Critical Role & Sagas of Sundry - Vox Machina Ep. 97 - Taryon My Wayward Son

Episode Date: January 10, 2022

Tary’s past catches up with him, as Vox Machina find themselves racing towards the city of Deastok.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Wow. I don't want to follow that up. Laura. I didn't need merch news. Oh, you know, just to say merch news, as always, we've got these amazing Vox-Mokin'a t-shirts in the store, which... Someone wearing?

Well, Yves wearing it. Oh. From Backblaze. But, you know, nobody here is, but they're so soft and they're amazing. We also have hoodies and hats and, you know, patches, and, you know, patches. nail wraps and stickers that look like this. Do you want to thank the awesome Melissa Kelp for her design, by the way?

Yes! Who designed Vax Machina? And that was in our original fan contest that we did. And, you know, we had that awesome, I know, right? The awesome design that was so cool that we decided to make that design as well. So thank you, Melissa. Thank you, Melissa! Amazing job!

All right. Wednesday Club, Tarson. We don't actually have an official theme yet, but I am I have a strong sensation that is probably going to be something about Riverdale. I get a vibe that we might be going to Riverdale. Archie Jughead. There might be a teenage witch, maybe some, a band. I don't know, we'll see. Irranger.

It's not official yet, but I'm working on it. Elrond, Riverdale. Yeah. Something else from. Thank you very much, Towson. Brisha, Cineboost. It's Brian Compton from over at Nerdus. You got your geek and sundry in my nerdest.

You got your nerdest in my geek and sundry. You dick! That's so disgusting. You fucking dick. Fuck, just clean it. Just somebody to clean it. That and more, you can look forward to MomoCon. As me, Mersh and Towson will be there in a couple weeks.

In Atlanta, Georgia. So see you guys there. May 25th to 28th. And I will be a guest at Acon June 8th through the 11th in Fort Worth, Texas. For all you folks out there in the Texas area, come to say, Hi, that'll be fun. What work that, Katie? Yes.

I was in college there. You should come to your college. No, I'm good. Okay. And I finish this off. Talksumachina, of course, we have starting next Tuesday about this episode, hosted by our Fantastic Brian Wayne Foster, where make sure you submit

your fan art and gift of the week to possibly win some cool prizes. And those are go to Talksumachina at gmail.com. So without further ado, friends, let's go and dive in to tonight's episode. of Critical Role. Welcome, everyone, and welcome back to Critical Role. So, picking up where we left off,

after Voxmachina had taken a year of peace and activity to handle their own respective endeavors or communal endeavors, they discovered, apparently, some family of Pike Trickfoot knocking at the door of Whitestone, a reunion for some of her family not seen since she was a child, coming in to impart her with the knowledge of a terrible family blood curse that had been haunting them for ages and visions that were guided by her

uncle Ogden to the possibility that she carries the same curse and wanting to free the bloodline or at least pike of this. They had to amass the materials and make their way on a moonlit night to the top of the alabaster sierras to complete the ritual to expel, exercise this entity and destroy it. After gathering the materials and trawl, and trawl, and trawl, and traveling to the top of the salted bluffs of the alabaster sierras. The ritual was completed, and the large, monstrous black cloud and skull entity is summoned forth from Pike's body, and you all leapt in to do battle. However, partway into this fray, Vex happened to realize that it was seemingly an illusion. There wasn't a ritual, there wasn't

a blood curse, and this was a ploy from the family to make a little cash off you guys. Yes. After some threats to Uncle Ogden and nearly losing him off the edge of a cliff, you made a deal to offer some money in exchange. You took your cousin, J.B., under your wing, and they were forced to leave and never return. They accepted and went on their way. And with that, we begin today's episode. So you guys have been traveling down the side of the mountain of the Alasasasas, returning late night to the city of Whitestone. What do you wish to do? Kill them all before we change our body.

No. Oh, can I cast locate object and try to find that diamond that he troughed over the side? Ooh. What's the range all locate diamond? Or locate object? Yeah. It's like a thousand-foot clip.

It's far down there. Well, I mean. I probably got about 30 or 40 minutes left on. You could fly down. Yeah. Some of us own. on flying brooms. Yeah, we can fly down on the flying rooms.

Do that, yeah. I can go swimming. Shit, I don't have my thing. Your thing. You can play one on one footage. That says what the distance on locate object is. Object, it is a thousand feet of you. Oh.

Okay, so can I get on my broom and cast it and go try to find it down in the water? Is it legit? Sure. It lasts for 10 minutes. Okay. I'll say, go and make an investigation to check. I'm organizing my dice right now.

Investigation. Dinescence. 19. 19. Okay. It takes you the better part of the next 10 minutes or so to even get a blip on your arcane radar. And you suddenly sense as you're coasting along the very base of the surf where the water is crashing against the rocks, the tide has been coming in with the the full moon, and you can see now the water itself is rough, and just smashing into the side

of the cliff base, you get a small glimmer, a small beacon, a draw to you, like a small pulling under the waves, and you sense about maybe 65 feet down. There it is. 65 feet. Under the water. Under the water. That's three diving tanks for competitive diving. So I probably couldn't do it unless I had breathing underwater. Or your friend, Keelie. She's up top. Would I remember the spot in the fucking water if I went up and got her and brought her back down? Do I have enough time to do it? I mean, you could try and remember it and come back. It's 1,000. It's 1,500. Are we within ear shot? Your piece shot? Not for right now. No, you have to go back up. Okay, I fly straight up from the spot so I don't lose it.

All right. And then you're pretty much on the cusp of it. Like, you've been a little flexible with the arrangement on them, but we'll say you get a little ways up and you... And I say, Kielis, can you swim? Yes. Can you come help me get this diamond back? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Am I on the cliff?

You're on the top of the cliff, yeah. Is she like down? I know. I mean, I can come. Oh, are you really? Can I do it? That's a really high drop. Can I do the Pokemon swan dine?

Can I do it? Swan dive? Okay, make an athletics check. Yes, okay. And cliff dive. Sale! Sale! Sale!

Oh no. I'm 11. Oh no. Okay. You get a few feet past the cliff edge. Not a majestic jump, and the cliff is not completely sheer. It does slightly angle out. So you leap off and as you're falling, you can see you probably have about, I don't say about 300 feet or so before you're going to hit rock.

I'm gonna hit rock? The side of the cliff. The cliff is not perfectly vertical. It's a little bit angle and you're heading down to hit the rock. I go, whoops, and can I do like a gust against the cliff wall to push me back a little bit further? Go and make a wisdom check. Just a straight wisdom modifier check. Oh, that's good.

That's good. That's good. Just straight wisdom modifier. 20. Okay. Like a gentle fart. You. Push yourself.

A little ways from the cliff. It does, we'll say it does just enough of a shove where your trajectory changes slightly. You may or may not be right where the rock hits the surf. You can test it or not. It's up to you. Test it, test it. Help.

And this was the end. You don't kill yourself have this rock. It was nice being in a couple. The last minute I'm going to go and turn into a goldfish. Before you hit the water? Or the rock? Well, I'm assuming the goldfish would make it easier to go water. Terminal velocity.

Yeah, but you're gonna hit rock. That's a good point. Goldfish are not magnetically attracted to water. They still just... What about like? A flying fish or something so you can like maybe... I don't think flying fish actually fly. No, but they...

They do glide. They do glide. They do glide. As you turn into a goldfish, Oh no. Rocketing towards the base of the water. Oh, no. Jesus right.

If I killed you. He's taking a picture of it. He's taking a picture of it. No, he's not. Because she's dead. This is too many dice for me to roll. I mean, I would just bop back to myself. I don't die.

And then any additional damage would go over in tier. No, I know. There's too many dice to roll, Marisha. Oh my God, God. Oh, it's fine. It's fine. We're gods. We're gods.

Are we? It's fine. Demi. She says as she dies on the rocks. Demi Moore gods? Why would you even tempt that shit? Why am I drinking your coffee? I'm gonna stop right now.

Yeah, but we're not. But we're not. Oh, man. Oh boy. Oh. What is he doing? Just you and me, sis. No, no, no.

Seriously, though, what if she just died? Yeah. That would be kind of amazing. You took 363 points of damage. You are lying. You are lying. Wait. That's below.

By hitting rocks? By hitting rocks at terminal velocity at the, it's what is D6 per 10 foot fall in. Keelith scatters across the edge of the rock, it just crumples into the surf and is now floating. Wait, what? You are lying. No!

You did, I did. Wait, that's the goal? That's below her total hit point. That's instant dead. No, she's dead. Keelith is dead and floating in the water. Instant death? Instead of like turning in, okay.

Unrevivable death? Probably revivable. You're revivable, you just gotta retrieve the body. You gotta get it a pipe. Hey, hey, remember, Bex. Oh my God, I go down, I see how- Rex. I gave you a coin.

Wait, a revivify coin. Wait, I thought you were trying to make it out like it's still in water. Wait, you're dead. I said, the distance you jumped and they pushed. Wait, but the- You jumped from a thousand feet in the air. Totally logical.

I'm gonna write a thing. You can't even see the water or rocks, but you're like, yep. I'm a golden god. I am having the best conversation with J.B. right now. I am really getting to know about J.B. Okay, okay, I have a coin. This is the best thing this ever happened.

Wait, but here's the thing. Do I have to roll if I use the coin? And now, now officially, every member of Vox Machina has died almost in battle or is some danger. That's a carrot! You broke the seal. Didn't we have a rule the last one just stays dead?

But I'm supposed to like turn it to a flying creature and like save from this? That's up to you. I thought it was going to be not that bad. Okay, okay, okay. I'm starting to sweat. Who sees it? I don't see it. We would all know. The only person that sees it is vets.

It doesn't matter we would all. You watch his kids, poof. No. And just like, it's a scatter of red mess. And you just see her floating. in the water. So what's not to be that in? I know.

This was not in my plan. 200 floors up. Okay. No, but here, I mean, go get her. I go fly down there. Is she like a body at least? Yeah.

Because she hit as the goldfish. Yes, and the goldfish which has like decimated. A hip point. Yeah. Which then made the other 324 hip points. Sure. Sure.

Go over to Mauritia. Sure, sure, sure. So the goldfish turned into orange marmalade. I mean, her body's still intact. Oh wow. It was a magic trick. It was like a fish turned into a corpse. Bang, bang.

Can I use my coin that Terry gave me my coin of Revivify? Honor? How long can you get before the battle, right? Yes, you can. Okay, I do that. Slap it on that body. If it works, do not clean her up before you bring her back.

I'm not angry. I don't want to remind you of all. I don't know. How do I do it? Go ahead and roll a, just a straight wisdom check. A wisdom check? Yes. I'm so nervous. I'm laughing, Travis.

This could be so bad. Stop it. Okay. Okay, okay, okay, okay. I mean, you can't feel bad about it. I thought I was going to get out of water and be. 18, okay. Instead it was.

As you pull, go down and pull her out of the water, her soaked red hair covers her face, and it's probably a good thing. As you're a little scared to see. And so with that, you instinctively begin to seize up and just like about to sob and then you realize the coin and you come forward in your pocket and you hear the waves crashing below you and you pull it out and you holding your palm and you feel it glow and warm in your hand as you press it against the back of keel its broken body,

of Keel's broken body, and you watch as the warmth passes from the coin through her back, and as it does, you watch as her broken limbs all snap back into place. And she means to breathe again. Keelph, by the way, she looks wrecked. She's still scratched everywhere. She's covered in blood. But she's alive at one hip point. Please bring her back up that right. Key, that was really stupid.

I just put my hands on both sides of her face and cast cure wounds at fourth level. Oh no, at third level, because I used grasping vine. Yeah, third level, okay. So 3D8 plus your wisdom modifier. Oh, Jesus. I mean, that's not, no. No, no, no, no.

I better go check on them. I'll dive off the cliff. Just a little drop. That was a beautiful D&D moment right there. Oh my god. Back to the . Back to the coin. Yeah, there's no idea.

So what was Pike like when she was like real, like little little for a known? Basically, I want to know we were wearing the necklace, so we all got a beep. It's 500. You did briefly. Everyone just got a beep. I was really paying attention to J.B.

For a second. Is yours broken? I think mine's broken. I don't know. I felt something. Whiz? I've been really stressed out here lately, and that might have been very impulsive.

and I might have been blowing off some steam. And I'm really sorry. I thought I was gonna be five. No, no, no. I didn't know there was great rocks. Maybe next time you're diving off a cliff turn into a bird. Uh-huh. Yeah.

It might have been a last minute panic. I'm glad you'll pack. Thanks. That was. You know what? Let's not even worry about that coin there. I mean the diamonds. I feel like maybe.

I can go get it now. This one. I'm here now. Oh my. I feel really bad because I feel bad about that. I think maybe this is a lesson learned in what is worth risking our lives for. Is there like a cloud of red in the water?

There was, but the waves are crashing pretty heavy. Luckily Vex grabbed her immediately because otherwise her body would have been thrown under the rocks again by the surf. So I just explained. I just explained the ocean to you before you jumped. That's what would have happened. A thousand feet is really all you needed. A thousand feet was all you needed. We have some amazing physics books that we will actually get into.

Trees grass. How about you, here, just climb onto the broom. Don't worry about flying right now. I can go and get the thing. We're just going up. It's like, I still have a bee sheep left. We're just going to go up. Okay.

We're leaving the diamond. Covering in gore? Yeah, she's covered in what? God, thank you. Price paid, I think. Oh, jeez. All right. So, as you guys are talking, you were talking to Jay, B, who still is kind of stunned by this whole thing.

All this happened pretty quickly, and so she's not necessarily opening up entirely, but she's like, well, you know, she, we were both kind of troublemakers. Yeah, because she's got a wild streak now. Does that run in the family, or is that just her and you? Oh, that definitely runs in the family. Yeah. She looks over to you Pike again. It's like, I'm so sorry. I didn't. I'll try and make it up to you.

Just no, I don't want you to, if you don't want to stay here, you don't have to stay here. I'm not holding you here against your will in any way, but I would love for you to stay, because I would love to get to know you better. Well, how could I say now? I'll say until you need me to leave. At which point you watch as a Vax and Kileth in the broom come up and land on the clip side.

You two found that diamond. Oh, sweet, Paylor! Oh! The diamond right now. Okay. Yeah, let's just maybe take a moment and recover from that... Vicki, are you okay? Battle, which was so hard on everyone. What happened?

What? You... You... What? She's fine. She's fine. I'm great. She's more blood than person. person. Do we need to fix anything? What's going on? Maybe Pike. You can do a little. Yes. Cure wounds.

Terry. What? I used your goal. Oh. Oh. I know. Glad I gave it to you. Oh. Oh. So I can go back and get that time out. No. I feel me bad.

I think somebody's got a carpet ride down the hill coming to them. I'm casting lay on hands for my piddly 20 hit point. What did you do? What did you do? Do? What did you do? I thought it'd be fun. I've had a lot of fun here lately, okay? It kind of felt like the old days of when Vox Machina was back together, because we've been away for a while.

You just, you just go off, free willy-nilly. You know, those rocks came out of nowhere. I thought you were in the clear as well. I thought I was going to make it. And you know, all I saw was keylet and then this little tiny fleck of gold and then gone. We are going to have a long talk about fundamentals of physics. of physics. Did she die?

I don't. It's fine. Did anybody else feel that... Macawcalf mess? What happened? I forgot. That's what that was. I felt a...

You know? It's just, you know, it's been a lot of responsibility here lately and a lot of being an adult. And so I was like, who, fucks, we're reckless. Don't jump off cliffs anymore, please. Yeah, you fucked up. That was crazy. I have to confess I've been feeling a bit of stir-crazy myself. I mean, not jump off cliff, Stur-crazy, dear God, but...

And I turn her bloody face to you and say, let this be a lesson to you then. I'm just saying that I understand the impulse. This was not necessarily the best expression of it, but... I thought I can make it. I thought it's cool. I think it was take a nap and then maybe go out and... She healed her, but... I just start kissing the gory mess in the gory mess

In my hands all over her for it and cheese, please. That's not very nice. That's pretty good. You marked off the 300 gold for the Revivify, right? How many? Rehivify because it consumes a diamond worth 300 gold. 300? Yes.

Keely, did that hurt? I think you could have bargained that down. Did it hurt? With God? It felt like blackness. Blackness? Mm-hmm. It felt like a lot of adrenaline.

And it was super exciting. And then next thing I knew everyone was super concerned about my well-being. I only got one blimp. Are you addicted to death now? No. Have we healed her up a bit? I'm gonna heal up a little more. She's like six kids.

I can do a healing draft for her. A what? Healing draft. It's like, Did you guys know? They got high spells. Water and rocks. From very high.

It feels like. hitting rocks. I literally have books on the subject. Kieliff, as you turn around and you watch as Terry's handing you this small glass vial of what looks to be like a... What color liquid is it? It's colorless and odorless. It's like a thicker water.

What's this? Just drink it, it'll make you feel better. I mean, I just drove off a cliff, so... Fuck it, I guess, at this point. How much does you yield? I rolled on my iPhone 37. It's 8D8. Yeah.

So, Keel, if you yield 37 hit points. Oh, Jesus. 37? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Keep her word of you got. Keep her up.

Yeah, pile on. This guy has something. I haven't used any spells. This is the weirdest flatliners reboot of ever since. I'm not giving it. She's just going to spend it over there any hit points. You save Julia Roberts. I'm fine.

I don't. Let's just go. Worried about me. I'm good. I'm good. 104. Oh. Let's all go home, have a drink and discuss this over a drink.

Why? Why? Because I think this may speak to a larger issue amongst us that maybe you are the canary and the coal mine here. This is not like a friend or invention, is it? We're gods before pushing here. Listen, I'm a golden god. I may have heard I'm a golden god. But you know what?

I'm still alive. I wasn't entirely wrong. You're not still alive, you're alive again. Yes. There's a stink. We should celebrate because we've broken in the entire group. Yes, I think everybody here has at least been dead for a moment at this point. Was I dead?

Technically, yes. Is I like dead? Look how much right is all over here. Enough to the point where if you die again, your resurrection DC has gone up. We could make another key key to the way. You could make another Kiki out of what you're wearing right now. Oh, you can hear you died. Have you died?

