WWW #44: To the Bone

This is the sound of worlds beyond number. A hazy horizon of light creeps into your mind. You are swimming up to the surface from a great depth. Shapes doubled come together, swimming back out of focus. Is this reality? No. It is the confusion of arriving at consciousness from deep and arcane slumber. The shapes that come to you do not come to you in the order of their importance or urgency, not their danger, nor their significance in the magic that now surrounds you. A sputtering tallow candle rendered from the fat of some dead animal. A boot pointed perpendicular to you in conversation with another boot, below itself. Robes in conversation with other robes. No. No. Two wizards, their faces still hazy and obscured. There's a pig looking up to the sky as if in prayer. No. No, not in prayer. A hook under its chin holds its dead carcass aloft. Ami, you can't move and you can't speak. You are in something like child's pose. Your knees together touching the ground, your palms on the ground. Your palms rest at the edge of a circle of salt that you realize has been drawn around you. You can't take your hands off the floor and you can't move your knees. Well, the ship will need to be back. Prince gave no orders concerning the witch and her spirit. But we'd better find another. Oh, so she's coming too. Good evening, witch of the world's heart. You may find yourself having trouble speaking, but that's all right. And you see the wizard keen ceases to move his mouth as you hear his thoughts in your mind. We can speak to each other more plainly here. Your words can come directly from the heart as opposed to having to trouble with speaking with that mouth of yours. You're left sealed, I think. And you can feel that there is a sour strip of parchment pressed between your lips that are just as sealed as if by the weight of a thousand stones as your palms are to the floor. Where's my fox? Your fox? Oh. And you see that there is a sack hanging from one of the hooks. He hasn't moved in a while, but the spell should have worn off by now. Perhaps he's sleeping. Inside check. 19 plus seven for 26. He is lying to you. I'll ask you again. What is happening to my fox? He looks at you. I'm able to physically meet his gaze. You are able to. You see that your the magic circle that has been put around you, which you recognize this is the thing they use to bind demons. Your palms may not move from the ground and you cannot move your fingers. Your knees and the tops of your feet likewise are rooted to the floor. So you basically have the choice to either rest sitting on your heels sort of prostrate in the middle of the circle, which is not altogether uncomfortable, but will become, you know, maddeningly uncomfortable over time. But you can move up sort of into a tabletop position. You could if you wanted to. But more importantly, you have the ability to crane your head up and meet his gaze directly. He is crouching at the outside of the circle to be about at your height. Well, you're certainly very perceptive. You see that he goes over, takes the sack off the hook. You see that something scurries inside of the sack and he wheels it over his head and against a butcher block and kills something in the sack, tosses it off to the side. I was planning to have a little bit more fun with that. Seems you're a little too perceptive. Yes, I think you'll find that I'm a little less easily rattled than the other prisoners you take, the other political prisoners, the other people, the other bait. You see that he looks at you and says, what is the coven of elders? It is a group of women who gather to make very important decisions. Hmm. Such a... Well, they decided to keep me as a member of their circle this time. But you didn't answer my question. Where is my fox and my friends? He snaps his finger and you see that one of the other two guild mages walks over and you see that the fox is hanging limp unconscious. One of the guild mages begins to draw a rune, has this sort of small silver decanter of salt begins to draw a glyph on the ground. Keen looks at you and says, which craft has been an object not of serious study for me? I don't think so. I really shouldn't think. I have a cursory knowledge, but in my estimation a cursory knowledge of which craft is sufficient to counteract it. For example, I'm given to believe that I cannot cause you nor your familiar direct harm. Is that correct? Without suffering some sort of consequence. That's what the legends say. I understand. Direct harm is such a fascinating concept. It seems very rooted in a kind of cultural understanding. I wonder if you wouldn't mind helping me with an experiment. You see one of the wizards takes a small perfume bottle, sprays it on the fox, who sneezes and begins to come to. As the other one finishes drawing a beautiful double bar, double floor deli, kind of like runic shape with a couple of dots and lines through it. It looks like a small sort of threshold rune. And you see that as that wizard finishes that the wizard Keen looks to the fox who's like groggy and coming to and says, animal, it's my understanding that you speak imperial. Your mistress before you is sealed in a magic circle. The magic of which is quite simple. The salt need only be disturbed to break the spell and you see the fox goes, duck you! And leaps forward as fast as possible, leaps over the threshold, and yips and begins to convulse and froth at the mouth in front of the rune. And you see that Keen looks at the twitching fox on the ground who is clearly writhing, his eyes bulging out of his head in pain. And you see that Keen sort of looks at the palms of his hands, looks at the back of them. Indirect harm doesn't seem to produce any meaningful results. Fascinating. I reach for the fox in my mind. Fox, fox. All you can hear are screams. As you hear the fox's screams redoubling over and over and over again in your head, I'm wishing you to make a wisdom saving throw. That's a two? A? A plus six? A root in eight? As you go to warg into the fox, or you go to connect with him and understand him, the pain that courses through your body is unlike anything you have ever felt as the greatest gift you have, which is your empathy and compassion. The ability to open a door to feel what another is feeling is taken ruthless advantage of by one of the most evil men you have ever seen