Critical Role & Sagas of Sundry - Vox Machina Ep. 35 - Denoument

Episode Date: November 30, 2021

Vox Machina fights for Percy’s soul as the Whitestone rebellion comes to a head! All this plus berets, tree hugging and… ships?   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Years later came back into the fold of Voxmachina's existence, and it was decided to go ahead and to hunt them down and save the city of Whitestone. Upon arriving, they began to stir a rebellion within the town against this horrible, undead-controlled menace by Lady Briwit herself. after this rebellion was incited, fires were burning, individuals were killed that were responsible for keeping the people down, and just didn't really bad people all around were being slaughtered by our interpretant adventurers. They made their way into Whitestone Castle, where they had uncovered some information about the Ziggurate project in which the Briarwoods

had been developing something beneath the city of White Stone, and discovered that Percy's sister Cassandra, who was thought to be dead long ago, actually still still. survived and was being kept in the castle. She joined the party as you guys fought your way down underneath the city of White Stone through a series of tunnels, finding yourselves unintentionally locked within a trap, a retooled a version of what was previously an acid distillery for the white stone that's actually mined from the surrounding mountains and fought left for dead by the Briarwoods themselves, in which Vax was charmed and taken along with them and Consandra showed herself.

You were the one that got us into the ass... You don't think they would have done that? Well, we'll never know. We'll never know since you've covered it. Acid sucks. I never want to encounter acid again. Every time we do, it's bad. Unless you're in a few times. It's always bad. Well, acid's bad in general. It's like, oh, this acid's fine. Citric acid is pretty good. Yeah. Pretty delicious. Reserves apples.

I stand corrected. Are you going to be a citric acid trap? No. It's probably not going to happen. Unless it's part of the Winter's Press Festival. Awesome. Can we check for citric acid? You can certainly dry. It's not acid resistance on your armor, it's citric acid resistance.

It's citric acid resistance. Works both ways. All get scurvy? Very possible. Anyway, back to the story. Upon facing the danger of this trap and seeing Cassandra turn redcoat to them with the Briar Woods, the party managed to think their way out of the trap before too much damage was taken,

and following the Briarwoods to the final chamber where the Ziggurat was constructed, where apparently there is some sort of ritual underway to some entity that they worship or work would they refer to as the whispered one. Upon following the party dividing up and falling up the sides of the ziggurat, they managed to catch and encounter the Briar Woods,

a charmed vax, and Cassandra before they could enter the actual ritual chamber. A battle commenced, where, thanks to proper preparation, did not go all so poorly, And in the process, Silas Briarwood was destroyed through a combination of Sunbeam, the Achilith, and some Pike Shield deflection. Very adventurous moment. Tux. Which is a hint of phallic imagery.

Silas's destruction sent Delilah into a mournful wail, and she decided to try and complete the ritual herself, although it may or may not have been too soon to do so. Dimension Doorway into the virtual room in which you guys followed over the wall. She seemed to complete the ritual, creating this small, vacuous, spinning black sphere that is locked in place. Vex was nearly felled by a spell as she attempted to fly in and stop it. The party then rushed in to aid Vex. Percy took a shot that intentionally did not finish Lady Briarwood, not only just taking off her right arm as she fell unconscious and bleeding out. Vex unconscious from the fall and also in the cusp of dying, the party rushed in the helper,

realized that seemingly the vicinity around this orb had cut all magic. So thus they were snatched up and escorted off the side of the ziggurat, and that was where we left the last game. So to pick up where we were, Vex, who had Vex in their arms last time was like... Brogg. Grog had Vex and is rushing with her down in your arms who has Delilah and who has Bragg has both. He has both of us. I'm piled on top of Delilah.

He was. Okay. So you have Delilah and Vex. Who has Cassandra? I think I have Cassandra. I have Cassandra. Okay. So as you guys are rushing down the steps of the Ziggurat itself,

the green glass-like jade material slowly fading into the white stones, you rush towards the base. What little bit of light is available to you from the small bits of torches play? the small bits of torches placed at the bottom of the ziggurat and what light sources you brought with you. You find yourself at the very bottom of the dirt. Looking around, there's the exit where you guys originally entered this chamber. You do also see a number of small metallic carts. The center top turn over to the side. At this point, you can see you have bits and crumpled pieces of white stone and shards of that green glass residual material left out.

And you can see that there's just piles of leftover building materials that are kind of scattered about the base floor of this area. Are you saying that Keelith and I have caught up at this point because I know that people started going out of the temple. Keeleth ran in. I hand-ed the extra grog. I ran after. Yes, you guys are still a little bit behind the rest of the group. You're on your way now and just down rushing down the stairs of the Zika-Raw. The rest of you have reached the bottom. True, that natural 20 that kept her probably getting sucked into Uranus.

Yep. Probably. Save versus Uranus. Could have been bad. All right, so as everyone except... Steve versus Uranus is what you said. Put it in the handbook. Like 12.

The next to a routed document. And Lady Briwood is manacled as well. She is manacled behind you and Cassandra is tied up. Right. It's up to there. As the rest of you rush down to the bottom, minus Vax and Kulith, what do you should do? Do we should wait for them? Or are you going to push on towards the tunnel you enter it? Fuck damn, we keep running.

We're trying to get out of the area, right? I'm barely conscious right now, right? I was kind of yelling in my earpiece. Uh, fuck it, run. Run, run, run, so you go to there, falling behind you. Rog? Yeah, oh yeah, yes.

Get this bitch off of me. Oh, sorry, yeah, fuck it. It's like carrying coats, hold on. So if I put one in each arm. There you go. Are we leaving? Yeah, we're trying to get out of here as fast as we can. How are you feeling?

And I reach up and I grab onto his beard. This is a beautiful beard. Watch out for traps. At this point, as you're having this discussion, you guys are rushing down. You guys see this as your rushing in the Ziggurat. The radiant energy that is currently the form of pike seems to have slowly withered. And she kind of looks over her shoulder with a look of immediate fear as it. Oh, no.

No. Why? Because of technology. And also the story. I didn't even know she was gone. I don't either. Pike, no! No, Pike!

It seems as if the, whatever anti-magical aura has slowly pushed the divine connection that keeps her present from the current vicinity. Did you freaking period die? Also, the battery died on the computer. Is that black orb? I know. Black-black orb. Where can we pull it in at?

Damn it. Right there. So you guys continue pushing on, you make your way to the cavern and begin to the heading back towards the undercroft vicinity of White Stone. Yeah, let me know when we leave that big-ass room that the Zicarata is. We're still in it, right? You guys have just now made your way towards the exit tunnel, so you're just now leaving. I remember the tunnel sucking booby trap-wise.

That's what's past... Watch out the traps. Not until what passed the gold room, the glass room. I marked all the traps are marked. All the traps that we found. No, remember there was one. Remember there was one, the poison dust one, which were immune to still. But that already got stuck.

Can I check for traps as I go? Sure, well, you push and make your way into the... You're checking for traps, though. You're holding two ladies. As you guys rush behind them. Almost Saturday night, my friend. Oh, boy. You head back into the tunnel, having to lower your head a little bit as you're carrying this payload.

You're kind of lumbering through a giant Goliath body, just stomping through the darkness, A payload. He called you a payload. Yeah. You come to where there is the partially dissolved stone door. Right. And you just kind of rush underneath and using all of your back muscle, make a strength check. Oh, gosh.

That's good. Four. Tensing the entirety of your entire muscle pressure. I'm not that heavy. Oh, it's not about you being heavy. It's about the door itself not being quite large enough for him to come through carrying that large. Thank you, ma'am. You lift and you hear the stone shift as it's forcefully pushed up.

You hear snaps of things breaking or supports that were keeping it in place as you essentially break the door and jam it upward, giving you enough space to pull through the rest of the future. Fucking hate doors. Don't we all? We do. The greatest nemesis is Foxman. Is Cassandra awake or is she unconscious? She's unconscious, correct?

Damn it. You make your way into the top level of the... of the distillery room, down the pathway into the upward ramp to the opposite side, the door open, and you are now outside of the distillery trap. It's the danger area. Oh no. You're out. Wait, so who's at like zero help?

One, one point. We have potions now. We're out of the magic. Can't you heal people? We can try it. We can try it just a... I have potions too, but... Are we out of the room? We're out of the room.

Yeah, we're out of the room. You're not currently with them, though. You're behind with backs trying to catch it. I have some... You have some potions? I have a common... Can I try giving Vax a common healing potion? Yeah. You want to stop for a second and just, like, pull it out. I'd fucking drop Lady Briarwood, like, on her face.

Oh, no. She might die. No, she could die, die, die. Okay. She rolls, it bounces a little bit just from the sheer force of the throw. Not even paying attention. She's still breathing. You reach in, how she bring out your potion, set Vex down, and hand it to her. So you go ahead. Please work.

You go ahead and heal 2D4 plus two. It points. Oh! Really? Yeah. Okay. Here's my D4. What's two?

Oh, that's good. That's a whole eight points. There you go. That's actually pretty good. And it stays? It works? At this point, as you guys have pushed outside of that room, it appears to be functioning again. Yay!

Oh, good. That took. Can you heal people? Can you heal people? Wait. It's a yes or no, gosh. I'm awake enough. I can try.

I'm awake enough. I didn't use all my, I wake up and I cast cure wounds on myself. Okay. Go for it. I can't do that. I'm like, ooh, I love me so much. Cure me. At just first level or?

I think second level I have enough. Okay. So 2D8 plus your spell casting modifier. Okay. Maybe with some of fire is. That was not even as good as a common potion. Wait, right. Oh, wow, wow, sort of.

14. Okay. All right. So pretty low. So basically full hit points in this point. I feel like we should heal you up just a touch more. What are you at? 23 points. It's pretty fucking low.

All right. I'll give you my greater heel. I have one. She could have much. Really? Yeah, I'm a giant. No, I'll take this one. I want you to have my greater healing potion. It would mean so much to me if you take it.

Dr. Thanks, Gannon. No problem. Like we're here, I'd give it to her, but... I understand right. Not, so. You're pretty cool, too. Thanks, buddy. What do I roll for that? 4D4 plus 4. Wow! Magic. I feel so strong now.

You better roll strong. You better roll strong. I'm at 34 points. Hey, as a thank you for that, what? What about that gun? Skaven. Just let me hold it. Oh, he did. He did just give you a potion.

I'm just letting you know. You're not skilled with range attacks. There's nothing he can do with it anyway. I have all the ammunition. That's what you think. My pickpocket fingers are faster than you could ever imagine. I really don't think they are. Sounds like a challenge.

At this point, Kielas and Vax catch up to the rest of you guys. I'll take that. How did it go? Did you kill the little black thing of death? No. Scalman just don't. Don't do it. It's so stupid to do that. What? It's not loaded. Beck's gave Scanlan a gun.

I don't think it's loaded. Oh, God. Be careful. Do I look, does it look cool? No. Did anybody talk about all? No, I tried to jam a piece of the jammy, the magic glass. Oh yeah.

The jammy magic glass into it. And I'm probably lucky that I was able to pull away as quickly as I did, because I think it kind of eats everything around it. So wait, it's still, it's still there? It's still there, yeah. Is it moving at all? It's doing it like really fast spinny things. That's not good. What about all the bodies in the room?

Are they still like, bah. I thought I could maybe go into my wild shape and bring down the building. I thought maybe if I collapsed the building, maybe it was drawing some sort of energy from the nets of intertwined bodies. Right, right. But I couldn't because it was blocking all magic capabilities.

Can I look over at Lady Briwood and do a check on her to see if she looks stable? Sure, which at this point, too, just to know, And all the chaos and all the intent trying to get things out of there, you've just now starting to realize that the seeming spell that you placed in the whole party had also been canceled as part of whatever this triggered anti-field was. So all kind of look around and realize, oh, we aren't a bunch of Persis. Oh, beautiful again.

Thank you. That's good, because I noticed your beard. That's right. That's right. Are you checking on Lady Briarwood? I am. Trinkins, like, nuzzling the body. Keep her unconscious.

You can get careful, careful. I'm going to try and wake Cassandra up. Okay. That's the magic. That's the magic. It was right, dad. All right, so you go ahead and check up on her. Go ahead and make a, actually this is pretty easy.

You take a moment, you kind of just feel her for her pulse. She is currently still alive. And with a flash of divine energy just past the outskirts of this anti-magic field, You can see Pike's radiant ethereal form all of a sudden reconstruct itself. Pike! Pike! I'm back, I'm back.

I'm back. Oh, thank you. So we were killing Lady Briarwood? No, we're okay. We're okay. Everything's okay. Thanks, Sarah and Ray, you're back. Okay, we're, can I heal somebody?

Well, we did that a bit while you were gone, but yes. But I'm still pretty low. If you feel like it, I could, I would take it and I would be grateful. How's everybody else? Can you hear a couple people? Yeah. Um, I'm a little shaky. I'm a little shaky as well.

Hi, Kheal is all, we love you. Okay, let me do a mask cure wound because I have them. Gather together, gather together. Group hug. Oh wait, but wait. We don't want her to heal. Don't let Lady Briarwood in the circle of healing. Is she alive?

Did you check her in? Is she alive? She is currently alive. She's unconscious. And she's the, thankfully, from the blast and the sheer force of it, Part of the wound was carterized, but she has been bleeding quite a bit on the run down here, and she would probably need some sort of even... Should I stabilize her?

Let's... Yeah, do we stay. Stabilizer first. We're away from the fucking sacrifice area, maybe we should just kill her. I want to quickly check my gun. What is... Is Lord Breyerwood's name still on it? You go and inspect the barrel?

No. Silas Briarwood is currently erased from the barrel. Let's hold off. just a bit before we kill her. I have some really dirty rags. Could I do a medicine check and try and stabilize her blade? If you want her. Dirty rags?

Gross. An 18. That's pretty good. Do you have medicine skill? Zero for medicine. So yeah, as you guys were having this conversation, Grog comes over and pulls out a model mass of really filthy rags from the bag of holding.

Probably used in various nose wiping circumstances. Or other things. But somehow, but somehow, But somehow, it manages to stop the bleeding and keep her relatively stable for the moment, yeah. Okay, and then I take her by the foot and I drag her on her face away from the group. Okay.

