Critical Role & Sagas of Sundry - Vox Machina Ep. 47 - The Family Business

Episode Date: November 30, 2021

Vox Machina return to the city where much of their history began: Westruun. But all is not well! Not only have the Chroma Conclave decimated the city, but another strangely familiar threat has taken hold of the city as well...   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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temple to the champion of the Raven Queen, taking the life, and thankfully not permanently of Vexalia over here, the party then retrieved their first artifact and then made their way towards the pirate tribe of the Ashari Druids, the fire guardians of the gate. to the elemental plane of fire, which apparently Thorac, the Cinder King, the Great Red Dragon that helms the chroma conclave that is torn through all of the civilization of Taldore emerged from. Apparently. Apparently. By that I mean, confirmed universally tore through. You guys went there, found a surviving faction of the pirate tribe, including Sir Conos, their headmaster, as well as a few members

of your tribe, the Areshaari, Kielas and your father. You went towards the remnants of the Cinder Grove, ran into an ally, a strange blue-scale dragon board for the name of Gern Blanston, master of necromancy and candle making in combining a two for an interesting effect. He fought your way through the Cinder Grove, tearing through elementals, encasing if you If rites and hamster balls and holding them aloft for extended periods of time. That's fun. Worked that well. And they managed to seal the gate with the help of the Druidic tribes there,

Gern and the Inchopened Adventures of Oxmachyna. After which you went to spend the evening there on the mountainside to rest before continuing your journey to wherever that next step may be. So the rest of you are beaten, bruised, and winded over the rest of you are beaten, bruised, and winded over the the previous series of battles and the accomplishment that you achieved here, top of the caldera of this mountain. The erupting seismic energies and molten rock that once spewed from the center of this rift have calmed, and the gate once again has been sealed to its dormant, controllable, and watchable size. You guys are free to make camp wherever you'd like.

We already rested, though? Not yet, you're about to set up rest. There are sections. There are sections, you're As you're walking out of the cindergrove that you can see, members of the pirate tribe are pulling up still functional pieces of huts and tents and things that were destroyed when Thoradak tore through the rift, and they're beginning to reassemble a place to stay for the evening for themselves. So if you wish to stay among the pirate tribe for the evening, it seems to be at least a relatively safe bed. How could you walk this? What do you think, Keyleth? I mean, it's your family. That's up to you guys.

I don't think I can transport us out of here until we leave. I have no problem sleeping here this evening. Rather winded, actually. Yes. We're all like the tents and houses made of anyway. Most of them are made of pieces of stone. The actual black and gray rock of this mountain elements of it had been fused together with bits of glass to forge these thick, very sturdy walls when they aren't being torn through by a colossal red dragon. Whatever.

So I'm being brought back up. Druids are using what remains of their powers from the fight today to assemble more walls of stone, and they're basically creating ramshackle living spaces using their magic. I'm going to go ahead and assist them, because I didn't use it if it'd ever spails. All right. So you begin throwing up some stone walls to help build a small shelter for the evening. This is going completely out of the picture. Have we lost side of him?

You lost side of Gern. Gern went back into the Sinegrove-Meghan, essentially gutter-sniping what pieces of red dragon scales he could locate in the vicinity. He has not been seen since that moment. Who knows to where he wandered? Kieleth, if I may. Yes, Scanlan.

You said that's so weird. That's how it's spelled. Kila. Kila. Kila. So little of you. Skilland. Are your people comfortable in these little huts?

and stuff, are we going to be safe tonight? Because I could assist us with slightly better shelter. Like how? What do you mean? With my magical dalliances. Is that another name for your penis? It is. Are you going to poop us a bed? I could poop us a bed.

Are we okay here safely or should I get us something special? With your dalliance. With my dalliance. I think your penis may have more names than I do. I'm kind of horrified. Yeah, a waterhouse from your balls and bits. I mean, my people have lived here for thousands of years. Yes, but their shelters are destroyed now.

Sure. I mean, generally we're safe as long as dragons are smashing through the village. But, I mean, if you have an alternative. I have an alternative. I could do a bit of dalliancing. And I will... You know you've talked about it. So much else can. I know.

It's just going to be self-dalliance, so you're going to need to help. I'm just going to watch you diddle you so. Mushroom stamp the land. No, no. So I will take a moment, take a minute and cast Morden Kynan's magnificent mansion? I'm so proud of you. Okay, I'm so proud of you.

So you guys watch, as Scanlon Rumman just threw some of his side pouches and belongings, pulls out a few elements, a small doorway card from ivory. He pulls out a piece of polished marble, a tiny silver spoon, and kind of just puts them on the ground in front of him. Cluses his eyes for a second. Can I enchant it with a little song or something? Yes, you can. So I'll sing,

It's a sick, Bada-da-da-down, house. Bum-p-p-pongty. It's mighty mighty. It'll letting it all hang out. That's it. You guys are mildly confused.

But as he picks up the items, you can see the door sets off the small spark of white energy that glistens in the air, hovers, and then creates just a somewhat shimmering doorway, just standing in the center of the space in front of you. Oh, I don't think it's... Would you like to come into my place? It's a little modest shack that I've been working on.

Is this like a teleport sort of... It's a door. Is this a joke? There's nothing on the other side of it, is there? No, no, it's a place where we can rest for the evening. It's totally safe and comfortable. It's on a slightly different plane from ours, so nothing can actually hurt us there or get to us.

We won't exist. Wait, at the moment it just looks like safety from an earthquake. There's no dragons in that plane? I haven't checked in a while. I can't, actually this is my first time doing this. We should send somebody ahead first to check. Vax are you up to the bit? Am I up to what?

What's that great? It's totally safe. Don't worry. How many people can fit in here? As long as you're not going to whip out the cube, then lead the way. How many people can't fit in there? It's pretty big.

You can, any creature you designate when you cast the spell to enter. So you could save the entire Pira tribe if you wanted to. Everybody. Everybody. The group are like the Pira. How many are there? Here you, there's close to 35 including the Zephyr? Wait, could you technically do this with any refugees?

I mean, where do they go when you make the door going? This is my place, all right? I don't want any riff-raff in there. Listen, there's a guest list. There's a guy at the door. I can solve this really quickly. I can solve this. Are any of the pirate tribe hot?

Like, attractive? Attractive. It is the fireplace. Through the soot and ash and the rather somber atmosphere here that paints them as a people that are the survivors of a horrible calamity. Beyond that, there's probably a few that you consider attractive. Sure, if you were that kind of person. I saw her wink at you earlier.

Oh, really? You should impress her. The one with her face just sheared off. Yeah, why not? All right, not really my type, but like full-faced people. But I'll take it. I'll take my chance. I think that's big of you.

It's so terrible. You know, if there's anyone from your immediate family that you'd like to give lodging to tonight or... Okay, we'll take them all. We'll take them all in. Sure. Do you want to tell them it is your home? Ashari people!

All right. You see some of them stop and kind of like drop the rocks they're currently holding and building one in some of the small shelters. Don't worry about your shelter for tonight. Let Scanlan Shortalt take care of you in every way, shape and form imaginable. Come with me through this weird magic door into another plane. Believe me, it's going to be okay. They all kind of look at each other with a strange glance and can kind of look at each other with a strange glance and can continue building their current shelters. Why the fuck not? And I walk on through. Okay. You open the door.

And you grab it. It is a solid door. Just trying the house for you. Handle spins. You look inside. And within you see an incredibly lush foyer to a grand mansion. A 25, 30 foot ceiling made of marble and dark woods. You see a two-part staircase that splits off onto a second-tier floor. You hear soft music playing in the distance. And immediately you see two somewhat ethereal.

servants come down, dressed as a butler and a maiden that come down with an echoing voice that say, how might we be of service? What the fuck? Hi, I step in after her. Yes, I've made some changes to the place. Living quarters are upstairs. There's a kitchen, parlor, game room over there, billiards, all sorts of stuff. We have a music room. There are a hundred attendants who can wait on us. I've assigned some of them specific jobs. Five are going to play music for us. wherever we want, especially during our meals. Why, we take your things, Matt? Oh, yes, yes. Here.

I come inside and I see the ethereal things. I'm like, oh, ghost! And I take Craverditch, and I swing it to the aferial subjects. Okay. Are you attacking my attendants? No, the ghosts that are in your house. They have my people.

Okay, so by the time you go to stop them, three of the servants that have grabbed a few of your belongings and been carrying away are swung at Craven Age, passing through and their energy dispersing, and their contents of whatever they're carrying, drop and claim to the ground, spinning out. Jesus Christ! Thank God I'm here.

Wrong, wrong, easy. They're not ghosts, they're not ghosts. They are supernatural spirits. Some would say ghosts that are good. They're good, they serve us, they serve me. Do you pay them or do they just like work for you? They're slave ghosts. This is terrible.

Scanlon. Well, no, they like it for some reason. Are you sure? I can command them to do literally anything and they like it. Have you asked? Watch this, I call one over. You there, you there.

Spaden comes over, you know, kind of plumber, older woman, no feet just kind of drifting along with this path of mist behind her. Yes, master. Can you please braid my chest hair? But of course, master. Do you like this job? It is my purpose, master.

See? This is what I'm telling you. Do you enjoy your purpose? What does one but enjoy their purpose in life? And continues braiding his chest here, these tiny little hairs. It's not very long, but sure enough, there is a pattern. Wow. Thank you. You're dismissed.

Back to the music room. Do you tip them? You can tip me, I'll pass it out, Lina. I believe you. You, ghosty, do you have any ale in this establishment? But of course, sir, we have an entire winery as part of the mansion. What in the fuck is this place? What fuck is this place?

How are you doing this, Scaram? How long is you? Right away. Scaraman over to the side, have you always been able to do this? Have you been holding out on us, man? You know, it never occurred to me to do this before, for some reason.

You shouldn't be Bert Reynolds, you should be Hugh Hefner for now on. Oh, wow. No, this is a skill that I recently acquired. I would not hold out on you. This is a new skill that I've just learned. And I'm still making improved to the house, you'll see that our dining room has a portrait of myself in it.

Oh. Not the one that I had commissioned, but one that I had envisioned before. It's just me in a smoking jacket, standing in front of a fireplace with me in a smoking jacket above it, Stephen Colbert style. Really? And then we all have our own separate rooms. All of the beds are circular. circular. They all have a mirror over them. Oh my God. That's wonderful.

It's Graceland. Mine is a waterbed, so be careful. Wait, you built this entire castle. So how do we know that you haven't installed creepy spy things into our room? Scamon. I don't trust you. On we go! To the rest of it. I went on my beer. I've got a great idea. Let's get some beer. Let's take a rest. And in the morning, there's this great game. We can go to the game room. Get some dice and some paper. A game within a game.

It's called Mena and Dragon. It's going to see how deep it goes. Keeliff just gets a nosebleed for no reason. She's not sure why. He had to get that out of my system. He was never spinning top on the banister. At this point, Grog, you can see the servant that you sent off comes up with a very large, somewhat spectral flagon

that upon handing it to you turns into a solid metallic form and inside. Holy shit. Very, very finely chilled and very nice smelling wine. I put my hand up for a high five. It makes contact. It does? It's a little cushy, but it does make contact, yes. Wait, these servants will do whatever you want them to?

That is terrible. It's a terrible path you're going down right now. I am way ahead of you, Grog. I am way ahead of you. As I said, there are 100 servants here. 50 of them are assigned to me and my own personal service. The rest are available. to you in whatever capacity you would like them.

This will be the best night ever. Let me go try and gather the rest of the Ashari. Can I... Can I, like, a plate the food from one of the ghosts? To like, it's proof. It's about to get a collegular up in this page. The servants gather up a platter of food piling up with, like, grapes and meats and, you know, cured ham. I just pop out of the door and dress the people.

the people. As soon as you pop out of the door, it all turns to smoke and dissipates. Oh, son of them. Um, hey guys, hey, it's okay. It's actually really nice. You should, why don't, it's been rough. Why don't we all take a night off and everyone come in and get some food? Get some food.

Take a night off. Kind of where we're staying with our rooms? The rooms are all upstairs. There's individual rooms for all of us, minus, at the end of the hallway and it is slightly bigger than the rest. You will find comfortable beds and things in every room. The two rooms next to mine are reserved. One is for Pike and the other across the hallway is for Kaylee just in case she ever drops by. That's really sweet. That's sweet, weird but sweet. Don't worry, it's not weird. No, it's weird. It is. It's just keeping her clear, close to my heart.

It's not super duper, fine. It's good. Fine. Fine. Fine. Forget it. When you have a daughter, you can worry about her as much as I do. At this point, Keyleth returns in. You can see with a few straggler, you know, pirate tribal members that come in, looking about surprised and bewildered and some of them a little freaked out by this

trans-imensional space they just stepped into TARDIS style. Servants come up and start, you know, helping them. Some of them are clushing the rocks they were building as they're kind of caught in the circumstances and passed it off and start making their way out to various rooms to just inspect. the mansion. A few stayed back to continue finishing what they were already building, ensuring future establishments to sleep once you guys would probably left. Sure. So yeah, you guys are welcome to rest for the evening if you like. Is the door protected? Can anybody come in or is it only if you invite them?

Only invited. This is the best fucking mansion ever. How, I mean, what? How many times could you do this? Yeah. Once a day, but that's all we'll need, right? Shit, yeah. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. So, If we were in a fight and things went really south. We could take a break. No, but they could run away.

