Critical Role & Sagas of Sundry - Vox Machina Ep. 29 - Whispers

Episode Date: November 30, 2021

Vox Machina begin their campaign to sow the seeds of rebellion amongst the people of Whitestone. The cruel Sir. Kerrion Stonefell is the first target on their list, but will the attack against him unleash a darker power? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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as common folk as the rest of the poor saps that still live in White Stone. They scoped out an abandoned tavern, which they fitted to their needs as kind of a base of operations, and and also managed to come across a central portion of Whitestone's city structure and history, known as the Sun Tree. A tree once risen to the might of the sun god, Pellor, now lies dead in the center town, and from it hung eight figures that appeared to have been individuals killed, hung, and painted up, and dressed to resemble Vox Machina as essentially a warning or a welcome. It's hard to tell when it comes to the Briar Woods. Nevertheless, a man. message was definitely delivered. The party retreating back to the tavern set up for

the remainder of the afternoon. Kielaith carved through her druidic, magical ways, through the ground to find some of the roots of the sun tree and began preparing an extensive time-consuming ritual in hopes of restoring some semblance of life to the entity itself. So that is where we left off. So while the rest of you have been Going about your preparations for the rest of the afternoon, as this ritual for Kiela is an eight-hour ritual, and it begun in the early afternoon, around 1, 2 o'clock.

So this will conclude by around sundown, a little past sundown. While she is down there, essentially meditating with the barren roots of the sun tree, is there anything you guys would wish to do, or are just waiting for her to complete her ritual? There are options. What do we need?

What do we need? What do we need? We have to get water, right? There was some issue about, we don't have any water, do we? Was that an issue? I don't remember. There was some wells around. Can I do a few checks while I'm kind of preparing the ritual

to kind of see if this is a curse over this tree? Go ahead and make a religion shot, I guess. My ring of protection is on the way. Isn't it always? Nine. Nine. Honestly, it's hard to tell if it's a curse, the tree itself is just dead, or is... You are very well connected with the natural essences of the world and the life essence of plants and natural growth.

All of your interactions of the sun tree are devoid of any response. it seems dead where it stands. But you continue your ritual. I hope this works. Anyone else? Me too. Well, a couple of things. Grog and I were keeping watch.

And I forget, one of us was on the first phone and one's on the second. I'm just going to say that I was in the second. Okay. For now, because I can't remember. It's probably wrong. I'm going to take all daggers out of my blinkback belt, except for the Keen dagger, and replace them with wooden stakes that I purchased. And I'm gonna spend an hour or so,

whatever it takes to, you know, I've got partial gloves on. I'm gonna take that symbol of Sarenrae, and I'm going to take as much time as it needs to sort of sew it so that it is fixed firmly to the back of my right hand. Okay. And I tell Grog that I'm gonna go down below and check. and I follow the path all the way down to find, I think everyone else is down there.

Oh, hi, Vax. I step over Scanlan's head and I kneel down by Keelith and gently place a hand on her shoulder and say, what do you need? What can I get? I don't really know. I don't know if this is gonna work,

to be totally honest. It's the tree's death. Do you have any of that holy water? I took, I got holy oil. Not water, I have holy water. Do I have holy water? I took one or not. I can't remember.

It's getting riddened down. It's not in your inventory. Um, you're probably pretty good about that. I don't think I... In the meantime, there are options. I got two... I remember, I remember it. It was two vials of holy oil. I gave one to my sister, and I have the other. If you think it will help, you take it.

You need me get water? Yeah, let's get some water. Yeah, because as you guys went through the tavern, you found there was no actual water. There was old ale, there was still a few casks of wine, stuff that was just abandoned when whoever previously was the owner of this tavern, either left White Stone or fell to a worse fate. But there was no just plain water to drink, so. I'm going to go out into the street and I'm going to find water. I can show you where there's water. What?

I've lived here my own life. Are you guys disguised? Yeah, we all are. We all are. There's still technically under your seeming spell, for the next few hours at least. Yeah, we cannot let that go. That has a range, does that have a range?

No, it just lasts. It's okay, I'm under-go. As far as I know, it lasts just for an eight-hour period. I double check. Percival, do you want to come up upstairs to the window? I'm coming. Oh, you're coming too. All right.

Of course. Let's go. You're my son, let's go. Yeah, I just last for eight hours. lasts for eight hours and it allows to change the appearance of... Great. We're still peasants. Remember we also have Heroes vest up. Yeah.

Oh, okay. Advantage on wisdom throws and whatnot. Hit point bonus, advantage of wisdom throws. Great. Yeah, two D10 hit points, maxed points. I have my advantage of still. Oh, that's right. I got a good role in that. So I'm going to leave them to the closest well.

Okay. That's still for you? I'm going to kind of start. I've kind of cleared out around the roots. And it's just earthed and giant roots from a very large tree that go past. You aren't at the bottom dance. You're just, you met the roots as you were carving through. They go even deeper than where you are.

Can I just kind of start carving almost like a little ravine around it from where we're going to start pouring the water? If you've already started the eight-hour process of the secondary spell. Derry spell. Okay. You would have to be able to interrupt that to continue another spell you've been doing. I could say that you did that as part of your preparation for the room. Right.

That's fine. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's fine. It'd be a small ravine because you also don't want to. Damage anything. Damage anything. Okay, so you continue your ritual. Yeah.

The rest of you, make your way out the same window that you entered into the alleyway. Following Percival, you lead them to the back of the tavern into one of the large alleyways between this chunk of the of the city. You find there was a grassy area. Most of the grass here has turned gray and brittle, as it is starting to push towards the winter months. And even for the daytime, the temperature is pretty chilly. It's probably around 50 or so, degrees 55. Fahrenheit for our un-American friends. So eventually make your way to the nearest well that you've been to, and there is a bucket there. It looks like it has gathered some dust and some cobwebs.

You put the bucket, you let it down, and eventually it finds its way into the water. It's pretty deep before it hit the water. You don't know if it's been just like water level of the particular well itself is drawing up, but you managed to get a bucket up and pull it up and check it. It looks clear. take the water back with you to the tavern. Seemly uneventful, you guys have managed to stay far enough out of sight, or nothing seems to have cut your attention.

Should we scout around and see if there's anything else around the hideout that we should be aware of, or any other hiding places or safe houses? I feel like we should probably bring a little more water than one bucket, so we should spend a little bit of time doing that, but maybe I can, my sister and I can have a look around, and see if there's anything that we've missed outside. Well, here's the question, is it?

There's three lordly houses that we have to avoid. It all costs for now. Okay. There's a few shops that if we feel might be in our best interest to scout out, I know where an old weapons depot used to be. Ooh. We could check the temples to maybe see if we have,

could maybe find some support to begin with. Do we trust? to anyone here. We need friends. There might be people I trust. Is there a central meeting place? There's a temple. Well wait, is that a place where you can really chat up brand new people? Is there a pub? I guess it's not really a pub town. It's not a pub town and it's a place where you don't necessarily chat up new people but maybe find some old ones. Okay. We could go there. First of all, we're on your turf so often

follow your lead. If we have just enough time I'd like to try to go to the temple at the cemetery. Leave maybe Grog and Vex to guard Kieluth. Okay. So Kailutu is staying behind to finish the ritual. I'm doing what I do best. I'm going to focus on my energy. Okay, so there are two temples in here. There's the temple to Pellor, which is known as the zenith within the graveyard. Yes, the zenith is the one I want to do it. Okay. What's the other? The other one is called the Lady's chamber. It's a temple of Arathus.

Sounds fun. I don't know anybody there. I might. It's one we're afraid they might know you, so no. The Lady's Chamber is Temple to Arathus is more central to the city and is partially a courtyard, partially like a half dome kind of an amphitheater almost place of worship. So you guys make your way through the city. Have you all roll stealth checks if you could?

We're not trying to hide, are we? We're not trying to hide, then make deception checks instead. This is too awesome, awesome. What am I? I rolled an 18 for something. Can I choose to hide instead of deceive? If you'd like to.

Yeah, I'll hang a little bit back from them. I was trying to be stealthy as well, so. Okay. Although I, yeah, I'm fine either way. I'm better deceiving. Okay. All right, so we have two folks staying to the shadow as best they can in broad daylight, in a clustered city,

and one child-looking peasant popper of a boy wandering through the city alone towards the graveyard. All right, as you guys make your way through, you guys kind of staying off to the side, running through buildings and staying off the main path. You kind of walk along the central road to the far eastern side of White Stone.

A few folks, you know, out during the day. Some are carrying bundles of textile goods. There's one guy who has a small cart and it looks like he's bringing tools and stuff from either two or from a store of some kind. It kind of gives you curious look as if he hasn't seen you before, but doesn't seem to. Goda. Okay. It just keeps rolling along. The wheel is kind of squeaking as he pushes up the road.

I wish I had a yo-yo. How about a wheel and stick? Oh, the wheel and stick would be good. It's really in the classic. Eventually, you guys make your way to the far eastern side of Whitestone. This is where the boundary wall that surrounds most of the city from a defensive standpoint lies. There is the multiple exit points throughout this wall. You kind of dart around the outskirts of it.

Being careful to avoid the pattern of the undead giants that are slowly stomping through the city, these hulking sentinels that sort of walk in it. sort of walk in a perpetual pattern through the town. You follow the winding path through the thick woods just in the outside of the walls of the city itself. You sticking to the path in your open way, or do you want to join them in the side of the forest? Well, I gotta stick with them, I guess.

Although I like being a young peasant boy. It's kind of fun. All right, I'll go with them. All right. So the three of you, dark, off into the woods, kind of skirting the outside of the road, but making your way, following it to the outside of the graveyard itself. Eventually, you come to the outside of the graveyard, large iron fence that marks the outside of it. It's rusted from just time. Small spikes

mark the very top of it, about six feet tall, and the gate itself is partially open. And with a little bit of breeze it's blowing through, very, very cold breeze that blows through this part the forest that's kind of opening a little bit against itself. You push through the game. Three minute. Oh, let me look. I'm just going to move in 10 feet ahead and see what I see. That is a 23 for perception.

Okay. You skirt up and look inside. And it's, there's a handful of trees and little clusters here and there. But for the most part, this old graveyard is flat land with just stones set up throughout. The older stones have very little rime of reasons to their placement. They're a little kind of sporadically thrown around.

The fresher ones tend to be more clustered with family names. It definitely looks like something that was put here when the town was founded and has been slowly expanded over time and it doesn't, it's not uniform. Here's back at Percy. This is the way to your temple? Yes.

Through here. Yes. You do see little ways ahead in the center of this open barren area. There is a stone temple that has, from what little you can see, a bit of stained glass pattern to it. Is it safe? Should we go up? Go up to the doors.

You're a stout. Okay. Percy walks up to the doors. Oh, see. We're going. All right. This is my neighborhood. I feel comfortable.

Okay. You, um. You, um... All right, papa, let's go. You go to the doors of the temple, the large wooden doors, which in them are carved this, this like flaming wreath into the wood. It looks almost like the outer ring of the classical depiction of a sun and going across the sky where you can see the waving flames,

looking to the sides of the actual doors. And it is a double door. As you tug on the handle at the front, it... Shatley. It gives... gives very, very little to you. Like a civilized person. And you give a little more of a tug on it.

Not enough to gather attention, but just enough to really see if it's just stuck or if it's locked. And it appears that the doors are not opening. And I look. Thank you. This is what he does. It is what I do.

This is an old type of lock. Hold on. There is no lock, actually. There's no lock. Oh, but I rolled a natural 20. Does that help? Let me get through the show. Suddenly a lock appears.

utterly pickable. Unerly pickable. It's the most pickable lock I've ever seen. There is no lock. It is barred from the other side. There is some heavy wooden plank that is currently set on the other side of the door. Where's a grog when you need them?

So with your expertise in these sort of circumstances, you know that with proper placement of a long blade and enough strength and weight, put at the right fulcrum point, you can probably shimmy it off, and it may take a little bit of a teamwork to do so. Okay, who's got mine are all very small? Did you have a short sword?

I remember you having a short. Everything I have is short. Actually, I can just go in there and open it from the inside. Oh, right. I always forget. Would you? It's not concentration, so I can just jump in there.

Essentially. Don't pews with a church pew. If you're referring to a dimension door. Correct. It's not concentration, I don't think. No, it's not concentration. It's more of a sneeze. Yep, yeah. You can visualize it. There's not be a place you've seen yet.

I can just go, I can say I want to go 10 feet in that direction. Yep. Okay. Oh, two feet. Okay, before I do, why are we trying to get in here? I thought it was to meet people. I don't think there's anyone in there. I need to...

I would like to find out what happened. Okay. Good enough for me. I go in. Okay. With a burst of kind of dark, purplish energy, Scanlon steps through the door, leaving no marker trace behind. And the other side, you hear the smuffled,

as he reappears in the opposite side, completing his transition. You appear now in the central worship hall of the Zenith Temple. To each side of you, you can see there are windows, about 10-foot wide stained glass windows, about every 10 feet around this pattern. It looks like three to each side.

There are pews set up for the masses to come and sit and worship, but a lot of the pews have been pushed off of the side, set astray. Some have been destroyed and ruined, and there's a pile in the corner of a number of sundered and tattered pews. There is a red carpet that marks the center that goes all the way to, it looks like a raised altar on the opposite side of the room. You can see that,

that some of the stained glass further down has been shattered and broken, and a little bit of sunlight kind of creeps through. You also, you can see there is on the altar, a large stone platform that has, it's hard to see quite from this distance, make a perception check. Stone, open the dark.

We do have earrings. 17. There appears to be something on the altar in the distance, small and kind of scattered about it, but from this distance, it's hard to make out the details. But you do here, Vax muffling through the door. All right. How big is this thing that's keeping the door shut? It's about eight feet wide. About a foot, eight feet long, about a foot wide, and about six inches thick, big old piece.

It just wooden board. A couple hundred pounds. First of all, you were about to say that you have a bar. I say, probably weighs about. I do have a blade. I've never used it for anything. Forty-50 pounds. It's wood. It's wood. It's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, And how high off the ground?

Could I touch it? You can touch it. It gets to about your head a little higher. All right, I'm going to try to lift it off. Go ahead and make a strength check. Athletics. Athletics. Athletics?

Not good. 12. Oh, you know, it's so good. From this position, it's not even budging. Oh, no. Right. Scanlon, you know. Oye. Step back from the door a couple of paces.

I'm going to stick a blade through the doors. It's not going to do much. There's a big, heavy. Big heavy thing, heavy thing. I'm going to hold on one side, you're going to hold on the other, and we'll do it together. Percy, can I borrow a blade? I've never used this. I've had it since I created

the character, and I've never used this blade once. This is the most use it's ever gotten. I pull out this pristine piece of shit. Just I don't even remember. I think I found it in the dungeon. It's terrible.

What is it? It's, I believe It was like a, it was a, like, boarding sword. It was one of those little curved, curved swords. Right, a scimitar or falchion. Yeah. Okay. But like short, it was nothing.

It was terrible. It's all we need. Yeah, so get it in there. All right, Scanlan, grab some rags or something, wrap it around the blade. You're gonna lift on your side. We're gonna lift on this side. I get the sharp side?

I can't get the handle through the crack in the door. All right. I could, I feel like there's some sort of spell I could use. All right, let's just do that you're like. Bigby's hand, is that in a name? Yeah, I've got like a million things I could do, but let's do it this. Concentration, but that's the thing,

or any of my concentration, but I've also got a potion of strength. As a note, seeming isn't concentration. I thought it was. No, you just cast it and last for eight hours. Oh, never mind then. Don't even worry about that. No, no, no, I want to follow this through.

Let's do it. Let's keep going. All right, can we lift it together. We can try. Okay. This is the first year we've ever done. So this is going to be the three of you as a skill challenge. I want all three of you to roll not athletics,

just a straight strength roll. One, two, two, three. So roll D-23. 16. So bad. The strength. 12. Did you get a four?

Four. We're the worst. Where's the weakest? Oh, I cut my head. Which is exactly what happens, actually. Big his hat, big his hand, big his hand. I'm gonna take damage. Yeah, first and foremost, you take four points of slashing damage.

Of course, that's your hand. You pull back and there's a line of blood now. Damn it off your hand, and you kind of shake it amongst yourself. Send all the big, strong men. Oh, I can't say, God damn it in here. I'm in Palo. Sorry, Palo. Pallor?

That's a sword. I want to see how this plays out. Guzuntite, Pallor. Man. Oh, man. All right. Well, geez, Louise. What about the purple hand, man? It seems like overkill. What about just a thunder wave? Can I do that?

Certainly. All right. Throwing everything we've got in this door. Does it only affect living things, or does it affect... Wait, wait, wait, Scanlon, are there window, are there any windows in there? They said the window was broken. Oh, there are windows. Good call, good call.

It's a blast of thunderous energy and area would affect living and non-living matter. Hold on, this is stupid. Are you sure? We're going to the window. We're going to the window. No, no, no, let's carry this out. No, no, we're going to the window.

Please do not destroy the temple. Three hours later, we're still trying to open the door. It's not even locked. It's just heavyish. Yeah, I can, I can, I can, I can big V's hands. Which way to the window? I can walk in the window. It's up there.

You can make it, but Tiberia. I could probably lift the door bar from inside. Yeah, that's. Oh yeah, you could probably. With your help, son. But I could blast it. You'd be very dramatic. Let's save that for later.

Important stuff. All right, fine. So where's the window? Which way do I go? So here's to the right. Yeah. Their window shot it on both sides. They're broken a little higher up.

So they continue to break the bottom part of the window. or just attempt to leap through the whole. Yeah, I'll attempt to leap through it. Okay, so make an acrobatics check. The saga of the door. It's just a door, you guys. It's just a door. 25.

25. You get a running start, leap off the side, and parkour up between the actual. There is an extension to the side where another room is that's attached on each side of the temple towards the back. Yes. You leap off that wall onto the small pillar

that's holding the side of the window and then up through the broken portion of the stained glass, landing, three-point landing on the inside. You almost land in one of the shattered piles of wooden pews of splinters and jagged pieces of wood sticking out. About a foot away from you, and you're like, oh, that was close. And just gambling across the way.

You see the altar to your right. Hey, oy, your stupid idea cut my hand. Builds character. I'm going to stay away from the altar and just skirt the wall all the way around. Okay, and get to the door. Yeah. All right.

I'm going to try to help. You want to help me lift this thing? With my good hand, yes. Come on, Shorty. All right, all right. Have both you guys make strength checks. All right. I, okay.

You know what? I'm going to get some assistance. I call my unseen servant to assist. Okay. He's going to lift with us. Simon, with this brief burst of when energy, a shimmering form, somewhat humanoid in shape, but still amorphous appears.

Hi, Daryl. and it means to shove itself up against the bottom of the wooden bar. So make a check as well? Well, that would say six. Is that for me? That's for you, and then roll and add five for your unseen servant. Okay, so five extra to that is 11. Right? No?

