Legends of Avantris - Beneath Dark Wings | Ep. 57 | Land of the Lost Horizon: Part 1

Episode Date: July 31, 2025

The party learns of the dark mummy lord that rules over the Dread Domain of Har'Akir...   Gain access to an exclusive campaign, Shroud Over Saltmarsh, over on Patreon: https://legendsofavantris.com/patreon The Crooked Moon, a folk horror supplement for 5e, is available for preorder! Get the Crooked Moon at: https://thecrookedmoon.com/ Watch more D&D adventures in the world of Avantris live on Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/legendsofavantris Check out our merch store: https://shop.legendsofavantris.com  Join our community on Discord: https://legendsofavantris.com/discord Watch our many campaigns on YouTube: https://legendsofavantris.com/youtube  All other links: https://linktr.ee/legendsofavantris   Watch the full episode here: https://youtu.be/sVR5fqP0o1k?si=c1TOSgt5_gJdZhHI

Welcome to Legends of Aventress. I'm Mikey Gilder, and you're listening to Beneath Dark Wings. Here's what happened last time. Last time on Beneath Dark Wings. Let's make sure my phone isn't like, do not disturb. Well, there's now a Hellboy 3 trailer. That'll never come out. Not to break the hearts of any Hellboy fans.

I think we're on from when I just commented on that like the other day. Anyway, so last time on Beneath Dark Wings, because it has been a while. There was a great battle being waged between the Shadarkai or the Dusk Elves of Skecherno, leaving the capital city of Zarakosa and clashing with the forces, the united forces of Borovia that you had rallied together.

And this was all a clever distraction, as you rode in Alessandro's mist traveling wagon carriage, and you managed to make your way through outside of Castle Gloomvale. And you were all able to infiltrate with yourselves and Sophia Anna, the Vestani as well as Escher. And you made your way through the sewer to get into the dungeon.

Were you in case? encountered a Shadar Kai being tortured. His arm had been removed, and he had a tattoo of the Raven Queen, strangely. But you know that these elves had rejected the Raven Queen. So it was a strange sight. You managed to heal him, regrow his arm, and learn about him.

I'm still so mad. When you hear it laid out like this, it's like, duh. Oh, go. His, and you don't know where he came from, He just appeared mysteriously and fortuitously in your path. I'm sure there's nothing weird about that. And he introduced himself as zealic. He is, had been a member of a secret cult or a sect that still worshiped the Raven Queen secretly.

Let me just make sure that how do I turn off? Let me pause this. Hello? No, yeah, I can talk. Extended warranty? I have no idea. This is about to expire? Yes, there's literally nothing.

My social security number. What the hell? Oh, and so you freed him, and he revealed himself to be a powerful warlock that could summon a blade with the power of the Raven Queen and use it to help you. And you made your way through the castle. You encountered a room of ghouls that Iris turned to sand. You also encountered a room filled with strange connopic jars that were filled with the these undead scarabs that had the hides or shells of Lapis lazuli. And you were able to deduce more or less that these scarabs had been, would bore into the persons of these dusk elves, these Shadar Kai,

and grant them with incredibly powerful necromantic magic. I very likely provided by whatever kind of dark bargain that King Vorok, the Carian king, had made with the Dark Lord, which you all know to be Anka-Tep of the Dred Domain of Harkar Keir. You eventually made your way to a great feast that was being hosted of the various counts that had all been called to this area for a reason, but not before seeing strange gears and machinery with shimmering magical ruins and alchemy that Escher was very, concerned and realized that it was likely the work of Ravanovia and that she had studied his,

not just his tinkering, but also his alchemy as well, and had utilized it. Fuck! You then made your way, you saw the Carian King, he gave it toast, is this being the day that, where the forces, all the traders would be snuffed out and killed and crushed, and would be the day of their great victory. You managed to sneak your way through to Ravanovius Tower, the Tower of the Princess.

And it was there that you found an absolute horror show. Body horrors of children warped into strange, horrible toy constructions, very clearly alive, rather undead, irredeemable, begging for death, as well as dozens of vampire children. And it was, you made your way finally into her chambers, with a princess-like throne, a workshop of sorts,

where all sorts of horrors and experiments had been done. And it's there that Escher confronted his daughter, Ravanaughia, who just seemed to be a little girl on a bustle-dress, revealed herself to be a horrific, arachnoid monster having fused with the power of Drizlash the Nine-Eyed Spider from the Amber Temple, devouring him whole while Escher had been completely, his guard was entirely down.

A great battle continued, and you were able to, to weaken Ravanovia, weaken whatever hold that Drizzlask had over her. And while it looked like she was going to reform and get even more powerful, Escher from within managed to finish her off, piercing the massive eye of Drislas,

severing his daughter's torso from the spider's torso, and in one final moment of both of them in their dying, losing their undeath, having a moment regret, Escher makes a terrible choice, and he calls the name of Pizzouzzi, three times in desperation. They then turn to black feathers and drift away. Who knows where they are? It is then, in the quiet, following the battle,

you hear the shaking of a cage and the squawking of a strange bird. Then it's revealed that there's a cage hanging from the ceiling with a large, two-headed, Raven creature fused together, half lighter, half darker, that have these strange human-like eyes. And it was then that Felix realized as it croaked out in a strained voice, brother, that one of these heads was Milo fused to who you then realized Velasca, the little Vestani child, and warped into this horrible raven-like creature.

in that desperation, you absolutely shocked by this horror. You didn't have too much time to process before the castle started to shake and move and roons and churning of gears all appeared and echoed through the chamber. And it was in this moment that with a poof of magic, Vorok, teleported into the room to take this raven child, and he gloated and thanked the party for bringing the last piece that they needed to go where they were going.

And it was in this moment, your friend Zellek was able to break free of the magic with an incredible burst of fiendish magic. He flew forward, growing wings, plunging his blade into the carrying king, pouring a plague in pestilence into the wound. And in this transformation, it was revealed that this was no elf.

It was high general Virgil Zern. And in this transformation, horrified Vorok, managing to barely survive, teleporting off of the blade to who knows where. The castle settles, however, the roof collapses. And Zern takes the Ravenchild. One of the heads he refers to as his son and flies off into the desert sky. And as the wall crumbles, the, oh, Iris also having been compelled to sit in the throne by a force within her soul, finally all coming to, you realize that the entire castle has been teleported to the dread domain of Harakir.

And that's what we'll start. Anything, any questions that we have? During the teleportation and arrival of this castle, it is like mostly, crumbled and like we saw the sun coming through, right? What, like open air? Yeah, the roof of the tower and I'll describe this once you all get in. But yeah, basically the at the very least, you haven't seen much because

this just happened, but basically the roof has collapsed in and one of the walls has completely fallen off and you see this strange desert land. And the castle feels intact though, like we're not falling in the stories. It's entirely settled. You might hear the crumblings of

of more bricks falling off. What happened to Warwick again? Vorok was stabbed, and he basically managed to cast a teleportation spell to get away. And I guess I would say Vorok is a Nagpa you learn through Zellek. He was formerly Shadar Kai himself, a servant of the Raven Queen, before she became the Raven Queen, which he was a very powerful elf sorceress. A cabal of wizards conspired to take her power. It was in that ritual when the Raven Queen disrupted it in furious anger. that explosion calamity

ripped all of them to the shadow fell corrupting all of them, turning them into the shadow Kai, we know, and the Raven Queen curse all of the wizards into horrible vulture-like christers, but they are all incredibly ancient, powerful, very bitter and malicious wizards. Yes. How do you spell Harakir?

H-A-R-A-A-R-H-A-R-A-A-A-Posrophy K-I-R. Oh. Oh no, it's H-A-R, Aposhafi A-R, K-I-R, apologies. Har-H-R-H-R. Aposophy, A-K-I-R. H-A-R-A-R-A-R-A-K-R. It's phonetic. You just got to know where to put the-O.

We have a couple questions. We don't talk about Milo or we like Milo. Milo is Felix's younger brother that he's been looking for this entire campaign. We like Milo. We found him, sort of. And then Nose has a question, what the fuck, MOOC? Yeah, I don't, you know, I don't know what I, I do this, but it happened.

So, anything else before we start? A pee. Can I pee? Yes. That's fine. You all finally regain control of your bodies no longer tethered to the floor and the walls of the spinning castle, as it teleported and made its way through the mist, seemingly instantly, due to the power, the alchemy, and the machinery of Ravanovnazanovia Manzarovich,

in one final posthumous act. And you, as quiet, returns to this space, where there had been the chaos of the rumbling castle, the crumbling of stone, and the collapsing of the walls of this space. There's now just small stone fragments and dust dropping down. As all of you managed to gather yourselves, Iris, whatever kind of strange pole had taken control of your body and caused you to sit on that golden throne

has released you entirely. almost in almost a strange jarring um jarring pole where beforehand you when you had been uh drawn to the connoxic jars when it released and you were able to gain control it was a subtle slow release but it seems as if the moment whatever teleportation happened whatever control there was immediately cut and you were able to regain your free will And you look up and a massive blazing sun over the strange desert realm looms over. And immediately you start to feel the heat, the oppressive dry heat. Virgil Zern is nowhere to be seen.

The Raven Child is nowhere to be seen. Vorox is nowhere to be seen. It's just you all, the corpse of Sophia Anna, and about a dozen or so, childisholans. vampires. Well, you do? Also corpses. Also corpses. Yeah. A lot of corpses. You're okay. Um, I will be on my knees with my head and my hands sobbing and uh, Beatrice will be hopping around me, making more noise than you've ever heard her. She's tweeting, uh, going absolutely chirping, going crazy.

Oh, no, no, no, no. I'm so sorry. No, no, he was right there. Ah, no. I'll get this happen. Oh, I didn't have any time. We can still find him. Um, he's, he, he, he, we, we, we'll find a way to fix him. We'll find a way to, like, to, get him back. Yeah. We, we, we have to find him first. We have to find him first.

Where did, where could they have gone? I don't even know where we have gone. Ah, ha. Oh, no, no. This is, did, did the whole castle teleport? And I, I want to, like, look around and see, like, is it very clear that we're in, like, a totally different place? do we have a concept that we're in like the dread domain? Like what would I understand about that?

And where are we seeing all this like, like is there a big hole in the wall? Yeah, like half of the tower is basically collapsed and fallen away. You've very fortunately managed to dodge all the rubble and not been crushed beneath that. I know, isn't that funny? I know, isn't that funny? But I would say that you don't even need to roll.

You look out and you see what would have been a river but completely just dried up, a dried riverbed, howling sandstorms far to the north and to the east. You see just miles and miles and miles of dunes, all of them, they look like cities just dotting this, but just seem to be half-buried ruins, as far as you can see. And massive mountains aspiring upwards,

and you can just see that there are hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of statues of gods, of pharaohs, of kings, of priests, all carved in. You can tell very clearly that even from what you had learned, what I always had told you of Neckbat, this is that turned up to many, many degrees. It feels incredibly supernatural. It reminds you, I would say, perhaps, of the way that the elemental plane of air felt, how just insane and magical or the plane of limbo

or just the using a meta term the high fantasy of it right it does not feel like a natural normal place in a ventras look I found all of these books and I'm going to like shake out the bag of holding and there's going to be like dozens and dozens and dozens of books

are going to just start pouring out I mean maybe one of these she had to do something to tune him into that right I mean maybe one of these There's like a reverse spell, like an undo spell. Maybe, maybe. I heard the Raven Queen's words in my head about the dagger and about splitting them into it and me having to do it. But I couldn't.

I was so stunned. I couldn't react. I was frozen. You have to use the knife? That's what she said. I don't know if I can do it. I didn't know what I didn't even know what she meant when she said it. I didn't know it was going to be like this.

I mean, they went that direction and I want to get a sense because they like flew, right? Yeah. What direction do I think that they flew? I would say make an intelligence check. Oh, no. Oh, no. Two natural phonies. Let's go.

They flew off in the direction. You have no idea which way. is north, which way is south, the sun is beating down directly over you. You have no idea which direction it's moving. You're in a completely strange, strange, new world. I'll just like gingerly, like look at the covers of these books, just trying to glean anything I can from, you know, the way they look. So as you look through the books, it's a very macabre assortment where you get There are books on, a good number of books on alchemy, a good number of books on, on, on the machinery or the artificers tinkers, very small books.

It seems to be a relatively new or rare type of knowledge. There is also things on taxidermy, things on dark, on dark magic. There's a variety of books mixed in with with like children's books and children's stories and fairy tales and books of reported monsters and nightmares.

God's damn them. Damn it. This is all Zern's fault. Zern did this. He set this all up from the beginning and he did this to Milo. We're going to find him. And we're going to fix this.

And I swear to the gods, if he gets in my way, I'm going to reduce him into a pool of bubbling fat. He was trying to help, wasn't he? I mean, Zellic was really nice. And also a liar. But he stabbed King Vorok. We don't like him. But he'd let Vorok do everything that he did to get these.

raven children together and turn them into that thing. I'm like, there's some kind of tool for him? I don't know. It's just what he said. But I swear, I swear we're going to fix this. And when I see Zern, he's not going to live to see another day. Well, I mean, unless his intentions are good and maybe he's also trying to help Milo, he called him his son. Then he should not have lied.

We could have made haste. He could have made different choices. He's been lying to us all from the beginning. Zern and Zellic are no friend of mine. We've been to his pawns. She's exactly right. So us being the wings of the raven are just us being pawns? It was all bullshit.

None of it was real. We've been played. Oh. Phil? We can't just sit in here and cry about it. We have to get up and do something. You're right. You're right.

And what do we get up and do? Are you feeling okay? No, not particularly well. Did I perceive that the same kind of charm that happened with the scarab thing? I'm still sitting on the throne. Yes. So, yeah, Iris is just sitting on the throne, and you saw her very much. deliberately move to sit and that there was some sort of reaction of the glowing gold in order to see that.

Yeah. What happened? You walked to the throne, but it looked like you were taken over like less time. Do you want to come down from there? No, this feels quite natural. Natural. I mean, it looks kind of natural. You look at home.

