Critical Role - C3E19 Omens Above

Episode Date: April 14, 2022

Newly arrived in the Heartmoor Hamlet, Bells Hells seek answers to long-sought questions and prepare for the midnight museum heist... Due to the improv nature of Critical Role and other RPG content on our channels, some themes and situations that occur in-game may be difficult for some to handle. If certain episodes or scenes become uncomfortable, we strongly suggest taking a break or skipping that particular episode. Your health and well-being is important to us and Psycom has a great list of international mental health resources, in case it’s useful: http://bit.ly/PsycomResources Watch Critical Role Campaign 3 live Thursdays at 7pm PT on https://twitch.tv/criticalrole and https://youtube.com/criticalrole. To join our live and moderated community chat, watch the broadcast on our Twitch channel. Original Music by Omar Fadel and Hexany Audio "Welcome to Marquet" Art Theme by Colm McGuinness Additional Music by Universal Production Music, Epidemic Sounds, and 5 Alarm Character Art by Hannah Friederichs Twitch subscribers gain instant access to VODs of our shows like Critical Role, Exandria Unlimited, and 4-Sided Dive. But don't worry: Twitch broadcasts will be uploaded to YouTube about 36 hours after airing live, with audio-only podcast versions of select shows on Spotify, Apple Podcasts & Google Podcasts following a week after the initial air date. Twitch subscribers also gain access to our official custom emote set and subscriber badges and the ability to post links in Twitch chat!

Once upon a time, a group of curious storytellers breathed life into epic tales set in the wide fantasy world of Exandria. This is Liam O'Brien, here to welcome you to Critical Role. We'll dive into the story in just a moment, but first, a few notes. This is the audio-only version of our broadcast that streams Thursdays at 7pm Pacificm. Pacific over on twitch.tv slash criticalrole and youtube.com slash criticalrole. If you subscribe to our Twitch channel, you can watch the video on demand immediately after the broadcast.

And it's also available Mondays at 12 p.m. Pacific on YouTube. And of course, for all you wonderful podcast listeners, freshly minted episodes release right here on the critical role podcast network one week after our broadcast on thursdays with all that said let's get into the story hello everyone welcome to tonight's episode of critical role where a bunch of voice actors sit around and play Dungeons & Dragons. And biff the timing on the intro. But yes, welcome. Before we get into our episode tonight, we do have some announcements to get through,

beginning with our sponsor for tonight, which is, not on this list here. Thorum. Thorum! There we go, I found Thorum. Sam, go ahead and take it away. Tonight's sponsor is Thorum, T-H-O-R-U-M, makers of unique wedding bands, handcrafted out of everything from meteorite to whiskey barrel, all true. Made right here in the USA, Thorum has been making rings for 10 years

and takes pride in their amazing customer service, quality, and original designs. Each purchase includes a free silicone, oh, I don't have them, a free silicone activity band, and a wooden ring box. This is not wooden or a ring box. They make the process easy by offering ring sizers, so you can size yourself at home. You can also wear them as rings. They're so fancy.

Whether you need a wedding ring, anniversary ring, or a ring that just looks awesome, head over to thorum.com and use promo code CRITICALROLL. There's a lot of talking over here, but it's okay. I'm going to focus. Use code CRITICALROLL to get 20% off a truly unique ring. They are unique, but they're also romantic. Now, one of the most romantic stories I've ever heard is how Travis proposed to Laura back in 2010. Now our audience might not be familiar with the story,

so tonight we're going to share it using Thorim rings as featured props. Now Travis and Laura get embarrassed about their lovey-dovey-ness, so for this dramatization, Liam and Ashley will be playing the soon-to-be Willinghams. This is why you wouldn't let us see the copy? Yes.

To set the stage, the year is 2010, and Laura and Travis have just gone on a spectacular date. Hoo doggie, Laura! A double feature of Jonah Hex? And M. Night Shyamalan's the last airbender. What a rude and tootin' night at the movies. This date has been perfect, Travis. Book shopping at Borders, dinner at Ruby Tuesdays,

and thanks for picking up that charger at Radio Shack. I wanted to take a self-photo of us to remember this amazing night. Woo! self-photo of us to remember this amazing night. Whoa, is that an Apple iPad? Uh-huh. First of its kind, say cheese. Click. It's 2010, guys.

Oh, I wish I could apply some sort of filter to this picture and instantly share it on social media, but unfortunately no such instant photo sharing site exists. Unfortunate. You know, Butt and Butt, which is my actual pet name for you, we're both like 22 now and... And I love you so hard.

Have you ever thought about our future? Sure, Spankypants, which is my legitimate pet name for you. I have dreams. My agent just sent an audition for something called The Last of Us and thinks I've got a real shot at the lead role, Ellie. Ooh! And I totally nailed my audition for Joel,

but I'm not talking career goals. Lord knows I'm not a business savvy man. Oh, what an understatement. You, Travis Willingham, making business decisions? Ridiculous. You're an actor, not a CEO. Babe, I'm talking about more serious stuff. I was watching my favorite brand new TV show, Glee,

and I realized I don't ever want to stop believing in our relationship, Pinkie Pie. Oh, Pookie Lamb, I feel the same way. Oh, Earth, Earth. That's why, with this custom-made Thorin Wedding Band, I'd like to ask you to be my guldurn wife. Thorin.

Thorin Wedding Band. Thorin, what'd I say? Thorin, it was in the prompter wrong. Sorry, I'm thinking Thorin. Ironkid Shield, it's my bad. Pretend to cry. Travis Ashley Parker Angel Willingham, are you sobbing like a BB?

Yes, I am. I cry every time I'm with you because I'm so in touch with my feelings. You're such a sensitive soft boy and I love you. So you're saying? Yes, Travis, yes, I will marry you a thousand times, yes. Just as long as you promise we won't do any nerdy stuff ever.

That is a promise. Yee-haw! And scene. Yes! And that's how it went down, 100% accurate. So go to thorum.com and use promo code CRITICALROLL to get 20% off a ring for your romantic occasions. Matt, back to you. Oh my goodness.

I had a hobbit on the brain, I'm sorry. Yeah, yeah, you know. That was a beautiful rendition. Well done, everyone. And they were smooshy. Yeah. It's the part I've always wanted to play. That's true.

Well, now you get a second part, because Liam, you got announcements. Oh my gosh, so much comic book stuff. We have so much comic book stuff going on, it makes me so happy. The final issue of The Tales of Exandria, The Bright Queen, with Dark Horse Comics, is available right now. And the collected version of the four-issue series is also available for pre-order, and is expected to release later this year. It is friggin' gorgeous.

For the most up-to-date information on our comic book releases, check out critrole.com slash darkhorseguide. Perfect. Laura. Guide broke in half. Ah! Deal with that. I totally thought we'd be moving back to our seats for this, so I'm just going to, okay, you guys.

One chair open. Still, I, okay. Throw a lot off. I'm, I'm usually really good at this, and it's just throwing my vibe completely off. They still think I'm okay. Throw a lot off. I'm... It's not like an area of change. I'm usually really good at this and it's just throwing my vibe completely out. They still think I'm Laura. Okay.

So, okay. So what we have right now are these Bora Bar coasters and bottle openers. Yeah! For your complete Tiki Bar set goodness. Well done. Is that a fist? It's not a fist!

It's a opener! So it's like Beau's opening your bottle. Pop pop. It even says pop pop pop. You want to hold it? Bob bob. Bob bob. And then these coasters,

which are also super awesome. If you could get it open. I really should have opened this stuff before the episode. Does this have a magnet in it? Yeah! Oh, and it's a magnet, so you can stick it on your fridge! Oh!

And then look at these awesome coasters! Whoa! Yeah! Yeah, they're good! Those are thick, mini coasters. Yeah, so use them for your bar, use them for your house. Anyway, they're available in our stores. And then the other thing we have, look out.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. We have new die sets. New die sets! Whoa! Oh shit. We have the finishing of the Vox Machina die sets. We have a Terry and Derry die set. Oh!

Oh! Of course it's gold. Oh! Look at the inside. Yeah, the inside. They're all beautiful. Here you go. It'sars and gold. Oh! Look at the inside. Yeah, the inside. They're all beautiful. Here you go.

It's a little gold. And then we've got Caduceus and Mollie dice sets. Oh, that's sick. Oh my goodness. Doo-doo! Ooh! Oh no, oh no! Wow, she real.

Thank you. Those are deep grape. And this is so beautiful. They're like little crystals. Oh my goodness. There's those, and we have these. Oh my gosh, Ashley, look at these! These are Yasha dice sets. Look at that. Yes!

Oh, damn! They're freaking gorgeous. So moody. So anyway, they're available in what stores? A moody. I'm not sure. But they're go-to. Stores a hoodie. I'm not sure. Up there, go to... Stores.

Shop.Critterworld.com. I don't know if you are, though. And check it out. I think that's everything. Great. Thank you. Well, I think you can murder somebody. Yeah. Well-oiled machines, every one of us.

Every time. I believe that concludes our announcements, so let's go to jump into tonight's episode of Critical Role Critical Critical It's Thursday Night

One by one we climb until we reach the top Two by one we climb until we reach the top Two by two we fall Will we meet our end or meet our destiny? Hold your breath and roll How do you want to do this? It's Thursday night All ye critters come join us

It's time to continue our fight There is magic and mystery, who knows what will happen in life But one thing's for sure, we never give up on the fight From the healer to the renegade We all share the same goal Adding more allies, taking more chances Hold your breath and roll You can certainly try It's Thursday night

All ye critters come join us It's time to continue our fight There is magic and mystery Ye Critters, come join us, it's time to continue our fight. It's Thursday night. There is magic and mystery from darkness, our friendship will rise. But one thing's for sure, we never give up on the fight. Oh, get ready, it's Thursday night! And welcome back. So, last we left off,

Bell's House had made their trek northward from the large city of Drusar to handle a couple of elements. One, following a thread of the unfortunate murder of the Loomis twins that seemed to have a connection to Orym's initial goal in coming to Marquet, as well as following up on a thread from Janna Hexum to perhaps help some of Ashton's historical baggage.

Upon making your way northward for a number of days, you had some interesting encounters, some dangerous encounters, and eventually came to the town of Heartmoor Hamlet. Here, you begin to wander about, taking the atmosphere that you had found yourself. You went ahead and got rooms situated, had your horses taken care of for the week.

Went ahead and went towards the estate that is known as the Twilight Mirror Museum. Met the glorious Mr. Ivan Hytroga, and announced yourselves as one of the two chosen groups of this unique barter, this odd... The word for summary is in my brain totally. Yes. Yes, I am.

You're welcome. Thank you. That's the only word I have. That works. No, this particular attempted burglary that you've been asked to do, you've been told to return at midnight the following day, as soon as the other team arrives

that have been chosen by one of the other competitive interests, the mistress, Isha Sabanas. After making this conversation, you began to wander back through the town, heading over towards the Blue Herald's Hill, where you knock on the door of the last known individual to have been with the Loomis twins when they were slain,

an individual called Estani. You knock on the door and Estani greeted you there. An elderly orc fellow, orc elf lineage, who seemed to smile and greet you warmly as he invited you within his abode. As you all begin to look around and step through the threshold, seeing the mostly moss-taken townscape around you, this building itself very much being reclaimed by the elements,

other than the one piercing metallic device that is prodding through the roof, a unique-looking telescope that itself is pushing from beyond the back end of the building. You step to the front door into the warm interior. On the inside of this, you can already make out the piles and piles of books

that are gathered along the ground, number of boxes and satchels that have been left in disarray, all intentionally placed in their own kind of unique, intentional chaos. But this modest homestead itself seems to carry a comfortable atmosphere, if a little scattered.

But as you all step within, Estani closes the door behind and looks over at the rest of you. Well, if you are here to talk for a bit, would you like a snack or a drink of some kind? Yes. What do you have to drink? Yeah. I'd have water, tea.

Tea? I'll have tea. Tea, tea. And lime juice. Dealer's choice. Surprise us. Lime juice. And he walks away and heads into a small kind of... Surprise us. All right.

Give it a try. It's just a lime in it. Yeah. Wanda's up at the side kitchen for a bit. You hear some rummaging and a cabinet open and slam shut. He's gathering his things, but you all have a brief moment to check in quietly with each other before he returns.

What are we doing here? Well, we're looking for answers. A few of us. Two or three. You know the Loomis twins? Yes. Yeah, he was the last person that saw them alive, potentially. That's right. Okay, yes, I know this, of course.

And he knows that Ashad Brescio fella that Orym spoke with. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. And also. The anger. Yes. Possibly about your mom? Yeah, so the Loomis twins had got, you remember that book that I was looking at

at the Starpoint Conservatory? I know the name of the book. The Starlight Academy? Yeah. Express. And the pages had been ripped out. Well, it turns out the Loomis twins were the last people that checked the books out. So potentially, he might have their notes,

and therefore the pages. It's a long, it's a stretch, but there's a possibility. It's just all strange, because if they had something to do with this celestial something or another, then maybe your mother was involved with. I don't know. How is it all connected? Why does my mother have anything to do

with the things that you're looking up? I wouldn't think they would. I don't know, it feels like we're all grasping at straws here, but I don't know. Sure. Maybe the lime juice will bring answers. A little. A bit of a bump into the side,

you see the small tray that he's holding itself almost tips for a second before he. Here we go. He sets down the tray, you see the small tray that he's holding itself almost tips for a second before you go, Here we go. He sets down the tray and you can see a cluster of modest mugs that are gathered on one side of this tray. The other has these somewhat, almost like a matching mossy green

coloration biscuits on them. At first glance, you worry that maybe they've been out too long and mold's taken them, but even a quick glance, you look at the coloration is intentional and they do appear to be fresh. The cups themselves, you can see a little bit of steam rising off them in the moist air. You're like, oh, not entirely certain what this is,

but at least it looks warm and comforting. Please, I'll find a... If you can find a stool, you are welcome to sit. Thank you for letting us into your home. Of course, of course. Sits down and takes one of the mugs and warms his hands on it for a second before sipping. I'm just going to stand on the side.

There's a seat. Is that warm lime juice? I don't know, I'm just going to try it, is it? Is it like a... Hopefully it's the side. Where's the seat? Is that warm lime juice? I don't know, I'm just going to try it, is it? Is it like a... Hopefully it's the tea. Is that a hot toddy, but with lime? It's not the toddy part. It is hot and it is lime. Just hot water and lime juice?

Or no water, is it just lime juice? Or is it like with... It's probably equal parts. Does this person still have enamel on his teeth? You haven't looked. I know, mine does sound kind of good. Gross. I would have. I pass one to Fearne. Oh, thank you so much.

I haven't tried the biscuit yet. Yeah. Maybe it's lime biscuit. Oh god. It's got a real sour kick to it. Yeah, it definitely hits you. Burns the surface of the tongue, but it wakes you up, most certainly. Biscuit.

It'll also clear you out. The biscuits are very dry, but very sweet, and you trying them after the lime juice, you find that that's where their unique mixture hits. The direct sourness of the drink mixed with the dryness and the sweetness of the biscuit creates this tang when combined. Like lemonade. It's surprisingly delicious when you combine the two.

My tongue is numb. Take a sip of tea. Oh, good. Oh, that's good. Shouldn't be that good, honestly. Take a sip of tea. Oh, good. Shouldn't be that good, honestly. No, that's weird. Well, sir. You should be on orthodox, I'm sure. Thank you for your hospitality.

Oh, of course. We've come quite a ways. All of us were working in Tressar before coming here together. quite a ways, all of us were working in Jresar before coming here together. We're here for a few reasons, but the place we'd like to start is we're looking into, unfortunately, the death of two siblings from House Lumas

back in Jrusar. Had a feeling. Probably had some connection to it. Not much else. Folks visit me these days since they're gone, and there was a purpose to your eyes that made me believe that there was likely a connection. What would, what can I help with?

What would you like to know? Well, I've spoken a bit with Shad Brescio. Mm. Back in the city. And he suggested that you might know more than he. The twins were killed here. Do I have that correct?

Not far from here, yes. We were having a walk-in talk through the Herald's Hill Garden, not far from here. It's a place we usually wanted to just have open discussions whenever they visited. It was just so sudden. It was three attackers, dressed in black and gray, masks, cloaks.

I could not follow the rapid movements. Too swift with these old eyes, I'm afraid. Bresh showed it his best. He is a very brave one, and had been very kind in the times that he'd visited as their protectors. But it was sadly not enough. Both Balin and Zeyar were cut down in seconds.

Both Balin and Zeyar were cut down in seconds. Bresciola bleeding and poisoned. Two killers still standing, fled without a trace. I wasn't even touched. Obviously, it was not the target. Insight check. Yeah, a good insight check. You do the refund attack? Yeah.

Three attackers. One went down. But two ran away? Yeah. What happened to the third attacker? Brescia managed to cut that one down, slew it before he himself nearly succumbed to his wounds. The one that was killed, strangely, just kind of discorporated into some sort of a

black, gray liquid. You didn't happen to save any of the liquid or anything, did you? I did not. The investigators of the town went to look into it, but by the time they arrived and I had gotten help, it seemed to have gone away, evaporated of some sort.

It's a very, very strange. What'd you roll for? 14. 14? Mm-hmm. You get a decent idea that he's being honest, best he can tell. Um, might I ask what the Loomis twins were here visiting you for? You said they came often.

Yes. You knew them well? I had been getting to know them well over the years, yes. Well, I myself have long personally studied the layout of the planes around Exandria, whether they correlated to stars or astral bodies within the night sky. Long theorized myself that the world

holds its own planar ecosystem that is unique. There are other worlds that exist beyond this one. Other realms. Wow, I think that's true. Oh. I've had my time of work alongside many well-known astronomers, such as a plane rider in the great Ebon-Old Kai, before my tenure in subsequent retirement

with the Hamlet. I still do my studies here, just have a personal interest, more of a hobby in my retirement, and crafting our own theories and submitting any of my kooky theories to the youth, the younger academics for study and publishing. And that's long past me in my days. Do you have anything published?

Oh, a number of papers from my youth, yes. Oh. The twins you're asking about. We became friends through letters originally, they would write. They would reach out to me in their later teen years after reading some of my work and became, I hesitate to use the word fans,

but at least intrigued by some of the things that I had written and we became friends. And just a couple of years ago, they began to come and visit me, with Ratio, of course, protecting them. They were very kind to this old bag of bones and thoughts. We'd have tea and talk about things astronomical. Kind of gets lost in thought for a second.

