I have met very few people outside of my tribe

who can speak to spirits. Know that if it comes to battle, and it's my life of yours, I will lay my life down for you. That's very noble. This is a man that can respect. You will be suffering those. I can handle it. Ricky's going to reach into a small pouch,

and he's going to pull out some bright red berries, and he's going to distribute them. Now please, each of you, take one, pass it along, take a berry. Now, this might be extremely dangerous. If you find yourself in a situation that calls for immediate health or healing, please take this berry. It will not be very potent, but it will help you in a scrape.

And I cast Goodberry. Fantastic. It's plus one, right? Yeah. Yes. It's one. But if you're dying, man. Come on.

I take out my coin purse and offer you a coin. Ooh. Is that a coin in there? There is a coin in there. I take that, boyo. Well, I don't mind if I do. As he takes it out, you notice that another one immediately appears in its stead. I'll give one to everyone.

Everyone gets a coin. And I'll give one to... To Mr. Powell? Mr. Powell takes it, he puts it between his teeth and tries to bend it, and he goes, this is good coin. Aye, boy, oh. Pockets it. Don't sure to get too grace.

All right, good. All right, you continue to row, and after a few little moments, he sort of sniffs the air, and he goes, ah, bent the manor. And he points, and the fog disperses, and you see this huge mansion, but it is all kind of falling apart. The siding is falling off. The windows and some of the doors are boarded up. The grounds are all kind of weedy and dirt. He pulls up to a dock and starts to tie off the rope.

He says, Mrs. Powell, I'll meet you in the office. It's just in the front door. Let's go. Hey. Real quick, before we leave, is there a reason you don't go into this house? Everyone I've seen go into that house either does not come out or comes out in misery. Oh, that's nice.

Well, that's promising. I'm otherworldly stishes, so I'm not afraid. So not super, like beyond that, more. So let's go. I clutch my little totem in my pocket and I'm like, my spirits will protect me. Okay. So you walk down this large,

what would have been kind of a grand entryway decades ago when it was well kept, it's all kind of gravel and you come to the front porch. You come up a few steps and there's a really kind of beautiful door that hasn't been painted or maintained in many years. You open it and inside you see a tall, thin woman with gray hair standing there.

Oh, you've come. You've come from the R&R, I suppose. Yes, we have. So I am Mrs. Powell. I maintain the house as best I can. Please come this way into the office. You should probably have a word with me before we go upstairs.

We'll follow you. She usheres you into the office. The office is kind of drab. You can see that there's a shelf on the back with some ledgers, there's a desk with some paperwork on it. And then there appears to be a canvas cloth that has been strung over what was probably a painting, a picture frame on the wall.

has been covered. She sits behind the desk and she says, Dr. Kennefic is upstairs with her wife right now. We should go up and speak with her, but I thought perhaps I should fill you in on some of what's been happening. Please. Sarah seemed to get a little strange. She just wasn't herself and she would sleep all day. And finally at night she would wake up and then she would go into the dining room in the kitchen and she would gorge herself and then start throwing dishware around. In fact, we've had to

to lock the dining room off completely. She seemed to talk to herself or something else that she thought she was in the room. But we've locked it off because she was doing damage to not only the property, but to herself. Since then, things have only gotten worse. We keep her completely confined to the master suite. She has a tendency to harm herself. When she speaks, we do not recognize it as herself. We have also found that things in this house have a habit of moving.

We have taken to locking every door behind us to try and keep things somewhat consistent. Pardon me for interrupting, but when she speaks and you don't recognize it, you don't recognize the language, you don't recognize the tone or the pitch of which she's speaking? Sometimes one, sometimes the other, sometimes both. It is very inconsistent what she expresses. And when did this all begin?

Well, they moved in a few months ago. They had a week or two of some happy times here, trying to fix up the home. And then very quickly we began to lose Sarah. Declay. Yeah. Now, with your history, with Mr. and Mrs. Powell, have you been taking care of these grounds for a long time?

I was hired by Mr. Simon Bentham. He was the owner before this. He and his new wife came to live here with his children from his first wife. Unfortunately, a terrible tragedy occurred and they left. With the children? Unfortunately, he. Yes, both of the children died.

How? We're not entirely sure. They passed, one passed in their sleep, the other in the morning. Unfortunately, Miss Lucy lost herself and her wits in despair. She claimed it was her fault, although none of us could tell why, and she could not tell us how she had done it, but she became convinced that they died at her hand. This might be a strange question, but is there a graveyard here on the premises of the mansion?

Mr. Simon spoke of a mausoleum, but I have never found it myself. That might be something worth looking into, sir. Right. There's no doubt. That's what's happening, right? Spirits indeed. One thing to keep in mind, Morgwen, Bentham, who built this home, he was quite fond of puzzles and secrets. Supposedly, there are very many secret areas in the home. I'm aware of them. I have found very few of them, even in my many years. Do you mind if I take a peek at this and I'll look... without answer. Oh, behind the drake?

Yeah. She says, oh, yes, this is one of Morgan's little secrets. I'll rip it off. So it's a large portrait of a very beautiful woman in a red dress. She's sitting and there's a little girl with curly hair and she's holding a funny little cube toy. Is it as terrifying as it sounds?

It's absolutely terrifying. They look very austere, you know, like they posed for hours for this painting. And she says, oh, take a closer look at the eyes. Is it Lucy in the painting? He says, no, no, that is not Lucy. This is Eleanor Bentham, Morvone's wife, and his daughter, Katrin. He says, yes, if you'll take a closer look at the eyes,

and as you look, you can see that there's little cuts around them. And she says, if you sneak in behind through the secret passage above, you can pull away a panel and look through the eyes into the office. Quite creepy, if I do say myself. I mean, I've seen stranger things. Some people like watching people. I have heard that this is true. I don't know much about Morgwen Bentham.

He was a generous man. I know he gave lots of money to charity. He built this home himself to try and make a beautiful place for his wife and daughter. In fact, if you would like, I have a property list here that should tell you about the ownership of the property. Yes. Property ownership record.

Home built by Morgwin Bentham. He resided on this property with his wife Eleanor in his daughter, Catrim. daughter Katrin. Home transferred by inheritance to Morgan's nephew Simon Bentham. He resided on the property with his two children, Luke and Gwyneth. Lucy, his second wife, joined them soon after. Home stayed empty for many years, basic upkeep. Well, that's debatable. I'm sorry, yes, we try. Provided by the property manager's Mrs. and Mr. Powell. Home transferred by sale to Sarah Bantam, Simon Bantam's niece. She currently resides on property with her wife, Dr. Mary

Kennefic. This is the property ownership record. Has Mary experienced any of these language-changing, rapid appetite, sleeplessness? Is she going through any of that? No, she is not. She, unfortunately, and I have spent all of our time trying to care for Sarah. In the poem, no one's leaving this house. Mr. Powell and I do not stay here overnight. I am. I, I am I am not a superstitious woman. There must be an explanation for all of this. However, there have been tragic accidents here, and so we leave to go to the mainland,

to our own home each evening. In fact, I shall be leaving at 6 p.m. this evening. And Dr. Mary Kennefic, is she a medical doctor? She is, very well trained. And in the beginning, we thought maybe this was just some disease. And she tried every intervention she could think of that would not harm young Sarah, but nothing seem to have worked. She reaches in a drawer and she pulls out a ring of keys and she starts,

you know, swiping through them and she takes you out the door. As soon as you are through the office, she closes and she indeed locks it behind her. She takes you from this hallway. You can see on the other side of the room, there are double doors that are closed and then a little sort of closet door. You step up into a grand stair hall. Here there is one stair that wends up and goes in opposite directions to a balcony that encircles the top of this sort of two floor. Underneath those stairs are archways going into a well-lit room. To your left is a small staircase that seems to get up just about four or five steps and dead end in the wall. However, Mrs. Powell continues to walk up this main staircase and turns to the right.

She takes you a round up, down this hallway. She comes in front of two very large double doors, and as you get near them, you literally feel a chill. Go up your spine. It is colder here. Mrs. Powell wraps her shawl tightly around her, takes out her keys, knocks twice. You hear a small voice from inside say, come in. She unlocks the door and opens it and walks in. As you follow her in, she closes the door behind you and again locks it.

This room has been emptied of all of its contents beyond a bed and a large fireplace in the corner, which has a roaring fire in it, but it does little to take away the chill that you feel in your bones. There is dirt on the walls where picture frames used to hang. The windows have all been broken and then boarded up. You can even feel the fog and the cold coming through them. As you turn around, you see a sort of thin woman smartly dressed sitting on a wooden chair next to a bed. On the bed, there's a bundle of sheets that sort of slowly... I'm going to walk forward, just reach out my hand and gently, like, touch the bundle and say,

We're here to help. And a face turns around to look at you. Its eyes are sunken. It is the face of a young woman, but there are veins and pale, and there's bruises all the way down one side of her face. She stands, she stands straight up, and she goes. She stands up in the bed, in a night dress,

and she looks at you, and she says, No one can help. Oh, God. Well, that was really unexpected. Mary stands up in the church. He stands up in the chair and she backs away, pulling you back. She goes, it's all right, go back to sleep, go back to sleep, my darling. Come, come, come, come.

She pulls you to the back of the corner. She goes, look, we try not to rouse her as best that we can. She will hurt herself or others. Do you have any thoughts, anything you can tell me about what you think this might be? You notice, Uncle Feng, he's got like these robes. He's a sorcerer with the staff. And then he's got this big black sort of turleneck thing, and he whips it off and he throws him in the middle of the ground.

and he says, grab hands, no, like your life depended on it. Pour grab hands, and he'll grab Mary's hand. Grab's Mary's hand, Mary joins in. And then he'll pull his candle out of a pack, and he'll stick it in the middle of the shroud, and he'll say, Hitzipare! Oh, oh!

The candle lights, the fire in the room dims as this happens. Everything seems to go kind of quiet and still. You feel a little bit of a wind, kind of in the center of your circle. All you can hear, though, from behind you as you close your eyes and start to chant is a growl of... Laccantor spiritus, Laccontore spiritus, Laccontore spiritus, Laccontore spiritus,

L'cantor spiritus, L'Contore spiritus. Fine, speak with me. I am here. What is it you want, creature? I want... Despair. Despair. I want you to watch this girl rot.

Why? Speak to me, why. What is the damage that's been done to you, creature? There shall be no happiness in this house. She starts to weave and thawb. You see her stand up, she runs to the wall and she begins to bang her head against the wall. Stop!

She takes damage from that. She bangs her head against its wall. Why, tell us why. What is it about what you want? On a third one, she bangs her head against the wall. And I get a cast. I cast a zone of truth. I cast a zone of truth spell.

And I want to talk to Sarah, not the demon. You want to talk to Sarah. I want to see if she's okay in there and what she's seeing and if she's in this room with us. So what do you say? You cast zone of truth? As you do it, the girl's body drops to the ground in a heap and she'd be... Greetings adventurers. Spring has sprung here in Los Angeles. And that means it's a brief period where it's only 75 degrees instead of 95 degrees.

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Sarah, we're here to help you. Are you okay? She rolls her face up and her eyes seem a little clearing. She says, please. And the body rises again and goes and sits back on its bed. curled up looking at you all. We've got to get the spirit out. Glee, assessment, I'm just a time.

Can I try something? Yes. Okay, so because I have the path of the ancestral guardian, I don't know how this would work. I can ask my ancestor to protect a certain target from a certain target. Okay. Can I attempt to ask my ancestor to protect Sarah from this beast so it stops dealing damage to her?

Yeah. Would it be like a charisma? charisma, something like that? I have to be raging. Oh, okay. So you can range. Yeah, I can enter a rage. Like seeing this, yes, yes, yes, yes.

Seeing this girl, she's bashing her head against the wall. This profane, this bastardization of everything I believe in, and seeing this harmful spirit who is going against everything I have been raised to respect. You start to see Beryl just like bear her fangs and start to see the next. And as she like clenches her fists trying to hold herself back because she knows if she harms this profane creature, she'll be harming the girl. Her eyes become a different color. She starts to a light. And then you just hear like a bit of a cackle.

