Critical Role - Trick of the Light | Critical Role | Campaign 4, Episode 31 Part 1

Episode Date: July 2, 2026

Part 1   The teams attempt to reunite at the Rookery with varying cheerful and devastated attitudes as the consequences of their ventures begin to ebb throughout the city...   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 Roels 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. Here in Dolmachiar, we find several of our heroes who have been engaged in some spy craft of late, spread out throughout one of the upper neighborhoods of the city.

Wakander Halovar in the streets nearby and down in the marketplace at the Mercunod-Catourier, we find our companions as well. Events are moving quickly for indeed your mission. Spying on the great meeting of the Sundered Houses has concluded that meeting has since ended. But first, you guys need to roll hit points. Let's roll them. It's a 10, right? It's a D10.

It's a D10. It's a good. Re-roll. Yes, eight. Nice! Hey, I also rolled an eight. Wow! So that's a twin.

Hey, bros. Lovely and a lovely healthy dose of hit points for you both as you stand in the currently sort of blood splattered Merkinad Coutoutouturee. Sam, you have leveled up in a previous episode. I had. However.

Level up again? Holding this lion's head emblem and seeing the motes of light whisk around it and slowly leave the emblem and whisk around you, you become aware as if through divine oracular sight that the soul of Teor Pride Sire has left this world and that he wished for you to have this. The light that he carried

that due to his life as a soldier and a mercenary, never could be the focus of study or investigation has vanished from the world. How many great and wondrous miracles have died in the trenches of Pasatara's many wars before their miracle could be explored or explained, perhaps many. His light is leaving this world,

but there is some part of you that is not solely of this world. and you will not forget his light. As a part of dying in this campaign, which does not have any magic for resurrection in it, we allow what is called a death boon, which is that characters can pass on certain abilities or features.

In some cases, they can grant if one of their highest ability scores. And in this instance, your charisma increases from 18 to 20 permanently. Oh. As Teor's light suffuses into the aura being cast by your own filamental tattoos.

That's amazing. Very sad, but really good. As I sort of feel this flow, this light passed through me and over me. I'm looking down at, I'm looking down at this, it's made of wood? What is this thing? It's a very, it's a piece of, it's beautiful in its own way,

but it's definitely like a folk carving. It's not made by some vast, you know, it's not like varnished heavily. It's just got some like humble like beeswax polish on it. It looks like it was carved by hand. Yeah, I mean, just remembering that he had sworn to protect me and now he is gone. I think it,

It both makes me frightened for myself and my future, but also I'm gonna have to look after myself now. And so I guess I'm emboldened as I step forward, but also super scared. If he just died, he's real mighty. The others there with him must be in danger. So I think, even though I would really like to see what my friends here are doing,

and I really know that there's soldiers approaching the stage and how, I think I have to dash as fast as I can to the Taconas house. Okay. Is there, I know I said I was just on the streets, are there horses or carriages available to me to, from the Halevar house, or how do I,

are there taxis? Is there an Uber? You haven't walked very far from the Halevar House at all. You could easily rush back and get one of your house's carriages, if you so wished. Okay. And it occurs to you in this moment of extreme danger. I just noticed the red X.

Oh, Rip King. Oh. I just, it does make it seem like you're kind of the one doing it, but I'm not? Oh. Lord. Wickander, it also occurs to you thinking of how to get there the fastest, that as you have deceived your way back into the good

graces of your family, arriving at the Tacona's house in a carriage probably means you will be safer than arriving on foot. Okay. Then for sure, I'll get a carriageman and order him to take me without delay to Obermiss Manor. You are off to Oberma's Manor. Our friends that are in the Mercconod-Catout Couturier shop, you descend to You are in this horrifying basement. Manacles hang from the roof above where a body would be with its wrists up over its head. You see a workbench with several different shears.

One of these pairs of shears is, you are, at first you wonder if it's drawn onto the table and then you realize as you move through the room, it is three-dimensional, but it is so jet black that it doesn't appear to have a little any form. It's so matte black that light can't bounce off of it, and so it just seems to almost sink into the table. There are shears there. There are bolts of black fabric that I believe you are very aware, I think, that the more classical way to hold souls is often within gemstones. But that's also a very known quantity, and so it seems that the Merconauts have developed some

manner of turning shadows into a fabric that holds the soul of dead mortals. And there are about 18 bolts of that fabric radiating infernal magic off of them in the corner. Any scrap fabric? There's a ton of regular mundane fabric here. No, it does not look that the process of creating these bolts of soul fabric leaves like soul detritus around. They're not making clothes with it. Well, funny, you should mention. You guys have wanted to.

Go ahead and give me investigation checks. 13. Where is my investigation? 20. 20 will absolutely get it done. The body you are currently wearing has a

Body of Herling Ring has a magical ring on a finger. You don't know what it does particularly, but you also see that each of these gentlemen has a packed tome with them. They are warlocks. Two packed tombs there. On that 20 investigation, these are warlocks whose patron is none other than Charavi,

Shadow of Suffering. Uh-oh. Two rings, 18 bolts of this jet black fabric. The shears themselves are magical, and you also see up on a massive loom, there is a bobbin of jet black thread, which you recognize seems to be composed of like a pure demonic shadow.

So that tiny spool of thread is there as well. The dead body upstairs had one magical garment of this cloth that is already constructed, so not the raw material. But you also see that there is, a down here a large voluminous high-collared black silk cloak. This silk cloak appears to be double-sided in that one of them is just an extremely regal,

quite glossy, so it's very silken so it's quite shimmery. And it's weird to say because it's a black on black garment, but it is a little ostentatious, like there's black gemstones up in the collar. The other side you realize is much like those shears, very hard to even directly look at. Oh, well, that's tasteful. Is that like the cloak that you're wearing?

That is much nicer than anything I am currently wearing. I don't know fashion. What is all this bullshit? Well, it certainly looks like it's from my ilk. These guys, I think, we're working for my father. Speaking of Blair, do you wanna ask your boy some questions about how they do their work and maybe where their bodies go? While you're doing that, I'd like to just nip off

the tiniest inconsequential piece of the sole fabric and make myself a tiny bikini. Okay. Why don't we get, there's an upstairs, if I recall. Let's get a couple garment bags, why don't we? Absolutely. And let's start, well, I'll definitely, we're gonna need that, that, that.

Let's drop this place blind, yeah. I got the bag. Am I capable, am I okay to take a stuff and just stuff it in a regular old bag? Baby, you can grinch it up as fast as you want. Feel free to make a mess. Yeah. Okay, so. Do you want to talk to him or should we,

I think you should ask him. Ah, one moment. All right, I'm gonna go inside. O'Rulius, you have been a busy, busy boy. My brother, you killed him. Well, I'm not specifically me, but it, honestly, if we think back enough, I suppose it's decisions that you've made that led you here. Let's be honest. You have no idea. Oh, no, I definitely know you won't. In fact, if anything, I think that this might be the end of you. I think your thread has been cut. So, now it is really up to you what happens next.

We could let your soul flutter out into the world, but I think we both know where you're going. I have an option B if you just want to take your chances, or you know me well enough that we could make a deal. Give me persuasion. Or intimidate your choice. Which is different. I don't. I think they're both the same.

Cool. Yeah, I'm just kind of, it's always dealer's choice. That's 16. 16, we come into a bit of a difficult situation because your business has created some problems for everyone involved. I need you to answer some questions truthfully and give us a little bit of a look at how your operation works. And in return, I will drop off your face once I'm happy enough with what I've gotten from you. I'll let you go. No more of my influence.

You just get to leave. Sadly, you can't stay here. This shop is now compromised. It was sadly a conflict of a lot of unfortunate incidents. When Boler is having these conversations with the host of whoever's in the mask, is he just like blanked out? Is it out loud?

Is it in your mind? I can do it right now, right now, it's just in my mind and like my face is kind of, it's like a little stiff occasionally anyway, but there would be no real sense that anything was happening. Unless, yeah, at the moment I'm just sort of looking around and it's just like, it's just like having an imagination. I guess the question is, the length of the conversation happening.

It's a little faster than what it is. Okay. Like the real world is going, yeah, this is, this goes quickly. Again, like a dream. Oh, okay, cool. Yeah. looking Cadigan, by the way, shears,

thread, bolts of fabric, you're popping the jewelry off of the dead guy. There's gemstones here. There's 418 gold pieces stashed away in a vault. I mean, if you're just robbing the fucking place, it's like, blamp, it's all going in, their pact homes go in.

There's a ton of non-magical text here that is still written in demonic that has to do with their process, how they do what they do. While he's having the conversation, can I read it and take that information in? Give me an Arcana check with advantage. 15.

Your father's name is all over this. These are rituals. Charafi made these men warlocks and gave them the knowledge of how to shear souls off of a person's shadow. Does it say where it's going? You look and see that all of this makes its way back to the candescent creed. And you are able to grab that information.

It is, you know, this is, forgeries are possible in this world, but the fact that the same handwriting that is delivering how to carve a soul off somebody is also like, this fabric will be delivered back to the via Aurora, is for its worth as extremely damaging and compromising material is that. But you see that it all seems like it's going not to the church, but to the Hale of ours as a family. It's going to there. It's going to Zabani's office, essentially. I would like to take the book and also, if possible, absorb. I want to see if we can do the soul stuff to our guy, to Rulius.

I was about to ask anyway if that was. On a 15 Arcana check, you remember the fact that Teor had been here for hours, and two of them working on it together hadn't finished. It's a long time. It's a long time. Calum regular style. Anything good in the sack? So much.

Let's take it all. Over the time. You throw that cloak in there, and the only thing of value left in here are paintings that are too large to carry, and that's all she wrote. I've put on my hastily. It's a string bikini.

It's really just a couple triangles. I kind of didn't want it to look like we had taken anything, but I see now that was a mistake. But whatever, I have a bikini on made of souls. Gallagin is shading his eyes to the side. What a gentleman. The glass on the back of your brother's head,

what was that about? Do you have it? This is just curiosity. I do. Interesting. Do you have a soul? Not on me. Finally, something we can both delight in.

Me neither. Thirdly, who do you work for? And what do you do with the bodies? How do you hide so many bodies, cleaving so many souls from them? What happens? They cut them in two and send half to the priestly house of flame

and the other half to the priestly house of shadow. Yes, the souls, yes. What do you do with the bodies? I don't care about the souls. They go across the river, Master Lafalia. How an original. Uh. I'm disappointed.

This bag, Tabby, what's he saying? Oh, I think we've got everything that we're going to have to do. Okay, so they're doing really bad stuff. I mean, I don't know if it's worse than hiring demons. I'm a demon, I'm working for the crew. What do you do with him? When there's something worth saying, I am muttering it out loud. Mm-hmm.

So these things are being communicated. I think that we should kill him personally. Or, I mean, Boller, he's yours now, so you can do whatever you want. My question is, Kattegan, that man that I saw, I recognize now as Primus DeKonis, I think that it's a bad idea for you to be charging back

into the Via Aurora, but do you want me to try to kill him? What? You kill him? Maybe not by myself. I don't know. Maybe we could. Maybe we can do something. He just got his shit chewed out in front of everybody.

