Critical Role - The Elder Scrolls Online One-Shot

Episode Date: May 6, 2025

Hey there, Critters! This is Ashley Johnson and Taliesin Jaffe, and we're popping in here to talk about our new podcast on Beacon, Weird Kids. In this series, we're diving into our lives as former child actors, from unraveling our eccentric upbringings to embracing all the delightfully odd interests we still have today. We're covering so many topics like antique toys, taxidermy, Japanese pop culture, and honestly, anything else we come up with. Weird Kids is available exclusively on Beacon. But good news, we're offering a one-month free trial on Beacon.tv so you can take a look before you become a member. Just use the code WEIRDOES at Beacon.tv to start the trial. You can also find fellow Weirdos by following the series on our

at the Weird Kids pod Instagram and using the hashtag Weird Kids. So to all the misfits, outcasts, and Weirdos out there, come take a seat at our table and celebrate all things unconventional, nostalgic, and wonderfully weird. Welcome to Weird Kids. New episodes release every Tuesday. Hey there, Critter Podcast listeners. We have a special new membership service at Beacon.tv,

where you can get early access to all new podcast episodes, including Critical Role for the first time ever. Beacon members also get things like live event pre-sales, merch discounts, access to a private community Discord, and new exclusive series like critical role cooldown. Think of it as our digital critical role land, head on over to beacon.tv to check it out for yourself and start a seven day free trial.

Thank you so much for your support for being a podcast listener and for being a part of our community. Hello bees. I'm going to go. Critical Role, and YouTube.com slash Critical Role. Our lovely Twitch subscribers can view the episode on demand right away, or you can find it on YouTube Mondays at 12 p.m. Pacific. And of course, for all you fantastic podcast listeners, Critical Role episodes hit feeds on Thursday mornings, a week after the episode first airs. With all that said, let's get into another episode of Critical Role. Hello, and welcome to a very special one-shot in collaboration with our friends at Bethesda Softworks and ZeniMax Online Studios

in honor of the 10th anniversary of Elder Scrolls Online. First off, I have to mention that while you may recognize some of the locations and characters in tonight's adventure, we want to emphasize that this is a tale of our own creation. It's not official canon content from ESO. It's all haggledy-pagledy. Anyway, consider it a love letter

inspired by the decades of content set in the ESO universe. There's so much of it. Thank you again to Bethesda Softworks and ZeniMax Online Studios for letting us play in your world and grab the 2025 content pass to start your own ESO adventure today. Check out www.elderscrollsonline.com slash en-us slash join us for more information.

There you go, got it. Now, without further ado, we are about to play a game of Dungeons & Dragons set in the world of Tamriel. We're probably going to be flavoring some of our spells to be Elder Scrolls-y, but we're going to be using straight up Dungeons & Dragons rules.

We're going to have fun. I want to introduce everyone at the table. Should I introduce you? Should you introduce yourself? I like it like that. You should do it. You should do it. You should do it. You should do it.

Hi. I'm Laura Bailey. I'm here tonight to play a game. Are we supposed to introduce our character? Nah. Okay. Yeah. Hi, I'm not Laura Bailey. I'm Evan Michael Lee.

It's like a Tribe Call quest. Please say the whole thing. Oh, wow. Yeah. I have tried. Yeah, I'm Evan Michael Lee. It's like a tribe call quest. Please say the whole thing. Oh, wow. Yeah. Yeah. I'm Matthew Mercer. That's all I got. I'm Luis Carrazzo.

Oh, okay. You're so good at this. Yeah, yeah. Is that my camera? Bring it home. That's where I live. Is that my camera? That's you.

Hi, hello, I'm Jasmine Bular, also known as that bronze girl. Guys, this is where we got into the creative arts, to hide behind make-believe people. So let's get into it. Let's get into Tamriel and see what the hell's going to happen here. I am excited.

Thank you for joining me here in Nirn. The chapters of this world, of Nirn, are long and lingering. It is only of the recent ages that anything definitive can be known, but that doesn't stop scholars from pondering the great tapestry of the Mundus, the weave of existence.

From out of the mystery of nothingness sprang Anu and Padme, order and chaos, life and light, entropy and darkness. From that earliest miasma of contradiction sprang the foremost of divinities, great Akatosh, the dragon god of time, as well as Lorkhan, who gave his eternal life to ensure the creation of the very fabric of reality

that mortals are familiar with today. Many divines there were. Many helped to shepherd our world, while others instead did spurn it. Some of the great Daedric princes chose the chaos of oblivion beyond the edges of this mortal coil. And through forgotten eras unto this very day,

the Aedra shower their benevolence upon us while the Daedra ever cast their shadows. While we, children of Nirn, in all the lands of Tamriel and beyond, live out our lives in the current of this ceaseless, churning river, building our history one stone at a time through the ages. This is one such an age. The Second Age, to be precise. Welcome, inquisitive minds, to Tamriel in the year 582. It is a moment in history of great uncertainty. Invasions from distant shores

and the central imperial government's fall into chaos has plunged these lands into war, ushering in the rise of three great alliances. The Daggerfell Covenant to the west, the Aldmeri Dominion to the south, and the Ebonheart Pact of the lands to the north and east all ringed about the imperial heart of Tamriel like a crown, waging war against a broken throne and each other. This is the Three Banners War. And yet, despite the clash of kingdoms in Tamriel, the Et'Ada, those great spirits above and below, still chase their private ends. So too do many immortal, spreading their way through the chaos of the age,

having no taste for the squabbling of nation states. And thus, with my Nirnian preamble out of the way, we come to you five. A battle for the throne consumes this land, my Nirnian preamble out of the way, we come to you five. A battle for the throne consumes this land, but many have no appetite for that sort of power. Some are more interested in esoterica, individual ambition, knowledge, which is why this quartet of arcane practitioners

and their deadly night blade colleague fit in so well amongst the ranks of the Mages Guild. Scattered across Tamriel, guild members manage to remain mostly neutral in this conflict, providing services to the people while furthering the guild's and your own search for greater understanding of the magic that this world breathes. You've built up quite a reputation for yourselves as well. The guild knows that when something needs to be acquired,

you five will acquire it, risk and peril be damned. And that is why a week ago, High Mage Velast, the mage guild's master of incunabula herself, tasked you with retrieving an artifact thought to perhaps only be a myth. Velast's scribes found new mention of Mora's Veil. Ooh, ah, few even know of it. Mora's Veil is a mystery, a rumor, an artifact believed to point the way

to an even deeper mystery, the Grammoryx Nimular, an ancient grimoire of deep esoteric significance, one of the black books of the Daedric Prince of hidden knowledge and memory. Hermaeus Mora, writ with the secrets of Apocrypha. A tome that many would kill for, or worse.

Good news is you did it. Good! Yay! In the mountains that divide the Cyrodiil Empire. Mountains between the Empire and Morrowind, you plumbed the depths of a cursed ruin, and there, as the scribes indeed had conjectured, See ya, Mom! This strange object lay in slumber there,

forgotten to time, and now you are quite certain you have Mora's Veil, or, or, or you had it. Shit. The bad news is you got fucking ambushed on the way out, and now you're here, totally fucked, bound in dark iron chains, suspended upside down, your belongings, and of course,

the artifact laid splayed out before you, out of reach, and you, potentially out of hope. Welcome to the Elder Scrolls. Can't clap, we're in chains. Oh. Oh. All of you slowly awaken, painfully wincing upside down

in a chamber of rough stone. It is dim, somewhere between Torture Chamber and Bazaar Laboratory, where you hang like sides of meat right now. somewhere between torture chamber and bizarre laboratory where you hang like sides of meat right now. There's low light from a few torches flickering on the walls. Chains and manacles hang about the chamber in various places. There are rough cluttered tables of parchment,

metal and glass instruments, flames, a furry severed arm on one, one large bit of hide or skin stretched out with a map work of runic scrawl. The five of you hang in a wide semicircle, once again, upside down, iron chains creaking, your hands clamped painfully behind you somehow, quite dizzy from the rush of blood to the head. At a certain point, you realize you are hanging over

a painted circle of some sort on the stone below, wrought in runic script. There's a shifting in the chamber, and you realize someone else is here, craning your necks. You see a shirtless, blue-hued, ropey, lean, horned figure, Daedric, with a long black braid

sectioned off down his back. He sits with his back to you and the artifact that you had pulled from that ruin, Mora's Veil, what looks like a brass cylinder wrought in intricate metal, almost like a Moroccan lamp with latticework all about it, a perfect shape, a perfect cylinder, no hinges, no latches, nothing,

rests on two iron forks, holding it in place on a table in front of this mysterious Daedric figure. A door opens a few moments later, past this figure studying the stolen artifact, and another blue-hued, shirtless, somewhat more swole this time character with almost like an oni

floof of black hair enters and bears a striking resemblance to the first, like they could be related. The only real difference you can see is one is a little leaner than the other with their hair held back and the other one is a little leaner than the other, with their hair held back, and the other one is a little more unkempt

and we'll say chattier. The figure walks past the other towards the five of you hanging in the room and walks straight up to you and just gives you a little push and watches you. Hello. Long way from the library in Mournhold Bookworm.

Yes, a bit, yeah. Why don't you tell us at the table what we see swinging back and forth. As he sways back and forth, upside down, the gray, silvered hair, long, stretching and falling partway in front of his Dunmer, dark elf face, his piercing red eyes, wide with a combination of genuine curiosity

as well as a hint of fear and confusion. You see a somewhat portly, strong-looking Dunmer, a well-kept silvered beard around his chin, bright red eyes, and it's probably quite sweaty at this point. The blood is rushing to his head and his eyes are starting to get a little puffy. Gives you another little push and just watches.

Norovix, you're getting ahead of yourself. I need them fresh. The one at the table speaks up. Oh, I'm not going to kill them. Not yet. But a little bleeding is fine. We're going into Blackreach. I don't want any mistakes.

Leave them for now. Oh, it's all right. We're just talking. And he turns to you, Arox. Isn't that right, friend? Grabs you by the scruff of your neck, and he's pretty beefy, lifts you a little bit so your face is at least sideways to his.

Need anything? Get you a pillow. Mm. Yes, a tighter grip. Evan, why don't you tell us what we at the table see held by this Daedric figure? Oh. Ah!

You see a dark cloaking hood hanging over his head and the tail of a deep, dark lizard swinging in front of him. Just below his chest hair, I notice there's something hanging around his neck, but I can't quite make it out because the blood is rushing to my head and my vision is hazy.

But I think this could be something that could get us out of here, but I'm not sure. Right now. On this individual? Perhaps. Sees your Argonian scaled face growing darker

from the strain of it. Let's you go and lets you swing. See, Zivaron? They love me. Zivaron, the leaner of these two figures, is not paying his friend any mind and is spinning his hand in a ring in front of this object, and a little circle of arcane motes appear.

And he just stares down the length of the artifact, registers something, and then wipes that away. Did we understand what those artifact, those runes were? Could we tell? Make a roll for Arcana. Prasine. Oh, 13.

Super easy for you. You're very well practiced in the arcane arts. He is trying to understand the nature of this thing sitting in front of him. He's trying to figure it out. Mm. Big boy wanders over to you, Taladur. But you and I, we really are friends, aren't we, Taladur?

His face in that moment ripples and changes entirely to a thin, pale, shave-headed Breton figure that you recognize as one of the last scribes who you have spent weeks, months with conversing in the libraries back in Mournhold. So many conversations in the Sacks, huh? Up to that point, Talidore, who is a Breton, his dark hair and tan skin,

and he wears these robes that are very trenchcoat-like, black robes with gold trim, and his mahogany eyes have scarlet flecks, and they've been focused on the writing underneath us. I think at this point, I've gathered that this ritual is meant to use our blood for something. I am now trying to assess, if I can, if I recognize any of the runes

and if I can tell how long it would take for this incantation to take, but it's absolutely interrupted with this encounter. My eyes go right up to his and I see him turn into someone familiar to me. Huh. Has it always been you, or did you take him from me and take his form?

Those features ripple away, and you see again this leering blue face again, and his hand lands on your cheek. He just palms your head and swings you back and forth. I try to maintain as much eye contact with him as I swing. He has moved on. The figure at center was called Zivaron. Questions, have you the toxin ready?

Invenomed by the will of our lord himself and ready to go. He walks over and pulls out of both of these guys are wearing like ragged red kilts almost, but made of many different strips of material and he reaches somewhere in there and pulls out a glass vial that has a swirl of golden green liquid

that sort of gyrates and mixes within and walks over to the table that Zivaron is working at, and he sets it on that table next to him. I still find it amusing. A vampire after a poison. That can end a vampire. These mud dwellers are fools even after death. It's no concern of ours.

Zivaron, again, is moving his hands through the air and placing runes in different positions in front of Mora's veil and then wipes his hands away and pulls back a little bit in surprise from that. The thing starts to pulse and glow through all those holes in the latticework. Green light starts to radiate gently out of it

and he looks consternated and confused. Why are you bothering with that now? Gonna be late. You just want to get your fun with this lot. Give me a minute, I almost have it. I think we can fetch you a pet soon enough. Big guy looks bored and wanders over to you, Precine. I almost feel sorry for this one. Big guy looks bored and wanders over to you, Prisine.

I almost feel sorry for this one. He runs fingers into your blonde hair. Oh, no. Lifts it and lets it fall. Dainty little wisp of a thing. I'm sure you're wishing you'd stuck to the dappled streets of Somerset, didn't you? Actually, this is quite fun, considering where I started. Where did you start, little elf girl?

Where most do, in a home. You know, I've tried that incantation already on the scroll, in the veil. It doesn't work. You can see a vein throb on the side of that figure's face over at the item. It ignores you. Can you give us, at the table, a little bit of a picture?

Oh, sure. I am a very slight elven altmer. And she has slightly golden skin and very, very pale, long blonde hair that's probably hitting the ground as she's upside down. Cream robes with little bits of gold trim and sage green on him. Zivaron, in the middle,

continues his study. Big guy wanders over in this direction. Drop a sweat. But I don't know fuck all about you, clown. Your friends here don't bring you around the guild much in Mournhold. Afraid you'll embarrass them. No, I'm a blade for hire, and I can...

I mean, I'm willing to deal. And you see a very lithe panther. Her eyes are big pools of amber and you see a very lithe panther. Her eyes are big pools of amber that you want to fall into. They reek of honey. And she playfully runs her long panther tail up the chains and says,

They just pay me. Come here, let's talk. Let's have a chat. Hearing this immediately, Nishikon goes like, So quick to double-cross us! Shut up, Nishikon. Come, come. And if he steps over.

Sure, he'll get a little closer. He does? I look over his shoulder and I cast Knock on Prisine's, the manacles on her hands. There is a metallic sound. And Prisine begins to swing back and forth from the shock of it. And you see, as she awkwardly spins around, and Priscian begins to swing back and forth from the shock of it,

and you see, as she awkwardly spins around, the hands are in a piece of metal fragment that is welded shut. Noble Trido! Give the table a little description of your apparel. I think it's important. Yeah. Seeing that it didn't work,

you hear a jingle of several bells as Amiri does a little 360, struggling against her own bonds. You see the flaps of her jester garb are flopping upside down, batting at her face a little bit. As she blows them out, you also notice her little feet are in curved boots that also have bells on the tip. She doesn't wear the hat, though. She has some pride. It's navy blue and gray. It's very demure, very classy, very somber outfit.

Somber bells. Somber bells, like grave bells. Yeah. He gives you a very big toothy grin right one inch from your face. Please don't kill me. I'm so sorry. Very intimidating. I wouldn't want me, I'm so sorry. Very intimidating.

I wouldn't want to run into you in an alley. And he flicks one of the bells hanging off of your shoulder. Oh, I see. Efferson. Right. Causes my scales to ripple, the sound of the bell. Narevix, leave it.

Just fucking leave it. He rubs his hands together, this ropier of the pair. He looks over at you. Not a half bad idea. And he flicks his fingers in three very distinct motions that you recognize that you have done similarly yourself. And you hear the artifact go,

boom! Like he's hit a gong. And the artifact, this cylinder of metal, begins to glow brighter and hotter. He pulls back from it, and there is a sudden warbling sound the cylinder of metal begins to glow brighter and hotter. He pulls back from it, and there is a sudden warbling sound inside of your head. The brass cylinder expands,

grows all the individual holes, growing larger as it expands, and then it opens like a flower. And as the noise becomes deafening inside your mind, you see what looks like a squid slide out of the cylinder, all its little tentacles glued together, and it opens, blossoms like a flower,

and you hear voices, whispers in your mind, I so shud... And the two blue figures reel back. Your head is a maelstrom of sound, and it becomes words, it becomes clear, and you hear a voice say, He who knows has seen this day, as with every day to come, and every day now past.

You too will not disturb the tides of fate, nor find your purchase in this realm. The room goes green in your vision. You see two worlds at once overlapping, the chamber around you, but a green and black wasteland. You feel your body pushed through space, four or five feet floating in the air. You can still see in the chamber, which is hued green,

all of your belongings and items, your book rising up into the air, the vial of potion, the artifact itself, metal instruments, these two Daedra individuals' hair rising into the air, and suddenly everything implodes, compacts, and you feel yourself moving through space, twisting, and are spit out in an entirely new location.

You suddenly find yourself tripping forward in the light of day, disoriented, processing a sudden and dramatic change in... Are our hands still bound? Those chains were gone. You were pushed through space, away, and then briefly pulled back into reality and then shunted to a new one.

You are now in the open air. You're breathing barely enough time to catch yourself from stumbling over the edge of a very high vantage point, looking out over the top of a wide and eerily beautiful fungal forest. You're perched on a massive, ruddy mushroom cap, perhaps not the tallest of the looming sentinels of this place, but damn near it.

The sun is slightly muted here and there is a thin but noticeable drift of ash sprinkling in the air. The source of which is plain to see in the far distance filling the sky beyond this eerily beautiful forest of fungi, a volcano broods, a column of smoke rising from the sky,

and just the barest glimpse of lava flow trickling down one edge. You may not know your exact location, but this can be no other place than Vvardenfell, the island that sits within the center of Morrowind's inner sea. A few oversized beetles, their shells crusted over in tendrils of cordyceptian stalks trundle

along the edge of your spongy tower balcony. You hear, way in the distance, a few distant squawks. As you crane to look off on your right, you see a formation of creatures in the air gliding high above the roof of the forest. Birds, you think at first, but then you realize maybe they're more reptilian than avian. And then that voice, that voice you heard ringing out

deep underground somewhere, you hear this squid-like entity's voice suddenly chime within your minds. I'm not sure, but you might want that. It seemed very important to them. The vial of toxin they referred to is rolling towards the edge of the mushroom cap, and it's about three inches away from going.

The bomb came out of the jinn! I dive, using my tail as a spring, and do a roll and just ever so gently try to put my paws around it. Why don't you give me an acrobatics check? Can I reach out and try and grab the tail to prevent our friend from going over the edge? We talked about this.

It's not his first time. First roll. Yeah. Oh, I'm nervous. Ooh! That's a 12 plus nine, 21. You do feel yourself sliding off, and though it's annoying, your tail goes

caught, and you catch it after it falls seven inches off the edge, and you're looking down probably 150 feet or so from where you are, down, down, down, to more all manner of fungal growth. This creature, this green squid is not the right word. It has one central eye and multiple arms floating out of it.

It's small. There are little eyes peppering its body, and you can see, as it floats down in front of your face, that there is thin bands of runework coiling around its tendrils. And it speaks to you in your mind. All of you here, but its eye is right by yours. Greetings, mortals.

I am called Quillotridis Averillium Otranog- Well, maybe call me Quill. I have been at slumber for the better part of an age. It is good to stretch my arms again. And those little octopus-like arms expand and stretch. It floats over in front of you. You are called Niskan. Yes, yes, quite.

You hail from the Apographer? Hmm. I have not been there for quite some time. I have been at rest. Quite. You hail from the Apographer? I have not been there for quite some time. I have been at rest. She'll be dead, please, tell me more, and he pulls a book out from his minutes out of his robes and starts taking notes. You bear the mark of the Great Eye, praise his wisdom.

As always, the Prince of Fate pulls at threads. His enemies are blind, too. Right. How do you spell your name again? Wait, where are you going? We are not safe. These Xivoli I have pulled us from, they will not stop. I have read the malice of their minds. So they're not here anymore?

They didn't come with us? No. Phew. So you freed us. What do we owe you for that service? Hermaeus Mora has hidden fragments of his deepest knowledge across the face of Nien, and this pair of hunters has come close to seizing one.

The Grimorix Nimular, a Daedric artefact of great import, one of the Great Eye's Black Books of Power, the very tome that I have been tasked with safeguarding here in Nirn. Emmaus Morra has instilled in me the soul enchantments to open the grimoirex. If used properly, it can usher one to the very heart of Apocrypha, the sanctum of the all-seeing eye. Blink, blink.

But it has been unearthed. I have seen it in your captors' minds and feel it in my tendrils. Those little runes flare and glow slowly. Thank you for releasing me, but I worry what they will do next. The word zivoli, all of you know what that means. You've never encountered one. Daedric entities like the Dremora,

persons and creatures from beyond the mortal coil that live or reside in the Plains of Oblivion, they do cross over into Tamriel. They are seen from time to time. The Dremora are tied to specific Daedric princes, Molag Bal being one of them. But the Zivili are not as tied to one particular cause or entity. They tend to follow their own ambition

and hitch their wagon to whatever cause they think can serve them best. Hmm. The Grimoirex is being held far to the north of here and to the west. It's held by a woman cursed deep within a mountain far to the north of here and to the west, is held by a woman cursed deep within a mountain far to the west of here, a warrior serving in a great gray army.

Well, should we free her? I'd rather like this little creature thing. What is it? What are you? Oh, someone referred to me as a watchling. creature thing. What is it? What are you? Oh. Some would refer to me as a watchling. But I am just a pint-sized watcher. That's even cuter.

I have not been home to Apocrypha in many centuries. Because you were asleep? I was sleeping, waiting. Mora has hidden his black books across Tamriel. As you were asleep? I was sleeping, waiting. Mora has hidden his black books across Tamriel, and this one in particular is my duty to protect. Well, we would also like to protect this tome, yes. What's in it for you?

To please my master, the one who knows. Are you the Veil? Some have called me Moraz Veil, but my real name is Quillatridus. Quillatridus. Quip. I trust him. This thing was inside the whole time? Mm-hmm. You guys only were in possession

of this cylinder of brass for maybe half a day as you climbed your way out of the dark pit that you pulled it from. Reaching sunlight again, all you remember is a flash and losing consciousness and waking, hanging in a chamber somewhere. Friend Quill Watchling, do you have a sense of where this Grimorax,

Nymilla, would be? Could you guide us? Of course, I am paired with it, and it can only be opened in my presence. Lovely, lovely, lovely, lovely. Do you also mind if any of these words get up edited in the final publication? For brevity, of course.

Are you talking about copyright? Yes. Eventually. You'll have to worry about it later. We'll talk. Might come back for some clarification later. Anyway. Some of these winged creatures

that you saw in the distance now lope a little closer and seem to notice you, sort of squawk. They look a little bit like, a good frame of reference is pterodactyl, maybe. Big webbed wings flapping. They do not look happy about your presence, but they just keep a distance and watch. Quia, did you bring us here?

Because some of your stuff is here. No, I just went to the closest place that seemed available. And I can tell you, having, well, visiting my homeland, it's probably best that we get moving quickly. It is nearby. You're from here?

I mean, I haven't been home in a while, but yes. Rough neighborhood. Don't judge, this is the outskirts. I have read the minds of your captors. Do they think I'm cute? I got a sense that's a big one. You can tell me. I step away from it.

