Legends of Avantris - Beneath Dark Wings | Ep. 72 | The Eclipse: Part 2

Episode Date: January 8, 2026

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Welcome to Legends of Aventress. I'm Capricio de Cesto. You can call me Caprice and you're listening to Beneath Dark Wings. Here's what happened last time. We're in the depths of the Citadel of the Queens Conclave, the center of Zentra. And you've noticed that there is far too eerie silence above you as Felix lay about the chamber covered in Bluebird Bizz. mutated and fiendish. He has joined the flock.

What do you do? You guys notice that it's... The screaming upside up top, it's gone. That's probably a good sign, yeah? No, it means either everyone's killed or they've all been transformed or something else horrible has happened.

So bad sign then, yeah? I think bad sign. Okay. Oh, maybe, I mean, maybe they got transformed and like flew away, you know? He's the floor. throbbing. Yeah,

it kind of feels like you. When you say transformed, do you mean like Felix? I mean, I think that was sort of their plan, right? I mean, based on all I remember.

Yeah. It feels like we all struggled with the corrupting energy that is radiating through the city right now. Well, I didn't, actually, so maybe I'm just pure of heart.

I was kind of pretty impressive. I mean, you must be pretty charismatic I guess. Yeah. I think it's a diet rich in wine. It's the body fluid. I have a headache

and I have no idea what you just said. Oh, I believe they were charisma saving throws. What's that? It's a type of I don't know. It's a type of chapstick bread. It's actually an effect. What's a chapstick?

I don't know. The effect, the initial effect, is that you age a little bit. And that's how you change a little bit. turning to birds. That's what I'm saying. Oh, oh, okay. Mm-hmm.

Is it an age? Mm-hmm. Toa, you're 100%? You're back to yourself? What do you mean? I'm very wounded, but yes, I feel like that. No, no, no, in your brain, you're no longer evil in trying to kill Luffy and the rest?

No, no more fetters, no more demon thoughts of, you know. Did you know that you were to mix charisma and chaps, chapstick, it would be crappstick. I want to rub some crept stick all over my lips. Coming a scene to the advantage's merch store. Kerab stick. I receive your crap stick all over your mouth. Be like Michael and smear curbstick all over your face.

Mmm, cherry flavor. Help me, help me, we got something about Felix. He's not cured. We're going to tie him up. I'm going to take his knife. We're going to shove his filthy rag in his mouth. We're going to get that right there we got this. I don't know. He's covered in craps stick.

We have a chat request for a Chuckles advertisement for Crampstick. You had your chance. I would stay in for Tunes and Chil. Just remember to ask that adventures and chill. Chuckles branded makeup. So I'm going to go over and pick up the knife and put up my pack. Do it. And I'm going to tie him very tightly.

His hands totally bound behind his back, his feet together. And I'm going to shove a filthy rag into his mouth. I'm going to come up in with a lot here. Toa, you totally missed the backbind there. And then I'm going to just rework it and kind of like a rondage of like. See how much better that is. He can't move.

I swear. I mean, it's a little suggestive. I mean, I know he's a horrible bird demon, but I don't want to make him in decent. He's so close. What the hell, yes. I don't know. Look at his tiny little weena. With a creptstick.

Look at his little lipstick. Gross is in here. You're tied up now. You've got him? He's tied up, and then he's gagged with a rope keeping the cloth in his mouth. All right. I think that means that he can't do verbal. He can't do his hand gestures and he can't access

his arcane focus, so I think we're all right. All right. Is there anything we're forgetting? I don't do the magics. I don't think so. Well, if he wakes up and continues to transform, he might be able to break the decree. We need to be near him at all times. If we're going to move anywhere, we can't leave him here. We've got to take him with us. Oh, yes. I can't remember what my health was, because you didn't know.

end up healing this or you? No, I didn't want to do it. Is there a way out of here? I think 32. I don't know what I want. I want to look around and see if there's any exits to this room. You look and you see that into the wall are sconces that form a ladder and they're like heavy iron doors like higher up. I can grab Felix and I'll pick him up and I'll throw them over my shoulder. I mean do we think we should at least rest for maybe like an hour before we continue. Yeah, I think we're going to have to. Just in case they're more, you know,

demons or birds or... So I'll put it back down then. And it's probably been a while, as we've been discussing. But I think we'll just wait the rest of the hour. I would say it's probably been an hour. You can enjoy a short rest. So... Only 83 or minutes.

Oh, God. So once we're known with our short rest, we can roll as we roll play. But we don't have to RP this. All right, so. Oh, how many? Well, I've got many. The rest.

Oh, I have all of them. I'm going to roll all of them. All right. Well, are we good to maybe just take him with us, and we'll just... Take it with us where? I mean, you know, I don't think we should just sit here for eight hours. Do you?

Where else are we going to go? Well, there are ladders up, you know, and there are doors, you know, just how high up, do we think it is? Probably like 20 feet. I don't know, like 20 feet up that way. We can continue to, you know, explore, see what's down here. If the entire leader of this entire nation is now dead and exploded, like, you know, maybe there's no more threat and we can learn more. more about what, you know, P-Men's plans are. I think this is the correct of the whole question.

We go up and we find out what's going on with the city. We try to influence things in a positive direction maybe. Where do we go deeper. See if we find the heart of this evil. Find if we're feeling strong enough, we might be able to put us up to this thing for good. I back up

or drive forward well there's nowhere to go down but the idea is that there's like I mean the only place that we can go there's like ladders to like 20 feet up these doors that's it those are only options that's really our only option

I think yeah right okay yes yes all right let's go you also do look up and there is a shoot going all the way to this very top of the Citadel as well.

But there's obviously no. It's like the elevator shaft we came down, basically. Yep, yep. Any concerns? I'll sing a brief song so that everyone enjoyed some song of rest action. What's that sweet? If you spent hit dice, you get an additional 1B10,

hit points. Nice. And let me find a song right. Looking at the body of General Furman Aren't you the guy Who cried to Heard me with the word

Goodbye Though it took some time To survive you I'm better on the other side And that's all That was nice That's pleasant that That's nice

That's nice That's nice So I will With Felix over my shoulder I'm going to start The Footholds and get to one of the doors.

You do that. And you're able to get to the door, and it seems to be unlocked as you are able to, with a, there's a heavy, intricate lever system, but you're able to figure it out, and you open it, and it opens the loud groan. And what you see before you

is what looks to be some sort of strange, almost alchemical lab, combined with library, combined with almost a reliquary of strange crystals and artifacts. And it's completely torn apart. You see feathers scattered all over the ground. And you see that there was a shelf. that had been covered in strange artifacts and etchings, perhaps, and got completely ripped over. And you see at the far end of this room is a door that was iron,

and you see that there are claw marks that seemingly have ripped it off its hinges and thrown it into the room. and you see from beyond a faint, glowing red from further onward. Does it look like the claw marks have come from our side or from the other side? From your side. Well, that's interesting.

I guess we keep going that way, yeah? What could have made this? Does it look like bird-like or... It looks very tallam-like, I would say. And it's just eerily-like. quiet. And then you can hear, I would say, a home,

boom, boom, fong. And it's a humming that almost reminds you, it sounds like flapping wings almost, by the cadence and the, and the timbre of it. Hello?

Is anyone there? Your voice echoes through this place. Um, if it's you, Escher, um, we could be nice and friends again. Are you being serious? Are we really going

to be friends? I mean, I don't know. I don't want to fight him. I hope we're friends. He could rip us apart right now, honestly. I know. So I kind of feel like we should like surprise party him if we're going to, I don't know. Get the upper hand. So I think that we steal. Oh.

Yeah, that's what I'm trying to say. I don't know I should have just yell that I mean, we can try to steal and make his further down? I mean, can't even what I said? See, what I was saying? See what I was saying earlier about whether we go up or down. This is the down. Oh, well, I'll steal. If we're all willing to stay real quiet. Yeah, as long as Phoenix doesn't think that.

Yeah, as long as he's gagged. He should be okay. Yeah, he might be able to... Just be ready to punch him again, okay? Okay, let's go. I'm very stealthy by then. Oh, I'm so stealthy. 27. Okay. 23.

Oh, wow. Four. I keep knocking Felix as like head on it. You try to be as stealthy as possible. Toa keeps knocking Felix into bookcases, and at one point he actually, there's a whole high table, like, there's a lab. tables in high school

that's covered in beakers. I just drags Felix's head across the whole thing. And actually in front of it, you see what looks like humans' clothes, a military uniform that's just completely tattered. With feathers. It doesn't look

wearable. It looks completely shredded. It's completely shredded. Is there like a name tag on it? It's a shreds, you say. No, no, name tags. There's a rank. And their families? Anything in the pockets? Is there a government-issued ID? You find, I would say you search it and you find that this was a... The...