I think that the halo of ours are really pissed at him. So maybe we can, I don't know. It seems like a scary thing to just go for him directly, but he's got to die, right? Yeah. And he has to die, but I'm a little confused. It's been a long and strange day. Can we sort that out after we figure out what we do here first?

Yeah. I mean... I pull back out for a moment. I think that, I mean, on my behalf, my story to my sisters and then some is that you're dead. I think the two got into a scrap over the mask, went crazy, killed each other,

and you escaped, and I killed you. And so I get the credit. Right, because I was supposed to die in here. I'm supposed to die in that. So we got to set up like a scene? Like, are you suggesting why you fake my death? Can I have with your fingers? What?

I won't eat it. One of my fingers, from my own body? Well, this is all going on. I'm going to need a way out of here, by the way. So you all think about how that's going to happen. Excuse me. I'm going to start stripping my clothing off of myself while they're talking and folding it and putting in one of the bags.

What the fuck is happening? I'm looking. And then I'm going to start manacling my own hands into those manacles. Oh. Great. Killer, killer. Great. I mean, I think that we're going to do that we

We can just go out the way we came in. I mean, you can't be seen. Is there, do we see a different way out? Maybe where there are, where they get these bodies to go? Is there a different door? Give me an investigation check. I don't see shit. You don't see shit.

I've got a plan to keep myself hidden. Okay, I trust, I think that you can keep under, undercovers. It's a great plan. Pretty great. And I'm just going to put my hood up over my head. I believe you. But I think I should have some proof. that I killed you to my family.

So what will it be? I'm hanging for now. Oh, yes, Kattegat. I have a quick gift for you. Feel free you can either put me on on the way out or just tuck me away. It doesn't matter. I just made a promise.

Sir, you have been so helpful. I now release you from my bondage and I drop off his face. The mask drops off and you see Rulius goes, now you've done. Shit. I tickle.

Yeah, stop. Listen, your father. Yeah! I serve your father. So what, I'm his daughter. You think I give a shit? You're gonna try and scare me right now, but who has the manacles on?

You or me, pal. Do it quick before you do something stupid. You can see, I actually even need you to roll initiative real quick. Oh my God. I thought you guys were clever enough to know that you should not let a major You should just sit there for a minute.

Nat 20. Great. Can I just stab them? Go ahead and give me an attack roll. Okay. Mm-hmm. What did we get here? 21.

18. 18. 18. 18 is a hit. Go ahead and 18 is a hit. Go ahead and roll damage. With the. And you can give me some attack rolls here as well. Yeah, sure.

And you have a puppy too. I do have. Just love this guy. Go. Now you're gonna kill him. I'm playing along. I'm the only one who said he wouldn't fuck with him. 14 for the first attack.

14. We should have made a hit. 14 is a hit. Nine damage on that one. Okay, nine damage here. Seven damage. Are we just jumping this guy? I think you guys are just jumping this guy.

I think you guys are just jumping this guy. Yeah. Nine and 16. Okay, so nine and seven is 16. I missed my second attack. Missed your second attack. And then for bonus, I'll just call Wolfrick over and let him take an attack on just a yeah, go ahead and have him, give him an attack.

Oh gosh, I haven't done this in a minute. Sorry, it's been a hot minute. Oh, you got it. It's a different dance. Really this guy thinks that I care that my dad's his boss. Yeah, but he might try and escape. Well, not with his guts all out. No, that's why you got a gut him quick.

16 and then it's 8 plus 2. So we'll, uh, with an 8, so, uh, 10. 10 points of damage for old Wolfie. Okay, 26 points of damage. He is going to go. Oh, fuck. Mm-hmm. What if I fucking die?

None of his spell, all his spells require somatic components that he can't use right now. Except one, thomiturgy. So you see he is going to, as loud as thunder, go and shout out to Wicander. Hale of R, he goes, ha, at the top of his lungs. And you guys hear it reverberating throughout the marketplace. Yeah.

It is your turn again. Okay. Katagan, if somebody, if we hear the door open, I think that you should run. Right. And I'm gonna lumber out with my giant sack of good. He's still alive right. He's still alive, but if somebody's still alive,

but if somebody's still. You should really, yeah, I'm just, yeah. That's a 19. Mm-hmm. Yeah, I would. Do I get to, Do I get to attack twice because it's the knife that hurts people who have hurt people?

Unfortunately, you would need to know the name of someone that he had harmed. This knife does not reward popping off. All right. So, I mean, hmm. Codged. Yeah, because you don't know anybody he's hurt, that's fair.

It's a long list. I know. Six. Six points of damage. Tyranny, how does he die? I fucking navel to nose, just like. Knife up, innards spill out. He is dead.

However, you can hear similar shouting off in the marketplace. Let's go. Come on, hurry up. I've got Bolero. I think for just a second, the Chaos Gremlin and Cadigan thinks about putting it on, but he just shakes it off and pockets it for a second. Well, there goes in the pocket. You guys rush to where are you rushing?

I am rushing back to the candestine creed, and I mean, where are you going? This is on the run? Yeah. I don't know. Where should I go here? You seem to know my destiny. House House? Yeah, right? I mean, that feels like a safe place. Got it. This is all for you. I don't want any of this shit. Okay. Come get it when you need it if you want it. Okay, great. Okay. I'll see you there. See you there. Okay. I'll tell quick. Are you good? Yeah.

Okay. Where's Blair? In my pocket. Oh, you have him. Okay, Craig. Yeah. All right, so no finger you are charging back to the V-A-Rour. Give me a finger. You want one of my human fingers? Get a finger.

You can't be fucking kidding me right now. I take it another love. Give it to me. I need proof. What do you want? In your nose? You think I could be... Beer?

Toot? Petus? I have a few extra. Stop with that. Okay. Uh, I'm a lefty. I'm a lefty. Oh.

You've done so much good work over the years. You're gonna do it? Yeah, fuck ya. I slice it. Oh! Tyranny cuts your finger off. You head to the Via Aurora. You head to Hal's house.

And we'll get into the rest. In tonight's episode of Critical Role. And I eat it. Hello, my friends, and welcome to tonight's Critical Role announcement playhouse. Before we get into tonight's adventures in Aramon, we have some announcements to get through. But first, reminder for all you folks,

our new Dagger Heart miniseries, Age of Umbra, SaloLands, premieres July 9th. Yes! So excited for y'all, we have an incredible cast of players that includes Laura Bailey, Ivakar Salim, Jennifer English, Hico Ortiz, and Zachary Rinaldo. You'll feel wonder, heartic, dread,

and delight is this unusual crew ventures into the wastes in search of answers. It was so much fun. It was just a good crew. Good crew. It's a very good crew. They all have such good chemistry. It was great.

A very fun, kind of unique vibe in the realm of Aja Umber from our first run, it still feels in the world. It's so much fun running a forum. They seem to have fun playing it and I hope you have a fun time watching it. Seriously, please come check it out. You can get a close look at it

and what we've revealed so far at daggerhardt.com slash umbra. Umbra. Umbys. Liam, you're up. Girl, you need more Briarwoods in your life. Next Tuesday, June 30th. Dark Horse is releasing the collected volume 3 hardcover edition

of the Legend of Vox Machina the Whitestone Chronicles. Featuring our favorite couple we love to hate. This run is written by New York Times bestselling author Marika Nykamp. It is illustrated by Aviv Orr, so amazing, colored by Eisner-nominated colorist, Diana Soza, and lettered by Jimmy Bettencourt and Richard Starkings. Find the Legend of Mox. Oh, find The Legend of Voxmock into the White Sohn Chronicles, Volume 3 at your local comic book store or darkhorse.com.

The Briarhoods. Hate to see him go, but I love to watch them leave. Yeah, thank you, Liam. Yeah, she did see Barrier Hoods, right? Box Bacchana and the Briar Hoods, my favorites. On Red Mubble. Travis, you're up, right. Oh, yes, all episodes, all episodes,

all episodes of The Legend of Oxmockena, a series are more available now, Bripodeo! Come join some of our cast and crew for our finale episode of Inside the Legend of Voxmachina tomorrow on June 26th at 3 p.m. Pacific, as we chat about all the fun behind-the-scenes details from the making of season four. The art, the storyboards, the acting, the directing,

getting Sam to just shut up. There will be spoilers, so be sure to watch all of season beforehand, beforehand, otherwise, you're gonna ruin it for yourself. That would be awful. Don't do that. Or do? Watch it twice, just to make sure.

I believe that concludes our announcements. So with that, my friends, girl, let's get back into Arama, girl. Oh, wow, bim-bump. Return. Tonight's episode of Critical Role, what a wild couple of episodes it's been. Hoi!

Boy, boy! Yeah. Once again, we see that in our previous episode, the heroes of Aramon have seen after their various quests throughout the world of Aramon returned to discover on this momentous night that there were three objectives in front of them. to spy on the great meeting of the sundered houses,

to see if the House Taconas could indeed be backed into a corner by all of the achievements of our heroes, to infiltrate Obermiss Manor to rescue Theasi's co-conspirator, Mara the Wing, and to protect and ensure whatever magical goings on were going to occur at this opening night of the play Cothera. which due to the machinations of forces both near and far promised to be one of the most momentous magical evenings and occurrence. The sundered houses were successfully spied upon. Mara the wing has, to our knowledge, been at least momentarily rescued, not without great cost. Though your characters

do not know it, Teor Pride Sire has left this world. And at our play, we see that pain rendered from an ancient river sticks composed of blood, the gavzidra, was painted by a young daughter of the family's loy and fang into the murals of a hallowed round that is indeed now hallowed, the story of Vokian's revolution, calling out to the souls of those orcish heroes captured in an afterlife that had been severed from this world following the death of the gods. in addition to the most momentous magical discovery of the last 70 years, the fact that the Shaper's War did not destroy the afterlifes, a hanging question that has haunted this world for 70 years and spurred the retribution and violence during the ghost wars and all manner of horrifying things,

that question has been answered. Those souls are not lost. Perhaps souls never can be. Perhaps only lost. for a time. You also see that as those souls of Orkish spirits cross the proscenium

of the theater, that they are rendered in celestial status here in this story being told by their descendants in this place of their heroism. They are filled with light. More than that. As the magic became unstable,

we saw in the letter of this professor, some other co-conspirator of the Ozzy Fangs. We saw on this letter, the professor, a stable Trinity of Bridges. One anchor, the pariah blade, now painted and held aloft as a symbol rather than just a sword by young Shadiah Fang

as a member of the chorus. The paint rendered in the workshop of Sulawcci into a series of murals depicting the great stories of the history of the Runyani and the Stone of Nightsong, used here for its connection to fairy, has just been sundered by a sister of Salandri, smashed apart,

sacrificing a dream she has held for 70 years because to seize that dream would be at the detriment of these still living people. What a choice Vailas has made. She risked her life to do both. But only able to do one, she raised her censer on high, and in the city that we first met her

coming to seek the stone, to return it, has chosen to destroy it. Alongside Azune Nayar, speaking a word in Navi Khan, the language of his people that he has not had much occasion to speak, saying, remember. that word spoken in Navi Khan, the lost language of dragons.

