Broken Wing | Critical Role | Campaign 4, Episode 2 | Part 2

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Speaker 1 Hello again, it's Brennan Lee Mulligan and you're listening to part two of this episode of Critical Role. If you haven't checked out part one yet, pause this now and head over there first.

Speaker 1 What are you doing?

Speaker 1 Otherwise, let's jump right back into this adventure and the world of Aroman.

Speaker 1 Hello and welcome back to the city of Dolmakiar.

Speaker 1 As we arrive at the next day after the funeral, the wake of Theazi Fang,

Speaker 1 light descends on the Arknod,

Speaker 1 a massive museum of many wings that lies in the neighborhood of Lugsasch, high up in the city near the headwaters of the River Vrosch.

Speaker 1 The Arkanaud actually can kind of see its expanse like buttresses the river, a short cliff fall of about 20 feet into the surging waters.

Speaker 1 The higher up you get in altitude in the city, the more the waters are like foam white and sort of immediately deadly if you fall into them just from falling into foam that you can't swim through.

Speaker 1 You look and see that the Arcana is this massive spiring gray stone

Speaker 1 like a lot of the stone that was shaped in the ruins after the Shapers War, this stone is flawless, smooth gray, almost polished to the touch, summoned by druids, victorious

Speaker 1 in their defeat of the gods.

Speaker 1 For indeed, the old path, as it is called, was very nearly erased from the existence of Arimon by the gods who sought for their millennia of rule to be the only path by which mortals could access the divine.

Speaker 1 And yet the old path did survive. And

Speaker 1 the ancient Smiths of the Loy family, a family of orcish smiths, native to Dolmachyar, crafted the first of the pariah blades, those swords that were used to defeat Osgra the Conqueror, Shaper of War.

Speaker 1 The Loy Wing, so named for that family of orcs, is a beautiful wing of the museum dedicated to celebrating the revolutionary history of the Shapers' War.

Speaker 1 Talison, Bolaire, as the curator of the Loy Wing, what do we see as we move into the dusty light, and where do we find Bolaire within the Loy Wing?

Speaker 1 Well,

Speaker 1 it's after hours, quite obviously.

Speaker 1 It is grand

Speaker 1 and

Speaker 1 has that echoey reverb of an institution with far too much money.

Speaker 1 Each exhibit

Speaker 1 kind of stands in this large circular or the main

Speaker 1 the main room is this large circular room where

Speaker 1 the sword itself is up in the center, well lit with a series of small plaques around it.

Speaker 1 It's also

Speaker 1 every exhibit, I should also say, is slightly magically enchanted so that when you walk up to it, you start hearing

Speaker 1 the audio recording of what's there until you walk away and

Speaker 1 then it silences itself so that you can maintain the quiet.

Speaker 1 Voices that would approach the lights woo

Speaker 1 on a well-crafted but simple cold iron blade.

Speaker 1 So dull in its lack of ostentatiousness. It is.

Speaker 1 Obviously you never knew the touch of fire was smithed carefully. over time from raw ore through pure effort of metal working pounding of hammers again and again and again

Speaker 1 it seems like the light from these magical cantrips as it touches it almost sinks into the blade as though this blade were so common

Speaker 1 that magical light could not even rest upon its fuller blade or edge

Speaker 1 Off to the side, in an open door, we see an office, candles burned down to the very basin, and a silver coffin-sized for a halfling on a desk, books and scrolls open, a sleepless Bolaire and Murray

Speaker 1 here working in this place. You've been working all night.

Speaker 1 Go ahead and give me any skill checks that you would have thought to make during this night of working to look into this. I would have had, well, I would have had

Speaker 1 every

Speaker 1 filed,

Speaker 1 indexed filed piece of paper that we have pulled out just so that we have that the paperwork so we don't have to go down into the into the archives everything that exists is a piece of paper yeah got a giant pile of those and a few clearly very old books

Speaker 1 piled up that we're looking through including a translation a book for translating some of the

Speaker 1 text on the coffin anything you would want me to pull well I would have done a very meticulous ritual casting of an identify spell.

Speaker 1 I think you almost see, you see like Marie's got like gloves on and you see something that you might not have noticed before, but she's got this like

Speaker 1 basically a little monocle that clips to the top of her hat. So it is now very precisely positioned to the front of her left eye.

Speaker 1 She has been using mage hand and using taking the tip of her fingernail and almost using it to carve and

Speaker 1 do a half-assed autopsy on a big old box as she's been kind of doing this all night. So I would, yeah,

Speaker 1 doing a nice little investigation here. Are you going to use investigation? Well, no, I'm going to use identify to investigate.

Speaker 1 I will say also the object is sitting on a desk that it's illuminated by bright limelight so that we can really see it. It's not candlelight.

Speaker 1 It is a bright chemical. Yeah.

Speaker 1 It's also sitting on some sigils that are clearly there so that if something goes horribly wrong, it will contain it as best it can.

Speaker 1 Question for you.

Speaker 1 Have you opened the box or left it closed?

Speaker 1 Until we know what it says on the outside, I would say not.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I would

Speaker 1 identify before open.

Speaker 1 Bolaire. As curator here, you see wizardry at work.

Speaker 1 this craft of the pentevrole. And I think seeing wizardry here, Murray,

Speaker 1 without any roles necessary,

Speaker 1 the ethos of your school alive and well in your heart, there will be limits to how much truth you can glean if you don't look in that box. Now, it's extremely prudent not to open it.

Speaker 1 Far be it from me to tell you to open it.

Speaker 1 And I actually, I would say even even above table i'm totally fine if you don't but that conflict is here the conflict of truth great truth at least in the philosophy of the penteveral requires some risk

Speaker 1 well it's step one though yeah

Speaker 1 right

Speaker 1 step one

Speaker 1 then we will open do you have like one of those big flus you know like how sometimes you see them in laboratories and they kind of help like because i know there's a whole bunch of bad mists that came out of this, so I just don't know if there's something like, you know, for ventilation so we don't burn our eyeballs.

Speaker 1 We have that, yes. All right.
One second. I just open up a we have a vent system specific.
Again,

Speaker 1 everything that we have seen happen, we build something to try and make it so it won't happen again.

Speaker 1 So there's it, it'll help.

Speaker 1 You have everything set up.

Speaker 1 Do you cast your identify spell just on the exterior of the box?

Speaker 1 I hate you so much. I hate you so much.

Speaker 1 I'm going to do something before we do this that she will not notice.

Speaker 1 I'm just going to drift into the black. Says who.
You will not notice. Says who.
Says me.

Speaker 1 I'm going to drift into the black box. Has anything changed?

Speaker 1 Is there a sign of anything changed?

Speaker 1 Just a risk. Just a a hunch.

Speaker 1 Deterioration a little more rapid than

Speaker 1 okay. Yeah.
Thank you.

Speaker 1 Moving

Speaker 1 through this space. We're going to open the box.
You're going to open the box. Well, we're going to take a nice distance.
I'm going to mage hand. Yeah, we're open the box.

Speaker 1 Gotcha. Got all the windows open.

Speaker 1 As you open it, once again, you see mist.

Speaker 1 And have more of an understanding of how to

Speaker 1 engage in this way, in this moment.

Speaker 1 Your identify spell

Speaker 1 moves throughout these silver plates.

Speaker 1 This is not an ancient artifact. This has been assembled very recently.

Speaker 1 As a craftsperson, what's bizarre is that the lining leaves only a sliver of what the lining would have been attached to because the lining is now just open mist.

Speaker 1 But you do see enough wood that is well tended to. On that identify, I think you can see that that wood actually might come from far up north.

Speaker 1 Go ahead and give me, this is almost like a tool proficiency check if you have one, or you can give me arcana as well, whichever you prefer. Oh, oh my goodness gracious.

Speaker 1 Where's Chitney when you need him?

Speaker 1 I have

Speaker 1 Alchemist. That'll work.
Okay. Go for it.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I'll just do a straight Arcana.

Speaker 1 Using a tool is just

Speaker 1 intelligence plus proficiency. Or it might be wisdom plus proficiency, depending on the tool.

Speaker 1 I'll say

Speaker 1 it's a well, yeah, it's a it's actually the same as my arcana.

Speaker 1 That's

Speaker 1 20. 20.
30 20.

Speaker 1 You recognize this,

Speaker 1 having looked over this.

Speaker 1 The wood, the thin bit that you see,

Speaker 1 is at this point almost totally fossilized. This is

Speaker 1 recovered wood from the wastes, deep within the wastes, shattered and fallen trees from the place where the goddess of life, the shaper of the elves, died. Is that the

Speaker 1 Salandri? Salandri.

Speaker 1 Interesting.

Speaker 1 But the plates are halfling. And that identifies Spellmuri as you begin to read the text.
It translates all of it, it translates all the Cassian, all the celestial.

Speaker 1 These plates are taken from being set into a massive uh there are some ancient halfling temples uh that were dedicated to their goddess rawin the trickster and they would have been

Speaker 1 almost in hanging books of fabric or tapestry that in their holy places you would turn for a crowd to be able to read almost like a massive storybook in a holy place or in a chapel the plates have been taken off and affixed to this coffin the so the the components are ancient but the coffin is new the The plates reference on that and with the identify,

Speaker 1 this is

Speaker 1 the coffin of Olbalad.

Speaker 1 Olbalad

Speaker 1 is

Speaker 1 a celestial

Speaker 1 who was sometimes called more colloquially by halflings the sister of mists.

Speaker 1 And she was effectively the halfling

Speaker 1 angel of death, a celestial that guided them through the mists on their way. So,

Speaker 1 what you're identifying speaks out in the writing era, where you realize that some things

Speaker 1 are not this vulgar, but the plating is almost like how you construct a ransom note out of pieces of a magazine.

Speaker 1 It's not that small in places, but the meaning of some of the ruins has been changed by how they've been arrayed around the coffin. Olbelad was a celestial

Speaker 1 that was a psychopomp, took those that died into the realms of death, to their final afterlife. So to have a coffin of

Speaker 1 a celestial that was supposed to guide you from life to death almost seems like a working of blasphemy in some ways, which has a very different context in a world that killed its gods 70 years ago.

Speaker 1 But

Speaker 1 the coffin of Olbled is

Speaker 1 what this is now,

Speaker 1 and it is not ancient, it's new, but that's what is written here. The last thing I'll say on that,

Speaker 1 what did you roll for your check again, sorry? For my arcana check.

Speaker 1 14. 14.

Speaker 1 You would know a very simple fact that is not too uncommon for wizards to know.

Speaker 1 After the gods died,

Speaker 1 The study of wizards concluded that there were beings that were older than the gods. The fairy, the fae, had been around for much longer.
Demons had always existed on Araman in some way or another.

Speaker 1 Other ancient beings, old and connected to the spirit, they say that giants walked this world before the gods arrived, and the gods defeated them when they arrived here.

Speaker 1 There are some types of beings that were not here before the gods were here, because they were

Speaker 1 called

Speaker 1 or sung into being

Speaker 1 or came from whatever realm the gods came from. And these were the celestials.

Speaker 1 Their roles,

Speaker 1 beautiful, ethereal, the heralds and servants and warriors of the divine, crafted from the power of divine might themselves.

Speaker 1 And when the gods died,

Speaker 1 the celestials

Speaker 1 went feral

Speaker 1 and became

Speaker 1 ravening like monsters.

