On the Scent | Critical Role | Campaign 4, Episode 7 Part 2

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

What are you doing?

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

We return

to

Gourmle in the kingdom of Timony.

You have just slept in a rickety cart full of apples.

And

yes.

All of you have eaten, probably at this point, so many apples that, but you know, you were hungry, but also these are the apples that didn't sell. So, you know, bear that in mind.

Yeah.

Fimble.

The shrine has but a single sleeping canine figure in it.

Tavern there.

And

you still

require rest.

Fucking mastiff I was telling you about the giant fucking dog. Dogs do all sorts of weird shit.
Walk around, sniff around. These are just really rare ones.
They're really, you know.

They're really big. Yeah.
And they usually only guard really important people. Who's probably at the tavern.
You wanna go chase a dog in dogs? No, I don't. I wanna sleep.

Well,

all right.

Do whatever you want.

I'm just letting you know. Okay.
We need to sleep. That dog was staring at me.

You thought the you thought the dog was staring at you. Don't you be a shithead.
I'm not being a shithead, I'm being honest.

It was staring at me from across the

and you're certain it wasn't just being a dog.

I'm sorry, I'm not honest.

It's my nature to second guess.

If you think it was a special dog, and it was talking to you through its doggy brain, then I'll talk about it. I don't know if I can do it.
I don't talk to dogs like you do.

I could talk to him if he was here, but I don't see him. If he attacks us, maybe you can say hi before he kills us.
Maybe I'll. Maybe I will.
Maybe I will say hi.

Maybe I'll say, oh, you eat my friend here. She's small and delicious.
I'm barely a meal.

Alright.

I guess I'll go to sleep. I gave you a warning.
If we all die, it's your fault. Why do you all feel like you need to argue with me? I'm relatively.

Go to sleep. I don't want to go to sleep.
Now I want to go look for a fucking dog.

Maybe I will fuck you then. And I'm going to

start. I guess I'm going to go fucking roost Wolfrick and start fucking snoofing around.
Now I feel bad.

Don't feel bad. Are you going to sleep? Or are you going to come on this dog adventure?

Shit. I'll go on a dog adventure.

Wow. Okay.

All right.

That evolved. Go ahead.
Go ahead and give me two investigation rolls with disadvantage.

Went from a warning to a mastify.

Good investigation.

I rolled a 12 at disadvantage. Okay.

She started she's she's into this she's flitting trying to look for this dog. I I see her possibly struggling and I'm going to cast a clue

and

in the general area around me. One with a big sigh.
He was over by the shrine. Where? He was over by the shrine.
Right, right, right. Over the blotter, though.
It was across the water.

Across the water. Oh, how far away was it?

It's probably

call it like

250 yards. Oh, too.
Far away that's far. Yeah, yeah.
All right. Yeah, show up.
Never mind. You know, it was, I mean, it was across the water.
No, no, we're looking. You wanted to look, we're looking.

Uh, 19 on the first. What night rolled 19? What are we rolling? Per investigation? Investigation.
First one's a dirty 20. Second one is a 19.
Oh.

A 15.

Um, you and Wolfrick snoop around as you, once again,

breathe. You see massive paw prints heading from the shrine,

briefly going into the tavern,

coming back out, and heading north of here in the direction of Sloak. So it went into the tavern.
So it looks like the mastiff went into the tavern and headed out.

Alright. It's going to Sloak.
It's going to Sloak.

Maybe, maybe he's just spying on us. And you think they're going to know we're on our way.
You think the dog was spying on us? Well, it's dog spy land. I get it.
I get it. Alright.

I won't second-guess you anymore. You're right.
It is a bit strange.

However,

however,

we need to sleep. Alright, well, it went into the tavern before it fucked off, so maybe we go ask around, see if anybody's seen a great big doggy, and then sleep on it.

Maybe they know who he works for. Cause they're pretty rare.
All right. All right.
I think you're better at this sort of stuff. Don't get drunk.
Well,

three hours of the morning, you guys walk into the common room of the tavern. There's some people sleeping upstairs.

But it's just a couple sputtering candles. Everything's been put away.

But you see that there is a small bell, like a cow's bell, that's been left on the bar to ring in the middle of the night if something were to arise.

Oh, fuck.

You ring the bell.

You see, over by the smoldering embers of the fireplace, you see that there is this uh sort of

beautiful looking mutt on her side. You see that she's

um, you see this sort of uh uh lying down there. Um

uh you see that she's got patches almost like Bernie's mountain dog coloring but in splotches so it's like black brown white and also a shade of like a deep rich blue in her fur as well

um you see that

a figure comes out from behind a small gate, like in the kitchen, walking out from a sort of private

room, a small side room.

You see, it's a young woman who walks out in a nightgown, a small candle lit.

Greetings, Travelers, are you?

Oh.

Oh, hello?

Travelers.

Yeah.

Um,

do you know who the big dog works for? Oh my god

Wow. Oh

Did you did you see did you see the the the mastiff? Yeah, that is a hound of the king. Yes.
Whoa, did you know he was here?

The

whole

hard to miss. Yes, I I saw him.
Yeah, the the the the the hound you mean? Yeah. Yes, yes, yes, yes.
King Gus

King Augustus, yes, absolutely. Oh, I saw, I didn't mean that.

You see, she shrugs and says, my father served. Is King Gus?

No,

I wish, but if you think I could be a princess, that's very kind of you to say. I would not be.

Well,

the king

on his coronation

corrected the the

druid of the old path who was swearing him in,

who referred to him as Augustus, and he said, Any who fought with me may call me Gus for as long as they live. Alright, so it's not for everybody, is it?

It's not, I wouldn't feel comfortable saying it, but it's not for everybody. Sorry, pardon us, we're not locals.

Um,

why would an animal like that be out here?

Serving his his majesty, I think.

She just wanders around and keeps an eye?

You see that she says,

yes, I mean, well, some of them do go on patrol just to keep the people of the land safe.

But

do they have otherworldly vision?

Do you ever see a dog in you? Is what I mean? A dog in me?

No, but not a dog in you.

No, like, you're duh. Do you ever like give people the evil eye, you know what I mean?

She spits over her shoulder and says, no, no, no.

The dogs, the hounds of the king, don't, don't, don't give the evil eye, no.

Good dog. He's a good dog.
Yeah, I'm sure he is. Does the king have three, like the banners?

But you could be an insight check.

You're asking those questions.

Insight?

20. Okay.
20.

You see that

the young woman's eyes have darted over to the dog sleeping by the fireplace as they then dart back to you. And you see that she was she looked distracted as though she saw something for a moment.

She looks and says, sorry, the king's crest?

Yeah.

I didn't hear the question, sorry. Does he have three dogs, like the crest?

Oh,

no, no, no, no.

The hounds are for King Augustus's father and two brothers who,

yes. I'm just going to glance over my shoulder and see what she was looking at.

You look over and just see that dog snoozing over there.

Oh, my God. The dog.

All right, well, keep in it now.

Cool.

We were just passing on through and we were just wondering. But thanks for your time.
Oh, certainly.

I hope I've been helpful.

May I ask, is there any way- what can I help you with? Is there anything that you're doing here? Do you have space for

a few extra rooms or

a mat to sleep? There's five of us.

Yes, yes, there, there are a few, a few public houses. We,

well, I have one, I have one spare room. There are, um,

some guests upstairs.

You know what?

That's fine.

Um.

Um, why don't you get some food, some fancy food for our company because they're sick of porridge get some fancy and we don't need a room, we can sleep outside, that's where we're used to, right?

Okay, sure, we

don't want the rooms now. No, we don't need um I mean, they don't have just one room, we can't do anything with one room.
Yeah, I mean, probably definitely five people.

We probably should get some food. Do you have any in the back, maybe? Any food?

Well

it it's a little co uh cool, but but there's the evening stew. I I can go scrape

it.

