Critical Role & Sagas of Sundry - Vox Machina Ep. 104 - Elysium

Episode Date: January 10, 2022

We journey to Elysium, where Vox Machina must prove their worth in the eyes of the gods!   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Thank you for your patience. We had a little bit of slow start tonight. We had some tech curiosity. Two of our players are Skyping in tonight, so we're happy that even at a distance we can have Ashley Johnson and Lima Brian with us. Hey! God squad, little pick.

That's true. We have our two most divine, entwined characters across the country. So thank you guys for making it in. All right, so before we get into the game, let's go ahead and get through our announcements as quickly as possible. We have some fun ones to announce.

One, tonight, our episode is sponsored by the awesome folks at Marvel's puzzle quest, Spider-Man Homecoming. Sam, anything to say? Marvel PuzzleQuest. Hi. Marvel PuzzleQuest is an awesomely addictive role-playing puzzle game where Marvel's fearless superheroes come to life. You can download it on the iTunes, the Google Play, the Google, I mean the Amazon App Store,

and the Steam. And now, a rare five-star Spider-Man has arrived in Marvel Puzzle Quest, just in time for Spider-Man Homecoming, which I'm told you. told as a movie. What is going on? What is going on? Much like Spider-Man. Let's do it now. All right, all right. Patience, my friends. We'll be right back in just a second. What's the worst in sync cover band? Don't to see this all again. I do. Because it's an ad. They paid for it. Yep.

You guys are shot out on Alpha. Oh, cool. Oh, hi. Hi, Alpha. How does it feel to be the winner? This is a rare behind-the-scenes look at this. look at how the sausage is made. Imagine that this is 3D and be amazed. So when they count down, basically,

don't yell out our vulgar things, because Alpha will be able to hear all of them. Maybe we should. No, you should, guys, totally. It's a great idea. Let them know the barrage that I undergo every week. How do you make, how do you make your phone not turn off? What do you mean?

Go into the settings. Okay. No, never mind, but I want to know. Go to battery. There should be a flash memory. I'm trying to. Nope. All right for.

Look these. This. I love that I can send. Live. Everything is in general. Yeah. Oh, I have a little. All right.

All right. Be just a second, guys. Thank you for your patience. Display. Oh. Oh. It's just like you're there. Is that all it too?

And in a picture frame. Okay, I can't wait to blow through that credit at high speed. Is everybody listening to us now? Probably. They already have it. Just not on this chat. This chat can hear us. The Alpa.

Hi, Alpha. Can hear us or see us? Both. Alpha's watching us right now. That's good. They're like Santa Claus. They're always watching. Judging.

Literally making lists. If you've been naughty, they unsubscribe. That usually means I'm hitting you with some sort of heated cattle prod while in the bathroom. I don't want to stop doing that, though. I feel like you have to make a stronger argument. Yeah. I got you a sounding kit for Christmas.

The dice that roll the best for the ones that I don't like the most. What? You like certain dice more than? Yeah, so much prettier. Why would you not get rid of the ones you don't like? That one heard me and it rolled better that time. We had a whole discussion up at the Tomb of the Nileation stream about dice rituals before games, and 15 minutes it was just talking about you.

Really? Yeah. I don't know if anyone is quite as sick as you are. I mean, dedicated. So you're testing. She took it as a compliment, though. So that's a compliment. And the ones that come up below, you throw away.

All righty. Here we go. Four, three. Skittles. Welcome back, everybody. Are we in sync? We are, hopefully, we'll find out. Ah, there it is, okay.

Anyway, welcome back. Thank you again for your patience. We're kicking this really fast. However, back to the matter at hand. We are sponsored tonight by Marvel's puzzle quest. Sam, once again, please. Once again, I hope people can hear. Marvel puzzle quest is an awesomely addictive role-playing puzzle game

where Marvel's fearless superheroes come to life. You can download it now on the iTunes, the Google Play, the Amazon App Store, and the Steam. And now a rare five-star Spider-Man has arrived in Marvel puzzle quest just in time for Spider-Man Homecoming, the movie. You can recruit Spidey and play in two new boss missions featuring the Sinister Six. Face the vulture or recruit him as a super villain for your team.

Now, to celebrate the awesomest that is Marvel Puzzlequest, I have another one of my famous puzzles for Talieson. All right. Oh, no. I bring it. So which of the following is an actual enemy from the game Marvel Puzzle Quest, and which is the name of an actual movie starring Jean

Claude Van Dam. Oh, no. I'm genuinely in trouble. Hitman. That is, oh no, that's a DC character. That's an enemy. It's an enemy. Brawler!

That's John Claude Van Dam? No. Oh, wow. Time cop! That is John Claude Van Damme. Century Fighter. That's, I got it, is it. What is it?

No, no. JCVD. This is so painful. Game enemy. Oh my God. Kickboxing. That is a Jean-Claude Van Damme. Bloodsport.

Also a Judd-Blow-Vand-Am, and also, I think, a Marvel villain as well. Cyborg! That's a DC hero. That is also a Jean-Claude Van Damien. I'll skip a couple of these. Okay, Defender! That is a... Actual enemy from the game.

Yeah, Marvel Enemy. The expendables! Double impact! I'm not even going to, like, yeah, okay. J-CVD! The only Jean-Clawn Van Den film I've seen. Okay. And one more for bonus. Killing Machine. That's a trick. It's a Dolph Lunger movie.

I have never been so baffled in my life. That was amazing. Well done. Oh my God. Marvel Puzzle Quest. Marvel Puzzle Quest. Marvel Puzzle Quest. Go play it! Thank you guys so much. All right. So, all right. So, urge updates. Laura. Yes. Okay.

guys well I got you know just a few stuff um so you know the David Mac poster so it looks like some people have requested so the poster not the signed one but the unsigned one is gonna be for a few days extra so there's that that's good news that's good news also good news is that you know some stuff is out of stock in the store but all of it is going to the manufacturers right now so things are getting made so things will be back at stock very soon. Laura, is something wrong with your head?

And... Actually, I think that's about it. There's still, like, the shirts. Some sizes are available, but some of them are out of stock. And that's all being reprinted, so you guys, it'll be back in the store very soon. One more. Thank you. Go check out the store.

The bubbly issues in bed over a three months span. I'm blaming the shirt, man. All right. It's a strong freeze. I think we recently announced in regards to the podcast. Oh my gosh, guys. Episodes like 11 through 21. 21 are now out the next 10.

20. Yeah. 11 to 20 are out. Right now, the other next batch of 10 should be out in a couple weeks or so. But you can find that on iTunes and Google Play. Yeah. Nap Dragon. I'll listen to it on my rod.

today. Your ads are funny. You introduce it up. I did. That's exciting. Yeah, that's all. We have another announcement. Travis, you want to take this one? Yeah.

Oh, this is good. We went and lost our collective damn minds for a second year in a row. And at Gen Con this year, we're going to be doing Critical Roe live once again. It's coming back second year. This time, it will be Friday, August 18th, at the most. Murat Theater at Old National Center. It's going to be broadcast on both Twitch and Alpha.

And we're going to have general admission seats and we'll have VIP package seats. We'll be the first, like, few rows of the theater. You guys will get, like, a whole hour show before the actual show starts. You'll get early admission. Brian Foster from Toxmockina will be in there. Brian Foster. We're going to have a whole pre-show specifically for the VIP seats. We're going to have a gift package, special gift bag.

and the tickets go on sale tomorrow morning at 10 a.m. Pacific. Pacific. What's PDT? Oh, that one. 10 a.m. PDT. When we're in daylight savings time, it's D.T. Oh, really? Yes, T. When we're not in. Oh, snap. I just learned that. I just did too. That was great. And the ticketing link can be found on geek and sundry.com tomorrow morning, 10 a.m. B, no, PDT. Help me. PDQ.

Stroking out. You got it. Tickets on sale tomorrow. Tickets on sale tomorrow. General admission of VIP seats. VIP seats are limited. So it's first come first. Well, yeah.

OK. Great roll experience. All right, awesome. Thank you, Travis. So I'm talking about that, guys. We have some lessons from me up there. Rosambeam. We announced a panel we have.

That is on Saturday. Saturday. 1030. No, it's 1030? 10.30 a. Sweet. It's at room three letters. Three letters.

Yes, C-D-SIDA. PD-P-D-T. PD-T. We put it out on social. So, keeping an app for that, we'll have our... Yay. Yeah. Let's see we have...

We'll make signal boost one up with our buddy, Misha Poll. Oh, yeah, Misha. Extremely talented. It should make smart hands and check out his episode to the boost. Yes. Winston Club, thank you for having me on last night. Thank you for, thank you for being on our show. It was fun.

You know what next week? Yeah, we're going to be doing in honor of the new sets that have been happening everywhere. We're doing secret headquarters, where we're gonna be talking about famous superhero headquarters and everything from like old school stuff and the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen to Titans Tower, all the fun stuff.

Be cool. Yeah. And the news of the dragma. Yes, the sort of the thread shows that I've made back. Yes, your mic is whack. Where's the mic down? They're working on it. It says, just yell.

You know what just yell. You know what just yell? You know what just sit and Chris to adjust it? The mic is whack. Yeah, come in here. It's okay. They know we're a show with the sound day. Come in, there's no illusion.

There's no illusion we find this point out here. Sound man. Chris. Chris is a Libra. You can, his interests include underwater basket weaving. Mawks on the beach. He has more than one nipple, but less than five. It's an interesting tech night.

Ash and I are Skyping in from the US CSS Nostromo. which is a Whalen Dutani vessel. And if we fart out, it's because we've been eaten by xenomorphs. Sorry. Wow. Yeah. Can't hear Ashley at all. No, yeah, we can't hear Ashley very well.

I love it. It's perfect. All right, guys. Samuel. That be the case. Let's go and dive in. Oh, God. Oh, boy.

Oh, wow. See it. Get it down. Hopefully with a fixed microphone. We'll find out. Good. Oh, perfect. Awesome. Yeah, I love it. All right. So, can you guys cut out to speak with what we did recent episodes?

Oh, good. Upon... Uh-oh. Is that you, Liam? Anyway. Uh-oh. So, last we left off, Vox Machina had confronted the whispered one, the Undying King Vecna, and the shadow fell. Yes.

The battle did not go in your favor. the death and very faint recovery of Vex and the disintegration of Vax during this confrontation. Realizing that it was not going in your favor, you plane shifted the Faye Wild, where you began to come up with some sort of plot or plan to try and bring your friend Vax back without a body. During this time Vax had a conversation with his patron, the Raven Queen, and was given an offer where he could return, along with powers that would aid in this coming final confrontation. However, the deal came with some drawbacks. And upon his friends awakening the next morning in the Faye Wild, they found Vax returned to them, whole, seemingly alive, returned, though missing his equipment. The equipment returned, and a brief period of figuring out what possibly delivered their friend back to the space. It was decided that,

based on his experience with his patron, that the powers beyond the divine gate, the prime gods that lay claim to the divine beyond the prime material plane, will probably be the next best bet in gaining some sort of power information about how to better prepare for a coming struggle with Vecna, the whispered one. You then made your way to Baslehem, where Pike went to her temple of Sarenre, which she had helped raise and reconstruct, and had a vision from her patron deity, asking her to come visit her at the island of renewal, and was granted through this vision. an object that would link via the, your spell, a way to traverse past the divine gate

and directly to her location on the plane of Elysium. Also, Grog and Scanlan had a little excursion in the city of Asselheim and a minor altercation with the guards, which led to a larger altercation with the guards, which led to a much larger altercation with the gods, which led to them barely escaping and deciding it's time to go. I'm supposed wanted. You guys then clasped hands and using the plane shift spell found yourselves stepping down on the crunching sand-like shores of the island of renewal.

They're looking past the clusters of stone and trees that mark the perimeter of this interesting, beautiful, strange, distant landscape. You could see beyond the tree line and the hills that jut up from the trees shut up from the floor, the crystalline structure that seems to mark the center of the island, and that is where we left off. So, what would you guys like to do? Did you say the sand is made of pearls?

It appears to be, yeah. The granules of the sand are too big to be tiny sand granules, but they're about pearl size, maybe a little bit smaller, and they're smooth, and they're, they seem to reflect the light in a very beautiful way. I just want to take a handful and, like, look at him. Should we make a body scrub? Good idea, Pike. I'm just going to take, like, a good handful and put it in a pouch and save them. Okay.

Microdermibration. They're just microplastic beads that have washed up on the shirt. I'm going to take just a little bit, too. Okay. So you gather up some of these perlacent beads of some kind and fill a small pouch. for them and put it amongst the rest of your belongings. Yeah. Alrighty.

Anything else you guys wish to prepare? What do you want to do? To prepare. Oh, God. We're gonna go see Sarah Ray, right? Yeah, you know, like one does. Just fucking jocally walk up. And you said that that tower was full of some sort of flame, right?

Jesus. Sorry, robot, William. No, no, I wanted two cheeseburgers. That's more. I am richer for having known you. There we go. We got you better. So what did you say?

I said briebh-brat-brop-brot. You said that that tower was full of some sort of flame, right? Yes. And what little you can see, it seems to form this torso of a feminine structure. The body of which gives out these wings that curl upward and kind of held amongst the center of these wings is a large gem-like flame. And you see within the actual crystalline, we call like a palace, if you will, It looks like there's a light source within that flickers and dances, like an internal bonfire or flame, and it seems to have a pulse to it. Wow.