It's not like time freezes when we were in. It does take a while to cast. It takes a minute, so yeah. It's a minute to cast. Is there anything else that you can do that you have been top, like can you make an army of unicorns or a giant in a dancing dress or is this the extent of what you can do? I'd like to keep a few secrets.

Could you make flog sounds with your armpits? Yes. I can bend my thumb all the, way back. I pull out my crystal and I call upon the great power of Trinket, I choose you. With a flash of deep blue and black light, Trinket emerges. Oh, you know what? You ever mentioned you built a trinket room. You know what?

I totally forgot to build Trinket a place to sleep. That's okay. He'll stay in Kaylee's room for the time being. No, no, Paley's room is locked. I'm sure I can get in there. I bet he wouldn't mind staying in the room. Let me just think about this for a second. There's the third pantry.

The third pantry could possibly work. It has some just mostly, no, no, it's full. We can't use that. Do you have any rooms with very high ceilings? The front, the front. The very front. The very front. But I mean somewhere where I could put a bed

from myself and trink it with very high. high ceilings. All right, yes, there's a whole basement area. It's a large space. Wonderful, I'll move my bed down there. All right. It's for training and working with weapons. That'll be perfect. Trinket needs to train. Yeah, yeah, I'll go down there and I'll stay with drinking. Oh, all right. Yeah, you know, because I'd want to train a little, one, and like, work out a bit. Totally, I understand.

Yep. I need a target though. Hey, oh, can you call one of those little little ghostly guys over. Now five of them are. Yeah, right, fine. The first one of you that brings me a cow wins. They all kind of look at each other, right away, sir. Now five of them drift off a moment later,

they'll return with this spectral cow. Like five cows? Like five cows or like little tiny cows? Each one of them is just traveling with one cow. They've all brought you together, one spectral cow. Like a bunch of meeksies with cows. Do I get to pick a cow? There's just one cow.

There's just one cow. Right, so can I touch the cow on the head? You touch it, and it has weight to it, it has surface area. Now we're killing cows, we're kidding. We're kidding. We're not killing anything, and I'll punch the cow in the nose. Did it bleed? Jesus, God!

He's just getting very apocalypse now. No, look, I'm just seeing what it is. No, stay, Bessie. Grog. Grog, you just punched a cow in the face. What, I'm just seeing if it blud. Did the nose bleed? There is no blood.

Stop! It's... I took it really easy, Look, it's... You're hurting it! No, I'm not, is there any blood? No blood. Trinket, bitch.

Trinket blocks it. Never mind. You know what, I change my mind. I don't need a cow. I'm gonna go stay in a normal room. No, Grog, actually, I think you should train. I think you should train for a little bit at least. Just come down to the basement and maybe train for a little bit.

All right. I'm sorry, where did that cow come from? My man, call one of the servants over to me. Can you get anything? Could you get me a small squid? Can you get me a small squid? They all kind of look at each other and shake their head. No, sir. We have limited resources here. The cow, we happen to have one.

A real cow. Was that a real cow, scallon, or was that some sort of ghost cow? Ghost cow. At which point the cow, dispersed is... I posted so hard, it exploded. Ghost of a dinner you've already eaten. Come back to haunt you. I go down to the training room.

And I stop and serving and go, can you bring you? down a bed for me. Thank you. Grog, can we train, please? Yeah. You want to train with me? Yes, I think I need to train with you specifically. All right, always a good time to get better, I guess. What's going on over there?

I don't know. You guys walk out of the foyer into the main hallway, and at the end to the left, you see a doorway it kind of appear where there wasn't one before. It opens up on its own, and as you walk, can see stairs that lead down into a basement chamber that has essentially a sand pit surrounded by brick. There are a series of wooden training dummies and various training accoutrements. There are chains hanging from the ceiling for lifting and climbing exercises.

There is a basic set of weapons against a weapon rack. It's a crossfit gym. A basic set of armor on the other set. Muscle ups. Yes, baby. Roeb-dogs. Yeah. We really about to pretend to do CrossFit. It's not a thing that's actually about to happen. Is there a big thing that says Wad on it? Wizard of the day. The minute we get downstairs, I start pawing into the bag of holding.

What are you doing? What are you? Oh, how did you do that? What was it? What did you grab? Oh, just this cleaning utensil is all. Are we by ourselves? Nobody else came down, right? Just the two of you.

Okay. Yeah, I just wanted to do some cleaning with this broom that I found. I had put it in the bag of holding before. Maybe you can train over there on those dummies and I can just sweep up some of the sand that's around in this area right here. I thought we were going to try. I thought we were going to fight. Yes, well Trinket actually wanted some training with his cannonball. If you will stand still so he can run into you a few times. that would be well. I feel like there's a problem with this idea, but I'm not sure what it is, so I do it.

Okay, Trinit comes along with you and can, in a very confused manner, attempts to train with you for a short time. It's been a while since he wrestled a bear, so it's kind of fun at times. It's fun, right? Look, I know I usually like hit back, but apparently your mom thinks you can cannonball into me, so like, give it a go. Go ahead, try, Drink it. Drink it backs up.

Looks over at you again, like, are you sure? Across the sand flooring, into a giant rolling attack towards you. That is going to be, what's Trinkett's attack bonus? Oh God, you're really doing it. Yes. Yes. That's the point of this.

Trinket to run into you is the point. His attack bonus is plus eight. Plus eight. That's a 23 to hit. You get it hits. You go ahead and take seven points of flexibility. Seven points of flexing damage. And you're not prone.

We'll save this, but go to make a strength saving threat. Okay. 26. Oh. So Trinket rams into you and you hold firm and kind of flex conversely. The giant bear bounces off, kind of stumbles back on a trinket's butt. That was pretty good. I liked it a lot.

Licks you right along a phase. Beard kind of calics up. a little bit. I think this might be a good look for me. How do we get to stay? While all that is going on, I have a broom in my hand. You do. Can I start climbing all over the walls? Okay. I put it between our legs and try to sit on it. All right. You know how a room. Weirdly, I'm doing the same thing upstairs. Yeah.

One of your servants named Bruh. And I kind of... I kind of jump in the air a little bit. Hop. Um, okay. Um, I say, up, fly. Lift up.

Fattierbuckle. Genanigans. Ren and Stimpy, I don't know. Ritissory chicken. Fuck! Um, Grog? Yes. Perhaps it requires a bad Irish accent.

Uh, uh, Fati Arbuckle. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing? You usually, uh, when you clean. I put the broom on the ground. I walk over and I punch Grog as hard as I can. What? What is that for?

Grog, it's not very strong. It's not. I know, but you... I like to like it feel good about it. Yeah, good. Good eye. Oh! Sorry I hurt you, Grog. I know that was a very strong punch.

I look at Tricket, I'm like, Are you guys good? Do you want to keep training? Yeah, what are you doing? Nothing. I put the fucking broom back in the back of holding. You didn't clean very much. It's, I figured the servants can do it. I walk upstairs.

Okay. Can Scanlon cast sad trombone? We have a music room, I actually have a trombone. It's true. With Vex not there, Trinket gets a little antsy and eventually your training session when the Trinket comes in, as Trinket goes to seek Vex, you can finish your wall climbing in solace. All right. I'm good for the night. Okay.

What did that count? I go find Keyleth. Okay. I don't know. I'm just chilling. I'm eating food. Yeah, there's... Big food. Big food. Let's go. Relaxing.

Hey, actually, no, I don't want to talk to you. Keynes, what do you know about magical things? Ah. Like a lot? I'm not great at identifying what they are. I can generally, I can be like, that's magical. But I don't know arcane things, only natural-based magic. magics. Oh, thank you so much. Why? Anything I can help you with next.

I might need to talk to you. Should we retire to my room for this? Why yes we should. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. It's not about spit takes in the world. Heelith just picks up her plate and operally leaves. Okay. I go get the broom from the bag of holding. I run up to my room to make sure that. that everything's neat. Light a bunch of candles.

I follow him up and knock on the door. Okay, the door opens up at the first knock. I'm lying in bed. Black satin sheets. Oh, I forgot you were coming. Wow. Well, darling, shut the door behind me. I have a favor to ask you.

I should warn you, we're not alone. And I look over to the five musicians, and I ask them to just, just strike up a little. A gentle classical piece with a small low timber brass section kind of comes in. A little Basanova. Yeah, it's nice. It's not too involved, doesn't distract you too much.

Nice mood setting, I like it. Whatever, it's just, you know, it's my special place where I just like to come and think about philosophy and life. You're so smart. I've always thought that about you, that you're very smart. Well, many people do. many people do. Yes. I sit down next to him on the bed. It goes up and down a bit. It's a water bed. Oh. Posi. Help me.

Is that... What? Was that... Did we see that before? Maybe. Okay, Scandon, I'm a terrible person I know. What did you do? I took a broom from a poor, poor Dragonborn. You took Gern's, Madden.

magical broom? Maybe. Oh my God. I know, I'm sorry, I know I'm terrible, and now it won't work, and it was pointless, and I want it to work. Help me. Because it flies? Because it flies, Scanlan. What is it with you and flying?

I don't know, there's just something about being up there in the air. It makes me feel alive in a way that I've never felt before. I could make you fly. Okay. Wait, no, you mean... Yes. With your cube. Yes, that's right. I'd rather you do it with this broom.

I'm going to do it with this broom, actually, and not in any weird way, just like to be able to help me make the broom fly. Do you know how to do that? I will try. I will examine the broom and make some sort of check on it. Make an archa-check check. Oh, that's not good.

Sort of coming in front of it. Oh, no. It's a number. 14. 14? Okay. Looking over the broom, I mean, it is definitely, you can tell it's enchanted. There are runes along the sides of the

room. You do gather from the nature of the enchantment that it is an item that requires a spoken phrase from the wielder to initiate its magic. Short of an identify spell, you would probably have to guess. If you know the identify spell, that would be a way for you to do. Can I examine it to see if there's any markings, any hidden, anything on it? Make an intelligence check. Intelligence. Or, you know, no, this would be specifically investigating. Make an investigation check. 21.

You do notice that many of the runes intricately carved from the side of the broom are part of the enchantment. They're based in the enchantment. However, there is a certain phrase that is not part of the enchantment. It's just scrawled into and very cleverly hidden amongst the broom. It is not common. What languages do you know?

Common. Noam. Pig Latin. I speak, I speak... It's not a language you recognize. I speak Elvis, Draconic, Undercommon. You don't see the words though. But you saw it.

There are some words here that might be to the code word. Basically we need to find the code word. What do we know about Gern? Well, I tried Fatsy Arbuckle. I thought maybe that was something. Did you try the others? Coral, Carol, Carol. Carol.

Carol. Carole. Probably need to hold it. What was the... Coral, Carol, Carol. I don't remember the other one's name. I don't either. Stimpy?

Was it Stimpy? It was Stimpy. Try, try. On Coral, on Carol, on Stimpy, on Fatty Arbuckle. Wait, what does the words say? Where's the word that you do? I can't read the words. Can I find it? What is it?

You pointed out to her? What is it? It is draconic. Oh. What is it saying? It's the draconic, and it's archaic draconic. It's from the base root of the language, which is one of the oldest languages in civilization.

It spells out, out phonetically the word for candle, at which point the broom in your hands and it almost lifts you off the bed for a second and you catch it and kind of hold it back down. Something has changed with it me. Oh my god. Oh my god. Weirdly you are not the first floating chick I've had in my bed. Scamlin. But that is amazing. You're flying! I hug him. I hug him as far as I've ever had Scanlan. I love you so much. You're my favorite person in the entire universe right now. I owe you.

Thank you. Nope. You owe me nothing. That's what friends are for. I love you. I shake her little elf hand. It's pretty big Elf Hank if you're tiny gnome hand. Okay. I sit on, how high the ceilings in here? How high are the ceilings in your room? As high as they can be on the top floor.

For this room, because it is an interdimensional space, this room is a problem. a good 50 feet high, high ceilings with drapery and it's so geared. Can I sit side saddle on it? Yeah. Huck. I don't remember how I said it before. You have to remember that now. Better write that down.

Hock, thug. Why didn't I choose something more fun to say? Welcome to D&B. As the words emit from your mouth, the broom takes off and you have to kind of aim it a bit, you start going around in circles, slowly rising up towards the roof. towards the roof or the room. Ah!

Yay, this is awesome! I'm really high! I instruct the band to start playing Flight of the Bumblebee. Yeah. Take my hands on? You do and you start going, whoa, whoa, whoa. Go ahead and make a dexterity check.

Oh my god. I probably should have been lower to the ground when I said that. Okay, that's fine. Oh, I'm still exhausted. Yeah. Oh shit. Um, 20.

That's fine. You're fine. A really bad role might have had a circumstance, but you managed to catch yourself in the broom in time. Okay, you're getting the hang of it. It's still not something you're used to, but it's... Can I point it down towards the ground and get lower? You do. And you take a few minutes to figure out the pitch and law of it. It basically, it's less of a directional flight more than it is a combination of how you hold the front of the broom and concentrate on its direction. But nevertheless, a few moments pass and you, you get the hang of it.

Oh my God. This is the best day of my time. You look great up there. Thank you. Thank you. But you should not have stolen that. Oh, I know, I know. It's terrible. He was our friend. He helped us.