Very gently, but still by her foot. Double check, perhaps gag her as well. Oh, right, yeah, she talks that shit, doesn't she? I don't want her speaking and she only has one arm, so magic's gonna be tricky. This kind of thing, but she can still talk. Pike, do you say you wanted to cast mass cure wounds, you said? Yes.

You can choose up to six creatures in a 30-foot radius, so it's your choice who you'd want to heal. Okay, so I'll... She can't see us. Why are we holding our hands up? I don't know. Actually, you can see us on the screen. Never mind. I know, I have you guys on my iPad down here, but you're just delayed.

Six. Awesome. Okay, so I'll cure all the six people in my family. All right, so that's 3D8 plus five for you. Whoa, one up, your homies. Yeah. Roll high. Oh, to have a cleric in the group again. I know.

I know. Life. Three D-eight plus five? She's rolling. She rolls. Come on. 26. Woo!

Oh. Let this be a lesson for all people out there that think clerics are lame and nobody loves them. We love them. I like me. Can I tear a piece of fabric off of one of the three remaining fancy robes? and I tie it around Lady Briarwood's mouth. But like, you know, like, and then teaks up,

she can't like really enunciate. Okay. Yeah, so you go ahead and you pull it in, you gag around and set her mouth. And as you end up tying it, you can see one of her eyes kind of lulls open out of the inch. Oh, she's a wager! Punch her in the face.

Pounder in the face. Wait, don't, don't, don't, don't. You'll kill her. You'll kill her. What do I do? Blindfold her. I slap her. Roll a string.

Shit. I'm gonna kill her with a slap. She'll be knocked unconscious and then she'll have to save three times again. 21? Oh, that's good. No. Okay. Wack, right across her face. You hear a resounding crack sound as appears like some part of her cheekbone probably is going to be fairly bruised tomorrow. But she is straight unconsciousness again. Ha ha!

If you're curious, she's still alive. I can tell. No. She almost killed me. Is she just unconscious or is she? She's still breathing. I'm going to try and wake up Cassandra. Okay.

Up dead bandages on it real good. So as you're standing in the tunnel, you know, they're off at one time, you go over to where you set her down and have the conversation. And she's still bound, you know, arms and legs. She's nearly hog-tied by grog when you guys finished up at the top of the temple. She's breathing. You can see like the dirt from being plush on the ground is kind of kicked in on where the tear marks were down her face.

You shake her gently and eventually she comes to consciousness and kind of... Yeah, gently. Our eyes kind of roll around for a moment. She glances over at you. Percy? We will have a discussion later. In the meantime, do you know what that thing in there is and how do we stop it? She didn't see it, does she?

I don't... What? What's going on? The spinning orb of death. And she's like, sort of moving around and looking around the tunnel real fast at everyone. What happened? What's going on? You betrayed some bitches, that's what you did.

I'm... As she says, you see, she reacts as almost like someone had just punched her in the chest, and the tears began to flow down her face again, and she's, I'm sorry. I'm going to slap her in the face. Okay. Go ahead and roll straight. You might be unconscious to you. Not with my strength. Natural strength.

Natural's running. 16. My strength is, well, actually, my strength is still thin because of the... I still have, I have a, negative two strength, right? So 15. 15, yeah, okay. Just negative one. So you smack her, just to kind of get our attention

and to stop the circumstance, she kind of stops and puts in a person, gathers herself, and breathing slows, and she kind of just stares off into space for a moment. I need my sister back. Are you awake? Are you a terrible person? Do I want to strangle you right now? Probably.

Good. Then we can work with this. They were building something down here. Briwoods are no longer a problem. They were building something. What do you know about it? It may be started. It seems to be affecting magic, I think.

I don't know. They wouldn't let me near it. Don't lie to us anymore. I'm not lying. Do I have a reason to lie right now? And she looks over at you with an intensity through her gaze that catches you not as desperation, but as passionate self-loathing. You seem to really believe your words, but you know your word is worth fuck all right now. Fuck all.

I know. I know. I know. Jirkena leans her head down on the side of this cavern wall and kind of serves off in this space. I, all that I know about this is that they've been building a ton of the guidance of some other person, entity. They've referred to him many times as the whispered one. They're very secretive about it. The only reason I knew was because I'd overheard a few conversations and questioned them about it, to which there was punishment. They mainly kept me to try and keep the people

My job was to keep in contact with anyone who would attempt to rise against them, inform them, or prevent any surprises, although apparently, and thankfully I didn't do a very good job, and she looks around the room at the rest of you. Can I just sort of check my history memory banks to see if I know anything about the whispered one, or if that jogs any memory? A religion check, Mr. Byrd. A religion check. Well, that's not good. Cassandry.

20. What? Natural 20? No. I got, I had a really strong reaction to that. Oh. Yes, the Whispers! What?

He's gone. He's whispering about the Listers. Oh, Jesus. This is the pre-show days. It's not new, it's just been a lot. Yeah, it's been a long time. Yeah, but he's on this side of the table. None of us have rolled this well.

We used to play it. Don't over listen. I don't do they. Don't do they. Don't do da da da da da da da da da da da da da. Don't do. He's licking the inside of Sam's ear. Look at his eyes.

Shh, the liar. The whispered one. He is the whispered one. He is the whispered one. This is normally the time when Sam went through. It was all tongue in my ear the whole time. Lucky, lucky boy. Uh, the whispered one.

Yeah, I draw as a, I have a memory. I don't know where I. learned of this knowledge. I am very old. But I did, at some point in my travels, I remember reading about something, a lich, a lich king, who wanted to be a god and his name was Vecna. And they called him the whispered one. That's all I remember. He tried to achieve great power, and I don't know if it was successful or not. Cassandra, does any of that sound familiar? Lich entity.

Cassandra kind of shakes her head and says, honestly, I didn't know anything beyond the name. I just know that they were very close with this individual. When you betrayed us, you said you were serving a higher purpose. Did they plan to sacrifice you to him? No, there was a blood ritual involved. I did not know more than that there was to be,

to be a gift of power, should I give an element of my life to this ritual? She kind of shakes her head for a second. She blinks her eyes, and she's like, I don't feel like I was right in my head. Cassandra? I look back on so many decisions I've made and all the people that I've, and the tears just start flowing again. Insight checks. Fourteenth. Um, best that you're...

can read off of her is there is a deep, deep look of regret and sorrow in her face. And you do notice that for most of this conversation, as much as she's been able to talk to all of you, she has been unable to make eye contact with Percy. You've backed a losing team. And that's not surprising. You, having been through what you've been through. That's all gone now. Silas is gone. Delilah is on death's door. Whitestone needs to be tended to and protected. Do you know anything that can help us save your birthright here and now?

You've already done half the job. Half. Half. Eyes look over at the unconscious Delilah in the hallway. Cassandra, is there any reason why they would want to sacrifice you in particular? particular. She kind of thinks hard for a second, her eyes squinting. I don't. They spoke very little. Intentionally, I think, of what they wanted to do. To be honest, I think there was an element that even they didn't know quite what they were doing. I was a tool. I was to be used.

I had my purposes and did my best to fulfill them. I've got a question. Do you care if I I'll smash this shit out of Lady Briarwood's head now. She fences over at her, and with a stern look in her face, she goes, Someone needs to avenge my family. And for the first time she looks over and makes eye contact with you. You feel a pulse in your hand, like a heartbeat. Boom.

The gun itself seems warmer and warmer. And you guys all notice as a bit of smoke begins to billow out the sides of Percy's sleeves. You hear a familiar voice creep up in the back of your head. Subur. I walk up to Lady Briarwood. Yeah. At your mercy. I put my gun to Lady Briarwood's head.

Wait, wait, wait. You're gonna shoot an unarmed woman? Oh, shoot him. Don't shoot an unarmed woman without... Unarmed, she tried to kill us. You changed the deal. Take her name off the gun. Was never changed.

Who's he talking to? The deal was made. I pulled the gun away. Things have changed. We need to talk. All right. Whoa. Who's he talking to?

I pulled my hand up and shush the group with my hand. You made a great sacrifice for my gifts, Percival. Do not let it be in vain. Did I even want revenge before I talk to you? Did I... I don't remember anymore. Die for? What do I even need?

I want my country. I want my sister. I have killed two of those who have wronged me, and nothing is better. Nothing feels better. Nothing is avenged. What is this worth to you? And I put the gun back at her head. Put it back.

Put it back. Maybe I will. You're placing the gun against your own head? And back to hers. Oh, Jesus. Cassandra screams out. Pessile, don't. Percy, no!

I put the gun to the side of... No, I'm holding the gun on Briarwood. That deal was a soft deal. It was a dream. It was a vision. What are visions, if not a window into the future? You understand so little Percival. Do not make me regret sharing this with you.

I need more from you. If you want anything from me, I don't trust you anymore. Besides, I put the gun to the right of Lady... I put the gun to the hand of Lady Briarwood and pull the trigger. The gun's broken anyway. I drop it. Not satisfied.

I want my money back. The smoke still billows out from you at this point. It's actually also still around her, it occurs to me. Go ahead and make a... wisdom saving throw. Yep. I'm training. I have advantage. Thank you. You do. I'm doing anything, but I'm holding a dagger and just watching Fersi. Okay. 20. 20. You feel that warm pulse that was in your hand earlier, that was coming from a gun. It pulses like a heartbeat in the hand that was holding it. And for a

Second, you feel like something just grabbed your wrist and slapped it away towards your back. Reaching for a bad news is... Which does work. And then you rip control of your hand once again. Delilah, you are going to die tonight. Whether or not it is a merciful, quick death, or a slow and agonizing one, controlled by something darker than I know, is in terms. entirely up to you. How do we stop that thing?

Delilah, whose eyes are still kind of rolling after all the shouting that's been going on and there's still like how many consciousness from the gag around her mouth. Just gonna lose it. And eyes dart around in fear. You can see like their makeup is run down her cheeks from her own lamenting over Silas' loss and the confusion over the ritual. And the fear all of a sudden turns to seething burning hatred as they dart around. And then she can't talk with the... I will mage hand to remove the gag from her. I pull an arrow and aim it right at her head just a week.

Yeah, I kind of start, I prep my fire hands. I know the pain you're feeling right now. I know the rage. I know every moment of it, and I guarantee I can make it worse. I can make it so much worse. Fix this. And join your beloved. Okay, as this is happening, as this is happening,

She, you know, the gag falls away from her mouth from the magic hand. She's glancing at you, and the smoke is now billowing up stronger to the point where you can barely see Percy's torso. You can see his head now. And as a little bit of a view you have, his eyes have gone completely dark. There is just pitch black, completely encasing the entirety of his visible eye. You can see his feet still hanging beneath the smoke, and his feet are digging in, tense, into the ground. Delilah, don't make me hurt you. I reach over and I grab Vex's hand, and I just look at her and I say,

what do we do? Grog be ready to restrain me. I'm ready. Percival, Frederick Stein, von Musal-Kowalski-Darolo III. You will fight this monster inside of you. Delilah's looking at you right now and was kind of the anger and fury in her eyes clarified. She just kind of looks up, you've already taken everything from me. I really haven't. You still have your sanity and your life. I will take your life tonight, but I can leave you your sanity.

Interesting. You seem to be struggling, Percy. Okay, I'm gonna be an asshole. Fine. Fine. Casting minor and minor illusion. Okay. I'm changing my fore and into the screaming, writhing slowly, slowly.

slowly, slowly melting visage of Lord Breyerwood. Oh shit. And I'm just going to scream in holy high hell and pay. Okay. So, so... Suck it, girl. So minor illusion as a limitation, it would not be a full-body illusion, but you could take elements of your features to assemble.

I'm in smoke. I'm just taking it. Yeah. I know. So where once Percy's face existed, it twists into this shimmering apparition of Silas Brier looking down at her as his face contorts into horrible screaming pain. The head rises up, and almost soundlessly he screams out as the flesh begins to melt from the bone. As it does, Percy's voice rings out in this cacophonous roar that shakes the cavern around you. That pain you're feeling I've felt for years. Don't think I've imagined every way to hurt you.

I could spend years hurting you before you die in ways you cannot imagine. Now Do we stop it? I don't even know if it worked. We've been preparing for this ritual for five God-forsaking years. All to repay this.

And that's all. You forced us. It was too soon. Why? Why was it too soon? What were you waiting for? We were waiting for a particular date. There's a time each time.

year in which the barriers between the realms glow and grow very weak. You recall Erevan's attempt generations ago to blur between the realm of ice and this one. What you call the winter's crest. Well, this is too early. And you saw our failure. He will not be happy, I imagine. And I still owe him for what he gave me. for what he gave us. What did he give you? At which point, her tears, her eyes well up with tears and she looks over, she gave me, he gave me my Silas back. You took him from me again.

So do what you must do. I know I've paid my penance. And I know that no matter what steps you take now, it will only drag you deeper into this dark hole you've drawn yourselves. And you'll hear me laughing. William, you're laughing. No, I really won't. Knock her out again.

Oh, fine. Make your strength check. Oh, shit. 19. You hear, tinch, tch-t-ch-tch-tch-trossed some of the lower rocks as two of her teeth, scattering up the side of her mouth. Collect them. They're not pointy, right?

No. Just check a person for anything, any... Oh, I will gladly do that for you. Do you do that for you? Wait, hold us a minute. Are you sure you don't want to smoke this, bitch? I do. I think we're just going to throw into the acid pits.

What? What's that? No, I don't feel... What? No, I don't feel... What's the plan here, Percy? I go to a town. What are we doing?

And I try to sneak out a bullet. There are different bullets they want to help. No, I don't know that. Make a slightly hand check. Yes. Do it? Three. Shit.

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Fine. Natural one. No, that's a 16. So you watch as Scanlan kind of looks around, grabs it, picks it up, and the full barrel comes off of the gun. I just sort of back away from it. You guys, he's got smoke billowing out of him right now. Just sort of kick it off the way to the corner.

Salmon, give me the other gun. Oh, it's on the floor right there. The other gun. You were talking to something out there. What was it? I was very scared. I'm a little man. What were you talking to? I need another gun.

Are you gonna kill me? I'm like me. I walk between him and say, Percy, what are we doing? doing here. That woman deserves everything that is brought upon her, but what are we doing for White Stone? What are we doing? More importantly, what was that just now? Who were you talking to? I don't know. What?

