Seven of Them | Exandria Unlimited: Divergence Episode 2

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Subject to change.

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Hey there, critters.

We are so excited to share with you our brand new podcast from the world of Xandria, the Re-Slayer's Take.

In this audio adventure, you'll be guided through the wild continent of Asilra, home to some of the most dangerous creatures.

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Listen to new episodes every Monday anywhere you stream podcasts or become a beacon member and listen to the podcast two weeks early and uninterrupted by ads.

Hey there, friends, it's Matthew Mercer and it's my pleasure to introduce you to Xandria Unlimited Divergence, a brand new journey on the Critical Role Podcast Network.

Divergence follows everyday folks picking up the pieces of their world in the wake of a cataclysmic war between the gods.

As the dust settles, the mortals of Xandria discover how their world has been changed forever.

New episodes drop on Thursdays at 7 p.m.

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Pacific on Thursdays.

The calamity has ended, but Xandria's story is far from over.

Enjoy.

Hello, and welcome to tonight's episode of Xandria Unlimited Divergence, a story of heroic adventurers dying of exposure in the ashy rag.

The first D ⁇ D campaign where multiple PCs maybe go down because of pneumonia.

Let's get excited.

Before we get started, we have a few announcements.

Matt, you want to come take it over and take us away?

Let's go for it.

I am the Willie recently announced a brand new board game from Darrington Press called Solar Garden.

We meet games.

Oh my God.

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Embrace the power of creativity and optimism in solar gardens.

Coming August 1st at Gin Con!

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Speaking of games,

Allure by Silver Die Set!

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The dice are designed by Leia Rondo, and

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Brilliant.

I,

one, love those dice.

Two, I think that concludes our announcements.

So, Bernard, get back in here.

How are you doing, Brady?

We did it.

Yeah.

Great announcement.

Wonderful announcements, Matt.

Thank you, I try.

And with that, let's jump right into tonight's episode of Xandria Unlimited Durgins.

Hey there, critters!

This year marks our 10-year anniversary of Critical Role, and we are partnering with Fathom Entertainment to bring our 2025 tour to movie theaters across the U.S.

and Canada.

Head to theater to see the wedding of the year coming to theaters on October 15th with an iconic Jester and Ford wedding at our New York City live show.

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That's fathomentertainment.com/slash critical role.

We return to the Reifenmist Peninsula in the south of Guisar,

a continent that has not yet earned the name Taldore.

In an age long past,

where a group of straggling survivors escape the ruin of the prison of Ribad Cole,

headed north towards a whisper or a promise of safety.

A community known as Torms Hill.

Pockets of civilization here in the height of calamity are few and far between.

It's only been less than two years since you were there, but two years is normally long enough for a group of people trying to survive the calamity to be found and slaughtered.

Who knows what you will find, or if indeed you will even live long enough to find it.

After the events,

mysterious, divine, cosmic in ways and yet oh so very real

that unfolded shattered stone lightning and thunder roots growing before your very eyes lights

of some strange insect

so

very

wild and mundane and yet also so otherworldly around the locket of your sister

scattered from the other companions of your gang, sent forward into the unknown you have been traveling for days, following a stretch of magically conjured woodland, hiding from the eyes of whatever this world now holds, now that up is down and chaos reigns.

We return to the moments after

the falling of Starmie and Fiddle Flask and the witnessing of a colossal figure moving across the landscape.

Crocus at your feet made of thick leather cord and clasped in dragon ivory.

A gift

from a god

whose care

is as profound

as it is fleeting and glibly given.

The lightning fades and you are left in dark forest.

And you do the only thing you can:

put one weary foot in front of the other.

You are three days from where you believe Torm's Hill to be.

Some of you have two levels of exhaustion already.

Starmion

just became rid of his very last.

Now knowing rest that you do not.

You have three days left assuming your party can move at regular speed.

However,

if enough of you hit that second level of exhaustion, that three days might turn into six.

So let's see if you all die before even a single combat.

Go ahead and give me a group survival check.

We need a DC-15.

All right, who's next to me?

I'm still carrying

children.

You're still carrying children, but that doesn't affect your survival chance.

Okay.

That affects your constitution.

I will, just to say it out loud, I did put on the belt.

You put on the belt?

Yeah.

Fantastic.

As just a, whoa, I have a belt now.

This is where the belt goes.

The reverence that all vestiges deserve.

If we would pass this

to you, Alex,

your strength score is 21.

Jesus Christ.

Not even a full level.

Not even a full.

Yeah, this is a bunch of vestiges going to challenge rating 1-8th NPC stat lex.

Let's hope for the best, huh?

Survive.

Survive.

One level of exhaustion doesn't roll with disadvantage, does it?

It is.

It is.

Oh, wait, I'm fierce.

Can't get much lower than that.

Four.

Four.

Eight.

Eight.

Sixteen.

Sixteen.

Thirteen.

Thirteen.

Five.

I'm going to need constitution saves from everybody, but your first of three days is marked down.

Because I believe you're being carried by Gond at this point as well.

True.

Yes.

Gotcha.

Natural 20.

Natural 20.

Let's go.

Natural 20 and that con safe.

16.

16, hell yeah.

Um,

God, you said constitution.

Constitution save.

You take another level of exhaustion.

I believe you're at two now, correct?

Your speed is halved.

Ten.

Ten.

Level of exhaustion.

My speed is now halving.

Mine is

nine.

Another level of exhaustion.

So I'm at three now?

You are at three.

Happens at three.

Disadvantage on attack rolls

and saving throws.

cool.

Now, several of you have your speed halved.

Garin is a lot harder to carry than Phidra.

So,

you have four days left of travel, unless anyone can think of something clever in this moment that they want to do.

Can Nia carry Garin?

No, she can't.

Your speed is halved too.

You need someone to carry you.

I don't know how many more people I can carry.

I think we're just gonna slow it.

I think we're slowed down.

You're doing an Afrocus.

Yeah.

I feel pretty good, actually.

That's good.

Yeah, how are you liking the belt?

Looks good on you.

Thanks.

Yeah.

I'm proud of you.

Thanks.

Belt.

Uh, next day, give me another survival check.

Rolling with disadvantage.

What is that?

Oh, this is disadvantage.

Disadvantage.

Great.

Sick.

Gorgeous.

Okay, that doesn't change much.

13.

13.

Six.

Six.

Six.

Six.

Five.

Five.

Ten.

Ten.

Go ahead.

It's been a really good game.

Go ahead and give me Constitution Saving Throws.

And now I also have the advantage on this, right?

Okay.

I swear to God, you got it.

You guys, you know, they need to.

Okay.

Nope.

I believe that you now have two days left.

What did we get for Konse?

16.

16.

You save.

12.

12 saves.

Oh, hallelujah.

17.

Saves.

Two.

Two.

17.

17 saves so some of you are at three you're at three

you're at two exhaustion levels you're at two you're at zero zero still cro crocus is a creature of legends

um sweet dragon also these these sweet little kids have not made like any saves at all you know like they've been with you carrying them on your back with no exhaustion and right here we have uh one he just doesn't know that he's fucked fucked.

I just know the concept of that I'm completely.

Phaedra

rules.

So there are two days left.

You are at the fourth level of exhaustion.

Your hit point max has halved.

Mia, you see.

Jasmine, can you describe for us what Phaedra is looking like?

Phaedra just looks

like a haggard shell, just

cracked, bleeding lips, vacant eyes.

Like at this point, she

if anyone talks to her, she's not even like

she already looks like she's like got one foot out of this world.

It's bad.

I think even you have never seen me in like in this situate in this state.

I don't feel good.

Yeah.

Um, can I uh help?

I don't, I don't know if you can.

I think you're doing all the help that you can.

You're doing a good job, Clarks.

Um.

Okay.

I don't want you to worry about me, okay?

I'll be

my job.

I know.

Let me share the load.

Uh,

Arrow will kneel down and scoop Phaedra up onto his back, sort of like piggyback stuff, so that you don't have to walk.

Scooping you up, this will

cancel the disadvantage on any constitution saving throws you have to make.

If you have to make a constitution saving through, you will do so with disadvantage, carrying her on your back.

And Phaedra, you see Arrow

with no fanfare at all, hoist you up on his back to continue trudging through.

This has been different worlds for you.

You're used to...

You've come up in the prison of Rybad Cole back in your city life as the leader of this gang where your small stature was at some points an inconvenience, but never life or death.

There are roots

every

two to three feet that other people step over absentmindedly that require a tremendous exertion of effort from you to get over.

It is

a very cruel and unfair world out here in the rain and ash.

I think as I'm on Arrow's back,

I

whisper to you, or not trying to whisper, but just I can't muster up more.

I just say,

you...

I don't know how you do this.

I thought...

I thought I was

strong.

I was foolish enough to believe.

that I understood this world.

In a weird way everything made so much sense before we left Rybad Cole.

And now out here, it's just...

There's no...

There's no logic, there's no order to it.

It's just...

How do you do it?

How long were you in Raibad?

How long was I in Rybad Coal?

You were in there for about four or five years.

Oh, okay.

Yeah.

Uh...

Yeah, four or five years.

Before that, it was just...

you know, city living and it was tough.

It wasn't, you know,

had to do a lot of stuff to get just to make it, but

it wasn't like this.

Repetition.

Repetition can make the impossible seem

commonplace, maybe.

I've lived in the wastes

better part of my life.

Yeah.

You learn to stomach it with time.

Well,

if I do last long enough to

do this again, we'll see.

And I hope you're right.

Two days left.

Communicate survival check.

Everything's a disadvantage.

Yeah, this is a disadvantage.

I'm excited for that.

Not 20 you're gonna announce to everyone, Leo.

That's great.

What do we get?

14.

14?

30, 20.

30, 20?

Not 20.

Not 20.

20.

Two.

Two.

One.

One.

Oh, no.

You didn't make me better.

I made you worse.

A mat 20 and a 14.

Great.

I'm going to need

constitution saves.

You will not be rolling with disadvantage.

Okay.

I am.

Oh, no.

What's that?

Please, please, please.

One.

Now.

two two yeah all right twelve twelve seventeen seventeen ten ten level of exhaustion okay there it is five lights

you two are okay

first exhaustion level of exhaustion two you're at two what five uh you're at five levels of exhaustion

um your speed is reduced to zero uh the last day the trees get wider and wider this narrow strip is broadening out

Arrow, you are aware of two things simultaneously:

the ground is becoming more uneven topographically.

You're getting higher in altitude.

It's been raining for days.

The threat now, everything that was the threat of thirst, is now the threat of sickness and pneumonia.

It's the threat of chill.

And you can feel on your back, Phaedra's speed has been reduced to zero.

Phaedra is struggling to breathe as a powerful infection sets in in her lungs.

She's on the verge of drowning on your back, held up by your arms, just in her own breath, the feebleness of her own lungs, like robbing her life from her.

You told me

last time we gathered that

Torm's Hill is relatively close on that map to another place that I know.

Yes.

So

I think that Arrow is bad off himself, nowhere near as bad as his

new companion, his cargo.

But his vision is going double from time to time, and he's just focusing on putting one foot in front of the other

and taking some strength from his proximity to old haunts.

Crocus goes over to the children's mother.

Can you take one of them?

Yes.

Hands off one of the kids and then goes over to Arrow.

Let me take her.

And just kind of plucks you off and like cradles you underneath with one arm.

Arrow's gonna plant his hand like above his head on your peck for a second and just like pat it and then start to hobble forward.

You can see

a

you smell it with the sort of like draconic snout.

Arrow's feet are, he's been leading the way the whole time and kind of cutting through the first layer of brush, getting up through here.

And you can see just a thin trickle of blood from where his scales have split from the soaking mud and rain moving forward through this place.

Do you want me to go first?

No.

I'm familiar with the...

Familiar with the area.

Just keep pressing forward, okay?

Almost there.

And the uh...

You know this one there, right?

He's trustworthy.

He knows where we're going.

Yes.

I...

he guided me

to where we were supposed to be going before we got captured.

I know him.

I trust him.

Even when we're all a little worse for wear, he's.

he's still the guy I know.

I trust you.

I trust him.

I kind of like lean into you both.

Both of us just kind of almost leaning on each other for strength as we kind of hobble forward and

fall lockstep with him.

Nia,

she sort of sees how

rocky and rough Fedra is, right?

So I think

it's not wise, but

she's not a very wise girl.

She is a little bit, but she takes her cloak off and sort of tries to like

bundle Phaedra if she can, just to keep whatever heat that she has close to her.

You bundle up a halfling who was

wiry and scrawny and scrappy at the best of times and has been walking without food for a week, so is skeletal.

And the cloak goes around you.

And I think also

Crocus's enormous torso is something like an umbrella.

Yeah, I feel like she's holding you underneath, like kind of walking on three limbs now, just holding one.

At this point, I don't think Feder can even

get the words to come out of her mouth, but she just looks at you.

Thank you.

Nia nods,

exhausted with her two levels of exhaustion.

Doesn't have words back, but there's that thing of like, it is unending.

Of course.

It's gonna be okay.

Era, as you push forward,

you begin to recognize these woods.

You are

if you were all well, you could be there by nightfall.

As it stands, stumbling through the dark and the rain and the mud,

you will

have one more day of travel to arrive there.

And

if it is as you remember it,

you will get to safety and the ability to actually rest and potentially

skirt Phaedra from the very jaws of death if she can find a warm fire and medicine, just a structure, any structure to get out of the rain.

It occurs to you in this moment that that is if Torm's Hill is still there.

At that point, when we, unless you're throwing something at us, when we

stop for the night, as I have on past nights,

Arrow will fall to his knees in the mud and plant his hands in it.

And it's slow, way slower than the past times that the group has seen him do this.

But he tries to mold the earth into a lean to, and it's so wet and muddy that it takes probably 15 or 20 minutes, but dry earth slowly starts to push up through the mud.

And after a half hour, I'll say he comes up with a crude lean-to,

and then

also

is able to

create a bonfire like he has, but it is small,

barely holding on in the weather.

Fire

sputters and burns.

How do you do that?

Um

part of it is spending so much time

out here

but when I was uh

young, uh

man who was like an uncle to me

showed me how

I don't know how to do anything like that.

If we make it through

a week,

maybe I can show you how.

Okay.

Um

you see here by the fire Phaedra

shivering under the cloak, Garin blowing breath on his

one

hand.

You see Kaz as he goes by the green dragonborn looks over at Gond.

You see Gond has long bugbear ears flattened with rain to his head, and he has wrapped up in his cloak Starmion's body.

You see Gond going,

you see, Kaz looks over and goes,

you know, Gond,

we don't have to carry.

And you see Gon just looks up with this pitiful expression, and Kaz thinks better of

giving brutal and pragmatic advice.

I think you see Kaz realize on some level that

leaving the body here in these strange woods to rot would be a different kind of death, and that some things that are symbols and stories actually keep you alive in a different way.

I've um

heated and opened up another

uh and I have not done this every night, but another pine cone

and

talent hand places three of those seeds into Gon's palm, and then I go to the worst of us,

not myself, but everyone else, and plants one in their hand.

Phaedra,

with one of these,

I will ask you to,

even though this is not necessarily how the spell works, to hold on to a D6.

Oh, boy.

Okay.

I will also give mine to Phaedra.

Cool.

You give yours to Phaedra as well.

Next day.

Final day of travel.

Let's roll these survival chips.

What level of exhaustion is this a disadvantage for the survival channel?

That one!

No!

Ooh, it's tough out here, pulls.

18.

18!

What's do these do?

12.

12.

You said survive.

Survival.

Even.

13.

13.

Oh.

Okay.

12.

Okay, 12.

This is going to be another set of constitutions.

Yes.

So.

Disadvantage.

You are rolling straight, not with disadvantage.

I'm rolling straight because I only have two.

With two points of exhaustion, which is what I got right now, is that.

You don't get disadvantage on saves with two.

That's three.

Okay, so, and with that feature no longer on me, it's a straight roll for me for Constitution.

It was a disadvantage once because I was countering.

For her to roll straight, you have to roll with disadvantage.

No, but I'm Crokus.

Cocus is carrying away.

Oh, Crokis, so you're rolling with disadvantage.

Cool.

That's a 20.

Okay.

What do we get here for Constitution?

Six.

Six.

You take another.

How many do you have?

Three.

Three.

Disadvantage on attack rolls and savings or something.

Yeah.

13.

13.

That succeeds.

So you're at two or at three?

Two.

You're at two.

Incredible.

Nia's got some spirit within her.

That is.

Be my sister.

I'm like, looking girl.

I'm coming, baby.

I'm coming.

Indefatigable.

13 as well.

Crocus, you succeed as well.

So I think you're still at one.

Still at one.

Just a monster out of legend.

Also resistant to cold.

Oh!

Well, there you go.

That explains it.

Twelve.

Twelve?

Yeah.

You succeed.

And do not die.

All right.

Five levels is the most you can have without dying.

Yeah.

Congratulations.

Oh my gosh.

I really wanted to do a series at Critical Roll where a hike through the woods was was the scariest shit.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Had to succeed.

Yeah.

Nine.

Nine.

You get another level of exhaustion.

You're at three.

You're at three now.

Your party

You see

Celeste is at four levels of exhaustion.

Gond is at two.

Coswald is at three levels of exhaustion.

You know,

Marlath is at two levels of exhaustion.

There's a group of you that is just like str you're no one is walking basically at full speed.

The only person who could run right now is Crocus.

Where would he run to?

Where would he run to?

And as you move through,

you begin to see the forest fan out.

And as it does,

trees begin to part.

Rain

continues to fall

and though there are still storm clouds everywhere, you

look and behold

a thicket of briar.

Arrow, you see this enormous

huge gulch of thorns.

There used to be a secret passage in here somewhere that you knew about.

That secret passage is torn wide open.

You see there are wagon ruts and muddy boot prints and everything just moving in as fast as they can

into these woods ahead of you.

And

in the distance somewhere, you think you hear a clang of like

something on metal.

There's like a snap of a rope.

And you think even through the woods, as the rain continues to fall, you can still hear what you think are voices, even through the dense rainfall.

So help me,

the briar has been blasted outward or broken toward us?

Looks non-magical.

It looks like the briar has literally been widened out and pulled apart.

This was a place that was supposed to be hidden from emperors of the

soldiers of the strife emperor and is now

something else entirely.

It looks like any pretense of being hidden is gone and you can see just again as a wanderer more sets of footprints than you can count.

There's a certain heading out heading in.

In

and you look at them and they you're looking for soldiers boot prints.

Some of the people that were traveling here were barefoot.

You see that there were it looks like chaos, just things going in towards

what you remember as Torm's Hill.

And it's raining on us, so does it

feel to me that this is.

I'm hearing stuff, so this is recent?

Quite recent.

I think some of you guys can clearly hear, like, a voice being, like, in the far distance through the rain and muffled by trees, but a voice being like, further, further back, back here, back here, back here.

I pull my uh hood of my cloak off so that my gold visage is is very clear.

Stay behind me.

We date.

He pulls his hammer and kind of clutches it tightly.

It's as tight in his hand as he can, as exhausted as he is, but just ready.

Nia,

following Garn, takes Starmian's letter opener and just sort of

tries to hide it, but just in case she keeps it ready.

Crocus

stands up after walking on all fours for a while, still holding Vedra.

kind of maneuvers the child to be sitting on his shoulder as opposed to on his back.

Yeah.

And then proceeds to put his hand on the shoulder of the

dragonborn that sold the other dragonborns out.

Marleft.

Marleft.

He just puts his hand on Marleft's shoulder and goes, come.

And he walks with you.

As you enter,

I will describe to you a place that at this moment exists only in Arrow's memory.

And I need to describe to you a place that exists only in his memory because I need you to understand how strange what he now sees is.

Torm's Hill was a hill so named for a single dwarven smith who lived in what is called by some a strong home.

Basically, a single dwarven family makes a cottage, but by the standards of other folk, that cottage looks like a tiny castle, right?

Like it's the standard of dwarven living that to other people that aren't familiar with hill dwarves would think, oh, that's that's a lot for a house.

But it was under a hill, so it was sod-covered, grass and trees grew on it, but you could see a little sort of chimney, and there was work that was done there.

That a long time ago, the beginning of the calamity was overtaken by a group of goblins.

And after that, the goblins fled to go or to go join the Strife Emperor's armies.

And a group of very secretive halflings came who created the sort of briar wall around it and created a small community that you would have known run by two older matriarchs, Clessara Bandy, an older halfling matriarch, and her wife, Nez Pilch, a a goblin matriarch, that basically ran

a small community, or not even ran,

tended to a large community of survivors, usually about two to three dozen people.

So whenever you went to Torm's Hill, it was a couple of structures around an old dwarven stronghome in deep forest

with

large briars around it that kept it hidden in a little rill of sort of two legs of the mountain, the foothills of a mountain series.

Hard, hard, hard to see, right?

You'd fly overhead, couldn't see it from a distance, couldn't see it through the trees.