I can probably scrape two bowls together. That'd be awesome.
Thank you so much, mate. Our friends would be so thankful.
Mutton stew, yes. Yeah, could you go grab some for us at the grave?

Of course. Take yours.
We'll pay, of course.

You see, she smiles and says, Thank you.

And where are you traveling to?

Oh,

North. I'm taking...

Well, sure, North's on the list. I'm taking a small group of

city folk out for a game hunt.

Get a little bit of the thrill of

nature. Yeah.
She smiles, nods. All right, I'll go get the stew together.

And she walks into the kitchen. You can see her has her little lantern lit, and you can see, you hear the scraping of a wooden spoon in an old cast iron collar joining her.
Don't talk to that dog.

I know, I know. Listen, I'm a little bit lost in the sauce right now.
What are we trying to do? Are we trying to sleep? Are we trying to talk to dogs? No!

She wasn't gonna talk like there was some more information. You should talk to Dog and see what the dog knows.
Go the city person, but if you want to go see who's who's upstairs in the room.

You want to go see who's up there? I just want to peek. Okay, you can.
Oh, my God. Fuck, go peek.
I'll talk to her. If she comes back, just tell her I already talked about it.

Just tell her I already left. She walked upstairs.
Anything

for you to stop talking.

I just want to fly up and take a peek and see who's sleeping in the rooms. And then I'm going to come right back.

You're just going to creep up and look at the colours.

Go ahead and give me a sleep.

That fucking mastiff is going to chomp you at the fucking steal.

Uh, 18. 18 stealth.
Uh, You

flip upstairs.

This is a humble country home. You see that there are four rooms at the top of the stairs, one in each corner of the building.

And the keyholes are wide enough for you to pretty much get your whole little face in there.

Go ahead and give me a perception check.

Come on. Okay, okay, okay.
Maybe there'll be boning in there. Ooh, one can hope.
Um you can 13 no twelve twelve

you gaze in

to one of the rooms

on a twelve

what do you want to see in there? I want to see if there's any like fancy clothes in the corner.

I want to see if there's like things that look like they belong to rich people or you know, maybe symbols of the creed or symbols of the hounds or whatever.

You see

a tall

kite shield

elongated, somewhere halfway between a kite shield and a tower shield, but a big, big shield, leaned against a wall.

The shield has

a

deep red field to it with a sort of S configuration black serpent, which you recognize.

Actually, give me a history check. Let's see if you recognize it.

This is the crest of the house Saramai. Saramai is a vassal house in the same way that Matt's character is a vassal of House Royce, which is one of the big, the big five.

Saramai is a vassal house of House Taconis.

Oh, Rutt Row. Yeah.
Oh, wait. So I would know.
Oh, my God. Oh, what if?

What if?

What if they're here?

Downstairs.

Downstairs, Cadigan.

What if they're here?

Cadigan, downstairs. What are you up to? Clueless to the danger that's upstairs currently.

I guess I'm going to talk to this fucking dog. Oh, boy.
Oh, boy. Is this beautiful puppy? It's good.

You walk over to this snoozing dog over by the nice warm embers.

Sorry, sweetheart.

And I want to just gently pet it on its back.

You see, as the wolf is right over the corner.

You see, she doesn't seem too phased by the wolf, but she just

bad, bad at magic, but

I will cast to the best of my ability speak with animals.

As you begin to cast speak with animals, in fluent orcish, this dog goes, shit.

Uh,

Never mind that.

Oh,

fuck.

So I would know

that this. So typically, when Cadogan has done this in the past, and this is a relatively new skill for him, that when you speak to an animal, it's very much primal.
It's I've been here, I smell this.

This is a druid. Yeah, you

go ahead and give me an insect check if you'd be so good at it. Okay.

Never mind that. Never mind that.

Bark, Bark.

It's not great.

It's an 11. Oh, this is a druid.
This is a druid.

Or something. I mean, yeah, you see, it just goes.

Never mind with that. Never mind with that.

Hello, friend.

I take my hand off of him.

You see that she

just goes

sort of sits up and says,

Is anyone else of yours waiting outside?

There are.

Three more. One upstairs.

What is your intention here? And first of all, what may I call you?

Boy, you have a nice voice. Very pleasant.
Um.

Thank you for the kind words, stranger. We're on a hunt.
I don't believe it involves you, but we're trying to help our friends. We're trying to make our way to Sloak.

Uh, Thimble, you come back down. Uh, and see, uh, a dog turns to look over at you and says,

well, Well, this has gotten well out of hand. Who are you?

Who are you? You're not a dog.

You are not very perceptive.

Uh, wait, no, wait, are you with the people upstairs, or are you just here on your own?

I beg your pardon, under what authority am I being questioned here at this fireplace where I was comfortably snoozing before being rudely awakened?

I'm sorry, pardon me.

I

am just a little pixie of the blue jungle.

She looks and says, the change in the tenor of your voice indicates a certain degree of dishonesty that I cannot.

Why did you wake them up? It's a very smart dog. Why did you wake them up? Why did I wake them up?

You see, she looks and says, says,

before we and you see that the woman, the young barmaid, walks out, and you see that as she does,

you see that she goes and looks at the dog being asleep and goes, I, um,

Dame Morgan, I, I, and you see that, uh, you see that the dog looks up and says, um,

says, Gwen, it's all right. Give these travelers their stew.

Um,

and you see, she says, uh, here you are, and you see that uh the dog looks at you and says, uh, it's three copper each.

Oh, the stew for the stew, for the stew. Right, uh, do you have any money on you? I,

because I can't carry any. I do not.
You don't have any money on you, you know. There's no cash.
I'm broken.

You see, you see that this dog looks up at you and says, unbelievable.

Are you prepared to go in the back and wash dishes?

Our friends have money outside of the house. Our friends outside have.

One of us can stay in the middle of the money.

We'll both stay.

We both can't stay. I'll go get some money and I'll run outside

to get some money for the stew. Listen, do you...
I'm sorry to intrude in here, obviously.

As you just, you see that Gwen seems completely unperturbed by the talking dog by the fireplace.

Dame Morgane. Dame Morgane.

Do you own this fine establishment?

Do I own this tavern? No, no, no. I do not own this tavern.

Outside.

Tail. Techo.

Do you have three copper? No, sorry, six copper.

Six copper.

Oh, take the bag. Thank you.
The bag.

Couple silver.

We're back to sleep.

You rush back. Awesome.

You arrive back. You see that Gwen says,

thank you. Thank you kindly.

How much do you get care for?

What's the conversion rate? Bad with money. One silver? One silver is good.

Keep the change. Oh, that's so kindness, sir.
Thank you.

You see that she

looks out at this.

You see that Morgane goes,

the hopshini would.

Wait, do we know? Do I know of anyone named Dame Morgan? Does that

ring any bell?

Give me, unlikely, but hey, we can always let the dice decide. Give me a history check.
We're in that paranoid state where I thought I heard that name before and I was searching my notes. No.

Call it a DC

15

It is

history? Yeah. Oh, oh, God.
14. 14.
Gotcha.

You see that she looks up and just says,

Very well.

You see, as you guys get the stew in front of you, she looks and says,

Traveler, what is your name?

You have a very intimidating presence for a

and your name? I'm Thimble. Pimple.

It is well met.

Although, the manner of your coming here quite at a late hour, I might add. You surely haven't been on the road

all night, have you? Kind of.

Well,

you approached me with a degree of woodsman's craft, magic.

What did you intend to speak to me about?

My friend's a more loquacious one, but she saw a dog and the dog gave her an evil eye, and then I saw that the dog came in here, and then we're also tired.

So

were you able to track Hawkins?

Ah. Is that your dog?

My dog? No, we are all the king's dogs. Oh.

You see, that

she says, I am a hound of the king, as is Hawkins. Oh.

And you realize

before when Gwen was sort of squinting at you as you were like, do they just go on patrol?

She was thinking, yeah, they can talk. Like, you recognize that

her context for this was assuming you knew something you did not know. So you see that Morgane looks up and says, Hawkins is a hound of the king.

