Critical Role - The Ancient Wound | Age of Umbra: Sallowlands | Episode 6 Part 1

Episode Date: August 20, 2026

Part 1   As rival factions descend into the ruins, the travelers uncover something ancient beneath the scars...   DAGGERHEART: HOPE & FEAR Explore new Daggerheart content seen in Sallowlands with the first expansion for Daggerheart! Hope & Fear comes out August 25th and features new classes (Witch, Warlock, Assassin, Brawler), transformation cards, adversaries, campaign frames, and much more. Visit https://www.daggerheart.com/pre-order to learn more, or head directly to Critical Role shops to place your pre-order! US: https://shop.critrole.com UK: https://shop.critrole.co.uk EU: https://shop.critrole.eu AU: https://shop.critrole.com.au CA: https://canada.critrole.com   AGE OF UMBRA: SALLOWLANDS A group of outcasts and survivors brave blasted lands in search of answers in Age of Umbra: Sallowlands. This 6-part Daggerheart mini-series features Game Master Matthew Mercer and players Laura Bailey, Jennifer English, Abubakar Salim, Vico Ortiz, and Zachery Renauldo. They’ll form an unlikely band of companions, who venture off the beaten path in search of answers in the Sallowlands, a new region of the Halcyon Domain filled with cracked badlands, dangers, and awe-inspiring secrets. What fragile hopes dare they cling to in this story of desperation and survival? Learn more at https://critrole.com/umbra   BEACON Curious what happens when the camera turns off after an Age of Umbra episode? Watch the Cooldown episodes with the cast discussion after each episode, exclusively on Beacon! Start your 7-day free trial today at https://beacon.tv/join and get unparalleled access to the shows you love completely ad-free! You’ll receive NEW Beacon exclusive series, instant access to VODs & podcasts, live event pre-sales, merch discounts, & a private Discord.   CREDITS See full cast and crew credits at https://critrole.com/sallowlands-credits/     Starring: Game Master Matthew Mercer | @matthewmercervo Jennifer English as Dillywin Hellekin | @jenniferjenglish Abubakar Salim as Mercy | @abubakarsalim Laura Bailey as Sister | @laurabaileyvo Zachery Renauldo as Alphonse | @zachthebold Vico Ortiz as Cagauma | @puertoricaninja   Art by: Key Art by Daniel Jiménez Villalba | @Danieljimenezvillalba Character Art by Strange House | @strange_house Sallowlands Map by Marco Bernardini Miniatures Painted by Keo Lacebal, Angela Basset, and Erik Lonnquist Main Theme Song by Omar Fadel Set Design by Shaun Ellis Set Fabrication and Production Design by Noxweiler Berf   FOLLOW CRITICAL ROLE! Website: https://www.critrole.com Newsletter: https://critrole.com/newsletter Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/criticalrole Twitter: https://twitter.com/criticalrole Instagram: https://instagram.com/critical_role TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@criticalrole   HEALTH & WELL-BEING 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 Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hello, wayward adventurers. I'm Laura Bailey, and you're listening to the podcast version of Age of Umbra Salo Lans, a daggerheart mini-series of danger, dread, as well as delight and hope in the darkness. If this is your first entry point to dagger heart, you can find tons more resources on how to play and free downloads on daggerheart.com. Plus, you can pick up the game itself and tons of accessories at friendly local game stores and critical role shops. You're listening to Part 1 of the episode right now, and part 2 will arrive this upcoming Tuesday. Want instant and add free access to this full episode? Consider becoming a Beacon member, where you can watch bonus content, like the cast discussing each episode in Critical Role Cooldown, receive Critical Role shop discounts, including On Daggerheart, and much more. Sign up now at Beacon.tv.

Now, let us return to our wayward band of Wanderers. Welcome, friends, to tonight's episode of Age of Umbra. Now, tonight is our finale of Age of Umbra Sallowlands, but it does need to be the end of your stories. Today, we released a spectacular collab zine with the amazing designer Dungeon Club called Age of Umbra Sallowlands Road to Nowhere. This 24-page zine imagines a mad Maxian convoy city of nowhere, a horrifying collection of mechanical vehicles, daisy-chained into a sprawling megastructure that races along the Sallelands in symbiosis with a colossal roadworm, an umbra-wurped monstrosity that feeds on umber-touched creatures, then slumbers where the real fun of nowhere begins.

You can find a wild racing mechanic, new NPCs to delight and horrify, new adversaries and environments, equipment, and plot hooks galore. Road to Nowhere is available free on daggerhart.com slash downloads. And if you're not done watching Daggerhart Actual Plays, check out our show with Viva LaDirtley, called Daggerhart Azurim, whose 33 episode run ends August 25th on Beacon.tv.

Now, this bite-sized show has just 30-minute episodes, so you have plenty of time to catch up and enjoy the finale. Plus, on September 1st and 8th, the cast of Evil a Dirt League will have aftershow specials where they chat about Daggerheart and the story they made with it for Beacon. Laura, you have some announcements to make. Yeah, I got you this. Our friends at Serious Dice are releasing domains of Daggerheart treasure packs. Did you know that? Inside these collectible mystery foil packs, you'll find randomized treasure. Gosh, I wish I could open one right now, with each pack including a pair of oversized rhombic

D-12s for your hope and fear, as well as two premium acrylic token sheets. Discover domain-inspired designs, rare finishes, and ultra-chaise collectibles, while upgrading your tabletop experience with stylish gameplay accessories built for every hero. Check them out at seriousdice.com slash daggerheart. And our latest official critical roll of book is available now. Seek Critical Role's Mighty Nine through the eyes of nine of their friends and foes in this latest anthology, The Mighty Nine Stories Untold. This special collection features a foreword written by Talies and Jaffe and stories by nine amazing contributors. Get it at Critical Rolebooks.com as an audiobook narrated by MSL and the rest of the cast or at your local bookseller.

Fantastic. That's great. Thank you so much, Laura. That hurt. I'm sorry. But nevertheless, I guess it's time to dive in to the finale of Age of Umbra Salolands. Hello, everyone, and welcome back to the Age of Umbra for our finale. Last we left off, this troop after being, most of you at least, dragged to Hoopro by the newly-annointed Dova, under a new faith of the new gods in this city. you were brought before their great relic, the embertoll, and offered the opportunity to join their ranks

among the transformed and changed. The majority of you managed to free yourselves from your bindings in secret, while you, Dilwyn, watched from the distant perches as the community came out, and in the midst of this, a struggle was had, a conversation was emphasized, and nearly had your own face pressed against it and joined their ranks.

But thanks to some quick thinking and a rapid escape and the most brilliant bat that ever batted, clawing away the eyes of an entire chasing military of beast folk, you managed to escape to the southern reaches of the threadbare's recently risen forest to crest the hills just in time

to watch the great mysterious city vanish once more, in a cataclysmic sound and what seemed to be an arcane sigil of such size and detail that the city found itself banished through some unknown magical means, and in its wake, a massive broken crater, the hellscar before you itself suffused with remnants of extremely potent magic and little plumes of remaining pure arthurable. Arcana, just burning across this landscape, you began to head into it as other forces, also seeing this opportunity

to seize the remaining power that seems to thrum at the center, at this open wound, this massive chasm at the center, where it seems some semblance of power remains of the city. As all of you begin charging in, racing to see who gets there first, do you learn a bit about what might have transpired, the bits and peace is coming to mind for you to debate, You successfully sprint and become the first folks there.

You clamber down into the pit below as the coloration shifts from green to purple. The boundary that seemed to be keeping this magic at bay past, and the true nature of beginning to reveal itself. Here in these darkened pits, the smell of smoke and sulfur, as well as the buzz of extremely prevalent and present raw magic, causing your head to store. swim a bit before you come upon some of the additional broken ruins of the city that once was anchored here. And amongst these ruins, a troop of demonic entities referring to themselves

as the Hecatum Legion, eager to bring you amongst them or to take you to whatever means they have. You battled these entities, fought valiantly, destroyed a relic that you were given before heading on this journey, managed to banish one of their conjured demon allies. And mercy, your companion, gave his real life to clutch the priest and drag this demonic leader to its final demise as he gives in to the fungus growing within and through his target. Rending the priest done in this tree of mushrooms

and mycelium, the remnants, remnants of its troops scatter. Two corrupted exemplars, their horned, twisted mockery armor of their previous faith, fall to their knees, screaming, clutching their face. Bowen lies on the ground bleeding out, and the rest of you, heavily wounded and wounded, processing what just transpired as we come back to the story. Deli. Oh, God. Oh, yeah. Does anyone have healing for Bowen? I don't have anything on me. I do, but I don't know where it's gone.

Mercy gave me back my sewing. Oh. Oh, I don't know. Oh. I have. Oh. Oh. Um.

Gaboma, uh, shaken up from being corrupted for a moment and seeing Mercy's last moments, um, decides to take a moment of prayer for themselves to add more hope into their momentum, if any, and in a little corner just whispers themselves. I've been so out of hope and mercy was abundant of it. May his death transfer his hope and bestowed upon me and give me the mental strength

to keep going. And OSHA, may your bravery also be bestowed upon me. And with that, I'm going to use my prayer dice, which was three and at myself three of hope,

because I've been very low on it, and look around. I think I'm ready to move on. Shall we look at Mercy's body? Sally. Dilly, dilly, wounded, limping, heads over to slowly. You've never seen Dilley move that slowly before,

heads over to Mercy's body and breaks off two ribbons of the mycelium from Mercy's body and places it like a sash over herself. That way he's always with me. and then looks and grabs stuff from his pockets. And such as the priest as well. Very well. Amongst what Mercy had, Mercy traveled light. Mercy was a relatively self-sufficient guardian

of your journey, but has upon himself two vials that he kept locked in his side pouch. If you want to pass that along. Searching the priest, there is a metallic mantle that was on the torso and shoulders that looks kind of pried open from the fungus that burst out the back of its neck and spine and looks like it could be pulled off

and it's warm to the touch even though everything around it feels cool. also has a brown viscous fluid in a vial that you kind of open the top and smell, and it smells medicinal, though it is not appetizing to look at. And affixed to the headpiece, the kind of priestly adornment that he wore on his head this like, gray, thick sackcloth wrap that rose up with a metal spine, and at the tip of it was a bright red gem.

Similar to his design to his chest place. You find this stone seems to emanate a power that could be useful. I'm going to use the golden thread and kneel down while you're searching. and heal Bowen. I'm gonna place it on Bowen. Okay. So then can clear one hip point, I believe?

Yeah, a hit point or two armor slots. All right, so we can go ahead and- Wake him up. Clear, yeah. Clear one of Bowen's head points his bone. What happened? We have survived, but only because mercy sacrificed himself.

Meanwhile, Deli's closed Mercy's eyes and is just, while you're talking, just cuddled next to Mercy's head and you just see a little tear drop through closed eyes. He was so brave, putting his life on the line so that all of us could keep going. The growth of mycelium that spread out from the priest and him. It's like a trail on the ground. Mm-hmm. When he awoke, my sisters and I were confused. The magic we used should not have sustained him. It was meant to help him pass on.

Something shifted. We called it a miracle. We didn't understand. He was beautiful. I think he's the most beautiful thing I've ever known in my heart. Known in my whole life. You hear a sound approaching from the air above. From above, like up the cliff side?