Speaker 1 To see a celestial is to see death itself, and their presence is felt almost nowhere in the world. For in the aftermath of the Shapers' War to leave one

Speaker 1 on the loose or running was

Speaker 1 a death sentence for that region, essentially.

Speaker 1 And this

Speaker 1 coffin claims to be the coffin for that celestial. Oh, Olbalad.

Speaker 1 well but I reckon we got a problem on our hands we've got a very very serious problem

Speaker 1 I'm going

Speaker 1 to

Speaker 1 get a tool and gently scrape the inside to see if there's any

Speaker 1 what would pass for remains just the dust of organic dust give me a difficulty 10 dexterity saving throw. Alright.

Speaker 1 I also will add, I'm not breathing.

Speaker 1 15.

Speaker 1 You reach in with the tool and get to a point where you stop before you approach the mist any closer.

Speaker 1 The end of your tool. has exited

Speaker 1 into the mist to the point where it should be pushing out the other side of the coffin and it is not.

Speaker 1 Interesting.

Speaker 1 Oh shit.

Speaker 1 That's

Speaker 1 I'm going to drop it.

Speaker 1 How long do you wait to hear something before you give up?

Speaker 1 I'm patient. I'll give it 30 seconds.

Speaker 1 We are so fucked.

Speaker 1 Oh, dear.

Speaker 1 I'll be a shaper's anus. Fuck.

Speaker 1 We got a pretty little relic on our hands. That was disgusting to say.

Speaker 1 What do you think happens if I shove you in that void?

Speaker 1 I was just kidding. Oh, no, you were just kidding.
I would have murdered you on the spot.

Speaker 1 To each of you, this is a ton of information that now calls out to you in terms of

Speaker 1 whatever happens next from here, you have stuff in places in the museum that Murray probably should not go. Murray, there are

Speaker 1 many treatises and probably people that are worth talking to back at the Penteverl about what you've just found out here.

Speaker 1 We need someone with a familiar, something similar. We need to put something living in there that we we can see through.

Speaker 1 Oh, not a person,

Speaker 1 but

Speaker 1 someone who can see through other people's eyes. We got a few puppies that I know.
Well,

Speaker 1 can't make an omelette without breaking a few puppies, I suppose.

Speaker 1 Let's just go for it.

Speaker 1 All right, hang on, hang on. What? Wait, I mean, there are so many questions.
First and foremost, what did Yazzie want with this? This was his last dying wish sitting upon us right here.

Speaker 1 What did he want this? And also, what the hell? I mean, it is pretty, pretty crazy that we got this,

Speaker 1 which has some

Speaker 1 some stink of the Shapers War. And then we got a little angry elf girl over in the other house who also wants a rock, also having to do with the Shapers War.

Speaker 1 But then this has got some like halfling stuff, and that's got elf stuff. What's going on? I do know.
What did Theazzie have going on? And did you know something? Cause I know you know things, Bolair.

Speaker 1 On occasion,

Speaker 1 I would

Speaker 1 procure

Speaker 1 artifacts for him, and in return, he would

Speaker 1 send me things to look at. I know that you just said absolutely fucking nothing.

Speaker 1 I know.

Speaker 1 Uh, Marie.

Speaker 1 You look out and see sunlight creeping into the Loy wing.

Speaker 1 Fuck.

Speaker 1 Don't you hate it when you accidentally, like, you're awake all through the sunrise, and now it's light again, and now it's gonna, like, throw off my circadian rhythm all day. I'm gonna

Speaker 1 sleep for a week now.

Speaker 1 He would send me very questionable objects

Speaker 1 and I would do my research and

Speaker 1 occasionally I would

Speaker 1 give them to people I did not know with no questions asked.

Speaker 1 I did some dirty work for him.

Speaker 1 He's dead now, so I hardly think it matters at this point.

Speaker 1 Well, hey,

Speaker 1 that makes two of us.

Speaker 1 Look at that. We got more in common than what you think.

Speaker 1 Why do I like you?

Speaker 1 Just awful. Everybody likes me.
Stop talking crazy.

Speaker 1 All right, let's go find out some more shit about this box. All right.

Speaker 1 Murray, you head out. Also, having you like your,

Speaker 1 so funny as to say it in a game of DD, a job. You are the bursar of the Pentecostal.
You gotta go to work. I've got papers.
I gotta grade today.

Speaker 1 As Murray heads out, Belair, you have your private areas of the Loy Wing to check.

Speaker 1 Moving deeper down into off-limits areas of

Speaker 1 the Loy Wing,

Speaker 1 moving past

Speaker 1 a certain hallway back towards the vault where there may be some interesting objects to peruse or texts to

Speaker 1 talk to here. And you keep thinking about the fact that you heard Taisha say it.
Mask. There was a mask in the box.
And you think about how long you waited for that tool to make a noise.

Speaker 1 As you're heading towards the vault down a side hallway towards a very special,

Speaker 1 let's call it cargo area,

Speaker 1 you see

Speaker 1 some boxes that were not here when you left for the execution yesterday.

Speaker 1 Crates, I assume? Yes.

Speaker 1 How large?

Speaker 1 About three and a half feet on each side, cubes.

Speaker 1 Fuck.

Speaker 1 I'm just going to open the crates at this point. Not whatever's inside them.
I'm just going to take a look. This is as safe a place to do it as any.

Speaker 1 You open the crates.

Speaker 1 You look inside,

Speaker 1 and what you see are wicker-covered covered ceramic casks. They're

Speaker 1 sort of

Speaker 1 look like dyers casks and then you look under the clay lids and see paint leaking out of the top. They're probably filled with paint.

Speaker 1 And there's just one last note left pinned on a piece of parchment with a small stiletto dagger that just got left here.

Speaker 1 And it just says,

Speaker 1 for Hal, with all my love.

Speaker 1 You absolute fuckquit.

Speaker 1 I'm going to reseal it.

Speaker 1 I'm going to go into my private office.

Speaker 1 I'm going to pull up anything I have, which is probably not much on the fate of Termina.

Speaker 1 whatever I can find about

Speaker 1 this thing might be, I'm gonna pull a couple one

Speaker 1 as big a book as I can find.

Speaker 1 I have a little mechanism that will flip the page every ten minutes.

Speaker 1 And I sit

Speaker 1 and I become perfectly still

Speaker 1 and I let the pages flip in front of me

Speaker 1 for

Speaker 1 a few hours.

Speaker 1 Gorgeously freaky.

Speaker 1 Elsewhere in the city,

Speaker 1 in the neighborhood of Rosigar,

Speaker 1 the noise of horses

Speaker 1 arrayed in fine lines, snow-white horses, armored soldiers, pole arms on their backs, soldiers of the House Divinos,

Speaker 1 ride forward. A carriage pulls in front of a building.

Speaker 1 Emerging from it, golden breastplate, symbol of House De Venos. Across from it, the House of Royce, their liege lords.

Speaker 1 Silvering mustache and goatee.

Speaker 1 Scars across the cheek, golden helm taken down to his side, a broad sword, a polearm astride the carriage top. General Raymond De Venos

Speaker 1 exits the carriage,

Speaker 1 looking at the exterior of the tangled sheet.

Speaker 1 a house of companionship and warm welcome within Dolmakyar.

Speaker 1 Up on the second story,

Speaker 1 those who are still asleep in this early morning hear the barking of a general of the sundered houses outside going,

Speaker 1 Julian!

Speaker 1 Julian!

Speaker 1 What state do we find Sir Julian to Venus in?

Speaker 1 The morning rays of light kind of hitting dried, cracked lids and lips that are deeply dehydrated. Julian, his hair, dark hair kind of thrown asunder across the

Speaker 1 wrecked bed sheets, kind of clambers up over the voluptuous, tan-skinned woman and the blonde-haired,

Speaker 1 muscular young man

Speaker 1 who begin to stir as he kind of steps and scrambles and stumbles onto the floor,

Speaker 1 grabs a nearby pitcher and what little bit of liquid in there is,

Speaker 1 appears to be non-alcoholic. He chugs desperately as he's beginning to realize how hungover he is, and the sound of his father's voice is not helping.

Speaker 1 You said that,

Speaker 1 appearing at the door,

Speaker 1 you see, hold on a second,

Speaker 1 you see that Madame Gerlist appears, a sort of older gnomish woman. She has a goblet of wine in her hand.
Little hair of the dog that bit you.

Speaker 1 Madame, you have got sense.

Speaker 1 Hands it to you.

Speaker 1 Says,

Speaker 1 I don't know if you heard your dad's here. I heard the whole fucking city hurt.

Speaker 1 Well, we are always grateful for your business, Sir Julian.

Speaker 1 Tell him I'll be down in just a moment. Him? No, your dad.
Yes. Yes, um, you see that she rushes downstairs, uh, and you see sort of walks out and goes, General, good to see you again.

Speaker 1 Um.

Speaker 1 Uh, at which point,

Speaker 1 Julian kind of goes and starts gathering his things, still nude as the day is long, kind of slowly getting himself together as the two other companions kind of begin to rouse from the noise and the chaos.

Speaker 1 He kind of glances over and

Speaker 1 appreciates your services. And he sets out two sets of coin, studies them both, and puts two extra coins on the stack.

Speaker 1 Referencing the

Speaker 1 younger gentleman.

Speaker 1 Until next time.

Speaker 1 Throws his capelet over his shoulder and with a deep breath steps into the

Speaker 1 center area of the brothel towards his father.

Speaker 1 You step out.

Speaker 1 As you step out,

Speaker 1 the guards of House Devinos all

Speaker 1 gauntleted hands to their breasts as they bow. And you see your father turns around and says, Don't salute him.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 as you step out,

Speaker 1 well,

Speaker 1 Julian, pleasure to see him, my son,

Speaker 1 Father.

Speaker 1 By what honor do you come on this

Speaker 1 gracious step beyond your comforts to greet my morning in person?

Speaker 1 Well,

Speaker 1 going to your chambers in the Devinos estate, I presumed I would find my son in the extremely expensive bed that we paid handsome money for, where we sleep in a strange city, when the husband of our liege lady has just been executed.

Speaker 1 So I thought maybe you'd be, I don't know, nearby.

Speaker 1 How does it feel to be wrong again?

Speaker 1 Uh,

Speaker 1 your dad

Speaker 1 goes, raises a hand to you, looks at the gauntlet, and starts to take it off, and by that time has calmed down enough.

Speaker 1 Get in the fucking carriage.

Speaker 1 And he gets into the carriage.

Speaker 1 He takes a minute. There's a sweat on his brow now as the

Speaker 1 nausea that he's kept at bay kind of washes over him for a moment.

Speaker 1 Swallows.

Speaker 1 Doesn't make eye contact with any of the men and just enters the carriage after his father.

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Speaker 1 He goes in, looks up at the driver. Palazo Dadinos.

Speaker 1 Horses take off. Soldiers fall in.

Speaker 1 He stares at you.

Speaker 1 You smell like the tanners.

Speaker 1 What's the point of travel if not to engage and enjoy in the local culture, huh?

Speaker 1 I find your interest in local culture bears a striking resemblance to every city and its culture.

Speaker 1 What can I say? I'm

Speaker 1 a man of the world.

