The Snipping of Shears | Critical Role | Campaign 4, Episode 3 | Part 1

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Why, hello there! I'm Brennan Lee Mulligan, and welcome to campaign four of Critical Role.

Thank you for joining us on this journey as we explore Araman, a world of fractured kingdoms, tumultuous rebellion, and sorcery that rises from the graveyard of the gods.

You're listening to part one of this adventure, with part two arriving this upcoming Tuesday.

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Now, without further ado, let's begin this episode of Critical Roll.

At a broad table here in the banquet hall of the Via Aurora, the Halovar estate, Teor, you are seated on an exquisite velvet-lined and cushioned seat as a small

white velvet sack of coins lands with a thunk in front of you.

The woman speaking to you says, And of course, for any accoutrements needed for your service as a

guardian errant of the Lord Wicand Halofar, the Merconode Couturier will be happy to fit you and your gear to our station.

We attempt to make clear that violence is always a regrettable, tragic, and final resort.

That the weaponry, armor, and tabadry of our various vassals and men-at-arms bear the symbol of the Candescent Creed. But we would shudder to think of you going out of your own pocket for that.

Oh, that is most understood.

I think if I might suggest an alternative, perhaps for an extra level of security, perhaps I I could stay as I am, plain clothes, not draw attention to anything that needs to be done on behalf of the Candescent Creed.

A more covert security for us. Uh, give me a persuasion check.

Five

beach.

She goes, she goes.

A splendid suggestion.

It is such an exciting proposition to imagine that by wearing the symbol of the Candescent Creed, you may attempt to be covert in proudly wearing the symbol of the order. I see.

Close behind you, you hear...

As a door flies open and on these sets of silvery white chains, this massive knight walks in.

Heavily armored, gray-bearded human knight you see he's got gleaming luminous tattoos all around his neck that curl up around over his eyes uh he walks in and goes

you're the uh

former bannersman yes that would be me theor

very well well

theor It's a pleasure to meet you. Your name? My name?

I am Sir Felonius Halevar. These are my dogs.
Wrath and judgment.

I can't tell which one is which, but then again, when it comes to wrath and judgment, who can?

Indeed.

Both beautiful

companions.

You see that one of them sort of snarls and it has a dull glow from the back of the dog's throat.

You hear a sort of faint humming from its vocal cords, almost like it can't stop whining. And this whining is sort of beautiful, ethereal, almost angelic.

Such a beautiful noise they make.

I have never heard the like. Oh, yes.

They can't stop singing, these dogs.

Singing.

The song confuses spellcasters. They're good dogs.
Glad to have you aboard and claps you on the shoulder and says, Well, you'd best on your way to the Couture A.

We expect you back first thing tomorrow.

It will be done.

You see that the handmaiden smiles. Sir Filonius walks up with the dogs looking over.
Give me an insight check.

Natural 19, 4823.

There's gold in a pouch in front of you. This has all happened so quickly.

You wonder on that high insight roll.

I think you just wonder what's waiting at that couturier.

But you see a servant opens the door leading to exit the estate.

We shall be in touch when the Lord Wakanta calls for you.

Most certainly. And I shall, of course,

become more appropriately dressed next time. Of course.

Thank you very much, Master Pride Sire.

And may the beam reach you.

May it reach us all. It always does.
Bye-bye.

You see that as you exit to the street, we move over

nearby, not far away from the Via Aurora at the Palazzo Divinos,

we see walking out

under

the

early afternoon sun

Julian Divinos. Where are you headed to on this morning? I've been looking for it.
This Octis figure, I

recall we had an encounter in his varium many years ago, and I

thought I caught a keen.

There's a look about the family that's very specific, But was in the company of Taisha

last I saw her. Yeah.
So I would likely be heading towards.

Probably to Howe's domain to see if I can find where she might be, and then through her find out where this boy might be.

Teor,

you remember the events of the previous day,

but you've had business to attend to with Loza's departure and everything else that's been occurring.

where do you think you would head in this moment? Um,

um,

I actually think I would head to this

place they've sent me to, at least to know what the next step would be. But I would also be trying to keep an eye out for anyone from the funeral that we've seen, just in case our paths might cross.

Give me a perception check with advantage, and Matt, I'd like you to do the same.

Yeah,

that's a 17, 19.

That was two national 19s in a row

for a 20.

A lot of competition.

Walking through

the Ogremak marketplace, towering shelves of ripe fruit, spices, produce. You see there's a hanging sort of like fish market with fish that blocks of ice that they've been delivered on,

raw foodstuffs and you see fine tapestry silk and armories like you wouldn't believe the overmark marketplace has some of the finest like weapons dealers and armorers in all the world this is the home of the loy family where they built you know they smithed the blades made to kill a god and so the the you smell steel and forgecraft all around you uh you also see parchment nailed with daggers to posts all throughout.

By order of the Chamber of the Lord's Advisory, all arcane magic is forbidden by law within the confines of the marketplace.

On that high perception, as you keep your head on a swivel, the strange, in a lively market, that's still muted feeling.

Julian and Teor catch each other's eye as you move to go to the Katuria and you move to the bridge across the River Vrosch to the rookery.

Can I help you, stranger?

Not the particulars at this moment.

Teor, you look down and see the symbol.

Subtle, but on the belt of House Divinos.

You briefly saw this guy at the funeral last night. You didn't speak to him, but you saw him in the room.
That's right.

I, um. Or sorry, redline that.
You left before he got there

you uh look and see the symbol of House Devinos there in that moment and I think Julia you recognize him as a former companion of Theazi's

you reminded me of someone is not a concern

well that seems

like an unlikely possibility. I see you are from House Devinos.

I am.

How fares your family?

Well,

our family is um

in the throes of mourning, as are all at recent events.

Yes, um upset by yesterday's events, are they?

As

tense as our history might have been,

The Aussie is a fixed point in our history.

Yes, a good man. In history, it should stay.

I say, let bygones be bygones. I am Teor, Pride Sire.
Your name?

This gentleman is in the middle of a marketplace,

unnaturally friendly and stepping forward. Can I glean his intent or try and see if I should just brush past? Give me an insight check.

Uh,

you uh cannot read the intent of this commoner here in this place.

Um,

Sir Julian DeVinos,

Knight of the Vassal House Devinos,

Sir Julian.

Yes, your uh

your name carries as much weight as your family's.

I have heard much about you and your um

great

deeds.

Not all of us can have the reverberations through history as those of

such lineage, but

it is nice to meet you. I have business elsewhere.
And he begins to step away. If you find yourself in need of business with the Candescent Creed, I have recently allied myself with them.

You will find

an ally

if you should need one.

But

I will take my leave, Sir Julian Williams.

Uh, give me one more perception with advantage, Julian.

Nineteen

you

look and see Teor traveling with a small satchel of coin with the candescent creeds symbol on it. And you know that you're nearby this place, the Merconod Cuturia.

In the sundered houses, you've heard some rumors.

Here in Dolmak, there are other people that you've consorted with that the Merconod are a family that have worked for the Halo Vars for a long time that have a lot of fronts, but their main purpose for the Hale of Ars is making problems go away.

And I think you look over Tayer's shoulder and see the direction he was headed in is towards the Merconaut couturier.

And make distinct note of that, and then briskly head towards Howe's home.

May the light find you.

Do not respond.

And we'll find you.

May the light find you.

And we will discover what happens in that couture on this episode of Critical Role.

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That actually concludes our announcements. So, you know what? Let's go ahead and jump back into Araman.

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We return

deep underground in front of the opening of the prismatic retort.

Whereupon, a towering celestial with gnashing teeth strains and fights against massive chains,

each link

more than an arm's width around.