Did I die? I think I died. Did Terry die? Under water, I think I died. You did. 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.

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Quince.com slash critical role. Why is a war. We need die at the palace. I think I died. Oh. Right? I don't remember. I would be.

I'm looking at me like that. Don't look at me like that. I'm not looking at you like anything. You need a bath is what you need. Yeah, you're covered in shit. It means really, it's a lot right now. I say we go back. I would love to go back and maybe have lots of drinks. Yeah.

I think... Let's go home. J.B. Welcome to the family. She's just like eyes wide open, like, right. Cheers. Clutches her book a little closer to her chest, as you guys are going to make your way down the mountainside. A different path than the other trick-foot's we're taking.

It's good, good call. Maybe we need a hobby. We'll never beat that, that. Nothing's ever going to beat that. That's like killing in Lava Bad. That's just like, I like, I like, I like the most appropriate. How many fail video compilations have been seen where people jump off

and hit just to the bottom, that's what you did. Yeah. We were in a huge fight with a fake thing that did no damage, and you killed yourself in four seconds. I got this. I'm gonna get some heat water and be all right. Look out. No, I had you on.

I'm not gonna pretend I didn't go on. Unreal, can write it. I don't think I said there when I thought about it. I thought I could make it. True to sell. Yeah, 50. That was unbelievable. One to 50, she hits the water.

She hits the water. 51 to 100, she hits the rock. Ninety-four. So it's the rock? Yeah, that's what happened. Either way, you were really screwed. To be fair, at a goldfish, even at that velocity, although the velocity would have lessened it once in general. I should have bailed out as a bird.

Don't throw coins out the Empire State Building? I didn't feel like to commit. Make-believe has consequences. Boy, that's so true. Over the course of the next, say, Say day, a little ever a day, camp once in the part of the way to make your way back to White Stone. Is 15 hours of that therapy? For you, yeah.

Quiet. I love out of everything we've seen. What I just did was apparently the most fucked up. It's up there. Everything that's happened to us. Top five, he's like. And now we need therapy. No, we've all needed therapy.

We've all needed therapy. Just now he's figured out. the Game of Thrones. It got very dark and ran them very quickly. God's dead. Five seconds. Part of view. We all stand for something. What do you fold for? Apparently on my way. Sorry. Stop. All righty. So, you find your baby back to White Stone. You check in at the guard.

Are happy to see that you return fine. They report to you that the Trickfoot clan have not returned and have not been seen near the city since you return. There are a few questions as to where they went. We're going to have their vehicle searched for anything that does not belong to them and then made ready for them outside the city bounds. Very well, sir. And they searched through it, and mostly what's found in there are maybe 102 gold pieces. Did we have anybody with a criminal background search the vehicle? I mean, there are a number of people.

I would like someone extremely sketchy to search. Actually, Bax, would you search the vehicle? And J.B., if there's anything that you need out of there. Do you have chocolate on your face? Yes, of course. J.B. kind of wipes it with the thumb. Including anything that you think would be in more capable hands if they were in your hands.

She kind of shakes her head in the hat. Wait, when she climbs up into the cart and comes back, and she has a small book, like a small tattered book, and she kind of posts her herself. That's all. I don't care about the rest. Okay. Facts, quick check, let me think we would care about. Oh, so good. Investigation, yeah?

18. 18? You find the gold. You find a cache of dried jerky meats. You find what looks to be some leftover kind of meat pie crust bits that have been there for a few days, starting to smell a little, and you get the sense that anything of importance probably was on their persons. They weren't really storing a lot of things in an open cart. It's been a bad couple of days.

All right. Just wanted to make sure there wasn't anything complicated. Leave the gold, obviously, and the food. All right. Burn the wagon. Fair enough. As you said, Dirty's like, Terry. No, no, no, no. No, we have to learn humor, don't you?

Sarcatsy. All righty. So, what do you want to do? Oh. Oh. Is it night? By the time you've returned, it's probably like late afternoon. We'll say at this point, because it's been about a little over a day and a half at this point.

So like, yeah, like mid afternoon. What should we do? I don't know. I mean, what the fuck do we do? We can go check on the Slayer's Cake. Well, yeah, we should probably do that. It's been a couple days. Yeah.

What did we do with it while we were going? Did we have someone running it? Do we have someone? You do not. You guys are currently the only. It is a sign that says closed for adventuring, probably. We should hire someone. We really should to run it if we're not around. For sure.

J.B. Yeah, the thief, that's good idea. What? Oh, that's a great idea. Do you like baking? I haven't really tried. Well. Have you had any management experience?

I took care of Uncle Ogden. I feel like she would be great at it. You know, would you even be interested in maybe maybe running a bakery, or is that something that just sounds like just the most dreadful thing in the world? Oh, I don't know. She can't like, I could try.

How are you at math? I'm quite good at math, actually. Fabulous. Let's head there and see how you do. Yes, let's see, but not make any promises. No, no, no, no. Someone who's never. run any sort of money.

Right, I mean, Tlaura, you would know about hiring people far more than. We should have a proper interview. Right. Check references. Well, you know, you weren't a proper adventurer until you were. Gotta start somewhere. True, but I had the advantage of being able

to buy my way in. That's true. That's true, but you're still pretty shitty at it when we first started. And this is a form of nepotism. It's pretty reasonable. I'm open to it. No.

All right, you guys make your way to the Is everyone going to the Slayer's Cake? Yeah, because we can eat too. Okay. All right, you guys all making way the Slayer's cake. As the afternoon's kind of coming to a closed dusk is starting to change the colors of the sky, the clouds are beginning to move in as the night's evening air

grows colder. As you come to the outside, you see it's dark and closed, and you see what appears to be a figure kind of sitting on the ground against the wall, back to the wall, knees huddled up. Not J.B. No, because J.B.'s walking with you guys, too. In front of the bakery?

Kind of, like, by the door a little bit adjacent to where the door is closed. Do we, we don't recognize them? Can we see their face? Make perception, check. Is this the same day or has this been a day now? Oh, thank God. Yeah, end of the day. No. 30.

Yeah, what you see actually is a woman in her probably late 30s or so, maybe early 40s, platinum blonde hair. It's kind of pulled up in a ratty bun. She's got strands kind of hanging in the front of her face that go to about just past her chin. She's a very simple dress and kind of a somewhat dirty apron and a small satchel on her side. And she's just kind of leaning against the wall with her knees clutched to her. Just kind of looking forward. She hasn't noticed to you guys yet. You've been your little ways up. And I don't recognize her.

No, you do not recognize her. Excuse me. Oh, oh. Oh. And she kind of gets up and stands up and her back creaks a little bit and she stretches it and then dusts off the front of her apron. You see a little bit of, a good bit of, just kind of, I'm terribly sorry. I wasn't sure when you were going to be coming back. Oh, yeah, no, we were just off on an adventure, but it'll take a little while before the food is ready. Oh, that, I won't. If you have a moment. Of course.

Fine, sirs and madams. I'm sorry to bother you. You see, my husband, I think, has not returned from C in about six months. And I'm not certain if he's coming back, and I am without work. And coffers he left me have come empty this month, so could you perhaps use your handy at the bakery? Timing is quite... That was kind of ridiculous timing.

Madam, what's your name? Hilda. And you would like a job at a bakery? If at all possible. Do you bake? I do. And she reaches into her satchel. And you see in the inside, she has a bunch of these small things wrapped in paper. And she kind of goes and opens one and pulls it out and kind of shows it to you. And you see it's this tiny little cream puff. It's like perfectly made and has this little icing on the top.

She's like, oh, you should just make these for old Dothin, but... May we try it? Of course, of course. I mean, she goes and pulls a handful of and kind of hands them amongst you and gives them over. This is a beautiful cream pop. They're really hard to make, I know, I don't know how to. Quick sidebar. This is better than anything we've ever made.

Did you already eat it? Yes. It was really good. I'm gonna wait a few minutes to see if Terry looks like he just falls over or anything. Wait, what? You think it's poison? No, no, no. I'm sure it's not. I ate it. I ate the whole thing in one bite.

It was really good. Some strange woman. Am I gonna die? Give me all your stuff. How often do you just eat? That would look like a trustworthy. Her eyes go wide. I'm like, oh, what, I'm gonna die?

Did you just kill me? No, no. No, she didn't. No. I'm delighted. No. It's actually very good. It's very, very good.

You're right, that is fun. It's really good. Well, if it's all the same, I may have another prospect for J.B. So, anyway, so. Well, come on. Well, come on inside, Hilda. Let's show you around. Oh, all right.

This is delicious. It's really good. This is better than anything that we make. It can't possibly be that good. Have you tried any of our baked goods, you know, yet? I haven't. I've seen it from a distance, but I couldn't really afford to. Oh. So, but I'd like to.

Do you live here in Whiteson? I do. I do. I live right behind. She points up to the left. If the sun tree's in the center and you head up straight on the eastern side, sorry, the western side of the square, the path that leads up towards Whitestone Castle, she points about two blocks up and on the left and there's a small hovel that's kind of push between two buildings there. And she goes, that's where I see. Can I insight check early? Because I don't trust anybody.

I don't trust anybody. Go for it. It just makes it seem like assholes because they were just like, I kind of want to go in a little bit and like ask around and see what people think of her. Oh, okay. A little background check. A little background check. 27. 27?

Okay. The Whispers. I get a whisper? Have you never had a whisper? I don't think of the show I've had a whisper. Oh my god, everybody's first. Had them in Priya. Backblaze, ladies and gentlemen.

Yes. Backblaze.com slash critical role to get two weeks free or something. Oh my gosh. Yeah, two weeks. Oh, you want to do the infomercial bit again? I really do, but you guys have such an amazing job. Sorry.

This is why we're the cool thing. I think that. We're killing her. She should die. I was kidding. Bake her into the pies. Do you have, do you have, do you have a References?

Preferences in... Have you worked anywhere else? No, I've mostly just been a housewife until recently. Do you have anyone in the community who could vouch for your character and trustworthiness? Perhaps. No, McKell wakes up in the morning. There's also Keeper Yeninnin. Oh, Keeper Yenin. We know him. I think, right? We know him. Yeah, yeah, we know. Give Yennon. Yeah. Hey. That's all I can.

of at the moment. How long has your husband been missing? About six months. About six months. What was he doing? He's kind of a merchant sailor, come in and out, but he'd be back within a month, usually. Some trips took longer, but six months

seems extraordinary long for him. Where did he go again? Last time, I know, it kind of does a circle around the southern tip of Taldore, and usually hits him on by ship, occasionally, heads over to about the, where is it, the, The, I think about the sham. Sambollah. Was, if I made something like that, I don't really know for sure.

It's a long ways away. Kiela Spatua. Kila, can you scry on people we don't know? Or if I have, like, a piece of one of their belongings, yeah, that definitely helps, yeah. Hilda, would you like us to check and see if we can potentially find him? find him? You can do that. Well, if you have something of his that we can look at, we might be able to help.

All right. Yeah, okay. Just a moment. Okay. And she goes, and she goes rushing up the street all fast, kind of this kind of renewed excitement in her face. How do we feel about her? How do we feel about it? How do we feel about it? If you were dead set on J.B. taking over the business. No, I'm not. J.B., it's, don't feel pressured if you don't want to do this. She's a fantastic, very, very good. I mean, she's a really good. We do that.

But maybe, maybe. J.B. can handle the books, and she can handle the baking. There is another option, which is that we have a giant pile of histories and library and novels in our collected library, and we are searching for information about the thing underneath the castle, and we need readers. We need lots and lots of people to read lots and lots of books. J.B., you watch, like, the excitement you just saw on Hilda's face, now it hits J.B.'s face, like, I'm good reader. Okay. Well, that seems more like that.

That seems, yeah. That seems like a little more fun. Okay. Yeah. I can also help with it if you want. I'm more than happy to do both. I mean, I have a lot of free time now. That's true. That's true. You could run the bakery during the day, and if you feel like. Why don't, while we're gone, you could help Hilda. Hilda? Hilda. Hilda? You could just help out, but maybe. leave her in charge. I think she seems like a... Or you could sit in the castle and read diaries and ancient tones of white soon.

Do I notice Grog looking uncomfortable? I definitely notice I don't care. I was done! Grog, does you notice you feeling uncomfortable? I don't know. Do you? I don't know. Do I? Grog, are you uncomfortable? With us talk of reading a little bit.

But Grog, you could read some of those books a little bit. Yeah, let's not get ahead of ourselves, all right. Okay. I think this is a great idea. I'm watching where Hilda's running and seeing if I can. I had a quick thought. If her husband's dead. Are we just going to tell her that right now? Just your husband's dead. He is being eaten by food. No. No, no.

We didn't get a read. Yeah. If you like do read and you see it's like super burn, just like, don't. Oh, it's too hazy. I can't see him. But isn't that, but. But. It doesn't seem right. It does seem right to me.

No, but I think she should plan for her life if he's not coming back. Yep. Pike and I are in agreement. But like right now, I mean, I just with it. What if he's alive and in peril? Do we tell her that? We're going to lose our only employee. Well, then we go try to help him, maybe. Yeah, I mean, we could go.

Oh, really? How about he's just dead no matter what? We have to go help someone. We just met this. person. We don't know anything. That's what we do, Terry. We haven't done that in quite a while, to be fair. Plus, he was in somewhere like some Blen. Do we know what she was talking about, by the way? Yeah.

I mean, you get the sense that you probably was doing Shamel, which is the port where you guys did your vacation, the Vegas. Like in Markman. Oh, we could go on vacation again. Let's not plan actions with the consequences that don't exist. About ten minutes or so passed and then Hilda comes back, and you see she's clutching what looks to be a small. like a chain, like a gold chain. And she kind of takes and goes, this belong to my husband.

I don't know if this will help. Sure, Kila. What is it? Ignore it. It's a blood all over her body. She's fine. You probably will clean him over the past day or so travel. Unless you did an image case, you are.

Oh, you were just a sticky carry. No, I look awesome. It's dried in the hair though and kicked in. You water in the shit out. Spacey, maybe, though, for a little bit. Yeah, understandably. Yeah. Like you do.

It's hard to say. But anyway, she hands you the gold chain. Just checking, do you want to know no matter what? Good or ill? I just want to know something. Fair enough. What was his name? Atham.

Yeah, it was D-A-T-H-E-M. D-A-T-H-N. D-T-H-N? D-O-L-Lovely. Oh, lovely. Can you tell me anything else about him that What does he look like? He's got kind of dusty brown hair, usually about shorter length.

Well, he doesn't really grow facial hair, but he's pretty scruffy, a lot of the way. It's been many months, I don't know. Medium build, maybe about this high. Gives a couple of inches up her own height. He's got right scar across his neck and his chest right there that he got when he was a kid. Nice.

It should be enough. Wonderful, sir. Okay. Scrying spell. All righty. So looking at the squaring spell here. You sit there in focus and concentrate in darkness. Nothing. No link.

She's looking expectantly. What's that? She's looking at you expectantly. Hilda. Mm-hmm. If he is on this plane of existence, I don't know if it's a good sign. But it doesn't mean that he couldn't.

and you'd be lost somewhere else. Okay. My spell only extends to this plane of existence, but there are many planes. I can try again. No, no, that's all right. I thought all you did to know. Thank you.

This says the sun's setting down, and starting to go in the evening. You can see the light kind of causing her to blear a little bit. You know, hearing in the shade, she's like, Can we perhaps talk in the morning? Of course. Take the evening. Where can I find you? I'll put the... She points over as the castle.

Sure, yeah. All right. One of us will be back here tomorrow as well. All right. Thank you. She kind of like quietly walks back to her the corner of the city where she was from. Oh, shit. Well, that's not good.

Give the woman a job, keep her busy. Yeah. I'm just throwing this out there. If that was a ploy to get a higher salary, I'm not biting. I'm just saying she could be very cunning. Yep, she might have killed her husband. Pretty sure she did it. Do I have any further inkling based on...

No, I just did not find a... Just not find a source. Nothing to spell or nothing to grab onto. Maybe you and I can take a stroll up by her abode. Alright. Just see. Sure. Make sure she's all right.

Right. Best of intentions, yeah. Yeah. I feel you. We are background checking a fucking bakery employee in our Dudgeons and Dragons game. What else do you do? Matt has burned us too many times. The stupid box that we buried still haunts me to this day.

Just got swindled yesterday. That's what I- Come on. Yeah. We don't test. Social Security, we don't have an I-9. No, we have nothing. There's nothing.

There's nothing. There's no way to know. She could just be in here, trying to get close by the Mekinaa before she takes us all down like Ryshawn. Speaking of deeply distrustful person, she could! Speaking of deeply distrustful persons,

J.B, do you want to come to come to and does anybody else want to come? I would love to come. Yes, me too. Please. Are you insinuating that J.B. is untrustful. Oh, absolutely in the best possible way. I'm highly excited.

And I think you're going to do very very very well. Okay. See? We like untrustworthy people. None of us are trustworthy. It's good. I know I've read. Oh, that made me happen. We'd go by her, Havel. Okay. As you guys make it right back to the castle, you're going to stop and go over there and you can see it's like it's one of three small homes that are kind of just jammed in the alley areas between these larger buildings.

buildings, almost like there's businesses on this one corner and they have smaller people that just, you know, are living more meager means. Each one of them appears to be occupied, the one that she kind of pointed to, you go to it, and it seems there. It's like a very, very low light through one of the windows. I'm going to be real shitty and stealth up and just peek in and see what she's up to. Okay. Make stealthier? She's like changing. Or weeping. Just weeping.

I'm just crying naked. We'll find out, won't we? Oh, 33 for stealth. All right, and then make perception check? Yeah. Natural 20. Okay. You glance up and over the side, and from the low candlelit interior, where she watches like, there's a small candle that's lit

in this little look there, and there's like almost no furniture in this house whatsoever. There's like a stool, and you just see her sitting on the stool. kind of motionless. Can I get, I want a insight check and just get as good a read on her emotional state as I can. Sure, go for it. She's got a thousand yards there.

She's a succulent. This is insight? Yes. I'll use luck. Better. Luck. Sure, why not? Why not?