As you walk through in this area at the very south of the

very south of the Storm Point Mountains, in an area called the Hallowroot Hills,

this place that at its peak housed about two to three dozen people

currently has about 1,200 people.

Wagons, sleds,

bodies on the ground, torches being lit.

As you begin to approach through the woods, you see people sort of stumbling.

There's a sort of, you can see there's an area where they've just piled up hay bales as a mountain of sludge is coming off one of the mountains from the rain, just like trying to stop a flood from carrying off one of the lower lower tented camp areas.

You see a lot of these tents at first seem like, oh my god, there's an encampment of soldiers of the Strife Emperor here.

No, these have been liberated tents.

These tents have been taken by the people you now see in this place, which appears to be prisoners that have escaped, other refugees, just vast and sundry different people.

There are

halflings and humans and goblins and hobgoblins.

There are what looks to be a lot of goblin and peasantry, essentially.

Like, these are people that were not in the prisons of Rybad Cole, but were in the farmlands that they also were not allowed to leave.

And we're basically living the same life,

you know, being told, Look how lucky you are to not be in the prison of Rybad Coal.

Also, we'll kill you if you leave here, right?

And the

somehow different.

This is somehow different.

Technicality.

So you see the central hill, but that is now drowned in brand new structures.

I think, era, right away, you're like, okay, it didn't go from 36 to 1200 overnight because there have been some attempts at order, but it is a collapsing order that is overwhelmed by the mortal need that is now in this space.

You hear screams, you hear crying,

and you hear, but you also hear a lot of shouts of people trying to direct and give whatever help or aid they can uh but it is a struggling order under overwhelming chaos in the moment you approach uh what do you do as you begin to approach this scene well i i think my first instinct since i have passed through here a handful of times and cassandra and nez know me and I know them.

I don't know if this place is safe.

It's chaos around.

So I am going to start pushing through the crowds to try to reach that central structure in this chaos and mob that you've described.

And I think as he's walking, he's uh Arrow is struck by the fact that before going to Rybad, he has never seen this many mortal souls gathered in one place since he was ace child.

Uh the world continues to tumble upside down.

To see this many people in one place and to see them not in chains, not hiding, in danger.

But part of that danger is freedom.

I

kind of dropped my head down to you and watching him walk away and go,

I'll stay with everyone.

Go.

Yeah, I go with Arrow because this is the place that we were on our way to before

disaster struck.

And

I think Nia, although incredibly exhausted, realizes that this is the place where she thought she was going to reconnect with her sister.

So she's

there's a bit of

wherever excitement can be seen in her posture, you see bits of like her back straightens, her shoulders are up, she's still hobbling, but she is she doesn't want to look as awful as she feels.

Finding some inner reserve of willpower to not collapse in this moment and some deep heroic instinct.

In so many times in the world of Xandria, someone in your state would so clearly be the one in need of aid and rest.

And you look and in this moment realize that you are one of the stronger standing here and more at the ready.

Crocus, underneath you, Phaedra,

who has been holding on to her breath in talk about heroism, refusing to let go of her last rasping breaths.

And I think, even on a deep intuition, for one who

does not know a lot about the world,

you know that she has fought very dearly to survive to this point.

Just a little longer.

It's

I know

the death hasn't come from me yet.

I'm not supposed to die like this.

I'm supposed to die getting ambushed in a knife fight by bandits on the side of a highway.

No, because that's

that one I can stop.

So this is

something I can't.

So you need to hold on.

I know.

I am holding on.

Arrow, you push forward through the crowd.

Going towards Torhams Hill, there's a small area.

Torhams Hill didn't used to have roads.

There were like little areas where like off towards some goats in a pen, there would be like a little less grass, like a natural kind of footpath.

And now suddenly in the midst of

these couple of structures is a place that is like a crossroads.

You can see it's like, oh, this isn't, there aren't no, there are no roads.

There's no civilization.

There's no places to go.

the world is destroyed.

But all of a sudden, yeah, well, what do you call this thing in the middle of these four sort of sloppy ramshackle structures other than like a town square?

Like, it happened maybe overnight.

Just by the sheer number of footfalls.

Yeah.

And you see in the middle,

with behind her, you see a bespectacled hobgoblin.

One of the sort of frames of his spectacles totally shattered and full of like cracked glass, but a bespectacled hobgoblin is holding a little sputtering lantern under a hood over this tiny, rotund goblin woman.

She's got graying sort of wiry hair in two braids hanging off her back, a little kerchief gown.

She's soaked.

You see her pants are like rolled up, like under, and her skirt is like tucked into her belt because she's going through mud that comes up to her knees.

She's got,

she's very distinctive because she's got two big fake silver teeth behind her canines, and her her mouth spreads really wide as she yells and she goes I keep that moving in they need more rope over at the hay bale

arrow and you see Nez before you

how did this come to pass

miracles abound we're all about to die listen

and you see that she comes over and just wraps an arm around your waist and puts her head against the outside of your thigh She's tiny.

She's like, has like old age shrinkage and wasn't a big goblin to start.

So is like tiny, tiny little creature.

She puts her head against the outside of your leg and goes,

I can't believe it.

We hadn't seen you in over a year.

We thought you'd been taken.

It's good to see you, Bilch.

Swore I was never gonna come back here.

Here I am.

You said that it was a fool's errand to stay here and that we would all die.

And look, we've become more popular than ever.

I am happy to be mistaken.

All right.

Well, um,

are you are you wet?

And she looks down and sees the blood sort of oozing out from your feet and goes, You need to get to a fire.

I have seen better days.

All right.

Um, do you have any with you that that are on the verge of death, that can no longer walk?

Well,

feet are just kind of like raises.

Yeah, you just see a tiny halfling, like a skinny halfling hand raise.

She needs help.

I could take some fire right about now.

Alright, um, we- there's not much space left, but um, inside of the actual hill, inside of Torm's Hill, um, bring her in there.

It's it's piping hot, it's toasty warm, but there's I don't know how much space there will be, but luckily she's tiny, so oh, there's a shelf!

We can put her on a shelf!

You're small, like me!

Someone will have to put her in there, I can't fit.

Alright, um,

she says, if you'd be so kind, please.

Yeah, I'll like sort of try and put Feedra like

She can't walk, but uh, uh, I'm assuming Feedra can't walk, and Nia is not much stronger, but uh, she doesn't, she can't, like, sort of prop up her body and try and slowly,

slowly move.

She nods to Nez, like a quick greeting and follows.

I think Arrow, if Arrow's moving, Nia's following.

It's time to come down.

And he takes the kid off of him, finally, and puts the last kid on the ground.

Celeste

looks at you and says,

as Celeste sort of like collapses on her knees and scoops up her children,

she looks at you.

She has not spoken in days because her mouth is just, you can see that there's like some kind of cough or rasping thing, but through a wheezing voice, she goes,

You are family to us.

You saved my children.

And seeing Crocus unable to meet her gaze, she simply puts a scaled hand against her scaled cheek, brushes your face,

and smiles and says,

I will go see if there is any food to be had.

And you see that Kaz goes with her to look after the children.

Phaedra, you take off.

You look around and see Gond holding Starmion's body, just sort of looking for somewhere to go.

And you see Marlath sort of gazing around, looking at everything under the rain.

And you see he looks down at Nez and says,

is there food or drink for those who have just arrived?

And you see she goes, beats me.

We're trying not to die right now.

And you see that she just rushes off to go help with this flood coming in.

For all of you you here, you're in a scene of a lot of chaos where there's a lot of action immediately.

I know that you guys all have

the disadvantage on pretty much everything right now, but let me know if there are any perception or investigation checks you would make right away in first being here.

I would quickly do a scan for the rest of the members of my gang just in case maybe they ended up here.

Give me a perception check.

With disadvantage, right?

With disadvantage, that's right.

I am like barely lucid at this point.

I think partially Phaedra also thinks that she might have died and this is the line to get into hell.

Yeah,

in which case she would also be looking for the fellow members of her gang.

So, either way,

yeah,

bad

for

you look and see

you're looking around for members of your gang, and you see in the rain under the lantern your mother and father both looking at you,

mom,

dad,

uh, Crocus, you see see Phaedra speak to empty rain

as

the fever takes hold and you begin to see things that are not there.

Bad.

Can you hear me?

Moving your hand up, you see they look and go.

We're glad you're here.

We're so proud that you're gonna see the sun.

Am I

finally joining you again?

As Phaedra loses consciousness, do you think that she is able to join her parents, if only in a dream?

Yeah,

I think so.

I think she hasn't thought about her parents for a long time, and this

for the first time, she's letting herself think about that again.

Your

cunning

and ruthlessness gave you life in Rybad Coal,

and the absolute ill-advised kindness of strangers saw you safely to Torm's Hill.

It is a kindness that you have not seen since before your parents passed.

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With an unconscious phaedra, Nia, you move through the doors of this sort of dwarven forge home and see that there are shelves built in.

There's a massive roaring fireplace.

As you come in,

go ahead and give me a medicine check, if you'd be so kind.

Rolling with this advantage as well.

Yeah.

Oh, good.

Three and a two.

That'll be an eight.

Eight.

Oh, no, just kidding.

Seven.

Seven.

You see that there is space.

It's like literally on a shelf above the fireplace, but

Phaedra is small enough that you can put some, you see, as you walk in, there's a big pile of cloaks and other things that have been dried out by the fire.

And you, even as

you are, know that you can get the wet clothes off of Phaedra get her into something dry and literally store there are like other halflings and gnomes up on these shelves because the floor every inch of the floor is hobgoblins humans half elves like these like larger folk um and you see that there are a couple what look like healers or they're things like that moving in a room choked with about like

north of 60 people.

There are two people tending to people in here.

Okay.

I

get Phaedra into something dry

and

I think she's sees the two people and starts to sort of move towards one of them.

She's had a

I don't think

Nia's

really recognizing what's happening.

She gets Phaedra somewhere dry.

She's just in her like nurse brain,

grabs her healer's kit,

leaves the, there isn't much in her bag besides her healer's kit, so she leaves the bag with Veedra,

sort of gives her something to like hold on to and keep manipulating.

And she walks up to one of the two people who are

helping in whatever way they can.

You walk up and you see that there is a little halfling woman who is here.

She looks up at you and goes, Hun, you have a medicine kit yeah and there isn't much and I there are people who I who this belongs to so I was if you have anything

bandages

you are you are you skilled in healing

relatively

not great but you see she looks at you

she has this wild little thatch of wavy hair sort of does and it's like an Albert Einsteiny poof of hair that goes out in all directions Tiny little halfling woman,

and you recognize her having a similar wedding band to the goblin woman you saw out in the street outside.

She looks at you and says, all right, you can heal.

You need to rest.

You need to rest.

Here, and you see that she hands you a crust of bread.

It's hard as a rock,

but she gives you a canteen of what feels immediately warm to the touch and you recognize as being tea.

Smells herbal, and she says, just pour some on it to soften the bread, eat that, and you have to sleep.

We need you.

Okay, okay.

She

takes, she rips it in half,

dips some of it in that tea, gets it back to Phaedra and sort of tries to feed her, I guess.

Phaedra, hey.

Open up.

And she sort of just like

tries to break down bits, so like bite-sized bits, and just is giving a bite to feed your a bite for herself, a bite to feed your bite for herself.

Somewhere in a dream, your mom is feeding you delicious tea biscuits.

And you begin to feed them,

and then you see Clessara, the halfling woman,

leads you out back into the rain for a moment again into another sort of building where you see there are a few cots laid out.

It's much colder here, but if you're not on death's door, you'll at least be able to rest here.

Wraps her cloak around herself,

conks out, hits that pillow hard.

Hard.

Boom.

Unfortunately, that pillow's a rock.

Concussion.

Concussion.

For Crocus and Garin, you're out there still with Arrow as you see this goblin woman get back to work.

You've all had some exhaustion as well, but you see that also things are going nuts out here.

What are you going to do?

I think at this point, Garin's kind of just taking in all the chaos around.

You know, the kind of like ash and sweat-streaked elements that the rain couldn't wash over this trek.

The

beard itself almost like darker stained because of it in places.

At first, there's just kind of standing stoic before you see this like smile crawl through his mouth.

This

hell that some of you had seen for a time, some longer than others.

This is the first time in nearly a century that he's been in a space where people, while in chaos,

aren't under tyranny.

And he's kind of just breathing in a sense of community that he hasn't really been around in a long,

long

time.

Glances over at Crocus.

Gonna be alright.

Yeah.

Places his hand on the shoulder.

I'll be right back.

Okay.

Now this is a place of dwarven make, it looks like, at one point.

At one point, yeah.

All of a mountain dwarf in his history.

There are

maybe some similarities in the subterranean builds.

He's gonna just start walking through what tunnels he can to where some of the great keepsakes are held by dwarven common folk.

Mm-hmm.

Try and recall his days of building simple and intricate abodes and stumble best he can to where they might keep their finest liquor.

Um,

go ahead.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

We're gonna roll straight because you're still exhausted, but this is stone cunning.

So, I want you to roll a we'll make it a tool proficiency check, given that it's like a stone cunning.

He He is a crafter, which means he has proficiency with brewer supplies, but we can go ahead and try and add that.

Let's do that.

All right.

DC10 gets you something.

DC15 is even better.

19 work for you?

19!

Oh, yeah.

All's well when it counts.

Yeah.

Licker, liquor, liquor, liquor, liquor.

Um, Garin.

Um.

I almost hyped you on some.

I love it.

Bring it, bring it.

Go.

I love it.

I fucking.

I fucking...

I fucking love it.

Um, Garin,

um, you begin to move, uh, you begin to move forward from this place, uh, and as you do,

um,

you

are looking out,

you hear laughing voices behind you.

A distant

cousin.

Well, and of course, who knows?

And why shouldn't she have?

He says, I've nothing against it.

He's a very proficient brewer, as hill dwarves often are.

I'm just saying.

And he says,

you sound ignorant.

And

you sound...

A brewer is a craftsman, just like a mason is.

Right, but a

ale doesn't last for generations, is all I'm saying.

It's consumed after it's brewed.

That's all I'm trying.

And you see that there's a moment and someone puts a hand on your shoulder and you

feel in this moment someone looking at you and going

Pop,

are you alright?

You seem lost, like you're somewhere far away.

You see me trying to lick lips that are still themselves just just cracked and dried even through the rainfall.

Kind of the split kind of curling up the front, almost towards the base of his nose.

I'm just admiring the

grounds.

Have you got beer?

Get the man a drink!

Torm!

Torm!

And you hear

the name Torm shouted out, and you hear voices going,

I just want this.

I just want, I just wish I was free, free again,

free to be with those I love.

And you were headed for Torm's Hill, but you look at the back where it meets the woodline and you see that there's an old stone fence that connects.

And it connects at a

large standing rock that's covered in lichens, really thick with lichen, but you look back and there's some part of you deep down that remembers that stone, remembers this like ancient tall dolmen or like menir stone.

And as you go to like touch the lichen, you see that there are dwarven runes underneath it.

It's very common.

for hill dwarves to, as a way of sanctifying and like protecting supplies, especially things that can go bad, to place them within sight of a sacred stone like this.

And on that 19,

you look, see where the stone touches, see this sort of earth and sod at the back lip of the mound, and there it is poking up out of the grass.

You miss it, even in bright daylight, let alone during the rain.

the very tip of a ringed brass handle on a door that maybe hasn't been opened in who knows how long

i stumbled forward kind of catching it to hold my weight up

with what little strength left to see if i can give it a tug

you pull that

open

twelve massive dust covered barrels

of ale

and hanging from the roof

salted beef and pork.

Huge rations.

These may have been here for years, but dwarves know their craft and know it well.

And the dwarves that smoked and cured this meat and brewed this ale and sealed it under black wax in ancient oaken barrels sealed here in this place.

You know, this will have kept.

Miracles abound indeed.

And just starts cry-laughing on the ground, falls to his knees, and laughs.

You laugh and laugh, and as you do,

see this miracle unfold before you.

Arrow,

what are you up to?

I think that Arrow has

an inverse reaction to Gar.

A lifetime spent

wandering in the ashes of this landscape and only spending short amounts of time in any gathering of people.

He has come to distrust gatherings as places that are

perilous.

Time and again,

he made attempts in his life to settle, and those all

evaporated through his fingers.

So to see this many people

and his sort of fear response or anxiety has deadened over the decades.

So he's never

really

thrown or upset in a way that he

he feels an apprehension right now.

And I think he's both scanning the

we're in view of the mountains here said yes, you are he is both looking at scenes around him of people helping wounded friends or family and people

sort of

laughing in the face of tragedy and just so much life around him that he is

Part of him is in another place a long time ago

Where he saw scenes very much like this

And then the other part of him, not trusting his surroundings, is scanning the mountainsides for

the kind of danger he's used to avoiding his entire life.

And I think

his gaze eventually falls on

one particular peak,

and it stills him to a degree.

And

uh after allowing himself that indulgence

turns to Crocus

I don't think that we would have uh

made it this far

without you.

This is not something I would tend to ask.

Can I lean on you?

Yes.

I think I need to rest.

And Crocus kind of like sits and hunches down and lets Arrow lean on him.

You sit and hunch down, so exhausted, hearing frantic activity, Arrow.

You

feel

this strength pouring out from Crocus.

And he's even stronger than he was before, if that can be said.

This enormous belt on him.

But you also wonder if

whatever magic now moves upon your companion

is a gift to him,

or if it simply clarifies a gift he already had.

As you

finally rest,

another

harrowing escape

from near certain death, delivered once again from a fate worse than death.

Your eyes do what they have always done, which is move to the horizon.

You have to stay ready.

How long does Garin stay laughing at the entrance?

And what does he do after he is finished?

He laughs until he physically does not have the strength.

In that wordless phrase,

he does something he hasn't done in a hundred years, and he taps a keg.

He cherishes,

drinks hungrily, as it is

the finest of ales, a meal.

But then

carves a fair piece of meat,

fills what could service as any sort of an ale skin.

He might have would probably have to go find if not.

Close the door.

Doesn't make it known for fear of a panicked rush of unknown supplies.

But returns to probably more

connected and organized heads to decide what to do with this bounty.

but returns to the rest of the troop with what meat he can salvage in secret

um

having carved off a piece for you and your companions you walk by nes

uh who is organizing people again you see that she's speaking to an absolutely soaked

uh he looks like a uh a

um

sorry uh he looks like a sort of tiger folk with like white and black stripes in his fur but just like a wet cat.

You see, he's there going, sort of speaking and going, the river's completely flooded.

There's no

if the scouting party is still out there, then they're not going to be able to make it back to town.

And I'm worried about that.

And you just, once again, dealing with this chaos.

But again, the people here do at least the ones that are like in charge look rested and sharp of mind enough to be able to handle this.

As you walk up to her, she looks up at you.

And you clearly seems like the one in charge, if you were going to tell anybody.

Um

she looks over and goes, Alright, we need to find some way to deal with the river, but but

with years without rain, and now rain comes, and it's incredible, and it's a miracle, and it's gonna kill us all.

Miss, miss.

Yes.

Kind of, you know, kind of taps her shoulder gently with his cap and gets her attentional.

His other arm is like clutching the meat underneath, like a half cloak that he's kind of thrown over.

He's like,

If we're looking to damn something, I might be able to aid at least a bit of focus.

But for the time being, you have many mouths to feed, and you've been sitting on a bounty unknown.

Uh,

and I kind of just like give a nudge in that direction: Walk with me if you have but a moment.

Uh, uh,

all right,

briefly, and she walks with you.

I don't take too much of her time, but I say,

You know who to trust and how to disseminate, but this belongs to you.

You, This belongs to everyone here.

See to it.

She looks in the open

cellar behind the hill that's been hidden under the sod for who knows how long.

And you've never seen someone

go complete radio dead in the brain while weeping as hard as possible.

Like mouth open, eyes.

You're a sorcerer.

Miracle?

Just an old drunk.

And you see, she goes, Well, I love the soul drunk.

And being hug around the voice, she says, Thank you for telling me discreetly.

This will be shared and shared equally, but we

so many of the people here are new faces, and we trust that they are good of heart.

We trust that they are good of heart, all of them.

And you see that she puts her head down and

struggling with the meaning of those words, she walks back out to the center of the town, closing the door behind her, and rushes off to.

And you see a couple of young, strong people coming back here to set up and start to inventory what they have to share.

Gonna nod and watch that for a minute.

Bite off a little piece of meat

and begin to walk towards where they went ahead and took Phydra.

Incredible.

We

are going to

move through time as you have skirted death.

Congratulations, heroes of the Divergence.

You have made it to

somehow.

And we will say here, normally it takes multiple long rests to stave off exhaustion, but I think here in the beginnings of the divergence, we will awaken the next morning with your exhaustion gone, the food and drink that you have,

and sort of awakening that next

day,

Phaedra, you come to

against all odds alive.

And I think, Nia, it's the next day.

Still rain clouds overhead,

but the rain is very light

as it's coming down now.