And as you hear a bit of a cackle, you almost see like an ethereal presence come up out of her. What? And you see Chief is what I call her. And you see her arise from within me. and this very mischievous almost spirit rises up and she says, don't worry, I know what to do here. And I still like, you know, frothing, I say, Chief, I call upon your strength, please save this girl,

save this woman from this profane creature. And I, you know, my spirit goes forth. Okay, great, perfect. So this ghostly image that rises up over you and it comes and it starts to float over the young woman. She then looks up at the rest of you, and you see her head begin to spin, coming all the way backwards and coming all the way

around 360 degrees. All of you need to make wisdom saving throws. That is not my strings, brother. Metro 20! Boom! Right, wait, wee, wee. 17. 16.

Four. 11. Okay. I rolled in 18. I'll take a 17. You'll take a 17. Okay. You two at this end.

and unfortunately this might dispel your spirit. Upon watching that, it is one of the most terrifying, violating things that you have ever seen. You immediately feel a scream, rise up in your throat, and you turn and you run as far to the back of the room as you can, starting to scrape at the door to try to get out. The three of you, while frightened of this,

this is a scary thing to see, are able to hold your ground as you see him essentially try to break her neck. At this point, I think because of that, your spirit kind of disappears. I'm going to turn to, Mrs. Powell and kind of tug on her. Mrs. Powell is at the back of the room

also kind of standing afraid. Mary was able to withstand it because she's seen it before. Sure. But yes, Mrs. Powell's at the back kind of shivering. I'd like to speak to you, please. Yes, yes. Mary says, perhaps it is better if we leave her B for now, please come, come. Mary ushers you out of the room, she says,

you must go, you must go, we cannot let her harm herself anymore. Come back when you have another idea. Slams the door and locks it behind you. You speak with Mrs. Powell and she says, yes, it is time for me to be, to be heading off for the evening. Mr. Powell and I must leave. You can see why we would want to.

Please watch over Sarah. Here are the keys to all of the doors in the home. Remember to lock the doors after you. Terrible things have happened when we've let them unlocked. Can you show us secret passages that you know about in this house before you leave? So the two that I am aware of, there is a portrait in the guest bedroom,

which is just off here to the left. That leads to a staircase that goes down behind the portrait in the office. Aye. The other area we are aware of, but neither myself nor Simon nor anyone else in this house has been able to access is the library. And she takes you down the stairs into that sort of grand stair hall where there was that short stair that went right into the wall.

One more question for you. Where are the children's rooms? Do you know? The nursery. Aye. Oh, well we don't go into the nursery. I know that. But where are they?

They would be at the top of the stairs on the other side of the house. house, we have no key for that room. Yeah, that's okay. We have not tried very hard to find it. Terrible, terrible tragedies happened there. Do you know what tragedies they were in the storytelling, it will help us? Well, I do know that young Gwyneth died up there.

That is where she perished in her sleep. And supposedly there were other deaths. There is some terrible fire damage. We imagine some awful fire happened there many, many years ago. There are records here, and she offers you this. Oh, nice. Well done, down the Lord. A property list of all of the damage that they are trying to repair in the home.

She says, in our efforts to try and repair things, we have had people come in. We've only been able to get a look at the nursery from the outside looking through the windows, and there is considerable fire damage there. I shall be heading off now. Here are the keys. Godspeed. Stay safe.

Thank you. And she leaves to go home with Mr. Pell. So I think that, I mean, where do we start now? I mean, I think that nursery, I feel like we start there, yeah? Yeah, let's jump to the front of the line. Or we go to library, I mean, try to figure out the library. Does anyone have the ability to find secret doors or a knock spell?

I don't know how a knock spell. There is one thing that I could try, because I do have meld into stone that I could try passing through this stone wall. I don't know how thick it is. It is a wooden wall. Oh, it's a wooden wall. So in the state wall.

In fact, you can come down and start to look at it. So there are these two exits that go into kind of a lighted living area beyond, but then back in the other direction is the front of the house. Over here is this five steps that seem to dead end in the wall. And the wall is wood. In the wall is wood. This is all engraved, beautiful wooden paneling along the walls. As you come up closer to that wall, you can see that there are little discs that have

intricate designs on them. And there seems to be a hole off to one side. I believe the best place to start is the library. I agree. If we could figure this out, knowledge is the key. I really want to break that wall down. Well, let's look first. Okay.

So as I'm looking at this, at the discs on the door, I'm gonna take an opportunity to cast a mage hand, I have as a cantrip, so I can do it any time. So this dragon hand appears magically, and then it goes up to the door, and it will start to pull at the discs itself, start to turn, does it move? Yeah, so your mage hand sort of floats over

this ghostly image of spectral hand, and as it starts to kind of toy with it, it can see that these disks seem to spin, and they have these grooves on them. And then you also notice off to the side that there is one slot that appears much larger than the rest of the grooves, and in fact, I will show you what you are looking at.

Oh, nice. Little homemade project. Oh my gosh. What? That's incredible. Okay. Oh my God. I did not see that there's lightning outside.

Yeah, right? That is terrifying. It is a dark and stormy night. Okay. So yes, so this is what you see as you approach the door. There appear to be wooden discs that are set into this inlay and the grooves on them. Now off to the side, you can see that there's this one particular hole

that's a little bit larger. Mm-hmm. That is what you know about them. And that they seem to spin. Now let me see here. Good old Morgan Bentham and his puzzles. But it seems as though something might be able to be inserted in here, and if we turn these disks in the correct way,

we can end up over here, so it would follow along some sort of pattern. Right, right. But we don't know what to insert there. A key. Good idea. I'll take a look at the ring of keys. Yeah, you look through the keys.

They all seem kind of the same. You're gonna have a little trouble figuring out what is for what. They're not labeled? They're not labeled. But there's only about six keys. Okay. But is it a key, it doesn't look like a key holder? Someone make an investigation who's checking it out.

I don't think that's my forte. That's not mine. A 15. A 15. So you get in close and you're brave enough to even kind of stick your little gnome finger in and feel in, and you can feel that like behind the groove there's more open space.

So as if something that would fit in the side there, if it slid through, you wouldn't be able to take it out, but it could slide through these channels. Oh, right, okay, so you're saying. But this is a pattern, obviously. We have to figure out the pattern is. And I'll reach up, can I reach it? Yes, absolutely, so you're up there.

No, I mean, can Ricky reach? Oh, can Ricky, yes. Sure, we'll say Ricky can reach it. And if not, you can stand on someone's knee. Sure. Me, she does on the ground. You got it. All four.

This is the best. Viros kneels down on the floor and I'll climb up on top of him. Ricky climbs up and starts to play. All done. I think you find your service. Oh, no problem. And I'll start to like rotate them.

and see that if, like, this looks like it would line up. Mm-hmm. Okay. Well, thank you for now. I'm gonna step down. Oh, you're done. Well, it seems as though we have an objective. Let us try searching around to try to find something that might fit into this hole.

Right. Do you fit in the hole? I don't. Okay, just checking. So we're looking for a really big, really weirdly shaped key. Or something like that. Well, we need to figure out what the pattern is. All right, so let's continue on.

Do we all agree, yeah? Yeah. So can we check out the lit room on the bottom here, the big lit room before we go north? So you go back through these archways that head into the back, and this is a really beautiful grand living space. There's a big fireplace in the center of the mirror above it. There are kind of glass, almost glass walls, glass doors,

so much light is coming through. It is very foggy, so it's diffused a bit. But all along here, again, more of this intricate, beautifully engraved paneling, but over to the right, you see a greenhouse, a conservatory, salarium. But the glass doors, you can even see that there are vines. The greenery is all grown up and overgrown in this area because no one's been in there for so long. And the vines have kind of come underneath and around the edges of this door. You can't see very well in there because it's all green. It says on the list of things that are paired. I think it says something about the greenhouse and the plants. You don't know how to read. No, no. Those things are called woods.

Plants in the greenhouse identify botanist, five gold pieces. Bautanist. I guess the botanist. No, botanist, I'm highly educated. Five GP. Ah, this is my expertise. I'll lean forward to examine the plant. Nature check, I guess. Yeah. Do a roll in nature.

I would like to. Ah ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. I have a 24. So you lean for you know exactly what type of plant this is. This is a harmless vine. harmless vine, but they are very much like a weed. They will grow over and take over an entire space very quickly if you leave them unattended.

And they're pretty strong and thick once they're kind of all interwoven like this, but not unbreakable. This vine is very good for basket weaving, but it might overtake something. I'm gonna pluck a leaf from it and pocket that away. Absolutely, you've got it. I don't know if our answer that we're seeking is in there though.

Do you have any other suggestions? You know, I'll do a perception check to see if there's a spirit, maybe around, like in there. These dice are going to be the end of me. I perceive nothing. Nothing at all. He steps forward and he closes his eyes and he tries to kind of meditate and feel things,

but you're still a little shaken about what happened upstairs. I need you to step away from me, brother. Okay. You're so damn handsome. It's definitely disarming. You're harsh in his mojo. All right, so I just think, look, I just think that we're, of our quest

is to figure out what's happening to her. I don't know if it's in the greenhouse. I do think it would be best to examine all possible areas of the house to see what is there, even if we just peek inside. I have a suggestion. How about I peek inside that staircase that's blocked by a wall when I break it down? I don't know if that puzzle's going to agree with that. Just digest it, Simmer.

All right. I'm going to watch. Okay, let it marinate and let me know what the team decides. How can you break it down? I think breaking down might be the answer. Not the door, but here, dead rat smell. Remember they said they couldn't get into the attic? I think dead rat smell, where there is the smell of the rat, there is also the corpse of the creature. And where the smoke is, there must also be fire. It's a very ancient saying. It's a very ancient saying. Old world saying it is. All right. Here's the thing. Let's go to the nursery.

you're okay to break down the door, but there has been fire damage. The floor boards might be very weak, so once you break the door down, I say we send in the gnome. Right, because they do weigh a solid 225 of all muscle, so it's very smart that you, okay. Before we do anything, I'm gonna open the greenhouse door.

Okay, so you go over to the greenhouse door and you open it, and it will open, but it's just all these vines are kind of holding. Barrows? Make a strength check? Sure. Nine plus. Where's my straight?

Oh, it's up here, three. So. A 12? It's right, you pull, you pull, you pull in it. Oh, it just sort of kind of snaps. And the vines kind of break apart and flop down. You can just kind of wiggle your way through into the conservatory. All right, there's an opening.

I'll only be a minute. I'm going to scamper inside. All right, you come inside and everything is kind of overgrown, but what you can see is that set in the center is a little round table with two chairs. There are books on the seat of the chairs and a small tea set sitting on top of the table. There's also a little doll on one of the chairs.

I'd like to reach into one of my pockets and pull out a little spray bottle, like a perfume bottle of sorts, and it's got a little contraption, and I'm just gonna start. So you're just gonna spritz as fast as you can. Running around spritzing, and I'm casting Detect Magic. Fantastic.

As you go around in spritz, nothing, magical comes out to you. I'd like to sort of make an investigation or a nature check to see ingredients because it's a greenhouse. I wanna look for any plants or anything that seem unnatural besides the doll. Nature check. Cool.

Ha, I'm on fire. 23. 23. You're looking around and other than a few varieties of kind of your average plants that you would see, there is one particular box that you can see clearly used to hold deadly nightshade. Oh, this is an unusual plant to have in a greenhouse,

especially with children around. Has anybody else followed me into the green room? Nope. Not even a little, kind of like at your, I'm flanking that door area. Yeah, I'm like peeking over the shoulders of other people. I want to examine the box then.

So it used to hold it, like I see a residue or something. Yeah, you can see the dried up leaves and things. There are even maybe a little bit that's still alive. But again, nothing here has been tended to and these weeds have taken over. But this is clearly how you would tend to deadly night chain. I'm gonna pull out like a handkerchief and I'm gonna scrape some of the dead leaves.