What am I saving it for? Yeah, why not? 18. I mean, she's faced away from you. It's hard to pick up, like kind of away, but kind of the side and you just see her just there. That is person. And you see her just kind of like,

I went through her satchel on the side. Yeah. Plot of cream puff and eat it. There's not even a bed in there. It's just a stool. Just a stool. Into the bed. Into the earring, I say.

We are, we are terrible, terrible arseals. She's not real. She seems fine. She seems worthy of a baking job. You know, work with her for a day, but I'm not seeing anything Anything inky here? Yeah? Yeah, sure.

You need anything else? No, I'm gonna talk to Keeper Yen. Because I'm staring at a woman cry into her satchel. Still gonna talk to Yen. I know, it's like our fucking business, you know? Yeah, of course. I'm protecting. This is more work than we put into, like, hiring our first castle guards.

Yeah, no, I mean, come on. At least we're not trying to ambush her and attack her attack her like we attacked you, Taryn. Significant other just manned of herself. just mangled herself. I need to keep busy. Let's go see Yen, please, and I later off. Okay. You guys go ahead and make your way towards Yen's small temple in town. It's past the evening's sun, so there's, so you see Yen's, he has one, one younger boy who's kind of helps him keep these establishment who's in the process of kind of like sweeping some of the fallen leaves and various dust that has found its way into the half open dome. place of worship as you approach.

Like, hi. Can I ask you a question, Keepa? Are you looking for Yennan? Oh shit, yeah, sorry. This is the younger boy who Do you say it work. Keeper in training. Keeper in training is Keeper Yanine here.

Let me get him. I kind of push the room away. As he leaves for a second, the door puts the side and you see Yenna come out kind of like half awake. He doesn't like, looks like he's evening. sleeping attire. Oh shit. Sorry. It's really that late. Oh, it's very old. Sorry. I'm so sorry to wake you. That's all right. I feel like a dick. What can I do for you? I just wanted to ask you about someone you might know. Yes? Hilda? Hilda. Yes.

What do you know about her? Um, not too much. She seems nice and keeps to herself. She lives kind of that way in the town. How long have you known her? 15 years. She's been here 15 years. Well yeah, her and her husband. Yeah, all right.

What was he like? What is he like? Oh, I mean, a bit of rambunctious young lad until he grew up and don't see him very often. He comes in and out. As a sailor. Ah, well, that was helpful. Anything remarkable, any sort of untrustworthiness?

You think she's fine, she's cool, she's cool. I assume, is everything all right? Everything's fine. You know, we're just weird people right now. It's great. You don't know anything about Orchus, do you? I know of. Didn't think so.

We should leave. Come on. Thank you so much. You're welcome. Get some rest. I'm so sorry to bother you. Come on. Oh, goodness.

Good night. We're making assholes of ourselves. Surprise. Fine, we go meet up with everyone else. What did you find out? Oh, so much. So much. Very much.

So tell you. She's a loner. She's a loner. She's lived in for like 15 years, though. But like, nobody really knows anything. And you say she sits in a room by herself eating pastries. I mean, that's what she's doing tonight. I don't think that's what she does every day.

I mean, who knows? She doesn't have a bed. Why has there no furniture in her apartment? Let's watch her work for a day. Okay. Did I see more than one room? Was it a single room home? It's a hovel.

It's like a point you can tell a single room. There's like a pile of, look like linens in a corner. Something like it stands in the bed there. There was a stool. It looks like there was a small area for like cooking or heating up. It's like Skyrim, y'all. There's like a stool and like a cheese wheel. And a pot, and as you break it, there's five coins.

We were that poor. It's fine. And we steal their plants from outside. Throw them at chickens. Yes. Mountain flowers. Mountain flowers. Nice shape.

Well, this was productive. At least we know, and there's no harm in being careful. It's not like it's never happened before. Right. Yes. It's not the first time that we've been trusting and been betrayed or the second or the third. It's reasonable to be a bit cautious,

and we were a bit cautious. Over cakes. Over cakes. To be fair, we are going to be eating them. Are we reading right now? We are, well, I assume we've gotten to the library, I don't know. Yeah, I mean, they've traveled through,

but you've had time to hit the library and kind of begin showing J.B. around. We have a system. It's very, yeah. Are there children's books in here? I'm trying to say this without. I found one. Business.

Business. He's learning. Busyness. I have no. Busy. What? Business. Business.

Sounded out. Bus. I-e-ness. Did you find a ledger? Is that what you found? There are the books I read. as a child? Where are they? Everywhere.

Can I see if I can find a kid's book? That's pronounced. Make an investigation check. Boyzness. Boyzness. Boyzness. Yeah, like get down to boys. Can you use it in a sentence, please?

Grove got down to buzness and ended a fool's life. Is that like a location? 13. 13. I mean, you find what amounts to a children's book for Percival. Boy. Bless you. It's a geometry.

High school biology. Yeah, yeah. It's still logic by Lewis Carroll. Most of the books here are in a relatively advanced reading level. You gather that's a trait of what seems to be the Dorolo family. Shig. Gives me the sense that this kid's gonna be fine. Oh, you can do the ch.

Oh, chide. Oh, kid. Kid. No, it's not kid. Oh, shit. Well, sometimes when those letters are, those letters are together, it sounds like a K. That's common.

That's like a hidden rule. It's a lot of rules. It's a lot of rules. It's an orchid business. Orchid business. Boisness, which is a location in market. All right. You guys, you guys do anything else with the evening? Just showing her what we would like to pay her to do, which is that all of these books, this is this huge section that's

are mostly histories, diaries, folk tales or otherwise, just take one of these slips of paper when you read a book, you write your name on it, you leave it in the book, and then any time that you find anything peculiar, a ghost story or a strange occurrence in any of these books, anything at all that might be fanciful or unexplained, you just mark it with a piece of gold thread and put it back on the shelf, and then one of the other librarians will come and find that book and bring it down for further study. She's taking notes in her the little books you pulled off from her.

So you just have to find the most interesting of these books and make sure that they're well marked. I can do that. I had a funny feeling. What makes them interesting? What makes a book interesting? I genuinely don't know how to answer that. Sexy pictures.

There's not a lot of that in this library. Are you giving someone parameters by which they don't really have rules to follow? Well, that's the trouble with looking for something if you don't know what it is. Right. But if there's a strange, if there's, in one of these diaries someone remarks upon a strange murder

or a ghost story or anything, honestly anything interesting, that's a bit peculiar. You just mark it and then we take a look and that way we thin out the amount that we have to read down to a manageable amount. So it takes a peculiar person to know what's peculiar? That does help, yes.

Okay, I can do that. Yeah. A place, says Percy privately. Mm-hmm. She can stay with me. I assumed. Is there, do I have an extra bedroom? Or how does this work? Where is Pike and Prate?

Is she staying in the castle, right? She has a room in the castle, one that used to be one of the guest rooms when you had people you're entertaining. Maybe there's like a Murphy bed or something extra. In the room. It's easy to put a second bed in there. Or is your window. That can absolutely be arranged.

J.B. Do you, I don't know how. She's like in the process of looking, and she's like writing down and taking the notes in the different sections. She's talking to her. She's not even looking at you. You are more than welcome to stay with me.

I do have night terrors, so sometimes it's not fun. But you can stay with me, or you can stay with me, Or you could have your own room. No, that's, that's fine. Okay. Did you want, wait, which one? Staying with you. I mean, is there something I should do

if you're having a night tear? Just, just wait it out. Okay, don't make you up. No. Okay, okay. Okay, this'll be fun, it'll be like sleepover or something. I haven't had one of those in a long time. Maybe we can make a fort.

You can make forts? Out of what? Just all the blankets. Tapestries. You watch her like all of a sudden her eyes in the room. In this library there are a number of old tapestries and carpet elements around. She just watches she scans the entire room for materials and goes,

oh, we can do this. I have a feeling you are a great fort builder. I haven't tried, but I have some theories. I pull two engineering books off the shelf and hide them. Perfect. All right. Flip. All right.

You guys. I feel like this has been taken care of. You know the system? Percy, thank you. Would you like next to bed, sent? Yes, please. That can be arranged. Okay.

So you have a second bed installed in the Pikes room. You guys have a dinner for the evening? Anything else? Take another look at the thing downstairs. Just to... I'll go with you. I'll go with you. Okay.

You guys head down through the tunnels. Make your way to the ziggurat beneath white stone. And as you enter the inside of the chamber, you can see there's a few torches set up in there. There is that secondary platform, the one where you guys met a year ago, where you have the small council with Rishon as well to decide what it was to be done about the cruechion

Proma Conclave, up there you can see there's a whole research bench set up with a couple of desks and pretty much all the information that's been gathering and various things that have been studied over the past year or so about it. What has been kind of figured out, and there were theories thrown around before of it being a siphon, an artifact that is related to something that was referred to as a sphere of annihilation, not directly. but an offshoot of that type of enchantment, as opposed to completely destroying anything it comes to contact with.

It's attuned in the siphoning of things from location to another. It's a translocation type of magic. There have been a number of things that have been placed within this sphere and did not return, including there was one volunteer, member of the pale guard, who during the year's research, volunteered to step through and was not heard from again. And that stopped any future volunteers from rising to the occasion.

But since the research has been taken up about what the, like the Siphantin's existence during the Age of Arcannum, they were used, one, used as a defensive measure against powerful mages. But that was more of a secondary use during the actual war that ended the Age of Arcannum. Their initial creation was supposed to be able to harness and shift layline energy. The idea was wherever there was a large source of magical energy, but it was inconvenient, its placement, its natural placement in the world, they could use these siphons to basically kind of triangulate and shift where that energy would go. I've been here an awful long time now.

We don't even know if they created it or if they found it. You don't know. The information about them is all, I would say, almost mythological, in the sense that there were stories that talk about them, and a lot of the information was destroyed during the divergence regarding to the older Age of Arcana magics. The castle's always had strange stories, and this is just... Yeah, and this is information that was brought together by Eskerine Darien

when he was down to researching with Allura, even during the conclave. A lot of people have kind of gone off because the research had a wall. It was like, well, we found out pretty much everything, about this, we just don't know where the siphon's going, and anything we've tried to put through doesn't come back. So the theory is, other than to find the other half of the siphon, because it's a connecting point. There's like two sides to it. So if it did function, if this is correct, then in theory there would be another side to it. Or if not, it might just be a sphere of annihilation or something adjacent to it and is essentially a null and void circumstance. Those are

with a theory stand. Percy? Yes. Yes. The crystal that Lideth gave you. Does that work across planes, or is that? The Gatestone does, you have to be in the same plane of existence. Okay.

I thought about it. I definitely think there's something on the other side of this. And this thing is how I think I know that our work is not yet done. I dream about it sometimes. Do you ever come down and just look at it? To be honest, it intimidates me quite a bit. What do you see? What do I see?

Can I use my oracle arrow and shoot it into it? Certainly give it a try. You can certainly try. You can shoot this arrow at C's. And see through the arrow. Okay. So I can shoot into a cave. All right.

I do. We'll go ahead and roll an attack. Shoot an arrow. Okay. Let's back up a bit of a distance. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We'll, you know, back up as far as we can, so I can still hit the thing.

It is a magical arrow, and this thing cuts out on the magic. But maybe one to do you can. As it goes through the siphon, maybe I'll still be able to use it. Well, we can actually get to the edge where the magic starts again, and then it might reconnect once it goes through. I don't know. It's worth the side of the door. Do you only have one of these things? I have two per short rest.

Oh, oh, yeah. As part of your newly exalted. Yes. Okay, this is going to be, this is, hold on, hold on to that roll, whatever that was. Okay. So to get out of the radius, because it basically cuts it right into the hallway that leads inside of it. So you have to back out of the chamber into the hallway a few feet and basically get on the ground and aim upwards towards it, and you're going to have to arc over the top of the Ziggurat to get in.

So this is a shot with a disadvantage. With a disadvantage. I am sharpshooter. Wouldn't that nullify that? Three-quarter covers means nothing. It's just full cover. Well, what I was going to say is it would have a really high AC with disadvantage. I'm not going to consider it with having a super-hundred. It's still a very hard shot. So a disadvantage. So a disadvantage in the shot. 30.

Both of them were really good. It's the critical roll. It is the critical roll dice. Oh, come up, please. What? What? I'm so proud of you. I'm so proud of you.

It shouldn't work. Oh, it shouldn't work, but it is. Straight through to the far department. T-shirts. Weirdly, the arrow hits and kills Keylet. It comes out of the stuff. Oh, no, the cigarette was inside us all along. Don't do that.

Don't eat. This is a long whisper. Don't, don't eat the Eddie. Oh, man, this is not just what we normally get. No, this is a whole chunk of stuff. Fat blade. By the way, just like, just like, little insight, what we normally get on the whispers is, from what you can tell, it seems

totally normal. And then that's about it. And then that's pretty much, that's actually, yeah, that's actually fairly accurate. Briefly back in the old days, they were experimenting with texting us whispers. As far as you can tell, he thinks he's telling the truth. I want to know. I'm glad we stopped trying to text each other whispers. That was really, that was... Whoa, her mind is blown. Give me pencil, give me a pencil. I got to write this shit down. Pencil, pencil, pencil, pencil. Here, here, here, here.

Her eyes go white and just, so, yay. Scribbling on the ground. So, so much. She's drawing a weird alien creature. I gotta write down or I'll never forget. Big head, big eyes, small body from communion. Somebody thought.

Three syllables. She's writing in wing dinks. We're being imbated by dingbats. What does a smiley emoji mean? I don't understand. She speaks a rival language now. Oh my god. Pasi, I saw something.

You didn't, really? I did. I think it was another plane. Bex dies. We have to figure out how to, is there a way to make sure we get every detail? I'm finding pen and paper, we're writing everything you can remember down. Is there a way to recall someone's memory in perfect detail? Is there any sort of magic that can actually... There are, yeah.

Okay. This shit's... happening. Otherwise, I can just tell you what they sort of saw, but you know, they're all I heard, I heard a lot of backblaze in the background. It was the backblaze dimension? No. Siphons are storage units. You saw the cloud? What it was like? Just peller, just backing up his character. Was it a bunch of nudie photos? All right. I mean, it's pretty vivid for you. And so as you recount to what she saw as the arrow,

it was darkness once you fired it. Like as it passed through the sphere of anti-magic, there was nothing. And then suddenly imagery blinked through the arrow. And from the perspective of it as it coasted away, she looked behind and could see the twin to this orb. Apparently not under the same anti-magic shell on the other side, whereas this side steals

magic the other side emits it. As the arrow landed and clattered the stonework, maybe 20 feet below the orb looking around, she saw a landscape of blackened, broken stone and ground, distant mountain scapes of jagged crags, like teeth across the horizon. The sky itself was black and shadowed, like it was perpetually in the sense amidst a distant forest fire. And where you can see the gray in the sky, you can see just oil. thunderstorm clouds with flashes of lightning. And roughly a mile or so from what you could tell from where this was, you could see what appeared to be a large obsidian tower of twisted black stone that went up for what appeared to be a dozen or more stories.

Don't we know something about a obsidian? Yeah, doesn't that sound like? The same tower we saw in the nine helts? No. No. Different tower? Different tower. Different tower. Should we go to the building? This is way bigger. Is there someone named Roland? No, no, the tower in the night hells was the biggest thing you've ever seen town.

Oh, okay, okay. This is big, but imagine like a 12-story obsidian tower that's pretty thin and tall. Oh, okay, okay. I'm glad I remembered that correctly because I was remembering as a citadel and it's just, it's a tower. This is spectacular. This is great! We have to let everybody know. Oh God, we have to let everybody know.

Let everybody know, and I grab her and we both. Okay. Does it sound like anything you know? No, yes, maybe. I don't know. Okay. I'm not sure. This is a breakthrough.

We have a breakthrough. We have a breakthrough. I am running to Cassandra, who I'm sure is asleep. Yeah, I mean, most everyone's, like, you guys have all gone to bed at this point, I imagine. You guys are down there pretty late, kind of. Well, first I drag Keeleth off to the cozy little bathtub that they have here in the castle

and took the opportunity. They were quite small actually and washed all of the caked in, the last of the caked in blood and everything in color. Because I say it, it's true. You have like a full Roman sauna underneath the, but that's fine, whatever you mean. Not the one that I saw.

Well. I took J.B. back and we built a fort. Okay. In the room. You got to bed? Oh, yeah. I didn't sleep. I didn't wake.

I looked for a book on werewolves. Okay. Make an investigation check. Oh. 20, 20, 20. Natural 20. Natural 20. Natural 20.

Oh. Natural 20. Oh. Welcome. It's that night. Against all odds. The trick is it requires human sacrifice. It is a full moon to know this one.

The first one. When was the full moon? You surprise yourself, Grog. You're going, woo. Woo. Woo. Werewolves. There's a book that talks about the disease of lycanthropy

and wear creatures and entities, and it's there before you and you find it, and it's like your own little birthday party. I take it with me. Okay. I'm calling a meeting of the council. I'm sending out the word. I'm telling everyone that we have new information.

At night? Yeah, I'm starting it now so that people who are not here can figure out their way here. Are you getting like over our earpieces? Not them. This is around midnight. To the study in council. Anybody who's been studying the outside of the office?

Oh, the studying council. Yeah, I'm letting everybody know as quickly as possible. Okay. There's new information. All right. So that being the case, you let Cassandra know. Okay, Cassandra goes, my God, all right. Well, let me, I think I, hold on. And she goes and rushes back to her room and she comes back with a small, looks like a riverstone,

but it has what looks to be a small room card into it. takes it and holds it, it goes, Sorry to bother you, my dear, but apparently Percival has a breakthrough in regards to the cigarette in the orb. As soon as you can, please. And then takes it and puts it in a small patch. Hopefully, Laura, receive that,

and she'll be arriving soon. Excellent. As to Escal, I don't know how to get in touch with him. He's probably well into his sleep, and he gets blanking. He'll find out in the morning. Right. This is good. We'll start looking with the new data as soon as everyone gets here.

as everyone gets here. This is excellent, excellent! Good night, go to sleep. Why are you awake? No. And I'm out the door. Okay. And I, yeah, run the Vex's house. We're done.