But it's constant enough as it's coming down that the skies, maybe somewhere it goes from a black storm cloud to a little smudge of gray.

Like, God, is there something I've never seen on the other side of that?

However,

looking

throughout the room, you see that there is a very small little medicinal tankard of ale that has some medical tools in it.

Just enough alcohol to hopefully sterilize a little bit of

a little bit.

Let's not think too hard about that.

Let's not think too hard about that.

But you see Nia here as well.

And

up along one side of this new encampment, you see that there is uh a bunch of hay bales with ropes.

That was the rope snapping you heard was just the flood snap, literally snapping a cable as like hay bales pushed through it.

Uh, really quick, I'm so sorry.

Am I still holding Nia's bag that she gave me?

I probably or no, you took it.

On my, I probably, in changing you and getting that, but I like, once I got the, um,

bread and tea to you, I probably took it on my way to go knock out wherever she knocked out.

Then never mind.

I'm not stealing your name.

Good night.

Then, yeah.

That would have been a more interesting story.

Sorry, Fred.

It was an unexpected night.

This is the very next day, though.

This is the very next day.

As you awaken and the day stretches on, you start to get active again, you can

see unfolding around you

where the chaos meets the community, where the chaos meets the kindness.

It stinks here in this community.

There's a lot of waste everywhere.

There are a lot of sick people.

The next day, you awake and look at this room where every sick person has been packed into a hot, smoky room together

with almost no ventilation.

There are some tents and other things around, and you can see this next morning

there is

a sort of porch on a thatched roof little shanty building that both Nez and Klassara are speaking with an older bugbear.

Who you see that bug bear has what looks like injuries sustained from public punishment under the rule of the Strife Emperor, but looks to be like a peasant leader of essentially a lot of bug bears and hobgoblins and goblins that have fled here and whatever the chaos.

I mean, you remember seeing just whole plains of ash wiped out in the floods before and whoever could make it here has made it here.

But you see that's the group that sort of seems to be talking about what is to be done.

And Nez and Klassara both wave over at you, Arrow, that next morning with an open invitation to come speak with them.

Other than that, it looks like there's some loose people trying to fix the flood wall.

And there's this thing called the Larksbrook, which is this little river that is just enormous and engorged.

It's broken its banks off towards an edge of the community.

But you guys tell me what you do the next day here in this new

kind of freedom and uncertain safety.

I think after Eros woke up

and removed himself from Crocus,

has been just pacing near the doorway, waiting to see if Phaedra wakes up and is waiting just outside.

It's just that's his only care.

Phydra gets up sort of with a start and immediately thinks

Crocus.

I get out,

jump off that little shelf trying to find stability back on my legs and it's been a rough past few days so I stumble a little bit

and then I immediately make a beeline for the door to try and find Crocus.

But before I do, stop in my tracks, look back at that little mug that has all the medical instruments in it.

Yeah.

Is there anything in there that I could potentially use as a weapon?

Like a

little knife or something?

Give me a, yeah, give me a little sleight of hand check.

A little sleight of hand?

Nat 20 plus 5.

These guys are not working with the finest surgical implements.

So on a Nat 20, you pull out a full working dagger.

Bad for surgery, but great for what you need it for.

Yeah.

Yeah, sorry, just check that out.

Mine.

But I'll say on a Nat 20 as well, you pull out, it's actually a stiletto, which is why it's being used here.

So it's this long, thin blade.

And I'll say that as part of its design, you can add a plus 1d4 to attack rolls against heavily armored opponents.

It's like

finding

the little neck joint in the armor there.

Okay.

Plus four?

Plus one d4.

1d4.

Plus 1d4 to attack rolls there.

So, Phaedra, you were down, but not out.

Next morning, back up, stealing already.

For so fucking bad.

For so fucking bad.

And you walk out the door and see Crocus.

I say, oh my god.

And Crocus immediately drops to all fours and like puts himself lower than Phaedra.

That's because he's, that's just his his normal dad.

I say, oh, my boy,

how are you?

Fine.

You're good?

I knew you'd be good.

I'm fine, are you?

I'm fine.

It's gonna take

a little more than rain to get me my.

I mean, it was more than rain.

True, but you

did real good out there, you know, not just with me, but with taking care of those kids.

And

I

did a lot of thinking, or at least I tried to, you know.

And just...

There's just so much about your heart that changes the second that you have a bodyguard.

And

just, I'm so proud of you, my bodyguard.

And maybe one of these days you'll have bodyguards of your own to be just as proud of.

I am.

What?

I'll just pull you into a big hug.

You kind of, you just

lets Phydra hug him around the neck, and then he stands up with her hugging him and kind of just like puts his hand underneath so that she's standing, but he stands up again and is holding her and is just kind of looking around now.

As you look around,

you see

rushing up out of the crowd towards both of you, Crocus, you unmistakable here with like a little bit of dim light.

So it goes from the total chaos of like a rainstorm in pitched night to light rain during smudgy dark gray so everyone's sort of like in those partially concealed foggy half shadows during like a daytime thunderstorm.

You look and see two shapes, massive shape stumbling through the mud and hear boss as this shape starts moving and you see another guy running as rain touches a sizzling head of Tavin going fuck fuck fuck fuck just rushing through

And they get through.

Otto just scoops you both in an enormous hug.

Taveen is there as well.

He goes, boss, oh my god.

Oh my god, my boys.

What the fuck happened?

What the fuck happened with you?

Where did you go?

What happened

when everything exploded?

Everything exploded.

Yeah!

Well, here's the thing.

You were making the special dinner, and then some guys came and said, if any of you are hiding hands in the soup, and then we said, we we got to go get that hand and we both fell you know those giant crucibles yeah everything collapsed and the crucible smashed out of there but we were fine because it's basically a giant helmet so we were under there for a while and we were trapped in there and it rolled for a long time and we as both of us and kef and we were kind of

You know, if you were like inside a ball, you could run?

I'm trying to think how to paint a picture with words.

You're doing a wonderful job.

I can see it.

I can feel it.

I can smell it.

We got badly hurt, but we got out of there.

And

I think the reason, I think hiding in the pot is the only reason we're still alive.

Yeah.

I mean, hey, that's what us roaches do, right?

We survive.

We survive.

We make it out.

Make it out.

What happened to Kef?

You said Kef was with you?

They both turned to look at each other.

Well.

Yeah.

A couple days ago, we were traveling on the roads out,

trying to get back to Harbor as best we could.

Kef sort of we met up with some friends of Kef

from early.

I think he might be like 200 years old.

I don't know.

We ran into some friends of his, and they were kind of

going a different speed from us, I'd say.

Yeah, he's kind of fallen in with a band,

a band of,

I don't know, he took a bite out of a guy's face in front of a bonfire, and people were talking about how the gods are dead, and we're the new gods.

He got naked and he walked into the fire and started burning and laughing.

We left.

Yeah.

We simply left.

Wow.

It was a different, you know, to me, he's like, I consider myself a dangerous, violent man, and I'm proud of the crimes I do.

And I wished for no part of what I saw.

Yeah.

No, that, that, Keff,

that tracks.

100%.

Not.

So he's still out there somewhere.

He's.

Don't say that.

Yeah.

No, as much as I, you know, as much as I did not like having him around a whole lot, I'm now realizing that the alternative is much scarier.

Don't say that.

I'll never forget that he exists and that he's out there somewhere.

And I point at Malarath

to our two command.

That guy.

We gotta keep an eye on him.

That guy?

What's his deal?

He sold out a bunch of dragonborn.

Oh, yeah.

Shady guy.

Does he have any belongings on him?

No, he was a prisoner.

Yeah, okay.

But just

because I told Vedra, I'm telling you.

We have to keep an eye.

Yeah, keep an eye in general.

I mean,

as you point at Marlath,

Marlath actually is going to walk up to you.

Cross will stand all the way up, so he's six foot six.

You see, Marlath walks up and goes.

Hello.

I'm very sorry to to interrupt your

no, of course not.

No, what's what's going on?

I'm given to understand that your

coterie

I was aware briefly of the existence of the roaches

and

many are was understanding of your

command of the kitchens of Raibad Kur.

A word had reached me that you

lived

rather a higher lifestyle than many of the prisoners of Raibad Cole due to your

life.

I would love to speak with you if I could.

Oh, well,

I'm not, you know, I just almost died.

But you are not super in a speaking mood.

But you are a woman of resourcefulness and skill.

I can be.

Who's asking?

For what?

Thank you.

He looks and says,

this is chaos.

I agree.

And

therefore

represents a tremendous opportunity.

If

there is word going around the camp, some believe that the Strife Emperor was victorious in battle, others are saying that he was destroyed.

But regardless of the truth of the matter, a new order is soon to impose itself here on this town.

And I cannot help but notice that two plump, matronly, uh, older women are sort of scuttling around and uh

engaging in various acts of charity, and that seems to be the entire organizational structure of events here in Torm's Hill.

Yes, very astute observation.

Thank you for bringing this to my attention.

Why?

I'm a man of letters and had some position prior to my incarceration

amongst the administration of the Strife Emperor and his Empire.

There are people here who

things

within the camp are being shared and relied upon, and it's chaos, and of course, this is happening because it's life or death, and there are floods and things of that nature.

But things will revert here.

It will not always be a state of emergency.

And when the dust settles,

I would love to work with you, because I believe we may be able to create structures that the people here rely on

together.

You make a very convincing argument.

But, um,

there's a bit of an initiation process that you're gonna have to go through.

Maybe we can discuss it at a later time.

But until then,

thank you for your advice.

Um, he's gonna try to make an insight check to see if your words feel genuine to him.

Okay.

Uh, If you would like to make either persuasion or deception,

go for it.

You're trying to beat a 15.

Dirty 20.

What would you like Marlath to believe?

He believes that

I am being genuine about that's very interesting information.

Thank you for letting me know.

And he believes that, oh, you know what?

Phaedra is genuinely gonna

he thinks that Phaedra is recognizing his value

and is thinking maybe this is actually a good alliance to make.

I think this is smart.

Lovely.

That is

he looks at the stiletto at your side, and you see he smiles and says, quickly armed.

I need to find some parchment, ink, and quill, so that I may be likewise armed.

Uh, and he's

uh killed that fucking guy.

If you put him down,

he was dousing me through the milk carton.

You say anything, and I'm whatever.

I am

um for the rest of the job.

Fuck that fucking guy.

I'm affecting Celia's ability to be in character at the table.

Kill the lawyers.

For the rest of you, that next day, and we can be fungible also with time here.

If you feel like your actions would occur not over the next day, but over the next week or however long, that's also fine.

Well, day one, I know you said that the matriarchs of this settlement signaled me, but let's say before we get to that,

Arrow would have, I think, that we hunkered down and passed out under cover of rain, but still outdoors.

And I think Arrow, who his first up always

did not sense you leave, and just sort of comes awake in his little bit of cover outside, watching the day already started and people moving about.

And he wants to find everybody that first moment.

But most of all, he wants to find Nia.

So he spends the next 20 minutes asking around at the settlement if they've seen her, anyone that looks like her, until I wind my way to her.

Give me a investigation or pervation or perception and do it with advantage as you've been to Torms Hill before and kind of know your way around.

Fuck these ones.

That's a dirty 20.

Oh, yeah.

The other one wasn't one.

Asking around for Nia,

someone explains, like, oh, Nia's already working with Klassara, taking care of the injured and sick.

But so you're directed to her very quickly.

As you are, though, a woman behind you speaks and goes,

I'm so sorry.

Are you mentioning a Nia?

Is that short for Rainia?

It is.

Turning around,

absolutely soaked in a, like, there's like a traveler's disguise cloak, but underneath it, you see a shimmer of actual like white, well-made well-made fabric, a kind of fabric that is not common to see.

And you see that there is a beautiful tiefling woman, sort of like swooping horns that come up, white robes underneath this traveler's cloak that are sort of like frayed and destroyed at the bottom, but near the top, lovely stitching and embroidery in the

sort of vest and cowl of the robe.

And you see openly on her chest, and as stunned as you are by this amount of people, here's another stunning moment for you.

She openly wears a symbol of the Moon Weaver on a holy symbol around her neck.

And you said horned tiefling?

A horned tiefling?

Yes.

You see that she appears to be a tiefling, and

either she kind of looks like she could be a priestess or a cleric, but seeing open clerics of the prime deities, maybe that's going on in Vaselheim.

But out here in the south of Guasar, near the domain of the Strife Emperor, that is crazy to behold.

And she looks at you and says,

Irania?

Aye.

Greetings.

I am Luce.

I am

helping tend.

I'm

a friend of Classara and

Nez.

And I was a friend for a time of Liana, of her sister.

For a time.

She has departed from Torms Hill, but I was to remain in the house.

She has a split-second heart attack at the word departed.

Yeah.

Before the sentence is completed.

She waited here for many months,

but

waited for many months here for her sister, but

believed

she received a vision.

And she departed for, um, to the northwest of here and points towards the mountain that occupied your dreams the night before.

And parted for

the Snowgrave Pass.

And you know that pass, and you know it very well.

Are you free at the moment?

Yes, yes.

I've been tending to the ministrations of those here.

Praise the Moon Weaver.

And just has a moment of crying as she just says the name of her goddess out loud in public.

Come with me.

Yes.

And as we field the crowd, I'm not going to recount it because everyone here lived it, but I

tell her the story of our exodus from the ruins of that prison place to arrive here while searching.

She

moves with you.

And

as she does,

she says, all right.

My God.

They're doing it.

I feel so sorry.

As in the events you've recounted, she says, that poor...

That poor old man

in his dying, that that

the last execution at Raiabad Cole, a priest of the changebringer.

Who had the last laugh then?

I just wish that he had stayed alive to see it.

Oh,

all right.

A miracle that you are here and a blessing.

Um,

strange things are afoot.

Great danger avails this place.

Change is coming.

Change is coming.

And she moves with you towards Torm's Hill.

Okay.

So I think the last time...

I think I lost track of her entirely, so it's just based off of.

Someone

pointed me in the right direction already.

Yes, towards the.

So there's the Matriarch speaking on the porch, and then you also see

where Nia is working at Torm's Hill, at the actual sort of dwarven stronghome under the hill.

Okay, so

with this tiefling in tow,

roll up on your spot.

Nia is

being as helpful as she possibly can.

Her locks are tied back.

She has

been waiting for a moment of stillness so that she could look for her sister.

There has not been said moment.

So she's just bandaging what she can, setting things, just trying to do her.

She's sweating and

like frantic, but there is a routine that she is falling into that is providing some comfort.

She's remaining helpful.

She's remaining useful.

And yeah, cloak, bag, bundled up together somewhere safe, but she is working and working and working and working.

She has not, she woke up and has not

sat down since she has been awake.

Go ahead and give me a medicine check with advantage if you'd be so kind.

Medicine

16.

On a 16 medicine check,

you see

that

on a 16 medicine check,

you are currently treating

this

beautiful woman.

You realize that she has

dark, deep skin, almost like the water at the bottom of the ocean.

And you can sense almost a noise.

She appears to be a water janazi,

shaved head,

but is very, very ill in this moment, just from exhaustion.

It's just like collapse, like sort of like nervous system collapse in body.

And on a 16, her eyes flutter open, and they look like these deep sapphire blue eyes without pupil or iris to them.

And you see that she looks up and just goes,

Hey, there you are.

Welcome back.

Hi, I'm Rainia.

Rainia.

I don't believe in an afterlife, so if these are the halls of paradise, I owe you an apology.

Uh, Nia laughs.

Uh, uh, and she says,

not paradise yet, but

if you knew me well,

this is paradise compared to where I once was.

How do you feel?

Absolutely awful.

But

better.

I'll take better.

Uh, she lets...

Oh, actually,

what can I call you?

Undetra.

Undetra.

Pleasure to meet you, Undetra.

And continues to bandage and war try to warm her freshly conscious body.

Go ahead and give me an insight check as you do so.

Oh, good.

Eight.

Eight, cool.

You see that she looks up and just goes.

As you tend to her, there's like most of what you're doing here is like treating a couple of like actual flesh injuries in her legs.

Like she, you see that she did not come through that road, she walked through briars to get here.

Her legs are torn apart.

Uh, and uh, as you're treating those injuries, and also just like basically taking some of that tea and helping her breathe, like so that because the smoke you can tell is really affecting her, but she's got to be near warmth in this room.

So, you're like letting her like have like a wet rag near the fire, bringing it over so she can breathe something humid that has like herbs in it.

That's like a poultice that's coming through.

through she looks over and says

this is

this is saving my life do you get that a lot is that special for you when you save someone's life

every time is special but it it feels

funny to feel the special things feel common but Again, if you knew me well,

yeah, it's kind of what I do.

It's a contradiction.

If something is common, it can't be special.

So you've contradicted yourself.

You don't make any sense.

No, no, no, I don't.

None of this makes sense.

I think to make sense in a place like this, you would have to be a real particular kind of crazy.

Not my kind.

Arrow enters this place with loose behind him.

I don't think she sees me coming.

I think

I see you at work in the middle of this conversation.

Yeah.

And come up behind you, and you hear a familiar voice say,

So, yeah, I mean, contradicting is kind of my thing.

I mean, one day it works, one day it doesn't.

And she's just rambling, rambling, flustered.

You said shaved head, dark skin.

Yes.

Flustered.

Flustered.

He is flustered.

He is absolutely flustered.

She's just trying to like tend and be normal.

But yeah, contradictions are actually a funny thing because, you know, when you're a healer, it's sort of common for you to be saving lives, but every life is so precious and so special.

So, I mean, you, of course, I mean, you're.

And so, yeah,

it's sort of a thing.

You a little flustered?

Yes.

Got it.

I'm a little flustered, too.

I just have a funny way of showing it.

I mean,

so.

And.

I think we're all a little flustered these days.

Whitpan.

Arrow, you're okay.

Gets up, scrambles, and then sees Luce and,

oh my god, god and goes to hug Luce weeping

but cry laughing

and just

out of that one place into this other very precious place.

Luce, hi, hello.

She gives you this huge embrace holding you to her.

How strongly I wish that I could tell your Liana, where is she?

Liana received a vision.

Is she here?

Or where?

She received a vision of your parents.

Your parents were here

more than a year ago.

They journeyed

from here to where I cannot say.

I was on a scouting expedition when they left, and the exact manner of their departure was unclear to me, but Liana received a vision and believed that they headed in the direction of Snowvale Pass.

Okay.

It is wonderful to see you.

She was well, she was whole, she was healthy, and she left fed and armed.

Okay, there's every reason to believe that she knew what she was doing.

How are you?

Are you well?

As well as one can be at a time like this.

I'm moving with a part-

Arrow, have you told Luce that

what how are you?

My goodness.

Hi, good morning.

Hello.

Uh, here, and she clears out a place for Arrow to sit.

Where I, after taking care of Phydra, I

passed out here.

I

met Klasara.

Klassara.

Klassara, and we've been working to patch up what and who we can.

I'm still...

I'm still getting my bearings.

Yeah, she gleaned that.

That's why she's trying to get you seated and immediately is going to like pay attention to the conversation, but is checking him, seeing how he's doing, giving a little cursory scan of her friend.

I told you I'd get you to Torum's Hill.

Thank you.

And you've seen him, you see something that you have not seen before.

You've seen him smirk.

You've never seen him smile.

I'm just sorry that

took such a roundabout way of getting here.

It's okay.

It's okay.

We got here.

We got here and we got here whole.

We got here well.

And she goes to grab Luce's hand.

I told you change was coming.

Undeniable.

She

just is reeling after all the information that she's gotten.

Her sister is well.

She goes to make sure that her locket is still in her bag.

It's still there.

It's still there.

Yes.

Wonderful.

yeah, Nia is

untying her hair, getting ready to you said uh Snowgrave Pass is where she may be.

Yes, we must move

um

even familiar.

Okay,

Snowgrave

Do

how far is it days?

Is it can we get there quickly?

Can I make it there and back?

Days.

No, it's days.

Okay, um properly outfitted, yeah.

Okay.

Have you seen the Roach gang or Garn this morning?

Um

have I seen Garren this morning?

No, I think you've probably been unless Garin thinks you have.

I don't think so.

Then I think the okay, let's find Garren and everyone.

And uh Luce uh holds her hand.

Um

how can I be helpful to you?

Uh uh do you want to come with us?

Um are

for right now, I think that my place is here

in Torms Hill.

There's much to be done here.

You hear a commotion outside as a faint cheer goes up

and you hear

a wagon trundling sort of into the into the camp.

And it's just a half-hearted

cheer.

And as it does so, you see Lou says,

It is, I believe, my task to remain here.

The Moonweaver's blessings are required for

the people gathered in here.

And it is

due to the Moonweaver's workings that these people have.

Take the moon.

As you say that, you see below, On Detra

leveled, says

if you're going to converse could you do so outside

uh and looks up i see

looks up at lose specifically with a look of um

utter scorn and distaste

um

nia sees that or sees that um

hides her offense and her confusion.

