Critical Role & Sagas of Sundry - Vox Machina Ep. 57 - Duskmeadow

Episode Date: January 10, 2022

The battle weary group return to Vasselheim, as Vax brings himself face to face with the Raven Queen.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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incursion of the herd of storms in the city of Western. You met with the remaining people of the town and began to decide a plan for its continued existence and the recovery of those that were displaced in these recent conflicts. Part of this process was meeting an individual named Carrick, who was a blacksmith. who'd been in the town for a while, who unwittingly became part of this discussion. My best brand. You, Grog had spoken with the remnants of the herd of storms that had essentially been disbanding from the name and moving west to join with the Rivermaw, which had stepped off from the herd not too long ago. You guys had a hot springs episode in the mansion.

Not any? Scanlan, you had made your way back to Kymal, in which you, along with the aid of a few of your friends, figured out a plan in which the people who had been displaced could eventually return to Western and also found Kaylee and spoke with her. Had your somewhat tearful reunion there. You guys began to construct a subterranean portion of Western that would be protected from future dragon incursion, renovating and restructuring within the sewer system beneath the city. After this process was complete, you decided the next level of your trek, the next direction

you would travel, would be towards the far western, northwestern continent of Athenzia, specifically the city of Vasselheim that you know all so well. All of you guys stepping through a tree portal presented by Kieleth, you immediately step out into the snowy exterior. what seems like the outside of the Quad Roads in Vasselheim. And now we see what your next plan of action is. What do you guys want to do? Light of fire. What time is it? Yeah, what time is it?

It's hard to tell right now with the cloud cover so thick in the sky. But you envision at this point in time, it's probably mid-afternoon or so. It's just the general omniscient glow through the clouds. Kind of diffused light. But based on the time that you, where you were and how far you traveled, you gather it's probably early to mid-afternoon. Well, you're the one who brought us here, Vax. Where would you like to go? I need to go to the temple of the Raven King. We'll come with you. Let's go. I know where that is. I know that you all have a lot of errands to do. I don't need everyone to come. I have a lot of errands to do?

I thought so. My only errand is to keep my eyes on you. I have some errands. If that makes anybody feel better. I have some errands. Do you need any help with your errands? Sure. Actually, yes. I would love some help with my friends. Don't let him shop, Percy. Do not let him shop. That shouldn't be a problem.

I don't know what that means, but I'm sure I'd take great offense. That's, you're getting smarter. That eagle form really made it a real off of him, yeah. So, who's off to where? Where is this Raven Queen's Temple? We've not been here many times. Are we surrounded by people? Are the people walking about?

There are actually, it is quite a busy time of the afternoon. There is actually a bit of Hussim. Looking around just the quick glance at your vicinity in Vasselheim, you can see a lot of the bastions are out in force. Many of them are in the process of helping construct what looks like reinforced dragon-headed ballista. Some of the ones that you had seen towards the outside walls of the city, there are more being installed upon the inner walls,

and the ones in the distance appear to be under some form of construction. We have rooms, why don't we go claim our rooms, and I'm sure that they can lead us to everywhere we need to go. We can go check in at the Slayer's Take. And we can meet back there when everything is done. All right. Do you need to check in at all temple? Or should we pretend you're not here so they don't try to make you stay? Let's just pretend for a little bit.

Yeah. Okay. And then I'll check in later. Okay. There's no rush to go there. At least that I know of right now. God will wait for a long time. All right, to the Slayer's Take Day.

Let's do it. To the Slayers Take. All right, you guys continue further south into the Quad Roads until eventually find yourself to the Slayers Take Guild Hall. The door is partially a draw already. It appears that somebody had left it open, but it is warm on the inside. You can see a fireplace hearth on the far back

into the right is already kind of filling the area with this subtle, musty smoke smell and the crackling of wood in the distance is a very well welcoming sensation from the occult exterior of the city streets. As you enter, you do not see anybody at the front desk at the moment, but you do see a few other random individuals of the guild that are taking a certain table, and some are just eating, somewhere in the process of playing cards or passing the time. It seems to be a little casual day here at the Slayers take, but your rooms are still available best as you need.

Awesome. What would you, anything you specifically require in this place? Can I just grab one of the people that are here and ask him. What's all the hustle about outside? I see them installing more. Okay, you go ahead and one guy's closest to you. You've met him briefly in passing. He's a completely bald head with a single stripe tattoo down the center. He has a very, very pointed long chin, human, but definitely he's probably been busted

in the face a few times. You can see there's just scars and what a appears to be bone structure that may have been reformed at times due to blunt trauma. But he's just sitting there sharpening his weapons, just kind of doing good upon his own self, being prepared for anything. But as you come over and ask him the question, he looks up to you and goes, oh yeah, well, words gone around the town recently that there's some wandering dragon horde tearing through a Tal'Dore, so they're just up in security around these places just in case. Smart.

I hope so. I hope to make their way here. Nobody's sighted the dragons though over here. Not to my knowledge, but I love to get my hand on some of them scales, eh? What's your name? What's your name? Oran. What?

What? Oral? What? Loran. Loran. Loran. Because that's what I remember. Thoughts that.

It's, um, what? Took over 50 episodes of that to happen. We broke. I'm sorry, what was the question? When you don't take notes when I give you a character's name originally. Come back around, then it's weird when you suddenly take damage

and your character says hemorrhaging. Oh, no. Lauren, Lauren, what's his name? I was just eating an apple. Why am I dying? I'm just sitting by the fire, so. Slayers take. So this is, we have seen this guy before.

Some of you may have seen him passing. You haven't really had a conversation with me. He just exists within the guild. There's many members that you've come across in the back. Probably a dragon. Pointy chin, got it. It's right on his head. Doesn't wrong with others.

How are the people doing? Is there a sense of worry or you guys feel pretty secure? And as far as his town's concern, it takes a lot more than a couple of couple dragons to drop these wolves. The reason's been around for a long time, and I like to see him dry. Have you ever encountered a dragon personally, Loran?

I mean, I'm across a few small elk in my days. Sure, yeah, yep. Are you hazing Lauren? No, no. Freshman. He is proud of us out, because we've just killed our third, actually. Oh, that's fantastic. I love to hear it.

You half elves are a humble bunch. Fire! Fire! Fire! Yeah, team have them! Yeah! Such a good problem. I don't want to ask Matt this,

but the chick that runs the Slayer's take, her name is Vanessa. Vanessa. And her husband, Merkin. Are Vanessa and Merkin around? Merton. Merton. Merton.

Merton is a different thing. Yeah, a very different thing. I guess it depends on how if he chased recently. Really? Looks at one of the back, the back room or her main office, he goes, you're welcome to go ahead and knocking the door if you're feeling frisky.

Sure. Should we try to sell Vanessa some of our dragon bits? So like a merchant. Well, Vanessa, they tend to be in the... They may have a buyer. Yeah. I love that you ask me that question. I know, right?

What was I thinking? I don't know. Keep a few of the scales off. You can tell the fireplace But Grog, come with me. The cold bag. Keep, keep enough teeth for us. We'll talk about the cold bag for now and see if there's anything else that want to talk about.

I have an idea for teeth. Can I go find Vanessa? Mm-hmm. So go and knock on the door. There's a brief pause. Knock again. Vanessa! The door swings open and you have to like duck backwards.

Slams onto the other side of the wall there, kind of knocking a few knick-knacks that were nearby shelf over, and very Vanessa swings out. What, who is calling? Hi. Ah, it has been some time. How nice if you're to come in visit? May I be of service to you, or is this? Oh, well, we were wondering if we could be of service to you.

We happened to have acquired a great many dragon bits, and we thought you might be in need of buying them for your sellers, buyers, your people. Fencing them. Fence, you know. I really thought you'd be better at this. There is no fencing. No fencing, no, no, no, no.

Irani, a legitimate business. Legal bias. Good, I'm hoping to hear this. Let me check my leisure. She turns around, goes back to her desk. Her tail kind of flicks behind her as she steps over to her table leans over. That I spend it. Pulled from the books.

Just slumming through it. It's better a team for these. What color dragon? Black. Very... Chromatic. Ancient black dragon. Weathered.

You might have heard about him. on Bracill. Super salty. Yeah. Gaining confidence. Getting confidence. Two notches. There is currently no contract for a black dragon.

I do have one up for a bronze or perhaps a white, but... Right. Do we have any white bits left? Yeah. Do you have white from back on the day? Do you want like scales or... Specifically hide, if there is white dragon hide. Oh, didn't we...

That was the dragon we killed for you before. killed for you before, because we didn't bring... No, it was before that one. Before that one. No, but we killed one with Zorro. We killed the white dragon. That was for a different contract. This is for a newer one that came by.

We've killed four dragons. Four fucking dragons. Go us. Yes, we have. Yes. Four dragons, yeah. Yes, it is amazing the things you've accomplished. I am blown away by the might of your capabilities.

I do not require anything black. Dragon. However, if a contract comes in, I know how to call. Hold on to that, because that would save you a trip. All right. All right. We do have some white scales, left over. Yes, I think so. Yeah, we have like 60 pounds of scales. This hide or scales? There's scales, not hide, unfortunately. Hmm.

Well, I can definitely do a bit of business for you there. The hide would fetch more, but 60 pounds, you say? Yeah, 64 to be exact. Of white dragon scales. Of white dragon scales. Okay. I would be willing to continue the least part of this contract for this applicant for let's say 4,500 gold pieces. 5,000 gold pieces. I think is a fair price. This is not about bartering. This is what the contract says, my dear. This is beyond a situation of

conversation. The paperwork is already signed. What if we gave you less dragon scales? Would you have said less money? That's typically how it works. Big sorry. My dear. My delightful little dragon hating half of... We've been good to you. We've done many great things for you.

You've done great things for us. This is a fantastic arrangement. Same as the book shut, sets it down. But you have signed on with us, and the deal is to fulfill contracts as they are signed, as they are written, as they are agreed upon by the person. If you wish not to accept this,

contract. We can just wait until some of the outpics that goes out and fulfills this deed at the price of which they're requesting for this. You're welcome to keep the scales. I think we'll keep them and we'll sell them to other funders then. Haven't we had them for like years? I have a thing I'm thinking about that. See then it's easy for you to get rid of that. If they've been a problem for you

they're sure this would be. We're going to sell these. The world is on fire. Hang on. We know it's here. We know it's here. There aren't that many white dragons walking around. Certainly not anymore. Certainly not anymore. We know it's here. Why don't we sleep on it? Think about it. If we're ever in a pinch for money, we can come back. Sounds good. Yes, he is so kind. I'm so sorry.

That is all right. Goodbye. And she's like, she shoes you out. Vanessa, Vanessa, wait, wait, wait, wait. Yes, other female half of? That's me. Where's the temple of the Raven Queen? You are looking for the dusk metal. Raven's crest. It is, and she points loosely outward kind of south east of the direction of the Slayers' Teggild Hall. It's kind of hard to miss. It's giant black omnis.

You'll see it. She kind of bops your nose a little bit with her finger. Now please, out of my office, I've worth to get done. Thank you. Thank you. Court strength to you. That is nothing for me. Stams the door shot.

A lot more than what she was offering, just for the record. They're worth so much more. To whom we haven't ever sold them or come across anyone who, wanted them before. This is no reason to get rid of something for wholesale. It doesn't mean we should just give them away. We also are almost full in our bag of holding, might I remind you. And 64 pounds would free up quite some.

It's 64 pounds. It's 64 pounds. Oh, it was 64. I just told you. Well, they're worth like 20,000 gold. To whom? We also have 15 cases of expensive ass bottles of wine. I'm just going to point out since...

We should just drink those. We should drink those, first of all, is the only thing that makes sense. And I feel, and I apologize if it seems like I say this a lot. But I do have a castle that we can drop things at, and we can leave them there, and then perhaps get back to them at a later day. To be fair, Percy, you do a lot to remind us to try and forget that you're titled. To be fair, have we ever gone back for something before, ever?

before ever in our entire travels. We can't. We needn't stay here long. I don't think what I'm here for is going to take too long, I hope. We could go to White Stone next. Yes, and just drop everything off. Create a little nest of what we need. Let's go find your queen.

There's some gross and shit. You found the troll dead in you. There are six basilis kegs. Oh, I bet those have gone really bad. I can reach in the bag of holding and think about a lot of basilisk egg. You'll show out a basilisk egg. Do they just turn a stone?

Roughly that side, it's kind of like a dull, grayish-blue hint. Can I get this? Sulfuric. This is somewhat very, very vague sulfur is sent on the outside of the egg. I'll put it back in the bag. We could make stink bombs with it. Ooh.

Yeah, we could. That's the idea. I like that. So what's next? We go see the Raven Queen. You go see the Raven Queen. and we wait outside. I didn't say anything.

Uselessly. I didn't say anything. Is it in the direction of where I have to go? Where are you hidden? I need to resupply everything. That's the opposite direction. Okay. You're heading to the braving grounds. They're heading to the dusk meadow.

Oh, a lot of sound of that. I'll go with you. Yes, you will. I'll come with you as well. Yeah, three. Who else? Any other takers while Vax go gets a tattoo? Another tattoo? Another tattoo?

Well, I thought you was, is that not what you're doing? That's what he's doing, Grog. It is, I'm getting a tattoo. Or is it like, Philip Brave, across the small of my back. Philip. Philip, called the name. Philip. Just, this is, this is out of, I don't know if this is going to be any help or anything, by the way, Bax.

But just in case, I'm going to reach in and pull out the mask and had it to you to Vax. Just in case. Um, uh, thank you. Percy? Yes. Do you start that? That Raven's skull I gave you? I do.

We'll talk about that. All right. But that, I found that in moments when I was feeling less than brave, that pretending to be somebody else on occasion, even afterwards, can be helpful. Is there anything left inside of this? Just some spit. And something that smells nice in the front that will help. It helps cleanse the air.

All right, Percival. I don't know why I'm feeling, I'm feeling, uh, what would be the word superstitious? Oh, I was gonna say giving. Geez, Henri, sorry. Sorry. I kind of like it. You know. Angry. Not to chat, let's, uh, let's, let's get this shit done.

All right. So you three are going to the Raven grounds, you four are going to the Desk Meadow. Yeah. All right, so, you three, making your way towards the braving grounds. Following suit after Percival, you make your way up not quite the trial forge, which is where you had your last discussion and brief showdown with Earthbreaker Grun. Still seeing the large statue of cord looming over the entirety of the realm. You can still see the large columns of dark smoking suit coming out of the various forges, the various mining encampments and a lot of the folks there that are working on different pieces of iron and metal. You, I assume, make your way to a very familiar abode. Of all the options of the world that you've given me. Well, all right. You, uh...

This is really your fault as much as it's mine. You, uh... You come up to the outside of a familiar hovel. previously damaged, missing part of its roof. The roof is mostly repaired. You actually see two individuals are over the top of it, hammering pieces of wood into it. Not a very fine job,

but definitely enough patchwork to keep the rain and snow from pouring in. The door is partially open as you approach. You might be blown up if you go in there. I know. We wait outside. Let's just all just be. Ginger. Hello? Victor, are you home? It's Percy. Silence. Want me to go in and investigate? Hold on. Hello, you up there? Hello?