All right. All right, so you guys just go to bed? Yeah. I guess so. Okay. You're fine. Yeah. Yeah.

But, wait, actually, Percy, off subject. But when I saw Keyliff, I mean, she was destroyed, right? I mean, fucking destroyed. Arms everywhere, limbs broken, just terrible. Yes. And I mean, we put it back together. Yes. Like we always do.

But I scan them out of my mind. 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 and 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. 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 who've made Mick Unplug their go-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's so random, I know, but what if... What if that happened to him and we're not with him? No one's there to cast her a vivify. If you wanted to be found, he'd be found. His daughters are there, and maybe he is possibly smart enough to explain to her how that stone works. Have you squired on him again?

Not successfully. Not since I briefly found him, and then I lost him. But I always have people looking. I don't know. I don't know why he's on my mind. Obviously we have much bigger things. I think maybe bigger things will help. It's been too quiet. Not good at quiet. No, I mean I've enjoyed it. This has been great. Everything, everything's been great. Yes, of course. This is wonderful, but I miss, I will admit, I miss, I don't know what I miss. I miss it, though.

I feel like I'm tempting fate, and I'm going to regret everything I say right now one day. I think we are. Who knows what this will lead to? Maybe we can shut it down for good. Yes. Maybe we're going to go find a small black tower somewhere filled with death and despair. I don't know if I'm going to be able to sleep tonight. No. So as you find your rest for the evening, the morning comes right, warm.

For the clouds that came in for the evening, and it's still a cloudy sky. And as you wake up, the mist that usually takes the bottom of the valley in the forest floors beginning to burn off as the sun begins to begin to peek through the clouds and show little bursts of blue above. You guys head back to the castle, where all of you, all of you, are, everyone but Keeleth will say, Keeleth and Kielth is still sleeping and Terry is still sleeping. Keep having a bit of a day. It's probably . Yeah. However, Alura is there waiting. As you heard, she was, oh well, isn't this a pleasant surprise? And she rushes up and gives us a big hug.

It's been ages. It comes and takes your hand as well, Percival, and pulls you in. So, Cassandra told me that there was some sort of a... Well, Vex had a brilliant idea. Recently, you came to a very interesting power. Yes, from the exalted weapon that I got from Sondor. Oh, oh, your vestige, yes. Yes, and it has the ability to shoot arrows that see. I recall you telling me this, yes, yes.

Right, so I shot it. So I shot it into the orb, and I saw through it. Oh. In which point you watch her holding me and changed things in, what did you see? Look at everything. What did you show her a sky and an orb and a tower, an obsidian tower, like 12 stories tall? Gila comes down for breakfast.

Hey Kiki. Good morning. Hi, sorry, I had weird dreams. Really weird dreams. No, that really happened. That actually happened yesterday. Still weird dreams. Destroyed landscape, whole other plane.

Very dark, very scary. Another plane? I think, I mean, I assume, because I don't know anything like that. This is everything that we, that as she described it, this is everything I could write down. As he described down the location, and she goes, Very talking about my dreams? Well, this is not a... Okay.

This is certainly not a place that I know of... It's a star. It's a star. Oh. My dreams are on this plane? Can you mean you were on a plane? No. We had a breakthrough.

This sounds like a location that resides somewhere in the Shadowfell. The Shadowfell? The Shadowfell. What? Shadow fell? The shadow fell, yes. You know you went to the Fay Wild, which is more of an overgrown,

Faye-based nature, Parallel to this world, yes? The Shadowfeld is the dark shadow reflection of this same place. It's a plane of negative energy, of darkness, and Tau, you said. I have to go research this some more. It's good to know, but I get the sense

that perhaps this ritual was not as foiled as we'd initially anticipated. Have you been to this shadow fell before? I have not been. Does Vecna reside there? Let me go do some research. You watch her get a little like thousand yards stare for a second, thinking like her eyes are darting around a little bit,

and her brain's just running and running and she's all right. Well, unfortunately, I can't leave till tomorrow. I can only really transport myself once a day, but I will immediately make my way to vest. to take my way to Vasselheim. That would hopefully be to clarify some of these questions. Do you need company? No, I could travel faster on my own.

All right. Besides, I can always go ahead and bring a friend. How is Kema? Make a perception check, actually. She's in the room. Two-one. Twenty-one. Interesting.

One thing you do catch, though subtle, is a single. she has her hands folded on one side, you do see like a small gold band across one of her fingers. It was very small, very private. But anyway. Congratulations. Thank you. Sorry, this is conflicting emotions in this moment right now.

Of course. Thank you. Help him back. I was curious that she was going to explode. Four months ago, we just, it was on a whim. We thought and discussed a lot about all the dangers we'd faced over the years together and with you and the reality of not knowing how long either of us have on this planet. And for gift, at the very least, why not?

I think it's brilliant. Brilliant. Thank you. I would have, we're going to tell you. We just, it's been a lot to do in Iman. It's looking great, by the way. We've nearly completed, thanks to the health of the Lyceum and many of the majors, reconstruction has been rapid. Anyway. I think you should have gone there in the last year.

I mean, we need to visit one. We've been very busy. True. Anyway, and she kind of covers the hand, I'm kind of embarrassed. We can get you back there today if you think time is of the essence. I was in a mom not that long ago.

Why did you go to him on? I had to talk to them about constructing the crisis. Oh, that's true. There's true. There was a lot of meetings. So many damn meetings. If you could, actually. Send me to the Lyceum instead,

and then from there I can go to Vasselheim, but I can do my research there. You want to go to the Lyceum? Yes. Right now? Well, whenever you wish. You want me to send you? I'm going to reset Keelos brain.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. You, yeah. Boom. Through the thing street. I'm going to jog her belly. Is there anyone else that needs to go while I'm doing this? Because this is it for the day. Anyone else need to go to a month?

No, I think we're good. Literally nobody needs to know. Just know it's... No, Kima? No. Kima's not with her. I just didn't know if you wanted to go get her. Oh my God.

You got a little bit of sleep stuff still. Eye-bogeys for sure. Yeah, that's better. I was just asking. Okay, let's go. All right, so as you open the gate and a lower steps through, she kind of turns around and smile. Thank you, Keeliff.

I see. Sub-suntry. And then send him through. I was just trying to talk to you. She's like, I was, and you just push her through it. Okay, bye. Congrats. Trag!

She closes. Happy sent her two. How are you awake? Nothing, never mind. All right, so, what do you guys want to do? Well, shit. I think, well, what do we do now that we know? I guess we just research.

Yeah, nicely fucking done, my line. This changes everything. I'm changing the research focus in the library specifically to things on the subject so that we can more focus. Do we come up with anything right off the top of the top of the and starts up in catalog and pulling out books and information? Yep, I'll help you go read too. I start reading my book.

Okay. About midday. Oh shit, Hilda. Did anybody go down to the bakery? She was going to come to see us. Yeah, you haven't. It's been like around noon now. All this has happened talking with her and researching. She was going to come to the castle.

Yeah, but okay. Yeah. Oh, yes. She was going to go to the castle. Carrie still hasn't woken up, by the way. I'm currently, my, I'm, my, Doty's brushing my teeth. Brushing your teeth?

That's not true, because eventually when you go to check on his room, Teryn isn't there. What? What? Sam? He's not going to Sam Regal us again, is he? Because I can't handle that right now. Where is Terry? Did he leave a note? As you enter the room, you can...

Oh my god, did Hilda do something? You can see the sheets missing. Most of his personal belonging is. are gone, Doty is still there. And Doty appears to be just shut down, unfunctional. Doty? Doty. Doty. Shit. Like the eyes are cold. Check the book. What book? Doty's book. Doody, oh, I go look at Doty's book.

It's within his chest compartment. I start pushing on it. Hopefully it's got a hidden thing. I have to build this thing, can I figure out how to get the book to you checked? Make an investigation check. Break him. I'm just searching around the room looking for any sign of, very. That's a natural 20. Okay.

You, not only do you find the latch, but you look underneath, like, one of the arms is, there appears to be a small glass bead affixed with almost like a piece of clay, and the bead has this kind of pulsing blue light on it. And you're like, you notice it there, and it looks like it's the only thing with any sort of life on Doty's exterior. Does that look like part of Doty, or does it look like? It doesn't. It looks like something that was pressed onto him. Should we take it off? Eat it. Is it magical?

I make an archa check. That's 21. It does appear to be magical. It is giving some sort of consistent pulse of energy. Maybe don't touch it. It appears to have some sort of, it looks fragile, whatever it is. and the essence of the magic that you get from it, the nature of the effect, at least, is abjuration. Abjuration.

I genuinely don't actually know what this word means. I have no idea what that means either. I've seen it in the player's handbook. Yeah, what's it? I normally have some clue about a word. Abjuration is one of the schools of arcane magic. Okay. What is it? What kind of school is it?

It's the alteration and harnessing of raw arcane energy. Usually in some sort of, there are a number of spells that fall into the category. Shit, we just sent a lura away. Fuck balls. Should we call everyone? Let's not call everyone. Who should we call?

I don't know. Let's call everyone. Has anybody seen Has anybody seen Terry? He's sleeping in, isn't he? He is not. Where are you? Go check the bakery.

Will someone go check the bakery? I'll check the bakery. Let's do a bit of a search. Where are you? Do I see any trace of him? I'm at the house. Make an investigation check on your house. No, because we're at...

The house. Keyliff. Fifteen. Uh-huh. All right. Can you have some coffee and come down here quickly? Oh my. Oh my god. Coffee sounds amazing. Do you want one?

Yes. Yes. What? Focus. Uh-huh. Three coffees. Three coffees. Coming right up. And it'll be right over. I get three coffees and I head over. Okay. It's hard to pick up a lot of details. It looks like there was no struggle whatsoever.

It looks like somebody, and picked the lock to the room from the inside. That's all you're able to make out. From the inside of the castle. Oh, from the inside of the castle? Yeah. Somebody that was in the castle did this. Yeah, not inside.

In my house. Sam, why you just tell us where you are? Sure. Someone was escaping. Doty's brushing my teeth. Okay. I'm going to, I'm going to... Did you end up opening the thing?

Can you see Doty's book? Or is it dangerous to touch him right? I popped the book out, right? You found the computer and you... It opens up and the tome is there. I have my things upstairs. One second. I'm going to get all of my tools. I have everything on me, including the cloak,

because I want to be able to absorb any magic that comes off of what looks like possibly a bomb. Just going to be careful. I'm going to very gently remove the book. Okay. Pull it out of the compartment. Flip to the last written page. The last written page spoke of

an evening of curious bakery purveyors signed on to see to the future of goods and created in the name of the great Terry and Darrington and associates. And as a sudden slumber comes over me, I will find myself in evening's rest. Good night, Tody. And that was the final entry.

I'm waiting for Keyleth. I'm putting the book back. The top sheet is gone. The top sheet is gone. Yes. Because they took them away in it. Is it an eyelash? Do I get a wish? It's chocolate. Wait, get it, get it so that I can make a wish. Thankfully, we have a scry spell or two. All right. Keyleth, you arrive for three copies?

I tagged along. Okay. Okay, we have two regulars, one decaf, no foam. Skry on Terry, Skry on the... Pike, did you find anything at the bakery? Why am I scrying on TV? As you hit in the bakery, the bakery is still closed. Nobody was there to open it.

How do you know? Is Hilda there? Hilda's not there now. I don't see anything. Hilda's not here. The bakery is normal? The bakery looks normal. It looks normal.

Just still locked and closed, untouched, since you guys left at the evening before. Wait, wait. Look at that. That doesn't look normal. I want to take a look at that and see if it looks like a trap. I mean, I don't understand magic, but if it's similar to any kind of trigger mechanism,

Negative investigation check. Keeley, come out of the room with me. Mm-hmm. 31. Okay. It does not appear to be a trap necessarily. It looks like whatever it's meant to be triggered to do has already been triggered. Somebody booby-trap dirty.

Can you scry, can you scry Ontarian? Scry, Ontario. Yeah, yeah, yeah. What? I'm sorry. He's missing. What? He's missing. Somebody broke in and took him. I go around and start asking, no, I'm going to stay right here.

Stay right here. Will you scry on him? I need to find out what happened. Okay, last time I tried to scry on Scanlan, everyone gave me a lot of grief about it. Okay, Scanlan left on his own. Terry didn't. He left Tote here. There's no way this was not foul play. Do you think this thing is looking at us? This little bead. Once everyone clears out of the room, I will try and remove it. Who's all in the room? Is it the four of us? No, we and you went on outside. It left, so it's just Vax and Percy. I'm going to try and remove it.

Yeah, I mean I don't think that it's trapped or anything. You probably can do that. Let's see what happens. I'm going to use the cloak to pull it off so that I'm shielded from it if anything happens. Okay, you grab it and as you pull it off, it's fixed and as you pull it off, the bead shatters in your hand, and the blue spark fizzles out and you watch it out, you go, Terry. Shut it down.

You get the sense that the basis of this magic was a, you get the sense that the basis of this magic was a, a one-use dispel. Oh my God. We're not in the room. You're scrying. We scry. Scri. I mean, I guess.

You watch his Doty immediately, starts going, Terry. And lifts like the bed. Terry. Terry. It'd be better if I had something of Terry's. Derry. And leaps, the charges through the room,

just to the hallway. Doty, come here. Hey! Doty belonged to him. Scri with Doty. What's up, Bud? Doty kind of stops and looks. Terry.

Okay. I'm gonna like kind of, kind of, you know, Professor Xavier this shit and like put my hands on his, Doty's little head. Come here. Doty, Doty down. Doty kneel.

Doty take a knee. Doty, Doty down. Doty, will you kneel down please? Fuck. You know what, just I'll, it's fine. Oh, okay. And I'm going to do this gray. Okay.

God damn it. Ah. Do you know what's happening right now? I'm getting my rogue character ready. Keelah. Keelah. God damn it. Your vision pulls back up into the sky above the clouds for a second, and you feel a rush of wind.

rush of wind. You're not sure of the direction. You feel a flash of speed, and then with a blink, all of a sudden your vision is above what appears to be a small village along a road. Then the vision blinks once again, and you're within a hallway, some sort of a wooden low-lit hallway. And then another flash, you're inside of a room. A wood paneling wall, you see Tarian, unconscious, and wrapped in a sheet. still in his armor, just leaned, propped against the shaded side of the wall while a figure stands just out of the peripheral. A familiar voice from just out of your range says, Oh, it's okay, dear, we just had a bit to drink. I appreciate your concern. And you hear the door closed. Then a few footsteps, and you watch it just in the peripheral.

It held a steps in next to Terry and pulling the sheet from his body, revealing him tied up from head to toe. Hilda's image shimmers slightly and dissipates, revealing a woman of ink-blue skin, long white hair tied into almost like a top-knott ponytail. Pale silver eyes that just inspect her handiwork. Under her dark green cloak that you see her hood fall back, you see a dark burgundy leather armor. She seems to check Tarian's vitals like under her. his neck, feel for breathing, very methodically,

and begins to loosen some of his bindings in some places, and you hear her voice say, Can't have you losing too much circulation, boy. Got the reputation to keep. She quickly tosses the blanket back over him after fixing the straps and goes, Sleep soundly, boy, you'll be home soon enough. She stands up and walks across the room,

almost out of sight, and sits in a chair facing him. You watch her rummage through her satchel, pull out a cream puff and throw it to the side of the corner. Pills out a small box and begins making something. I don't know what she's making. Make intelligence check. She probably bought those cream pops and didn't even bake of herself!

Little Debbie! Ralphs cream puffs. They were estimates. Okay, okay, just straight intelligence? Yeah. 17. You've seen Vex to some of this from before. It's a Fletching kit.

she's in the process of making arrows. Bitch. She's making arrows. Like in a casual kind of passing her time kind of way. And then the vision pulls you back, and you're within yourself once more. What'd you see? What'd you see? Bitch!

What's he? Where is he? Who has it? People wonder why we have trust issues. What? Who? It's a fucking Hilda! She's like a vampire or like a werewolf or like, so a litch or something?

I don't know. I don't quote me. Where is she? Where is she? I don't want your vitals going down. And then who, why do you people take everything away from us? Calm down. I'm slap her across the face. Oh!

Hey. Ow! Okay. Okay. Can you just fucking calm down and tell me what you saw? Did you see Terry Tam? I saw Terry. Is he in trouble?

Is he in danger? Yes, he had little unconscious. And it was Hilda and she had ink. Ink, blue, sparkly skin. Skin, not sparkly, that's a start, ink, blue skin. Silver eyes. Long silvery hair.

There was kind of like in a top long ponytail thing. I can see it. You know, and like she had burk in the armor. Did you see her he is? He was in like a wooden room somewhere. Is it close by? Her ears were pointed. In a whole way, her ears were pointy.

Was she? I know a lot of people have pointy years, including myself, so I'm not judging anyone who has pointed years. Was she a drow? Was she a drow? She mentioned... Eukilith, who have not actually seen a drow elf in person, really, for an extended period of time, to know much about their culture. But you, through this conversation, she does appear to be. Yes.

She sounds like those things that you have said before. Yes. The draught. They look a little like us and a little different. Yeah, yeah, yeah, but us, but like, you know, like, you know, like, we're just a little. in the white hair. And she said she doesn't want him losing too much of his vitality, and that she was going to take him back to where he came from,

and that he was like special. She was bringing him home? Yeah, he was bringing him home. To his piece of shit family. To his piece of shit family! We have to get him. We have to help him. Yeah, we're not going to let that stand.

But why is Terry special? He's very rich. He's worth a lot of money. He's just looking for him. Yeah, he's daddy's boy. Let's, I don't know. This seems like she was interested in something other than his money. Well.

Like there was something else about him. It's irrelevant though. We've got to go get him. I mean, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It just means we knock her unconscious as opposed to killing her when we get there. It'll be fun. How do we find it? How do I have any idea of like the hallway in the room or how far away it was? The room basically, it felt like some sort of like a roadside inn.