Yeah, I'll point my gun in the direction and I'll put it down. This badger comes back. Oh. Yeah. It hits the ground and takes a couple steps. Looks over. Badger, mercy's died. Kind of flies under your shoulders and kind of like

leans both wings over the side of your neck. And kind of just holds you first. you for a second. He's a big bat, so it kind of envelopes you. Badger, what happened to my family and the other people of that strange old village? Right. So, there's a whole lot of fighting up there. I didn't see them mists too strong, but all them beast folk being fighting with the knights of that tower, you'd be fighting with the Dova, maybe fighting with the Oathwell faithful,

and a bunch of nasty little buggers who are crawling out from all sides of this place. And others I don't even recognize. There's a whole lot of violence. And I guess at the very least, they shouldn't be keeping each other busy at the moment. Don't know how long. But I hope,

I hope your family knows they're not quite the warriors that the rest of the front line beasts were. Maybe they're hanging back. Some of them got to watch the homestead, right? Did he draw the legs? I look to the two Templars that are, are they still screaming? They're not screaming.

They're just like now silent on the ground with their hands over the front of their helmet, just still. It seems that when the priest was defeated, a lot of the corrupted fell or returned as well. I'm scared. Maybe can I go and touch one of them on the back and see? Bowen kind of approaches with you as well,

his eyes just wide with horror and processing. He walks forward as well as you touch one of them. It like spins around backwards. It begins to like scramble on its back, fearful, and as it does, the helmet kind of tumbles off. And you see the face of a young man, no more than maybe a handful of years older than Bowen, dirty and smudged streaks of red down the front of the face

and vacuous, fleshy sockets where eyes once were And it just goes, like, kill me, please kill me, kill me, and Bowen, she's like, Fable. I was like, kill me, kill me, kill me, and start like clawing at its armored chest, kill me, kill me, kill me, kill me,

and just keeps repeating over and over again, just muttering like this constant chant of fear and terror. Bowen kind of takes a step back, kind of hands in the air, and looks to you. I'm gonna go up and put my hands on his body, and I'm gonna look at Kagwama. He needs comfort.

And I will use my, oh, this is my last hope, my experience of dust to dust to say, that may not be the answer. You are free. You may find peace still. I approach and put my hand on your shoulder and put a gentle hand. But before I do that, I say,

Hey, I'm going to place my hand on your shoulder. I know you can't see right now, but it's going to be okay. Very gently place my hand on his shoulder and say, You are so young. There's a full life ahead of you. Be with us for a moment. We're safe. We're here.

Make a presence role. Both of us. You initiated this. Are you helping with this? Yes, I'm helping. I mean, spend the hope and it's only at the six to add, if you'd like. Three, 24 with fear. So the theobald, who's like, I liturated down high, I stumbled, I fell into darkness. It's holding the darkness. It's a whole new darkness.

It starts kind of quietly sobbing. and clutches the knees into the chest. The panic stops and it just turns into sorrow. The other figure stands up. And you hear like a soft whisper voice say, I cannot face this, I cannot face this. And like turns and you see puts hands out in a way to kind of like almost sense a direction

and then just runs to the edge of the cliff and leaps. leaps, and you all kind of pause a moment as you hear. Silence and the crushing impact of armor on armor and rock again and again. Bowler just plops down onto the ground and just kind of lost in his thoughts while the other figure is just kind of trying to comfort itself along with your comfort to it. I get closer and put my staff down and cradle, Theo, close to me. They're there. What happened here, young lad?

Whatever it is, we'll do our best to stop it. We got you. Do you wish to stay here and rest for a bit? Did you want to continue on? What are your thoughts? Is there anything that you want to do with the... Please, before we go on the rest. Yeah, before we rest, I want to approach the priest

intertwined with mercy. Mm-hmm. And can I use my death connection on the priest? To? I want to feel a memory that he had in kind of in kind of. connection with this greater, deeper power that's here. I want to see if we can figure out what it is that's below.

Sure. Sure. All these arcane sigils are connected to. Let's give it a show. It's just mark a stress and do it. All right. Then roll a hope die for me. We'll consider this a fate die roll to see how deep this.

Can I do a prayer dice just in case if that was not high enough? This would be, this is more of a fate It's narrow than a player role. Are you touching the body? Or can I be ready to see if like some kind of corruption or anything that where sister really looks like, things are getting messed up, I will rip her off. Absolutely.

I will prepare for that. Absolutely. One, two, three. Five, okay. As you connect with the fresh fungus that has taken root here, you get, you inhale and can immediately the fresh scent of mercy at first. And it's a comforting reminder of the first time he came in,

so broken, and here kind of finding an absolution and sacrifice. As your focus shifts to the priest, and the scent sours quickly into something of deep burnt charcoal and a sickly metallic smell. You see droves of red-fleshed thralls and creatures of demonic heritage, sprawling, searching, digging beneath the massive city above, hidden from the sight of their great dark master.

Scheming for something calls them below, something they want for themselves. The priest commands them to push into the rock and the dark and to tell no one, for this is theirs to find. You pull out, and you realize that whatever these demons are, they were from the city, they were not of what was from below. I do not know if the power below is, evil. Or if it is simply power, the demons wanted.

So they were just here first. Yes. What is it? Could I use my, you smell like experience? To smell if there's... Oh my God, so sorry. To smell if if the power em.

the power emanating from below is a nasty one, as an evil one. You can certainly try. I agree with that. You smell like, you smell like evil. She's pretty intuitive. Yeah, let's go for it. Go ahead and roll instinct for me

and spend that hope to add your experience to the role. That's correct. Incredible. Take that hopes, clear that stress. Power of mercy. Apparently. You just think you had to hang on the shoulders for a little bit, and then I'll run off.

That's because she's got two of his. Yeah. Yeah. You kind of trek down a little bit ahead, a couple of shelves down below, and as the winds kind of blow through, you kind of just let your sense of smell take over. You look into the light, but you unfocus your vision,

and instead just kind of let all the senses come together, predominantly the scent. And that sort of brimstone, sulfur-ish, black charcoal burning scent that has permeated each of these legionnaires of infernal origin that you just battled is far thinner, the deeper in you go.

The scent you get from there is one of broken dust, ancient decay, wet earth, and atman. atmospheric, that buzzing sensation that you all began to feel as you entered the hell scar, it's now palpable on your tongue. What was once just a vibration is now a taste. It is, for lack of a better explanation, electric.

It tastes electric. Like the sweetest nine-volt battery to the tongue. Might stop licking batteries, babe. Ever. It keeps me young. Oh, okay. That's what it is. Secret time.

I found that I read it. It works. So whatever is down below is not the source of the demonic power that these enemies that you just battled came from. They must have just survived whatever happened in the city. And we met them before they could get any lower.

I think we need to go down there. Yes. You have to take a minute to collect ourselves. There's no way. Whatever we face that's going down there if it's made it this far. It's farther than whatever we just faced. Well, maybe we can keep an eye out,

and if we hear anything coming down from above, we just end the rest and start moving. Badger will. So we can keep ahead. Badger will keep watch. Yeah. Okay, it's more of. More rest. It is.

All right, so you're taking a short rest? A rest is. Very well. Short rest. Bowen's gonna spend the short rest kind of comforting and getting water for the surviving, corrupted exemplar, who is in the process of recovery. And just kind of every now and then you catch a glance over and you see him kind of helping them drink.

And no words are expressed. It's almost like an unspoken, empathic sorrow. So you were spending one of your downtime moves for Badger to keep watch? You said it? Was that more of a narrative flare? That's a narrative flare. Okay, I'll just check.

I could spend a hope and get him to scout that is one of his experiences. Is that a possibility? You can. It won't affect the lurking darkness of the downtime. Okay.

It's an area. One of you would have to actually physically keep watches one of your moves if you want to have a comparison dice, but you don't have to. Right, right. I am not.

I'm going to try to be prepared for the next. Yeah, I think we all need to, I'm literally one hit point away from my limit. Do you have, can we see the items as well? Yes, yes, of course. Yeah, and I like, yeah, I'd quite like to keep one of them, but when you attack a vulnerable target, you can mark a stress to deal an additional 1D10 damage. I feel like you. I have no way of giving vulnerability though.

I mean, yeah, that would work. It doesn't matter, it's like any of it. Oh, yeah. If they're vulnerable, you do an extra D10. Yeah. spend a mark of stress to do it, but you can apply it to any weapon. Yeah. Okay. But I'm happy to give that on away.

Okay. And I've also got two stamina potions. Does anyone use stress to? I use stress too, but I have one already. You're doing good? Okay, I'll take that. I usually don't anyway, so don't know what's the one you're keeping? What's the one you're keeping the, you attach the stone to a weapon that doesn't already have a feature. I don't think mine has a feature, is it? Oh, here, you just does have a feature because it's the, the,

Find her with the magic. I think so. Okay, yeah, so who was this? You can attach this stone to a weapon that doesn't already have a feature. The weapon gains the following feature on a successful attack, roll an additional damage die and discard the lowest result.

This is a ring. That's great. Okay, cool. Who doesn't have a feature? Mine already does that, my staff does that. I wouldn't mind it, personally. Make it, yeah, okay. Because you usually use wholly whatever.

Yeah, the bold beacon to do stuff. Oh, well, you do have a staff to do. I do have stuff, yeah, yeah. and then the divine wielder for shenanigans. But I'm thinking now if I have this, for shenanigans, if I have this stamina potion to clear my stress, I could take watch then. Cause I could use this, clear my stress,

clear my HP and keep watch. Great. You want to do that? My armor is almost at its limit, but if I clear my HP, then I will be okay, hopefully for the first leg of this. Great, and then you can clear an additional one point of stress if you use that because you're next to me.

So whatever you roll, just add one to it. Okay, beautiful, amazing. So clearing hit points under short rest. It's 1D4 plus your tier, which is two. So you clear 1d4 plus two hit points. Oh, that's a lot. 1d4 plus two stress. 1d4 plus two armor, or you can compare for hope.

Up to you. I'm gonna grab my armor. And because I have the hope on that one. Beautiful four. That's right. Mine was a 4-2. So, one, two, one. I gained.

I'm gonna put on. Three fear. Damn. I'm completely stress-free. Oh, that's so good. I feel so refreshed. I'm going to... I use that already.

Put this mantle underneath my veil and wrap it around my shoulders. Sure. And I'm gonna put on the mantle of the shadow priest. It's just like metal shoulder plates on it. Yeah, that's sick. That's sick. So, see, sister.

Also, Bowen clears two headpoints. Great. Amazing. All right, beautiful. I am. Is he clear? There and then. He clears.

Five stress. Okay, cool. He's stress-free. Mechanically. Mechanically. If, no, no, mind. Everybody prepare for stuff and, but if there's anything armor related, no, it's mine, whatever.

I'll just have one armor left. Oh, is it two moves that we've got? You get two moves to spend, yeah. Oh, great. You can't spend them on other people if you want. Because if push comes to shove, I can reduce my damage by stressing out and getting into my shell. Lovely.

And I repair my alma, because that's looking rope. Can anybody prepare with me to get too? I can repair instead. Prepare? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And get two hope? Yeah, let's do it. All right. Fuck my alma.

Yeah, we need as much hope as we can do. Yeah. Yeah. I need it, I keep rolling with fear. Yeah. Cool. And I roll 12, right? Whenever we're ready.

I roll first. I can't think you guys at first. All right. Now you may roll yours. The higher the better? Yes. Would you roll? A six. Oh, that's the worst one you're going to get.

That's so fun. Because it's like, oh, no. No, I can't do it. I was like, can I, I don't have any tokens yet. Um, what do you think? Should we gamble on? What's the one rule? Because it's like the price is right, right?

Okay. You always pick the other door. Yeah. I do have. I don't know the signs behind it, but I think I heard that once. I'm getting clear. I choose from Matthew's face that we should take his, but maybe I'm wrong.