Enormous muscles ripple across this monster's body. Multiple skeletal fingers, more like a bat's wings than a bird's, stretch out and

grind and crack against more chains enclosures. You see see

the face ravaged by pain and misery

as gleaming saliva, or perhaps blood, spills down from his mouth. Your grandmother, Yanasa, turns and says,

It's something that's almost too hard to be believed.

Wiki,

my little ducky,

I love you, and I understand that this is

unusual.

I sort of take a step back, gripping my cane, and I think just looking around at the craziness of this image of this gigantic monster thrashing about, and then also just sort of juxtaposed with everybody just sort of feeling like it's commonplace or looking like they've...

seen this a hundred times before.

And I guess I'm just staring at different faces to try to register like who is surprised by this

if anyone. You see, she says,

your

father does not look surprised at all.

Nearby, you see your elder sister

emerges.

This is the lady Zabani Halevar.

And trailing behind her is your sister, Tyranny Cruelty. Zabani steps forward, your older sister.

Glad you're finally in the fold, Wick.

Um, I look to tyranny just to sort of find any sort of support in

anyone's glance. Um

and I'll just sort of nod to my sister and say, Uh

yes, I've been um

I suppose um educated as to um

I'm sorry, the the filament is

is that is that creature's

blood

no no no

oh it ain't got blood

it is light

you know but it they don't it's in his it's in his body yeah

but it's also his spirit you know it's hard to say it is light it's just

It's just what he's made of.

It's not the distilled

liquid liquid of the universe. It's not...

We've been drinking this from the radiant chalice. We've been tattooing it on my body.

Many, many people's bodies, yeah, a lot of bodies.

Wick.

70 years ago,

a bunch of lunatics and idiots stood up to kill the gods.

Now, the gods died. So, maybe they weren't gods.
If you can kill them, are they gods? Seems unreasonable. But that doesn't mean that the world was ready to stop believing in something.

What's more beautiful than believing in something? Nothing. Nothing.

Faith fuels us, yes. Of course, so you've got to give people something to believe in.

And we gave them this? Yes!

The filament.

We don't know that it's not condensed light from the cosmos. We just have a place that we get it from.
I...

When I was a young girl,

they came for us.

They wanted to destroy our family. The Hale of Us, we were the family of flames.
We were the right hand of the Obrademian royal house. We served what we believed to be a God true.

And they cast us down, slaughtered us!

They would have preferred that we all be destroyed.

your grandfather

ethion

ethion

ethion

the way that you sort of cocked your head made me think that maybe that's not his name or no it is okay okay well it it was it still is

but he was the servant of the sun

and you married him no no no no don't be disgusting no i didn't

he's your grandfather because I took...

I took some of his blood and I used it for a spell and I made a wish.

And my wish was to have a child.

Oh.

And that was your father, Goddard. And Goddard's always had a gift.
You see, your father has this blindfold on again. And you look at that enormous...

top heavy kind of like protrusion in his back and you see he turns and goes mother

my die and she says yes darling you see he removes his

coat

undoes his shirt and you see tight wrapped bandages there's no red but you realize that some kind of bright light fluid is coming through on his back and as he releases it you see these two stunted naked wings extend from his back

and immediately grow luminous beautiful feathers, white eagle's wings.

Thank you, mother.

I had a baby boy.

Um, yes, you did. Um

well,

it it was all taken from us, you understand?

The Hale of Os were

All we ever did was serve the light. We served the light when we thought that the light was from

Tansul.

And then Tansul died.

And when Tansul died,

the heart of the Obradimian Empire erupted into eternal darkness.

Lands shriveled, crops failed, an entire people dispossessed. Tell me, what is the justice of that revolution? There's none.
No, something needed to be done.

Something the people needed to be

shown goodness again. When the houses were sundered, as we were, our lands destroyed, we had to act.

The Royce had their golden orchard halfway between here and the fairies and the Taconis,

whatever they did

we used our wealth we started trading we had some holdings in other lands we got back on our feet we we

helped after the shapers war didn't we we of course we accepted what had been but we didn't forget did we

And when I was a young girl,

Atheon, without the god of the sun, he went feral.

He he'd lost his connection to his maker.

You understand why that would be frightening, right, Tyranny?

Of course, Botark.

See,

and the other demons, you know, that people need a good story to believe in. When I found Etheon, I...

I knew that he shouldn't fall into the wrong hands.

And

I knew

that he

would still want for the light to shine. Now we couldn't call it tansil because everything happened, but

the light could come back.

They can have their revolution. They can say that mortals will stand where the gods once did, but nobody really fucking believes that

people need the light. They do.

I um... I'm sorry, I'm just taking this all in.

No, no, what you're saying...

It rings true.

We were doing this for the right reasons. Of course we were.
To give the people hope and faith in something.

To maintain...

the good trust of the Hale of Ars. To...

To spread joy amidst chaos.

If you can't be an empire,

you take your licks, you pick yourself up, you dust yourself off,

and you start a church or a merchant company, something.

Sure.

You understand, don't you?

I know it's an enormous secret, and I do feel bad. No, no, I'm just a bit shocked that everyone.

Well, that was your mother. Everyone knew.
That was your mother. Iris.

Iris loves the whole creed. I mean, she just, it's like she

keeps reciting it. She'll recite it to me interpersonally, and I'll be like, I wrote that.

Why are you talking to me about that? She does. She did read it to me as sort of a bedtime every night for my whole life.
Right, and I let her sort of.

Your elder sister

had to be brought. you see her as Zavani is just staring straight ahead.
We needed someone that could run

the basement.

And I and your mother had a very convincing argument that we needed you to marry Ibeka, young Ibeka.

We needed you, and we didn't want the secret to spread out to them and keeping a secret from your spouse. So we said, what if he's a true believer?

And there was some part of me that said, well, if the cre if I've done my job and the creed is that believable that even my grandson believes it, then then that's sort of the poetry, in there

Yes, yes, grandmother.

It is poetic.

I just sort of shrink back at the sight of the thrashing monster.

Yes, I suppose it is beautiful in its way, and forgive me for

just taking a moment to sort of take it all in, but of course you had your reasons and

and of course they were right. Um

I suppose I'll just need a moment to

to process it all. That's all.
And and and and and to find out what what I meant to do. Um

what am I meant to do?

Everything.

Am I still the scion of the family? Am I still you see Zabani says, it's a great question. And you see that uh

the

you see that Yanessa turns to her and says, Zabani,

That's enough out of you.

Your sister... Everyone has their gifts.

Sister's very skilled.

She's not set up to be the face of much of anything, is she?

She's lovely.

She's lovely. We need a little more honesty around here.

I think I could carry the family's name very well. I think you can too.

But

the reason I had to tell you is this whole thing with the Azi Fang

and you pushing this thing with how it was just

the things that we say in the creed,

it's

good rules.

You write down these rules because you know that people you don't know are going to read them. And you want there to be something that makes the ground under your feet steady.

You need some reliability, right it's sort of like think about this right

there's a lake with fish in it

and

it's good fish but it's not yours it's it's the king's and you want to poach those fish yeah

but if everybody does it be all out of fish because that's why the rule's there so the ideal situation is only you poach the fish so you get your fish but nobody else does because they believe that in the rule that you shouldn't do that does that make sense?

I mean couldn't you just share share enough fish with

I need you to listen to me

Yes, it's not about the fish is it

the Aussie Fang had to die

for reasons that were political for reasons that are

setting ourselves up to stay close to people that we don't know what they're doing

so

I got you in my ear like a gnat talking about spreading the faith. And listen, we do need to spread the faith to Delmachia for sure.

But I could the zeal was coming from something in your art that you thought we needed to listen to these.

You look quoting the creed to me all the time. So,

it's beautiful. I mean,

just don't do it anymore.

The creed is

exactly what we need it to be.