The reliquid... Basically, this was a researcher, someone who had the credentials to be a researcher and a... It would be a wizard. The person was a wizard. If Felix was awake, he probably would have recognized this uniform as like a very high-ranking member of the magical outfit of the army. The Day of the Week underwear that's with this, is it the accurate day or is it very clear that-

There are no days in avatras. There's no day names. There are no days in Evantras? I've been playing this campaign for how many years? I've been begging for day names for a long time. There's no Wednesday. There's no Wendness Day. How do you indicate what day you want to do something?

I mean, there are. How do you know if you're wearing the right underwear? You... How do you know if you're accidentally wearing the same underwear you wore yesterday? You are able to... Curiously, I've got a pretty much on my underwear. It's memory deleted. That's weird.

Oh, you'll know. And you get the sense that this was... That these people were hard at work, researching, and basically working on whatever kind of plans that Furman had had. These were the personal like attendance and appointees. Or is there any correspondence that we can see like letters or, I don't know, notes? I would join Toen. Okay, making the investigation check.

I'll assist you. Oh, okay. I don't know if either of us are better or worse at this. Almost certainly worse. Are you sure? What's your plus investigation? Zero. Okay, so I'm better.

I'm better. 16. 16. You poke around and you find there's a lot of crystals. One seems to like look quite familiar as you find, as you see it in the absolute rubble. And it's a black gem with a glowing light inside. And you recall that comidus had used something similar. And it's very, it's very big. fiendish in nature. And I would say that it looks like whatever kind of written material and correspondence, you actually find that there is a softly lit fireplace. And there's a lot of burnt scraps of paper, that whatever they were doing here was very secretive. And I would say that with the inferences that you would get the sense that similar to Diamante could Jada getting a lot under Zern's nose, you get the sense that this part was perhaps done by loyalist

to Furman. And it was incredibly secretive. And you get the sense that there were, and I would say that also from what they were researching, that it would have been very easily to hide. And so you actually are able to flip over the bookcases. and there's secret compartments where things were stored and may have been out that whenever there was an investigation, it all would have been stowed away, like Shawshank style.

I really wish that Felix wasn't corrupted by a nightmare, demonic burden to you right now. Oh! He's the kind of person who puts this together in five minutes and be like, well, this scrap goes with this crap. Maybe if there's a bunch of wizards here, maybe there's some spill scrolls. It's a good idea. I was sort of looking around for spells. There actually are spell scrolls, yeah.

There's a handful of spell scrolls of wizard make that were from the high wizard bid, the Wizbiz. Are there any that are a remove curse or major restoration? Actually, you do find one for remove curse. What is it? Aris, Aris, Aris, Aris, Aris. Aris. You're just standing there staring at me, Aris.

I'm actually looking, I have their. remove curse. You have removed curse? I'm glad I got to throw the game. Look at my fam. I vote we kill Iris. Oh, that's lovely, Torah. This can fix Felix maybe.

We only finally one solution to this problem. There's no other way to handle it. I could cast that spell right now without that scroll. Why wouldn't you have done that? Fucking 56 minutes ago. Well, I was unaware that it was a curse that afflicted him. I guess we don't really know

if it is enough, right? I greatly restored Toa. Yeah. But like, what did that feel like when you did it? Was it cursy or was it like sickly? Well, I'm not sure. It just felt greatly restorative. Why wouldn't you try? Because I was tired.

Is it a very high spell level? No, level three. Oh, my God. Just burn that shit. Do it! I grab Felix on my shoulder. Do it. Fix him, fix him, fix him, fix him. His arm, or I guess, like, his tied legs are like kicking glass shards. Oh, well, all right. You don't have to get into a tizzy. I'll walk over. I'll place my hand on Felix's chest. Oh, you're so feathery and demonic.

And I'll cast remove curse. You see, the feathers are to quiver and shake and shed. as you see the beak rescind and the Heath Felix's neck pops out a little bit. He finally has one again. And he's been returned. Oh, well, we could wake him up now. Yeah, we should get the rag out of his mouth because he's gonna be very mad about that. Oh, so untie his legs so that they're no longer like spread eagle.

Oh, no. No, I think we just leave him like that for giggle. That's not a rag. That's Caprice's midnight sock. Ew. I know what that is. Don't ask. If you gotta ask, you don't wanna know.

I am Ty. I have my knit-knit. I can't break it over your leg. That one doesn't crumble near Lise's movie. Oh, shit. I totally unbind Felix and I... Lay him down, laying down. I put his knife in his, like, cook pocket.

Okay. Alright, do you think? How do we wake up? Do you want to just do you think? You want to me to heal him? Just hear him. Sure. Like a hip point or two.

Oh, that's more. I think he's going to need more. Man, if only we had done us before our short race, you bastards. Yes. If only we had. If only we had known, it was a curse. Well, I'm going to lean down next to Felix, and I'm going to say,

wake up, you fool. And that's my healing word. And it's going to do 1B4 plus 5. God damn. Nine points of healing. Max healing, let's go. Or actually it would have done max healing anyway

because you were at zero hit points and I do max healing. Do I lose the max HP modifier? Oh. We had 20% or whatever it was. No, because A does not concentration that lasts for eight hours. Oh, that's still true?

And actually because Yeah. It does that I'm not going to use Healing Word. I am instead going to cast... Okay. It's got to be at a fourth level. Because that's the most I've got. I'm going to cast...

Allegedly. Pure wounds at a fourth level on you. Oh, yeah, let's go. And so what is 48... What's eight times four? 28? Plus five. 32.

Yeah, so 32 hit points. 32 plus 5 is... No, that's total. 8 times 4 is 32. Oh, 8 times 4 is 32. I'm a pretty... 37? Yeah.

Yeah. Because since you're at zero, I do max healing. Let's go. Oh, that's fucking great. Because Grave. Because Grave. Cause grave. What's great?

Oh, I accidentally cast blight at a fourth level. Instead of... Yeah, sorry. actually just three failed saving throws. Oops. Oops. You killed him. My flesh just melts away.

He's fucking dead. And I'm just like a writhing skeleton. Unfortunate. It saps all of your body liquid. What's your favorite snack? It ribs. That's what I thought. That's not even a snack.

That's a dinner. Hey, it depends on you. That's a main horse. You wake up. You feel like absolute shit, and you feel like you need to squawk occasionally, but you're... Oh, I... Felix. Are we alive?

Where we are, are you? Do we make it? Barely. I don't even know if I'm... Are you okay? No, no, every fiber of my being hurts. Yeah. Furman's gone.

Like, we... We did it? Yeah, not like he left, like he's dead. We got him. You and all horribly... corrupted. Remember that? We gave us all those bird hive on us. Oh no. Are you guys okay? Yeah, I almost killed off to you, but they stopped me. Yeah, we made it up. It's okay. Yeah, it was good. I kicked him while he was on contact.

That made me feel better. I know it just plenty of them. There was this really cool moment where I rode two birds at the same time and I said, you're vermin, skirman, and they all, they all ate him alive. You did that? Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Whoa. Where are we now? I will never. tell him otherwise. Thank you. Well, we decided to not go back to the surface because it got real quiet and probably there's danger. So we're investigating now and frankly, look at all this fucking horse shit.

We need your brains. We need your intelligence. We need your mind, man. Yeah, this is like the U room. This is the Felix room. We got Felix room all over the place. And I found a convenient solution to fix you and then I noticed like, oh, I could have done that an hour and a half ago. I could have done that

in battle. Oh, she could have in that battle. Well, I'm glad you guys saved me. I appreciate it. So I could have not gone down. Yes, actually. She could have used to her feline sprinting abilities and just fix me right up.

But instead, he knocked you senseless. Yeah, I almost died. It was very close. It was very close. I almost had enough wheelpower just to live. I was almost too angry to die, but not quite. But he's dead, right?

he's dead. He's... Yeah. Oh, yeah. It's disgusting. It was painful, sort of. But I was a burnt demon and I kind of liked it. It was weird. I can't believe we lived a fight another day. Yeah. Uh, yes. We just need to figure out what we're doing now. And there's, uh, so we have what? We have burnt papers. We have a gem, a black gem.

Oh, yeah. So my working theory is that there was a wizard guy that really like books, sort of like how you do. Oh, yeah. And then when the ritual went off, he turned into a bird demon, just like all the people up there. And then he went over to that door and ripped it off its hinges. You see the climax? And then he went down that hallway.

So maybe that's the way out, or maybe there's more bird guys down there. Probably there's some sort of nightmare creatures in there that we'll have to fight additionally. So the talent marks look like really big. They look about the size of the, uh, the frogs. Maybe a little bit smaller. The, uh, the, the vultra demons that we're fighting. And do we get the, that the Vrox, when they started to transform,

were they roughly the same size as the Vrox, or do they change? They got bigger. They got a lot bigger. They got a lot bigger. So these were, like, big talent marks that ripped the door off, basically. Got it.