That one seemed pretty easy. Fair, but that's not a no. Now, you mentioned a gray warrior and a princess in a mountain. Was that just poetry or was that a clue? No, the twins meant to make an exchange. Oh. This vial of Toxin in your possession

for the Grimoire. And I am the key. So they were, of course, trying to, you were their goal so that you could be there when they make the exchange and open the grimoire, is that, am I following enough? It's pronounced Wim-war. What if we say no?

What happens to us? Oh. Well... I suppose I would go alone. Well, no, the guild would be quite pleased if we brought back something of this nature, don't you think? I do think so.

Also, it's a baby Talidore. There would be no punishment coming our way for, you mean we have a choice? There is always choice. No, there isn't. Is Hermaeus, is this a Daedric or a? Hermaeus Mora. Hermaeus. No roles for this.ric or a? Hermaeus Mora. Hermaeus.

No roles for this. The et ada, the spirits of this world. The aedra and the daedra are, there are so many myths and legends and different versions of the stories, but Hermaeus Mora, who goes by many names, is a Daedric prince. But many of the Daedric princes

are much more malevolent and nasty. And Hermaeus is more about fate and amassing secrets and hidden knowledge. And you specifically are very aware of the black books of Hermaeus Mora. They are rare, rare, rare artifacts hidden in the mortal world by Hermaeus Mora. They are rare, rare, rare artifacts hidden in the mortal world by Hermaeus. I'm already walking to a northwestern direction.

Are you coming? Because if not, you'll get eaten. I follow him. He knows the area. Well, you're 120, 130 feet in the sky. Oh. Does that mean you will come with me to secure the Grimoirex Nemular? Of course! It would be the honor of a lifetime, my friend.

Time and space bends around you. You shrink in again. You are standing in utter darkness. I cough up a hairball. Is there a calmer way of traveling? I want to see it a second time. You can see all those runes along Quill's tendrils and body fade to dark.

And now you have a moment to stand, feeling deep chill hit your bones. But it's not pitch dark. There is the barest bit of light in here from bioluminescent growth in patches in the chamber. It is very hard to see, but you begin to understand that you are in a rough cave. There are several long rows of barrels,

sealed, running along the wall, and you can tell that maybe about 50 feet off past them, the cave twists and travels onward from where you are. Do you think it's safe to? No. Yeah, I think it's safe. Light. I feel like we should proceed with caution.

We have to be careful not to, we have to study things before we understand them well enough to interact with them, I think, yes? I'm sniffing and looking at one of the barrels. Let it off is all. Okay. Light. Elrox, you feeling all right, Wynd?

I'm fine. Are you just trying to figure out what's inside? Yeah. Okay. Make a nature or medicine check. Make a nature or medicine check. I'm not good at either of these, but I'll go medicine. Okay. 10. 10.

It smells, well, first of wine. Oh. More. There is a big, wide stopper in it, if you want to have at it a bit. You don't have to tongue the hole, you know. You have to. Put my water flask,

or dump the water out of my water flask. And you fill your flask with wine? Mm-hmm. If you're feeling a bit green around the gills. My tongue slams over there, and I just lick the rim. Oh my goodness. Eryx, will you make a nature or make a saint check? Nine.

Six. Six. Oh no. That's good. It's good. It's a little different from any wine you've ever tasted before, but it's not bad. It has a strange aftertaste to it. A metallic aftertaste to it that you weren't expecting. Not bad for cave wine.

Yeah. Makes you wonder what the distillery down here is like. Makes you wonder who else is down here. Is it a cave or is it built out? It is a cave, but these are clearly laid in a row here. There's two rows, probably about 20 barrels. Any labels, anything?

No. You want a glass, Prasine? I'll smell it. Can I smell it? Mm-hmm. Will you please make that roll? Sure. And this is a medicine?

Or nature. 15. 15? You taste it. The aftertaste. I was only smelling it. Oh, smelling it? Okay. Okay.

Smells like blood. Smells like blood. Smells like blood. And wine, but also blood. You know, Quill didn't mention vampire. Yes. This poison was meant for a vampire to use against a vampire, if I recall that. You drink blood.

And the metal does feel like silver. One of the Zivoli mentioned vampire. Hmm, okay, okay. I heard vampire. Yes, yes, you did. I knew that. You were upside down with a head rush full of blood, to be fair. Yeah.

Khajiit love drinking blood. It's an important part of her diet. Really? So we could poison them. Takes them with his wine, and we can poison the vampire. Putting it together for my zine. Yes. My colleague's thirst for knowledge is insatiable. Quill is here, yes?

Quill, and I'll reference the vial of poison. You feel this on your face. Ooh. Oof. Okay. I close my eyes. This is not research. It's not research. Are we alone here? You've taken us here. You knew where you were taking us.

What is here? What's waiting What is here? What's waiting for us here? I can feel the presence of the Grimorix. Right. That is all I know. But this vial, right? You understand that this vial that we have in our possession,

that's a key to this. We're meant to exchange this for the Grimorix. That is what I read from their minds. I do not know everything. Okay. Maybe this is our princess in the mountain. Maybe. And maybe the princess in the mountain is a vampire.

And maybe you can talk to her because you look how flowers smell. That was very lovely. They're kind, it's really one of the things. Because they don't smell very good. So you can maybe just talk to her and use magic because you're not enchanting at all. So.

Do we hear any footsteps, any people talking anywhere, reverberating in the? Make a perception check while Quill says in your mind, There were many secrets contained in the Grimorviks. Dark arts. But the reason these two are seeking it is to enter my master's domain. If the Grimoirex Nimular is taken

to Hermaeus' stairway, they will breach Apocrypha and enter the Great Ones' home. Did we all hear that, or is that just even? You all heard it. Oh my! to the Great Ones' home. Did we all hear that, or is that just him? You all heard it. Oh my! But the eye, wet and

floor paint is right in front of you. Because it can tell that you're listening. I am, and I'm... stay focused on him, but open my ears up to see if I hear anything in the cavern. Right. A 12. Oh no, perception?

No, seven. No. Your senses are overwhelmed by the voice of this strange little one's voice in your head and its proximity to your face. Everything you just said sounds like it would be a really bad thing if that were to happen, am I right?

Oh yes. Okay, understood. I step away from him, just back one step. Quill begins to float slowly towards that passage. This way, this way. Yes. Coming, of course. Wait, wait, wait, wait. We might be in trouble.

Maybe we should get our ducks in a row before we go, right? Squid seemed to be a bit of a close talker. I'm going to reach my hand out over to the things filled with blood, and I'm going to cast False Life and just give myself a little bit of temporary hit points, just in case. Mm-hmm, and I'm going to cast False Life and just give myself a little bit of temporary hit points, just in case.

I see you activate that magic, and I start to do the same, and you see, it's almost as if energy pulls from the ground and into my body and then bursts out of me for a second, and then right back in. I'm activating a number of things. Yes! So I am activating Daedric Refuge,

as well as Hardened Ward, and the two people closest to me, which I'm just going to say are the two closest to me at the table. So, Amiri, Nishkan, you feel almost like a protective barrier gather around you and then be absorbed by you as you each gain five actual hit points.

Aid. Oh. And this shimmering green light starts to almost dance around me, and every couple seconds, you see it pulse like a barrier. I've activated aid, I've activated false life as well, and I've activated a ward, a protective ward in addition to that. We love magical flavor in this house.

I got 10 temporary hit points. 10, all right. I think the preparation of this, Nishikannu automatically started taking a few steps to follow the strange squid entity as he goes away, stops himself and hears the various mutterings of incantation, goes, Ah, yes, preparations, I've nearly forgot.

Pardon me, Quill. And reaches within and pulls out his own, this heavy tome that he carries, latched and chained to his side, itself with all manner of arcane ruins between, and you can see a faint greenish glow that even faintly matches elements of the coloration of what was briefly pulled from that sigil circle in the middle of that chamber. As he does, you watch as the

runic symbols seem to flash and send these waves of strange, almost like a milky green arcane power that then begins to swirl around his body, forming what would be a fate-woven armor that surrounds his body, both giving him an AC boost and some temporary hit points. Okay. Ooh. Don't forget your zine. Picks it up off the ground. That's what I'm thinking of calling it.

It's more of a leaflet, you know? Publishing costs are expensive, so. I think I just, like, Amiri puts her hands on her shoulders and just does a little shimmy, casting mage armor. And while she does, she pulls at the cords at her waist to pull down her jester's ruffs so that the bells at the edges sit close

and don't jingle as she walks. So they move full pressed to the cloth. Excellent. So we're following Quill, the watchling, as they float through. Again, the tiny etchings of rune on their body just glow softly as they move forward. And you follow, and a lot of heights today.

You step out around a bending passage in this cave and suddenly into a vast open space. You're very, very high in an unbelievably large underground cavern, close to the very roof of the place. There is a rough stone wall that's only about knee high that has been built here at some point, crumbling in places, that serves as a balcony overlook

down at a massive black keep below. Huge, concentric, ringed walls with towers stabbing into the air like daggers. Just gothic architecture and light, too. There are very tall, blue, bioluminescent mushrooms here as well, dimly lighting this place. There's a moat that you can see in front of this keep with a little bit of magma flowing through it.

And there are people here. They're very far below you. They look barely more than ants from this distance, but you can see probably 70 or 80 people from where you are, people cloaked. You see what looks like a little platoon of people walking together, individuals all about, because there's buildings here and there.

It's like a small, bustling living keep of sorts. The balcony that you're on is really more of a walkway, and it's rough. It's a natural feature of the cavern, but someone has built a little stone wall here and you see it stretches about halfway around this entire giant cavern. And where you stand as Quill lowers down

and you can see them bobbing just above that wall, you're very far away. It's low chances, maybe, of being spotted, but you are quite unprotected in plain sight if someone is looking in the right way. Can we crouch below the wall? Yeah, let's do a group stealth check, guys. Oh boy.

He's gone, he's looking through his book. Oh boy! Oh, does anyone have Pass Without a Chase? No. That's too bad. Yikes. It is too bad. It is too bad. I got a 19. What did everyone else get? A 19.

Hey! Hey! 11. 11. Five! Hey! 11. 11. Five. Oh! Eight. Oh! Way up here, DC, I was looking for is 10, so that 11 just pulled you over. Wow. Wow.

You guys bend down low and begin to, crouched over, move slowly along. Quill is leading the way. You watch as the ruins dim a little bit. Bats flying by, maybe 100 feet out over this cavern. Talidor, Talidor, I say to your butt as you're crawling in front of me.

What? What? How does it feel to know you were betrayed by someone that you were very close to? How do you think it feels? Terrible. Yeah, somewhere around there, yes. Oh, okay. I was just making sure you were all right.

Yeah, I'm okay. Okay. Pip, you feel better. Wait, wait. Do that one more time. Pip-Pip, you feel better. Do that one more time. It does feel better. Mm-hmm. Five minutes go by, 10 minutes, you slowly make your way along, and you are again seeing what looks like elements

of an army down in this place. And the place looks ancient. It must have been here for centuries, just going by this low stone wall up here alone. Eventually, Quill floats their way to the passage. This walkway continues, but Quill turns and starts moving up a gentle slope up into the ceiling.

Are we there yet, Quill? We've been walking forever. It's still a bit farther yet, sorry. How far? I don't know the metric system. Okay, fair. That's fair. I'll just, okay. Which is funny, considering my accent, but.

Do you understand minutes? Yes, if you know time, you probably don't. You probably don't understand time. We could teach you. Time is a very funny thing. It is. You are asleep for, how long do you think? Oh, for an age, at least. Mm.

Okay. That's vague enough to. It's so long. It's long, though. It does sound long, actually. Yeah. It does. Have we ever seen anything like Quill before? A little baby Watcher? No. I don't think you've seen a Watcher.

I don't think you've seen a regular Watcher. Yeah. You may have. Have we seen these? While we're doing this and keeping an eye out to see them, we're not being noticed as we get closer. Are we able to make out any details or specifics about those who live in this underground community? What their business might be?

Can we hear them? Yes. Are they armored? Sure, well, I'll say this. As you have that thought and Quill begins to float up into a leaving any kind of architecture behind and just moving into a crack in the stone here. You have a moment to pause and look.

You can make a... You can make a perception or an investigation check in this moment, I think. Three. Three? Dirty 20. Trace. 13. Yeah!

14 investigation on that. You look at Niskanth, squinting. Point to Exeter. He can't see shit, but you can. Your eyes are excellent. I pointedly put my head on his shoulder. It's okay. You watch. It is clearly a military presence

down here of some kind, one that you are not familiar with. I'm not really sure where you guys are, but you watch for a good minute and a half, trying to glean some bit of information, you're with. I'm not really sure where you guys are, but you watch for a good minute and a half, trying to glean some bit of information, and you watch one older man walking down a street and gets to a bridge, and you see

and a little bat. Are they all vampires? I told you, I told you. That's what I said. They're all vampires. All of them. I didn't think that. That's worse. I didn't see anything. I didn't think vampires got all.

Vampire. Where? Down there. He went to a bed. He was walking. Oh! Creepy. Hmm. Well, that's not fun.

Yeah, that's not fun. Because you know what? They don't feed on each other. Well, how are they survived? Oh, the barrels. Yes. The barrels. Best not become a barrel. Right, that's it, yeah.

Well. That's one way to put it. Sure, that's putting it mildly. I've rendered myself inedible. How so? And tell us you could do that to me. Yes. Darling, I'm so full of skooma, if they ate me, they would not,

they don't have the tolerance. Is skooma contagious? Everybody do skooma right now. Just look over at Pristine and be like, well, that certainly explains the outfit. Wait. Do you guys go on our adventures sober? I had some of the wine.

Well, we're taking notes. I don't know how you survived the upside-down being bled alive thing. I don't know how we survived with you, if you're not. You always got to have a little Lucy in your goosey. This is you, Lucy Gussy? Yes, that's it. That's a title.

Where is Quill? Quill, you can just see the dimmest little bit of light disappearing around him. No shit! No, no, no, no, no! Why are you going? I glug, glug, and climb up after him. What did you glug, glug? My skooma. Your skooma.

Awesome. Is it unbreakable? Wait, I thought you would share. With a weird deftness. I grab these two and I bolt teleport us up to where Aquila is. What do you do? I teleport us up to where Aquila is.

You teleport? Yes. How? Are you misty stepping? No, I did a bolt escape. A bolt escape? Tell me about it. So what I did was I grabbed the two of them because I see that Quill is getting away from us

and as he's getting further and further away or they're getting further and further away, they're getting dimmer and dimmer and we don't want to get lost behind. He's being very cryptic right now, but I'm going to trust him, because you seem to trust him. Oh, totally. Entirely trustworthy. So I grab these two, and I put energy around us,

and it's lightning and lightning and lightning and lightning. Ow, ow, ow, ow! Bam! And we're right eye to eye with Quill. So they use that Misty Step ability right there, right? Mm-hmm. Perfect. I was looking for you. Keep up. Okay.

They're leaving us behind. But I want some of their candy. They continue floating up and up. And it's not a climb, it is an incline. It's leg day, for sure, for a bit, and eventually starts to descend again. You're moving your way through, not manicured, civilized architecture, but just crevasse.

And after five or six more minutes of navigating in this direction, that thin passage opens up to another large section of cave in the system. Nowhere near as the last that contained an entire keep and a small city of people. But it is dark in here, and there is a big drop-off in front of you, but there are, ooh, let's see if I can remember

the right words, stalagmites? Stalagmites and stalactites. Stalactites are top-top. I wanted the mites. Yes, mites are bottom-top. You were right. 50-50 chance. As Stephen Colbert taught me. Tight, tight, tight, tight.

Embarrassingly. So this is a fairly large chamber, and it is dark before you, except for where, and you are glowing a little bit, aren't you? Am I glowing? From your stuff? Oh, there's a shimmer on occasion, just a little pulse of it. So between Quill, unless someone does something else,

between Quill and you, there is dim light here, and you can see almost pillars or these stalagmites. The ledge that you walk up to just drops away, but there are a series of stalagmites reaching up out of the dark in front of you, and Quill just starts floating over them. Great. Hey, buddy!

And curves off to the right. How far does it go before? Quill gets out about 50 feet and turns around and flares a bit, and you can see what looks like a column of stone just descending into the dark. You lose track after about 30 feet. and you can see what looks like a column of stone just descending into the dark. You lose track after about 30 feet.

You can get to Quill. You can easily walk your way over. On top of them? Mm-hmm. Yeah, they're close enough. All right, well, let's do that then. Yes, you first. Gladly. You do seem confident. I am.

Ladies first. You daintily step your way out, Prasine, but after about 20 seconds, you get to a point where it is not steppable. It's not terrible, but you're going to have to jump about seven feet to get to the next one. Oh.

I need you to make an athletics or acrobatics. Oh no, Phil. Check, or do something crazy. You got this! Okay. There's a huge chasm underneath us, right? Yes. It just drops away.

Right, you are stepping on what feels like stone. You know what? Uneven, different-shaped platforms. Okay. It's a platformer, guys. Yeah. Gotcha. Started this as a cartographer. I'm a bit of an archaeologist.

That's how I joined. I'm a bit of an archaeologist myself. So I have a minus pick with me. I'm going to pull that out. Yes. And I'm going to jump with it in my hand so that if I fall, I'll hit the stalagmite and be able to catch myself. I will adjust the numbers in my head as you leap. All right.

Seven feet. It's also not a tiny landing. It's eight or nine feet wide, so there's lots of room for error if you crash out of it. I'm very non-athletic. Oh, that's cocked, though. It's cocked. Can you put a dice on top of it?

Okay. Oh, now what a great measure. No! Turned it into a two. That's a great measure. Yeah. Okay, okay, okay. If you can press one of the dice and it stops on it,

then it's, it's. No, it's not. It is great. That's a six, not a 20. Okay. But I have a pick in my hand. If you start falling, I'm going to do something. She starts falling.

I jump, and I'm, okay. I'm not, I don't to do something. She starts falling. I jump, and I'm, okay. I'm not, I don't know why. She hit, you hear her voice go as she hits the lip of it, and then the pick goes so you hear that. I'm going to leap onto you, and as soon as I touch you, I'm casting Fly on both of us. Oh, well, that's lovely.

And I don't know what can move me, but I just couldn't stand the sight of you going down into the darkness alone. And so, I just like the way you touched me earlier, and I think I might need a little bit more of that. Smack his butt. Thank you. Will floats down. It's funny that you didn't do that earlier.

Well, I'm trying to save my resources because there's vampires here. Now that you've spent them, can you carry us across, please? Uppies. You take him. Matt, I'm giving you, I don't know why, I'm giving you inspiration for uppies.

I fly over and I try to carry you. I'm very weak. I'm very heavy. Okay, so. Just hold on to me. This block of text is gone. Little by little, you guys float your team over. And for the most part, this does look walkable, but even beyond that first jump,

there is one that is even longer that probably would have murdered you. So luckily, you're casters. It's happening. Saving the day. If we want the mechanics of it, it was a twin spell, Fly, which is why it was two targets.

That burns a lot of my resources. Ooh! How long does that last? Fly is 10 minutes, I believe. 10 minutes, okay. And... It's definitely an hour. Yes, concentration is 10 minutes.

Just out of curiosity, I'm going to also, as I'll help people fly you across, but I will grab a rock and as we're all across, I'm going to cast Light on the rock and just let it fall down the chasm. I just want to see how far that goes. It falls very fast. You mean down where you just crossed?

Yeah, down where we would have fallen if. It's like 10 feet. That's what I'm waiting for. It's a nice, velvet floor. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's closer to 80. Okay. Just curious to see if there's anything that...

Moving on. As you glide back to rejoin the party, as you're passing over that, I mentioned a larger jump. You notice some scratches along the edge of one of those dug in. That's all. Okay. Everything's great.

Oh, all right. Do you think that How big are these scratches? I think there's something down Okay. Everything's great. Oh, all right. Do you think that... How big are these scratches? I think there's something down there. I know. Talking kitty claws. Yeah. Hand-sized. Should we do the light trick?

Okay. I'm going to pick up another pebble. Do a where? A light trick down this. Oh, I see. So we can see what it was that they would've. Yeah. Oh, this sounds bad,

but I will throw this lit pebble down this. It, creature's home, falls and bounces off of a bit of stone jutting out and then plinkers its way down and falls to rest. You see light play shadows all about it down there. You don't see anything. Do we hear anything? Make a perception check.

My little eyes are following the light rock like it's a laser. Do you have the urge to jump? The people's just dilated. Oh no! See? The claw's perched on the side. Make sure she doesn't jump. Ready?

Yes, yes. All right. That's a 15 perception. It is dead silent in here. Okay. Except for Niskanen using a spray bottle. He conveniently had it. Grimoire on one side.

I was ready for this try. It's not the first time. Well, probably for the best. And this floating is not going to last very long, so I guess we should move forward and take advantage of it. Quill has hovered over another ledge on the far end of this place. You guys have bypassed a very deadly little obstacle course

and land on foot, and they begin to float further in. And down. And down. and they begin to float further in and down, and down, and down. Unless anyone has any business, you walk for 15 or 20 minutes. Sorry, Flyspell. Oh!

Back on our feet. And the passage you're in slowly widens out again. And you're greeted by, there's some more of these, I think they're like seven or eight feet high. There's three or four in this chamber of these blue mushrooms that just glow with bioluminescence. And there is architecture here. From where you stand, the chamber spills down

and down a slope in, and you can see what looks like a smaller version of the massive place you saw before. It's an octagonal ringed wall, and there is a tower, a single tower, poking up on the opposite side of this structure. And the stone ahead of you eventually turns into walkway and stair that leads up to, and it's like 200 feet away from where you are right now,

stairs leading through an open archway into this place. Are there any vampires around that we can see? Makeup or savage? Hold on, I must find the ride for? Yes. It's more than enough. Six. 13.

13. Rolling great. Yep. I just got to find the right dice for these characters that I haven't found yet. You'll get there at the end. You almost miss it, Prisceen, but you think you can hear the barest bit of a voice.

Was it singing? You can't hear it anymore. Ricky Spanish. I heard singing. Did you hear that? You have good ears. This place was very difficult to get to. Can I cast an eye

and try to tell if the last place looked like it was trying to keep people out? Is this trying to keep something in? Make an investigation check. 18. 18. You can tell from the design of the tower, which has, you're looking at the rear of it,

and just by the light of a far-off shroom, you can see that this chamber continues on in the other direction, or it slowly sinks in that you're at the back of this place, that its orientation is facing that way. Oh. Back door. Okay.

Interesting. I prick an ear up to try to hear for the singing that Prasine mentioned. Make a perception check. Not one. I have a 17 passing, too. It's going to be okay. They probably stopped.

You don't hear anything. I don't know. If she heard anything. I think it's because Prisina's asking me. I don't even think her voice was that good. I like it more when you say it. Skim is wild, bro. Although I wish she'd stop. It's distracting.

I don't think. She's drunk. She think she's drunk. She's taking a lot of those whatever that is. She's not sharing. I asked twice if she would give me some. I assume the space is safe then, right? You'll see Adria. Do it.

I will pocket it. I have a pocket right here. Of moon sugar. Yes. Just giving skooma to everyone, are we? You're wearing a handsome mage's cloak, right? Yes, my little trench coat. Right, sure.

