Critical Role & Sagas of Sundry - Vox Machina Ep. 40 - Desperate Measures

Episode Date: November 30, 2021

Desperate to help survivors of the attack, Vox Machina attempt to fend off the assailing beasts, but our heroes are rendered helpless in the face of temptation, infighting and despair.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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the throne room of the palace of Iman. They discovered during the search the traveling troop of Dr. Drenzel's performance troop, which Scanlan used to be a part of. During this time, they kind of hatched a plan to have Vox Machina seek this house that apparently had fallen to disarray and the owner disappeared for a while that may contain some goods. The party went and investigated as they had previously been to the house and were curious as to kind of where it stands at this point in time, especially if more people are disappearing into it. Upon going into what was once General Krieg's house where they once fought a blue dragon, they discovered the corpse of Krieg, long buried from the collapse of the cavern, and picked

apart by some sort of other large clod creature, and immediately got into some sort of a fight with a purple worm and a frost worm that were essentially battling over whatever it was that was moving in that tunnel that seemed to be Nice and tasty both these these adolescent worm creatures not even fully grown Proved a nice little challenge but the party managed to succeed in escaping after just after killing them for the mother showed up They returned to him on managed to help a scamlins now discovered daughter Kaylee out of a little pension getting imprisoned after she got in a major bar brawl and and the party returned to their keep where they were notified that Uriel, the sovereign of Tal'Dorei and the city, the city state of Amman, had an announcement to make in the Cloud Top district. So gathered Gilmore, gathered the rest of the party, and everyone went to the Cloud Top district around noon at the presentational stage, on noon at dusk, sorry, the other one. So at which point Uriel announced that he felt he was no longer a worthy leader or ruler of this entire

realm that he has under his watch and is deciding to step down. During this announcement, however, a number of strange entities came through the clouds in the sky as a series of chromatic ancient dragons swooped in and began to just destroy the city of Amman. Many of the townsfolk gathered at that square were immediately killed. The party, as well as a few other struggling survivors, ran away as both the large, gargantuan, black and green dragon began to chase you down. Right before they honed in to pick you off an even larger ancient red dragon, shove them off to head east to continue their plot.

slamming down into the center of Iman and claiming it as his own domain. The party escaped via the druids transport via plant spell and just step through the tree to land in the center of their keep of Grey's skull. So now we pick up where that left off. So as you all come rushing through the other side of the transport spell, each one of you come stumbling out into the center of the Temple to Sarin Ray that's constructed on the base floor of your keep. The sheer intensity and the force that pushes you all through one after another, some of you ended kind of tripping and catching yourself, but nevertheless, you all make it through safe and sound before the large tree trunk behind you, the portal snap shut, the magic exhausted. The

adrenaline's still pumping in your head and you're all still thinking over and processing what exactly had just happened and what it means. Are we all here? All those people? Yes. Yes? Has anyone heard? Uh, can we see anything from here?

Looking around right now, you have the stained glass of the complex. The Keep seems to be in order. From this perspective, you don't see anything as the city's on the opposite side of the keep. This portion of the temple actually faces out. I suppose I would like to get a vantage point to see. To see what we can see, is there any way to do it? We're also. I think we all take damage.

I think we all take damage. Pike. Yeah, let me do some healing here, guys. Pike, be aware. As part of... I don't know where I'm at. Yeah, letting you know where you're at, you cast, let's see. You cast heel once, which I believe was your sixth level spell,

and then you cast mass cure wounds, so a fifth level spell. So you've cast a sixth, and a fifth. and a fifth. One-sixth and one-fifth? Correct. Okay. All right. And then health-wise, where am I at?

I think I went down 66? Health-wise, you were down 66, and then you healed up. I don't remember the exact number. It was like 24. We'll go with 24. It's fine. Okay, guys. Let's do a mass cure wounds then at, at C. Let's do fourth level. Okay.

That's okay. Wait, which one is this? Hold on just a moment. Are you casting a cure wounds? Yeah. On who? Oh, wait, a mass cure wounds. A fifth level, sorry.

How low is everybody? I'm all right. I'm all right. I'm at 43, but if we can take a short rest, we can roll some dice. I'm at 32, so same thing. 57. Short rest? Short rest.

Short rest. Let's get inside anyway. Let's get inside. I want to see if I had advantage from the top. I think in the short term we need to take care of two things. One, get advantage point and see how the keep is and what we can see from above. We also need to get the staff out of here. We need to send them away immediately.

Do we send them away or do we send them down and below? Below. Do we think that is safer than running around outside. It's where I want to end up. Send them below. Out of the city though, into the city, though, into the shelter. If we need to, we can bring them through the pool into Lightstone, but we don't know what all is safe right now. All right. I'm all right, so I'm going to go find the staff and heard them down below and tell them what is happened.

You can put them in my workshop and actually... Well, why don't we all just head down there? I'm going to run... Yes, let's head down to my workshop because I have to unlock it anyway. So are you... Pike, are you not casting Cure Master Runs? You have one more fifth level spells. You could do it if you wanted. Yeah, let me just go ahead and do it. Okay. Okay. So I believe that it's 3D8 plus five, a sign mistaken. This one's on everyone. This was on, this would be on up to six creatures. So everybody. Three D eight plus five. Well, everybody but one. Oh. Everybody but Scamlin. Sure, yeah, everybody but Scamlin. We'll put it there.

18. 18. Plus five? That's plus five. Okay, so everyone heals 18. Rolled a little low. That's all right. Okay, so you're heading off. I'm just gonna stop moving through the entire place. I'm gonna start at the front gate and see if anyone's outside.

As you head into the foyer, the first thing you see is Laina, currently kind of panicking about running around with Irvin, coming behind trying to calm or down and going, Nena, it's all right, calm down. I don't know what to do. Turn around, sees you. Oh, master, master,ax. It's actually not all right.

not all right. We need to gather everyone right now, quickly. I'll explain after we've gotten everyone in the keep. We need to go to Percival's workshop. Can you help me with that? I can we can do that. We have a problem and she points out the front of the keep is currently open the doors and the gate's different. You can hear what sounds like a cluster of very loud voices shouting and screaming and yelling over each other. Outside of the keep? But I'm on my own right now, yeah? You are, you? What are the voices speaking? Are you following into the voyeur?

Certainly only back. Go to Percival's workshop. Go. I will handle it. I figure we're all moving inside at least. All right. So as you guys move into the foyer to follow, you see Max having this conversation with Lena.

She and Irvin go head back down to head down to the workshop. What are you doing? I'm going to go stealth toward the door to see what the hell is going on. Okay. No. We'll stealth check. First one. Yeah.

It's 29. All right, good to know. All right, so as you go to the door and look out, you can see along the top wall there are three figures. It takes you a moment to focus, and you realize that it is Kendrick, who's one of your general guards to keep around, as well as Cordell and Shane. All three of them have crossbows ready, and they're yelling to each other, and they're kind of aiming them over the wall towards the front. However, what you can hear from this point is a chorus of 20, 30 or more voices. muffled from the other side of the wall? I'm going to start running up towards them.

I'm going to join them on the wall. Okay, so there is a ladder that heads up at this side, so you climb up the ladder, and as you get close, you can hear people shouting, different voices going, Let us in! Let us in all time! Voices is going, what are you doing? You're going to leave us out here! Other people just screaming, you're crying children, you hear people just shrieking. How many people am I seeing down there?

Well, as you get up to the top and crest over, you can see the three guards are all kind of yelling to each other and yelling over, we can't, we can't do anything right now, but waiting for the, for the, look over and see you come over the edge, and you can see there's probably close to 50 or so people that are all pressed up against the gates to the inside of your keep, that are all shouting to be let in.

If I look past, do I see anyone else coming towards the keep? Is it just a cluster and that's it? You can see people that are fleeing from the town in little bits like two or three at a time, kind of trails of individuals that are just now managing to make it outside of the city of Amman, Some of them are just heading out into the distance, just getting as far away as possible. A few more are heading towards the keep.

And you gather that this crowd has been gathering here for the last few minutes at the very least. All right. Slaping my hand on Kendrick's shoulder, we are going to let these people in. The city has come under attack. Everything is fucked beyond belief. There are at least four large, old dragons attacking the city, and these people need to come inside. I don't know what we're going to do with them, but we're going to bring them in now.

and you and I are going to wait by the gate for those stragglers to come in. The rest of you, take them inside, join the others. I'll kind of look at the, Cordell gives you a nod. Right, so it's all, we'll open the gate, hold on. And you guys are all, are you heading out to the courtyard as well, or are you staying inside the key? Yeah, we see them. Okay, so you can out, you see this happening,

and you hear them shouting on the top of the wall. You look kind of stands in the middle of the foyer, the, unable to move. Keep them out of my workshop, but put them into the spare rooms, Maybe the cathedral. The cathedral is a great idea. At this point you hear this strange high-pitch wine sound facts. As you look up, you can see there are these columns of smoke that are just billowing out of

the city in the distance as mass areas are just burning and smoldering. You see coming out of one of the clouds something kind of spinning slowly towards you. And you look up and see that it's one of the sky ships from the cloud top district. One half of it currently is in flames and it's just... I scream out, get the gates open now! At which point you can see now, Shady and Cordell are pulling on the ratchets, pulling the chains up as fast as they can while putting their eyes up and seeing this as it careens in your direction. I'm running up to the tower as quickly as I can.

Facts! Fireman pulled down the ladder, down one side of the ladder to get in the gate. The gate opens a little bit, just going to have to get one or two people through, and it just begins to push through. You can see now people are yelling in pain as they're being crushed as a whole mass of them are just pushing through the small funnel place. I scream out. If you rush, you will die. It doesn't seem to be affecting anybody, unfortunately. There's just this inlaid fear and this animalistic need to survive. It's right grabbing people's arms and pulling them through and helping people get through.

At this point, the sky ship has passed overhead, missing the top of the keep and the highest walls by about 40 or so feet. Before a few seconds of silence, and you hear it impact, shaking the ground for a few seconds, not far from here. You can see another blast of red fire and a couple of sparks of arcing energy that arc out as another column of smoke south of you begins to support. up into the sky. I'm feeling that kind of snap out of it and run to the south exit of the castle to look for the explosion. Okay. As you start rushing that direction to the south side of the castle, looking back to where the sky ship came through, you can see the smoke parts once more, and you see unfurling from

within two large white wings, bearing down, and you can see as it swoops down there are groups of people that are rushing 100, 200, 300 feet away that are just pulling their self out of the ravine that sets between the south walls of Iman and the north walls of your keep. As they're pouring through the mud and the stream there, it's about four or five feet deep, it just swoops down and unleashes a blast of freezing cold energy that freezes that whole section of the river solid and every person in that vicinity as well. They locked in place. Dude, do people see all of this? You don't see this because you're inside the walls.

You just see it come down and kind of swoop by, you see it kind of circle around. You, however, have a good view of this right as you're about to go down the wall on the ladder. Next, I need you on the roof. All right. I'm not up. Okay.

As you go running up, you guys see now it circles back around and its wings kind of tilt to one side as it begins to make its way towards the keep for a second to sweep. I would like everyone to roll initiative. Oh, natural 20. All right, so. You want to go first? It doesn't do a whole lot right now, but.

Good there. Percy and Vex, you guys are up on the wall technically, right? The, the, the, the, up here so we can get down real quick. Okay, yeah, because there's the ladder there. There's a, shouldn't there be a door that leads to that anyway? On the top of, the way this is designed is it's a ladder getting up and down. Okay. That'll do.

Did you still go to the ladder? Are you staying up top here? No, I already said I went down. Okay, so as soon as you see it, so we've ever had, you come back down to the bottom there. Scanlon is currently inside, we'll say, for the sake of this, and may come out here in a moment. He's kind of figuring out what's gone.

Grog, where are you? I guess I was out in the courtyard. All right, so let's go ahead and place some cattle. The door to get back inside is located where? Yeah, where's the cathedral at? Is that what the other entry is? This is the entrance to your actual keep there. Oh, okay. This is the, essentially, these two sections here are the door.

that lead through to the actual interior. People are just pouring through at this point, trying to get through as fast as possible. Full cluster of them. Got to get that thing together. There's more on the outside there. Is that what you're putting in? Pike, you are where? Um, yeah, somewhere around there. In the center, just kind of keeping watch there. All right. And trinkets with you, or Trinket can't make it up to the ladder, so Trinkets just kind of staying in the courtyard, probably keeping close to, uh, uh, to Pike right there. All righty.

So, initiative, 25 to 20. 24. 22. 27. 26. What did you get, Kylo? 22. All right. Who got 20 to 15? 15.

Pike, would you get? Three. Three. Oh, no. That's okay. It's okay. Three. I can do some cleanup.

Matt, real quick. He said, yeah. You can go ahead. Yeah, go ahead. I think I do have a sixth level because I think that sixth level was used for Liam with the worm, and then we came back to the keep to rest. That's right.

Yes, you do have a sixth level still. Thank you for the reminder. Good on you. All right, and so here we have Cordell, we have Shane, and we have Kendrick right there on the top. There's up as well. Okay, top.

Currently the dragon is about, I'd say, 120 feet off this direction. You're up first, Percy. Does it seem like the dragon has noticed us? The dragon at the moment is currently seeing the keep. It doesn't notice anyone in particular. It sees a swarm of people trying to get inside, and it seems to be circling around to try and do another dive attack. How dumb am I? That's up to you, buddy.

