Stone-Faced | Critical Role | Campaign 4, Episode 4 | Part 1

Transcript

Speaker 1 Alienware's biggest sale of the season lets you unleash peak performance at Black Friday savings.

Speaker 1 Prices start at $899.99 on select Alienware PCs, like the groundbreaking Alienware 16 Aurora gaming laptop, taking performance to the next level with Intel core processors.

Speaker 1 Plus, you can save on all the latest accessories and displays, like the Alienware 32 4K QDOLED gaming monitor. Visit alienware.com/slash details before these limited-time savings end.

Speaker 3 Score holiday gifts everyone wants for way less at your Nordstrom Rack store. Save on UGG, Nike, Rag and Bone, Vents, Frame, Kurt Geiger London, and more.
Because there's always something new.

Speaker 5 I'm giving all the gifts this year with that extra 5% off when I use my Nordstrom credit card.

Speaker 3 Santa who? Join the Nordy Club at Nordstrom Rack to unlock our best deals. It's easy.
Big gifts, big perks. That's why you rack.

Speaker 6 Are you ready to get spicy?

Speaker 7 These Doritos Golden Sriracha aren't that spicy.

Speaker 9 Maybe it's time to turn up the heat.

Speaker 1 Or turn it down.

Speaker 10 It's time for something that's not too spicy.

Speaker 7 Try Dorito's Golden Sriracha.

Speaker 8 Spicy, but not too spicy.

Speaker 1 Why hello there!

Speaker 11 I'm Brennan Lee Mulligan, and welcome to campaign four of Critical Role.

Speaker 1 Thank you for joining us on this journey as we explore Araman, a world of fractured kingdoms, tumultuous rebellion, and sorcery that rises from the graveyard of the gods.

Speaker 1 You're listening to part one of this adventure, with part two arriving this upcoming Tuesday.

Speaker 12 Our episodes typically arrive on the Critical Role Podcast Network a week after our initial Thursday night streams on Beacon, YouTube, and Twitch.

Speaker 1 But if you'd rather listen to a full podcast episode of Campaign 4 right when it airs, without any ads, consider becoming a Beacon member.

Speaker 1 You'll receive access to exclusive content, discounts at all our online Critical Role shops, pre-sales for live events, and so much more. Start your seven-day free trial today at beacon.tv.

Speaker 1 Now, without further ado, let's begin this episode of Critical Role.

Speaker 1 Evening in Dolmakjar.

Speaker 1 A crisp, cool night.

Speaker 1 Footsteps approach.

Speaker 1 A seedy tavern in the fray.

Speaker 1 The

Speaker 1 lowermost neighborhood of the city.

Speaker 1 Noise of shattering glass bottles in nearby alleyways. Raucous shouts.
Fights breaking out. Loud music.

Speaker 1 The braying of a nearby horse as a carriage

Speaker 1 trundles down the street, sputtering torchlight, casting shadows long and wide through the city streets.

Speaker 1 Humble sign of a tavern,

Speaker 1 Potter's Field,

Speaker 1 the symbol of a nameless gravestone on its sign

Speaker 1 few drunken reprobates outside.

Speaker 1 In what state does Bolaire approach this place?

Speaker 13 Bolaire has their hood closed,

Speaker 13 the cape closed, and the hood up to be as inconspicuous as somebody who is wearing such a unique mask can be.

Speaker 13 He has a package

Speaker 14 reasonably sized,

Speaker 1 wax-papered, tied with string.

Speaker 13 Clearly well put together.

Speaker 1 It's

Speaker 13 I mean, if you didn't know better, it would look like someone had just very plainly wrapped a Christmas present. It's very creased and well folded.

Speaker 13 And together, maybe it's a gift for someone.

Speaker 1 You walk through a neighborhood so far removed from the Arcanade

Speaker 1 that the odds of being recognized in this place are next to none.

Speaker 1 open.

Speaker 1 Smugglers, criminals,

Speaker 1 few people under sputtering candlelight, speaking in hushed tones.

Speaker 1 Bartender looks up to perceive you.

Speaker 1 And with that eye contact,

Speaker 1 nods, communicating that no, he does not perceive you. Not tonight, in any case.

Speaker 1 At the back of this

Speaker 1 humble

Speaker 1 liquor-drenched hovel

Speaker 1 is a thick

Speaker 1 red door.

Speaker 1 Brass studs throughout it.

Speaker 1 It's hidden behind a curtain, but it's

Speaker 1 sturdier than just about anything else in here.

Speaker 1 Seated behind the curtain is a thin,

Speaker 1 reedy figure

Speaker 1 who looks up at your approach.

Speaker 1 No evil.

Speaker 1 Pushes his hand into the leather covering of the door.

Speaker 1 Something

Speaker 1 heavy,

Speaker 1 like stone,

Speaker 1 grates,

Speaker 1 and a hidden hinge.

Speaker 1 The wall swings open and

Speaker 1 for a minute overpowering the stench of rot and ale on the floor.

Speaker 1 Powerful incense,

Speaker 1 something

Speaker 1 heady, otherworldly, as you step into the shadows.

Speaker 1 You enter

Speaker 1 a hidden

Speaker 1 place of leisure behind Pottersfield. You look in and see the proprietor, Devlin, look up to you.

Speaker 1 Rows and rows of bottles, crystal glassware overhead. The fixtures here, brass, velvet,

Speaker 1 of a higher caliber than that which resides in the exterior.

Speaker 1 Devlin,

Speaker 1 a brimmed hat pitched forward to cover the very top of his forehead, looks up at you.

Speaker 1 His eyes always reflect a few more candles, a few more lanterns than are ever present in this actual physical space.

Speaker 1 He looks up and goes,

Speaker 1 Master, pleasure to see you. Can I pour you a drink or are you only only here for a spell?

Speaker 1 Oh.

Speaker 1 It's been an odd week.

Speaker 13 I think...

Speaker 13 I think a tat of something interesting would do very well.

Speaker 13 It's getting strange out there.

Speaker 1 If it keeps up, might eventually get as strange as it is in here.

Speaker 1 He pours something thick and viscous.

Speaker 1 Delightful aroma. Must be something sweet.

Speaker 1 Sherry

Speaker 1 puts it in front of you.

Speaker 1 He looks over to a corner. You see a woman wearing

Speaker 1 thick purple robes, a long cloak.

Speaker 1 She

Speaker 1 wears

Speaker 1 formless, shapeless attire, but her face is angular and beautiful as she sits small velvet benches.

Speaker 1 An ornate lantern made of shattered, almost mosaic-like glass, stained in different colors, illuminates her face.

Speaker 1 She leans forward with empathy in her eyes and understanding at

Speaker 1 a

Speaker 1 mother and daughter across from her, who seem

Speaker 1 addled in their sleeplessness.

Speaker 1 Give me a perception check.

Speaker 1 Let's see.

Speaker 1 That's going to be a 19.

Speaker 1 Even at her whispered tone, your ears detect.

Speaker 1 Of course,

Speaker 1 of course.

Speaker 1 The concerns are as great as the problem which brought you here in the first place.

Speaker 1 Your father, your husband's soul, is in the underworld.

Speaker 1 There is no afterlife that calls to it.

Speaker 1 The clerics of the totality, perhaps some druids of the old path, would seek to

Speaker 1 send his soul off towards oblivion and void, or perhaps depict some uncharted course through realms beyond that only the shapers knew, but...

Speaker 1 If you wish

Speaker 1 for

Speaker 1 a brighter resting place

Speaker 1 for your father, and here she makes eye contact with the young woman, who you can see probably hasn't slept in days, tears have crusted and dried in where they've been running down her face, she says,

Speaker 1 there are precious few left in this world who can help you, but there are some,

Speaker 1 there are some

Speaker 1 that wish for these souls not to be lost.

Speaker 1 Now, our help does not come cheaply, but it is reliable. And you see a vellum contract moved across the table to the young woman who begins to read the text.

Speaker 1 Elsewhere,

Speaker 1 your name is spoken aloud in this place.

Speaker 1 Volair!

Speaker 1 Friend!

Speaker 1 You turn to see Rulius and Calastro Merconod

Speaker 1 You see that they are sitting in a private booth.

Speaker 1 One of them has moved these velvet drapes aside.

Speaker 1 You see that there is a young man who is sort of draped over their laps, and you see that his eyes have rolled back in his head as he dreams in some altered narcotic state.

Speaker 1 As Rulius speaks to you, you see, Calastro puts his lips near the young man's ears and

Speaker 1 sucks some vapor out of his ear as the man

Speaker 1 shudders.

Speaker 1 My word, this is surprising.

Speaker 1 Quite auspicious, actually. I've been meaning to get a hold of you for a while.

Speaker 1 How is busin how is

Speaker 13 business?

Speaker 1 Business is booming as ever. We have some very important clients these days.

Speaker 1 Would you care to join us?

Speaker 13 I think I'm actually waiting for some

Speaker 13 different company for the evening, but I can take a moment.

Speaker 1 It's interesting.

Speaker 13 Are you still doing

Speaker 1 the day job, the day work, whatever you want to call it? Of course, we must keep up appearances.

Speaker 13 I have to ask, because it has been

Speaker 13 ages, and there's a gala coming up, and of course, there's

Speaker 13 the new theater, which will eventually be opening. And I'm going to need a new suit, and honestly, what you wear is phenomenal.
I always love what you're wearing, and I would love...

Speaker 1 I don't know, I think I would just look lovely in it.

Speaker 1 I'd be delighted to make you a suit, Bolaire.

Speaker 1 A hand lands on your shoulder,

Speaker 1 and a voice speaks and says,

Speaker 1 I'll have a room in the back, ready for you.

Speaker 1 You look up and see Albris Drime, a

Speaker 1 man of illicit goods that you've been talking to for some time.

Speaker 1 Something that maybe he started as a

Speaker 1 normal fence working with the crow keepers, but he's been making a name for himself and is looking to move up into a higher class of smuggled goods.

Speaker 13 If you'll excuse me, gentlemen, business calls and bespoke suits don't come cheap.

Speaker 1 They close the curtains to their private area, and you walk with Aubris into another room.

Speaker 1 He's

Speaker 1 an able-bodied man, but not too terrifically tall. He's sort of similar in proportions to yourself,

Speaker 1 but you see that he sort of shaved head, he's got a nick in one sort of ear.

Speaker 1 And as you go into this private area,

Speaker 1 he turns around and says,

Speaker 1 Well,

Speaker 1 the money's ready.

Speaker 1 I uh

Speaker 1 I had no idea that you worked with the likes of us.

Speaker 1 Oh, I

Speaker 13 work with an awful lot of people, times being what they are.

Speaker 1 And uh,

Speaker 13 who knows?

Speaker 13 Maybe at some point

Speaker 13 you'll be able to afford more of my services. And I push a package towards him.

Speaker 1 Undoing the clasps, he opens it. See a hungry smile on his face.

Speaker 13 I begin taking the money.

Speaker 1 Is this some kind of

Speaker 13 in a jet in a bag?

Speaker 1 Is this some kind of joke? Where is it?

Speaker 1 Where's what?

Speaker 1 He thuds it closed and says,

Speaker 1 oh,

Speaker 1 you are a peach, aren't you? Listen to me.

Speaker 1 I won't be double-crossed. No.

Speaker 1 I came for a treasure.

Speaker 1 And you see he flicks the hard exterior of your mask

Speaker 1 and then I won't be leaving without one

Speaker 1 hi

Speaker 1 what is your current HP total

Speaker 1 that is 26

Speaker 1 that was a lot of dice

Speaker 1 He breathes in your face and you fall immediately asleep.

Speaker 1 Yeah, that's okay.

Speaker 1 Your unconscious form hits the ground. Shit.
And he pulls your mask off your body.

Speaker 1 What does he see when he pulls the mask off the body?

Speaker 13 Oh shit.

Speaker 13 As he pulls the mask, he sees.

Speaker 13 Well, first of all, a bit of flesh pulls like

Speaker 13 like

Speaker 13 rubbered glue as it pulls off but it doesn't stick to the mask it just flaps back and just other than those points of contact it is

Speaker 13 dry

Speaker 13 cracked

Speaker 13 chunks of flesh missing to see teeth and it seems to be powdering by the second. Not completely, but just the exposure to air seems to be

Speaker 13 making it turn grayer and open up. The eye sockets are

Speaker 13 practically empty. It's just

Speaker 13 flaccid balloons of what used to be eyes.

Speaker 13 Any moisture that was in them long gone.

Speaker 1 He looks down.

Speaker 1 Oh.

Speaker 1 The fuck?

Speaker 1 Freak.

Speaker 1 I won't even have to kill you. It looks like you're on on death store.

Speaker 1 He looks inside of the mask.

Speaker 1 Cocks his head.

Speaker 1 Sees something.

Speaker 1 Maybe some glyph. Something.

Speaker 1 Rune of power.

Speaker 1 But of course, you're unconscious.

Speaker 1 So we

Speaker 1 depart this scene.

Speaker 1 Sometime later,

Speaker 1 um

Speaker 1 Blair, you wake up

Speaker 1 feeling

Speaker 1 so much better.

Speaker 1 There's a dead body in the room. What do you do?

Speaker 1 That won't do at all.

Speaker 13 I begin to strip the dead body of its clothing,

Speaker 13 gently, carefully folding it to the side.

Speaker 13 I then manifest in my hand

Speaker 1 a

Speaker 13 glass straight razor out of nowhere.

Speaker 13 And I

Speaker 13 begin carefully removing the hair

Speaker 13 from this body, from its head, leaving just a few patches, almost like...

Speaker 13 oh

Speaker 13 just like almost two tiny mohawks

Speaker 13 I then take the bits of it and a

Speaker 13 cleaver a glass cleaver suddenly appears and I begin chopping it into tiny pieces

Speaker 13 portable

Speaker 13 is there a fireplace in this room I'm trying to remember oh absolutely

Speaker 13 I take the chunks

Speaker 13 and I find the bits that are going to burn best and I throw them on the fire. I keep, for now,

Speaker 13 the hands

Speaker 13 and the head, and I put them in the empty package

Speaker 1 as I fold it back up.

Speaker 13 and re-tie the string.

Speaker 13 I change my clothes into the clothes that I removed from the cadaver.

Speaker 13 And I put up the hood and very, very gingerly decide it's time to head home.

Speaker 1 Feeling

Speaker 1 as good as if you were a brand new person, you head off into the night.

Speaker 1 For everybody watching,

Speaker 1 we'll get into what happens after Bolaire leaves and the other events in Dilmakjor in tonight's episode of Critical Role. Happy Halloween!

Speaker 11 Hi.

Speaker 1 Welcome to tonight's announcements at the Critical Role Announcement Playhouse. Marisha, you're out.

Speaker 17 Yes, I am.

Speaker 1 Our beacon exclusive series, Fireside Chat, will welcome the lovable, demazing, one of my favorite people in the whole wide world, Alex Ward.

Speaker 17 On October 28th at 7 p.m. Pacific.
So join Beacon to watch and submit questions and get to know Alex a little better. It's a cozy time.

Speaker 17 And as a reminder, Campaign 4 will take a break next week for that. aforementioned dispatch one-shot, but we will return Thursday, November 6th with the soldier tables.

Speaker 17 and of course if you ever need a refresher a reminder you can get caught up with everything crit roll related with our lore keepers with our weekly crit recaps on critroll.com they're great awesome laura you're up next miss pickle

Speaker 1 you guys

Speaker 20 it's our delilah briarwood dice set

Speaker 20 it's the seventh exclusive collaboration with the artisans of everything dice

Speaker 20 The packaging art of this hot hotty hot Delilah is by Arian Makuo, and it's amazing. And the dice are equally amazing.
Oh, man, I'm gonna be able to do it.

Speaker 1 I'd destroy the world for that one. Can't wait to show you

Speaker 20 how pretty they are.

Speaker 1 Go and check them out online.

Speaker 1 Oh, they're like purpley. 14.

Speaker 1 Oh, those are so cool.

Speaker 1 Exonic stuff. Guaranteed.

Speaker 20 Yeah, at least 14 every time.

Speaker 20 Also,

Speaker 20 our partners at G Fuel

Speaker 20 are celebrating critical stuff

Speaker 1 10-year anniversary with an exclusive collector's box of drinks.

Speaker 1 Look at that! It's so beautiful! And it's a vaccine. It's actually really freaking beautiful.

Speaker 1 And it tastes good too. And it's available only at gfuel.com.
Yeah.

Speaker 17 We're real YouTubers now.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 We have a G Fuel collab. There's stuff.

Speaker 20 There's stuff that comes in the box.

Speaker 1 Yeah, it's really cool. Oh, there's a shaker.
Yeah, there's a shaker? Yeah, you gotta check it out. It's super pretty.
When are we gonna make milk?

