Legends of Avantris - Edge of Midnight | Ep. 13 | The Bell Tolls For Thee

Episode Date: July 30, 2024

The party explores a city in chaos...   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/8IpIo-oQRRg?si=5ikYw-NvWHKOt6DC

Welcome to Legends of Aventress. I'm Briggsita Cutlass Crats. You have heard of me, haven't you? And you're listening to Edge of Midnight. Here's what happened last time. But the High Inquisitor still thinks that I'm in her pocket. And you begin trekking through the woods. This is clearly the cure. She was one of the few people that actually could have helped solve this.

With my orphanage gone, there's no need of me back in Cyril. I need you to lie for me. Tell him I'm dead. and do what you need to do. I'm gonna need a week to get all of the vials ready to cure just the town of Cyril itself. Mother Midnight's real? Mother Midnight is definitely real. You see horrors unfold in front of you.

This is a witch, he is a witch, they are a witch. Skinny Dudley darts out of an alleyway. After what happened at the Mirabelle house, the smorgh... Out of his throat erupts a pigeon. His entire head explodes where he stands. Doddley! With fear in her eyes, says Colette Mirabelle.

perched on the door that's partially removed from the frame is an incredibly large pigeon with the face of the human and human hands where talon should be. You ever stop to think about what it means to be a good and decent person? Does it mean to walk the straight and narrow path entirely free of earthly pleasure and sin? Is that really what it takes to truly be good? Is walking such a path possible for the common man or woman? Is it even possible for even the godliest of folk? Despite what they might tell you, my wager is a resounding no, at least if we're all honest with ourselves.

Then again, when has honesty really been a primary trait of anyone trying to tell other folk how to live? You have just entered the home of the Mirabels and found yourself surrounded by blood, viscera, and gore. In the corner of the kitchen space, you see the tiny form of Colette Mirabelle, as she shakes and shivers unable to produce words or sounds, as she stares at the pulverized body of her father as it lies in bits on the stone floor of their kitchen. It's clear to all of you, who and what could have done this. Partial giant known as Hugo. You see the blade held in Francois's hand.

It is covered with blood, but it did him no good. As you watch this scene, Colette shakes and shivers and whimpers. Too hurt, too traumatized to even cry. And we also saw... You also saw the... Flappy Philip fly away. You saw Flappy Philip. Oh, Flappy Philip, yeah.

You don't know its name yet, but yes, the last thing that you saw, you were near moments from, you still feel the brush of wind on your skin. The overly sized form of the pigeon that was perched for just a moment on the partially, the partially wrecked door to the house, as it pushes itself off of the frame with its human hands and flies up into the air, you get a quick glimpse of its human, humanoid face as it smiles down at you. And as you look up into the sky, you see that the, entire skyline, though darkened by the eternal night that is in this land, you can see the

shapes of hundreds of pigeons. Gently step towards Colette, but I am unable to speak and I'm very clearly biting the inside of my mouth as I approach her and try to get her from the remains. And I believe I already made you make the Constitution saving that you were good on that. Last. Okay. I need you to make a Constitution saving throw for me, please. Zeph. 4 dies? 16.

Okay. It's a little harder after what happened with Dudley in the alley and the stress of this entire situation, you're beginning to crack a little. But seeing this girl here, you know that stealing yourself against your, your vampier. Herrick urges is what needs to be done in this moment. You are able to block out the sight of the blood, the scent of the metallic scent that hangs in the air as you make your way towards her. And I will say you're easily able to reach down and pick her up. And she shakes in your arms. She looks up at you.

Her eyes blank. You can see that they were swollen. At one point she was able to cry, but she's cried so much. There are no tears left as she looks up to you and says, he killed him. It's all right. Shh. Right. We're going to step outside.

Just come with us. It's all right. And she just shakes. Daddy! She turns and she buries her head into your chest. She doesn't cry, but she just shakes. I'm going to, like, start, like, throwing shit through the, like, go rummaging through their covers to find, like, a tablecloth or something. Just, like, throw it over.

I'll say, I'm not even to make you roll anything for it. It's easy enough. You've been in this kitchen multiple times. You've helped set the table for dinner with Francois. And so you know where everything's kept, and you're able to find one of their cotton linens with a delicate floral pattern, and you lay it over his body. And I'll just keep muttering to myself and, like, cursing. Like, what the fuck? And sort of, like, in total disbelief.

This is a hard question to answer, I think, maybe. But, like, do I get a sense that Colette is just, like, past the veil shattered from this experience? Is she ongoing emotionally emotionally, like, hurting from, you know what I mean? Like there's a distinction? I would say she's at a point now where she's so numb from what she's seen that the worst is yet to come. So she's in that moment where she's still in the disbelief and the shock. The reason I'm asking is. But she doesn't seem like she's able to form coherent sentences.

And I would say it's easy enough at this point and to spare our audience of, the sight of sad child, you realize very quickly you're not going to be able to get answers out of her. She has gotten to the point now where she's clinging to Marius. Her hands are white with the amount of strength that she's holding on to the bits and pieces of the cloth that she can find under his armor. And she is just staring into her reflection and she's not speaking. Does Lethika feel like it would be a mercy to use calm emotions? I would say yes. You imagine that it would. Okay. Lethika would walk up seeing that you,

You are wrapping her in this cloth and you are holding her and put her hand. And if you're going to explain what you're going to do, I imagine she would just choose to feel whatever saying. There is. And I'm covering her father's dead body. With me up the table, I'm not. Oh, child.

Been through a terror today, but it would be all right. In darkness, we see your truth. And I cast calm emotions after placing my hand on her forehead to sort of try and give her some brief rest She looks up at you and you see tears welling up just on the rim of her eyes as her bottom lip begins to quiver. And as you cast the spell, the exertion as it overtakes her, the exertion of this day, this trauma of this day, you watch as her eyes flicker and she immediately falls to sleep. That was mighty right of thinking, Miss Lathica. That poor little one.

She has a hard path in front of her now. This moment she will be okay. We should get her away from this place when she wakes. She should not be immediately reminded if we can. Didn't we leave her a girl here too? Anya. We have to find Anya. I'll search the house.

Roll a group investigation. A little fella. I'm not going to investigate. I'm going to stand by the door. I think that's wise. And make sure that we're safe. Because it's still like chaos outside, right? everyone's all around the city you still hear the screams and you as you listen you hear the

throws of passion as well any manner of sin that can be committed seems to to be happening on the streets of Cyril at this moment man these guys he's surreliants I'll tell you oh no I have a good time two okay 15 okay six okay nine oh and a four yeah yeah I leave you all along for Find out. He says holding a child, very parenting late. Yikes. Okay. Yeah, with that, you search the house and you are unable to find much of anything.

You are emotionally distraught and distracted. The, even though the rest of you don't have a trace of vampiric, vampireness to you, vampric, vampricy, whatever. Vamperism, thank you. You can... Even you can smell the stench of blood on the air. And the sight of this man's head completely caved in from the large fist that you know to have been made by Hugo. It is, it lingers, and it is hard, as you get back towards the kitchen area, you all feel as if you didn't find anything, but you don't feel like you truly searched the way you'd hoped to.

that you were too distracted, and that there's something that you could have missed easily. Four? And feel free to just shut me down on this. Just sitting in the corner of the room. He's missed her. As soon as I kind of realize what's happened and, like, the shock has worn off on Jericho,

I would look... The shock does not wear off. For the immediate shock, I would blink, and I would turn to Virgil, who's sitting up the headstock of my banjo and I was like, oh, Virgil, you got a good look at that gross, weird, weird, weird, gross, I'm wasting time, pigeon. Can you go fly after it, see where it's headed, where it's going, and just do your best?

I believe in you, even though you don't believe in me and say an awful cross nasty thing. Anyway, go get flying. And I would like to send Virgil off to fly and try to chase down the pigeon. I know it's been a bed. if Virgil can do that I will say you could have done that before you went to investigate And as you

As you congregate back in the kitchen area I say that you'll move towards the actual kitchen Unless away from the dining area where you'd found his body You could still see it But it's a way for you to stay separate from it for a little bit While you communicate Well within the confines of the house and the riotous acts that are happening in the streets.

And Virgil flies back in to you. And he communicates with you quickly, and I'm not going to use a voice for him, but he essentially says that the entity, he was able to track it down on multiple occasions, and where it came to rest was the bell tower of the cathedral. Oh, boy. Gosh, don't take this the wrong way since you're my dearest chum.

But that's a lot more useful information. that I thought, well done. Have a scrap of breakfast implement. I might just find it in the kitchen. No, stay away from Francois. No, no. Oh. I'll try to find a piece of something and feed it to him.

There's ample food in the pantry, et cetera. All right. But we didn't find her, but maybe we can ask Colette if she knows what happened to her. I'll relay that information, by the way. I don't think you're gonna get anything from the little girl. She's shaken up, beyond life. We don't have any evidence she's in danger.

And we know for a fact that they probably took Zephyrene, so we should try to save her if she's not already fucking burning a steak. Well, why would they, if they're taking Zephyrine, why would they take the other little one? With any luck she was able to run away. She's very crafty. Do we see, if I kind of, like, trace our steps back the way we came in and where the pigeon was, are there tracks leading away from the house

or any signs of people left on foot? I would say roll a survival check for it. Boom, many. 23. Okay. You are, I will say it's very easy for you to see the markings that clearly show that Hugo had descended from the rooftops right out to the front of the house. and it's very clear that he was more than likely the one that ripped the door from one of the hinges.

You do see what appeared to be another set of, well, another two sets of footprints. One to be the small feminine footprints that you would imagine were zephyrines, and another that are not clear. It's hard to tell if it's a boot or a shoe. The size of them doesn't give you any indication of what even kind of creature this would have been, but something clearly took Zephyrine from this house. And another set of footsteps that catches your attention. Small, childlike footsteps that disappear heading up the stairs to the second floor at the house.

We don't get it. I see her tracks, but we looked. I'll call out. Show yourself, child. You're safe. Anya, Anya, if you are here, reveal yourself. You hear a silence for a significant amount of time while you wait. All you hear is the sound of your breath. And then you hear the sound of a creaking wooden door. Jericho, you immediately remember the door, the little broom club covered that you had been sleeping in.

Great sleeping doors. And you recognize that sound. as you hear the door open and the pattering of childlike footsteps across the room. And then the creek of step after step slowly, still listening, until you finally see the small form of Anya as she peeks around the kitchen, her eyes glanced to Francois,

and she wraps her arms around herself and blinks a couple of times and then turns and looks at all of you and tries to completely avoid looking at him as she looks down and steps over the patches of blood and gore. She tries to make her way to all of you. Once I feel she has her footing in his past Francois' body, I'll wave my hand and a close. I'd, like, quickly walk up to Anya,

and if she would let me sweep her up in my arms and said, let's get out of here. You probably should have taken us with you, I think, because this was really not a safe place. Like, no offense or anything, but... What happened? Getting ready to make food, you know? And that, like, really super huge thing came in.

And he wanted the mom. And so, like, Francois was the dad, you know, his name? And he tried to fight him, and he stabbed him in the leg, and he got furious. And he punched him in the face, and his face went, like, everywhere. And poor little Khaled was. right there and I didn't know what to do and I tried to get her up the stairs but she wouldn't come

with me and she just kept screaming daddy daddy daddy and I was like oh I don't know what to do and he looked at me for like a second and I got really scared so I ran up the stairs and left her here did I do a bad thing because I didn't know what to do you did just fine on you did all right it was really scary yes you survived that is important you were able to care for yourself Colette will be okay. I wanted to bring her like a blanket or a teddy or read her a story, but I was too scared to come down. Because like, what if he was still here, you know? There's lots of noises all over.

It's okay. You survived. Colette survived. We can bring anything from the house. Where is her mom? We don't know yet. We're going to find out. Do you remember anybody else?

or anybody else being here. I ran upstairs after, and she looks to the darkness. You see she looks kind of shocked for a moment, like, where did he go? And then almost as if not necessarily understanding, but a reality that this is just what it is. She looks back towards you, and it left after what happened to Colette's dead. You're right You're okay now I don't want to sleep here

For one more night Okay What are we gonna do I'm not sure We bring it with us We have to take her with us We don't Lose side of Ivory's two

And we try to figure out What happened Make sure that the mother's safe Where can we go I'm not sure I trust I'm not sure I trust Anywhere in this city at this time I have two options.

We go straight to the archbishop or we go to the prison and see if she's being held there. I think that we should find a place for the little ones before we do any kind of rescue or trying to find out more, don't you think? Can you get word to the matron? Maybe she could look after them. Oh, gosh, I actually can.

Oh, well, that's handy. Wow. Wow. Wow. Useful. Oh, Garth, Virgil even you're impressed? Oh, no, that's believing and condescending. Gar, she got me a little bit excited for a second.

No, I can. I can send her a message and she can reply. Oh, should I do that right now? I don't think we have much time to think about this. We've got to get a move on. Oh, gosh. What should I say? I'm a very limited,

limited mental power. I mean, for the message. How long is it since we left her? Not very long, right? No, you just, what, like six hours? Four to six hours? Because it's about a four-hour track to her. Oh, yeah, that's the right issue.

It's way out of the way. It's way out of the way. She can't even really mute us out of here. She's all fucked up. Right, and your groom and I don't have, like, you know, tactical baby Bjorn. that we can like stab, strap these kids to and like, probably like that.

That would be so. Have you ever seen the movie Raising Arizona? No, like, uh, a little lone wolf and cub. You just get strapped up. That's a samurai sword. Yeah. I have, and because it's been quite a,

been a few blue moons, 25 words or less. Duh. Maybe we can ask her tell her that we've got two kids here and we need somewhere safe. Where can we take them? Okay. Well, let it know that Zephyrings been taken.

Yeah. Francois dead. Two children with us. What's safe in the city? Need help. What is safe in the city, perhaps? Where can they be safe? And then you got like ten more.

Okay. I think I got it. And I'll just... Surprisingly answer. Don't use any colloquial. additional terms in Wister Space. And I'll whistle a little tune. Oh, gorgeous.

And I'll, uh, I'll put, I'll, uh, say, Oh, it's old Jericho's stick, but you, oh, Zephyrins taken by Hugo. Francois dead. We got two little ones. Can you collect? I forget what else to say. She can respond back, right?

