Beneath Dark Wings | Ep. 72 | The Eclipse: Part 2

Welcome to Legends of Avantris, I'm Capriccio De Sesto, you can call me Caprice and you're listening to Beneath Dark Wings, here's what happened last time. You are in the depths of the Citadel of the Queen's Conclave, the center of Centra, and you've noticed that there is far too eerie silence above you as Felix lay about the chamber covered in bluebird biz mutated and fiendish, he has joined the flock. What do you do? You guys notice that it's screaming upside, upside up top, it's gone. Because that's probably a good sign, yeah? No, it means either everyone's killed or they've all been transformed or something else horrible has happened. So bad sign then, yeah? I think that's fine. Okay. Oh, maybe, I mean, maybe they got transformed and might flew away, you know? Is the floor still throbbing? Yeah, kind of. Oh. When you say transformed, you mean like Felix? I mean, I think that was sort of their plan, right? I mean, will be still, will I remember? Yeah. It feels like we all struggled with the corrupting energy that is radiating through the city right now, right? Well, I didn't actually, so maybe I'm just pure of heart. That was kind of impressive. I mean, you must be pretty charismatic, I guess. Yeah. I think it's a diet rich in wine. What do you mean by that? It's a body fluid. I have a headache and I have no idea what you just said. No, just, I believe they were charisma saving throws. What's that? It's a type of, I don't know, it's a type of chapstick. It's actually a chapstick. What's a chapstick? The effect, the initial effect is that you age a little bit and that's how you turn into birds. That's what I'm saying. Oh, okay. I'm ageing a little bit. Tell me, you're 100%? You're back for yourself? I'm very wounded, but I'm, yes, I feel... No, no, in your brain. You're no longer evil and trying to kill Luthi and the rest? No, no more feathers, no more demon thoughts of, you know... Did you know that if you were to mix charisma and chapstick, it would be corrupt stick? I want to rub some corrupt stick all over my lips. It's coming to seem to the advanced mix store. Corrupt stick? Corrupt stick? I receive corrupt stick all over you now. Be like Michael and spit corrupt stick all over your face. Cherry flavor. I'm dying. I'm dying. Tell me, tell me, help me, help me. We gotta do something about Felix. He's not cured. We're gonna tie him up. I'm gonna take his knife. We're gonna shove his filthy rag in his mouth. What you doing? How do we got this? I don't know. He's covered in a craft stick. We have a chat request for a chuckles advertisement for corrupt stick. You had your chance. I would stay for tune for wrenches and chill. Just remember to ask that in advance and chill. I'm gonna go over and pick up the knife and put it in my pack. Do it. And I'm going to tie him very tightly, his hands totally bound behind his back, his feet together. And I'm going to shove a filthy rag into his mouth. I'm gonna clean my rag right here. Toa, you totally missed the backbind. Yeah, and then I'm gonna just rework it and kind of like a bondage on the leg. See how much better that is. He can't move. I swear. I mean, it's a little suggestive. I mean, I know he's an horrible bird demon, but I don't want to make him indecent. Well, he's so close. What the hell? Yes. I know. Look at his tiny little wiener. With a craft stick. Look at his little lipstick. No, I hate that. That's racism here. The point is, you're tied up now. You've got him? He's tied up and then he's gagged with a rope keeping the cloth in his mouth. All right. I think that means that he can't do verbal. He can't do his hand gesture ease and he can't access his arcane focus. So I think we're all right. All right. Is there anything we're forgetting? I don't do the magics. I don't think so. Well, if he wakes up and continues to transform, he might be able to break free. We need to be near him at all times. If we're going to move anywhere, we can't leave him here. We've got to take him with us. Oh, yes. I can't handle how helpful it is because you didn't end up killing us. No, I didn't alter anything. Is there a way out of here? 32. I don't know. I want to look around and see if there's any exits to this room. You look and you see that into the wall are sconces that form a ladder and they're like heavy iron doors like a higher up. Well, I'll grab Felix and I'll pick him up and I'll throw him over my shoulder. I mean, do we think we should at least rest for maybe like an hour before we continue? Yeah, I think we're going to have to. Just in case there won't be demons or doodles or banners. So I'll put it back down then. And it's probably been a while as we've been discussing, but I think we'll just wait the rest of the hour. I would say it's probably been an hour. You can enjoy a short rest. So. Maybe 83 more minutes. Oh, God. So once we're done with our short rest, we can roll as we roll play, but we don't have to heartbeat this. All right, so. How many did those two? I've got many. I feel less. Oh, I have all of them. I'm just going to roll all of them. All right, well, are we good to maybe just take him with us and we'll just. Take him with us where? I mean, you know, I don't think we just sit here for eight hours. Do you? Where else are we going to go? Well, there are ladders up, you know, the middle of doors, you know, just how high up do you think it is? I play like 20 feet. I'm like 20 feet up that way. We can continue to, you know, explore, see what's down here. The entire leader of this entire nation is now dead and exploded. Like, you know, maybe there's no more threat and we can learn more about what, you know, P-man's plans are. I think this is the correct, the whole question. We go up and we find out what's going on with the city. We try to influence