Speaker 1 Whenever you're ready. I've been dying for it.

Speaker 1 Oh, dickers. Dickers?

Speaker 1 Dickers. It comes with dickers.

Speaker 1 Dickers. Dickers.
Our dickers.

Speaker 1 I believe

Speaker 1 that concludes our announcement. Is that right, Gary?

Speaker 1 I think so.

Speaker 15 And so, with that, let's bring us into a place called Auraman.

Speaker 14 This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. You know, I was thinking the other day about how easy it is to lose touch with people.

Speaker 14 Maybe there's somebody in your life you've been meaning to call, or a friend you keep saying you'll catch up with soon.

Speaker 14 And as the seasons change and the days get shorter, it doesn't have to feel heavy. This is actually the perfect time to reach out.
So send that text. Make those game day plans.

Speaker 14 Let people know you're thinking of them. And just like reconnecting with an old friend takes some courage, so does reaching out for therapy.
But it's worth it.

Speaker 14 Many people wonder, why didn't I do this sooner? BetterHelp is one of the world's largest online therapy platforms with over 30,000 fully licensed U.S.

Speaker 10 therapists.

Speaker 14 They handle the matching so you can focus on your goals. This month, don't wait to reach out.

Speaker 14 Whether you're checking in on a friend or reaching out to a therapist yourself, better help makes it easier to take that first step Our listeners get 10% off their first month at betterhelp calec critical role.

Speaker 3 That's better H-E-L-P dot com slash critical roll Score holiday gifts everyone wants for way less at your Nordstrom rack store save on Ugg Nike rag and bone vents frame Kurt Geiger London and more because there's always something new.

Speaker 5 I'm giving all the gifts this year with that extra 5% off when I use my Nordstrom credit card.

Speaker 3 Santa Who? Join the Nordy Club at Nordstrom Rack to unlock our best deals. It's easy.

Speaker 19 Sriracha?

Speaker 6 Sounds pretty spicy to me.

Speaker 8 Um, a little spicy, but also tangy and sweet.

Speaker 6 Spicy.

Speaker 8 But not too spicy.

Speaker 22 Extra-value meals are back. For just $5, get a savory and sweet sausage, egg, and cheese McGriddles, plus hash browns and a coffee.

Speaker 11 Only at McDonald's.

Speaker 2 For limited time only, prices and participation may vary.

Speaker 8 Prices may be higher in Hawaii, Alaska, and California, and for delivery.

Speaker 1 Hello,

Speaker 1 and welcome to a very creepy episode of Critical Role campaign four.

Speaker 1 I'm your dungeon master Brennan Lee Mulligan here for the oops all Alex Wards episode.

Speaker 1 Alex, where's your Alex Ward costume? Unfortunately, part of the stipulation of this event was that I can't be Alex Wards because I had to divvy all of myself to all of you. God,

Speaker 1 I'm sorry, I didn't mean to. It's a huge sacrifice.
And this is where

Speaker 1 Thad.

Speaker 1 Thad? You're hitting the TH on Fad?

Speaker 1 Real heavy in. Yeah.

Speaker 19 What do your boys call you when you go fishing?

Speaker 1 And I bet you got a great source for MDMA in the dark web, don't you?

Speaker 1 Perfect. Wow.
Absolutely.

Speaker 1 They made me do this.

Speaker 1 By the way, we've been doing this to you for hours.

Speaker 1 Like three hours now.

Speaker 1 Which is almost as many NFTs you own.

Speaker 1 You have so much crypto.

Speaker 1 Enough crypto. We're talking about crypts.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 1 Nice transition.

Speaker 1 Last we left off, our heroes here in the world of Ariman were busy dealing with the aftermath of the execution and funeral of Theazi Fang.

Speaker 1 In our last episode, we said goodbye to a number of people that were off to seek either revenge on Casimir for the betrayal of Theazi and thwarting the plan to save him at the gallows, and the rescue of Teor Pridesire's younger brother, Sid, who fled with a deed to a stronghome in Gourmalay.

Speaker 1 We also were chasing down through a knockdown, drag-out brawl in the Crowkeeper's bar,

Speaker 1 a thing called the Stone of Night Song, which the elven warrior Valus has come seeking.

Speaker 1 Hearing from his father, General Raymond De Vinos and the lady Arenessa, that a full court press was engaging across the city searching for Octus Taconis, as indeed the Taconis family was behind the execution of Theazifang, and that word had gotten to them that Octus may indeed have been involved.

Speaker 1 Seeking this eighth son of the Lord Primus Taconis, who came calling on him at the Penteveril,

Speaker 1 we discovered that, yes, many forces out the city were looking for him, and it looks like the forces of House Royce and the vassal House Devinos got to him first.

Speaker 1 So Julian ran into him back at the home of Hallandiel Fang and his daughter Shadia.

Speaker 1 And seeing that there was trouble afoot, Octas went with Julian to arrive back there. And Valis, who gotten to know Pincushion, the sweet little undead fox.

Speaker 1 I think knowing that the trail had gone cold on the stone of night song, something about this figure that had helped you look for it and that seemed to wield a magic of death, of necromancy, his family being given a birthright to a connection to that realm, but him having studied it through practice at the Penteveral.

Speaker 1 Velus followed

Speaker 1 Julian to the Palazzo Divinos, where we now stand. The lady Arenaessa took Octas up to a room in a tall tower

Speaker 1 to

Speaker 1 get him basically hidden away from people where she could talk about what was going on with his family.

Speaker 1 As General Raymond spoke to Julian about the fact that their rear caravan had been stopped at the Dvalmar Pass,

Speaker 1 some strange workings afoot here in Dolmakyar.

Speaker 1 Arriving back from the hallowed round, Taisha discovered that Jan Octas had been sort of taken by Julian DeVinos, who she had shared some extremely pointed words with about their relationship to the late Theazi Fang.

Speaker 1 Bounding over one of the many bridges crossing the river in the heart of Dolmakyar, Wolf and the elf

Speaker 1 gazed at each other and felt a connection to the spirits of this place.

Speaker 1 Magic is afoot here, profound.

Speaker 1 A wolf, who is also a woman, a druid,

Speaker 1 races towards this place to save a young man.

Speaker 1 She walks the old path, can feel the drum of the heart of the world and of the life force within it and those spirits of death that would threaten it.

Speaker 1 An elven warrior searching for an ancient artifact, Stone of Night Song,

Speaker 1 which we have just seen in the hand of Octas' brother, Ethrand Taconis.

Speaker 1 It seems we've found what we're looking for.

Speaker 1 The magic of a studied necromancer capable of summoning a sweet, undead familiar. Perhaps wielding the magic of death is not all bad after all.

Speaker 1 And a man who has not searched for magic or understanding of it in his life.

Speaker 1 But a shadow grows long behind you as Primus Taconis

Speaker 1 pulls the skull of Raymond DeVinos through his body and he collapses to the ground dead. I'm going to need everybody here to roll initiative.

Speaker 1 I didn't want any of you guys.

Speaker 1 Oh, that's okay. Okay.

Speaker 1 Okay, got that out of here. Now, what do we get here?

Speaker 1 22. 22.
Let's go. What do we got? 18.
18 for Octus. Hell yes.
What do we we get here? Three. Three for Dalis.
What do we get, Tysha?

Speaker 19 14.

Speaker 1 Got the one out of the way.

Speaker 20 Definitely not going to roll it again.

Speaker 1 Probably not.

Speaker 20 No.

Speaker 1 Couldn't imagine it. No, no, no, no, no.

Speaker 1 Gotcha, gotcha. Okay.
Excellent, excellent.

Speaker 1 Great start.

Speaker 1 As we begin,

Speaker 1 Julian, you are going to be first to act, and I'm actually going to pass out everyone's minis!

Speaker 20 Okay, wait, so it's Julian?

Speaker 1 Julian, if you place yourself, you were at the edge of the gate there.

Speaker 1 And then, um.

Speaker 1 Valis, you were right next to Matt's character, Ashley. Thank you.

Speaker 1 And you also have a friend with you. A pincushion.
Pin!

Speaker 1 Pins with me. Pins with you.
Pins such a beauty. Such good character.

Speaker 1 Rushing forward at this exact moment, crossing the threshold of the gate.

Speaker 1 I will give you your mini titan,

Speaker 1 but also the form you currently wear. Yeah! Cool.

Speaker 1 I'll be Wolf and Alex

Speaker 1 for your review.

Speaker 1 But you will be up here.

Speaker 15 Lovely.

Speaker 18 I get to know this mini for such a short time.

Speaker 1 Well, let's hope we'll get to you in time.

Speaker 1 So,

Speaker 1 Matt, you are going to be first to act on a 22. In the doorway, you see Lord Primus Taconis standing there.

Speaker 1 Also, with that divine sense, I believe, uh, from Velus, the courtyard is brimming with undead just beyond the barrier of this world.

Speaker 1 So, you can see that the spirits of the dead are flooding to this place just past the barrier of the living world.

Speaker 1 Essentially, you get this feeling almost like walking through some vast, frightening aquarium in the dark where but a single sheet of glass separates you from monsters of the deep.

Speaker 19 Your family's bad.

Speaker 1 They are.

Speaker 1 But Julian, you are first to act as you see Primus

Speaker 1 hovering just slightly above the ground

Speaker 1 as he...

Speaker 1 You see your father, his skull, a massive hemorrhage of blood as his brain slides without a skull to prop it up into the back of his neck, and he hemorrhages and dies in an instant. As Primus,

Speaker 1 no saves.

Speaker 1 Hey, you gotta muscle through that. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Maybe like a healing word.

Speaker 1 Spirit of dying. There is a thud, a clank of armor, a thud, blood gushing out of the nose and mouth as Primus makes eye contact with you, his his face utterly impassive.

Speaker 1 Julian, for

Speaker 1 two to three beats, is just processing what happened.

Speaker 1 I think he's...

Speaker 1 He looks upon the

Speaker 1 crumpled corpse of his father.

Speaker 1 The blood draining from his face before he looks up to Primus and just

Speaker 1 with an

Speaker 1 unheard primal screech she shouts no

Speaker 1 and goes into a full sprint towards him drawing his blade and just running as fast as he can

Speaker 1 six

Speaker 1 get right up into that doorway I don't know if he's in melee there

Speaker 1 I will say he is within melee range

Speaker 1 just through the doorway here in this moment

Speaker 1 you may may take your action. Alright, he's going to try and interpose himself over the body of his father, who in his mind is still trying to reconcile whether

Speaker 1 there's anything he can save or protect, but is going to throw the cloak over his shoulder, revealing his demi-gauntlet on the other side with the rapier that he's already had ready to go.

Speaker 1 He's just putting all of that force, all that momentum, still just that raging scream behind it as he goes to try and spear Primus as hard as he can.

Speaker 1 Give me your attack wall. Alright.

Speaker 1 That's not as good.

Speaker 1 It's going to be a 12.

Speaker 1 You surge forward, looking at your father,

Speaker 1 where he is lying in the doorway. To make this lunge work, you would have to step on his body.
You would have to connect. and something in you

Speaker 1 it

Speaker 1 that thing has to still be your father. It can't be a body on the ground.
And in that moment of not being able to commit,

Speaker 1 Primus

Speaker 1 moves to the side, and as he does so, you see his body is

Speaker 1 maybe only three quarters in this realm

Speaker 1 as he

Speaker 1 and mist follows in his wake moving to the side. I don't care.
I immediately action surge and try and follow that up with another secondary.

Speaker 1 Now, like, I can't see, I can't make the strike over my father's body as he moves to the side.

Speaker 1 That gives me just enough of an opening where I go from the first thrust, spin it back, and then move towards the side where he had tried to dodge.

Speaker 1 That's better. That's going to be a 23 to hit.
Yes, yes, go.

Speaker 1 A 23 is going to be a hit. Go ahead and roll damage.

Speaker 1 Oh, my God.

Speaker 1 All right. That's going to be seven points of damage.
Okay.

Speaker 1 Piercing.

Speaker 1 And because it is a rapier, he, if with damage, gets vexed,

Speaker 1 which means my next attack has advantage. Amazing.
And is it specifically your attack? My next attack against him has advantage. Great.

Speaker 1 And you deal seven points of damage to him? Seven points of damage. As a bonus action, if I can still, I'm going to follow up with my demi-gauntlet.
and try and deck and grab his throat if I can.

Speaker 1 Just more for like an odd bonus action offhand attack to see if I can just continue to pummel him as hard as I can, just pure rage. Great.

Speaker 1 This has advantage on it because of the Vex.

Speaker 13 Rolled the same number twice.

Speaker 1 Unfortunately, that's going to be only a 12. So 12 is

Speaker 1 on a 12, you see that you

Speaker 1 glance off of sort of magic armor that surrounds him.

Speaker 1 The glancing blow with the rapier.

Speaker 1 See, he smears the blood off of his chin.

Speaker 1 Looks at you.

Speaker 1 And you see that in his off hand, you see he is holding a

Speaker 1 black candle with a black wick in it.

Speaker 1 Within the wax, you see that there are silver figures sort of ensconced within the wax, like there are buried things inside it. Touching the blood, he looks and goes,

Speaker 1 and bear your house no ill will

Speaker 1 and uh he uh flicks the blood onto the ground uh

Speaker 1 the moving forward initiative from julian uh standing there in this moment uh looking at the the face of death uh we are going to move up into the tower

Speaker 1 um these robed figures in front of Ethryn, you see that the Taconis must have ushered these ghouls through the city.

Speaker 1 These chattering corpse-devouring undead have been dressed in long cloaks and robes to be able to move throughout the city with some semblance of disguise. And

Speaker 1 Ethren goes,

Speaker 1 The one in the lead is going to look at Lady Aranessa, who opened the door

Speaker 1 and kicks her full force in the chest, knocking her a square back and prone on the ground.

Speaker 1 Is then going to move

Speaker 1 one, two, three, four

Speaker 1 behind you, Octus, in the room here.

Speaker 1 The rest are going to surge into this chamber as well.

Speaker 1 I am going to need

Speaker 1 in this moment I am going to need 5, 10, 15, 20, 20. Okay.

Speaker 1 In this moment,

Speaker 1 I am going to need athletics checks from you.

Speaker 1 Sure. Hey, we're all so good.

Speaker 1 I'm so good at this. How many? First one is you need to get a 15 or higher.

Speaker 1 Easy. 19.

Speaker 19 Okay, great. Let's go.

Speaker 1 Great. There are five attacks coming your way.

Speaker 1 Happy Halloween. My AC is 16.

Speaker 1 No, no. These are athletic checks.
These are grapple checks. Okay, go, go, go, go.

Speaker 13 Contested.

Speaker 1 So slippy. This next one is you need to get a 14 or higher.
Let's go, let's go. Eight.
Eight. Oh, I was waiting for the end of that.

Speaker 1 What about the bonuses here? I have that.

Speaker 19 Hey, he looks like this is the first time he's ever played DNT.

Speaker 1 You're doing great, bud.

Speaker 1 Okay, on the second, so three of them have used their attacks. There are two left to go.

Speaker 1 You see that in the silence radiating throughout the room,

Speaker 1 there's a silence everywhere throughout here.

Speaker 1 You see

Speaker 1 that one of them is going to go for

Speaker 1 Aranessa.

Speaker 1 Successfully grapples her.

Speaker 1 You can see that all that necromantic ghouls should not be this strong, but you can see that there has been some effect. There's a spell active on them that has like enlarged their dead muscles.

Speaker 1 You see that their veins actually are pumping blood right now, which they normally do not.

Speaker 1 The last one here.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 1 You see that

Speaker 1 Ethry speaks something that travels throughout the science. Only the ghouls can hear.
One of them grapples you, throws you onto the table,

Speaker 1 prone. This one right here,

Speaker 1 crawling over you as you are thrown onto it, gets sort of on top of you, smiling as this long tongue that stinks of carrion and does a little leapfrog hop as he produces a garot. He leaps over you,

Speaker 1 facing the opposite direction, and putting it behind his head, sits down hard with the wire over your head.

Speaker 1 You can feel him almost dragging you off the table behind him. So, your head is the back of your head hitting the back of his head as he just pulls down taut on this wire.
You take

Speaker 1 you take seven points of damage. Okay, no, that's cool.

Speaker 1 Octus, that is going to be your turn.

Speaker 1 So,

Speaker 1 being strangled. Um.

Speaker 1 Uh

Speaker 1 right, okay.

Speaker 1 Um, and there are how many around me right now?

Speaker 15 One is with Aranessa.

Speaker 16 How many are around me?

Speaker 15 Five.

Speaker 19 And I'm in a silent bubble.

Speaker 1 Yes.

Speaker 1 Great.