I'm sure this is unnecessary, but I'm going to start thinking about setting the Death Walker's ward to fire damage. Okay, so you guys want to take a short rest to do so? Oh. Do we need a short rest? To reset his armor, he does. That's a 20 minute. Well, I don't have to. We're not in a hurry. We're not in a rush, right?

in a rush, right? 20 minutes won't kill us. Good. I guess. Sure. That's sure. Okay, so you take the better part of an hour, half an hour or so, 40 minutes or so for a short rest to reset your armor to fire resist. Any other preparation? Yeah. Well, hey, I'm no expert on the religious arts, but we have this eye of doom with us. Should we really be bringing this into a holy place of goodness?

I don't know. Is that... I think, if anything, it might be even less effective here. But what if it knows where we are and can somehow get an advantage and kill Sarenrae or something? I don't know. I feel like we should definitely ask Sarenrae about it. But it's a little late to get rid of it now. Yeah, well, we're going... Other than your pocket dimension.

It's in the bag of holding, right? Nope. I have it. Oh, she has it. I have the eyeball on my eye. Is it still in the box? Can you shake the box to make sure it's something still in the box so I don't open the box so I don't open the box Just got a little glass. It's a feel like there's an eyeball if you shake it Just shake it and feel like is like it's shake around

It's squishy. I don't know. Oh yeah. It does rattle a little bit Like a peeled wet grape. You hear it's sloshing around inside That's the Halloween trick ever. It is Can you crush the tiny like granules on the ground like in between between your finger. If you try really hard, is it like hard? Do you try? Yeah, I try really hard. Okay, pick one up and you...

Make a string circuit. Dun, dun, da, da, da, da, da, da. Uh, 22, 23. No. Whoa, the titanium pearls. It would be good for a microtermapension. It really, really would. Yeah.

Wow. Could I put my hand in the water? Yeah. Just like a, just a... Just a... You step back a bit to where the shore is. And the water is like gently brushing against the shore and then pulls back. There's no heavy waves.

The current is just this steady, almost relaxing, undulating sound. Reach over and place your hand, but then you feel the water kind of soak into the inside of the plates of your gauntlet. It's warm. It's probably the equivalent of a good 75, 80 degrees. It would be wonderful beach water. Oh, guys, it feels so nice. Let's just stay here.

Should we go for just a little bit of a swim while he attunes to his? Probably, yes. You got 20 minutes. I just put my feet in the water with her, stand on the edge. Me too. I'll also. Okay. I put my cold feet in since I have no shoes.

Wow. Wow. Wow. How am the look. S shameful. Is there a sense? Is there a sun, like a point of light in the sky? The sky is gently dappled with faint wisps of cloud

and is blue and beautiful, but you do not see a particular sun in the sky, though the light seems to be ever present. From what faint shadows you see seem to be almost from multidirectional light. There is no actual sun in the sky that you can see. The light appears ever present. That's great. Oh, wow.

Wow, Grok. Ow, ow. I'm just going to keep an eye out and see if any, there's any kind of movement in the fields while he's attuning his armor. Perception check, please. Um, 24. All right. As you guys sit there waiting on the edge of the shoreline,

keeping a watch across the waters and the edges of where the beach begins to slowly form to the rolling his and the sparse bits of trees that you see marking the interior of the island. There's no change. It's almost like whatever pattern is here is a set pattern, or at least any alterations or changes would be over a long, very prolonged period of time. You see no signs of any other life. You see no signs of any other beings walking within your immediate eyesight.

Does it feel nice? It feels nice. It feels comfortable. It's welcoming. It's a little quiet. When this roast is over, like, is over. Like, do we know what direction we're going in? I think towards the giant tower.

Towards a big tower, I imagine. Oh, geez, not everybody fucking wants, all right. Well, you had such good observation skills with the whole ever-present light thing to just... What's that been? Hmm. Man, that's... You're always a surprise. Even after so many years.

Thank you. I will say, I look at Pike. I say Pike, I, uh, this place is beautiful. It's incredible and I don't think we would be here if it wasn't for you and your connection to Sarah and Ray. And I'm honored to be here with all of you all. And to see this place with Vax. This makes me happy.

Just this moment. This is nice. I love you all. Love you too. I love you, too, Kedith. I love you, Kiki. Just to be clear. And I use my inspiring leader, Pee.

Thank you. I was just about to ask, was that well thought out speech, inspirational? All right, so level 18 that you are, with no charisma modifier, correct? Everyone gains 18 temporary hit points on how they have. Dude! Are we all healed up and healthy now?

We did take a long rest. Yeah, yeah. Oh, we did take a long rest. Okay, okay. Yeah, there was some healing spells spent on Pikes and dealing with the eye that was recovered, I think, and then you would be the plain. Me and Grog got shot a few times. Yeah, yeah, you guys didn't get a little bit. But I can use some hit dice.

Yes, you can during the short rest. These are, these books of haze. I don't have to attune to them. They're not attunable, right? Or do I have to attune to them? Yes, darling. They are. They are attunable.

Okay, that's fine. Untatune my bracers. Untune my boots of haste that I have on. I'm just gonna spend like the next 10 minutes just cleaning them up and making them look really pretty. You know you're gonna get them back next long rest. All right, so you've attuned to the boots of hate. I'm gonna get so much shit online.

No, you're gonna. Broomgate 2.0. She run away from it. Hi there. That's exactly what she would do. We almost lose somebody. Everybody. Oh.

Oh. Oh. You're so proud. I'm so glad you're back. He's as cold as his skin is right now. Don't die anymore. It's your bored. I know.

It's in character. I mean, don't give her a hard time. Yeah. It's often. All right. So you guys finish resting. It is comfortable. It is nice here.

And especially in the rush of the current state of things, this brief moment of respite is, it feels so removed. it feels so removed from that race, that chaos, that ever-present fear and doubt. And whether it's just the surroundings or just the general nature of the plane that you're in, but it's soothing, it's comforting. As you finish your attunement to the item,

you finish your new attunement to your resistance, you guys gather your things, step out of the water, put your footwear back on, and what would you like to do? Walk towards the busty lady. Yeah. Okay. What's the marching order? Oh, no.

Oh, really? You're going to fight things in this beautiful place. I'll go first. Ash is in front. Ashley's from front. Who's the next? I'm with Pike. All right, Grog's right up there with Pike.

I'll be behind Grog. I'll be with you. Lovely. All right. I'm going to trail sheepishly behind Kila. I was about to say I don't leave Vax's side. Trinket is out. Trinket is out.

And he's walking between, like, behind me and Percy. Yeah. All right. And as always, I'll enjoy the rear. Yeah, you will. Okay then. All righty. So with Pike leading on, and approaching the pathways

that lead towards the center of the island, the rolling hills ascend higher and higher the further towards where the distant crystal monolith resides, up from the soft pearl-like sand to reveal large obelisks of carved rectangular stone at off-kilter angles, kind of jutting out of the ground in places. You had seen some of these at a distance when you arrived, and you as well in your vision, Pike, earlier.

The trees you walk past begin to slowly thin out and replace with some of these stone structures. You can see this almost like an outer ring of nature that encloses the inner portion of the side. island. You see some of the, I'm sorry, the wind is now warm against your skin as it begins to whip through this area, and you can hear it kind of tear through some of the openings between these ever-densely growing clusters of stonework. Occasionally these stone structures resemble figures of old ancient figureheads from the age of Arcandum, who bore the

embrace of the Everlight with them before her father. following, fell from grace. You can see the ravages of time and the diminishing of her influence, following the divergence, are shown on some of these figures, as they appear to be sheared or cracked or broken in places. But still no sign of anything else moving on the island. Does it look like people are avoiding us, or does it look like there's just not, this is not a place of... Make perception check. All right. I got a funny feeling you would say that. Um, 12.

You see no signs of any movement, any foot tracks, no signs of anything in the vicinity that would lead you to believe that you're being avoided or being watched. Does it look like anyone has been here? 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. I'll take it. And that means I've been outside a lot more. Walking around, occasionally galloping after a toddler hopped up on juice boxes, traveling a bit. You know the vibe. And after doing some spring cleaning, my wardrobe, I got to say, looking a little bit sad. I want clothes that can keep up with me and my son, but updating

my wardrobe every spring sounds pretty expensive. So that's why I wound up signing up for Fabletics as a VIP. It let me overhaul my springtime outfits without obliterating my bank account. New VIPs unlock major savings on that first purchase, so trying new fits feels way more doable. When I signed up as a new VIP with Fabletics, I got 70 to 80% off everything. It made it easy to grab a few new pieces without overthinking it. And the quality really surprised me. Everything feels premium and soft and breathable, but you're not paying those premium prices. What I like most, though, is how versatile everything is.

You've got stuff you can work out in, but also wear out. There's matching sets, lightweight hoodies, joggers, teas, you name it. The kind of stuff you can throw on in the morning and not worry about later. When I'm at home, my favorite thing to pull on is the oversized hoodie. It's so comfy I could just live in it 24-7. It's perfect for walking my dog on like a chilly night. But when I'm out and about, I've really been loving the ribbed Johnny Collar polo. It makes me look like I should be taking a high-powered meeting by the pool at the White Lotus,

but hopefully with less murder involved. I don't know. It's insanely comfortable. I highly recommend it. So shop now at fabletics.com slash critical role to get 70 to 80% off everything when you sign up as a new VIP. Take a quick style quiz and be sure to select Critical Role when prompted to unlock your 70 to 80% off. This is a limited time offer, so don't wait.

Again, that's Fablatics.com slash critical role for 70 to 80% off everything as a new VIP. And now, on to the show. Greetings, Adventures. Lately, I've been getting a bit more intentional about what I wear from day to day, because instead of just falling out of whatever laundry baskets nearby, I've been leaning into pieces that feel easy and comfortable, but still put together because it just makes getting dressed simpler when I have a plan. Quince has been my go-to to help with that,

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And everything's priced between 50 and 80% less than what you'd find at similar brands. Quince works directly with ethical factories and cuts out the middlemen so you're getting premium materials without the markup. And since spring is here in Los Angeles, a brief period where it's 75 degrees instead of 95 degrees, I spruced up my wardrobe with a pair of the comfort stretch traveler five pocket pants and the heritage washed denim shirt. Not only do they feel great, but I unequivocally look good as hell while wearing them. That's just science. So refresh your every day with luxury you'll actually use. Head to quince.com slash critical role for free shipping on your order and 365-day return.

now available in Canada too. That's Q-U-I-N-C-E.com slash critical roll for free shipping and 365-day returns. Quince.com slash critical role. For a very long time? Make an investigation check. Oh, I'm not gonna waste luck on that. That's a one. I have no idea what's going on. We have no idea. But Pike, you lead on, you make your way through these tangled pads and they,

shift and curve and turn, and the light never seems to change overhead. And as you hike along and chat amongst yourselves, and keep open to the vicinity around you, and you're breathing in the clean air with hints of sea spray and saltiness that eventually makes its way through the breeze. You can feel parts of you sweat beneath your armor, just in the general warmth of the atmosphere, and you travel for about an hour, Pike. And Vex and Vex and Keele, if you pick up on this too, the crystalline structure in the center of the island doesn't appear to be any closer. Oh, shit.

Go through something like this before. We literally went through this before. Where was that? Like we had to really think about being there? Is that what we had to do? It was something about... Yes, Pike, do you think you need to talk to her somehow or call to her somehow? Yeah, I...

Okay, I'm going to pull out the key again. key again. Okay. The metallic loop? The curved piece of metal? Okay. Yeah. There is missed me.

Right. Sarah and Ray. We've traveled very far and we are here and if you could give us any guidance to get closer to you, I would be forever grateful. You just say this out loud? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. You look out before you, still staring at the crystal structure and no response?

Okay, I repeat that again in my head. Okay, so you just say it back to yourself in your head? Yeah. Taking them off, one at the time. Okay. So you look forward at the crystalline structure, looking at its form, at its form and focus on those words on the inside of your head. No response. Maybe we got to let her know we're here. Pikey poo. Pikey pants.

When you kind of had a religious thing and talked to your God, right? Say again? When you talked to Sarah and Ray briefly, right? Yeah. Did she invite you or all of us? Oh, shit. Oh, I mean. You think you're invited to a party, so you'd ring your whole crew and then you realize that they weren't invited?

Do you want to walk solo for ten minutes and see if you are solo getting any closer? Keep you in ear contact. Is this like party hopping at Comic-Con? Yeah. Get us on the list. Once you're in there, then we'll join you in life. See how many wristbands you can get. Okay, I'll keep walking. And I'll just keep, you know,

No, looking back, thumbs up. And I'll just see what I can find. Okay. You walk forward and you can look back at your friends and you continue to walk forward towards the structure. You eventually kind of begin to weave between these stone obelisks, which get dense and overlap to the point where maybe about 100 feet ahead, you lose sight of pike. I want to get on my room and fly up in the air and see if I can see her

from the air. Okay. You fly up in the air and you look down and you see her. She's just beyond your, right beyond where you lost sight of her originally. And she's just walking forward. Okay. How you doing, Pike? Getting in closer. Good, good.

Does the tower look bigger? Just traveling over these stone structures. All right, you watch, like you walk for another 10 minutes or so on your own. And you watch her travel, and like, as you kind of focus, she doesn't seem, she's traveling. but she's still the same distance from everyone else she was when she left. She went just beyond eyeline. And then just, it's weird. It doesn't make sense.

You've watched her maneuver and change and shift around things, yet she hasn't gotten any further or any closer. So it's like a side-scrolling background. Kind of in a way, I guess. And I turn around and the ocean is still where it was behind us. Pike. Does it look like I've gotten far? I feel like I've gotten real far.