It serves a perfect purpose like a tool. Exactly.
Yes. Exactly.
And a smith looking at a hammer and saying, oh, I'm gonna let the hammer boss me around, that's demented.

Yes, of course.

I've been looking at it the wrong way, I suppose.

I know.

I hate your mother.

I am

so sorry. I should never have let this happen and it's gone too long, but we're fixing it now.
Right.

Right.

Yes.

Yes, we are fixing it now.

And

I think I understand. And

I'm up to the task. Yes.

Just...

Sorry. Yes, grandmother.
You see, she looks at you and says...

I know you had this

romance

thing

with the one who got away, but this marriage to the D'Antonios needs to happen. Right.

Yes.

And

while all cards are on the table, so to speak,

why again must I marry this woman? I mean, she's she seems lovely on paper, but I mean, she's... she's I don't know her at all and

so

Her father is very old in age

and

I believe their son is younger and is more or less abdicated from his position there. They sit on a plot of land with a series of vineyards that produce a

magical sort of

an alchemical

element within the fruit of that vineyard that will allow the filament that we can dilute it pretty considerably and it will be we'll be able to increase the production fine absolutely.

That sounds reasonable as well. Yes.
All right.

Oh.

I'm so sorry to speak out of the turn.

It's been a big day for my Scion, and I was wondering if I might go draw him a hot bath so he can decompress and think about his next steps.

You see, she smiles and says, what a thoughtful demon you are.

That sounds lovely. Now, not as hot as you'd like it, otherwise our little grandson are getting burnt.
Don't want to cook him. Don't want to cook him.
Ah, boy, old grandson.

Oh,

that would not be good.

Shall we?

Yes.

Any fun. One more thing.
Sorry.

Earlier you said to um

get rid of Teor

that Teo, the lion fellow.

Did you mean for me to um um

get rid of him

My grandson

I would never ask you to do such a thing

It's already done

Your life will be mostly the same going forward

We just needed you to know enough to stop

stop believing

well thank you for that that gift um

I'll um

I'll uh

I'll go get in that bath now and

wash this day away

that's what I like to hear Wiki I'll see you bright and early the rising of the sun nice heart bath and maybe a little sweet treat

and by the way,

now that, you know, you've disabused yourself of some of these extremely

oppressive convictions, if there's any treats you

have been missing,

accommodations can be made when you know the truth.

Oh,

I've been keeping my body pure for all these years.

You've actually been killed. Is that true?

It's true.

Your willpower will be of great benefit to this family moving forward. I can only imagine what your dedication will manifest for this family now that it might be turned to more fruitful purposes.

Right. Yes, I am.

Yes, yes. I suppose a new horizon is ahead of me, and

you are

the grandson of a Celestial.

You do not get your powers from your devotion to poetry.

You get them because of the blood that runs in your veins. It's our family, first,

always,

Wakanda.

All is bright, all is right.

All is right.

I love you.

I love you, Grandma.

Hot bath.

Whitney, could you describe the beautiful Clawfoot bathtub?

Oh my god, it's like 20 feet.

So big.

The size of a pool. Gorgeous.
And it is ornate

gold and turquoise inlay, cloth feet.

There's a roiling fire underneath that is enchanted to keep it at just

at the perfect temperature. And it is surrounded by shimmering curtains that are like, you know, like a mosquito net, but like fancy.

Gorgeous.

scorching hot water.

Shh, steam.

And noise.

Noise of hot running water. Uh covering any conversation as the two of you move into Wakander's private chambers.

You knew?

You knew?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

How? Okay. Um.

All right. You're supposed to protect, observe, and obey.
I was supposed to keep you believing. Wick, okay, I'm just gonna run this down.
Protect means telling me things.

I couldn't tell you.

Let me just.

I was given a body six months ago with the explicit purpose to make you look good. Okay.
I am hired by your family. I am not gonna be saved.
I'm a demon, man. You can't save a demon.
I was hired.

You've made a lot of progress.

Thank you.

Your family

has been in bed with my family for a very long time.

Okay? My maker, Ksharavi, the high prince of demon kind and the shadow of suffering,

brought me to you

to spread the word of the Candescent Creed.

In exchange, he is getting filament. He is getting souls.
This is a harmonious relationship that your family has had with my family since I was just swirling in the pit. Of course.
I should know.

Of course I should have expected this. You're a demon.

You tantalize humans with your words and you corrupt us with your lies. And you're just like them.
No, I understand. No.
Okay.

Listen. I'm not like them.

I will admit.

First month I was here, I thought it was kind of funny that you didn't know.

My sisters were very much in on it.

But then I saw that you were the only one who actually believed in it and also, like,

really believed that you could save me.

And you can't. I'm sorry, you can't.

But I think your family

is afraid of you. You're not a...

You're not a pariah. What you did, you went off book with Yazzie.
You have willpower and that's why they brought you in because they're scared of you.

And I just want to say that

my contract

is with you. It's not with your family and you can cast me back to the pit anytime you want and I will go back and I really don't want to

and you're gonna really have to figure out what your actual beliefs are because all of this is a lie in exchange for power.

My sisters are doing insane shit to hypnotize masses, to do crowd control, to spread the power of your family to keep them rich and powerful.

They don't care about what happens to people after they die. They don't care, but you do.

And if you want to just

be a noble and be like

turn the other way, I don't know. I don't know where your head is actually at.

What else? What are my choices? My grandmother commanded me to do this, and

my father, my sister, everyone expects me to sort of tow the family line. So I must do that.

I think you're going to really need to think about

what you believe in.

And I'm not going to try to sway you. I will say

that

big tall lion man,

right Teor? Yeah,

I think that we should look into his story. She said they were gonna

I don't know about that.

I

I don't forgive you for not telling me,

but I suppose I understand

if everyone was in on this, then you couldn't just very well

expose yourself and

go against the family it seems like they

they have command over large creatures and small and demon kind as well and

wick they don't have command over demon kind

you're not like your family and i'm not like my family

for a minute They kept you out because they thought you couldn't handle it, because you were the face and your belief,

which is still true, by the way. All of the things that you've taught me, I think you really believe.
I do. Everyone is inherently good and has the light flowing within them.

Listen.

I need to think about this. But before I do,

I really think we need to go warn that hairy man that he's about to die. Do you know where he might have gone?

Do I?

You know exactly where he would get sent. If the grandma already took care of him, there's a tailor shop in the market they would have sent him to, and they'd be dealing with him.

Yeah, there's a tailor shop in the market, and he'll be dealt with there. Why a tailor? That seems like a.

I don't know, I think it's dangerous? I'm sure. I mean, tailors have needles.
I don't know.

Okay.

Well, then.

Do you know where this tailor is? Could we go there? I know where he is. Can you...
Can you show me the way, even though

I guess I'm a failure?

Hey, you're not a failure. No, no, I'm just.
I've been... I've easily bamboozled my entire life.

No, you were taught to believe in something, and you do. That actually

shows that you have strength of character and believe in something.

My sisters are so happy to see all of this puppet mastery and see the crowd getting manipulated and your family be brought into this like place of control because they get souls and I don't want to be a part of that.

Please don't send me back. Of course I'm not going to send you back.
You've been my. Here's what I think.
Here's what I think.

Play the part.

Go with it. Play the part and we'll talk to Teor.

And we'll figure out what to do next. But you cannot betray that you feel any different.
You did really good in there.

I was. I think I peed my

robes a little bit. I know there was a reason that I wanted to draw you back.

Right.

All right.

To the haberdashery. We must go.
The tailory, but yeah. Yes.

Tyranny, you

rush to get a carriage together, and Makander, as you prepare to head out and warn this

wielder of the light you saw earlier today,

you look and see on your desk

a

small silver filigreed frame turned the other direction amongst your belongings.