Speaker 18 Great place for a wizard to be.

Speaker 1 Um, okay.

Speaker 15 Can I, even though my head is being like dragged back, can I still see Ethren through the door?

Speaker 1 You can.

Speaker 1 I put one hand up to try and like give a little bit of air.

Speaker 15 Trying to force a hand in there and with the other hand I

Speaker 19 point and cast the only spell that doesn't require focal component.

Speaker 15 Okay. Which is mind spike.
Hell yes.

Speaker 1 On Ethrand.

Speaker 23 Hell yes.

Speaker 1 So that he has to make a wisdom 14 save.

Speaker 15 Octress reaches his hand out and draws a little sigil in the air that glows with this sort of green light and then it sort of decays in this kind of purpley mist, and the mist shoots straight at Etherend.

Speaker 1 Incredible.

Speaker 1 I'm going to roll this in front of the board.

Speaker 1 I don't think it takes a very deep analysis to conclude how much trouble you are all in.

Speaker 1 I will also say at this moment that

Speaker 1 we have had a bar fight in the previous episode.

Speaker 1 The world of Araman

Speaker 1 has

Speaker 1 many different walks within it and many different opponents. And I will remind you, as your friend, because we are playing a game together above the table,

Speaker 1 this world

Speaker 1 is not necessarily balanced in each and every instance.

Speaker 1 It contains a verisimilitude.

Speaker 1 And I wish for you to walk in the light of that truth. Why do I feel like I'm being read terms and conditions?

Speaker 1 Okay,

Speaker 1 so we're going to keep this because

Speaker 1 there are, because this is

Speaker 1 the reality of the House Taconis' planned slaughter of the House of Royce and Davinos,

Speaker 1 we are going to keep things extremely honest because the world of Araman is not fair. Oh,

Speaker 1 God. That was stressful.

Speaker 1 On a nine or higher, Etherend will save. Okay.

Speaker 1 Yep. 14.
Ah. That is a save.
The spell

Speaker 15 doesn't land. He takes half damage from the spell.
Okay.

Speaker 1 That's something. That's something or something.
It's something.

Speaker 15 So it's.

Speaker 15 Okay.

Speaker 1 Okay. Another great roll.
So that's.

Speaker 1 He takes half of nine psychic damage.

Speaker 1 Okay. This will still prompt a concentration check.

Speaker 1 That's so cool. Love that.

Speaker 1 Gotta make up.

Speaker 1 okay.

Speaker 1 So

Speaker 1 going into this attack, half of nine is he takes four points of damage.

Speaker 1 As the spell goes off,

Speaker 1 it is a difficulty 10. He's making a constitution saving throw.

Speaker 1 Point seems pretty hardy, right? Yeah.

Speaker 1 On a nine or higher, he saves.

Speaker 1 Nice.

Speaker 15 And you just,

Speaker 15 he can't get air, and he's just staring at his brother and trying to. The thoughts in his head are all over the place because he hasn't seen his brother in like in over

Speaker 15 five years, and he just, yeah, he can't figure out why all of a sudden his brother would be with these ghouls and attacking him. And he's

Speaker 1 that's the end of his turn.

Speaker 1 Ethrand looks at you

Speaker 1 as you see blood pools under his eyes from the damage of the psychic spell you just cast.

Speaker 1 Looks at you and mouths the words

Speaker 1 and pulls out a curved knife

Speaker 1 and steps into the room.

Speaker 1 he's going to make two attacks

Speaker 13 because I sixteen hit sixteen is my armor class, yeah

Speaker 1 it's a natural tornado

Speaker 18 I'm glad we're all dressed for a funeral.

Speaker 1 What the hell?

Speaker 1 He deals you

Speaker 1 deals you 15 points of damage.

Speaker 1 Don't

Speaker 1 I have one hit point on?

Speaker 1 I won't reach over there, so help me. Do it, do it, do it.

Speaker 1 There's no better outfit for an in your

Speaker 1 slow death scene.

Speaker 1 Oh no.

Speaker 1 What is your what is your hit points total? 23.

Speaker 1 Because this is a crit,

Speaker 1 If he deals 24 points of damage,

Speaker 1 oh, if he deals 24 points of damage, this will be

Speaker 20 what?

Speaker 1 Yeah, if you double over if you hit your, yeah,

Speaker 1 max again. This is too much.
Yeah, too much.

Speaker 20 I have to stand over here.

Speaker 19 Yeah, I feel like I want to go walk into the set.

Speaker 1 Um, we'll start with a plus three

Speaker 1 to damage.

Speaker 1 My body doesn't know what it was.

Speaker 1 It's a nine. So that's twelve.
He takes out the knife, plunges it into your stomach in the silence,

Speaker 1 and begins to saw up, gets up to your navel from where he stabbed in under the belly button.

Speaker 1 That is 21 months of damage. Oh my god! There's another nine,

Speaker 1 so that's uh we said he needs to do 24 and that's 21 these need to be a one and a two or a one and a one for you to not die in this moment

Speaker 1 yeah

Speaker 1 he looks into your eyes

Speaker 1 he drops the silence

Speaker 1 and goes

Speaker 1 traitor

Speaker 1 you should have welcomed the name alone as a gift, even though there has always been something wrong with you.

Speaker 1 With a seven,

Speaker 1 he withdraws the dagger and

Speaker 1 the hand that holds the stone of night song, he plunges into into your core

Speaker 1 and you can feel ice-cold fingers release the stone and begin to wrap around your heart from inside you.

Speaker 1 The

Speaker 1 What a music change

Speaker 1 as he starts to feel cold and his

Speaker 1 strength leaves him still

Speaker 1 having the grott around his neck

Speaker 1 and this

Speaker 1 hand inside of him, he just stares at his brother

Speaker 1 and

Speaker 1 He just thinks that he's never gonna get to

Speaker 1 keep his promise

Speaker 1 and meet up with Thimble, like he said.

Speaker 1 And he just

Speaker 1 pin disappears

Speaker 1 as that lets go.

Speaker 1 And you just see it

Speaker 1 kind of fall apart into pieces.

Speaker 1 Pin falling apart in front of you.

Speaker 1 Valus, you see this. Tysha, you see this.

Speaker 1 Tysha, it is your turn as you thunder over the threshold and watch Pin

Speaker 1 turn to see you and

Speaker 1 disconstitute

Speaker 1 falling apart.

Speaker 1 I

Speaker 19 race up and it's like a big dog trying to hit the brakes all of a sudden, just stopping right in front of Pin.

Speaker 1 And it's just a growl low in this very large, very dark wolf's throat.

Speaker 19 But from the creak of the gate and the rustle of the hedges and the tree branches, you hear Tysha's voice all around you

Speaker 1 breaking.

Speaker 1 Where is Octis?

Speaker 1 He's inside.

Speaker 19 And I just... Is there something I can...
I...

Speaker 1 I don't care about the ghouls.

Speaker 19 I don't care about Julian.

Speaker 1 I need to find him.

Speaker 1 Upstairs,

Speaker 1 having taken a lethal amount of damage,

Speaker 1 we forego Death Saving Throats.

Speaker 1 The amount of damage is enough for an instant death.

Speaker 1 Tysha Below,

Speaker 1 in the adrenaline of the moment, surging forward,

Speaker 1 you

Speaker 1 can give me an investigation check to attempt to find him as quickly as possible. What I will say in this moment is

Speaker 1 the difficulty because there is a large palace that he could be anywhere within,

Speaker 1 the difficulty to instantly know where he is is 25.

Speaker 1 The difficulty to lower

Speaker 1 the next rounds check by five is just a difficulty ten.

Speaker 1 You will have to search the palace to find him.

Speaker 19 But the silence was dropped.

Speaker 1 And I'm a wolf. Can I hear anything?

Speaker 19 Can I smell blood?

Speaker 1 Give me a perception check. With the scent, you can do so with advantage.

Speaker 1 Uh, 22.

Speaker 1 Wait, hold on. That's wolf stats.

Speaker 1 Uh, do you have plus two more?

Speaker 19 24.

Speaker 1 24.

Speaker 1 On a 24 perception,

Speaker 1 you...

Speaker 1 I will say

Speaker 1 smell blood on the wind and about 80 feet up in the air there is an open balcony

Speaker 1 in which you can hear

Speaker 1 muffled movement you smell blood for sure and you hear a

Speaker 1 ice scream as Lady Aranasa bites down on a ghoul's hand from within the room screaming at the top of her lungs as the silence drops. Okay,

Speaker 19 Nothing else here exists or matters. I'm going to barge in and I'm trying to make my way.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 1 Go ahead and you're so you are just going to thunder in up the steps to get there as fast as you can. What is your current speed? 40.
40. Okay, great.

Speaker 1 Just about there.

Speaker 1 That's your that's 40 movement.

Speaker 1 I will also say for our purposes here as well

Speaker 1 I believe you also can dash as a bonus action on your first turn. Yeah.
Correct. So you have another, if you want to spend your whole round movement.

Speaker 19 Whole round, just movement.

Speaker 1 Speeding past up the staircase,

Speaker 1 you surge as fast as you can.

Speaker 1 You're going to get an attack of opportunity from Primus

Speaker 1 who misses

Speaker 1 And that is going to be

Speaker 1 Primus's turn.

Speaker 1 Seeing you, Julian,

Speaker 1 you see

Speaker 1 Primus as a bonus action.

Speaker 1 Vanishes into the shadow

Speaker 1 reappears from the shadow behind this fountain,

Speaker 1 steps slowly into the center of the room

Speaker 1 and is going to cast Circle of Death

Speaker 1 Wasn't the first fight a bar fight?

Speaker 19 I feel like this is accelerated in a pretty fucking unbelievable way.

Speaker 1 No, no,

Speaker 1 I don't know if I said something like many years ago that you've been holding on to.

Speaker 1 That's what it is. Is this for your peppermint?

Speaker 1 Is this because of the disposal?

Speaker 1 What is a bar fight?

Speaker 1 What does a bar fight feel like? Why am I getting a fade? I also died in the disposal.

Speaker 1 Sorry, does this feel different than the bar fight?

Speaker 1 A bit.

Speaker 1 I thought you guys said I'd get ready for the... You said it's goth energy for the Halloween episode.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I've been like hot topic goth. So I did this.

Speaker 1 I'm going to need Constitution

Speaker 1 saving throws from Julian and Tysha.

Speaker 1 Let's go.

Speaker 19 22.

Speaker 1 25.

Speaker 1 Let's go. Let's go.

Speaker 15 Let's get you guys to live.

Speaker 1 We'll see how much damage it deals. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Oh, yeah. This is

Speaker 1 a six-level spell coming your way. Well, don't.
Well, don't.

Speaker 1 You know, Druid Rules are different, right?

Speaker 19 I don't get the wolf HP anymore.

Speaker 1 Each of you takes.

Speaker 1 That is going to be

Speaker 1 21 damage. Would have been 42 and is instead 21.
Oh!

Speaker 1 Cool.

Speaker 1 Are both of you still up?

Speaker 1 Ten hit points.

Speaker 1 No.

Speaker 1 Oh, yeah, that is.

Speaker 1 That's a little sensitive, I'm sorry. Yeah, he's a surprise.

Speaker 1 You see, Primus Daconis stands here in the middle of the Divinos Manor in the city of Dolmachar.

Speaker 1 Tonight,

Speaker 1 Davinos,

Speaker 1 Royce, and all their vassal houses

Speaker 1 end.

Speaker 1 The work that is to come requires concentration.

Speaker 1 No distractions.

Speaker 1 The room fills with spectral forces, a whirlwind of shrieking ghosts as that glass barrier

Speaker 1 fades and becomes permeable.

Speaker 1 You two can survive 21 points of damage. Those that cannot

Speaker 1 fall to the ground dead.

Speaker 1 The guards collapse,

Speaker 1 scattering throughout,

Speaker 1 and

Speaker 1 Primus lays waste to

Speaker 1 vassals.

Speaker 1 You watch Julian from the doorway as the necromantic energy thuds into you.

Speaker 1 That

Speaker 1 those here who are not veterans of various wars, that are courtiers and diplomats, merchants and attendants fall

Speaker 1 as the underworld is made real in this moment. And as the tide of it comes in, it leaves with so much more than it had.

Speaker 1 You

Speaker 1 see that Primus ends the spell, a black wax dripping off his hand as the candle in his hand melts and burns him in the casting of this potent necromantic spell.

Speaker 2 Did my card go through?

Speaker 1 Oh no.

Speaker 2 Your small business depends on its internet.

Speaker 10 So switch to Verizon Business.

Speaker 2 And you could get LTE business internet starting at $39 a month when paired with select business mobile plans. That's unlimited data for unlimited business.

Speaker 1 There we go.

Speaker 2 Get the internet you need at the price you want. Verizon business.

Speaker 24 Starting price for LTE Business Internet, 25 megabits per second, unlimited data plan with Select Verizon Business Smartphone Plan Savings. Terms apply.

Speaker 3 Just in. Thousands of winter arrivals at your Nordstrom rack store.
Save up the 70% on coats, slippers, and cashmere from Kate Spade, New York, Vince, Ugg, Levi's, and more.

Speaker 4 Check out these boots. They've got the best gifts.

Speaker 25 My holiday shopping hack, join the Nordy Club.

Speaker 3 Get an extra 5% off every rack purchase with your Nordstrom credit card. Plus, buy it online and pick it up in store the same day for free.

Speaker 6 Spicy.

Speaker 22 Extra value meals are back. For just $5, get a savory and sweet sausage, egg, and cheese McGrittles, plus hash browns and a coffee.

Speaker 11 Only at McDonald's.

Speaker 2 For limited time only, prices and participation may vary.

Speaker 8 Prices may be higher in Hawaii, Alaska, and California, and for delivery.

Speaker 1 Um,

Speaker 19 in the thudding of the bodies, Tysha's voice directed at Primus.

Speaker 1 Why your son?

Speaker 1 There is no use in having something

Speaker 1 if it is not loyal.

Speaker 1 In point of fact, I don't know if he can even be called a son.

Speaker 1 Uh, that is going to be

Speaker 1 that is going to be uh

Speaker 1 the lady Royce is now going to act.

Speaker 1 Oh my god.

Speaker 1 She on a natural 20

Speaker 1 kicks this ghoul off of her.

Speaker 1 Boom.

Speaker 19 She's got that widow's drain.

Speaker 1 And is going to 5, 10, 15.

Speaker 1 She's going to get one attack of opportunity from this one ghoul as she makes her way out the door.

Speaker 1 Let us hope that it is not successful. I will roll in front of the board.

Speaker 1 That hasn't gone well in the past. Has it?

Speaker 1 It's okay.

Speaker 1 It's okay. On a 12 or higher, this ghoul will hit.

Speaker 1 Oh my god.

Speaker 1 You saw it, right? Yeah. I saw it too.

Speaker 1 That was a natural 20. What is this advice? GMs.

Speaker 1 GMs.

Speaker 1 Go away. GMs would not lose their mouth.

Speaker 1 That's the one I've rolled for each trip. Yeah.

Speaker 16 It's retired now.

Speaker 1 Okay. I just want to point out it's mean that it made my name dead Arctisticone Saudi.

Speaker 1 That's hateful.

Speaker 1 That is so mean. That's pretty good.

Speaker 1 Oh my god. Aaronessa only takes eight points of damage from this slash.
However, ghouls have a paralyzing feature.

Speaker 1 So

Speaker 20 ghouls have a paralyzing.

Speaker 1 Yeah, they're hit. Like, it has a little paralytic effect.

Speaker 23 Is that the double game?

Speaker 1 Why am I helping? Don't help. She's fun.
She's fun.

Speaker 1 This is once again,

Speaker 1 we'll see if Aaronessa can do it. It's only a DC-10 constitution.
Girl. Save.

Speaker 19 I should go get the good die back.

Speaker 1 We'll use a different D20 for this. Yeah, if she fails.

Speaker 19 That's because I threw the good die.

Speaker 1 Nope. Nope.
She just needs a 10 or higher on the die. Okay.

Speaker 1 12! Go!

Speaker 1 Good! Okay!

Speaker 1 Okay, so

Speaker 1 using her movement, she begins to sprint down the hallway and she calls out, Guards! Batterman! to our aid!

Speaker 1 Shrieking at the top of her lungs.

Speaker 1 And that is going to, that is her turn. She had to use her action to get out of the grapple.

Speaker 1 Valus, that is going to be your turn. You are at the end of initiative.
Save us like you did with Tavern. Hold on.

Speaker 1 Okay, okay, okay, okay.

Speaker 20 Help us.

Speaker 1 So,

Speaker 1 oh boy.

Speaker 20 All right. So, noticing

Speaker 20 the

Speaker 20 pincushion is gone, obviously, understanding what's happening here.