Speaker 1 There's a lot more to the world than brothels,

Speaker 1 bars, and taverns.

Speaker 1 A lot more.

Speaker 1 Well, maybe one day

Speaker 1 you can show me Proud Father.

Speaker 1 The resupply carriages have not made it to the Plaza Davinos.

Speaker 1 Word has reached us that they were stopped at the Tvalmar Pass.

Speaker 1 Do you know anything about this?

Speaker 1 Does not seem like it's part of my purview, so no.

Speaker 1 This is news to my ears.

Speaker 1 Is there anything you heard at the Farav of Thiazifeng

Speaker 1 yesterday when you attended in escort of the lady Aranessa?

Speaker 1 A lot of tears.

Speaker 1 Some old war stories.

Speaker 1 You know.

Speaker 1 People that have a

Speaker 1 very strong opinion

Speaker 1 of this man.

Speaker 1 You know about it.

Speaker 1 Surprised you weren't there for how well you were two friends, huh?

Speaker 1 Right? Storied history.

Speaker 1 So gracious. Two of you, thick as thieves for so long.
Fiazifang saved your cousin's life at the end of the War of Axen Vine.

Speaker 1 It was a tragedy and a heartbreak that he ended up on the other side of the Falconers Rebellion.

Speaker 1 Every man makes their choices.

Speaker 1 I'm sorry that I was the consequence of his

Speaker 1 My hope for you at the funeral,

Speaker 1 having spoken to the lady Arenaza of what unfolded there

Speaker 1 is that you see

Speaker 1 what it means to live a life of honor.

Speaker 1 To answer your first question, Father, from what I saw at this party was not a man

Speaker 1 who had dabbled much in honor in many years.

Speaker 1 There are things.

Speaker 1 I hope Ernesta got what she needed out of it.

Speaker 1 She deserves at least some closure for what he did to her.

Speaker 1 I have never understood your hatred for Theazi.

Speaker 1 You did what you did.

Speaker 1 You neglected my orders, disobeyed my commands, rode off and captured the hero of the Torn Banner.

Speaker 1 Made a name for yourself, brought him in, delivered him to Taconis, Halovar, the others.

Speaker 1 You got your glory, and it's like you hate him for it.

Speaker 1 Why?

Speaker 1 He sits a minute, clenching his jaw even tighter before he without making eye contact at his father.

Speaker 1 do you know how much of your golden path I was

Speaker 1 set up for

Speaker 1 to have you turn away and throw our entire house's name

Speaker 1 for friendship with that man

Speaker 1 the glory was mine, yes, but you

Speaker 1 you solid everything

Speaker 1 So I don't forgive him for what he did to you.

Speaker 1 As much as I don't forgive him for what he did to Aranessa.

Speaker 1 Men do make their own choices.

Speaker 1 And maybe, one day, you will take an interest in why they make those choices.

Speaker 1 Pulling into the Palazzo de Vinos,

Speaker 1 you emerge from the carriage, walk inside,

Speaker 1 and

Speaker 1 see near a fireplace downstairs in a sort of drawing room, the lady Arenessa, who looks a little panicked. She says,

Speaker 1 General Raymond DeWord. You see, he says, yes, Lady Aranessa, and walks in.

Speaker 1 Looking at Erenessa, feeling kind of panicked, do you enter the room with them?

Speaker 1 Seeing her face, I definitely would, yes.

Speaker 1 As you walk in, she looks up and says,

Speaker 1 The wagons have

Speaker 1 we've confirmed that they've stopped at the Tvalomar Pass. You see that General Raymond goes, Can we just ride to the pass?

Speaker 1 And she says, No, the other side, the other side of the mountains, before Kavros. They've been behind us.

Speaker 1 They're days away at this point. And you see, he goes,

Speaker 1 That's strange. Why didn't the rear guard not

Speaker 1 make mention?

Speaker 1 He looks and says,

Speaker 1 looks over at Julian, and you see Arenessa touches his arm and says, I trust Julian with this information.

Speaker 1 You see your father crosses his arms and says, Very well, Lady Aranessa.

Speaker 1 It has come to our attention that there may have been a plot to rescue

Speaker 1 The Azifang.

Speaker 1 You see, Aranessa looks at you with a look of like, we know what we heard at that funeral, and that's not.

Speaker 1 That's a very good one.

Speaker 1 You see, he says,

Speaker 1 disturbing things have

Speaker 1 come to us.

Speaker 1 The Taconis are currently searching for a member of their family, one who dwells primarily here in Dolmakyar.

Speaker 1 If rumors are correct, it is possible that that he knows something of this plan,

Speaker 1 in which case he was acting in direct contradiction of his family.

Speaker 1 It may be to our benefit if we can find the young boy before

Speaker 1 anyone else does.

Speaker 1 He looks to her. Aaronessa.

Speaker 1 Aaronessa nods and says, it would be wise. He is, I believe, in danger.

Speaker 1 Then, I am at your service, Lady Aranessa.

Speaker 1 You see, the General Raymond nods and says, if you find him, I would bring him here for the time being.

Speaker 1 Don't let anyone see you bring him here, but we should get a chance to talk with him if we can to understand what may have happened. And we are not going toe-to-toe with the Taconas.

Speaker 1 We are just trying to understand what happened and hopefully advocate on the young boy's behalf in case there has been a misunderstanding, which, given the insanity of the rumor, there must be.

Speaker 1 You see, he says, he turns to Ernest and says, given the gravity of this in the carriages, should we postpone the gala tomorrow night?

Speaker 1 And you see, she turns and says, no, no, appearances are everything.

Speaker 1 Absolutely. If anything, invite more people.

Speaker 1 We should have it be as much of a to-do as we possibly

Speaker 1 In fact,

Speaker 1 Julian, are you alright? I'm fine.

Speaker 1 You see, your father walks over to the mantle and says, Julian, are you going to be able to do this?

Speaker 1 Always.

Speaker 1 He says, Good.

Speaker 1 You are my eldest son. And he splashes a full pitcher of water in your face.

Speaker 1 And I love you.

Speaker 1 To it then.

Speaker 1 He reaches and tightens the demi-gauntlet of his left hand. You hear the metal plates kind of clinking and squeezing into place.

Speaker 1 Wipe yourself off. You head forth from this place.
Such a loving observation as you're my eldest son.

Speaker 1 That's it. It's a great pimmy dynamic.
Yeah, yeah. Super healthy.
Super, super healthy.

Speaker 1 We arrive in the woods outside of Dolmakyar.

Speaker 1 Robbie, where do we find Cadogan outside of the city here? Where you'd find him most nights. He's just sleeping out.

Speaker 1 Found a little patch where there's a split in the canopy where he's been, and it was a rough night sleep. Sweat.

Speaker 1 alcohol

Speaker 1 pouring out into his clothes that are already well worn.

Speaker 1 He's got Wolfrick sort of underneath the back of his head, arms folded, legs crossed. And as that first little splint of morning sunlight comes through, it just catches him in the eye.

Speaker 1 Oh God.

Speaker 1 And he wakes up and starts to stand and he's shuffling through the memories of last night and it's pretty it's pretty foggy.

Speaker 1 I mean he he recalls there was an altercation. He remembers that he was at a funeral.
He remembers why he was was there. But he went pretty hard the rest of the evening on the streets by himself.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 as he stands up and him and Wolfrick sort of, you know, get themselves settled for the day, kind of cracks his neck a bit.

Speaker 1 And it just sounds, when he moves his shoulders and cracks his neck, it sounds like you're like stepping on empty snail shells. Just everything in him crackles and

Speaker 1 no cartilage left, much to speak of.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 he's got a leather bandolier on his chest that's full of like tinctures and herbs and he just takes a little tiny snuff box out and

Speaker 1 Wolfrick sneezes behind him and as he's sifting through these memories

Speaker 1 he's trying to find that that mooring to hold on to about what the night was all about

Speaker 1 because

Speaker 1 he's feeling through his pockets and they're empty. Yeah.
No gold, no food.

Speaker 1 His water skin's empty even.

Speaker 1 And he doesn't know what to do with himself. He's lost again.

Speaker 1 And the one image that he is just locked on to, surprisingly, isn't Teora, his old battle partner from ages ago, or even Azune, who he hasn't seen in a long time. It is that

Speaker 1 fairy that was so torn apart. by the death of this man.
And that memory of this fairy's tears and

Speaker 1 really brings all the pieces pieces of the evening back in. And he remembers that he was a small part of it.
And he starts to remember what happened in that scene of that scuffle.

Speaker 1 And he looks down at Wolfrick, and Wolfrick looks up at him like a good dog.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 instead of saying what he wants to say, he just does a little thieves' cant and just does this,

Speaker 1 which means find the pixie.

Speaker 1 And Wolfrick just goes,

Speaker 1 and he's off into the woods, through the underbrush.

Speaker 1 And Cadogan cracks his neck again and goes,

Speaker 1 what a nine.

Speaker 1 And he takes off after him. Give me a survival check as you do so.
Okay.

Speaker 1 All right.

Speaker 1 Uh,

Speaker 1 13.

Speaker 1 On a 13,

Speaker 1 I think you look up and just see

Speaker 1 gray morning skies in Bulmachia. You're following Wolfrick, who's headed back to the city.
Thimble's got to be somewhere in there.

Speaker 1 And as you sober it up a little bit, I think you look

Speaker 1 and just notice

Speaker 1 higher up in the city, you see a little dot. You're used to looking for the movements of wild things.

Speaker 1 You see a th

Speaker 1 flutter of wings, and there is a balcony way up high. The highest neighborhood of Dolmakir is called Marut.
It's near the, it's the Grey Tower where the Revolutionary Council meets.

Speaker 1 And it looks like there is some monument.

Speaker 1 Small, humble, but you can see it because it's right against the river.

Speaker 1 And you can just see a falcon descend towards that monument and rest there.

Speaker 1 Falcons are cliff hunters. They look for places of altitude to look for other birds.
And this place is high up. You can kind of see the whole city from there.

Speaker 1 There's rock doves and other sort of birds that they would hunt and eat.

Speaker 1 So it's nothing, it doesn't strike you as unusual at all, but I think just the noise of that lyre playing, of Hal and his daughter playing broken wing,

Speaker 1 and just seeing Thimble,

Speaker 1 the quality of light coming off her body, almost shifting in that moment of grief.

Speaker 1 That grief

Speaker 1 has the power to destroy.

Speaker 1 And that's the the last thing theazzi would want

Speaker 1 you take off and head towards uh

Speaker 1 head towards

Speaker 1 hal's home

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Speaker 1 as you do so uh uh you are going to probably be the first to arrive there to wake everybody up um luis really briefly with you too uh we are going to move from

Speaker 1 as uh wolfrick leads Cadogan back into the rookery across the river in Rubblecliffe we see the brethren hall

Speaker 1 the home of the Revolutionary Guard, those proud warriors defending the legacy of the Shapers' War, when all mortals joined arm in arm to defeat, well, the gods, but also a lot of other mortals.

Speaker 1 When I say all mortals, that's not true.

Speaker 1 There were plenty of mortals on the other side.

Speaker 1 But the Brethren Hall allied that purpose. This was the war of mortals versus the gods.
And

Speaker 1 seeing the sort of suits of armor gathered here in this place for the Revolutionary Guard,

Speaker 1 Azune, you begin to walk inside

Speaker 1 to sort of, I guess, clock in. What's the first thing you would do as you

Speaker 1 enter this sort of chamber here?