It will be useful later. Risk reward. He pockets it. And I pocket it. And I'd like to examine the T set and the doll. Okay. An investigation. Do do, do, do. Wow.

A dirty 20. A dirty 20. My favorite kind. So yes, you come down to the T set. And the one thing you notice is that there's, They're these sort of strange blue rims on the teacups. And then the little doll, which is sort of a standard doll made of cloth, it looks like one end of it has been chewed,

like a child has been sort of sucking on it in its mouth. And that also has a little blue tinge on it. The doll? The hand of the doll where it's been sucked on. I want to open the lid of the pot. Is it empty? It is empty. I would just like to say that I have been weaving a basket,

large enough to take the tea and the doll as a possible offering with spirit. So would you mind just go ahead and passing the doll? and the tea right on out and into the basket, not so I physically touch it, but in. Could it be nightshade related, that blue tinge? It could be. There's also a flap on my basket,

and it is secure. You are an amazing basket we were. We need a crafting check or something like that. I don't know what you're happening, but we could do. It's perfect. I have a 20. I wonder if that is the thing that made this whole thing go south.

I mean, if you're an angry spirit, if you've been given nightshade? As a child especially. You know what I mean? Let's think about this for a minute. Didn't their mother blame herself? What if it was just negligence? Or an accident if she didn't know to identify this plant.

Right, maybe she just thought it was pretty. I mean, I thought it was pretty. I was gonna ask you for something to put in my hair, but you think that she put it in the T? Maybe. Maybe the little girl did? Maybe she just thought it looked pretty. Can we discern if that's night shade on the blue?

I mean, there's her. You could make a medicine check. I'm gonna let Ricky make the medicine check. Ricky's gonna see if you can make a medicine check. Okay. That is 13. A 13? Yeah, sure, you can put deadly nightshade and tea

and poison someone. You're not entirely sure that it links up. Right, it might not turn it that blue. But it's a possibility. Mm-hmm. Okay. All right, well, maybe that's part of the riddle. Right.

My curiosity has been satisfied. Okay. We continue. Right. To the nursery. I think so, don't you? This is a little heavy. I'm just gonna go ahead and ask

if Viros would hold the basket. The doll in the teeth. With the doll in the teeth. I mean, I look at her eyes and I go, sure, my dear, anything you want. I forget this night shade in here all together. Thank you. I hold anything.

You want. So, Beiros is holding Annabella's purse. Welcome to continue this adventure. I'm secure. Let's go. You come out into the main living space again and go back around into the stair hall. And as you come around and you come up the stairs

and start to go left up towards the nursery, you see that the door stands open. No. Wait, wait, wait. Wait. Did we not lock the green house? No, that's this new, perception check, courage. That's a check with advantage.

12. I mean, literally, these dyes are poison. Look, I had luck with the 12. Oh, what happens? So, you can't really identify, get a clear sense, but in the back of your head you start hearing... I don't share that with anyone because they don't want to know the horror

that I hear in my head. What's going on? Aye, boyo, I hear a nursery, Ryan. or a nursery song somewhere deep. This is it. This is the children for sure. Annabella brought up a good point in our haste, we've forgotten to lock the greenhouse. Should I?

Yes. You run back. He just filled with the keys. The only thing they told this, lock the other door, and I forgot the first freaking door. All right, are you back? He runs back.

You almost were like hanging out, and below the door. All right, Ricky, good, all right. Let me tell you something, you and your hand axes are useless against a spirit. You might as well go back to the boat. Oh, and I'll wait a second. What are you gonna do?

Attack a spirit. Are you telling me that you don't want me just there, just in case? Because even my eyes could disarm a ghost. Let's be real. That's how charming. My charisma's through the freaking room. All right. I can see for him here. Fair enough.

I apologize. We'll continue upstairs. All right. Do you want a marching order? How do you want to do this? Oh. You're going to go first? Yep.

All right, so the Dragon Boar Mage sort of pushes you aside and, you know, his huge heft kind of comes up in front. You take a steps two at a time up to the top where you turn and look in the open room. It is definitely a children's room. There are two little twin beds with cute little sheets on them. The far side of the room is a mess. It is all just burned, charred, broken floor and the wind. the windows have all been blasted out. On a little table you see some of those leaf etchings

that you used to make with charcoal and tracing paper. Over on the left, there's a huge tree that has been drawn onto the wall like a decoration. And right in the center it says knock, knock. I would like to go and examine the etchings and see if I can recognize the plants. Yeah, make a nature check. I love it, he's just going.

I'm like ready for the attack. He's like, oh, look at leaves. You feel something on the back of your neck. These are all leaves that you could find on the grounds. This is very native to this area. Even you look outside and one of the trees you can see outside the window, some of these leaves could very well come right from there.

I'm looking specifically for nightshade. No, none of these are nightshade. I'm gonna walk over to the wall. And in my simple way, the one with the tree on it, just be like. One of the knots and the tree coalesces in this mouth forms. And it says, who's there?

Nope, Viros. No, I don't. Don't talk to them. What he asked? What if it's like the one in the other room? I don't know. It's a natural thing, you know. There's a mouth in a wall.

I see that. I mean, I'm a little bit frozen. Don't talk to strangers. Bye. And then it goes away. You don't think that's weird? What are you doing? What? Did you answer the question?

I'm pushing them out of the way. Okay, you step into the room? I put my hand on. On the tree? Uh-huh. Okay. And then I advantage, please God. For spirits, 17.

17. You don't feel anything in the tree and the wall. However, behind you, the cradle in the corner begins to sway back and forth. And again, you hear this little singing. Now some of you can kind of hear it, as if it's really far away. Annabella, is that you?

Let us ask good questions. Grab hands. I'll grab hands. Shraub comes off, I'll lay it in the middle, put the candle down, and I'll say, Pincebrae! Oh. It's time to bring on the blooms at the Home Depot

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Now through May 10th. Exclusion supplies, see Home Depot.com slash price match for details. The war is over and both sides lost. Kingdoms were reduced to cinders and armies scattered like bones in the dust. Now the survivors claw to what's left of a broken world, praying the darkness chooses someone else tonight. But in the shadow dark, The darkness always wins.

This is old school adventuring at its most cruel. Your torch ticks down in real time. And when that flame dies, something else rises to finish the job. This is a brutal rules-light nightmare with a story that emerges organically based on the decisions that the characters make. This is what it felt like to play RPGs in the 80s. And man, it is so good to be back. Join the Glass Cannon podcast as we plunge into the shadow dark every Thursday night at 8 p.m. Eastern on your YouTube.com slash the glass canon with the podcast version dropping the next day.

See what everybody's talking about and join us in the dark. That was nice. It's a good one. It's a good. So good. Then I'll start the seance. Okay. Locator spiritus.

Locator spiritus. Lackator spiritus. Slowly, the shroud in the middle of the space begins to rise a figure inside of it. It gets higher and higher and higher. Oh! Yes! Like a door spirit, do it, hey! Spirit, you have presented yourself.

Shh! Who is the bad man? I don't know his name. We must be very... Quiet indeed. We don't want him to hurt you. Thank you. Have you seen my brother?

Not yet. We're looking for him. When was the last time you saw him? I miss Luke. It's been ages and I have no one to play with. Have to find him for ya. him for you and free him. That would make me so happy. Are you in pain, little one?

No, I'm all right. But I do miss my brother. And I think we could possibly move on if we could be reunited again. Right that down, Rican, reunited. Let's do it. Is it okay if I speak for you? Yes, go.

Gwyneth. Well, hello. I am. My name is Gwyneth. How'd you guess? Oh, well, we are on the lookout for your brother Luke to reunite you. Could you tell us what the last thing you remember is?

Well, I wasn't feeling very well, and I went to sleep, and then I never woke up. What was the last thing that you did before going to sleep? Oh, I had dinner with my mama and my papa, although she's my new mama. Hmm. Gwyneth, where did Luke like to play in the house? What was his favorite room?

Well, we used to play in the greenhouse with our new Mama Lucy, and we met up all kinds tea parties and it was ever so much fun. She was so sweet. Would it bring you peace if I left you, your doll and your tea? You found Matilda? I have Matilda here.

Would you like to see her? I would love to see Matilda again. Viros, please give her the basket. So Viros hands the basket over, opens the flap, brings out the tea and the door. You see, the shroud moves forward a little bit, but then withdraws and she says, I'll just look. I don't think I can touch.

That's okay. That's fine. Thank you. At least I can talk to her. Right. So. Dwyndh. Yes. If you don't mind, before your new mother came, what happened to your mother before? Oh, mother passed in childbirth. With... With me and Luke, we are twins, you know.

And the bad man, it's not your father, yes? No, no. Papa would never be bad. You don't know his name, you said. I don't know who the bad man is. What does he look like? Well, he's very tall and thin, and he wears a scary top hat and carries a cane. Now, usually when someone says that somebody's a bad man,

they call them bad for a reason. Has he hurt you? He has tried, and he yells at me, and he's the only one who can roam about the house freely. The bad man? Yes. Is he a spirit like you? Yes.

He can go through walls. Good to know. All right. Did he bring fire into the room? Who put the fire in the room? Oh, that was here long before I ever came. Does anyone need a commune with the spirit any longer? No.

Thank you for your help, love. Oh, it was ever so much nice to talk to somebody. It's been so lonely. Welcome back with your brother. I promise you that. Could you please? Oh, thank you, thank you so. Could you good then?

With this. the shroud falls to the ground in a heap, and the light goes out. The last thing she remembers is tea with mother. It's not a good sign, which means that maybe the mother did it. Maybe the mother and this man had something going on. Ah. The man is a bad man.

That is the man we need to find. But maybe the mother then is in the spirit of Sarah. Or that's the bad man? Perhaps he's taken a corporeal form. possible? Well, she said he can pass through the walls. And it might be that he could pass through flesh and possess another.

Who would know this house better than the original creator? What if it's Morgan himself? That is a distinct possibility. Before we leave, I'd like to examine the stove area where the fire had come out. Okay. I'm just looking to see sort of with like scorch marks and stuff like that's sort of the nature of it,

because it's not something that like a stove would normally do. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Investigation. Would you like to roll that for me? Sure, let's do one of those. What is your bonus? Three. Three.

You look at this end, as far as you can tell, it doesn't seem terribly unnatural to you. It seems like probably what happened was something got out of control, something lit that was too close to the fireplace, and it just ballooned from there. You cannot detect any sort of foul play necessarily, an accident. I just want to point out, too, that there is a talking tree

in the whole way. I know, that's what I was time about. We can't really, ignore. That doesn't happen every day. Yeah, agreed. Do you want to knock on it again? I would like to try, Veros, I can't reach the few, please.

Get it up! I'll stand up on it and I'll knock knock. Again, the knot kind of conforms and again, it becomes a little mouth and it says, Who's there? Gwyneth? Bye now. And the mouth goes away.

Well, that was that. But it seems like these things were here before she was. Which is why maybe the bad man, maybe Morgan. Knock, knock. Who's there? Morgan, the terrible. Bye now.

Oh, shoot. I give up. I'll step down, please feel free. I'm offering him as a stool. Bang bang. Who's there? Alistair Goldfang. Goodbye.

The mouth goes away. All right. If you'd like to, I can allow, again, as a game, but you can do an investigation for like a hint or something that might give you a clue towards it. Take a 10? You can also take a 10 and just add. your investigation bonus to the 10 for a hint.

I wouldn't be very good with that. I would only be a 13. I have high investigation. Yeah, okay. Okay, okay, okay, okay, great. Oh, I didn't roll great. 13? A 13? You look around and there's a little bookshelf

with a lot of like little books and knick knacks on it. You see a lot of like joke books and things that kids would want to read. Oh, knock knock, who's there? Who's there? Oh, it's a knock knock joke. Mm-hmm. Knock, who's there?

Macho. Nacho who? Nacho cheese, can we come in, please? Ho, ho, ho, and the tree swings forward. Wow! That was hilarious! Can I tell that later? What's nacho cheese?

I've never heard of it. What is this thing? Nacho cheese. Oh, you'll love it. We'll talk later. It's delicious. So yes, it opens up and through the trunk of the tree you can pass and you see a little passageway that seems to go off to the left. Oh, good. We'll go to the left.