I got a pocket out here. For pens. Components. For pens. I must call her, I swear. Miss Kahn? Yes? You get down with the Daedra, right? I've read and researched

quite a few things about them. You won't get any judgment from me. Are you just assuming that because I'm a dumb mer? No, I'm assuming that because your fanfic that is going in your- Oh, cool, great, I appreciate that. Well, yes, I have quite a vested interest in all sorts of arcana,

and in particular, the great Emmaus Mora, indeed, which has Emmaus Mora, indeed, which has guided us on this, I believe. I believe this is a path that we were meant to walk. Quill just hovers and then rests on your shoulders for this little speech. Finally. I have been searching for the skooma cat for a long time.

I have been searching for the skooma cat for a long time. The one that you might know as Shiagora. I know you follow the birth of Shiagora. Chill. Right? Be cool about it. But I feel that if I help you along your path, maybe the two moons might help me along mine.

There's no real logic to it, because I'm a little drunk. But my thought is... Shh! Closes his grimoire and hides it in the robe. All right, you're not listening. Continue. My thought is, if I give you this vial, maybe you can parlay on behalf of the Daedra you serve maybe you can parlay on behalf of the Daedra you serve

with these that... What were we talking about? We'll figure it out when we get there. He takes the vial from your hand. Trust me. Amiri trusts you. Whoa, what are you? What are you looking at?

What is a skooma cat? A skooma cat shows us that in order to see the light in ourselves, we have to embrace the shadow. Two little tendril palms go, To see the light in ourselves, we have to embrace the shadow. Two little tendril palms go, bonk, on the side of their eyes. Oh. What are we doing?

We're going to find the Kremorax. Do you feel a draw to it, a pull? It's there. Wow. We should probably follow the squid lane. Yes. I go after also doing the draw. Oh no, it gestured.

It did not start moving. Oh! I see, okay, I see. I do start walking. You still do it. You still do it. I'm torn. Are you drunkenly stealthy, or are you just? Yeah, I'm always stealthy, yeah. Drunkenly stealthy.

Not quite yet. I haven't touched it since college. Ha ha. Well. Are we following Amiri as she? I feel like the spirit is leading her somewhere. Yes. I'm not quite sure what the gesture is,

but I'm sure. You know what's guarding the Grimlock? Fuck, I can't keep up with the words. The Grimlorix? Grimorix Nymular? It's just the Grimorix Nymular, Laura. The Grimorix Nymular. Who doesn't know the Grimorix? Grimlorix Nimular? It's just the Grimlorix Nimular, Laura. The Grimlorix Nimular. Who doesn't know the Grimlorix Nimular?

Grimlorix. Grimlorix Nimular? Yeah. But what's the question? Is there something guarding it, or is it just out in the room and we grab it? I only know what I've read from the Zivili. They meant to bring this bottle, this vial.

This bottle. And have some sort of exchange. Perfect. Then let's go have the exchange. What is the vial? I think it's a poison. I think I remember hearing. You heard the word toxin spoken.

Yes, a vampire. So it's a toxin. Yes, a toxin, I think I remember hearing. You heard the word toxin spoken in the murder room. Yes, a toxin, I think. A vampire that's after a toxin to end another vampire? I remember hearing something like that. All right. So we're here to make a deal. Or kill the vampire that's guarding the... Ooh.

Whatever's easier. Let's go. Yeah. Creepy creepy? Mm-hmm. Is everyone doing this? Yeah. Oh man, I feel peer pressured into it. Let's do the stealth check, guys.

Ooh. Ha ha! Five. Ha ha ha, I found the right one! I did it. Yeah, there you go. 15. 15. 15. 28.

Oh my god. Oh, Khajiit, get it. 13. 13. 21. Wow. Okay. I'm better at thinking.

The book will be great. You guys follow your inhibited friend down this slope, and once you get about 60 feet away from this thing, now you hear a voice. It's not like singing out, but you hear a woman's voice just quietly singing to herself. Little crow, wind doth blow.

Sounds kind of bored. As the winter takes its tide, stay your course, shed remorse, ne'er again to be so blithe. Does it sound young or old? Mm-hmm. An adult, but not old. Okay.

And you are climbing these stairs. There are about 20 to 30 of them rising to an open arch at the back of this place. And you can see, as you're rising up it, inside what looks like a big, open, it's octagonal, but it is walled in and there are arches on the inside, just on the angle you can see with thick statues filling under each arch.

And there's a stone sword in between each of those. Just, again, very old place, the design in here. each arch and there's a stone sword in between each of those. Just, again, a very old place, the design in here. And we keep going? Creeping up the stairs. I'm following you. Are you going? Yeah. Then yes.

Hail the Helm Lord, hail the windstorm. Wet your blade, the sheep will be sh... As you're rising just to the top of those stairs and can now see the ground in this place, and you see more of this old stonework and statues ringing in the entire place, you see a figure in a split second, all in white rags and pelts or furs,

like in a squat position almost with a spear there. But don't worry because as soon as you guys step up and that five causes a little stone pebble on the stairs to go, that figure stands and turns, and you see a woman, a Nord, with a sort of white blonde, I want to say like Arctic punk mullet,

spear in hand, and the spear instantly goes pointing forward, and she turns her head. Father. And there's a big lumpen pile of brown fur on the ground past her, and an old dad bod man sits up with half a head of white hair

and he's wearing what looks like, maybe it's bear fur? He's got a big cloak on, but there's no shirt on underneath, so he's just got this big belly and he stands up. Who the hell are these milk drinkers? Oh. Not another step.

How did you get in here? By way of Greymoore Keep, no less. Well, we're travelers, not aligned with the keep in particular. We are seekers of knowledge and may have gotten a bit off track here. Her face twists. Oh.

We made no harm, no harm at all. I start singing. What do you sing? Hail the Helm Lord, hail the Windstorm. What's the rest of it again? It was hail the Helm Lord, Hail the Windstorm, Wetcher Blade, The Sheep. I say it to her.

I'm singing with you. It's a beautiful song. Make a persuasion check. Okay. 17. She eyes you up and down like a piece of meat for a moment. In a good way? I don't know.

That's an insight check. Ooh. 16. A little from column A, a little from column B. I think I'm okay with that, for some reason. The voice behind her, though, old man, big, broad man. He's got a big belly, but he has massive chest and arms. I don't like it.

They don't smell right. What are we supposed to smell like? We can bathe and return. Right. Oroks. Buck is up here. Good, sir. We mean you no trouble.

We are simply trying to make our way to the northwest. We understand we disturbed your slumber, but if you will allow us to pass and point us in the right direction, no harm will come to you. I promise. Make a persuasion or a deception check. Your choice.

Deception. Nine. She, the woman, is slowly, while eyeing you, pacing a little bit like a panther. With one eye on you, she moves towards the back and she stands. Everybody wants to walk. Can't fake, you can't fake it.

In front of a stone slab that you're only just noticing as she walks back and there is what looks like a pile of rags at first, but you can see that she is backing up and standing by a thick, ratty, old tome that is banded shut with some sort of strange sculpted metal wrap around it. tome that is banded shut with some sort of strange sculpted metal wrap around it.

Careful, Taladur. Where is Quill? Yeah, I was just about to ask the same thing. Floating behind you all, peering out. He's thought into our minds before, right? Yeah. I'll just turn to Quill and I'll whisper, is that what we're after?

Oh yes. These are those that we're meant to strike a deal with, right? You think? I just woke up. You're right, you did. I'm asking too much of you. I put one foot behind your butt and just push you forward.

Yes. And hold that thought. Where are you guys? Are you still at the top of the stairs? She turned and saw you as you rose up over the steps. I pictured we were all still just heads. Yeah. I probably stepped up to the lip while trying to give the best presentation

and then kind of And I feel like I joined him. Okay. So you're under arch at the lip of this octagon. Yes. We'll grab the octagon. I want to move to the left side of it.

Inside? No, where we are, I'm just going to move away from, I don't want us all huddled in one group, so I'm just going to create some distance between some of it. Inside? No, like where we are. I'm just going to move away from, I don't want us all huddled in one group, so I'm just going to create some distance between some of us. Is there any inclination to their dress or attire that would link them factionally

or in any way to the vampiric entities that we saw moving earlier? You can make a history check. They didn't seem too pleased with Greymoore. Yes. Seven. Seven. Wow. You don't know much about vampires.

You don't know where you are. You've never heard, they mentioned Greymoore Keep, never heard of it. No. Are you vampires? Old man just dead eyes you. Do you not like vampires? Did you have a rival, a rival that's a vampire?

Why don't you come in and we'll talk about it? Sure, I mean, that's, sure, I do love him. That's wise. You seem very trusting of him. Well, I mean, he said he wanted to talk. Well, we do. I know that they were expecting someone, I believe, right? Sivaron? Does that ring a bell?

I'm sorry, I just didn't hear it. Sivaron? You heard the names Sivaron with an X. Ah. Oh, I thought you did. And Naravix. And Naravix. Yeah. I, I thought you did. And Norevix. And Norevix. Yeah. I'll just say those names. Were you expecting Sivrond and Norevix? I can look at each other, then he looks back.

Oh, because he has stepped now, I don't know, like 10 or 20 feet beyond this woman who you're guessing is his daughter because she said father at the moment. Yes. You guys are right. And in my mind, I am trying to hold on to all the stuff that I had listened to while I was hanging upside down, and I remember the two people that were swinging us around

and doing all that stuff, and that's when I think I heard Sivron and the name. So I'm trying to recall their names, thinking that these people here were expecting them to make this trade. But it's very possible that I'm calling the wrong names out. Well, this is probably Blackreach. Right?

Are you saying that out loud? Yes, we are in Blackreach. Yeah, you are in Blackreach. Yeah, then this is, you are definitely who? We're looking for him. We are looking for him. I don't know about that. Do you have a rival that's a vampire?

He looks up over his shoulder. You can't tell at what, in the back at you. Slowly, Nyskahn reaches into his pocket and pulls out the vial and holds it in his palm and says, We happen to be in the market for a wind wire. Man. Yeah! I take your inspiration back. Oh boy.

You suddenly hear at the base of the stairs the sound of wings. Uh-oh. You look back behind you and the base of the stairs now, you see a small, I wanted to say elfin, but that means something else in a fantasy world, a smaller woman with jet black hair that is somewhere between pixie cut and a Caesar

with a cloak and a pauldron on one side, and you can see a blade, a hilt jutting up over one shoulder. Trust your nose, Brynja. Xiv'lai wouldn't bother working with these cattle, and yet they are here. How? I've been called worse. Milk drinker, cattle, added to the list.

Where are the twins? Did you kill them? Yep. Twins. They're dead. Slaughtered. Front to back, then. Absolutely no match for us and our might. Give me that deception check. Yeah, I will. That is 17.

We are backed by a guild of the finest mages all across Tamriel. We carry within our midst magic unimaginable, and we've come this far beneath the very surface of these lands to claim what was to be our cause. Hmm. They were meant to bring me something. Yes, we have that. We do, yes. Do you? Show us the Grimoire first. Wim. Grim.

Wim-wa. Wim-wrax. Wrax. Or the Wim-wrax.im. Wimwax. Wimwax. The Wim-wax. He's saying it wrong, right? We all know that, right? I don't know anything about magic. Fuck off, show me the delivery. Yes.

I think it's time to go. No. Oh, Eron, sweet. You heard the lady. Show her what you asked for as he stares at you with Balenciaga. She locks eyes with you, Erox. Brynja, get her now. She, in a streak of shadow,

just leaves a trail of darkness behind her and she is at you, in your face, claw out. She's going to attack you. Uh-oh. The vampire? What happened? We have to fight a vampire? We need to know what would come eventually. She moves unnaturally fast.

Duh! That is, yeah, yeah, yeah. Does a, where is it? Does a 24 hit? Oh. Yeah. Yes, it does! Oh, I feel like we should have given ourselves

armor of some sort. We're fine. All right, see, did you give yourself any armor? Magically. I have all of this activated. So she streaks forward faster than anyone you've seen move in a barrage of shadow as she comes right into your face

and her blade is off of her back and she slashes out and you feel the tip of it cut right over the shoulder and you stumble backwards as she tries to press and go for a second attack. Her arm is moving blindingly fast, but it strikes stone as you stumble backward a few feet.

I think we have to roll for initiative now, you guys. I think we have to roll for initiative. Oh my gosh! What is this? Is she getting damage for that attack? Oh, sorry, yes, 10. Ooh! Oh yeah, mark that.

Oh man. She is a finely crafted longsword man. Oh shit. Really low hit points. Oh shit, go away. Whoa, boom. 10. Yikes. Supply changes.

Supply changes. Boom. Yikes. Zayn. And boom. Okay, did anyone get higher than a 20 on their initiative? Nice. And roll in the sand. Did anyone get higher than a 20 on their initiative? Okay. Amiri. Oh, you did.

Go, Kashi! I'd say it's all you. 15 to 20. 18. 15. Okay, okay, okay. So that is Prasine and Arox. Okay.

Okay, getting my marching order. All right, where were we? 10 to 15? 10 to 15. 10 to 15? 13. 12! 13 to 12. Ooh! Okay.

Okay. You're the 12? I'm the 12. Okay. And you're the 12? I'm the 12. Okay. I'm the cleric. All right, all right. And wow. We have to fight a bear, a warrior, and a vampire? A bear dad.

Bear dad, yeah. Okay. So you see this small vampire streak up the stairs towards your traveling companion and cut them. Blood sputters out the scales of Aerox's chest and collar area, and he stumbles backwards. She is pressing the attack on him,

but you spring into action. What do you got? That's my Argonian brother. Are you still holding the vial up like this? No, no, I'm holding it with my hand closed. Okay. I just want to use it on her. So, and to set the scene,

because we're doing theater of the mind here, we're on a stair. She has closed the distance to you. Brynjar and Gerda are like 40, 50. They're further back away. They're further back away. Yeah, within the octagon. And you all are on the edge of it.

Oh no. Right. Okay. I am going to... I'm going to try to do something. While her back is turned and she is attacking our Argonian. She is in melee. I am going to, that should give me advantage

because she is, yeah. Next turn, I have the eye. So I'm going to sneak attack. And instead of doing 4d6 sneak damage, I'm going to dispense with one of those die to try to trip her down the stairs. Okay, okay. Ooh, nice. So I attack with my daggers.

Well, let's see if I'll need the advantage. That is a math 23. 23, and this is, remind me, strength or dexterity? This is just the melee hit. Oh, just to hit, right? Just to hit, yeah. That hits, for sure. That hits, okay. So then I do 14 piercing damage.

All right. Then as part of the trip action, she has to make a DC 14 save or take the prone condition and be thrown down the stairs. I'm sorry, I'm just blanking. Is it strength or dexterity? Dex.

Dex. What do I have to beat? 14. She rolled a 14. Meets it, beats it. But the blade does plunge into her lower back. So there's sneak attack damage on that juice? That was including the sneak attack. Okay.

Did you give me a damage total? Yes. You did. I applied it. Okay. I'm going to stab with the offhand, too, then. Okay. Let's go. Which... That's only a 10. 10.

I do, I'm trying to wonder, do you get advantage? I like how I ask you, do you get advantage on both attacks? For? On your main hand and your off hand? Just the first attack. Just the main hand, right? Yeah, okay.

So I don't think the 10 hits, but I can, bonus action, I believe. Yeah, when you make an extra attack of the light property, you make it as part of the attack action instead of as a bonus action. Okay, so then instead for my bonus action, I'm going, huh? Yeah, that's right. That's right. That's one of the new rules.

The dagger has the nick property. So for my bonus action, I'm going to hide. Yeah. Where do you go, let's say? Under the bed that the bear was sleeping on. There was no bed. That was 60 feet away from you, Orym. He was just lying on the ground.

He's just like, what's going on? Okay, in that case. He probably had a bed roll or something. Well, I do have Feline Agility. When I move on my turn in combat, I can double my speed, so I could dive into the pile of rags he was sleeping in. The pile of rags was the big, furry, Macklemore coat that he was wearing.

That he is wearing. It was him. My favorite adjective. He also smells like. It's canon to Tamriel, guys. Sorry, sorry. Is there any place in this octagon that I can see? You're, hmm.

There are, yes. Okay, so you're at the edge. You're in this arch trying to protect your friend. You could backtrack and dive off the side of the stairs. That might be tricky because you'll be out of sight and away from the action, but you can absolutely do that. But you could also, how much movement do you have? 60 feet. 60 feet.

You can easily pivot around ballet style and get, I had mentioned there are these arches all the way around the inside of this place with big, thick statues and their squat. You could definitely cram in between the side of the menage and a statue and just... I'm going to do that. Okay. I'm going to slide in

behind one of them and try to melt into the shadows. Make that stealth check, baby. 26. 26, that Jester's outfit vanishes. Which brings us to, I can't read my own writing, Prisine. Yes? What shall you do, dear?

Ah, ah, ah. Yes, I'm going to back away from the vampire. And I am going to look over to the, to Papa and Daughter that's over there. Yep. I'm going to look over to the two papa and daughter that's over there. Yep. And I'm going to... Let me see what I have here. You'll just wait.

It's going to be horrible. Yes, how far away are they? They're 60 feet away from me. Yeah. So if I walk 30 feet. He's closer. I'm going to say he's 50 feet and she's 65. All right, I'll walk up 20 feet away. Yes, sure.

And I'm going to cast, as a bonus action, I'm going to cast Spirit Shroud. And all of a sudden, little ghost-like entities start rising from the ground and flittering around everywhere. And they do stuff. All right, fantasy! You just wait, and then they help me,

and just, okay, so I'm going to do that, and then I'm also going to cast... Hold on, I got to make sure. Wait, I got to see how this fucking spell works, because I've never done it before. Until the spell ends, any attack you make deals extra damage when you hit a creature within 10 feet of you.

Can I get within 10 feet of old daddy? 65 feet away. With 30 feet and he was 50 feet, you can get, I say you get 20-ish feet away. Fuck! Oh my god. Well. Well, I said I was doing it,

so I shouldn't take it back. Two more rounds for Laura's slow dissension to Mrs. Stop-Fire. I mean. Laura, it is theater of the mind. If you want to course correct, because this is all invisible. Okay, okay, okay, okay. Please do. Then I'm not going to do that.

I'm not going to do that. I am going to do something else. Oh boy. I'm going to cast, from all these spells that I know so well, I'm going to look at old Daddy, and I'm going to, hmm, I'm going to hit him.

Okay, here's the thing. I'm going to reach into my little pocket and pull out a skull. And I'm going to fling it at him. And it's on fire and shit. Fuck! Technically. That's what a tool tip says, actually. Yes. It hits him in the head.

Oh, okay. If it hits him in the head, then I succeed. And what I'm really casting is Ray of Sickness. All right. So there you go. How's that work? Well, I shoot a greenish ray, see how I feel like it's a skull.

Yes. And on a hit, the target takes damage. All right, is it an attack roll or a save? Oh yes, I do, it's an attack roll. All right. So I roll. So you just wait. Oh shit.

Fuck me running! Oh. 11. Oh. He's very weak and very large, and it hits him right in the belly. He sees it coming and just knocks it out of the air.

That was my last skull. I have to get a new skull. We'll have to make you another one. Based off of his voice, is he a Nord? Looks like one, yeah. Oh, I have any other bonus actions? They're notoriously hardy guys. Oh, really?

Oh, they're very, I don't know, they're always telling me they're going to skin me and turn me into a rug and calling people milk drinkers. And they're just, yeah, they're very rough and tough, brawlic type. Now I'm very close to him. You say in the shit, anything left in the gas tank? Erox, you have just had some blood splattered out of your throat.

We're a bunch of mages. We're the weakest fucks ever. Yes. I know, I thought it was funny, too. I'm innocent, I swear. So far. So I have a bunch of blood spring out of my throat and I put my good hand to stop the bleeding.

Okay. I look up at this hulk of a human being just staring daggers at me. Okay. In true fashion, just like in the movies, I give him Dragon's Breath because it's the only thing I give him Dragon's Breath because it's the only thing I can do in my weakened state.

Is it a line for Argonian, since we're in a D&D game? Well, it would be lightning. Yeah. Yeah. So it would be lightning. And what's the range on that? It's 100 feet, isn't it? Yes. A lightning bolt?

Well, this is, are you doing the breath weapon? Oh, this is breath weapon. Oh, got it, got it, got it, got it, got it. That's not. So it'd be, meow. 30-foot range. Yeah, 30 feet. Okay, sorry. I thought it was lightning.

And I assume that. Well, here's what I would say. You haven't moved anywhere. There is a vampire right on top of you. That's the one that sliced you? You can streak towards that big daddy. She might mess with you as you go. Or you can attack the vampire.

Or you can work on the vampire. Where is Talidor in relation to where I am? You moved left. You moved left. You're like 15 feet apart. Yes. Everyone is spread out. In this massive archway. It's not like a tiny doorway. It's like 20 feet wide. I think left. You moved far left. You're 15 feet apart in this massive archway. It's not a tiny doorway. It's 20 feet wide.

I think I'm right next to you. Yeah! I see him like, damn! Ah! Yeah, yeah. I look up to you and say, any time you want to get involved,

that would be really, really helpful. I'm very slow at the moment. You first. Is there anything in your copywritten book that helps with this exact situation? Let me check. You go moment, you first! Is there anything in your copywritten book that helps with this exact situation that we're in right now? Are you belching on anybody in your vicinity? The vampire, are you running for Big Dad? This is you.

That's me, vampire. That's me, that's Daddy Bear. Okay. You can breathe on the vampire or you can try and head the other direction, possibly get a swipe from the vampire. Well, I feel like since she took a swipe at me, then I have to give her a taste of her own medicine. Let's go! So we're going to go

for the vampire. Let's do it. Go Forza. That's a DC 11. Dex save for her? For her, it's a DC 11 dex save, so she has to roll. Okay. And yep, yep, yep, yep, yep. Yep, yep, yep, yep, yep. Uh...

It's 11, you said? 11. I got a 10. So you catch her full blast. What's the, you said? 11. I got a 10. So you catch her full blast. What's the damage on that? So for the breath weapon at this level, it's 4d, no, it's 3d6. 3d6. Yeah, 3d6.

So you roll six-sided dice here three times and add it together. One. One. One! Three runs! Whoa! What?! Whoa! What?!

What's happening? How is he bleeding? It's because his neck is tied. I am just like, How can you breathe out? animatedly bleeding out. She's got a hand on you as she presses her attack and you vomit electrical power into her

and she just takes it and smiles. Any last bit of flavor? Oh god. Well, don't need to. Hold on. Let's see, I can do an unarmed strike. Use your action to breath weapons, so it'd have to be a bonus action spell or something. Do you have any bonus action spells?

Not for, wait, no, not this one. Boom, boom, boom, yeah, thank you. Boom. Expeditious Retreat, Dragon's Breath. Wait, Dragon's Breath is a bonus action. Dragon's Breath the spell is a bonus action. Dragon's Breath the spell is a bonus action. Oh, got it, spell, is a bonus action. Dragon's Breath, the spell, is a bonus action. Oh, got it, got it. I see.

Breath weapon. Correct. So I have nothing I can do to her? Well, you could cast Expedition's Retreat as a bonus action, which lets you take the dash action as a bonus action. Without her being able to hit you all the way away. She will be able to hit you. Ah, sure, yes, that is what we will do.

So as she has her hand around me and is smiling, my tail comes from behind me, smacks her hand away, and I fly back 10 feet? How far can I go back? Wait, you go back. Basically, you take the dash action as a bonus action. She might still get a swipe at you. Yeah, she still might get a swipe at me.

So it's not part of the verbiage of the spell that it avoids the opportunity. If it's safe, you can just stay put and hope we can back you up. Up to you. Yeah. Then I'm just going to have to stay put and hopefully there's something in your copywritten book that has something to do with this attack situation.