Can I. Is it not normally like that? It's normally like that.
You turned it around a long time ago. Oh.

May I

shift it around?

It's the face of a commoner

who

once mattered a great deal to you.

But

you were told that the light had not chosen for that

love to unfold. It was not destined to be.

Yes,

I just sort of pick up her portrait and stare at it a bit

as

Tyranny's off making preparations to leave and I will

no I am watching you watch that picture I am I am looking

I will I'll take it out of the frame I'll put it in a small satchel gather a few items unclear of when I'll come back grab my cane

grab a

a flask of water and

I guess head out

you head out and with that, I'll say goodbye to you both. Marisha, you want to jump in? Did we say we go? You go.
Okay. Party now.

My Tom.

It took me everything in my being to not make a joke about squirt when you said demon blood is made up of much stuff.

I wasn't expecting to jump in here now either. Okay, here we go.
I'm here. I'm here.
Where's my iPad?

Go grab your iPad.

Hi, America. It's Brennan Lee Mulligan here.

Check in with yourself.

Check in with yourself.

You can't prove there's allegory in this.

Help.

Help it's again. Help.
Help.

Murray. Yes.

Standing across from you in the doorway is the tall figure of the Lord Primus Taconis

gazing at you and Dean Tallberyl.

His eyes pass over you

and you feel

the saliva cool in the back of your mouth.

Almost like you're choking for a moment as his eyes glance across and alight on Dean Tallberyl.

Ellipides,

I am given to understand that until the stroke of six this evening, you are dean of this institution, are you not?

You see that Dean Tallberyl goes,

Yes, I am. It's true.
It's true.

He

sneers a little bit and says, says,

I'm searching for my

son, Octis.

He was sent here some years ago to your boarding school.

He arrived at the age of maturity and manifested no sorceress powers whatsoever. Our family.

You see, he looks over at you and says, is something wrong with your eyes?

Sorry, no, I just.

I think it's allergies.

I wouldn't be surprised. There's something wrong with your teeth, certainly.

Oh, yeah, you like them?

No.

Oh, well, fuck you.

You see, Olipides goes,

and just, um, uh, you see, he says, uh, what's what she means to say? And you see that Primus turns and says,

Coarse language like that will not be tolerated. I'll speak to Dean Cora about disciplinary measures.
I'm looking for my child. I understand that he boards here in your dormitories.

Octus, right?

Little...

little weasely fucker.

Right? Little gangly man, like little built like string bean.

Yeah. I think that's who you're talking about, right? Yes.
Honestly, good kid.

You see, Dean Tallbarrel looks at you and hears you say the first nice thing you've said about Octus. A minor message cantrip comes from Aleppides to you and says, you hate Octus.
Shut up.

You see that.

Primus looks and says.

My

house has arrived. here in Dolmarchia for the events of the execution of the criminal who attacked our guards in the marketplace.
I had hoped to entreat with my son, who I'm given to understand has

somehow worked out a way

to acquire

the gifts of shadow in the realms beyond that his own

constitution was either too weak or sclerotic to arrive at under normal means.

Just the

back of Murray's head is just

on fire

And she's kind of like chewing on the inside of her mouth Almost to the point where like it's starting to bleed a little bit as a way to quite literally bite her tongue so that she does not make a massive mistake

What was it? Primus? Can I call you Primus? Is that

Prime Minister?

You would like to call me Primus, my first name, even though you are a ragamuffin and a commoner? Oh my god.

Thank you so much. I haven't been called a ragamuffin since my early 20s.

Um,

yes, you know, that's the thing. That's what we actually believe here in the Penteverl is that,

you know,

despite anyone's status...

They can rise above what they were born into, whether it be wealth or poverty, and actually make something of themselves. And

regardless of what I think about

your family,

I gotta give credit where credit is due. Octus did just that.

But you know, I haven't seen Octus. It's actually kind of funny.
I kind of forgot about him a little bit. I haven't seen him in

some time. I'm gonna need you to give me a wisdom saving throw.

21. World a natural 18.
21.

Um

the Lord Primus doesn't do anything, but you feel a cold settle upon you as his gaze descends.

Uh, and feel yourself

repel

a powerful curse

that alights on you.

Had you not been able to resist the spell,

you would have spent

a length of time unknown to you rolling a wisdom save at the beginning of every turn, and if failing, not being able to take an action during that turn.

The spell feels like on the side of my face.

Ice cold. Uh-huh.

Murray. But you see, there's no component.
There's no spell casting. He doesn't appear to be the one doing it.

Just kind of um

you know run my tongue across the top of my teeth. Give you a few glances around.

Look at Primus.

Give a little bit of a knowing nod.

You know,

I actually thought

Octus was with you all.

Maybe on vacation, whatever you rich people people do. I thought you were like in a lakefront property somehow, maybe up in the Sunset Mountains.

You know, I'm actually from there, so if you ever want any recommendations, I got you.

If you continue to speak to me, I'm going to kill you where you stand.

Okay.

Yeah, you know. See, Dean Tallgirl says,

I think that was probably

finished here.

You see, either, can I even do just knowing that like something

is nefarious is happening here, kind of pick up my teeth and kind of do like a little detect magic myself to see if I can sense where this source is coming from? But I don't want to like

uh do you want to give me a sleight of hand, a sleight of hand or a deception?

I'll do deception.

If I fuck this up, this could be bad. I can feel it.
I can feel it in my knees.

Okay.

Okron. 14.
14. Uh-huh.

Um.

I got a hair. Oh, shit.
Sorry about that, Primus.

Um, you see that

Primus does not notice that you are doing this, but a 14 is not high enough to stop Olipides, who goes, Tea for tea for everybody and pours tea.

And as he does, the teapot bursts into steam and he counterspells your detective magic. Oh, dang it.
I spilled.

Lord, Taconis, please, you have a.

And you see the message that in your head just says, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go.

And you see that Taconis says, you're a ridiculous man, Olipides. And Olipides says,

well, that's why I'm resigning. And.

Clumsier than a blind badger, that one. Okay, it's nice meeting you, sir.
Hi, Mary.

You see that he, as he walks out,

you hear Primus saying,

That woman, I want you to fire her. And you see that Dean Tall Barrel says, Oh, I'll make sure to explain it to Cora.

I don't have enough time with, but we'll make sure that actions are taken, Lord Taconis. And I'll say as well,

in terms of cursing her,

what worse curse could there be than allowing a commoner to struggle with magic?

And

he

walks out. Give me insight if you want.

Fuck me. I'm like, fuck me, fuck you, die.
So it's a one.

Dean Tallberyl has fundamentally betrayed you.

was!

Go!

As you walk, you hear a voice saying,

Octus must be retrieved at once. I would like the resources of your institution to bring my son to me.
We are at Obramis Manor in the Tanners. Obermist? Obramis.
Obermus.

Um, you see, Dean Tallbert says, of course, we'll find Octus right away. Murray, leading the room.
What do you do?

Since you fucking the fucking rich bastards, you're fucking, I'm gonna fucking take my school back. I'm gonna take my school back.
I'm gonna fucking, uh,

zero Zune

Azune.

And I just

take off. Just wait, it's not like

her boobies are moving.

She is power walking

to Azune.

Power walking to Azune as swiftly as your feet can carry you. Somewhere in the city,

Octus Taconis, much searched for,

has rolled initiative. I gotta fucking find that skin.
Go ahead and fucking blow weasel.

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First pass coming out. Let's go!

Oh, shit.

There's only three of us. There's only three of us.
Yeah.

I don't know what's happening.

Oh, God.

If there's anyone who's gonna go first,

that's my drink. Am I leaking?

Fred before a flight. Am I leaking? Am I leaking?

What's happening? Two.

Three, two, this way.

Okay.

I'm not nervous at all. No, I didn't hear anything.
I'm gonna pee.