I'll follow you. Yeah. You're going first? All right, it's a little... Meadshed shields going first? Is it you or me? It's not. Rock, papers, is a shoot.

All right, there we go. Oh, I guess the big man goes again. Wait, so you won and so you're going first? Of course. Okay, cool, cool, cool. That's how I play the game. How do you play it? Anyway, all right.

Paper is a tool of the week. Rock is clearly stronger. It's definitely been built for someone small, for a child. You all fit, but it's a little tight squeeze. You have to get down your hands and knees. and kind of squeeze her. Can we see?

You can see there's light coming in from the, it's just a narrow pathway, you know. You're doing that. Unfortunately, you don't actually get smaller or anything like that, but you feel like your equilibrium gets kind of perfect and you're like, wow, I could kind of like, nobody could knock me over right now. I have so perfectly balanced in every way

that it's just that adrenaline makes me that way. Do we explore a bit? Yeah, so you crawl forward and you come across a little door, again, like a kid-sized door with a little knob in it. I'd like to open it. Is it okay with the team fire? Yes. All right, so I put my hand on the note.

He reached forward, he turns the knob, he pushes it open, and he crawls out into an attic space. Hey, look, it's an attic space. And it's, again, it's been kind of decked out to look like a little girl's play space. There's a little sort of pretend kitchen set and a trunk with some dress-up materials. You do smell a little bit of something

like a dead rat around the area. Other things have note, there's a large, full-length mirror, and there's a mannequin with a red dress on it, sitting next to a rocking jail. That's creepy. Stand in front of the mirror and admire my beautiful triceps. As you look at that, you see the face of a woman

standing behind you. Why does this keep happening to me? She doesn't seem to be doing anything, but she's standing there. I'll grab my candle. Okay. And shroud. Okay.

Grab hands. So I'll say, Incipitate! You throw the shroud in the center. Okay. As you start to chant, unfortunately, the shroud, you can see it kind of like shifting side to side and then it gets shoved all the way to the other side of the room and the candle goes out. She's not interested in talking to us.

Lost. I want to go up to the mannequin and look at the dress. Is it the same dress that was in the painting? It is the same dress that it was in the painting. This must have been... Well played... Eleanor's dress? Who was in the painting? It was the painting that had the eyes cut out.

Right. As you were standing there looking at the dress, a book flies from the side and hits you on the side of the head. you take six damage, bludgeoning damage from that book that hits you in the head and falls to the ground. We are an initiative if you would like to. Walsh! Raw-inish, provost! No!

This is a natural one. I've been rolling so well. Oh, shit, I know a two! Two for Anna and Ricky? I have a two as well. Five for Vera. I'm at 11. And 11.

There we go. And Alasier. 16. So Anabella is actually a four. Oh, you're actually a four. At that moment, again, Ricky. You feel something cold, come up and sneak up your back. Suddenly you fly through the air.

No. You're gonna make a strength saving check. Just a strength saving throw against it? It's not good. 14? A 14? Eat a good berry. Oh yeah. You fly up to the ceiling of this

and hit it taking three damage. You then come to the ground and hit the ground taking another three damage. It's a very. Alistair, it is your turn. Yeah, spirit is ridere. Sudetis ridere, all right. Our spirit.

It's a repel spirit. At that moment you feel a gust of wind and things kind of whirl around and the dress on the mannequin appears to kind of float up a little higher and then set back down on the ground. Up next will be, unless you wanna do anything else. I will grab the gnome and as my move action,

I'll pull him back and put him behind me. Okay, okay. I'll hold onto him too in case she tries to thrash him around. Okay, I can allow that. Barrel, your turn. Do I see anything? You don't see anything. All you saw was that he got thrown up in the air,

the book got thrown, and then the dress sort of hovered and then fell back down. So it's a dress? The dress hovered, most recently. I'm gonna reach into my flask, drink most of it. Okay. Throw it on the ground and then taking out my little flint and tender, like try to breathe fire onto the dress.

On to the dress. Yeah, I saw it at a carnival. Yeah, it's very cool. Yeah, so you just see Beryl take like this high proof like little flagging. Throw it on the ground and there's go onto the dress. This flame goes forward.

That's like a dexterity, so make like a check and add your, add your dexterity bonus. Okay. As the dragon in the room, I immediately start laughing. 18. Strong. So you definitely, you hit it strong

and this flame kind of lights up the dress. It starts to glow. The whole room goes a little kind of red and bright. Okay, Furos. Then anything else you want to do? No. Great, Vera. I raise my shield.

I get right in front of Annabella just for defense, because there's a time for attacks and there's a time for smart, which we know I have an abundance of both. So anyway, I grab my shield, and I just basically acrobatics or whatever it takes, just to play defense for the moment, still taking it all in, protecting my team.

Okay, so we'll say, like a hold action until so when something happens, you'll jump in. All right, you'll use your reaction for that. Annabella. I would like to do, I don't know if the, well, I can't do a healing word, right? Because this is, or can I, can I do a healing word? On whatever this thing is?

Yes. No, I mean, that wouldn't do it, that would just be healing. There's someone hurting. Yeah, there's a hurt. Can I put it to sleep? You can try. I would like to try and put this very angry thing to sleep. Okay.

So that we can leave this room. Okay. Do you agree with that or you want to stay? Are you asking me? What are you doing? Heal him. Oh, okay! Okay!

You can't put the spirit at the thing. I'm healing it. There you go, Gary! That was right. He is healed, you were healed. Get yourself back up. So it's your healing word. You'll roll some dice for them.

Let's roll. It's a 1d4. And then your spellcast amount of three. So it's a 2. Plus 6, so 8. So 8. So 8 points of healing. That's how you're doing.

What's the word that you say? It's actually a song. It's actually a little bit of a song. Five, six. Five, six, seven, eight. Get yourself up and touch both. You know, close to a little bit, and you are heels.

Yay, yay, yay, yay, yay, yeah, yeah, touch those elbows and you are heel. Okay. There's a spirit's head. I reminded the moment that the human head spun in a circle, and I look at the barn and I immediately scoff. Yeaseless!

Meanwhile, barrel's spitting fire on a dress, and Burroughs was like, I don't know what to do. I immediately run in, Oh my Lord. All right, Ricky. Yes. So if I look at the least, no. Thank you for that.

So I'm being held kind of down and behind you. I am going to reach in and thankfully I have padded myself so that big hits wouldn't crush the vials all over me. Who knows what would happen? But I do pull out a small vial that looks like it's, or a flask, rather. that looks like it's a metal bird of some sort, and I unscrew the cap,

and then I pour some of it on your hand that's like holding me. Yeah, sure. And I've cast Owl's Wisdom on you with Enhensibility. Oh, great. So, uh. Nice.

Plus three to my wisdom checks. Oh, damn, you already have advantage. Is it just advantage? Cool. No, but you already have advantage on wisdom. Well, he has advantage on checks specific to otherworldly spirit things. Okay.

So he can get it just to his regular wisdom checks. It'll apply to everything else. Sure. Ultimate wisdom. All right. UW. You're all sort of standing, waiting for something to happen as flames flicker on the dress. The trunk that has all of the sort of children's play clothes in it, the lid slam shut.

Alistair, your turn. How far is the play close? Should we map? 10 feet. We can map if you want. So the attic is fairly small. Only about 20 by 20 up in the top here. This is where the mirror and the rocking chair is.

This is gonna be your trunk of clothes. You came in through a little door down there. The mannequin is off in this corner. So place yourselves where you think you would be. Because you were talking to the mannequin, right? So you should be in front of it or the shield. I grabbed you and pulled you into the corner. Oh, okay.

So we could go together. So the top of the round. I'm gonna drop him as he's now been healed by the Incredible Bard and her action. It was one of the best moves ever. Thank you. I'm gonna go over and immediately try to open that chest. Okay, so you run over to the chest.

Span it, let me in! I don't know why I screamed, I'm sorry everyone at home. I'm really excited about that. You wrench the chest open, and inside you can see that the clothing and everything is all sort of a disarray, but there's also things inside of there. Yeah, you'll make a check on it, so do an investigation. This is a wisdom check. Oh, yeah. Oh, like an advantage.

Investigations and intelligent. Oh, it is, yeah. Because I just rolled a three. You rolled three. I'm telling you my dice. I have the most incredible dice in the world, but they are killing me right now. Okay, so you are unable to find anything.

You start shifting through, but it's all this kind of like hid stuff and you don't know. I'm a more going to get hit, yeah, yeah. You're trying to see, you're worried something's gonna come after you, and unfortunately you just can't make any heads or tails of what it is. It's just tiarras and Boas. Oh, I'll say, Ricky, look! And I'll immediately go back on the defense.

Okay, cool. You are up next. I'm going to take the dress from the bottom, like of it, where hopefully not all the liquor fell. Okay. And attempt to, like, wrestle it off the mannequin. Okay. And try to, like, put it in the chest

and then get the lid over it. So I did a move action, right? Yes. The thing is on fire. Yes. Can I cast a cantrip control fire? No, because the investigation was your action action. That was my act.

Unfortunately, you look through the chest. It's okay. Unless you can cast something as a bonus action, but I don't think you can. I can. I can, I'll quicken a spell. Yeah, you want to do that? Yeah, so, then go ahead.

She catches the dress on fire, and then immediately starts to play with the fire, and I can't breathe it, I'm tall. Yeah. As a cantrip, quickened spell, I'm gonna suck up the fire and put it out. So it all kind of disappears. We even see it kind of like sucks through the air into your hands. Into your hand.

No more fire this is on. Well, you run over to the dress. Well, you run over to the dress and start to pull it off the top of the mannequin. Yeah, yeah. Okay, and then you're gonna run and try and throw it in this trunk? Yeah. Okay, so you run over to the trunk, shoving him to the side, lifting it up and throwing the dress in, and then what? Yeah. Does it move?

Does the dress move? Yeah. The dress seems to be lying there still. I'm gonna stop there, then. Okay, you're gonna stop there. So you slam the lid closed. All right, Viros. So I'm looking around and just kind of, on the, I'm still on the defense, because there's really nothing. Anything I might try to do physically is a mistake at this first. Sit on the trunk. Oh, that's all that.

I'll say, sit on it. And I go, okay. Good idea. So you go and you sit on the trunk? Yeah. 225, eat this. All your armwork. So you sit down in the trunk from there.

Yeah, put him on there. Here, so I'm gonna sit there. You're sitting on the trunk. Arms crossed. Okay. Anavella. We got this. Oh yeah.

The clothes that were inside the trunk, would they fit Ricky? They might, yeah. Can you hand me something? Just pull out. Yeah, sure. Give me like a onesie. Onesy.

Okay, so I open the top of the video. You open it up, all right. I'm still kind of on it a little bit, but kind of leaning up. Pull out the first thing. Like. It's like a frilly little apron that like a little girl would wear

to kind of pretend to be. I want you to play dress up and say that you're Luke. And maybe, the brother, right? So maybe if you can speak out loud and say, I'm Luke because you're, you know, similar height, maybe we could get some information as to what's going on. I trust you, throw on the flowery apron. I took your hat off, I fix your hair, speak like a child,

talk to spirit. I'm Luke. It is your turn, Ricky, so you can do what you'd like to do. While I have the apron on too, I'm gonna look, because I'm right by it, look into the mirror. As you look in the mirror, you see that standing behind Viros is a tall, angry looking woman, and she looks like she's about to pounce down on top of him.

Are you looking at me like that? Viro's look out, she's going to get you. She's above you. Ah, Annabella's right there. I'd hope she gets me. No, the woman, the spirit, evil, bad, run. What you're talking about? All right, so normally I would have advantage on this.

I will get rid of that because now you know that she's there. I look up. You look up? Oh. Fifteen's not going to hit you. So... Do you see how she just looked at me and like didn't do anything? As, no, she's looking down at you, because you're aware,

you kind of jerk to the side a little bit as he tells you something is there, as she attempts. to slam her arm down on top of you, but she misses. So I just jump off the thing. You jump off the thing. All right, Alasdair, you're up. Can everyone see her? Yes, at this, well, only in the mirror.

