Critical Role & Sagas of Sundry - Vox Machina Ep. 20 - Trial of the Take Pt 3

Episode Date: November 30, 2021

Like their companions before them, Keyleth, Vax, and Tiberius make their way to The Slayer's Take. Arriving shortly after their friends' departure for the Vesper Timberlands, the trio are introduced to the rest of their own hunting party, and their mission. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Once they had completed this journey, they spent some time in the city just trying to figure out kind of what can be done there, preparation for possibly Kielis making a venture out to one of her Shari tribes, during which Grog entered a fight ring and lost, and the party decided to go ahead and Never forget. I know. I've been feeling Kern and Grog gonna have around two in the near future, depending on how Grog's

feeling about that. Then the party saw that there was some sort of a hydra-like being that had been herring the walls at the outskirts of the city of Asselheim. Being the adventurers they are, they took it upon themselves to leap out into the jungles and the forests of the Vesper Timberland, found and hunted down this hydra, fought it, and upon slaying it, discovered that there was another group also hunting this hydra, and actually sanctioned. and then hunting this hydra is considered illegal in Vasselheim unless you had actually been contracted to do so.

Whoops. So in breaking the laws of Vasselheim, they could have been tried for it, but instead chose to return to the city with this group of hunters and be brought before their guild master, the hunt master, known as Huntmaster Vanessa Sindhryal. Basically, they were given the choice. They could go to trial, or they could undergo their own personal trial to join the guild, the Slayers take, which is essentially a guild that takes on contracts to to hunt various requested creatures down, harvest elements of their physical bodies to then be sold or return to these individuals and be paid for it. If they manage to complete these trials, they will be absolved of breaking the law because they will now be within the confines of it and will be members of the guild. So choosing that, they were then also notified that they would be splitting up into two different groups. Much to the chagrin of Vex and Vax

are twins. Split apart, split apart. Separation anxiety is a real thing. So this group, the second adventuring group, has gathered itself back to the Bellows Respite Inn. Vax, you were asked to go to the bar to join your sister Vex for a shot of the hardest liquor they had available to deal with the coming separation. You shared a brief breakfast, shared your bitter, spiteful alcoholic embodiment, and then went to separate ways. The first group went initially, and it's been about an hour or so of you guys waiting in the tavern for them to, as far as you know, take care of their business before you're

to go to the guild yourself. So we have Tiberius, Kielas, and Vax, all sitting around the Bella's Respite Tavern, lamenting what's good to come next. Oh, Chibu, Vax. She'll be back soon. Yeah. I've never seen you quite so down. I've been separated from my parents for like a really long time. You get used to it. It's not too bad. It took you years to do that. Yeah! Two minutes in, so I'm gonna grieve a little bit longer. Don't say the word grieve, that's strong.

Yes, he's implying that someone has died. Yes. No one has, so, you know. It's only a few days, it'll be good. Separation makes the heart grow fonder and all that stuff. It's fine, I just have a low tolerance for bullshit and I'd like to get past this little piece of shit that we're being made to swallow.

I agree. Stonewind should not be meddling around with these peasants. Ah, I'm going to have a... Are we in a tavern? You are currently in the Bell's Respirator. Bucky, bring me your finest sale for my friend here, and for the lady. I'll take a water.

The relatively jovial, kind of ginger-bearded, rotun human gentleman who runs the establishment comes over to you. Looks like he himself's a little bleary-eyed and hasn't quite adjusted to the morning light itself. Oh, okay, certainly. I'll go ahead and retrieve that for you. It was three. Three is what I'm looking at. Yes. What time is it?

Right now, I'd say it's roughly nine, ten in the morning. Oh, ho, ho. Sure, let's start early. Why not? And I flip them, whatever, a couple of coins. He tries to catch it, fumbles, goes, and awkwardly picks it up, and then a moderate. Don't throw it, that's rude.

I gave him a tip. Five minutes go by, your food and drink are brought to your table, and you continue to lament about in the coming time. Is there anything else you guys wish to take care of before you make your way to the Slayers take, Guildhall? No, we should, since we're getting separated, Grog is taking the bag of holding. I have one. Don't forget that. Right, but we had a lot of stuff in that bag of holding.

I mean, I kept most of the stuff that I needed on me. But how many healing potions do we have? Not a lot, that's what I'm concerned about. We've lost our meat shield and we don't have pike, so I think we probably need to go and get some... and get some potions. I mean, I can go ahead and brush up on healing spells as well. Make sure that I come a little bit more well equipped just in case. I mean, I'm good on potions, but yes, we should restock our supply.

How many you got? I have three potion of greater healings and three regular potion of healings. Can I have one? I mean, I suppose if we just think of buy more, it doesn't matter, but here, just in case something happens along the way. Thank you. I only have one greater healing potion right now. Yes, so we'll go buy more, and then we'll see what else they have. I would like to see if we could procure a couple of items, like a couple of empty files,

because I've used a lot of mine, maybe find some acid or whatnot at these item shops. So let's look around and get the stuff. Can we do that? Okay. Go ahead and make an investigate, chair. Oh, apparently we have the flying carpet? Do we have the flying carpet? Do we have the flying carpet?

carpet is for the most part kept wrapped up and within Grog's bag of holdings. Because I just, I think, so Grog was checking out, he was breaking up a little bit, but I feel like he just told me that we took the flying carpet. We took the flying carpet, sorry. He's very far away, but I feel it's reaching its limits, but. I would like to bogart the flying carpet and everything in the fucking bag. He apparently left us with the flying carpet? No, he...

He's saying he left with the flying carpet, Keyleth. He left with it. We don't have it. He said, remember you took the flying carpet to break our pee for a second. Am I texting you that right now? Yeah, I... You know, I can't... You're cutting out. You're cutting out, God. I held it for a time, but I only have my wheel of mending in mind as far as I know.

Well, if indeed... Hold on. Let me... Check. As you reach into your bag of holding, I'm thinking really hard. Through the lock of the draw, it seems to be the last resting place of the flunker, it was within your bag of holding. Oh, here it is. Oh, look at that. We have it.

We have it. Found it. Found it. Found it. We're good. All right, let's go to the store. I don't really want to drag this out any longer than we have to, and I just walk out the door and start going. Okay, was you all for your investigate check, by the way, Siberia? 16. 16, okay. As you guys take the next 20 or so minutes wandering the Quadroats District of Vasselheim, asking around a lot of the shops here offer general supplies. There are a few that are focused more in the mining supplies, as there is a rather large market for mining coal vault out of the center of the mountain.

The city is built around. You find places that provide, you know, clockwork for, you know, large grandfather clocks that are now starting to be distributed between this part of the city. You also find that there is rather large, bizarre type market in the center of the Quad Roads that you passed by when you first came through the town. Amongst many of these barkers, you do catch one small tent, Iberius,

that catches your eye because it resembles the same purple color as one tent you guys had entered in IMAN about a year or so ago, which you encountered a fortune teller. Oh, shit, the witches fortune. This happens. Look at those fingers fly. I approach. Do you know her name?

Remember her name? I can probably find it. I would take a minute of digging, though. I'm approaching. Hang on, hang on, hang on. It's going to have to go back. I gotta go back to my old notes. I gotta go back to my old D&D notes.

Keep, keep doing stuff. So as you enter the tent itself, you kind of pull the curtains, There's one other individuals who seems to be just perusing the interior, but the smell that hits you immediately is a very, very heavy kind of sage, a ceremonial burning of various spices to kind of give the air a mystical scent. The light itself is very low. There's a few flickering candles. It looks like a hooded lantern in the far corner that's directed outward to give a bit of ambiance to the interior of the tent. A series of small ropes and cords made of what looks like hemp and silk. They carry trinkets and and bones and various what looks to be enchanted. Trista. Various other accoutrement. And in the far back corner amongst this table,

there is indeed a very beautiful elven woman dressed in a fine silk gown with a metallic headband, her kind of dirty blonde hair put behind her ears, and she looks to be in the middle of just shuffling a deck of tarot cards. As you enter, she looks up and gives you a look of surprise and then a curious look of remembrance. Am I with him?

You're behind him outside of the tent. He just entered if you guys want to go in with him. Yes. Probably not. Right, you enter and are greeted by this same atmosphere. Ah! She kind of gives you a cross look. It's been so long.

It's fancy meeting you here. She puts finger up for a second, turns over to the, looks like a noble woman who's currently perusing a small shelf of books in tombs and says, I'm terribly sorry. Would you mind just giving us a moment some personal business to attend to? And the woman's like, but fine, I didn't want to purchase anything anywhere.

And stops out of the tent. The door closes behind it, at which point the other woman immediately turns, Trista's my sister. Farsithia? It's good to see you again, young half of. You see now with the current atmosphere, the light seems to dim in the interior of the tent. And the Elven woman's visage shimmers and then fades, and they're sitting behind the table. you see a large, hunched forward, gnarled humanoid,

this woman who is definitively referred to as a hag and or a fane-based hag is currently lording over the table, long, twisted fingers holding that same deck of cards, looking up at you with the crooked nose and the pointed chin has a grin at her face, looks to you and, ah, it has been some time, Dragonborn. I can still see there is but a fraction of you, still missing?

Yes, I still don't know what that means, but I am actually happy to see you, my lady. Still, he still shuffling your cards? So, is there anything I can help you in? Yes, yes, there is. You mentioned before what I asked you last, of the Boros ring. You revealed that he was in the Fay,

the wild fan. I am also in search of an, an unlawful. item that I did not get to ask you about called the Pale Stone. I would wish to know the location of that as well. I'm going to give you a keen look. For the time B, one quest is enough. Return when you've procured this ring you so graciously seek. Then perhaps the nest of this will be revealed.

Grow greedy with fate, and I fear the timeline will swallow you up. You dragon blood. Fair enough. Pulls a card, sets it down, and she starts going over her own reading. With each card, she slams down with a heavy thud. The room itself seems to almost cloud, the air growing thicker, and there's a hint of,

how do I put it, frustration that she's currently being bothered and strung out, and after you take some moments to herself, she looks back to you. There's there business you seek aside from asking me these questions. That's a bopold or two. I make fine bubbles.

Since you're not in the business of information, then we are in the business of procuring specific items. Potions. I'm looking for a few empty glass files, perhaps some acid if you have it. She stands up, and if she stands up, you can now see the hag, which hunched forward sits at a solid five feet tall at full height, even with the hunch. He's now pressing the top of the tent in about seven feet. Long, stringy, gray-black hair kind of framing the shoulders. is the same nice goldish silk outfit that the elf appearance was wearing is there, yet it looks much more world-tattered and matching the one currently wearing it.

She reaches behind her, still staring at you intently in the face and grabs a small case off the wall, sets it down before, pulls back the wooden lid, and on the inside you can see there are three small glass vials. These are what I have to offer. Two of them, right the physical force. Perhaps

take care of some of those wounds, someone is foolish and careless as you would eventually deal with. The third one? Well, cost in it, costic in its nature.

Its application is up to you. They are seldom as a set. Three hundred gold pieces. I have to be all nasty about it. I mean, I have the money. Here you go. She reaches over, and as you hold the small bag of coin out, her hand, it completely engulfs yours. The fingers wrap around, and for a second you feel a tug, and you're awkwardly pulled forward a few inches.

Post her face. The breath catches your nostrils, the scent of swamp water and old fish. It's a moment of intensity there you forget your surroundings for a brief moment, and there's just you and this entity, and you really realize she's far older than you ever gave her credit for. She then pulls the bag of coin from your hand and withdraws. The light seems to return from the peripheral of your vision. Kiela and Vax are there to your sides. She reaches forward and pushes the box forward towards you and the table.

Be safe. And may fortune smile upon most of you. I know something bad is going to happen. This is all, I show the box. I take it, pick it up. This is all she had to offer. And she's not taking questions. You're not taking any questions right now?

Not today. Not today? As you know, my dealings with fate take a lot out of me. Sure. I'm not quite ready for another round of tellings. You see, the city, as most bits of civilization, are very eager to hear what the future has in store for them. So I'm a bit tapped out at the moment.

And you can see if it had dried blood around one of her nostrils. And if you recall last time, the process was very physically taxing on that. I'm not in a week or so. And if I'm not here, I'm around. Old one, are you still willing to trade today? I'm wondering if you have any poisons beyond the run-of-the-mill nightshades this afternoon or morning? or morning.

She stands up and reaches over, and there's a small kind of alchemical glassware set up on the side, and you can see some of it's kind of cracked and old and you've been brutalized her at the time being. She pulls a very, very small vial of some dark, black, almost umbra-type liquid where you can't even see shine in the light in the nearby area. It looks like it almost just absorbs all the light.

She kind of puts it forward before. This would be Very unfortunate to find its way in the bloodstream of an enemy, eh? What do you want for it? A favor? Not now, but perhaps down the row. Why not? She pushes forward with her long, long crooked fingernail, shoves the vial forward.

It kind of screeches across the top of the table. She withdraws her hand. So it is done. At that moment, there's a very cold shivered on the back of your neck that then fades. And she just kind of grins with this nasty, toothy grin. Now, be on your way. I have cards to shuffle.

Yoink. I used to see a familiar face in such a strange place. She's lovely. Yes. Good day, Madam. As you all stop out, she kind of praces her hand in front of her, and her form once again shimmers and shifts down to that beautiful elven maiden that greeted you. you enter the lights, tend to blossom a little bit,

and you close the tent behind you. As we're leaving, I, that's a good look for you. You have a slight breathy chuckle. That starts beautiful, and then. Well, what did it actually get? All right, so you acquired two potions of greater healing. Okay. Oh, cool.

And a vial of some sort of caustic liquid. you're uncertain as to what his properties are. Sweet. Caustic liquid. You also don't quite know the properties of yours, but you gather the assurance from a creature of this power. She speaks from riddles, but not an untruths. I'm going to give you another one of the greater potions,

so add another. Thank you. We're right in the middle of a bazaar. We maybe want to jog around. I'm still getting out of this. I grabbed someone passing by and say, ew, potions, where? Here? The person kind of looks down your arm and brushes it off.

in the middle age and then goes, Oh, sir, you do realize that most of the potion trade is controlled by the clergy. Oh yeah, they're all like no magic and stuff here. I did not know that. Thank you. Well, shit. Wait, did you say it's controlled by the clergy?