Not that she can collect them. Where is safe in the city? Can we go. I will say for the sake of this, yes she can. And she, you get a response back and she essentially, I'm not going to restrict myself to those same limits. And she is in a like manner immediately. Like manner immediately.

And so she is going to say, Kazaya's house, use the stone, hidden cupboard. I collect the babies. Tell no one of this. Nowhere safe. Oh, shit. Well, Gar, she said that we can take them to be quiet. Oh, oh.

We're sorry. Well, thank you. I will not use this bell to lock and say that. Third level, one of my only two. Very cool, Jericho, very cool. Thank you. 24, 23, 22. I've fucking almost spit out my coffee

and he said, oh, this is old Jericho. But most of my friends are just coming out. Literally almost all over there. God, sorry, it's just a new power on account of all the souls that old Virgil has consumed since we eventually. I mean, I mean, Garsh, I heard back. She said that we can go to old Kazai Jenkins' place.

And the old, after we go to the old Jenkins place, there's a secret stone and a secret cupboard, and we can just stick them in there and she'll come fetch him. Like the hut in the woods. Well, no, no, she had a house in Sierra where she lived with her husband who died of the plague. I mean like a hidden cupboard,

as similar to the one that was in the hut in the woods. Oh, I think that's what he's going to. Oh, gosh, yeah. I thought more of like it was tucked to a way where no, Nick and I would spy. What, yes. Oh, no, but you didn't mention, let's go.

You mentioned the hidden stone. Didn't Sharon, like, you've been there. Yeah. Oh. That's where you got the journal. Oh, that's where you got the journal. I went there, two people and think it might have been the town. Oh.

No. No, that was the house. Yeah. You were the townhouse. You broke it up and dusty. Yeah. And you, you. Guards, yeah.

You said Billy was here, and you signed his name. Yeah. I don't remember me. Yeah. I mean, if it were anyone but you, I'd be shocked, but. I have no recollection. Old Farron is a fan of the old sticky icky.

What's what happened? Oh, guard. Oh, bag, a little. So all he gots to do is, is, and if, and if they're, and if they're, are, uh, if the folk know not to go and it's all boarded up, then that's probably the safest spot in the city. It is an excellent solution.

Oh, also, uh, we, uh, Virgil saw the gross pigeon and went to the bell tower. All right. Then we will take the girls to the, to the house, but we have to move quickly and you all have to promise me one thing. No matter what happens on the way to the house, we do not stop. That means you. If we run in to Van Brunt. You will get your day, and you will face that man and deliver him justice, but it will not be today.

Understood? Nothing's more important to me than getting these young ones to safety. Thank you. All ready. I also don't think there's very much likelihood that it will run into him or his lackeys at all. What are the odds of that? You just saw him. Oh, yeah, there they are.

He's looking into the window. I think that we might run into it, but I agree with whatever your name is. Zendaya. I agree with Zendaya. Oh, my God. Various, holy shit. He was a blanking at a Darwalt. I agree with many.

Augusta is sharing that flasker vodka. Darius, the wild wolf. Yeah, we're going to ask what your name is, man. Yeah, whatever you say. You don't just chill, bro. It's fine. It's all gonna be cool, man. Maybe you are farching my life.

I mean, like we need a second to shake our willies. We got the big goofest tonight. Is there anything else that we need to do here before we go? Should we, is there anything that we should fetch? I mean, is this, are we just, Leaving Francois here? That's... We don't think we can take him out and bury him

in all this madness. We'll come back for him. Can you... Can you... Take the children outside just for a moment and I'll be right with you. Absolutely.

I... Yes. You can stay if you want to. No, let's go outside. I'll take them outside. I was just going to suggest something, but it's probably the way you're already doing something. I am going to look for a trinket

that we might be able to give Zephene when we were rescue her as well. Her name's Kola. Her last name, or her mom's name is Zeparin. Yeah, yeah. Oh, okay. I'm looking for like a wedding ring or something to be a Zephyrine because

her husband was brutally murdered. That's true. That did happen. Yeah. Grandma, if you find them, a teddy bear, a pillow, a blanket, something that can comfort them.

Because her ass. I fucked that up. I was like Zindaz. No. Yikes. I will look. Will you join me for any? I will.

There's someone I've lived up. I'm doing myself. I'll step outside and keep an eye of. Gross pigeon. Room one for me too. Gross peasants. I'm holding my own. Your groom and I were going to step outside.

And mostly what I would like to do is keep an eye on the streets, the surrounding area, because I assume that there's a lot of crazy violence shit going on and I want to make sure that we want to make sure the kids are okay and then nobody tries to get in their house while they're doing what they're doing and I believe the other two gentlemen are coming with us. Yes. I've reloaded my gun with my chunk and I'm just ready for peasants basically to assault us to kill them. The ladies are searching and I'm going to keep while he'll her peasants I'm looking for pigeons so we got all the peas cover. Perfect.

Let's go will dispel her magical darkness once she sees that the children are out in the way and search the corpse of Francois and try to find wedding ring or any additional trinkets that she feels would be meaningful to Zephrina or Collette. Okay. So it's kindness. You did. Let the darkness out for the children. Thank you.

Yes, it is going to be a hard path for them both, I think. But they are strong and they will be able to move past it in time. I think you're right. I'm gonna look upstairs for a moment and see if I can find anything for the little. So I'll go upstairs and see if I can find your room set up like a teddy bear or just something that would be comforting. Okay, I will say, you know, it's easy enough to do. I'm not gonna make you roll for it. You're able to. Okay, fine, roll for it.

No, now you have to. Roll for it, investigation. Two. I find a teddy bear, but I rip it in half with it. Perfect! I got a 16, so I imagine I find a wedding ring. You are able to find a wedding ring. Okay.

And if I can find anything from a lead, then. I will say I'll use your role for Kelsey because I really didn't need you to get the rules. You've got me to roll so badly. Not me. You can't freak. You're able to find a blanket, and you remember seeing Francois swaddling her in that blanket when she was, dealing with her illness. And what you'll have noticed is it does seem like the illness has is waning on her. And whether that's because her mom is able to give her the, um, the concoction,

you imagine is probably the case. Um, but you don't know. Colette did seem to be like she was well. Um, but you, you find the blanket and you find a, um, a stuffy. I forget to, did we find out that a shipment of mushrooms had been delivered to Zephreen? Yes. Okay. Um, I would also like to look for that using my, um, Shiboobee. Oh. Yeah, so I'll say you're able to find a cabinet close to the pantry

that is not visible to the naked eye and you're able to collect six more vials of the mushroom ointment. I found some mixture here. I found what I needed. Let us join the others and make our way across the city. I'll be out in just a moment.

I take my leave. So I'd like to just lean down to Francois and remove the veil from, or the blanket from, you know, from like his upper chest area. And I'll just kind of pull his shirt apart and like on his chest with my nails scratch in, like a runic symbol that sort of looks like a bee, like a sharp bee. and I'll just lead down Corthus welcomes you back to the earth and shine on you and rise again. We'll watch your family until then and I'll come back up and leave.

You are able to do that. We're ready. We've got to be sharp as we get through the time. Yes, we're done here, then we should move on. I close the door and gesture that we can continue. To haste, to recover the girls. Yeah, we definitely. should. I'll take the blanket and just wrap your, oh, you're holding. I just take my cloak.

Oh, okay, that's better. My like magnificent night cape. Oh yeah. And I just like put it over my front. Use it. Yeah, we can use this here. Fashioned me a Bjorn. I'll tie it across and just kind of make it. I need you to roll a perception check for me, please? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. I'm spooked. I got an 11.

21. 28. 14. You guys can cover for me. I'm saying it right nice. You can't take the cloak off of your face. 15? You idiot. What did you get, Briggs?

14. Okay, 14. With the exception of Marius, as you begin to make your way through the city, the four of you hear noise behind you. And you look back down the alley and another and you see that already it's been minutes since you left. But the Zephyreraen's house has begun to be looted by what looks like 20, maybe 30 people. As you hear the shouts, they were rich, take their shit. Get it. There's food in here. And you see people.

rushing in, windows breaking. Clearly, there had been a group of people that had been waiting for whatever you were doing to be finished. They weren't going to attempt this with you around. But the moment they felt it was safe, the people of Cyril are taking back what they believe to be theirs. You hear the shouts of, you can hear people fighting over things that they want. It is very clear that this is a coveted house and the things that are in it are probably worth a lot. and there's more food in there than what you've seen in many of the houses. And I would say you think for a second that maybe there's something you can do,

but there are just too many of them. And more and more are descending on the place as people are feeling comfortable going in there and taking things. I'm sorry, Francois. Wish there was more we could do. It's just things. It's just a house. I guess he's just things now. He's returned to birth. I hope so. And you continue to make your way?

through the streets. And as you walk, you see all manners of sins playing out. You see, you see guards who are brutally beating citizens for seemingly no reason at all. You see people twisted together in sexual ecstasy just hidden away by shadows, but not truly hidden. You see houses being ripped apart and looted. You see guards lazy in their duty. consumed by drink and passed out in the streets. All manner of sins as you walk the streets of Cyril. And nowhere to be found is the archbishop in any way. Nowhere trying to quell the uprising of chaos in the streets.

But all the while, the tolling of the church bell over and over and over again. But the sounds of the city nearly drowned out. But you are finally able to make your way to what you remember to be the house of Keziah Jenkins. And you are a bit surprised by what you find here. Completely untouched. No guards standing outside as if maybe there's no more need for them to be here. What their reason is, only time could possibly tell.

But it is still boarded up. It's quiet, though, this portion of the street. Almost as if even with the uprising that's happening in this city, that there's something about this street in this house that gives the people pause. And no one seems to be moving towards it. You don't even see people lurking in the shadows. It's quiet.

And for the first time, since arriving back in Cyril, it feels safe. How did we get inside? All done the way that I went in previously. And you basically just pried the boards off and went in. And so I'll say you're easily able to pry the boards off. There are more than enough of you to do it. And you enter the house.

You use the stone and you're easily able to find the cabinet. It's much more akin to the broom cabinet in the Zephyrane's house. There's a large amount of space in there and you're able to set up a nice plush area with the blankets and a cloak or a bed roll from your bag. You're able to set up a comfortable place for the girls to stay in while they wait for Maggie to join or to come and rescue them from this place. But for the time being, you have this house to get yourselves together and figure. you're out your next steps. I can be safe in here. Well, especially if

Miss Jenkins and her husband weren't known for being well off, then perhaps the townsfolk know there's nothing here to take. I think there's still about fear around this house, what they think that she was. Like cursed and such.

That's right. But I think that's a good thing. Let him continue to think it. It's been abandoned for a while. Any looting? Well, I suppose if y'all didn't need me, I could just post outside and rather than be a scared crow,

I'd be a scary person. I think they'll be fine. And we do need you. Oh, thank you, because that means a lot. That being said, we should try to get out of here as quickly as we can. I hate to leave the little one before she wakes up, but Tom may be of the essence.

I agree. I'm worried that either Hugo took Saffirine directly to the bishop, or she's being held up in a cell with the Inquisitor. We must find the answers to these questions. I agree. We cannot wait for Calat to wake. Let's give Anya. You have to be strong now.

You have to be... here when Collette wakes up and you'll be on your own until then, but someone who will be able to keep you safe is coming. Do we have to stay inside this closet and only this closet? Yes. If you leave this closet, you will not be able to find your way back in. Okay. Well, I'll let her know everything that you said, and I will make sure she's okay. I think she's going to sleep for a long time, though, because I keep picking up her arm and it just falls back to the ground. And that is a sign that she's going to sleep for a long time.

There is no way of knowing how long Colette will sleep. A long time I just told you. Or how long it will take for Maggie to find you here. Yeah, I don't have any way to find that how long it will take for her to get here. Do you still have the knife I gave you? She holds it up, and you realize she's probably been clushing it this entire time. It's good. You've got to watch out for that she'll get her.

Keep an eye on her. You're in charge, but stay put here. Wait for Maggie. And little, little on you, Ms. Ferrin's exactly right. Now that you got a knife and you're well armed and you got a lot of courage, that's real nice.

I think that now you could possibly help us. Did you get any sense from Hugo where he was going and being a native of Sierra? Do you know, is there anything you can tell us about Hugo, what he's like, what his temper? is no I didn't you know I didn't commit crimes there anything because I was just an orphan in the orphanage so like I never got in trouble and had to have Hugo called on me but like I know he takes bad people and he puts them in the jail and I know that he does whatever the archbishop says to do and I know that I've heard him crying but like that's about it and I didn't see him take anybody I just saw him kill the guy, you know.

The one you found. Frank Swa. Yeah, I don't feel right saying his name because I didn't know him very well. You didn't see him take Zephyreroen? I ran upstairs right after Francois died. I tried to take Collette. They told you, but she didn't want to go. Did you hear anything, my chance?

A lot of loud noise. But no talking. I was crying at the time, so it was really hard to hear. That's okay. I cry sometimes too. Well, we're going to do our best to find Miss Mirabelle, Mrs. Mirabelle. And we'll get back to you little ones as soon as you can. Our good friend, a matron, well, you know, Maitre McDuff, better than we do. She's going to come. She's really nice. But she's like totally a witch, though.

No, she's a good one, though. in, though. You can trust her. She's on our side. She'll help you, both of you. Are you sure, because you told me I was going to be safe at that house? And like, I didn't want to place blame on anyone, but I was most definitely not safe in that house, so. Well, we certainly cannot tell the future, but Major McDuff saved our lives.

We owe her, and we're trying to make things right. We do believe that she has your best interest. at her heart. Okay, well, if that's what she believes, then that's what I'll pretend like I believe. That's good. That means that everyone's happy and healthy, right? This is going to go great.

We're all going to be fine. Look, as long as you are able to find Colette's mom, then it'll be fine, because being an orphan is totes not fun. There is a chance that we will see you again before Maggie has a chance to return here. I... So we need to have like a secret code word or something so that like, because you said, if I open this door, then I can't get back in.

So like, I don't want someone to come in and be like, hello, Anya, are you in here? And I'm like, hi, I'm here. And then all of a sudden I'm like smashed in two pieces. You will recognize our voices. What if they can do ventriloquism? It's a big word. It is a big word. I know.

