Critical Role - The Point of No Return | Critical Role | Campaign 4, Episode 22 Part 1

Episode Date: April 16, 2026

Part 1   With nowhere to go and no choice but forward, the Schemers put their wits and tricks to the test in a confrontation with the Crow Keepers....   New Episodes Release Weekly on Thursdays. Learn more about Campaign 4 at https://critrole.com/campaign4/     GET MORE CAMPAIGN 4 WITH BEACON We're excited to bring you even MORE Campaign 4 with a Beacon membership! Get access to exclusive shows like our behind-the-scenes Critical Role Cooldown and ask the Campaign 4 cast your burning questions directly through our LIVE monthly Fireside Chats. You'll also receive NEW Beacon exclusive series, instant ad-free access to VODs & podcasts, live event pre-sales, merch discounts, & a private Discord. Start your 7-day free trial today at https://beacon.tv/join and get unparalleled access to everything Critical Role!   OFFICIAL CAMPAIGN 4 CAST GAME MASTER Brennan Lee Mulligan Laura Bailey as Thimble Luis Carazo as Azune Nayar Robbie Daymond as Kattigan Vale Aabria Iyengar as Thaisha Lloy Taliesin Jaffe as Bolaire Lathalia Ashley Johnson as Vaelus Matthew Mercer as Sir Julien Davinos Whitney Moore as Tyranny Liam O’Brien as Halandil "Hal" Fang Marisha Ray as Murray Mag’Nesson Sam Riegel as Wicander "Wick" Halovar Alexander Ward as Occtis Tachonis Travis Willingham as Teor Pridesire   CREDITS Produced by Maxwell James, Steve Failows, & Kyle Shire Set Designed by Shaun Ellis Production Designer: Noxweiler Berf Character Art by Loren Hontanilla Edited by Taylor Burke and Emily "Stevie" Stevenson Critical Role Announcement Playhouse Editor: Vinny Celesti Opening Title Editor: Paul Foyder Opening Title Colorist: Peter Koocheradis Window Effects by Christian Brown Graphic Design by Aaron Monroy & Jordyn Torrence Dol-Makjar art by Daniel Jiménez Villalba Miniatures Painted by Payton Keo Lacebal Opening Title Theme by Neal Acree Campaign 4 Key art by Hannah Friederichs Additional Art & Design by Hannah Friederichs   Episode QC by Catherine Zimmerman & Paula Flores Assistant Editor: Gianna Gencarella Post Production Coordinators: M Swing & Bryn Hubbard Closed Caption Editing by Margaret Dill, Nikki Kindelberger, Courtney Knewtson, Danielle Lackie, Eleanor Smith-Dufresne & Alice Tsoi Post Production Supervisor: Tal Levitas   HEALTH & WELL-BEING Due to the improv nature of Critical Role and other RPG content on our channels, some themes and situations that occur in-game may be difficult for some to handle. If certain episodes or scenes become uncomfortable, we strongly suggest taking a break or skipping that particular episode. Your health and well-being is important to us and Psycom has a great list of international mental health resources, in case it’s useful: http://bit.ly/PsycomResources Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Why, hello there. I'm Brennan Lee Mulligan, and welcome to Campaign 4 of Critical Role. Thank you for joining us on this journey as we explore Aramon, a world of fractured kingdoms, tumultuous rebellion, and sorcery that rises from the graveyard of the gods. You're listening to Part 1 of this adventure, with Part 2 arriving this upcoming Tuesday. Our episodes typically arrive on the Critical Role podcast network a week after our initial Thursday night streams, on Beacon, YouTube, and Twitch. But if you'd rather listen to a full podcast episode of Campaign 4, right when it airs, without any ads, consider becoming a Beacon member.

You'll receive access to exclusive content, discounts at all our online Critical Role shops, pre-sales for live events, and so much more. Start your seven-day free trial today at beacon.tv. Now, without further ado, let's begin this episode of Critical Role. Golden Light Cascades from towering trees that stretch towards a sky, gleaming with a light not of the world of Aramon.

Glittering white towers, banners, flapping in the wind. We hear trumpets blaring, calling home the banners of House Royce, flying in the wind, the tree and key, the sigil of their house. What a glorious day here in the world between worlds, the golden orchard. Dozens of trees taller than castle walls whose leaves reflect added lights such that shadow dapples with a luminous glow as flittering butterflies made of magic itself arise from the foliage, rich jazzed, and moss, the smell of flowers as horses, thunder down the main thoroughfare

towards the open courtyard of a castle. We see a massive eagle flying overhead as the envoy of House Einfassen arrives. We see the horses of House Royce and de Vinos and the various facels of this place, and a carriage with iron bars as a prisoner of war comes to face trial, we see a carriage black as bindite and the quanking of plate armor as House

Taconas approaches. It is the year 59, some 12 years before our story begins. The banners have been called home, for the Falconer's Rebellion has ended. And the houses of nobility emerge victorious from this failed revolution. Where on the grounds of House Royce is a eight-year-old Octus Taconas, I presume, hiding. I think Octus is off to the side away, as much as he can get away from the rest of his family

in that he's never really comfortable or welcomed. So I think he's just off investigating some of the trees. He's never seen trees like this. This is his first time anywhere like the golden orchard. And it is blowing his mind. He is so engrossed in just the light and the feeling of magic that's here that's so different from home. Looking around as your father, Primus Taconas,

some exits speaking to his children. You see Petra and Raya, your older siblings are quite nearby. This matter will begin shortly. I know Royce is going to make some endeavor to save the life of this Theazi Fang, but we have, I think, a legal case that may, in fact, and you see doors of gold open as a very young Erinessa Royce commands a magic

that she will no longer have as our main story begins, for indeed the gates of Ferry are still open. Lord Primus, my father wished to speak with you. Primus turns around looking at those of his children who are here and says, stay close, look in order, and you see his eyes, sort of a light over to you, Octus.

Why don't you use this opportunity in this demiplane to see if your connection to the tennebral reaches might be aided by the abundant magic of this place? Yes, Father. Some recitations, perhaps. Yeah, okay. Time is of the essence, young Octus. And you see that he moves away.

Many of your siblings had already begun to manifest some powers by this time. You look around from the courtyard, white gravel, stone, enormous trees. As the Taconas begin emerging, you see that two of the trees shake, and faces appear. Welcome to the Golden Orchard!

And you see that one of the trees looks down at you, sort of off from the main gate. These two eyes open, and a seam of bark opens along the mouth. Hello, little boy. Are you entering inside the castle walls? Um, I don't know. I think I'm, I think they want me to stay out here. Would you like an apple?

Sure, yeah. Golden apple that you see, uh, you even through the wax of its skin, smells sweet. It's like you can smell fresh cut apples just holding this thing. Everything here is alive and rich and filled with energy. I can eat this? Yes, of course. Takes a huge bite of the apple. Looking next to the courtyard,

you see that there is an enormous shimmering lake that has these huge, like 15-foot-long, beautiful goldfish sort of swam through it. You look down and see that the fish are flying over a separate wing of the castle, which is under the lake. You see that there appears to be like people walking those parapets down there

and they don't appear to be wet. It's like something, maybe this lake is like some special kind of water. You can't tell. But it just looks like you're looking through the surface of a pond and seeing another castle down there. And at this moment you hear behind you a sort of scuff, and you are pelted for one point of blood-bletting damage as your older brother, Ethrin, throws a rock at your head.

Ah, friend. What? Don't, it hurt. Oh, it hurt? Well, you should be focusing. You should already be able to manifest some lights or something. You're going to embarrass everybody. I'm trying, please.

You see that it turns around. At this moment, are there any other creatures nearby? Witnessing this act of aggression as a little kid throws a rock his brother's head. Yeah, I'm up in the tree sitting with my brother and we're both snickering. Next to you, you see wearing that kind of Royce green little needle sword at his side, looking also very childlike. What does Thimble look like in this memory? She is, oh, she looks about 10 years old. And she's wearing these little like green overalls that are a little bit rugged. They look like they might have been nice at some point, but she's, she rolls in the dirt a lot,

and they're just like kind of messy. Her hair's a little bit longer and into little big tails. Fimble, your brother Twig is near you. You see he's taking an enormous bite of a blueberry that's holding up most of his hand. He looks down and says, poor kid. What are they? Are they the Taconas family, right? Yeah, they're shitheads. Although, I don't know. He doesn't seem too bad, but Taconis in general, absolute dog shit.

Really? Oh, yeah, yeah. Were you fighting these guys out there? Yeah, we were fighting them all the time. You wouldn't believe it. They're weak as fuck. But they do have some pretty cool magic. Oh, that's pretty good.

Inside you hear trumpets blaring, and you see that there's a shout from one of the Einfoss. and saying, the pixie companion of the captive has escaped. Listen, so they're putting, they're putting Thas on trial today. Don't worry, nothing bad's going to happen.

What? On trial? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think the Decones are trying to get him killed or something, but we don't have anything to worry about. Oh, well, Lord Royce is not going to let anything like that happen. He's still married to a lady or not. Oh, yeah.

All right. If you go stab this older kid? Sure. Um, you see Etherin sort of menaces Octus some more. And Thimbel, what do you do in this moment? I'm gonna fly down and pick up a rock and throw it at Etherman. Go ahead, give me in a town.

Okay. Oh, geez, oh geez. I was rolling all these dice. Let's see. Oh, cool, three. Three. The rock whizzes by. See, Athern goes, ah, stupid fairies. Get out of here.