Maybe he's jupping. He could be. He's got a really good puppy. I come over there and I just look in your eyes. I have two more, I have two more prayer dice. I don't think you can use it on this particular thing. Got it, I don't mean, you can. If you want to,

but I can add it to a roll result for many other circumstances. Yeah, I don't. No, shoot, let's just do it. So we just choose Mets. Matt's. Yeah. Very well, I rolled an eight.

Ah, good. Excellent. Right, right, right. As you finish the remnants of your rest, and I say finish because you begin to hear the sounds of shouts at the top. The rustle of battle that has been kind of echoing and giving this continuous, almost like a low buzz

to the upper atmosphere begins to fade, meaning either combat has concluded or has paused, but you begin to hear figures talking and shouting at the edge, which means it's likely time to move. Yes, yes. Around this time, Bowen gives some materials to the knight, the fallen Theobald,

and more or less like pants his shoulder and says, regardless of what it is, see if one can help. We walk further from safety for you. So if indeed, Gerada, here's any of our prayers. Hold them close. And when you hear footfalls, cry for aid and mercy. Whatever choices we've made are on.

And he kind of walks back to the rest of you. I'm going to do one last thing before we go. And I'll essentially, I'll rip the tube off as like the blood starts to form and starts to crystallize. I haven't used it yet, but I'm going to make a lifeblood talisman. It's kind of my, like this. gem implants into my hand itself, and then whenever I can spend a hope, whenever I'm hit with two or more hit points, and use the lifeful of talisman to make it go down to one instead, but I have to spend a hit point to do it, so.

Talisman as well, but I'd just use up the hope that I prepared, but I could do it. I'm just like... That would be so useful. Yeah, because then you don't have to spend an action that neck. I mean, you could have interruption right now, but I think in the long term. I'm going to leave the one that I gave to mercy. on him. But I remove some of my little things from my satchel and make another pendant for a necklace. I'm going to give it to you, Alphonse.

Whoa. Yeah, I'll grab it. You use up your hit points pretty fast. Yeah, I do. And then what's the, how does it work? So you've got two, you can put two tokens down. Okay. And when you mark a hit point, you can take one of the tokens away and not lose that hit point.

Great. Okay. Thank you so much. Work makes the dream work. Home work. As we go down, you want to try. I do note, too, lifeblood talism in that one. If there were a combat scenario in which somebody else needed it, you could move past them and pass it off.

Yes. For both, or there's lifeblood talisman? Well, for your... Yeah, mine is just, it's just an enchanted talisman. So you can give it to... So in theory... Everyone holding it can use it. So you could, if need be, like, run the...

between each other if somebody all of a sudden is in a bad place. Yeah, great. Perfect. It's really good to know. But keeping the tokens, right? So if I use it, correct. Okay. Great. Cool. Let's get moving.

Do you want to do it now? Or should we do it when we get closer? Let's get closer. Okay, yes. Don't like the shouting. I'm happy to lead the way. Yes. I'll lead the way.

I can see, can I? You don't even have to roll for this because you are very good at climbing. As you begin to climb her down shelf after shelf, some more staircases begin to evaporate out of the stone, some other ancient structures that either predated this crater, the city's arrival, or were left behind in its wake.

But it's like coming upon elements of a ruin, predominantly buried and just exposed in sections. In some places it helps you climb down in others. It impedes and you have to find a unique way around, but you descend deeper and deeper. Occasionally when you have to stop and do the math on what's the safest route down, you all kind of focus into the hazy purple light below.

And you almost feel like blurred movement on the periphery of your eyes, like a ghost walking past from where you can see and you turn to look and there's nothing there. Kind of rub your eyes and wonder if it's just, maybe you're exhausted. Maybe there's just something to the proximity of this kind of raw energy,

but you can feel that paranoia kind of creeping up within as facets of your vision are starting to escape your control. Those odd blurs becoming more frequent. as you descend deeper and deeper. Who's leading this? You? Yeah, yeah, yeah. You leap about seven or so feet down to a rock shelf

and kind of glance at, look at everybody to show them the path down. You look back into that, and you see, amongst the haze, there is a prevalent source of this light that seems to almost pulse as you look towards it. And as it does, you feel a presence. presence, join yours in your mind, a visitor. It's hard to describe it, but it's like someone's whispering in your ear, but in your consciousness, in your imagination.

But there's no words, it's just imagery you interpret. You see pictures of a landscape, beautiful and green. verdant. You see people helping each other. You see people picking vegetation and fruit for their community. You see an ivory and red temple. And you see a figure with long black hair and red robes presiding through the people. And you feel this sense of warmth. The best you can interpret is it expresses a love for what this world was and the destiny they felt. You see people around that have fought

against the chains of oppression and thought, breaking from their servitude to a pantheon that didn't empower their own. virtues. And from that comes a brighter love, from a partner, she who lit the fire within. And you're almost in the body of this figure as you feel an embrace. And beautiful green eyes look up into yours. And a sorrow fills you before you blink in your back in this pit. Sister, it's climbing down, right? They're all starting to climb down,

and you kind of catch Dillen, kind of like staring out still over the space before they pull out with the vision. So Dilley, she recounts this to you. Sister, that vision, what I saw, it was so nice. It was almost too good to be true. I am felt. nothing like that since I met Mercy.

But I'm worried, sister, because is this the kind of thing that my family had when they got called to move and they left me there in the forest? Are they playing tricks on my brain? Based on what I know, the memories that I've seen before and being here, Do I get the impression that the priest started in a hopeful way and got corrupted

through his time, or was he actually? What you've seen communally seems forthright, seems genuine, seems devout, and is all from a singular perspective. But they were demons. It would look like people. Just a growing flock of those that stood up in the face of the veiled gods. But the people that we fought.

They were demons. But I'm so confused. The ones in the vision, they weren't. They weren't at all, sister. It's like, we were not supposed to get this far without knowing what the hell was going on in the first place. We are so deep into this. Sister, I'm confused. I believe it started with love.

I think the demons were corrupt or corrupted. Why war? Begin to piece together. These visions, these visions are far before the city came, far before the age of Umbra. This was that passage that Bowen mentioned from the inside of his scripture of the usurper in red forgotten.

Its name is strict from time. These demons you encountered, they were of the city, and just began to dig, to find something down here, something they wanted for themselves to keep from their master above. This has happened before. This is not the first time I've heard of someone taking something from the great gods, working right beneath them. But maybe if someone God takes it or uses it or destroys it? Or destroys it? If these people are looking for power, this is what the rumors are. The scripture tells what begun the age of Umbra. You triggered it.

Thank you. Because I did it. Said the thing. But really, we were. we've got to get to it before they do. Yeah. Yes. The arcane chain scriptures, is it more concentrated here?

Is it? As you progress, when you were at the top of this, you could see them all manner around, but that's from the overhead view. The deeper in you get the density of kind of the mist that obscures, the lines themselves are quite far apart, but the further in you get, the closer they begin to converge. converge, and you sense that all them do eventually converge

at a central point below. I say we continue on. I don't think we have a. Another choice. Another choice. Ongoing. Continuing downward still, the scent gets stronger. The vibration in the atmosphere causes your chest

to almost rattle at times. You can feel like the heartbeat becoming irregular at moments, just the proximity causing anxiety to spree. bike. You push down and Dillwyn, in leading this, do you look towards the core or do you avert your gaze? She's got a quite sensitive eyes. I wonder if she knows to not look at it. She liked the vision, but not enough to want to ask for more of it because she didn't like that she might be like her family. She doesn't want to be controlled by nothing.

So avert her eyes. Very well. Can I ask a question? Of course, anyone. The priest and the priestess that we fought. Yes. Yeah. I'm just trying to figure.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sorry. They were not the usurper and his. No, these are all, they were folk from the city above. That helps so much. Sorry, I didn't realize that was. I was thinking that they were them having, like, they were demonic, and those are the people we have seen.

I see. My apologies. I thought they were baddy bad. And like, okay, so this could be, they could, the usurper could have been wholesome. He could have, this might be a good thing. We're moving towards. It could be.

But what people say, it's cyclical like you speak, sister. It's, this could be the start of a new age. This could be something awful. This could be... What are they looking for? Why do they have to shy away from the gods? This is something the gods wanted to suppress. Something that could have been more powerful than even they.

Are the gods good? Gods were neither good nor bad. I think they served themselves more than anything. They abandoned us. I don't believe in him anymore. I don't believe in anything but nature. The good kind. That's what I believe in as well.

Me too. I think whatever is down there is perhaps the answer to uplifting this damned curse that's been controlling us from these damned gods and all these prophets trying to keep us separated and divided. I would like you all to make a presence reaction. for me. No, Margot's stress, do myself for a high advantage. I don't know what all this is.

Okay. 14. 14. Five. Oh, 15, sorry. Because I have the plus one, right? Yep. Yeah, 15.

What kind? Presence. 20. Oh, yeah. Action. Five. Sister and Dylan. The two of you, after having this conversation for a moment, kind of feel this tough.

to feel this tug at the edge of your mind, like an itch within the skull that turns your attention back into the core mist steeper in the pit, that glow of purple that is lighting up this interior, and you feel for you a second time, but for you the first, this other presence pushing into your mind again, like a person eager, to share a memory and a perspective,

a new friend who wants to tell you about themselves. You see a familiar sight with more clarity. You see a gathering of new faithful. You see them marching towards the city, Amber Ridge. You see them heading from this plain, this beautiful hilly plain. and you see the light that smites this land from above. You feel this presence explaining through imagery and emotion,

this punishment for its insolence, the pain and the terror of its people all screaming at once together. And it doesn't burn them. It buries them. This usurper and his people pushed together and left screaming in darkness below. And while his people pass, he cannot. Sealed and undying forever

and a lightless expanse, alone. I'm super. His fractured spirit, silently screaming in shadow, falling to a self-imposed half slumber, you hear the distant screaming of the storm of the umbra, burr, birthed in this new age. And with it came, so too did he awaken.

And felt the world as it is now. Slowly dying, and he's sad. You pull back to where you are. He felt his sadness. But what if it's lying? What if the vision's tricking us? What if he's put it in our brains to free himself? And then things get so much worse.

I don't like it. Everything is worse. The world is dying. This will at least bring change. Is this the god king? But we have nothing to lose. I start moving forward. Oh my gosh.

Oh gosh. I'm going to join. I'm going to see us. Descending further in, the like gets brighter and brighter still. Below, uncertain the distance, the source begins to take. shape, you see a perfect sphere of glowing, vibrant, violet hue. And it kind of thrums. As it thrums

all the lines of this stretching spider web-like glyph through this pit thrum with it. Connected. You can see some of the broken lines still shifting like an untethered kelp in the ocean's current reaching for something to touch. Do you open yourself to this consciousness further, or do you fight it? Oh, man. I open myself. I think I opened myself too.

I try and fight it. I'll fight it with you. I'd like you too both. Make a presence reaction real funny. Do I give myself advantage? And give myself another stress. Probably not. Probably, sure.

I'm like if there's one thing we've learned throughout everything is that, everyone's enchanted with something. This is a reaction roll? This is a reaction rule, yes. 14. No, 13. You said presents? Yes.

15. 15. Oh, do I have to do that too? I'm gonna give in. I'm gonna give in to it, yeah. All right. What's your rule? Is there?

13. A way that I can maybe, do I remember anything from the myths before, Camapedia's that I can tap into? Or should I just hold for that? It's interesting. I'll tell you this. after your, as you give me to this.

Why should I trust anything? So, Alphonse. You've been hard shaped by this age, and your will is a steel trap when you want it to be. As you force this thing from your mind, and as you shake your head, see the rest of your troop, lost in momentary reverie. Three of you.