Only in the mirror, okay. You saw her in the mirror, no one else can see. You can't see her when you look up. You do see her now, though, she moves. She's missed you, and up, she's moving. Where is she? You can take an op attack with disadvantage, if you would like. Me?

Yeah. Yeah. Punch at the hair. I mean, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, get out to target. I mean, the target would be just, where he told you she was behind you as she goes away. All right.

All right, yeah. I'm gonna do it. You attack with disadvantage, but you're targeting. And rose. Unfortunately, that's not gonna do it. This is hurt. So on top of the round. We're atop of the round now with Alastair, yes.

So I'm gonna move to the mirror so I can see her. Okay. And I'll say, it's sessabit spirit. Okay. Which is to calm the spirit. Okay. With that, you see her face contort, and she screams, you don't hear it,

but you see her mouth go wide and all of her face go crazy and she shoots up higher so you can't see her in the mirror. She's above you somewhere now. Can I make an Arcana check? You may. Do I feel like having done this my entire career in community spirits, but Matt having never played the spirit again, whatever I am, a medium, did it work or did it not work?

With those spells, you're trying to quell an unwilling spirit. So they get a save against you. I'm going to continue to, I'll manipulate the mirror. Gonna keep manipulating her to try and keep catching her. Yeah, so the people can see, so the people can see where she is. Okay, great. So yeah, so you manipulate it, trying to get up and you do catch her. She's hovering up at the top as if she's holding herself like a spider up against the top.

Good, I'll point her out. I'll say that. You're pointing out. All right. Barrel, your turn. You have a target, so you still roll at disadvantage, but you know where it is. Barrel is going to sort of enter a little bit that trance like state again. Trans music, da-da-da-da-da.

And Barrel at this point is convinced. I feel at this point is convinced, which may or may not be correct, that this spirit killed her children. I feel like... I feel like I've connected the pieces. This lady's dress is clearly in this room. She used to play with these kids. And that little girl died after having tea with this witch.

And as I enter my rage, sure enough, you start to see the spirits start to come up off of my shoulders again. I've loosened from my belt hops and barley, my two little hand axes, and I'm gonna chuck them where I approximate she is based off of what he's. Yeah, so you're doing two attacks, right? Yes. To make two disadvantaged attack rolls.

Okay. With my first attack, since it's a reckless attack, that one I gain advantage on. So would that cancel out the disadvantage? Yeah, let's go for it. Sweet. Yeah, so just a single roll. So a 14 plus seven. Nice. You throw that one, you see it lodge right in the space in the mirror that you can see, and she sort of feels it in her shoulder.

That's a hit! Now, if it's in her, we can see the X moving? Targeting? No, you see it go kind of, sorry. You see it kind of go through her, and she feels it as it goes through and lodges in the wall behind her. Apologies, yes, thank you.

Okay. Uh-huh. And then, should I roll damage on that first then? Oh, yes, roll damage on that. All right. That is a seven. Okay. As that happens though, you do see that,

while it goes through and you can see her kind of snarled, it happened, it does seem to knit itself back up a little bit, the wound. You want to make your other attack? Yeah, sure. And this one's that with disadvantage. This one is with the disadvantage. Oh, that's a 15 plus seven.

Fantastic, other one also just the same thing, goes through, but closer to her belly. That's a hit. Through and hits through the back. Roll your damage. I'm calling on my. And logs in the back. Lodges in the back behind her.

That's another seven. Again, it sort of seems like whatever she's made of, it kind of knits back together a little bit from that. I call to the rest of the group, it's not working. Vera. No, it is working. It is. I can see, right?

She's taking damage. You can look in, you can see that she's taking it, just not as much as you'd hope. So, Vera, you just watched Barrel throw Hobbs and barley, and they go through and they stick through, but Alistair keeps telling you that it is hitting, even though you... Oh, please, not that music. That music gives me nightmares from my childhood. Could we get something a little bit lighter, some lighter music here? Are you a fan of True Crime TV shows? And what about Unsolved Mysteries?

The show that jump started all of our love of true crime. I'm Ellen Marsh. And I'm Joey Taranto. And we host I Think Not, a true crime comedy podcast covering some of the wildest stories from your favorite true crime can't be TV shows all the way to Unsolved Mysteries. Baby, you will laugh, you will cry, you'll think about true crime in a whole new way, and you'll also ask yourself, who gave these people mics? New episodes of I Think Not are released every Wednesday with bonus episodes out every Thursday on Patreon. And every Monday, you can listen to our True Crime Rundown, where we go over the top True Crime. headlines of the week.

So come and join us wherever you listen to your podcast. The world of Sonic the Hedgehog has been thrust into a not so dark, not so stormy, hard-boiled detective story that probably nobody saw coming. Follow Sonic and the Intrepid Chaotic's Detective Agency as they take on their biggest case yet. This high-flying action-packed adventure will take them across the world, fighting for every They can fight. It's one heck of a tale, which is good, because this story might be the only thing that can save their lives. Well, if that's all, I can just dispose of you.

Wait, what? All will be revealed in. Sonic the Hedgehog presents The Chaotic's Case Files. Listen now, wherever you get your podcasts. the case. Can't see what you're shooting at. What is your turn? So now it's time to bring out the big guns, as it were.

I've acquired an axe of life stealing. What? I feel this is the time to use it. So I square up where the target may be, and where we've seen certain damage supposedly happen. It is invisible, so you're going to roll at disadvantage, and we'll take the lower. So roll 2D20s.

Could I do 2? Can I do 2? Sure. Those three? Three, all right. The first one, you throw it, it goes up, it misses and it bounces and falls to the ground. I have an extra attack.

We missed! I lunge at it, pick it back up. Dust myself off, click my neck, both sides. Come on, brother. You're going to use the mirror. Unfortunately. He's on the ground, he rolls around, he tries, and he tosses it back up,

but again, it kind of goes sideways and falls, clatters to the ground, off to the side. That's when you're throwing at it. I'm not. I get it, it's hard. I am gonna do a minor illusion in a child's voice from a whisper to a scream directed at the ceiling.

Okay. Okay, and it's gonna say, Mommy you killed me, mommy, you're killing us. Mommy, you're killing us. Why do you make you murder? Yeah, whisper to a scream. Mommy you killed me, mommy you're killing us, mommy you're killing us over and over and over again.

In a little child's voice, as if it's like somewhere floating in the air. You all start to hear that. Just this little plaintiff voice, mommy. You in the mirror looking at the image of this terrifying woman hunched in the corner, suddenly her eyes go wide. And she sort of starts to look around

as if she's trying to place where this voice might be coming from. I'm here in the corner. Yeah, good move. Maybe. There's this rocking chair that's near me, right? Yes. I'm gonna climb into the rocking chair. Okay.

And I've got my little frock on. Uh-huh. And I'm gonna start saying, Mommy, you killed me. Mommy, you killed me. Back and forth. Just cause I like it, performance check. Yeah.

Oh, 20. A 20. Wait, it's 26. Oh my god. Yeah. So you sit down and I don't know where this came from, but like immediately you look like a little tiny child, just rocking around.

You look so scared and alone. And oh, it's amazing that look. You again see in the mirror that she's searching around for that, but as soon as she sees that, her eyes come down to that rocking chair. Slowly, you watch as she descends very slowly and starts to float. It's working. Over the rocking chair image, looking down at this child. She turns around again and flies back towards the trunk,

which she opens up and seems to sink down beneath the floor. Through the trunk? Through the trunk into the floor. Well played brothers and sisters. Well done. You can take that frock off now. It's freaking me out. That was amazing move.

Well played. She's gone for now. For now? It is your turn, Alistar, if you want to finish anything up. I was gonna cast Altar Self, but I was... No, good, I think that's it. Well, that was an ordeal. Perhaps we should take this mirror

with us if it will allow us to see not just this spirit, but maybe any spirit. That's a good suggestion. Maybe somebody carry it. I'll definitely carry it. Let's at least bring it down into a common area, so it's accessible to us. Well played.

Picking it up is fairly easy for this man, so I just pick it up. You pick it up, however you find, as you go back to the tight channel that you came through to get through, while you can fit it in, it won't turn the corner. And that's okay because didn't use it before. Can use it now.

For what purpose? To widen the space. Doesn't widen the space. It just gives you equilibrium. It just makes, it gives you perfect balance. Can he kick out the, can he like break his way through so the mirror can get in? You want, uh, he would kind of destroy a little bit?

No, no, no, no. Oh, destroy the tunnel. Just try for that. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Perhaps everyone goes through before you're just gonna hand exercise to, you know, to smeary. You know, weight bearing load and everything.

I can sniff those out. but I know where to swing. Before we leave the room, though, while I'm sitting in this rocking chair, I just wanna kind of look it over a bit. Yeah, make an investigation too. Would you like to roll it for me? I would love to roll it for you.

It's a plus three. Plus three. Okay, you start feeling around and feeling in the slats and there's even there's a little blanket that's been sort of folded over the back and within that blanket, you feel a little diary. Nice! Give me, give me.

Well played, brother. Well played. Oh boy. Lots to read. Lots to read. If you would like me to summarize. Yes, please. Let's summarize what you read.

There are specifically within this three journal entries that you think are interesting, and you're reading this while he's hacking away, trying to widen the space to get the mirror out. It seems to be Eleanor Bentham's diary. And in it, the first entry talks about this lovely, happy family. She loves Morgwen so much, and she's so pleased that he built this beautiful home

for her and Katrin to live in. The second entry, however, suggests that Katrin has died in a fire. She blames Morgwen, and Morgwen blames her. She blames him for building a faulty house. He blames her for not keeping a better eye on the child. And also, we buried her in the mausoleum beneath the house. Yes, it mentions that as well. In the final entry, it is much later,

and it talks about how they despise each other now. They no longer speak while they live in the same house together. There is no love between them. They fester and grow old. Are you reading this aloud? Yes, through the construction. Yes, through the construction of storytelling. But yes, and it's one of the big clues that there is a mausoleum.

And she talks about how she used to come here and sit to try and remember her daughter after she died. She talks about how she often spent time in the library, but that she has figured out a way to keep Morgwen out. And she brought it up here with her. Up here into the room. Up into her special, the attic space that she's been spending down. So we'll go to the chest. When he finds this, I start to go through the chest. Go through the chest again.

While you're going through there, you find a very ornate wooden knob. door knob that has a little piece at the back. So there you go. So he's able to break through and you're just able to and push it out through into the other room. I'm not useless at all. Who said I was useless? I did.

I see you found the key. It's a weird looking key. I think we should head back down, yeah? That sounds like a lot. You go down the stairs. You've got the, the, the mirror hefted up underneath your arm. You come down into the main stairway again

and go up this little steps to find your door. It does slot into that piece to the left. Okay. Is it okay if I stand up? Please, go manipulate. You're gonna stand on top of Eros again? Yes, I am. Ready?

Yeah, go for it. He puts the mirror down and comes and kneels in front of the door. If we're starting here, I assume that we're gonna wanna get to here to have the doorknob there. That appears to be it, yes. So this is not moving. Copy that. So let's move backwards from there.

Okay, so we'll start here. That's so, you're so good. I want to think you. That's good. And let's see. You have to go down and can't go up. You have to go left. And then maybe there, yeah.

And then, yeah. And then down against. Oh, no, you can go up. You can go up. That can go up. Oh, this is another non-moving. Oh, it is. Okay, so it's to go down.

down. Continues down, brother. So with these pieces. Sorry, that's just poor construction on Morgman's the house. With these pieces, they have more than one option. So I'm wondering if while we move it, we'll have to switch it to go back into another path, just to keep that option open.

Good to know. And then go up, but then you have to go there. And then it's circular. So that does not work. So it might, though, if we can get from here You give it a shot and you move the knob into that one and as soon as it's in there you can no longer spin it Got it. So you can only spin them when they're free.