You're not wrong. Welcome in our orchard. Yeah, I am. Our families are allied. The Taconas are a proud family, and we're allies with House Royce. Yeah, all right, then get inside and get out of my orchard.

What are you going to do? I'm going to hang out here. He says, oh. No, I meant like, what do you? Okay. You see that Twigg looks over and goes, Hey, you should listen to my sister. She's killed, I think,

dozens of your family and band. Yeah, pretty much. You see, Etherin goes, that's not true, is it? Yes, it is. Yes, it is. I've been in battle. I'm a hardened warrior. A warrior. Etherin, go ahead and get me, intimidate, roll with advantage. The energy is absolutely purplice.

Oh, 19! 19! Athrin goes, father! And rushes inside. And Octus, you are there looking at two pixies hovering in the air. Believing the exact same thing that Etherend believes. He's just, he's, he. You should duck next time someone throws a rock at your head.

I didn't see him throw it. I look down at the apple. You know, if you let it ferment, it'll get you real fucked up. I don't know what that means. Drunk. Oh, oh, okay. I've never been drunk. Really? I'm just a kid.

We're kids forever. And we get drunk all the time. I'm sorry, I'm, my name is Octus. Hi, with who are you? Hello, I'm Thimble. This is my brother Twig. Hi. Thimble, Twig, hi, nice to meet you.

Are you gonna throw rocks at me too? No, unless you are like the rest of your family. Hearing the barking of dogs from inside, you see that Twig says, you better go home. I'll go hide. I'll hold him off. He starts into the castle. We should go hide. Okay, yeah, yeah. Although, here, come with me. And I'm gonna lead him to where there's like a window that we can like peek in and watch the trial and make sure nothing super bad happens. That's not gonna get hurt today, okay? Okay. He's just on trial. It's no big deal. Right. It seemed like a big deal. Go ahead and give me stealth checks, both of you. A reminder right now, Thimble, your first level and...

I'm a child. You're a child. You have child stats. I got child stats. We all know child stats. Oh, no. No. That's a 19.

Oh, good. I rolled a 2. A 19 and a 2. On a group stealth check, Octus, you see that Fimble begins to... Just shy of crits both ways. Shia of crits both ways. You see that Fimble darts forward towards a window. You are pretty sure that that...

that window is magically guarded, although you don't feel anything in the pit of your stomach telling you that. You know that your family would be able to sort of sense it innately, but- Wait, wait, please don't go through there. Thimble, you hold up and stop real quick, looking into the window, into the room,

and you do see that around the edge of the window, as Octa stops you, there is some humming kind of entity, and you realize this is one of many sort of arcane protected windows. I thought I was never there before. Looking at it from an angle, you see that yes, this window shows you inside the castle, but if you were to fly through it or touch it, you see an endless stretch of black leafless trees

stretching into Harrow, the home of the dark Faye on the other side of the Golden Orchard. I think they put Some extra protections up today, because... Because of you? No, not because of me, because of you. I'm done. Because you're family.

Because you guys are here, and they don't know what you're gonna do. Yeah, that makes sense. What are you gonna do? What are you doing, by the way? Why were you outside when the rest of your family was inside? Can't do anything. They, I don't have any magic right now, at least.

So I have a spot. It hasn't happened yet. I'm gonna fly and look in your ear. That sucks for you. Yeah, so they don't really care what I do. Or when I'm where, they just leave me alone. That's lonely. Yeah, it is.

I got lots of brothers and sisters. They're all pretty cool. I have lots of brothers and sisters. Not pretty cool. No. They're really powerful, though. Yeah. Yeah.

I know, no, I really did fight them. Yeah? Yeah. That's cool. Um, do you think he, um, the Ozzy is the, the criminal, right? He's not a criminal. But yeah, he was fighting.

Your family. They're gonna... And Aranesa's family, which is a little messed up. Why? But because he's married to Aranesa. Oh. Whoa. I know.

That's, why would he, that's complicated. Yeah, I don't think she liked it very much. In fact. You look inside and see in the defendant's sort of area that a manacled theazi Fang is standing there. It's up. You see his arms are crossing manacled behind him, and you see that he sort of stares out despondently.

Aranesa, you can see his looking across the chamber, heartbroken that he's not making eye contact with her. And you can see that the Einfazen, the cormoré are here, and you see that Aranesa's father is speaking. You see that Lord Otto Einfazen is speaking and saying, the burden of proof will be on you, Lord, to con us, that he is a mercenary. All of his fighting was contracted work.

the laws of our land are clear. If we were to execute him, think about what would happen to all of the mercenary, no one would take a contract again. We ourselves would not be able to hire. These rule is in place, and you see as he's speaking,

both of you give me a perception check. Ten. Ten. Fifteen. You see that Fiazzi sort of scratches the side of his head, And I think as you see him do that, it just sort of looks like he's sort of standing there, swaying, scratches his head, about 30 seconds later, scratches his head again.

And as he does, you realize that he's slipping his hand out from his manacles to do that and come back. And you recognize that he's doing the exact same motion on loop over and over again. And a moment afterwards, you hear a voice behind you invisibly go, Fimble, how's it going? And you see that Fiazzi appears behind you. We only have a few minutes. They're gonna notice, listen.

We should get back to my old room because there's a couple things that I left up there. Do you want? Hi. This is Octus. He's... Octus Taconas.

Yeah. But don't worry. His brother threw a rock at his head. I don't think they like him very much. Yeah. You got a rock thrown at your hand by your brother? That's not nice. Right?

They don't like me that much. Why? Why are you left out here? Everybody else? My dad thought that maybe this place would stoke my abilities and make me have magic that I don't have. He's powerless. It's sad.

Thimble. Don't say things are sad so loud. Sorry. Eluson says, there's a lot of ways to get magic. Really? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

I'm not supposed to have magic. I grew up, you know, a few minutes outside the tanners in Dolnaciar. Yeah, and then he started snorting pixie dust up his butt. And suddenly he's super powerful. Yeah, I used my lungs to snort it up my butt. That's great, Thimble. He's really strong.

Look, we gotta rob myself. My old things are upstairs. Do you, you're interested in magic, right? Yeah. Fimble, why don't you take our young friend here and head up, oh, because you're a Taconas, and you're welcome here. Technically.

Technically. technically is how a lot of very clever things work. I'm gonna head over to the stables. You head upstairs tomorrow. Okay. Hey. Erin Nessa was looking at you in there. Longingly. I don't know if longingly is what the look is, but.

I don't know. You got it. Thimble. I'll have none of that. Octus, nice to meet you. Thimble. I'll go get your shit. All right, good. You see he turns off to head away.

Octus, you look out and see Thimble next to you smiling as the Ozzie leaves and turns invisible again. What do you do in this moment? So we, that was the Ozzy? Yeah, that was great. He seems cool. He has magic. He has magic.

He's got magic. Didn't always have magic. Come on. Okay. Yeah. You take up off the stairs, running up. Each stair alights with a small glow of multicolored energy as notes of music play extending the staircase.

And you begin your first, I'll say misadventure together. And that's all for this vision of what once was in the Golden Orchard. We'll continue our story with our schemers in Dolmachiarra on tonight's episode of Critical Role. Welcome back to the Critical Role Announcement Playhouse. Our sponsor for this episode is Thoram, makers of cool rings and watches. Sam, what do you got to say about it? Thoram makes rings out of meteorite,

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So with that, let's go and jump back into Aramon. What do I do with my hands? Welcome to another episode of Critical Role. We return here to the world. You're wondering if I'm gonna narcote. Yes, I am. Well, I'm afraid this. Liam said always be masturbating.

Honestly, almost makes it more weird. I'm new. I'm new. We return. We returned to the schemers table here in Dolmachia, deep in the sewers under Caravan Hill, where our brave adventurers have gone underground. One adventurer is sort of becoming an adventurer fully this night.

Indeed, Hallandil Fang waiting at the gate, looking down and realizing that the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step and the road goes ever on. This road led down into some nasty sewers, because you've been hot on the trail of Demidas Blix, the illusionist grad student of the Penteverell, who went missing after you discovered he helped the House of Taconas, perhaps unbeknownst to him,

cover up the massacre at the Palazzo de Vinos. Having sprung Misha Undragor from prison, you guys had an eventful night at the Seven Stars Tavern. How connected with Ramina Roundtree, with all of the intel she had from working at the Stalvost the sort of mants here in Dolmanchiar of House Einfassen. You, Boler played a hand of cards with a horrifying merchant named Druspen Fortunata,

a traveling wizard named Arnisha Vane, having taken the seat of a gnomish smuggler, Pimley Morn, and played a hand of cards with King Augustus Vali Valian, who was come and absconded from the Seven Stars, stars as Hound of the King Sir Martin came and found his liege and got him the hell out of this bar to get back to the business at hand, staying with Mr. Beauchbred, a merchant that you have some familiarity with. Murray pinned down Pimley and found out that he had indeed, having recognized the blue flame of the candlelight, had indeed been part at first of trying to get Demetis Blix out of town. after whatever task he accomplished for the Tacitus, seemed that he must have gotten the hell out of Dodgers

from seeing the writing on the wall. And Pimli realized that this was a little too hot for him and dumped the desperate Demidas, who was depending on him for help, into the clutches of the crowkeepers, to whom Demetis owed some money. Following the crowkeepers after Murray made contact with an ally in Caravan Hill,

the soothsayer Temelow. Temelow gave you a reading of your cards, speaking surreptitiously of the eye she had been keeping on the guard tower, the old tavern frequented by the leadership of the crowkeepers. Crowkeepers you were told were in disarray, their guildmaster Solomon having been killed several days ago

by the Elven Warrior Vailas, who then left town after the world's first known revenant was created. You see that they seem to be in disarray and took Demetis into their own custody after paying Pimley Warren handsomely for doing so. You went deep underground where you discovered this hiding place of the crowkeepers and them speaking to something inhuman in the chamber beyond. A careful illusion was cast and created for you to look out and essentially draw. all son of the crowkeepers away. This city, Feepe, is affected by a phantasmal forest

and heard an illusion from Hal and a rock hurled into the muck water beyond. And many of them are about to peel out. However, we must resolve with the top of initiative, one of them who spotted a strange sight of a mask peering around the corner here. We enter initiative, but we enter initiative, But before we enter initiative,

we must first produce your heroes. Oh, yes. Murray Magnessi! This is so pretty. And Azune Nayanah. Yeah. Gimme, give me, give me. So cool.