That's, you have no idea where. Well, this we can deal with. This we can deal with, a roadside inn. We know where Terry comes from. He could be literally anywhere within like a hundred mile radius. We know which roads one would take to get there from Whitestone, conveniently. Roads? From what you know, the town of Deistock that he comes from, which is in Wildmount, there are no roads that go there from Whitestone,

because it is across the shearing channel to the other continent, which means you have to either go by boat or even then it's probably a few hundred miles away from White Stone on that side of the continent. We can do a locate object. Yeah, on his dangling earring. He's also wearing one of the... It's a 100 foot range. It's only 100. I thought it was a thousand feet range.

Sorry, I'm sorry. A thousand foot range. Which is still very, very close. Or very far when jumping off the cliff. Okay, okay, okay. What if he's still here? Relative. We could just be in the area.

Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Okay, wait. What if I use primeval awareness? I can't just like search out a drought. No. Can I look around and see if there's any tracks or any hint of anything that she may have dropped in the room or like anything that he might have dropped

or anything? Go check Hilda's house as well. Yes. Okay. Searching the room, you mean you searched it once before, looking over with a second glance. It doesn't appear to be any sign of anything that she dropped.

The best you can tell, especially being a tracker, there doesn't appear to be any sign that either than left the room. Like there was nowhere they could have gone. There's no window that exits. Then the door was picked and nobody saw anybody leave the room. She baffed out. She's got magic. She could be anywhere. But then why is she at an inn?

Are we sure she was at an inn? Well, if she's at, I mean, it sort of sounded like a waypoint. And if you can travel as far as you want, why would you need a waypoint? Actually, who's good at math? Oh, Percy, you're good at math. I am good at math. What sort of math needs? Well, when was the last time we saw Terry?

Last night? Yeah. A train traveling. Exactly. A train traveling by foot. But a bam. It wasn't necessarily a vamp. It might have just been in and out, get on a horse, and head towards.

That's a lot of ifs. Yeah, but she didn't leave the room. She was in here. She was making arrows. She was making arrows. I've made my way upstairs. Yeah, you've come back at this point now. at this point now.

Can I use the, can I use the... Well, Hilda never showed up for her interviews. Hilda! I don't think we should hire her for one. Where is it? Did you find him anything? Nothing? How far could they have gotten on horseback within the reasonable? I mean, last you saw him, it's been probably 12 hours. So?

On horseback, it could have gotten, you know, I'd say probably a little over 100 miles or so. So we've got 100 miles. There's only so many roads that lead out of this city. Yeah, can we pull out all of the maps of the surrounding area? I'm pulling out a map and I'm just marking any roadside tavern that's within 100 miles of the city. Okay. Dirty. Do you know how to find Terry? I have some thoughts.

Doty. Tary in. Yes. Do you find him? Are you drawn to him? Doty? No, it's one phrase. I can't make Doty do things, can I? I don't know. You can certainly try. Rewire him. Dody, look at me. Terry? Never mind.

Doty, do you know where Terry and went? Terry? I feel like, could you give him the book? Oh, yeah, I gave him the book back, yes. Could you draw something for me? Again? Terry? Try it. Try it.

Give him a book. Give us a paper and a pencil. Do you know where Terry and went? Can you draw it? Shit, I thought he'd listen to me. He does. He does, listen to me. Well, the old Doty did.

Oh, fuck. Oh, fuck. But you had to lose that one. Oh. That's right, Doty. You're a new. You're a new doty. Dony don't do that.

Doty don't do that. Doty don't play that. Dordee don't play that. I've got a plan. I need to borrow the scrying sphere. Scrying old. I'm going to make a list of every I'm just going to make a, like on a map I'm going to mark

every roadside in within about 200 miles. Okay. That gets you, there's a number of ends of the tourist fields. There's a couple of the Jordan Village, which you're familiar with. That might be just outside of the range, but you put them on there as well. Western. Yeah, and along the road of the silver cut. And that would be on the way to where? The Terse field. There's the tourist fields, which is a city that has. Let's, we've got the... Remember what was the other one? The...

Joran Village. That's where you found Percy in prison. Sure, in. Okay. Where's the sun? Mm-hmm. Right now? Mm-hmm. It's close to noon, a little afternoon, so. Fuck! Are you serious?

We'll finish this, and I'll give it a few hours for the sun to go down so that I can actually figure out what direction the end is facing that will also be. And I couldn't try and do a nature check to try and figure out which direction that wind was coming from when it hit me during the scry. The wind was less of a natural wind and more just your vision being shifted. Right. It would not have an impact. without any impact whatsoever.

Save the sphere. I've got a plan. In the meantime, let's search Hilda's house. Yeah. Okay, we go in search Hilda's house. Okay. As you get to Hilda's home, look inside, it's dark in the interior, you knock, there's no response.

Does trinket smell? We go in. Wait, wait, wait, sorry, sorry, sorry, check the traps. Right, right, right, right, right. 22. No, 24. 24. It is locked, but does not appear to be trapped. All right. It is not locked anymore. 32. Okay, yeah. It's a simple lock. As you walk inside, you can see the candle that was let that night has melted entirely, and the wax is kind of dripping off the side of the small bench where it was laid on. One more in here. Is there any bullshit hiding around in here? 29.

29. There's no bullshit necessarily, but there was that pile of linens in the corner. You see shifting slightly, and as you pull off to the side, you you see there bound Hilda. Oh, fuck. She's like, all right, whisper out like cut offrey. You're right? I'm all right. What happened?

No, but a few days ago, this woman, this blue skin woman came and she seemed nice enough, and she just asked me questions. She didn't hurt me, nothing, but she just asked a lot of questions. And you've met us. Before? No? No, I've seen you around town and people talk about it. You've done it wrong for the people. Do you bake cream puffs? I have before, yeah. Do you want to work in a bakery?

Just kidding. We're in the middle of something. We'll talk to you later. We can't lose your sense of you, ma'is. Really can't. Wait, just drink it. Does Trinket smell anything having to do with, can you smell a different smell? Can he smell? Can you smell the Evo Hilda? Make a perception check with advantage. Trink it. That's good. That's also pretty good. Perception?

That is 24. Okay, Tring it. You know, and picks up what appears to be some sort of a scent. Yeah. Where did it go? I mean, you know, not really like a bloodhound style scent, but a decent scent, guiding him around over the next hour or so, and trying to kind of go in the air

where, you know, it might have been, the last strong scent is in Tarian's room, and there's no trail from there. What a fuck. This is terrible. I feel like we did this to him. He didn't do anything. Because we're going to get him back.

Now. He's just so, you know, he's just so vulnerable. Right. Do I have enough of an angle of the sun now where this should be doable? To figure out which way is north, south, east, and west, if I try and scry on Terry. Sure.

Yeah, you gauge the sun in the sky. All right, Kiki, let's do this. Am I helping you or doing this together? Well, you're giving me the orb, since you have the org. I'm giving me the orb. And I'm going to give it back to you when I'm done. Yeah, I feel like you did this before. I did.

Successfully. Yes. I underestimated you. Yes. Do you need my help? Sure. Okay. Yes.

I'm not going to say no. All right. We like do like a hmm-hmm. I'm going to try and glean as much information about the nature of the landscape around the person that I'm focusing on as humanly possible. Okay. And I'm gonna try and figure out a discernive direction.

Help with type of plants, whether or not it's getting, they're going south, north, south, east, west, not north obviously, most, probably south. Okay. So before we get to that, so you take the orb and you sit down and concentrate and Achilith aids you in sitting at this small ritual. As you close your eyes and focus on Teryan once more, your vision shifts and seems to be just jettisoned across

hundreds of miles within a second. No direction at the moment. It's too much of a blur of color and lighten movement until it comes to halt. And there you see Tarian somewhat jostled by the spell kicking in and the momentum. You see him thrown over what appears to be the back of a horse. just, bhr-p-p-h-h-h.

I'm heading the direction which way is the shadow on the horse. His eyes kind of lull a bit, and Darren, you come to conscious, ever-sys, looking down and you see it's just whoever's clattering on the ground behind you. You glance around, Percival. I want you to go ahead and make a nature check. Come on.

Come on. They're going to wild mount. This is not my strong suit. Oh, that I'll do, though. Where'd it go? 22. 22. The sky's here grow gray with clasp.

as the mountain spire peppered landscape is broken up by far-reaching forests and river-traced glades. The air appears cold as the winter here seems to cling to the countryside for a majority of the year. A mixture of gloom and beauty is unique as it is impressive. That's about as much as you can glean from this standpoint. It's very blurred in the outskirts. It seems similar to a more harsher white stone landscape. This is definitely, this is further East, looking at the placement of the sun and the sky, it's further to the west.

They've gone east. They're still on the northern end of the continent. If they're on the continent at all. North East. No, any further north from here, and they be in the water, and there's the time it's traveled. So it'd be east. They're east on Wild Mount somewhere you can gather. East on Wild Mount. Is there any other sign? Can I see a tree? Unfortunately, the scrying location, the orbit you see from, is a very limited in scope. The fact that you're able to even make out the details I told you are just because seeing color and images and shapes in the distance, you get a vague idea of the landscape, but it's all very blurred. Is it giving me any sense of anywhere I've been before? You have not really traveled length and breadth of anywhere outside of Taldore, so no. What you do see,

though, is on the front of the horse. You see the same cloaked figure kind of riding the horse and glances back over the shoulder and you can see what appears to be pale-skinned, a human woman. Looks like in her 20s or so, but the same outfit. And looks back and checks on him. He's stirring a little bit and he just glances back and goes, be patient. We're almost there. That'll do. Do I am I with him in the vision? No, you're watching him just his eyes kind of glaze over for a moment. Well that'll do.

What is he? Where is he? They're taking him home. Well, yes, we knew that. They're on horseback. They're already quite far. I don't know precisely where they are, but if we can make our way to... Wild Munt. Yeah.

What if we're just getting there? You know, before they even get them out. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They're going by holes. They'll probably be there sooner rather than later, would be my guess. You don't know where any trees are in Wild, Mount. The closest tree that we've ever been to

was the one that we used to get to draconia. But I don't know how close draconia is to him. I could try and scry on where they are and look and see for the biggest tree myself. Now let's, yeah. And pop out right there. Well, the city, the city, The Terry's from.

Diastock. It would be best just to go there and cut them off. We know that they're coming from the west. There's got to be a way to get there. Can I scry on Dia Stock? You scry on an unknown location? You don't only scry on locations that you've seen. Been to.

And people that I have connections to. I mean, people you can scry on with certain levels of knowing them or hearing about them and such, but locations... How far is it? I'll double check real fast, because... because I don't, I'll get a lot of anger on the internet. Instead of targeting a creature, you can choose a location you have seen before as the target of this spell.

So if you, oh. Instead of choosing her creature. Yeah. But I could try and scry on Terry again and get a nearby tree. If there was one. It's only like a 10-foot radius really to see anything clearly around the sensor.

So you'd have to be pretty close to a tree for you to make it out of now. Do we have any images? Is there are any books here on Deostock that I can look at and then try and scroll on it after I have the knowledge? I mean, he might have Doty's book. He might have written some things about it.

Gilmore's been many places. He might have something from there. Yeah, but he's in a mon right now. How far away is the city? How far away is the city from us? Ish. You. How many days on horseback?

Let's see. From Whitestone? directly, it would be probably about, I mean, you can't cross the channel on horseback. No, obviously. But if you were to start at the other side of the shearing channel on horseback and just ride, let's say, 12 hours a day, probably get about four days. So if we missed... About three to four days. If we misted.

It still wouldn't be enough time. No, just bamf there. We have to bamf there. Two days, go to a mom, talk to Sean. See, he's been everywhere. I'm surey or something. Brian Hurricane. I just have to, I just. Draconia, how close would Draconia be to this?

Yeah, do we know how close draconia is? The Dremoth Ravine with the remains of Draconia would probably be about, say, about 150, 200 miles from it? That's not bad. We could misty from Draconia. Yes, we could. Sure. You can't tree, tree stride. We don't a tree stride today, can you?

Oh, you already used it on Allura. Is that the same day? I thought we slept. I don't know that was this morning. Oh, that was the same day. Well, you used it once today. You had a full night's sleep, got all your spells back, and then you sent Allura off once today. So you have two. So that was today.

Yeah. I could do it again, and then I could miss Cepas, and then I would be out of my sixth, seventh, and eighth level spells. I mean... I would be burning higher spells. I can also see us there, but I could do that. We could be there, we could be there.

Doble bless you. We could be then ours if need be. Let's do it. You have no books here on Diyostock. No, in the white stone. Let me look in the Doty book real fast. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. You mean real fast, there's a lot of writing in here.

Towards the beginning. Towards the beginning. Towards the beginning. It talks about Deostock. It talks about the frustrations of the small town life and the open world bound and all the adventures that are seeking there. And it really has, it's not written to show any detail or interest

about the city where he grew up in. Nothing. All right, to Triconia. Let's go. Gear up, everyone. Everyone, the Uber will be here in five minutes. All right, you guys gather your materials. Gear up. Make your way to the Sun Tree. And Kilith, you open.

Teleport via transport via plants to the exterior of the Dremoth Ravine in the ruins of Draconia. And that's where we'll take a break. Ah. Can anybody be nice? No one. She was nice. She was tied up by a bad person. She was tied up by some Elfie Bobafet.

I thought she was, but they were being in. Wow. If you're really frustrated with how I'm interested in the same PC is, you can think, chat for it. Oh. Seriously? Think the chat? The chat did this to us?

Fuck you chat. You turn our own bakery against us. You. They know. Don't fuck us, Jack. To be fair, carbs are never really your friend, are they? Okay. They are in workouts.

Yeah, it's fair. All right, we're going to take a quick break. Before we go, guys, we have the giveaway for this. Hashtag, Carve load. This is, what looks to be a catalog. Catalox dice tray here, which is a pretty awesome, pretty colored with the weather and tear from good friends at Wormwood. We're going to use the, because I feel like I have to.

The code in the chat for this contest and the Twitch chat is Sam's shirt, one word, with two mid-S-S-A-M-S-H-I-R-T, Sam's shirt. So find your way over to the Twitch chat, put that in there for the chance to win this awesome. Choray. All right, guys, we'll see you in a few minutes. I'm a Russian Shubk.

Hey guys, welcome back, the Critical Role. We have our winner in the chat. Tonight's winner is Formelda Hyghii. Yeah! For Melda Hygie, you win. Danobo will contact you via a whisper to get your contact and shipping information

and you will get your awesome prize of your wormwood box. The prize, you prize. Don't tell you. No, oh God, I did it. I'm sorry, it's my fault. All right, so jumping back into the game. So you guys have learned of the current whereabouts of Terry and Darrington, the seeming direction

of which she is being transported, which let's go and take a moment here actually. Taryn, as you've come to consciousness in the back of this horse, and you hear this woman cloaked in writing it in front of you tell you, we're almost there, and then and you're just kind of, hopping around on the back bound. You try and move your arms and legs

and they're tied tightly. Doty, Doty. I'm having a dream again. Doty? Oh boy. Hello? You there, driver person. Hello?

The head looks back over. Oh, you've awakened. Isn't that very interesting? What's going on? Where are you taking me? I, Have I won a lottery of some sort? You could say that perhaps, yes.

I have a contract to bring you back to Deistock, and I am fulfilling that contract. Oh no. Did my father pay you to do this? Is your father Howard Derrington? Because if so, yes. He is. Then that is where you are going.

I will pay you whatever he has promised you double if you let me go right now. She kind of shakes her head for a second. I've looked through you. belongings. You do not have the money you speak. I will write you a check, and I will guarantee it with the name Terrian Darrington. She laughs and turns back and just focuses more on the horse riding. Money is so good, not when you don't have it.

I have armor. I have jewels that are worth a lot. Please, you don't want to do this. Please, just let it go and no one will get hurt. She turns back around over the shoulder. The money is one thing, but another is one's reputation. When I take a contract, I fulfill it. I have not failed. I will not fail. So, you are going home. My apologies. It goes right back.

I respect her so much. I don't ask people names, friend. All right. So, what are the rest of you guys doing? doing? Running around like crazy people. Yeah, gearing up getting the ship. We fanjed through the tree, right? Yep. So you gather your elements and you transport through one of the trees that you created on the outside of the Dreamoth ravine.

That's right. We grew them a forest. You did? Oh my God, that's right. All right. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. The last time we came here, we came flying out of a tree on an angle. On an angle, yeah. You did not come through that same tree. Off the edge of a cliff. It's a theme. Sorry.

I know. Alright. So which way is Wildemount? Northeast? North East? From this area be northeast, yes. Let's go. I say we head north first, find the main road.

I mean, you're on Wild Mountain the continent, but you're heading more towards the city of Deostok, which is on the outskirts of the Dundalayan Empire. Vandallian Empire. We did know that they were heading on a road headed west. Heading east. Heading east. Which means we head north and then the minute that we hit that main road start heading in that direction, we might even pass them on the way and be able to identify a horse. Especially if we're in like, fart form.

All right. So you guys going into your windwalk forms? Before we do, Percy, do you know anything about this country we're in? I mean. Customs. Let me get history check. Government. It's not really my area of exorcise, but. State bird? 22.

That's the card. History check, correct? Yes. 22. This area of Wild Mount, known as Wine Indier, is divided into two different kingdoms, essentially. This one you're going towards is called the Dwindalian Empire. This is the strongest and the most functional empire

this side of Exandria. It is a tyranny. There is a king, and the law is ruled absolutely through this kingdom. It is a functional economy. Its people aren't mistreated from what you've read, though it is a kind of, I want to say, it's very Prussian. It's very, you know, people work, people live, people die.

They're, they're, they're. Like harsh? It's a, it's a, it's a very, it's a lot of. It's a harsh environment. It's a colder environment. The, where is the center of Tal'Dorei is a lot of fields and rolling hills towards across the midsection, you know, kind of framed by mountains. Across Wild Mountain, it is a smattering of mountain ranges and spires throughout and chunks of forest. It is a much harsher environment as far as the topography and the biomes than Tal'Doree. as such the pockets of people do live, they live as well as they can amongst a very oppressive

environment. And what's the name of the city one more time just because I'm Dia stock. Deastock. Oh, this is Diasstuck. Yeah. So it's a bit Prussian. Yeah. Okay. That will do. So don't expect a lot of hospitality, and let's just have our business get it done and get out. Also, we can't talk when we're farts, so when we get there, what's the plan, man? We're going to fly up till we see the main road. So we see the main road. We're going to take it towards the city.