It's much larger than the one I had at home, but... Cat's got my tongue. The same strange magic that overcame me with the connopic jars. Overcame me with the throne. Just in case. Sorry, go ahead. But that is no longer lingering on my soul. What is, is I'm having a crisis of faith. What do you mean?

Well, as you know, I've renounced Nubis before we came to this land. I need time to think without the constant worry that I will displease a god. A god that, though has helped me, might have also hindered me. Well, I mean, why would you renounce him? Fear, killer, weakness? I mean, if it wasn't for him, I would still be really angry and big and red, and Felix could probably cast eight spells at the same time and instantly incinerators. And Luffy would be a slug or a worm.

We don't say worm here. Oh, sorry, a slug. I guess she was slimy. She left a slime trail. When I say that Anubis has weakened me, it is my own folly. I've spent my life as the middle child. in a high-ranking family. My life has been spent trying to live up to how others see me and view me,

to not be overshadowed by my brother who will be king, my sisters who will marry and be queens. And then to a God who I've wanted nothing more than to see me before I've even seen myself I need time to find out who Iris is

I don't need Anubis to save Milo I agree with that that's a really, that's a good point I don't know it just feels weird that all of these big powerful cool dudes that I thought was so great nobody likes anymore I love Anubis

if it weren't for him I never would have found you and it is through him that we will get out of this place, which I actually find quite relaxing in a way. It's more homely than any place I've been to in quite a while. But he called on me because we will save him. I can't be relying on him now. We need to rely on each other, and I need to rely on myself. And I know that we're scared.

I was very scared in that moment, but I'm not ready to give up my God. I know it's deep down. I just... It's not him, it's me. I need a break. Oh. I guess I didn't really know you could take a break from a god. I didn't think that was the thing, but I guess it makes sense.

Well, out of curiosity, can you still do things? I haven't given... It's not like I've killed him, Caprice. I'm... Other clerics in Galdiga, you know, they claim they get their power from their god, and so I didn't know if it was... you know, one of those one-to-one type deals. Well, my hope is that we're here,

and he needs our help to free him, so the last thing he's going to do, and I'm cranky, is to take my power away so that we can't free him. But I guess we'll see. Are you asking me to show you some kind of magical ability? Well, and also, you don't have to stay stood up, but just step out of the chair

and then get back into the chair if you want to relax, but making sure that you're not, you know, still under some... You think I've been controlled or puppeted by a higher power? Yeah, I don't know. You have been twice now, so... Yes. I'll stand up and then sit back down.

Okay, see, that's all I'm talking about. See, that's all I thought you feel better. Are your nerves quelled? On this one specific point, there are a variety of additional nerves that need quelling, but yeah, yeah, absolutely. I would like to use thomiturgy if Anubis allows it to rain some golden sand. like softly around everyone.

As you call upon that, the magic still comes to you and golden sand does however tomatology works. Oh, see? I believe that my God knows me better than I know me. And even in moments of rash, outbursts, Anubis will always know my heart. He believes in you. Yes.

And that is what leads me to know I must start working and believing in myself. I point to the horizon. Is this what neckbats like? Yes, but not quite this. Hot and disgusting? You've been there. I know.

This place is like way hotter. Yes, that's true. I'm going to take my big, like, woolen sweater off. I'll feel okay. I'll tell. I'll take my coat off and like bundle it up and stick it in my back back. So I'm just wearing like the pants and the and the undershirt. I got like my overalls and like a little like undershirt as well, like a little tank top of them.

So did they build all these statues like this and neck bed like this? Yes. Why? Why? Why not? Well like if you build one big statue and you're staring and looking at that statue and you look at right next to it and you're like, I think I'll build it. another statue just like this one. You don't go bigger. You just do one

after the other. It's like building a Starbucks across from a Starbucks. What? No. The symmetry. Reverence to pharaohs and gods. I don't get it. I respect it. I don't get it.

Do your, do your, these statues don't provide coffee? I wasn't implying that they did. But a Starbucks provides coffee. No, I'm saying that like, why would you have a coffee vendor? across the way from a coffee vendor. That's exactly my point.

You've already done the job with the one coffee vendor. You don't need the second coffee vendor. The temples and their... Yeah, you've already done the job with the one temple. You see the... Do you see what I'm saying? No, it's not a marketplace, Caprice. It...

Okay. I don't get it. I don't get it. I don't get it. There's a difference between religious reverence in providing a service to a populace. When you do the one...

religious reference. You need to do the next one and then the next one and the next one. It's all God points, yes. God? I mean, it depends, I guess. I don't know. It's a wonderful way to put it. Yes, God points. And new pharaoh comes along, scratches out to the name of the old Pharaoh, puts their name on it, and then adds more to show that they have more power. You understand? It's a power play thing. A Starbucks next to another Starbucks, they don't need to have a power play because it's just Starbucks. I've never felt farther away from Galtica than I do right now. That may be true.

We don't have any idea where we even are, are we? How are we going to get down from here? What are we going to do about Escher? That was one of the other... He said the thing. I completely forgot. That was one of the other nerves I wanted to talk about, is that... I don't know how I feel right now.

It's just a lot happening. A lot happening in the last 15 minutes. I'm feeling emotionally numb. Do you know where we are? No. I can imagine. because I've heard the name, Harakir. You basically got the general rundown

of how that works, I would say. Anubis basically told you, hey, this is Harakir. It's a domain of dread. It's in the shadow... Connected to the Shadowfell. So, when Anubis and I spoke, he warned me that he was imprisoned

in a domain of dread, which is connected to the Shadowfell in a realm called Harakir. I believe that is where we're. we are. Oh. So it doesn't sound very safe. That is also where Uncatep resides.

I believe he is the master of this domain. Oh. I believe that my compulsion to sit in the throne was the final peace in connecting us to this plane as his soul resides, or at least did reside in me. So it's gone now though. It's possible, I believe it might be. I no longer feel that pull. And it persisted even just a small amount consistently when we were in Aventry. So my assumption is upon arriving to this plane, he has reclaimed that bit of his soul.

That sounds bad, right? Well, all of this sounds. The key word times three was bad. Miley was bad. Zelligern was bad And yes I want Sophie on her In war on

She's like laying there isn't she Yeah She's like in the middle of the room What are we going to do with her We could bury her in the sand Is there a How is she killed? She died honorably

Killing a bunch of child vampires Defending us from being assaulted by them She succumbed her wounds Yeah We can't just put her in here It's a dread domain That's like throwing her in the dumpster. Maybe you could, uh, halfwing her up?

You can do that, right? You can just... Oh, she'll be really mad. Well, I've become a bit stronger since then. Oh, I'm sorry. No, it's fine. Some of the sand went up my nose. Oh, I thought I spit your face.

No, no. It's... We're 15 feet apart, it feels, but... I'm a cat. Tobaxi. I'm a tiefling. Congratulations. I like beans.

You like beans? Yeah, I just thought, I felt like saying that. Why? I just, I don't know, I like them. I came out of nowhere, no way, Towa. All right, we, yes. How long has it been since she has passed? Like, 10, 15 minutes?

Yeah, maybe, maybe within the hour. I mean, it hasn't been that long. Well, I only have a few. of these left, but I could attempt to bring her back. My fear and my hesitation. Hmm. So I don't believe it's what she would want. Right. Does she get a choice? I forget. Of course she gets a choice. I'm sorry. It's just also as a travel made me really hungry. Also have a choice upon casting this kind of spell. whether their soul rejoins their body.

But given what she's seen in the fate of her daughter, I think dying in a blaze of glory like that is exactly what someone like I would want. Her daughter is not lost. Just like Milo is not lost. And should we be able to separate them? We will. I have magic. that could bring her back at that time.

So I suggest we not make her choose now when her soul is so weakened, but we wait until we can give her the hope she would need to return. This is going to sound grotesque, but I suggest we sever her hand from her body, place it in our bag of holding, I will mummify it, and we will have a remnant of her physical form for us to attempt at a later date to bring her back to the material.

Couldn't we just put all of her in the bag? That would be a lot of mummified weight and I only have so much of my poultice. I'll get her hand. Oh, couldn't we just like use her like a locket of hair or something? I would prefer to have the hand. She is currently dead to her. She will not feel a thing. I just feel it's disrespectful to this member.

No, it's not. Does it matter? Was she lefty or righty? It does not right-handed. I'll go over to the body and pull up the left arm, and I'll take out my dagger, and as quickly as I can just... I got it, I've got it. Just a moment.

Yeah, it's fine. It's coming right off. That's not even serrated. You're just making a mess. Oh, my God. Hold on. Hold on, I got it, I got it. I'm going to go over, and I'm going to pull Caprice away,

and I'm going to take my blade. I'm assuming I have a serrated blade of some kind. I'm going to quickly just chop the hand off. Be disrespectful, pardon. I wasn't try. I thought it was going to come right off. You could not handle this? No.

There's blood on your face. No, there is not. You are horrible. No. Take a walk. where and then i'm gonna wrap it up in linen and uh i'll spend some time to to prepare it and then place it into my bag my sacral capricer and cord do she have um like weapons and stuff still on her yeah yeah yeah so she has her holy symbols of the morning lord uh you see that she's used she only has

one bottle uh one vial of holy water left uh her whip is at her side um i would take all of that loot the body yeah i would take all of that loot the body yeah i would take all of that of that and wrap it into a bundle and she's going to want this when she comes back. Yes, that's true. Toa, can you keep that one in the bag of holding, please? Do I just drop it in? Yeah, just throw it in there. Is it fragile? Well, it'll be fine.

Who knows how his back works? Very strange. Oh, she also had five potions of invulnerability. That's amazing. Here! That corpse we drop that on is going to be invulnerable, though. Skeletons shoot up through the sand. That's neat. Whoops.

We can't take anything. No, we can't. It is, D&D. All right. We have a series of things that we need to work out. I'm definitely concerned about Escher, but quite frankly, we don't know where he's gone, or what the repercussions of what he did will be. And for now, we can't really worry about it.

There's nothing we can do to get to him or save him. We can only hope that he can handle himself wherever he is. That stupid man. Two, we need to figure out where we're going. I mean, is there a town, a structure, somewhere to get out of this heat? Do drug domains have towns? Well, we're currently in a structure that is providing at least a little bit of shelter. If we need to rest, I've never been.

been to this dreading thing. I just assumed you'd know. I don't. I wish that I did, but I don't. We might... Oh. Never mind. We might want to rest here. Yeah, I agree. We certainly don't want to reach resources. Set this castle ruin up as a base camp of sorts. And we're going to have to figure out where to go next once we're back to full strength. So I think set a set up here, getting some food in our systems, I'm sure all hungry, and then we can talk about what we're going to do next. It would not be wise to just dart off into an unknown desert with no plan. I agree. Agreed. We need to figure out what the most likely scenario for where Zern might have gone, where Forak might have gone, and maybe even where this Ankatea guy might be.

Yes, there is some... The pyramid was an upside down? I can't remember what was upside down. So there were a number of pyramids. The one that Anubis was being kept down. Oh, no, that one was black, like, black. Like, completely... Yeah.

There is a black pyramid. And a really weird construction. Like, it was like a tiered almost like ziggarotted pyramid. Yes, exactly like that. Yeah, that's good. I mean, that's a clue. That's a hint. That's at least some sort of a lead, something we can keep in our eyes out for.

Can anyone fly? I can fly. Would you like to fly? Well, can you fly with someone else? Would you like to fly? Yes, actually. I would love to. If we could fly straight up in the air and scan the horizon and see what landmarks we can see,

will give us a rough approximation, since we have no map and no knowledge of this land, it would give us an idea. Can you make a map? You're artistic. Yeah, absolutely. Yes, if we could fly up and make a rough sketch of the landscape, we won't be able to see much, but we should be able to see some structures if there are some. We'll give us a good idea of where to start, don't you think?

Well, why don't we both go, and we can talk about it as we fly through the air, like two things that fly. Yes, that would be great. Okay. I'll pull out my viol. I just need a sand on the wind. all we are is sand on the wind and you feel yourself sudden winter too

oh oh caprice caprice I'm floating yes yes yes yes yes look at this and then for me oh this is so cool yeah sand on the wind okay yeah okay I will spend two charges of my

bow of the dying swan and we now both have the ability to fly that'll be oh when I cast it on myself the concentration for you stuff doesn't it? Can't you cast fly at multiple people?

Yeah, it's multiple targets, depending on level. Oh, really? Yeah. So if you scroll down in the very bottom and it says... Okay, but I'm casting it via my magic item. So what level does it cast line? So I think you would have to do extra charges for extra levels for a magical item. I think that that's probably true.

I'll just quickly spend the additional... Oh, that was not what I wanted to do. I'm just spending resources. Thank God you guys. can't see what I'm doing on D&D Beyond right now. I will work out my resources later, but yes, I think if I spend four charges of the mandolin, then I can cast it at second. Three charges means I can cast it at the second level, or the next level up,

which means that it's two targets, which means both of us, which means we fly. So for an hour, I'm concentrating, and we can fly, we can fly, we can fly, we can fly. You don't have to do that. You just will. No, no, you just... Think about it. You don't have to do that. You have to make the little squeaky noise.

You could just... This is like those videos you see of cats who have been taken into zero G. And it was... God. Or the breeze are? I gracefully Superman my way out through the opening in the side of this tower. And I will do it. once around, once I see the

irises picked it up and gotten it. And I'll eventually acclimate to the flying and like donkey battling. And I'll fly up. And once we're up there, I would try to get a sense of of north-south-east-west. I would try to pick out the major landmarks. What's near

us. I would try to get a sense of how much of the actual castle has transported if it's the whole thing, if it looks mostly destroyed. And I'm basically just there to make sure that Caprice is taking it seriously, that he's not, like, drawing unnecessary things on the map.

Like a piece. Making things up, just basically being Caprice. Okay, there's no Starbucks there. Okay, I need, if you would like to make a, I guess, if I was assisting you, make a perception check at advantage. Perception. Okay. Oh, look over there.