Oh boy. Oh, I'm last in love.

I've got so much room. Right, I was I rolled a 25.
25, 21. 21.

Octas

thimble.

Yeah.

I have a guy.

That's right. A burlap sack was being thrown over my body.

That's right. Boy.

Cat again. You're right here with Wolfrick.

Um, hell yes.

Okay.

Um, we're gonna go

I'm so stressed.

I'm so stressed.

I'm so stressed. Oh,

wait. What? What'd you do? What'd you forget? No, I'm missing my two sheets.
It's okay.

Uh, hold on one second, gang.

Okay.

Okay.

You see that

we arrive in the midst of combat.

Fimble.

This is the guard tower. It is the home base of the crow keepers.
There's some servant rogues abound. This one has come up right behind you with a burlap sack whistling in the air.

We have our initiative order locked and loaded.

And with this,

we are going to move into initiative.

Okay,

we're going to move into initiative.

And thimble, hearing the whistling of the sack behind you,

you see about 10 feet in front of you is Solomon, who's one of the guild masters of the Trojans, who you were talking to.

You mentioned Casimir to him.

As you did so,

you see that this is the rogue who set that behind you here with a burlap sack.

Incredibly, even though they're going for you, nobody gets to jump on Thimble. So

you actually are going to go first

in this fight.

It is your turn on a 25 initiative.

Is there

anything you want to do before taking any actions in combat? Any perception checks? Anything else like that that you want to do before we jump into it?

I can do that even though this is coming at me. Even though this is coming right at you.

I mean,

how many people are in this room right now? In this room. Go ahead and get your perception check.
Okay.

No,

I don't see shit. Okay.
In this case, you know that there were two at the door when you came in and you're talking to a guy and someone's right behind you. All right.
So four people.

I hear the whistle of the.

There's a couple people. There's a couple people.
Okay. I hear the whistle of the bag

and I am going to fly backwards. Cool.
Straight into the guy that is trying to come down. So I'm going.

hell yes. You're gonna fly straight back into that person.
So avoid the bag there.

As you're going for that person,

you also see that with the bag, you see that Solomon standing in front of you. These other people here

do not are standing up, but you see do not have weapons drawn right now.

As you fly backwards,

what do you do as what action you take? Are you attacking that person or are you just trying to avoid getting in the bag?

I don't want to get in a fight with the entire crow keepers.

Doesn't seem like a smart move in this moment. Why, there's three of you and a wolf.

I'll go ahead and say, you took your perception. Give me an insight to check.
Okay.

Okay.

Okay.

Listen, this has got to be better.

That's 15.

No weapons drawn.

This can break a lot of different ways.

They escalated. You said a name and they leapt into action.
But also, you guys are running pretty ragged. You're here, like in the past, you and Theazzi would have come here together.

You're now here alone. Theazi just died.

Everything's it's also a tense time in the city. These new arcane laws just got passed.
So you coming in and saying Casimir, they're leaping into action. They don't know Cadogan.

They don't know Octus, right?

This is, Octus doesn't look like Octus. Octus is a red man right now.
So with all that being said, no weapons are out right now.

But you don't think going in the bag is good.

But in other words, everything's on a fuse, but it can break a lot of waves right now. Okay, in that case, I'm going to fly backwards towards the guy,

and I'm going to fly down. Cool.

Needles out, and I'm gonna

get right up to his junk. I'm gonna fly backwards and like fly down to his legs and stick my needle into the pants

and say, call your henchman off or I chop off his balls.

Okay, give me, this is going to be your action.

I'm going to ask, in this case, with your action, I'm going to ask for an intimidate check. And the difficulty.
I didn't put any points in that, though. I know.

And I am going to be mean, and the difficulty is going to be be 20.

He's got tiny balls.

He won't miss them. He's gonna lose them then if he doesn't.
Pick the wrong. Okay.

All right.

Every day.

This one? Mm-hmm.

No, no, no. No, no, so bad.

No, no. I rolled.
I rolled a five.

Five is it? Gotcha. You rolled a five.

You yell out.

and give me your best thundering thimble voice. Call up your henchmen! All right, slice off his balls.

The guy right behind you, he gasps. He's not into this.
You see, Solomon says, you're gonna slice balls with a sewing needle. That'll take all day.

Go for it.

I'm gonna need either a movement or bonus action from you. Oh, can I I can't attack with a bonus action, can I? Can't attack with a bonus action.
In that case, I'm gonna

go into his pants.

Give me a hide. Give me a hide check.

Why am I rolling like this?

Okay.

Wait, what am I?

How do I roll for hide?

Okay, look. It's a 14.
It's not awful. It's not awful.
Oh, my God. Let's see how good a 14 is.

Hold on one sec.

As you rush in,

you see that

rushing into this room on a 14, you get into this guy's pants successfully. On a 14, it's bad in here.
It's not. It's unpleasant.
It's bad. It's unpleasant.

The wash of embarrassment and sort of apology of the thief whose pants you are in as he's like, ah, I'm sorry.

You are.

You

leap into action here.

And as you do so,

you hide on that 14. The next in the initiative order for us is going to be Octus on the 21.
So Octus sees you fly into his pants and sees your intimidation check completely not go off.

And he goes,

okay.

And looks at Solomon and says,

I think maybe

you should be a little more scared than you are and cast cause fear on Solomon. Hell yes, let's do it.

It's only a vocal component, so I don't need to make any hand motions or anything to give myself away. He needs to make a wisdom 14

save.

Gotcha. He's going to make a wisdom 14 saving throw.

There we go.

With a 19 on the die.

He looks at you and says,

oh,

throwing a little bit of magic around.

I don't need anything other than a knife to make you scared, my friend.

And you see that the guy next to him flips a coin in the air, grabs it, and goes, what you really look like.

The

as you any bonus action from Octus

cry? Cry?

No bonus actions.

I love it. That's great.

With that, Cadogan, you are going to go. Okay.

This is going great, guys.

Really good, really good.

Where am I going, man?

You have something to do.

Is that one of the henchmen henchmen over there by me, by the bar?

That over by the bar? Yeah.

You're right here. You've got one right behind Thimble.
There's two behind you over here.

And you can give me an insider perception if you want. Hmm.

Just so I'm clear. He said, what do you really look like? Did he do any? Have I...
No. Okay.

No spells happened yet. Great.

Okay.

I just wanted to make sure it wasn't just me standing there. You're in the man's.
You're in the man's pants.

And he's I have. Yeah, he's just flipping a coin.
I have no idea what that means. Uh.

Just do it.

I'm gonna just

jump over the bar

and uh no weapon. Uh fisticuffed the first guy in the room.
Hell yeah. Leaving over the bar to the one that this is the guy that thimbles in his pants.
Dude, perfect. Okay, great.
Yep.

Uh, you rush over. You rush over to this dude here.
Go ahead and give me an attack roll. You're just going fisticuffs, right?

Yeah, yes. Actually, actually, well, I want to.
Yes, but I want to do it in a way. We'll see if it works.

We are cooked. Oh, no, are you really bad? We are.
We're the worst.

A child.

You're not a child. You're 20.

Two for an eight. Hey, hey, hey, listen to me.
I gotta have an excuse.

My intention is to jump over and grab this man by the back of his lapels. Yeah.

And

I rolled an eight. You rolled an eight.

As you

rush him, he looks out. As you go for the back of his lapel, you see he bends down to open the inseam of his pants with his hands, rip it open as he goes like, get out of there to the ferry.

As you go, whoo! And just boom, go over the top, tumble ass over tea kettle in front of him. This is an auspicious first combat for a campaign four.

We're doing great. We can only go up.

I don't know how to say this other than it's the rogue's turn. Oh, God.

This guy is going to make a grapple check for you.