And the fact that you were able to track his footsteps in here is a fact that I will mercilessly torture him with for as long as I can

Right. Well, we didn't mean to intrude on the king's business.
We um

we're chasing a friend who's in trouble and um

you know

who's your friend that's is it that's in trouble

um

he's his name is Sid

He's an innocent taken um

an innocent taken

by whom?

I believe the new Baron of Sloke

you see

she nods and goes

well

The new Baron of Sloke is meeting on the morrow with some guests that are asleep upstairs.

Did you travel with our friends upstairs? No, I didn't. Ah,

I see.

Well,

I am a tired old hound,

and I believe that you should have your fill of stew.

Gwen, you see, she goes to the corner and Gwen sort of peeks out from the kitchen again.

She says, When our guests are done with their stew, see that these bowls are well washed, put away, not left out. I think your business should remain your own, don't you? Very much.

Yeah, thank you very much for your time. This was a mistake.
We'll enjoy our stew, may I please?

And

well, go ahead. You see that she look turns and says,

Uh, my business brings me to Sloke

on the morrow as well.

It seems that you will be

perhaps searching for your friend Sid in that direction.

Do you have anything of his on you?

You got that fucking fur.

Fur.

From the brook, from the little glade, and the doctor. Stressed fur, man.
Stressed fur.

Although, wait, it was that you made a lie. It was a lie.

Stressed fur was fake.

That was covering for your friend.

We all couldn't believe it. If I did have anything of Sid's from before,

while she's thinking, his babe, you're like,

this soup looks fantastic.

You, um,

you know of the new Baron,

rather, we don't.

He's a bad guy.

Does the

what do you mean?

He, um, he breaks his word.

An oathbreaker.

Bearer of false witness.

Not a fine quality in anybody, let alone someone

granted leave by the king to administer his justice.

Rumor has reached here in Timony that the new Lord Sloke

may be a criminal from further south.

Do you know if this is true?

I believe he's traveling with Crows.

Crows.

Very well.

You see, she smiles and says,

So

Baron Gavondale

has quite ascended his station

and he meets with servants of the house to Conus tomorrow.

I hope that you find your friend Sid in due time.

I would ask you to remember

that hounds travel freely throughout Timani and it would not be unusual for a dog to come and go should you see me again.

Thank you. Thank you for your discretion.
I will do my best to match it.

Actually, do you have like a bag? Put some of the stew, because I know he's gonna want some of the stew.

I'm actually

so

I do not know if that's a good dog or a bad dog and as we walk outside of the tavern I'm just going to empty the two bowls of stew into the grass. Oh, you don't trust the stew? I don't trust the stew.

Alright. And I'll put those bowls, I'll just leave the bowls by the things.
Like, we need to go.

Alright.

Um,

you guys, as you walk out, you see that

Morgan

steps to the door again and just goes...

Should you come across Hawkins?

He is bold,

but

he will not harm you without first trading words. I would ask...

If anything untoward were to happen, that you give him the benefit of conversation, even if he were to

act act rashly.

You see that she turns around and walks back into the tavern.

I liked her.

I know, I liked it too, but.

I feel like I got good vibes from her.

We should let the

others know, though, that we probably are a bit compromised. What did you see upstairs? There, but that was

somebody from the house of Serami. What? Yeah!

What? I know. Oh, you don't know what that? Do you know what that is? That's why I said what twice.
Oh,

they're under the house to Conus. Oh, oh, that's not good.
No. All right.
Let's wake up the apple cart. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

You guys go to the apple cart. I'm up and I'm on Teora's chest this time.

You can't fucking move. You can't fucking move.
Don't move, don't move. Lay up there like that.
You're awake. You're the stiffest fucking fur cart that ever.

Oh, good morning.

It is you beating, kneading biscuits this time.

Hell yes.

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Uh,

you guys,

uh,

as the next next

day comes,

you all

sort of, I think, arise in the early morning light.

Is there anything you guys do before heading out? Yeah, I just want to say, you noticed that

the CC was

actively trying to

get rid of this king, Gus, right? Yes, of course. How could you miss it? So, um,

I feel like we might not have a lot of allies if we talk to friends of King Gus. How do you feel about that? I agree.
It's so difficult to know who's in a friend or foe as we travel around.

I feel like we're finding out pretty quickly.

Yes.

Maybe we'll keep a lid on the Creed for now until we get to the next town. Keep a lid on it.
You got it. How are you doing, by the way? I'm great.
You don't miss your sisters or whatever?

Miss my sisters? I don't know. No, I don't miss my sisters.
Oh.

Do miss that bed a little bit. I do.
Do miss that big bathtub. I think I'm allergic to hay or something because I've got this.
Yeah, he's kind of wheezing about it.

Yes, I think.

I don't like this at all. It's okay.

I'll follow your lead. Okay.

Heading out in your own morning light, it begins to rain in earnest, and you get a good... Sloak is a small barony.

this place unlike the places you were coming from clings to the side of these massive dwarven mountains you see in the distance these are the Kovrosi mountains these are the same mountains that lead down to Dolmaker eventually dramatic craggy tall mountains and you see Sloke is a number of like

ridges and ledges and cliffs and sort of like there's a lot of farms where it's like a it's like god you're growing you're trying to grow potatoes on like a 60-degree angle scrap of dirt, some sort of little withered trees because there's not enough, like, sun, they only get like half a day's sunlight because of how tall the mountains are.

And you see that, like, coming through here, um,

you see

the town sharing the same name as the barony itself. There's a couple of little hovels around.

There is what looks like a quite like large stone bridge that looks like it's partially being built to cross a creek that actually leads out to some the only kind of green it's like gray and and wet everywhere it's a little bit of green over this creek and it looks like There's a stone bridge being built down there

And then there's the small town like tavern blacksmith shop two or three little huts or houses and then up on a hill you see Castle sloke

castle sloke is smaller than some of the houses in hal's neighborhood of dolmakjar wow it is a partially

one of the walls is fully crumbled in

uh

and you see that there are a couple little pennants like fluttering over otherwise like this decrepit thing.

It looks like there's a little bit of smoke coming out into the rain from one of the towers. Another tower, you see, the stones have like thick moss growing on them.
There's rubble.

It's just disarray here. You, again, look

at

this

castle and the like villages it can draw from. You look at like the lands of the keep of the Lord of Sloke.
And it's like, well, half your land is vertical, right? Half your land is

half your land is vertical. And

you just just look and see this tiny little spit of all of the peasants here.

To tax these serfs, you would need them to make more food than what they need to barely survive.

And

it looks like a tough road-hoe here.

You see the caravan, you guys are moving sort of by a byway. You see a small group flying Saramai and Taconis flags, like coming up a different way from you, headed towards Castle Sloke.
Are they

converging towards where you guys are going?

Go ahead.

I don't know, do we?

Go ahead, anyone that wants to give me a

perception check.

Yep.

Wait, do we want to pick up speed or do we want to sort of surreptitiously spy on their meeting?

I mean, I don't know.

It depends on if that if they have the package we're looking for. And are we maneuvering sort of through this town slowly? Are we in are we in town? Totally up to you.

This is just this is the first at the first vantage point by which you can see it. This is what you see.
So you still have plenty of distance, lots of cover.

There's some other like cops and trees and places like that around.

What's your family's relation to the house of Taconis? Enemies? Boy, I don't know what my family's about.

You don't know? I mean, I do. They don't like the Tirconis, but it feels like I don't really know what my family is about anymore.

We're rebelling in this land and we're... Is this the type of thing where nobility is, on the surface, kind to each other, or will they draw blood in the streets?

I would assume that we would be cordial to each other. However,

I don't know anything anymore. Everyone's behaving like heathens out here.
Everyone should be kinder to each other, not raising arms against this King Gus, who seems like a nice

Could you send Wolfrick to go get more eyes on?