It's an obelisk. I love obelisks. Give me them 24 24 You both of you fly up And you And the heat from the sun And the blinding light

Hits you and I'll say that You know basically from where you were when you started And the time that you've been talking The sun has moved very slightly And you're able to determine north-southeast and west Okay If basically the sun moves the same At the very least there's a construction

And you could just be doing this You have no idea. But you're able to see that if you had to deduce where you are in this domain, you can't really see the entirety. This place is huge. But you can see that you seem to be towards to your west is a howling sandstorm

that seems to be mixed in with a strange mist that is not unlike what you had traveled through with Alessandra. And you just see it's a wall of just this howling sandstone. Basically, you're near the western edge of this domain. You look towards the north, north from you,

and you actually see that there's a very large lake. It seems like an oasis with lush greenery. And you see that there is a river that runs from, north to south in this place. Well, it would have been a river, but it is completely dried up. It's just a barren,

a barren riverbed. You're able to see probably an additional oasis to your south that's considerably smaller. And you see on the large oasis, there actually seems to be a city of some kind made of,

It's hard to see from how far away you are, but you do see structures that seem to be not these ancient weather ruins. In the center of this place, going for miles and miles and miles, is just dunes and dunes of desert, all as far as you can see dotted with what at the immediate glance would look like towns, but it's just obelisked, crumbled statues, these ancient buildings, just ruins as far as you can see. Some obelists towering hundreds of feet into the air sticking out of the sand.

Who knows how deep it goes beneath? You see what seems to be a howling storm, sandstorm that seems to be in the moving across the center of this domain. That doesn't have that mist within it. That seems to be moving across the desert to the far sea. southeast, you see just these massive mountain ranges all looming high, and you see that there seems to be a colossal stone city built in here with all of these similar statues, but they all seem to have very skeletal construction to them. And you see it the very, very, very far in the midst of what looks like this massive ancient city, you see a colossal golden pyramid,

flamed by numerous statues. And then you see the, where they're the mountains to the northeast, you see what looks like the mountains turn into just arid canyon land with numerous ravines. And that's the general of what you see is from where you are in this, this in this dread domain. Nice canyon. Thank you. He's a pretty good mapmaker. Except for all the butts. Those are dunes. Dune butts. Also with a 24, I will say that you see a number of creatures flying through the air and darting and moving across the desert. It's very hard to see it from where you are, making out exactly what they are.

But something that does, a bit of movement that you do see beyond the swirling sandstorms seems to be very far off coming from the direction of that massive city with a colossal, unfathomably large golden pyramid.

You see what looks like just a swarm of, of, of, of, it looks like black against the, the desert sands, and it seems to be moving in a mass in the direction of the castle. You said the skeletal stone city was in the southeast, did you? South East, yep. A good map maker. Nope. Okay. I might have to redraw that. But

from the steltled, heading towards the skeletal stone city. Coming from the city of the dead, I'm going to say, the city of the dead. It seemed to be a massive, moving mass of something. Okay, I'm gonna just moving mass. And it doesn't seem to be like rushing or moving super quickly. Is it heading northeast, south? It's heading in your direction,

so it's heading from, it's heading technically northwest, from the southeast. Yeah, yeah, I got it, okay. Hmm. Spending the full hour as much as I can until I feel nervous that we need to back down to the tower eventually I gesture to iris that I can feel the magic starting to deteriorate and start to fly back down to the tower um we join you after you

have been doing whatever you're doing for an hour I guess I would turn to Felix and looked in and say well I mean we could we could rest here but aren't there like hundreds or like a thousand elves like downstairs apologies I let me let me finish that thought but I I de meant to say is that you see that the entirety of the castle has teleported. You know that it's absolutely massive, but you see that some of the towers have completely crumbled collapse in on themselves. You see where one part of the castle, much of the roof has collapsed in, and you see just dozens of ghouls completely fried from the sun. And you actually hear panicked voices of dozens of Shadar Khai.

from different parts of the castle. But they seem to be very cut off from where you are, and they seem to be very just more concerned with where the fuck they are and getting out of there than like trying to look for you all. I would say that it's definitely more of like a panic than like, we're gonna find the bad people. Just so it's not an immediate danger

that they're searching for you. I think you'd be able to easily discern that. Caprice and Iris will return after I use the rest of them. Yeah. So I was thinking, if there are like hundreds of dark still downstairs and you all want to sleep I could stay up all night and we came down that long hallway to get here and I could take on I mean they're like peasants right I could probably take on at least hundreds of peasants as long as they come single file down the hallway so I could just one at a time every six seconds just kill them yeah do you think they do that though I mean that seems unlikely well I mean I think that you know mechanically each one is probably like a foot and a half wide but they can only only like, you know, only one can come in in a five-foot space because of how, you know, for whatever reason.

Just for whatever reason. In the physical reality of this world. Yeah. Well, I don't know. I don't know. I'm sitting there with them, but I'm kind of like, I've taken my sweater off already and I'm trying to like summarize my wardrobe as we're sitting there. I'm like dumping the sand out of my winter boots and like putting on little like slippers and

just trying to get like cultural I'm not going to go to sleep even if we rest here for however many hours we need I'm gonna look through these books and try to take it easy and maybe look through my own spellbook

and I need to think about what we're gonna do I don't know if they can even get up to here to us see I mean they gotta be just as confused as we are I guess that's a good point maybe they didn't know and maybe Vorok just left

and he doesn't care about any of these people So we can't hear them. No, no. You're in this tower and with Caprice and Iris, them flying around. And I would say that you're able to easily kind of stay out of sight. They're not really scanning. They're looking out and they don't notice. I mean, we should definitely, we definitely need to stay guard.

But I don't think I could sleep in them if I wanted to. Well, I guess they would need vultures to get up here anyway. So, I mean, unless there's like a hundred vultures still around. We're pretty high up. Hi. Well, you can start reading, and I'll get you anything you need. Just let me know. Thank you, Tewa.

And I'm just going to, like, prop myself up against one of the walls, you know, one of the unbroken walls. Okay. just reading and looking through my own spellbook and looking through all these books that Toa collected, you know, and conversing with the group. Yeah, and I would start just going through and like now that we have more time and I'm not frantically trying to get books. I'd basically just start combing over what's left of this of her room and just trying to see if I can find anything else of value. I'd be collecting books or, you know, reagents, whatever and just start, you know, bringing in the field to just putting them down and collecting them. Um, so if you don't take your full long rest doing that, why don't you make an investigation trip for me an advantage because Toa's helping you. Sure.

That'll basically... Love it. And you also find a number of notebooks as well. And it's kind of this weird thing. They're like these, the notes of a horribly evil mad scientist mix in with like girly doodles. It's, it's, it's, like, there's some like eyes that are like da-hearted and like with dada with heart. It's fucked up. 27. 27. Okay.

That's noted. At this point, you're probably able to set up. Toa, you helped feel this kind of set up a little study area and workspace. It was actually a couple of chairs and tables that are intact. I need to kind of pull away a lot of the webbing. You probably just spend some time cleaning all the disgusting webbing. And it's at this point when you realize how many cages are bolted to the walls, some had collapsed and splintered into shards of metal.

But just the emptiness of these. cages almost as unsettling in this aftermath as if they had been filled. It's at this point that Iris and you're able to keep an eye on Caprice, he does take it seriously. And I'll say, Iris, for your, I need to make a religion check at advantage. Do it. Okay. Do it good. Do it good. No, I got two natural ones. Her God has abandoned her. That's outrageous. Yeah. But put together, it's an 11. Well, what's your bonus?

Yeah, that's not that good. It's down. I don't know. That seems like a sign to me. You ain't supposed to know shit. It's definitely a sign. There's some sort of faded player. Maybe I can inspire her.

Yeah, so eight. You're a little distracted, given everything that you've experienced, and your heads in the clouds, literally, as a cloud, you're not that high up. But you're a little distracted as you kind of, but you help Caprice and you eventually both arrive, flying back down before the spell runs out and rejoin your friends.

It's mostly just that as you're trailing me while I fly, you realize that there's a tiny hole right at the taint of my pants. The taint of your pants. Yeah. Are you wearing underwear? What? Hold on. I messed up.

Please say you have a smaller pair of pantaloons that you wear under your normal pants. No, I just didn't realize that there was a rip right between the butthole and the ball sack. Oh, my God. The fruit's tear, if you will. Yeah, I mean, there's a natural hole that's intentional because of the, I need to get my tail out. And we'll have to share what you learned the other way? Yeah, yeah. We've been through a lot, and I'm not aware that there's a small hole right there between my legs.

We've been doing a lot of actions. But Iris is aware of it. Probably just split. It happens. You've been moving a lot, running, dodging, attacking, spellcast. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, when I fly fast enough, it makes a sound, you know? It's like when it was like, who, you know.

Like, but I don't know, I don't quite know why that's happening. I don't recognize it. Like an empty due leader when you're 12. Caprice. Yeah. I can see the area between your but hole and your bolsap currently. Well, I don't know why you'd be looking there. You're flying above me, and there is a tear between,

Oh, you mean that you can actually see what's going on. Yes, I can see the pink flesh between your butthole and your ball sack. Would you like to take, would you like me to take one of my surgical needles and my thread and fix your trousers? Not while I'm wearing the pants. Well, I don't want to see more than that. Well, I can put on my jam jammed and you can do that. Right. I just thought you should know in case we're flying with the rest of the group.

I'm not sure how they would fare seeing what I've seen today. uncountable horrors. It's been a trying day. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I'll go and change and I'll be right back with my pants. And I go and I find my alternate sleeping wear. And you can see, I show up in a Wednesday, you know. I'll get out my medicine kit and I'll take out my what I would use for a suture.

And I'll sew up his pants. While she's working on that, I'm taking the notes. and like screech that I, the like scratch that I put down on the actual piece of paper while I was flying, because obviously it would be hard to draw on a piece of parchment in the air like that. And I'm like formalizing it and making like as detailed a map as I can, just trying to really, really get them the points of interest and the milestones to the best of my ability. Even the distances between those things, if I can, I want to create like a map map. Okay.

Okay. So, Chris, why did you draw a penis on that? This was supposed to be serious. That's what that looked like, I swear. Oh, it's an obelisk. I see. Okay, carry on. I think it was like a guy with big feet,

and he just, like, lost the top half of his torso, and now it's just the two legs coming down, and then, like, what do you mean? Yeah, from that vascular, I see. But I swear to God, that's what that looked like. Okay, I believe you. You're the one who looks, you know, and sees a penis. So I'm just drawn as it as it is.

Oh, so you saw his penis too. You saw his penis? No, just the skin between his butthole and his bowl stuff. You saw his gooch? Is that not what we're talking about? No, it's... It's not talking about now. Never mind.

He was going to keep stitching. Gooch. I should start a brand called Gucci. I'll never think of that same word. Never again. 33 years and now all of a sudden it's now just you've made that connection for me. It seems like a fashion brand

you know where that area of your pants never tears. It would be called Gucci. It's brilliant. Absolutely. Do I have to roll to make an accurate map or do I produce a... Oh, make an intelligent what the hell is like in that making? Does any hear of no chat?

Cartography. It could either... It could be slight of hand, hilariously, but performance would be an option in addition to intelligence. Because it's artistic. What about history? Um, eh. It could be literally like one of five roles.

It's up to you, whatever you want. I'll say make a general intelligence check. And are you an artist? Like I guess he's an artist. No, I wouldn't say he's an artist beyond the fact that he's used brushes for the purposes, like lacquering instruments and stuff. Okay, yeah. I would say just make this straight intelligence check.

Creative and talented. Six. It's a rough approximation of what's out there. Perfect. Where are we? It's a masterpiece. Where are we? Yeah.

I give you a minute. Everybody knows you start the map with a little stars that says you are here. You didn't do that. Now what? Because if this was here, just hold, bear with me. If this, uh-huh. Here, this is where we were. Are you sure?

Left of the piece. Very. Are you actually marking where you think we are on the map? Now that I think that I know where we are. Okay. Everything else about the map is perfect, but I have no idea where we start. Oh man So now we know

Maybe where we are Where do we want to go? I don't even know There's so many things that we need to worry about Well Based on the things that I saw The city with a giant golden pyramid Seems the most likely place for something important to be

That's fair. Didn't Caprice or someone say that there's a swarm of something heading from that direction towards our direction? There's the moving mass, and then there's the small winged creatures. Well, they were small because they were so far off in the distance, but, I mean, they could be fucking huge, who knows, you know? But there are those two threats, for sure. We have to think about that.

And then there was this smaller city next to the oasis to the south, which I thought was interesting. Or we could be right out and make it. Maybe it's the arid canyons we should be heading towards. So the things are coming here? Well, it's, I mean, if I had to estimate it, perhaps be days, maybe even weeks, given how high up we are, and it was not moving with urgency. It wasn't like, you know, whenever we saw one of the armies moving through the mountains and stuff

where they're really like marching orders doing their thing, you know, they were this sort of slinking on the sand. What do you mean by moving mass? It's really hard to describe it. Well, it's probably a swarm of something. That doesn't make me feel better. Locust, Cinesets, sclerps. Ugh. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I mean, it's that far enough away. A group of bodies have been, even humanoid shapes might look like a group of locust, but given where we are, that's probably a good call. Right. And it would make sense if Oncateppe is here, he would know that a gigantic castle just landed in his domain and would want to send out

centuries of some kind to scout the area so it is best that we don't that we don't stay for too long. Oh, Ancatep was big into the, is, is big into the necromancy stuff, right? Yes. Well, what about all the... Oh, you guys didn't hear it,

but there are a bunch of shadow caria underneath us. I don't think they're going to be able to find this here, but like there are dozens, maybe hundreds of people that got run along with this castle. All right, so I'll steam them the hallway then. But there's no like water or food, so they might die and then be necromanically charged into a nightmare army. So should we not kill them in? I think we should move on.

Yeah. Whatever their fate is now that they've been transported to the stressful domain, I would propose as their fate. I don't think that we need to intervene in order for them to find out what that ending was like. when they followed Vorok. So if their fate is to be puppeted as an undead minion, then that is their fate. Unless we think we could ally with them and unite them and some sort of common cause

and perhaps have an army of our own and become leaders and eventually usurp the Anka-Tep and become, we could turn this place into, I don't know, the party town of the extra-planner realities. We can't partner with them. They're bad. They were bad. Like bad Akai.