He is going to... I want to double check here if you have anything special about

being grappled due to your small size. I don't believe so.
I don't think so. I just have have a high dex.
Just have a high dex. Okay.

He is going to

reach out. He's going to attempt to make an opposed athletics check.

But I can use acrobatics.

Yes, that's correct. You can use acrobatics.
That's what it was. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So he's going to make opposed athletics acrobatics. He rolls.

Did he roll? What did he roll?

He rolled an 18.

So,

what do you need to roll to beat an 18? I need to roll.

To get a 19, I have to roll a 10 or higher. Go ahead and roll.

Okay. Okay.

Here we go. 10 or higher is doable.
Why? Oh, no. I didn't know I didn't.

What is...

Wait, I'm rolling so wildly, I can't even get it in the box. I'm just going to see if I would have rolled in the box, what it would have been.

What was worse?

Don't kill us. We haven't even started.
I have so much to live for.

So the first rogue

reaches into his pants, his ruined pants, grabs Thimble, and shoves you in a bag and pulls the drawstring closed.

Blam.

And then ten other rogues go.

Hey, gang, tough. This is tough.

Oh god. Okay.

Okay. Ah yeah yeah sure.
Listen. Yeah we're good.
You guys are good.

Here we go.

So

this is how I wanted it to go. This is how we get into

these guys are so unbothered that they are not going to fight.

The guild masters just sit there. So pathetic.

These three rush you. This guy just took care of Thimble.
We'll move Thimble off the board momentarily because you're in a bag.

These two, 5, 10, 15, 20, 25,

are going to close. You're wolf.

Oh, Catigan, you're. But no, yeah, yeah, yeah.
I passed. Yeah.

Okay.

These two rush up here.

And these are going to rush down the stairs. Game's over, fellas.
We lost DD.

You know,

this is my fault.

I don't practice DD a lot. I do other games.

So,

two of them are going to attempt to basically bind Wolfrick

with binds.

I'm going to need two opposed athletics checks from Wolfrick. Okay.

Roll higher.

Did you roll a nat 20 already? I just hit him at 20. Yeah.

I'm so sorry.

It's okay, nothing will happen. Uh, 17.

Okay, uh, I promise. So, so Wolfrick is pinned.
Sure. I'm gonna roll in front of the board to prove that this is not pre-planned to go this badly.

I'm gonna roll in front of the board for the next one. Uh, uh, Wolfrick is already pinned, so this is gonna be with advantage

to tie up Wolfrick. Um,

uh, oh my gosh, that's an 18, which is just a flat 18.

No, 16. 16.

Two of these crow keepers leap on the wolf, throw him to the side, and get rope around his legs, just hog tying this wolf. Another three are going to...
The others take their turn to get downstairs.

Three of them are coming for Catigan at the same time.

No weapons drawn. They're just using fists and knees.

Rub it in. You're saying this like it's supposed to make us feel better, but it just makes me feel worse.
They don't have any weapons.

And I'm like, yeah, I know, yeah, I know. Do something.
That's a hit. Okay.

Um, so they're only dealing two points of damage with Fistines, but they're adding sneak attack to that. Okay,

sure.

Uh, seven points of damage to Cadogan as a fist connects under the ribs.

Um,

uh, Solomon looks at you and says,

My condolences for your loss to the bag. As for you, I don't know who the fuck you are, so you're just gonna die.
Uh,

the window

shatters.

You turn,

and an elven warrior leaps into the tavern. Ashley Johnson, would you come out to the table and join us? Oh my god! Save us! Save us! Save us, Ashley Johnson!

Hey, Ash! I hope you're rolling hot!

I think, though, we got our information because I think the crow keepers suck.

Yeah, yeah, I think we're not friends with them anymore. Okay.

Oh, God. That was bad.

Roll so good. Okay, I'm going to roll so good.
I'm going to roll so good right now. It's all happening.
It's all going to come together.

I remember how before the game you and I were rolling, and it was like net 20, net 20, and I was like, don't waste.

We're going to roll like shit. Yeah, of course.
Why'd you do that? I don't know. Okay.

Incredible.

Valus.

So this is like, you know, you guys are some like some rough and tumble rowdies.

To the Crow Keepers, a like creature of myth and legend, a like elf from the far north, fully armored, like veil of mourning, religious garb.

You crash through the window. You can crash through whatever window you want.
You want to be over here. You want to be behind these guys.
Okay, where is everybody?

Oh, I see. This guy's got Thimble in a bag.
Octas is here. These two rogues just bound Wolfrick in the center of the tavern.
Cadigan's got his fists up.

Cadigan's got his fists up, and three of the crow keepers are just sucker punching, kidney punching.

Like, again, there's no lethal weapons here, but rogues, when they do that melee attack, can add their sneak attack damage to it. So they hit fucking hard.
All right.

I think I'm going to come through this window over here. Okay.

And...

So right behind me. So I see...
I see somebody...

Do I clock that this is Octus? Yes, no. No.
Okay, so I see the only person that I really recognize in this room right now is Cadogan.

That is correct. You recognize Cadigan.
Okay.

I'll say this. Give me a perception check.

Following us?

Can you hear me? I mean, I was following. Yeah, you know they're any.
Oh, yeah. Sorry.
You followed them the whole time. You know that that's Octus.
You know that's Octus.

And I think that bag is glowing slightly. Great.
Okay. So I am going towards

the person that I see holding the glowing bag. Hell yeah.
Okay, you go to the person that you see holding the glowing bag, brushing along the bar top, you close another like 10 feet of movement.

What do you want to do? Okay, I want to,

she moves so lightly and quietly and undoes her sensor whip. Okay.
And

I'm going to take the whip and sort of take it around the back of my neck and roll it all the way around for propulsion

and

The end of the sensor. There's little blades in the sensor.
Naive.

So I just want to just chuck it

right into his cheek. Hell yeah.
Give me an attack wall. Okay.
Okay. Okay.
Which one do I pick?

Because we need some help right now. I'm feeling like this one is going to do well.
You're one that, okay.

I can read it. For starters.
For starters.

It's so bad.

Better than a one, but it is a two. Which takes me to a seven.
Oh,

fucking piece of shit.

With that,

I leave.

What an entrance, though. I promise this is not a consolation prize.
We are not currently adjusting for the fact that Cadogan is on the direct opposite side of that figure. So for flanking purposes,

we do have an advantage. Please, please.

Okay.

I knew I should have picked this one anyway. Remember it.
I felt it. For all of you.
Complicated battle set out here, but the reason we use minis is for strategy. Oh, oh! No!

Good, good. We're not rolling it in here anymore.
That's what the problem was. Okay, cool.
So.

Okay, actually, I'm going to roll in here. It's a little less.
Oh, Oh my god, cool. More quiet.
Okay, so.

So, I almost hit

celebrating so hard. All right, so for starters,

that is five points of damage. So you're rolling that, but you're gonna double that because you're doing

correct?

That's five. Oh, five, so ten? Ten.
And then you're adding your ability modifier, which is in the case of the whip, is this your dexterity or your strength?

This is

my.

Where am I? Sorry. Sorry.
Where am I?

I'm so old. I can't do it.
It's our first combat. We're running these bad boys for the very first time.
It's actually. There is not one.
That's right. It's just 1v8.

So, um. There's no money.
No, sorry. You add plus three.
You're adding. I'm adding that as well.
Okay, sorry. So.
That's 13 points. 13 points of damage.