Specifically, over this past year or so, the research began to focus on the moon of Ilomen, specifically. The twins were rather transfixed on studies surrounding the sudden flares of ruddy light that are occasionally seen and recorded through history from Luidis. Ruddy light?

Is that what you said? Yes. At certain times, the moon grows bright, without warning. Decades between, sometimes mere months. Some believe and have long believed that it is a portent of disaster to come, but many studies seem to find no correlating disaster either. And when children are born under the light of this moon,

they are themselves referred to as rudisborn, and many important, whether for honor or great sorrow. Individuals of history have been claimed to have been born under such a ruddy light. How long ago was the last flare? Do you know? It's about two and a half years-ish, I think.

There seems to be a growing reoccurrence that has begun to instill further interest and funding into the study of Ruedis. So yes, there'd been an abnormal record of these Ruidus-born, and some that were children that were not even yet due, but under the slight labor suddenly was induced.

People believed that there was some correlation to this. So I've been speaking with the twins about this study for some time, as I touched on it a bit in my youth. They are intended to trek to Eos to seek something I mentioned to them, known as the Omen Archive. The Omen Archive?

The Omen Archive. Omen Archive. In the city of Eos, that's where the Aedan-Ian Seminary is? Yes. I myself taught there for some time. I was there some time ago, but yes. Were you familiar with Professor Kadisha Sumal?

Yes, a bit before my time, but before I finished my tenure there. We had some crossover. Really? Yeah. The Loomis twins had, potentially, in their possession when they were attacked, some notes from an essay written by Professor Sumal. Do you have any of the papers that they may have left behind? Maybe they shared them with you to discuss?

Did you compare notes at all? We compared notes, but they left nothing with me. They kept it to themselves. Did they leave any objects at all with you? Maybe the last letter they sent. He thinks to himself for a second, gets oddly dark and goes, They themselves had brought their notes with them when they last visited.

The satchels that are keeping pouches and come to think of it, they weren't on the bodies when. They were stolen. Insight check, just to make an insight check. Such an insight check. I'm rolling. I rolled a two plus whatever is terrible, six.

While he's talking, do his eyes ever visit a repeating location in the room? Ooh. Make a perception check. Hot. Hot. Make a perception check. Hot. Hot. Ugh. Six.

Never mind. Six. Ugh, that's such a great thought. That was an amazing idea. Good idea. Hard to press. He seems to be more focused on the table in front, from what you can tell. He just occasionally gets lost,

staring at the cluster of steaming cups and cycling his thoughts. Yes, I don't know much about this study, this archive, but the children seem to have come across word of it. It seemed to be something very much on their mind the last time we spoke. You said it was the Ill Omen Archive? The Omen Archive.

The Omen Archive. Do you know if the twins were Ruidus-born? Hmm. I don't know. I don't believe so. If they were, they kept it to themselves. I know not what the date of birth is. They never seem to share information

about a possible history attached to such an event, personally. Is there a place to maybe see the, what am I trying to say, the ruinous calendar of when those times have happened in history? Oh, man. Hold on.

He gets up and wanders over to one of the bookshelves and starts going through, mumbling under his breath, before finding two large tomes. Like, sits over, puts down. Poof. There have been thousands of recorded individuals throughout all of recorded Exandrian history Vvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvv due to the somewhat stigmatizing opinion due to the somewhat stigmatizing opinion

in many places in Exandria about those who were born under these flares. Many just refuse to speak about it. But there have been individuals through history who have been under-born at this moon, and begins reading through a list of historical figures, pre-calamity, post-calamity. Has anyone here? Pre-calamity?

Wow. Anybody here training in history? Yeah. Or proficient in history? I am. Go ahead and roll a history check for me. 21. Ooh, that's good. 21. You do know that certain figures that existed historically

that were born, Rudis born with a 21, ones that come to mind from where you're from. Dressig, a figure that was very influential at the initial development of Tal'Dorei, before it was known as Tal'Dorei, a great tyrant king that essentially ruled the land with an iron fist before falling to Zan Tal'Dorei

is heavily theorized to have been Ruidus-born, trying to align calendars. Once again, a lot of individuals and a lot of these notes are theorized because people don't normally come forward with this information. There is an individual known as Elixian that was a great hero during the Calamity period,

that was an individual marred by the mark of the Moon of Ill-Omen, but still rose up to become a hero in spite of him before vanishing. There have been individuals who theorize that whatever entity that once rose up to ascend, to become what is now referred to as the Mation of Ravens themselves may have been who it is born.

It is a... From a, you know this from just your reading and hearsay, it is a circumstance that many people superstitiously think is a negative thing. But scholars instead think at least it means that a person is fated to be important to some degree. Let's all look up our birthdays. Negative thing, clearly. We have a calendar that we can all look up our birthdays. Negative thing.

We have a calendar. We can all look up our birthdays and see if we were rude as born. You're right, we're rude. It's the lime juice. Stings on the way down. Yeah, it's better every morning. That information is,

from what the twins were telling me, what the Omen Archive itself is. Oh. At least one of many things. Excuse me. To say, yeah. Some sort of study that very, very intentionally is trying to record

all existing Ruedisborn, to once and for all, thinks for himself, for a second, from what they told me, ascertain the nature of this, whether to dispel the superstition or to truly pinpoint what it means. This, unfortunately, study is after my years at the, at schooling, so you'd have to,

probably have to travel. Were the twins, were the twins very open about their work? To me, they seemed quite open. To anyone else? I do not know. I did not think. Well, before their terrible fate,

I did not think it would be something worth being worried over. Did they ever mention why they were interested in studying as Rudisborn? What sparked their curiosity? They themselves were young academics. They grew up with a fascination, just like I did, of astral bodies. And they just took a liking to my previous work and some of the other professors at Eos.

And since I live the closest, they began to visit on occasion. But you would think that there might be some sort of personal connection, like they thought they might've been, or some one of their relatives or something like that? Nothing? You don't know? It's possible, now that you mention this.

I never question their reasonings. Come on, Estani, think. I'm, uh... Think. Can I have some lime juice, Helms? It's possible. Maybe we need to find what their birthdays are and cross-reference it with this archive.

Do you think people that are Ruidus-born could possibly, I don't know, have crazy dreams? Just like super wilds, but the same? Well, from what I understand, the twins themselves spoke of various signs of Ruidusborn. Individuals who had been part of this study

that they were researching. What are some of those specifics there? They were discussing it being strange marks on their body. Perhaps even having... The mark of the Omen moon? Perhaps. That, to me, seems a bit superstitious, to be honest. I mean, I'm covered in odd marks,

but I do not believe I was born under the moon. What kind of marks are we talking about? The figure you mentioned, though, he seemed to thrive even though he possessed this mark. Did they describe what it looked like? Even though it's legend. For which one? Wasn't there the one that Tal'Dorei beat?

Didn't he have a mark of the Ill-Omen moon? Well, those are just ones that I remembered. Yeah. But I don't remember marks. But, uh... Could just be a bad burn. We've spoken of themselves, premonitions, bad dreams,

all sorts of odd psychic phenomenon. Dreams affecting their powers. Perhaps, yes, if I recall. But not the twins themselves? Not in the way that they were privy to tell me. Did they, when they were here working, where did they stay?

Did they spend time with anyone else? I honestly don't know where they stayed. I didn't ask. They seemed to be well off, and Brescia was protecting them. I assume that they were taking care of themselves. Where would you stay if you were well off in town? Let's see. If you don't mind. Oh, one of the most viable places is the

Soddengrange in mid-city. That is a- Hey, that's where we're staying. Got rooms. Convenient. So what was the- Sodden? The Soddengrange, yeah.

What was the work of yours that they first learned of you? Well, I began to follow various astral movements in the sky. I was watching as certain celestial movements would come to points of unity. The solstice, even the half solstice, in which many astral bodies would align.

The various ley lines of magical energies across Exandria themselves would spike, and at these times, it would be very important to notify some of the great mages for their own ritualistic purposes. Some of the most powerful protective incantations could only be done during these times. Powerful rites of development and protecting society

required a specific tightening of these unifications. So there was good money to be made. And when I was young, that was my initial drive. But then there were strange and, I don't want to say inconsistencies, but signs of other places, signs of other worlds, and historical records of visitors and strangers

who said that they themselves visited from far off realms. Some thought mad, some thought just odd. Many just vanished without a trace after a brief time on our realm. Well, I find that positively fascinating. It was through that time that I began to do a study on our own, and I find that positively fascinating. And it was through that time that I began to do a study about perhaps Ruedis itself being like a way station or some sort of a source for this travel.

I conclude that it is perhaps not that. It seems to almost... It is one of the most inconsistent elements of our astral. Of course not that. It seems to almost... It is one of the most inconsistent elements of our astral net, the Red Moon. It almost... It almost has a life of its own. Has anyone ever been there?

Not that I'm aware of. No one that would have returned if they had. Such powerful teleformatation magics. Well, those who could likely know better. But that would be very fascinating, would it not? We should build something to take us there. All right. You all build something to take us there. All right. You are welcome to try.

You all have a good time ahead of you. I fear I have a bit past my prime for such journeys. Man. Such a shame. Do you, have you ever heard of red storms being connected in any way to Ruidus

or maybe present in some of the dreams and the studies that you heard of? Well, Ruidus should be in the sky as of this time of year. Why don't you all stay a bit? When night comes, I have a telescope and I can show you. That would be wonderful. That sounds nice. We have an engagement at some point.

That's tomorrow night. That's tomorrow night, even better. Huh. Huh. Like we should just stay with you here all day or go and come back? Oh, you're welcome to return if you'd like. Oh, okay. But yes, to answer your question,

from what we can make out at this distance, it is quite a tumultuous place, Ruidice. A barren red moonscape that is continuously bombarded with storm-like winds and storms. So you've looked at it through glass, then? Yes. Arcane enhanced, of course, but.

Is that what you have here? Yes. A much smaller version. This was a gift when I left my professorial duties. I'd helped design it long ago, and they made a smaller one for me. But the one you would really want to get a close look at would be at the Aedilan Seminary in Eos.

It's one of the largest arcane telescopes on Exandria. An arcane telescope? What? Is that similar to what you have in Arcane Telescope? Yeah, mine's much more of a hobbyist model, if you will. How does that work? Oh, it's all manner of extremely delicately created lenses, glass that has been shaped appropriately

to help take the light that is projected into it and magnify it. Then through the utilization of enchanted mirrors and the proper implementation of metals, you can get a very clear image of something far away, but much closer. How big is it? Which part?

The telescope as a whole. I can show you. Okay. Follow me. You're not going to fucking take it. I'm just going to look at it, and calm down, Dad. He takes you down this short hallway. There is a doorway that is open.

There's no door, just an open doorway. There is a back room which has a stepped platform that leads up, and in this rickety-looking chamber in the center of it, there is a impressively large metallic telescope. You can see it. It just expands and builds out. You can see it's being held up by ropes and girders. Like, it's impressive, based on what he was telling you.

Is this the little one? Yeah. Oh, oh yes. Trust me, this is very much the little one. I'm a halfling. That's big. It's pretty big from up here, too. Okay, might be a little bit too big to take.

Are you sure? I was just checking. Coward. You should try. Okay. I don't think I can fit it in my cape. I stole it. Estal, are you a studier of history as well, or is it just celestial bodies? Well, I mean, I've read a few things here and there,

but that was not my specific passion. Oh. We ran across some ruins out in the jungle before we got here. Oh. And I'm going to pull out part of the ruin that I had chipped off and handed over to him. I took it in hopes that we would be able

to show it to somebody. It's just sitting out there, and nobody even knows it's there. What did you say it was? It was part of some... What did I say? It was part of some city. It was an explosion from... That had fallen from the sky or something?

It's pre-calamity shit. Yeah. Pre-calamity? It was like... Was it silk? No, elvish writing. It had elvish writing, ancient elvish writing on it. All right. I certainly know how I can get this to Deremond.

He's a friend of mine in the city who himself is an archaeologist of ancient. Should I take it to him instead? Is that easier? I can take it to him. Oh, all right. Unless you'd prefer, but he and his team could go ahead and mend this to its original ruin.

That's what I was thinking, and you could use it to locate it, right? That's how you? That is why this is extremely helpful. Okay, wonderful. Exact directions in the middle of the wilds can be a little imperfect and dangerous. But yes, utilizing this, we'll be able to locate it

and return it to its source, so thank you. Have you personally ever seen other ruins of that nature here? I don't really travel much off of the Beaten Path. Most of my focus is up there. So no. Understood. Where does this Deremond live?

Oh, on the north side of the city. A small brick abode. If he's home, he might be off and about. He has two, I believe, two digs not far from the city that he's currently overseeing. Why? I just thought it might be fun to meet him. Okay.

Huh? History's fun! I'm going to get some more of my lime juice. All right. Come. Oh, come? Oh, yeah, because we're in the telescope room. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Imogen.

How are you feeling? You see, for a while, you hope he's leading the way. Oh yeah, no, he's walking on his own. Hold you back, hold you back. Would you like me to turn around, let me keep you better? Yeah. Don't look at me while you watch.

Would you look at me while I role play? Would you look at me? I't look at me while I role play. Don't you look at me! I can't role play while you watch. It's not working. What was your question? Just, you know, there's always a lot of information. How are you feeling? You're clearly rude as porn, right?

No, I don't know if I am, but I think my mother might have been. Did she have a mark? Did she have a mark? I have no idea if I am, but I think my mother might have been. Did she ever work? Did she ever work? I have no idea. I never met her. You didn't see her naked? I never met her.

Oh, okay, okay. You didn't even know her. Did you know her name? Dad didn't have any drawings? I knew her name. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to sound... Tasteful. I never knew.

No, but in the essay that I sort of saw, pages were ripped out, but it said, Strange dreams and influence and powers and ruidus, and my mother was part of the study, so I thought, you know, maybe she is. Maybe it passed down onto me. Maybe I was as well. I don't know. What do you think about these on your list? Wait, you have?

That could be considered strange markings. That could be considered strange markings. I never even thought about that. What do they look like again? I'm distracted by the blue. Like electricity, like lightning. You can still see the bright purple streaks coming up my arm, though.

It's pretty cool. I forgot I was blue until I looked down at my arm. We haven't. Should we explain that to him? Do we need to say something? Maybe somebody here studies magic. Somebody would know, understand why I turned blue. It's very pleasant to look at. No, I like it. I haven't even seen myself in a mirror yet, but I imagine I'll. Didn't you say you thought you couldn't heal? Well, he is a cosmologist, right? He should be able to. Maybe, if know, it is different. I haven't even seen myself in a mirror yet, but I imagine I'll. Didn't you say you thought you couldn't, yeah.

Well, he is a cosmologist, right? Restore? You should be able to, maybe, if that does it, to do that. And try. Tomorrow. Laugh, motherfucker. Sorry. That happened today, didn't it?

Just say, wait, cosmo. Yeah, cosmologist. You mean cosmetologist? Cosmetologist. No, whatever. Maybe this guy is a cosmetologist cosmologist. Cosmetologist. Yeah, whatever. Maybe this guy is a cosmetologist cosmologist. Cosmetologist. He applies rouge to the floor. Here he makes good cosmos.

He loves cosmos. You're welcome to stay if you'd like. I have more biscuits and lime juice. You've been so kind to us with all this information and whatnot. Is there anything we can do for you? I just feel like this has been a one-way street so far. Well, if your hope is to...

is to con... I get the sense from your, well, your equipment, your disposition, that the questions you ask, that you might be seeking the ones responsible for what happened to Beren and Zare. I'm particularly following a very long thread, and I can't lie, I'm a little discouraged here today.

Sir, if you, in the next day, think of any detail. If any memory floats up, it would be very much appreciated. Of course. The two attackers, they just fled? Yeah, they fled. There was so much going on at the time. No notion of where they went.

They vanished into the garden. May I look through this history book of all the people that have been Ruidus-born for just a moment? If you'd like to, yeah. How current is this book? It's almost a recent date. This one seems to be about a general historical record,

historical record of individuals that were pertinent to history. So it's not like, you know, Jamie from down the road. It's about specific figures that have had a lot of influence on history and theorizing which ones were born under the red moon or not. Okay. It still remains mostly theory.

Only a handful have been confirmed. Who's who of the Rue this morning? Of American High School. Who's who? I'm looking for a particular name. Which one? Her name is Caleth of the Ashari. What if you were Ruedas?

That would have been news to me. Ginger's men. All gingers are cursed. When abouts would she have been? Been born? When would she have been born? Around, uh... Oh, not too long ago.

You know. 800 or so? Last couple years. Is that right? 800 PD? Three decades at most. Where are we now? 850 PD? What are we at?

No, three decades at most. You're three decades since campaign one. Which was what? Yeah, so four decades. Four decades, otherwise she would have been like one. What's a she? Like four or five decades ago? Are we in the 900s?

No, you're in 800. You're in Southern California? Mid to late 830s. This is, yeah. This is 50-something. When she looks 30, that's where you're getting confused. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That is where I'm getting confused.

Does she even look that? Oh my god, I feel a little... Yeah. She would age a little bit. She was 13 through all of campaign one, right? She's the motherfucking voice of the Tempest. She stopped aging when she reached a level 20. Yes, just vexed. Yeah.

She just stopped aging. Well, she ages like- Don't you just vex me, you fuck. How dare. Wow. She didn't stop aging. She ages now like one year for every hundred or something. I never stopped aging.

Note to self, let's all become druids. I mean, technically you just age really fast now. Vax stopped aging. Yeah. Just going faster than us. Going through the appendices, Astani looks back and forth. Unfortunately, it looks like this book,

the records go up until about the late 700s PD, so. And that's not the time we're in right now. Or close to. This is more of a loose historical overview. If you want the specifics, you probably have to. I just have one more question. What year is it right now? She's serious. What year is it?

This is an actual question she's asking. I'm going to double confirm so I don't get it wrong. I announced it at the very beginning of the campaign. Does anybody have an iPhone, whatever? You did announce it at the beginning of the campaign. I did, but I'm going to double confirm so I don't get it wrong. I announced it at the very beginning of the campaign. Does anybody have an iPhone? You did announce it at the beginning of the campaign. I did, but I'm going to go ahead and double check. 843 PD. There it is. Aw, look at that!

That's why I remember that. Boom. Wow. 843 PB. Okay, okay, I understand. I had a theory, but maybe it's nothing. That was a count of ones. That was a fun jaunt. Yep.