Roll again and add five. Oh, I see. You got a six. Four. So that's nine. The three of you, one mystically summoned from a plane beyond your own, cannot see blood this single wooden door. You've defeated beholders. You've slaughtered illin underneath the underdark, deep in the belly of the planet. But this door, you invest you. Man, Lauren, Travis,

ain't missing shit. All right, I'm doing it. Step back. Whip out the hand. All right, I summon Bigby's hand, the mightiest hand that will ever unlock a door ever. Bigby's hand! This giant, glimmering, purple fist appears in your vicinity. You just reach it and grabs the bottom. Go ahead and roll a D20. Oh, my God. Come on. 12. Plus eight to it. Plus eight, 20.

How do you want to do this? One of his fingers just goes, and it, the door overkill, opens up and Percy stands there, not very happy. Was it overkill? Because really it took that.

It took three spells to open his door. Three spells. It's not overkill if you use what it took. Three spells and I injured myself. We took damage from an inanimate object. Oh, God. God. It's mugged up.

All right, get it out of our system now. Welcome, Percy. Oh, God. All right, I'm looking around. I'm taking in the damage. Anything that I noticed is particularly out of whack from the last time I was here. Other than they're upgrading the locks, apparently.

You, looking about, the place looks pseudo- ransacked. Ransacked. There has been much force used in whatever destroyed these pews. The glass that was broken was broken from the outside in, so it definitely seemed like there was someone thrown a rock through it or an intrusion from an outside standpoint. As you walk further down and look around, the two rooms to the side, the doors are closed, and there is the altar atop. And you do see there's like a couple small sacks kind of laid at the side of the altar what looks to be some low lit candles. And there are some brazers, one to each side of the altar,

and one against each wall. All of them appear to be long, dark, and out. Go and make a perception check. All of us? All of you. 15. 15. Okay.

You both, as you kind of approach the far side of the temple towards the altar, you notice the brazier to the right is smoldering ever so gently. Just a very, like just a very, very faint glow of ember to it. What's the matter? Rainel. Who? Raynal? Father Raynal? Father Raynal? Let's check one of the doors. Start on the door on the right. Okay. You step up. You can see now on top of the altar there, there appears to be a couple of of glass vials that are overturned. A little liquid is built. You can see bits of broken glass across the bottom, kind of the one step that leads down from the altar's raised platform. I'm going to dip and smell. Okay, make an investigation check.

13? 13, okay. Looking at just the general vicinity of the altar, you kind of taste liquid. It's definitely somewhat caustic in nature. You can't really determine it, but just touching it to your tongue, the tongue goes. numb for a second, you feel a slight burn. Your nostrils tend to kind of clear out a little bit from just the scent. There is like some random powders and such that are kind of been brushed off. You get the feeling that the way all this is treated, it wasn't so much like it was destroyed more than it was hastily packed up. Well, a perception check. 20. 20. Okay. Looking about the outside of the altar, you do notice that around the brazier that is slightly smoldering,

there is a layer of, that is just kind of gathered on the inside of the braiser and a little bit on the floor around its base. It couldn't just be ash from the thing that's burning? If you look at the other braziers, there is no ash around it, and most of the ashes contained. The wood ash itself tends to fall. It's a little heavier.

This seems to be a lighter shade of ash, and it's more of a, has kind of found its way out of the brazier from just the heat and the air. I want to smell the ash. Does it smell like some sort of, does it smell like, is it perfumed? Is it? You lean down and you take some of the ashen your fingers

and smell it. It's not perfumed, but you have some experience with dealing with various burning materials. This is definitely paper-based ash. You do also notice underneath the brazier, there is one sliver of paper that was not wholly burned. It's a golden ticket. Without sufficient magical essence, the distillation has proven to consistently fail.

A shame, really. I shall seek an influx of materials elsewhere before I can continue this project. Regarding the weapon, after a year of taking notes from eyewitness accounts, my original designs were faulty, and recently cost me my hand. The wind of fortune has seen a shift, it seems, as Salas just returned from Imon. Having encountered the still-living subject and had the pleasure of seeing his work firsthand, his unnatural eyes took in much detail. I believe his observations have brought me to the brink of finishing my design. I intend to journey from Whitestone within a couple of months to gather the components needed.

But if Delilah's hunch is correct, the subject is heading here. I may find myself needing to leave sooner than anticipated. They're trying to copy your work. Copy? I want to take another look at everything that was on the altar, and I want to see if it was. See if it looks. Go ahead and make an investigation check.

18. Testing was there. I mean, a lot of material has been kind of scattered and mixed, but there are elements that resemble the black powder you've used in some of your constructs and teakering in the past. They're making guns. We know we're looking for someone without a hand. To do what?

to find out who's trying to copy my work and... It's someone who's working with Silas, right? Yes. Yes. Let's check the rest of the temple. Yes. Okay, I'm going to go up on the altar. Was there a small something on the altar?

What you noticed were, like, some of the glass vials that were overturned and... What's in the pouches? Looking at the pouches, it looks like some of them contained phosphorus, some of them contained other chemical reagents that were used in the research, but most have been empty. It's just a residual. on the inside. Checking the door on the right. Okay. Door on the right. Going with.

It opens up into what was the father, Minel's room. As the door opens, you're immediately hit with terrible smell of decay. And you can see kind of shoved under the bed that first appears in the opposite side of the small room. room, what appears to be the remains of Father Eynel, long past and kind of left to fester beneath his bed. Can I tell how he died? We're welcome to go ahead and take a look. Roll investigation check.

23. 23. Looking at the body, it appears that there are a series of puncture wounds, rapier based. They're too long, like stiletto, they're too long to be a dagger. No, no. They're inflicted by a weapon, a long, thin weapon, and multiple, multiple to the torso. I'm going to search the room for anything else. Search the body.

Okay. Searching the body, searching the room. It looks like everything of interest has been taken from the place. You find some leftover stale food. You find some candles that are generally used for the purposes of worship here in the temple, but anything Beyond that, all the drawers have been emptied. Everything has been taken by whoever was previously setting up residence in this facility. Are there any holy symbols or anything that we might take to give to Keylift? I don't know. Wasn't she going to, I don't know, do some holy shit?

You do notice that, I mean, throughout the temple, there are images of Pellor, you know, a flaming wreath, flame wreath face, various sun stars that are set up, but most of them have been profaned, marked on, shattered, or covered in soot. An intentional effort has been made to dampen the power of Pellor in this once-holy place. Are there any untouched? None that are untouched, but there are some that could possibly be cleaned. A couple of small medallions that are hanging up actually in the room where the father lays. I'll snack those. I want to check the other room. Okay.

Make perception check. So much perception. All of us? 19. 20. All right. As you walk back into the main temple. Finish first.

All right. Your ears catch a faint, distant, sound like a strong wind pushing through a mountain pass. This like low, mournful white. mournful whale type sound. No wind is moving. There is a stillness to the air. Stepping back into the darkest shadows I can see here.

As you guys kind of take in this sense, the sound, it gets louder and louder, at which point the air itself gets colder and colder. As you kind of nervously exhale, you can see your breath becoming visible in the air around you. As you all kind of look at each other, you kind of stepping back in what shadows there are. as it is a very open temple.

It's a temple of sun. 32-step. You find what tiny little alcove you can of shadow. It's not going to offer a lot of protection once you move, but for now you seem to be out of the circumstance. I grab Percy and I make us both go invisible. Okay. So what is that, a third level invisibility?

Yeah. You guys both vanish, holding your place on top of the altar. And as that moaned, moaning tends to go louder and louder. You can see this shimmer at the doors that are open on the opposite side of the room. It looks like a woman, a form of a woman, but translucent in nature, just drifting in,

giving off the horrible sound as it drifts in, and you see it looking around. And it's just the features are gaunt as it gets closer. It looks elven by racial nature, but the eye eyes are just these sunken, faintly glowing sockets. The hair kind of wild and matted and floating behind its hands kind of reaching out. And as it gets part way through the temple, it looks like it's seeking something. And then its eyes fall directly on you too.

I'm throwing a dagger right now. Let's go ahead. Go! What if she was a good guy? It's a banshee man. What if it's a good banshee? Banshee. Some of the banshees that I've met have been decent.

We're rolling for initiative? Susie, the banshees. All right. I'm glad I used half my spells trying to get into the god. He's pretty good. Well. He means well.

He means well. That's a terrible costume. You guys are on the altar there. You built, like, you were so prepared for me to go to the temple that you built it. I built the whole city because I don't know where you guys were going to go. Jesus. It's a whole city, but places of interest. You don't have a pile of maps over there.

Don't look at it. I'm not looking. I'm not looking. I'm just noting the pile. So, first and foremost, let's go ahead and roll initiative. Okay. You will get a surprise round.

Okay. Natural 20 for initiative as well. You've finally got a good initiative roll. I got a seven. I got an 11. Okay. Together, we can get a slurpee. I don't know what, like, I'm weird tonight.

I don't know what's up. All right. I can't do anything. All right, well, first and foremost, before anything happens, this entity, as it notices your presence, it begins to transform and its image becomes more horrifying. As you pull your dagger out,

I need all of you guys to roll a wisdom saving throw. You have advantage, you have advantage. Natural 20. I rolled a one and then a natural 20. Nice. 17. Thank you for the advantage. You're welcome. You're welcome.

You're welcome. With advantage? I also always have advantage. So do I get to roll a third time? Oh, yeah. Unfortunately, you are considered frightened by this entity. Wait, can you be frightened after? You can't be frightened after a Heroes Feast.

Ah, then never mind. You feel it shake your form for a second. I am. It's horrible visual present. horrible visual presence kind of for a second freaks you out, but then you remember the knowledge your friends are here and you have a serve a purpose and you shake off any sort of Not only do I shake it off you had a breakfast I gored my loins You had your read Pull them up and get ready

You're your immune just for a refresher you're immune to poison disease and fear and you have advantage on your wisdom throws Wow Should do this every time we fly or Well it's expensive it's expensive. It's fine It's great so do I get to attack and then move into the combat round where I got a natural 20 plus five for initiative? You go first. Yes.

Technically, it's not a surprise round because the creature can sense life and solve them before it happens. So it wasn't ambushed. Okay. But you do get to go first and you do get to go before it. All right. And you surprise it if you need to use it in the surprise round fashion. These entities can detect living creatures of five miles away. So there's no sneak attack damage on this thing, is that?

If you get at first, you still have advantage. You still have advantage. So it doesn't see you. You're still hidden from it, so. 50. So this is a 26 to hit. That hits. Okay. And this gets the sneak attack damage?

This would, yes. All right, so here we go. But it's not a critical hit from Assassinate because. It's not surprised. It's not surprised. Correct. All right.

So that's a four plus seven is 11 plus 15, 19, 20, 24, 26, 28. Okay. Okay. And I just whip out, I'm just gonna keen dagger at three times in a row. Oh, I think I gotta roll to attack. So that is 12 plus 22. It's.

Okay. Two, and that is six of damage and then natural 20 on that one. Nice. That is 10, so 20. for that if it's doubled for a critical hit. Yeah, for double dice, not double modifier.

It's a dead. Oh, all right, so six plus 13. Okay, 13. Good enough. Awesome. So out of the shadows, whoosh, whee-w-wish, three daggers strike this, this wailing ghost entity. Each dagger punctures, and you see it reacts from the impact. It's a flash of magical energy with each hit.

The daggers then tumble out of its form and then blink back to your belt side. It looks like, it definitely, did some damage to it, but it's... You know what? Just to be fair, I changed out all my daggers except for one, so I probably couldn't throw the same dagger three times in a row, so I think I should pull back some of the modifier,

so I would pull out four, four, because my dagger is plus two. Yeah. Yeah. So the plus two for two of those hits gets taken out, right? It would actually, yes. It's a four, minus four damage. It's so truthful.

So we're fighting it with wooden sticks. Good intention. Wait, so you threw wooden stakes at it. I threw one dagger and two wooden stakes. Okay. So the first dagger hits... The first was the dagger, yeah. The two of their stakes passed through its form

without any other impact. One dagger does return to you, but the two stakes just clatter in the distance and the creature seems unharmed by those here. Even though they came out of the belt? Yeah. All right. Sorry.

It's okay. Just wood. You learned. So that ends that point? The creature now swoops up to the center of you three and gives out this horrible wailing scream that just bursts out in the air. You feel like the wind push you back, and all of you feel like the moment you're staring at your own death. Don't get them. Don't get them. Don't worry.

I need all three of you guys to roll Constitution saving throws. Does our meal help us with that at all? Nope. 11. Wait, don't forget you have the additional 2D10 hit- points on top. On top of everything. 16.

16. Okay. Both of you guys, you feel this chilling burst of spiritual energy blast through your soul, and you each take 14 points of psychic damage. Percy, however, as you look at it, it seems like this blast actually forces the soul from your body momentarily. You immediately drop to zero hit points in our unconscious. points in our unconscious. Ah!

But no! But no! No, he can't. Oh, God. Oh, God. So with that, you just see Percy just, eyes roll back and then collapse into the floor like a pile of cold bones.

Out. Percy, it's your turn. Go ahead and make a death saving throw. Well, he's still making seven throws. 11, okay. That's good sign. Scanlan, it's your turn. Very quickly.

Should we flee? Get the fuck out. In a little bit. In a little bit? Count Percy? Well, go. Get him up. You still have Bigby's hand, by the way, in the concentration.

Oh, that's right. See how long at last time? Oh, that's right. Let me see how long it lasts just to be safe. I haven't been there very long. Last time I tried to run away from time. Two minutes are probably defeated by now. God damn it.

Sorry. What are you doing, Scanlon? Um. Really, it's the door's fault. I'll just, um. Shit. Shit. I'll just lightning bolt her.

I thought you were actually saying. Hit it. Okay. So you release a bolt of lighting energy right in its direction. Go ahead and roll damage for that. Oh, just damage? Yeah, you don't have to hit for lighting bolt. It just hits everything in front of it,

and you have to try and avoid it. D6. What's the DC? That's fun. On this? Do I get my hand cone? It is a free action to pull it out. So you just give a hand cone cast the spell out.

The bolt blows. So 19. 19. A little lady. Does not make it saving throw? Great. Need more, need six. Nope, that's it.

I just need help counting. That's good. That's good. 16. 21, 27, 28, 29, 30. 34. 34. 34 points of damage.

The lighting blasts through her. Not impactful as you think it might be. This HD, because it is in a sort of ethereal state, is not as effectively hit by such magic. However, it does take damage. Okay. Okay. And I will

move back a bit away from the thing, and I will Oh, we have people. Conscious! No! Keep fighting! It's okay. It's cool. We've been listening in the car. It's cool. Okay, so you know. So, scaling, you move back.

Okay, and then I can, as a bonus action, I still get a bonus, I will, I will heal. him this doofus here okay I didn't do anything yelling word okay yeah so go ahead I'm bringing health points back yeah no motherfuckers don't know how to add yeah that's all I get ticket to the brieh all right ceiling word is 1d4 plus yeah but maybe I should maybe I should do it just just get me up it's okay just get you up okay one d4 plus something do it do it so two plus whatever six

Plus your spell level or something. Word will be. Yeah, plus five. Z4 plus five, so it's seven points. So seven hit points. You're conscious, but you're stolen the ground, face down, kind of loosely fallen over the step level. I don't get my turn until next round.

Correct. So Scanlan, your turn's done? Yep. Back, you're up. All right, so where is it? I'm just going to back away from about three steps while I pull flame-tonged dagger out of my cloak. You're in this room currently.

Do you want to- Oh, that, oh, okay, no. So I'm gonna walk, thanks. I'm gonna slide up the wall along where Scanlan is, towards Scanlan. Okay. And I realized before, another thing I realized, I haven't clicked my boots of pace,

so I wouldn't have been able to do, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, anyway. And I'm still not going to, but I'm pulling out my Flamedong dagger and now I'm throwing Keen dagger, Flame Tongue. All right. First one is a 26. Hits.

And the second one is 23. Hits. Okay. First attack gets 11, and the second attack gets eight. All right. Yeah, eight. Both daggers, hitting it. You see its form kind of being impacted by each dagger hit. It still continues to come forward towards the two of you. Is that the end of your movement? I'm going to, without doing any dash for anything, because I can, I'm just going to move as far as I can. Just going to kitty corner. Behind Scanlan, walking along the wall.

Over here? Absolutely. That far? A gnome. Yeah, that's as far as I can get. Yeah, that's good. All right, that ends your turn. The creature now is going to drift up to the unconscious form, or the now conscious form of Percy.

It's going to swipe at you with its corrupting touch. Since you're prone has advantage on the attack, that'll be a 20 to hit. What's your AC? Eighteen. Eighteen. As its hand reaches down and has as you just come to conscious and you start getting yourself up, you look up and feel this cold sensation, as his hand reaches through your back and seems to almost grasp your spine, your whole body lurches from the impact. You take 12 points of necrotic damage.

I'm back to zero. That's two. No, no, no. No, he starts over. It does? Yeah. I'm back to z- I don't know, really. What's up?

If he does, once comes back and dies again, is that two? No, no, no, he has to fail his death to save us. Unconscious. He's starting over with this. I just woke up and went, gna-h. And just, yeah. Pass back out again. That ends its turn, well, I'm just going to start moving now.

It's going to riff with the rest of its movement in this direction. That ends its turn. Go ahead and make your death saving throw. Yes, 19. 19 con. Yeah. A little snitch. Alrighty.

That ends your turn, Scanlan. You're up. Hey, should we leave? No, we should be. No, we should kill this thing. Damn it! Alright. We're not to be able to run. This thing flew in here on a breeze.

I don't think eye bite's gonna work against it. So, fuck, I'll cast Bigby's hand at sixth level then. Okay. Is that ever been done? I don't have any more fifth level slots, so I'm just gonna make it even bigger. Alrighty. I don't even know what it does.

Fingers going out the windows of the church. the church, like Allison Wonderlandish. There's so many fingers, all the fingers. Bigby's hand. She's looking. She's my head. The clenched fist deals additional 2D8 damage. Okay.

So if you're gonna punch it, it does additional 2D8 damage. Um, yes. I think I, uh... What are you gonna do? I'm going to do, I'm going to bitch slap it, uh, but the forceful hand. So I can just push it far away from us, possibly to the front door. Okay. I see. So it does no damage, but it does force it to move.

Yeah. Okay. Okay. And I'll say because you did it at a higher level, it'll just an additional five feet of movement on that. So as the hand shoves towards the creature, it takes no damage for that. In the forceful hand, it doesn't, no.

There's grasping hand and the plush fist. All right, so then I'll just hit it. I'll just hit it hard. Okay, so you bitch slap it, physically hard, clenched fist. Go ahead and make a spell attack. So go ahead and roll D20, add your spell, it's not fire.

I got knocked out. 14 plus, what am I adding? Oh, 9, plus 9. 14 plus 9, then hits. Go ahead and roll damage. That's 6d8, force damage because you cast them to 6th level. 6d8. I don't even know what those are. That's a 10.

They look like diamonds. There they go. I got one. Roll it once times. Two diamonds. Two diamonds. 24? 24. Even at 6th level, that's all it is. Yeah.