Speaker 1 Well, I think my morning routine begins the moment that I wake up. And as soon as my eyes open, I'm already on the job.

Speaker 1 As I suit up in my room, room, I

Speaker 1 replay again like

Speaker 1 the events of the night before and in my mind I have

Speaker 1 the last moments of Theazi's execution and watching his body hanging and suspended in the air and I'm caught between the things that I feel like I should do, need to do, the things

Speaker 1 The thing that I spend very little time on are the things that I want to do.

Speaker 1 By the time I arrive

Speaker 1 officially on the job, I would have already gotten my gear on. I would have already

Speaker 1 began in my own room the detect magic ritual.

Speaker 1 I leave my room with that already activated because that, as an arcane marshal, is one of the very things that I'm tasked to do: keep tabs on any arcane anomalies or arcane surges that happen around, and I

Speaker 1 leave my room with that already activated. activated.

Speaker 1 On my mind

Speaker 1 is

Speaker 1 what is in store today.

Speaker 1 My job usually consists of some administration. There's some permits perhaps for people that are looking to get

Speaker 1 sanctioned places to practice arcane magic. There is

Speaker 1 some maintenance that I would do to

Speaker 1 fix devices that are meant to support arcane research. And then there's the patrol.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 And right now I'm making sure that my patrol is changing.

Speaker 1 As you walk around, you have your area,

Speaker 1 the Revolutionary Guard, you know, was here to protect the city in the wake of the revolution. And then after that, it was here to be part of like keeping the peace.

Speaker 1 And then after that, of the different offices here, some have fallen into disarray or disrepair. The Arcane Marshals are still very active.

Speaker 1 These are the people whose job it is to be able to be warriors that can also detect magic and can keep the city safe from threats of demon or undead and different kind of supernatural entities.

Speaker 1 You see,

Speaker 1 as you are getting your stuff together, with some notes of like

Speaker 1 you know, notices to the guard about like changing laws.

Speaker 1 There's a lot of training and notices about like the reality reality of not being able to cast magic in the marketplace anymore, which wasn't the case even a year ago.

Speaker 1 Walking into the office of your captain, Edrian Fazir of the Arcane Marshals,

Speaker 1 you see that Edrian looks up at you and there's someone seated in his office already.

Speaker 1 Sir Harandis Einfazen of the Council of or the Chamber of Lords Advisory. Your captain Edrian looks at you.
An older man, man,

Speaker 1 big belly, rotund. He's got sort of like a strap of white around his chin, human man, looks up and goes,

Speaker 1 Azune, good to see you, my lad.

Speaker 1 Have you met Sir Einfassen?

Speaker 1 I turn to take this stranger in. Have I met him before?

Speaker 1 You recognize him as a knighted lord of the House of Einfassen.

Speaker 1 He

Speaker 1 looks to you and says,

Speaker 1 It is a pleasure to meet you. You are Azune Nayar.

Speaker 1 I stiffen up and become very formal, taking my job very seriously, and I give him a nod and I say, at your pleasure, sir.

Speaker 1 It is an honor. I understand that you were

Speaker 1 stationed to the execution yesterday. I was indeed.

Speaker 1 I understand the complexities

Speaker 1 of

Speaker 1 someone who enjoyed the mixed reputation of the Azifeng.

Speaker 1 There are many in the city that were the victims of his criminality, but also there are many

Speaker 1 who saw within him a hero, especially of this town of which he was born. A complicated figure, I think we can all agree, yes? Yes, sir.

Speaker 1 I am meeting with your captain, Fazir,

Speaker 1 simply to engage in the offering of resources.

Speaker 1 It has come to the attention of the House Einfarsen in its seat on the Chamber of Lords Advisory to the Revolutionary Council that

Speaker 1 the

Speaker 1 public funds have been somewhat diminished of late

Speaker 1 and it is the opinion of

Speaker 1 myself as a member of the Chamber of the Lords Advisory that the Revolutionary Guard has for too long been tasked with the sole duty of protecting the city and its peoples.

Speaker 1 I would hate to think that your important tasks would go,

Speaker 1 shall we say,

Speaker 1 interrupted or that you would not have the resources you need to be able to do what you must.

Speaker 1 We are discussing ways in which certain struggling offices of the Revolutionary Guard can be closed to see those resources better served elsewhere.

Speaker 1 And in my estimation, there is no group within the city that compares to the Arcane Marshals. Your services are absolutely necessary and vital for the continued safety of the city.

Speaker 1 I'm glad to hear that, sir.

Speaker 1 If there is

Speaker 1 any use I can be to you, you need only call on me and my house. We would be only too happy to serve.
A question, if I may. Of course.

Speaker 1 These offices that you

Speaker 1 foresee would close,

Speaker 1 is there

Speaker 1 whatever little resources have been dedicated to them, what would that mean for those resources if those offices are closed?

Speaker 1 Those resources would be reassigned to offices of the Revolutionary Guard that are,

Speaker 1 shall we say, more efficient in their use of those resources.

Speaker 1 The Arcane Marshals

Speaker 1 is extremely effective at a,

Speaker 1 shall we say, type of safety of the peoples of Dolmachia that cannot be easily recreated by any other division.

Speaker 1 Whereas gate guardians or

Speaker 1 revolutionary guard patrolmen, those tasks can absolutely be handled by

Speaker 1 men-at-arms of the various houses of the Chamber of Lords Advisory.

Speaker 1 And what role will you play in that?

Speaker 1 A security overseer. Understood.

Speaker 1 As a Lord Knight, it would be my honor to join you side by side in keeping this city safe.

Speaker 1 It will be an honor to work side by side with such an esteemed person.

Speaker 1 Ah, you see that he snappily salutes a gauntleted hand, bows to you, says,

Speaker 1 It It is important work you are doing here. You have the loyalty and commitment of Haus Einfausen by your side.

Speaker 1 I

Speaker 1 have been studying this man from the second that he has been looking at me, and

Speaker 1 I

Speaker 1 smell.

Speaker 1 I'm just suspicious. I'm

Speaker 1 of course.

Speaker 1 How hungry does he look now that he seems to be positioning himself in quite a powerful place?

Speaker 1 That's what I'm digging for behind his eyes, I suppose.

Speaker 1 Oh, sorry, what are you looking for specifically? I'm just looking.

Speaker 1 There's something about people who are power hungry

Speaker 1 when they finally pulled enough strings and positioned themselves for this very moment where he just looked at me and said, I'm your new boss.

Speaker 1 And I just want to see how much pleasure there was behind his eyes, because if there is a hunger there for that kind of power, then it's just tasted something very sweet maybe and I want to see if I can notice.

Speaker 1 Give me an insight check.

Speaker 1 Great, we don't want that.

Speaker 1 I just created that. Now 20!

Speaker 1 There we go.

Speaker 1 Yes.

Speaker 1 Different sundered houses move differently.

Speaker 1 This guy is coming to you with a tone of

Speaker 1 respectfulness and zeal and flattery

Speaker 1 that lets you know that this guy is truly dangerous.

Speaker 1 The

Speaker 1 hunger

Speaker 1 behind his eyes. I think what you see too is you, there's different, you've talked to power-hungry people in the past.
Some of them are nakedly contemptuous, some of them are cruel or bilious.

Speaker 1 You don't see any kind of arch malevolence in this guy. You see a person whose entire core philosophy, rather than being brickwork, is a solid monolithic cube of,

Speaker 1 of course, I should be in charge.

Speaker 1 And everything else gets built on top of that.

Speaker 1 Lieutenant, Captain, I wish you all the best for for a fruitful collaboration in the years to come.

Speaker 1 And you see he nods and you see Captain Adrian says, and to you, Lord Knight, thank you very much for your help in this endeavor.

Speaker 1 And as the Lord leaves, you see Adrian looks over at you.

Speaker 1 Well

Speaker 1 looks like we're all getting bonuses.

Speaker 1 So long as he finds us useful.

Speaker 1 I guess the men-at-arms of the House Einfazen don't know how to detect magic with their eyes.

Speaker 1 Let's hope that stays that way.

Speaker 1 Well,

Speaker 1 let's hope it does. Because I think they're also visiting the Penteveral today.
I'm not surprised.

Speaker 1 Do you know privatizing government sanctions sanctions organizations? No!

Speaker 1 College needs that.

Speaker 1 No!

Speaker 1 With that, so much moves through my mind

Speaker 1 as I immediately become concerned for some of my friends.

Speaker 1 I go to where the schedule is, basically, and

Speaker 1 I'm eager to leave him there, kind of spinning on this, because I have other matters that I need to attend to, and I'm going to go to the schedule. Specifically, I'm going to go to where

Speaker 1 whoever's in charge of where the Crow Keepers area is, whoever's meant to patrol that area. I'm switching our names so that I'm on that patrol.
Hell yeah, gotcha.

Speaker 1 You switch your names, you get out there, you will be on a patrol in Caravan Hill, and with that, you head out.

Speaker 1 Speaking of the Penteveral

Speaker 1 A gorgeous series of buildings at the border of the neighborhood of Rosegar and a place called the Embers, which is the dwarven neighborhood built into the side of the Cavrozi Mountains that here you see is like

Speaker 1 basically like gorgeous red sandstone and then colorful like

Speaker 1 sort of pink quartz from the Sunset Mountains. There's alabaster.

Speaker 1 The penteveral is like a rare bit of color and there's also like plastered and thatched conical sort of towers or plastered and shingled conical towers.

Speaker 1 The penteveral is also much like a campus in a city. It's almost hard to tell you've walked into a college until you're way in it.
And you're like, oh, this is...

Speaker 1 There's people that are like getting snacks at this little street cart thing by like showing a student badge rather than, you know what I'm saying?

Speaker 1 Like there, so it's like, oh, suddenly, it's almost like a secret college that you just, suddenly you're in.

Speaker 1 Noted by many covered sky bridges in that kind of almost Tamo shantery, or like it's like the white plaster and like the little moss-covered shingles.

Speaker 1 They are sky bridges that are only about this big across because they are sky bridges for familiars to walk from building to building.

Speaker 1 So, there's tons of little familiar bridges throughout the different buildings of the Penteveral.

Speaker 1 And you see

Speaker 1 all throughout this beautiful little glyph

Speaker 1 with five sort of stations around it almost like a pentagram.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 you are walking through it, Murray, and as you walk through,

Speaker 1 you see that nearby, sort of racing past you, is a young gnomish lad who's a grad student.

Speaker 1 His name is Gallant. And you see he looks over and he's running by with a bunch of scrolls.
He looks like he's sweating and panting. He looks over and goes, Murray.

Speaker 1 Yeah,

Speaker 1 what's going on? They just sacked Tall Barrel

Speaker 1 What? Tall Barrel's. He's resigned.

Speaker 1 They didn't sack him, but.

Speaker 1 They fucking sacked him. They sacked him.
Who did? Is this these damn houses? Who was it? Which one? Give me names, boy.

Speaker 1 I think Einfosen Cormorate, Hailavar, Royce, and

Speaker 1 Dr. Tony.

Speaker 1 Tall Pipe!

Speaker 1 Boom, you're out of the way.