So we could assume that that's feasible. I take in my surroundings. Make an investigation check out advantage. Look at all this cool stuff we found. Yeah, what does it mean, Felix? Tell us, help us. Oh, we do it. 26.

26. Felix, you recognize this room from the door and the order of the hallway. You had been guided to the lower levels of the Citadel to go to the secret library, not the secret library, but the highest level access library. And you had inquired about your guides through the Citadel beforehand about the room that it was in there, and you were told that you were to, that you were to. not be that that is basically completely off-limits to anyone but the generals and the grand general or the high general. And you knew that this was a very, very heavily guarded

room where basically the most precious secrets of the nation of Korovaki were kept. And you get a sense that there is a great number of scrolls and spell scrolls. This is all the work of wizards, that it's implementing a lot of the research and the styles and the practices of the Talongarden Garden, just the overall magic, the arcane wing of the Korovacian military. And you find a number of gems and magical reagents as well in the clutter. And yeah, that's the... And let's do any specific questions. I relay all this initial information about how I'd pass by the room, but it wouldn't let me in.

And this is the black gem. I'll pick up a piece of cloth from my... I mean, I'm just holding it with my hands. Because you're crazy. Is it contagious? And I pick it up using the cloth just in case. This is a special healing potion for me to you. That's weird. You don't usually offer me gifts.

Look at you. Fucking drink this shit. Holy fuck. Thank you. I look at the potion you get in it. I think it's a classic potion of healing greater, 44 plus four. I'm waiting it for it to be a potion. It looks like a healing potion.

Oh, all of those don't. You... Also, you also, I say, were able to find a number of travel plans to going out to, and you see a lot of the runes and a lot of transmutation magic here. Is this the only one that you found? That we found. I inspect the crystal. So you inspect it, and you make an archa check at advantage. 29.

29. This is very similar to the crystal that you had procured and brought to the Eternal Vale of Oka that basically had let Pizzou in. This very clearly is a gem from the abyss itself. It is of the abyss. It is and you can it is it is made an abyss and you are you very clearly it feels after experiencing it yourself, who understand what perhaps commonus had gone through and the feeling that he had in his great transformation. You understand what this power had, what, what, um, uh, Lufty's, uh, guardian angel had been experiencing when she was, uh, when Pizzu attempted to curse her as well and

transform her. And that it, it's basically an, an essence, uh, of Pizzou from the abyss. This isn't good. And I highly doubt that this is the only one. And I've explained what it is to my... A chaos, gem? Yes, that's exactly right. I was worried it was that. I mean, that was in my pack.

We went into the library and we sort of just let him in. That's exactly right. I mean, who knows how many more of these are now scattered all over a ventras? Shit. Should we take it or leave it? Well, I certainly don't want it to fall into the wrong hands, but... Is there anyone even left?

That sounds like it. We've got to take it. And sure. With this crystal, and after inspecting it, some of the things that you found in the papers and the travel plan start to make sense. And I would say with those high rules of Arcana and investigation, you're able to piece together and you actually find folded up in various places, but discreetly tucked, what looks like alchemical, particularly transmutation circles.

laid over the map of Corvaccia in six different rings, outer rings throughout, and placed at six different points, you get the sense that perhaps one of these black crystals was placed. So six times six, basically, all throughout the country. And you get the sense of that the people that would be operating in this room would be coordinating with the whatever agents at the front would be as they're traveling in order to execute this plan. All right, we're definitely going to take this with us. But I mean, for the rest of these, I don't know if it's just so simple as finding one of them and disrupting the one circle or if we have to stop them all.

But there's no way. I mean, there's no way we can travel to find all of these locations that are marked on this map. Maybe we just have to disrupt a few. I'm not sure. Didn't he mentioned something about it happening sort of? of outward, maybe we can like try to see how far it's gone and, you know, stop the one that's approaching right now. Yeah, I mean, we certainly have to be close to the epicenter of all of it.

So maybe if we just start heading outwards, we can get ahead of this thing before it claims more people. Like riding a wave. Exactly right. We'll ride a horrible, death, demon, abyss wave. Like filling a balloon with too much air. Damn it, Jim, I'm a doctor, not a... physicist.

Um, uh, so, I mean, do we know how we disrupt it? Do we just take the gems away? Do we...

I mean, if it's anything like any of the transmutation magic that I've learned, uh, the patterns, the writings, the chalk marks, it all matters.

You erase those things, you destroy them. The spell won't work. So can we take the maps and then so we have them? Absolutely. You keep the gem on you so that, you know,

you can keep it safe. Um, is there a anything more we need to learn in this room or maybe should we just follow that creepy glowing red hallway i kind of think we need to go down the red hallway but i i do agree that all we have to do is disrupt the resonance of this expanding circle of magic i if it's anything like music one sour note ruins the whole piece well said let's go let's go quietly okay lufti Quietly. All right. Let's go.

Okay, you do a stealth roll too. We already get stealth roll. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You guys all got really 15. Yeah, yeah, you guys got crushed it. I did okay. Toa did terribly. So you make your way through, and you make your way through the hallways,

and Felix, you know these hallways. You would spend, I think, two, three weeks. It was a long time. In Corvacia with your rooms in this very same. ruins in this very citadel, and Felix was spending almost nightly walking these hallways, and the glow gets brighter and brighter. And as it pulses, you can hear the sound getting more clear. And it sounds like flapping of wings, but it's very clearly when you start to see that it's almost as if the walls themselves are glowing faintly. And you continue up.

You see that there are several doors that had been ripped apart. You see feathers, you see torn uniforms, but it's completely eerily quiet. And you see the stairway going up to the ground level of the Citadel, finally up from the deepest, darkest basement beneath the earth. And it's glowing with a bright red down the stairway. You can see that this, the hallway that had, the hallway that goes up beyond the stairs is just completely covered in feathers. Either one or many creatures, feathered creatures made their way up these stairs. I don't know what we might have to face if we go up there, but I think that's our only choice. Now way before it, end up.

I'll just continue. I forgot that I got my inspirations back. I'll watch that down. You continue upward, and this is where you see the glow is coming from. You look towards an exit, and you see that it's where there had been a window, is now pulsing red fiendish energy. and it's pulsing with that same energy now. And you can see now over the window,

you see beams of light, and it seems to be just rocketing upwards, rocking upwards. And you see now that the walls themselves are glowing, the exterior of this citadel, seems to be glowing and humming. And you see now making an archa-check Felix, at advantage.

24. A type of alchemy, a type of magic that is more familiar to you now after meeting Asher and experiencing his castle, you see that very discreetly in these exterior walls is a great number of arcane ruins and sigils all over, incredibly discreetly hidden that are all now glowing. It seems as if some sort of spell or incantation or marks had perhaps spent decades writing on every single inch of these outer walls at the Citadel. As you see now the door beyond to the exit into Zentra, stairs going up, the remnants of chaos, feathers, broken doors, slashed walls, huge talon marks, torn uniforms. Splashes of blood, but it's eerily quiet. Beyond the vv, vv, that seems to be pulsing. What is that sound, Felix? I don't know.

I mean, I guess, like, when there's enough heavily concentrated magic in one area, you can almost hear it, feel it. It has to just be the magic itself. We couldn't have been down under the Citadel for more than two hours, right? Well, I guess not, but I mean, that's another thing that baffles me, is this is eerily similar to Escher's handiwork. But it seems far older than the time that... I don't know if it could be older than him, or maybe he learned alchemy from whoever's work this is. or maybe this is his handiwork.

I think we're missing something. Is it possible that Furman was... Spend his entire life working on this? Just like Zern spent his life dedicated to stopping P-Man, maybe this is what Furman was doing. It's certainly possible. I want to try to really, really listen to the audio. I don't know why I said that. I'm sorry.

Phith. Furman. What are you saying? Caprice. is especially attuned to the auditory world. He would try to go to where he thinks he can best echo locate this sound. He's confused.

What does this mean? What is it? Arcana check for me. Arcana. Yeah, at advantage because of the music. What do you think it means? It's French. It's French for room.

25. What you're hearing is the pulsing of whatever magical incantations, whatever spell has been put on this, that has turned the citadel effectively into a magical focus, connecting it to that circle that you fought and killed

now or formerly high General Furman. It's pulsing magic, but there does seem to be a resonance to it. There's something almost, maybe not quite musical, but it's a discordant note. that sounds similar to how your tuning fork did when Felix used it to teleport and ended up in the nine hells, but discordant in a completely more chaotic and wild way. This is the sound of the ritual. This is the sound of all these creatures out in the city.

The way that they're talking, it's almost like the way that my tuning fork worked, when we got shot into the nine hells, we, we, this, this could be a summoning or opening of a portal or something even more serious. Well, I mean, we used the tuning fork to go someplace. What if they're trying to move this place somewhere else? Or swap?

It's certainly possible. Can we see the sky from the windows? It's, it's almost just like a red pulsing, like at least a foot or so, of red arcane magic that's pulsing up. And so it's covering, you would need to attempt to go outside or get past it in order to. Oh, excuse. Should we, I mean, I think we should.