843 PD, confirmed. 843 PD. That was a can of worms. That was a fun jaunt. Yep. 843 PD, confirmed. 843 PD. New York City. I just thought maybe these people were maybe going after I can't resist. In the eye of a hurricane, there is light.

That's so tough. It's so beautiful. Keep going. Anything else? Oh, sorry about that. It's been a long day. It's been a long day. We had battles today, I think.

Right? No? Maybe? In the middle of the night, and then subs. Yeah, in the middle of the night. God, what is happening at this table right now? It's the lime juice, the lime juice! What's in that stuff? I'm going to take my biscuits and go. All right.

We'll come back at nightfall. We'll come back at nightfall. One more question. Did you say that, just getting info, did you say that Brescia was poisoned? Yes, the weapons that were used were coated in some sort of toxin. Oh, okay.

Just to know what we're up against. Good to know. That's very good to know. Did we already know that? No, that's good. That's good. Good stuff. We did know that. And nothing left afterward.

Yeah, because of the cross-eyes. Oh, unfortunately. That sounded familiar. Do you have any knowledge about things that would turn people blue? Asking for a friend. She's not normally navy. I mean, she's rocking it, right?

Tell her she's rocking it. Let me look. I think the goal is either you are the back normer or the rest of us go blue, I guess. It's all about confidence, really. I'm into it. Thanks. Pretty good.

He goes through a few books, pulls out an odd leather tome that has a textured, almost snake-scale leather binding to it. The text on the front is Marquesian and goes ahead and opens it up, starts reading it through, before finding a page and goes, This is a collection of various ailments,

curses, and arcane mishaps. These sort of things happen in studies, especially when we are working alongside other practitioners of magical or divine arts. It says here, in errant magics, a minor curse that can occur involves the radical altering of the hue of one's skin somewhere in the realm of the primary colors.

So that's the closest I can guess. So I just need to find somebody that can remove curses? If this is indeed the source of your discomfort. All right. It's not discomfort. It's not. It's quite fetching on you, to be honest. Okay. I kind of like it, but yeah.

Thank you for your time. We'll see you at nightfall to look through the looky-loo. Of course, always happy to host interested parties in the wonders above. So. All right. We'll bring more limes. Please do, I'm running low.

Okay. Where are we going to get limes? I don't know. Oh fuck. As we leave, they're expensive. What time is it? What year is it, what time is it, what month is it, what day is it?

Quick go. For right now, it would be, I'd say between waking up, or are you having, no, this is still the same day. So you guys have traveled through, you spoke, we're getting late afternoons. You're maybe a handful of hours from sunset. All right.

Should we get a drink or something? Is there anything we need to do in this? Yeah, good call. Couple of healing potions wouldn't suck. Maybe let's, Stani, would you be able to point us directly where you had a conversation with the twins when you were a child?

Yes, yes, I can do that. He goes and gets a coat and puts it on. Follow me. He leads you outside of his homestead. Not terribly far, and you remember clocking this as you were heading to where he lives, there is an open garden here in the center of Blue Herald's Hill.

You can see there are stone walls that rise up about chest level and sometimes higher than that. There are a number of hedges that are kept and probably a dozen or so trees that themselves do not look directly indigenous to the surrounding trees within the bog that the city itself is built in the center of, the heart of it, which gives it this beautiful,

alien little island sense here. There is a small stream that is kept from an endless source of water that is nestled into this stone statue formation that looks like a weathered man who is currently holding a pot and pouring it down into the river and it just continues to flow continuously.

Some benches. It's a beautiful little respite from what can be the more ramshackle, bog-centric areas of this city. And there are a handful of other denizens that are just sitting there reading a book or themselves just looking around. Someone's taking a nap on the ground behind one of the benches

and just snoring quietly to themself. He goes ahead and starts retracing his steps, and you can see with a smile, he very much enjoys being in the space of this area before going, It was right as we were turning on this bend right around here, beyond this wall. He points out to this walkway

that curves around this large tree. He stops for a second and points up to the tree and says, they descended from the boughs above and cut them down right here. He points into this normal-looking part of the walkway. Without the context of it, you wouldn't be able to tell it was any different. Do you remember what direction they left

when they ran away, even vaguely? He takes a few steps forward and retraces his placement, turns a bit. South-like. Out of curiosity, where's the fountain? Where's the fountain from where you are right now? It would be about southeast. Okay.

Pardon me one moment. Orym is going to flea bounce up into the tree. And see if I can find any Orym is going to flea bounce up into the tree. And see if I can find any long, long, cold trace of the attackers in the tree. How long ago was this attack? A few months? Yeah, it was a couple months ago. She was still mourning. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, she was at the process. That's recent. Oh, Shad was? Investigation. 21. 21. He's still working. Investigation? Yeah, 21. That's right. Still injured.

Janky. Going from branch to branch, glancing around, you... For individuals that would be as effective at such an assassination as these were, there's nary a sign of their presence. With that, I'll say you do find a gash on a piece of a branch.

And you go ahead and look into it, you find a gash on a piece of a branch. You go ahead and look into it, and there is a hint of a dried, tar-like substance that is embedded in the groove. I will use one of my knives to cut that away. I'll cut under the, I'll whittle the wood up to not disturb it. Good technique. Away from you.

Plucking it free and careful not to touch it, you glance at it and it does resemble Level five. a toxin substance you've seen used before. Okay, so just hearkening back to the beginning. Yeah. I'll wrap it in a bit of cloth and keep it.

Okay. Who's got some good eyes? I want to find something. I've got decent eyes, but I can also help your eyes do better. I've got bitchin' eyes. You've got bitchin' eyes? Yeah.

Cold like a glacier. Blue like the sky. That was beautiful, Chetney. It is. Thanks, I'm working on it. I didn't know you did poetry, too. Cold, dead eyes, come here. I don't want to, I mean, for what?

You can't have my eyes. You got to sleep sometime. But no, come here. This is a... Are we looking for something important? We're going to walk south and look for gutters. I'm going to enhance you. Ah!

I'm going to give you some male enhancement. Fearne's really good at looking at things, too. Yeah, yeah, you started, I was just fucking around. I have a better nose than I am. Oh, well, so disappointed. Maybe I'll look at you and you do some steps. Yeah, get somebody else.

He's got that ass. Yeah, you guys should go together. See what you see. What's your, how good are you? Should I enhance you, female enhancement? Worse than her. Female enhancement. Worse than her. Female enhancement. Worse than yours.

Probably not. Are we all consulting our, are we all consulting D&D Beyond right now? Did I just mention that because I love the app and all it does, or because we're contractually obligated to? I don't know, maybe both. God, Sam. Fearne, you want to come help me

look for some gutters to the south? Yeah, yeah, let's look. Let's look. Perception. It's getting too meta over here. It's getting better than mine. Mine's really good, too. I will enhance your ability. Perception, okay.

I'll give you advantage on perception checks. Okay. Ooh, nice. Looking for gutters or ways into the sewer system to the south, and we're also going to check out the fountain to see where the water goes, where it comes from, if it feels like slime could get in and out that way. Yeah. Okay.

Go ahead and make a perception check. Owl's wisdom is my tactic. If you want to each roll. Oh, hm? Okay, advantage. Advantage? Advantage! Exception or investigation? Slightly better.

Whichever you prefer. Awesome. 21. Okay. Both the same, natural 20 for 21. Ooh! Nice! 21, I got a mushroom. Nice!

Then I'll say that for both checks, both instances, this will work. Looking at the statue, the source of water is a gentle trickle. It's not like a rushing river. It's just enough to gently fill this stream that gives a slight, comfortable sound of trickling water to the center of this garden space.

You get the sense that the water source itself, this stone-carved pot as part of this, has a very, very faint enchantment, where it just gently produces water. You're not sure if it was designed specifically or was affixed to the statue as a final touch, but it just continues to create it. It evaporates and then continues downward.

It seems to be fresh. The river itself, upon passing through the garden, heads to where the main city walk is in this portion of the hill, of Blueherald Hill. There's a slight bridge that goes over it and it runs off into the swamp itself. Oh. I'm going to go over and put my hand in the statue

to see if there's anything in there. I don't know. There's a big pot pouring water. Okay. Scrape around. Okay, so you reach in. The pot, the front of the pot's about that large. Yeah.

You go ahead and reach into the pot? Yeah. Okay. You reach in, and it is cold water. You reach in and the pot itself seems to go only about that far before it gets to the stone arm, but your arm can go a lot further than the pot itself. I'm going to take the hammer.

It's like a little portal. I'm going to take the handle of the hammer and I'm just going to keep going, see how far it goes. What if you lose your hammer? It goes to the very head of the hammer before the hammer itself will no longer, it's wider than the pot's exit. Oh my god, that is so cool.

Oh, I'm not there. No. Let us go. What, if you should be? What else can we stick in there? I guess anything we want. Why do we have that? If we only had that fucking rope! Why? Why'd you do that?

And a coin, too. Fuck. We're trying to steal some ribbon. So we're trying to steal some ribbon. A bunch of ribbon. How much ribbon do you have? Just loads. Won't we just shoot back out and shit? Oh yeah, that's true. We'll just shoot back out, unless bunch of ribbon. How much ribbon do you have? Just loads. Won't it just shoot back out? Is it all connected together?

Oh yeah, that's true. We'll just shoot back out, unless we need something. I'm going to say it, and I apologize. I know what I'm about to say. If you're going to stick something in there, it needs to be something stiff. Oh. You're welcome.

I'll think of the opening again. I understand what you mean. I mean, head size? It's hard to, you know. You could whittle something? I understand what you mean. I mean. Head size? It's hard to. You know. You could whittle something, is that what you're saying? I can make myself pretty small.

Make yourself smaller than that? You're going to disappear. How well do you swim? How well do you breathe underwater? One way to find out. I'm so excited to see what your next character is. But isn't it just like a portal for water? Like, it's not going to be an entrance.

Portal to the water plane. I could turn myself into a frog. Oh, yeah! Or salmon, you could swim upstream. Oh, good idea. But if you have salmon, it really looks stupid. No, but she's a... You should go in and that'd be it, you're out.

Something smarter. She retains her intelligence? Yes, she's not like, we should tie a bow. Maybe an octopus. Maybe an octopus, she'll be able to stick on things better. Sure, yes.

If you don't have my skin on. I'm so sorry, I realize what I've done now. No, that's great. Terrible idea. Is this, are we getting off track here? Probably, but it's fun. Get in there. We got a few hours before we got to be back

to look at the telescope. Okay. What are you doing? What are you doing? She just said something. Frog. Oh, you're a frog? I went frog. Okay. Laudna takes her red yarn

and make a little frog holster for you. You know, a little harness. It's yarn, right? It's just yarn. We're not talking about some steel, roper, shit. It's just fucking yarn. We should have a count before we start

pulling her back out anyway, in case something goes wrong. She's going to signal us. I guess pull three times. Can you pull? She's three inches tall. It's true. Oh wait, we can still communicate with her mentally. That's right, we can.

All right. Oh, we can. We can't waste anything. For a bit of time. Unless it's a dimensional portal or something like that. We can try. If 60 seconds go by, we just start dragging back in? 60 seconds. 60 seconds. I can communicate an emotion to you

and you can communicate one back to me. That's not verbal at all. Great. Okay. You probably did all this before I moved. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, if you turn into a frog, I can just talk to you. But it should be gone.

Oh. What do you mean? Before, as all this is happening, while they're tying fur and up and doing all this stuff, I just, Coram hears in his head, how are you doing? Good. Good.

It's not the end of the road. It's just a dead end. It's all right. Or maybe it's not. All right. I'm good. All right. I'm good. All right. Okay. Laudna shoves the frog in the hole.

Oh god. I instantly, like, oh shit! Go, Fearne! Fearne hears in her head, okay, ribbit, ribbit, let us know if you need help. So Fearne. You are pressed into a cold body of water. Lightless, with a very faint current. What do you do?

I just keep leaping forward. Okay, you can swim with the current. You can keep swimming with the current until eventually the garden goes taut. How far do you give slack? Oh, I just keep going as she pulls. How far does it go? Okay. I don't know, it's spooled. It's a spool of yarn.

So pretty far. 30 meters. Yeah, 30 meters? What do you get at Michael's? What's an average pool of yarn? I don't know. I'll look it up. Did it say Michael's on there? Yeah. You continue on. Polyester.

30 feet. 40 feet. There's a very, very faint bit of general atmospheric, deep blue light. It feels almost like being at the bottom of the ocean looking up, but it's a little bit everywhere, to where you have no sense of what's up or down. You see shapes and shadows at your periphery.

There are large land masses or clusters of rock around you, but you're not entirely certain how close or how far they are. Damn. 260 meters. What? No way. That's like a jumbo spool. That's the first one I clicked on at Michael's.

Michael's every once in a while. Do I smell it? Can I sniff? Give some sniffs? Water sniffs? Water sniffs? Water sniffs? Looking for? Just like a,

just to see if I smell anything other than water. Make a perception check. Non-water. You've got advantage. Oh, I still have it? Yeah, fair. Right? She's still the same creature. Ooh. Okay, 15.

15. It's interesting, because this feels ocean-like, but the water itself lacks any sort of brine. It has a freshwater sense to it. It is cold. It's less about picking up different scents, but there are waves that have an earthy, iron-like sense to it, and that shifts and goes away,

and the temperature shifts and gets colder for a moment, and it feels almost glacial before it shifts again and becomes a little more like a natural temperature. The currents here are odd, and in some cases they pull the different directions. At one point, it picks up a bit and you're worried you're maybe going to lose your tether, but then it slows down.

It's slow chaos in a near lightless, fathomless depth of water. Hear me, Fearne? You all right in there? You're just on your own. Out in the middle of nowhere. I just roll on my back.

We should probably start. Has it been about 60 seconds? It's been about 60 seconds. All right. We're going fishing. Who knows? You start being tugged back. Oh, okay. You're being pulled back, pulled back.

The scent changes a little bit in the water. It has a... Hell. It's oddly like an almost citrusy taste to it. Not quite like lemon. It reminds me of the lime juice you just had. Slimes all the way down! Sorry.

This is where he gets his drink. He shoves his hand in there and comes out of the cup. Ah! It's hard to describe, but it has that acidic taste to it. You glance over and you see these two very faint blue lights that are drifting. Oh no, no, no, no.

Getting bigger and bigger in your direction. Turbo. You're going to get eaten. I'm going to try to just go to the, to pull myself at the yarn and just try to start. Frog hands? Yeah, frog hands. Yeah, frog hands. Good old frog hands.

All right, you pull, you pull. Let's roll her in, roll her in, roll her in. And I'm using my back, Liz. You're kicking, you're kicking. The slack's coming faster, and you start pulling totter and totter. The two blue lights get larger and larger. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

And larger. Fearne?, no, no, no, no, no, no. And larger. Fearne? Does it still feel taut? You manage to catch up to the slack and you pull and pull and pull before she comes out of it. Ugh! What'd you see? As you pull her out and you say this,

what did you see? The gentle trickle of water that's been coming out of it suddenly increases in pressure for a second. It begins to pour out from this opening with a much stronger current for a moment before returning back to its general slow trickle. What was that? Okay, probably not that direction.

Okay, I'll turn back. Boy, that was very weird. It just, I think that would have gone on forever. I saw, it kind of turned a little blue, and there were shadows and maybe some land masses. Land masses in the water? Was it water? Was it all water? I don't know. And then I think there was a creature in there

with big eyes, and I think it was maybe trying to eat me. Oh. So that's when I hurried back. Yeah, I don't know if that's where we need to go. But it sure was interesting. Exciting diversion on the way. It was.

Did you hear me in your head at all? No, did you talk to me? I did, so that's definitely not okay. What did that? It'll just last you for forever. Where would I have gone? I don't know. I would've been in the belly of a big beast.

Oh my god. Oh my goodness. Forever, and I would have made a little home in there. Wow. You would have just lived a frog life. I'm glad you're here. Okay, well, I don't think that helped us at all. Well, we learned something. We learned that this fountain is really wild.

If we ever need to really get rid of something. Foomp! Gone. That's a great idea. Well, that's a good idea. Chetney did not join the others. He's still over by the tree that Orym was in. He's just petting it, caressing it.

If we ever need to get rid of Chetney. Tell me your secrets. Can I smell anything on the tree? Make a perception check. Of a bay or blah blah blah variety? From my hunter's bay. Damn. Ah, 19.

19. I thought he was going to get up there with her. It smells, and you being a person that enjoys the smells of fresh tree, wood, bark, you can definitely tell from the scent, were it not living and given enough time to ripen, it would be a fine piece of carving wood. But still just a tree.

But as you do take a moment to take in the smell and caress the tree you hear over your shoulder, I leave you alone? Oh, sorry, I was somewhere else. Right, I'm going to go ahead and return to my abode. Tell the others it's been a pleasure, and I'll be ready to show you all the telescope this evening. This guy just wants to shove a frog in a fountain.

We look like fucking idiots. He's just been standing there like, okay. Didn't see him throwing a frog into a fountain. He didn't know what was going on there, but we know. I'm sure they know. Trust us, we're professionals. Yeah. Oh, my beauty.

He wanders off back to his home. He's found a dimensional portal. What the fuck has he done today? So the attackers probably ran off into the swamp, right? That's what I would assume. That's due south, yeah? The swamp? Correct.

Really, any direction will eventually get you there. This garden appears to be somewhat central to the hill. So walk far enough in any direction, it's almost even to find the swamp point anywhere, but to the far east and far south will get you closest to just the open swamp area of the Heartmoor. They also, from my experience, appeared out of nowhere, so it stands to reason

they might be able to disappear to nowhere as well. That's true. When they attacked where you're from, there was no ability that they had. Did anybody afterwards have trouble remembering them or have trouble remembering any details about them? Well, I was right there and I remember it like it was yesterday, so no.

Okay. Just ensuring that maybe Estani didn't get his mind altered in some way in dealing with them. He seemed so straightforward that I didn't check. Seems genuine. They appeared out of nowhere. When they were felled, they just melted away into nothing. Left us with nothing.

And now we are at another dead end. Shit. Maybe the next step is to head to the Omen archive and see what the twins were in search of. I don't know if they were targeted because of that research or because of what they had. I mean, if the attackers took their belongings, then it feels like something they had with them

is what drew the attack. Yeah, were they poking at something that somebody didn't want poked at? Why would they have attacked your people, though? Does your voice of the Tempest, does she deal with anything celestial? The phases of the moon in any way? I mean, you have the tattoo on your arm.