This is going to take it. Ladies and gentlemen, go over and take it. We got this. We got this. We could try the other option and go around. That's what I'm saying. So this has to be down. This could be left or right.

This goes there but that does not, oh this could go there. This could go down. So this could go down, this could go there, this could... Doesn't move. What about the one above it? The little X? Yes, that does move. So...

Everyone, get on Barris' back. Everyone's down there. Couldn't we like do this? Now you could go either... Oh, is this one... This doesn't move. Oh, there! Oh, detour.

There you go. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, that's it. Okay, okay, let's try. Wait, wait, wait, boom, let's just reconfirm. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. I can connect, yes.

Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. Baa, ba. You take the knob, you slide it through the notches, and find your way around. It goes all the way down, up and around, and latches into that final spot where you hear a click. Yeah. And I twist it.

You twist it. Can I do a perception check for a spirit? You may? I mean, it's so bad. Wow. Yeah. You just whole special background. I know.

It's so amazing, and I just cannot roll. Sorry. No worries. So he kind of comes up and puts his hand on it, but he's not getting anything. So you push the door, the whole wall seems to kind of come back and slide off to the side as you enter into a very dark library. It's a dark library. There are books everywhere, there are long drapes that come from the ceiling, books on almost anything,

and there is a large fireplace in the center that doesn't look like it's been lit in quite a long time. I'll light it. You're going to light the fireplace? When you light the fireplace, there's a sort of lovely flickering glow and it's a very deep fire. Did you magically light it? I do, yeah. Or the cantrip, come to a fire. I'll hop off of yours's back.

Okay. Yeah, the firelight sort of flickers around. It's a very kind of beautiful room. It's very dusty. It does feel like no one has been in here in a very long time. You can even see it floating in the air a little bit. The small shafts of light that come through the drapes. So grab the mirror.

Pick it up. Pick it up and search around. Do it like a 360. Hold, please. We need to lock the door. Oh, right. Okay. But it was open when we got that.

When we got there. That wasn't the rule, and you know it. Plus the spirit descended from it, if we're trying to keep it in. I'm just focused on the room, having a sense that, so I'm just. I know the door's a problem, but I'm gonna focus here. Okay, so you scan the room with that mirror,

real slow, and you don't see anything. I'll take a pass with my spritz bottle again. Okay, spritzing around, casting. Yep. Yeah, you don't sense anything magical in this room, other than the mirror. I'll enter the room. Yes, you enter the room, you come in.

Enter as well. Okay, everyone's inside. I'm already in and I'll set it down. You set the mirror down, looking around? Yeah, you don't see anything in the mirror that suggests that there, she's followed you down here. Although the attic space would be right above this. Right. Well, she went down.

Yeah. Right. That means she went through. She could have... She's not in here. She could have been by the most of Liam, maybe. That means she's... Viros, break the floor.

Wait. Wait now. That might be status somewhere. Right. So she protects this room from him, because this is where she shares. This is her safe space. Okay.

Was it? She was keeping the key away from him upstairs in the rocking chair. Right. Does that mean there's something special here? Well, maybe below it is the tomb. Yeah. So we don't have to break the floor?

I still don't see why we can't just break the floor. I believe there is a secret passage that connects to the library or the library from something else. That is something that Mrs. Powell mentioned. But they weren't able to access the library. They weren't able to access. She knew of the entrance to the library,

but she and Norsehion had ever been able to get in. Can we do a check, like on the bookshelves and on the books? We want to look at the bookshelves? Yeah. Do an investigation on the bookshelves? 20. Oh. A natural 20.

The books don't seem to be an entrance or any kind of thing like that. You're pretty certain of that. However, there are lots of books on puzzles and designing secret passageways and things. like that. This is clearly a library of someone who knows and loves those things and researched them. I say let's continue out. Where? I don't know. Would you look at a book or two about the puzzles? Maybe there's a clue in there about... Well, we figured it out, right? We need to get to the bottom of why she's so angry, right? I mean, that's why we're here.

So we don't know which mother she is, but we do know that she had affected her children in some way and feels some sort of grief. Or child. Right. And we have... this diary, so I'm assuming that this is Eleanor, the spirit that we're dealing with. Right. And so maybe we can find some sort of family records or history or something to scour this area. So I'll start checking the books and seeing it. You're going to check the books? All right, yeah, make an investigation check. Okay. If you wanted to do it, it's a plus three. Oh, okay, yeah. I keep forgetting to do my own hospital. You look at the books and there's not much

really popping out to you. They all seem kind of, the ones you looked at at least seem kind of general. And then within the library, what sort of furniture is in here? Are there chairs? Yeah, there are a couple of sort of armchairs and a little table with a, you know, like a little gas lamp on it. I'm gonna look at the fireplace. Okay, make a perception or investigation. Oh gosh, I'm not good at that. If she's looking at the fireplace, I'll take the fire out.

Okay. 16. Ooh, very nice. You sort of spread across the ash and as you're looking through, you know, because he put it out and you're kind of looking towards the back of it. And again, as you brush up again, you sort of, you sort of, you sort of, you're looking towards the back of it. And again, as you brush up again, you sort of against it, the stone pushes a little bit back. What? Perfect.

Well done. Yes, very good. I also cut the curtains. Oh no. When there's, when there's, when there's, Annabella taught me this, when there is a fire, there's a smoke.

I take a nap. In the middle of the. You can see, see sir, you doubt the wisdom, but the wisdom, the proof in the, Where there's pudding, sometimes in that pudding. Just gotta let her get through it. You get a key. Good work.

Well done, well done. Thank you. Yeah, so does it door open? You push it back and as it pushes back again, kind of a crawl space, but you see stairs that go down. Nice, there it is. No need to break the floor.

I think that would have been faster. We've been looking at books for so many books. Right. So many books. I do just want to say, wait, I took the curtain. I made a bag and I took some of the puzzle books. No, we might need those. No, you're right.

How many purses do you have? I've got a bag, wait. I took some of the books about puzzles because they might come in handy when we get down to the tomb, so they're with me. You've got it, fantastic. Can you hold it, please? I'd like to go first.

GERCES got the vine bag and then another little cloth one. I've got enough. Rock, scissors, paper. Higher the half oak. We left the doll and the T-set, but you still have the vine bag. Okay. Yeah, you gave Matilda and the T-set to win.

Okay, got it. Before we go in, can I say a prayer into my locket? Of course you may. Oh, nice. What does this is kind of nerve-wracking. And I say, Ancestors, please keep me and my friend safe, including the new guy.

He's kind of weird, but he's also kind of cute and smart. And please don't let spirits eat us. Thank you. You see a little swirl of light in the center of it, and as you close it, you kind of feel it's almost harder to close. or close, like you've trapped those words inside the locket. Nice smile. All right, so you guys go down the stairs? So go down the stairs first.

You go down the stairs, your head. As you come down, you come out into what does appear to be a mausoleum. All along the space, you can see that there are candles that had at one point been lit, as if people have come down and kind of paid their respects. Along the wall, you see plaques. There are, at this point, one, two, three, four plaques on the wall. plaques on the wall. One of them reads, Katrin Bentham, age six, please come back. Morgwen Bentham, aged 83, may he find rest. Eleanor Bentham, aged 81, may she find peace.

Luke and Gwendolyn Bentham, aged nine, lost too soon as they shared a womb, they share a tomb. Below each of these plaques, you can see that someone has taken something like a knife or a chisel and made these weird. kind of markings in them, like indentations. Underneath those indentations, you see the little crest of Bentham Manor, little bees, and they sort of are the same for each of these. Like the letter B. The letter B.

Not a B. No, not a B, yes. Little B's. Is it look like the etchings are language-based, or are they manic? Looking at them for you, you can see there, it feels like there's some kind of pattern, but you just can't discern it. How many markings are there underneath each of the plaques? There are lots of the plaques. lots of little markings, but they all seem to be kind of flanked by these two symbols of a bee.

Or canna check, if I cast re-language, do I feel like it would give me an insight to it? This does not look like any kind of a language, no. Okay. Do we want to map the room? We can. No! Sorry guys. We're all dead! So this is slightly larger. This is where your stairs came down, and there's plaques along the wall. Okay. Okay.

There's nothing back here. There's candles and things on the floor and old wax drippings. I'll light the candles. Oh, very nice. It's a very lovely kind of low, flickering light. I'm not exactly sure how your ritual magic works, but if we were to cast something here, if it's a mausoleum, I assume there are lots of spirits. Are we a danger of... I mean, you know me and my spirit perception check.

Allow me to take a moment. What's what you got? Eighteen. An 18. There we go. I mean, you actually don't sense any spirits in this space. You sense actually a real sense of peace. And you feel that perhaps if spirits could,

that the separation is what's causing this kind of turmoil right now. So can we- Get her down here? Yep, let's go get Sarah. Bring her down. Let's bring her down very gently. And should we maybe get Gwendolyn too?

Here's the thing that's interesting. Gwendolyn, I mean, I'm not sure how perceptive she is, but she said that the bad man was the only one that could pass throughout the house. And we just saw this woman ghost pass through the floor to another room. But maybe she was returned here. Maybe she's interred, like her spirit went back to find peace.

Can I do a check? Can I do a check? I'm going to be a knowledge check, again, with advantage towards this. And it could be intelligence, if you'd like. Okay. 16. Okay.

In your experience of spirits, most spirits tend to be tied to the place where they died and they're unable to leave. However, other spirits that have particularly strong energies can move more freely. However, one way and one reason why a spirit might possess a physical body is in order to gain the ability to physical movement. Oh, that's awesome. Okay. I have a theory.

Yes. We've promised her this, and we could have left without doing this, but perhaps We should return Luke to Gwyneth. Those spirits might return to the mausoleum. And it seems like if this is more Gwendo that is inhabiting Sarah's body, he just wants to be reunited with his family. Right. How do we find Luke?

That's the question. Is there anywhere we haven't looked? She said he played in the greenhouse. The greenhouse, but we were in there. What if we bring her down? Sarah, yeah, yeah. Let's bring Sarah down. I'm all about that.

I like it. I don't really want to touch her. She's creepy, but I'll be. do it for you guys. I would feel better if we resolved the other matter first. That's just my opinion. Because I feel like- Keep looking for Luke.

Is that what you want to do? Yes. If we could go back to the greenhouse and maybe sense a spirit there. Aye. And maybe convince him to come with us or figure out what his problem is. Ugh. Kids, am I right? I, we show.

Well, maybe Luke is here. To the greenhouse. To the greenhouse. All right. We run up the stairs to the greenhouse. As you come in. We lock the door. You lock the door behind.

You close everything down. Fantastic. Do we do this lock? You come into the greenhouse? You're gonna do try and commune or sense or what? I'll try to sense the spirit. Do you want to roll for me? Sure.

In the name of DMing. In the name of DMing, see if I do any better. Negative one. With advantage though. You don't sense any spirits. Okay, good. All right, so he's not here. So I say we go get Sarah.

That's good, Sarah. Sounds like a bad. All right. There's no other, just real quick. There's no other, the kitchen, there's a discussion about kitchen and gorging themselves. Yes, the dining room, the kitchen, so there's doors in the hallway to go to that.

I'll go to, we'll go in there. Okay, so you're gonna go over there, unlock the doors into the dining room, make your check. Do you want to do it for me? I got, I got it, I got it, I got it, I got it. You want to do it for me? Oh, much better. Yeah, you hear a little bit of laughter.

Hey. In, in the dining room. in the dining room. So we go to the dining room. Go to the dining room. And grab hands, everybody grab hands. Throw it out. Yes.

La Cantor Spiritus. La Cantor Spiritus. The shroud and the center begins to slide up. And again, you see a small figure. This one, however, appears to be wearing glasses. Look, we've been looking for you little one. You know, my name? Hi, we've been looking for you.

And it's so nice to finally find you a little. Wow. Wow, someone to play with. Hi. Wonderful. Have you seen Quinneth? We have and we want to bring you to you together. I'd love to see Quineath. Here's what we're gonna do.

What are we gonna do? Do you have the ability to put your body into Ricky's body? Oh, sure I do. What? Wow, that's convenient. Hey, stay with me. Don't lose focus. Now is the time to be paying good attention.