If any of us spots, we're going to stay a bit high, if anyone spots a lone horse and a rider with a human-size package on the back. We're going to do a little spin around, spin around, spin around, and we're all going to park ourselves maybe a quarter of a mile up the road. Just aggression, I like that idea. Seems to work. What happens if we don't see the person on horse? Then we just go to his. Right, but what happens, we just land right outside the gates and ring the bell?

We land inside the gates. That seems, I mean, okay, but that seems a little dicey. Do we want to work out what we're gonna do? We're just gonna appear and say howdy. From what I know of this city, it's not a locked city, is it? There's not like a, it's not a locked city? I mean, there are perimeter walls, and there are gates that can close in case of times of war.

You do know that there is a strong military presence in most cities, and there are patrols that often just make sure the peace is kept. So we can walk in if we need to, but it's just, let's not make any waves unless we need to. Right, just visitors. Yeah. It's a similar militaristic nation. It's people, I mean, to the point where you don't know,

or at least have not heard of any widespread abuses of power, at least not on the outskirt cities. You don't know that much about the political structure there within other than the fact that it is a tyranny, but it is a strong standing military. And they do exercise it in times of peace as a form of law enforcement. You and Terry are thick as thieves now,

so like how plugged in is his dad? Probably pretty flat. Like super, right? I mean, he's not like the most powerful guy, but he does. He does well for himself. He runs an area. The way that Tarian talks about his father is that he is essentially a land baron in Diyostock. He owns a number of plots and homes and farms and collects taxes on them.

And his family has been doing this for at least a generation or two and has made quite a fortune off of it. And his sister's name is... His sister's name is Marianne. Mary Ann. That's creative. Okay. Marianne Darrington. And his mom is Maria?

Marianne. All right. Maria and Howard. Maria and Howard. Marion. Darrington. Yes. Nice.

All right. Let's do this. See, I know his mother's name. Oh. All right. So you guys, you go ahead and accept Except Keyleth's Windwall? Mm-hmm.

All right. Mm-hmm. With a moment of concentration, you all convert yourselves into plumes of smoke, mist. By the way, did you, did you leave Doty behind or take Dirty with you? Can't take him with us? Yeah, okay, then. Dirty says back and moist-down.

He doesn't respond to us. I mean, yeah, he doesn't respond to us. I mean, we would have had to have had like, I can't go ahead. Can you say no? No. We did not. I was just reconfirming.

Nope. All right then. Sorry. So you guys convert into your... I can't put him in the necklace. He won't go in the necklace. I tried before. He doesn't go.

Who are you talking to? Who are you talking to? As you all, Coast in the shapes of mist into the moist freezing air over the Dream Moth Ravine and head northward. You guys move as a cluster of small plumes of moisture. As you look forward over the next,

see, we're in 300 feet around, double speed at that point, too. Carry that three. Yeah. Following air math, a thousand feet. Air math. It's nothing quite like air map. Once again, this is highest episode where it's like, magical fantasy realm, physics.

Somewhere in the middle you find a fun narrative. I'd say within probably an hour and a half to two hours of travel because you guys are going pretty fast. You eventually come upon a very well-ridden and apparent pathway, a roadway that goes from east and west. The topography does seem at least to be somewhat in line with what you saw the brief time that you scryed upon Tarian.

How do we... I'm just heading the direction. That smoke plume definitely moved its arm. That smoke plume knows where it's going. Follow that smoke plume. So you guys all continue heading east. Do we have like normal mental thoughts when we're smoke plumes or do we just think in terms of... No, you think normally. You're still mentally you.

You just, you can't talk. Okay. Well, say if you talk, comes up. There you go. What does it sound like if you laugh? Oh, blah. Sorry, we're going, we're going. All right.

As you guys continue pushing the sky. We're looking, I'm going to be keeping an eye out for anybody on the road. Debtow. Perception check from the two, you guys. 12. Okay. You see what looks to be one small kind of caravan, a series of carts that are heading west along the path, and that's the only thing that you see at the moment. You, Vex, after a couple more hours of travel in eastern direction, you see what looks to be a big, thick forest.

The forest is up as pretty dense in this area, and there's pockets where it's... kind of open and you get a little more of a green field, and you've been traveling over a larger green field area, so you start hitting where the forest gets thicker and thicker, and the pathway carves through this forest. Then a ways ahead, you see what appears to be a large hill that rises up, and then around the hill, the forest has been cleared, and you can see what amounts to

acres and acres and acres of farmland that circles, almost like a disk around to this large central hill. The top of the hill is cleared off, and there you can see what appears to be a metropolitan city. a large town, if you will. You can see what appear to be a... Actually, you're not quite close enough. So that's what you see.

You see this village on top of this cleared hill surrounded by farmland and then surrounded by forest and what appeared to be some broken mountain ranges, maybe a few miles out each direction. Keep skirting around looking for a lone horseman. Okay. Can I fly down and see if I see any signs along the road, any kind of markers saying what city it is?

Okay, so you cruise down and again kind of writing a little closer to the surface. And with your generally just passive perception, you do catch what appears to be. There are a few splinter trails. That seem to be the perimeter on the outside of where the forest leads inward, and heads on the outskirts of the tree line.

There you do see a sign that the arrow leads forward towards what is called the siren green forest, and then eastward towards Dostok. So you gather that the large town on this carved hilltop seems to be the town in question. But no, nobody on horseback. You don't see anybody on horseback at the moment. Is that the cloud hiccups? I'm going to scout around a little closer to the ground and see if there's anybody, maybe any of the paths off the main road where someone might be hiding and just run through the trees looking for anything. I'm searching around a little bit. I know we're close to the city and I'm just kind of keeping an aerial view.

Because we should be able to see an awful lot from high up. And you do. It's why you see all, like, all, like, hundreds of acres of farmland that surround this large hill and the entire. And it's built all across top of the hill and built along the front side of it, and you can see a number of pads that kind of zigzag down and elements of it kind of sprawl a bit into the farm, but largely the majority of metropolis is up on top of the hill itself

and in the farmland around it. And you do see, as you get closer and skirt the sides, there are patrols. You see men on horseback with crossbows kind of slung over the side that just kind of do perimeters. Some of them are weaving independently through the fields, just keeping it on. on the people who are in the process of harvesting.

No interest of getting anywhere near that. The rest of you guys continue heading east towards the town? Are you following the Talosan kind of stopped? I'm popping back on the road. So Percival catches up to you guys. At this point I feel like our option is only to go towards the house. Like if we can find his family's keep. Did we beat him here?

I don't know. There's no way to know. We can land and have a conversation. Yeah. Okay. So you guys make your way to the, where do you want to land? Trees. Maybe the edge of town into the siren-green forest. So you find the edge of the tree line before it opens up into the farmland surrounding the city. As you all take a moment to concentrate, your forms congeal once more into your physical selves,

and you are able to discuss as you prefer. Well, anybody see anything? No. Is it possible she could have put some kind of covering over them, you know, like, Like we did with White Stone or something? Yeah. Yes. It is.

Yeah. Could we still see their tracks? We went back and looked. We don't know. Well, we. I mean, that would be a ranger question. I mean, it's just horse tracks, but I can look. But any horse tracks could be.

There's a lot of horse tracks on the main road. Unless Terry is thinking and he's leaving something behind so that we can track him. Terry, can you hear us? Hmm. Terry? Good idea, Paisi. Nothing at the moment. You have to be within 500 feet. I could try a commune with nature,

but I mean it only extends for a few miles. I'm gonna cast low K. Oh, should I do that? Should I waste it right now? How long does it last? 10 minutes. 10 minutes. I'm gonna try. I mean, how, wait, a thousand feet. That's not very far compared to where this city is.

A few miles is better. Plus, that's a concentration spell. The mist form is my. concentration spells, so we should be able to do both at once, correct, if we move quickly while she has her locate object on? Yeah. Okay, let's do that. All right. I'm gonna try to locate his... P-ogelly... Earring. Engly dangley d'agli bits.

All the above. His penis. His penis. Pee-nus. Terry. Patery. His Terry. Terry.

His Terry. What Derrington's fear of a trend. Matt's doing something. I know, he's something. Okay. Well, I was checking to see if, like, making sure the windlock wouldn't affect any concentration, so it doesn't that.

Squaring his hypotenuse. All right, and you're attempting locate object on Tarian's earring, you said. Yeah. Okay. Stangly bit. He's stangly bit. If you focus and concentrate, it does not pick up.

not pick up within a thousand feet of you. Okay. So we're gonna move. So we're gonna move, wistiform towards the city and see if we can. Yeah. Okay. You all head back up into the sky,

and you can see now the clouds in this vicinity are growing darker, it looks like it's going to rain in the next few hours or so. Okay. So we're less noticeable? The temperature right now means it might even sleet, you're not sure. You make your way coasting over the farmland,

looking down, you're looking down. and you can see it's all segmented and all marked off with various, those colored fences. Everything is really well organized here, and all the land has been divided. You eventually make your way towards the base of the hill. You kind of cruise up to the outskirts city where you see the large stone walls

that encircle elements of the outskirts. And you see where each one of these walls opens up some sort of a pathway, there is a large metallic gate. that is currently separated and lifted up in the back that can be slammed and closed and shut in case it need to keep anybody in or out. You're getting an opinion. Fly. You guys are now over the wall now. These six plumes of mist kind of coasting above. What do you do?

I mean, we're like over his family's keep. You don't know what his family's keep looking. We don't know what his family is keep looking. What it's a clue looks like. But we're over the city. You're over the city right now, yeah. So we theoretically haven't intercepted them yet. No.

I say we do it. I'm going to try and motion everyone to follow me in a circle around the city and then back out to the front gate. Okay. Okay. You move pretty fast. It's a big radius to go around the entire wall perimeter of the city. Hit your full speed. That's so you can do a full pass around about 15 minutes or so.

That's like a careful, you know, kind of just cruising through. Nothing seems to ping on the spell. We beat him, maybe we beat him. Oh, Matt, I forgot to tell you, when I left home, I left a large eternal flame burning on my keep's roof. Is that okay? Oh, right.

Could you clarify. No. Eternal flow. All right, so. I don't know. Maybe we beat the, I'm gonna try and motion everyone. Back out to the fucking woods? Just a little, not far.

Back out of the woods? Okay. Back onto the road. and off the road so that we're not super visible. So you're heading back over the farmland, back to the outskirts of the Southern Green Forest, into the tree line? Yes.

About an hour's walk to the city. Where I want to put us. Before we can see the city. Yeah. And see the road coming to it. Gotcha. All right, cool. So you guys find your way there. You wait for a moment to make sure that the trolls

are anywhere nearby, and you turn back into your physical selves. We either beat them here, or she's really clever. Or she took off all of his clothing, and he's riding around naked. But she would still theoretically have his clothing. They would still exist. I mean, yeah, hopefully. Maybe she should have a ditched him. That's what she did. Sold them. What do you think? You think we should camp out here for a while and keep an eye on the road for a day or two?

See if we can intercept and if they never show up, then we need to figure out going in to the city. Do we have a way of scrying one more time before the day is up? I do. Okay, let's scry one more time and see. Let's scry one more time. If we beat them. I can do one or two things. I can either scraw on them or I can either scry on them or I can to a commune with nature spell? Scribe. All right. Scribe.

Bish-coo-choo. All right. Your vision shifts once more to Tarian, who uncomfortably like, ow, ow, ow, in the back of this horse a little bit. As you start audibly making a pain sound, the hand grabs the back of where the ropes are entwine it and just shifts you in the back of the seat

to be a little more comfortable. Oh, thank you. No response from her. Mm. Still writing. in the back of the horse. It's getting darker now, and you can see the clouds up are still a little pushing towards that stormy look that you saw when you were at the city. So they're still on the road, they're still traveling.

But it's the road that we've... It seems familiar. The sun kind of in the same direction that we're heading? Yes. Or it's... The sun's more westward at this point. Okay. So we could, in theory, missed, blow to the ground on this road to the ground on this, road in that direction and in theory catch up with them.

And he's conscious, which is good. He's still alive. And he gets his clothing on. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Good, good. We won't see his dangling bits. Just the one. Just the one.

Should we miss that way? I say we miss that way. Intercept. I like that idea. Yeah, that's intercept. Okay, so you guys come back into Miss Form. Me and coasting westward along the path. You travel about 10 minutes before

Vex and Vex, you pick up what looks to be a small, dark shape on the road. Watch, oh, whiz-in-who, what do you do? We're trying to signal everyone. Is there a tree, is there forest on the sides of the road from where we are? You guys, no, you traveled away from the forest now. You're in open fields. So open fields and roads. Shite.

Yeah, okay. Oh, but wait, we turn back into, turn to, wait. Yeah, should we wait. I'll turn back into a thing. So you go and land, X lands and takes a minute to concentrate and go back to her physical form. I can disguise this landscape and we can ambush her.

All right. So I do that. Should we set a fallback? You guys, does this make us highway bandits? Yes. We highway bandits? As she's saying that, I start using. You have about a minute till she gets to you right now,

by the way. Because you're going to see her. You were able to see the horse, which traveling a little bit above the road, so they're almost behind you. Oh, God. What do we do? She knows all of us. I'm going to start making my way a decent distance

and just running just a little bit off the road. I'm going to try and disguise my fine some cover and get ready to injure a horse. Who wants to stand in the middle of the road? And what's on the sides of the road? Is it tall grass? It's maybe knee-high grass with sections of bald. It's the landscape here outside of the farmland

the forest, you can see it looks a little hard and bad landish. Scrabbling. I'm going to go like 200, 300 yards back towards the city just in case they manage to get through. Okay. All right. So you're getting down. You're doing that. I'm going to get into some grass as close to the road as I can. I have to drink it out. And we get in the grass and stealth. Okay. Roll stealth check. Disavantage for Trinquet. I cast Paso Trace.

Oh. Oh, cool. Natural 20! Nice. And for Trinket with disadvantage, because he's a big bear. Oh, that's a good one. He got a 19, which is a crit for him. That sucks.

19s! 219s! I was not a crit, this only on a tax. Oh, wow, stout. It's pretty good though. It's a good enough. Two 19. He disappears.

All right. A plus 10. Wait, did she want someone in the middle of the road? Yeah, Pike's gonna stand in the middle of the road. Perfect, I'm assuming. Good bait. I'm assuming? Okay, I'm gonna go into crow form. Maybe I can act like I'm an old woman

trying to cross the road. Oh, that's good. I like it. In your armor. Totally put my in my. I'm gonna kind of aid to her bird lady aesthetic. Stealthrow person? Hmm? Oh, stealth roll. And it's a hole for you too back.

Do drowls have like magic side? Magic side or anything? I don't know. It's a reliable talent, in fact. I know. Stealth roll is, oh, that's not bad, 21. Okay. Plus 10.

Plus 10, 31. Okay. Grog's way back. All right. Not stealthy. And I'm preparing, I'm getting down, I'm preparing for the shot. Ditto.

And I'm gonna pull up my cloak and slowly start. I'm also going to activate, I'm gonna activate the, the secondary mechanism in the diplomacy love. Okay. Terrible. Okay. I follow Pike and like peck at her breadcrumbs

as she crosses the road. Okay. Ah! All right, so as this is happening, then this is a really fast, like rush over, rush over against the places, and you watch as the horse has gotten. Pike in the middle of the road, dressed the same in memory.

I have to pee. It's like I can go seek. Go waiting. I want to just get close enough where I could. Goes off the path, it means to make a wide circle. Motherfucker. She's just like going around us. Seemingly.

Excuse me? Okay. I'm on my room. I'm on my room. I'm on my room. I'll say that the second, I was actually going to, the second she started to leave the road, I take a shot. At the horse's legs.

All right. We'll heal it. We'll heal it. Go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. Disavantage? Because you're aiming specifically for the legs.

That's technically, can I burn a grip for it? Oh, you do technically have an actual. I have an actual. So yeah, you will not get a disadvantage in this. I'll burn a grip for this. This is worth a good. Quiggily down under. Horse killing is a feat you took, right?

For gods, remember? Yeah. We can do this. That's, uh, yeah, it's not great, but it's not bad. 20. 20. 20 all hit. So what's the effect of that one again?

That's, where's my, that's strength saving thrower prone. What's the DC? 20. So you watch as no gunshot, complete silence. As you all begin to maneuver, you watch as the horse suddenly and just goes, ass over tea kettle forward, jettisoning both Tarian and the writer from the horse. from the horse going to a knee roll.

Since you cannot move, Terry, you make a full spill. Yeah. Skidding across the ground. You suffer 10 points of bludgeoning damage. What about the horse? Is it follow? No, the horse is prone and still takes damage from the shot. So roll damage. Oh, and also takes damage.

That's... Because you shot it with... I did. I really shot it. Yeah, you did. It didn't have a good day. Do I have enough? Here we are.

You'll heal it so good. Oh, they eat it. Oh, there's no horse left. Oh boy. Yeah, oh boy. That's 30 points of damage. 30 points of damage. That's really, that's a lot for a horse?

That's my maximum damage with a single unaffected shot. Yeah. As the horse skids over and hits the ground, it falls onto its side. and you watch like it's heavy breathing come still. No. Oh yeah. Dinner! Peter!

I'm keeping a second shot the second I see her head. I am taking a headshot on this. Okay. Make a perception check. Because you were down in the grass. Nope. Oh, that was almost so good. I left out of it off. You can't.

It's going on. Because you're at tide. Eleven. All right, no, no, you see nothing. Still stealth. What were you doing? I'm flying towards, yeah. Okay.

You're brooming? You're brooming? You're brooming towards. All right, so she comes to a tumble. For this purpose, I'm going to have you two, since you're both pretty quick. Roll initiative checks, please. 26. All right.