Wow. I will let you guys, now that you can see the extended version of the map with the pathway you guys have taken down here, kindly place your minis where you would in this area here. Okay. Belair, you were like up and had peeked around the corner from that.

So I'm gonna be in the far corner there. Great. Far corner where right. Like in the corner over there. Here where the crates are? So yeah, like you just, so you're like here amongst the crates essentially, right? Yeah, okay, gotcha. Yeah, dipped around the corner, dipped back.

Mm-mm. I might have even tried to go a little deeper, but yeah, that'll do. Mm-hmm. Murray's gonna stay towards the, towards the back. It's cool. I want to be up a little bit. Murray, by the way, you remember that you did your tremor sense to get a lay of the land beyond

and kind of see a vision of all of this and communicate it to your partners. You also know that there is a way to go back up the staircase and find our way down these ladders, essentially. I'll actually, throw me in the far. I think I would have been back to wall, back there because I know I got tagged. So back.

Like here? Yeah, like actually. But it was Boler's massive. that popped out for a second. Yes, correct. Allerting one of those to. Yes, one of them, there was a lot of noise and ruckus, and this one is shouting, guards, guards, guards.

You know that it's this sort of hulking, bruiser-looking guy right there that is the one who made you. Yeah, I want him to get in there. But again, I think it's important to say in this moment, with a lot of chaos happening, made is a relative term, right? In other words, he saw something down that passageway, but it's not that he didn't hear the splash or the illusion or anything else.

It's not that he's not hearing his companions say they're going that way, but he knows he saw something. He saw something. And I'm, yeah. And what we've seen is you peek out, do something, and then just kind of back up and get in that corner. I backed out into the corner. Okay, I think I would be maybe right next to Howl.

Is that a place that I can stand on, that kind of platform? Sure, yeah, right there, man. I think it would be there. Hell yeah. And D.N. Yeah. Can you remind me?

One of the two people guarding that sewer entrance has the whammy on them from Belair. Whammy right here. In fact, let me get a token on there just for us to be super clear. Great. And that's a temporary whammy? That is, hold on, I can give you the whole rigmarole family. And the other one is in his right mind. Best we know.

I mean, we can't see him. Right. You narrated that he spotted a weird horror movie mask peeking around the corner. Okay. And there's a group of other folks going, get him, as they run after the illusion that we see. That running has not started.

This one is we're sort of doing the immediate moments after that illusion. So this one is shouting into the room, alerting other people of what's going on. I see, I can, yeah. The, he's affected by, it's a concentration spell, so he thinks he saw it and I can drop the concentration spell and he'll stop seeing it or be aware of it. But like, which I have to do because it's just far enough back there where once he hits it, I don't think I can move a phantasmal force.

No. But what he believes is that enemies ran off down the hall. We mixed some things together and they heard someone else. And I'm debating whether or not to let him die. so that clearly something bad is up there or not. I don't know. I don't know. So, yeah.

Once he gets into my target, I can have him take 2D8 psychic damage. But he would have to actually pay attention and make an attempt to, like, he would have to do an investigation check to see if it's not real, but also if I drop it, he still will think it's real. It's just you won't see it anymore.

We can't do it. So yeah, he's fine. He would have to see, someone would have to prove to him that there was nothing there. So are you all placed? I think so. The first thing we are gonna resolve is what happens as this crow keeper.

As this one turns to shout into the chamber about what he's seen, this other one, not seeing any of this, is going to rush around the side here. Okay. Rushing around the side, I'm going to roll. Okay. Moving around the corner, enters here. Do you guys have visible sources of light on you from traffic?

I extinguished my torch. Extinguish your torch. Is there no light? I mean, that was our only light source, and what we were relying on was the torches that were being lit from the area itself. Great. So in that case, with that torchlight extinguished, this human rogue rounds the corner, stepping forward. I'm going to need everybody here to make one final. group stealth at the top of this. Because you have extinguished the torch, you may do so with advantage.

Oh, an advantage. I think that makes it a straight roll for me. My stealth checks are at disadvantage because of my armor. Yep. It could be worse. What do we get? 14. 14. Okay.

Don't make that face. Could be worse. What did we get, how? A seven. Oh, no. It could be that. Seven, great. 14, seven.

Twelve. Twelve. Twelve. Twelve. Twelve. Twelve. Okay. No bad.

So, retangling. Oval. This figure rushes around, like rushes down, rushes around the corner, stops right here in the dark. So you can see him kind of silhouetted, because torchlight's being cast from here and flickering on these back wall. So it's so dark in here.

You can't see his face at all. It's just his silhouette framed against dappled weak torchlight on stone and water behind him. and as he stands in the doorway, he goes, Hey! And reaches down to a bag to grab torch for him. Belair and Azune, you share an 11 initiative. Mm-hmm.

You are going to be the only ones able to act before this guy pulls the torch out. Exciting. Okay. And you are first. I go first. We've, so I'm going to. But I'll point it out that with no light here, you also are gonna need to make a, you will get disadvantaged on the attack rules against him. That's fine. Okay.

I'm going to try and definitely circle around him so that he can't leave. Okay. Actually, it's probably better that you do that. Great. I'm gonna get right behind him. Great. And I'm just going to whisper in his ear. Silence.

Okay. And I'm gonna be casting. I'm casting the, B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-D-C command. Okay, great. That is a save against a wisdom of 14. Save against a wisdom of 14. He fails.

I mean, it's perfectly silent. Oh, good. Great. That is your action, any bonus actions from you? I don't even know if I can. Let me see. You have major? Yeah, no, I got nothing. Azunei, that is you.

Okay. Oh. I have no bonus action. Seeing Boler move in, I am going to follow suit. If I can reach, step thing, get me. Yeah, please. My arms are not long enough. I'm just gonna close in.

That's weird. Right there. Great. That's very weird. And you good? Yeah, I just see a thing I'm gonna make a note of because I don't know why it's something like. Okay, there's a lot of cool stuff that I could do,

but it's all loud or very much. bright and I'm not gonna do any of those things. I'm instead going to just straight up attack the sky. Cool. I would, I'm flanking him, which would give advantage, but I'm also at disadvantage because of the darkness. So gonna have a rolling strength. It'll be a rolling straight. Please hit, please hit, please hit. Are you like out in the open now? Look what I did.

What's you doing? You stay in. You see it. You see it. It's okay. It's okay. Things I wish I could do right now with the walls so loud and bright. Always been masturbating. Oh. Thankfully, like, it's dark, but I definitely know I'm a little visible there.

I do want to confirm for you, Boler, that you, I think you only use 15 feet of movement to get there. If anyone else comes down the hallway, you will be visible in that spot. Okay, so do I have, do I still have space to move, or is that not? Do you still have space left?

You do still have space left, that's correct. I will definitely do that then. Okay. Is that happening in tandem, or will I need to roll that at a disadvantage? I think you both have an We're on the same, we're on the same fucking number. I'm fine with you guys acting in tandem here. Beautiful. Cool.

So I love that. Cool, so much. Great. Okay. So Azane. You crit. I do. How do we crit? Is it full damage plus .

No, double your dice. Double dice. That's correct. And he was going to take. No. Seven and a one. Oh. So it's not, you know, but you'd be worse.

12 points of damage bludgeoning. 12 points bludgeoning. Wait. Can you describe your weapon for us and what it looks like when you attack? Yeah. Oh, yeah, one D8. Yes, I'm one D8. So I already had my shield in my hand.

Hang on wait for clarification. Do you mean double the dice as in he gets to roll two D8s or roll 1D8 and double it? I believe, unless they changed it in 2024, I don't know. I believe it's double dice. Yeah, that's a typical. So two dice.

I'm going to roll two dups. Okay. Mm-hmm. Yeah, my normal weapon attack is 1D8. So I rolled 2D8, yes. 2D8 and then plus the 4. Plus my 4, yes. Okay. So 7 plus 1 plus 4, it's 12.

12 damage. So a shield was already in my hand, and a part of the attack, I draw my war hammer, which is it's made of steel, it's slender, it's got leather wraps around the handle, and it's a very, It's seen, you can tell that this has done some hammering. It's got some worn bits of it.

And I just lay right into his chest. For Hal and Murray, I don't know, Hal has been in war, was a young kid. He was in the War of Accent Fund. Decades ago. Degades ago. Murray, I don't know if you have been in war or not. or in pitched combat.

