Beneath Dark Wings | Ep. 45 | Valley of Shadow: Part 1
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Welcome to Legends of Avantris. I'm Mikey Gilder and you're listening to Beneath Dark Wings. Here's what happened last time. You all are in Wurren, the lair of Rajani, the Eternal Blossom, the ancient golden dragon who had been pulling the strings basically for this entire time. As you made your way down to face her,

You saw as she tried to plead with you to join her cause, to see the world as she could make it, with a plague that did not bring about a bestial chaos, but brought about submission, order, and potentially good. The greater good at the very least, maybe not good as each individual defines it.

And you all rejected it as you saw that at the center of this chamber, Herja and Torvald were working feverishly to forge Hartclever, the Glaive of Baphomet, into the Glaive of the Seven Laws, which had the Rod of Law within, into a single superweapon.

A great battle was engaged in, and in the course of the battle, Caprice was slain by the dragon, and most of the party almost was slain. Just a couple of very lucky rolls. - It was about to be a 1v1 with the dragon and Toa. - Yes, it was about to be a 1v1 dragon versus Toa. But at the end of the day, they were able to, Toa was able to smash the skull

of Rajani, her light force, her anima, fizzling out, causing a great explosion at the forging of the great forge at the center of this

of this chamber. And in the process, it instantly turned Torvald into a jade statue, which she had been doing to all of her artisans and minions, humanoid minions that had forged her magnificent lair over the centuries, or the decades at least.

And Herja on the side with Heartcleaver immediately got fully transformed into a beastmen. Musk, oxen, variety. Full, just full transformation. Although she was unconscious. As the dust settled, Iris attempted to resurrect Caprice and he came back momentarily. But his soul was ripped back to Malabolge in the Nine Hells.

with one final taunt from Glossia, his patron.

And in the Nine Hells, Caprice found himself up to his neck in molten lava, eternally burning but cannot die, his flesh singeing and healing and singeing again. Surrounded by the screams of all of his family, and completely desperate, he called for the name he had heard. He called it three times, Pazuzu, Pazuzu, Pazuzu. In an instant, his soul was temporarily ripped to a strange realm of

a barren wasteland of portals and ziggurats underneath an oppressive red sun. Pazuzu would free him of all of this, but he asked for assistance, for fealty to help bring about his great goal, a great eclipse in this realm, allegedly, and a massive war

that dwarfed the battle that you had seen when you had faced the remnants of Miska the Wolf Spider. Before Caprice could answer, another voice possessed him, another entity possessed him, and a being who had allegedly made a deal with Pazuzu to maintain something called the Blood War had accused him of treachery, and now his treachery had been fully revealed.

Pazuzu and Rage attempted to strike down Caprice's soul, but the soul was ripped back to the Lord of Lies, to, I think everyone knows at this point, Asmodeus. Or Carl Satan. Or Carl Satan, the father of Glazia.

- Best friend to those. - In this chamber, Caprice made another deal. The old contract was turned to embers and a new deal was to bring about the retribution to Pazuzu to show him what happens to those who break contracts with Asmodeus, the Lord of the Nine Hells, as well as bring about whatever aims he seeks beyond that. Caprice signed immediately.

Returned alive with the power of Anubis, his soul released by Asmodeus. Asmodeus also took, within his own concealing rubies, Torvald and Herja to be returned, to be his collateral and returned, healed, when Asmodeus was confident of Caprice's loyalty. The party then left the chamber with only five of them.

and a defense mechanism after the death of Rajani had melted everything.

So Felis had to see just the charred remains of all the great knowledge of ages. They then convinced Tezaki somehow that she had, that Rodroni had been tricking him, that was true, but that she had cursed him in her dying breath. And so he took them back to Mogur Kai, they rested. He went off to the upper plains, perhaps never to be seen again. - Of course. - To at least decompress from what had happened and mend his broken heart.

And they said farewell to Revali, who had decided to stay and help these orcs of Mogra Kai and Gron more broadly figure out what it means to be free again after decades of subjugation to Golden Lotus. And it was then when they were deciding their next step that a raven with six eyes landed on a branch next to them, and with the voice of Virgil Zurn said that two more seals had been broken.

and that they need to discuss their next plan. Oh, that's right. You all are standing in what had been the Glade of the Eternal Blossom, still beautiful, undisturbed by the assault of the Horned Legion and Baphomet. You see the large raven with six ruby-red eyes staring at you with the

Same lack of intelligence of you'd expect of any kind of normal bird, but speaking with the voice of the human high general of Korobakiya. As it had told you that you must return to Zentra and must discuss the next plans, it looks blinking at you, awaiting a reply. What do you all do? I suppose I could take this one. What time is it?

Shit. Afternoon? Yeah, afternoon. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning

A bit of Providence. Scephronil is where I was going to send you next. Oh, well that works out well for us. I'm happy to continue this brief and discuss anything that we need to now. Or you could probably reach us again when we reach Scephronil. Private Ackerman, full report.

Full run, what happened here? Oh, it's been a while since I've done this. Well, and I just kind of like look around and like... I'm just tapping my foot. To be honest, everything here is mostly in rubble. I mean, it was a pretty serious fight between what happened with...

Baphomet and all of the orcs and of course for Johnny the golden lotus was really a golden dragon and I go into it and I give him more detail and then I explain that she's you know what her goals were and that uh

You know, I don't talk about the stuff that happened with Caprice. I just basically give him a rundown of the lay of the land and where the orcs are and where the Dancing Blade Clan is. So the threat has been neutralized. Well, for now, I mean... The leader has been slain.

Yes, yeah, yeah. Worried about the seals. And a new government, more favorable perhaps to Korovakia, has been instated. Yeah, I mean, we've got Rivales here. He's gonna look after things. You know, he's a trustworthy person. He's got a good moral compass. If you stop taking their land, maybe they'd be more favorable to you. I am simply sending relief efforts.

Do not worry. I'm not even sure that's necessary. I mean, the orcs seem to have everything under control here. Yeah, these are strong people. I think that they're going to come to a unified and peaceful place all on their own, especially under the guiding hand of Ravioli. I will send supplies.

necessary goods as a sign of good faith from Cordovacchia. I think an olive branch is going to do a lot of good work given the state of things here. Agreed. And please, I'm not speaking out of turn, but there's no need to send any military anything. Just send...

privates and people and normal, just peaceful. Don't make it look like a show of hostility, sir. Of course, sir. I am pleased to inform you as well that the ink has dried on a treaty between Korovakia and Eerios. I hope to do the same here in Grond. Oh, that's great. That's good news. What kind of treaty?

I understand the ink has dried, but if you could name the treaty Birds of a Feather, that just...

It is too late, the ink is already dry. Alright. A ceasefire, you said? Yes. Peace at the borders, at least for now. That's a good thing. I agree, absolutely. Trade, and perhaps in the future more. But there is far more pressing matter here. The seals will not hold. My ravens have found out that it was not just the Horn Legion that had been breaking the seals.

What do you mean? It was the forces of Scythraniel. They have been working covertly, breaking the seals that, as our attention was turned towards Baphomet and his herd. So, I mean, I'm sure you're going to tell us why you needed to send us to Scythraniel anyway, but does that mean that any of the seals or the only seal that's in Scythraniel is already gone? I'm afraid that with the power of the Chain God...

With so few seals remaining, it is only a matter of time whether they're broken by force or not. They will erode within a matter of weeks, perhaps months if we are lucky. Is it because so many have already been broken? Yes. Once the seventh seal is broken, there is no more that can be done. It is inevitable. So then what do we do? The only thing we can do is strike the chain god down.

when he emerges from his prison. "How do we do that? He's a god! Can we kill gods?" You have the answer in your hands, and the bird looks towards Iris. "Well, to be fair, these are more like pods." It was more of a metaphor. "Hmm. I'm not sure that means what you think it means."

So this raven, is it like doing this as it talks? Straight out of Demon Slayer. Ah! Head washed! Head washed! What do you mean? I look in Iris's paws. What are you holding? That thing. The rod? Rod of Law.

So what did Asmodeus take? Do we have it in my notes? Asmodeus took Heartcleaver. Okay. So he took Heartcleaver, and in the explosion, all of the glaive adornment got completely shattered. They were separated. And separated. So she took a pure rod of water. And when I picked it up, I heard a newness. Osiris. Felt Osiris. And you were like... Jesus.

Get a hold of yourself! So we use... This is how we do it? Well, I just blow them up? Sort of like how it blows everything else up? When, you know, it just kind of makes contact and just goes... If it was powerful enough to strike down the prince, the original prince of demons, then if it is not powerful enough to defeat...

a weakened chain god, then we have no hope, truly. All right, so what are we going to Scythranel for? What are our orders? Your orders? Remember, you have your own free will. You are the wings of the raven, but I can simply make a request. Of course. And you hear a hesitation and a pause, as if...

He's taking time to do something in his personal chambers, looking around perhaps. You're actually talking to us from the chair. I'm a very busy man, this was the only time that I could make it.

Why do we have more than you? He only has one arm. He has to pull his pants all the way down in order to urinate. He's just sitting there, ass-cheese, flapping in the breeze. Oh, God. Good times. Good times. I cannot trust anyone here in Zentra anymore. In my great purge following Diamante's betrayal...

I discovered that there were goings-on that I was not aware of, and neither was Diamante. And the raven's head turns to you, Felix. The horrific war crimes that you committed, Felix, along with the Talon Guard, and the abduction of children... I very visibly go pale. Are you okay, Felix? That was not for the cult of Moloch like I had suspected. I have discovered that

The children have been shipped to Scythraniel. For years. What's happening to them? I do not know. No, there's no word! There's no word about what's happening to them! The skies of Scythraniel are even more inhospitable to my ravens than Eerios or Grond. Despite not being predators, the vultures and whatever dark magics are in those skies...

prevent me from seeing much. Are they still alive? Can we save them? We can go in and we can see. We're getting close. We can save them. Now the storm clouds gather.

I've got to change my plans! I poop my pants! We're all shitting! Wait, but that's a good thing. That means that Milo maybe wasn't sacrificed and beamed in one of those big furnaces. Well, provided that Skaffronnel's not sacrificing these poor kids. Well, that's fair. We can't wait. We have to go immediately. Do you know where they're being sent? I guess not. They're being sent to Skaffronnel. I know that, but be more specific.

I didn't think I needed to. Is it like a specific warehouse or like a... What's a warehouse? Or like a kindergarten? Or... What's a kindergarten? It's a garden where the kinder's going. What's a kinder? You know, the little ones. Oh.

Yes, bird. Speak. Yes, bird. And you watch as, like, my butt's wiggling back and forth and my eyes are doing the twitchy tail thing. You can eat that bird. Despite how much I know and how much I deal in secrets, the king of Scythranil is obsessed with secrets far more than I am, and he keeps his quite well hidden. I have gleaned some knowledge

but I have no idea what is happening to our children. Undoubted though, with their dark magics and necromancy, it is not a good thing. All I have been able to discern is a potential ally within Skaerthranil, a former count that they had appointed, one of the only two counts to ever rule in Skaerthranil. Both since count, both counts since have turned against the government, but have been unable to be snuffed out.

So, there's some kind of...

In fighting, these two counts don't like this king. Yes, but the... there is no fighting. From what I understand, they have their domains, and all efforts to force them out have been unsuccessful, so the Carian King goes on with his plans, lets them exist, does not bother with them, does not... is not concerned with them, and that will be his downfall. What... what is the name of the count that we're trying to find?

His name is Count Kreskov. There's a castle in an extremely remote area that has been and proven difficult to assault. How he's defended himself this long, I have no idea, but he is far more powerful than I had previously thought. All right. I mean, this is good. This is a start. At the very least, this is Count Kreskov will be able to tell us what's happened to these kids. He has to know. And then we'll go from there. Yes.

And he... and the raven kind of turns, and it's looking a little bit more dramatic, despite it being a raven. Because it's being a bird. He... he turns and he... it looks back at you and says, "Around the leg of this bird are two teleportation circle scrolls. One to Zentra, the other to Orsengard, our easternmost fortress.

I strongly recommend you either bring the rod to Zentra for safekeeping, and if you resist and do not wish to, somewhere where you know it will be safe. You cannot let the Rod of Law fall into the hands of the Carrion King. All right, sir. Duly noted. And I'll just untie the... You see that there's two scrolls. One is to Zentra, the other is to Awesomeguard. And... We'll use our best judgment, and...

You know, make sure that doesn't happen. Sir. I've informed the general of Ostengard that you are coming. You do not need an escort. Do not tell them where you are going besides beyond enemy lines. Like I said, I cannot trust anyone in Cordovaquia any longer. You being outsiders are the only ones I can trust. The wings of the raven. How do you spell Ostengard? O-S-T-E-N-G-A-R-D. Ostengard. Ostengard.

- G-A? - G-A-R-D. - Guard or Gord? - Guard, G-A-R-D. - And that's the easternmost? - That's the easternmost fortress. - Are you sure it's not Awesomegard? - It is not. It is not. - Easternmost. - Damn. - You might wanna double check your notes just to make sure. - Roger that, I will. It's Awesomegard.

- Okay. - Turns out I was right. - Is it the Carrion King or the Carry On King? - You know, it's Carry On, My Wayward King. - I was gonna make that joke. - Sucks to suck, Caprice. You can still use that as Caprice. - You dropped the ball, Derek. - That's good.

All right. Is there anything else? Yes. I love it. You must be careful. These are not orcs. These are not owl folk. These Seshadar Kai, these dusk elves, are far graver threat. They used to serve the Raven Queen like we do in Korovakia, but they have turned away from her.

abandon her sanctum in the shadow fell, seduced by the Carian king, rallied around him to form an incredibly powerful kingdom that utilizes dark magic. And in the past century, they have been relying more heavily on necromantic magic. They do not use it on the front lines. I suspect because that if they saw the desecration of the bodies of the fallen,

of all of us that the three other nations will unite against them and crush them. But I suspect that it is far more sinister than even I know. Understood. I know the dangers. I've been trying to prepare the rest of the group. I know that they haven't really seen anything like this before, at least here, but I trust everybody and we're all very capable, sir. I trust you will make the right decision. Yes, sir. Therefore...

I will not demand that you return to Zentra, but I would prefer to have the rod under my safekeeping. I'm sure we'll be back at some point. It's just... there's no time right now. We need to find out what's happening to these children. Yes. And do not forget, the children of Corovarcia are an important resource, but the Chainguard is what really matters.

Right, and that's why we're going to hang onto the rod for now. It may come in use for us. We may be able to use it even before the Chain God reveals himself. Yes. There is the certainty that you will be venturing beyond this world. The Chain God is held within the Shadowfell in one of the Dark Domains. Bound to that place in a tomb with the power of death itself, the prime force of death.

and it's a Scytherinil that has the strongest connection to the Shadowfell in all of Striga. I raise my hand at the bird. Mr. Bird, sir, I mean, Zurn, sir, um, what is a Dark Domain? And the Shadowfell? Can you explain that? It's the land of death and shadow. It is a realm beyond ours with the dead. Much of the dead find themselves after life.