By other clergy, so we have to go there. We should go there for it to- Well, whoa, whoa, wait. Just because it's controlled by the clergy doesn't mean that it's like legal. Doesn't mean that if we go knocking on their door requesting potions if they're going to take kindly to that. Kind of like getting your concealed deadly weapons license

in certain places. I have no idea what that is. I grab another weirdo passing by and say, excuse me, there's probably a temple around here. Can you point us in the right direction? The individual kind of looks at Eochlian points over, and you can see just past the outskirts of this bazaar, there are a number of buildings that kind of line

the outer area of this central portion. You can see where he's pointing, there is a rather large looking cathedral made of almost a, from this distance, a warbling, kind of warped obsidian. And it's far more ominous and obelisk-like in its appearance than the other positive temples. And a district of the city you haven't been to yet, but that is the closest temple. Warbling obsidian is my black gross cover band. I'm getting itchy. Can we just go to the take, please? I turn and I lean into Tiberius

and I say he's going to be cranky the entire time we're on this field trip isn't he? Yes and usually I'm the cranky one So let's head to the temple No, that's? What are we doing? I guess Can you turn it to horse? Yes but that's a little forward don't you think? I'm just asking Do you mean the temple of the tape where do you want to go? Oh the take?

Is that what do you make you feel about us? Let's get on with it shall we? Sure, fine Jesus whoever that is that was that one carpenter we met in Vasselheim Oh, he was sweet, had some good herb Yes, he did

That he should know how to It was dank Dank Dank which is arcane terms for Phumaturgical Anyway, you make your way to the southern outskirts

of this portion of the bazaar which leads its way into the central building-clustered portion of the Quad Roads District to the outside of the Slayers-Tay-Gilld Hall. You walk up to the main doorway, which has the inscription in front, and pushing the door open. You enter to the main foyer area where you see the same kind of cast-iron chandeliers hanging from the ceiling. The darkwood rafters kind of frame the entire internal area.

And there, sitting at the central desk, is, once again, Merton, the kind of scarred-up halfling with the relatively joyful disposition who looks up from his books and, Okay, it appears to me that the least we have the other half of this venturing group to deal with. Let us hope that perhaps you have better luck than your previous friends than what has been chosen for you, huh?

They already headed out. Yes, they left not more than a... Couldn't be more than an hour ago, I imagine. And what were they contracted with? Oh, no, they're going to kill a dragon. Would you like me to go get the mystery for you? Excuse me? What?

I'll take that as yes. I'll be right back, and he gets up from his table and wanders off. Uh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Uh, that'll be fine. I'm sure of it. Scanlan makes good decisions all the time. Yes. As you, um...

Oh, hello. As you wait a few moments, eventually, Merton returns, but he seems, you know, his head down a little humbly, gestures out with his hands, and you hear the familiar footsteps, of the Huntmaster Vanessa Sindhiel, her teafling appearance, both, you know, very striking in her chiseled bone structure in her face, her dark leather armor itself

creaking slightly with each footstep, and she has that very commanding yet welcoming appearance, which you know hides a very hard-to-read interior. She steps forward. Well, are you ready to take on the other half of this mission? Your friends were eager, and they traveled with some of our finer warriors. Are you confident in your capabilities today? Listen, don't be smug with me.

None of us want to be here or cooperate with this stupid event just to abide your laws. Tiberius, we could be on fire. The answer is yes. The answer is yes. Let's get out with it. See, it isn't very simple. I like directing to the point. I respect.

Oh, well, thank you. The angry flowery part in the middle. It'll not so much of Enlath. All right, so she reaches behind and pulls out what looks like a small rolled up piece of parchment. Looks at it for a second, opens up. Well, you have one other hopeful for this guild. We'll be joining you for this,

and then a leader will be assigned to you on this excursion to keep eye on you and make sure you stay within the rules and not go absconding to some other country and we have to hunt you down. Fantastic. Can we use the word liaison? liaison if you will. I'm not in the mon.

Merton, would you be other hopeful for this? Merton, he gets up and walks over and knocks on a door. As you hear the door knock from the opposite side of the room, opens it up, and the kind of red, tussled hair, halfling. Kishaw! Your group has arrived. Now it's about time. I'm sick of waiting. Walks out and meets everybody. As you guys look, the door opens and a human male steps out and

the light if you wish to describe yourself. I am Kachov Esch. I'm anachalite. Here I am. I'm waiting for you for so long now. I'll have to travel with them the entire time. Well, for the remainder of this contract, at least, but once you've joined the guild, perhaps other groups will be assigned to you.

I'm sorry, were we late? I didn't, we didn't mean to keep you waiting. Or do you mean, like, you've been waiting for us for a long time in the, like, kind of destiny, we're here, and I'm, where have you been my whole life kind of way. Is she always like this? Yes, it's, yes.

She's not good at reading emotion. This is gonna be fun, yes. No, I meant you late. Is that what people say about me? I don't. We'll talk later. Who are you? Vaxel Dung.

Cousin. I'm Tiberius Stormwind. Dragonborn. Yes. What's your thing? Do you do? What I do is not really important. What I want to get done, I think, is what matters. What I want to do is start this quest. Is that what you called it, a quest? It is a contract. A contract, the job. Can we just get out there, please, and do what we have to do?

Very well. I agree. It's hurried up Merkin, shall we? That wasn't your name, was it? It's Merton. It's the name. But that, that's... It's Arton. I'm not from his part. It's my accent. It's my accent. Sorry. I can hear accent from a bruntin. It's Martin. It's single ring. It's Singering, you so. That's what I said Murkin.

That's what I said. It's Martin. It's... By the way, the human that has walked out and approached you, you can see it has kind of shoulder-length brown hair, a leather cord that is tied around the center of the forehead. Eyes, two different colors. One, I believe, is like a light blue. There's a light blue. One is a bright yellow. And his right arm all the way up from where you can see where it disappears below the armor is covered in one inch cut. One inch cuts, scars all the way on each cuts.

Ah, a religious man. Maybe. Merton goes over and knocks on another door, opens it up, and this individual is fairly easy to hear from a distance. The heavy foot falls and the grumbling kind of echoes through the hallway before he even appears. Merton leads you into the line of the main foyer area. This will be the group of which you will be guiding on this.

I appreciate you doing this for us. I know it's not really usually what you're going to you do. But here is your team for this contract. I'm sorry, where's the team? This is your team. And Vanessa kind of chuckles to herself. I'm sorry, this is what you'll be dealing with today. I'm Tiberius Stonewind. The Thorbier, plain nice. What was it? Thore. Keshaw. Torbier. Thorbier. Torbier.

So he's a, he's a dwarf. He's a dwarf. He's a really stout dwarf. He's got a really long red beard that's sort of singed off in the lower right corner. He's got his hair is, the bottom of, top part of like his beard is braided and clamped off of all these like ornate kind of things. He's got these big, thick, ropey white braids that come down on either side of his face and sort of like frame his face.

And these have these, really big Dwarven runes on them. Do any of you guys speak Dwarven? Yes. No. So, okay, all right. So for those of you who speak Dwarven, each, this is a really, really offensive curse word in Dwarven.

And this one is an even more offensive curse word in Dwarven. Like you don't say these in friendly sort of company. He's got a scar that kind of runs down across his face. And the eye that it runs through is a little. black and his other eyes blue. And you can see that he's got these, like, some kind of dwarven script written in tattoos all the way down, his right arm. So please, if you would not mind making sure that they see their contact to fruition, taking them on this as you will, showing them the ropes of the guild, and try not to

get them killed. And for me? Well, you will be rewarded as for the contract. You will be done the guild a great favor, which you know favors can go a very long way in the guild. I certainly do. You don't have to tell me about repaying favors. Fair enough. Well, perhaps now will be a good time for this jovial lot of adventurers to know what it is there to hunt down. She reaches behind and pulls out a second.

Is it an actual group? Well, we'll see how well you can make it into one. Perhaps this is a test for you as well, Ferdorf. I think this is gonna be an excellent bonding experience. Seriously, the whole time she's like this? Yes, she is. Yes, she is. It grows on you though. I'm sure it does.

So does the plague. I was just like, made a positive. It's true. I'm positive. Everyone has such a problem with optimism. She unravels it, looks at it. I think this will do well for what is required. We will bind this contract to you now.

Feel free to take over it. If you wouldn't mind reading, half half. You know, um, I, Public speaking is not really my... Just... Just... Just... Okay. Ordered and paid in advance by...

Anonymous. Oh, they're a fun group. This contract, binding and honor and the elements, sets upon the agreed members of the Slayers Take Guild Hall, and the task of locating and slaying the below-mentioned entity and the recovery of the below-listed-harvested anatomy items. And any an item... Any anatomy items, not recovered or not in functional condition,

will be deducted from the final payment and refunded to the client. This contract is good for three days, and should the contract not be fulfilled within that time period, all payments are null and void. This contract is null and void, and membership with the Slayer's take is revoked. Outside of the hunter's master's willful forgiveness. Skip to the punchline.

The quarry has been approved for hunting by the Holy Perimals of the crown of Erethus, the quarry of one Rakshasa. What's a Rakshasa? What's a Rakshasa? Tiger Man. Tiger Man? Essentially.

How do you know that? Story books, Singon. We need two Raksasa eyes, one Raksasa tongue, one rachshasa hearts, two rachshasa claws, and two rachshasa canine teeth. So canine, like. Would this be an archana or is this a history check? What kind of, this would be an archaic?

I'm going to do an archaicac check, 18. 18? Yeah. Rockshasa's were entities that originally stemmed from the realm of the nine hells. They are devils. They are deceptive. and usually embed themselves in elements of society

where they can grasp and take power. They love having servitude beneath them, and they are notoriously difficult and slippery to find, let alone nail down and destroy. Appearance-wise, they look like a normal humanoid man, but have the face of a tiger, and the other curious element is, both of their hands are reversed.

That's as much as you can glean from your formal training and understanding. Okay. Does this chat have a name? What does that matter? All we know is we can confirm that there is one within the vicinity. We're huntable at the very least.

The rest of this is up to you to find. The quarry is where it's been last located. Give me this. Oh, okay. Yeah, you double check it. You might have, I might have missed something. Why can't we know who the client is? The client has decided.

they wish to remain anonymous for this contract. Seems to be bothering you quite much, Cashaw. Everything's been behind me lately. She's not helping. You want to read this? It's going to say the same thing. I mean, like, which part? She made this. How far did the quarry?

Your quarry is the creature. You said you found, you said it was in the vicinity. What are we talking in the vicinity? We're talking a day's hike? We're talking an hour from here. Meaning we've been able to come. confirm that there is one that is within a huntable distance within the three days of the contract. However, part of this trial is to see just how good you are at finding and destroying such

creatures. So that information is for you to find, unless you do not feel your skills are up to par for the slayers take, in which case you're more than right them to go for the door. A human. Now we're fine. You have no further information. Are there any grumpkins you want us to find? You expect us to go out with no information at all? to find a man with the tiger's head? Well, you are seem like a very well-traveled unit. You seem to have done well enough to find and destroy great things you spoke of as you walked into his horse. Prove to me that you are more than just cell sorts.

Show to me that you have the intellect, that you have the skill sets, that you have the cleverness to find a creature that does not wish to be found. Does there some things normally go around here? Normally I don't waste my time with the likes of you. Man with a tiger's head gonna stand out, no problem finding him. Let's stand here and talk about this forever. Let's head out and get this over with. This is going to be...

Well, dwarf, why don't you do your title and lead then? And I should warn you, you are walking with a stormwind. Now, you may not know my name, but I can assure you, I alone am an army. So, you are well protected. So lead us to find this tiger man, please. board, who's a lot of talk. I do talk a lot. Wow.

If he's an army, I just send him out. Because I don't want to be here. That was probably the balsiest thing you've ever said. You go do it away here. All right. Storm. Wind. Wind.

You can call me Timsy. See how good you are to follow on. And he heads out. He's not very good. Oh, he's gone. As the board exits, you guys follow. Outside of the Slayers take, to the center of the main Quad Road's thoroughfare

on the outskirts of the bazaar to seek a Rakhasa, wherever one may be. I thought this was gonna be a fun field trip. Well, I mean, Rakhasa does sound fun, like Roshasa. It does. And it's like a tiker person, so maybe we can relate. I wanna switch teams. It's, it's, no, it gets better.

What's your name again? I'm sorry. I am Cash Alvesh. Call me Brother Cash. Everyone else does. Brother Cash, are you new to the guild as well? I'm not a member of the guild yet. I had something happen with someone who did something, and now I'm here. Why don't we leave it at that for now? That's kind of how we got here.

Apparently, I only have to be here for another three days, which will be good. All right. It seemed... I'm impatient. Perception 20. Is there anything around that indicates where... which of these four directions is the best direction to go? Knowing the city for the while that you've been here, you know that there are places of open business

that have a lot of traffic are also good places to ask for if anyone's seen anything that might match a certain description or an individual we're seeking any strange behavior. And so you know that the center of the quad roads where that bizarre is is a good place to system. start requesting information as you have currently none at your disposal. So just to get this clear, a Rakhasa is not like a beast.

It's like a man. It's a demon. It's a demon. It's a demon creature. It looks like a man. Shape of a man. But it's not like a beast by definition. No.

I'm sorry. I'd like to make an insight check on the dwarf, not just if he's lying. I mean, he could be, but just to, can I get a gut instinct of what his deal is? Do I make an insight check? three, but I'm going to use my luck to try that again. 18, plus 2

is 20. Would you like to just go ahead and roll at 20? That's a 2. All right. Classic movie. Skip that now. Skip that now. Skip. Skip. Just for the myth, man.

That's one better than I usually roll. I'd say it's twice as good as I have. 100% improvement. Gruff exterior, there is definitely a tough and pass to him. He seems driven, not necessarily untrustworthy per se, but definitely a man of little patience and currently does not seem to be too pleased to the fact that he's essentially babysitting in his mind.

Is there a marshmallow center? Always. You may find out, can be time. Yeah, that is too hard to read it. If you're in the bazaar, do I have to be out of the city to cast locate creature? Is that something I can do? Yes, that's there anywhere you want to. Your magic is divine. This is your city.

And that's not just a descriptor either. Yeah. Thank you. It's normally fabulous, but not in this city. So then how do I go about casting locate creature? You can just tell me you like to go ahead and do that? I'd like to go ahead and cast locate creature. All right, so as you guys are having this discussion, you're

tagging this weird stare off and considering where to go in the bazaar, you stop the nearby alley, two buildings down from where the Slayers take Guild Hall is, and you begin just taking a small diger from your side and carving a circle on the ground, throw some runes down that are specific to your patron. Take a moment and concentrate on the description of this rock shasa. Looking at the specific of the spell to make sure that I don't give you any of the description. the misinformation. Okay, creature. Vakshasa. Beautiful. That's some jazz hands, then.