So Azune, you step forward. This crowkeeper goes, hey, barking out, because all he saw was a bit of a mask. It's almost like a weird, creepy thing to see. Can't be sure, but he, you know, heard the splash. His friend is shouting, guards, guards, he goes for the torch. Belair slinks behind him and goes silence.

He goes, and as he whips around horrified by this mask, All you need Azanae, you don't need to see his features. The silhouette is enough, and your hammer connects with a thud into his chest such that you can feel the blunt head of the hammer cuts through cloth. It hits his chest so hard. Just, bam, ribs crack, and a heart is stopped instantaneously. Blunt force trauma through the rib cage

into the heart dead. Love that. Larry, you have 15 feet of movement and Azune. This guy is about to drop and make a heavy thud on the ground. I'm gonna try to catch him. At least interpose myself so that he lands on me instead of behind. If I am, stay within, I meant to actually stay within range there. Can I assist on this if there's just two of us there to pick them up?

Yes, I'll go ahead and say that each of you guys can make a dexterity saving throw. DC-10. Okay. Try to catch the body as it falls. 19. 17. Hell yes. Belair, silence.

A hammer. As you say silence, the sussarice of it, thankfully, Ozene, hitting this guy Max force in the chest with a hammer, which already through fabric would have made a softer thud anyway. Sails sonically under the noise of running water. His body would have made a loud bang, but a hammer blow to the heart, boom! And each of you gets under one of his shoulders, and with 15 feet of movement, you can flatten against the darkness of the wall

as you hear footsteps begin to thunder down the hallway past you. I have my hand on his chest. Yes. I want to feel the lack of his heartbeat. Okay. As we sit there silently. You can feel autonomic twitches in his extremity, even as his heart has stopped.

One, I say, under my breath. Pulling him to the side, you then hear the voice of a commander of the crowkeepers go, after them. Find out if there's a captain. If it's just guards, slit their throats and dump them in the water. And you see Fantasmal Force here grabs three. others. One, two, three. And on their turn, they're going to take a double move, and they sprint all the way and get probably to the water's edge here as you see one of them calls out and says, where are they? And you see that the one with the phantasmal forest goes, they're right ahead, follow me, with a level of confidence that strikes the other three as deeply confusing, though they all did hear a shout of a guard a moment ago.

And there is still, because we tossed it, there's still some ripple in the water. Yeah. And I drop Fantasmo. Okay, shoo. That is their turn. This, you see, one of them is going to rush here, looking at the hallway.

Jesus. So you hear another footstep there. The commander calls out and says, Run them down. Listen, allow me, we don't have time. We are going to move. And I think here, one second.

What's that? Is that the big what the fuck? That's a big what the fuck. Big what the fuck. What is it? Okay. Looks friendly. Ah, did you?

Okay. Oh, boy. Okay. Flinging an effect down the hallway, you hear a voice go, they must not survive to know of this place. Something under the water erupts, and all of you narrowly missing these crowkeepers

who flushed to the wall. and hitting the area that each of you were standing in but a half a second before, an eruption of stinking muck, moves around. All you can see here on these sort of wooden barricades that are up is that they are standing there. There is a momentary eruption of jet black filth and sludge

that gushers forth like a top and as it collapses to the ground in a stinking heap, where these were, there is a few seconds of a handful of them dripping black sludge before they dissolve and are gone. Cool. Cool, cool, cool, cool, cool, cool, cool, cool, cool. We are going to remain in initiative.

However, you do not know if you are made or not, or if your presence is known here in this moment. You just see something, I hear a horrifying voice and see some enormous eruption of magic occur in that moment. How? It is your turn. Wow. Wow. Wow. One clarifying question before I start talking further here,

the group that went chasing the illusory noise, are they still in sight? They are still where you see them on the map. Okay. In other words, to allow them to clear, you would have to potentially either give another round for them to move further on or take some other course of action. But that's 60 feet of movement from them, essentially.

But their attention is not on us. It's not on you guys. Whatever your 12 perception was, was enough at least to bypass the passive perception of these crowkeepers. Okay, so headspace-wise, Hal is kind of reeling. He just watched Bolair, good friend, but yet living Mask and his warden friend

just SEAL Team 6 a guy in six seconds flat. He is feeling totally out of body in this moment. He cannot believe that events have reached this point. He's a little bit paralyzed, and I think all he's going to do is look over his shoulder at Murray and say, you watch my ass and I'll watch yours. and intention and genuine need ripples out from his voice and hits your spine,

prickles up the back of your neck, and you take a bardic inspiration. And Hal doesn't know what the fuck to do right now. So I think he's just literally going to creep up to the edge to watch as this group runs. Also scared of what looks like corrosive, slime or sewage or something. Sticking in the shadow.

On your Bardick and separation? Your D6. New class, who this? It is D6, yes. Murray, that is going to be your turn. Stairson? We're going? I just give you a nod.

I just kind of look at everybody and be like, and I'm gonna go up and around to this staircase. Start, make my way to that stairway to that stair, that letter in this in this way. Hell yes. Up and around. So action and movement, 60 feet, right? I believe so. I believe so. Well, there was the one, I mean.

There's a second floor that takes us to ladders that go down. Done and done, cool. That's right. Great. Yes. I'm playing shell-shocked, but that's the smart thing to do. Killer, okay, awesome. Thank you for the re-bray. Okay, ba-da-boom. Okay, great.

You guys are going to move through in that case to to, so the whole squad is heading up. Is the plan for the whole squad to head at the staircase together? I think. I think so, yeah? Okay. How else we have a plan, but if that's what everybody does, you find out.

Just gonna put our hand on your shoulder and very. Great. Okay. Then we are going to fast track through. Do you want this little cork? Cork Buddy? No, I got you right here. You got one? I don't know. Not his own cork buddy.

We're gonna fast track through this, ba-da-boom. And we will re-enter this round of combat. So how Murray you move up into position running up the stairs. On the upper level, you see another area of the sewer up here. The ladder comes up and continues also up past you to another level above, but you look down and can hear the voices once again down here.

Going back to the top, you hear, as you're moving, the Zagi, the captain of the crow keepers turning around and going, Laumee, we have to bring this to the Chaconis. We can buy favor with them. They're from us already. This cannot be given away to her ching.

for her as well. And you see that, back to the top of initiative, Azune and Belair. You guys are gonna follow Murray up to the top here. With that, these crowkeepers vanish off the map. You have successfully, with a very expensive series of illusions in a phantasmal force,

You have bought four enemies with trickery off the battlefield. Right. Wait, did you move? I squandered my movement because I'm... He's... I'll catch up. I have a way to catch up, but... There's no way in hell I would leave Hal behind.

I would ready my move and wait for him, but I'm happy to copy that. Yeah, I think the two of us would have just kind of brought you along. In that case, as Murray goes to investigate the way, because Murray is the only one with tremor sense that saw where the entrance was. You guys wait for how, as how you look around. This thing here, you get a glimmer with your dark vision.

It is not striding. Its corpus seems to inch forward as though guts or intestines made of ropes of filth and mold were spilling from a torso in coiling heaps in front of it. Two dim yellow eyes, some bioluminescent, a sickly maggot firefly

in the eyes of this hateful hidden mold spirit as it turns around, tendrils grasping off of it, and you can feel its presence, Murray, because much like a fungus, its visible component is but the smallest, of itself. His network is in the walls here in this space.

What? Turning around, Hal, you get one last look as he attempts to summon something back. I'm going to roll in front of the board. You don't want a five or a six. Okay. Tendral's seep. into the stone, but before this creature can drink deeply,

of the darkness whips around and says, Zaghi, you let. And is going to proceed back to this table and begin to ascend up the staircase. You hear the voice of Zaghi go, hands off the merchandise, and the spirit here in the dark stops. How that's gonna be your. turn and you can move into position with the rest of it.

Yes, so body course still like ears going coursing with adrenaline. In fact, I will use the Ork trait adrenaline rush as a bonus action, which gives me the dash action and I gain two temporary hit points. Hell yeah. So I will just use dash and movement will get me 60 feet. Yes. I don't know if that gets me to the group. If I need it, I can then use my action. to go further.

I think you'll need to use your action to get all the way. Great, great. Great. You guys rush up behind. You have your ready to actions. As you rush forward, the four of you are hearing underneath this sort of continuation of Zaghi speaking to the figure that she referred to as Laumee. Lame. Murray, that is going to be your.

The four of you are up here, but while we are very much an initiative because time is of the essence, you do not know if you are made yet. Okay. And just out of curiosity, no worries, if not, my tremor sense lasts for ten minutes. Has it been that long? It has definitely been under ten minutes. Yes. It has. So can I get an idea of of, or can I see pretty well of what's happening in here and what we're working with? With that tremor sense, Laumee is moving across the wooden walkway towards Demides. And it seems that Zaghi just stopped him,

saying don't touch the merchandise. Okay. Maybe we could cause a little bit of infighting. Continue to take some people off of the table here. Somehow. is allow me looking at Zoggy. Give me an insight check. And I'll allow you to do so with advantage here.