Maybe. Okay. Precine, you ran forward to try to baseball skull the old man in the head. He bats it out of the way, and you watch him go like, Oh no. Oh no. His back breaks, widens out, and white fur

shrugs off his brown coat as white hair starts to sprout all over his body. The face elongates out into a lupine, woven snout. He's Daddy Wolf. And he howls and lopes towards you. It's his action to do what he just did, so he charges up to you and just drools and breathes hot Nordic breath

all down on your petite Ultima phone. And that's the end of his turn. Which gets us to Talidor. I get after an hour on the Nordic path. Question. Yes. Based on what I know in this world, I know that she's a vampire. Am I interpreting this as a shapeshifting druid

or a werewolf or? Make an arcana check. Okay. Oh. Hi, sweet child. Hmm. Eight. No. Eight? I mean. No, I put sweet child. Mm. Oh, eight. No. Eight? I mean. Oh, I put that one in check.

No, you're a mage. You're part of the Mages Guild. You're no chump. I don't know. You have seen people transform themselves into different creatures and animals, and it has a totally different vibe. This guy started to grow and sprout, whereas it's really more of a presto change-o magic trick

the times you've seen it happen otherwise. Okay, okay. That doesn't tell, well, I'm ho- It's a low DC for you. Thank you. I am going to, with my bonus action, I'm going to activate innate sorcery, and that gives me a plus one to spell save DCs

and to spell attacks, and it makes my spell attacks have advantage for the next minute. I don't know what's going on. If I'm interpreting that and I see a vampire, I mean, I don't know if I'm expecting these two parties to be working together. So I'm not going to choose a side.

I'm going to attack two of them. I'm going to, shit. Okay, with my action, I'm going to twin spell Witch Bolt and I'm going to attack him. Is he within, can I get in position where he's within 60 feet of me? You are within, he has now come within that range, running up to Precine.

And our vampire is not far from me, about 20 feet away. 10 feet away from you. 10 feet away from you. 10 to 15 feet away. I'm going to move back so I'm towards the wall, and I'm going to get as much distance away from either of them, but keep them both within 60 feet of me. I'm twin-spinning, twin-spelling Witch Bolt.

A streak of lightning launches out from me to the vampire and from me to the big daddy wolf. Yes, Breton, let's go. And it is going to be, let's just go to space. Go, Breton, go, Breton, go. So do I roll two separate attacks? One for each of them, or is it one attack?

It's one for each of them. One for each of them. Separate one for each of them. Got it, so for the Big Daddy Wolf, oh my gosh, that is going to be 12 to hit. 12. It just soars over his head. You are so stressed, so pushed by the situation,

and there is a killer right here, right next to you. So you just lost your focus. And then a separate attack for her, right? Yeah. Oh, that's better. That is a 24 to hit. She sees it coming and she starts to shunt out of the way, but you catch her before she can move.

Oh, right. She is going to take 18 points of lightning damage. And there's a chain of lightning linking me with each of them still. And that's my turn. Bonus action, action, move. Right, so there, well, so the one that went Still there.

Wide is on what, though, stone? The one that went wide, whether it hits, whether it misses, on each of my subsequent turns, I can still use a bonus action to deal 1d12 lightning damage to the target automatically, even if the first attack missed. Okay, so you're just keeping crackling energy happening.

Okay, okay, okay. Good use of the action economy. Yes. In this economy? The watchling, Quill, you hear in your heads, we must get to the Grimoirex! And she starts wobbling between legs and moving through into harm's way,

steering a bit to the right to avoid your little situation and doesn't make it that far, makes it about 40 feet. No, more about 40 feet. No, more like 60 feet. They're about halfway to their destination where Gerda, Arctic Punk Mullet, is standing with a spear by the book. Oh no. Can she see Little Quill?

Yeah. Okay. I'm going to be honest. I can't tell what I'm seeing if everyone else is seeing it, so I just got to be honest, I can't tell what I'm seeing if everyone else is seeing it, so I just got to. Is Will even here? I got to ask, because this is the things I see.

Is Tamriel even real? Niskan, you're up. It is, it's very real. It's lush and storied. We love it. Okay. Between Big Wolf Daddy and Little Vampire Assassin, which of them immediately seems the biggest threat?

At a glance. At a glance? Jeez, you've got a big dad bod Arctic werewolf who just is up from a nap, and a vampire. Like a vampire assassin feels right. She has taken a few hits in rapid succession. I'm going to make a judgment call here

and say that none of you have ever tangled with a vampire. No, but that grimoire is quite important. You've got this, Fred! Oh my god! No, but that grimoire is quite important. You've got this, friend! Oh my god! After I go into bonus action, Misty step 30 feet towards where the grimoire is. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Then use my movement to move the other 30 feet.

You said it's about 60 feet back? Yes, yes. Yeah, so you're saying you move forward 30 feet? Yes. You Misty step 30, you move forward 30 feet? Yes. You Misty Step 30, and then you're running? 30 feet. 30 feet. To try and get to the Grimoirex. I think you're like, I mean, this is all fudgy.

You're like 15 or 20 feet away from it, and there is a woman with a spear between you and it. And there is now, the Watchling is on your four o'clock-ish, five o'clock-ish, five o'clock. Fair, great. Then I glance over my shoulder towards Quirrell and be like, Do not worry. Emmaus Mora guides us this day.

I look over towards the woman with the spear and pull forth my own smaller tome, but don't judge. Yes. It's how you read it. And as the green runic text begins to glow, In Abasuris Gardiste, we are to take what belongs to us. Using my action, I'm going to pull forth my Arcanist powers to draw the magic

from within the tome at my side, begin to cause these various runes to swirl around my forearms, come into my fingers, and release two blasts of rune blades in an Eldritch Blast-type form as they fire out towards this female warrior. Everybody hears Quill's voice in their head. We love that for you.

Oh yeah, natural one, out of the gate. Did you really take away his inspiration? I did. No. I earned it. That's better, though, because that's a natural two. What? It's not about the size of your grimoire, it's how you roam with your tome.

That's true. I love it, I love it. So natural one, and then a nine. A nine. Okay. Would you like another dice? We're rolling very poorly. She spins her spear in her hand

and shoves it into the ground for a second and. But you were impressed, right? And she howls. She's also a fucking werewolf. Howls into the air. Oh no. No. Howls into the air. Oh no. Oh no. That's better.

Cool. But she stays put and grabs the spear up again. So she is in full hybrid-wulvan form, but is brandishing a spear at you and just in that Street fighter position of waiting. Which gets us to Bloodletter Sherezia. Oh! That's my blood! Lovely! When someone's name is Bloodletter.

Yes. She's right on top of you. Everyone who's close sees her wounds start to, you know, like her flesh becomes pale and the wounds start to close, not entirely, but a little bit. She comes back a bit from your work on her. She will, you're there.

Don't know where you are. You're busy. You're gone. You're nearby. I'm know where you are. You're busy. You're gone. You're nearby. 30 feet away from them. She's going to press the attack. Oh no. Here's what she's going to do.

She, Sherezia, is going to try to grab you. Yes. I do. That's good. Yes. Natural one. Why'd she get 20? It's a natural one! Yes!

She dies. Wow, all of a sudden! That's how the rules go. Yeah, right? Follow the rules. She falls on her own. She falls in love with us and fights the werewolves. But she... She falls on top of me. So she reaches out to grab you,

but you are still stumbling back from her. But she is rapid. She is moving like a shadow in the wind and she tries again. And this time it is a... Dup-a-dup-a-dup-a-dup-a-dup-a-dup-a-dup. Where'd it go? 21.

Ooh. I just thought you'd help. Ooh. Yikes. Well. Well, shit. Sometimes a vampire lady just kicks your ass. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

So instead of doing any damage to you, though, she just grabs you, and her little hand is like a vice. It is like steel. Actually, your neck is probably too much, so she grabs you by the wrist and pulls you in. She is so strong, pulls you in close to her, and then she lunges out with her mouth, going towards that wound.

Oh god. But her small size, you manage to resist and push back, and she is like a little piranha at you, and you're holding her at arm's base. She did not roll high enough to sink her teeth into you. That's where we are with blood letter Shurazia. That brings us back to Emiri, hiding between a statue and an archway.

Okay. It's all on you. All right. I am going to run. Bonus action, Mage Hand, which is part of my Leisure de Monde. And you see a cat claw just appear near the grimoire behind the werewolf.

It is invisible to everyone except me, and I've decided my friends. I can make sleight of hand checks through my mage hand. Can I try to manipulate the metal structure, keeping the grimoire in place? You're able to get there? My hand, I cast my mage hand. Let's go.

You can certainly try. Yes! Sounds very encouraging. Let's go. Roll high. Would this be sleight of hand? You're trying to open it? Yeah. From?

Because when you described it, you said there was a metal structure around it. It is a dirty old book. It is not clean and pristine. It looks like ratty pages bound together and there is some sort of metal webbing around it. So it doesn't look like, oh, there's a little clasp or a lock.

Bing! There is something, it looks metallic, you'd think, but it's filthy, wrapped around it. Oh. Do we think I could open that? You try. Yeah. You try. Maybe I'll try. Maybe you'll roll a 20. You could try. Yeah. You could try. Maybe I'll try. Maybe you'll roll a 20.

Let's go. Yeah. Let's go. The lowest I've rolled. 10. 10. That's nice. Baby low. Niskan, you are facing down

this younger, leaner werewolf in front of you. I see this cat paw float. I'm like, I'm amazing. I'm amazing. Yeswolf in front of you. I see this cat paw float. I'm like, I'm already scotty. Yes, exactly! You see the tome go. Any time now! And the cat paw struggles, and then it's like.

Inspiration. Inspiration. Inspiration. That was my bonus action for my action. I'm going to try to help clear the way for Niskan. I knock an arrow in my bow, and I'm going to take careful aim, and I'm going to try to aim for the Achilles' heel and knock prone the werewolf in front of you.

Ooh, cool. I have advantage on this because I am not moving this turn. And you're not adjacent, but that's okay, because she doesn't see me, so I'm attacking from stealth anyway. That's right. A 19.

Oh yeah. That hits? Oh yeah. Perfect. Glory. So I do, lovely math. I do 10 plus 13. This is bow and arrow, right? Yes. Yeah.

So I do 19 damage, and then to trip, it's the same dexterity saving throw, or she suffers the prone condition. Okay. I rolled a 12. You have to beat a 14. So she arrow streaks out across this open space, slams into her lower leg at the Achilles,

blood bursts on her filthy white fur, and she goes, boop, takes air and slams down on her shoulder. Let's see. I rolled a one. Her spear flies out of her hand and clatters 15 feet away beyond the book, even. I lean out from behind the pillar and I go,

At you. That's awesome. What the fuck? Then I'm like, fuck. And the claw is now beckoning you. I know! It's my thing! Anything else, Amiri?

That's my turn. Okay, well, I'm glad that was your turn because as you just, like Rambo, right? Got a werewolf from like 60 feet away and then pulled back in a bit to wedge between the statue and the arch. And it's then that a little bit of stone and grit hits you in the face as the statue you're next to

No! What? begins to break and crumble and you see a clawed, furred hand go Stop it. No, no, no, no, no. That's why she's howling. She just crawls towards you. And in fact, every statue ringing the entire octagon

begins to break open as woven faces push out. Somewhere between 25 and 35 are crawling out of these things. Okay, okay. They shed off the stone that's around them and yeah, fuck it, they can still move. They all begin to tumble into the space

and you are watching a small ocean of wolves come. You've got one right on you and it turns instantly. I poke its nose to make sure it's real. Oh! Oh god. Instantly, all of you have two to three werewolves lunging in your space, in your face. I'm in the middle of the room.

I'm going to tell you something. Sometimes a dungeon master will put something really challenging in front of you and be like, you can't do this, and you're like, bet, this is suicide. Yes. You are fucking dead. Mm-mm-mm-ah. Understood.

Fryssian, you're up. Fabulous. I'm right in front of Daddy Wolf. Daddy Wolf, and now two more. How'd you get here so fast? Silly, silly wolves. And I'm going to Misty step towards the grimoire. Excellent. Yes.

So, you appear. She is suddenly in your sight, standing behind the book. You guys are face-to-face with a book between you. Yes. Open. Can I try to open it? You just physically try to open it up? Well, wait, no. I know he knocked it before.

Who knocked it? The zivir, zivir. There was a knock on Mora's Veil, which was the brass cylinder that held Quill. This is something else. So you're thinking, you're just using the same logic. Well, no, yes, but I don't have that spell. So I need to try to open it.

But you're the mage's. You just see a cat paw knocking on it. I have different kinds of spells. Can I look at it and with my arcana knowledge, figure out how I'm supposed to get it open? Yeah, make an arcana check. Okay. Okay.

14. This is a strange kind of enchantment that you have never experienced in your life, never come across anything like it. I will remind you that you heard Quill talk about being paired to this thing. Right, so Quill. Quill is like 40 or 50 feet away at the moment.

Oh, come on, I thought Quill was right here. Quill! Get here! Come here! Come here! What's Quill's initiative? Quincy? Quincy. Quill is on the same page and says,

Get the book we must away! We're trying! So we're a little tied up over here. I thought maybe if just one of us got here and Quill got here, but I thought Quill was here. Whoops! Great, Eryx, Erox, you're up. Am I still fighting this sort of piranha, little mini?

She is right in your face, pushing, and you're feeling this pressure at you. And there's, I say you are one of the furthest back, there is a werewolf that is right with her now. Right. So now I'm oppressed. You're oppressed. And your friends with the book are something like

60 to 70 feet away from you right now. There is a spell. Why am I frozen? I'd say. This spell does push things away from you. That's actually what I was thinking about, too. Have you been hit yet? No. Have you been hit enough?

No. I'm fine. You ran away. I'm surviving this. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm a little messed up right now. So, okay, so I'm pushing this creature away, trying my best to not become

what seemingly is a vampire. Oh, wait. Sorry, I didn't do anything. I didn't do anything. Can I pick up the grimoire at least? Sure. Can I pick it up? There's a bonus action to get there, right?

Yeah. Can I pick it up? Absolutely. That would be helpful. I haven't actually walked anywhere. Great. I'm going to walk towards Quill. Excellent. I'm going to run towards Quill. I'm going to run towards Quill.

Run towards Quill? Great. You close the distance. Yes. And Quill clings to you, like a child to a parent's leg at this moment, and the eye and all the little sub-eyes that are peppered all over its body begin looking towards the rest of the party.

Hurry up already! Oh, we all have to be here. I have to be lovely. I have to be lovely. Oh boy. Oh dear. Well, ooh, teleport works. Huh? You know how teleport works.

I didn't know that's what the spell was, okay. Okay, Aerox. So in me trying to push against this creature, which is seemingly trying to turn me into a vampire, because it is so small and so tiny, but yet ferocious and mighty. I'm going to scoop the brain out of your skull. Oh.

That doesn't sound fun. I was going to cast Lightning Wave, and in the sense of perhaps trying to at least try to pause this thing from trying to bite me, I use one finger and I just zap her right in the eye. And mechanically, we're using which spell now? This is Thunderwave. Thunderwave, oh yes.

Thunderwave, yes. After that, it's a saving sorcery he has to roll. Gotcha. Constitution, I suppose, for the win? Constitution, mm-hmm. What do I have to beat? 14? It is a 14. No!

Can I assist my sorcerer buddy? He's not aware of, that he might be able to use. Let's of, that he might be able to use? Let's hear it. You might be able to use a bonus action to activate your innate sorcery, which would increase your spell save DC by one, and therefore make this work.

Oh, you're just giving a tip to a newer player? Yes. Absolutely. So we would go, boom. Be under Features and Traits. Shit. Hold on. Features and Traits, Features and Traits. Innate sorcery, I just thought we could make a blood section

and leech three magic. Say you can spend one of those. Oh shit. And now your spell say DC is 15. Which beats? Yes. There you go. She fails.

Teamwork makes the dream work. Fuck you, vampire. So I know she gets knocked back, which is very helpful. And it's Coney, right? Z. I'm remembering. It's a two-foot cube, I think. So the, I got to roll for the werewolf.

Yeah. It's 2d8, underdamaged. Mm-hmm. Werewolf got rolled a four. So they will both go flying backward from you. Five. Five, okay. Five. She gets blasted off of you and hits the side.

She hits the stone, she hits the side of the arch. And she is now like 10 feet away from you. The werewolf goes in another direction entirely. You still have werewolves that are 15 or 20. You've got an obstacle course of wolves, but there is nothing right on top of you. That's your action. You want to start moving?

Yes. I'm like, I need is nothing right on top of you. That's your action. You want to start moving? Yes. I'm like, I need to get the fuck out of here. I call out to my friend, how far away are we from where they are? I would say that your trigonometry would put you 50 feet away. You're still far away, yeah.

You're about 50 feet away from them as well, because we're parallel to each other. Because I'm still at the landing of where we first came in. I look at you and I say, Come to me! And so, in the action of coming to you, I...

Because I'm still pretty messed up, right? Because she got me earlier with the sword, so I'm still pretty messed up, right? Because she got me earlier with the sword. So I'm bleeding. You still have life and will in you, though. When Anne hath a will, Anne hath a way. So can I crawl my almost lifeless corpse to him? Because you're doing better than that. You're doing better than that.

I'm just saying, yeah, yeah, yeah. You're doing better than I am. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You still got 27 out of 37. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So in the spirit of trying to close the distance, I slap my tail on the ground, and almost in the speed bars, on a missile, I cross the room and I land towards you, but I stumble and I don't exactly fall over,

but I am a little wounded. Okay. Stumbling into your arms. You look very wounded. I'm like, I got too much lightning that I'm trying to maintain. Okay, I don't know if it's my turn yet. It's not, it's not. It almost is.

Oh yeah. Oh, oh yeah. Oh, you're last? Yeah, you're after me. Oh, okay. Sorry. That's okay. Big Daddy Brynjar, wolf head lurches around and locks eyes on the little elf

with her hands on the goods and lopes towards you and gets there. Ah, ah, ah, ah. Oh no. And just starts throwing claws. Going to try to tear you up. That is a 17 to hit. Shield! Yes! Woo! And the second is a 17 to hit. Shield! Yes! Woo!

And the second is a four. Yay! You've got the book in one hand and you're just one-hand maging, keeping it back. Yes, oh, it's like bone armor. All of a sudden, this armor comes over me that looks like bones. What was that again? She said the word.

It's like bonon. Okay, so he's got all those spit shoelaces are coming out of his mouth and that are dripping down on top of you, pissed at your bones. Now we come to Tal'Dorei. Okay, first I'm going to, these streaks of lightning,

I'm going to wave my hands and they're going to have this pulse that goes along their lightning, that thread, and I do a d12 of damage to each of those, to the vampire and Big Daddy Wolf. She takes eight, he takes seven points of lightning damage. Then I'm running right to you, Rx,

and I put my hand on you and I'm casting Dimension Door and I'm zapping us right to where the grimoire is. Incredible. Okay, so you're in place. Quill hovers up off of you from its little huggy pose and looks around and is trying to find all of the lost chickadees and the eye fixes on you. The runes on Quill start to glow and pulse,

but she just waits there. That gets us to you. Am I reading? No, no, it doesn't. I think Niskanth is next. No, Niskanth. That gets us to Niskanth. I do a thing. I got to right click. Get over here, please.

I grab my robe and quickly run over the last 10 feet to get over where you are, but right as I'm rushing over is when the big wolf daddy, Brynjar? Brynjar. Brynjar leaps in and starts striking towards you, and I'm rushing over is when the big wolf daddy, Brynjar? Brynjar. Brynjar leaps in and starts striking towards you and I'm like, Hasolgudum! Hey, wolf boy, eyes up here.

I'm going to go ahead and bonus action, go ahead and use, let's see here. I'm going to use my awakened mind, Clairvoyant Combatant. First, I'm going to try and form a bond with him directly. I'm going to say this psychically,

drawing in the arcanist power that is borrowed from Apogrypha and beyond to make that telepathic bond with him, and then in his mind, try and draw us attention towards me using Clairvoyant Combatant. So he needs to make a wisdom saving throw, DC 15. Okay. No, that is plus zero.

That's an eight. It's an eight. So now he has disadvantage on attack rolls against me. Okay. And I have advantage on attack rolls against him for as long as I hold the spawn. Okay. Ooh. So that's the bonus action.

That's more from a measure. I'm going to go all in on this because this seems like this is going to go bad otherwise. Yes, it is. At this point, I pull up my toe and fiddle through the pages nervously. That's the one. Evil eyes.

Energy pouring out of the one. Evil eyes. You see energy pouring out of the eyes, like black and green bits of space bending around his shoulders and his face. You watch the energy glow off of Quill as well, in proximity, as you watch black tendrils almost seem to curl out of the pages. You got a full sheet of all I cast. I'm going to go ahead and drop.

I'm also giving you your inspiration back for that comedic timing. Yeah. To cast Fate Carver against him, which is a blight-like spell against the target. So I need you to make a constitution saving throw, please. This is against Brynjar again? Correct. He rocks it.

He gets a 21. 21, okay. Well, he still takes half damage. Okay. Let that half damage be, okay. 19. Don't kill the party, don't kill the party. 21 points of damage. 21 points.

I didn't roll the full 8d4, I just rolled 48. Okay, okay, cool. It is a, how does that strike him again? Give me the. Yeah, sorry. So for this one, the Fate Carver, you watch as he's pouring these odd runic elements seem to pour out of the strange, vacuous tears and space around him as they begin to gather

in the front of him, this swirling of a pulsing cylinder of odd glyphs and sigils. Then he wraps his hand around it, holds it forward, and then hammers it into him, like a massive beam of strange esoteric power. His fur blackens, chars, and viscera spews out of an actual breach in his exterior.

He howls in pain. Do you have any last little bitties? No, that's it. That's pretty good. That's pretty good. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Gerda, the other werewolf, stands, pushes herself to standing, looks around and takes, just goes apeshit and takes one swipe at you,

because you're close. Am I? I think so. Because I ran towards Quill. Where was Quill? Quill was 30 feet away from Gerda, who was right in front of the grimoire. Well, can I hunt around? Oh yes, Gerda was left eye.

Yes, okay. Okay, okay, okay, okay. I'm not a pro. She takes half movement to stand. She herniated her disc one night. She didn't stretch this morning. Got it. A god type of fall? Yeah, I do yoga.

You got to do it. Okay, so instead, she pushes herself up in the same way. She looks, you see the wolfenface look towards the spear, but then just forget it and begins to lope towards you guys, but doesn't get there. That gets us to Bloodletter Sherezia. Is she currently within 60 feet of me?

I've moved towards the grimoire. Yeah. You're at the grimoire? Yeah, I'm at the grimoire with the rest. We dimensioned over there. No, I think not, because got some distance from the blasting her back off of Aerox, and then you guys move.

So I think that's just out of that range. Then that connected lightning cord between us dissipates and she's no longer under that effect. Okay, okay. Okay, she erupts in shadow and streaks across the entire space, and she is there. She is on top of you.

She will, her blade flashes out quicker than anything towards you. Okay. That is a 19 to hit. Shield. Shield. That force field around me just pulses and repels it. as a 19 to hit. Shield. Shield. That force field around me just pulses and repels it. That course corrects her,

and the sword spins and she flashes it, and you see as the blade comes down on Quill. No! No! Quill's a baby! What do I have? I don't have... Don't you do it!

You vampire bitch! Playing something that would do something in this moment. What's in there? Are you getting a paladin phantom weapon? I'm getting fighter. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The blade. Oh, the interception.

The blade cuts and strikes at the base of one of Quill's tentacles and it comes almost completely off. You see as it flaps and hangs lamely and Quill sinks two feet down close to the ground. You bitch! You hear an unintelligible alien warbling in all of your minds at that moment. That gets us to you, Amiri.