I want you to take your little spirit and put it in his body right proper like. Uper like, ready? My, oh my. Set. Ricky, good luck. Oh, dear. Go!

The shroud starts to move towards you. As it does, it falls to the floor and you feel this chill come up inside of you. Why? You are now Luke. Oh. You are possessed. Do you want to play him or?

I think you should do it. Boy, but I will clue you on things. Hello. It's been a long time since you felt a hug. Bring it in you. Oh, I'll hug the little. He's like the scales. Oh, he's so cool.

Oh, he's so cool. He's so cool. Come, come with me. Okay. That reason might the hand up. You gotta hold your hand. Yeah, yeah, so we'll take him. You can see the bright little light

in Ricky's eyes of a very young boy. Do me a favor. Look the door behind us, would you? You lock the dining room door and come out. As you come around this way, he says, are we off to see Gwyneth? Are we off to see Gwyneth? Hi, we're gonna take your right to her.

She's my favorite. She wants to play with you too. Oh. You run upstairs and into the room and as you come up there you can see there's a little blue sort of floating light that comes close and they meet at the little children's table. As they sort of sit there, you feel this presence kind of come out of your body as you sort of fall back onto the floor and these two lights sort of dance on either side of the table and they begin to dance and move within each other. And all of the etchings on the table of the leaves and things begin to swirl.

and spin and this little wind, and the light brightens and goes out. Barrow starts crying. It's okay. It's okay. It's very ten. Where am I? It makes me miss my sister.

That is true. So as Ricky comes out of this possession, he has a vague sense of sort of that he's moved place and can kind of remember some of it, but he doesn't remember very much. We did it. That was beautiful. Family is so important. Oh, I missed it.

Bees. It's okay. Let's continue. Let's continue. It's such a beautiful tender moment between two siblings. A few more tender moments is what we need. Perhaps now we might be able to convince

Morgwen to leave the body and go back to the mausoleum, reunite him with his family. I would bring her down. That's gonna be a domestic issue there. Could be. You make an investigation check for me. Okay. Eleven.

You came out of your days of this, and just as you're watching, these sort of papers that are on the floor, these etchings of the leaves that you looked at before, they kind of settled down. And something sort of pricks the back of your mind. Relax and let Ralph's delivery handle your grocery shopping this week. We start with only the freshest items. Then review your list and carefully choose each one. Then we pack it all up and deliver it in as little as 30 minutes. So you can feel confident it's what you ordered.

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Do the leaves form some sort of shape? No, but you can see next to them there are crayons next to the leaves and some extra tracing paper. Well, it seems I don't know what the importance of this is, but something here is ring a ding ding bell. Something with these etchings and this crin and tracing paper. Anybody. There's no sign of the leaves

anywhere, right? No, the leaves have long since sort of dissipated. Broken apart. What, Ricky, do you want to color? Kind of. Hand you the crayon. Thank you. It'll make you feel better. Maybe something about Luke having been in your body

for a moment. You're just having a feeling of like, yeah, I really kind of want to make some etchings. Make some etchings. Sit down and draw. Okay. I'm gonna play my mandolin. Great. Do you want an accordion back up?

You want to inspire you? Can you do, yes, can you grab the accordion? Of course. Okay. Fantastic. Full jam session. You're not to see a show. I have no idea what's happening, but I stand watch at the door.

So you start to draw, you're gonna give him like a D8, I think, from your bardic inspiration. Um, um... Eighth. An H, fantastic. And you are also inspiring with all of all of that. inspiring with all of this. As you start to draw, you're feeling very, very inspired and something about Luke's presence.

You find yourself drawing a picture of the mausoleum. I want to examine the picture. You examine the picture. As you look on it, in that picture that you have drawn, on the plaques, you've marked those little markings, those hatch marks that someone had carved into the plaques. Look how detailed I've said. I should have been an artist.

It was fantastic. I think we need to go to the mausoleum. Yeah? Oh yeah. Okay. Well said. Brother, I'll follow you. Sounds good. So you all run down the stairs, you take your stuff with you? The etchings?

Yes. Take all that with you, and you come down the stairs, into the library, go behind the fireplace, and back down into the mausoleum. Closing every door and locking everything behind it. I'll spread out the etchings and then look at the map that I've made as well and see if I can orient myself to match it.

Yeah, you orient yourself and it's basically as if you were standing right here. And you can kind of, again, you see these things and it's so interesting to you that they all have the same little marking underneath them. All of them do. All of them have that same marking. Well, take tracing paper and trace the glyph.

No, that's what you see. Uh-huh. That's on Katrin's... Oh, I take the next one and go to the next cliff. Uh-huh. I go to the next one and the next cliff. Okay, great. So this is the...

Oh, my. Oh! Bring it over. What you say? Read it. Oh, that's a spell. Ah, there is a spell. Hold that second, I was so far away and I'm blind and old.

Emuda spiritis, I, obviously this means bring them together. You do speak Latin and you read it. It says, imunda spirit exilium. It means unclean spirit, I banish thee. It is an exorcist. It is an exorcist. incantation. Oh, fantastic.

Stay with me. I know what to do. Okay. So we'll go up to the room. You're going to back up to the master suite? To lock every door behind us. I open the door. Here's what I want to see.

As soon as I banish this spirit, prepared to battle for our lives. Grab that mirror boil and bring it with us. What'll do? Have that axe in your hand. You have magic. Get ready to wield. We'll be fighting for our lives. Don't half step.

Me shields, do your job. I love that time, do you? Yeah. Okay, great. We'll open the door. Let's knock them dead again. Hey. We'll open the door.

Yep. Because they're already dead. Get it? Are you fully healed? Pretty much, yeah. Pretty much? Yeah, I have only four points down. I gave you my good berry.

Oh, thank you. The wand? Hold on to this. Don't, I insist. So we'll enter the room. enter the room. Okay. And her partner is there.

As you walk in, you see Mary lies in the floor, unconscious. Sarah stands on the bed and she watches you as you enter as though she was expecting you. You've come to do battle, have you? It is time for you to go. Try your worst. We intend to- I bring you my best into mere spiritis, imunda. I'm wrong, but I say it with passion.

And her whole head kind of goes back. Her body contort. She goes backwards in a back bend. Her head coming back through her legs as her legs come down on the ground. Repeat your thing again. Amundas spiritus exilium. Amundas spiritus exilium.

As she starts to turn and toss around on the bed, you feel a horrible scream, but at least this scream sounds like a woman. As a blue light emerges from out of her body, on top of the bed, floating around. Is a tall, thin, ghostly apparition of a man with a top hat and he holds a cane. Oh, what a bastard!

Smash him! All right. The ghost rises out of the body of Sarah Bentham who falls down onto the bed in an unconscious heap and he lies above and you see he's tall and thin and he wears a top hat and a cane and we will roll initiative. Roll inish, bravo. Roll anish! Rollinish!

11. Merrill is out of 10? I'm at 17. 17. I'm at 19. Ricky? I'm also at 17, and my dex is plus 1. So you'll go first, Ricky?

Okay. Eight. Okay. All right, Annabella, you see this happening. He rises above the bed looking threateningly at you. What do you do? I do a hypnotic pattern. Can I wait for a pattern of thorns?

Sure. You can make it look wherever you want. Your hypnotic pattern. pattern is thorns, no, it's nails. I want to weave a pattern of nails. Intertining, terrifying nails. The scariest mother nails you've ever seen.

And this is... And you're talking about hammering nails, not like finger nails. Right. You're welcome. The sharpest finger nails. The scariest most hypnotic fingernails. You've got a lot less dangerous, though. Yeah.

No, let's do regular nails. I liked it. Okay, it's like hammer nails. It's like nail guns up there. Right, right, right. So this is an enchantment that you're, you're really, or is an illusion. Well, it's, it's, um...

Help me out here. Does it say it's a charming effect? Wisdom save. It is charming. We can fail, save. All right, so unfortunately you make this huge pattern of nails intertwining. The ghost looks at it and laughs and looks back in your face. I don't think it works.

Ricky, you're up next. I'm going to rush over and check on the doctor that is unconscious on the floor. So you rush over to the side? Yeah. She's, yeah, you're pretty much there over there. He's seen the big ghost there, don't you. Don't you come? Can't we check on her way?

Not my department. Oh my mom. All right, yes, what are you going to do once you are? I would like to do a medicine roll? A medicine roll, go for it. Just to stabilize or? Either stabilize or check her condition type of thing. Okay, great.

Not great. A 12. You go over there, as far as you can tell, she's unconscious. She doesn't seem to be dead to you, but you're not quite sure what else to do for her. Okay. Does she seem injured in any way? You can't tell. You can't tell how she lost confidence. Got it.

All right. Barrel, your turn. I face down this big blue ghost and say, you've brought shame upon your family and subjected your children to tyranny, but your terror ends today. And as I say this, I'm going to pick up my great axe and just like bring it down through him. Through him? I'm anticipating that it's going to go through.

Okay. So you step up to the foot of the bed, so you're right up next to him as he sort of hovers five feet in the air above it. So my first attack is my reckless attack, so I'll gain advantage on this one, but if he attacks me, he also gains advantage. Okay, right, right, right. So that might be worth noting.

It is. I'm also gonna go ahead and enter my rage. Woo! Yeah. Which will give me some resistance to his attacks, hopefully. Great. Ooh, I got a Nat 20. Whoa.

Oh boy. This is becoming, I feel like I'm like, this is becoming like a domino effect because I'm a barbarian. Yeah. So I have savage attack. So on my criticals, I roll one of my weapons damage dice a second time and add it.

It's awesome. So is that three times? Yeah, I guess that would mean three times. Yeah. So you're rolling three of your damage die and adding your modifier. Yes. Go for it. Give me your first attack damage.

Okay, let's see. On that. So she strides forward for axe over her head. Right, and that's a great axe, so I get to use my D12. Betty slices down. For a 10. Ooh, wow. Nice.

Plus four slashing damage. So that's a 14 and then a 9 and then 12. So the way that we're gonna roll this with your savage attack as well as your crit hit. So on the crit you're gonna get two rolls of your damage die and then we're gonna add a third roll of your damage die for your savage attack. We'll add your modifier once to that but then we're also gonna add plus two because you are raging. Perfect, awesome. Awesome. Really awesome. So your first roll was a 10.

Okay. Your second was a 4. Yes. So that's 14, and then another, what was the last one? I had an 8. So you're up to 22 in total on that. And we're going to add two more, which is 24. 24, and then the plus four slashing. The plus four to that is 28.

28 slashing damage. Man, fantastic. So yeah, barrel slas, you know, barrel's forward. Barrels forward. And with almost no more fear in her eye and a righteous, you know, justice, she slides it over her head. It comes right down through the center of him.

You can't hear it, but again, you see his mouth, open wider than any human mouth ever could. And he lets out a shriek. He does knit back up somewhat on that attack, but man, did that hurt. Ooh, good, good, good. All right, anything else? Oh, you're doing the second attack?

I could do a second attack here if I wanted to. This one does not have advantage. No advantage on this. Ricky's on the ground. Yeah, so see, while he's knitting back up, I prepare my great axe for a second swing, yeah. So this one I have 15. 15 to hit, you hit.

Perfect. Seven. So seven on that. So yeah, again, totally hit, but again, again, the wound that you kind of make as it slides through his his incorporeal form kind of knits back up a little bit again. And as I do this, I let out a big, like, bring it. He does the same, but again, it's sort of without, it's like a high pit, as he kind of reaches forward and screams in your face. Viros. I'm going to be using my acts of life stealing.

And I'm attacking twice. All right. And I'm using my action surge to push myself beyond my reasonable limits to attack again. All right. You can see him. So we'll count that as two of your rolls. So you got an 18 on one.

So you hit the first one, you miss the second one. You want to roll the third? Oh yeah. Natural, 901. Yeah. This is unbelievable. Disgusting. It's the worst I ever roll.