Okay. Cool. Be real dumb. Don't be real dumb because I'm standing next to you. Alright. Do it. I'm going to pull out bad news. Okay.

And I'm going to make a targeted shot at its wings. I'm going to try and put a hole in its wings. Okay, go for it. Go ahead and take the shot. What the fuck? I don't think so. Natural 20. Ah!

Oh! Get to that ladder! Oh, I love you. All right. I'm back, baby. Let's go ahead and roll some damage on that. Statistically, just sir. Little tiny ray of sunshine.

Piece of the clouds. So that's... 4D12 for the hit on that. And then what's the save? Let's see if it can maintain height. It's a Constitution saving throw. All right. It rolled a four.

Yeah! It is plus 14 to its Constitution saving throw, so it's at 18. So it's at 18. What's the DC on that? Eight plus my proficiency mod plus my dexterity mod. So I don't know what that's six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eighteen. So it just makes the say. Wait, hold on, is that right? It's proficiency bonus.

The proficiency bonus for you is plus four. Plus dexterity, which is six. It's ten to, it's 18. It just makes the say. Oh, because he didn't let a lap. Stupid dragon. Just makes the say, but it still does damage. Go ahead and roll that.

All right. Stupid dragon. Dragon. At least you hit it. You gotta lead it. Good. 27 points of damage. Okay. Nice. A white dragon. And then, let's see, one more, yeah, one more shot at the wings just to see if I can take it down.

Okay, so second attack is reload. Third attack, another grit point to try and take it down. Go for it. What for the attack? 25? 25? 25 hits. Oh, scuba. Rolled a three. That is 17. DROFFER- D.

DROP-FECAR. Terrible. Okay, so that'll effectively reduce its speed by, or it's height by what? High by 20 feet, and I imagine it's a little, like that would throw it a bit. It might. Now it's angry. Now it's angry. All right, so.

And let's do some damage. Some damage to it. And damage is. 20 points of damage. 20, nice. All right. Twenty-seven points of damage on the round. I'm going to hold my movement until it's so close that I wanted that I, until, I'm going to hold my movement till... You can hold an action, you can't really hold a movement.

Okay, and then I'm going to use my bonus action to turn to Vexen. Fight or flight? All right. You can answer it next, yeah. However, as the first blow hits, The first bullet hits, you can see it takes the hit in the wing, but it kind of just hits the muscle on the edge. As it goes into its glide to head down, you fire into the other wing. This time, blowing a hole through the leather flathing on it. You can see it kind of lose about 20 feet and is actually now skidding towards the roof of the keep. Oh, geez.

That was a good plan. So that ends your turn. That was my turn. Back, you're up. I am going to dive by that tree. and hide, use my bonus action to hide. All right. And I'm going to hold my attack until it is on the ground or low to the ground.

All right, got it. So holding your action to attack if you can. Got it. All right, cool. Keyleth. Where am I in regards to everyone else right? You were right here, because you were heading to the south wall when all this went down. Oh, okay.

This is the north direction this way. It came this way, swooped past, circled around, and now it's coming back from this direction. Okay. I want to kind of just move my movement and get under that tree. Under this tree? Or that tree? Yeah, let me, no, towards the entrance. Towards heading for cover. Yeah. There? Yeah. Okay, so you're behind the tree.

And now I'm going to cast Fog Cloud at fourth level. Okay. Which makes it a radius of 80 feet. An 80-foot radius? If you cast it higher levels, it goes up by 20 feet for each level higher, you cast it. Look at that. I'm casting it at fourth level. Fancy.

Okay. So I just, you know, kind of go all storm for a second, get all misty-eyed, and I want to just create a nice low-level fog across the whole. Okay. Okay, so heavily obscured. So technically, heavily obscured would get of everyone a, I'd say, a three-quarters cover bonus. Let me see what the heavily obscured would actually do specifically, just to be sure here well fast. Pardon me. What a three-quarter cover bonus is.

It's when you block by something, it gives you a bonus to it. It never happens to me. It's got one a three. I'm usually a three-quarter cover bonus. All right. About three-quarter cover. Blocks vision entirely. A creature in Helixcruiter area suffers from the blinded condition.

So everyone in the entire keep is now blinded. Well, now I'm going to make it like a fog cloud over top, so we're blinded by... So it's above you guys, what you're saying. Yeah, so we're blocked from the dragon as we flee. Okay. I hope you guys weren't wanting to shoot at it, by the way. Well, we're above it. We would be, the cloud would be between...

Right, so the cloud now is... The cloud encompasses this whole area here. Actual cloud. Which means only people that are affected by it are the people at the top of this tower right now. Got it. So that, is that your turn? You're going to move in the... Head from side. Cool. Staying there? Well, I moved. Right, you moved there. Are you done? Is that your turn? Yeah. Okay. So now it is the White Dragon's turn.

White Dragon, as it comes down, you don't see it anymore, because the fog cloud obscures it, but you suddenly hear the sound of a heavy object slamming into stone, and the cracking and breaking of stone. against the surface as the dragon has now due to the fall of height slammed in the top of the keep and is just tearing its underside against the roof. Who knows the state that the roof of the keep is going to be in right now, but because of that, I'm going to go ahead and... We'll just have risk go fix it. Oh, way. Oh, way.

Oh. He was the overseer. He actually had somebody else built the actual thing by hand. But you know. But he was a technical. Okay. So it suffers 14 points of damage. Damage, yeah. It's dragon hide, man. How about all the spires?

Slamming into the top. There's a anti-dragon point. The really barbed spires. That was a dream, unfortunately. However, it does somewhat emerge. You can see its form somewhat as it comes down in this direction, ending its movement here. No, no, no, no, no. No, no, no.

Wait, it comes and like skids to a halt right there. It's kind of into the fog cloud as it slams like. As it slams into the keep and kind of like tumbles off the top of it and catches itself in the air, whoosh. Okay. Okay. Oh, okay. How high above it is it? It is currently 20 feet above you guys.

Just too bad. For its turn, it is going to pick a random direction to try and blast its cold breath act. So let me go ahead and roll a random direction on this. Oh, because it's all coming in sod. Yeah, I can't see right now, currently. It's obscured. Oh, no, but it has blind sight, 60 feet, so it has no effect on it, unfortunately.

So as it stops in the air, it still manages to using its sense of smell and its general atmospheric ability to sense what's around it. It seems to move its head. Can I attack right now? I was holding my attack. You can. Now, what's the range on your daggers? 60, because I'm sharpshooter. 30, 40, 50, 60, it's just at the cusp.

Like, just barely at the cusps, yeah, you can get your attack on it. So I'm going before him and it's a surprise attack because I'm hidden. Yes, you're essentially, you're interrupting his attack because the moment he came into range. Okay, so it's an advantage and it is an automatic crit. It's not a automatic crit, it's not surprised. It's not surprised? No, it knows you guys are there. All right.

So surprise generally means that it has absolutely no idea that you're there or there's any sort of direct from you. from you. 24 hits. All right. And then the second dagger I throw, I can only throw a second one, is also at 24. Both hit. So the first one is double dice, so eight plus 14, 15, 18, double dice is 50 plus 7 is 50, yeah, 57 for the first. Nice. The second one goes big, and that is 10.

10, all right. 57 points of damage. Is that just straight up dice rolls? That's crazy. That's sneak attack. I've gone up a level to 13. Right, so D6, or 7D6, right? 76.

Oh wait. It's not double doggs. Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry. 25 plus seven is 32, sorry. There you go. And then the second one is not a . It was 10. 32 then 10. So 42 points of damage. Still not shabby by any means.

All right, gotcha. As you chuck both daggers in the direction where you can see it, as it's just now at the very bottom of the fog cloud, you have just enough of a visual to go ahead and strike towards it without missing, and both daggers sink into the bottom of the creature. One of them you know was a nice impactful wounding for any other creature, but it doesn't seem to have taken much issue with the impact of the blade. Really. Here at your side again. That ends your reaction.

Now, Vuragal is going to go, looking at the area of most density. What was his name again? Ah, we will learn that shortly. The white dragon. The white dragon rears up in the fog cloud and kind of dips down a little bit. Outside of the fog cloud hitting everyone in this vicinity here. That's going to be. That's going to be Grog Trinket and everyone here over. So I would like all of you to make a

Constitution saving throw. I'm not going to roll that many dice. I'm going to roll that many dice. I'm not going to roll that many dice. Always a good sign. Brog's about to lose 10% of his hit points. I don't have enough D6s. It's 16. It's 16D6. What? 16D6. Or sorry, 16D8, my apologies. Oh, boy.

All right, so that comes to, all right, so Grog, what's your? 25. 25. That's a success. What's trinkets? 15. All right, that is 63 points of cold damage to trinket. It is unconscious.

All right. Trinket actually freezes in place. Now you can see the armor itself has about an inch thick layer of ice as, as a little. of ice as currently the eyes kind of go dull, as unconsciousness takes the bear, but unable to show or reveal that. Grog, you take half that, so you are at 30, take 32 points of cold damage. Let me roll some saves here. The average saves. Okay. So these four here survive. The rest of these are all entirely wiped out. And you can see now the people that rushing in are now rushing away from the keep because our outside of the door are just getting

the fuck out of Dodge. That is going to, so yeah, that's going to be the end of the White Dragon's turn. That brings this to Vex. You're up in the Fod Cloud right now, so you have no visual range on the creature. You just hear all these screens and you hear the blast. I can't see it? No, unfortunately, the Fod Cloud is just high enough where it covers this area for you guys. However, you could jump off if you wanted to make an acrobatics roll and then maybe do your attack afterwards if you wanted to try that. Your call. But wouldn't I still be in the fog cloud if I was on the ground? No, the fog cloud is it's elevated up here. It starts here and then goes upward.

Kila created it kind of in the air. You guys are right at the base of it right now. So I can use my movement to jump down? Yes. Yeah, if you want to. All right, I'm going to fucking hunters mark him. You can't see him right now. I'm going to jump fucking down on the ground. Okay. So you jump, go and make an acrobatics check as you leap off the highest part of the wall of your keep and all of a sudden the fog dissipates and you see the ground rushing up towards you.

14. 14. 14. You manage to catch yourself. You aren't knocked prone, but you do suffer five points of damage from the fall. But you catch yourself, get up and now you can see at the very, very base of the fog cloud the head peeking through and the wings occasionally from out underneath and you have visual on the dragon. Okay, I'm going to hunters mark him.

All right. And I'm going to shoot him through the sky sentinel. You've already used the sky, setnal, fiberclogic green dragon, didn't you? On the worms. Was it the worm? Okay. And I'm multi-classed today. So I'm a rogue, so I get sneak attack on this.

It currently does not have... That's 20 feet now. Does it know that, does it see me? You haven't tried to stealth. So technically yes. As soon as you jump off and land, they kind of hurt yourself in your ankle, you look up and it sees you there. All kind of balls around here right now. So the first attack is 25. 25 hits. Second attack is 24. Both hit. Third attack is 16.

16 misses. Okay, let me double check. An extra D6 for those of the two. 15 plus seven is what? 22. 22 on the first arrow. All ready? 15 plus 4 is 19 on the second arrow.

And then I'm a little upset right now. And then I'm going to shoot the third arrow through the blazing bow string, I mean my second attack. Okay. And that doesn't hit him. Okay. At times. So as you land, you get up, ploy your arrow, and as you pull back and release it, you can

see it bursts into arcane energy and splits into three different arrows. Two, slamming into the fog cloud and hitting the sides of the dragon. It's kind of knocked around for a second. It looks around, and its eyes pears at you. You did the additional hunters' mark damage in that, right? I did. Cool. You see now it's looking around kind of choosing what its next round is going to be about, and you seem

like a tasty morsel, though not entirely drew its attention in the moment. You still have a little bit of movement if you wanted to move. Can I, no, it just for clarification, which door is back into the keep in which the bottom one, that one. Can I, um, is it possible to get inside the door? Inside of. There's a little arch, right there. If I backed up. Yeah.

I'd say you could. So I'm like inside. We'll say you're inside. Barely inside. You're just like hide inside best you can to keep out of view. Yeah, I want to be like ducked around a wall if I can on the inside of the door. Okay. Okay.

That ends your turn? All right, so at that point now, your guards over here don't have, they can't see it all, but they saw you kind of jump off the side. Kendrick's going to go ahead and take the ladder down. It's going to be his movement just to land there. They're both going to jump and kind and make your, using your example. Cordell, not bad, and Shane. Actually, both rolled pretty well. They both managed to prevent any fall damage, catching themselves on the ground with their heavy crossbows, They rush up and fire both at the dragon. Five and one. God damn. That hits. And a 19. All right. So Cordell and Shane both managed to get one shot that hits the dragon on both sides.

So both bolts hit, that's 10 damage. So 17 damage total from them as they go and fire the heavy crossbow, go and try and reload it and get off a second shot. That ends their turn now. That brings us to Grog's turn. I would like to rage. Okay. And run at Trinket. Okay. He's covered in how much ice? About an inch, inch and a half of ice. And the rest of the entities, you saw all the rest of the people that died.

