Critical Role & Sagas of Sundry - Vox Machina Ep. 6 - Breaching the Emberhold

Episode Date: November 26, 2021

The party continues to wind its way ever downward, far below Kraghammer, making their way toward the Duergar Fortress known as Emberhold. It looms in the dim light of the caverns and many magma flows, housing both secrets...and danger. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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So, the party had been traveling into the Dwarven City of Craghammer at the behest of the archonist, Allura Vysorin, in search of a halfling paladin, a very revered folk hero named Lady Kima Avord who had gone missing following a vision quest, somewhere beneath the Dwarven City of Craghammer, supposedly for some great evil that was germinating there, festering and growing.

After you guys traversed through the Dwarven City, you began to find your way down into the mines, the myth reminds of grace bind beneath the Dwarven Town. After a few fateful encounters, the return of your gnome cleric. Hey, that's me. Grog having his proverbial brains temporarily blown out by an intellect devour.

The party then decided to make friends with a mineflare, an illifid that had been cast out from its people, seeking vengeance and possible return to its people. Upon making this alliance, they made an attack on the Dwarrofen or the Duregar war camp that is threatening to rise up and attack Craghammer from deep within the mountains themselves. The attack was successful, the general was killed, interrogated, and some interesting information was gleaned

from him before his brain was sucked out of his head by Clorota, my clear friend. However, this attack also announced to the local war camp of your presence. In the process of attempting to escape, the druid was damaged and lost her eagle form and thus began a free fall of many party members, a hap-hathing attempt to use the magic carpet far over its weight limit,

led most of the party to come crash landing and nearly killing everyone. Managed to escape, walled themselves in thanks to Keelith's Stonewall spell, and after staying the evening in one of the deeper tunnels and barely avoiding a roving band of Duregard there, you managed to find yourself in battle with two ogres carrying some sort of strange mutated black pudding ooze contained in a glass container. Glass container being shattered, of course, by an explosive arrow created by Percy, fired by the very start of the battle.

Led into a very rough battle with the strange mutating ooze that kept splitting and splitting and splitting until through some good teamwork, crafty use of telekinesis in the nearby lava pool, and general high damage roles. You guys managed to survive the encounter. Barely. Making your way to the bottom of this tunnel,

you found yourself looping back around to the large crevasse where the giant waterfall had fallen in before, where you had met Clorota, which allowed you to retrieve your Trinket. Yeah. And we pick up as you guys begin to step down into the lower tunnels, the ones that are partially coated with a series of magma pools and falls that are trickling out of the rock side. All right, everyone. What is our, I was just so out of it last time. Yeah. Yeah. Have we rested? Are we in need of some rest?

It should probably rest. What are we around? What's near us? Is this just a tunnel? Is there any sort of shelter caves? We're by that lake with the giant monster play. We circled all the way back. We ran a circle. And went down to that place that you told us not to go

in the first place? Yeah, that's where we ended up. How was that for you? So essentially, there was... We're back in the camp. You're under the camp. You're where the giant, the giant chasm leads down to the waterfall. There's the pool of water at the bottom. where the abeleth was in the middle.

We just barely survived the chat room, and now we need to rest. Okay. Like a chat room. You guys also just woke up about two, three hours ago. Oh. Right. So we don't really want, oh, we could take hit point.

You could take a short rest and use your hit dice to heal up. So. Oh. You didn't take any damage last battle, thankfully you stayed out of the fray. So I'm okay. You're okay. Okay, great. That's all I go.

You were very nibble and out of the fray. Yeah. You did use one of your dominate spells. Okay. It's the only thing of note. So the rest of you who need to heal up, you can use this time to take a short rest and use your hit dice to heal up on your own.

I'm ready. Who will we find next? Does anyone need some healing? Are we okay? Are we all good? Where is everybody at? On a, well, I mean, I'm fine. On a personal level? And as we're like in life or... I'm going to get some social points back.

As we survey the area, What's, where are the, how many tunnels we're looking at? What's our options here? So, uh... He's back. He's back. Well, you calm down. So let's, well, I'm...

You're really up in here. Let me pull up this visual aid for you. So, this is the tunnel sequence you guys have traversed down into the main area where the goblin encampment was. This is the large bridge that went across the giant chasm to where the DuraGar War camp was. Uh-huh. This is the giant drop-off of the water. You guys are currently over in this section about to go deeper into this tunnel where a series of small

magma trickles are pouring out of the rock. So we never went up to the war camp and threw it. You did. Oh, we did. We crashed down by the tunnel, we fled, we sealed up the way behind us. Okay. Ran here. Okay.

This is all post-growing. So we should keep going, we should just keep going. Yeah. Magma, follow the magma. I recommend. Don't we, I mean, we don't want to go up and through the camp again. No, no, no, we're going into the cabin. So we're going to backtrack the way we came to that fork in the road, yes?

No, we're going into the tunnel. Did you see the visual aid? Yes, we're going down the lava tunnel. No, no, no, into the tunnel. I'll just follow. I thought I understood. I mean, there might be something to be gleaned from going back through the war camp into that tunnel.

We just came out of that. No, no, no, no. You guys came through here. Yes. You traveled across over the war camp, went back here, and the tunnel below. And pop this out there. So now we're going into that.

And just to make sure that my memory is on point, before we circle back around, we hit a fork in the road where we could have gone up and we could have gone down. Correct. That's behind us. We're going down, down, down. Cheers. Cheers, indeed.

Have a little bit of prayer. All right. Shall we? Yes. We shall. We shall. Is Clarence with us still? Clarota is indeed with you.

Clarota took a large black iron d'urigar bolt to the chest earlier and is mostly recovered, but still even more hunched than usual as far as you put it. But he also ate those brains? The brains helped him help him keep healthy, but he's still a little wounded, but he's taking his time and rest up. He seems to be okay, not as worse for where as he was earlier. Okay. The slight wheeze that's always kind of to him still present. just always a little wheezy. A little rough on the edges.

It's far as little, yeah, sounds just like that. All right, so, as you guys begin to push down into this lower chasm, the temperature of the air itself grow steadily warmer and warmer with a drier heat. You find yourself, especially those of you with thick armor. Oh, so hot. Sweat beads begin to trickle down the side of your face and begin to pool and gather in parts of

your chest plate. Mike, if you'd like me to hold your armor, do you want to take it off for a little while? No, I'll keep it on just for a save. Let it hang out a little bit now. Do you even lift, bro? Just saying, might feel more comfortable with a loose fitting sort of clothes.

Scam and stuff being creepy. I'm just trying mindful. Oh, it's fine. It's fine. It's fine. Yeah, it's okay. I'll keep it off. I'll just have to use my imagination.

A gentleman's offer. Yes. That's what we'll call it for now. Onward. All right. Pressing further down, the air itself that once had kind of a hint of that sulfurous smell is now becoming stronger and stronger as you step deeper and deeper into this cavernous tunnel.

It rests about 30 feet to 40 feet at width and about 25, 30 feet up and it varies and comes to pinch tighter or wider at moments, but it continues in a steady downward climb in a continuous direction. These small trickles, some of them pool and kind of gather into these small magma kind of cups, if you will. I'm all too much. I knew it's coming. I'm just wondering that's minus 200 experience points. Yeah. I feel a bit weaker now. Sorry.

So you get about 20 or 30 minutes. deeper into this tunnel, before the sweltering heat gets noticeably warmer, and as you crest a slight incline and decline over it's a small hill portion of this tunnel, you can see now a large portion of the rock has collapsed on the left side, and a gargantuan pool of magma is pulling into the tunnel, essentially covering half of the tunnel you're traversing down. It can be walked on the side of them safely at about two or three at shoulder width, but you only have about a 15-foot width period,

and the rest of it is just extremely bright, hot molten rock. Does it hurt us to get near it? No, but it's uncomfortable, and it's something to be very aware of and to watch your stuff. You feel great. You feel great. I'd just like to point out where nine adults play

don't touch the halalawa at the moment. Yes, yes. Uh... Keylet, Keyleth, you don't have any way of... You say it gets hotter than this. You don't have any way of getting some water out here or anything. Ooh, I do, and I pull out an empty bottle. That's helpful.

Tiberius, see that bottle a lot, what does it do? I pull out two bottles. This one is an air bottle, and this one is a water bottle, maybe. Oh, thank you. That clears that up. Even I feel down the round. Their intelligence is now four. Four.

Does it make a lot of water? Oh, yes. If we ever need air, I think that's the water one that you just pulled out. I control a small gust. Yes, but what about water? Oh my. This, if we need water, I do it and I do a small stream. Okay, so a little bit of water just being to pour perpetually and without seeming ends. It's like a string. Oh, nice.

So if you want to describe it, I do a small, a small, a small, small, little squirt blasts on Scanlan. Oh, okay. Oh, okay. Lovely. Is that unlimited? Of course it is. Why would I carry a non-magical item on me?

That's ridiculous. I just don't want a bottle. So yes, Scanlon. So should you try to cross this little... That sounds cool. Can I use my tracking to see any of those due regard to see if any of them and pass through the area if there's a large group of them ahead of us.

I can use my tracking in my favorite terrain to see how many within six miles if there's a large group of them and stuff. Yes, you can. All right, go ahead and roll for your tracking check on that. First roll. Oh, here we go. Good for the Star Wars trailer.

This is with advantage, you believe, because it is your favorite terrain. Oh, okay. The rain. Okay, that's better. Is that it? 21. 21?

21. All right. You take a moment and about 30 to 40 feet, you kind of go through and inspect the way the terrain has been pushed and the dirt has been shoved aside, tracking footprints, scuff marks in the rock, and the walls nearby, seeing if any of the flows have been interrupted recently.

And you ascertain that there is actually a pretty continuous patrol through here, about once every four to eight hours up and down this tunnel. That container from five to ten or more, Duregar. Sometimes other larger creatures you find foot prints that resemble maybe the ogres you mentioned earlier, possible troll footprints, so you're not familiar with that entity. You also noticed some of the walls have what looks like

small localized caverns, almost as if something had burrowed through at one time or another. Large, large creatures. So there's also things that exist outside of the tunnel system. So as quickly as possible, we should get through these tunnels. Probably a good idea. As a note, though, you sit within six miles? Yes.

As you continue tracking. cracking down this tunnel, and it takes you a good three or four hours to finally reach a point where the tunnel begins to widen up. You assess that maybe three miles up, there is a localized town, or at least a population of Duragar, amassed in a central place. Check out the brain on Brad. So three to four miles up you said, from where we are at this point? Yeah, from where you begin. Do we do stealthing?

We should probably start stelfing at this point. I was about to say I'd like to move ahead of the group and start sneaking along. Let's do that. Go ahead and roll stealth. Do I have advantage like my sister have for? Everybody? We do not. We all try to stealth? Yeah. This is...

This is... Group stealth check. Failed. Failed. 19. 15. 7. 17.

7. 20. 26. All right. Picking up on the street. Picking up on the shortcomings of a handful of members of your group, you do manage to maintain what you feel is a fairly stealthy advance deeper into this tunnel system. About an hour and a half of perpetual travel as the tunnel slowly widens further and further

with every quarter mile or so, you eventually get to a point where the tunnel shoots open into a gargantuan cavern, a chamber nearly a mile and a half across. from this visual point. It is extremely tall with hundreds of very jagged stalagmites hanging from the ceiling and rock formations that kind of rise and fall at different points of the topography. This entire tunnel is built in the strange large natural downward curve that disappears out of sight about a mile ahead and to the left. But this huge tunnel is lit with what looks like maybe two to three dozen various small lava falls that are pouring down the sides of this cavern, this giant cavern structure. You also see some small

pockets of that red glow stone that the, a lot of these warden tunnels tend to use as a light source. You also, as you begin to step into this carefully, you taking point on this, both the twins, you notice on the far end of this this cavern, There is, let me see here. Well, first off, the entire landscape is rough and craggy with large black obsidian spikes just jutting out of the ground in various points, whether it be seismically created or otherwise.

It's a very unwelcoming atmosphere. And that sulfurous smell is extremely strong. Even though you've gotten used to it as far as you can to this travel, it's still a very pungent odor, and you find that it's going to be very difficult if you'd make up any other scent in this location right now, other than that horrible mixture of chemicals. probably isn't very healthy to be breathing at the moment. What you see across the chamber, your eyes focus on a small

cluster of buildings, it looks. Some of a similar construct as the barracks that you saw at the war camp. You can probably surmise somewhere in the neighborhood of about 20 to 25 of these structures all localized in this one area that is punctuated with, you can count about seven of these black obsidian spires that rise out at different points, like watchtowers. Still natural? No, these are constructed.

These are very smooth and have that kind of rigid, dwarfish construction with a jagged edge to each one of the leveled lips of these towers. The one that you can see closest to you, which is about a quarter mile off, you can just barely make out what looks like a couple of Dürg walking across one of the upper levels and what looks like some sort of valista and or anti-personnel weapon that is put. This is where you can be held. How do you know that? I mean...