Things have gotten a bit weird. Percy, you cannot honestly tell us you don't know anymore. I don't know! We just watched you have a full-fledged conversation with yourself. Did they not hear any other voice? Yeah, was he talking out loud? Oh shit, I came off like a crazy person. Yeah, you did.

Yes, you did. Yes, you did. Here's what I know. We were trying to answer you for a little bit. Here's what I know. Vecna is possibly maybe on the loose, maybe coming back. We know that this ritual has been started, and we don't know whether killing her is going to end it or not.

So I propose that we start leaving right away. I was going to- Do you know anything about Vecna? Anything for her? Hi, you can go make a religion check. Matt, flight of New York to whisper and her It's text. 47.

17. 17. 17. Okay. Not a whole lot more information than what Scanlon was able to ascertain from this. You just know that this entity known as Vecna, once a very powerful archelich, had once attempted to ascend to Godhood and was supposedly halted in the process. A battle that occurred on another plane. amongst heroes that were mostly, only a few came back from, but apparently stopped a very

terrible thing. But that was hundreds and hundreds of years ago. I wonder what Aravon has to do with this. And he created a vampire? He made Silas a vampire? You do know that, sorry. Go ahead. You do know, and Picoleys this too, in particular, Vecna is known as, for lack of a better term, kind of the patron saint or lesser god to those who worship as the deity of secrets, dark secrets, things that wish to be kept out of the knowledge of most of the world at large, and these secrets are coveted.

Things are complex and I don't trust myself to take her life. I'm in over my head. Do you need someone else to do it for you? She's worthless. I don't know if that will help. She almost killed Vex. She didn't kill Vax. We gotta fucking do something with us. This thing wants her dead and the only thing I can think to do is to say no. This thing?

That's true. Vecna. What thing in my head? Your thing. What thing is that, Percival? I don't know. Well, start fucking talking Percival because we will watch you talk to yourself for five straight minutes and we're not going to deal with it for much longer. Sorry, Percy, I'm with... I...

I had a dream. That was all. You mentioned just now that you wanted your money back. Was this a dream? Did you pay somebody? It was a dream. And with what? It was a dream where I was offered a means to revenge.

It was a dream. Well, clearly it wasn't. Well, I know that now, first of all. This is as new to me as anyone. It feels like you are lying to us. Can I do an insight? Can you? Can, yeah.

Please. Let me know if I'm lying, because fucking, fucking, fuck. Why do you all keep rolling so poorly against you? Shut up. Tell us, tell me what your, your, oh, 23 against him. Persuasion and deception skills are. Persuasion six, deception two.

Okay. 23. 23. 23. Oh, yeah. Oh my God, this is so exciting. He's gone, he disappeared. Inner parties, that was fine.

Man. The theme of the episode, we have the title, this one whispers. Whispers. I think we've already had an episode called whispers. Have we? Well, this one's called, uh, Secrets and Lies.

This one's called whisper sink. Ear-tonging. This one's called just, Apple Tops, apples, puss. For the record, I like the shadow stuff. I get one too. He whispers to you all the time. It looks like there was more tongue with you,

though, Sam, so. We're supposed to point that out. Didn't get sufficient tongue in yours? I thought there'd be more. Oh, I thought there'd be more tongue. Oh, I don't say that about you. You don't seem very sound like. Remember, these shirts are available online at geek and sundry.com.

I knew. I knew you were going to do that. I almost did it when he was whispering in your ear just for your sake. I would also like you to make another wisdom saving flow. Oh, shit. Oh, no. Natural 20. Shut the fuck up!

Breaking the game. What the... What? Don't tell. At this point, you feel your hands tense up, and once again to reach towards your back, you close your eyes and with all your will and might, you just scream.

scream, no! Instinctively. It wasn't even a conscious thought. It was just an animalistic response to feeling your physical form being taken over. And in that moment, every muscle in your body tenses. And you guys watch the smoke momentarily, kind of drift from his form behind him. Behind him? Off of him. You don't need to yell at us, Percy. We're just trying to help you. Like, the smoke dissipates? or goes behind him. I don't think he's rational. Behind him.

I'm aiming at the smoke. I'm just watching and waiting. At this point, you can see this smoke that's kind of, was once billowing from Percy, is now standing in this outer human-like shape. Unbeams say, unbeam say. Cashed out and say. As it kind of stands there for a moment, I don't say, okay.

It begins to swell and grow larger, filling almost to the height of the 10-foot tunnel. You guys are standing in, looming over Percy's body, still connected through his shadow and through the floor of the tunnel itself. It just kind of looms over, and as it peeks forward, you guys for the first time hear the voice that's been poking through him this entire time, just say, Percival, do it. I shoot a holy arrow at it. Then let's roll some initiative. Oh my god!

We're fighting the thing that's been in the world. All right, so. There's so many allegories! Therapy! There's so many of us. We're fighting the demons in your head. That's pretty great, actually. All right.

My therapist would be so proud right now. That's one to one. We've gotten these out before. Oh, man, we are out of like everything, aren't we? Yes. Oh, we're great. We're fine. We got a guy with a hammer, we're fine. We're all right.

Geez, okay. But that's pretty good. I still got two third level spells. I need stats on Lord Breyerwood's sword at some fourth level. You know what we have? You haven't taken a short rest. You know what we have? We have fucking pike.

We have pipe! Oh yeah, we do! We got pipe! I'm pretty low on spells, guys, but we're going to be okay. We're going to be okay. I have been dreading this for years. For years. What? What have you been dreading?

This moment right now. Oh my God, this has been in him for three years, four years. Yeah, no. Forever. Since the beginning. Cool. Since we've met you. I'm standing in front of Lady Briwood since I've been.

You're going on. Since you're right there with her. I know I'm so excited. If you're just for a second, I forgot. Or I'm either going to be a new Percy or a new person entirely. Or die. No, don't say that. I'm so sorry.

It's so fun to do you. Oh, shit, oh. Everyone's drawing their weapons, I shout. Maybe we should check and make sure that it won't kill him if we kill it. It's too late. It's too late. Who's standing where? I'm going to say.

Pike's probably. You have a little cavern for this. Where's Percy? Where's Percy? Percy is currently kind of right here. I'm more by the center there talking to everybody. I would be next to him because that's one. Do you have a mini for the dark specter of my soul?

I'm... I love you. Oh! Thank you so much. Oh. With Cassandra on the ground there. Next to Vex. Right, so you guys would be probably back here.

Your dagger's ready. Trinket is probably over by you, of course. Yeah, of course he is. And Keelith, I'd say you're probably on this side talking to Percy. Oh, but we were holding hands at one point. That's true. Kind of close. So then... Grog was covering me, so Grog would have been closer to me because I had him...

Yeah, I was in front of Lady Breyer would, though. Bob, should I have you right here between him and later Brown. Right there. That seems good. We're good. Oh, that's good. Do I have a clear shot at not that I'm going to do it, but I was aiming at Percy. So I would have a clear line of sight.

Is there nothing between us? You would have a clear line of sight. Well, the two gnomes are between you, so you're fine. I'm so happy right now. Have my holy arrow do? We're going to find out just a second. So first and foremost, initiative order. We have, okay, 25 to 20?

25. Wow, okay. Okay, so we have sex. 20. Do 20s? 19 to 15? 16. 16.

16, okay. I can suck it up. 15. 17. 17. Oh, 17. Oh, 17. Oh, sorry, did I miss that section?

You did. That's okay. Pike, would you get? Hey! Hey! Woo! Yeah! All right.

So, first of foremost, Vax, you're up with the initiative on this. You go ahead and you bring your whole You release it. Is it a surprise attack? It's a matter to me. Technically, no, I knew you were there. It was very aware of everyone's position. And it was kind of essentially after being forced out of his body at the moment preparing itself for some sort of a skull.

So it's not a surprise round, unfortunately. So go ahead and make your attacks with your arrows, be glad? Yes. 28 and 27. So both those hit. Awesome. Nice. Okay.

Okay. I don't roll that one. These two. Balls. So 15 plus holy damage? It's, okay, yeah, so I'll consider that do 1D4 radiant damage to it in addition to that. So 17 plus 4. 17 plus 4 is 21. 21 for the first one. And then 10 for the second.

All right, so. And then I hunters mark him. All righty. I didn't say hunters marked him at the beginning. I'm explaining this to you guys. I'm explaining this to you guys because I'd already said I shot at him. You did. So I was being honest. We can feel your disapproval.

I'm looking at the chat room because I know they're going to tell me I forgot my damn hunter's mark. That's okay. All right, so you pull back and release the first arrow as it goes and hits. You can see the smoke itself is kind of obscuring its place and kind of keeping it hard to hit, but you still strike true. The arrow striking into its form and there's a flash of radiant energy as it hits. And you see the creature kind of takes from the impact and stares down its chest as it looks up, kind of its face gearing towards you, and it is this formless, you.

humanoid body, but the face itself does kind of pinch into this elongated, kind of crow. Oh, I didn't do a holy damage for the second one. Right. Did the arrows hit? Yeah. Plus two more for the holy damage. They impacted. They impacted. Okay.

Okay. Okay. Okay. All right. So, it takes both the hits and kind of looks over at you. You can see like the, as it turns the head you can see better even in this low light, the shape of its face and its eyes burst into this angry, burning kind of purplish energy expression, and it looks very unhappy with the current circumstance. Do you want to move your trinket?

Trinket moves around and in front of me to kind of protect me. Okay. There you go. That's it you're just going to keep there? Yeah. All right. That ends your turn. Scanlan, you're up next. How tall is the tunnel? It's about 12 feet. No? Did you like this? Okay.

I got precious little I can do. I will lightning bolt it. Ooh, I'm really right next to it. You are, which means you could just blast towards the wall and hit it. All right. I will turn around and I will lightning bolt it. Okay, all right. So it's right there in front of you as the smoke kind of rises up, and you see the arrow strike it.

There's a flash of holy energy from Vex's attack, and at that moment, as it's distracted, you use that to go ahead and conjure your lightning bolt. For a moment, the flashing of light lights up the cavern around, the bolt passes through it harmlessly. What was that? Lightning. Lightning. Either or magic, one of the two didn't affect it. The lightning bolt passes through it and it just strikes the back of the wall and you can

see that the electrical energy discharge across the stone and earth, kind of arcing and spiring off till it dissipates, seeming to not have any sort of impact or effect on the billowing smoke entity. Shit. You want to stay there, you want to move. You are in its melee range. Huh? Yeah, you are in its melee range, so if you move it, we'll get an attack opportunity.

Choose us to take it. I will, I will, I will, I, Wendy, I Wanda, I wonder. I wonder. I will not move. And instead, I will just inspire Percy. Okay. And I'll say, you feel good in this motherfucker. Your whole hood in this motherfucker!

That's it. All right, take your deep turn. The moment of intensity, as you turn around now at this point, seeing everyone striking, you've looked your head over and you can see for the first time in full physical form the creature that has haunted your dreams for the past five years. And while it is not present, you can feel it's smiling. It's your turn. I'm going to...

going to run over to my sister. Okay. And cut open her bonds. Okay, so you put it right here. Oh, bonds. Okay. I use my sword to cut over her bonds. Get back, run!

And then if I still have enough timing beyond that, I'd love to take a swipe at it with my sword. Unfortunately, it's gonna, to free her entirely of her bonds and give her that, give her that, that's going to be your action. Okay. Okay. We haven't had a short rest, have we? Nope.

No. Oh. Yeah. We're not looking good. Okay. All right. So it is now the backster's turn. Oh, good.

So I've got a vantage because the smokey man isn't gone yet. So dagger and a dagger. The first one is 29, and the second one. It's your box. That's true. The second one is 24, so 29, 24. What's gonna do the advantage of this? Because he hasn't gone first in the first one.

That's correct, yes. All right. So both those hit. The first one is eight, and the second one is eight. Okay. Do you want to-dagger, life stealing? Right, do you want a snake attack for this? Because the theory, it's in melee range with an ally.

Oh, with Percy. With Percy and with Scanlon. Thanks, boss. Yeah. What's going on? Don't rob yourself of what you do. Matt's understanding that we are all screwed. Five, seven, eight, nine.

It's hard to see it over there. Nine, twelve, fifteen points of sneak attack damage. Yeah, I'm not used to the screen. I know, I keep forgetting about the bugs. It's a process and we're working on it. All right, cool, 15 points of sneak attack damage. So as you throw the two daggers, lunging them both, both of them,

their little aura of magical energy flashing as they both impact of its smoke form, seeming to sink slowly as they hit and then finding the edge of their blades, into its torso as it kind of rears back for that circumstance. There. Eight, nine, fifteen. Correct. All right. So the dagger's in. Cool.

Are you going to stay where you are, Max? Yeah, I am. All right. Now it is the entity's turn. As it kind of rears and the daggers both vanish from its torso, returning to your belt side. It's glaring down at you to its side, and it says, Percival, make orthax, regret working with you. Orthax. Orthax?

I hired them to do, uh, to get rid of some termites at my house once. Um. Well, that was really your mistake, wasn't it? Shifting this way twice. Percy, we'll get an impact of opportunity with your rapier if you'd like. I'll take it. All right. Are you using Breyerwood's rapier?

No, I haven't. No short rest. Right, right, right. 25 hits, good and roll damage. Nine points. Nine points of damage. All right. Good to know.

All right. Yeah. Now on the rest of its turn, as it kind of shifts up, and it doesn't walk or move, its forms kind of drifts along, and the shadows kind of meet it there. The smoke almost appears at the spot where it intends to go, and then it meets it in that moment. As it does, it now stays.

between a bunch of you, its eyes flare with dark purple, and you just hear this scream, this screeching echo out from it, and as it does, all of you hold your ears for a second. I need everyone to make a wisdom saving throw. You have advantage. Advantage. Advantage. 23. National 20. Ooh.

On the first roll. Nice. 16. 18. 18. Okay. 18 for Mike. Okay.

Okay. So all of you guys kind of hold your ears for a second, and everyone that rolled higher than a 17, takes six points of psychic damage. Psychic damage. And R. You guys both take 13 points of psychic damage. 13 because he's evil. Both of you feel all of a sudden like your brain filled with this urge to strike something, this overwhelming need to slash out at whatever's near you. Both of you get a brief move. Rog, it's going to pull you this way. And Vax is going to pull you this way. I need both of you guys to roll on

attack roll, as you rush up with your hammer, a flame's and you swing it down towards Scanlan. Oh, stop. Don't tap me for hitting Scandlin. I'm going to use cutting words to try to dodge out of the way. Okay, we'll roll the intent. Oh, shit. 19?