Okay, okay. That is gonna be, yeah, thank goodness. Insight you said, this is gonna be 16. On a 16, your tremor sense comes back in. Thinking about the ability to like, you're thinking about what you might be able to do in terms of trickery or in-finding fighting. And I think on that insight, you can feel tremors through the ground of A, the other crow keepers running that way, and it occurs to you that with the spell dropped and with them following,

there are no guards for them to find. They may come back sooner rather than later. And on top of that, I think you also can just hear the panic in the voice of Zaggy down here. They're, with the surprise, of the guards, which was a good ruse, but no one is going to hear themselves get discovered by guards and decide to continue with a slow-paced negotiation. Whatever's happening down there is going to resolve in the next few seconds.

Yeah, we got it. I mean, ideally, I don't think we can really, this guy feels far above our pay grade. Yeah, I don't know. I think the ultimate goal is to get Demidus and get the fuck out. So. Do we see Demetis from where we are?

I know where Demetis is. and he's right. Demetis is right. There. And I have another guard guarding this thing. Yes, there's one right down the ladder from you guys. Okay, I'm gonna try, I'm gonna, we're gonna see. How many people can we see right now?

Right now, with your naked eye, Murray is able to communicate everyone's positionality based on tremors sense. But a line of sight, just the guard down from me. Okay, I have to wait then. So I'm gonna kind of get down if I can. I don't need to see everything, I just need to see a little bit.

Can I, with my mage hand, it looks like there's some, like, little tools or something on this little table or whatever I can use, kind of coming from the direction of Zaki. It looks like there's a little dagger, or even if it's a fucking rock, I know the map's always just an approximation.

Can I take my mage hand and take that dagger and fling it at Laumee as if Zaghi is attack attack. Oh, sick. Okay. Through your tremor sense. Damn. Through your tremor sense, you, I will allow this.

What we are going to do here is we are going to use your proficiency in Arcana, but because this is an act of deception, I'm going to ask that we make a, I'll allow you actually, dealer's choice. You can make a charisma-archana check or an intelligence deception check, because it's a combination of your spell casting ability

and you doing this persuasively to make it truly seem like Zaggy has thrown this knife. So adding my int modifier along with deception skill, or your charisma modifier to your arcana. They're hilariously, they're kind of close with the modifiers, but I will try. I've got a little bit more of an advantage with charisma and Arcana.

Cool, so do you have expertise in Arcana or just proficiency? I believe it's just proficiency, right? Expertise is when it's- You double your proficiency, and when it's a double circle. The double circle, I have expertise. Great, so you'll be adding your charisma modifier

plus four to this role. Plus four, because I have an eight in Arcana, a plus eight in Arcana. Yes, because you're adding your intelligence normally. This will be your charisma, so it's a little bit worse, right? Because if you're doing something that's a little tricky here,

It's not pure arcane. I see what you're saying. I see what you're saying. So this will add a plus seven to this. Plus seven, and then the other would be, uh, uh, uh, uh. Do you, yeah, what do you have? Deception would be plus one plus my int, which is also plus seven. So it's all the same.

Okay. And you have a bardic inspiration. And I have a bardic inspiration. Okay. Let's see. Let's see. Let's do this one. Let's do this one.

So plus this plus seven and I can choose to do this post rule. Yes. I'm trying to make sure 2020, 2024 who does. The creature fails, you can roll and add it. Yes, if you fail. So you know when you learn the result. Keep forgetting that we've updated spells.

Yeah. Wanna add it? Add it. Okay. Okay. Okay. 15 total. 15 total. Oh.

Thank you. We are going to roll in front of the board. the insight check of Laumee. Sludge Interns monster. Insight check from a sludge monster. Might be high. On a 13 or higher. Oh gosh.

On a 13 or higher. Oh boy. This will not necessarily give away your location or anything, but it will just be seen as like that flew off the table for no reason, right? So you're looking for a 12 or lower on this. Killer idea. That is a four.

Oh my God, so bad so far down. Laumie, as all, Murray, describe this spell. What are your companions see of you up at the top of this like hole, this like ladder hole shooting down into the darkness? Okay, so I think they would see, because I'm kind of trying to get advantage. So Marie, she's a dwarf, she's already a little,

but she's kind of like doing one of these. And she kind of starts, like tracing her fingers in the very back of her pants, something that I don't think anyone has seen yet, but she has a couple of daggers tucked behind her cloak. And she's kind of almost like in her head tracing the weight, the feeling as if she were the one throwing this dagger, something that she's maybe done on a weekend or two

after a few beers with a Zune, and he's taught her a few pointers. So as she kind of traces the outline of the dagger, you see it's almost as if she draws it herself, and then she just, but she just obviously is grabbing it and flings it pantomiming as if she was the one doing it. All of you above the station looking down the hole, as Murray moves her hand, all of you hear a whistle

in the air as though a dagger just left Murray's hand. below you hear, You forget yourself. And by the way, that was the most Appalachian wizard shit I ever saw. Bro. I throw a knife back. You'll have a few beers and throw knives?

Got some moonshine my cousin, Harold just made. Okay. We are going to roll now for the leader of the crowkeepers has looks and sees this nonsense happen and holds up her hands and goes, lown me, I don't know what that was, I didn't, and begins to back away.

She's going to make a persuasion check with disadvantage here in this moment. That is an eight on the die. She spends her action backing up and going, going, Laumee, listen, I don't know what that was. He goes, take for myself. And that is the, you hear the captain draw a weapon. You hear Zadu draw a dry weapon.

We are going to go, Azunay, that is your turn. Oh my gosh. Remember, we got a guard directly below us. We do. I, appearance, hope this escalates. What are all the sources of fire? I see that there's torches on those pillars. Yeah. Is that it?

That's it. So anything on the ground. Oh, there are torches on the pillars. Yes, that's casting light. In terms of other sources of light, other than the torches, no. There's a dim, sputtering light in here. But you know, like, I think you would actually know

that that will give people disadvantage on perception checks. Like dim light is not, it's easier to sneak around in this quality of light, for sure. Okay. Okay. But I will say at the top of our round, too, let me roll a D4. Please go ahead and roll a D20 for me.

Okay. How about right here in front of everybody? Twelve. Twelve. Okay, great. This is our, Top of the round lock check to see if our other companions give up. Okay.

Okay. Seeing that, I'll turn to you. I hope you have a plan for the buddy down below. I'm gonna cast control flames. On the torch that's closest to the one that's below us. Oh, we're going there, are we? I'm going to dim it. It's one of the things that I can do.

So now the bright light that it casts is halved, obscurity. obscuring things around it, hopefully, a little bit better. Great. And that's what I'll do. Great. Oh, yes, that'll be my turn. Incredible. The light flickers.

As it does, I think that you sense that that act of magic, in the escalating tension of what's happening downstairs, everyone has seen weird magic shit happening in this room before, and it's possible that no one attributes that to, of the sides of this negotiation may be attributing that to the other side in this moment. Oznie, that's your turn, Belair. That is your turn.

I suppose it's time to do some damage. Whoever I'm going to do a thing that will leave them. Get the guard right below us. That's who I'm gonna do damage to. And as long as their line of sight, I don't have to go anywhere. And I don't think this spell will be visible. I'm gonna try using mine sliver.

Hell yeah. Which I don't think it can. I don't think it will be a visible thing. It's psychic damage. Yeah. So the other thing just to put in mind is that they will have a negative D4 in their next saving throw.

Okay. That's an intelligent save of 14. So I very, very... That is a failed save. So, let's see, where's my, there we are. I'm gonna use this one. I should get the weird ones out. Yes.

Very gently, as I'm looking down, I reach into my mouth and I pull out a lot a long sliver of glass like a splinter. And then I crack it, and you can almost see one go in one ear, out the other, and snap in their head. That is six points of psychic damage. Hell yes. Person down there, as the lights dim screams.

Go ahead if you would, give me a deception check with advantage. Happily. Yeah, maybe he is. Sewer Monster. Shit's going weird, man. Oh, thank God there's advantage. That would have been real bad.

That's 17. Seeing the scream from over there, you hear Zaghi say, kill him, pointing to Laumee. And I backed out next. Great. Belair, after your turn, the other crowkeepers are going to rush Laumie.

Sprinting forward up the ladder right here. This one, Run for here. Oh, we're rushing over. These thieves rush over to this monstrosity and are gonna take their swings. Da-da-da-da. That amazingly is, okay, one of them does manage to hit.

And that's gonna be. I may not have to use Bain. Right. I think I'm just gonna eat in the upper. if we can get them and go. I know. It's hard to do. Find out.

Now that this changes things, I'm gonna look at some shit. Swiping at this monstrosity with their blades, you see one of them does connect into the filth and you hear a sickening wet snap of a tendon within this monstrosity as one of them manages to score a hit and a sneak attack on the monstrosity. The monstrosity is going to go.

The monstrosity is going to, Laume, is gonna roll again. Okay. Six. You see he sucks up a bunch of spores and filth into himself and is going to reach out. He reaches out to this one in front of him and thunders a wet, slimy,

arm that is composed of writhing tendrils into the open mouth of that thief, whose skull cavity fills with rot and blasts out of his eyes with the pressure of bacterial putrescence, falls off to the ground dead. That is going to be Howell's turn. Oh, man. You're just saw dude's face explode.

You're up. Sorry, one second. Um, uh, also the one back here who scored that sneak attack hit on this monstrosity, hea! Gah! Gah! Guh! Gets his wrist too close to the body,

and the tendrils wrap around and begin to pull him into the back of the creature behind. What? Guys, if you have black mold in your house. Oh, man. It's important. It's amazing. To maintain that.