I read in my storybook about the little. puppet was swallowed by a whale. I think it's best that you just do not open the door. Anybody who can open the door will be the only ones that are looking for. Exactly right. So whether it's McDuff or one of us, just don't open a door, don't respond to anybody. And we're the only two, three, four, five, six, seven people who know where you are. Okay, so don't open the door.

There is no code word. If someone is able to open the door, I will trust them completely, regardless of who it is. Well, no, it'll only be one of the six of us or the matron. But what if someone else can open it? To my knowledge, there shouldn't be anyone that's what I'm saying. So no matter who opens the door, I will trust them explicitly. Or complicitly? If they're one of the six of us or the matron.

Sure. All right. You know. If they're not, you've got your knife. So stab anyone else. That isn't that's exactly wrong. You stab anybody else who's not the six of us or her. You understand?

Okay. All right. Do you have enough food? I don't have any food. Can we get something to eat? Oh gosh, we should have brought some from the Murabelle house. We gave it all to Virgil. Oh.

Are we having that wolf jerky? Oh, yeah. It'll be okay. I'm like really hearty You like some jerky Okay, well I mean if you're going to offer That's good stuff Good ease

Yeah, because you know I'm hearty today But I might not be hearty tomorrow So I'll take out a couple bundles And you Thank you so this is for me and then what is for Colette Why don't you, why don't, is Sharon is Karen? I don't know anyone named Karen But I do know I could eat all of this in like right now

Oh my God, what? You have to have to have to be a lot practice your survival skills now. So ration it out. You don't know how long you might be here. That does not sound like fun. Let's not. I'm stuck in the closet again, and I have to share my food.

Stab someone if it's not you or Maggie McDuff? Correct. On all the counts. She looks up to you, Yorghum, and you see her eyes start to water and her lips starts to tremble. Yorgie. Rush!

I'll check to see if I have any rations. Probably have some wolf turkey out here. Yeah. Yeah, I got some wolf jerky. I don't need to eat any wolf jerky. I got pointing at meat on me. I'm eyeballing in my arms crossed. I will lean in and say,

There's more than just the strength of arm. Your skill is in your stealth. Stay here. Take care of Colette. and ration your jerky correctly. And then I'd like to stealthily slipper wherever jerky I have. Roll us a hand and then I need everybody else

to roll a perception. Check. Everybody is, you know, watch it. It's a group. What did you say? Insight? Perception. Perception.

Oh. Okay, I got 16. 13. 13? I'm gonna use a twist of dread to give you advantage. Oh! I was gonna ask you. I'm gonna use a twist of dread to make you roll again.

It's not very dreadful. It is for me. 14. A natural one. Oh! They all notice. I just, I don't say anything. Everybody notice it.

I just put my head in my hand. I don't say a fucking bed. Thank you so much for all of the extra jerky you just gave me. You're so nice. I don't know what you're talking about. Okay, goodbye, goodbye, Urge, goodbye, everyone. I won't make sure everything's okay, promise. And she's already biting into the drink you gave her.

As we leave, I'll look to the group and I'll say, you know, ventriloquism is a lot harder than it looks. You ever tried ventriloquism? We've never really had the need for it. Yeah, I thought it'd be a real cool act if I could have Virgil match the lip flaps of what I was saying, but I'm no good at voices and Virgilis and listening here. This is what I thought. And like Virgil's just people looking around as I say,

Hey, hey Jericho, you know what? I'm very antisocial. All crows are antisocial. Do you know that? Well, no, Virgil, I didn't know that. Why are all crows antisocial? Because whenever we get together, it turns to murder. Jericho, I think that you should stick to your banjo

That's what Virgil told me I think he's actually right about that He's not helpful anyways Perhaps also using A real life demonic crow is not the best vessel For Ventriloquism either Perhaps not Before we go I want to say

It is madness in this city If I were here on my own and I would try to establish myself and find a way to spread the will of Sharr. This house may be a place to start, not to start recruiting, but a safe place for us that is considered cursed may be the safest place

if we have to stay in this city for much longer than today or a week or a month. This could be our home. Oh, you gotta start calling a 10 inch in the fucking walls too? Those are mine, and maybe if they would help, you remember them. Well, first of all, I totally remember

him. Second of all, I know that you got tenets, I'm presumed she does too. What are you saying, tenets? Tenets of your religion. Like, like, like, David Tenets. Always pray when you wake up. Fucking merry. And make sure to eat to eat three well-rounded meals a day. No, it's a positive.

If you don't brush your teeth, then you gotta go to the dentist every three months every six. Avoid negativity. Nurture life. That's what I said. I thought you meant like we were gonna rent the place out. Oh, like a home rental service?

Yeah, but, and then we would have tenants. Oh, like tenants. Like David tenants. Like David tenants. Like a tenant, like a... This is not such a bad idea. We could set up an Air D&V. Gorsh,

You're a lot better than mine, which was nice. To answer your question, yes, there are pennants, but sharns like myself, we cloak ourselves in secrecy, and we do not proselytize. I do not expect a view to follow my faith,

unless you desired it. Can we go? I mean, she's probably dead at this point. I think your idea is a good one, and if we need to, we'll come back here and we'll make a camp, we'll make a base. I also agree with you.

What I'm worried about is if we head to the prison and we run into the inquisitor, and she's not there, we're going to have our own problems. Whereas if we head towards where the archbishop is, we could potentially be killing two birds with one stone, if you know what I mean, where we found that pigeon. Yes, to cook two meats on one fire. Exactly.

So what's it going to be? Well, we all know that the gross pigeon, who I'm sure has a delightful name, as horrible, it is more of an ironically delightful name, is roosten up at least was in the Beltown. But I think we know that Hugo takes him to the jail with a gal. I don't know how to pronounce it. G-A-O-L, how do you, is that a jail? That is where Khazia ended up And she was Tortured into some sort of confession

I just worry that because of Zephyrine's relationship to the Archbishop They bypassed the prison We have no way of knowing I'm simply throwing ideas out It's a 50-50 chance I think in my heart I believe that She will be in the cathedral

But I think the right move is still to go And see the High Inquisitor and find out for ourselves Especially on account of her taking a lacin to Sir Marius. That's too. As long as we think we can afford the detour, and men, we're not too late, then fine, but we all have to remember that I didn't tell you anything

about the meeting that I had with her, all right? As far as you all know, that was secret, and you haven't been brought in on any information. I don't think the rest of us, not to leave you high and dry in alone, and the clutches of the thigh, I mean the high inquisitor. You heard me say hi-incolitor.

But I think that it won't do us any good for us to join you. She's like, oh gosh, I'm going to have a nice, pleasant romantic chat with my best, my best fella, my number one fella, Sir Marius. Oh, gosh, there's a gross crocodile here. Oh, gosh, there's a scarecrow with a weird crow.

Oh, gosh, there's your grow. All right, well... I don't mean to make light of the situation. I'm trying to make a point. I understand your point, Jericho. If you think that I can rush over there and see if I find Zephyrene, and she's not there, I can join you at the cathedral.

Even if you get ahead of me. I think we can be backup. Why don't we all go to the jail? I'm hearing it's the jail. I'm hearing it's the jail. We don't know what the fuck you're talking. Can we just get on this fucking rescue mission? I feel like we're on very different pages.

I'm like, I'm like, I'm waving my hat to like get people up and the door on the way. Well, I would say we're walking. Yeah, we're walking. I'm still like, let's go to the jail. You go in, we'll wait outside. So you, you've left the house.

Yes. You've left the house. I will say you do notice a couple of things that the sound of, the raucous sounds of debauchery has gotten even louder throughout the city. All the while the bell is still tolling over and over and over again.

On top of that, you see flocks of pigeons just milling about the city, far more than you have ever seen in the city of Cyril as they fly this way in that. There's pigeon shit everywhere. Do we still see the...

Are the Knights Templar going around, like, beating people? Yes. Is the inquisitors? Are they still like going witch hunting been? It's the same exact as it had been. It just seems like They're not the main threat to this town. It's the city, it's the civilians, the ones that are fucking in the streets and robbing each other, turning each other. And you see people have given in to vigilante justice where they're not waiting for the inquisitors to come by and determine whether someone's a witch. You've seen countless people being strung up on the streets with nothing you could do to stop it.

Do we get any sense of anyone at the guard level or a conval or a constant? level, seeing us and having any moment of recognition or ignoring us. People seem to recognize you, but you are still, for all intents and purposes, under the watchful eye and the, under the watchful eye of the Inquisitor, and no one, or not the Inquisitor, the Archbishop, and no one, regardless of what they're giving into, seems to think of you as a threat and it's not something. I think it would be easy to say that if anyone were to raise their hand against you, they would fear the wrath of...

Okay. So we're enjoying some protection from that perception and we can just keep to ourselves. I have a couple of questions out of character because I know we talked about it, but I felt like in character we didn't really reach a conclusion, so I know that this is a little meta, but I want to make sure that I'm on the same page

before I do something dumb. Sure. You had a sack of melted hag flesh that basically turned into goop. We took... a mask from the wall. Yeah. And I have crystallized hag liver.

Initially, that was going to be what I wanted to turn over, but I know that there were some dissenting voices about that, potentially giving, uh, uh, what did we decide? That we wanted to keep that a secret or no? I just can't remember what we, you know, a lot of things were happening. I don't think we decide.

I don't think we decided. Jericho is totally fine with. I know that there were some dissenting voices. I think, the concept that giving her, like, giving her necromantic flesh, Like to us is no big deal, but in the hands of like a powerful, which she's, right.

We don't, couldn't be like a- We didn't have to give her anything. We were just going to say that we killed Maggie when we encountered her. We could give her the ring. Well, we're definitely doing that. Yeah, but I didn't think we even needed to touch the rest of it because Maggie replaces the need to give her proof of anything. If that's the case.

I'm only saying, and again, because we talked about it a couple times, and we never reached the conclusion, you know, she had specifically said, like, bring me back to things avenge something of interest. You've got the ring, you've got the story about Maggie, and if you need to, you've got the backup hag liver. And for the Maxi's perspective is...

I think the Mask. Yeah. I think Jericho's perspective is whatever Marius wants to divulge to get to in the moment, is what I think is the right call. From a character perspective, totally understand. I just want to make sure I didn't wasn't missing something. We had decided on it as a group. I didn't want to...

No, you got the picture. So then Mask is a backup. Who had the mask? Farron? Yeah. Farron did. Why do I carry everything? I'm gonna ask you for the mask, Fern.

The tentacles are like, oh, okay? Well, hopefully the magic, like, is like, the evil magic is out of it. Interesting. Who knows? Do you give me the mask? I do.

Okay, we proceeded to prison. And for the sake of brevity, you don't have to deal with the tentacles. Nice. It doesn't try to attach to your... Darn. He's gonna have to deal with the... So, yes, as you walk,

you're able to have this conversation. conversation and you communicate back and forth. Do you go to the jail? Do you go to the cathedral? What is the right step to take? Do you deal with anything that's going on in town? There's so many things pressing at you. How do you make a choice as a gentleman approaches you rather rapidly? Clearly an Inquisitor garb, covered in blood, a rapier at his side. He's an elderly gentleman with chiseled features. As he makes his way towards you, he's huffing and puffing. A clearly in a hurry as he steps to attention directly in front of you, Marius. At ease.

He quickly allows himself to ease. As he says, I have an urgent message from the Inquisitor, the High Inquisitor. She would like to see you now. She's been told of your arrival to the city. There have been important things that have come to her attention. And she would like for me to escort you and your friends to the jail. understood right away. Lead the way.

Let's proceed. Keep your hands and arms inside the building or exits to the back. I'm just kidding. But he will quickly jump to the front of you. And he has his hand kind of quivering by his rapier and looking this way as that. He seems very paranoid as if he's afraid of being attacked or jumped upon or something as he walks through the streets. But you see as he begins to walk that he slowly starts to relax and his muscles lose some of their tension. is it's very clear that no one is attempting

to come close to you as he walks aside the heroes of Cyril. And he begins to lead you towards the jail. So is it very clear, like, who's an inquis, based on their garb or whatever, who's an inquisitor, who's a Nixtemporary? The Knights Templar are very much what you would expect. What on earth was that?

That's my calling on. Oh yeah, right. I'm sure. Like it wasn't your butt. What? But now I'm doing it. You mean colon. So Knights Templar are much more heavily

armored think paladins and world of warcraft. So the warrior priest from Warhammer versus witch hunter from witch hunter, yes. It's sort of what I'm thinking of. Leathers versus plate armor. So like armor chain mail tabard versus like leathers and... Maybe even a few plague doctor masks for fun. It's like a demon hunter from Diablo or a paladin from Diablo.

Exactly. This podcast is brought to you by our Patreon. Become a patron today at patreon.com slash legends of avatress 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. So you are being led through the streets of Cyril, through the madness that is ensuing, madness

and chaos that's ensuing around you. You're being led by one of the Inquisitors that had been out doing their job. And he relaxes as he realizes that no one is going to accost him in any way while he's in your presence. But other than that, he doesn't talk much. He looks this way and that. He seems to be on high alert as he navigates the streets. And it does not take long before you are able to make your way to the front of the jail. And he halts you and quickly lets you know that he needs to run inside and let the High Inquisitor know that you have arrived.

Your friends will not be joining you, that you will be entering alone. But in the meantime, they want you all to wait here. And he makes his way into the jail. It takes maybe 10 minutes before he comes out. He looks a little, he looks a little disheveled, a little nervous, as he quickly explains that the High Inquisitor is dealing with an urgent matter. She'll be no more than 15 minutes to half an hour before she'll be ready to receive you, but that she hopes that you would wait patiently for her.

And he stands off to the side, crosses his arms, and essentially just guards you. is then that you're able to look around a little bit. And you've noticed that the amount of Inquisitors and Knights Templar that had been stationed at the jail the last time you'd been here was nearly double, if not triple, the amount of guard that is here now. And there it seems to be very sparse in comparison. Is he close enough that while we're waiting, can I ask him a question? Sure.