Oh, stupid. Oh, God. You feel the return, and for some, the first. It's like being alone with a book and having the presence of a friend you haven't met yet, enter the room and smile at you. But you don't see a smile. It feels warm and inviting. From in the shadow, you feel something out there.

there, something moving. And you see shapes. You see flashes of a Searulian mountain scape and a star-filled alien sky and a familiar city emblazed upon it. Flash. You see a burning subterranean flame escape with a familiar tower Crested City. You see again shifting from world to world. This city, it is a traveler of many realms, seeking purchase from one to the next. And in the shadow, the usurper saw this as its chance.

It knows not when it screamed out between the realms to be seen if the city came for him or luck just found it here. in the Housian domain, nor how many realms this city had been before. But come here it did, and it took root here, and began to grow and expand. What he didn't expect was those who had built this city and claimed its dominion over it

were far darker than any veiled gods, a city of tyrants, and filled with guilt, Perhaps this was his mistake. If he brought them here, you see shapes of massive, twisted, incredible black church-like spires reaching up as a woman in massive, horn-black wings and a wicked-looking sight looks over her people as she wipes blood from her chin. You see a flash to a terrifying, multi-armed Leviathan-like entity

with a wicked-looking trident-like spear, its torso itself, curling octopus like limbs, as it pulls its way through a half-sunken, gorgeous temple. You see a flash to a muscled, flaming, goat-headed, horned beast with a wicked flail, smashing through its pleasure and pain followers. You see flashes of other terrible

the lords of this city and the plans they had for this town, for this world. So he had to find a way to send them back, reached out for any who would listen, who would rise, who would rebuke. And you see flashes of exemplar nights approaching. You see elements of oathwell faithful, battling their way through these terrors. You see figures that have been in this city through multiple realms stolen from theirs and now nowhere to go, but do their best to fight it from the inside.

And you see them come together for one final ritual. You see a flash of demons, of all color and shapes, different factions under different parts of the city coming to stop these wounded, ash-strewn, and exhausted heroes with what shred of sanity and light they still had, as they all gathered around the most pious of their friends. As one of them reads silently from some tome you cannot see,

they plunge their daggers together into their friend. And as they cry out with those final words, words, the citywide sigil is complete, and the banishment sends the city back into the ether and away from the Halcyon domain. The usurper left in shadow for so long now sees the faintest of purple light breaking through. His prison finally exposed and weakened.

pull back out of your vision. So is he a bad and or a good end? I don't know what to believe anymore. I don't want no leaders. I don't want no bad ends. What do we do? What the hell was that, dude? I think he's not bad.

Is there anything from my knowledge of the two years that I was here before that I can grasp on? Do I, does any of this match the rumors of the God King of Thedius? The God of King Othedias was a golden armored king that reigned from the core of Amber Reach with an entire council of grand ordnments themselves. The highest of the highest order of the veiled gods.

He usurped the god king. He usurped it. This individual seemed to be a threat to that order. So that's good. This is a good, good guy. Is it good in? He's, yeah. It's a good one.

He was just trapped for so long, right? But I'm, the god king was vanished. and that's what gave us the curse, so I'm now confused as to if this usurper is going to uplifted, or was the usurper the reason why we have the curse in the first place? Maybe we meet him and find out. I have no idea what the hell you guys are talking about.

I've been looking down in this light for a little bit. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So wait, wait. The vision we saw of the glyph happening and the city's disappearing, that was just what just happened. That's what just happened. But when you say disappearing, right, right? Did, was it destroyed or did it just go someplace else?

He went to another plane of existence. Oh, that's all right. With the airships. Right. It was a multi-dimensional city. Wouldn't mind traveling? That sounds well fun. Maybe he can send us somewhere else.

I'll be cool. Okay, so we're going to meet this usurper, and we're going to find out if He's a badener- Or not. Regardless. Great. He has fabulous hair. Let's go.

He does have great air. Damn, I wish I saw him. He just like pulls out the cow and is just like, yeah. Oh, Bowen. Well, Bowen, who's been kind of just writing the shock of everything and just kind of going through the motions of the rest of you, kind of himself, seems to have also stepped into this temporary dream. I mean, it's the only hope we've had here, right? Right? It's something new.

It is something new. And, well, I am a bit skeptical. I think it is worth a try. I mean, if we go up, we'll meet a civil war. And if we go down, we might get more answers. Come from here. Off we pop. The rushes, you can...

You hear the shouts and orders from above getting more prevalent, the sign that the chase continues. You dart down and the wall begins to settle in. The descent not quite as extreme, as you feel yourself reaching the base of the wound itself. As you come down the edges, you can see the rising bits of broken rock. Many of them kind of curved inward toward the shape of what is this large, vibrant, violet sphere.

20 feet from end to end between these curved stones, these bone-like hooks that seem to hold it in place, and all of these magical tethered lines reaching from different directions converging at its spot. It thrums and pulses, and as you all stand there to look up to it, you feel the presence push towards you once more. Do you let it in or do you resist? I'm gonna let it in.

How are you? Yes, shit. Well, actually, I guess it doesn't matter to not attempt to stop it. I would try to be the one that will attempt to stop it. Yeah. I would like you to make a presence reaction. Great. You got this.

I do not want to keep starting stress in this capacity. That is, oh, I don't think that. Oh, yeah, 11. 11, unfortunately does not succeed. Unfortunately. What do you mean, unfortunately? I mean, in the sense of what you're trying to do. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Everyone's like, wait, no, look. I'd like, I don't want it. We know, no, I don't want it. Try as you might, the proximity of the source is too strong for even your Iron Will as the vision pushes through once more. You come in at the tail end of what they've already seen. The flash of magnificence and terror that is

the City of Morning Star before you as the city-size glyphs, The size glyph itself ignites, and the city is shunted to places you cannot conceive without even your mind shattering. But now you feel this prison before you. Wordlessly you sense the emotions coming once more, this empathy and sorrow from this usurper in red. It now, with the city gone,

and its binds fall. altering, can bring its mercy and its gift to this world renewed for this age. The world is suffering, a slow agonizing end. You see all the different communities of enduring. You see the shadows slowly encroaching. You see the screeching in the distance of horrors, ever rising again, terrible beasts

that stalk the outer edges of every glimmer. of light. You see the crumbling of what relics still remain. You see the flickers of flame, trying desperately to fight against the eventual darkness. I wish to grant it peace. I can shatter the soul blight that affects all of you. I can end the curse of this umbra. And then all will find out of the final. We finally died together in beautiful repose, the end of the age of Umbra, the end of all ages. Wait.

Oh, wow. You hit me and then I was like, hold up, wait. The violet sphere blinks to a vibrant red, and you watch as a massive skeletal arm pears out and another. Oh, man. A black and red-strewned, multi-shunded, A treaded robe emerges as a head of dozens of skulls amassed pushes out as three, four, an endless series of skulls pushed through where a face once was, bits of armor peering from it. It pulls its way out of the sphere under the ground, multiple other smaller skeletal arms peering out from underneath its robes as it drags out a terrifying, incredibly large, wicked-looking,

bone-carved scythe that it sticks onto its back. As it looks all to the rest, puts it arm out. Oh, that's so cool. We will free me from this prison. I'll be right back. We just end season two with us doing the good thing, and everything's awesome. Oh, rut roo.

That was so funny. You had us until the end. You really did. Yeah, that last little bit. The old ages bit. The old age is. Listen, if we've learned any, Anything. We can't judge a book by its cover. Yes, when did we learn that?

Let me use the voice of reason. Oh, wow. Oh, my goodness. Yep, yep, yep. Whoa, are you kidding me? Oh! We have an ambiance. Oh my gosh, wait, show us the many.

Well, first off. First off. Where are you all? I don't know. Wait, where do we come from? Gracious. It's up to you guys to decide which. side you want to be entering this from. I'm letting you.

I'm not going to get on this. Over here? Okay, sure. We can be able to know from over there. Oh, God. So I say you all have begun to trek from this. This is so cool. It's stressful, but really cool. I mean, the end of all ages isn't sound too bad, don't it? I don't know, like, maybe just like scratch.

We fight. We always fight. We fight till we end. That's our group name is the end. Yeah, we really, like the end of civilization. Not you, asshole. Everyone scratch over again. As the usurper pushes out of this sphere, you watch as piles of corpses, like spill out the sides of it into these sections

around the outer edge. Piles of corpses. Piles of corpses. Sorry, I've got that on my boat. Oh my gosh. Is that the scale? Look at it. Look at the side.

Oh, my God, it has so many skulls on it. Wow. What, is it this, oh my goodness? It can never be like a, it's always gotta be like 30 feet tall. It's so big. I love something like a cute little helmet like right on top and you like tie.

Just like there. So friends. Wow. Spotlights on you. Oh! What would you like to do? Wait, we just know he's bad. We don't know he's bad.

We don't know he's bad. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, there's a reason. Because Mercy was always judged based on like that he looked scary, But he wasn't. He was wonderful. He said he would end civilization. He said he was gonna kill everyone, though. That's the only part.

I just want to know how does it look like? I will ask some questions. How do you look like? But how does the end of civilization look like and what would that mean for us? I just want to ask questions. Are you saying we're gonna die, mister? Yeah.

I'm saying you're killing everybody now? Yeah, I want to, yeah, I can do most of reason. Just like a casual, just like a little talk. He's made of bones and blades. He comes from a red or. He's still being nice and he's like getting into her head. And he's like getting into our heads being all sweet and comforting. He's not.

He's lying to you. We've been lying to this entire trip. We don't know that. We don't know that. It's been the theme. We'll go on. I'm gonna try. Let me just ask a couple more questions.

One second. A couple more. And then we fight. But like, let's just figure it out. He hasn't done anything yet. He's just getting really close. Sure, if you want to. Yeah, okay.

All right, go ahead and make a finesse roll for me to try. Just in case. I'm not gonna move. I'm just gonna be from far away. One just a- You're gonna get, you guys are gonna, okay. Sorry, you said finesse. Okay, 20, but fear.

Oh, I did, I did forget that it would actually, hopefully you don't take the spotlight. Oh, dang. You managed to shift around here to try and disappear from its sight. And you feel pretty confidently that it maybe hasn't picked up on your specific location once it pulled its presence out of your mind, it is emerged from its heathed prison

at the moment. Okay, great. Well, the spotlight's on me. Dang it. I was really hoping that you were really like, okay, sure. Okay, yeah, I didn't realize it would take this. Like, I wouldn't want to actually, if you guys wanted to ask a question, I wouldn't take the spotlight to-

It's okay. I'm following you on this one. I'm not gonna immediately tear in you guys. Okay, great. Thank you, Mr. Yistriper. I'm still taking my... I will spend a fear. I would like to have all of you make a presence reaction roll. It is that, it is so...

It's a six. Six? Is it 12? Ten. Bowen also failed. All of you feel this like, almost like a deep inhale from this orb, this strange roiling red rift. And it's going to like, you feel wind pull in and all of you get pulled close distance towards it. Except for you who are behind the rock because you had hid, you kind of like, you kind of, you feel wind pull in.

You kind of like push against the rock and keep yourself there. As Bowen gets pulled to there. Almost to the, if you can notice, there are runic lines converging on the ground. That ain't a good sign. I want to touch it. Thank you. Pulled up to the end.

Oh, why we're so close? We're all close. We're too close. Oh, pulled towards it as it just kind of turns to address you. You are now. far closer to it, and it has your attention. You have its attention. Okay, okay.

I'm gonna use voice of reason to speak with unmatched power and authority, even though I'm a little bit overwhelmed. And try to ask some questions. Roll first and then see what happens, or just try. Ask the question and then roll. Quite the sentient being, are you? I really feel so. Oh no.