Sir. Yes. Yes. We should talk. As a dragon reared its head from Lake Nahami, a dragon that had been asleep, perhaps since long before even the Shaper's War, arose to take that shattered remnant of the Stone of Night Song,

song, push it into the ground and create a cavern of moon crystal, much like the one that our soldiers' tables saw in Hawthorne's Glade. Where the forest of Tintazi meets Lake Nahami, an anchor to the spiritual energy of Ferry has been created, more powerful than any we have yet seen in the story we are telling. It is that anchor that stabilizes the connection between the afterlife of the Rumiani, or the once afterlife of the Rumiani, I should say, and the playhouse, the hallowed round, and by extension, all of the living world of Aramon. For all of you. Exactly.

Murray, you see everything stabilized, those tendrils reaching out. I did. I just, I'm such a dwarf. I just think about bridges. And they, bridges they be. We have no idea what they did. I'm like, oh, good job. You're so good at this. So we return, that connection has stabilized.

I cannot begin to tell you all of your worst fears of what was going to happen tonight, the reason that you had 100 magpies in the wings, all of the Staypuff marshmallow man, the dead pour forth, chaos and ruin. I had all of my notes ready, for that to happen if you went home with your family. And instead.

So you can still do it. I take it back. Go pry that. And instead, those bridges stabilize. However, Hal and Tysha and Murray as well, you see that while the connection is stabilizing, which means that the planes don't come unfurled and the dead don't pour forth

to living Dolmachiar. The living world of Aramon is fine. The people here are watching a nice play, but you see the same sense of crisis on the other side still unfolding of the spirits feeling panicked. Their celestial status is wavering as they cannot tell whether they should walk the path

or stay and defend this place. And I think you both see paint still bubbling up as raw, untapped, magical energy that seems to require what paint perhaps always requires. which is direction and intention. For those of you here, we will begin, first of all, with a little bit of business.

Hal, you need to roll hip points. Let's go! Let's go. Keep it low. Keep me civilian squishy. It's a five. Right in the middle. Right in the middle. I love that.

That's a supportive. Oh, you did good. Yeah. That's a D8, yeah? D-A for me. See, that's what just taking the regular thing. Mm-hmm. kids who are just safe.

No four, as soon they're taking these search for levels. What are you doing? Let me alone. You're a dragon, not a chicken, bucket. The second act of the play commences, and this is the act, by the way, because the end of the first act ends on a high note, which if the first act ends on a high note,

oh no, we're watching a tragedy because it's setting up for the fall in the second act, and we see that this is what begins to happen, the story of Vok Yan Mirzat being betrayed by those close to him to the priests of Osgra. And we see a number of, that as the story commences, it becomes harder and harder.

Turning it over to Hal here for a second, what do we see in that second half of the play as it begins to unfur? Well, Hal is in the wings. As Act One begins, he's just moments ago given Lash, Bardick, zhijing to keep him on point on stage. And

as he goes out and begins, Hal is you know, he is a mix of conflicting feelings. There is a foot waiting to drop either tonight or tomorrow. The hail of ours are going to

be pissed. He has put all his money in and is betting on this play, which is a tragedy, which tells the story of Volkjohn Merzat, who was a precursor to the Shaper's War, Juan Rangiani, who tried to overthrow the chosen of Asgaret, the priests two centuries before the Shaper's War and was struck down. Some of his own brethren turned on him at the offer of power.

And, boy, he didn't set out to write it to mirror his brother, but it is beyond coincidence how much it hues. to the loss of the Ozzy, and all of this has been worth it, no matter what, with the miracle that Hal has seen come to life here at the Halled round, here in our church, in our temple. But he also has the highest hopes that this play,

mirroring what's happened to his brother, will stick in the hearts and minds of the people in the audience. And he watches with baited breath from the wings. Every corner of choreography, every word dropped, every note, the chorus chants into being. And without reciting the entire play, because I don't have that.

Mersat enlists, the audience sees Mersat has enlisted some of his other downtrod and Rangiani to stand, make a stand against These priests of Osgra, there is one of his allies who is lured by the priests with an offer of a seat amongst them to turn. And in the final moments of the play, Merzat is beset his own friends turn on him.

Their heretic rebellion. That first rebellion is crushed, killed, along with Volchan Mirza. As the play unfolds building to this horrifying crescendo, Tisha, you look out and see a city of free orcs who knew that this was, I mean, it was built as the tragedy of Volkian Mirza, but there's some part of them living

after the successful Shaper's War leaning forward, as in all great tragedies going, no, win, don't. Don't do it this way. There's another way. There's got to be some possibility of avoiding what is to come. And you see everyone leaning forward in their seats here. Azune and Vailas towards the end of the second act. You guys both returned to catch basically

like the last 30 minutes of this. As you both walk back into the theater, I think, Valas, you feel fairy shapes swirling around you. And you look over and see there's a woman sort of in the wings of the audience who looks over to you. And you see a beautiful glass stick. This is Temelow, red curls of hair, a headband that has costume antlers.

These are very small, delicate antlers coming off her head. She's so pretty. She looks, she looks at you. She has like small fawn, like dappled white freckles on her face. And she looks over to you and goes, Vailas, what's your name? Tamelo.

Are you a wild thing? How do you mean? You Azune look over and can see the wind kicking up around Vales as invisible pixies and sprites swirl around her. And she says, have you freed something? Did you break something quite strong and heart to let something loose upon the world.

She leans in and kisses you on the side of your cheek. And she grins and smiles and looks at the fairy doors leading out into the Tintazi wood. And Vailas, you're standing in this funereal garb that is your sort of like sister of Salandri. And Azuna, you watch as just sprigs of wildflowers begin to be populated all around and Vailas's clothes as fairies begin to leave flowers all throughout your garb.

Oh my God. Like the Rose parade float. You are! I love the rose for me. As you, yeah, you see, Temolo just takes your hand and smiles, and all these fairies are looking at you. I don't know, I mean, Vailas has the relationship

to the fair folk that she has. There is a strong correlation, like Sillandri married the king of fairy. But fairies have always had a kind of playful distance from elves, even though they're both Sylvan things, because elves are, they're immortal, but they're of the world, and they live in it forever,

and there's a formality and a sorrow and a melancholy to them. And you realize that when Tamilo called you a wild thing, wild thing was capitalized. She meant that there was something else there. What is this? I think it's beautiful, and it reminds me, I need to find Tysha. We do.

Tysha, you are, I believe, still nearby conducting this ritual. You see the panic setting in amongst the honored dead. I want to, as subtly as I can, because the hallowed round is built at the edge of Lake Nahami. So I imagine that there are like pressure systems where there's a little bit of fog that rolls in in this like natural theater. If I can,

I want to communicate with the Celestials here that are kind of beginning to freak out via this like sending out a little fog cloud that rolls. To all of those fallen warriors, I just wanna convey that their fight is over. And the people that they see watching their great works in the form of this play are the next generation who are here to take up the fight

to try to calm them to move on. Accepting, you said that, there were some priests here, right? Yes. Cool. Now what I know about them is that they love fighting to the very last drop and watching this play has reminded me that I hate their asses.

So I would love to command them to stay and keep guard until everyone else has passed through. Hell yes, go ahead and give me, give me nature and give me insight as well. Natural 20 for nature. Oh my God! She is a druid. I did it.

Much worse. And 12 for insight. 12 for insight. Okay. Go ahead. With that Nat 20 nature. She's starting to leave. Also, go ahead and give me,

as you're commanding the priest of Osir, give me an intimidate check as well. 10. 10. Isn't that the one Alex blessed? Yeah. He gave me the natural 20, but it ran out of spit. Alex, spin on this like that.

Nat 20 nature is crazy. So on those roles, here's what I think happens. On the insight you have, the mist rolls out from you. And as your physical body continues to like call the corners and walk and do the ritual, on that Nat 20 nature, a version of Tysha Loi appears formed of mist in the tenembral reaches. This is not need to be, you are

are no longer at distance, the spirit of Vokion Mursatz. You can see, hold on one second, you see Ajmi, the wife of Vokian Mersat, is there who is wavering back and forth between Celestial and Undead in this moment, going out and saying, Vokion, and you can see that Vokion's spirit is almost all the way out of the Teneboreaches

because he's riding alongside Lash. He's telling his own story. And on that Nat 20 nature, fog is everywhere. You call out to the priest and you see that some of these heroes begin to just chase the priests into the dark forest. As you were like, stay here and serve and redeem yourselves. You see these tortured souls who were, their paradise was to be torturers at the right hand of Osgra,

to avoid suffering by enacting it on his behalf. And the heroes of the revolution, of Fokion's rebellion, chase them screaming into the forest, for they will not serve. Their souls are so wicked that they will not serve willingly in this moment. But that doesn't mean that they've gotten away. It just means that they're being chased by those rebels.

Up till this moment they were watching the play going, are we the bad? Just fooling for it. Is this fucking play about us? Is this a play about us? Wow. But you can see, Asmie, as you appear here in Mist,

Ahmah turns to you flickering, being like, Volkian! Hasmi! You know my name? I do. I know your story. My name is Tysha. I am from a time far later than you know, but where your efforts, your husband's efforts,

our people's efforts, have come to fruition. She looks at you and pauses and sees her husband up there. And you can see rolling out of the woods is this mist that you're calling to you, but you also look and see quite near you how is technicolor, vibrant, filling the forest with light.

You see that Lake Nahami has become made of paint. It is bubbling paint. And you can see that around it, there is a bubble for a second that goes and almost looks like the Loy Estate. And then another one, comes out and almost looks like Howells,

house and the rookery, bubbles up all around you. And on that Nat 20 Nature check, that we have to reward Nat20s. On a Nat 20 nature check, that paint is completely under your control. Sweet. I want to offer my hand to her.

Be at peace. Your husband is coming. Will you help me with a project? Yes. Are you? Are you a witch? Are you a, are you a woman? I'm a druid of the old path.

And you are about to walk it. But there's one thing I would like a little help with first. Yes, Runa, lock down, please. And you see that she starts to call all these other spirits who follow you. Yeah, we're gonna head to Technicolor Lake and start some finger paints. I'm just full Miss Rachel, like time for an art project.

You go and lead and lead these orcs with you to the lake, and they sit down, and you see, Ajmi looks up and says, in your time, what has become of the conqueror? He has gone dead and destroyed. We did not even dream in our wildest dreams. We couldn't have done it. Had you not shown us and built in us a bravery to keep trying. All right.