Many dark domains ruled by dark lords have fiefdoms within. The Chainguard is in one of the most ancient. That is all I know as the Grand Master of the 13th Order. You don't know which dark domain? That... I unfortunately do not. Alright, well... That knowledge... We thought we could just ask someone when we get there. That knowledge was sacrificed...

by the suicide of the original Grandmaster. It died with him, all of that knowledge and so much more. That was going to be my next question. What was going to be your next question? Well, he was chained once. I keep asking, can we find out how to chain him again or reseal the seals? But if the knowledge... Lost. All of my searchings of all of my readings across Evantris. There.

"Have found nothing." "Alright, well, we'll make sure that the rod stays safe, and we'll keep you posted, I guess." "Very well. Fly high, Wings of the Raven."

Keep the rod safe. We will. And with that, the raven flaps its wings and... Thank you. Thank you, Derek. Once the verb is gone, I let out a long sigh of relief, as if I was holding my breath. All right. That wasn't so bad. I think that we're all right, and we can head out immediately, and we can find these kids. And, you know, I don't like...

I agree. He seems a lot more trusting and good intentioned than I was expecting.

He even gave us these nice scrolls for us to hang on to and gave us the agency to choose whether or not we wanted to go back and trust him with the rod or not. I mean, that seems like a very cool thing for Zurn to have done if he, you know, isn't as, you know, now that he's gone and not listening to us in any way, shape or form. Oh, oh, we should be going now.

Toa? Uh, yes? Are you feeling sick, Felix? A little. Do you need a potion? I've got a few. No, I'm not sure I can keep it down right now. We should head out, right? Right now. We have to go find what's happening to those kids. It's the least that I can do. I agree, and I'm sure you're not... I'm not the only one wondering if maybe you're...

Your brother is involved in... I certainly hope so. Well, let's fucking go! It's been a very long time though, and if they're doing anything horrible to those kids, there's a chance that we're not gonna be able to save them all. But we need to at the very least find out what's happening now, and maybe we can reverse it. Or maybe we can stop it, or maybe we can recover them, or find out what's happened to them, and we'll make a decision from there.

I think we need to figure out. I'm inclined to agree with Xurne, but probably taking the rod just on our persons into Scythrin is not a great idea. I wasn't lying when I said that it could come in handy for us. If... Jan, what are we supposed to do with it otherwise? Could we take it back to Arka and give it to the Windukes and have them look after it? Well, we could, but we also know that there is some kind of taint in Orca. Do we trust it?

Well I think that was partially because we took that weird corrupted gem that was in my pack and we brought it to them. Yeah, that's true. That was kind of a us-oopsie now to them. Sort of like an our-bad kind of thing, not really a bad-bad. Our-oopsie, yeah, is still present there, more than likely. That's true. We just know that we need the rod for when the chain guard erupts from his chains!

And I just feel like, you know, if it's an Akka, we won't be able to retrieve it quickly. And if we're heading into the heart of Scythernal where, you know, this is the most connected place to where the Chain God currently rests, I personally would feel better if we had it on our person, but I'm open to suggestion. Can we, like, hide it somehow? I could carry it. That's not very heavy. I have the Bag of Holding, but if they get the Bag of Holding from us, then they just open it. I also have the Bag of Holding.

Do we know if it goes in the bag of holding? Is it gonna like la-rod the bag and...

I mean, anything's possible. Should we try? No. I think we should just carry it. I'm with you. If you think that's a good idea, Iris, I agree. I think it could come in handy. I'm a bit nervous about carrying it. I heard the voice of Cyrus. Maybe we could, like, you know, put some of your jewelry on it so it looks a little, like... Make a religion check advantage, Iris.

And while she's doing that, is it big enough to fit inside of my viol case? Or is it... No. It's like a big ass staff size. I know nothing. What is it? Oh, it's a three and a five, naturally. What's your bonus? Six. So an eleven. An eleven.

I would say... That's higher than a 10. That'll net us more than it's a rod. Yeah. I would say that with, you recall that the energy, this is what you know, the energy that you had felt in the rod reminded you of the energy that was radiating from the angel, the Windu Gobita.

Yeah, because that was the one that was the seriously one. Yes, yes. And so that was the Osiris one, and you feel that same energy. Who's Osiris? Is he like a god too? We had this conversation recently. He's like a good mate of Anubis, right? They're kind of like bros. Sure. They're sort of like friends, you know, kind of like, they're like tight. Osiris is like a good guy, is what I'm trying to say. Well...

I imagine this bed isn't any good for me. It's useful to all of us. Tawa, I think like aside from you, everybody has a little bit of good and a little bit of bad and it's like a mesh. Oh, I mean the bed's kind of like that, right? You don't want to be bad. You'll never fully be able to understand the will of the gods. They don't have emotions the way that we do.

I mean, I agree, but I guess what I'm trying to say is that I would feel very nervous if we just are carrying it on our persons.

the window who we associated with the science that was one of the powerful creatures that entombed the chain god to begin with if the word of law vibrates with his engine then to me it is good and i will guard it with my life

Yeah, we'll protect Iris, you will, and we'll make sure that nothing happens to her or the bot. Maybe we just give it to that guy that you just mentioned. Maybe, like, he can just hold onto it. You know what I mean? Just like, so we're not, you know, so we're not like, oh, we get captured and we go get thrown in prison. We've been in prison at least, like, five or six times since we started all this. And every time we have taken our eyes off of something valuable and reported it in our book, it has fallen into the hands of someone who shouldn't have it. Don't you agree?

I mean... What happened when we gave it to Golden Lotus? Well, Golden Lotus wasn't really a good god, but I feel like the Seven Angels, those Windu guys, they're pretty cool. That we know. The wind spirits are kind of hanging out with them. They're sort of like chill. And we don't have eyes on them, so should that dark energy that we allowed entrance into their homeland, should that corrupt them, then all of a sudden it has control over the world of war.

And for what it's worth, when we go into Scytherinal, there's not going to be any going to prison, okay? If that even looks like it's going to happen...

I'm gonna burn everything to the ground. They can't restrain us. They won't let us live. He'll put the Nil in Scythra Nil. And just because, just so I'm sure that everyone has the full context of what, in this conversation, is that with the corruption, that they had said that like the one thing that could just stamp it out easily is the Rod of Law. So, they're, so I want to make sure that everyone is clear that that was- Because they were asking for it, right? Yes, they were asking for it to cleanse Akula from the corruption.

Can we at least try it in the Bag of Holding? Just so we know if we need to, it'll go in there. I want to also see if it just like tucks everything away into the little crannies. Into what? Well, like, we've already got a bunch of shit in the bag. I want to see if it like... He wants to know if it will organize the Bag of Holding to make things more easy to come up with. Yeah, all the coins go into a little corner, perfectly stacked. Every time we ask you for a water scheme...

You take 15 minutes hunting through everything in there, all the trinkets you've picked up. Look at it, it's a terrible mess. There's lots of stuff in there. You refuse to clean it up. That's why I don't take things with me. Do you really need all that stuff? Does it bring you joy? You never know when you're going to need all this stuff. Just take it and stir it around? You know, is it pronounced skeen or skin? I don't know. To be fair, Toa's disorganization kind of goes really hand in hand with his, you know, carefree nature. Part of what makes him charming.

What? I was not listening to you. Oh, I was saying that his disorganization is part of his carefree nature and what makes him charming. Yes, that's why none of us have taken his bag of hoarding and forced it into organization. Yeah, I also just got here. It is bad, though. Yes, it is. But Caprice clearly cares. I just want to see what happens and make sure that it doesn't destroy it if we have to suddenly find ourselves in a situation where we need to hide a quarterstaff fraud. Where else are we going to put it?

I can think of a few places, Chris. Well, I don't have that option, so just put it in the bag. Should I try to put it in the bag? He's much rutter than he normally is. That's hard, but it's possible. You can take it right out.

And then, look, just the tip of it. Just the tip. And we can try it, see what happens. And what happens if it causes some extra-dimensional explosion? You're critically wounded, and we're trying to march into Scythranil, and I have to use all of my energy to heal you. That's actually a good point. That can happen with a bag of holding. I've seen it, and it is ugly. Oh, I don't know how that works. Well, put the bag... If I tried to put my bag of holding in your bag of holding... Gone. Everything. Half a Korovakia, gone. Horrible.

- Those sound like entirely different situations. - Yep, big old dent right in Striga. It would be wild. We'd all be instantly atomized. - Well, use Mage Hand. We'll stand back like 10 feet. We'll be fine. - On second thought, let's not put the rod anywhere near the peg. Can we get going? - Yes.

Yeah. I'm just saying that I think that at the very least, maybe what we do is we at least go to Arca and we bring it back with us. Because if we don't take it back, then Akula is going to just probably get horribly corrupted. We know that they wouldn't. Speaking of Akula, I am thirsty. Does anyone have water? Ha!

While Toa rummages around, you feel a surge. All of you kind of feel like this dark warmth.

through your body, and you just remember the deal that Caprice had all made for you. As you feel that dark power, everyone except Iris, as you feel and you're reminded of that, this is a good opportunity to pass these out. Dark powers, dark powers! Pass this to Luffy, pass this to Reg, pass this to Toa. Oh, I'm gonna read it until it's time to read it.

Can I read it? I put my face down. You can go first. Kels is going to start. So hold on. For our viewers... Do we have to read it? What are the dark powers? You don't have to. I don't want to. What are the dark powers? So if you've watched Prime, whenever Carl Satan comes up, generally there is...

the bestowment of dark powers that are granted to the party and they're not quite spells, they're just more kind of like abilities they can use. Usually that's my way of incorporating fun stuff from fourth edition into-- - I was gonna say, "Pory." - Yeah, from fourth edition into the game and just like fun little additional things that isn't like within the confines of like the magic item-- - Assumments slots. - And like the spell slots. - So for example,

The ones in Prime, at least I know Vandross's is once weekly. Yes, so those are the ones that you guys got after the Alphonse Manor. But yeah, this is one in this campaign. So why don't we go around the Horn and read our Dark Powers? Kels, why don't you start? Oh, and you didn't receive them because you didn't... You didn't accept them. Iris didn't accept it because of Veneubus. Right.

- It would be blasphemous for her to take that. - Yeah, and probably you give the sense that it was really only the power of Anubis that allowed you to not take it, right? Like, you know, had like Toa been like, "Nah, no thanks," like it probably would not have done it. - I can't just use Politeness to say no. - No, no thank you. No, good man.

I got the Carnival Bounce of Maladomini. Yep. Is that how I say that? Yep. Maladomini. Maladomini. Maladomini. You call upon the grotesque, grotesque clown antics of the jester-like devils that perform in the Carnival Eternal in Maladomini. Maladomini.

I can't say it. You make an exaggerated pratfall that smacks your enemies into each other. I like that. So, as an action, you may double your walking speed for the round, and when you end your movement, you may choose one creature within five feet of you to make a dex saving throw. If it fails, it takes 3d10 plus dex mod, thunder damage, and a push 20 feet in the direction of your choice. Each enemy creature it strikes in this line takes 2d10 plus dex modifier thunder damage and a tap throne. Jesus!

The target is also not prone at the end of its turn. I love that.

Damn! Capriccio. I'm gonna last, but these are my powers. Oh, that's right. I'll go next. Next. I have the Blood Frenzy of Stygia. I channel the frenzies of the sharks in Sekala's realm deep within the seas of Stygia to cause razor-sharp winds, water, and teeth around me. Teeth! Teeth! To blind and rake my foes.

I made that up.

Very cool. Gotta give it up. Gotta give it up. Once a day. It's a daily. Fuck you, fish. Nicky's really upset. Iris is devoted, so it's fine. This is fucked up, by the way.

The Iron Oppression of Dis. This is my second Dis one, by the way, as well. Yep, very well. You call forth the relentless oppression and subjugation of the Iron Fortress of Dis to force your enemies to submit and crush them into the earth. You may target an enemy within 60 feet of you and make a ranged spell attack on it. If the attack hits, you deal 3d10 plus intelligence force damage and the target is knocked prone and affected by the oppressive force for one minute.

The target takes 10 force damage at the start of each of your turns and cannot stand up from prone. The creature may make an intelligence saving throw at the end of each of its turns to end the effect. Holy... Just basically pin someone to the ground for a minute and just deal damage constantly. And they can't stand up. And then they're prone, so Toad. Yes, so prone to... Let's fucking go!

I can't wait for us to all just use this on one commoner. I enjoy the hell wasp sting of Malibulge. Your mocking words pack the sting of the hell wasps of the Gardens of Delight within Malibulge.

What does Spooky Davey Blaine do? Infuriating your enemy to a confused rage. You may attack an enemy within 60 feet of you and make a ranged spell attack on it. If the attack hits, it deals 3d8 plus your charisma modifier of psychic damage. And for one minute, the creature's damage rolls are halved.

Additionally, if the creature hits a friendly target with an attack, the attack must strike one enemy of your choice within range of the attack, including the target itself. The target may perform a charisma saving throw at the end of each of its turns to end this effect. Wow, charisma. Very cool. Gotta give it up. Gotta give it up. Great job. I love this. I love this. So just as an added aside from meta point of view, uh,

when we were using our powers of crime, every time we used them, there was a little bit of something going on in the background. Do you want to know what yours would have been? Felix is tapping into his bad boy. Someone in chat asked, so I can feel even worse about my decisions. It wasn't 100% fleshed out because you obviously rejected it beforehand, but it was like some sort of like...

Leech type ability, deal damage, and then basically take health and then funnel health to everyone around you. It's kind of like a vampiric situation. I was hoping it was just that golden lotus from the mummy that goes under the skin. Ooh, the scarab. Yeah, the scarab. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Is Stygia, these are all layers of health. Yes. So Des, Stygia was yours? Mine's Malibu. Malibu was yours. And Maladominion. Maladominion. Maladominion.

Oh, I forgot about the exploited loophole of discs. I haven't used that in Prime in 10 million years. Yeah, I mean, you have a lucky die, so that was before you had lucky, so... Fuck, I'm gonna still cash in on that bitch as well. I gotta remember. Melodominate. I am gonna use this. I'm gonna be full devil by

By the end of this campaign. I'm just gonna have horns. We're gonna look the same. I'm gonna turn into a tiefling. Everything for me always ends up in the Nine Hells. One of my favorite You Will Be Witnesses was when we... Oh, yeah. We went over. Easy water, skin, skin, skin. Thank you. Anyway, all I'm trying to say is, wait, was there something else that we were trying to do? Just determine who's debating Iran.

What I'm trying to say is that we know that Akula's horribly corrupted and it's kind of our fault. I'm feeling thirsty again. And if we don't bring the rod back to at least help her and help them, I'll feel really terrible. Because it was the... we did that to her. Well, we didn't. I mean, we kind of brought the gem in. It's like a murky area, if you ask me. No, it's very cut and dry. Toa definitely brought it in.

We collectively did not. Oh, that's true. I was carrying it. It was sort of the will of the group, you know what I mean? I'll take the blame for it. The point is, Toa's convinced me. I don't dislike the idea of giving them the rod. And how do you plan on getting it back there and then getting back here? We have one feather left. We take it there. We take it there. And we get back how? We use the teleportation to Ostengard and we... And where's Ostengard?