Speaker 1 You rush over

Speaker 1 in a beautiful office

Speaker 1 appointed appointed with a massive desk,

Speaker 1 you know, this ancient red wood varnished with wooden gargoyles.

Speaker 1 You see, there's these like two sort of panther heads that are a little bit more angular, and they have grapes hanging out of their mouths.

Speaker 1 And up above, you see that these gorgeous elven muses with flowering plants sort of popping out of the top, planter, top of their head.

Speaker 1 You see, there's a weird little tooting, steaming gem sort of bubbling in the middle of a beaker's neck, as nothing, there's no water, but it just somehow produces steam from air underneath it.

Speaker 1 On top of this massive desk is a much smaller desk. And at that desk,

Speaker 1 with a small staircase on the side, is the halfling professor, or sorry, I should say, dean.

Speaker 1 Elipides Tall Barrel.

Speaker 1 Slightly pointed ears, white curly hair, white, curly sideburns. Uh, looks over, little vest, uh, bare feet and breeches.
Looks over, goes,

Speaker 1 Murray. What do they do to you? What happened? What do they do to you? Why didn't you stand up to them? What do you mean? This wasn't supposed to happen yet.
I just heard the news from Gallin that

Speaker 1 you got sacked, that you're stepping down.

Speaker 1 I

Speaker 1 Murray, I'm not

Speaker 1 a lipides.

Speaker 1 I'm sorry.

Speaker 1 I'm sorry, Murray. I really am.

Speaker 1 You said you said we were gonna stand up to these greedy-ass fucking houses.

Speaker 1 What are you doing?

Speaker 1 I no longer believe

Speaker 1 it is possible to do the work that is necessary to do here

Speaker 1 in this place.

Speaker 1 What do you mean?

Speaker 1 Our work is incredibly important. Of course, it is, Murray.
Of course, it is. I know that.

Speaker 1 But there.

Speaker 1 If I had tried to fight them.

Speaker 1 You see, he just shudders and he puts a sort of paper across to you.

Speaker 1 What's this?

Speaker 1 It's a letter

Speaker 1 affirming the decision from the Revolutionary Council to accept the advisement from the Chamber of Lords to revoke the license to cast arcane magic on student grounds here.

Speaker 1 And they're not going to do it if I resign.

Speaker 1 They

Speaker 1 they prefer Cora

Speaker 1 they prefer course they do she's one of them she's not one of them okay well

Speaker 1 Heavier the pockets that is the snake I guess she might as well be one of them

Speaker 1 Sorry you have a snake in your pocket. No, I'm saying Cora is she's a snake.
She's a dirty little little little greedy grooby backhand alley deal maker. She's got the how

Speaker 1 she's in their pockets.

Speaker 1 For the work that we have.

Speaker 1 So wait, you're trying to say that they're coming in and they're trying to shut down

Speaker 1 the ability to cast magic at a magic school?

Speaker 1 That was that's their angle here? That's what they're trying to do? It was the feeling of the Chamber of Lords Advisory to the Revolutionary Council that

Speaker 1 casting magic is not necessary for the study of wizardry. That is the most batshit thing.
You hear it coming out of you. What?

Speaker 1 If they are going to try and push you out, they might as well have been creative about it.

Speaker 1 I felt pretty creative to me. You think that's creative?

Speaker 1 What? If I stay and they revoke the ability of the Penteveral to practice actual practical magic casting. What happens to the next generation of students?

Speaker 1 Tall Barrel, I understand

Speaker 1 what they're you don't have to explain to me the ramifications. That is deeply clear.
I am upset at

Speaker 1 I'm upset and I'm allowed to be upset.

Speaker 1 What do you want me to do you want to if you want the faux of the candescent creed to walk in here and say that this is how it's going to be, do you want me to say, how about how do you like these lightning bolts?

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 shoot her in the face?

Speaker 1 Shoot her in the face. I mean kaplow.
But

Speaker 1 you're considering

Speaker 1 that

Speaker 1 yes.

Speaker 1 Look, Harry, I understand. I understand.
I just don't understand.

Speaker 1 It's just this this slippery slope that that we have all been subjected to trying trying and climb for the past months,

Speaker 1 years,

Speaker 1 even.

Speaker 1 And it's like they're sitting at the top of it with just soap and water pouring it down this slippery slope until we all just smack onto our faces, bust our teeth out, and go sliding all the way back down to the bottom, right where they want us to be, which is under their big fucking feet.

Speaker 1 At the bottom of their hill. The analogy got away from me, but you understand what I'm saying? I'm still on the snake in the pockets.

Speaker 1 There's no snake in the pockets,

Speaker 1 Murray. I'm.

Speaker 1 Who's gonna. Who's gonna go to bed for me?

Speaker 1 You brought me into this.

Speaker 1 I was just a shitty little squatter dwarf out in the gutters.

Speaker 1 You gave me a job. You gave me purpose.

Speaker 1 This.

Speaker 1 This institution was born of scrappy little folks from the gutter.

Speaker 1 and

Speaker 1 those original five

Speaker 1 the first deans

Speaker 1 they were just poets and academics until

Speaker 1 a couple little street urchins from the shadows of dolmakyar said

Speaker 1 well if these words of creation are written in the foundations of our earth then let's go find them

Speaker 1 i it is not lost on me that bravery is the better part of wizardry.

Speaker 1 But I...

Speaker 1 I am not a warrior, and I'm not a politician.

Speaker 1 I've tried to spend my days studying the craft of magic, and I turned around, and I can speak words that make things that never existed come into being.

Speaker 1 And I turned around and found that there was a power greater than that. And it was whatever was written in this letter.

Speaker 1 I'm sorry. I am sorry.

Speaker 1 It was so well worded, what you just said, which makes it hurt that much more.

Speaker 1 Look, you understand what this means, right?

Speaker 1 This institution

Speaker 1 that was made and created for those that were willing to pull themselves up by their bootstraps, crack open spines of books, and just work hard, no matter where they came from or what wealth was bestowed upon them from whatever silver spooned matron that they came from it's not gonna be for them anymore

Speaker 1 just like everything else in this city

Speaker 1 we're gonna get pushed out of the way for the wealthy

Speaker 1 for the noble houses the sundered houses

Speaker 1 And they're gonna continue to push and take and take just like they took the Aussie and just like they're taking you

Speaker 1 I'm sorry

Speaker 1 I haven't slept all night and now my I my emotions and my hormones are completely unregulated

Speaker 1 he you see a lipides just with this half-packed bag next to him looks out and says

Speaker 1 I've spent my life looking for answers

Speaker 1 And today,

Speaker 1 my last day at the Penteverl, I'm afraid I have none. Today's your last day?

Speaker 1 I have to leave.

Speaker 1 I'll just give him a big hug. He gives you a big hug.

Speaker 1 As he does,

Speaker 1 you hear the noise of boots approaching.

Speaker 1 In the doorway, the shadows grow long.

Speaker 1 Effortless magic.

Speaker 1 Magic inherited

Speaker 1 as the shadows lengthen. Marie just kind of cracks her knuckles a little bit.
Cracks her neck and then just

Speaker 1 looks at Tall Beryl. Tall Beryl turns.
Smiles. A woman enters the room ahead.
A dwarven woman, much like yourself.

Speaker 1 Clean-shaven. Platinum blonde hair,

Speaker 1 Dean's robes looking very official, walks in and says,

Speaker 1 Dean Tolberterse,

Speaker 1 someone here to see you,

Speaker 1 a benefactor and patron.

Speaker 1 The door darkens

Speaker 1 and a tall, grave figure, sallow skin,

Speaker 1 enters

Speaker 1 the Lord Primus Tacones.

Speaker 1 I'm looking for my son.

Speaker 1 I believe he studies at this place.

Speaker 1 And we're gonna leave there, and I will ask everybody at Hal's house to jump on in.

Speaker 1 Big tradesies. Alex, I'm fucking coming for you, man.

Speaker 1 Bro!

Speaker 1 Oh, no.

Speaker 1 What did you do to piss off Daddy?

Speaker 1 Dribus Taconus.

Speaker 1 Dude,

Speaker 1 wow.

Speaker 1 Cool.

Speaker 1 Cool.

Speaker 1 I may call people in

Speaker 1 at a moment's notice. Cool?

Speaker 1 How hot is your dad?

Speaker 1 Do you want someone to jump over on the other side just as we're opening? Oh, I'll do it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, cool.
Yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 1 Uh,

Speaker 1 the morning of the next day, uh,

Speaker 1 all of you awaken. And I'll ask Thimble

Speaker 1 and

Speaker 1 Octus, where are you sleeping in the house that night? If you sleep at all? I did, but I fell asleep on Theazi.

Speaker 1 So

Speaker 1 I like. Falling asleep on Theazzi, just a small, as you awaken, the small mound of pixie dust that has surrounded you glowing on his chest.

Speaker 1 I think I

Speaker 1 took whatever room you were, I was, that was available for him to sleep in, but Pin stayed downstairs at the feet of The Aussie

Speaker 1 in case

Speaker 1 Dimple needed it there.

Speaker 1 Awaken Hal and Tysha.

Speaker 1 I think you guys awaken.

Speaker 1 I would say that

Speaker 1 Hal barely slept.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 years ago, when we had children together, obviously we shared the master bedroom and this place that we built.

Speaker 1 But once you left following your convictions into the world, the room that was your study, your quiet place in the house,

Speaker 1 I continued to tend and kept it full of greenery and put a bed there. And not to say that we haven't

Speaker 1 enjoyed each other's company uh on and off through throughout the years it's never assumed and i've preserved this room for you and i've barely slept so i'm coming to this room now to find you yeah um by the way i think octas uh it probably would have been like this room i think we're used to like splitting yeah rooms

Speaker 1 up incredibly early

Speaker 1 by the time you're like hi

Speaker 1 good morning see you wait Hi.

Speaker 1 I'm still asleep. No.

Speaker 1 No, he'll be up at the crack of noon.

Speaker 1 Are you sleeping in the same room as them or in a different room? I'm sleeping in the same room as Tysha was in this room. I just stayed in whatever room she was and we're used to.

Speaker 1 I think there's a moment the night previous when you're like, I'm going to sleep in the foot of their room, where you see Shadia, who has her whole own room, is like, got it.

Speaker 1 She's like, she looks at you and she's like, do I not? I

Speaker 1 don't know. That's what I think about this.

Speaker 1 I thought he's not necessarily my type, but I just. No, I know.
Make a move, girl. Yeah.
Make a move. I mean, it's weird, but it's not gonna make a move.

Speaker 1 Do something.

Speaker 1 Do something.

Speaker 1 He's like your. Is he your protege? No, I did it.

Speaker 1 I work with him.

Speaker 1 A little,

Speaker 1 not that much. Okay.
He's never had sex.

Speaker 1 That's an overshoot.

Speaker 1 Out to the roof of this place where you can look out over all of the neighborhood of the rookery. Yeah.

Speaker 1 And the sun is just barely coming up and there are magpies sort of warbling to each other from different rooftops up here.

Speaker 1 Did you sleep?

Speaker 1 No. No.
No.

Speaker 1 No.

Speaker 1 God.

Speaker 1 How are you? There's a lot to do today.

Speaker 1 I...

Speaker 1 Okay, you look great.