because that door opens to this spell. As you convulse with a pain that you know is at any given second a moment away from killing you. The wizard Keen smiles. You notice for the first time that his lips are barely a different shade than the rest of his skin. And he says, that sort of vulnerability will no longer serve you now that you are mine. Ursulon, you and Vandal are perched up in an alleyway. At the far end, closer to the harbor, you there is a hitching post where the three horses are hitched up. Looking at the butcher shop, what is Ursulon doing and thinking in this moment? Ursulon stands, I think having raised his hood and is, I think even in examining himself struck by the sense of calm that comes over him. There is potential that this is a trap that the desire is for Ursulon to charge in and save his friend and thereby in fact endanger them. That Ursulon is able to kind of ground himself in and I think feeling that same white, clear sense of purpose from his chest down to his toes. He feels anchored as he leans against the wall of one of the buildings and watches. Give me a perception check with advantage. 21. Wagon wheels turning, hooves, people chatting, hurriedly and in hushed tones, a city burgeoning with soldiers, preparing in four days time to have the infantry arrive from Bracken. They are getting ready for the push south 25 miles from here to 12 Brooks. You are eight miles from enemy lines. This is the last big settlement before the forces of Gautamai. On that 21, underneath all of that, you hear a muffled scream. Vandal, I need you to locate the cellar door. Let me know if anyone is guarding it. Gone for a few minutes, comes back. Back behind this one but there's no alley. You have to sneak in through one of the other buildings to get back there into the courtyard. If no one's guarding it. Alright, let's move. Hell yes. You begin to move. Go ahead and give me stealth. With advantage? With advantage is you have your boots. Good boots. Good boots. 21 again. A shadow. You move through these streets, you're glamour up. You are powerful in a way that you were not before the conclave, before Halakor forest. You feel your breath within and around you. Your glamour has always been your ability to look human. But it's actually a more nuanced tool than that. It is an appearance of humanhood, but you can hold that breath in a way that encourages people, ever so softly, to notice you because you are beautiful beyond measure. To not notice you because you seem to be as though you were any man walking down the street and reaching into that energy of I'm any man. I am the man you would most expect to see here on the street corner. You move through shadow around and you do see that this is towards the city center, meaning there are sort of shops and sort of flats and townhomes above those shops. In a city block of buildings that you know has a courtyard in the center, but no alleyway connecting them. Meaning to get to that cellar door in the back, you would have to go through some other building or scale and climb over a three-story building. What does Ursulon do? Moving on what Vandal is reported, I think Ursulon is moving with the idea that he's going to go through whatever establishment. Hoping it's perhaps not a home, but some kind of shop. But whatever that is, I think currently the plan is not to scale anything. Give me investigation or you can give me a little persuasion if you like. I will give you persuasion. And Vandal will give you advantage on this job. Thank you. So this is what it's like having unfamiliar? You need a little guy? I'll get you a little guy. No. Seventeen. Okay. You get around the block and you see that there is a small cheese monger store. You see that there are some large wheels of cheese here. The place looks pretty sparse and you see is filled with actually a couple of aids to camp. There are imperial soldiers here that are buying out rations and supplies. There's an imperial wagon out in the front of people just rolling big wheels of cheese out. And it looks like a very happy. It looks like an older woman and her wife are running the store. Just very happy to be kind of selling out the shop. And you see as you walk in she goes, hello, dearie. We'll just be maybe ten minutes, but there should be these gentlemen are only buying out the large wheels. So we should have plenty for you to choose from if you're buying for yourself. Oh, no. I'm actually here to offer aid. Is there any way I can help? I'm going around just trying to support the force. Oh, see a couple of the imperial soldiers kind of turned to look. Is there a person wearing any imperial garb or imperial like? That's interesting. I think I might be wearing the blue. I'm not sure it would be so officially, officially imperial, but the colors for sure. Totally. I think you see one that 17. They look at the colors and there's nothing out of the ordinary happening here. And you look like the guy who's supposed to be here. They sort of nod their heads and she says, oh, that's very kind to you. You see, she says, me and my wife have been sort of running around as much as we can. There are some larger wheels of the old smoked edam out there. If you could wheel that back in here, that'd be wonderful. Thank you. Of course. You help yourself to the back of the store where you see there is a small door out to a lovely little flowering courtyard with a couple of vines, tomato plants and some grapes. But more importantly, an open cellar that you can see goes down to a cool basement with big wooden shelves covered in wax paper with big wheels of cheese. But the courtyard. I think I proceed quickly through the courtyard. Incredible. You arrive at the back door of the butcher shop and you can see here that there is like a slick of water near the door where probably like a block of ice was brought down. The ships come down from the Saluhi Taiga with ice to sell along the river for places just like this. So there's, you know, it's going to be freezing cold down there and you can hear the noise inside. Ame in the unrelenting, evercresting wave of pain in that way that when you're feeling pain, you wait for the wave to subside to give you a moment of respite. And this feels like it just keeps increasing. It almost feels like if you had fallen on to something sharp that you would at least be able to have the impact