I don't know, but does it matter? Where's Austin Guard, Felix? I would know. You would know. It is the easternmost fortress. It is the closest stronghold to the eastern front of Scatham Island. Where we need to go. Yes. Was it near the place that Felix had the vision in the Dream Prison? Exactly right. You would know that you were outside of Austin Guard. That's right. You were probably miles away from that, but Austin Guard would have been the closest where most of those troops were stationed. Yep.

Felix, you know all about magic stuffs and those scrolls, right? Sure. Can we just like scratch out a name and then like put in some other name and then that's where we get teleported? No. Unfortunately, no, that's not how that works. Okay, so I'd like to hold on to the Zurn one or the Zentra one. I'd like to hold on. No. Well, how does it work? Do we have to hold hands? No.

It works that Felix will go after them because we can trend Felix. I don't want them! I'm just saying that it's a good escape. If we suddenly find ourselves in trouble, we could all gather around the scroll and then we're in Zentra and now we're out of danger. Like, that's a good reason not to go to Zentra right now. It takes some time to cast, but yeah, sure, we could use it as an escape route at some point. I didn't know that. Are you the only one who can cast it?

No, anybody can use it. That's the beauty of the scroll. I just know how they work by looking at it and reading it, but anybody could use it. That's not true, right? Correct. Only if it's on your spell list. It's got to be on your spell list to be able to use it. I thought scrolls let you, if you don't have it known or prepared, you can roll to use it. But you have to be able to cast a roll. It has to be on your spell list for you to even understand it. I take that back. Yeah. I could technically use it because teleport is a part of it.

I couldn't. You could tell the quotation circle as a bard spell?

Teleport. Teleportation circle. Oh, then I do not... Just kidding. Then I have to catch it. Let me check. Yes. Interesting. It's one minute versus an action. I don't know why I thought scrolls let people who can't cast magic, cast magic. I thought it was like a very nifty way for somebody who like, for Toa to be like, I can use this once and boom. So it's like how like in, I had all the cleric spell scrolls from Stradania. Because you were the only one who could use it. Because I was the only one who could use it and it helped my spells. Like I could basically use things without using a spell slot.

- I learned something new. - If I didn't have it prepared that day, that could be something like that's a good thing. - It'll really, really handle it. - It's important because homeless Bob can't grab a power word kill and be like, "Shit." - I know, I literally thought that that's how that works. And that's why they're like so rare and dangerous. - Because you're you and you now have it, you can transcribe it into your book.

and you always have it prepared. Yeah, the problem with that is that circle's no good because you have to be teleported to the same place every day for a year for it to become like a permanent teleportation circle. There already is once. So once they're there, you know where they are. And so the point is, if you put it into your book, if you take the time to put it into your book, we can go back to those two places

- Anytime. - Yeah, anytime. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - There you go. - That's it, folks. - That's to create a new teleportation circle. - Yes, yes. I'm gonna read it, but I hear what you're saying. - It is on the Bard's Bell list. - Okay. - So if I wanted this. - There you go. - What were you saying? - We're not going back to Zentral. - That's what I'm saying.

- Yeah, well I feel like we should move because the storms are coming in. Are you afraid of getting wet? - A little. - No you're not. I've heard you in a tavern.

And so given the location of this Ostengard place, I think we'll probably save a lot of time by going to Arca, we deal with all of that, and then we teleport to Ostengard, and we'll be right at the border, and we'll just walk right in. Instead of having to walk through all the rest of Grand, and then, presumably, my rough understanding of how the locations work, right? There's still lots of Grand for us to get through. We would save, I think, a lot of time.

And before the bird left, he also gave you the general location to this castle that Count Kreskov did a list of. Yeah, so once-- Count Kreskov. So once we learn the teleportation circle's sigils,

then we can go. I just have to know the sigils. And I will say that basically... So we wouldn't know the central ones until we go there, but if we go to Ostengard... Once you use it, you'll learn, basically. So basically, you can do it, you use it, and then you... I would memorize them. I'm a super genius. Roger that. I'm not even suggesting we go there. That's great. Yeah. Okay.

It's going to take some time to learn them. Fast travel. I feel, Felix, it's worth it for you to take the time to transcribe them into your book. Oh, absolutely. I agree. That's a fantastic suggestion. It's going to take me a while. Many rests. Well, we'll figure it out. The point is, we don't need to use it right this second. Not right now. We need to use the feather first, and then we'll need to use the ocean guard one. And I'll just keep the central one and learn from it.

All right. Bingo, bingo. We got a plan out. Well, I guess. Yeah, it takes me one minute to commit a sigil sequence to memory. Five seconds for Felix. Um, all right, well, then we should go right away. Where's the feather? Not sure.

I think maybe Lufty does? It's in the holding bag. Oh, jeez. I probably saw it while I was just looking. Oh, no. Well, you're in there. Get me another water spoon. Alright. It is a last thing. You're ordering the last item and there's this beautiful glowing blue feather. Oh, my ballistics! ...

Yikes. I pull out a waterskin for... We're getting some flickering. We're still alive, we're still alive. It's green. Okay, no drop frames so far. It's green. Okay. I'll give another waterskin to Iris and I'll pull out the blue feather. Alright, are we ready? Sure. Yes, we must. Yeah, we're ready. Okay, let's go! And I like throw the feather.

You throw the feather. It falls down from your ass. Do you remember how to use this? Just give it to me. Isn't there just like, there's no word, right? What is wrong with you? The idea was that you would think of Alkyra, the Thunderfury, and then really willful... I hand it to Lufty. I go, here, just give it to Lufty. And I hand it to her too. What do you want me to do with this? No, you remember how to use it. You just said it. You think about your mother, and it's from her wing.

And then you channel it, and then whoever your friendly targets you want to bring, you can bring. And I'll think really hard, and we'll swoop. As you think really hard, and you finally feel that sense of love, as complicated as it is.

as suddenly the feather, a wind whips up and then the feather starts to glow this bright light blue and swirl around all of you and whip around and you actually see some of those golden petals from the beautiful trees in this glade. You're not sure if you'll ever be back here, but you see it and it whips around with you and in a flash,

of blue, your feet leave the ground in a wisp of wind and you feel like you're riding on a soft cloud for just a moment and suddenly your consciousness flickers back and while you were in a pristine setting before, it still does not compare to the otherworldly beauty of where you find yourself now. You look around and

Akka, the Eternal Veil, is exactly where you left it. That perfect temperature, the sun in the exact same spot at all times. A beautiful early summer day as you see the brilliant spiraling spires shining with silver.

The great lakes with multicolored fish leaping about, beautiful birds of paradise flying around the lush jungles around this city. Waterfalls pouring in, and you know that the lake goes on a waterfall and it falls off into the mist that protects this place. Just further down,

And you realize where you are is that cave where Alkyra had made and stayed there for who knows how long.

you see that there's a number of empty wineskins and a number of barrels and a fire that's still flickering, and on an elongated stick, there is some roasting fish. It smells beautiful, and the fragrance of this area is absolutely incredible.

And as you get there, you look around and see this camp and you see crumpled on the ground, blue wings falling over on her side. You see Alkira, her large form, now the combination really between an angel and a djinn. She's on her side facing away from you. Her black hair is all a mess. What is this?

I'll rush over and roll her over. As you roll her over, her eyes are closed, and she looks up at you and breathes, and the stench of alcohol just blasts you. Oh. And she-- I got shrunk. Her eyes open, and she blinks a little bit, and she says,

Is that my daughter? Oh, come here, Luffy. I miss you so much. And she pulls you into a massive hug. The size difference between you is insane. And she just is crushing you in her hug. And she leans up

her muscular body almost like engulfing you in her hug as she kind of snuggles into you, her wings wrap around as her hair is still disheveled and you see now the ever-refilling wine skin on the side. - Scheme. - Scheme. This is gonna be the theme. - The scheme theme. - The scheme theme. - The scheme theme. - Scheme theme. - As she takes another swig of wine.

And she places it down and says, You know, Ma, just because it always refills doesn't mean you always have to empty it. Then what is the point of it? Here, have some. Hey, friends, I love this. Good to see you. Take a good, solid chunk out of it. I'm good for now, thank you. I'm good as well. Is everything okay? Is there any horrible corruption or any evil birds of paradise with six eyes saying horrible things?

Yeah, we came back to help. And your fish is burning. And she kind of leaps forward. She kind of throws you to the side. And she just glides over, very gracefully, shocking for how inebriated she is. And she pulls off the fish and takes a massive bite out of it. And half of it's gone as she chews it and swallows it. And she says, do you want some? I'll take some of the wine. Oh, yes, my...

Everything is fine. The Wind Dukes, six of the Wind Dukes are preparing for a terrible battle and she points over and you can see all of the Vaati, hundreds of them are going about the city. You remember those statuesque obsidian androgynous beings that were imbued with the power of air.

going about making preparations, and she looks back at you and says, "Oh, but the Akula is not looking good." Oh no, she's so responsible. I'm so- We're here, we're here to help. It is grim, but I am supposed to replace her if we have to make the final decision. No, no, you don't have to. We need to speak to the Windu, as you see, we've brought the word of law.

That's the thing that will save her, right? Yes. That is it. So, if we could gain audience with them, I believe time is of the essence, so we could put down the wine and the fish. We could maybe save a couple of them. We can walk in wine. Let's go. Can I walk in fish? Oh.

I have extra, I have extra. And she beats her wings very gently, and she just kind of glides an inch from the ground. Do you have more feathers that we could take by chance? Just one. Well, you still have a strong to get here, and should we need you? Leave your daughter. Make a persuasion check advantage. Ooh. That's a good one. This? Pretty good. Persuasion? Yep. Oh, okay. 25. 25? Yeah.

She reaches back and she kind of looks at you a little bit drunk and you can tell that she's sobering up quickly. She is a massive divine being of genie and an angel. And you get the sense that it probably takes a lot to get her to the state. And so she's sobering up relatively quickly.

And she says, oh, it will take me all of my power for today, but I'm, yeah, sure, of course. I don't want you to be off in the bad world with all of the terrible bird men. No, stop it. And not be able to come back to mom. Don't fret over me. Come back to mom. And she reaches back. Wait, don't stop. She focuses her energy for a second and she spreads her wings and they blast with this radiating blue light. And, uh,

the wind whips around, and you see as the wind whips through the wings, these brilliant light blue feathers swirling around. One flies out and whips around, and then lands in front of you. - This is perfect, and I'm not giving it to you this time. You left it in the bottom of the bag, and it was all crumpled. - Oh, well, yeah, just, yeah, I don't wanna be responsible anymore.

The valuable thing about Joe's bag is that it takes him 15 minutes to find anything. A stranger, it would take hours. More reason to put the rod in. That's...

I'm just going to, you know, I'm going to hang on to it. I'm going to take the feather and kind of like tie it into a piece of my hair. Oh, that's nice. You do that. Everybody likes that. I rip all her hair out. Everybody likes that. I do like that. She leads you. It looks very nice. Through the city. And it's... Even though you've seen it come alive beforehand, you... It still is...

a bit of a shock to just see the life that has returned from the first time that you had seen this place. As all of the Vaati go about their business, their preparations, the crafting and everything is perfectly pristine. There's a precision to their movement that is otherworldly.

And you make your way up the spiraling silver towers, up a grand staircase, and you hear once again as the wind licks through just ever so slightly, the perfect temperature, you hear those beautiful wind chimes filling this entire space as you make your way to the sanctuary.

where you recall the wind spirits had been cleansed and Toa's tattoos had begun to glow. The door is closed and you see that there's that same glowing, or that same panel on the side and, uh, and Alkyra looks at you and says, I will talk to, uh,

Alraza and see how she's doing, but she will be overjoyed to find that you have the thing that will cleanse Akula. And she hovers her hand and says, "Actually, I will let you deliver it. I will gather the rest."

And she places her hand over the panel and it glows of a bright blue and it flashes. And you see the beautifully crafted doors open and the brilliant multicolored light shimmers through with those hanging wind chimes and all sorts of pieces of vibrant glass as the door opens and Alcura looks at you and gives you a big hug and says, I'll be right back.

Okay. And she, with a beat of her wing, she flies off. You see in this chamber a number of stations of where all four of your wind spirits had been cleansed, as well as Tamaka, the great wind rock. All empty. All that's left on the far side is this shimmering dome.

of this brilliant blue light, and you see within a humanoid figure, feminine and curvy, wings folded over and hair hanging down, eyes closed. And you see from this vantage point, the wings look black. Oof. Standing at the side,

waving arms, a kind of flash of the glow of a strange platinum light that whips back and forth and eventually snakes into this chamber and causes the wings to glow. And you see that Alraza, the angel of Bahamut, is very concerned, grim, dire.

as she looks up at the almost nearly fully corrupted angel. Looks like we got here right in time. As soon as you say that, she turns, and her eyes, despite being this otherworldly being, there's a weariness to them. You know that, I guess, supposedly even angels

can tire, and you see now that there's her face seems sunken, as if she hasn't slept in a very long time, and as you approach, you now see these snaking bits of dark corruption up and down the face of Akula, as she, with her brilliantly colored hair,

She conceals most of it, but it's very clear that the corruption of Pazuzu is making its way into her entire being. And she turns to you and says, Did you get it? Yeah, we have it. We've brought it here. It looks like just in time, huh? Yes, I don't know how much longer she would have had. Thank you.

Thank you. Is Alkyra getting the others? Yeah, she's out getting everybody and just tell us what to do. How do we help? You have done enough. Thank you. We will be whole again. And she approaches and flies over and she's... Are you holding the... Who has the rod? Do you have the rod? And she flies over very gently to you. And she says...

How difficult was this to get? It wasn't easy. Yeah. That's an understatement. It was quite a trial. And most of all, the work was done for us. And you sacrificed much to get this. And she looks around and says, were there not six of you when you left? Yeah, there were. Yeah. But she's not dead. She's fine. She'll be fine. She's just, um...

being used as collateral for a horrible... I mean, she's fine. We'll get her back. Don't worry about her. She'll be back next time we see y'all, I promise. She's not dead. She's being used as collateral for horrible... She looks at you and then nods. Well, I'm glad she is not dead and will be returning. I have not held this in so long. And she floats over and says to you...

You wield it quite comfortably. That's impressive for a mortal. Thank you. It only weighs maybe 10 pounds. I mean not your strength of arm, your strength of spirit. You must be a being of good and law. Yes, she is, and she's my best friend. Yes.

She fought the law and the law lost. Would you like to take this? Yes. And I'll hold it up to her. And she grabs it very gently and it glows and flashes. And as it flashes, you see as a bit of energy washes over her. And you hear very faintly what sounds like a distant roar of a dragon after...

After fighting one so viciously just the day before, you know very well what that sounds like. Ez calms down and she holds this, and she looks and says, "I cannot believe it was even reforged without us. Did not even Moduna need to forge this, but this was reassembled with the power of Moradin.