They all got frozen in place and some of them like shattered in the impact, and there's just chunks of them frozen on the ground. Is it a medicine check at this point? If Trinket's frozen and ice? You have no idea. Thanks. Could I pee on him and throw him out? Quickly?

Over time, he have to drink a lot before his. Wait a little while. Jogging, please. What you got, Grog? I'm going to, I would like to run to the side that's closest to you, Trinket, and I would like to start pushing him along the lawn towards the entrance to the key. Okay, so the side there? Right there. Ice block. Okay.

Go ahead and make a strength check. Okay. Because you are raging, you have advantage on strength checks. Oh, my God. 18. 18. Okay. You did suffer damage this turn. Well, you started raging this turn, so if you don't suffer damage until the beginning

next turn, your rage ends, and you have to rage again. Just the heads up. But with that role, though, you managed to push him, we'll say, 15 feet. that direction. Pushing a giant frozen bear and he's just sliding against the grass in the front of the courtyard. Sweats begin to pop in the brow as your teeth are gritted. And looking over your shoulder, you can still hear the snapping and the kind of the air itself of the entire courtyard now has dropped about 20 degrees and you can begin to see your breath just in the vicinity of this creature. Ends your turn, Grug?

Yeah. Scanlan. Now steps out from the inside the keep. Sam is texting me, what he wants to do. He rushes out at this point, seeing all of this from the inside, he whips out his wand of fireballs and aims it up at the bottom of the dragon that is now visible underneath. As you see, now the edge of the wand just flickers red for a second before a little beat of light streaks forward and detonates beneath it. The dragon would fail at saving throat is going to use legendary resistance once to auto save, so it takes half damage.

is going to use, what did you tell me, how many, how many spots I want to do. Okay, so he's going to use three, three of its charges to do this one. That'll put it at, don't use your charges. What is he doing? It's trying to resist. Scalancho just sent a fireball at it and it's... 36 damage halved from him, so that still puts it at 17 points of fire damage to it. Not too shabby. As it blasts out from the opposite side of it to the bottom of the cloud, keeping everyone else outside of the collateral damage radius of the fireball because of its height. So that's good. Scanlan then, realizing the circumstance, uses the rest of his movement to get back into the very corner of the keep and kind of defend himself against the wall. That's going to end Scanlan's turn. Pike, you're up.

All right, I'm going to, can I run over to where Trinket is? Mm-hmm. Okay, and I'm going to cure wounds on him. Okay, so you move over to Trinket. Gunk, gung, come, come, come. Go ahead and cast cure wounds. Okay, I'm gonna put it. Fourth level, okay. Go ahead, go big, go big.

So, 4D, plus five. On the floor. Dang. 30. 30. Trinket heals up. As Pike reaches out, grasping her symbol in one hand, the look at desperation in her face, her hand goes out and touches the eyes, and as her hand touches her fingers, melt through the ice from the divine energy in her fingertips, and manages to touch Trinket's fur beneath. As the divine energy filters through her body, Trinkets form glows from the inside

and the ice begins to crack before all shatters off of Trinket's body and Trinket kind of catches himself and shakes off what little bit of remaining ice and moisture is on the coat. Good job, Pike. Yes, Mike. I want to scratch behind his ears. Okay, Trinket nudges you and licks your face before looking up and growling very angrily at the dragon. You gotta go revin'in' on that bear. This is an angry bear. You know who's seen the movie know how scary is a great. Pike, you still have a little bit of movement if you want to move.

You have like 15 more feet if you wanted to use that. Your call. Okay, you guys are my eyes, so I can't really see it from here. You're right here, the moment. But I guess anywhere where there's cover. Okay. You can start moving towards the tree or the front of the keep. Trees closer, but currently has two other people hiding there.

Or behind the Goliath. What was that? Or behind the Goliath. Yeah. I'm going to go behind the Grog. As cover will say, is you're going to leap over there. Classic pike grog technique. Yay!

Cool. Ends your turn. The rest of these survivors on this side of the wall are just going to start fleeing in this direction, using their turn to just get the hell out. These guys here are just going to do full round dash to get inside the keep, and they managed to make it inside. These guys here are moving back. Actually, no, these guys now they're inside of the keep are going to run.

They get almost all the way to the keep. There we go. Dwarf gets about that far. This guy almost makes it in. They're all right at the cusp of getting into the keep, screaming and running past you, just kind of moving between the different frozen bodies, not even paying attention to any of you as the look of sheer terror on their faces has taken over.

That brings to the top of the round. Percy, you're up. All right, I'm gonna drop down, like a boss. We're gonna leap or climb down. I'm gonna leap. All right. And roll. 29?

29, success. And managed to avoid one of your guards who was right below you. You weren't aware he managed to just manage to dodge off to the side this way. And use the edge of the wall to kick off to change your trajectory as you land, carrying bad news in one hand, three-point landing in the other. Sick, Percy. Hold that gun up from the ground. Yep. Just making sure doesn't damage itself.

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It did leave some dark scars on your soul. Let the taint upon you. So just to remind you that. means that he has disadvantage on all of agility checks. Are you choosing dexterity? Or are you choosing, because you choose which one of the... Oh, on which checks? Constitution.

Constitution, all right. So I'll put that at... I like it, I like it. Fancy. Good to know. I'm sure that's how it works here, so I want to yell it later. Ability checks, any ability. On ability checks, yes.

Constitution, your pick. Good to know. I'm going to spend a grit point. Okay. I'm going to take another shot to try to try to try. and drop him. Even further? Yeah. All righty.

Just for fun. Yeah. Saving throws are, I don't, are they not? Are they? Because I'll use that grit point for something else. I don't believe saving throws are considered ability checks, unfortunately. So that wouldn't affect that. Yeah, it's its own circumstance.

It's its own circumstance. In that case, I'm going to spend my point for Dead Eye. dead eye. Okay. So, advantage on the shot? Advantage on the shot. Go for it. And nuts. I'm going to add sharpshooter to that. Might as well. You cannot overlap. I cannot overlap sharpshooter with advantage. Okay, you'll have one shot effect on attack at a time. That's fine. Here we go. Come on. Go nuts. Both, uh, thirteen, twenty-five. Twenty-five bits. And add your one D6 damage as well. Oh, thank you. Thank you for reminding me. 17 points of damage plus four points of necrotic damage.

Nice. We're one damage, total. I'm going to duck into that, I'm going to use the rest of my movement to duck in there. In there along with, like, I want to try and get spin all the way back so I'm completely out of sight.

All right. Is that door open a little bit of space there? I mean, open the door. Does that lead to our key? No, it's the other door that leads to our key. There we go. Look at that. So we're both going to get in and do a wallet.

Yeah. Alrighty. And then I'm going to use my bonus action to take one of my few remaining potions. The medium potion? Does the door actually open on it? Yeah. Oh, that's so cool. What's the mid-range potion do?

I should really start writing this down. Is it one? Two D4. Which one? Of healing you mean? Yeah. That is... 10 d10.

It's definitely 10. Yeah, not so much. It's second level to greater healing is 4D4 plus 4. 44 plus 4. You got it. All right, cool. That in Spursi's turn, Vax, you're up. I want to double check boots of speed that I wear.

It's 10 rounds each day. The haste effects duration need not be consecutive rounds. So it was like one or two back in Iman, and I've had one round here. That's for the old Pathfinder rules in the arena. So what is it, 10 minutes now? I think I'm going to first for a minute. It's just, you get to use the spell on you once.

Okay. Yeah. That's the, yeah. In this rule said, that's a little too much. All right, so I'm going to dash towards the tree in that corner and get away from this clump of my friends. Over this way? Towards the wall, yeah.

I should be able to get behind that tree, I think, if I dash. You dash, yeah. High potion. Yeah, you get over there behind that way. Okay, so then I'm just gonna throw a dagger. It's all I can do. All right, that is.

Can I use an action to hide? Or it's just bonus action only? As you throw it, the arc just misses the bottom. What's the maximum range on the dagger, right? Whoa, whoa, I'm asking, instead of throwing a dagger, can I hide instead? You could, yeah. Yeah, I'm going to do that. Okay.

I'm going to do that. Yeah, because right now it's at 60 feet away, but it's at an upward angle at you, which adds a little more distance, your dagger would miss at this range. And you would know that. So I'm running balls out to that tree, and then I'm going to go right up against the tree and just fucking wait. Yeah, that's it. Cool. All right.

Do you roll stealth? Oh, you sure. Do that. I'm going to use luck. I still have a little luck today. Good. That's better. 31.

31. Good. Good, good, good. Okay, that ends your turn. Kieleth, you're up. Okay, I'm afraid of everything I... Okay, I'm afraid if I throw up a wall of stone or anything like that, he'll just be able to be like, oh, well, I'm a fucking dragon, so I'll just go to the other side of the wall. So what I'm going to do. I'm going to start running towards the keep. Start running towards the keep.

All right. I'm going to go ahead and cast conjure woodland beings. Okay. And I'm going to summon a giant eagle. Oh. Yeah. So as I... Merciful.

This is dropping my fog cloud since, you know. Yeah. That was real fucking useful. So, were you conjuring it? I'm going to conjure it right, kind of, if I can kind of conjure it on the other side of him to where it's... I want it to then, I can then have it do an attack, correct? If you want to, yeah. The same turn?

Yeah. I command it to go for its eyeballs. Eagle to the fucking face. Eagle to the eye! Eagle to the eye! Okay. Ow! Ow!

That's inauspicious. Eagle down, eagle down! Alright, so the eagle goes up, gave the stats for the eagle? That eagle is really, really close to that to wagon. Burka! Yeah. All right. Oh, right, he's attacking, right, right, right.

Yeah, so you got to roll for damage on that. Probably. There's more of a distress. This is Conjure. 19. What spell is this can? This is conjure. Conjure woodland beings.

Conjure woodland beings. Fourth level spell. Thank you. That's a ticket. All right, great. Oh, wait, wait, wait, plus five is 21. I have to roll initiative for it separately as part of the spell. Roll the 20.

Roll the 20. You're rolled it. They're rolled as well. Yeah. So I'll say given that case, I'll let it go ahead and go immediately, but next turn it starts at 20. Okay. It's pretty close to what you got it.

I rolled a 21 on its attack. 21 hits, actually. Yeah! Go, you go go! Get those eyeballs! Right in the eyes. Just barely hits or hits? The heart of Stephen Colbert are right in its eyes.

It's close to barely hit, you. Yeah! Uh-huh. Uh, cheeses, so there's 11 plus 3, 14 points of damage. 14 points of damage. It's the eagle. It starts clawing at it. You can see the dragon kind of rears back.

Unexpected to see the sudden giant eagle appear out of the middle of the air and go clawing at its face. You can see it kind of rears back as it does so, moving its head out of the way. Gets a couple scratches in. Still an ancient dragon. Sure. It's more spooked than really hurting from the impact, but it caught it off guard temporarily. It's supposed to be a distraction. All right.

And then I use just a bonus action to be like, everyone inside! All right, that's your turn. Yeah. Now it is the White Dragon's turn. See if its breath weapon returns. Nope, roll the one. Ha! Take that.

Oh, doggy. So instead, it's going to ignore the eagle. Right. As instead, it lands right about there. It lands. It lands. As its impact, the whole ground shakes around you as you. as you were pushing Trinket, you look over your shoulder as the shadow kind of

encompasses the area and as you look over you see it land with a heavy impact. Giant frozen gnashing teeth as mist just kind of emanates from the side of its jaws. It's going to use its multi-attack including its frightful presence. I need everybody, everybody, to roll a wisdom-saving throw. Including us in the inside? Inside. Yep. As it rears back and gives off a horrible roar that just just shakes the stones of the actual keep.

23. Okay. 18. 18. 7, less than zero. Eight for me. Oh, Scanlon rolled a 19. And it's 19 for drinking.

Actually, I'm gonna spend my resolve and re-rolled that. Okay, go for it. Okay, go for it. I'm trying to slash. Oh, fuck. 10. Okay, everyone who rolled an 18 or lower? 18 or lower.

18 or lower? 18 or lower. It shakes you to your core. You suddenly really realize what you're dealing with here, and the fear causes you to fight with the fight or flight impulse in your body. You are considered frightened. Too late for luck. I got one more charge.

I can't be charged to frighten. Yeah, you're still raging, so it doesn't affect you. Nope. Nope. Nope. Okay. So while you are frightened, you have disadvantage on ability checks and attack rolls while it's within your line of sight.

Man, I wish we would have had a faint. And you cannot move closer to it willingly. You can only move away from it. So it tackles and what was the ability? Ability checks. Why you can see it. You're just so scared of this thing. Heroes Feast.

Fancy Feast is a whole other. Fancy Feast. It's re-level, but helpful. I like chicken, I like liver. Now mix, now mix, please deliver. In the middle of white death. It's going to make a, a bite attack against Pike and two-claw attacks against Grog. We're right there. So,

Pike, you look up as its jaws just come down at you from above. That's a natural 20. Oh, fuck, shit. Against you, Grog, two claw attacks. That is 23. Come on, Taint Smare. And 22. Tickles, both of them. Okay, so against you Grog, you take... Wait that that was against Grog. No, the bite was. The bite was against Pike, two claws against you. Oh, okay.