You focus your mind for a second, and your holy symbol begins to drift out from underneath your armor. You simply take it, slap it down underneath. And then refocus your vision. Your eyes closed, and you can see, it looks like a pulsing energy of like a very, very dark flame, something that in itself, you could already smell the sulfur. You can smell the lineage, the devil lineage. that this entity is, and there is indeed one not too terribly far from where you currently are. It's faint, which means it's in the outskirts. And you know this lasts for a good, about a thousand feet or so, but it does give you a northeastern direction, and then the spell fades. Northeastern direction. We should go northeast. It's also, unfortunately, or fortunately, depending on how you look at it, closer than we thought.

In the walls of the city? Not in the walls, but very close to them. Do we have any type of plan of attack? Does anyone know how to fight these things? Any earthly clue? Leader boy? Leader boy. I'm sorry, you talking to me?

Torbiot is what they meant to say. Listen to Stormfather over here and... I take my social cues from other people. I'm sorry. In my experience, there has not been a problem invented that can't be solved with an axe. That's true. We've seen that.

Wonderful helpful, thank you. You're welcome. Follow the axe. Now what I want you to do is imagine an hourglass. You got that good picture of an hourglass in your heads? Yes. See all that sand draining out? Let's get a move on.

Okay, what am I doing with the sand? I agree with that. Are we supposed to do something with the sand? Yeah. Count it. Oh, that would take so long. Can we tag she? She always liked this?

Yes, she's... I just... Storm clouds, count, and sand. I don't know what she's doing over here. We... Northeast. How about let's start walking that way and see what happens? Can we give that a shot?

I read... You did the fancy spell. It's not as fancy as you might think. Oh. Yeah, so I've pulled my, uh... I've pulled my ax out. I'm sort of pulling like a walking stick. Okay.

And just... Very deliberately, very demonel. Very demonaut. administratively walking ahead in that direction. With each footfall, what was once probably hundreds of years ago, a nice cobblestone roadway in the center of the city has been slowly hit with mud, dirt, snow, sleet. So each step is a slight moisture with each.

I'm assuming there's no stables around? Not immediately. Those are usually towards the very, very outside of the city. Why are you jonesing for a horse? You get your boots all dirty? Leading forward in the northeastern direction that was given by Brother Cash. Eventually it brings you around the side of the bazaar onto one of the, and you see right now it's called the Quad Roads.

There are two main roads that meet right where the bazaar occurs, and then they spread off into the other sections of the city. To the northeastern section, from your guys' perspective, the district begins to drift into another district that you have not previously visited. This district is, you've heard it mentioned before, it's known as the Dusk Meadow. Dusk Meadow. Now previous sections you've been have been worshippers of Bahamut, the Platinum Dragon. There was the Braving Grounds, which worships core, without strength and in warfare and honor.

The Quadroads, which is under Arathus, the deity of civilization and invention. The dusk meadow falls under the watchful eye of the Raven Queen, the goddess of death. That large obsidian type structure that you were led to earlier as the temple resides in the center of this district. And you've heard mentioned before of a few the things that exist here. That being probably Raven's Crest, which is the main temple to the Raven Queen. It's also where the Emerentine Ubliette is located, which is essentially the prison of the entire city of Asselheim. The what? The emirentine Ubliette.

Emmerentthine Ubliette. And... Hammer time, Ubliet. Just... Oh, but there it is. There it is. Yeah. There's. This is also where most of the dead of the city

are interred into a series of catacombs that are built deep beneath this section of the city. Far enough away from the Ubliet to the point where there isn't crossover and is enough of escape. That apparently has happened in the past history of the city. As you begin pushing towards the edge of where the two districts meet, you can see that there is an area of the town. that, for lack of a better term, it's a more jovial than expected area. There are series of stands put up on the side of the road. There's a lot of beggars sitting

in the side of the street that are currently panhandling to those who walk by. There are a number of taverns you can hear music coming from various establishments, and it seems almost like the closer you get to the death-oriented district on the border to the Quad Roads, the more and more it pushes into a shadier Mardi Gras-type experience. So you make your way towards that dividing line there. What would you like to do? What's there, you Toby it? Just ask around and see if anything's been a little out of the ordinary, or maybe in the ordinary. Yes, I like that. Fazing.

I have to imagine anywhere this thing goes there's going to be strange deaths associated with it. We might as well look there. That's actually a good idea as well. And where we're walking, are there shops and stands as well, or is it residential? There are. Many that sell just jewelry. Many that sell very, very well-made clothing, some of them like party attire. There are some that sell exotic fruits that have been imported in various states of... ripeness. Is anyone selling any masks?

Make a perception check. Passive or active? Not be an active perception check as you're seeking it. 21? You do glance around and there is one card that carries more like costume, party attire supplies. It doesn't seem to have too many customers done it, but they do have a couple of masks that are on display. Are there any masks that look like tiger masks?

Looking at it, there are none that are tiger-specific. No. They seem to be molded leather and some more impish gobliny in appearance. Is there someone working the sand? There is, yes. You see a woman in her 40s or so. Thin with a big toothy smile. Her hair is pulled back into a tight bun. You can see there's a little bit of her blondish hair turning to gray on the sides around her ears, Reiter's style.

Can you say this town was, like, this is like Bahamette kind of town too? The Bahamette section is far away. That's another section of the city. You are now, right? Dust Cometto. Yeah. You are on the line between the Descometto and the Quadrode, so it's Erathus and the Raven Queen.

I'm pulling a mask off the wall. This is a beautiful piece. Do you make them yourself, or do they come in? I do I make them myself. By hand. They are quite beautiful. It's a very, we're travelers here. It's a very, I've never seen a neighborhood like this.

Is there a festival going on here? Is this pretty much the basic fare of the day here. This is the localized festival of the city. If you've been around Vasselheim long enough, you've seen there is a little interest in celebration, depending on some places, but at least on this line, some people can appreciate the fleetness that is life, and grasp it by the roots and make it its own before it's stuffed out. Here particularly, there seems to be electricity in the air almost. It's very bustling. This is the norm around here. consistently

that's why I come and bring my business here I wouldn't do very well I'm not, I'll tell you that all them dragon types looks to you no offense all them sort of dragon lovers have

an issue with things is celebratory and I place I pull out ten gold and I spread them on her desk

how many masks oh none oh I would like one take your pick I slide back one one coin away from another nine, and then dragging my finger across, though, say, is there anything out of the ordinary these days? Go make a persuasion rule. 15. 15? She gives you a look, and like she's trying to read you, looks about left and right, glances at you and looks a little,

glances at you and looks really taken her back, and it comes back to you with an escape of comfort. Watching her, I pull out another five and spread them in front of the first night. Well, some businesses here are a bit shady, I won't lie, and there are... Chashments here, madam. There are some long-standing businesses that have quarrels. Usually

they end in small scuffles, or one purchases the other and oust them from the city. This is one of the few areas in which the more adult pleasures can be found. So there's a lot of money to be had. But recently there's been, this is what I've heard, a series of bodies have turned up. There have been a few found fished out

by the bastions in the water trough on the outskirts of the dust metal. The bastions, what are they? Bastions, who are the guardians of the city. There seem to be consistent, and I hear they've been mauled by some sort of strange beast. Now beasts on the outside of the city, that I can see from the inside,

that is the stuff of that mass, is it not? Yes, I would agree. Have you had invaders like this before? I mean, death is not an uncommon occurrence for certain areas of the city, which kind of gestures off to the distant temple. Some people invite it even. But such violent death like this

usually kept to the outside of the city, or at least with some sort of cause. This seems to be a murderous rampage that may personally keep, I don't want to go out at night without protection. Is there any indication of the cause of death on these corpses? How do they find them?

I don't know. I have not investigated. Perhaps you have to ask the bastions yourself there or anyone who is in the vicinity. And can you point us in the right direction? Um, uh, she kind of looks around and points off and you can see, there isn't a whole lot of a bastion presence in this portion of the city.

But, and especially since the bastions are more of a voluntary guard, people that from the different clergy's, the different temples train to become bastions and kind of fit themselves with whatever their deity's armor is, you do see there are two bastions that are armored in a very dark, black, dark brown leather that carry a symbol of what looks like a silver raven that is embroidered on one shoulder of a cloak

that's tossed on one side. These guys are right here, you're saying? Yeah, they're across the road about maybe a block up, and she's, I believe they're bastions from the dust, might as though, perhaps you could ask them. Does she have any masks that look like a raven, a raven masked? She does actually have one that looks like a raven. I want that one. Very well, a good choice.

That doesn't quite match the color of your attire, but perhaps I have an outfit that could match for you. Oh. Oh, my God, we're going clothes shopping now. I see a... Actually, sure, do you have a little cloak as well, a little cape? Cloaks are over there. There is a cloakery about four blocks that way on your left. Thank you. Thank you so much. Of course, of course.

Anyone else would like me? I notice a serpent-shaped mask on the wall and I just pick it up and put it on and say, thank you, madam. Much obliged to walk off and clap four air on the shoulder and keep walking. Torbear hags back a little bit and wait for them to get to the door. And then he looks at the shopkeep and do you have any masks that might fit a little girl.

Yes, yes, of course. Trying to you off. And she kind of goes and rummages through a small back and pulls out a mask, this little purple mask that seems to have small, fake gems, you know, kind of forming the outside with a couple of ribbons that dangle where it would tie around the head.

It's simple, but it's pretty. These, unfortunately, many people bring children to this side of the district, so they don't sell very well, But if you would like one, I would be happy to part with it for two gold. One gold. Take a persuasion roll. 18.

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I don't know. A few moments past you wonder where your Dwarfant leader has vanished, who steps out through the front of the establishment. Let's go. Great. Does everybody, do you have potions? Are you all potions?

Are we good on items? Are you good on items, Torbier? I'm all right. Are you all right? I'm just fine. We're in a rush, but if it's easy, how do you come buy potions in this term? Do I know the answer to that?

You do. They're either provided, for some of your experience, by the Slayer's take, but those are usually offered at the start of a contract. The fact that they weren't offered on this means either they don't have any currently at their disposal, or they felt that this contract probably wouldn't require the construct of this group being set out. Other than that, they are a little hard to come by. A lot of them are controlled by the main temples and are pretty much given straight to the bastions. There aren't a lot of individuals that are need of them within the city, and those that travel out are the members of the Slayers take

or members of the Bastion forces, generally. So they're a little hard to come by in the sound. I think that if we're going to find them anywhere, it might be around here. Might be we can take some through trade, might be, maybe some might fall off a bastion or two. Hmm. Let's go talk to one then, shall we? I thought that's what we're doing. Are we going to the two bastions over there or what? Yes. Yes.

Cash up. Good. One other thing you need to know about them? They're horribly paid, so money talks with these people. Very well. As he, like, goes ahead, I kind of, like, keep up my pace to, like, trail behind him a little bit. My hood goes up, and I'm gone. All right. As you guys step across the way, it's about a block up. One of them is partially inside the alley between two of the buildings.

You can see you guys, one hand up on the wall and the other down. One of them is relieving themselves on the side of the building, while the other is kind of keeping watch, arms crossed, kind of look out across the road. The one that's immediately present or before you, you can see, is human, kind of a scruffy brown beard around the edge of the chin. The hair itself is cut very short and a little heavier in appearance, the muscle, little layer of winter padding, but the black leather armor definitely gives you the appearance of somebody who's a bastion of the Raven Queen. As you approach, the hooded elf. the dwarf walking with the giant axe, and the bubbling dragon-born, the human cleric with a very angry disposition,

and the awkward half-elf druid stepping in pace with him. He gives you all cursory look and immediately puts a hand to the side where you can see there's a rapier currently sheathed. Hi! You walk with purpose! You walk for the guild. Players sake it is. It is. What business have you in this side of town, then?

Am she supposed to be out past the walls, killing creatures and such? Our business takes us where our business takes us. Our business brings us here today. All right, then what's your business? You might be having some trouble. Aye. What might be what's causing you trouble, and what's going to get us out of here might be the same thing.

The gentleman that the left of him finishes shaking off the rest of his alleyway journey. Any more than twice, and you're just playing with it, pal. He turns around him. I suppose is two to go for. Excuse me. It's... Official bastion business. Anyway, when he kind of nods over to the bearded gentleman is,

there are certain bits of business that are official in this town. I don't know how... Honestly, right it is to be talking with common folk or even the guild who does what it's like. I'm sorry. You're not talking to common folk. He wants money. I know what he wants.

Well then give it to him so we can get out of here. I'm circling around. Stealth try. Yeah. 31. I would ask you to go ahead and you can choose if you want to go persuasion or intimidation on this. You're writing that line. Both of them, so I think...

But I think that Torbier wants to go intimidation. Yeah, you get that a try. Ha ha! There it is! It is! Clay? No. What's the exact opposite? You know, I've heard about it for so long. I know, right?

It's like you can't believe that it's a real thing. You're actually there. Everybody talks about spontaneous combustion, but you never believe it, right? It's just a conno of a drop seat. You know, I just feel like this is, I mean, it's so silly to, like, to copy, to do this. Dai Shane. Dish. All right.

Noltee. Yep. So, I don't know what ancient Aztec deity temple was faced when you were a child, but man. All right, so as you lean forward... Please let me step into a bucket.

Please let me step. We'll get to that. As you lean forward, forcing your presence upon this bastion, his hand's still holding the edge of his rapier he steps forward into you to the point where you're almost forehead to forehead. Sorry, I have to lean down to reach your level. But if you're going to go about asking questions

and not offering proper compensation for information, well then, I think we have no business here. If it's compensation you're looking for, let's just speak plain and pull out four gold. Well, he has their attention. I'm going to check out these pockets. Oh, shit.

Ooh, that's not good. I'm used luck. Second luck, point. That's better. That's all right. Perception is at 28. 28. Taking the moment is you're going to sneak up behind the one he's talking to.

The two guys are kind of shoulder to shoulder squaring off of the rest of this group. Yes. The one that had been relieving himself in the alleyway, It was a little bit closer to you. You can see as he kind of put his tunic right and everything, he jostled around and he revealed a couple of small pouches on his side, one of which you heard the clinking of glass on the inside.

Go ahead and make a slight a hand check. Go, rogue, go. I'm wearing a cloak of elven kind, which I know affects stealth checks, but not some hand. No. This is all right. This is pure. 20.