I don't think you've gotten far at all, did. I think you're in the same place. I've got a weird theory. Is the terrain repeating itself? What was your theory? Maybe this is vision-based, maybe. Maybe we have to close our eyes. How did we do this before?

I like this. Let's just walk with our eyes closed. Well, maybe we just have to think really hard about being at the tower. I'll close my eyes and I'll just start walking straight ahead. It works, I'm so excited. As Greg, Crohn closes his eyes and starts walking. I close my eyes and think really hard about being directly

in front of the tower. tower. Okay. Anybody else doing anything? I start walking the opposite direction. Okay. Eyes closed or open. Away from the tower. With my eyes open.

Okay. Kieluth turns away. I spend three times in the circle. With a shoes. I'm tired. What are you doing, Pike? I'm just going to stand there and think about being closer to the tower with my eyes closed.

Okay. You all begin to be able to You close your eyes and begin walking and start wondering into directions and bumping into pieces of stonework. A bunch of cockroaches when you turn on the light. Basically, yeah. Pike, you close your eyes for a moment and concentrate, and your vision... Sorry. Your vision is dark. You don't see the world around you.

But within a few seconds of kind of embracing this darkness, a sudden burst of light appears ahead of in you. You see a burning beacon visible in the direction. direction where the Palace, the Crystal Palace was before you. Okay. Just Pike? Just Pike. Whoa. So I'll try keeping my eyes closed and start walking towards it.

Okay. As you guys are kind of figuring yourself out and you are just concentrating so hard on being there. I turn around. Is the tower any closer? Nope. Is it further? Yep. Shit. I walk back.

Okay. You join the right. the group when you watch half your party and still stumbling into pieces of stone. Pike, with your eyes closed still, kind of seeing this burning beacon, this like circular sphere wreathed in flame that just kind of licks up as the flames kind of slowly grow out of the bottom of the structure and flicker off into nothing. You step for about two minutes or so in its direction and the heat gets warmer and warmer and warmer. And then you kind of open your eyes for a moment and you're right in front of it.

Hey guys, can you see me? Can we hear her? You guys can hear her, yeah. Um, oh shit, I opened my eyes. You look down, she's right in front of the crystal structure. She got all the fucking way there. How did you do that? Wow.

What did you do, Mike? I just, I just thought about it. I closed my eyes and I started walking. That's what I fucking did. Yeah, I did too. Ow! Open your eyes, grow on. Cool.

I walked the other way to do. Other way that definitely didn't work. What is she doing that we're not doing? She's fucking. Her hair is partially blue. Maybe we should die off her on blue as well. Maybe it's, maybe you can only get here if you're a believer of Sarenre.

Oh, I'm a believer. I'm a believer. I'm a believer. Can I try? I'm a believer. Okay. I believe in God. All right.

You close your eyes? Yeah, I'm gonna clutch my symbol of Sarenrae. And I'm gonna close my eyes, and I'm gonna see if anything happens. You sit there in silence for about a minute and a half as the darkness is there before you. Pitch black, and you're clutching the symbol as hard as you can with your fingers, the point where it's almost hurting your hand. And you see just the faintest distant flicker. I'm gonna go towards it. Okay, you guys watch Scanlan, eyes closed, begin walking towards the crystalline structure.

It's working for him. I'm gonna follow him. I'm gonna try to follow him. I'm gonna try to follow him. I'm not going to aim for the tower. I'm going to try to get to Pike. Okay, so you're just going straight for Pike? Yeah.

Okay. And you're following Scanlan. Yeah, just kind of nonchal. Okay. Vax, Kielas, Grog. What do we do? I'm not going anywhere. This is dog, Grog. I'm confused.

I want to see what happens to those two when they follow. So what are you guys doing? How is it working? What are you guys doing? They're believers. Maybe you guys have to believe. Well, I think that the existence of a pantheon of gods is a well-established fact in our world. Yeah, I mean, factually that's true.

So poetic. Do I have to believe deeper than that? I think perhaps you need reverence. Scanlan and Percival disappear into the brush ahead of you guys as you're having this conversation. You rushing towards Pike as you're kind of goading towards her. You're not going to end up. getting closer. Like, you can see things rushing past you, but it's, it, there's some disconnect that as soon as you begin to change focus, you're right where you were. Grog and

Scanlan, you step forward and that beacon comes brighter and warmer and you feel the warmth and you open your eyes and you're there next to Pike in front of the palace. And Grog, you walked alongside Scanlan, and you walked as he watched and you went past the brush and suddenly you're at the palace. Oh. Yeah. Oh, sorry, not Grog, Percy was. Percy was. Percy. You stayed back. I misremembered. Keylet's hands. Percival. Percival. I made it. Wait. Okay.

That's my fault. So Percival. You made it past the boundary with Scanlan. How did you? How did it? What? Shit, we should have followed Pike. Percy, you don't believe in anything. This is bullshit. I believe in plenty of things. But yeah, no, I agree. This is bullshit. I'm going to close my eyes and be like, um, Sarenre, I really believe in you. So holy and very. divine and beautiful and I think you do really good things for Pike and I'm very happy about that you concentrate a minute two minutes five minutes this is not working I do you want to

collect the rest of them and leave them back yeah I scoop up Keelot's hands I say you you trust me right yeah yeah yeah you know that good feeling that you have when you hang out with Pike you know that sort of just that warm feeling you have just you know yeah toast Musting marshmallows whether around the fire, that kind of feeling? Yeah. You know that comes from Seren Ray, so focus on that with me. And we'll go to Pike. Focus on Serenray and that marshmallow feeling.

But that comes from Pike, not from Serenray. You know, that's partially true, but not all true. Come on, give it a shot. Okay, I try really hard to think about the marshmallow-y goodness that is Seren-ray. I'm Seren-ray. Vax and Kielas do this, and then what do you do? Close our eyes and... Focus.

...show reverence. Okay. Another five, six minutes of darkness passes your eyes to close. No beacon. Nothing. Okay. How long will it take me to walk back to them? Do you walk back to them?

I'm gonna walk back to them. Okay. A minute, you emerge from the brush, and you walk in and see Kieleth and Vax, eyes closed, clutching hands, just hoping and Grog looking bored as hell. Okay, okay. Where's Vex? Cluffy.

I'm up here, dear. Okay, come here, come here. All right, I'll fly down. I have an idea. Okay. Okay. So everybody, uh, put, hold on to me somehow. Okay.

Like, like, like preschool? Yeah. Well, like a train? Yeah. Okay. Just don't let go. Okay, I'll hold your head. I'm gonna think real hard, and maybe we'll all be there together.

Okay. Okay. We have to walk though, right? Eyes closed. Okay. I'm not closing my eyes, I'm just holding on to Pike's hand. I'm still thinking about marshmallows, though. Think about bacon.

I grab Pike by the earlobe. Okay. That diggles. And Pike, do you close your eyes and follow that beacon once more? Yes. Okay. As you guys walk alongside, focusing on Pike and her leading this small pack of friends along through the heavily rolling hills and the pieces of stone

obstruction that kind of force you to make your way around. You kind of help guide her around these various obstructions that get in the way. Pike, you're just concentrating on this burning beacon of warmth ahead of you. And within three minutes of travel, this seemed almost closer than when you saw her disappear before. You guys kind of look at her and glance up and you've just come across the threshold of the stones, and you're now into this open, sandy patch at the base of this large crystal structure. Nice.

We did it. Wow. Okay. Okay. Like you too. Look at how, look at this. It's an outstanding. It's beautiful.

Is it? It's so much more beautiful up close. So standing before this magnificent glass Like structure, you can see the winding shapes and edges clearly ascending to form a female torso rising from beneath the sands to a staggering height. Two wings of glittering crystal curving upward to frame a massive round red gem that shines above the head of the woman with flames curling from the inside of the facets of this this extreme, this red gem would probably be about twice the size of grog.

Whoa. It's hard to see the actual height of it here, but it's probably close to 100 feet tall. structure. Now you see the shifting flicker of the intense fire that burns within the palace now is causing the shadows cast by all nearby things to dance behind you. And in the inside, you can see what appears to be a heavy bonfire almost that is visible beyond like a 20-foot kind of domed doorway right at the base of the torso. As you begin to approach the entrance to this crystalline palace-like statue, the heat of those flames that you see inside, roaring and burning quickly, get hotter and hotter on your skin. And as you begin to enter the interior of the structure,

the heat feels like it should be getting close to unbearable, but it never hurts. You acknowledge the temperature change, and you're used to knowing this much heat should hurt, but it never does. It's just hot and welcoming. You now stand within the hollow interior of this incredible wonder, looking at a spiraling red tower of orange-red flame that reaches up about 60 feet or so in this kind of spiral.

It's all flame. It's all flame, just this large bonfire in the center of the structure. It flares rhythmically, like a very intentional heartbeat. Giving these whipping sounds, of the heat and the wind and the air that it's tossing upward and out into the rest of the island around,

and you now begin to acknowledge the warm winds that were blowing through the island all seem to be centering and spiraling out from the center of the island. And at that point, you see something in the flame begin to take shape. You watch as this outline, this dark outline begins to open up as two large wings unfurl from within,

revealing feathers of ivory and pearl, like the beach you arrive, on as this 15-foot-tall, feminine vision of Sarenrae emerges from the roaring pyre. Long, curling flames burn as her hair from her beautiful dark skin framing a warm and motherly smile, her eyes gold and brown like the most polished brass. Her robes of light blue unfurl and endless strands that almost seem to tether her to the inferno behind her. And as she emerges from the flame. You can't help but find yourself just stunned in awe at the presence. Her standing there, unsinged from the flames, slowly descends, still floating above you, her arms

out, her wings and hair unfurled, almost like a canopy above the group as you look up at her. Her face turns and smiles onto small pike on the ground, and you hear her voice. For the first time for all of you, but not the first for Pike, who's heard her voice for a very long time. My Pike, you come to me after all this time. Such a beacon in a very dark world. Welcome. I take a knee. Thank you for letting us come here.

It's just such an honor to be in your presence and to meet you in person. I've been a believer of yours for my whole life. to actually be here in front of you is very humbly. She descends faintly, and her massive form slowly seems to not shrink, but just shift perspective a bit, where once she was this massive entity before you, seems almost human in size as the hand comes down and reaches and touches the top of Pike's forehead and just runs down the nose. under her chin. And you see the brow for her a bit, and she says, You vanished from my sight. You walk paths cast in shadow. My sands whisper thoughts of sorrow and foreboding. I must know from you all what dark tidings bring you before me harboring such emotion.

The last time we spoke, we took on a battle that we were not a able to complete and we need your help. What type of foe do you face? She looks to you a bit as a faint bit of recognition. This entity, this Vecna, is clouded, even in history. I know little myself and with my sands they know little of this undying king. I imagine by his own design.

He deals in secrets. It's kind of his thing. What can you tell me? Peace of him. We do. Yes, maybe, well, we can tell you that he's awful, evil, pure evil incarnate, and he wants to be a god.

His eyes on your territory. Something of a dimigodner you could say, and well on his path to us, Ascension. Ascension. He wants to be like you. How? Or I guess he wants to be like the Raven Queen.

You watch the flames grow a little more cool, a little more of a deeper red in color, and the brow furrows more, and she pulls back a little bit from Pike, not in a retraction, but just a worried sense that seems to fill the room, the brightness of the outside sky seems to dim ever so slightly. In Ascension, the Raven Queen, you say. I don't, he could tell you more, but I know she was a mortal who rose to her godhood, and I know he's looking for a similar path.

Impossible. We've seen it. He's been working on it for a very long time. And obviously, hungry for power. The wing still unfurled. The tips seem to almost curl in a bit, as she, as opposed to floating above you,

out and about is now standing tall, floating above the ground, about five or six feet. Her vision, her eyes seem to drift from you and look out past the glass and crystal to the distant shores beyond, as she just speaks out, just exclaiming the thoughts as they come across her mind. Seren-ray says, the ritual of seeding is one of the matron

of Raven's design. It is the secret right that reberthed her from her mortal trials and granted her the powers. The war is over and both sides lost. Kingdoms were reduced to cinders, an army 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 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.

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 jumped 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 podcasts. To take her place among the prime gods and become custodian to the realms between life and death, fate in the cold of winter. But this ritual was summarily cast from all knowledge and sealed, intent for eternity

by all who walk the paths of divinity. None should know this. None should know this. What about the goddess Aune? The goddess of knowledge. Would she have known? She was the one who spearheaded its destruction. Fekna's been taking over her chapels?

What? Temples? Temples? I know not where Ayune is. She is hidden away. The Dawn Father would know more than I. They were together when she was wounded. If this ritual has come into the hands of another mortal,

where is this mortal now? We have his eye in a box. It's powerful and intelligent. I take out the box. Slowly staked out on the primaterial plane. Just north of Vasselheim, about 350 miles. Recently completed a ritual in the Shadowfell. If he's finished the seed, he's already on his way. Oh no. What does that mean? How can we stop him?

The ritual takes some time. From what I recall, I don't know how long I was not its architect. I was not the one who sealed it. Ayuna be the one to ask. Okay. However, if this is completed, then the accord of the divergence is in danger. If we will have one God on one side of the divine gate and the others on the other, we could not stop him. Understand, in order for any of us to directly interfere to seal a God like we did once long ago,

we would have to tear down the divine gate, and that would release an entirely new Armageddon upon your world. So either you stop him, seal him, or you live amongst the only God we cannot stop. How do we seal away a god? I was betrayed during the calamity. I was not present when they began to seal the betrayer gods.