So Grog, you take 15 points of slashing damage, reduced to half because you're raging. Eight. So they've eight. And then the other claw, that's a little higher. That is going to be a 18 points of slashing damage. So down to nine. So wait, so Pike was the one that took those huge hits? Took the bite.

The critical bite. They haven't done yet. Are you okay, Pike? We don't know yet. I don't know. Critical bite. What's Pikes AC? What's Pikes AC? What's Pikes A.C.? 20. 20, but it rolled a critical hit. But it already hit. Yeah.

So that's... Oh, what's that face? No! Don't do that! So 17 times two. No! Ah! 34 plus 8, 42 points of piercing damage.

Okay, okay, okay. However, you then also suffer as the freezing jaws clenched around you and the cold surrounds you, you suffer an additional, that's 40, what was it? 42, right? Yeah. I think you just said two. You just said two. 13 points of cold damage. So 55 points of damage total. Where you at, Pike? Are you okay?

I am at, hold on. Hold on. Carry the three. Hold on one second. One second, let me check. Okay, I'm at 25. Oh, alright. Okay.

It could be worse, could be worse. That ends its turn. We fighting this thing or we're running? That's what I was about asked. We're fighting and are running. Is it ancient? Is it ancient? It's...

You keep saying ancient, so it's ancient. That brings us to Vex's turn. My turn, I'm feared. Yeah. So you can tap. you can't move closer to it and you have disadvantage on all your attacks. What can we do to unfear? That you repeat the same thing throughout the end of each of your turns. Okay, then I'm going to use my bonus round to hide.

Okay. The stealth. So we're going to roll stealth here. We're going. We can't join you right now. We're stuck. We're stuck where we are because we can't run closer to it. You can run away from it.

You have disadvantage on the stealth check, by the way. I did. Gotcha. Who's not feared? Oh, it's disadvantaged, but I had advantage. So it's just straight roll. Even. I don't remember what the first.

I wasn't paying it. They're not. Should I re-roll it? No, we'll take the 23. Okay. Okay. You were inside and you know it's outside, and you heard the roar, and you're shaking, and so you can peek around the corner, but you cannot move out of the building. Okay.

So you basically kind of strafe to the side to get a look out as you want to fire on it. Okay, I guess I'll try to shoot it then. Okay, go for it. So disadvantage on both of your attacks. Okay. Drink it shrugged out. Trinkets like, whatever I got this. No, okay, so that was good, that was good.

So 26 with the disadvantage. All right. Okay, so. Second attack? I'm like, I'll just do the first one right now. If we're running, I don't want to bust out any of my shit. We got to run, right? We're going to get a short rest of we're running at some point anyway, so.

Where do we go? If we're outdoors, we're dead. Can we go downstairs in the basement? And then go where? And then we know where. Can you get inside the couch? Sure, he can dig the... Twenty-two?

One of them dug through that king. Because that got the sneak attack, right? Because I'm hiding? Yes, because you are technically hiding, and it did not roll high enough in the perception, strangely. So 23 was the damage on the first arrow. All right, good. Was that including the sneak attack decent?

Yeah. Great. I don't know where to go. We can't go above ground because we're dead. No, the second one I don't think hits. It was like an 18. Nope, that misses. So the first one, you fire, and it manages to hit the creature

because it does not see you. It hits on the side of a neck and it. Looks over. So we go inside. It goes in. It goes in. It's just behind the wall. You did reveal yourself as part of the strike.

And if you just see you duck inside. I kind of like growl. Okay. And I'm going to send Trinket into the keep if he can make it. Oh, it has beef with us. Trinket is going to rush this way. Should I send Trinket into the keep? Yeah.

It gets an attack opportunity against Trinkets. Balls, what? Really? But it's holding pike so it has no bite. Well, no, I didn't like, grapple her. It just bit her in the release. She managed to get her way out of its mouth. She's not gripped.

That's going to be a 26 to hit. Oh, Jesus. It hits. Come on. All right, so Trinket takes. Okay. 14 points of slashing damage. All right. He's fine. But manages to get away.

Fairly. Fine. All right, is that end your turn? Yeah. You do saving throw. Do you're saving throw to see if you shrug off the fright. Oh, okay. So it's a wisdom? It's wisdom-based, yeah.

18, 19. 19 is just what you need. You managed to shake off the fright from this. Sing, tricket rush off. You're like, okay, I can do this. At the end of your turn, the white dragon's going to use... I'm not afraid anymore! You hear that?

You have no power over me. It's going to... It's going to go ahead and use two of its actions to do a wing attack. So every creature within 15 feet of it, is it kind of... It's sitting there now, it kind of beats its wings, around it as it does, it kicks up all this cold. wind and air that just blasts out, threatening to knock you off your feet. This is going to affect Grog, Pike, and Shane. So I need you guys to make a dexterity saving throw.

Pike, get out of there. Dexterity saving throw. Oh, my God. Because of danger sense. You do. You're so strong. You're so strong. Natural 20? Yeah!

Nice! Fuck yeah. I don't have any dexterity. I'm out of fight. Cool. So that's, all right, so yeah, so you guys, see if Shane does not make it with a two.

So Shane takes 15 points of bludgeon damage and is knock prone. She just, like, as she's rushing up, now she's dropped her heavy crossbone, she's pulling her weapon out, and she rushes up, yelling, her red hair kind of blown back from the wind as it's beating towards her. She gets bludgeoned with the sheer force of the wind from under the wings and knocked flat on her back. At the end of that attack, it now gets to move half its movement. And so it, at a movement of, uh, I did. I thought it was going to be barbecue. There we go. A fly speed of 80, it's going to move 40 feet. So that'll put it up 20 up this way, so it starts backing away. And 20 feet

this direction. I get an attack the opportunity on the right. As it pulls away from you, yes, you do. Yeah, do we both get one? Pike gets one, too. No, actually, neither of you, no, Grog's the only one that does, because Pike, you're too far away. It has reach on its attack, so it doesn't have to be right up against you to hit you, but you still have to be up against it to get an attack. Boone.

22. Is that hit? Is that hit? Yeah, okay. This is with Cravenage. Kill him! Come on, you evil, motherfucker. Kill him with Craven Edge, right?

19 points of damage. 19 points of damage, got it. All right. And make his constitution save. Bacon what to do. That's a disadvantage. 20, not in saving drugs. On saves. 24.

Chats. He will. Resist it? Okay. All right, cool. You fucking piece of shit. So that ends Vex's turn. The guards now. She's going to get up. She's now going to regret dropping her crossbow and it's going to go over and pick it up again.

She's not going to have time to fire it. The other two down here, the other two guards are going to be now Cordell's over here. Cordell's going to turn around and fire off shot as well as Kendrick. It's a natural one. That does hit. That does not. So one hit gets through. Rolling one's like crap, so it's five points of piercing damage. Not great in that round guards. Then they're going to start rushing towards the keep here with the rest of their movement. Cordell is going to start move to the side and start ushering everybody inside. Go in, go and go in.

Shane is going to move up next to you, Grog, and essentially begin to kind of hold the flank with you, kind of shoulder to shoulder. As opposed to the crossbow at this point, she kind of sees the two of you can work together in this regard, and she pulls out a broad sword. Let's see. That's going to end the guard's turn. Grog, you're up. Fuck this dragon. As much as I would love to protect this house, we got to get the buck out of here. Is Pike right behind me? Pike is, yes. Can I grab her and run inside the keep?

If Pike will allow it, are you going to let Grog do that, or are you going to fight him on it? No, no, no. No, no, I can't do it? No, no, no, just grab me, let's go. Okay, so we reach over, grab Pike, lift her up, and the tube you just go bolting towards the keep. Oh, g-g. That'll get you right here within the crowd. Oh, geez. Don't attack the crowd.

50, 50 feet? 50 feet, but you're also having to push their people, so you're getting up. Yeah, little meat sticks. It's not a problem. So as you're pushing through here, you get up to the door. You guys are right up there with the full movement. I don't even damage them. I don't give you shit. There you go. That's your turn. The action was to pick her up. Okay.

You're all going to die anyway. Giant, giant beast. Scanlan at the back is kind of seeing you guys rushing, and he's happy to see Pike, you know, coming into safety at this point. He pulls out his wand again and aims once more with the fire. Fireball. Dragon giggles. He's going to use the... Tickles.

Tickles. Technically, fire damage should be... Really good against it. Fire damage isn't doing anything additional to it. That's not cool. Don't say it smug like that. Jeez! That would be...

29 damage. Makes the save, so 15 points of fire damage to it to it as it blasts from underneath, singes the edge of one of the charge. trees, but the White Dragon appears to still just be not really visibly hurting. Yep, got to go. Oh, yeah. It's not visibly hurting.

Gotta go. Scamlin backs up into the keep at this realization. At that point, it's going to use nothing's right in range. So yeah, so the White Dragon is not going to do anything. At this point in time, you guys hear a voice coming out from the north side towards where Amman is. A familiar voice that you've heard before that shouts out, Enough! You are not to linger. Follow the others. At which point you see the White Dragon kind of glances over the shoulder and you hear the voice again say, Vorugal! And in a streak of smoke in red, the red dragon you saw that had perched

itself in the center of the city just, grapples onto the back of Voragal and throws the dragon off the edge of the wall and goes tumbling to the south of the keep, out from the perspective. So how much bigger is Voragal? Double the side? Like is he huge bigger? It's roughly double the size of the white dragon, Borgal, that you just battled. Let's go fight that one. Holy! Is this Humbersell?

He heard of himself as Humbersell? No. You haven't heard the name of this until that point, where I mentioned earlier. No, no, no, the red dragon. The red dragon, you haven't heard the name of yet. Fuck. Umbresill was the black dragon. Right.

Right. Right. So as you hear the impact, bhrush, and the impact, you hear the drag, and the scratch, screeching out and anger, no one has any visual at this point. just hear the sounds over the side. You hear it skid to a halt, but the red dragon is still flying. It just kind of grabs it, throws it, makes it hit the ground, almost like a show of dominance. And as it arcs back around, it ignores the keep. It heads back towards Iman. You see Burugal now lifting back up into the sky, kind of staring back at the red dragon as it heads back,

and you can see just in its general demeanor. It's frustrated and angry, and it kind of begrudgingly begins to fly towards the east where you saw the other two dragons continue. As the Red Dragon returns towards the city, its voice is ringing out at a volume that even at this distance is being enhanced by some sort of arcane means, whether it means it wants to be heard. And as you can see now, as it hits over the far south walls of Imman, it shouts out once more, Hear me, insects! You that live do so out of mercy. Fight or flee, and you forfeit that mercy.

Know that your pitiful guardians brought this upon you. That blood is on their hands. Vengeance has been swift. and in its wake, a new age is upon you. Making its way towards the center of the city. Be thankful, for until now your lives had no purpose. No meaning, your paltry convictions. You have a new purpose.

To serve me! And with that, you hear the clattering impact once more of the Cloudtop District, as a half dozen buildings collapsed under its weight, as it slams in the center of what probably still stood tall in the middle of the city of Amman. You hear the crumbling wreckage echoing in the distance that it slides to a halt, and a couple of distant slamming sounds as it kind of makes its way into the central borough of where the palace once was. Quiet now takes the air as all the people are still standing frozen in fright of what they just saw, and slowly begin making their way into the keep,

kind of whispering, shaking, crying under their breaths, the survivors that are not frozen in the center of Gray's Skull Keeps' courtyard entirely viable. Everyone, we need to go inside. Yes. Is this because of us? Can we heal the frozen people? Is this because of us? It's possible.

Don't know. You guys make your way out towards the people that are currently frozen in the courtyard. What do you want to use your cure wounds? Yeah. Sure. Okay. You use what level? Two.

How many people are frozen? Currently, I'd say about 14 people are frozen in the courtyard. Can we all just do medicine checks? Six of them are partially shattered. As part of the impact, their body is like and part of the torso is just busted. Arms missing, upper body's missing. As you cast your second level cure spell and you reach out and

touch the person to heal them, a crack forms where your hand touch the body before the upper heart of their torso head and leg just breaks into ice. And you get the feeling looking around that these individuals are beyond saving at this point. It's too long. It's too late. Inside. Everyone inside. Now? Yeah, we all go inside. Come along. All right. So you guys make your way inside the keep. people are kind of just looking about some people are just running through the rooms trying to find a place to keep safe you can see already in the armory there's like a family in there that are huddling just kind of crouched in the corner some

people have moved on towards the kitchen people are shouting trying to see if anybody they lost eye contact with is in Sa you hear a couple of people shouting names Sean Sean Keila different names being shouted as if they're hoping that somebody that they got separated from may have made it in couple do. A few seem to continue to shout prooflessly. But the inside energy of the keep is one of tension, fear, and mounting sadness. Can I find Irvin? You can. You told the people with him the keep to go downstairs. Yes, I go and find him and tell him to start setting up as many beds as you can, as many

in the cathedral that we have in the chapel, to maybe give some of these people places to stay for the time being. All right. So you are... Can I go into the temple? You can. As you head downstairs, too, you can see Jarrett is still there sitting with his crossbow on his lap, and he's been doing his last duty, which was to watch over your workshop. And as you come downstairs, he goes, what's going on? I heard noises upstairs. Is everyone all right? May I be excused to aid?