Did the Arishari study the moons? I mean, your first question, that's a little above my pay grade. This is personal. Oh, all right. No, I mean, she preoccupied herself with everything around our home, but if she had a focus there, she didn't share with me.

You said they were transporting something? Or they were trying to make when your people were attacked? No, they appeared in the heart of our home. Our seat of power. And it was, it didn't last a minute. It didn't last half a minute.

Did they just appear? They came down out of a very large tree. Maybe they can travel through plants. I've heard of people being able to do that. Yep. Seems weird. That seems so cool. That's interesting. Yeah, because they keep falling out of trees.

They keep snatching, grabbing. Well, I had a theory. The reason I was asking about her is because what if they're trying to attack people that are Ruidus-born or something? Hmm, interesting. I mean, I don't know if that's anything, but. Until there's only one left?

Mm-hmm. Maybe there can only be one. Yes. You are high. That tree had some serious pollen in it. Wow. Oh. Oh, I can see.

Oh yeah, it turned your tongue red. Yeah. The open archive, that was in Eos? Yeah, the city of Eos. Where is that? Do we know? It's not on the map. I wouldn't know the map. It's further off. That is much further south.

It's in the realm of, or it's in the center of Aeshenador, specifically in the Gloomed Jungles of Aeshenador. The Gloom? The Gloomed Jungles of Aeshenador. It is on the southeastern side of the continent of Marquet. On the opposite side, essentially, of Marquet is the O'Deeran Wilds,

and you have to pass through the Hellcatch Valley to get there. Hey, Shenador. All right, so before we come back and look through the telescope, is there anything else we need to do about town? For instance, do we need to plan for a heist? Do we need to get heist gear?

I would know. Is the heist tomorrow or the day after tomorrow? Tomorrow night. Tomorrow night. So we definitely got to fit out their numbers. So half of them need to die, right? Before. Are they going to be heisting at the same time?

I guess so, right? I think so. Are we going to be in a versus match? Who can get to the item the fastest? I think so. What if we get to the back door and they're there? Do we need to? I think there's a starting line.

We're taking something. We're taking something. We're going to be stealing something. But we don't know what it is yet. We don't know the layout of the space. The other team is definitely Hutchins, the ones we met on the road, right? For sure. Yeah, I think so.

And so, oh, okay, so there was Hutchins, who seemed... seemed shifty. Silver Dragonborn. The roguish type, maybe. Yep. Teyana? I don't know, I wonder what their deal was. And then there was that Fearless. That Fearbolg.

Oh, and then the Tabaxi. There was a Katari. Katari. A goblin, a furbowl. But we also don't, like, the one who did the talking, Hutchin, might be the leader, or maybe not at all. Maybe she's just there like, you know.

The face? Fake speaker, yeah. Maybe somebody else. Like you are for us, Chetney. You know, the face. Oh my god. What a privilege. You're imagining this as just a pollen.

I got to step it up more. I've just been sitting back. Okay, I'll take the front seat. Your interests are safe with. Do we need rope? Do we have rope? I have some rope. I have rope.

Do we have pittons? Pattons? Mittons? Poutons? Pattons? I don't know what they're called. Poutons? Spikes that go in walls.

Pitons? What do they do? No, I grew up calling them pittons, they're not pittons. Poutons. What are they? They're really pittons? I think they're just pittons. Willow Shade Oil? I think, I don't remember.

I know, every time. I can't remember for sure. It's wrecking my brain. Let's just stay consistent. Wall knife, it's a wall can't remember for sure. It's wrecked my brain. Let's just stay consistent. Wall knife, it's a wall knife. Keytons. Do we need leather gloves for like, so we don't lose and leave any fingerprints behind?

We literally know we're going to be there. Yeah, it's not hiding our identity. We could stop for a selfie. Do you not peel the skin off your fingers? That's what the lime juice, if you just soak it. Every night you do it. Do we need flashbangs? Do we need? Flashbangs would be interesting.

Like the darkness potion, the healing potion. We should see what stars are in this. Yeah, let's just do a quick sweep. Plus we have to get limes. Yeah, we totally forgot about that. You did that. Did you just do that? No, someone did that.

Is there a place around that might have some sort of magical goodies and? Glancing around, and getting an overview of the town, not too far from you, back in Eaton Square. Place bets? Hearts. No, fuck you!

What'd you say, Toph? I said heart. Bet on heart. I got two bucks on luch. It's the first thing that died in me, so I figured. Places that catch your attention. There's a place referred to as Moskabel Wares. Ooh, Moskabel. Which looks to be a general all-around store

for tools, materials, and what the average traveler and person who lives here might need. There is also a place called Not Forgotten, which is looking more like an antique knickknack place. I'm going to go there. Kind of old, kitschy. And there's a place called Witherbow Medicines, which is more of an apothecary.

Oh, cute. Oh my god, I love this town! Seriously, Laudna, let's move here after everything. Sorry. It's not forgotten. It was Witherbound what now? Witherbound Medicine. Witherbound?

Witherbow. Witherbow Medicines. Witherbow Medicines. Not forgotten. With a K. Two Ts. bow. Medicines. Not forgotten. With a K. Hmm? Two Ts. K and two Ts? Not forgotten. They also sell knitting supplies.

That's... How can I not read my writing? That sounds like one of those places. This place is great! Must cobble. I love it. Squirt. You got it. It's like a swampy San Diego. So what are we looking for?

Potions? Gear? Who's going to the thrifty place? Let's just do three in a row. We don't need to split up. Let's just do, we'll have to split up the conversation anyway. We just do all three at once.

Three shopping scenes? Sure, just, only one of these is clearly going to be a shopping thing. I think the other two are just going to be. Trying to spare Matt here. I think there's only one shopping scene in here. I think the other two are just. Is your guys' game to play?

It's not a big town, I think. I'm going to the general store. Who's coming with? Which one is that? Moskobble Square. Same, I'm coming. A wash-cobble. I heard wash-cobble.

Moskobble. Get your bucket. Open your ears. We'll burn through that one first, then we'll get to the interesting shit. All right, Fearne and I are going to the general store. Who's going to Not Forgotten? Me. Me.

Who else? Okay. Why are we splitting up? I'll go to Witherbound. I don't know why. Who's going to Witherbound? It changes nothing. I'm going to Witherbound, too. I'll go to Moscow. This just means you can't buy anything in two stores.

It's fine. It'll be great. It's going to be great. It's going to be great. I don't know what's happening. All right. Let's go to McGivner. Speed round, speed round. Who should I make contact with?

What? You're going to the general store? I am, yeah. I'm going to keep contact with you, Laudna, in case there's anything cool at the general store. All right. And I'll let you know if I see anything nice that you might like at the antique store.

All right, yes. If they have sticky boots, I want boots. That let me walk on the walls. Ooh, that would be so, you'd be able to creep out so many people. I know! All right, I'll keep an eye out. That would be so cool you'd be able to creep out so many people. I know! All right, I'll keep an eye out. That would be so cool.

I want them so bad, I've only heard of them. No, I get it. We're Kinky Boots. Kinky Boots. So, Moskava wears. Who else is going? Raise your hand. I think that was, nope. I said Witherbound.

Okay. So three of you approach. You find a fairly well-worn, but dependable-looking general store. Almost a woodsy barn-type exterior. It's just a large, detailed warehouse space. When you walk in, it looks to be just rows and rows of all manner of tools and materials,

construction and repair materials. You can see what looks to be fishing goods and just all things that the average denizen of this village might need to keep up with. There are a handful of folks wandering around and collecting things and looking it over. You do see a tall, broad, big smile, dark brown skin, gentleman with very short hair and a cocked eyebrow

looks to you as you walk in and goes, Hi, can I help you? SAM and LAURA:" Damn, I missed him." Hello, we're new in town. We seek supplies. First of all, the Moskable Inn. What's the one thing that this store is known for? The one thing?

The one thing. Top three, whatever you're passionate. Oh. We're definitely known for our potting materials. There is all manner of interest in Parting materials? Potting materials. The earth here is very rich and very ready to bring anything you want to plant to life. And so we cultivate the finest of earthen,

pottery, all manner of foods and liquids that can be utilized to bring the finest of vegetation to vibrant life. We've got tools, we've got trowels, we've got rakes. Whatever you want, we got them. That is so cool. It's your comic fantasy. Do you have fishing materials?

Do you have a spool of fishing line? Yes, yes, we do. We got all types of fishing line. We got fishing poles, we got fishing hooks, we got bobbers, we got sinkers, we got magnets. I don't know why everybody wants those. It never quite worked well for me, but we got all kinds of fishing line. We got fishing poles, we got fishing hooks, we got bobbers, we got sinkers, we got magnets. I don't know why anybody wants those. It never quite worked well for me, but we got all kinds of things for you that could work.

Yeah. New age fish. We're going to catch whatever the fuck you saw. Okay. Can I get a spool of fishing line, a few hooks, and magnets, because you just happen to have, let's say, three magnets. How many magnets do you have? Are they strong magnets?

Pulls a shelf out from behind. I got seven. That could be a magnet for each of us. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Maybe we should all have magnets. Four magnets! Four magnets. So we're getting waste.

You hear a clack, clack, clack, clack. Fishing mini game in every video. They're like smooth ball bearings, but they're a little bit flat on different sides. They have a rounded look to them, but they do have two flat edges and they're all stuck together. You can see it tries to pull them apart and like,

you'll figure it out. Are we also getting a rod? Do you want to get a rod? Small spool or big spool? Big spool! Biggest you have. Big spool. All righty.

Nice, big, thick cylinder. Because also, what weight is this? Weight? Gauge. How much can it hold before it snaps? Just buy it. It's fishing line. I'll take it.

I appreciate your question. Laudna, in your head, you hear, Limes. Oh! Limes. We got limes. You've got limes? A couple of weird folks here really into limes keep ordering it.

All right, yeah, let me get it for you. Wait, a lot of people order limes? There's a handful here. What? Why is that odd? I don't know. Limes are delicious. How handful here. What? Why is that odd? I don't know. Limes are delicious. How many limes do you have? Like three baskets full.

This is the new chair. Did the fascination with limes begin recently? Are these important? It's an onset condition. It's the strangest thing. Limes normally don't grow here, but these past few months, there's just been. Shut the fuck up. No, they're just limes.

They grow on the north bank of the bog. But I thought you said, while here, this is something. I thought it might have to do with Rudis. Insight check! As if the lime tree was planted under Rudis. Was the lime tree planted under Rudis? Limes of Destiny.

Yes, in Catha, in the sky. What do you want from me? Do you want to buy limes or not? Can I have half dozen hooks? Yes. Half dozen hooks, all right. And a dozen limes. Hooks.

A dozen limes. We'll get that for you right now. Do you have little fly, little, what are those things called? Actually, I feel like I have that in my collection. We can make lures. Oh, I have a few fishing flies. Do you have any first aid kits, health potions,

anything of the mending variety? I know there's a medicine store, but we want to give them competition, right? Yeah, I don't really do much in the way of potions, per se, but as far as a healer's kit, yeah, we've got a few of those on stock, if you want one of those. I'd take a healer's kit. yeah, we've got a few of those on stack. If you want one of those. Yeah, I'd take a healer's kit.

All right, put that in the pouch there. And a rod. Fishing rod, all right. We can throw that in there, sure, sure, sure. And a bag of ball bearings. And a bag of ball bearings. You're just always going to have ball bearings. I know!

They're the best thing in D&D. All right. So we got all this here. You may not like bandits, y'all. There's a lot of useful shit you just bought. Yeah. Yeah, it's great. I'm very impressed. Ooh, ooh, what about like, um. Climbing equipment?

Sure, yeah, sure. Do you have climbing equipment? Harnesses? We got that. Steadicams? Pitons? What about like, glass cutters? Shit. I'm trying to get niche.

You know, because we're artisans. We make mosaic windows. He's a master crafter. An MC, if you will. The lost art. Look at his hands. Make a persuasion check. I don't see Chetney.

Do I get assistance because Chetney? No. Fuck. Well. You're a corpse. Mm! Mm-hmm! Persuasion, you say? Yeah, I'metney? No. Fuck. Well, imagine. You're a corpse. Mm! Mm! Persuasion, you say? Yeah, you're a corpse. 21.

Nice, he goes, No, I don't carry glass covers. Fuck! Dino. That's a specialist tool. It's not really a general sales thing, and generally the purview of burglars and thieves, so. What? What?

Scoundrels. I'm not making an assumption, I'm just saying that's why we don't carry them. Terrible. That's all it is. Yeah, man. All right. You can do anything. Oh, yeah, Climac was like,

. All right, so all this, all in. Yep. Climac equipment, four magnets, fishing spool, six hooks, 12 limes, healer's kit, and ball bearings. The healer's kit. Boop! Bad guy.

Boop! Say all in, 10 gold. Boop! Done. All right. I got it. I can pitch in, too. How about five and five? Have to do it. You should let Chetney give her it all.

You hear in your head. He's been paying so much here recently. I have. I have. I have. Have you? Have you? Do you want to pay?

He doesn't know. I mean, no, I'm pretty sure he can do it. Anything else you require? Are you happy with your haul here? Anything else we need? Do you have weapons? We have small end utility knives and such, but... Wait, were we supposed to get gloves?

Were we? No, FCG was talking about it. We have gloves if you need them. What is FCG going to do with gloves? Sure, like leather gloves or other? Yeah, work gloves, sure. Yeah, we'll take two pairs of work gloves. All right, that's four silver.

Fair enough. You got it. With his feet. Work gloves, there you go. Throws them on the stack. Got it, okay. I think we're good. Yeah, are the gloves free? You know, like you buy a tin gold

worth of supplies and you get free work gloves? No, they're four silver. You just pay for it. Oh shit. Do you have any stuff that you keep behind the counter for special, special customers? Yeah, anybody put down a deposit and hasn't come back on that big ticket item in a while? We paid for it.

You were going to say that? You want the shovel? The shovel? An want the shovel? The shovel? An enchanted shovel? It's just a shovel. Oh. Do we need a shovel? I don't know. How much is it?

It's three silver. I don't know, it looks like it's got some damage on it. Jesus. We don't need it. I don't know, it looks like it's got some damage on it. We don't need it. We don't need it. Why do I want the shovel? I know! I don't care. Here's your shovel.

We have a shovel. Yeah! I'm just carrying a shovel. I'm exactly not. Add that to the carriage art. I'm so much. Just Fearne with a shovel from here on out in the campaign.

I'm going to go back to the potting materials another time. I'm sure they're sublimene with a shovel from here on out in the campaign. The iconic materials, another time. I'm sure they're sublime. Wait, no, Liv. Laudna wanted the shovel. Maybe you can put the little yarn through it and wear it like a little, like a guitar. I'll do an engraving on the head. It'll be legit.

Put my name on it. Like. It's like those shitty little baseball bat presents you get your kids with their name carved into it. Global Slugger, baby! Okay. I have one of those. Let's go meet up with the others.

Hey, kid! Oh, we did? We get his name? Oh, what's your name? Ify. Ify Moskabel. Ify? Ify Moskabel. Oh, of the Moskabel tool. Nice to meet you. How are you doing? I'm not there, but yes.

Yes. Mysterious voice in the air seemed to recognize me. Pleasure meeting you. If you see other able-bodied groups coming through, be sure to overcharge them and be rude. Okay, thanks! Other gloves, Escanog glass cutters, don't do anything untoward, and he gives a wink.

Artisans! All right. And who all's going to Witherbow Medicine? Witherbow is us. All righty. Now, this is a little out of the way. It's not quite in the center of the Eaton Square. Witherbow is us. All righty. Now, this is a little out of the way. It's not quite in the center of the Eton Square.

This is around the northeastern side of the square. It's nestled between two homes. There's an alley that leads to the back, and in the alley, you can see, decorated, there are all these long pieces of rope that are hanging with laundry thrown over them. Some of the laundry looks like it's been forgotten there and it's turning to green.

Elements of moss and vine have taken root in some of it and adds this weird little section of almost forgotten swamp jungle that is overtaking the laundry cords. You head towards the back of this. jungle that is overtaking the laundry cords. You head towards the back of this. You have to push through some of the scattered hanging strips of material, and you can see there is a shack,

legitimately just a straight shack that is built about 10, 15 feet into this alley. And on the front, you see the wooden sign that's a little crooked on one side that says Witherbound Medicines. There is no window, there's just a door. As you approach and push the door open on the inside, it is a very simple shack.

There appears to be two stools set in the front. There is a counter. There is a door behind it that itself is closed. You can see there, asleep, there is an older woman with a deep, deep red skin, a bright graying hair with streaks of black that still exist in it, and these curled horns that turn upward and forward.

This tiefling woman in what looks to be a relatively simple-looking blouse, just mid-nap. Excuse me. Hello? Sorry. Ah, sorry. No, I'm sorry. I was just catching up on some sleep. Well, that's fine.

Everything feels better after a good stasis, right? Of course, yes. Fine, everything feels better after a good stasis, right? Of course, yes. I take it you are to buy. What are you looking for? Well, numerous things. I'm here to ask for a friend. She's having an issue. She looks like she might be cursed.

I don't know if you have anything, if you know anyone, or if you have anything that could help someone. Oh, I have something that could help you, yes. What is it? Wait here just a moment. She turns around with this shifting speed that you're like, whoa, she's immediately awake.

Rushes to the back door, closes it behind and leaves you both. Okay, before you spend a whole bunch of money on this. I don't have any. Oh, I don't have any either. Oh, cool. I don't carry money. I mean, I have a little bit.

We'll jump off that bridge when we get to it. Sure, sure, sure. You know what I was going to say? I was going to say, I mean, I have a little bit. We'll jump off that bridge when we get to it. Sure, sure, sure. What were you going to say? I was going to say, I actually think I can help Imogen myself, so let's not break the bank on it. Okay. But we'll see what they got. Maybe she went to get glass cutters. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Maybe.

What else do we need here before she gets back? So we can present a united front. Oh shit. The door opens. She returns and places this squat glass vial shaped in this oblong egg-almost design with a very thin spout top that just flares out slightly. It's tied in leather around the neck of the bottle and the leather itself straps along the bottom into four different places.