things in a positive direction, maybe. We go deeper. See if we find the heart of this evil. Find if we, if we're feeling strong enough, we might be able to put us up to this thing for good. I do back up or drive forward. Well, there's nowhere to go down, but the idea is that there's like, I mean, the only place that we can go, there's like ladders to like 20 feet up these doors. That's it. Those are only options. That's really our only option, I think. Yeah. Right? Okay. Yes. Yes. All right, let's go. You also do look up and there is a shoot going all the way to the very top of the city as well, but there's obviously no. It's on the elevator shaft we came down basically. Yep. Any concerns? I'll sing a brief song so that everyone enjoys some song of rest action. What's up, P-man? If you spent hit dice, you get an additional 1v10 hit points. Nice. And let me find a song. Looking at the body of General Furman. Aren't you the guy who tried to hurt me with the word goodbye though it took some time to survive you. I'm better on the other side. And that's all. That was nice. That wasn't that. That was nice. That's nice. So I will, with Felix over my shoulder, I'm going to start playing the footholds and get to one of the doors. You do that and you're able to get to the door and it seems to be unlocked. As you are able to with a heavy intricate lever system, but you're able to figure it out and you open it and it opens a loud groan. And what you see before you is what looks to be some sort of strange, almost alchemical lab combined with library combined with almost a reliquary of strange crystals and artifacts. And it's completely torn apart. You see feathers scattered all over the ground. And you see that there was a shelf that had been covered in strange artifacts and etchings perhaps and got completely ripped over. And you see at the far end of this room is a door that was iron. And you see that there are claw marks that seemingly have ripped it off its hinges and thrown it into the room. And you see from beyond a faint glowing red from further onward. Does it look like the claw marks have come from our side or from the other side from your side. And that's interesting. I guess we keep going that way. Yeah. Because I've made this. Does it look like bird like or it looks very talent like, I would say. And it's just eerily quiet. And then you can hear I would say. And it's a humming that almost reminds you it sounds like flapping wings almost by the cadence and the and the timbre of it. Hello. Is anyone is anyone there. Your voice echoes through this place. If it's you as sure. We could be nice and friends again. Are you being serious. Are we really going to be friends. I don't know. I don't want to fight him. I hope we're friends. I could rip us apart right now. Honestly. I know. So I kind of feel like we should like surprise party him if we're going to. I don't know. Get the upper hand. So I think that we steal. Oh. Yeah. That's what I'm trying to say. I'm just going to just yell that I'm making fun of stealing. It's really damn. And it can't even. What I said. See what I was saying earlier about whether we go up or down. This is the down. Oh. Well I'll steal. This is the overall. We're all willing to stay real quiet. Yeah. As long as he doesn't. Yeah. He should be OK. He should be ready to punch him again. OK. OK. Let's go. Stealthy. I'm so stealthy. Twenty seven. OK. Twenty three. Oh wow. Four. I keep knocking. He was looking at him. You try to be as stealthy as possible. Toa keeps knocking Felix into bookcases. And at one point he actually there's a whole like high table like those lab tables that in high school. That's good covered in beakers. I need to drag Felix's head up the whole like. And actually in front of it you see what looks like humans clothes a military uniform that just completely tattered. With feathers. It doesn't look wearable. It looks really. It's completely shredded. Yeah. Is there a name tag on it. It's shreds you say. No no no name tags. There's a rank. And there are families. Anything in the pockets. Is there a government issued ID. You find I would say you search it and you find that this was a. The. The reliquary that basically this was a researcher someone who had the credentials to be a researcher and a. It would be a wizard. The person was a wizard. The if Felix was awake they would he probably would recognize this uniform as like a very high ranking member of the magical outfit of the army. The day of the week underwear that's with this. Is it the accurate day or is it very clear. There are no days in of interest. There's no like day names. There are no days in it. In a van. I've been playing this campaign for how many years. I've been begging for a day name for a long time. There's no witness day. There's no two ways. And. What day you want to do something. I mean there are I just have a name. How do you know you're wearing the right underwear. You know if you're accidentally wearing the same underwear you wore yesterday. You are able to. I've got a princess here on my underwear. It's memory deleted. That's weird. You'll know. And you get the sense that this was that these people were hard at work researching and basically working on whatever kind of plans that Furman had had. These were the personal like attendance in a point in appointees. Is there any correspondence that we can see like letters or I don't know. I would join toe and. Okay. Make an investigation check. I'll assist you. Oh. Okay. I don't know if either of us are better or worse at this. Almost certainly worse. Are you sure what's your what's your plus sort of investigation. Zero. Okay. I'm better. Sixteen. Sixteen. You poke around and you find there's a lot of crystals. One seems to like look quite familiar as you find as you see it in the in the absolute