There's still a way forward, right? Basically, you're in the main hallways where you had first been brought in, where there had been guards stationed. You see that the door, that the main door, or one of the main exits, is around the corner, but you can see the top through the hallway, one of the doors has been ripped off

and thrown inside, and there's a great flood of red light. Let's try to get outside. Carefully. We have to be ready for anything. We don't know what's even in the air right now. I agree. Okay, you go first and maybe check to see

maybe at the door, there's some sort of like... You want me to go first? Yeah, you're the magic guy. You always go first. Well, I know, but I mean, this time, it's like, I can't hit magic in the head. He's hurt. I'll go first.

Okay. You go first and I'll protect Felix because he's hit. Iris, you protect me. I guess I'll just protect myself then, yeah? Yeah, thank you. Great. And I will lead the way. You do.

You turn the corner and you see one of the exits, log down a long hallway flooding with light. And you see where a double door had been. It's now open. And there's just that wall. of that energy, it's pulsing. Pulsing. Pulsing.

With that same... I'm going to walk forward with confidence, but prickliness isn't quite the right word. I want to be right on the edge of jumping back or attempting to dart out of the way of any serious issue. But I'm going to try and move into the space. For sure. So you're trying to move through?

Yeah. you step through, you feel a horrible sickness, a horrible taint, the same kind of feeling that you felt with the feathers, but this is not a transmutational transforming. This is a different type of magic. And you feel almost if it's trying to take you somewhere or move you somewhere. And you feel a tug almost at your very soul and your core, but then you're able to force yourself through it and make your way through to the other side. And it's quiet. Can we see him on the other side? He disappears behind the red.

Oh, shit. Caprice? Caprice! You hear vuv! Oh, gods, I don't know. As we're shouting, does he hear us? Not that we would know, but I'm just curious if he can hear anything on the outside. Caprize.

Yeah. I'll say what you say. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, and I'm not going to go through. You go. You charge through and you feel the same thing. And you charge through. And if you once you have moved, tow almost barrels into you.

When I land, I'm just getting my bearings. I would have been observing the whole thing. If he's seconds behind me, I would have only had those few seconds before he barrels into me. Yeah, you towed, you barrel into Caprice. Oh, Caprice, you okay? I'm just, I'm so glad you're here. What is this?

And you look and you see Zentra. You see the large inner walls and the city is quiet. The wind is still. You see feathers on the ground, streaks of blood, doors ripped out, broken windows on the buildings. But the city itself is completely quiet. The streets are empty. You see that there are, you see a huge streak of blood. and a body

and another and another and you see that it's some of the horses completely torn apart rendered their innards down in down off uh you know off to down one straight the wagon

that it had been pulled the both of them had been pulling completely torn apart all human life you do not see a single glimpse of so this was the most popular city next to the Galtiga I've ever been in and it's fucking empty. And the entire city is bathed in red.

And you look up and you see that the citadel behind you is effectively firing a massive beam of red energy directly into the sky. And you see now at high noon the sun is directly above you. And the sun is now. And the sun is now red, massive. And it looks, Caprice, very similar to a red sun that you've seen when you were brought to Pizzunia. And it's pulsing and glowing.

And that's what you see for now as the rest of you are processing what happened. Why did you follow him? We got to go. We got to go after him. We can't leave them out there. We're both dead. We don't know. We can't stay here either, though.

We have to move forward. Fine. Fine. Okay. On the count of three. Do you want me to do the countdown? Sure. Are we counting from one to three or three to one? Three to one. And then on after the one, we'll go. All right. Three, two. Actually, are we sure? One.

You all run forward and almost smack into Toa as you all see this same scene. I'm so glad you're okay. I can't believe you just run off like that. I think we might be in different places. What the hell's happened here? That veil. Look, look at the sun. Look at the moon.

What did that fucking big-ass orb in the sky? We're fucked. There was his plan. Remember? There's no one in the streets. Oh, I see the name. Fuck. You didn't actually.

It's fine. No, I said pee-man. You have to say it three times in six. unless it's in a song I think that they all threw away actually I'm looking at the sky do I see like legions of perception check oh no oh even no no or 11 at first you don't oh god as all you see is the glow of red and you look around but then Specks. The sky is not blue. It's not you're not sure if this is created a false sun or if it's connected to the sun. You have no idea what time it is at this point. But you see dots, countless dots, flying creatures. Flying from everywhere you can see in the sky and they start to form together. as they begin to ascend upward, higher and higher,

almost forming a mass, a massive flock of dark wings, flying up towards the sun itself as the beam pulses, turning the sun a blood red. That's where everybody went. So what are they going to do? Just fly into the sun? What do we do? Well, first we got to figure out where we are.

Iris, your messages that you sent. Do they go across planes? I'm not sure. But you don't have sending prepared today, so I can find out tomorrow. I thought it's really double super triple check, though. What are you implying, Caprice? If we had a way to send a message or potentially try to contact somebody that we know is on Aventras. I do have sending prepared.

By proof it. So maybe... HADdam! I was going to say you attempted to contact... It seemed like it's a bit a long day, but you attempted to contact Paradisor today. But wait... Well, here's the problem. I'm all out of third level spell slots.

Yeah. Do you me fourth? I have one. No fifth, no sixth, no seventh, no eighth. So this is it. We got one shot. You've got one, sending? All right, we don't have to... Yes.

But it will take up my fourth level spell slot. And if we get into any kind of fine... or damage. I'm stuck with ones and twos. I think if I didn't have any major conflict at all before we long rest, we're just dead. So I think this is... Sure. Who am I going to try to communicate? Somebody as far away

from Strigger as possible. It's got to be a different continent because we don't know how far... Oh, sure. Well... Bring, bring... Daddy. I don't know what to come home. Close, mummy. Let me know. Oh, it's Thomas all right. Is he still cleaving?

Well, anyway. I hope you're well. You. It's Iris, by the way. One of your daughters. In case you've got. Love you. Goodbye. Now, this isn't a foolproof plan, but, you know, if we don't get a response, then we know something's wrong, right? I mean, has your father ever not responded? Well, yes, sometimes when he forgets I'm his daughter. Well, you're not to him. Yeah. That's why I added that at the end. He's a very busy man.

He hasn't got all day. How can your dad help in this situation? Felix, no way. Oh, yes, the Iris, of course. You're in, um, you know, is it? Oh, Daddy. Oh, yes, your man thing is fine. Fine, miss you two snookums.

No, he called me snookums. Yes, it works. He did not seem at all distressed. So out of character, it does not go across planes, generally, right? I have no idea. I don't let me look it up. Leave so. I will.

cross any distance and even to other planes of existence. Yeah. Oh. Fuck. But if the target is on a different plane than you, there's a 5% chance that the message doesn't arrive. That's the thing. Yeah, that's not good enough.

Okay, I would have said not to do that then, but that's okay. Well, by fourth level. That's why I asked. Here's the thing. Well, I know my daddy's fine. Oh, and so is Thomas. I don't think the whole point was that we reigns interesting. right now. We didn't get teleported.

He wanted to basically use a big didn't we see in Escheron's drawings. He wanted to connect here to the big desert Basunia. Well, but more importantly ours's family is okay,

which means that for now this is localized, right? Well, I think they just need Coravakia based on those drawings, right? This is just a countrywide thing. Or maybe it is all of Striga or the world, I don't know. Well, we've narrowed it down to this a little bit. Yes, we did. At least it's not global, which is nice.

I feel like you'd be like, holy shit, did you see the red sun? Oh, my God. Well, to be fair, in Siked, we often have a red sun. It's in the middle of the desert. Um, you know, I think the point is what we narrowed down is that it's not a global catastrophe yet. Yes, right. Well, that's great. Ah.

Unless some divine entity or powerful being intercepted, my message and responded in a like manner that my father would have, impersonating him to me and fooling me. Well, who else will call you Snickham's other than your father? Really nobody. Well, there you go. At least he didn't ask how lofty was. I'm a little bummed about that.

It's a little rude. He's probably forgotten all about you. Well, one problem at a time. This is at least good because we know that we're still in the same place. like you said. We just have to figure out how to proceed. I'm gonna die a virgin. Do you want to have sex, Caprice? Not with me, just in general.

Is that really what's on your mind right now? It's what's on my mind fucking all the time. What are you fucking talking about? I can't think straight. Really? It's not important. Actually, no. No, I think that is important.

No, I don't, that's not the time of this cover. I was just, it was an expression of... Is anyone else here still a virgin? Raise your hand. I really don't feel like offering up that information. So you are. I'm the daughter of Pharaoh. You think, no, of course.