What? Where is the owner of this domicile? I don't know. I haven't seen him. How long's he been gone for? Couple hours? Oh, he's not dead, but he's dead. He's dead. Do you have any idea where he's been off to? I've seen him leave. Well, I'm going to pop in and check really quickly, just letting you know.

Your funeral. I gingerly open the door. Can I check for traps? You may make an investigation check. We're standing right here. Oh, yay, that's not that bad. Investigation. I've never used that for now. 11. Oh, 12, 12.

12, okay. You put the door open and kind of search the ground and the area before it and the actual frame of the door itself. No traps. All right. Glancing inside, though, you can see a little bit of light. Looks like there's a hooded lantern across the way, and just a little bit of light, it's flickering in. It's kind of going against the wall nearest to you,

to your right, as you enter. The same familiar smell of fresh earth, kind of really, really, really dry, dust, and a very familiar smell of explosive black powder material. Oh dear. Is Victor in there? No, I don't see anybody in here. Well, should we just purchase what you need,

the honor system and leave some coin behind? He's not necessarily always a believer in coin. Sometimes he just wants some trade. Also, I need to talk to him about some personal issues. You see, after the side, what you didn't initially notice as you entered, but appears to be a wooden kind of trap door in the far corner that, oh, sweet gods, a fellow! And you notice that apparently something,

a large sack of some heavy material has rolled off in nearby table, and is now currently holding the door down. Okay. You're gonna- go try and lift it. Okay. You lift it up. I'm set it off for the time.

Woo-bush. What's coming on? He's... You try to kill me? No. No, hello. I was just trying to give you money. You were stuck, you had gotten stuck down.

What is down there? This is my mind. I'm building. You're mine? He's Mayan building. Can you know understand simple English? Don't put things on top of the door. It makes it hard to get out. Are you all right? I'm okay. Are you sure?

No, I've been knocked down here for hours. Um, grog, Scandlin, um, come on in. He's, he's... Help me out! He raises his hands up, you can see now where once was two, now is none. Oh, no. Oh, no. You have to build him a hand. I know.

Can you lift him off? Can you lift the poor? Oh, well, right, yeah. I grab the stoke, but I'll pick him through up in there. I shake him a little bit. I need him mostly in Texas. Oh, so like on the ground? Treat him slightly better.

Treat him slightly better than you would treat a member of your own tongue. Don't shake me too hard. More than slightly better. Much better. Oh, no. Don't shake him too hard. I'm not there. Gas. Sure. I'll put him doing better. Thank you. And he pats you on the head of this nub. Goes over and he's kind of bandaged. He goes over and then pulls the ladder up that he didn't use.

Closes the... The ladder he didn't know. What do you want? Well, I was helping to... to buy a little bit more black powder from you, if possible, and I was curious if you had anything else for sale, and I wanted to ask you a couple questions just about other customers again, just to... That's a lot.

I know. Yes, I think I have powder. You do? I can sell you more powder. Question one. Yes, how much? One question? First question. First question.

First question. Has a one-armed lady, a one-handed lady, a... a doctor come by to purchase? Not a lady, I am an honorable man. I know. I would never insult your honor or preferences of any kind, but... Are you saying I'm pretty? Victor, I think you know how I feel about that,

but you're a very attractive man and... He's taken. Are you dating right now? No, I'm just taking. Okay. I can't. I'm sorry. Good. Well, I was going to offer, I was originally going to offer some gold, if you like, but if you like, I could make you a tool that you could use with your current predicament, some sort of simple clawing mechanism for grasping, lifting, not getting caught in your mind.

Maybe, maybe trade, maybe claw? I love trade. Trade. Trade is brilliant. Build and bring, build and bring, and we trade. I would ask one other thing if I'm to do this for you. this way. Oh, there's so many questions. Did you have questions too? Does he have questions too?

I do have a question. Do you have a question? Yes, I do. What's your question? I'm just looking for a hat shop. Is there a hat shop around here? Pulling around for a bunch of pile of oil rags and shin he pulls up a, looks like a small burlap sack that's torn somewhat at the opening.

Hot! Oh, God. Oh. All right. Thank you. I'm glad you, happy to help. That was everything I could have hoped for. Don't get near the fire.

Really don't. Thank you. Has Dr. Ripley, has a woman come by to buy black powder, one hand, one mechanical hand, one normal hand? Mechanical hand. The one you're saying you can make? I'm going to make you something a nice, useful claw piece, yes. So you're saying that this woman made a better hand than you can make? No, I can make a better hand.

Then make me a better hand! Why would you give me a lesser hand? You're going to need to give me quite a bit of black powder for that. And more questions. Oh. I'm a bad day. Is that recent? That doesn't look that recent.

Oh, that's recent. That's wet. That's very wet. It's pretty recent. Okay. I can work with that. I can work with that. Work with that?

I'm going to go construct you something that will be perfect for your needs. I have a great idea. I will need another hogshead and a half of Black Pounder and a little information about another customer and then I will leave you to your work. Is that fair? Fair!

He turns around and rush several and grabs the same Phantom Hogshead that he has lying around his place. He's a lot of pork. Before he fills it with him, with powder, he goes over into scan and he goes, too big. Fills with black powder, carefully brings it over, kind of like holding it under his arm. I will put this in something reasonable. I'll be back in just a little bit.

Actually, do you have a glove that you used to wear or anything like that? Do you have something? Yes! Greetings, adventurer. Spring has sprung here in Los Angeles, and that means it's a brief period where it's only 75 degrees instead of 95 degrees. instead of 95 degrees. I'll take it.

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that was on the hand and you can see it's blown apart and burned his cinders. I can take measurements from that. Finger's gone. It's just more of like, more of a sleeve with like a charcoal edge.

I'm going to be busy. Can you cost the... No, but, Keyliff can and I think that would save you a lot of time. I'm not here. No. She's not here, no, but we can go get her and come back. To, to...

To just fix his hand. I don't think she can just fix his hand. Someone can restore something. I can. I can. I can. Maybe you're gonna try. Well, I'm tempted, do you, would you just...

You can regrow a real. I feel like I made a deal. I just don't have to sit. I think you would prefer a real hand than a claw hand. Would you prefer a real hand or a claw hand? The Pence, how cool is the claw-hawk? That's what I thought. I would much rather you spend time on projects for us than projects for him.

This is project for us. It's pretty cool. And believe me, I would like keeping him happy as pertinent, because I'm, I can make this myself as is very difficult. We have party members who can regrow his hand. Hey, Percy, he wants the claw to be cooler than that lady's claw hat. That's very easy to do. She has no aesthetics whatsoever.

Alright, then F the old original hand, and it's give them a racing. Don't worry about it. Oh, yeah, okay. All right. Yes, it'll be fine. And if you can't do the mansion, I know where I can go, get some work done. Oh, you want me to make you?

We have the Slayers take. They have a workshop, don't we? If not I know where I can work on something. I will be back, I will not leave town before I've delivered to you something. He takes the hogshead. Oh, absolutely fair. Completely fair.

Trade when you bring hand. Yes, of course. Then I deliver with new hat and all as well. No more questions. No. No. No. That's fine. We'll be back. It'll be good. You're small. I need a big hat. Can't help you sorry. All right. You're gonna go find a hat shop then. Maybe if we pass one. All right. We will be back. Stay safe. Okay. Don't touch the door, please. I, yes, no, just, we'll be back, bye. I'm gonna go find a workshop and work on something.

Oh, see you later. And I'm just right. I'm just right. I'm not decided about you. You're not alone. So, yeah, I'm going to go see if the Slayer's take has a, has a, cannot handle any more of that. And it was just, that was brutal. I just, I feel like, I just feel like, yeah. It's so much.

I just thought you were gonna make him not there, so you didn't have to do it. No, no, no, I don't know. Yeah, yeah, yeah, he's just not home, sorry guys. Oh, I love him. Victor's on vacation. So I'm gonna go see if there's a, if there's not a blacksmithing, if there's not somewhere where I can do

a little bit of basic smithing work and technical work, then I'm gonna just go find that blacksmithing. that blacksmith from my side. There's basic materials to do essentially weapon repairs, armor repairs, minor armor construction within the Slayer's take. If you want something that's going to be a little more to the level of what you're doing you may have to actually rent out a facility. Well I'm gonna go go find that young chap from before. Okay. Yeah, easy enough to do. If you want to rent the forge for the day to craft whatever is you're looking at craft, he's charging

you 50 gold for the day. 50 gold for the day. Can I use all of his tools and I'll, and just my own material. We have to supply our material, but yeah, I'll let you run it. I'm gonna, yeah, run fine backs, get my stuff, and go to work. Okay. You guys. You four. Make your way over towards the dusk meadow.

Now... Trinkets out. Drink it's out. Mm. Come on, drink it. One rolls his head against you and kind of licks us out of your face. Happy to be out of that stuffy little necklace. necklace. So you make your way towards the dusk meadow, which you've seen before. It's a very

comparatively kind of glum-looking area of the town, hence the name that accompanies it, but this is the area of the city that contains the Ravens Crest, the Emeranthineubliette. It also contains the entire town catacombs. This is where since the town's existence, all of the dead are interred perpetually deeper and deeper and deeper beneath this part of the city. This is also one of the oldest libraries of the city is kept here as well. But as you approach the outskirts of it, you can see a very fine line between this area and the birth heart, which is the Malora section of the city. There is a very, very wide river divide between the two of them and it's like night and day back and bath, very, very, very directly between the two of them.

You can see on the lower side there's just stalks and stalks of corn and other vegetation that's being grown for food. There's almost like a lush forest that curls on the outside of it that doesn't match the rest of the indigenous trees you've seen in this area of Athanza. The entire birth heart area where the temple is to Malora is just this kind of plucked out of nowhere section placed into it, and you move over to the dusk meadow, and it's just like the color has left the vicinity. And there you see in the center of this part of the town, this large, looming, ominous obsidian and gold structure. It's like a giant black stone eerie. It has no intricacies from this distance you could see. It's almost like a giant square building that is just a void of light with little bits, little glimmers of gold and the light catches it at moments. It's hard to miss and definitely stands as a centerpiece to the section of Asselheim. The whole walkover I've been talking a lot, mostly to trink it, just You know, scratch him behind the ears saying, buddy, you've been trapped in there a while. It's good to see you out.

Your uncle. He doesn't mind being in there. I'm sure he doesn't. I'm just happy to see him. So he presses his nose under years and kind of lifts your chin up and kind of like bite your lip a little from the sudden impact of this very large fair, but it's all with love. Yeah, it's cold. You sure you don't want to go back in? No, you don't want to go back in.

I know. I bike. I think. Just nervous talking. the whole way that. I think Bax is talking to himself. Lovely. It's gorgeous.

It's very intimidating. Do you know anything about this? You've lived here for a while, Pike. You've never been in. You do know from your time here, and what little you've heard, that part of the purpose of this vicinity is not just to enter the dead within part of these catacombs.

And the library here is kind of a loose partnership partnership between the people worshippers of her and those who follow Ayoun. It is a center for knowledge and history kept within the city. But you'll see throughout the town and the landscape, the outer wall that surrounds this entire portion of Asselheim, there are repetitive glyphs that line this entire area. And from what you've heard at the very least, most of these glyphs which you see across the corners of roadways and many which that surround the actual entrance to the catacombs, it is a perpetual enchantment that is to seal any sort of possible undead. There once was a terrible scourge of undefed in this part of the landscape long ago, corresponded with the battle hundreds of years ago, and since then the reinforcement has been put in place to prevent that from happening again.

So the downside is that the power of these glyphs that prevent undef also prevent any actual vegetation from existing in this area as well. So all the ground that you come across, no grass, no natural vegetation, it's just dirt and ash and dust. Can we recognize the language in which the ruins come from? The magic itself is divine in nature, but it's based in the same very, very based or coniclyphs that a lot of arcane magic is based on. It's very, it's old magic. It's old. But, yeah, it's based in some sort of divine ritual.

What did you say the name was of the Raven Queen's Temple again? The temple itself is referred to as Raven's Crest. Raven's Crest? Raven's Crest. Raven's crest, yes. How are you feeling, Vax? I'm all right. I'm just going to talk to my sister for a minute. You know, I know you want to... I know you. I know you want to be here. I know you don't want me to come. I don't. I really don't. I know. And I won't.

If you're sure. Put you in this place and I feel terrible about it and I know you're extremely nervous. Tricot consent to you. You know, he's very in tune with those emotions and I just... Listen to me. You did not put me in this place.

No one put me in this place and everything's gonna be fine. Everything will be fine. And I, I tug her sleeves and make them a little more orderly and I move a bit of hair out of her face and I do a button that's not done. Everything's gonna be fine. Just wait here, I'll be out of bit, all right? Yes. Everything's fine. I know. Everything's fine.

Yeah. You don't need to be nervous either. I'm not. I will be here. here waiting for you when you come out. I love you. I'm proud of you, you know. She's gonna, she's just gonna love you so much and who knows you might have a new girlfriend when you come out. I've heard other people have dated gods before. I've heard it's done. That cashew guy. Anyway. You're gonna wait here for me right? I'll be right here. And then I drop the smile as I walk off towards the other two. Okay, which as you turn and

look, when you originally approached the date to lead up to the entrance of this this large structure. It's just empty. Doors closed. There was no guard post on the outside. It was just these two looming, almost like dark glass type doors, about 12 feet tall and about eight feet wide on each side. They're just locked shut.

As soon as you turn to walk towards them, the door is open, and you see a figure standing there at the door, just looking directly at you, or at least you soon looking right at you. It's hard to see. This individual somewhat lithe in physicality. Musicality is wearing long dark robes and their faces shrouded in opaque blackcloth, like a death shroud that just blocks the entire face. You can see the hint of like a jaw line, a nose. It looks to be a person of some background in there, but they're just standing there watching you.

And as soon as you react to their appearance, the hand just beckons quietly. You're expecting me? I've brought a couple friends. Is that permissible here? I turn to Vex. Keep him safe. I swear to you, we're all coming out of here alive. I know. But if like an hour passes and we don't, maybe come in. But we're all coming out of here alive, so no worry about it.

It's fine. I squeeze her hand. I'll make sure he gets out okay. I promise. All right. Okay. Please be safe. It'll be fine.

It'll just be right here. Yes. Waiting here, we'll drink it. Just calmly leaning against a wall, no big deal. We've faced way more terrifying things than a few, albeit creepy, men and robes. I don't even think she's that bad. She's not gonna be bad.

Guys. Just go. We'll go. We're fine. All right. As you step up to the stairs, the figure leads you all inside. And as you step into the main center of this initial walkway.

chamber, the figure doesn't enter with you, it just closes the door behind you. You can feel the just hint of vibration of impact as the door is closed shut. It's dark. It's lowly lit on the inside, and it's interesting. From the outside, it looks like a black, like solid, impossible to see through building from the inside. You can actually look out, and the entire building is made of this glass, this like somewhat warped, dark, dark glass. And you can see almost the entirety of the outside from your position. The door is are held a lot into it. It's like a one-way type enchantment or the construct, the material itself, is somewhat translucent from this side.