Okay. Thank you. The fist clenches and whammed. Bitch slaps the back of the whaling ghost creature. As it does, you hear it scream out in pain, as its special form is scattered across the air and dissipates the whale. You killed it! What?

Oh, thank God. You smashed it. You killed it. But I'm so little and wee. Lift yourself up for a victory lap. Yes, I lift myself up with big baby's head. I have a great idea. You toss yourself a couple times.

I come. Okay. Oh. Meanwhile, Percy's unconscious. Oh, shit, Percy. No, I've got three healing, four healing potions. I pour, it's not the best. It's greater healing.

Fine. So it's 44 plus four. Glug-glug-glug. I will also sing for him a song of rest, which is just another D6. If you guys are taking a short rest. Yeah. Oh, are we clear of danger?

We don't know, but I poured the potion into Percy's mouth. 44 plus four? Yeah. Yep, you got him. Four, five, six. Wake up, handsome. Nine, ten, fourteen, yeah. Yep, I'm awake.

I heard, but. I slap him twice anyway. What do we go? What are we doing here? The priest's dead? Is there anyone else, or should we head back? We should head back. Apparently, any help I thought we'd find here is obviously gone. Should we check this other room first before we go?

Did we not check the other room? No, no. Let's check the other room. Quickly though. Quickly, though. We'll check the other room quickly. Well, they check the room. I'm going to...

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That's a, oh, no, wait, I keep forgetting that rogue skill. That's a 20. Fucking hilarious. God. I was really hoping you missed that part. No, we heard it all. Looking over the altar, um, appears to be smooth, solid stone. Nothing catches your attention to that.

You check the other room. This is a small kitchen. essentially for whoever was running here would make small meals or things to delineate during worship and or just cook for its own meals when the father was keeping. Has it been used recently? Is it? It does not appear to have been used. You make an investigation check to gather an idea of how long it's been there?

I'm going to look around as well. Fourteen. Food and stuff. Of 12. 22. Okay. You get the feeling that the last time this was used was a little under a week ago. Cool. All right. Any provisions that we can take? Water, food?

You find a couple of loaves of stale bread, some dried meats, salted dry meats, some jerky-ish type things. Things that are meant to last a while. There is produce here, but the produce has long wilted and got to rot. Is there any sign? I have theories on who's been using this space. Is there anything that would clue me into who's been using the space? It's hard to really tell. You're not too much to really tell. You're not too much. familiar with lifestyles of different individuals. Whoever left the notes and whoever was dabbling with the vicinity does have a tendency towards sciences and, you know, alchemy in ways that seemingly can blend and overlap with your specialty. That's the best you can ascertain based on the information given.

Now here's the question is, do we leave them a sign that we're here or do we hope that they don't notice? Well, let's leave them a sign. We're supposed to be sowing discontent, right? So let's leave a sign that someone was here and fucked up their shit. Do you want me to pee on the on the altar? No. I take my dagger and I go to the altar. Wait. No, don't leave your dagger. It's your only one left. Why don't leave this shit so long? You want that? I want that. I start Would you hand me that scrap of paper? Yeah. Oh, this is our sign? So I still, so I still. I

It's our here. Carving this. Is this Pellor? This is not Pellor. It's part of the crest of D'Rola. Okay. D'Rolos are back! Okay, so I just start scraping it into the stone with the But it is a form of the Pellor.

It gives us a horrible screeching sound as you carve into this well-polished stone surface that's used, predominantly for worship or when it was. But given about five, ten minutes and you managed to search it scrape a design into it that is visually distinct against the smooth surface and does match the design, best your ability that person. I would also like to drag father of Rinald out of his room and put him at the pedestal. Okay. And then before we go, I'm going to the wooden door, and I carve into the door. Pellor lives in white stone. Out of work, guys.

Six hours later. It's wood. It took me five minutes. Okay. You finish your carving, seemingly without recurring incident. I'd like to head back now. Okay, you guys make your way out of the temple, back into the center of the graveyard.

The sun is beginning to set. You know, the reds and purples of the night sky are starting to creep in as it just begins to crest on the far western side of the mountain. the mountain range surrounding the valley. I have a question. Yes. What's the weather been like since we've been in Whitestone?

It's been spotty, cloudy. The sun has come out during the daytime? Bits and pieces. There is heavy cloud cover. This is you pushing through. It kind of brings colder weather. It looks like when you first got that there was some snowfall that happened before you arrived.

You've had a few days of sun, but I'd say about half the day is cloud cover. Does it seem to be fairly natural weather for this time of year? Okay. In this far north too. All right. All right. You guys... I also grab those wooden stakes off the ground.

Okay. It takes you a little time because there are amongst a bunch of other broken wooden scraps. I grab a couple extra as well. Okay. You find some splintered wood. All right, you guys make your way back into the town. I'd like you all to make a stealth or deception check if you prefer. Deception. All right.

Do, do, do, do, to do, I'm just a peasant boy. Thirteen. Thirteen. Good day, sir. 23. Okay. 32. All right.

As you guys are making your way back towards the tavern, there is a small group of white stone villagers walking and having a conversation seem not heated, but there is a sense of desperate conversation amongst them. and standing with them, you can see there is an older gentleman, mostly bald, long, kind of scraggly gray hair that falls past his shoulders, a little bit hunched. He's wearing dark leathers and a cloak that's kind of over one shoulder and kind of drags the ground behind him. And they're talking to him, and he's kind of growling to himself. And the best you can make out is there's an argument about farming shipments and the inability to make dates and requirements. He shouts back to the remainder.

He says, listen, it is beyond my control. This is what has been decreed by Sokarian. That is how it will be. If you cannot provide, then taxes will be pulled. If you cannot pay, then there are far worse things we can take. Beyond your way. And kind of steps away from the group, looks over and sees a little boy and this kind of,

in the shadows skulking individual. You there? Yes. You knew around here? A bit, yes. I don't recognize you. And two of the guards kind of stepped forward. I suppose it's all good luck then.

What's your name? Reggie. Make a deception check. Fuck my life, I know. Twenty-one. My name's Reggie. But make yourself useful. Maybe you can make it for some of these lost crops with these bags of shite.

Keep saying they can't do. I'm actually supposed to be going back for a... I don't give a shit. Move on, boy. Yes, sir. And... He crumbles and keeps on walking. The guards kind of give you a look, one of them kind of spits at your foot. He keeps walking on.

Eventually they drift aside. You continue your path back to the tavern. where the rest of you are waiting. The sun has now set, night has taken the sky, and Kulip is on the verge of completing her ritual. I'm cleaning my nails as I'm watching her. I'm keeping an eye on the, from the second floor. I want to see how much movement in the city there is

and whether or not there's any guards by the tree, whether or not the tree seems to be left to its own devices. Okay. As you're keeping watch, You notice there, occasionally there will be one of the zombie giants that will lumber through the center of town. There's a very specific pattern that they tend to follow. Definitely trying to memorize that. And you do notice a couple of other guards that you didn't notice during the day, it began to show up.

They're humanoid, they're armored. They kind of skink around. You know? They're humanoid, but their movement is unnatural. So a lot of light in the town or not very much light? Not very much light at all. There's very, very low lit points at certain crossroads that have been left up for general visibility, for those who have to travel at night. But as you gather, most people just do not travel at night

here in White Stone. Make sure no lights are lit in our. We've already blacked out. I blacked out the windows. Okay. So we can actually have a light. Keyliff. Yeah.

You finally complete your ritual. Uh-huh. Sweat pouring down your brow. You have your hand on the roots. Can I kind of do something, something real quick for my final, like, for like the last final. Little extra drama? Little extra drama.

So as I kind of complete the ritual, kind of remembering that Pellor and this is like a sun tree, I'm going to cast my sixth level sunbeam spell, kind of one more, this infinity. finishing the plant growth with like the last big essence. I'm underground. Oh, okay. So I'm going to take my sunbeam and kind of wrap it up with my druid goodness

and shove it in the tree. You're going to shove it where the sun don't shine. Nice. Nice. I don't know if he's going to work on. You just shoved it where the sun will shine. I hope it in Spenadey. Roll a D20 and add your wisdom modifier.

Do I get advantage on this because, you know, like, Heroes Feast? I would say no, because this isn't a saving throw, and because what you're attempting to do is essentially convert a highly damaging spell into a non-damaging circumstance at the end of an eight-hour endurance match with a ritual. This is going to be a difficult attempt. So go ahead and roll D20, add your wisdom modifier.

I hope I didn't just fuck up by doing that. You got it, Keyleth. Heleth. Yeah, you never get arrested or anything. You're good. The green one. This is you're doing greenery. I'm so nervous.

Okay. All right. Natural 20. Easy. Natural 20. Or a six. Oh, no. My wisdom is not bad, so 12.

Oh. Wow. You complete the ritual and release the healing energy of your plant growth spell. As you release it, you begin to concentrate in the sun right. and you begin to see, throughout the pieces of earth around you, seeds quickly begin to germinate, and small little bits of ivy or greenery begin to pierce out from parts of the earth in your immediate vicinity, as this affects a large radius. There does not appear to be any sort of immediate reaction

by the tree. You begin to pull back and concentrate on the spell. You begin to pull back and concentrate on the spell. You release the sunbeam forward in the frustration of the lack of reaction from the tree and the desperation to make sure some effect happens. You release the full force of the beam as opposed to the recoil aspect, and you burst into some of the roots, blasting some of them apart, and beginning to set flame to part of the under the tree. Oh, cool. That's cool. Cool story. There's a bucket of water. Bucket of water. You guys hear this.

That's right in front of... I pull out one of my cloaks in my bag and start trying to put out the flames. Can you let's water? Is that... Was this supposed to happen? Is that good? Was this good? Should I stop? I keep putting out the flames. You put out the flames and you notice where the fire had kind of burned. aspects of the wood. There is the black charm marks across the roots where the flames touched, and the area surrounding the root is a little more of a vibrant brown color, almost like

a little hint of light seemed to have seeped into the root. Oh my god. It expands for a moment, and you can see a little bit of life return to that localized section of the tree. I kind of like a, like a starting a fire. Like, Tomah, cast away. As you're watching her do this and you're like... Can I kind of like, like, druid crap, like be like, come on! As you do, still like these bits of kind of ivy greenery, this long-embedded seeds through years and years and like generations of earth layering in here.

These long dormant seeds are starting to come to life and kind of spring through the earth around you. The expansion of this, the healthier portion of the root begins to spread and then stop spreading. You're going to notice all the greenery begins to immediately wither and crumple and turn to ash. And you watch as the vibrant aspect of the roots slowly drain from the bottom up,

like something is pulling the life force out of the roots. Sucking the life force out of the earth. I take some of that holy oil the backs gave me and I kind of dip my front. finger in it and start rubbing it along the binds that are growing. Along the edge of the roots. Take the whole oil and place it along the roots and it soaks into the dry and in some cases now chart aspects of the roots.

You wait a moment and the oil seems to almost burn off and evaporate. Wow. So the ground is cursed. The ground is cursed. What is cursed? Well, who? Should I try peeing on it? Make a perception check.

Who mean? Perception check. That thing you hate doing? No, I'm good at perceiving things. I'm just not good at reading people. You know what we need to do. That's not bad. 23.

Hydroponics. No ground. Just grow to water. The pattern of decay that followed your initial attempt at reviving this vicinity, all had a very distinct downward motion of drain. There was something about the ground, something beneath the tree and where you are that is seemingly taking the life force from the surroundings. Oh my god, what if the vampire like thing is right underneath us? I was going to say, can I still see the green kind of being sucked down a bit?

At this point it's all. All the life force was very quickly green. Can I use my prime able to be able to be. Is my prime mable awareness and sense any sort of like vampiric presence within like our very close vicinity? And what's the radius on that? It's, I mean, it's a minute, it's up to six miles if I spend six minutes. Okay, so you take your time and you get into focus and it expands and expands. As you do, focusing on vampiric presence, you feel a fair amount of presence above. below and further north, and smattered throughout the city. You get the sensation at this

point in time that there is much more beyond just Lord Breyerwood that have come to be a creature of the night in the city. That's house everywhere. Maybe they're not below the tree, maybe it's just the soil. Yeah, the ground is tinted. I'm exhausted. Let's sleep. Let's sleep. Who is she going to sleep? Surrounded by vampires. We're just going to sleep surrounded by lots and lots of vampires. I'm going to tinker for a moment on my glove with that thing I talked about. Okay. Make an intelligence check.

An intelligence check? Yeah, just a straight intelligence check. 14? 14. The incorporating this organic organ, keeping it from rotting is already going to be a feat. In order to incorporate any of its natural charge, essence is going to require your workshop. Doing that on the go is going to be,

it's too intricate. I just want to think about it. Yeah. It's fine. It may be functional. It's definitely possible to use what you extracted from the Bihir to be a way to charge your diplomacy, but that is something that you'll have to do in a controlled space

when you have everything at your disposal. It's a very delicate process to even attempt it. I think we get it. I'll take first watch. Okay. You all take an evening's rest. I'm sorry I couldn't fix the tree, you guys. We learned a lot. We learned a lot. We even did that awesome fire thing at the end. That was really, really cool. Thanks. I was afraid I was going to like permanently kill it for a second.

When we know it's not dead dead, that it's just tainted. Guys, I just want to say that I killed a Dora and a Banshee, so. Really? Yeah. Why, Scanner. You killed a door. The door was harder to kill. The door.

That's some door. It's okay. I think I figured out what we have to do first. What do we have to do first? I think we have to kill Kiry and Stonefell. Who is that? Who? He's the one that everyone, he's the one managing all of the goods and all of the farming.

Is that who they were talking about today? Yes. Sir Kiri. Where is he at? I thought they said something else. Kirin's Stonefow. He's in one of the three, I would assume that he's been given one of the three mansions in town. You think if we find him, kill him and leave his body on some sort of public display,

it would sow some seeds of rebellion? Like an uprising? I think it would be the beginning. It's he's who everybody's afraid of. We could hang him in the tree. We could hang him in the tree. We could. Grog, could you do something nasty to his body? Just say the word.

This is messed up. All right. Do we check the mansions for them? I think we ask around to see if there's a way to ask around to find out who's in what house. Ask around, let's just go house to house and kill everyone in all of them. Let's... Eventually, yes. Hello, I'd like to share the news of our Lord and Savior. My axe in your face!

You could be Mormon. As you guys take your watches and go to sleep in the cold, interior, and it is a cold interior of the tavern as the night comes through. This is your first time really staying the night in the center of White Stone. Even though you slept in the forest, in the boughs of the trees itself, the temperature grows far colder here, and even with the warm interior, the windows frost over, and you find yourself having to huddle or build some sort of small fire to even keep someone's comfort to rest. You all eventually go to sleep throughout your various times. I would like everyone to make a

wisdom-saving throw. With advantage because you're still affected by the Heroes Feast. It's still noon tomorrow. Two p.m. tomorrow. Yeah. Yeah. Twelve. Oh, I take that one.

Seventy. Uh, 25. 20. 23. 14. Okay. All of you awake the next morning. Rested as best as can be, Percy.

Your entire evening, The entire evening was racked with a nightmare after nightmare imagery. You wish to not recall whispers and voices familiar, unfamiliar, seeing yourself pulled from your physical self into the heart of this Banshee and rest from death barely cackling the distance. I want you to go ahead and mark on your sheet one point of corruption. Oh. What does that mean? What does that even mean?

Oh, no. I don't know where that is on the sheet. As you wake up, the longer we're here. You find yourself, just wracked by those nightmares, a sense of nervousness comes to you, and there's a tremor to your voice now that's uncontrollable. At times of silence, you find yourself impulsively clearing your throat. A rough morning's rest comes out of fruition, Percy,

seems a little worse for where, asked in the evening's sleep. You're feeling okay? It was cold. Did you catch a cold? No, I'm fine. Is your throat ticklish? You're a little ticklish. I'm fine. Do you want some good berries that might help a little bit?

Taylor. Why? I'll take some good berries, yeah. All right, just, if you suck on them a little bit, they kind of like lodgings is. Lodgings is? Lethins. Shut up. Kenney.

It's a whole business opportunity. It's a whole business opportunity. It's a seeming has ended at this point, hasn't it? Seeming has ended, yes. So Trinket is a bear. Cricket is now a bear. Okay, cool. And not.

Not a donkey. But he's indoors with us, right? Yes. I've been laying on him all night. Oh, man. That was a good night's sleep. Who do we get to kill today? Sir Kirian. How many mansions are there? It's three.

Right. One. Three. Do you know which one he lives in? I don't. Shit. Only one way to find out. Yeah. Burn every house down except for the. those three mansions and see who runs out.

I like it, seconded. Oh. We could, I also think perhaps we should find a new place to sleep tonight. Oh. I think it might be best to mix it up. Okay. Keep moving.

All right. I've been peeing in the corner. There's a, there's a shot. That's why it smells like it does grog. What, look, it's like they did in old days in chamber pots, I've been I have my corner. It's my new creation corner. Sorry.

Yeah, that's my brand. All right, but that is ripe. We're leaving. You want to all be peasants again? Can we not just disguise ourselves in tattered clothes? I have a bear. We could also... We want to disguise the bear as a... Oh, wait, we could just leave the bear behind. In the house, yes.

It's a wonderful plan. Scanlan. And then we could go find another safe house. Scanlan. All right, fine. All right, seeming it is, we're all peasants and he's a donkey. And I'm a little boy. You're a little boy, a jovial boy without a yo-yo.

There's a shop that I used to frequent. We can see if that's perhaps been abandoned. I want like, I want a crazy eye in my C-Meoos. Of course. I'll give you two crazy eyes. No, I have two crazy eyes. That's an improvement. That's nice.

The majesty of bardic illusion. So we're going to go to beyond the horizon. Going to be on the horizon? Yes. All righty. You guys step out into the day's sun. Today is fairly overcast. Clouds have taken the sky, and there is a bit of a light mist that is falling from this.

Not quite rain, not quite drizzle, but just a mist in the air. It's cold day. The ground in most of the walkways and roads are a little damp due to the moisture in the air, not muddy, but just a little bit of a pack wetness to it. As you head over towards beyond the horizon, you step up to the corner, and that lies more in the northwestern quadrant of the city. A little ways around the street from one of the noble houses, so you kind of keep a wide berth. That was what I was.

You come to the row of shops that kind of book ended it before, and you go to the Curiosity Shop to find that the building itself is partially collapsed and ruined. The door is torn off the hinges, left to the side. Part of the ceiling has fallen in. Is there a basement? Oh yeah, secret doors. Can I use perception check to see if there's any kind of secret entrances in the rubble at all? Something that leads to a cellar. Do you want it into the building? You guys are still on the outside.

How collapsed is it? How does you go in and check it out? The whole building, and he's still standing. It just looks like the front entrance is like caved in and the doors were pulled up. I'll just kind of like old lady walk into the building and look around. Okay. I'll call in with her. Old ladies lick the air.