Okay, so 19. You're going to make some. I'm going to say, you're going to fail that attack, so you better sit your ass on back, because I ain't no holler back, no. I ain't no followback, no. All right, roll a D10. 10. One. Three.

So that, what does that do? Right, so cutting words, if I recall. It lowers his attack. Right, so that brings from 19 to 16. What's your armor class? How's that? It's 17. Oh!

With that, the Bard's words ring true to your mind, and for a second, you feel this new, this not grog-based rage, this outside forceful rage that it confuses you. And as he says that, you're right. He is no hollerback, no. And you resist with the hammer, giving him just enough time to step out of the way and slams into the ground, humlessly, cracking the stone around the base where he was right, there is no holo back, no.

Vax would like you to go ahead and make a dagger struck against Pike. Oh, 13, I rolled a 13. Roll the 13. Pike, you look over your shoulder, all of a sudden, Vax just appears behind you and slams forward with the dagger. You swoop around with your shield and with a large, you look over your shoulder, and with a large striking arc of sparks, deflect the blade blow across the dark air of this interior tunnel. Harmelessly, you take no damage. Bad ass-ass-Pike. All right, cool. Oh, no.

Oh, no. Ain't no Halibak now. Ain't no Halibak now. Ain't no Halabak no. And with that, you know what? It's going to go and do this. No. The entity then moves backwards. Scanlan, you already use your reaction to be cutting words, so you don't get it. Pike, go ahead make a melee attack. Like one reaction per round.

Your D20. Roll D20, roll for your normal Mace attack. 17? 17. Unfortunately, does not hit. It seems like it should have, but the smoke is obscuring the vision around it and where you swing. You do not manage to get quite close enough to hit its body as it steps backward into the wall and out of visual range. What? What? Into the wall? Into the wall. It just vanishes into the wall. side of the tunnel.

That brings us to Grog. The cloud who went in the walls? Yeah. I would like to rage. Okay. And move in front of the rest of the group, like put my back to the rest of the group. Okay, it's like right there? Yeah.

Okay. What the fuck, Grog, you just tried to kill me. Which wall did? I did? Yes. I don't remember that. Are you okay? Sure.

If you want to, you can hold, you can use your action to ready and attack, so whenever a trigger of your choosing happens, you can then make your eye. I would love to do that. Okay, what trigger would you like? When he reappears. Okay, it comes with an Amelia Ranger. Yeah, we can see him with my beautiful eyes. Okay, so holding an interaction there.

Cool, good to know. Keelith, you're up. Okay, I'm not trusting this guy. I'm gonna go ahead and cast Fairy Fire. Ooh, wait. Just gonna write, it's a 20-foot radius, just kind of right in this bubble that we've been hanging out in.

Okay. I'm assuming he's going to be up in our faces. All righty-fire. Ferry fire. Where do you want it? Just in which vicinity? Yeah, just kind of right around us. Okay, so 24 radius.

We'll say like probably in the back here. Forward this way. This is this kind of area between these? This very fire do? So as Keelith, you put your arms out in this burst of kind of glowing luminescent, pinkish-purple energy begins to sparkle through the air like glitter suspended in low gravity.

And as it just kind of drift through the air, the entire vicinity, you can see it clinging to your guys a little bit. All right. You're gonna move and you stay where you are. I'll step back a bit. Step out of the fire or into it? Step out of it.

Okay, how many? That's good. Just 10 feet? Okay. Ending your turn, Keelith. Pike, you're up. Okay, is guiding bolt considered the same thing that lightning bolt would be? Or, please?

No, as far as you know, No, it's radiant damage. Yeah, it's radiant damage and let me pull up the. We can't see him right now, though. But he's in the wall. Yeah, you have no visual on him. The smoke entity has moved into the wall and is nowhere in your visible range right now. So you have nothing that you can attack in theory that you know of.

Okay. So if you have any sort of other, like, buff spells or anything you want to do in preparation for it or hold your action as well until it reappears, you can do that. Okay. I'll hold my action. Okay. Yeah. Are you staying where you're put?

Are you moving at all? You want to stay where you're at? I think I'll stay. I can't see where I'm at, but I think I'll just stay. Okay, cool. The thing, I'm going to just call out to everybody and say, the thing seems to want Percy. Should we surround him?

Yes. Mm-hmm. Oh. So you shot that out at the end of that. Cassandra now, who's been unbound, kind of gets up. Her weapons were taken from her when you bound her. her, so she kind of stands up and puts up the wall and kind of looks at you with like a... I hand her my sword.

Okay, she takes the rapier and kind of looks at it and goes running away back towards where Castle Weisden is. So she's going to take that one. Okay. Runs? Can I... All right. What are you going to do? Can I do something? If you want to...

Wait, next time. If you want, instead of holding your action, cast something, you can do that, yeah. Yeah, I'm going to... Can I... I'm going to go up to Percy and cast protection from evil on him. Okay. Whoa! All right.

Which. What are you going to choose? You get to choose a certain type of creature in which he's protected against. Do we know anything about Orthax? You have no idea. You saw it briefly. I'm going to have you go ahead and roll a religion check. Being a religiously trained individual.

see if you can ascertain as to the nature of this creature, this entity. 22. 22. Okay. In the brief moment you got to see it, the way it moves, the way it completely cast aside Scanlon's attack, and the way that it kind of housed itself with in person for so long, there are elements of it that make you think of a shadow demon. But usually they're not this large, they're not this powerful. Either this is just a powerful, you know, entity of a similar type, or it's been feeding over time, or it's been feeding over time, or it's something beyond that, but you get the sense that this thing is demonic in nature based on the brief appearance you had with it.

Okay, I'd like to protect him from shadow demons. Okay, so that'd be fiends. So you choose fiends? Okay. Great. So any tackles against you from fiend creatures have disadvantage? He's a demon? No. She's thinking he might be based on her role. I have favorite enemies. It's demons. Then knowing that going forward, that may change your next round of combat.

Oh, snap. All right. Snap! Good enough. All right, so you currently are protected from fiends. Only that were true in real life. Vex, you're up first. Oh.

So demons are my favorite enemy, so I have advantage against recalling information about them. Can I recall anything about something that looks like this? Fourthax? Make an intelligence check. Gold D20, add your intelligence. You have advantage on it because he's your favorite. I'll give you that. I'm not that smart.

I'm not that smart. I'm two to twelve. Okay. You know that these creatures are incorporeal. They can generally shift in and out of solid matter as a way of moving and or defending itself. You know that they're difficult to fight in the dark. You also know that they, because of their form, are generally resistant to a lot of types of elemental type damage. and lightning cold, no effect whatsoever.

Got it. As well as poison. That's as much as you can ascertain with that role. Okay. All right, then I'm going to cast. Where is he? He disappeared. He's in the fucking wall.

Just hit the whole wall. Hunter's mark. Can I sense anything about where he is? You can sense, yeah, you can actually sense him. He's maybe 10 feet inside the wall. Like, emerged. He's currently hiding in the wall, yeah. currently hiding in the wall, yeah. All right, then for my bonus action, I'm going to hide as well.

Okay. So go ahead and roll a stealth check. Advantage. Yeah. Ouch, amazing. Really? Wow. Really? I didn't roll it. The cape had nothing to do with your rolls. Three and a three. What? Three and a three. Well, hold on. Let me add my stealth to it.

That's a 33. That's a 12. Okay, good to know. So you flatten yourself against the wall best to your ability. I do pretty much nothing, and I'm going to hold my turn until he appears. Okay, so you're going to hold your action until he appears? How dark is it in here? Other than the torches you guys have been carrying through here. And the glowing off of our bodies.

Yes. Oh, right, I'm glowing. No wonder I rolled something. Fire war, ever. Glowing from the, very fire. But it's a gentle glow. So it's like very, very low light in this. It's beautiful.

Yeah, yeah. It's like we have body glitter on. It's beautiful. Yeah. It's like a nice basement bar. Good dive. Not me. And you're trying to Scanlan.

I say to Keyleth, get this shit off me. I don't want it to see me. Please. And then I will walk to the other side of Percy. We don't see the thing, right? No. You can just move out of the fairy fire. It's only 20 but radius.

No, doesn't it, like, on me now? No. It's a radius. If you move out of it, you're not in it. I'll walk out of it. All right. You just step out of the area and it all drifts off your body and you're no longer affected by the spell. There's nothing, we don't see the thing, right?

What is it very harsh? It gets anything that's in its radius, you get advantage. Yeah, I mean. But it works for us too. Blah, blah, blah, blah. There's not much we can do without seeing our enemy, right? Not currently, no. I'll just hold my turn.

Is that a thing? Can I do that? Yes. I can say to Grog. Grog? You sure? Are you okay? You're good?

Yeah. Too small. All right. And it's your turn. Percy, you're up. I'm going to back out of the fairy fire. You're just stepping out of there. You can keep going if you're on.

I'm going to go a little further back just behind Scanlon. Okay. And I'm going to pull out bad news and hold my turn. Okay. And then your turn, Vax, you're up. Yeah, I'm going to practice an old trick that my sister and I have done, where I hide behind Trinkets, gigantic bear ass, and hold my turn. and hold my turn.

Okay. And aim at the spot that my sister is aiming at. All right, good to know. Ditto. All right. At that moment, as you vanish into the side, the entity pops out from this side and... Like right behind him? Like right behind you as you're preparing and just also, the smoke bill is out and turn out to the corner of your head.

At that point, everyone is holding their action. You're doing your attacks simultaneously. Wow. So. He's in that parry fire, right? He is currently, yeah. So you get advantage, Joe. He didn't see it being cast.

He withdrew before it happens, so he steps right into it. All right, starting with bad news with a sharp shooter. Okay. We get advantage on attack on him. All of your attacks on him are currently having advantage. Thank God, because I rolled a one. Oh, 14? 14 unfortunately misses.

You fire and it seems that in a strange way the gentle pink dust is actually obscuring your vision with a dark shadow in that vicinity and it just blasts a piece of rock off the side of the wall. Firing again. So fire, reload. Better. 26. 26 does hit. You don't roll damage. That's pizza. Guys, I didn't keep this through. 25 points of damage. All right, good to know. This is piercing right? Yeah. All right. The blast hits, but it appears like the expected impact from a blast and bad news, a bit of

smoke kind of dissipates its impact, and it seems to not be as damaging as you expected it to be. All right, that brings us to the next person who is holding their action. I believe Scanlan, you were. What do you want to do? There's precious little I can do. So I will just, I will just. I will viciously mock it.

Good, good, good, good. Through the hand cone, I will say, don't you know, smoking is the number one cause of cancer and emphysema, and it will shorten your life by an estimated 10 to 20 years. It's not cool, and you shouldn't do it. Is that all true? I'm BSing.

Oh, okay. Okay, it does not make it saving throw. Roll the four. So it takes 3D4 psychic damage. I'll roll that. Nice. Yes. And it has disadvantage on its next to attack roll. Nice. That fiend has low self-esteem. Five points. Yes. Damage. And it has disadvantage on one?

It's next to attack roll. It's just kind of like, its eyes go darker purple for a second. Like it can't contemplate the fact that it just got insulted mid-battle. And then they flare up again even more furious. As part of that, it's going to use its reaction. Oh, yes. Oh, shit. Okay. It turns towards you and in a... What languages do you speak?

No. Common. That's it. Okay. You hear a muttering through your ears. You are stuck. It's the wood target. And for a second, you feel your field of vision closed down like it's focused entirely on you. You're currently marked by its mark of vengeance. Oh? Marked.

Yeah. So essentially, it's... You're just, there's an effect that's intent on you at the moment. Is it a charm effect? Nope. Damn it. All right, that ends your help. Fear effect? No.

Damn it. You're up. You saw muttering Scanlan's here as I take both my blades and I'm just going to slash both of them across. And he's surrounded, so there's a sneak attack as well. Yes. With advantage, the first one is 16. Oh no. And the second one is 27.

27. Second one hits. All right. You go to strike the first time, and as you swing outward, you just catch smoke and it kind of dissipates around the blade and you stab it to the side of the wall. It's like an attack. Here's that sneakie-dack damage. That's four plus six is ten plus...

Snick attack, motherfucker. Ten, sixteen, two one of two, six, twenty-eight, twenty-nine total. That's thirty-eight, that was thirty-eight. Just kidding. Twenty-nine total. My math is awesome. Okay. This blade hoar, as you stab into this cloud of smoke, you feel that there is more physical presence to where it was, and it sinks in and you feel this reverberation as it reacts to the pain, this dull kind of growl sound.

I shout, hands off the gnome as I do it. Okay. On my role, did I, do I still get a bonus even after he's... You used the last turn. That was his reaction to you holding your action. No, but do I get my bonus action as part of my move or no? That would have had to be during your turn. When you hold your action, you just get the action when it triggers.

I got it, got it. Trying to go back there more. All right, so that ends Vax. Do you want to do anything else? No. Oh, what am I? I'm right up against it. No, I'm going to use disengage and back up further back by my sister.

Is that Vex and Keelah? Right there, yeah. I'm going to move it to my two favorite ladies. All right, there you go. Gross. Good to know. Hey. All right, and you were holding your action.

Yes. And you were holding your action. So everyone make your attacks. Yes. Here's my question. Yes. Because I want to be honest, and I don't remember, if I said I dipped arrows in the second Holy Oil flask,

or if I put them on Trinkets Claws. Do we remember? You did it all arrows. All arrows. That's fine. Then I'm going to shoot two more holy arrows at it. Okay. Okay, well, I'll just roll for that.

With advantage. With advantage, which is good. I'm going to switch things, new ones. What just happened? Well, one of those was the 14, so that hit. There's 14 and 8, 14 plus your attack. The second roll is... You're great of protecting your data, but lots of places could still expose you to identity theft.

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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. Seriously? So one was a 25. And then... 14.

And the other... Okay, and 17. 17. 19, 19 and a 25. What's the 19 from? Was the first roll and the second? Right, so you rolled the one and a two? No, that was the second roll.