Irvin in this duty. Please. All right. He gets up and puts his crossbow away, heads upstairs with Irvin, and Laina kind of is still shaking. She goes, I have, for having guests, should I make food? I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do. Simple food.

Um, right, all right. Okay, I'll go ahead and stop preparing. Percy, can I have a word with you, please? I step inside my workshop. Can I go? May I come in? Yes, of course. Can you shut the door?

Is there anywhere private? Is there, is there any where private? in the place at this point? Nobody's in the basement workshop there. Everyone's seemingly just scattered on the base floor at the keep. All right. Can you lock it? All right.

Listen, the skull that we took out of that house, I haven't told you, but it grants a wish. And only those that dark things have touched can use it. That's you and that's me, as far as I know. It said it wanted you. but I wasn't gonna let him have you. It grants a wish we can change all of these. I feel like it was there in case the dragons came out of that portal.

It was facing the inside of the room, it moves, there's something in there. I feel like it's a weapon. What the fuck else are we gonna do? We go for more help, it'll get killed coming to this city. We're not strong enough to take four of these fucks. I have an opportunity here. Yeah. But we're going to have to be careful. Listening?

We're going to need more than just you. We're going to need a few of the others, just in case. They have to be... ...touched. This is how it's going to work. I'm going to take it out. I'm going to have you go. I'm going to remove it from its hiding place while you go get the rest of them from upstairs down here. Who? At the very least, Vax. Kieleth, the very least.

least. Keelan? She's bleached wider than, I mean, White Stone. I'm... Exactly. We need good people and I'm going to try and talk to it. Just try and discern what it is and how it works and what it wants. And if by some, for some strange reason, things go wrong, I need people who would be more than willing to, at the very least, knock me out. So I'm going to be needing you and at least one other, preferably a magic user, ready to deal with me if something goes with. me if something goes weird. I step closer to Percy. I think you only need one. Or Vax, pick

your choice, honestly. Whoever's less busy upstairs. I leave. I'm going to take the skull out of the hiding place so that he doesn't see where removing it from. Okay. While this is happening, Pike, Heel, Vax, Scallin, all of you guys begin helping the guards take beds out of your rooms and bringing them downstairs into the main foyer area, basically turning this into a makeshift living space for refugees, heading towards and moving him into the Temple of Sarenrae. As you go into the Temple of Sarenrae, you get a bit of a feel of the damage

that was sustained from the impact of the dragon upon the top of the keep. I follow Pike into the same point. A large portion of the stained glass on the roof and on the outside has been shattered from rocks and boulders that were chunks of the top of the keep that were knocked off. Looking up, you can see, the roof of the keep itself has sustained a fair amount of damage. Not enough to really be of a serious issue, but it is in a bit of

disrepair visually. As you guys are taking the beds from the upstairs to the downstairs, you do notice that a portion of the roof has caved in on the second floor. The guest room has been ruined, and the southmost room, which I'll check to see who is supposed to be living there, is partially collapsed inward, and you can see the ceiling or the sky from underneath. There is a fair amount of damage to the top of the keep from the impact. I just kind of back into a corner in the temple and collapse into a corner. Okay. Could I, I'd like to go over to a quiet spot in the temple and start saying a prayer.

Okay. And I'd like to cast Plainer Ally. Okay. Which you besiege an otherworldly entity for aid, so I would like to call on Sarenre. All right, let me pull this up here. What level is this? It's a sixth level. All right. So you have to ask the creature to perform a service in exchange for payment.

So yeah, the... But yeah, what would you like to do? Well, I think I just, if I'm, I don't know, I think if I, if I'm, if I say, you know, I've, Sarah and Ray, I've been rebuilding your temple for a month. So please help us in battle and help us rebuild our city. If that's service enough. Okay. So as you reach out, you feel Sarah and Ray's warmth come to you wordless, attempting to comfort. But even then there is a trepidation in Serran Ray, who is, you gather herself still kind of taking in these circumstances that have happened.

You feel that warmth begin to coalesce into a specific form, and everyone who has come into the temple with you kind of gasps aloud as over the central worship platform in the center of the temple, a glowing orb begins to form. That then slowly takes the form of a humanoid with wings, similar to the ones that you wore in your celestial form. As the light fades, you can see just levitating, roughly a foot off the ground, a human, white eyes, pale blue skin, hairless, with a simple breastplate, that's silver with gold lining on it, a single sword, sheathed the side, and a beautiful pair of white angel wings sprouting from its back as the entity stands there, looks down towards you. I have been sent to your aid, Pike Trickfoot, to give me a task. The voice itself seems otherworldly,

And understanding the basis of the spell, you need a specific task in mind for it, and it is expensive to maintain in materials the longer the task requires. Okay. We need your help. As you can see, our city has fallen to pieces by these dragons that are attacking us. And we just ask that you aid us in battle somehow. to a battle if you wish. I haven't much time on your plane. If you have a task I can complete at this moment. And you know this, to maintain the spell costs about 100 gold per minute. Okay. Ah shit. Okay. Or 1,000 gold an hour depending on the, or 10,000 gold per day. Don't be bomb a dollar, just pray for it.

Depends on the task you require. It needs to be a little more specific than just a Paradey presents Ojos with Alergy and Ficcazone Contra the Gardiner. And the winner is Paraday extra-furt. To alleviate, act more rapidly and super

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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. Aides in battle if there isn't an immediate battle happening because the longer it's out, the more expensive it'll be.

You ask to rebuild and it looks to you and says, if you require my aid in rebuilding, she puts her head around the temple. this I can help with quite a bit of haste as it is within the realm of our patron lady. Okay, well, yes, we rebuild our keeps. It'll be done. Within the hour. And so you can mark off a thousand gold worth of materials, and at this point the planar allies wings and furl emming in to float up, and as it does, it lifts its hands in all, all these shattered stained glass begins to kind of lift off the ground with it. And you watch as they all begin to reform. It's pretty sick. And begin to, through pure divine energy, rebuild the entirety of the temple around within

a matter of minutes. While everyone else is kind of looking in awe, and you can begin to see around you many people who had been shaken at the core of their being, who had lost all hope, just this visual representation of the power of Sarenrae and the faith that you put into her, you can see people are now bowing in deep prayer at the center of the temple as it's being rebuilt. This has been a very impactful moment for the survivors you've taken under your wing. I wonder over the pike and I just grab her hand as I watch. All right. I am busy myself trying to bandage any of the survivors that seem injured.

Okay, and there are injuries many sustained from just, you know, rubble falling or just trying to get out as fast as possible slamming themselves into ruins or fallen rock and flame and whatever else's happened. So you tend to the wounds. You guys are helping out with those that are hurt. I'm helping, and as we do so, I say, I don't know what is going to happen in the following hours. Do not go far from me. If we are out of earshot, you are too far from me. Not go far from me. Do you think this is what mother saw before she died? Not go far from me. I worked, I swear. First scene, Grog, you find your way back up to the foyer.

You see... Before, the second he leaves the keep, I rushed to pull the... I rushed to pull the skull out, shut the door, put it on the table, sit down in front of it, and say, okay, talk. You have my attention. Okay.

So I've got a minute. before he goes back. You do. You do. He's just a sociopath, that's all. Hello everybody, on this week's no survivors, we're... Fire and ice sale. Hey, check out those critical roll shirts on geekensitry.com. They sure are lovely. Donate to 8 to 6 LA.

Hey. I wished in the time town. God, I feel like I should have screwed up. I know, I can't hear it. La la la la la da da da da da da da da da. It's a long talk. It's a long talk. Last question.

And what price? What is he saying? Oh my gosh. Okay. All right. Sorry. I then take the velvet cloth and put it back over and put it over and set it up as if I haven't talked. Okay.

All right. So, and once again, writing you, the skull itself, it's humanoid, but it's elongated. It's not a human skull. Its jaw itself is, you would say almost elvish, but the features are too sunken. The teeth are too long, and the skull itself is a little more oblong to the back. Yeah, you're unfamiliar what species or race this may have been when it was alive. As I was leaving, can I notice anything about the back of the door? Just like, is it a lock? Is it just flat, plain?

I'm going to go ahead and make an investigation. You don't know. 13. Is it anything. You asshole. As you stop walking out, you turn and look at the door. and you take a moment to inspect it. I mean, Grog, doors are doors. You know how to deal with doors. This is a weird door. My door? No, this door works.

Weird door. My door's unlocked. Right, but he doesn't understand the mechanism of what he is locked. Oh, no. This is, no. I built this with you and I can figure out the lock from the inside and I open the door and it opens.

Okay. Because it's unlocked. Right. As soon as you throw the velvet over, the door, opens up. I would, I'll go up and I try and find Vax. Okay. You go up and you see the two of them kind of helping people along, making eye contact. You can see the drawing tears across both their faces as they're trying to stay strong for those that are currently in a less

emotionally stable position right now. Sorry to break up an awkward moment. Vax, do you have a moment? What do you need? May I speak to you alone, no offense. Thanks. I'm not taking. I go and help other people and call a trinket to carry over some bandages for me. Okay.

You and I may have had some friction recently. We have our differences, but we're on the same side. Percy needs you downstairs. Will you come with me? I look at my sister. What is it? What does he need? I would tell you, but I don't want to frighten anyone in this room. It's about the skull, and I can only bring one.

Percy's request. Wait here. No, I have to come with you. Just wait a second. Walk through my sister, down the stairs. Look, I am not back here in five minutes. I want you to come down. Do you understand?

And I say that because I need you. You are stronger than me and I will need you. Ten to the wounded. Five minutes. Five minutes. Back to outside. My hunter's Mark Grog. As he walked away.

What? I don't know I just do. Okay. I'm going to go ahead and say, make a slight of hand check, make a perception check. Oh, I'm sure this is going to dandy. 19. Oh, no, I'm so excited right now, everything's dead. 15.

As you're walking away, you feel this strange pulse of kind of tingling energy, almost like a soft, like a soft. Oh, you know what? What? I hadn't chosen my fucking rogue ability yet. My road proficiency. Road proficiency. Yes.

Well, we want to do. Too late now. Okay. You feel this magical essence creep upon you. You're not familiar with it, but you feel like something something just attached to you. From any direction or just attached? You aren't entirely sure.

But you look about, is anything looking at me, anybody throw anything at me. Bandaging people. Or anything on me. Make a stealth check, Vex. I'm choosing my . Okay, okay, okay. I get advantage on all stealth checks?

Yes. If you have the club, yes. 24? You look about and in the chaos of the people, you have no idea what the source of this weird team was. Keep is fucking drafty. Go downstairs. As you walk downstairs, you find your wrong.

You find your way to Percy's workshop. We're going to take a break. Oh, geez Louise. So, returning as it was, Grog and Vax. You make your way down to the basement of Grey Skull Keep. The door still partially ajar as Grog left it. You enter the room and...

Before we go, I would like to put my hand on Vax. Just to know. I tried to do this by myself, but the skull asked for Percy. I know he didn't respond well with all that dark shadowy stuff. So be careful. I'm not entirely sure we can trust him with it. I wanted to do it myself, but it was either you or Keelith, and you were a prick, so I picked you.

I don't say anything. You guys enter? Yeah. Percy is there waiting, hands behind his back. There is the table on one of his workbench areas that has a piece of tap that you guys originally had wrapped the skull and draped over it. It's currently not visible. What's going on, Percival?

Good. I felt that this was only possible if we had a few more witnesses. We have an artifact, a skull. There is something alive inside the skull. There is something evil, or at least not good, inside the skull. And it is offering to grant us any wish we designed to design we desire if we set it free.

Now, Grog is inclined to take this deal. I am, and I imagine this is surprising, having some reservations. I don't like not, I like having the terms spelled out and I feel that so far the terms have not been spelled out. I'm going to lift the fabric. I go and shut the door.

Okay. As you look at it as well, in this controlled environment, still facing you the skull, which once again has the elongated form, the kind of longer teeth and jaw. It has the one gem that's embedded in the eye socket, and you can see there's like a little bit of a,

almost like a spectral swirl to it. Like there's something fluid within the actual gem itself. Well, Freddy, I imagine I'm wondering the same thing you are, at least I hope, and that's what's in it for the skull. He wants to be freed. It. How would we free you? There's a slight pause before you can see the gem, the swirl coalesces into what looks like a spectral face. You can make out what looks to be eyes, a mouth, and a nose, though the nose it's a itself is less of a pronounced human nose.

I'm looking at the floor. I'm not looking at it. Okay. But you see where the noses instead there are just two nasal passages. And your voice slowly creak out from it and say, All that I require is for you to destroy this prison. Free my spirit from generations of torment. That is all I ask. Hey, quick question. Uh, who are you?

Who were you before you were in, uh... Your prison? This prison. It's been too long. Too long have I been here. I do not know who I am. Oh, well go fuck yourself, and I put the blanket over it. Blanket covers the skull.

This, this, this, this seems like a very bad idea to me. Why are we doing this? Didn't we do this already once before? It was an option and I felt it was worth exploring, and I think now we do have an option with it, which is we have to take it somewhere and have him identified. We have to know who this is. What are you talking about? If it wants to be set free, fuck him. It's a wish. It's like a genie that wants out of a can. You don't grant it it it's wish. You get your fucking wish first. It's not always genies in cans. The wish to rid immon of these dragons, then we've got nothing to deal with this fucking thing. right here, whatever it is.