Uh, so thank you for letting us know. I wouldn't go on to check with her. We'll wait patiently, but I do have a question. Do we miss any of the air public executions or even private executions? I'm just curious. He looks at you and he looks, he looks a little bothered. And he's, why on earth would you want to see any of that? Uh, well.

Isn't walking through the streets of the city enough for you? The way they're tearing each other down for no reason at all? I mean, it's all. For a grim and dark, especially for the... Executing a criminal is one thing. But watching people are scared for their lives, killing their friends and family. Well, see, that's the worst part.

That's why I specified official, public, private or otherwise. The makeshift gallows are in town, the very centre. If you want to see death, you can make your way there, but there's been nothing official since the evil witch Caziah Jenkins was burned at the stake.

Well, the reason I ask is, being in my line at work, I'm a pirate. Case that was, do you know what a pirate is actually? I'm not. Are they even, are they oceans? Do people sail? Do you know what the word sail means? Anyways, if we get caught by the 40s, we usually quick trial, and we get hanged by the neck and tune dead.

Usually. And so I've seen quite a bit me chums meet their in that way. And it's sort of, you know, it's a bit morbid, but it's sort of how we deal with it is we kind of place bets on how they do the hangman's jig in the last moment, you know? I swing back and forth. He turned around and he walks off.

That's perfect. Yeah, you watch as he turns around, he walks off and he heads basically to, there's a gate out in front of the jail, a large stone thing. Why can't I figure out words right now? Wall? Or jails?

Or polas? There's like a stone wall. surrounding the jail itself, there is a portcullis and an iron gate that closes. That is up because it is during working hours. And that's where your station is right outside of that. There's a small courtyard on the inside with stairs laying up to it. Think about the Scarlet Monastery in World Warcraft. Very much Scarlet Monastery.

And so he leaves you outside of the gate as he heads up and he is now standing with the two other guards that are stationed in this area. And you remember there had been maybe 15, 20 guards just bustling. around this area right now, there are maybe five. But they are all close to the actual door that leads into the jail. And you find yourself with a bit of privacy as you wait for whatever came up that caused the High Inquisitor to be late. And from what you had been told, and he was shaken up about it, it is very unlike her to be late for a meeting.

And so... What in the nine hells? Is that? Is that true? I mean, yeah, it's technically, but that's not why I said it. I wanted to get the information of if anyone's been hanged officially from being a witch. Well, we'd like to know what's keeping us waiting. Good thinking. Do you see what's going on out in town now?

And we're just supposed to wait around for 30 minutes. That's why I'm worried at to do in executions behind doors, or at least torturing and questioning. Well, if Zepharine is in the care of the high inquiries, There's no doubt she's been tortured. I just hope we didn't choose incorrectly. For like tortured for confession? Most likely. Oh gosh.

I don't know. Should we wait? We don't have a choice. I mean, we could push... We always have a choice. We could push past these gods, but that won't do us any good. I could leave. We could go to the church. The High Inquisitor has something to say to me.

I would prefer to hear it. And Sir Mary is going to be able to use his sly charm. and get us plenty of information. I hope. I need you all to roll a group perception check for me, please. Not good. I don't know. I'm getting mediocre tonight.

15. Meijwell. 10. 23. Oh, no, no. 13. 14. 14.

I'll say 13. Oh, 12. No, 14. 6. I can't. Thank you. You may continue. Oh, God.

My only other concern is if we, if I get in there, and I find out that she does have Zephria in a cell. Then what? When I come back out, I tell you, we go back in, guns of blazing, so to speak. Well, I... That would be your misfortune. I'll look around at the guards, and I'll say, well, I don't mean to be boastful. But I think the six of us could probably take those chubby-looking fellas.

Not to be too mean. You're going to probably take all of them on one by himself. So... It's a final line. As long as they come at him and now... I think I'm so in alley from that game. point, I think it could do two by two. My thinking here

is that perhaps all of the guards and inquisitors are busy with all the chaos in town. Leaving the gowl, the jail, we've agreed that it's the jail. Leaving the jail relatively You see a sign that says Cyril Gowel, G-A-O-L. But phonetically underneath. He says jail.

No, jail. The sign in IPA. Did you say that there are like more guards here than normal? Less. Less. Significantly less. Significantly less. So I presume they're busy with all of the vigilante justice and all of them.

They can't keep their own folk to walk in the one true path. That said, I think that that should be our last resort rather than saying, oh, we got, garsh, we've got to wait 15 minutes. Let's go kick in the door and kill all the folks. We have to save Zephyrine. But I agree. I think that we don't want to be seen aiding their perception of a witch. The city would turn against us in an instant.

We could find, you may be able to find what their plan is. Maybe there's a more opportune moment we could break her out and rescue her. I hope you're right. I agree that a little bit of prudence may go a long way here. I just... I almost, I wish I had a way to contact you, the way that you were able to contact the matron. If I was, to get into trouble or find an opening, I could send for you.

But... Why don't we all just go up there? Often, oh, hey, our friend he said that she just wants to speak to Marius. You're grim. It's at this point that you have been listening to the things that Jericho has been saying about the dwindling of the guards, and you're keeping your eyes. on everything you're looking about

and as your friends are looking up towards the Inquisitor that brought you here you look down an alley towards a tavern and something catches your eye a flash of silver and you realize that there are about five

Knights Templar stationed around the cellar door to this tavern seems very strange with the lack of guards and Inquisitors anywhere else. Why are so many stationed at this cellar? I need you to roll another perception check for me, please.

Just me? Just you? You're the only one that sees this. Yeah, we're all blind and arguing. All of a sudden, William Van Brunt. His head explodes. Yes. Eleven.

Eleven. Okay. You notice that they are, are, they seem to be a little nervous. They seem to be a little uncomfortable. I'll say with that, you don't notice anything more, and they do seem like they're beginning to mobilize, so you have time to let your friends know what you see

and maybe they can help you, is what I'll say. Hey, not that there'd be as many guards guarding an entryway to that tavern and guards this whole jail. I would take a look at the direction that you pointed at. When you say it looks like they're getting ready to mobilize, does it look like they're getting ready to go into the cellar? They look like they're, I would say, think about the, we're going to use fourth wall breaking terms here.

Think about the bodyguards of a celebrity. When the celebrity is about to do something and how they'll start to mobilize and look around and kind of protect certain things, that's essentially how they're starting to mobilize and look. They're all wearing glad. The pigeon has landed. Oh, God.

Oh, God. Well, if you're looking suspicious, how about I'd just send old Virgil over to look like a regular, inconspicuous-looking weird gross crow with demon eyes? Send the contact. It's pretty far for the course around there. Oh, and perhaps they won't notice. I don't want to blow our cover for not. We're trying to be inconspicuous. I would say that with the amount of birds that are flying around, I wouldn't even need you to make a stealth role.

They're not going to notice Virgil. I think we have time. Okay, Virgil, uh, what, you do me a favor? Okay, I'll get me, get some more, some more breakfast scrimps. And I will, uh, why don't you go fly over there and I'll go. And, uh, the darkness will go, my, my, my head's up in the dark. You hear one of the guards on the steps go, what the fuck? I stand, I position between him and the guards.

And they're like, ready at arms and one of, one of the inquisitors is like, just come out. It's got to stretch a little, oh. And you'll see Virgil fly off. And in his motions, it's very clear that there's ascensions to him normally, that then he kind of starts moving and acting like a normal crow as he'll then fly over to perch on maybe the top of the building where he'll be a little bit inconspicuous where he can kind of look down at the guards and at the cellar door as Jericho is perceiving through his eyes. So you can see and hear what's going on or just one or the other. I would probably be flipping back and forth between seeing and hearing. That's how it works, right? I think so.

So, yeah, I'd be keeping an eye as soon as there any boat. And probably once I see it, then I would kind of turn if I could eavesdrop and then obviously be switching back and forth. So I'll say because you're switching back and forth, you hear time sensitive, hurry, anxious, soon. And then what you'll see, and I imagine you'll continue to keep your vision at this point versus sound, the cellar door. begins to open. And at first, it's nothing but darkness as the Knights Templar begin to form essentially a barrier blocking all view from what is stepping out of this cellar. I do need you to roll perception check for me. I'll have you do it at advantage because of your vantage point that you're currently at, being able to look down and not straight on. As what Virgil begins to see is from the

cellar itself, looking disheveled, hair, um, hair disheveled, um, tunic, askew, you see the archbishop, Danton Alexander Renault begin to step up out of the cellar. As he writes himself, what is your perception check? Uh, sorry, four, I don't even know what to say. What the fuck? Totally.

Clearly, um, you, you watch as he begins to, um, fix the, the hat of, uh, upon his head and write his outfit, a clear smear of dark lipstick on his collar that he quickly hides and ties a scarf around his neck. All of the guards mobilize and completely consume him as they shuffle down a dark alley and disappear out of view. Oh, no.

What? Oh, gosh. Oh, you're back. Wait, do we see that? You just Jericho. Just Jericho. Just Jericho. I'll snap back too.

Well, you could have given me a handful of guesses, and I don't think I'd guess what I just saw. What was it? It's Archbishopant Renaud. He looks like he had a very pleasant time with Miss... Well, who knows. What? He looks like...

He looks like he had a pleasant time... A roll in the hay. Oh, dear cause. You're going to be joking. The Archbishop. Yes, no, that... Well, it's very... No, yeah, that's him.

So you're saying the archbishop fuck to holly quiche there. Is that what you're saying? Well, I'm not... I'm not saying that. It's my implication. I'm not... It just seems awful. Perhaps it is a strange, random lady of the evening down in that cellar that's directly next to the jail

and that her being indisposed for the next 20 minutes was entirely coincidental. I think I'm going to be sick. Well, now you don't smell falling in there. Oh, God. It's terrible. That's disgusting. What?

I mean, you could confirm what I or whatever. Lathanda, help me. Oh, Lathanda. Oh, gosh. Lathander can't help you here. No, you're right. This is beyond the pain. Do you see anything else in there coming out?

Perhaps, uh, perhaps, hold on. I'll go back to Virgil. You look back into Virgil's, through Virgil's eyes, and you see that at this point, all of the Knights Templar are gone. There is a large padlock and chains on the cellar doors. And as Virgil scans the horizon,

he can't even see a single sight of where they had headed off to. But you would have recognized that the direction was back towards the cathedral. Come on. Come on back, Virgil. Good work. You're very useful today in this adventure. I, no, I mean, that's nothing else. Just the Knights Templar, who was perhaps maybe I recognize as the personal guard from the cathedral.

They was waiting for the archbishop. He came out and looked and his hair was quite a mess. He got a smudge of old lipstick on his collar and he fixed himself up as he left the cellar, got surrounded by his folk and they headed back in the direction of the cathedral. That's what Virgil saw, at least. And I trust his eyes as much as they are my own, because that is actually the fact. We think there is any way for us to get through the cellar door and find out who and what was going on in that room. I thought your room probably break the lock.

Wait, they locked it? Oh, yeah, no, they, oh yeah, that's right. They padlocked it. So whomever was down there is still stuck down there, unless there's some of their entrance. I mean, if it's the High Inquisitor, I can't lock her down there. How much time do you have left? You said... You'd say last time she had a secret way in and out of her room. Well, yes.

In her chambers, there was a secret door with which I saw into when it opened up. So maybe there is. Maybe there's another way to get down there. You know what? When he comes back to gather me, why don't you all get down there and find out what's going on? That's exactly what our plan should be. Thank you. Jericho, what color was the lipstick?

Oh, gosh, it was dark. I suppose this land is of darkness. I would say you, because it's dark, and the lipstick was dark, you are hard-pressed to determine whether it was black or whether it was like a deep blood red. Well, it's crazy.

They're not just like colorblind? He's a demon crow with essential. Oh, man. So you see you can. infernal. I see a lot more than just crew vision is. I wish for everything's actually on fire. You actually don't see clothing,

so you saw the Archbishop's saggy old balls. Ew. Oh, gosh. They looked depleted. You know, I'm kidding. I'd like to venture with you folks the past couple of weeks, but I think I'm gonna go find an old fucking back

to the rest of my life. I choose the pigeon explode my own head. I don't know. That's been the most horrific thing. Even worse than the sweat room? It's pretty bad I can taste that. No, I don't even know.

You were going to answer your question. It was a little difficult to see on account of it being nighttime, I believe. Well, it's always nighttime here, I believe. And so I suppose that it was either black or like a deep, deep dark red. You know how we can see blood and stuff. sometimes it looked black, like because of how dark it was.

And your sheriff wasn't black, it was lipstick. Oh, no, it looked like, yeah. No, it didn't look like he just nicked himself shaving. You look like it was a little bit of a smooch, if you know what I mean. I guess, no, I just literally said, I mean, there's no implication. I mean, it's just a smoot. All right, oh, as soon as the guard comes back to fetch me, once I disappear inside and you are well out of sight, go.

And luckily, I'll have just a trick with this situation. What is it? I reached my pack. A lot of crowbar. You're a good neighbor. We get a jump on things in case somebody comes out the front of the building. Oh, that's not a bad idea.

Are you okay, waiting here? I will be fine. Don't worry about me. Gosh, even someone as gross and old as the Archbishop, gets a little smoo here and there and all sharing those things and gets a nothing. I really wish I could offer you some words He's trying times.

No, don't even bother. Did you say Jericho's Dick skips nothing or Jericho's dick gets nothing? Yes. All right. Judge Ms. penis is actually an old watering pan too. Flower face style. After all this, I've got, I just got wood.

I'm 27% wood. Well, Mary. before you go in there, I just, you don't need words for me, I got words for you, when you're in there, remind yourself, I, Sir Marius Ventheer is, I am not a thigh guy, I am a high guy, high on the power of my friends.

I'm gonna give you part against Burisha. Even though you got his name wrong. Yeah, oh, Renetheer. Sir Mary is Renfair. It's okay. It's not a night for days. Tonight is a night for everyone to get names wrong.

Marys Rennet, Marry is Zendaya. Isn't that right, Cravie? Frigsley, all right? Frigley. I will... Lethika, your name is Farren. Don't look at me when I say Lethika. Your name is Farren.