rubble. And it it's a black gem with a glowing light inside. And you recall that a commoness had used something similar. And it's very fiendish in nature. And I would say that. That it looks like whatever kind of written material and correspondence. You actually find that there is there is a softly lit fireplace. And there's a lot of burnt scraps of paper that whatever they were doing here was very secretive. And you I would say that with the inferences that you would get the sense that similar to Diamante Kujada getting a lot under Zern's nose you get the sense that this part was perhaps done by Loyalist to Furman. And it was incredibly secretive. And you get the sense that there were and I would say that also from what they were researching that like that it would have been very easily to hide. And so you you actually are able to like flip over the bookcases and their secret compartments were things were stored and may have been out that whenever there was an investigation it all would have been stowed away. Like Shawshank style. I really wish that Felix wasn't corrupted by Nightmare and Demonic Burton with you right now. Oh! He's the kind of person who puts this together in five minutes and be like well my scrap comes with this scrap. Maybe if there were a bunch of wizards here maybe there's some spell scrolls. It's a good idea. I'm sort of looking around for spells scrolls. Spells scrolls yeah there's a there's a handful of spells scrolls of wizard make that were from the high wizard the whiz biz. Are there any that are remove curse or major restoration? Actually you do find one for a move curse. What is it? Aris! Aris! Aris! Aris! You're just standing there staring at me Aris! I'm actually looking at the remove curse. You have remove curse? I'm letting Aris game. Look what I found! How about we kill Iris? Oh that's lovely Torah. This can fix Felix maybe. Oh well if there's only one solution to this problem there's no other way to handle it. I could cast that spell right now without that scroll. Why wouldn't you have done that fucking 56 minutes ago? Well I was unaware that it was the curse that afflicted him. I guess we don't really know if it is or not. I greatly restored Torah. Yeah. But like what did that feel like when you did it? Was it cursey or was it like... Well I'm not sure it just felt greatly restorative. Why wouldn't you try? Not because I was tired. Is it a very high spell level? No. Level three. Oh my god. Just burn that shit. Do it! I grabbed Felix on my shoulder. Do it! Fix him! Fix him! Fix him! Fix him! Fix him! His arm or I guess his tight legs or like kicking a kicking glass shard. Oh well alright. You don't have to get into a tizzy. I'll walk over, I'll place my hand on Felix's chest. Oh you're so feathery and demonic. And I'll cast Remove Curse. You see feathers are to quiver and shake and shed. As you see the beak rescind and the... Felix's neck pops out a little bit and he finally has one again. And he's been returned. Well we can wake him up now. Yeah we should get the rag out of his mouth because he's going to be very mad about that. He's also untied his legs so that they're no longer like spready gold. Oh no I think we just leave him like that from Giggle. That's not a rag that's Caprice's midnight sock. Ew! Don't ask. If you gotta ask you don't wanna know. I am tied. What's that my midnight sock? I can't break it over your legs. That one doesn't crumble near. It's a little more near than it seems to me. Holy shit. I totally unbind Felix and I... Lay him down, lay him down. I put his knife in his like cook pocket. Okay. Alright do you think? How do we wake him up? Do you wanna just do your thing? He wants me to heal him. Just heal him. Sure. Like a hip corner too. Or a mower. I think he's gonna need more. I'm only gonna tell us before our short rest. You bastards. If only we had. If only we had known it was a curse. Well I'm going to lean down next to Felix and I'm going to say Wake up you fool. And that's my healing word. And it's going to do 1d4 plus 5. God damn. 9 points of healing. Max healing let's go. Or actually it would have done max healing anyway because you were at zero hit points and I do max healing. Do I lose the max HP modifier? No because 8 is not concentration lasts for 8 hours. Ew. Oh that's still true. And actually because it does that I'm not going to use healing word. I am instead going to cast... Okay. It's gonna be at a fourth level. That's the most I've got. I'm going to cast Pure Wounds at a fourth level on you. Oh yeah let's go. And so what is 4d8? What's 8 times 4? 28 plus 5? 32. Yeah so 32 hit points. 32 plus 5 is... No that's total. 8 times 4 is 32. Oh 8 times 4 is 32. So the best 5 is what 30? 37. Yeah. Yeah. Because since you're at zero I do max healing. Let's go. Oh that's fucking great. Because Grave. Because Grave. Because Grave. Which one? Because 8. Oh I accidentally cast Blight at a fourth level instead of... Yeah sorry. I'm actually just 3 failed saving throws. Oops. You killed him. My flesh just melts away. And I'm just like a writhing skeleton. Unfortunate. It saps all of your body liquid. What's your favorite snack? Ribs. Ribs. That's what I thought. That's not even a snack. That's a dinner. Hey that's a name. You wake up you feel like absolute shit. And you feel like you need to squawk occasionally. But you're... Oh I... Felix. Are we alive? Where we are are you? Do we make it? Barely. I don't even know if I'm... Are you okay? No. No every fiber of my being hurts. Yeah. Ferman's gone. Like we did it? Yeah. Not like he left. Like he's dead. We got him. You and I were horribly corrupted. Remember that? We gave ourselves a bird eye for this. Oh no. Are you guys okay? Yeah I almost could lift him but they stopped me. Yeah we made it up. It's alright. Yeah it was good. I kicked