Then you are free and the land knows peace. Complicated. Almost. There is still so much work to do. But we know the way. It will take work. It always takes work. She looks at the old path and goes,

and you see her flickering towards becoming undead. And she goes, How can we leave if there is work yet to do? Those of us living, it is our time to work. A series of bridges have been built, and what is left is for you to walk them. There is paint here, there is magic here, and I would ask that you walk through,

cover yourself in it and in your passing, cover this place with all of the the color and vibrancy of your life and your love and make it stable. On a nap 20, Taisha, a wall of paint, like a towering wave crests upwards. And you see that the souls of the Rumi-ani push their hands into it,

bright, vibrant color everywhere. And the paint swirls around them, splashing onto the foresh, and suddenly the dark and dreary forest of the underworld is the most vibrant, living, glowing thing you've ever seen. And you look at Hajmi, she looks up and goes, grabs the paint and smears it over her arms and legs

and then fully leaps through it. And the wall sort of collapses in front of her as she leaps through it. And she grows inside. goes in size and the paint looks around and she is beautiful and radiant and tall. And the paint parts and Ajmi steps out of it and turns around and is looking at herself. It's like wispy, translucent, beautiful ghost of a woman who her ghostly self has like tattered garments.

She was like a peasant. And she looks up at this 12-foot-tall, prismatic. It's a rainbow creation, but it's the paint, it's a liquid thing. And as the paint falls, it hits the ground and sizzles with light and sort of small lava lamp, globules of this paint scatter around. It's this glowing effervescent thing

that smiles shimmering green and purple and red radiance, and this enormous version of her whose garments are heroic and beautiful kneels down. And she looks at herself. And she goes, we can't stay. It's your fight, but we can leave. And the 12-foot-tall rainbow angel of her goes, a story. That's all we are in the end. She looks up and you see the 12-foot-tall-tall-sal.

of her rushes up and how in the middle of one of Lashes's moments where he's being stabbed and eviscerated right towards the end of the play, you see that Vokion is like pulled out of him and his wife hurls him through the paint and the same miracle happens. And you see this small family of translucent spirits that get to reincarnate and walk the path and live again. But this massive orkish celestial, which Taisha on that Nat 20, I'll also probably ask Taisha to name, we don't, we've never seen the creation

of a new form of celestial because it's, there's no, you are in the way that like great prophets and religious leaders have new revelations. This is a new revelation of the old path. New angel just dropped. No, no angel just dropped. Because there is something to answer

The answer here, which is the part of me that wants to cling on to life is because I want to keep being of service. I don't want my grandchildren not to have my help. And the miracle of this paint in this moment and of this performance that Hal's troop is giving is that you get to rejoin the world, but what you leave behind is the celestial of your story and what your life meant.

You said that Hal sees this. Seize this. From the wings, he's watching this final moments with Voltaxian and Lash on stage and seeing this miracle happening in the audience. And he can see Tysha illuminated by these two celestial beings and all he can think watching two stories unfold at once is that he could die tomorrow and it would all have been worth it.

Can you name her Kedra? Kedra. There's a, when you are like making new trails in woods. It's like a little bit of like marking you do on the tree in order to like show the path for other people. And Tyches.

That's crazy. That's just, you roll the syllable wheel in your head. You reach to this old, it's a very ancient Winyani word that you know from having studied like ancient nature craft. But there is after all one final wood we must all walk through. And they're making my job easier by making

taking a technicolor flip path through. Like, great. Yeah, you see, I mean, you literally see in this moment the marriage of the druidic tradition of druid craft and bardcraft, of the nature of life and rebirth, which is old and primal and the importance of story, and it comes together in this moment.

And as the cager here, it is genuinely challenging to guide people down a dark and frightening forest. And as these angels surge forward. You see, Vokyan joins his family to bid farewell to the world so that he can be reborn with them and looks at this towering celestial cadre that takes these two enormous axes in his hand and smiles just like rivers of purple and red and yellow and green, like tracing down his face as this endless font of burbling paint. And he goes, Draval will. to live up to your example

as the story points at the man and, whoosh, flies, and almost like the human torch, there's this swirl of glowing paint behind, and races up and outwards. As you see in the wood, Dolmachiar bursts out of the lake. It is a dark and frightening city of the undead. as the geography of the underworld tends to be.

But at the base of that dark and gothic city, its mirror image in the underworld, you see that the hallowed round is a glowing, multicolored beacon, like a heart at the base of the city, and Kedra rush out from it into the city and into the forest. I spend the rest of my time just crying. That's what I do. These new figure is created of those

who must walk the path but wish to leave behind something for those that come after. These people who lived a life and leave an enlightenment and a story and meaning behind them. Kedra rush flying into the city, these trails of pitts hitting the ground, effervescently bubbling and evaporating behind them. And we return to,

and the 10,000 people in the audience don't see none of that shit. That is all happening on a different plane of existence. That's happening in the underworld. Everybody else is just great show. Oh, yeah. You're sick as fuck, you guys. Did we catch any of this?

You guys caught all of that and you can join Tisha in this moment. Oh, boy. Mm-hmm. Do you see what you did? What you helped do. I did the right thing. I think you did.

You sacrificed your own dream so that you can help this wish come true. It's been a long time since I've seen a sacrifice sacrifice, be given, so fully like that. I understand so much more now thanks to you. Language you were speaking. That was the language of my people. Navi Khan, I've all but forgotten most of it.

It's hard to pass things down from one generation to the next sometimes. I haven't seen a dragon in quite some time. There were just a story made up. scare kids. Hmm. Well, sometimes it just filled us with this wonder. I have to tell Tisha.

Tell me what? Hi. Were you there this? Sit down. We're in a theater. There's a play happening. There's more than a play happening. Of course you know that.

Behind you guys you hear, I'm sorry. We saw a dragon. For starters. What? That's where you start? I have to. Okay. And we found an anchor of...

A fay energy. A cavern. It's... You were gone for like 20 minutes. I take out the little piece of moss that I took from the door just for you to have. Thank you. You're a druid. I figured maybe you can eat it.

You can eat it. Yeah, what does it you do? What does it you do? Okay, we have to have a conversation about what we all do as being this one. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's fine. Okay. You all look out and see the play coming to its crescendo

here in this moment. You see Lash, who in the beyond, you can see that as the Kedra have moved out into the end, and as the ritual is coming to a close, you realize once this play is over, you guys will lose the ability like, peer through the veil, right? That, like, that, that peering through the veil is happening

because the space between the underworld and this world is there. It would be real cool because I don't know if you guys can see it. Like, don't worry, it's just a normal play? You guys see it a normal play? Yeah. You see a bunch of ghosts. And Tisha, you can see too. This connection to the dying fields has been created.

But the number of spirits or souls that you saw was finite. It was those Mniani that were involved in, Fokian's revolution and no more than that. And so this is an incredible achievement. But it is very much the beginning of something. There are vastly many more stories to tell. The work of this is not done by any stretch. You also look out and see in that vibrant forest

stretching down the path that begins to be filled with light. It is this path here presently in Dolmachiar. The achievement is profound and cosmic and celestial, but it is a very precious little seed that has just started to grow. And as it grows, you look at and see the cage,ra have also gone off into the forest, and you see it drenched in paint of deep, dark reds and burning oranges. You see those priests whom you condemned that have been basically smeared and covered in and are in the forest just pointing down the path.

Oh, wow. Fucking nerds. You, which is simultaneously fitting punishment and a far kinder fate for them than they were happy to inflict on anybody else. On the stage itself, Lash's final soliloquy begins. He, speaking of paint, his eyes are covered in red stage. as Vokian's eyes have been cut out of his head.

He looks out dying under the tree in the center of the stage. Shadia, as a chorus member, has collapsed across the stage. The painted blade, the pariah blade on the ground beneath her. You could see an uncomfort fall over the crowd as that pariah blade clanged into the ground out of her hand. My baby's so good at acting. You see that a little bit of her.

Lash as Vokion calls out. You will see, all of you will see. One day you will look to the top of the hill, and no longer will Osgra be there. No more will his visage tower over us. You cannot see it, but I can! He calls with his eyes cut out of his head. Look and tell me,

to your eyes not see a free world breaking, just beyond the horizon, horizon. Look! Look! And he points out, and everyone seems to turn to look to see where he's pointing, knowing that at the top of the city of Dolmachia is where Osgra used to sit, and there's a moment where this is going to be kind of like an enjoyable moment of being like, oh yeah, Oscar doesn't sit there anymore. And they turn and look up into the city and see the lights of the Via Aurora, so bright, and the gray tower, its lights dimmed,

and bright lights celebrating the photarchs' resurrection, meaning that at the very top of Dolmachiar, the brightest thing they see are the flags of the sundered houses. The feeling that settles over the crowd in this moment is a deep stomach turning. confusion that settles into something more like rage. What is sitting at the top of this city?

As they turn, Lashes last line, you'll see one day. As he starts to sink, condensed in a tiny moment, Hal is overwhelmed with a feeling of pride in his family. and that word means so much to him. It means Taisha, it means Elity, it means his children. It means every single member of the rookery and now the hallowed round. It means his new, complicated little family of magpies.

It means all the citizens of Dolmachiar. He wishes his son were here. He wishes his brother were here. And watching Lash sink to the ground in the dark, in the wings, quietly speaks resonantly the words, I believe, casting enhanceability, charisma on himself. And Jen, just with the simplest little bit of theater, cantrip. It's not in the play, it wasn't part of any rehearsal.

The rest of the rookery has never seen this happen, but from the wing now twists his hands and almost as if the clouds have parted and revealed in sudden moonlight in the tree, the ancient tree that rises above lashes, a collapsing body at the heart of this place, ancient. The entire audience sees a falcon perched on a branch above the fallen form of Volchjan a single cry, and then its wings explode outward in it. lifts into the air and arcs over the audience

and out over the hills and trees in the distance and only we can see it follow the path and vanish. I'm gonna, yes and you, because also we talked about this before as part of our plan as the falcon, the physical falcons starts to fly up and over the hills from the balcony. Murray is gonna go ahead and do sky right

and throw up the symbol of our magpie falcon. Bird, bird symbol, sky. Falcon takes to the wing, the sky overhead. There is something in this city 10 times as large as the lights of the V-A aurora. And as the falcons wings go over, the lights of the stage dim and return as the chorus stand. and the crowd goes fucking wild.

Flowers, flowers, flowers, flowers, panties, flowers, flowers, flowers. You see that people, in the front row, people are, like, have snot running out of their nose. They were bawling, so you can see that. You look out how everyone in the boxes up here all the way to the nose bleeds, the nosebleeds, people leaning over the nose bleeds, people leaning over the

rooftops of adjoining buildings that are not even the hallowed round are like weeping. And you can see this tension where all of them just were like waiting for something else to happen at the end and are left with this binging energy, this thing of like, no way, he was not supposed to die at the end. That's not what's supposed to happen. And so you watch people instead of having this feeling that this has all somehow resolved this feeling of what do I fucking do with all this energy. And they just go nuts. Let's feed that energy. Yes. There was that call lightning that Hannan did that I like opened the radius on. I want thunder

as they're starting to get loud. Let's make the city loud. And you see up at the concession stand, All good, crying harder than anybody else. I'm going. Oh my God. We're not going to have to shut down. We're profitable. Oh, God, I have a job. See, and you see that there's flowers. Curtain calls, Lafax takes a bow,

and everyone begins to clap and asks for you to come out on stage. Okay, Hal moves to the center of the stage, carrying an old Rognani loot and walks to the center of the stage. Wigs with lice. Mm-hmm. Yes.