I would like to know before we make any deals, and just we need a name. Hold on, hold on. Look, we have a chance to do good now, right now. People are dying. More people are dying. We have a chance to kick the can down the road. I don't understand.

Speaking literally, Croc. We don't know that whatever's in here could be worse than what's out there. I've had a thought. But we can find out. And since it's a wish, we'll have plenty of room to fix this. We don't have to do it immediately.

Are you a betting man, Percival? Yes. If I told you that four giant ancient fuck-old death dragons were attacking the city and all of us barely managed to break one of its pinky toes, you're saying what's in there

is worth the nip. I don't know. It's in there, isn't it? And how do we know the dragons weren't guarding it as opposed to it being a sick. It could be the thing that they're angry about. I think... I have a thought.

I haven't spoken out loud yet. Every divine being that exists is accessible through Vasselheim. We are not equipped to handle this problem. Maybe this skull will do something. Maybe. That's a big fucking maybe. We're not equipped and we don't know what dealing with that.

thing we'll bring. We go to Vasselheim tomorrow. We bring all the people on this keep with us. Keelew sends them to the tree. They stay there. We find help. We cannot handle this on our own. My first instinct was to go back in for Uriel. We don't know what's happened to Uriel, but we can't do it. We are powerless against those things, against one of them, let alone four. We need help. I wave my hand and the skull drops into a shadow on the table and vanishes. Okay. Did that blanket just plop down? The blanket vanished into the shadow as well. It's now just a shadow. I've hidden, I've put it back in its hiding place.

What the fuck was that? That was a reminder that you should know what you're dealing with before you touch power. Can you do magic? Yes. I've... I'm not going to pretend I always make the best calls, but I at least would like to know its name. Fucking pussy. We have a chance to save this city now. We have a chance to stop anything worse from happening. Or we have a chance to unleash something far worse on it.

God, know your strengths. It is your strength. I'm a betting man and this is a bad bet. Can I walk up to the shadow table? Yeah, yeah. Can I start looking around it? He's welcome. He's welcome.

Do I see anything? It looks like there's the dark spot in the table, and as you reach your hand out, it's just a solid table. I look at Percival. We need to talk to the girls. Then you, as you reach your hand past that into the shadow, because I assume this is the... You know exactly what I did. Is he reaching or is he... No, he's reaching.

Are you reaching? I do not, I'm looking on top of it, on the sides underneath. Yeah, currently it just looks like a, like I literally, where the clock is... Locke and Skull, it's where there's the dark spot. No buttons, no latches, no holes for quarters. Nope. Knocking on the door. Your plan is good, it just requires a little bit more study.

It's a good plan. Study. Are you in there? Yes, come, please, come in. Open the door. Unlocked. Vex walks in. Well, what's this big master plan you all are plotting?

Vex, uh, Vax, do you want to, actually, we might as well just get Keyless down here. as well. Pike as well. Pike, Keelith. I said. Beat me and my... I'm going to walk and attempt to gently scoop the skull up and put it behind me. Okay. Catch things up. I walk out the door. I'm going to get the other two. Did I notice that? I have a really good passive perception. You do. You see him kind of skirt up at the table and just kind of move something behind his back.

Okay. You don't know. You head up to the... the main foyer area where the stairs come up to the armory and lead into the main hallway that kind of bisects the center of the main floor, just as Keylet and Pike are coming out of the temple after being summoned. All right, I'd be line right up to them and I dropped down in front of Pike. Pike, Pike. We're working on a plan. We don't have one yet, but Pike, and I'm down on my need. You need to guide Grog. It doesn't listen to anyone else. He only listens to you. Something wrong? Yes and no. It's better if you just come. Pipe come. Okay.

And then I take Keelan and I pull her out. Are we in? Who's in the room right now? Right now it's just you, Percy, and Vex. I shut the door. Okay. I walks over and closes the door. I want that skull. I want to now. This is about the skull then. Yeah, Percy's trying to do some fucked up shit with the skull.

Wait, did you close the door? I did. Can I try that out? He didn't lock it. You can't lock it in there yet. This hasn't happened yet. You guys are still walking down the stairs. No, I'm glad standing in front of it.

I want the skull right now. Let me see you sold. No. You don't want to see the shoulder. Oh, shit. I point at the table. I say reach into the shadow and see if you can take the skull. No, I don't think so. Your water fucked me up last time you get it out of the table.

Can I insight check them to see who is fucking with who and who has better intentions right now? Oh man. Double insight check. It's like finding a needle and a haystack. Okay, the gold one is for Percy and the thorny one is for grog. That's right. Whoa! Good for both of them motherfuck!

The gold one, motherfucker! The gold one is a 27 for Percy, and... 15 plus 8 is naturally 23. 23 for grog. Okay, I rolled up for both of them. And was one of those are natural 20? No, but one of those was 27 and 23. Right, 27, 23, okay, good.

Looking at them both, they're still very guarded, and you're unable to really... Both of them? Seriously, Matt? Yeah. Seriously? I mean, it doesn't absolve any of your suspicion by any means, but they're both locked in this intense kind of stare off. And you in the center of it as you dart back and forth to try and see any give, any Twitch, anything that would possibly show an ounce of what is going on in their heads.

It's the best poker faces you've seen on either of them in a while. Are we at the door yet? You guys are now getting to the door. Bump, boom, bong, bong, bong, big man. Trickfoot wants to talk to you. I look, I look, Grog right in the eye before they come in and very quietly say, does your friend have an opinion on the skull? Which friend? A new friend.

What the fuck? What the fuck is going on? What fucking friend? Bex. I saw you, Percival. You did. I just put my ear to the door. Can I hear them a little bit? You guys can hear shouting to the sign. Can I try opening it? Yeah, it's unlocked, and you open the door and it stops, like as if there's a door. door stopped directly behind it. You feel the door slamming you in the back, Grog.

Or pick who you trust. I trust your judgment. Vex, listen to me. What did you see? Who's your friend? The skull grants a wish. It can only be used by those with dark presence around them. That's Percy. That's me. How was Percy done with dark shit in the past? I went to him for help because I'm trying to free the city of these fucking dragons. But it wanted Percy, I tried to keep it for myself. and now he's up to a shady shit all over again. Once Percy? They wanted Percy. And I said no.

Did you? Wait, who wanted who? Can we wiggle in? Grog, it's been touched by a dark thing? Door's not moving. Okay, I'm just gonna quick rapid fire. I was hoping to bring everybody in, but say, listen to me. Percy's got this fucking skull.

If you know everything about it. Wait, right the skull. So Scarlet's talking about granting a wish, it's fucking fucked up, just like a fucking smoke demon that was in Percival. I don't understand what's going on yet, but both Grog and Percival are a little fucked up. Grog's more fucked up,

but I don't understand everything, but things are not good. What? What's going on? Hearing Vax just unload that information. I reach, if I reach like, kind of through the crack in the door, can I like touch grog?

There's just enough of a gap where you can probably get an arm through. Like my tiny, tiny little female hand. Pike, what are you doing? Girlie hand. My girl hand. my girly hand. Have the door open?

Or let's try. Try to. Hang on. Make a strength check. Let me go first. Go first. Go first. I reach through and if I can grab grog, I cast hold person on him.

Cool. I'll stay right where I am. Okay. And then we can push him over, right? Okay, yeah. All right, so. Wait, no. You require, look at holding a whole person.

Does it require? Way like 600 bouts. Oh, let me see what the. There's three of us. We can push real hard. You can get Jarrett. All right. All right. So looking at hold person here. Hold on just a second.

Oh, wait. Wait, can I redact that? Can I redact that? No, you already said it. It has to be a human or you can see within range, so you couldn't even hold person through the door. Beautiful. Even better. You read the spell, didn't you? Scanlan. Scamlin, I do this. Look, I have like a hundred spells, please.

I have like a hundred spells. I'm trying to help some folks, but you insist, all right. All right. Do I do insist? All right. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. He has the skull. We've got to get it from now.

Percy? I have the skull. I'm not going to use it. I don't trust him not to use it yet. How about you guys give me the skull? I'm not even touched by anything, Doc. That's a great idea. That's fair.

Yeah, give her the skull. All right, I pull it out from behind me and hand it to you. It's in the bag. I hit the spell? Oh, God. I'm going to get fucking attacked by Grog. I'm going to back up into a corner and just Just hold onto it and look down at it.

Jesus, I don't have to work. I'm holding onto it, Jesus. It's wrapped in the clock. It's wrapped in the tapestry that you guys throw it originally, but you can feel it in your hands, and it's not terribly heavy. It's got some half to it, and it's just having it there, you're already kind of getting pins and needles in the back of your neck. Now, short haul, now.

Is he trying to banff in? Is he trying to bam fin? Scanlan? No, no, no, no. So, Pike, what are you doing? I want to try to push in the door open. Okay, make a strength check. I mean.

Frog, make a strength check. I love your, Travis. Can I, while she pushes, can I kind of get up against the crack to see if I can see through while she pushes? Right. Hey. Oh, sure. Lurches, but you hold it solidly in place. You can feel.

Just a, just a minute! I've been waiting five minutes! Put your pants on, Grog, really? Just another minute, Mom. I think this is probably the stupidest. thing, why did I decide to hold it? Give me the skull. You don't want Percy to have it.

I don't want either of you to have it. It's on a ticking clock. Don't give him the skull either. If you want to, you can ask it what it wants, and then you'll know, or you can give it to me and we can be done with this. Are we trying to hand Grog's evil things? I take the tapestry off of it and I ask it,

what the fuck do you want? What the fuck is this? As you look down at the skull, but you guys, you still can't get through because Grog's holding the door and you don't have a visual in there, because he's holding it pretty close to it completely shut. As you look down it, you can see now in the gem kind of formulating in the middle of it, this swirl of a face that kind of like, whoosh, comes right up to the front.

You can see out of, in the midst of its coloration, this, this like energy-based eyes and a grin, a toothy grin that just goes, I wish to be freed. That is all. I've been here far too long. I grow tired. I want to finally pass. Are you Vecna? You're a chuckle. No. Vecna's been long gone. I am not a being of such power.

Can I insight check the fucking being in the eyeball? Sure, make an inside check. Yeah. Unless it was a natural 20, I think it was a dozen. Matter, 15. No. 15? What was that?

That's way higher than 15. Okay. 21. one, thank you. 22. 22. I can add. I can add.

That's way higher. So you take a look at it. It's due to the fact that it's mostly hidden, there aren't facial tics, there aren't normal gives as to what a person's intent is, and even the tone of voice itself is kind of spectral and ominous and otherworldly. You have a hard time being able to really read whether or not it's being honest or lying or anything in between. between. Scanlan here you? Why would we free it? Scanlan is now behind the door on the other side. He's kind of enters the room with you guys. It's like, what's going on? Everything cool? Wait, the door's open now?

No, he's with you guys. Ah, good, yeah. Big be that shit. If we let it go. Let's mention door me in, please. I think we need a name before you. A bum rush vex. I'm using quick draw.

What? Initiative rolls from both of you guys. Oh! Yeah! Does this mean the door flies open? Open? Yeah, the door flies open. Just a moment.

This is all seconds. This is happening in seconds. 14. Do I really? Can I do anything? 28. Oh, Jesus, correct. 28!

I'll say roll with disadvantage because it catches you entirely off guard. So this is prize attack. Oh, that's lame. That was just 13. Okay. And you had a... 14. 14.

Okay. All right, so you see Grog lower his head and then go for a burst run across the length of the workshop towards Vex. You instinctually go quick draw. What are you doing? I'm shooting a warning shot past his head. Okay. Diving in, taking the... taking the... Are you close enough? I backed into a corner. I've got six spaces of movement in my turn.

Diving and grabbing the head and just curling back around into the head. The head? The skull? I'm grabbing the skull. She's 50-50 distance between us. I'm moving first. And I'm happy to spend an action surge if that'll make this work better. Do you think you just grab it from me?

D&D stand-on. I can make a roll for it. So as you dart, because you're waiting for the zone, also darts and both of you go rushing across the room. Percy manages to get there just a fraction of a second before you do. You hear the blast of his pistol past your ear

and the ringing hits the center of your head, but you still continue pushing forward in the way that Grog does, ignoring all outside interference. However, you've gotten to the skull force. You're gonna attempt to wrestle it from her. Gently pull it out of his run. So I'm gonna pull.

Are you gonna try to pull me out of the way or just the fucking skull, you dick? She's pretty grappled to it. Oh, if she's at grappled to it, then I'm gonna try and push her out of the way of Grog. Okay, oppose strength checks from both of these. From me? Yeah, make a strength check.

Doesn't seem to care much. Uh-uh, he really, really doesn't. I doubt that. Fifteen. That's just terrible. Nine. It's less of a shove and more of a pull out of the way of Grog's rush. Right, so he reaches over and grabs the skull and your arm and kind of pulls you. Oh, no, well, I grab her, so. Right. But you haven't pulled it from her grip. You just pull her out of the way.

Shows you do the side. You go rushing forward, and as you get there, she's pulled it at the side. She's still right there in front of you, but the bum rush hasn't quite, I didn't get you there before anybody could react. So now it's your turn. It's your turn. It's my turn? Yeah. Did you roll it? You rolled a 13?