Yes. Okay. I was just going to use my Shadow Cloak and hide, but at this point, I'm going to risk an op attack from the wolf because this person has made Amiri very, very angry. And just to be clear, you're still? I'm behind the pillar.

Behind the pillar. You're about 50 or 60 feet away from your friends. Because I didn't move last turn, I can move 60 feet again this turn. Amazing, amazing. Yes. So your end goal is to get there? Just so I understand where we're, okay. Yes, but I'm going to do something before I get there.

Okay. Now, I know there's a wolf in front of my face, so I'll probably take an op attack from this, but I have confidence in my abilities. We do, too. I use my bonus action to move my Mage Hand over to Niskan, toss the vial in the air, and as it does,

I knock another bow or arrow back into my bow and try to shoot through it and hit Shirazia. Wow. Do you still have your inspiration? I do. Yes. Yes, that's what it's about! I do. Let's go. Let's fucking go. I have a number in my head.

You're hitting a glass vial. Yeah. Yeah. And I'm trying to do a little trick. Okay. It's cocked. That's cocked. No, no, you know that, well. Yeah, that's cocked. Nah, that's cocked.

Yep. No? Yeah, that don't count. Dice on top. Nah, that's cocked. Yep. No? Yeah, that don't count. Okay, okay. Okay. 19. 19? Did you use your inspiration? Yes. Okay.

And where is it? The vial is... The vial, I had on me the whole time. Right. So you're trying to strike it on? I bonus actioned Mage Hand, had it on me the whole time. Right. So you're trying to strike it on? I bonus actioned Mage Hand, had it toss it up, and I'm trying to strike it midair and hit her

as I strike it, as I go through it. It's a trick shot. I cannot say no. Yeah! The vial shatters in the air and the blood letter is there. The fluid splatters and hits her face and arm, and she immediately starts to shriek and glow gold where the fluid hits.

And I have a sheet for this, so I got to do what it is. I can tell it it is. Ooh. I can tell it's worked. Awesome. I didn't think it was going to. When did you use your inspiration? Now to do this. Oh, oh.

It was an automatic cost of that. It's too many dice. It's too many dice. I got to use a dice roller. Whoa. It's too many dice? Can we hear it? You know I'm a good... It has that effect. It's too many dice? Can we hear it? You know, I'm good. How's that affect? It's too much.

It's too much. Here. Yeah, that's what I wanted. I just wanted that. You didn't have to count it. I just wanted the sound. Yeah, yeah. Oh gosh, oh gosh, oh gosh.

It's a wave and all. Okay. So it is, well, it's fourd12 poison damage, which she does take. So that is 20. She takes poison damage? Vampires do take poison damage. Shit!

But it's 10d12 radiant damage. Wow! For 59. Like, it splatters her body, and it takes a split second before it registers and then it immediately starts sinking into her face, which starts to implode, cave in. You can see the inside of her brain, her skull as that erodes, erodes, erodes. The whole body starts to crumple over. In about five and a half seconds,

there is a pile of smoking clothes on the ground and dust going. Bloodlutter is no more. Yes! As the dust settles, with the preternatural speed, Amiri is just there. Like, as the dust falls, I'm just there. Fast as a vampire, Amiri is there.

As soon as you get there, Quill, who is shaking and the runes are flaring in strange ways, who has been holding their action, rises up into the air and you all can feel yourself sort of getting lifted off the ground a couple of inches. Okay, we're going, but it feels wrong. You hear a cry, again, alien and unintelligible from Quill.

And you are tumbling down a snowy mountainside, alternating view of eating snow and seeing the bright blue sky. You wonder which mountain in Skyrim this must be. You wonder if it's the throat of the world. You don't know. You slam into a large boulder on the way down. 2d6 bludgeoning damage, please.

I'll cross the board. Do I still have shield up? Nah. Dang. We have to roll for our own damage, please. I'll cross the board. Do I still have shield up? Nah. Dang. We have to roll for our own damage? Yes. Seven. Crap. You all slam hard.

The wind gets knocked out of you. Highest roll I've rolled over. You get ripped out of this snowy mountain hill and splash messily into a majestic fountain in an immaculate open square, instantly drenched, gorgeous, magical colored lanterns drift about you and the air is fragrant and there's the sound of laughter and chatter,

which turns into gasps, an afternoon festival of some kind. Precine, you have a split second to recognize that you are sopping wet in the center of the majestic Altmer city of Alinor in the Somerset Isles before an older elf just outside the fountain sputters, What in noon is this? You are ripped from this reality

and now your wet bodies land in sand. It sticks to you immediately in all the worst, uncomfortable ways, and you are buffeted by a hot, gritty wind, which kicks drafts up along. I'll help with the other one. You're looking out at many, many blowing dunes. In the distance, you can see the minarets of a city

or a ruin, you're not sure. At the sound of you all sputtering in the sand, five to six, maybe sheep-sized scorpions go. You're ripped away again. Now you're indoors, immediately overwhelmed by the thick smell of dairy lying awkwardly on cheese, cheese wheels. You're in some sort of large pantry of storage room,

a big one. There's a few red banners hanging on the walls displaying the familiar diamond crest of the Cyrodiil Empire and just mountains and mountains of, who needs to stockpile this much? You are surrounded by fog, mist, rapid wind-blown mist.

Your stomach roils and seems to rise almost out of your gullet, and you realize you're falling, falling fast. You're blind in this fog. You spin your arms, trying to get your bearing, making sense of what is happening. Find anything to grasp onto. The fog ends.

You are dropping out of a cloud, free falling thousands of feet above Tamriel, a gold and green and ruddy landscape far, far below. And that's when we'll take our break. What? Cast Fly again? green and ruddy landscape far, far below. That's when we'll take our break. What?! Cast Fly again?! If you only have two! Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Don't know if it'll make a difference, but it's important for me to note that that rock that we hit in the Simmerset Isles took 20 points of cold damage. Oh. The whole, the fountain goes. Yep. There's an old man going, What in the heck This is what it is

Oh man Don't make me choose Alright, we're gonna take a little time, get a little water Use the loo and Watch these guys hit the ground It's gonna hurt See you in a minute Oh hey there, Laura Bailey here to tell you All about the glorious goods we create inspired by our stories.

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Speaking of which, let's get back to the story. We return to our beleaguered friends tumbling through the firmament. Clouds streaking by in the sky above and around you. The land below is a mix of grassy plains and red, arid mesas

and cliffs and a myriad it is somewhat familiar, but also Ah! You guys are plummeting rapidly and it's only getting faster, pinwheeling through the air, looking around. I read online that a skydive lasts about three to five minutes. Oh! So this should be fine.

Okay. I don't know where the Watchling is. Is a skydive including the parachute opening and coming down? Yes. So this is a minute. It's about two minutes. So yeah, yeah, yeah. So we have to time this.

I will say that you spend 20 seconds just eyeing. I find that. Right? Then as you try to pull yourselves together and figure out what to do, scanning around for the Watchling, for your little green friend, they are not present. You don't see them. No! What?

Go help! No! Wait! Do you sub the book? Your copy? Your copywriting? Am I holding the book? Yes! It's important! I have been holding it. Yes, good. Am I holding it? You are holding it. Okay.

Do you feel a warbling connection between that and Quill? Looking around, I don't see Quill anywhere. Make a perception check. Oh shit. We use math rocks in this game? Yeah. Yes. God, that's my... I've rolled so many threes. That's what you rolled now?

Well, no, I get to add seven to it, so 10. Oh, 10? I'm thinking really hard into the space around me, trying to hope that he responds and is somehow telepathically connected to me. Then I give up on that and I cast Fly on myself. Okay, okay. Oh.

Shwyt. Okay, I can do something. Shwyt. Shwyt. I can convert a spell slot to a sorcery point. And who's nearest me, whoever you are, I grab onto you. You can say you guys are in a cluster, all 10 feet apart from each other-ish.

Does anybody else have fly hair? Can we do the skydive, all hold arms? Is that an option? It would slow us down if two of you could fly. Yeah, on the ends maybe, and then the people that can't. I just reach out to someone who's across from me and I will use a twin spell fly

by also converting one of those spell slots. I get to do it. Do it, somebody stroll, do it. You, us. You get to do it. Okay, so tell me then, in this moment, as magical essence flows through both of your persons, do you continue to rocket along with everybody,

but in control? Do you stop and watch your friends go, No, no, we're holding onto each other. I'm holding on. I do the whole wiggle from holding hands to holding wrists, and I bring them in closer to me, and you're, I hope, doing the same thing as we're both flying and trying to kind of like.

I was going to say, I can join hands and I can help you in that flying, and I can cast Fly as well. Great, so three of us. So now we have three flies. And two of us who are just falling. I'm holding onto you, I'm holding onto you. I'm still screaming.

You guys are still falling really fast. It does give some drag. The remaining four players at the table, please make a perception check. The remaining four? Yes, you already. Oh, I already did it. You already borked it. Oh, me, me.

No. 11! I also am holding the grimoire in my arm, so I'm only dangling by the other hand. 18. Or I guess I'm dangling up. How would that happen? 11. How'd you do? Nine.

We got you somehow. Dang, y'all. But you got an 18. So, Fly, Fly, Fly, and these are the two who are just getting ready. Ride solo. We're leaning out the show, guys. It's a good run.

Oh man. You pull up, trying to stop their descent, and you can see probably 150 feet above you, the limp, tiny form of Quill just like, Oh no! Plummy! with wind resistance has dragged them away from you. And that is like 150 feet at this point. And it seems you see that.

Who got the 11 and the 12? I got 11. You guys are looking all around, too, like trying to find Quill. You don't see Quill, but as Aerox is like, oh my gosh, look! You, off on a complete horizontal line, see in a cloud that you guys are whizzing past,

a shadow move through it, and then just leisurely, just a leisurely blue dragon glide out of the cloud. Just minding its own business, having its own day. And both of your eyes go wide, and then you see this. As a blue dragon in the distance, just, you know, it's taking its time, leisurely,

heading this way. Heading towards us? And you. Oh, oh, oh know, it's taking its time, leisurely, heading this way. Heading towards us? And you. Oh, oh, oh. You two. Looks curious. To your van. Yes. Go. And I rock it up.

Yes. To try to reach Quill. Okay, you're going to Quill. Okay. You just can't hold on to me! Okay. I'm more like, . Like climbing on your shoulder to make it any difficult? Just knock my face. All right, so you're up. We're like. We're talking to Tentacool. Like climbing on your shoulders and making it difficult. Just knock my face.

All right, so you're up. Tell me what this group is doing again. I'm trying to pull Nishkhan up, and he's just like, you know how when you're trying to save somebody from drowning and they start to drown you? Yes. No way.

No way. No way. First one of that in disguise. No! And I'm holding onto Christine as she clutches the- Aerox! Help! As she clutches the-

You're so strong! The girl. You're so strong! No, I'm not that strong! Trying not to drop the book at the same time. I'm just trying to save you. Can you read my mind? There's already been so much strong downward momentum that it is,

you are definitely slowing the descent, but not by that much. It's not going to be that much. You call out that you see Quill, and these two are going like, and Emiri just shrugs and blasts upward into the sky. Do that! Probably literally kick Nishkan off one foot.

Yeah. I'm like, go! I can't do that! With my tail! All right, tell you what, do me a favor and make a... You can make it acrobatics or athletics to catch Quill as you meet them in the sky.

Okay, I'm going to choose acrobatics. Oh god. Please. 18. 18? Oh man. You streak your hands out and clasp just at the right moment and you grab the orb at the middle with its eye, its closed eye, and spin around.

And now we're looking down as you fly backwards for a moment. You can see you're holding a basketball, a little smaller than that, holding Quill. You are seeing two different kinds of fucked up tumbling through the sky below you. There is a blue dragon.

It now looks like it is about 500 feet away and coming quickly. You are holding an unconscious watchling in your hand. What are you doing? How far away is Amira from us? From you now? 200 feet. Amiri, 200 feet. 200 feet, Amiri's 200 feet away.

I'm going to pull my hood up out of my jester frill and cast Shadow Cloak, which gives me greater invisibility. Okay, okay. And it should make my belongings invisible, too. If he's unconscious, does he become a belonging? I'm going to say because of the size of the watchling, yes. That makes sense to me, absolutely.

So now you are an invisible ghost in the sky watching your friends go, And then I dive down after I cast this spell. You are closer than the dragon is. The dragon is bigger and probably a little bit faster. It looks like your trajectory, you are going to get there maybe 20 seconds, half a minute, before that thing closes on their position.

Oh! You streak down towards them and get into their vicinity, and you see a dragon now about 200 feet away, just... It doesn't look wrathful or rageful, but it is definitely, it just looks curious is all I can say, and it is closing. Anybody?

You got an unconscious Daedric entity. Yeah, but we can't see the unconscious thing anymore. That's right. And I was going to help it, but I didn't see anything. Where'd they go? They lost you. And then he left us. As I get closer to it,

I'm going to sneak attack it. What, the dragon? Yeah, I'm going to try to blind it and come out of my stealth as I do so. Oh my goodness. I love this. You're there like 20 seconds before the dragon comes. So you fly down invisible, see this thing's head growing as large as a Honda as it comes towards you.

And you are just waiting to as it comes? Yeah, just blind it. I'm pulling a Mandalorian. I love Yeah, just blind it. I'm pulling a Mandalorian. I love it, I love it. With one dagger and a dream. Okay. We're in this dream, too, though. It's a nightmare for more percent.

What else do I know is going to eat you guys? Do we know you're there? I'll pop out of stealth as I do it. But you're invisible. Are you unin-invisibling as you approach? Oh yeah, greater invisibility. You can do things and... You also have a voice. I got to be honest with you guys.

I thought the dragon was going for the little guy, and that's why I thought hiding him, but now I'm realizing the dragon was going for you. Is his mouth open? Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's all making sense. Is he just nonchalantly just starting to open his mouth? Like how a whale eats krill?

He is not. The one thing you have going for you is he doesn't look like, oh, I'm going to get those. It's more just, if a dragon can look kind of puzzled and like it's about to fart at the same time, that's what you're seeing on the expression of this massive thing, and it has seen you.

It has seen Nats falling from the sky, and now it's... David wants to help us! Okay. I'm going to slightly amend what I do then. Okay. I'm going to say, Pristine, catch. I'm going to throw the little Floppy Bobby.

I've got a book! Ah! What happened? Am I still holding you? Yes, yes. Yeah, so I don't have to. Okay, okay, okay. So now I'm holding you and you have a book and a book.

Yeah, I'll hold me around the way. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Do you think we need to put the book and the baby together? Laura, I'll tell you what. Prisceen, I'll tell you what. You hear a voice shout out of nowhere in the sky in the middle of this insanity.

If you, holding the book, try to catch the watchling while holding onto your flying friend, you will roll a disadvantage. If you let go. Of my friend? And the book, I'll let you catch straight. Yes.

I believe in you! I will try to catch Quill and, what the fuck? But I don't see anything! So you can like Elsa, just let it go. But you heard it and you turn towards that voice. So this is a negotiation here. So it's a straight roll.

You can do athletics or acrobatics. Oh lord. This is happening too fast. I can't say it. I made a series of foolish choices. I have such low wisdom and intelligence. You're shush? You're low on magic. All I have is necromancy. Never foolish.

All I have is skooma. I have 13, which is a huge roll for me. Oh my gosh. You feel something wet go. And bounce away. Oh no! But the good news is, We've lost both Quill and Book.

as it leaves Mirri's hand, It becomes visible. it becomes visible. Can I reach and try to catch it? It still bounces off your head visibly. It goes and now it is 10 feet away from it. Poor Quill is 10 feet away, unconscious.

Can I say, while I'm pulling and climbing on Talidor, I see her lose the book. I'm like, what are you doing? And I'll go ahead and cast Mage Hand. Yeah. Oh, good. From my total knowledge, to try and grab the book as it leaves your grip from the air. I don't know if I could do that, but I could try.

Yes, you can. Yes, you can. Now, Mage Hand, does it travel with me? Probably not. I think if you focus on it. Yeah, it appears, but I have to move it per round, and if I'm moving away, out of range, it goes away. So instead, instead, I'm going to spike it back in her. Oh, like whack?

Yeah, my Mage Hand's going to whack! Oh yeah, great. Yeah, and what I'll say is that when you threw the book away, it actually went lower than you, so the Mage Hand appears beneath the book and sort of- So it cradles it? No, I'm legitimately smacking it in here. My arms are still open from trying to catch Quill.

You're not exactly sure what happens, but you see it. Your Mage Hand goes and sort of explodes like a cloud as it hits the book, but it slows the book's descent a little bit and you, for some reason, come and catch up to it and grab. Everybody make a dexterity save as the dragon blasts right through your group. Oh gosh.

Yeah, that's about right. Oh boy. What'd you get? 16. A one? 20, no, a 21. 21. 18. 18. Six. Okay. Four. Four? 16. 18. Six. Okay. Four.

Four? Six, are you? That's right, right? 16. Beat up. Luck, hope, goodwill, determination. Everyone who rolled 15, 16 higher, you curl yourself into a ball and just pray for the best and feel yourself spin in place, but stay where you are.

But these two guys. No! You get knocked away by the blasts of wind in two directions. We've been places a minute into this ordeal. She's got the book. No! Do I still see Quill. She's got the book. No! I still see Quill.

You've got the book. You see Quill is now, again, wind resistance on this little body is moving 20 feet away. It's only 20 feet away? 20 feet away. Misty stepped. Quill. To Quill? Yes. With the book? Yes.

Oh my gosh. You, hero. Yes. You are double elbowing this pair of arcane twinsies. And falling. And falling. Put the baby and the book together. And falling. You're flying and invisible. You right yourself.

You went on an angle and are now about 60, 70, 80 feet away from the group. I'm fine. Oh god. You are two in the opposite direction. You are flying, you are flying. You catch yourself, but you two are spread from the group. These two are going to die. What's up? I reach for Nishkan,

and I'm going to try to spin around and fly back towards him and grab him again. Okay. Which is a very athletic feat that I am not good at, but I don't see anything else possible. I want you to make an acrobatics check to catch him and hold. Not this one. Not this hold. Not this one.

Nat 20. Yes! Yes! Yes. I think you do the best for me. It's the Noreen. Yes. No! So you streak back towards Niskan.

Your hands reach out. You see him and you're like, hands clasping. You guys kind of go, boom, and spin like helicopter rotors for a second, and then you're kind of falling again, but you are pulling against it and at least you're not going on an insane trajectory, and you are slowing it.

You guys are not with the group. I have wrapped my arms and legs around you and you're like, thank you, thank you, thank you. And you also feel a little bit of dampness around there. No! The dragon is like 400 or 500 feet away and is doing a slow little turn around again and heading its way back here.

We have three groups. One group has the book and the creature, and you two are like 100 feet away from them. You could totally slow down and stop and wear a nice gown like a backpack, but you wouldn't be with a group. Yes. Oh, well, I need to be with a group. I'm going to try to get to the group

and call the group to me. Don't leave us, please! I'm going to keep casting Mage Hand to smack us back. Just like this. That's not helping, but it feels good. Ow, ow, ow! All right, so it looks like the- Have I been caught yet?

Because I was free falling. No, you're free falling. Oh, fuck. Unless Aerox. I can try to catch you. I was like, how far away are you from me? You guys are very close. So you guys can catch me? Yeah, you guys are a little 24.

Because I'm sort of responsible for her falling. I feel like it's your job. Yeah, yeah. That's valid. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm going to just, you don't see it, which is sad, but if you could. You just see a beautiful back, falling back into a beautiful corkscrew

as I try to make myself fast enough to meet end velocity and grab her. Bells jingling through the sky. Yeah, you probably just hear the. Eternal jingling. Yeah, from behind the boat. Santa? Yeah, Santa free-falling. Is Quill in my arms still unconscious?

Yes. Okay. I hear a myri's bells, so I feel safe. I believe I'm going to be saved. And I'm going to... I love that. I'm going to cast Life Transference into Quill. Yes.

So I'm going to give my health to Quill to wake them up. Okay. While we're falling. Yes. Is there a specific amount that goes in? It's 4d8 off myself. Off yourself? Yes. And then, yes.

And they get double that, I think. I need you to roll that for me, for reasons. Oh no. For reasons. Oh no. Okay, I will. Fine. I will roll it. What should be the best roll I've had? Let's go.

Who not? We really just need one hand full. Well, this is all I have. No, I'm with you, I'm with you. This is all I have. This is what we all want. The universe knows all we need. No, no, no, that's fine. Four, 10, 12.

Okay. 12. So 12 to Quill. 12, no, off of me. Okay. 12. So 12 to Quill. 12, no, off of me. Off of you. And then they get 24. Oh my goodness. You transfer your life, your essence. Because I did, was that, wait,

yes, I did that at third level. Oh my god. I realize now I could have done that less, but I did it at third. Yeah. That's what we're staying with. Level. I realize now I could have done that less, but I did it a third! That's what we're staying with! You watch as the flesh, the torn flesh of this tendril just knits shut

and pulls together, and the eye wriggles and opens up, and everyone on their brain hears, Whoa! That's not what we're doing, yeah. Amiri's helping us! So you are listening for Amiri's bells. You're keeping up.

You guys are trying to close and meet at the bottom. The dragon is now 200, 180, 150 feet. You guys are probably got another 20 seconds before you hit the ground. The group comes together at the last possible moment. This time, the dragon is closing in and you can see the dragon's expression is, you know what?

No! And then Quill begins to flare. Don't take the dragon with this! I just fit in that direction. You are ripped from reality, and what happens next is you see water ripple in front of you, all of you, and you see the water rushing away from you as you shoot straight up in the air,

the exact opposite direction of where you were just falling. So you were rocketing this way. Now you are rocketing this way, away from the surface of a lake. You are going 50 feet in the air, 70 feet in the air, 80 feet in the air, 100 feet in the air. Oh my gosh, it's a little lake where some sort of tree line, lakeside tree, and you begin to fall air. Oh my gosh, it's a little lake. We're some sort of tree line, lakeside tree.

And you begin to fall again. Oh my god. You are falling about 100 feet towards water below you. Great, still killing it. Do anything you like. Cannonball! We're still flying. Yeah, you're still flying. Yes, anyone who's still flying.

So flying, flying, holding. I'm going to try to grab and slow down Pristine if I can. Okay. Yes, so you guys shoot up and then feel yourself, everyone, Quill included. What? I've been on this ride.

And then as the drop begins, you have a brain fart moment and go, fly. And everyone starts to pull, pull, and you slow hovering about 50 feet over a lake in a different place entirely. There are trees all along the water here. It's a small, it's a lake. You're probably 500 feet from land

and you can see trees with all interwoven roots growing in a forest here, but the roots are spilling over into the water. And you can see at the height you're at some old stone structures hidden away in the trees off to the side and floating there. Quill rotates out of your hand and floats up looking at you all.

Are all mortals so squishy like you? Well. We're an especially squishy group, actually. Stanchly in favor of squishiness. I've read books about warriors. Yes, we are not them. Do you have any warriors? We're...

You're still invisible? I try to fight like I have six claws, but no. I'm going to go over west. And they float away from you and sort of bobble their way down. Well, you're welcome. Towards the last level. Yes.

I'm following. I'm going to try to drag Nishkan over to where Quill is going. Nishkan is half catatonic at this point, and she's like, It's okay, it's okay. I just stroked your hair. It's all right. It's all going to be okay.