him while he was on camera. That made me feel better. I know it was just a peddler. There was this really cool moment where I rode two birds at the same time and I said you're vermin skerman and they all ate him alive. You did that? Yeah. Yeah absolutely. Whoa. Where are we now? I will never tell him otherwise. Thank you. Well we decided to not go back to the surface because it got real quiet and probably there's dangerous so we're investigating now and frankly look at all this fucking horse shit. We need your brains. We need your intelligence. We need your mind man. Yeah this is like the you room. This is the phoenix room. We got phoenix room all over the place. And we found a convenient solution to fix you and then Iris is like oh I could have done that an hour and a half ago. Oh I could have done that in battle. Oh she could have done that battle. Well I'm glad you guys saved me. I appreciate it. So I could have not gone down for it. Yes actually. Yes. She could have used to you know her feline sprinting abilities and it just fixed me right up. But instead he walked you senseless. Yeah I almost died. He was very close. I was very close. I almost had enough you know wheel power to just live. I was almost too angry to die but not quite. But he's dead right? He's dead. Yeah. Oh yeah he's disgusting. It was painful sort of but I was a bird demon and I kind of liked it. It was weird. I can't believe we lived to fight another day. Yeah. Yes. We just need to figure out what we're doing now. Okay. There's a so we have what? We have burnt papers. We have a gem. A black gem. Oh yeah so my working theory is that there was a wizard guy that really like books sort of like how you do. Oh yeah. And then when the ritual went off he turned into a bird demon just like all the people up there and then he went over to that door and ripped it off its hinges. You see the clown box and then he went down that hallway. So maybe that's the way out and maybe there's more bird guys down there. Probably there's some sort of nightmare creature from there that we'll have to fight additionally. So yeah. So the town works look like really big. They look about the size of the the rocks. When maybe a little bit smaller that the the vulture demons that you were fighting. And do we get the sense that the rocks were like when they started to transform were they have roughly the same size as the rocks or do they change? They got bigger. They got a lot bigger. They got bigger. Yeah they got a lot bigger. So these were like big cow marks that ripped the door off basically. So we could go sooner if that's feasible. I take in my surroundings. Take an investigation ticket advantage. Look at all this cool stuff we found. Yeah what does it mean Felix? Tell us. 26. 26. Felix you recognize this room from the door and the order of the hallway. You had been guided to the the lower levels of the Citadel to go to the secret library not the secret library but the highest level access library. And you had inquired about your guides through the Citadel beforehand about the room that it was in there and you were told that like that you would not be that that is basically completely awful limits to anyone but the generals and the grand general or the high general. And you knew that this was a very very heavily guarded room where basically the most precious secrets of the nation of Korovaki were kept. And you get a sense that there is a great number of scrolls and spell scrolls. This is all the work of wizards that it's implementing a lot of the the research and the styles and the practices of the town garden just the overall magic the arcane wing of the Korovaki in military. And you find a number of gems and magical reagents as well in the clutter. And yeah that's the in the specific questions. information about how I would let me in. Yeah. And this is the black. I'll pick up a piece of cloth from my. I mean I'm just holding it with my hands. You're crazy contagious. And I pick it up using the cloth. And this is a special healing potion for meeting you. That's weird. You don't usually offer me gifts. Look at you fucking drink this shit. Holy fuck. Thank you. I look at the potion. I think it's a classic potion of healing greater 44 plus four. I'm waiting for her to be a potion of poison. Yeah. Healing potion. Oh those don't you also you also I say we're able to find a number of travel plans to going out to you see a lot of the runes and a lot of transportation magic here. Is this the only one that you found that we found. I inspect the crystal. So you inspect it and you make an arcana check at advantage. 2929 this is very similar to the crystal that had that you had procured and brought to the eternal veil of Aka that basically had let Pazuzu in this very clearly is a gem from the abyss itself. It is of the abyss. It is made in abyss. And you are you very clearly it feels after experiencing it yourself. You understand what perhaps commoness had gone through and the feeling that he had in his great transformation. You understand what this power had what that what. Lufty's guardian angel had been experiencing when she was when Pazuzu attempted to curse her as well and transform her and that it was it's basically an essence of Pazuzu from the abyss. This isn't good. And I highly doubt that this is the only one and I've explained what it is to my. Chaos gem. Yes, that's exactly right. I was worried it was that I mean that was in my pack when we went into the library and we sort of just let him in. That's exactly right. I mean who knows how many more of these are now scattered all over of interest. Shit. Should we take it or leave it? Well I certainly don't want to fall into the wrong hands but I mean is there anyone even left? Sound like it. We got it taken. And sure with this crystal and after inspecting it