Yes, a very powerful cleric, Moradin. He had the ability to not... But he was still capable, very capable. Yes, I'm saying that. He was very powerful and also drunk. He wasn't drunk at the time. That you know. That I know. I'm with Iris on this one. He's a very functioning drunk. We can't really confirm that. How could he have had the time?

They usually find the time. The morning, the later morning, in between hammer strikes. That reminds me of an old tale. Maybe his hammer was also a flag. So you'd just be like, ting! Ting! Now that is an idea. Right? You know, you can market something like that. With that. He was saying...

Oh, no, just, it was, yes, yes, the power of Mordred, and hopefully it's as powerful as it ever was. We really need it to be. She holds it and holds it up, and she holds it with a sense of reverence and nods and says, yes, it still is. It hasn't lost any of its power, and this corruption won't stand a chance. So what do you do with it? How long does it take?

Can we watch? Can I help? When Moduna gets here, we will use it. And as if on cue, the door that was opened darkens and you see six figures glide in. These large angels, halfway between an angel and a Vaati, each

different and very clearly representing the god that the angel served before their transformation and ascension to Wind Duke status. And Alkyra, Lufti's mother. They glide in and all of them except for the male angel with the largest beard among them, braided hair,

You know as Moduna, the Wind Duke and the Angel of Moradin, he glides forward and immediately looks around and a smile comes to his face. Hey, that's good craftsmanship. He flies over and he grabs it and surges and you hear the clanging of a hammer on an anvil. As, as... Oh, it is near. Well done, mortals.

We will strike down Tharys Dune when the time is right. I thank you for doing our duty for us. You will be rewarded. We will avert calamity and entropy. That's all we want to do. We just want to help. Now, we are going to save our own from that bastard. Don't worry. We have this.

But please, you might want to step back a little. Noted. I'll very quickly step way back. You do that and you all watch as the other Wind Dukes look at you and nod. Without a word, they reach out and pass around the Rod of Law. You hear the

gore of a lion, as Samufa, the angel of Nobanion, takes it. His long black hair, glowing with power, and a much shorter black beard, as he fills with power, even passes it to Eira, the angel of Tyr, and you hear the clanging of sword on sword.

As she surges with power as well, Selima takes it next, the Angel of Amanator. You hear the roar of flame, the blazing sun as he surges, as she surges with power. And then, finally, it's handed to Gobita, who has that almost gem-like skin, a beard that is more, a little more than a goatee, tightly bound.

and the brilliant headdress as he takes it and holds onto it, you hear the blasting of a desert storm as he surges with power. And they all then gather around Moduna and they each put a hand on the rod and each of them surge with power as that happens. And Moduna looks back to Elkira who just

at the back with you all watching. And he turns and says, "I'm going to E7." And she looks around a little nervously and then flies up and grabs onto it. And with that, Moduna points it at the blue chamber of Akula. And in a flash of brilliant light,

A being blasts out of it and combines with the swirling magic that has been trying to stave off the corruption of Pazuzu, and it blasts and immediately

All of the form of Akula is radiating with this brilliant energy, and you see now is all that can be seen in the light is no longer her body, just the black wings. But you see that there is a tiny handful of shimmering light blue feathers left, and then there's more, and more start to sprout out.

As the black wings fade away and the corruption of Pazuzu is fully cleansed, a final blast from this rod, all seven of these angels. And in a moment, the light fades and quiet returns. Even the wind chimes, as if knowing that this is a moment of importance. Stop. And in a moment, Akula's eyes open up and they're clear.

As she falls out of the energy as it shimmers and fades, Arasa catches her and cradles her gently. And she looks at her and tears are welling in her eyes and she says, You're back. And she... Akula looks up and says, I would have been fine if you had to kill me. And she says...

We don't have to. And they embrace and all of the other angels all reach in and embrace each other. And... Oh, thank you. Thank you, God. We did a really good thing here. Is it better? Is it all fine? And they all turn to you after a moment of jubilation. And they turn to you after a moment of jubilation and they all look incredibly pleased as...

You see that Akula is returned uncorrupted, but still weak as Araza glides past you and they say, and she says, it is all right. Thank you so much. I cannot believe that the work that I used to think could only be done by the divine could be achieved by the spirit of mortals like you.

Thank you, little one. My little baby. And she tries to pull you in a little hug. That's the soul I was so comfortable in. And she feels your heartbeat and she pulls back and Alraza turns and says, I'm going to make sure she gets some rest. And they leave and the others begin to thank you.

and leave until all that's left is the Angel of Morden holding the staff, the rock. And he stops and says, "I'm going to put this in a very safe space."

And now, as long as no more dark crystals come into this veil... Oh, you mean like this one? She kidding, she kidding! Funny joke, yeah? Actually, though, about the rod...

We want to take this with us, yes? I don't think we should. No, not particularly. But what if we need it? We have the feather. We're just going to have to come retrieve it. I think you can see it. Seven windows to utilize it. We have but five currently.

And we're not really Windukes or angels. We're Tabaxi, Jamalci, Caprice. Okay. Can you remind me, when we're here, there's like a time still, right? Yes. Basically, time doesn't pass at all in the outside world. So basically, if you teleport back, it's as if there's no time in the Prime Material Plan that's passed. Perfect time to take a week to

to transcribe a spell into a spell. Ten hours. I need ten hours. Perfect. 250 gold pieces. We got that. Kitchen. We've almost finished rebuilding the archives and my vault. This is going in a very special chamber. You're...

Goddamn scum. You'll keep it safe. Hold on. Tell us about the wounds. The wounds. The road she speaks to me. I mean... So you'll keep it safe and nothing will happen again as long as there aren't any... We promised not to bring anything back, but is there any other way that somehow corruption could come in?

Or do you swear on everything it will be safe if we leave it with you? There are certainly no eight of us now. We were trapped and scattered, hoping that we'd never be reunited, that there'd never be any need. Now that there is, nothing is getting into this Vale, so long as we have something to say about it.

Alright, well thank you. Iris, do you feel comfortable leaving it here? I think it's the right thing to do. No, I don't feel comfortable without anything. But I don't see another choice. I can't wield a staff and a rod. And even if I could wield the rod, as I've said, we're not seven or eight angels. We're simply us. We don't have the power. While Akula rests... So thirsty. And...

Alkyra sobers up a little. And he kind of like shakes his head off. Yeah, good luck with that. Take all the time you need before you go. I want to thank you and give you the means to call on us whenever you need us to strike down Tharizdun. I will prepare the artifact. Thank you. Remind me the name of this particular Winduuk. This is Moduna. Moduna.

Thank you. Moduna, I know you've got a lot to do to fix your vault and the whole thing, but I was just wondering at some point if I could just borrow a little bit of your time

We don't need to RP it, so to speak, but I was hoping to learn a little bit about Morden. Just have some questions. I'm going to start using that when I'm in, like, a need-to-know situations and social situations. I don't really need to RP it with you, but can you tell me where this is? It's at your leisure. It's at your convenience. I just, you know, I don't know very much. How long are you going to be here in the Vale? Well, at least 10 hours. LAUGHTER

I just kinda shrug. I'll confine you. Great. And he... I have a feeling he is going to appear. He flies out with the rod until all that's left is the greenish gem-like visage of Gobita, the angel of Osiris. He looks down at you, Iris, and...

Says, "We have much to discuss." It would be happy to.

We have at least ten hours. I'm not sure I would like to appear with you, but... Too bad. Your fault. I am going to ensure that Akula is resting well. And I will find you. I will be easy to find. The only to backseat us in time-base.

And he just nods. And there's almost this, uh, they all have an otherworldly mess, but you get the sense that some of them have a bit more of a mortal vibe to them. And this one seems far more otherworldly than the other ones, above a lot of them. And he glides out. And by the way, get the phone. Well, I guess I better get to work. Uh...

I got a lot of time ahead of me here. You know, I just have to get started. Just a moment, just a moment. Can we take a moment and celebrate a victory for a hot second? Woo! We took our business. We did it. It was all good. Guess who's back? Back again. Alcool is back. Tell a friend.

You guys already know, though. Oh, that's good. I don't have much to do. I mean, maybe I'll write something. Maybe I'll make a musical. I can do that. I love musicals. That sounds great. I'm going to go fish.

I'm looking forward to seeing how the DM is going to punish us for Iris's idea of me copying the spell into my book. I'd also like to RP the next 10 hours. I got it. A waterfall swooshes you off the side of the... We'll find out where this goes. I would just go find a...

I would go with Tella. And while he's fishing, I would sit down by wherever he's fishing and transcribe. There was the pond next to the camp, right? I would keep him company by the pond while he fishes and just silently transcribe to myself and...

While you fish. I turn around in a joyful, ecstatic mood. The weight of the world is off of my shoulders. I just walk to find my own quiet place with some parchment and ink and pen. Ink and quill. Guess who's back? Guess who's back? Guess who's back?

I would go to Alcura's, I think she had a hammock at some point. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I would jump in the hammock and grab a bottle of whatever's within arm's reach. You get swallowed up by the hammock, but it feels very comfortable and cozy, and it smells a little bit of those spices that she smells of, and she still retains that Ginny nature of hers.

and it's relaxing. And eventually, Morden, not Morden, Morden literally shows up. Hey, buddy! Hey! It's safe, right? Moduna shows up, and you're able to ask him, and we actually will not roleplay that, but Richie will tell you all about Morden.

Caprice has questions because, of course, of his infatuation with Hergia, and he would ask generally about what being loyal to... Because he's never had a god, and so he's sort of thinking about that in that way. Yeah, and you know that he... You learn that Moradin is... He's the all-father of the dwarves, the head of the dwarven pantheon. The all-forger.

the soul forger, the Allfather. That's badass. He might try to squeeze a little bit of Dwarvish, I guess that would be the language. So he tries to learn a little bit how he might be able to communicate with Urja when he rescues her, because he's so conscious. And you know this, but he would tell you that the Rod of Law was forged by Moradin himself with the power of the other six god, lawful good gods that you see represented here. And that, you know, it was, that's why he'll be the one to

wield ultimately and you recall that that's why in your dream that you had or your vision that you had it was Torvald who represented Moduna in that scene in that dream was the one to initially strike to finally strike down the Molspot I thank him for his time you do that

It's at that point where... Oh, Iris, what are you doing? I'm just walking around. You walk around, and you see the Vaati. They greet you warmly, but they are very polite, and they just go about their business. They are not particularly concerned with your presence here. They are not unkind, but they are a little bit aloof, I would say. Um...

and they have far more important matters to attend to. And as you find yourself in perhaps a beautiful garden, you hear the very gentle flap of wings and Gobita flies down and lands very gently, staring down at you. I'll just nod when I see that he's haranguing me. Eidys of the Sands.

Have you heard from your god? Recently, yes. I have spoken to mine, and he tells me that Anubis has not been seen or heard from in the Upper Plains. That was my fear.

I saw him trapped in a pyramid, essentially. You saw him outside of the pyramid? Outside of the pyramid. Yeah, so in a strange realm that was very clearly not the Material Plane. What the hell? Yes, my vision. He was outside of the pyramid, in a strange realm that was unfamiliar to me. Whatever he is. Did I... I think we talked about this. I had suspicions that it was the Shadowfell. I would say make an Arcana check at advantage, and I will set the DC appropriately.

17. 17. That is, the DC was 15. You recall, I would say Iris with your knowledge of the dead.

that you would tell the sandstorms, the place, the vibe that you got was absolutely beyond the realms of mortals. And I would say with a 17, you would say that you get the sense that it was in the realm of the lands of death. And you knew that Anubis was there and he mentioned that where he was was a godless place.

And so you could probably put two and two together and get a sense that it's perhaps in a dark domain of the Shadowfall. - I'll relay that to him. - And he will, he will just take it all in and he will nod and will think for a moment as if he's... - Thinking. - Thinking as if, deciding whether or not he should tell you something. And eventually,

He closes his eyes and opens and says, "Whatever it is that Hanubis is, he will receive no aid from the rest of the pantheon." I feel it as much. "It is a true miracle that he has maintained his connection to you." I hope, to my faith, it will continue to keep us in our comfort as long as it never wavers.

There is something about the circumstances of your birth that I believe gives you this connection. There is some plan. Be careful. For where you go, no gods can follow. But we can. And when the time is right, you will call on us. You mention the circumstances of my birth. Do you have any more information about that? I really do not want to leave from here wondering if my father is actually with them.

It is not a matter of parentage. Oh, that's great relief. It is a matter of your soul. It is mine. And more. I will not be shamed. Anubis knows. He turns slightly. Make a persuasion check. Ooh. Yeah. Okay. Natural one. The dice have decided.

He turns and he says, "More than you know." Well, when and if he sees fit to impart this knowledge on me, he will choose to do so. He nods slowly and begins a turn and stops. While Osiris himself, Lord of the Eternal Land, will not be present and cannot go where you go, I will be there. I appreciate it very much. I will see you soon.

And he turns and flies away. You take however long you need to transcribe. Ten hours. Ten hours. Yeah. So can we, like, basically long rest if we're just sort of resting over eight hours? Enjoy a long rest, for sure. I'm at a spell to my spell book. We're down one scroll. I will say in this time, and we don't have to roleplay it,

I don't really want to repeat with you. Actually, no, never mind. So we took a long rest, yeah? Yep. And you don't necessarily sleep, but you know, you can just, you're milling about and you're... and also I would say that the peacefulness of this place makes it easier to get a long rest. It's just so relaxing and peaceful.

And after the incredible tension of basically since you left this place, going to Zantro, marching all the way to Gronn and everything that you've experienced, this is the first true peace that you've had. And after the ten hours are up, Alkyra will probably join you and drink with you all. You get the sense that, you know, although she has been made one of these Wind Dukes in some way,

that she still feels more comfortable among mortals, like she always had. And she shares a drink and a meal with you all. And she, at the end of the 12 hour, the 10 hours or whatever, she says, well, I think now they're going to thank you and grant you the

The gifts that were promised, the rewards. But this is not out of thanks. Well, it is, but this is more of a gift from your mother. And she reaches out, she pulls out this very ornate chest that looks like it had been...

carved and designed in the most beautiful palaces of Nekbet. Very much of a genie design. And she heaves it, and she's very strong, and she takes her little bit at half, then she places it down in front of you.

She heaves her chest and places it down in front of you. Is it a plastic statue of a turtle eating pizza? Yes, but no. Yes, but actually no. And she puts it open and you see that there is just an absolute treasure trove of coins and gems and jewels just shimmering.

And she says, this is the riches from my travels, and I have no more need of it here. It is for you, my daughter, and your friends. Make sure you share. There's one thing that a mother should teach, I have heard, is to teach their children to share.

Yeah, with mom, I'm like, you know, they kind of cover the, like, the kindergarten. Brother Gruber, you know, they cover that. There's a whole song and, you know. She kind of looks away, a little embarrassed. But I, oh, I appreciate it. This is so nice. Thank you. Thank you so much. I left you in good hands. I left you in good hands.

And she says, "I'm going to miss you," and she hugs you. And in a flash, you see wings flap, and there are six more angels around you. All but Akula. And Moduna flies up very slowly, and he looks at you and says,

Now we are in the endgame. This is the fate of perhaps not your world, but all worlds, all realms, and while we prepare for a great war, we will be ready to use the rod to strike down Tharizdun. And he reaches into his person, and he pulls out a metal figurine.