Speaker 20 I'm going to

Speaker 20 just turn around and start walking inside.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 20 And do I see

Speaker 20 Primus? Is he still there?

Speaker 15 Yes, he is still there.

Speaker 18 Great.

Speaker 20 I am going to cast Guiding Bolt on him. Okay.
Let's go.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 1 You are going to cast Guiding Bolt on Primus. Go ahead and give me an attack roll.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 1 Now I gotta figure out which one to roll.

Speaker 18 I'm gonna do this one.

Speaker 19 All of them. They're all good.

Speaker 20 Should I do them all and then just pick the highest?

Speaker 1 Yeah. That's how that works.

Speaker 20 Okay, that's not not bad. That's a 22.

Speaker 1 22 is 22. I'm lying.
I'm lying.

Speaker 20 I'm correct. It's 22.

Speaker 1 Sorry, sorry.

Speaker 1 22 is a hit. Okay, okay.

Speaker 1 All right. Oh, God.

Speaker 1 Let's go.

Speaker 1 We can still win. You're

Speaker 1 dead.

Speaker 1 Alright.

Speaker 20 That's not the best, but okay.

Speaker 1 All right.

Speaker 20 10 points of damage.

Speaker 1 Radiant.

Speaker 20 10 points of radiant damage.

Speaker 1 So, 20 points of damage. Let's go!

Speaker 1 Wait, how? Radiant damage. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Okay, okay, okay, okay.

Speaker 1 You see, Primus turns to you,

Speaker 1 having very little expectation of resistance here, turns to see someone there's truly no reason to be here, and goes,

Speaker 1 who the devil are you?

Speaker 1 You raise your hands, he looks to see this spell incoming, and at the last moment,

Speaker 1 as the guiding bolt hits him squarely in the chest, you see,

Speaker 1 and what you watch is the blurred edges. When he moves, he leaves mist in his wake.

Speaker 1 That mist catches fire as you sort of like light and fire around him.

Speaker 1 It looks like there's a danger, even past the damage to his actual corpus, of severing some important magical energy that he is now wearing.

Speaker 1 He does not like getting hit with that.

Speaker 1 That is your action. Any Any bonus action from you?

Speaker 19 I think Tysa's tail wags just a little bit.

Speaker 1 I know. I'm glad you did that.

Speaker 1 I...

Speaker 20 I'm just going to start walking towards him.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Go ahead and move yourself 30 feet so you are now side by side with Julian in the doorway.

Speaker 1 And we will go back to the top of initiative as you arrive side by side with Julian.

Speaker 1 As you arrive side by side with Julian,

Speaker 1 it is your turn

Speaker 1 as the retainers of House De Venos fall, and Primus Tokanus stands before you.

Speaker 1 This light wreathing and surrounding him.

Speaker 1 The shock hits watching

Speaker 1 everyone like it

Speaker 1 Jahar, Landria,

Speaker 1 Adonis

Speaker 1 our aides and keepers are

Speaker 1 right now the the shock washes back into just a red-hot rage

Speaker 1 and I just tear directly beelining towards Primus once more.

Speaker 1 I don't know if I have the movement to get within within melee. 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30.

Speaker 1 Then I will

Speaker 1 then go ahead and use my action to dash and get more or less behind where he was standing. Okay.

Speaker 1 With the Dempney gauntlet of the ready, almost like grabbing a piece of material on the side. Not a full grapple, but just enough to kind of get a little bit of tear him to look me in the eye.

Speaker 1 Like

Speaker 1 just tears down my face, teeth gritted.

Speaker 1 Whatever death you worship, I will send you to an oblivion where you can't even find that.

Speaker 1 That's my turn.

Speaker 1 You grab him as fast as you can,

Speaker 1 turning him around. You gather his attention here in this moment.
He turns to you.

Speaker 1 Seeing the shock and emotion on your face, almost studies it, unrecognizing.

Speaker 1 Upstairs,

Speaker 1 these ghouls are going to once again take their turn rushing after Aranessa down the hallway.

Speaker 1 Give me a perception check, Taisha.

Speaker 1 12.

Speaker 1 On a 12, you just hear scuffling from upstairs.

Speaker 1 You see

Speaker 1 that

Speaker 1 you do hear a cackling

Speaker 1 from

Speaker 1 one of the Tacona symbols, symbols, you don't know which one, that just goes,

Speaker 1 Lady Aranessa,

Speaker 1 do enjoy the hospitality. I hear there's a lovely view from the balcony.

Speaker 1 And you hear the cackling of ghouls,

Speaker 1 who, on a successful grapple check, are going to move her

Speaker 1 halfway into the room towards the balcony.

Speaker 1 Tysha, that is your turn.

Speaker 19 Yeah, we're in a full sprint, heading in that direction. Great.

Speaker 1 5, 10, 15, 20, 20, 30, 35.

Speaker 1 With a 40, you're able to clear up to get to, I think, here. That's your movement.
Yeah.

Speaker 19 What am I looking at as I hit this level and in this room?

Speaker 1 You, I think, see, you can hear cackling from inside of this bedroom in here, and you see Ethrand with three other ghouls walking down the hallway,

Speaker 1 something dripping in his hand.

Speaker 19 Can I make a perception check to try to figure out?

Speaker 1 I,

Speaker 19 Taisha is, it's been

Speaker 1 just over a day and I lost my brother-in-law and now I've lost Octas and I don't know what to focus on

Speaker 19 The brother. What's in his hand? Is there any way I can like suss it out?

Speaker 1 Give me a perception.

Speaker 16 Fuck me. Oh no, that's a 15.

Speaker 19 Oh no, it's a five again. 22.

Speaker 1 22? Yeah. Okay.
On a 22,

Speaker 1 you see

Speaker 1 that he is holding what looks like a dripping

Speaker 1 bit of meat in his hand. Probably a heart.

Speaker 19 I go for the brother. Okay.

Speaker 1 Um, uh. Full movement.

Speaker 19 Yeah, dash action, and I'm just running.

Speaker 1 I'm running it down. 15, 20, 25, 30, 35, 40.
Okay, clearing down the hallway as fast as you can. Um, uh,

Speaker 1 you turn, and immediately after

Speaker 1 your turn,

Speaker 1 you hear downstairs

Speaker 1 Ethryn hearing you running, swivels around to look at you,

Speaker 1 Grins, ready to engage in combat. Downstairs, Primus.

Speaker 1 I've my resolve.

Speaker 1 Ethrand!

Speaker 1 Do you have it?

Speaker 1 You see, Ethrand looks to see you charge and hears that bark and goes,

Speaker 1 Father, yes! He goes...

Speaker 1 Bring it.

Speaker 1 Ethrand, you see, looks cowed cowed and afraid.

Speaker 1 Primus is going to turn to walk from you in this moment.

Speaker 1 5, 10, 15. You get an attack opportunity on him.

Speaker 1 Out of damage?

Speaker 1 Well, no, because I already got one attack against him, unfortunately.

Speaker 1 As he starts to walk away, I say,

Speaker 1 Don't you fucking dare! I'm gonna go ahead and try and spear him from behind with a rapier. Okay.

Speaker 1 That's an actual torture. Yeah! Let's

Speaker 1 Let's go!

Speaker 1 I don't know my horrible hat.

Speaker 1 I would tell him.

Speaker 1 Yeah. That is going to be.

Speaker 1 12 damage. Let's go.
Let's go.

Speaker 1 12 piercing damage.

Speaker 1 As you, as

Speaker 1 you lance out, I'll say on that nat 20.

Speaker 1 You lunge out with the rapier in this moment. And it's feral.
It's full on, like, like, you know, in the movie Troy, when Breadfruit does like the leap stab.

Speaker 1 It's like that, but bestial and just.

Speaker 1 On a nat 20,

Speaker 1 you go for

Speaker 1 a move that should,

Speaker 1 by all rights, would kill any other man.

Speaker 1 You

Speaker 1 through the back, watch the sword erupt out of his front

Speaker 1 Oblivion

Speaker 1 You said oblivion

Speaker 1 You threaten me with sending me home

Speaker 1 A mist pools out of the wound as he steps forward towards the shadows being cast from the fountain. As he does so,

Speaker 1 on that that nat 20

Speaker 1 will allow you to make an insight or a perception with advantage you can uh go ahead and make the roll first whichever one you want to make

Speaker 1 this would be perception it could be a 19. let's go

Speaker 1 on that critical hit

Speaker 1 ask

Speaker 1 any question you want about the man that has just

Speaker 1 set doom upon your family. As he attempts to walk away from you, you landed what should have been a killing blow.
You have fought

Speaker 1 so many battles.

Speaker 1 In Julian's mind,

Speaker 1 what is burning within him as he sees Primus Taconis defy the boundaries between life and death?

Speaker 1 Is there...

Speaker 1 Anything

Speaker 1 in his gait, in his reaction, that shows that he can be killed in the ways that I understand.

Speaker 1 On a 19 perception.

Speaker 1 He moves away from this place and you study as he moves.

Speaker 1 If this man were a god,

Speaker 1 he would not be fleeing right now.

Speaker 1 This is just a man, and he can be killed.

Speaker 1 On that critical hit,

Speaker 1 from this point forward,

Speaker 1 in any attack you make on the Lord Primus Taconis, where you are at half hit points or fewer, you may attack with advantage.

Speaker 1 An Onix ring in his hand, he steps into the shadow, and as he vanishes, he says,

Speaker 1 Ethrins!

Speaker 1 To my side!

Speaker 1 Well struck warrior.

Speaker 1 I look forward to seeing you on the other side. The black ring glows and as he vanishes...

Speaker 1 No, no, no, no, no, no!

Speaker 1 Those spectral forces that Velus saw outside erupt into being all around you as you are surrounded by shadows of the dead

Speaker 1 uh that is going to be uh

Speaker 1 that is going to be

Speaker 1 the lady areanessa royce uh that is going to be her turn

Speaker 1 um valus from the door you can see these figures surrounding Julian.

Speaker 1 You've seen them. You've fought them many times before.
These

Speaker 1 in

Speaker 1 the long centuries of Araman,

Speaker 1 in the 70 years since the gods died,

Speaker 1 new souls have flooded into the underworld. But there have always been spirits of the restless dead.

Speaker 1 There are some that have been walking for so long,

Speaker 1 waiting for the chance to claw their way back from the fate the gods would determine for them.

Speaker 1 To claw their way back from the path to new life that the Druids have named and lighted the way to.

Speaker 1 Some purpose from centuries or millennia ago compelled them to keep walking to find a way back to the life they once knew.

Speaker 1 Over centuries,

Speaker 1 they traded away.

Speaker 1 Perhaps a name at first, or a memory.

Speaker 1 What could be more important than the purpose that would let them cling to life?

Speaker 1 When you've traded away the last piece of yourself for a chance to live again,

Speaker 1 such that you cannot even remember the purpose that so compelled you,

Speaker 1 these shades of the dead are all that are left, and you have have fought them many times before.

Speaker 1 Set forth in this way, near a source of life,

Speaker 1 they will seek to drink what is vital within Julian, to take it for their own, until there is nothing left of him, and he joins their number.

Speaker 1 Above, the lady Aranessa Royce

Speaker 1 is going to

Speaker 1 attempt.

Speaker 1 she's going to attempt

Speaker 1 a spell

Speaker 1 she's going to attempt a spell uh vines grow from the ground all around her encompassing all of them and in fact octas's body on the table um and she chooses to fail the saving throw against the Entangle spell, rooting herself to the ground in this moment.

Speaker 1 You see that the ghouls begin, even if some of them succeed against it, so their movement is unimpeded, they're still now having to wrestle someone out of these choking vines.

Speaker 1 That is going to go from the Lady Araness's turn to Valus once again.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 1 Oh my god, there's just so much going on.

Speaker 1 Um

Speaker 1 okay

Speaker 1 um

Speaker 20 I will finish walking inside, which I think I can get all the way inside.

Speaker 1 Yes.

Speaker 1 So it's 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30. Great.

Speaker 16 Okay, um,

Speaker 20 Whew, I don't know if I should attack or try to just get you out of there

Speaker 1 because you're in a state.

Speaker 20 Would I be able to

Speaker 20 having fought these particular entities before?

Speaker 20 Is there a way I could just

Speaker 20 I'm gonna attack them?

Speaker 1 I'll say this. Give me a religion check with advantage.

Speaker 1 Okay, great, great.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 1 Nice.

Speaker 1 Both are back. Too stressed to mess.

Speaker 1 I can't even.

Speaker 20 It's literally right in front of me. I dropped it right into it, and it didn't.

Speaker 1 Are those dice too big for you? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I did.
That's easy to both die.

Speaker 20 Let me just see what I would have rolled if it would have gone in there.

Speaker 1 That would have been a lot better. Damn, it's not one.

Speaker 20 Seven.

Speaker 1 Surgeon Torces, you've fought these many times before,

Speaker 1 but you've always fought them alongside your sisters. So I would say on a seven, you don't know any special information about how best to fight them, but you do know that

Speaker 1 you have found them to be defeatable.

Speaker 1 You have found that these can be opposed even by yourself in large number.

Speaker 20 Okay.

Speaker 20 With my sensor unclipped, I will just kick it with my foot so it starts wrapping around

Speaker 20 and comes back and knocks the first one

Speaker 1 in front of me. Perfect.
Okay.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 1 Amazing.

Speaker 1 Go ahead and give me your attack roll. And also, you can flank with Julian right now, so you can roll with it.

Speaker 1 Oh man, they're both awful.

Speaker 20 Nine.

Speaker 1 A nine is a miss.

Speaker 1 I figured.

Speaker 1 A nine sadly is a miss. The sensor lashes out from you at this point.

Speaker 1 As you step forward, we move back, Julie, and you are immediately after Valus.

Speaker 1 Unless there's any bonus action you want to take in that.

Speaker 20 No, no, I, no.

Speaker 1 I, surrounded by these spirits, like still, like, my jaw is so tense in the vanishing of Primus. And, like,

Speaker 1 the thought the the image of him dying a hundred ways flashes through my brain before the the cold of these terrible specters around me i kind of follow my back foot gauntlet open sword out not quite acknowledging where they are and then i see you coming up from behind

Speaker 1 and then i have a thought

Speaker 1 I'm going to disengage. Okay.
And I'm going to run towards the stairs. Okay.
Amazing.

Speaker 1 I'm going to need... I'm going to say because you are fully surrounded by them, although

Speaker 1 you can disengage.

Speaker 1 I will allow you, if you would like, you can either give me acrobatics to move through them as they're fully surrounding you. Or if you want, you'll do that.
Great. Go ahead and give me acrobatics.

Speaker 1 Ooh, it's me, 25. 25.

Speaker 1 Julian, these smoky shapes surrounding you in this place,

Speaker 1 you vault through the vapor and take the rest of your turn. Alright, with that, I'm just going to go ahead and take 30 feet towards the stairs, rushing as fast as I can and just shout out,

Speaker 1 surging forward as fast as you can.

Speaker 1 You begin thundering up the steps. Any bonus actions from you?

Speaker 1 Not at my disposal. Actually, yes, I do have, I will take a second wind to

Speaker 1 go ahead and heal up 10 more hit points. Okay, amazing.
That's my turn.

Speaker 1 The ghouls upstairs are going to go.

Speaker 1 First one does not get Araness out of the vines at all.

Speaker 1 Next one does not get Aaroness out of the vines at all.

Speaker 1 Last one does. Yanks her.
But they all take their actions to pull her and have used their actions getting her out of there. So they take no movement that turn

Speaker 1 because she is effectively ungrappled as they're trying to move her out of the vines.

Speaker 1 These three are going to step forward and engage with Tysha.

Speaker 1 You see fallen Royce guards all throughout here.

Speaker 18 And are going to surge forward.

Speaker 1 They're going to take their text. What is your armor class? Bruh, 14.

Speaker 1 Okay, two of them hit. I'm going to need two Constitution saving throws.

Speaker 1 Lord.

Speaker 1 Okay, okay.

Speaker 19 Uh, 18 and 21.

Speaker 1 You are not paralyzed. Uh, you take six points, you take six points of slashing damage from one and five points from another.

Speaker 1 Well, you didn't need to paralyze me. I had 10 hit points left.
Uh, in your wolf form, or in your oh no, it's new

Speaker 1 2024.

Speaker 1 Um,

Speaker 1 so slashing out

Speaker 1 as the oh no. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Remember your orcish. Yes, yeah, yes.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 Okay, cool, cool, cool. Describe what it looks like.

Speaker 1 Slash. You do it.
You do it.