She had a vision. Plus, it's a really big thing. That's true. These giant bolt throwers currently reside on each one of these, and then in the center of this cluster of buildings, you see standing a gargantuan ebony fortress. Serrated stonework marks the top of each wall, and more of these giant bolt throwers are mounted across the parapets. A massive magma fall descends from the rocky ceiling right above the stronghold onto the roof

and is forked onto each side and then continues to flow down but you're seeing each side of the stronghold almost as a defense mechanism. Like they built it intentionally underneath this magma fall. Oh, oh, that's where the trap drawer is. What? Traptroller?

That's a truck drawer. You have a possible... You must still ask you. I was with you the whole time. Yes, but you were never paying attention. I was drunk. You got that new... You've been staring at it.

Long time. I have no. I have no. I've known. I've known. hike and ushers her up to the front. Do you recall any other details from your vision, from your dreams? I've definitely been here in the vision. I do remember that much. All of this looks familiar. And I think we're in the right place. Sweet. So, you know,

That's all important. Depending on what else is around, what was the building again? with the... It's a fortress? The giant fortress you see is called Emberhold. And that's what's been referred to as. It's not a temple. It is a fortress. It's not a temple as a fortress.

The temple where apparently Kavarn, as far as you know, exists, is further below in the kind of fungal forest that surrounds this ancient city ruin that has been repurposed by the illifids that Chlorota actually came from. Oh, yes. And we know here because the general, the general, the eliposed, the eliposed, that the phyllis, that is the that we mind-melded, Clorota reddest brain. Yeah, I was there. I know, I was you were drunk, so I'm reiterated.

Yeah, yeah, Gil, thank you for that. Yes. Just making sure. You had this very, so remember, Scanlet, that the general said that on the left side of the fortress is how we can get into the trap door. How we can get into the trap door.

Right. Exactly. By the smaller. By the smaller of two love. Of two what? Lovers. Love close. So what I'm looking at is the fortress.

You're looking at Emberhold itself. Yeah, the central. of the Duragard Society and from what you've gleaned from two different duerogar that you've interrogated supposedly where Lady Kima has been held by King Mergold by King Mergol and Queen Ulara From our vantage point can we see the two the two lava flows that we were warned about it is way too far away that strong old to probably a good mile and a half away from

you right now. There's a lot of cover as we go near. There is a lot of cover. Yes, but there's a lot of open area with cover. So it's one of those you're just going to have careful as you move through. It's very dark. It's very dark.

The only reason you can see much is because of the light vision. Very long. Even in this radius, things you can see nearby. I started right now. A light source would be very helpful in making sure that you can see details and not fall in anything you don't want to. But it also makes you very visible to anything else out there.

So you have to the lava and the red stones, the twins can see, correct? Because of the dim light. You can see near, but like I said, things are a mile away. Right, right, right, right. It's way too far away. The reason you can make out this small city and

Emberhold itself is because there are clusters of the red glowstone used within that city and the giant magmafall that currently envelops the sides of the stronghold, make it very, very visible and easy to pick out against the rest of the cavern. So this is a whole little city down here. So we should keep to the left and head down that direction. I'm actually going to go ahead and cast

passed without a trace. Okay. What's that too? And makes this really stealth. Oh, cool. Essentially, as she said, the thing that's saved on puts last time. You've seen this before.

As she finishes her incantation, you feel the darkness of the shadows around you begin to coalesce and almost stick to you. And there's no substance for a moment. You almost find yourself impulsed by it until you realize that it's probably an advantageous circumstance. But you find yourself now much easier to slip into the surrounding shadows. They're nice shadows.

And I'm doing my flower girl routine. with the dust of tracelessness just over here, over there. We don't really need, well, we never know person. He doesn't advertise. We have to see how many times it's safe us. What's our angle here, gents? We just, we need to get closer up.

We need to find this trap door because it's suicide going in the front. Right, and Lady Kima is being held here. So there's an entrance to this trap door that possibly is on the outskirts of the city. Yes. Yes. So we need to find it. Yes.

Yes, it's on the left. Oh, it's on the left? Yes, so we're heading left and go. Let's do it. Yes. And the twins will creep up, continue. Yeah, you guys are all stealthy, so. Yeah, we'll keep.

It's probably smart, you're moving. Keep creeping. Okay. I'll take point on the group that's following. All right. You guys, take care of Trinket as I'm ahead of you. Come on. Be a Trinket or tell it jokes in the back of the group.

Okay. Quietly. Classic trick. All right. You guys continue staying off of the main path, and you can see there is about a 20-foot natural formation of kind of a walkway or at least where most of the patrols and any sort of Duregar foot travel is localized. You can see where that natural road is being created over time. You avoid that path and steer off to the left, kind of dodging between the various

bits of terrain. It is a very rocky and difficult terrain should you not be with your ranger, who is the underdark, is her favorite terrain. Go back then, should I, or is it okay because we're all together? It's okay because you guys are in theory together. I'm going to say essentially you're just marking places where the terrain would be dangerous to watch your step and to be wary of any locations that might be unsafe for load bearing, anything like that.

So, I saw that look. You call them me load bearing? Yes. That's honest. Specific. As you guys begin to curve around the left, Everyone will perception check well fast. Oh, snap.

Prepare for a natural. Oh, shit. Lab. That's great. Our proficiency, bonus? Only for proficient with perception. I can't read the dice. It's either a six or a nine.

15. There's a dot on the bottom. Oh, that's the bottom? Yeah. It's six. Oh, yeah. 16. 15.

16. 24. Nine. 19. Twenty. 25. All right. Both Percy and Vax simultaneously kind of put their arms out and pulled everyone back as you instinct.

You hear a slight distant clanking of metal and voices. Low kind of conversational voices. Too far people listen at this point. But you guys immediately stop everyone. And you can just see over maybe a good 70, 80 feet, distance heading up the path you guys have just begun to skirt around a small what looks like a roving patrol of Duregar probably the ones that go up and down the tunnel I can I can ambush them ambush them why don't we why don't we create a distraction and get rid of them well okay but I can I can hide in plain sight now so I could how many are there we got killed yeah you have you have no one's seen you just can

hear up no one's come in check oh can I look yes let's go go get one all right just just the two of you or I just just the two of you or I just How far away are we from them in distance? Right now, you're guessing about 80 to 70 feet, but closing fast? Not closing directly on you, because they're kind of doing a slightly increased path. They're taking the path that we're not all, right?

Correct. So if we hide. They won't find us, potentially. They won't find us. But I want to hear what they're saying. Okay, so all of you guys, is. Okay, yeah, we'll hide. I go ahead and I cast guidance on backs.

Is that a concentration spot? I'm Vex, he's Vax. Don't break our, our, look alike, it's understandable. That will definitely break your other spell. I'll put up your old back. Oh, no, then don't. Keep it past better, right now.

Guidance is concentration. No, sorry, you don't have my guidance. That's okay, that's okay. No guidance here. Why don't we go just a head and see what we can see? Yep. Okay, so the two of you kind of work up. Not about the position.

Okay. As the rest of you are kind of holding back, the twins kind of slink between the various rock formations and strange, jagged spires that are currently peppering this entire underground landscape, you get up to a point where you're maybe 10 feet from the road and kind of with your backs against the rock, you can begin to see the roving band slowly move around.

The band of dirt. Oh, that's. You count at quick glance roughly, 12 to 15. Oh, yeah. Armed with hammers, halberds. Both of you guys roll perception check right now. You make out that one of them holds no weapons instead is

dressed. Oh, wait, no, I get advantage on perception because I'm in my favorite terrain. I already perceived it. Oh, yeah, never mind, okay. You can also perceive, I suppose. I already perceive. One of the Duragar walking alongside

is completely bald on top with this Extremely long, well-sculpted black-goathe beer that streams down. Thick black and red, trimmed robes, carries no weapon. It looks extremely dangerous. And he's super-proof, but... However, as you're listening to the conversation, you specifically being able to understand, under-color? Yes.

What was he saying? You pick up bits and pieces as they begin to pass by, kind of hold your breath, helping nobody notices you. And so far, so good. They begin to walk slowly past the rock you guys are against. You over here, one of them say, I'll keep your eyes, people. That thing is still out there.

Another one goes slaps into his. Horick said it to the whole scouting party in seconds. Another one goes... Losing it to Horik was your first mistake. Shut up and keep walking. I'll keep pushing, at which point the same kind of scared of him before him that says... Well, I mean, if that one went crazy, I can't the other ones crack too.

I don't know if I feel safe or belongs on any one of that cavars pets anymore at this rate. And by that point they begin to slowly move past and their voices begin to fade as they continue up the path. You guys just traverse down up through the lava tunnels.

Good thing I was clearing our footprints. It's actually a very good thing. It's a win for a draw. Is it? Did I do some good? Good job, dummy. Guys have like bear tracks and a giant Goliath like what? What are they? Fried banana.

Oh. Five bananas, toss me one of those. Is that from the chat? You're working. You don't have time to eat. Thank you, Chapman. Thank you, Chapman. Thanks so much.

I know it's not a piece of pizza guys, but I'll do what I can. Next time, sushi. Sushi and Institu Jiu, and Someone who didn't put their name on it. This is the German mystery guy. And Kurt Holson's the pizza.

Thanks, guys. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Oh, my God, that's so good. So the sound of the Duraghar walking eventually fades and you feel pretty confident that you're safe to return to the rest of the party.

Okay. So we walk back. Yeah. So apparently, number one, big party. We didn't want to fight them. If we don't have to. Secondly, there's some weirdo creature that's gotten loose and it's very, very bad, and it's killed multiple

Durrigar already. already. So, right. No indication of what kind of a creature it was? No, but it might be the thing we already killed. It could have been the thing with a plate that showed up in the camp, I don't know. The thing with the plate? The bullet. The big thing.

The boule. Oh. It could have been that. The French god. Yeah. Regardless, we should be very careful traveling. You can use that to our advantage. We could.

We could. We could. We could scare them off. Quite easily, yeah. All right. I like your shape. That's true. I can make funny style. Should we keep moving forward at a very stealthy sort of pace?

We're working. It's a stealthy pace. You guys push forward to being that wide kind of left curve, which adds a fair amount of time to your travel as you're being careful and moving at a very, very heavy circular arc around the Duregard city. I'm looking for doors and stuff as we go. I don't know why. Sure.

Looking for doors. Well, there's trap the door somewhere, right? There doors are. I think that's good thinking. That'll be the fortress, maybe. Possibly. Could be farther. Can we see, you know, the molten things that he was talking about, the lava falls?

Still too far away. Still too far away. You guys, as you begin to make your way around, you're just starting to get to the point where you can see the front of the fortress. You can see where the magma fall splits and just kind of coalesces around each side of the stronghold and almost like a blanket waterfall on each side.

It does split up at certain points. You can start making out? Does the magma, where does the, Where does the magmo run off lead to? Does it just pour out? Does it just pour out? Does it fill them out? It's hard to tell from this distance, unfortunately.

You have to be closer up to sea. Okay. About an hour of travel around the side. I'm so bored. Don't say that. That can be fixed, Leah. We're just having the ex-positions. Of all the things.

All right. If you isn't like that. You... Wow, Percy. Sorry. Wow. That's... It's at this point immediately catching your eye, Vex.

One of the nearby, the obsidian spires, is a different color than the rest. The rest are like a deep black, kind of glass, shiny color. This one is a dull kind of crimson. Ooh. We should go towards that one. Because it's a different color. Yeah. Let's go check it out.

Wait, why was your first color? I'm still laughing at Percy. What? Just eat your banana. Black obsidian. This one's red, crimson, ruddy. Anyway. The twins are gonna go to the peak.

Okay. I'm coming with. Do it. Scamlin comes with. Go and roll stealth check. Oh boy. I'm not. Not my strong. Don't fuck it up.

No, Scanlan, what'd you do? You dick. What did you do? What did you do? Wait, wait, I got advantage. I got advantage, don't do that. I grab Scanlan and I kiss him on the cheek and make him say.

Oh! Oh! Oh! What? Wait a take one to this. Well, that's how? Oh, no. You just stopped from farting into it.

Wow. Persuasion? Uh, Presumpercy is that we roll a persuasion against a critical fail. Can you persuade a crit fail? Can you persuade the D. Wait, is it a fail?

Okay. It was a one. It was a one. It was a one face. That's a one face. That's a one face. Okay. You can.

I will say, Pike, roll a perception. Roll of perception. Ah! E20. E20? Perception? Yes, E20.

That's half of it. 14? No. No. Negative? Yes, 14. Stop. Unfortunately, you're not quite

perceptive enough to notice Scanlan's not quite so quiet walking away as you're distracted by the surroundings and the circumstance locally. You continue up with the twins absolutely humming to yourself. The twins being used to your humming, for some reason it doesn't connect. You make your way up to this fire,

and about 15, 20 feet out, you notice the coloration is different because it is completely coated in what looks like dried blood of some kind. Oh, God. And immediately to the right of it along the ground. Currently, your vision is obscured by another large, kind of twisted stalagite. But there appears to be an arm and a whole bunch more dried blood across the ground just out of you.