Oh, no, Grog goes next to Grog. So you rush up and you can now see Percy pistol out, hand kind of on the side of Vex, off the set of her arm. She's holding the skull there and they're both looking at you expectantly. What are you going to do? I want Percy. I'm going to attack. Yeah!

You're what? I'm going to run straight towards Percy and tackle them. Tackle them? Yeah! Okay, all right. So let me get some some frock. Let me get some proper rumble music for this. I have the horrible sound, stop it, stop it.

We're dragons on the night, we're fighting, playing rugby with a fucking sky. Trying to fix the dragon. Okay, so you use the momentum of the rush as you see him do this. You turn out of the way and go for his shoulder shove. I want you to go ahead and make an attack roll. Or make an athletics role versus your acrobatics.

Uh, 19. Ah, shit. 14. 14. I need you to go ahead and make a strength saving throw. strength saving throw. Oh, shit. 17? Oh, no, saving throw. 21. 21. You slam into him and you essentially shove him with the shoulder.

You manage to knock him prone, but he doesn't, the skull doesn't come loose, he loses his grip on it, and currently Vex is still holding it in front of you. You are prone on the ground. I'm prone on the ground? So Vex still has it. But it's Vex's turn. But it's turn. you still have the skull.

Yeah. So, I wasn't trying to wrestle. Anything else you want I try to accomplish? Yeah, I would like to turn and put my back to Vex because she has the skull. Okay. So you go and plant a protective position in front of her. That's now your turn.

Grog, who rushed over and just like shoulder slam Percy out of the way. He's fallen to the ground. This gun almost scatters to the floor of the workshop around you. As you're expecting him has now turned towards you. Instead, he steps, and his giant frame is now blocking you with the shoulder blades in front, His arms out in a defensive position facing off with people as they begin to enter the room. What are you going to do?

I reach up and I touch his back. Okay. And I say, are you yourself? Me? Yes, you, fuck. Yeah, yes. Fuck, it's me. It's him. Uh, I back up into a corner and I, I say, what is all this about?

Why do you even need this? Why do we want to set him free? I don't understand. We don't. We don't. We just don't want him to have Percy. Do we, the rest of us see this out, right? At this point now, the door is burst open, and the rest of you guys rush, and you can see Percy, just as he hits the ground, you can see Grog, we're covering from the shoulder slam, who then steps in front of Vax with this kind of like snarl on his face, and begins shouting to her

over his shoulder, and you hear them talking across the wall. He doesn't want me. I don't want to use the skull. I want to keep you from using it. What is going on in here? I... Keelip cracks her staff on the floor and does it just a gust can-trip and goes. to make a big burst of wind in the room. Tools go falling off the walls and clattering to the stone floor of the establishment. All of you who have hair have it blown and wrapped around to you, you're pushed back about three inches just from the burst of it,

and all of you immediately your attention goes to Keillot who stands out. Is it just windy? It's not dusty. It's covered in layers of soot that have now been kicked up, and the air itself is kind of now a temporary fume. Do we have an order? Silence. So she does that. Pike, what are you doing? Can I insight check, Grog? Yeah, go for it.

21. What are you trying to know? What are you trying to know? I want to know why he wants the skull so bad. Okay. If you would like to relay any information, she appeared pretty well into your demeanor. I want to get rid of the dragons now. So you gather that he's coming from a place that a simple mind is looking for a simple solution to a complex problem. I'm just saying that's the best way that she can discern your demeanor right now. Spike anything else you want to do right now because we have to continue this. Yeah. Um, I walk over and grab Cravenage.

The Craven Edge is currently sheathed on its back away from you, so you could attempt to, if you want to. Grog, can you give me Craven Edge, please? Mike, I can't help hands out to you and looking your earnestly in the face. What? Boy. I just want to look at it. Pike. You sure about this?

I just want to see something's not quite right. Can I get up at this point or no? You, uh, we're about to get back to the top of the round. the time around. So you do what you're doing. Okay. Percy. I am just going to stand up and grab a poker off the table. I'm like leaving my gun on the floor. Because I'm out the table. The wind gust knocked a lot of these things on the ground. So it's actually a small pile of tools next to you. So you just grab the poker. I grab a poker and I just take a corner. Okay, so now Percy, you've squared off in a corner. There's Vex in the other corner. Grog's

kind of standing in between the two with the back against Vex, the rest of the three of you are right there at the front. Pike has stepped up to Grog now and is beseeching him. That's Percy. Grog, you're up. I look at Pike. I turn around. I look at Vex. You'll thank me and I'd like to try and pull the skull out of her hands. Okay. Go ahead and make a... Oh, geez. Oh, geez. Oh, come on. There's no way. Even if I roll it.

Unless I get a 20. 21. No. That's 14. All right. As Grog turns around and gives you almost an apologetic look, his face steals over with intensity as lightning fast, his muscular arms rush out in front, grasp the skull. And like tearing a toy from a child's grasp, it is just removed from you with barely any sort of resistance.

Can I get a spell off on him? Not yet. So Grog, that's your action. You grab and you have now the skull, which you left her with the tapestry. You stole just the bare skull in front of you. What would I like to do with it? You have a bonus action, so it depends on what you're trying to accomplish. Can I spike it?

You can, yeah. I see, yeah. That's a bonus action? I'd say this would be like your movement and your bonus. I'll let you do that. Just the whole thing together. I would like to spike this. Jesus.

Okay. Go and make strength check. You're just gonna, no! Oh, my... My... My... God. After one?

Yes. Yeah. As you reach up, at the apex of your throw, you look down. I don't believe it. Your eyes catch pike. I don't fucking believe it. It does. Your eyes catch pike, and they're in that brief moment of slow motion as you reach up, you see her

face, this look of complete heartbreaking disappointment. And it, just like that. It shakes you in a way that you didn't expect, and as you go through the motion, you'd already anticipated, your brain's already wandered. And in doing so, you slam it half-heartedly, and it just kind of bounces and skids across the ground over by where Achilles is. Is it like rolling up my feet? I run and dodge, jump for it. No, no, no, no, no. It's the end of your turn. As it goes rolling, you run and dodge.

Go to make an acrobatics check. 23. 23? All right. You jump out of the way, tumble, roll, and scoop it up in your arms once more, and you have it. Can I get a spell off? I have to get to your turn. So is that all you're going to do? That was like all of it.

Can I run out of the room? I mean, if I can move, I'm gonna run towards the door. I'd say, yeah, with the tunnel and everything, you have just enough movement to get out of the room. So Vex goes darting out of the workshop, just past the door, leaving the room. That brings us now to... Relay race.

No. No. You really don't know. All right, okay. Then I take a step in front of her and pull out my daggers and stand in front of my sister. Okay. What the fuck is happening?

I see all of this happen. I cast whole person at fourth level. To, against. Against Percy, Grog. I'm out of the room, you can't see me. I'm in. How far away are they? Can I turn around and see?

I'd say she just got out of the room. You would have a visual on her as she's leaving the room, yeah. What about Vax? Yeah, Vax is standing in front of her. You have visual on both, technically. And, Vaxe's standing in front of her. And.

This is so metal. Vex. I love it. Vex. Sorry, Vex. All right, I need a wisdom saving throw from all three of you. Oh, wait, me too?

No, just me. Great. Yeah, you fucks are still. Natural 20. Oh, geez, no. Oh, geez, no. 15. 15, it's a failure.

21. So, Percy, you muscles tense up, and as you're holding your poker, you just find yourself unable to move. Grog, you feel, and you go over and see Kieliff as she kind of looks towards you with intensity and you feel a similar kind of tremor across your head, but you shrug it off. These fucking sensations today. Yeah, it's weird. Vax, you as well. You kind of glance over your shoulder as you hear Kielaith muttering under

her breath and you feel that familiar sensation of the magical attempt to grasp your mind and you just kind of... Lots of places can expose you to identity theft. Oh, no. That's why LifeLock monitors hundreds of millions of data points a second for threat. to your identity, which is way more than anyone can do on their own. If we find anything suspicious, like new loans or changes to your financial accounts, we alert you right away, all through text, phone, email, or the LifeLock app.

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Let's get started. Your half-elven self makes it even easier to shrug off, and you continue darting forward in the direction you are, with your brother behind you, so you're protecting this. Oh yeah, I'm staying, yes, I'm borrowing the way. So we're right up the hallway from our prison cell, right? Correct. I haven't got your turn yet though.

So is that the end of your turn? Can I say something? If you want to, yeah. Say it. Uh, do everyone stop? We just watched our city burn to the ground. What are we fighting over? We're not fighting.

They're trying to protect the skull. What does this look like? What is this look like? What is it? look like to you? A statue garden? Perse... Everyone get in Percy's workshop and we're gonna talk this out!

Like it's your turn. You don't know what's happening. I would if any of my fucking party would for once tell me something. You all didn't tell me the full fucking story of when we've been back in General Krieg's house and now look happened. Look what happened because you... because you assholes are communicating. Pike, it's your turn. This is because of us, and you all know it is.

Let's figure this out. Go, Pike. Grog, did you just say you want to protect the skull? No, I want to just, well, I want to break the skull. I want to get rid of the dragons. Okay, what were you trying to do when you brought Percy and Vex up here? That's me. It needs.

someone with a dark touch. But now it's taught... To get the wish, but now it's touching everyone. They're trying to protect the skull, and we don't want that. We want it broken, I think. But you want the wish? Yeah, we want the wish. I mean, we can do whatever we want to do with a wish and not take it, but...

What if... There has to be some type of payment if we take a wish. What? It didn't say anything about a payment. There are four dragons killing everything. At this point, as you guys have having this conversation, and you guys are darting out, Vex you stop is coming down the stairs from the main floor is Irvin. Uh, brazzled, but still is put together as well as it can.

I took it behind my back. I'm sorry, a lady, Vexalia. It appears you have a few guests suddenly. What? What kind of guests? Um, she's been here before. I don't recognize the other in the dining area. What, what, what did she look like? Blonde hair. But there's a dwarf an individual. Oh my god, it's a Laura and Kima.

This is a little like Clue the movie. Oh, my goodness. Um, yes, Irvin. Bring them down here. It's an emergency. As quickly as possible. Yes, yes, and he turns around and kind of pussles up the stairs,

only like a. Can we all please go back in Percy's workshop? Not yet, darling. Why not? Everybody, Keelos, let's just wait until Laura gets here. I feel like she might have a calming effect on this situation. We're standing in the damn hall. All I am asking is that we move into a quiet room.

At this point now, at the top of the stairway, two individuals come walking down. One, first and foremost, you see what appears to be a dwarven male with short black hair and beard. beard, trimmed fairly fine, red leathers, carrying some sort of a crooked wand kind of on the side. Behind him, you see kind of, you know, hair tossed back as she rushes down after him, Arcanus, Allura Vysorin. I she've sheave my daggers.

Okay. She kind of looks about curiously and the dwarf goes, okay, what have we stepped into here? And Alora kind of puts her hand and she goes, don't worry. I apologize for my intrusion. I had a... Is everything all right? We could use your help at this moment. It's really tricky you. Certainly.

Sorry, this is a long-time friend of mine. Elementalist Drake Thunderbrand. If you don't mind him accompanying us as well. Is he good? Oh, he's one of the finest. A good person. I put my life in this hand a number of times, yes. Things are a lot more complicated.

than you even imagine, please come in. Yes, yes. And as you guys are having this kind of standoff, you watch as this black-haired, kind of red-leathered dwarf kind of walks in looking around, inspecting intently. You don't recognize him, you've never seen him before. What's he wielding? No weapons on him.

You just see him clutching this kind of like gnarled, curved wand that kind of like almost spirals, like a piece of well-treated but messed up wood. Stick. That's a weapon. Maybe. Maybe. And allure rushes in, kind of muttering under breath. I was just in Whitestone. I had a terrible feeling come over me, and all my

teleportation sigils within the city were suddenly severed, both my tower and the Lyceum. I had to manually teleport us here, as it was the only place I really had enough familiarity with far enough away from the city in case something bad had happened. I hope you don't mind. Not at all. We're grateful for your help. Could you do us a favor? We've had a small accident with Percival. Not yet. Not yet. Not yet.

So, Imon is in ruins. It's been destroyed by dragons. Four ancient dragons. They called themselves the Chroma Concleve. And um... your tower. Sorry's... Fucked. I'm sorry. I'll go ahead and drop the whole person on Percy. Um...

And her face goes white. I mean, the blood just runs from her entire complexion. And you can see the dwarf that initially was kind of huffed up and, you know, kind of intense in his energy. While not fully understanding what's going on, looks over to Allora and softens and kind of walks up and kind of puts it on our shoulder. You okay, lass. I'm sorry, my lady. Did you know that Uriel planned to step down?

That, it. He threatened it. He did it. For weeks. What? He did it. And moments later, four old dragons descended upon the city.

Thelot district has been demolished. This cannot be. I don't know. We don't know who always alive or dead. We can only expect the worst. Unfortunately, Alura, all of that is the reason for our current impasse. We seem to have discovered something that could potentially reverse the situation, but there's a great price to pay. It could be a small price to pay. We don't know if you wouldn't mind taking a look.

at this relic we've discovered. And you see, she's still kind of lost in thought, and there's something in her mind that's distracting her immensely, but she kind of eventually clarifies, and her eyes focus on you once more, and she's, of course, please. I don't give it to her, but I pull the tapestry off of the skull and show it to her.