Speaker 1 Wow. These long, nasty claws.
These were human corpses at one point, but bone has grown out along with the keratin of the fingernail such that these nasty slashing claws,

Speaker 1 You can see that it breaks the skin of their hand, and blood seeps from under the nail beds. They're not supposed to attack like this, but they desire it so much.

Speaker 1 Long tongues snake out over pointed fangs. You see the undersides of their tongues slashed and cut by not meaning to go over something that sharp

Speaker 1 as they lunge forward.

Speaker 1 One of them deals a blow that should drop you. Describe what it looks like as it does not.

Speaker 16 I think it does.

Speaker 19 I think he kills a wolf.

Speaker 1 And then it, it, it's not that it, like, rotted rapidly.

Speaker 19 It was almost like it was already a little dead and bloated. So it just, like, the wolf's body splits apart at the rib cage, and Tysha pushes herself out with one hit point left.

Speaker 1 Yes. Hell, yeah, hell, yeah.
Hell yeah. Go ahead and give me your mini.
Cool.

Speaker 1 Covered in red. Yay!

Speaker 1 We're having a good time.

Speaker 1 It's great to be here. It's great to be here.
We're doing it.

Speaker 1 Welcome to the Divinos.

Speaker 1 Your house is bad. No, my bad.
My family's bad. This is bothering this behavior.

Speaker 1 Incredible. Whoa!

Speaker 1 Not too soon. Too soon.
Whatever.

Speaker 19 We all dressed like goth today, and then the goth team won.

Speaker 1 Yes.

Speaker 1 I guess we're gonna be a little bit more. I am a traitor.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 That's what I'm telling you. Um, incredible.
Um, uh,

Speaker 1 you see, these two are going to fly after Julian

Speaker 1 in pursuit of him. Uh, the other four are gonna turn uh on Valus here, um,

Speaker 1 uh, surrounding you. Um, so they'll be flanking, they're attacking with advantage.
Uh, what is your armor class? 16. 16, okay.

Speaker 1 Yikes! It helps, I can tell you.

Speaker 1 Miss. Okay.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 1 Um,

Speaker 1 so, um,

Speaker 1 still rolling.

Speaker 1 Uh, you would normally take eight oh, you take eight points of necrotic damage. Uh, halved to four as they attempt to drain a life that is eternal and cannot be drained.

Speaker 1 You also are immune to the ability decrease of them attempting to sap your strength. You have fought these many times as they and you see as they touch something that is immortal, they

Speaker 1 you see that they almost something like a sorrow or guilt or grief crosses their face as they

Speaker 1 their jaw drops like two feet into their torsos as they

Speaker 1 touch and attack you.

Speaker 1 Two of them come for Julian.

Speaker 1 They do not

Speaker 1 have an elf. Yeah.

Speaker 1 I tried.

Speaker 1 That is now going to be

Speaker 1 a poop.

Speaker 1 Two attacks coming for Julian.

Speaker 1 14 does not hit. It does not hit.
Let's go. As I kind of are rushing past and I kind of feel it kind of switch from behind.

Speaker 1 I duck low and use my left arm to kind of spiral the cloak to kind of more or less distract and make them strike where there isn't actually me to find purchase.

Speaker 1 You see, the sort of smoke and vapor

Speaker 1 vanishes in this moment as they reach for something that is not there. You continue thundering up the steps.
That is the shades turn.

Speaker 1 Areanessa.

Speaker 1 Are Nessa is going to.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 They don't have her grappled right now. I think she's going to

Speaker 1 make a...

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 She is going to reach out in this moment

Speaker 1 and attack one of them.

Speaker 1 That is a hit.

Speaker 1 A blast of green light comes from within, and she deals 12 damage to one of the ghouls in the room with her.

Speaker 1 Let's go.

Speaker 1 As some light blasts out, she calls out, Julian,

Speaker 1 as loud as she can.

Speaker 1 that is her turn.

Speaker 1 That goes once again after her to the late to Phelis. That is your turn.

Speaker 1 Alright.

Speaker 1 So

Speaker 1 did I get to go? Sorry, Tysha. Oh, yeah, Tysha.

Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah. Oh, sorry.
Oh, oh, sorry. Yes, yes, yes.
Tysha, that is your turn.

Speaker 16 Sweet.

Speaker 1 Yes, that's great. I have one.

Speaker 1 Yes, that is your turn. Great.

Speaker 19 Yeah, okay. I'm already out of wild shape, so that makes that easier.

Speaker 19 I'm gonna expand the other use of wild shape to use Lance Aid.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 19 So I'm gonna center this 10-foot radius sphere on myself.

Speaker 1 Great.

Speaker 19 Since I'm surrounded by how many bad boys?

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Is it 10-foot radius? Yeah.

Speaker 1 Hell yeah. Big.

Speaker 19 10-foot sphere centered on the point.

Speaker 19 And everyone in it needs to make a DC-15 con save.

Speaker 1 Hell yeah.

Speaker 1 I need to see something. 20 feet.

Speaker 1 You can actually catch these two guys in it as well if you would like to.

Speaker 19 Please and thank you.

Speaker 1 Hell yeah. Okay, they're going to make some saves.

Speaker 1 DC15 consave.

Speaker 1 Great.

Speaker 1 Level 3.

Speaker 1 Ooh, interesting. Okay.

Speaker 1 I don't like that.

Speaker 1 I don't like what they're doing. These two save in the room with Aranessa.
All three of these do not save. Okay.

Speaker 19 So they're going to take five points of...

Speaker 1 We talked... We'll talk about that later.

Speaker 1 Necrotic damage.

Speaker 1 Okay. Yeah.

Speaker 1 She does necrotic damage. She's like a druid.

Speaker 1 But yeah.

Speaker 19 Five points of necrotic damage.

Speaker 19 And then one person of...

Speaker 1 Five points of necrotic or half. Or no, if they don't, if they...
they oh yeah, sorry.

Speaker 19 If they made it, then they're taking two.

Speaker 1 Gotcha. Okay.
So we'll do five to the three with you. Got it.
Great.

Speaker 19 And one creature of my choice in that area, me, regains 2d6 hit points.

Speaker 1 Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

Speaker 1 Cool.

Speaker 19 I'll take seven back.

Speaker 16 And

Speaker 19 that's action. Bonus action.
I'm finally looking at how my spell or my character sheet works. I'm going to use adrenaline rush to take the dash action.

Speaker 1 Okay, cool.

Speaker 19 Mostly because it gives me me two temporary hit points.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 19 And I can take whatever I can get and get in, like, try to get away from these guys and get into the room. I know I'm gonna take a taxive opportunity.
No, I need to hit them.

Speaker 1 I can't hit them.

Speaker 1 What do I do?

Speaker 1 It's so bad here.

Speaker 1 Everyone's so stressed. Yeah, you died.
I don't have a real skill anymore. That's true.
I will say...

Speaker 1 I thought there was a chance that you would die in this combat. I did not know that it would.
The roles have been insane over here behind the screen.

Speaker 19 I'm afraid you will auto-delete me if I move away from here.

Speaker 19 So, never mind on that bonus, actually.

Speaker 1 The good news is, this gives you a lot of time during the rest of this fight for you to figure out the art for your new character. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 That's what I'm saying.

Speaker 15 I worked really hard on the other one, but it's fine.

Speaker 1 I think that's all I'm gonna say. Oh, it goes.

Speaker 1 Can't believe it.

Speaker 15 Hey, someone's gonna go first.

Speaker 1 So, you took

Speaker 1 2d6, you gained HP back. Yep.
And then I get seven back. So we're up to eight.

Speaker 19 And then bonus action, we're gonna cast Shillale.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 1 Cool. We're gonna cast stick.

Speaker 1 Great, we cast stick.

Speaker 1 Your staff, boom, the metal and wood intertwine together.

Speaker 1 This sort of ancient cold iron

Speaker 1 wrapping around the wood as it grows in your hand and becomes heavy and potent with magical energy.

Speaker 1 You look forward forward and see in this the ghouls cackling here, but also hear bootsteps thundering up behind you.

Speaker 19 Then I'm gonna, the rest of my turn, I'm just yelling out the lay of the land for Julian on the way up. Okay, so like three with me, however many I saw inside the room.
Gotcha.

Speaker 19 I can only see I have one eye right now, I cannot count many.

Speaker 1 Bayless, that's gonna be your turn. Great.

Speaker 20 All right, so this crew here, I am going to sensor whip, swing it around, and try to take some of these out.

Speaker 1 So,

Speaker 1 let's do this one.

Speaker 1 Come on, man.

Speaker 1 That's nice.

Speaker 20 I'm so sorry. It's even lower than the last time.

Speaker 1 Go the other direction.

Speaker 20 I will try. I will try the next time.

Speaker 19 I start yelling at everyone. He's dead.
We should go.

Speaker 1 Yeah. There's nothing more to do here.

Speaker 19 That's just me.

Speaker 16 We got a skedaddle.

Speaker 1 You see in this moment, Bayless, surrounded on all sides by these entities as you are,

Speaker 1 they continue to sort of reach out towards you.

Speaker 1 You feel yourself once again surrounded by this chill, this presence of death in this moment, and reaching out to attack. You can only conclude

Speaker 1 that cold.

Speaker 1 Is that what she felt when she died?

Speaker 1 Is that what she has been feeling ever since? And the sensor moves and the shades press their advantage.

Speaker 1 We now are going to move to Julian Divina. So it is your turn again.

Speaker 1 Oh boy.

Speaker 1 I have Aranessa screaming my name up above. I look over my shoulder

Speaker 1 kind of to give a quick glance like now like seeing that you

Speaker 1 how confident are you feeling? Very confident.

Speaker 20 I sort of give you a nod and look upstairs. Go.

Speaker 1 I'm going to not disengage. I'm just going to go into a full run and take the extra opportunity from the two specters.

Speaker 1 That is two misses as they reach out thundering past you. So that's 30 feet up.

Speaker 1 30. And then also going into a dash action.
5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30. 30 gets you to the very top of the staircase here.

Speaker 1 Eranessa! Eranessa, where are you?

Speaker 1 She calls out again from up above, Julian! I'm dead at the top of the stairs!

Speaker 1 Racing as fast as you can to get there.

Speaker 1 The shades beneath you looking up the stairs to follow you.

Speaker 1 Getting to the top of the staircase, you look down and see Ethryn's Taconis at the very end of the hallway

Speaker 1 and see that these ghouls are now going to act.

Speaker 1 One of them gathers her in a grapple. They're going to move half their movement into the room.

Speaker 1 As they do so,

Speaker 1 you see that she's also going to have to make a constitution save,

Speaker 1 which she succeeds on, but

Speaker 1 does take 1d4 damage.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 1 Aranessa cries out an injury.

Speaker 1 And these girls are going to attack Tysha. What is your armor class? 14.

Speaker 1 That is a single hit. I'm going to need a constitution saving throw.

Speaker 1 No. Two of the dice.

Speaker 1 You take five points of slashing damage

Speaker 1 and are paralyzed until the end of your next turn.

Speaker 1 At the end of their turn,

Speaker 1 you see

Speaker 1 Octus

Speaker 1 lying dead on that table.

Speaker 1 Your family

Speaker 1 so often spoke of the realms beyond

Speaker 1 these places

Speaker 1 and the paths tread by the dead.

Speaker 1 I'd like you to

Speaker 1 roll

Speaker 1 a constitution saving throw for me.

Speaker 1 That is uh

Speaker 1 that is a twenty-two.

Speaker 1 Let's go

Speaker 1 Velus

Speaker 1 Down below you begin to hear

Speaker 1 a song like a nightingale

Speaker 1 Tysh as the chill of the ghoul's poisonous touch

Speaker 1 flashes into you

Speaker 1 you

Speaker 1 also

Speaker 1 hear that song.

Speaker 1 Some distant cry of a creature beyond the edge of what is seen and known.

Speaker 1 Shadows moving, blood dripping through the planks of wood onto the stone underneath Octus's dead body.

Speaker 1 When he was alive,

Speaker 1 what did Octus

Speaker 1 think would happen when he died?

Speaker 1 The underworld is a known

Speaker 1 thing,

Speaker 1 but yet no one can ever really know the touch of death until it happens.

Speaker 1 What did Octas imagine it would be like to die?

Speaker 1 I think

Speaker 1 he thought,

Speaker 1 considering you know, he'd been told growing up how his family,

Speaker 1 they weren't this, but they were the stewards of the passage of life and death. They were a necessary part of the cycle.
And he thought that, due to his affiliation and

Speaker 1 his family, he would

Speaker 1 have an easier time passing and go into be able to make it through and and and go into the natural cycle and that the problems that are are affecting the world wouldn't

Speaker 1 bother him because his family knew what to do.

Speaker 1 That's what he was told and that's what he believed.

Speaker 1 Ethrand Taconis

Speaker 1 here in this space

Speaker 1 steps forward,

Speaker 1 faces the shadow.

Speaker 1 The hand of Primus Taconis reaches from the shadow Tysha even paralyzed you can see this

Speaker 1 with a ready to action to cast plane shift

Speaker 1 gazing at you

Speaker 1 There is a place where all lost things are kept eternal

Speaker 1 We're going to scrub your path from the face of the beyond.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 vanishes into shadow

Speaker 1 as the hand covered in burnt silver and black wax wraps around Ethryn's hand with a heart in it, and the heart vanishes.

Speaker 1 Ethrynd and Primus are gone.

Speaker 1 Tysha, that is your turn. You come out of the paralysis condition at the end of that turn.

Speaker 1 And below, the shadows are going to attack again.

Speaker 1 That is only one hit

Speaker 1 for six necrotic halved to three damage to Valus.

Speaker 1 The shadows close in behind you, but have to use a double movement to pursue you, or do not attack on that turn as they reach the top of the staircase.

Speaker 1 Lady Royce

Speaker 1 looks out in this moment,

Speaker 1 sees Octas' body, can hear Julian rushing towards her.

Speaker 1 She is going to ready an action in this moment.

Speaker 1 Looking out, please, please.

Speaker 1 We've lost so much.

Speaker 1 The doors are closed.

Speaker 1 The world cannot fall further into darkness. Please! And calls out, and reverberations hit everywhere.
Valus, you and you alone on the first floor can see this.

Speaker 1 Nightingales fly from the trees outside on the other side of the glass. The specters everywhere.

Speaker 1 Not the ones that have come into your world, but the ones waiting just on the other side, begin to cover their faces and flee in advance of these things that look like

Speaker 1 fairies of the dead.

Speaker 1 Moving in a realm beyond perceived only by your divine sense.

Speaker 1 It is your turn. Lady Arenaessa has a readied action.

Speaker 20 So, did you say I saw those from

Speaker 19 sort of outside?

Speaker 1 Yes, you did. outside in the garden you saw them moving throughout this space uh as fast as they could uh however these shadows or these shades are still in combat with you down below okay

Speaker 20 uh take that in and i'm just still gonna try to use my whip okay go for it come on come on come on come on

Speaker 20 yeah

Speaker 15 i'm so sorry ashley it's okay

Speaker 1 you know what it's just it's, it's...

Speaker 15 It's how it goes sometimes.

Speaker 1 I'm thrown.

Speaker 20 My boy's gone. Yeah.

Speaker 1 My boy Blue. My boy Blue.
He's gone.

Speaker 19 He's blue now.

Speaker 1 Okay. Okay.

Speaker 1 Surrounded here by the undead.

Speaker 20 I mean, I could sit here all day. They can just keep trying to take life away.
It's not going to happen.

Speaker 1 I got all day. I got all day.
I got my whole life.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 1 We moved to the top of initiative.

Speaker 1 Julian, leaving the staircase, you look down at Valis. You cannot imagine that this warrior will be alive when you next see her.

Speaker 1 These shades are on top of her, the sensor over and over again moving around her, but you hear Areness's voice in this moment.

Speaker 1 What do you do?

Speaker 1 She calls out to you in panic and terror. Yeah.

Speaker 1 I'm sorry. Um,

Speaker 1 Julian just continues his tear up the stairs, breathing heavy, the spit in his mouth thick,

Speaker 1 uh,

Speaker 1 just not even paying attention to these specters as they approach, trying to do his best to get towards her. Hell yeah.

Speaker 1 Um,

Speaker 1 thundering past, uh, two misses on attacks of opportunity once again

Speaker 1 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30. As you get here, right through the crook of the door at the end of 30 feet of movement, Araness is ready to action, casts haste on you.
Yes!

Speaker 1 Let's go!

Speaker 1 She goes, fly!

Speaker 1 And from underneath you, as the Taconises

Speaker 1 continue in shadows beyond perception to whatever their fell work is,

Speaker 1 she turns to you. She goes, Sir Davinos,

Speaker 1 tears streaking you are charged with the defense of this house see it done

Speaker 1 and wind swirls around you uh as you hear the flapping of wings and

Speaker 1 gold and silver and radiant purple as moths and butterflies move throughout you uh swift wind from a realm whose doors are closed to you but whose gifts are still promised with the haste action you gain a plus two bonus to your armor class advantage on dexterity dexterity, saving throws, and additional action on each of your turns that can give you one extra weapon attack, dash, disengage, hide, or using an object.