So shush, shush, shush. Maybe let Nishkan take a little bath in the lake. You're in shock. You just need some water. You're in. So shush, shush, shush. Maybe let Lushcan take a little bath in the lake. You're in shock, you just need some. Urine, exactly. I dip him in the water as I try. I tumble out of the lake, onto his back. Good job, everyone! Well done!

My book, My book! Jumps back in the leg. Quill floats over to you once you join on the side and comes to a rest and you feel a little, some of Quill's arms have almost a fin on the end and they almost stand a fin on the end and they almost stand a bit on your lap and then rest. And you hear in your mind,

thank you. Thank you very much. You're welcome, little one. They say you're never ready. Somewhere there's a dragon going, Oh fuck. But we are not finished. We're not?

We have to return the Grimoire Exnimula. To? To the one who knows. Right, and where are they? Oblivion. Ooh! In the realm of Apocrypha. Water splashes.

I found it! What are we talking about? I'm returning the grimoire. Back on the adventure. Oh, where? To Oblivion. Ooh. I like that. Of course you do.

There are many secrets inside the Grimoviks. Can I see it? Can I see it? Have we even opened it? No. No. Can we take a peek? I think now is the time. Yeah.

Quill floats over to our arcanist and places two suckered fins on the sides of your temples. Quill floats over to our arcanist and places two suckered fins on the sides of your temples. You bear the one who knows, Mark. They knew this was to come. The book hovers a bit out of your hands and Quill floats backward and above. And this is the first time where you're not being attacked

by a squadron of werewolves or falling out of the sky to look at this thing. And the book underneath is, as I said, an old tattered thing. It has sort of a pressed design of Hermaeus. It is a spread of tendrils and one all-knowing eye in the center

and arms stretched down in the design around an icon of a gate on the cover of the book. But you're seeing that through metal, blackened metal bands that stretch all around this thing, little holes in them. They somewhat look a little like the arms of Hermaeus, emblazoned on the book. They look somewhat like Quill.

And Quill extends all of their arms and wraps them around the book. And as if they were made for it, every band around the book is covered by an arm and an arm and an arm and an arm. And Quill, all those little runes, and an arm and an arm and an arm and an arm and Quill, all those little runes across its body, glow as one.

And they lift up their tendrils and that metal is just not there anymore. And the book opens before you, Niskan, the pages. You guys see an emerald glow emanating from the book and mathematic, almost fractal line work and rings extending out of it around Niskan's eyes and face, enveloping him. And your mind awakens in a way you did not know possible. Words with no meaning that you now understand,

words of power that you understand implicitly in your mind and in your body. Where is it? Oh, you got to level up! Go slow down! Do it! Go fight that dragon! Come on, buddy!

By the light of Lorcan. It's quite a good read. I'd like to spend some time with it. What does it give you? What did you find out? Nothing. How could you? One of the secrets. out? Nothing. How could you? One of the secrets. What? No.

I just wanted to know what sign I am. Quirious. Oh. When in tune, do it increases my charisma score to a maximum of 20. Ooh. I can cast Mirror Image once per day without using a spell slot.

And I can use Misty Step a number of times equal to my proficiency bonus. Oh my. Whoa! Which is cool. Yeah. That is super cool. And also, like I said before, a fine read. Hmm. Can I read that?

You can borrow it. Okay, we're colleagues after all. That's true. Are you okay? That was, you know, quite the journey that I saved you from. You did, thank you very much. Take a look, I'm going to...

Are we all going to take a nap here? I'm extremely threadbare in my mind. Yeah, that vampire really messed me up. I feel great. I feel the best rest. How long? I feel amazing. The hunters who want this book, they want its deepest secret, which is tied to Hermaeus' stairway.

Where is the stairway? What page is the secret on? It is on no page. Oh. It is a place in Tamriel, a long-forgotten entry point to Apocrypha, its most inner sanctum. Let's go.

That's... Yes, yes, yes, but where? Far to the south of here. But you could just... Take us. Quill mimics you. Does this with all potentials. It's true. I suppose a short race would be all right. I think it has to be. But I'm a little antsy.

I'll keep watch. I feel amazing. I do need to take a breather. Mama just needs a glass of wine. I need to lie down. I'll keep an eye out. You guys take a nap. Your enemies know of this place. I'll kill them if they come.

She will. Quick rest, I think is in order. Right. This is indeed a good read. Unless anyone else has any issue and would like to make this mine. Do you mean to just take a little time at the side of this lake,

or do you mean to gather yourselves entirely? Like short rest. Short rest? Yes. I mean, a long rest would be so long. Hence the name. Yes, yeah. I mean, I fear that we might, that which is hunting for this might find us

if we take too long. I want to clarify something I said. Quill said they know of this place. Speaking into your mind, it is clear that Quill meant Hermaeus' stairway. Oh, okay. So not this place. So they wouldn't find us here. Your destination. They might beat us to the stairway, though.

Got it. In which case, I think we should be as prepared as possible. So a long rest? I would love a long rest. They might be there already. You're right. I make myself really comfortable

and start to get ready for a nice long sleep. All right. Unless someone tells me otherwise. No, it's fine. Very dory. I will join you in that endeavor. Okay. Well, since you are taking the time

in this large inter-network of trees that stretches off into the distance, as far as the eye can see, from when you were flying above it. You push through maybe a couple hundred feet to some stone structures you saw there and sort of nestle into this spot. Amiri, you recognize there are old ruins here

that are covered over and swallowed up by these tree roots and growing on them and over them. But the architecture, the ruins are of Khajiit origin. And it is just confirming your flash of suspicion in the sky that you are somewhere in Elsweyr. Ah. Are the two moons visible to me? Well, the sun is still high, but...

I know they're there, even though I can't see them, just like I'm always here when you guys can't see me. But the night does come, and the moons do rise, as well as you see the constellation for the thief in the sky, an old friend, an old familiar friend to you. Is anyone going to do a watch? Yes, I will. I don't technically have to sleep for quite as long as everyone,

and I believe you don't either. No, no, technically, no. Yes, yes, yes. So maybe... The two of us no, technically. Yes, yes, yes. So maybe. The two of us can take turns. Okay. You go first, I'll take second watch. Sounds good. You're first?

I'll watch first, and then I'll take a little nappy after. You've got good old perception, Jor. Can I stay up with you? Yes, but don't you need to sleep, dear. I like to be awake at night. Let's watch the moons together, then. I'll roll a 20.

30, 20. 10. Once again, I am distracted. So that's the Thief Constellation. Oh yes. Yep. Which one? Putting my arm around you.

You look like that. Do you know, the species of Khajiit is determined by the phase of the moons you're born under. Really? There are some Khajiit that are the size of house cats and have the form of a house cat, but are just as intelligent as you or I. Well, what were you born under, then?

Well, I'll tell you sometime when the DM's up. The color rises in my panther cheeks, if it could. You tell her all about it. Like a lover's embrace, the two moons cross each other. When they do, a beautiful kitten is born. Perhaps our moons can cross one day. Emiri, as you're laying on the move so smoothly,

So smoothly. there is a rustle in the distance, in the bushes, maybe 50 or 60 feet away. Wait. You hear it, you hear it. And pause, right. What? There was a rustling. Woot, woot, woot, woot, woot, woot, woot, woot, woot, woot.

I think it's a frog. It is not. I'm just a bad impressionist. Five or six large black boars trundle out of the brush here. Woot, woot, woot, woot, woot, woot, woot, woot, woot, woot, woot. It sounds more like a boar black boars trundle out of the brush here. It sounds more like a boar now that I think about it. If I do it too hardcore, I'm going to start coughing.

Yeah. As you wait, wait. How dangerous are boars? It's a trivial matter, but I don't think that they'll bother us. They're boor. They all turn and go. Just stare blankly for a good count of five.

Vanish off into the night. I have to go to bed. I'm so tired. It's your watch anyway. Anyways, the night. I have to go to bed. I'm so tired. It's your watch anyway. Anyways, good night. Good night, Amiri. Pleasant conversation. I curl up into a ball and go to sleep.

You are the most approachable necromancer. That's it, just the boars and Emiri. Those are the only two movement in the night. Terrible night. Ladies, are you choosing the boars? Yep. We need to choose our two wolves. Well, time passes,

and you awaken Niskanen from their meditation. I'll say, if I can. Yes. As part of my... Come to here, come to me. There it is. My musician training. Towards the end of my watch, I'm holding the book clasped to my chest and have, as part of the end of my trance,

began to emit a classic Dunmer throat singing chord. I greet you all to a relatively uncomfortable wake. But as part of my encouraging song ability, at the end of the long rest, I get to choose three of you to get heroic inspiration. Oh. Oh. This is upon the rise, you say? Yes. Okay.

As you all awaken and you are singing your song, you notice a shadow go over, look up. You continue to sing. Then it happens again, and you see, up in the sky, pretty distant, but a blue dragon just skimming around in the sky. But you lower your throat singing a little bit, keep it up, and it passes along on its way.

Morning! Morning. Lovely singing, it's getting better and better every time. Thank you, I haven't practiced. I think it's okay. Any of you need heroic inspiration? What does it give us? It gives you heroic inspiration.

You can spend it. Obviously. I knew I was going to ask for this. No, you can spend it to give yourself advantage on a roll, if you want. Do you have an inspiring meme you would like to share with us? You can give it to three of us.

I give it to three of you. Who's my friend? I saved you. That's true. You get one. I complimented your singing. You get one. You ran away from me in my dire need. I feel like I'm going to guilt you into giving you one.

I did not run from you. I had to get to the Grimoire in case it could save you. You can have it. Thank you. I did flip you off, so. It's fine. Eorax Quill lands or hovers just on your shoulder and a tentacle wraps around your head,

sort of like a bandana, and all of you in your heads here. I don't think we can tally any longer. I feel like we should get to Amores' stairway as fast as possible. Okay. Are you ready? Not quite yet, and then I activate all that energy that I did before. You see this field, a shimmering shield around me.

I'm going to give aid to Niskan and Aurax this time, because I didn't think you needed it very much before. Honestly? Mm-hmm. Give it to someone else. I'm a hardy boy. I'll give it to Prasine and Aurax, so you get an extra five permanent hit points.

I believe it's Aerox. Aerox? It's true. It is Aerox. I have an accent. I've noticed. Yes, thank you. Thank you. And yeah, and I activate all that stuff.

False Life, I make armor. What did you go for? Extra five actual hit points, not temporary. Ooh! And then I'm going to give myself False Life and give myself temporary hit points as well. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm going to Mage Armor up.

I Mage Armor as well and cast my Fate Woven Armor once more. I have magical wards. The eye blinks at all of you, waiting, waiting, waiting. Wait, wait, wait, no! One more thing! Ah! I'm starting to like it.

You left one forest and traded it for not exactly the same thing. You've landed now in a fully tropical landscape with thick, thick, hot. The moisture is intense. There are bothersome insects flying in the air that you have to swat occasionally. You are in dense tree cover.

You can't even see where to go, but of course, your watchling friend just turns around to you all. Follow me. It will be a little bit. All right. As you traverse through the landscape, Arox, you notice that we are passing fallen bits of ancient Argonian ruins

with their signature design aspects. You are feeling pretty lost without your guide here for the first five or 10 minutes that you walk through this place, climbing over roots and stone. You rise up a crest and as trees thin out for a moment, you have a better view of the world around you here. You can see the ocean in the far distance. You can even see a city on the water.

Looks like half a day's march from where you are. There's also a row of mountains that you're heading towards, but the strangest thing on this horizon is the massive blue, undulating, writhing, arcane wall of energy that seems to pass along the mountains here,

which are not Skyrim massive, but mountains. And it stretches across what looks like the length of this place to you. It stretches out of view in both directions. It is singular and different than anything you've ever seen in Tamriel. You guys press forward and the ruins become a little more frequent.

At a certain point, you find some dead guys laid in a heap in some of these ruins. You find two people who have similar thin-to-air robes. They're not thick things. It's a very thin, gauzy material. And one of them has, one is a Breton, you can tell, and has a tattoo on their arm. And the other one is a Dunmer.

And matching that tattoo on the medallion, there is this little symbol of a skull etched in and inked in with what looks like the bones of a snake stretching down from it. and inked in with what looks like the bones of a snake stretching down from it. You recognize this symbol. It is the symbol of the Worm Cult. In the not too distant past,

maybe even a year back from now, at times loosey-goosey in this one shot, there was a mage named Mannimarco who initiated a terrifying event called the Plain Meld and tried to pull part of the world into oblivion. It is part of why Tamriel is in so much disarray now. And the Worm Cult was central to that. This Man of Marko figure was consorting

with the Daedric Prince Molag Bal, Prince of Domination and Enslavement, like you do. But they are necromancers, and because you dabble, you dabble, you dabble in dead, it would be hard for you not to have known for the darkest side of the dark side. Anyway, they're dead here. Anything we can take off their bodies?

One of them has a curved dagger with three black obsidian stones in the hilt. You've got this little medallion on one. There's also strange, they're almost above table, Geiger-esque pieces of metal and onyx. It looks like some sort of, you've seen little bits of machinery in the world, and it seems to be some sort of...

It's unfinished pieces, but some sort of arcane device of some kind. There's pieces of it here with them? Yeah, they have three... They don't look like weapons, they don't look like... It's just something that can be used, potentially. I'm going to take three cheese wheels out of my bag and make room for it. You took three cheese wheels?

Of course. Okay. We were only there a second. Look, you can always use more cheese wheels, but I have enough room now, I can put... Could have safely landed on those cheese wheels. Yeah. Frontation devices. I want to take a bite of the cheese wheel,

and while I do that, I also want to... These bodies, I think, are really interesting. If there's a way to determine whether they were executed, bound and executed, or murdered in a fight, or ritual. Yeah, sure. Make a... I would say make a straight intelligence roll. A rot.

12. 12. They seem like they have fallen sick somehow, but you're unsure how. They seem sick. Is there anything we should be worried about? Don't know. Quill? Quill hovers over these two. These two have the smell of Molag Bal on them.

This is not to do with us. Press on. Quill, I've heard things, and just give me a thumbs up or a thumbs or a flip her up or a flip her down. Doesn't Molag Bal own your soul and make you work in his shack and he's here? Whose soul? My soul?

No, like mortals. He takes your soul and then he makes you work with a mining pick forever and ever and ever and ever. He's going to be a pick? Mm-hmm. Yeah. I would avoid him, yeah. Well, a little bit of pee came out,

because is no one else scared of? Oh, deeply perturbed. Yes. We should follow the quill. Can your guy be that guy in a fight? Oh, I'm certain. Great wondrous entity of many secrets could definitely, I have no idea. But it is a lead we can follow,

and besides, we are both watched upon by entities of great power, yes? Oh, he sometimes watches me and sometimes he wanders off and does other things. That's his whole deal. You're right. So one and a half. Okay.

Okay, let's go. Arms, come on! Should we take these as disguises? It seems, is it covered in mucus? The medallions? No. Okay. No. Just the medallions. Yeah, I think so.

The rags, I think. I think that's right. Yeah. We should. We should use our bear hands to grab it, then. A mage hand. Yeah. I'll do the same. Me too. Kitty Cat Claw grabs one. How many medallions are there? Just in case. Two.

Are there two? Yeah. Great, yeah. All right. Just in case. Yeah, no, good move. I'll put one to you. That device that they have, those metal pieces are interesting to me, but maybe this is not the day for that.

Hold on. I'm going to cast Speak With Dead. Ah. You there. So sorry this happened to you. What are these metal thingies for? Right here. Look up here.

Right here. Please. What are you going to do with him? We are forebending our forces. I didn't understand any of that. I didn't make out any of that. We had forebeens for the save. Forces. Forces. Forces. Yes. Foresay. Foresay. Foresay.

I've got a few more questions. Don't pass out yet. Did you die of sickness? It was poison. Poison, oh. We should be careful of poison. Ask him if he saw who did this to him. Who did this to you?

Do you know? Zivoli. Zivoli, ooh. Zivoli. Zivoli. Oh, I thought it was Zivoli. Zivoli. Zivoli. Oh, I thought it was Zivoli. Zivoli. Zivoli, I don't think that is. Zivoli, which are the Dremora

that are not bound to specific tribes. Those twinnies, the twins. Oh! But how recently? Yes, how long ago did you die? Looks up at the sky and the sun. Yesterday. Oh, poor dears, it's so recent.

Right, so they got here. They're going to be waiting for us. They're not that far ahead of us. So I have one more question. Okay. You might want to make it quick. I don't know how much longer. Did you notice any weaknesses on the little twinnies?

Big twinnies, technically. No shirts. No shirts. Yes, no shirts. I did notice as well. The bugs will bite. Hmm, good to know. Okay. Okay. All right, rest well.

Night-night. I'm a big twinnie. Good to know. Okay. Okay. All right, rest well. Nighty-night. I'm a big twin. Yeah. Is it disrespectful to say rest well to a dead person? No, no, no, no, long sleep. Ha ha ha, forever sleep. Did anyone understand what he said about these thingies? Yeah, this is for the force,

something for forces, for the forces? Just a shot. Maybe to get through that force field. Right. Maybe you need some type of contraction to get through this shimmering blue barrier. I can't be sure. I could try.

Yes, I think that would be great. I'm kind of nifty sometimes. There's a few more. We believe in you. We don't have a lot of eyes. All right. I'm going to step away from you, though, while you do it. I'm going to put the pieces in front of me

and drink half a bottle of skooma and hope something comes to me. To do, what are we trying to do with these? Try to see how the pieces fit together, not using any arcane knowledge, but more so the wear on the pieces and the grooves on them. You can make a straight intelligence check.

Okay. Are the drugs you gave me liquid? No, it's moon sugar. Oh yeah, you could. Yeah. Okay, because that would suck. Oh, I'm not smart. 10. 10. Clack, clack. I'm like...

Well, can we use our arcana to look at it? Yes. All right, I'll do the same. I'll kne, Well, can we use Arcana to look at it? Yes. All right, I'll do the same. I'll kneel down next to you. As you say that, I say, I have a great plan. You should use Arcana to look at this. Let's just look at it. Hmm.

Okay. I'll look at it with you and give you the help action, if that's possible. That gives me advantage. Sure, sure. So if it's, you know, put our heads together. Nope, nope, that was better. 17 plus, hmm, our corner, which is 11, so 28.

28. You understand that this is incomplete. This is not three things that are going to turn into a perfect anything, but there is some etching in it that tells you that it is necromantic in nature, but you know nothing about machinery. Yeah.

You know, maybe we don't even need this. It just tells you that it, you would guess from staring at these things for a half a minute or so that this is something to do with the Wyrm cult. Mm. Yes, yes, yes, and we already have the grimoire. And Quill! We can get through it.

Those medallions, and I guess we should just take them just in case maybe we find other pieces. We never know. Later. Take them back to the guild. Very squishy, though. Which one? Who's squishy? Me? Yeah. I am. Yeah. Have you been feeling me?

Only a little. Okay, just wanted to make sure that was you. I didn't know who it was. I let him this time. I don't resist who it was. I let him this time. I don't resist whatever he's doing to me with that noise. I just let it happen. In your mind, you hear, as a little tentacle goes like this. It will have to do.

And they turn and start to hover through. Gwyll, do not worry. Separate, we are squishy, but together we are turgid. I understood that reference. I follow. Clell. Yes. I forget this time I joined in as well.

Oh no. Me too, because I succumb to peer pressure. You know. You never shake off the oddity of finding them there, but especially, there is a wall of writhing energy streaking into the sky. It doesn't seem to fit or make sense with anything that has happened in the last 24 hours,

but you also warped into a room full of cheese. Who knows? You continue up, and it starts to become an uphill climb at the base of one of these mountains. And an hour later, I'll say a following quill through this place, and you guys are a drenched, sweaty,

disgusting mess at this point. I smell like a wet cat. You realize as you're climbing that you're not just on earth at this point, on stone and soil, but you're stepping on crumbled stairs. Oh! And realize that this is more

Argonian architecture, ancient ruins, but a lot of it. Like, you can see statues jutting up out of the plants here and you're climbing up a long-lost ruined temple stair, it feels like, but it's covered over with plants and vines. And at a certain point point you crest to the top and find two blue-hued gentlemen, two twins with horns in their kilts,

just sitting on stones. And they sit up as you arrive, and big guy, Naravix, just sort of smiles and licks his teeth, and then his brother, still sitting on this sort of a crumbling stone dais.

There is a rise in the center of this place, and each level of stone has Argonian-designed writhing tentacles stretching in a different direction on each level. And Zivaron, the more lithe of the twins, is sitting on that. We were wondering how long we were going to have to wait here in the heat.

You run into Molag Bal's little worms wriggling on the island. Yes, we did see your handiwork. When did we see that? Those were the two dead guys. We saw dead people? You just said. Oh, yeah. Just said.

I slowly try and pull this bottle away. Yeah. There will be an intervention later. Thank you, thank you. We got a handful. To worry you guys again? I still have this. If it's too much, I'll stop.

I step away from Amiri again. Narvik, the bigger of these twins, cracks his neck and says, Oh, it's good that they were littering the jungle, though provided us with some raw materials to better prepare for your arrival. And he tilts his head back and you can see, hidden off to the side, somewhat hidden in the brush, are five more dead people in a ring.

And you can see, painted on the stone here, takes five or six seconds for it to sink in, but patterns on the stone that remind you of what was painted on the floor of the place you hung over in iron chains. Point of order? On the way here, could I have used my magical cunning ability to take a minute for an esoteric rite

to regain a spell slot? Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Zivaran, the one with the long ponytail, finally stands up. We had things all laid out until you stuck your thumb in the pie. A lot of extra trouble.

Now, we will be taking that book. Stares dead eye at Quill. And the key. No. I want to keep it. Also, his name's not Key, it's Quill. Even I know that. They raise.

Hard day. Whoops. I missed everything. It's a squid. It's okay. The two zivoli raise their hands towards each other, and a bit of flame and energy passes between their two hands, and then sinks into these five bodies on the ground, which begin to melt and bubble.

Oh. And it starts to rise up in a form, pushes out of these melting cultists, worm cultists, and you see a nightmare sopping with flesh and viscera appear, huge, dark, sunken eyes and you see a nightmare sopping with flesh and viscera up here, huge, dark, sunken eyes and a black void where the mouth is, and white, like what are those?

White millipede creatures that are so unsettling. That kind of flesh, large, pincer-like legs stretch out and standing up higher than these two twins, this thing pushes up and dead body just slops away. pincer-like legs stretch out, and standing up higher than these two twins, this thing pushes up and dead body just slops away as this arcane ring on the ground goes. Let's bring out the map. Ooh! We have a map!

Let's roll initiative. Ooh, initiative! Ooh! Roll as bad as last time. Yeah, come on. No, let's roll initiative. Ooh, initiative! Ooh! Let's not roll as bad as last time. Yeah, come on. And just keep fishing. No, let's roll worse. No way. No. Natural one, baby.

Oh! Why? What is this? Get rid of that dice. Get rid of that dice right now. What'd you do? No, I have to stick to it. I have to make it work. Oh, look at you! She's so cute! She's so cute! It's rolled so poorly now, it can only help me.

Ah. Oh, we have Minnie! Oh, look at me! Oh my god. The Minnetons. Oh my god. Oh, that looks just like me. Where am I?

All of my characters. That looks a little head-minnow to you. Should I get out of the way? Maybe. I can help on this side. Oh my god, that's a big one. Isn't that so cute? Oh, nice.

Is it coming through here, or? Oh, oh wow. Oh! All righty, come here. Oh, nice. Is it coming through here, or? Oh, oh, wow. Oh! All righty, come here. Oh! Whoa! I'm on this end. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You got it? Yeah. Oh, it's heavy.