I got my wigs with lice on. And I plant the base of it on the ground with my hands on the top. Rangani, friends, and all good folk of Dolmachiar, if I may. Good tidings to you all. The hallowed round is doubly blessed for your kinship here this night. Because we gather in this storied place, History lives and breathes. So on behalf of my family of talented mischief makers,

my eyes trail across this little group in the crowd. Thank you. Our gratitude knows no end. Now in a few moments, our company will shed their glimmers like a dream and join you all to celebrate tonight. I encourage you all to share in wine and song first on the steps of the hallowed round, but then we will carry this magic back to the city.

Tell your friends, tell your neighbors. Faith has returned to Dol Machiar, not in kings, not in creed, but in the hearts of all folk free and fair. And then he lifts the lute up. rapidly and strumps his hand down hard and begins a centuries-old Rangani folk song that everyone in this fucking audience recognizes and strides out amongst the people playing.

And then the musicians of the hallowed round jump on in and suddenly the theater is alive with music and singing. In incredible. People are drinking. Is your intention for the, you see, Nevada goes out, Oh, we did it. Lash, oh, Lash, beautiful boy. You only made, I counted maybe less than five mistakes.

And you see that she, she says, are we having the after party here? Are we going to Caravan Hill? Are we going to the rookery? Where are we going? Nevada, get him up, grab a bottle. We're taking it on the road. All right, let's get drunk. You see that she wanders off, and you guys begin to just, a party procession begins to pour out into the city streets.

You see, Rameenie. looks over at you and goes, oh my God, lash! You were amazing, I brought flowers. You see, if anyone here has any, is anyone who had to detect magic or anything else like that up at this end of the play? No, have my scene visibility still up. Cool, see invisibility is fine.

You guys, you're heading out, and you guys watch that special moment. This was a, again, Tasha, you have witnessed like a druidic revelation. Something new has happened in your ancient faith for the first time here. But the specialness of this evening, as Murray says that this play's gonna be a hit.

Murray's, our diviner foretold, that veil closes, which is a good thing. It is safer to keep these planes planer, right? However, your ability to see onto the other side ends with the ending of this play. You don't know if it will pick up again in another play or not or whatever it is, but for right now, harmony once again exists between the waking world

of Aramon and the other side in the underworld. But with a presence on that other side, like the underworld has never seen before. And within that, you all head out, start merrymaking and- I think that, like, Hal has made his way up the hill. And as he gets the, his intention here is to try to rabble rouse and get everybody in a good mood,

but also, as Tisha said, harness what's going on in this audience. And by the time I crest the top of the seating, on the loot, I start to weave in threads of broken wing mixed into this ancient Rangyang folk song. And I want to pie. this horde of people through the streets of Dolmockyard. Hell yeah. Do you have a neighborhood in mind? Are you trying to stay close to the theater, which would be like Caravan Hill or the fray? Or are you heading all the way

up through the whole fucking city? I think that we will go up one side because there's bridges that pass over the water up the middle, right? Yeah. So we will go all the way up to within side of the Loy Estate and and then cross over a bridge and explode through the streets and alleys of the rookery, the taverns, the bars there. Hell yes, great. Can I do one more bit of paint magic before we go?

Yes, absolutely. I guess it'll probably look a little like graffiti over Shadio's beautiful murals, but as high up as I can, underneath where you can see the Vio Aurora, like, from this stage, I just want to write the words in Runeani, remember. Ooh, hell yes. Great, great. I love that. Rozez deep. Just sobbing.

Just sobbing. Just sobbing. I fucking love. I have so much alcohol, my girls. Come to my house, let's go. Her beard is soaking wet. She's just holding hollow. Give me an investigation rolls to do that,

and anyone else wants you give me a perception role. Oh, shit. Yeah. Perception? As soon as I see these people leaving, there's something else like, clicks in with me, it makes me a little bit worried for their safety. Cool. And I, the moment I let my guard down to take this wondrous moment in,

starts to fade away, and I'm going to draw my shield, and I will cast a detect magic. Great. And I will become a, a, Marshal again. Dirty 20. Dirty 20. Dirty 20, Azuna, you have detect magic up. On a dirty 20, you put remember on that part of the wall up there. I think Azune, you see that in Rumiyani, but still the word remember. On that, Dirty 20, you feel, because you are a healer, there is a life force within the people leaving this place

that is hard to explain. It is, the people here are filled with an energy leaving from the hallowed round. Azune, the pariah blade that Shadia, sort of she's has a powerful magic on it that you can actually see is unlike what it. You saw it many times in the Arcanade. There's a new magic on it.

I think on that detect magic and on that dirty 20, the commoners leaving this place, I'm gonna give it to you in game terms, but Tisha doesn't understand it in game terms. Every commoner leaving this place has about 40 temporary hit points. Oh. Oh.

God, just give me some. Some motherfuckers in mint rocking up. Please. You, you, Ah! They, they, Hugh. Hitch forks abound. Bruh.

Oh, good. You also on that detect magic, everyone, who can me, give me perception checks anyone who wants to. And you can do so with advantage with detect magic. 23. Let's go.

Not good. I can't see through my runny mascara. Mm-hmm. Mm-mm. 25. 25. Eight. Okay, Tisha, you clock this as well,

and I think, but again, off of the detect magic happening here, Phalas, on 23, you see it as well. First of all, fairies are leaving, but they are not following into the city. They are rushing out the ferry doors in the back towards Tintazi wood. Whoa! And you see that a tiny little pixie,

there is a tiny little naked, long-eared, one-inch tall guy guy wearing an acorn hat and no other clothes. Tiny little gossamer wings flies up to you and goes, will you be our queen? And then leaves before you answer. You see that he forgot what he asked the moment he was done asking. Wow.

But also in the 23, Tysha and Vailas, you both see some of the paint in the theater is moving. A tiny two-dimensional painted chameleon with a small, a small painted mask in its mouth is crawling along the ground. And the veil is already closed. This is really happening on the stage.

And goes and jumps. It can't leave the floor, so it's jump, is it just moving along the ground? Very like Mario T-D-scroller. It's right, it jumps, you see it jumps onto a box marked extra wigs, maybe lice, and jumps inside.

towards the coffin that you delivered from here, which is still here in this room. Whoa. I do like the snap point to see if anyone sees what I see. Yep. I see. Let's go. I'm gonna go. I'm gonna go. Oh, hell, told me not the touchdown.

I'm fucking running. Running. Yeah. Cool. You go and run and see that there is a painted chameleon and holding a painted version of Boler's mask in its mouth that is crawling on the outside of the coffin of Allblad. Hey, buddy.

You good? The mask opens its mouth and goes, Ah, I'm Bolet. What? What? Okay, interesting. Are you, for real? I'm Bolair.

Okay. If you says it one more time, it must be true. Yeah. You know what? Insight check. You know what? Here's the thing. I can see it.

Yeah, I know. Unfortunately, if he said he was anyone but Belair, I'd be like, no, but maybe. Hope it was kind of weird. Yeah. 15? Might be Buller. Hey, bud, why are you flat?

Master, always flat. Let me in the box. Um, shit, that's a really good reason. and I don't want to let you in yet. Why are you outside of the box? Why, why are you not a man with a bad wig? What? My wig's good, I'm Boleer.

I do believe this is Boer now. The chameleon drops the mask and goes, I'm figment. Let me in the box. Figment? Let me in the box. Can I grab the mask? You go to grab the mask.

You poke it. It's dried paint, so you poke it, and you see the mask goes, ow, I'm bolder. You see the mask, you see that the mask and the chameleon both sort of lean their heads against each other and say, let us in the box, we're good.

No, that feels like that shit. I think the load in the paint might be having an effect on us. Yeah. Okay. Why don't you just come with, and I want to rip the cardboard off and take it with me. and be like, let's go over here,

and then we'll go in the box later. Oh, do you wanna lure them off the coffin onto a piece of cardboard? Yeah. Give me a persuasion check. Gene, please come with me. Baller, my friend. You can physically pick up the coffin

and move it if you would like, but... Blair would say not to touch this. Belair may or may not be here now. I grab it and should take it. You pick it up and it's fine. You've traveled with it before. It's still closed. The pain is on the underside of it.

You see as you begin to move it, you see that Boller looks at the chameleon and goes, oh no, they don't want us to do it. And they sort of move around to the underside of the coffin. No, no. But they're stuck on. Are they stuck on the outside? They can't get inside. Okay, I'm going to keep rolling it so I've got eyes on them the whole time.

Great. Is the mask still in the mouth of this lizard? As they need to move, the lizard picks up the mask in its mouth and begins to move it. It doesn't seem that the mask has the ability to move itself on the coffin. Do you want to hold that? They keep. I mean, I will scrimscrimble. So you can be busy with...

What am I doing? I don't know. Okay. And with that, as you get this coffin. It's like, you just smashed the Stone of Night Song and now you're responsible for some other ancient psychopomp relic. I'm sorry hanging out with me is weird. What's the best actually?

This is no birds flying out. You guys fought, the procession is leaving. You guys head out. There are some staff that are quickly, uh, start cleaning up and you see Old Good says, We can clean up tomorrow, come out and have a drink. We'll take care of it later. The halbering around begins to leave.

You guys take the coffin of Obelad, and we are gonna move from this table to our friends at Obermus Manor. We return to Obermus Manor, where Thimble is trying to find Teor Pride Sire. I'm gonna save him. You're gonna save him. Our friends Octus Taconas and Julian Devinos have feather-fold,

assuming that Thimble would come right behind them. But before that, Having concluded our first round of the areas that you guys traveled to in the manner, we are going to roll for overall threat, as we said before, correct? So I would like everybody here to roll a D8 for me. I will roll for Teor and Sid,

and I would like you guys to, oh, they, having triggered one of the undead crypts absolutely count even in death as- That makes sense. So we're gonna roll D-8s, and I just want you to let me know if you roll a one. A two, a two.

No, seven. Five. Okay, I'll roll for Teor and Sid. This one is for Sid. That is a seven. And we will roll for Teor. Teor, come on. Teore got a one.

Tairor is unlucky. That is true. You do not have to roll, but it is gonna degrade to a D6, and Tayor and Sid, having been in the same scene, are going to roll next. If we get a one on either of these rolls, it keeps cascading.

Six. That was almost one. Two. Oh, come. Okay, we stop. However, the next time this roll occurs, you'll all be rolling D-6s. Okay.

Okay. Yeah. I'm fine, everything's fine. The threat level has increased in the house, but is not as bad. Basically, a one on a D4 means all of the Takonis immediately are home. Right. Cool.

Okay. Yeah. Wicks distracting them. Just keep distracting them, Wick. Octus, you have the unconscious body of Mara the wing. I am currently holding in one hand. You have Julian a stack of papers taken from Coral's room as well as your sister's wraith jam. Correct.

Octus, you land on the street after Featherfall, look up, some shape has just thundered onto the roof of Obermus Manor, I need a Constitution saving throw from you. Oh, okay. That would be a 21. A thundering pain surges where your heart should be as you feel a fiery strike and a feeling of something shattering

as you land on the ground. On a 21, you are not immediately destroyed. Octus just, like, it lands and sits on the ground and... Octus, what's wrong? Something is burning inside me. I just kind of keep my gauntlet at the ready and just kind of pull back the coat to see if there's anything visibly different. Give me a perception check.