You do best to speak with maybe some of the others some of the others who were more prominent in that time. You walk on Elysium, this is the realm also of Pellor. The Donfather. Yes. Ma'i asked, does Cod reside in Elysium? No, but you could perhaps speak with him too. I don't know much about Cod.

We don't see eye to eye. And she looks, if you can see a goddess, Glant's side along with embarrassment. This is the closest you'd ever see. I've fallen from import over recent years, until recently. You know. She looks down at Pike for a minute,

until recently. And turns back to Scanlon and says, and don't think your prayers have gone unheard as well. You heard? I'm new. I knew it praying. I'm sorry for all the cursing at first. I was just, I had a lot of emotions,

and I didn't know if anyone was listening. Apologies, but you heard me at night? When your heart was true to it, yes. You won't tell anybody, will you? Because some of that is personal stuff. She smiles and averts her gaze from. Do you know if this mortal, this man, this, this Vecna, do you know in your heart of heart spike that this man is beyond redemption? Is there any spark of hope in his heart to turn him back to the light?

Would always hope that in somebody, but I, at least the time spent with him that we have, It doesn't seem that that's his path. My trust in your insight, and this is your judgment to make, the greatest judgment you may ever make. As you walk this path closer to conflict with this entity, search yourself for any glimmer, and if there is no redemption to be had, then smite him with all the might I've granted you.

He's not doing a lot of talking to us. Love like killing and disintegrating. How will we know if he's a god or not? You'll know. We all will know. So it hasn't happened yet? Not yet. Okay.

How long do these seating rituals usually take? How much time do we have? I don't know. That would be. You'd have to ask those who are responsible for sealing it. Don't father. I'm just, I'm so confused. That's it?

That's it, we just, I mean, he already, we didn't walk away from him unscathed. The first time in, we're just supposed to try again. Even in the dark days of the calamity, the might of our weapons could only diminish the betrayers who rose against creation. The two that orchestrated our victory and designed the means of self,

sealing away such terrible evil, I've already mentioned. And they would be of more aid than I. The knowing mistress, Ayun, as wounded and hidden away as she is, and the dawn father, warden to the chained oblivion, his fortress, across the fields of Elysium. I could send you there. It was hard getting here. Will he be as accepting as you, or?

I don't know. I haven't spoken much with the others in some time. You should throw a party, invite them all, get to know them again. She looks down at Pike once more. You've done more than you know. You've been a guiding light for these wonderful champions. And so many more.

She reaches down and lifts you off the ground a bit, looking at your face, the bit of sadness that creeps across it, She lifts you up and you guys watch as she glides, passing through the crystal. Pike just being brought below the archway as she kind of just lifts her out beyond this crystal structure. She ascends upward about 25, 30 feet or so, just holding Pike in her hands out in the front of her.

It just chucks her. No. No. Oh, no! Holding her close, and by this point, Serenry's form has expanded to almost the size of the crystal structure you came to. You can now see a parallel between her wings

and her form and her torso as to the actual incredible presence of this god before you. And leans in as she shows the island to pike below and whispers close to your ear. I am not lonely here, Pike. For my sands remain with me. Speak with me. And we learn from each other.

As she extends her arm, Pike, you look out, and all of the light of the sky seems to shine at once through every pearl, every grain of the beach sand that you've walked across. And where once you saw it was just a barren landscape, you now see thousands and thousands. and thousands and thousands of people, opaque, translucent, souls of those that have come to Sarenrae since the dawn of creation.

Those who swore themselves to good under her banner and at the end of their lives came to become part of the island of renewal and forever live with her and amongst the rest of the community of people that are warmed under her light. They all seem to look up once. at you, and you sense them smiling. As the vision fades and the island goes back untouched, she drifts back down and places you on the ground. You see, one day you will join us too,

and we will all have so many stories to share. You now see her hovering over all of you as you step out of this to join Pike on the exterior of this tower. Well, I am diminished. My power is limited. You do possibly face something terrible, unseen since the calamity. And for this journey, Pike, I grant you my blessing. And as she reaches her hands out, and they expand her head, lifts up her eyes close, and her wings flare into a phoenix like flame. That just emblazons the sky with light and fire. The heat is more intense than anything you've felt.

Yet still, there's no pain. pain, it's just all consuming. It's like the rebirth of a phoenix, and you're all surrounded by it. For a moment, it's all there is in existence, just this incredible entity. And then the flames slowly die away, except for the flames that currently engulf pike's gnome form. And as the flames burn away, you can see on pike, the familiar, your set of wings you've seen her spiritual form hold, which fold in and then dissipate. You know, have the blessing of the Everlight,

well, you get a plus two bonus to your Constitution. Okay, okay, you'll take a picture and text it to you. Yeah, we'll text it to you. Hey. But as a bonus action, you can summon the wings of the Everlight, granting you a flying speed of 40 feet for up to 10 minutes. And while you have these wings, any spells you cast that cause creatures to regain hit points, heal an additional 10 hit points.

But once this ability is used, you can't use it for another seven days. Oh, probably. Okay, okay. So if you want to take a picture and send that to you, Yeah, Sarah, I'll take a picture. Hold on to that to her. Is she gone? Is she gone?

Is she gone? No, Sarah and Ray's still there ahead. Just the flame, the flames have burned away. I'm going to send us to you, Rassolay. This is right here, guys. It's really not cool. Wow. Oh man, oh man, oh man.

Since Sarenrae is still standing there, I want to say to her, shit. Shit, sorry. I want to apologize. This feels so stupid. I want to apologize for never realizing.

what you are and what this could be and for not showing you the reverence that you deserve. And I hope to change that in the future and I will certainly think differently from here on out. As you look down and look up, or once she was this large energy above you, you look down and look up and she's right before you. No apologies necessary.

The creation of Exandria, the peoples that populated and develop and design and innovate and worship was with free will to make your own path. Faith is important to some, but the intent was to instill you with the means of doing and choosing whatever and however you like. We do not wish reverence of all, just those who find us. At least, I speak for myself. You're pretty wonderful. There is balance to everything. And I took these from your beach. It doesn't seem right.

She takes the pouch from you and pours it out, and as the pearls about the land, they kind of drift off and dart off back to the location where you originally found him. Yeah. Same. Same. I just thought.

I just thought I wanted to take a little piece with me, but I already have that, so I didn't know what it was. As you empty the pearls, they also dart off towards the beach where you first landed. I just thought they were really pretty. They are. They have many stories to tell. I want to told you before we left, you know.

It's all right. But for everything great that we may have created, you continue to create far better. Our existence brings threat. We've two calamities before. We try and avoid a third. Whether we diminish in time or just maintain this balance, it's you and your children and your children's children

that hold the keys to the future of your lives, your people, your culture, and us. So, don't apologize. Would you say Sarenre is like attractive? Are you asking her? I'm just like a general. Or it's just like a question to me as the DM? Yep. That one.

She's beautiful. I wouldn't put it in terms of any sort of a sexual object. She is a... She's just beautiful. She's just an incredibly beautiful, powerful, feminine form. And to the extent where Grog, who usually being a man who's driven by base needs, not a single,

comes across you in any sort of base or defacing way. It is too powerful. It overwhelms it. A little bit. Yeah, no, she's beautiful. What are titties? What are? What even are tithes?

What do tities? I'm keeping my little pearl from the beach. That you've been trying to crush. Yeah. Terrible. That's like. Shady shit. We gotta keep one, y'all gave yours back.

It's gonna be like the Wonka factory. It's just gonna turn on you. We always talk about how we need something to get back to a place. Pills from the beach. You get nothing, sir. Good day. Good day, sir.

It's just one. All right, I've... So, you have my blessing, Pike. Do this for me. Do this for them. Do this for you. You do this for all of creation and do it soon. The longer you wait, well, the longer you wait. So do you wish to be off to the Dawn Father?

In the time is of the essence, we should go right away. Is he as warm and welcoming and nice as you are? Okay, that's a good answer. Yeah. That's... with a bright white flash emanating from her torso in arms, your vision just goes white and you all blink for a moment as your head spins for but a brief instant. Your feet touch hard ground, and you all immediately reach up and rub your eyes, and as your vision slowly

coalesces once more, you find yourself standing in the deep center of some vast orchard, surrounded by an endless sea of fruit-bearing trees of all sizes, shapes, and colors. Intertwined, the canopy broken and sparse in places where you can see above a clear blue, cloudless sky. You're no longer on the Island of Renewal, that's for sure. Oh, I thought, but that's, isn't that what the dawnfall there is?

Island of Renewal is where Sarinray is. Okay, the Fields of Elysium. Yes, the Blessed Fields of Elysium is the Plain. He existed elsewhere in there. I understand now. Is there the same ever light sky? Make a nature check. Ever present.

Ever present, so amazing. I guess be true, I die. Ever present sky. A new album. 29. No, sorry. 31. Whoa.

It's hard to see from down low because the canopoe choke it a bit. You can see bits of the sky that appear blue, cloudless. Whereas you saw whispers of cloud over the island. This appears clear. You can climb up a bit and try and get a better look if you want. Sure.

Okay, so you begin to leap up through the branches. And a lot of the trees here have winding and knotted branches, so it's pretty easy to find your way at the canopy after me, like a five-minute climb. You get up and peek over and you can see now this orchard goes on for miles and miles, filling this vast valley that you can just barely see mountains that crest the edge of it in the distance near the horizon.

You also see there is, there's no cloud in the sky. And there is no sun, but there is a single pillar of light that streaks down from way, way up. Zenith just striking down in the center of this orchard where there you see before you, this awe-inspiring sight of the Dawn Father's home. A gold-plated citadel of many humongous towers and spires that both resemble, it resembles a military fortress and the largest-deppled church you've. ever seen. It's hard to gauge distance and so many trees between you and it. You don't know if it's miles off from you, if it's maybe a thousand feet or so, but even at this

distance, it's incredible in its scale. Hey guys, Paler's not messing around. He is like, They make really tall things here. Look. I'm fly up next to Keyleth so I can see. Check out. Oh. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. Do you think this is like Sarenrae where we can't get to him unless we believe? Have him in our heart. You know, I feel a little bit more connected here.

This I can... I mean, it's trees. I'm surrounded by trees. This I can relate to. I mean, I've talked. I've tried to talk to Paila before. I've talked to the Sun Tree. I wonder if the Sun Tree is here. Maybe he's got the twin here, like you have a twin. Maybe.

Do we recognize any of the fruit that's growing in the trees? They need to check. 15. Decent for a city boy. Yeah. It's interesting. This orchard, various fruits thrive in various climates. As you begin to kind of walk a little bit through, it is a peppering of all sorts of trees and fruits.

You see apples of all shades. You see oranges. You see rare passion fruits. You see a floor-based growing fruit. It's just, it's a perpetual harvest here. I rush down and say, don't eat the fruit. Might be soles? I think it might be souls.

No, it's fruit. Souls don't grow on trees. Souls also don't wash up on beaches, but apparently they do. That may be the most interesting thing I think you've ever seen. Souls don't grow on trees. Souls don't grow on trees. At least he knows the dangers of monocultures. This is very impressive.

Yes, there's a lot of variety. What? What are you guys doing? Baxter is just off on his own, by the way, sitting on his ass having a moment because it wasn't too long ago when he had a thing for Sarah and Ray, and that was pretty bit of sweet, so he's just kind of staring off in the space. Okay. I'm going to try to...

Just one piece fruit, one piece. one piece, just one little piece, like an apple. No. What, an a laisium? Oh my God, please. If you do eat anything and you shouldn't, but if you do eat anything, eat something you don't recognize. It'll be funny in that way. There's only fruit that I don't recognize.

Make an investigation check. No, don't stop. Something I don't recognize. Ooh, starfruit. Twelve. Yeah, actually. You guys walk for about three or four minutes in the direction of where you sell the fortress, and you come across,

it looks to be a small bush that's kind of clustered near this dark wooden tree with a thick-knalled exterior, and this bush has these kind of small, ripe, plum-like fruits that come to a point at the bottom that you've never seen before. Crog, do not, do not. Pick this? No! Crog!

I dare you not to eat it. Don't say that, he'll do it. You know that's what happens! We don't know that's what happens! Are you a person? Don't do it, Rock. Nothing. Nothing.

Nothing. You want to check it for magic? Yeah, I'm gonna check it. Oh, you're just jelly. Hello, are you a soul? Yeah, I'm sure. Oh my god, it is a soul. It just spoke to me.

No, it didn't. Oh my god, what's your favorite color? Blue like your feather. It said blue like my feather. Did you hear it? I really, I mean, it was talking, Grog, it was talking. Hey, point. Don't eat it.

Whoa. Just in case. What do I do? I already picked it. I have an idea. I have an idea. Why don't you hold onto it? Keep it in your pouch.

Don't keep it, not in the bag of holding. Keep it in your shirt pocket. Just in your pouch. When have I ever worn your shirt pocket? You can ask him if the fruit is edible and make sure it's not, you know, people. That's fair. All right.

I will hold on to the, I'll hold on to the, The pony plumb. Okay. Are we getting any closer to the citadel? Yeah. You guys keep walking towards it? Yeah. Okay.

All right, you walk on and... Are there any people? Does it look like there's tracks in this orchard? Actually, Vax and Keeleth, you notice fairly quickly in that you begin to see movement ahead as you begin to, as the air itself is... By the way, the wind ear is carrying a very sweet... and fragrant, almost like honeyflower whiffs that come through and waves as it hit you. The whole atmosphere here is just, it makes you hungry. It makes you hungry. It makes you comfortable. It reminds you of childhood in a strange way.