20. All right. You reach over. You reach over and find the edge of the leather loop that attaches itself to the side of this Bastion's belt. You tug ever so gently to the side, the loop releases, and you pull it off seemingly without any noticing.

As you pull out the four goldie-telling, the Bachelorsolitan looked at it, and it goes, here they, a piddling's fee for this, Well, so let me think that you aren't actually part of this murder scheme. You just walk up and try and start asking questions like this. First off, what did you hear about it? Second, you're like the kind that would be go ahead and mulling folks in the streets, do you not, Sir Dwarf? You got the eyes of one who's probably done a few dark deeds.

Oh, I have more than you can imagine. Explain to me why we shouldn't take him for questioning right now and he pulls his rapier out. Hold on, everybody, calm down. Hi, I'm the time to do you stormwind. My friend, Toby, he didn't mean to offend, of course. You just were essentially off. I've laid up towards your face, and he says, Look, Dragon Man, I was talking to the dwarf.

You, I have no business with it at the moment. So, you've got ten seconds before we take you in. I reach into my pocket and, like, sort of rattle my coins around a little bit. Maybe I could buy it. some time and drop 10 gold out into my other hand. Don't make persuasion roll. One. No, it's rejected. That's funny, I rolled a three on this time.

Yeah, so that's gonna be a six. Guys, I think we're fighting the bastions. I feel like maybe it's going that way. Do you roll one? The one. So. You all have really low self-confidence. Pushing forward the coins, in a semi-awkward, forceful manner, the bastion himself also seems to be cut off guard and looks down and looks about realizing that now it looks like you are visibly out in the open paying money to the bastions, and he kind of looks backward.

Don't stand out in public do it, and he kind of pulls you all off into the alleyway to the side of the complex, out of the middle of the area, into the shade between the buildings. He reaches over and takes the coins from your hand and kind of hurries them into the complex. Your pocketes. All right, look. I'll tell you what we know. But if you're going to be messing around with this investigation, I ask that you don't let anyone know that you spoke with us. This is all on your own. And if you do say anything, we'll deny it, and we'll make sure to put you and you'll blot yourself for this. All right? Fair enough. All right. Now, we have found a series of bodies over the past few years scattered about a few months.

months at a time between, all with a similar pattern of death to them. We've found large portions, the meaty portions of the body have been torn away, some of them apparently eaten. There are marks that are indicative of some sort of beasts ravaging the corpses. But no signs of a beast come or going. We've had many of the finest trackers looking for any sort of sign of a creature that may have found its way into the city, living in the rooftops, their gutters, Perhaps even the sewers, no sign of any such creature traveling amongst any of these scenes. Now, all the bodies was been found wrapped up and discarded in the canals. A lot of them surrounding the abundant terrace. That's the, I'm looking around the rest of you. That's where Malora's eyes watchful.

Now, it's really got us confused as of late. His most recent murder we found was a very powerful. A powerful merchant lord from Montcurel, one that's been in the city for no more than a month. And he's well known in these parts as bringing in a lot of business. His caravans come through via various sky ships, and he brings with himself a influx of much neat in merchantile in the city. What's his name? Not allowed to say. You're not allowed to say? Merchant's name is Tyrol, but he...

Is it what? Tiro. Lord Tyrol. If you say... of this to any of our people, I swear I'll make your life the hardest it's been in months. And from the looks of you, you've all had a very, very hard few months. Oh. Lord Teal's body was found, but apparently during the murder.

Did he? We had one beggar that apparently caught sight of this. The murderer, best we can tell, was some sort of lycanthrop. The beggar was Babylon, but it seemed there was some sort of a wolf-like creature. It was seen bipedal walking like a man, but tore this man. right through the throat, most of its chest. But when spotted, didn't run, just vanished.

Disappeared. No longer in his sight. No tracks left behind. Just gone. We don't know if it's some sort of angry poltergeist. But the last place you were staying, so the recent establishment,

only been here a couple years. Referred to as the Velvet Cabaret. The Velvet Cabaret is a very high-end place. I know it well. He do. It gives you a look of... I've heard about it from somewhere else. Scanlan? Have you been talking to Scanlan? He's all...

Don't know who that is, Dark Shadow. He likes holes. Okay. It's sweet. But basically the fact that the Lord had been staying at the Velvet Cabaret for some time, and we were feeling pretty close to possibly finding the source of these murders. these murders. Our bastion force from the Dust Meadow worked with the Quad Roads and we actually raided it.

Found nothing. Nothing with the patrons. No sign of any sort of thought play. We were forced to leave empty-handed. That's all we've got. I have a question about the bodies. Have you seen them? I've only seen the most recent. The rest I've just heard of. Is there anything similar with them? Are they all men? Are they all women? Are they children? No children. Most of them seem to be well-off to do folk. Dressed well.

Wealthy men and women. And you say you've searched everywhere, including the catacombs. The catacombs themselves are seared off. We've asked around and there's been no sign of movement in a route. God for anyone stays in those places. That's a nasty place to be staying. It is indeed. Is there a way that the bastions could organize some kind of gathering of sorts of... Perhaps a mandatory towel meeting all would have to gather for maybe an announcement or something official. All the bastions, that's near impossible.

The city's scattered politically enough as it is. I mean, we can be rallied whenever there's some sort of a force coming against the city, but when it comes to nothing with any particular reason, just the investigators take care of it themselves. He serves the Raven Queen, right? He's got the Raven Queen patch on him. Thank you.

This part of town, death isn't the worst thing in the world. No. Lots of planes other than ours. Might be you're a little bit closer to them than some of the rest of us are. We're underneath the mountain. You wouldn't happen to know about anyone performing any rituals or maybe open and up lines of communication that may have been invaded, disturbed.

I certainly hope not. Any sort of communion rituals are sanctified and held within the actual temple to the Raven Queen itself. If anyone's doing any business, there's a very watchful eye over this city. Anything that's unsanctioned, I can guarantee we'll know about it. May we seek audience with this Raven Queen? I mean, she's like a goddess. Oh, she doesn't, she's not like here. She's not like a queen.

She's like a goddess. She's like a queen. Yeah. You can see the two bastions are kind of looking each other with the expression of, really? We're no around here. Listen, we've talked long enough. We've got to get back to our posts. Oh, wait. You mentioned investigators?

There are different people assigned to investigate. We were part of the team that was sent as part of the investigation raid on the Velvet Cabaret. Ah, so it's not like a group of people. It's just you're an investigator today. An investigator today, kind of thing. That's part of what we do is Bastions, aye. Gotcha. Is there anyone else a part of the investigation team

that you think would be good to talk to? I wouldn't have any information on what we do, no. Can I do an insight check on him and make sure he's been like, Yeah, go for it. Forfront? 23. He seems forthright enough. It seems impatient and a little flustered with the fact

that you've been pushing these questions to him, but he doesn't seem to be trying to cover anything necessarily. Did he tell us where they found the body? I don't think that didn't write this down, so. Do you? And Lord Tiro factored in how? Can you tell us where you found the body of the merchant lord? Have we heard of him before?

The body was found on the side alley to the velvet cabaret. And you said wrapped up? Or just the ones in the river were wrapped up? The ones that were found in the river, they were wrapped up in blankets. Whatever put them aside was not some beast that threw it. There was some intelligence to this. They were placed deliberately, which means don't think there's just one thing doing this. Were the blankets the same, or they're all different?

They seem to be different. Some were just scattered cloth, some were tattered sheets, some were bolts of fine material. Really varied. There was no pattern to it. And did you, were you able to see, was anything missing from Lord Terrell? Nothing more than his throat, his trachea. These guys rolling out. Yeah, you're all right.

Sorry about that. It's all right, just maybe offer a little more coin up front next time. Be well, and if you hear anything, find any information, come straight to us. Don't be getting to official business. You're sainter fight as a slayer, but don't make us look bad making a step around you guys and back out into the main street. Felt the Cavalry? I think so.

It's close. So we know that this guy, while we walk there, I was talking, we know that this guy is a demon from the nine hells, and so he seems to be targeting wealthy people. Do you think these are people that he tried to get under his control, under his servitude and it didn't go his way, so he ended up killing them. Folks don't go into the Velvet Cabaret unless they got a lot of coin.

Someone like Lord Tiro, do we know anything about him? Does his name ring any better for us at all? Whole history check. Oh, boy. It happened again! There's no way. This is unprecedented. You're the negapurcy right now. I'll just tell you.

I'm just telling you, I'm just telling you. This is impressive. Right? It's impressive. You think it isn't real. You think it's the thing I make jokes about. Wow.

You take a moment to conjecture where you may have heard the name. What was the name again? Oh, you know, from Battlestar Galactica. Oh, what was your name? Domever. Do you want to roll history here? Is it a Dunga. I did want to find this.

15. 20? 20. Add your history, modified. I add my history. 20. So total, 20. Total of 20.

Yeah. All righty. You've heard of the city of El Correll. It's a desert city from a long ways away, but you aren't specifically aware of this individual. You however, Keshaw, you know that Lortaril has come through this city a few times in the past year or so. You've only been here for a short time yourself, but in the time that you've been here, here, you've heard tales of this large caravan that comes through.

It is a parade. It usually brings with him a good 12, 13 different carts that contain all sorts of jewels and materials and tapestries and fine silks. And it's almost a small party whenever this long walking caravan is brought to the city. So you are aware of this individual. And it kind of surprised that. the deaf has been kept so hush-hush.

And are there rumors about him bringing in anything else, anything illicit, or is it kind of what you see is what you get? As far as you know, no information that has caught your ear, per se. For the fact that he's staying in this district, who knows? Folks tend to stay, let me try that again. Folk tend to stay with their own class. These victims are all wealthy folk,

and they seem to have the velvet cabaret in common. It's very likely that we're dealing with somebody who's rich and powerful. What does a demon need money for? Who says he's after money? He seems to be after power. Terrell was passing through. I wonder how many people would notice him gone here in Vasselheim.

I'm sure quite a few. And it seems like it's no secret when he comes to town. There's a party every time he showed up. And, according to the guards, these murders have been going on the past few years. So it seems like whatever we're dealing with might have time to plan ahead. if he's been aware of the past few times that Tyrell has come through the town and could possibly know the next time he's coming through. And if we could pinpoint when it actually started, like we know years,

but actually when, then we can actually narrow it down to the establishments and other things that were established then. Would there be a place where we could inquire as to some sort of ledger, like when this guy comes in and with the intention of trying to correlate it with when different murders? have happened? Um... Actually, I take that back. Torbier doesn't think that deeply.

That's not the thing that he wants to do. That sounds like a lot of thinking and not a lot of hitting things. For all we know, this killer could be hiding in plain sight at the cabaret. Could be an employee there. Or the owner himself. How long ago was, did the dwarfs say, or how long

ago did the Bashan say that they raided the Velvet Cabaret? It was a month ago, wasn't it? Yeah, well, it was a few weeks back when the murder occurred, yeah. So here's my question. Do you think he would stick around after it was raided? Or do you think you'd move on? The thing is vanishing upon sight.

And gotten away with it for the last two or three years. I don't think he cares much anymore. My question is, we have three days. Cabaret is the only lead we have. How do we draw this person he or she out? I believe it's three days once, folks. Now we have three days to tolerate. We just have three days.

We just have three days to complete the contract. We could pose his merchants. Slaying the entity that you're just. I was gonna say that you look like a man who knows wealth. Yes. I've spent time with wealth. Well, I never have, so I would think maybe if you were a merchant coming into town, very wealthy looking for some adult entertainment.

Might be a way to bring him out at the forefront. Ooh, I agree. I cast alter self on myself and turn myself into elf. All right. You're half elf, right? Half oth. So I'll turn into half elf. All right. And like, akin to- Look, regal. A regal looking half-off. Highborn half-off. All right. Fair enough. And even in comparison to Vax, your tire is very nice.

Does this mean I should go change clothes? You were gonna go shopping. I was. I mean, you, okay. Thank you. Let's go, I jingled what gold I have in a pouch in front of Keelette's face, and so let's go shopping. Come on. Shopping montage.

As you guys go off to shop for better looking well-to-do attire, we'll go ahead and take a quick five minute break. Oh, yes. Return here and as you guys continue to the next step of your hunt for the Roshasa. Shasa! Oh, tear! Shasta! That's, I just remember.

I just remember his name. That was it? Just remember. So, you guys have taken moments to acquire outfits that seem a little more fitting as to the establishment you're planning to go and enter. Guys, we should have aliases. Can we have aliases?

Yeah, I'll be Torbier. I like it. It's easy to remember. Very easy. I would be something, oh, you know what? Maybe I could, ooh, would it be weird if I'm Vex? Yes. That's weird, isn't it?

That's really weird. Okay. What's a good, elven name? What's something common in Elven? You're around this stuff. All of my people have like, you know, weird kind of tribal names. What's good? Like Vera.

Alvira is nice. Coraline. Ooh, Coraline. Do I look like. like a Coraline? Sure. What does a Coraline look like? I'm Coraline.

I will be Scandland. Shorthold. Oh, what, you? So what? You can be Scanlan, but I couldn't be, couldn't be... Well, I can't be... No, no, you can't do that. I'm just saying it's weird, right?

That's double standard, Vax. I'm just saying. I think it's maybe because you're not her sister, and it would be weird because that's her sister's name. You're a sister? I have a twin, yes. What does she look like? Oh.

But she's a female. She sounds lovely. Humans are right. She's very nice. And... That's what they say about all the ugly girls. She's very nice. They're all on an island.

Learning so much from you. Is that what they say? Life lessons, yes. Yeah, wonderful. Tell the cabaret? To the cabaret. To the cabaret. Yes.

So I presume that I'll play the role of your guard. Bodyguard, yes. What does that make me? How about your valet? You'll need one if you're wealthy. Would you have a human though? Of course. Of course I would have a human being elven.

I say, are we on the way there now? Yeah, we're walking and talking. Okay. And you are changed into an elf. Now I changed. I changed. I only last certain about time, so I'm a boy. Boy or a girl?

I have to, I'm a boy. Okay. So are you, are you Lord Vex? What's what's what about being a girl? Lord Scanlan of the Short Haltz. Lord Scanvene. Lord Scannion of the, I'm sorry, of the what? Of the short halts.

The short halts. Yes. Okay. We have a cobbling empire. Of course you do. Shoes. We have a cobbling. The short, small shoes.

Okay. Scanlan of the Short-Hall. We cater mostly to halflings and gnomes. Everyone, but specifically, because they're so underserved. You have a gnome, shoe, empire. Rollin in it, baby. Okay. What is your empire, human?