But also,

I would like to... Divine Smite as a bonus action.
Am I allowed to do this? You are, but I I will say this right now. Before you divine smite,

on 13 points of damage,

before you even need summon the spell to your call,

you hit this guy for 13 points of damage and he flies to the ground unconscious. So, Valus, you leap forward,

bam,

the bag flies open, thimble, you tumble out onto the ground as this

crow keeper goes down down and is unconscious i would ask this phalus are you

took his pants off

uh are you striking to kill in this moment or just striking to wound

to kill yeah hell yeah uh you leap up this guy's got thimble in a bag you

head to the side and uh these sort of city thieves and pickpockets watch as an ancient elven warrior who beheld the death of the last god uh slashes the throat open of one of their compatriots and he hits the ground dead.

As he falls, that's your action. Any bonus actions from you? Bonus action.
I'm going to look around to see who is trying to make their next move and I want to divine smite.

Hell yes.

Your divine smite in this moment. I'll say this.

Divine smite only can be added to an attack. I just didn't want you to waste the spell slot on.

I understand. Okay, so you know what? Actually, is there a way that I could,

since I sort of yanked the sensor out while slashing his throat,

that I can,

with that sort of pick up the bag of thimble, chuck it up and try to catch it? Hell yes, absolutely. Give me sleight of hand.
Okay.

But I'm out on the ground already. You've tumbled out, but you're all.

Yeah, she's prone. She's all good.
I'm good.

Not freaking out. So much happen at him.

Doesn't performance think make you think we're not good at it. I don't get scared.

Bonus. If you're bonus action,

I believe the bonus actions that you have available to you, you have

like hunter's mark. You also have shield of faith, which is one of your abilities.

I have hunter's mark. You have hunters mark? Okay.

I chose that for you. Oh.

Okay.

I'm going to hunter's mark.

Solomon. Solomon.

What does this look like in this moment as you hunter's mark? He turns to you.

He thought this was going to be, we're going to rough you up and toss you in the back. And a mythical elf surged through a window and immediately killed someone with a weapon he's never seen before.

He looks at you, genuinely frightened in this moment.

You just see Valus's eyes just go completely black and just for a split second. And

he just feels

well kind of feels like heartburn he doesn't know what it is

next to him the guy who flipped the coin looks

he goes

evil eye

and

seeing Solomon completely in fear of you I just go that's what I was trying to do

um

uh incredible um

uh that is Valus's turn we go back to thimble at the top of the order Thank you.

Oh, you guys are fucked now. I tried to warn you.
You guys are so fucked. And I'm going to fly up in the air and I'm going to cast,

just spread my wings out in my arms, and fairy dust is going to fly out in all directions from me, and I'm going to fairy fire the room.

Well, yes, awesome.

As you fairy fire the room,

what does that, is that Pixius? What does that look like as we see that? That is glowing dust, which always kind of comes out of me, just like scatters around. It's bright spring green, gold

sparkles everywhere,

coating

everyone except for who I don't want it to. Incredible.

Um,

okay.

Um, this guy next to Solomon succeeds, but Solomon fails on the fairy fire check. Um, and the other rogues are all gonna roll.

Um, hell yeah. Um,

Wow. Bad rolls.
Okay.

Three of them that came from the stairs get out of the way in time, but everybody fighting Cadogan around here fails. So there's advantage on all of these guys right in front of you.

That is your action. Any bonus action from you? Yeah,

I'm going to dart up and hide in the rafters. Hell yeah.

Flying up into the rafters of the tavern, you get out of range of any melee weapons and can actually get half cover as you're up there hiding in the rafters.

That is going to be Octus.

Seeing just

kind of in his head, kind of hyping himself up, he's like, You get that, you get this, you can do this, you've done this before,

and is going to

look at Solomon and still attempting to keep his adult voice.

You are an adult!

Don't pull my cover.

She says...

What does a dagger do

against fire? And just firebolt straight at

I don't make this dagger with it. I'm not using any DC mother.

Okay.

And the fire starts building around his hand, but it does not...

It's not orange and red. It is this kind of sickly sort of green fire that starts wrapping around his arm as he rears his hand back.

Wow, double 11s. Wild.

That is a 17 to hit.

17 hits. Okay, go ahead and roll damage.
Yes.

What the hell is my...

You have so many dice. So many dice, leave me alone.

That's so bad. That is three points of fire damage.
Um, singed by this fire, Solomon uh flies back in this moment.

Um, he is looking extremely perturbed, even though you see that he manages to dodge most of the fire.

He thought he was going to be counting money this morning, and instead, one of his crow keepers is dead, and he just had magical fire thrown at him. Uh, not a great morning for him.

Anybody use my move. I have no bonus actions to use, but I will use my movement to kind of jump up on the bar behind Valus.
And as I do, just go, oh my god, thank you for being here. um

hello um you look uh

young to be in this fight where is your mother I'm an adult um uh you I don't know I promise I'm an adult um uh as you leap up there at Cadigan that's gonna be your turn sure

uh these guys won't have me grappled they're just uh still punching on me still punching on you okay cool uh I'm gonna take an attack on the closest guy in the middle.

Yeah, because I have a good advantage on it or advantage on it, yep. Okay, cool.

Gonna need it.

Okay.

Thank goodness. Yeah, we just needed to work out the camera.
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
We're getting there. We're getting there.
25.

25 to hit. That is a hit.
Go ahead. And

you're still going with your fists? Oh, I want to pull my weapon out. I think it's time.
Yeah. Let's go.

So,

now we're pissed. Now we're pissed.
Well, yeah. And he looks down at the dead guy that Valus just murks.

First blood.

All right. And then from behind his back, he pulls out this thing.
And at first glance, it looks like a club, but it's not quite a club.

It's got a stone knot on the side, but on the back is this horrific Damascus steel-looking blade, and there's a notch that you can't quite figure out. It doesn't look right.

And it's definitely something cobbled together, crafted together, and well-loved.

And he's going to flip it over to the bludgeoning side and grab it with both hands. And uh

not great, but fine. Uh nine points.
Oh, no, sorry, that's a tent

because it's that

uh no, it's still nine. Nine points of bludgeoning damage.
Uh, you reach out and crack this guy across the skull.

As he stumbles back, blood gushing down his face.

Covered in pixie dust. All three of them are coughing.

Glitter falling out of their mouths.

Nine points of damage. He hollers back any bonus actions from you.
As a a bonus action, can I have Wolfrick try to break the pin?

Yes, go ahead. With the pin here, it's a DC-18 athletics check.
Okay, and I use

his

saving throw or athletics.

Athletics. Okay.

Do I use mine? Oh, no, that's tough. I don't have my little sheet.
Let me go ahead and see if I can pull that up for you. Hold on one second.
As you jump forward, go ahead and roll.

Let's see what he gets here.

The straight roll is a 12. Okay, don't think he'll do it.
Probably not going to get a plus six here. Yeah.
But let's just double-check.

Unfortunately, no, he adds a plus two to that. Two, okay.

Struggling against the bonds there on that bonus action.

It goes back to Valis.

Valus, it is your turn once more.

Give me an insight check if you'd be so kind. Yes, I will.

Okay.

Sweating.

14.

On a 14, looking throughout this place,

one man lies dead. Thimble is free.
Octas is up behind you. The wolf is bound here.
You know that this is your last action before these crow keepers get back on their...

footing.

These...

On a 14, these are petty criminals. They don't look like they want to all die here in this tavern.
But also, they don't know what they're facing.

They don't know if you're a fucking ghost or an avenging demon or something like that. And I think that

you have a turn before they act.

It's an extremely dicey move either way. They look panicked, which means that they might fight to the death.
But also, these are not... You can tell you fought warriors.
These are not warriors.

I don't care about these people.

So

I would like to

just keep killing. Great.

So

I'm so scared right now.

You've hungers marked the Guildmaster right here. That is the.
And is that Solomon? So, knowing that that's him, I am going to just look his way. Yeah.

And I'm going to cast Guiding Bolt. Hell yeah.

And that just happens. That just literally happens.
You have advantage on this. Okay.