Nia is

She is so sweet, sweet baby.

Is really confused and off-put by

the energy that she's giving is, I've done this for you and you spit at my friends.

Very well.

Very well.

Takes loose and does not leave,

but moves to a corner, hopefully out of earshot of this once hot, now

mean.

Still hot, but mean.

You were hot, and then you became mean.

Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.

We've all been there.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So, um,

uh,

sure.

Um,

she says once more, a little louder, a little bit more confidently, thank the moon to see you.

Um, Andetra takes it as given and uh averts her eyes down and goes somewhere in her head.

Okay.

I let her.

Luz looks at you and says, I will remain here, attending to the people in this place.

Gently sort of

passes her hand over the emblem on her chest.

And

yeah, she is Klisara somewhere in here?

Yeah, Klisara's great.

Klisara.

If I could take a break for a moment.

She says, oh, yes, all right.

Go feed yourself.

Go eat.

Get get water.

I'll be back soon.

Yes, I haven't seen her yet, though, so I'm going to trundle over and take a knee.

Oh, Arrow!

Oh,

are you faring all right?

I can't believe you're here.

I'm faring all right.

The

digs are looking a little different.

Well, you know,

it's gotten very

in demand in a way that I

could never have anticipated.

Sustainable.

No.

No.

Not without

some more miracles.

But they seem to be going around.

Sort of the

Nia being very nosy in this conversation.

It's sort of the miracle hub of this space, so.

Yes.

But outside, you actually hear shouting, and you hear Nez shouting, you lunatics, what's the matter with you and you hear like no sorry mom we just did it we always thought it was the right thing to do so we done it

and

outside what has Garin been up to this morning so Garin fell into the deepest sleep he's had in a long time that lasted about four hours before he shot up

in in the the corner somewhere where he had kind of just slightly drunkenly passed out and goes

the river, right?

And immediately like charges out and goes off to where that river swell was threatening to continue to flood and take out some of the elements and looks to see whoever's trying to be in charge of the damning efforts or the redirection efforts of this.

Who did he see when he was

you look at

probably so

you see as you go out there Nez and also this older bug bear that has some evidence on his body of public discipline.

Goes over, he's got these long arms that go down past his knees.

There's a lot of, like, he can rest, he can like crouch down and put an elbow to the ground and still rest his chin on his hand.

He looks over.

As you begin to walk over, he looks and says, Well, I don't know how to manage to get anything over the if they're also on the other side of the water there.

I don't know how we'll.

As you approach him,

Nez looks over and says, This, I didn't get your your name last night, my friend.

Garn.

Garin.

Saint Garn, the miracle worker.

Garn, finder of ale and salt beef.

You see

the older bugbear that looks over you and says, Boray.

Boray kind of like clasps, and it is like one thick, meaty hand on a stretched forearm kind of wrapped around it almost.

You get his wrist, and he gets your forearm.

A pleasure, friend.

The meat is going to.

We should.

That's an incredible.

Never mind the meat.

This river is swelling.

It's floating, right?

Yes.

All right.

Glancing around, are there any

as might have been common with some of the hill dwarves there?

Are there any like decorative outer like waist or shoulder high walls that may have fallen or weathered with time?

You look out and see buried under like moss and foliage an old farmer's wall, like big thick slabs of stone, moss covered off in a corner for like a long since defunct pasture.

Okay.

As he's kind of like looking out past that, still holding on to the bugbear forearm,

kind of thinks of all the years that his skills have put towards the subjugation of others and a

bit of inspiration hits to finally turn his craft towards its original intent and looks back into the eyes of this new friend and ally goes,

all right,

I'm gonna build a new wall.

Get you men, I'm gonna teach you a little bit about masonry.

You see, he turns around and says,

All right, lads, let's look lively.

Um, and Garin, just taking a stride.

Um, I think as you guys exit out, um, you look and see, Garin, as you step to start grabbing those stones,

you see a carriage pulls in with three

young halflings.

All of them look

absolutely

devastated.

They're skeletal thin.

All of them also have visible brands on their face.

You can tell from some of the cities of the Strife Emperor, because the Strife Emperor still wishes to conduct business and trade and all other things like that.

All of them have a T on one cheek,

which is for thief.

And they have another brand scored into their skin,

HD for habitual drunkard.

And they have a wagon being pulled by some oxen.

You can see that they have like two pulling the wagon, and there's a couple more clearly rustled or stolen.

And there's a big wagon up front.

You see Nez is shouting at them, you lunatics!

And there appear to be

what looks like recovered lumber.

And you see that in the back, there are like tin pails.

There look to be like some loose tools, like little sort of spades and shovels and things like that.

But you can tell they've got it from somewhere.

And looking at it, it all looks like the kind of stuff.

This sort of like abundance would be from a work site of the Strife Emperor.

So it looks like they've gone out and done something potentially really stupid.

But they've got buckets of tools.

They've got some rotting, some partially rotted and some more okay lumber

as Bulray stands side by side with you.

And so I'd say probably when you've come upon them, he's probably begun to, or partially through an instruction to likely Bulray

about like, see, the stones are heavy.

It's not about lifting them.

It's about leverage.

It's about using...

It's just kind of going through like baseline instructions of

large scum

uh hell yeah garn you come in as you do this you see these three halfling lads sort of jump off the back of the wagon um and uh as they they come up with these big things of tools bullray gets a lot of his like goblin and hobgoblin sort of peasantry to start grabbing these tools.

One of these kids, who you can see has a permanent, from where he was branded, it got too close to his eye.

And you can see that's a little bit warped on an eyelid.

It's kind kind of leaking some tears.

But you can see, and it has sort of a permanent blood spot on the white of his eye down in the corner.

But you see, he looks, all three of them look a little bit, there's like a twinge of madness in their eyes and a little bit of risk-taking.

And he comes off and he's like, Roy De,

get it off the back of the car.

And he comes over, and you see Nez says, Bowdle's, addressing them as a group.

Make sure, don't give the tools to Bulray, and he'll distribute them.

Don't just give them to your friends.

And you see,

all of a sudden, there are tools, there's some oxen here in places, and you see some of these bigger stones.

That wall ends in some other

sort of like larger

plinths or like hitching post stones that you can tell go deep enough into the ground that they might be like, you know, eight to ten feet in length if pulled up out of the ground.

What is Garn start instructing people to do?

I think he's going to go ahead and start looking at the angle of the river and where it's swelled beyond the banks and the direction where it's threatening to kind of overtake the hill and into where a number of these

communities have set up temporarily to start relocating the stones to offset where that is, densely pack them deep into the muck and try to basically

be a barricade, a full-on dam that'll carry the river beyond the point of danger and further into the valley where it's supposed to go.

You have the most help action a person could have as these halflings and hobgoblins and bull ray starts to direct his community.

And he's like, all right, he's like, Browdley, go get the oxen.

He says, you see, he says, just worked all night.

Why can't they have a little time off?

And he's like,

we're all in it together.

The oxen are in it with us.

And

so they start hauling stones.

Go ahead and give me a Mason's tools check with advantage.

Oh, this helps stacks.

This helps stacks.

There you go.

Call it DC 10 for something.

DC 15 gets you the best result you're looking for here.

That's going to be a 20.

Dirty 20.

I will say this.

Over the course of that day, Garnet, you are striding around.

hearty claps on the back from Bulray

you see that these three halflings look really industrious and they want to help but you can tell these three halflings have never known an honest day's work in their life

their their task is better suited to going and getting the goods by means unclear to you

and as they are passing tools and things off to people and Bulray is there.

I think you are busy with that bridge there.

You see that Marlath comes and gets on the the wagon as the Bowdleys are passing stuff off.

And you see that he has sort of covered this as the rain kind of fades

and instead sort of a mist comes up.

Right as the Bowdleys are starting to pass stuff off, Marlath says, Name, what's your name?

All right, two hammers to you, and just begins to keep track of what's being passed out to people.

Bureaucracy is born anew.

And starts to take a ledger of names and who got what and who went to whom.

And

the Bowdleys sort of look over.

And

you can see Marlath sort of speaking candidly with the Bowdley brothers as he sort of marks down what's going where.

Garin, on that 20, a wall comes up overnight.

What was hay bales and rope becomes replaced with solid stone mortared with earth.

And I think that you see as these stones go over, you actually look and see out there in the river, there is in the middle of it a standing stone that's about like maybe 10 feet out and splits the difference.

You think you could probably get two of these stones anchored on that rock out in the middle and get a bridge out to the rest of the forest.

On that dirty 20,

the wall goes up and a passage out to the forest.

And I think Arrow and Nia with your wanderer ability, that's the forest that has like game, it's higher up in altitude,

there's probably food out there, there's ability to like trap and hunt and things like that.

I think as this is going on too, like there's moments where people are

either losing focus or you know misaligning things out of a lack of knowledge and Garn steps up and begins

giving shouts and

overarching instruction to how to fix, correct these things, and work it properly.

And as happens time to time, his brain kind of wanders to memories of giving these same instructions as they were

carving out the deeper hillsides and mountain abodes of Uthor.

Uthor and he

kind of catches himself and steps back a bit bit and

kind of withdraws from a position of authority that he began to step into out of instinct and instead turns back to Bulray and puts the remainder of his effort teaching Bulray and lifting him up as leader as opposed to being that.

But still takes pride in this endeavor.

As you show the working of the stone,

how to build a foundation, where the pressure, what the relationship of the weight is to the rest of the structure, how to

be

the person that knows how to do this intuitively and deeply.

You see, after

there's this moment later on in the day when the first stone, because getting the first stone out there is easier.

You just get it up, leverage it, you have ropes, it goes nice and solid.

It's getting that second stone across that larger standing stone to make a little footbridge over the raging water.

And you see as that goes, it's tipping.

People are getting it into position.

Ropes, it's a little bit more precarious and boom, falls exactly where you said it was going to.

A cheer, and this one not ragged.

This one just

as it goes up.

And you can see as that cheer goes up, there's a moment and a pause.

And from deeper in the woods, ah,

as another cheer of this lost party goes up, and everyone starts to freak out, going, Ah!

So you see that one guy who's way too exhausted and injured to be yelling this hard just sort of faints and gets lifted back up.

Oh, get him back to the

infirmary.

Like,

he cheered too hard, he passed out.

Like,

you, uh, and you see this bedraggled, coughing, exhausted search party comes back with barrels and barrels of like herbs and like medicinal greens from the woods up ahead, and just baskets and baskets of berries from further up on the hillside,

comes in, and what would have been a raging torrent finds a bridge waiting for them.

And as Bulray looks,

he goes,

You've

changed the world.

This didn't used to be here, and now it is.

That's something like a miracle.

Miracles don't come from one person.

We did this.

You did this.

And it's just the beginning.

You see, he smiles and looks out and goes,

you know, you're talking about the weight of the stones.

Wrong

time ago.

I remember

I was

a woman in my village before I was taken from my family and sent to work here in the ashfields by the Strife Emperor's soldiers.

And the rulings and edicts of the Emperor.

The gauntlet raised on high.

Our ruler, our sovereign.

When I was young, I believed in him because

it's what we were allowed to believe in.

Gotta believe in something.

This girl who came through our village, beautiful,

long ears,

nut brown fur shining like starlight.

So I've heard starlight shines.

And she

said,

this because I referred to

the Strife Emperor as our leader.

And she corrected me.

She said, our ruler.

And I said, what's the difference?

And she said, a ruler goes on top.

And he points to the stones.

And a leader goes underneath.

gets under something

a town a family a cause

a person who leads finds a way

to hold the weight that others cannot hold

to be sturdy and strong

I never knew

what she

really meant it seemed so impossible to matter like that.

But I do know one thing.

She carried a hammer.

Uh

you all hear a scream

from

uh elsewhere in the village.

Uh

a terrible scream.

As you turn

And having arrived walking through the chaos of the encampment unseen, in the fog, enshrouded in darkness,

armored in full

black cast iron plate, removing a cloak, armed to the teeth,

is a captain of the Strife Emperor's Guard, with six fully armored soldiers behind him, who calls out,

This gathering

is at its end.

All of you will kneel to the Strife Emperor's will,

or you will be executed on the spot.

Return at once to your lands and service to your Emperor!

You see the six soldiers, Kum, Kum, Kum,

slam their swords on their shield.

As

several lie dead at their feet, cut down already.

That's where we'll take our break.

Greetings, Adventurer.

This is Liam O'Brien.

If you'd like to support the show, consider checking out our Sweet, Sweet Xandria Unlimited merch in the Critical Roll shops.

Links to all of our regional online stores can be found at critroll.com.

Hello, and welcome as we return to our tale here in Torms Hill,

where things are getting a little bit tense.

Spicy.

Spicy, I would say.

Spicy.

Our

heroes, where are you

standing as this group of Strife Emperor soldiers emerges sort of in the center of the most structures?

Where you met Nez last night with the lantern up, that's where you are right now.

There's like

a little makeshift paddock for some livestock over here.

There's a couple little buildings.

The new bridge is over that way.

Torm's Hill, the actual structure, is like farther past you to the left over here.

They're kind of in the center of all the new people here.

And you can see that there are three bodies on the ground around them that they have just cut down in this moment.

As they turn, the captain in the center calls out,

I see a wagon and oxen belonging to the Strife Emperor and his servants.

Where are the thieves that absconded with this?

What are you all doing here?

Are there any in this rabble that have an answer for your lord and sovereign?

You see, do any of you speak?

I'm still holding Phaedra up so she's eye-level level with everyone else so i'm just waiting um so it's six soldiers and their one captain captain so there's seven of them you arrow as you look around there are twelve hundred people in this camp there's about 40 some odd right in this area around

the the soldiers uh but you can see people are hearing shouting elsewhere but it's a busy camp like look past a certain edge of camp people might not even know that there's something happening right here right like um.

How ringed in are they with the crowd?

The people

pulled back.

With the people that they just killed, everyone has, like, moved about 20 feet away from them.

And everyone, and what you see is you're looking at the tired, the bedraggled, the sick, the exhausted.

These people just, the strongest people here just spent all day building a fucking bridge with their hands.

There's exhaustion and panic, and you see these soldiers there.

Give me an insight to check.

Call it DC-12.

I know what I want to do.

Uh, yeah, that's good.

That's 22.

Um,

everyone around you is terrified.

All of that joy, all of that laughter

was so loud and exuberant and urgent because everyone knew it was too good to be true.

And now the soldiers are back and it's all about to be taken away again.

That's what you would get on a 12.

On a 22,

these soldiers haven't eaten in three days.

Knowing that things are on a knife's edge and can go in either direction and people need something to believe in, Arrow is going to quietly walk up from the side, hopefully slightly back at an angle,

plant a hand on one of the soldiers' shoulders, turn.

Hell yeah, roll initiative.

I fucking love it.

I fucking love it.

All right.

Let's go.

That's a nat 20.

Nat 20.

Do you add anything to that?

That's awesome.

Oh, I add my constituent.

Or your dexterity.

Dexter.

No, that's it.

Okay.

Dirty 20 or Nat 20.

What do we got here, Matt?

18.

18 for Garn.

What do we have here?

18.

18 for Crocus.

These are some good initiative roles.

19.

19.

Oh, we were so ready.

I fucking love it.

Air, what do we got?

Oh, 10.

10.

Okay, so the way we are going to do this is give me a stealth check.

And I'll tell you the number you're trying to beat here as you get up.

You're trying to beat...

That's a 10.

I think you're only trying to beat a...

You're trying to beat a 10 on a stealth check.

16.

16.

So, you got the surprise round.

So you're just like doing the natural ranger thing, which is you don't sneak like this.

You just move as soft as you can.

Pad foot.

Pad foot.

I'm going to bring the map out.

It's the only thing that had a map.

Me neither.

Here.

Like, this is the first time I get to have a map.

I'm excited.

I'm so excited.

The fire freezes in midair, and then we cut to the captain, going, You're probably wondering how I got here.

Yep, that's me.

Oh, shit.

Oh,

wait.

Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.

Hell yes.

Now, I have to ask where all of you are with your babies.

Garin, my boy.

Here we go.

Raineo.

Oh, my gosh.

Miniature.

Crocus chicken.

She's got heels like that, girl.

And hero.

Here we go, baby.

Oh, my gosh.

Wait, let me see you.

Wait, can I see yours?

No, we just need 20 more minutes.

Hero!

Hey!

Look at all your members.

Play with our toys.

Wow.

Play with your toys.

Do your thing.

Any questions?

I'm so deeply obsessed.

Which direction is the bridge that we have?

Where's Nia?

Where's Nia?

Bridge?

This direction over here.

Bridge over here, Torn

over here.

That's a fearful duo.

Do I have auto and Queen with me?

Yes, I believe you do have auto and Tavia.

I feel like I wouldn't.

So

we were all talking right outside of Torm's Hill, right?

Yes, you were.

You were all driving right outside of Torm's Hill.

We're going to make that auto

and we're going to find a little Tavine somewhere around here to make that Tavine.

Okay.

I've never had a mini before.

That's awesome.

So

you guys were doing your shady stuff.

Here's, this is the wagon that was brought in by the fellas.

So you might be somewhere back in this area

over here.

So there's Otto and Tavine right there.

You're over here with Phaedra.

Hell yeah.

So I'll tell you guys right now,

this is

the like

the story reality we are in matches the mechanical reality, which is this is not a fair fight.

These are soldiers.

They have powerful weapons and armor and shields and everything like that.

Everybody else here on the battlefield is a commoner.

So,

the reason you guys all started in Rybad Cole is that a group of soldiers would instantly slaughter any of you.

Not without question.

So, this moment is as tense as tense can be.

However, Arrow is going to kick things off with us.

So, we're going to move

Arrow.

So in the surprise round, we move through everybody's round.

So all of you come out of the surprised condition.

You can all act normally on your turn.

And it gets to Arrow, and you can pop all the way off, my friend.

Alright, so I think what happened was once this guy started shouting in the middle of this Newtown Square,

I just sort of turned on a dime and walked away from Nia and started just moving through the crowd so I wasn't coming directly on and then popped out by that well and just quietly walked up without any fanfare and

breath weapon is a 15 foot cone or a line I think it's most beneficial if I do the cone and get

one two three oh my god

and they have to make a deck sit so you're gonna get the captain and both soldiers right now unbelievable uh what a way to pop up okay uh what is the dc on that deck

13 big 13.

we're gonna roll for these soldiers first not the most dexterous.

They need 12s or higher.

One succeed, one fails.

The one right in front of you fails.

We're going to roll for the captain.

Captain succeeds as well, so they're going to take half damage.

You can see the one right in front of you is getting the brunt of the flame as it erupts from you.

Go ahead and roll damage.

Oh,

it's a one.

No!

10!

It's a one out of 10.

Well, they can't get half, so they all take one, right?

They all take one.

Boom, boom.

Fire moves out in all directions.

Voila!

As they raise up their shields and armor.

That is your action.

I will ask as well,

as you

spray fire everywhere, the fire erupts.

Everyone screams as one of them just walked up and breathes fire over everybody.

Is there anything you say or do in this moment?

Because you can feel that knife's edge.

You have selected violence for you and possibly everybody here.

Is there anything you say or do in this moment?

Because you can feel like a stink of a nearby predator.

You can feel confusion.

That thing that gets people killed more than anything else, as people do not know what they are supposed to do.

He shouts after spitting fire, and they rear back:

Seven overlords or twelve hundred of us

give me persuasion with advantage and I would also like you to roll with a d12 die of inspiration

The total is

oh I have no persuasion

and you're rolling that inspiration die as well.

21.

21.

Amazing.

As you shout that out,

go ahead and select five commoners nearby you who are going to be activated to act.

This strong man with a blade in his hand.

Hell yeah.

He's going to rush forward and join you.

This guy who looks like he's about to break dance.

Hell right here.

Hell yeah.

This chef.

Chef is running forward.

Yep.

One of the kids.

Okay, I see a guy with this one with the hammer in their hand as well.

Hell yeah, great.

Hello, little buddy.

Yeah, time you alert.

Oh, not the guy with the flute.

Am I out?

You have one more.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You can change their minds with the power of song.

I'm gonna say this dwarven woman with a with a farming sickle over her shoulder.

Yes, okay.

She's gonna rush out here and join you.

So as you call out,

overlords, 1200 of us, a group of people who you can see are the ones that were the most predisposed.

Like, they were basically there's five people in the crowd that had your same exact idea and you beat them to the punch and they rush.

And you even maybe like the even the dwarven woman was like, it could have gone either way, but now that it is violence, it better be us violence.

Like, if you're picking violence, got do violence hard as you can.

Um, what I'd like you to do now: you have five commoners, these are commoners, man.

They do two damage on a successful hit.

Uh, two.

Uh,

um, go ahead.

Uh, I just want you to roll five d20.

You're gonna roll five attacks for me.

Go ahead and roll the two next to you first.

Okay.

Um, they add two to hit, uh, 17, 17 is a hit, and a seven.

17, okay.