stop and you would just have the cuts you had. This is like you've fallen and your palms are on spikes that you are slowly moving further and further down as it continues. It can't stop getting worse. You hear a voice in your head and to the degree that you can't even speak or respond, you hear the wizard he can say, I need to be very clear that the best way for you to survive is to give me what I want. I understand your pride demands that you weather this interaction with your dignity. Dignity will not buy the skin off your face or the teeth from your jaw. What is the coven of elders and what decisions do they make? Ame, tears streaming down her face, continues to scream both silently and in a muffled, strangled roar as she feels the fox. The fox is streaking in pain. Go ahead and as you feel the fox's pain, which is that empathy, that openness of your heart is how the spell got to you too. Give me if you would be so kind, some kind of check here. Make an insight, make whatever you want to do in this moment. What are you attempting to do? Are you attempting to reach out to the fox in this moment? Yes. Okay, gotcha. And even though I cannot speak or move, I push a bit of my magic into him through our connection. I burn a level one spell slot in order to make sure that he is healthy and alive. You bring your fox back with that spell slot so that he is not unconscious. You see his eyes, oh, he's still shuddering under the pain. He looks at you, uh, writhing on the ground. And this would be the moment for him to say something in your mind, something funny and charming to make it seem like it's going to all be okay. But he's an animal and you told him to go under that tarp. And he and you are probably going to die here in a hole. I think in this moment I'm going to ask you to make an insight check. 15. Keen in your mind goes, oh, oh, oh, no, no, no, don't go down your little hole, my sweet fox. Don't go, can you get to memories? There are memories here and you can see that Keen, like he's got an arcane hand on the back of your neck, pushes you towards your most painful memories. The most recent one that comes up right away is Suvi asking you not to go to that shrine. Was it right for Amé to go to that shrine? Was doing that thing in the hopes of the best possible outcome right? And will it still be right if the fox watches this man peel the skin off your face and knock the teeth out of your jaw? I'm sorry, Suvi. I'm sorry. I did what was right. I did what was kind. Be kind. The words be kind are being written on your bedroom wall by you. Be kind. You are little. You're back at the cottage. Why did you write be kind next to a hole on the wall? I wake up every day and I'm not kind because that's how I was bored when I was little. I'm kind because every day I choose not to be wicked. A mother and a father are speaking to grandmother Ren in a room. We've been told that you can fix this. Fix our child. She is possessed of something. She is not. She is not proper. Your daughter's condition, such as it is, is still a mystery to us. I will be happy to administer tests and whatever is best for the child. Because of course the act we will pursue, you can hear the venom under grandmother Ren's voice as she tries to say exactly what she needs to say to rest you away from these people. These people. You have mentioned them so little in the long years since you escaped or perhaps were thrown away. These people. Do you go to see these people? Can you bear to? I have never been one to flinch from something just because it was difficult. There's torchlight outside your house. The town has come to drown you in the river. Your siblings gaze out from the nursery a room in which you are no longer allowed. Your mother and father are outside explaining that they will take you somewhere where you can be fixed. They apologize to their neighbors for the unruliness of a child who bridges the gap between spirits of chaos, rudeness, mischief. Things have not been the same in town since you aged out of your infancy. A child of five years should know better. Do you think the villagers are going to get their way or do you think your parents will be able to persuade them? I didn't mean to. I was a child. I suppose at least they loved me enough to save my life. Something behind you are within you snarls. There's a fox. They're cute, but they kill things and they eat them. There's something with sharp teeth. It's right behind you. Now it's closer. It's in your chest. It's in your heart. It's in your arm. It's in your fist. And you've just punched a hole in grandmother Ren's wall. Why did you do that? I am meant to be a bridge between the spirits and the humans. I am meant to represent the realms of the human heart. But I'm not like them. I've never been part of them. I'm not a spirit either. I can't even be grandmother Ren or what she raised me to be. I have to be me. I have to be my fox. And I have to be there for my true friends. I'm not the rolling pin. Nor my boots marching to war. I have to be something else. Shorer and swifter and more cunning. The word cunning. Fill space around you. You're in grandmother Ren. You're young. You're maybe 12 or 13 years old. See Ren goes, it's normal. It's normal for children to ask about parents. They weren't trying to provoke you. They don't know. Not normal. And they... I couldn't make them think I'm normal. Homie. Homie. Homie. There's a rooster made of light fading away. You hear Ren's voice. It can't be me. Not anymore. I'm sorry that I couldn't teach you every lesson. So let this be the last one. The greatest lessons are the ones you teach yourself. You see a fist drives into the wall. Homie, go to your room! Moments of reflection pass into an hour. The words be kind. Perhaps the greatest and most noble calling. And by a turning of the coin, a muzzle. Homie, there's a mirror in your room. You don't remember seeing there. I'm white by nose and I'm white by eyes. I'm gonna pull myself up to look. You are no longer a child. You are the age you are now. Standing tall on hind legs, robes of white and red matching the color of her fur is a fox spirit beautiful and tall. She holds a wide brimmed hat under one arm and holds a broom blood streaking from her mouth. She takes a beautiful paintbrush from her robe slides it across her lips filling the bristles with blood. Hands it through the