You can see it has a somewhat tattered burlap-type material that is underneath the rope right around the base that just shreds as it coats the top of the bottle. The inside, it has this deep green-brown brackish opaque liquid that, as she swirls it before sitting on the table, it maintains the swirl and these odd textures and colors on the inside. This here is an enchanted remedy

that itself, when imbibed by an individual who has a minor curse, per se, it would absolve their body of this dark magic's influence. How much is that? Inside check. Make an inside check. Oh boy. Nope.

Where's inside? It's gone. Oh, nine. Nine. It's gone. It's hard to tell. She seems like she's definitely running a business. How much would it run? How much would it cost if we were going to purchase? Well, these materials are quite rare to bring together.

This would be about 150 gold pieces. That seems like a terribly reasonable price. We're also interested in items that, other sorts of potions or concoctions that might confuse or distract or obscure. Refresh. Or refresh, I mean, we have a couple of those already,

I think, but. I don't have anything like that. You can have mine if you want. But anyway. I'm just thinking about the task at hand. We might want to smoke and mirror a little bit. Sure. You mentioned you're getting blue for the night.

I let them blend in with the moonlight, anyway. Some of the things you inquire about, I just recently sold out of, but let me look. They got here. Oh, they came here fucking first! Asshole! Shoot. Do not worry, we have fishing rods.

We got the fish mark. Sorry, I just sold all my fishing rods, Hutchin. All of our lines. We have plums. Oh, this is the worst joke so far. God. She returns and says, I do have at my disposal two such

bottles of refreshing healing enchantment, if that's what you're inquiring about. Those look like things I've used before? They do. The coloration's a little different, but you definitely can see a similar consistency that reminds you of the healing potions that you've utilized in your past history.

I'd be the easiest person to swindle. Is that real, though? Not pointing at these two. Is this real? Do you know? I can, I can, I can, I'll look. I'll just look and see if these look like healing potions I've seen before, Matthew.

Yeah, go ahead and make an investigation or a mana check. Can I guide myself? Yes. Okay, go ahead. And the other one, the thing Brimogen. Sure, I'll just look at all of them. Is that three different rolls? What is that?

Well, so you're looking at that one. I'm going to look at the healing potions first. Oh my lord. What am I rolling? So high. Investigation or Arcana, your choice. Oh god. Oh wait, what does it say? Advantage. Why does it say advantage?

It says advantage on intelligence checks made to reveal information about an object that you can see. Yep. Oh. So you have advantage on that. Whoa, that's amazing! 17 plus six. Okay. Oh no, 17.

I read that wrong. 17 minus one. It's only 16. Okay. These do appear to be healing potions, one of which appears to be of the baseline variety and one that is a slightly greater variety. Okay. These do appear to be healing potions, one of which appears to be of the baseline variety and one that is a slightly greater variety. Okay. These are real.

What about that one? Okay, I'll look at that one, too. The other one, the first one that she brought out. Okay. Guidance. Advantage. I'd like to think you say this out loud. 20. 20. Guidance.

That is an elixir of Remove Curse. Okay. It does indeed remove a curse. She's legit. 100 at the goal. I got about 40. We went shopping with no money. Well, we located it. But you think that you could, I'm sorry, excuse us for one moment.

You think that you can do power? I actually think that I can handle Imogen. She and I have a special bond, and I just feel like. I could tell right away. Yeah, I just feel like we can, I feel like I'll be able to take care of her. And if not, we'll come back here tomorrow when we are rich from our heist.

Can I leave a seven silver deposit on this one. Oh boy. Just to hold it for 24 hours. This is on the remove curse point? Yes. Certainly, I can hold that for you, yes. That's silly. Take one platinum.

We need that. We need that. Big jump. That's a deposit. What is your name? You said Seven Silver before, seemed to be working just fine. What is your name?

Orym. Orym. This is amazing. For the next turn. Let me give you more. Understood. I don't want to lose it. I understand, but as I've said,

I'm pretty sure I can take care of this. I do have one more of these. Pulls forward this wrapped leather pouch. It looks like it's tightly bound. It almost looks like a small pillow. It's a slightly square, but soft, glance, leather wrapped with a strap around it. And she picks it up,

it has a bit of a giver squish to it. This is known as a Tanglefoot Bag. Ah. Last one we have. That sounds good. How much is that? This would be 30 gold pieces. Is it? This one, I think we could actually use it.

It can trip people up who are in pursuit, or possibly, last one you have. Did a bunch of those just get scooped up? A few of them, yes. Good to know anyway. Mm-hmm. In the foot bag? Bag, yeah. How do you use it?

Oh, you remove this top leather portion and then throw it. Okay. With enough force that the contents of the bag spill outward. They themselves expand rather rapidly and create a very sticky substance within the vicinity. Okay, okay. Do we want to buy them?

It's going to be like a robber race. We're going to be running against them. They're trying to get away with the stuff. It can muck up their adventure. This was 30. Indeed. You sure you can handle Imogen? I'm going to say 100%.

That's a 50%. I'll just put down two more platinum and I'll buy the Tanglefoot bag instead. Very well. Instead of the deposit? Yeah. Very well. Our friend who was here before, Hutchin. Right.

Can you tell us, so we don't double buy, can you tell us what she purchased? Is that she, right? She? Yep. Make a deception check. Come on. I believe in you. All right, we'll assist. You'll assist? deception check. Come on. I believe in you. I will assist. You'll assist?

Yeah, I'm smiling. How do you assist? I'm smiling. You assist by smiling. Come on, come on! Look at this. Look at his smile. Sure. Oh, 20. You assist by smiling. 20. I don just a by-slide. 20. I don't recall this name.

Silver Dragonborn. Yes, yes, no. I spoke with your friend earlier. What did you? Well, we all split up on our shopping mission today, and I don't want to double buy something that she already purchased, so can you just inventory me real quick

what she got here? She turns looking at one of the previous pages. Amazing! So there was three Tanglefoot bags. There were two smoke bombs. Two smoke bombs. There was a handful of potions of healing much like these before you.

Smoke bombs, that's so much. There was one, the only one I had, of a vial of gaseous form. Oh! That's so smart! So they can go in small places. Thank you so much for your help and for helping our friends earlier.

I hope you showed them as good customer services as you showed us today. They were quite delightful. Yeah, thank you so much. Your name again was? Oh, my name is Tima. Tima? Yes. I am the proprietor of the Withered Boughs.

Well, hey, why don't you go back to your nap? Because I think we're all done here. Thank you so much. I shall. Thank you very much. And for the final Tangled Footbag. Not forgotten. Okay.

Not forgotten. I have so little money, but this'll be funny. All righty. Aw. Is there anything else people were doing? Oh yes, we were going to Not Forgotten. You were going to Not Forgotten, okay. Oh yeah, you forgot as well.

You trickled us, this is what happened. Okay, and that's just the two of you? Yes. Mm-hmm. Okay, so you head into what is a very quaint-looking older homestead here. It looks like it was a house that's been retrofitted now to be essentially an antique and knick-knack store. The front door, the roof itself has

beautiful wood scrolling designs. It has the Victorian roof detailing on the outside. It very much resembles the grandma cabin you would rent in Big Bear. It is very sweet. Upon stepping inside, it is cluttered as fuck. The shelves are filled front to back with all sort of tiny little carved wooden shapes and people. You can see little porcelain designs.

You can see tiny dollhouse furniture. It is very much a knick-knack antique store. To the very back, you see... I mean, it is empty. There is nobody else in this establishment. In a rocking chair to the back of the chamber, you can see, in the process of knitting themselves, an older dwarf woman with sun-sc of knitting themselves, an older dwarf woman

with sun-scarred skin. You can see where the sun damage across the forehead and nose. Beyond that, just tan from a life outdoors. Simple clothing. Her hair, a deep, deep brown with streaks of white across the sides. She has this long chin tuft of matching hair

that itself is braided down. You can see occasionally as she's knitting, she has to knock it out of the way because it keeps getting stuck in her knit before she looks up. Oh, hello. Can I help you? Yes.

And I'm going to open my mind and just hear her thoughts as they come in. Her thoughts are, Well, this is quaint. I ain't seen anyone come in here in quite some time. It's very good to see some faces. Don't recognize them, though. You wish to go deeper?

Not just yet. We are new to town. We're new to town. And we're just wondering, you know, this shop just seems so fabulous and wonderful. Just so much stuff, and so much of it's so unique. Oh, most of it's handmade. Really?

Yeah, yeah. Now, a lot of this, it looks like maybe it was previously owned, some of it? Or was this all made by you? Some of it was previously owned and was brought back when the folks didn't need it anymore. Some of it was friends of mine. Some of it's just things I carried along with me

through the years, and one day it'll find a home. Have you ever procured anything or had anything returned that was enchanted? Oh, I mean, many of these pieces are enchanting, most definitely. Anything special comes to mind? Oh, yes. Depends on what kind of stuff you're looking for.

Do you want bright decor? Do you like cherub and childlike designs? Are you thinking of... Oh, my God. Specifically, you know, soldiers and toys for the little boys? Are you looking for candle holders? Actually, toys, that's very interesting.

You see, we have friends that, well, we like to play practical jokes. We're very, very big into practical jokes. We like just poking each other on occasion, something funny. And they also were new into town. We all came into town together and we're looking for something particularly unusual that sometimes something that startles,

surprises, is interesting. Something to catch them unawares, maybe. Maybe one of these little clown dolls would do it. Yeah, they pop out of, I mean, it looks like it used to pop out of the, no, that doesn't work anymore. I'm going to put that. If you want one of these specific clowns,

I can do that, yeah. Well, do you have anything that... Magical in nature, maybe. Super surprising. Unusual, very old. Certainly. There's a piece in particular that was designed by my trainer before me, who's quite the master of toy making himself. Let me just remember.

What was his name? Oh, his name was Oatgar. Oatgar. Is that true? Sorry. Yeah. Oatgar or Oakgar? Oatgar. Yeah, Oatgar or Oakgar? Oatgar.

Yeah. O-L-T-G-A-R. It's like Starbucks, just go for it. Yeah. Come on. I'm going to be honest, he was a cutthroat little dick who almost ruined my business. Oh! I just picked up and left out, went to Superior Haven.

Yeah, here's what I do. But his work was good, to say the least. Well, I'm always excited. Places like this, everything is interesting, but there's always something very special. You want some spooky? Yeah! Mess me up.

Okay. All right. So there were six of these that I had commissioned, but there was one that was left behind, and it's particularly creepy. Oh, that fucker. Goes back and opens a box and pulls it out. You see this marionette that she draws out.

It's hanging a limp in her arms. It's maybe about tip of feet to top of head, about a foot and a half, almost two feet long. It has this harlequin look to it, but the porcelain face is featureless, just white, except for these wide, eyelidless eyes that look straight forward. The bells shake. Ching, ching, ching, ching, ching, ching.

She would fucking die. Oh my gosh. I mean. She pulls it forward. Oh my gosh. I mean. She pulls it forward and that limps to the side. How much is that? Oh, well, I'm trying to get rid of it for some time. I'll be happy to part with it for five silver. I love, yeah.

It's on the table. Got any other? Is that magic in any way? That's just... Oh, I certainly hope not. We'll name her Annabelle. Oh my god. Wow.

Thank you. I mean, this is great. I'm amazed. Do you have anything else that's interesting in this way? Either spooky or... Just cradle her in my arm facing the door. That's upsetting. Perfect, wonderfully upsetting practical joke material,

like something that makes noise, something that flashes, makes light, or like a, you know, a person in the back. Oh yeah, what about a jack-in-the-box, maybe? Like a delayed sort of situation? I could back-pop on something like that. Got music boxes, we got some jack- the Who's-It sort of circumstances. I can look into it. Hold on.

She gets up and walks over to one of the shelves. There's something so delightfully disturbing about just glancing over and seeing Liam just intently sucking on his ring pop and staring at me. Look out your window tonight. No. So I have this club night.

How you doing? Three floors up. You must be very tall. You scared me. All right. Comes back with this dark, stained, wooden music box. Looks very simple. She goes ahead and you can see there's a little metallic crank on the side. Then lets it go and slowly begins to open. You hear this ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. As it slowly opens up, you can see the metallic gears and inner workings of the music box. There's this smaller, almost obsidian box lid on the inside, and it opens up and opens up and opens up, the music plays, plays, and the music stops.

It leaps out. Fucking worked. The lid pops, and you see emerging from it what looks to be a large, almost cartoonish, after you get past the adrenaline burst, almost like a devil face with these large curved horns that curve outward into the sides,

these brightly painted eyes, one's a little bit off to the right, and it emerges on a spring and shakes for a second there. That's lovely. I'm just, that's amazing. I bet that would really do the job. Oh, that's great.

That's great. I think we'll take that. This'll be a gold piece. I'm just happy to get rid of this stuff that nobody else here buys. You got some real end up in taste, I got to say. All right. You have an amazing collection here. It's truly spectacular.

Thank you. Tell your friends. Oh. What is your name again? Oh, sorry, my name is Zadro. Adro? Zadro. Zadro, sorry about that. Zadro Icklin. It's absolute bloody pleasure. This is great.

Is there anything truly magical in your possession that you know of? Oh, you mean like a magical? Yeah. Yeah. Not really, my purview, sorry. I need to make toys. Or a little dangerous. A little dangerous.

Our friends are tough, so we occasionally show up with a hammer, sometimes to bid a bid a. Oh, oh, do you have anything specifically wood chiseled? Oh yeah. Most of these things are wood chiseled. Oh. That's how I made a lot of these things. That's how that marionette I gave you, I chiseled myself.

Oh. Genius. I can't wait to show it to Chetney. I bet he'll really enjoy it. Dangerous to bring a bell on anything? Dangerous? Oh, yeah. I am listening to her thoughts, so on the dangerous thing, do I hear anything? I mean, surface thoughts?

She's going through like, dangerous, well, you know, if you drop some of these things, they're going to break. That'll cut your foot off if you step on it. Yeah, we're good. Oh, some jacks. Do you have any of those classic jacks games with the ball? Oh yeah, no, we got some of those.

One of them is, actually, that's a little dangerous now that you point it out. Yeah, yeah, let me get that for you. She goes into the toy box over here and moves alongside some of these stuffed animal elements and then pulls out a box of spiky metal toy bits. Oh man, I love a choking hazard. All right.

That's a silver piece for those there. Silver piece and, oh, that's two silver pieces. You're magical. Oh, thank you. Oh, thank you. We'll be back. That was amazing. Yeah, I do have someone that I think will really enjoy meeting you.

Okay. See you later. I love I do have someone that I think will really enjoy meeting me. Okay. See you later. I love this place. Take care. Score. Score. All right. Now that you've all done your odd bits of shopping here.

I'm sorry, Matt. No, I apologize. I got a plan. This is silly shit, man. Catch some fish. That was amazing, though. Is there a botanist in town, though? So one of the people that only does eBay?

All right, so you all gather up at the tavern where you had set your rooms, I assume, unless you had another place you'd prefer to meet up. Yeah, that's great. All right, what else would you like to plan before the day is yours? It is starting to get close to sunset, now that you guys have gotten into your shoes. So you have about. Gather. All right. What else would you like to plan before the day is yours? It is starting to get close to sunset. Now that you guys have gotten to your shins. So you have about. Gather up and go.

Yes. Go look through the telescopy? I'm so excited. Me too. Maybe we can grab a quick bite to eat. A little bite. We are going by the Soddengrange Inn. Might not hurt to know where our competitors are staying

in relation to us. Well, they said that she probably would, they wouldn't stay at the Sodden Grange Inn when we asked about it in the... Mm. I think they did say that. Mm-hmm. We asked about Yvonne Hedroga.

Yeah, I think that's, Yvonne Hedroga is one of the people in the group or something. No, she hired the group. Yeah. I think that's, Yvonne Hedroga is one of the people in the group or something. No, she hired the group. Yeah. But they're probably staying with her. Yvonne Hedroga actually is the owner of the museum that you met. Oh, I'm sorry, I'm thinking of

Isha Sabanis? Isha Sabanis? Yes, that's the one who hired them. Yes, that's the competitor burglar. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh. So we haven't actually asked about the group. No. We just asked about her. We asked about her, but I assume they're staying with her.

You don't know. I don't know. Maybe she's not very kind. All right, you want to ask the front desk? Sure. Do it. Hey! Go ahead. All right, and Dobby turns. Here goes our face. Greetings!

Some of our friends may have come through here. Silver Dragonborn, tall female firbolg. Yeah, well, no. No? Male goblin, a male. Katari, no hair. Barry. Don't think I've seen those folks come through here. It's all right.

Silver Dragonborn, though? No? Insight check. Make an insight check. 17. No, more than that. Jesus, 19. 19. Oh boy.

Oh, it's not paid. They got paid. You've got the marionette? He got, he found his insight check stat very easily on DMD Beyond, is all I'm saying. Which you did not do earlier. Which you lost your insight. Jax, man.

But I was looking at D&D Beyond either way. Oh. Oh, we're going to go like, I understand. So you're just here. It's going to be great. So many people that come through a place like this. You know, I was wondering,

do you know of anywhere that we might be able to find some food and I'll slide a gold across the top of the desk? I sure that we might be able to find some food and I'll slide a gold across the top of the desk? I sure would like to be able to find our friends. Needed a copper. I think you might be mistaken. I haven't seen anyone like that. Oh.

Oh, I'm, oh! Butterfingers! I'll just take this back. Thank you. Thank you for your help so much. It is appreciated. Ta- for your help so much. It is appreciated. Ta-ta! Follow me.

They're staying in this fucking place. They're staying here. He's hiding something. Oh, we should really stop. Which is it? I mean, they're definitely here? Yeah, I mean, he was being shady. I don't know why, but do you know what that means? We got to clear all of these rooms from the dead of night and kill everybody inside.

Okay. It's your only way to be sure. Tech thought on Dobby. On Dobby? Okay. You catch the surface thoughts of Dobby's brain are more, are not, nothing to worry, more just like, oh, I'm going to decide there's some

competitive forces around here. Well, it paid me well enough to keep it alone. Go ask again. Go ask again. Why? Because I'm reading his thoughts, or chat. Oh, and if I ask again, that'll do it? Or do I have to? I might be able to hear his answer.

Oh, okay. Oh, sorry, just one more thing. I need to leave something for our friend, that beautiful silver. You haven't seen them yet, but I'd like to leave a package with you if that's all right. And that way you can just, if you happen to see it,

you can make sure they get it. I can hold onto something, yeah. There's a silver dragonborn, a hairless Qatari, a goblin, and a firbolg. Just picture them in your dome. Why? Chet, ask what room they're in. He said they're not staying here.