That's free. Yeah, I mean, but they're here now, and they've been betrayed, and they've been doomed by their leader. What if we went down and were like, hey, what about us, new leader? You know, we could treat you, right? But how would we do that? We can't feed them. we can't water them we can't pay them

do we want to be in a land like this with a bunch of bad archaie that we are responsible for no no no I no that's fuck them I think that we need to get out of here I don't feel like we should be sitting here

in case what you said is true if they're coming to find us right but I don't think they'll arrive in the next 24 hours Yeah, but then we're just going to be like, I don't know, how far is from... Where are we again? Right here. Oh, from there to wherever we want to go.

No, I mean, we'll just be out in the open. We need to decide if you want to head towards the large city with the Golden Pyramid, the canyons, which I think should not even be on the table, or the small city near the oasis. Well, I think that the small city might be a little less conspicuous if we're trying to lay low and and gather some information. But if we want to find Zern or Vorok or any of these important individuals, the giant golden pyramid is probably the most likely to be fruitful. They have to be going to wherever the most important places on this plane are.

And the sooner that we find them, the sooner we'll get answers, and the sooner we can stop all of this and save those kids. According to my map, the shortest distance of the two possible cities is the OASISC city. and I actually think the opposite is true. I think it'll be harder to hide in a smaller population that might be more intimate with each other than in a big city. But maybe we could do the intel there, and it gets us out of the path of that moving mass.

If we go south and they're headed towards us, the city, the castle, then we can... The pyramid. Oh, the castle. Yeah, the castle. From the pyramid to the castle. From the pyramid to the castle. Yes.

Then the oasis makes a good place to at least as, get out of their path while also finding out what the hell this place is all about. Maybe. Yes, that sounds pretty smart to me. We should sidestep and re-evaluate. Thank you. And the oasis sounds pretty nice. I'm also worried about water. I've just got my scheme. Well, I certainly don't want a week's time, and my vote was for the pyramid, but you make several good points. If we head towards the pyramid, we're going to have to figure out how to hide from or move through or go around or the mass.

We don't want to get mixed up in a fight we can't handle right now. We still might have to face some of those flying creatures, or maybe they're friendly, and they'll be like, hop on the back. And if that's the case, then we'll go straight to the golden pyramid. Because who doesn't want to go see a golden pyramid before, you know, we're killed in this horrible land? Well, I think regardless, I think we should stay here, tonight.

Because, I mean, we've been through a lot today, and I think it's dangerous to try to leave before we've risked. I agree. I would have completely agree. And also, my pants need repair. And the bad

archive aren't going to be able to get up here. It was a lot for us, Stephen, ride those vultures up here. They're not going to be able to convince them to allow them atop the back. I think we're safe, at least for one evening. All right, well, we should get some sleep.

I would agree. I don't think, given how hot it is, I don't think we even need to make a fire. You know, it's probably not going to drop like 60, 80 degrees overnight like it would in a normal desert. I'm sure that everything will be fine. I'm not going to go to sleep. I just need to rest and recoup my energy.

I can help keep a lookout, and if things do start to get colder or change, we'll deal with it. I'm just going to, I need to look through these books and just try to learn as much as we can about this. Is there a shade, there's like a shaded part of this? Yeah, yeah, there's a whole bunch of it is shaded, and, you know, there's still some roof, and so there's definitely an area where you can definitely sprawl out

and enjoy some shade. Wake us up if you need anything. If there's any trouble. Are you okay, Felix? I don't know. All I know is right now we need to figure out what's going on, and then we take things one step in a time like we always do. We can figure this out.

I'll sit next to you and just be like, you know, I need to practice and explore some creative ideas, and I understand that this can help. So the purposes of focusing and energy. So, you know, if you don't mind, I'll just sit here and sort of play some beats that you can study and chill to. And that'll hopefully allow you to focus even better on your books. No, I don't mind at all.

I will run my hand up the neck of my viol, turning it almost into a columbia, and then sort of like working on a beat like... And I'll literally do Lofi like stuff. It's eight hours of Lofi Caprice beats But I'll cast on Felix. I'll cast enhanceability, a second level spell. Fox is cunning.

The target has advantage on intelligence checks. Yes. That's nice. It's rock and roll. And I'll get into sort of rest mode too as that goes on. Eventually I'll find my way to bed. So.

My 1V has a bunch of T-Rexes. I don't know. You are able to do that. Felix, what was your, what you call it, rule? It's a 27. 27, okay. My old buddy, tell us help. 27.

So you take the time to read through the notes, and you are starting to get a sense of basically what the prospect was. and you understand that dozens of children were brought all of them human and experimented on and many did not survive

the process anyone who did not have the Raven's blood did not survive There is the necessity to have both halves of the Raven Child, both sides of death, both halves of that same coin. And you learn that it's through the power that she's gained from Drislas, that she's able to shape flesh. she's able to to

basically take the take flesh and basically have full mastery over it especially when she has the time and you get the sense that there

that it was very critical, however, that both of both halves of the Raven Child would be kept alive. that if they die, the process does not work.

And that the, all of, all of the failed experiments, all of the children who did not make it, or who they just immediately presumed would not make it, or either turned undead into her playthings or friends as vampires, she would give them the gift as well. And you, you finally, as you continue reading, you see that there are notes of her having stolen books from,

you see that some of these books were actually personal, the journals and the work of Escher and a lot of the alchemy and all of the machinations. You actually see that there's some construction and some notes of techniques and artificer's tricks learned from some tinker named Tom Cogburn and Silas Morgan, and different constructions that he had learned. And basically, much of the knowledge that he had gained

had been stolen and studied by Ravanaughia. And you then see the blueprints of the different gears and the machinery built into the. the castle with the various runes. And basically the key piece was the, um, the mist talisman. The mist talisman. And then, uh, to get to Harakir. And that Vorok had been, had been assured that they would, uh, procure it in order to get there. Um, and you then learn, I think with that role, that it's very unclear what this Raven Child does, but it seems to, from whatever Vorok had said, and it really is more posturing and more notes, that Ravenovia

didn't really know for sure, but she had postured as a mount to ride against the Raven Queen. and could shatter the fortress of memories. What hell? Is there anything else you're looking for or interested in trying to learn? No, it was mostly me wanting to try to absorb all of this research to see if there was any other way to fix it

than what the Raven Queen had told me. You know, just learning as much as I possibly can about the scenario. And, you know, and I mean, that's a shitload of information. So I don't think nothing specific. Yeah. And so I think that you get the sense that she has no interest in ever reversing it. That there's no thought whatsoever, right? But that basically the key component of those that would survive that were,

it had to do the bloodlines. And that it had to be the blood of the raven. Got it. And I think that's generally what you've learned. Perfect. Pop-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p. With that, Felix is not sleep. But you are able to actually, despite everything that's happened,

despite the adrenaline pumping through your veins, the exhaustion and the horrible traumas you've endured, and just it today overwhelm you and you're able to pass out. Um, and it's in this moment, Iris, that you have a dream. It's gonna be nice. She's gonna be really good. We're a candy land style. Everything's made out of fun. Grandma not will be there.

Willi worm. Darkness. surrounds you. And you see a figure up ahead as light starts to wash over you and starts to illuminate howling sandstorm. Violent, dark, grains of sand so large, it should be rending your flesh. But you look down and you do not see your body.

You're just a disembodied sensory sense of perception. as once again that humming, radiating, pulsing, chaotic energy of silver light rocketing up from a strange black pyramid, colossal elements construction covered in runic hieroglyphics. It's very far in the distance, but you can see it. You've dreamed of this before. And in the sandstorm, you actually see a figure. The figure, it seems familiar.

There's dark fur, golden armor, and regal adornments. You get closer and you get closer. And is that anubis? Oh, it's feline. It's you. And you're staring up at a massive, jackal-headed God. As Anubis stands over you, but withered, hollow, the massive musculature and fullness and power that he has, withered away, drained, as he looks tired, how can a God be tired?

And as you stare up defiantly, you then turn away. And as soon as you fully turn your back on him. The flesh withers, as is the fur and the skin. And there's nothing left but a jackal skull atop a man's skeleton. But then flesh begins to reform. You see the tendons and the sinew. And the blood vessels begin to reform. And suddenly skin, and fur. An animal-headed god re-forms on top of the skeleton in this dark land.

But there's no jackal. This is a strange creature with malevolent evil eyes that seems to be a chimeric amalgamation of dog, Ardvark donkey, cobra.

It's a strange combination as it stares at you, filled with the power that had once been your God, but your God no longer. And as the energy and magic that surges with this malevolent, malicious creature, it looms down on you, it pulses with the same chaotic entropy that pulses, from the door of the pyramid and the chain god that is locked away. And then you wake up. You'll enjoy a long rest. Jesus, Lord Almighty. Religion-wise, what I have recognized that god. You won't have to roll forth.

That was set. Yep. All right. That's what I wrote down in my notebook. Uh-oh. I don't know what that means. Okay. Sounds very scary.

Dun-tun-tun-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da. You all wake up and you all wake up and it's you've slept for an incredible amount of time. You've been on the road getting poor sleep and you you see now that it's morning. You've slept through the entire rest of the day, the entire night. I'm not sure how long these days are. You're not sure how long you've been asleep. I guess perhaps Phelis has been keeping track. I guess he's been awake.

It just feels like a normal day in a ventress as far as timing goes. But you didn't want to wake anyone enjoying a long rest. And you see now the heat definitely reduced. Didn't get super frigid, but it definitely cooled off in the evening. And now you see the golden and red and pink rays of sun as they cast this glow over the dunes as yon. It's a little bit past dawn. I would say it's shortly after dawn. The sun is now fully above the horizon.

It's looking absolutely just massive, just casting its, the glow of morning, but it's that same desert red of this strange place and far larger than the sun of the mantras. What time is it? I have a couple questions. Yeah. So set, would I make the connection that obviously set and Oncotep are completely separate entities? or are they linked in some way? Or am I making the, when I be making a connection that set is related to the chain god? Like, I guess.

Why don't you make a religion check and advantage for me? I'm just trying to figure out what Iris would be thinking about. This podcast is brought to you by our Patreon. Become a patron today at patreon.com slash legends of avatrous and gain access to tons of exclusive perks including a monthly movie night and a weekly Patreon exclusive campaign set on the high seas, shroud over salt marsh. You can also go to The Crooked Moon.com to pick up your own copy of our first published supplement,

The Crooked Moon, a folk horror tome for Dungeons and Dragon Fifth Edition. And don't forget to snag all the extra goodies like dice, miniatures, plushies, a tarot deck, and more. Thank you. I would say that you've seen Akita. He's communicated with you. whatever this is, I mean, it's all seemingly necbesh. Yeah. Right?

It's all of the same general vibe, right? But I would say that the, the, Anubis had withered away, and in that wither away, on that same frame, re-grew the god in your pantheon, the evil god of destruction and chaos and entropy. Oh, boy. radiates with the same kind of power and energy as the Thar's doing the chain god. As if the set is in play in this dark world somehow.

Okay. And it's related to Anubis's power withering away. He's basically trying to kill Anubis so he can take his body. Is how Iris would see it. I think that is a very reasonable, I think that's a very reasonable, at the very least, whether it's body, power, whatever it is, basically tapping and killing an oebus,

in order to then for a set to emerge in this way. Oh, boy. It's very reasonable. Perfect. Uh-oh. Did you learn anything, Felix? Yeah, actually, quite a lot. Dancer Luffy's question.

It's time seems to move here, roughly the same way that it does an adventurist. You know, the days are days, and we have nights, and so that's a good thing. You know, things were relatively quiet while everybody slept. I read through all these notes and it's all Escher's... Are you all of that? Yeah, I mean, you know, it took a little while, but yeah, no problem.

How long were we out? Well, given, you know, probably more than 12 hours, more than 8 for sure. But, you know, it was probably late evening by the time we all settled in and, you know, got a guy. I didn't want to wake anybody. It looked like we needed it, you know. Everybody was pretty tired. Anyway, a lot of these notes are actually from Escher. It looks like Ravenovia stole a lot of it and was going through it and marking over top of it.

And quite frankly, I've never seen anything used so evil and dark. This is some of the most evil magic I've ever seen in my life. It's all the kids that they were taking and experimenting on. If they didn't survive, they just were turned them dead. and it's a mess and just it's really bad. Clearly it had something to do with bloodlines, the Raven Child, and there needed to be two halves and whatnot,

but their survival was key. So, and that's why we were able to deduce, Iris was able to doze that they were still alive, they weren't undead. That's good. Yeah, it is good. It seemed that Vorok and Ravinovia herself didn't even really know what the Raven Child was for. I mean, there's all sorts of scribbles and guests.

in here of what she thought she was doing, building some sort of a mount to ride against the Raven Queen, and it says something about shattering a fortress of memory. That's a quote. I don't know what that means. But if she's right, if the Raven Child was some sort of a mount that was created to ride against the Raven Queen, then it would make sense that the Raven Queen would tell us that we needed to separate them. Certainly she wouldn't want to be written against at all. She would want to protect herself and her domain and her power. The only other thing

that I seem to learn is that this place is called Harakir, and there was some sort of a mist talisman was what that they needed to get here. And to get the castle here. And King Vorak was very confident that they'd find the mistalisman. Whatever that might be, too.

We never saw any evidence of a mistalisman outside of... I would say that you had said that Alessandro basically said that they could use Iris to get to Harakir. Oh, okay, that's right. That you guys could use Iris to get to Harakir if that was the case. Okay, because she was sort of... Because she basically had a piece of, yeah, basically.

Well, I guess then Iris was the mistalisman that he found, and her, you know, sitting on that throne maybe activated it, and that's why we teleported here. It's certainly possible. I mean, that's what it sounds like to me. What concerns me is that if Iris is right and she no longer has that within her, then we've got to find a new way home. But don't worry. That's a problem for later us.

We have other stuff to focus on. Right. And all the planes that we've been to have had different ways of getting home, including that wild machine that they had built in the treetops. When we first went to the plane of air, I'll worry about that, but at the end of the day, the notes were very explicit that they had absolutely no intention of reversing whatever they did to Milo and Belescus. So we're going to have to figure that out, whether it means doing what the Raven Queen told us or finding a different way. But I don't know. I think I've absorbed just about everything I can in these books. Well, you did good job.