So, rushing up to the soldier right in front of you,

you see the guy with the blade who just has like, literally, he just has like a farming shovel, rushes up to a guy in full half-plate and jams a gardening implement under his helmet and scores under his fucking collarbook.

The uh, that's him.

Go ahead and give me three attack rolls for these guys rushing up to that soldier over there.

Okay, so that gets us a 17.

17 hits.

Four

and a 20.

Dirty 20.

Dirty 20.

Okay, they rush up to that soldier.

Once again, you see, one of them has a hammer they've been using to help build the bridge coming over from the bridge area over here.

Runs up, clocks the guy across the helm, and the other one just runs up and gets the, like, gets a hand in through the armor and begins to try to strangle the guard standing.

Just like, get your hands in, get your hands in.

That is your turn.

We go to the top of the initiative order.

You see, the captain comes out of the surprise uh and says kill them all um uh and that is going to be da da da that's the commoner's turn um a bunch of the other commoners are holding their initiative in shock and dismay uh nia that's you um

nia's probably is that that that uh i don't know where that the the med area would be that she was leaving from.

I'm assuming she's...

Torm's Hill is this way, so you might be over in this part of of the field.

Okay, if you could find me a place to probably hide, I don't know.

And this is Lou's right here.

Oh, wonderful.

I'm gonna tell her to hide.

Or take that Moon Weaver emblem off her just because that's probably not a good thing to have on your person right now.

And, oh gosh, she doesn't have...

I don't...

Wouldn't be smart for her because she has no weaponry to go up and and try and get into the fight.

So I think her.

Are those like two kids, two small people?

Those are halflings.

Oh, those are halflings.

Um,

I think she's gonna hold her

action.

She she doesn't have any weapons.

She's I think her instinct is to like get the more vulnerable, vulnerable people away from the fray and the worst of it.

Um, the most exhausted, the most sick, the most

unable to fight in a time like this.

She would probably be moving them away from you.

Give me a persuasion check.

Do so with advantage.

Persuasion

is a 19.

19.

Okay.

Pick

four that look the most vulnerable to you and you pull them to safety.

Um,

maybe

Luz is gonna be one of them.

Yeah, Luz definitely I'm gonna get her to safety.

She rushes to safety.

Um,

maybe

old boy with the guitar behind that tree.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Or the liar.

And

I can't tell if any of these people are like youths or elderly.

I'll say

this person with

a mug, he can probably stay.

Maybe this.

These two right in front of you.

Yeah, those two.

Great.

Yeah, those can be moved.

And then probably this gentleman on the left of her.

Great.

So you get everyone behind you.

Yeah, everyone behind me.

Everyone behind you.

Great.

That's awesome.

Are you going to hold your turn to potentially act later?

I'm going to do that and then hold the rest of my turn.

Okay, you let me know, because you're just sending your initiative down the river.

She has a Star Means letter opener.

She might go if she could.

She's gonna hold.

She's gonna hold.

She knows she has that letter opener, but she's gonna wait until probably somebody more vulnerable or weaker gets in her way.

Great.

Phydra, it's gonna be your turn.

You let me know when you want to insert your turn in the initial

hand.

Yeah, I

look at my boys and I say, you know the drill.

Stick them.

Crocus immediately puts her on the ground.

Yeah, you can't be honest.

Y'all got it.

And

yeah, if we could all just,

I guess, charge the guy who's closest to us.

Hell yeah.

Yeah.

Great.

Crocus goes literally right after you.

Oh, okay, great.

This guy is uncircled right now.

The whole Roach gang can just charge that dude right now.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Okay, you rush forward.

Boom.

Boom.

Tavine

and Otto.

Keith, at a time like this.

Incredible.

Phydra, do you want to go ahead and take your attack?

I will.

Okay, so

does this soldier have heavy armor?

Yes, I do.

Do I get my plus four?

You get your plus one d4.

Or one d4 is what I meant.

Okay.

Um, do I add my death?

You add your dex, yes, you do.

Um, and your proficiency.

And my proficiency.

So that's a 21 to hit.

21 fuck, yes.

Okay.

Uh, so you're gonna go ahead and add one d4 plus your dex modifier.

1d4 plus

dex.

Okay,

so that is good.

I don't know.

I'm not gonna use that one because I won't use evil.

Roll a d4.

D4.

I don't know what I was doing.

D20.

You know.

That's a one, but my dex is three, so I do four points of the.

Twice as much as one of these commoners here.

Phaedra, you rush.

As you see the rush happening here, I think you also see.

Give me an insight check, if you would, as I describe as you, you rush up, small than everyone here.

You're like, you were almost killed by the rain and nature, but people have been fucking with you your whole life.

You know how to take care of people, and you run up and stiletto, blood gushes.

You run up and get him right in the femoral artery, the main artery inside the leg.

Boom!

And feel, as you have many times before, a gush of blood over your forearm as one of these giants towering over you is about to be brought low.

Um, uh, what is great?

I got a nine.

You got a nine on inside.

Okay, you're gripped in battle frenzy.

You run up, stab this guy, boom.

Uh, and the rest of your crew is rushing up as well.

Um, Crocus, uh, go ahead, that's gonna be you.

So

as soon as she says,

as soon as she says,

get him, essentially, Crocus puts her down.

He looks at the guard.

The dragon eyeslets go and just become needles.

And

almost roll back in his head and the claws on his hands extend and he just

bulldozes at the guy and is going to make a claw attack.

Yeah, just do, do, do, do, do, do, do.

Big tail behind him, like down like a dinosaur running, just gonna slam into him.

So that's just this coming at you at full speed.

Can you use that as many?

That is a 16 plus 7 to hit.

Yeah, Alex, that'll do it.

Yeah, that'll do it, man.

Yeah, for sure.

For sure.

Crocus is good at it.

That we know of so far.

I think he's done well.

He's a very capable ball.

He does get excellent pig backwards.

Yes, yes.

Oh, okay.

He does

nine points of slashing damage.

Jesus.

Unbelievable.

Jasmine, could you please roll two attacks for Otto and Tavine?

They are slightly more dangerous than your average commoner.

They roll plus three to hit.

Oh, okay.

Not super great.

One got a 14 and one got an 11.

Okay, both of them miss.

So you see they rush forward, just hacking at the armor.

So only you and Crocus hit.

You slash into his leg, Crocus, one of your claws,

as you rip a pauldron off the armor and all of the skin of his shoulder comes off with it and you just

i just like i just press my the front of my forehead just against the his helm and just terrify him

as i'm holding the pauldron in my hand we hate it we absolutely hate it um i'm the the non-working breath weapon when i get into the state is just starts foaming like

snow foam out of his just dripping between his teeth and splattering on the ground.

Protest.

I love it.

Um, Garin, that is going to be your turn.

Okay.

Garin was a bit far from the whole center of this chaos.

Uh, so is going to

let's see here.

Uh, Garin's gonna go ahead and move 30 feet up to here as he's rushing up there, kind of like feeling the hammer's weight in his hand and his fingers kind of starting to dig in to prepare for what's coming, especially at the spark of violence that has

erupted here.

Kind of.

All right, I guess we're doing it this way.

And is going to go ahead and step alongside this person, individual here.

Yeah.

Is this somebody who looks capable or frightened?

I think

everyone here is both.

Fair.

And, you know, like, ultimately, these people aren't warriors,

but if they do not become warriors, they will live under the decree of warriors.

Okay.

I'm gonna move past them and say,

if I fall,

step into my place and keep going.

And I'm gonna go ahead and dash action

and just kind of get as close as I can to that freight to be one of many targets, preferably better than somebody else.

Hell yeah.

You want to get up here in between these two?

If I can get there with a movement, yeah.

Yeah, I believe you can.

Yeah, with 30 feet, I can do that, yeah.

Great.

Okay.

You rush forward.

Mia, you have sent your turn forward initiative.

The soldiers have been surprised, but they are about to act.

Give me an insight to check.

Uh,

19.

19.

Garin rushes forward.

So far, the people that have rushed forward are a few of the bravest.

It looks like here in the crowd, there were some that have known violence and conflict.

Everyone here has known cruelty and injury, but the people that have rushed are people that have hit someone before in their life.

The roaches, Arrow, Garin, people like that.

The soldiers are about to take their turn.

Not one of them has fallen.

I think that on a 19 insight,

the crowd rests on a knife's edge.

And the reality is,

there is a distinction between

the rest who are standing back and those that have charged forward.

Those that are standing back

have a hope in their heart.

The hope they have in their heart is that the world might be saved without any danger, fear, or risk on their part.

And many of them are weak, and it should not be asked of them to be brave.

If they are not asked to be brave, it is possible that they will watch the brave quickly die.

Okay.

I think Nia

is amongst people who are like-minded.

She sees her braver, stronger friends going into the fray.

She knows herself.

She is not

quick to violence.

She's very much a

word smith.

She talks and talks and talks and talks and talks.

But with that ability to speak, I think she's going to see the people behind her.

She's going to look to Luce, actually.

And she's going to,

even with this chaos in front of her, she's going to ask,

will you fight or will you flee?

You asked this of Luz?

Yeah.

Um, she looks at you going, uh-uh, uh-huh, uh-uh.

Fight.

And so, uh, uh, uh, uh um Nia, uh, she wants, she, uh, uh, raises her voice to the people among her.

Um,

if you cannot be brave,

fake it and try anyway.

Fake it and try anyway.

And yeah, Nia's gonna take uh a Starmian's letter opener and she's gonna try and like hurt somebody.

Hell yeah.

You or try to get it?

Yeah,

you rush.

If you had merely said that, you would have made a persuasion roll.

Yeah.

As you charge forward with an office tool in your hand,

you will make it with advantage.

People want to see what they are supposed to do.

Okay.

Follow me!

Um

rolling persuasion.

10 gets you somebody, and then you get more and more the higher up you go from 10.

How about 17?

17 gets you 10, 12, 14, 16.

You get four more commoners with you.

Okay.

So you're going to rush this guy right here?

Yeah.

Boom.

I see old boy with the cleaver.

Where is he?

Right here.

Cool.

Oh, but no, but behind him.

Oh, behind him.

This guy here?

No, right, the guy in front of him, yeah.

This guy, I think that's a cleaver in his hand.

Yeah, he's gonna rush up and join you right here.

That one.

Old boy with that.

Right here?

No, the first guy you grabbed.

Oh, first guy here?

Oh, first guy, this guy right here?

Oh, sorry.

This guy.

That one, and and then the guy with the hammer that you just touched.

Those three,

that's two, actually.

That one, buddy with the hammer.

Okay, that's your four.

Okay, that'll make four.

Go ahead and roll, go ahead and roll me an attack roll for knife guy.

Because knife guy.

Knife guy.

I always love knife guy.

Oh, knife guy gets, do I add anything?

Close two?

Four.

Knife guy gets a four.

Knife guy gets a four.

Oh, we got four four on the attack roll.

Knife guy misses.

Wow.

Um,

uh, go ahead.

Uh, go ahead and roll uh for the other to roll two more dice for the two.

Uh, oh, sorry.

Wait, no, you had you got four, right?

Oh, so you actually do get one more guy.

Sorry.

Oh, um, then man with jar.

Man with jar, or does Luce still have that moon weaver thing?

I feel like Luce has something within her that she's ready to unleash.

Sure, Luce.

But does she have that Moonweaver thing still on her?

The holy symbol?

Yeah, she does.

i mean

yeah sure it's an interesting story go ahead loose gods all right you're rolling 3d20 these are all attacks

i might have just fucked over my friend that's a plus two for that's an 18 and

a not 20 oh shit a 16 a 17 and a 20.

oh my all of them hit and one is double damage

um okay loose does double damage so that's that is incredible so that's gonna be eight damage and then that's your attack so go ahead and and roll your own attack

Cool

they all outperform me um the hook barely uh 20 natural 19 so that'll be a 21 to hit 21 hits?

Yeah

go ahead.

So you're gonna roll one you're rolling a 1d4 plus your dex modifier 1d4 plus my nothing dex modifier

Come on, honey.

Uh, it's a three three damage.

Yeah.

Uh, you rush up with a bunch of not you rush up with a group of four people that have never hurt anyone in their life and the soldier seeing a like priestess in gowns and like a young traveler kind of like laughs which allows someone to grab the front of his arm or pull him to a knee and all one of his you see that Luce just goes ah and just gets a finger into his eye and starts tearing just literally

as everyone realizes they will kill all of us and put us back in ribad coal

um uh rushes forward uh that is going to be the soldier's turn Sorry, Luce.

Love you, dude.

I just want to make it clear.

My, uh, forgot my character's name.

Krogus.

Krogus.

Yes.

Is trying to very much, like, in his very direct way, be, he's the thing you need to hit.

Like, he's trying to put himself in front of every, everybody, all his gang around him to be, like, the target.

He's trying to tank this guy.

Hell yeah.

Um, we will go with this

wounded soldier right in front of an arrow.

Arrow, you, you were the one who decided to make, be brave.

He's coming right for you.

Fake it or try anyway?

Fake it or try anyway.

I'm blacked out.

What is your armor?

It is 11.

Motivational token.

Pretty easy to hit.

I need that framed in my office.

Like a cat in the snow or something.

It's like

11.

Okay.

That's legitimate.

Thank you.

You take nine points of damage.

He takes a swing at you and connects

for nine points of damage.

This badly injured soldier is going to take a switch at Crocus.

That is a miss.

That is a hit.

I'm AC of 14.

AC of 14, that is a hit.

He deals you six points of damage.

What are you at?

I am down to four hit points.

Four hit points.

This guy is going to step forward to take a swing.

That's a hit.

He drops

Otto.

Goes forward.

Otto falls to the ground.

And he's going to take another step forward

as well to close with the rest.

This one's going to swing on Garren.

What's Garin's armor class?

Oh, seven.

Seven.

He's an older fellow.

Garin, you take ten points of.

This one cuts down both of the ones in front of them.

Two strikes of a sword.

And then we move to this last one here, who's going to take a swing for Rainia.

Miss, motherfucker.

That is a hit.

Okay.

Rainia, you take six points of damage.

Cheers.

What are you at?

Something less than six.

Four points.

Four.

So,

for the first time, maybe in your life, a sword travels across your arm and you feel a shatter of bone, something fractures, and

there is a...

There has been much conflict and violence in and around you in your life.

But this is the first time that you have run up, done something brave.

And in the stories about brave things, they are rewarded by the gods.

And you are hit with a tempered piece of steel that, if it had been six inches in another direction, would have ended your life on the spot.

That is the soldiers.

We get back

arrow.

That is your turn again.

You go before the captain who had to come out of a surprise condition and roll bad on initiative, but you can tell he is of a different class than these already formidable soldiers.

I've already seen in the blink of an eye people go down and they are.

I know that I'm leading the charge into danger.

I think that

people will prevail here,

but the responsibility is on my shoulders for starting it, so I'm going to walk through these two gentlemen here.

He's bleeding profusely.

I'm going to slap a hand down on the captain's shoulder and say,

No bent knees today, I'm afraid.

And I will use my second and final charge attack to cone

these three.

Hell yeah, go for it.

It's a deck save, third.

Deck save.

Captain fails.

Yes.

These two soldiers fail as well.

Get cone.

Four damage.

The captain takes four points of damage, and that's.

D and E take four.

Okay.

Four points of damage.

Four points of damage there.

This one is looking very hurt right here.

That is your turn.

The

captain

is going to turn to you.

Your armor class is 11.

I'm getting hit.

Oh, you're not.

No, you're not.

I'm going to roll this in front of the board.

He's gonna make two attacks.

Oh, no.

He hits on a seven or higher.

Oh, no.

15.

15.

Okay, okay, okay.

And he deals you seven points of damage.

Down.

No.

Arrow goes down.

Boom!

On your turn, as you go down, do you want to make one final persuasion check for me as you rush forward?

Or do you, or if you only if you wish

if the crowd for a split second hushes at the sight of this dragon, this gold dragonborn who kicked off this fight just for a split second, and you can hear croaking out of his voice,

Change is coming.

Give me a persuasion with advantage.

There's my dice.

Just roll it twice.

Persuasion 16.

16.

Hell yeah.

Pick four more to run up on your turn and join you.

Let's do Mr.

Claw hand here.

Hell yeah.

He'll rush forward over here.

Great.

I think this little raven individual will join.

Hell yeah.

He's gonna rush forward and fill the gap.

We'll have that black and white-haired.

Mm-hmm.

He'll rush forward.

Yeah.

And then this guy with the Stein is going to come try to break that crockery on somebody's head.

Hell yeah.

Okay.

He's going to rush up over here.

Go ahead, give me two attack rolls for those closing in on this soldier over here.

Natural twin.

Woo!

Woo!

And then what do I add for these guys?

Yes, you add two.

11 for the second.

So that one doesn't hit.

However, this soldier right here,

this little sort of Kenku looks at you,

rush forward, and

say, change is coming.

And just goes,

and

the one that is like face to face with you looks at you and goes,

you're going back in the cage, big boy crawl.

and opens his mouth and you can see a knife coming up through his tongue as a tiny little Kenku says, they can't stop us all!

And the first soldier goes down.

Unbelievable.

Okay,

as that happens, you have two more attacks to make.

So go make the one for the Stein friend over here, and go make the one for the tiger folk that's joining Garin over there.

Stein friend only rolled a three.

Oh, three and a four.

Okay, no problem.

They just, it's just the crowd is rushing, rushing.

Come on, You see, the tiger folk says, says, we have to stop them now!

As just people start rushing, and you can feel this fevered pitch of fear turning into excitement, turning into rage.

And that is going to be captain.

Oh, so that all happens on your turn.

The captain is going to step.

The captain is going to step over you.

He's going to make an attack on loose.

That was...

On a six or higher, he hits seven.

Oh my God.

How could the Moon Weaver fight?

Luz looks up and goes, you see, as you fall, you look at Luz, she touches the Moonweaver's symbol,

looks up, and as she looks up,

the sort of captain of the Strife Emperor looks forward, the amulet comes out, and he centers his blade right for the holy symbol.

Coming in horizontal, severs the cord, the holy symbol goes flying, she drops to the ground

that is going to be that is the captain's turn back at the top of initiative

we have

one

two we have

we have one

These ones have fallen one two three four

we have four fallen

commoners so far.

I'm going to roll death saves for them.

Okay.

It was the half swallow that got me.

Yeah.

All right.

As the soldiers began.

They have cut down four and you have managed to drop one.

We move through.

initiative uh uh back to

uh phaedra with a 19.

Oh, sorry, what's that?

I got a not 20.

But you sent your initiative.

Yes, wait, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.

We do all remember that.

Phaedra,

it is your turn.

I will also say this: as that Kanku rushes up alongside Crocus and you, that soldier falls to the ground, his sword clattering to the ground.

Yeah.

Who?

Um.

Should I?

Can I use a sword?

Yeah.

You can use it or you can give it to one of your companions.

It's up to you.

You can absolutely use it.

Tavine has nothing, right?

Tavine has nothing, right?

Okay.

I'm going to make Tavine grab the sword, I think.

I don't know if it's part of my turn, but I am going to yell to the few remaining people who are like behind me.

Try to do a persuasion check.

And I'm going to yell,

guys, you know, it's either us or them.

Let's make it them.

Go ahead and give me persuasion with advantage.

Okay.

17.

17.

Hell yes.

Hell yes.

Go ahead.

Four are going to rush up alongside you.

Go ahead and pick four.

These guys, these just this crew right over here, if you want to.

Yeah, I think just like these first, these four.

So these two, and then those two who are standing right in front of there.

Hell yeah.

Yeah.

Go ahead, as these ones rush up

in this throng of people, go ahead and make their attack rolls.

Seeing the crowd of commoners around them, they just start picking up rocks and just start throwing them at these fucking soldiers.

Hell yeah.

Go ahead and get four of them.

Give me four attack rolls.

Four attack rolls.

Maybe get another D20.

I'm sorry, and I add what to these?

Plus two.

Ooh, okay.

We got a four and a six, which I'm assuming don't hit.

Then we have a 16 and a 21.

Both of which hit.

Hell yes.

You see that this uninjured soldier right here gets a rock right in the teeth and stumbles backwards through the opening in his visor.

As he's,

he says, Captain!

Drakhan has fallen!

Just yelling back that one of his

things.

Taveen kneels down quick.

His hair catches on fire.

He grabs the sword and he says, when they drop, get that shit, and leaps forward.

Yeah.

Go ahead.

Give me an attack roll for Tavine.

Now, if he hits, he deals 1d8 plus 2 damage.

Oh, Tavine, oh my boy.

Takes his sword.

Oh, that was bad.

That he did not do two.

You see, his lifelong burglar just takes a sort of massive way telegraphed swing.

Yeah, I don't practice with these.

But keeps advancing.

You see, he's going to step over and close the gap here so that people can come in behind him.

And he just gets in between two of the soldiers to make it a true fucking brawl.

Phaedra, your attack.

Can I also?