It's just a very, a good positive atmosphere. You begin to see, as you approach, figures moving. Pike, you recognize this because these are similar to the vision you just had from Serenry. They are entities. They are souls. They are people that walk the fields of Elysium, and you see them walk with small satchels, and you will see them picking the fruit and gathering and harvesting. They don't seem to pay you too much mind, and as you begin to get close to some of them, they kind of just stop and watch you. It's a very spirited away in a strange way. Like you see these somewhat translucent entities that barely acknowledge your existence, and then as you pass by, they go on to whatever work they were doing.

No speech. You don't even see eyes or faces. You just see the outline of human-like shape, various heights and sizes. But they're picking the solid fruit. They're picking the solid fruit and gathering them. They're eating the solid fruit. You don't see any of them immediately eating it. None of them are eating with fruit.

I have a feeling it's an offering. I have a feeling it's fucking fruit. Are we getting closer? You continue to walk and make sure to avoid some of the love. larger clusters of these various harvesting entities, these harvest souls, who's leading the charge this time? Who's leading you through the orchards? One of you, you two, you've got,

is this technically a favorite terrain for you? It would count as a forest, yeah. I guess I'll be in the front, ish. Sure. Percy, have you done a lot of talking to Pelo? Not really, no. Percy, how do you feel about gods these days? Last time we talked, we were both not optimistic, I feel like.

I know how to be polite. Yeah. I'm very reasonable at that. This. Reverence. Reverence. You can certainly acknowledge when someone can squash you like a bug. Yes.

But a lot of things can squish us like bugs. I don't know. This is complicated. Yes. Let's just keep going. Do I see anything that looks, I'm going to keep an eye out while we're walking for anything that resembles the sun tree. Okay. All right. Are you leading the way? Yeah. All right. Go ahead and make a, because you have no sun to keep tabs on, you're just going to have to fly up above the canopy and keep an eye on it. So you're kind of cresting and descending through the orchard as you progress. You travel for about an hour and a half to two hours,

and you notice that you are getting closer, but it is a long way away. You probably have another three, four hours of travel before you get there on foot. It's a long track. We've got a while. I wonder if we believe harder if we'll get there quicker. I don't believe that will work.

Let's just go. Just keep on pushing out. Keep it on. Yeah. Yeah. Right? No threats. You don't have anything that'll make us move faster.

Well, I could misty, but that seems stupid. It's a nice walk. Yeah, it's beautiful. Okay. You guys continue your trek, and as you get closer and closer to the fortress of the sun, you do notice the trees of the orchard grow taller and thicker, and it's like with the Like whatever fertility enchantment that runs this section of the plane, the closer to the central portion of this fortress you get,

the more the rampant wild growth seems to just gather and expand to the point where it in some places almost resembles the Fay Wild, though nowhere near is mysterious and threatening in some cases, I guess you could say. But you've never seen apple trees that grow four stories tall. But here you see them just, and the scale is immense, but the branches are as dense with apples and leaves as they would be elsewhere.

It just continues to go. It's an impossible size to some of these trees and plants and bushes. It dwarfs your size by comparison to where you really get a sense of scale of how small you may be in this realm versus some of the creatures that call it home. See, this tree can squash me like a bug.

If it came down, it fell on me, yeah. I wonder if its apple grew as big as the actual tree and it fell. If you'd be doing it. That'd be delicious. As you progress a few more hours into this track, eventually Vex, you begin to notice the light ahead begins to grow brighter.

Hey, I think we're getting closer. Yay. Awesome. Does this feel like sunlight? Does it like register like sunlight, or is it like a wire? Like, should we put some sunblock on as we walk through the... Yeah. Is it like sun... It registers as a sunlight type light.

It is a white, it is a pure light. Like kitchen light white or like reading room light. Like vanity light. Like, warm or cold. Like noon daylight light. Noon daylight. Okay. And as you push closer and closer to where this,

this brightness continues to expand and it begins to It's brighter than you anticipated. As you begin to notice, you're getting to the edge of a clearing where the tree line comes to a halt. But as you do, it hurts your eyes a little bit. You have to adjust from the dark interior of the forest to the outside. And as you finally breach the edge of the tree line and look out, you can see this open clearing. And immediately you can see the column of light that's cracking down from the center of the sky. is what is lining this clearing,

where the light touches the trees stop. And it kind of hurts a little bit to look at it because the light is reflecting off of this bright, gold, brass-colored citadel before you that is just... You thought the crystal structure that Seren was in was impressive. This is four times larger than the largest structures in Vasselheim and Maen

you've ever encountered. And you watch as... this massive citadel. It has maybe two dozen separate towers of different heights that stagger and shift. They all come to these steeple-like points, and there in the center of the structure is one thick, massive tower that just crawls upward and upward and upward and upward for, even at this point, surmising 15, 20 stories. Before the tip vanishes into the bright light that is descending from the sky above. You see the outline of a few sparse trees

that catch your attention. You do see some trees that litter this open space within this bright light that are of the same type of trees, the sun tree that resides in the center of White Stone. He does have a twin. Do you think this tower is compensating for something? Or maybe it's a representation. Hard to tell.

Basically, we'll know Vecna is a god if another skyscraper just forms an alysium somewhere. Just big ass. That's true. How close are we to this column of light? You're just about to step in, like, stepping beyond the tree line and stepping into the light, so you're just at the edge of the tree line.

I take a, um, I drew it crapped like a little twig and kind of hold it into the light column. Okay. Doesn't seem to affect it at all. Nothing? No. I'm gonna touch it a little bit. It's warm.

It's like warm daylight. Okay, we're not gonna die. That's good. Are you sure? No. No. I'm gonna look at the Citadel with my eyes wide open for like five seconds. And then close my eyes really fast to see if I can see better details of it, like when you look at the sun.

You do, actually. It hurts. I'm about my sister in the forehead. Hey, I'm doing stuff here. Science. So am I. So am I. So in closing your eyes, yeah, you can see the shape and the outline of the various spires that, like,

Often you can see the plating and the large heavy structures, and you can see the various windows that dot the outside on multiple levels. It looks like there's at least seven or eight different levels of the actual fortress, where at least you see lines of windows and looks to be balconies that adorn it at these different stages. And then on top of that, just the towers go higher and higher.

It's almost like a city of a fortress in its own right, and it's scale. It's impressive. It's like if you took part of the city of brass and just jammed it into one structure. I made it pure gold. Wow. Pure gold. It's gorgeous.

This is beautiful. But it does burn the shit out of your eyes to stare at that long with the light just beaming off of it. Worth it. Worth every second. So what do you do? I like Perlowe. I like him a lot. Somebody should go in and test out the light. Yeah, let's just go in.

Maybe the light will take us there. Straight jump to him. I push Vax in. I jump in. Pushed vaccine. Warm again, warm again. And it is very warm. And with your dark leather, it's like the goth kid in summer.

You're just like, ooh, it's a little sweaty. That light is reflecting off of you. It's not quite hot. It's never the got a kid. So yeah, you guys begin to make your way on foot, trekking towards the center of this clearing, towards the fortress of the sun. As you begin to make your way beyond the various trees,

with their blossoming beautiful, kind of white, pink, and just purple blossoms that marked the sun tree during the spring and summer, you can now see along the perimeter of this would appear to be hundreds of figures, hundreds of figures that just kind of dot the outside of the fortress. And you get better look at some of the spires. You can see that.

that on the upper levels, including the one central tower, you can see these beautiful medallion-like circles of stained glass, just mosaics of color on a scale that is impressive. You can only surmise maybe the smallest one being 20 feet in diameter, and going up from there on scale, on the central portions of it.

And what's interesting is usually the stained glass, the bright exterior, the color is darkened and shaded because the light is ones you're inside the structure. But the color is so vibrant in the stained glass, you get the sense immediately that there is a light source within the actual fortress that is as bright, if not brighter, than the column of light that is descending from the sky.

We should wear sunglasses, you know? As you begin to get closer and closer to the Citadel, once again, the scale seems to build and build. What should seem to be in a shorter walk, it gets longer and longer as you begin to see just how massive and far away this is compared to where you thought it was. And about 30,

minutes since you left the tree line. You begin to just get past the final bit of sun trees that are planted on the exterior. I kind of touch a few as I walk by. See if I feel anything. They're alive, they're vibrant, and similar in texture as to the one you've spoken with in White Stone. Okay. You're going to try talking to him. Should I? Do you know this tree? I don't know, maybe. Maybe he's like a distant relative of the sun tree. Maybe I know him by proxy.

Maybe they're like, oh, yeah, Sun Tree. I remember him. He got taken away as a ceiling, but he was really great. I grew up with that guy. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, he was next one. I mean, you know you want to. It's an uneasy tree. Just saying.

I mean, maybe they don't even speak our language as possible. Okay, I'll try and speak. Try and speak to one of the sun trees that looks like the most friendly. Amicable tree. Amicable tree. Make a nature check. All right. Not that one.

That one's an asshole. That one. See which one seems the most approachable of all the other trees. Right, good ones. We're the knots. It's a natural one. So I don't know they all might look. You see one tree that looks definitely the most amiable

of the ones in the field and you approach it. Amicabal. Amic-Han-Head now. That means friendly. Pick your turn. Amicable, amiable. All right. I'll pick that I'll talk to a tree.

All right. As you finish casting your spell and reach out, your finger touching the wall. warm exterior of the tree. The light's still a little blinding, but you've adjusted to it now where you can make out shapes and color as opposed to just like the blaring white. What do you say? Hey, sun tree, bro. Are you a sun tree bro? Are you a sun tree? Brother, are you a brother? Are you, what's your name? She is. I'm a tree of the sun.

Okay. And I'm not your bro. No, no, no. I mean, I just, I didn't know if you're. I just, I didn't know if you knew the sun tree that grew in white stone on the prime material plane. I didn't know if you knew him or not. So because of a tree of the sun, you assumed that I know all of the trees of the sun.

Is that what this is, is one of those things? I just didn't. You all just look alike, don't we? All the trees of the sun, right? So can you tell me a little bit about this plane? How do we talk to Palo? Or how do we see him? I recommend probably going towards the giant golden fortress

that is right behind you. It's probably a good place to look while the light's coming from. Okay, yeah, yeah. Wow. I have a friend who wants to know about the fruit. He's wondering if the fruit is souls, if he can eat the fruit. The fruit is not souls.

It's fruit. The Dundication! The Dawn Father is the god of the harvest. I mean, yeah. Good luck. Sorry if I came off a bit brisk. It's been a long time soon to me and... Oh, I'm sorry.

I didn't mean to offend you if I did. Apology accepted. Would you like a hug? No, I would most definitely not like a hug. Okay, okay. Well, it was wonderful meeting you. Absolutely one. Thank you. All right, bye.

All right, bye. Okay, bye. Good day. What a beautiful tree you found. It casts so much shade. Yeah, you know, let's keep going. Oh, my God. You were waiting the whole time to use that, aren't you? All conversation.

I was just sitting just, like, knit it, just crochet, as soon as you rolled that one, I was like, Yeah. Yeah. Okay, then. Okay, yeah. So, as you begin to make your way, New NPC, Dictree.

Dichtree. It's more ordinary than anything. All right, as Keeleth returns from her conversation with the tree. Just keep walking. It's spliced out as you normally do. Did it go, okay? Yeah, it was fine, just, you know.

Just, you know, just can't talk to everybody, I guess. And, you know, it's fine, it's fine. What did you ask him? Nothing. Just ask if you knew the sun tree and he got like super offended and asked the full. Don't, you know what, let's just go. Let's just go.

I see guys. No, I have never been rejected by a tree before. No, I have never been rejected by a tree. Most trees like me. Like people don't like me, but at least trees do, except for this asshole. I start to smooth out her mantle to do. her mantle which is like wiring up like a cat's on my ears. My leaves are just prickly right there.

Maybe he was just pretending he didn't like you because he felt uncomfortable because he liked you so much. You know, like cash. Most of them are. That's nice. That's nice. Maybe he just wanted to kiss you. Okay, you didn't talk to this guy, okay?

I didn't, but you don't know. Okay. Jessica, brother, fruit. Yeah, he said it's fruit, it's fine. Geez, you can eat it too. Just, you're right, grog, you're right. Eat the fruit. Let's go, let's go, let's go, come on.

Yikes. Breathe in, breathe out, breathe out. Breathe in, breathe out. All right, you guys begin making your trek back towards the fortress of the sun. Yes. As you're walking, you can see the- I rip off an apple as I go

and I just start aggressively eating it. The sentries here don't bear fruit. I just fucking spike an apple that I had earlier. Okay. If you have an apple with you, you're welcome to eat it if you wanted to. No! Okay.

I just want to go to the tower. All right. I lean over to Percival and say, this is one of those times when it's best just to keep quiet. I'm so quietly delighted by this. All right. As you guys begin to approach the fortress, you watch as those hundreds of figures you saw at the base

are beginning to collect towards the front of what you can appear, what appears to be the large doors that lead to this side's entrance to the actual structure. As they gather, they begin to push in your direction. You also see other figures up on the higher floors. Balconies almost glide and been flying in your direction rather rapidly.

I hope they're friendly. Hmm. Maybe they're guards? He's definitely not a solitary as Aaron Ray, is he? At this point, you watch as these winged entities. Three of them approach faster than the rest of the horde that seems to be pushing in your direction. You can see long, golden white wings.