Like an interrogation room, like one-way mirror type of thing? Kind of, or like a very, very dark pair of sunglasses, but like made of naturally formed rock almost. Noticing that I turn and just sort of look at my sister for five or ten more seconds. She doesn't see you and she just stands there quiet. looking around, inspecting the vicinity. Pets drink it a little. Do I feel anything being in here? You just feel a natural tremble stepping into a place

of powerful divine influence that is not the warm comfort of Sarenre, which has protected you before. Now you understand the way many deities work in these lands and your place in it and Sarenre's place in it, and you know enough about the Raven Queen to know that this is not an unerner. unwelcome place per se. Go ahead and roll a religion check. 23. You understand the Raven Queen has also not always been the one who holds sway over the domain of

death, the domain of winter, the domain of fate. Once mortal, the Raven Queen ascended as a essentially a follower and partner to the previous God of death, which his name has been erased from the books. This mortal ascended many, many, many years ago pre-second Spark and has since taken what was once a tyrannical position of death and afterlife of souls and took it instead as the natural transition that it is. However, due to a lack of respect, or at least a lack of a better term, belief or trust from the other gods,

she only gained dominion over the actual moment in transition, not of the actual souls of the afterlife. That influence was given to others. But the Raven Queen represents one of the most feared elements of life, which is the end of it. but you also know that that is a natural thing. Your personal belief is up to you. The sense you get here is that being an individual that worships life, that worships redemption, that worships second chances,

you can't help but swallow a little hard of the idea of a God that's purpose is to make sure that if you're destined to have one chance, it stays one chance. As you begin to walk down this hall ever so slow as it is, each footfall deafening in the clack. The hallway leads on for another 100 feet or so before the glass, somewhat translucent material shifts

into the next chamber into an almost deep gray and ivory ice-like interior. The dark, cold black exterior you've seen now transitions into what feels like a very finely carved piece of architecture from ice and bone. Do I get the sense as a druid, as an Ashari, that we've switched into another plane? Go ahead and roll a, just roll an archaonic check.

This isn't as much a nature-based thing, yeah. I rolled at 19. Oh, 21. Oh, boy. Oh, goodness, gracious. From your understanding of transitional magic between planes, there has been no actual shift between planes.

It's just the material itself is different upon the interior of this building. As soon as you enter this place, you do see another figure walking towards you. Similar long, dark robes. However, the veil has been pulled back, and you see before you what looks to be an older elven woman with very, very bright silver hair. That just kind of falls long past her shoulders down to her back, about mid-waist. or down to the bottom of her waist. With a smile, you can see as she walks towards you

a very welcoming grin. As she approaches, she pays very little mind to you three, but directly to you, says, You walk with her sight on you. You are ever welcome here. To understand my place in her sight. I think perhaps you are here for communion. Come, our most sacred chamber.

The communion pool awaits. Only you may have entry, unfortunately. Plant a kiss on the cheek of each of the women. Do you need anything before you go in? Any enhancement of any kind? Just cross your fingers for me, okay? I just kind of squeeze his hand. Be careful.

We're right out here on the other side of this door. If anything terrible happens, you have the airpiece. No one will stop Pike and I from getting through there if something terrible goes wrong. Rules be damned. I made my bed now I gotta lie on it. I'll see you soon. Come champion. The Lady of Fates awaits.

And she turns around and leads you 30 more feet to what looks to be an ascending staircase that just enters up and out of the site. up and out of the sight of you too. Just hang out, Tia? Guess we'll wait? Yeah. You ascend a few feet, a few foot behind her,

about 40 or so feet, until it comes to a single large doorway of deep, deep, dark oak wood with it looks to be a dark iron ring in the center. As she steps up to it, she takes it and knocks on it twice. It just shifts open and leads into a central chamber now that looks about 100 feet high, and it is a large, steepled dome

of what looks to be nothing but stained glass. It's awe-inspiring. It's beautiful, the colors, the light as it peeks through. The source of light, as diffused it is by the clouds, is sourseless in here. It seems like there are beams of light coming from all directions and all the colors just are strewn across the floor

and what looks like this perpetually shifting kaleidoscope of dots of reds and blues and purples and yellows and pinks and whites. You can see across the room there are three other figures that are all dressed in the same dark robes, the veils over their head, varying size. You can't make out what their racial background is per se, but they're all stationed around the center of the room

in which lies from what you can see, a very, very large, round pool of some sort of deep crimson liquid. They've come to pay a debt, and I do so gladly. And without question, what would you have of me? You came to speak with the lady, the way is before you.

She gestures to the pool. Walk slow and straight in. You step into it, comes up to your ankles, to your knees. And what catches you first is the liquid is very thin. It is viscous in a familiar way. This is most definitively a pool of blood. And it is cold. It is ice cold. As you step in, you can feel as it begins to seep into your boots and begins to find its way into the crevices of your outfit. As you get down to your waist, it's just chilling and you can't help it stand up straight as you step further in, not sure quite how deep it gets. And it gets deeper and deeper. Out past it your chest, past your shoulders, and you're not even halfway into the center of this pool before it's going past your nose. Take your last breath, hold it, and submerge yourself

in the pool. Darkness around you, the cold sensation. As you do, you feel the blood fill your lungs, and you immediately, your lungs begin to seize with the lack of oxygen. You instinctually begin to try and reach it for the water and pool, but you can't rise. You can't get up. And at that point, the cold piercing pain of the liquid in your lungs becomes warm. All the liquid around you becomes warm, and in the darkness where you cannot see, you calm, as suddenly your breathing is no longer difficult. It's natural. It's like air.

It's reminiscent of being in the womb of the moment of birth that you've forgotten so long ago, that you're just surrounded in darkness and comfort. And piercing the center of this darkness before you, you see a very faint beat of white light. Just begin to spark and grow, and grow. And as that light widens out, it becomes a face. A porcelain face, a nose, lips, a chin, empty dark sockets, long dark hair that goes to crimson and surrounds you. you see a small hand to reach up behind and lift you from your legs. And if what you thought

was only a few feet of liquid, you'd look around you and it is an endless space, a space you've been before, a space that you once visited in your sleep, in your dreams. You look down below and you can see the infinite skein of threads that you were once given inspection to. As you look down, you see the very palm of the Raven Queen holding you aloft in this space, as the mask pulls in close to you with a smile. The lips don't move, but you hear a voice from all directions in your head, a comforting voice, a welcoming voice.

It was always supposed to happen, wasn't it? There is destiny, but you still guide your path where it must go, especially you, Faye touched. You're one of the few that bends, the threads near and around you. That's why you're so interesting to me. I give myself willingly to you for the body,

bargain that was struck, although I question if the bargain was just the surface reason for this to happen. One such is your unique essence walks these realms. Do not think I'm the only one to take interest. Do not think you're the only one either, but I was there to seize the opportunity when it arose. And as such, you are now mine. And I know that you hate me. I know that you fear me.

Most do. But only because they are without understanding. Without death, life has no meaning. Finality drives change. Innovation. Greatness. It is the end that I bring. That drives all.

all of you gracious creations of this land to make the world better than we did, than those before me did. I would learn your ways, I would learn your purpose, and I will serve. Understand the wholeness of what it is you serve and what you represent, champion. Even after death, the soul is carried to another purpose.

But it is that transition where it is at its most vulnerable. It is my charge, my charge, my purpose. my gift, your gift now, to safeguard that beautiful moment. There are those that find the immortal soul one of the most pure and powerful means of energy, of sourced power in this world. That is an abomination.

There are those that wish to halt the process and live eternally. In some move on death or the other, that is an abomination. There is also a difference between bending your threat around destiny. They touched and perverting the threat entirely, for death is sacred. But not all deaths are destined in that moment. Some destinies require one to endure beyond the moment. To meet that moment many times before the final death is to come.

We must guide those moments across this web, and it is to come. across this web, and as she sweeps her hand out of the nether, or she holds you in one palm, another hand, reaches out, and the entire web of threads just glows below you in this curling wave out into infinity, into the horizons endless to each side of you and beyond. So to bend destiny, to bend these fates, is within our sphere of influence. It's those that find a way to cheat this destiny. Halt the progression. corrupt their thread to the point it sickens those around them. Undeath, wayward necromancy, perversion of the sanctity of the cycle.

And our very domain is an atrocity and must be stopped and stamped out. Still accept this gift. You of Aksaldan, I've had my eye on you for some time. And the smile curls into this much wider smile to a point of bring somewhat perturbing. Your dual nature, rushing prematurely towards your end, wantonly throwing your life before the flames, only to pull away in those last moments. Instinct. You test your path constantly. Without knowing, you've been preparing for this mantle your entire life. The smiles and sides. The face goes stone. Lack of expression. blank. The hand pulls back, and you now can see the full immensity of her size. Her body infinitely long, looking down before it disappears in the darkness. And as you look up, suddenly the mask is there before you, but normal, human-sized. You're no longer in her hand.

You're standing on a floor, the floor of the same white, ice, bone-type substance, the interior of Evans' crest seemed to be built from. And for a brief moment, you see before you, the woman before the god. The ascended mortal, no larger than you. From the hair that topples down the sides, the hand reaches up and grabs the mask and pulls it away. Beneath the mask you see a very beautiful,

very sad-looking woman. Her eyes are cold and red in the iris. Her skin flawless and smooth, white, pale, sunless. Rouse thin and furrowed. She steps forward and touches the side of your face. Are those what we do? It's one of the most important gifts of all. She grabs your head, pulls down, and kisses you in the forehead.

At which point suddenly your lungs fill once again with searing white pain. You find yourself scrambling about. Distinctually, spilling out liquid all around you, and you finally come out on top of the communion pool. Your eyes open, and you can see just red crimson pouring in your vision. You rub it out, and you're in the chamber alone. Eyes wide, swimming around. You can see the figures on the side come to the edges. They all bow.

The figure that led you in stands at the mouth of this pool where you entered. She's smiling. She has her hand extended. She lifts you out of the pool. One of the other figures runs up and takes one of the dark robes that they have and pulls it off around them, revealing just a simple dark blue and black outfit beneath. Still wearing the veil, but wraps the dark robe around you.

As the liquid is now back to its freezing, cold sensation, your teeth are chattering. They lead you back to the door you entered, down the stairs, and into the central chamber where both Kieleth and Pike await. You guys turn and see, descending the stairs, being flanged essentially

by two of the members of the Ravens Crest. Both the shoulders with a dark robe wrapped around a very cold and somewhat freaked out-looking Vaxildan, who has smeared red across his face. His hair is thick with viscous crimson liquid. I've gone over. I stand at the bottom of the stairs and I watch.

Our answers in there, but they led to more questions. What am I to do with those questions? The woman who led you in there smiles and says, and is the nature of death. We can't have all the answers, my friend. Is it the pursuit of those answers that drives us? Do you trust her? I do.

Perhaps you'll find those answers one day. One day. They pulled the robe off. And they all head back up into the chamber, leaving you all there in the room alone. I walk over. You look well. 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. Look, there are a lot of celebrity interview podcasts out there, but there's only one happy, sad, confused.

I'm Josh Horowitz, and yeah, I'm the host of the show, so I'm a little biased, but truly happy, sad, confused is the place for nerdy and intimate conversations with all your favorite actors and filmmakers. From Andrew Garfield and Scarlett Johansson to Christopher N, Nolan, casting what ifs, backstage stories, and much more. Listen to Happy Say I Confused on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. It's going to be good. What did she say to you?

Did she speak to you at all? Understand. I don't think you ever, any of us can fully understand. If we did, then we would be gods. Do you believe? Why, but fate? Is that what she told you, that this was faith? You just, why?

The thing has led to it. You and I wouldn't be standing here if my sister hadn't stolen a broom. Where's the sense in that? What else is it? Teleported into the stomach of a dragon with a gnome and I am still standing here. If it is not fate, what is it?

As someone who is constantly questioning mine, I don't think I'm the right person to ask. But I do know one thing, and I grab his hands. You were amazing and talented and special, way before she found you. If anything, we can call her a god. We can also call her a great opportunist. She didn't give you anything special. The Vax that I see before me right now is no different than the Vax that I saw before me 10 minutes ago. I'm not saying that what you experienced wasn't real and true.

I believe you wholeheartedly. I'm on board. Is it what was meant to be or what you just really wanted? And it found you. It is not what I wanted. Thank you. I need to see my sister. You guys make your way to the outside of Raven's Crest.

the doors, open once again, the figure that lets you in, is waiting for you, opens the doors. You see the doors open. Jump up immediately. I've bitten off on my fingernails. Rushing down the stairs, you see Pike Keeleth and your brother a little better spirits than he was when he first entered, if a little damper and redder. Is that blood? Is that blood all over you? Did she hurt you? It was really weird, but it's fine. I told you I'd be fine, and I'm fine. I get out of rag and I start just wiping everything off. You're alive though.

It doesn't make any sense. Oh my god, are you stronger now? Are you like so strong? I think I might be a bit weaker actually. Oh, I don't believe it. I have the jelly legs. Do you want to write Trinket for a while? Could I?

Yes. He's gonna get sticky. No, he loves the taste of blood. Oh, Trinket. Trinket. Drinket comes over and kind of begrudgingly lowers himself so he can fly my eye. No, don't lick.

He's really light. Scrony, scrony, scrony. But don't lick, drink, please. Just one kick. Not good. One little lick. Later, buddy, later. Later.

A climb on top. Aren't you glad you got out of the poker ball for this? I give a quick look back at my friends. I kind of take a nap and drink it. Okay. So everything's good then? He's good? Everything's fine? I think so.

I mean, it was very different, but that doesn't mean it's wrong. He talked to her? He talked to her. Were you there? No. They didn't let us in the room. Oh. Well, I'll find out.

We stood outside. All I... He didn't talk much about it. Maybe you can find out more. All he said was that he knows that this was fate. Well, good. He has a purpose. Yeah.

Oh. Yeah. No, that's one way of looking at it. Oh, I keep him steady and I walk next to him. Okay. You guys eventually make her back to the Slayer's take. Three of you guys, what are you doing while this is transpiring? Eating my mechanical vent-office.

I've sent him with a shopping list. Okay. What have we been sent to acquire? I'm going to need a cheap gauntlet, some saddling straps, three tankards, a pickaxe, and two clonks. and two clowns. Get some ice. All right. How much gold do you give him?

Um. You've got, that's right, I've got, um. Four gold. I give. I've also got a five pound bag of gems. I do. I give him, I give him, uh. Does he want, does he want five?

Was that regal? That was regal. Don't, don't read that. That's not necessary. I drew a dick on his picture. I don't, I don't, and I need that. man's dick to finish the arm.

Yeah. How to go well. I, despite the, the dick on my page, I'm going to give Scanlan 100 gold to take with Grog to find some junk items that they can put together. Oh, I'm going with Grog to shop? All right, sure. If you're down.

Yeah. We'll go for all that stuff. Do we find success? I want you guys to go ahead and roll. Actually, for you just go and roll a jump For you, just go and roll a general charisma check, ask around and get people to give you the proper information. I love you. What is this? Just charisma?

You just add your charisma modifier. 18. 18. Yeah, within a very brief period of talking to the right people and smiling and getting folks to listen back to you, eventually you're sent or you're given information on where each piece of that list is able to be found. They're not too crazy items. A lot of them, general stores, general armor.

We don't even need an articulated gauntlet. It just needs to be a basic clamp gauntlet. So. We also find a hat store. You want another beret? Out of the braving grounds, but you can definitely find one on your journey in the quadrots. If I can take an extra side journey and find a hat shop. Certainly, certainly. Do you go with them? Okay.