Speaker 1 Yes.

Speaker 1 Oh, yes.

Speaker 1 I think that eye contact, that trust, those words

Speaker 1 resonate. And really.

Speaker 1 I think for the first time in

Speaker 1 over a decade, he really feels the weight of his station.

Speaker 1 And in a moment... for this moment the

Speaker 1 anger, the fury, the sorrow

Speaker 1 is held back. That disassociation kicks in and instead that sense of

Speaker 1 honor and duty is all that matters.

Speaker 1 I'm going to use that extra action to dash in to the chamber to where these ghouls are currently heading towards her and then take my action to strike the one that's nearest to me.

Speaker 1 I'm getting like in base to base with two of them if I can.

Speaker 1 That's double speed, right?

Speaker 1 You don't need to use the extra action because even though you'd used your speed on getting hit with the spell, your speed is now 60. So you're in the wrong base.

Speaker 1 Let's go.

Speaker 1 I love it here. Every movement of yours is just a trails of radiant gold and the flashing of wings as you move through this space.

Speaker 1 I think he's going to like rush in that chest to the right.

Speaker 1 He's going to jump onto with one leg and then leap off kind of a double in the air flip with his rapier coming down to stab down towards kind of the clavicle and shoulder area of the ghoul that's nearest to him.

Speaker 1 Hell yeah. Areness, even grappled.
She is neither meek nor mild. With a kick from her high-heeled shoe, she's gonna give you flanking on this attack.

Speaker 1 Alrighty.

Speaker 1 Great, that's gonna be an 18-to-hit. That is a hit.
Alrighty. So with that,

Speaker 1 that's gonna be, well, because I have advantage on it, I do get sneak attack. Yes, you do.
So that's gonna be nine. Come on now.
So 10 points of piercing damage on that strike. Yes, hell yeah.

Speaker 1 Are you of the three, there's two within reach of you, one more wounded than the other. Which do you hit? Right.
That one there? Yes.

Speaker 1 So are you going for the more wounded or the less wounded one? I'm going for the more wounded one. More wounded one.
10 points of damage is exactly how much health it's had left.

Speaker 1 How do you want to do this?

Speaker 1 Something good happens.

Speaker 1 So as the rapier pierces down into the body, kind of my weight coming onto it, I release the rapier, grab it with my gauntleted hand, and like with it facing downward, tear the rapier out and kind of carve through its chest if I can.

Speaker 1 Bones and viscera scatter across the floor. The first of the ghouls has fallen.

Speaker 1 That is your first action. You go again.

Speaker 1 I'm going to then throw the rapier up from the gauntlet in hand, grab it with the other one, and go into a heavy spear with the other one. Hell yeah, go ahead.

Speaker 1 If I have enough movement to move and keep that one flanked. Yes, absolutely.
Yep.

Speaker 1 Taking a sidestep,

Speaker 1 your back is now to Octus, who you can see

Speaker 1 under the navel from the waistline to the solar plexus has been opened wide with a single vertical slit.

Speaker 1 And something has applied tremendous trauma and pressure as you see organs spilling out of the wound in the center of the table. I'll process that shortly.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 I'm not.

Speaker 1 Oh, buddy. That's cock.

Speaker 1 Okay, that would be 15 to hit? 15 hits. All right.

Speaker 1 Let's go.

Speaker 1 Oh, that's not good.

Speaker 1 That's going to be five points of piercing damage. Okay, five points points of piercing damage.
I will use my bonus action to attack with my demi gauntlet or the same one.

Speaker 1 So, after I like stab through, kind of carving, but deflecting off of inside bone or still kind of dense sinew, it doesn't quite go into the vitals.

Speaker 1 And so, instead, I'm going to reach up with that momentum and with the gauntlet, grab its jaw and see if I can like bring its head onto my shoulder armor to try and tear some of it away with the gauntlet.

Speaker 1 Hell yeah, let's go.

Speaker 1 Okay, that's gonna be a 19 to hit. 19 is a hit.
Go ahead and roll damage.

Speaker 1 All right, take seven points of damage on the

Speaker 1 demi-gauntlet.

Speaker 1 You have dispatched one of the ghouls and savagely wounded the other.

Speaker 1 As you see one of its limbs hangs by mere sinew.

Speaker 1 You have gotten their attention. They drop the lady Arenaessa and turn to you.
As they turn his head.

Speaker 1 Bring it.

Speaker 1 That's my turn.

Speaker 1 Hell yes, Julian.

Speaker 1 And bring it, they shall.

Speaker 1 This is what's happening. And bring it, I shall.

Speaker 1 Okay, two attacks coming right for you.

Speaker 1 For the record, the one that I just hit with the demi-gauntlet? Yes, because it is sapped. It has disadvantage on its first attack rolling.

Speaker 1 Okay. Love to see it.

Speaker 1 And with sap, turns a hit into a miss.

Speaker 1 So I see the gauntlet in hand catches it in the middle of the air after I dodge the other side. Yes.
Come on.

Speaker 1 Boom.

Speaker 1 Reaching for

Speaker 1 you see Aranessa looking, having been dropped. You are able to fend these two off in the hallway right here.

Speaker 1 Turns around and sees not a chance for anything like salvation, but a chance for any hope at all.

Speaker 1 And she raises her hands up as her eyes go glowing green. These ghouls out in the hallway are going to go for Tysha in this moment.

Speaker 1 Jesus Christ.

Speaker 1 That is one hit

Speaker 1 for three points of damage.

Speaker 19 You have to drop me.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 1 Tysha goes down out in the hallway.

Speaker 1 That is going to move forward and be

Speaker 1 from Tysha.

Speaker 1 That is going to be a death saving throw from Tysa. Yeah.
Let's go. Come on.

Speaker 1 Do you want to see it?

Speaker 1 Oh, oh, no.

Speaker 1 No, shit. Oh, no.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 That is going to be two failures. What? No, no, no.
Wait. No.

Speaker 1 Two death save failures.

Speaker 19 I thought this was a guest run. No.

Speaker 1 My bad. Yeah.
Was this been here for longer?

Speaker 1 Tysha. Oh my god.

Speaker 1 You look

Speaker 1 out.

Speaker 1 You can feel blood draining from your body.

Speaker 1 Spiraling through space.

Speaker 1 You see

Speaker 1 octas

Speaker 1 moving

Speaker 1 farther away.

Speaker 1 You see them

Speaker 1 Fireflies off in the distance. Paths through forest

Speaker 1 leading to renewal and new life.

Speaker 1 You see

Speaker 1 Octus

Speaker 1 in spirit.

Speaker 1 You are quite close to following him yourself.

Speaker 1 Octus is lost.

Speaker 1 Confused.

Speaker 1 You see him moving away.

Speaker 1 His body is destroyed. There is no hope for it.

Speaker 1 As he moves,

Speaker 1 you have the chance to say something to him here at the edge of death.

Speaker 1 What do you say in this moment?

Speaker 1 I think

Speaker 1 I've made jokes to him

Speaker 1 and to my family

Speaker 1 about

Speaker 1 feeling very maternal over him. And there is some part of me that has the thought to give some

Speaker 1 strange bit of comfort

Speaker 19 in this place, on this path.

Speaker 19 But this feels so wrong.

Speaker 1 And everything

Speaker 19 in my path is about accepting the cycles of life

Speaker 19 and not fighting

Speaker 1 when your time has come.

Speaker 19 But it's not his time. I know that.

Speaker 19 So I just turn and yell, go back!

Speaker 1 Not yet.

Speaker 1 Octus.

Speaker 1 This is the first moment

Speaker 1 that some consciousness returns to you.

Speaker 1 Dying is such a strange thing. Is it really even you that's here without your body?

Speaker 1 Can the thing in you which is eternal be said to be yours?

Speaker 1 Or were you its?

Speaker 1 Until suddenly Tysha's voice.

Speaker 1 The fluttering of wings like there are birds nearby in flight.

Speaker 1 Go back

Speaker 1 a path through a dark forest, but a woman who knows those woods is telling you not to go yet.

Speaker 1 What do you say?

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 1 I'll come back.

Speaker 1 It's too early anyway.

Speaker 1 Octas.

Speaker 1 You are gripped by a sudden, shuddering pain, a thing that should not exist in this world.

Speaker 1 In the shadows, off the path, far off it.

Speaker 1 In places beyond the woods, so dark and cold that even the spirits of the dead should never tread there.

Speaker 1 A hand emerges from shadow,

Speaker 1 drenched in blood, clutching a heart, and it squeezes it and says,

Speaker 1 Traitorous whelp,

Speaker 1 come home

Speaker 7 at once!

Speaker 1 I'm going to need a wisdom savings row, and because of Tysha's presence here at the edge of death, I will allow you to roll it with advantage.

Speaker 1 Deck has guided.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 DADI D4.

Speaker 1 Good. I don't want to roll it.

Speaker 15 Okay, that's um

Speaker 15 11.

Speaker 1 Shuddering in pain,

Speaker 1 you can see, Tysha,

Speaker 1 this spirit of your young friend, like a son to you

Speaker 1 forever

Speaker 1 loses its chance to walk the path through the forest

Speaker 1 turning to you he takes a step off the path and it is in so doing that this hand in the darkness pulls and you see that something splits in his spirit

Speaker 1 as you are being called in two directions at once the force within the darkness horrified to find that something else has drawn close to call you where it would not beckon you.

Speaker 1 We move from this place of death

Speaker 1 and return to combat.

Speaker 19 Yeah, less death there.

Speaker 1 We see down below

Speaker 1 Valus you take

Speaker 1 four and five that's nine nine have to four necrotic damage from the shades below

Speaker 1 You see that

Speaker 1 the shades at the top of the staircase

Speaker 1 looking beyond

Speaker 1 look forward

Speaker 1 see only a fallen enemy in this hallway,

Speaker 1 and see you down below. And are going to turn to engage.
The last two shades are coming towards you. Okay.

Speaker 1 Making away 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 35, 40. And are going to close in on either.
They're going to double move and close on either side of you.

Speaker 1 Moving from there, the lady Aranessa is going to

Speaker 1 disengage as her action

Speaker 1 five ten

Speaker 1 fifteen towards the fireplace uh and is going to bonus action healing word

Speaker 1 uh and is going to heal you for

Speaker 1 11 points of damage

Speaker 1 uh okay uh as Aranessa steps forward Velas that is your turn as she whoa and you see suddenly that Octas' spirit is vanished from you as you are back in your body once more

Speaker 1 Velus that is your turn Okay,

Speaker 20 so

Speaker 1 yeah.

Speaker 13 I'm gonna...

Speaker 1 It's got a hit.

Speaker 20 Now it's just, it's gotta hit.

Speaker 20 Okay.

Speaker 1 Come on.

There we go. There we go.
That's good. Okay.
All right. We're hitting more digits.

Speaker 20 Yeah. 22 to hit with my sensor wish.

Speaker 1 22 to hit is a hit. Absolutely.

Speaker 20 I'm going to get some momentum, start swinging.

Speaker 1 Hell yeah. And are you adding a smite on this?

Speaker 20 I will add a smite since that's it.

Speaker 1 Come on. So, let's go.
Great.

Speaker 1 I'm shaking. So am I.
Why? Just. This is so unspeakable.

Speaker 1 These are eights.

Speaker 1 Okay. And Julian, you're on deck.
Okay.

Speaker 1 Great.

Speaker 20 So, with

Speaker 20 the divine smite,

Speaker 20 16.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 1 And how much? Well,

Speaker 20 the first

Speaker 20 hit with the sensor was 6. Okay.
And then with the

Speaker 20 Divine Smite, that was 16.

Speaker 1 How many D8 do you roll for Divine Smite?

Speaker 1 1. No, I think.

Speaker 20 Oh, for Divine Smite, I rolled 2d6.

Speaker 1 Oh, you rolled 2d6 for a Divine Smite? Yes. Okay, hold on one second.
Let me just see something real quick.

Speaker 1 I believe... Let me just...
Does that sound right?

Speaker 20 No,

Speaker 20 everybody's saying that this is wrong.

Speaker 1 No, I'm just

Speaker 1 oh wait, is it 2d8?

Speaker 1 We might be used to the old version, but we're going to double-check that right now. I believe you can get extra dice against undead as well.
That's cool.

Speaker 1 Which they are. Which they are.

Speaker 1 It is 2d8. It is 2d8.
It is 3d8 because the target is an undead. So go ahead and roll 3d.

Speaker 1 Okay. There is more damage.

Speaker 1 Alright.

Speaker 1 We can do that.

Speaker 1 Get him.

Speaker 20 I don't know where I saw that.

Speaker 1 2d6.

Speaker 1 Oh, the tiniest Okay, that's fine.

Speaker 18 That'll be 12.

Speaker 1 12, which becomes 24

Speaker 1 with their vulnerability. With a single whip of the sensor, one of them is more than unmade.
One of the shades vanishes in light as you cast it back to the underworld. There we go.
There we go.

Speaker 1 Okay, we're doing stuff about this. Hell yes.

Speaker 1 Julian,

Speaker 1 that is your turn.

Speaker 1 Still at this point kind of honed in, like just keeping focused on forms. As unpracticed as I have been for a while, it's almost like going back to when I was really

Speaker 1 honing my craft and seeing Aranessa now kind of

Speaker 1 turning the tide a bit in this space. I'm going to go ahead and go for the one that I had already struck last turn.

Speaker 1 I'm going to go ahead, after like cracking its jaw and then moving out of the way, I'm going to take the rapier and try and jam upward through the bottom of its chin and see if I can pierce through its skull.

Speaker 1 Hell yeah, go for it.

Speaker 1 That's going to be 17 to hit. 17 hits.
Let's go. All right.

Speaker 1 That's going to be six points of piercing damage.

Speaker 1 This is one you already injured, right? Correct.

Speaker 1 You see that this one is spear through the head,

Speaker 1 comes out the top of its skull, and it collapses dead to the ground. Great.

Speaker 1 How many is there one other left? There's one left in the room with you. I'm going to, after that, like...

Speaker 1 the rapier is through its head, I'm going to go ahead and kick it off the rapier and pull back, go into like a spinning strike.

Speaker 1 I'm gonna use that momentum as I pull the rapier close to my body, throw the cloak up in front of the ghoul to kind of like obscure the vision of where I'm coming from.

Speaker 1 And then from underneath, come up into its rib cage and use the extra attack from the haste. Hell yes.
That's gonna be

Speaker 1 23 to hit. 23 to hit.
That is a hit.

Speaker 1 There we go. That's gonna be 10 points of piercing damage.
Woo! And it is vexed. Yes.
And I'm gonna bonus action come out with the the demi-gauntlet.

Speaker 1 So after I pierce through its body, I get up real close to it into its face and be like,

Speaker 1 tell your craters I say hi. And I'm going to reach up with the demi-gauntlet and grab its throat to see if I can just squeeze its head off.
Give me the attack with advantage.

Speaker 1 Alright, which I have from Vex.

Speaker 1 I'm learning the

Speaker 1 other one. So that was me 18 to hit.
18 hits. That will be

Speaker 1 seven with sneak attack. So eight points of damage on that one.

Speaker 1 The last ghoul.

Speaker 1 You mow through both ghouls in the room as you crush this one until you get your gauntleted fingers on the vertebrae at the back of its neck and sever its head with pure grip strength from its shoulders.

Speaker 1 Its tongue lolls out of its mouth and it falls to the ground, destroyed. I throw it down,

Speaker 1 still like visibly emotionless in this moment. Just look up to an air and I see like,

Speaker 1 are you okay?

Speaker 1 Yes, help the druid.

Speaker 1 I'm gonna go ahead and turn around and rush. I haven't really moved much this turn.
I'm gonna move out into the hallway and glance down the stairs into the main hall.

Speaker 1 Is there any visibility on the elf? Not from where you are on the steps right now. I'm gonna listen to take her command and I'm gonna go ahead and move into base-to-base with the nearest

Speaker 1 threatening ghoul and end my turn there. Hell yes.

Speaker 1 Unbelievable. That is going to be the ghoul's turn, of which there are now only three.

Speaker 1 This one.

Speaker 1 Two of them are going to come for Julian.

Speaker 1 That is a miss.

Speaker 1 That is a hit.

Speaker 1 Give me a constitutional. With an 18, right? With the extra two from haste.

Speaker 1 That is a miss.

Speaker 1 My lady Areasa.

Speaker 1 How about it? Wow. Good call.