You see very intense looking, breastplates made of golden brass, with rubies marked into it. Similar, though not as well adorned as the armor that Pike wears. Holding spears, various other weapons or shields, but as they fly in and land, landing, and they're all stand about five or six feet taller than all of you. Humanoid, muscular, almost robin in physique, but their skin is a very faint light blue.

Their eyes are white and their wings. Honey, and cute, cute. Are they deep? Do they look like, or like angel? Or, they're angels! They're angels! Did you say divas? They have similar traits, though apparently purer and much stronger than the half-led Celestials that you had met previously in the city of Brass.

That we rescued, didn't just meet them, we saved them. You did, you did, and you gave them a new life under the remaining family of... Hunan and Kior, I even got their fucking names right. You did, which is awesome. The third time, yeah. Yeah. X me to you. So, as the three land

around you, Spear's not aggressive, but at their side and powerful entities, they are kind of triangulate around you, all standing so much taller than you do. Their wings still unfurled in a very prominent display of power. Their helmets covering everything, but you can see what the helmet comes down over the nose and reveals the eyes, and it's very Roman in structure, and one of them yells out.

You who approaches the fortress, what is your business here? God, best to let Scandal and I take this. Oh, huh. We are... Percy, you want to flash a little white stone bling at the moment? Uh, you're pretty white stone blinged. We're Vox Mokina. We were sent here to speak to Pelo by the goddess Sarenre. Sarenre sent you?

Yes, she did. With what business? To speak about a... Very big evil growing on the material plane. Make a persuasion check. Oh, no. Okay, okay, okay. Good call.

Get a girl. Okay, okay, okay, okay. 22. Okay. The one guard that you're talking to looks over to the guard that's kind of the left of all of you. And he gives him a slight head nudge. And that one, who's a little bit small on the other two,

walks past and just, His pupil-less white eyes, which emanate this very faint white glow, just seemed to look past each of you, but I say past each of you. It almost is a piercing gaze. It glances past, and it looks at Scanlan. It gives kind of a little bit of an upturn of the nose. A neutral disapproval, Percival, keeleth less so. Grog, almost a sneer for a moment.

Oh shit. Then to Vax and Vex, and Vex, and then to Vex, to Pike. A nod. Oh, a nod. She's good. Looks back to the first guard and says, there was no evil among them. Hey, that's wrong? You're not evil.

Good job. Well, you can just ask. We do. It should be noted, Kerry, a dangerous artifact. Oh, yeah. Good call. Good call. That we should warn you up before we- Check in our weapons. Yeah, yeah. The one soldier, the one that you were first speaking to steps forward,

His heavy foot falls from his armored boots, and he puts his hand out. He will take this heart effect. Oh. I mean, are we going to get back? Before we? What need do you have of a dangerous heart effect? Well, it belongs to the great evil,

and so it's possible that we can use it to defeat him, so if we don't have it, we might not be able to do that. It may give us an advantage. Could be really great. The Don and Father will give you judge of that. Okay. I'm all right with that. Yeah, yeah.

That's good. That's good. Don't look at it, though. It'll turn you super evil and you'll rip out your eye. Noted. It's a big thing, and yet you kind of shook it a little strangely. Very well. Follow us, please.

Oh, how's that fruit? Their wings fold behind them, and they kind of walk alongside you, matching their gate to yours. So as you move forward, even with your brisk pace, their gate is so long that they're having to make long, slow strides to keep up with your slow pace. I hold Percy's hand as we're going in. Yeah, we're, we'll do this together.

Okay. I'm all right. At this point, the mass army that's been approaching you, you can see now, are hundreds of armored spirits, similar to those that you saw in the orchard. And as they approach the three planer entities that are walking alongside you, kind of put their hand up, kind of a dismissive motion, and the army parts, leaving a singular path

that leads you right to the front of the fortress. And the path, because there's so many, just goes on. It's like walking through a parade of silence. As you all kind of look around, you still can't make out any faces. You see just hundreds of sets of glittering golden armor with the somewhat visible form of these translucent spiritual entities that take up the space.

You don't sense any hostility, animosity, you don't sense any welcoming. You don't sense anything from them. They're just present in letting you pass. Is the armor solid and- Yes, the armor is solid and the spirits that inhabit them are pseudo-material. It's hard for you to gauge.

You haven't encountered this type of creature outside of your spectral encounters with ghosts and other spirits. But as you step forward, being flanked and escorted by these winged guards, you are brought to the base of the 50 or so steps that ascend to the front, 40-foot-tall double doors that now creak open to reveal the interior of the palace,

which is as bright, if not brighter from the inside as the outside pillar of light you're leaving. So as you prepare yourselves to adjust your gaze, you ascend step by step to eventually take in whatever the interior of the fortress the sun has to offer. And that's where we're going to take a break. We're going to return back here in a few minutes. We're going to go ahead and use the restroom.

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and self-improvement. Let's get started. We have some stuff for you guys. Come up a rest here for a minute. We have a giveaway. Fruit. Fruit. Fruit.

Fruit. Don't eat the spike in it. That's right. Make a wisdom saving throw fast. Really? Yeah. Oh, really? Yeah. Oh shit. Everybody? No, just grog, because he's an idiot. Okay. 13. Okay, good enough. All right.

Maybe you would have gotten started or maybe it's super fruit. Maybe it's osseye berries. I was about to say. All right, so our friends at Wormwood have this awesome black walnut personal dice tray with a leather interior. It's pretty badass. We have one lucky winner over in the Twitch The key word for tonight is latency, L-A-T-E-N-C-Y.

Like the kind that you get when you have to people on Skype, guesting in. So to win this, find your way over to Twitch chat, follow instructions, when it's time, put the word latency in, and one lucky winner at the end of the break. We'll be able to give this away to in an ounce. So enjoy rest. We'll see you guys back here in a few minutes. Welcome back to Critical Role. So first and foremost, the winner of the chat room contest,

and I hope I'm reading this right, is N-N-N-N-Alehammer. I'll wait a one more time. Naneal hammer. Is it nine inch nail hammer? It's two ends. Ailhammer. So, Nenail hammer. So congratulations, Neneilhammer.

You won the giveaway. Denobo will contact you and get you the info. So congratulations. All right, so back into where we left off. As you ascend, the remainder of the stairs, and step into the stairs. entryway to the fortress of the sun. You're led through a series of gorgeous silver and gold archways, dozens of feet above you. The intricacies of the interior scrolling, trim,

and inlay across every wall, pillar, and banister is incredible. Not gaudy, just magnificent and purpose in history. Glancing across the marble floor, you can see the construction here is immaculate. There isn't any sort of smudge or damage dealt any way. These arches themselves, even as you glance over and look, the detail seems to just fractal smaller and smaller in places where you can't imagine a craftsman's hand could have built this. Only through the will of a god could such a thing come into creation on such a vast and minor scale. You also notice as you walk in, there's no shadow or shade. The walls seem to almost emanate light on their own. The outside's a difference still.

Just go to the courtyard. I know. Just you wait. Like no shadow underneath you. Looking around you and kind of looking at your hands, you can see very faint shadows can be cast between your fingers and things that are very close, but it's like there's a diffused light throughout the entirety of the interior of the fortress that casts away any darkness or shadow.

There's no umbra, there's no place where light is absent. It is just light everywhere. You hear the soft music play, the deeper into the fortress you get. I'll clots over here, guys. Rocks follow, everybody dies. It's okay. The DM will remember this.

Soft music you hear playing throughout the interior of the fortress, like this distant sound of a thousand soft choir voices, accompanying the inspirational sight of the building that you now walk through. You see other entities adorned in armor, still kind of opaque and perolescent in their spirit form. Some of them have flowing robes of gold and white that just kind of trail behind them and drift across the floor silently. The further in you walk, you begin to see where some of these spires and spiral staircases, kind of twist upward. The rooms have purpose and construction,

but the scale of those that walk through the halls is so varied that you see staircases on large scales and small scales, and they almost seem to wrap around each other in places. It's surreal, almost Escher-esque in some of the interior construction. You see archways and doorways on different levels, some that appear to be reached only by those that can fly

versus those that can just walk and climb. And occasionally you look up and you can see skylights across the top with the same, some open glass and crystal, some appearing to be a small window of stained glass that glitters down it in bright, blues, purples, reds, oranges. There's definitely a stained glass motif in a lot of the interior of the fortress, which you've seen in some of Pellor's imagery in the symbol around him. It's like a circular stained glass structure that spirals in with the actual star in the sun in the center. The music continues to go louder and louder the further in you walk, and you feel like you're being let along for a good 15 minutes straight. This structure, this hallway, just goes on and on, the arches, just passing one after the other, after the other. And your eyes have adjusted the brightness of the interior now. And eventually you come to another set of large

doors. These doors themselves, no wood, no stone, just pure, vibrant platinum and gold. And the symbol upon them seems to be the same circular motif as the symbol of the dawnfather with the star in the center. But the detail and intricacies, you get close, and your eyes, especially you vex and vex, you glance in and you can see on every small scale, even just a simple bar of the star and the sun has writing

and has artwork. And then as you kind of look closer, Even on a smaller scale, that writing is comprised of smaller artwork and smaller writing. You are thrown off by the level of detail and intricacy of this place's construction. You're in awe. Your jaw drops as soon as these reveals seem to just barrage you with each step into the structure. And at that point, the door is open, and you wince once again as the light that fills the room from the inside is near blinding. You close your eyes a bit, and all you hear is this deep, resonant voice say, come. It has to be having the doors just keep opening.

This must be the bright light that everyone sees when they die. Got to steal those doors. You want to steal the doors? What is a terrible thing to say in the presence of the dog, Bob? All right, one foot in front. Oh, we can't hear Liam. Say that again. One foot in front of the other, here we go, I said.

Let's go. You shield your eyes upon stepping into the actual chamber, because otherwise you're not, even closing your eyes isn't enough. The light is so intense, and it still kind of hurts through your eyelids. So as you step inside and kind of look off, you can now glance around the interior of this chamber. And the same level of fractal-like scrolling detail that you saw in the doors lines every inch of the wall on the inside of this large square chamber. hundreds of feet across on each side, it's incredible.

The floor is almost mirrored in its polish, and you glancing down, while there is no immediate shadow, though behind you, the bright light does cast a bit behind you. You can see your reflection almost perfectly in the polished floor below. You glance up and you see the interior of that giant steeple-like tower that sat at the center of the fortress, the distance.

And you look up almost endlessly, you can see floor after floor, after floor, after floor, after floor, after floor, with just an endless spiral of various stained glass structures and reliefs and small statues that protrude from the edges. And this tower is seemingly hollow, just leading up, can't even make out

the top of it from this distance. It looks like a tower that is infinite almost from this perspective. It's so big. Is the light coming from the tower? No, the light's coming from the center of the room. As your eyes slowly adjust and you glance past your fingers and your hands, you see there in the center of the chamber

is a 25-foot throne of gold, brass, silver, and ruby. And sitting upon that throne, It's a mighty being wearing the most intricate and beautiful golden plate armor you've ever seen. Similar in detail and design as the interior of the chamber around you. It almost blends in if you didn't see it shift. A white cloak encases the shoulders of this entity and sways gently at their side like it's been brushed off and dangles over one of the armrests. And where a head would be, instead there is a burning star so bright. that you can only look but a second before you have to avert your gaze and shut your lids out of the pain.

Just enough time to barely make out the outline of what appears to be a male head, almost featureless, burning within the corona. This, you can only imagine, is the dawn father himself Pellor. As you step into the chamber, the door closes behind you and the winged planar entities that pushed you in or not in the chamber, it's just you. And the Don Father. Look how far we've come, guys. From throwing shit at people to... Didn't you do that just last week?

I do that most week. Grog. Old Habits die hard. Next time we visit the Don Father, wear some underwear. This floor is like a mirror. But I don't have a... Okay. Oh, go.

Ooh, you mean I can. Oh, sorry. Vox-Marquina. Oh, shit. A little bit. A little bit. He knows her name, guys. You guys, who knows her name.

You come with purpose. I can sense your determination. What would you tell me of your purpose? Weakna walks the earth. We are here to prevent the coming of her third calamity. We seek the means to destroy him and all he stands for. He seeks ascension into godhood. And all your children are in danger and we have begun communing with the gods.

And I extend slowly the wings and bow my head in deference to him. The divergence is threatened. Hmm. Your guards have a, your creatures have some of our proof in their care at the moment. Another seeks the path of the matron of ravens, a flaw in our annihilation of her hubris. That it still exists is dire news. That it exists in the hands of such a slippery, vile mortal,

as Vecna, even more so. I thank you for your haste in sharing your findings. I shall ponder a strategy. He leans back in his chair, and he busts his hand like this, and the doors behind you, open. It was you that I was speaking to

in Whitestone. We have the eye of Vecna. This form shifts a bit, seems to lean forward forward on the throne, resting the bright, bright, burning star-like head on the edge of its gauntlet and fist, leaning forward in your direction. You try and glance up, but it just hurts in the presence.

Present the artifact. But we gave it to... No, no, we still have it. Oh, we do? Yeah, he kept it with us. Oh, I have it, actually. Could you guys turn them up? Yeah.

We can't hear them at all. Please. So as you place the box in the ground? I'll try to sort of take it over. I'm going to leave it on the ground. It's a little hot over there. Okay. As you leave it on the ground, you can't see his eyes.