Let's be 15, actually. Nope. 12, sorry, I misread the die. You, sorry, 15 or 12. It's 12, 12, 12. You look and don't, there's no heartbeat in there. Octus is experiencing a moment of really visceral pain. As the visceral pain begins to fade, Octus, you begin to feel that the pain passing almost feels

like not an arrow going in but one coming out. There's a feeling that something that was of tremendous risk or danger to you has actually been unmade. Good, we gotta go. Looks up. Seas Thindle, Seas Thimble has not followed them down. Have you flown back in?

Yeah, I remember I said I was really sneaky. Oh, I ain't going. She didn't. Julian about five steps away, stops and turns. What are you doing? She didn't come with us. Who? Thimble.

She's hard to see, she's quick. She's quick. She didn't follow us. down. That's her choice. We have to go now. We have what we need. I'm not... I'm not going to leave her. But you want to go back and die as well. If anyone's going to live in there, it's going to be me. She's going to, she doesn't know her way around. I'm not going to let you walk back into the hands of your family for whatever dire purpose they have still abuse of you. Look, take Mara, bring her back to everybody. I will go get the old. Mara's not even my charge. I don't give a shit about what

the Ozzie's friends were. I got what I need. I helped you out. It's It's not my thought that she went jet back in there to go ahead and sacrifice her suddenly to sleep. Then why do you need me? Why do you care? I get the sense that your family is not done with your usefulness. And I don't want them to get their hands on you

before we understand what that is. Well, I'm sorry if that doesn't make me want to follow you. I am going to go and I'm going to get the one of two people that care about me. in this world. And I'm going to find her, and I'm going to bring her out of there. She is not dying in my family's house. Tair was a soldier. He knew the risks. If he can't make his way out of there, he will die a soldier's death. Thimble, she's an example of why the rebellion failed in the first place.

This foolhardiness gets each one of them killed. They have to think with your head. You have a big brain in there, supposedly still, right? Use it. And what the fuck is that on the roof? You, as you say that, you see that the thing on the roof leaps off and lands in the courtyard as lightning crashes around the house. It's not something my family can do, or at least not something I know they can do. Look, I understand that you have this vendetta

against my family, and I understand that you don't want them to get me because I may have some part of their puzzle piece of their planet. I understand all of these things. I am not. I am tired of trying to placate your anger towards me. I am tired of trying to do the things that I think you want me to do so you'll stop trying to kill me. I am tired of pretending I give a shit about you.

Go. Do whatever you're going to do. Save your sister. I helped you with that. Take that stone. Go get your sister. I am going to get thimble. I start to turn around.

to walk towards the gate. You're walking towards the gate that you guys. To the wall, which we jumped over to find a way back in. Gotcha, great, great, great. Julian. As they said my piece. I'm gonna go ahead and follow behind him.

Kind of step as he's beginning to approach, to say, I never asked for you to care about me. I don't care that you don't give a shit about me. Do what you gotta do, but you're not leaving my sight. I'm gonna go ahead and activate the boots of the hair. How far up is the... the wall. It's about 18 feet straight up. 18 feet straight up.

Well with the boots of the hair, I can jump 30 feet. Yes, that's correct. And I'll pull out a piece of, I'll scroll down, geez, pulling out a piece of, oh no, it doesn't require it. A little drop of a liquid in a spider in this vial I pour it in my hand and I cast a spider climb by myself. Amazing.

Hair's charm, spider climb, up the wall. I need a stealth check from both of you. 17. 15. Thank you. What about Mara? Mara's going back into Oberma's Manor. 17 is the higher of the two. Group stealth check will go with 17.

I'm just checking a number of different passive perceptions. Both of you will light to the top of the wall, look down. I do look before I go over the top. I look to see whatever that thunder strike was to peer over the top of the wall. Give me a perception check. Difficulty 12. 15.

You see Hannon in the courtyard walking up to the main gate of Obermas Manor. Shit, Hennon's here. Great. More help, then. I'm gonna. Um. Thimble, we cut to you.

You did not get a high enough investigation check, but it was not too terribly low. You are flitting down trying to find your way back into the crypts, specifically where you think Taur and Sid were headed. You find yourself flitting through a place closer to the front gate actually. You get down there very quickly, but all of a sudden,

hear footsteps and have to dart into a side area on that high stealth roll. You are in a dark office, but not supernaturally dark. And you look around, give me a perception check as you get in here. 15. 15. You flip into an office,

you realize this is sort of the central, stately office of Oberus Manor, the main study. And looking around, it's not a weird secret ritual crypt. That shit's all underground. But you do see a large book open with schematics for ships on it. As you do, you hear footsteps,

a clanking of armor, you hear voices, and a woman's voice, stately regal speaks out and says, Nausha, we're under attack. The gate guard is dead. What do you mean we're under it? The gate guard is dead.

Coral is dead. There are infiltrators in the house this very instant. Do you understand? Lightning strikes outside. You see that she looks out and says, That divinous beast in the crypt has awakened.

That was the roar we heard earlier. Send word at once to Primus and the children. They cannot come home by wagon or carriage. They have to fly. You hear her speak out. There is a thud of something landing in the courtyard. She goes, what in the name of the dead shapers is this? She says, Naus, at once.

Primus, here immediately, the children. And you hear footsteps running. Her voice speaks out and you hear her speaking saying, Forsaken souls of the accursed dead, heed my words, and serve at the pleasure of the house of death. We are under a- Shit, it's so much harder. You feel the temperature drop about 15 degrees in the house

and looking at the crack in the doorway, about four or five dozen shadows. those beings from before, from the first crypt you fought it. Those ones are really bad. Fliot out, she goes, Shades of the Akusa dead, kill anything not of the house Taconas that you find. And they move out from her as boom, boom, boom,

a fist bangs on the door. She goes, coming, and turns around as she does. she opens the door and at this point now, by the way, we are not in, so you hear all of that occur. So shadows are moving. No one has come up to this thing yet, but you are in an important room that anyone might come into at any moment.

You hear her go, hello, you weren't announced by the gate guard. I did not come through the gate. I am a Hanon of the circle of the hunt. It is my understanding that a member of my order is being kept here against her will. You see, she goes, oh, we had no word of your arrival. You said, Han, you are, I am a druid of the old path.

Do I know Hannan? Hanon got mentioned in the big meeting. Yeah, but I didn't ever meet him, right? He didn't never. He wasn't there in the big meeting. He was not there in the big meeting. You guys are seeing this interaction occur. So you're seeing it from wait.

You guys are probably, 160 feet away from this. You guys are way the fuck across the courtyard. You're hearing it from the- While I'm hearing it, is there a second exit from this, is she in this office with me? She's at the front gate now, so I can potentially get out of this room.

You could potentially get out of this room. Let me answer your question. Hold on a second. Cool, leave, leave. She's with, jump off the, jump off the gate. She's within eyesight if you leave this door. Okay. So it's a stealth,

to get out of the room you're in. And there's no other exit from this. No other exit from this study. Okay. This study leads out to a small balcony with stairs that go down and the balcony that the single door faces looks at the front gate of the Manor.

And the book that I'm looking at, is it like hand-drawn schematics? Is it like, or is it like basic bitch stuff that I could find at a library? This is extraordinarily exquisite, hand-drawn runes and arcane shit around ship. Okay. I'm gonna try to rip out some pages. Hell yeah, give me a sleight of hand.

As you are, you like take out a small little fairy knife and begin to carve the pages off. 19. Ooh, hell yeah. You carve through, you look at this book, like, you don't know what this book fucking says, but there's only about eight pages that have drawings of ships on it, and you grab those eight pages, fold them up, and that's like a spear on your back.

Is this, you see that, you see that, that Hanan speak, as you're doing that, Hanukton used to speak going, may I come in and retrieve the member of my order? You see that, you see, he says, and to whom do I speak? She goes, I am the lady Trimus, Taconas. I'm tending to the house during my stay here

in Dolmachiar. Are we, the woman of whom you speak? Yes. I'm flying up to the doorway, peeking out while they're talking. You're peeing out, you guys up on the wall, as this is occurring as well. You're hidden in your current stealth check in this moment.

I'm not moving, now seeing that there's people looking at the, I'm not going over the wall. I'm staying in this spot where I'm looking over the wall, watching what's happening. Is her back to me is what's happening? Her back is to you currently. There may be undead present that you cannot see. Those ghosts appeared out of nowhere up above,

but her back is to you. Once her back is turned, if she chooses to come into this room, who knows what the fuck happens. Right. When her back is turned, I'm gonna try to get out of this room. Give me a stealth check. 18. Let me see.

Two aside. You're so small. I'm so little. I'm so very, very little. 18. Okay. Ooh, 18. That's such a funny role.

Okay. Why? Well, because the Necromancer does not see. but the druid in the doorway with a very high wisdom score does. Okay. So you dart out. I'm gonna make eye contact with Hannon as I come out of the door.

He makes eye contact with you. Now he's gonna have to make a deception check opposed by Trimus's insight. I'm gonna roll, I'm gonna keep it spicy and roll in front. This is Hannon's deception. 17 plus one is 18. Great. You want Trimus to roll a nine or lower.

Oh, fuck me. Hannon clocks you. What do you communicate with your face to Hannon? He darts. Hanon turns around and she says, she says, as you say that, Trimus is speaking to Hannon, he darts looking at you, shrugs,

looks back, realizing he doesn't want to give you up. But you see that he, Trimus speaks to him and goes, oh, a member of your order, I'm sure I wouldn't know. Oh, we had, there was an awakened beast that was attempting to steal from our home that we've captured. Is that, could that be? And you see he goes, he makes a role here. And you see, you see,

You can see on Hannan's face that in his head, he's like, fuck, Mara does love to steal. You know, like, he has that moment, and she says, but I'm unsure. And he goes, may I enter your home? I would like to see this captured. You see that TriMus goes, I am so sorry. My family bears a tremendous curse.

Our home is very largely haunted. The barrier between you. between the genebraal reaches and the waking world of Haramon is quite thin here. It is not safe for guests to travel in this place. You see Hannan stand tall and go, would you like me to fix that? And you see she goes, uh, oh, he says,

you described it as a curse. I would be more than happy to heal your family's curse. She goes, I. He goes, he goes, You're here in the free city of Dolmachiar, a noble, sundered house. Obviously, people often misunderstand your house's gifts. You are not commanders of armies of the undead,

but simply fairy souls from one side to the other. I would hate to think of you being cursed in such a manner. You don't have any undead servants here in the house, do you? And you see, she looks and goes, nothing of the kind. And he goes, well, you're worried for my safety and you've been kind enough to warn me. I am waiting for you to produce someone that it sounds that a member of my order

may have wronged your house. The Circle of the Hunt recognizes the august membership in a free society of the House of Taconas. So why don't you produce the prisoner and I'll get started fixing this abominable rift you've just mentioned? And you see she goes,

That sounds lovely. And he goes, very well, please don't bother me during my ministrations, just produce the prisoner and I'll get to her when I'm done. And you guys watch hand and walk out into the courtyard, put his hands to the side. Enormous claws grow from his hands. As the bird mask lowers, he crouches,

and circles of vines begin to grow through the white stone courtyard. And he goes, those things, which are dead had best remain in the state to which life has judged them now. And he hears, you all hear thunderous clattering of bones disanimating throughout the house. And Thimble, you see the shadows lessen in their severity.