some of the things that you found in the papers in the travel plan start to make sense. And I would say with those high rules of Arcana and investigation you're able to piece together and you actually find a folded up in various places but discreetly tucked. What looks like alchemical particularly transmutation circles laid over the map of Corvacia in in six different rings outer rings throughout and place at six different points. You get the sense that perhaps one of these black crystals was placed at every so six times six basically all throughout the the country and you get the sense of that these people that would be operating in the room would be coordinating with the whatever agents at the front would be as they're traveling in order to execute this plan. Alright we're definitely going to take this with us. But I mean for the rest of these I don't know if it's just as simple as finding one of them and disrupting the one circle or if we have to stop them all. But there's no way. I mean there's no way we can travel to find all of these locations that are marked in this map. Maybe we just have to disrupt a few. I'm not sure. Didn't he mention something about it happening sort of outward. Maybe we can like try to see how far it's gone and you know stop the the one that's approaching right now. Yeah I mean we certainly have to be close to the epicenter of all of it. So maybe if we just start heading outwards we can get ahead of this thing before it claims more people. Like riding a wave. Exactly right. We'll ride a horrible death demon abyss wave. Like filling a balloon with too much air. Dammit Jim I'm a doctor not a physicist. Um so I mean do we know how we disrupt it? Do we just take the gems away? I mean if it's anything like any of the transportation magic that I've learned. The patterns, the writings, the chalk marks, it all matters. You erase those things, you destroy them. The spell won't work. So can we take the maps and so we have them and absolutely keep the gem on you so that you know you can keep it safe. Um is there anything more we need to learn in this room or maybe should we just follow that creepy glowing red hallway? I kind of think we need to go down the red hallway. But I do agree that all we have to do is disrupt the resonance of this expanding circle of magic. If it's anything like music, one sour note, rude fold please. Well said. Alright, let's go. Let's go quietly. Alright, Lufty? Lufty, quietly. Alright. Let's go. Oh yeah you do a stealth roll too. We already did stealth rolls. 15. You guys all got 15? Yeah, you guys got a crush on 15. Toa did terribly. So you make your way through and you make your way through the hallways and Felix you know these hallways you would spend I think two, three weeks In Corvacia with your rooms in this very citadel and Felix was spending almost nightly walking in these hallways and the glow gets brighter and brighter and as it pulses you can hear the sound getting more clear and it sounds like flapping of wings but it's very clearly when you start to see that it's almost as if the walls themselves are glowing faintly and you continue upward. You see that there are several doors that had been ripped apart. You see feathers, you see torn uniforms, but it's completely eerily quiet. And you see the stairway going up to the ground level of the citadel, finally up from the deepest darkest basement beneath beneath the earth. And it's glowing with a bright red down the stairway. And you can see that this the the the hallway that had the hallway that goes up beyond the stairs is just completely covered in feathers. Either one or many creatures, other creatures made their way up these stairs. I don't know what what we might have to face to go up there, but I think that's our only choice. No way before it end up. I must continue. I forgot that I got my inspirations back. I'll watch that down. You continue upward, and this is where you see the glow is coming from. You look towards an exit and you see that it's where there had been a window is now pulsing red, fiendish energy. And it's pulsing with that same energy now. And you can see now over the window, it you see beams of light and it seems to be just rocketing upwards, rocking upwards and you see now that the walls themselves are glowing. The exterior of the citadel seems to be glowing and humming. And you see now making our and our connoisseur Felix. At advantage. Two fourteens, twenty four. A type of alchemy, a type of magic that is more familiar to you now after meeting Asher and experiencing his castle. You see that very discreetly in these exterior walls is a great number of arcane runes and sigils. All over incredibly discreetly hidden that are all now glowing. It seems as if some sort of spell or incantation or marks had perhaps been decades writing on every single inch of these outer walls of the citadel. As you see now the door beyond to the exit into Zentra stairs going up. The remnants of chaos, feathers, broken doors, slashed walls, huge talon marks, torn uniforms, splashes of blood. But it's eerily quiet beyond the that seems to be pulsing. What is that sound, Felix? I don't know. I mean, I guess like when there's enough heavily concentrated magic in one area, you can almost hear it feel it. It has to just be the magic itself. We couldn't have been down under the citadel for more than two hours, right? Well, I guess not. But I mean, that's another kind of that's another thing that baffles me is this is eerily similar to Asher's handbook, but it seems far older than. The time that I don't know if it could be older than him or or or or it maybe he learned alchemy from whoever's work this is. Or maybe this is his handiwork. I think we're missing something. Is it possible that Furman was. Spend his entire life working on this, just like Zern