And it seems to be wrought, seems to have been worked, and with beautiful, ornate craftsmanship. And he hands it forward, and you can see that it is in the shape of what looks like a rod with two wings coming forward and wrapping around it. And he hands it forward to whomever would take it and says,

Clench this and call upon the seven angels and we will come. Who's the most responsible? Felix. What? Fine, and I'll reach out and take it. I don't want that. I think this seems more like an oracy kind of thing. The moment he started stuttering in on himself, I know I'm not going to be responsible for that. Why don't you give him a chance, though? It's like taking his name. He's far more responsible than he believes he is. I don't know.

One day you'll see it. She is. Feeling a lot of connection. With that... Not even a chance. He floats back a little bit and Alraza floats forward and she's smiling and there's just an absolute shift in her mood and she says, I know I'm probably getting old but I can't thank you enough. And as a token of my gratitude and he looks across all of you and he and she says,

Turns to you, Felix. And as she floats forward, you can feel this heat radiating from the heat of dragon's fire. As she reaches into her person and she pulls out a figurine, an idol of, seems to be made of platinum. And it's in the shape of a dragon. And she hands it to you.

And as you touch it, it's actually a little hot. But it's not, it's just warm to the touch. But not painful. How big is it? Just like a... Yeah, like a little figurine. Wow, look at that. This is amazing. It is what you deserve. Oh. Oh no, it must be cursed. I hope not. What is it? Something this beautiful couldn't be cursed. It's just a beautiful...

statuette of a dragon. The dragon spits in your face. Damn it! It's alive! And your eye completely dissolves. And she then floats over to you, Lifty, and she says, Kula wishes that she could be here, but she's still so very weak. She wanted you to have this. She says that you could

work on your fashion a little bit. And she reaches and she pulls out this beautiful headdress of brilliant plumage of all of these different colors of feathers. And she hands it to you. And it seems to be made to fit your small head.

Wow. I mean, there was a little... You know, I know. It's a condition. It's okay. It's for mother's drinking. And then she gets mad. It was a little bit of a backhanded gift, but I appreciate it. Yeah, but I don't know. You look wonderful.

And a little tear comes to her face and she floats back and says, "Thank you, thank you." And with that, the angel you know as Sarufa flies forward, looks down at you, Toa.

And he reaches into his purse and pulls out this, almost like a pelt of lion's fur claw. And he hands it to you and says, you are a strong warrior who fights for friends, family, and what is right. Yes, I try every day. The tenets of a king. Thank you.

Badass. It's very kind. And he hands it to you. Hello. Lufty's eyes get really big when he says tenants of the kingdom. You've claimed the scrawny one. And... I've got no more than one. You've claimed the scrawny one. It is 2021. Well, take me back since... It is the current year. It's 2021. Felix. Oh.

I cannot blame him. He's got me some muscle when I do. That's scrawny. Oh, man. He does have physical fitness tests. And with that... I guess. Mostly. A female angel flies forward. You know her as Salima. Her hair is a...

is a dark color and it's pulled back tightly. And as you actually see that although it's dark, it almost is, there's bits of radiating glow from within. As if she, there's some internal radiation. You feel a warmth as she approaches. And she's incredibly proper and put together. And she holds out a ring with a gem that glows with the sun.

as if a sun itself is trapped inside and she hands it and says "You look like you could use more jewelry. Thank you for having a spirit and a soul that shines like the sun." He's not even wearing a ring on that finger! They've been on there for...

It's very human here. I spit on Rhys' hand. Oh, okay. Much better. You have really good aim with that. Thank you, I appreciate that. I'll put it here on my list. And with that, Gobita flies forward in front of you, Iris. And he says...

I think this jewelry is more what you have in mind. I love jewelry. And he reaches into his person and pulls out a necklace. Oh, I love this. With a brilliant, adorned in jewels and gems and gold. And at the center of this amulet is the symbol of an eye. I love eyes. As...

He hands it to you. Thank you so much. I'll wait, sadly. Continue to do the will of Anubis. Always. And you will save him as well. And he floats back, and Moduna flies forward and he says, You are all now ready. You've all shown what morals can do. Call on us when the time is right, and we will stop this all together. Thank you for everything.

And we'll let you know when we need you. Yes, two little books. Aye, I do know what that is. Yes. There's a hang, like a waterfall. He'd hang me off the, uh, you know, just, uh,

- Thanks, Selina, this is really something. - And they all nod and they express their thanks one more time and fly away one by one. Lufti, Alraza and Alkyra give you one big hug one more time. Alraza flies off and Alkyra looks at you and says, "Please, please be safe." - Yeah, you don't have to worry about me.

Oh, and they, oh. Can't show you the rest. She subtly flexes and looks down at this massive size of her arm and says, you're doing very well. I know that you'll be fine. Take care of all of them, too. Oh, I will. I mean, that's what I'm here for. They would be lost without me, really. That's my girl. And she looks back and says, well, I have to get ready to prepare for a war. You did say, be safe. You too, my daughter.

And she gives you one more hug and almost crack in your back. And it feels actually pretty good. And she gives you a pat on your head awkwardly and then flies away. This podcast is brought to you by our Patreon. Become a patron today at patreon.com slash legends of Avantris and gain access to tons of exclusive perks, including a monthly movie night and a weekly Patreon exclusive campaign set on the high seas.

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You are now just alone. Even Alkyra the Thunderfury, Lifty's mother, has laughed at your tearful goodbye. Kaneda! And you all look at the gifts, the angelic gifts that you were bestowed by the Windukes. This ring is really badass. It seems to be the Ring of the Eternal Sun. It has seven charges. Oh my god. As an action, I can expend one or more charges to target a creature within 60 feet of myself.

That creature must then make a wisdom saving throw. On a fail, the creature loses its highest available spell slot depending on how many charges I expend.

So if I succeed, I could be like, boop, no seventh level for you. You lose a seventh level. Yeah. Which is massive. Yeah, but even dropping a fifth or a sixth. Holy shit! Especially because obviously I run bosses that have actual spell slots and whatever. So I thought that would be helpful. And it's like, how many times are you just running out of spells to use? It's like, oh man, a fourth level spell. No, that's not it.

That warlock, that's still huge. Yeah. I need to figure out how to get my DC up. I wonder what it costs 8,588 gold pieces that'll allow me to do that. Only warlocks. Um, lift it. Okay. I have this lovely headdress.

Even though I already just put a feather in my head. Ooh, the feather! Now, I am now Feather of the Theme. So, I have the Headdress of the Plumed One. While wearing this headdress, you receive +1 to attack and damage rolls. Damn. This headdress has 5 charges. You may use a reaction to reduce damage by 1d4 + dex modifier. If you reduce damage to 0, the attacker is knocked prone.

So I do have another clarifying question. Do I have to use a charge to add +1 to attacker damage or is that a constant? Nope, that's just constant. So you have +1 to attacker damage. That's pretty badass. I believe it's the plumbed one. Oh, I'm sorry, it is the plumbed one. It's sugar plumbed. She's very sugar plumbed themed. I'm sugar plumbs.

Thank you, Mike. Idol of the Justice Springer. This idol has 10 charges. You may use your reaction to expend one charge and cast Shield without expending a spell slot. Let's fucking go. That's amazing! Holy shit. How many charges? 10.

- So you're just gonna be shielded all the time? - I will be able to cast shield whenever I need to, unless I'm getting absolutely dissent upon. - He wants to see you lose your reaction so you don't use counter spells on him. - No, Gary, don't do that! - That is true, it will work. - It's a trade off. - It's a trade off. - I think that's, you know. - I got Mantle of the Lion King. When I take damage, I can use a reaction to let friendly creatures within 15 feet of me regain hit points equal to 1d4 plus con mod.

It's pretty fucking good. So basically people that are near me, I can heal them. Very cool. Nikki? What? What's your item? Oh.

Amulet of the Sacred Land. This amulet has five charges. As a reaction, when any creature targets you or an ally within 50 feet of you with an attack or harmful spell, you may spend a charge. They must make a wisdom saving throw. If they fail, they must choose a new target or lose the attack or spell. Wow. Very cool. So you're like redirecting. That's badass. That's amazing.

Damn! These are fucking sick. Wow, I feel so powerful with this! And I'm gonna add it on top of my boar pelt, so I have lion and boar now around my shoulders. I feel so good in this! I don't know if it's me. Is it me? But is it me? You look good, it's a pretty good look. Aww. It's feathery. Well, don't farno from me, please. You're embarrassing yourself.

All right, Felix, are you ready to-- I'll prick my feathers. Are you ready to take us? Yeah, the other scroll is no good. But I know the spell now. I've worked it out and I think that using this scroll to get us to...

Ostengard will be a good test run. And then when we get there, I'll just take a look at the sigils on the ground and I'll memorize them and we'll be able to go to Ostengard anytime we want. And then we just have to at some point get back to Sentra and then I can learn those sigils as well. You know, that's the only problem is that we won't be able to just go to Sentra until I learn the sigils sequence.

So did you, with it being on the scroll, would he, when he transcribed it, would he transcribe the knowledge of how to get to Zentra as well? Or, do you describe both? No, I only, I learned teleportation circle. So when you use it and inscribe it, it will give you, you will have the knowledge of that. Of the Zentran sigil. So you'll be able to use it to get there, and then when you're there, you'll just be able to study it. Well, yes. So for Ostengard, that makes sense. What I'm saying is that I had to consume...

the Zentra scroll to learn the spell. If he had done the Ostengard spell instead, it's both. So you can do one and the other. So the question is, whichever scroll that I consume, and we can just say which one it was, do I learn that sigil sequence? Yes. I don't need to have then seen the sigil on the ground. Correct. Yes. Then we're good. Yeah. It doesn't matter. I know how to get to Zentra, and I certainly will know how to get to Ostengard.

Provide a sigil sequence for his entry. It's in my brain. That's a great place for it to be. Yeah, I don't think I'll forget it unless for some reason I would be, you know, rattled around real hard. I cast Modify Memory on Felix. I don't remember how to get to Sentra. I mean, so if we're done here, then we'll take this for a test fit. And before you know it, we'll be in Ossingard. Let's do it.

This works cross-planarly, right? We're not going to suddenly explode into some sort of horrible void either, right? No, I mean, from what I understand, from what I've gleaned off of all of this, is that we're only going to go to established teleportation circles that I know the sizzle to.

If I don't know the sigil, it just won't work. We won't, you know, we won't end up somewhere in the void. Oh, okay. So we won't be turned inside out horribly and made into monstrosities if you fuck this up. If I understand it correctly, then yes, you're right. I just don't understand how you do what you do, because this is all like maths and dimensionalities and like arcane symbols and memorization and practice, and I just make rhymes and we're there. Game recognizes Keith. All right.

All right, so you're gonna use the scroll for this one, so we'll use a spell slot, so you'll have it. That's right. All right, well, I'm ready. And I entrust my light and power. Let's go. So I lay out the scroll on the ground as opposed to drawing a chalk circle this time, and we all stand around the scroll and I focus on it. If we're ready, we can go.

The scroll disintegrates and whips out, and you feel that familiar arcane magic shimmering in silver as it swallows all of you. And once again, your feet leave the ground, and you feel like you've descended great distances. No, wait! And suddenly, you are within a swirling chamber.

radiating, standing on top of a shimmering transportation circle. A number of guards are there, startled for a moment, and it doesn't take long for you to explain who you are, and it seems as if you've been expecting. And I'm just going to basically... We don't need to roleplay all of this, but you, unless anyone wants to do anything while you're here,

You're greeted by the general, that female general who you had seen in your vision, Felix, in that dream of mirrors and in the dream world that had been created. And she knows that you have been sent by Zurn, and she knows that you're not to receive an escort, that you are to go to the front lines, and it'll be up to you to cross over unimpeded.

She warns you that they are incredibly watchful, they have very powerful magics. There are watchful vultures of normal variety, magically imbued, and also the giant vultures that they ride. A number of the Shadar Kai ride to patrol the skies, and it is treacherous.

but you're able to spend the night there if you wish, or leave immediately, but you are given... given that Xurn had given you full access to Ostengard, which is really a city built around... you are able to leave whenever you'd like. Anything you'd like to do before you leave?

I think since we just rested, I would be ready to go. This is a military outpost. There's nothing to do here. What's the general, like, vibe here? Like, what's going on? Like...

So, I would say that the general vibe is that there's been a recent battle, probably about six days ago, and you probably heard that a number of the soldiers were killed off in the front, behind enemy lines, and their bodies will not be retrieved, unable to be retrieved.

Has this been a long-standing outpost, or is this a more recently active post? No, this is a long-standing. They've been at war for years. Okay. For many, many years, right? So this is like the same old... And so there's skirmishes constantly. ...trudgery as always. Yep. That kind of thing. And the occasional skirmishes over natural resources. And I would say Felix would know that Scytherinil is particularly known for its...

the herbs and plants that only grow there that are incredible for alchemy and alchemical creations. - I would share that, we don't have to RP this. - Yeah, exactly right. You would share that.

and you know that this is where any kind of grom they could get and bring an herbalist to harvest and bring back for the alchemists, the state alchemists, in order to use, is a huge victory. Similar to how the ghost iron in the, along Gronn, whenever they could mine, whenever they took territory, the natural resources were incredibly important for Korvaki, and that is what is being fought over

at the very least. I request before and after our next break, we all have to say, Full Metal Alchemist. And then we come back and say, Full Metal Alchemist. That's how we know... That's how we'll know that we're going on break and coming back.

I would ask the general, and we don't have to RP this unless we want to. Oh my god! About if there are any ways or suggestions or methods that they have to stay hidden, to stay stealthy away from the vultures. Are there any use guidelines? I would expand also what secret paths they may know about these kinds of things.

I would say that with the communication that you do, that they're very forthcoming in the sense that there is a point in the front where there is a watchtower nearby, but it is in a very treacherous point where no major troop movements are going to be, so it's less heavily patrolled.

and where it requires climbing and hiding in the brush. And you know that this is a treacherous, dark land full of tall, craggy spires, canyons, deep pine forest valleys. And it's treacherous land, it's treacherous terrain, to the point where horses cannot really maneuver very well.

across the entire kingdom. So they would recommend to go to the Watchtower? They would go to the pass by, there's a ton of Watchtowers all along. Right. But there's a specific one where there is a particular path that leads to a ravine where a number of spies had gone in. Very few return, but some have. And that's how, you get the sense that's how Zurn probably got a lot of his information about Skaffamil. And, uh...

And I will say, and the last thing I want to ask is, so Count Kreskov, how do we get there again? You recall what Zurn had told you. Which is, do you have a direction? Yes. So basically, you're heading due east and slightly south, and it's probably a good hundred miles. It's into the kingdom. They're going to assume naturally that...

that we're of, uh, of Zentra, right? Where they're, they're, we're, we're, that we're not supposed to be there. There's no, like, there's, like, neutral parties walking across these lines, right? As soon as we see elves, they're gonna be like, hands on your head. It's, it's certainly possible. I mean, there's no doubt about it that they know that we won't be from there. They'll know that I'm certainly from Zentra. At least...