He helped us. We should do something to repay the debt. No, I tried. No, I tried. I was going to give him a lot of dragon scales and he wandered away. I mean, what can we do? We can't possibly find him now. Well, how do I help him? Because I feel terrible.

You can't help him, you're going to have to help someone else to make up for it. To make up for the lost karma. I will help as many people as I can while I'm flying through the air. Perhaps I will pick someone for you to help someday, to repay us both. I think that's a deal, Scanman. All right, I will mark that down. What, you like a hag now? I sit on it and I open the door and I fly through the doorway.

She drifts. Out of the room. The door shuts behind her. We're gonna be one of those stegway assholes now. That's totally. It's just a stigway asshole on earpiece. They're everywhere. You lean back in your bed on your fine black silken sheets

with flight of bumblebee still blaring by the fireplace. All right guys, it didn't work. You can go. They all get up. The music come stops. And they all slowly drift out of the room one by one. Fireplace still crackling. It's nice in here.

I'm sitting in wherever there's a lounge of any kind. I'm just working in the sketchbook. There's lots of lounge. Working in the sketchbook, working on things. Not worry. Alright. I'll be reading my alchemy book, because I have had so little time to catch up on my reading.

We never, we never talk anymore, do we? We never do. All right. It's so happy. This is the best. So good. Oh, geez. I'm going to try to sleep.

It's going to be really, really hard, because I'm so excited, but I really need to get some rest to feed the dog. Today? All right. So anyone else wondering anything else? Are you going to go to rest for the evening? All right? I'm good.

All right. You all eventually find your ways to your rooms. Happy and comfortable in the fact that no one has to take a watch for this night. As you all get to bed, if you hours into the evening, Keeleth, you are just starting to nose off and you hear a knock at the door. the door. Scanlan? You open the door? On my door? On your door. Gileith, it is Saconos. Please open up. I wish to speak with you. I open the door. Okay. Socones comes in, and first thing you notice, previously you would see in what was his burnt-off

arm at the shoulder. You can now see the flesh is extended and is currently very slowly in the process of regenerating his lost arm. It catches you out from a moment and he kind of puts his hand up and says, Sorry, it is not very presentable. And he kind of still keeps his hand over it, slightly embarrassed by the mid-regenerative state of it. I'm sorry to have disturbed you. I come as unease has taken my mind. He enters the room and closes the door behind them.

May we sit. Of course, please, sir, come. First, please, Sir Comments. He goes over and takes one of the nearby chairs and sets it down, places one across from him for you to sit in kind of gestures with his one arm. Sits down, I would not speak with those I do not trust. I've seen your purity of soul, killeth.

So I come to you with these concerns. His eyes kind of trail off for a moment in the distance, and he gathers his thoughts and his words. Four years ago, A young woman came to Pira for redemption. A lost girl cast out and wishing for acceptance. We, as we do without casts, took her in, taught her and in time called her one of our own, one of the Pira. In recent months, she began to grow distant, taking to staying in the cinder grove, unattended four days at a time. One afternoon

the mountain moved, angry with shifting fires. We felt a disturbance in the gate, and when we went to investigate, there she was, commanding powers we did not know she had. What kind of powers? Beyond those of juridic nature? These were the magic's taken by man who defied the gods. These were the purest of ancient arcane threads. We watched as she reached out and tore open the gate. She laughed as we called out to stop, but something terrible emerged from that wounded sky. Thorac?

This dragon you speak of, yes. I defended all that I could, but the power was too great. and unconsciousness took me. I awoke to my people in tatters. The fires untethered, and this terrible girl gone. Both embarrassing and greatly alarming

that we could be infiltrated by such an entity that blame falls on me as the headmaster for not seeing this earlier. You acted within the good nature of our people. There's nothing wrong with that. How old was this girl when she came to you? And how old is she now?

When she came to us, she couldn't be more than 15. So she's 19? 20? Perhaps. She did not seem to blossom into womanhood, as many do. We considered her more of a rant of her litter, if you will. And what was her race? She seemed human.

She seemed human. What do you mean? Well, we take many forms as Druids. If she was indeed human at that age to command such power, I do not know her true nature. What was her name? The name was Raishan. I wish to tell you this, because my heart is heavy with guilt. And I just want you to know that even in places

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I'll send word. Should you need the aid of the Pira, though we are not much at now, come find me. I look forward to you bringing Zepra together. You will make a fine leader. Thank you, Sarkhanis. And I'm glad that you're still with us. Katiake, Kiyah. Katiake, Sir Kunis.

And Sikunas leaves. And I start pouring through my notes for the name Rishan because Kielith believes she has heard that name before. Is one of the dragons, correct? One of the white, the green one? Okay. Okay. That is true.

Um, can, do I have any other, like, reference when I know anything else about that? That's all you know is the name Raishan was used, uh, when the concave attacked Imon, and it seemed the name belonged to the green dragon that initiated the assault where you guys were. Bitch. So these thoughts echoing through your mind. The streets were on green. Yes, they were. You sleep, but uneasily, as all of these realizations swirl in your head. Eventually, sleep takes you, but is not an easy sleep. Just enough to function, barely. Vax. As you yourself have attempted to stave off sleep for many days, pushing yourself to your limits, it finally takes its toll, and you drift off into a deep, deep slumber. In that slumber you find yourself in darkness. Echoes of a distant voice.

Muffles, as if underwater. Crash, the darkness is shattered to a thousand black feathers. And you find yourself falling. Falling. Falling towards what seems to be a tangled net of glowing threads. You're afraid you might impact at such a speed, but before you do, you slow and come to a stop

before this extremely prominent, glowing, glowing weave, this infinite tapestry in all directions. You're uncertain the meaning of this moment when a large, cold hand reaches past your shoulder and grasps a thread right before your face. This singular glowing thread pulsing with light like a heartbeat. You follow the arm over your shoulder and glance up directly into the massive form of the Raven Queen, d'orsaline face like a mask, long jet-black hair, her body encasing you like a physical cage. Your eyes follow the arm back to the thread that she carries between her massive fingers. She tugs it ever so gently, and it causes waves to ripple through the tapestry into infinity.

Her voice fills your mind, both calm but cold. This is you, my champion. You are fate touched. The choice is yours. Rebirth or ruin. Maker or martyr. Conquerer. She plucks the thread from the weave, snapping it. You plum it into the hole left behind it, falling faster and faster into the dark. Lose the control you turn around and see the Raven Queen disappearing into the distance, growing smaller and smaller until suddenly. Nothing. You've fallen into a deep snore. Heavy, heavy snore after drinking the wine, climbing up walls. You've had an exhausting day of... Sleeping in the sandpit. Okay, you're a crev, you're a face down.

Like a beach, just... It's great. It's like cat litter. You've drilled into the sand and it's kind of clustered around your beard. It's horrifying. Yeah. But in the middle of snoring, nope. This restful sleep also comes into your mind. You find yourself walking alone. A long hallway into blinding lights. You're To cover your face, it's so bright, but you push forward because you know there's only one

way to go. You cannot see, but you can hear around you and sense the hallways ended, and there's now space around you. You cannot see, but you sense an arena. Glattorial in nature, you can hear the distant whisper and hum of crowds cheering. Fail up. You sense others around you, closing in suddenly. A voice. Ever whispering in your ear says, Release me. Still blinded, eyes closed, on instinct, you pull the cold dark blade from your back and swing wide.

Over and over again, feeling the shuddering shock of each impact, your strength matched by the razor-like edge of your weapon, cleaving down any who would approach. The high of adrenaline is incredible. When you laugh aloud at the sheer thrill of your own power, The lights subsides and your vision returns. You look to see hundreds of people dead at your feet. Farmers, children. You see pike, motionless, cast among the carnage. You want to scream, but instead you laugh against your own judgment and intent, like you're locked within yourself and have no control. And as you look

up from the pile of corpses at your feet, you see a towering figure before you. Cast in furs and bone. standing, even the head and a half's height above you, is Kevdak. Looking down at you with pride, the entire herd steps up beside him, staring at you at top your throne of corpses. And the herd kneels, Kevdak bows, looking up at you smiling. They've finally made me proud. You wake up. Spiddle and sand and grit mashed against your face. Who knows how long it's been. It's been a while since you've had a dream,

let alone one like that. Now, as you all eventually come to in the morning, having your evening's rest, you've recovered your hip points, your spells, all the usual good stuff, in a fantastic mansion. Maybe not the most fantastic rest for some of you, but a fantastic mansion.

You all eventually find your way to the breakfast note, which is as extravagant as you would imagine a Scanlan-based breakfast look would be. Remarble. Subway dialing. All right, carry on. Crystal chandelier. There's a fantastic... Waffle presses. Breakfast feast already prepared rows of servants along the wall is just waiting eagerly to attend to you guys as you sit down,

pouring fresh juices. It smells fantastic, and most of you look rested except for a handful. Eat, drink. Drink. I come skipping into the room for sure. Good morning. You're looking delighted and delightful. What a beautiful day it is. Do you have wine and ale at the breakfast buffet? Sure, sure. There's mimosas. There's... I'll have a mimosa. You never heard of breakfast beer? Mamosia. Breakfast beer, sure. Breakfast beer? There's milk from a... There's milk from a cow with a broken nose.

Oh, that's so sad. Can you hear? Can it be here? It'll be fine. When we leave this place, all these people die anyway. You're supposed to turn the milk after it leaves the cow. Wait, wait, wait. Scanan, can we store things here? Or does it all disappear as soon as we leave? I don't know.

You haven't tried it before. We should leave something inconsequential. We'll leave Trinket, and then we'll try it again, and then Trinket's still here, we'll know. We'll know. Shrode's Trinket. It's just, yeah. Yeah, no? No?

All right. We'll leave the broom and see if it's still here. No, no, no. That's all. Oh, Vex, is there something you'd like to admit to the rest of the group? They'll see you use it sooner or later. You hear a voice go, hmm? Trinkets over their face covered in breakfast food.

Kind of like trying to sit at one of the, one of the edges of the table, like a person, the actual bowing of the wooden bench that Trinkets on is like you hear the creaking as he moves around in it. Thank you, Scanlan, for making me feel. Um, so guess what? I can fly A plus. What? Yeah? How did that happen? Um, did you? I had a really weird night too. What, what happened in your, because I, I mean,

flight? Did you know a weird night? You want to tell us about it? What? No. No, I'm going to hear about your night. I think you go first. Well. I've learned how you fly. Okay.

So I sort of kind of tricked Gern, I'm a terrible person. You swallowed that last part, what'd you say? I sort of kind of, this is the worst, took something that wasn't mine in a way. I mean, you know, I was holding onto it, and then I just sort of slipped, and it fell into the back of holding. What was that bad? You stole from a candle maker. I stole from a necromancer. You slash candle maker.

Oh, you're going to phrase things. Yes, no, he was a nice guy. Oh, no, no. I think we should hear Vax's opinion of this. Vax, I think you were a bad influence. I can't touch. I've done my sheriff's past. I thought you were people who interested in... I mean, to be fair, we did steal a carpet once.

Did we steal that? I thought it was just... Well, we just... No, we used that in an emergency. We command did. We took it Scanlan and made an emergency. We did it. And then never gave it back. That's true.

We're terrible. I don't think of the class can judge you, Salaya, but it does strike me for a little bit of all. Well. Yes. I know. I know. I'm afraid these, um, rogue tendencies I've been learning from you, brother, maybe rubbed off a little bit.

No, I just, um, I know, I shouldn't have. And I, I, I... I, you know, I wanted to return it right away, and then he wanted off. That's a lie. I didn't want to return it. But I did want to return it. I don't think you wanted to do that either. No, I did, I did, I wanted to pay him, but he wandered away, and then I didn't pay him. And now I have this broom that I stole, and there's really no way to return it. Well, I probably could find him, but I don't want you, because now I can fly. Are you going to like re-gifted? No.

Oh. What do you say, Percy? I think it's kind of fun. Are you honestly, are you honestly asking my boy, you said what? Actually, Percy, do you know, I know you can build things and make things wonderful. Well, can you show what is this thing? What did you steal? What is this thing? I pull out the broom and I lift up in the air. Okay, guys watching the backs all right,

takes off above the breakfast room. Sweet! That is pretty cool, Vax. That's pretty badass. I don't know if I approve of the metaphor, but it's... What happens when you shoot a couple arrows from up there? Yeah, shoot me with an arrow!

Yeah, shoot some arrows! Okay, you're not holding onto the broom anymore. No, no, no, I'm been practicing. I've been practicing! I reach on the table and I grab what I'm sure is a whole... as a whole chicken sitting there. Sure. And I hold it up and I go.

Has it not occurred to you that you're not going to be able to fly. I lift. No, no, no. Look, I'm not holding on, Percy. Look at me not holding on. Ready? Vex. Vex.

Oh dear. Oh, God. Watch your eyes. Watch your eyes. Trust the Vex. All right. Laura, I want you to go ahead and first roll a dexterity check. Shut up.

Thirteen. 13. Okay. You almost slip off of a broom in the process of drawing the arrow from the quiver, you catch yourself and just barely manage to pull back in fire. I want you to go ahead and roll and attack with disadvantage. Oh man, disadvantage. Okay.