spent his life dedicated to stopping P Man. Maybe this is what Furman was doing. It's certainly possible. I want to try to really, really listen to the audio. Oh, yes, I'm sorry. Yes. Furman. What are you saying? Caprice is especially attuned to the auditory world. He would try to go to where he thinks he can best echo, locate the sound. He's confused. What does this mean? What is it? What is it? What is the sound? Arcana check for me. Arcana. Yeah, at advantage because of the music. What do you think it means? It's French. It's French for room. OK. Twenty five. What you're hearing is the pulsing of whatever magical incantations whatever spell has been put on this that has turned the citadel effectively into a magical focus, connecting it to that. Circle that you fought and killed. Now or formerly high general Furman. It's pulsing magic, but there does seem to be a resonance to it. There's something almost maybe not quite musical, but it's a discordant note. That sounds similar to how your tuning fork did when Felix used it to teleport and ended up in the nine hells, but discordant in a completely more chaotic and wild way. This is the sound of the ritual. This is the sound of all these creatures out in the city. The way that they're talking, it's almost like the way that my tuning fork worked when we got shot into the nine hells. We this could be a summoning or opening of a portal or something even more serious. Well, I mean, we use the tuning fork to go someplace. What if they're trying to move this place somewhere else? Or swap? It's only possible. Can we see the sky from the windows? It's it's almost like a red pulsing like like at least a foot or so of this of red arcane magic that's pulsing up. And so it's covering you would need to attempt to go outside or get past it in order to. Oh, should we? I mean, I think we should. There's still a way forward, right? Or like basically you're in the main hallways where you had first been brought in where there had been guards stationed. You see that the door that that that is the main door or one of the main exits is around the corner, but you see the top through the hallway. One of the doors has been ripped off and thrown inside and there's a great flood of red light. Let's try to get outside carefully. We have to be ready for anything. We don't know what's even in the air right now. I agree. OK, you go first and maybe check to see maybe at the door. There's some sort of like you want me to go first. Yeah, you're the magic guy. You always go first. I know. But I mean, this time it's like I can't hit magic in the head. If he's hurt, I'll go first. OK, you go first and I'll protect Felix. Because he's hit. Hi, where's you protect me? Well, I can just protect myself then. Yeah. Yeah, thank you. Great. And I will lead the way. You do. You turn the corner and you see one of the exits log down a long hallway, flooding with light. And you see where a double door had been. It's now open. And there's just that wall of that energy. It's pulsing, pulsing, pulsing with that same. I'm going to walk forward with confidence, but. Prickly, this isn't quite the right word. I want to be right on the edge of jumping back or attempting to dart out of the way of any any serious issue. But I would say, yeah, try and move into the space for sure. So you're trying to move through. Yeah. You step through. You feel a horrible sickness, a horrible the same kind of feeling that you felt with the feathers. But this is not a transmutational transforming. This is a different type of magic. And you feel almost if it's trying to take you somewhere or move you somewhere and you feel a tug almost at your very soul and your core. But then you're able to force yourself through it and make your way through to the other side. And it's quiet. Can we see him on the other side? He disappears behind the red. Oh, shit. Caprice Caprice. You hear. Felix, what happened to him? Oh, God, I don't know. As we're shouting, does does he hear us? Nothing we know, but I'm just curious if he can hear anything on the outside. Caprice. Yeah. I'll say what you say. What you mean? And I guess go through. You go, you charge through and you feel the same thing and you charge through and if he wants to move to almost barrels into you. When I when I land, I'm just getting my bearings. I would have been observing the whole thing. If he's second behind me, I would have only had those few second before he barrels in the bed. Yeah. To you, barrel into Caprice. Oh, Caprice, you OK? Well, I'm just I'm so glad you're here. I what what is this? And you look and you see Zentra. You see the the large inner walls and the city is quiet. The wind is still. You see feathers on the ground, streaks of blood, doors ripped out, broken windows on the buildings. But the city itself is completely quiet. The streets are empty. You see that there are you see a huge streak of blood and a body. And another and another and you see that it's some of the horses completely torn apart, rendered their innards down down down off, you know, off to down one straight, the wagon that it had been pulled. Both of them have been pulling completely torn apart. All human life. You do not see a single glimpse of. So this was the most popular city next to Galta guy I've ever been in. And it's. Fucking empty. And the entire city is bathed in red. And you look up and you see. That the Citadel behind you. Is. Effectively firing a massive beam of red energy directly into the sky. And you see now. At high noon, the sun is directly above you. Jesus. And the sun is now red. Massive. And it looks, Caprice, very similar to a red sun that you've seen when you were brought to Pizunia. And it's pulsing. And glowing. And that's what you see for now, as the rest of you are processing what happened. Why did you follow him? We