Who am I? Who am I? I have no empire. In this equation. Well, we're for partners. Yeah, I'd say. Am I your wife? Do you want to be?

Is that weird? No. I say it's equally... No. I think that's fine. No, it's fine. Yeah, I can be your wife. I can RP this. I mean, I can pretend to be that. I can pretend to be that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So quarreling and short haughts.

Done and done. Torbier is curling on your beard and breathing deeply. Now I castles herself. All right. There's a flash of light. You guys can all pick up the very, very heavy smell of breakfast ale emanating from the deeply breathing angry dwarf. Wait, Vice. What was my role in this?

You're an advisor. Financial advisor. Financial advisor. Excellent. All right. You guys make your way to a little bit further north of this about five or six blocks

until you get to the outskirts of the Velvet Cabaret, which based on the description you've gotten from a few individuals as you've asked around. Very easy to find. The fancy house. of entertainment. It is a two-story building of dark cherry wood with strips of what looks like black suede bolted in a pattern along the outside of it. It stands out like a sore thumb against the rest of the architecture, but in itself looks like a flag of hermade medieval nightclub.

It looks very, very gaudy, but in a way that the garishness looks expensive and so you can't really fault it for looking the way it does. It's like a cruise ship goth club. I like that. I'll take that. Cruise ship. If any of you guys can find... That's a thing that exists. Really? Yeah. Are we going to this? Wow. Every year on the Jonathan Colton cruise, gather in the cruise ship golf club.

Wow. Joke-po crews. Ding. Too many jokes. Too many jokes. I know. Let's go to you. Two jokes. The front, you can see there are two bouncers established.

at the very front. To the left, you see a meaty male dragon-born bronze scale with painted face scars that kind of, he has a very, very intense look about him. He's thicker, he's kind of built like a barrel and he sits with his arms crossed, looking angrily amongst the rest of the folks outside. To the other side, you recognize a burly-looking female, short hair and some facial tattoos. The siren, who you saw battle in the cauldron, apparently, works as one of the bouncers of the Velvet Cabaret. Ray. I approach the right next to Vax as we would offer it. In Jekonik, Skatman, in Jekonik, I go, greetings and salutations, friend. This gives you a look of confusion for a second and leans forward and the Dragon Boar and looks

very intently at you and says back in Triconic, are you a member? Not yet. We are at new to this place. My master here is seeking audience with his kind. We were guided to this place in establishment. It has a high reputation. We wish to inquire how to get inside. Looks over to the siren, the siren kind of glances back and what's he saying? And the dragon-born kind of glance. It says it out loud in common now to this point. He's saying that they're looking to come in here and talk to other elves. Elvish guys, I guess. Not elvish, but what people of high society.

Oh. Oh. Make a persuasion check. Excellent. The 21. Can we give us you a glance over? Well, if you're not a member, you can acquire membership, but it has to be approved first by the owner.

May we seek audience with him to. with him to ask or apply or however that goes about. Let me get his assistant, hold on just a second. Siren, she kind of gives a look. I'll be right back, and she kind of rolls up her sleeves and steps inside as the door opens immediately. As I see her, I kind of just turn in face outward. All right?

Just kind of turn away from her. Do you know her? Okay. We don't. As the door opens, you can already hear what sounds like soft harp music coming from the interior. And it's hard to actually look inside, because you can see there are silks draped, crossed over in front of the entryway as soon as you step in. A few moments pass. Eventually the siren returns, and you are greeted at the doorway by a dwarf with very, very well-groomed facial hair, a beard that comes to a fine point.

It has a little gold ring at the very bottom that kind of canes it in the little p. At the bottom, this little poof. with makeup on, very rosy cheeks, and you can see there is eyeliner on his eyes, smile to his face and wearing these long, white robes, lots of jewelry, and the rest of his kind of dark brown hair is pulled into a dual ponytail that runs down to the middle and back. Comes the door and the music says,

gracious welcome to all of you. I've been told that you're seeking possible membership to our establishment. In Dwarvers, I say, that's correct. Well, fantastic then. Don't leave possible patrons outside. And looks off to the two bouncers, and they kind of grumble and step off to the side.

Come in, come in, follow me. And he steps inside. As you guys walk in behind him, immediately are hit with the strong smell of exotic incense and the cooking of meat mingling with that. It has this kind of this smell of everything good you've ever smelled mixed into one location. Love the smell of these places. The interior is very low lit with what looks like a series of fairy fire lamps dangling in small lattice cages.

So it has this kind of light purplish pink glow to the general interior. There are no stools or chairs. There are tables that are low set, and the floor is nearly covered with very, very expensive-looking pillows. and all the patrons are currently sitting, cross-legged, or laying around the tables. And you can see the clientele here is very well-dressed and very wealthy. And there's laughter and conversation. And this definitely has a very, very different air. It's like stepping into a whole different world from what you're used to seeing in Vasselheim.

And you get the feeling that whoever created this establishment definitely created it to provide a very different experience to most people that work here, which means one, it probably makes a really good killing to the small number of clientele. Number two, it probably isn't very well liked by the people who have been living here most of their life. As you look around two, there are dice games being played, there are many gold pieces stacked at the tables, it appears that there's definitely a lively, a lively, what's the word I'm looking for, my brain isn't working, gambling arrangement in this place. You notice that all the guards in the inside, the bouncers are, look like common

sell swords. There's no unification to their adornments or any of their armor and stuff. There are a few folks who are just kind of looking around, keeping the peace, arms crossed. They're all definitely have weapons visible, and they're just kind of sitting there, guarding just like the bouncers were at the front of the place. How many dwarves? Just the one to let you inside. I reach over and I just grab Vax's hand. And I fold her arm in and walk forward.

All right. And I think as they move forward, I would like to pull Torbier aside and say, maybe since we're trying to get membership here, you should cover your rooms. Noted. I'd like to make a perception check to sort of size up the guards kind of around. Go for. Ten. Well, that's a step in the right direction.

I roll four times as good as I usually roll. Looking about, they look armored. It's hard to tell their skill level based on just the low light in here, they seem definitely keeping an eye out, but they're also, you can tell they've been working here for a while and they've grown comfortable. What you do notice, though, is a lot of the servers that are walking around. Young men and women dressed in very fine silk robes or gowns, all have these iron bands around their neck, collars that aren't chained to anything, but it immediately gives you this mental image of, you know,

slavery or some sort of servitude. It does not appear that they are actually in some sort of servitude, but the adornments they're aware are almost trying to get across that atmosphere as if that's part of what you're paying for. It kind of sickenes you a little. I'm going to carry myself and kind of like, I'm going to do what I can to give off

that, like, I'm keeping an eye on this guy. That, like, I'm the guy. That's sort of like what I'm trying to sort of That's how I'm trying to carry myself. Okay. As you guys have walked to the center of this room now, the dwarf individual that led you interns around and with a bugback,

I would like to introduce myself. My name is Hoosin. I am the manager of this fine establishment of Velvet Cabaret. I'd like to welcome you. Scanlan of the Shortholz. Scanlan of the Shortholz. Where are you held from?

I've not heard that. We come from Imam. I sell shoes. We. sell shoes. Yes, Coraline Shorthold. Coraline Shorthold. Yes, pleasure.

Very well, very well. Well, you have interest in membership, you say. We do. We're hoping to sample the atmosphere here. Is there entertainment? We heard there was great entertainment. Well, there's quite entertainment here at certain hours, if you like.

Well, for now we have more of an atmospheric presentation. You can see there's a small stage off the corner. There sits a, a very beautiful Elvin woman dressed in a gold gown that is sleeveless and kind of hugs to her form very well. I can see kind of shimmers in a little bit of purple fairy light that is hanging above her. And she's this gorgeous looking silver harp in front of her and she's just plucking away. Her eyes are closed like she's just caught in the moment. And there's a group of people that are sitting around her just, you know, chatting softly,

not to be overbearing to the music, but just to be around that atmosphere. Your wonderful employees mentioned membership, would like to inquire That as well, I assume. As well, I mean. You're saying this to Hoseim? This is Thorolaxilux, my financial advisor. Thorelaxia lux, at your service. I bow grace for me.

Make a persuasion rule. No, the deception roll, sorry, deception rule. What's that? 16. 16? All right. Also, the pleasure is mine. And so often you come across elves that have taken the time to learn the tongue of my folk.

I know many languages. He's very well, well-traveled, very well-cultured. That's part of why we hired him. I was a business for shut-in as a child, and all I had were focus on languages to read and whatnot and ventures. Well, if you are seeking membership, you should probably speak with our patron, the owner of this establishment. He's currently in a meeting, I believe.

But, well, step with me for a moment. And he kind of leads you to the other side of the room, All these drait, orange, and gold silks that are constantly getting in your way as you push through, leads you into what is a doorway that is covered in these silks. You kind of push them into the hallway to the right and left. There's a door across the way. The two doors down the left, and the door at the very end is a really ornate-looking door, a series of locks that are currently unlocked.

Hoseon walks up to it and knocks gently onto it and takes a listen. It appears that he will be available in just a moment. if you'd like to sit tight, and you are more than welcome to speak. Question, Housian. While we wait, do you happen to have any wine or ale? Just while we wait. It's been such a long travel. But of course.

Thank you. You are so kind. So it claps his hands, and you can see one of the servants that you saw kind of walking around with a small tray enters from the side of the hallway. Yes. Hosing turns. The finest wine we have available for the Elven Lass right here. The servant immediately darts off, kind of averting the eyes. Moment passes as you guys are waiting, returns with three glasses of wine looking over you two.

Hands one to each of you. And the servant kind of still averted gaze from the guest, smiles, gives a little curtsy, and then darts back into the main room. Which point... Cheers. Cling. I cling. Eyes. Eyes.

Eyes. There's a toll there. I take a sip of mine. That's very good. I'm fine. All right. I'm sipping it to keep up the charade, but I'm not happy about it.

It's definitely a velvish blend, which is only too sweet for your taste. But for what you were expecting, it's not too. 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 cannon with the podcast version dropping the next day see what everybody's talking about and join us in the dark 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

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because your next breakthrough is just one episode away. This is Mick Unplug, the voice and face of modern leadership entrepreneur and self-improvement. Let's get started. Too bad. It's serviceable. Nowhere near strong enough to really do anything, but it's not water. So as I hand it back to you, I sort of mutter. Giant Dwarven air quotes. The door to the hallway opens up suddenly,

and as it does, a servant walks out holding a tray that contains a bunch of partially eaten fruits and it looks like the outer gristle of some sort of cooked meat and it looks at you all awkwardly and steps past and disappears in the other room. You hear a voice coming down the hallway. the hallway. Enter! I ask you all to enter. You are to meet me. Please, come, sit, be comfortable. Welcome to the Velvet Cabaret. Look to Tall Beer and then look in the room. I step into the room. Okay. As you enter, Hoosim kind of just lowers his head and

offers his arms, as the rest of you to Akwias. Stepping into the room, you see, once again a room that that has a square or rectangular table in the center that has a series of small platters on it with bits of a previously devoured meal, and there are three small cushions on the ground that you see would act as some sort of sitting arrangement. The opposite side of the room has three large purple cushions, of which there are two women, also servants, that are just kind of laying back comfortably, just resting. And in the center you see a man, a very dark complexion, kind of radiance, pretty-looking, crimped dark hair, very well-trimmed beard mustache ensemble, and long black and gold robes, very, very long sleeves, and just jewelry adorning every ounce of his hands,

his fingers, you can barely see the actual skin beneath. There's just so much jewelry adorning him. He looks up smiling with his elbows and the edge of the table. "'A visit. We are to talk, yes? Introduce yourselves. Guests are always welcome, but I wish to know who it is that I'm guesting four. I seat Quaroline and have a seat myself. Thank you, husband.

And pretending to check out the women in the room, I make a perception check. And that is a 16. What are you trying to see? Oh, just if anything, sets off my alarm. They seem to just be lounging. There isn't like there's fear in their eyes, or they seem to be mistreated per se.

They're just almost like they're here for atmosphere. And the room itself? The room itself, most of the walls have like a velvety texture to them. They've all been, all the wood has been covered with some sort of material that has a, just kind of adds to this comfortable almost. Everything feels like it's a lounging bedroom, and that's the aesthetic of a lot of the interior of this location. You cannot quite see the source of the light in the room.

It almost feels like there's an indirect lighting, Kuthrmonde across the ceiling. Whatever the source of light is, it's covered and being spread across the top. So it gives this kind of dark, intimate feel to this current room, at least, as he gestures out to the rest of you to sit. I fear there are only three seats, but I assume that your accompaniment are accustomed to standing anyway. So do not worry. We are. We are. Very good, very good. Now, you say you come from membership. Membership does not come cheap. Membership does not come to anyone. We have a certain level of client I totally wish to keep, because in keeping this, it is easy enough for us to consider it very,

how do I say, exquisite. I'm sorry, before we go on, what was your name? I don't believe I caught it. I did not cut your name either. Oh, I'm sorry, I am Coraline. Coraline Shortholz. Of the Imam Shortholz. Of the Imam Shortholz.

Takes your hand, leans forward, and gives you this kind of ginger kiss to the edge of your fingers. Yeah, there is a, a slimyish presence, but not too aggressive, just a very well-trained type of dealing with guests. I kind of subversibly wipe it on my ropes. My name is Vince Cienor, and I am the owner

of this House of Joy and Pleasure. I'm the lucky man who married her. My name is Scanlan of the Short Haltz. We're in from Imman, and a reputation of this establishment, and he is well known within all parts of the walls. We're looking to possibly become members here. We hear the entertainment is top notch

and we hear that business happens within these walls. But I'm not convinced. I'm hoping we can stay for an hour, see what you have to offer when I find a like a place. I stay for a long time and leave a lot of money. I just like a little taste. Make a deception check. Use my last luck of the day.

15. Hose him, if you don't mind. And the door closes behind you guys. Well, Scanlan short halt. What, if I may ask, business do you run that gives you the liquid assets to think that you could walk and rub shoulders amongst such a stute clientele.

You are well-dressed, I see, and well-versed in conversation, but I've not heard of you before, and I have very acute ears for people of such heritage in this city. We hail from Amman. We're not very flashy. We certainly do much and don't do much in public in Iman. I prefer to make my money and enjoy my money, and I don't believe in ostentation.