Please God, may your aim be true today, Vex? For... 16. 16. The arrow does get relatively close to your hand, but it does stick into the turkey. She did it! I hand the chicken to Scanlan. I start eating. I pulled the arrow out of the chicken.

of the chicken. And I throw the chicken closes to me into the air. Oh shit. A moving target. Oh, God. Okay. Okay, make another dexterity check. Okay. There's lots of chickens, by the one.

Shit falls. 13. 13. Okay. This time you start falling off and you catch yourself entirely. The arrow just goes wide. You don't need to work on this. Okay. All right, they'll take some practice.

This, this, I don't think this is a, this may be an engineering issue. Yes, Percy, this is the thing. An engineering. Can you build a seat on this? I pull out my notepad and start sketching. What if you could build a seat and then I can sit on it instead of trying to sit on this tiny little stick? Let me, let me...

Tinker? Tinker. You know, beyond it being an engineering issue, it might be a greed issue first. Really? Look, how's that mimosa treating you? It's phenomenal. It's been a long few weeks. I don't care. I don't care. We're never going to see Gurn again. I have so many other things to care about. No, you're already drunk. No, I'm just, it's been a long few, look.

Oh, Jesus. I don't care anymore. How many was that? Just one, right? I live down. I float down. I just don't want you to die. I float down eye level. I just don't want you to die. But I'm still floating. I don't want you to die because of your greed. I don't care. Keyleth. You look amazing. Doesn't she look amazing?

Like a real hoverboard? Is there a chance this one might set on fire as well? Why are you trying to be an asshole? Sorry. Here's the thing, Keyleth, I'm not afraid to die anymore. I came to this realization. I've seen the other side. I've come to terms with it.

Well, I've come to terms with it. That's phenomenal that you've come to terms with it. I don't know about the rest of us in the room that I'll watch you die, though. I feel too guilty to say no to her. I'm perfectly content. It is pretty sweet, flying around like that. It's pretty wonderful.

It's really cool. Can I try it? You have to know the magic word. I don't, I gave a deep levels of arrested development. So, I don't care about the broom. Kila, Vex swore to me that she would only use it for good. That's right. That's good.

I'm not going to steal anything while I'm riding on it. Where would you put it anyway? I know, right? I know, right? Just don't get into trouble, I guess. I'll practice as much as I can, and Percy's going to help me. Yes.

So I can be stable on this thing. I may need some money, but we'll put something together. I will give you all the money. You're gonna carry that on your back? Maybe. You look like a byriding chimney sweet. But I feel so good. Just, you got out, you came out on top this time.

Okay. It might not happen next to me. I start eating while sitting on the broom. All right, I think she's listening to me. I think you broke through. I think I did. I think you're learning to let people be people. I don't care anymore.

Oh, look, look. Another round of chickens has just arrived for us to eat. Oh, chicken. Okay, no, but seriously. I don't know what breakfast is, so I just keep commanding them to make chickens. Where should we, um. So much chicken guys.

Where should we head to? Yes, what is our next, shoot, I kept a list, like a to-do list for us, but I didn't bring it tonight. Oh. I thought you were going to say something that was a belt. Did you want to head back to, um... Actually, Keely, if you said something weird happened last night for you as well. Uh...

Yeah. Um... Circonus stopped by. Yeah. Oh. I look at my brother. All right, cool. Keep going.

Not... Good eye line. As my elder. He stopped by as my respected elder. respected elder. And do you all remember the name Rishan? Yes. That's one of the dragons. Apparently she's our little infiltrator. What do you mean? She came and to the fire Shari. She came to the Paira about four years ago. And the Ashari being the adoptive people that we are, they took her in. They adopted a dragon. They adopted a dragon. They

They adopted a dragon. How? How? How? They're sabotaged the lift. They do. They were unaware. Does that make her the leader or something?

Is that how all the dragons got through? I'm still not quite sure. It makes her the instigator at the very least. Okay. It makes her fairly close to Thorac, it would seem. Apparently when she came to the fire, Achari, she was about 15 years old. And... As a dragon?

As a human woman. So she was making it seem like she was 15. She was making it seem like she was 15. And they started realizing that she possessed powers far beyond anything that they had seen before. And then these powers began to exceed anything beyond our juridic capabilities. And it would seem that they realized that too late.

Did they say, Say anything about her goals or motivations, her ambitions? Sarkonis said one day they woke up and the mountain was spewing fire and was angry with lava. And when he went to investigate it, she was there, ripping open the rift. And that was when everything happened. When he came to consciousness, everything was destroyed. So that's all he saw. And she was gone.

But we know where she went next. Well. To her mom. Oh, eventually. Oh, right. Yeah. Right. You just know.

That day. You created that. Well, I was trying to skip exposition. I thought you could fill in the blanks. Why, we thought you had new information beyond that new or not. I didn't. It was certainly set up that way.

Thank you. I'll work on that next time. It was very leading. Okay. Well, that's good to know. So. So perhaps we should inquire if You think this Rishon, Rishon?

Rishon. Rishon. Has tried to pretend to be a human woman in any other place, should we ask around? Or was it just the one ruse here to gain entry for her companions? I am not sure. All right. Well, don't trust anyone. Don't trust anyone.

Got it. Don't trust him. Servant rushes forward. More chicken, sir. Keep it coming. I do. Do you guys have vegetables, maybe? Any vegetables?

Vegetables, sir? I forgot to tell them to make them, sorry. It's all chicken. It is. Cool. So where do you guys want to, chicken and mimosis? It's my favorite breakfast. Maybe you, oh, waffles too.

Oh, chicken and waffles, that's right. Maybe someone else should be in charge of the food next time we come here. All right. My tastes are a little. Bace. Little. Singular. I think one thing that this cat does confirm was that this has been a plan that's been in the process for a very, very long time.

No, I just came up with the chicken this morning when I woke up. Where are we going next, you guys? Well, there was, Grog had some brass knuckles to get. Was that a thing? Did we get those? No, we haven't got those yet. Okay. But there's not other things to explore. All right? Did we have to go make a trip to anyone else's homeland? How's White Stone? How's... We need to talk to a Sphinx's boyfriend.

Oh, that's right. You do need to talk to Sphinx's boyfriend. Maybe that should be our next... What was his name? Hang on. And what were we trying to get there? Another one of the articles of confederation. You need this Titanstone Knuckles of Corde.

Yeah. Yes. Which Cabdeck has. Yep. That's with your band of... That's with your tribe. Yeah. but then there's the Sphinx.

For a family reunion, Grog. What's that, Max? It's time for a family reunion, Frog. Are you ready for that? Do you want to put that off a bit? Oh, no, man. I mean, whenever. So you want to go like now?

Do you want to maybe swing by somewhere? Except for that to the library, I imagine. You want to go to the library? No, I was just saying that it's either that or the library. So it's Grog's herd or the sphinx. to get something. We'll remember. On the way.

And then, or TBD find something else to do. I guess Grog's thing is the most promising. We know that there's knuckles there. We know that there's people will know there. Well, it's all actually around Western, right? Aren't your people around Western? You know, they roam. So we have to find them.

Yeah. The last time we ran into them wasn't it, on the way to Craghammer? From Western. Odessa's mate is south of the Frost-Wield. I think it was. Yeah, it was. On the way to Cranhammer, that's right.

Is Frostwield near Craghammer as well? The Frostwheel is south of Western. South of Western, yes. So let's make our way to Western, I suppose, then. And that's in the direction of both Grog's herd and the Frostwield? Potentially? Well, Grog would know. Whoa. Cool. Yes, I think Grog really wants to go.

Yeah, we should probably be. We can't go there. Let's do that. You're heard wanders all across the silver cut roadway, that whole area to the west of Westruen, south of Craghammer, east of Iman, that kind of vicinity. They wander there. Around there. Yep.

Okay. But look, look, I was thinking, like, it might be like a thing when we find them, right? So like, picture this. Me, and then a lot of other me. and they're all really big and angry. So, like, if we want to do anything else before that happens... I think they'll attack us, but we're with you.

You're an ally. Yeah, and I'm a super cool, awesome fun guy. But we didn't really leave in, like, the best terms. Uh, weren't you like... As kicked, yeah. Yeah. All of us all left for dead, pretty much. You know what, Crog?

Dog, it's been a while. Why exactly were you beat up and kicked out of your herd? Right, so I was a bit younger. Sure. And we were like wandering through the woods and we came upon like this little old bearded thing, right? And like he was carrying like groceries on me, like food and stuff. And everybody was like a little hammered from boozing.

And they were like, hey, let's kill the little thing and we'll string them up, we'll see what his insides look like. like, and normally I'm like, yay, I wear him as a hat. But he looked really like sweet. And I felt bad, so I said, like, we shouldn't do that. And they didn't like that answer. My uncle in particular, he didn't like that. So he made me fight my cousin, his son. And? That wasn't bad. I handled that not, it was not a problem. All right. Okay. So they might have a grudge about that.

No, there's no grudge. They pretty much think I'm dead because after I whooped his son's ass, he whoop my ass. Well, oh. Yeah. We have a thing for that. We do? Can I borrow your hat? Of course you can borrow my hat. Hens of disguise? If you don't want to have an immediate confrontation with your family, there's no particular reason why they have to know you're alive yet at all. You could wear this hat. It might not fit on your head. You could maybe put it on one of your knuckles. Not hiding from my herd?

Well, you were giving off the impression of one who was looking forward to putting something off. I was, was I? You were. You're not anymore. As if you've been scared somehow. Very big. If you're too scared to do it, we can go elsewhere. Sorry. I will never. I'm excited to go. I want to go. We should go. You know, what we need is the wolf. The wolf? Yeah, we need the... Oh, the wolf in Whitestone? Yeah. He's got like, you know, don't they smell shit? You can help us find them.

Well, Trinke can smell. I can also theoretically turn into a wolf to help us find things. I mean, if you want to, I don't know how long it's been since he's seen a she-wolf, so, you know. I was talking as... I mean, it's just sort of curiosity. I mean, we're not going to walk in and negotiate with your uncle. He's not going to give us these knuckles. He's a proud owner of them, yes?

Yep. Would it be wise? And how many are in the herd, roughly? What's a number bigger than? than like five. Six? Six? Yeah, it's like six. You mean it's like at least six?

Or possibly more than six? How fast actually is the reproduction process? Are there more of Goliath? Are there more people in your head or fingers on your hand? I hold up Scallon's hands, then I hold up my hands behind them so that all 20 fingers are wagging. Brog, are there more than this many in your heard? in your her? Yeah, six. Okay. She's counting hands, not fingers. Oh. I'm not

mine too. We all hold up our hands. How many hands is that? We don't not shut our hands, growled. That's closer. It's been a long time. Okay, sure. This could be bad. Yeah, this could be bad. This could be bad. We could attempt to steal them. Steal from the Goliaths. That could work. How easy is that? Does he wear them all the time? Does he put them in a chest? They're pretty smart. They're like me. Yeah.

You're right. And I don't think it's going to be pretty no matter what we do, but I actually think trying to steal them might be a better angle than going toe to toe with six Goliath. So here's the thing, though, right? Like, normally if you try and steal something

or if you try and break the rules and you're like Keelith and you get arrested, like every time, arrested, ain't so bad. They don't really arrest you. They're like open you up and use you as an appetizer. As a hat. Yeah. That was my thing. Yeah. Yeah. So I'm a little nervous about that. I'm the least terrible option right now. Well, we need these vestiges. We cannot do anything without these vestiges.

It seems to me, it seems to me that no matter where we go, we are putting ourselves in paris. putting ourselves in peril. Yep. So it's really just a question of which peril do we want to face first. And don't we theoretically need the vestiges before we go visit Odessa's boyfriend? I thought Odessa's boyfriend had a vestige. No, no, he has locations of other vestiges. Odessa?

Oscea? Oscea. Sorry. Shit, that's what I would call her. Odessa. Oh, take. Can you see that for that one? I feel like Pike would want to come with us, Grog.

Hmm. Well, okay. You're very dear to her. But wasn't Pike kind of, and like this grandfather, the reason? Yeah, no, it was Pike's grandfather, yeah. Yeah, and plus she's like a healer. Well, the very least, let's make our way to Westron then. Let's get that far and see what's...

Well, remember, Westron is... We can instantly transport anywhere. No, no, no. You know of like trees outside of Western. I can, but it's under dragon rain. In fact, Isn't that where Raishan stopped on? No, the scrying that you saw actually was umbrazil, the black dragon that took up residence,

it seems, in Gatchado, the mountain. North of Western. North of Western at the base of the Padky Mountain. And Gatshadow is where Grah got a scar, right? Yep, that's where you guys initially put that head. All right, fuck. Look, if there's a lot of them and only like a handful of us, it's not usually customary, to have two sides go at each other.

If we want those knuckles, I'm pretty sure it might have to be one-on-one. Now, I know I can totally take my uncle, but I wouldn't mind if we found like a few extra credit items before we did that just in case, you know, I have like the flu that morning, you know, or it burns when I pee, just something to like take the edge off.

So Sphinx first. Sphinx I think you do. I mean, if that's what you want to do, then yeah. Say no more. Okay. And did we also want to check out the Cobot Reserve, which was in West Run, or did Alora already handle that? Laura, I think, handled that, right?

You saw her. She was there, and it looked pretty trashed. Okay. Like she grabbed a lot of the last of the good things. All right, let's go to the Sphinx then. Where's that? The Frost wheel, we've been there. Frost wheel.