Yeah, we should. Then we can go and we have that information. and I'm not concerned about going out. There's a lot we need to do here, and I want to get all of it done before we even think about trying to return. Right, I just don't want to be stuck here. And I'm sure we won't. That'd be nice.

We'll figure out a way at some point. We just want to make sure we haven't escaped as all. As far as where we head next, it's my understanding that we're all voting for the oasis. Yes, I mean, that's what sounded best to me. I don't know where that cloud of stuff is now. We'll be... We'll need to be vigilant.

You know, we've got sandstorms, a big sandy tornado type operations, flying creatures, whatever the Shad Archai, who have been, you know, came along with us in the castle probably are starting to wander out into the dunes at some point, certainly. We have to avoid maybe the temples and obelisks, if any of them are nefarious or evil or cursed in nature. And then we have to make it to the oasis with what few provisions we have.

Are you going to be able to walk there? Did I get a sense that it was walkable? I mean, it's duney, right? It's very far. And so, I mean, yeah, it would take a very long time to walk there. You get the sense. And it's, yeah, and you're not sure, like, how traversable. You didn't see, like, any people or roads or anything.

Well, I suppose we could start starting. I mean, a journey of a million miles or whatever, one step. That seems like a lot of work. We've walked a lot before. Yeah, but have you ever walked in sand? It's like twice as hard. Oh, you have. Have you seen these caves?

I have, yeah. I'll be fine. I mean, I'm used to it. I've done it my love. Felix, have you ever walked in sand? I was playing to the wrong audience. I didn't... Don't worry about me. I'll walk wherever we have to walk. That's not a question.

Unless we had like a desert boat. You have a boat, don't you? Yeah, I do have my boat, yes. But it's for water. But what if we just put sand? It's kind of like water. What if we just put it on the sand and see if that works? Let's try it.

We'll see how that goes. Is there any wind? Oh, you're asking me. No, you're relatively protected from the elements in here. It does seem to be actually quite windy, especially this high up. You do get that sense, yeah. I can teleport us once a day, but I haven't seen it. It's only been described to me. I don't know where we're going.

Caprice's map. It's not the same as me seeing it or being there or having visited it. Anything could happen. If he looks out the window, is, are we, is the open to the direction in which we would be traveling? He would need to get up and climb and like or fly up to get a sense. You have to understand this magic is unpredictable, and it doesn't necessarily mean that we'd end up where we're aiming for.

I could fly you up there. I just, I wanted to lay it out there as an option because we have it, but I think it's an emergency kind of a thing. We should try the both thing. Did Caprice have an estimate of how long the walking would take? I mean, we're talking weeks, days. I would say it would probably take probably a couple days. I mean, you can basically see very far from this high up.

Obviously, there's no curvature of the Earth or of the globe in this situation, so you're able to see much farther than you normally would. And so it's very difficult to gauge, especially with how far everything off. There does seem to be a lot of shimmering mirages, and it's difficult to get that sense. I mean, several days isn't too bad, I think. We've done it before. I guess what I'd be worried about is cover at night.

You know, we're not going to freeze, but our exposure to the elements might be bad. I would propose we get started in that direction, and if we're getting tired, or the end of the day is happening, then we find, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we'd, we'd, we'd, we'd, we'd, we'd, perhaps one of those many obelists, or, or, if there's a ziggarot or something.

All right. Or a temple to a god. Are there any objections? Oh, you've got the thing. Yes. I forget. She's not always have a place for us. Oh, that's perfect.

I was going to say, because I knew a guy once, saw an obelisk, went up to it. Lost unknown amounts of time. Really? Not worth messing around with. No? All time? Time. Gone.

Like that. All right? Well, it's not my favorite seasoning, so I guess it's not horrible, but... At least it wasn't the Tony Sachery. Oh, time. I got it. I always pronounced it by me. But say it wrong this whole time.

Yeah, you're right out. Rosemary and Simon. It's at this point where you then hear the loud, or not loud, but it feels very distant, what sounds like repetitive drumming, and the blowing of a horn off in the distance. Yeah, I'm like that. I'll run up to the edge of the destroyed tower face

where we can see out and try to see if there's any activity in the immediate vicinity on the sand or on the dooms. Yeah, I'll say you run and you're able to climb up and look out towards the south-east. And you see an army approaching. Oh, is this the mass? This is the mass. And you see high above,

you see high above winged creatures flying around And you see now that there is an army that's marching and you're able to see that they're all adorned in this golden and blue armor that is surprisingly well kept given the fact that they're adorning skeletons, mummies, creatures of undeath amidst them. You see these large serpentine skeletal cobra-like creatures that are part humanoid. You see these massive, looks like giant, animal-headed, animal-headed creatures amidst this army. Huge scorpions. Massive vultures. And you'd seen the vultures from the, from Scephersonil,

but these are huge. They are skeletal. And on wings with holes in them, rotting away, somehow they're managing to fly as an army of the undead marches and is approaching Castle Bloomvale seemingly moving relatively slowly. You see that chariots pulled by skeletal horses and a number of banners all held up and you see that same symbol that you recall adorning the scarabs as it seems to be the colors of an heraldry of um ankatap sick well shit what is it yeah you remember that mass i told you about the moving one that iris and i saw when we were flying up

yesterday yeah what's so funny wait well well it's here now the mass is here now the mass is a It's an undead army of scorpions and chariots and skeletal beasts that can fly and armor-clad skeletons. Did I say skeletons already? Yeah, you said that. You said that. I get the gist. What are we going to do? An army?

Well, time for us to go. I'm going to start closing up the books and sliding them into my backpack. Yeah, yeah, yeah. How close are they, Caprice? They look like they're about this far away. I would say they seem to be probably less than an hour away to arrive as you see that they're approaching quickly. They don't seem to be like a waging war. They don't seem to be like going to attack, but they're just marching very deliberately as this army of the dead. And it's not

a massive army. It seems to be a battalion. A battalion. Yeah, I would say that it's a battalion. It's not rows and rows and row. It's just a single unit. It's a single unit that is moving towards you. Well, they're here for either the castle or the folks or both. But I don't want to wait here and find out. I think we should go.

We should definitely get out of here. Maybe we try the boat thing. I'm all right on my boat. They're going to see us leave? I don't know. I mean, we should probably hurry, though. Well, at the very least, we're not going to leave the direction they're coming from, right? If we're going to try to set this up and get this going, we should at least do it out of line of sight of them.

All right, how do we get down? I like him. I looked at Caprice. I could. If I slowfall, can I carry something? That's a great question. That's a good question. If you could physically hold the person.

Yeah. I think if it's within your, like, carrying something. But you couldn't Kiritoa, right? Like, there's no way. Thanks. I was going to get the boots up. I did not have any skills to assist with this problem. Oh, boy.

I think that we just have to figure out a way down and figure out how to fucking get around or outside of this thing, maybe steal, and hope that we can be two ships passing in the night. Do we have to be? leave, like the direction that we wanted to go, is that the direction that the army is currently coming from? So my understanding of the truth, and Mikey can correct me if I'm wrong, is that let's say this is the center of the domain. This is where the castle is. This is where the oasis is, and this is where the golden pyramid is.

So we can see it. So center like this. This is castle, Bloomvale, like so. And then down here, it's oasis town with whatever that looks like. So there is an oasis to the south that's closer, but the city is towards the north oasis that's considerably farther. The golden pyramid city? So let me... So I must have misunderstood because...

So basically, I'll come... Turns out you're terrible... So basically, here's Castle Bloomvale, right? That was right. And so let's just say it's like a general element. Let me turn it so on. Right. And so basically, here's an oasis.

here's an oasis, here's the city of the dead, right? Here's a skull. I got that. Can you sort of restart so that the folks of them can see? Yeah, so basically here's the center of like, the rough center, right? The sandstorm and mist all around here, right? Castle Gloomvale's roughly over here. There's like

an oasis with like a city of, like, that seems to actually be an actual like relatively normal looking city around here. And there's, you know, a river that goes kind of here, connects this oasis, goes down here, goes up this way. And that's, it's totally dry, but basically there would have been a river potentially.

There's no city down here? No. No, that looks, that looks, yeah. And then, you know, mountains basically all appear. So is the canyon land up here? Is the skull the golden pyramid? Yes. Yep, yep. And then this is, and so it's coming from that direction. And there's also, to my understanding, there's a canyon, like, super far out. Yeah, kind of, yeah, a little bit over there. Right. And, and, or a little bit further, and then there's, yeah, Matt, and then there's, like, an absolute massive sandstorm, like, right up here. Okay, let's get some sandstorm action going on right here. Okay.

Okay. So, that all being said, I thought that I was sleeting and guiding everyone south, but in reality, in reality, this dotted line is the path that the army has taken, and they're beating on our door now, right? So we could slip out the back, we could just fucking go north. And try to. So how far up in the air, compared to like getting down to the desert sand?

Um, your, uh, I would say many stories. Um, but, uh, you know, it's not, it's not completely, it's, you're basically in a massive castle. It's a very tall, a very tall tower. All right, so I'm in, uh, we can probably just climb down. Use the stones. Maybe use a rope. Why don't that go down first and I'll see if I can, you know, point out a good path for you all? Be careful of the Shad Archai, the bad archive. Yeah, I'll keep an eye out. Okay.

Maybe they're all dead by now. Who knows? Okay, I'm going to just use my walking, my vertical walking ability, or I forget what it's called. Yeah, yeah. Run down wall. I'm going to use run down wall to run down wall. Okay. But as I'm going, I'm going to be looking for sort of like the path where I think it would be easier for

them to climb down and like, you know, if there's a little kind of jut out stone or maybe like a little anchor point of something, like different points and guide them down. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Um, I would say for that, I need everyone to do make an acrobatics or athletics check to see how you do scaling down this castle. I'm going to cast feather fall on myself. Okay. I would say it would normally be disadvantage is rolled straight, actually, because I'm a cat and I have a climbing speed. Oh, you have a climbing speed. you're fine. You're able to just ascend. You said acrobatts or athletics.

Yeah. Just rolled straight. I'm a cat. Everyone rolls this straight? I'm just going to float down. Okay. Provided, if I had to cast... So just Toa and Caprice have to do it. Yeah. 16. 12. 16.

I'm also ready to cast featherfall again if you need to. It's a reaction. So, with Toa, you have a couple of close calls, but You know, the way that this is crumbled has left a lot of footholds. And as you're scaling down, you managed to make your way.

And fortunately for you, you're on the opposite side of the castle from where this army of the undead is coming to march up to Castle, Glomvale. Caprice, as you're scaling down, you are trying to be as extra as you can, but you make one wrong move and actually the stone actually crumbles out of your grip and you begin to fall. Okay. As I am beginning to fall, I'll be like, oh, no, I'm going to die.

Oh, fuck. I cast lepitate on myself. Oh. No, mind. Are you okay? Yeah, no. It's fucking around. Did you do that the whole time?

Yeah. Oh. I mean, it sucks that I had to do it. I was really hoping that I could rock it out like toe over here. But, you know, that's how we learn. Good try. You eventually all man. and you see this massive, you know,

from a meta term, this gothic castle, of these strange angles and strange construction look so completely out of place in this bright desert. And you manage to make your way down to the dunes as you actually see a number of vultures start to take off from the castle, but they're actually flying towards the army of the undead as it begins to march, make its way towards Castle Bloomfail,

and you are able to just start sprinting away across the desert. Obviously, it's a sea, small, or rather it's a massive expanse of dunes. And walking in this area, your feet sink in more than you'd expect, and it is hard going. But you all hustle as a group, having descended safely from this castle, and begin to make your way across the hot sands. Do we want to try the boat? You try it?

I don't know if it's going to work. So I'll pull my wooden box out that has all my little figurines, and I will take out a small my little sailing boat and I'll place it on the ground on the sand and I'll back up and I'll say Ray Ray and it's going to expand

into a full-sized What do you say? Ray-ray is the man I think it was I couldn't remember because I didn't write it down. Anyway it expands to the full size and Oh it's a show or not a grower

or it's a grower. All right And so it'll be a sail. And there's a platform, and it's not crazy big, but right, and there's the two sort of clues that are attaching to it with the mast. And I'll say, hey, everybody, get on. I'll hop on. So I don't know. I'm probably just sink into the sand.

But I'm going to, like, you know, grab a rope, and I'm going to, like, move the sail so that it could, you know, potentially catch wind and just see what happens. Okay. The boat goes nowhere. So what is a water vehicles check? What kind of check is that? It depends.

I'm proficient in it, so I'd add my proficiency, but you could add deck strength. You add any of the stats to it, right? So if it's something that require wisdom in a boat, I would add my wisdom modifier and then my proficiency. So that's how you can do. You don't have any kind of check. Got it, got it, got it.

Delated to it. As the, as you, the boat suddenly appeared. I don't know if anyone besides Felix has ever seen this boat. Have you ever pulled that out once before? Really? Once before, yeah, maybe. I recognized it one time long ago. It was for a...

There was some reason I did it. There's water, remember? Was it during... I do. I do. Because I knew you had a boat. Sailing race. No, yeah.

Yeah, that's right. That's right. Oh, so only Felix is seen it then. Yeah. Is everyone else? Yeah. Oh, what the holy jeez. Wow.

Suddenly ate a large sailing boat. appears, not some massive ship, it seems to be very much of the McCona Islands construction. But you're all able to get on, and you are, it's been a long time since you've done this. And so I would like you to roll a, I think this would be a wisdom check. I think, like, how are you going to utilize the wind and this, an agri-preficiency place? It's like a sandstone. Oh.

Same. It's pretty neat. That is a 12. Nice. Oh, okay. As you pull on all the ropes, you get the sail in the right direction, and you actually feel the wind, as the wind is so strong that it's actually kind of lifting some of the sand. It doesn't hurt, but it's very clearly wind blasting across these dunes. You actually feel and see and hear the sails fill, and you manage to pull.

and you start to move a little bit as you start to go. And you get the sense, though, that if you really want to sit, that you need more wind than is available here. It's meant to go on water, not in sand. But it actually is a relatively smooth dunes that a little bit. I didn't think that was going to work. So you're just kind of moving at like a very slow clip. This kind of works.