Speaker 1 Terrible. I'm gonna...

Speaker 1 I...

Speaker 1 I'll... I'll take care of it.
Let me take care of it, please. I am glad you are here.

Speaker 1 I'm glad you're here.

Speaker 1 I've been anxious for the...

Speaker 1 since it happened.

Speaker 1 Terrified that someone in his orbit was going to try some harebrain scheme to pull him out of that spot and

Speaker 1 including you. Yeah.

Speaker 1 You weren't inaccurate. Right, right.
And I didn't want my brother to be a refugee and never see him again. And I was convinced,

Speaker 1 convinced that I could handle back channels. I had Arnessa, I had the

Speaker 1 Hale of her boy as a fail-safe and it all failed and I'm a fool. You're not a fool.
You were

Speaker 1 hopeful.

Speaker 1 And that's not a bad thing. We were the fallback mechanism.
If all else failed, the cliff was supposed to fire, and we would get him out and

Speaker 1 better alive and

Speaker 1 in the world than gone. But

Speaker 1 I couldn't

Speaker 1 talk at all yesterday, and had a thousand

Speaker 1 thoughts rattling around inside my head, and there were just too many people.

Speaker 1 And for every person in the house who was there to pay respects and missed my brother, it seemed like there was another person with an axe to grind. And I don't know who to trust.

Speaker 1 Other than you.

Speaker 1 To be clear, there were

Speaker 1 maybe a handful of people who had a word of truly bad things to say about your brother.

Speaker 1 I don't know why Julian showed his face.

Speaker 1 And Valis is whole.

Speaker 1 that's fucked.

Speaker 1 But everyone else there knew him and loved him, and

Speaker 1 I'm sorry. I will just keep rambling.
You know, I was

Speaker 1 in the crowd

Speaker 1 and

Speaker 1 Zune

Speaker 1 made it so that

Speaker 1 he and I could talk,

Speaker 1 so to speak,

Speaker 1 a little.

Speaker 1 And he

Speaker 1 want to break all these chairs

Speaker 1 He saw something at the final moments

Speaker 1 Out over the crowd. I don't know I don't even know what I mean he saw something and then he spoke

Speaker 1 in a fever to me he told me

Speaker 1 um that I need to be looking out for Marie the Penteverl. He told me that um

Speaker 1 Bolaire has paints waiting

Speaker 1 He wants me to look after

Speaker 1 Fimbel, I would have done that anyway. Of course.

Speaker 1 There's a lot to figure out, and I don't like the way the wind is blowing in this city, and I certainly don't like it that trouble has washed up at our children's feet.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 I don't know where to start.

Speaker 1 We start with the things that we know we can do.

Speaker 1 Let's put your brother to rest

Speaker 1 and

Speaker 1 figure out what happened.

Speaker 1 Thimble was jumped by a bunch of crow keepers or people

Speaker 1 trying to pin their actions on the crow keepers.

Speaker 1 We follow a clue.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 look, Theazzi had a lot of

Speaker 1 irons in the fire at all times.

Speaker 1 It'll take years to unpack everything he was doing, but

Speaker 1 it's not on here to figure it all out right now. Ty

Speaker 1 Do you know what he was doing with that box?

Speaker 1 I...

Speaker 1 I wish I

Speaker 1 was

Speaker 1 the kind of person that asked more questions, but I trusted him.

Speaker 1 I told him I was on my way to Venatus.

Speaker 1 I asked him if he needed me to pick up anything for him, and

Speaker 1 that was the request.

Speaker 1 I spent weeks walking back with Octus,

Speaker 1 threatening him, and cajoling him, and begging him not to open that box. And then I'm the one that did it.

Speaker 1 I brought danger into

Speaker 1 your house.

Speaker 1 I'm sorry.

Speaker 1 Dangerous chased my brother around his entire life.

Speaker 1 Or

Speaker 1 I got that backwards.

Speaker 1 But we've always worked so hard to keep it as far from you as possible.

Speaker 1 Well, we got a lot to, uh,

Speaker 1 have to figure out, a lot of people to talk to. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Peel off a little time for Shadi today.

Speaker 1 Yeah, she seems

Speaker 1 mad.

Speaker 1 Madder.

Speaker 1 I understand.

Speaker 1 Just spent time.

Speaker 1 That's all she wants.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 You and Hero playing that song last night.

Speaker 1 It made me miss all of the things I missed so much.

Speaker 1 But every time

Speaker 1 I hear you play or I hear your stories,

Speaker 1 it becomes so clear how important it is

Speaker 1 to fix this world.

Speaker 1 Our

Speaker 1 people, our parents' parents, we started a war that freed us and threw the rest of the world into chaos.

Speaker 1 We owe it to the world to fix what we can.

Speaker 1 We do what we do.

Speaker 1 Yeah. One page at a time.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Let's go look after our house guests. Okay.
Okay.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 1 Uh, downstairs,

Speaker 1 thimble,

Speaker 1 uh, you awaken.

Speaker 1 The Aussie.

Speaker 1 You have a moment here in the morning,

Speaker 1 and this bad dream doesn't go away.

Speaker 1 I look at

Speaker 1 my handiwork from last night and I had spent the night after everybody else had gone to bed

Speaker 1 arranging his clothes perfectly and I braided a couple locks of his hair and made it lay out. He looks pristine.

Speaker 1 I took a couple of the the treasures people left for him.

Speaker 1 He would have wanted it to go to use.

Speaker 1 And I said, pixie dust all around him so he glows.

Speaker 1 He's golden.

Speaker 1 I'm gonna find you, did this.

Speaker 1 As you whisper that promise, the pixie dust ripples with light.

Speaker 1 A promise from a fairy is no small thing,

Speaker 1 even from a fairy so small.

Speaker 1 At the door, you hear the rasping of claws on wood, and at the little window, a wolf's head pops up and looks inside. Robbie, you want to come out?

Speaker 1 What is this wolf's goddamn vibe?

Speaker 1 Is he the scariest guy or a good boy? I cannot tell.

Speaker 1 Wait, wait, you don't need to skip.

Speaker 1 I'm sorry. We can all sketch together.
There's no one on the table.

Speaker 1 Cadigan arrives at Hal's house. So

Speaker 1 the wolf's head pops up in the window, you say? Yeah. Yeah, he just sort of

Speaker 1 mousels the windowsill open a little bit and then slinks inside. And then

Speaker 1 I imagine it's sort of a step up if there's like a brownstone, like there's steps up. So all you see are two bandaged hands grab onto the windowsill and you go, oh, fuck, ow, ow.

Speaker 1 He's got like a little like a little splinter. And Caddigan just boosts himself up into the windowsill.
I fly up to the windowsill as your like head pops.

Speaker 1 You know, there is a door. Oh, yeah.

Speaker 1 Sorry, I just followed the dog. He's still smelling alcohol.

Speaker 1 Then I burp, and it smells more like alcohol.

Speaker 1 Envelops me.

Speaker 1 He slings himself into the room.

Speaker 1 Hello?

Speaker 1 Hi. Hi.
Good morning.

Speaker 1 He's a

Speaker 1 Sorry. Sorry.

Speaker 1 Hair of the dog for you and the dog. Uh, one sec.

Speaker 1 I go and I bring out uh

Speaker 1 uh uh

Speaker 1 shepherd's pie from the kitchen and some ale

Speaker 1 and just set it out

Speaker 1 if it's wanted. Do you want to drink more or not be

Speaker 1 and he just starts eating the shepherd's pie with his hand. No silverware, just kind of scooping it in his mouth.

Speaker 1 He's scooping it down to the dog at the same time. Dog's eating it out of his hand, and he's going right back into the pot, just sort of looking at everyone.

Speaker 1 You've been inside with around people, yeah? He didn't raise you. I love people, I love people.
Great, okay.

Speaker 1 There's a glass jar of honey down on the same table.

Speaker 1 Octas wasn't asleep, he couldn't hear either of you because his consciousness was inside Pin downstairs all night.

Speaker 1 So as soon as this starts happening, he cancels it and comes down and sees you eating and just goes,

Speaker 1 Lord,

Speaker 1 what a way to eat. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Oh. Pie's gone.

Speaker 1 That was so fast. Good morning.

Speaker 1 More? Sure, that'd be... Thank you.
Yes. I got it.
I got it. I got it.

Speaker 1 And you see that like there is a fundamental tension in Taisha that's like, need a thing to do, and just starts buzzing around the house.

Speaker 1 Speaking of buzzing, are you airborne or are you?

Speaker 1 Yeah, Wolfrick is just sort of like not nipping at you, but you know how a dog gets interested in something in the sky, a fly or anything?

Speaker 1 He's just sort of got you tracked and he's bopping out of the way. Yeah, and I'm tracking him the entire time.
Yeah, yeah, it's

Speaker 1 just high enough out of his

Speaker 1 range, not that playful. Yeah, no, I can tell.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 Thimble.

Speaker 1 You know that it's, you know, the funeral went late.

Speaker 1 The amount of time it'll take to get to Caravan Hill,

Speaker 1 you know that

Speaker 1 the tavern will be open, and the crowkeepers will probably be present by the time you get there. We gotta get going.

Speaker 1 Going, going where? I'm gonna head off the crowkeepers. Oh, crowkeepers?

Speaker 1 Have you ever dealt with them before? Of course I have, have you? Why? So much attitude. I don't know what we're doing.

Speaker 1 I'm sorry, we didn't even speak last night. Um, did you leave something here?

Speaker 1 No, no, I just uh

Speaker 1 oh, yeah, I didn't ask. As I come out bringing you more food, why are you here?

Speaker 1 Oh, sweetie, I got you, I sorry.

Speaker 1 Oh, are you gonna help?

Speaker 1 Yeah,

Speaker 1 I think so.

Speaker 1 Oh,

Speaker 1 oh, depends on what we're doing, I suppose. He looks creepy as hell.
He's perfect for this.

Speaker 1 You wanna come with me? I need backup. Fantastic.

Speaker 1 Is there any...

Speaker 1 I'll save it.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 he looks at the ale for a minute.

Speaker 1 And the minute turns into a real minute.

Speaker 1 And then he unlocks and leaves it sit.

Speaker 1 And then.

Speaker 1 So,

Speaker 1 I'm sorry, I missed a little bit last night. I just remember you.

Speaker 1 You're Theazi's brother. I see it.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 You served together

Speaker 1 each other fought near each other

Speaker 1 Shoulder to shoulder he was a bit more like a non-commission officer and I was more like in the trenches Fucking it up if you know what I mean. But he's a good guy all along.
I'm sorry by the way.

Speaker 1 I didn't get a chance to properly pay my respects. It was a busy night.

Speaker 1 Yes, it was. Well, he's still right there if you want to, Captain.
Oh, yeah. And I'm I'm gonna walk up to him.
And I'm gonna look at him.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 as he's resting and dead, I think Cadogan's seen a lot of death in all of its forms. And when you see a person lying in repose, they have a resting face.
And Theazi's to me looks mischievous still.

Speaker 1 As I remember him in my youth.

Speaker 1 And then...

Speaker 1 While nobody's looking, just out of curiosity, I'm gonna say

Speaker 1 sure.

Speaker 1 I'll grab a little pinch and a little flick to where no one can see it, and I just wanna cast really quick,

Speaker 1 just to check. Spare the dying.