Speaker 1 There you go.

Speaker 1 One of them is going to come for Tysha.

Speaker 1 That's a miss.

Speaker 1 I don't believe that's why we're like, you can just.

Speaker 1 You can just.

Speaker 1 That's right.

Speaker 1 Okay. I thought you were storming.

Speaker 1 With that,

Speaker 1 Octas.

Speaker 1 Yeah. On your turn

Speaker 1 in the realm of death, you have failed your wisdom saving throw. Tysha is suddenly gone.

Speaker 1 And you watch as you

Speaker 1 some

Speaker 1 too many commands were heeded at once to come back, to go home, to walk the path to something new.

Speaker 1 In this space with Taisha suddenly gone, you can feel the hand of Primus Taconis, your father.

Speaker 1 drawing you into the dark. In this moment, you have to think of something.

Speaker 1 What are you going to do?

Speaker 1 You said that I split. Is this a thing that is there?

Speaker 15 Am I seeing like

Speaker 1 another of me? Like there are...

Speaker 15 I'm splitting.

Speaker 1 It looks as though there is a... tear in the middle of your soul.
Something is opening wide, and you can tell that this is something that should not.

Speaker 1 If you unravel, there will be no end to the unraveling.

Speaker 1 This isn't.

Speaker 1 Right.

Speaker 1 I'm not sorry.

Speaker 1 I think.

Speaker 1 I think this

Speaker 1 needs to close.

Speaker 1 And he's gonna take his fingers and push them in to start

Speaker 1 almost taking

Speaker 1 the motion as though he's sewing himself back up to try and seal up this tear, to put himself back together to where he's supposed to be to put... to fix the problem as much as he can.

Speaker 1 This needs to be sealed shut.

Speaker 1 Give me an arcana.

Speaker 1 I like that die.

Speaker 1 Getting tested tonight.

Speaker 1 18.

Speaker 1 You start to stitch yourself back up.

Speaker 1 As you do,

Speaker 1 you can feel yourself being lifted off the ground and drawn towards something you don't want to go to.

Speaker 1 No,

Speaker 1 I'm not supposed to go there.

Speaker 1 Father.

Speaker 1 You.

Speaker 1 I don't belong to you. I belong here

Speaker 1 with them.

Speaker 1 Stitches.

Speaker 1 You belong. Where we...

Speaker 1 Something's moving. There's a face looking down.
You're on a table. But the lady Araness is not here.
You're not in the Palazzo Divinos.

Speaker 1 A face.

Speaker 1 White and spectral looks down.

Speaker 1 Something's wrong with the boy.

Speaker 1 Prime is you fool.

Speaker 1 What have you done?

Speaker 1 You feel something stirring inside you. Something's messing with the stitches from inside of you.
In the forest, you're back here moving towards the darkness.

Speaker 1 The stitches, there's something pushing against them.

Speaker 1 It's stopping your work.

Speaker 1 A wing bursts out of your midsection.

Speaker 1 You

Speaker 1 look down and see, suddenly,

Speaker 1 a little nose pushes out.

Speaker 1 And from the gory midsection, wet with your own viscera, a tiny little fox, its head unattached to any body at all,

Speaker 1 turns around and looks up at you. Scared.

Speaker 1 We move from Octus back to the Palazzo Divinos.

Speaker 1 Tysha, that is your turn.

Speaker 19 Back up. Too much, too close.
Everything is too close. And Octus is still lost.

Speaker 19 I'm going to cast Thunder Wave at second level.

Speaker 1 Hell yes. I'm hoping that you're kind of far.

Speaker 19 You stopped far.

Speaker 1 Like a cute little move as you were running up. I was like, back up.

Speaker 1 Hell yeah. Okay.

Speaker 1 15-foot cube.

Speaker 16 15-foot cube center on you.

Speaker 19 DC-15 con save.

Speaker 1 That is one success, two failures.

Speaker 19 Okay, the two that fail take 13 points and are pushed 10 feet away from me.

Speaker 19 And the other takes six points of thunder damage.

Speaker 19 Yeah, and everything in this hall, like

Speaker 19 it's just destruction. I don't care about this building.
I need to get to Octus.

Speaker 1 Oh, yeah.

Speaker 1 Wait, where's the family gonna live? Oh.

Speaker 1 I'm gonna say, I think Thunder Wave. I don't know that Thunder Wave can't not catch Julian in this moment.

Speaker 1 I mean, it makes sense.

Speaker 1 Give me a constitution saving throw. You bet.
Your role is so good.

Speaker 1 14. But be one higher?

Speaker 1 No, but that's okay.

Speaker 1 I dig it.

Speaker 1 So, Julian, you do take, what, 13 points of damage

Speaker 1 and

Speaker 1 thud back into the wall back here. But these two ghouls fly back.
How many feet? 10 feet. Bam.
Bam. Both

Speaker 1 thunder down the hall from you. You were in combat just with one last ghoul here.

Speaker 19 Bonus action.

Speaker 19 Whatever. I'll take the opportunity attack.
But I'm bonus.

Speaker 16 Bonus action.

Speaker 19 We're looking at the things we can do now. That I could have done the whole time.
That would have given me more hit points. Adrenaline rush, take the dash action.
It also gives me two temporary HP.

Speaker 19 Cool. And I'm going to try to just get back in the room and get to Octus.

Speaker 1 That is a miss on the opportunity attack. Amazing.
You rush through the doorway and get to Octus.

Speaker 19 And I think I end up right at his head. It looks like what Tysha looked like when she was giving Theazzi his rights.

Speaker 19 She's just at the head, and she's just going to look down at him.

Speaker 19 And I think it's like in Druidic, but it sounds like those prayers and those chants, but all she is saying is, follow my voice and get back here.

Speaker 1 Get off the path.

Speaker 1 Um,

Speaker 1 as you say to get off the path, give me a

Speaker 1 wisdom saving throw.

Speaker 19 22.

Speaker 1 How do you square in this moment?

Speaker 1 With telling someone who has died that it is not their time

Speaker 1 Why were you able to tell Theazi that a new life was waiting for him beyond the forest? But you will not say it to Octas.

Speaker 1 I don't want to think about it.

Speaker 1 And on a 22, you don't have to.

Speaker 19 This is just feeling.

Speaker 1 You rush inside to Octus' body, calling out to him as much as you can.

Speaker 1 your turn it is going to go back to the shadows below

Speaker 1 that is one hit and one critical hit

Speaker 1 downstairs

Speaker 1 are you good 13 necrotic damage have two

Speaker 1 six okay How's Valus looking?

Speaker 1 All right.

Speaker 16 What's out, dodge?

Speaker 1 So many people Go back and kill me.

Speaker 1 I'm going to come back and say, health. I want to be nice.
I'm all right. I'm all right.
I'm all right.

Speaker 1 Standing in the midst of these shades, trying to drink your immortal life, they continue to do so.

Speaker 1 It's crazy. How do you say it like that?

Speaker 1 You see

Speaker 1 that

Speaker 1 Aranessa is going to walk to a corner of the room,

Speaker 1 looking and hearing everything else going on outside. You also now can hear, any of you, that there are other Taconas in the castle.

Speaker 1 This is like Primus came to do what he was here to do, but you hear in other hallways, distant in the palazzo, other noises.

Speaker 1 You see that Aranessa walks to this desk,

Speaker 1 touches the wood, goes, furnish, lifts it, but breaks something to touch a raw piece of wood and whispers and begins to druid craft a sapling out of the wood of the desk as fast as she can for reasons that she does not choose to share with you all in this moment.

Speaker 1 You see, she looks in and says,

Speaker 1 Julian,

Speaker 1 to me, when you can, and

Speaker 1 runs over there. Bayless, that's your turn.
Okay.

Speaker 20 I'm going to keep swinging. Cool.

Speaker 1 Since they keep coming.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 1 Go for it. Give me your attack.
All right. Let's do this one.

Speaker 1 You're going to be good. You're going to be good.

Speaker 20 That's a one.

Speaker 1 What's happening to you?

Speaker 16 I don't know.

Speaker 1 Ashley. Should I leave? No.

Speaker 1 We will have a beautiful dice intervention as soon as we go to break.

Speaker 1 We will make it happen. It's okay.
That's all right. It's all good.

Speaker 1 This is the story the dice want to tell.

Speaker 1 This is not the dice want to tell. This is not a moment.

Speaker 20 You know what I'm going to do for my bonus action?

Speaker 16 What's that?

Speaker 1 I'm going to.

Speaker 20 I'm going to. Hold on a minute.

Speaker 20 Let me just double-check this really quickly.

Speaker 16 if I want to use this.

Speaker 1 No, I only have one Marse. I only have one Marseille.

Speaker 1 No, I'm not gonna do that.

Speaker 1 Okay. We're fine.

Speaker 20 I'm fine. I'm just gonna keep swinging.

Speaker 1 We're good. We're good.
We're good.

Speaker 1 You keep swinging.

Speaker 1 It comes to you

Speaker 1 after your turn. It goes back to Julian at the top of initiative.
So there's

Speaker 1 three ghouls?

Speaker 1 There are three, and they are looking in bad fucking shape, man.

Speaker 1 Aaronessa has called to you, but also these ghouls are looking pretty fucked up.

Speaker 1 No, I'm in the zone. I'm going to go ahead and go for one of them.

Speaker 1 Let's go. Yes.
That's an extra 20. Next 20, baby.
Oh, my God.

Speaker 1 Here we go.

Speaker 1 Here we go. Thank you for this dice.

Speaker 1 You're welcome. You are stomping so much ass in this fight.
It's crazy.

Speaker 1 It's crazy. Fighters, baby.
A fighter rogue's baby.

Speaker 1 A fighter rogue baby. Yeah, fight your rogue baby.
That's how they go.

Speaker 1 So that's going to be.

Speaker 1 Could have been a better dice roll.

Speaker 1 10 points of piercing damage. 10 points gets it done, and that's the healthiest of the ghouls remaining.

Speaker 1 10 points.

Speaker 1 So after being blown back into the wall from the Thunder Ramp, I'm like,

Speaker 1 shake it off, give you a look, and be like,

Speaker 1 this is the gift for helping me. And I'm going to rush up to one of the nearest ones.
And right now, it's like dispatching.

Speaker 1 It's like mercy kills at this point. My mind is now on Valus and where she is.
So I'm just trying to finish off as much as possible. The first time I actually go through the eye socket, just

Speaker 1 focus on the next one. I'm going to go ahead and do my

Speaker 1 bonus attack, which with Vex would have advantage. Okay, yes, absolutely.
Go! So, which is good, because that would make it up 16 hits. Hits.
That will be...

Speaker 1 That's going to be a nine points of piercing damage? Nine points hits. Oh, sorry, nine points of piercing damage.
Oh, more than enough. The Thunder Wave almost had these guys on.

Speaker 1 They had these guys on Death's Door. Right.

Speaker 1 So,

Speaker 1 yeah, that one is enough damage. And I believe you have an extra attack from...
I do with bonus action. Bonus action.
So the second strike is going to go and

Speaker 1 almost like a rapier strike across the abdomen. And I'm going to take my foot and kick it into the section to snap its back off of it and kind of push it further down the hall.

Speaker 1 And the last one that's standing there.

Speaker 1 Technically, it's a different target, so I don't get the vex bonus this one. So I'm just going to go ahead and make another attack on that one.

Speaker 1 That's only going to be an 11 to hit. An 11 to hit.
11 does not hit on that one. Um, but uh, this last one, boom, crumples to the ground.
Uh, uh, and as you slash through it, this last one

Speaker 1 looks at you with its tongue lolling out of its mouth. So destroyed by that thunder wave.
But you know what I'm gonna do? I'm gonna look at him and be like, you know what?

Speaker 1 I don't think I'm worth my time right now. I'm gonna turn around.
I'm gonna go full sprint

Speaker 1 towards Valus. Hell yeah.

Speaker 1 Which means I won't take a nice attack opportunity, but I'll uh.

Speaker 1 Great. Uh, that is a hit when I need a constitution season.
I'll take it. Let's go.

Speaker 1 This is what I get. Damn it, no.
It's okay. Uh, that's gonna be at 11.
11 saves. You are not paralyzed.
You do take four points of slashing damage. I'll take it.
5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 35, 40.

Speaker 1 You close, you are by Aaron S's side with that haste spell still. Wow, she's.
Oh, you're going for Veils. Well, she...

Speaker 1 Oh, man.

Speaker 1 Now, Erinessa did call me. No, no, you're so.
Everyone's fine. I don't know how bad you're doing.

Speaker 1 So

Speaker 1 I'm going to go go to Aaronessa. Yeah.
Okay. That's what I do.

Speaker 1 You close to Aaronessa's side.

Speaker 1 As you do so, the ghouls are going to, this ghoul's going to go next.

Speaker 1 He's next to act.

Speaker 1 Speed is

Speaker 1 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30.

Speaker 1 Is

Speaker 1 gazing around.

Speaker 1 He is going to close. I think he's going to go...

Speaker 1 Yeah, double move. And he's going to close on the lady Aranessa in this moment.
pursuing you into the room. Double move action.

Speaker 1 Octus, once again,

Speaker 1 I'm going to need another arcana check from you in this space.

Speaker 1 I'm going to say getting below a 10 is very bad, and getting a 20 or higher will produce some hidden knowledge for your spirit now cast into the darkness in the realm of death.

Speaker 1 That is

Speaker 1 19.

Speaker 1 One shy.

Speaker 1 There's something.

Speaker 1 You look at Pin's

Speaker 1 head emerging.

Speaker 1 There's something inside you stirring.

Speaker 1 You feel sick. You shouldn't even feel like you have a body in a place like this.

Speaker 1 Pin looks up at you.

Speaker 1 Cocks his head so soaked with your blood that his fur is matted to the side, his ears go flat against his head.

Speaker 1 Take my hand and

Speaker 1 reach it up inside me,

Speaker 1 busting through some of the stitches and try and pull whatever's in there out.

Speaker 1 It's making me

Speaker 1 wrong, this isn't supposed to be in here.

Speaker 1 And try and pull out whatever's in there. Give me either medicine or sleight of hand.
hand.

Speaker 1 A healthy sleight of hand. Okay.

Speaker 1 Okay, that is a 15 medicine.

Speaker 1 There are things moving inside of you,

Speaker 1 but there's something that's very still.

Speaker 1 Arm reaching up past little pin's head. On a 15, you can only do one thing on that roll.

Speaker 1 You can

Speaker 1 remove pin's head and maybe see if there's any other parts of him in there. You can

Speaker 1 try to move these fluttering things inside you to one side or the other, or you can reach towards something very still.

Speaker 1 You can only do one of those on a 15.

Speaker 1 I'm gonna reach towards the thing that's very still. It's not supposed to be in there.

Speaker 1 You reach in,

Speaker 1 and your hand wraps around a stone where your heart should be.

Speaker 1 You pull it out. That translucent face looks down at you from that table, somewhere not in death or life, and goes,

Speaker 1 In the forest,

Speaker 1 you come apart.

Speaker 1 Birds fly everywhere, nightingales.

Speaker 1 The last part of your soul that remains is a hand clutching a stone.

Speaker 1 That's the last we're going to see of you. Alex, I'll ask you to step away from the table.
I'm sorry, what?

Speaker 1 We return to the Palazzo Divinos.

Speaker 1 Uh,

Speaker 1 that is going to be Tysh's turn. Tit

Speaker 1 cool.

Speaker 1 Uh, uh,

Speaker 19 focus. Um,

Speaker 19 I see Aranessa

Speaker 19 growing a tree.

Speaker 19 What do I see? Do I see anything going on with Octus on the table?

Speaker 19 He has remained dead and nothing has changed.

Speaker 1 He's just, you see his body, his handsome, young, is just his remains.

Speaker 19 I don't know what to do, but I'll stay here and I'll wait for him.

Speaker 1 But I need to I need to help.

Speaker 1 Uh,

Speaker 19 I move one hand away from his face and like pick back up my staff and it grows and turns into this.

Speaker 19 It used to look like the head of it, used to look like a horse, but it spreads out and looks like a dragon's face pulled apart by the wood between all of the joints of the metal and a little bit of like...

Speaker 19 Sort of a dark green magic pours out of the open mouth. And I'm going to spend three charges on my staff and cast speak with plants.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 19 As I command.

Speaker 19 The like

Speaker 19 remains of the entangle that she used earlier.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 19 And the like sapling that she's growing and any piece of metal within 30 feet of me grow.

Speaker 1 Metal begins to grow at your command.

Speaker 1 As you cast, you're casting speak with speak with plants. Which with the Loy staff also allows you to speak to metal.
Hell yes.