Why, if you come to this establishment, I am made of ostentation? For you not fear what people judge or think here. You do what we like? Don't get me wrong. I enjoy the form of a beautiful woman as much as the next man. But what I hear... Why limit yourself? You said I do. Even this one here, while his appearance may be rough, I'm certainly not.

under certain circumstances, he could be persuaded to prove his weight in more than golden weaponry. Mr. Cianor, I think it is best you do not make presumptions on our relationship and dealings. My wife and I, a businessman. And what we hear is that this is where business happens. Business does happen here, yes.

Quite a bit of interesting business. And we are very interested in all of those interesting businesses. What I hear, as my assistant has told me, your business is shoes. Tell me, why would the business of shoes require such an ostentatious location for business? The shoes are the public face, but the well runs deep.

We get to the meat of the matter, eh? So his shoes is but in appearance, what is your business aside from cobbling, Mr. Shortthard? I'm poison and I hear you have the rarest of breeds here. I have come to spend some money to satisfy my clients. Make a deception check. 15 again. Was it?

15 again. Poisons. So you supply to, uh, what? King killers? You supply to, uh, sell sorts, you apply them to your own weapons? You realize this city is very, very tight and internet comes to those sort of industries. Although I know you would think possibly to find it here, I guarantee you, what we deal with here has nothing to do with the slitting of throats. I'm not looking to sell. I'm looking to buy. I will tell you one thing that I'm interested in buying. I'm interested in buying information, I'm interested in buying loyalty,

I'm interested in buying trust. Since you've walked into this room, there has been an air of something not right about you. Through this conversation, I've come to believe that perhaps you're not telling me the truth. No. I will ask you at this moment, at this moment, whoever you may be, short holds or not. But this entire facility is very well

paid to make sure that, should you try anything funny, you won't get but two steps before the heads leave your shoulders. So let's be frank here. Who are you? Why are you here? Mr. Vance, let's not play coy. I am sure you have dealt with many a powerful client in your day, and I am sure it is not unfamiliar to you that many powerful clients have many deep secrets. As she finished that, I dispel otterself. Okay, as you, your actual dragon-born appearance,

the source of it's selfie, sits back. My apologies. I am Tiberius Stormwind. Storm wind, and I do. Yes, wind. I merely dispeled this to show you. That earning your trust is in our best interest. I do not wish to deceive.

Then perhaps you should have walked in this form when you first arrived. You see, many people won't take kindly to a Red Dragonborn, by the way. I just thought it was best. We're in a new town and it was standard protocol whenever we visit a new town. My apologies. Well, one person has come clean. What about this one? What is your business here?

My business here is the same as theirs. We're here in the long run to help you. What is to help me? You have not told me what your business is. We're here to stop a murderer. Explain. Bodies have been showing up outside this building. Multiple bodies. I'm not going to get into the details, but we've been sent here to stop that from happening any further.

We're fairly sure you know of this. Look at this guy. Does he look like he's fucking around? He winks at him. The force of the wink itself is intense enough to the point where he physically shudders and kind of wanes back a few issues. Now you must be aware of this problem. Can't be surprised to you. People are starting to take notice in this city. This was inevitable. Do you still have Lord Terrell's possessions? This is about Lord Terrell.

Amongst others? We do have his possessions. They will have his possessions. They will have his possessions. They will have his possessions. they have been investigated. Their establishment has already been investigated. The bastions were very thorough and we have been found absolved of any sort of involvement with this murder. We are not bastions, and we are not here to incuse,

and we are not here to investigate your establishment. It's interesting. You come in here and lie, it seems to me exactly what you're doing. Now, are you coming to ask questions to see what involvement we have, answers? We've already told everything to anyone else. We have no informant.

I don't know what you're talking about. This is ridiculous. and I may have to ask you to leave. He's shutting down. Someone do something, quick. Inside check. Insight check. Bowles.

Can I also? I will also make an inside check. Can I do that as well? Not again. We're all going to die. That makes my ten look titanic. I'm interested to make you look good. What Torbier does.

does. Did you do a new one? 19. Two. No, I rolled two. It's still good. Please, come on. You're going up.

It's not impressive. Like, that's mythic. Statistically unlikely. That's the thing. You're beating math. I know. I've been beating math for one years.

Genius. Yeah, I'm very good. You're the singularity that ruins the law. One up. Somewhere in the world, there's a person who never rolls under 17 and I was placed on this planet to balance them out, to save you all. To prevent the wall at the center of our planet from collapsing and taking us all with it,

you're welcome. She's in New Zealand. All right, so as you all kind of take this moment to yourself, it's hard to read. It seems like he's very thorough and offended by the circumstance. It's you glean that there is a nervousness and there are droplets of sweat across his brow and his briskness does show a bit of fear in his eyes. About this time, I go, whoosh, and I cast my wind spell, and I slam the doors behind us and I slam the shutters and I turn out all the lights.

Did you say there was like candlelight or do you say there's like weirded direct lighting? Yeah, indirectly, you didn't quite know where the source was coming from. The door was already closed behind you. Hosing closed it, but as the wind comes out, all the silks blow against the wall, pillows are locked to the sides. Both of the women in there kind of, and pull back against the walls, trying to keep out of the circumstance, and you can see Vince has begun to stand up

and his hair blown back. What does the meaning of this? No. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to do that. I sometimes get a little out of control, but remain calm. All right, Jesus. Remain calm. You calm down. You stop, I'm sorry.

I'm trying to remain calm too. Doing a great job. Thank you. Just Station, check. Damn it. Who's in the film? It's the women.

It's the... Two women and Vince. Hoseem is, was closed the door and left in the hallway. Vince is the owner of the... But is he human? He's human. He's human. He's human.

I'm gonna approach him and I'm gonna cast mage hand. and I have it float right at right in front of me, and I'm like, now, you better start cooperating, because it seems to me that you're getting very nervous, and we don't want to do anything, nor do we want to leave. All we want is information. I guess we want to know what you want to know, too. We want a lot of information.

So start talking, and start acting like a fool. Like intimidation, jerk. He's sometimes hard to follow, then. You don't want to follow that. You don't want to find the game. 15? 15? as you do it between you standing,

he was kind of in the process of standing up and you see he was kind of reaching for something under one of the cushions. As you do that, he kind of glances about the room, looks over to you specifically as well, and back to the dragon boar and the dwarf. And then I say,

in whatever weapon you are about to brandish, you best wise to leave it be. You realize you may have just alerted pretty much the entirety of my garden in this establishment they'll be descending on this room soon. And you realize that this is only because of your doing.

He sits down on the cushion again. And Torber looks at him, he goes, okay, and pulls his great axe out and leans on his great axe. I disperse the magic hand. I say, now. And I sit on a pillow. Our quarrel is not with you. We are not with the guard.

We are not with the bastion. More calm, more calm, more calm. Yeah, still doing a great job with the conflict. Yeah. I'm trying. It's okay. I get emotional. I, yeah.

I'm trying to remain calm here, okay? What do you wish to know? Once again, do you still have Lord Terrell's possessions? His possessions are not under my keeping, no. Thank you. Where are they? I have no idea. I want to do a perception, Jack. Is the inside, yeah.

Inside, Jay. Inside, Jay. Nice. Where are we? Ooh, wow. 26. 26. What's that like? That's 29 of your rolls, strangely. Oh, God.

Looking at you tense and he says it. He's fumbling lie after lie right now. It's just you get easy to tell. Yeah, for you especially. You're like, oh, all the signs are there, the quivering to his voice, his eyes starting from person to person, he's still covering. Okay, you're sitting in a room now with a whole bunch of people that want to hurt you.

So it's obvious that you're lying. What do you know, or this guy, and this guy are going to drag in and axe you? Look, I... What happened was unfortunate. There are things beyond your understanding or control involved here. Oh, I don't know. We can understand a lot. We fought a beholder before. This do not take us for fools who just walked in here without a clue.

I walk forward, I pull out dagger of venom, and I drop a little bead of black down the blade, and I hold it just about a centimeter under his neck. I'll run out of patience, friend. We're here to help this city, and you're going to help us. Make an intimidation check with advantage because of this whole setup here. Dear God, so many. Come up. 20.

Whole conversation. You'll kill me if I say anything. We're gonna kill you now. Now or later, friend. And we could protect you from them. Oh, it. This establishment, I'm not the honor. I'm a figurehead.

Something else currently runs a post of strings from behind. Something else? As we said, it. Thank you. It kind of looks off past you, just over your shoulder. Perception check. You're always something about batch. 13. 23.

23. You glance over your shoulder briefly, and at this point you can see the door is partially ajar. And you can see in a little bit of light there is, a dwarven face staring to the passage. That then slams the door shut quickly, and you hear footsteps. Oh, great. Was that Hozen?

That was Hozen, yeah. Fucking Hozen. Fosen. Thanks a hozen. Hoser. You're shaking his head now with the blade there. You hear the feet running off now. I'm going something tiny and fast.

What's tiny and fast? I'm going rat. A fly. And I'm going after hosian. Nice. You guys watch as Kila all of a sudden grasp the of her armor and then her form shrinks down to a tiny rat, then darts underneath. I'm going to bap this guy in the head, I'm going to just flip the blade and strike him across the fore.

As I see her do this, I open the scroll when the squirrels are given me and I do polymorph for myself and turn myself into a gat fly. And follow. Okay, that's right. The scroll is consumed and gone. You turn to a fly and follow as well. Two of your members just shrunk and vanished and went off as creatures. You go ahead and roll for an attack. Okay, so on a surprise, it's advantage.

its advantage. Mm-hmm. So 19's pretty good. I'll take the 19 over the 2. All right. So that's 19-30. No, no, no, no, no, 19-30. That hits, go ahead and roll sneaky attack damage on that?

Okay, sneak attack damage. This is subdual. Is this a surprise because he didn't know it's coming or it's not? It is. Yeah. So because of my assassinate feat, then this is a critical hit. All right. So just the sneak attack damage.

Okay, 4, 8, 10, 12, 15, 21, 21. 21, 42. 42. Yeah, you, he's out. Like a light just lights off. Facing on the pill. The two are men, squealing reaction. You guys, as you rush into the door, what are you guys doing?

I am leaning over to see what he was reaching for. As you glance over, you can see what appears to be a small jeweled blade that is hidden underneath one of the cushion is there. It's that curved dagger that comes to a gradual point. I'm gonna take that. Okay, so I'm right down jewel dagger in your equipment. I wanna search him.

I wanna see if he has anything on him in his pockets, anything. Okay. As you are gonna go through his body, you guys have rushed beneath it. As you can see, the dwarf, Hosim, is kind of walking down the hallway really quickly, kind of with his robes over.

Can I get, as a guy fly, can I, in front of him? You pull underneath, because you had to go underneath the door to make it into the hallway. You see him, he's about 20, about 15 feet away. And as he's walking, he's looking about very nervously. You can see one of the guards is kind of approaching.

And he kind of looks back over and sees the rat screen in the hallway. How far away is he for me? He's about 20 feet. How far away is the guard in front of him? Well, the guard. You know what? Let me go ahead and take this up.

Indicator of the circumstance here. He does what? Oh, God, we have a map. Gentlemen, we need to move. Okay, so he's right there. Mama Cass, what have you found? All right, you guys are currently inspecting him at the moment. You guys are rushing through.

So I'm within 20 feet of him, whatever? You are, I just know, he'd be back here, yeah, he's just rushing past. So he's between 25 feet from you. Okay, I'm going to get a dispel polymorph, and I'm gonna cast silence in front of him. And I'm gonna silence him.

Okay. Yeah. All right, so using him as the source? Yes. Okay. So as you unpolymorph, he looks over his shoulder and sees you take his form. You go ahead and cast silence, which as an opposition. What level spells that? Second level?

Yes, I believe so. Raise him in point. Okay, cool. So it creates a sphere of sphere. It creates a sphere of a 20-foot radius of silence here. So he just goes and he does like a hand motion. Nothing happens. Frustrated, he continues to run.

Roll, I have you guys roll initiative. Fucking shit. Cash. Yep. 17. 17. 17. What is that?

17. 17. 17. Yeah. All right. What about you? What do you guys will both be going first? But before we finish that, as you guys are searching the body, you hear all of a sudden the sound of some sort of a scuffle,

a flash of some sort of energy in the hallway that's muffled between the doorway, and footsteps also happening. So there's some sort of, as you're just starting to get through his pockets, you start hearing some sort of a scuffle outside of the room. I'm gone. Okay. So have you guys roll initiative as well? All right.

Is it six or a nine? Nine. That's nine or six. That's a nine. All right. Theoretically. Only when it counts is what it is. Okay.

Well, right. I know, but there's 20 faces on this. I mean, look, right? As he just rolled with 20 when it didn't matter. It can happen. They know that it's possible. I've done it in my life. So, um, so as you guys are turning, we'll get you turn in a moment.

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Yes. Are we at the same time? Yeah. I guess I'll go ahead and cast out of my B shape as well, and cast hold person on him as he's running away. Okay, cool. Is you staying where you are? You're going to move, or you're going to move?

Well, he's right there, right there, yeah. So I'm just going to take him. You go ahead and cast hold person. As the spell releases, you can see kind of the mystical, kind of shimmering cage that seems to encapsulate. encapsulate, seems to shrug it off. Because he's not a person. He's not a person.

I should have fucking done grasping vine. God damn it. It's fine. All right. Do you want to move or stay where you are? Yeah, I'll follow after his ass. All right. You can get up to pretty much right adjacent to him if you want.

Fine. All right, Tiberius. Bring it. I'm going to cast telekinesis and grab them that way. Okay. So from where you are, you go ahead and you create your teleconnected force. You rush out and the telekinetic force seem to to have no effect on the dwarf's form.

It's the rock shasa! It's him! No! I yell you, don't chase him! I stay, I go... And I go, what? Come back! Come back!

She goes, The rock water? I'm in the silent bubble. There is currently no sound coming from the center of that area. She can hear me. She can hear you. And I'm not that far. You heard me!

The other way! The other way! and I move in the room with these guys. Okay. As you guys turn, you see Tiberius comes rushing into the room. The Rastat! He's, this one! Nothing works on him! And I think that's not normal. You're speaking Triconian. You're speaking Tricotia? Sorry. Sorry.

No. Rakhshasa, I believe the dwarf is the Raksasa. I cast many things. I killed this, nothing hit him. And I silenced him, so we didn't... You left it with him? No. Well, I mean, I'm sure.

I shone past him and I cut the door. Okay. At this point in time, he ran away from the target? Ugh! At this point, Hoseim... So I stomp past him in my dwarfing ston. Right.