mirror to you her reflection and points to the wall opposite be kind. Is there anything you want to write there? I reach out my hand trembling. I nod to her. I pluck the brush from her hand. I can feel it. My fingertips. It smell the coppery tang of the blood on it. I look over to the wall. I paint and shore broad strokes. Do right. You paint do right on the wall. As you look at the words. Do right can mean anything. It is a directive that puts the weight of the world and the weight of Ren's legacy on your shoulders. How on earth can you be expected to do right? What must you know to do right and how can you do it if you will never be what grandmother Ren was the perfect witch by your own description. The spirit smiles at you. You hear a word that you have already spoken echoing in the mirror. You look at the wall. The words do right have vanished across from the wall that says be kind are the words be cunning. Ursula, we are going to move to you in this moment in the courtyard. I think continuing to move stealthily down into the butcher shop but also taking a moment to look to Vandal. I hope this question is not root. What can you do? Piss! Understood. Stay behind me and stay quiet. You stealthily begin. So first of all the door is closed back here. If you are going to open it you are going to do so with disadvantage. So it is going to be a straight roll. To open it stealthily? To open the cellar door stealthily. Or you can just fling it open but it is up to you. We will go stealthily. We will go flat. Okay give me a flat roll. Seventeen? Seventeen. You open the door hearing muffled screams. Someone screaming into a closed mouth. Ursula feels himself again. Heat, molten, red wanting to move and somewhere in the back of his mind. Here Suvi's voice say, slow is smooth and smooth is fast. It is going to continue to move stealthily and confidently forward. You move to the bottom of the steps where you see the scene as I have described it unfolding. You are unseen and within twenty feet of the wizard keen, two guild mages of the glass coronet, Amé and the fox. In a cave whose entrance is sub-aquatic under the hillock of the river bank, a group of shape changers, partially clothed still wet with river water, look with wide-eyed astonishment at the wizard's sky who has just announced that she is on her way to rescue the captured children of the Grinnell. You have just looked at Euron, friend of soft stone, steel and wren. He who you, from the very first moments of this story, regarded with fear and apprehension, has just looked to you and when given your mission has said, you want some help? Yes. All right. The children of the Grinnell have been a priority for us. The Grinnell have been a tremendous help navigating the Shroud Mountains unseen. Their children have been, their children with a gift, the gift of the great bullfrog have been taken by the Empire. Do you have any idea why? Yeah. And at this point, I think Suvi's fighting the urge to, look, she thought she was dead. She's waterlogged and confused and reeling and can feel that little bit of her that wants to like float back and dissociate away and she feels herself like pulling herself back. This is real. You have a way forward. Stay here and stay present. So it just takes her a little bit as the truth of being alive and everything that she's heard in the last couple minutes and learned in the last day just kind of keeps hitting her. Yes. Yes. The great bullfrog, there's spirit. I want to explain to you. There's a great bullfrog spirit that's connected to the children and the Citadel gathered the children together to lure the great bullfrog and the wizard silence. And she feels herself step over the honorific in the title for him. And it's intentional. Silence. When the bullfrog arrived, used some great working of magic to shrink down, make small and capture or kill, I am unsure, a great spirit. What do you know of what silence did to the great bullfrog? Secondhand, it was explained as the great bullfrog attempted to make a loud sound and do some fucking spirit magic. Hey! Sorry, I'm sorry. Sorry. You're not in your tower, kid. I won't hear it. I won't hear it. Apologies. Truly. I do not know the nature of the magic the great bullfrog attempted, but it issued out of his mouth and silence true to his name took the sound of it and the power of it, and he screamed himself, smaller and smaller. That's impossible. I know you speak the truth. I say it as a prayer more than a fact. That's impossible. I don't know how that can be. In all of the realm of spirits, the taking of a great spirit to the doors of death, to capture and destruction has been accomplished by other great spirits and a bunch of little nerds in a tower who I believe have been working on this for quite a while. I saw a failed attempt earlier in Port Talon. They attempted to pin Naram beneath a derrick outside of a calm. He was ultimately freed. Naram. The Citadel is discovering in its race for knowledge, its capacity to kick out the foundations of the world. I pray that you have heardfuls, because if you have not, the horror that is meant, not by the action you describe, but by the events that will follow from it, is beyond my ability to convey in gravity and horror. So if you look down at her half-eaten second bread, you're gonna want to take a bite, because I'm not wrong. All right. You were captured. You were captured by this glass coronet and these Imperial soldiers who are being dragged back to Bracken. Yes. We've been going after the glass coronet for a while. They were part of us trying to track down the Grinod children. They're involved in some other things here in the mountains. Like what? Take me out to dinner and I'll tell you. Okay. I did just hand you bread and I feel like that counts. He looks and says, you were going by yourself to go get these kids? No. I have friends. Congrats. Okay. All right. You've gotten mouthy. You get to yell at me one time and you already did it. The Witch of the World's Heart, Ren's apprentice is now the holder of her seat. Oh. Okay. Okay. I know I didn't like you very much as a child because you were very scary and didn't know how to speak to small children because you're very gravelly. But I do remember one game we used to play. Whenever you had to watch me and you would give me a task and I could ask you questions while I was