I can't believe it. Did you always have the ability to create a boat out of the small totem? Well, yeah, how do you think I got here? I had to sail here. Duh. Yeah, but you've never used this before? What do you have to do to make the totem turn into a boat? It seemed very easy.

Well, I mean, it's a little boat, and then it grows into a big boat, and then it shrinks back down when I need it to. Yeah, but, like, if you're fighting a guy, couldn't you put a boat just, like, boat totem in his mouth and then just, like, hit the go button and call it a fucking day? Oh, no, it would break. I would never risk that. This is very precious to me.

This is the boat that he saved my life on when we first met. Oh. Now I know. This is how I got here, so. This is nice. I know we're running from a skeletal army, but... If I were to walk next to them on the boat, would I move faster? Yeah.

Probably. You're like coasting along. And you get the sense that if you were able to get like a large gust of wind to go in, very similar to the sandbender, and Avatar the Last Airbender. And Ang airbending into the sail, you think that you could probably go at a pretty good clip. Towa, do you have ropes that we could attach to a giant scarab

that could, for 10 minutes, drag us along and hopefully get us some momentum? Something like that? I have plenty of rope. Great, and I'm going to use my staff of the swarming scarab to create a giant scarab. Okay. That's going to fly.

and I'd like to attach, with Toa's help, attach the rope to it, and have it drag the boat along for 10 minutes. Okay. Hopefully giving it some momentum during that time we can try and figure out. I would say one of you can make an animal handling chick at advantage because it's a magical creature. To see how well you're able to hitch this guy up.

But I'll help. Natural 20. Oh my. Gotta give it up. So you are able to, this scarab immediately appears and it actually looks very much at home. And you manage to fasten it and tie it around in a point where I'll say with a natural 20

that you have the feeling this scarab is so comfortable here. You'll stay for an hour instead of 10 minutes. Aw, nice scarab. Nice mic. And as soon as you get back on the boat with a little bit of help from the wind and you're still able to aim, what's it, trim the sails, to trim the sails into the wind, that with the help of the scare,

these huge wings, it blast off and flies probably about five feet off of the ground and pulls as you manage to actually start going at a pretty decent clip as this scarra pulls you. And you're in this little relative valley in this dune with really does these dunes rising up all above you with Castle, Bloomvale. And, um, uh, I. And as you're being pulled away, you hear a booming voice call out from behind you.

Oh, boy. As it sounds incredibly dry and raspy and rattley. As it says, it calls out and says, On the behalf of Pharaoh-Ankata, we welcome you to Harakir. Your king is awaiting in comfort and safety at the city of the dead. We have provided transport for anyone who wishes to join us. You will enjoy your time here. We will protect you.

You will join us. And there is a bit of hesitation there. And you, you, and it's, you get the sense, as you kind of hear a voice, calling off as if there is some Shadar Kai speaking to whatever, this booming, this booming, magically amplified voice of some undead. And it says, we will provide you with everything you require if you promise to assist in the search

for the final fragment of our pharaoh's car. And there's a bit of... There's a bit of hesitation. And then it says, we will search the castle. And suddenly you hear the movements of the troops they begin to approach Castle Gloomvale as you, as the scarab pulls you away. Little shit.

Are we out of sight? Like, they just looked at all actions. So long, Godfors! Very fortunately, so I will say that you think that you can basically stay behind Castle Gloomvale and basically, you see that there are divots, and the elevation is a little bit more, like, rocky in certain areas. You'd be able to eventually get out of the... eyesight of that. Good old dunks.

There are dunks, donning the land. Did you hear that? Yeah. They're going to save all the elves. I don't know if saves the word I'd use. They're going to... Use them as labor, sort of, it sounds like.

Well, they'll probably kill them and rise them as undead, like Caprice had mentioned previously. I was going to say, on board, but that's really what that looks like, yes. Well, on the way, we should really go as far as we can. Well, and at least now we know for sure where Uncle Depp is. Are we sure that this final fragment thing that was mentioned isn't in the castle and that we're walking away from some artifact that would prevent the pharaoh from achieving his true power?

No. No, I think they mean I was. I was going to ask who wanted to tell him. Oh. Remember, Caprice, there are no dumb questions. But I thought you felt like it was gone from you. Yes, well, apparently I was wrong. Oh, Jesus.

Just that the pool is no longer there, I guess. Because you're already here, so now he can use brute force in an army of all. I thought maybe he'd already claimed the soul fragment, but... No. I might have to die for him to get it. Well, I mean... We're not going to let that happen. Of course not.

And the good news is, if he knew exactly where it was, he'd know where you were. Exactly right. You can't sense it. for it, so they're not being able to sense it, which means as long as we lay low and we don't ever lose Iris, then we're going to be okay. I'm going to wander off on my own for a while. I've a lot to think about. Well, you were, we're just... No, that was a joke. Oh. I didn't deliver it very well, did I?

You know, because Felix just said as long as we don't lose Iris, and then I said, oh, well, I'm going to go solemnly because that's something you would do, you know, walk off on my own and think, and, but I guess because it's something I would do, it's not funny because you would expect it to actually... Never mind. I'm sorry. The most important thing to know about telling jokes is timing. What about it? Oh, I put that up. Fuck!

Look. Here's what I'll say. Iris, if you just let us kill you, then we don't have to worry about the Pharaoh ever achieving his true purpose. Unless the fragment goes right to him. Yeah. What if he loops out of her? She could be keeping it contained.

Yeah. And of course we're not going to kill her. That was a really crude joke. I can't believe you'd suggest that. The most important thing about joke is timing. Fuck. Well, the scarab is doing work. Yeah, I'm really, I'm blown away that this is working right now.

I'll be completely frank. I know my name is caprice, but I'll be completely prank. I'll urge forward as like zips. Yeah, we just see a shit. You just fucking... You see the top of an obelisk poking out of the dunes, and you see that there's crumbling stones that's buried as you make your way around,

and you see as you crest on the top of a dune. You see now far ahead that snaking dry out a huge riverbed that seems to go all the way through the entire domain. Which way are you heading? Are you heading directly there? How are you doing? And we'll say that basically once you get there, you get the top of this

dude and suddenly you all lurch forward as the scare of poofs out of existence. Well, I guess we just keep going away from the army, and then we can figure out where we take our next step. I think we have two choices. We have the harder path of just going across the dunes to this oasis, where we

cross over to that dried up riverbed and we use it like a road. It's not a bad idea. Could be more dangerous because I imagine other creatures like ourselves would have the same idea, but it's worth a shot. Does the riverbed go to the... Right to the oasis, yeah. It looks like the oasis that you could see are connected would have the originally been connected by a very large river.

But now they're subterranean rivers. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So then should I steer for the riverbed? Are we able to progress further on this boat, or are we going to have to walk? We're at the top. We could at least slide down. How long does it look like it would take to get to the riverbed? If there was another scarrub.

We could try this, and I pull out my conch shell that I haven't used for a bit of three years. This might at least get us somewhere, and I'll blow on it, and you'll hear this, like, just this gushing of wind, and from it, wind will explode from the conch shell in the direction that I blow. And I'm going to use it to angle the sails like I've done in the past, right? So I have one hand on the rope with the sail. And then I'll basically, for one minute, it'll blow wind. How many times can you do that?

As many as you need? Or is it like once a day? It's not once a day. Every minute we're just... What does that noise? Hold on. I mean, move. So I can use it again,

but then if I use it again, it has a 20% chance. Exploding into blood. Conch, conch, conch, cunch, cunch, cunch, cunch, cunch, cunch. Oh, we going to try it again? Roll the dice. Just once. Roll the dice, don't know.

I use a eye. Can I? I will. I'm going to go and try to use my unending breath. Ooh, an ending breath. How does that work? I have an ending graph.

Are you able to cast gust of wind? No. Probably. Almost certain wind. Not magically. That's what I'm basically casting with my car shell. It only lasts a minute.

I almost took more wind of the seventh level. That would do the work. Undending breath is, oh, I always do this wrong. I can hold my breath indefinitely. Okay, you hold your breath. As you manage to make your way, so which direction are you going? Are you going basically towards the river or towards the... I think we were going to ride the dune down towards the river.

Yeah, I think we decided that the river is the way to go. And if we need another hour to get there, then Caprice will generously give some magic. I can also do another scarab. Oh, you can? Yeah. How much to... It takes four charges of my staff to make a scarab. And I literally never use my staff.

That's cheaper than it would cost me. Probably. So I'll say with a colunk, with another scarp. I will say, use another scarob. We got to name him. You are able to... Can't conjure a scarab and make your way. And you are riding down.

And I need... It was thinking scrump. I need you make... I need to get a perception check for me. Good job. Which one of us? Good. Perception check. I don't perceive shit.

Or whatever we were calling. It's not going to be. It's not going to be good enough. Why are you rolling nothing but three is twos and one? It's 20. 12? 12? Yeah. Oh, you're not bad?

I guess it's higher than a 10. I'll say that so as you ride down, you start to see this places, as you look around, starting to see life. You're starting to see scrumpies in the area. Whatever we were calling Kledz Skarl. We called them Scrum, Skump, whatever we call them, skump, scump, scum, scum, scum. You're able to see life in this area. You see what looks like these strange reptilian creatures that slither back and forth with four legs.

but they almost look snake-like. You see that as you walk past, you see what looks like, oh, is that another band of travelers? But you just see it's just like three skeletons walking along the dune, just wandering. You see winged creatures flying overhead and you actually see that,

similar to the wing creatures that you had seen to the north, as you make your way down the river, you see that there's a statue that seems to be split in two. that seems to be looks like a creature sitting on its basically sitting down some sort of animal, but the statue is split and there's two winged creatures circling, but with that role you're not able to make out what they are, but they seem to be circling it, that you seem to be passing,

that would have once perhaps looked over a river. And that's what you say. Oh, really? Yeah? As we're cruising down this riverbed. Are we at the riverbed already? I'll say you arrive at the riverbed after a while. Time is relevant to the story.

I'm getting kind of concerned that if we do get to this town and it is a group of peoples that might be here, I can't imagine that there's any living creatures that could survive here. What if we don't encounter anybody who's actually... not undead. We are going to stick out like a sore thong with all this flesh. Hmm. Would you like to die?

No. Then I don't think we have another option. No, no, no, I'm not suggesting we do anything else. I'm just surmising. I'm wondering. Well, if, uh... It's true, though. If we run into nothing but undef, then

our first job will be to lie and to tell them that we're just fresh. and that we just happened to have recently died and that the sand and winds have not yet stripped our flesh of its fleshy exterior of the flesh of the fleshy flesh I will have to do a little R&D to see if I can illusory create us as undead people

let me just turn it. Is anyone else concerned about the shambling skeletons all over the place? Well that's what made me think of it, Toa. That's exactly my point. There's a lot more, I don't want to say people, but there's things about. I was kind of picturing this to just be a desert, like empty. What are they doing out here? I'm very concerned about the shape of the skeleton. We wouldn't even be able to escape them if we went into an anti-magic bubble,

for some reason, according to sage advice, this fucking horchish. Maybe they're not magically undead. Maybe they're just sort of... Undead undead? I don't know. You can't take a normal... skeleton and have it walk around in that manner. There's something magical about that, right?

I don't know. Maybe in the rules of just the world of dungeons and dragons, it just doesn't quite work that. So what you're saying is that there's room for magical but not quite magical effects, is what you're saying. Maybe when you turn on dead, your inner skeleton becomes your exoskeleton, so all your muscles and stuff just zoops to the inside, but it's all still there. Because your brain is inside your skull, right? Isn't it outer skeleton? Well, no, because...

I've popped a hole in my theory. There's alcohol in my theory. She just poked a hole in your teeth. Oh, she said there's also alcohol. There's also alcohol. It's really hard out here, and I've been hitting the wine a little bit more than I should be. Well, maybe as long as we stay out of the agro radius, they won't pay any attention. I'm only level 59.

I was thinking that maybe I could like roll in honey and then roll in sand and just show up like a sand mansever. I'm with Iris. I don't think this is something we need to actively worry about. I just was thinking out loud. But that does pose another problem if we're the only living things that enter this city. and Onkatep has announced this reclamation for part of his soul. We might be... Ficked? Yes. We won't know until we get there.

Maybe we're going to the oasis of 20 to 30% dead. And worse than a scenario, if it comes to blows, this won't be the first group of undead things that we dispatch once and for all. And you're very good with them. than dead. You can just be like, pukk. And I mean, have you seen this and I hold up my totem? I mean, one swing could take out at least eight skeletons. Yeah. I mean, they're like barely helped to get it. It would be fine.

Swing through those guys like Sauron. But I think everyone should get off my bag. Oh, like this. Because they thought about here. So I just does this. Yeah, you got this. It's all in the form of the rest. It's all in the form of it.

It's like he's risking a bowl. Watch the movie again. Everyone knows that the way that you wield a massive, huge mall as a 12-foot monster crushing into other creatures is like you're using a weemone. It's like we have a strap. We tennis. Is your strap on tight?

Is your strap on tight? Is your strap on tight? on tight. There's two ways to read that. Stop saying strap on. Thank you. Every time you load up the weave, your strap on tight, please don't run it. The wings keep shaming. Not anymore. Yikes.

Yikes. Yikes. Does it seem like there's a threat that these skulls notice us as we approach the river red and start to make our way? Is they see a boat flying through? Do they turn in look? Do they... You see that there's a number of skeletons, they turn, and they look at you, and then they just continue on their way. Some are just shambling, aimlessly. You actually see as... You see that there is...

You actually see there's a creature around the bend in this riverbed, and it almost catches you off guard, and you just see it's actually a camel, and it's just kind of pulling out this strange, just sprouting shrub from the riverbed. A camel camel or a skeleton camel? It looks like a camel. Oh, cool. It feels like a camel. That's a good sign.

Yeah. And it just kind of looks at you lazily as you pass by. Is it a wild camel? Yeah. It's a camel. You saw it as a lizard creatures, and you're seeing that this isn't just some completely barren desert. There are creatures around. Why don't we take the camel?