Speaker 19 So it says you can turn ordinary terrain where plants are present into difficult terrain. So if I can use a little bit of the leftover entangle just to make it harder for this nasty boy to get to.

Speaker 1 Okay. Is he already there? He's already there.
He's already there. Ah shit.

Speaker 1 Is there anything I can do with that?

Speaker 1 You see, I think Aranessa turns to you, looking at your attachment to the dead body, and you see she just says, Bring him if you must now and beckons to herself.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I'll then pick him up and bring him over.

Speaker 1 You bring him over,

Speaker 1 join with her.

Speaker 1 Any other actions or bonus actions on your turn? That's an object interaction.

Speaker 19 Yeah, my biggest goal was just to help Aaronessa with whatever magic she's doing.

Speaker 1 Perfect. So casting Speak with Plants, actually, you see that the buds of the tree that she's growing turn to you and go, oh.

Speaker 1 There is a danger. The dead, the dead walk, the dead.
And you see that

Speaker 1 Aaronessa sees that you, she's focusing on growing this thing and looks to you and says,

Speaker 1 Wherever the least of them are.

Speaker 1 Ask wherever the least of them are. Yeah.

Speaker 23 Yeah, an injury.

Speaker 19 I think she's whispering, and it sounds like metal

Speaker 19 unforging itself and returning to ore as I scream to all the metal around me.

Speaker 1 Yes. Where is the least of them?

Speaker 1 You see.

Speaker 1 Hedges, growth, all of this. You hear a mighty voice calling out from an ash tree at the far edge, even like beyond the, like, near the nearest gate, the gate you came through.

Speaker 1 And you see it calls out and says,

Speaker 1 Birds fly beyond what the eye can see.

Speaker 1 The bridge across the river knows no touch of death.

Speaker 1 I welcome the touch of the wielder of the old ways.

Speaker 1 The door is open to you.

Speaker 1 And you sense a tree nearby calling out.

Speaker 19 And I think one of the buds on the tree that Aranessa is growing, like, immediately unfurls. It's like

Speaker 19 a peony, like a lot of petals. And the way the petals like

Speaker 19 open and fall looks like a sort of petal map of the bridge, the tree by the bridge.

Speaker 1 Summoning that map forward forward in this space.

Speaker 1 At the end of your turn, the shadows are going to once again attack Valus.

Speaker 1 That is another hit and another crit. Okay.

Speaker 1 Don't.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 1 13 halves to six necrotic damage. Okay.

Speaker 1 How's Valus looking?

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 1 You're cool.

Speaker 1 What's happening? You've been taking

Speaker 1 so much damage. It's insane.

Speaker 1 That is their turn. As they face you,

Speaker 1 you look and see. Before your turn, Aranessa growing this sapling casts Tree Stride.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 And with this last ghoul that she does not permit to follow, Julian, Tysha, you holding Oxus' body and her appear on the grounds outside the main gate.

Speaker 1 As she looks out,

Speaker 1 all of you moving

Speaker 1 as one. Julian hears you

Speaker 1 to this gate right here.

Speaker 1 That's her action, and she is going to sprint for the gate, take 30 feet of movement and just say, run,

Speaker 1 as she begins to run off the grounds.

Speaker 1 Oh, poor pin.

Speaker 1 I shout out as she runs. I'd be like, Aranessa, BF.

Speaker 1 She turns to look inside sees you

Speaker 1 and as she does so she she touches this threshold behind her

Speaker 1 and says

Speaker 1 the veil she looks to you and says the veil is stronger pass the bridge

Speaker 1 okay

Speaker 1 she calls out to you

Speaker 1 and she you see

Speaker 1 I think you see Julian that the lady Aranessa has done some heroic things to save you and looks at Vaylis with a look. She's a very polite woman and says,

Speaker 1 I thought you were very nice in the short amount of time we've known each other and turns

Speaker 1 kicks her heels off and just starts fucking booking it and dare

Speaker 1 as fast as she can.

Speaker 1 Barefoot, pap, bab,

Speaker 1 on foot, fucking cobblestones, getting out of here as fast as she can.

Speaker 1 That is your turn, Vaylis.

Speaker 20 Okay, so with that, sort of seeing them go, can I try

Speaker 20 to sort of just duck and disengage something? Just try to get away.

Speaker 1 Absolutely. Okay.

Speaker 1 And actually, because there are no longer six of them, you can disengage if you would like, or you can just take movements, take double movements to get out of here. Great.
Let's do that.

Speaker 1 They're going to get a tax opportunity on you. That's okay.

Speaker 1 Don't you say, oh, now.

Speaker 1 I mean, you've taken 47 hits.

Speaker 1 I rolled 5v20 and did not roll above a 10. Great!

Speaker 1 Unbelievable. Great.

Speaker 1 At the beginning.

Speaker 1 Valus, that's going to be 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30,

Speaker 1 35, 40, and you can move another 20 feet out that way.

Speaker 1 As you begin to sprint,

Speaker 1 that goes to the top of initiative, Julian. That's you.

Speaker 1 I'm going to make eye contact with you as you're stepping outside.

Speaker 1 The rest of you, I'm going to go ahead and dart forward

Speaker 1 and

Speaker 1 ready my action.

Speaker 1 I'm just going to hold it there more or less to interpose myself for the hold. If any of them give pursuit, I can go ahead and try and strike them down.
Hell yeah.

Speaker 1 But also, as I stand there and look inside at the spirits, I also, my vision shifts

Speaker 1 to the body of my father, and that

Speaker 1 stoic

Speaker 1 disassociation begins to slip a bit.

Speaker 1 Not that you might notice from behind, but

Speaker 1 the emotions begin to come in wave. And that's the end of my turn.

Speaker 1 You ready, your action?

Speaker 1 Tysha.

Speaker 1 Uh

Speaker 19 yeah, I'm gonna use my movement and uh my other bonus action.

Speaker 1 Uh where do you say the words? I'll know them by the end. Uh,

Speaker 19 adrenaline rush. Yeah.
Uh, so I'll end up doing 60 feet of movement, but I'm going to swing around and I want to put my hand on uh Julian's shoulder as I'm like banking around and out. Just say,

Speaker 1 please run with us

Speaker 19 now and cast cure wounds as I do it.

Speaker 1 Go ahead.

Speaker 19 I am a little sorry I did an ouch to you.

Speaker 1 Oh, you're fine. Oh, okay.

Speaker 1 Uh,

Speaker 1 spellcasting?

Speaker 19 20 points.

Speaker 1 20 points? Bright is fucking rain. See, are you back to full? No.
Oh, no.

Speaker 1 By no means. By no means.
But good enough. I left what I heard.
That's pretty good.

Speaker 1 Tysha,

Speaker 1 go ahead and move. 60 feet.

Speaker 1 You have Octus with you as well. Yeah.

Speaker 16 Oh, yeah. Am I moving slower? No, I'm so strong.

Speaker 13 Touch. One, two, three.

Speaker 1 Great. Just slide to the side.

Speaker 1 He's just over the shoulder.

Speaker 18 Yep.

Speaker 1 We got it both.

Speaker 1 Yep, yep.

Speaker 1 So you're more than 40 feet, which means that all of the shadows go to surround you, Julian.

Speaker 1 You can get you, you have a ready action. Go ahead and take your attack.

Speaker 1 Alright,

Speaker 1 which is just the single attack. That's correct.
I'm going to go ahead and strike the first one that comes towards me. You got it.

Speaker 1 That's going to be

Speaker 1 13. 13 hits.
13 hits. Let's go.

Speaker 1 That'll be

Speaker 1 seven points of piercing damage. Non-magical, of course.
Whatever that might impact. Mm-hmm.

Speaker 1 Um.

Speaker 1 Sergeia. Oh! Your sword.

Speaker 1 Glancing blow. They surround you.

Speaker 1 In this this moment, you look, you can hear the footsteps of your companions.

Speaker 1 Your father's dead on the ground.

Speaker 1 You'll never

Speaker 1 have the opportunity

Speaker 1 for him to know you as anything other

Speaker 1 than a

Speaker 1 drunken reprobate

Speaker 1 He would not have even known the cause of his death. It happened so quickly

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 as the shades surround you

Speaker 1 Whatever was written in their misty faces

Speaker 1 It's gone now

Speaker 1 The thing in Valis that filled them with sorrow and guilt and shame.

Speaker 1 No, that's not what they feel looking at you.

Speaker 1 They look at you

Speaker 1 and those smoky mouths grin,

Speaker 1 empty sockets of shadow and lightlessness

Speaker 1 in recognition of a soul.

Speaker 1 Maybe just as lost as them.

Speaker 1 Maybe it would be some cold comfort to invite you into their life,

Speaker 1 which some part of you has seen fit to live even as your heart still beats.

Speaker 1 They don't prepare to strike you in terror or shame.

Speaker 1 If anything, it looks like they prepare for a warm embrace.

Speaker 1 Aranessa, sprinting forward, turns around. Julian!

Speaker 1 Run!

Speaker 1 She continues to sprint towards the bridge, looking at you, Valus, as she

Speaker 1 watches and hears screams in sudden silence as the lights

Speaker 1 of the palace of the Divinos house begin to extinguish and falls into midnight.

Speaker 1 Valus, it is your turn.

Speaker 1 You see that she, Aranessa before you, passes over the threshold onto the bridge, away, and as she passes into the bridge, you watch as,

Speaker 1 as she said,

Speaker 1 you can almost sense hanging in the air the magic that Primus called to bear to make the realms permeable for the grim work that faced them here on this night.

Speaker 1 You see past the threshold onto that bridge, the dead will not follow.

Speaker 1 um

Speaker 20 i would just like to go up to julian and try to

Speaker 20 um

Speaker 1 bring him with me the minute you start stepping towards me i put my goblet and hand out and say keep them safe

Speaker 1 i'll be there soon

Speaker 20 I take my whip out and start slashing him.

Speaker 1 The shadows.

Speaker 16 The shadows? I'm not going to leave him here. I can't.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 1 19.

Speaker 1 Go ahead and roll damage. Hell yeah.
Alright.

Speaker 20 18.

Speaker 1 18 damage? Yeah.

Speaker 20 No, sorry. 18 hits.

Speaker 1 18 to hit. Go ahead and roll damage.
Let's go.

Speaker 1 Do you mind spiding on this?

Speaker 20 Yes, I will, because it hits. So 7.

Speaker 15 7 plus 6

Speaker 15 plus 8.

Speaker 1 great

Speaker 1 and I roll one more

Speaker 1 seven

Speaker 1 day

Speaker 1 absolutely unmade by Bayless's sensor

Speaker 1 Incredible um

Speaker 1 and keep going

Speaker 1 you go

Speaker 1 I don't go

Speaker 1 No

Speaker 1 obsolete woman I am behind you

Speaker 1 You contacted them for a little bit. Now it's my turn.

Speaker 1 Go.

Speaker 1 Julian, it's your turn.

Speaker 1 You take one and I'll take one.

Speaker 20 Let's finish them off.

Speaker 1 I look back at the bodies in here.

Speaker 1 You know what?

Speaker 1 Let's just continue this, the

Speaker 1 first pound of proverbial flesh.

Speaker 1 And I'm going to go ahead and unleash on the one that I struck before. Great.

Speaker 1 That's going to be 17 a hit. 17 hits.

Speaker 1 For 11 points of piercing damage. Amazing.

Speaker 1 You slash out and deal 11 points of damage. Should I do it again?

Speaker 1 20. Not natural dornium, just 20.
That hits.

Speaker 1 Actually, that would be an advantage because of X.

Speaker 13 Just double check, not same.

Speaker 1 So that's going to be 10 points of piercing damage.

Speaker 1 Badly injured, you have your bonus action. I'm going to go ahead and strike it now with advantage from the Vex.

Speaker 1 That's going to be...

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 1 18 to hit. Hits.
With sneak attack. Let's go.
Damn.

Speaker 1 another 10 points of

Speaker 1 damage. Destroyed.

Speaker 1 In a flurry of attacks, another shade vanishes from before you.

Speaker 1 Only three remain in front of you.

Speaker 1 As I finish out that last one, kind of like almost like using the gauntlet to wipe away a mist as it scatters around, I throw the cape back over and put the blade out, and I step back a little bit and look over to you and be like, you're up?

Speaker 1 Thanks to idiots. I'll take a swing.
Incredible. Well, Tysha, that's your turn.

Speaker 19 I'm just cussing. I'm cussing in Druidic.

Speaker 1 We're supposed to be going.

Speaker 19 We're supposed to be going. It's just me bitching to Aaron as I'm like, we're supposed to be just going.
And they're not, they're going back because they're just so fucking weird.

Speaker 1 I can't.

Speaker 1 Uh

Speaker 1 Yeah, hold on.

Speaker 19 Yeah, fuck it. Let's use it again.

Speaker 1 Uh.

Speaker 1 I'm gonna,

Speaker 19 before continuing my way out, uh, these like specters and spirits, are they like corporeal and like moving on the ground?

Speaker 1 Or are they sort of like floating? Incorporeal floating. Ah, shit.
Never mind. No, I'm gonna do the thing.

Speaker 17 I just turn around and go, I said fucking run!

Speaker 19 And misty step and then haul ass away.

Speaker 1 Okay,

Speaker 1 You vanish across the bridge with Aranessa.

Speaker 19 And a snap point at the bridge.

Speaker 1 Here.

Speaker 1 That is a miss against Valus. There is a hit.

Speaker 1 You take eight points of necrotic damage, and your strength decreases by two.

Speaker 1 That's fine, I can take that.

Speaker 1 Valus, that's you.

Speaker 20 We have five more left.

Speaker 1 No, no, there's three.

Speaker 20 There's three more. Oh, sorry.
Okay.

Speaker 1 Um,

Speaker 20 I'm going to look

Speaker 20 at Julian.

Speaker 1 I will stay here with you until we finish this, but this will not make you feel better.

Speaker 1 Let's go.

Speaker 1 Are you sure?

Speaker 1 I got one of them.

Speaker 1 Both of you are acting on the same turn of initiative. If you choose to leave, I mean, there are three left.

Speaker 1 That's fine. I mean, like,

Speaker 1 they can catch up to us, but if we can get it past the threshold.

Speaker 1 With the haste, and I'm standing here,

Speaker 1 my father on the ground.

Speaker 1 Does he

Speaker 1 does he have his gauntlet on him? He does.

Speaker 1 I'm going to attempt to move up to his corpse with my haste and speed. If I need to roll an agility, get past them, let me know.

Speaker 1 But try

Speaker 1 without even looking at his face, because I don't want that to be my last memory, I'm gonna try and pull the gauntlet from his hand.

Speaker 1 Moving forward,

Speaker 1 supernatural speed, you surge past the shadows,

Speaker 1 wrap your hands,

Speaker 1 ever tight-fisted.

Speaker 1 Something in your father's hand relaxes, and the gauntlet comes off. It is yours.

Speaker 1 I look back at you

Speaker 1 and

Speaker 1 dart at full haste and speed to follow Aranessa and the rest. I follow.

Speaker 1 The lights of the Palazzo Divinos

Speaker 1 extinguish.

Speaker 1 Cries

Speaker 1 of the living are quickly replaced with the chattering of the dead.

Speaker 1 And whatever grim work takes place within those halls

Speaker 1 is not yet so potent

Speaker 1 as to destroy Sir Julian DeVinos,

Speaker 1 Velis of the Mournwood,

Speaker 1 or Tysha, who follows the Lady Aranessa Royce across the bridge.

Speaker 1 In this place are the horrors left in the darkness.

Speaker 1 And you make your way to an uncertain future together.

Speaker 1 And that's where we'll take our break.

Speaker 7 And that's where we'll leave our story for now.

Speaker 1 Part two of this episode of Campaign 4 drops this Tuesday. Thanks for listening, and we'll see you soon for more Critical Role.

Speaker 3 Just in thousands of winter arrivals at your Nordstrom rack store. Save up to 70% on coats, slippers, and cashmere from Kate Spade, New York, Vince, Ugg, Levi's, and more.

Speaker 4 Check out these boots. They've got the best gifts.

Speaker 25 My holiday shopping hack, join the Nordy Club.

Speaker 3 Get an extra 5% off every rack purchase with your Nordstrom credit card. Plus, buy it online and pick it up in store the same day for free.

Speaker 6 Spicy.

Stone-Faced | Critical Role | Campaign 4, Episode 4 | Part 1

Press play and read along

Transcript

More episodes from Critical Role

Knives and Thorns | Critical Role | Campaign 4, Episode 6 Part 1

Branching Paths | Critical Role Campaign 4, Episode 5 Part 2

Branching Paths | Critical Role Campaign 4, Episode 5 Part 1

Dispatch One-Shot

Stone-Faced | Critical Role | Campaign 4, Episode 4 | Part 2