Hosing gets just out of the sphere of silence and then angrily does a motion with a hand and then that'll bring us next to damn. All right. Brother Cash him, what do you want to do? I want to go back eight moves and catch the thing. I think what we're going to have to do now is...

Pastard. He's got to be in the area. Wait. Find out where he is. Let's locate creature again if we can. I drop to my feet. Okay, well, this is during your turn. Is there you want to do it? Can we locate creature? See how close he is? How long as you take to cast locate creature? I believe it is one action. Okay, so you can do that. Okay. So you mark that off as another casting of that spell. Okay.

As you kind of rush out into the hallway and see that it's vanishing and you cast the spell for a second, you can see the direction of the creature is roughly ahead of you, and you also see a door on the opposite side. This right-hand door opened and close. He just goes invisible? He's not teleporting, he's just invisible. That's a big thing. Yeah, he's here. He's still here. He's just, we can't see him. You still have 15 feet of movement if you want to move forward. Yeah, I would like to move forward. Okay, so you'll get up to that point with your turn.

And you've kind of gathered that. That's the direction of him and that. You know that's where it's going. I know where that's going. Okay, so we saw the door shut. That's where he is. Let's go. Don't run blindly in there.

Hold on. Yeah, see, soon, soon, see, soon. Back, you up. I'm going to walk. I'm going to run just up past Keelith. I'm going to look at her as I pass. Not bad. Keep going.

Stop there, and now I'm going to try to sense traps. At this point there? Yeah. Okay, so you can get up to here if you're gonna use an action as well. That's fine, yeah. Okay. As you go to talk to her? Yes.

No words come out. Can I see what's going on? No, you're in the other room still. And we're just kind of dart out and you're like, ugh, as you're making route. So go make perception check? Okay. 21. Glancing about the room, there doesn't appear to be anything that catches you as a trap.

This hallway is fairly often traversed by the clientele, this establishment, and nothing seems dangerous. That would be a difficult thing to put in the middle of a place and still run a business. Okay. Look at Cash and Keyleth and say, All right, that is true. Are we out of initiative? We're still an initiative. Currently for the moment, just to just the sake of our pace on this.

Going as far as I can down the hall, toward the direction of the bad guy. Okay. That gets you to about there. Cool. That ends that turn. point three of the bouncers then start pushing through the silks. One of them pushes this way here. This one kind of pushes aside. And they come out, weapons drawn, seeing all of you there. One of them goes, man. That's their turn, but it looks like they're ready to jump into

some sort of combat circumstance. That brings us to the top of the round. Tiberius, you're up. Where did you see the guards came from? They came from the main room. There were the silks. are that kind of separate the hallway from the main area. And you start hearing people shouting and some slight yelps and screams to me of the room, people that seem freaked out by the sudden rise and energy. What was that guy's name, Lohan? Hoseim.

Hoseim? The dwarf is Hoseim. The other guy is Vince. Just in my head, I just disparage silence, and before I go out, I turn into Hosing. Alterself. Okay, so use your action to cast to cast alter cell. You take Hosim's form.

You step out, closing the door behind you. How did he sound again? How did he sound? He's a wharf. He was Scottish. He was Scottish but fancy. He's wearing makeup. He's glam rock.

Oh, right, right, right. What's all this noise out here? Why are you bothering my friends for? Guards. The guards can look over confused and we heard that there was a... Everything's fine. So friends. Get on with your friends.

Get back on patrol. Make sure nothing happens. I'll have your heads. Take exception check. Oh, come on, Tyberia. The guards kind of like each other. All right, but if anything happens again, there's a problem, let us know we'll be at the ready. Of course. They she'd their weapons and kind of look untrustingly to the rest of your group with your weapons currently drawn and step back to the... Get out, get out.

They disappear back into the main room and they start calming down some of the other patrons who are starting to peek around. and trying to see what's going on, the action. Some look smiling and curious to see what's happening, and they're like, go back to tables, it's fine, there's no problem, and they disperse the energy. Bad Tiberius. With that, I just kind of continue with the charade and loop my arm around backs and say,

shall we go into that room? Just a moment, dear. Okay. Pull out the same's poison blade, and start walking down that whole little further, and want to see if I sense any traps further ahead. Okay, to about there? Yeah?

Make a participant try? Natural 20. Looking about, um. And balance was restored to the universe. Oh God, don't do that, come on! Yeah, keep it. Put away. Watch as a dice just like turns to dice.

does. It's the end of Raiders. You glance about the room as you're walking forward carefully, looking at the floorboards, looking at the tapestries and the walls, looking for anything that be out of sorts, and your eyes very keen to finding anything out of the ordinary. The room, thankfully, does not appear to have anything specifically tracked. It seems fairly safe. Oh.

Okay. And those are doors up there? Yeah. Do that check include the doors themselves? I would say with a nutshell 20, yes. The doors both also seem to be functional doors, not designed within any sort of trap attached. All right, pressing my ear to the door on my left.

There. Listen to it. Perception rule? So many. Four. Six. That seems fairly quiet. My to wear my dice. If we stop pursuing, does that take that of initiative?

You guys are not currently in initiative, because you're not in the thick of battle. You've managed to disperse the conflict. I don't do it at the other door as well. All right, you step over the door. You guys want to do anything else? Why are you just waiting on him? Yes. I'm just going to come, I want to get as close to him as I can, and I'm ready for a fight.

Me too. I follow him. Same. Torbier. All right. Torbier. Do you have an extra sword or arm on you? No, there was a short sword. Any of you. I give him the jewel dagger. That one's a 19. No, nah, nah, nah, nah, no, no, no, no, no, 19. Thank you.

19. I appreciate it. Listening, you hear what sounds like a slight... Mow. Sounds some sort of a scooting of wood on wood. And in silence. kicking the door, as hard as I can. Okay, make a strength roll.

I want to do straight strength. Oh, wait, that's the wrong guy. 12. 14. As he's doing that, I'm going to drink a potion of frost giant strength. Okay. You slam your foot into the door. Oh, that was the foot that you just got healed.

Oh, that's gonna bruise. Oh, bruise. Kielith, uh, quarrelin, darling. Can you come up here, please? Yes. Yeah. Or, or, did you stub your toe, darling? Sorry, yeah.

Um, I think I want to get this door open quickly, please. I'm gonna hit the door with my axe. Okay, go for a roll. What? One? This is amazing. This is a lie. I'm gonna do something.

If it wasn't live, no one would believe it. I'm gonna do something here. I roll a one. Because it is. Because it is what I do. I'm going to test this theory. I'm going to trade you for now. Yeah.

And I'm just going to leave you with that dice and see if it If it transfers? You have to throw it into the fire. This is the fraud. The curse doesn't care about which dye is rolled. Which is very possible, but there needs to be some sort of it. Okay, he's like science class. Yeah.

So. Because that dice was in the vicinity of Matt's hair. You'll be good. So much. I'm such a... All right. That's awesome. So how much damage do I take

for some reason? As you pull back the axe, you actually swing wildly backward, nearly hitting Vax in the process. You have to dodge it to the way as the axe impede itself into the wood behind you. Shit. Again.

Axe is stuck. I kind of slap myself in the fore and go, pull out thieves' pick. Okay. Are you unclasping? As you do, you feel your throat seize suddenly, as the cold liquid sends to freeze up. What is normally a very warm and very fire,

you know, breeding interior to your throat. And it thaws slowly, and as you exhale, you can see the mist. And suddenly your muscles can to pull. pulse with energy and you feel like your physical form is embodied strength far more than you've ever felt within your body before. With his jewel dagger, I take out my dagger. Okay.

I feel great. The Freshmaker. There's now the angriest dwarf. Right now, touching two daggers as you get down with your thief's tools. Yeah, let's try this. That's better. Oh, that's a 24. Come on. All right. The door swings open without issue. It's one of the easier jobs you've had.

Should have done that in the first way. Should have beat it down. Ninth times the charm. You push open the door and find your way into what looks to be a very well-adorn bedroom. There is a small table on the side of there is some book stacked up. There's a dresser in the far end. It's closed. There is a canopy bed set up. There is a small in table on the side.

And the rest of the room just has a nice, kind of a circular rug that's thrown across the center. And there are no windows currently to this. Turn my head to everyone. and just mouth the words and perception check the room. Can I perception check as well? 24. Can I just look to see, I want to just kind of meditate. What did you just roll, 24?

24. I want to see if I see any like movements or just like brushes of cloth or anything like that. 19. No, no, no, no, 19. How long does it take me to pull the axe out of the wall and how far into yak-dy-set? does the soundtrack get?

You know, just with the foot and jumping on it and trying to pull it down. We're currently hitting like the one minute, 15 second mark. Okay, great, sure. I haven't quite pulled it out of the wood yet. Okay, good. And my little legs are kicking underneath me while I pull it down.

I'm cursing and dwarven. They call me Benny. Benny, you. I don't, actually. I wish to, because of all the sound, I wish to, you know, turn my back to the room and guard the hallway while everybody else is inside checking out. Okay, so you're keeping an eye out. And you do see that there's kind of one of the guards just that the Selkutu's kind of keeping an eye, looking over carefully. Okay. You guys make perception check. Looking around the room, you see there is no movement. There are no curtains on the walls. There is the rug, and most everything else in here seems to be perfectly still. You catch what looks like a little bit of movement of the canopy bed, the material that's on top. There's a slight sway to it that comes to stillness that you just barely catch with your keen half-elven eye.

I would like to run up the bed and stab up both hands, clicking boots at haste. Okay. Bam! Click the boots of haste. You run and charge it into the bed and stab upward into the canopy. The material is torn asunder. This very fine and probably imported silk is carved into three separate ribbons and falls gently onto the cushion of the bed proper, revealing the hardwood ceiling above you. I'm gonna check the ceiling.

Okay. There's a lot of perception. I'm all out of luck. Yeah, that's no good. Well, that's a 14. 14, looking about solid wood, you can move your fingers along, and you're standing on the bed,

you can just get it within reach, and feeling along the board. It's all pretty solid. I'm gonna kind of like make myself like kind of soccer field goalie this stuff with the door like in the door frame

and do another like just really trying to see if I see any brush of dust or movement. Okay. Keep in an eye out. You pull your X-free into the hallway door in front of you. This one though not with all the strikes, you pull it out

and kind of try as best you can to save some grace. Well done. Yeah. I've gotten this. Yeah, that was graceful. Emotion Tiberius over. Should I do a perception of that? Nope. That ceiling looks pretty solid.

Can I turn, you know, if you sit in my back to the door, I turn over, I do a perception check and then... Go for it. You kind of, you just step over, you glance past Keyleth. Oh my God, one. I got a two, by the way. You look over and for a split second, you're... Stop trying to steal my thing, you got. Sorry, man.

You glance you over, and you're more distracted by the fact that Keelith is doing this awkward fieldwork. goal thing to the door to you for no reason. What the hell are you doing? And you forget what you're in the middle of doing. I'm trying to make myself out. There appears to be no exit from the ceiling room. Can I, may I enter the room? You may.

You push past the confused, the confused, and the more confused. So I look around, I look at the rug, I sigh heavily, and I pull the rug. Pull the rug. Revealing a wooden floor. Plainslux. You thought that was going to be good.

Oh, wow. What's the point to? It's never been of elves or half elves before, but this one's really starting to dig into a little. That's some sad. I'll make a perception check because we could total up all my rolls and I'd have five. Come on, come. Hey. That's actually better.

20. 20. Hey, hey. Pull the rug back. There's nothing there and you kind of look about it. the rest of the folks with a heavy sigh, but the rug was on the right track. Everyone was keeping high, looking beneath the bed and see what looks to be in the shadow some little bit of elevated wood that catches your attention.

Um, uh, he's, I just, I, I, under the bed. I'll motion over there. Uh, I am, well, we're not silenced, right? So I'm yanking off any fancy clothes. I have have on and I'm pulling my cloak of oven kind out. I'm just putting it over. And I just start a spider under the bed and check it for traps. I pick up his clothes and I put them in the bag of holding. Oh my god, she's folding the clothes.

We're in the middle of this. She's folding the clothes. I just read, we're, they might come in handy at use later. Unbelievable. 25 for looking for traps. Okay. Well, it's good thing you roll high of perception. It says you spider underneath, your first hand goes,

and then goes underneath and you nearly tumble, and you catch yourself. There is a five foot. wide hole in the ground right beneath this bed. And as you catch yourself, you can feel a little bit of wind just slowly drifting up from underneath. There's some sort of an airflow coming from underneath this bed where this hole is, and you feel over and you can see that.

A little bit of wood that you saw peeking forward is the top of a makeshift ladder that is currently fastened to the side of this tunnel that disappears beneath the room. Is there dim light down there? It is H-blatt-black. H-black. You can see with the dim light from your low-light vision a little ways into it about, I'd say, 20 or so feet from the angle.

because you're not looking directly in. And even just glancing over the side, it continues down for quite a while. And it's big enough to fit all of us if we wanted to go on. Independently, yes. One person would go to every single file, of course, because it's a tight tunnel. Only one way to go.

I'll go. You can see in pitch black, right? I have dark vision 60 feet. Is that dim or dark dark? Dark vision, you can see within a short distance of pitch black and then a larger assist at low light. That ass, man. I'll go.

All right. So I'll put an order here. Who's going down next? All right. And after Vax? I'll follow my husband. Kedliff. That's weird.

How here it is? Before we go down, I'm going to take off my outer. No, I can't take out of it. Nope, I can't take everything because that's all my gear. Never mind. I don't do that. But before we go down, I cast stone skin on myself. Okay.

I'll cast it right now. Okay. Is your form shimmers for a second, and you see, you notice this too, Kachah. His scales almost seem to protrude into earthy spikes and then form and solidify, almost like his body becomes its own suit of armor. It's still okay. That's cool. Even though, I'm still a door to stop.

Are you holding, you coming up there? I'm going to go, but I'm going to cast a freedom of movement on myself before I go down there. Okay. As you do, you feel, even with the encumbrance of the armor you're wearing, you feel like your form is a little more agile, and you're ready for anything that might try and stop your passage. You guys begin making your way down with a tour beer leading the way. You just send for a good three to four minutes. You gather probably a good hundred feet or more down.

Am I wrong? And there are a few that you reach that are a little rickety. About 100 feet down, one hits your foot and snaps. But you manage to catch yourself on it, but you get the feeling of this ladder. It's probably not meant to hold someone of your... heavy physical form. Largesse. Largesse.