You might be less hated or disregarded as... Should I make myself look like something? I can make you guys look like prisoners and be a Dusk Elf. I have those abilities as well to disguise myself and I've thought about it. It might be something we want to do, but at the same time, at least for this count, we're going out there as...

Sentrants. I am. We have to prove that there's a reason for the Count to flip and to work with us. And I don't see any other way than starting off on the right foot and showing him that the sentrants can be helpful and extend the olive branch, like you said. Yeah, but if we extend it and they just cut off the arm holding the olive branch, what's the point?

Maybe we just get straight to him, convince him first, and then go out. Well, that's correct. We're going to avoid the Scythranel elves at all costs. And if we have to, we'll fight and we'll protect ourselves. But we just need to try to get to the Count as unseen as possible. But I think...

Until we get to the count, if we are seen, we should pretend that we know nothing about Korovakia and that we're not, that we have nothing to do with them and there's no connection. If we say that, then they say, well, then how did you get here and why are you here? Say we're just travelers. On vacation? Yeah, we're looking for... Well, we walk by a bunch of troops and trenches and watchtowers. This seems like such a wonderful place to come visit for no reason at all. They're right, Toa. We won't be able to just...

I love it! Let's do that!

I don't know if they'll care, but it's at least an excuse as to why we would be allowed to prove. Felix, make a history check. Not bad. Let's take a look.

Damn it. 25! With a 25, as soon as Iris mentions that plan, you actually get the sense that that might actually work. Where, from what Zurn had told you, the two non-Dustgelf or Shadarchai counts had been given that position in order to entice them.

and to join them. And so anyone of power or prestige might be, you might be able to use that angle as a good plan. - Then I would echo Iris's sentiments about how it could be a gamble, but I feel confident in her plan and I congratulate her and offer a, yeah, it's very smart. We don't have to RP it, but.

What the fuck? No, I think you should RP then. What did you just say, Felix? I couldn't hear you. It was like you were thinking in your head aloud. Well, actually, I... It's not your accent. Well, we don't have to RP it. Iris is right. I mean, the plan could be a gamble, but it might work. It's certainly something to fall back on. But I...

I think we should stay out of, you know, Wandering Eye's vision initially, but it's a good idea. Why is it a good idea? Because of these things that Mikey just put in my head. Who? So the idea, what you're saying is that these counts were given these titles in order to draw in visitors? They want to garner power. I'll say that you know that basically that there has been...

historically, and it's been a long time, it has been probably decades or centuries since it's happened, but people who have been in power or someone who could be brought along to help the aims of the Shadar Kai, of the Dusk Elves, of Skaerthrenel, and this Carrion King.

had been grant and enticed with. People of power had been enticed with station. So they are... These two counts had been appointed. And they are not Shadarchai. No, they're the only two Shadarchai so far, and both of them have been technically gone against the king. Wait, they're the only two? They are non-Shadarchai? They're not Shadarchai, yes. So they are... So what you're saying is we are... They are allowing people of power into their...

They have in the past. They have in the past. Because they could potentially influence and help them with their goal. Okay, that's all I want to make sure. All right, I relate to that. Because I just want to make sure I understood. Yeah, you know, my political entry, power. That's great. Then that's what we do. We go with Iris' plan and maybe we even fall back on that if this whole Zurn connection doesn't work out.

But I see you get the sense that that'd be a last, last case. And I want to stress that this is a backup plan. We need to try to be as stealthy as possible and just not be seen in the first place. But Iris had a great idea. All right, well, let's go. I'm sorry, what did you say? I said you had a great idea. Lovely.

We can go now. You know that I respect you. You should like, you know, all your jewelry and the stuff, you should just put it all on so you look like extra. I'm trying to say I don't look like a Mario. I'm trying to say I don't look like a Mario. Because I put more on. And I put all of my jewelry on. Oh, now? Looks so good. I have like eight rings on each finger. Let's move stealthily, but regally.

Sounds good to me. So yeah, I guess we'll try to like stay off any roads and go through the landscape and try to get a sense of this Watchtower, keep an eye for it as we go stealthily, but you know, not trying to go too stealthy. Okay. Everyone do a group stealth check. My first roll of the evening. Not bad. Perfect. That is going to be...

Oh, natural 20. Okay. Wow, I'm not proficient in stealth. 25. I'm not Vandross. I got a 16. Holy fuck, I suck. 16. 10. 13. 29. 13. 10.

16. Okay. What do you get? 25. 25. They're done. Yeah, but it's... I am the wind. But there's not a number of us, and three of us need to succeed. Well, I think three of us got pretty well. Depends on what the perception check is. They're fucking elves, man. We're fucked. Those damn elves. I know. Leave Austin Gard behind with your plan in place. Um...

Knowing that at least you have a backup plan if all else fails, if you get completely overpowered. As the... As you make your way, you see as the... The gloom of Korovakia behind you is nothing compared to what lies ahead. The darkness of the cloud cover of Sceathorniel

As it casts a darkness over the... over the jagged landscape, seems almost supernatural. As you remember the roiling, chaotic storm clouds of Erios, and there's the dreary gray haze of Corvacchia, this is almost a black, thick canopy of clouds.

creating just a darkness that even though it's the day, it looks, it gets darker and darker the closer you approach to Scathorn Hill. You make your way and as you find the point where the general had told you, you see is there's a number of pine trees that crosses this river on the front. You're able to find a place to ford the river, to cross the river, and you finally make your way

into very near the enemy territory of Skaertham Hill. But you see that there is this watchtower of this elaborate, ornate craftsmanship. And where there is the practicality

of the hard lines and clear edges of Korovakian architecture. This is covered in adornments and a number of statues just for decoration built in this, but still that same readiness of the heaviness of dark stone as you make your way and you see the ravine that has been mentioned.

And you make your way through it, climbing up, and you smell as you get further and further. There's a muskiness to the air. And the further in, closer to the watchtower, smells like rotting flesh. Did you say that's all along the watchtower?

Uh, yes. Exactly right. Ha! She said the thing. And you see and you hear a loud squawk as you see a dark shape cross over you.

as you see a massive vulture fly around, and a smaller one nearby, eye-scanning the landscape. And atop this vulture, you see that there's a saddle that's been crafted out of some kind of strange leather, and you see, armored, with ashy gray skin and violet eyes, and long white hair, Shadar Kai scanning

from this watchtower, but you can see that this tower that's right by you has... has far fewer elves manning it, far fewer vultures overhead than the ones that you had seen off in the distance that you make your way here.

And as you're making your way to the ravine, able to stay into the rough underbrush, as you get closer to this pine tree cover, and some, there are some barren patches where there's craggy rocks and boulders, you make your way, and most of you are able to make it very quietly. But it's Toa who takes up the rear. Ew.

Toad takes up the rear and he... Toad, you feel your foot accidentally clip a relatively large rock and it hooks your toe and it breaks something free and then... as it starts to fall down and crash into a bunch of other rocks, it creates a little mini rock slide and you...

You look and you hear another loud squawk and you hear two voices shout, one from the vulture high above, calling down to the watchtowers. You see it's up on your left side, about probably 500 feet away. And the noise echoes through this ravine and beyond. What do you all do? Oh, shit. Are there any, like, rocky...

or something that we can jump behind. Yeah, I would try to- To be out of the line of sight. A brush or something. Yeah, that's exactly what I would want. There are boulders, there are rock formations. This is a pretty jagged space, so you could attempt to hide if you want. Have we seen any animals in our journey so far? You've seen vultures, you've heard the howls of wolves or some sort of canine creature, heard the roar of bears, perhaps the snort of some boars, and you've seen occasional woodland critters. I would...

Trying to think quickly. 30 feet out from where we are currently. Make the sound of scampering and the sound of a wolf running as if it tipped over the rock. And I would definitely dive behind. Yeah. Immediately take cover. You make a cell check at advantage. The rest of you are fine. You're able to dive behind at toe. You make a cell check at advantage. Caprice, you make a deception check. Oh, baby. Big money. Oh, that's...

Come on. Big money. I rolled a four, it's only gonna be an 18. I got an 18 as well. Oh yeah! Perception and Insult. Jack-o'-Multi. Natural one. Natural talent. So, as you make your way, and you see now that there are these statues that loom over, are in the shape of just vultures, their heads peering over, watching eternally.

downwards, as off to the side, you make the illusion of a wolf as it maybe lets out a yelp and scatters. You hear the crackling of stone crashing against stone, and you see overhead as the elf and the vultures of tension is brought in that direction, and it soars away. Toa, with you behind, you're able to dive out of the way, and you slip into that ravine. You're able to make your way

further and further, and you hear some voices call back as if all's well. And you leave the Watchtower behind. What language do the Dusk Elves speak? Do we understand it? I would say if you speak Elvish. I think I know Sylvan. Oh, I knew. I don't know if it's specifically Elvish.

I know, I know. Oh no, I do know Elvish and Sylvan. They're different. Okay. Not high five for you. I speak Elvish. Roger that. You, you, and all you can hear is voices, but it's the tone of it is, is as if it is all well. And the vulture just begins its patrol down further south from where you are. Let's pull this up.

And as you leave the watchtower behind, you hear the kind of clap of thunder and low roll, maybe a strike of lightning, as the smell of rotten flesh occasionally fills your nostrils on the wind, and the air gets cooler. As you hear a distant howl, and you are in Scytherin. Oh, God.

Toa, watch your step. Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't notice it. My toe still really hurts, though. It's okay. If you were worried about me. Of course we are. Now everybody's okay. If that happens again, I'll create an illusion that tiny little people lift up your nail like the hood of a car and jump in. Ah, no, please. Oh, God, no. What is wrong with you? Just making him sensitive to his feets. Oh. Also, it was from a commercial that I watched once. It scarred me for life. Fuck that shit.

As you emerge at the other side of this ravine, you see a large valley with pine forests and a river coursing through. You see spiraling or jagged mountaintops, and you see off in the distance a castle and another castle, another castle, maybe some buildings all around it.

And you're not sure how many counts there may have been and what was promised, but there seems to be some light flickering from these areas as you see this strange, dark landscape. And as you make your way through the Valley of Darkness, you feel as if the shadows that are cast by the trees and whatever light can come through this dense cloud cover

The shadows are far more intense than they should be. And the darkness is far darker. And the shadows of cats are longer, and you swear that they're moving as you pass them, and you look back, and there's no movement. But you just feel presence of darkness and death, and that constant smell of

rotting flesh is in your nostrils. Can I ascertain if the rotting flesh smell is coming from the dead warriors who may have had battle a few days ago nearby, or if it's... Make a perception check for me. I'd be happy to. That's going to be a 15. 15. You smell the air.

And it feels like whenever the wind changes direction, there's a different... smells different, but it all smells like rotting flesh. It's from all over this place. You know that there's... there are bodies. But as you make your way, you see a road winding through the forest, through the jagged terrain, and there's no horses. Far off ahead, you see what looks like a wagon.

making its way through down in the valley, and you get a whiff and you see that piled up high in the back of this wagon, just a number of corpses. And you see that pushing this thing through the jagged terrain as the wagon shakes back and forth is not a horse.

It seems to be some massive humanoid-like figure pushing and pulling in a hood. Fuck. As it leans, you see a slender shape riding at the driver's seat. As there's a number of humanoid figures also hooded walking alongside it.

So it's still like a wagon being like pulled. But it's basically, rather than like a harness, there's this thing. There's no yoke. There's no yoke. It's on the shoulders of this large hooded figure and grabbing on and it's pulling this thing. How big is the figure? I would say it's probably about the size of a large creature, I would say, using Dungeons & Dragons terminology. And how about the, like, like,

The other figures walking alone, how... Normal humanoid size. Humanoid size. Yeah. And they all walk with a strange gait. With a strange gait. Oh yeah? That is disgusting! I mean, it makes... makes kind of sense, right? Necromancy.

Oh, gross! They're going to take them back? You think they're going to, like, do stuff with those bodies? Yeah! I bet they were just, like, you know, tidying up. Yeah, I bet they all do all kinds of stuff with those bodies. Oh, God. What do you think that big guard pushing the wagon? Is he a giant of some kind? I don't know. Felix, do you know of any kind of creature that might live here?

I would like to, uh, try to-- History check. History? History check. Okay. I was gonna say-- I was going to RPA it. Oh, sorry. No, I was gonna say I'd like to ascertain any kind of knowledge. I was trying to do the whole, like, "I don't want to make a history check, I want to make--" and I-- I don't know. So I'm telling you to make a history check. Yes, I appreciate that. History's gonna be 19, I think, but let me double check. I gave you inspiration. Oh!

Uh, history is plus nine. Yeah, I got a 19. I'm gonna save that inspiration, if I may. You have up to ten minutes to use it in the reality of this world. I don't know, I got a 19. I think you're fine. This our world or not? No. In the reality of Dungeons & Dragons. I'm gonna save it. If I lose it, I'll lose it. 19. 19. Do you think of, like, what this size and shape is?

And there's some similarity to the ogres that are native to this continent. Do I know about necromancy? Like, the fact that they use necromancy? Yes. Xearn told you all that. And you know that's an abomination to the Raking Queen. Got it. That makes sense. Well, you know, given the nature of the magics that they use here and necromantic in nature, I'd be willing to put some kind of bet down that that could be some sort of reanimated ogre.

Oh, so like the same kinds of opals and things that we saw in Korvacchia? I... Just dead? Like, he's probably dead, maybe? Well, right. I mean, that's the idea behind a reanimated corpse, is that they could essentially bring them back to do labor. Anything flesh, really. Oh, that's great. They could... Keep going. Oh, I'm going to make a joke about Neko, wait for it. Please continue. Ha ha ha!

Would it be? I'm just making an assumption as a character, and I don't know because we haven't discussed this. I mean, would it be unreasonable to assume that they, like, just make raids on, you know, creatures from the surrounding area outside their territory and, like, collect corpses and, like,

use them for things. You can see that a bunch of corpses are piled up in a wagon. Yeah, I mean, like, probably... Okay. And you know that ogres and ettins are native to... are war native in many parts across all of Striga. Some had wiped them out, but some areas still had them. Corvacchia, they had been in the mountains. And they're heading towards the castle that we see? They're heading towards one of the castles, but there's... Oh, we see multiple. Okay. This is exactly why I'm worried about the kids that they're taking. Ah!

I mean, there's a very good chance that Milo and the others are just not alive anymore. Well, if he's undead, would he still be your brother? No, he wouldn't. But it doesn't mean that we can't save them, or we can't fix them, or we can't find where their souls might be. There's always an answer. There's always an answer, and we can figure it out. You and I are in agreement. I mean, I thought I was fucking out, and we found an answer to my problem. We'll find an answer to yours. Right.

Right. We just need more information. You don't know where he is or how he is. We just have to find him. Right. I'm just worried. That's all. We need to keep moving. Should we follow them?

It couldn't be a terrible idea to find out where they're going, but if it's not in the direction that we need to go, we will abandon course and we gotta keep going where we know we need to go. I would say that you can tell that they're turning around a path that's heading north. And you're going southeast. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Well, that's good. We don't want to be downwind.