Yeah, she does. Crazy eyes. This crazy eye and old lady does. The eyes, they never go in the same direction. I wish I could do it. Looking about the inside, most of the furniture has been broken or taken. All the shelves, you can see a bunch of shelves set up, as this was once a curiosity shop, empty. Anything of worth has long been taken.

Um... Wait, grandma. Any yo-yo's in there? I'm looking boy! Uh, a large scattering of broken glass and a peppering of stains, dark, ruddy stains, across the hardwood floors. You can see spattered in places. Occasional rat seems to crawl out, and this isn't so... But there is no other sign of life within the interior. Go ahead and make an investigation check.

Oh, with no advantage, right? No. Till, what time is it? Oh, till noon. Till 2 p.m. Two p.m. Wisdom check, not saving for a week. Oh, never, never mind.

13. I know, right? That would have been an eight. Eight, okay. You take a while pushing through some of the rubble, checking behind the main desk, if you will, is to where most purchases would have taken place. The place is cleared out, and looks

like it's covered enough dust to have been left here for a better part of six months to a year. I can't see any kind of like door that leads to a cellar? Glancing about, you find what looks to be a small cellar door that opens up from the floor in one of the back rooms. You open it up, there's a small ladder, not even a staircase, a ladder that leads down in there. It's a small room about 10 foot by 10 foot. That room is also entirely cleaned out. Holyo, oh, you'll see it, boy. Okay.

Thanks, Grandma Ma. Okay. Okay. Can we use this as a base of operations at the moment then? But it's half collapsed. It would not be very protected. Yeah, we're fully exposed. Let's just take a walkabout and see if there's anything else around the area.

Yeah. Do you want to head in one of the directions of the mansion? Let's head to the closest mansion. Okay. So you skirt back towards the, the nearest crossroad, that heads northward to the very, very far northwest, northwest section of White Stone. There you come to this noble house, which is, has a nice kind of bronzed fence around the outside of it, probably about seven feet tall with these

intricate spears affixed to the top, almost in like a florid-type pattern, but look sharp enough to keep anyone from trying to leap over. The front gate is currently chained off with a lock on it. There is a lawn, but the lawn itself appears to be frost-crusted from the evenings, moisture and cold temperature. What grass is there is very gray and dull and currently crisp with a white frost dew. It's a slight hill, and you do see the building itself. It's a very nice building. It's like a deep brown, a lot of it appears to be like natural stained wood from the local forest surrounding white stone with highlights of deep green and black. There does not appear to be any immediate.

sign of life from the inside, but there does appear to be a light coming from the inside. So even at this point in the day, it can be dark on the interior. So you can see a little bit of light coming from one of the doors. So like a mailbox with the name? Are there guards out front or anything, or is it just a gate? It's just a gate currently. What if, what if... Can we want me to go in? What if we went to like, you know, the fields and we asked other peasants like how we report to what's this fuck, Kieran?

Kiran. Kiryan. Oh, that's actually a good thing. We could ask. I will say, chances that anybody in any of these buildings is somebody we're going to want to take care of is very high. This is just busts on in and kill him right now and then. Just whoever's in there?

Is that, yeah, is that actually what you're saying? You went from focusing on Kirian to just pick one and then it's on him. Are you feeling it all right? Yeah, you look a little pale, Percy. I am a little pale. the game show problem. Well, you know.

Are you sick? Does Kayla need to cast like, I don't know, like restoration on you or something? I just had a bad night's sleep. Scanlan, go knock on that door. Do you have a fever? Are you? I'm just a little peasant boy.

Is he running a fever? He is not actually. He's quite cold and clammy. Ew. It's my nice jacket. We can ask around, see if we can manage to ask somebody without arousing Is there anyone else on the street?

Right now, in this particular area, there is nobody on the street. You passed a few folks. A lot of them seem to be traveling southward. How far are we from the temple or the alcove? The alcove is a little further east. It's probably about a 15-minute walk. The other temple, which is the, that one is about 10-minute walk south of here.

It's closer to the south of the south. closer to the southwestern side of the city. We could take a walk to the ladies' chamber and see if we run into anybody there or on the way, and it's only 10 minutes out of our way. The ladies' chamber? Don't worry, it's not as exciting as it sounds. You know someone there.

It's not looking like it. He knows a Benji. I bet it's empty. I mean, it's a temple. The other one was a little. All right, but I thought we were killing somebody in this house. I thought so, too. We'll get to it.

I can just pop in and just see who's in there and pop out. What they look like. Be killed. He doesn't know what he looks like anyway. I'm just a peasant boy. You wouldn't kill a harmless peasant boy. I think they would, actually.

I actually don't know. We saw the tree. They do. They are a genuine proof that they are perfectly fine killing a small peasant. What is there in the way of guards out in the open now, and those giants? The skulking humanoids you saw last night

there were wandering the streets. None of them visible. You do take in that's far down the road to the east of you. There is a large shape looming around the corner and a shadow stretching across the road. And you hear the distant. Are we with an eye shot of that thing right now? Not yet.

It looks like it's coming around a corner as the bend of the road. Let's go to the temple. Is there anyone our size? Any humanoid guards around? No. Nothing? Currently, no. I'm kind of guessing the best.

time to sneak into any of these places is during the day. Do we want to sneak in though? You're the only one who knows what they look like. It's coming around the bed. Okay, wait. Is there, are the... Hey, let's get out of here. Let's go around the corner.

Let's see. Maybe go over... We're going to... ...aughan't take a little walk and let it pass by. Let's go to the ladies' chambers, anyone? Towards the ladies' chamber. It's full of prosecutors.

It's more of a... Full. I don't think you. You'll see. It's not really that complicated. What's your own? You guys dart southward across the street. across the road, ducking into the alleys of the southern portion of the road, getting out of the visual range of the zombie giant that is making its way down the road across the path.

Heading southward, you dart through the back alleys and keeping free of the main central visual areas of the city. You eventually make your way to the corner that houses the ladies' chamber. And as you guys see it... Have we passed any people? If you're keeping an eye out for that, yes. In some of the alley, where you do pass, there is a couple that are holding some, what looks like, other scavenged groceries

or some sort of food they have keeping kind of close to themselves. Can I go talk to them? You can indeed. Okay. I'm gonna come with you. Okay. All right, as they're both kind of walking by, kind of keeping hush, they see you guys kind of sit in the same alley.

They stop for a second, kind of looking you over and give a nod. Oh, excuse me. That's crazy, guys. My papa sent me to send a present a gift of sorts. to us, sir, curing. Kiri-Kherin. We're just looking to see where we can deliver the gift. Make a deception, shit.

Scammon's forte, come on. 29. Blink, blink. Both kind of stop. You give good urchin. The man kind of gives her look like, trying to usher along, kind of pulling her arm. She goes, no, no, honey. It's just a child.

Walks up and kind of lean and leans forward and says, If you're looking for Zucarian, you'll find him in the extravagant abode to the southeast of the city. The one right over there. No, no, no, no, no. And kind of gives you a side look for a second. You don't want to go find the Countess there. If you're looking for a Sukarian, you go to the southeast. Look for the brick building.

That's where he stays. near the farming area, south of this. Are you, you're not from here, are you? No, no, my... We're new to town. She's blind. I'll just... Woody says, don't question.

All right? Okay. I just need to bring in this sack of presents because my papa will whip me pretty bad. T.MI. Then perhaps you could do that quickly. You're so pretty and clean. She kind of gives us for a second.

You stay safe and kind of like brushes their hair out of your eyes for a second and kind of pinches your cheek a little bit And there's a look of sadness in her eyes almost like what horrible fate befalls this child She's not careful I smack him on the back head Grandma, I'm sorry, I'm sorry Keep up She recoils I'm her seeing eye boy

She rushes back to the side of the man with her and kind of See it's fine Luck and they both kind of dart off down the alley again Sam Riegel, ladies and gentlemen. Played Gavroche and Lehmins. It's right here, Gavrois. On Broadway.

On Broadway. Literally. It's all over twice. Considious. That's a good. All right. All right, so you make your way southward to the, probably was the second largest road intersection in the city,

away from the Sun Tree Square. You can now see the Temple to Rathus here. And it is a large stone kind of half dome amphitheater set up, where it's built outward to face the actual crossroads. And there is a courtyard built around it, a small stone wall, about three feet tall that kind of encapsulates this area. There is a couple of trees, but there isn't a lot of grass. Most of it's just stonework.

Arathis being the goddess of civilization. It's kind of a... Has an interesting duality and disrespect to Malora and all unbridled nature. Things that are controlled and symbolized are definitely. her realm of expertise. But as you approach, like most of the grass here, it's pretty desolate and dead. Winter is definitely making its way

that this part of the city. You do notice that, you know, surrounded it there is dried ivy and just a general feeling of solemn desperation and sadness. There are a few people scattered throughout sitting on benches, sitting in quiet contemplation. Some of them are clutching small holy symbols and just kind of doing a prayer to themselves

as well, rocking in the bench. You do see within the dome, there's a group of about four people that are all sitting, looking up to a man, an older man with a thick white mustache and receding white hair, his gray robes he's wearing look weathered. You recognize them. While you haven't had too much interaction, not being much of a pious man in any form of religion from your history, but you do know Keeper Yennan is the head priest of Arathas here and is currently giving the tail end of a small sermon to those here.

Hearing him he speaks words of comfort, talking of, you know, through these dark days, we must bind together as a community. We have to ensure that our livelihood and our existence is kept and we look out for our fellow man. You know, there is solace in the friendships and bonds we keep here, and best not to upset those that wish to keep us down. Erathlux over us. You know, there will be a time in which we, you know, our salvation will come. And it goes into this very kind of just rallying speech and trying to lift the spirits of those around. That there was like 40? Four. Four.

Four. Right. But they're allowed to assemble. Yeah, there's four around him in the amphitheater. There are probably another ten or so scattered about the various grounds surrounding it, just doing their own private. Do I have an opinion on Yennon? Yen, from your previous experience, what you've heard, is a very... can be a bit arrogant in his worship, but not in a way that is considered dangerous or impactful to win the Dirola family's burden rule.

He's just kind of like, he does good for the people, kind of a tool at times, but he seems, but he practiced as well and he keeps the people's spirits up. We found him a bit obnoxious to our means and ends on occasion. On occasion, but mostly just his personality. Nothing he's done personally. He's not a bad person by any means. He's just, you know. It's also not a lap dog.

Yeah. Strong-willed in his ideas. Can we insight check him to see if it seems like he's changed at all, or if he's still that same douchebag? Or if he's like. You would have no basis of comparison. Oh, okay. You would be the only one that had.

I'm going to walk up to the little meeting. Is it wrapping up right now? It seems like it's winding down. He finishes his discussion about the bonds of community, speaks about, you know, this city sprang up from nothing, but has a greater destiny to itself. If not here at Whitestone, one day we will all go past these boundaries, these borders, and create our own cities. You know, there is hope for this. And then begins to go into a couple of familiar prayers tailored specifically to the Arathas' way of thinking, and then finishes, and everyone, kind of looks up, kind of bows their heads for a second,

and begin to stand up and walk away from the amphitheaters. He turns around and begins to clear off in one of the back benches for him to sit on. I'm going to just walk up and start a conversation. You walk up to me, sits down. Can I help you? Do you think there's any hope for White Stone? You think there'll be a day that people can find happiness again?

I can say this if history has taught me anything. Our people are a resilient bunch. There has been much death, opposition to all the free peoples of these lands, and yet they persevered and surmounted these hearts. I think, though to some degree where prison this town may have become, perhaps we ourselves cannot see the distant ends.

It's easy to misinterpret the means of those that would oppress us, but can't be it? You can't go too long before the world at large can see the atrocities committed, the terrible entities that walk these streets. Do you think there will come a day that these people can seize freedom for themselves against their oppressors? I look forward to a day in which there can be a beacon of outside hope.

From the inside, I fear many wills have been torn asunder. I'm sorry. Give my manners. So welcome to the ladies' chamber. You are unfamiliar to me. It looks out kind of at you guys standing at the peripheral of the amphitheater. Travelers. Yes. I fear the cold winter is looming and an ill omen takes this city, friends. You may stay to give worship, if you will, then I recommend you continue on your way. There is little here but nighing tradition. I have a prayer to give.

Interesting. I pray for a day to come when outside forces can rally the people of White Stone again. That strangers may come and bring with them salvation and that the people will seize it. Speak in strange confidence for a traveler.

Look for signs. Keep you on him. Look for signs. I'm going to hand him a piece of parchment. Signs of water the might has. Salvation? Good day to you, sir. Act's cool, that's cool.

We walked out. Close your eyes, close your eyes. We walk south, we leave. And you know what I've left him. Yeah, as you're walking away, you hear his voice clot after, Wait, what does this mean? It holds the parchment forward, revealing the symbol of the top of the Dorolo family crest.

What appears dead may not necessarily. necessarily be death, and that with the shadow of death over the city, perhaps there is life deep underground. Perhaps things that appeared, ended, and gone are perhaps continuing to this day and may rise again. That's deep. Go ahead. Go to make a persuasion check. You give you advantage on this. Sixteen. And the nods his head slowly. It looks back at the sheet. He looks back at you with a discerning look.

Definitely not gonna. Oh, not at all. You look like a dirty peasant right now. Just like, takes it, like hastily closes it and folds it and puts it in a pouch. Steps back over and gathers some of his loose tea leaves. He was making himself some tea and kind of looks about, shiftily, calls over one of the other worshippers

and begins talking with them as you guys walk away. Let's head south. South it is. To the house. To the house. Carian's stone fills. All right, let's do you. So wait, which mansion were we at?

We were at. The Countess. Countess Anna Ripley. Which is located which mansion is out on us The Northeast one. That's the Northeastern one. And she was which, who was the Countess again? I'm assuming if it is who I suspect it is,

it's Countess Anna Ripley. And who is she to you? She is a terrible person. Wait, she's the one that killed a bunch of your people. She's the doctor, right? She is the doctor. Oh, she is the one. Do we get to kill her?

Not now. I hope so, but let's... Not yet. One at a time. If we're lucky, maybe one a day. Oh, okay. All right. Like a vitamin.

Like a Flintstone's vitamin. Except it's assassinate. Yeah. An example. Oh. Oh. Do you need a... Do you need some healing?

I'm fine, I'm fine. Scanlan can make you feel good. He can make you feel real good. Can I go up and ask Keyleth outside of his earshot to maybe cast some sort of restoration on him without... He's fighting it. I don't think he's feeling well. Can you heal him? He's going to feel it once I cast him a little bit. When do you pace him that? Try.

He looks cold and kind of slimy and he's coughing a lot. Wow, that's harsh. Well. Looks cold. You're not tinkering all nights or something. Who are you to talk crazy ass? I know. I look like a dirty peasant right now.

No, that's true. I mean, I don't know if I... I didn't think about that. I don't know if I could work. All right. We're a... It should only take a 20 minutes to get to the... To the house, shouldn't it?

Yeah. Possibly. All right. We're not passing anything interesting on the way, are we? Any other safe houses, potential candidates? I mean, there are plenty of houses that currently don't show signs of life. I was thinking mostly the barracks or the alcove. Yes, but after we kill this thing, we're going to need to know where to go.

Got some thoughts. Thoughts, we need a place to retreat to immediately. The lady's chamber. It's an amphitheater, isn't it? Delhide, there's quarter they'll be able to have. What makes you think they're gonna hide us? Hunch. We have a backup plan, and please they turn us out on this,

I actually, my thought was if we take care of Stonefell, why don't we hide in his house? I like that. Nobody will know, right? Yeah. Let's do it. I've always wanted to be a lord. All right, let's go assassinate someone.

Herssey. Yes. I don't mean to beat a dead horse or anything. If it would make you feel better, You can do whatever you like, but I think it's just a tickle. No, no, no, no. You're sure about all of this. This has been what I've been working for for years.

Okay. I'm not going to lose. I was surprised last time. I've had time to think about it. I'm going to be all right. And I'm keeping it together. I'm not going to pretend that I'm great. But.

Keep in mind, Keith. I've got a hold on this. They also have technology, now. They have web. weapons, guns that they're developing. It could be a threat to many, many other people. No, that I'm fine with. No, not that I'm fine with.

I understand. I mean, I'm fine helping prevent that. I'm just more worried about your sanity than anything else. I've got a hold. And I respect that if you think that I'm slipping, you'll let me know. You followed me into the fiery abyss, so... If that isn't a sign that I must be crazy, I don't know what is. Uh-huh, tusha.

I'll follow you, though. I'll follow you to the end. As the oldest among us, I say that he's fine. Grog, how are you here? You're actually the oldest among us? Well, I assume so. I don't know. How old are you people?

What? Me? Yeah. Somewhere between one and like 50. Well, I'm like, 50. I'm 27, but I don't know how old she. And with that, rainfall begins to hit upon the city. Oh, shit, rain.

Let's go. Let's go. The ground immediately becomes thick with mud and sludge as you begin making a way to the city to the eastern side. I go puddle hopping. This is another happy place. Low key. Oh, I look miserable.

Look wet. Okay. I take the dust of tracelessness too. to avoid out any footprints in the mud. He's got washed away, though, right? Okay. Do it, and say you walk along, you do this from the mud kind of shows behind.

It can be a little conspicuous if you're not careful. Oh, not my normal flower, though, routine. Maybe it's like the old Sharshanc prison like wall. The old Sharshanc Prison, right. The alcove is little ways north. It would take some time out of your present, You're pushing around 10.30 in the morning at this point, around 11 a.m.

Or you're going straight to the supposed of Hulmstead of Kieran Stonefeld? Let's do it! We're going straight there? Yes. We're going straight there. All right, you beeline it. You're all getting cold from the wet rain that is now soaked through your clothes. You make your way to this.

And then this home is a deep red brick in construction. This house was not here when you lived here. It looks like whatever this house, what house was here has been demolished and rebuilt. with sturdy masonry. It's a two-story building. There appear to be two guards currently set outside to just regular leather armor looking

more thugs than guards, but they're just both kind of keeping under the overhang at the front porch to keep dry and grimacing at the weather. There is a gate around it. This gate is more for purpose than visual presentation. It's just a black iron kind of nasty, jagged, rusty looking gate. Not too dissimilar to the one that surrounded the graveyard.

It's about a 20-foot walk from the gate entrance to the front step of the actual building itself. How do you want to approach this? Walk around the back. As we walk up, I'd like to trail back by grog. In the rain. The killing's going to start soon. It's not going to stop.

We're going to protect them. All of them. You have a big guy. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Max. I have your daggers back, right?

You need a... I put a couple arrows in the Holy Oil that we have. Okay. All right, each Hoy Oil is essentially three. Oh, can I just dip one arrow in then right now? Sure. So Mark that off one of your holy oil. So you have one of three uses of that, and that arrow does have a...

have a holy oil essence. Percival, if we get in there, what are the chances that this gentleman, circarian, Korean, you can mispronounce his name, it's fine. Sir North Korean. Sir Starbucks. Sir Starbucks. Sir Starbucks.