You have advantage on this. So go ahead and roll.
I believe. Yeah, you do plus six.
Yeah.

Come on. Come on.
Come on.

Okay, that's pretty good.

Okay.

20. Dirty 20.
Dirty 20. That is a hit.
Great.

So you are going to go ahead, and I believe that Hunter's mark,

you hit it with an attack roll, so you can also add one D6.

Another D6. Another D6.
That's correct. All right.
So it's so it should be five D6.

Oh, okay. That's pretty good.
Oh my gosh. All right, so we've got

18 points of damage. God damn!

And I feel like the guiding bolt, if you do see it, it's just black, dark energy.

Hell yes. Um

Halus, you believe in something that's been dead for a long time.

And what used to be green and growing is now

as dark as midnight. And it surges forward from you, slams into Solomon's chest for 18 points of damage, and he shudders back, falls to the ground, dead.

I'll walk right over to him.

You step over, he is dead.

You see the chill of death moves out over all of the crow keepers here in this moment.

You still have a bonus action.

I'm just going to start swinging my sensor and look at the rest rest of them.

Run.

Give me Intimidate with advantage.

You just blew a hole with magic in his chest. We're going to call this straight up.
I'll say a difficulty 10 gets some of them. Okay.
Difficulty 15 gets everybody in the fucking room.

Great.

Okay, so 17 plus 4. Yes.
21.

Valus whispers run and these petty criminals make for every door and window in the place

and begin to bolt as fast as they can. Can I jump out of hiding and come down and fly right in front of the guy with the coin? Yes, you can.
Right before he leaves and go, not you.

He turns to you.

As you get the needle in front of him, he stops, but he looks and says, You can tell he will take a needle in the eye to not disobey the command that Valus just gave.

He looks to you if he should continue running with one less eye. No, he needs to say

As he does so, we come out of combat as all of the rogues flee, except for this last one with the coin.

Can I

take my whip around the bottom of his ankles and make him sit? You

he slams into a chair in front of you. He's all yours.

Get off the bar. Didn't hate us before.

I'm looking for Casimir.

Casmir's gone.

Casmir's gone. When did he leave?

What kind of God?

Kaz

has been on the gibbet for a moment.

That's...

That's our list

of

people who have owed money for long enough that they're not going to survive the next new moon.

We found out that Kaz had been skimming off the top for a while. We figured out how much money he owed.

He worked at...

He worked at a place called Underwall and Insisters. They were

a Wainwright that worked in the Embers. They made wagons.
And he worked putting

compartments in the wagons, places that shouldn't be there.

Ran a racket off the smugglers there. But

knowing what he knew,

He'd been hitting some of the people that had been coming because he knew that there were going to be things hidden in those compartments he built.

And rather than taking a flat fee, he thought he might help himself every once in a while. He recognized his own handiwork, started taking where he shouldn't.

All well and good, we all got to make a living. But

he got greedy. He didn't report back to, and he just reported to Solomon.
He says, he didn't report back to Saul.

So we tabulated his debt, told him he had a certain amount of time to get back to us to make everything right and

he made it all right yesterday

did he tell you guys about the lightout

were you there i wasn't there i didn't know

Kaz had his own crew, four or five crow keepers that were loyal to him.

I didn't know anything.

The last thing we would have done is

frankly fuck with someone as connected as Theazi.

Can I think back to the attack?

Did any of the masked figures look as big as Kazimir?

Kaz came in here

yesterday

and settled his debts in full. We told him if he could pay off even half of it, that we would

extend. We'd take him off the gibbet until he could make it right.
He owed more money than

you can't let people walk around owing you that amount of money, but we were understanding. We.

We tried to to do business in this town over a long time, you understand.

He came in yesterday.

Him and his crew had new gear.

He dropped a sack of money on the bar, paid off his whole debt, and he had a deed of title to a

stronghouse in Guamale. He said he was getting out of town.

And right after that,

you know that the...

It

wasn't a crow keeper, but he knew someone. It was a Nami.

Sid barged in.

Started shouting at him. Sid had worked up a lather.
His fur was matted. He'd been sweating.
Like he'd run here from Marut or wherever. I know he drives wagons for the Revolutionary Council up there.

He came in screaming about, where's the wagon?

We're already too late. And

he saw the money on table.

And Sid grabbed that deed of title and ran out the door. And Kaz and his boys took after him.
It's the last we saw Kaz.

I thought Sid might have been in league with him.

I guess not.

We have to tell Teor.

Yeah.

And that means they

sold it.

Right?

The stone? Yeah.

your stone

it's probably where they got all that money. Yes, that and everything else in there

you're talking about a stone.

Don't worry about it.

Does this sound familiar to you?

I think

Kaz had been on the low end for a long time. There's a look

people start to get in their eyes

when they just can't take

losing anymore.

I don't know what he took or who he crossed. Clearly, you see he looks at his dead guild master next to him.
Clearly, Kaz has crossed some very dangerous people.

You'll have no trouble from the Crow Keepers.

But he's gone, and I don't know what he got his hands on to walk in with the gear he had.

He's moved up in the world and out of Dolmakya. Or that was the plan before Sid ran off.

We have to get back to Teor.

We have to get to

Gormale

Guormale. That's where they're heading.

Guormalay, it's it's north in Timony.

That's right.

You say Timony.

That's right.

You see that he looks and says,

You've made your point.

You've drawn blood.

This wasn't the intention.

I am sorry about your boss.

Wasn't you who drew first blood. You see, he looks over and says...

We uh we handle our own

but we understand when the waters run deeper than we had first anticipated.

I don't know what happened to CrossU, my lady, but

whatever forces you represent,

they'll receive no trouble from the Crowkeepers.

Kaz meddled in magics that perhaps he shouldn't have. All lessons learned.
Do you know where he might have sold?

Do you have a contact? Somebody he

worked with mostly?

Kaz was on a list of people that were not long for this world on our account.

He had.

He had scammed his way into an early grave on our behalf. But the kind of people that can pay that kind of gold in that short amount of time,

I think...

I think

Kaz had been at the end of his rope for a while, and he saw an opportunity.

We don't need anything else from you.

Let's go.

This whole time,

Pin has been gnawing at the bindings on Wolfrick to try and untie the wolf.

Um, gnawing at them, you see, he turns around, uh, and I think uh

gnawing away Wolfrick

comes undone from the bindings. Um

and

with that, where do you all head at this moment?

Do we have any idea where Teor would have gone? Because we need to tell him about Sid.

The only place you know, Thimble, that Teor. You don't know where he was staying with Loza, but you know that he would know eventually to head back to Hal's.
Then we should go back to Hal's, yeah?

And if we're going to Timony,

we'll need everyone we can get.

Are you in?

I'm a what?

Are you in to make Casimir pay?

Yeah.

Good man. How?

My tiny little fist.

Um. I have a question.
Yeah.

The Crow Keepers have a list

of people who have

owe them money.

Okay.

Before we go,

um

I

what is your name?

Me?

Gavry.

Gabrie, do you have

would it be possible to

uh receive a copy of that list?

The gym bit?

Yeah.

You want a list of...

These are people whose

character falls beneath the standard of a thieves guild.

You want a list of those names? Just see. Just a little peeksies.

He pulls a little ledger book out,

looks at it,

reaches into the pocket of dead Guildmaster next to him, pulls out a similar ledger, tosses it to you.

Thank you.

I hope I never see you again.

I hope the same.

And you all leave. And that's where we'll take our break.

And that's where we'll leave our story for now. Part two of this episode of Campaign 4 drops this Tuesday.
Thanks for listening, and we'll see you soon for for more Critical Role.

Adam Pally here. And I'm John Gabris.
We're a couple actors and best friends who you may know as the host of the TV show 100 One Places to Party Before You Die.

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