Okay, I'm gonna be in it. Okay. I've really compelled to ask, what do you mean by the end of all ages? I'd like to know, does that mean all of us are going to be gone forever? This world is. world, I will all

to the cycle of pain. Understood. Understood. Yeah, it doesn't seem like he's going to be any, yeah, we need to start fighting. Thank you so much. There is like a constant pull towards it, this rift. Wait, I haven't ruled yet. Maybe he did something. You asked a question. That's right, and I got an answer.

And then, um, We'd like to leave now. Please. I understand healing and destroying can be beneficial, but we'd like to live just at least one more day. So if you can just let us out of here, that'd be great.

Thank you so much without touching anything. I think this is definitely going to be crit. Yeah. Okay, it is with hope, though. Wait, so I have an advantage, right? One second. Oh, it's 10 plus 1, 11 with hope. And six, it is 17.

Nope. With hope. Get a hope. Yay. As the entity turns towards you and you watch as this cluster, the skulls of its many followers that have since become one with its long-sealed physical form, all creak and turn towards you in unison. The jaws kind of hanging and clattering open

as a spotlight comes to me. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I know. It was bail-a-lawed. Unfortunately, the specific request on this was a very high difficulty. Noted. Not impossible for what it could have led to.

But I need to go back into the orb and close it aside. You know what? You're right. Go back in prison. So, First, it's going to go ahead and step right here. One great sweep. I'm going to spend a few.

To have it do Bloody Harvest. Bloody Harvest. I don't like the sound of that. It takes the massive hook-like scythe and makes one massive sweep, gets everything in close range of it, which would include. You were so smart too. You were really smart at all.

Everyone but you. Give me my tracking talisman back. I'm sorry, like, what do we expect to happen? However, that's a really shitty roll. Yay! That's only a nine. Oh, doesn't hit. It does hit me.

What is Bowen's difficulty? Oh, nine. Yeah, so it hits Bowen and you. So it strikes past both of you, take 27 points of physical damage. Bowen's down. Oh, shit. He wouldn't he heal up?

He did. He healed up three, but he has five. So. If I... And that's beyond his threshold. Do you, how many hit points do you mark? I'm clear. Oh, okay.

So if I do, I do have like one more armor to like spend. So I'm gonna go ahead and do that and then just have the one hit point. Because I'm chilling. Owen, please follow us. Also, here's the devil. Yeah. So Bowen goes down. Oh, shit.

Oh, Owen. That was... So quick. Also, it is terrifying. The usurber makes a successful attack against a PC. All PCs within far range, lose a hope. Oh, no. All PCs?

I don't have any hope to lose. Then you're fine. Okay. Okay. It also has relentless too. So when you spend that fear, I just got to activate it again. Now it's going to go ahead and spend a fear to do Awaken the Faithful.

After it slashes through, it's- The Pilege of Corpses. Just like this horrifying, voiceless, guttural, airy screech outward, and from this pile over here, a number of the corpses begin to claw their way out. As a horde of skeleton. Yeah. No. Claw their way out of the pile and immediately activate.

So hordes, for the rules here, they are considered a single entity together. If you damage them, the more damage you deal, the more of them in the horde you destroy and pass a certain threshold, their effectiveness is reduced. Okay. They activate, and they're going to rush forward towards you. Cool. So we're the closest there. So with this, they're going to attack you.

It's going to be a 15 to hit. That hits. The horde shifts forward, all these skeletons, and they can't just reach out and scratch towards you, grab you. Try and pull you and the rest of you kind of grab and start to pull sister away, but they're extremely strong together as a unit. You take 18 points of physical damage before you manage to pull away from this hoard.

I'm going to mark an armor and take two head points from that. It is now your spotlight. Okay. I've got a corrosive projectile, which is make a spell castor against a target within fire range on success deal D6 plus four magic damage on your proficiency additionally mark two or more stress to make them permanently

corroded while a target is corroded they gave a minus one penalty to their difficulty for every two stress you spend so I feel like that is a good idea right for the big bag guy for the big big old boy yeah like starting to nothing yeah yeah yeah so I'm gonna what do you want to move I'm gonna leap and go to that rock the wavy one. Over here? Yeah, if I can't. You can't. It's a far range from you,

so you have to make an agility roll to get there. Can I see her about to move and I'm see where her eyes are going and I'm just gonna hex him. Just Marcus just to hex him before she does that. What does that do again? It gives him a penalty to their damage rolls and difficulty. Before you do the roll, can I move a little, like, how far can I go in this direction?

before having to roll anything. Which way? This, like, I want to be closer. You can move up to about there. I will go there. Fantastic. Okay. The only thing we want to keep in mind, too,

is there's probably going to be more rolls to make it so we get closer to the sphere. So if we, like, try to compensate by going back. Yeah, that's why I was trying to do it. Do your thing, Dilly. Right. I'm going to do an agility roll. And actually, I'm going to use Rangers Focus first.

All right. So that is a 14. with hope. A 14 with hope? That succeeds because of hex. Oh, nice. Nice. Amazing. So take that hope. Yes. And I'm going to spend a hope again to make it to do you add a D6. Is this still where you add a D6 for spellcast rolls and

something happens? If you want to mark a stress to do so you can do Oh, it's a mark a stress, but you already succeeded. So spend a hope to make an attack against a target on success. So I'm doing that's, this is in addition to my attack, right? My range's focus. Correct. Yeah, so I'm gonna do that. So I spent my hope. And now, yeah, I'm gonna do my corrosive projectile.

While you do that, I'm gonna spend the stress to go into my shell. You just rolled a, well, you just rolled would be in your spell cast for the spell. Oh, you rolled the agility first. I wrote the agency first. Oh, I see. Yeah, yeah, that was for that. Oh yeah, then you get over there with that.

So you need a 14 at least in order to hit him on this. Sorry, I misunderstood. That was against him. So yeah. Go ahead. Well, that was happening. I mark a stress to get into my shell. Well, it's on her activation right now. Oh, yeah, never mind. Okay. We'll see what she rolls. Got, got it.

No worries. Then taking that out. Okay. So this is my, that's a, that's a 13 plus. 17. 17 with? Hope. Great, take a hope.

And that is a success. So go ahead and roll your damage for your corrosion. Yay. Yay. Good job. How many stress do you spend on this? I'm going to mark two stress. Two stress from reduced it by one?

All righty. So, make a spurt. D6 plus four. Oh, 2D6 plus four, yeah. Using my proficiency, that's 2D6 before, yeah. 10. 10 points of damage? All right, it marks a hit point that is below its minor threshold.

as you... So actually, describe to me how you fire this carosa projectile towards it. So I'm aiming for the many, many eyeballs. Mm-hmm. And I'm... I've got this arrow that has, like, splinters going off it that she makes for special occasions.

And it's really gnarly, and it's, like, full of wood and, like, bone. It's almost, like, this 3-D, like... Instead of your pointy, it's, like, conical. Hell yeah. And she aims for the eyeball and goes, for mercy. And yeah, and goes for the eyes.

You release it, and you watch as the entity tries to put one of its skeletal arms up to protect and as it strikes it, it explodes and detonates. And the bone shards like shrapnel scatter into all the many skulls of its front, splintering parts of its face, and it kind of backs up slightly. You have impeded beyond just the hex shadows that are swirling around it.

It looks like you've definitely wrecked a little bit of its demeanor. Yeah. Great. So it's permanently corroded. While the target is corroded, they gain a minus one penalty to their difficulty for every two. It's a minus three penalty between the two of you. Perfect. Great.

It means it's easier for all of you to hit it for the rest of the fight. Great. Great. Spotlight's still with you all. I'm thinking if I should do like Devine wielder or a bolt beacon or if there could be like a combo of something since I'm still not in my shell so I can make more stuff. We could try something together. I have three hood that I can spend. Mine doesn't do a damage though, so maybe it's pointless.

Got it. I am gonna use Divine Weilder, but I could. I succeed and I'll make him vulnerable. Because I also could do that last time like a ball beacon. If I also have succeeded, I can be vulnerable as well. You're also a tag team with other people too. Yeah, I've got loads of hope. I have those of hoop too, and in my bowl beacon, if succeeds,

it will also make him vulnerable. Okay, okay, okay, okay. Oh, okay, okay. Yeah. Oh, then you go, go, go. Okay, okay, okay. Do you want me to do it then? Should we do together?

Do you sure? Amazing. Cool, cool, cool. Yeah, I'll mark three stress. So, I don't need to mark a stress. Are you using your hope then? Yeah, I'm marking three quick. All right.

So I'm not using hope for that's one. Is that okay? Is that okay? Because I know I've just gone. No, that's perfect. But I just think, well. Because we are now sandwiching him. So I'm, I just saw what Dilly did. I pull out my staff and aim right at the back of his dumb scully head.

Kagwama's piss now. Fuck comfort. Just kidding. New experience. Just like, I am mad now. That's mad, funny, dude. Like, dad jokes to be like, I'm a mad daddy right now.

And I'm gonna... Sometimes violence is the end. So, try to bolt beacon behind, like, right in the... I don't know how to say that word in English, but, like, between the skull and the... Yeah, there we go, words. Um, and yours.

I may mean for the jockey, though. Oh, so like two. Yeah, we just look right there. It is made of bones, but where the juggler would be, normally. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. How's it looking for you? Bad. It's also not great for me. Oh, no.

Oh, I can, I can, if I fail, oh, no, that's if I fail an attack against them. Would that be this? I can, what are you doing against them? You're attacking it, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So I can, if I, when you fail an attack against them, you can end your ranger's focus feature to re-roll your duality. dice. So I could do that.

I rolled a that would be a five four, a nine with hope. Oh, wait, do you add agility to that? Yeah, that's what it is with it. Oh, I'm with hope. Because I have 13, 14, but with fear. I'd rather have it be with

hope. The 14 will hit because you'll hit. 14, at least take it. So then 14. Are you good to both take it? Should we do it? Should we do it? Yes, because you want to keep your focus on it. for sure, so yeah, 100% keep that. So mine, 14, 11, yeah, plus that, yeah, 14 with fear. And then now I do my 2D8s to see what's up.

You do indeed, roll your damage and you roll your damage. Okay, beautiful. 2D8s. And any effects from your focus that it would take from being. Spend, shimmering, cool. Leave it marks to stress if you hit it, right? Yeah. Do we get any advantage of this at all?

I'm trying to figure out. Maybe you're on damage now. Oh yeah, good narrative. Ooh. That's an 11 plus two. So 13, 14 of damage. All right, 14 damage. 14 damage.

That's 28 points of damage. That is its severe threshold, so it makes three hit points. Oh, fantastic. So describe to me how the two of you deliver a fantastic, terrifying tag team assault on this entity. We go look at each other first. each other first. For mercy.

For mercy. We aim. One, two, three! And this beautiful, bright white light shoots out of my quarterstaff right at the nape of this ridiculous, scully-looking guy. For mercy! And mine goes like directly into his neck just as yours does that. So it's like, and our, our,

Our things combine. Beautiful explosion, right there. Like right in the neck, just like, oh. Yeah. And in his head. Tilt a little. What is your impact? Like a whole section of skulls

kind of bursts off the side and part of it kind of like slightly tilts to one side as it kind of withdraws. It is now temporary vulnerable. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, we got that thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Except it's back to him.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, fuck. So as it comes to me, it's going to mark two stress to use extract vitality. Oh. It is going, so choose a target within far range. It's going to focus on you.