As he begins to cast this lengthy ritual. To my horrible chagrin, Does this affect me at all? You are an honest man. That was my first thought. No, it does not be, it does not affect you in this moment. You basically, you can see that this ritual is going to probably take the better part of an hour. And in addition to that, as he's doing it, the very first thing to go are skeletons.

Like those things are, They're all undead, but the difference between a skeleton and a ghost is miles. A skeleton is like honestly half telekinesis. Right. It's like, yeah, as an undead spirit, barely. We all know this. We all know this.

With that, so give me your stealth check as your, oh no, you already did. You got your 18. So you can, as you see him begin to turn away from that interaction with trimest, You can dart off wherever. And as you dart, you see, as he begins this powerful ritual, do it.

The circle of the hunt is the hunt and kill undead circle. Everything that made that first interaction with Octus so dangerous is now rapidly becoming a little bit better. As you go downstairs, the difficulty of the investigation check is now only a 10. Okay. Because as you go down, your natural fairy light can now penetrate. The darkness is no longer magical darkness down there. Oh.

You literally watch your family's worst nightmare. This guy is going, you told me you got a rip to the underworld. Happy to take care of that for you. That's literally my job. As much as I want to tell Hanan that we have what he's looking for, I think we should let him to continue to do this. He's severely damaging my family's estate. It's good to know.

Where is Thimble? She's upstairs. If she stayed in the room, she was in. She's got to go down the hall and then downstairs. But as soon as she gets to where we were, she won't be able to see. It'll be completely black and she can't carry a candle. But I can now. I can see. I can see. I don't know that.

But I can. We'll stay as long as we can before it becomes too dangerous and we have to flee. With Han and here, the whole building's going to be on alert. There's no way we're getting in that house without someone seeing us. Right, which is why we don't go into the house. We wait until she shows up, at least if it's any time soon. And if it starts getting too hairy, we run. There's only so much time before my family gets home.

Thimble, go ahead and give me an investigation check. No. How could I make this higher? It's not a 10. It's a 9. It's a 9. It's a 9. Do I have any?

Did I, didn't wait, I had like a hero dice or something that somebody gave me, like there was something. Did Hal give you a bardic inspiration at some point several episodes ago? Liam! No, I can't remember. I will, I'll throw it to lore. If lore feels like there was a dye,

you guys can let me know if, if, uh, uh, uh, bartic for thimble question mark. But for you guys on the wall, we'll cut to you for a minute. What are you doing in this moment? We can't stay perched on the wall, it's obvious. Do you want to go to the window? If she's about to come back,

would that be the point of exit? I think so. At least it'll put us somewhere. People won't be immediately looking for us. Then let's get there. Okay. Where are you headed to? Over the edge of the wall, up the side of the building,

to be kind of perched outside of the window that we came out of. Okay, got it. With both, and I can be kind of spidered up there. I'm going to go just slightly into that window. Okay. To just look, just in case there's a dead thimble in there that got caught by something on our exits.

Give me a stealth check as you guys get back up to the window of that aviary. 18. 17. 18, 17, great, cool. You guys, waiting for the lightning to crash and then that return to darkness to like get up, bam. You guys get up back hiding into the corner of the aviary there. Mara like slung over your shoulders.

Mara is, there's a million pockets in the inside of my Kofa spell components and Mara has been like tucked inside. She's not, she's that little. She can be in a pocket. She's like, yay big, but I've got a bunch of things in there. I'm giving a reason. I've got one-handed climb.

I don't think I do. I think it was a nine. I think it was a nine. I think it's a nine. I think it's a nine. Thimble, darting through the house is as fast as you can. That's your investigation. Give me a stealth check for that travel through.

You make it out of the door, but I want another stealth check as you move through. Okay, that's really great. That's a 26. You are taking advantage of the lack of tennebral gloom. You pop your way out and see you are in, looking at a window in the back of a kitchens, gazing at a garden, and you can see the garden

in this place has three statues of beautiful gnomish warriors. supposed to be. That's where Tehr was supposed to be, and you can tell he didn't make it here. The door never opened. Teir did not make it to this location. You look out and can see several ghouls moving out and taking those crates sold with straw. They pick up the statues, put them in the crates, and begin to hammer the boxes. And you see that one of the ghouls doubles over and pulls into out out of a thorny vines out and shows it to another ghoul. Like, Look at this shit.

This is so bad. Okay, so I know he's not there, so maybe he never made it out of the Crips. At the end of this, if you want to take another, you can go back in the direction, back to the Crips to keep trying to look for him if you can. I'm going to need rolls on the D6 from the three of you. Oh, Jeeves.

Three. Three. Three. I'm going to roll one for Hannon. That's a one for Hanon. He's by himself. I'm going to roll on a D4, but the next roll will be on D4s. That's a one.

That's it then. They're here. Because of Hanon? Because of Hanon? A little bit of a ruckus. He is, but he's there. Okay. You know what?

I will rule that this resolves in the middle of this next scene. Okay. So Fimble, go out. Go ahead, give me investigation difficulties 10. This is great. This is a 20. Incredible. Um, um, thimble.

Give me stealth. This is a 15. Um, ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-chun. One second, so... I got too happy with my light working. I turned it on a little too high, didn't I? I think so. How does your family traveling?

and moments of the rest. With Hanon here, they will have sent a messenger some way to communicate to them, and I, do you remember when my sisters were flying? I immediately looked at the horizon. I'll give you perception. Eight. You look to the horizon.

Stormy weather, hard to see. Say I will also be looking, because I'm also perched up here. That is a 17. 17, got it. Okay. 17, perception. Yes. There are forms streaking through the storm clouds

straight here. They're coming. I can see them. We have to go. We have to go. Fimble. Racing down, the chamber of gloom gone, flitting down on that 17, or so the 15, you move through a room and alighting into the rafters,

staying hidden in the shadow, in the shadows, swaying zombies, dead members of houses DeVinos and Royce. You recognize some of these faces, and you see the monstrosity of Raymond DeVinos, missing an arm tattered to threads by the mighty blows of the Pride Sire brothers. You literally flit in through the bars

of a door into this crypt, and see these undead figures unaware that there is anything living to kill here, just swaying, facing the door, past them, and you see the fading motes of light from the bodies of Teor. An insight check and give me a perception check. Insight is 15. Perception is 25. Symbol.

Outside, you hear thudding on the ground. Something is just, changed. The level of risk here was already so great that Teor is dead on the ground. You can see his body. In the dim, flickering light of whatever sputtering arcane symbols still glow with green necromanic light. That level of risk that killed Teor is but a fraction in the face of the risk that now just landed in the courtyard outside. However, on a 25 perception, The scroll of the torn banner has been shoved into Raymond DeVinos' undead chest. He is a monstrosity that destroyed Teor and Sid, and they're not even done building him. And right now, he is in tatters, but still animated. In that room, Te'er and Sid's dead bodies are there. but you also can feel a powerful, magical pulse.

It's impossible to say what it could be, but there is something of very left in that room. There are no friend's lives to save here, and every second counts. You might die here in the dark like your friend did. But also, there is chance here in this space. Raymond is almost destroyed. And there is something of Teor's within that room

that calls to you of your lost homeland. How big is the room? This anti-chamber is probably, I would say, 50 feet long and about 30 feet wide. And the smaller chamber that currently only has Reimonde's sort of hull walking mass standing within it. So the zombies have returned to that anti-chamber,

and Riemond is standing there near the dead bodies of Taur and Sid in that other space. And that is a smaller chamber. You saw that chamber in front of T'or. I want to try to attack him. I want to fly in and attack him. If I can stop it from coming to fruition, I'm going to do it. I'm going to need you to roll initiative.

It's okay, unless you're just looking for him and coming straight back, right? I absolutely believe that. Unbelievable. I keep renaming this encounter. It started as Obramus, and then when it got worse, I changed it to Obramost. And this one is called Obramess.

Okay. Can I have snuck in close enough that I can get the drop on him? You're still in hiding. So even as we roll initiative, it doesn't mean that you're spotted. Okay. Right?

So these zombies are in the outer chamber. Okay. What the fuck am I talking about? What? There's no zombies in the outer chamber. They have collapsed into heaps of corpses. Amazing. Wow, this is very different. Is he heard as well from that spell? No, he's a, he's far too powerful.

Okay. But the zombies are, let me make sure. Yeah, zombies, I was gonna say, if zombies were challenge rating one half, they would not be destroyed yet, but they are identical to skeletons. They're challenge rating one quarter. They're toast.

Okay. So. It's good to know I'm not a zombie. Yeah. So, oh brother. Okay. Thimble, what did you roll for initiative? I rolled a 17.

17. 17. I am gonna roll for General Raymond Davinos. 17. He adds just plus two to this, so you wanna see a 15 or lower. But I'm hiding. 10. Okay, great, great, great. Fimble.

It is your turn, you are outside this area here. Okay. So it's your turn. You can give me a, tell me if you want to make a stealth check, you can do that as a bonus action. You let me know what you're doing. How close am I to him?

So I wouldn't be able to get to him with my move, right? Would I? If I'm like hiding and trying to get close enough to attack him before he sees him. I think you're probably 40 feet out here. Okay. So you might have to take a round to move,

but it's just you and him acting right now. Okay, I'm sneakily moving to, I get close enough. Give me a stealth check. 29. 29 gets you into the room, in the shadows right here. You're four inches tall, and you can see that his eyes are currently sloughing into his ribcage from this sort of, again, like fleshy head.

You two on the wall. You start moving out. Yeah, are you moving out at this point? Yeah, we have to. We have to go. We can't be here when they arrive. She's going to have to find her way out. and I fucking hate this.

I'm going to need a DC, I'm gonna need a strength saving throw from Julian. It's five. As you go to leave, Octus, Julian goes to leave, passing out lightning flashes, and Julian's shadow extends behind him into the manner, and your shadow grabs your chest and begins to pull you down the stairs into Obermas Manor.

What is happening? Down the stairs. Turn around, to come back up to the window. Okay, you go back up to the window. I need you both roll an initiative for me. Oh my God. Oh my God. Natural 20.

Yes. Great. Nice. Seven, which makes sense for being dragged down the stairs. Okay. I am going to... 29. I'm going to roll a perception. check on Raymond DeVinos' turn. The sort of necrotic Hulk of him doesn't know he's in combat. And I'll let you know right now he's got a hit a Nat 20 to see you.

But we still have to roll. 12 does not see you. Fimble, that is... Or sorry, Octus, that's your turn. Okay, coming back in through the window and I see him, do I just see him going down the stairs? Like, am I catching the tail, like his feet going down? Yes.