She looks at it and leans forward and begins muttering something beneath her breath, and kind of, she goes in technical mode, like she distracts herself with work at this moment, and as her brow furrows, She mutters under her breath and complete some sort of a flash of archaic energy. You can see the flash that energy kind of attaches around the skull for a second and then kind of glist back to her and she goes, right, all right, that's, that skull is not human.

That skull is Kithyanki. That is a species that exists primarily on the astral plane. They are rowdy, evil, pirating, marauding individuals, and that's one sense. The gem within that skull appears to be a soul gem that contains a soul of, from where I can gather, a Githyanky individual. Very old, I can say at least from my acknowledged and learned opinion that no good can come from such an artifact. Okay, he can grant a wish, he says, lying truth. What do you think? It's hard to say. It would take a very powerful individual to do so. However, I would say that wishes granted by entities that do not correspond with your moral outlook. For the most part,

rarely end up in your favor, even when carefully worded. No, but I remember this. We dealt with this with the demon that killed Pike. We used our wish to wish ourselves out of our contract. And it had to be so carefully worded. We can destroy more if we're not careful. There have been powerful individuals who, upon attaining the ability to make such a wish, even as careful as they were, they reached beyond the means of its magic and in doing so,

undid themselves. themselves. It's a very, very powerful, very dangerous magic. And if this entity is indeed even capable of doing so, who's to say, the chances that it wouldn't wreak more havoc than you intended? We're in a precarious position. The city is in ruins already in a matter of hours. Yes. And at this point, she kind of reached, looks around for a chair. You can see, like, her hands are shaking. She goes and grabs a chair and pulls it up, and she sits down for a second and kind of puts her hands on her knees quietly. Describe to me these dragons.

There was one of each color. Green, a black, a white. And a big red piece of shit. All colors except for blue of the chromatic spectrum. As you go through each... I got a few of their names. As you go to each color, she kind of nods. When you say the big red, her body just freezes.

Does this sound familiar to you? The names you said. There's a white dragon that called himself Volregal. A green dragon. Ryshaun, Black Dragon, Umbrasil, and there are a dragon. We haven't heard his name yet. He seems to be the leader. At this point, she kind of nod, she goes, I know not the middle to. Vorugol has been known to wander the wastes northern Orthansia. Some of the offspring have wandered further. In fact, I believe the sky has

that you destroyed not but two years ago. That was sealed within the Frost-Wield, was one of its brethren, its children. But Voragor has not been seen wandering this far out. Chromatics do not work together. They are selfish, ingredient and territorial. They're definitely working together. It's red, you say, is the leader.

Yes. Most definitely. They, he had a message. that he belted over the entire city. He says that we who live, he's showing mercy and that we can either fight or flee. And then he said if we fight or flee, will it be denied the mercy?

Okay, something along those lines. And then he said that it was the guardians of this city that brought this upon him on and that he is control. He called it like a new order. Said our new purpose is to serve him. Now for the first time, you've known a Laura for quite some time, and she's been a very stoic, strong, confident, and powerful person.

At this moment, she has withered. She looks genuinely like, like she's hit a level of fear you've never seen an individual like this, and it shakes you to see this upon her face, and she puts her hand up, it says, This is not your fault. This burden is mine. He looks over to the dwarf and says ours. And the dwarf now you can see he's not in understanding. This dragon been called many names. But the one that it has taken is Thor-Dak, the Cinder King.

This terrible beast lauded over half of Marquette for centuries, taking the scalden sands as its domain and a... as denizens as cattle. And just as the city of Ankurrel was becoming the jewel of the desert, Fjordak struck a battle, however, that it was unable to win. Sent away, mortally wounded. It was thought that the dragon had died soon after, having not been seen for many centuries since.

That is until about 15 years ago. Rumors of a powerful Drake, storming the beaches and seas, had been whispered for a long time, while ships were being whispered time while ships would be lost at sea, he had survived, and secretly ruled the island of Viscan in the south of Lusidian Ocean. I suppose after generations the dragon now self-crowned as the Sinter King grew greedier with the island's limited resources, and began raising the mornset countryside south of the verdant expanse. In the Stormcrest Mountains, her eyes even more distant as she's recalling all this.

Reports of a dragon more massive than if it could compare hit Talori. At the time, I wasn't part of the council. I traveled with a group of adventurers much like yourselves. Kima, Drake, here, and a handful of other brave souls were no longer with us.

They traveled to investigate, but arrived to find this creature destroying everything surrounding the glade pools. Port Udaar. Gone. By Rodin, a smoldering ruin. We gathered a small army of mercenaries and hunted it back to its new den in the storm crest. A large number of lizard folk had formed around him. But we were overpowered by the sheer might of the dragon.

Sheer might of the dragon. Many lives were lost. Knowing we could not kill it, we turned to other means. I called upon the Arcana Pansofical and circle of friends. arcane practitioners that agreed to work together across the land to keep them safe. They devised a trap. One that could, we believed, permanently seal Thor Dac within the elemental plane of fire, preventing him from ever returning to our world.

At the sacrifice of many, including our companions, Siris, Dola, Gen. We succeeded, as the tears were enrolled. on her face, she looks around. For not now, it seems that somehow he has broken our invocation. We bound his essence to the fountains of creation and thought he would stay there forever. It kind of goes quiet and looks around for a second. I'm sorry. This couldn't be because of our journey to the elemental plane, could it? I'm so sorry. We saw him there.

We did, but it sounds like he has been... We didn't set him free, you don't think. Well, it was Keyless Ashari fame. My people, our job is to guard these realms. Is there any way of contacting the fire of Sharley? Yeah, yeah. Oh, God. To bind him...

Oh, God, what if they're... What if they're dead? You don't know anything yet. To bind him, we created an artifact called a sole anchor. It was crafted from the salvaged heart crystal of a primordial fire titan. The anchor could not be removed from the plane, and the syndic king could not leave without it. I don't know how he's managed to escape the binding of this.

Oh, my God, this is all my fault. This was a landmine waiting to be stepped on. But wait. We didn't. We fought my elders, sweet. We fought the headmaster. It couldn't have been. That would have no bearing on this. The heart crystal is immense.

Don't... Fifteen, twenty feet in diameter. It's a gem of pure crystallized ruby in elemental power and energy. Lest you manage to find this and destroy it, which may mean no offense. It's far beyond your capability. My people, would they be okay?

Depends on where he made his way through. The timing is rather conspicuous, seeing as how Winter's Crest recently passed in which time the plains are the thinnest. Yeah. Barricades. Whatever it is, I fear that our rules will not work twice,

especially if Thordeck has had all this time to obsess over his failure. I do not know our next course of action. What do you know of General Krieg? You've gone for some time. You were on the council with him. Do you know anything further? I believe it was discussed that either he had

been killed during the demonic intrusion in the city or deserted. Would the dragons seek vengeance against one of their brethren killed? Cromatics are selfish beings. They do not care for each other. And the power of oneness and that, but a conglay of dragons is both extraordinary and horrifying, but there is no sense of vengeance for their kin, lest it is against the greater plan. Now if what you say is true, and these other dragons have bound together in the service of Thor-Dak,

I imagine they would be the ones who had the power and the resources to find some way to do that. to bring him through, which point the dwarf kind of steps up and, you know, still his hand kind of rubbing O'Lora's shoulder and says, we knew not what we were doing other than trying to save it, don't blame yourself. Laura, would you consider us guardians of this city? Many. I believe the guardians. Because of us? Laura looks to you, dead on, and says,

The only guardians that Thor D'Odak would know of would be the ones that sent him away to that plane 15 years ago, my fault. It's not true. We are to solve this situation. We cannot hide the truth. I killed Krieg. We killed Krieg. I finished Krieg.

Creak was a dragon, Alara. A blue dragon. He stumbled upon his lair, reached through his home in Amon, through magical means. We found his lair. He attacked us. And we, I...

I reached out and I grabbed Vax's hand. We survived. When it happened, he had four stones, four orbs in his lair. They saw us. They spoke out to us. What was this? Was this? Many years ago.

Maybe two years ago. It's all that long ago. It was right after we got to Amon. It's been over a year at least. It's taken that long at least to free Thorac. It means this has probably been in the works for quite some time. If we do share this responsibility, I assure you it weighs heavily on me more than it does you. Right now I need all the allies we can gather.

Now you say Thor Dac is where right now? On the Mon. Within the city. Yeah. The acts. Oh, I can sense them. Right. It's for six mile radius, was it? Yeah.

On the edge of your sense of this, you close your eyes and focus, and it kind of extend your ability to feel the landscape around you. Indeed, the cinder king still sits in the center of the city. He's here. What's the others? Do I sense any others? No. They're gone for the time being.

It's weird. They kind of do what he says. Barely. Barely. And on top of all that, we have this fucking skull. I need a check in with my people. I need a check in with the error, Shari. Where's the rest? Where's the council? Who do we know? Who do we know survived? No nothing.

No. Everyone was dying around us. We made it to the key. We were lucky to get up. We don't know what happened to Uriel. We didn't see. We need to take stock of who. We can consider friends that are still around. We need not allies right now. That should be our first order of business, if anything. And her face drops again. I just lost my connection with Western. Oh, war. Yeah, this was an annihilation.

It was an annihilation. If this was an extermination, there wouldn't be any survivors. You wouldn't be here. The fact that they've only taken what they can of this city. What uses the city to a dragon if it doesn't have worshippers? They're vain beings. Thank you, Laura. What do all these cities have in common?

What would be the benefits of taking over these cities? Pride. They're gold. They're people. They just want domination over people, over us? They call this Anne. They want to be gods. What good is a creature that sees itself as superior

if there aren't those around to tell them as such and confirm their belief? And if anyone refuses to bend their will through fear or power, that is the nature of the chromatic dragons. It has to be something more that they want. Perhaps. But for now, the fact that he's even shouted mercy at this time as opposed to completely destroying everything in his wake

means that that vanity can be to use to our advantage. I don't know how soon, but that's something. Now. Allies. Vasselheim has warriors. Armouries. What's done as well? The gods. You bring them here. I need to reach out to the Ashari, see if they're... I... I... I... I... I... I... I... I... well, actually... uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, will you help me in his scrying spell? Yes. Yes, best I can. Yes. Yes. I want to scry and first check in on the fire, Shari.

All right. At this point, you both, she pulls out her crystal ball from her little tiny satchel, which is in itself like a small bag of holding, pulls out a small mirror, takes some water, pours it on the mirror, places the sphere above it and it kind of floats for a second. And there's a makeshift scrying ritual site here before you. You guys take about 10 minutes to concentrate. If you guys want to do anything in that 10 minute period, you welcome to, or if you just want to watch and wait, you can. I'm going to just sit. It's been a long, long day. Okay. The spell completes. I'm going to roll the head, guys. Yeah. You can begin to take a short rest if you want to to heal up.

I want to kill that dragon, or I want to die trying. I will. I see, Sir Conis. So you take a lotus hand and you put your focus into the crystal sphere. Your vision lifts out of the keep with extreme speed. You find your visual surroundings thrust across the Osmet Sea. You find yourself swooping across the shores of Athenzia over the forests. for the forests, eventually coming upon the blackened clouds that perpetually hang above the

charged mountain range that contains the home of the fire ashari and the entrance to the elemental plane of fire. Your vision crest the mountain and steps into the valley of broken, blackened shale to the ever-burning forest. As you come upon it, you recall where the Fyarishari village was, and we were greeted before and giving your trials, where there is now nothing but sundered, broken wood, tense, destroyed bodies burnt and charred and curled up in horrible ever, gasping pain. The forest itself is flattened from the inside out,

like a blast from the center of it, just exploded outward. the trees all bent and snapped at the base. And in the center, where there once was that small pool of molten lava that you created the portal through and slept in the elemental plane, there is a large, ominous, flickering gash between the planes that is roughly 30 to 40 feet in width and height that is just pulsing

as fire and magma pours out of it. You can see wandering imps and elementals, and various entities slowly peeking out and escaping and wandering throughout the mountaintops. From what you can see, there are no signs of any survivors. Destroyed happy, killed everyone. Allura at this point, who goes, pulls out of the ritual, reaches out and grabs you by the shoulders.

We failed. And she looks you in the eyes, and for a moment, you feel like her normally warm and embracing face has gone cold cold and intense, and her voice seems to echo with an undercurrent of arcane focus and volume. She goes, Kylith, you failed no one. This is not your doing. This burden is ours as a people to hold. Do not let this wash over you or he wins. This is their making. This is not yours. These creatures are evil, incarnate, and it is our job, our true calling to end what they have done. Do not let this crush you. You are stronger than that. All yourself together. Your people,

those that remain, they stand behind you. I'm not as strong as you will, Lord. But you can be, and you will be. Do you trust me? Do you trust me? Do you trust me? Good. No grasp releases. There are many secrets in his lens. I'm a firm believer that there's always a way to victory. We're smart about it and real quick about it. I think we should look for survivors. Gather those we know can rally to our cause.

Any more and beyond? What say you? Never stand now or we might as well be dead. So we're definitely not gonna wish on this score then? Yeah. I recommend against. Yeah, I stand. Very well. Let us prepare the fall of the chromocon grave.

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