Yeah, we can recruit the camel. I'm sure we'll find more of them. There has to be more than one camel. Well, then everybody get off my boat. Say please. Wow, that was awfully... That was really cranky toa. This makes you really cranky toa.

No, I'm just... I'm just... It's more for the bit. Well, thank you for your service. ...that's a fucking high sort of thing, you know, like, when we've been talking about strap-ons and remotes and... Is that wrong? I hop off the bed. Yeah, we hop off the boat.

Okay, I get off the boat. I say Ray, right, and it slinks down after the bars. Um... I guess I'll approach the camel and be like, hey, camel! I like when you ever to tell and I say, this is going to go so badly. I just want to say that you have the best humps I've ever seen, and if you would be so kind, one or perhaps two of my friends here might be able to take you too, if you'd be so willing to carry us on your back,

we would be able to go to a destination, you'd get lots of pets, you'd get lots of food, We'd take good care of you. We'd brushy, brushy, brushy, brushy, huh? Brushy, brushy, brushy. You make an animal handling check a disadvantage. No. Caprice isn't aware that camels don't speak common. 13.

Oh. You were negative one. Wow. With 13, the camel looks at you and doesn't immediately bolt away. As the boat just, Toa's boat just slides it right next to and you're able to stop it. for a bit, and the camel just kind of is chewing the shrub that it managed to pull. And you see that this riverbed, it's sandy, but as opposed to just the high dunes, that there is a little bit of soil, and there are some, a few bits of greenery that's growing out of this.

And it is just lazily looks at you. Hey, you're great. You're great. I'm going to slowly bring my hand up and sort of try to give it a little like ear, scritchies. Can you animal family check? Felix, is that a battery or a dromedary camel? I'm going to tell from here. I'm going to be honest.

It's a dromedary camel. Thank you. 12. Amazing money. Oh, wow. Yeah. 12. Hey, hey, you're all right, buddy.

As you do that, it looks at you and it continues just to chew and it like leans in. It was like leans in a little bit. I can't wait for it to spit in Caprice's face. I was rolling for that was a spit roll. If it was sub-12. Well, I just don't want it to kick him. I will. I'll start to, like, pat him down and pat him off.

I'll get all the sand out of his hair and make sure that he's, like, enjoying, just interacting. We'll spend a few minutes to sort of being together and making sure that everything's good before I eventually am like, would you take some weight up here? Are you, can I? and I'll attempt to jump into the mid-hump area to see if I can ride this wild thing. Is it a dromedary camel, so it'd be a single hump.

Oh, my apologies. I will jump onto its back. I'll jump onto its back. So this camel, despite it being a camel, I will say that it is actually, it is much larger. As you're spending time with it, you've probably never seen a camel in your life. No. But it looks at you with these large. large, this large bushy eyelashes as it blinks at you.

Like Sahara and animal crows. Yeah, exactly right, because they blink out the sun, the sand. Like they sort of these big, crazy bushes, and it's very large. And you get the sense, this is like a dire camel or some sort of like much larger kind of creature. I treat it with nothing but respect.

And I'll say that with those two roles, you can roll an animal handling check just straight now. You're no longer disadvantaged. Just to see if I can get on top of this thing. It's not good It's a seven I do not succeed Probably getting up on this bag

As you attempt to jump off It uh That was a bridge too far As it It shoves you off And you just feel a spit at you And this spit Is acidic

Is actually incredibly painful It's a cobra camel It's a spitting cobra camel Wow That actually is a lot of damage As you take 16 points of acid damage You're like Ned in Jurassic Park.

As you feel it, as a Dennis Nedry, as it Dennis Nedries you. That's right, Dennis Nettree. God, what the fuck? And it's so pretty. And you see as it looks at you and blinks and then trots off and he swallows the greens that it has, and there's another little bit of shrub. And it just seems to, now that it's finished,

its meal, it's more interested in that next meal, or that next bit of shrubbery before. What did you say to that camel? He probably walks about 15 feet away. These camels are dicks. I gave it nothing about respect. I petted him. I scratched his ears.

I cleared his fur of sand, and he spit in my face. It is a wild animal, Capgris. And you did try to mount it. I love that you were going to name him after me, though. I appreciate that. That's pretty funny. Are you all right?

Yeah, that was painful. Yeah, it's going to be a little red for a while, and I don't know if I can open this eye until tomorrow. We'll be all right. Well, what do we do? Should we try again? Let's just keep... If we all just get on it, it can't spit on us if we're already on it, right?

walked away. Late, he's getting... He's just sitting. He's literally just 15 feet further, leans down, and you see him pull up the shrub. And actually, although they only look like very small, once it gets pulled up through the sand and the soil, they're actually like these very large shrubberies that he's enjoying quite a bit. So did you say it's big enough that we could all fit on it?

No, but I will say as the dungeon master, if you cared to attempt, if you could try something and impress me with your idea, to a couple of you could ride it, because it is a large camel. But if you wanted to try to fasten some kind of rains and get it to pull your boat, it could very easily pull your boat,

given how giant this fucking race. I use Iron Fortress of Diss. It fails its intelligence, say we fall off, falls prone and turns into camel paste. I'm going to look around in the sand and try to find some of these shrubs

that it's eating and just spend, you know, a few minutes, like, picking a big bunch of crops. I would say you don't have to roll for it. Oh, and I would like to help her by creating food and water. Okay. And I would, there's going to be a shit ton of bread just off to the side, because I can't take it with me. But I'm going to take one of the, uh, one of the containers of water

and provide a jug of water to the camel. I'll take one of a lot of breads and nurse my face. I was going to just dust some of the sand off and just eat some of the bread. It's very bland. You do that. Um, and so, uh, you see Iris Condor and then there's a, uh, a beautiful pottery jar of water that you're able to hold and look you're able to pull a good number you have a big handful of these and you actually see that at the base of all of these shrubs there's a nice little vegetable of some kind with some roots dangling from it that looks like it might almost kind of like a little a dangle tuber a little onion or something a dangle tuber yeah that's their scientific name is the dangle tuber so i'm going to gather all these roots and stuff up and kind of bundled and

and tie them with some rope that I have or some twine. Okay. And from that, I'm going to tie them to the end of my spoon. Okay. Like a little fishing pole. Carrot on a stick. Carrot on a stick, if you will. Dangle tuber on a stick.

Okay. Everybody, here's what we're going to do. We're going to strap this camel to the boat. And then I'm going to jump on it with a treat and see what happens. All right. You want us to just try to like attach the camel to the boat? Yeah. So do we have some rope? Don't you think that we should try to warm the camel up to us before we attempt to strap it to a boat?

I tried talking to me. It's a fucking dick. I think if we just hook him up and then he... I'm going to walk over to the camel with the jug of water. Make an animal handling check. And so I'm going to hold the jug of water out in front of me. natural 20 let's go so that'll be 25

25 um as you walk I'll just like walk up to it be like and then hold out you and you there's like something you have

um you know camels you know normal camels like hut hut does I think for the move so I mean in the mummy you know

I eat from the like your family your family Your family has camels, camel tamers. You're familiar with this creature, not one of this size in this. And there is something strange about it. It does look like an otherworldly camel,

but as soon as you bring the water over, you can tell that its eyes actually flashed with this strange blue, and it immediately turns towards you, and without even seeing the water, it knows that it's there, and it immediately walks over to you and just start slurping and drinking deep.

And I'll like, I'll pet it and I'll like talk to it. It's okay, darling. We're going to strap you to our boat. And I'm going to motion for them to do it while it's distracted drinking the water. Yeah, so while I'm going to be hooking. We're going to strap you to the boat. And then we're going to feed you while you walk. And everything's going to be fine.

And I'm just going to talk to it and continue to feed it water. Do you need a description? Yes. Yeah. We don't have to rollplay this, but. Well, so from the front of the boat where it's got the two canoes, I'm going to have a rope attached to each canoe going up laying in the sand on either side. And then I'm going to very gently while it's distracted, put a circle of rope kind of under its armpits behind its neck, but in front of the hump. Okay, yeah. And then I'm going to tie each rope to the side.

Okay. I would just say make a dexterity check straight. And you can add your proficiency. Let's do this one. Our proficiency is five. We will see how well you do this. Dexterity check plus five. But also plus proficiency, right? Plus five is the proficiency.

Oh, 11. I hate you. Where did you roll? It's dexterity. A six. A six plus five plus your proficiency. It is 14. Oh.

15. 15. 60. 60. 16. 16. Well, that's way better. 16. You're able to fashion with the ropes, with the scraps. You're able to take time with it is drinking the water.

It seems very appreciative. I have like 30 jugs of water. And as it looks at you, there seems to be... But some really bland. As it looks at you, it pauses. And as you're fastening it, it looks at you with a strange kind of... A strange kind of intelligence that you wouldn't expect from one of these.

We've been in neckbed. Yeah. Similar to how Vandrists antagonized the bear many years in the future. This animal seems to have some level of intelligence beyond that, and it seems to not care at all. And it seems very appreciative, especially it's kind of ion that little bulb on the shrubs that you guys got. You're able to dig up a little bit.

You like that? Yeah. And so because you get the sense that the camel was only able to tear off the, like the tops of it, not always get that little bit at the bottom. wanted the bulb, you gotta feed it. And so it's giving you the eye and then it goes back to that. And so I would say you're able to fashion that. You can like, care it on a stick one,

but you have to like actually feed it because I know this is a fake camel, but my heart's really sad for how much it wants those bulbs and can't get them. Once I've got it all hooked up, I'm going to come up with a bulb and flat hand horse feed it. Nice. Yeah, I'll say that there's no more ruling you have to do. You've already succeeded this

challenge. I just really want to know how we react. You, uh, he, very eagerly goes up and starts eating. I'm going to look under the hood also. Is it a he or she? It is a he. You're able to tell that. It is a he.

As you, as you as camera bites it, you start to feel as it very happily does that and you feel its lips kind of almost wrap around your hand. And because you're just feeding it, you do feel its saliva and actually Stings, you're going to take five points of acid damage.

Ow! I love you. I like that kiss from this camera would kill most of the level ones. Yep. Yep. Okay. And it's very, it seems very appreciative and it looks at you and eats it, be the entire shrub and continues its chew as is finished drinking its water. Okay.

I think we should, why don't you all get on the boat? Iris, do you want to hold the stick? should I sit up there? I think I'll ride it. I have the most experience. Don't lose my spoon. Okay. But we could attach it to my staff. Okay yeah let's do that. I don't think I want you to touch you. That's really bitchy. Already stopped the boat then we'll get on the boat and then everything will be fine. I hop back on the boat. I'd bring the boat back in. Oh, you do that and you're able to fashion it and uh, wherever Whenever you guys decide to move it, the camel begins to pull.

And with the addition of Toa still working the sail, it gives them a little bit of oomph, and you're able to travel considerably faster than you had with the scarab. And you have a fucking desert vehicle that I wasn't planning on. Give us another like a couple hours. We're gonna have like a windchurch.

ship just take off. We have to name this camel. We have to keep this camel. This is our best friend. This is our best friend. And his name is tow. And so I would say it begins to start galloping and its eyes are on that little bulb and it just continues to go.

And I will say that you get the sense that this is probably a camel that has an incredible amount of endurance. You know that normal camels have crazy endurance. That you get a sense of a dire camel or some sort of whatever this is. A dire camel. That it would be considerably... Do we all see its eyes changed? They're so pretty.

Yes, I would say that'd be very obvious. I think the camels are just so cute. Ladies, the camel's eyes shifted when you started feeding it water. Is that normal? Well, it's not normal for camels to have acid spit. So no, this is clearly some alternate reality anime camel. Is any of this normal to you?

Is any of this normal to you? the skeletons and you know you're doing good i agree with 50 on this we're we're sailing on a water boat on sand driven by a dead a death camel it's not the weirdest thing we you think he's a dead cat let's be real well i think everything in this land is somehow tied to death in some way just you know i just never seen a camel before i guess i they're really cool look at its eyelashes pretty amazing yeah i they store water in their hopes oh Could you know? That's convenient.

It's not pregnant. I wish I had a water hump. Oh. What if I got pregnant, it was on your back? I wish I had a water on. Does that mean that it was twins. It got no trouble. Oh, no.

You turned into a bacteria in humans. That's awful. Thanks, I hate it. Jesus. Move on. Apologies. Apologies. I would say that we ride in the river bank or alongside the river bank, whichever is the smoothest ride

with this vehicle that we've concocted somehow until we reach night or we reach our destination. Yeah. So you see that there is that as you make your way through the river, you're riding. and you make your way towards, it's approaching midday. As you see now, the large statue is looming high, and you've seen bits of ruins all across. Basically every several hundred feet, there is a bit of stone, a bit of ruin all across this entire desert.

It doesn't make sense that there'd be this many buildings. How long would it have taken to construct this? did anyone build this? But the one statue that you'd seen previously that looked crumbled, its head seemed to be split in two, its head tumbled into the river, into the bank ahead of you. And you see those two-wing creatures circling high,

their shadows over the really shadows as they block out in the sun a little bit and cast this shadow over you. His feet really are big. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. Aren't they weirdly bulbous? It's wild. Yeah. Is it more clear now what those

blind creatures might be? Make your perception check. Oh, God. Not very good. Got a 10, so not very good. No. I will say that they don't seem any birds. They do not look bird-like at all. Okay, we'll find. And I need you, Nikki, to make a religion

check at advantage now that you're closer. 18. As you've been, you've seen remnants of statues, you've seen bits of pieces that seem to be religious artifacts, but they don't seem to be of any gods or pharaohs that you

know of. But this statue up ahead that seems to be like a creature that's on, that's basically resting down with its, on its, on its with its head missing and split in two buried in the sand, you see that the shape of the ear that's sticking up on one side, that it actually looks very pointed and jackal-like. And you see the construction of it seems to be a would perhaps once have been covered in a decorative black stone.