Thank you. You could use, yes. Yes. One of when you make your way down until eventually you begin to see towards the edge of your dark vision floor finally begins to appear and rise towards you. You step off the ladder into what appears to be a small

circular area that leads into another 10 foot by 10 foot tunnel, but 10 by 15 foot up and continues forward. This is very natural carved Earth, it's not smooth stone. It just looks like a tunnel that was mined out of the floor. Is it still dark? It is still dark. There is no light source currently. And you all eventually make your way down. Is there anything loose down there that I can grab a hole of a rock? Anything along?

You can't see anything. So you can't... Mr. Human, you are in pitch black darkness. Well, that's why I'm wondering if, you know, I feel around underneath me to try to find some kind. Do I find a loose stone? Do I find a pebble? Can I find anything to grab? Can it reach down? Yeah. You, you managed to find a couple of small stones. Oh, he's milling about light. That's what I was going to do, but he beat me to it. Thank you. You reach down You know, are you kidding?

You find a stone, you pick it up, you begrudgingly grab your holy symbol, and as you begin to recite your cantrip incantation, a flash of white light beaming off the top of the dragon-born sorcerer staff. A little... A dagger.

Off the dagger. Because I have two daggers on my eye. That's true. One of the daggers is now glowing, the jewels one. Twice as pretty when it's emanating torchlight. You now can see the... Thanks for the warning, by the way.

Sorry, I usually just do it when it's dark. This tunnel goes in just one direction. One direction. Walking what you tell. Okay. So we'll say for the sake of marching order. Who all is going in after Torbier? I'll go next.

What order? All right. I'll go behind cash. All right. I don't need this at all, but I just want to play with it. That's me right there. Pee-poo! Pee-poooooo!

I'll follow. Actually, I'll keep put on Torbear's six. Okay. About, I'll stay 15 feet behind him. Fifteen feet behind? Alrighty. And Kiel, if you continue it that way.

All right, so that'll be the marching order. So I've got my axe out. And may I make a perception check to see what I see, just see if I can pick up footprints or motion or whatever? So this would be more of a tracking if you're looking for footprints, so that would be wisdom. Okay. Oh.

So just a straight wisdom. Survival. All right, well, hang on. Not my system. Eight. Eight, okay. It's hard to tell. It looks like this area is not heavily traversed. And what little bit of sign up footprints there are scattered enough

that it's hard to make out a specific print. But I mean, they have been traveled before. I'm looking over Tourbier's head and looking for traps as he was. looking for traps as he walks. All right. 22. 22, all right. You, as you guys are walking forward and going through this,

you get about 40 feet forward before you catch that there is a slight divot, a small drop in the dirt, and one looks like a section of intentionally placed plate of some kind, like a terracotta plate. Wait a tick. I'm going to go up to the edge of it and try to inspect it, see if I can find a trigger. see how it works. Okay. Nice.

What is that? Perception? Are you checking to see how it works? I want to see if I can disarm it? Yeah. Okay, that would be with your thieves tools. This would be a dexterity plus your thieves at some plus. That's a no, no, no, no, no, 19?

Yes. Okay. As you go to the plate, you stop and look up to the walls to the side. To each side of the wall, you can see these tiny little holes, these little kind of quarter-sized, gold piece-sized tunnels, board, multiple plates, This is on both sides of this wall. And you realize this is a pressure plate-based trap, and you taking one dagger, you slightly lift it.

The second one, you eventually find beneath where the trigger apparatus is, and you gingerly cut. Each part of these spring-loaded triggers until eventually the plate rises more and more and you remove the last bit, the plate tips over, and the trap itself is disarmed. Woo! Nice, works. Done, okay. I mean, well done, Roque. It's kind of what I do.

So I keep going down. All right. I want to, I would like to, I want to hit a thing. All righty. That's not a wall. There is that. All right. Pushing forward, continuing for another 30, 40 feet.

feet. Again. Again. Okay. 12. Okay. Pushing forward for a period of time. It doesn't appear to be any change.

There are no more divvets. You're giving a very close eye for the traps. And as you're walking forward with your axe. As you're stepping forward, you get this weird tickle across your nose, like a spider web of some kind, that catches you. And you kind of instantly reach up and brush it away from your nose. As your finger presses against it, it's much sturdier than a spider web. than a spider web. It's a metallic wire. And as you push away, you hear that slight noise. Tiberius, behind you hear a grinding of stone.

No way. And then a loud, a loud slam sound hits, like something extremely heavy just dropped behind you. Run! Oh, Christ. Glanced over your shoulder and you see what looks to be a fairly rounded boulder. I just spell alterself. yourself immediately, so I have longer as long as well, alter itself is gone if you're casting stone skin because that's

concentration of the spell. Oh, that, but it only carries it for a few rounds. It's been a longer time than that. Like, it's been, oh, 50 minutes. Time's past. Yeah, time is past. Never mind, I don't do shit. But yeah, don't worry about that. The stone boulders, B. Indiana Jones, motherfuckers. Picking up speed with the slow decline of this room. All of you guys, what are you doing?

Run! Run! You're bolting forward. I cast fly on myself and fly. Okay. Rob the bag, you're safe. You cast fly pushing forward. You guys get a little speed,

but you notice the boulder started to gather steam as it continues down. And the pathway you guys are running is going at a slighter, a heavier and heavier decline as you put forward. As I'm flying, I turn around with my ring and I cast slow on the boulder. Okay.

Yes. Go ahead and make a, actually, hmm, this is interesting. Let me see if Slow would have a direct effect on this Beurda, just because that's something that happens right now that I didn't consider. Unfortunately, it is not a creature, it actually affects the physical metabolism

and muscle use of an individual. This is just a solid structure and object. That was such a crap. As you release the spell, you see, spell, you see the air around it kind of poof and drift a little slower and the Boulder seems to stutter for a moment but continues to push forward. Frustrated, I cast obelisk of iron. That was your action.

Damn it! Oh. I would like to cast all my spells in succession for the next ten minutes. Yes. Is you going full sprint? Yes. Okay. So pushing for you all push forward. Tiberius, who is stopping turn and cast the spell is not at a full dash, so he trails behind.

Boulder is currently gaining on Tiberius. I can't off it. So you turn around, you're continuing to fly forward. So you just turn to push forward. Tiberius, the boulder is nearly upon you now. What are you going to do? Oh, awesome. Is it at least like 10, 15 feet away from me?

It is about 10 to 5 feet away from you. You can see it kind of cresting. That's really fast. As I'm now frustrated, I cast a fifth level spell, and I will cast my obelisk of iron. Three in a row. Behind me. Get through that.

All right, you bring that spell. All of a sudden, the room behind you, out of the stone, pockets of iron ore or whatever material is beneath the earth behind you is brought together into a liquid mass and then shoots up in the center of the hallway behind you. With each one of these pillars slamming into the wall, you guys hear these three multiple explosions behind you, and for a brief second, you fear the worst for Tiberius' current status. Immediately following that, you hear a large, the impact of stone against iron, and you see the I'll just bend with this horrible creaking sound.

It's like, Keep running. Um, the sound of the rolling has stopped. It's so untrusted. We should suck it out of this hole. I can count nothing. You could give way at any moment. Let's walk. Shall we walk?

I think we should walk. That's why I like to walk. Yeah, let's walk. You guys continue moving forward. The decline getting a little more difficult to as you feel yourselves now kind of having to field your arms across the wall or use it for balance to make sure you don't just fall. Also the air moist, the moisture in the air begins to grow more and more thick. There's almost a some source of liquid at some point in the future has kind of permeated what was originally dusty dry air with

liquid of some kind and the air itself grows more and more rancid in scent. It smells like refuse or rot. It's hard to describe and it's old, it's musky, and it's musky. It's terrible and it grows stronger the further you go. As you continue pushing forward, you also feel that the dusty ground is becoming more and more mud-like. Is it making my hair poof out and look stupid? A little bit, yeah. You spent all morning, like I never did you well in human climates. This is why I lived in the mountains.

Is there any light? Any light source? Just this, we're not, there's no natural light. We're not walking towards any type of light. It's just a tunnel into darkness right now. appear to be any type of plant life? From you can tell, there is no plant life at all whatsoever. There is just the moisture gathered on the walls. You can now see are dripping.

There is a, the condensation is given this tunnel more of a mineral-pocketed look, and the ground itself is getting more sledgey with each step. I want to make a, I'm sorry, you're not done. No, go ahead, go ahead. I was just gonna ask, are the walls like stone or just like chiseled out rock? It feels like it's chiseled out hard earth that has been packed and supported with either small wooden things that have been set to make sure that doesn't collapse at some point in time, but a lot of that has either fallen through or has been...

So it could collapse it any time. If you do any severe damage to its structure, it would probably a bad idea. Right, like drop a boulder down. It's not a mine shaft. I drop a boulder, terror. What were you going to say? I would like to make a... You tell me what check it is, but I would tell me what check it is, but I don't know.

What I want to do is look to see, I want to look down into this thick mud kind of stuff. What I'm looking for are tracks, and if I do well enough, I want to see if I can get a sense of like how fast the thing was going, like, as it slowed down because it's comfortable, or is it still running because it wants to get to a nice. Okay, make another survival check. So I'm underground. Actually, as a door, I give you advantage on that, so roll a gap. Oh, okay.

That makes sense. your place. The higher one was a four. Okay. The lower one was a one. The higher one was a four? Remember what I told you about the Wheaton Dice Curse? I'm sorry, I just, because no one will believe me.

No one ever believes me. This is genuinely. Wow. And at this point I'd be amazed that he hasn't helped us in any way of his own. Cast a perception check of my own? Sure. Okay.

There we go. So let's see, we are at 21. 21, okay. First thing, you are useless for the love of God. The pre-existing member of the Slayer has taken the man who is currently set to be the leader of your group. You're really beginning to wonder if this guild is kind of thing you really want to be joining at this point. I haven't been in a fight yet. True. God forbid. But looking down, you can see, there aren't really and you can see there are no tracks, actually. This lime has not been traversed in quite some time,

and the smoothness of it says that whatever came through here, didn't leave any footprints. At all. No. Also, as you guys continue, you reach a point where, especially with your heavy armor, let me go ahead and make a dexterity saving throw. Oh no. You got this. 10. So wait? 13. 13? Not bad. Okay. Yep, that was right. Okay. Okay. You're stepping forward to you. You're stepping forward to you.

keeping an eye out and you kind of look back at the group and take a step and your foot slips out from under you. Smack! You hit the slime and beginning to slide down the tunnel as part of the decline. You guys watch as your cleric just swoosh and Gooney-style slide vanishes into the darkness. It's our time. It's our time down here. Shaw has vanished into the darkness and you hear, I see this happen. I run over, I'm like, this looks like a lot of fun, bruce through the air, because you're flying still.

Oh. I still, at 10 minutes pad? They don't last for like 10 minutes. Oh, then yeah, it's clock. So you just slide after? Yeah, I go, this looks a lot of fun, and I go on a slide. Tiberius slides after. Faces the body first, across the slime.

And then I see Tiberius go and I go, and I go too. All right. Three of your party has just vanished into the darkness, hoping that fate will take them to some places. of pillows and feathers. I think I'd rather walk as long as I can. I think I'm with you.

Yeah. All right. You guys both make dexterity saving throws. Uh, 16. Oh. Wow. You both finish to slowly make your way down this tunnel. My dex was 18, by the way.

What's up? It doesn't matter. You jumped into your stuff. Which is sliding perfectly. You intentionally. Can't even hear you anymore. You're miles away. You guys slowly being making a radar down the tunnel, as you can't even hear them anymore.

You guys, one after another, sliding down the slime and grime going past. You smell in the air what sounds like vegetable matter that's been long, long falling in compost, along with what smells like rancid feces mixed with mold. It's just this terrible, continuously growing scent. I put up my nose gets. Until eventually, out of the darkness, because you're ahead of everyone, you're outside of the of his light spell, the slime stops and there's just air. Hey you guys!

A few moments of this air rushing past you is immediately stopped with a wet sound as you impact hard into some sort of heavy, spongy matter. Thankfully because it's spongy, you only suffer four points of damage. So you mark that somewhere on a sheet. mainly just from the way you land in your armor, like it kind of just sticks into your, you know, where the plates are,

and just the impact was bad for your body. But you're now in darkness, looking up, sitting on what feels like you're on some sort of strange compost heap. Looking up, you've seen the darkness, this small light you can do appear. Oh, no. Oh, dragon board.

I'm laughing, by the way. Can I try to be, since I hear him laughing, can I try to get out of the way? Okay. Goal out of the way as the two of you screamed out. With the light that now shines, you can see this is a salient cistern of some kind, like it is a tunnel that is very tall, and you both impact into the same heap.

Shitters full! As we land, I look around, I'm like, oh, that was a little fun. That was awesome. I cast presentation three times in a row and clean us all up. You try and clean what you can, but you guys are like knee to nearly waist deep as you get up and move around. Or at least our faces. Your faces are clean. A wonderful smell you've done.

And this is, it's a terrible smell. This room is, quite honestly, a mixture of long rotting food, of dry vegetation that has been discarded here for whatever reason. A lot of it's like hay and thatch that has been just rotting and molding for, God knows how many years, and quite honestly, in feces from some intermittent entity. I go ahead and I use my druid grafts to take out some of my sage and kind of lighted and kind of spread some of my Sage Brown. Thank you. You're making it worse.

You're making it worse. Now it's smoking. Now it smells and I smoke in my eyes and I just cut it out. Just cheated out of my face. As you guys doing this, you guys are making your way down the tunnel and you have a ways to catch up to them. You do hear. We do. You hear this.

And as you look around with the light, you can see a little bits of movement kind of leaping through this heap. Insects, really? Rats. That's going to be wonderful. Then suddenly, shoo-h-thrusting out of the heat. Threathing. under this heap, you see what looks like a large arm or tendril. Kind of brownish tan in colors slams onto the side of it. A second one.

Oh shit. I go invisible. All right. You've got a help. What are the hell to me? At which point you now see emerging from it, the two of these giant tendrils, which they end are covered in these long, teeth-like spines, kind of grasping the sides of this stone cylinder, pulling itself out of the refuse, shaking as it pulls itself forward. You now, you now, see the body that contains it with one-third central tendrils that rises up, whether it looks like creepy eyes or nose holes that are kind of looking around and glancing at both of you.

And you see merging beneath that the body, this large, eight to ten foot thick, wide, covered and just slime body that is this gargantuan toothy maw that opens up with a tongue that lalls out. And that's where we're going to go ahead and end today's session. 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.

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the voice and face of modern leadership entrepreneur, and self-improvement. Let's get started. 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

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