All right then. You came at it heavily, both with the corrosion and following it up with this tag team. I need you to make a strength reaction roll from this. Strength? Can't I just jump out the way though? No. As the creature looks towards you,

and it's one hand holding it at that one with the scythe, two more hands kind of unfurl from underneath its cloak. They're like long, bony claws. And as they release their fingers open like this, you watch as like black sigils, shh-shh-shh-ch-ch-ch. And suddenly you feel these black-shadowed hands reach into your chest out of nowhere. Like they just kind of apparate about three feet

in front of you and try and plunge into your physical body. Okay. Oh, is it correct. Oh, yes. All righty. Nice. So you take half damage. I quit.

Yeah? That's really bad. So you take 12 points of magic damage. Can I use an armor to reduce that if you're on? To reduce that, yeah. So I just mark one. So you mark one hit point? Uh-huh.

Okay. So the hands like reach into you. You dodge mostly out of the way, but it's still kind of claws through and grabs something within your body. It's almost like a shadow that passes through your skin without impact. As it tugs back, back, it pulls an element of your vitality, and it clears a hit point. Yeah, that's what that's... What do you mean it clears a hit?

It was like... ...heeled yourself from you. ...you took your health and use it to restore it. Oh. No, you can't have that. That's what I did in the last fight. Because it damaged you, all of you lose a hope, and it gains a fear. I do...

I will use that fear to activate it again. Cool. It's going to move. Oh, but Badger's under it. I didn't realize that. Poor. Stomp's over. Oh, no, it's coming for you.

It's coming for you, telling it! Stombs over Bowen. It's over Bowen. Yep, Bowen's like on the ground, like, trying to crawl and then she gets kind of like stepped on. Oh, Owen. Bowen dead? He's currently unconscious and bleeding out.

Nice one. It is then going to. Let's see. Yep, it's going to go ahead and make a scythe-of-the-dammed strike on you as a standard attack. That's a 13. Doesn't hit. Yeah.

Jumps out the way. You just start off the side. Angrily gets there. And with that, it's going to mark a stress to do re-apparate. So it strikes and misses you, angry. It suddenly swirls into black and red shadow and vanishes and reappears over a room.

Oh, I did not know we could do that! Us cheating. I'm gonna spend a fear to activate the skeletons. No. That are going to continue to swarm you, Laura. The hoard. I'm sister. Sorry, I was following Mercy's leave.

Oh, yeah. It's going to be too personal. It's going to be too personal. Separation. Not anymore. Welcome to bleed at the table. It travels through all these universes, maybe it came through ours. You know, it's good.

It's good. It's a CR studio, so we're like morning start. It's fine. They're gonna go ahead and attack you, sister. That's gonna be. Low, please tell me slow. Fuck off. What's your event?

11. All right. So that's gonna be against you. 13 points of physical damage from the skeleton hoard. And Marko armor. Geez, noise. All right, spotlight's back to you. You haven't gone.

Yeah. Yeah, I hear all of this noise, and then I see it come over and swipe down on you. And then I will, I'm gonna use my. I'm gonna use my crimson right. I'm gonna mark a hit point. I'm gonna get a trigger on power through pain, put a blow token there.

As I fuse my weapon, I'll go, sounds like negotiations are going well, and I'll climb up to here, if possible. Is that close? Yeah, yeah. Get a good sight on this guy, and I'll take a shot. What's the range on your weapon?

Very far? Very far. And yeah, you can definitely hit it from there. Fantastic, I don't think. Just double-checking, do we have any advantages? It's vulnerable. It is vulnerable, so you have the advantage of the strike. Great.

Ooh, all right. It has... It's low. Okay. Great. Okay, great. It is with fear, but it's gonna be four. Yeah, it's like... It's like 20. Yeah. So it's... That definitely is. Yeah. I didn't know if you want me to keep doing that. No worries. Okay. Um, I'm just gonna kind of use both of these blood tokens and add... Do I add any other damage other than...

So I had 3D6. Okay. And I'll roll with an extra D10, but drop. the lowest. Do you have another decent? I'll just roll the same one as I'm just. Yeah, it's cool. All right. We'll drop this guy. 30 damage. As I take a shot, boom, all the way across. I'll slat down my elbow onto the rock and as I watch kind of this red hue and I will, oh man, I think like at this point, I'm just gonna try to like nearly fan the hammer. I'll pull the hammer, back and just shoot this thing with some arcane lightning in the hopes that I distracted enough to move it around to not keep hurting you, sister.

All right, so as you found you all hear the massive impact, it kind of sounds like a crack of thunder through this maven here as the bolt of red lightning blasts it. You see it blasts through part of its torso and out the back as lightning continues into the nearby rock before kind of dissipating. on the inside of the stonework, there's now a gaping hole of Burt's, like, ribs. And inside the now vacuous rib cage, you see other skulls and skeletons

start, like, pushing through. Oh, my God. That is a severe wound. It takes three hit points of damage. As a reaction, it's going to use soul scramble. After you blast it, it goes, and it puts, like, one of its hands up towards you, and that pressure that you felt in your mind

presses in hard. Because you made it to mark two more hit points. I want you to take your domain cards and hold them up in front of me. No! No! No! So, okay, so domain is, oh my God, two. All right.

Oh, my gosh. Oh, no, it's so quiet. All right, dude. Hold on. Oh my gosh. That does not include community or... No, no, just your domain cards. Just your blood and bone. Oh, my gosh.

Just fit fandom in front of me facing you. She chooses something so good. This goes into your vault. Damn, okay. Oh, okay. So, and then I have to, what's the two in order? So you can spend two stress to recall it back into your. What is it?

It was my AEOE burning blood. Okay, okay. So, it would be pretty helpful and it's, it's not the worst, it's not the best, but it'd be pretty helpful to deal with the skeletons. That's a good question. If I were to use burning blood, they don't have vitals. It would still work? In this essence, you would use your blood to just burn the space around it.

Okay, that is nuts, dude. What? As it knocks a segment of your consciousness back into the dark ether, and there's a moment of your knowledge and preparedness that suddenly you can't grasp, and you have to focus to try and bring it back to you. I think as this happens, I don't know the source of my power. It is kind of grown over time, and to just, like, lose it, it's really embedded in the fear of Elphonse of, like,

if I lose this power, I have a lower chance of living in this saloan lands and it's like been a like a nightmare for him. And he's shaken by that as he begins to charge up again. All right. And as the spotlight comes back to me, the usurper is going to activate. The usurper is going to move over here. Actually, it's going to, it's going to leap in the air. Bless you. Leap in the air. Bless you. Very, yeah. Very cool.

Why, he's like, oh. Hello. Did you see the skeletal past? It's going to use a fear. To use bloody harvest again. It takes its scythe. And does one massive swing around to hit everything in close range. That would be you.

Does that include the horde? I would include the horde, I see. You are. You're worried. Ah, you just at a range. Yes. But Badger is not. Oh, badger.

That's gonna be a 19 to hit. I believe that hits all of us. So all three of you take 30 points of physical damage. One to a day. As the sight that just tears through. So Badger, I believe just takes the stress. Yeah. That's all my hit point.

Oh no, dude. Oh, dude. Can I throw a house potion to you? You can on your activation if you want to rush over to do so. So, sister, of the death moves that are available, you have blaze of glory, you have avoid death and face the consequences, or you have risk at all. Oh, wait, okay, so listen.

If I avoid death, I can still come back in this fight. Or am I down in this fight? You're down until somebody can restore hit points to you, during this fight or the next long rest. I can just- Yeah, I think we still, I don't think it's at that point yet. Yeah.

But you do whatever. You do you, but I am gonna force feed you a health potion. Like, ah. I'm gonna just mark all my hip points and drop. Okay, it's okay. Sister, the scythe carves through and you watch as the hat splits and- That's my head.

I know. That's my head. It's your head? It's not a hat, it's connected to my body. As you trumbled to the ground, the skeleton hoard now starting to almost rush in to swarm the unconscious body. Everyone except for, everyone except for you,

loses a hope. Badger is maxed on his stress. Badger just limply. What the fuck. Badger too. I'm a rock. Oh, no. Oh.

No, not Padger. I knew we would be second to die. Tell you, you've lost a lot of people. You rush over and you heal Badger instead of him. I'm going to stand the fear. As the central riff kind of begins to breathe once more, I need everyone who is standing to make a strength reaction rule for me. Strength reaction, okay.

Okay. I don't know, I said it like that. No, sorry, this is presents. My bad, present. Oh, no, please. E, eight. Nine. Oh, no. Okay.

I'm gonna have a lot of stress to give myself advantage. Actually, I'm not good. Okay. Okay. Okay. Because it's getting so close. Yeah. I don't think it's a good thing.

You're fine, right? And you're fine. Fossi. So not okay. You. Oh. Your body gets pulled and dragged. and dragged, you watch as Sister,

as being like tumbled over and pulled towards this rift as it relaxes from its breath. Spotlights back. Okay, I'm going to heal Sister, surely. I'm going to move, can I move far a little farther? So you're taking the spotlight first before you do? Or do you help, sister. Help sister, help.

All right, so it's an agility role to make that rush. Yeah. I might mark a stress, actually, to use my, deaf maneuvers to sprint anywhere within fire range without making in a ditch. Perfect, there you go. You just dart, which means you... So each time you pass one of these sigil lines, you have to make an agility roll to see whether or not you step on it. So far, the only person that's really across has been you and you've made the agility roll each time.

Now is you kind of make this automatically just running across. Each time you get near it, you watch us the tether kind of like glows in proximity and you pass over it. But you rush up beyond sister and you are... Yeah, and then I force feed you the health patient. I could pour it in your gob. All right, so one of you roll a D4, plus one. Yeah, one D4 plus one, yeah. Do you want to do?

Oh, sweet. So three plus one is four, plus one for me, is five. That's true, yeah. Nice, right. Nice. So that's almost all my hit points, yeah. So it's still spot on you, you, you haven't taken an action roll yet, so what else do you want to do?

I want to help. Bowen would also be pulled. Over here. I want to help sister to get back away from the orb of doom. Okay, so you're going to use more or less your action to just pull her back. Yeah. Close rain?

All right, so you drag her back and now. I want to take a couple steps down and do a divine wielder on this. It's still vulnerable, right? It is. Beautiful. All right. Not so close. Put me in and step. Come up right here.

That seems reasonable. All right, so you haven't quite crossed the line. Yeah, that feels good. And yeah, divine wielder, this creature. Because that is, yeah, I'm very close, yeah, beautiful. Okay, 12, 13. Do I have anything else with this? I get more a stress.

Yeah, it's a 13 with fear. Okay, 13, chest hits. Yes. Okay, sweet. So I get 2D8 plus. Well, it would be 12 is what you needed. Okay, okay. Okay, sweet. So 2D8s plus two plus six. And there's an, yeah.

Do I have to do two sixes because of the advantage? Being vulnerable? Vulnerable just improves the attack roll, which you already took. So for this, it's just you roll your appreciation. Okay, beautiful. All right. The 2D6.

Oh yeah. Oh, yeah. Okay, 8, no, 10, 11. 12, 13, 15, 16, 17, 17. 17. That is beyond its major threshold, so it takes two hit points. Are you attacking it and trying for the Horde as well with your divine wielder ability or are you holding up?

Yep, let's do that, absolutely. All right, so that requires you to use a hope or mark? Use a hope, correct, yes, that's right. So that'll definitely hit the Horde as well. At that damage, it marks two hit points. That knocks away. Four of the horde. Yes, yes, yes.

As you reach out, describe to me how your strike ends up both knocking into the usurper and this horde. Still a little rattled from being pulled into the orb, but walking down, Kalama takes a deep breath and throws in in a windmill to hit the back of the head of this usurper. And as it keeps going down, it kind of just diagonally dives into these, like, What was it for? Two of them?

That's four of them. Four of them? Ah, yes, amazing. So it becomes kind of like a bowling, like windmill effect. Like a fan. Just like, like, gl-d-d-d-gl-d-d-l-d-cum. Coming right back to my hand.