You guys make your way to the busy streets at the quad roads, eventually asking around, you find yourself across what's called the Soar Socket Habed Habedashiry. The Sore Sore Sore Soar Soxocket Habedadishry. I love it. I love it. And the picture outside has kind of like a caricature of a guy smiling with a giant black eye. You walk inside and it's like a small localized bar, not like a tavern by any means, but it has like one small little setup in there for general beer and just loads and loads of hats. Leathers, claws. all kinds of silly circumstances. You see some nice fancy hats, big feather plumes. You see joking hats that have multiple colors and it looks to be bells hanging from them. As you step into the room, you see two other just random individuals that are looking around shopping.

And in the far end you see coming through a big thing of curtains, what looks to be a rather rotund woman in her late 40s or so, big, big curls in her dark brown hair, and maybe a little too much makeup on her face, goes, Darlings, what are you looking for? What can I get you? I'm looking for hats? Oh man. I assume you're looking for hats. Wow, yeah, we've come to the right place. Oh, gosh, you're missing out on this one.

Hi, ma'am. My name's Scanlan. This is Grog. We're just... I needed one hat, but you have such a fantastic selection. Maybe we'll pick up a few. How much money do I have left over from his hundo? After all those materials, uh, I'd say probably. asking around in your high charisma? You probably have about 60. Bro, we got money. Let's get some hats. My name is Deisra, dear. So nice to meet you. You're so adorable. We've heard so much about the story. Really? Yes, far and why. I can guarantee you it's all true.

And you, you're so big, you're so strapping. I am. A beard, and it kind of tussles the beer with her fingers. Stupid. Little food bits fall out. I'm here to buy, just one quick thing in particular, then we'll be on our way. I just want a very tall hat, just very tall black hat,

with a point. Like, proportionally tall or regular. Like a big triangle hat. Like a wide brim, like a wide black hat. Just like this. She kind of thinks for a second. I don't care anything like that, but I can make you something if you don't mind waiting a bit. I could come back for it another day, perhaps.

Well, at least let me measure your head, sweetie. It's not for me. I do know the size of what's intended for. Well, her head's about a little bigger than mine. I'll make it adjustable. All right, great. You have to pay half in advance, a custom order. Sure, how much?

That'll be ten gold now. an additional ten upon retrieval. More than worth it, I'll take it. All right. Blunk. And also, can you get something for him that would really just accentuate his features? Me? Yes, you'd need a hat.

Oh, I just a streamline. This is how well the look goes. What if it rains, Grog? That's part of it, look, my muscles ripple in the moisture. Nothing to block the muscles. No, not at all, but I'd have to say with it. Fine, smooth head. It does need a little decoration, you know what I'm saying?

Picture. You. Something in a yamaka, perhaps? I was thinking. A yamaka? And she who ups out a little was like this like fancy engraved leather cap with the two straps on the side and just went over your head. It kind of folds everything in, the straps just go very long and dangle there.

She takes it and snaps them underneath to where these two little danglies are now niggling from under the chin. And it just has these really intricate kind of flower patterns pushed into the leather all around. I mean, I love it, Grog. I think you look great. We don't have a mirror in here. I think it speaks of the season. Is it over my ears? Is it like one of those old school leather helmets?

It looks almost like the old football helmets. Oh, okay, cool. I mean, I don't know. Does it do anything like, is it? It looks masculine, you wouldn't believe. Hey, let me show you! And she brings up a small mirror. Oh!

Actually, no. I will fear you walking down the road, my minute. Maybe more like, think more like, like war, death, battlefield. Like, more aggressive. This is a bit more like sheep herder. Well, all right. Death battle aggressive. Maybe something with spikes?

Spikes. Spikes. Let me see what I can do. She runs off, down the way, gets into a backroom, and you start hearing things kind of, something falls over. Eventually, she comes out. This is less of a hat and more of a half helmet, but maybe it'll do.

And she pulls forth, it looks like this very wide metal brim, almost in a swish shape to a point to the front. Do you take the east of the door? Yeah, it looks kind of like a keysterer's helmet, but it's only the front. So it's almost like a rhinoceros horn that sticks up with the front point. Oh my God. It just buckles to the back of the head.

So it's just a giant metallic groove to the front. I'll take it. I don't even care of it. That's what I like to hear. How much is it? This will be 50 gold piece. Is the point very sharp? Tried you see. and I'll reach up and I'll hit it with my finger.

It's all right, it can be sharpened. It's more for decor. It's not meant to like slice somebody in the hat. It could be sharping for me. Well, I mean, what are you intending to do with this hat? Nothing just look sharp. I can do that for you, my big muslin man. That is the very ceiling of intelligence. Yeah.

I can't believe you were able to be able to be able to be. If you were able to think of that. I did, that was a good line. Got a notebook somewhere. They're gonna be cleaning that off the floor. So after about five minutes or so, she grinds down with what material she has to a little more, it does mess with some of the polish on the side

on the very tip of the metal, but it does come to a more solid point. She's like, be careful with that. So is it like one piece or is it like strap in the back or it just goes funk? It goes on and then straps tight in the back to fit your head. Beautiful. It's basically like a unit. horn? Kind of.

It's like a big old rhino horn that curls upward to a point there. It looks a little ridiculous. I'm so excited for the art. What do you think? Hold on. What do you think? Wow. I mean, your silhouette is magnificent.

Is this your variant fighting costume? Am I fearsome? You are. You are. We should go to a silhouette artist after this and get something drawn. They have them. They do. They come up.

My lady, you are a master of your trade. Oh. Oh boy. Well, so they tell me. Um, our, our mom only gave us 60 gold to spend. Could you give us both hats for 60? We're brothers. He, there's something went wrong with him in birth.

Make a deception check with disadvantage. With disadvantage? Yes. Doesn't matter. Well, would a one be bad? He goes, You silly, silly, tiny man, no seriously. We have a price agreed upon paying.

Okay, no, I'm gone, and I'll go 50 gold in my own. All right. 20 from me, 50 from him. All right. It'll be ready for you shortly. Takes the coin. Thank you for the patronage. Return here in about two.

An hour in the hatch shall be prepared for you, sir. What's your name? My name's Scanlan Shorthold. Scanlon Shorthold. All right, come, come soon. See you soon. Can I hit my head on the doorway on the way out? Shum-b-d-thin.

You have to pull it out, yeah. You leave a nice big groove. It is nice, right? Yeah. Okay, good. All right, eventually you all gather again back at the Hall of the Slayers take. You guys have just settled in

and are free to continue any discussion you like as you see Scanlan Grog come in, say since you retrieved your hat with your various wonderfully crafted accoutreement. So, bitches. Wow. Look at that. What happened? Oh. Oh.

Oh. Oh, yes, sir. Yeah. It's like another 12 inches to you. You look so tall. It changes my whole battle strategy. I'm now literally the point of this fear. You're so scary.

I'm a sea monster. I'm like the most wicked gnar wall of all time. Give me a pool. Can I try that? Yeah, you watch it. I put it up like's head. Whoa, it's so heavy. Is it like as tall as she is all?

Yeah, you just see the bottom of her mouth. Oh, no, go. Wait, turn around 180 degrees and then run as fast as you can. Yeah, go, go, go, go, go. Go, fight, go, go. Okay, make a perception check. Oh, no, no, no. No.

Nine. Nine. You go running straight out of the door. No! No, no, Pike! She's already out the door, over the stairs. Oh, wow! Inside of the hall.

Oh, no! I'm okay! The guys rush out to go catch her, and the helmet is actually embedded her way into the ground, and she's kind of... And she's just laughing. Girl, give me out of Ziyaga! I'm going to go up by her feet.

That was excellent. As he's holding me up like that, I was trying to stab him with it. It is coming. I get up for the head, and I put her back on the ground. Vax has been laughing, hysterically, giggle fits,

clutching his ribs the entire time. And then is there any of the staff here? Anyone like that? I mean, you haven't seen... Anyone else? You haven't seen Merton. Vanessa hasn't seemed to have left. What about underlings?

I mean, there are a few individuals here that are part of it, Guilt Hall. It's, the hierarchy here is more like the few that run it, and then everyone else comes and goes as they can. Yeah, yeah, come here, you. Do you have a tub? Do you have a bath? Look at me.

Do you have a bath? I need a bath. You look pretty rough. Yeah. We can, we gotta, we gotta washroom in the back if you need it. Is it, is it hot? I feel like I need it to be hot. You get what you get, it's water, buddy.

Okay, that's perfect, thank you. Grog, put that hat on again. Oh yeah, hold on. All the way down the hall to take a bath. It's crazy. You guys get him drunk. I don't know what you people did. Oh, he just, you know.

People respond to fear differently. He's gone insane. He kind of saw the face of a guard. Oh. Yeah. Whatever. He did? Yeah.

But had a... Yeah, by the way, why is he covered in bloodbath? I think that was part of the... Ritual? Communion. Getting to know. He just talking. Did he kill a lot of people?

Obviously. He did. So many grog. Oh my God. It was a giant battle. How many on two hands? Like at least this many. That's more than six.

A legendary amount. I know. Yeah. Somewhere deep in the building, far away. This is not hot! The gruff individual can I chuckles. It never is. I need you to make a tinkering chair.

Okay, I'm sitting with my tea and my tools trying to ignore. these people. Can I heat water up in the fireplace? Think, think, think it would explode. When I delivered the materials to him, could I have inspired him at all when I delivered the materials? Please. Sure. All right. Please inspire.

I will inspire, oh my God. Please inspire. Do it! Do it, you bloody gnome! So when I delivered everything, I just sang him a little song to inspire her and I sang, Percy's gone while she come and kill up all the dragons. Purses is gone.

Won't you come? Won't you come? Oh my god. All right, take your D10. 10, 10. Oh my God, it's a 10! Better. Thank you.

I get excited. I'm sorry. Proficiency plus thing, plus... Well, your proficiency is what you get with the role, and then it's your next point. Okay, so proficiency, Dex, okay, thank you, God. It's 11. 23. 23, would you roll naturally?

A 2. Whoa, plus 10. Made it 12. Wow. All righty. It's not complicated, but I've got a good design, and it has two nifty things. What are the nifty things? Fingers. It doesn't actually have fingers.

It's a mitt piece, strap on. It can lock the thumb and lock the and lock the hand so you can open it, lock, close it, lock. It's got little flip locks. You can detach the hand and put a pick spike on for mining. Is it like young Frankenstein? It's actually it's more it's more dust, it's more Dustin Hoffman hook but you know, because it's got the click pull right click. I can do it with all these things, I can graph it so. You're reasonable.

It's not pretty. It takes you a few hours and gets you into the early parts of the evening, but you do manage to go ahead and complete it. You managed to get it finished up. You're pretty proud of your work, actually. And you feel the whistling you're still doing as you finish the final bits, you realize the song that's getting unsunged for you. Just looping in your head.

It happened to push you through your work and get your final piece completed. I also carved a little message inside that, will not matter unless it actually becomes pertinent. Okay. You don't get to know until you ask off-screen. Oh. I'm excited, okay. That's right, DM.

I never happen. Try me. Okay, do you go and deliver it? I do go and deliver it. Okay, as the sun begins to set in Vasselheim, you make your way back over to the Braving Grounds, which as you look across too, this dark, as the night goes dark, the Braving Grounds itself,

is a whole different life to it. There are so many forges and smelters going that most the buildings have this bright orange glow through the ceiling at these various openings where fumes and smoke and exhaust are set up from the various production constructs and such. So it has this very luminousant look in comparison to a lot of the city. It's very interesting. It reminds you of like the deep, deep portions of Craghammer where most of the actual fire and melted rock was, when as being smelted and gathered and heated. So you make your way to the hovel, the roof workers no longer there,

and the door is closed. Victor, you've got your hand. Do you want your hand? You want me to sleep. I don't see why they're mutually exclusive. You hear a bunch of different locks fiddling. The door opens and you see Victor clean face for the first time you've really seen him before

and he has a nightcap that just kind of f f f f f f f fift his face, a little like puff ball at the end. He's like, I told you, I was trying, oh, hail. Yes, it's quite good. I love your hat. Thank you. It's comfy sleeping. It looks it. Do you bring my hand? I did. I grabbed your hand, and I will show you. It is very special.

Coming, coming. It opens the door. You see he's wearing his long nightgown that is covered in patches and tears in it. Most of it's been just turned black through so. The cap is perfect. I have a special set of pajamas myself, so I understand. They're comfortable. He walks in, still bandaged on the arm. You can see there's like a small kettle of tea set by the small fireplace right there.

There's a tiny little table and a tiny little stool that he's just kind of sitting on right there. Then he goes and he reaches over for the kettle. It tries to pick up the cup and just put it. I'm going to stop and attach and begin strapping this. Let me show you have it. It just attaches like this. Here the two switches, and for your mind. What?

I grab, hit the button, twist, pull. And I get the spike and attach it. Remove it, put the hand back on. T. T? Sure. Why not? Always say yes. A little cup. And stands up and goes over, still holding the kettle,

and splashing everywhere. and he's like putting the cabinets, like knocking pieces of glass out. And he goes out another little, little, uh, kind of ceramic cup and pours the tea in, sets it down. Uh-huh. To new hands. To new hands.

It is pungent. It is bitter. It has been steeped way too long. But it definitely cleans out the sinuses. And there is a hint of cotton powder to the flavoring. You get the sense that pretty much everything in this room is marinated in the same way shape or form to be flamed. Ficked up.

He'll put hair on your balls. Oh, woman been by to buy black powder. There's a woman been by. Weeks, maybe. Weeks. Do you make her hand too? I did not. Do you know where she goes?

No. She paid well, though. Did she? What did she pay? Is you guys in a club now? How many people want black powder? Tell me, tell them. Bring them more. I could use money. How much black powder did she buy? Victor. Only counts to two, I'm so sorry. Maybe 12 hogs, headsworth.

Oh, shit. Really? And how often does she come by? She only come by once. Okay. Thank you. I'm... I'm so pleased. I may stop by one last time before I leave town just to say goodbye. Thank you. Please, too. I have more tea. Many different flavors. This is I call dark rose.

It certainly scolded something. Thank you. That was very lovely, and that was very charming. And I unfortunately have business in this. I try the other one. One more and then I must go. Thank you. Yes, of course.

Stink. Sticks it into the wooden stool on the table. over that, the thing that, kind of like breaks the wood, snaps it. Remember that it's attached to bone. You can still break your arm. Just be gentle. Thank you. Thank you. Good night. Have a lovely evening.

Good night. Uh. Pleasure, as always. I leave in a little bit of a panic. You leave and he's just sitting there staring at this long, chiseled point, going, the door slowly closes behind you. Uh, yeah. fighter is born.