You disgust me. So you got the first one, roll the damage on your first hit. It's your name? It's a six for that one. Six plus three on that. Three, six. Six, but you'll get all of it. You do see that as that first slash goes through, that one doesn't heal itself up again.

There we go. So that's a six. Boom. Why are you rolling a second two? Did you add three? I get three damage on that? No. No, no, no, no.

Oh, sorry, yeah, it was plus your three. So you only hit the once. So I hit the once. Hit the ones. On the flub on the last one, you miss him and you actually slash into the post of the bed stand off to the side, which allows that to fall to the ground crashing. Sarah rolls off onto the ground next.

Oh! Make your fourth attack. Okay. Seven. Plus. Oh, my, what is it, six? Six. Six. You hit.

Okay. Yay. I'm just so down on these rolls. So do your damage. Oh my gosh. What is it? A one plus three, so four? All right.

He's so handsome though, it really is amazing to watch. He's beautiful. You try, yes, as you do it, the ponytail gets whipped around the back. And you come back through him up from that side. And again, it doesn't, it's like full damage, like it's a good thing. Yeah, it's not enough. It's not sure what you're doing, but you look great doing it. He looks amazing.

That chiseled jaw. The light glistens off your teeth. At this point, the ghost rises, makes himself as big as he possibly can. And as he does it, his arms get long in his head and mouth elongate all of you. You know, you three are fine. You two make wisdom saving throws.

Uh-oh. Uh-oh. Y'all best eat those berries. Okay, all right. You're able to withstand it? Oh yeah. 14. A 14?

Plus your wisdom? I don't have. Oh, right. He doesn't have any. Zero. Both of you are fine. You've seen him pull this trick before, and it was way worse when it was in the

a young woman. This time doesn't do a thing to you. Yeah. You are up next, Alastair. Can you as position where the combat, who's, yeah? I think you're, yeah, in heat. Yep, we're on the bed. These two were there. You were standing back doing your hypnotic pattern. He's with Mary over here. Yeah, oh yeah, yeah. Put him on the ground doing nothing. It's perfect. Okay, all right. I'm gonna take my movement and move to get a flanking move on him.

It's like over there. And I'm gonna blast him with a, like blast, oh! My dragon breath weapon. Okay, coming that way so you miss your buddies. Okay. So it's a DC of 13. It's a DC of 13. I make a deck saving throw? Yeah.

I don't make it. Half damage, 2D6. It's three damage. And then I'm gonna take a quick end action. Does he reel in pain from the fire? The fire hits him and he sort of takes it. You see a little singe, but again, it like goes out pretty quickly. So it's, okay.

Not great for the fire mage. Not great. Realizing, you're only going to do. half damage, I'm gonna quicken a spell. And like, I'm gonna use that as an attack as well. Go for it. So I've hit, take six damage. All right, and this is?

It's a fire bolt. A fire bolt. Yeah, 2D10. So more fire. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, so for six damage, but I don't think. That's okay, Robin. Really gonna be a lot of that.

So again, a bolt kicks right through him, comes through a little syng. Oh, we did the, oh, you're doing it twice. That's right. Yeah, just wanna. Yeah. So fire exhales out of your mouth. It's singes the front of him.

He sort of shakes it off and it falls to the ground. You do it again and again just sort of shakes it off. But this time you can see it's like right at the edges of his ears and stuff. It's still moldering. Bling it. He's singeing him. It looks cooler when he does it.

All right, on a bellow. I'm gonna do shatter. So a creature takes 3D8 thunder damage on a failed save or half his must damage on a successful one. So I roll a D20. No, you're just making. it happen and I'm gonna save against it. So it's a Constitution?

It's happening. All right, Constitution saving throw. Here we go. I make it. Okay, that's good, that's fine. You still roll. So it's still roll the damage, although he's gonna take half of that.

So take your D8, yeah, and you're gonna roll three of those. Eight. Eight. Five. Five. So 21, so right above his head where she places it.

You guys, you doesn't bother. you as much, but there's just, you can see his head sort of shake as if something was like pounding inside of his brain. But again, he kind of shakes it off a little bit, but it really clearly makes him mad. Do his teeth fall out? He doesn't really have any teeth. Okay. In my brain they fell us. But if he had teeth, they just trinkled down. They just trinkled down. Okay, if his teeth shatter. Yes! Teeth to dust. That's what I always say.

You're good? First time for everything. Give them the meanest look I've got. Nice. Perfect. All right, Ricky the Huckster. Yes, so I'm going to stay here and I'm actually going to pull out my pocket watch. Nice.

Things are moving way too fast. Yes, they are. I just need some time to think. I don't know what this does, but I wind it. You start to wind it up. As you wind it up, you can feel that time around you sort of gets to, it feels like it goes a little bit slower for you. So you have advantage on all deck saving throws.

Good. terrain does not bother you. There might be one or two other things, but that's it for now. And then I'm going to move and go towards Sarah who fell. Okay, on the floor. So she's literally like just right over there next to the bed. This is the bed?

That's the bed. So like come around the other side of the- Yeah, there we go. Perfect. I wanna check her as well. Well, I will check. You will check her. So you've moved over to her and you're at her side.

All good? Yep. All right. Barrel, your turn. Come on, BTB. I got this, don't worry. Throw down. All right, Betty, don't let me down.

And I'm gonna go ahead and attack it again. Okay. All right, so, oh gosh. That's a nine, 16. Yeah, you hit. Sweet. Nine slashing damage. Okay.

So I'm gonna bring it down, and then I'm gonna try to flip it and get them on the back swing as well and try to tear back through them. As you pull it back to try to flip it from that first one, you see that you see You sliced through and at this point his body's trying to knit itself back together, but it just can't

and it seems like the fibers of his existence just kind of dissipate into the air. What? He's dead? Of light. Woo! So as you go back to try to rehatch to go again, you see it is no longer necessary.

I had my war hammer this time. I was like, oh wow, I was wondering when you bring that thing out. Where was gonna be the final blow? So we're down on the floor. Ricky is looking at Sarah. What are you gonna do? I would like to make a medicine roll. Go for it.

Oh, right. There's civilians that are hurt. 16. 16. 16. You come down, you see that clearly her body has been just torn apart and ravaged over the last few weeks. She's probably hanging on just by a thread of life, but she is still alive.

I want to cast Healing Word. Okay. My healing word is, you are loved. There are people here who need you. Come back to us. Okay, roll. Yay. Wow.

So there's 12. That's 12. That's 12. All right. As you lean over her body and you say these words to her that she is loved. Her eyes open, she takes a big gasp and you can even see a little bit of life comes back into her face, the color comes back into her face.

She turns around and she says, Mary, where's Mary? And she sees Mary on the ground over there and she starts to crawl over to her and puts her hand on her face. You can't move too much, okay? Okay, okay, but you can help her. Yes, you're safe. Thank you, thank you. Who are you?

Why, it's Ricky Huckster, the peddler of potions, the tinker of tinctures. Now is not the time. I'm Veroos. She takes Mary in her arms and she's cuddling her and she starts to cry slowly, rocking her back and forth in her arms. Is there anything that you can do for her, please?

I reach it to my pocket and give her my good berry. You take the good berry and you place it in Mary's mouth and Sarah helps who she closes her mouth and holds it. And you see Mary sort of start to stir a little bit and when her eyes open and she looks up and she says, Sarah? Sarah nods and smiles and looks down and they hold each other as tightly as they possibly can

the true embrace of love, and they turn back to you with tears in their eyes and they say, I can't thank you enough. This is everything in our lives. Our whole world, you have saved something so precious to us. Thank you. I swear I do. I mean, no baby.

Maybe next time do some research before buying a house, maybe. Well, this was my family's house, and I thought it should remain in the family. Mary turns to her, and she says, they are here, unfortunately, we are not the only ones in trouble. Others in the realm are in trouble, and they've come to you for guidance. And she says, yes, yes, give me a moment. And she pulls herself up, and she sits down on the bed, and she closes her eyes for just a moment. and she starts to breathe and think, yes, I have it, and she begins to speak to you.

And this is what she says. Three, born of the same womb, powerful beyond compare. Alone, they are dangerous, united, deadly. They are, the youngest, swift of thought, and devoid of moral. She names herself Akiva. The medial, a power bought and honor sold, she names herself, Ulu. The eldest, fright and rage are her chosen trade.

She names herself Margosa. Search far and wide for items three that shall empower all of thee. Only then shall you stand a chance. A spirited dance burning bright, banishing all but darkest night, this interred within a stone and left to harden all alone. Born of earth, strengthened in fire, honed until its edge is dire, blessed by holy person true shall vanquish those who live anew. Made by cloth of magic spun, it blocks out

all beneath the sun. It covers what's real, reveals what's true, no face, no eyes, but senses new. She offers this to you, she'll even write it down for you. Thank you again. You can even feel in your sense of this space that there is something has lifted. The sort of anger and despair that you felt when you first entered has now gone. You leave the house, you come back in the boat and head back to relics and rarities where you see Professor Roundland, you give her this note. She prepares this for you. I love this campaign. This is great. We'll never forget the prophecy that you have extracted. And she says, at this moment, I suppose we should probably try to work out one of these little riddles, one of these items,

so that we know where to send you next. Shall we start with the first? Sounds like a plan. All right. Yes. So a spirit of dance burning bright, banishing all but darkest night. This interred within a stone and left to harden all alone.

Any ideas? Hmm. Can I see? Is it where we have it? Can you see it? A little closer? Of course you can. We can pass it down.

So I wonder if it is inferring the sun, A giant burning bright is banished, but by nighttime, and if there's some sort of stone that contains the energy of the sun or maybe clay or something that would- This is fantastic. Right? Professor Rwandland is very interested. She's writing down stone, sun.

Yes, yes. And clay is heated with fire and turns to stone. It becomes harder. Wait, but you know what else is hard and lives in stone? Hmm. Barrel? The gemstone, yes. It could be like a gem or something. A gem, oh, fascinating.

That's what I was named after. I wasn't named after a kegavelle. You keep saying that, and that's not true. It just seems apropos is all I'm saying. Well, no. Oh, well, this is certainly a very good lead. I shall go look in the compendium overnight and see if I find anything that has to do with stones or gems

and see what I come up with. Or barrel. Or barrel, yes, I'm sorry, yes, the stone. The stone, like a barrel. I'm just taking it seriously. Absolutely. Oh, any lead is a good lead. So go home, get some rest,

and we shall see you on the mark. Madam, if you don't mind, I believe it's my time to take my leave. Alistair, we are indebted to you. Well, as always, it is a pleasure to serve you. But can I say before I leave, you've all taught me so much. Ricky, with your kind words,

I'll never forget what you spoke to her and gave her life from near death. and you, you beautiful bard. You may be useless in combat at times, but your ability to see the little things in life to gather and let them use you for strength. Never underestimate your cunning ways. And you, your ability to pull strength from the past in your history,

it inspires me personally. And you, Meachield, your bravery will be called on one day. before this is over in a way that you don't know yet, but I believe that you will rise to the occasion. Well met, thank you for allowing me to travel with you. And they'll do a big bow, this big dragon-like bow, and he'll exit the room. Hussar! Ever open up your podcast app, scroll forever, and still not know what to listen to? And there are millions of podcasts, and most of them, they just don't grab you.

That's why I created Something You Should Know. Every episode is built around surprising, useful, and fascinating ideas. We're consistently ranked in Apple's top 200 with thousands of five-star reviews. But more importantly, people come back because they learn something interesting every time. If you're tired of searching and you just want something good to listen to, try one episode of Something You Should Know right here on the platform you're listening on right now. any way you look at it. Come on, we'll stick together. Love movies? Love

Classic movies? So do we. Tick Bush Business is the podcast where classic film is discussed in modern times. Hosted by me, film journalist Kristen Lopez, and my co-host, author Emily Edwards, we dive into the golden age of cinema with fun, heart, and serious expertise. As published

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and let's talk about Old Hollywood today. Thank you so much, Alastair. I'll take my candle again, fat man. To the rest of you, get some rest, and we will see you on tomorrow. I before I go, I give them all coins. And those coins disappear at dawn.