Yes, we have. So we could, do you remember any trees there? Frostwield is where Grog. Mugged down with a nymph, right? Right? Yes. Allegedly. We'll never know.

Hey, Grog does not kiss and toe? Yes, you do. All the time. All the time. Just not that one time that we really want to actually know. Let's go to the Frostwheel. Let's do it. Do you remember any trees?

Do I remember any trees? At the time, because you were not specifically paying attention to sort of ability of yours, there is no specific tree that has caught your attention. that has caught your attention, you could attempt to make an intelligence role. Not my strong suit. It's not my strong suit. Just straight intelligence check? Nine.

Nine. Unfortunately, you can't recall the specific location of any trees in the frost well. It's been a long time since then, and you weren't being conscious out at the time. The war is over and both sides lost. Kingdoms were reduced to cinders, an army scattered like bones in the dust. Now the survivors claw to what's left of a broken world, praying the darkness chooses someone else tonight. But in the shadow dark, the darkness always wins. This is old-school adventuring at its most cruel.

Your torch ticks down in real time, and when that flame dies, something else rises to finish the job. This is a brutal rules-light nightmare with a story that emerges organically based on the decisions that the characters make. This is what it felt like to play RPGs in the 80s. And man, it is so good to be back. Join the Glass Cannon podcast as we plunge into the Shadow Dark every Thursday night at 8 p.m. Eastern on YouTube.com slash the Glass Cannon with the podcast version dropping the next day. See what everybody's talking about and join us in the dark. Oh, please. Not that music.

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It's been a few years, you guys. You can recall all trees look the same, don't they? You know, after a while. Say it. All right. Everybody hop on Vex's broom. Oh, you know, can get us close. I mean we can try. Or I could theoretically I could tie little ropes to the broom and all hang on. I can scry and look for a tree in the crossroom.

If you'd like to, yeah. And take time to do that? If you want to, yeah. The trees that area you would know, that you could recall, there was, there were trees based around the crossroads, which is the middle point of the silver cut roadway that's even further north-west. and west of Western. There's the Bramblewood Forest, which is just north of Western. There are, I mean, must everything be further west from there? Those are the closest

destination. The closest destination. With the crossroads we could, maybe get us to the crossroads. Or we could just go to Western. Yeah. Is Weston still there? This one's under Dragon rule. There's an actual dragon like on Weston. There's dragons on top of it.

Well, up in the mountain, but walking down. But they've got like Wyverns kind of policing, right? In Westrun. You didn't notice in your scri? I'm going to assume. Up to you guys. Let's do the Crossroads. Let's do it, let's do it, let's do it.

We could theoretically run into your herd, though, right? Yeah, I mean, I hope we do. Yeah. To the Crossroads! Okay. Okay. Okay, so you're going to the Crossroads. Crossroads is about two days of two days of church.

travel northeast of the Frostfield, about three days travel. So I would be going northeast from the crossroads, or I would be, if I wanted to go in the Bramblewood, I'd be happy to go southwest to get to the Frostwheel. Here we go. So, this is the Frostwild. Uh-huh. Explain the world to me. This is West Run. This is the Crossroads.

This is Imon. This is Craghammer. Oh, shit. Where's the Bramble Forest? It's right here. Oh, okay. It's my west one. The crossroads is over here. Okay.

You can totally take the crossroads, but it'll take the... Go to the forest. Let's go to the Bramblewood Forest. Okay. That's fine. So... We just gotta be some big trees there. I remember a few big trees.

Where we can... I remember admiring a few big trees in the Bramblewood Forest Forest You can spend a lot of time in West Run specifically. You do recall various locations. You take a moment to kind of concentrate on a few trees actually within Western that you recall. There was one that was near playground where you had once interrogated a small child that they had seen... Yeah! From the Green Island Island Islander...

I remember that. You spent a whole day in that... Park. Yep. You begin to cast this spell and you concentrate on that tree in the park. There's no connection to the tree. Oh no. You gather that the tree may not have survived the initial attack on Western. However, you do take a moment and you do recall at the entrance to the Bramblewood when you guys were briefly attacked by that group of thieves that were pulling you off at the side, pretending to be a stranded caravan. There was...

That was good. That was good. That was good. There was a series of rather large trees that kind of marked the roadway there, and you recall one that had distinct markings. And you do manage to find a point of concentration or connection there. It took me a moment to find signal. Okay, all right, we're good. We need a signal boost. You complete the spell against one of the petrified trees in the outside of the Sinder Grove. The Dorya opens up, and you guys can see a thicket of Bramblewood trees in the opposite side.

You all rush through one after the other, drink it, jumping behind. You all make it through, and you're now standing on kind of the central pathway of the Bramblewood, more further south. You're probably about an hour and a half foot travel before you exit the southern portion of the forest. All right. It's all right, guys, this is as close as I could get us. How far are we now? A day's travel? Two days tralees? No, from, oh, to the frost wheels? You're about a day and a half on foot. On a very, very fast, fast, on a horseback you're about a day, a little under a day. On foot,

you're looking at about two days travel, a little over two days travel. Ugh. Yeah. That's like at a rapid pace. Mistform. Or, where are we going to where? Ooh, in mist form. We're not very fast in mist form, aren't. No, we are. We're super fast.

Are we? How long we to take take this in mist form? It would be a little bit faster than a... Then horse. Sweet. A good day. Shall we turn in the clouds and go? I haven't done this before.

Is it freaky? It's very freaky. It's very freaky. It's super freaky. It's super freaky. It's so super freaky. Super freaky. All right.

Percy, what if instead of like a seat, what if it was like I was straddling it and there were like two little things, like, front holes? Do you want to design this? No, no, it's up to you. I'm just coming with ideas to help you out. But it's totally your fault. It's just going to be much more expensive.

No, no, no, no, it's all you. It's all you. Are you in the... Yeah. Okay. I'm picking my spells because they have it. All right. So, Kieleth goes ahead and casts, is it Winwalk, right?

Winwalk. All of you guys take a moment to transform into a mist form, and you all begin to just coast right around the top of the trees, making your way south to the back of the Bramblewood. As soon as you exit the top of the trees, you can see Western ahead of you. And there are a number of interesting things to catch your attention. First and foremost, you see halfway between the tree tops to the south end of the forest and the very north part of Western. There appears to be a large, it's green, open field with like, thicker patches of grassland here and there.

There is a section that is just a grassless dirt mound that has, as you start coasting over, you can see what looks like spikes of wood, a couple of things that glimmer in the light as you pass over. And it looks like large grooves, kind of dug in a haphazard pattern. This patch about maybe 15, 20 feet across, and you see two people kind of bringing a cart away from it. Can we miss down a little closer to get a better view of what it is? Yeah. It's like wispy kind of people clouds. Those clouds look like half-held.

Okay. No one seems to remind the two individuals that when we have with a card, they're a little far from what you can see at this point, but they both appear to be humanoid in no particular rush, but they're hauling this large cart away. As you look, you can see in this patch of dirt. The glimmers that you saw was there's a smattering of gold and silver coins that appear to have just been tossed in this pile. It looks like there are pieces of wood that have been broken and crushed in the giant grooves. Who's taking the intense look at this one right now?

Okay, so the two of you, I want you to roll investigation checks. 18. Oh, no, 16 for me. 16, okay. You recognize, you get a feel for it too because of your specialty in this. You notice that the giant grooves that tear into this are actually sweeping claw marks. Like something of a large side and a very fast speed

came down and has come down multiple times to snatch up something that was placed in this location. Oh, this is where they make their offerings. This is where the offerings are made. That's good to know. Right, because I have advantage on anything having to do with dragons. Right, which as you're seeing this now,

Yeah, you would gather the information with them as you do you guys continue southward? Yeah. Coasting in the outskirts of the city. It's good to know that that's there though. Yeah. Okay. You guys being a coaster on the outside of Western. Drifting up above as well, this kind of wispy pattern of clouds.

You get a view of the external farmlands that dot the northwestern side of Western. A number of them appear to have been burned. Not like forest fire or cataclysmic meteorite, like intentionally burned. The crops are just charred and black and there's a pattern to how it was set. A few farmhouses also appear to have burned as well. But there are farmlands that are also functional and you can see people tilling the land. I want everyone to make a perception check. And what? Perception. Perception. Fourteen.

14? 16. 18. 3. 31. 22. Okay. So people above 20 would be the twins. All right. So Vex and Vax, you guys look over these fields and two things you notice. One, each set of farmers that are working, there is a well-armed individual on the outskirts of each of these fields. farms that is just intently watching them work. And as you're kind of paying attention to this, one of them walks over and kind of starts screaming at one and pushes them over

and then kind of stands back and keeps guard. You guys also notice that the outside of the city there appear to be some sort of, some sort of construct, all thatlements, almost like another wall, a very thin wall that's been built around the various entrances to the city. They've imprisoned people. We can't talk to each other. Can't talk to each other. Gosh. We just vape at each other. Do we keep going or do we...

Somebody to make the choice, like, down or keep going? I don't know what good will do right now. You're the only two who've noticed, so... Right. It's up to you guys. Do you guys want to go investigate or you want to keep going to stop? How many guards are there around there? You only see two that are actually in the immediate farmland, and they're quite a walk away from the actual city.

actual city. They don't appear to be like on heavy line. And I, as wind, pull in front of my sister and use windy, wind ness and wind hands and wind farts to put a stop sign of my hands and then point down. I don't know what's possible in this form. Okay, yeah, no, that's possible in the form. So, so Vex, you see Vax, your brother kind of stop in front of you, put his hands up and kind of point down where with his hands. What do you want to do? What do you want? I noticed it too.

I float on over to this. Hand signs. I'm going to go down and I'm going to motion to her to follow. All right, okay, going down. All right. I'm still thinking about what were those big gashes in the ground back there? It was really confusing to you. All right, you guys all drift down towards the ground

as you see Vax begin to take on the physical form. Ah shit. Can we still, as we come out of it, I want to cast past without a trace, like immediately. Okay, you're in the middle of, are you going down on the the burnt farmland or one of the healthy farms? Can we go down in like an area that there's like shadow to where we're like hidden? There are a few of the fields that are more like high crop, you know, corn style stocks. Somewhere that when we take form we'll be hidden. Just you two, right? I don't know. I'm going down too. You three. Okay. So

Percy Vax and Vex all take a moment to revert back to their physical form. Oh I'm reverting to. Okay. I'm a follower. All right. Scanlan, Keel. What's going on? I guess, I guess so. Wow, we're just gonna make this super obvious, huh? Their dragons flying overhead. All right. Well, we've landed. We're in a cornfield. Yeah, we've landed. Let's do it.

We all want to die. All right, so all of you, including grog, or are you staying in your fist form? Fuck it. Let's do it. Okay. You all take a moment to revert to your physical form. I like everyone to make a stealth check. And I cast Pathet out of Tray, so it's extra 10. Okay.

Natural 19. Hey, 18. 18. Okay. 32. 25. Nice. No, add 10.

35. 35. 31. 29. 36. We're all good. 28. Did you get me answer?

32. 32. You don't know we're here anymore. No, you guys. We're at the party. You all begin to kind of weave your way through the various lines of high stock crop. Where are you heading? Are you heading in towards the city?

Are you heading towards the farmers? We just want to sit here for a minute and talk about it. Can we just say like, so here's the thing. Those guards are attacking the farmers. I'm pretty sure they're using slave labor at this point. Kind of like you, Scanlan. Slave labor to provide food for the city. Vax really wanted to stop down, but the thing is,

if we kill the guards and set the farmers free, everybody in the city might starve. It's a tough situation right now. Or we might just send more guards once they know that one's been killed and then kill everybody involved. I'm afraid right now I don't know what all we can do in this town until we can defeat the dragon,

which unfortunately is rather close in watching us. We can't do anything for them right now until we actually know what's happened. As you guys are having this conversation, you can see, like there's a slight rustle and the farmer comes across carrying a small satchel sort of picking things off of one of nearby areas.

Is he close to us? It's about 15 feet from you. Does you see us? He doesn't seem to notice you guys. I mean, we could tell him to hold out hope. He could also be one of the assholes that's serving the dragon just like people in Amon. I'll go. The former turns.

You now see him, it's a man in his kind of late 40s, early 50s, gray beard. Yeah. Heaps picking. Like the dragon or do you not like the dragon? In the interest of the internet, we should probably do stage whispers. Do you like the dragon or do you not like the dragon? dragon. And you can see like there's some heavy bruising on his face and like part of his cheek

is kind of swollen. Sorry. I mean hard around these parts to find someone who likes a dragon, let alone that one. Good. Good. It's not the worst of the worries right now, though. What's the worst? The ones who work for him.

Right. So you have to provide food for everybody living in the city. Is that how that goes? Or one of them. Otherwise they just go out and steal them. steal from whoever's nearby. There's a caravan that's made the way past Western and past week.

Here's a thing. We're trying to help you. We're trying to find a way to kill the fucks. You get me? You'll kay the agonetre. We'll kay the agon's tray. Drops like the fruity has gone. Please, please help us, please.

Natural, keep picking, keep picking, keep picking. Pick a little. Pick, pick, pick, pick. We want to help you. We really, really, really, really want to help you. We have my daughter. Oh shit. Who's in charge?

Who has your daughter? Who has your daughter? No daughters right now. Who's... Those beasts? What beasts? The gods? They're keeping your daughter.