The first was the 14 plus modifiers. Oh, see, I was rolling. I understand. I was rolling it in my head differently, but we would count it as that. I was counting as those are my first attempts at my first two attacks and my second attempts at my second at my... Yeah, it doesn't work that way. Yeah, okay, that's fine. So the 25.

Okay, so one of them hit. Great. All right. I won't roll like that anymore. Where am I? Where am I? That's radiant damage. And that's the eye. You got it. Here we go. All right.

12. Oh, geez, we got a smoke demon, don't you know? 17. 15 plus 5 is 24 points. 24 points of damage. So one of them flies forward and misses kind of... Yeah, nearly grazes the top of your head, just finishing.

You don't notice because you're currently right in its face. The second one manages to strike it and splinter inside of his torso, and you can see a flash of energy with the impact. As it kind of surveys the area around it. The smoke around, it gets even more and more intense, and you can see it flaring. Still against the wall, like, flowing. Yeah, so the smoke actually gets thicker and obscures it even further.

Oh, shit. All right. We should probably light up this, This area as much as possible. F.Y.I. And grog. I'm gonna light it up with my flaming war hammer. I turn and I swing at it. Okay.

Oh, advantage. Yeah, yeah, that's good. 28. 28 hits. Second attack. 26. 26. Yes.

Oh, is it still covered the holy oil. Yes. So an extra 1d4, any damage in each strike. 21 for the first one. Okay. With the radiant, fiery damage. Burning holy wrath. 1920, 21.

22. All righty. Both hammer blows to strike it, kind of battering the smoke around. And you can see as this hammer swings through its body, the smoke almost swallows the light in for a second. It's almost like this dull little, orb of darkness beneath the surface of a deep lake. And then as the hammer merges its body, the light flares up again. It's almost like it's swalling the light as you strike it. But it seems to be taking the impacts pretty hard. All right, that ends your turn. Now,

Orthax can take its turn. Oh no. Orthax! All right, so see. Wait, do I get my... Oh, yes, she was holding her to you. Yeah, you can do it too. Yes. Thank you for minding me. Yay, Mike!

Go, go, go, go, go. Okay, I'm on a guiding bolt it. All right, go forth. Your punishment will be more severe. All right, so what is he doing? What level of guiding bolt are you doing? Say one more time? What level of guiding bolt are you casting? Can, I'm going to do it at fourth,

because I have a couple fourth level left. Okay. So that'll be... So roll to attack first. You have advantage in the attack roll currently inside Fairy Fire Fire. So take the higher of the two rolls. I would just like to say that Pike is very

eerie yet beautiful in this iridescent glow of astral projection. It's hard to hear her sometimes, but god damn it, she makes it look good. Oh, oh my god, I rolled a one and a natural 20. Whoa! Whoa! Okay.

Okay, yeah. Okay, so at fourth level, that would be be 7D6 radiant damage. Whoa! Whoa! Is that double? Wait, what did you cast?

Go ahead and roll that. D-Bull. Oh, fuck yeah. Mari-Orthack. 7D6? Yeah. That's a lot of D6 times two. Is it times two after that?

Because it's a crit? It's a crit. Oh. Oh, right, because that's, well, straight dice rolls. Or does she roll dice twice? No, for the purpose of ease, I usually double. I'm just confirming one thing real fast. She's just blinded us all in holy light,

is what I'm assuming. Yeah, so go ahead and do your math. Little holy nuke. That's my pike. Okay. Little, yellow. What was it? What was it, Pike?

21. 21. 21, all right. Times two. Yep, so it'd be times two. Just confirming, it has been a while since we've had any sort of spell-based crit. So there'd be 42 points of radiant damage.

Oh, hell. Lasting it with this, as you release this, this bolt of energy to your hand, you see it charges up and feels your hand shaking as you're waiting for the moment where it might be too much to control, and your holy symbol flares as it releases and streaks forward right behind you. And this is, yeah, I mean, hmm. You were technically amyly with it, which would give you a disadvantage on the attack, but he also has your advantage on because of that, and we'll say it's fine. It stays there because they're a lot of things giving him, give advantage against him, and then disadvantage.

Yeah, we'll stay with it. Anyway, as you turn around and you release it, point blank, it slams into the front. You can see where the smoke was swelling around it. It almost seems to be scattered away from the impact of this radiant bolt. And for a second, this image of this kind of obscured shadow humanoid becomes very clear for a second. You can see this extremely muscular humanoid torso with elongated, exaggerated arms and fingers, seemingly featureless across its body other than its black obsidian torso, no legs, they just sort of disappear into the smoke beneath it. Its head has the long,

hooked, bird-like skull beak, and where the eyes are, it's just the smooth, almost leathery texture across the dark body itself. You can see what looks like faint horns, that kind of curve around the back, that curl upward, and as it takes the impact, its head rolls back and you hear this billowing scream, this... As it leans back forward towards you, it looks like it's having a rough moment. Now we get to its turn. Oh no. Uh-oh.

And we're all left. All right. It farts a little cloud of smoke. You're all right? A lot of us have very fires. Yeah, indeed. Based on that, it just zeroes down on the little ball of radiant energy staring before it. It just blasted a hole in its form.

It's going to go ahead and take all three of its strikes at you, Pike. No. A disadvantage on its attack. And has advantage because it's a little bit of its attack. She's in Ferry Fire, so it cancels it to just a natural attack. That is 21. What's your AC? 20. 20, so that hits. I am your AC's high.

27. That's why I'm so loud and stealth. Natural one. It was like 19-1. All right, so. That would be 14 points of psychic damage. 15 points of psychic damage. Okay.

Oh, no, I'm sorry, because he had, because of the roll there. Sorry, that was 14 plus an additional 12. Is that 16 for the first strike? That was 12. Yeah. That's 10. Right, it was 12 on top of the, there's a amount. I say it was 16?

And then 12. 14, 12. So it was 26 second damage you took on the first strike, and the second one was 17. 21. So. The second one, I thought the second one failed? The third one, it has three attacks. Three attacks.

Oh, sweet. Yeah. Okay, wait, so what was it total? Sorry? It'd be 26 and 21. Yeah, 47 points of psychic damage as its arm reaches out towards you and strikes. Also, I need you to make a wisdom saving throw. With advantage.

With advantage. Nice. And with beauty. Grace. Dignity. Sky. Skype. Skype.

Skype. Popper. I'm doing your hunter's mark. Okay, 20. Doing your hunter's mark name? Oh, yeah. What was that? 20.

20? Yeah, you feel as its claws kind of move through your body, elements of its shadow essence, kind of reach up and try and grasp an element of your will power, you just shrug it off. The might of Sarah raised too strong, and it has no way of grasping your intent. Yeah, it is. Yeah, get out here! Fortunately, that you've got all its movement, it cannot withdraw into the room. That'll be the end of its turn. Let's see if it charges. Oh, it does. Okay. That brings us to Grog.

It does? Yep, you're back up to your turn now. Ah! I want to hit it again! Go for it. Do I have advantage? Yes. Very far. That's better. 24. Okay, that hits. The second one is... 21. Hits. Nice. Just barely.

First one's 15. Okay. Oh, that's wrong, guys. 18. 18, okay. You hit it to the side of its body, and you can see now there's a little bit of small cracks in its black form are starting to form, and you can see a bit of that purplish energy leaking out. It's starting to actually visibly show a difficulty in keeping its corporeal form.

So both blow slamming into it, you can see it kind of shaking and there is a struggle with its movement. Do you want to stay where you are? You want to move? I'll stay right. Okay. Kieliff. I'm going to, he's totally surrounded pretty much, right? Essentially. Yeah. I'm actually going to throw up. I'm going to maintain my fairy fire.

I'm going to go. Because, ugh! Oh! Oh! It's purple. It's purple. It's purple. I hold her hair back.

And just say, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. It's okay. It's okay. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'll tell us the feeling. It's about twop for, yeah.

I'm going to take a daylight beam and go, right over top of it like a nice pretty spotlight. Okay. Oh. Nice. All right, so... which that is a concentration film. It's not actually.

It's an action that lasts for an hour. Interesting. Bam! I don't know what, that was. Snap-wave, girls. I looked it up just now. So, this little spark ball of daylight opens up on the ceiling in like a bright spotlight

that fills the area. As it does, you can see the creature shrinks away from it and its smoke actually dissipates, lowering its armor class again. Ah, ha, ha, ha. That's a good move. All right. And you say where you are, you want to move?

I'll just take another step back. Okay. That's good. All right, with that, okay. There's a momentary whisper in the shadow around you. More whispers. In the sound of chains. I want you to go ahead, everyone to make a perception check.

Damn! So close. Just 26. 26? 19. 20. 20. 17.

16. Fike. 17. Okay. So, all of you just continue focusing. Oh, whispers, whispers and whispers. It's like we're back in the back. I am so fast.

Kasa of a willing man. Dundra. I miss them. I missed them. No, I didn't miss the whispers. I hadn't even realized how much I missed them until today. Ashley, Matt is whispering in Talison's ear just so you know. just so you know. Sweet nothings.

He's licking his ear a lot. Is he even in a wet-fillie? Yes. Really, really. All right. Pike, you're up. What's your turn? Oh, okay. I'm not a guiding bolted again. Okay. Same deal?

I can't tell you yet. It's not my turn. All right, go ahead and make your your Single attack roll right now because the previous things. 10. Okay, so yeah, this time it's ready for you and it dodges out of the way, the blast, hits the stone wall behind it and cracks it slightly. Do you want to move or stay where you are? Yeah, I'll move away from it.

Okay, we're gonna attack our opportunity on you. Wait, hold on a minute. I should probably take a potion or something. It's up to you. Are you low? I'm pretty low. Mike? Fight. Fight.

Fight, fight, fight, fight. Nope, it's okay. It's okay. I'm gonna take a, what do I have in here? Preska? It just says I have a healing potion. God, I don't know what that means. That'll be the lowest.

That's 2D4 plus 2. Okay. Didn't you get healed from your own healing? Well, I just, I don't have enough, I don't think I have enough left. I want to save them. Yeah. Okay. Two.

Okay, eight. Okay, so you heal eight, and did you want to move back or stay where you are? She dies. I'll stay. Okay, just here we are. All right. Cassandra keeps running up this way. She does.

You die for a second. Hey, who's that? Who's going? That's Cassandra. Yeah, she just keeps running. We're okay with her running away. She's running away. Okay.

Okay. Ami sent her running away. Chop is vex. Sear up. Yes. Okay. I'm going to... How many... who all's around him?

Pike and Grog? Pike and Grog and technically Trinket as well, are all in Muley. All right, then I'm just going to shoot a couple arrows at him again, man. Okay. I just can't... I can't do anything. But he's still advantage, right? Yes, advantage against him, yes. So, uh, 21.

21 hits. And 28. Both hit, good and roll damage. Okay. These will be your last holy arrow. because you've used six. Oh, no, no, no, I'm out of whole arrows. Okay, yeah.

No, that's right. Because one of them was my exploding arrow. That's right. Yeah. Yeah, so these are trigular. So that's 21 for the first. Nice, all right. Well, there you go.

Goodbye. Forget that. Tossing a wall. It was a 20. No. 21 for the second. Nice. 42 points of damage is around.

These arrows now find their way towards the cracks that are to appear in its chest. And as each one strikes in, these arrows are actually visibly staying in its body. You can see now. What was once this kind of a more of the smoke after the impacts from Grog and as it begins to wear itself down, it's starting to find harder and harder to keep this kind of ethereal form. So now these arrows are sticking out of these cracks of purplish-flowing energy, and it's moving a little more sluggishly.

I hide again for my bonus, whatever. Okay. So go to make a stealthier. Scanlan, you're up. Scanlan's up. 21, stealth. Stealth. Good enough. Do I have my wits about me?

You do. Oh, that's nice. You just feel like there's an aspect, you can get the sense you probably don't want to be close to it. Okay. I charge at it. No. That's the scalyland I know and I know. That's all that works out so much. I have so little that I can do it. Suddenly there's a stained glass wall behind me.

Wow. As my bonus action, I will, as my movement, I tragically flip the gun to Percy. Okay. The two pieces? No, the other guy. The good gun. Like, what was that?

Martin Lawrence movie, Bad boys, it all in slow motion, just throw the gun. Okay. As a bonus action, I will heal, healing word pike. Did she heal herself? Okay, I will heal her and I'll say, Believe it a month, Yard made mostly of air. I never thought you could feel so free. All right, what level you used to really would have?

Just in one. Level one, okay. D4 plus five. 24 plus five. Eight, honey, I love you. Hey. I blow him a small kid. I love it.

And then for my move, my action, my whatever you call it. Hi. I got fucking nothing, man. I say to the beast, to the whatever it is, I say, and another thing. Your smoking encourages miners to smoke and creates an aura that makes going to restaurants not pleasant. And it's just horrible, makes your clothes your clothes.

The load stink is terrible, so another vicious mockery. Please, please. Please let him die from this. Please let this be what kills him. Please, he's laughing like it is. Wouldn't that be like the third time this has happened? All right, roll damage. BD4 second damage.

Come on, come, come on. Eight. Eight, all right. You can see now it turns to you for a second, and the mark of vengeance fades, as suddenly you feel like you've damaged it mentally enough to the point where it doesn't even want to deal with you anymore. You're far too mean. You're too mean.

Take that. You stay where you are? Oh, yes. Okay, that ends your turn. Percy, you're up. I yell, Delilah's getting away! Wait, that's Delilah? You guys all glance over, the shackles that are on the ground are now collapsed and empty. Oh, shit!

The gag safely removed from her mouth during this allowed her to cast Misty Step, which is just a verbal-based spell. She is currently... How far away? I'm going to... I'm tackling that right now. And can I see her? I'm going to have to ask you a roll perception check here in a minute. Okay.

Oh my God. And the question is... Oh, my God. Yeah, I'm kind of curious how far she got. This is just what she's... There we go. She was there. Because we're morons.

She got out of romantic proof. She missed these steps. She turned out of air. She landed, cast invisibility, and vanished. And you just hear the footsteps down the hall. You're not quite sure where she is or how far she's gotten. But you know she's kind of down that way. Cassandra!

Cassandra's right there. Yeah. Cassandra doesn't notice. She's just been running as you told her to run. Is Cassandra still on? But she heard you shout, and she, okay, she did hear you shout, and she looked over her shoulder, but not in time for her to see her to see him. anything happen because this all happened during the last round just during your realization.