Yeah,

I could.

Imagine selling your soul for this shit all.

If you need me to, I could just walk up and

I don't think anybody that works for the king is gonna like you very much since your family is

growing a rebellion.

Very good point.

So I'll also you suck

My family sucks here.

I think she still takes a little bit of umbrage with your um

texts.

Yes, because it sort of

casts her in a dim light. Yes.
I was actively trying to change that sort of policy, but anyway, let's focus on the task at hand. Yeah, as we're writing, can we.

the converging party waiting for Wolfrick to make some contact to report back if it's like four on horse six two carriages whatever it is

what's the distance where we are from the castle in the distance

up here that's high enough altitude basically you're on a ridge the ridge goes right down to the town and you've got some nice distance but even with that you could throw a rock and hit the town because of how high up right like so it's right down beneath you're in it right you go down this hill you're in the town you go up the next hill.

That's the castle right there. So you're probably,

honestly, even with the safe cover, you're like a few rounds of like movement away from the castle.

You could close. And there's a lot of, there's structures, there's some trees around, stuff like that.

So you have some cover to move. where you need to move.
In the city.

In the town and even getting around the ridge. You could stay at this altitude and kind of move around to get over to that castle if you wanted to.

You see that the and the castle, by the way, again, it is

one keep, which is probably one room, like a hall, two towers, one of which has collapsed. That's it.
Wow.

Down there in the town, too, you see it's like mud and you see that there are some, the only place that has a little bit of flat to it, you see are these like eternal puddles.

So you can't even grow anything in here. There's just like these big, deep puddles in the one level part of the town.

What do you want to do? What's up?

And just as a question, are there any... Is there any bird in the sky?

Give me a perception check.

It doesn't die. My hood's in my face.

If there is something there, you can't see it, and probably it can't see you. Driving rain right now.
I'm going to...

fly down and land on your shoulder and just kind of like bury myself in your mane a little bit so that I'm not as noticeable because I feel like yeah,

are we sneaking up to the

castle? I think we're waiting to hear from Wolfrick that we should does it oh go ahead. I was gonna say yeah, are you sending Wolfrick out? Yeah, we yeah at his suggestion we sent him out.

Give me stealth from Wolfrick. Stealth from Wolfrick.

Oh, I just put in the stats too.

I can also use that egg

maybe for discussion

for stealth. Yeah, it's stealth.
It creates a fog, doesn't it? Or it does the same thing. I heard it's not.

I wrote down unseen.

I wrote down stealthy egg. I did too.

15 on stealth.

15 on stealth for Wolfrick. Cool.

Give me. Not great.
Give me survival for Wolfrick. Oh, boy.

Alright.

I don't want that one. No!

Oh, boy. Oh, well, I rolled a 17.
But what do I add? I fucked that part up. This is so hard.
Doing characters!

Survival.

What would his check be for?

Survival is a wisdom. It's a wisdom.
So just plus two?

Okay.

Oh, so I rolled 17, 19.

90 for survival. Wolfrick heads out.
I'll actually say too, by the way, that the rain right now is going to grant everybody advantage on stealth.

So go ahead and you can actually roll again and take the higher of the two for his stealth roll. Oh,

Way worse.

That was a four. Great, great, great.
Plus, plus two, six.

Wolfrick heads out. Are you going to wait for him to come back or no?

Boy, if you don't see through his eyes, that doesn't work. No, no, he's.
I am just a man, and he is just a dog.

He's out sniffing around, sort of working toward back the stuff. So, yeah, I don't see through his eyes or nothing.
Then maybe we move forward unless he howls or something. Yeah,

I would think we would want to be moving through town. And it's small, right? From our vantage, but we're going to seeing everything for the most part.
Yeah.

Can I ask a question about the space while waiting for Wilfrid to come back? Is there seem like a place, you said there's one collapsed tower and one that still exists.

Does there look like a place that would be a prison or a holding cell or like something like that that would be connected to the keep? Or is it... Give me perception.
Okay. Oh, yeah.

And do we see carriages out that look like the Taconas and the ones we had seen? Oh, that's like coming

in the visions. In the visions, yes.

Yeah, go ahead and give me your perception. Perception, 13 plus 4, 17.

17.

You see the area that you think would probably have a cell, although, again, the size of this castle leads you to believe that there may not be an actual dungeon here. It may just be like,

here's the room you'd throw someone in, right?

You don't see any carriages here. Okay.

That's very telling. I don't even think he's in there.
If it's a piece of shit,

he might not be there at all, but he could be watching it.

Yeah, I think earlier when Taya and I shared that moment of disagreement, in Cadogan's mind, it was less about where to go and more about what to do when we got there.

And I'm sort of thinking about his brother as well.

Yeah,

but if they're both in the same central space, I would continue to work that way if the keep and the potential holding cell are in the same area, for sure.

And you can't see into the keep from the outside. So could carriages get no, there's no like wall around it.
You would see it. There's no like court-gated courtyard.

Yeah, there's no, there's no, there, like, there is a courtyard, but the courtyard's door is sort of like a wide kitchen door, you know, and then the, and then the carriage.

So you see, what you see are some horses.

Like the, the, the Taconis procession does not have any cares with it. It's horses.
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Looks like.

I think Wolfrick returns at this point

and

growls and nods to you that at least one of your quarries is nearby.

I feel fresh. Are you talking about a scrap?

With Kaz? Hmm? With Kaz.

What are we here? Can we ambush?

You could try. Okay.

Let's not try to hurt anybody. I could just go.
I could go and just sort of get their attention while you sort of sneak in and see

what's in the

carriage. They're in a carriage, right? Kind of a good idea.
We could go distract while you guys do the

on the road or once they're in the village or once they're at the castle. What if Sid was at the.

What if they were me what if Sid was there last night?

No. You're not gonna read my poker face.
I'll tell you that right now. I'll tell you that for free.
Look at that sweet face. I'll tell you that for free.

He's the nicest. Nice try.
Can't knock the hustle.

What if Sid was nailed? Are you guys talking about an ambush on the road? Or an ambush?

Because I'm talking about the road.

Well, we don't know if it's Casimir or Sid,

and if we're trying to take...

I mean, I think the approach is the same for either either of them. Casimir, maybe ask questions or just his head.
Sid, we want him back.

Either way, ambush on the road, ambush in the village with some buildings for cover, or we're making a play at the castle, but the castle would likely have reinforcements and maybe the village would too.

So we hit him before we get in.

As you guys measure these options,

I think I'll say two things. Number one, it's possible with the you have an aid in the rain right now in that

dangerous distances have been closed. The rain's gonna cloak a lot for you.

So, if you wanted to get closer, if you want to try to find out what's going on, you do have some cover that may change depending on the weather.

Number two, if there's any skill checks you want in terms of what your soldiers' instincts are telling you about safety or reliability, like if you want to gather any more information, whether tactical, like actually investigating and surveying the land, or

even an insight check, just to be like, let me get a bead on how this feels.

Feel absolutely free to do so, depending on the information you want. But I think, as Teor is speaking, you do have these options here.
Like,

and you look and see where the Chiconis are coming up, that procession, even at top speed, you'd get there at the same time. So, you don't think that you're going to be able to clip

before they get there.

And then the convergence point is before the village or at the village or the castle. The castle.
And they are riding riding below us or above us?

Below you. You can see they're on the other side of the town riding up this winding road.
They're going to throw some rocks and slow down their procession.

You could throw some rocks at them.

Oh, I meant

to block the road a little bit. Oh, block the road a little bit.
They're on the other side of the village from you. Yeah,

not a shared road.

So we're either going to meet them there.

So caution might help us now because

we're not going to cut them off.

I'd like to cast a disguised self. Cool.

And just look like a little peon. Great.

You look like a little Timini serf.

Lovely.

Intel always helps. So maybe we get closer and see who's...

Just get as close as we can. And also

we probably need to see who's in the village. Right.
Is it commoners? Is it staffed with knights? Is it...