doing a task. So we're going to do that now. But I need a knife. A metal one? Just pointy. Pointy. He grows his bottom canine out and pulls it out and hands it to you. What the fuck? He's so hot. That was incredibly cool. Okay. And Suvi takes it in her right hand and slices her palm open and is going to start beginning to make a blood sigil to ritually cast identify. And is going to start pointing at the other shape-changers in the room. Bring me anything off of those corpses that looks like they're worth anything. Of the assorted things in the room, each of these glass-cornet mages has two vials of that white dispelling agent. So you can add two more of those to your inventory. The Imperial soldiers and the glass-cornet have some soldiers' rings on them, but you know the deal with those soldiers' rings. That they're not actually pretty healthy. The Brick-O-Brack gear is sort of sub-issue of what your gear is, with the exception of two massive bound spell books of the glass-cornet, priming with knowledge. These guild mages, though not named to the Citadel, looked experienced. These guys looked like heavy hitters that happened to be dragged into the river and killed by shape-changers, but if they had not been suddenly unable to use verbal components because they were drowning, may have been fierce combatants indeed. Suvi is doing the job of explaining what she already knows and re-identifying things and double-checking and putting them in piles and organizing them specifically to give back to Joryn and his group, and when the spell books drop. She stops casting and looks up and looks at Joryn specifically. These are mine. You got it. We need a knight's rest. We've been going hard. We should probably change into whatever shapes we want to use as soon as we're done resting so that we can get a move on. Yeah. Hold on. Question time. I'm doing my task. I ask my questions. One, why does your blood smell so bad? Spirits, sorcerers, wizards, expect my tradition to be predictable. I made a deal with some spirits that I would wield weapons capable of making me fearsome even to those I aspire to protect. The bone ones kill wizards just fine if that answers your question. Yes, but subheading. My friend, Aame, the witch of the world's heart, had a curse on her, and when we broke it, it smelled like your blood. Huh? Do you have, damn, do you know anything that happens to me? I feel like every time I come to you with like this thing I know to be true about the world and you're like, I don't know anything about that. I need a, I need better answers from you. Do I know anything about you? Nah. Not really. Thanks. Was I supposed to? What would I have won if I did? Fine. Other questions. The last night we were all together. Rueve attacked the Citadel. Why were we running from the Citadel and what was chasing us? The Citadel. The attack from Rueve was, to my knowledge, coincidence. There's space in between coincidence and cause. You understand? Events throughout the Citadel had been ramping up. The Rueve attack was part of that. And us discovering that the League of Whispers was known by the Citadel was also a part of that, but they were not in and of themselves directly causal. When there's a shit storm, there's a lot of shit flying everywhere, you understand? Yeah. You don't have to ask the part about, do I understand? I fucking understand. I'm incredibly smart. Congrats. Thank you. When Rueve attacked, the flight was sudden. It was impulse. We had been given leave that everything was forgiven. The Accaditor had been pardoned. The extra-legal activities were seen to be within wanting the best for the Citadel. You were caught. When you go to the Judge and say, we got the bad guys, and the Judge said, those aren't the bad guys, and then kind of kindly says, neither are you, it left everyone with a feeling of paranoia. And Softenstone didn't believe that it was genuine. Softenstone did not believe that their pardon was genuine. Gotcha. They thought that the walls were closing in. Steele was destroyed. I don't think she ever showed you because you were a kid, but she had spent the better part of her life thinking, or the better part of that few years, thinking that she was saving the Citadel, only to find out that the Citadel didn't need or require saving. And so, she and Softenstone were, I think, not of a like mind on the level of threat. Steele didn't think we needed to flee the Citadel. Yeah. But she went along with the plan because, you know, we'd been sleeping in caves and fighting on airships for the better part of a couple years, and, you know... She had a family there. Huh. Okay. Do you have any idea why she wants so badly to find you? Huh? Okay, another one. Well, I know why she wants to find me. She probably wants to kill me. Well, yeah. I'm an enemy of the Citadel. We were only... You have to understand, we were only working together. Why were you working together? How did you know my dad? I met your father when he was exploring parts of the Near Spirit in Gautamae, working for the Citadel. He was an enemy of the sorcerers. I was an enemy of the sorcerers. We were useful to each other. And over the course of being useful to each other, I eventually came to... Well, that was a big sigh. When he and Stone told me that they wanted a Gautamae where shape-changers could be free, I believed them. And I know that they were probably trained to say that, but it didn't seem like training. Now, was it to their advantage to, you know, oppose the houses of Gautamae? Yeah, but the houses of Gautamae are fucking evil to the bone. But you're working with them now? Yeah, because the Citadel's evil to the bone. Okay, well... I don't know. Try to find some friends that aren't evil to the bone. Hey, you got me. I'll take it. I'll take it. Do you know about... First of all, you see, as he gets the spellbooks handed over to you, you pass out the gear to the other shape-changers. He looks out and calls and says, you have... Where are your friends that you're going with? Oh, God. They're in... Reedport. Okay, that's not far. You see, he looks out and says, we can get there by waterway. The rivers are lessening, but there should be enough water to get there in time. Everyone, take your rest in a river shape and we'll, you know... Are you gonna sleep in the river? No, no, no, no. You said in a river shape. What does that