So you guys just see her, you just look around and Delilah's gone. You're the only one who really saw the direction she's going, but it's your turn. Son of a bitch, we love her alive. I cannot believe we left her alive. I'm sure it'll be fine. She's, I'm fucking pissed. She's, I'm. Maybe she's learned the error of her ways.

Mm-hmm. I'm afraid of some sort of fail safe she's got in a while. Fuck, okay. I'm going to... Chase her? Tell us where she is. I'm going to double... Fuck, ah, goddammit, I'm gonna double my speed.

I'm gonna burn my turn double speeding, trying to just... Trying to catch up? Trying to catch up. Okay. And then as I pass my sister, I yell, she went this way. Okay.

She's invisible. Do I hear that? All right, so you get up. She went this way, she's invisible. I hear it. We hear it. Yeah. All right, so that's Percy's turn.

So sorry, everybody. For the situation, you're going to make a situation. Make perception check? All right. You got to do what you got to do. No. No. Okay.

You have to have advantage on this. I'm adding my bonus die. Oh, you have inspiration. Yeah, I am using my inspiration dye. 15. 63. 23. Okay.

I mean, you see a couple of recent footsteps, but you don't see them freshly being made. So you know she's not too far. I'm going to follow that path of footsteps. Okay. I'm keeping an eye on them. Okay, good to know. Vax, you're up. Alright, I'm going to use my bonus action and dash and run 60 feet after Percy to catch up.

I'm not going to kill the smoke beast? You're going to kill the smoke beast. Okay, so use your bonus dash, your movement to get there. So you're moving up 60. Sorry, that's 60 feet from where I was? Okay, and I'm going to throw a dagger after. Well, can I do perception check and that, or is that two different things? Well, honestly, once the creature is invisible and you don't know where it was, you don't

even really get a chance to check at this distance, so it's just rolling, it's attacked to disadvantage. All right, I'm going to attack a disadvantage, then. That is 14. 14 is a miss. Returns to your belt. Finds no purchase. Finds no purchase.

That was 18. That was 18. You won't 18. That was 18? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

is indeed 18. Go ahead and roll damage. See? Thanks. Thanks, sis. No problem. This is why I look over your shoulder even when my mouth is bad. Okay.

That is eight. Eight. Okay. But she was almost unconscious. So at this point, as you're running, you're rushing forward to the left of your ear, you hear a, and you get up. Oh, she felt.

And you glance over your shoulder, and there, face, down on the ground is Delilah sprawled out, face down in the dirt with a single dagger sticking out of the center of her back. For a second. And then it's gone. And blood begins out from the wound. She's dead. You killed her. All right. Is that, is she dead?

You'd have to go and inspect. Now it is Orthax's turn. Orthax is going to move here, still remaining melee, and is going to use a secondary rampage pole since it recharges, gives out another desperate scream. Outwards in the vicinity. 20-foot radius, I need keeleth, vex, prinket, pike, grog to all make wisdom-saving throws with advantage. 12? 25 total.

Oh, 25 total. 12. I'm very wise. Wait. Why is this perk? 19 for me. Okay. 22.

Okay. 12 for Trinket. Okay. So Vex, Kielith and Pike, you guys all take five points of psychic damage as you kind of cover your ears momentarily. Rog and Trinket both take 10 points of psychic damage. Both turn immediately flanking Pike, who has been the radiant blaster, this entity. I need you to go ahead and make an attack, and I need Trinket to go ahead and

make an attack against Pike. You guys both have advantage because she's in the Ferry Fire. Oh, damn it. Yes, three and a four. Thirteen. Thirteen. Thirteen, okay. Is Vak can't roll a natural 20? No!

All right, so Pike, this blast comes out in your ears, and as your vision comes back to and you look up, all you see is Grog lifting this giant hammer with his eyes kind of clouded in the same black smoke material. You bring up your eyes. up your shield and as the hammer comes down, striking it, you know there's a bruise going to be on your farm tomorrow because the sheer force of it hits you, but at the same time you know it's not the friend you grew up with. And you look up into his face as the cloud fades and you can see an expression of immediate regret on his face. What I do? Before you can respond though, the bear behind you, trink it snarls,

and latches in. Go ahead and roll damage. Do you want a bite attack or a claw attack? I'm going to have to probably go bite on this. Oh, do. So roll the dice and then that times two. Oh, right, I have to... no, yeah. Okay. That's 11. So you take 11 points of piercing damage as all of a sudden Trinket sinks his jaws into the back of your shoulder.

It times two. It's two. Oh, that wasn't with the multiply. What do you roll in the dice? No, I rolled 11. On the dice, the 22 plus whatever the modifier is. What? No! No, I mean I rolled... Oh, no! It's eight plus the modifier.

Oh, okay. Okay. So 16 plus whatever the modifier is. Just 19 then. No, I rolled four times two is eight. Got you, I see. And the modifier of seven. Seven is 15.

There we go. Thank you so much for clarification. 15 points of piercing down. Math, everybody. You just got balls. And Tringet clenched down. You feel the armor plates kind of jamming together and it kind of wrenches your shoulder out of the socket. Not enough to actually do too much serious damage.

And then immediately Trinket pulls away and you hear this whine behind you just, behind you is, whew, and the nose kind of rubs against your head. I put my hand out and touch his nose and tell him it's okay. Oh. Okay. Orthax is in a point where not Orthax is going to try. Orthax is going to turn and begin to chase after Percy now. And you guys, uh, attack of opportunity.

Yes, I know. Grog and Pike and Trinket all got attacks of opportunity. Kill him. Kill him. With advantage, yeah, because he's... Natural 20. Oh! First roll.

Don't even do you do it. How do you find? Now 20's all up in the rich. 24. Okay, and Pike? 16 does not hit, unfortunately. So Pike, you swing loud, still from the pain of Trinkets' attack, and, you know, Groh coming at you, you swing wide,

and it just passes through the space behind it. Grog, remember, roll with additional D12, too, because you're brutal critical. K-in-brutical. Thirteen. 13 for Trinket. 13 for Trinket, awesome? 31 total.

31 total? How do you and Shrinit want to do this? Yeah! Oh, oh. Okay, did you kill him? Yeah! Oh, yes! ...and pick up the hammer and slam him down to the ground just so he's at Trinkett's head height.

And then right when he gets to his height, Trinkett reaches up and bites him as hard as he can and blashes him around like a dog with a toy. Yeah. Okay. As you slam him. bam it on the ground, the smoke fills out around it and dissipates for a moment where, as opposed to its subscured form, you now have a very clear view of its physical body, just a little bit of smoke trailing about where its lower torso and legs would be as it kind of its arm reach out. And it looks up, its head shaking as the purple cracks arising up its body, it looks

up straight into the face of Trink, and snarls. And just lunges out, clamping onto its face and tearing upward, a trail, arcing in the air. As it does, the body dissipates and to smoke and sinks into the ground into this black shadow in the dirt that races up the hallway in the direction of Percy. Oh. As you stop and looking over, you look down just in time for the shadow to sort of reach your legs and you feel this cold, rise up your body, and then slowly dissipate into this little nugget of cold in the center of your chest and then vanish.

But doesn't he have protection? Yeah. Mm-hmm. He disappears. It disappeared. Maybe it disappeared forever. Or maybe it's always gonna be there. Haunting us.

While he's thinking, I walk up to Delilah, grab her by the clothes, drag her to the side of the wall, and drop her up and turn to Percy and say, in this. Cassandra? Cassandra, who's now stop and looks at you, kind of, she clutches the rapier in her hand, and you can see her hand shaking. Just the tension of the muscles in her fingers,

clenching it as hard as she possibly as she walks up with each slow quiet step echoing across the stone. Delilah up against the wall, like blood spilling out the corner of her mouth, coughing, conscious with her one missing arm on the side. The blood's beginning to ooze now from the wound. That's just the sheer force of all the movement is torn the wounds fresh open and she's there and she looks over and the corner of her eye and turns, seeing the rest of you and sees Cassandra. As Hunter steps steps up, she holds the rapier at her side, staring down. This time just a single little tear crescent down the side of her cheek.

Delilah looks up and goes, she looks down and Delilah says, No. Cassandra is a Dorova, and you took them away from me. Now we're taking everything away from you. And just thrust the rapier forward right into the chest as it hits her, it actually pulls her up

about a foot against the wall. The sheer force fluent, last breath escaping from Delilah's mouth, her hand. Her arm falls into the side. The moment of tension passes. The moment of tension passes and Cassandra's is still holding her there, her head down, her hair in front of her face, just shaking, keeping her pinned against the wall. And on her shoulder and gently pull her back.

Rapier withdraws and the body just tumbles on the ground. She looks back at you, face just a mess. We do. And she hands the rapier back to you. And she grabs the scruff of Delilah's collar. And begins dragging her up the hallway towards the castle. I meant to loot her earlier, and it didn't happen. Sorry, I just, I really like that.

She drops the body and gives you a look. Hurry. There's one thing I've learned here in White Stone is that things do not stay dead long. Seeing as I'm 50 feet ahead of my sister, I walk ahead of her. Don't you fucking do this. Do not you do it.

Is she wearing a cloak? Okay. Insecting the body, you find You find a very fine pair of metallic braces For archery purposes You're not here I'm like five feet away from you're way behind me Her robe though soaked with blood is very very well made

I roll that up Okay so roll up the robe Her cloak is No that's what I meant the cloak I leave the robe Now take everything Look there are a lot of celebrity interview Podcasts out there but there's only one

Happy, Sad, Confused I'm Josh Horowitz, and yeah, I'm the host of the show, so I'm a little biased, but truly Happy, Sad, 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, casting what ifs, backstage stories, and much more. Listen to Happy Say I Confused on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. You know that feeling when you hear one interesting thing, and suddenly you'll 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 Herruthers, and I 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, listening to right now. Take everything. Yeah, and all the fabric. Okay, to take all the fire. The robe and the cloak.

It's falling out. So mark goes down. The cloak in itself, it looked like cloth at a distance. Close up, you can see it's actually like a very fine, dark, black, purple fur. And down at the side of it, you see dangling these two almost like long tentacles that end in these little cupping spiked elements.

It looks like it was carved from a creature at one point. The cloak. The cloak. Can I do a nature check to see? Go for it. I think I know what it is. I get up in time to smack it upside the head. Believe it, yeah, 29.

Yeah, you've actually, if you've fought these creatures before, this is a Displace or Beast. This is a cloak. I got the cloak and I just walk away from it and leave my sister to go sick after the rest of it. Okay. Okay, they're now, there on the ground lies a. She's like naked.

Yeah, good job, brother. She's pretty much, she's mostly nude other than her undergarments. I tossed the road back. I saw the road back. Let's take her to the acid pits. The only thing she has left is a ring in her finger. What about those bracers? Bring on her finger.

Take her ring on the bracelet. Cassandra, remembering this, just drags her body through. But Reminent is there on the ground. There's a big groove in the dirt left behind her as she's just being dragged through it. You get to the second trap which you marked and you guys make your way around it. You make your way to where the road diverges, the one way to the castle, and the one to the acid pits, and Cassandra heads towards the acid pits. Cassandra, what are you doing?

She's doing the question. She doesn't look back to you, she just keeps walking. You follow her for about five minutes. Are we sure that this won't make anything bad happen if we throw our body into the acid? I think it's fine. I think it's acid. About five minutes of following her, the path leads up and then crests, and there is a room that smells awful. It's similar to the kind of accurate scent that the room was filled with when the acid.

The room was filled with when the acid was pouring into the room. There's a whole series of other chemicals. And inside, you can see there's a number of laboratory setups in here. You get the feeling this is probably where a lot of this particular acid of concoction that was fine-tuned for the Stone of White Stone was created, or at least honed by Ripley. Without a beat, Kassano just walks up to the edge and just throws Lila's body in. And it disappears beneath the surface as the hissing bubbling noise takes over the sign. of the silence of the room. She just sits there and just watches it sink. She brought a lot of

ill to this world. Cassandra turns back around. She was too dangerous to let live. What about you? How do you feel? That gun barrel of yours. Yeah. I pull out the broken barrel and inspect it. Looking at it, you can see Delilah's name is missing from the barrel entirely. Cassandra's name is still on the barrel, and so is Ripley's. Go ahead and make an investigation check. I had some thoughts, but yeah. Okay.

Just looking at it, it looks like the names are there, complacent as to where they were before. Just take the broken gun and pointed at my sister. What do I feel? Currently nothing. I think I may be all right. Why don't you toss that thing into the day? you toss that thing into the acid just in case.

Kind of what I'm thinking is. I'm going to do something else. Are you going to shoot your sister like you just pointed to your gun at her, or what was that about? You were the one who wouldn't give me the other gun. I gave you the other gun. I'm going to go over to the little lab setup. Is there some acid there?

Go ahead and make an intelligence check. 17. Yeah, a brief look around. You can see there are many different compounds, different strengths of acid, kind of what a lot of the initial kind of experimentation was. I'm going to start trying to scar her name off the barrel. Okay. You take a moment and eventually manage to scar and dissolve enough of the exterior

that barrel into the name is no longer visible. I think it's fine. You think it's fine. Lovely. Yep. You're going to have to have some faith. I don't have any faith. Here, we'll make a deal.

I'll let you keep that gun if you give me the other one. No. So glad that your smoke monster is seemingly gone, Percy. That's wonderful news. The spinning orb of death, however, is still back there. So we should probably figure out what to do about that. Perhaps we can talk to Keeper Yenin, perhaps put together some priests. Deal with that. Enlist the help of the entire town. now that there's no longer a revolution to be fought. Yeah, that's a solid blood. Oh, the revolution. You forgot about that.

We should go stop the fighting, right? We should probably let them know it's over. Probably. Well, if they're fighting, wouldn't it mean it's not over? Well, I'm sure they don't know that the Briar Woods are dead. So, perhaps if we tell everyone the Briar Woods are dead. Oh. Cassandra?

Maybe we'll see Ripley on the way out. Wouldn't that be nice? Probably not going to happen. I just had a thought, Percy. I cast friends on him. Okay. I think I know how to fix your gun if you hand it to me. Never in my right mind would I hand my gun.