Do you know where they keep them? Yeah, it leans over, kind of nudges towards the direction of the city. Who's in charge? I don't know his name. And that spot that we saw just outside of town, that's where gold is given to the dragon? Do you know anything? of that? It looks a little confused. I don't know. They just take what we have. The guy you don't know his name. What does he look like? Where have you seen him?

Keep your voice down. Who? I'm talking through Skype, so it's a little more difficult. Who are you talking about? The leader? The guy who's got your child. You don't know his name. What does he look like? Where have you seen him? I don't know. They're all different times. I haven't seen the one who has them. They have them. They, the gods. The people that instead of the dragon. What type of people are they interested in? Half-works. Interested

in? Why? Keeps him at bay. I don't know. They take whoever seems useful. So as they just take them and slaughter them before us as a warning. Then why did they take your daughter? I don't want to think about it. To keep him working. That's... Look, say we were really bored and we wanted to do it. get you your family back. Where would you go? He points over to the city. There's one right out of the thing. They seem like pointed really angrily just around the corner. Probably

the one that you saw on the outskirts of the farm area you guys came down in. Let's go to the city then, I suppose. Wait, what? There's a dragon. The fucking dragon this is. How often? Farmer. What's your name? Reginald. Reginald, we want to help. How often do you see the dragon flying around? Every couple days, maybe. Every couple days. How long is to be. When was the last time you saw him, yes?

About half a day ago. On dusk yesterday, I don't know. Do they... We all stay inside around that time just in case. Does he have patrol? Does he have Wyverns working for him as well? Then fly around? I haven't seen needing flying with the dragon.

There was a huge fight. Not a half a week ago between these people and that thing. They seem to have come to an accord. These people? Wait, the orcs? The orcs, the... Whatever they are. Big, strong, angry ones that keep taking all of our stuff.

Oh, no. Um... What? What do they look like? Do they look like him, maybe? Something do. Oh, fuck, maybe. Fuck, fuck.

The dragon cake men and just... Tore everything down. Damn it. Shit hammer. Burn, liquefied, dissolved portions of this city, people screaming. And then it left. Both of them. Both of them. Both of them. We're going to keep going. Good luck. No, wait. No, we have to keep going. We can't face these. Goliaths and dragons and orc guards and this is craziness.

One of the dragons was green? What we saw. There was... Green and a brown. I agree in the black one. I think a white one, but that was just kept going. I mean, it kept going, sure. And the green one kept going? And the green one kept going?

We all of them kept going. We thought we were safe. And then... And then... Within a day, a bunch of these... I don't think it's the dragons. I just think... These bastards came and they just took what was left.

Slaughtering, stealing. We got to go get them. We got to get his kid. I feel like we have to help them. Yeah. Oh, man. I feel like you all are talking like I normally do, and I'm talking like Grog normally does. This is such a weird day. No, you're using way too many prepositions. You said there are a lot of people that look like me.

I've seen that. Don't go too far into town. They keep me out here, but I've seen a few. I'm keeping an eye out for the guard. I want to keep an eye out for the guard. I'm sure he's not there. They're in the city. Most of them are, yeah. Were there six of them? 17. 17? 17? Okay, you don't see the guard here, right.

We need that guard. What are we going to do right now? We're going to ask him some questions. This is a coup on the, on the, on the grander scaled and white stone. I want the guard. I just want the guard. Okay.

Why is that guard? Can we see him? You guys want to try and find them? Yep. I saw him on the other side of the thing. Okay. You guys begin making your way towards the direction that Vex saw the guard. You start pushing through the crop, making your way to the edge. And on the, at the point where these high crops end, it opens up into what looks like a heavy root base field, potatoes, carrots, things that are beneath the ground. You guys see across the way that the two other farmers

that were out there, the one that you saw being kind of loosely beaten. They're both filling satchels and emptying them into two larger carts that are put up to horses, one of the more of a larger pony. And you see what appears to be another hulking humanoid, taller than an average person, skin slightly gray, a smattering of tattoos across the body. Okay. You actually, you recognize. And best we can tell he's the only God, the only one. No, there's two.

I have an idea. Wait, wait, wait, wait. He was about to tell us who it is. What you can see. You actually recognize this individual. Fucking nipple tassels. What can I? This is an individual that you knew quite a ways ago.

A young Goliath who was still about a little half a foot shorter than you. When you knew him, he was named Horace because he hated it, and Cavadak gave him this name, and you actually, at some point in the past recall, even giving Horace a good beating, one of the smaller of the Goliaths that encountered. This is years later. This punk kid, and he was kind of a punk, has grown up now, and it's still smaller than you, size, but still seems to be every bit of an agitating little bitch to remember from the way that he's kind of treating these people. Is he holding anything? Not in his hand at the moment, no, but does have across the back what looks to be some sort of a large blade sheathed.

Can I give my idea? Yep. What you're doing? Okay. What if we ask Reginald to call for help like he needs this fuck's help, and then he comes over and then we spring a trap on him? That's one by idea. I can use hide-in-plain sight on us and hide us. and hide us and make us look like we're part of the crops. I love it.

To set an ambush. I love it. And the goal is to question this guy or to take him out? We're going to ask him questions, and if you make some peep, hold on, before we do that, can you see the other guard that was out here? Glancing about, because it's pretty open air. You can see the secondary guard is walking away, looking like to either check one of the other homesites.

There is a farmhouse. It's like Kansas, right? It's just like flat. It's just like flat. Yeah, it's like flat farmland on the outside of Western. As soon as you break the south side of the Bramblewood, it's just plain. Distance would you put him at? How far away would you put him at?

100 yards? The other guard? The other guard's a good like 400 feet. Do it. Yeah? Do it. Can I take a minute to like camouflage us and then tell Reginald to call him over?

When he comes over, I grab him. Nobody do anything this loud. Got it. Okay. Okay. So, as you guys all take a moment kind of stepping into parts of the stalks, the edge of this land, Vex, you go ahead and start taking up leaves, patches of dirt, mud from freshly watered ground, and you start just smattering the rest of the group with it.

You guys are going full Arnold from Predator, like you begin to blend into the vicinity. Question. Could I work with Percy? Yeah, no. Yes? To maybe I have entangled learn today. Could I maybe, can refashion like a quick entangled trap? When the guy steps into it, he'll be entangled.

Or I could maybe just be prepared for it? You can be prepared for it when I have it. I'm going to draw her little sketch of something that would spring. But you can make out of wood. The spell expends when cast, so it's more of like waiting to release it. To make it as part of like a set trap, that would be an actual consumable trap. have to construct. All right.

I'll just be prepped with it. Okay. Okay. So is you guys all have hidden. You know that feeling when you hear one interesting thing and suddenly you want to know more? Well, that's the idea behind my podcast, something you should know. Every episode starts with a question you've probably never thought to ask. Like why people do or don't like you?

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Let's get started. He's kind of behind you guys, it's like watching all this happen. Yes? Act like you're still picking and act like you hurt your ankle and call for help from that guard over there. We'll protect you. Promise? Yeah, I'll promise. And try and maybe keep a bit of a distance, because I'm going to be doing the trap here.

It's going to be 20 feet. You don't want to be in it. Just step back and call the help. Just step back. Okay. So you guys are all kind of working on the very edge of where these craft fields begin. Reginald kind of pushes through a little bit and goes, Oh!

Oh! Oh! Oh! You hear a distance of voice go, I, uh, what's your problem? Oh my, my ankle, and he starts hobbling into the crop. You shut your trap, this is you fucking ankle. What's so stupid? Oh, you stupid.

And he starts lumbering up. I'm gonna teach you a lesson about sitting a peep out of that stupid mile of yours. I'm gonna beat that face of all that can't make a noise ever again, stupid kid. And now. The minute he's in the high crop, so he's out of visual from the other guard. Okay. So as soon as he steps into the high crop area. I'm waiting for Percy's cue.

Now. All right. So what are the specifics of the entanglement spell? 20 feet of the rain on the pool. How do we keep him quiet if he does? It always works and it catches whoever you want. All right. So all of a sudden all the crops, all the large stalks and vines start

. Shit, mother bitch. Wrapping around his body. That's a bit. obvious. Is it obvious? It's not, it's, it's once he's inside the area, so it's not like the wall in the outside. I was picturing like all the plants suddenly. No, just the one's the immediate vicinity of the area. Like he used car a lot? Yeah.

Okay, so he's going to try to make a strength same thing. I've already were squat at the edge of the high crops and keep an eye on the other guard who was walking off and just make sure these other views. Okay, make a perception check. Beautiful. And with surprise, so it's disadvantaged in the same way there. What's the DC? Me? 19? 19? That's a failure. All right.

28. Yeah, Vax keeping an eye. The guard doesn't seem to have kept notice and continues walking off towards the distant farmhouse. The plants all wrap around his body and he, what's this? I run over and I tackle him. Knocked him to the ground, put my hand over his mouth, punch him in the forehead, punch him again. Punch him a third time. And I barely lift my hand.

You can punch him again. This point now is like blood just kind of pouring out of the corner of the eye. One eye's gone a little red from just bursted vessels. You can see it's starting to swell up already. Blood's now pouring out the side of the nose where you've hit it. And he's still kind of fighting, even though the plants have kept them entangled, and as soon as the calm kind of comes soon, Oh.

The eyes go wide and all the tension of the body just loosens. Fucking hell. It's the whole night's hostess. I'm gonna move my hand. If you make a sound, wash, rinse, repeat, yeah? What? They don't have hair, do they know what washments? God, no.

It's a lot of talk. Spits a couple of teeth out the side of his mouth. You're looking big. You're supposed to be dead. You're supposed to be fucking dead. I watched you beating the death. Why the fuck are you still alive? Yeah, right. Funny thing about me. So look, um, who else is out in this field with you right now? No one? It's me and Cole. The Call's heading back to the city. We have other ones sparse down around, but most of them stay in the town, especially during the day.

That's what the festivities are. Festivities? You won't back in? You're alive, man. How's the time? It's a good time for the hurt, huh? Yeah, no, I won't back in, for sure. That's what I've come here for, to come back in. But here's the thing.

It's a bit of a surprise, right? Not of people haven't seen me. You like a good surprise, right, Horace? Yeah, I thought you might. Here's my question. Have you seen my cousin, Zanroy? Is he in the city? Probably I. Right.

And what about, um... What about Caddac? Kevdak Stays in the city as well. Up with the old Margraves place, actually. Don't know his palace. When we take you? Before we go any further, what do I roll if... I want to find out a forest really does like surprises.

I'm not kidding. I'm not kidding inside check. All of you guys are still hidden, by the way, unless you want to do something like... No, I'm just watching. And we gave another plus 10, so now we have plus 20 to all of our stealth, by the way, from that hide-in-plain site. All right. Wait, what? We have passed without a traces at plus 10.

Hide in plain sight at plus 10. That's what I camouflage just fucking for. Yeah. So all you guys, all of you guys make another stealth check with plus 20. That's sick. This is increased. Natural 20.

So 40. Actually, and I have a stealth of a seven. 46. So. 43. 47. You guys have never been seen. Retroactively, no one's ever seen you

in your entire. I could fire my gun at this point, and they'd be like, Oh, rain's coming. Yeah. I would probably still break, if it was bad news, it'd probably still break. Well, if it was bad news, yeah.

Okay, unless you roll the one, you're pretty, yeah, no. Or is it hasn't seen anyone. Just sitting there, I'll take it in. So look, I was gonna pounce on this poor farm over here, but I saw that you were obviously keeping your eye on him. Why are you doing that? Which were you talking about?

about Reggie? Yeah, all broken foot over here. He's a little bitch that one is. No, yeah, no, you know what? I got a sniffing around. I think he's keeping some gold, hidden. Really, gold? Yeah.

This poor farmer. Twisted his arm a couple times. Have you? You know, I can do it so all the time's sake. He's taking arm, poor, until he tells us. Oh, like wishbone. Yeah, yeah, you know the deal, huh? Yeah, that does sound like a good idea.

Here's my thing. Is that a key? What are you guys in? city. I mean, it's not really our thing to, you know, be in civilized places. Here's the thing. Come on, let me get a little loose here for a minute. Feeling a bit, you know, uncomfortable. No, I don't think I will, Horace. Okay.

Yeah. We were, uh, you were heading up northward. We were, we just took out a smaller caravan just south of the roadcuts, you know, the silver cut way, and then all of a sudden out of the sky, we saw these streaking dragons come through. large as i've ever seen dangerous as days long so we fled we watched him come here and tear into the city randit destroy it just smoke and flames and ice and all sorts of craziness and they kept going you figured dragons has come didn't take the spoils there's plenty of spoils for us ay more than we could even dream of western's pretty well guarded but couldn't be much left over there so we gathered up who we had and mind you The herd swelled a bit since you left, my friend.

We, uh, well, uh, we conquered another wandering tribe. Last year, Zanroa took the head of their leader and commanded them to join. About a hundred strong these days. Jesus. Oh, fuck. They got all sorts of pecking order still us Goliaths at the top, eh? We get all sorts of other piddly men. Really?

Half men and our folks. A few brutalized elves here and there, they make cooking easy. Anyway, we took that moment and we rushed into the town. Took it before the day was over. Killed all who didn't bow before. Killed Dak himself. Days of revelry ensued, my friend. Oh, you missed out.