You can't see where he's facing necessarily, but you can sense his attention. It's like a beacon across the room. It's ever present, but there is definitely a focal point that you can sense when it comes to you. It's like having a spotlight on you amongst a theater of thousands of people. It's intimidating, but also,

but also exhilarating. And the beacon shifts in the direction of the small box you placed on the ground. Immediately the box flips open, and you watch as the eye just kind of levitates out on its own, twitching and looking around in all directions. It has no lid to close, and the tiny slit-like iris of it seems to retract

the best it can in the presence of such bright light. You hear this low ruminating. Do you have purpose with this? Only if it can help us destroy Vecna. Do you know how this would help you destroy Vecna? We do not. We don't know anything. We seek knowledge and power.

And assistance. I could destroy this right now. Only if you do not need it. Its existence is a threat. But the choice is yours since you brought it before me. Do you know what help it would be to us on the material plane? It kind of stares through you.

The beacon finds you. It's not the only one in existence. There are others. Is that true? I think it might be here. Oh, right? No. There are other people with that.

There are people missing eyes, but this is the only one of this you've seen. It's his and it should be destroyed. Right now? Perhaps. I mean, maybe it'll make him weaker if it is destroyed. He obviously put it in his sigh on.

We destroy it, we keep someone else like Delilah Briarwood from coming into power, right? Yes. Yes, I think. I'm- I say destroy it. Destroy it. Delilah was obviously his pawn and she was using it.

Fuck it. Destroy it. Destroy it. You stand with a master of the Grey Hunt. She is the one who can speak for White Stone on that level. If you say destroy it, we destroy it. The beacon comes back to you again. The stage beneath you.

Everyone around you seems to vanish in the light. It's just the attention of this entity. This God, ancient, beyond all. thought and reason that you could contemplate, awaiting your answer. You know, so much more than we do. If you believe it is unsafe, then we trust your wisdom in destroying it. The wisdom of the creators is to instill their creations with the choice of their own destiny. Then I say destroy it. What if we can... The choice is made. Use it.

And with that point, you watch, without leaving attention from you, the eye begins to lift up out of the box once more. The hand that was under the chin kind of unfurls into a clasping set of fingers. And as they clenched together, you hear the metal clink and grind, and you watch as this light begins to flare around the eye. And if you could hear a squeaking scream from a powerful artifact, you watch. You watch it and just burns in a flash and the shattering sound echoes throughout the room. You see a burst of greenish dark energy and for a moment the light in the room seems to dim like a very, very faint, almost brown out. I think it's a good thing. I think that's a good thing. It is a good thing.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Vecna's a puppeteer used that to move Delilah. It's gone. Now, if you have no further business, We seek out the goddess Aune, the goddess of knowledge. The ritual of seeding was lost to time, and we know that the goddess Aune is one of the only keepers

of that knowledge. There's moment of contemplation on his end. She is safe. She recovers. Heed in the way. I know elements of where she resides. But this information only belongs to those trusted. So. We know you and her help seal away the chaos on these secrets before.

We may need your help doing it again. Leans forward towards you and you feel the beacon of attention shift towards you this time. And you, Kiela, who have spent most of your life trying to dodge and dive from the the attention of the masses, trying to buck the destiny that has been thrust upon you since childhood. Here in this moment, you have the attention of one of the prime creator gods of Exandria, and you feel yourself weaken and strengthen at the same time. You're not sure whether to run or stand, and the voice comes out once more. I have champions across all of Exandria, who have lived longer and proven themselves worthy, capable. My consecrations

are taxing, and I will not have it wasted on those set to fail. We prove ourselves to you. You have not one faithful among you, yet you beseech my blessing. I could be your champion. You could teach me to believe. I arguably I am faithless. I know you all know that. I believe and I have respect, and I am all inspired by all of this.

But faith, I still don't know if I have. But I believe you could teach me. Is there anyone else who would challenge this proclamation? To defeat. I don't want to challenge you, Kilith. We already have one champion of the Raven Queen, why not? Once, you blessed White Stone. White Stone is under my watch and keep. It was created through the battlefield in which I seal. Thur is adun himself.

It was the grounds in which Ayun was wounded in the calamity. There was much sorrow in those lands. Yes, it is under my watch. Kind of friends with the Sun Tree. We talk occasionally? A faithless stance to try and accept the champion's mantle. I ask once more, is there any to challenge this claim? Kielis, I've never felt this before. You are the Lady of Whitestone. It suits you. You step forth with the growing bud of faith.

That befits the growth of a champion. of the champion. I will see you show me your quality. You is the vessel. Kneel before me. Leans forward at the edge of the throne. You hear the metal clinking as the plates shift and move. And you can hear now at the proximity as he leans down towards you the faint flicker of the surface of the sun-like head that is the beacon of the Don Father's face. You would accept my trial, brave soul. Brave soul. Then you and your allies must ascend the tower of the zenith. The chosen among you, Lady Vixalya. You must reach the top of the tower. Before this time runs thin. As he lifts his hand, you watch as operating the air, a container of glass with the sand across the top. He lifts his other hand, another one, appears.

These two hourglasses now held aloft, just gliding slowly above the space where you stand. Ascend to the Zemoth. Embrace your faith and throw yourself in the fires of dawn. Should you be strong of heart and your faith be true, the flames will grant you my blessing. Just me? Fuck that us.

Fuck that. You must jump into the flame. They can help you ascend. However, your trial begins now. Oh, God. And you watch as one of the glasses suddenly shifts, and three of the winged planers appear in the room, armored around you, arms crossed, and they look to be trying to block the passage into the towers. They fly up, and you look up to the seemingly endless beacon above. to the top of the tower that you cannot see at this distance, and you know immediately, somehow, quickly,

you have to get there. So, what are you doing? It's been out. Wait, I'm challenging. Oh, I bet the boots, but I, I mean, take off going. Wait, wait, wait, wait. Click your boots of haste. I'm gonna turn her into a red dragon.

Do you want that? Sure. I put my boots of haste before I does it. Okay. So you click your boots of haste, they come into you. You feel the surge of energy, the rush, the burst of adrenaline through your body. As you begin casting... True polymorph.

Oh my God. All right. Does that ever end? Do you have to cancel it? Yes. Okay. All right. So as you begin to ascend, you watch as the three planer begin to rush towards you, their arms out to grasp. Anyone else going to do anything? Yeah, I would like to smash my gauntlets together and cast enlarge.

All right. So you'd go into your larger form now. And rage. And you rage. I'll charge one of them. They're up in the air. She's flying up. You got on carpet.

Get on the carpet. I pulled the carpet up. Yeah. Okay. I click my boots of spider climbing and spend an action surge to draw and start taking shots at the wings. I want to drop them out of the air. Okay, go for it.

Make three shots. Very quickly. All right. As you are sending on the broom as quickly as possible, and then begin to converge on you, you feel this tickle of energy in the back of your mind and you watches your hands begin suddenly grow claws and scales and red color.

Vax. Yeah? Do you're big. I cast shield of faith on my own ass. Okay. Shield of Faith, cast on Vax. Can everybody fly? I'm running on the wall. Before I polymorph, I toss you my broom.

Are you going to allow that? Sure. So you throw the broom off the side and you begin to plummet immediately. Through the air. As you're concentrating on the spell to cast it, you finish it off, and you plummet back about half the distance and then these giant leathery red dragon wings whip out of your form and you catch yourself. The broom clatters to the ground and Scaline rushes over and grabs it and manages to get under his grasp. You know that would.

All rightyty, so you begin to ascend upward, right as they begin to descend on your dragon form. 20, 24 and 36. 2024 and 36. They all hit. Thump, thump, thump. That's a strength-saving or they fall a little bit? Swing through, all right, that is a 18? Nope. They fall. 21? That's okay. And a 12.

So two of them, shoot two the wings out of the way, and they plummet down, and you manage to coast past two of them in your dragon form. One of them does manage to grab onto you and get its hands and big, strong hands on the back of your head and try and steer you to the side. Can I cast frightful presents? We'll get to that in just a moment. It's going to attempt to... Oh, man.

All right. It tries to pull against you, but even with its extremely strong planar strength, it cannot guide you away from the path and you push past. You're now outside of the chamber and the base of the tower, just flying upward. You can go ahead and use your fight for presence. All of the creatures. Is that everybody? No, no, of my choosing, so all the bad, although not bad guys, but, you know, the people inside. Okay.

As you roar loudly and echoes, goes filling the entirety of the chamber, the music of the surroundings, now merging and shifting with this horrible dragon roar. None of these angel ginnities seem even remotely affected by us. Oh, really? They don't even have to make a wisdom saving through them? They are immune to fear. Oh, wow. Or being frightened, sorry. That makes sense.

But you continue flying upward? Yes. Okay. So you finished the spell. You take your shots. Kieliff, Pike, anything? I'm going to hop up, am I close enough to grog to hop onto the carpet as well? Okay, so Pike and Grog get onto the carpet. Kieleth, what are you doing? How close is everyone, are people clustered up together by now? Do I take the alignment of the animal that I'm polymorphed into?

No, she's just your mental scores. All right, so. Are people like super clustered together? Is she now clustered with them? No, she's above everybody. She's way past all you guys. She just shot straight up. So the angel dudes are all kind of clustered together. Two of them fell a little bit, one of them's on her back. Okay.

She's making her way up, guys. I'm going to... The first sand glass is starting to run out. Throw up a big level five flaming sphere. Wait, can I do a, with my sphere, can I do a higher level fireball and just do more charges out of it? Or no? I'll say no, because you cannot spend more charges to increase the level of the spell.

Then I will do a fifth level of flame. Fett level flaming sphere, boom. Okay, so the flaming sphere slams upward. Oh, all right. It's the side there. Moving fast, move fast, people. Rolls a one and saving throw. So it takes damage.

The flaming sphere hits it, however. It doesn't hit both of them? No, you can slam it into one could you return. So one of the ones that's on her back, you mean? What's the range on the flaming sphere? Come on, come on, the top is running out. No time for a book. No time for a book.

No time for a book. Never mind, it doesn't matter. Whatever. It hits them. Farty arrange. It's fine. All right, so who's doing what next? We're rocketing up on the rug. Okay, the rug. Not very fast, and her speed is much faster as a dragon. So you guys are coming up behind and you're just watching the dragon from... Are we close to any of the either two that are at the bottom?

No, but as soon as that timer went out, the chamber's roof above you, slam shut. You're all cut off from Vex. Fair enough. I was running up a while I didn't make it in time? Not at your speed, no. It's a big chamber. Fair enough. It's okay. Okay, okay. I'm going to just haste as fast as I can. Do I get, when I clicked my boots, do I still get a hasted action?

Yes, you do. Okay, cool. Then I can go 160 feet. Yes, you can. The planer is still holding on the back of your head. It's going to make another strength check. That is, ooh. I'm going to tail whip him. Is that a thing I can do?

Make an athletics check. Okay. Pike and I are just wailing on the table. Ooh, I have like a red dice. It's like so perfect, and I never choose this one. Okay, well. What am I, what am I adding to it? So what are your strength amount of fires?

If there isn't an athletics. Score, then whatever of your strength modifier? That would be a plus five? Are you talking about hers or the dragons? Oh, a plus seven? So 13. 13. The planer grabs one side of your horn and causes you to slam into the side of the tower.

You skid across and smash into one of the stained glass windows, which fires out the side, and you end up slowing down a bit and it actually takes you a moment. It just halves your speed for this round. Oh, no. Try and get your wings back up. Are you going to do anything about the guy on your back? just plugging as fast as you can. No, I'm gonna, he's on my back or he's like, hanging on to me.

He's like on your neck and head. He's like holding on and trying to steer you off the side by controlling your movement. I'm gonna spin and try to slam into the wall and like knock him into the stone. Okay. You know, like Princess Bride or he's like. Is that a wing? Yeah, I'm gonna use my wings to like thrust me faster into the wall. Okay, go ahead and make an athletics check.

Rand dice, right. No, no. Okay, athletics check. Was it plus a seven. So, uh, 19. 19, 17. So you slam into the wall and you hear, behind you. The stained glass that shattered reforms right where you lift it.

And you continue to ascend upward. It's still holding on to you, but it's now a disadvantage on this next role because you slam into the wall. So making your ascent upward. As fast as you can, you watch as the tower just slowly pincerer closer and closer. You watch as another layer begins to close above. All right, he's going to attempt to try and slam you into the wall again. Go ahead and make another athletics check.

D20 and add your strength modifier. Go for it. That one did count as this. You didn't intend to roll it. Okay, oh, okay, 21. 21, yeah, you beat him. He tries to pull you off the side and you begin to skid into it. Your wing hits the side of the tower. But you keep pushing forward.

The pain hits you. You end up taking about 25 points of damage just grinding into this divine golden side, but you keep flying up. The tower gets tighter and tighter and tighter. You now can see as the planer is going to attempt to, uh, uh, uh, uh, okay. Okay. What are you to do? Can I, is he hanging on to me with one arm now? What is he doing?

How is he doing? Because I knocked him into the wall, right? Yeah. So, oh God. We do. Ah, good. I just use my, I'm gonna just dash. I'm gonna fuck him and just dash.

You're going double speed. Double speed it. You just shoot up. Okay, that gives him a full round to go ahead and try and scare you off. Gordon, that's a, uh, roll again with your strength. Uh, 15. Slam's doing to the wall.

She's getting slowed down a little bit. You can now see it's closing. But you're dashing, so you get a second speed run, which does get you up towards where the wall is closing now. You can see now the bright light is getting brighter and brighter, your eyes are hurting in the presence. You can see a large brazer at the top of the tower that is now in flames before you.

You're not quite there. You have one more round. He's going to go ahead and now turn around, and the angel turns out on your face and it's going to tend to punch in your eyes. Oh, shit. What? That is a 21.