How do you know? You hear in your head, not out loud, by the way. If you were to give four hypothetical rooms away, what vacancies might you have this evening? If you were to give four hypothetical rooms away, what vacancies might you have this evening? I apologize. I'm not at liberty to discuss other people who choose to stay here. May or may not choose to stay here.

Am I hearing anything in his thoughts as Chet is just You get the sense of, there's a little bit of frustration in the mind. No. And a hint of, this guy is not getting the hint. All you see, there's no specifics, just like, why is this guy so interested? This is probably exactly why they don't want to be found.

Okay. How we doing? It's not working. You can push deeper if you want. Well, no. I see I'm making you uncomfortable. I have that effect. Guns.

Thank you, have a nice day. He just says guns. Nothing cooler. Gives you a nod, gestures with the pipe, and doesn't seem offended by anything, but more just holding his ground. Maybe I should go ask. Maybe.

Yeah, he wasn't going to give anything up. It's weird, though, when you asked about it, he didn't even think about their room number. That's weird. I know, right? Usually when you bring it up, people are like, Oh, I shouldn't tell him room five. You're like, don't say the number that's in my head. Don't say five.

It's almost like mind reading is not an easy out for every information you can find. Sure. We're either going to have to be on our guard. You said that to me. Heavily defend our position. Your conscience. Or stay somewhere else. That's what I'd do.

You know, open them up in the middle of the night. Well, we should protect ourselves at night, for sure, in case they come looking for us. We should also sniff around the hotel, just in case. But for now, we need to go look through a telescope. Hey. Dobby, sir. Oh boy, she's still on it.

Well, I just want to make sure, obviously, other people that are, may or may not be staying around this area, have asked to not be found. That's a given. That's not an uncommon thing around these parts. But did anybody come sniffing around asking about us? Not particularly.

Oh. Not particularly? No, no one asked any questions about someone like you. All right. No, no one asked any questions about someone like you. All right. Well, maybe you should keep your mouth shut about us. Would you catch my drift? Give him a gold pocket. Make an intimidation check.

Or you're just going to do it. I'll just intimidate. I'll try that first. You might catch these hands. Oh no. Mm-mm. Mm-mm. No! Mm-mm. Mm-mm. Uh, five.

I pull out a piece of gold. I'm just going to put this, slide it right across to you, right in front of you. Looks at it, looks back at you, takes another puff. I sweeten the deal with a lime. Those are, I mean, you know those are hard to come by here.

Make a persuasion check. Me? Yeah. I give the lime, not the gold. Guidance. Guidance? Nope. No, I have it. Oh, you have Guidance? I have Guidance. You're a cleric? Guidance? gold. Guidance. Guidance? No, I have it. Oh, you have Guidance? I have Guidance. You're a cleric? Guidance? I have Guidance.

Amazing! Okay, great. What do I, is that a d4? What do I got? You got a d4. Sure, you add a d4. D4, you add a d4. That's your Guidance. Oh, wait, what am I doing? Persuasion? Send, eh, 21. Ooh! 22.

I suppose we might have found lime. I know. It's even ripe right now. You can have it juicy. Awesome damage. What the fuck are you doing? Scoops the coal and the lime over the table. Juicy. Awesome damage. What the fuck did I do? Scoops the cold and the lime over the table. Show them all the lime.

I didn't see anything. Oh, we didn't go. Yes. All right, so we're going to look through a telescope? Yeah. Do all of us need to go for that? Only if you want to. I don't think you want to miss. You want to do something else?

I mean, it's a telescope. How fucking exciting can it be? I spent seven years of my life thinking that Red Moon was made of cheese. I'm very excited about this. Cool, you could all report back. I'm going to keep a lookout. Hey, Chet. Yeah?

There is a store here where Ashton and I went. It's a toy shop. Now, we thought it was an antique shop, but it is a store here where Ashton and I went. It's a toy shop. Now, we thought it was an antique shop, but it is a toy store. The woman there whittles her own wooden toys. She's a whittler. And I'm just going to reach over to you here, Fearne. And.

Wait, did you finish this? I think she might have killed a man. It's a used ring pop and some Fritos. In a bag of Fritos? pop and some Fritos. And some old Fritos. Weirdly, in character, it's in there. How discreet. It's very firm.

I just want to try to touch it. I'm just going to have a couple licks. Yeah. Ooh, it's salty. From the pretense. You guys know I'll eat anything. Yeah, you should check her out. I just- Remove the competition? Well, no, I'm not saying kill her, Chetney.

I'm saying you might have a lot in common with her. Maybe you can discuss, I don't know, technique. What was the name of the store? Not Forgotten. And you said they were hand-chiseled? Yeah. I'll be sure to stop by. Shh, all right.

Be careful, she could find you an old murderer. Don't kill her, Chet. Why would I kill her? I don't know. Why'd you go dark? I don't know. I'll pay a visit. It's so ominous. But I'm going to keep an eye out. My post up on the roof, find a way to skivel up,

and then just keep an eye out. So if anybody's coming or going, I can clack them like a hawk. From the toy store? No, from the inn. So you're not going to the toy store? I don't know. You don't need to know my itinerary.

What I need to do will be quick. All right, well, when you're done. Can't even look at you. There could be any number of things. You don't know me. Which could there be? We're going to go to a fucking telescope! I want to see a cheese moon.

Okay. I finish going to the trash. Definitely a trash panda. There you go, yeah. Gather a few fun things in your pocket you think you can save for later. We depart. You head back over to Blue Herald's Ridge,

to the outside of the Mosslight Manor, where there, waiting for you, is Professor Ro Astani once more. Come on in. Seems the time is right to show you what I wanted to. I think you'll be quite interested to see it. He leads you inside. The sun at this point has now been set

for the better part of an hour or so, and the night sky begins to release the hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of stars above. There you see Catha itself still moving from one side of the sky, and the red, round Ru ruidous, still visible across the way, itself slowly arcing over time, takes you back to the observatory chamber

and leads you atop the uppermost platform. He gets underneath and does some tweaks, shifts over and grabs and turns a large ratchet. You see it shift a little bit with this heavy screeching. Stops, goes and checks it again, makes some more tweaks. You see it shift a little more closer there. Perfect.

Who would like to look? I'll go first. No one, oh, unless somebody. No, no, no, go. look? I'll go first. No one, oh, unless somebody. No, no, no, go. Okay, I'm doing it. Okay. What? I don't actually know how this works.

Where do you? Make a perception check. That's a 15. 15. He lands through, and you can see now, it's framed a little bit to the right, but you can see the round visage of Ruidus. You've seen it in the sky, but here you can see

there's a whole manner of unique textures across it. Brighter lines, darker lines. It almost seems to have this soft, reddish glow to it that you've noticed in the sky, but now you can see bands and differences. There is topography to it. You can see it looks almost like crevices and almost like mountain ranges across it.

It's something more than just a colored sphere. It's something more than just a colored sphere. It's quite beautiful. This is completely amazing. Okay. Yeah, yeah, you all need to do this. This is crazy. Do you mind? Good luck.

Make a perception check. Oh, I'll guide you. Yep. Come on, motherfucker! I'll help her by smiling. I say, shit! I say, shit all. I say seven. You say seven.

You look through it, and it's hard for you to focus your eyes a bit on it. You can see it. How is through it, and it's hard for you to focus your eyes a bit on it. You can see it. How is my glasses? Hold on. Now she has canonically glasses. She's given into the fan art. I just proved it. The sheer force of fandom has...

You wear glasses! He's laughing! What are those? What are those? Is it glasses? Huh? Is it glasses? Sure. Why not? No, I don't know.

I don't know. TD. TD Glass. TD. TD. She needs glasses, apparently. Yes, she needs, yes. That makes so much sense, actually. Maybe I could buy them somewhere.

Anyway. I hear all these thoughts, but I can't see shit. Yeah. It's hard to focus into it, and there's an impatience to you, especially given the driving thread of notes and answers and weird. Eyes start watering up.

It makes it harder to. He looks back through again and is like, I need to adjust it a little more. Takes it there. He's having a hard time focusing. Can somebody with keener eyes, then maybe I? I have some pretty keen eyes. Wow.

Yeah. A little perception check. Oh, Guidance. Natural one. Oh my god. Come on. It's starting to lose. You can see that burn. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

Look, see? Guidance. Do I guide you? No, I'm putting it on myself. You can do it yourself all the time? I don't know. Yeah, you can do it all the time. Yeah. I can? Okay. Ooh.

Ah! What am I getting? Okay, one of this. I've had a religious experience. I don't know about the rest of you. Don't you roll with advantage anything you can see? 15. 15. That is for something else. Okay, you glean the same details

that Ashton begins to pick up, but it's about this time that the clouds begin to settle into the night. Wait, wait, wait, Imogen, I got it in the spot. Can you look one more time? Right here, because I got it just right. Let Orym take a look. Orym should take a look.

It's so important to him. I don't even have to bend down. The right height. I'm going to reroll my natural one. What the fuck? So the best one, this is perception? Correct. 19. Oh, that's pretty good.

That's better. 19. Could have guided me. Guidance. Too late. Too late, too late. And this is the last shot before the clouds begin to overtake the sky. But you peer through and you give some verbal cues

to Estani as he begins to shift it and shift it until it gets to just the right point and the focus hits. And you can see the same textures. Something else catches your attention. And there's a brief moment where you instinctually inhale. And the first thing you think is,

she should see this. Looking over where he had placed it, you see what he had seen. And across some of these details and striations and mountain ranges, it's challenging to understand, because some of it seems almost like it's shifting or moving, what you thought were static shapes, there's movement to it, and you realize there's storms.

There's clouds, red clouds, and the occasional flash. And that's where we're going to break. Oh! My hair was... Back here in a few minutes. We'll see you here shortly. Thank you for listening to Critical Role. To dive deeper into the lore and characters of the campaign, check out Foresighted Dive, our monthly talk show that features a roundtable discussion

between four guests with a host chosen by rolling the dice. Foresighted Dive features questions curated by our production team, evergreen fan-submitted questions pulled from the Tower of Inquiry, and plenty of hijinks and party games as well. Watch Foresighted Dive the first Tuesday of every month at 7pm Pacific on twitch.tv slash criticalrole and youtube.com slash criticalrole with the VOD available on YouTube the very next day. And of course, each episode releases right here on the Critical Role Podcast Network

one week after the initial broadcast. There'll be plenty more to dive into later, but for right now, let's get back to the adventure. Welcome back. So, having all headed into the observatory, taking a moment to gather around the telescope, Orym catches something odd and unique to his eye and draws in Imogen. Glancing in, you see a sight that triggers a familiarity within you.

And it kills Travis. Oh no. Going to find a Werther's. That's worse than choking on a chip. Yeah, I think this is just a chip. That's literally what I did. Need some new case? You all right there, buddy? I choked on my spit!

Yeah. Aw, this is why we rehearse so much, because it gets this level of... Yeah, I'm glad we're back from break right when we are. D&D Beyond. Does it, I mean, it looks like what I see? It's reminiscent in some ways, yeah. Different, but reminiscent.

So am I dreaming about the moon? Am I dreaming about... I don't understand. Are you saying this out loud? Yeah. It's quite beautiful, isn't it? I back away from the telescope, as far as I can get, actually.

And it was just fading out of sight, right? That was the last lucky he started to shift at. I go over to Imogen. Are you all right? I see it so often. I didn't believe it actually existed. You know what I mean? Like, to see it when I'm awake is, um... I don't know what it means.

Well, you said in your dream you're always... at your farm, at the ranch. Yeah. But the sky... And then the storm comes in. And I... Why does my mother tell me to run from it? Why did I see Bertrand in it?

Why did I mother tell me to run from it? Why did I see Bertrand in it? Why did I see the twins? As Donnie mentioned earlier, that it has beliefs that it can grant powers of prophecy. What if it is open in some kind of... Rift into another plane? What if these people aren't actually passing on? What if they're just somewhere else? Why is my mother telling me to run from it?

Perhaps. Perhaps she's in it. She's in the storm? I don't know. She just knows that it's to be avoided. What if she's trapped? What if she doesn't want you to suffer her fate? I'm just spitballing here, by the way.

I have no one. Do you know anything about the studies that they did on people? The studies? The essay. The essay. The essay, the essay. The professor that, why am I, I'm sorry. The professor that,

Thank you, yeah. Yeah, that she was talking about earlier. Are we referring to Khadija Samal you mentioned earlier? Yes. I hoped her work was after my time. If this is the same study that you mentioned, something that the Loomis twins mentioned,

there was continued research in that direction, but we never got around to discussing it specifically. The day that they passed, they mentioned that they had found something important. They wanted to talk to me about it. That was when they were taken from us. Did they have, I know we were talking about this before,

but did they have their bags on them when you started the walk? They did. Okay, so it was taken, and it's gone. Speaking above the table, we struck out on finding notes from the Loomis twins at their estate. Just seems to be no records of their notes, correct?

Correct. All right. Cleaned out. Did you happen to speak with anyone about the Loomis twins? Ever? Speak with anyone about the Loomis twins? Ever? Not beyond. Not really, no, I had no reason to.

No one really talks to me beyond them. The few contacts that I do keep from my older days in academia, I just sort of keep keeping contact with them individually. I have no specific reason to. I was hoping one day, if they were interested in publishing something, I would be able to vouch for them and introduce them to some individuals,

but I believe they had already begun to make a few journeys to Eos themselves. To be perfectly honest, I felt my utility to them getting a bit unnecessary until they came to me, wanting to discuss this omen archive that they were seeking. So they made several trips already, or at least a few. They'd been there once before, at least, yes.

Imogen, you said you never knew your mother. Did you ever, I mean, obviously you met her at least once, but when you were very young, were you with her or you don't know? You just don't know. I don't know. Because dreams oftentimes are manifestations of things that you're stressed about or worried about in the future or hopeful for,

but they can also be repressed memories or things that you had been told as a very young child that you didn't understand and sort of tucked away somewhere in there. I don't know, maybe this is something that was shared with you, shown to you, something that, an experience that you had as a very young child that you didn't even remember having

and it's bubbling back up? Not that it actually happened, but maybe it represents something that happened. That's a great theory. I don't know how I would find out. I mean, short of going back and forcing my father to tell me. I mean, you know, he...

He just avoided the subject so much. And I don't think I... I ever realized how important it was until I was with you. And if you asked him and you told him how important it was to you now, you don't think he would help? I could try sending him a message. I don't think he wants to see me. I don't... I don't think he wants to see me.

Who wouldn't want to see you? Somebody that doesn't like having their thoughts read. Hmm. Well, maybe we could go talk to that professor. I would love that. I mean, I do think, not just for my sake, I think the city of Eos might be a place to... Yeah, it's the next stop.

Potentially. I mean, it's such a far destination, it seems. Yes, but whatever this is, it was overseas as well. That's true. It's not local to here. It was overseas as well. That's true. It's not local to here. I don't understand it, but we're nudging at something big that we can't see yet, except you, maybe, in glimpses. What was the professor's name again?

Professor Nios? Nios? No, in the city of Eos? Yeah. It's Professor Khadija Sumal. Khadija Sumal. At the Aedanian Cemetery? Did I write that down right? Aedinlan. Aedinlan.

Yeah. Aedinlan Cemetery. Yes, Aedinlan. That is what I wrote, and I just read it wrong. That's okay. You know, as Stani was also saying, there's a lot of beliefs around people who were rudest born and

their importance to history. I always said you're quite capable. We don't even know that that's true for me. I can't deny the similarities, though. Yeah. Maybe you're going to change the world. I think she already has. Charities, though. Yeah. Maybe you're going to change the world. I think she already has. Certainly changed ours.

We all are wonderful. Well, thank you for letting us look through your scope. If you want, I can give you some of, I carry some grease with me. If you want, I can put it on some of those squeakier gears to make them a little less creaky. Oh, that would be delightful. Thank you so much. I appreciate it.

Go spread a couple splooges on each. I think that's how you measure grease. A couple splooges. A couple degrees. Four splooges is more, I think that's how you measure grease? That's the term. A couple splooges. A splooge of grease. Ah, four splooges is more than enough, thank you. A can of splooge. Mm-hmm.

It's amazing that the Vy'est can see so far and it's so lucky that, you know, Brutus is facing us, too, you know? How do you mean? Well, you know, it's just a flat disk, right? Yeah. It just happens to be facing right at us. Poor, add adult creation.

In time, maybe you'll learn. Well, this guy. Do you think my hand and my head are on the same plane right now? Or right next to each other? I can see in three dimensions. Okay. I have parallax.

It's just a death perception issue this whole time. That moon is definitely round. Yeah, it's a circle, all right, yeah. You can see it. It's not flat. I think your programming is... Perhaps that's something Milo could update. Oh my god, that'd be wonderful.

We'll put it on a list. All right. Long, long list. Have I ever noticed, I mean, I don't think I would've ever thought about it, but a correlation between where Ruidus is in the sky in conjunction with my dreams, does that... Hmm.

Do you keep a journal? Nope. Make a history check for me. Make a moon check. Oh, Guidance! Oh, that's a work out. Can I guide her to think silently? Yeah, especially if I haven't spoken.

I wonder. Clunk-a-lonk. Nice. 19. 19, very good. I mean, you don't have a photo memory of every single time you've had one of these bad dreams, but they definitely seem to... They seem to come more often

at certain times of the year and then diminish in almost a six-month cycle, which definitely seems to correlate with the six-month orbit. Oh. What? And it is ascending. Oh no.

So they're going to get stronger? At least more frequent. Honestly? We should keep a dream journal. I can't believe we haven't. We should. What about that? There were a few notes that I made last time, but detailed dream journal.

Yeah. I'll help you, it'll be great. Thanks. Estani. Hey. Can I ask, would it be possible to reposition this to look at Catha? Oh, yes, of course.

I could use somebody's help here. Yep, all right. This is what I'm good for. Come on. All right. It is a heavy amount of cranking as the entire device has to shift around. It gets stuck almost at certain points, and you can see. There's more splooge.

The splooge is so splooge. Eventually getting it right. Those inspects, it makes a few adjustments. Slight rotation back as it overshot until resting. How do you move this thing on your own? Okay, yep. Very slowly and sometimes with the neighbor's help. All right.