Give me stop. Give me stop. You can stop. You're an arm? Scanner. What? What? You're singing. I was singing? I was singing? I can't even know. It's a force of habit.

I'm going to look. I'm going to see if I can see anything in the area that has done this recently. Is the arm attached to whatever did it? Just make an investigation check. Investigation check? Is the arm part of a dead thing? or is it a lot? It's on the ground. Pretty sure whatever it is.

Can I check it out as well? You can also tend to make an investigation. Loot the arm? There you go. Wait, I'm doing advantage to just in case. Okay, that one's better. You get advantage on the investigation? No, I got it because I'm begging in my favorite to run.

21. Okay. You all open the story. The state of the blood that you see around seems to indicate that this has transpired over some time, You're guessing probably within a few days, if not a week, since this happened. I'm picking up one of the arms to bring back the group. So as you walk up towards the arm to grab it, you have more of a view of what's happening.

And what you see before you are definitely remnants of some battle long past. Against these rocky formations, there's dried blood everywhere. This terrible bloodbath, whatever this event was, it was probably a horrible thing to see. See, there are pieces of Duraghar flung about. And I say pieces. I mean, you can't, the only reason you know Duragard there is because occasionally you see part of a head or part of a foot, and you recognize the ashy skin

from the areas that aren't currently caked with its own gore. From what you can tell, because of your investigation check, the remains are torn apart by no blade. There's no cuts. There's no clean wounds. they're either pulled apart by force, like arms and limbs were wrenched from the body just out of sheer power.

Like a wookie. Or there appears to be some sort of gnawing and chewing, like toothy fangs, sharp teeth have partially eaten portions of these bodies. This is the work of a beaver. Yes, definitely very much. A busy beaver. I think it's suicide.

Should we, I mean, based on tracking and everything, and in sight, can we tell if that creature is anywhere nearby? I think you might be foul play, actually. What you can tell, this was that happened in the past. Yeah, it's happened quite some time ago. You're there. I'm there.

Singing. Looking at the tracks, you can see of Duregar feet, you can see other creatures that kind of resemble those hook horrors that you encountered earlier through the lava pool. However, there's a series of tracks that you haven't seen over. There's very erratic footsteps that look human, human size, but they seem to be placed randomly, like one foot here, one foot here, one foot here. It's that big creature that it was like one of those things

that they think put together. And you see what looks like strange strikes the sand, like something had been dragged very quickly in a very localized spot, scattered all about. It's a human centipede. It seems, it's a very, very strange, a very strange pattern that you can't really grasp what kind of creature would make it.

And it seems like he was here recently or a while ago. The best you can tell, the last time it was here was about two or three days ago to feast on more over the remains. Human, we're human footprints? Should we get out here? Human sized.

Or so to try to set a trap, or we could look and see if we can loot anything? Or we can, is there anything to loot? Does it look like anything shiny in the edge? Any semblance of armor that belonged to any of these individuals is in such tatters that is unusable. You do manage to find across some of the body parts a couple of blood-soaked gold coin persons.

Okay. One of them contains a handful of gems. Ooh. Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha. So you can mark that down until you get a chance to actually get a little of gems. I don't think we want to tangle with this. I'm trying to prove.

Yeah, I'm really bad at stealthing. We should go. We should leave. Also put the accordion back in the picture, all right? Was I doing that? It's force of habit. I don't. Like breathing.

Yeah, we're going to go back to the group. I'm going to bring the arm. I take out the cascaveo and pull a little, because I'm pulling. Have a sip, zip. It's very tasty. What did anybody else like? Having been underground for what probably amounts now to about four or five days, that little taste of ale on your lips is a very welcoming and very

refreshing sensation. Oh, delicious. Oh, no, I'm drunk. Just, that was fast. When we get back to the group, I'm going to toss the arm to Grog. You instinctly reach up and catch it, and you look down and see what looks like a Durgar arm that has been very heavily mangled.

Holy, thanks for the hand. That's a back. It's a back scratch. That was a lot of Durgargras. No negative anything. That was a good shot. I considered it. I don't know. That's a good joke.

So there's some big centipede, human, creepy creature that's killed a lot of things, and we should probably avoid that at all costs. I would agree with that. If we have to, we will, but... Can we avoid that and still head left of the keep? We didn't make it into the... Was there a structure that we could have entered?

That's where we're... We're heading towards that structure. But I mean, where we just were? The magotheterious? Where you just were? No, there's just all these giant, like, rock. Spires just running out of the ground. They don't know doors.

We probably looked for like a man. There were no doors. I'm looking for a door. Just keep it. It appears like there were going to run into it. At one point in time, some very intense seismic activity in this area that created this cavern. And whatever is the source of a lot of this perpetually flowing molten rock.

So yeah, that's why the entire terrain here is so dangerous and un-inviting is because of the sheer force that went into its creation. Okay. So we should just keep freaking being careful and keep going to goes the very thing. Okay, let's go. Keep trucking on. Pike, I have this weird feeling,

like you wanted to make out with me. Is that something that happened in my dream? You know, you weren't paying attention. Really? And that makes you want to make out with him? No, I think you were, you were moving along to try to go stealth and sometimes you should just stay put

and see what happens. Well said, Claire. That was the most adorable diss in history. All right. Yet inviting. It's all right, Scanlon. We'll go pay for it later. A small hit to Scanlon's morale,

but the party marches on. You lose an inspiration. Disapp. I deserve it. I deserve it. Twins in front, here we go. Let's keep going. You guys need to push forward.

For the sake of the length of this journey, I'm going to have the party go ahead and roll communal stealth check once more. All right. I still have passed without a tradeout. Oh, for the love of God. Which gap is everyone a plus 10? Oh, really?

Don't bang the guns together. Yeah, that happens too. 24. 24. 19. We all have plus 10? And this is plus 10. I'm ready.

Yes. I told a one. Okay. Oh, okay. I could say kiss Percy. Percy. Oh, I don't know. I thought it might help.

The tongue scandal. 23. Okay. Trouble gun? Three. Have I had it. You got like plus 10? Oh, that I get to do plus 10.

13. All right, so it's three failures. Three failures. 32. Okay, good. More than half of you guys succeeded. One is two failures. One is two failures?

One is considered two failures for this challenge. All right, so pushing forward, you managed to stop Percy and and find out the root of this audio problem. Pushing forward, you managed to make your way about a quarter mile on the outskirts of this cluster of buildings. Curving far left, you're just managing to keep out of the city proper and move straight towards the very back wall

of this cavern, which is buttressed against what this fortress is built against. So you're kind of circumventing the city to go straight to this fortress. As you're moving. about a quarter mile from the stronghold, Vex, you pick up a strange person standing maybe about 50, 60 feet ahead of you. A person, it looks like.

Can they see us? Is it like they can see us? You take a moment, kind of keeping an eye out, and the person isn't moving. Just standing right there. So, that's a... It's too dark to make out any details, unfortunately. Could be good, could be bad, we have no idea. Can I see him now that he's, she's painted him out to me?

You can see it. There is a humanoid standing on its own. It doesn't seem to be moving, though. Maybe it's a statue. Yeah, that's what I mean. A statue. Want me to go check it out? What?

No. I don't. Can you go invisible? Yes, I can go invisible. Check it out. I polymorph and turn into a fly and I buzz over to Nice. Oh, yay. That's fun.

All right. So. I don't know if he's magic, who's going to know. It's all right. I've got magic, too. You approach this individual and notice it is unmoving and is of a singular solid color. What looks to be, what is an illithet or a mind flare, is currently locked in some sort of a reactionary position, but is completely the turned to stone. Oh, no.

Like a Medusa type of a thing? Well, we faced basilisks once and they did this to... We got a lot of things that can do this actually. We do have baccilius eggs in the bag of holding. Yeah, we got eight of them. Okay. Maybe we should crack one on the statue guy. I buzzed back to the

group. Maybe you should. I kind of fuck with Tiberius' ear a little bit. And then I turn, I turn back. Turn back. What would you see? What was it? A crazy statue of a crazy elephant. Can we look at Clarota and say,

do you know anything about this? Clorota kind of thinks for a second and goes, as I've noticed, Acknowledgely, these patrols do walk with a lizard creature that has this ability. It's generally used as a threatening device

Well, a guardian amongst the city. Oh, so the Durek Guard... You have Basselis. It's like... They're pets. A trained beast, yes. Why do you suppose they used to have done one of their own? Imagine maybe this transpired before the Union.

Right. Then it's left as a warning. So it's a Durgar pet. Do we remember how to take care of Bass of us? Like, do we not look at them? Is that how they don't... Don't look at them in the eye. Don't look at that face?

It's a vision. Yes. I believe it's a vision. Okay. This could be a nature check. Double check. You know what I wish this to make? I'll do that.

Me too. 23, natural 20. Oh, well, never mind. He's got it. They'll stop there. Just go ahead and don't count everybody. Natural funny. All right.

So, so yeah, essentially it is a site-based circumstance. It's entirely visual. They have to make a site-based circumstance. They have to catch your gaze, and then that is how they can turn you into stone. Otherwise, as long as you don't catch the gaze, you'll be fine. All right.

All right, it's a good thing we've all been watching dead. Look them in the air. Very helpful. Let's go. Poor basilists. We're going on. Yeah.

Yeah. Let's keep going. As you guys push forward, Clorota lights behind a little bit to inspect the statue and just kind of looks it over for a second. Did you know him? Dave. God, it's just.

I think he's name is Steve's name. It takes a moment to look over and you can see his eyes kind of closed Sully for a second. We've met the kindest of my people. But never the lives should all this pass. I would like maybe release him from this stony prison. So you know how to do that? I know not, but it can be done. I've seen it. Didn't we do that?

Yes. Didn't we have to do that? We sprinkled some of its blood in your eyes, if I remember correct. Yes. I did not understand. You did. I was very sad. I was no, no, no.

I don't know, no. There is essentially there is a liquid that can be distilled from the mass of blood. Okay. We don't have no more of that. Okay. Dragon blood for a fucking days. We also don't know. Should we move the statue off to a safe place in the side?

It's fine. Let's just keep going. It's very. It's been there for a while. It's not give anybody any indication. It's got bat poo on it. Let's keep going. Okay.

Okay. As you guys press forward about another 20 or so minutes, you now have a much bitter view of the left side of Emberholt proper. Greetings adventurers. 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. I'll take it. And that means that means. I've been outside a lot more. Walking around, occasionally galloping after a toddler hopped up on juice boxes, traveling a bit, you know the vibe. And after doing some spring cleaning, my wardrobe, I gotta say, looking a little bit sad. I want clothes that can keep up with me and my son, but updating my wardrobe every spring sounds pretty expensive. So that's why I wound up signing up for Fabletics as a

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one towards the very back. Yeah let's go towards it all right creaking creepy creepy towards the thin one. Creepers are creeping. Okay. We're stealth still, or? Yeah, we're all stealth. Yeah, you guys are all stealth still. Okay. We don't need to check it again.

You're going to get close. Well, I said I wanted to go back to this group. Oh. So you move ahead, and across the group, head to the front of this stream. And you can see the smooth wall with bolt and rock pouring down the side. You can see where portions of the stone have kind of been gradually worn and melted by just the contact. contact and then built upon with more and more cooled rock. It's this very kind of weird,

clustered framing of cooled rock around this fall. You see no doorway as the actual magma is pressing directly against the side of the stronghold. I want to see if I can tell if anything, I know this all looks natural, and perhaps something is fashioned to look such. I'll see if I can figure that out. Okay, go ahead and make an investigation.

Ah, la-la-la-la-la-la. 18th. 18? The best that you can find looking around, you cannot see anything before you, any sort of mechanism, any sort of any button, any sort of lever, or additional doorway. It's just a solid wall with the two magma flows. Can I... Double back to the under dock exploit and bring you in the system.

Can I come up and look and see if I can see any tracking, if there's any footprints around a certain area around this? See if you can find a false door or something. Yeah. All right, go make an investigate check. Wait, I thought it was behind. Nope. It's okay, no, no, no, I get an advantage.

It was a one. Shish. All right, that's not the one. Is it an investigation? Yes. 22. Okay. Looking at this side of this fortress,

you can see what amounts to a very, very slight raise in the smooth flow of the manglet that seems to pour down most of the stronghold and then just slightly bulge out. and then it pulls, and you can now have you better closer to you can see where it runs off to. It continues into a stream following the edge of the giant cavern wall. That's curving down and to the left into a far deeper cavern. You can see the entire cavern almost like a giant U.

It's open, and the entire thing kind of banks around it and goes deeper still. You guys have made it to the far back wall. The chicken was arrived. Metaphorically. Metaphorically. And, but yeah, from what you can see, there is a slight raise beneath the back. Okay.

Does it look like it's safe to bring everybody up here, or does it seem like anything's around if they could see us? Anything looking from above? You glance up and you can see there are two Duraggar perched up on the edge of the first floor, right on the parapet. You can see there's all these jagged, kind of, seeing stone, almost teeth sticking out of the very top edge of the wall.

And you see the patrol. just walking, keeping an eye out. They have crossbows on their arms. A couple other just have javelins at the side. And they're just doing slow patrols. Okay. We need to double seven.