And then, Lethika died. No, I didn't. What? No, I did it? When you barred an inspiration meeting, I will reach a hand out and put it on your shoulder, on your shoulder and say, thank you, Terica. I know that sometimes you feel alone, but I swear to you, you are not. We are all your friends. All right? Now, all of you be careful down

there, all right? You as well. Good luck. You as well. Yes. To you as well. Good luck. Good luck. Yeah, good luck. Good luck. Good luck. Good luck. And to you as well. You as well. And to you. I'm sure that inquisive has been about exactly 15, 20-ish years. To you, good luck. You as well.

You as well. Open some luck. Now get out of here, you scamps. Go Gaj. We scuttle on down to the cellar entrance. Do I not feeling like as we start to scuttle that we will remain well hidden, or do I feel like an additional boost of stealing?

You imagine a boost of stealing would be beneficial in this time, the Inquisitors did tell you to stay together and wait. Right. And you are clearly not doing that. I think it's so many of those. But I will say, you turn to make your way, you say your farewells and your good luck to Marius, and you haven't but walked a portion of the way down the alley when the Inquisitor

comes to meet you Marius and he lets you know. He quickly looks around and what did you get for your stealthy, what are you doing for stealthy advantage? I was going to put pass without a tracons. I figured. So we all have to roll. So stealth plus 10? That's going to be stealth plus 10 for everybody. So more than likely he's going to tell you he can't see your friends, but.

26. We go roll ones. God damn. And that's a real one. That's an advantage. Oh, is it? Oh, no. You add 10.

No, we said 10. You have 10. You have 10. You have 10. So. Ability checks and saving throws aren't an auto fail on a one. I would twist it. Yeah, so I would say child.

So see what your stealth is and then add-in. Yeah, I'll twist it. You'll twist it. You'll twist it. You'll twist it. You'll twist it. You'll twist it. You'll twist it.

You'll twist it. You'll twist it. I'm sorry. I don't really care. Oh, 14. Much better. 1727. Beautiful.

Also 27. All right. Lethika. Lethika. Lethika. Lethika. Lethika. Lethika.

Letthica? Letthica. You died? didn't you? No, I didn't. I stood it. I got a to tell you. Okay, perfect.

Bingsley, what did you get? That's a good one. 36. Yeah, that's just not enough. That ruined it for everybody. No, so you're easily able to stick to the shadows and make your way towards the inn. It seems like the inn itself is open, though it's very quiet above, or not the inn. The tavern is open, though it's very quiet above.

You can hear that there are people drink. and probably more than they should be. But you keep to yourselves and make your way towards the side of the tavern in the shadows near the alley where you are going to attempt to get into the cellar. In the meantime, the Inquisitor approaches you and looks around and seems concerned for a moment that your friends aren't here, but doesn't seem too concerned. His order is to get you to the archbishop,

and so he quickly tells you she's ready for you. and follow him. As you make your way. Yes, the High Inquisitor versus the Inquisitor. He's not, we're meeting the- Yes, you're meeting meeting. Well, are you? No.

I don't know. That's why I'm clarifying. Yes, you're meeting the High Inquisitor. Sorry, there are a lot of important players. It was a name of devil. And unless you wanted to ask him any questions or make small talk with you, he makes no move to talk to you any further.

As he leads you through back the same way that you went the last time up the winding steps. You can hear the screams coming from the dungeons in the jail below. You are led through hallways that contain cells of people who are sleeping or exhausted or heavily starved to the point that they can barely form sentences. And no one, aside from the few that reached through the bars and beg you to help them, no one seems to bother you as you're led through the jail. And eventually up into the, the highest reaches of the High Inquisitor's Tower where you are familiar with and down that long, gilded hallway that leads to her study and her bedroom. As you get to the large double-arched doors

that lead into this area with a quick knock, the Inquisitor waits for response. The door slowly open. He stands at attention at the side of the door in motions for you to make your way in. And you see that in this room, At her desk, yet again, her legs in tight leather boots that go all the way up to her thighs. They are crossed on the table as she leans casually back in her plushed chair. She is in an outfit different from the one that you saw last time. This outfit is strange to you. It is made fully of dark red and black leathers.

And don't look at me like that. This girl don't play. And you can see that there are bits of blood stains on it in different places. And she looks like she is ready for business. It is tight, and you can see every curve and shape of her body. As she leans back in her chair, she has a small gilded mirror in one hand as she reapplyes her lipstick. What color is it? Where you're standing, it is clearly a very dark red.

Okay. Oh, right. Re-applying. As she looks, as she looks up from, as she looks up from applying her lipstick, she slaps her compact shut. I'm so sorry for the delay. I'm so glad that you could join me.

I hope that the trouble in the minds was not too much for you. I will give her a very charming smile and look at her and say, no, please, do not apologize. She snaps her hands. Valroth, darling, shut the door. Make sure that no one bothers me until LaDun. And you watches the Inquisitor nods

and kind of pushes you in and slams the door behind you. Yes. I do have some quite troubling news to report. That is not what I wanted to hear. As I'm sure you can see, Cyril is quite a mess since you left. Yes. I was hoping for good news. Yes, well...

Me too. Oh, you look tired, Marius. Oh, no. And you watch as she removes her legs from the table. One leg after another, the boots thud on the ground. As she stands up, she leans over the desk, and she stretches a little bit. I'm tight as well. It's been a busy day.

And she slowly walks towards you and quickly moves around you and begins to rub on your shoulders. Well, I appreciate the concern, but a night such as myself is very strong party. Oh yes, I can tell. These muscles have gotten quite the workout. Let me relieve some of that tension so that you can tell me this news. And I'll kind of, you know,

loosen one of my shoulders and say one of the tenets is perfect yourself. You can't see her smile, but you can tell by the way that she begins to, by the way that she chortals that there is clearly a smile on her face. Oh.

It's like a chuckle, you know? It's like to laugh. Stop ruining things, Lepika. What's that I word? We're breaking in it. She giggles. It's a better word. Hi, inquisitive, I may.

When we arrived at the mine, it was truly horrific. The magic's that. that were being practiced there. You feel as she rubs on your shoulder, she's slowly moving you towards her bedroom. Nearly unmentionable. I'm gonna try to resist and not let her just easily push me in that direction

as I continue to speak. She'll lean down. I'm feeling exhausted. Would you mind if we had this conversation in a place a little more comfortable? The breath hits your face, it's salty. Ew! I know!

It feels like being on the open seas. It smells like an alchemy lab. If only I was Caprice. Oh, no. Oh, no. Well, you are the High Inquisitor, if you would like to be more comfortable, be my guest.

Great, then follow me. She walks around in front of you and she takes her index finger and she hooks it on the right beneath the pin that holds your cloak together and she begins to lead you towards the bedroom. She walks towards the edge of the edge, of the bed and she pushes you down onto the bed.

Sit, Mary. I don't know about that. I don't know about that. I'll sit. And then she will sit next to you and she will sidle up close to you. And as she crosses her leg, she crosses it towards you and she

rubs the heel of her leather boot up and down your thigh while you begin to speak. I am stone face stoking. Other than being charming and smiling, I am not, I'm not gonna crack. I'm gonna try not to crack. Please, please, I must continue. This is of the utmost urgency.

Upon venturing into the mine and braving the horrors that we witnessed, we eventually found and faced Mitron Maggie McDuff. You don't say. I was as stunned as you are. I couldn't believe my eyes when we... She stops rubbing your thigh for a moment. You can kind of feel her boot just hanging. there, that almost like a tickling sensation.

You know that the heel of her boot is right there on your thigh, but it stopped moving. As she looks at you and there's no smile on her face, she seems angry. I couldn't believe it myself, but when trying to reason with her and talk to her, she wouldn't have it and she attacked us. We were given no choice but to cut her down. You see a faint smile on her.

her face. So you killed her. We did? Well, her boot begins to rub up and down your thigh again. That's good to hear, but it does cause me a little bit of pause, Marys. Where I feared that Maggie McDuff was at the center of all of this. But since you left, higgins have filled the city. Have you seen them? Flying this way and that? We have. The bell's constantly tolling and she reaches her head up to her reaches her hand up to her head and she looks exhausted and tired throbbing headache from the constant ringing of the bells

the city has gone mad if you had killed the witch don't you think this would have stopped I've lost countless inquisitors to this madness the people in the streets are killing them where they stand that leads me to my next point

I have a couple of things for you and a couple of questions I will reach into my cloak pull out the mask and the matron's ring. We took these things from the mine. This seems to be some sort of horrific, ritualistic mask. There was savannah of them,

but this was the only one that we were able to recover. I'll hand it to at this, and I hold up the ring. I pulled off her hand myself. She takes the mask and she looks at it. Yes, it could be a witch's trinket. I can think of many things. I could do with a mask, and she tosses it over her shoulder onto the bed. But this, yes, it does look to be Maggie McDowice.

I can't imagine she would part with it, given her history and what I know. So only in death would you bring something like this to me. I have brought her your head, but... My head? I would have brought you her head. Oh, are you getting nervous, Marius? No, no. But she dissolved.

into nothing. No. Pure. She takes her hand and she rubs it down the side of your face. You're so cute when you're flustered. That leads me to the question. With the pigeons, the town, first to Keziah, now, matron magnate duff. Who else?

Certainly there must be more. Otherwise, this would have stopped. I told you the last time we met that my suspicions lied with the Archbishop. I believe there was some kind of connection between Maggie McDuff, Zephyrine, and Keziah Jenkins. And I believe it all leads back to the Archbishop. I have recently had a meeting with the Archbishop and learned a few things that give me pause. Well, and what would those things be? It seems that Hugo was sent to retrieve his sister from their house.

She, I learned of this after, I'm not sure if you've heard, but I imagine you have, that Francois is no longer with the living. I sent my inquisitors to retrieve Zephyrene as there is no better place to have a house than the jails. And I was told the archbishop did not trust that she remain imprisoned here. And that caught me off guard. Why would you not trust the High Inquisitor with a prisoner? It seems that Hugo has taken her back to the cathedral. Interesting. Do you understand my fears, Marius? She presses herself up against you as she whispers this into your ear.

I do. I only did think of offering my services. You had, you had perhaps... And what services would those be, Marius? Well, you had proposed perhaps a permanent position, leading your... I can think of a few positions I would like to get you in. For now, you give me the authority to command the Templar. Perhaps we can gather a small group of them,

and we can lead them into the chapel and see what's going. You like power, don't you, Marius? Well, who doesn't? Hmm, a deal then. I will make you high captain of the Inquisitors, but you have to do something for me. You see, it's very hard to be the High Inquisitor when you're so tight and stressed.

I don't think it's too much to tell you that a woman like myself needs a certain type of man. What are you willing to do for power, Marius? I can promise you that I would be the greatest captain of your god. I have no doubt. That you could possibly dream of. I've dreamt of it. And perhaps,

once we figure out, what the archbishop is up to. We stop these horrific witches. I could come back for a little victory, is it? Oh, you want to play games, do you? You think making me way it's going to make it all the more sweet? Checkmate, Marius. I'll have papers written up.

And should I be convinced that you'll follow through on your end of the deal? I will give you the power you desire. But you must prove to me first that this is not. a game, and that you will return and provide exactly what I need. You have... Papers, you say. You have two days. Two days. Okay.

That's better than I would have expected. Certainly. I mean, surely we... But you know... Won't need more than two days to get to the bottom of this. If you put all of this playing aside, I could have those papers written up in an hour or two. I'm sure your friends wouldn't mind waiting.

Oh, I think we might need more than an hour or two. There's nothing saying you couldn't stay longer. Well, I would say that the health of the town is very important. Yes, and I can't do my job until this stress has been relieved. Well, you have my offer, two days, and you can have as much power as you would like. And once the Archbishop falls, even more could be at your hands. That sounds delightful. Now, off of the current conversation, I fear for Zephyrine.

For what I have learned is that Hugo cannot be controlled, not even by the Archbishop. So you don't have much time. Understood. He resides in the bell tower. That constant ringing is a product of him and him alone. You'll have to find a way up there if you're going to rescue her. And please, do you return as quickly as you can with good news this time.

And four to five, three hours? Understood. And... Yes. All right. Until next we meet. You may go. I will...

You may go. I will give her a silent nod, and I will get up to me. Slowly. You may go slowly. You can up like this. Slowly. I'm just going to need a minute.

You may stand up. Yeah, I heard you. No, no, I'm good. I will get up and I will make my way out. I take this pillow with me. It's part of the deal now. I'm kidding, this. It's a gift.

And I will, I'll leave. And I'll find the Inquisitor and you can tell them to give me the fuck out of it. And in the meantime, you make your way. to the entrance down to the cellars of this tavern and you look around and I will say with that stealth and the perceptions that you've done you're able to see that you're not being watched whatever it is that happens at this space is it seems to be rotationally guarded and you are at one of those points in which there is no one here and people don't normally come to the side they'll maybe enter in through the tavern

and you do see people making their way and entering the the tavern that way but no one comes off to the side. And so you have relative privacy. Immediately, when we get to the door, I will touch two points on my mask and then touch the sides of my head like this. And I will start to ritualistically cast a spell. It will take me about 10 minutes to attempt to do silence. I don't know if we're going to wait for 10 minutes to crowbar this block, but it seems like

a good idea, given how loud a crowbar. I would say that meeting, though, was very quick. there was a lot more sexual tension that went along with it. It was probably about an hour to an hour and a half of a meeting with with mom. Steely glances.

Just so Mikey's clear about what you weren't there. Oh, that's true. That's true. No, it's fine. So maybe Miss Liby's, what is, Mikey's not entirely clear

what she wants us to do. What do you mean what she wants you to do? What did she ask Mary's, what she wants is, no, she essentially gave Marius the information that she doesn't trust the Archbishop. that she learned in a recent meeting with him that he took Zephyrine himself and that

Zephyrine is being is being guarded by Hugo and that she imagines that if you find Hugo who lives in the bell tower at the cathedral that you will find Zepharine but that he didn't trust the inquisitors not necessarily the high inquisitor self but he didn't trust leaving his sister guarded at the jail for whatever reason, and that makes her uncomfortable. I see. What she wants is to screw Marius. And so he wants power over the Inquisitors. She can essentially give him that, but she's giving him two days to bang her or he gets nothing.

And so that's what that was. Because you have two days to come back and prove to me that you're in this. Otherwise, the papers are off the table. Yes. Literally. She wants the D, D. Dampere, of course. Thanks, Kimma.