Okay, awesome.

Absolutely.

Then, okay, so plus four to attack versus

armor.

That is a

20-something.

That is a hit.

Oh, yeah.

1d4 plus your dexma.

All right.

And you can go for, I would say you can go for this guy right here or this guy.

I'm going to go for the guy who's.

That guy is the one that the other two villagers just hit.

Just hit.

Yeah, that's correct.

Okay, Okay, I'm gonna go for the same guy.

Let's go, killer.

Um, that is uh five five damage.

Yeah, um, you run up, uh, and

right in the stomach,

that soldier gets a bad bleeding wound that spills out over him.

Uh, blood gushing everywhere as he looks down at this halfling.

You are now wading through like fallen bodies, just like jump, like standing on people's chest armor to get solid footing.

With this little, like, again, this tiny thin dagger.

Um, Phydra, that is your turn, Crocus, that's you.

So, the Kangu stabs up through the chin of the person I have my head pressed against.

They fall, and I see past that you've fallen right behind, and that the captain is right there.

And

Crocus, yeah,

uh, unknowing he's doing it, is going to use his action and activate the second part of this belt.

Hell yeah, just because he's raging, essentially.

So, for a minute, I become a storm avatar.

So

lightning

gave challenge rating 1-8 and he sees a message of divergence.

So

lightning just starts crackling across his scales and he's just like trailing out of his eyes and he goes charging up behind the captain.

And it's going to put a hand on his shoulder and spin him towards him.

Hell yes.

Whoosh.

You rush, spin this captain around.

Hell yes.

Crackling with lightning and then I'm going to use my bonus action And I can, as a bonus action, you can choose one creature you see within 30 feet to be struck by lightning.

It's gonna come from Crocus's mouth.

Like a Godzilla breath.

It's just gonna suck right out of the front of him.

So he has to make a 15-deck saving throw.

Hell yes.

These guys are not deck.

Heavily armored dudes.

Fuck them up.

Crocus.

Would you believe in that one if I told you?

Hell yeah.

Okay, that's two, five.

That's ten.

Fifteen points of lightning damage.

Jesus Christ.

You get the gathering.

This veteran of the Strife Emperor's Wars moves from virtually uninjured to bloodied and near death's door in a single mighty smiting of your lightning breath.

This action on your part, without that, it is hard to see how you succeed in this.

I will just be honest, with the amount of hit points this captain had and how terrible he was,

this is the thing that maybe means people will survive this group of seven soldiers walking in here.

Just saying they're just lightning.

Shear Carson just goes,

yes.

Garin, that is going to be you, my friend.

I'll say Garin, who's on the opposite side of this, as the bolt strikes through, puts up his hammer defensively, and the bolt kind of hits his hammer and now kind of like also disseminates through.

His fingers go numb for a second from just the kind of dissolution of that energy.

Looks at it, sees the captain kind of stumble back a bit, looks around the crowd and goes,

Some wait for miracles,

but we make them with our own hands.

And goes rushing into the back of the captain to see if he can possibly flank

on the opposite side of Crocus.

Absolutely flank.

Go ahead and roll with advantage.

Alrighty.

Let's go.

A natural one and a natural 17

for a 23 to hit.

Hell yes, 23 hits.

Go ahead and roll damage.

Already.

That's going to be

10 points of legending damage.

Jesus Christ.

A dwarf, old though he may be, with muscles that at this advanced age are more like the stone he works than flesh itself,

thunders and sees the shoddy craftsmanship at the back of this captain's armor, crunches in,

as the armor buckles and the captain drops to one knee.

He is within an inch of his life as he as he stumbles before you, Garin, as you look up and meet Crocus's eye on either side.

Unbelievable.

So fucking badass.

Rainia, that's going to be you.

Just completely blank eyes.

Just the one lightning core that is.

We're going to pike this lick.

Nia, you see before you the captain on death's door

loses blood still on his blade as he is beset between Garin and Crocus in front of you.

There are still soldiers around, but you see that captain is right in front of you as well.

I

Luce's

holy pendant fell, right?

Yeah.

Nia's gonna pick that up

and attempt to bludgeon the captain's, like, oh, he's on the ground, right?

She wants to just sort of ping and use that to

hopefully kill him.

Bludgeon him with the symbol.

Bludgeon him with the Moon Weaver symbol.

Yeah.

What are you feeling in in the moment that you pick up that holy symbol?

I think

Nia is such a

frantic

shaking

person.

She is constantly needing to use her hands to keep her mind still.

When she picks up that Moon Weaver symbol, a calmness and a serenity washes over her unlike anything she has ever felt.

The world almost gets quiet.

She picks that up.

She feels the weight of her sister's locket in her bag.

She steps over anyone in between her and this captain, and she just looks at him,

almost feeling sorry for him.

Understanding that he has put himself

in a position

it's seven against 1200.

He very well could have decided to join us to build a better world, but he decided to be an obstacle.

And so Nia does what she does with obstacles, and that is

push it out of her way.

To respect the free will of all beings means to respect when one has made themselves an obstacle to a kinder world.

With no malice or hatred in your heart, you take the beautiful symbol of the moon weaver from where it lies in the mud and ash.

The rain

subsiding, fog roiling.

You lift it on high.

Move forward.

I would like you to make

an attack roll with Advantage because Crocus and Garin stand side by side, your companions here.

Make that roll with Advantage.

You will add your proficiency bonus

and you will add your wisdom bonus because, as of this moment, you are a first-level cleric.

Level one never felt so good!

Oh, gosh.

Just make your attack roll.

That's a natural 17.

Proficiency is 2.

Wisdom is 3.

So that's a 22.

22.

Yeah.

Please roll 3d10 radiant damage as you cast inflict wounds.

Oh, my.

I'm like, I'm shaking.

So we can see what's happening here.

Selly and the person is shaking.

Holy cow.

Okay, I'm going to faint.

Where's the 10?

What do 10s look like?

Uh,

this one, this one, and this one.

Crazy stuff, guys.

Wild things are happening.

That's a one, a four, and a six.

So, that is 11.

With 10 hit points left, how do you want to do this?

Okay,

okay.

Nia,

the calmest she has ever been, feeling so emboldened by the people around her, she is so far from her family and has yet, in this moment, feels an incredible sense of belonging.

She looks at Arrow

down.

The man who, well, the being, excuse me,

who

got her to the point of where she's trying to go, the person who promised to lead her back to this point.

And she feels the earth underneath her feet.

Under her breath,

she says,

Change is coming,

and I am change.

She brains him.

She may, like, even as she's down, she's like, there's a frantic joy within her, and she just bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, until she feels as though now is a proper time to be done.

Um, Garin and Crocus.

Crocus, you just activated some crazy magic power that you've never seen before.

Garin, your hammer's still crackling with it, and wreathed in fog and moonlight, the holy symbol of the Moonweaver shining in her hands, Rhaenia lifts it aloft as though to invoke a miracle.

And the miracle she invokes is making the thing glow as she bashes this fucking guy's head in with it.

Boom, boom!

It is a magic that is at once mystical, but profound in its mundanity.

This was not a moment where an obstacle would be removed

invisibly or with the rough edges cut off.

Miracles, when they touch the real world, get dirty.

And this captain is going to be eating ash and mud in rainwater in the final moments of his consciousness.

Captain defeated.

Rainio, what a turn.

This is my favorite game.

Incredible.

Okay, there are soldiers here standing.

One is going to take a leap at Garin.

That is a six, which is a miss.

And that is a five, which is a miss.

One of them's coming for Crocus.

That is a hit.

That is a miss.

Crocus, you take four points of damage.

Down.

I'm out.

Crocus goes down.

Boom.

That's Crocus.

This one.

Giant lizard falling into the mud.

Yeah.

Drop.

Boom.

This soldier is going to move here.

Exactly the amount of hit points I had.

Yeah.

No.

Boom.

Question for you, Brennan.

Nia knocks that captain down.

Can she take whatever weapon he has?

Yes.

Cool.

Nia takes it.

Hell yeah.

If she can fit the Moon Weaver symbol onto her,

she will pocket that and then take whatever weapon he has and get ready for our next turn.

Sorry.

Didn't interrupt.

So it's going to take two swings.

Our beloved Kenku friend falls.

Oh, no.

Not the Kenku.

This guy's totally surrounded.

That's a miss.

That's a hit.

Drops this guy.

Just the soldiers hacking through these commoners in front of them.

As fast as they can.

Arrow.

We come to your first death saving throw.

Oh, fuck.

Fail.

No!

All right, all right, let's go.

No, no, no, no, this will not happen.

This will not happen.

Um, arrow, that first failure.

You see

around you

feet in the mud.

You feel life leaving you,

but you watch that captain fall.

There's people around.

You see

Garin's feet.

You see the light from Rainia's first spell.

You don't know if you will succeed or fail here.

But there's something bubbling up.

It's not an idea, even though it can express itself like one.

It's a feeling.

What do you call a mix between a feeling and an idea?

I guess a belief.

Succeed or fail, does Arrow think it was worth it to stand up to these soldiers here?

In these moments,

his mind wanders back

to that lake

where men dressed

so similar to these

robbed him of what little joy he had in this world.

And that day he fled.

Today,

he wasn't sure as he uttered the words, changes coming that he himself believed it.

But on this day,

where

he stood instead of fled,

as the rain water seeps into the side of his

maybe he won't see it,

but finally

he believes it.

Phedra, it's your turn.

Seeing Crocus go down.

Yeah.

I.

It's the guard on this?

Or no, which was the guard that like took him down just now?

Oh, this guard, guard right that guard.

Okay, cool.

Okay, that's still a little boys off.

Um

in that case

is there a way I could

get Tavine

to try and

grab that guard from like behind?

Yeah, for sure.

And like hold him.

Yeah, absolutely.

Okay.

Give me a grapple check for him.

Okay.

Okay.

Come on, Tavine.

Come on, Tavine.

You're just trying to beat an eight.

Oh, no.

Four.

Four.

He does not succeed.

Tavine, come on.

Tavine.

Tavine.

Get out of the bum.

Okay.

Well, that's fine.

That's it, that's it.

Right now, you have

one,

two,

three, four,

five soldiers standing, all in various states of injury.

But there are many commoners still fighting right now.

If you want, you can roll for some of those commoners to attack first and see what is available to you to do then if you'd like.

Yeah, okay.

Um,

wait, sorry, is in roll an attack or roll a persuasion for more commoners?

You can roll a persuasion for more commoners right now if you want.

Oh, okay.

Yeah.

Um,

I say they're, okay, yeah.

Phaedra calls back and says,

their captain is fallen.

Let's send the rest of these fuckers to join him.

That's so understated.

Hell yes.

Get up.

Hell yes.

Hell yes.

Go ahead and give me a persuasion chip.

All right.

Go ahead and roll with advantage.

That is a 21.

Wow.

Okay.

This whole, so people, these guys all rush.

You get one, two,

three.

People see their companions going down.

They are not going to take that

Not gonna take that line down

And then these two rush up over here here.

Go ahead and give me three attack rolls for this one right here.

All right.

All right.

Come on, commoners.

I believe in you.

One of them got an 18.

Wait, I'm sorry.

I feel like I ask this every round.

I add plus two to them.

Okay.

We got an 11, a 12, and a 20.

An 11, a 12, and a 20.

Hell yes.

Okay, so that's two points of damage to this soldier right here.

And you can go ahead too, because you have some other people that have joined you.

These ones are going to rush up into the fray.

One,

two,

and they're going to take attacks.

So go ahead and give me three attacks on this one right here.

Ooh,

that is two 14s and a 19.

19 hits.

That one takes another two points of damage.

Boom.

It is your attack.

All right, and then I'm just going to try and stab that one guard.

Do I get any sort of advantage by being behind him and sneaky?

You wanna get this guy right here?

Yeah.

You can jump in next to Tavine and flank him.

Yes.

Yeah, go for it.

And then

go with advantage.

Okay, cool.

And then this.

So.

What's the 20?

Not a 20, but a dirty

23.

Yeah.

23 is a hit.

Go ahead and roll damage for me.

Alright.

Go ahead.

Oh, look, that was just missing.

Four.

Four damage.

Not awful, but

four damage.

Unfortunately, he has five hit points left.

So you're going to have to roll that first die of sneak attack damage because you are a first-level row.

D6.

D6.

D6.

It automatically does at least one damage, but let's see what you roll anyway.

Here you go.

phedra how do you want to do this describe how he goes down

put that bitch in the dirt um

um this is the one that dropped auto oh this is the one that dropped auto um i come up behind him with the stiletto and i think like

Put it right like right against this guy's neck and I just whisper into his ear you don't mess with the roach curtain and just

you open up a second smile under his chin

and he drops to the ground dead.

And immediately, another one of the commoners here picks up that long sword

and just howls for blood.

Incredible, Phaedra.

Great.

Okay, that one is toast.

That is going to be guest famies for from Crocus.

Natural 20.

You have got to be fucking kidding me!

You have gotta be fucking kidding me!

You are unkillable!

Yeah,

yeah,

yeah,

yeah, yeah.

Crocus,

the monster!

A distant voice rumbles like thunder.

You're gonna take that lying down?

Okay, so just to clarification, this means I can stand up.

Correct?

You have one hit point at the beginning of your turn.

Yeah, at the the beginning of my turn.

Wow.

So I would like it to just be that he's laying there on the ground.

He's crackling.

He falls in the, he's laying in the mud.

Comes around, and all of a sudden, a bolt of lightning just goes,

just basically defibrillates him back up.

You would have ever later.

By the way, I don't know if everyone can see where we're headed here.

You absolutely gained your first level on that not 20 death saving throw

a million percent.

And are, I believe, your your class is fighter, right?

Or no?

I know, we were going.

It was...

I think.

Oh, no.

Are we going Monk?

We were going among.

Yeah, we're going Monk.

I think on that death save,

you come back feeling centered in a power and focus like you have never felt in your life before.

It is.

You're at the beginning of your turn.

You may act.

So I just

get shocked and

the lightning comes across.

Technically, that'll be the end of the, because it would go away when I passed out.

That's the last of it.

He stands up and just look which guard is closest to me there where I would stand up.

You've got as you stand, you've got

this one right here and this one right here.

And he just he's like stands up, eyes still looking, just looks at him and goes.

You're dead.

And just rushes and just clamps his jaws over the front of his faceplate.

Hell yeah.

Like a giant crocodile.

Hell yeah.

And you definitely have flanking on these guys now.

All your commoners have surrounded them.

Roll your first attack with advantage.

That would be a

18 to hit.

18 hits.

Go ahead and roll for that first attack.

Yeah.

And

as a first level monk, you have a bonus action, Marshall Earth.

I do indeed.

Oh, my God.

So, where the hell is my actions?

There it is.

Now it's karate challenge.

So now it's 1d6 plus 5.

1d6 plus 5.

Yeah.

So that's 1d6 plus 5.

So that's my brain.

Nine points of damage the first hit.

Are you doing it to this guy?

That guy right there.

That guy right there.

Okay, nine points of damage.

That one miraculously has been uninjured largely for the battle and now is on Death Store once again.

Crunches the helmet in his jaws just crunch and then just is going to take with his bonus action the claws in the front and just grab into the front of his chest try and pull out just whatever he finds.

Gonna pinata this soldier of the Strife Emperor.

Roll with advantage.

That is...

Oh, that was upset.

That is

19 to hit.

19 hits.

And then that's

another nine points of damage.

Slashing damage.

Let's keep this train rolling, Alex.

How do you want to do this?

We'll just go through.

Runs up behind, like, takes the his jaws, clamps them around the helmet, just starts crushing the helmet.

And the guy, blood is coming out from under the helmet.

He just takes his claws, slams it into the guy's chest, pulls out just a hunk of meat that was in there, and just rips it out.

Cascading blood across, just like landing all over the white scales on his body.

And it's just, then the guy limp with just holding his head in his mouth, and he's looking at the next guard.

Unbelievable.

How do they feel about that, Brennan?

They feel pretty bad.

At the beginning of their last turn, there were six of them, and there's now three of them that's not good

you don't like when the chart goes in that direction you want that line to go the other way i can unbelieve i roll a natural that is fucking insane insane alex that's amazing garin that is your turn oh my goodness um

i mean seeing this trend i mean watching arrow fall to the ground the instinct is to rush but it's not a safe time or moment to do that Hopefully there'll be a moment to tend to that.

But right now there are two soldiers that are my right and left.

Which of of them looks the most wounded?

The one to your left is far and away the most wounded.

Okay, so what I'm going to do is

the one that's to my right, I'm going to hold the hammer up in an offensive way as I withdraw and lean this way, and then swing around and try and use my cap to the back of the helmet of the one that's facing the opposite direction and see if I can strike it from that.

Hell yes.

That one is flanked as well.

Go for it.

Oof, that's going to be 24 to hit.

Go ahead and roll damage.

That's gonna be another 10 points of damage.

Nice.

I don't want this to become the Hollywood handshake from Great British Bakery.

But numbers are numbers, Matt.

How do you want to do this?

So, in what was attempting to basically try and confuse and draw attention, his cap slams in the back of that soldier's helmet as he spins around to see where the impact is from.

The momentum of his head spinning meets the side of my hammer.

Whack!

And with a massive smashing crunch sound, the front of the helmet just caves in with the hammer itself delving about three inches into it.

His body crumbles, and Garn falls forward with him, kind of holding it there.

And as he's still clutching the hammer wedged in his face, Kaneza stands over.

We have hope now.

And I hope you tell your master how it feels.

He wedged the hammer from his face.

Hell yes!

Hell yes!

Rainia, that is your turn.

Two soldiers stand.

It is chaos here.

Arrow is down.

Arrow is down.

I don't have it in front of me, but I'm hoping that this

recent clerical...

You have cure wounds prepared and you have another first-level spell slot at your disposal.

I'm going to cast cure wounds on arrow.

Incredible.

Yeah, hell yeah, hell yeah.

As you have wielded

the destructive powers of the light and of the magic that flows through all of Xandria,

even before the danger is yet past, you embrace the other side.

Destruction, creation, preservation, these are

truths of the world.

They are neither bad nor good.

Obstacles present themselves, they must be brought low.

And also,

when something is threatened with destruction whose time has not yet come, great miracles can intercede on its behalf.

Go ahead and roll 1d8

plus your

go ahead and roll 1d8 plus your wisdom modifier.

Oh, good.

Four.

Four.

Okay.

Arrow, with the possibility of death on your next save if you roll the natural one,

you instead

sputter to life

once again.

As you do, Rhinia, you see Arrow's eyes open, the man who promised you he would get you to Torm's Hill.

What does he see in the moment that his eyes open?

Nia has her eyes closed.

She's in a deep state of focus, and she goes,

We make our own miracles.

You are my miracle.

Be made again.

Rise.

and a magic that has flown

a magic that has flowed through you before in a different chapter of your life

returns in this moment as a cleric

moves that healing power through you and you feel life and your wounds knit closed

incredible

His mouth sputters in the mud and water on the ground.

He doesn't even lift his head, but just one eye, a complete mess, turns up and their eyes meet in a split second.

Two soldiers remain.

They know the battle is lost.

What they were counting on more than anything was that 1200 people would be so afraid

of being

the eight who have fallen.

That's what they were counting on.

For all of you to be afraid, for no one to be willing to fall into the mud like Arrow was.

Now Arrow is back.

These two soldiers

that are on either side of Rhinia

See and know

that

their day has come.

But they also know what it is when a cleric

of a prime deity

stands before them.

A cleric of the light.

And they have enough belief in this trife emperor that they will not suffer that to pass.

So even if this is their final moment, they will make it count.

I got the moon on my side, bitch.

Try me.

Your arm class is 10, yes?

Something like that.

That's a miss.

Fantastic.

That's a miss.

I got the moon on my side, bitch.

Try me.

Another guy.

Hold on.

Another miss.

Don't gotta worry about it.

I'll roll this in front of the board.

Okay.

This is where I get for getting cocky.

They add

a plus

three to hit.

For why?

On a seven or higher?

On a seven or higher, they hit

16.

Gorgeous.

One d8 plus two.

Sorry.

Gorgeous.

Eight damage.

Yep.

I'm down.

Sword

flashes through

with that last attack that one's going to turn

Does he turn to Garin

or does he attempt to finish

hope in this moment on one who has already fallen

Garin

will leave it up to a roll of the dice one One, two, three, four, five, six.

Four.

Thank you.

I'll say in this distance, I see the blades starting to come down and an attempt to finish this.

And Congress goes, hey!

And just puts the hammer up and goes, I'm with you one boy.

And he's going to take his last swing at you.

Armor class of seven.

He hits on a four or higher.

Yeah, that checks out.

I bring it.

I bring it.

Nine points of damage to Garin.

So, uh,

hmm.

Here's what I'll say.

Yeah.

I try and make that final push to distract.

It doesn't work.

The, you know, the drive to finish this job is there, and Garin just leaps forward and kind of covers her body with his and takes the blade to his own back.