By the way you said, I have. What are the chances that he's gonna be in a coffin? Like sleeping? 50-50. Okay. All right, good to know. Would it be worthwhile to maybe say that, The little boy and the old lady were caught hoarding crops,

and we brought them to this guy, see if we can draw them out of his house. That's a cool plan. I like that plan. It is raining. Oh wait, but I would be bait? Yeah. Okay, fine. Let's take a long walk around the house to see if there's a way in through the back. Okay. It's dark. It's raining.

And I can't imagine that many people attempt to infiltrate this house. How dark is it? It's overcast, but it's still, it's getting closer to Even though you can't see the sun, and it is, you know, dark clouds overhead, it is still a general kind of just universal stormlight, you know, dark and daylight. Once around. Does it look like it's going to pass soon? No, it looks like it's probably going to be here for the most of the day at the very least. The rain will damp in the screams from inside.

So we go around once, once around? Okay. Perception checks around. Exception. Yeah. I'm looking specifically for ways in the building, other than front door. I'm looking for clouds because I rolled a two. 21.

24. 20. 21. All right. I will say above 20s, you guys notice, I mean, there is a cellar door outside of the building that descends beneath it. There's no indicators to whether or not that is attached to the house or it's just an exterior cellar that you can enter from outside. You do also see there are a number of windows around the household that are all currently closed that lead into the interior or uncertain. I'm just like they're locked or open. There's a little bit of light from the inside.

Like candlelight or lantern light. Like the darkened exterior has made most of the sunlight that would warm a building or lighted up from the inside has been cut off by the rainstorm. So there is a necessity for internal lighting currently. Is there any sign windows that are blacked out? No, but you do notice that one of the windows to the far back side of the building, where most of the lights coming from, occasionally the light does seem to shift or a shadow moves past it. There is movement within that room, nearsh that window. They're watching TV. Probably.

I cast pass without a trace on all of us. Ooh, thank you. Awesome. All right. Are we going through the cellar? It's still, is our meal still affecting us? Till 2. Yes.

Let's go in quick. Is it possible to see any kind of what the movement is, who it is inside that window? Not from this like 25, 30 foot distance from the building and you guys trying to be conspicuous around like... So there's nothing between us and the building? Well there is the gate. There's the gate and what looks to be like a, a fence. few rocks and a couple of small trees that are on the actual grounds of the house surrounding it. Is the cellar door hidden from view of everything or is it out like kind of in the open?

Which one of the cellar door that we saw? The cellar door is kind of out in the open just, you know, buttressed against the back of the house. It's kind of against the ground and the side. It looks like two doors that open up and would lead into a cellar below. Does it look like anybody can see us from where you're standing? No. You're going to be hard pressed to get across without being in sight of somebody if someone were nearby. You have to be a... We're between a fence, right? You're on the outside of a fence, yeah.

So do we want to try and draw them out or get to the cellar? Either way, those two thug guards are gonna die. Are there, there are guards? There's two guards? There's two guards. They're currently not in visual range of you. They're guarding the front of the building. You guys have moved around back, so you don't see the two guards currently on the opposite side of the house.

What's the fence matter? Is it the sporey? Is it pokey? It is pokey, yes. It is pokey. It is pokey. It's not super sharp pokey, but there's like, you know, iron rod. that if I could throw a scam on over.

If you roll a two, you can get that. We could. If you roll forward, it's going to deal some damage. But we can probably get out of that. Should we do a diversion for the guards and then some of us? They can't even see us. Yes, but once we go through the fence, they might. I don't know.

All right, you want to sneak in? I'm just try and sneak in and not and leave the guards there unless they notice us and then we'll just thwit through. All right, sure. How do we sneak in past them? Unless you know. You want to try and pull one of the rod islands off, maybe? I'd be down for that.

I'd be down for that. If I puffed some smoke, would it draw attention to us? Yes, it would draw attention? Okay, then never mind. It's raining. It's going to be, we can make a little noise. It'll be okay. Where are the guards in the front?

Front. They're currently in the opposite side of the building. If you guys are looking in the back, in the front of the building. They're at the building guard in the front door. Inside the gate at the house. Correct. You want me to heat up that metal bar for you? You still have to go over in.

Sure. Let's just open over the bar. Let's just open over the bar. Athleticator acrobatics it. Grog, can you bend that shit open? How are you gonna- your donkey is still there beside you? Park.

Yeah, well, if Grog can friggin' make a hole in that. Can I try and leufragno those bars? Yeah, man. You're more than what we do? Go ahead and make a strength check. Whatever, the bar that he's like. Loufregnoring? Louferignoing.

I'm gonna cast heat metal and just. Is that gonna burn his hands? Put on some gloves. I don't have any gloves. Spin your hand a little bit. been in Griffin Barrett. It's raining. It'll be fine. So you cast heat metal in the bars,

and there's a certain area of the skate that begins to glow with a dull orange to become a brighter, brighter orange. And portions of it become almost going to a whiteish hot in places. Why don't you just hit it with something? Grab your hands. Yeah, you can't use your axe. Oh, I was just going to put my . The rain, by the way, it's like puffing against and evaporating

as it impacts with the now heated metal. But that'll be loud. You do you. Yeah. I rolled it 23. Oh, hell yeah. Okay, you reach over and grab it, your hands smoking on the board. Use the pain, use the pain, and pull down the bars.

You get a large portion of the gate to actually bend downward into an arc, kind of causing the whole gate to fold inward on that side, making it much easier for you to pass through. However, you do suffer nine points of fire damage from the end up. the burning your hands are currently, they now scalded. And you can see the actual. That's a hang nail and his pinky toe.

Pretty cool. Pretty cool. I go ahead and I cast a healing word on his hands. Okay. So it's D4 plus six. By D4? Do you want. Oh, 11.

Hey, back to you. There you go. So the scarring stays for a bit. You can see, you smell the burning flesh, but there is no lasting form. on your hands. That's like bacon. On fax, you can check to see if there's a lock on the

on the, yeah, sure. We gotta make it across the lawn first. Well, we're in the back of the house. Well, we're just all walking very quietly. We're still right. So everyone make a stealth check? We have advantage. We have advantage.

No, everyone gets plus ten to the stealth. Oh, you have disadvantage on your stealth. Plus ten. Yes, plus ten to your stealth roll. 17. 23. 34. Just going to say it one.

We should leave drinking. That's it. I've said it. 34. 26. Yeah, girl. All right. You guys all keeping low and quickly guarding across the

Fing'clock. Leave it. You make your way pattering across to somewhat slick grass. The rain is a little warmer than the frost that had kind of kept the grounds kind of frozen as the morning came to. And so it's a little slick. You make your way to the back of the building. You're still loosely out in the open in a weird way, so you don't want to be out in the open for a long period of time. This isn't a safe place.

You're currently, apparently made it to this side of the building unnoticed, but you don't want to stay here very long because you are visible to anyone who's on either side of the gate exterior. I'm going straight to the cellar door. Up against the wall of the building. Okay. I give it a little skunk to see what I feel. It is locked and it does give them resistance.

I get to work. Do your thing, do your thing. I feel like it's been a while since you've done this. Didn't what? Oh, I already did it earlier when you went here. earlier when you went here. 14, that's 27. 27.

You reach over without even looking, you grab the lock, and you're familiar with this kind of block. It comes off the chain. The chains fall loose against the outside of the, or the inside of the door. You pull it open. It's dark inside. You can see the dry stone steps that lead down below the building as rain starts to darken them with droplets that are hitting. I just lean my head in really fast and just see if I can hear anything and roll of one. Roll of one.

Sounds good. Yes, sounds good. Yes, sounds good. Let's go. Look around, see if there's anybody in there, here. Okay, make perception check. No, I said it's good. It's good.

Let's go. Right? Twins think it's good. You agree. We're never wrong. 19. Listening inside, the smell is a little musty, like a cell you would expect, but a little bit of kind of dust

and just untouched your circumstance. There's nothing down there, no movement, no sound. I said, look, we're out, open. It's clear, let's go. We all go. You all drop in, darting into, which is good because you notice also around the corner. One of the giants is coming the corner. You all dive inside, close the cellar. Closed the cellar. Bringing you to the interior.

I wonder if they're going to notice that fence. You hear the pattering of rain across the wooden doors of the cellar. The rain is stopped. You made your way down underneath, and it is pitch black. There was no light source down here. I pull out my flame tongue dagger. Okay. A little bit of flame causes. Enough can I'm kind of like to see the surface down here.

And it is a wine seller. I'll go ahead and use my flaming hands and kind of like that up. With an instant of will, all of a sudden flames burst around. Is a small ladder in the corner that seems to lead up to a latch door that leads to the interior of the house. I go up the, and I listen at the... Make perception, Shire. I don't hear anything, you guys. I think it's fine.

My ear's bigger than yours. Let me have a listen. Get there. Here is a huge. Definitely, look at them. And... Your sister assures you, she heard... There's nothing there.

No, I don't hear anything either. I think we should just bust in. Okay. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Wait, hang on. Three. Okay. Oh, no, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. But I keep forgetting the rogue skill, so really I rolled a 20.

Wait, what? You rolled a three? And it becomes a 20? I can know, for perception, I can no longer roll lower than a 10, unless I roll a 1. But if it's a 2 or a 2 or to, I'm nine, it's actually a 10 for me. That's awesome.

That's cool. Roads are pretty cool. That's crazy. Roogs are awesome. Rokes or whatever. So you put your ear up to it and kind of listen carefully, and you hear pacing footsteps, creaking against wood, no more than maybe four feet away from you.

Is that one person? One person, it stops, and then moves again, and it moves again almost like there's pacing, and you hear low voices. It's a conversation, there's two voices. What do you hear? You hear one voice, very muffled. It's very muffled, but it seems to be similar to the voice of the gentleman that came across

you guys on the street that actually briefly talked to Percy the day before. The old guy with the balding guy. The balding guy with like a long, stringy gray hair. He's just reporting in. He's his frigging money collection. The other voice you don't recognize, and it's too muffled for you to make anything. About four feet from you, not over the cellar, but off the ways to it. You're not certain where this doorway leads to.

The level of muffling you can hear through the floor leads you to believe that they're not directly above you. Not directly above. Correct. There's nobody right above us, but there's people in the house. Just to be clear. Just to be clear. No, they're on another floor or in another room. Before we start, we're killing everything, right? Yes.

Okay, good. Do we want us in like one person out sneaky and then have a code word like Cheeto if it all goes wrong? Last time we did that, it went really well. Did we do that before? We did. We didn't send anyone on just. Let's go one room at a time. We're just going to... One room at a time, we have to get up through this latch

and there's people right above us. Scanlon, you or me? Do you want to go invisible? Do you want me to just creep in? I think you should have some fun too, but before we do anything, do you want me to send a cloud up there of gross smoke to sort of smoke out the area?

No. No. Let's not let them know where. Like a smell or a visual cloud? Wait, before we, before we do this, Kielit, can you maybe make the gate outside not look like it's all bent to shit? Zombie guards are gonna say- Good. The giants are stupid. It'll be fine.

Okay. They're stupid. I mean that, oh, the guys up front. Yeah. It's fine. What could go wrong? Let's go. Let's go.

This is a stealth. We'll be in and out of here in six minutes if we do this right. Let's go. Go, go, go. Okay, okay, so wait, are you going in? Are you infiltrating? I'll just go up and see what I see just above us. Do I'm not going to be far away?

I touch Vax's shoulder, and I cast enhanceability, and I'm gonna give you deck saves. What do you want? What do you want? Oh, no, make it like that. I'm good on that. Oh. What do you want advantage on?

Just make it fucking invisible. Not, don't stare at me. Constitution. Okay. So I'm feeling a little weak. All right. Constitution. So what's this for?

Enhanceability. So I think it's called like Constitution or something weird bears. Advantage on Constitution checks. Those are different from saving cards. Oh. Checks. But does give them 2D6 temporary hit points, but those do not stack with the current temporary hit points you have.

So Constitution would not be a much benefit to you in this. It's going to fit to you and let's fall off. You just set a fire down here. Okay. You want decks or anything? Pretty dexie. That is kind of great. I'll say it then.

Instead, I say, good luck. Bon chance. Viva the resistance. All right. Well, does it, I'm going to check and see if it gives at all, or if there's anything to it? It gives. All right, so I'm going to go up.

Invisible or not? No, just start up. All right. So, okay, hold on, I can advantage. Uh, 23. Wait, no, plus 10 because President L-33. 33.

You move it up. That sound dart up. Catch yourself and lower it down carefully. Dark interior, use your flamethrone dagger to look inside. You are inside of a closet of some kind, like a 10 by 5 closet. There are, looks like, coats and outfits around you. You can push them aside.

This looks to be like a small storage room that has been repurposed as a closet of some kind. I'm listening intently and feeling through as many pockets as I can find. Easily enough, as you put your ear to the door, they're talking immediately on the other side of this door. You are a room adjacent to it. You do manage to pocket from a few of the coats,

about 47 gold pieces in total. Oh, oh. I care? Who leaves that much in their coat back? Can I hear anything, the rich? Dead people, that's it. Can I make anything out? Do you make out a conversation, it seems to be between a voice you don't recognize and the gentleman earlier you mentioned.

It's basically saying, with everything that's going on now, it's honestly very frustrating that these people are willing to do their share of the bargain. I myself, I've been doing my best to keep them in order, but at this point in time, I think we need to do another show of strength if we're going to keep them working as hard as we have been. The voice kind of calms him down when it says, don't worry, don't worry, keep it under control. The very least we should have to be ready, prepared. If what the lady Briarwood says, We should be having visitors any day now, and I would hate to be caught flat-footed. So we're going to go ahead and gather our arms. We're going to make sure that we outfit the place the best we can, traps, alarms, whatever is necessary,

to make sure that we are not caught off guard. This is about to be hilarious. You guys came at just about the right time. I'd like to, I just want to wait for one minute and see what progresses. Okay. The conversation continues. The older gentleman begins talking about, I don't like the idea of there being any sort of conflict on our home turf. I wish they would just meet them out headlong or cut them off at the head. Why do we invite them in here? That seems to be a... a dangerous circumstance.

While they're talking, say, we've got two gentlemen a pair. Two gentlemen. To stop killing our souls. Grog up first, grog up first. Places, everyone places. It's opening night, and I'm so excited. Stealth checks all around.

Swans. Oh, my answer. Plus ten. This should get real. The Glyon. That's good, that's good. That's good. Twenty-nine.

Eighteen. Plus ten. That was plus ten. 32. 28. 34. All righty. You all slowly make your way up.

There's not enough room for all of you inside this room, this storage space. So you kind of push. Grab first. So, Grog, you go up. You push open the door into the next room, and it is a kind of a, it's a, it's a, I'm a music room. There's a few couches around. There was a piano set up.

Oh, it would closet to music room? Yeah. Like the- Oh, we're opening the door? You guys are opening a door to a room next. Oh, all you were listening to is the room next to you. Oh, even better. Oh, we got another room. This opens up into a room adjacent.

Oh, the music room. How regal. So as you push out into the room, it's dark in here. The only light that's coming in is from the nearby window. A little bit of sun that's coming through. the rainstorm, you can still hear the rain pattering on the window and the second floor above you. There's no sound from the rain hitting the roof from this distance. Start my eyes around, is there anything that is useful in here?

Not particularly. It's mostly decorative. A few bosses and books in the shelf. There is a door that is partially open that leads into a hallway, a hallway that seems to connect the two rooms. Which way the voice is coming from? Yeah, if you, the door is the opposite of the window. And the room that you're in the room that you're in is adjacent to the room where the cremisters are coming from. The closet's kind of in between the two. Oh, between the two. So is it, what is it? Outdoor hallway. Yes, outdoor hallway and then the room

where the speaking is coming from. Do you want me to create a diversion of some sort? Around. So we're stealthing, right? Yes. So I pull both of their hands and I start... Who's they? Grog and Keeler. Okay. Start pulling them through...

That's all right. Out the door. Along the hall. along the hallway towards the voices. All right. That's a lot of maps you have down there. Really? Really? Really?

I'm offended and I'm hurt. I look back at Vex and I just go, I give you the worst evil eye I've ever given anyone. Two bad ones going that way and the other's going that way. As they go, I just quickly like, I lock eyes with Grog and I just give him a quick little inspiration. Blood, glorious blood. Grog's about to take some. Dead doodets and dudes. Crog's about to make some. All right, so take a 10 inspiration, nice.

Good background. So the three of you move on ahead. The rest of you, Trinket is unable to climb. I know. It's a ladder. Oh, can I? Trinket. Stay. I smack the back of the airtight again. And it's hard because I'm angry right now. Did you have your wings on? Turn it inside. You don't turn the ring.

I'm going to do like my grandma. It's the grandma's lat, exactly. It's the grandma back hand. All right, so. Did you stand at the double doors? You moved around to the hallway. Is there a change to this arrangement that you would like? We currently have Grog.

Vax and Kieleth the front in the three of you. Yeah, I want to stealth in behind Grog after they go in. 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. You know that feeling when you hear one interesting thing and suddenly you want to know more. Well, that's the idea behind my podcast, something you should know. Every episode starts with a question you've probably never thought to ask. Like why people do or don't like you? Why certain habits stick? Or what everyday advice is actually wrong? I'm Mike Rutheruthers.

talk with scientists, authors, and experts, and I keep it practical, surprising, and fun to listen to. If you've got a curious brain, come try one episode of something you should know on the podcast app you're listening to right now. All right, so there you are. So I'll put you kind of the side of the door there. You hear the voices from the other side of the door conversing and talking back and forth, Scanlon, Percy. Oh my God. So. Someone say something cool. What's the plan? I put my hand up in the air. Torolo's rollout. And I click my boots together.

Feel that adrenaline rush. I rage. And I kick the door as I can go right in. Fuck yes! The door swings open, both of them, slamming under the sides of these two bookcases. What's up? Immediately you see behind the desk here. All vampires.

It's keeper Sutherland. You see the older gentleman in his kind of long robes. Immediately spin his head and see essentially a troop of armed villagers, peasants, dirty faces come rushing in, all fucked up eyes and all. Food! They both turn, looking completely caught off guard by this. They do also see in the room there are a few guards that are just kind of waiting off the side. There's a couch area.

couch area, there's a fireplace. Oh, of course. You guys get a surprise. Yay. That's right. So let's go ahead and roll initiative just to get the order of things here. Advantage on initiative because I have that thing. Are you alert?

Do you have alert? Is that what it is? I have feral instinct. Ooh. That I forget sometimes. All right, so 25 to 20. 20? 20. 23.

All right, yeah. 20 to 15? 16. Whoa, look at you, Scanlan. You're all speed. Better figure out what I'm gonna do. So Scanlan is 16. 15 to 10?

13. 13. 13. Oh. Hot house. Team half help. 10.5. I've been looking forward to this. Is that everyone here?

That's all of us. That's everyone. Yeah. We're just going to die. Ready. Clean-out. So first surprise round from all of you guys catching them off guard. Up first is Percy.