Can I kind of fly out and scout ahead and kind of get an insight into what it is that we're stepping into? Hell yeah.

And again, as like the party's rogue, you are more than welcome to peel off and try to like go somewhere unseen. And again, like Thimble, as you take off,

40 feet out, she's gone. The rain just, you know, like, um, uh, so anyone who wants to, tell me where you want to travel in the village here.
Any

investigation or checks you want to do when you get there. Thimble, we'll start with you.

Where do you want to fly to? Do you want to fly to the castle? Do Do you want to fly to the village? Do you want to fly, where do you want to investigate? I guess I want to fly to the castle.

Hell yeah. Give me stealth with advantage.
Before you go off,

oh, up to three creatures. Why don't I just grant us a little bit of extra

oomph for the fight ahead if this is to be a fight? So I will cast aid

up to three creatures. Of course, you.

Who is weak? Not you, not you.

I don't mean to offend, but could you use some extra fortitude?

Sure.

Alright, I'll give you an extra five hit points and myself.

Great. Five temp HP.

Of course. I'm hoping

that. Five temp HP.

This is a what is this? Stealth.

That's a 27.

Yeah, Fimbel is off in the rain, and you realize, like, the...

And believe me, like, Wolfrick is, Wolfrick comes back being like we're on the right path but then in terms of scouting the four inch tall flying woman is a great call to

head off and be gone. I guess she will find us and not the other way around

for the rest of you are you you have this disguise on are any of you headed elsewhere are you staying put

just to talk it out the village could also be a fucking death trap so we could just go around it entirely and go like you said I don't think the village has anything to do with this.

We're gonna meet these people at the gate of the castle, right? That's where the action is gonna be. The guards are waiting and stuff.
It's just a sleepy village.

And geographically, is the village between us and the castle? Yes.

He said they're simple folk.

Well,

simple folk can be dangerous, too.

I could stop the caravan with just some

gestures and waves, and my status, of course, and you guys could sneak up and and

at the castle. In front of it, perhaps?

Are you prepared to use this and I'll pull out that little dagger I had and hand him hilt forward up close and

vibrantly?

Perhaps not.

Get in the right mindset here.

I mean, it wouldn't be a bad thing if you are trying to sneak up on them to have a distraction.

We could we could do that. You are good at

being disruptive.

Yes, thank you.

I don't love it, but the chance of a little bit more information before we go in swinging. Good night.
Yeah, we also have no fast way out either. So

I mean, I'm okay with using that for bait if you are. Yeah, sounds good.
I'm sorry, bait.

No, no. We bet.
We bet. Yes, you will be a great aid in the fight, okay?

Are you guys staying put or are you guys moving in the direction?

Move through the village towards the

and if you're going in if you're going in as Wick, I undisguise myself. No, no, no, stay put because I don't know what the plan is.

Maybe you're going in.

Okay.

Put it back up. Put it back on.

Go ahead and give me the four of you. Give me perception checks as you move through the village.
Tell me what you're keeping an eye peeled for. Hmm.

Oh, this is

not perception, yeah.

Dooty poo-poo. That's correct.
13. 13.
13 as well? 13. 14.
14. 8.
8.

Rain driving in all directions. What are you guys keeping an eye peeled for? Banners, armor, stationery, sentries, things like that.
Food.

You see nothing stationed in the town.

The little hamlet of Sloke is a sad little place.

And there's nothing flying down here that has not been

soaked with rain and hanging under the gray clouds. No food in sight.

Every town, it's a murmur.

Tyranny, what do you keep in an IP?

I'm trying to see if there's a good vantage point to

spy and hear what they're going to be talking about before we...

You see that there is hardly the friendly little way station by the dog shrine, but there is a house in the middle of the village that you recognize as a public house. This is a place.

this is a place,

you can't call it a tavern. This is someone's house who has opened their house to the community to come drink and be in the front room.
Like,

this is, there's no tourism in Sloke.

So, but you recognize that this is a small little public house here

that right now has a few people in it who are drinking in a grave silence as they all seem aware that important people are going up the road to the castle. Cadogan, what are you giving an ideal top?

I think I'm looking for

any sort of like elevated garrison, like anyone that's

any potential of archers,

any sort of

threat beyond whatever's on the ground. Cool.

Looking around, nothing in the village prompts you guys.

So you are moving to to the village and realizing that you are going to go unchallenged but will be at the base of that road going up to the castle. And we're gonna move over to Thimble.

Uh 27 stealth, your ghost.

Castle walls mean nothing to you.

Up on top of a parapet that

looks like nobody can even reach because the stairs have crumbled inside the tower. So the top of the tower is effectively only reachable by you and crows.

You look down into the courtyard

just as the caravan is about to pull up.

You see there in the courtyard surrounded by six knights and a number of men-at-arms.

And what looks like two crow keepers that are massaging their chins to just straight up don't knock your rose. You can even kind of recognize them by their faces.

You see, in a broad-mantled, freshly made black cloak, black crow feathers, stalking,

kicking these loose, moss-covered rocks back and forth, just soaking under the rain, is Casimir Gavendale.

You see,

I hold the T on my waist and just glare at him.

On foot? On foot? On foot.

Six nights.

Six.

Six knights. Six days.
And seven nights. Yeah.

There are six knights here. There are about eight men-at-arms and three of these crow keepers in addition to

Casimir.

Entering the space, riding up and dismounting and entering into the courtyard,

you see

a number of

much

better dressed, well-adorned

knights of House Saramai or Knights of House Taconis. There's one clearly lord of House Saramai who has that shield you saw.
He looks extremely, he looks about six foot nine,

broad-shouldered.

You see that he has a spear with a pennant of his house strapped to his back, sword at his side, has the shield on his arm. He looks around smiling.

You see see, as he does,

he licks his teeth, and you can see, it's sort of swear almost that there's something luminous in his mouth, something like casting light.

In front of him, you see that there are two other figures, one of whom

you recognize as a cousin of the house Taconis.

This is

the Lord Docet Taconis

who walks forward and you see Casimir Gavondale wheels around

looking at him and his older sister. You see his older sister black silver finery.
You see she carries no weapon at all.

You see that her face looks gaunt.

You see that she has a tattooed face that she has teeth tattooed on the outside of her lips.

This is whose sister?

This is Dosett's sister. These are cousins of the Takota's family that share a name.
So these are not Octas's siblings. These are Octas's cousins.
We don't know her name.

If you were friends with Octus,

you would know her by the description.

She has the teeth tattooed on top of her lips to make her, and she has these two dark tattoos on either either side of her nose to make the bottom half of her face look like a skull. Sick.

She,

this is the lady Univere Taconis.

Do I know her as a bitch or a nice lady?

I'll give you a wild guess. I'll give you a wild guess.

She's so nice to her skull face.

Univir. Univir.

But you see, she carries no weapon, gloved hand. Is she magic, though?

She's just a pacifist.

She has great hand care routines. Um, uh, you walk

as you're standing there looking down, you see that Casimir turns around and says, About fucking time, idiot! I'm standing here in a fucking heap of rubble.

You sent me the arse into Timothy,

you fucking crooks,

liars!

I gave you Theozi Fang on a fucking plate!

You see, uh,

Doset,

who has a thin rapier at his side, steps up and produces

a scroll. It says,

For the second time in a week, Mr. Gavondale,

Lord Gavondale,

the title to Castle Sloak. And you see he hands the thing Sid stole.
He runs with Sid! Oh, fuck me running!

That hurts so bad!

You see,

you see that?

You see that,

you see that Casimir takes the title. We lose DD, we lost.

We lost D and D.

We've got the job on him.

Nothing can go wrong. You see, Casimir looks at it and says, Where is he?

Where's the lion?

I want him hanged down in that fucking. You couldn't even call it a village.
What is that?

I want him hanged. My first act as Lord Slope is him dead.
And you see that Lord Joseph says,

Information has come to the attention of Hastifurnis. Talcidimir is no more concern of yours.