Oh, that's awesome. Do the hop! All right. So the stair, even though we got a plan here, I'll say that this is the top of a stair. So it'd be up here? Mm-hmm. All right.

That's where we are. Here's your two buddies. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yes, yes, please. They're so far up. Oh no, where's this creature? Where is this creature? Oh. Oh, I'm going to be talking.

Oh, that's terrifying. I had the book and went, No! So I think I'm taking a stand. The knight's like, Oh, that's the thing. That's the thing. That is a nightmare.

Oh, what? Wait. Look how beautiful this is. Matt, what did you roll? A natural one. Because I'm a criminal and I have the alert feature, I can swap initiative with you. You want my 17? Cool.

You'd be so much better going first, though. Are you sure? I'm good. I can go last. I got you, cut you. Let me wallow. I appreciate this. All right, did we roll our initiative? Yes. We did.

All right, did anyone get over a 20? 15 to 20. Yes. Okay. I got a 17. So, Amiri. 17, did anyone get 10 to 15? I did. That's a 20. 14.

Oh, never mind. I got a natural 20. Natural 20? Yeah, sorry. All right, all right. Yeah, on the Caleb dice, it'll. I got a natural 20. Natural 20? Yeah, sorry, yeah. Oh, right, oh. Yeah, on the Caleb dice. It'll be a 21 total for you. Erox, Emiri, then you got 15, you said, Talor? I got 14.

Oh, we got 14. I got 14, which means we rollies. I got two dex, plus two dex. Oh, I have plus two dex. Let's roll it. Let's roll it. We're doing the breakout. 15. 11. Mimi, I win, I win, I win, I win. Let's roll it. We're going to do a drag out. 15. 11.

Mimi, I win, I win, I win, I win. It's not a competition. But it was still fun to win. It's always a competition. Okay, then we get five to 10? We get the one left. Less than five? Yes. Three. Three, okay.

Down there, okay. Yeah. I'm fine. Okay. I want to! Mm-hmm. Okay. I want to see what you look like. All right, well, at the top of this encounter, Erox, you are up here, surrounded by Argonian ruins in the jungles of the Isle of Solstice at the farthest southern point of Tamrael.

How are you kicking this off? Oh shit, this is my fucking backyard, y'all. Oh. Listen, I know these jungles. I've been here before, so. What I am going to do is, hold on, wait. Wait, I already used her. No! Wait, I reuse her. He sang me out.

Oh. I do sing. Oh, did you reset everything after a long rest? I did not. Oh, you must. Wait, do that. Reset. You will be very, very pleased with your new firm. You get everything back.

There you go, it's now all your spells, your bucket to full health. Listen. And you got all your spells back. And you also have five extra hit points. That's true. That you should take note of. Should we do that? Max hit points. Oh yes. So we go with, yeah, and go five.

And add five. And then, now you have it. Now you have it. Awesome. Sorry. No, no, no, you're good, you're good. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I want to get you ready. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I am first going to cast a lightning sphere. Oh? Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Because how far is this thing from me? This, this, this? You're here? Uh-huh. This thing? Mm-hmm. 10, 11, 13, 11, 12, 13.

60 or so feet? A little 60 or just beyond. 60 feet, okay. That range is about 60 feet. Yeah. You can move a little closer and cast it if you want. I should, yes, yes, yes. I would like to move a tad bit closer.

I want to run up on our little friend here and cast Lightning Sphere. All right. And hopefully, and hopefully it will do some sort of damage. Okay. Do I need to? So we need to, you go ahead and bring this up here. All right, so yeah, so you create, you're summoning this, this is the?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, this is my lightning sphere. So this is a summoning spell. So what I would like to do is create this orb of lightning, almost very Dragon Ball Z style, and almost in the style of Goku, shoot this lightning bolt, or this lightning sphere, at our new friend here, and hopefully give him a piece of his own medicine.

All right. So that actually lands. It's a concentration spell. Concentration, okay. It's like other sphere spells that get summoned in stay. And is that, hold on. It's a DC 14 dex save. Dex save. Yeah. Yeah.

It definitely beats that, I rolled a 19. Ah! Okay, so it takes half damage. Okay, okay, okay. So go ahead and roll the damage on it. It's 36. Where is it? Oh, it's on there, yeah. So you using that one? So roll the damage on it. It's 36. Where is it? Oh, it's on there. Yeah, so roll that three times. Three, two, two.

Seven. Seven. Seven, all right. Describe to me how this magical attack appears. This magical attack appears. This magical attack appears, like two orbs in my hand, and I just mash together, and it becomes one big orb. Almost like a soccer ball,

just rolls and and lands right on top of their head. It slams into its skull with these strange, almost bone-like protrusions from the side of its head, knocks it down, and the face recoils up, and it just wails happily. Ooh! But you definitely hit that thing.

Oh. Guys. I feel like I picked the fight the first time. And it didn't go well for me. So we're turning it around. Yes, yes. Zett brings us to, oh, that's awesome. What are you stealing?

That brings us to Amiri. Oh, nice! Ooh! But that's lightning. Lightning. Okay. Can I get up and move? Yeah, absolutely. Okay, so.

If you can reach. Yeah. Yeah, I am this little cat jester. Each of these is five? Yeah. So I'm going to go five, 10, 15. 20. 20. 25, 30,

and I can move double my speed. I can climb at a speed of 20 as well. So with 30 left, can I go 5, 10, 15, 20? Oh yeah, you're a cat. Nice. Oh my gosh. You just run up and then catch with those kitty claws at the last second.

You see at this point, her toes probably pop out the front of her little jester booty so she can scramble up the tree. So that's my movement. I am going to take aim at... Which one of these brothers is more scary? This is Zivoli with the long ponytail, the one that is a little more gaunt.

This is the big beefcake, as told by the battleaxe. Zivoran Narovix. Zivoran. Got it. I'm going to train my bow on Zivoran. All right. And try to hit him. And as I do so, I'm going to attempt to poison him

with my sneak attack. All right, great. Does a 15 hit? A 15 does hit. Nice. Just. Hell yes. Okay, so that... You see me deftly take out the arrow, coat it in poison seamlessly, shoot it.

It does... Seven, 13, 16 piercing damage. Then it must make a DC, or it has to make a constitution saving throw. On a failed save, it's poisoned. So that, and that's on your arrow, right? Yes, yeah.

The arrow sinks it right into his peck, and rather than roll a save instead, he stares at you and rips it out. Wow. Oh! Like the bone! As he does that, I bone-ex-action hide. What did you roll, and it didn't do anything?

He's immune to poison. Yeah. He's immune to poison. I say to everybody, he's immune to poison. I try to hide in the boughs of the tree. 12. I can only roll so much better than that on stealth.

Okay, all right. All right, that brings us to Talidor. Okay. I would like to move forward to get within 60 feet of the two brothers. What is the easiest path to get to that? Is it like this? Five, 10, is this difficult terrain?

That is, this is not. Okay. Five, 10, 15. Am I within 60 feet here? Yeah, I think so. Okay. I am going to, bonus action, do the innate sorcery that increases my DC, I'm going to Bonus Action,

do the innate sorcery that increases my DC, and then I'm going to Quicken Spell, a level three hold person, which gives me two targets, the two of them. Okay. They have to succeed on a wisdom saving throw, DC 16. Yes! Okay, wisdom. Okay, this is a straight roll for both of them. Hee he Okay, wisdom. Okay, this is a straight roll for both of them.

Hee hee hee. Zivoran rolled a 16 on the nose. Oh! And Norovix rolled an eight. An eight, okay. So Norovix is locked in place. And it is like a... It's as if a charge of static electricity

starts, just envelops him and it's keeping him held in place and it crackles every now and then. He looks personally insulted. I Quicken Spelled, so that was my bonus action. From there, I'm going to, as my action, strike him with a lightning blast. It's a cantrip.

I have advantage on this attack, and I'm going after him. Okay. I'll take the nat 20 on that. Yeah, sure, let's do that. Yes. Ooh. Even though he's paralyzed, so it would have been a crit anyway, actually,

but I'll take it. Feels better to get the join. Yes, yes, it does. It is going to be, it's, how do we do crits at this table? Is it double dice or is there a max damage? You roll the dice, double it, and then add the modifiers.

Ah-ha, great. So 2d10, that's 10. 10. Plus six, I'll take it. So 16. 32. Double the 32. 32, and there is no modifier for my firebolt,

unless that's part of the, so 32. So 32? Yes. Because you do damage firebolt. Yes. Fucking awesome. But lightning bolt. Lightning flavored. Lightning bolt. damage firebolt. Yes. Fucking awesome. But lightning bolt. Yeah. Lightning flavor. Lightning bolt. You were mad at him.

I'm here for it. You just pumped a massive amount of fire at this guy. It streaks through the jungle underneath Amiri, blasts into the guy, and you watch as it just goes. No effect. Wow. and it just goes. No effect? Wow. He's frozen in place, but you see no burn char. Oh, it's a lightning bolt.

Oh, it's lightning bolt? Well, I mean, my fire bolt is flavored as lightning for my sorcerer. Then we're saying it's electricity, and I redact that, and he instead does blacken, and it creeps up his body, and there is now black scorched veins or seaweed pattern

up his whole body. Oh. Yeah, he should wear a shirt. So that was 30. For I Am a Lightning Sorcerer. That's the weakness. That's the weakness. So that was 32 total. You were the insect all along.

I was? That was 32 total. 32 total. Big guy 32 total. 32 total. Big guy Naravix, okay. Yes, yes. I didn't know it was, what kind of insect? All right. Anything else?

That is my move, my bonus action, and my action. So all set then? All set, hold please. You have efficiently utilized the entire action economy for one turn. Wait, wait, wait, hold please, hold please. You have efficiently utilized the entire action economy for one turn. Wait, wait, wait, hold please, hold please. Wait for it. I am checking something.

How's it feelin'? Innate, hold on, hold on. Where is it? Where is it, innate sorcery? Oh no! What? I did two bonus actions. So innate sorcery is a bonus action.

I, uh, I, hold person would have been my action then. I couldn't have quicken spell that. So I'll do that damage next turn. Okay, so. Poops. So just frozen in place. Just frozen in place. We've rewound in time.

Frozen in place is brilliant. I know, trying to be fair. I realize that I did two bonus actions. No, that's valid. That's valid. That's okay. Just write down your damage and yeah. And I'll save it for next time when I hit him. Just kidding. Everyone crit on him. Just hit him and it's a crit automatically.

All right, that brings us to Prisceen. Try to play fair. That's me. That's you? This is right, come on down. All right. Are we within 90 feet of this thingy? What does that mean? The bug creature.

Are you within 90 feet of this? Yes. Yes, you are. All right, great. And those dead bodies slopped right off of him. Yes, that's goop. Great. I am going to... I'm going to summon Undead.

So the spirit of one of those bodies floats up and out of it and becomes a ghostly entity. I'm sure we got a ghost. I'm sure we got a ghost. Is that a ghost? That's a horned hamster. There we go. This'll do for now.

Yeah! All right, wonderful. Now, I'm going to have this creepy little ghost. Yes, just a creepy little ghost. Which goes technically after my turn. So I'm going to move over here. Lay right over here. All right. Maybe I'll... Ow, ooh, ooh, ooh. So much stuff.

And then I'm going to tell it to go and attack the held guy. The held guy, okay. Yes, my ghost. Okay. Yes. So I cast this at 4th-level. All right. What kind of attack does your ghostie do?

My ghost is going to Deathly Touch. Oh no. And so he is going to Deathly Touch. Oh no. And so he's going to melee attack him, but he gets twice because I cast it at 4th-level. All right, all right. I think you have advantage on this attack. And I get advantage because he's held?

He's paralyzed. And it's an auto-crit because of the damage. And it's an auto-crit if you hit. Natural 20! Oh, again! Wow, it's giving auto crit because it's a crit. And it's an auto crit if you hit. Natural 20! Oh, again! Wow, it's giving these crits more. Okay, so the first one. What are you doing, Twins Universe?

The first one is. The rollercoaster of a mug. Hold on, let me find my d8s. There we are. One d8. So six plus six is 12 on the first one. Okay. And the one. Okay. And the second.

Ooh. Ooh, thank goodness. That was an advantage. So crit on the second one. Yeah. And that's eight plus six is 14. Okay. Are you double damaging me?

And, yes I am. Oh good, oh good. And he's frightened until? And, yes I am. Okay, okay. And he's frightened until the end of his next hurt. And frozen in place. And frozen in place. Frightened of the ghost? Maybe, I'm not sure.

Not you, the ghost. He's frightened, it just says. Okay, well, you see this. So he's really mentally suffering. Yes. He's frightened and he can't run. His exposure therapy. Oh, wow.

This is very satisfying, to see him frightened and paralyzed. It's his turn. It burns. He loses it. He gets to try to break free of your hold. Wisdom save. Of? To break free. And I'm going to make my ghost fly up and away.

So it's going to fly 40 feet up into the air. What's the DC? 16. Roll a 15. So straight up in the air, you say? Sure, why not? Sure, why not? 16 because of my Link's Soul Swaying. Looking so ghostly and kind of cute. Right forward. Oh dear.

How's that? Is that all right? Is that high enough, or do you want higher than that? That's lovely. 40 is technically, but you don't have to do it, I'll note. Do we have that over here? Right forward. I don't want him to fall. That sounds pretty good.

Good, that's perfect. There we go. Yes, it's good. I'm king of the world. All right. He waves at me and I wave back. All right, the ghost, the spirit is hovering over an ancient Argonian ruin here on this island. Nar Narvix, Arrnar,

is frozen in place. Arrnar. Arrnar. The Mind Terror will now act. He doesn't mind being a terror. Let's see, let's see. It moves quicker than you would anticipate, and its white, pale, disgusting, sharp arms go

and it just Hate it. And moves. That's a little bit of a page here. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Do not like it. Don't groove. 20, 25, 30, 35, 40. No! Oh my gosh! Oh yeah.

Help, help, help, help, help! And blindingly fast, just. It is going to make three attacks on you with its pincers. Okay. First one is a definitely hits. That is a 24 to hit. Okay. 24 to hit.

Okay. Second one is a miss, that is a 10. And the third is also a 24. Okay. So it pierces your flesh twice. You take 13 and... 13 on the first and 11 on the first and 11 on the second as it runs through,

almost like someone is sticking a thin, weird, gangly spear or spine through you. So as it strikes, as I stand there trying to back away, the first one sinks into me and the second one sinks into me, and the other side, like, I look up at it with that pain look in the eyes, and then green flares into the eyes

as the power of Hermaeus Mora flows into me, and the runic, fate-woven armor that I had placed on me before swirls around and blasts back these runic bits of a forbidden arcana that tears into its body. It takes 20 damage from each of those hits it did on me for 40 points of cold damage. So it has any resistance to cold,

but that's 40 points of cold damage. Nope. Wow. What is that about? Nope. Well, it's Fate Woven Armor. It's Armor of Agathys. Oh. Fourth level, it's pretty good. Yeah, that's pretty, armor. It's armor of Agathys. Oh! Fourth level, it's pretty good. Yeah. That's pretty good. That's very good.

Pretty good, pretty good. People will give it its flowers and nuts. Great spell. All right. Okay, okay, okay, okay, okay, okay, okay. That's it. It just goes nonsensically, devoid of sense. That's a poor talker, like,

you stand at the threshold of greatness. You will crumble to the dust from whence you came. Talk your shit. Peep this zine. I have plenty of copies! Just write in the newsletter before you leave, actually. Keep the zine as it is. Okay.

Zivoran starts off at a run. Catch up already, will you? He is going to run to here and leap. I'm going to have him make, him do a little acrobatics check. That's cocked. That's also cocked.

Come on. That's a two. He falls into the crowd. Runs up into the air and tries to slice at you with the short sword that he has. That's right, that's what I got, right? Long sword in his hand, and manages to chop into the wood and it catches and drags a bit.

He stumbles, lands down in the bushes here, and you hear, fuck. Hell yeah. And then a blast of fire shoots out of that bush and streaks towards you, Talidor. No! That'll probably hit. For a 20. I will, yeah, that hits.

I will yell that. I will not shield that. You take 13 points of damage. Ow, ow, ow, ow, ow. Okay, that is it for Zivoran. That gets us to Niskan, because that was just your schmancy... That was like a reaction, yeah.

That was just from taking damage. Your Hermaeus pants, yeah. Wow, I need a reaction. Nice. All right, you up? I'm up. You're up. I have a turn! Oh my god! All right, so this entity in front of me,

it took those heavy hits. How, I mean, is it looking like it's been? The biggie big? Yeah. Pretty. He's all right. He's all right? All right, I say, I'm going to shout out,

with all the green glow in the eyes, it's still semi-present, not fully faded. Take the other ones! This one and me are going to dance. Oh, wow. As a bonus action, I'm going to go ahead and utilize my awakened mind to make a psychic connection,

if there is a mind there to connect to. Okay. Oh, wow. Okay. That's to connect to. Okay. Oh, wow. Okay. That's a deep question. Yeah. Give me the mechanics of this so I can interpret it. The awakened mind is a bonus action. I can choose one creature I can see within 30 feet.

Yes. And communicate with each other. Okay. Do I feel there's any intelligence with this? Yeah, but it's more raw. Right. So it definitely can feel you prying into it and is more curious and turned on by the intrusion.

Right. So the ability I'm doing along with this is called Clairvoyant Combatant. More or less, I'm reading its impulses the moment it tries to make intrusion. Right. So the ability I'm doing along with this is called Clairvoyant Combatant. More or less, I'm reading its impulses the moment it tries to make an attack. Yes. So then once I've bonded with it,

it's almost like it's touching, not something alien, something that is deeply corroded and falling apart. So it's like touching a piece of mold that's slippery, but as soon as it starts to shift, I prepare myself to move with it as it does. So with that connection there, its attacks against me have disadvantage, and my attacks against it have advantage.

Have advantage, understood, understood, love that. That's my bonus action. Mark that there. And then as spell, I'm going to go ahead and unleash a torrent of rune blades, which is my blasts of eldritch nature towards its direction. I'm going to unleash a torrent of Rune Blades, which is my blasts of eldritch nature towards its direction. Now it is in melee range of its.

Means it can be disadvantaged on the attacks for me, but I have advantage on it, so it's a straight roll probably. Yeah. No, I want to go full in. I'm going to try and move around it and basically get 25, 30 feet towards where you are. Did you already use a bonus action, by the way?

I did. Oh, okay. So I'm going to try to move one, two, three, four, actually five, six over there. I'll probably get an attack, or an opportunity to attack against him. So right there. 13. 13 misses me.

Yeah, roll low. Too slow. All right. I'm feeling good, feeling good. As it turns around, I'm going to whip around and release two blasts of raw alien arcana out of the aether around me and throw it towards the creature.

Advantage on each of these attacks. First one is going to be, ooh, that's good, 27 to hit. Oh yeah. Roll a 19. And the other is going to be a 19 to hit. Misses. Oh, but I got one!

That's good to know! Oh god! Oh no. What was another to miss? 19. What was the number that missed? 19. 19. On the big guy? Correct. But that is going to be 13 points of damage.

Okay, okay. No! Oh my god. My confidence immediately begins to fade. I'm like, Okay, you guys get it, guys! Hot hit, hot hit! You said you got him, Okay, you got to get it, guys! Hard hit, hard hit! You said you got him!

You said you got him! I got him! I totally got him! That's my turn. Quill is floating there. Oh! That's actually pretty good. I know, it's so cute. You hear in your minds,

together, everyone, together! And that streak, a small mote of green, rapidly moving energy goes out of Quill's eye and strikes toward that creature. Cocked. Cocked? Come on. Is that Ashley's die? No, it's this one.

It's this one. That misses. Hmm. Together we've won! And sinks down into the bush. That was a good baby spell. Yeah! That gets back to top of the round. Erox, Erox.

Erox, you're up. If that monstrosity had any class, you'd have pretended we've been like, oh, that hurts so bad. Yeah. Really good spell. How far is Zivron from me? He's fell in the bush, right?

He's here. Yeah. 10, 15, 20, 25. Right on the cusp of 30, if you take a couple steps forward so that you're not underneath the oogity-boogity. Yeah, I'm going to take a couple steps forward. Like, one, two, three, there. And I was going to cast Lightning Bolt at Zivaron,

which goes 100 beats. Yeah. And so I'm just going to open my mouth, and it's never opened as wide before, and this tongue that comes out of me just shoots the biggest lightning bolt the eyes have ever seen, and everything just goes white for 0.5 seconds.

With lightning bolt, if you're in front of the bug, you can line it up, and you can get both. And you hit them both. Ooh! Yeah, because it goes straight through. It goes straight through. Just don't hit me! I resc. Yeah, because it goes straight through. It goes straight through. Just don't hit me!

Yeah. I rescind that, and I'm going to move back towards the bug. We help new players here. Yeah, I think like so if you go here-ish. Yeah, that should be fine. Boom. That'll get them. Here-ish, maybe.

Yeah. It's two piece and a biscuit, baby. And that's dex for both of them. Correct. What's the spell save on that? Dex 14? As your sorcerer friend, one more time, I remind you that you can use a bonus action

to initiate our innate sorcery and it will increase your DC by one. Oh! Bonus action. Just to increase your chances. That's a new thing. Yeah, I think that's a 20, 24. Boom. Bonus action. Oh yeah, yeah, this one.. Yeah, I think that's a 20, 24. Boom.

Bonus action. Oh yeah, yeah, this one. Boom. All right, I never do this. I'm going to roll in front of the table for the Mind Terror. It's very fast. That is 13 plus five is 18. Oh.

Don't have to. But it happens. Pushes itself up high on its pinprick little legs. Die. And then the second, Zip-a-Rax, Zip-a-Rollirron is not as fast. That's not going to do it. That is a nine plus two,

which does not do it. Ah, fuck. So Zivirron takes full blast. So that's 86. Rolled this four times. Sucker. Ooh, so it's nine. Nine. Plus 12. Plus 12.

17. Mm-hmm. And 21. Good job. Nice. 21 is the max for us? Yes. Okay. So that gets halved for the Mind Terror. And full blast of electricity for the Mind Terror. Full blast of electricity arcs along stone, and plant life obliterates this bush.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, bush. It explodes in vegetation, and he gets lit up and stumbles back into the stone. Just his whole face is now blackened, and parts of his hair are starting to smoke a little bit. I stare at him in Balenciaga. Okay.

All right, all right. He's looking a little worse for wear. Could be better. The twins are looking a little worse for wear. That gets us up to Amiri. Okay. Oh, sorry. Oh yeah. This guy is scaring me because he's near all of my friends

and I don't have that many. Oh, you're still in the tree. I can't knock him over because he's too big, but I can slow him if I hit him. Amiri uses her bonus action to, sorry, I went into full RST mode there, where you talk in third person. No, no, it's good. She's like, you're fine.

Bye-bye. I'm going to use my bonus action to cast Magic Weapon on my longbow, just to give me the best chance of hitting it. And then if I don't move, I can steady my aim and get advantage on this attack. Build an additional pile. Nice.

I'm going to say that's a nine. So that's a 14 for the first one, which I don't think it's. Wait, we're going after? Big man. Big man? Yeah. Oh! What is that?

That's a six plus five, 11. I don't think that hits either. It is skittering out of the way. Yeah, so it goes wide. That's my turn. Oh! Oh! Yeah.

Oh. I just rolled really poorly. I rolled a four and a six. Oh, you had your Hohok Inspiration if you wanted to use it. No, I didn't use it. No, I used it. That's right, you did use it. Yeah.

You didn't give me one because I flipped you off. With your paw. Didn't mean to rub it right. You did use it. Yeah. You didn't give me one because I flipped you off. With your paw. You didn't mean rub it in. You could use your, oh wait, I didn't give it to you. You did. You did explode a test tube in midair from 60 feet earlier. That's right.