So what is Alethica saying as she ritually cast these spells? I would say that she would be whispering very much to herself in this moment. You would probably just hear just the hints of, nothing specific. In fact, given the fact that I'm casting silence, it gets quieter and quieter and quieter as I eventually am able to motion the your room. You can't talk to in silence.

I'm just kidding. I'm motioning to him. And I do a crowbar motion. I spilled coffee on my hello. Hello that. And I get me part of inspiration. And I believe mechanically you get advantage on strength checks

when I use crowbar. Hello, we're gonna open this lock with the same tool we're gonna use to beat the Archbishop. A little bit of leverage. Oh, man. And I will say, roll a strength check for me, please. Don't mind if I do. And you're a birdigan's ration,

so you can do without what you will. And it's an advantage? Only if Nikki judges at me. So I'm just telling you what I know from my time of the DM. What? The cellar entrance. What about it? Is it on the side of the building? Yeah, it's on the side of the building.

It's down an alley, right? Yeah, it's down an alley. So there's an alley that stretches on one side and the other side. There are other buildings. Okay. And so down this alley is pretty much deserted all at all times and people don't really go down it. While they're doing that, I would kind of just walk down the alley to like where I could be able to like peek around to the front of the building and just kind of have an eyeball on that. But still be within sight of them.

So you're easily able to do that. You're still stay within the range of the past without a trace to keep your self. Just a flat strength roll? What would you roll at? Athletics, thank you. 26. Yeah, it's not enough, unfortunately. This is a really heavy lock, as it completely splinters into sharks.

And you're able to, you crush the lock easily. But with the silence, there is no, there's no sound, and nobody is alerted to this, and you're able to move the chain away and open up the doors. you alert Farron to the opening of the cellar, and you're all able to make your way down into it. For up to ten minutes, that space will be silent. And I will follow you working now.

And I will say it will be just the space at the door, so once you get inside, nothing that's set on the inside kind of goes out, but you can communicate with each other. I'll leave Virgil. I communicate with him telepathic way to basically sit, watch the exact same place where he had spied on the Archbishop and his Templars. and basically to fly into the cellar if he sees anybody coming dangerously. That's all that way. And you are able to make your way into the cellar. Roll an investigation check for me, please. Group investigation. Natural war.

Why are we not rolling at all? Yeah, can I do it? I'm going to twist. I want to do it. I want to find what we have to do. Five. That's one better. I got a 19.

Okay. I actually got a 13. What did you get, Bingley? Five. I will say that's enough for a group because you have two large roles and mediocre one and two shitty ones. You look through the cellar, and it seems to be your standard cellar to a tavern. There are casts of ale. There are dried foods, sacks of flour.

And it takes a bit as there is very little light down here. you are able to light one of the lanterns and get a little bit of light going. And you see that the pile of sacks of flower has clearly been disturbed. There are dustings of flour on the wall and on the ground. But you, outside of what clearly looks like a place where someone may have engaged in a sexual trist, there is nothing else down here that is suspicious to you. until your grim, you notice that there is a section of the floor that doesn't look quite right. The stone of the floor, the gap is just a little larger than everywhere else.

And you pry your fingers down into it, and you are able to pull up probably like eight by ten stones that are fused together. And there is clearly a wooden ladder that goes down. into the earth and some kind of tunnel that leads off in almost like an underground tunnel system inside of the city. Do you know from like an orientation? It looks like it's heading straight towards the job. Got it. Got it.

Can we talk now? Yeah. Yeah, we're outside of the 20-foot radius of the floor. That would have been at the back of the top of the stairs. I could find. Is this a sex pantry? Today it was. Oh, and it smells like an alchemy lab in here.

Someone was making pancake batter. Of course, someone was making pancake matter. I can say that. I'm the bar. Yeah, I can't say shit. I have to use my regular voice. Fine, you agree? Yes. There's another... I'll get there eventually.

There's another opening here. Looks like a pathway. Leads towards the jail, maybe. It's hard to tell. So do we think that's what happened? Is that that's where the guards of bishop goes in and out? I'll sneakie lag. Should we go down and take a look?

We can see if they're holding jeffering. We've come this far. I propose we go down. We should see where it leads. I'm just worried that if we get into deep, so to speak, and Marius is in too deep, then we'll put him in danger. While he's been thrust in other business. I hope Marius is not in too deep.

to the seconds of the archbishop. Oh. Ew. What do you mean? Oh. Oh. I don't, I wish I could turn off my thoughts. Even following that act.

My dampier ears begin to burn a while. Well, we think we should follow it. I think we should see where it leads, but let's not try to cause too much trouble. We vote. already broken a lock. There will be some evidence of our journey through here. I'm feeling there's real sneaking stealthy locks out. I'll go back to the cellar door and just pull it closed without a round or at least all kind of little together.

Unless you broke through the whole fucking door. No, just the lock. The lock is made on a janeum, but the door was wood. Well, pumpkins. And then the four dancing pumpkin lights. I'll say you're easily able to walk down into, you take the wooden ladder down, and you see that it is a straight, dark tunnel that heads off in the rough approximation of the jail. And you begin to walk. It's just straight hewn out of the very earth beneath Cyril.

Is there any other, like, are there any other directions that the tunnel goes or is it just from this tavern to the jail? It seems like it's just straight so far. Or we shouldn't say a word just encased this, so you know, the noise echoes. But let's go quietly and let's stop if we see anything of interest. I'll wrap some leather around my hooves. It's not a, it's not what you would expect from like a subterranean tunnel. It looks, it is hewn straight out of the earth. So it is, it is like dirt that you're trotting, trotting on.

That is until you get to what is, clearly an iron gate. And it covers the entire path. And there is a big, what appears to be magical lock on it with a symbol that you have never seen before. And as your eyes adjust and you look through it, you can see that past this lock, and I would say it took about 15 minutes of travel to get to this point. You can see that the dirt slowly turns to cobbled stones as tunnel. clearly man-made tunnels, sconces on the walls with torches that could be lit

or lamps that could be lit, hanging from them, tunnels that wind off in various directions. Do you think we should try to get through it? I've never seen a symbol of this before. Let me take a look. Which one of us would be the best one to look at a spooky magic laugh? I mean, I could probably... Yeah, don't you break in the whole source of place

being a pirate and all? I can probably take a look, I mean. And genuine criminal? Vodoo gun! That's usually how I get through most logs, but this one... I don't actually take a lot of finger on. I might have a trick up these sleeves.

I'm gonna go down and look at the... I hope your talk is quiet. Just kept that in mind. You look at it. And it looks like a large padlock that is radiating with some kind of magical ability. what it is, you're not quite sure.

But the padlock does not have a spot for a key, like you would expect with a normal lock. I wanna try to like, is there like a magical machine across the entire door or just opening the gate? Like, could I reach through the bars? So the, the tunnel that you're in is very small. It is like the size of a room door, right? It's like one person, you'd have to like walk in a straight line.

It's very, very tight. And once you get to this, this is clearly locked off from people being able to travel should it be found. What's not the lock on? Huh? What size is the lock? It looks like there's a lock on either side. Yeah. So it can be unlocked and locked.

It's like a door lock. It's not like a padlock then. It's like a padlock. But it's magical. No keyhole. There's no keyhole. And so you imagine that it is locked and unlocked under different means. So depending on which way you go is the side you would use.

You get what I'm saying? Yeah. It looks magical in nature, and I can't do much about it. Well, gosh. You had a trick. Oh, I thought that I had learned no magic, but apparently I had. Oh, well, gosh. Neither am I.

Well, let me take a look. Perhaps I'll see if this magic looks familiar. And I'm going to lean in. Am I able to discern anything about the type of magic in the ruins? There's rungs on my banjo and all of that. It's not a brun, it's a symbol. So like, think about if you went to some hoity tooty house and you're going through their gates,

they would normally inscribe like a very stylized first letter of their name. It is very clearly some kind of symbol that is supposed to represent a house or a lineage or something, maybe a... Like a... The Knights Templar, yeah, like a crest of some sort. But it's not one that you...

you've seen before. I got nothing. Does it look like if the magic of the lock was the spell that the symbol would disappear? Or is it like on the face? It looks like it's carved into it. Okay. I believe I have the trick. I cast a spell magic.

That's handy. You cast a spell magic? Yes. Okay. You roll. Let me just open my hit points. Oh, no. You take 21 points of psychic damage.

of psychic damage. Holy shit. As you cast to spell magic on this lock, you all watch as the lock itself begins to reverberate. And it's almost as if your magic is thrown back at you and like a ton of tiny blades, you feel your mind begin to shake and pulse as it, the headache that you have is almost, almost uncontrollable. And you feel like your mind is turning to liquid. And you take a significant amount of psychic damage,

but the lock does not seem to budge. Are you right? Undergar, you're okay. What happened? I attempted to open the lock with my faith. Just take a moment. But I, it rebounded somehow. It has.

I am in a great amount of pain. I have faith you'll feel better soon. Oh, you're using healing word at a second level. I don't know I didn't have their tricks I had it when I waited and I rolled pretty poorly

so you know Ferret maybe Lefika loosened it up and if you try it'll really work I don't think so

it looks pretty set why don't you try using the triangle thing the viewfinder it's a good idea Just in case, I'll take out the witch's stone and see if anything looks different through that lens. I will say you look through it and though the symbol doesn't change and you don't see any indicator as how to open the lock itself.

You see that the entire thing glows with a faint violet light. Resent me? Why is all the magic of the witches has been believed that? I would say it's not the same lilac that you're thinking of the eyes. It's a darker purple. Okay. Which is a good distinction. So you know there's a difference between violet and like lavender.

There's all the different colors. I do now. The difference between sage and fern. Ugh. What the hell? I bet that there's some sort of password or, you know, with my kinds of magic, if there's power in words and tonality and music and it controls the weave, I bet there's some sort of passer we gotta say.

Unless we know that word or magical incantation or something, I don't think there's any way we're going to get through, especially if it can't be tampered with, with the power of shaw. The word is saying the wrong thing, if trying to override it, did that to Leithica. Maybe the wrong word

caused a similar effect. You're probably right. I think that maybe perhaps, if we're able to find, gosh, I may have got it. an idea. What is this? Go on.

Well, if the archbishop himself uses it to sneak in and out to his secret best gal's chambers, perhaps something that he knows that will find in the cathedral. I think if he had a password and he had a secret tunnel, he would not have come out of the cellar door and locked through the city. Why would he come out the entrance of this cellar if he had this path? I think the pathway connects to this one is my implicating is my inference. So it doesn't look like he's walking in and out of the jail.

They met in the room behind us. It's right. Who the flower? Someone came for the flour that made pancakes. Oh, gosh. Yeah, I don't know if we can deduce that the archbishop would have used this tunnel because he came out the cellar, but we've gone down and like... I would say you have suspicions that...

that Inquisitor Mayville was the person he was in here with, you never saw her leave. Yeah. So she used it back. She used the passageway. Oh, me, hey. Mikey and now you're just dumb. Well, maybe Sir Marius will learn the password.

He has no way of knowing what we've seen, but maybe you're going mighty fine this evening. You want to tell me a password? You want to meet in a cellar? Hardly even nowhere. know. Well, I think now we have what we need to know. For when we talk to Marius and the next time he meets

the High Inquisitor, he'll know what to ask, suddenly. We might have a way to follow this path if we want to see where it ends, but I'd have to go alone. Does that sound dangerous? My strongest magic was not able to break the lot, so be

very careful. Or you will suffer the same migraine I am experiencing now. We hate migraines. It's right back. Here, it's just at the top, you know, at the base of the neck. I mean, it's worth for sure if you got a way to do it. I'll reach my hand through, just carefully through the bars and kind of test that.

Does anything happen? You are able to reach your hand through. Doesn't seem to do anything. Alright, I'll give it a go. I'll take my staff and kind of tap it onto the ground and it will glow with blue light, and I'll begin to to shrink down into a tiny little field mouse. I knew you're gonna say field mouse. I just know you.

Oh, gosh, did we, do we know that you can do that, Ms. Farron? Oh, that's not impressive. I don't know if I- I should do that. Oh yeah, maybe we have. I'm still impressed regardless. So I will jump through, you know, jump through the corners and scurry down. You attempt to and you will pay.

Oh, no. Don't worry. The mouse dies first. This time I rolled nice. Well. Oh, nice and well. She's a little mouse and she's crossing through bars. As her body transforms out of field position.

31 points of psychic damage. As you magically attempt to make your way through this, using your druidic magics to transform your body into a field mouse, as you attempt to move through. you are blasted back and you watch as this tiny field mouse is forced back from the bars and slammed against the walls. Rock tumbles loose and lands on your body as you're there kind of twitching in pain. 31 points of psychic damage. You feel your tiny little field mouse brain pulsing and throbbing and feels like it's going to explode.

I don't know how many hit points of fieldness has one. So I think you take 30 points of actual damage to your fair end. So you should be blasted, hit the wall, then turn back into force, basically. So as you're slammed by this rock and you twitch, you watch as her body, elongates and becomes Ferrant yet again. So I take 30. You take 30 from your pool. Yeah.

Why? I mean it worked. If I were reaching through. Well, my, my... Oh, gosh. Miss Farron. Thank you for us. I'll try to spit through the bars.

See what happens. You spit through the bars. I'll just sit on the floor. I look at Farron. I look at the bars. I rip off a little bit of rotting flesh from my side, and I throw it through the bars. You throw your rotting flesh from the bars.

My, I ain't the smartest scarecrow in the pumpkin patch. But my presumption is that as soon as if it's your magic or your mind, your head is going through, it's keeping out perhaps our souls, those that got them. So the thing is, I could teleport through those doors. I don't, but I think I'm all exploding to a red meat. Well, maybe not red mist. Maybe they got like a grayish brown mist.

I think your trunk would fly it across that before you back through this hallway. I would say based on what happened to Farron, you imagine that something similar would happen to you as well. I say you're smart enough. I don't even make you roll for it. Fair well, that's very, I knew you were mousy, but I didn't know it was literal. And you get healing more in a second one.