You see that Casimir says,

stole my deed? Almost slit my throat in that fucking tavern in Dolmatya? No concern of mine?

How are these people to know that I am not to be trifled with if I am stolen from and there is no justice done? You see the docet says

This is the third time you've raised your voice to me. I understand that you are disappointed with the generosity of House Tuconas.
Given that you are

mud,

I would take it a kindness to have any castle at all.

See, there's a uh

uh you see that uh there's a pause. Casimir says, What fucking castle? Only important for castles you can't get in, and the fucking walls fall in there.

Perhaps you should levy some taxes and see to it that it's repaired.

As

the widower of the dear old lady Sloke,

I can tell you that the repair of the castle ever dwelt on her mind for every day of our very short marriage. You see

that

Casimir says,

I gave you Theazi.

I've watched him fucking die. I served with him.

He was fucking.

He used to mean something

and you

are clean from you and it was supposed to change everything.

And you see he says and it still can if you're a man of resource Casimir I assume you are

you see that he looks and says I watched him

I watched him look up

Saw the terror in his face And he saw that fucking falcon.

He always believed and you see that uh Unive hasn't spoken, whips her head over and says, Falcon.

He saw a Falcon.

Do you speak poetically?

Answer me quickly. And you see Casmir says, who the fuck?

And you see that he is raised off the ground. You don't see any movement on Univere's part.
And then he suddenly drops. And she says, answer me now or die.
And he goes, it's a real falcon.

He just saw a real falcon. It was the last thing he saw before he died.

You see that Univir turns to look at Doset.

He raises an eyebrow to her.

She says,

I need to go.

And Doset turns around and says, It's a pleasure doing business with you, Lord Sloak. And you see that Casimir gets up and just hucks a rock in their direction, misses, just says, fuck you!

Fuck you!

If people do things for you, why would you reward them? You see that Doset looks over at Sir, the Knight of House Saramai, and you see he goes,

you've raised your voice. That was bad enough.
And now you've struck out. Teach him a lesson.
And you see that the knight walks over,

grabs Casimir, throws him on the ground, pulls his pants down, and takes out a sword, and literally just with the flat of the blade, rains blows down on Casimir Gavondale.

It's still a sharpened sword. So yes, his ass is bleeding.
He just spanks him with a sword

in front of all of his men. Even with the flat, it still ends up cutting

and kicks him hard in the head on the way up.

And you see that he stands up and you see that the knight of House Saramai looks at these other six knights.

Who you can see this, the knights that that were with Casimir, armor's not looking that great,

sort of piecemeal,

just looks at all of them and goes,

bow to your lord.

He is worthy of your respect. He is your better.

As Casimir just sort of whimpers on the ground with a bleeding ass exposed to the rain.

Can we see the face of this knight? Is he wearing a helm? Is he no? His helm is back on his horse.

And you see that they he puts his sword away and the envoys at House Taconis,

having delivered this title, begin to get on their horses and ride out.

You see that some of the knights in the rain look over at each other, sort of stunned. As Taconis starts to ride away, you see one of them goes over to Casimir to like give him a hand up.

He says, get your fucking hand up! Get your fucking hand up! Like gets up and

pulls his pants up.

You go out in that village, you drag everybody out of their homes

with a double the Texas. What are you looking at?

Um, and just fucking yells at one of the men-at-arms as these silent knights all just stand in the rain, their hair starting to slick to their face as he thuds off in his boots into one of the mouldering halls of this castle.

It looks like two other knights are following him. Okay, I'm gonna fly down and try to find

Because you are flying you get down to your friends in the village as the envoy is like beginning to head down the road so you guys can see an on it was like the envoy got there

There for a few minutes and left Fimble as you guys are heading up the road you get down here. I'm gonna need a group stealth check from all of you guys down in the village

now still at advantage because of the rain

but Sid

we don't know where Sid is we need the envoy with us yeah Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

You said stealth. And with advantage because of the rain.

Oh, with advantage. With advantage? Yes.
With advantage, sir. Because of the rain.
Oh, yeah. Natural 20.
Woo!

24.

There it is. 24 is it.
24, hell yeah. 21.
21. You guys are solid.
Thimble, you get down there in time.

This envoy is coming down.

There's about 12 horses coming down. And like 12 horses, 12 riders.

With that stealth, you guys hug behind the wall of one of the last structures out there. I think you're pretty close to this bridge that they're working on in the town.

And

Thimble, you get your friends. You're there with all of them.
I tell him everything that I saw.

He's alone. He's alone.
Well, he's got a couple of shithead nights with him. We could take him out.
I have an idea.

I have an idea. You said that he was being really emasculated back there, right? Okay, I'm going to disguise self again.
Still a peon. Huge tits this time.

Gorgeous 12 out of 10 red-hair nurse. Why?

Nice.

Because his ass is bleeding. Oh, yeah.
Okay. But we're not going after Casimir now.
We're not? When we asked you before we said here, my brother is potentially back at the tavern where we were.

He could move. We would lose him.
I thought you guys wanted to strike Casimir as well. That's what you specifically said.
Of course, but we know he's here now. He is stuck in this shithole.

My brother is going to be moving. You said he could be at the tavern where we were last night.

Where you two were inside. All right, all right.

yes

i don't i can't i can't look at that

and they're actively sort of passing by us in uh no they've got they've got like a few minutes coming down the road before they get to the town did did we see and sid is nowhere to be seen in there there was no carriage

so you didn't see you didn't see a prisoner you didn't see anyone like manacled up on a horse there you sort of have no carriage there's no no carriage just 12 riders

uh how many of them are there i mean he could be at that tavern we don't know that he was there. They at least know where he is.
Yeah.

Yeah, but they're Taconis. They were the ones who wanted to kill Diazi anyway.
Sure. We can't talk to them like they're buddies.
I disguise myself again as Octus Taconis. I can't.

Just so they didn't know. Oh, they hate him.

Do they?

Octus was always an outsider in his family. That's the only reason

he was on our side.

Would they really

not talk to one of their own?

I

don't think they ever wanted to with Octus. It was the three in the Taconis party, right? How about the party? Lord Dosent, the Octus' Lady Univir Taconis in the night.
Yeah, in the night, yeah.

We're in on this. Big three, though.

That's a big three. Do they have a company? And the nine others mount.
I was gonna say that was my question. Did they have got others accompanying me? Okay.
Maybe they will talk to you. That's true.

Your family is in on this. Right? Didn't we collaborate on this? Yeah.

Yeah.

What are we trying to learn from them? Finding out where Sid is.

You can't follow them. Listen, I see two options.
Either I stay as this big titty honking nurse and I try to get Casimir alone and find out what he knows or lead you guys to kill him or

this guy talks to the to the Taconises and it plays big bad guy. I'll support what you want to her.
Or we just follow them

from the shadows and see where they go. Well sure.

I can't believe I'm agreeing with you, but when you're hunting and you choice make the choice to step out of a blind, quarry knows you're there and you most always lose them.

If we want information about your brother,

we either follow or we stay here. Again, I'm sorry, it's up to you.

Because she told us that that

he is not not gonna know they just said you don't have to worry about

that would just make us feel better though. It doesn't bring us to whoever was

a whole lot better.

Yes, it would. He may have some information about who specifically he's collaborated with.
Maybe not locations, but names, places. I can't believe Sid was in a tavern.
One more tactical question.

This group, are they riding two up, one up? Is there a man back?

Two by two. So it's six horses long.
Oh, no. That's rough.
That's rough. Yeah, it would be talking at the very least and not with anybody.

My idea would be try to pick somebody off the back, but not if they're two up. Are they heading back the same direction they came or are they heading does it look like they're heading towards

Sloak leads to nowhere. They have come to Sloak to give this deed of title.
It looks like this was the thing Sid stole and it looks like it wasn't. Cass doesn't have people.