Percy, Percy. I'm going to pull into that empty, oh, I've got a button, don't I? I don't I? I'm going to pull into that corner right there. Over here. And I'm going to take two shots at that soldier in the corner. At that guard. Okay.

The guards you can see wearing dark studded leather armor. No cloaks. They both just kind of have what looks like other rapiers or stolettos, daggers on other sides, and they kind of look at the sudden, you know, intrusion, and again going for their weapons. But got them off guard. 22. 22 does hit.

Where am I de tens? It's nine points of damage. All right. Another shot to him. All righty. That's a misfire. All right. I'm going to do a quick repair.

And that's fine. Does the repair take an action? No, it takes a... It takes a... Okay, so you're fine. It does that break. Okay, cool. All right, so that's your turn.

The blast rings out. As you fire the pepper box, it's going to get misfires, and you quickly turn around, you know, throw many of your tools in the air, catch it, and push it. one swift movement, you unblock the passageway, click it back up into its place, and at the corner of your eye, you turn, and for the first time in five years, you see standing behind the desk, Circassian Stone fell, visually nearly the same as the last day you saw, except

for maybe a little bit of white inside of the hair. Armored with a nice set of relatively ornate leather armor, blue hues and blacks, the hair itself is kind of this tusses. Browselled, brown. There's a boyish charisma to him if he wasn't such an asshole. And the moment you see him, there's just this boiling rage from within just to have that moment of sight. If you're lucky, you die last. There's a complete confusion as he has no idea who any of you are. I know. Like poppers that just literally burst into his office. That is your turn, Percy?

Grog, you're up. I hear him say that he has to die last. And in my rage, I race forward to that fuck in the middle of the room, and I swing my firebread war hammer out of twice. All righty. I would like to make this first one a new feat called Great Weapon Master. All righty. So minus five to hit. I'm going to use my inspiration.

No, not on that one. That misses. What's your role? A two. So that's 11. What hell? Yeah, that misses. That definitely misses.

As you swinging, and just ducks out of the way, and even though he's older, he reacted pretty quickly, and your weapon just slams into the ground, splintering some of the wood. You peel back for a second attack. That makes me even angry. Oh, Jesus. And now your inspiration.

18,000,000, 208, minus 5, yeah, 23. 23 does hit, plus 10 damage. Okay. All right. So, this plus 8 is 13. 17, 27. Seven points of damage.

That's not a hit, that's... Plus six or plus four of the fire damage, but still the 27 total. Right, 27 total, good. He's behind the desk. So as he ducks out of the way, you bring up the hammer a second time and whack, smack him right square in the chest. The wind escapes him for a moment, and the flames lick across the front of his chest.

He catches himself on the table between the sofa and chair behind him. behind him, gets back on his feet. Looks at you for a second, pulls out two shorts, whoosh. That's the best thing you could have ever done. Oh, man's got gay. I don't know who you are, but you're gonna regret this. What does Grog look like? Does he look like? Grog looks like an o-fish butcher.

Kind of tubby on the size, an oldish, kind of middle-aged-looking man, scruffy beard, kind of, you know, Scanlan. It's best on that one. Whatever other visual you want to. Pot belly. A huge pot belly. All right, grog, that end your turn? Yep.

All right. In theory, it is a surprise round, so you may have had advantage in that first strike, so go ahead and roll it. Remembering that. Yeah, 26, minus 5, 21. 23. No, you're right.

Yeah, terrible. We'll damage again. So we'll say this is an additional third strike and reaction to him pulling his his blades out. 32. Oh, Jesus God. Sweet God.

Wham! The hammer slams him a second time. He almost drops his weapons. The actual in-table he was resting on shatters beneath them, and he has to get back up onto his feet, and is looking genuinely fearful now. That ends your turn. You dropped your toothpicks. Scanlon, you're up.

Okay, so he's been attacking the old guy. Correct. Those two flanking the big boss are just guard. They're just standard issue guards. They are the best you can tell. They're both like studded leather armor. They don't like guards, like armored just in it. They look like thugs that are essentially there

to kind of watch its side. Kind of, yeah. All right, well, I'm gonna run in the room. About how far in? Just make a left. I'm sorry, turn right, away from the action. And then I'll look at the guard behind and to the right of the big guy. The good guy, the bad guy.

bad guy. You got it, you got it. It's on, okay. That guy there? No, this guy. Okay. And I'll dominate him. Is that also a guard?

Yeah, that's a guard. There are three guards? There are three guards. All right, you're going to attempt to dominate him? So yes, I pull up my hand cone and I say, you're as cold as ice, willing to sacrifice your boss. And so I tell him to kill his boss. Oh, that's so.

What's the DC on that? 19. You're old as 17. That's a fail. Yes. He is currently dominated by Scanlan. Cold is I. All right, good to know. So he pulls his heavy crossbow out, loads it, and aims it towards you, looks over his shoulder for a second, trains it on his boss.

Yes. Sir Caria looking confused by this whole circumstance. Cool. All right. That ends your turn? Yeah, that's it. All right. Keyleth, Vax and Vex, take your surprise rounds now.

Can I go first so that I don't do any damage to you guys if you guys go in and... Yeah, I'm also probably going to do a range spell. Okay. What are you guys talking about? Kill him. Okay, I want to... I want to go in and I'll kick my head in and shoot... First, I'm gonna shoot from my long bow of Sky Sentinel. And I'm gonna use... It like turns into three arrows for one of my attacks.

So it's like three more attacks, potentially? Potentially? Well, it's two additional attacks against the one arrow. So you'll get four attacks in one round, essentially. Good guy. Okay. Yeah, take it. There happened to be five people in the room.

So I'm going to attack him, the guy. Which guy? The bad guy. There's two bad guys in there. The one that's in charge, Carian. So Carian, all right, go for it. Yeah. Nice.

28. 28 hits. Okay, so I'm making an attack for all three arrows. Correct. I mean, that was one of them. What you do is you fire it, it splits into three along the way, and you roll for each attack on each arrow. Oh, that one doesn't hit.

Well, probably not. 13? No. 18, unfortunately, does not hit either. Jeez, the way. What a waste of a storm arrow. Okay, well, that does the attack. And you still get a fourth attack with your second.

Yes. Hunter's mark? That was the wrong thing. I can't, I'm gonna hunter's mark him after this first one, because it's a bonus. Oh yeah, yeah. Um, seven. What am I doing?

16 and then plus another D6. That's what's basically like Hunter's Mark. Right? Nobody knows what you're doing. I'm just watching. What? That's scary. So the first Aeronauts additional lighting.

19 is the first one. Okay, got you. And then I attack again. I'm gonna hunter's mark in me. Can I do that? You mean if you have each bonus and actually, yes you can. Okay, I do that. Right, right.

I'm going up. 29. 29 does hit, yes. I'm so confused right now. And 11, I know. 14 on the second one. Okay, gotcha. So you are split, two of them in a,

embedding into the actual desk itself and exploding with a burst of electricity. A third one strikes him in a third one, the chest and you can see it kind of stick in the armor and jolt him for a second. He kind backs up a little bit, catching himself at the edge of the desk because the final arrow comes and strikes him in the shoulder. He cuts off the shaft of the arrow as it hits just out of anger and frustration. I totally shit the bet on that one guys and I apologize. Oh, we're cracking it up. I had other things that I wanted to do.

After she does that I say, that was my grandma! That was my grandma. Adding to the confusion. Yeah. Oh, what kind of rumor is Sir Carien wearing? Do you want to move it all? Like you would have had to have moved into the room to do that shot because you were outside in the hallway.

Huh? You were in the hallway when that happens. I would just say you have to be in the room to shoot them. Where would you want to be? Oh, just right inside the door. Right there in the door? Okay. What kind of armor is Circassarian wearing?

Best you can tell, it looks like a very high quality studded leather. Stut of leather? Yeah. Okay. Burn it off. Can I say I peeked into shoot and then went back? around the side of the door? Yeah, you can do it.

Yeah. Good with Vax. Is it up to us? Yeah. You guys the last ones to go. Okay, I'm gonna cast call lightning. And I'm gonna bring down a bolts. What's the, here we go this way.

Right in between Sir Carian and this guard. So that they both have to save from it. Take that, Sir Carria. Yeah. Your type of. Yeah. Kim Jong. Carrying stone fell.

This is the thing of note. A storm cloud appears in the shape of a cylinder that is 10 feet tall with a 60 foot radius centered on a point seeing the air. Oh, so it's gonna like. The room won't fit it, unfortunately. The room won't fit my storm cloud? Yep.

That sounds like a great song. It says specifically if you're in a room that can't accommodate the cloud, it can't appear. Pooper muffin. Okay. Well then. If you want to consider your next move, backs can go. Yeah, go back.

All right. I am running straight towards the... So the kind, what's his name, Kirian? Is it the desk? So I just run right towards the desk. I step against the desk, leap up into the air, and come down and go fuk- into his shoulders. Right there?

Yeah. No, I'm on the desk. Oh, on the desk. In front of him, going for his chest. That's high. Nice. Go for it. First, and I get Ivanov, John, everything. thing is a, oh, it's a 30.

And this is a surprise attack, so it's a critical hit, plus the sneak attack damage. This guy's going down. That's one plus seven is eight. What gets doubled? Everything. Just the dice. Everything.

Not the sneak attack damage? No, the sneak attack as well. But just the modifiers that could double. Oh, okay. So that was, okay, two, seven is nine. Nine, ten, eleven, twelve. Eighteen, eight. 18, 23, 29, 33, 66 for the first attack, darling.

66? 66? Here comes the second dagger into him at advantage. 16. Five rounds. Plus is 28, so that obviously hits, and that is one of the six is seven. And then the third dagger comes down,

ha ha, is 29, and that also hits. So I've shanked his ass at some eight. 8. Shunk, shunk. 15 is 70. This was 81. Yep. 81 points of damage. Wow. As you land on the desk, your daggers just bypass the armor.

They find their way through the top of the armor and sink past the clavicles into the deep portion of the chest. From the impact, you hear him choke and blood spatters up from his throat. He reaches up and grabs your hands and... lift some off out of the wound. You can see just a gout of blood pour from the wound. As you reach back and stab him a third time with the dagger as you catch yourself on the back of the desk, he reaches up and kicks you,

forcing you to kind of get back on your feet with your dagger at the ready. The blood's we need to pour. It's not a mortal wound, but it's looking really bad for him. He's not on death's door, but he definitely took him down a few pegs. I give him a back swing. He looks at you and growls. Drawing two rapiers from his side, dropping the dagger.

He draws two rapiers? Yeah. Do we get any indication by what we just saw if he might be, you know, like a vampire or something? Is that not? Make an inside check. Keep bleeding. I can make an inside check.

Oh, yeah. Wow. Ooh. Jeez. 27. Nothing yet has given away any sort of essence of that. He doesn't look particularly pale or, um. He's also A.

He's a bit better. Yeah, he has age. Definitely looks wounded and unhappy. Can I ask a technical question? Sure. According to assassinate, any hit I score against a creature that is surprised as a critical hit, any hit. So are the two subsequent... After the first hit?

That's sneak attack. This says, in addition, any hit you score against a creature that is surprise is a critical hit. Right. Okay. Any? You wouldn't be surprised after the first one. I'm usually under the impression that after the first hit, they're no longer surprised.

They know you're there. Okay. That's true. Okay. Got it. Oh. Oh. What is that?

Well, I thought they were like 0.3 seconds apart, so I thought it was so fast. That's true. I'll allow it. Oh. What? So double what? Well, it would have doubled the last two attacks, which were much less. It's 15, so it becomes 30.

No, it was, yeah. Yeah. Okay. So yeah, he's not happy. Really not happy. Okay. All right. Is that his turn?

Caleb, what are you doing? All right, I'm going to do some fun shit. So seeing Vax go up and get next to Lord Carion, or whatever the shit his name is. I am going to go and turn into a dire wolf this time, mixing it up from Minxie. It's like a normal wolf. But she's slightly bigger.

But dire. But dire. It's white, wintry wolf, like from the mountains that I'm from. And I'm going to... You are now, like, filling up the entirety of the double door frame right now. I'm going to rush and use my pack tactics and flank Lord Kirion. At your size, you can't quite get to him. Fortunately, you could try and move around this way, maybe.

You will probably take an attack of opportunity. from this guy, but you can try and move around. Oh, from random shithead? Yeah, let's do it. What's your movement? Has a diar. 50 feet. Yeah, you can do that.

He's a ball guy. Do you move around and you get over there. Is that flanking? It's not flanking, no. Yeah, it's not flanking per se. I mean, you're adjacent to him. You'd have to be on opposite sides to flank. I know, that's what I was trying to get.

All right. Well then how about since Vax has that guy, I'll take out. I'll go for this guy. Okay, okay. So you move into that guy there. Okay. That is the most peasant-looking dire wolf ever.

Yeah, this little peasant girl just went, f f f f-fl. Ooh, that was a 19 to hit. So. That'll hit. Okay, two and this is plus three. And that's not great, four, five, seven, eight, piercing damage and then do I also, oh, and he has to make a DC 13 strength saving throw or be knocked prone.

He rolled 12. Ho! So he's down. He's knocked prone. How much damage was it? Not a lot. What did I say six? Six points piercing damage?

Yes. And he's knocked prone. Falls on the ground. Do I get my hand, my fiery stuff for that? What attack was it? Was it a bite? No. Okay, he's down.

All right, is that your turn? Yep. All right. That ends the surprise round. Now we're at the top again. Percy, you're up. I'm going to take one step forward. I'm going to shoot that guard once one more time.

The one over here? Yep. All righty. I'm going to try a sharpshooter. And that's 14. 21 to hit. 21 hits. So that'll do 19 points of down.

damage? Actually, that's more than 19 points because it's a fire shot. So 19 plus 2, so 21 points with two points of fire damage in it. 21 points damage. All right. You fire. There's a burst of flame the gouts out beside the pepper box. Blasting into the chest of the guard off of the side.

He's thrown against the wall from the sugar forest of it. Reaches down and grabs his chest and looks at it. You can see this red crimson across his hand as you've actually blown a piece of his leather armor open and you can see the wound in his chest. He's looking, he's a little bit of blood-tricken on his mouth and he just looks angry at you. I'm shooting him again. That's 17. 17 hits. That's 21 points of damage.

21 points of damage. Nice. Blast him this time on the other side of the shoulder. You can see how this armor is now torn open exposing the wound here and his arm's now hanging into one side. He's looking in severe pain and kind of had barely been able to hang on to this point.

Fall, damn it. Shooting him again. Kill him, kill him. That's... Fifteen. 20 to hit. 20 to hit, it hits. Eight points of damage.

Eight points of damage? All right, this is the final one is he's like looking at something. Angi looks at you, picks his crossbow up and aims it at you. Before he gets a chance to, you aim your third shot, firing, hitting him right in the center of the head, blasting out part of his face. His body spins, and then he falls over into the plant in the corner, I finished walking to like almost into the corner over there,

like right next to like about there. Spend an action surge, taking three more shots at Curion. Whoa. Oh yeah. Damn. This is a sharpshooter round. Okay. That's 19-26 to hit.

Do you crit on the 19th? I don't crit on the 19th. Fuck. That's, uh, oh that will do. 24 points of damage plus a point of ice damage, so 25 points of damage. Plus an additional D6 points of damage with that. Yay, because he's an asshole.

That's six more points of damage. So as you go around and fire from the barrel, the shot fires out and as you recoil, you guys, for those who are noticing up the side, this dark smoke's beginning to slowly pour out of Percy's body out of his eyes and his ears and the hand on the gun. There's just this black smoke's beginning to emit from his body and begin to envelop the gun arm.

What? We all see this? For those who are paying attention, which right now would be pretty much just Scanlan and Vex. Rock's too. Weird. You see it. You don't see shit.

Shut up. No, but I met this guy's throat. I'm going to take a quick reload. OK. And I'm going to fire again with sharpshooter. And I'm going to use a head shot. I'm going to do a head shot. Okay.

So I'm going to attempt to make him have issues doing things. Natural 20. Yeah. The golden snitch strikes again. Yeah, you know, I'm gonna see him from here. I swear it's, yeah. Additional D6, by the way. What?

We need a D6 double or does it not double? All dice roll double. This is gonna be angry. angry. Yeah it is. Gunsling a warlock. Yeah. So. It's pretty, pretty good. It's pretty good. 19, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25.

42 points of damage. Nice. Of fire damage. At 42 points plus, and that's with five points of fire damage, 42 points. Okay. The first blast hits and you can see the, the cloak is blown off the shoulder and set a flame. It actually just kind of burns and cinders in the corner.

So Caryon looks down, it's like, and he's kind of like, looking very, very curiously. The second shot rings out, and at this point now, like, the smoke is breathing your entire arm. The gun isn't even visible, it's just this giant column of smoke. The second shot rings out, this time, hitting him in the side of the neck and the shoulder, blowing a chunk off of it. It's part of the bone is now sticking out.

It reaches back with his arm and is like, with a rapier up, kind of clutching it for a second. It leans over and it looks back over. It's like, Ripley. I'm just, just as an action. Ripley? As a bonus action, I'm going to remove my hat and I'm going to ask, I'm just going to say,

drop it. Oh. Will this take an action? To drop the spell, you can do it on your turn. On your turn, yeah. Okay, I think that's next. Ripley. All right.

So, after. Rippley. After. He thinks it's Ripley. He thinks it's Ripley with the gun. Ripley's building guns. Ripley's... That's doing the gun.

Fucking Ripley! So, that finished Percy's turn. It is now Sir Carian Stone Telf's turn. Oh, shit. Caryin's gonna use a bonus action to use second wind. No, that's some sort of healing. That's a healing. Yeah, it's not that much, though.

It's not much healing. Wait, who's doing what? It has 6,000 health points. Cary, Carian. Cillian. Is it a regeneration thing or he's casting his phone? No, it's a fighter action. Yeah.

Okay, that's fine. And that was with the headshot instead? Yeah, it was with a headshot. So that means just for, disadvantage for one, has a disadvantage on attacks for one round. And deals damage, right? And deals damage. Okay.

I'm a good boy. So, Carrian is going to, since it's currently in the circumstance, is going to move this way just going to hide alongside Vax. And since you're on top, it's with both rip ears out and you just jammed your daggers. I'm just going to do a flurry of four strikes against you. Okay. With disadvantage and all the attacks. There's clavicle sticking out of the shoulder. Yeah.

I'll use uncanny dodge for the first one that hits. 16, the first attack? No. All right. Let's hold a one on the second strike. That is a 21 on the third attack. And, oh no, it's a 14 on the fourth attack. Disadvantage, just swinging wide.

It gets one hit on you. Did that clavicle to be working. Yeah. Uncanny dodge on that attack. That is eight points of piercing damage against you. So cool. Ooh. It's nothing. That's nothing.

Got a knick on my chin. That finishes, Secarion. Oh, Securian is now going to go ahead and turn into smoke. He's actually going to take a step back towards the wall. You can attack opportunity? Yeah. All right, I throw a dagger in his face. All right. That is 28.