You need to double seven sniper them out. Yeah. I can handle this, I think, twice. You can? I think I can get us into that trap door. Do you have something that can pull it towards you? No, no, no. Can you redirect the magma flow around that bulge with your,

can't you move rocks? So you could create a little lip for it to go around? I was thinking I could either do that's not a bad idea, or I could, it's actually not a bad idea. That fucking Timor! Or I was thinking I could cool off the magma and like we could break it. Oh yeah, maybe you can move it away and then cool it.

That's like it's kind of noisy. Well. First we gotta take care of the guys on the roof. Are they back with us? Are they still stealthing in front? Are we- They're still stealthing in front and they've, you guys, you came back to the group. Yeah, I guess we came back to the group

and told them about what's going on. Okay, we can, me and Pike can take out the guys on the roof. Oh really? Can we go? Wait, but he's got sneak attack. Yeah, but I'm thinking that Kiela should burn out and drop me.

Yeah, if he could bird up or you can go up on a flying conference. I can take Pipe and we can do it. All right, are they not able to be shot out? Can you not arrow them out? I can try to arrow them out too. She's getting hit her to, but the chance that she could take them up both out at once.

Maybe you should go up and I'll arrow one. Why don't you let the loop be quiet? I'm just afraid if you go up there, that you're gonna alarm yourself to other people. Is the lava flow making noise? Very, very subtle, like pops and hisses, rather than that's pretty quiet. It's not the roaring sound.

No, no, it's a slow, gradual pour. Does anybody have a mute spell? mute spell of some kind. Mute as in his silence, noise or a person? As in silence noise. Wait. No. I had not known.

I had. Okay. David Norris. Thank you, David Norris. Thank you, David. Thank you, David. Thank you, Dave. The elephant sent it.

Thank you, Dave. You're just going to not let you see me eat it. Oh my God, her mouth opens up and tentacle come out. It's really scary. Sorry, what are we doing? Good question. What are you doing? We gotta take out the fuckers on this, on that roof. Do you wanna try to shoot them out, or do you want me to take Pike and fuck their shit up?

I mean, if you can bring them off the roof, that'd be awesome. That's what we're gonna do. Can we see anyone else? Can I see Dorga from any other? Yep, pressure's on. From your current positioning or up against the wall? No, right. You can back away and take it more of the case off you and then I can just pick one up with my eagle talent.

talent in the lava they go. This seems dangerous and reckless. It does seem very dangerous and reckless. Do it? I hope it brings attention. What gives what I'm saying? I'm not having my pass without Traceoff. We're going with you guys.

It's been over an hour. We've killed nothing. So far, only the two of them have really approached the stronghold. You guys have stayed back behind. The family I already was. So you can all try in theory if you all manage to just don't pass them. Wait, what? Here's my plan. Okay.

I'll take Pike up there. We knocked those fuckers off super easy. Grog runs out and brains them the second they hit the ground. I'm afraid of this plan. They'll fall in a lava pit. Maybe. I don't know where they're going to fall. Well, just...

Okay, well, they miss the lava pit. We've got truck. I'm just sitting right now. Just be ready to let us know if, you know... I'm going to be reading this book. Eagle form. He's crap. I'm hanging by Keelot in case.

Oh my god. This is so stupid. Jump on my back. What you got? What you got, Pyla? Give me the flying carpet just in case I need to be on. I can get you up there. I'll give you all right.

What can you do when we're up there? Something I've wanted to do. I heard that. Oh, my wish. This is fascinating. What do you say? What do you say to get the magic carpet? Please, can I have the point?

I'm going to just look at the guards pattern of movement. Are they staying in position? Are they walking around? Are they talking to each other at all? As you watch, take a moment, still from the far back position. Watch the two up there kind of, Eric come together, they chat for a second,

then a third one appears, and one of them rotates out balls for the one that just arrived. Okay, they're switching. They're kind of sit there, keeping an eye. Switching ships. Are they close to each other? Well, they're about 20 feet from each other along the top of the parapet.

You said 20 feet? There's three up there? No, no, no. One came to swap out of the other. Oh my gosh. I'm saying, I have been going to climb a few things in my time. You need an extra.

Do it. I'll say you. Are you coming too? Bye. Yeah. I'm coming up there to kill some things. Do you have any climbing here? I have a groping hook.

The ocean has changed you. Okay. They're standing 20 feet apart? Yeah. I'm going to watch this all right now. Radius. Yeah, me and you get ready to shoot. I'm waiting.

I'm waiting. Is the range or radius? Wait, who's all going? No, just how far away from you they are. The radius is the point. No, I mean a range of a spell. Is it far from me? Are they a little bit?

Are they carpeting up? Are they carpeting up? Are you going up? Scanlan, how are you going up? Eagle, carpet? No. Eagle. What?

The climb of that. I can get there. What's good. Beautiful. Do it, Tom Cruise. All right. You ready? Do you know what you're going to do up there?

Not really, but let's just look. Not really, but let's just wing it. I'm gonna try to knock them both off in one in one blow. But if I'm just, you gotta take one. Okay. All right, I can take one if you can take one. Okay. All right.

Grog, you ready to kill? Be really quiet while you're fighting. Try to take him out before they are. I kind of want to know. I can't believe. You know why? Because I need someone with me and I can only take her because that's the only other one who will fit through the dimension door with me.

Go! The dimension door. Yes. I'm gonna go through a dimension door. I can take one person of my height or smaller. All right. So I will take the back. You'll reach over, hold on to Pike gently,

give her a little wink. Oh my gosh. And suddenly. We're going to try to appear between the two of them. Exactly between the two of them. Okay. So you feel the sudden rush of air and the surrounding atmosphere of you

goes from that uncomfortable warmth to a sudden freezing cold as your vision goes black. And all you can see is Scanlan looking at you with this heightened grid as he's muttering these arcane incantations under his breath. An instant later, you guys are both standing at the top of the wall with both of the Dura Gaur. One kind of facing away, one looking really surprised

the fact that you guys both appeared there. You're a surprise round. What are you doing? I cast Thunderwave and blast out from where I'm standing between them 15 feet in either direction. So they're both 10 feet and 10 feet away from me. Okay. What's your saying?

But a quiet Thunderwave. 19. A really quiet Thunderwave. A really quiet Thunderwave. All right. Okay. So. So Thunder wave, we can get up a little faster to make sure that this is a triumph.

I'm making a note here, huge success. Oh no, here we go. I don't think it's loud. We're total fake geeks. Oh no, well, it's a wave of thunderous force. Right. But it doesn't say sound. It just says thunderous force. I will say thunderous force. It isn't a thunder clap, but it will make a thunderous force. It will make a thunderous force. It is a thunderous force. It is in a thunder clap, but it will make a thunderous force. Some noise. Okay, fine.

So keep that in mind. So as you guys appear, you release Pike, you bring your arms up and slam your arms kind of in a downward motion. As you do, there is a dull flash of light and a burst sound that emanates from you. I'd say, ooh, light. Both of the Duragard, the one who sees you, who's bringing up his crossbow to fire, it's impacted and blown off the side of the wall. The one facing away gets blown up towards slams into the side of the wall right at the edge,

edge and then topples over at the side. Will Helm scream? Plummeting over. The brief Wilhelm scream. You're standing there, you watch this happen. I didn't have to do anything, Scanlan. Make it with me. We're alone. It's super romantic.

I just killed Tupacvik Morg. It's now or never, baby. It's true to be in... One of the house. Well, let's just wait till we're out of danger. But that was really hot. It was really hot, right? Really hot, right?

It was. Just a little something, something. But it's just so sexy. As this is happening, Oh shit. Both of the Durgar come coming off the side of the wall, one managed to kind of loosely break his fall, but the full 25-foot quality takes...

I rage. Drog. Okay. There's one that lands just to the side of the magical that's forming. He took some damage on the fall and was like, trying to get back up. He fell hard on one arm. The other one that's far further away from the magma,

the one that saw you, managed to reduce this damage a little bit because it was aware that at least you were there. To fill this fucker. Looks like it took some damage not too much. It is maybe 10 feet from you. As he's trying to get back up, he looks up and sees you charging towards some grog raging. Go ahead and make your two times.

19 hits. And 19 again. Both head. Okay, go ahead and roll damage. I'm going to get some d'clock. I'm 17. 17. Okay.

And 19. So as he gets up, this goes back for his boorham before he has a chance to you cleave off one arm and send the axe right into the center of his torso. Oh. Sound listening him in an instant. He slightly spreads at the wound, this gurgling sound, and you just have to kind of kick him off the edge of your eye to play.

I tilt him towards the pillar to spray the pillar with his gore. I'm like, I can make one too. I run across to the other one, thorn whip him from across the lava pool. Okay, you have to jump over the lava to do that, because he's on the side you guys are on. Oh. Well, then is there anyone on that the other side? Is he already dying or no? Wait, he's on the same side as he's hurt.

We run up and kick him and kick him in the lava. He's an apostative standing up, yeah. We just run and push. Okay. All right, all right. He's pushing his back. I'm sorry. All right, so you go ahead and roll athletics.

This is the meanest thing I've ever done! No, no, remember you killed that kid one time. Oh, thanks for bringing that up. That's some dark shit. That's some dark shit. Two and a half years in, and Keelth has just learned our names. All the time.

I have your name written down. I'm Vex. Okay? But no! No, that is not true. No. So as the terrible blood spray occurs across the nearby pillar on Grog side, the other Durgar is getting up with this crossbow, trying to get it ready. You rush forward.

Go ahead and roll athletics. Oh, come on. Oh, no. I notice everything and I sit down and turn to the next chapter in my book. We had it common, well. This is quite a good read. Oh, sure. Can it be worse? 14.

That's okay, he rolled a one. Oh, yes! So as the Dura Guard is getting up, he goes, you just run up and he falls back, and he goes, it turns giving a horrible, painful scream as he's essentially flailing in the magma melting. So I'm going to shoot him in the mouth,

I say, sh, sh, sh, and I do the, um, I wind down to like push him under the lava. Okay, so, so as he's screaming, Bruton. You're gonna. You're wind wall, shoves him further over the magma. As he's screaming, cooling the magma around him as the rock cracks around him into black rock. His face still visible over the surface going, ah, and this horrible, almost Han and Carbonite-type

look at the top of the magma pool. You could just one up to grog. That was awesome. As fresh magma now begins to pull over the cool covering his face, you step away. Piss on the body. I never knew you when I'm not. However, the subtle sound of the thunder wave and then the horrible screams of pain,

you can hear footsteps coming towards the wall edge we're both you and PICA currently on. What are you gonna do? Can you turn yourself TIP? Is there like a door or something? Not from your current position, no, you're just like on a five foot ledge on the second store. Of the fortress.

Yeah, it's not a standalone tower. It's part of a large. This is on the wall. How far the jump down is it? It's about 25 feet. What, am I too excited about it? Turn it to a door, make it seem like everything's okay. Get us down.

America's too. Unless you want to stay and fight. You got 20 seconds. Wait, what's happening? Turn into a door gosh. Turn it to a duagard. Say everything's okay. Get out of here.

Okay, we're gonna dimension door out. Okay, so you grab her, back down to the bottom. All right. Cast that shit. They reappear in the bottom. Are you done? I'm trying to heal. Okay, okay, okay.

I cast, uh, uh, wall, But like right over top of where I see that lip, but I don't I don't want to bring it out far just like half sees Okay, just the tip the mag mount just the tip. All right so you guys appear the bottom There's the wall. Here's the wall. I wanted to go You guys hear footprints? Along the wall they don't seem to have seen you yet at which point there's this sound of shifting rock a giant stone wall juts out the side of the fortress right where the lava pool was pouring over the side. As it does, the lava bin pulls on top of the wall and is kind of offset, leaving a small gap where you guys can try and squeeze through. You can see right underneath where it was, there is a stone doorway.

Does not appear to have a handle or anything. It's just a stone door. How do we get in? Tiberius fly up there quick. Quick. Stop eating chicken and flight across door. Oh. Can he birds get off the chicken? What's going on? The magic door after there's no, I don't see me handles. It's like a cold over the door at all. It's right underneath the lava. It's on the ground?

Yeah, basically she moved the stone wall out. It's right there. It's right there. I walk up to us and take a look. Oh yeah, that was good. I'm gonna do an archa check. Do I have advantage? No.

No. All right, take a look. Crog, go kill it. Go kill it. 22. 22? Mm-hmm. Okay.

As you guys are inspecting this, in the time that you've taken to do this, both the door are going to do this. garb on the top, have seen you, seen what's happening, and are both taking shots at you. Oh, shit. I was waiting for that anyway, so I'm gonna do. He was weird.

So as they appear on the top, you guys who have your arrows caught, arrow and gun at the ready, both take a shot and then they get a retribution shot. Keelith, let's go up. Go up? Up to them, quick. Let me see how they fare. That's about six seconds.

That's gonna be about six seconds. 65. It is a mechanism. 65. I roll the 6. Oh my shit, you're a deity. That's amazing. Vax.