Air purifier. Look what can happen. Look what? It gets so bad, gang. Hal, that is your turn, my friend. Okay, so I think in this moment where insanity is erupting down there, how old does Demetus look to the eye?

Demetus, he's about, what, 20? He's a grad student. He'd be like 22. Yeah. The chaos of the last 20 or 30 seconds are bringing Hal back to running through war when he was barely more than a boy himself. blade in hand, seeing people skewered, decapitated,

stab dying around him, and this is just a kid. Just like so many men and women, he saw fall when he was a young man, and he knows that that is somebody's son. And he just starts to descend the ladder. Awesome. You descend the ladder. You can use your movement to get to the bottom here. It is dim light, but that doesn't make you invisible. Right.

So you'll need a stealth check here to attempt to, and that'll be an action, unless you have cunning action to do it as a bonus action. So stealth would be an action here. Let's say instead that I will use my second and last adrenaline rush. Okay, cool. To bonus action dash down.

Cool, love it. So now I can use my action for the stealth attempt here. Absolutely. And you have your movement left as well. And I'll leave me with movement after this. Yep. That's not terrible. It's a 15.

15. On a 15, on a 15, you cannot be certain in the chaos happening down here if you have been spotted or not. But no one reacts to your appearance here in the chamber. And I know that we are on borrowed time here so I don't stop. And I use my movement to creep up to the side of those crates and get to where I can lay a hand on Demetis's ankle. Yes. or wrist to check for a pulse. And that's for the end of my time.

Great. You, yeah, bonus action down, cross, action to stealth. I'll allow you to make a free medicine check as you get to the bottom here. That is a 22. Reaching down, Demetus is stable at zero. On a 22, you know exactly what his condition is. So he's fucked up.

Oh, he's unconscious. He's, shallow breathing is he's unconscious. He's not making death safe. He's not making death saves. He is stable, but you look at this poor young man. He's been beaten to hell. Okay, that's good to know. That's not just things.

Yeah, that makes things. Oh, I don't like that. Yeah, that makes things difficult. Okay. How that is your turn. Feeling like Bilbo Baggins next to the dragon. Yeah. Unbelievable.

Murray, that's gonna be you. Okay, this is this new information. Okay, question, what I was gonna ask was, do we see if Demetus is, is he like hands, tied, feet tied? Yes, manacled. Manacled, but because he's unconscious, he's not tied up. He's not tied around a post or anything.

And I will say, at the end of Howl's, all of that happening, he whips his head back you guys at this, you know, at the hole in the ceiling and it gives a very worried but a brisk nod. Try to indicate that he's alive. I think some of this is gonna be holding until they notice. A hundred percent.

So make sure there's room. Um, okay. Do I, so manacled, so chains on both hands and feet? Uh, uh, you see, Give me a perception check. Okay. Four. Without being down there to get a better look,

you just know that he, you can see the manacles on his hands. You might have him on his feet, he might have other binders or anything else like that. There are, the arcane marshals have manacles that separate your fingers. They have gags that go in your mouth and hold your tongue still. They have ways of dealing with arcane casters.

The crow keepers have a much older model of handling Arcanus, which is to beat them into unconsciousness. Sure. Sure. It's classic. It is. Okay. I don't think it makes sense for me to jump down there in the fray. I am going to hold my action. Mm-hmm.

I have to declare which spell I want to hold, don't I? Yeah. I am going to hold. Yes, Wizard, yes. Yes. Yes, Wizard, yes. I'm gonna hold a chromatic orb in case I need to sling a spell

and give Hal back up, but at this point in time, I'm gonna stay the fuck out of the way and just watch and wait. Hell yeah. Get your back. Hell yeah. You should also, I'm gonna bane, so you can also, you can go right after me for that, for that.

We'll do a double whammy. You knew a double whammy. I knew you would. Some things never changed. Are you born in darkness? Hmm. This is great. I love durates and minis ain't common.

Minnie's in comment. Seeing one of her crowkeepers being sucked into this body, the other one, literally having his, in the inner flesh of his skull, putrefied so much that it blasts out of the orifices of his head. Zagi, effortlessly, leaps to the table, leaps to the catwalk, and lays into Laumee here with a scimitar

scoring two hits across the shoulders in front of you all, and partially obscuring you, Hal, who she clearly does not see in this moment. That is going to be, that is her turn, which brings us back to the top with a Does that person exist? This little guy right here? Yes, he's jumped up here in the mix,

in the mix as well. Oh boy. Okay. Do you want to hold turn as well? Oh, I'm holding, yeah, yeah, yeah. If I'm holding my action to cast a spell, I'm just trying to remember this rule, it's only the action. If I'm holding my turn, I don't get a full action and bonus action.

Yeah. Oh, I do. If you're holding your turn, you can just delay in initiative if you want to hold on to the whole action and bonus action. Yes. I would like to do that. Okay. To the end of this. Like to go kind of in tandem with the two. I think the difference is holding initiative means that that you have to decide like somebody will get a turn before you can do anything. Yeah, I will allow you to delay just because there's no there's no real advantage to just not going, right? Yeah. So if you want to just send your turn down the initiative order, the only thing I will say is,

is when you want to go again, you go after whoever is gone. This is now my new order moving forward. You fully send your initiative down. And when you want to go again, you can't interrupt someone else's turn. Great, right? I am going to go after Buller.

All right. Okay, Buller, your turn. I'm going to figure out the best. I'm gonna get on, not even hands and knees. I'm gonna get on just, just, just almost ready to pounce. And I'm gonna get low and I'm gonna find

the best angle where I can see the three most irritating people in this group. Great. You'll have to scoot down where the ceiling opens up around the ladder. So you will be visible. You'll have to make a stealth check and you'll have to use an action to make that stealth check.

Oh, that'll blow my spell. Potentially, it will blow your spell. Unless you have cunning action or something like that that would allow you to make a thing. Let's say, you can see what you're holding a spell right now. I'm holding a spell, but I'm just basically crouched. I can't see the whole room. In that case, I'm gonna hold my turn.

I'm gonna push turn too, because that way I can get movement and the spell. Cool. A real just kind of holding from for Hal. Yeah, holding after Hal. Okay, cool. I'm just gonna hold, hold until something happens. All of you are sending your turn down initiative.

That is going to be another seven. That's gonna be another 11. One of these rogues strikes out, hits Laomi again. Laomi is not bloody but has taken a lot of hits and is going to allow everybody to get a swipe on him. As he moves back over here, to retreat.

Oh, shit. Everyone's getting an attack of opportunity. All of our crowkeepers miss. Perhaps Zaghi will be more lucky. Zaghi exactly hits dealing another mighty blow. And you can see Hal. You guys cannot see this, but I think Tremor sent. So Murray and Howl can both sense now.

That's going to be Rau. Laomi moves into bloodied status. How, I think Hal and, you know, Laamie's taken a tremendous amount of damage but moves into bloodied, looks out at Zaghi and goes, into the dark did for time immemort. And is going to throw that same filth bomb up. We're gonna center it here, which Jesus Christ

misses Demetis' head by inches. Y'all. Um, uh, t-ta-da. Okay. Um, even- Even if they save for half, all of these rogues are destroyed. Wow.

Wow. And Zaggy needs to make a constitution saving throw. Uh, on which she crits. Ooh. Hey. Uh, all the other crowkeepers are gonna come back and be like, what happened? The fuck.

What the fuck happened here? Oh, boy. Okay, okay. Okay. However, Zaggy takes a still hefty amount of damage. As she sort of leaps out of the way on this blast of sludge that begins to melt the wood around her. Hal, that is going to be your turn.

Okay, I am going to lift this young man up over my shoulder, Fireman Carey. Yeah. And I'm going to try to quietly make my way to the base of the ladder. Okay, I'm going to need a stealth check with disadvantage. Okay, one's a natural 20.

Nice. The other one is good, 17. 17. 17. Okay, hey. Demetus is not large. He's a small nob. He goes up in your hands, Pretty quick. Incredible, you have your movement and bonus action.

Does he slow movement at all? No, he does not go past your incumbents. Okay, so that was my action was to lift him. Was to lift him and stealth. And stealth. All right, so then I creep back to the base of the stairs. Maybe I can even get one like one or two feet up the ladder. Yes.

And bonus action, I will quietly whisper into this kid's ear Time to go, kid. And that reverberates through his sleeping mind, and I will cast its bonus action, Healing Word. Hey! Hell yes. Good idea. Six hit points.

Six hit points for our friend. He's at full. I'm worried the one. Yeah, pretty much. Anybody hits this kid or throws goop at us. He's a dead. Hit points of a kitten. Okay.

T-t-ta-ta-ta. Just don't know he doesn't freak out. Yeah. G. Ah! Mm. You see in this moment, Demidus, now that you actually gone and picked him up,

Demidus has gotten beat to hell by these rugs. His shirts and tatters. You see he's got like a sort of flop of hair, big swollen black eyes. swollen black eye. He comes to, he's got his little sort of like pentevral vest that has some like badges and other sort of school pride things on it.

He's got a chest binder that has a deep rich blue with like wizard stars over it that wraps around his chest. And he looks up and he goes, I'm almost dead. And he is going to, he is going to cast cast mage armor on you. Because major armor on you, your AC becomes 13 plus DexMod. Ah!

Okay, okay. And I think you begin to ascend up the ladder at this point. I'm going to roll one quick stealth check for Demetus to cast this spell on scene. Demetus has a, A plus two to stealth, rolling in front of the board. That's a natural one. Child.