Come, come, come. I'm going to look. Now, as previously, like, Rhudis maybe took up a quarter of the space you have to look at. Catha is encompassing. Fills it? It fills it entirely,

to the point where you're catching just a little bit of a sliver of starscape behind it. But it has a very clear, beautiful view of the crater-pocked, white, silver, warm, welcoming evening moon that has guided so many people at sea or land for as long as there's been life on Alexandria. I think Orym just looks for 20 or 30 seconds,

coiling, coiling. Thank you. Of course. Believe me, I understand. He looks at Piers and do it again once more and he looks through, he goes, Even as I come to the end of my life, I do believe it's been well spent.

Just thinking about it all. Anyway. I gently clap it on my shoulder, and says that, and then I float over to the group. Thank you for keeping this old, old, radsome company for the past couple of days. It's been a day. It's only been a day. I'm starting to,

starting to lose it myself a little. Well, I... Just like you, I'll say. How near-death does he look? How? Is this guy worth a roll? As in old people, here we go. Same thing, see what happens.

Honestly, I'm asking because we got to be careful, you know, us around old people. No, I mean, he's definitely geriatric, you know? That means shit. You're not terribly familiar with the health and lifespan of Unia, but he doesn't look like he's on death's door by any means,

but he's certainly up in his years. I cast Decompose on him. Oh my god! I don't know, you missed and hit yet, Niamh? No effect so far. Mm. Why do you switch shirts in the break? I was off rhythm, off cadence.

I had to catch up. What do you mean? You had to do two and one? I had the wrong week. Can I ask what the fine print says under Graden? I don't know what it says. Oh, all right. Anyway, what does your business now?

Oh, what is our business now? I think... We got to go to sleep. I'm still touched out on property inn. Oh, that's right. We got to go catch up with Chetney. I didn't come back to that. I didn't go to that telescope.

I know the moon well enough. Oh. That's right. I've managed to, because it's a one-story dwelling, so I've managed to find a climb away up and just keep a low sniper's profile over the roof and just keep track of anybody coming and going, hoping that old silver dragonborn.

Okay. Roll perception check. Yeah, it's a little beast in the stintos. When I go real stealthy, I turn it inside out. Oh, nice. Dark blue. Perception check? Yes. 13. 13, okay.

While they're out for a little bit, probably no more than an hour or so, given the time that they're going to visit, nobody catches your attention. There's not a lot of travelers in and out of the inn, necessarily. You do see one figure that leaves, and at first glance, you're like, oh shit.

But it looks to be somebody you don't recognize who's just heading off into the night, but no sign of the Silver Dragonborn or any other companions. Fair enough. Until eventually you see the rest of your compatriots begin to return. Balls! I hide. No sign of the Silver Dragonborn or any other companions. Fair enough. Until eventually you see the rest of your compatriots begin to return.

Balls! And hide. As we were leaving the Astani estate, can I just pull him aside and ask him, do you happen to have any extra of these ocular magnifying lenses lying around? I just thought maybe in the future I could make something to give me some.

Oh, that's a... We can purchase them, maybe? No, I understand. I did not build this. I am not a... Oh! I helped design it long ago, but this was constructed for me when I retired. Oh, all right.

So I don't have any extra materials. That's fine. I can find a looking glass somewhere and bust it apart or something. Okay, thank you, bye. No worries. Oh my god! I almost forgot. And I hand him an almost dozen limes.

Oh, yeah. Oh, you've just been holding them in a... I just had them in a satchel. I just, I don't know, we got so distracted by the moon. Oh my goodness, thank you so much. This is the secret to keeping my fit form. Yes. All right, yes, yes.

Lime of day. It's the longevity that catches up to you. Thank you so much. Well, have a good night. Stay safe. He wanders off happily with his lime satchel. That's what I wanted to do with all those limes. I guess we can just get to the heist.

Is there anything else we got to do? I want a heist, I want a heist. We can sleep and skip time. Time jump. Oh wait, but we should give Laudna her present. Just before we go to sleep. Although, yeah, it's probably going to hang with, yeah, it's a thing for everybody, but definitely it's, yeah. Right.

Because we're going to use it, I think. It could come in handy tomorrow. But yeah, we should show her. You got me a present? I'm going to pull it out from my... Pageantry. I don't know, my bag that I have, definitely on my person. We all have bags. Yeah. Pageantry, pageantry.

As I start to pull it out, I use my... Anticipation. My telekinesis to move its little head up to look at her. Oh! And I have it Kinesis to move its little head up to look at her. And I have it walk across the room. Over to me. Oh my god, she's beautiful. She doesn't even have a name yet, Laudna.

She has no name. I've seen you in my dreams. She shall be called Sashimi. I've seen you in my dreams. She shall be called Sashimi. Sashimi? Yes. Pate has a girlfriend. I was working on that. Oh.

Oh, Pate. Pate can get around. What do you think? He can have more than one check. Oh. He's riding mean dogs. Polypuppetry. I was going to say, polyraterous. Polypuppetous? Polymuppetous.

There you go. Come up with something for the happy couple. I make Sashimi give Laudna a hug and look up at her. Oh, she's so cute. That's amazing. Pate just tilts his head, and he looks back at me, and he looks back at Sashimi, and I look at you. Look at him. Yeah!

I'll save this for later. Thank you. What else do you have in here? It's incredible. I don't know if Patay is going to be in there. Couple things that are more or less surprises, but we could show them to you. Yeah! I come down off the roof. Before I go into bed, I'm just going to go back over

to that tree where Orym sculled up and take out my mallet and chisel, and I'll start taking off pieces of the side of the tree and stowing them away, and then I'll make my way back into the inn. Okay, okay. Some pieces of bark, some other. Some other bits. Candidates. I have an idea, I had to switch.

You went and bought the thing that was making for Eladna. I'm sorry. No, it's cool. Bought it with your own hands, didn't you? Well, it wasn't made by an emcee. How do you know? She didn't claim she was an emcee. She did say she knew an em an MC. What was his name?

Sucker. Oltgar? Oltger? Oatdicker or some such. Something like that. She said he screwed her over. Fuck that guy. Maybe all MCs are bitter old men. Why are you looking at me like that? It's late. You all right, Chidney? Did you see something?

I need to go to bed. We've also got this box. Don't you want to see the box? You got a box? We got a box. Look at that box. What does it do? I don't know. You got to turn the wheel. Start to wind it and then let it sit there.

Is it a music box? Yeah, yeah. Check this out. Does it have metal in it? It's basically going to poison my skin just from touching it. Ah! Get back! Whoa. Sorry.

I'd like it if it didn't open at all. You just did that. Yeah, well. That's very fair. Take it any way you like. Oh no! Healing work, healing work! Aw! You should just let this play out. Oh no! Healing work! Healing work!

I should have just let this play out. I wanted to see how well it worked, but fine. That was close, Laudna. Fearne, I don't know how much longer we have. Oh no. Perhaps we should... What's that? Never mind. Ghost men! I don't think we should test your heart anymore. No. You know? It's called conditioning!

It's just a lot of cardio. We got to focus. We got a heist to do! Oh god! No! My glasses went in the camera. My glasses went in the trash. Next to the rain pod. I think while everyone is yelling at each other,

Orym is clocking Laudna, walking away with this little lady hanging from little ropes, and he's just thinking of the story she told him the other night. You just see Pate's little dead rat hand just grab onto Sashimi's ass. Yeah! You see? Instant heat.

Oh no. I'll make something for the two of them. I'm going to regret this purchase. I'm not. You're not the one sleeping next to it. Nope. This head is great. Yeah, no, really, that was the big selling point.

We can use that tomorrow. Oh yeah. Kind of looks like one of my uncles. You have an uncle that looks like that? That looks like a... A little bit. And the eyes are something, I don't know. The cold, dead eyes.

Yeah, cold, dead eyes. There's a lot of cold, dead eyes going around. All right. Okay. We go to sleep. Yeah. Okay, y'all go to bed? Yes. Okay.

I'm going to tie a little bit. We're going to grab a little bit of that fishing line. No, we don't go to bed. What the fuck? What are you talking about? We've got to be on our guard. That's why we're going to tie a little fishing line. Okay.. No, we don't go to bed. What the fuck? What are you talking about? We've got to be on our guard. That's why we're going to tie a little fishing line. Okay.

Just making sure we don't. Before I go to sleep, I look out the window and look up at the moon. Okay, which one? The red one. Which window? I'm just trying to clock where it is in the sky, so I... Takes a second to look through.

The tree canopy is over in the direction of where it is, but you can see it peeking through, that dull, glowing red sphere in the sky. All right. Okay. I'm going to take shit. I'm going to take first shift. I'm going to take shit. I'm going to take shit.

First, first shit, yeah. Who wants to hold my hand? Fine. We have four rooms. Do we want to knock it down into two? Just... Might not be a bad idea. Probably.

You two will be safe. Sure. All right, I'll stay up. Okay. I'll step in the other one. I'm going to go to sleep. Okay, everyone else is going to sleep? Holding onto the purple stuff. If the doors open in, on the outside,

we'll pull a little Caleb and tie some actual fishing line. We have the fishing line, we can, yeah. On the outside, so that if they open it and try and sneak in, they'll catch it. Yeah. Good luck. We got it. Okay. So you go ahead and situate some sort of audible trap, tripwire device.

Okay. All right, you go ahead and go for the first watch. Both of you guys roll perception. Nice. Nice. 16. Six. 16, okay. At one point, you listen out because you hear some footsteps creaking down the hallway,

but they don't seem to slow and don't seem to pay mind and just move on past whatever chamber lies behind before you hear a door close towards the end of that particular hall. You feel confident at least there wasn't somebody paying some extra interest to what you were staying in. Eventually, your shift ends. Just take a next shift.

Up, up, up. All right. Good night. I'll take all I can do for you, room. Okay. So both of your perception checks, if you don't mind. Okay. It's 21. Okay.

24. Ooh! Nice. Both of you feeling pretty solid in your watches. You hear the gentle sounds of your compatriots, sleeping, maybe slightly snoring. This late in the evening, doesn't seem to be much movement, motion. It's quiet, it's calm.

You find your mind's wandering a bit at times. I'm going to stand over Imogen. Okay. Just watch her. I love this fucking review. Does she notice my hand in the pouch with the rock? With that perception roll, yes. I've got my hand in the pouch

that holds the purple stone. I'm silently watching this. Put my finger under her nose, make sure she's breathing. Fingers move like poop. Probably. I look at the stone in her pocket. Huh. Look, that's all. Okay.

Imogen. No! It got red! No, it's only pink, it's fuchsia. That's why I, no, I don't remember. The image fresh in your mind as you drift off to sleep. That final bit of odd, cold connection

with that distant entity in the night sky. You go to sleep trying so hard to think of anything but, focusing on memories, friends, even just nothing. You feel like you almost succeed, until suddenly you find yourself once more in that familiar field. You feel your stomach sink.

Your horse runs off, the wind picks up, and you almost don't want to turn and look as you hear the crackling of lightning and thunder. What do you do? What do you do? What do you want? I take a step forward. Towards the house? No. Towards the storm.

The wind is now blasting your face. Around you, you hear the storm. The wind is now blasting your face. Around you, you hear the sounds. The wind is battering you. Your eyes, you're having to squint to keep it from blinding you, but you look forward, you take a step into the storm, and as you do, it gets stronger,

colder. What do you do? Mother. Run. Why? Where are you? Run, Imogen. Run.

I don't want to run anymore. What does it feel like? Stronger, scarier. In standing where you are, the storm begins to overtake the entirety of the sky above you. You glance back now to the farmhouse, and you see it now falls under shadow. Oh no.

With semblance of a blue sky that usually was what drew you to safety is starting to fade. What do you do? Did you run? Did you run? Did you run? There's no response. Just the ever loud, deafening sound of the storm. I feel like I'm going to die. I don't know what to do anymore. I walk forward. Further into the storm.

You take another step, then another. Your eyes sting from the wind. All around you is just this landscape of endless black and red. The light begins to darken. You feel alone. And then you're not. Before you, you see a shape, a shadow, standing there.

A woman, strong, defiant. You see not a face in this outline, just a figure standing there. You see not a face in this outline, just a figure standing there. You watch as other outlines step out from behind it. Two, four, eight. Do they feel scary? Do they feel? They just stand there. The one in front, you can't even see it,

but you sense a smile, not comforting. Intent. Focused. Maliceful. Can I hear its thoughts? You try and concentrate. It's not quite a mind you're grasping for. He realizes as you reach out that there's nobody there.

This is just a vision. There's a loud crack. The storm consumes you cold and traps your body. Darkness takes your sight, your mind, and you wake up. Oh. Did you have a dream? Are you okay? I'm not dead.

Wake up, Laudna. Laudna, Laudna, she had a dream. You're not alone, either. I remove my hand from her pocket. What were you doing? No, I was just checking. I was making sure you were okay. She get anything?

No. Does she get anything? Yeah. SAM and LAURA laugh. Grab some water, bring it over. I went into the storm. You went in this time? How was it? What happened? It was terrible and cold, and there were people there, and I don't even know who they were. I couldn't tell who they were, and they were...

People. They were looking at me. Did it feel warm? Did it feel inviting? No, it didn't feel inviting. It felt... malevolent. that you're strong? That didn't feel like my mother in front of me, right? It didn't feel like my mother standing in front of me. There's an odd calm and comfort to the sound of your mother's voice and the dream that you've had over and over,

time and time again. This presence was unfamiliar. Did you hear your mother? I did, until I didn't. Until you didn't? I heard her until I was in the storm. And you couldn't see any discerning features or faces on these figures. No, it was too far to

dream me. When you dream, it's lucid. I'm in control of what I'm doing, yes. I am not in control of the environment, no. Did you feel like whoever was standing there saw you, too? Oh, they were looking at me. All of them were.

Do you know how many there were? You recall, and it was two, or it was one, and three, and five, and ten. It was like stepping out from each other. More. Similar. It was like stepping out from each other.

More. Similar. Not like the same person, but... Did it feel like one person with many presences? Kind of. It's hard to pinpoint. It all seemed like at least a uniformed cadence, a uniform presence.

What if you're dreaming of those? The shadow people, the assassins. What if she's dreaming of these people who were moon-touched? We got to get more information. I also think it's smart to be on our guard, take watch even if we're in a hotel room.

Yeah. These people seem to come out from anywhere, and I... I would murder everyone around us if anything happened to you. I could to you. I could help you. Am I very strong? Sounds fun. Well, the interesting thing is,

it seemed as if you did have a little bit of control. I've only ever run before. It seemed as if you did have a little bit of control. I've only ever run before. I think next time it happens, I think you need to explore. Yeah. How do you feel physically? Yeah. inflicting upon you in your physical form. I think I'm all right. I just don't want to sleep, that's all.

I'm going to check her markings. Kind of, I don't know. Okay. Make a medicine check or an investigation check, your choice. Okay. Can you pass me a Kleenex? Ooh.

Natural 20. Ooh. Natural 20. All right, so now what do I do? Come on. Interesting. It's extremely faint. But those markings on her skin appear to have just ever so slightly grown. Ooh.

Ever so slightly, a quarter of an inch, if. Well. This all seems normal. Yeah. I'm just kidding. They've grown a little bit. I'm sorry, I just was trying to keep you calm, and then I don't, I'm not good at that.

What do you mean they've grown? They just sit there a little bit longer. I remember last time they were by this mole. Not that I'm staring at you intently. And then they just grew a little bit more. My god, you're right. In fact, would Laudna remember if slowly over the past two, two and a half years

of being with Imogen, if they feel like they've slowly creeped up over time? Or is it just unique to this one? I'll ask you, Imogen. What do you think? Incrementally. Slow enough to the point where unless you looked for it intently, it would be too gradual to make note of it.

At least in the time that you've known her. Rings on a tree. Yeah. But as long as you've had it, you definitely know it's been a very slow, continued spread. I mean, I think it looks so cool. You know, it's like a pretty, such a pretty purple.

Maybe by the time I'm Estani's age, I'll be covered in them. Make you look very wise. I think so. Yeah. Do you... I don't know how to say this, but do you... Are you enjoying this path? Like, should we, I don't know. Do you want to?

I love certain elements of it, I do. I think more than anything, I just... I want to know why. Where it came from. And... I want to be why, where it came from. I want to be able to control it a little bit better. I just... What if it is malevolent?

What if it's coming from a very... bad place? It doesn't feel like it. It doesn't feel like it when I use... anything. It doesn't feel... wrong. Does it hurt? No? Feels... sharp.

I have one question for you. These dreams, how long have you been running from it? Since they started, which was... about a decade now. they started, which was about a decade now. 10 years.

Yeah. They've been getting stronger, you know? I mean, like, it started out just being a storm in the distance, and then it would get closer and closer and... Well, Orm looks out the window, up at the moons. Maybe running isn't the answer. Yeah. It felt like for so long that there wasn't a choice, you know? It was just a given that it happened and I would run, and then I would wake up.

It happened and I would get to safety and then I would wake up. You know? Sometimes we have to learn the same lesson over and over again before we understand we need to change our track. Yeah. I hate that you're alone in the hell. I know. I didn't have the alone in the hell. I know.

I didn't have the stone in my hand this time, did I? You didn't check the look? Sure. Have you ever gone to the house in your dream? Oh yeah, yeah. That's usually where I would run for safety. I'll figure this out. You're alone in there, but you're not alone out here.

Often find a little bit of understanding helps in easing the fear. Yeah. I mean, I don't know if this is a good thing or not, that I did something different, but I certainly would have never had the courage to do it if I wasn't with y'all. So thank you. Well, I've written everything down that we've been talking about. We're going to keep a nice

record going forward. I'll put a little date next to this. Then I can probably backtrack a little bit and fill in information before about the previous streams. Great. Maybe each time you can try to do something a little different. Yeah. It's like a choose-your-own-adventure. Yeah, maybe. I will say this, doesn't seem like there's anything we can do for you in there.

He reaches up high and taps her on the head. If anyone shows up here, have you seen these people? We'll gut them. Lick salt. I'm not there. Just kidding. Lick salt. I'm not there. Just kidding. Lick salt.

I'm going to take a little ribbon. Yes. And that lets you have some of your yarn. All right. I'm going to tie these around your wrist. Are we making friendship bracelets? Oh my goodness. Yes. So when you're in your dream,

you can look down and know that you're going to be out of it soon and you'll be back with us. That's brilliant. Okay, does that work? I love that so much, thank you. Oh. Twist the yarn a little around the red ribbon. Make a little.

Also trying to throw a little meatball. Yeah. Also trying to throw a little meatball in. You're going to. I'll show you the clip later. What time is it? Well, it's a couple hours left, right? Yeah, it's like, we'll say maybe like 3 in the morning. Fuck. They're chipped.