If. Oh, is this, I mean... Why do you think I get so uncomfortable when he takes a shirt off? Which is all the time he's never wearing a shirt. And when the guy opened that jar of pickles that you summoned, and he was all oily. I summoned a jar of pickles No, you summoned a man who opened a jar of pickles

I summoned a man that opened a jar of pickles Oh! Oh, you're talking... Oh, yes. No, not dog, he was a jackal. Dunga! That explains alive on the form and he took. Yes, no, I completely forgot about that. He wasn't a man, he was a celestial guardian.

Yeah, but he was all greased up. That was, I think, technically like yesterday. I know. We've all been hit very hard. Over and over. Look, I don't think any of this conversation is going to help us save the world right now. Well, no, but if the world is going to end,

we want to make sure we don't have any regrets. Yes, I'm personally fine with dying a virgin. Caprice, however, does not seem to be, so I think one of you should help him. Now, I know the two of you are a couple, so it might be awkward. What do you mean by a couple? They keep saying that.

I mean, I'd keep telling them, Yeah, we're a couple of guys. We're friends. A couple of fellas. We're best friends. Yes, we know. Yes, we know. And so because of that,

I don't want to cause any jealousy issues or anything of the sort. So, Luffy is a harlot. I think that she's got the most experience and she has no standards, really. So I was thinking... I have standards. Well, they have to be alive, of course, and deprecis is.

And pose some sort of benefit to me, socially. As you says, I'm not alive. Get him! So I was thinking you could just go behind one of the carts or something. It'd be quick. He's never done it before. He's got like, what? Five seconds in him? Luffy, you scare the shit out of me. We're not going to do this.

Fine, I wasn't all right? We're not going to die. We're not going to die. We're going to fix this. Are we still in the prime material plane? I think so. Did literally everyone in this fucking city turn into a demon? I just want to say this. If we do die, I am putting on your epitaph was a virgin.

Fine. I don't want to die. Look at what's happening around us. No one else is freaking out. Well, no. I'm fine dying a virgin. and they're sleeping together. We don't need to talk about dying.

We're not gonna die. We need to stop this. We need to see how forward to me. I think it's very likely we're going to die. Can we fly like really fast? Is there a way that we can fly? We're gonna fly regular speed? I've still got to go up there.

No, not up there. I mean like out in the Korovaki and they try to stop, you know, oh, hold on. I still have a teleport. Up my sleeve. Take out the maps that we found. Are there any points? Very tactical. circle that you're familiar with that you could give us to?

Yeah, I mean, I know it's the, it's the entire city of Corvaki, right? The map's that we have. The nation of Corvacia, yeah. And so you get the sense that like the north-southies, yeah, yeah, but there would be plenty of places. You traveled all over the nation, the country to, um, uh, I point to several places that I'd be like, you know, I've been here before. I remember where this place looks like, or at least what it used to look like. Uh, you know, we might be able to get here. And there might be be a permanent teleportation, so here that I remember. But to what end?

What are we looking for? Yeah, and what did you have in mind? I just mean that I think maybe I'm misremembering, but I thought that the ritual was that it starts from Zentra and it slowly goes out and starts turning more and more bird demons.

So if we can stop it at one of the intersection points, maybe like you said, break the whole thing. Well, I guess ideally we'd have to know how long it's been happening and then maybe how far it's been, and we could calculate where we need to aim,

and hopefully we get there before it does. I've an idea. Caprice, you can fly just yourself, right, for free. You can make us all fly if we ain't to. Well, maybe you make us all fly, we fly straight up and see if we can see how far it's gone. I can cast BAME four times. That's really cool.

So if we fly straight up, maybe we can get a sense of how far it's gone. And then once we know, we can compare the map, and you can be like, oh, hey, I've been there, let's go to this intersection point and we'll stop it. I think that's a great idea. We just got to do a little reconnaissance. And don't fuck up the map this time.

Do you make the map? We don't need a map. We only have a map. Just can't fly. I'm on, please. Would anyone like to be bained? None for me, thank you. Bain? He didn't fly so good.

The opposite of fly, Iris. All right. No offense. I would happily sleep with you. I just feel like I would be unconscious for a week, for a week if you did anything to me like that. All right. And I start to, I start singing. And one after the other, after the other Peter Pan style, we all suddenly start to feel our feet lift off the ground.

I hate this feeling. And you realize that you are capable of flying for an hour. 10 minutes. Oh. Let's make this quick. Pseoo! Pseo! Flii! We gained a flying speed of 60 feet. So, if we're dashing, we're going 120 feet per second.

And I'm also a kitty. And yeah, you're... My goal... My goal would be to get as high as possible to try to be able to calculate and triangulate how far we need to teleport. Usually my very big brain. Yeah. The map too, so we can more like a sense of... Sure.

One's a sec. You fly the sky. You fly into the sky. And you see the glow of the blood red sun, as it hums and you see now that it's a wash over the entire sun. as it hums and hums and hums, and you see now that it's a wash over the entire city of Zentra. And you see now that the glow,

you yourself are, everything is so red. It's almost different shades of red. As you rise, you see the entire city completely empty. You see carnage and chaos, but not a single humanoid body. See the livestock torn apart. You see cats and dogs, anything.

No birds, no humans, just the death of everything that is not avian or anything that could become avian. As you fly higher and higher and you realize you yourself are in a being that extends all the way to the edge of Cora, to Zentra, the entire city. has been transmogrified into horrific demons. But it moves no further. You look beyond, you see some faint movement of carts in a small town that's very far. You see the clockwood where you, against which you had fought against Moloch and the hordes of the Horn Legion. it seems as if by slaughtering the High General, by slaughtering Furman, he was unable to utilize you to extend this horrible transformation beyond Central.

Silver linings. However, as you fly higher and higher, you start to notice something that is perhaps far more horrifying. Although it has taken much longer, given that the entire nation itself did not transform into bird-like demons. You look up and almost just as large

as the sun is a massive flock of wing creatures. And you see the blood red sun as you see a small curve of pitch black, start to move and start to blot out the sun.

It looks like an eclipse, but there is no moon. This is Pizzou's flock. As the eclipse begins, just as Pizzou swore. It doesn't also feel like the reverse of an eclipse solar where it's the shadow of the planet

that we're on, but that's casting the... It does not feel like this is natural. regardless. It feels like a magical. It feels it's a magical solar. It's a solar eclipse that is being done by a massive colossal flock of birdiems. So it's like the edges are like. Yeah, you see and it's actually they're forming in almost a disc-like formation. Interesting. They're flying across the sun. Okay. So do we feel based on what you described that we've done enough to stop the spread? of this transmutation network? Yes.

Yes. So if, let's say if one of you had, and I'll say you probably are able to pieces together from what Furman said, from the designs and from what you had found in there, that basically had one of you accepted, it would have been the next ring out.

And if two of you, it would have been two rings out. Gotcha. And so basically it was, and if he killed you and was still alive, he would have then taken you and put you in a circle. It would have instantly transformed you into horrible in a much worse version that you guys got actually got turned into and it would have immediately shot out to another ring.

Holy shit. Okay. So that's why and you saw also streaks of blood you get the sense that people were perhaps killed and similar to how Alexi had the trans, like once they were killed and you saw this magic way back at the Lockfeather Lodge. Oh right. From the kind of corruption that the arrows at the harpies were shooting and you had burned all of of those bodies. And the dead were rising as well. We gotta get, we gotta get back down. We can't stay up here. It's too dangerous. We don't have much time left anyway. Let's let's make our way. Just leave the point.

Should we try to get out of the city? So it sounds like there's no more ritual to stop, but right. I don't know if there's any way we can stop the eclipse. I don't I don't I don't know either. I don't know either so. And you see as it continues to move. and move, the swarm gets bigger and bigger. I don't want to be here when that thing is fully covered. The ritual has not stopped. As the beam continues to shoot in the air, turning the sun absolutely red,

the corners along the black flock of Pizzou's chosen and faithful, start to glow horrible fiendish red, shimmering like the edges of a portal. Jesus. As they fly further and further, the flock of the swarm gets larger and larger, as it begins to cover the sun halfway,

and it picks up in speed. As the disk of demons flies faster and faster, as the red glow starts to dim, as the sun itself is blotted out, and suddenly pitch blackness. falls over the land. All that's left above you is a glowing red ring, and everything is quiet. Everything is still.

And you just see above you crackling, humming, and the beam no longer shoots from the Citadel. So we're not like being red anymore. It is pitch black, and you just see a glowing ring above. love you where the sun had once been. Stay close, my hand. We should get ready to teleport if we need to. Can we teleport up here if we need to? Um, technically, can we?

Yeah, well, it takes an action, it's instantaneous. Yes, yeah. The answer's yes. I say that in character. Yes, so if we need to get the hell out of here, then we have an option. Oh, God. And suddenly,

I'm going to run away fast in 10 minutes. The land erupts into a... bright red, as there is no more sun. What had happened to the demons? You do not know. There's no more eclipse, but that humming ring is the same. But above you, where there had been a sun, you see red, barren rock and desert

as you see a disc of Pizzunia above you, massive and great. growing at the center of this disk. You see, looking up, you look down as if you have a bird's eye view of an unfathomably colossal black ziggarot rising up towards the portal. And then after just a moment, you see where those demons have gone, joined by more countless. Pizzuz's flock floods out of the portal to Bozunia that has formed directly above Zentra.