That hits. Okay. And that is eight points of damage. All right. Steps back. back and slams his fist against the wall. Oh no, oh no. Hey, who did that?

Caryne, he's calling him back up. Wait, he's calling him back up? We think, yeah. So that ends, Cairian's turn, Grog, you're up. I keep smashing shithead that's in front of me. Okay, go for it. That's 24. These are just regular. Yeah, 24 hits.

Oh, I should roll the other one first. Again, 24. 24 hits? Weird. Do you want your frenzied range? Or are you just doing too fast? Regular, regular rage, regular range. Uh, d'l-da-l-do-do-do.

Uh, 23 on the first one. All right. And 12 on the second. Gotcha. Wow! Is this with the fire damage as well from the hammer? Yes. Yeah.

So the hammer strikes across the back, the broad side of his shoulders and back. Pugh! Looks up at you, looks over it, Sirkary, just being annihil to behind the desk and just trying to nervously gauge his circumstance. Um, second strike smacks him upside. His body is like, uh, is just trying to take in the surroundings and figure out some sort of plan.

All right, so that, are you going to say where you are? That's it. Okay. Uh, it is now, uh, master Vook's turn. Who? You have not heard his name yet, but it is his turn. White guy. Yeah, I've been smacking. Mr. Philips. Is going to...

Mr. Rogaine. I'm picturing him as, what's his name in... From Harry Potter. Yeah. Yeah, I know, me too. Yeah. Yeah. Filch.

Filtch. Filtch on steroids. Yeah. It's going to use a... Okay. It's going to use a bonus action to disengage from you. And he's going to back away just one step that way. It uses action to...

to... His magic? He's going to shine Dimension Door out. But... Let's see here. But Mr. Filch doesn't have magic. He's a squib. Crookshunds.

He's a squibbs can't do magic. He knows this. He's making or not. Don't you get an attack of opportunity? Actually, instead, is not going to use bonus action to disengage. It's going to use a bonus action to use Misty step. Misty step. Vanishes, reappears over by the wall.

uses the action to cast a level three invisibility on both him and Sir Carrey and Stonefell. They're both considered invisible at the moment. And with the Missy Elliott step, I don't get an attack. Not for that, unfortunately. It's an immediate teleport, so he just vanishes from in front of you. What the fuck? I do. So if the purposes of this, they are both currently invisible.

And that's going to end... That soldier hasn't attacked yet, either. Correct, his turn hasn't come up yet. No, you can't. Now it becomes Scanlon's turn. Oh. Well, I can't see anyone who's alive, who I haven't dominated already,

except for the guy under the dire wolf. So I will remind all my fellows to keep one alive, to spread our terrorist message, and I will run out to the hallway, and say Vex get inside, and I, because I know reinforcements are coming, I cast Stinking Cloud out into the hallways. Okay.

Bad ass. So, Sticking Cloud appears, what's the radius on that? Stinking Cloud. That's cool. It's a 20-foot radius, isn't it? It says 90 feet range, let's see here, 20-foot radius. Okay, cool. So you just filled this entire hallway.

Yeah. Okay. sleep into the room as well or will it just keep it localized that area you just you'll be in the own your own cloud oh well then can I stop just short of the door could you stop her short of the door and fill this whole area with a sticking cloud yeah sorry you can also you can actually you can hold that that that action until she comes into the room okay I will hold that until she comes in the room okay so singing cloud is not yet up okay um before she's back step-way okay uh so yeah next round

Okay, so you are up on next. And I will inspire her as well. Okay. Yay. Do you want to do? I do. Yeah, you do. Every time, man.

You have to. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Vex be nimble. Vex be quick. Vex jump under limbo stick. Now you don't know how you're gonna react

because Vex has an attack. Oi. Oh, God. I don't get it. You take the detent's fresh. Confused. She's the girl. accept the inspiration.

You take five minutes in the chuckle in the middle of a hearty battle is always worth a little inspiration. All right, so I go in the room. All right, you step into the room at that point you trigger your action to release, the sticking cloud. All right, you want to stay there? Yeah, I stay right kind of in the doorway.

Okay. Actually, no, I, Beck. Well, What are you doing, Bex? Yeah, I'm staying right there. I can't see, is there a soldier right there next to the The invisible guys? Or is it just the invisible guys? On that wall, it's like a soldier being eaten by Keelith and then invisible.

Two invisibles and then another soldier who I've already dominated. Okay. Then I guess I'm just gonna, because, okay, I'm just gonna shoot. He still hasn't had a turn? Sorry, Keyleth. No, it's fine, go for it. Hill of thorns.

Wow. Do it, do it. Actually, I'm gonna do lightning arrow because that gets everything within 10 feet. Ooh. Okay. I'm gonna cast a lightning arrow on the soldier on the ground. Which one?

The one that Keyless attacking. The one that Keyless attacking. I will say you don't really have visual on him from that position. Can I move to a place where I get it? Yeah, you can get like there. You can get like there. Right? There you can probably see, yeah.

Awesome, let's do it from there. Okay, go for it. You have advantage on the attack roll because he is prone. Nice. There is. 27. 27 hits. Okay, so that is 48 damage to him.

All right. And then anything within 10 feet. 10 feet has to make a deck save. Okay. Is that including your brother? Yeah, that's everything within 10 feet. It's also including invisible dust. Oh, 10 feet, he's not there.

It would just be Keyleth and Sir Karen. Ooh, 2. 21, 21. Nice. It makes it 21, actually, exactly. Oh! Oh, nice. 19 to the little prone soldier.

Okay, 19. And then... As it snaps him and then bursts the electricity, the shockwaves out, and he... and he shakes in the ground, the tase of the fact. The blast seems to, is it half damage if they make the save? It's to the little prone guy? Yeah.

Oh, no, no, to anybody in the radius. Anybody within radius takes 1D8 if they make the save and then 2D8 if they fail. Okay, so roll 1D8. Okay, so one damage to you. Awesome. That's great. And one damage to Circurian.

Oh. To circarian. You see a spark of energy around the invisible form that kind of wavers in place. That's good at least to kind of, All right, that ends your turn, Vax. I saw that spark in the air and I just start knithing right into it. Okay.

So is that the last single order to your turn? Yeah, does the hunter's mark damage him, the invisible guy still, if he gets hit with anything? Or is it just if I attack him with Nero? I think if you attack him, that was more of just the person. So hearing him go, and seeing a spark right in front of me, I just start knithing at that point. All right, so disadvantage all the attacks?

Disavage, but I get advantage, so. canceles out. Why do you get advantage? Because you're awesome. Oh, no, I don't. I'm sorry. Disadvantage. It's not. All right, so the first one misses. That was the first two. It was terrible.

That's terrible. That's also terrible. Oh, I hit. Oh, I just go whoosh, whoosh, whoosh. Yeah, you're swinging the area, and you just can't get the blades to find any of this physical person

striking and arcing across the wooden wall behind them, causing its giant gashes. All right, that in the end. your turn. Still bleeding. Yeah, unless you want to stay where you are right there? Yeah, I'm gonna stay there. You would have probably had to move up there to attack him. Well, you're just throwing the daggers, right?

I back up, uh, is Keelik on the desk? No, she's thanks to the desk. And I'm on the desk? Yeah. No, I'll stay where I am. Okay, so you're just throwing the daggers from the desk. Yeah. Okay, that ends your turn. Now, uh, Kieleth.

Looking up and noticing that Circularian is gone and Vex is, blindly, or sorry, Bax is blindly stabbing into the distance. I'm going to drop my wolf form and cast fairy fire in that radius. Do you drop your wolf form? 20 foot cube. Mark that shit. Right. Here.

Okay. Realizing my party members are clearly stabbing at something. I like that when he has to go to the book, makes me feel like there's perhaps things he doesn't know. Fairy fire is an underused thing. It's really cool. All right, so yeah, so both of their forms all of a sudden are outlined by the sparkling purple halo that shows you directly where they are. Yes. Awesome.

All right. So that's your turn? Don't move anywhere? I'll back up a tidbit. Okay. The world of Sonic the Hedgehog has been thrust into a not-so-dark, not-so-stormy, hard-boiled detective story that... Probably nobody saw coming. Follow Sonic and the Intrepid Chaotic's detective agency

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this is the podcast that redefines what's possible. Hit play, subscribe, and join the millions who've made Mick Unplug their go-to source for growth and greatness, 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. Okay, as you back up, an invisible form that you just got revealed, swings out at you with a rapier. Yeah, sure, whatever. Oh, but he's a disadvantage on the attack.

He has advantage on her because he's in, although he. You can see him, that's true. This is a lot of. It's so confusing. Ferry Fier kind of made this weird. To the books again. Ferry fighter always makes it weird. She's got that chamber.

Ain't it the truth. Man, that fairy fire. Just learned it, folks. There's a lot of overlapping effects here, because everyone has matching. Now's a good time to go to the store and check out the critical role. T-shirt.

Yeah, it doesn't benefit from invisible. Okay. It has this advantage on the attack. Good QVC, yeah. That is... Red no t-shirt for sale, guy. And 15. Miss.

Yep. So, it gives you back up. All right. That ends your turn. Now this guard gets up, gets his crossbow, aims it up, and looking around the room, aims it, this would be... be seeing his friend turn on his boss briefly after you shouted that song at him.

He's going to turn the crossbow on you. On me? Jesus. That's going to be a... Who got? 16 to hit? I don't even know anymore. No one's attacked me in a while. It's your AC. Well, it's 17.

17. Well, it's 15 plus two because I've got something on. And then it's 17. All right. So as it comes towards you, you just kind of duck out of the way. It passes and snags into the wall behind you. Probably swear. No hit.

The thug is then going to drop the crossbow on the ground, and rushing up, pull out a mace that was hanging from the side of its belt, and engage you right there. Oh, I thought he was going to be a man. Everybody makes mistakes. This guy is an attempt to make two attacks against the... He's close to. The against Master Vux Throneau has advantage on them because Ferry Fire Fire, that hits.

And two attacks with Mace. That is 18. Yeah, hits with both. Whack, whack, whack with the Mace both times. Nice. Sorry. Wait, who's this? The guy you charmed.

That's not my guy. That's not my guy, man. There is. That guy is. attacking my guy? No, he's attacking. Oh, that's great. Yes.

Yes. Doing a total of 16 damage with this maze. Whack! Wadgeoning. He's now going to try and make a saving throw to shrug it. What's the DC on that? On my spell? Yes.

Oh, it's 19. Yeah, it does not make it. Still under control. That ends the thugs turn. Top of the round. Percy, you're up. Go Percy, go. Go Percy, go.

Shark shooter. Shark shooter against Kirin. Sir Kirian, okay. Do I have advantage on that because of Ferry Fire? You, did you know, did you not benefit from visibility and you have advantage, yes you do. Ox Machina, broken.

16. 16 a hit? Yeah. Misses. Take another shot. That was with advantage? Yeah. Hooper. Oh, 20.

20 does hit. 15 points of damage. 15. You see one blast hits the wall and causes it the part of the wood to splinter outward. The second shot impacts the partially invisible form. You can see a splash of blood across the desk in front. Partially spattering across Vax and one of his guards. Taking a third shot with ice.

No short for you. Natural 20. What? That's Lord. Percy rolls. Percy rolls. What the hell? This is, it's making up for my gun failing like four times.

Whatever you possessed, Voldemort. I know. Smokar. 6. 16. 25. 31 points of damage. 31 points of damage with four points of that being ice damage. Okay.

So Percy, how do you want to do this? You said that weird. This is important, right? In Sercadian, this is important. This is- How do you want to do this? That's the logo that's on the shirt that's for sale right now. Oh, stop it.

Don't sheep in this. Percy, don't sheep in this. Too late. Currently visible at your disposal, Sork-Karian, you have enough of a shot to finish him off. the smoke is pushing you vengeance. Vengeance. Repeatedly echoing in the back of your mind.

How do you want to do this? I'm going to put on the mask since I'm still under, he still doesn't know who I am. Mask. Okay. You pull the mask down, the bird peaked element of the mask now wreathed in smoke, resembling very closely

the entity that made the original bargain with you. I'm going to walk up to him. Okay. Yeah, there's no way to drop the illusion. That's such a damn shame. Oh, wait, you told me to. I did.

I could have, I didn't. Fuck. You're doing now for Flavor? That's fine. The mask will do. I'm gonna take one last shot. I'm going to look right at him. I'm going to catch his eye.

This is for the Drolos. And let me say you were the one I was least looking forward to. Oh, that's so cool. With that, a little bit of wreathed magical energy, you can barely make out an expression of horror on the face before the resounding blast sound rocks the room. The actual bullet itself, a trail of black smoke behind it as it impacts the front of Sucarion's face. The entirety of his head caving inward while the back just stole out of the glass. The scarred wooden wall behind him.

The body just slumps to the ground immediately. You guys all kind of glance over at Percy. You don't even see Percy. You just see a humanoid entity made of black swirling smoke energy with the peaked beak of his mask poking through. Not 100% sure what's going on. Can I take my fairy fire concentration that I still have up and move it over top of the black.

Smoke figure? Can you move a fairy fire? I don't know, can I move a fairy fire? I think when you use it, it just stays where it was. Could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure that's how it works. Is it 20 feet? Is he in it per chance? From there it's a 20 foot.

No, not for you placed it right on him, unfortunately. That's okay. Yeah, no, it just happens once. No, mine. With that, you... you kind of recoil from it, and just the voice echoes in you back of your head going. I'm going to drop the gun. You drop it. Remove my mask. Run to find something metal, something sharp anywhere on the table, and just start scratching off the name of the gun and just like, I'm

going to just go to a corner and just start scratching the name off. Okay. Um. Disturbed. Okay. That's your turn. That's my turn. Uh, sir, carrion is gone. Oh, annihilated. Uh, that brings us to Grog. Percy's having all the fun, and I start smashing that fuck that's looking at Vax.

Right there, okay, so you move up to the tail, swinging the hammer wide. Might as well make these great weapon master strikes as well, just for fucking, why not? Yeah. Oh, that's a 15? 15 just hits. just hits. Y'all, that's awesome. Okay.

And the second one. Oh. Yeah, that's pretty good. 28, 23. It's. 15. 20 is the first one. Okay.

With the fire damage. Oh. Actually, that's 30. Yeah, 30 is the first one. Plus 10. And 13. 16, 26, for the second one. Okay, so as you rush up, you can see it's pulled out.

It's mace. and the swing in a white arc towards Vax. As soon as you rush up, it looks to you out of the corner of the eye, drops the mace. And before the mace can hit the ground, your hammer actually swings around, hits the mace, and then both your hammer

and the mace slam into the side of his head, pushing him down onto the desk. Stunned, blood kind of spatters across the wood. It's just like, twitching on the table. It's already done. And you swing the hammer, lift it up. Pich! In the Gallagre performance, the head just,

The head just... This is disgusting. Oh, shit. Happy Halloween, folks. Great weapon master. Vuk is currently looking very... He's voked. Very, yeah, he's voked.

All right, is going to cast haste on himself. on himself and is going to run, dropping invisibility, and leaping through that window. Doesn't the guard get a? The guard gets a knock of opportunity and Kidduth does. Nice. Guard has advantage because the three, no, the guard misses with a mace.

Natural 20. Yeah, with your fire hands? No, it's with my staff, I'm assuming, right? Unless I guess I wanted the deck, I'm in the face. This would be with your staff. Just with my staff. Okay. Whack.

Bean him in the head. So it's five, so that's 11. I don't sec a lot. 13 damage. 13 damage. 13 damage? Yeah. All righty.

As you smack him at that point. I just kind of close light him. I'm just going to see him running. I'm like, ho. That brings him exactly to zero. You, whack. I'm right in the face, knocking the teeth out. And you just, b, b.

falls to the ground, unconscious and bleeding. Good. Yes, keep him alive. All right, that ends his turn. Wow. Man, surprise rounds, man. You guys are nasty. All right, Scalind, you're up. Scamlin's up?

Yeah. All right, I go run up to the guard. I have dominated. And I just, is he still dominated? Can I change the domination? I mean, you can cancel it, but otherwise he's just like looking. But I mean, can I change it from kill your boss to... Kill yourself?

Yeah. To give up? Yeah, you can tell him. Okay, so I will... You can't tell him to attack himself or anything. No, no, I will tell him... I'll be a little more powerful guy, though. Tell him...

Oh, go ahead. No, no. I was going to say, tell him to go tell anybody else in the house, everything's fine. Oh. Oh, that's good. That's good. Yeah, because we should kill... We should kill him a powerful guy.

Tell him that everything's fine. Okay. You there, Gogg! Go tell everyone that everything's fine. Go into that Stinking Cloud up there and tell all your friends that everything's hunky-dory. Technically, Sticking Cloud is a concentration spell, right? Is it? So if you were to maintain concentration on that, you would lose your domination.

Oh, okay. So it's your call. Which one do you want to maintain? The domination. Okay, so the Sticking Cloud fades from the hallway. That is. Concentration? I believe it is.

Spells like that usually are if it's to maintain. It is. I never wrote down a sea next to it. Okay. This is where that circuit were coming handy. Can I run over to Curion's body? You will be able to shortly. Yes.

You mean the thing that Orion took from me? Yeah. The thing that I needed? Yeah. All right. You used it pretty well a couple times. Yes, so I tell him to go warn his friends, not warn his friends, tell his friends that everything's fine. All is good.

Good to know. That ends your turn. Keel affects anyone else going to take any specific actions? I want to loot the bodies. I'm running over to Kiran and just going to rage loot him. Okay. I'm going to go to the desk. Okay, while you guys all do that, the guard leaves the room. You hear a few whispers in the hallway of conversations with a person unseen. towards the door.

Uh-oh. A giant attack. The conversation fades, and the guard walks back, seemingly job done. Job done. Also is gonna make a wisdom saving throw. That is 17. Nice. He is still a 19. The reins dominated.

You guys now, for the moment, the threat seems to have subsided. At the moment, you're still in the house, and there's still apparently things in the house. whether be guards or other individuals in the house that are on edge, as they heard, a series of gunshots. Jesus. Ring out, screams, and other sorts of concafony. The fact that this is even right now being handled is a very lucky series of rules on his heart. I want it said that this one should die.

He has magic. He's too strong. They could set better traps. Can interrogate him, though. Get crucial information. He's an officer. I can't talk yet. So you're going through security? I'm taking his swords. I'm taking, and I'm going to use his sword to just get that deep gouge into the gun. Okay. We can interrogate him in the ground.

He's two aviars, so it's like holding our stiletto. Grab that. And then anything he has on his body, I'm taking it. Okay. He has a potion greater healing on him. And then I kill him. We got around to actually using it. Oh, yeah.

And once there's a good gash in the name, I'm going to be able to, I'm just going to sit down and breathe. Okay. As you finish gashing the name out on the side of the metal and start breathing, you can see the name itself begin to glow with a slight dull purple glow and burn away from the metal, leaving just the scratch marks. From his body you have two rapiers, regular rapiers, studded leather armor that is enchanted with a plus one bonus, and that potion of greater healing.