May attention. The door is mechanical. It is not ready. You get two attacks each. That's how we open it. Oh, no magic. I hit 23. 23 hits.

Go ahead and roll second. Okay. Hit a little damage. 18 is the second one? Both attacks just in. 18 is the second. Hits as well. My both attacks, I have to reload to my second attacks.

Oh, right. Oh, is this with your, with the bad? I got the big gun out. Got the bad news out. Okay, then yeah. Okay, so you fire and then reload. Okay, so, roll ahead and roll damage. Okay, I'm using my fire bow.

Okay, so using fire bow string, is you knock your first arrow, you can burst into flames that needs your fingers. Seven damage, okay. I'm so much. I'm sorry. Got me right in the year. 20 damage on the first attack.

Okay. One back. First two rolls. 13 on the second. Okay, so as both are going out with their cross posts ready to go, The first one, the bad news, with a cavernous echoing gunshot

that within this cavern definitely carries some sound to it. And to some degree, surprise may be a little harder to find going forward. Oh. That was already, they were ready to start shooting at us. Yes. However, the shot hits the guy in the shoulder, knocks him off balance for a second.

Not enough of a wound to prevent his next action. You, however, place one arrow into the other guy's shoulder. Getting, just drop the crossbow. As he goes to reach for his other weapon, the other one just right at the bottom, just throw it out of the back of his head, and he just drops below the wall. That the other one does get a crossbow shot off at you, Percy.

That is a 23 versus armor class. That is. You take nine points of piercing damage. As the ball just streaks you, cross you in front of your torso, passes through, thankfully, but you do feel there is a wound. It's slowly turning warmer beneath your armor. Can I shoot at the other one?

Well, that's been the round now. You guys have inspecting the door. The door is not magical. There's some sort of contraption that opens it from the innocent. I'm getting my picks out and see if I can figure out somehow. Waiting through a little. Go ahead and make a check with your Peebles. 29.

29. So you take a second, you can find that the contraption that holds this door in place, definitely is the other side. It's a series of bunches and the chain pool. You find that there's one slight gap where you manage to hook one of the chains, pull out so slightly, and you know with a strong yang from a strong person, you could probably pull it out from the outside.

So there's a part that I ask Grog over to pull. Grog, grab this. I'll do it, I'll do it. Yeah, me and Pike are on this. Okay, so Grong, you reach over, you grab the chain, and Pike grabs onto the back of you and both be pulled. Give it a good heap ho.

You want to take a strength check with advantage. Oh yeah, 23? 23. 23. As you pull, you hear the grinding of this chain against the stone, and you can see the actual door will begin to rise upward this way. You can see now what this door is... It's a DeLorean!

Yeah, essentially. When it opens up, it moves the magma out of the way. That's as construct is used as an exit. It's what I mentioned before. It's supposed to be an exit for the royal individuals of the stronghold. It only opens up partway, however, because they're starting. own wall currently blocks the rest of its movement. However, you can still move through it.

Can't leave this door guard behind though. We gotta take that. Yes, there was one door gar still there. So that's been all of you guys' actions. We're bringing back. Pike, you haven't gone yet. Keel if you've gone, yeah. So the only one left to the action.

Typebarian. Oh yeah. Yeah, he checked the doorway. Checking out the door. Where's he at? He's up on the top of the wall, about 25 feet from you. I create a, I want to create a spiritual weapon, like a poisonous lasso, and like,

and then like put them down into the lava. Oh, sure. A lariat of truth? So. Well, all right then. So using your spiritual weapon, you take a moment you grasp your serenray holy symbol around your neck.

And as you pull your hand away from the symbol, you see this kind of glowing celestial rope extends out of nowhere. You begin to spin your fingers, and on its own it begins to swirl and swirl. You then throw your hand forward, and on its own, cascades upward towards the edge of the wall. Go ahead and roll an attack roll.

Oh, an attack roll? Yeah. Which is... Using your spell modifier as the attack box. Wow. Okay? That ain't no green. Total ten?

I think so, yeah. What did you roll? I rolled a two and then I had plus eight. Okay, so the Celestial Lassow. It's a good idea though. Which is it? You don't get the feeling poison with something you could really muster

based on your deity's central good. I was just kidding. I was just getting a little crazy with ideas. I like it, I like it. However, as it heads over the wall, you see it does not find purchase on the duerga. It's said it finds purchase on part of the wall. Yeah, fuck.

Poisoning the wall effectively. Yes, it's not poisoned property. Effectively. So that would have been cool. That would have been cool, unfortunate, bad role. Okay, that brings the top of the round order. I believe at the top we have. Mr. Me?

Yes. Okay. Okay. Okay. Boyo, boyo, boy. I'll do, we're still trying to get that fucker up. Yes, he's gonna run to tell people. I got almost nothing.

So I'll just do, um, can I, boom, boop, bo, bo, bo, bo, can I summon an unseen servant to push him? Oh, yeah, that's a good idea. Okay, we can save a shot. Roll high. Roll high.

I don't have any range weapons. Natural 20. So you conjure an unseen servant, mark off your spell use. I looked at it. Oh, Montes, cousin. You see a slight shimmer of ethereal energy behind the Durigar. It's going to attempt to shove him. It isn't, unfortunately, not to own extremely strong.

It's mainly meant as an aid. However, it is possible. Go ahead and make an athletics check. Not your athletics. Just make a D20 role. Oh, just a normal athletics. Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's a five, so.

What's your... What's your... We're really rolling out tonight. You hear a ting sound as the Durgar's armor is given a hefty slap, but the... A hefty slap. Thank you, Jarvis. But is he confused? A little bit.

Okay. But enough to not be loading his crossbow for a second shot. Good thinking on that point. You're a party of seven people just like... Ha! You! You. The tree. Yeah.

How do we deal with this? All right. As my, and I'm gonna just give a little inspiration to Vax. That's Laura, obviously. Yeah, thank you. It's inverted. That's what I always give. D8 inspiration died to you is

Karen hum's little tune under his breath. Nice. Um, you're up. Oh, I should I attack him. All right. Pugh, pew, phew. Kepue.

This is good. Is that one? Damn it! What is your three? The one with us. Holy shit. My first attack is a serious fail. My second attack, though, is a 25.

That hits. That's pretty good. So the first one, you pull back, and as you pull back, the actual arrow snaps. You almost shot me! Oh, that hurt my arms so big. Yeah, you're gonna have a little rash there probably tomorrow. Great.

Eight. Eight damage, all right. So your second arrow manages to find its mark as it sticks pretty close to where the first arrow hit, or where we were shot from the bad news. The door guard just kind of shrugs it off angrily. And Ames his crossbow for months with Percy. Now on to you.

Ha ha. It's getting it's shot at you. Yeah. That is a 17 versus summer class. Yep. Nope. You're up. All right.

So you've been to just dodge out of the way. You hear it whizz past your ear. That brings us to, let's see, let's go to Percy. Take a little more shot at up. Redemption, Percy. Come on, buddy. Kill this guy. Get it.

We have to catch you for the team if this is done. Done. Yeah. 18? 18 hits. Come on, die. Come on, perfect. Very used to. Right, in the belly button. Oh, that's nice. That's pretty.

That's, uh, that's 25 points of damage. Thank you. So with the second, you pull out one of your custom-made, nasty looking bullets, load it back into the bad news. You pull it back, aim up and fire. And once again, you guys are seeing this weapon up close again. With each fire, it takes all of his physical body, does not be blown off his.

That's badass person. That's badass person. A plume of white and kind of ash-like smoke comes shooting out the side of the weapon. The nearby almost close your ears instinctually from the loudness of this shot. However, the Düragar at the top of the wall, you see where his head once was. 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. The world of Sonic the Hedgehog has been thrust into a not-so-dark, not-so-stormy, hard-boiled detective story that probably nobody saw coming. Follow Sonic and the Intrepid Chaotic's detective agency as they take on their biggest case yet. This high-flying action-packed adventure will take them across the world, fighting for every clue they can fight.

It's one heck of a tale, which is good, because this story might be the only thing that can save their lives. Well, if that's all, I can just dispose of you. Wait, what? All will be revealed in Sonic the Hedgehog presents The Chaotics Case Files Listen now, wherever you get your podcast

When the Chaotics are on the case The Pizons Love bad news Let's move quickly Let's get in the door I think they heard us I go in the door What kind of a bulletin is that?

Yeah, we all go in the door All right so all of you have made your way into the doorway of... Can Trinket fit? Trinette fit with you. Look. It's very strong. It's like...

It's like... It's like... If it can fit, drink it can. It's the one you don't suit. Indeed. Oh no, we can see it in this. All righty. So, you guys make your way.

Are we crafting? Whoa. Whoa! Little room. We are all very, very crammed in to get anywhere. It feels like an intermission room. Oh.

Or at least remove your A bathroom break room. We could all relieve ourselves in this room. All right. You guys all slowly push into this storage room. It's very musty. It hasn't been seen use in quite a while. In fact, you can see a little bit of molds growing on the side of one of the barrels in the corner. There is a doorway.

There's a doorway that is closed on the opposite side of this wall, and from what you can see, there is a stairway that curves upward to the second floor. Guys, I'm sensing a lot of purple and brown construction paper here. I am as well, Scampton. That's your favorite terrain, right? It is. Can we take an intermission break at this moment? I think as you guys just entered the Stronghold, we'll take this as an intermation break. Welcome back, guys.

Welcome by Critical Roll. We don't want to do. We have all right. Holy hell. Ow. Are you okay? I'm fine. 2D6 damage to Tiberius.

So, guys, for those are keeping up, two things. Real fast. We want to thank Jacqueline, Laster, for the awesome food she sent for us, guys. Wow. Seriously, thank you. A delightful, necessary treat after this game time. So thank you, thank you. Thank you.

Also for the 2,150 subscriber mark, we're giving away. We're giving away this autograph photo of the past. Yeah. So who is it going to? Who is it going to? Some lucky person in the chat room once we had 2,150. But when that's happened, that would be going to you. So, yes, returning to the game.

Also, we've got these t-shirts. You should want them. Okay. Yes, we're going to now look into... We're going to look into that, yeah. We're going to look into possibly finding a way to get these shirts to you guys in the next couple weeks. Only if you want them, though. It's going to be like a lot of work.

We don't want to do it. unless we need doing work. We're not here to work. Where are we? We were just going in the door. Work is so much. You guys. Yes, they want them.

Cool. You can have. All right, so the party had just managed to not quite so stealthily pry their way into the hidden entrance to the outside of the Duragard stronghold of Emberhold. They found themselves cramped into a very, very tiny, essentially,

storage room with a stairway leading up and a closed doorway leading further into the stronghold. So what is your preference? I think we should go through the door instead of going up. I agree. Because any prisoners are probably going to be kept at a low level. Can we quiet, where do we end the door?

Yeah, everyone's inside. Yeah, can we very stealthily try to open? Oh, check for traps. Yes, I'm going to sniff the door a bit. All right. Oh, yeah, that's a 20. 20. All right.

Just you can tell the door itself is locked, but is not trapped. Okay, well, click, click, look. Okay, thieves tools out. Oh, that's an easy 30. 30. 30. Jesus. Which is good because it's a very, very intricate lock.

There is a specific key, a single key that is designed for this lock. that you gather is probably held by King Mergill himself. What? King Myrtle? Mergle. Mergle. Mergle. Mergle.

And his queen, Durarara. Queen. How can you pronounce your name? Dukarra. It's Ermigurd. Eurmaeg. Ullara is her name. Vila.

Uharra. Yes. Ohura. Tom. Umar. I don't know. What is her name? Seriously.

It's Ularah. It's Ularah. What is Ulara? Ulara. Ularah. Wait, Geron and Atanas. Arms what?

Uladra. I'm picking a lot. He's picking a lot. He's very quiet. However, you do manage to find with a series of intricate, strangely constructed dwarf and tumblers in the inside that each have a very strange rich of structure.

Hey! Please do that every time you pick a lot. You manage to get the right sequence and then with a slight, Clicking sound, the door opens slightly on the inside. Leading into a where you can see is a hallway that continues further down to about there. Where's the door? Where's the door? The door that you picked if you wanted to walk through.

Yes. It's right there. It's naturally there. All right. So that other stuff is upstairs. All this is on the floor you're on. Okay. Oh, okay. Okay, I'm gonna take six or seven quiet steps forward,

this style for late. Mm-hmm. And with a 19 spell. All right. As he does this, I'm gonna pull out my ion stone for my pouch. That's perfect. And let it. All right, cool.

We're all trapped in that room together. Yeah. You are proud. I fart. Oh, drunk. Crested hesitation, and I made quick wind gusted. Just circulated around the road. circulated around the room.

No, I blew it away. Do you want, I can blow it right up your nose backs. Up close to you, I'm moving. I throw up in my mouth just a little bit. Just a little bit. Oh, I'm sorry. Take a very quiet peek around the corner. All right, I'm having a peeky poo.

Yes, yes. All right. As you peek through, you can get a general idea of what looks to be some sort of an empty storage room. A lot of materials have been moved out of it. of it, it looks like there are remnants of stone, things that were used for constructions, that once were in this room that have been pulled out to build things, possibly moved as part of the war camps to start building some of the siege weapons that you solve above.