Yes, yeah, just give him back. There's a, yeah, okay. We're sticking around for a day? I assume so. I don't know. We're going to spend the night at least. I'm going to take a long walk before I come back, and I'm going to walk by the Raven Queen Temple

and just peek inside. Okay. You make your way past the quad roads. At this point in night, the whole clientele has shifted. Most people come here, you hear laugh there, you hear music. Quad Roads is kind of the New Orleans of the town comparatively. It's still nowhere near is rambunctious as many places you've been, but for what seems during the day to be a rather dour and serious business type city, the Quad Roads is where the

celebration of humanity hits when the evening hours hit. And so you come by and there's some taverns that are open, you see to a certain extent, what even appears to be an adult entertainment district. You make your way beyond, it's the oldest profession. You make your way all the way to the outskirts of the Dusk Meadow

and there amongst the just barely peeking through the cloud cloud line starlight, the looming dark structure that is Ravens crest. Just I'm going to gently open the door and peek inside and see if anybody's

inside. Okay. You go ahead and push the door open. There's an impede of anybody there. Walk in just for a moment and take a look around. You walk in. In this dark hour looking around the obsidian-type walls are translucent glass on the other side, though you can barely make out material or the details of the outside world due to the lack of light across the cityscape, especially here in Dusk Meadow in which the

magical lantern light that illuminates some of the city streets are relatively sparse on this side of Vasselheim. We take a few more steps in. First steps echoing across the long, thin, dark material, the floors. The closest behind you. I'm going to gently look around and slowly back up and see if I can see anyone. Hello? Hello?

Hello? Hello? Hello? What do I have to pay to fix this? This. This. You hear the sound of some sort of low distant hit and a rumble, and you see a distant light appear in a chamber just beyond the walkway.

Just faint enough to illuminate and give the presence of some sort of life or movement. About 100 or so feet ahead of you. I walk briskly towards it. You head to the next chamber where you see the interior of this structure is ivory-white bone and glass, the blue hint, very much resembling the interior of a very nice. naturally, beautifully carved ice cavern. And there is a stairway that ascends, as well as other hallways that lead out from the central

kind of nerve center of the lower floor of the main structure. As you walk into the central chamber, you see ever so faintly at the very top of the stairs a pair of feet walk and disappear up the stairs. I'm going to charge after them. Okay. Running up the stairway, you get at the top, and you can see at the very,

At the very top of the stairs, a dark wooden door with dark iron rim and what appears to be a large hangar or handle or knocker bolted to it, that it just closes as you come underneath the top of the archway and up the stairs. A knock. Once? Three times. With each hit, you can hear the reverberation of the echo of the knock through a much larger chamber beyond. As soon as you release the actual door knocker, the door, this creaks open ever so slightly into a very, very dark chamber. You can see very, very little in here. Other than the basic outline of what looks to be a little bit of floor, some sort of a smooth, glassy surface that refracts a little bit of light that makes it through what looks to be some sort of broken-up glass dome-type structure above you. You can't make out much beyond that. It's very dark in here. Hello? Please, something terrible has happened. I don't understand how these games work. I need help to fix something. Something terrible has happened. You obviously care little for this world. I start to back out. As you step out of the room, you hear a whisper come from beyond the chamber or from the darkness. It says,

Is it yourself you wish to fix or something more? I don't think I can be fixed. Next, there is something broken in the world. Then come, let us talk. Don't understand how these things work. I'm so sorry. I, uh, where do you wish me to go? Have faith. Step in. Join me. I strip and put it aside.

Put it aside? Put my clothes in the corner. You're filthy. and I go into the pool. All right. As you step into the chamber, freezing cold as your toes, your legs, your whole body eventually finds itself stepping into this thick, freezing liquid.

You hear the whisper of your ears just as your head reaches the level of the blood that says, come to me with your questions, just as your head goes beneath the surface. surface. We're doing this. You're underneath and in darkness. Feeling around thick material, kind of just swishing your fingers around. But amongst the liquid, you still hear the whisper again in your ear. Your question.

I swim down until it's uncomfortable. You swim downward and you touch the bottom of the pool. You reach a somewhat concave, smooth. smooth floor to the pool. I'm going to hedge it's the surface. I don't know what's... You head to the surface. There's no surface. It just keeps going.

I do not do well with this. You do not? You begin to panic. Yes, I do. Reach around and try and swim up and find the surface, but it just keeps going. The liquid's thick, and it's hard to pull through, and you can't open your eyes, and you can't see anything, and the iron-like flavor is starting to find its way to the inside of your mouth, that's seeping through your nose and your ears.

and you begin to panic even further as the cold is starting to take and feel your muscles, beginning to shake and seize just from the onset of hypothermia. You begin to head to the bottom of the pool again, and this time you crack your head on the bottom in the middle of your, and you reach up and scream in pain as you do, the blood fills your lungs, and you begin to feel yourself drown. You begin to shake and convulse as you begin to try and find a way to force that at your body, and you can't. And at that moment, where all of a sudden you realize this is, this is it? This is then. This is how the tale of Percival comes to an end.

The sensation goes warm again. And it's like all that cold energy goes away. And you're now swimming in water and in air. And the pain subsides in your breathing normally. But you still stand in darkness and you hear these distant footsteps, sourceless. No light to shadow. You look around over your eyes.

shoulder and then right behind you. You see immediately a white porcelain face, head is just standing there amongst the shadow. Do you know what I've done? I've watched. First is can we stop it? Can we stop what's been released? Is that something I can do? Many things are released in this world. Many terrible, many wonderful, many things. Ask the right questions. Did it choose me because I was broken or did it break me? The mask, which has not shown any expression at this point, pulls back a little bit from you and almost seems to grow in size. It's strange. The proportion

seems to say the same, but suddenly your vision shifts and you realize, no, it's further away from you and is just suddenly immense. Like your visual focus just changes in your whole perspective suddenly causes you to lose sense of scale and balance. The voice comes in this time louder, always broken, Percival, and you were prayed upon, just as it prays upon others, and will continue to do so until finally destroyed. I'll be fixed. Your deeds will guide your path to salvation or damnation. The choice is yours.

You skirt that line still. But the first deed is so, there's so much, and I don't think any of them see it. I don't. I want it to die before anybody sees it. Can you help? I already helped her, civil. Do not think the path that you and your allies walk goes unseen. There are many of those in this war that represent the will of us, just as there are those that represent the will of those that combat us and always have. There are great many deeds ahead of you. It's your choice to take them. Just know, should you not watch yourself, you may not

find yourself on our side. I know. There is nowhere I can look for healing other than deeds. I like to fix things. All life is inherently broken from the start, Percival. Take solace in that. There is no perfection in life. Otherwise, what would be the purpose of death?

Is to try and find ways to better yourself before the end. That gives us purpose. You are all broken, but also in the future. understand at this point her voice gets very deep and very resonant. Mortals can achieve great things. And the mask pulls back into the shadows and suddenly you begin coughing, finding your way to the roof surface, pouring blood out of your mouth and coughing and eventually you find your

sway over, breathing heavily to the side of the pool, pull yourself out to the side, cough the rest of it up. A little bit of moonlight peaks through and you can see the beams refracting through the purples and reds and blues and just hints of specks of light that just shimmer across the surface of this dark glass-like floor. I'm going to take my sword, and I'm going to very carefully scrape my body clean of the blood as much as I can, and I'm going to take my back of my shirt and clean my hair off as much as I can. I'm going to take a vial of the blood in the pool.

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Tiny bit. I'm going to put my clothes back on. And I'm going to cast hex on myself for my walk home and banish it before I come out of the door. Okay. All righty. So as Percival finally launders in, is there anything else anyone wants to achieve before the evening? I'd like to go to the Raven... I'd like to go to the Raven... Are we next morning or we're still evening at this point?

We're still evening at the moment if there's anything else you should achieve otherwise. I've been slowly heating water and giving it to back. to put in his bath. You do manage to draw a comfortable bath for your brother and wash him clean. I don't wash him. I just give him my fucking water. You aid him in washing himself clean to specify.

Thanks, man. Thanks, man. Do we see Percy when he comes in? I'm going to walk him quiet and late. And go tinker on a little thing for a minute until I pass out. Okay. You do notice Percy enter. It looks a little frazzled, but doesn't seem to be able.

Do I see any of the blood? You're in the tub-y tub-y-touch. Make a perception check. I want you to make a dexterity check. Ugh. Sorry, Talzin. You got him. 32.

You got it. 32? Oh my God. I couldn't have rolled that. Like that would have been a natural 20. It would have been the only way around that. You see just faintly behind one of his ears and the edge of his collar on his coat, just a bit of familiar crimson, and a look of a distant stare that is familiar.

All right. Do you all wish to rest for the evening? No, I would like to take 12 hours to read my book. Okay, so the first 12 hours are completed, but you do not sleep? It's a page turner. All righty. Lots of centerfolds. By Stingy, Shannon.

By John Cleese, it's a wonderful piece. I also spend a lot of time that night reading, but I'm reading the book about the Raven Queen. Okay. I'm doing Raven Queen in your ears. Pretty much have it memorized at this point with the amount that I've read that. Yeah, fair enough.

All right, you guys all find yourself to rest except for Scanlon who takes a point of exhaustion for going through the night without sleep. I don't know what that is, but someone will tell me. You'll find out. Yeah. Maybe it's any ability checks, any skill checks until you get a full night's rest or a disadvantage yet.

All right, as you find yourselves to rest, most of you, the morning light comes, greeting you to a new day, We're gonna go ahead and take a break. We're back here in a few minutes, guys. Welcome back, guys. So, as we return to the game, the morning comes to you all. In Vassalheimes, you awaken the Slayers' Teggild Hall.

Brisk morning, but not too cold. The clouds are actually a little more separate this morning. You get brief moments of blue. It looks like the weather is a little clearer than you're used to seeing in this vicinity. But the day is yours. What do you guys wish to do? Well? What do we need to accomplish here in town? Is there anything we need to finish, or do we want to pick our next destination?

Kind of... Do they sell potions and things here in town? No, they don't. Very specifically, they don't. They don't get the hell out of here. Yeah, let's get out. I mean... We did talk about the Faywild.

Let's drop off our... Don't tease me. Why, don't you pick up something? Oh, I already picked it up. Not you, you. Oh, you have a hat. Oh, I thought we waited for the hat. Yeah, you...

He'd be given the hat. Oh shit, balls ass, all right. There's the Faye Wall, wild. There's dropping stuff off at Whitestone. There's Marquette, which something is there. Is it, are one of the vestiges there? I don't know. Everyone just keep talking about.

Maybe. There's also, wait, weren't we gonna go to? One of the vestiges is in Marquette. Which one? Hang on, Cabal's ruin. Which is what? which is a magic devouring cloak. Hold, hold, hold, hold on.

Are we alone in this room? You guys are right now kind of having breakfast in the guild hall, there's maybe two other individuals in the room. One of them is kind of drunkenly asleep and snoring. The other appears to be just going about their business. I'm just saying. Okay, I'll just be worried.

Yeah, there's apparently a magic devouring cloak who is being run, or sorry, who's being worn by the end of the end. and it's in Encorel. Being worn by a merchant warrior with a missing eye. There's one in the bottom of the sea somewhere. And there's a really beautiful, strong bow in the Faywild. Now, it's got a Fayewild. We at least know that.

I say we drop everything, we take a pick stop in White Stone and head towards the Faye Wild. Empty our bags. Well, we don't necessarily even have to head. towards the Fay Wild. Do you guys remember how I kind of did that thing with Grog's evil sword and kind of like banished it away for forever?

Are we bringing it back? No. To the Dread Emperor's. Right. Yes. Not a good idea, Grog. No, we're not bringing it back. I can do that with the rest of us.

You can banish us to the Dread Emperor's Island? No, it's not like a banishment. I can plane shift us wherever we want to go to an alternate to the fair wild, so we don't even have to find an entrance. Yeah, we just hold hands and think about it really hard. No words. Yeah. It's true and magic, it's great.

And you put us in a safe spot somewhere in there somehow? I can take us to where we have been before, to where it is familiar. Have we been there before, I don't know. Very briefly. Yes. Is it somewhere that you have to have been, or can it be somewhere that we have been?

It is somewhere I am familiar with, I believe, through means. Through means that I am familiar. Singorn is in the Faywild. Normally? No, remember? No, but they transfer the entire city. I know, but you're saying we've been there, but they just did that recently.

Fraud's been in the Faywild. We just, you specify a target. In general terms. Such as city of brass on the elemental plane of fire. Is that where we're going? No. Oh. Sounds fun.

It does, actually. If you guys want to go to the plane of fire, that's like a hike and then jump through a hole. No, no, no, no. Done that already. The plain of fire, just a Faywild. All right. Yeah, I can get us there.

I can get us there. To do the Faywild. How big is the Faywild? Is it like a football field? It's a whole other plane. It's a whole other plane. How do we know where we're going in the Faywild? I imagine we'll figure it out once we get there.

I do it. Do I know anything about the Faywild? Would I have the basic, I have no knowledge? Would we know anything? Would we have learned something about it? You guys know, you have a general idea of it. You have half-elf. You somewhat, yeah, somewhat just through your learning.

You never actually visited there. The Faywild is a near plane, a plane that overlaps this, like, prime material plane. It's a version of the world you live in right now that is shifted and changed in a place where time, distance is relative, and shifts. Nature grows rampant, in cases, is hard to really expect its direction.

Things and entities exist there that prefer to trick and lose wanderers. It's a very, very strange place where some people believe elves initially come from, or crafted from there or at least. Do the two of us know enough that were you to jump from the same place here? Would you necessarily end up in the same spot in the Faywild?

You have no idea about that. You don't know anything about the transition to the Faywild. You just know that certain doors open at certain times, especially when like full moons at certain locations, the classic, you know, toadstool rings, areas where the moonlight and the realms can be a little thinner in the barrier, doors do open, and those are where creatures

can transition out or through. But you do know it's a place of Faye magic, it's tricky, it's difficult to follow. Terrible. Very, very like Oberon and Titania, you know, weird, interesting. Question. Question.

Yes. Okay. Good question. It says the wrath of the Faye War is what we're looking for, the bow, in that it now acts as the heart of a cancerous tree corrupting the verdant land? Is there something I could do to maybe try and...

Hold on, is our stream off? Are we offline right now? Just wait. Hold, please. Luke crate. No one can see it. No, it says it's offline. Refresh it.

Like, quit the program and get back in. No, but chat is saying it's off. Oh, okay. Tell them to quit and re-log in. It's back. Okay, it's back. Okay. Whoa, we were in the Faye Wild for a second.

That's crazy. We missed six episodes. Everything turned out okay. And we got the warden thing. Yeah. Guys, I'm so glad we won D&D. Yeah, that's the best. Beated.

Okay. Your question. Roll the credit. It was cool. Can I maybe sense a sick tree? sick tree. Or maybe... You know what, let's go to White Stone. Let's go to White Stone and drop some stuff off. The more I think about it, I mean, we almost just died many times and the last time we tried to get a vestige, it almost killed us, and maybe we just need a little bit more preparation, maybe.

Let's empty our bags, let's prepare ourselves. Let's... There are certainly stories in the woods of White Stone of strange happening, so I'm sure that there's probably some connection to the Faye Wild and we'll see what happened. Make sure White Stone is actually preparing something underground just like Western and... Well, we have something. Yes, they have something underground already. Exactly, but there's a spinning orb of death there.

Yeah. Which, to be fair, is probably going to keep a dragon away. Yes. But I also think we've earned more than a single day of rest. Yes. It's got a white stone. It's got a white stone. What's that? Where's the sea?

The Asman Sea? Yeah. The Asmet Sea is to the... east of you, east, southeast, and that is a wide gulf that separates. From your perspective looking at me, there is Othensia, Osmite Sea, and there is Tal'Dorei right here. Oh, okay. So I'm separate now. Bless you.