Okay. Hingbis going. I just use my full movement to go. towards to see what's happening, because I don't know what's happening. He's just being dragged in. Following him down. You being, yeah, you follow him down as fast as you can.

You can see Julian's shadow is wrestling him down the stairs as fast as it can. Okay. If I can still have my action. Yeah, go for it. Are you, I see a shadow holding onto Julian. Then I would assume it is one of the shades in the house in this moment. It just for a brief moment, so I will firebolt,

about the shadow. Give me an tackle. That is a, 40, 15, 16, 17, 18, 8,000, 22. 22 hits, go ahead and roll damage. 2 to 10. That is gonna be, oh my God, that is 16 points of fire damage. Jesus. Julian, the grapple is broken. You see that Octus whom hurls fire out,

just like you did in Tanisar. And the shadow, the illumines, more than the heat, it's the illumination, just whom, and the shadow is dispelled. Get back up here. You stand up. Thimble, that is your turn. How far away from him am I?

You are 20 feet away from him. Got this, you got this, you got this. Okay, how much movement do I have? I want to be close. Okay, listen, I'm gonna get like, I'm gonna attack him. Great. I'm gonna attack him.

He is, as I said, he has not had a chance to rest since his fight with Teor, hit points are hit points. He can do enough damage to kill you in one hit. And that's the stakes here. Okay, look. And what's his reach? Can I tell? What is like? Mele.

Reach is melee. Reaches melee. Like a 10 foot, a five foot? Well, he also has movement. No, I know. How high are the ceilings? About, oh, the ceilings in this room are not high enough for you to be able to.

Fly up and away from him. So when you take a swing at him, you'll be somewhere near enough to ground level for him to hit. Attacking from hiding does confer advantage. Yeah. And sneak attack. Yeah. And sneak attack.

Doesn't, correct me if I'm wrong, your fancy footwork allows you to disengage after an attack. Sure, yeah. But he's still gonna chase me. Yeah. All right, all right. I'm gonna attack him with advantage, because I'm coming from. Thimble, this is very brave.

Very dumb. That's a 26 to hit. 26 is a hit. You will roll sneak attack damage. Got any of them desperate measures you wanna spend? I don't think you're wounded enough to have any. Yeah, I don't- Oh, right? Oh, yeah, you have to be half, right? Yeah, funny.

Okay. I bet that's nice. Both of us were just looking. Correct. Three. 19, no, 19 points of damage on the first hit. You surge forward. You said 19 points of damage.

With 13 hit points left. How do you want to do this? Holy shit. Holy shit. I'm gonna see the scroll sticking out from his chest, and I'm gonna fly into the chest cavity and up the head. Come up.

Through the rotting flesh and brittle skull. And as I like, I'm gonna just like touch the banner as I like go up as I. The torn banner is not all. The banner flies. And the general who opposed Teor in undephth but who in life permanently

altered his relationship to his son because the honor of the house de Vinos was divided those opposed to the Falconer's rebellion and a general who would be horrified to know that he had killed Teor Pridesire. You do not destroy Raymond Devinos. You free him. Blood sprays.

The chamber fills with light. You have risked certain death if he had gotten a single turn. And as he collapses to the ground, the terrible work of House Taconas is ruined. This figure will not become stronger as they complete him and will not seek to destroy his son

in undead abomination of his life. The banner flies. The sword of House de Vinos, Spretzer Tura clatters to the ground, no longer held by this abominable thrall of House Taconas. You look and see the bodies of Teor and Sid. You feel in your heart that it's awful.

You're four inches tall. They can't be left here in the dark like this, and there's nothing you can do. You've just defeated this undead monstrosity. There's nothing you can do here in this moment, except that part of the death bone structure that we didn't go into last time, because I didn't think anyone was gonna come

find Tayor's body, is that in addition to granting another character, one of your abilities, you can also choose an ally to instantaneously attune to a magical item of yours. Teor chose Thimble, to instantly attune to that fairy presence you felt, which are the bracers of Oak and Birch, which means your strength is now 19.

Fimble, light. Yoked. Fimble, light fills the room. And I would like you to describe if you'd be so kind in this moment of triumph here in the dark bowels of Obermiss manner, your fifth level ability that we have not gotten to see yet, here in this moment, because the braces have to,

they can't fit on you at the size that you are. Oh my God. So somewhere else, the stone of Nightsong has broken, and as Hannan's ritual eases the teneprile gloom, that distant cave at the shore of Lake Nahami, you are filled with fairy light. You feel an anchor to the world of fairy quite close nearby. And with motes of light like you always saw coming

off of Teor's body, the bracers begin to float off his form towards you. Full narrative reigns, tell me what happens next. As I see them floating and the light gathers around them, I remember stories from the orchard. They would talk about fairies who could be part of the human world. Once they got strong enough, they would be able to. protect their gardens in ways that you couldn't even dream of. And they had the ability to make themselves big.

And it was always a myth. But with all this light and these braces, I think to myself, I'm gonna reach forward and as the bracers float towards me, my body grows to human size. Stepping forward, your wings fold and close and a true vision of something like an archfay, tall and mighty and powerful strides forward. The bracers float, these were Callowin,

these were Aranesas' brothers, tapestries of stags in a wild forest and all the lost might of House Royce clasps to one arm and then the other. Your strength sets to 19, the effects of a bark-skin spell, give you hardened skin. And quite importantly for this moment,

your carrying capacity increases to being that of a creature one size larger than yourself, which now that you are human-sized means you have the strength of a giant. What the fuck? I don't even know. I just kind of run into something. Want to walk over to Teor?

Mm-hmm. This is so fucking what. Put him over my shoulder as I pick up Sid on the other one. It's easy work. You don't feel even remotely encumbered. You could grab Raymond as well. You can grab the sword.

You can grab Ingrid's great axe, all of it. I'm gonna just, I'm gonna take the banner out, put it in my waistband. Most tears of the kingdom shit out. And yeah, I'm not gonna take the body of Reimont. Sorry, Raymond. You leave that here?

I'm gonna leave that here. I got the sword. Got the sword. It would be a hideous sight for Julian to see it. Yeah, it's just a little too fucked up to be carried around. But I got the sword and I'm gonna take the banner out of his chest and I'm just gonna put my hand on his, put my hand on his forehead and say, thank you.

Vines, maybe part of Hannon's ritual outside, but called here by your fairy magic, rose blossoms and thorns and vines. Vines of the house de Vinos break through the house, the cracked stone and begin to inter and put at peace this body. Yeah, yeah. I'm gonna instantly cast plant growth

and help that spread. What, having Sid and Teor with you, what do you do now? I gotta get it, I gotta get out of here. I don't even know. Give me, give me investigation and stealth to get the fuck out of here. Jesus. You're now without the terrible gloom,

it's just a difficulty 10 to retrace your steps from here back out through. Okay. Investigation is a 16. Great. Stealth is a 19. 19. Human size. With your wings gone, is there any mark of the fe on you? I'll also ask, is there any mark of like,

Tayor on you in this moment of the fact that a part of his soul that was attuned to these bracers is passed to you in this moment. Man, I still look like me. Pointed ears. Pointed ears still. But details that you couldn't see when I was little, like how intricate the embroidery is on my clothes.

It all is showing now. And my freckles that I normally have are actually sparkly. And I'll do, yeah, Teor had those braids. I have a Padawan braids. Yes. A single Padawan braid. A single Padawan braid coming from my little cut. Beautiful.

Yeah. The rat tail of strength. Hoisting your companions over your shoulder. You sprint forward from here on that investigation. Do you, are you heading back up to the crypt you came? God, how do I get out of here? Are you heading back up to the tower? I'm gonna, I, I, I, I don't think that would be very safe to go through.

God, how do I get out of here with these bodies? Um, I know Hannan is in the courtyard, right? Yeah, Hannah's in the courtyard. But I know that people have landed. There was a, there was that underwater river. There was, thank you. I'm gonna go for that. Um, you, uh, you head to, to the underwater.

The rushing water. The rushing water. You head to the rushing water. Seeing it out, obviously, Tayor and said would not have been able to make this voyage alive, but as disrespectful as it is, they will be able to traverse it otherwise.

And most medium-sized people would have drowned, but there is a space of about six inches at the top, of the top of that you could return to your size and fly over with it. All right, do I still get to keep the bracers? Do they shrink if I want to get I will say, let me actually, I'm gonna do a whisper real quick, then we'll cut back to you guys.

Sell some shit. I'm not Sam Riegel, I stay in the moment. Hey. Thimble, you get to the underground river, you have all this gear and stuff on you. You tie like threads to the bodies to be able to traverse with them. As you go small size, wondering about the bracers,

you go and are four inches tall again, and as you go to that size, the braces, shift like a fairy glamour, and you are wearing almost like armor made of tapestry. It's a fairy full plate of green pressed fabric

studded with gems and gold embroidery. So you are in like a fabric full plate. This fancy as fuck. And I will say though your carrying capacity is lessened because you're tiny, you still have a 19 strength. Oh my God.

So you're cut, it's like Superman. You're a tiny little Superman. This is amazing. You fly the fuck out of there. Yeah, yeah, I fly the fuck out. Holy. Octus and Julian up above. What was that?

I need so many questions. This whole house is filled with undead bullshit. Yes, it does. Yes, yes. I do not see her. It does not like she's present. We just have to go. She's gotta find her own way out. And I understand the reason.

Look, if she's as strong as wellful as you seem to believe she is, she'll find her way. Otherwise, should be remembered. We have to leave now. As you turn to go, the last thing you see as you leap over the side back into safety is the landing figures,

Petra and Raya, Primus, Etherand. You see they turn, Hanon is fulfilling this ritual. Primus turns to look, seeing Hannan, says, Who in the devil are you? What are you doing in this courtyard? Hannan turns, Trimus comes out of the front gate and says, brother, this honorable member of the circle of the hunt is here to recover.

You see she turns to Primus and Hannah says, a figure that has just since actually escaped. You are actually welcome to come in. You can see that she must have broken her bonds but she is no longer here. Hannan turns and scowls. You see, he says, I, that is quite too much of a coincidence. I will need some assurances.

My order, the circle of the hunt, stands to oppose. Primus raises a finger and casts powerward kill. Hannan drops to the ground dead. Trimus drops a goblet she's holding in her hand. Primus, you fool? What have you just done? Primus turns telekinesis on Trimus, lifts her into the air as she begins to choke and scream, and he goes, It doesn't matter.

Either rule this world before the year is out, or we will all be dead. Do you understand? The druids can show you. broken blood. We will either defeat them, or we won't be around long enough to see their reprisal. Is that clear? You pig. You see, she drops to the ground. Petra and Reyer staring. Etherin looks nauseous. Primus says, fill the wagons. Gather our treasures. We leave tonight. Don't mock jar is finished. I think Julian his hand on his rapier held this entire time. and is fighting every impulse. But while he's hearing all this and kind of glancing here,

he's glancing back at you. Come on. We did what we did. We did all we couldn't. Let's find the rest. The tennebral gloom returns to Obramus Manor, and that's where we'll take our break. Oh, my God.

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.