As you

feel feel the steel go in between your ribs

there is a moment both of you horizontal you covering rainia with your body who has healed you so many times you look over and see on the ground arrow who you've traveled with for so long and arrow you look and lock eyes as you come out of unconsciousness and you see Garin entering it.

There is a moment where you lock eyes together, having wandered this world

for so long.

Angel smiles before he fades.

Arrow,

it is your turn.

And I would also let you know, as you stand up, the one who stood forward and said, It will not be like it has been.

It is your turn, and you may take it as a first-level Ranger.

Yeah,

I grab one of the soldier's swords up out of the mud as I rise.

Yes, you absolutely

roars into the air from his gaunt golden dragon born frame.

And I'm going to swing it into

their attacker.

Hell yes.

Go for it.

Go ahead and roll.

You are flanking, so you will have advantage as you stand.

What do I add?

What do I add as a ranger?

Your proficiency plus

either your strength or your dex modifier.

Strength or dex?

Yeah.

That is a 15 total.

15 total.

Hold on one second.

15 total to hit.

Let me get their armor class here real quick.

15 total

does not hit the armor here, unfortunately.

Okay.

But you have access to

also any of your first level spells that you have here now.

I'm level zero.

I know.

You have your stat black in front of you.

As you take a swing with that sword,

you also have, yeah, Hunter's Mark is also available to you, I think, is one of your favorite skills.

Right, but that is

extra damage, I think.

Yeah, not extra hit.

You take a swing.

Clang!

Connect there with the armor holding the sword aloft.

We move from Arrow's turn.

The captain is dead.

Phaedra, it is your turn once more.

Alright.

I

Antivine.

And then do I still have like a little army of commoners?

Uh, you do, yeah, absolutely.

We are all gonna fucking mob the guy that

uh like got these two, yeah, yeah.

Um, and actually, by the way,

some other people had also summoned some commoners on their turns as well, right, Nia and them?

Um, let's make sure we resolve that as well.

I realize you guys, your guys' commoners should make attacks also.

Um, Nia, as you drop, you have, I think, these four over here.

Shoot.

So go ahead and give me four attack rolls there if you'd be so kind.

And these are all 20s, right?

Yeah.

Let me know if any of them get a 14 or higher on the dial.

One of them gets a 19, the other miss.

Two damage to that one still up, looking so bad.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Arrow, you also have some over.

Oh, wait, no, sorry, that was only three.

I got four.

Go ahead and roll more.

I get one more.

At

two.

Two.

So.

Arrow, you have your original four over here that are all still fighting as well.

They're rolling much better than me.

That's a 17 hit.

A 12.

A 7.

And a 10.

So probably only one hit.

Only one hit.

Boom.

Phaedra, that's you.

Do you want to roll for your commoners first?

Sure, yeah.

Hell yeah.

I have how many?

Go ahead and roll for Tavine.

He's got the long sword still.

Yeah.

Oh, Tavine.

Tavine, Tavine, let's what's doing all Tavine.

It's all on you.

No.

You can roll the nine, which.

Well, doesn't he get a plus two?

It's plus two, then, right?

Yeah, I don't think.

Yeah.

Oh, sorry.

Oh, yeah, he does not get...

He only gets a plus three.

Yeah.

So he does not hit.

Roll.

You have three more commoners, though.

Go ahead.

Three more commoners.

All right.

Come on, one of you guys, please.

Ooh, they rolled really well.

One of them does not hit, because that's a five, but we have an

18 and a 21.

Both hit four damage.

These last two soldiers are at death's door.

Roll your own attack.

That is a

19 to hit.

19 hits.

Oh, yeah.

And then...

Roll sneak attack damage, too.

Sneak attack damage.

Wait, that was...

Oh, that's a six.

I'm done.

And then plus dex, right?

Yeah.

It's 10 damage.

You rush up to this one.

Slit his throat.

Gone, dead.

One soldier remains.

Phaedra, you've killed two of these guys now.

Just disembowel.

You hear the intestines hit the mud.

And

that is Phydra's turn.

Crocus, that's going to be you.

Okay, so now, last last soldier.

So

Crocus still has the other guy in his mouth, and he looks directly at the last soldier,

catches his eye, just goes and just snaps the guy, just like cracks the skull, drops him, and is just going to run at him.

And what I want to do is he runs at him and he's going to take a swipe with his claws.

And then as the bonus action attack is going to spin and slap him with his tail.

Hell yes.

Is there flanking?

Yes, you have flanking here as well.

The first hit.

Not it's 12, so I I miss.

Miss the first one.

You still have your bonuses.

So it glances off the armor, uses the momentum to spin, and it's going to slam him with his tail.

That is a 17 plus 7, so I assume that hits.

That is a hit.

Go ahead and roll damage.

That's 3, 5, 6, 7.

8 points of damage.

That first claw misses, and the soldier steps back, thinking, maybe I can get this monster freaking my last blow, rears back, and doesn't see that the missed attack is is already part of the follow-up and roiling this massive crocodilian tail

you hear his spine crunch like popcorn and falls to the ground dead the last soldier defeated

oh we are gonna stay in initiative because people are dying

um so we're gonna move from this uh onward as fast uh continuing on garin i'm gonna need a death saving throw from you yes you do

that's a three that's a fail Failure from Garin.

Rainia, death saving throw from you.

That's a five.

That's a fail.

Arrow, it returns to your turn.

I throw the sword aside and scrabble down into the mud and try to press my hands against the wound on Nia's side.

Try to stabilize.

You go to stabilize.

and feel

true power coursing through you.

You can make a medicine check here,

or you can cast cure wounds.

What does it feel like?

Arrow, you are of the world.

You are a wanderer in this world.

You've been molding Earth with the secrets of druidic power that were taught to you.

But this is awakening something deeper within you.

What do you feel in the moment that this power avails itself to you?

That very simple connection to the earth that was learned through practice, through someone very important to me, now surges with inspiration and belief.

Impossibility again.

And

the power of green and good and living draws up through my knees in the earth and passes through my core and out my hands into

this singular person.

Rhinia, you open your eyes.

I think she looks at you and is...

You can barely hear it, but she goes...

There's my miracle.

Thank you for helping me find my way again.

It is unending.

Phaedra, we return to you.

Um, Garin is still down?

Garin is down.

Otto is down.

Lose is down.

Yes.

Otto's been down a long time.

Yeah, like like four rounds.

Otto's probably.

Okay, I should say that.

Is he dead?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Don't worry about him anymore.

Honestly, I yell out to the crowd.

I think.

I yell, it's over.

We have injured.

Can anyone help?

You see that,

yeah, as you as you yell at Phydra, you immediately go into gang boss mode and start getting getting people, as you've been the whole battle, just getting like, more bodies, hit him, hit him.

You look out and see immediately that

as you rush forward, Klasara and Nez heed your command right away.

Both of them are going to rush over.

One of them is going to rush to Otto.

Klassara is going to rush over to Otto.

Otto has a death save failure already and I haven't rolled.

He may, if he rolls a nat one, already be gone.

17, it's a success.

And Clissaro is going to roll.

She adds a plus four to her medicine and just needs a 10 for it to stabilize him with the medicine check.

So six or higher.

13.

She rushes over.

Otto looks up and goes,

This one was bad.

Worse than most.

Worse than most.

It was, but we still fucking got him.

We got him.

You see, he looks, Otto looks over at you, Arrow.

You haven't met him before from your time in the prison.

He goes,

You're fucking crazy, man.

I love you.

You're fucking crazy.

Peace yourself.

Yeah,

I'll never be brave again.

That's the last time.

You see,

and Nez

is going to rush over.

Who's the other healer here?

She's going to rush over to.

she sees

Luz.

Luce

rolled a nat one on her first roll for two death save failures, which means that on a nine or lower, it is too late for her.

Oh, I can't talk anything about this.

Okay.

I'm going to roll to see because Nez is doing triage between Garin, who has one, and her that has two, but we need, or we need to see

what's happening with Luz.

um

Nez

rushes over to Garin once again on a six or higher stabilizes

15.

Okay

Garin you

sort of feel yourself once again.

You see these quick goblin hands go to work as she says, Easy now.

There's ale and ale and salt beef and all the good things things in the world for you still to have, my friend.

Her voices kind of mingle through the memory and the echoing sounds of laughing children, dwarven voices, and kind of blurry, mingled memories of generations past, not seen, and a long enough time where the faces themselves don't crystallize until eventually

half-conscious kind of can see the blurry expression of Nez.

You swim back,

um

with

Crocus, it is your turn.

Um Crocus

isn't aware enough to know that the guy he was fighting is dead.

So when he fell on the ground, Crocus immediately stomped on him, grabbed him, picked him up, and whipped him into that well, like into the side of the well there.

And it's just

making this noise that is like,

there's this noise that crocodiles make that's like this kind of like clicking deep in there.

That's like the kind of like

and he's just making this noise and foam is just dripping from his mouth and he's just blank-eyed and he's looking for like he's just looking around at everybody else.

He has everybody around him is the same.

Yeah.

And he can't bring himself out of it.

He's just whipping his tail around and looking at everybody.

Everybody around him is he's at one hit point and is just lost his mind at this moment and is a danger to anybody who gets near him at this point.

Yeah, people begin to give you a wide berth.

Yeah.

just seeing like you summoned something deep out of the world.

These people have not seen a

the handiwork of the gods is not widely seen, even during the height of the calamity.

You, with whatever you summoned in that power, and your own natural state is a fearsome, fearsome warrior.

Give me a perception check.

Not good.

Come on, my brain perception would be

good.

Natural 20 20 plus 2.

What

Alex,

you

focus on in that 20

you

feel

the rage you are frightening.

You are monstrous.

Everyone is frightened of you.

You're

barely even

a person to some of these people because of all the things that you've done and all the things that have happened to you.

And on a nap 20,

you look and see cowering behind the well,

Selwyn and Seldria.

the two little children that you carried all the way here from Rybad Cole.

They meet your eyes

and both of them

step forward slowly,

softly

and put

two little scaled hands up and put their heads against your head.

Just as you did moments ago to one that you meant tremendous harm to.

And you see that both of them breathe slow and steady,

crying from fear,

so afraid that their lives were about to end after knowing even a moment of joy.

And you hear Celtria's voice so soft in your ear.

It's okay.

You don't have to be scared.

I'm sorry.

I'm sorry.

He just kind of sits on the ground.

Both of the kids wrap their arms around you.

You can tell you're scared.

We're scared too.

It's okay.

We're going to be okay.

You got them.

We're not going to, they're not going to take us away.

Okay.

okay.

You feel another pair of hands

gently press your head against her chest as Celeste covers you and puts her head over you and just whispers in Draconic, which I don't understand

because I don't speak it.

Your words over and over in a language you can't understand.

And seeing your expression change again to one of confusion and understanding.

You see, Selman looks up and smiles, his little hand on your cheek.

It means you saved us.

Garin,

stable once again.

You are unconscious, but your body,

perhaps the hands that shaped Xandria made in you something

too much like the land and stone, for you simply will not quit or perish from this earth.

Lying there.

Arrow.

You

send that energy and heal Nia.

Phaedra, you look to and fro as the people here under your command go to attend to the fallen

and There is a moment

That is so small and in passing that it's hard to even feel it or understand it but Klassara this little halfling matriarch walks past in your command to see to the injured, puts a hand on your back and smiles and gives you this little pinch on the shoulder that you immediately recognize that your mother gave you the same thing.

A little,

you're doing exactly what you need to.

And you look at a community

that rather than glowering over you, causing you to be ruthless in the shadows,

is looking at you in the open town square for answers and guidance.

I say to them,

this

was great work that we've all done here.

Every single one of you.

Remember, we look out for ourselves.

We have each other's backs.

And that is how we're going to make it through this.

You see that

Tavine turns to look at you.

No

biting remark,

no quip, no turn of phrase to preemptively put someone on guard to not tangle with your sharp wit or cunning.

And instead just

open support and encouragement of people that desperately need it.

And Tavine smiles, or doesn't Tavine may internally smile, but more and just looks, seeing a side of you he has never seen before.

And Nia,

as people move, you turn

and see Luce.

She

Mia's seen a lot of messed up bodies.

She's seen people on Death's Door.

There have only been...

This may be the second time she has seen

one person

kill another.

And

her instinct is to just go to loose and to try.

Because Nia has done miraculous things before.

And she just

tries to bring her back.

She is

not even bothering to check a pulse.

She's just pressing and pressing.

And you can see on her white robes little splotches of tears as Nia is

crying.

she can, there's something she can do.

She, there's something she can do.

This can't, this cannot be how the story ends.

It's the three of us.

It's me, it's Liana, it's her.

She has to come back.

She has to come back because Luce is the only person.

She's the last person who saw Leon

Liana.

She has to come back.

She has to come back.

And she's just pressing and pressing and pressing and pressing and pressing and pressing and pressing and pressing.

And she may do that

for

until she hears that she may be making a terrible situation worse.

No, no, no, no.

And she's now banging on Luce's chest.

Feeling like such a failure.

She thinks back to earlier in combat where she had so many options to call on other people,

and she

at some point was like, No, let loose hide.

And the quick change of that thought is the thing that she's blaming herself for.

She should have followed her instinct.

Nothing will take this away,

But when the world is so impossible,

give yourself some little bit of grace.

We do the best we can

in the shadow of the gods.

Can she see

the sky?

Can she see the moon at all, Nia?

Do you think you can?

Do you believe you can?

Nia looks up, and even if she can or cannot see the moon, she because of the clouds and the rain and whatever time of day it may be.

And she

clocks it and finds it, feels its gaze on her.

And she

looks to the moon and says,

Have this one.

But you keep my sister.

You watch her.

And you make sure I do not make this mistake again.

She gets up

and tries to find a place where where she can perform some sort of

burial for her, for her friend, and Starmian, who still

is with us somewhere.

Starmion,

Luz,

two others that fell

in the brawl and battle here in Torm's Hill are laid to rest.

Arrow,

Nia moves so quickly with a sense of

rage and injustice, moments

after embracing a light eternal,

and moves so quickly to the work of honoring the fallen dead that she misses what you see,

which is for the first time

in

maybe decades,

clouds

part for a moment and you see a glimpse of star and light.

They twinkle there, far off in a nighttime sky.

And for a moment,

sailing as sharp as a saber is the crescent of the moon.

Katha moves

through the sky, and just as quickly, the clouds cover it.

She knew exactly where it was.

The battle subsides

and

the honored dead are buried.

Some measure of ale is imbibed in their honor.

And

a wounded Otto stands by Tavine.

Tavine looks over at you,

Phaedra.

What's the

angle, boss?

You know, I've been trying to figure that out,

and I'm not

not sure I have it yet, but

well, we're all here again.

Yeah,

we did a pretty good fucking job

walks up and kind of hunches down next to them.

I think

we might be able to

really make a change here.

You know?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay.

Garin,

you are propped up somewhere recovering next to Otto.

Arrow, you are there

nearby as the rain finally subsides.

It's still

cloudy, but

my god, you saw a patch of sky for a moment, and you see that for the first time

once the bodies are cleared,

you see that

your friend Bull Ray, the sort of bug bear elder, goes,

we've followed them back out, but there's no

sign of any other scout.

So none of them escaped.

They'll not know where they went or how far.

These ones already had eaten through their rations.

So,

yes.

You've saved us.

The people that are here will be safe because of what you did.

I know we lost

some, but

we honor them.

It is all we can do.

So many are now free that might have marched for cause of fear back into the chains of oblivion and tyranny.

We thank you, and we thank the honored dead.

You see Klisara

and Nez

come over, and

Phaedra, that you are once again reassuringly pinched by these older matriarchs who make sure that you are fed.

And for the first time, there's an area where now that the rain is gone, they build an outdoor fire, and there's a fire burning, burning, and people can get warm.

And there's a chatter through the camp.

For the first time, many see that the soldiers of the Strife Emperor were defeated.

That the Strife Emperor did not appear and lay a thousand people low with a mighty swing of a morning star.

Instead, there is freedom dearly paid for, but freedom nonetheless.

Um

Crocus is gonna

uh

did

you

did you get hurt?

No, not at all.

Okay,

it's fine.

I'll be right back.

He's gonna go walk to the river and just wash the extensive amount of blood that is all over him, off of him, and just try and clean himself.

Um

in the

uh

sort of after you go to wash yourself,

you see that

Clissara and Naz are both speaking to you, Aero, right in the arrow of certain guardian you propped up.

They say,

worried about Nia, we'll keep an eye on her.

Luz was one of the few old family friends that she had left in this world.

of which we all have precious few, I'm afraid.

It's a bitter loss for her.

Do you think you will leave at once, Arrow?

Or tarry here a while?

I think we will stay for a spell.

I had originally thought to move on fairly quickly, but my thinking has changed somewhat.

We would love to have you stay for a while.

It would be an honor.

And

there may be a life for us to build here.

But I know that

there is a conversation for you to have with Nia, who may wish to travel on as quickly as possible.

And if she does.

I would hate to think of her going alone.

That will never happen.

She smiles.

Nearby, Phaedra, with you and the rest of the Roach gang, sort of tending to a recovering auto,

you see Marlath walks up to you, who you did not see at all in that conflict.

He walks up to you and says,

Phaedra, my friend, could I speak to you in private for a moment?

I'm not going anywhere without my bodyguard.

Can you come?

Yes, of course.

I mean, I'm down by the river.

Oh, so he's gone down by the river at this point.

Okay.

I say, well, anything you can say you want to say to me, you can say in front of Otto and Tavine.

So let's hear it.

I've spoken with the Bowdley brothers.

Bowdley brothers?

The Bowdleys, the three halfling lads with the branding marks on their face.

Yes.

Connor Owen and Rowan Bowdley.

Okay.

They are

enterprising young lads

who were handing out the tools earlier.

I've kept a log of everything that was given away by the lads,

and of what use it was given and to whom it was given to.

And I've approached to them and spoken about the possibility of,

shall we say,

going into business together.

The

tools were taken with no discussion thereabouts, but in logging what people took and how they had it

I believe that those who have taken those tools have incurred something of a debt to the Powertles, and it is possible for us to join forces with them such that we might be able to capitalize upon that debt.

Those tools are of incredible utility, and the powderies are not necessarily

worldly, so some of these concepts it was difficult to explain to them.

But by working alongside them, we may be able to entrench ourselves in what is about to become a burgeoning place of industry, and tools will need to be sold here

in some degree or another, and I cannot help but notice the prowess that you and your companions possess.

In establishing order in a place like Torm's Hill, it can behoove one to

work side by side with those who are able to establish order

when and if it need be done.

You know,

I think I underestimated you.

You got a good head.

Good with this kind of stuff.

What can I say?

I'm a man of

no skill at arms, but vision, certainly.

Hmm.

And you

wish to share that vision with the Roach gang, I assume?

My intention would be to employ your services, such as they are.

Hmm.

Well then

perhaps we can have a little discussion.

A private discussion.

Sundown.

Hmm.

Um.

Behind Torms Hill, perhaps?

Lovely.

Bring the ledger with you.

I shall.

Yes.

I will do so.

It occurred to me as well as something of uh fascination to me.

Yes.

The structures here in Tormes Hill

were built as auxiliary structures and now are dwelling places for those that have arrived here in Torms Hill.

but there is no established deed of title or ownership to any of the buildings herein.

So, in other words, those that dwell here are dwelling here at the welcome as guests, essentially, of Clusara and Mez.

There are possibilities for,

I think, arrangements that could be made with those here who'd certainly have done nothing to earn these dwelling places.

I bring it to only.

So, you're

saying that perhaps maybe

there may be a way to leverage these.

Look at it this way.

None of these people built these structures that they now dwell in.

If we were to go and simply offer to care for the structures

in exchange for a deed of title, and should anything come up, a roof has a hole for the rain to come in, we'll repair the roof.

And all they need to do is simply acknowledge the deed of title, and we move forward from there.

You must understand.

Yes.

Some order is going to emerge from here.

And it will either be an order determined by

two elderly grandmothers, or it will be an order determined by those with an understanding of how to structure a place like this that requires structure.

Okay, those with understanding like you

have one example, certainly.

But also by those such as you who know the proper and practical applications of force when required.

Very interesting.

Well, we'll talk more at sundown.

Very excited to hear

all those visions of yours.

I'll bring the ledger book.

Yes, please do.

Um

back where uh Klasara uh had spoken to us and uh Garn was there as well, as soon as she walks away, uh, Arrow will lean against the same building that Garn is sitting against and with a wince slide down and sit next to you.

I don't know if you're feeling your age, but I certainly am.

Been feeling it for a century.

I'll tell you.

It has been a difficult week.

But I wouldn't

be sitting here licking my wounds if you hadn't broken me out.

The prison

back there.

That's what I wanted to formally thank you for it.

Hey, uh,

hard-pressed to say that we're all fairly even if we're keeping count, but

I'm bad at

adding and subtracting.

I appreciate y'all

putting any faith in these old bones.