Cass's people are the other three small-time thieves in that rainy courtyard.

So in other words, it was always going to be Taconis that picked him up, right? It was going to be a house with resources that got him in a carriage somewhere.

And it looks like they were just continuing.

What he said, which was for the second time in a week, meaning we gave this to you in Dolmakyar, you lost it. It got stolen by Sid.
We picked him up again. Here's the title again.

So in other words, it looks like the whole reason this envoy came here was just to give this deed of title back to fulfill their bargain.

I wish we could plan something on like their caravan so we could track them later and know where they went. But listen, Kaz was the one that wanted to kill your brother.

Maybe he might be alright with them for the time being.

It's not for sure they're trying to kill him right away, like Kaz wanted to.

There is something that was

plant on their

little

party. What?

What do you have? Thimble.

Yeah, but I want to kill Cas.

Oh.

The book. I mean, wanting to murder isn't really a good...

What does it matter? I'm a f fixy anyway. I don't count.

Why don't we decide first in order of operations?

Are we looking for said? Are we finding information? Are we killing this guy?

I'm still a sexy nurse. We can go in.
We could use a distraction. We could get to Casimir.
we could get everything out of him that he possibly knows. Plus some horses from

his console. And we could get your vengeance.

And we could go after my brother. We're here.
And that is a big-ass caravan with some super powerful.

We can sneak in. I'm sure I can find a...

a gap in their defenses.

It's missing a whole fucking wall.

Yeah, maybe we can... If they're not gonna pass right by us, then maybe we can approach the castle and go get Kazner.

Because we don't even know if he's at the tavern. That's the thing.
We can't turn around and not... He could be anywhere else.

Poker face.

They had the deed, but he could be on a horse or a carriage in a completely different direction and they just went to go.

He could be with Dame Morgane. She might have taken him away.

And remember, yeah, Dame Morgan said, like, the

I think you also remember right now, I think, as you say that, that Dame Morgane said that she had business in Sloke today.

Oh, right. She's going to be here, too.

Yeah.

Let's do it. Let's stay.
Let's see it through. Sorry, I had a little freak out there.

All right.

We're just gonna waltz in there or

we're going in daggers only.

I don't have it. I don't.
Okay, I don't see it. What if you guys go in the front, you're the nurse, and we sneak in the back? Do you want to sneak in or do you want to hide in here?

In the titties?

Or... You can have the rainbow egg.
Thank you. You and titties.
And rainbow egg are certainly a great distraction at the front. It'll be a party in the back.

Plan mullet.

Great.

Like you're just gonna walk in as a

hang back. All right.

Keep to the shop. As a make-good, as a leave-behind from house to conus.

Just throwing it out there as an alternative to this.

As I'm jerging my big buffon. I can't.

I can't. I shouldn't.
No, you're fine.

No, no, go.

You do your thing.

They've got to be like clip-clapping past us at this point, right? Like, yes, I think you see them. We're talking at 2.5 speed.
They're

That caravan is headed out. You actually see another group is starting to head out from Castle Sloke, which looks like...
Those are all the knights. Yeah, it looks like two of the knights

and like three or four other guys are coming out. One of them is like a crow, crow-cloaked guy, are beginning to ride down.
Thimble, you remember Casimir

saying, go down in the village, and you know. Yeah.
Yeah. So you see a group of people coming down to the village now.
They're going to hurt the villagers.

Kazimir first.

Yeah.

I lead.

Are you coming in here or are you gonna go with them find a route? Yeah, we're gonna go wide and you're gonna okay. Do you you're gonna go in by yourself?

You're not gonna go with her as like a healer?

Uh can you do you have any disguises? I have a cloak. I have a cloak? Your fucking face lights up, right? It's four, but what's that gonna look like?

What's what i mean even if you have a cloak and you look up you've got like filament cheeks right oh they're not always on oh they're just sort of

they're not always on okay okay

um i could be in a cloak i could be your bodyguard or something what

why are you even a nurse

because his ass is wet because his ass is bleeding you're with the creed she's gonna go heal him and you're with the creed sure we're going on behalf of the creed sure sure

okay great i can work with that okay i am i i'm gonna going to

create that great outreach program.

Really, really great. Okay, then, in fact, I

hit disguise self when we're done.

And I am wearing like a cleric, still still same sexy nurse, okay?

But now wearing... Clerical, we're caught.
Now candescent style.

All right, we're associates. Sure.
And Thimble, Caddigan, and Tayora will work. around the edges.

Cool. So only you guys are going up the road together.
So you guys begin to head up the road while the rest of you guys get out into the wilderness.

As you guys head up the road,

you look

and see

riding down, you see that one of the knights. Go ahead and actually give me an insight to check.

Carc!

9, 12.

Lovely.

You see that towards the front, uh, one of the men with the crow cloak looks out and goes,

hi,

what are you doing? And they ask yourselves.

We are emissaries from the House Halavar.

What?

Uh-oh.

And who may you be?

Don't you raise your tongue to me!

I'm Sir Gully Breeches.

Yes, you are.

Sir Gully Breeches.

I'm a knot at his lordship, the Baron Slow boy.

Oh boy. We were here.
Sir Breaches, yes. We're here to because a healer was

a lot of fun.

And

we're here

because

sir Cazimia requires some

assistance for his body.

Give me persuasion with disadvantage.

A feeling for the actual side.

I say a silent prayer for her, and I'll nullify that disadvantage. Okay,

so don't roll it yet. Don't roll it yet, Whitney.

You're gonna roll a straight die. This will be your roll.
You're nullifying disadvantage. The DC for this is going to be 25.

Can I?

So high. Easy.
Easy.

12.

You see, he looks at you and says,

help

the Lord.

The Lord Sloke, because you don't use his first name.

Oh.

I'm so sorry. We're not from here.
We're just doctors.

We're just doctors.

And tell me, what what have you come here as a doctor to help with? Well, we were passing through, and then we saw that he was injured. And being the good...

you saw that Lord Kazimier was injured we saw arrest him

uh swords get drawn

scream really loud

how many people are in front of us you've got two

you've got two knights four men at arms and this dude Sir Gully Breeches

can I as a last-ditch effort are they all out on the road or are they in the castle and Sir Gully Breeches was out meeting them on the road? Or are you already there?

You guys were walking up the road together.

As a last-ditch effort, I'm going to cast Charm Person on Sir Gully.

Do you have a means of disguising that you are casting a spell?

You can give me a sleight of hand. Sure, I can.

A sleight of hand check.

That is an eight.

Okay.

As you move your hands like that, I'm going to need both of you to roll initiative

classic split the ball don't care

I got us eighteen

Is it too late for me to cast suggestions? Can I do that and come back?

Probably should have done that first

I forgot, but I had it

go ahead give me what each of you rolled wick what did you roll 18 18 Tierney? What did you roll? 10.

10. Great.

uh I am going to uh I'm going to so uh wick you are going to go first and uh you are going to um

uh you're going to act first and I'm going to need you to uh I believe you're casting charm person right now I had said that so yes great uh you're casting it on gully breaches here yes gully breaches great i believe we are engaged with him so he has advantage

Not yet. You guys have not done anything harmful yet.

So that's all okay.

Ba-ba-ba. Here we go.

He's going to make a wisdom save. He fails his wisdom saving throw.

So you are first to act on an 18. You cast charm person.

You feel the spell take effect, although people see you casting a spell.

And

what do you say at this moment? I say to him, we mean no harm at all. Please tell your friends that we come in peace.
We just want to talk.

You see in this moment,

before he can react, as you are in initiative order,

some other stuff is going to happen. Of course.

And we will wait. I want to wait until his turn for you to roll the persuasion.

I thought this was an airtight plan. Oh, yeah, yeah.

I mean, airtight. Yeah, shrink wrap.

Give me athletics.

Athletics save?

Athletics check. Just a check.

10.

Okay,

you are grappled by two of the guards who force your arms behind your back. I'm gonna

go to the two athletics checks from you, Tyranny.