I did, I did. Pluses and minuses. That jumps us to Talidor. Okay, question. Yes. The landscape here, this rock formation, that cliff little thing that, yeah, is what I'm looking for.

Is it low enough for me to be able to make a line between the two brothers? I think they have to be within five feet, the Streak of Lightning. That's what I'll tell you. If you want to run and do some doves in slow motion dive to the side, and do give me an acrobatics check

and blast as you're diving over this rock so that you're down here to go, I'll allow it, but you have to. Make yourself prone in order to do it? Yeah. Make some pride. Acrobatics, acrobatics check. Oh! Sure. I need some Chow Yun Fat sorcerer action. Yikes.

I'll give you that acrobatics check. Natural 20. Come on, baby, come on. Pretend you're a cat. The whammy's behind it, the whammy's. Maybe I'll use my heroic inspiration on that. It's right now a 13. 13 is enough for me.

Oh, okay. Then I will. All right. You slam into the ground. Yes, I get down low enough. I'm going to give you two points of bludgeoning damage as you strike stone. The spell goes off and lines through Zivaron's head

and onward to his twin. goes off and lines through through Zivaron's head and onward to his twin. Yes, so it is a, it's now my liquid lightning that I'm shooting out. And it is a spell save DC, a dex save, 16. Okay, all right. Narvik's going to autofail because he's frozen in place. And that makes it a crit. Zivaron got a natural one.

Whoa, wow. Okay, so. On the same fucking die. Or is it a def? It's a DC. Oh, it's a DC. DC that it def. Oh, you're right, it's not a crit. So it's a crit. We're good looking out. Yes, okay, great.

So eight. So full for both. 8d6, I think, is what we just rolled, right? My new bolt? My new bolt, yeah. Mm-hmm. 8d6, you take three. Plus 11 is 14. That's two, four.

Plus five is 19. Mm-hmm. Two, four, six. Really bad. Oh, yes. Plus five. So that's 24 points of lightning damage to each of them. 24 total. Yes. Locked up Beefcake Naravix goes

after it shoots through his twin, and he is frozen and slumping. He looks real bad. Real bad. Zivaran is holding on a little bit better. Anything elsey? I think that is. That's my action.

Do I have enough movement to stand up after that? You do. Then I'm going to get up. Can't go anywhere, but you can get up. I will get up and hold position there. Okay. Let's go, Talidore! Which gets us to Prisceen. That's me. That's you.

Okay, I am going to... Yes. I'm going to reach out my hand and above the head of this mind creature, it's going to ring out and do some necrotic damage to him with a Toll of the Dead. That's a wisdom save, though. Okay.

Boy, you went a little ab fab there for a second. I'm going to change my d20. Yeah. Nope, real bad. I rolled a five plus crap. Okay, so that's 2d12 damage. Yes. All right.

Whoa. Five plus seven is 12. 12 total. 12 points of damage. All right. N. It's the bone mantle that is flaying out from its head starts to fray and melt underneath that. It is looking more horrific from your work.

You had another thing that you were? Yes, I'm going to Misty Step up into the tree right here. All right. High up into the tree. Pow! High on the hill there's a big old house. There you are. Oh, lovely. All right. High up into the tree. Pow! High on the hill, there's a big old house. There you are. Oh, lovely. I wave.

And then my ghostie is going to fly down and to the held. Okay. Yes. Wait for it. Yeah, reach right into his chest. Just ghost the fuck out of him. Oh, that's an 18 plus plus. Yes, yes, yes.

Okay, so that's a crit, right? Right. So six plus six is 12 points. Oh, wait, that's a crit. 12 plus six is 18 points. 18 on Narewicz. The spirits, this dead worm cultist who has dedicated his life to pulling dead things

up from the ground is now himself dead and reaching into this zivilized chest and pulling. You're seeing viscera and spirit energy pull out of him as he just goes, the blue skin goes baby blue, and he just is pale and barely standing. Oh, he's still standing, all right, I'll do it again. Yes, that's 17 plus plus.

Yes, hits. Oh, sorry, two plus six is eight points of necrotic damage. Okay. Blood starts pouring down his nose and he's starting to look terrified. He's not dead yet. Wow. I'm so happy

you cast Hell Person on him, because the amount of punishment he's taken tells me he would have done a lot of punishment to us. Is that all for you? Well, let me see if my little ghosty can do anything else. You've reached into his chest. Yes, I know.

Oh, sorry. Huh? Well, he can only do ghosty attacks. Yeah. Who knows? Don't waste the action economy on your turn. But I'm going to have him just float back up 40 feet in case. All right. What are you going to do? Ghosty, yeah,

in case Beefcake, oh, you know what? He's going to float 40 feet up and over. To where if Heldguy dies, then he'll have access to the other. Right here, say? Yes, right about there. All right. Valid. Good call. You can see Narvik's going like,

as it travels, because he's still scared. His turn is burned again. He will try to break free. What's it doing? He doesn't do it. He is still held in place. He's still held? I rolled an eight. Yes.

That gets us to... I hold really nice. I give good hold. Amazing. The mind terror quickly, rapidly turns in place. Oh no, oh no. And rushes at Arox. Oh, well. Oh, good god. Is Arox. Oh, no. Oh, good god!

Is that what we're going to do? No, I'm going to do something grosser. Gross. Skitters over this way, and you watch as its jaw drops. No, not like that. I don't like it. Not like it.

A stream of shadow-like vomit paints the jungle floor. Splatters over you, Niskan, as well as Talidor. Me? Oh, that's a lot of vomit. Dang it. You're hit with a torrent of loathing.

Ew. I need both of you to make a wisdom save. 15. Wisdom 15. Okay. He's inflicted with fear. He's inflicted with fear. You guys are inflicted with loathing.

Yeah. Wisdom 15, you said? Let's get the Vegas. 15. I fail. What'd you get? I got a three. Why do you sound happy? Total of three? I sound happy!

Don't sound happy! That's my sad sound. I got a six. Six? I got three. What does joy sound like? Your Tamriel heroes have the same reaction you do. You are suddenly filled with a terror in you and you are struck with fear.

Both of you. Struck with terror. Terra? Do you have a thing for fear? Okay, that's mindy. That's mind terror. That gets us two. Do we take damage? No. No.

Never mind. I'm nothing. Just a fear. I am just a fear. Did I miss it? We pulled out at the same time! Nope, just that. Are they even looking at each other? Oh no, you're good. Sorry about that. Did you do that at the same time? We just totally didn't see it.

Twins! And Zivoli will take this. The Zivoli will rush at you with his longsword. No! As you are overcome with terror. Finally a good roll. He definitely hits 18 plus stuff. The blade streaks out.

Oh yeah, oh yeah. Ooh. And you take... Get it. 10 points of piercing damage as the blade, slashing damage. How much? Slices, 10. 10, and then he turns and

holds his hand out towards Niskan and fire streaks out across the field. And Niskan is so busy going like, that fire just goes whoosh over his head. That gets us to... You, Niskan. Niskan. My turn? Yes.

Oh, we're frightened. I am frightened, so I can't move closer to the target of my fear, which is the guy in front of me. And while he's in line of sight, I have disadvantage on any attack rolls. Right. So as part of that, I'm going to go... Just go away! Leave us alone!

I'm going to pull out my tome and rapidly throw at it. I'm throwing my handbag at a creature. Oh, wow. Yes. and pull out my tome and rapidly throw at it, like I'm throwing my handbag at a creature. Yes. I'm going to chuck a cast of Fate Carver towards it. So it's, which is my dark variation of the Blight spell. So he has a constitution 16 saved to me.

This is on? This is on the creature I'm afraid of. On the Mind Terror. The big old mind terror. It rolled very well. That is, it's a wisdom, you said? Uh, constitution. Constitution. 19 total. Okay, that makes up.

All right, so for that, it'll be four, five, 11, 16. 16. 24, 26, 32, 33 halved. So he takes 16 points. Okay, okay, okay.

All right. The thing does not seem fearful, upset, deterred, but it is sort of like herky-jerkily breaking down a bit. It is still on the aggressive attack mode. Anything else, Nisga'a? I'm going to move a little bit further away from it. Just like five feet. I'm just going to go. bit further away from it. Just five feet.

I'm just going to go. That's it, for no particular reason. For no particular reason. Or do you want to do the full stumble to the ground and back up? A streak, ooh, we've rolled a 12 out of 12. 12 plus. A bolt of

hermeneous love juice comes streaking out of the bush over here. Oh! Slams into the thing's face and just clear breaks, blasts it in the face and breaks off one of those bony protrusions. That's why I follow him. For the love juice.

The love juice. Love juice't going to call that. In fact, part of the skullcap comes away, too, and you see a black, oily brain mass pulsing in there, in a jagged little pocket. That gets us to Aerox, top. Do I get to try and make a saving date on my turn for the fear, or does it just stay? You.

No worries if not, I just didn't know. Do I get to try and make a save date on my turn for the fear, or does it just stay? You. No worries if not, I just didn't know. Do I remember? Is Quill still hiding? I like how we went, amazing. He's at the end of your turn. End of your turn. Okay. So can I try and make a wisdom? Nope. No? Okay.

We did talk about how it was a dump stat. Uh-huh. I love me some low wisdom characters. All right, Erikson. I was going to say, is Quill still hiding? Yes. God bless him. Good, yes, please. Smartest of all of us.

Yes, truly, truly, truly, truly. Listen, my lightning spear is still in play, so I was going to right over to our good friend here. Beautiful. And that's a save. Which he fails automatically because he's paralyzed. Because he's paralyzed.

Because he's paralyzed. So if you have 3d6, go ahead and roll it. Don't even bother. How do you want to do this? 13. Awesome. Yeah. Tell me about this. Daedric Chump's End.

What's that? Say it. How does he die? How does it feel? Lightning ball engulfs him. Oh. I feel like classic, the lightning pierced a hole through his neck, and every hole in his body is just filling with light,

and his mouth is filled with light, his eyes are filled with light, and light is coming out of his nose and his ears, and just... Every cavity, hole, just lights up like a jack-o'-lantern, and the hair turns to white fire until the body, mine is a head, just goes and lands into this still crackling sphere of energy and continues to burn up and smoke.

Like a bug in a gun. In a little bug. Gun! Like a zapper? Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. A dirty Kurt Russell in a white tank top is nearby going, dang. Emiri. Okay. Tree Cat.

I see my friend down there is in trouble and I also have advantage, so I'm going to leap down from the boughs of the tree. Of the ship. And as I do so, I'm going to drape my rope over one of the branches. Okay. Ooh. And where are we landing?

On top of the other, Zivaran? Yeah, it's Zivaran. Zivaran, on top of zivaran. Oh. Let's see if I can pull this off. I'm going to try, let's see if I can pull it off. Oh, that's so sexy. I get advantage on this, so.

Yeah. A dirty 20? Yeah. Okay, let me know if I am allowed to flavor it this way. Yes. Instead of tripping him prone, I want to hang him up by his feet like he did to us at the very beginning.

Oh! So I just slip the rope with my sleight of hand underneath his feet, and I drape the other side. I pull down on the other side, and I just want to go and pull him up the other side. I pull down on the other side and I just want to go and pull him up. Glorious. And that was, and we did an attack roll to?

I did a sneak attack. Sneak attack. Yeah. And so, oh yeah, right, you told me it was higher. And so it comes with damage as well as they get lifted? Yeah, yeah. Okay. It'll do, I think it'll just do the plain, technically I'm doing an unarmed attack.

Mm-hmm. So my claws will do four damage to him. Four? I love it. I think that since this is a flavoring of a status, I'm going to say that he doesn't go high. He just goes semi upside down with his face half pressed into the ground and his legs up.

Good. That's even worse. You reach out and streak your hand across his semi-prone body. Yes, so that's four, and then with the sneak attack damage, it's an additional nine. So 13 total? Mm-hmm.

That was awesome. He's pretty fucked up. He's still fighting. He's trying to wriggle out of this rope on him, but for the moment, he's unable to obtain that. He's looking rough. They're both looking pretty bad. He's the only one who's showing recognition of that.

This thing is down to clown. That brings us anything else besides that sick move? Can I bonus action to pull him up higher so I can look him in the face? Yes. Besides that sick move? Can I bonus action to pull him up higher? So I can look him in the face? Yes. Got to, got to do it. Yeah, I'm going to bonus action pull him up higher

and just do that thing he did to us where I just take my finger and push him. Push him and he swings. Love it. On your turn, you just did the bonus action push on that. Did you do any other spell or action on your turn? I did not the bonus action push on that. Did you do any other spell or action on your turn? I did not know.

Want to do it now? So I'm about to say, you just let an action on this turn if you wanted to cast something else. Yeah, throw it in there. Oh, well. Throw it in there, Gastavon. Price is right, come on down. Wait, who all is, wait, wait, wait.

That monstrosity is still in play. Big boy there. Oh my god, that's right! Yeah, big thing. Jesus. Well, he appears to be quite in range of Dragon's Breath, because that goes 100 feet. And so, in true fashion, my tail begins to glow. Woom, woom, woom, and the glow goes up my body. Woom, woom, woom, woom, woom, woom, woom, woom, woom, woom,

and a straight lightning bolt pierces through him and perhaps hits the wall behind him. So that's a beautifully flavored dragon's breath. Dragon's breath. It's a bonus action. Oh, it's a beautifully flavored lightning bolt. Dragon's Breath. Dragon's Breath is a bonus action. Oh, it's a bonus action! Well, that's a bite weapon. But you could do lightning bolt again, and then you've.

And then just keep the same description. Ha ha! Well, then we will do that. Lightning bolt twice. So dex save for Buddy Boys. It saved again. It, yes. But it's still a lot of damage, so roll for damage.

Okay. So, eight d6s. Oh, this is for the d6s? Oh, the d6s. Roll that, and this one, and roll that four times. This one four times? Yeah, correct. Seven.

Seven, what's eight plus seven? 15? 15, thank you. 19. 19 plus seven, 26. Nice! That's great. 26. Its semi-humanoid, semi-insect-like body

just starts erupting and ichor is bursting out everywhere where the body is erupting from your electricity. It is still pushing about like a broken toy that doesn't know that it is over, but it is still up. I want you to die! And that is the end of your It's the end of me. Question, okay.

Not the end of you. Not the end of me, obviously. You do. My heart will go on. What does it mean? It is. Oh, okay. Question. Matthew, you might know this.

Yes, what? If I quicken a spell, does it matter if it's a cantrip that's quickened to a bonus or the first level spell that's quickened to a bonus? I can do any. It doesn't matter, but you can only cast one non-cantrip spell for turn.

So I can do a cantrip and a leveled spell. You can. If one becomes a bonus action. Correct. Great, I just want to make sure that there wasn't any, like, you got to do one or the other. So here's what I'm going to do. This guy is dangling right in front of me.

I am going to quicken spell. I'm going to grab him just as he had been doing, or his brother, whoever it was that was making us piñatas, basically. It was him. It was him. I'm going to grab his face, and I'm going to Shocking Grasp him,

and then toss him the way that his brother, whichever one of them did that to us. Sure. Shocking Grasp is a melee spell attack. Is he considered prone? He's prone. So I have advantage on this? Great. It's going to be...

Ooh, a natural 20. Yay! We've become the torturers now. No joke, we have. Seriously. Yes, so I'll bring him close to me, and I'll look him in the eyes, and I'll say, how do you like this?

And I shocking grasp his face and pinata him across. And it is 2d8 doubled, correct? Yeah. Eight, I think I'm rolling a half. Oh, I have the odds. Come on. That's 20 points of lightning damage. Wow. How do you want to do it? Come on! That's 20 points of lightning damage.

Wow. How do you want to do it? Yes! Really? Amazing! Yes! Yes! So here, I grab his face. I bring him close.

I stare him in the eyes, and I taunt him, and I shock and grasp him. I'm going to Flavor the Crit in this way. I toss him, I swing him, and I'm going to flavor the crit in this way. I toss him, I swing him, and wait for him to come back and just hold my hand out, so he lands face first right on it as the electricity still erupts. As it makes contact, it surges through his entire body. He's just swinging limp, bursting with electricity.

As you push him back, before he comes to his crudograw, he swings back going, no, it's so extra! And then hangs dead and limp. That was my bonus action now. And now I'm going to turn towards the creature who I'm still frightened of, I think, right? So that would grant me, I have advantage on any sorcerer spells.

I'd like to do this. So I have a feature, see if this will balance things. It's called Restore Balance. When a creature I can see within 60 feet, if that includes me, is about to roll a d20 with advantage or disadvantage, I can take a reaction to prevent the roll from being affected by the disadvantage. Can I effectively use

this to cancel out the disadvantage from the fear and therefore grant myself advantage on the attack because of my sorcery spell? Meaning breaking even? Breaking even to then grant myself advantage because I have innate sorcery activated and it grants me advantage on. I will say yes, yes. Innate sorcery gives you advantage on all sorcerer spells.

It gives me advantage on all sorcery spell attacks and an increase by one on DC saves. For that turn. For a minute. No. For a full minute. Yeah, for a full minute. Let me see if I've been cheating. For a full minute?

Just for myself. Yes, innate sorcery lasts for an entire minute. And the spell save DC of your sorcerer spells increases by one and I have advantage on attack rolls of sorcerer spells that I cast. So this is Witch Bolt on this guy. 18 plus stuff to hit. Plus stuff.

And I will do, I think that's a d12. That's two d12. It's not bad, it's like one bonus DC. 10 points of lightning damage streaks across and now we're tethered with this lightning cord. End this reign of terror. Yes! That's my turn, that's all.

Oh, I end him? Yeah, yeah. Oh, I did? You guys are crazy! You want to do that? I thought you called me a reign of terror. That's why I did. Fjord! Fjord! Yes'm here. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yes and yes.

This dude is still limp. So he's swinging like a pendulum, like a pinata. That's just what it is in my mind. And I time it, this witch bolts perfectly. As he swings past me, this streak of lightning dances around you, Nishkan. My turn's right after you, Nishkan. My turn's right after you, right? I think, I don't know.

Right in the next turn initiative? No, I think Prasine, but. That was the previous fight, sorry. Yes. Everybody's deadzo. And it just makes contact with this, whatever his carapace is, and it's the same thing. The lightning pierces into his body and then bursts out of him. He smells like cooked,

I just want to say lobster because I don't want to say cockroach. Yeah. Lobster of the land. That's not better. That's not better. It's just what it smells like. He's just crackling with lightning energy. The center of this thing boils and bubbles

and it takes an additional 20 seconds for the legs to stop going. Oh. Where's that spray bottle? No. Quill slowly floats out of a bush. Is it over? Are there any of them left?

Deidre, are there any Deidre besides me? Do you see any? Hello? Just a ghost hovering. You can come down now. Hang out with us. We have an hour. We have an hour. We have an hour. We have an hour.

It's all right, come back. The spirit is hovering next to Precine, just watching dumbly as the proceedings continue. Quill does approach you, Niskan. It is over, or almost. We must return the grimoirics. It is over, or almost. We must return the grimoirics. It isn't over. It's only just begun. Right? Is that how this works?

I don't know. This is my first time doing this. Oh, yes, yes, of course, of course. Give me the book. They possess the book, holding it in tendrils and float backwards, presenting it to you. Oh, I get to do these? Arcanist, laying on the ground. And as all of you, enter Ghost,

gather around Niskan. Quills, tentacles all flare out in a perfect symmetry over the book and fractal arcane patterns begin to expand around this dais where the grimoire has been laid. There is the etching or stone carving of an eye in that Argonian style

that flares green and shines upward. And those rings, this fractal pattern in front of you starts to form a path in front of you, a hallway of shifting, shimmering green rings stretching ahead, almost like a slinky stretching through reality, one layer after another, and all of you feel those rings shoot past you

and the world pass you by in a blur of senses until you find yourself stepping into a twisted, emerald landscape, the sky a puls, emerald landscape, the sky a pulsing, deep green. Before you, Niskan and your allies, a stone stair leads up between towering, undulating columns of ancient grimoires and texts that reach as far as the eye can see.

The landscape around you seems to breathe and shift like living organisms, like when you've had too much skooma. Seems a little familiar. You've been here before, too. Individual tomes waft off of these columns in the air like bits of ash, drifting into the sickly sky. Great clouds of inky shadow twist and blossom

into pools above, as colossal, snaking tentacles slither out of them, crawling their way down along the stairs around you. And at the zenith of this place, a single alien eye fills your view of the firmament. The base of your skull prickles at the touch of a vast, incomprehensible intelligence. Welcome, mortals.

Little clusters of eyes just form, free-floating in the air around this great Daedric being. You have shown your worth at this moment in time, as I have foreseen. But though it was expected, it is appreciated all the same. The paths of fate grow turbulent in this age, and there are many who would encroach

upon this Garden of Secrets for their own indulgent ends. But you have served as wardens of the natural flow of destiny. The grimoirex hovers out of your chest toward the great eye. I shall find a place for this once more. And you as well, little watchling. Oh! And you as well, little watchling. Oh.

It is good to be home again, if even for a little. Tiny Little Quill turns around and blinks at you. Goodbye, friends. And thank you for helping me return. I will always remember you, yesterday and tomorrow. Fate roils ever onward, immutable, a never-ending river of choices that leads to its inevitable outcome. Thank you for playing your part.

And as you hear those words emanate within your minds, your vision of Hermaeus Mora blurs and multiplies and multiplies and multiplies, becoming a kaleidoscopic fractaling of this place, the most complex of Funhouse mirrors, and you see other groups of mortals staring up at all, at the Daedric Prince, different than your own, yet very much the same in the past,

in days to come, and ever in the precious present moment. One of many pages in the endless halls of memory. Tell me, now that you have crossed into Oblivion, is there anything you seek? If I might, great woodland man, keeper of secret knowledge,

with a few moments to interview you for my zine. I think that can be arranged. Let me give you all a little taste of forbidden knowledge as a treat. And that's where we will end our game. Wow. Wow, wow.

Oh boy, that was a lot of fun, guys. Wow. Oh boy, that was a lot of fun, guys. Thanks for playing with me and Tamriel. Super serious Grimdark game for you all. Hey, thanks again to our friends at Bethesda Softworks and ZeniMax Online Studios for letting us play, play in the world of Elder Scrolls Online tonight. A reminder, you might not have noticed that

while you may recognize some of the locations and characters explored tonight is more inspired by elements from the ESO universe. We want to emphasize that. This was not an official canon adventure from ESO, but rather inspired by it. Just a little treat. Thank you again to Bethesda Softworks

and Zenimax Online Studios for letting us play in your world. Grab the 2025 content pass to start your very own ESO adventure today. Check out www.ElderScrollsOnline.com slash EN-US slash join us for more information. Well done. This is amazing. That was so fun.

Oh my god! Thank you, y'all. That ending almost got me. I was like, oh! I was like, that ending almost got me. Ah! It was so good. It was so good.

That was fun, Liam. That was a lot of fun. That was a lot of fun. That was a lot of fun. Thank you, guys. That was very fun. Will was adorable. Oh my god.

He would die for it. Same. A little plush kill. Yes, I was going to say, how do you get a plush Quill at this point? Yeah. Got to talk to Bethesda. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I love Quill.

Bethesda, you got to get a plushie for Quill. Yeah. Stat. Well, that's it for Tamriel tonight, guys. That's it, huh? That's it. That's it. Love you. Y'all, it thursday yet thank you so much for joining us on this adventure to help new listeners discover the show please give us a rating and review on whatever podcasting app you're listening on

until next time is it thursday yet