mean? You see that people change into large constrictors, crocodiles, a few different amphibious, but still very aquatic creatures that they can rest in. And you see, have another shape left for them the next morning after they're done resting. Okay, okay. Before all of you... And you have healing, I did cut my hand. Your hand takes your hand. This is his thumb, drags it across the cut and it's healed. That's really sweet of you. Hold on, one more question. I saw a shape changer with a bunch of tattoos on him. Is that a thing or is it just like cool looking? How does your magic work? Hmm? Hmm? Our magic work? Yeah. Well, it's not spell casting, so that's nice. What do you mean it's nice? Spells are great. No, no, I mean it's hard for the Citadel to mess with it. Okay. I'm not asking as a Citadel wizard. It's a gift. And I mean that to say, you knew Grandmother Ren, who by the way, I'm sorry to hear that she has passed. She was always a very kind, kind woman. And always tried to do the right thing, even though she was very forgiving and prone to kindness. And delay. And when it came down to it, she was a part of the Accadeter until she wasn't. By which I mean to say that as things got fast and furious, her attention went elsewhere. And I think that she probably knew before any of the rest of us what the answer was going to be and kind of let us hit the wall. She advised us to probably move on to other things after a while. But regardless, the thing I would say to you about witches is witches serve as a bridge between the spirit and the mortal world. As a bridge, as a way of mediating between the two. And my tradition is that that bridge existed before the world of mortals did. This world is the dream. And the things that are real are dreams of the things that are not. And when you realize that we have come here to live a life in a world of stone and blood, coming from a world where the sun never sets if it doesn't choose to. That occasionally you can wake up and remember that you're dreaming. And you see here, he says remember that you're dreaming, his hand turns into a claw and a wing. And he bows his head and it is the beak of an enormous eagle. And he looks up and you see the kind eyes of an enormous wolf. And he changes back into himself. This world has a hard time holding the things that are really true. But I don't often have a chance to talk about my beliefs these days. I spend more time fighting for them than I do believing them. That's good. That was... yeah, okay, thank you. That ring on your hand is a snitch. No. You know about your dad's, about Soft's. He and Stone both did a thing so it couldn't snitch on him. Yeah. And she picks up one of the matchsticks, breaks it over her knee, and then mends it back together. With the like, with her mother's mending, dropping the like, null clef. Hell yeah. You make your own broken war staff and mend it such that the Citadel cannot sense it. As you do so, the sapphire pendant around your neck glows and the wooden staff seals with a seal of pure sapphire. Gemstone that binds the halves of the war staff together. Oh, that's fun. Alright, you're not allowed to judge me because I know you feel the way you feel about this. I also feel that way about the Citadel. Magic is much, much cooler than they taught us there. Ursulon, you are at the bottom of the staircase, unseen in this moment. You see three guild mages here. And what does Ursulon do in this moment? I'll begin with a perception check. Natural one. Can I have help from Vandal? Yes, you can. Thank God. Nine. The way the room is laid out. There's a spiral staircase leading up to the storefront. That's what Keen is facing. Ame is right in front of him. He's about five feet away from Ame, and the fox is on the ground right in front of him. Ame's in a magic circle. You can give me an arcana check for the magic circle if you like. Nine again. She's in some kind of wizard ship. You see that Keen is crouched down, but you can tell that it's him. About ten feet behind him, side by side, are the other guild mages. There's two of them. And then about 15 feet back from them is you in the staircase. There is one sputtering tallow candle that is the only source of light in the room creating dim light. All right. If I open my senses and use my innate detect magic, can I get a sense of where Wavebreaker can cut the magic holding Ame and the fox? Ame has a curse of silence on a piece of paper in her mouth. So that is a separate magical effect that Remove Curse could take. There is also a magic circle on the ground in front of her that could potentially be physically disrupted. The fox is there as well. So that's a third. So Magic Circle is not a curse, but it is a spell that is affecting Ame and giving her the restrained condition. She's got the silence curse on her mouth, and there is a spell of pain that you believe is being concentrated on by King. King is concentrating on a spell that is hurting them. The other two guild mages are there. One of them might be concentrating on a spell or the other hard to say at this moment. You don't see any active spell. The only active spells you can see are Mage Armor on the mages, and those three spell effects, pain, silence, Magic Circle. Those are the ones you see. Great. Am I able to communicate with Vandal without alerting anyone? Or if I were to speak, is it on? I would just ask for a stealth check. 21. Let's go. Stealthy, stealthy spirit. Okay, what do you whisper to Vandal? Vandal, when I disappear, I need you to piss in that wizard's eye. I'd love to. First Vandal is going to take a deep breath. Cast Hidden Step, move to extinguish the candle. And then I think use his turn to break the curse on the silence and interrupt the circle while remaining hidden. Okay. What we actually have to do now is roll initiative with everybody because surprise, it will really impact what is going on. If people are surprised or not. 21. 