As they spill out along the edges, the red glow of the portal above you is suddenly blocked out entirely as just a shadow is cast from thousands, tens of thousands, of winged demons flying out and flying over the land of Koravakia, spreading north, south, east, west. So they're coming from the portal into the center. And they're flying down and out. Yep. Well, that's not good. I feel like we're too late.

I don't know how we can reverse this. Well, I mean, I think the good news is that at least the opening's only this big and sort of, you know, a bunch bigger. I don't know if that helps at all. I mean, holes a hole. I don't think it makes a difference, Tella. I don't think so either. Can we damage the portal?

Can we fly into the ziggarot? I don't think we want to do that. We definitely don't want to be on his turf. I don't know. We have to kill him somehow, don't we? Yeah, we... The linchpin of this whole thing. I just feel like we'll never make it through the portal alive

with all those things coming out. Well, there's one way to take a shortcut to him. Say his name through 10th. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. I feel like that has to be such a last resort that we're not even there yet. All right, plan Z. Yeah.

So, do we think, you know, we have to find a way to get rest? I feel like we're not in fighting shape. We're not, but we might not survive the next four hours. Does it look like any are coming straight down? No. You get the sense, strangely enough, that you see a massive glowing portal to Pizzunia. And it almost looks like a mockery of a sun with the red deserts and the red mountains and crags

glowing with that same red sun that is above the land. But the red ring of the portal is now completely blacked out. as the sides. They're obviously spilling out from the sides and going out all around to Corvacia, but the center, you see that Ziggara. You would have a clear shot to go straight through. Do they seem to be leaving the city?

Yep. They're basically there. They're not trapped within the ring. No, they are all flying out and spreading over Corvacia and Striga as a whole. Well, if going after him is the only way to stop this, then. What about your mom? Plainty of air. Freeze

time. Jump to another jump to another plane. We'd have to think then, to rest. That's a great idea. Out of character, I think we already know that time returned flowing normally, correct? I asked that a couple sessions ago. Because I wanted to cheat the system, become a super

wizard. Caprice doesn't know that. Fix it, fix it, fix it, fix it. No, time works normally there now. We don't have that option. Trust me, it was the first thing I thought of when I realized we were under any kind of time crutch. I figured we could wait it out there and transcend all human capabilities. We don't have that option now. Okay. So, I mean, I think we have two options. Do we go back down in DeSentra? We know that it's going to be relatively safe and do we just rest and then fly up there? Or do we just go in and try to hide out there and try to rest? But either way,

I think I'm iris is totally tapped out you're nearly tapped out I'm beat you out the rest of us are all fucked up This is bad Felix. I don't know I can't just go in there and die I can't cast my eighth level spell Oh what is it glitness? Oh was wow what does that do? Oh Okay, does that win the whole day? It's been very persuasive doesn't help shit I don't know why I took it like a horse shit you chose that really Glipness. It just makes them very attractive. Oh, we're gonna use that for, you know, when you see her as you later.

Probably for sex. That's right. He didn't want to divergent. You, you, you learned an eighth level spell just to sleep with someone? No, I didn't learn it. That's really sweet. I just been making this shit up this whole time. What are you fucking talking about? I didn't learn any of these spells. You could have made up anything! And you made up that?

Last time I used an eighth level spell, I turned the mummy into a fucking root vegetable. Yeah, we should be doing that again. That was insane. Yeah. Shit, why did I give that up? I'm a feeling it wouldn't be a good. I don't think we go back to Zentra. I think we go into Pizzunia.

I think we find a place to hide out there. I think that it's the last thing they'll expect. And maybe if we go, if they're coming this way and we're going that way, maybe it will, I don't know, snap up the hole or something. I can cast glimness and if anyone gives us shit I'll be like no oh I'm convinced and they'll walk away all right we take the fight to them you're right don't never expect it yeah and then we can hide right under their nose right under their various beaks and noses right those it beaks good idea I guess I don't know what choice we have what we're not gonna sleep down there why

there's nothing damn it well that's kind of my were like thousands of demons that are flooding out all over the place. Yeah, there are tens of thousands. They're coming back down here, is the point? Well, they might once they'd realize that there's more human waste to completely eviscerate. You know what I mean? All the other ones have been turned or possibly eaten. And I don't want to get eaten.

Yes, that's true. Oh, I don't know. I guess you're right. What other choice do we have? There's nothing left. Right. Hes has abandoned us. Everyone else's hold up in their... hold up in the keeps and castles waiting in the apocalypse and I guess here it is we can go through the other side

we can assess the situation we can patch ourselves up maybe like a cave or something an outcropping sure if we're if we're gonna if someone's gonna tell our story I want them to be like and then then they turned back to Zentra no then they flew into the fucking eye of the storm and they said, fuck you. That's pretty cool.

Yeah, that's like metal as fuck. Did you just use glibness on us? No. Wow, look at how big his poaches. That's just regular type. That's just his midnight sock. Zorbeck knows he stuffs his pants. Oh, there's a baby rattle in here.

What the fuck? Section 1. I hope that was on the long time. I toss him, it disappears Decentra night. Holy shit. My laptop is covered with coffee.

I need to clean this up. Oh, you got me. That's my second spit tape. Wow, you did. It's like all over the table. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I'm used to it now. I welcome it.

Like a homeless man spitting into my mouth. This podcast is brought to you by our Patreon. Become a patron today at patreon.com slash legends of Aventress and gain access to tons of exclusive perks, including a monthly movie night and a weekly Patreon exclusive campaign set on the high scenes, shroud over soulmarch. 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 tone for Dungeons and Dragons fifth edition.

And don't forget to snag all of the extra goodies like dice, miniatures, plushies, a tarot deck, and more. Thank you. Okay. We're flying in two. So you guys are talking about that. Basically, you're all flying. Yeah, as long as you don't like, you know, if you give us the whole like, oh, you know, 10 minutes doesn't pass it and we can just like fly up in a posunia. I guess that's what we're going to do.

We have to decide right now. We only have enough my fly magic to either get down and be safe or go. Or go up and find out. I don't think there's any turning back now, personally. Just teleported across planes? If we needed it out? It works with that tuning fork we had before, but that didn't exactly work the way I had hoped that it would.

We still had the tuning fork. I mean, maybe he'll help. He was on our side before. We can always rely on it if we need to. You guys in? All right. I'm in. Let's do this.

Yeah. I'm ready. Okay. You ascend Skyward. I'm going to change the music. Oh. I believe I'm the

diverger. I believe I'm going to die of marriage. Did I die. I've never had sex. All I got to was the earth was thine. You, whoa, this is intense. Oh, I was scared for this before.

Begin to fly skyward. As you ascend higher and higher, as the false sun now replaced by a massive portal to Pizzunia, a land, a realm you know, has infinite portals within it. As you continue higher, and higher as the black swarms of Pizzou's flock now begins to take shape and form as you see gnashing beaks of all varieties. Every single, every single type of bird that you can imagine twisted and some with two wings, some with four, some with six,

some of the multiple heads, just twisting demonic avian creatures as they spill out and fly across Corvacia. And they spread across Strigga. And at this moment, Lofty, you feel something in your, close to your heart as the second feather? that's on your boot, begins to glow. And you feel that similar light blue glow that had been in your soul that you felt when you'd experience the presence of your guardian angel.

And suddenly the feather whips out from your person. and ahead of you, there's a bright flash of light blue. And you see another massive swarm. But this is not birds. This is not demons. You see obsidian, perfectly sculpted, bald-headed humanoids, armed with holy weapons, marked in strange carvings and runes, as thousands of Vati from the eternal veil of Aca

erupt into a cloud above you as you get a thousand feet from the portal. And you see now spilling around you and behind you, meeting, dark wings on dark obsidian skin, the Vati, the creatures, the peoples of wind, of air, of light, and good, have left their silver spires. They have left their perfect, beautiful veil behind. This is what they've been preparing for as soon as you awaken them. And you know that the seven, now eight angels, the wind dukes, have used their great power to smite the chain God.