Fantastic. As it impacts, you knock out a bunch of these skeletons, the hoard is much smaller and kind of holding itself together. You see other writhing bones in the piles still waiting to be called forth. As a reaction, it's can use soul-scramble on you. As it, the impact hits, you watch us. half of the skulls and its torso kind of turn towards you, and it puts its arm out, and its cloak kind of billows open,

and as it does, you see like, swirling spirits amongst the bone present, and they kind of scream out at you. I need you to shuffle your domain cards. Do the thing? Ah, yai, yai, porque! Okay, okay, okay. I kind of don't want to, I kind of don't want to look either. So, so it's fair. It's fair.

What did you get? Actually, of all of them, it was probably the best one in this instance since being four. Final words! I don't care about it! Fantastic! I don't want to talk to the dead anyway! So that was with fear, correct? That was a fear, correct, and I have two tokens now. Oh, yeah, correct, yes.

Angrily, it turns back after the heavy strike that you dealt to it, but it looks back towards you as the main focus of its eye are still from that heavy blast. It's going to go ahead and... shift forward ever so slightly. Now to get you in range of its side, nobody else really is. I don't think it can get all of you. It might be able to get both of you.

As it moves forward, it's going to go ahead and mark two stress. Very stressful, very vulnerable. Yeah. To extract vitality on you. As it goes forward, you watch as like the bunch of skulls around its throat seem to open up, and they almost form a larger, lower mandible

beneath the cloak that reveals itself in it, And as it opens, like a secondary jaw in the middle of its vacuous chest, those same, like, black tendrils begin to reach out, and those black hands apparate about three feet in front of you and reach towards you. That's going to be... Oh, no, you make a strength reaction roll for me. I will not mark a stress. Has it used any of stress? I won't. I won't do it. All right, I'll just do... I'll just do... I'll roll it, whatever. Six. Sorry, five. Five. Unfortunately, that is a failure. You take 18 points of magic damage. Question. From seeing what happened to Dillie, does it gain vitality equal to the amount of life it takes from me?

It seems to gain vitality from the damage that it does to you. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Sure. So 18 would be major damage. I would mark two, but my lifeblood, I don't have hope, so I can't use that. But I'll use an armor to burn. bring it down to one HP, and then I will use one from the talisman, because I don't want it to heal. So I'll make that to zero. So describe to me how these protective elements Spanish to deflect these shadowed hands that reach out for your life force. Yeah, I think, like, the first one is the hands come and they grab one of the horns, and I'm able to, like, snap my head away where it cracks off one of the sides. And then as the other one lunges towards me, the light of the talisman kind of deflects it off,

and I'll look at it and say, None of you get it. From every single one who has tried to stop us, you don't get it. This isn't about the new age. It's not about the old. It's always been like this. Yeah, does it still have, yeah, as I like move out of the way for the rest of the hands.

Fantastic. They reach and scramble towards you, but they are completely kind of left adrift in the middle of this pulsing magical air without pulling any of your vitality away. It does not gain, doesn't not clear any hit points. However, I do gain of fear because it was a successful attack, and all of you lose a hope.

Dude, I'm so hoped out. No hope. I can't do any of my cool moves because I got no hope, baby. Once we're back, I'm gonna do a prayer to add myself more hope because I'm starting to, yay, yeah, yeah, and I could do tags and stuff. I'm going to spend a hope to activate it for the second time on this term. Deeply frustrated by this, it's gonna strike at you again this time. I'm gonna spend a fear to do a, just in a chance that it might be.

might work. It's going to go ahead and do bloody harvest to make attack against all PCs in close range. You are now in close range. Yep. And so are you. So it's going to be against you two there as it makes this. Cool. Swings it twice in the air before kind of leaping about 10 feet and then does this full like spin swipe that carves through. That's going to be 12? It's okay. Yeah. Hold that. Are you all good? No, no. I'm doing very good.

Yeah, you're doing great. That's gonna be 22 points of physical damage to both of you. Okay. Yeah, I think it was take both. I'm gonna take both to you. Yeah, because I'll get two triggers on Power through both.

Fuck, I don't have any more armor. And I... Yeah. And you all lose a hope. Oh my gosh. Man. Not on my tight. Spotlights back to you?

Can I get up on my, like stand up on my knees and as I start to stand, I'm just gonna put my staff forward and throw a attack out at it. Absolutely. Handing up. Miamma, meow. Please roll with hope. It's not hope.

Oh. I said, he couldn't see very well. But it is 22, 23, 2014 to 5. Nice. 25-a-3? Yeah. That does succeed. Yes.

Go ahead and roll. Hold on, I get to roll another one. Okay, that's an... Now, you roll with advantage on that, right? Yeah. I didn't roll with advantage. Was I supposed to? It's vulnerable.

Oh. You hit anyway. Yeah, it doesn't know. So six plus three is nine, plus three is 12. Yes, plus another D8, four. No, a D10, because it's vulnerable. I don't have a D10. I don't have a D10.

What am I doing with my life? Plus another four. So 17 points. That is going to be a major wound to it. It takes two hit points marked on that. As a reaction, it's going to soul scramble you and try and pull a bit of your knowledge away from your mind. Oh.

Vico, if you don't mind pulling a card at random from Laura's... No, I'm going to reach far on... You're making us do it to do it. You want you to do it. You want you to do it? All right. Yeah, get over here. I don't want to blame Vico for this.

Yeah. I already hit my friend. Oh, let me do the mind game, really. Already hit my friend in the back of his head earlier. What did you take? I'm Bolvia. Oh, no. That sucks, dude.

That was a good one. Fuck. That's great. What's the recall cost on it? Uh, one. So you can spend a stress to bring it back. So that finishing... I was hoping it takes life in essence, because I can't use it anyway.

There you go. Bringing it back to me, I'm going to go ahead and Markets last two stress. Wait. I didn't get to move. Can I at least move on my move? Sure, I'll let you move, yeah. I want to get behind seeing that Alphonse wasn't getting like pulled forward. I want to get behind this rock right here so that if we start to pull forward to block my advancement.

Fair. All right, so you're situated behind that rock. Yeah. You got it. Frustrated at this circumstance. That's stress. Marks his last two stress. So even if I were to get rid of the temporary vulnerability, It is now permanently vulnerable into the longer energy of stress

as it's going to turn and focus its extract vitality on you. I need you to make a strength reaction rule for me. If we keep making it more stress, it starts seeing hit points. Any more stress goes straight to its hit points. Okay. That is cocked. Can I, do I? Yeah, roll that one dice again. That's a, how wait, is that six or nine?

That's 17. No, wait, yeah. Yeah, 17's a success. So you take a great excellent, great. So you take half damage. Oh, oh three sixes but half damage still. So that would be nine. One. So it would be 26 half, 13 points of magic damage. Magic damage. So I can't, you can use Armagnetet? Yeah. In that case I'll just mark one. So mark one hit point? Yeah. It clears one hip point. So as it kind of like pulls a little bit more of the health out of you, you kind of feel winded as the shadowed hands kind of pull around and grab into your throat, and you feel like you're suffocating before you tear away from it.

As you do, you watch as some of its damaged form kind of begins to tether back together with tendons that grow from nowhere. With that, it gets a fear from hitting him successfully. Now's when I use the umbrella veil! I can mark two stresses, right? I can mark. A stress. Oh, sweet. And all of you lose a hope.

We ain't got that. So shitty. Oh my gosh. I'm going to spend a fear to activate it a second time. It's, yeah. Oh, two. No, one to activate it. One to activate it and one to use a fear ability.

It's going to try its bloody harvest a second time and do another swing since you're both currently in its space. So it's going to be attacked against both of you. against both of you. Since we're getting out of the wire, I'm going to roll this ahead of the board. Control one. Describe to me, I want you guys to describe together how it fumbles this so badly. Yeah. I think like as, oh my gosh, as it continues to attack, Alphonse will continue to dodge out of the way as like sparks of rock. shadow surround it. There is no giving up for us. There is no renewal. There is no new age. We will fight as we have before. Whether you are man-elf dwarf or what's your right? What's your-

Agalapa? Agalapa. We will fight. Or a fungrel. Or fungrel. Or simia. Anyone else? Or fat. As you'll notice, like, the inflection is a little bit more comforting in the words of Alphonse. Yes, and as I say, notice Alphonse all of a sudden becoming a very, like, intimidating and inspiring presence,

this skeleton is winding down, missing you completely, and I don't move. I decide to just, like, see it past me. That was cool. That was a buck. It was like, oh. As it does, it shifts and squares up right to you. It's like all of its skulls stare down in your direction, but that's going to end my spotlight.

And I'm going to please get in my shell because I'm starting to get a little bit. Actually, no. I'm going to spend it for you. Excuse me? No. No. Excuse me.

How dare you? No backsies. This horde of skis. skeletons here, which will, yeah, they can clamber up. Oh, I felt nice. Up across the rocks, rushing towards you, like, now their damage is reduced because they're at half HP and half number. So against you, Alphonse, that's four.

Yes! All right, now the spot lights back. Okay, I'm gonna mark a stress so I can get in my shale, thank you very much, because it's getting all close to home. Can we get within close range to it? If you were at a close range would be that, unfortunately you'd have to make an agility role to do so because you just move behind the rock,

and because it shifted, it's just beyond far range. I don't mind attacking. Yeah, I still got him in Rangers' focus, so I don't mind how many a go. Ooh, ooh, ooh, okay, I wanna do a prayer dice to add myself more hope. Yeah. And if it's over, yeah, and that way we can do some stuff.

So I have two more left. I have two more left. Okay, do it. So, okay, I retract, I use the stress for that. As I go into my shell, I say to myself, we're so close, we're so close, please give me strength, please give me hope, mercy for hope. Oh my goodness, incredible, I am back.

But still in my shell, do you need hope for something? No, I'm good actually. I can just, I can just, okay, incredible. Okay, so do it, do it do it, but if anybody needs hope for anything, I got some. So, if you succeed, I'll try to get out of here. Yeah, so. Just to be aware, the more that it hits you,

the more it'll whittl away your hope. The more it hits somebody. What do you mean by that? Just saying, you could lose your hope before it comes back. Meaning you could lose your hope if you don't spend it some points. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, got it. Okay, should they just go ahead and add some hype to my.

Oh, that's true. Okay, beautiful, amazing. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. How close are you? Are we able to do something together? You think? It is within your range, so if you wanted to do, Do you want to tag? Do you want to tag?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, amazing. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, amazing. So I am inside my shell, so I have a disadvantage on some stuff, but I can do a bolt beacon. Oh, actually, I'm gonna do a Devine wielder because it has a higher damage. Right. So from within my shell, I'm gonna throw my shell,

my quarter staff to like hit it. And while it's distracted by that, I'm gonna aim for, where is it, where do you reckon it's vulnerable? I'm gonna, do you know what? I'm gonna aim for its wrists to try and chop his hands off. And I'm gonna aim for its feet

because it's like right there. And like right, I'm like on my shelves, I'm gonna try to like, you know, knock him down on the floor. All right, so you roll a disadvantage, and you roll. I roll. Because you're in your shell. Plus on top of this guy as well, the action roll?

Yeah. Any action roll you make is the disadvantage. Oh, I can't make. I can't make my D20 because I keep them fighting. Yes, you can. Yes, yes. Amazing. It's under your .

I think. It's under my Goutl. Okay, okay, okay, okay, okay. 12, 13, 15, 26, 11, but I'm gonna use my two tokens. So, 12 at 13, it's 13 with hope. That was with the disadvantage. Roll the D6.