Do I hear anything? Not currently. Go ahead and roll perception check? Yes. Oh, that's good, that's good. That's pretty good. 27. Listening, you hear footsteps above. You hear very, very faintly through the stonework about, you know, 20 feet above you.

Some footsteps moving above. Apparently there is some level of alert on the second floor. Oh shit. I wonder why. I don't think. Yes, Percy, I wonder why. We start getting out of the room.

I'm looking outside. I go back to the door and just be like, alright, so I want to go further, for no doorway as of yet, correct? No doorway here. They're gonna start coming down these, this way and the hallway comes to an end. Oh, okay, oh, okay.

All right, well then I'm gonna peek into this door here. Here? by right by the figure? This is one you just looked into. That has this empty room. Oh, thank you, thank you. All right, so then down the one hall. Down the one hall, okay.

Look past here, there is a stairway that descends downward. Down. Looking down, helping me. Looking down this hallway, you see what resembles over there. There's a door to your left that's closed currently, and it splits off into two directions, right and left. All right, I don't even tell anyone.

I just start to slink down the steps. Okay. They go down? Yes. Oh, geez, Louise. Okay. You continue down the stairway, and as you slowly move around, you can see down towards the bottom, a very, very faint bit of reddish glow stone light, and a hallway that splits right and left.

You should go downstairs. I go to the right. Okay. We're getting bored. As you look past the right, you guys are all waiting in the room? You just stormed out. Start banging your weapons together. No, I come out.

Because you're taking two. What else? I saunter about. I'll head on out there. I go where pike goes. We're just losing all the tension span. As of what's going on before, we're just like wondering off. No, no, no, no.

We stay in the area, but I wanted to check on my brother, because I feel like it was taking a while. All right. I was just going to check the door. As you move in kind of glance over, you can see there are two under regard station on each side of the split hallways. Yes. One is a closed doorway to your right.

And to the left, there's an open doorway that leads into a room. And that's when I went to the right? Well, as soon as you went into where the division was, you turned to look to the right. And there's a door guard there and a duragar on the left. Okay, I'm going to turn my chin over to the left and see what I see down there. There's a second Duraggar that is currently sitting in armor, weapon to its side, just kind of occasionally glancing it. And you can hear every now and then sounds like a moan or like a slight, you know, whispering gurgle and the door of all lean in.

I shoot open there! Yeah, I'm gonna go kill this guy. You don't want to tell us a situation? As I noticed him going up, I'm gonna... Vax, what are you doing? I'm killing someone, hold, please. Guys, Vax is going to go kill something. I'm going to sneak up on this door guard.

Okay, make a stealth check? No. Okay. Okay. 19? 19. All right. Let me go ahead and...

Oh, no. Look at this. Interesting. Just like a magician, you just whip it out. That's what I'm doing. Oh, God. Drawing at least. There we go.

A lecture here. The wizard can do it. Watch out. It's that book. It's the book. Oh, it is the book, isn't it? Stupid book. All right, so.

So, as you've made your way here, Vex, he's looked to the right, there's the door of our head, it's shouting into this room here. Do something. Can you fucking do something, please? He's right there on the side. Oh, there's one over there, there's one over there. Jesus.

There's two. Oh, shit. But we all come slamming down in here. Yeah. So I sneak back up. Okay. And I put a hand on my sister's shoulder. give her a little come-along motion and tell everyone else.

I think you, don't you need someone? And I mouthed Kima at everybody and then we'll pull my sister. As you do in this, you hear footsteps across the way, I going through the hallway, what sounds like a number of other foot patters heading through the halls towards the front of the stronghold. I'm just pulling Vex down. Okay. The front is the front.

Not where we're at, right? So Vex and Vax both disappear off to the side down a hallway? Before they leave, I just kind of like tap their shoulders and meditate and grant them guidance. Okay, you have one of them guidance because it's a concentration. Vex. Okay. That's me. Yes.

Did you mean to give it to him? Yes. All right. Bravo. So who gets guidance? The man one. Vax. So I pull my poison blade out

and I pull the keen dagger out. Okay. And I take the keen dagger. So the one on the left is by the door, the one that muttered through the doorway, right? The one right here. Yes. All right, so I get a little fooop, toss in my hand

and throw it right at his neck. At the same time I reach out and go, and then the other one, the poison one, towards the other. Okay. And you are. And I was going to shoot at the other. Okay.

So go ahead and roll for this guy here. That is 17 for me. 17 hits. 27. 27. All right. And then on the other guy, or should I just go ahead and attack? Go ahead and attack both.

OK, 17. So that's. And 25 from the second. Both error the guy the right? Stube bow. One on each. Each. You both.

You both. Yeah. OK, cool. So damage on the one of the left, which is sneak attack, because he does not know you're there. Plus, he's going to like 80 damage. So 46 with the cane dagger on the guard at the door. Okay. So why was he really useful?

So the guy on the left, as he's leaning back, he's getting angry with whoever's in that room. As he turns back to take his post again, and just gurgles, slumps to the guard. ground, as he's slumping, an air goes, f-f-f-f-f-th. It's like a punctuation. Yeah. And then the poison dagger goes funk, well, I didn't roll to hit him. And are you using the poison effect on that? Yes.

15 on the other guy for me. That is 19. Okay, that hits. And this doesn't get sneak attack? No, I've already used that. Yes, so I made some noise, hitting the first guy. seven plus the poison. Okay. So what's the poison damage?

The poison is DC-15. Okay, he does not make his save, even though he's a Durgaar. I go running back up since I've already shot my arrows. And I figure you've got this. Let's check one thing. You could just clear this whole place. Nine points of poison. Okay.

So, an arrow shoof in his chest just as the poison blade makes contact. You can see him kind of double over for a second, but the hearty Duregar once Dwarven form seems to shrug off a lot of the poisons impact. Oh shit. He is still dribbling a very heavy amount of deep crimson from his mouth, but it's still like, looks over and sees you both in the hallway and goes to reach for his warhammer and turn around towards the door behind him. We roll for initiative at this point? This point you guys roll for initiative to see you us first. I turn to Pike and say, what the fuck is going on?

Where are they? I don't know, but this book scanning is incredible. I'm sure it is. It's all about like ice- I see. I read nonfiction. I'm gonna head down there. I'm gonna head down there. All right. So the rest of you who are heading down there? There's always so many prisoners. I follow Pike down there. I'm going to. All right. Everyone else is self-tax. Everybody fucking come down. All right. So you guys both feed them in our initiative. So I'll roll All the attacks, both of you, just roll the dice. Just roll the dice. Just roll the dice.

19. Getting a handle on my arm, armor. We don't need to roll damage. He has like two hit points left. You guys, pepper him with additional arrows and daggers. Like the poor guy's like, I'm gonna add some . And just goes down to this, this horrible sense of overkill. His body just slumps up against the door.

God, and it's currently like, like actually leaning against the wooden door that he was guarding. I say on my earring, I think we found the prison cells. Get down here. I'm assuming they're dead. Both in the bodies. Let's start looting the bodies. All right, so stealth checks?

16. 17. 12. 12. 20. 19. All right, go team. Woo!

We're stealthy bastards. Yes. That was with disadvantage. Oh my gosh. I have to roll again. Yes. Because you're in heavy plate armor. Yeah.

No. Do it. It's okay. It's a good. Come on, sweet. Come on, sweet. No whammy. Ash.

I rolled an eight. Plus what? Plus, what's your name? Okay. Fail. You guys all rush down the stairs. Dish-de-stall. Flanking the plate armor as you're going down. The rest of you kind of wince as you notice it.

Quit you make down anyway. Oh my God. I'm actually going to go ahead and throw guidance on Pike now. Little eight. Little eight. What does this guy do? Guidance is a great. gives you a plus on your ability checks.

Oh, that's great. And it gives you a woe need for a plus to your. They already knew we were here. Now they really know. All right. So the rest of you have made it down. Surprise. You're in this hallway.

There are two dead Durgaar in the ground, one of the closed door and an open door. Well, let's go look in the open door. All right. Stalphily. As you glance over into the open door, you can see what appears to be a series of dungeon cells held under the door.

held underneath the stronghold. Lady Kema. Within these, you can see there are a number of dwarven captives that are in very, very, very poor health. I don't care about them. That are currently lined to get them awake. Are any of them lady Kima, because it's not, they're about to die. No, the regular dwarf.

I go inspect them and see what's going on. I'll go in with Tiberius. Okay. You guys enter the, as a good person, As you look around, there are just a series of largely decomposed bodies in a few of these cells. I think people have just been left to die. Oh, no. There are these kind of strange, deep underground rat-like creatures that are feeding on one of them.

One of the dwarves is just wheezing in pain. You can see like his stomach is a little descended. The other one is either unconscious, asleep or dead. You can't tell. Can I do like a mass cure? You can if you'd like. Okay, I'll do it. And you can not know. Yes, I was supposed to say I'm going to go start inspecting the other door.

I'll go with him. Oh, I was going to say unlock the prison cells. Yeah, can you unlock the prison cells? Oh, sorry, yeah. We go, can we go in? Talk to them? Yeah. You guys want to.

All right, so you go through, it's fairly simple over time for you to unlock the cells if you'd like, for the two that are in there. There is a difference between healing magic and nutrition. You make them feel. You make them feel physically better for the moment, but their physical form itself is failing. Like, they need food, they need food,

they need to be out of here soon. They're both on the edge of death. I go to the water. I take up the bottle of water. And I'll do the opposite one. Okay. So I'll make sure. You guys hear heavy footsteps coming from the stairway.

You guys just descended from. I go stand right next to the stairway. In the cells, in the cells. In the cells. I pull my sister and we flank the, I push her into flanking positions at the door. Wait, okay. Where are they coming from?

Lachanero? From where we entered? Boy, Blake. What do you guys doing? I jump in the cells and I pull a dead deposing corpse over top of me. All right. Heal it.

All kinds of nasty. I find a corner of a cell in small couple out. I'm going savage. Okay. And I should make sure all the doors are shut, not locked. All right, all the doors are shut. Pike, anything you're doing?

I'm just, you know, preparing. Just taking it. All right. Do we need to move out of the way of the stairs? Vax is scooching Scanlan out of the way to take that position right there. We'll put the bear in the back cell. Scanlan, where are you? There's voices coming from the stairs?

Yeah, someone's coming. But there's a bear in the stairs. bear in the stairs. No, Trinket's coming down. I call Trinket. Trinket. Trinket. Trin barely hears you from way over the side, moving into this room.

Corros just steps back along the side of the stairs and kind of out of view. A few moments passes the footsteps slowly trail off. I leave and turn around where Vex is. I know. What's in the other door? God damn it. All right. The other door is currently locked for what you can tell. One minute.

It is now not locked, I think. 25. Okay. You push the door open and you see immediately the fast-moving heft of some large blade towards your head. Ooh, snap! No, it's a trap. That is a... That is a 20-minute head.

That is a 20-minute. 94 versus summer class. Okay, that hits. That hits? All right. I thought you were good. I'm gonna use uncanny dodge. Okay, what would have been 20 points of slashing damage

to reduce to 10? So take 10 damage as the axe hits you and embeds itself in the wooden door pulls back. Now what you see is a Duragar wearing like this nasty looking black leather tunic with a hood pulled back with a giant gnarled, like hefted great-out The words get me on that one. It has a bunch of scars in its face.

He's kind of grinning as it pulls the axe out of the doorway. Right, I spit on the ground and yank my belt off and throw it out of the neck. And I yelled hold. Okay. As you throw the belt. Yeah. Tell him to stop attacking. Serpent.

Ducks out of the way. Yeah. Pulls back out of the way as the snake kind of forms itself. It goes ahead and makes the attack. Go ahead and the snake attack against him. Snake attacks. Snake and Texark. 12.

I don't know what, 12. Is it a tag? Is it a tag? Did you roll 12 on that? Yeah. Okay, that will not hit unfortunately. As he just kind of slaps it off himself and it goes, cascades off into the side of the room.

Is he gonna sell that? He's basically a straight line from him to the facts. At which point he kicks the door closed again. Can I, in my rage, pull us through the door? Yes. Yes. Now we're rolling initiative, guys.

Oh, God. As is going on, I immediately cast some, Let's get on his own. Okay. Let's get it. What I like is that there are eight of us in one of them so far. But he's got to be a... I can see the square.

It's very small. It's possible to... We can turn up... ...theirloat in a brief bit of the room. All right, so 25 to 20? 26. 20. Okay.

All right, where I see this. Five. All right. 15? 18. 19. 15 to 10? 14. 14. 10 to 5. 7. 5 to 1? 4. 4. All right. Percy, you're at first. All right. You are way back in this cell and you hear like a slam of broken wood and another slam of a door closing. Okay, I'm going to run into the hall. All right. Making accombatics to try to move through this cluster of people here. I can do that. Poster Pook.