24. Jesus, okay. So, you, you, you, both rush over and you watch as she tumbles and catches herself, kind of skidding into the dirt. You can see bits where she's rubbing, kind of gash in the face. Pale skin, blonde hair, nowhere near the description

that you were given by those who were trying to scry earlier, but catch herself in lands, reaches over and sees Terriene maybe about three feet behind and immediately darts over, grabbing something from the satchel and reaching for Tarian. Can I shoot over the hair? Can I shoot over the air? It would have taken your movement to get to her, but you can move less as much or half as quickly

and go for a shot if you want to. I'm going to try to go for a shot. How close to we right in this second? Well, you're going to close a distance, because you're apparently a bullet. Learn to balance your magical items, people. Or not. Or not.

Or just lay your players spread them out and not keep them all for themselves. Is that too? Yeah. Just the one person. It's all good. So you'll be able to get your shots off about the time that you'd get there. Salt. Salt. Oh no. You got a four because of all that's all.

Yeah, I know. That was 19. The first. And then more than that on the second. Okay, so both hit, go wrong image. Oh, can I do... Is it too late to say I want one to be a bramble shot? You can ramble shot, sure. Yeah. Okay.

So that is a deep. You decide ramble shot as you hit. Oh, sweet. DC of 17. DC of 17? Now with an eight. Ha ha! She's restrained! She's restrained.

Nice. That's huge. Oh, 13. Pretty calm fight music, Matt. It is. The volume is really low on that speaker. My apologies. 21. There we go.

21 plus 8 is 29, plus 1D6 lightning damage, 29. Plus 6 is 35. 35 on the first shot. All righty. Death sentence. And then 16, 22, 24 on the second. And I was wrong, add two more to the first shot. Okay, I'm 37. All right, got it. So you fire both off as your broom is coasting inward from an arc, and you manage the first arrow kind of catches her in the knee, and she kind of, ah, and is still reaching for

Terry, however, as the arrow smashes into it, bursts into a series of thorny vines that wrap around and stare her, and she falls over and is now bound like Terry and is for the moment, falls on the ground, whatever was in her hand, kind of like stumbles forward. Yeah. And she's like, ah, reaching out. just as the second arrow hits her in the back and gives out a yelp and pain. Vax. And what distance am I right now, say? You got the same, you got, you almost close the distance with your movement.

Getting there very, Ellen. Okay, but am I within like 50 feet, 60 feet? You're within 60 feet. 60 feet? All right, so I'm gonna throw whisper at her. Okay. And she's brambled, so I'm at a advantage. It's a strain, you have advantage. Right. So.

No. Yeah, that hits. That's 32. I'm going to BAMF there on this one. Okay. Right up to her. That is four, so it's 12 plus this guy makes it 19 plus these dies. Now we do some more math 20, 26, 27, 31, 34, 39, 42. With Whisper, right now we're back, and then Click the boots of haste, and then I'm going to scuttle to Terry and cut ropes. He's probably within 10 feet, right?

Yeah, he's like five feet from her. All right, so I'm cutting him totally loose, and I'm going to lift him away. Can't do all that. Whatever you let me do. No, all right? So action, action, bonus action, right? And movement to get there? Well, no, your movement was to get there.

Your action was to attack her. Okay. And so you have your bonus action still. Then I'll just use it to cut him loose. Okay, you begin to cut him loose, because he's a lot of ropes around him, and it's not like a single binding. Okay, it's not about... All right. Good enough. So now it's her turn. She's bound on the ground, coughs up blood as she's suffered a severe amount of damage in just a few moments.

As she's kind of lying there in the ground, the vines twisting around her, her hands to She goes, wait, wait. And she's going to, what's the DC on the? 17. 17. She does manage to break free from the restraints. She breaks free of the vines, and then she puts her hands up. That's her turn.

Can I land? Yeah, if anyone wants to take into their actions right now, we're technically not in an initiative order. She's put her hands up. I'm slowly making my way of it. a little closer to the action, but I'm going to find another, and I'm just going to sort of find a place where I can watch both sides of the road and also what's happening off the road right now.

Okay. I'm writing my name in the path with a stick. I'm grabbing the thing that she was trying to grab before I do like that. Same as Percy, but as like a crow. Okay. Actually, if you come, well, that would be very, that would be interesting actually. Gah!

Well, if you come anywhere near me. What you find on the ground, it's like a small marble, similar in size to the one that you saw attached to the side of Doty earlier. But it's a different color. The one that saw earlier was like a bluish, like a light blue tint. This one appears just clear.

Can I pick it up? Mm-hmm. I'll just pocket that shit. For a second. I know. Can I stand up yet? Am I still tied up? At a moment, as all of you guys begin to converge

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If you've got a curious brain, come try one episode of something you should know. On the podcast app you're listening to right now. I'd say over the next minute or so you get free, cut free, yeah. You still have your armor on, you still have all your equipment. I do? That was on you as far as, yeah, she didn't, she took everything with you. You weren't, you're not robbed. Okay.

You were just bound and taken. You're all right, see? I will, yeah. Yeah? What took you people so long? I was on a horse for what felt like days. Well, initially we thought you can handle it, but then we second-distance. No, you know me better than that.

We're here, aren't we? You do have a massive headache, by the way. Like, it's- Pell- Please tell me that someone brought my toothbrush. Your breath smells disgusting right now. Please don't just don't smell it. I'm very embarrassed. I went to sleep.

Who's... I don't know what this is. I mean, she's taking me, she's paid by my father probably. What's your name? Kareen. Kareen. Kareen. And what, what, you do?

You work for my father? On a regular basis? I was contracted by your father. This is the first time. Just to find him and bring him back. That's what I do. How much were you being paid? I want to know how much he's worth.

I mean not really in a position of power here, darling. Upon delivery was to be paid five thousand gold pieces. Nothing. I'm worth far more than that. You know his father has way to pay. He knows his father has way more money than that. In the tens, you are Rose Gold. I am. How long ago did he send?

He sent me out of my job about two months back. It took that long to find him. Does anyone in this town, Dostok, know about Whitestone, know where you found him? Not to my knowledge. I don't care about people in this town. I was called here to pick up the contract and I left. What guild do you work for?

I work for no guild, I'm a solo agent. Can I insight check or does it look like? She's so cool. She's so cool. 17? 17? She's hard to read. By nature and by business. You get the sense based on, and at this point as you're looking at her,

and she sees you kind of glaring and looking over intensely, She kind of takes one hand up under her hood and presses her thumb to the side of what looks like a small circlet, and her image shimmers. And you now see before you the drow elf that was described to you, wincing as the sun is still in the sky. And you can see, while the illusion did not seem to give off that, but she is physically not enjoying being under direct sunlight. Bet you're glad for that cloud cover today, aren't you? It's been helpful. That's why I prefer to do most of my work in Wildland. What's what we do here? Well, we should bind her and search her. Make sure she's not holding any weapons or anything.

You were just supposed to bring Terry back to his dad? That is all. Unharmed. I took great care to make sure he was not harmed. I have a business I run based purely on reputation. I respect that, but I did get a bruise right here from the horse falling over, so I'm not totally okay. That is apparently an issue for you to take up with your friends. Jerry, I thought you left your home, or were you like kicked out? I left. Yeah?

Yes. I left of my own accord. Did you leave suddenly without any word, or did they know you were leaving? I knew I was leaving. And how do you want to play this? Because your pops wants you back, obviously. Well, this is just some paid shithead, so I don't think we should kill her or anything like that.

What happens if you don't deliver your quarry? Then my contract is broken. I do not get paid, and that is a blight on future business. Are you armed? Somebody remove her weapons so she could put her arms down. Oh. She has two daggers, one place in each boot, stealthily hidden. She has a short bow that is kind of over her chest and shoulder

and a side quiver of about 40 arrows or stuff. Oh shit! These are good arrows. She goes, thank you. Just notice the good work, that's all. I make them myself. I show what am I out of bearers? I wonder. I know.

What do you think? What do you want to do? I want to take her belongings and send her on her way. You don't want to see her dad? Well, that's a separate question, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah. We're very close to proximity, I mean.

It seems foolish, not to at least. go have it out with him. I mean, he, this is unacceptable behavior. I think in any, any, any relationship, this is not cool, right? No, he should have offered way more money for you. Well, yes, there's that too. She did surrender. I'm just thinking like maybe we go in, she gets paid, she keeps her reputation, and then you can like, yeah. You want her to get paid. She kidnapped me. Well, well. She kidnapped me. You should still make your dad pay, though. Yeah. You know? What? No. She was going to say, I would have come here.

She committed a crime against me. I don't want her to get money. She fooled us. She's, I mean, it's pretty cool what she did. She's going to this conversation, she just like slowly puts her hands down. I'm still watching. And she surrendered, right? I'm sorry. I guess I was raised with a different appreciation for money, but

Pike, your family came in and robbed us and you gave them a bunch of gold. them a bunch of gold. Then this person just kidnapped me and you want to give her 5,000 gold. Well, we don't want to give you a 5,000. We want your dad. We want your dad to have to have five thousand. And if you show up with all of us and her, say you could have just called, I would have shown up, but you still have to pay her. I don't know. You think he'll be guilty? I don't know him. I think it might be an easy way into the city. Yeah, plus she was real clever. Maybe she... I live in the city. I'll just walk in. Maybe she owes this one after this. This is my house.

Should we all be in disguise? Are you sure you're cool to walk in right now? Yes! Ontario fucking Darington! People shake when they see me walking down the street here. You know, she was able to find you. Maybe she could also find somebody else for us. Who?

A very good friend. I think that's a wonderful idea. Yeah. Maybe she always this one. Kieran, would you like to owe us a favor if we let you live and get you paid and you keep your reputation all in the same day? To be perfectly honest, this is an offer I very well could not refuse, given the circumstances. If you are serious. We are. We want you to find someone.

Then find them I will. I abstain. With an attitude. Okay, then you do know whether. No, didn't. All in favor of getting a paid, letting them live, and earning a favor. Well, hold on, Terry. Terry. If you had it your way, what would you want?

I mean majority rules, but let's just hear what you have to say. I would like an apology. I think that's fair. That's fair. That's fair. That's fair. That's fair. Her eyes become these narrow slits and the jaw clenches. I apologize for any discomfort or ambit. embarrassment and my retrieval of you may have cost. Oh, very good. That's good, that's a good apology.

And as to the amount that was promised, do you think that that was a fair amount? Oh, this is a bit much about what. It was my standard rate. I accept your apology. And as I said, I admire your diligence and faith to your contract. You don't get any of your belongings back.

Is that all right? She might need it if she's going. You don't get any of your magical belongings back. I want that. Well, I want you to look at it. I want to know what it is. But we'll, I guess, walk in together and you can present me to my father.

This seems so stupid, but sure. I'll go along with it. And then you help us out. Very well. It seems we are at in the court. I'm going to yank Vex aside, actually. I'm going to show your hand the butt. All right.

Do it, Dylan. No, shit. You're talking about what I think you're helping out. You want to send her after your friend? No, no. Our friend. Oh, not remember five. I think he wants a mercenary showing up in his life.

I don't. Looking for him. I can strip him. Think about it. He could be dead. He's doing what he wants to do. You can take it's blind. Did I overhear them?

Make a perception check. He's like purple and plaid, but I'm in red and blue. 16. How quiet were you guys being? Pretty quiet. You gleaned elements of the conversation. I wasn't trying to hide it. Yeah, you get the gist of what they're talking about.

Okay, okay. She doesn't have to. She could just do, she doesn't have to bring him or anything. It could just be like a, just look at, bring us information if she sees him. Like a two-day report. Observation? We don't have to.

We don't have to do it, but I do like the idea of this woman. This woman had a job to do. It's not her fault. I'm sorry, Terry. But I do feel like we need to let her, you know, be, complete her mission. It's a bit of her fault. Fine, fine.

And then we can send her to look after that little creep that you're always talking about. You were in Battleheim, I mean, how would you feel if you were to learn? It was a cube. Terry, like a cube. That's gross. How would you feel if you learned that we'd sent someone to watch you?

He left, he wanted to go. He wanted to be away from us. Well. If he wants to come back, I want him back. I just, I know, but I feel like he should have come back already. What if he's dead? What if he's dead? What if he's being a father to his child?

What if he's enjoying his life? Boring. If that's the case, then maybe she can tell us that and then we'll leave it alone, but what if he's dead? Why doesn't she just owe us one favor to be claimed later? Have we tried to write that idea. Yes, I like that idea. I fly down onto Pike's shoulder and I go, ah, gha-h-ha-ah!

Yeah, and I know, right? See, she thinks. I like that idea. She owes us a favor at some point. But not to front that, no, I'm want to find Scalor. Maybe we should table it, go talk to the dad. Yeah, let's talk to my dad and figure it out in a minute. And then we'll figure out your next assignment or whatever.

You'll hang out though, you're not going to disappear. I have business still to make, and you have been merciful. So I will remain. I fly over to Percy's shoulder and I go, ah, ah. I am Groot. Ah. Very well. Into the city then? Yes.

She looks back at her horse. I assume we'll be walking. Very well. Her image shimmers once more to the pale skin blonde woman within the same outfit, and you all walk along with her through the forest down the path, through the farm fields, making your way to the outskirts of Dia Stock. As you are making your way up the hillside path, one of the

patrol guards comes down on horseback. Crosbo slung over his shoulder and his hand on the side of his sword as he glanced down and goes, Heyo, you there. And as soon as he kind of glanced over at the group of view, Mr. Darrington, welcome home. Thank you. These are my friends.

They should be treated with respect. Of course. Good day. Good day. Good day. continues clumping by, making his way down the rest of his patrol. It's just going to be a dark window, isn't it, this entire trip? No, it's a, the town was never the problem.

It's a fine place to grow up. I'm very curious. Let's see this place. Sure. I'll go ahead and drop form on my mind. So I'm not a bird. Oh, oh God, oh God. Oh, I always forget that. I'm so sorry. It's okay, saw my shooting arm. I'm learning still.

I know, oh wow. Sorry, that's okay. Can I go next to Terry? Here, let me just. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I'll need a bit more later. Okay. Thanks quite a bit.

Terry. Yeah, sorry. I'm sorry. For what? Well, you know. No, you're right. We can't punish people who are just hired to do a joke. It's fine.

That's how we all started out, really. Yes, I hired you. Okay. It's got a point. And now... We're so close. Here, let's go to my dad's house, but I need to make an entrance. Okay.

I'll be on broom. Can I be on broom too, though? Yes. Okay. Behind me. And I should be front and center. You guys can flank and we'll just go. Flying V behind you?

Yes, thank you. I kind of catch up to Terry a little bit, and I go, Hey, are you special in some way? Is there something about you that's like magical and special? I mean, is this a trick question? There's everything. Most things are special about me. That's true.

Is there a reason a vampire would want you? What? There's vampires here? Do you have special blood? No, oh, wait, what? Can I look at your eyes? I mean, sure. They're the bluest of blue.

That's true. Do you know anything about your bloodline? Is there something about you? You know. I just feel like I have an essence about you now. How much of her brains was left on the rock? She got rattles. Yeah, no, she's gone full Phoebe from friends.

Yeah. I'm just off on the song with Raw going, One, two, three, shoot. One, two, three, shoot. My town here, it doesn't have very many high hills, but still, stay on the ground, will you? As you guys make your way into the actual city of Diyostar. The architecture here is very tall and as intricate as it is old.

The stonework is edged in almost sharpened places. The shape and design of most roofs and windows lean towards the Gothic. You can see similar roots here. to some of White Stone's older buildings architecture, a common space where the original DeRolo's traveled once from Wild Mount. But the architecture here is very, as opposed to the more built for function

that a lot of you're used to in Tal'Dory a little more of the, anywhere from like huts to, I want to push almost two-door to colonial. This definitely has a tall stone archways in tall stained glass windows in places. And a lot of the building's edges and roofs will come to tiny metal spires where points or occasionally flags

or tapestrys would hang from for the wind. Very different visual feel than anything you've seen over in Taldore. As you guys make your way through the streets, in the presentational mode of which Darien has requested, People do stop and stare. You hear whispers, some folks pointing, and some of the patrols kind of gather,

just kind of keep a close eye as you pass. No excitement, no parade, no cursing or aggression, just acknowledgement of the arrival of these strangers and a very flashy lord. Eventually you lead them to the daring This is a large three-story building surrounded by tall iron-topped gates. That surround the somewhat octagonal shape of the grounds. The main gate is watched by a single man in a simple leather outfit and a metallic helmet who, as he sees you approach, he goes, have you,

Sir, welcome home. Thank you. Tell the master of the house that we've arrived. Yes, right away, sir. It opens the gate and rushes off to the front door and disappears inside for a moment. The door opens again, and you see emerging from it a very tall, thin, brass-scaled dragon-borne

with very fine clothing. His lack of tail speaks of his Ravanite You recognize this individual as Berthold. He is the servant of the house and quarters. And as he approaches, he goes, Oh, master Tarian, it has been some time. Good to see you in good health. Yes, excellent to see you too,

and you've been keeping the grounds quite nice. We've been doing our best. I take it to you, and he looks over to the woman, Kieran, who earlier is. You, and she goes, yes, I would like to complete my contract. Very well. Please follow me inside. This way. The dragonborn turns around. He almost towers over you, but he says a spindling tree of a dragonborn. And as he leads you into the home, he's watching me, has to kind of like dip down to enter the interior of the house.

As you step inside the estate, you're immediately hit with the smell of musty carpets, wood oil stain, and some scents turn to smoke and embers burning wood in a fireplace somewhere. You see immediately in the darkly lit interior fine tables and woodcrafted furniture that clutter hallways holding vases and dried flowers that probably have been in long need of a change. It's eerily silent. It seems, at least in this floor, empty of pretty much all life except Burholt.

He begins to walk up the stairs. Right this way. You, no. And he heads up. The second flight of stairs to the very top of the interior of the estate. And there is the very heavy oak door that marks the study quarters of your father.

He knocks lightly on the door. Master Howard, you have some unexpected guests, including the one you hired to bring your son home, and is here with your son? It's a pause. You hear a voice in this, I'd say, Let them enter. The door creaks open.