Looking at it, does it look like it was naturally destroyed or intentionally destroyed? I'll say, we'll keep that. It looks like it had been, as you approach, or far off in the distance, it looks like it had been, where others had been worn away, this looks like it had to been a deliberate destruction. Given how many pieces it was, you've seen the ruins where it had kind of worn and crumbled normally, and you see that as you're going around, it's probably, you know, a good hundreds, hundreds of feet away, but this is a massive statue.

that these two-wing creatures seem to be circling, staying above, but it looks as if it has been defaced, and much of it is buried in the sand. No, boy. I am not pleased by this. Someone clearly destroyed a statue of Anubis. This is Anubis? Well, it looks to be, if I'm judging by the ears,

at least some kind of jackal-headed effigy, which would have been constructed in most cases, in reverence to Anubis. Shrapon Shrapon I'm going to call him Strappy for short Shrapon

Can you move us a little bit closer to the thing But not up to it I guess naming it after me Is a little uncomfortable That's fair I support this

It would be confusing If we were Toa the Toa Or Toa the camel We just say toa Or camel toa Well I was going to name The next camel

Fee Since Caprice was nice to do it Or kha I guess. Well, if it was tow was this guy, but he's not tow anymore. I was an even Fee after Felix. Pets it on, you know, but... So, Camel Fee. Well, I think what you said's fine.

Or Fee? Yeah, I think we'll just call him strappy. We have him connected to the boat via ropes. And he's a strapping, young lad. Strapy. That's pretty good. Yeah. It's unraveling very quickly.

Come on, Strapon. The camel evenly follows wherever the bulb goes. Where the bulb goes. And so you're going to go towards this sphinx-like statue, is what you're doing. I don't want to go up to it, but I'd like to just

kind of get closer, just to, unless I already know that it's a statue of anubis. Okay. So you're... I just want to kind of get closer to see if I can confirm that it is a statue of an abyss. Okay. Because it is, I'm putting pieces together in Iris's head. Roger that. So you go forward, and he goes, basically, wherever the delicious bulb of these shrubs, lead him.

And so wherever you get a hang, especially with how long you've been traveling, as it's approaching late afternoon, probably at this point, or mid-afternoon, we'll say. And you see now where much of it is buried, you see that there's, been deliberate, that you know that there are sphinx-like statues, right? Are these statues of the various animals? This very clearly seems to have been a massive statue of a jackal. The head has been completely smashed off, split into at least two. One of the ears is pointed up, and you see that familiar lining of gold on the inside of the

ear. So it's like the hieroglyph of the jackal. Yes, exactly right. Split, and one of the pieces of the head is sticking out. out of the riverbank. And I need a perception check for me at a advantage because you're deliberately looking. Perception, you said?

29. 29. You look up and these two-wing creatures are still very high above the statue and they're very deliberately circling it. And it almost looks vulture-like in the way that they're circling. But you look up and these are no vultures.

You see wings that are feathery and bird-like, but they carry these massive feline bodies with long tails and shaggy manes as it looks like winged lions that are two winged lions that are circling above this above this Thank you so much,

Strapon. You've done your job well. Give up the board. Did you hear that? What? Is it snow? It's a car. It's a lavage.

It sounds like a dead pony being dragged across the house. It's probably that. Inviting this. Well, yes. We're driving to do this now. Occam's razor all. That was horrified. It's a dead body being tracked across the house. Oh, no.

Is it already Saturday? Oh, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. They do that every Saturday. They're a little bit of course disposal. They're a little late, actually. You know, they always say like noon to 8 p.m. Yeah, but that's unfortunate. You do whatever they want to fuck they want. What kind of windows that?

It's not nearly enough time. Seriously. Just give you a 15 hour window. Yeah, I got like to. Okay. Two winged lions are circling above, and we're giving. And they're still shrouded and dark. You can't see their faces.

You can't see anything, but they seem to be circled. They're far. It's just in clothes. Yeah, they're high up. They're very high up. I'm not sure what else we can learn. from the situation, I think maybe there's sentries, scouts, who knows? But should we check it out? What if there's something under the sand?

Well, parts of the statue, I'm sure. Yeah, but what if it's more than parts of a statue? What if it's like underground? Like a subterranean temple? Exactly. There are probably many of those if this is anything like my head cannon. It would be mazes, labyrinthine, underground tunnels. It seems like we should check it out a little bit while we're here. I don't necessarily want to get any closer to those things, though.

I don't either, but... Well, we do have Strapon, and he'll be able to get us there more quickly. What if they... What if we get too close and they eat the camel? I don't want to go anywhere near those things. I've become quite fond of strappy. I mean, I couldn't tell you how many horses we've lost to terrific monsters in Gorhawakia. So where are we along the river?

On the way to... I mean, I would say that you're probably... You went here, and then you went up that way, and then you kind of came down, and you're like about here. Okay. We're on the river back. You're on the riverbed. There's more to see.

Did I kick the camera there? Where the goals... Oh, yeah. It's totally out of whack. Oh, yeah. Sorry. That one, right? Just push it. Oh, my.

That way. now this is... So what do we want to do? Do we want to go closer or keep going? I think we need to investigate it. A part of me does feel like we should. We have to. It's actually a Nubis related.

Well, yes, it's a Drackel, which is Anubis related, of course. But it's been intentionally desecrated. And I think they're probably close. What if it's an entrance to a subterranean tomb? Then we can explore the tomb. What if someone stays here with Strappy? and the rest of you want to split the party

in a dread domain of death yeah I guess that's what I'm suggesting do you want to get spit on again no I can stay here with strapy really I want to stay with my boat but I'll stay here and the rest of you can go I'm certainly don't want to rob you of an opportunity

to learn more about what's potentially going on here out of character you told us that anubis is being held captive, right? Mm-hmm. I guess it doesn't surprise me that this... They don't really like Anubis here. They've got him held captive. Well, yes, and I'm starting to think,

and maybe this is completely off base. But this realm has existed for a long time, I'm assuming. What if this was Anubis' realm for a while? It has been usurped. Why would there be a jackal, statue here. Yeah, you're right. Someone would have had to build it sometime. And so if Angatep stole

his realm and imprisoned Anubis, wouldn't it make sense that he would then go around and desecrate his effigies? Yeah. What a jerk. Makes a lot of sense. I guess what kind of worries me is how could they have gotten the upper hand over Anuvus?

A literal God. There's a lot of scary stuff happening. Trickery. Or perhaps that was part of the bargain. that he made with Vorok. That was the way that Vorak was able to equip him with something that took down anubis in the same way that Vorok benefited

from that relationship. Well, if we want to go investigate, then I'll be with you every step of the way. Iris, do you have any more water? Yes, I've got 38 jugs of water. Lay a couple on the ground here, and we'll put some roots down and untie strapy from the boat.

That way if he... Or Toa can take his boat with him, and I'm sure he'll just hang out here and snack. Yes, and if he doesn't, then he didn't want to stay. We can't force Strap you to stay if he doesn't want to. That's right. I'd feel a lot better if you came with us, Tawa. I don't think we should split up.

If, for some reason, let's say we do go down into this subterranean, um, labyrinthine underground temple. Of which we currently have no evidence that exists currently. But it is highly likely, given my experience. You're the expert. All right. If I'm going to build something like that. You don't think I'm going to put a lambard underneath it?

That's crazy, dog. It's an entrance deep within the earth. Should we get down there, and there's a long marble or sandstone hallway, granite or sandstone hallway? And skeletal enemies come at us one by one. Who better than Toa to cleave them one at a time? Yeah. One at a time.

At least eight at a time. Unfortunately, mechanically, just one at a time. Even though they're like just skeletons, but... Yeah, well, we have time. We have time. Just one at a time is fine. That's fine. We have plenty of six-second chokes.

All right. All right, fine. You feed strupon. Strapon. Strapon. Strapon. Strapon. Sturdy.

Streppy. All right. Strapy. All right. What? What? Strapy. Strapi.

Strapi. Strapi. Is that you're all right? Yeah, are you all right, to all? What are you doing? It's going to be the Satan's accent. La da da da da da da da da. Yeah, his name is just strappy.

Camel Tower. Strappy Toe. He's stupid. Any Scooby-Doo fans and the 13 ghosts? Strappy-Tabyttoe. Vincent van Gould arrives. He's standing with his cape. He's been there.

Boomers. Scooby-Doo and the 13 goes. Yeah, I don't. Magic to wear the advancement go, no! They realize how useless half of Mr. Inflos, they got completely rid of Velma and Fred. Oh my goodness. They did. So you're able to easily get rid of the makeshift saddle and barding that you've made for...

I was going to leave it on him, but just disconnect it from the boat. Toa, you're easily able to get all of the water jugs off of the boat, put it in the ground. He very happily is lapping up the water. He looks at you with kind of a sense of understanding of that intelligence that he's just going to chill and enjoy the water. And, you know, this is a good gig. We love you, strap-ean. When we're done exploring the subterranean temple, we will come back for you. Did eyes turn back to normal and then blue again with the water? Yes, yes. So you get, I will say, uh, so as soon as the water was up, was dropped near him, they flash with blue and then he goes over and starts drinking.

This camel is evil's fall. It's camels the big bear. And actually, as you leave, you see the camels. which was shift into Virgil's arm. Come, gums of war. We have worked to this. I cast kill him. Bread, that fucker. I cast kill him.

Bread is the key to all of this. With that, you are able to all, if you want to proceed. We do. Yes, we do. Yeah, I guess we'll play D&D. And so you see now, as you approach, you see this large, this large statue that had been

that was carved out of a dense black stone and completely broken apart. You see that basically it looks as if it's been beheaded, but it looks like whatever had done this was a... It's broken up into fragments. Its head is scattered across a deep crater where its neck would have connected to its chest. You see that most of it is covered in sand and only really its right paw is visible as a dune is basically like almost completely swallowing it as you approach this thing.

And you see once again as you approach this massive ear sticking up and you get closer and you see that familiar gold along that line of the ear that would have been very much would have been very much akin to a lot of the iconoccur. of Anubis. And I would say make a history check. At advantage. Uh, 21. Rock and a roll. 21. As you approach and you see this, the sculpting, and you see the, the way that this jackal has formed,

you in your royal education would have learned about history and of art and worship, especially as the precesses of anubis. And you're familiar with how the concept of the concept of the concept of the concept of the concept how the construction and the sculpting and the worship of Anubis had been from the very first of the pharaohs, from your understanding. This seems more akin to that

than anything that you would have experienced, and this looks even older. And that doesn't seem possible to you. And so you see that as you approach, and you see this massive remnant of this sphinx-like Anubis statue. That's what you say. I relay that.

We don't have to have a pie. But would this be a good place for us to get food? Because I just eaves dropped on a note that said food question mark, and I wrote a why on it because I'm hungry too. Yes. And so I, there is going to be a point very soon. Oh, so not right now. No, we're going to break.

Not right now. Okay. No, we're not going to break right now. So how close are we to... Oh, my God. It's the bodies. The bodies on the walls. Oh.

Yeah, the corpses. The corpses. Dragging a dead body, man. Okay. How close are we to... We're not, like, right up on it. You're approaching right upon it, is my understanding. And they, the things circling have not seemed to take notice of us or change their pattern of swooping.

Not, not currently. No. Not presently. I'm, like, I would be just really wary and, like, letting Iris do her thing, investigating the statue. I'm focused on these creatures because I'm worried about all the things. I would say you don't need to roll because you're focused on that. The closer you get, the lower they get in the sky. And you now see as they seem to have these feline,

but strangely human faces in their manes. I don't know. These things are getting closer. This isn't good. Should we just try to talk to them? Maybe they are like trying to protect it. I don't know. I'm not the expert here. I just, you know, I'm not the expert here.

You know, I've seen a lot of messed up stuff in Striga, and it's just, I'm getting vibes like that. Well? I don't know what to do. It's just two of them and why they don't. We ignore them for now. Whatever we're trying to do, let's accomplish it and get the hell out of it. We just, we just want to investigate, that's all right.

And find the entrance. There has to be an entrance. Yes, because there's a subterranean tomb. What if we have to dig? How far down to the base of it do you think it is? What if we have to dig all that way? I'm worried about for fun. He's fine.

He's fine. All right, just hurry, please. And so I'm just gonna investigate, see if there's anything else to learn from the statue. Make an investigation check. And because everyone's assisting at advantage. Yeah, an advantage. I'd be poking around in the sand at my spoon,

seeing if any like, anything gives way with like sand falling in. I will say, as you do that, you see where these two legs would be sticking out from the base of this chest. as you're sticking and poking, you drive the stick down and you feel it click up as if there is a doorway at the chest of this, at the chest of this statue. What? And it's tapped against the top of it, completely buried in sand.

Oh my gosh. Look what I found. I'm going to, I'm just going to say, I literally cannot believe that this is happening. I am really on fire today. You know, if I had an electricium piece, we're going to. Every time we found two subterranean labyrinth, I'd have two electron pieces. It's weird that it's happened twice.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, look, everybody can come over here. Do I have to, like, clear it off? Oh, it seems very deep. Like, you went all the way in with your spoon, and so you wouldn't need to take time to dig away. Yeah. So I would, actually, I would just be casting the cantrip mold earth

and moving, excavating. Okay. Five cube, cube feet at a time. Oh, wow. That's huge. a shitload of sand magically. Yeah, it's like, it's crazy. With Felix,

it's called mold earth. You know, it literally says a portion of dirt or stone that you can see within rain. I'm gonna say it works on sand. It's like sand is stone. It's stone. It's just a lot of tiny stones. And so, yeah, I said snow.

Oh, no. Yeah, no, it's dirt or stone. I thought you said stone. I was curious about snow. It's not mold snow. It's not bothering. mold water. Yeah.

Yeah. So with the excavation and Felix, your, uh, your, um, your magic is just, is just blasting sand back and forth and excavating.

And it's almost as if like the, the sand is just draining out as the front of this statue. You get the sense would have been absolutely magnificent of a, of a sitting jackal, um, black and gold. And you see now remnants of turquoise long faded from countless millennia of decay. And who knows what sort of desecration has come upon this statue.

But as the sand drifts away, you see very clearly a rectangular doorway, an entrance into this large jackal statue. And you see that there's a number of hieroglyphics around the top of it. And as soon as the sand shifts away, an iris, you stand before it, suddenly it begins to glow gold. And you hear a voice boom out from above as the two winged creatures, now very clearly sphinxes, begin to descend towards you. And it says, who dare enters the domain of the Lord of the Dead? Thank you so much for listening to the Legends of Aventra's podcast.

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