But the Vati are still strong. They've been waiting for this moment. As you have your own flock and they crash into the demons. And you see similar to your vision, Caprice, you see the war that could possibly end all wars. Begin. This is the first battle. As the demons now see the divine and elemental creatures

flying up at them and they're filled with malice and hatred, and they meet and claw and wing and beak meet with blade. And there's bloodshed as bodies of dothid. demons and Vati fall beside you, all around you, and it's almost as if it's raining, a terrible black rain, as the bodies of hundreds of demons and dozens of Vati begin to fall as you fly higher and higher and higher. and now Pazunia

awaits you see as I changed the music real quiet fuck what was all holy shit you're allowed to react to this I can't believe it

see we made the right choice we did we're not alone we can do this we got to make sure that this fight isn't in vain we can begin to end this

while they hold them all off We've got the skills to pay the bills. Let's go. I absolutely hate flying. It's not that much further. We can get all these cool guys to help us. This is amazing. You rocket Skyward as the massive battle wages above you. And you see that there's hundreds of VATI that do not meet with the initial,

forces at the portal and are sent flying out to pursue the demons that are attempting to make their way beyond this battle and to spread terror and corruption across Corvacia. The work you've done has bought some time, but not much as you fly higher and higher, and the portal hums and swarles. You hear the clashing of blades, the screeching of demons, the crying of the Vati as the battle wages,

but you pass all of it. There's a very clear ring to enter. And as you get closer and closer, you see the black ziggurat. You see glowing fiendish magic at work. You see the great ritual being done. And you see the very top of this ziggurat, the one who's responsible for it all.

It looks as if you have a bird's eye view of him now. Pizzou stands atop ushering in the reign of the conclave, the Queen's conclave. The Oberoth Lords being called to this realm. You see 11 surging portals across this ziggurat. as you see swirling shapes within. As you, this horrible black ziggurat, gets larger and larger, and you had seen it off in the distance and you'd thought you were certainly closer

for how large of this. But it is impossibly large. The monuments of Harakir have nothing on this ancient black ziggara. As you fly in, and you finally see it before you. You hear the screeching of bird demons all around you as they flood in as they're slaughtered by the Vati. And you see now there's a mere 50 feet

before you cross the threshold. What do you do? No, no. You're just checking us. So there's very much like a threshold that we can kind of see. Yep. Crossing in.

Yep. where gravity might shift in like, stranger thing style. You get the sense that might be exactly what might happen. I didn't take any spells that could help with this situation. We haven't needed featherfall in about three years, our time. How much time do we have left for flying? Uh, can't be.

Not much. Caprice can recast it, right? No, it's, it's... From his, uh... I have five, five spells. I got us. I got us. I got it. I got it. I got a point. Oh. I got it. I got it. Does it look like we have the ability to cast spells down into the fray,

or does it look like it's so far away that we're achieving whether to go there or elsewhere? What do you mean? Does it look like... So it's a massive portal above you. There are, there's basically a ring of demons just flooding in for you. flooding in from the skies of Pizzunia, and the Vati are now crashing into them, and they're fighting.

And you see now far, far, far past the portal is basically the birds I view is if you were the sun over Pazunia, looking down at the Ziggur. And that's when you look straight. That's when you're looking straight down. Yes. And the battle's happening in a ring

at the end of the portals, because they want to stop the birds, the bird demons from flying. And there are plenty of they're getting past the Vati. Yeah, for sure. So that's what I mean, my choice, is like, does it seem like we could toss a bone to those who are in this conflict, or would that be distraction?

We should be just driving. You get the sense that they are here to fight off, fight this war, and for you to go through. I would say that you're not, you don't get the sense that this is not your fight. That is not your fight. They're like, yes, it's a massive order. It's not like a really short. It is absolutely massive. Yeah, I can't be like, oh, well, I'll send a fire spell over it.

They basically rocketed out from in front and behind you, and a massive flash, a cloud basically appeared, and it's the size of a city. It's the size of Zetra. It's basically from one end to the other is the size of this portal. Okay, so there are thousands of fewer. Yes, thousand and thousands.

I can't gas arc in hand and carry for a minute. It won't be all what we need, and we can still fly. And then as flies running out, we could be lowered down into the zoo. I'm saying instead of medicine. No matter what happens, we did our best. and this is the best we get hope for and we have friends on our side and we'll look at all the Vati

and we're going to give it our best shot that's right just stay close let's fly as close as we can and when Fly starts to feel like it's running out I'll take over I think we only have another few minutes then let's hurry I will continue to

move forward and as I feel the spell wearing off I will cast Arcade Hand hopefully as we start to switch to catch us and we can be lowered down to where we might be headed. Okay. You do that. You cross the threshold. As you feel the temperature change immediately, the blasting fiery heat, posunia that you've experienced yourself, you only have seen in visions and dreams. as the horrific bitter wind, even this high up,

blast you with pebbles and sand. As you see a jagged landscape, thousands of portals, just gyrating all over this. Iron fortresses rising into the sky. This massive, massive land, this layer of the abyss and it's at this moment you realize the fly spell and the effects have been completely wiped. You begin to fall. As soon as I feel that I would, you know, having said like let's stay close together,

I will attempt to cast our king's hand to catch us. Yeah. And then I have a minute to move us where we need to go. I can recast it if I absolutely have to. but it's just very expensive to do so. So I'll try to catch us and move us towards where I think we might have a place to land. Okay. Safely.

You are at the center. As you see now above where a red sun might be high in the sky is now this swirling, surging portal to a ventras. As you see now, the, there is a sky, but it's a little. It's dark. You see the red surging from the portal, but the red is mostly from the rocks and the sand of this plane. The sky is dark. And you think for a moment that there's storm clouds. But no, they are clouds and clouds of countless demons. The flock of Pizzou, flying from his realm, invading the vantras. As you see, the lone figure at the very top of this ziggurat, four wings, two up, two down. As he holds his hands in this position, one up, one down, as magic, fiendish magic comes and pulses and surges as the zirgaret itself begins to glow with this demonic fiendish energy. as the final war, perhaps, of this universe is beginning with one individual. And you see, as you begin to descend slowly, on the giant hand, caught you, right?

I mean, if that works, yeah. Yeah, it does. It does. Your magic works as you all land. And I would move us as quickly as I can. Yeah, I feel like... High five, and I slap the big hand. It's very solid, no, you can, it's very solid. It's blue shimmering magic. Yeah, I would just like fall to my feet

and make the joke that I just made. As you descend, you see that Pizzou now seems to be wearing a crown. Errikin prick. And it's a crown of silver. And you see that there's a great number of points all along is almost looking like a crown of thorns. And you see that he's fashioned himself,

a crown from the shards of the hairpin of Shredaun Yvon Zaravitch. Whoa. As he is taking his place as the king of demons, and you see far above that there still seems to be that silvery curse, but whatever he's fashioned for himself is keeping it at bay. and as you descend, they never want to make a perception check for me. Oh, geez.

Oh, no. I didn't roll great there. Oh. I got a 19. I roll better than I thought. I'm going to dread you, Felix. Roger. 21.

Yeah, worse. 16? 9 plus 7 is 16. How fast is the hand go? Not very. Sorry, I'm putting the wrong spot. Thanks for keeping me honest. Let me check real quick.

Oh, my God. Bonus action, 60 feet per bonus action. So like... Oh, so you were going fast down, basically. We can move quick. Yeah, if needed. Horrible tomato. Because it's only a minute, so I want to get us as close to safety as possible.

But I will... You changed by 19 to a 60. Okay. What did everyone else get? 20. 30, 20. Four. 21. Also, you've been given...

Five. Caprice. Iris, you see the clouds of demons flying above you. And although this land is dark, there's light humming from the portal to a ventras. And you see for just a moment, you all see a shadow as a, of a black wing above you. And in a flash of movement,

lightning, lightning fast. The two of you see black wing, black wings in the form of a man with a rapier descending towards you for just a moment. Felix, you do not notice this fast enough as you hear a voice, almost whisper into your ear, almost seductively. Don't you know from your research that this is the land of the infinite portals, boy. And with a swipe of a sword, another portal opens up in front of you, and the hand drops through too quickly. And suddenly, you are all engulfed in darkness.

Holy shit. This didn't run me through. I did just suffer off you. I thought I was about to get, like, yeah. Absolutely run through. So he basically opens a portal in front of us. Basically, you're going down, and then another portal opens up, and you drop into it. Yeah, that's in back to strange shit.

Yeah, basically. Oh, yeah. Yeah, basically. Allow me to switch the music to something more. I was absolutely sure I was going to die. I'm like, well, this is it. Nothing personal. Yeah, literally.

He's fast. Infinite planes. You can see. It's open to the portal to concrete floor. Yeah, we just splatter. Felix, are you all right? Can we see anything? It is dark, and your eyes, it takes a moment for your eyes to adjust. Do we hit anything?

Did we, like, hit the ground? Oh, I put my goggles on. So you are engulfed in darkness. What would you do with the hand as you're falling at 60 feet of bonus action in order to... I mean, I would probably, you know, immediately, whoa, and like slower down, you know. You know, and I would stop us.