Go ahead and make a persuasion check. And you go ahead and make an insight check. But you have an advantage on it. Or no, he has advantage on the persuasion. You do not have it on me. While they're talking, can I attempt to pull it off of his belt? Pull it off of persons. My insight is 21.

I rolled a natural 20. Oh. You're going to cost me so much money. Step back, I see Scanlan kill it, and I just step it back. Okay. You look down at this gnome, and while he's normally pretty silly and jovial in this moment, there's an honest spark of... of his own inspiration in his eyes. I'm so upset that I have to do this. I'm going to kill you. I'm going to kill you.

You know that one. He's your friend. You will. You're not bad at all. For like another three minutes. Yeah, role play for three minutes, Towson. I hand him the broken gun. Begrudgingly you reach out and place it in his hand and release. I say thank you. Percy, I think in due time you will thank me for this. And I toss it into the...

As I say, when the spell fades, he's gonna be super pissed, somebody protect me. Go to hop on my shoulders? Yes, I go run and jump on. As you watch it arc forward in your head, you're like, fucking no. The spell fades, you hear him say that. It just says it... You're not going to get that, all you?

I reach in to try and grab it out. Oh shit. No, no, no, no. He threw it, though, right? No, he dropped it. He lobbed it. He wasn't a huge throw. I cost a whole person at third level.

On person. As I reach up and I grab his hands as well. That was so expensive. It was so expensive. Make a wisdom saving throw with advantage. Son of a fuck. Heroes feast working against you. You're the Lord of Castle Whitestone.

We've got some money around. Wisdom saving throw? Yes. 15, 18. That's your DC. My difficulty class, 18. You're like, take cause you... I always fail rules against Percy.

It sucks. A few moments past, you don't even see it beneath the surface now. You just see a little bit of some fume released from whatever slow process is dissolving. I step in front of him as he's unconscious and I go, Percy. Go on, let's get out of here. You'll thank us for this later. He's paying for a new one. I kiss his cheek and say I'm so sorry.

He's paying for a new one. We'll get you a new one, Percy. I'm gonna have to... As you're watching this, there's a small, from the fume, a small plume of black smoke goes... See? You see them? And that cold nugget in the center of your chest...

It was... It feels good, doesn't it? Doesn't it feel good? You fucking... It feels good. It's so expensive. Oh, a couple. I'll just throw the carpet in there now, why don't you?

Oh, that's personal. That hurts. Cassandra steps up to you and takes your head in her hands and forces you to look at her and goes, Brother, we've homemade sacrifices for this. She slaps you. Ah, yes. Oh, that's 21. He's held right now. I'm still holding him in place.

I hold my fist way up high to Scanlon on Grog's shoulder for a silent little exploding fist bump. And she looks to you and goes, Cassandra gives you a look to. You were never mother's favorite. Let's not be petty. She told me. Let's not be petty, Percy.

You sure I'm? You're sure. Did you hear what he just said to you? You sure. It came out as, uh-l-g-uh-uh-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h. I let it go. Okay, your muscle control comes back to you, and Cassandra's hole in your freshly slapped face, because you're going to goes, brother, let's go to our people.

Let's tell them that for the first time in five years, White Stone is free. Oh, God. Yeah, I'm leaving it. I'm letting it go. I'm letting it go. She reaches over and she takes your arm in her arm. You're not one. Oh, God.

She takes your arm and her arm and begins walking both of you back towards the tunnels. Oh, that one was enchanted. Okay. Two enchantments. Cheers. Yeah, all right. And with that, we're going to go and take a quick bathroom break. Come back, folks.

So, let's go ahead and pick up where we left off. So, as you guys return to the undercroft of White Stone, Cassandra carrying you, arm-in-arm, you make your way up through the room. through the stairs to the main base floor of Castle Whitestone. Are you guys heading towards your, where are you heading from here? I'm going to head straight for the front door and looking... Is there like a balcony on the top? I know, like a balcony or something.

You can check for the second floor if you want to. It overviews the city. You have a pretty high view. I'm sure they have that. So even from a ground floor area, you can look down into the city. Front door. Front door? Whatever.

Front door. Being careful of the scattered caltrops you guys left there. The door is still a drawer from where you left it. As you step out and look into the daylight, and it's at this point now probably mid-afternoon, pushing in the evening, you guys have been traveling underground for quite some time and taken a few short rests and had a lot of conflict and things happen. So you started the start of the day, you're now pushing in towards dusk. towards dusk. But as you open up and look outside with what daylight is still there, you see

little plumes of smoke, coming from the far city. You see down the path that leads up to Castle White Stone. You see about 70 to 100 armored humanoids marching up towards the front of the castle. Humanoids. Hi, Piedel. I'll pick up my cow drops. You begin to pick your cow drops. Oh, no.

What this is? Well, they're good guys. You could be an undead army. Make perception and check. No, they're good. I know what this is. They're fine. They're fine.

Yeah, I was to say. Wow. 19? 20. 27. 19. 5. 15.

All right. As you guys kind of get your weapons at the ready, what two? 25, sorry. 25, sorry. Percy and Vax, you notice the people approaching, spattered in mud and various types of icker or blood. As they get closer, you can see beneath the helmets. Tired human faces, stepping up the side weapons at the ready. As they approach at the very front of the line, You see Kieper Yennon equally exhausted, stepping forward, essentially ready to storm the castle.

You see behind them as they approach a scattered cluster of broken corpses, some human, some a little less human. It looks like the rebellion army seems to have cut its way through the remaining defenders of Castle Whitestone and are making their way towards the front of the castle. As they get closer, they meet your gaze and the front of the group draw their weapons, and Yenen kind of steps forward a little bit. You there, festival. I step forward. Boxmachina, are your wits about you?

Yes. Yes. You know it. It's true. Serpent's head has been cut off, but there is much to do. Is it still cloudy? It's a little cloudy. It's not like rainstorm ready, but it's, you know, there's still kind of an overcast feel. I'm going to go ahead and at the third level, because that's all I've got left, cast sky right again,

and throw up the Dorolo crest once again on the sky. Okay. As you begin to coalesce the clouds into the symbol and the shapes, he bunch of the soldiers look up around and he steps forward again towards you and goes, kind of reaching up, holding his holy symbol of the wrath, as to his Chesda, goes, are you certain this is done? Percival. There's still a great evil beneath the castle, but Browards are no more. He turns around, looks to his men, who are all looking to him, Well, you heard the man. The Briwoods are dead. White Stone is free once more. It looks up with the skies, the symbol finishes from Kiela the spell.

The Dorolo's are in power once again. At which point the entire crowd shouts, here! Here! Here! With the weapons to the sky. And as the shouts begin to echo down into the valley of Whitestone, you can see little lights begin to burn in the distance, little notification lanterns that are being lit and set at window tops at the top of the mountain. And you can see this look of relief and joy on every soldier's face as they all realize that the death they were all marching the face is no longer a threat. Cassandra at this point is still standing kind of behind you at your side. And really for the first time since all of this went down beneath you see a smile on her face. You have not yet, you have turns around again and approaches you all.

I don't know what to say. Come, come, there is much to discuss. Let us step from this far place for the time being. Men, walk through, make sure it's clean. And ultimately, no, no, no, no, no. There's still a matter of some things beneath the castle that we must deal with first. We should, no one should be allowed in for right now

until we figure this out. Very well. Men, seal the door, seal the entrances, keep watch. We really need to rest. Then come, you've certainly earned it. And he motions to a few of the guards. What time of day is it? It's nearing dusk.

Is the sun still up, or is it like? Sun is still up, but you could see, like, from the white source and the darkening at the sky and the color pushing from like a general kind of white gray is going a little more reddish orange. Before we take a rest, I am going to look at Percy. I'm gonna be like, I'll catch up with you guys. I think the people need to see the sun.

And I'm gonna go into my air elemental farm, go up into the sky above Whitestone, and do my whirlwind ability, and start trying to just push all of the clouds out of the way to let the sun in. As you guys, as you guys begin. It's frozen in a beautifully surprised expression. She can still hear us.

Oh, she could hear us or she's frozen. Surprise. Surprise! You guys begin to march down towards the city with the rest of the army. A group of about ten men stay behind just to guard the castle. As you make your way to the northern side of White Stone, and you enter the streets again, you can see families beginning to walk out of their homes and the streets. In the entirety of your time here in White Stone,

Stone, most folks that didn't need to be out in the open, stayed indoors. And you begin to realize this seeming ghost city was hiding a lot more life and a lot more hope than you expected. That's good. It's good. And children stepping out. And as you walk through the streets, you can see the kids wave. You meet eyes with some of the possible widows. Mouth do you think you?

Seeing that, can we pass by the alcove? Seeing that I'm gonna do the buddy arm around the shoulder and pull my sister and then walk through. I walk up to a particularly handsome widow and I say. I know. Oh God, oh God. Your husband. Pike is right here. Your husband died for a good cause, thanks, Bye. Pike is shocked.

Pike is shocked and offended. Sorry, Pike. Why are you looking at me like that, Pike? Stop it! Stop it, Pike! As you walk away, she looks really confused and kind of clutches her chest in horror for a moment. As one of the soldiers walking with you kind of steps by her side looking at you curiously and gives her a kiss on the cheek. Who was that man?

Oh, okay. Oh, sorry. Can we definitely want to go stop by the alcove? Okay. You eventually start making your way towards the alcove as you enter deeper into the city. Mike, you there, can you hear us? Have I cleared out enough of the sky at this point? We can see her now, but not hear her. As you guys are stepping, sorry, point out.

Oh, that's okay. Pushing further in, you can see now the clouds being to dissipate. And for the first, also the first time since you've been here, you see blue sky. directly above the city, the vibrant orange, red, purple colors of the sunset now come cascading upon the city of Whitestone. And there's a collective kind of an inhale and gasp of awe from the soldiers and the people alike as this opens up above you. You've been to walk past the alcove is to your left, if you wish to.

I'd want to stop in. Okay. As you start heading towards the alcove, you can see Jordan that is already out on the front stoop looking up at the sky. And she looks over and sees you. Percival. I give her a big hug. She takes a surprise at the moment, and then just kind of gives it and continues to give the hug back.

It would not have been possible without your help. Thank you for everything. Of course. Of course. She just kind of leans into the hug a little bit, then nods and then releases you. Did you see my father? Did you see my father? I have not.

We have not searched the council yet, though. We just left it? We haven't searched the hands. We sealed up. We sealed it. But there could live people in there when we seal them? We don't know. We still don't like, it's not airtight or anything.

I mean, they're breathing. Ripley's gone and also there's a Goliath on the loose. As you say this, um, Gibriening goes, Not anymore, there is it? Um. Follow me.

Oh. Oh, is shit. Are there any young boys around? What? He stops in his track. He looks over his shoulder and goes, What? I just need a young fleet-footed boy.

See, the last time I asked for a young boy, people gave me shit too. No, we're going to give him shit. There's no problem here. He slowly turns away and keeps walking forward. Or a girl. Don't wait, it sounds weird. And I know. No.

You can't say it in the right way. It's impossible. No. No. Innocent request. The people have begun following behind your procession towards the center of the city. Bring me your smallest, most helpless child. That's going to explode. All right, show us what you want to show us, Yen.

The Yusibahazid, you soldiers reuniting with their families, friends gathering to the streets, and the people of Whitestone are now beginning to judge. join the sides of your procession towards the center of the Sun Square in the middle of White Stone. As you crest into the outskirts of the square, Yenin gives a couple of whispered orders to a couple of soldiers who rush off. You can see people are now gathering in the center and there's actually people gathering around the Sun Tree. As they all stepped at the Sun Tree, it gets a little quiet and Spok the Yanin reaches up and pulls his holy symbol of the Rathas again. Looks up to the tree, looks back the rest of the

For generations, it was those of the zenith who looked over the street. In these people here, it was by the evil that once held foot in this town. Now Father Rhinon, the last of his line, was slain. We will work to find those who wish to take up the mantle, to clean, rebuild the zenith, the pinnacle, the Pellor's Grace here in White Stone. But until that, I, the animal, swear, to make this tree safety my responsibility, this symbol of hope, this center of the crest of your family,

has held the slivers of light in our hearts for a very long time. Let us all take a moment and thank the heroes who made this freedom possible. To the strong mountain of joy, of bravery, Grog, to the gentle, to the kind, to the just soul like, to the swift of bow, keen of sight, and the most adorable creature to accompany her as Stryka Kessips Ford, noses your side. Drink it. By the agility, by the cunning, by the loyalty, by the cleverness, by the wit, and the

Handsomeness? Strange interest of Scamoran. By the honesty, by the nature and connection of the world, and the wonder of Kulith, and by the strength of blood, and the willingness to sacrifice. Pardon me? Is that one again? It's still very beautiful. It's still beautiful. Two years of sitcom, I can hold this all day.

Percival's just waiting, waiting for his introduction. To the stone cold motherfucker-up. To the return of those valions we once thought lost and those who rise up to restore the joy of these people, Percival. May we raise our weapons, our glasses, and our children who accept this future to rebuild. Raise to Voxmachina. To Voxmachina.

And everyone raises up as one cloud. Voxmiga! As the sun slowly sets the light coming through, beautiful colors now, you see what was once a very bleak town suddenly be renewed with a spectrum of new Agassence. You begin to hear music being played as now the celebration begins, the sun setting. Folks are turning this into. a full celebration now. People are starting to bring out food and... Block party! There is this, you feel this sense that this is the first time in a long time

that people have ever really been allowed to be happy about something, and the energy is infectious in itself. As the celebration begins though, Yenin puts up his hand and people begin to slow and calm as men begin to bring forward two individuals in chains. One of which You see is a half-work female in dark brown leather armor. She is chained and thrown onto her knees at the ground, and she kind of spits. You can see it's a few cuts across her face, and she was kind of dirty. And right next to her, taking four men to do so, a Goliath, who's bruised, is also thrown onto his knees. They are both kind of just held at that place. Yenin says, the two really,

remaining new nobles given power here as they aided the Briarwoods in taking this city. We have Duke, which if people spit at the sound of the name, Goran Vedmeier, and Countess Jasna Griban. You have been found guilty of treason against this town, of the responsibility of many lives lost, innocent, and for furthering the plans and the evil that has oppressed us so long. I would wish that you, the ones who freed us, delivered the judgment. Come on. No, that sounds fair. I've known to preside over many legal matters in my time as Judge

Face of North Wind. Define legal. Defined jug. It would just baffle. of you, it's all right. Grog, if I may. I can help, I can assist you in this if you'd like. Oh, why, of course, sub-judge Scadlin. Thank you, Grog. First of all, this is your kingdom, so if you... I'll leave it to you.