Bless you. The water ashari live in the Osmet Sea. Oh. Are they like mermaids? No, I think they've got an island. That's also the sea that I say. Really? Really. How familiar are you with it? I know it will. How familiar are you with the sea?

I'm pretty familiar with it. Yeah? Well, if we go there. Good. Wait, can I see the list of vestiges? The one in the bottom of the sea is called whisper, right? Whisper? A blade.

Yeah, forged from metal, pulled from the far realm, was center of many dark rituals. It now lies at the bottom of the autumn. at the bottom of the Osbit Sea, sunken with the lost ship, the Shrew. The Shrews. The Shrews. Near an island of glass. Anyone know about the island of glass?

Have you heard about an island of glass? Have I heard about an island of glass? Has it heard of an island of glass? Have both if you guys make history checks. All right. I rolled a natural one. You barely know what glass is right now. Guys, water isn't glass.

That's stupid. I would have a theory as to what it was. what it was. He rolled a 20. You rolled a 20? Not a natural 20. Oh, go pike. Oh, go. 20. Um, do I, should I roll it to figure out that this was probably an active volcano, an active volcano that created this? Uh, make an intelligence check. I'm down. Oh, man. No. Wow. Team ones. Woo. Natural one. Natural one. Snitch. There's a point come to you what it could be. I mean, the idea of a volcano possibly comes to mind, but you're distracted.

Yeah. You have not been there, you haven't seen it, but some of your crewmates while you were traveling aboard your ship for that five, six month period. A couple of them did mention something about on the sea a mirage-like island that glistens in the distance, but they were said to avoid it, said it was dangerous. Did they say where it was? No. Damn it. There are many tales of the shrew. Yeah?

The ship lost its whole room. You know of the shrew. All sailors know of the shrew. What's the story of the shrew? It is just, it was a storm. There was a storm 300 years ago. Near an island of glass. Near an island of glass.

It was really bad. And the shrew just didn't, didn't, didn't. It was tamed. I was waiting for it to come around again. It was good. The true fits. It was good. What's Glenn?

White Stone. Yes, White Stone. Can I make one of the suggestions? Oye. Him on go take Thor Dack right now. Good call. Yeah, one take a good coin. You know what?

It's a good plan, Gron. It's cheeky. We will put that in our back pockets and we will think about it. That helmet is really something else. You could really do something terrible to him with that thing. I'm just saying, like, I think we have an edge now. I think you're probably right. But let's just be safe.

Technically true. And make sure that White Stone is safe before we do such a thing. Percy, we are in a place that has an airship dock. That is true. We could go steal an airship. You don't need an airship. We have a piece of ability to transform. It would be so cool though.

How about this? When we defeat all the dragons. When we kill all the dragons. But we could hold all of our things on the airship and I could have cannonade. And it will file a thought The Lordak dies is we jump on an airship. Party on the airship.

We'll buy it with all the gold that we've stolen from all the dragons, it'll be great. We don't need the airship as the dragons of dragons. Just. All the fun has gone on. What are we doing? We're going to White Stone. Before we leave, do you want to sell

the stupid White Dragon Scales? No. All right, let's go to White Stone. Throw a tree. All right, as you guys walk outside of the Slayers Take Guildhall, you find the nearest tree, which you've used before to traverse. As you all begin to step through the portal, Percy and Scanl look over their shoulder at the distant skyport and see the one one airship docked there and think one day

So handsome Someday it will be ours you'll make a fine sailor Passenger Bobby you jump through and emerge Merge out the other side As you step out of the portal you find yourself Jumping out of the center of the Sun Tree Can I do something? Nope, what do you want to do? Like, while I'm in the tree, can I do something?

Like, okay, okay, no, no, no, so say that you go first. Go, go, go, go. And I gotta start teleporting through the tree, and while I'm kind of like in the sun tree, I just wanna be like, hey boo, I missed you. Have you heard of this whole cancerous tree situation in the Faywild? I'm in the middle of the tree, I'm in the tree.

I'm in the tree. Stuck in the tree. As you finish this thought, you hear this sound emerge and realize it's the sound of the whole portal you've made closing behind you because it only lasts for six seconds and you should probably get the hell out of the tree. I step out of the tree. As you step out, a voice goes, Hey Boo, sorry.

I'm just behind you. I'll talk to him later. You guys emerge. Due to the time difference, as you land here in White Stone, looking at where the sun is in the sky, it's early afternoon, close to the morning where you guys just stepped away from. There are people in the streets, and you see a few, a little bit of life has returned to this town square. Though still, do you remember by comparison, there are folks now that are bringing in actual healthy, looks to be fruits nearby trees. There's a little bit of trade going on. This is the first real chance you've had to see a little bit of life stone, a little bit of white stone coming to life again. As you emerge from the tree, a few individuals kind of nearby stop and look and smile and kind of wave, recognizing you as you approach. Are there any leaves on the Sun Tree yet?

Actually, no, there are no leaves in the center. We should check with the Border Patrol. There's Border Patrol? Yeah. Oh, the wolf. Oh, the wolf. A whistle as loud as I can. Okay.

I just want to go find Zara and give her a hug and say hello and see how she's doing while he's talking to the wolf. Okay. You whistle as you can for a little bit. Nothing. Must be off doing something important. Fight. Give head off and asking around, you find Zara is actually actually up in Castle Whitestone right now,

just pouring through one of the studies of books and is currently just reading and reading on her own. As you eventually ask around and find your way there, entering the room you see her with a small set of spectacles, the end of her nose, she takes off and, my darling, like, Sahlia, and comes up and just gives you a big hug and picks you off sets you down.

I'm so glad to see you all right. Dear, the dragon arrow you gave me. Killed him. Well, I didn't kill him, actually, with it. But I did a lot of damage. You killed the dragon. Ambrisil, dead. One down. I knew you would. Where's Kassu?

I don't know. He's testy these days. I'm sure he's around. I know his name is Farkin Khashar. You guys aren't there? He's hiding in the city somewhere. He's helping where he can. You know, broody types. I do know broody types. Yes, you do. What's you reading? Oh, I'm just learning about the history of White Stone and very intrigued us to the actual properties of this stone the entire town is built on. There's a lot of really, really interesting things that can be done with the materials in these mountains.

I'm sure you have ideas. I do. I sit down next door and ask, just catching up and see if they've spotted any dragons. Okay. You guys continue a conversation, catching up, letting her know how things happen, and vice versa. You don't get any feeling that any dragons come by. Apparently, there have been a few other arcane practitioners that have been helping set up some sort of of a barrier to help essentially dissuade attention towards the city. The idea of keeping this place kind of as far off the map as possible should any prying guys find their way there. It's been the process of being set up right now. How long did it take you to make that error? A few weeks.

If I were to give you some more money, do you think you could do it again? Probably. Based on what I'm able to use some of the research. sources here within the castle, maybe. I'll talk to Percy, but I'm sure it's for a good cause. All right? Perhaps I can. I'll come find you, dear. What else he has trying to achieve here? I am trying to find Sean Gilmore.

That's his first name? Sean Gilmore? Yeah. Yeah, Sean? What? How did you know that? He told us. He told us. I fucking know, I remember.

Tatch you get the small of his back. Oh, right. Yeah, he's got a tramp sale. Can I accompany, can I accompany, Vax on this trip? Sure, come on. I want to see you Gilmore. Yeah, let's just start asking around town for them. You're asking around, you come across a few people

you recognize, you find a few of the guards who would help to you in like the initial reconstruction of the city and such. And asking around one of the nearby guards kind of takes his helmet off and it's like, first off, I'm so excited that you guys are back. I'm glad you're all safe. I heard that you were off to do some dangerous things. You got right. Well, great. I'm glad that you've survived. Looking for Mr. Gilmore, he's actually done with the Rome sear.

They're inspecting the Ziggurat underneath the city, so you can head down there if you wanted to find them. Thank you. Yeah. I'm not terribly familiar with Whitestone. Can you point us in the right direction? It's under the castle. Yeah, we can't miss that.

We've been there before, yeah, let's go. Let's go. Come back on, thank you again for all that you do. Kind of like clicks his heels together and continues walking through the city. Right, yeah. I guess we'll head down to the Ziggurat. All right, everyone else going with? Okay, let's go.

Yeah. You're taking a trip? Sure. We're all going down to the Zigarat. Yep. Nothing else do. Sure. All right.

You make your way down to the basement area of White Stone Castle into the family catacombs, which have been cleaned up, and you can see that at least Cassandra's put a little bit of care into restoring it to what it was before. The tunnel that was carved in has been given a little more support, and as you're making your way down a familiar tunnel, the same tunnel where you had the showdown with Orthax, you hear a few voices from of a head.

Two familiar voices. You hear the echo of some older gruff elderly gentleman and a little more rambunctious familiar voice. As they turn the corner, you see them in deep in conversation as the realm seer himself hunched forward with his white hair and balding top turns around. And it's a great mystery to me that they can be jill. They've returned Vox-Mocking of themselves. And Gilmore at this point opens his arms standing and healthy. It's, my God, I've been waiting for you to return. All of you are so graciously clean. You look so healthy, Gilmore. I have you to think for that.

Still a ways to go, but... But in two or three weeks, it's not bad. You're looking well. Oh, you can have chema to think for that. She's been quite attentive to my needs. How is Whitestone finding you? White Stone finding you? Curious place is White Stone. It's, well, the company's interesting.

Sure. I don't see her laughs. I think, so I've heard. We've spent a little bit of time looking at this strange oddity beneath the city, and I'm not going to lie to you. It's really confusing. I have a few theories on it, as does the Archonist, but we're still comparing notes, and we don't want to jump to any

conclusions, as tests have been inconclusive and rather dangerous so far. However, before anything else goes underway, I believe there is a very important bit of business that we must attend to. Business? What business, Gilmore? And he walks straight up to Grog and just gives you a big hug. Oh. Patsy in the shoulder and it's like, you big luck. You, Gilble. Walks over to you, Pike, and kind of kneels down and kind of gives you a little pinch on the cheek and it's like, looking at spry and smiley as ever, I see. Hello, Sean.

I give him a kiss on the cheek. Oh. Turns to you. Exxalia, look at you, I hear, if my words say correct, but you folks are a recent dragon slaying bunch. That we are. Good to know. skips over you.

Goes to Scanlan and goes to ruffle your hair. And you, you my little bardish friend. Little. You're actually physically little. You are a tiniier person. Embrace it. What makes you different? That's true, I suppose. I suppose. Yes, that's absolutely.

We've been spreading the good word about you and your works. So I've heard from all sorts of interesting folk. I only hope one day to wear clothes as fine as you. Oh, that's a nice compliment. Percival. Patron. Thank you for taking me into your home. You are, do nothing but brighten these halls.

I'm happy to keep things late. Ah, at which point he's going, he goes to look towards you and the realm's here sitting and kind of tap in his arm. He's like, all right, gets on with it. To be got work to be done. And he's, shh. Would you be quiet? These people have saved my life.

Keeleth, the sweet, the shari princess. Hi, Gilmore. You've grown. You can see it on your eyes. Gives you a big hug. Give him a hug back. Oh, I got it. Axelon.

Light on my eye. Smiling boy. And it barks up, and puts his hand across your shoulders and kind of cups your face, I've missed you most of all, and pulls you in for a big hug and lifts you up off the ground.

You're strong enough to be careful of your words, which he sends you down, he's like, I shouldn't have met. Had him on the ribs. Don't touch that. It's still very tender. It's fantastic to see. You're a sight for sore eyes yourself. We're very happy to see you.

My sight is sore, so this works out well. But please, these tunnels are dank and not becoming of us. Dinner should be having soon and you should join us now that you've returned, please. Before dinner, I think we were all just curious on the state of the Ziggurat, as we are calling it, or spinning orb of death is what we call. Let's talk for dinner. All right, yeah, sure.

Well, you said you were doing tests on it, right? Did you throw things at it? Did it blow up? That is part of the test. Nothing blew up. Things did go away. They went away. They get sucked in, Grok. Talk over dinner. I hate to have this discussion with Adelaura here. I think this would be only be who of the conversation if we're all present.

We have some delicious and very expensive wine. Oh, yes. As we can bust out, expensive ass wine, we could bust out with dinner. Got me intrigued. Well, I haven't gotten to wink in a really long time, you guys. It felt so good. It was a good wing.

I don't like to your old son. Good wing. Fine instant and let. Well, come to the surface then. This place is dream. Yes. You too, Eskil. Hey.

Too many smiles in this area. Like, it's Jovial. Don't see it around these places too often. It's good to see all of you. Come out, yes, just move. You all have just to make your way back to the surface, the White Stone. I go to Vex and Pike and go, is this a good opportunity for us to break out our formal wear? Definitely, dear.

Okay. Yes. You have no idea what you're talking about. The ladies take like 20 minutes. Let's be honest. 40 minutes. 40 minutes. 40 minutes of my ass.

On what plane are you right now? Not Faye Wild, but maybe soon. It's the same plane as the break room, or five minutes of 15. Magic can be. Yes, yes, true. I'll be 20 minutes. A nice day.

On the way out, as we're all walking out I walk along Gilmore and I give him just like a gentle shoulder, shoulder to shoulder. See, it is really good to see you on your feet. It's best smile I've had in ages. Give me both. While we're getting ready, I would like to talk to Pike about a certain proposal that happened. None of us have interested.

I know just because I just... What happened? What should I do? What did you tell him? Did you tell him yes? Did you tell him no? Hang on, what exactly did he say, by the way? I just said, well, we'll circle back.

We'll circles are back. How did he take that? No. I think he was fine with it. He just understands that I just... Treat proposals like we do our dungeons? We circle back. So that's the only way to just treat all things like,

because I don't know. How do you feel about him, Pike? I just don't know. I just feel so confused. Well, I understand that. I just, he kind of wearing. you down a little and I... There's something there.

Yeah. For him? I don't know if that's a good reason to like say yes though. No, he's just very charming. He is very charming. And I notice he's becoming more charming. Yeah, and what is with that? How?

I didn't know that was possible. I don't know. I feel like he goes to sleep and then the next morning he's even more charming. I don't understand it. What he's like? Every once in a while, I look at him and I go, Yeah, no. And then I feel really...

No, but at the same time, I'm kind of interested. And you kind of think about it for a second, and you entertain it? Yeah. And then you feel really gross about yourself? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, but... No, and no.

No. No. Of course it's not gross if you're actually interested. I know. I've just, ah... I've had feelings for someone for a long time, but maybe they're slowly fading. I don't know. Wait.

Wait. What? I have... I don't know if I feel comfortable talking about it. But it's fine. But it's fine. But... It's just as girls here.

I know. And we've been through so many uncomfortable things together. Most of life is so uncomfortable. Be comfortable right now. I just, I don't know. It's still something that I need to think about. All right. I just.

You pray to your Sarenrae. Okay. I love, sir. You do look lovely, though, when you're dreadful. You look so cute. Thanks. I do a turn. I like do a little air cantrip to make the skirt like poof out you know

ooh I tug up my dress yeah hey hey do you guys mind like tying me up a bit of course nice and tight can you breathe no but that means it's right all right all right I'm good I've seen this clean clothes for everybody in their quarters anyway yeah yeah yeah I'm wearing the same shit And the big hat. Yeah. Two dinner. Yeah.

I've made money for this thing. All right. And I'm going to arrange for our stuff to be stowed in the vault. Okay. Not a worry. All right. So as the sun sets, you find your way down to the proper dinner table. Gilmore is there.