But if I can't see where we're going to land, I know the hand's going to run out here momentarily. It turns into those. So, I would, yeah, I would stop it. I would stop us as quickly as I could, hoping that I don't run into something and then try to game my bearings and see how long

this hand's going to hold out. I might have to cast a little one. you drop into darkness and you stop. The hand holds you. And you realize, as you look around, your eyes adjust, you don't need the hand the hand. feel like you're suspended almost. And it doesn't feel quite like water. But it also doesn't feel quite like air either. You can breathe as you see now that you see movement around you as if you've been,

taken to a drop of ink. It's an inky black void. As you are, your eyes adjust and somehow in this space, you're all able to see each other in the hand. What do you do? God's, damn it. Was that an issue? He was too fast.

I never even saw him coming. Yeah, no, I, I saw him before. heard him and he must have zapped us to to wherever we are right now. Where are we? Damn it! I was too hasty. Maybe he was helping us.

Maybe we would go into a certain doom. I don't know, that sounded pretty threatening. No, I think he's tried to fuck us. This is another obstacle. This is not good. You then hear a voice. Well, I succeeded with at least one of you. And trying to help us.

and you turn and you see Escher is standing about 10 feet away from you, but he's not standing. He's also not flying with his wings. And you see the bald head, the feathers, the demonic eyes, his veins are coursing with that same taint. He's even more bird-like than the last time you've seen him as he looks at you. and if you hadn't already seen him, in this place, you would not have recognized him, Zetcher, be vampire count that had aided you so much.

We are lucky. My new patron is preoccupied, that we may speak plainly in this place. We are all we, and I was kind of like, to a swim up like an inch or two? Do I go, like, up off the hand? Yeah. What is this?

We are in the abyss. This. You really are stupid. If things were different, I'd climb you like a mountain. Oh, I've given piggyback rides to friends before. I mean, that's not really mean. Felix has done that?

Not like that. Oh, has he? Not like that, not like that. Anyways. Oh, oh. You are all a slippery lot. I tried to spare you all this. But I knew that you would outsmart Brutus.

It was really inevitable. To be fair, he got this pretty good. He did. We just sort of eventually got out. Those gargoyles. Good work, but I hate you. You have every right to I hate myself. That makes six of us. He sheeds his rapier. We are in the forgotten land. This is the...

layer of the abyss, the home of Ereaks, the forgotten prince, a demon lord, one of the 12 surviving Oberus that is attempting to regain his form and his dominance on the ziggurat as we speak. Along with many other powers, I imagine. It's more than just this one, right? Yes. They're 12 surviving. He attempts He attempts to bring all of them to Pazunia, and then bring Pusunia to avatrous, to our whole universe,

become the king of demons, and do, he says he, the queen of chaos, he serves her, and he will just be her king, a king consort, but... Oh, excuse me. Gazuntide.

That means health I know what it means I just You know I could cast I guess you really will die A virgin Shit

That's that baby rattled It's just smashed In the trees of Zentra Wait so Who's the queen of chaos She's one of the Oberus

Oh She has the leader Of all of them She Assumes herself to be Pizzuzu pledged himself as a loyal servant of the queen's concave But you don't believe him do you I don't believe that

Anything that he says is all twisted lies He outsmarted and duped the lord of lies He tuxus the lord of lies himself Pizzou dark angel of the four winds a fallen false angel himself. But this is how we can help each other. They are fragments of power from these oberets, fragments of power from Miska the Wolf Spider.

His six eyes when he devoured the former prince of demons. How he was able to achieve so much. He is very clever. But his pride is unmatched. And he used that power to gain leverage on me. You saw what happened to my little bat, didn't you? Was that him? I did that? Pizzou took her away after I bisected her.

Yeah, you did. But then he ripped her apart. Twelve pieces. A spider for a spider He found it quite amusing And he spread her pieces Across the abyss

The 12 layers of the obaraths Knowing that I wouldn't have the time To get 12 pieces And try to stitch her back together Before he knew But we are lucky the Oberoth Lords are distracted now. Pizzuzu is distracted now.

If you help me reclaim the pieces of my daughter, you will also have the means to rip the power of Miska the wolf spider, the first prince of demons from his very being. How is time do we have? Doesn't matter. What hope do we have? He said it's true. We were sort of flying right at him with them a whole lot.

You've got a weird definition of lucky. We do not have much time. Right now, they're people, heroes, throwing themselves at the force of the abyss. That's what they were made to do. They're fulfilling their destiny. Yeah. Well. Have you ever made an arm with Caprice?

Once? How many eggs do you break? Three eggs. It's far too big for a moment. A really good metaphor. Thank you, and I got it while observing Brutus making me. A breakfast that I would not eat, I just wanted to feel human. So...

You have already deceived us once. You already broken promise once for this daughter of yours. And now you ask us to help you save her yet again, when so much of this was caused by your foolishness. That is true, yes. You were the one who yourself called on B-Man. We warned you. We tried. And now look at you. I told you never ever to do that. Have you ever had children, any of you?

I'm a fucking virgin. What do you think? I could have had my daughter without ever having sex once. She is not of my blood. That's a good point. She is the blood of monsters, addicted to pastries that made their dreams pleasant. They treated her like an animal.

And those pastries were made from children's remains. That's what blood relation did for her. Family has nothing to do with blood, the priest. You of all people should have to learn that by now. I don't have any children. I mean, frankly, I don't blame you for what you did. I do. You've every right to.

I have a son. Where is he? With my family. The difference is, Those around you right now are also my family. Not by blood, but in the exact same way that your Ravanaughia is family to you, in the same way that Little Thomas is family to me.

Where we differ is I would never throw the world into turmoil to save any of them. For what life could they possibly have in a world like this? Your choice was ill-begotten. You're selfish. you're thoughtless, you're careless, you're short-sighted. My job is not to help you. It's not to save your daughter. My job is to make a better world for my son, from my family, for everyone who has sons and daughters and friends and loved ones.

And if that means that someone I love must die, death comes for all of us. And one day, immortal one, it will come for you too. I know. Everything you said is correct, Iles. Every single word. And I would be lying if I said I did not fear the abyss that awaits me. I do not have a soul. I do not know what fate awaits me. I do not know if my soul belongs back in the mist of death itself, if it belongs to the horrors beyond the stars. I do not know if it is simply obliterated. If there will be peace, that perhaps is the nicest option.

If there is anything that I can do for my daughter to have a good. better life. You must know that I would do it and you then must know that for my daughter to have a life, there must be a world for her to have a life in. And you should have thought about that before you betrayed us the first time. The daughter and her twelve pieces are not a problem. Deal with it yourself. I am telling you that it will be a mutually beneficial agreement. His six eyes give him the power to see beyond, see into souls. He gave Furman the power to see his demon eye. He gave so much to Zern.

And that was a fraction of it. The wolf spider was impossibly powerful. It was only the rod of law in all seven windukes. that allowed him to be in a state where Pizzuzu could devour him and he still would have survived if it was not for the treachery of the dark angel of the full winds realizing that he had said Pizzou, he looks around. It has to be in succession or in a phone.

So, if we farm these pieces, we're able to rid him of that power. He will be killable. But not before then. It is only, we will have to remove that crown from his head that he's fashioned for himself. That was my fault, I apologize. And as a byproduct of this quest, go and find these pieces and rid of his immortality,

and vulnerability will find pieces of your dog. Look, even if we don't want to help him, if it's the only chance that we have to get an edge up on this guy, we've got to take it. I don't see any other option right now. We have no leads. We've got no advantage. We've got a time. I'm not mad at you. I'm just, I'm sad that you didn't listen to us.

And now you're in this position. And it all could have been avoided in the first place, like Iris said. You're right. I do not know what would have happened to Pizzou, what his dark goals would have been how he would have advanced if I had not been made into nothing more than a pawn or a thrall. I am more than willing to use my power of Pizzunia to open a portal right back to that realm. I can drop you right on top. of him. Right now, he knows you are coming, but he is distracted. He has the power of the chained god within him. He has the power of the prince of demons within him. He devours and he consumes. He steals. It's not his own strength. Birds hollow bones. He takes what he wants through manipulation, treachery.

I think we will do this. It feels like it's the only way, and I do believe you're trying to help us, regardless of what your past decisions are, the past is in the past. And I believe that right now you're trying to help us. Where do we start? Here. It's here where the first piece will be. It is here.

This realm was not always like this. I wish I did not learn as much as I have of the nature of our universe. The nature of the abyss. A reeks, this forgotten prince is forgotten by most, but not all. Pizzou keeps his memory alive. It is. He was a demon lord himself. No one recalls what he had once looked like, but he had heard whisperings,

gibberings. From beyond the stars, something about her. Someone talking to him. Him who watches from beyond the stars. And this force was able to outsmart an Oberith, more ancient than this universe, and led him to his ruin, not just him, but his entire realm. And it is here that we will find my daughter's head.

And that is all on the session. This took a very interesting twist. I didn't see this coming. I'm very interested to see where this goes next. Thank you so much for listening to the Legends of Aventras podcast. We hope you enjoyed the session. If you want even more campaigns to listen to, become a member of our Patreon at the Pearl Dolphin Tier or higher

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