21. Incredible. That is one of the more important high rolls that this campaign has had. I will let you know that right now. Okay. Okay. Go ahead and roll for Vandal, Abrea, if you'd be so kind. I'm sorry, seven for Vandal. Okay. Ame. Pull in an Abrea for a two. What the fuck? On your own podcast, no less. I'd go here. Less three for five. Five for Ame and the Fox. First one. Invisible. You move towards the candle. As you do so, Ame, the pain suddenly stops in your body as keen right in front of you goes right on time and whips around as his eyes gleam with the sea invisibility. Spell. First one. You surge forward into the room halfway towards the candle. You are just beyond an arm's reach of the candle as keen turns around and says, Oh, spirit reaches out and you see glass tattered fabric, translucent and ghostly explode from his hands towards Ursulaar. You feel this thing tightened around your body. These bindings grapple you. That peddler with the card, those paintings in the castle of collection and now the wizard keen. Which your friend has come to join you and now he's mine as well. He opens his satchel and you see begins to take out a fine net of gold chain, a physical object. It was since I saw you in that beer garden. I just knew that I needed to have you. And Ursulaar, you look and see Ame. Ame, what do your eyes, you're no longer in pain, but you are still muffled. And we're also, by the way, still in initiative order here, but there's a moment where your eyes connect with Ursulans. What does he see in your eyes? He sees tears streaming down my face from pain. He sees the glaze of a return to consciousness, but there is also a gleam in it. Something perhaps he might remember from childhood. My eyes dart over to keen. He has made the mistake of crossing a witch, doing a terrible injury to her and those she cares about. And so I activate my retributive curse of vengeful gleam and he is reathed in an orange glowing foxfire. You see he yelps out in a momentary panic as he sees this thing surrounding him, wheels around in Uame. He says, how do you do it? You son of a... He turns to you, Ursulaar, Ursulaar, the Kasov collection, Peddler's card, you, Oscar, the ogre in the night, being consumed by Baudzee. You feel Hallecker forest breath, your breath behind you, keen in front of you. It is your turn. What would you like to do? I think in this moment, yeah, we'll go with, we'll use dispel magic then. I think Ursulant loses himself to fear. It's flashes of trapped bound, that feeling of not wanting to breathe for fear of being discovered. Feeling that feeling, that panic, Ursulant is going to send that intention into Wavebreaker and bring the sword up to cut the binds. Alright, you're going to go ahead and roll with this, you're going to add a plus five, you need a ten or higher on the die. Eighteen. Wooo! Baby! Let's go! Ursulant, bound by glass, you reach to the spirit of the Wave Lord, his sword leaps to your hand and glass shatters. As the blade breaks through, that is your action, but you drop to your feet right within arms for each of the candle. I will use my other hand to extinguish it. Audrey's interaction, you smash the tallow down, and the room is pitch black except for a brightly glowing keen. Ha ha ha! Um, you have movement and you are in a butcher's shop in complete dark in about a 30 by 30 space. Great, I'll move and use, I mean, if you'll allow it, just use my foot to scuff the circle. Uh, okay, what I'm going to ask for here is a sssst, um, ooh, I don't, first of all, let me be clear, I don't care what furbolgs have, you have dark fission. Hey! Great. Um, so, in this moment, you don't have to worry, you are like faulting through like pigs hung up and over furniture effortlessly in the dark. Um, to get to the magic circle, you use an object interaction, so to get this last scuff, I'm just going to need a DC-10 acrobatics or athletics to get there fast enough. Got it. Cool. Okay. 21. Wooo baby! Yes! That's the number! Ursulun, you slice through the magic, boom, hit the deck, bam, the candle is gone, smell of smoke and a little bit of your burning fur. Uh, by the way, your glamour is fucking gone. It's gone. Um, boom, you leap through, get to the other side, Keen is looking around, uh, who, you see his own glow rather than illuminating the space around him, is blinding him. Yeah. He can't see shit. And you come through, kick the salt and ame, you, uh, you're, as the pain subsides, you and the fox, but the fox also, his pain has subsided and you've already brought him back up to full health. So you see that suddenly your palms and feet are you still have the silence spell in your mouth. We are going to move forward in initiative and one of these guild mages fires a scorching ray. I'm going to roll a d8 to literally see if he can just like get the right direction at random. That's a four. He does not get the right direction at random. The other one more thoughtfully moves to the side and is going to cast dancing lights. The space fills with light again, but the magic circle is already scuffed. That is the guild mages turn one of them fires and tax bell in the total wrong direction. Another one brings lights up to eliminate the space. Eyes turned to behold you now fully in your wild one form. Vandal is next act. He was instructed to piss in one of the guild master, one of the guild mages eyes. Go ahead and make a grapple check for Vandal for me. He is trying to beat a seven. Okay. Does meet the beats it. Me to beat it. Because that's a 11 minus four for a seven. Incredible. Vandal charges forward to the mage that has just cast dancing lights, sinks his claws into the temples of that guild mage, wraps his legs around the nostrils and ear lobes, and just pisses out of a genitalia free crotch directly into his eyes, clamped to his head, screaming expletives at the top of his lungs. The guild mage seeing this ink demon fly towards him grapple the front of his face with the crotch sort of on the bridge of his nose. His mouth is totally free to go. No, please no. No. No. Oh my God. That Amé and the fox that is your turn. So Amé, freed from her physical bonds, leaps up, realizes she can't speak and cannot cast a spell, and immediately leaps onto guild mage keen. Give me a grapple check with advantage. I can hit that in her dude. You are trying to beat an eight. This is not a strong guy. Oh my God, really? That's a 12. That's a 12. You're trying to beat an eight. You're trying to beat an eight. So farm girl, you get out his magic circle. This guy is like, you are mine, and you get your shoulder under his solar plexus, take him up off the ground, crash into his table, straddle him, get an arm behind his back. And the fox is going to rush over, and on a 17 is going to rush over, and you see the fox jams his paw all the way