Wow, very kind. I would say at this point, Marius, you have been led out of the jail and you have been, Valoros of the same inquisitor that led you in as also the inquisitor that leads you out. He seems very uncomfortable, like he believes he knows. what happened behind those doors. And he doesn't say anything about it,

but he tries to make even less communication with you than before. And he deposits you right outside of the gates to the jail, and your friends are nowhere to be seen. So I would try to, as I'm leaving, you know, again, stoic in nature, respectful to the Inquisitors, trying to pretend, like, you know, everything's... I'm going to be your boss someday. And your daddy.

And then I would, once I'm outside, I would walk away from the prison and maybe like around a corner and find like a stone bench or something that's not within eye's reach of the prison, but maybe, you know, within eye's reach of the alley that my friends went down and I would sit down. Turn it a shepherd. and just put my head in my hands. I'm silently pray to Lufander. I will say it's easy enough for you to find that, exactly what you're looking for you find. You're about a stones throw away from the tavern, and you patiently wait while you pray to your God

for guidance and piety. Well, I think we've been foiled modest gate, so why don't we go back up so we don't miss the Holy Night returning from his... excuse you. It's been more than an hour now. I think we need to get back right away. I agree. You got my 11 points of healing, right? I did. Okay, good. I feel so much better, thanks to your healing words. I try to be supportive. You know, they say that if you

if you're healthy and you do this as you're walking back to the end or to the task. We walk and I don't seem as if Virgil's not reported anything, I presume. And he'll try to look around from Harris. I'll just really quick to make sure. I'll give myself bonus on stealth and I will quickly peek out before anyone else can get out the cellar door just to make sure that I'm not seen but also that there isn't anyone out in the immediate vicinity and then when I see that it's clear I will invite the rest of the way so you peek out and you see guards round the corner down the alleyway they had just walked past the cellar and for whatever reason didn't notice the

fact that the at least with the way they're walking they don't see like they noticed or like they're in a rush that the cellar had been broken into. Almost as if they're so used to this patrol and nothing being wrong that they didn't even bother to look as they walk past it and turn down another alleyway completely out of sight. And as you wait for them to disappear into the darkness, you usher your friends up and out of the cellar. You slowly close the cellar doors and try to write the lock as best you can. And you glance at the side and you see Marius sitting.

just a handful of feet away on a stone bench, his head in his hands. It's hard to see what he's doing, but there's, he looks from this vantage point, almost sorrowful. Go to Marius. I will be with you in just ten minutes. Oh, no, it's too late. I rush up to Marius. She's dead, isn't she? Oh, oh, Briggsie. Oh, no, no, no, no, no, Zephyne's not dead yet. I'm so fucking glum. I'm fine. Where were the others? Are they coming?

And you watch, as I'm assuming everyone else is me. I will say 10 minutes and I'm going to use my cantrip ending to repair the lock in the door. Nice. I will say you're easily able to do that. And then I will join them once to make you fast. You look like someone's died.

I'm going to be honest. All right. You all right. I'm fine. I'm fine. I'm fine. I just have a lot on my mind. I had a long talk. with the High Inquisitors. I have no doubt in my mind that she was down in that

cellar. Wherever you guys went, I would bet every gold piece I've ever seen in my life that they had met prior to me talking to her. She even mentioned that she recently met him. She was reapplying her lipstick.

They absolutely were down there together. What did you find? Before I go any further? Secret passage! Oh, they were fucking innocent. and there was a secret passage. Secret passage.

Like, where did you go? We went to the jail. Or gaol, how are we going to say that word? No, we agreed that it's jail, really. We covered that two hours ago. They were... They were having a gale time. Um...

Yes, um... So anyway, basically confirmed what we suspected. But the gate that goes to the prison had a very powerful magical lock. And we didn't have a means to get through it. We tried. spelling it. We tried throwing Mark Chunk through it. We tried

turned into a field mouse. And walking through it. Did we try again? The two of you. Whisper into it. Two of you do look tired. Are you all right? It's like blood coming back. Attempted to interfere with this protective barrier was very taxing. I'm only just

now recovering. and from my headache. Quite a shock. Sorry, continue. No, just so anyway, I mean, this is clearly how she makes rendezvous with perhaps not just him, but maybe other important people around the city.

I'm sure you're right. We got to talking, and she was very, very forceful. I have to be honest with you, I don't know if I can go back up there. Why not? I'm afraid of what I might do. Gosh, you're gonna kill her in an act of anger?

I might get angry. Oh. Listen, let me finish first. I spoke with her, and then she still is acting as though she doesn't trust the archbishop. So either she's lying or she's meeting with him under the guise of something, trying to get information from him, trying to pretend like she's still on his side. Something along those lies. And she believes, as what she told me is that Hugo,

descended upon the Mirabelle's house, and took Zephyrine to the archbishop. The archbishop did not trust the prisoner, meaning Zepharine, to be under the High Inquisitor's watch. The High Inquisitor felt that this was strange, felt that it was out of the ordinary. She informed me that Hugo lives in the bell tower, and that's what is the cause of this incessant ringing.

And she also is upset that there are all these pigeons and feels that we didn't do a good enough job. She thinks that Zephyrine is somehow in league with both Cazia and Madam Maggie McDuff. And that they're all connected the bishop in some way. Now. I will say, because she was trying to seduce you, I didn't do a good enough job. She's also, she mentioned to you that Hugo seemed to not be able to be controlled by the High Inquisitor. And essentially, what she wants of you is to kill him. Okay.

That he needs to be taken. By the archbishop or? Sorry, by the archbishop. He's like a threat that can't be controlled. And that what he did to Francois was unacceptable and that he clearly needs to be taken care of. Okay, so I will relay all of that as accurate as I can. I was trying to take notes, but I like started to write some things down.

Yeah, but then she was just like really. Very overwhelming. Yeah. I tried to gain leverage. I tried to. She had offered me a job previously, as I had mentioned. I decided to see if I could take her up on that job and essentially have control of all of the inquisitors in this town.

I figured it could be a boom for us. We could gather some inquisitors, march into the chapel under official business, and see if we could get his effery. Unfortunately, that was met with a bargain on her and that I would have to do something incredibly lustful, which I am not willing to do.

A bargain on horrendous thing. Yes, and she mentioned paperwork and it was all very... Why wouldn't you do it? I mean, if you're going to be something in return, that powerful? I mean, why not? I mean, clearly she seems like she has good intentions.

If she wants us to maybe save Zephyrine and deal with... Hugo and she agrees that the brutal murder of Francois was unacceptable. I mean, I'm starting to take a side on this. First things first. I'm not entirely convinced she's not lying. I don't know. Something about her. It's not just her overt provocativeness. There's something about her that I don't quite believe the things that she's saying. And maybe I'm wrong. I may have misinterpreted something but did an old exploded Dudley

say that she was the one that had him spread all them wish bombs he was beginning to say something along those lines he didn't quite get it all out you know better than anyone what it's like to be alive

for fall longer than is intended by the gods I have had damn near 100 years to think about the mistake that I made all because of lust. Oh, that's fair, but I mean,

it's not like it's the same thing. I mean, it's not like, you know, just because, you know, you fucked one. That lady we heard down in the basement? Unfortunate. Oh, sorry. Which lady? The lady that spoke of Mary's down in front of the amber.

Oh, that's basement? Oh, yeah, yeah, the crooked house. Oh, why? A lot of... You know, there's a song from where I'm from. And by a song, it's like, well, loving this tavern cellar, living it up when you're underground. Oh, gosh. You're weirdly specific to these two scenarios.

You got to teach me that when we have some time and there's not danger of foot and I'll come in it to memory. I'm by a group of bards called the Aerosmiths. Oh. I guess I didn't realize you fletch Aeros instead of Smith. Oh, the Aero Fletcher's would have been more appropriate. Sir Marius, do you think we should all go to the Bell Tower and, and, and, you know, go bring justice to Hugo? Is that the best outcome here?

You don't know that this is not different. That thing that you all witnessed in that basement owns my soul. Perhaps for all eternity. For one mistake that I made in my life, I will not repeat it again. I'm not perfect, but I will live my life by Lathandas tenets to the best of my ability. And if I am forced to go back up there again,

And that woman or whatever she is is forceful with me. I may lose my temper. Okay. Let's settle down. No one's going to force you to do anything you don't want to do. Sounds like we can go to the tower,

save Zepharine, and go from there. We don't need the Knights Templar. We don't need the Inquisitors. I understand. We can do this without that. You're right. I just simply was hoping to help.

And you're right, we need to make haste, like Jericho suggested to the tower. We need to figure out a way in. I'm sure it's going to be guarded in some way, and the archbishop is going to be looking out for us. We don't exactly blend in, which is why I was hoping to have the power of the inquisitors on our side. But that's neither here nor there. We go in, we hope to find Zephrin, the High Inquisitor believes she would be in the tower with Hugo. And yes, like she said, she fears that Hugo, is unable to be reasoned with.

He cannot be controlled. And I do think that deep down he is a gentle giant, but if he's out of control, we might have to fight him. We should be prepared to fight, but there may be a way to calm him down. We are new to him, and sometimes a new voice

can be a breath of fresh air when you are in that state. We showed him kindness. At least several of you did. I hope that he recognizes that. didn't get a chance to give him a prison when he was feeling a fear. You may still get that chance. Either way, we should try to hurry.

First things first, how are we going to get in there? Do we think he'll let us into the church? I would say that she told you that it was heavily guarded and that most of the guards, the Knights Templar, had been stationed around the cathedral. Your only hope was to find a way to scale the bell tower. Okay, I relayed this information. And she's also given me two days to respond to her offer. I guess we'll deal with it then.

I don't have to see her before then, and I'm hoping never again. I suppose if we do what needs to be done, and perhaps you won't have to make a decision you regret. So you're trying to tell me that if you go in there and fuck that whole Inquisitor, you can command all the guards to stand down? And we can just walk right up there and deal with it?

Well, I didn't read the paperwork. And of course, you know, perhaps if we do try to roll up, the archbishop overrules them. They don't listen and he doesn't let them in anyway. Or perhaps there's some sort of coup where they fall to infighting. I don't know. It was just an idea that I had in the spur of the moment. Are you offering to take his place?

Oh, please, by all means. I mean, if that was an option, I mean, certainly, I wouldn't hesitate. And you can be sure to be thinking about the place. the archbishop the entire time. I don't think that off his stance. Here's the thing, right? I think, I'm thinking back to me, to me early days of poverty. Before I was a captain, and I was just a sailor.

And as is how many you were walking towards the people? I remember a man at a cloth. I think he worshipped Lefander. And I think what he told me was Lefander says sometimes the end is justified the means. The Fanda has never said it. I'm pretty sure he did, no, and he did. And look, now that I'm thinking about it,

yes, he said, sometimes you have to get your boots dirty to achieve salvation. Do you really think that you're preaching the books to me? Well, it might have been a different... You know, because you haven't thrown by this tale. It might have been a different version. Name one tenant.

One. A... Do you even know how many tenants there are? An opportunity taken is an opportunity that you wouldn't have had otherwise, had you not done it in the first place. You've done some despicable things as I've known you, Riggs. But this is pretty low, especially after I've given you justification for why I will not break this vow. Look, maybe it wasn't the Fender, or maybe some other guy.

Right, same idea. We talked about the sun and golden color. Definitely wasn't the Fander. All right. There are like the deities of the sun. Look, I'm just trying to convince you to fuck the High Inquisity, all right? Look, what if I paid you? And it's about this time that you get to the cathedral.

And you clearly see that there are tons of Knights Templar guarding the entrance. And as you, even if you were to make a motion to move towards there, none of them seem to be willing to allow you entrance. No one is allowed in the cathedral at this time. For what it's worth, I agree with you, Brickley. But if it is against your faith and you have taken the vow, you must do what is right in your heart. What is right in aligned with, Levanton. That is your first priority.

I will nod. As far as this belt, how it goes, I should have no issue. You all look up at it, and you see that there are many bricks and things protruding from this. This is a well-made bell tower, but it's seen where over the many years, and you imagine it will take some time, but it does not look like

it's unsaleable. It looks like you could find a way to climb it. Certainly couldn't have waiting for it to get darker. But, you know, I shouldn't have any issue. What about the rest of you? Well, no, I thought I was going to have to fly up there. Gosh, I didn't want to have to do that.

Oh, I wouldn't have any. You coming a hundred foot tower. Can't you just go and you just take a rope and tie it around one of them there? There's like a bajillion statues on this thing, right? Yes. Yeah. There are outcroppings and statues. I mean, they're all covered in pigeon ship.

On that same? That girl, goil? Yeah, you would be able to climb up some empty stone pockets and statues and things to get up there. If you could throw me a lawn. Sure, but this is a perfect time to also talk about that tenant to perfect yourself. Work on it. climb the tower, but it's easier next time. It's not really about

the scalability. It's more about the... It's sort of like a smooth stone face of a building, you know? And just because you got cursed and can walk up just with your own two feet, you get me a rope, it'll be no problem. But how many guards are... I want to look and let's see how many guards

are guarding the front door of the bell tower. Or is it connected to the... So the bell tower is connect... So you have to think about it. like a large cathedral, right? So there's a bell tower that is part of it. The guards are all towards the front where the doors are,

and you could go around the side or the back and make your way up, and more than likely you would not be noticed for the sake of Brempody. That's promising? We'll find a moment where we have an access to one of the sides, and I climb up with a rope,

assuming we have enough rope for that as a side. And I will tie it off and drop. it down and we should have no problem scaling. Ever since we started playing ice now, and everyone's like, how much shit do I have? Yeah. I would just... Well, we have 23 feet.

As soon as it's dark enough and we won't get discovered, all scale the building. Okay, that sounds like a real great idea. Hopefully, Hugo's still there. Or actually, maybe we don't want them to be well. We still hear the bell. Yeah, the bell is just constantly charming. He's like doing that.

He's up there and we believe that Zephyrina is with him. So you guys are going to climb into the bell tower. You go is in quasi-mode. I don't know how dark it is. I assume maybe we might be madame. I mean, it's always dark, so you can do it now. Oh, perfect. The plan is that we would wait for every,

the, in a sense that there's a time where the coast is the most clear. Yes, you wait a while, you get used to the guards pathing, and then you jump, and you choose to climb and scale. Marius goes first because he has the easiest time, and he directs you from below as he tells you where to place your hands and what stones are stable enough to grab onto and what alcoves to climb into, what statues aren't going to move. And it takes a while, I would say it probably takes you about an hour just with how long it takes to get all of you up safely. The constant ringing of the bell is driving you crazy and it's louder and louder as you scale this towers.