No, what? Yes, you're the leader. These two have, have... These two have done much violence to this place. They represent all. that is evil. Wait, and Gorin, who's now down on the ground, looks up, he goes, ooh. Never saw you before, friend.

This is what I really wanted to see. You have a lovely house, by the way, or had one. Spitz to the ground at your feet. Might need a new roofer. In a show of grace, and to demonstrate a new hope that we have to demonstrate a new hope that we have. for this place. I suggest that we don't kill these two. What? But rather, force them to help rebuild the place that they helped destroy.

In chains. Chains. Very heavy chains. One of them at least is extremely strong. The other one must have some sort of skill. The first time looks up with this kind of gnarly, toothy grin. You can see these partially broken and jagged teeth in her mouth, She just kind of goes, come closer. I've never tasted no.

Okay, so maybe we'll kill her. Yeah. What kind of weapons did these two have on them? The men can look about themselves and, you know, and kind of, not entirely certain. However, she has been known to carry a quiver or two, and this one here wields a blade as long as his body. The briar woods are broken and gone. You can die today, or you can take your licks and help rebuild this city.

No one is here to protect you or save you. You can work hard. Start again. Persuasion check, with advantage based on their current circumstance. Intimidation, you said, or persuasion? Whichever you prefer. That's terrible. It's average.

It's 13. 13? Okay. You can see the Goliathed mark. He's not going to lowers his head. Oh, I accept. Jasner? She goes over.

What has kept me alive all these years? A spine. Kill me, I'd rather not stay at your beck and call. Okay. Drog. I reach over and I take out my gray axe and I aim it for a neck. Did you swing or just aim it?

Yeah, swing for the neck. Be hitting style. Just now, but make a string Check. Natural 20. Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God.

Merry Christmas, Travis. As you pull the axe out and you kind of walk alongside with it almost like a cane. Kind of look down at her. Yeah, like, like, and with speed and deafness where no one sees the blade make contact. There is a moment where the head just drifts off the front. drifts off the form, leaving the base, the throat cleanly cleaven, uh, cloven, if you will, sorry.

She paid the iron price. There's a moment of pause before the blood begins to pour from the wound. It was so fast and so immediate, and the body just slums forward. There's a gasp in the crowd suddenly, and then a cheer, as the local house now see one of the people that probably oppressed, tortured and killed many of their folk now lies in the ground. What's killed? I kind of look at the axe, and I look at the blood kind of covering it, and I look over at Duke Gonad, and I say,

So, where are you from and how did you come to be in the service of the Briar Woods? I was hired in Wild Mount. Do I know where that is? You don't. Why are you asking him? You've heard it said before, you've heard it mentioned, but you have no idea where it is. Right, the Holy Lands of the Sacred... All right. Are you okay, Your Honor? Yes, thank you for, I am quite tired. Would you like to take it from here? Good people, where we always must dispense our justice, this is now a town of mercy as well.

Yes. And I will expect nothing less from all of us than to give what we have lacked for so long. Duke. Let hers be the last bloodshed. And earn your life again. He nods and kind of looks down. He can't tell if it's shame or just defeat, but his shoulders slump and that little bit of fire

that was in him when he arrived is broken. The men look at you. They get your nod and they lift up the chains and pull him off while a couple of other men take up the body of the half-oort woman and pull them out of the crowd. Music swells up once again, and the celebration continues without a beat. You can now see tables being brought out to the center and classes are set about and drinks are being poured as a giant central table right at the base of the sun tree is set for you.

Hey, it's a feast. They've just had this shit in like Tupperware contained, like in those big bins, just like in the back for the last five years with like duct tape labels. It's not like a grand meal. There hasn't been a lot of them to prepare for it, but there is, basically what it looks like is whoever was preparing dinner or whatever food was readily available, They're just bringing it out. It's more of like a share with whoever's there. Oh, it's a potluck.

Potluck. I find a young boy. Or a soldier. And I give him 15 gold. And I say, for the love of God, find me fucking beret. All right, sir. And the boy takes the gold and rushes off, kind of looking at his hands, the boon he's been given by the bone he's been given by the,

is practically same height, man. They don't see nomes here very often. It's been very confusing. No one. All right. I want to take some time to tell Keeper Yen about what is beneath the tree and let him start to macerate some theories on what to do with.

Maserate? Maserate. That's a bad word. After he finished conversation, he says there. He's a big name. Thank you. Do it. Masserate.

A few moments passed before the boy returns in his hand a raspberry bouret. Yeah, make it look cooler on it. He made it, Dorothy. I don't think, it's a bray. I don't think he made it dorothy. I think it comes with that already so met. There it is, there it is.

It looks good, Skadlin. Thank you, young boy. Whatever your name was. What was your name, young boy? Make a good... Randall? Thank you, Randall. You've made me a very happy small man.

He brings you the change. Oh, no. Keep the change. It's all right. Go buy yourself a goose. The biggest goose in town. With a beret. With a beret. And he darts off excitedly. A goose. You catch him out of the corner of your eye, like stealing a swing of beer.

Brandon Gilmore. That was his young girl. Name. Brandon Gilmore? Yes. Thank you, Brad. So I do finish regaling this tale to keep Rienin and see if I have a proper song for celebration. I'm doing my best to empty the casketail into the town paintings and myself.

I don't know if that's less aviary than celebratory. Yeah, unfortunately. Less aviary, more celebratory. We'll stick with a peaceful set there. Can Keyleth go over and. over and check out the Sun Tree. Sure, as you're walking over there, we'll finish the conversation here.

Yenennaz from stopping with. It is disconcerting. I'll reach out to a few of my contacts, see who we can bring here to inspect it. I may go down tomorrow myself and have a look. Is it safe? No. There are traps.

We've marked them. It's also disturbing. I'll bring a trusted team down then. There's anyone you know who has vast historical or archa knowledge, I would recommend possibly having them come to take look as well. Unfortunately, I'm rather limited in my teachings. Pike? Alura. Alura?

Oh, but she's not in town. We'll send, we can send word. Please do. What about Rwandarian? Esko Rondarian, the Archmage, Western as well. We have people. Didn't he go on it?

Sure. Oh, no, no. No, no. No. Anyone at all? Maybe I'll be able to clean something, but unfortunately most of our books were confiscated when the town was taken. However, I appreciate them.

And at least for the time being, it doesn't seem to be any dead rising from the grave. If I may, Percy, may I make a suggestion? Is it going to be throwing the rest of my guns into a pit of acid? No, but it will be spending some of your kingdom's money. Replacing the guns that you threw into a pit of acid? Let's not talk about the guns. I really can't think of what else I'd want to talk about. Please, go ahead.

If most of their books have been taken from them, perhaps we could use some of the treasury to build a library. It's not a terrible idea, and it's possible that the books are still within the castle. It's possible that the Briwoods have hoarded all of them. In fact, we might find something of the library. about this entity inside the castle. We do need to build three new structures where the Lord's houses were,

and I find the idea of rebuilding those mansions to be a bit distasteful. Perhaps we could even name one of the libraries. Not after you, no. Gilmore's glorious books. Is that up a satellite too? An opportunity for a franchise. We'll discuss it.

It's got a ring, I will admit. Why are you guys are having this conference? Sorry, I was just going to add to that. I'm sure the man can help in this city's time of me. You were doing something as well. Yes, Keele at this point is you've walked away from this conversation, you approached the sun tree, stands there with a little bit of light as the sun's just now passing over the distant mountain range that surrounds this valley.

The sky's growing more purple and dark blue. But now lights have been lit and the lanterns have been brought to the center. brought to the center, you can see the sun tree in the full before you. I reach up and I put my hand on it, and I cast commune with nature. Do I gather anything? What does communion with nature do in full? Oh, well, look at that! First page you opened up to.

Oh! It's like a DM version of Natural 20. That is. Except he does it all the time. Okay, so which do you want to know of all the things that you can choose from? Oh, what are my children? You choose from terrain or bodies of water in the vicinity. Prevalent plants, minerals, animals, or peoples, powerful, celestial, fay, fiends or elementals are in dead within 300 feet of it.

Oh, sorry, within three miles of it. Influence from other planes of existence or buildings. The influence of other planes in existence sounds promising. Okay, being free facts. So, first off, you notice as you touch the sun tree and you cast the spell, whereas previously you felt just dead wood and the lack of any presence, there is a small seed of life. tree once again. That's good. And we'll call that the first one, as a given.

As you inquire about any other influence from planes of existence, you do sense that at least some element nearby relates to a realm of shadow. That's obvious. Yeah, sure. Okay. What's there one you want to know? Oh, I get a choice. Yep. You don't have to ask anything else who you want to

if you got everything you wanted, but... I want to know if, um... God, so many options. It is gonna be a good growing season this spring. Good, crop's gonna be good. It's gonna be a good harvest moon. Ask how it's feeling. Can you ask how it's feeling?

How is it feeling? Can I ask the tree how it's going? feeling can be like, hey, Tree. How are you doing today? That is very, Kila. You doing all right? How do you feel between all this about all this? You sense. Hey, boo.

Hey, boo. You sense weariness like something very old has been asleep for a very long time, has woken up. Does it feel positive? Positive. Okay. The Sun Tree seemingly, seemingly.

kept at bay, locked away. What benefits life force had managed to maintain had been contained for so long and is now finally free. And I'd just say, good morning, old Brent. You sense the tree saying, the sun just said. It's not morning.

I go, oh shit. And then I turned a person and I say, Like the tree talk to me. In that ancient ways, the tree talk, trees talk. You just have a smoke monster you were talking to, that hard to believe. Morning. Thank you.

That's true. I watched I walk up to the tree. Oh no. And I follow up. Here we go. Here we go. I follow up and I don't say anything. I see one hand on the tree and without saying anything.

I walk up behind backs and I pence him. Yes! And I grabbed the back of his collar and pull backwards. That's the revenge. Is he going to roll anything? Okay, so... I'm not sure what he did, though. I grabbed your pants and I pulled them down to your ankles.

What's the part about the collar? I grabbed the back of your neck and pulled you backwards with your pants around your ankles. Okay. So... He's got to roll, but if it happens, it happens. Right. Yes, he does. I have to roll everything I did to him. So it's your athletics versus your acrobatics.

What about the pantsing? Is that included? That is the pantsing. 20 plus my foot. Wait, natural pointing? No, 19 plus 26. My athletics is plus seven. I rolled at 32.

As you reach out and about to grasp the sides, he just leaps straight up in the air and then lands a foot in front of you, you grab nothing and see him kind of. grab nothing and see him kind of glance over his shoulder and... I knew that was going to happen. That's all right. It could have been now.

It'll just be worse later. Nice try, girl. You already took my left nut off my body. Oh, please. That was put advertisers for the main course, my friend. Nice try. Challenge number one. Challenge number two.

All right, back to them. So I still don't say anything besides, as I jumped to the side really fast so not lose my breeches. and she's got one hand on the tree and I just quietly with her free hand and my free hand try to lace my fingers with her. Against the tree. Oh my gosh, you're going to do your boyfriend. As you finish your awkward it's not morning conversation with the essence of the Sun Tree. It's morning somewhere. You you feel a strange alien. You're left free hand for a moment. You left free hand for a moment.

I jump in a yank away instinctually. Okay, as she pulls away from it and kind of looks her shoulder with a look of surprise and sudden horror. Duh. I was just talking to the tree. It talked back. No privacy. You go privacy. It's her moment. So, Bax just stands there not saying anything just looking at you.

Don't look at him. Don't look at him. Sorry, sorry. I'm really confused. Uh, back says. All right. walks off. Wait, wait, wait. I'd be lying if I said, often night when I go to sleep,

your face is the last thing that crosses my mind. But with the weight of the world and the weight of the contact embarrassment from our fellow party, currently, it's hard to focus on. You, you, you said that you said that. that when you were near death. We say a lot of things when we're near death.

How do I know that's what you were truly feeling? Say it out loud, I just thought it. You mean. You told it. Oh yeah, no, you said that out loud. Yeah, no, that wasn't in your head. Uh-huh. Or a mask for a long time, and I'm not going to do that anymore.

Wait. Wait. Uh, okay. I don't know what else to say. I'm really tired. I'm really tired. I think there's also a part of me that I'm just afraid. I feel like I'm gonna get pantsed by Goliath at any moment.

Don't do anything. Don't change anything. I haven't lied. I've told the truth. If you'll have me, I'm yours. If you don't want me, I understand. I mean, that's all there is to say. And then I actually walk off. I stay by the tree.

Okay. As this has happened, and he walks off, you guys are there at the table, kind of just now noticing the both of them have been missing. You see, Keelith's kind of stunned standing by the sun tree as Kiebriyan approaches you once again. He goes, my friends, we have a lot of work to do,

and it would not be fair for me to assume, as you've already done so much for us. But it has been a while since we've had much to celebrate in this town, this evening seems a fine improvisational event. But we have two weeks until the Winter's Crest Festival would be happening here in Whitestone, something we have not celebrated in the year five years.

Just ask, should you be interested if you would wish to stay with us these next couple of weeks to help us rebuild and perhaps Aiden preparing the first real, shining moment in Whitestone's history since you were gone. Nice one? I would be very grateful. We're here.

We shall. Cassandra nods as well. Keeper, may I ask for a small request, could you maybe send a wonderfully worded letter to Uriel and let him know how we saved the day and day and how much you love us? He looks very confused. I imagine that could be, I assume that that could be done, yes.

That would be wonderful. Make sure you mention how terrible the Briar Woods were and how Vox-Machina saved the day. Truly saved it. We can write it for you if you just want to sign it. Underline, save, well. That guy's going to wake up this morning and go, oh, I'm an asshole. Please, yes, it would be wonderful. That's true.

All right, get we done. Thank you. Thanks, Paul. Oh, what was I thinking? Oh. And so as the rest of you join in the merriment or whatever else you wish to do for the evening, looking about post sunset as night descends on Whitestone

to the first clear sky since you've arrived, to the first evening where you can hear smiles, cheers and laughter. We'll pick up again next week. 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.

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