24. 24, you leap over, kind of vaulting off of trinket, land. You move into this hallway, and that's the extent of your movement. Okay, I'm going to try and take a shot in global lock. Okay, with the bad news or with your... Oh, no, the bad news is away. Okay. Just with the hand belt.

Okay. So... Shooting at the lock of the door. Okay, go forward. Jesus H. H. 19, that's 20-30. Okay, go ahead and roll damage. Nine points of damage.

Nine points of damage, okay. As the door slams back and you kind of prepare yourself to try and kick it open, you hear the familiar of one of Percy's hyperbox bullets as the actual handle of the door gets blown off and there's a small hole in the wooden door now where its handle once was. The door kind of swings open a little bit loosely due to the impact. That ends your turn.

That ends my turn. That ends my turn. Backs you're up. Okay, so all I'm going to do is grab the hole of the door and yank it open and yell, Your turn, grog. Okay. Oh, that's fun. As you pull it open, the dwarf backs up over what you can see now.

This room is completely covered in a series of really nasty, hooked instruments. Hot irons, you can see large pincers, you can see various blades. Oh, it's like a torture chiefer? It's a torture chamber. Oh, my God. Oh, no. God.

Frog is running into toys arrests. Great. So you see gently as he backs away, there is someone on this kind of rack-like table and the dwarf backs up with his axe, kind of getting ready. I use my bonus action to say, you are so fucked, dwarf. All right. That brings us to Tiberius. Oh. Ooh, I like where this is going, Max.

Wait, I go over there first, and then I say that. Acrobatics, check. Acrobatics, why? You got to jump over people. They move through people. The area is congested. Small spaces, man. The downside of the big party. Okay, d-d-d-d-dd-dd-22.

22. You managed to move through, push the bear out of the way. Move drinking. You don't have the way. All right, you've managed to make your weight. The bird is surprisingly smith. You know that feeling when you hear one interesting thing, and suddenly you want to know more? Well, that's the idea behind my podcast, something you should know.

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what's possible. Hit play, subscribe, and join the millions who've made Mick Unplugue their goals. to source for growth and greatness because your next breakthrough is just one episode away. This is Mick Unplug, the voice and face of modern leadership entrepreneur and self-improvement. Let's get started. It was really nice. All right, Tyberis, what do you want to do now? I'm going to follow suit as I see what Vax is doing.

I'm going to cast a whole person on the dwarf. You don't have visual on the dwarf currently. What? That's absurd! As you run through in the hallway, which you don't even know there's a dwarf there. You rush out to the hallway after hearing all this commotion. You look in and there's an open door into a room

that's currently vacant. You don't have enough movement to get close enough, unfortunately. I'm a good. I encourage violence. Are you one of an excuse of an action? Dude, I'm going to destroy him. Heel. He'll have.

I'm going to kind of do it. That's the best line of the next line of the next. Do we get it? You are currently in a cell and the dead body draped over you. Oh. It's cozy down here. Okay. So with the dead body, I hear what's going on.

I... We're all laying it up. I... Get the body off of it. I morph into minxie form. And as I morph into minxie form, I take take the dead body that's on top of me and just pick it up with my mouth. Okay.

In your mouth, the body stirs. It wasn't quite bad. Oh, what? I wanted a dead one. It makes a sad. Well, you wanted a dead one it is now. Oh. Okay, well, that's my.

That's my. He's dad. I had the entire game being the worst person for it. I know. I tried so hard, you guys. Was it a child? but it's still the fucking worst. So you now have a dead,

gutt dwarf hanging from Macy's mouth. So what do you want to do? Keep chewing. It was, it was, oh, go ahead, do something else. At least it's not gaming. Please. So as your bonus action.

He tries. He tries so hard. You're not trying hard enough, damn. Fuck you, man. Have a tough day. You're a little dwarfs with a fact that I killed a kid. Having all these memories coming back, just I'm on the brink.

Yeah, there's some PTSD. I'm on the brink. I'm sorry, I'm right. So I've got this now dead corpse in my mouth. And I come out around the corner. All right, making a baggage check, because you're still looking at this cluster to hallway with a dead orphan year.

Holy cow. I'm a tiger, so like. Oh, that was Grace Fine's cousin. Oh, me. Haven't it been? Oh, I rolled a 15. Yeah, you're fine, finished. You're kind of leaping through.

I'm kind of leaping through. I'm pouncy. All right. And I come out into the hallway. All right, you actually shift Tiberius anyway. This is a very small space or a very big cat. You're kind of really pushing your space. It's very, very tight quarters for you.

You're like, you smell less good as a drink it does. It's not me, it's the dead body. Oh, that's disgusting. I look at the dwarf. You can't see them from your vantage point. is actually back out of the site. No? We can't see him.

Can I get you? You don't ever know as a dwarf there. You just have some sort of emotion going on. You move around the corner and you see just an empty room. I know, let him go in the room. Let's go do with his butt home. I look at grog and I foam at the mouth a little bit with the corpse and I encourage violence.

I encourage violence. All right. Just gnawing the dead door. Well, let's make this nice and easy. I smack grog on the ass and say go get it. All right, it's your turn. Is he could advantage because we're all encouraging. Oh no, no, you do get inspiration dice for this whole setup.

You don't kill him in one shot? Okay, so you run in. You said the room's full of shiny, pointy things on the wall, right? Yes. I would like to bull rush the dwarf up and against the wall and try and spear him with all the sharp shit on the wall. Okay. Yes! So, oh, that's nasty.

Okay then. So for the, Instant karma's gonna get you, man. All right, so go ahead and make an athletics check. You get that, Gila? 24. Yeah, against his seven. Yes.

You rush in and with your attack, your first attack, you grab him, lift him, and you can see there's a series of giant meat hooks hanging from the back of the wall. And you just lift them up and shove him down onto the hook, which protrudes from the front of his chest. Going, oh, perfect. Yes! Tell me I get another attack.

You do. It says 12 points of damage, and he is currently restrained by the hook through his chest. Perfect. With my second attack, as he's screaming out, I reach inside, grab his lower jaw, and pull him straight down. Okay, make an attack roll. That's so gross. Max is using his free hand to cover his eyes.

Keyleth starts to keep going to. Go ahead and roll damage on this. Oh, six. 12. For Flavor, you're attacking, yes, for Flavor roll 12. Why not? You're pulling his jaw. Excellent. He's rolling really high.

15. Okay. So, after you throw him under the hook, to the hook, his axe clatters to the ground, and he reaches up with his hands to grab you, and it looks like he's pulling back to try and bring you in for a headbut, this kind of angry look of burning rage in his white eyes, this fucked up Duregard

with all these scars in his face. As he reaches up towards you, you take your giant hand and jam it into his maw with this horrible sound as you put all of your muscle into it, glaring him in the face with a terrible grin, you yank the jaw from the bottom of his head. A spatter of blood across the front of his and this tongue dangling. It gives it this horrible, this gurgling scream as all the blood begins to pour up into his throat.

With that, you just, you clutching the jaw with one hand, you begin to pummel him in the face. With his jaw, as he's watching, his head slowly cave in. Until eventually he's no longer moving and you can throw the jaw to the ground. I'm going to talk to the blood. I think Grog got him, I think he did a strong. I said, good job, Grog, that's your best one yet. And they say video games are violent. All right.

Oh my God. As you've entered the room now, and you've got- Wait, is he dead? Oh, he is. He's very dead. We make cheese of him. Lies there limply on the wall, kind of twitching every few seconds. Grog, still in a rage.

You look over at the other individual. You can see you now, it's strapped to. this wooden frame is a smallest humanoid female, currently chained and being pulled on a rack. You can see a bunch of scars and wounds, blood-borne from each one of them. I'm running in, do I know how to disable the rack? You could probably figure it out with a chinkered.

Pike! Can I run home heal her? We need pike in hand. Is it a chains or rope? I'm gonna hold her on. Chains holding her on. I'm gonna undo it. Okay. Wait.

Go ahead make a finger check. It's her. It's got to be her. What do I? It's a proficiency bonus. Proficiency bonus? 12. Okay.

You take a moment and you manage to find where the wedge of this machine is where you can go ahead and release the tension and eventually the chains go a little more slack. And the half the woman takes a deep breath. It just kind of looks about the room a second. It looks like there's a bit of haze. But through the haze, there is just this constant, this constant anger.

And she looks like this, so? Are you gonna let me go? Come on, release these chains! Wait, wait. Who are she is? Can we, can we insight and make sure that it's really good? You can indeed. Yeah, perception per...

This is into the check. All right, I don't get any... Anybody else want to roll for insight? The twins, fuck it. Oh, boy. Scanlan, come up here. 15, 15? She's not in her right mind.

I'm gonna take a peek at her. What are I doing? What do I do? What do I roll in here? Oh. 15. 18's better? Okay.

I mean, at this point, it's pretty apparent that whatever this woman is, she's been here a while and has been subjected to many, many horrible things, and still has that spark of life to her, mainly out of vengeance, anger, and pain, but she does not seem to be overtly aggressive for trying to deceive you, just trying to get

out of these fucking chains. I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, gonna check on her. What's it, Akana check? To see if there's like any kind of, hold on. Any kind of magical impurity is in. Under the Inpirus.

You can tell there's none. I'm pulling out my lock pegs and I'm gonna start working on her. I'm gonna heal her with a little bit of a song. And you know my lock pick snaps, so just totally. Tink. Yeah. Great, how courage for she is.

If I may. Oh, please. She's pretty rough. She looks like, like, as you look up, She's not clothed. Her body is just a spray of scars and gashes and rake marks. And she's been tortured to an extent you hadn't seen a person. And to have to still be like, tensing her muscles against the chains and looking at you with this, this intensity. If this is indeed Lady Kima, you now see why she's made the reputation she has.

Okay. Grog, the lovey mechanism on this is jam. I- I- And I pull out my flute and I sing, uh, As long as I got my song in flute, I'm gonna give some healing to you. Love and magic in the air tonight. Gonna give you some hit points.

Gonna give you some hit points. Yeah. Gonna give you some hit points about life. So I roll nine. Okay, okay. So the fresher wounds seal up, the blood flow comes to a stop. And you see her muscles tense for a moment, or her tension in her muscles wax for a minute.

She kind of looks to you for a second and says, it's been a while since I've heard a song. Thank you. Mrs. Sloj, please be careful for a moment. Can someone cover her ears for just a second? Yeah, I got it. You moffs. I'm going to utility shot.

I'm going to just put my gun against the lock somewhere where it will not harm hurt and just let me. Okay, cool. So go ahead and roll damage. You don't have to roll the head. It's right there. That's fine. 15. How many? Is it two locks? Well, there's one chain for the legs, one chain for the arms. Okay, so 15 for the legs. Yeah. 10 for the arms. Okay, so the legs get free. The chain. The chain mostly snaps on the top part, but not quite enough. It's enough for you, Grog.

I got it. I just reach over. And bring it down with a brief moment of extreme tension to the hole and watch Grog walk up with this axe and swing it down towards this halfling. Before we have a moment to stop, everyone's heart just skips the beat. The chain is bisected, at which point the halfling woman immediately jumps to her feet with almost like a key up stand.

It is now standing on top of the table. her arms are still bound and she, you can now see where the metal was weakened from the axe blow. She pulls herself free from the metal bindings. There's a blister across her wrist, you can see from just the, how long she's been pulling against these restraints,

but she bore through it with a little bit of blood that trickles from that wound, she has freed herself and she looks around the rest of the group. So I take it you not from around here. No, would you like some water? She grabs it from it, pulls off the cork and just starts chugging, like she hasn't had any in a drink for a long time.

Lady Kima, we need to get you out of here. Allura has sent us. She caps it off after a moment, kind of takes a deep breath. I'd hope she would. It was foolish of me to come down here so unprepared. Just knew there wasn't much time. Time to what? She kind of looks around and says, look, you don't know?

It's a story. I have no. It just kind of points to her pretty much unclothed, unarmored form. It says, I need to find my implements. We need to get out of here. Could I offer you this black studded leather, dwarven armor?

Oh, that's nother actually. It's magical. Yeah. Well, would you care for this road? Meaden. What armor you were offering here? It's the black armor that I gave, I found, gave to Grog.

It's magical. Oh, it's another. Yes. Okay. So it's another. Sure, it works for now and she takes it from you and starts putting it on. See her wincing and she puts it on

and it kind of covers some of the wounds. Her whole body is just sore, but she still pushes through it. I'm gonna heal her a little bit more. Okay. I'll put my hands over. I'm sorry, if you're not fully healed, let me help you out.

As you do, she kind of takes a moment and says, you heal her and she says, can I, she sees your mace and then he goes, can I bar that for a second? Uh. Please. Ooh. My mace?

Your mace, please. What'd you need it for? You can have much. Do you trust me? I don't know. This is all I have to protect myself. You've come this far. God have something for him.

Give it, give it. Say yes to life, bye. All right, well, I also have a morning star, but this is... You're gonna give it back? As you hand it out, she grabs it from your hand. That was rude. Walks to the edge of the table.