You should get some rest. I know it's hard, but it's probably time for my watch anyway. Watches, every night. Oh god, that's so much. No, no, it's not. Everyone here loves the fuck out of you. Fucking murder, motherfucker.

And we would be doing it anyway. We would be doing it anyway. We would be doing watches just because, so don't be stressed. All right, sweet dreams. Good night. Orym's going to turn three little circles and then curl up in a little pill bug ball in the crook of Fearne's knee.

Perfect. I will just lay there and do Third Watch with you because I can't sleep on it. Okay. I just try to ease Imogen's mind with a little burlesque routine. And I don't, there's no words. You know, I'm just emoting through a little Muppet dance.

This new tryst between sashimi and pate. Wonderful. Okay. Final watch is who? That's two. Oh, I thought. All right, let's go ahead and roll a perception check, so many plays.

20 total. Oh, no. Is that an 18, is that an 18? That's an 18. I'm useless right now. That's okay, makes sense. You're a little strapped, a little shaken up. Okay, keep proper watch. Pretty comfortable, seamless evening.

Eventually, the sun begins to come up. The morning greets you. The next day is here. Ensure to prepare whatever spells you might need for a heist, whatever you think might be viable. Speaking of, remember how I said 100% I could cure you of your blue skin?

For sure I can, but I would rather not today. Oh, you could have done that last night. No, I couldn't do it last night. Oh, because you didn't prepare. I see. Maybe tomorrow? Is that okay? Yes, of course. Okay. One more day with the blueberry?

Is that all you have? I feel like she'll blend it into the surroundings more. Maybe advantage on stealth. I think it's going to bring us luck. Do you think someone, Dorian, has a nosebleed right now and he doesn't know why? Oh, we got to tell him. Yeah. Send him a message.

All right. So, as the morning becomes day, is there anything you wished to do in advance, or do we move ahead to later in the day and then midnight for this event? Yeah, let's move ahead. Let's move ahead. I prep all my spells.

Good job. Last time. Oh shit, I should prep my spells. Aw, thank you, Cassius. We hand out all the stuff that we bought and lightly assess that we are prepped with a jack-in-the-box and some jacks and some ball bearings and stuff.

I gave out a couple yards of fishing line. Just a couple. Let's give everybody some fishing line. Smoke bombs. Some ball bearings. Potions of gaseous form. They do. They do. Who's the stealthiest here?

Isn't it Chet? Chet is stealthy. I'm a plus five. Plus five. I think the music box should go to you. What is it? Oh, it just scares people? Yeah. You place it, you can set it, you can roll it,

and then it'll just be there ready to come along. Yes, let's be real. Is it activated by movement? No, when you let it go, right? You just hit the switch. You wind it up and then release it. Do you want to use it or do you want somebody else to use it? It's good because you can place it and then back away, which is what I was thinking. If we need it, it's one of those things where if you want to draw someone to it or someone's coming to you, you can leave it and bugger out. If it was somebody else, I don't think I would use that correctly. You have to hit the switch and then it starts its thing, right? You have to be close to it?

Yeah. You know what? I can do it with telekinesis, so I can do it from a distance. Woo! Yeah, so I'll keep it. Ooh! That's fun. Woo! Better.

That's sexy. I'm into it. I'm not bringing any attack things. I'm keeping the tank of a bag. I guess I'll prepare some healing things, because I have to, right? And any... It's good to have a couple. Yeah, I've got a few.

Anything good to make us more stealthy. I have an air-smoking bottle of smoke. That's right. Oh, that's good. Just a reminder. Anything windy so that we can push fog away, anything that will cause gusts of wind. Shit like that, not me. I think Orym has a few of those.

Would you have that? It's not super strong. Well, since there's going to be foggy things and smoky things, maybe being able to gust wind could be a help. FCG, you have two of those potions, right? Healing? I have one healing potion. Oh, I thought, oh, we didn't buy those two.

We did not. Okay. But you can have it. I can reach those, they're right there. These are actually gone. How much were they? We never asked. Coppers. They had no money.

You can have mine. No. I can do it with magic. Why don't I take it? If you'd like to go buy them during the day before the event, you're welcome to. Oh yeah. Theoretically, how much would they have been?

If you wanted to go ask, it'd be 15 and 150. Dead broke. 50 and 100? Oh, we should definitely get them. 200 gold for both. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

Split it up between the party. I'll throw one more. I have zero cash. Oh my goodness. I'll take one. I got 50 gold, I can throw that. I'm just sending it on the table. Here, here, here.

I'm never going to use it for myself. Okay, Ashton. Boom. I'll take it. Yeah, so I'll put 50 into that if someone else has got 150. I got 100. I got one platinum and seven silver. I got the whole 150.

Whoa. Whoa, really? Are you so rich all the time? Because he's already a jewel thief. Because he stole all the loot and then never gave it away. Be good with your money, kids. He had so many things of platinum that he never passed out.

You've got to unrest. Well, good. All righty. Let him buy healing potions. But it's fine, because he's fine. Exactly. The sun sets, the night comes, you gather your things,

distribute your materials, and then about an hour till midnight happens, you gather your supplies and begin to trek out to the Twilight Mirror Museum. Do you have an armchair? I'm going to pass. I have a hooded lantern that I'm going to give to you just in case we all get separated.

The hooded lantern, you can aim the light. Aim and shut it up so it's not. Oh, I have Pass Without a Trace. I mean. Why? I've also got one round of Pass Without a Trace. You do? Okay. Just one. Great. You have Pass Without a Trace and Guidance,

and what else do you have in there? It's druids, man. What do you know? Let's go. Let's go, Arden. Wouldn't you like to know? All right. I mean, I would like to know. Stepping along the night street,

you approach the familiar exterior gated perimeter of the Twilight Mirror Museum. The front gates are open, and there you see standing in the front walkway of the courtyard leading to the front of the estate, you see the two guards, and there, dressed to the nines, Mr. Evon Hytroga,

and what looks to be another grouping of individuals to his left. Is that the house? Nope. And we're right. Yeah, wouldn't that be funny? We're just fucking people. We're just being animals. We're just petty druids. Funnily enough, no, it's totally them.

You step in and see the familiar faces, and as you do, they look back at you all and give a, hmm, a nod, and of all of them, Hutchin, the one you were speaking with, gives a cocked nod and a bit of a smile. Yvonne raises his hands. Ha, welcome.

It seems everybody has arrived, which means the events are at hand. He raises his hands and these sparkles start spraying magically out of his sleeves. They go about three feet. It's really not all that impressive, but it definitely lights up the vicinity. He smiles around before ending them immediately.

So, we have and would like to welcome Hexum's proxies. Oh, Bells Hells. Bells Hells. We're plotting, Carsten. Yes, we are. We are. The guards clap, the other team claps.

Bells Hells! And as the proxy for Sabanis over here, we have, and you watch as Hutchins steps forward and goes, Um, we are the, um... He looks back at the rest of the group. Let's call ourselves... They have trouble coming up with a name, too. Yeah, no, no.

I had it in my notes here. It's just where I fucking lost my place. Hold on, hold on. Ain't easy, is it? We're not the focus group. There it is. I had it in the wrong sheet. That's my problem. We are the Verdict.

Oh, that's cool. Damn it, that's cool. It sounds like a game I like. It's pretty cool. that's my problem. We are the verdict. Oh, that's cool, damn it, that's cool. Sounds like a game I like. It's pretty cool. Whatever. Whatever, they're still fucked up. Very well. Bet it took them seven weeks to figure that out.

So. Both teams may enter the abode however they say fit, but be respectful of the other wares and decor and any damage to my museum that I find unnecessary will lead to immediate forfeiture. What constitutes as unnecessary damage? Only one way to find out. Oh my god.

You are to find and acquire within my vault a simple lapis earring of the mythic djinn Harudan, the djinn who built and subsequently dissolved his modest kingdom of Taj-Najmeh at the behest of a clever beggar who entrapped his logic in an agreement that undid his nation during this Age of Arcanum. This earring is known as Wind Folly. Wind Folly?

It is sealed somewhere within the estate behind me. Sparkling magic sprays out once more behind him to accentuate the line. Do not worry. None of my defenses are fatal, I believe. You have until sunrise to bring this item to my hands. If no one manages to procure the item in question by then, the wager ends in my favor. So, any questions?

What does it look like, this lapis earring? Can you show it to us? How will we know when we find it? You'll know. All of my objects are identified, tagged, and given cute little bits of information about them. It is a museum. Sure, sure. But is it a dangly one or a pearl? It's a hoop with gold lapis gem in it. You'll know when you see it.

Gold hoop, lapis gem, got it. So not hidden on display. All of these things are on display. All right. But this is in the vault. But what? Didn't you say it was in the vault? It is an area called the vault.

Area called the vault. Museum. Figure it out! All right. Figure it out. There should be a gallery, I'm just saying. Shh. Any other questions? They can be about me.

I'm personally enjoying your mysterious nature. Oh, thank you. You're welcome. Will we expect traps down there? Oh, maybe. And I'm excited. These traps, are they designed by you yourself? They are designed by

individuals I paid quite a sum to build. Okay. Are we all going in? The front door together? Together? Yeah. Or is there different starting areas? Because it's just so awkward, yes, when you're like, you're like, oh, hello, are we going this way?

Oh, are you going the other way? It's kind of like when you say goodbye. We all go the same way. Everyone's walking. Yeah, you say bye to the same carriage. It's so, so good. No, this is all very good points, actually. How about you stand over there on that side of the road, and then you group,

stand over on that side of the road so you're not next to each other, because that's weird, as you said. Then when I clap, you go, and it's up to you to find your way. And we all just run towards the same location? Well, it depends. If you're all going in the same way. I mean, there's many ways in. Look, it's an estate. We're allowed to break things to get in? We should have scattered. If it's required.

Yeah. Where is the ring? Or the earring? Somewhere within. That's right. Go ahead. No, I was going to say, the rules of the game are we have to acquire this object

and make it out. Make it out and bring it to me here before sunrise. Do all of us have to make it out alive? No, just one of you. Just one of us, all right. And if there are accidents and people who aren't in our group get hurt. Oh yeah, are we allowed to engage with the opponent?

Just, you know. Oh, that is entirely up to you. I mean, look at them. You glance at the other group, and they're just sitting there sharpening their weapons. Okay, okay. Can we kill them more? We'll try and keep it clean.

I'll try and keep it clean. Hutching goes, We're going to keep it clean, if you even find us. Yeah, I'm so excited. Can I ask you to remind us of the layout of the building that we are looking at here? We're at the front of, how big is it again?

Was it three stories? From what you recall, it is a three-story building. The final story appears to be an extended attic. It is built like a, I guess you would say a mansion, but it has almost a palace-like aesthetic to it. It is a bit garish. Definitely stands out against the surrounding neighborhood. There are windows, they all are heavily barred.

At least from what you can see here in the front. Intentionally, it seems, you haven't been given the opportunity to make much of an assessment of the foregrounds. Part of the entry includes figuring out what you deem to be the best means to enter. Okay. It's such an opulent building.

Do you reside on the premises normally, or? I do indeed. It's fabulous. Thank you kindly. How many bedrooms does it have? I guess you'll have to find out. Well, is there an entrance we should avoid that is your personal quarters?

I doubt you'll be able to find your way in, so I think you'll be all right. I would recommend perhaps not taking the front door. It's a bit obvious, a bit garish, and my guards are right here. But I'm sure you can find other unique ways. Being very well-trained burglars, being chosen for this endeavor, is that right?

You see Hutchin gives a little bit of a bounce. Yes. We are indeed quite practiced, and I think this is all a very fine show of upfront sportsmanship. I, speaking on behalf of my team, The Verdict, am quite excited to see what you're capable of. So much.

Wait, so if we did go in the front door, the guards would not let us in? I declare that. Yes, guards do not let you in the front door, so if you wanted to go through the front door, then you'd have to find a way past the guards. That's part of the challenge. What if we got a ticket for the museum?

The museum's closed. The tickets aren't taken right now. Oh, because it's midnight. Yes. I understand. Sorry, good question, good clarification. I'm just a bit. No, no, no. Yeah, just wanted to double check.

On a normal night, do you do a midnight flashlight tour kind of thing? So that we can be. As we're talking, can I just take a look at the weaponry of some of our opponents? Make a perception check. Perception check. Guidance. 21, already 21, 23.

23. Hutchin, you see, you can't see everything beneath a cloak, but you do see what looks to be either a rapier or longsword sheath on one hip, and you see what looks to be a dagger hidden in the left boot. He rolled pretty high, actually.

You do also see what looks also see a small dangling case of crossbow bolts on the left tip. Okay. On the hairless Katari you look at, you see two short swords sheathed on each side. Okay. On the human, who is not wearing any armor. Human?

There's a human and a goblin? Yes. Oh, I didn't even have a human. There is a human. She has a massive war hammer slung over her back. No armor? Oh yeah. Bored. The goblin, you see, has actively a light crossbow tucked under one arm under the cloak.

At one point, it did peek through and you caught sight of it, and then just keeping it hidden. Okay. And the firbolg looks to have nothing, no weaponry. That's the problem. But also, the goblin, just the light crossbow

might be some sort of a mage. That sounds like a problem, too. Yeah. Okay. Cool, cool. Cool, cool, cool, cool, cool, cool, cool, cool, cool. Any other questions? I'm going to open book.

Are you seeing anyone? Immediately blushes like, oh, I'm not one to be tied down. What is the focus? Oh, no, go on. The focus of your museum is fill in the blank. Well, now that you asked, I have spent the majority of my paths

traveling all across the seas of Exandria, past the undying mists that enshrouded the Shattered Teeth. I spent most of my youth with the Wonderman Assembly, where I began my fortune. And after that, spent seven years studying under Prefect Foshai in Vasselheim, where we became great friends. I was privy to many secrets of the city's history. Insult your character.

Oh, that's low. Low. Nine. Hard. Nine. Hard to tell. Seems very forthright in the intent. I was also a close personal friend of the late Sovereign Yuriel Tal'Dorei III and the last Sovereign of Grusar

and was present on the assault of the capital that took the Sovereign's life. It was a desperately terrible event. But I have traveled the world. I have met and befriended many individuals. I have procured all manner of relics and artifacts and historical objects of great significance and import, and I keep them all somewhere in here

for the public's viewing and tonight to be interesting for you to see and dangerous for you to surpass. I'm excited to see what you can do. To the members of the Verdict, may you have a fair fight? And I invite any of you who wants to say a prayer for all of us to go ahead and do so now,

before we embark. Hutchin steps forward, hand on what looks like a sword, rests in there. Oh, that is very kind of you. Not really much the praying sword, ourselves. Cool, cool, cool, good, good, good. Good, good.

Checking to see if I'm clear. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Clear, good. Check into them, Claire. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Claire, Claire. But indeed, good luck to you as well. Are we really standing? Yes, stand over there, and you stand over there. What would you suggest be the best place that we sneak in at?

Who are you asking? I've Ivan, Yvonne. Yvonne? Yeah. No, no, that's not, you figure it out. I've got my detect thoughts up, though. I'm hoping it just bounces up in his head. Okay. I'll make it white elephant.

I will say for the surface thoughts, there is something there, but it is currently blocked with a sea of frustration and tangled organization, you get the sense that they had something, an idea of how this is going to work in a grandiose way up in their head.

You're doing great. This is a really, really impressive. It's fine, fine. Get in your spots. You can look deeper if you want. Have you ever worn the earring before? I have, actually. You have? Yes.

Like to parties and things like that? A couple of times. How fun. Is it enchanted? Maybe. You'll have to find out. And where do you keep it? You are incorrigible. Get to your place! Okay, okay.

Let's go stand on the corner, I guess. Stand on the corner. Are we all standing in different spots? Are our starting spots within visual distance of each other, the Verdict and Fells Hill? Yes, they are. They're just out on the street,

maybe 100 feet from each other. Great. Outside of the gate. You guys ready to play paintball? Which side should we go to? Oh my god. Left side, right side, front door? I'm always a fan of the gate. You guys ready to play paintball? Which side should we go to? Oh my god! Left side, right side, front door? I'm always a fan of the left. Just useful.

We too. I'm always a fan of left. All right, we go to the left. Wizard's you, the exact opposite. Should we follow them? Not useful. Maybe we just see where they go. We just lead the way. No, that's probably not a good idea.

I might be a good idea. That'll put them in front of us no matter what, though. It's an awkward pause as you all come to stand and look at each other across the way. We're going to shoot at them as we run in? Anything? What? When they say go, just blast.

They'll just blast! I mean, why not? Yeah, let's let it happen. How about table time? Get ready. How far away are the two groups? Go! And that's where we're going to end the episode tonight.

No, no, no, I want to do it too! Let's watch some shit! We're going to pick it up next time for this fucking chaos. You guys, we're going to sleep. Frozen and suspended in time like that, how far apart are the two groups, though? Like 100 feet.

They're 200 feet from each other. 100 feet, okay. So you're out in the street facing it, 100 feet from each other, catty-cornered to the outside perimeter wall. There's a little alley between the wall and the next building. We'll just see where you guys go from there.

Guys, is this the Doubledare Toys R Us run? Oh my god. Oh my god. Toys R Us run? I've always dreamed of. I wanted to do that so bad. Our whole generation. I'll be Sam Riegel as a child for a day. You fucking asshole.

Did you do that? Yeah. Sure. You guys FAO Schwartz run? Sure, I'm Sam Riegel. I went to a birthday party at FAO Schwartz as a child, and we could play with any toy in the place, sure. Yeah, didn't everybody do that? FAO Schwartz as a child and we could play with any toy in the place, sure. Yeah, didn't everybody do that? FAO Schwartz was the best.

It was a friend of mine who's a celebrity and it was closed and it was just us and we could play with any toy at FAO Schwartz. This is a normal thing that all children did. You got to be Tom Hanks at big. I had to rake my front yard for a month when I was eight so I could afford to earn the money for my Gremlins 2 NES game.

I earned my invitation to that party. Yeah! Thank you guys so much for joining us tonight. We're going to pick up on this chaos next week. We love you very much, and is it Thursday yet? Good night. Woo! We love you very much and is it Thursday yet? Good night. Thank you so much for joining us on this adventure.

To help new listeners discover the show, please give us a rating and review on whatever podcasting app you're listening on. Until next time, is it Thursday yet?