Speaker 1 Because I figure if there's one last gambit he might have in his pocket,

Speaker 1 it could be that he's not really dead. Just a check.

Speaker 1 You cast Spare the Dying here.

Speaker 1 Give me insight in this moment. Like an insight, like check? An insight check.
Okay. He's been alive this whole time.

Speaker 1 Watch up.

Speaker 1 Now imagine if you called that here.

Speaker 1 What did you roll? It's a dirty 20. Dirty 20.

Speaker 1 You look.

Speaker 1 Spare the dying. You cast it.

Speaker 1 You do not feel the spell take hold as it has in the past, perhaps on Theazi himself.

Speaker 1 And you wonder if that mischievous half-grin on his face is that the trick he's smiling at is that the life he lived led you to believe he might be fooling even about this.

Speaker 1 I think

Speaker 1 Cadogan looking at his body here, he is golden, gleaming, surrounded by treasures from the many lives he lived.

Speaker 1 It is not an exaggeration to say,

Speaker 1 in the lives of mortals,

Speaker 1 though he had so much more time left,

Speaker 1 this is the best you can hope for.

Speaker 1 To be left like this.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Looked at him and just quietly to himself say,

Speaker 1 Ma'am,

Speaker 1 it's too bad.

Speaker 1 Well.

Speaker 1 Let's get after it then. While he was talking to him, I'm just gonna be

Speaker 1 flying next to Octus.

Speaker 1 Um

Speaker 1 Can you come?

Speaker 1 Or is that stupid?

Speaker 1 No, um, you mean to

Speaker 1 Yes, yes, I I

Speaker 1 I can come with you, yeah

Speaker 1 Will you get in trouble? I mean, I I don't know how

Speaker 1 in with your fam you still are. I don't know right, I haven't even oh god.

Speaker 1 Um

Speaker 1 i

Speaker 1 i can make myself look different

Speaker 1 yeah and hopefully that'll work yeah no i'm i'm i'm i'm coming with you okay

Speaker 1 we gotta go

Speaker 1 thimble

Speaker 1 uh you look cadding's gonna with you octas is coming with you

Speaker 1 i think i'm better served

Speaker 1 finding Murray and

Speaker 1 fuck Murray uh wait Bolaire!

Speaker 1 The letter! And I go fly down and I give it to you. How, this has to get to them! Or, alright, to Belair, right? Or to Murray, either matter.
Murray, you know what I mean. Belair.

Speaker 1 It says Murray on it. Okay, I'll read the Murray.

Speaker 1 There's a letter that says Bolaire on it. That the letter says Bolaire, and Thimble is saying this is for Murray.

Speaker 1 Yep, that tracks of the last 24 hours.

Speaker 1 He had a present for you.

Speaker 1 Did you get it?

Speaker 1 I...

Speaker 1 Yes.

Speaker 1 Yes. Okay, are you gonna use it?

Speaker 1 Give me one hour a week.

Speaker 1 Um.

Speaker 1 Be careful. I'm always careful.

Speaker 1 Are you though?

Speaker 1 Um.

Speaker 1 Listen, I know I'm not my brother.

Speaker 1 And I'm no replacement for my brother, but I know how much you meant to each other, and as far as I'm concerned, your family.

Speaker 1 So, if you ever need somewhere to go, it's here.

Speaker 1 And um,

Speaker 1 I was able to talk to him at the end.

Speaker 1 Are you bullshitting me? Because Izuna said the same shit,

Speaker 1 and then he said he was lying. So, I'm not bullshitting you.

Speaker 1 What did he say? say?

Speaker 1 He said to tell you not to be afraid.

Speaker 1 And I didn't need him to tell me that he thought the world of you.

Speaker 1 And therefore, so do I.

Speaker 1 He was always so stupid. Yes, he was.
I'm never afraid.

Speaker 1 Uh, Thimble, do you want me to

Speaker 1 do you want me to come with you, or you could go with a pair of spooky boys?

Speaker 1 We got this. We got this.
What don't we? Don't we, Wolfrick? It's a good boy. I don't know if you need to be in with the thieves.
Tasha,

Speaker 1 you're respectable.

Speaker 1 Who says it's true? I don't know. What context?

Speaker 1 I respect you.

Speaker 1 I respect you too.

Speaker 1 You didn't tell me you were respectable. Okay, come on, yeah.

Speaker 1 I like it.

Speaker 1 As

Speaker 1 Tysha and Hal remain here at home with their daughter,

Speaker 1 Thimble, you head out with Cadogan and Octus.

Speaker 1 Disguise self.

Speaker 1 Um, before we leave the house.

Speaker 1 Look shady.

Speaker 1 Shadier than you already look.

Speaker 1 I don't look shady.

Speaker 1 I make myself look like very much realizing who I'm with.

Speaker 1 An approximation of someone who looks like Cadogan.

Speaker 1 I'm just nudging the shit out of Shadia.

Speaker 1 You see that Shadia goes...

Speaker 1 It's nice to meet you.

Speaker 1 Nice to meet you too.

Speaker 1 Nice to meet you too.

Speaker 1 Wow.

Speaker 1 Can you make yourself a girl? Is that your

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 It's a musk.

Speaker 1 I feel like that's a waste of magic.

Speaker 1 As you head up, let me know how long this guy's all about. Yeah, that's an hour.
I will need to kind of duck away at some point to refresh it. Yes.
So you go ahead.

Speaker 1 I think you get there on a second casting.

Speaker 1 You'll get far enough in the state that you arrive there.

Speaker 1 Thimble, as you head out

Speaker 1 through the city, you see it before you. There is a

Speaker 1 tavern. A sign.
No letters on it, but a sign with just a scratched picture of a tall stone masonry tower.

Speaker 1 See, this is in Caravan Hill.

Speaker 1 Caravan Hill is one of the lower neighborhoods of the city, so named because this is where all of the goods and wealth of Kahad, all that orcish food and produce and wealth and abundance goes funneling out into the rest of Passatar.

Speaker 1 You see that there is a

Speaker 1 you know, so there's like merchant caravans and wagons and everything heading up to Sir Ogre Mac's market. And

Speaker 1 the tavern sign sort of swings. There's like sputtering torchlight.
So you enter. It's always like a late morning tavern, always has a vibe sort of like the circus just left.

Speaker 1 It's a

Speaker 1 a from a guy who used to do opening work at a lot of bars.

Speaker 1 It's a tough vibe.

Speaker 1 As you approach and enter, you walk in and sort of right in this little hallway that leads out to the main kind of where the bar is and there's circular tables around the sputtering torchlight.

Speaker 1 Even like Jul Maker is gray enough that like some places and some neighborhoods need to burn torches during the day, even to have enough like light to see and do things.

Speaker 1 You walk in, you see that there's two

Speaker 1 kind of like

Speaker 1 wiry-looking

Speaker 1 human

Speaker 1 sort of, you know, you can see a couple crow feathers on a twine earring, and another one's got some crow feathers on the inside of a hood. So you walk in, smile.

Speaker 1 Hello?

Speaker 1 Welcome. Looking for a drink.
I'm looking for any

Speaker 1 bit of recognition in any of their eyes for me.

Speaker 1 Um I'm looking for somebody that looks like they might have been in that room.

Speaker 1 Uh

Speaker 1 you don't see any from this person

Speaker 1 or are you here to speak with somebody?

Speaker 1 Yeah,

Speaker 1 I fly down and get close to them.

Speaker 1 Where's Kaz?

Speaker 1 Where's Kaz? Uh you hear a voice from inside say,

Speaker 1 Sender in.

Speaker 1 Uh in the bar, wearing a sort of

Speaker 1 brimmed double-ridged hat, black felt, long black coat, thin silver chain, is an older figure. You would recognize this as a gentleman.
You don't know if it's his name, but people call him Solomon.

Speaker 1 You

Speaker 1 Thimble, is that right? Saul.

Speaker 1 Good to see you, Master. You too.

Speaker 1 Who are you looking for?

Speaker 1 I'm looking for Casimir.

Speaker 1 Has he been around?

Speaker 1 Last few days?

Speaker 1 Last day?

Speaker 1 Give me a persuasion, Jack. Let's fucking go, Tinker Hell.

Speaker 1 Ooh, that ain't good. That ain't good at all.
That's a five.

Speaker 1 Hey, Laura. Roll initiative.

Speaker 1 And we're going to say goodbye. Goodbye.
Actually, give me three initiative rolls right here. I'm going to mark them down.
Shit.

Speaker 1 I bet they won't get up there. Okay.

Speaker 1 25.

Speaker 1 25 for thimble.

Speaker 1 Okay, so 25 for Thimble. Damn.
That is

Speaker 1 21. Oh, my God.
Come on. 21 for Octus.
What do we get here? I'm just lollygagging by the bar. I got a 12.
12?

Speaker 1 12 for Cadogan? Hell yeah.

Speaker 1 Thimble,

Speaker 1 these people are not creative. And as many times before, you hear the whistling right behind you of someone with a burlap sack.
And that's where we're going to say goodbye.

Speaker 1 See you guys next time. Can we get

Speaker 1 Sam and Whitney out here?

Speaker 1 Everybody else vacate, right? Everybody else vacate. Bye-bye.

Speaker 1 Let's go.

Speaker 1 Almost first combat.

Speaker 1 How and Tysch are just making breakfast.

Speaker 1 That's its own kind of combat.

Speaker 1 Great.

Speaker 1 Bye-bye.

Speaker 1 Great.

Speaker 1 I love it.

Speaker 1 I love it.

Speaker 1 Do you want to be? Should we?

Speaker 1 Having been

Speaker 1 watered and fed, Tayor Pride Sire has been ushered out of the Via Aurora and

Speaker 1 after much business dealing with a quick meeting with Haus Einfausen and some comings and goings.

Speaker 1 Sam, what do you think Wikantor would get up to that in a normal day after having signed up for Teor to maybe begin to be your assigned bodyguard this like holy moon?

Speaker 1 But just in a normal day, what do you think you would get up to? Oh, well,

Speaker 1 in a normal day,

Speaker 1 I would this isn't a normal day. Or on this day, what do you want to get up to, yeah? In a normal day, I think I would

Speaker 1 have duties. I have

Speaker 1 things to take care of at the various temples and

Speaker 1 there is the matter of that shipment of filament that was outside,

Speaker 1 this glowing liquid that was sort of being jostled around. I want to make sure that that is being cared for.

Speaker 1 and delivered to the right place.

Speaker 1 And there's always the teaching of tyranny

Speaker 1 and making sure that she is

Speaker 1 being brought to the light and making sure that she is doing her studies.

Speaker 1 I don't know if she's with me now or not. I believe she is.
Okay, yes. After a long day dealing with the accident,

Speaker 1 there is a knock at your study door as the sun begins to set. Maybe I'm in the middle of explaining to her.
As you know, the

Speaker 1 Candescent Creed believes that the universe is is a river of light and we are but vessels riding in this river. Um

Speaker 1 we have solved the ancient secrets though and we can distill the light energy into liquid filament and that filament can be used in rituals and um how

Speaker 1 it's very crucial to our um to our faith that uh that filament can be used to empower people to um to cast magic. So you don't know I d

Speaker 1 I don't know exactly how it works, but I do know that that filament can even be ingested by people. Why, you see the markings on my face, these beautiful glowing tattoos, are actually pure filament.