Wine, women, gold. We took what we wanted until one of them dragons came back. Black one. scary killed a lot of us weren't so much a hundred strong then but I'd say by the end of that we had about 50 or 60 to our

name before the anger finally stopped Kevdak Benson Lee made an offer into this dragon Kevdak did oh no but trust me you see a beast this size with survival

through a mutual discussion, if you will, promised our might to its worship, gathered our spoils, deliver it every now and then we got to have the leftovers who ruled the city in its stead. It's not a bad deal if you say. Doesn't watch, we'll leave in what we find.

Most of it at least, we keep a little on the side. And we live like kings here. Western is now property of the herd. Oh, it sounds. You've missed out. And quite a few openings now, since we've lost a few of the Lestered strong folk, you look strapping. I'm sure kept up me more than I've been, have you back, eh?

I do. I've actually brought a few gifts. Unsheaf, Cravenedge. I hold it up. It isn't it? Yeah, yeah. And I ask out loud, are you hungry? Spinpoly. I have a day since breakfast, I.

Why? His expression begins to shift as the realization against the darkness. I pull it back. I stick the point in between his rib cage. I drive it up, throw it. Oh! Before he can say a word, he tries to speak through the pain, but it's met with the gurgle as various bodily fluids

fill the inside of his lungs and throat. More. The blade now, you can see, peeks through. through the back of the mouth as his eyes just kind of go ever so dull, the rest of the blood flow pouring out the sides of his mouth. Pity that acid reflux. G-my, oh shit. Good job, man. Back-ish.

As this is happening, the blood that has filled the mouth begins to... Seat back into the mouth. I mean, the trails are still there, but what's once filled to the brim has been slowly recessed, swallowed. not by the unmoving body of Horace, but the dark blade itself, now drawing from the inside. What the fuck is that sword, Grog? What? What is your sword doing? What? It... nothing. Like, it takes in, like, the strength of who it slays, and it, you know...

It takes in the blood? I didn't do that. Grog. What? You killed him. Grog. Was he related to you in some way? I don't know.

I remember him. He was always a little shit. Grog, do you remember killing him like five seconds ago? Who? Oh, no, you guys. The little dude, your little friend. What? Yeah. Horace? You killed him?

Yeah. On purpose. Sure. You wanted to. Yeah, he was going to go tell about us. I mean. You were conscious of that? What?

Is it me? You're just using two big words. So listen, right? Either we stay and do some recon or we take out the other guy that's walking back to the city really shouldn't be a problem. But if they're all in there, 50 strong, I don't think we're caught ready for that.

The sneaky fox in our group could go take a look if you're feeling Randy. What would be our mission? Info only. You killed this one quite easily. Very easily. Yeah, but that was because we did it as a group. Did we wait?

Could we wait? Oh no. Could we wait until nightfall? I'm gonna just check out his body and see if there's any booty on his body. Well, as soon as we move, we won't exactly be camouflaged in this crop anymore. We'll lose that.

We want all their crops. As the stalks unlined, leaving his defiled body and you draw the blade free. Scanlan, you find across the body. There is a simple, slightly chip, but still functional great sword that was sheathed in the back, just kind of wrapped in a haphazard hide if that functions as a scabbard. Mostly just leather pants, a few furs. Looks to be a couple, like a bone neck. and a bone bracelet around the wrist, which looks to be teeth, human teeth. And about 27 gold pieces in total change. How far are we from the city here? Um, about a five-minute walk. A five-minute walk.

Kiela, can you use your powers to like suck him into the ground so that nobody sees him? I honestly don't think they're going to find him anyway. I use, you know, my abilities and try to camouflage the body. You pull them up into one of the walls of plant stocks and set them in there, mounting up whatever bits of fallen leaves and dirt you can. He's pretty well hidden. I kind of use my Druid craft to like grow some flowers on top of the dirt that we just hit him with. Some flower works come up there. Some of the local leaves from the stalks kind of bend down and help cover it. Nice.

A couple of his human teeth that he's collected, I'm sure. Oh, I'll leave all that's human teeth. I'm not going to take that shit. Okay, great, so very successful trip. Actually, yes. He's got this is still long gone. That guard? The other guard, yeah. The guard's got home.

Reggie is still sitting in there kind of like, watch this whole thing happen, looking at you and goes, You did good. You did good. Well, no, I did. Just imagine what we'll do to the rest of them. Thank you. Thank you.

Are we going to do anything to the rest of them? Do you? I think we're gonna go take a look. Are we gonna take a person here? I don't mind you taking a look, but be careful. Is that... Let's... We can also still turn into mist.

We can't hurt us when we're mist. We can all mist and go into the city and check it out. See what we see? Can we stealthy while we're misting? That doesn't matter if they see us, they can't. I know, but still. Yeah, I mean, it would be kind of being conscious of the cloud patterns in the sky, moving with the wind in a way where you become less noticeable as something strange.

Yeah. So it's possible. Let's try that so we can spy on the city. Get closer in. It feels kind of cheap. Why? No. At least if we go in, Grog, we can see what we're up against. Yeah, but can't we use our eyes? Just as they are. Do we have to turn a smoke this time? Why don't

Why would we not? It feels a little cowardly It's not cowardly, grog? It's safe You can stay behind You must go on foot, Vex Alia and I To do the same thing What if Vex and I just went

As missed just the two of us quickly, just the two of us Yeah, that's fine I may join you two for this as well All right, and what are the rest of us going to do? Just wait Me Scanlan and Grog? You can turn into a cloud and float in there and see what you want to see, but I'm not turning into mist when my herd is inside that city. If I go in, I'm going in.

As Grog. Yeah. So why don't we just not go in right now? Why don't you all go in? I'll stay back with Grog. Thank you. All right. Not crazy. Ish. All right, the four of you convert into mist form crest up over the edge of the

There you go. And start drifting your way over towards the top of Western leaving both Scanlon and Grog and Reginald amongst the crops. All right. Reginald, do you want some, ale? Do you have some? No, I do, yeah. Hold on. You look, famie. Hold on. Get to cask out. Can I pour him a cup.

He drinks thirstily, both because he seems genuinely thirsty, and second, it seems like he could use a long, hard drink. Well, piece yourself, son. There's a lot that's here. I've been drinking a log, and you've been alive, friend. And he just, oof, ooog. Another? Yeah. Yeah. All right. Keep on coming. All right. And for that, we'll take quick break. Returning from the break, as Grog and Scanlan sit waiting to hear back from the rest of the team, traversing over towards Western, seeking information in their missed forms. The two of you reign behind. Four of you guys who are in this form, where you go in there?

Can we stealthily head towards like a pocket of people? Do we see like a crowd of people being held? This is your missed form. This is my mis-motion. I like it. I like you always make stealth checks. Stealth check. Do we still have pass without trace? Yes. 39. 49. 42. Jesus.

33. 24. Okay. Huh? All right. You guys make your way across the rest of the field. You kind of head over Cole. You can see walking his way to the outside of the western side of the city.

You come towards the bottom of the gate and you can see that kind of rigid, kind of small fence structure you guys noticed when you were far away from the city becomes more clearly visible. comes more clearly visible. It is a series of spears and pikes that are set up as a barrier or a barricade to the outside world to Western. You do see a door on top of a number of them. You heads, varying sizes, various people, various ages. Does this appear to be Goliath built? It's hard to say. It looks built. And the spikes are facing inward toward the city or outwards? Okay. I think there are There are breaks in it, but essentially it's partially a pseudo-defense mechanism, but more as a warning. It's a point of intimidation.

Okay. So does it look pretty jerry-rigged? Yeah. Okay. It's not anything too classically designed. Sure. No flying buttresses. Yeah, not quite, no.

Doric columns, oh my God. Awful. Look these arches. You coast over the outside wall and plants down within, and you can see there are people wandering to town. Townsfolk that are out in the streets. Many of them are in pairs or groups small, you know, two to four people. They either appear to be traveling from one place to another. Most of them are accompanied by one or two armed individuals. Some of the people have chains around their neck. You do see a number of the people.

these buildings are in ruins and patchwork places. Some are just crushed. Some appear to have been just melted down, like the wood or stonework itself has been dissolved into a pile of matter. You do see places where fires have broken out, and some places have burned into a giant cluster of ash and broken wood. A quick memory glance at this height, start looking for specific areas that you recall from memory. One, you glance over and see where you first came to meet Pike, where she and Wilhand lived. That area is the area of town that was apparently salvaged from the battle. It still stands. There appears to be very minimal impact, and as you just give yourself enough closeness to check in, the red brick homestead of Wilhand does still appear

to be. Can we see Wilhand anywhere? At this distance. No. You also note towards the shopping district of Western, there is the shop Abderas Noia, one of your first enchanter friends who protected you during your first Winter's Crest. Yeah. He kept the production smell on us. This is making me feel very old.

I know. His structure is still standing as well. A few buildings around did not fare so well, but him, his shop and a number of other ones, adjacent to it seemed to still be standing. You can't really tell if they're functional or obviously they are, if anyone's doing anything with them, but that is still there. You do notice, though, numerous parts of the street, there are just piles and piles of burnt wood and ash. There are just large burn piles that were set up at different periods of time, and have long since burned with little bits of whites, post-burning plumes that still kind of smolder over

the past few days. You're not quite sure what these piles contained at the time they were set of blaze. There is still the Worship District here. You have the various temples. For best you can glance, a few of them have been partially toppled. There is damage to some of the buildings. Still too far away to make any specific details beyond that than just some of the structures having been taken a hit in the previous conflicts. You're not sure from which source. What about the mayor's house where we heard? Margrave? Yeah. Towards the southern central part of Westruan, south of the main town square,

where the bulk of your first winter press festival here in Western took place, the Margrave's house is at the very southmost portion of that. That entire square is lined with row after row of of sharpened wood sticks and various other weapons, tridents, broken swords that have been just with rope strapped together to form this kind of military barricade. If anything were to attempt to attack from the ground, it would be difficult to do so if this area was filled with prepared soldiers using these as protective guard. The actual Margrave's home is intact, although at this glance, you can see a lot of it has been defiled. Elements of the outside walls are strewn

with dark burgundy paint, it looks like, just kind of slapped over. You can see what looks to be some sort of strings adorning edges of it, like decoration. You see walking through this area what looks to be about 12 or 13 or so armed individuals of varying heights, pretty, you see walking through this area. varying heights, probably a good six or seven Goliaths, among them others appear to be human half fork. It's hard to make out the full details from this distance, but they're all kind of on the outskirts surrounding what was previously the Margraves home, now currently the homestead of Kevdak, seemingly. Can we see Kevdak anywhere? You have no idea what Kevdak looks like. I look for a bigger Goliath than the rest or one that

looks older and bigger. Make a perception check. Uh, 16. 16. At this distance, It's hard to make on any specific details. You can barely make out the fact that they're Goliath, and it's only because you travel of Grog so long. You can pick up the details like the hairless form, the tattoos, the general tone of skin. And they're male and female.

It's a smattering of all different types of Goliaths you see here of different thickness. There are some that are a little more barrel-chested and wide, but a little shorter. And there are other similarly dressed individuals that are not Goliaths as well, but they seem to be more of a subservient role within the herd and the Goliaths that are kind of be the ruling class

within this very self-contained society. But no one stands out to you is matching the descriptions of Kevdak that Brock has. The mansion seems to be where they've based their operations, though. Seemingly. And we don't see a cluster of prisoners anywhere out in the open?

Where's the prison I was being held in? The prison you're being held in was in the Umbra Hills. That was actually as far north of western. That was when we fought the nightmare. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

We're in a way back machine today. Do you see a what? A cluster of prisoners out in the open at all, or is it just kind of out around? It's hard to tell because most everyone who lives here is in some way you're perform a prisoner. You do see that at the various gates to the city as you went through. There's about three, four individuals average stationed there. Nobody seems to be entering or exiting.

And the pace of those that are not. that are not of the herd that you see walking through the city, has a feel of hopelessness, or at least their presence outdoors is more of function. They do what they're told, and if they're not, you've already seen what happens to them. Now what? Maybe stealth isn't, maybe Grog's right. Can't talk, can we? No, we're fucking clouds.

Can we, like, say go back to the... Yeah, I'm gesturing the... I'm gesturing the go get out. Yeah, let's go back. Okay. Make a stealth check guys on the way out. 93. Scandland and I don't know.

39. 32. 44. 26. Okay. All right. You guys make your way westward. Is there anything you guys wanted to accomplish while they were gone? Just massage each other. Right. So I turned to Scanlan. Oh. And I say like, you and I are mates, right?

Yes, the best of mates. Right. Could I confide something in you? I wasn't aware that you knew what that word meant. I'm full of surprises. One of which is, so I had this horrible dream, basically, and in the dream, I was killing all these people with this amazing sword that I have.

Yes. But there were a lot of people. And some of the people that got killed, I knew. And I feel it has something to do with this sword that I have. And the, um, the secret is, I can hear the sword talking to me? Like, talking, talking, or you just... Yeah, look, so I'm telling you, because you and I have such a history, right? And I feel like you won't judge me, but, like, I'm afraid the rest of the group won't quite understand.

I don't know if I'm crazy or if this sword is talking to me. Do you see a mouth on it or any? No, I just hear a voice. I was wondering if maybe I take it out. All the time? No, only when I'm holding it. So I could take it out now and see if you hear it. Okay.