You get closer and closer to it. But after about an hour, you are finally able to pull yourself. up over the edge of this tower and into one of the arched openings, stone openings, that leads into the bell tower proper, and I need you all to roll a charisma saving throw for me, please. Oh, my question. May I request that when Briggs he attempts to climb, the rope is tied to a gargoyle, but instead it slides off like the cement bag from Home Alone 2 and the fucking spobber.

Jesus. Charism saving? Well, I fucking fail this. Come on, come on, come on, come on, come on, come on, come on, come on, come on. Come on. Oh, I didn't pass that. Oh, boy. Oh, sweet, Jesus.

Uh, I would like to twist it because I have a chance to do well, and I just roll it. I don't really. I would like to twist. That's two. I wouldn't have a proud plus one. Did it make tourism? Yes. You don't feel like, you know.

I'm gonna let it ride. I'm gonna let it ride. I'm re-rolling because I get plus seven, so I'm trying to get better than... Come on. Yes! I got a 20. So 27 total for me. We got a natural 20.

Yeah. It is a twist of dread. Oh, no, you used a twist, so I will not be that. We don't do you for being coins. Yep, yeah. Thank you for being coming. But it actually doesn't matter. Marius, all of you feel,

I just wanted to be cool and make it feel like the DC wasn't so high, but it is for this reason. All of you feel your conscious begin to fade from you as you see darkness. Marius, you've, seen this vision before. You in a burning church. Remember your dream. That vision where you slayed man, woman, child, it didn't matter. As you, as the basement of this church fills with flame, charred corpses of vampire, men, women all around you, you're completely overwhelmed with wrath. As you look forward and in the smoke and in the flame, you expect yourself to be wholly consumed by

the fire. As you stare at the figure of a winged demonic boar skull, the head begins to offer you power. Is this true? Yeah. Through wrath, control your wrath, and you can have all the power that you desire and you feel it. The wrath consume you. You want nothing more than to destroy. War is the way. Death belongs to you. You raise your arms and all the skeletal remains of the vampires begin to rise. An army of fledglings at your very control. And all you have to do is give in to wrath. This is the way.

Briggsie. You've just finished trying to pry that final eye out of the statue. And you feel as you fall and the statue is going to come down and it's going to crush you. the crocodile god statue. But time stops as a strange feline creature with six legs, feathery wings, and no face and a serpent's tail, begins to offer you the power to accept greed and have everything you've ever wanted. All you have to do is accept the power of greed and everything will be yours. It is an easy choice to make.

Of course you accept greed. The portal opens up beneath you, and it saves you from being crushed as the crocodile statue falls and should completely crush you into smithereens and bloody viscera. But instead, you find yourself in this strange portal with doorways into vaults and banks, the ability to get anywhere you want with just a simple wish. Everything can be yours. anything with treasure, museum, vault, high security bank, nothing can stop you now, as long as you give in to greed. Farron, you're in the middle of the forest. The druids have begun to look for you and you see the rotting corpse of the woman that you love in your hands and you feel that pain overcome you. as all the sudden the shape of a woman wearing a crown with great bat wings appears before you she tells you to embrace the lust that you feel in this moment and you will have everything that you

need you look up at her and you look down at what had been your lover in your hands and all you see is moss and fungi and decay give in to lust and everything that has gone missing everything that you've lost will be restored. And you do. You give in to your lust. And all the sudden, out of the moss begins to form the woman that you love. As Gwena is brought back to you in this moment, everything that you wanted. Everything that you had lost can be yours if you give in to lust. Jericho, you're about to be consumed by a flock of a murder of crows as they begin. to devour you. Through the black feathers, you see a shock of white as a large crane with a bloody bill confronts you, and it attempts to convince you to give in to envy. If you give in to the envy

within you, all that you covet can be yours, all the desire that you have for friendship, companionship you'll never want for anything. It feels so close and so within reach, you can't help but get give into it. And as you raise your arms, all arms, all of the crows, including Virgil, are flayed alive around you. And you realize that with this power of envy, anyone who does not want to be your friend, anyone that challenges you or vise for someone else's attention could be completely destroyed and you would have no competition. There would be nothing left to envy because all that would be left to be you and what you want if all you do is give in to envy. Lethaca, you stare out at the mindless, faithless slaves that surround you. They begin, they look like they're about to begin

to tear you apart. And then you see a beautiful man, half elven, surrounded by albino serpents as he steps out of the entourage and encourages you to embrace your pride and reject your goddess. All that she wants and all that she has could be yours. You just have to embrace your pride. You raise your arms and the darkness is snuffed out around you. The white malevolent radiance consumes the faceless followers of Shar. As they all turn in writhing, or as they all turn, and writhing pleasure and begin the worship of Lethaca.

With that kind of power, the power of a goddess, the more worshippers you amass, the more power you will have. You could undo time itself. You could have everything that you want, and you think back into your mind's eye, and there's something there, the smell of smoke. Even that. Whatever is there, even that could be undone.

if you just give in to pride. You're grim. You're being buried in the earth. Through the cracks in the earth, the shape of formless green ooze and black tar emerges, and begins to tell you to embrace your sloth. Accept all it has to offer. Relax and give in.

Don't fight it. Don't let your muscles tense. Just exist and be. And you want to. You want to be able to just give in. and not fight and wander to just sleep. So you do, and you are surrounded by acidic ooze, in the chains that bind you, the stone that crushes you,

and all the stones of your past that weigh down on you, begin to dissolve in the acid of this ooze. And you know that that weight on your shoulders could be completely undone, that you could destroy the weight of anything. if you just gave in to Slav. And then he began to blink, and you all come to the sound of that bell ringing over and over and over again, oppressing you.

And now that you're close to it, you can hear it now. It is the ringing of this bell that is making people so crazy. There's something in the ringing of this bell that brought on these visions that you just experienced here with your friends. and it is so hard to overcome. And you feel it just pressing on the insides of your mind that if you give in, you could be consumed by those sins yet again. But you counter it for a minute.

You steal yourself against it as you blink and you look around. You see that all of your friends are slowly coming to, the vision lingering in your mind. Give in to wrath, give in to lust, give in to pride. is you look out over this room and what you see here disturbs you enough that you're able to forget your visions for a moment. This is clearly a chamber of some sort, but there is no actual bed. It's just a dirty, sick pile of hay. The smell assaults your nostrils.

As you can see, there is no lavatory up here, but a pile of refuse on the floor. This is not a room. This isn't a chamber for someone you care about. This is a prison unlike anything that you've seen. And littered throughout it are toys, broken and unwanted, but small trinkets that clearly Hugo uses to entertain himself. And you see that Hugo is standing not too far from you, looking in shock and anger as he constantly pulls on the bell,

but you can see that he is convulsing and crying, blood, clearly, um, uh, Francois's blood covering his body as he cries and rings the bell. And as he sees all of you, um, climb over the wall. He lets out a loud roar and drops the rope as he moves towards you. And he doesn't seem to know what to do. He seems confused between his sadness. And there's clearly an internal conflict in him where he, part of him wants to rush towards you and toss you from the bell tower,

but he also looks at you with kindness and understanding. You're his friends, but you're supposed to be his enemies, and he looks like an animal trapped in a cage. What do you do? I'll say you have but a few moments given these horrible nightmares that you just had, waking nightmares that you just had,

and the way he's reacting, you have but a few moments to either calm him down or to full out battle with him. Is he? I would hold up my, sorry. He looks like... Is he rushing towards us? He's not rushing towards you, but he looks like he's having an internal conflict.

And if something doesn't happen, when it's fight or flight, he's probably going to choose flight, unless something is done to stop that. I would hold up my hand. He'll remember a stone chick. And I'd take out some of the jerky that I had from my rations and just kind of, like, lay it out. Do you want something to eat? You're hungry, aren't you? Roll a, uh, roll a persuasion check. Um, and I will say, um, and I will say, um, um, um, and I will say, um, um,

say at advantage because of the situation in the dining hall when you gave him food. That's, what did you ask me to rule? Persuasion. Persuasion. Remember you twists. Yeah, I'm gonna. Let's twist. Hugo looks towards you and he looks back towards the bell and back towards you.

And he's shaking and tears are streaming down his face. You go bad. Hugo hungry. You go may hurt But This is only temporary You can You can move past this

We will help you We are here to as your allies I'll slowly As left this talking I'll slowly start to approach And And offer the food I will say

Roll persuasion At advantage as well Because you are being helped As they're approaching I would I be absolutely like completely just almost shocked by that vision. I look up at Virgil's still there.

And I'm disappointed. And I look up and I see Marius who just had just the opportunity of a lifetime. And he rejected it like someone who's just been had it given to them their entire lives, never had to work for anything, who's never experienced true loneliness. And I covet that.

And I think about for a moment, just a brief moment. Mary is being flayed alive. He does not. He has not flayed alive. And suddenly, I'm immediately ripped back. And I cover my face. And I see Hugo and I'm processing what's happening

because I see him slow down. And I raise him head. Oh, Hugo. I know that you were mighty sad earlier. And I'm just, I meant to give you this and I never got the chance. I'll reach into my head. my pack and I'll pull out the toy replica of the Ghost Light Express with the little frog conductor

that hums with that green light and I'll hold that. Now, part of me deep within my soul or lack thereof really, really wants this and doesn't want to give it to you. But I think it's very cool and I think that you might like it. See it goes chooka chooka choo-choo-choo-choo-choo. And I think maybe frog voice will say welcome all aboard the Ghost Light Express. All aboard the Ghost Light Express. How about that? And so alongside with Fair. I also roll perception check at advantage. And you'll, sorry, persuasion and advantage. And you see that as you hold this out and the

the Frog Conductor calls out all aboard the Ghost Light Express, you see Hugo's eyes, a smile, twitch on his face for a second and pure childlike wonder and joy. And then he looks back towards his room and the clearly broken toys, toys that were more than likely broken and damaged when they were given to him, that he is clearly cherished. They're in places of honor on shelves and they're dusted and well taken care of, even though they're the unwanted toys. The unwanted toys, the toys children have thrown out, but to Hugo, they're everything. And looking at this pristine choo-choo train as you hold it out to him, his eyes are a light

in wonder as he looks to it. He can't even believe it's being offered to him. him. When did you get? 29. 21. And yeah, I would still be talking as he's offering this toy, as we're offering

the food, I... We shared your pain, he'll go. This storm will pass as surely as night will fall. And he looks like he's almost there. He looks like he's on the brink of just

completely letting go and giving in to you. These friends, probably the only true friends that he's ever known. The only true kindness he's ever been shown. We understand. We can just talk and we'll figure this out together. Make one bad. You are not bad inside. You feel sadness right now, yes? Hugo very sad. That means there is good in you. All of us are a little... No, Hugo born bad, wicked mom, bad Hugo. That is not true.

I would like you to roll another persuasion at advantage. Because he still look threatening. He's, he looks like he's, he's still clearly clenching, like he's one wrong move, and he might topple the other way, but he is leaning more and more towards Lethika and Farron and Jericho,

and he looks like he's, um, he's very close to giving in and just giving up. And as I step forward to train to offer to him, I'll look at Lethaca and I'll say, Lethika, you have, way with words, better than me and you know how to tug on the strings and one's very soul.

And I'll give you Bartic inspiration, which is the D8. I will hold on to that. We will lead you through this darkness, Hugh. Amazing. Wow. All of your dice roll. These four are straight fire. I'm going to just send it.

Might as well. Let's just get it on. All right. It's almost a lot, man. 15 plus 5 plus 1 is 21. That's more than enough. He looks down at you and you see as his muscles relax and he drops and he just begins to sob and cry and cry. And for a good couple of minutes, he can't get a single word out as he's choking on his tears.

I try to race and embrace him. And he and he lets you and you see that tied around his leg is what appears to be an old dirty shirt where this is clearly the spot that he had been stabbed in, or that he'd been stabbed by Francois. And he's tried to mend it himself with a dusty, or a dirty rag. And he just falls forward. You go ugly. Hugo stupid.

He'll go to, Hugo go to Mirabelle House and stabbed. Hugo angry, kill. Kill man in rage. Hugo bad. Reach down and I will put my hand on what I assume this is wound and I will say, Just let it all out. Think these terrible thoughts of yourself. They are not true. Hugo told all life Hugo's stupid. Hugo not worth a damn. Hugo get bad toys. No food. Bad Hugo.

Hugo, do you think that I am bad? That I... Hugo weak when Hugo feels sad. It's untrue. You are, and I will cast your wounds. You'll feel better. You are very special. You should not think these evil thoughts about Hugo. For Hugo is my friend, and I would not hear such bad words.

Hugo can love new friends. All Hugo loves is taken from Hugo. This is a place of madness, and I know you've experienced great pain. But... Hugo must do as Hugo is told. Why do you feel that way? Have you ever tried to leave this place?

Hugo has nowhere to go. No one love or trust, Hugo. Hugo would die. He yells eight points. Well, Hugo, this doesn't have to turn into a fight with your friends. We just need to... We're just here for Miss Mirabelle, Mrs. Mirabelle. We'll just take her out of your hands.

We'll get her to see her to see. safety and we can forget about this whole thing. I understand what it's like to be punished and hated by the circumstances of one's creation. There's sins that we don't commit just by simply existing we're hated. I understand. And as you say that, he looks at you with a bit of questioning and uncertainty. Hugo does not have Zephyrene. Pige and Lady everyone thinks is beautiful. for suffering. And that is where we'll end the session. Oh, I've got to go back here.

Just let me in there. I just need 10 minutes. To fuck her up. Yeah. Oh my God. The gross pigeon meeting. Yeah. And I would say from that, you'd be able to tell he sees things that other people don't.

So he sees her as she is when everyone else. That's why she wanted to fucking kill him. I was wrong. We should have killed him. I had a stack lock for him, too. if you wanted to kill them. We're making terrible decisions. So we probably sure.

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