So you can mark those down. I'm keeping a very strong eye on Percy right now. Anything in the desk, papers of any sort? Going through the desk, go ahead, make an investigation. It's a lot. Yeah, it's tons. It's 27. Yeah.

You find wax seals, you find parchment, you find pocket change, you find pocket change, about six or seven gold pieces just left in there. On his self, though, on his actual person, on Sarkarian's body, you find about 320 gold pieces, just as his own personal fund. Looking through the desk, you find mentions of the bridge plan to move between the two continents, to go across the channel to Wildmount. Just basically plans, the discussion, a lot of what they were planning to do with him on. on.

Okay. Someone write that down. I got it. You also find a small notebook. This just has some hand notes of his. I'll take it. Okay. So mark that down.

I start bounding or tying up unconscious guy on the floor. He's currently, like he's got to zero hit points. He's bleeding out, so. Well, what about the dominated guy? He's about to save from it. Dominations, he can save from it at any second. No, no. I thought we wanted to interrogate.

We do. She does not. He's still dominated. I take a rag out of my pocket and I roll it up and I shove it into Kirian's mouth while Grog is tying him up. Kirian's dead. Not Kirian. Vox. No, no. Kiyan has no head anymore.

Boldy. All right. Yeah. We tie him up. He shoves a rag at his mouth. I put one hand on the top of his head and the other hand under his chin. Should we bring him back just a little so we can ask him some questions? Vak? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. But what are we going to do about dominated guy? Can we like tie him up to you? Yeah. Tell him to go sit in a corner. Scan the same from that any second.

We need to like off him or something. There'll be time for that. I got it. Could you tell him look in the corner? Oh, turn away, look in the corner. This is supposed to be brutal. Lerwish style. Oh, man.

Oh, this is so wrong. Doesn't make a save. Knowing what's coming. Grog, do you want to? No, this is so wrong. What? We're asking questions. We're going to.

We gotta bring a little bit. Are you on hucks right now or Vuck? We're on Vox. There's no one in this town. There's no one to sleep or anything short of me knocking him out. There's no one working for the Brian Wood's worth saving. I can put him to sleep then. But I have to drop my thing for, I have to drop.

No. Just knock him out. I'll do it. I'm really good at knocking people out. Apparently, right. Just knock him out. Yeah. Knowing what's coming, I'm gonna make,

I'm gonna druid craft some pretty like kaleidoscopy flowers in front of his face. Pretty image before you. All right, he seems momentarily confused before the low of the... Do you even Blade or Pommel? Oh, Pummel. Before we knock him out, should you make sure that whatever he tells people is truly fearsome, but not too descriptive about us? Well, he already told his friends in the hallway.

That everything was fine. That everything's fine. So now we're just knocking them out. Yeah, we're just not going to know. All of this happens, I'm going to go over to Baldi, Lord Valk, or Mr. Valk. and poppy cure wounds potion into him. I'm about to help you. Okay.

How far down is he? He was just at zero. I brought him to trinket. Yeah, he was like unconscious, and was making his death saving. I was treating him for that circumstance. When he goes straight to zero like that, you know.

All right, I pop a cure wounds into him. Okay. Up to the guy in the corner. Scanlon, could you go stand next to him and tell him a joke? Oh, I was giving him pretty flowers. She always, you already... Are you standing next to him? She gave him pretty flowers.

I gave him pretty flowers. pretty flowers to look at. You walked over and given pretty flower? From a distance. I'll walk. You're standing next to him and sort of distract him with a little soft shoot. Right. Thank you. That's what I needed.

BOOSH. I got an 18. All right. No, I got a 20. Sorry, I got a 29. And that is 8 plus 14, 20, 22, 6, 7, 32, 32, 32, 32, 32. 32. 32. Wonk. He is from barely damaged to nothing. He goes immediately unconscious in the corner, face down in the middle of a bookcase.

I drop 18 points of healing into Vok. Okay. Rags in his throat. You're going to listen very carefully as my friends ask you some questions. you'll shake your head yes or shake it no What are we going to ask? Baxbury.

Well, Percy? Percy? I'm not available right now. All right. Come on, come with me. Okay. Where are the Briarwoods? Where are the Briar Woods? You got to do yes or no. He can't do.

Are the Briar Woods? In the palace. Yes or no? Just nod or nod? This is really smart. I feel good about this. Should we take the rag out? No. He can do spells.

Yeah. I just want to remind you that my friend over here can split you in half like an apple, right? I nod his head, yes. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Have you seen the Briwoods this week? Mm. Yeah.

Do you like working for them? Do they know where here? Are they in the palace? Do you know where they are? Do they have... have point to your teeth than most. This is mumblecore. Is your life worth giving a little information?

We want to know how to get into the palace without a problem. Got me advice? Now I just want to remind you. He can take your head off, your knees off, your car, off anything in half a second. Just get a little squeeze. I'm gonna pull the cloth out. I cast blindness on him.

Okay. Okay. Don't know if he's buff. Suddenly he goes, Oh, he's gone. Oh, he's a little hat on the cheek. Oh, now I feel bad. I'm a big fan of efficiency, so I'm going to pull this rag out,

and you've got about 30 seconds to start talking about something useful. Otherwise, my friend is going to make you a bit of a bit of fission. friend is going to make you about six inches shorter. Yeah, I'm going to turn your head into a dreidel. So we're going to start talking now, yes? In three, two. Please don't kill me. I can show you a secret entrance into the castle.

I know a way in. That's not guarded? I don't think so. They've closed it off. If you can find a way through, they won't expect it. Is it the one in the forest? There is one. Yes, yes, in the forest.

Forest. Look, I can bring you to the project room under the castle. What they're working on. Please don't kill me. Are they working on... Explosives? Yeah. They've been working on something. It's hard to describe. I've only been there once. It's beyond my interests, but it is part of the reason they even took this place. Lord Briarwood is a vampire. What the fuck is Lady Briarwood?

She's powerful, I'll give you that. She's scarcely more than the two of them. Is it hard to talk with no teeth? It's more difficult than expected, I? I start to tilt his head, and I'm like, showing us won't work. We need a location. It's under the castle.

It's under the city. all the caverns are there. I can show you how to get there. I've been there. They've taken me. Do you know what they've done to the ground here? Do you know why nothing grows? Stuff grows?

That's how I do the farming. Stuff doesn't grow, though. Not like it should. What did they do to land? I don't know. Maybe you have something to do with what they're doing under the castle. And what exactly are they doing under the castle? It's an excavation.

Or they're building something. I don't know the details of it. You've no idea what they want. Comparatively, I'm just a peasant to them. I work with... I worked with Kerridden. How long have you worked with Sir Stonefall? Five years.

Were you here when he took the castle? Yes, yes. I was part of the incursion. Good. You're very lucky. Because you're going to live. If you show us and I bring out a map. He can't see anything. I know.

Drop the size. Here's the crinkling of paper. Drop the blindness. All right, I drop blindness and I drop seeming. Look at me. Look at me. You're going to show me where on the castle is the secret entrance. Do you know who I am?

No. No. You will. Mark it on the map. It looks down to just bound arms and legs. I take his head and I shove his nose and his face right above the map. Use your nose. It's right. And he kind of spits in it, puts a little droplet. It's loosely in the area of the western side of the mountain that the castle is built on,

roughly around the entrance where you escaped when you and Cassandra. Left White Stone, five years before. I know where that is. That means we don't need you anymore. Let it live. I could show you where the project is. The tunnels. You need me. You'll set a good trap.

When, I just want to ask, when did the Briarwoods come out? Not often. You don't need to. Kareen does the work for him. Did the work for him. Those giants who controls them. We need to leave a message. She's the one who made them.

It's all over the room. She's the one who made them. Lady Briar. Can I propose something to you? She's a strong one with necklman. See she is. I shrewd the rag back in his mouth for a moment. Mark his face.

Take his tongue, let him loose. His eyes too? No, just his tongue. His tongue? This is so... Mark his face. I stick my two fingers inside of his nose, crank back on his nose, reach in, and rip his tongue out of his eyes.

I cover keyless eyes. That was a bit taller than I was. You said take his tongue. That's a natural 20. Natural 20, really? There isn't even a slow. I'm feeling like such a bassist on that. There isn't even a slow scuffle here.

You just reach in. Oh my God. You immediately jam the cloth back in as the cloth being stuck. He gets to slowly soak with blood. You hold, you know, a good, like almost a pound of muscle of a now motionless tongue in your hand and bludied in his face. And his tears are running out of his face.

Is that good enough for your message? I take my gun. I'm going to shoot it very gently. I'm going to shoot it into the ground. Shently? I'm just shoot the ground to muffle the sound. I'm going to take the heat of it and I'm going to cauterize it. His tongue?

His tongue. So he doesn't bleed out. You pull the cough out. I'm gonna mark his head with the mark, with the still hot gun. You start screaming in pain as you're burning, what, you're bringing into his head? The symbol of the role of family?

That's a very complicated symbol. I'm gonna do it. And then I say we let him run out the front door and we set fire to the house. I'm good with that, I got this. Where are we going after this? Whoa! Whoa!

Whoa! No, no. I like that. I like that a lot. You would, though. You would. Trinkets downstairs, we should leave Trunkett. Have we forgotten that this entire town is full of evil, undead vampire people? Have we also forgotten that this entire town is looking for us? They don't know we're here.

They will after we set fire on the house and send a man screaming into the street with your symbol on his head. What are they going to do? They don't know where we live. They will. They're gonna go, hmm, let's look at the burning smokestack of a house. He's gonna be missing by morning. We're gonna know. We've got a guy painted all over this room. They're gonna find out one way or the other. Might as well do it with a little showmanship.

We're trying to make everyone know that we're here. Trying to stop a rebellion. Yeah. Come on, be the mocking Jake. He left. Don't make me laugh. This is dark shit. It is!

We can stay the night before we release him and burn it down. Fair. Although there are a bunch of guards around. We can't stay the night here. All right, just burn it then. Let's get out of here. Wait, oh, hang on, hang on.

People who are fellow half- elves. Fellow half-elves. You look as horrified as I feel. How, what do you guys think? I feel like it's a little stupid, since we have nowhere to go. We can go back to our old city. Hideout, we have the tavern.

No one's found it. First of all, I know what you have been through. to an extent. Do you understand the house? I don't even know what I've been through to a certain extent, but yes. We came here to wipe out a scourge on this city. Careful, lest you become the scourge you've come to destroy. These people have eaten shit for five years.

I'm not saying that man was innocent, but he's had a hard road. Everyone here has had a hard road. I am maybe willing to overlook what just happened. happened for all the hardship you have had, but careful how you are walking. Hey, wait a second here, Vax. That was an enforcer. He kept the people oppressed. He worked for the Briar Woods and punished all of these farmers for not bringing enough taxes and enough tired. I didn't to Jack the Ripper because of it. Well, that's what a rebellion is.

I do like Ripping. There's no pretty way to do this. I agree that there will be a moment for Mersie, but he did not deserve it. I just feel like it might, you know, backfire a little bit. Look, I agreed to start a rebellion that the people have their uprising, but I'm with Vax. I mean, I was trying to tell you this before we even came here, Percy. You don't want to become the thing that you are so desperate to seek vengeance on. How are we any different than the Briarwoods at this point? We're not fucking vampires.

Look, what are our options besides burning the house down? I'm open to other ideas. We can just leave it as a symbol of our terror. I've marked him, I'm willing to walk away. And where do we stay? Somewhere else. The tavern. We have to find another building.

I know a barracks. It's not too far away. I agree with you with burning the house down. Let's find anyone who's in here and get them out. But I think they'll get out when the house catches on fire. Your soul doesn't need to be forfeit. Percival. Things are more complicated now. Percy, is that last barrel for you?

No. Okay. Good. And if it was what I tell you, no. Thank you. Why are things more complicated, Percy? Clearly, we all just witnessed what just happened. That's... Ratz was unexpected. Yeah? No, I'd agree with that. Yeah. That's a longer come.

conversation, I think I will. These guys aren't gonna stay out for long. Yeah, we're standing in a room. We should set fire and get out of it. We burn the house down. We find a place. This guy. Hey, buddy.

How's it going? He looks over at the body of Sir Carrey which is still slumped against the wall. Yeah. But Percy, we need to have that longer conversation soon. Soon, but not now. Let's go. Let's go out of here.

All right, if we're setting this damn house on fire, let's do it. All right. I take the tongueless one and I throw him out. I keep him bound. He's bound amongst the chest and hands and I throw him out the window. Burn, motherfucker. He's leaving him bound.

That was a little. He falls out into the rain falling on his side. He's being rained on. He's trying to struggle with his bindings. He'll get up. All right. The guard's unconscious. His feet are free.

Legs and feet are free. I was picturing like chest. So, okay. Then he gets to his feet and search money. Frog, can you carry this unconscious guard out on our way out? Sure. Do I get him for us? Huh?

Sircarian's body? Are they leaving a surcarian's body to burn with the house? Yes. Well, I mean to see. Let's take him too fine. I'd as well leave him out on the front step or something. So I'll grab Sir Karen the... Can you carry both of those fuckers?

Yeah. I threw one of them out. Like, he's already gone. There's the unconscious guard and the body of. I'll grab unconscious guard and the body of. He weighs like 600 pounds. Okay. All right.

And I'm gonna say, all right, well, if we're gonna light this damn house on fire and make it assemble. Can you do it? Have fire hands. I'm gonna, we're at least gonna make it cool and make it the message that it's supposed to be. There you go.

I turn into an eagle and I fly to the roof. Yeah, flying out the window that he just shattered. And I take, give me, give me your symbol. I'll give for one of the parchments. Okay, you fly up. The rain is coming down on you. It's a little hard to fly. You get up to the top of the roof.

It stinks. I cast a flaming sphere. So you transform into yourself again? Yeah. All ready? Let me, uh. We're all going to start going out the way we came. Yeah.

I throw unconscious guy and serve dead. Hope you guys are ready to get out. I open up a bottle of wine and take a giant. Yes. As you guys head back down to the cellar? Yeah. Yeah. You all head back down to the cellar.

You throw them both out the window, including the body of Sir Karian, now under the yard. You head back down to the cellar. You... I cast flaming sphere, and I start moving it around on the roof, and start drawing out the shape of the Dorolo family crest on the roof. Okay. Take you a few minutes.

The... You now see, as you're finishing the symbol, the Vok, Master Vuk, running to the front of the building, and you hear the voices of two guards going like, Master Vukos, what happened? Tell us, let's unbind him. Yes, yes, sir, and there are now the two guards over the front of the building are currently talking with him. You finish the symbol. And I take my flaming sphere and I throw it right at the feet of where the guards are. Okay, you're on the ceiling so you don't see them, but you know they're kind of off to the side of the roof, so you can, like, roll up

off the roof down to them. They both freak out and react and seem to get into a defensive position. Sort of arming themselves. You can hear like crossbow bolts being set into place. I run over to the edge where the cellar was. Crog. Crog.

Come, come to the side of the roof. You guys make your ways back down to the cellar where Trinket's waiting patiently. Yeah. Good buddy. Oh, drink it. Get out. You guys come out from the cellar now.

Girl, hey, hey. Catch me. Okay. Catch Keyleth. Are you guys, you guys are now out in the open. It's still during the day. Let's go. Running toward the woods?

Where are we running? Let's head back to the- Back to the end. We're- Let's try the barracks. The barracks are attached to the castle. Shit. Okay. Back to the tavern then.

Back to the tavern for now. They're gonna notice. Delth check real fast, guys. I just say you have pass without a race. Let's fight some Zonogian. No, we don't have pass. I can cast it right now. If you want to quickly, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Before we move. Stuff checks. 19. Did we get the pass by that trace? Yeah. So plus 10, right? 34. 20.

25. 21. 24. Sure enough, both guards rush around the corner. You guys have already leapt over the fence. However, they see the fence. The fence is bent. And they go rushing towards that direction.

You guys have already disappeared into the various alleyways, making your way back towards the inn at the center of town. That's right. It's just a . Yeah, just throwing it down behind us. Not exactly. They're giving chase. They're hearing the sounds of your footsteps a little bit,

but eventually their sounds fade. You do hear in the distance a bell start going off. Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. You're going to go into the basement. You start seeing people emerging from their homes hearing the bell, and you know this just to be a warning bell for whenever a fire breaks out in the city. You see smoke beginning to rise up.

Even through the rainstorm, there is You know, the fire is fighting the rain. But the smoke is black and it's starting to fade. You gather the building itself did not catch fire enough to burn into rubble due to the rain, but you've probably left a very visible mark on the roof. That all do. You'll begin to gather from the outside and you see folks running past the alley as you make your way back to the tavern that you currently have as your base of operations.

You all make your way in safely from the rain. take a deep breath and come to understand that you've definitely started the motion of whatever it is you're intending to do let's see how it plays out in the near future. We'll call the session there tonight. Welcome to Mick Unplugged, the number one podcast for self-improvement and modern leadership.

I'm Mick Hunt, your host, and I'm here to challenge your why and fuel your because. This is where leaders, entrepreneurs, and go-getters come to level up. Each week, I bring you unfiltered conversations, game-changing strategies, and the kind of motivation that transforms lives and legacies. I've learned from legends like Les Brown, Damon John, and Robert Irvine. And now, I'm bringing their lessons, along with mine, straight to you. From modern leadership tips to creating unstoppable momentum, this is the podcast that redefines what's possible.

Hit play, subscribe, and join the millions who've made more. Mick Unplugged their go-to source for growth and greatness, 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. Oh, please, not that music. That music gives me nightmares from my childhood.

Could we get something a little bit lighter? Some lighter music here. Are you a fan of True Crime TV shows? And what about Unsolved Mysteries, the show that jumped started all of our love of True Crime. I'm Ellen Marsh. And I'm Joey Taranto. And we host I Think Not, a true crime comedy podcast covering some of the wildest stories from your favorite true crime campy TV shows all the way to Unsolved Mysteries.

Baby, you will laugh, you will cry. You'll think about true crime in a whole new way. And you'll also ask yourself, who gave these people mics? New episodes of I Think Not are released every Wednesday with bonus episodes out every Thursday on Patreon. And every Monday you can listen to our True Crime. Crime Rundown, where we go over the top true crime headlines of the week. So come and join us wherever you listen to your podcasts. Look, we all know there are a lot of celebrity interview podcasts out there, but there's only one

happy, sad, confused. I'm Josh Harrowitzin. Yeah, I'm the host of the show, so I'm a little biased, but truly happy, say, confused is the place for nerdy and intimate conversations with all your favorite actors and filmmakers. From Andrew Garfield and Scarlett Johansson to Christopher Nolan and Quentin Towers. For over 10 years and over 700 episodes, Happy Say I Confused has broken movie and TV news every single week.

That's because I ask all the questions I want to know, and more importantly, you want to know. Casting what-ifs, backstage stories, acting pet peeves, and much more. So whether you're into superheroes, prestige TV, or just the coolest actors and directors alive, you're going to learn something in every episode. Listen to Happy Say I Confused. Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.