As he, he looks, he looks and he goes, I'm almost dead, don't worry, I'll take care of you. And his mage armor goes, whee, boom! And fireworks shoot, and you are covered in gleaming, beautiful armor that she's, shines with Starlight, because this kid only knows how to do things loud. Oh my God. Now, there's enough time to turn towards the frango, um.

That wasn't a wild magic roll. It's just to see if he- No, it's just, it's just, he just sucks. He just, he's bad. He's just. She's bad. He's an illusionist. He's an illusionist.

His Mage armor is, people pay a lot for Mage armor that looks this good, okay? Um, so. Oh, boy. Okay. Okay. And just goes, uh-oh. Um, whips around. Murray, that is your turn.

You see, Hal's like four feet up the ladder, like literally clinging to the wall, turning around with Demidus in his arm. As Demetis first around, blood coming out of his nose and goes, hi! As he, looking around as Laumi and Zagi both turn around to see that the daring escape has happened. Okay. Murray, it's your turn. Okay, so I know I just look at it,

dimittous and just kind of shake my head. You knit wit. I'm going to, who do I slam? I'm gonna slam. Do you, does this require a save on their end? Or is this just an attack? The chromatic orb that I was holding is just an attack.

Okay, oh. You held and lost the action that round, right? It just went all the way. I lost it. Okay, so I don't have to do chromatic warp if I don't want to. And you guys are sending your initiative down the line, so you guys can go right after Murray

if you want to go after Murray. Okay. But if Murray, if you're looking like down the hatch, here we go, then you may do that. No, you know? Because we can double up then, because if we're holding ours, then we can just have. You guys could basically all act at once, right?

The main goal is to get the fuck out of here. I am going to. Too far away from you to do that. I'm gonna turn to Azuna and be like, hold my feet. And I'm going to go down and grab Dimmitus and try and lift him up the ladder the rest of the way. Go ahead and just give me athletics.

We'll call it, he's a very small guy. Give me DC 10 athletics. Just a little guy. And I'm just a wizard, but here we. And I don't fuck this up. That's good enough, 13. 13 of Hoh! Down the hole, you grab this kid

and yoinck him back up out of the hole. Demetus is up on the upper level with the, bam. Fantastic, that was my action. Yes. Am I able to kind of grab him and start moving in a direction that resembles out of here? Yes, you can grab him and start moving in a direction that resembles out of here.

Okay, that's what we do, even if it's 10 feet, just wanna start getting them out. Hell yeah. Awesome. That is going to be Azune and Boler. I will remind a Zune and Boler. Oh, sorry, no, it's going to be Zaghi. Zaghi is going to...

Oh, I would, can I... Oh, no, yes. You guys go before Zodgy. Yes, yes. This will be fun. They've all turned their heads towards us, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I'm just gonna, I'm just gonna,

I'm gonna hop down just far enough to cast command, because command's so great. And I got another one. This is my. Is this your last one? No, this is what I do. Okay. Thankfully.

And I'm just going to say, what am I going to? I'm just going to tell him to drop it. And next turn, apparently he has to drop whatever he's holding, then it ends his turn. This is too Zaggy. Yeah. Okay, gotcha. And then I'm running right back up.

with a little and on back up. All right, great. Mast pops down, drop, bam. And that is to Zaghi, correct? Yes. So this is a wisdom saving throw. Of 14. 14. And Europe. Great.

Zagi fails the save. So on his turn, he will be dropping anything in his hands and going what the fuck just happened. Okay, amazing. And Zzzii says, Zyza is like she. She, she hurt. So she will drop her weapon.

It is dark nerd here. Cool. Ozzenate, at the top of your turn, please roll that D20 for me about the other croaking. Who's? Oh my. Is that a one? That's a one.

There they come. That's a one. Murray, as you begin to rush down the hallway up here, you hear footsteps coming in your direction going, no. They're this way. I just look at the others and go, Dang.

Time to go. Yeah. We're in a dive spot. Dang, right. Damn, that movie's worth the rewatch again. It's in a minute. Yeah, well, Lesva, I just tell everybody, the time to go. Time to go.

No time for that. No, no. It might just be, don't do anything this round. Might just be run. Hopefully the guards get back, see Carnage, and immediately start attacking the, the sludge monster. Right. Do we hear, did we hear them coming

from where we are? Like, if we run that way, did we hear guards there? So here's the thing. On a Nat 1, I have to fuck you guys. Yes, yep. So they are coming from the only direction that you know to make your way back. There are, the hallway does go a different direction

deeper into the dark where you don't know. Let me saw. Get out the way we first entered, we run towards their voices. Yes. Okay. Then let's run into Les. I am putting all this together.

As soon as you give me that directive, Azune shifts. He kind of gets, his center of gravity gets a little bit lower into the ground. And I whip into the direction where I think those guards are. And bonus action, I'm activating innate sorcery. The ground around me starts to spiral around me, like a mini vortex, there's sparks gathering,

little small bits of fire gathering around me as my eyes start to glow, the water part of my iris, the blue part of my iris starts to look liquid, the sunset part starts to emanate light, and I'm brushing towards where those guards are. The first one I see, I will do stuff too. Look at this.

You are able to rush forward to this other passage. I'm gonna elevate this one ever so slightly. Making it up on the fly. This is what we do. Here we go. This is what we do here. This is what we're doing. I love it. Okay, here we go.

The circus must go on. The circus must go on. Okay. D-da. Okay, so rushing into this other chamber, Azune. Da-da-da. Yeah, I love it. Here we go.

Nice and precarious. This is what we like to see. Yeah, there we go. Okay, Azunei, rushing forward into this chamber, boom. You behold the other four crowkeepers rushing in towards following up this passageway here. Your guess is they doubled back when one of them noticed that their companion was not with them, right?

So you rush into this room. They are before you, you cast, you use innate sorcery. It is your turn. Okay. I look upon them and there's just something about the scum of these growkeepers that reminds me of that first mercenary group

that I was with. And I know that we've tangled with them before. I'm going for that one, not the one that's closest, actually, The one that is to my left, where the tongue is showing. I'm moving into that one, and I have my Warhammer. Hell yeah. And I, that like the sparks and the fire that's gathering around me,

it gets absorbed into my Warhammer as I cast Booming Blade on him. Pop! Yeah! Hell yeah, go for it. Give me your attack roll. And it's at advantage with innate sorcery. Swin, bad-a-bada. Holy crap.

It's not a great rule. It is a 10 to hit. 10 is a miss. Oh, shit. Swing past, that is a miss. And I'm a sorcery's your bonus action. And I'm positioned right next to them. So those two are adjacent to me.

Okay. That's okay. Boler and Azunei have both acted in this moment. Zaggy drops the weapon, drops to the ground, looking at you how. Frozen there to the wall as Demetus is jointed out of your hands. She stares at you dropping her weapon in the sludge, the bones of her guild members around her

as this thing in the dark calls filth to itself, sort of raising up higher and hard, becoming eight, nine, 10 feet tall. She looks at you frozen with Boler's command and goes, and looks down to the sword on your belt and goes, sword. And that is the end of her turn. Top of the round, having sent your initiatives down,

it is gonna be crowkeepers. Azuna, you're in the one situation that in the Brethren Hall, they tell you never to get in, which is surrounding. by rogues. That's okay. Oh, no. That is okay.

Oh no. Is it though? Uh-huh. I'll say by the way, this doorway is right at the edge of this block here. So you guys are like 30 feet from the madness, right? So. Around a corner, I'm guessing?

Yeah, no, like literally directly. Like they're on top. Okay. Ahzni, your armor class is 20, correct? They are getting advantage because they're flanking. So that's going to be a hit with snobes. with sneak attack. Oh, sorry, no, no, no.

I'm incorrect. They only have a plus three to hit, so a 16 does not hit with the advantage. That is a miss, but when they hit, it will be with sneak attack. Okay, I'll need to know if they hit because I have something. I need it.

That is a hit on a natural 19 on the die. Reaction, I cast shield. Your armor is 25? My armor is 25 now. And it looks, it almost looks like a figure, a steps in front of me and just crosses its arms and becomes almost like a spectral barricade for me. I think Murray and Belair look through

and see Azunay, who is ever, you know, like seeing Shemad and these other Arcane Marshalls. Azunay, your, your like, friend who speaks with a voice of like understanding and knowing this city and loving the city has transformed into a, a beautiful nightmare in the room beyond you. These guys don't know they're in a game of D&D,

but on an intuitive level, they know what it means to miss on a 19. Uh-huh. Meaning to hit this guy, it takes a fucking miracle, right? I can only hit on a crit. Oh, my God. Their attack bonus is not high enough for a 25 armor class to be anything other

than the stuff of legends, right? So, I've been waiting for this month. Just clang, gling, gling, gling, hitting the armor, boom, shield up, warhammer up. They all take swings with advantage and have nothing to write home about. Incredible. And that is going to be

Rao Grannath. We're gonna roll this D6. That's a two. That is a two, which means, which means that Lao me, our Raul Granneth, which is the name of the type of being they are, is going to, Laumee goes, five, ten, five, ten, and looking at you how,

but not wanting to waste, not wanting to waste an action of like double moving, Laumee, again, moving by spilling these writhing putrid innards from out of a torso, moves up, Laomi cannot move. And you see that all Laumie does is not even raise his hands, but just moves into Zaghi's square, that his body envelops her,

and you watch sludge-covered bones fall out of his, body as Zaghi's remains just clatter to the ground. Well, that's all right. As Laomi looks at you, Hal, and goes, First time in the sewers. Oh shit, Hal. Those guts just go bhm. That's Laomi's turn, Hal.