So I think we just keep going, but as we go through, let's try to learn as much about this land as we can. It may help us. And I'll try to answer any questions that we might have. There's a lot of studying done about it, but, you know, it keeps to themselves for the most part. They obviously don't want Korvaki to learn their secrets. We have a long way to go. Let's keep going.

And on that note, you look up and you see vultures eternally circling as far as you can see. Dotting the sky, there's no patch where you don't see one, at least for a couple of miles. They fly around almost eternally vigilant. They never seem to descend or take a rest.

And you try to stay as stealthy as you can. Is there like brush or anything? Yeah, yeah. So these are jagged. Is there cover enough? Yeah, there's cover. There's bushes. There's dense thickets. You get to some parts where the pine forests are very dense. And I'll say that you'll hear the barking and yapping of wolves. And maybe you'll look ahead and you'll see a wolf pack tearing apart a huge boar that they've just slain.

And you hear the growls of a bear lumbering around. You see two small cubs and they just look. As you look around, though, these predators seem to have this mangyness to them. Shaggy eyes with some kind of, almost as if they're sick. As the feeling of death continues.

I'll say you make your... you continue to travel, and it's slow going. Down valleys, up around jagged passes, and at one point, there is... you're in a pine forest, and you see there's a clearing ahead, and there seems to be the crumbling of stone, and you see what looks like a...

there seemed to be some kind of crypt or mausoleum up ahead at the center, and you see the broken tombstones as if this had been an old cemetery, ancient, unfathomably ancient, up ahead. And as you make your way around, you... The darkness gets intense, and the last bits of light from the day seem to stretch

The shadows that this crypt is casting, incredibly long. Iris, I need you to make a perception check for me. - Tuntuntun. - Good one, good one, good one. - 25. - Boom! - 25. - Let's fucking go. - I'll say as you pass, you see Iris, the shadows growing. I'm not with the sun.

As you pass this mausoleum, you see them sneaking out and actually shift direction. And for just a moment, you see them sneaking towards you. What do you do? Nothing. Okay. I don't know what I would possibly do. Okay. You turn and you just see for just a moment as the shadows whip around you and the darkness fills your vision.

And the rest of you see Iris fall unconscious. - Oh! - I-Iris! - Yeah, I mean, I nearly-- - Rush to her side and, like, shake her. - Iris! - Iris. - What's happening? - This is why you do nothing, you bastard. - As you-- - When you're dancing. - As the shadows consume you, you have a brief instant, but you feel it strongly. You feel the shadow.

You feel even more strongly the death. You feel the familiar sting on your flesh of a sandstorm. Just briefly as suddenly your vision goes black and you hear the sandstorm, but you no longer feel it. And suddenly light, a blazing sun over a scorched desert, a giant eagle circling around it.

The sun fades and shrinks and turns into a shape. It's dark, sickly purple. And you realize the shriveled, dried human heart within a dusty rib cage. And it beats once. And then suddenly it shifts and forms. You see as it takes the shape of elegant pottery. You see it's an urn, know it's a jar. You know the look of a canopic jar.

And on the head, it's a jackal. No, it's the skull of a jackal. Oh no! As it shapes, it turns from pottery to elegantly carved gemstone. It elongates into what looks almost like a cross, but no, it's an ankh. And you see an eye unblinking, the same symbol that is on your medallion, staring at you. You know this is the Eye of Horus. And then it shifts away.

You hear a song. It's dark. There's no more, there's no more omp in front of you. You hear a song of lute, harp, lyre, enchanting, beautiful voices. Just fragments of a song, but swallowed in a box of raven's wings on a shelf. And then suddenly the box opens and no song comes out, but it elongates and elongates and elongates.

into a large, full-body mirror, gilded, elegant, beautiful as if one from your many dressing rooms in the Palace of Sekhet. And this mirror, and you stare at yourself, but yourself has a glowing, molten gold pulse within the center of your chest. And then suddenly, the mirror shatters.

and the light shifts and swirls around, and as the glass swirls around, you see bits of reflections of... You're not sure if that's a person or if it's you or if it's someone else, and then suddenly you see a face, and it stares at you, and where there had been light from your soul, you see two blazing eyes. It's not eyes more than blazing locuses of light

in the empty skull of a withered corpse wrapped in tight bandages, adorned in the gilded vestments of a pharaoh. And you hear a crackling, raspy voice as you feel the eyes boring into you. Ah, yes, my ka. I finally see you.

And as the voice fades from your mind, it shrivels up and darkness returns to you. As consciousness returns as well. Iris! Iris! Iris, are you alright? Wake up! What happened? Well, I had a vision. The shadows move on their own. I try not to get too close to them. What? Yes, around the mausoleum. The shadows moved on their own accord. I chose not to run.

Instead, I was provided a vision. It was uncomfortable. Try not to get too close to the next. A vision of what? What did you see? Was it Anubis? Did you see him? It depends.

Anyway, we should continue. Are you feeling alright? No, not particularly, but I need time to process what I saw. Aww. Toa can carry you. Can I carry you? Yes. Carry her, pick her up. I very gently pick up Iris. Oh, I feel so weak. Alright, we can go slower. We don't have to go fast. We just gotta keep moving. I'll be like tickling her, just like as Toa's carrying her. I'll be like...

Fawning over her. Do you think if it happened again, you'd be able to avoid it somehow or resist it? I could potentially move away, yes. Okay, well, I'll try that. But it didn't dawn on me that they would set my consciousness and force images into my mind. No. All right, here's how we're going to proceed. So you hold Iris and you're going to stand in the middle.

Lufty, I want you to take the lead. Your eyes are good, and you're going to keep an eye out for things, and we're going to move slowly. And you're going to set the pace, and you're going to keep us quiet. And Caprice, I want you to take the last spot and keep an eye behind us, and I'll be behind Toa and try to do what I can with magics and ward us. But I need the two of you to be our eyes and to set the pace and keep us quiet and stealthy. Can you do that? Oh, yeah. I can. I just... One...

if

If I play a certain song, I know we're trying to be stealthy. I'll play it real quiet, but I can, I can, uh, sort of, uh, it's sort of like a counter, uh, charm type operation. It might, it might, uh, help. I, I know that making sound is not the best idea right now, but maybe I can play it real slow? How long can you do that for? Is it something that we should save for an emergency? Let me, uh, double check my, uh, my understanding of myself. Okay.

Why you do that, Caprice? I will...

It's a great address on the images that I saw and I will do that. Okay. You relay in exact perfect detail how you remember it. I can start a performance that lasts until the end of my next turn as an action. So I would just continually use my action to play this song each turn in addition to my movement. During that time, myself and any friendly creatures within 30 feet of me have advantage on saving throws against being frightened or charmed. Ooh. I think that's good. I think, though, we need to...

I think we should save it. In case we get into a situation where we're not really sure how to proceed, keep that in your back pocket. - I'm gonna hold my actions in...

keeping this song in mind until I see something or until the situation changes. But I'm not going to have my viola on my back. I'm going to have it out and basically just ready to do my little dance. Iris, do you have any idea what those visions mean? No. They don't sound good. Everything sounds dark. I don't know.

Was that Osiris that you saw? The eye? The undead mummy guy? I wouldn't imagine, because you didn't describe it the way I saw it. No, it looked very much a mummified pharaoh. It's not an entity that I've ever seen. No, it's an entity you've never seen, and it just seems to be, it seemed to have been a mummified pharaoh of insane, radiating malevolence. No, I don't believe so. Should I do fear?

Did he kill Anubis because of the whole skeleton in Anubis' head? I think we should...

My curiosity is...

where it needs to be. I propose that we go around the community. I agree. If it's not towards our destination, I don't want to get sidetracked. And this doesn't seem like a good thing for us to be messing with. All right. We need Iris to rest, and if you don't feel well, let us know. We'll let you know. For now, it's a simple concern. I have a healing ointment if you need it. No, I have some of my own. Okay. Would you still like to be carried? Yes, of course.

Alright. And walk gently. Walk very gently. I won't stab my toe this time. And I'm just going to very carefully follow behind Lufty in the same marching order, presumably. Get in the formation. Yes, I'll go out front. I've got the rear. And we'll go skirt along. You skirt along. And you guys keep your eyes. All of you keep your eyes at the crypt, the crumbled crypt.

I would be particularly watching the mausoleum for shadows and also the, like, I would be basically, like, back and forth between the sky and the mausoleum. And as night falls. Oh, it's not night now? Night has just fallen. This place is scary during the day. As you hear the distant howl of a wolf, or at least you hope it's a wolf. As it echoes through the valley.

And you all look at the shadows and just the darkness consumes it, but they do not move as you pass. And you leave the broken cemetery behind you, making your way into the forest. What's our status on food? They seem to be still sitting at the restaurant. Okay. Think of it kindly. As you make your way, I'll say that you probably at some point decide to camp for the night.

Or are we gonna march through? I would suggest we camp. Let's say that you continue to camp and you probably realize that you're probably one more day's journey. I would say that as long as we feel as though like we're not busting our asses that we don't need to like

you know, stay long, like rest longer than we would think we need to, right? Like I would say we are resting a bare minimum, right? And moving as long as we're not like healing, you know, making sure that Iris is okay. You know, we're not like overexerting ourselves. It's 100 miles, right? So it's going to take probably a couple days. Yeah, a couple days. Oh yeah, easy. But I'm saying like, I think we should keep our rests to a minimum. It would be what Felix would be advocating for our rests to be at a minimum, you know,

to just get by and keep moving, as long as we're not actually fighting things and like wearing ourselves down, right? And if anybody disagrees, feel free. That's just what I would be doing. We would sensibly camp when we need rest. Yeah, right. I agree that we should probably camp down for the night and maybe we just leave early, maybe like six hours of sleep. We keep watch, two at a time, and get up early in the morning and just keep going.

Absolutely in agreement. I'm really bad at early in the morning, so I'll take first watch if that's fine with everyone. Sure. I'll take glass watch. I could be in the middle anywhere, it's fine. And Beatrice will keep an eye out as well. Do you want a full night? You don't have to take watch. Oh lovely, I was going to anyway. You sleep through the night. Do we have the numbers to do two at a time?

I don't believe so. Not quite, but that's okay. That's fine. I would still be setting up alarm perimeters as well. You know, casting alarm ritually over and over and over again. I would make like a really, as plush as I can make it, I would make a bed for Iris and tuck her in and put her to bed and like,

take sort of a canopy over her face and then I would sit watchful in front of her. I take my deck of illusions out and I put one finger under the top card so that I can go to sleep and if I need to that'll be what I do. Just gambit the shit out of somebody. We don't quite have the numbers to double up. We can double up in the middle and go single at beginning of it. If we're doing six hours. So you would take second. And I'll go second as well then.

- So you do a second. - First and last. - Yeah, perfect. And then, yeah, just enough rest to avoid exhaustion, right? We're trying to avoid exhaustion, but not dwell on resting. - Okay. - 'Cause 100 miles is very far. - Who had second watch?

Crap. Perception check for me, please. Wake up. With Beatrice. Everything's fine. I'm saying we have Beatrice as well. So three of us. Advantage. Nothing happened. Perception. You're helping him. Well, Beatrice was out there as well, but my perception is garbage. Make a roll for Beatrice, please.

Do you need me to roll or no? Both of you. Hold on, let me just look up her stats real quick. Beatrice is at advantage. You guys are straight. D&D 5e. Hey, that's pretty good. That is acceptable money. Let me check real quick. Hold on one second. I might need to reroll. Actually, that could be Beatrice's roll, but it's trash. My dice do work. Her perception is only plus 4. Passive perception is 14.

Her perception, her skill, wow, that's like not very good. We'll say that this was Felix's role because Felix isn't particularly perceptive anyway. His perception, yeah, so Felix got a 13. Beatrice is gonna get a 20. Hell yeah. 20.

And Beaudis has a mind of her own and can communicate complex... Yes. Okay. I mean, she obeys my every command, but she does have thoughts. And Luffy also got a 21. Okay. Perfect. Even better. So, I will say, as you're on second watch...

The night isn't really quiet. You hear things out in the darkness. The darkness in this forest where you've made camp and brush. It's the safest spot that you can, you could have found. You just feel a presence. You feel eyes watching you. Maybe see a bit of a glint of whatever moonlight does get through this dark cloud cover, glinting off of creatures, smaller creatures.

Looking down at you, you occasionally hear howl of a wolf, and maybe another sounds different, that a hound. You hear the growls of bears and the grunting of other creatures rustling around. But nothing disturbs you, and the darkness feels to swallow you. Very atmospheric. It's into your second watch, lifting you here faintly overhead. The...

flap of two sets of wings and a low guttural squawk that booms down of a giant vulture. And you would point that out to Beatrice. Two sets of wings meaning like... There's two giant vultures flying over you. Oh. Noted. My brain's doing weird things. Nice.

- And you tell Beatrice this? Or like us, like you tell us and, is that what you said? - Yeah. - I don't know if you want to. - You're awake. - The two of us and Beatrice are awake. - Beatrice is sitting there. - Yeah, so if I, when I heard this, I would like snap and try to get your attention. - Yeah, you'd have my attention. - Okay. - I would mentally, I would understand what she's trying, I kinda, I would look at her weird, but then I would tell- - Fuck does, you idiot.

Mentally, I would tell Beatrice to go fly and get a better look and see how far they are and see if she can avoid being seen. And fly up in the... For Beatrice? Yep. She's keeping her perception roll, though. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Uh...

Dammit. I just had it up and I shouldn't have gotten rid of it. I didn't think I was gonna have to like, calculate. Dex is +3 or 4, right? Yeah, it should be. I'm just gonna write it all down here. Dex is +3, so it's just gonna be... It's just a roll +3 then. Yes. Because that's all it is. Unless she's in the fish test separately. No, no, no. Stealth is not different. Let's go with this die. 20. Yeah. For stealth.

Roger that. She flies up and flies out of your range to see through her eyes, and you wait with bated breath, knowing how effective these vultures are at killing any birds that fly too high. And... you wait. She suddenly appears next to you. Woo! Let's go.

And she looks distraught. Her large eyes and this little blue bird form seems to be very shook, and she's kind of shivering a little bit. Her feathers are ruffled. I would keep her close. And she communicates to you that not only are there two giant vultures flying overhead towards the south, she tells you that there are also a number of

sentry vultures and smaller ones around and she narrowly avoided being seen by one and subsequently devoured. And she heard the voice, voices calling out between the two riders on these giant vultures, Shadar-Kai. Holy shit. And all she could hear was that they would have to be extra watchful because another child is on the way to the princess from the south the following day. What does that mean?

Another child is on their way to the princess. From the south. From the south. The fog. And Beatrice relays that information to you in whatever kind of magical, arcane way she does. Another child. To the princess. I would relay this to Lofty and say, but I don't know what that means. Why only one child? And what princess? And what...

It doesn't make any sense when this was happening before they were taking children in swats. I have to wonder if this one child is something special. I don't know. Did I miss the plot? What princess? You're asleep.