So I take Craven Edge. Okay, take Craven Edge. You hold it out in front of you. Gravenedge. How did you enjoy your snack? It was a good snack, and the snack it was. If there's more where that came from, I would be so thankful. Are you getting that?

No, Grog, I'm not. You're not hearing anything. No, like, super sexy, the brat voice, nothing. Try one more time. No, it's not more fit. Look, do you want to hold the sword? Sure, that's a good idea, actually. Can I hold the sword?

How big is it? It's a great sword. It's about... About the size of the handle. Almost twice the length of your whole body. And probably way as close to as much as you do. Can you hold the top part and I'll just hold it by the... Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I grab the blade and I hand the hilt.

Okay, as you hand the hilt over towards him, there's hesitation. The voice is, only you're worthy of holding me. You will hand me to no one. See, now, now, Craven. I'm starting to feel like I'm doubting myself. I'm seeing things and he's talking to me. I just, I'm going to take it right back. I just want him to experience your glory. Make a charisma check. Shit, fuck. Oh my God. That's bad.

No. No. Uh, seven. Seven. Okay. You can't give this sort. It means too much, and the voice in your head one sentence says, Only those proven worthy to feed me can carry me. You grog, hand me the sword. No, you know, second thought. Don't worry about it.

It's clearly, and I'll take it back. You know, it's not, it's just, maybe I'll just need to like see someone or talk to somebody. Clearly, I mean, you don't, you don't hear it, right? I don't hear it, but maybe if you handed it to me, I could. No, it's really heavy too, you know, and I'm just, and I'll achieve it. Do I believe him? Make an inside check.

Not good. Make a deception check. Not good. Fuck. Seven. Three. Grog's not the most able liar, usually, and you're pretty good at seeing past the deceit of others. This definitely falls into the line of deceit, as adorable as it is to see him try.

Grog, you want to give me the sword, and I will cast suggestion on him. Oh, oh. Okay, make up wisdom. Is it a wisdom saving throw? I haven't used it in a while, and I don't have my sword. I'll pull up a fast long a second. Make sure. I'm pretty sure it is. I think it is.

Oh, oh, no. That's not that, yeah. Yep, make a wisdom saving throw. Giant modifier on this one. 16, with a modifier on zero. 18 if I'm not using my thing. Not using the cons and not it still fails. So you feel compelled now to give the sword.

You're like, oh, that's a great idea. You know what? It's a great idea. I feel like you should hold this old, and I hold onto the blade, but I still had the hilt. to him. Okay. As he hauls up the sword towards you, you grasp the handle. As the hand touches it, the voice goes, no, only you can wield me. Go ahead and make a wisdom saving throw again.

18. Actually, no, sorry. That's a charisma saving throw. It's a time. 19. 19. Yeah, plus one. All right. You feel the influence. of the blade began to creep into your mind,

but the bond you have with Scanlan and the time you travel together, you manage to shrug it off, and fighting that impulse, you still hand the blade over. You take the handle. I take it. You let go with weapon, and you hold it in your hand now. It's a...

Into the dirt. You ruin everything good. You take everything good away from all of us. Well, it's heavy. Throw it in the acid, Why don't? Ask you a question. Oh, I talk to it? Yeah. And it'll talk right back. It's like that.

Uh, oi Cravenedge. Uh, Uh, have you been talking to my friend Grog? There's a long beat of silence, and then a barely audible. Sing to it. It says, all of a sudden you hear this tiny voice creep up in the back of your head to prove to me. Is it saying something?

No, it's not saying anything? Cravenedge. How do I prove I'm worthy? What? The blade all of a sudden, it almost seems to have a slight shift of its own, like a divining rod. It kind of moves, and the blade shifts away from the direction of you in grog and gently shifts over down the way to a... an older gentleman who's now returned to picking a few crops and just kind of points in his direction. Is it Reggie? Yeah, pointing to Rex.

No! No! Not Reggie! Why are you pointing it, Reggie? Uh, I don't think I can. I don't think I want to, so... I think I'll try to give the sword back to Grog. Make a charisma check.

Is this magic? It is, it's not a spell. Let me double check if you're referring to the the gnomish racial capability. Let me go back to the holes here. This can make a difference here. Well, it's fine. Against magic?

I'll say yes, because it is technically a magical entity. Natural 20. Witchcraft. The sheer force of personality that begins to exude from this weapon. You sense that it is old, it has seen many a hand, and has probably taken far many more life. But it's not met a gnome like you

before Scanlan's short halt. Never known a gnome like you before. Take this back, will you? Yeah, I'll take it back. Did it talk to you then, yeah? Yes, it did. Right, it's creepy as shit. It's very compelling.

I don't know if you should have this girl. Well, no, hold on. Now, look, I just wanted to make sure that I wouldn't fucking, you know, bash it crazy, which I'm not. And I'm really glad that we're sharing in this now. But look, hey, hey, don't tell anyone. Promise me. All right.

I won't tell anyone. But I might have to ask some questions about this. No, that's what I brought you in. You're all smart, right? And I always want to ask questions like, what's the first thing it remembers? What was it doing with Lord Briarwood? Does it tell you to kill things?

No. What? I know it does. It just told me to kill something. You must be a dark wizard. Does it tell you to kill things? No. No, it just says it's hungry.

At which point, you both hear a voice. Someone needs to go, always hungry. You heard it that time? I heard it that time. feel like Kevin Kastner, fielded dreams, and you're James Hill Jones. I don't know what that is. I've got a friend in this now. Right, so look like, you know, we could...

We should not tell the others about this. No. This is very strange. Yeah. They might freak out. Right. I'm going to ask about this. When next we see Pike, I'll ask her about it.

Yeah. Find out if it's good or bad or neutral. Because I don't know anything about this. Right? I don't know anything about this. making an iconic check. It could be good, there's nothing wrong being hungry. 12. It seems magical.

Yeah, I don't know. I don't know anything about this, so. As a bard, you understand that there are certain artifacts, weapons that either were, when upon their creation, upon their development, had the essence of a creature or a soul put into it, or conversely, the weapon came into being as a being as its own personality. You're not sure the nature of this,

and you're unable to ascertain which side of the spectrum it lies on as far as morality goes. I'll do some investigating. In the meantime, try not to kill anyone in our party. If it tells you to? I would never. Never. Oh, yeah, it does never even like.

Let's just keep this between us. Yeah, yeah. Toots. In the boat. in Amon when we double T. The Iful Tower. Yep. It was a...

Oh, that went at my nose. Oh. At which point, a few clusters of mist come landing out of the sky. What, green lights? That's us. You guys, you're the mist. Oh, it's just me.

You all be going to take physical form. Damn. Oh, what, duh. Nothing happened here. How is your trap? Yeah, boring, here. Totally boring. Yep.

No action. You know, not a lot to see there. There's a lot of Goliath and a lot of other bad guys walking around, oppressing, very nice looking people. A lot of Goliaths. They've made really pokey fences everywhere. That's what I would do. It looks like if you barged in, straight in,

they'd probably have very good fortifications. Right. I also think they're trying to be scary. Trying to be scary. Not that you're not scary all the time, Grog. I just think they're, you know, they're like, ooh. They really want to look scary. They really want to look tough.

Yeah. So here's the thing. Do we barge in, totally risk our life, or try to find a way, you know, around this situation? So I'm sorry, there's a central stronghold of some sort? Yes. Is it a fortress? No, it's where the mayor lived before.

It's a house. Yeah. It's a nice house. It's a nice house. And if we were to make our way into it somehow, what would our mission be? Well, let's just put on the table what we're doing here, right? Yes, Zapp has the knuckles. We don't know where he is.

He's probably pretty formidable on his own. And in a day or two, a dragon is going to be swinging by. So it's not one problem. It's a very large problem and a massive problem. Agreed. What if? I wonder if Kevda Jack goes to the sacrificial area where they leave the hoard for the dragon.

Or maybe if he does rounds. Why would he? If he does rounds to check in on people? And I'll also say I think it's more than likely that in the end I doubt the dragons would care who is filling the sacrificial plate as long as someone is. I agree. I think we could get rid of all of them as long as the plates fall. As far as this city goes, correct me if I'm wrong, but we have two options. Either we stealth in with the stealthy people, not be included. And we try and pick pocket Kevdak for the Knuckles, or I challenge Kevdak for the Knuckles.

Is Kevdak known to everyone drop by himself? Does he take interests in his subjects to where we could corner him alone? Or is it a walk-in and kind of try to talk? We could take out one of that guard, what was his name, Cole or something? Was that... Yeah, Cole was heading back to the city, though. We could, well, we could find one of your Goliath friends, hold them hostage and draw out Cavadac that one. They won't care about a hostage. There's also going to be the issue of, are they going to go looking for Horace?

Maybe. Maybe not. Not that hard, though. We could do some sort of a diversion, set of fire or something that would draw them out, or set of fire. draw them out or set a fire to the house they live in to draw them out. It's not a bad idea. What would bring Khabdak out? Grog. Grog, would bring Kavdak out. Grog? Do you want to just march in there solo while we all sort of stealth around?

No! No, no, no. While we all sort of stealth around in the rooftops watching. Link? Ready to act. Oh. And Grog, I'm curious how tied you feel to the ways of your people now, or if you do. Do you feel the need yourself to face him on your own? Would you be amenable, would you be friendly to the idea of my sister and I softening him up for a moment and then letting you have at it? What do you want to do here?

So my fear is this, that if it's anyone but me and him, everyone gets involved. Not just us, but all 60 of them in that stronghold. I don't think we walk out of that very well. I'm not opposed to facing him head on and seeing what fate has in store for me while you free any prisoners that might be around or ransacking his house for any fun bits, but I think he's gonna have

the knuckles on him. So, question, is your herd and Kevdak, the type where if you start getting the upper hand in this fight, will the herd move to protect Kepdak? No. So they'll honor a one-on-one fight. They'll honor that. They won't pull a fast one and swarm in

when he's on his last leg. Tell us this, if we walk in with you into town, is that not good? Should you walk into town alone and we lurk in the shadows? Do you want to be on a hilltop? You know, like standing on a hilltop? Because we could arrange that. I would need to think about it.

Godless, I think now was not the time. Perhaps we go look for our Cesar's mate. You don't want to do this now. It seems like now or never. Well, we know where Kevdak is. He doesn't seem to be going anywhere. We may not know where he is after this. He seems pretty fortified.

And we don't have Pike. And this is her hometown. Judging by the, no, I didn't hear anything. Nothing. I want to throw something in here as well. and I don't know what to do in this situation. I'm looking to you all for guidance, but what I do know, I know two things.

One, is that I don't want you to fall, Brog. We need you, and I do not want you to fall to Kevdak. And second, if you do fall, I'm not willing to walk away without those knuckles, not for me to use, but for us to use. We need those knuckles. So if you are to fall at his hand, which I do not want, I don't know that I can honorably walk away. Well, yeah.

Speaking from a selfish position, if I fall, you can really do whatever to fuck you want. I think honor is a bupkis at that point, so I don't mind what you do after that. You're not going to fall, Grog. No, no, no. My first point thing, Grog, I mean, you, we all do. It's very sweet.

Emotion. Uh... I would like... if Pike was here. We know. All right. We wait. But... Look, could we hear Horace when he was interrogating him? Yep. Judging him of the way Horace was speaking, it sounds like they're pretty settled in for right now. Like they're not...

They're not nomadic anymore. Sitting pretty. Yeah. They ain't going anywhere. Bless you. Thank you. So we know where he is. We know where he is now. It'll give us a few more,

a little bit more time to formulate our plan. This is your fight, Grog. We're, we'll, we'll follow you in this one. You want to go in there with Pike? Yeah. Let's wait for Pike. We'll wait for Pike. We'll wait until Gilmore's up and standing

and we bring Pike here with us. Pike might even be an emotional trigger. But what? The herd, if they see her, maybe. They never met her. That's true. I probably don't give any shits. Look, let's just do this. Let's go after Assisi's mate. If we don't learn or find anything incredibly valuable, we're at the same place we are now. That's a good point. All right.

And then we can kick the tires. We still have missed possibilities? We do. We can float on. Is Reginald still around? At this point, as Reginald is sitting there clutching his full satchel, just going like, Hi, Reggie. Hi. So, we're gonna help you.

Right? We're gonna go get some reinforcements. You might have to wait a little while. That's okay, but you're coming back, right? You most definitely are. You must. Spread the word that hope is alive. We will find a way to beat this. I'll be careful. You'd be careful too.

Come back as soon as you think you can and you're ready. Don't tell anyone what you saw here, though, right? Look. And if anyone asks where Horace is, what happened to Horace? I haven't seen him for days. It's good answer. Good job. Spits on the pile where his corpses.

All right, hope we see you soon then. You will. Interns around him against walking back. Reginald. You guys all take a moment, collect yourselves, revert back to your mist form, coast out of the of the farmland heading southward in the direction of the frost weld. We're there?

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The world of Sonic the Hedgehog has been thrust into a not-so-dark, not-so-stormy, hard-boiled detective story that probably nobody saw coming. Follow Sonic and the Intrepid Chaotic's Detective Agency as they take on their biggest chaos. Yet, this high-flying action-packed adventure will take them across the world, fighting for every quill they can fight. It's one heck of a tale, which is good, because this story might be the only thing that can save their lives. Well, if that's all, I can just dispose of you. Wait, what?

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