Eskil is there. Cassandra's there. We look fabulous. You guys look fantastic. They do. Yes, we do. Find the outfits been provided for the men if they wish to wear them as well. Some do not.

Oh, I am dressed. I'm dressed. All dressed up. All righty. As you guys sit down, pleasant treats are exchanged. Pardon, you catch up with the Cassandra. Partway through. What?

E3, y'all. E3. Yeah. Sit down, have a beer, watch our game. 2 p.m. Within the next 15 minutes or so, before, Before food is brought to the table, Allura finally enters in a very, very nice dress,

and she's so good to see you all safe. Allura. And give her a hug. And gives you a big, wonderful hug. How's Kima? We haven't seen her yet. Well, and she looks over this way, and Kima walks in. For the first time you've seen her really out of armor

since you first saw her, her hair is also in similar braids to her side, and she herself was wearing a golden dress, though she's kind of like, Yeah, I know the phoenix. Comes in. Kima. Oh, you look so lovely.

Kielith goes over and gives her a hug. She gives you a hug, she's like, it's good to see you guys, I'm glad you're all right. This feels weird. Does this feel weird? It's only for a few hours, don't worry about it. What are you wearing? That's what I'm saying.

Do I have to wear? He's not wearing anything. Do I have to wear it? You don't have to wear a dress, Keema. You don't have to wear it, Keema. It's just, a suggestion. Kimma, go change.

I'll be right back. Yeah, go change. She darts off her a bit, and Hilar kind of like smiles and face palms a bit. You two are at the kitty table. I'll have to try that helmet on later. Show some class, man. Guys catch up a bit. Allura speaks about her and Drake's escape from Western.

Kima eventually comes back, just wearing kind of ratty clothing, you know, shirt pants. the general wears she'd have throughout the city, and is still carrying her small mall at her side. She gives her little comfort blanket that's next to the table. It's better. Scoots out next to O'Lora. Gilmore snaps his fingers and wine begins to pour

from the servants. Cassandra's, well, thank you all for coming. I believe there is much to get underway here. This intricate and gesture is towards Gilmore and Allura, and they nod, and Eskell kind of raises his hand a moment. So while you've been gone, Alura, you've been doing this research for a bit. Thank you, thank you. So we've been trying to ascertain the nature of this ziggurat beneath the city. The ziggurat itself is built over what appears to be an ancient temple of iron. The glass subsubes

substance, the diluted white stone that has been reformed into glass, is used as a very strong arcane current. A lot of energy was being placed in this location, as there is an actual, appears to be an arcane, a layline or a nexus point near and above white stone, hence the sun trees placement. Yes, of course. And why it flourishes so well in this region. But everything within a certain vicinity of this temple, of this dark spot, if you will, is eaten. It doesn't vanish. It's not cancelled. It's taken. Devoured. Everything placed within that small little globule of darkness is taken somewhere as well. Now, first we thought maybe it was just destroying, but the arcane energy we feel of the flow of it, it's drawing it somewhere, meaning that this is not a, I had feared to be a

sphere of annihilation, an object of complete destruction. Instead, it feels like it's a siphon. Now a siphon, siphons are very old. Siphons were used in the first war. They were used as a means of transferring extremely powerful, raw magic prowess. They were placed strategically throughout the world's crust at these very nexus points as a means of creating extremely powerful relics, the ones that you seek, the ones that many of the vestiges themselves were crafted through the use of some of these siphons, but they have been lost and many thought destroyed for a very long time, or least inert. I have reason to believe that this may be one, and it may be active. As to where the

other size lies, I do not know, because each siphon has two points. So it's fair to assume that at the other end of this is something old, something trapped, something hungry. Perhaps. Would it be in this plane or another? I have no idea. Everything we've returned to put through it that had any sort of magical connection, whether it be through interplanial scrying, anything that would bring us to the other side of this is crushed, consumed and transferred as part of it. None of our rituals or enchantments will let us

see through this spinning marble, as you call it. You haven't put any blood through it, though. Let's not. No, I'm hoping that hasn't happened. So nothing survives the transfer. It is destroyed into its purest components, it sounds. Oh, you seeming me as. Don't know.

Is it that you, we have no idea what's happening to things put through? We're still delving into it, and it may be a little while before we figure this out. But this is the best that I had ascertained with my knowledge, my disposal, and the realm seeer and Gilmore can back up this research. We've all worked together these past week, and we're all kind of coming to the same conclusion. She gestures to Gilmore and Ms. This is. I've only been in this case personally for a few days of rising health standards and within my body, and I've thrown everything I get it. I've done everything I get it.

at it, honestly, and it's all just come to nothing. Gone. This is disappointing. You're telling me. What about a person? Well. I'm not sending a person through there. To be fair, Grog, I might have tried that a little. What? Yes, that's right. I sort of stuck my hand in the spinning ball of death, and

let's just say I'm glad I'm still here standing with you all. Was it sucking you in? It did a considerable amount of damage to my hand and definitely felt like it was sucking me in. And I had to resist pretty hard. But it seems like anything that goes in that sphere doesn't come out the other end intact. Gilmore, any of you, Lura,

have you experienced any kind of draw toward the orb? Do you feel different? having been around it for very long. Gilmore kind of cox and curious eye to the realm seer. The realm seer thinks and scratches his chin, looks to a lower allure, looks down at the table, their arms crossed, looks to Kima.

Kima's finishing her big drink. I stay away from it, it creeps the hell out of me. Not to my knowledge. Do you think we should be worried? Well, I don't know. I mean, it is a very strong relic that we don't know how it works. The difficulty in our research is most of our means of inspection or, well,

or close and past. Arcane nature. I was hoping that perhaps we could talk about some engineering possibilities of finding ways that science can measure what it is where magic cannot. Something safe in this sense. In this sense, as it stands. We're open to all possible suggestions. We're kind of at the end of our rope for the time being. We may send a few of us cross-sableness. the way to a few different places for more information.

We do a bit of traveling ourselves, it seems. I'll sketch something with my copious free time. Hmm, please do. Now dragons have buzzed by here in our absence? They kind of look at yourselves. None yet, but we've been very careful. We're in the process of installing some semblance of a lack of a better term, sort of a scream.

Ways to reflect in perhaps perhaps cloud anyone who attempts to peer too far into the northern regions of White Stone. The last thing we need is any of these dragons finding the way up north, we've kept all of us and the refugees safe, so we're trying to piss any of them off while also trying to make sure that maybe they're not really looking behind this curtain of cloud. Any fortifications would be helpful. Don't dragon sort of see past those things.

We're doing our best to try and meet those things. to try and meet those standards. I have another request in that direction that might help. Hmm. There was a way to spread the word in the city and amongst those who travel to not speak of us. We should probably not be hailed in this city at all. Our name should be stricken from any record of it.

Lower lean's four in the table. No, I say, you're right. There is merit to that. No, it would be difficult. here look up to you. They see you as the salvation of the city, but I believe we can go about and speak with them and help instill the idea that it's for the better good that you are not mentioned. Best to be nameless at this point. It's for their own safety.

It's for everyone. Me who must not be named. The unmentionables. The unmentionables. The are terrible persons. Yeah. Right to us is the unmentionables. I like it. Larissa, I did find some research on some of these vestiges you were seeking. Oh, yes. There is what I could bring forth from the Cobalt Reserve in Western. There is an artifact that lies in the Faywild, swallowed by a terrible tree. Yes, the warden.

The name of it. Vestages. The wrath of the Faywarden. So you found some information yourself? Just the name. And that it's in the Faywild, but nothing more. It is this tree that holds it. It's a tree seeded by the betrayal of an archfay whose hatred burn into a black heart of disease. The cleansing rivers of the Gilded Run prevent the spread

of the Shadmirk bog that seeps from it. Sounds nasty. Doesn't sound very fun, no. Wait, the name of the... The Shademark bog? The Shademerk bog. Ugh, sounds awful. That seeps from this tree is held at bay by the rivers of the Gilded Run. The rivers are called the Gilded Run.

The rivers are called the Gilded Run. Okay. Well, that helps us. Those are clues. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And the shade mark bog pours out of the tree. Out of the cancerous tree. The tree is responsible for a swampy bog.

It's like it ascertained from my research. Fennruth, what's the name? Fenthras, wrath of the Fay warden. Is inside of the tree that is terrible. It is very possible. Okay. You know anything about the vestige of the. itself.

I don't, unfortunately. Most of the Kubot reserve was destroyed, and I was under siege at the moment from the return of the dragons. Did you happen to find in your research what perhaps we might face in the Faye Wild? I mean, we've learned a little bit of it, but I know it's going to be rather dangerous. It creeps me out. I did find also about the spire of Conflux. It is a staff that can bend the elements and was taken into the abyss.

by Joran the sea speaker, hero of the verdant expanse, but four centuries back and was never heard from again. Jaron the what? Joran the sea speaker. He speaks to the sea? Perhaps. Or just the letter C. It's the cookie monster. Hero.

I do have some research about the dragons as well. Oh. So I've done a bit of looking into the personality types, the habits. of some of these chromatics maybe coming up against. The black dragon, you seemingly already dealt with, if word is to come to me correctly, which is magnificent and well done. Very dangerous, let's hope,

they don't decide to strike back soon. I think we didn't provoke them in the cave at all, personal. If they came there, they would have been provoked, figured. I did find that the white dragons, they're more primal, and overall less intelligent than other chromatics. And some of this information you know. Yeah, like why am I writing this down? I know this shit.

But what they do is they... Don't let the lack of intelligence lure you into comfort. They're also unpredictable and raw. Dangerous hunters, they stalk in ruin lands with ice and vengeance. The memory is eternal. eternal and recall every slight defeat and have been known to hold vendettas for centuries and centuries. They despise other dragons and this loose alignment with Fordak is stranger than the others with the white dragon,

though Vorugol's distance to the others is intentional most likely. The entire alignment between them is strange anyway, but particularly with the white dragon they generally steal very clear of or are bent on destroying any other types of dragons that may wander in them. Interesting. Green dragons in particular are manipulative liars by nature. Finding pleasure and to power over others through deceit and promises of wealth and glory they corrupt. They play subservience to other dragons. Then plot the demise to claim their hordes. They're the cede underbelly, underbelly of the chromatic world,

if you will, they amass powerful allies, human, and beyond to their will, bending them and using them as tools. Their life and their very presence is poison to those around them and is the very bases of their danger. They corrupt the air around them to be venomous. I found a bit about this Rishan, you mentioned, and word has spoken, though little that exists out there, that she is also a very

practised weaver of the arcane arts. So we warned. So much so that she could almost pass as a druid wielding natural magic. I can imagine that's quite within her grasp. I've heard rumors of her calling the sky down upon her enemies. Previous individuals that hoped to raid her space were swallowed and quaking earth as she laughed from above. I want to kill her so hard.

Do we know where these dragons have been all this time, where they were banished in? I mean, most of these dragons lived their lives wherever they once were before. Rishon used to exist in the mountains outside of Singul. outside of Singorn, and actually had amassed quite a sizable hoard of followers, lizardmen, lizard folk, all sorts. Thorac, was Thordak was banished to the fire. Ferdak, we had banished, yes. Thoradack in particular.

Red Dragons are true tyrants built on impulse and rage, arrogant to the core. They see themselves as rightful rulers over all. and Thor-Dak, the king of all other dragons as well. He is powerful enough to amass networks of spies and followers far beyond just the dragons that we've battled, I'm sure. So the more time that passes, the more powerful that network will become. I've had a terrible thought, and it is sort of my business to have terrible thoughts. What else has been banished to the fire plane?

Gene? Well, I say this, because if I were to start this, Because if I were to slowly open a portal to the fireplane and power it and make it bigger and bigger and bigger, eventually it would be a hole into that dimension that's big enough for a dragon to fit through, but still not big enough for me, so I need to keep eating to make it bigger.

And maybe they might be looking for what's down there so they can feed it and make a bigger hole. Just a thought. It may be nothing. You think there's something bigger than Thoradrk in the fireplane? I have terrible thoughts. It's a terrible thought. I mean, I'm sure there is something bigger than Thorac, probably in the fire plane, but we closed, the fire, Shari closed the portal.

That may not have been the portal. That's where he came out. That was the portal that Thoradak came out of. It ripped apart my entire. That may just be where he escaped. There might be, that power may still be flowing. Well, Alora, how did you lock him in the fireplane to begin with? Well, we had, through Clever's subterfuge,

managed to have a member of our team work as a follower of Thordark, work into his greater trust, and convince him that to perpetuate his wealth, his growth, his strength, and that he needed to truly embrace the essence of fire. And there are crystals, there are

remnants of the first war that exist in this world and others. The very core of the elemental chaos itself, the hearts of the Titans left behind. These heart stones are the very basis, or at least shadows of the basis of what made the elements when creation came to be. We had found one of these on the fire plane, but the nature of these is they cannot be removed. If they are brought beyond the

plane themselves, they generally shatter. And the few that can be brought across temporarily, the magics that contain them do weaken, and those that attempted to harness their power leave it to ruin, destroying all around them before it, worlds itself into a frenzy of uncontrollable arcane mass, and destroys everything nearby. These were many of the fools who ushered in at the beginning of the Second War. So, essentially, we convinced Thoradak

to find one of these in the plane and convinced him that he had the power to contain it. Once there, all of our forces gathered in, we attacked him, pressed him down, and the gem that we had convinced him, the heartstone that we had convinced him to take into himself. We found a way to seal it, to banish it permanently to that plane, so he could not escape. All right. So, that's all good. But he did escape.

Could he still potentially have it inside of him? Exactly. That was my question. Well, she asked it, so technically it's hers. She turns in, and you can see Gilmore is now sitting at the table like this. I got a very good close at that dragon. A very good close look to finish my sentence. I've been drinking plenty of wine tonight, don't judge me. It's the best wine. It is very, very expensive. Fyaz binion is the best.

Thank you, Grog. It's wandering. But his mass is unforeseen size to a creature like that. I couldn't help but notice that within his torso there was a pulsing heart. Red glass. Looks like to Lolaura. He looks like to Lerra kind of nods. That is the case, then it's, I think it's very much a chance that he did escape with the heartstone intact. I have a question. We got one of the vestiges in these Titanstone knuckles made from the

heartstone are left a plane with these. They're going to blow everybody up? An intact heartstone is the true source of power. Those have been carved from one, an inert one, or at least they carry but a smidgen of the power. I think you'll say, Rob. Oh, thank you. Good. Which one? Court. Court.

Oh, cord. I got it. I'll lorlien's in again. I have been keeping an eye on Iman from this distance as well. It seems that Thoradak's very essence twists the land with elemental magic. Oh shit. My distant views of the city have shown the center of the town cracked with volcanic fire as he digs and burrows beneath the city itself. Reshaping the land. Or is he looking for something?

Is this a dick? Is that looking for something? You might be looking for something. So these heartstones embrace the essence of where they reside? Their essence created where they reside. So, and he has a heartstone of the fire elemental plane living inside of him? A heartstone. A heartstone.

Sir. Right. I need more wine. Do you think he was just making himself at home, or do you think he was looking for something? He seems pretty lax. When I can tell from my investigations, the major step of the concave's plan is already over. Take care of everything.