into keen's mouth and leaves it there. Okay, the wizard keen is going to go. What does he have any spells that don't have verbal components? There are like 20. He has no spells. The only spell that he has that is somatic components only is counterspell, which is not going to help him with a fox jamming upon his mouth, or a witch straddling him and pushing him into the ground and putting his arm behind his back. So the wizard keen is going to use his action to attempt to break the grapple. He's going to get a free bite on the fox's paw. The fox takes two points of damage as keen bites down on his paw. How many hit points does the fox have? Oh, equal to my witch level, which is level four. Level four. Yeah. Okay, so the fox takes two hit points of damage, and is still up. He goes, ah, as keen bites down on his paw, you hear one of his little tiny fox bones crack as the fox keeps his paw in there snarling and biting. He's like, yeah, it's nice to be able to talk, right? And he's going to make a grapple attempt against you, Ami. Rolls a seven again. Go ahead and give me athletics with advantage. Dirty 20. Unbelievable. Let's go. Ursulon, that is your turn. I'm going to move to attack the unblinded guild mage. Go for it. 19 on the die, and we'll make it a divine smite. Let's do it. 19 points of damage. Ursulon, describe for me what it looks like as you kill one of the guild mages of the glass coronet. Ursulon takes his shield off of his back, stands to full height, and simply walks over and stabs him deep into his chest and lifts him off the ground before throwing him into the hole. And turning to the one being pissed on. The impact of you ridding your sword of this troublesome corpse can be felt on the street outside. You did the blood flick on the sword, but it was a whole man on it. It was a whole man on it. Oh my God. It was a whole man on it. The guild mage with Vandal grappled to his head rather than waste his turn trying to dispense with a ink demon feels that death stands before him in the guise of an eternal wild one. And it's going to take his best shot. He reaches out his hands, muttering to himself, Kassar, Sahin, and fire erupts from him, the red of his robes. This fire emerges as though from a deep kiln of glass and sand. You can feel the heat of ancient coals burning. However, he cannot see, so he is going to roll with disadvantage each time. 16 would have hit, but a 10 does not. Neither of those would have hit, and that ends up being a natural one. 17 would have hit, and another natural one does not. Ursulon, describe for me as these bolts of fire. Do these bolts of fire miss you, or do they simply have no effect as you approach? It's no effect. I think two go into the shield, and I think one breezes past Ursulon's neck, but fizzles. That is the guild mage's turn. Ame, that is you and the fox. Ame pulls out from a little stoppered bottle, a handful of berries. She gives them to the fox, and this is not the Beledana, the Berries. It is a different handful of dried berries that carries that same spell. The fox grabs the berries and rushes over, and you see he bites the berries, and your fox leaps forward. The poisoned berries in his mouth bites down on them, breathes out, and a blast of poison missed. Invelops the guild mage, and he is going to make a constitution saving throw. 3d10 poison damage. 22. On a natural three, this guild mage dies, just chokes and falls dead on the ground. As he falls dead, the silence curse on you ends as he breaks concentration. The curse breaks in your mouth. Both guild mages lie dead. The fox takes three points of damage, goes to zero hit points. Additionally, Vandal is a splatter of red ink on the ground. I burn through another level of magic and push healing points into the fox. As he collapses with the weight of the poison, he gets back up. Is that an action or a bonus action from Ame? It is, I believe a bonus action. Bonus action, great. What is Ame's action? Do you now have the power of speech restored to you? Ame, pulling Keen's arm up tighter behind him, reaches around to his front, with a witch's grasp. A spectral hand extends, writhing its fingers around his throat. The light dim. The spectral grasp around his throat tightens, breathes and foxfire. He struggles as it lifts him up off of the ground, levitating. You shouldn't have lied to me. Streaks out again in pain. I am going to need a dexterity saving throw from Ame, who is right behind him. That's a 17 on the die. On a 17, you succeed on your save. You will take half damage of a full Imperial Lightning Bolt cast directly on you. You take 28 points of damage, halved to 14, minus 3. You take 11 points of damage from the full force of an upcast. Minus 6. Oh, you take 10 points of damage from a 5th level Lightning Bolt, upcast Lightning Bolt. I am keen, grappled by the witch's dresses. Your witchcraft is nothing more than trickery. Feel the might of the Empire. You shouldn't underestimate trickery. As the lightning funnels into her chest, she is lit from underneath, her hair blowing out behind her, her face illuminated by the unnatural light of the lightning. Your robes swirl in darkness, and all around you in this space, he and Concey the eyes of foxes, seeming to smile as if from a great distance at him. Bersalon, it is your turn. Bounding leap across the room to strike Keaton. You will make this roll with advantage. Total of 19. 19 is a hit. 19 points of damage. Bersalon, as you leap across the room, describe for me the final moments of the Wizard King. Bersalon pounces from the ground using his shield hand and his mighty legs, raises his sword aloft, brings it down right at Keen's waist, and cuts him in half. There among the slaughtered pigs and cows, the Wizard Keen understands at last the definition of his name cloak. Severed in twain by the smiting of a spirit and the magic of a witch that he hath wronged. You are free here in the dark amongst the blood. Your destiny is yours, though as you have just done, you will continue to fight for it. That was Lou Wilson as Ursulon, Erika Ishii as Aame, Abrea Aingar as Suvi, and Brennan Lee Mulligan as everyone and everything else. Worlds Beyond Number is edited, designed, and scored by Taylor Moore at Fortunate Horse, with additional sound design from Michael Gelfie Studios. For even more like this, join us on our Patreon. We'll see you there.