got to go. We got to go after him. We can't leave them out there. Both dead. We don't know. You can't see here, either, though. We have to move forward. Fine. Fine. OK. On the count of three. Sure. Do you want me to do the countdown? Sure. Are we counting from one to three or three to one? Three to one. And then on after the one. Then one. All right. Three, two, actually, are we should one? You all run forward and almost smack into Toa as you all see this same scene. Glad you're OK. I can't believe you just run off like that. I think we might be in different places. What the hell's happened here? Hey, that veil. Look at the sun. Look at the moon. Well, look at that big ass orb in the sky. We're fucked. It was Bezuzu's plan. Remember? There's no one in the same fuck. You didn't actually. It's fine. I said, P man. You have to say it three times in succession unless it's in a song. I think that they all flew away. Actually, I'm looking in the sky. Do I see like legions of. Burden perception check. Oh, no. Oh, even no, no, or 11. At first, you don't go on as all you see is the glow of red and you look around. But then specs. The sky is not blue. It's not you know, you're not sure if this is created a false sun or if it's connected to the sun. You have no idea what time it is at this point, but you see dots. Countless dots flying creatures. Flying from. Everywhere you can see in the sky. They start to form together. As they begin to ascend upward, higher and higher, almost forming a mass, a massive flock of. Dark wings. Flying up towards the sun itself. As the beam pulses. Turning the sun a blood red. I think that's when everybody went. So what are they going to do? Just fly into the sun? What do we do? Well, first, we got to figure out what you are. Iris, your messages that you sent, do they go across planes? I'm not sure, but you don't have a sending prepared today, so I can find out tomorrow. Really double, super triple check though. What are you implying, Priests? If we had a way to send a message or potentially try to contact somebody that we know is on a ventress. I do have sending prepared. But, go for it. It's so mean. Hot damn! I was going to say you attempted to contact Paradiso today. By the way, what? Here's the problem. I'm all out of third level spell slots. Yeah. Do you have any fourth? I have one. No fifth, no sixth, no seventh, no eighth. So this is it. We have one shot. You've got one sending? Yes. But it will take up my fourth level spell slot and if we get into any kind of fight or damage, I'm stuck with ones and twos. I think if we get into any major conflict at all before we long rest, we're just dead. So I think this is the problem. Sure, who am I going to try to communicate? Somebody is far away from Striga as possible. It's got to be a different continent, because we don't know how far. Oh, sure. Well, bring, bring, bring. Daddy, I'm tired and I want to come home. How's Mummy? Let me know. Oh, is Thomas all right? Is he still breathing? Well, anyway, I hope you're well. I miss you. It's Iris, by the way. One of your daughters. In case you've got. Love you. Goodbye. Now, this isn't a foolproof plan, but you know, if we don't get a response, then we know something's wrong, right? I mean, has your father ever not responded? Well, yes, sometimes when he forgets I'm his daughter. Well, you're lying. Yeah, that's why I added that at the end. He's a very busy man. He hasn't got all day. How can you help in this situation? Felix, no way. No, yes, Iris, of course. You're in, you know, is it? Oh, Daddy. Oh, yes, your man thing is fine. Fine. Fine. Miss you to snookums. You called me snookums. Yes, it works. He did not seem at all distressed. So out of character, it does not go across planes generally, right? I have no idea. Let me look it up. I will. Cross any distance and even to other planes of existence. Oh, fuck. But if the target is on a different plane than you, there's a 5% chance the message doesn't arrive. That's the thing. Yeah, that's not good enough. Okay, I would have said not to do that then, but that's okay. Well, bye for it, Lovell. That's why I asked. Here's the thing. Well, I know my daddy's fine. Oh, and so is Thomas. I don't think the whole point was that we're in Zenchra right now. We didn't get teleported. He wanted to basically use a big, we didn't see in Azure's strife. He wanted to connect here to the big desert, Bessonia. Well, but more importantly, ours, his family is okay, which means that for now this is localized, right? Well, I think they just need Korovakia based on those drawings, right? This is just a country wide thing. Or maybe it is all of the strigger of the world, I don't know. Well, we've narrowed it down a little bit. Yes, we did. At least it's not global, which is nice. I feel like you'd be like, holy shit, did you see the red sun? Oh my god. Well, to be fair, in Siked we often have a red sun. It's in the middle of the desert. You know, I think the point is what we've narrowed down is that it's not a global catastrophe yet. Yes, right. Oh, that's great. Unless some divine entity or powerful being intercepted my message and responded in a like manner that my father would have, impersonating him to me and fooling me. Well, who else will call you Snickham's other than your father? Really, nobody. Well, there you go. At least he didn't ask how lofty he was. You know, we didn't bummed about that. It's a little rude. He's probably forgotten all about you. Well, one problem at a time. This is at least good because we know that we're still in the same place, like you said. We just have to figure out how to proceed. I'm going to die a virgin. Do you want to have sex, Caprice? Not with me, just in general. So really, what's on your mind right now? It's what's on my mind. I ain't mind fucking all the time. What