Speaker 1 That's the bottled-down essence of the universe tattooed on my face. But you don't know what it is

Speaker 1 or where it comes from? Yes, I do. It is part of the universe.
It is the candescence that we all exist within and without us. It makes the universe, and we are carried along its its current.
And

Speaker 1 many say that we can sip of it from the great radiant chalice. Yes.
Okay, I understand.

Speaker 1 Let me ask you something. What did you think about that Teor guy?

Speaker 1 He was really strong, yeah. Yes, and

Speaker 1 sort of

Speaker 1 had a swagger about him, don't you think? Yeah. Sort of confidence.
Well, let's stay pure.

Speaker 1 Of course, you're right.

Speaker 1 He seemed to wield the light light without even knowing how or what it is, which is rare.

Speaker 1 Impressive, really. You trust him?

Speaker 1 Well, I did, but

Speaker 1 then my grandmother said to sort of

Speaker 1 get rid of him. I don't know what that means.
Your grandma said to get rid of him. I don't know if that means usher him out or

Speaker 1 kill him. I can't kill him.
You can't kill him. No, I can't kill him.
I don't know, but could you, if push came to shove?

Speaker 1 I mean, yeah,

Speaker 1 I think so, but I don't think I sh I don't think I should. No, I don't want to, but it's not my job to be in upon the politics of your stuff.
Of course not, but

Speaker 1 you know, if the photoc

Speaker 1 commanded us to, I suppose we'd have no other choice.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 I don't want to do that. I don't want to do that either.
No. Oh, yes.
Bob, yes, go the door opens.

Speaker 1 The door opens, your father.

Speaker 1 And behind him, aspiring enmity. These two towering figures appear.
Your father, again blindfolded, looks to you.

Speaker 1 Wickander.

Speaker 1 Come.

Speaker 1 And turns to begin to walk away.

Speaker 1 Am I supposed to come? You should come. Emmity looks and says, Come on now, tyranny.
Yes, you should be present for all official.

Speaker 1 What if I need protection? Yes. Yes.
Yes, father

Speaker 1 well join along

Speaker 1 i want to tie bar with enmity really quick

Speaker 1 get up uh clomp right up uh next to her and say enmity um

Speaker 1 what's going on

Speaker 1 the photograph has made a decision

Speaker 1 you won't have to keep any terrible little secrets for much longer

Speaker 1 uh

Speaker 1 you

Speaker 1 by the way, Enmity is committing a dimming in this moment by speaking in the language of demons. So that you don't understand that last part.

Speaker 1 You heard a little demonic. Yeah.
Alright, I shoot them a little bit of a side eye.

Speaker 1 You see, Goddard, your father says, Done,

Speaker 1 and points to the staircase. Right away, follow.
Yes, you begin to walk. Enmity speaking rather than your father just goes,

Speaker 1 My lord Wickander,

Speaker 1 your father is gleeful and merry beyond measure. I can tell, yes.
To show you

Speaker 1 the inner workings of the prismatic retort. Oh.

Speaker 1 Oh.

Speaker 1 By the beam.

Speaker 1 The inner workings.

Speaker 1 The prismatic retort is what we use to

Speaker 1 change

Speaker 1 light energy,

Speaker 1 distill it from the cosmos into liquid form, into liquid filament. Its mysteries are unknown.

Speaker 1 If this is true, this could be...

Speaker 1 this could be my promotion. This could be the moment I've...
I'm revealed the secrets.

Speaker 1 Yes, your radiance.

Speaker 1 I mean, I know you're being humble and demure, because that's what you should be, but you could be a little little happy.

Speaker 1 You approach at the bottom of the staircase, going down farther. This is now deep in the rock underneath the Via Aurora.

Speaker 1 A massive set of stone double doors, the symbol of the Candescent Creed on them.

Speaker 1 You can see there's writing, however, here in

Speaker 1 celestial ancient obradimion, this

Speaker 1 lost runes of this empire of fallen worshipers of Tansul, god of the sun.

Speaker 1 The letters don't reference him, but you recognize them as part of that ancient alphabet. But of course, Tansul was a false god.

Speaker 1 So

Speaker 1 doors

Speaker 1 begin to crack open, and a beam of light.

Speaker 1 moves through

Speaker 1 and quickly diminishes. You see within, chained to either side of the wall, are enormous warhounds.
You see that each of them

Speaker 1 they're slavering drool, sort of glowing bioluminescently as they

Speaker 1 you see that each of them barks and as they do

Speaker 1 you see that you feel a pulse of some kind of innate spell from them

Speaker 1 and you feel not harming anything but dispel magic cast over you.

Speaker 1 Do I know these creatures?

Speaker 1 They look maybe of a similar kind to your uncle Philonius's. He has got some war dogs but these ones are much bigger and you see that each of them do not be afraid.

Speaker 1 Thank you. My eyes are locked on Wick and also occasionally staring daggers at Enmity.

Speaker 1 You look at the word of you look over

Speaker 1 their eyes.

Speaker 1 You see that there are golden plates affixed over their eyes. Solid.

Speaker 1 As you walk forward, another set of doors opens.

Speaker 1 Have I ever been this far deep down?

Speaker 1 This is all brand new.

Speaker 1 Oh my goodness.

Speaker 1 The fourth tenet of the seven shining tenets, the beam is only seen by the anointed. The sacred glyphs shimmer only to the family of flame they will be revealed to me tonight

Speaker 1 hey can i say something really quick before we go further

Speaker 1 um yes but make it quick yeah i just wanted to say that i know i haven't been really easy to work with um these past couple months

Speaker 1 and i'm really sorry about that

Speaker 1 thank you Thank you for that.

Speaker 1 I'm proud of what you've accomplished. We can't wait for more.

Speaker 1 Wiki!

Speaker 1 You see the Photarch is down here.

Speaker 1 You see that she's dressed not in sort of like outer regalia, but like a simple sort of white gown. She looks like she's very comfortable down here.

Speaker 1 She smiles and says, ah, my little lovey, it's good to see you. Hello, Tyranny.

Speaker 1 Welcome.

Speaker 1 Behold,

Speaker 1 candles light in this almost cathedral-esque basement, like a windowless cathedral here in the basin. And you see that there is an enormous

Speaker 1 stone

Speaker 1 sarcophagus

Speaker 1 that

Speaker 1 is set in with these massive, fibrous, what look like

Speaker 1 almost like

Speaker 1 thread massive ropes or threads coming off of it, but you see that they are shuttering and gleaming bright.

Speaker 1 The sarcophagus is pitched up. It is easily 40 feet tall.

Speaker 1 Overhead.

Speaker 1 Stones and sigils carved throughout it.

Speaker 1 You see that Goddard is walking over and twisting these places where these essentially fibrous tubes plunge into the sarcophagus and tightening them up.

Speaker 1 And as he does, you see his hands are smoking a little bit.

Speaker 1 Yanessa looks at you and says, Wickander,

Speaker 1 there's no two ways about it.

Speaker 1 The love I hold for you is as true as the foundations of the earth.

Speaker 1 And I need you to know that

Speaker 1 because

Speaker 1 That love is true.

Speaker 1 However,

Speaker 1 some

Speaker 1 the things I have told you in your life have not been true.

Speaker 1 And so,

Speaker 1 I suspect that there may be some points where you feel

Speaker 1 rattled, unsure, your legs taken out from under you. You see a tiny papery old hand touches your cheek.

Speaker 1 So the thing I need you to hold on to when everything else goes away is that I love you.

Speaker 1 I love you too, Grandmother.

Speaker 1 Your ability to wield the light

Speaker 1 is a gift.

Speaker 1 From

Speaker 1 the cosmos itself, yes.

Speaker 1 We all

Speaker 1 must carry the light as clerics of the

Speaker 1 of the Candescent creed.

Speaker 1 It's less a gift of the cosmos than it is a gift of our family.

Speaker 1 And it's less from

Speaker 1 any given creed

Speaker 1 than it is from...

Speaker 1 Faith, belief?

Speaker 1 Goodness.

Speaker 1 Justice.

Speaker 1 Guarded!

Speaker 1 Open the retort.

Speaker 1 The machine.

Speaker 1 This is the machine that distills the light into filament. As you wish.

Speaker 1 Mother.

Speaker 1 Goddard goes to undo his blindfold.

Speaker 1 Takes it off.

Speaker 1 Beams of light emerge unbidden.

Speaker 1 from his lidless eyes as two beams of light funnel into the base of the prismatic retort.

Speaker 1 The runes of the sarcophagus alight and they begin to open.

Speaker 1 Give both of you, I need a

Speaker 1 strength saving throw.

Speaker 1 Sure, that's

Speaker 1 what we do.

Speaker 1 Hey, pretty good.

Speaker 1 Dirty 20. 15.
15. Uh, Uh.

Speaker 1 Tyranny, you stand strong. Uh, Wikander, you are thrown back ten feet.
Sure.

Speaker 1 Oh.

Speaker 1 It's alright, I can see better back here. I go and I, um.
Hold on, it's over. It's okay.

Speaker 1 You look up, and as your eyes adjust, you see your father kneeling, reasserting. and re-fixing the blindfold on his face.

Speaker 1 As their torque opens, gleaming light.

Speaker 1 This is not a sarcophagus.

Speaker 1 It's an iron maiden.

Speaker 1 And within it is a 30-foot-tall angel chained

Speaker 1 with

Speaker 1 taps like that that removes the sap from maple trees, gushing blood out.

Speaker 1 as the angel chained with its head against the inner workings, its featherless wings spread out and splayed against the inside of the machine, roars out like a screaming titan,

Speaker 1 as rows and rows of unpointed teeth

Speaker 1 within its mouth gnash furiously, it blasts forth bilious, gleaming blood over its shining body.

Speaker 1 Claws and feet reaching forward against the chains.

Speaker 1 Yanessa turns to you.

Speaker 1 Wiki, I'd like you to meet your grandfather.

Speaker 1 That's all for this episode of Critical Roll. Oh wait, no, no, no, go.

Speaker 1 And we'll see you next week. No, no, no.
Don't cut.

Speaker 1 Thanks for listening to this episode of Critical Roll. If you're enjoying this story, consider leaving a review on your podcast platform of choice.

Speaker 1 We're always looking for new critters to share our adventures with, and your review may help a new batch of wayward souls find their way to Araman, Xandria, and beyond.

Speaker 1 Or if you want to hear what the cast discussed after the episode, head to beacon.tv and check out our exclusive show, Critical Role Cooldown.

Speaker 1 You'll be right there at the table immediately after we say, is it Thursday yet? and experience our cast's post-show reactions. We'll see you next time.

Speaker 1 Hey there, it's Katie Nolan, host of Casuals, the sports podcast where we don't care how much you know about sports, we're just happy that you're here.

Speaker 1 Every week, I hang out with some of my good friends to discuss the biggest stories across sports and entertainment, but in a way that's like fun and not boring.

Speaker 1 Want to know Sue Bird's favorite Diana Taurasi story, or how heavy the Larry O'Brien trophy is, or even what baseball team is right for you based on your moon sign? We got you.

Speaker 1 Listen to Casuals every Tuesday and Thursday Thursday on the SiriusXM app or wherever you get your podcasts. Bye.

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