That's your turn. So Zaghi is off the map. Off the map. Two hits at average damage clears. I allow how two seconds just to gape stupidly at what he's just seen. And then he will pull up some reserve of strength he didn't know he had and he shouts in a very loud voice,

deal with darkness, die by it! And his voice echoes through the entire chamber here. And that is the casting of the second level spell Shatter, which I will aim for the, not actually, it's got a 10 foot radius. so I focus it on the wooden platform that Raumi is standing on, so both Raumi and the platform

are going to get thunder damage. Hell, yes. Hell's magic is all smoke and mirrors trickery. Except for this. Except for the things that aren't. That's a good one. What was it from last game? Go ahead, roll damage,

and I believe it does double damage against those kinds of structure. Crystal-a, is it, it's crystalline. A construct has disadvantage on the save. Okay. Loud noise erupts from the point of your choice, within range. Each creature in a 10-foot radius sphere centered there

makes a constitution save. 3D8 thunder damage on a failed save, half as much on a successful. Okay, go ahead and roll 3D8. I'm gonna make the con save for Laumee. That is a failure for the con save for Laumee here. One, single one, but the other ones were high, so that is 16 points of damage.

16 points of damage. T-t-ta-ta-ta. Okay. I want you, Hal, to also give me a, either give me Arcana or investigation in this moment. I'll call this a DC-20. Okay, I'll make it Arcana.

Cool. Even though they're the same. DC20? DC 20. Not enough, 17. 17. 17. The Shatter spell, boom, goes off.

The wooden bridge collapses, falling away into sludge and nothingness. As Laomi falls as well, and you hear a like collapse. It also, because it's a sphere, it hits the stones above it, hits the stones below it. This is a, let's be very clear, dangerous spell to cast in a honeycomb of interconnected waterways.

Oh, like that. And allow me, as your voice carries out, booming throughout this space, announcing yourself as a spellcaster for the first time in the darkness here. And with my movement, I'll say, that's all folks, and I will scurry up the ladder. And you scramble of the ladder to join. Murray and Belair up here.

Wow. Incredible. How, that's your turn. Demetus. Um, Tch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch. What is Demetis going to do? Hmm.

You see, you see. Uh-uh-uh. I don't look good. My situation? Yeah. I'm okay. Are you gonna be?

Okay. I'm all right. I think it goes, you're gonna have a little. That's fine. That's real bad. That's real bad. Is it? You're okay?

Are you sure? Okay. I mean, you can, people are welcome to help. I've got another plan. You got other stuff. I got, I got, I got this guy. That is the more presumably rogues. Yeah.

All at advantage. Yep. That's bad. I'm okay. For two more rounds. Okay. Demidus looks at you, Murray, and he goes, or looks at Hal Jermuda through, looks, he goes, Professor Magnessen! Oh, you showed up! Oh, Blair! You showed up!

Oh, you know! Oh, sorry! Sorry! I don't know who you are! Oh, no! And you see that... Shut up! Demetis goes, a monster or these guys? And starts to summon some magic into his fingers. Those guys, we gotta get the fuck out of here.

Azunay, as these rogues surround you, looking at their inability to harm you in any meaningful way, you gleam with light and you see Demetus looks over and goes, wow, beautiful. And behind you, you see a 12th, 12-foot-tall night made of light erupts and says, Brother, I have arrived to aid you. I am also a handsome knight and 100% real.

Oh my goodness. I just look at Diminis and go, we're gonna have to talk about reading the room. I'm helping. Stop helping. Don't help. And Murray, that is your turn. Acting is about doing less.

Don't show your work. You say doing less, and he goes, he goes, got it, and a bunch of magical bottle rockets fire out. Him in all directions. He's so much fun under every other circumstance. This right now. Just for flavor, I do my own lighter illusion, and I go like, flashing red light, your time's up.

And I want to get like a cane with the fork in the end, and I want to yonk him. As if you hear the Oscar, playing playing them offstage. With the hook, you just dig deep, folks! And then, Murray, that is your turn. Can I just literally grab him by the collar, scoop him up under my own arm,

and we just keep heading out? Are you heading out into the room that is the way out with Azune? Or are you heading deeper into unknown darkness? I think it's. And I'm looking, have you been taking any damage, are you hurt? Uh-uh.

They didn't touch me. Okay. I think in this instance, it's almost better to go, to where Azune is and go past and go the way that we know. Okay. Go in the most direct route. I don't just go down a, hit a dead end.

So you're gonna grab Demidas. You're gonna go five, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30. If you move this way, this guy's gonna get an attack of opportunity on you. Shit. Right? This crowded room in the sewers for you trying to get out your exit here.

Just give me one second. Is that my move and my action, considering I'm carrying him? You have an action. If you want to use an action, you can. I do still have an action. Um, okay. You, um, fuck it, shit.

Balls. Okay, I am going to, man, he's surrounded. Yeah, and that one was rough. But the, but looking out here, you can see, If you attempt to run around, I think your options as such right now are, they're gonna get some swings on you if you try to run around them and hope

that they stay pinned on Azune. You can, like, using your action, like at a certain, like, you can also use your action to fight them or to try to like, try to like blow your way past them, which might also help get Azune out of here sooner at the cost of you. It's basically your weighing is the ultimate price

beating feet, even if they get swings on me, versus are we fucked and need to fight our way out? How's your constitution? Pretty good. All right. We're gonna do a little color spray. Let's do a little color spray. Hell yeah. You best better save, bitch.

I hope so. It's a 15 foot cone. Great. Let me see if I could see, and then I'll see which way if I'm gonna try and hit all of them with a Zunei, or if I pick a land. We have a color spray. 15 foot cone right here. 15 foot cone, I think 15 foot cone.

You can get these three right here in one cone with that and hit a Zune. Or potentially, if you wanted to avoid a Zune entirely, you could like side step and just get two of them in a line. Just the two, not hit you probably. Because if you're feeling good, let's do that. Let's sidestep. I'm gonna try and position myself to only get those two.

Hell yeah. So it's a Constitution saving throw. Because also if you fail, I don't want you to be blinded. That would be real bad. Oh yeah, that would be. Okay. Mm-hmm. Two fails.

Wow. Okay. So, yeah. What does your color spray look like, and what effect does it have on that? This is gonna be so stupid. Can I do it? This is gonna be dumb. Okay, so yeah, if we're any of my 60% consumer

or blinded condition, until you end of your next turn. So can I, like, because I'm holding dimmous, like a sack of potatoes and he's the illusion guy, can I take him in his glittery magic that's already swirling around him and like use him like a shotgun? Like holding up a skunk and just being like.

And I'm gonna take it in just whatever sparkly magic. Just waft it. Yeah, he already has going on because it's an illusion spell. to take what he has and just amplify it into their face. You reach in to one of his pockets in his shirt. There's a bunch of broken spell components from when he was getting beat up and you just grab a thing.

And a bunch. Just an apple of glitter. Both crowkeepers reel back blinded as glitter just dances over their face and you can see almost like their faces become mirror glass. of iridescent light, Bha, creeping into their eyes as they are blinded. That is your turn.

That's my turn. Hell, yes. So they're both blinded. That is going to be Azune and Boller. Belair and Howe are still standing over the hole covering, hearing the growling hiss of the entity down below. and how, and then Azune, you are in the room now with Marie and Demetis.

Would you like to go first this time, or do you want me to? I just wanna have a little fun. Have all the fun, please. I'm going to pop down the ladder just a bit. Just saying, actually, and out of curiosity, how well built is this ladder? Quite well built. Okay, yeah.

Sturdy. Let's go, sir. Good to know. And I'm going to cast on our little mud friend over here, a little, I'm going to cast dissonant whispers. Hell yes. What is the save on dissonant whispers? 14 wisdom. That is a failure. Okay, so I crawl down just a bit and look directly at this creature.

Eyes lock. And it almost seems like the mask itself becomes concave and reflective. And there's this twisted version of its own face that's suddenly looking at it. And it hears, as a quiet roll in its head, creature of refuse and filth. How else would you find your face than to be buried in the sewers forever where you belong? And let's do some damage. That's...

Come on, come on. Come on. That's 12 points of psychic damage. And he has to run away from me. to run away from me. He must immediately use its reaction if I'm able to move as far away from me as I can on a successful role.

Oh, yeah. I am going to ask you for an intimidation check. And I'm going to ask for intimidation check in this moment, if it would be so kind. Man, no problem. Natural 20. So that gives me just for fun, a 26. This is what I was born for.

for it. Right. Now that none of your friends can see you, you decide to prove that this guy's not the freakyest thing in this dark pit. Wow. And moving down the ladder, you not only move Laomi to a quarter

of his hit points total, but with that reaction, being banished to flee, Laomi looks and goes, I am sorry. Boom! And zooms in the, as the water seeps through the cracks of Hal's shatter spell in the floor, he flushes himself down into a deeper darkness, vanishing at the horror of your dissonant whispers. Laume exits combat in this moment.

And we will come back after the break. And that's where we'll leave our story for now. Part two of this episode of Campaign 4 drops this Tuesday. Thanks for listening. and we'll see you soon for more Critical Role.