Correct. Yeah, all right, 13 with hope. And that would be 19 with hope. I think you want the 19. Let's go the 19. All right, both of you roll damage and combine it. Yes, yes, yes. Tens, plus six.

Okay. 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 16, 6, 7, 18, 19. 19, 19 damage, and. Right, 16. 16. It's gonna be 35 points. of damage. That is beyond its major threshold, or sorry, severe threshold, that is three hit points.

Nice and still not asking us, how to do it. Okay, okay, okay, okay. So describe to me how you both assaulted at the same time. Okay, from my shell, I can feel that Dillie is like winding up to do a beautiful attack, but I decide to go ahead and just like throw my quarter staff and a windmill to swipe at his feet

so he can lose balance and you can take him down as he's like falling off. Yeah, great. And as he's falling, I aim for his wrists and try and get his hand off. Do I succeed? He's like flailing. He's like flailing and just like, ah, and his wrist off. Yeah. You both strike. Part of like the leg itself bursts and you watch as the ankle crumbles and it kind of tumbles to one knee, while the wrist shatters. The side kind of clatters to its side as another skeletal hand from underneath the cloak. Slightly smaller goes to replace it, but that one arm is more just like a giant bone stump.

It's shattered all nine radius. It's like a hydro with hands. Yes. As these like skeletons are like hitting down on me and biting into my tubing as blood spurts out, I'm going to yell, Kagwama, get away from the orb. Oh, yeah. Good point. Oh, but I can't move because I'm in my shell.

Yep. Can you roll? Um, oh. Get that smile on your face, bro. Just like. Oh, no. You are so close that thing. that thing. I am very... I'm going to spend a fear.

I'm very, very close. I feel like you shouldn't have probably tended to it. Two. I mean, he was going to do it anyway, gee. It's too fear. I was going to let you go, but if that's what you're going to do? No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Because we have hope. It was ours. You can do something. No, I'm spending a fear to interrupt. I can do that. Oh, dang it.

And now with my action is spend another fear. So I'm fearless at the moment. And stress, and vulnerable. To use draw the rift. I need all of you to make a presence reaction. This is the opposite of what I wanted it to do. It reminded him. All right. Oh, oh my gosh. It is a lot. I'll be fine.

11 plus 11 plus 11 plus 17 is 18. Minus your disadvantage. Why? Because you're in your shell. God damn it. Okay. Presence, right? Yes.

11. 12. Dude. Wow, we've been asked. It's minus two, so whatever that was. 16. 16, that's a success. Oh, my God. So you stay in place.

I was about it. Kiss the orb, goodbye. Oh, my gosh. Someone roll the 20 for Bowen, please. Oh, I got it. As you get pulled through the skeletons, like, some of them clatter off, hold on. You fall off the edge and like,

tumble before you catch yourself on your foot there. Oh, great, okay, I didn't just. And I rolled a 12. 12. 16 for Bowen? It didn't work. It didn't work keeping me on the other side of the rock. Oh, no, no, right, yeah. I'd say, yeah, I'd say it.

You could put behind there, you'd be fine. Okay. Bowen doesn't get a rule, because Bowen is in the case. Bowen. Oh, no! You watch as this, like, barely conscious body, he looks up and it's like the wind, it's pulling back, and I was like, what's,

what's happened? And just disappears into this orbite. Poor Bowen. Oh, dude. Now the spotlight is. Okay. Oh, can I try to get out from under this, behind this rock?

I want to do something. Yeah. Can I try? Is it okay? Yes, please. All right. Roll with hope, roll with hope, roll with hope. I also have reassurance just in case.

Oh, it's not with a okay position right now too, because Matt doesn't have any fear. Yeah, but we could give in fear. Yeah, but. Yeah, I rolled really high, but I rolled with fear. I just need to switch my fear and hope die. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.

So that was 12, 22 plus. That definitely succeeds. Okay, so I wanted to get close. I wanted to get with him. in close range. All right, so you move. That is to dart with the crowd-hard Jolie roll. You do get past the elements there,

and you kind of saddle up alongside Alphonse. You are now within close range. Okay. Can I do the thing that I wanted to do? Yeah, you can. Okay. I'll allow you to do that under this condition. Okay.

I'll allow you to go now. Yes. If you give me another fear, the choice is yours. How much is left in this guy? We don't know. Oh, we knew about the stress, so I figured I should ask. I do it.

What are you doing? I told you when he was out of stress. I'll tell you when he's out of hit points too. What? That's bad. What are you doing? I'm going to look at Alphonse. And I'm going to say, we bring destruction everywhere we go.

I thought it was bad. And I'm going to erupt screaming all around him and let him hear the voice of everything that he's wanting to destroy. Let him hear love. Let him hear happiness. Let him hear good memories. and the screams of it being taken away from him. And I'm going to terrify him. Very well.

Can I use hope? I'll take my fear. Okay. And. Oh, never mind. Can you, you want to give me advantage? Can I give you a hope for you? Yeah, yeah, yeah, I can give you a hope for that.

I'm inspired by that. I want to give you. I am going to mark a stress to give myself advantage as well. All right, so both you roll and take the higher of the two. Oh, oh. Oh, that's right, because it doesn't stack. No. Never mind.

Then don't use your hope. Don't do it. Don't use your hope. Okay, no, nope. Hope is back. 11, 16, 17. 17, 18, 19 with hope. 19 with hope, that is a success.

You gain a hope. And go ahead and roll your, oh no, it takes stress. Holy schmoli. He takes a stress. For terrifying? Yeah. All right, how many? He marks 1d4 plus one.

1D4 stress. Okay. So that's three stress that get turned into hit points. Right, let me double check on. on if it's. The rulebook is out of the other. The reason I did this is because I thought it would be it would transfer to hit points.

No, it does. I'm looking to see if it's just goes into one hit point or if it's. I thought it would be all, it would be one for one. I'm sorry if it didn't translate. No, it's all good, it's all good. I am going to just double check. If you're already forced to mark one or more stress,

but your slots are full, you must mark one hit point. So it does one hit point automatically. Oh, yes. Okay. But you roll with, you know what? Okay. And then what's the other effect of this? He has to run away from me.

I want you to describe how it reacts to this terrify as it charges this direction. You can see in his eyes what could have been the memories from past before he was brought low by this centuries of insanity in this prison. and it's almost like a deep sadness fills all of the skulls before he turns and fleas. This horrible, hollow, discordant caffeine

of airy cries emerge from dozens, if not hundreds, of skulls all throughout its body as it turns and runs. One of its hands reaching towards its shoulders, wrestling with the immensity of its existence and its own sorrow. as it bolts away. You can take that stress back you spent because technically he's vulnerable, you would have had a vantage him.

Oh, great. Could I step in? Yes, you may. It's been a minute. As I see it flee and... Actually, you rolled with fear, right? I rolled with hope. Well, you rolled with fear on the agility roll, and I said you can go ahead and take your turn.

Oh, yeah. So we'll come back to you right after this. So with that activating the usurper. Can I move away on that turn? and light out? Unfortunately, you can't because her role sent it back to me. When a spotlight comes back to you, you can. Okay, fine.

He's going to turn leap angrily as it comes back around itself. You can see the bones like splintering and falling off in chunks of shale. The intensity of facing its own history, finally showing the steps towards fragility on its physical form. Can I ask one question? Yes, you may. Would that be considered I did damage to a target? Yeah. So I would get to mark an additional D-10 damage

because he's vulnerable, because of this mantle of the shadow priest. That's true. Yes. Get it. Go for it. Go for it. Those are the D-D-D-10s.

Five. So it marks another hit point. Oh my gosh. Yes! It's so close, it's so close. It's going to spend a fear. As it angrily comes forward and you feel its presence pushing into your minds once more,

and it says, if you will not willingly help bring the end of this age, and you will join me as part of me, and together we will regardless. As it brings it scythe up with its secondary arm and spins it, I'm gonna spend that fear that I just did to do another bloody harvest on all of you except for, are you in range, you just barely are. In?

Close range. This is against all. All of you. It's fine, it's fine. No, dude. Did he roll a 20? Did he roll a 20 against us? No.

No, no, no, no. Are we all going to die in this moment? That's a 20, dude. I was really hoping for like a natural one. I was like, oh, can you do? It's half for me, so, because I'm in my shell still. It's fine. It's all the assurance, yeah, yeah, yeah.

We don't know what the damage is. Does you still get a penalty to his damage roll? Because he's hexed? Yeah. Yeah, minus two, right? Yeah, and they're getting a minus one penalty to their difficulty for every two spread, so it's... Yeah, those are for hitting it.

Those are for hitting. So with the minus two, all of you take, sorry, 40 points of physical damage. 40? Yes. 20 for me because I have M.M.M. Michelle. Indeed. So if it's doubled, you're severe, you'd mark four.

Correct. Gone? I'm dead. Token for one flood. What? Yeah, that's four. Can you mark any, any, any, any, armor? Oh yeah, I can't mark.

I'm not gonna. I'm not dead. I'm not dead. Don't worry, you guys. Don't worry. That reduces it to three. So I get a fear. You all lose a hope.

Oh, the one. Wow! Oh, no. Oh, no. Oh, no. And I'm gonna, it's gonna, it's gonna bloody harvest again because you're all in range. And that's actually what it'll do.

I'm gonna roll this in front of the board. One. That's an 11. That hits. That hits me. Okay. So that's going to be 20 points of physical damage to everyone except for Dylan.

That is 10 for me, so I just mark one. I'm down. You're down. You're down. All right, sister, you have death move choice to make here. Blaze a glory. No, dude. No, we can kill it.

Are you sure? Is that the same thing that? If they did. Mercy did, yeah. Oh no, I don't want you to die. What are you using your place of glory to do? I'm going, oh, it only does one, de-forst truck.

Don't do it. I'm gonna look to Dillie. And my sisters, you can help them. Don't do this, sister. And I'm gonna step forward and plant my staff and look up at it and try to reclaim this entity of undeth back into the cycle. And I'm gonna send a spores out

and try to work their way into all the little crevices of the bone as my damage spreads throughout him. Very well, go ahead and roll your auto-crit damage. Plus, no, that's, yeah, 12 plus 10 is 22, and then I roll for it. Fuck. It's got 17 plus 22 is, What, 17 plus 22 is 39?

39. 39 points. That's past. It's a severe threshold. It marks three hit points. How do you want to do this? Oh, damn. We were so close.

Fuck. You're so close. You see light pouring from sisters' eyes as the purple, deep shadows come up from her staff. staff and fungus starts to grow from the ground and it grabs a hold of his feet and the spores coming from out of her mouth and out of the staff grow and go in every crevice of his body and grow faster than you've ever seen before. And in a similar way to Mercy, merging with

the priest, sister, begins. to merge with this evil entity, and he grows still as branches of mycelium. Grow forth from him as well. The skeletal arms reach and grasp at you. But each one that touches you seems to freeze in place as the fungural essence rapidly weaves through the bones and claims what they claim

through all of time, the remains and memories of those that it's time to go. And you watch as the mushrooms of all odd, beautiful colors begin to rapidly blossom and expand. The skulls begin to glaze over with different colored fuzz and lock into place. The central skull and the one next to it, that of a man and a woman look to each other.

If a skull could express, you could feel the moments they share together before an expanded tree of fungus claims the last bit of its consciousness. The skeletons collapse. The rift banishes. And there in its space you see an unconscious bowen

left where it was. And that's where to go to break. Oh my gosh, dude. What the fuck? Back here in a few minutes. That's a wrap for part one of this podcast episode. Part two will land here the Tuesday after this episode at 5 a.m. Pacific and we'll pick up this story right where we left off.

Until next time, keep the Umbra at bay, and we'll be back for more of this adventure before you know it.