I'm left here wondering how much more I got in me, to be honest.

I'm not a.

I'm not a fighter, I'm a maker.

And he looks down at his hammer, itself kind of like the

stone, somewhat pockmarked from the blast of

remaining divine energy that's unexpectedly fired from his friend.

He goes,

I can't help but feel like I'm a bit small for these bigger things.

Well, you could have fooled me and showed us equal measures of both.

I am

slow to offer trust.

Been that way for a long time, but

from the second

I laid eyes on you,

you had it.

Can't even really say why.

Sometimes you can read a person who's got nothing to lose and

wants for nothing to gain.

Claps his hand on your shoulder.

Gives you last, guys.

I see.

Maybe you can find some of that ale you were talking about.

For now, um

gonna go find Rhinea.

So I'm just gonna

just give me a little more time.

He limps away.

Rhinea, where is Rhinia in this moment?

Still at her friend's gravesite.

Nia's not.

She's still putting the pieces of everything together and finding some way to blame herself.

Any onlookers would see that she has taken some of her friend's robes and has turned it into some, or she has wanted to turn it into some sort of pouch for that Moonweaver symbol that

she will not be keeping for herself.

And she's sitting there

just

next to it with her hand in the earth, squeezing and releasing and squeezing and releasing,

just

lost in thought and regret and

is trying to come up with some plan to make this loss worth it.

Near your friend's grave,

I'll ask Alex,

do you think that this area of the graves is near to the river?

I'd say it probably is.

I think Rainy, as you're meditating here at the grave site, you hear a splashing in the river that is just now starting to come down and that choking, muddy, torrential flood is actually starting to get a little bit translucent.

Like maybe some of the ash of centuries of war between the gods

is actually starting to turn into what centuries ago was a clear and babbling alpine stream.

Funny how things change.

Korpus has never

seen a river before.

He's lived in a city his whole life.

And this is the first time he's ever, and then he went immediately to prison.

So he's never seen a river.

And he's just kind of like, if there's a part of it that kind of naturally kind of pools and isn't quite in like a rapids, he's just kind of like standing in it

and like moving his feet around and

washing his hands of the blood and everything, but not

with like purpose, just kind of

being a child in a pool of water, kind of

and just standing there.

She lets the sound of her new friend splashing for the sake of it.

She listens to that

and just

she hasn't talked in a while.

Um

it almost looks like she isn't

breathing

because how dare she get that and her friend not

I think Crocus,

you look up,

see Nia near the graves there.

He's gonna get out of the water and kind of slowly walk up towards where she is.

I'm

sorry.

Oh,

about your friend.

Me too.

We're similar,

you and I.

I don't know where my family is either.

I only

am

has

raised me.

I don't know who my

parents

were.

Phaedra had my egg.

So I guess it's just me who doesn't know where my family is.

Sorry.

Don't.

You deserve each other.

And Phaedra,

as

elusive as she can be,

she cares about you.

Yeah.

I missed the person who cared about me.

His

sister.

And she

her body sort of cracks and clicks in a way as she goes to reach in her bag for that locket

and she pops it open

and shows Crocus a picture

she's a day's travel

I hope to leave tonight.

Bad?

Everything's bad.

Could be better.

Closes it, puts it in her pocket.

And just

goes back to squeezing the earth.

I think, Arrow, you walk up at about this time.

She hears Arrow.

She knows the sound of her friend's feet.

She's heard him try and be sneaky behind her before.

I think in the distance, too, you hear Tavine's voice going, Crocus!

Don't let her leave.

He walks away back to town.

He stops you just with a little fist on your arm.

Just gives you a little knock.

Just goes back to town.

Mero, uh,

just stands by you for

quite a long beat without saying anything.

We have to go get her.

I don't want to sleep here another night.

I want to go get her.

I've been distracted,

I've been naive.

Well, um, um, that's what we'll do.

I have

some idea

what you might be feeling right now.

When there's nothing I can say or anyone else

who can talk it away,

but I will be here

Sitting quietly by

I think she like

reaches for him

and just

tries to get him to sit with her

so she can lean on his shoulder

and she feels the weight

of

what he has said and knows that she has so many questions about him and his history and that line on his throat that she's tried to ask about artfully and still not gotten an answer for.

But in this moment

of

shared grief,

she understands just a bit more.

I can't take the pain away, but

if you know where you want to go,

I will get you there.

Where do you want to go?

What do you want?

When you let yourself

want.

I think I want to know something different again.

Let's go find something different.

She gets up

and brushes herself off.

Um

takes some of that earth from her friend's sight.

Just presses it into one of her locks to keep a bit of her friend with her.

I can do

two more nights here.

Get our rations, get some water.

We should make for Snowgraves Pass as soon as

our friends can come with us.

As you wish.

Same.

A little ways later in the town,

hobbling as much as walking, I think Garin has retrieved a small personal

mini barrel that he had kind of stashed from the discovered chamber and kind of tucked it away somewhere where no one would find it.

And figured this is a time as I need to enjoy.

But as he kind of wanders into the streets, kind of catches a glance of Phaedra, kind of almost taking a parallel path and kind of gives a look over.

Hey, Phaedra.

Yeah.

Why don't we all join for a drink and celebrate

everything?

You got enough for four?

I think we can manage.

Don't have any cops,

but that's fine.

You can hold this.

Oh, we can manage.

We'll go find the rest here.

I

well, I got your attention.

Yeah.

You're a survivor.

I mean, we all are.

Ah, but like you.

I mean.

came pretty close.

Points to the tattoo on your arm, like

you know what you are,

you endure

not just because you have the will, but you have the mind, you have the clever wit, and you have the instinct to continue.

I've tried.

Sometimes it

seems like

it doesn't do as much good to me in this world as I thought it did.

Especially these days.

But I don't know if you saw the look in the eyes of those that saw you today.

They themselves found a little bit of that survivor in themselves because of it.

That's responsibility.

I know.

I felt that too.

I felt

I felt something.

And,

you know, I've always

believed in looking after my own people, and

I think these are my own people.

You felt something.

Yeah.

It's the first thing I've felt in a very long time.

Yeah.

So, just.

You're a survivor.

But not just for yourself anymore.

You have to survive for for everyone here.

I know.

It's not a responsibility that I take lightly.

Good.

Let's go for the ring.

Yeah.

The roaches and Garin have a long drink.

Uh

Nia, do you

take yourself to just find rest to prepare the next day, make your preparations to get to Snowgrave?

I think I try and find Garin

so I can thank him.

I think

I don't know how much she got to see after she was

struck low.

I think part of her knows that

Garin prevented something

really catastrophic.

Yeah.

So I think

she

keeps her things on her

and tries to go find Garren.

It's not too hard to find.

You hear the sound of some laughter not far from

the edge of the riverbank where he was working earlier.

And you kind of hear the kind of

round two?

So it's passing the keg around.

Garn?

She sees the gathering here.

A word?

Real quick.

Is it sundown yet?

It is sundown.

Oh, well, thank you so much for the drink, Garden.

We have a little appointment, but you guys have fun.

And

me and the boys, we...

I think, yeah, the roaches go ahead over.

Behind Torm's Hill,

you,

Crocus, you, Tavine, Otto all gather.

It's now nice and dark.

There's multiple bonfires.

For all the sorrow and heartbreak, the vast majority of Torm's Hill didn't see the fight even.

It happened so fast.

You know, probably about 100 to 200 people actually got eyes on it, and then words spread through the camp.

And the word spread through the camp was, it's very sad for the people we lost, but

we will not go back into the darkness.

You behind Torm's Hill see Marlath walk up.

You see, he's got he's gotten some nicer clothes for himself.

He's not dressed in the rags of a prisoner anymore.

Walks up with his ledger book, and he goes, Phydra,

good to see you again.

I would like to position myself in a place where he doesn't see me.

It's very easy.

He ignores you.

You're not

a very eloquent person, so he barely regards you at all.

So,

do you have high perception

chance?

Okay.

Or decent perception?

Yeah.

I would also, I think, as soon as uh as soon as Morleth walks up, I would have discussed this plan with all you guys already, but can he do a perception check to just make sure he wasn't like followed or anything?

Like, there's no one else around except Rollin 19 stealth check to just be kind of

where he walks up.

I'm give me a perception to see if he's being followed by anybody.

Gigantic monk shit.

Oh, I don't know.

Oh, okay, great.

Awesome.

It's a six.

And this may be a bit

audacious.

But

since Crocus doesn't see that he is being followed,

I don't know where our conversation happens, but I very much wanted this conversation to happen within eyeshot

of

this

moment.

Great.

I think they will gotcha.

Okay, so you guys, I think.

see.

You guys are in the dark, and I think you see them at a campfire pretty distant from here, closer to the river.

How many feet would you say?

Maybe like red lips.

Maybe like.

May I ask?

May I ask why?

Do you want to cast some magic?

No, she doesn't want to cast some magic.

I think she is.

I think she's just trying to keep...

She's lost friends already by not keeping a close enough eye.

Gotcha.

I think she wants to keep.

I think you stay vigilant.

You can you are with opposite, you're within earshot.

Okay, cool.

Cool.

I'll take earshot.

I have a observant feet.

Gotcha.

Which, yeah, if I can see a creature's mouth while it's speaking a language I understand, I can interpret what it's saying by reading its lips.

Gotcha.

Would you want to read Phaedra's, Crocus's, or Marlath's lips?

Or just anyone, someone who's in there.

Just reading Crocus's lips is so funny.

I'll say,

um.

we'll move with this, and if you want to hear something, we'll make it happen.

Yeah, well, we'll hear it.

Yeah, and

I think something is charged within her.

She's like,

I've traveled with old boy, this

shaky, shady guy for long enough, and seeing him alone with Phaedra,

not because I'm worried about what she's doing, I'm worried about what he wants to do.

Gotcha.

You know that features with Crocus and with Tavine and Oscar as well.

Oh, they're all all together.

Oh, okay.

I thought it was just her and him.

Absolutely.

It's the whole gang.

Okay, then, then.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Marlath walks up to you and says, Phydra.

Yes.

Splendid.

May I show you something?

Of course.

He opens this ledger book and moves through it.

And you see he says, The earlier plan I discussed.

Now, the the Bowdley brothers are, I think, a matter largely resolved.

I worked with many fine merchant guilds in my time serving under the Strife Emperor

in his grand and imperial

ministries.

And

what I found is that the manner in which those soldiers came through,

obviously, that was a

garish and violent display, and I think you were quite right to dispatch them post-haste.

Now,

the Bowdley brothers are already, I think,

on board with the idea that their service they're providing to the camp absolutely should be honoured.

It should not be given freely.

The goods they are providing, the community relies on, and that which is relied on must be paid for.

So I've offered to go into business with them as a majority stakeholder.

And I think that what we can do is I would love to hire you for your services.

Credit at first, but quickly for actual species to follow currency.

Very interesting.

May I?

May I take a look?

You see, he opens and says, this is quite a little clever thing here.

I went and found some of the families living in the structures closer to the river and brought up the flooding that had occurred and simply was able to say, and you see that he has the book.

He shows you...

slowly try to take the book out of his hand.

He shows and says, by acquiring the deed of title for the structures, I simply imparted to them that should a catastrophe befall their house, they would not be charged with its repair.

As the owner of the house, I would be charged with its repair and would be more than happy to provide that service.

And that their lease of dwelling within would be quite a generous five years, which for people who've been wandering the wasteland

should get five years of free dwelling inside of a place that I'm providing the care care and maintenance for.

Okay, Marlath, Marlath.

Yes.

Let me tell you something.

All this is very impressive, and I think you're ready.

Ready?

I think you're ready to become one of us.

Oh,

I've been thinking about your generous offer.

Right.

Tattoos are not necessarily in my.

Oh, we don't have to do it.

We don't have to do a tattoo.

There's plenty of ways of initiating.

Someone, boys?

Can we hold him?

Crocus comes out of the shadows behind him.

Does this dragon horn have a tail?

Yes, he does.

Stands on the tail.

And auto intervene.

Presumably, I would have told them about this.

Holding him there.

Yeah.

Go ahead and give me a grapple check.

You have to beat a six.

That is

23.

You open.

I say,

oh Marla you know one of the core

rules that we like to live by is that we look out for our own you know that means all the shit we do we do it because we have people we're looking out for we got I got Crocus I got these boys

you know

We are we don't take too kindly to selling people out

betraying your own kind

taking advantage of poor survivors who are trying to get you out of a shitty situation.

You know what your problem is,

Tarlath?

Barlath.

I guess you're gonna.

You get his name wrong, Tarlath.

Whatever.

Whatever the fuck your name is.

Your problem?

You talk too much.

And I take out the stiletto and I cut out his tongue.

Oh, you cut his tongue out of the

shuts his mouth and holds it closed.

I take the ledger from him and I say,

pleasure doing business with you.

We'll get in touch.

And then I think we all walk off.

Yeah, I let go and go, you should get that looked at.

Bleeding on the ground, searching in the dark grass for his tongue, you take Marlaft's ledger book and

walk out.

You see um, Otto looks down as you're walking about.

Otto looks at Crocus, and you have fully covered it and goes, You're not a very nice man, and kicks him in the stomach hard.

Um,

you guys walk out of there, uh, with the ledger book in a hand.

Uh, do you hold on to it?

Where do you absolutely hold on to it?

I just keep it on my person, I think.

Um, incredible.

Uh, you walk away from there.

Uh, fuck yeah, uh, Garin

and Nia and Arrow.

Um, uh, I think that uh you all, uh, are you guys just drinking?

Or you pulled me aside if you were sorry.

I did, yeah.

I, um,

Nia sitting by the campfire, uh, realizing that uh Fija is not alone, and therefore I

feel confident enough to sort of uh uh uh not pay attention, but this is what

it meant.

Okay, Nia takes this, tries to like

she spills ale in her hair, hates herself for it.

Uh uh

okay

drinks, hands it back to him

and says

Thank you

for what you did out there.

I was down and I

through the swimming, the haze of it all, I saw you cover me and take that blow.

I'm old.

old.

Yes, you are.

A lot more to live for than I do.

And besides, you've saved

more lives than I can count through the years.

My own a few times.

I've had the opportunity to pay a little bit of the back in race and like and

thank you for that.

I have a feeling we'll be thanking each other for a long time.

I hope so.

Give me this.

She

takes a bigger drink.

As you hold it for a second there, he kind of like sits there and

you quietly kind of sit there next to each other in darkness.

I didn't really get a chance to know her

this

ooze

woman.

But I'd like to know about her.

Why don't you tell me?

Nia

tells the story of Luce and her sister and herself.

The three of them

old family friends.

Our families were friends for a very long time.

And

she

taught me

about the moon.

and the moon weaver

me and my sister used to think that we could connect with each other in dreams and visions and

we would always meet on the moon

loose

had

such

dreams for the world

She dreamt of ease and joy and laughter and serenity.

And even in the dark time, she always made sure my sister and I kept hope alive.

Sort of shifting, sloshing the ale in its little jar.

I just wish she was able to see the future she painted for me and my sister.

The strange thing about dreams is they're infectious.

And if we're lucky, they last long after we're gone.

And wherever she is, under the light of Katha,

I can guarantee you

she'll see the world as it changes.

After all,

it's coming.

The clouds part

once more,

this time fully.

And Nia, you look up and see in a twinkling ocean of stars, a crescent moon smiling down at you.

For the first time in your life,

you are bathed in a light not of this world,

pouring in from the sky, moonlight surrounding you.

Seated around a warm campfire.

The The tired and exhausted,

and for the moment,

full and fed

and free, denizens of Torms Hill.

Fire keeps the soles of your feet so warm, crackling warm, kind of warm on a campfire that means you have to twiddle your toes or they'll get too hot.

It's easy enough to fall asleep right here with your back to a bench or a stone or a bale of hay with a cloak thrown over it.

Sleep comes, rest as it must.

Phaedra and Crocus,

you, Otto, and Tavine.

Find a place of comfort and rest.

Take turns.

But out in the open, busy here.

For the first time in your life, being out in the open is the safer place to be.

The people here are looking out for each other.

They were shown how to do that.

How to look out for each other.

You think everyone here falls asleep and gets a good night's rest for once?

Out of one hit point, yeah.

Crocus is gone and snoozing.

Phaedra, you feel your bodyguard's massive form for you to rest against against out by the campfire.

You see Clissaro walk over and hand you another little mug, and she says,

you're fearsome.

A little whirlwind.

Look at what you've done.

Look at this place.

Yeah, well we've

tended to a place.

You know, you make a tankard once and you wash it a thousand times.

There is a care and tenderness that goes into

maintaining.

But every once in a while, someone has to step in and do some dirty work, and very glad you were here to do that for us.

It's our honor.

And I promise you,

if there's anything that we can ever do to help you, to protect you, to look out for you in the way that you've looked out for us,

me and my boys, we got your back.

100%.

You can look out for me by getting a good night's rest.

See, she taps and looks at the ledger under your hand and sort of squints for a second because she's seen that book moving around the camp today.

Oh,

it's that book that that robed gentleman was writing

names and numbers in.

Yeah.

Could be something interesting, I thought.

Maybe it's a little reading.

Maybe not tonight, but

I thought I'd get some reading done.

Ah, well, you're very frightening.

Smart girls.

Hughes snooze with crocus as Otto, who's like resting, was being tended to medically, is like, I'm good, I'm awake.

I'll keep watch.

Nia, you get some of that ale in you.

I think you're you're gone to, you've got dropped today.

I think she tries to find.

I hope that Arrow came with her to the fire.

I think she wants to keep eyes on him, eyes on Garin.

Well,

I think perhaps Arrow

lasts later into the night than most, and where he ultimately ends up is

back at the river.

in spitting distance of the bridge.

Yeah.

The newly built bridge.

And he brings to life a little bonfire of his own.

And he molds the earth to hold himself,

drawing his tattered cloak around him.

And he just

spends a few hours gazing at the nearby mountain peaks,

crowned in stars.

Of our heroes, Garin is the only one that has not attained his first level as an adventurer.

So I'll turn to you here, Matt, and I'll ask you a question.

As Garin returns to his strength that night,

do you think he feels

a younger strength return to him in this moment?

Or instead,

does some

connection or secret of the earth come to him in his dreams?

And I will leave that choice to you, and you may choose whichever of them you wish, for that secret wisdom to come to you or for that old strength to return.

Given the things that he's experienced in the most recent of times, I'd say as he drifts into a

nice nice and buzzed, exhausted, and grossly sore stupor.

The crackling fire and the comfort of his friends being the last thing he sees before he drifts away.

I think the memory of the distant halls he once built comes again

the pride of the craft.

While he was never a man of strong faith,

You can't shake from his cultural upbringing the

presence of the Allhammer, whether it be colloquially spoken

or just a symbol of pride in one's craft.

The act of creation is something special

and something

he lost for a very long time.

And seeing these people come together, seeing this community come together, seeing people rebuild a word that he said,

the first word that he really said and felt he was fully behind after stepping out of the ash of the destruction of Rybad Cole.

He thinks of the scarred hammer he held in his hand today.

And it reminds him of that symbol.

And I think probably for the first time in his life, in the presence of divinity.

Faith in each other, and faith in the future, faith in change.

Maybe he hopes to hold a bit of that sight of the Allhammer upon himself.

Our dear friend Garin,

tough as nails, old as dirt,

does not seek that younger strength and seeks that wisdom instead.

And so instead of leveling up,

something becomes true about this world.

You sleep and snore.

Ale and little crumbs of bread in your beard.

Arrow, you stay by your bonfire

and for the first time in a lifetime

you feel

the rays of the rising sun

come through the clouds

like the warm embrace of a long-lost brother

The sun rises

and

arm

reaching a hand holding

the embrace of sunlight

It returns to Xandria as it hasn't in centuries in this land.

And you look out as the fog parts

and see that Torm's Hill

stands at the edge of a vast

valley.

The mountains shaped here

by hands long ago that shaped the mountains themselves.

All these people and the many survivors that come after them,

unbeknownst to them,

stand

at the beginning of a vast valley.

The approach of the wild mother having raced through it, the rain of the storm lord having fallen down upon it,

this land will not know ash or shadow again and instead

a valley shaped as if by careful hand and wise design

to make a land rich with life where all of the people

now here can see under sunlight

is

green and growing

ready for the work of living things

to make a world anew in hope and wonder

most beautiful valley you've ever seen

waiting for lives to be built here

by hand

that's all for this episode of Xandria Unlimited Divergence see you next week

Is it Thursday yet?

That's what you have to say.

You have to say, is it Thursday yet?

That's what you have to say.

You guys better remember next time.

I'm tired of telling you.

This is Matthew Mercer.

Thank you for listening to Xandria Unlimited on the Critical Role Podcast Network.

If you've enjoyed the show, please leave us a review on the podcast app of your choice.

Your review might inspire someone to give this adventure a listen.

There are unlimited stories to be told, and we can't wait to keep telling them.

Is it Thursday yet?

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