Now they settle into the divided territories and forget each other. Now I feel that Thorac is far too old and covetous to be content with Justymon. This was vengeance, which is now complete. Who knows what the next stage in his terrible design is? So you're thinking the chroma conclave was simply a temporary alliance.

There are very few permanent alliances between chromatic dragons. Well, that's good. Maybe they won't seek vengeance. It'll only be so hopeful that they'll turn each other apart. Maybe the white one will want to help kill Thorac with us. Turning them against each other is not a bad idea.

Our best hope at this point is to just a mass power. We are not strong enough. No. But we will get stronger. Does the heartstone make him even stronger than he already was? I don't know, but it was not that large when we sealed him. Shit. So we can take...

Yeah. We can pry it over his body. Yeah. We can shrink him down. Perfect plan. So... We could go inside a dragon again. We can go another dragon.

If you see any dragons on the outskirts of the town, have there been any flyovers? Any flyover, close calls within a, say, 50 to 100 miles or so? Any reports? Miles. There were reports of the White Dragon a week ago, south of us. Far south of us. Far south. Do you what? Just flying? It's flying. Flying east. Unless they know what's underneath the castle, there's nothing of value here.

And do we know where Voragal has taken up a roost? No one knows. I'm trying to scry, but they're apparently protected against that now. What about means of protection for white stone? Do you have a defense plan, a warning system? We're just getting now to that point. Maybe a few weeks before we're ready to go. It's a lot to build. It's a very big space to protect, but we and Drake are working on some ideas.

Do you know exactly how these hardstones are forged? They're not forged. They existed. They were the hard stones. of the primordial titans that existed on this world before the gods even came here. Wow. They were the trudonisms of this world before any of us. This is an awesome dinner, by the way.

Super good. So good. I love game meat. I'm sorry. It's been a very tense time. This wine is really good. All right. Perhaps the rest is in order for all of us.

It's been a lot. I'm so sorry. It's good to see all of you. You as well. Allura brightens up a little bit. You can see that she feels guilty that she just did this kind of information dump and is like, ah, it's good to see all of you. It's good to see you.

Ah, well, let us rest for the evening. Drinks last for wine, stands up. I'm talking tomorrow. She gets up. Kima, I'm coming, let me finish. No, seriously, it's good to see you all. I'm glad you're all right. He should have been with you.

I didn't know you left. Sorry, Kima. Buster okay? Better. Better. It's not great though. It's getting better. It lives. It lives. That's true. It stands. Is my house still stand? It's a house, really, but a bunch of bricks. Oh, it's fine.

Always where you make it, Kima. Object and permanence. Next time you're going there, you tell me. Yes, we will. We will be returning. On one condition. Don't wear any more dresses. You're saying I wasn't pretty, Grog. I like you and your arm or better.

That's why I missed you. Trees out like smack! All right, kitties. Sleep at is. Kimmy gets up and joins the Lur and they both leave. Gilmore stands up. Realm sphere stands up. All right, everyone.

Rest well. See you in the morning. Good morning. Glad you're all safe. Good night, Sean. Good night to everyone. Sleep well. They all leave. So we rest here for a night or two, and then to the Faye. Yeah, Fawild.

Or to the... We even have like a geographic demographic location to like... True. Yeah, yeah, we do. I feel the Faye Wiles. What do you say we'd go get you a new bow? We could go get me a new bow. There's also the ocean.

Yeah, nah. Let's go get your bow. I'm gonna pour another glass of wine. Ocean next. I could go off to get the ocean one herself. No. That's a shitty idea. Crazy.

I'm with you. I think you've had too much to drink. The two of you together. Yeah, I like the ocean. I don't really like the ocean. All right, you guys all going to rest? I have one thing I'd like to do. Okay, what do do I want to go back to our little cave that we dug out under where the sun tree is?

Is that still there? Yeah, it's still there. I want to go there, and I want to kind of like sit down and meditate for a second. And I want to cast speak with plants, a little chat with the sun tree. Okay. You cast the spell, you reach out and touch the roots of the tree, the roots of which have more color than they did before, the dull gray, has come more of a full brown, the earth here smells of fresh, damp earth.

The tree, while still in the winter phase, is definitely teeming with life to where it once didn't. I reach out and I touch the roots. Can I just kind of feel, sense like the arcane laylines that Allura was talking about, that the tree is kind of in the center of? Not really. In speaking to the tree, you can ask questions,

but you're not quite, you find yourself unable to tune into that or tap into that source of magic at this place at least. Okay, so I just reach out and touch a tree and I say, hey old friend, how you're feeling? Doing better. Hey, bud, much better.

You're pretty cool, Sun Tree. Sun Tree, okay. Hey, Sun Tree. I was just wondering if you knew, if you could tell me anything about this terrible cancer tree in the Faye Wild? If you knew anything about it, he might be like your brother or something. What? No, no, okay, there's this tree in the Faye Wild,

and it might have a man living in it called Fenthrus. No, sorry, that's the name of the bow. Bow is in it named Fenthras, and it might be a really sick tree. Can you tell me where there's a really sick tree maybe in the Faywilds? That sounds sad, but no, I don't know a tree like that. I've been here in Whitestone since day one.

Want to play hacky sack? So I graduated from Berkeley, made my way in a white store. I'm on my twigs, smoke the dew. Barkle. Barkly. Oh. Yeah. Oh.

Yeah. Oh. I like it. Hey, Suntry. Yeah. You apparently kind of live in the middle of all these arcane laylines of the world. Yeah. How far do those stretch?

Where do those stretch? Um, way, Kiki. Can you kind of give me a rough idea? Like, do they go to the other side of the world? Can you kind of stretch all over the world? Ah, just right here. Pelor put me here for a reason. Who? Palor?

Yeah. Right. So you're not like a natural tree. You're a tree from the gods? Sure. Well, anyway, you're really awesome, Sun Tree. Awesome, Sun Tree. Speak for yourself, Kiki. Yeah, you're so cool.

Um, Cervils, good talking to you. You too. I'll walk through you soon, okay, bye. And then I leave. I want to make a once over on Vax and make sure that... So you did, you got all the blood off them. I mean, we got all cleaned up for tonight. I just want to make sure you didn't ruin it by keeping some of the blood in your freaking hair.

Don't I look alright? I'm fine. What's your problem? Nothing. Just making sure. I'm sure you're doing all right. Yeah. All the blood's gone. Yeah. You're great. It's all gone.

I'm doing much better. Good. You ready for the day while? So, fuck, no. No, not ready, but, you know, we can do it. Super, so. You'll lock over to Percy. I was about to walk out the door, but if you're walking...

Before you leave, I always spoon your ear. You still have a little blood behind your ear. Do you want to take a walk with me? walk with me. Sure. Take a very quiet walk around White Stone. I want to pass all of the temples that are either still standing or destroyed in Stone. I want to just take a temple tour, not stopping, not talking, I just want to see what they look like. Palo looks good. The one in the cemetery. The one in the cemetery is still under construction, that would need still more work. While in the cemetery, I assume that

It's still a mess? Most of the graves have been refilled. Corpses have been brought back. Most of the dead that were brought forth from the previous owners have been returned. It was one of the first order of business that the people who live here did was to return their families to the earth.

There was a couple Lord's crypts in there. Was there an Anders family crypt at one point? There would have been, yeah. So, cool. All right. I'm going to walk back to the castle. with you in tow and I'm gonna find Zara. Okay.

Are you gonna tell me why you went and saw the Raven Queen? Yes, come. All right. You come back to the study where you originally found Zahar. She's still there pouring over books but is now half asleep. Like she's a little candle that's starting to flick her out and she has her feet up on the desk and she, her tail's kind of curled up and she's like falling asleep into the book as you walk in. What? What? I... We all need sleep sometimes, huh?

Ah, sleeps for the boring. I have a task for you if you have the time and energy for something a bit quiet, but necessary. What do you ask, Percy? I'm going to have the deeds to the Anderson family crypt transferred to your name. I want you to clean it out, throw the bodies wherever he has disgraced himself, clean them. And if you can, and if you can find people who can do it, I want to very very much. very quietly in that crypt create a small shrine for the Raven Queen. This will help, and I bring out the vial of blood from the pit. Perhaps they will know what to do with that. But I would

like her to have a quiet mark in this city. Is this for you or for my brother? It's for your brother so that he can help us. We're apparently all in this together. I give Percy a kiss on the cheek. Oh, thank you. Blood. All right? We need all the help we can get.

Very well. I'm sure it can be done. I've never owned a Crip before. I'm excited. That's exciting. Take the mile, touch it's it on the table. I think it suits you. Tell anyone you like where I went.

It's not a secret. I just wasn't ready to... I don't think your brother... I would hate for him to think I'm competing. I just had some questions. questions. I won't tell anyone, Percy. Thank you.

Your business is yours. And mine, because I noticed. Thank you for noticing, and I'm trying hard not to make it my business. It's hard to remember sometimes. That's awful, isn't it? I'm going to go to my room. Oh, Percy! Yes.

Laura wanted to make some dragon arrows. Could she use stuff here in the castle? I'll talk to my sister on the way out. I'll write her letters. and see if they can, they may have to delve into our materials for it, but I think it will. Yes. We'll talk about using our materials for such a thing. And I'll, yes, we'll talk to her about that. I'm gonna do my little thing, and if it works great, and if not, I'll speak no, not of it.

Okay. Go ahead and make your tinkering check? Thank you. Better. 30. That'll do. I craft, a brooch. It's not even a brooch, it's a clasp. I had built pieces of it earlier on in the game for the last few weeks.

I've been working on this. I had taken the Raven skull that you gave me and made a mold and poured, melted silver into a bird skull, a silver bird skull. Taken a ruby and set it behind it, built it into a clasp that does not reflect, and in it put a sachet of a, satchel.

Sashie. Sash. Coffee of myrrh and... Frankincolns. Mur, sandalwood, and opium and dragon's blood. Not real dragon's blood, but dragon's blood. True blood. It's a sap, it's a tree sap.

Put the whole thing together. You had opium this whole time and you have it? It's not like, it's just pop. What does it do? What does it do? You will find out when I present it. All right. Everyone else going to rest?

No, I ran out of dinner super fast, and I ran outside of Bax's room, and I took the jug, and I whispered into it, oil, and I poured one quart of oil on the ground outside of his door. Looked around real quick. Is there anyone in the hallway? Make a perception check. Looks clear. And I run away.

no run away. All righty. That was super awesome and I can't wait to see the outcome. Before that happens, I was standing right here when these two walked off, so I'm waiting in the exact same spot for my sister return. A lot of time passes. She's fine. A few hours passed before she returns, but she eventually does.

Are you still here? Did you go to bed? I will. I took a little bit of a nap. In the dining hall. dining hall. Yeah. All right.

You know, you're a grown-ass woman and you're twice as strong as I am. I know. Your business is your business. Just, um, both eyes open, yeah? Always. I'm very perceptive. Don't do that to me. Two wings.

Don't. Don't, please. Don't ever, ever, ever do that to me again. I love you so much. And if you do, you will never use that wink on me again. It is not for me. All right. Just, he's charming, but both eyes open, please.

I don't know what you're talking about. Yeah, the fuck you don't. Gonna go to my room now and see if I splat on the floor. All right, make reception check. I only know where we. I'm pregnant. Sorry, buddy, it's a 31. As you approach the door, you look down and see a smear of dark reflective oil across.

You walk away about two feet leading up to your room. You guys have a cluster of rooms in this long hallway. And it arcs around like an L. So you guys are in like this big L of all your rooms kind of scattered throughout. How thick is it? Is it viscous? Yeah, it's pretty slid. My hand in it. Does that stay?

Oh, the hand stays for a minute and goes away. Yeah, it's pretty thick. Also has a fume to it. Okay. I'm gonna scrape a bunch of it up just into my hand, so I have a big handful of it, and I'm just going to go to Grog's room. And I'm going to slowly, just at the door,

take time to write, Grog, smells like farts. I walk by as he's doing this and say, Poo, do you want to help? You know he can't read, right? I picked specifically small words. Poo, oh, he can read that. And I draw, I then, no, I tell you what I do.

Pull down my breeches. And I put the oil on my butt and I go, . What butt print? A little signature. All right. Well then. Preschoolers run a muck and down.

Get busy living or get busy dying. All right. You guys all get to bed? Anything else when we get bed? I just told Pike she looked real pretty tonight. Then I go back to my reading. Okay. You guys all find yourself back to your respective rooms resting for the night.

Some doors adorned differently than others. Part way to the evening is resting, like we'll say, with wee hours of the morning, post midnight or so, your door opens slightly, fax, and you hear a little on your door. You look over and you see Gilmore pop his head in with a soft smile. Sorry if I'm waking you off. I'm sorry. It's all right. Here, and he takes a, looks at, produces what's like a folded pile of material and throws it at the foot of your bed and goes, come back, say, made you a gift. Put it on Come walk with me a while.

We have a lot to talk about. I open it up. It's a very well-crafted silk robe of dark blue and black, beaded, nice against the skin. It's really nice. There's a wooden screen in the room. I go behind it and I wipe any oil. That's fantastic.

It's all right. It looks all right, and I put it on. All right. He just waits for you patiently in the hallway. patiently in the hallway. Sure. So he just kind of begins walking along and kind of puts his arm out to you, take his arm. You guys walk up along the hallway, leads you to a staircase that leads up further.

And he goes, I know a lot has happened these recent months. I've been watching from afar. Keeping tabs on your journey best that I can. But I still know so little. You're going to send the lengthy staircase and you make your way to the higher floor. you eventually open an intricate door and walk out onto a wide balcony in that tower that overlooks the grounds and the castle before you.

The beautiful moonlight, the night there. I see the moon is nearly full, and the white light illuminates the densely forested countryside surrounding the castle. Closed as the door walks up to you at the edge of the balcony, looking over it all, looking the elbows on the edge. Some time is past facts, and much of the world moves on to new or greater threat.

But true pain never really heals. Turns to you, steps up to you looking you close in the face. You hurt me deeply. It continued to hurt. Agony for weeks, months. Pain I had never experienced. It's all I can think about. Can I make an inside jerk? You would if you had time. Oh my god. I knew it. No. The pain hits you suddenly before anything else does as you're lost in that face and the sudden feeling and sensation of terror and horror.

You suffer 18 points of piercing damage and I need you to make a Constitution saving throw. That's my specialty. Constitution save? Mm-hmm. Eleven. You feel the poison. I'll use luck. Okay.

18. 18. Okay. You feel what should be a pulse of poison hit your system, and you just managed to fight it off. Suddenly you look down, and there is Gilmore holding a blade thrust into your stomach. Your robes now beginning to fill with crimson red around the wound. It's at that moment you see and pull you in and stare into your face, with a very, very, very, very, very. With a very, very low growl, it's all I think about. And you watch as a flicker to his form happens, and you see for a second there's a flash, not skin, but fur, you see teeth, you see whiskers.

And the hand holding the dagger is facing the other direction. That's where we're going to end tonight session. Welcome to Mick Unplugged, the number one podcast for self-improvement and modern leadership. I'm Mick Hunt, your host, and I'm here to challenge your why and fuel. You're because. This is where leaders, entrepreneurs, and go-getters come to level up. Each week, I bring you unfiltered conversations, game-changing strategies, and the kind of motivation that transforms lives and legacies.

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