Burthold kind of steps back. I'll wait ya. He kind of bows and gestures for you all to step into the room. As you guys step into this study, you see standing. Right across from you, looking into the fireplace, where you can occasionally hear the crack and the snap of would look to be a halfway burned fire. A human man in his late 40s, his short, blonde hair is receding to the top of his head. You can see kind of the firelight glistening across his looks to be somewhat oily forehead and two heavy sideburns. That's just kind of an uncombed mass that frame the sides of his very hardened square jaw. He's dressed in a noble man's coat and breeches, though his shoes are never to be seen, just bare foot on the ground.

He looks over and sees you enter and looks towards Tarian and his hardened face turns to a kind of a softened smile. And he goes, my son. Papa. He looks over to the woman, Keering. What I've heard is true. And I thank you for your time. You will vote hold for you'll see that you're paid. She nods. There's an nod to you. You'll wait for us outside the grounds

and we'll give you your next assignment soon. That is the arrangement. She leaves the room and here at Burhol kind of walking alongside her and chatting with her about payment of sleeves. As soon as they walk on the stage he turns and goes, I'm glad to see you all well. Are you?

You sent that woman to kidnap me? I sent that woman to bring you home, to see that she would safe. She bound and gagged me and threw me on the back of a horse. That's how you brought me home? You're a hard man to find when you want to be. I am literally the least hard man to find. I tell everyone my name. I wear a gold helmet and I walk around talking about myself. This smile kind of fades for moments, he is. And yet you were very far from these long as you're very far from these Yes, I was. I was living a new life, as I told you I would. And I was finding myself and becoming someone. That was good. Just know that I was worried. You fill your head with these fantasies and ideals and step out into the unknown. Do you know how many men and women are found gutted in the

streets and left and abandoned to rot away in forests by some bandits at the roadside, not to mention the various beasts of the wild out there. I was worried about you. Well, I was in danger for much of my time away, but that's not a bad thing sometimes. Becoming an adventurer or whatever I am now, it wasn't supposed to be easy,

It was supposed to be hard, and it was, and it had risks. But along the way I did much, and I stand before you now as a different man than who left, one who has been through a lot and knows the dangers of the world, but is also a survivor. You know, when I left, I told you I was going to prove myself to you. you, that I would bring you back stories of my exploits and show you what kind of a man I really was. And I wrote a lot of them down in a book, but I don't think I want to show it to you because I don't think you deserve to see it. You never supported me as a child, and you don't

now. Not, I mean, financially, yes, but not as a father. And the things I did while I was away, Well, I... the book's a diary now. It's for me, not for you. Tyrion, while my parenting may have been strict or distant at times, I did not reflect on him. I care for you. We have a legacy in this family to maintain. Yes, I know. That's all you seem to care about. I mean, listen. That's all that matters, Terrian. It's not all that matters. I know that I carry your blood, and that means a lot to you. that you seem to relish in, that you took without asking the last of our coffers.

Your grandfather started this, and I have done everything to maintain this. And your interests, your attention, cannot be brought to learn and maintain this business after me. So I've had to turn to Mary Ann. It does not mean I don't love you, But you have another purpose in this family, and that's why I brought you here.

And what is that? And you watch as he's like shaking, his hands are shaking, and he's like fidgeting and scratching his chin and running his fingers through his sideburns. Impoverished. I haven't been able to pay our staff in nearly two months.

Everything that I had to do to maintain this legacy has has come back to Behrut, and the debt that we owe is vast. I don't believe you. Where's the money? Where's the family money? He looks around at the rest of you,

and you can see now there's like this trepidation with having this conversation in front of strangers. It's all right. They're with me. Reaches over and grabs off of his desk what looks to be an already opened bottle some sort of wine, kind of just takes a quick swig and sets it down, slumps into his chair in front of the fire

and kind of rests his face on his hand. He goes, everything your grandfather, everything Oberyn built, it's on the verge of fading away. All the taxes we claim in our lands now go straight to a syndicate that we owe a lot of money to. Unless we find a way to pay off the debts of your father, and his father before him we will all be thrown into the cold or worse. Now I've seen this storm coming from a while, Terry, and I've spent years

trying to coax a family union with the Truskins. You know this. After much toil and diplomacy, they have agreed to wed you to their daughter Lydia. This union will bring our family a renewed avenue to wealth and protection within the empire. We can stave off this terrible end, and you will be a hero within the family. I don't understand.

The way we lived, the way you talked, made it seem like there was endless money, forever. This stems to your lack of respect. My lack of respect. What happened? How did you ruin us like this? What does this syndicate, you speak of? His eyes dart to you with a fiery hatred.

Like how dare you speak up right now. When your grandfather passed, when you were still but a baby. Our lands were nearly taken from us from a rival barony, from within the Dwindollyan court. Lord Jafer had found loopholes to revoking our ownership in titles set by Oberyn. And in my panic and necessity, I found an ally in the my myriad. In the myriad? Through a whispered hint, I met a man named Koshad, who ensured our surviving ownership in trade for a partnership with him. I signed not wanting to toss at the time by only child

into the street. But as the decades passed, I did not realize in my haste the depths of the deal that I'd made. With many harvests failing in recent years, the agreement now devours our livelihood from within. They now demand our accrued debt paid in full, or they take full ownership of everything. I'm having trouble wrapping my head around this. You're saying everything I've lived has all been built on this, this deal with this shady group? You're a criminal? No. No. No. It is built on what we built as a family. We didn't be a criminal. We didn't We did not build anything as a family. We did, and nearly had it taken away.

I did this to maintain it. And I let you live as you all deserve to live. But, Papa, you never told me any of this. You were cold to us, and you told us a bare minimum of what you did and how you ran things. I hoped to find a way to fix this before I needed to. Here I am, prostrate before my own child, broken, and he starts like tears, just pour down his cheek.

He's like, just trying to make it right. I know any of this. How would I? And now I have to fix it for you? By marrying some girl? It's a marriage of convenience. That's still a marriage. It means nothing more than political gain.

Your life is still yours to live. No, it's not. I have to be here, I have to be with her, I have to live in her castle or she and mine. Listen, I've learned a lot from these people over the last year and so. And one thing I've learned is that you are who you are, whether you have a lot of money or not.

And I don't have that much anymore. And I'm still okay with that, and it's not because of the things I own, it's because of the deeds that I do. You've done some bad deeds in your life, and it sounds like you've done them to preserve our family and preserve our legacy. But that's not a reason to do them. He leans forward to you and looks you with an honest, more honest than you've seen him, very vulnerable expression. every man and woman who has money, has done bad things. I'm sure that's true. And I assume I'm somehow complicit in this.

You will not. I tried to keep you, your sister, and your mother is innocent as I could. I'm backs to a wall now. I'll have to think about this. Think on it. The choice is still yours. I would not force you into this, but it is a,

chance. I just wish you to contemplate. What have you done to our name? Do people know of this? No. And if I marry this girl, it'll just all go away? If you marry this girl, we'll have the influence and the wealth to pay this debt and cut ties with the myriad entirely. We would be a free family once more. How much debt are we talking? The last demand we were given. It was 230,000 Is there any other way than marriage that you can think of? I've exhausted the options I have at my disposal. What if we just wipe out the myriad? He laughs.

Far too big. So do I. You underestimate the sheer size and how ingrained they are in the society here. This isn't a guild. Wildmount is the myriad in many ways. Yeah. And if I say no, and they take all of our possessions and our estate, everything, what then? We're ruined.

We're on the street. We are about beggars within our own city, at the mercy of those we've been taxing. Could you do this to us? Because I loved you. I loved you all. And I did what was necessary. You never told us that. You always talked about bloodlines and legacies and the Darington name, but you never told

us you were proud. You never comfort at us. You never cared what I wanted to do or who I wanted to be. I'm cursed with this name now, Darrington. You've sullied our name by by enforcing these taxes and just being an asshole to everyone around our whole city. And now I have to live with it. Or marry this girl to save it. Listen, I'm sorry I left, and I'm sorry I took all that gold. I did not know it was everything. But what you're asking me is I just, I'll need to think.

I'm sorry. I do that at least. I never claimed to be a good man. To be a good father, good husband. But I can try to be better, can't I? Yes, you can. I'm going to go see Mother and Sister. Might my friends stay here the night? Of course. Enjoy the grounds why you can.

This call, Shad, and the Myriad. Where do you meet with him? It's been some time, but if you wish to seek him out, ask for who you can speak with the many. The many? Within the grumpy lily. Grumpy Lillian? The grumpy Lily.

The grumpy. You know this to be one of the, the grumpy, one of the seedier bars in town. Oh, okay. And I'm asking to speak with the many. I'm wishing to speak with the many. Well, good to see you. Have a good afternoon.

I'm glad you're safe. Thank you. It's good to see you again. You too. More than you know, my son. Do we leave the room? Yes, let's leave the room. Yes. We finally cut that air with a knife. Okay, here's the thing, though.

You said he, like, hated you, and he didn't seem like he hated you at all. He's acting differently than I recall. It's been a while. I'm not used to seeing him like this, and honestly, I just don't know how to take it. You can't marry that, bitch. You can't marry her.

It seems like I have to. No, you don't. No, you don't. We're going to fix this. Go-a-Roy. Brog says I do. No. Simple is the shortest distance between

Two. Two points. Yep. Is marriage. Marriage. You're getting so smart, Grog. Oh no. Don't be jealous.

I know some of them about the Marriott, correct? You've encountered them once. Back and still been, the very beginning of your adventures. The very beginning. I will say, Terry. I think you are. This is the first evening. Wait, you?

He wasn't with us. He wasn't with you. I have had no... We had that other guy that he was playing. Rusty. Rusty trombone. Rusty trombone. Rusty trombone.

It was a weird character choice. Yeah, so strange thing. That's a good name for Art of History. Aww. As you exit the study and close the door behind you, left in the cold, quiet silence of the house, We continue your conversation. Where's your sister? She might have another.

How much money did you take when you left? I thought a meager amount, 50,000 gold. That's, I mean. It's a lot. But not. But I mean, considering the debt that they're in. I mean, that's literally more than my entire tribe owns. Well, we have a lot more than that and not party funds.

I was missing for a lot. I know. We own more than my, my own more. I own more than your tribones. I know. I will say, Terry, I think you are special. You have very large dangling bits, along with your earring, but very large other bits. Thank you. We were working on that particular compliment, and I feel like we have a little way to go. Is it all right?

No. I'll take it. I thought that was a compliment. No, she did good. That was good. Are you cool with your sister? I didn't need to get you out more. No, I'm not cool with my sister. Oh. She's not that great. Are you good with my?

Do you think she knows about this? Your mama. I guess, I suppose she knows about this. And the last time you spoke with her was when you left, I'm assuming. Yes, that's right. She was being groomed as the heir to the family, and I was being shut out. My mother is here somewhere, too. She's pretty quiet.

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They'll excuse part of the debt. No, I mean, he offered services and look where I got him. Do you know Lydia? You've never met Lydia in your life. You don't even know what she looks like. I'm not even sure if that's something that should be entertained. I mean, we could go talk to them. But I don't see how that's gonna change anything.

Maybe she's just like a really cool girl that won't be into you and you can just hang out and be besties? Gross. Hey. No, I mean, I like being besties with you. I don't want some rando. It's not fair to her, either. It's not.

It's not. Honestly, maybe we should just go talk to her first. Maybe. Lydia? The girl. The girl. The other girl that you're supposed to marry? Okay.

Why not? Because if he wants to be a better father to you, then he's going to let this go and not let you do this. and not let you do this. If that means him being out on the street, that's my opinion. That's harsh. Everything he is is his status though.

This place where he lives, his servants, if he's got nothing, then he's just, he'll die. Sometimes when you let that go, only then are you able to truly live. Deep. That is some shit right there. Maybe true, but the same. I've been working on this for a year,

and I'm starting to get really nervous. I'm down to my last few bits of gold, and I don't know how that would feel to run out. I mean, I don't even have any money, you know. You just gave it all away to you. Technically, I need more money. I'm going, turn it on money on me. I'll tell you what money is.

Money just gives you everything you want. Best, it's the best thing. I do. And you're thrifty, you're good. No, I'm not thrifty. Yes, you are. Terry, and I've seen you make amazing things. You can survive.

You've been to the depths of the watery abyss and you've lived. Kind of. Kind of. Kind of. Kind of. That's a bad example. It was a bad example. It was a bad example. I mean, like, if we'd have just taken more money, everything would be fine right now. I feel like, I feel like... No, that's not the lesson of the story, you guys. Money would have solved this.

No! No, not the lesson. Not the lesson we're supposed to take away. 230,000 more would have solved this. No, I mean, he's right that money. Oh, Percy! But that's not the lesson. That's not the lesson. Keelith is right. I don't have an alternative for the lesson.

It's just not the lesson. We're here. We can figure out a way out of this. We're smart, we're clever, we're powerful. And what's one more cliff? Yeah, we're gods. Not again. No more.

No one. No, we're going to say that. Squishy gods. The many. Yeah, let's go talk to the many. I understand this is very complicated. Are we really looking for a solution to fix several generations of your family's misdeeds? It sounds like your father, your grandfather have been navigating murky waters for some time.

I want to find out what your sister knows. I don't know what the right decision is either. You marry this woman to fix decades of terrible decisions. Ill-gotten gains. Yeah. I don't necessarily see how two wrongs write anything here. It's just really kicking the ball down the road while you make another random human being you have not met miserable.

That's right. Is our time better served? Well, I would assume that I would be a fine husband to the right. I mean, you'd be amazing. Oh, yeah. Yeah. You'd be so much fun the best. You made it.

Really good blondies and many things besides blondies as well. Oh, this is so depressing. I'm not even going to pretend that this is true. Absolutely not. No. It's not happening. You'll be miserable and that will make her miserable. Yes, that's true.

So if we know that that's not happening, then we deal with the problems left behind, which is do we worry about your family's life? Their safety? Are they safe here? Or are they going to be eaten alive? I assume they are not safe here. We have to convince them to leave or protect them somehow. or make a deal to at least protect them in poverty. Perhaps renegotiate terms. Talk to the Myriad, talk to Korshad and see what we can do. Maybe he needs something. I'm sure they do.

He's like a pretty big matzobal bat. We are bad news for anybody like that. I'm sure it would be worth their time to get us out of town, possibly get you out of town. You can't be good for business. All right. Well, a quick start. to talk to my sister, possibly, and then let's go at least investigate this person, this contact.

God, this sucks. I appreciate you all being here for me. I'm sorry. I didn't realize that this was going to happen, and I don't want... If you fellows want to go back and just continue on, I can solve this. No, man. You're one of us now. Just next time you get abducted by a bounty hunter, give us some warning, would you? Would you? I'll try. Like you do. Maybe I should sleep with bells on.

That would be a good idea. It's a good idea. You're halfway there. Firstly, can you make me some? Some bells. Yeah, from sleeping bells. I'm going to regret this, but yes. Don't do it, man.

They try to make me wear bells. Don't let them hold you down. I thought you like that, huh? I like that you approve of the arranged marriage, but it's the bells that really... You don't get to keep eyes on me at all hours of the day. EAS, keep your name. All right, I'll walk through the place and look for this.

Okay, and we'll pick up there for next one. Ah! As it is, 11 o'clock. Okay. Say. Poh man, man, man. Yeah, all right, we'll pick this up. Your dad's not what I expected.

No. Me neither. Uh. Mercer. Matthew Mercer. What? What have you have brought? What have you have brought?

that we think we've created and then just flipping it on us. It's amazing. Nothing happens. Oh, no. Grog jumped off a roof and died. Yep. Was it a thousand feet? Yeah, about yeah.

About a thousand feet. Now I know what that feels like. He actually can take that much damage though. Yeah, I was raging. 360 points. Yeah, raging, reduced to half. Technically, I don't think falling damage counts as weapon damage. I don't know if you can take half damage.

Well, no, bludgeoning. It would. Let's legending. Damn it! Let's all take this. Oh, half damage. How much? How many hit points in here?

All lot. Damn. It does it. You have a lot. She doesn't like to brag. Well, awesome guys. Oh my God, next week. See where this goes.

I am. I can't believe I want Pete five minutes. Not even. Not a lot of real sad. Family. It's not like they ever know when the show is actually in. No. Nothing happened other than the show.

Shitty family. Is everything he missed? His sister? What is that saying? Let's be a listen. All right. Mom was great. Yeah, mom was real great.

She was the best. Mom. How about every fucking moment of my backstory, man? I'm so excited to this shit. Bonus back story. Guys keep creating. You act like you didn't hand me backstories with traumatic relationships with your parents already.

You're so dark, man. You've got years ago. I don't know. One fucking page. I take it out, I'm giving an I extrapolate. Yeah, you do. A giant divided dice bag that got sent to me. You came up with more Snackship just off on like on your own, right?

I love that it's like a purse. I mean, it's like, yeah. Yeah, you have a lot of it. Is Marion off the cup? No, I think I had their names written down. Yeah, you did. It's really funny. All right.

For anyone who's been asking. With anyone my age, Marion is really funny. I am okay. I am okay. I'm okay. I did not leap off the cliff out of some weird parallel allegory. I thought it was just because you're like, your Blogan's run crystal started flashing. It's not a cry for help. It's not a cry for help.

I thought it was going to be dope. That's it. I just thought it was going to be cool as shit. And then it was. No. And it absolutely was cool as shit. What are you talking about? That's the kind of shit that makes D&D. Are you kidding me? Late-night cheeseburgers is pretty much the cry for help. It was a great takeoff. It's a 1 a. Great takeoff, action was amazing.

The finish though, the landing. Should have stuck the landing. Everyone would remember the goldfish's entry into the ocean for like five minutes. Everyone's going to remember Keelith splattering across the rocks forever. That goldfish wouldn't have remembered it very long either. I've got this great trick, but I can only do it once.

In my head, I was an awesome cartoon. Oh, oh. No, it was awesome. It worked until the end. It got out of the dice. Once again, if I rolled lower than 50%, it would have been fine. It's always if I rolled 100 D6 dice, yeah. Well, I meant like a percentage dice is what I meant.

But anyway. All right, guys, have a good night. A good weekend. Rest well. We'll see you guys next week. And is it Thursday yet? Good night. Oh!