Two. Two.

Seven. Well, plus

one.

Eight. And an eleven.

You are

likewise arms tossed behind you.

Grappled. Oh, no.

Tyranny.

Tyranny, that is going to be your turn.

Can I cast suggest?

You, I believe, actually can't.

Does suggestion have somatic or

just verbal components? Suggest the course of VM. VM? Great.
So even though your arms are behind you, you can still cast it. So, you can go ahead and cast a suggestion.

Who are you casting a suggestion on and what are you doing? I would like to cast a suggestion on Sir Gilly Breaches. Okay.

And say,

please! I mean it!

Oh, Paul, Judo! Roger Rabbit!

You're supposed to be Jessica Rabbit, not Roger Rabbit. Jesus!

No one's turned on my Roger Rabbit. It's not true,

not true. Jessica Rabbit was in the wrong forum.
I'd like to say, please, we

just

saw that there was an altercation and we're here. We have healing powers.
We just want to help.

None of this is necessary.

You cast a suggestion. You are not certain if it works.

Two of the knights each draw a sword and level it at each of your throats. Dwarf.
With ready to dwarf with ready to action.

I don't blame you.

It is now Gully Breach's turn. Gully Breach's turn.
It is now Gully's turn, baby.

We are going to roll the persuasion check. We are in another county.

We are going to roll the persuasion check to end all persuasion checks right now.

Sam, you're going to roll with advantage because he's charmed. Oh,

you're going to roll with advantage.

And because he's charmed, I'll go ahead and lower the difficulty from what it was, which was 30

to a friendly 25.

Well, that's a 19 plus 6.

For a 25!

Oh, my

fucking

God!

Oh my fucking

God! What's going on with your filament ass? It doesn't make any sense.

Or does it get the face? He's got the face!

I think, Sam. Oh, my.

I know we're in initiative, but technically no one's attacked anyone yet. Sam, this is a weird thing to say for a charmed person spell.
How do you want to do this?

I would like to say to Sir Gully.

Her eyes are up there, sir.

I would have you treat the woman with respect. This is a doctor.

You see, he looks, and as you say, this is a doctor, light flows out from the

house of Hale of our. You see, he goes,

What'd you say your name was?

What does that mean?

Oh, wick! You see, he looks over.

Gali whips around and turns over. You see that one of the knights sighs and says,

Brother Knight,

Halovar

of the house of Halovar, of the sundered houses. And you see, Gali goes,

my remuneration

I'm so sorry

yeah I'm not looking at it

welcome

welcome

Welcome to Castle Slow

I take it you travelled here with the envoys of House Taconis, which is also a sundered house, I know.

Every night knows.

You see, he says, says, I take it you also travelled with

the House Taconis, yes? Yes, all of us sundered houses are quite close.

Of course.

As the first knight of the Knightly House of breaches,

I welcome you to Castle Sloke.

By some

vision of the light, have you seen that yes, our lord has been badly hurt on the arse and legs?

Yes. He is a noble man,

and he will be treated as such.

Prolee

with discretion. Deep curtsy.
Yes.

Reverse course to Castle Sloke at once. And you see, he turns around, you're right at Castle Sloane.
Oh my God.

Immediately at Castle Sloke.

He goes over and says, You, Frankie, what's your name? Hugh, do it. And you see that this knight with a you see, there's a knight that has a badly rusted shield.
You see, he sighs deeply.

With With like he has some rain on his shield as like a crest, but the sigil is like largely rusted or faded. Rides back into the castle and says,

Madam,

how may I announce you? What is your name?

I'm Dr. Finger.

You see,

this man's badly hurting on a spiritual level, and he rides, he rides into the castle and goes

presenting

Lord Wikander Halovar

and

sorry, Doctor,

his companion,

Dr. Finger,

and

you

ride into Castle Sloke just as your companions reach the outer edge of the castle, hidden in the rain.

Thimble,

the other side. You hear a door open.

What the fuck is this?

My lord, the house of Halevar has heard of your need for a doctor. Please, avail yourself to the Baron of Sloak.

And you see that Casimir Casimir goes, Doctor Halevor,

the fuck is this?

Gully, send him away.

And you see, turns back around.

Inside the courtyard, all of you guys see Casimir Gavondale limping out here in the courtyard.

I would like a,

if I'd be so kind, a stealth check from the three of you with Advantage.

dirty 20 30 20 18 18 23 23 okay moving through the rain you guys are right outside the castle walls there's it you yeah the like you know the castle that has like the hard to access parapet so you're like hugging against that side means that getting in you're you're not it's like probably some movement to get to that front door from where you are right now.

Do you want to stay hidden in the wall wall where you know there's no chance of anyone being able to spot you? Or do you want to get closer to the front entrance where you are?

I don't want to be near the front entrance, right? I mean, like, if we get

if we can sneak in the wall, we can probably get closer to Kaz's room.

Yeah, potentially, yeah.

The play.

The distraction play was to get onto premises, right? To trick the knights. My question would be, now that they're announced, and even though we don't know, this is above table,

If he saw Wick,

is he prominent enough to know who this is? Like, isn't this like the deacon of the local church? Like, as soon as the jig up as soon as he sees Wick?

It doesn't seem like it. Okay.
It doesn't seem like Casimir has responded to. He was announced, Lord Wakander.
Oh, yeah, yeah, they announced him. So

you haven't seen anything like that. Inside the court, as you guys are listening

to Wakander, you see that Breaches goes

my lord Baron please I I this man

he's a wielder of the line that he's of the candescent creed my lord you see that Casmir goes here I can tell I know who fucking Wakanda Halovar is what are you fucking doing out here in in in this part of the world we are

This

conspiracy runs much deeper than even you possibly knew, and uh

your friends at the Traconis family thought that it would be

um

beneficial to to have uh uh an ally in in my house.

Give me a deception check.

I get not as good

eleven

eleven

Eleven.

The frog has threw it. He meant to go.

Casimir

adds only a plus one to his insight.

I think it'd be fun to roll in front of the board.

Not a hard number to beat.

We're looking for a nine or lower, folks.

On a four.

Oh my god. On a four,

he looks at you and goes.

Finally.

A little fucking respect.

Fellas,

pour the wine for Lord Hale of Os. I don't drink actually, but we need to discuss about how we're gonna turn slow.
And you see, he grabs your lapel, pulls you towards him. His breath stinks.

You can tell he hasn't slept in days. He's on the razor's edge of sanity as he goes, we're gonna turn Sloke around.

And if people won't follow a brand new baron who's upjumped from a gutter criminal,

they'll follow the light, won't they?

And that's all for this episode.

And that's all for this episode of Critical Roll.

That's all for this episode of Critical Roll.

How about it? You guys got some big decisions to make. Yes, we sure do.

God.

We got to assess

some castle entrances, some ex-fil.

You have, what did I say? Six knights, eight men-at-arms, three crow keepers.

Yeah, but we just kill them in secret and then we sneak on. Just like that, easy peasy?

Get them alone. She's very calm.
I thought we were going to straight up die.

Not with those titties.

I can't believe Sid was at the tavern. You don't know them.
We don't know. We don't know.
We don't know. We don't know.
They could have sent him. I could have caught him first and sent him off.

Wait, are we out? Are we still out?

I thought Dame Morgan would have said something.

Oh, yes, because you did say Sid's name

to the Dame Morgane.

Well,

you've caught up with Casimir Gavendale, the bastard who betrayed the Ozzy Fang. He's a real guy.
He's a real bad guy. He's a bad bad guy.
And I'll say this, too.

Regardless of where Sid is, this is a man who just was going to send out half his forces to go grab all the villagers out of the rain and say double the taxes.

Casimir Gavendale, not a good man, and yet someone who once saved Theazzi Fang's life. Funny how time changes people.
And speaking of time, you can tune in next week.

Because after all, I'll ask the perennial question. Is it Thursday yet? Yeah!

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