Go to sleep. I guess for now, it doesn't sound like we're in any danger of being seen. We just need to be very quiet. Yes. Yes. We can and we will be. We're heading southeast? Southeast. Okay. Is on our way to the princess? From the south. Tomorrow. Or the next day. From the south or to the south? From the south. Interesting. The next day.

So presumably there's a child from the south heading north. Yes. Or some direction. To the princess. Right, to some direction. Yeah, yes. From the south, this child is coming from the south to some princess tomorrow. Or the day that we are going to be in. Or the day after tomorrow. And do you hear anything other than... It's this current night, so it'll be the following day. Okay. Okay. And do... Okay, never mind. Scratch that. We'll let the others know when they awake, and I'll...

Think about what I might know about princesses and royalty here. Do you know anything? I don't know anything. Do I know anything? History check. Disadvantage. What I know anything? Disadvantage! I would say... Definitely not. No, definitely not. Definitely not. Eat my wound, man.

Oof. 13. Oh, I bet you wish you had my help. No, I don't. All you know is, all you've really known is that it's a kingdom. Okay. And you, honestly, they are so insular and they hate outsiders that very little is taught beyond just what their activities are on the front line. I'll think about what I know.

I don't know anything. Well, what the fuck good are you? What do you mean? I've provided tons of knowledge up until this point. You're gonna give me shit for not knowing about a princess? Yeah, I mean, like, that's the first person you should know about. Except for the king. What is that supposed to mean? I just know that they are blah blah blah blah all the things that the DM said. You know what? I don't need this. I'm gonna wake up Toa and I'm gonna go to bed.

Good morning, Felix. It is not a good morning, Toa. Oh, it's not? You keep those sentiments to yourself. Oh, is it speaking terrible? Also, Beatrice is going to stay awake with you. And also, Lofi and I are fighting. I'm going to bed. All right, I'll just keep watch. Toa. Yes? Tell Felix that I hope he has nightmares all night. Um... Go on. Is it clearly, like, they're... Yeah, he's still awake. Oh, um...

I already heard her. Oh, tell her to be quiet. Don't you pass that along. I'm gonna take my watch now. Good night, you too. Good night. I'm gonna just sit right here. Oh, it's at night already. As he starts to lay down, I'll kind of kick dirt wherever he was getting rid of the light. And I'll continue on. I think I am actually going to stay up longer. Okay. You do that. And you all enjoy a long rest.

as the pitch blackness of night turns to just a dark gloom. Not just the cloud cover, but also the forest that you're in, making it darker, these dense, gnarled pines. And every, you know, several trees, you just see a withered, gnarled tree with just empty branches. - We would also relay the information that we learned. - You all wake and you relay the information to the group, yeah.

Look, I don't know what any of this means. Obviously, there's something to do with the children that they're kidnapping and bringing here, but as I said to Lufty last night, I just don't understand why it would be one single child. It makes me think that there's something special about this child, or it has something to do with whatever they're using them for. But either way, we might cross paths. We should keep an eye out. If we could save the child, we should. We absolutely will. Well, if they're coming from the south and we can't have any southeast...

Maybe we can kind of like shadow the road and keep an eye. Do you think they're on the road? Did Beatrice say, are they traveling with someone? It wasn't clear. I imagine there will be some sort of escort and Toa's right. They have to be taking some sort of roads or well-traveled paths and we should stay off them.

just close by. It's gonna slow our travel a bit, but we remain hidden and maybe if we cross paths with these people, we can see what's going on and take action. All right. Winds of the Raven Formations? I wake up. What's it? I pick up my own disguise. We're about to head out. Are you ready? We had some weird stuff happen after you went to bed. I'll fill you in as we walk. If you see any, like, kids, you know, give a shout.

I mean, if I see pretty much anything that isn't trees or wolves, I'm gonna get a shaft. I'll shaft for the wolves too. Yeah, okay, okay, I like that. Full base is covered. I'll pick up Iris. Do you accept me picking you up? Yes. Okay. Very much so. We'll get in the same formation and continue our journey. You do that. You travel about midday, until about midday.

And you keep an eye in the sky. You see the occasional vulture, but you feel like you're getting to a point where you haven't seen too many castles. They're getting further apart. You feel like this might be a bit of relative wilderness. And you see that there's perhaps two giant vultures. Maybe it's the same two Shadarchai that had been patrolling above. But they seem to do a full loop of the valley and then...

Keep an eye on them, and then after they do a full loop, they continue north, as if perhaps scanning out ahead of whatever caravan is coming. A caravan, I think. And as you make your way through, you arrive at a cliff face that's about a 20-foot drop, as you see that there's a gnarled dead tree that grows out of the side, and you can see plenty of pine tree cover. And you see down ahead now that there's a bend

And around the bend, as a mountain continues to rise up to your right, you see the road that cuts through this valley. And as soon as you arrive, you smell the stench of death pick up. The stench of rotting flesh. And as you watch this, it gets stronger and stronger.

And then as you walk, as the smell gets stronger, then you hear from around the bend, the creaking and groaning and rattling of wheels. That's painful. I would send Beatrice to go take a look.

Through the trees? Are we, like, in... You're in the tree cover and you see a ravine and you see that there's more trees down below about 20 feet. It's a little tree cover, right? But you're able to see through the tops of the trees. As long as she can stay, you know, relatively hidden, I would send her to go take a look. Okay, stealth check for her. 20 again. Let's fucking go. Beatrice is just a lordess. Oh, sweet Beatrice. And with a 19. 20. 20.

Oh, I beat the 19. Get fucked. Yeah. No, I'm just kidding. Don't hurt me. Oh! He didn't mean it. He didn't mean it. I didn't mean to say that. Felix's balls explode. She flies back, staying low to the treeline, out of sight of the watchful vultures. And in a flash, she's back. And she messages to you in your mind...

that there is a procession, a strange-looking carriage on wheels being pulled by a great brute, flanked by six hooded figures, and on either side, two large two-headed hounds sniffing, slavering watchful on either side, and a lone Shadarchai

of... all dressed in military regalia, driving this brute and holding on to the reins of these two large two-headed hounds. No idea what is the carriage, you said? It's a strange-looking carriage. Beatrice didn't really know what it was. Oh, God.

So if my numbers are right, it's two large hounds, one military officer, six people. Oh man, those numbers are not very good for us. We've killed a dragon! An ancient dragon! That's nothing! I think we can... How big is the carriage? It's like...

- It's modest. I would say that like Beatrice knows from the carriages that she had seen, like the stagecoach that you had all taken to Eerios, to the front of Eerios, it was a little bit smaller than that.

So, what, four people could fit in it? Yeah, possibly four would be tight, yeah. Does it look like... Small one, okay. Does it look fancy? Does it look like royalty would be... It looks fancy, but there seemed to be some strange paneling. It was a little bit lower to the ground. The cab was a little bit above the lower ceiling. And that's why Beatrice wasn't really sure what it was. She's a bluebird. Well, yeah, she doesn't know how she's going to do it.

Well, I mean, so be it. Let's assume that this is the caravan that's carrying this child. If we're wrong, we swoop in and just murder all these people. It's going to give away our cover here. I mean, eventually they're going to find the charred remains of people in the caravan.

If there's a child in that carriage, we can't just let them ride by. Trust me, I know, Tully. You're preaching to the choir here. I understand that. I want to do everything I can to find these kids. But I also don't want to necessarily just blow our cover on the wrong thing. Maybe we just let them ride slightly past us and then we pick them off one by one. We're sneaking. Why are we murdering these people? Can't we just get in front of the carriage and set up like a toll or something and be like, oh.

Not with the birdie birds above. They'll swoop down and just, you know. I can't stress enough to you what's going to happen if we have a run-in with these people. They don't like us. They don't want us here. They especially won't like us if we're killing them. We're trying to take their children that are not their children. There's going to be a fight. It won't be avoidable.

- How many vultures do we see above us currently? - You see a number, but they're far away. - Is it like still number, but they're far away? - Yeah, but they're actually pretty distant. This seems to be a pretty relatively unguarded. You get the sense probably, you'd be able to deduce, they did a loop of the valley to take a look and then are scouting up ahead to basically take a look

in the direction that the carriage is going. Count them off again for me. How many of these fucks are there? It was six hooded figures, two large, two-headed dogs, one military person driving the caravan, and one large shrouded bird. With a large leather hood hanging down. I'm willing to do whatever it takes to rescue these kids and avenge the ones that we can't save. I might be able to take care of the six. I mean, not even that alone would be a huge help.

But we make this decision. There's no going back. And we have to act quick. Quick, even. Caprice, maybe you jump out and do some kind of act and learn what you can. Maybe you could ask them, like, where are you going? Or whatever. And it'll be like a

I don't know, like a circus guy or something. Do you think? I just... I hate to sound like I'm repeating myself over and over again, but if you do that, there is a chance that they will just kill you.

I mean, how often is anybody going to see a tiefling around here, let alone one that looks like a traveling circus jester? I can make myself look like whatever I want. So be it! Make yourself look like one of them, one of those Dusk Elves, and jump out and be like, I think you should stop. Am I familiar enough with the appearance of Dusk Elves enough at this point to be able to alter self and be able to make myself into a... Yes, I would say you don't need to alter it. Look, I...

I trust you. And then we'll jump out and kill them or stop them if we need to, but we need to save the child. I'm agree with Toa. We don't want to make the wrong decision here. If we can find out what is in this procession or what this procession is about, we can at least potentially not blow our cover under the wrong circumstances.

All right. Can you handle it? I trust you. I bop myself into what appears to be a middle-aged man. Don't you mean Shaboop? No, that's only human. I bop myself into a dusk elf. But you Shaboop into a human. Okay, I understand. And then... What's my motivation? I just... Motivation? We're potentially trying to save someone here.

Well, no, but he needs to play it cool and try to get information. Act like you're a military officer and you need to know what they're doing.

And that you're under orders from the king and just pretend to like show some kind of decree. - I mean, this is a good idea, but I can't really give you much about their socioeconomic political structure. - Yeah, exactly. I don't know fucking, you know, I'll just fucking figure it out. - Just bullshit, you're so good at this. - All right, all right, all right, all right. - I try to get in front of the caravan and put myself on the road and I'm like,

And I'm walking alone as a Dusk Elf, as a middle-aged man towards the... Military, military-esque. No, no, no, no. Oh, you fuck! I'm just gonna be in rags. I'm gonna, like, get everyone to the tree line. Yeah, we'd be hidden. Right behind the tree line. Yeah, all right. As close as we can be to Caprice while still being hidden. I don't know about this. Did Kelsey go get the food? No, she went to the bathroom. Okay.

Still no ETA on food. Yeah, they keep pushing a 10-minute-- They love doing that. --10-minute thing and push it-- They love doing that. Yeah, well, I mean, yeah, Indian and Thai-- Well, we can break whenever we need to, right? We want to take a break. No, no, no, no, no. Let's just keep going. Because now we have more time to think of what to do. Let's keep going. Indian and Thai just take forever.

You actually make an acrobatics to see how well you get down. And I guess probably the rest of you are all trying to get down on the ravine. I'll say you could probably take your time and Caprice will see how quickly you can get down there. - With a 27. - Okay, 27. Caprice, you slide down like a really cool Marty McFly.

Yes! Like a really cute... But a middle-aged Shadow Kai, Marty McFly. And as you all make your way down the ravine, the smell of rotting flesh gets stronger and stronger and stronger as you hear the rattling of wagon wheels.

obviously just clattering in this rough terrain. And you hear the heavy thuds of footsteps as each footstep of whatever's pulling this carriage gets louder and louder, and you all hide in the brush. I'm gonna need one more self check from you all. And Caprice, I'm going to need you to do a... From all of us? Yeah, from all of you. You hide in the brush. I don't even think it's worth twisting, honestly. I don't think it is. I think it's just one of those...

- I'm good, I got an 18. - 19. - 18. - Imagine, can it go one? - 18. - 18? - Four. - Shut up! - Okay, Caprice is gone. Ow, my foot! Ow, my toe again! It's the same toe, which is why I'm yelling! - As the rest of you hide around, hide, the

You step out into the road to the place. Yes. Disguised. And you hear rattling, and now you see shadows cast on the far side of this road, down on some of the trees, as you see a massive shape looming and lumbering as the ground shakes with each step. And from around this bend, you see an incredibly macabre procession.

as a massive hooded figure dressed in leathers, bits of gross gray skin peeking out from slight patches in the clothing, pushes what looks like, it's not a wagon, it's not a carriage, looks like a hearse.

as it is pushing it and flanking on either side are three hooded figures in those same gross leathers moving around, and you see now where there are gloves, there are long claws ripping through as they shamble, same grayish, whitish, greenish flesh in each patch as they

march on either side, heads down, hoods shrouding faces. And they seem to be of different dimensions. Different size ones, larger. The other seems to be of a standard humanoid shape. And the other one you actually see as there's a bit of a bulge in the back.

But for the most part, they seem to be the same general gait. And then you see a dusk elf with ashen gray skin, of a lighter gray hair. It seems to be a female. Actually, dark hair. Dark black hair, apologies. A light gray skin, piercing violet eyes.

that it's impossible to miss as she holds onto the reins of two massive black hounds, each with two heads, sniffing and slavering massive tongues, huge muzzles filled with sharp teeth, bulging with musculature that does not seem quite natural.

as they sniff around and are growling, as they're-- they just constantly hear the loud sniffing. And you see this Dusk Elf, and she's not heavily armored, but seems to be wearing some kind of vestment. Perhaps the robes of a spellcaster.

as she holds onto the reins and you make a perception check for me. - Yeah, I will happily do that with my dice that will roll a 20. That's not a 20. - Close. - That's a two, but without the zero. - You got half of the 20. - Oh boy. - Perception on these? - Yep. - Nine. - Nine. And the smell as you stumble out into the tree line, out of the tree line is putrid and you see

a strange bucket to the side of the driver's seat, but there's a great number of flies swirling around this massive, more of a large basket. And it's, the smell is overwhelming. You stumble out and I'll give you a second before they have a chance to react. - I will, seeing all of this, give a good gulp and just be like, oh wow, oh my.

All right. Let's do this, Caprice. Come on, you got this. No problem. I'll cast Enhance Ability on myself. My man! And I'm going to give myself advantage on all Charisma checks. Ooh! Let me just make sure that I know how that works. Because that's the first time I've... I think you choose an actual skill. Yes. I'm choosing... I believe it's Fox's Cunning. Uh...

I can typically hear it, too. Uh, Fox is cunning, the target has advantage, oh, no, no, it's Eagle Splendor, the target has advantage on Charisma check. Oh, you do choose the, wow, that's Boston. Good luck! Wow, that's Boston, good luck! And looking like my elderly, ragged self, I will say, um, uh, uh, hello there! Uh, hello, uh, uh,

Thank goodness. Thank goodness you're on the path. Please, please stop. Help. Help. I need assistance. What language are you speaking? Elvish. Okay. My man. Derek. Make a deception check for me. Is that charisma based? It is. It is.

Both 15, so that's gonna be a deception, you say? Yes. That'll be a 29. All right, let's go, let's go.