Oh, yeah. I'm going to use my legendary resistance. Well, it's a physical attack on you. Oh, shit. So what's your, what's your, it's your, Casey? Uh, uh, uh, 19. Okay, yeah, it hits you, you take disadvantage on your next strike.

Go ahead and roll on athletics check to try and buck them off. One last time. This is the only one you have time for. Disavantage or one? Disadvantage because he punched you in the face. Uh, okay. 14. 14. All right, you're slowing on, you're slowing down.

You're not going to get in there. He's like bashing you in the face. I'm gonna take him. Okay, we're gonna the strengths check. Go, go, go. Uh, uh, what is it? 18. 11.

You thrust him off your face as he falls off down below. Yeah. Make it up to the top, and you announce to the braiser is about the size of your dragon form. It's physically your size, and you see now the towers begin to... Closing it around you. What are you going to do? I'm going to reach the tower thing and push myself up through. Okay, you pull your way up to the top, and now you're right above the brazier or the flames. You look down under the brazier, the fire there burning this ever-present height that heat in your face.

You dive into the fire. You dive into the fire, your dragon form, which resists it at that point, it immerses your entire form, at which point you hear the tower guys above you crack, and you hear this echoing sound of what sounds like, shattering of a thousand windows at once. You, as you dive into the flames, feel this moment of searing bright pain in your eyes, in your mind. Your dragon form is immune to flames, but your form suddenly shrinks. The spell dispelled. The dragonoid form just cast away. You...

sense this kind of lost nothing. Your whole body is numb at this point, and you're just surrounded by a white light. Much like where Vax's in the plain and this communion with the Raven Queen is shrouded in darkness. This is just endless every color. You have no sense of personal form. You have no sense of time, place, and for the first time and a long time, Don't remember your name. For a brief instant, you think what bit of conscious thought you can make is this? Is this what oblivion feels like? Did you make the right choice? Were you lit astray? Were you strong of hard enough? The flames were intended to cleanse away, sin, darkness, possibly those who are unworthy.

You guys down below, watch as the chamber doors that closed off above you opened up again to reveal the tower. And you can see there suspended in the middle of the air thousands of shards of stained glass that had just shattered inward from the impact, but frozen, just held in place as they all slowly retract back, reforming the windows that were once there. whatever impact or shockwave had scattered them below, reversed and repaired. And you watch, as they do so ascending. The tower is back untouched as it was. The one planer that had ridden the dragon form of vex towards the top of the tower slowly descends and lands next to the three others. And they all give a nod towards the dawn father who is still There, not looking upward, just looking at the rest of the remaining members of Voxmachina. His beacon of attention just shifting from one to the other.

The three planners leave the still open doors. What does she mean to you? To us? All of you. I told you that I was faithless, which might be true when it comes to the gods. But not with Vexallia, not with Vaxmachina. Roxmachina. She gives me my power. And she is greedy and mean sometimes.

And she can be, she can steal a lot. She's a little bit not the greatest person. But she, her flaws highlight everything that is right about her, which is she does all these things to protect her friends and her family. She would give her life for any of us and for anyone who is truly in need. And she's not perfect, but she's the most perfect of all of us. She believes in me. She tries to teach me to use my brain, which I don't do. very often. He tries to teach me to learn from the world, and she always cheers me on, which not a lot of

people do. I believe in her. The beacon shifts to you, Pike. I don't have a real sister, but I consider her more of my sister than I've ever had. She's family, and if you take her from me, there will be hell to pay. The beacon shifts to Percival. Welcome to Mick Unplugged, the number one podcast for self-improvement and modern leadership. I'm Mick Hunt, your host, and I'm here to challenge your why and fuel your because. This is where leaders, entrepreneurs, and go-getters come to level up. Each week, I bring you unfiltered conversations, game-changing strategies, and the kind of motivation that transforms lives and legacies. I've learned from legends like Les Brown, Damon John, and Robert Irvine, and now I'm bringing their lessons, along with mine,

straight to you. From modern leadership tips to creating unstoppable momentum, this is the podcast that redefines what's possible. Hit play, subscribe, and join the millions who've made Mick Unplugged their go-to source for growth and greatness, because your next breakthrough is just one episode away. This is Mick Unplugged, the voice and face of modern leadership entrepreneur and self-improvement. Let's get started. know there are a lot of celebrity interview podcasts out there, but there's only one Happy, Sad, Confused. I'm Josh Harrowitzin. Yeah, I'm the host of the show, so I'm a little biased, but truly Happy, Say, Confused is the place for nerdy and intimate conversations with all your

favorite actors and filmmakers. From Andrew Garfield and Scarlett Johansson to Christopher Nolan and Quentin Tarantino. For over 10 years and over 700 episodes, Happy, Say, I Confused, has broken movie and TV news every single week. That's because I ask all the questions I want to know, and more importantly, you want to know. Casting what-ifs, backstage stories, acting pet peeves, and much more. So whether you're into superheroes, prestige TV, or just the coolest actors and directors alive, you're going to learn something in every episode. Listen to HappySad Confused on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

The world of Sonic the Hedgehog has been third. 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 clothing they can fight. It's one heck of a tale, which is good, because this story might be the only thing 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 Chaotics Case Files. Listen now, wherever you get your podcasts. When the Chaotics are on the case. She is mistress of the gray hunt of White Stone, Baroness of the First House of White Stone. She is my heart and my judgment

and the future that I have chosen and she is the one that I have betrothed to The begin shifts back to backs She is every hope I have When I am gone she will make the world right She has the intelligence and the saviness and the heart

To make real world decisions She is me but better She is your champion And there is hope, and you watch as in the center of the chamber a second star seems to be birthed before you, this bright point of light that begins to swell. In equal intensity as the head of the dawn father himself has a flash, consumes the chamber, and there before you you see now, reborn, hair scattered back, intact, slowly descending, eyes closed, consciousness not yet drawn from within. Vexalia, as her feet touched the ground and she falls to her knees. She breathes

in your eyes. You look around and see the faces of your friends, your family, and you're immediately aware of the presence of the entity behind you. As you spin and look, whereas once there was a burning star and to the rest of you, you see the painful, endless, light that averts your gaze. It doesn't hurt your eyes as much. And you can see the faint features, the soft cheeks, the hairless head, and the bright, warm eyes of he who brings the dawn.

And you can see the smile there, behind the light. There is hope. Your blessing of the dawn, father. No! Oh, shit. Yes. Super Sam. So, there go.

What did I get? What is it? You naturally have resistance to necrotic damage. Oh, that's good for me. You get that fucking finger on death. You want to read the rest after you can. As a bonus action, you channel the light of day into your being. For one hour, you admit, you admit, fuck me running, you emit bright light in a hundred and twenty-foot radius in any evil creature with you.

in that 120 foot radius that hits you with an attack or a spell, immediately suffers 4D6 radiant damage and is knocked prone. You're a walking nuke. This is bright like a diamond. Once this blessing ability is used, it can't be used again for seven days. Same thing. Yeah.

Holy moly. Blessings of the gods. Get to add a sixth star to the Nirolo Christ. Fucking excited. Thank you. Ro. Thank you for allowing me to represent here. If what you say is true, and we are too late to prevent this ascension,

know that killing a god is beyond even most deities. To destroy, they to diminish one low enough to seal them away for eternity, as I have done once before. Such a technique I used to banish the chained oblivion ones. once after it nearly slew the knowing mistress. Having brought it low in battle, Ayun had devised something, she called, the prime trammel. The prime tremor.

Tramble. Guided by a sizable sliver of a god's power. One such device could be formed. And when enough are affixed to a wounded god, Seal them away in a plane beyond the astral sea. Such a method could perhaps force a new god back through the divine gate and beyond the reach of your world. Ayun, however, the one who has the design for such an artifact.

She has been in hiding since her wounding. She heals still the wounded god and has feared for the past eight centuries that her enemies seek to finish the job. We communicate on occasion through misoves and emissaries. All that I know is the key to her hidden realm is within someone. The last word from the mistress from nearly a century before

granted me this, and the gauntleted hand extends and opens, and there you see, apparating in the space above what appears to be a three-dimensional topographical map of some kind. It slowly rotates made of pure sunlight and flame. It's a mountain range with a glowing light within a small, hidden house or hovel within a forest. Make an investigation check. I would say Keyleth, Vexallia, Vaxelon, and Scanlan. Natural 20.

Good, thank God. This is mine. This is also a natural 20. Well, that's really amazing if you had to be as well. My investigation's not great. What did you get back? Not a natural 20. Glancing at it, both of you recognize,

as it kind of pulls back and shifts inward, this is deep within the cliff keep. This is far north, of Craghammer. This is in a forested region outside the pools of Wittebach. Pools of Wittabock? Wittabock. Once a gnomish home it befell to a terrible natural occurrence sparked by unnatural means. And now since this has become a series of acidic and toxic natural liquids, and waters that burble up from underneath the earth, and many wandering giants and larger

ogreish folk use, to their hearts content. But it's not in the pools of Wittebach, just near this strange hovel. The voice of the Don Father burrs forth once more, the heavy resin shaking the room. If you seek to devise these prime trammels, then take this stone, my champion. It should be enough essence for one of them. And you watch as he reaches up into the halo, the corona of light on the head and plucks from behind an ear. A small bead of extremely bright light. As he pulls up from his head, you watch the strength and intensity of his glow just ever so faintly diminish. And places it in your hand. And as soon as it reaches, it's released from the gauntleted fingers,

It's so massive. Each finger is as thick as your torso. It plops into your palm and the glow fates. And there before you see it looks to be some sort of an oval-like opal. I love opals. It's so pretty. Now I have invested what I can safely do within you. Go. Be swift. Find this key. Strike soon. Distry. Destroy or seal this great evil and prove my faith in you is not misplaced, Vaxalia. It won't be. The door is behind you. They're already partially a jar.

Open up all the way. I guess I'll put this in a really safe pocket then. This is one that's like got an extra snap. It's got a protect zipper. Just like triple snap and then a zipper over it. Just don't let it fall in the toilet. I take out the little pebble and I just drop it around the floor. You actually reach for the pebble?

It's not there. Oh. Shit. Was there a hole? No? No hole. But Sarah and Ray was not going to teleport you across the realm, letting you take away one of the prized souls of her people.

Oh, those were the souls. Pope, Travis. That was the Pope. Show to swallow the rock. Ah. As you exit the chamber, you can see the the various souls and plainer that currently wandered the halls on their own business, have all now joined shoulder to shoulder as a procession, showing you a respectful exit from the compound. As you walk, they all seem to give a nod of respect towards Vexalia,

the now freshly chosen champion of Pelor for this endeavor. As you step beyond the staircase that leads you down beyond the fortress of the sun, into the center of the clearing that is watched and protected by the various trees of the Don Father, looking out amongst the endless progression of the orchards, you consider what your next path is to discover who and what this key is to Aynne. And hopefully there's enough time, because time right now

and the decisions you make will greatly affect what can and cannot be done. And that's where we're gonna end up session. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Oh, what the fuck. Champions over here. Oh, shit.

We are the champ. This is so fun. Having able to do epic, epic level content. That's so fun. The Tweez are officially sold and pepper shakes. Is every episode gonna be as emotional just for the rest of the game? We can't keep doing this. William, what did you say?

I said the twins were officially salt and pepper shakers. You totally are. Oh, my God, and I have the white. You have the white dragon. Oh, shit. That's right. Tight. Holy crap.

That's actually pretty great. I think this actually changes the crest of Whitestone now, because now there's a sixth champion of Palo who's of Whitestone. That's like a six stars, not five now. Holy cow. Oh, man, you should really do that crest because it's in the campaign guide that's being published in two months. It would only be hers.

Okay, there we go better about that now. I'm like, oh God. It would only be heard. No, no, no. The most crest is the five counters, but hers gets sick. It's okay, because the book technically takes place before all this stuff. That's true.

So, there you go. I'm not going to hurt you that bad. Matt, I also have to throw out playing. We on Skype now get the full Twitch view, so I'm seeing you guys with all your icons, with everything, and it is the weirdest amalgamation of Baldersgate and Sega's full motion video, video game from 1995 Night Trap starring different strokes.

Then Play-O. That's all I've wanted. All I've ever wanted is the weird shit to see. Weird about that. As a creative was to develop, design, and produce what I would consider to be today's night trap for you all. And if we could achieve that, I've done my job. Liam, we miss you.

We miss you guys. Oh, miss you guys. Thank you for staying up late with us. Really appreciate it, guys. I love you guys. I love you guys. God hunting without you guys. Yeah, we need our East Coasters.

Man, I think almost didn't Skype in tonight. What? We need you. No. So I'll give all my cows a hug for you. All right guys. Well, our tickets for the live show. Jen Kong got tomorrow morning.

Look for that. Jen Con. Hopefully see you guys there. Indianapolis. It's an even bigger theater. We had a lot of live show. amazing time last time and this theater is even larger and we'll be mad, mad crazy. So if you're not even going to Jen Con, come to the show.

Find out how tall Travis really is. Four foot three. It's a mystery. They're all teeny. Really tiny people. Well, thank you guys so much. Rest well, especially you East Coasters and you East Coasters and you other countryers. Yeah.

Wonderful night, see well. Thank you Marvel Puzzle Quest. Thank you Marvel Puzzle Quest. Thank you, more awesome sponsor. Check out the podcast. Check out the podcast, which is awesome. Yeah. And is it Thursday yet? Good night, guys.

Holy!