I don't like her. Stairs at the dwarf that is currently hooked onto the wall. And with an RGL just slams it right into his face, causing his head to explode against the back of the wall. Slams it again and again and again. And again, she's just making like hamburger of his entire body. The arm's slaws off, and she's just going nuts. You can see her just bludging over and over again

with like just spray of gore on her. And there's this look of anger, frustration. She's raging. And the sixth sense of joy a little bit in her eyes and how she's just tearing this dwarf apart. Eventually, after this frenzy, you're all taking it back, and she takes a moment. There is very little left recognizable of once was, was it Duraggar.

I notice bulge in grog's pants. I use my main hand to slowly pick up my bottle of water. Okay. She takes the Mace-Bard from you. I'm sorry I questioned. As she begins to hand it back to you, there's a slight flash of radiant energy that emanates from her hand, and it burns all of the blood that currently encapsulates the mace off. It hands it back to you.

Thank you. I needed that. Very welcome. Give her something, go on. something, Rock. Let me do something with one of your things. That was amazing. Like, you know, give her one of your things, Grog. Could I, would you like to touch my axe?

If you want to bargain with it, certainly. Oh. Maybe we should get out of here. Why don't we collect your things? Yeah, where are they? I have no idea. They're either in the vault or they're in the armory. VALT or the armory.

Those are places that we can go. There's a fault. There's a lot. There's stairs in the room. As far as I can tell. Lady Kima, are these things absolutely necessary? We have a secret entrance to this place. We could leave now.

Are they of vital importance the things you've lost? She kind of thinks for Stefan for a second and goes, There are divine implements gifted to me from an avatar of Bahamit. Directly, I feel to leave them behind would be a partial failure to my quest. Not to mention that what we may face beyond this, we'll need every bit of help we can get. Oh, shit. That's that friend in us.

Let's find a freaking vault. Let's go to the vault. As you show the back of that card, she gives you a look and smiles and says, it's good to see that your scale of color does not rely your intent. That is a face I've not seen for some time. I thank you. She leaves off the table.

So, shall we? I go up to her. Yeah, do you know where the vault is? I can show you. Yes. I go up to her still in my mixy form, and I just kind of kind of kind of threw out body. Yeah, I get right up behind them to, like, competing.

No, I thought the body. No, while she was talking, I took the body, and I kind of drug it back, and I buried my shame. So first, I buried my shame. Okay. Married. Margin the shame. And then I go.

And I per Okay. She kind of pat- She doesn't look at you, but she pats you absin-mindedly as she passes you her direct intent on heading back up those stairs herself. Okay, let's go.

But should we unlock all the other dwarves? Yes, let's let all the other dwarfs out and maybe give them some food to try to help them out if you can. In the meantime, I have a great sword or a morning star makes it you can have until we find your... find your items. Great sword.

It is. Boop. She takes from you, and the sword is a little over a foot taller than she is, maybe a little more than that. But as you hand it to her, she still takes it. You can see she is a built halfling female. She has seen some war, and she has survived some shit.

She's the Tyler Durdon of hafling. Kind of, yeah. As I see her grab the sword, I ask, would you care for some male? She got a glance over her shoulder at you and says, later, we have nothing to celebrate for yet. Absolutely, plenty of time. I think we're ugly. Can I run in the little prison

and just tell the dwarfs that they are conscious to say, don't exit from where you came, there's a secret instance up and in a stool room, go that way, and stealth out. Okay, one of the ones that's semi-conscious, kind of... All of that, I say all of it. He sits up in the... That's fucked up. Since that looks back at you and,

thank you, thank you kindly. Here's some cheese. Takes it hungrily through the bars and just start eating it just incessantly as you leave. All right, government. It's proven all you've got. All right, so Lady Kim is already up the stairs. Oh, we're following up there.

Yeah. It's calories. All right. So, putting this off here. Oh, goodness, oh goodness. This is really fun, savage bird. I'm right with me, see. I place her hand on Lady Kimmer's shoulder.

Perfection. Place hand on Kimmer's shoulder and say, please, allow me. And move several feet ahead of her and start sneaking along. As you move up to her, you notice she's standing at the top of the bottom of the stairs with attention, staring up at the top of the stairway, where Cloroda is looking down at her and backing away. Oh, yes. Wait, wait.

I put my major head in front of her. Wait, wait, wait, well on, it's fine. This mind flare is with ice. We saved him, or he's our ally now. He's fine. No one needs to fight. She's fine. He's fine.

His name is Clorota. Without taking her eyes off of Clorota. This is Kiva. She looks back over. We are allies, oh. Yes. Are you to tell me? that you've come down here

and allied yourself with an entity that is the anithema of the mountain? I'm right at her shoulder, so I say, we understand he's dangerous, but he's gotten us this far. And for what purpose?

You think they don't have plots lined out for weeks and months? No, listen. There is no trust to be had with these creatures. He has been shit out by these creatures. They do not want him or trust him. He is an outcast, And we are working together in this moment,

and he was the one without him. We would not have gotten here. And with him, you will never get out. No, we have his alliance. There's a greater entity controlling his people, which he has been outcast from, like the fact you're saying. And have you not thought for a second that perhaps all of you are being manipulated by this creature?

You can see the great sword now flares with divine energy and she goes, I will not stand here and let us allie ourselves with this filth. Lady Kima! And I blow fire breath. And I use control flames to create a bunch of swords around me with fire. Don't threaten Kima.

She's better. I give you my word. Her attention divided from Clorota now tends towards you. Don't act me a fool and don't treat me like one either. None of us are half-wits as you're claiming. We would not be fooled by such a

creature like this. The words he speaks is true, and we believe him. You go ahead and make a diploma. All right, persuasion, persuasion. Get it on, Tiberius. Get it on. That's terrible. Oh. Get it off? Uh, not good. Not good? Not good.

12. 12. Okay. She walks towards you, and with each step, you can see the color of her eyes begins to vanish, giving way to an extremely bright, burning silver light. silver light and she says, Listen, this creature, or you continue with it and without me. Why, you have to be like that? I will not walk aside this. I have had its people devour mine since I stepped foot in here.

This creature, whatever its reasoning is, is not in your best interest. It will lead you into a web of your own destruction. I've seen their kind work. Clarota. Yeah, they're mostly but he's not a butt hole. but he's not a butthole. I understand that.

He had to kill a couple, and he actually helps a lot. Speak your mind, convince her. Clorota. Clorota, at the top of the stairs, you'd see these tendrils in his mouth kind of curled back with the sneer. His hands kind of crossed before a clotra just says, with this giving us a woman's blade in my back. I, we made a deal.

I walk between them and put hands out. And say we all want the same thing. Kima. Tell us, what is it that you've come here for? What is your purpose here? Speak your mind if you are true. Kema turns back towards you, the same kind of glowing flare in her eyes.

I've come here to rid this mountain and this continent of the darkness that resides deep within the battles of this thing city. Clorota, why have you come here? What is it you seek? Chlorota kind of settles into itself for a second. I've come destroy this creature, cavan, and free my people. Then the two of you, get over your fucking shit.

We want the same thing here. Get over yourselves, both of you. We share a common purpose. We are going to end this fucking bullshit. Kima, we have come here for you. Pay us the respect that we have... We have earned. We have come a long way for you.

He is an unlikely ally, but he has gotten us to this point, and together, for this moment, and this moment only, we can work together. We don't have to be school chums of buddies in a week from now, but right now, right here,

we will work together and achieve the same thing. What say, Eukima? She looks towards you and says, Free his people, he says. What do you think will happen Once his people are free Should they let us walk out on our own? Yes, he said so

And then there'll be buttholes when we leave You know so very little of these dark caverns, my dragon friend Yeah, so first I hear These entities I watched Steal the very life essence of the men and women I hired and traveled with For weeks down here I watched them capture them

And devour their very minds before me and laugh and cackle as I fled into the shadows. But they were under control of Kavan at the point. Oh, understand. Whether or not Kavarn controls them to give them direction, they are of that type of mindset at all points. They do not hope society will thrive. They do not want us free peoples to walk the surface.

They want us for food. Lady Kimmer, if I may, if you're intending us to choose between you and our ally, Clarota, and we can't get you to see eye to eye with us, then I'm afraid you leave us no choice, but to choose our own friend, Clarota, over you. What? We're giving you one last chance. Either you are with us or you are against us. This is a threat.

So you walk in here, save me from my binds under the words of my dear lifelong friend, Archonist Allura. We mean you no ill will. It is you who are aggravating the situation. You could be sitting in a cell by yourself doing fuck all or ending this problem now. Make a persuasion check. I'm so nervous. Oh, Scanlon, come on. Well, I rolled a three. I rolled a 13.

But I have a plus 13. Okay. That's a 16. Oh, plus 13. 3 plus 13? Okay. Plus, uh, hold on. Because you didn't, where the fuck?

War God's blessing. Clarke will. No, I can't do that because that's one of gracious makes an attack roll. Get him, Scanlan. Can I assist? He assisted because he was talking about. Unfortunately, it's too late.

Once the role... You were assist? Right, right. And because of that, the DC has been considered. She takes a moment and steps forward. She's a few inches taller than you. Of course she's. She kind of looks at you and says.

He has the pretty voice. I'm grateful that all of you have come and to reverse all this danger in my name to free me from the binds that have held me. And I do wish very much to walk alongside you to this end. And I understand it may be very well possible that this thing has taken your minds without your knowledge. However, in her eyes closed for a second and she opens them again and that kind of radiant spark of silver fades. Her normal eye color returns. We see ourselves of little choices, and I have very little allies at this point to achieve my goal. If we are to travel together, this one must walk in step the entire time.

One single misstep, and I will not hesitate to carve that head from your body in the name of Bahamah. I'm sorry, you like dancing? I don't like that. I don't know. I don't know. Oh my gosh. Klerota, our hands still crossed, kind of takes a step down the stairs towards her. It's tendles and it's Malcolm.

Understand. Tend, try and cut my life short. I will also not hesitate to bore that beautiful mind from your skull. Once we murder this gavon, you guys are going to laugh. So hard. So friends then? The allies, allies. Everybody understands everyone now.

Good times. The enemy of my enemy. Is mind. Has mind sucking tentacles? She looks back at the rest of you and kind of gives you all an understanding look and a nod and she says, I pray that you're all right. I pray that you're honest.

And I pray that from some strange will of the gods this entity is telling the truth. As if it's not, none of us are making it out of your life. We're playing a game with Chessieftain, and we will win. I whisper in her ear. And I start to humming kumbaya. I take the bag of and I make a happy face. Okay.

She doesn't notice this as she steps up the stairs towards Clorota. Oh, God. Okay. Clorota kind of steps back, hands out the front, this little spark of arcane energy, forming in his hands. The Chorota bringing the sword up in front of her, pushes Clorota aside, and continues ascending back up the stairs to the first level. The first level.

Clorota puts the hands folded back together and locks up the stairs after her. And you all begin to ascend back with him to the first floor, and that's where we'll end the game on the scene. Oh, God. No. What's this is? We thought we were gonna have to pick.

We got like 10 more minutes. No, no, no. That's a good place. It's a good place. Depending on where you guys are going next, it could be a bit of a lengthy encounter. So. Oh, gosh.

So we're going to end. So the building's empty. It's totally empty. There's nobody in there. No one has any idea that you're here. Wait, show our heads. If we have to pick between one or the other, who's picking Kima?

Who's picking turtle face? I don't know. Because she's a lure's friend, right? She's a lawyer's friend. She's good. You just want her because she's badass, and you could hump her. Yeah.

That would be your most awkward hoping ever. You can go from her. Did you see your work in that room of blood? Only one of them is demanding that I become a liar. Why didn't Kima, a dwarf? Kima's a halfling. She's a ropy, muscular halfling. I wanted to take some torture weapons.

You can go back if you want? Yeah, can I go back since we have 10 minutes and go get some torture weapons? What's it? This is pretty quick. You're going to have to grab with the whole thing because everyone's heading up to scare. Harvey Taitel? No. Just for her, it's wrong.

So like the war priest, however, who the light of Sarah and Ray has guided her through her life once a gifted being of light and joy upon coming to the edge of death, her soul taken from her form and returned, going at sea and traveling with some of the more rough and tumbled folks of the landscape has returned now with her mind vent on war, vengeance, and what it means to win a battle through four. force if necessary. Watching Pike rush off and getting to gather up would appear to be two large bladed hooks, a lengthy hand raiser. Nice. Okay, wait, hold on, hold up. Lengthy and hand raiser.

Okay, we're going to go, sweet talk. Hold on, hold on, lengthy hand raiser. A melee album? Two kind of like large pointed hooks that are about two feet in length, almost like a bladed high-eye. And you gather a small bag of various instruments that are rusty and nasty. There's something like a leather capture, you put that in your bag.

That's all you have time to grab before you have to both back up to gather the rest. And we'll pick up the next game as you guys head up the stairs, back into the hallway, first entered in the center of the Emberhold, Durigar Stronghold, Lady Kima released in a very tentative alliance. So thank you guys all for watching. Welcome to Mick Unplugged, the number one podcast for self-improvement and modern leadership. I'm Mick Hunt, your host, and I'm here to challenge your why and fuel your because.

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

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