are you fucking talking about? What are you fucking talking about? I can't think straight. Really? It's not important. Actually, no. Is that the only way you know what to do? No, I think that isn't. No, I don't. That was not the time of this conversation. I was just, it was an expression of... Is anyone else here still a virgin? Raise your hand. I really don't feel like offering up that information. So you are? I'm the daughter of Pharaoh. You think, no, of course. I didn't know that. Yes. Oh. Is this... Why do you think I get so uncomfortable when Tore takes his shirt off? Which is all the time he's never wearing a shirt. And when the guy opened that jar of pickles that you summoned, he was all oily. I summoned a jar of pickles. No, you summoned a man who opened a jar of pickles. I summoned a man that opened a jar of pickles. Oh, you're talking... Oh, yes. No, not dog, he was a jackal. Dunga. That's dunga. That's a lot of performing, Doug. Yes, no, I completely forgot about that. He wasn't a man, he was a celestial guardian. Yeah, but he was all creased up. That was, I think, tentatively yesterday. I know. We've all been hit very hard, man. Over and over. Look, I don't think any of this conversation can help us save the world right now. Well, no, but if the world is going to end, we want to make sure we don't have any regrets. Yes, absolutely. I'm personally fine with dying a virgin. Caprice, however, does not seem to be, so I think one of you should help him. Now, I know the two of you are a couple, so it might be awkward. What do you mean by a couple? They keep saying that. I mean, I keep telling them, yeah, we're a couple of guys. We're friends. A couple of fellas. We're best friends. Yeah, we're a couple of best friends. And so because of that, I don't want to cause any jealousy issues or anything of the sort. So Luffy is a harlot, I think that she's got the most experience and she has no standards, really. So I was thinking... I have standards. But they have to be alive, of course, and Caprice is. And pose some sort of benefit to me, socially. As you say, I'm not alive. Gary! So I was thinking you could just go behind one of the carts or something. It'd be quick. He's never done it before. He's got, like, what, five seconds in him? Luffy, you scare the shit out of me. We're not going to do this. Well, I know, wasn't I? Great. We're not going to die. We're not going to die. We're going to fix this. Are we still in the Prime Material plane? I guess. Think so. Did literally everyone in this fucking stage turn into a demon? I just want to say this. If we do die, I am putting on your epitaph, Was a Virgin. Fine. I don't want to die. Look at what's happening around us. No one else is freaking out! Well, no. I'm fine dying a Virgin and they're sleeping together. We don't need to talk about dying. We're not going to die. We're not going to die. We need to stop this. I think it's very likely we're going to die. Can we fly really fast? Is there a way that we can fly? Are we going to fly regular speed? I think so. Very fast. I've still got to tell. We need to go up there. No, not up there. I mean, like, out in the Korovarki, they're trying to stop, you know. Oh, hold on. I still have a teleport. Up my sleeve. Take out the maps that we found. Are there any points of this circle that you're familiar with that you could give us to? Yeah, I mean, I know it's the entire city of Korovarki, right? The maps that we have. The nation of Korovarki, yeah. And so you get the sense that like the North-South... There's so many places that I wouldn't have been before. Yeah, yeah, but there'd be plenty of places. You travel all over the nation, the country to... Yeah, I point to several places that I've been here before. I remember where this place looks like, at least what it used to look like. You know, we might be able to get here. There might be a permanent teleportation, so I'm sure that I remember. I don't know, man. But to what end? What are we looking for? Yeah, well, I mean, what did you have in mind? I just mean that I think... Maybe I'm misremembering, but I thought that the ritual was that it starts from Zentra, and it slowly goes out and starts turning more and more bird demons. So if we can stop it at one of the intersection points, maybe we'd like you said break the whole thing. Well, I guess ideally we'd have to know how long it's been happening, and then maybe how far it's been, and we could calculate where we need to aim, and hopefully we'd get there before it does. I've an idea. Caprice, you can fly just yourself, right? For free, you'll easily make a fly, if we can do it. Well, maybe you make us all fly, we fly straight up and see if we can see how far it's gone. I can cast Bane four times. That's really cool. So if we fly straight up, maybe we can get a sense of how far it's gone. And then once we know we can compare the map, and you can be like, oh, hey, I'll be there, let's go to this intersection point, and we'll stop it. I think that's a great idea. We just gotta do our little reconnaissance, and don't fuck up the map this time. You make the map. We don't need a map, we only have a map. Just cast Fly, come on, please. Would anyone like to be Bane'd? None for me, thank you. Bane? He didn't fly so good. It's the opposite of fly, Iris. All right. No offense, I would happily sleep with you. I just feel like I would be unconscious for a week, if you did anything to me like that. All right, and I would start to... You're lucky. I start singing, and one after the other, after the other Peter Pan style, we all suddenly start to feel our feet lift off the ground. Which I hate this feeling. And he realizes that you are capable of flying for... An hour. 10 minutes. Oh. Let's make this quick. Pew! Flying in the sky. We're getting a flying speed of 60 feet. So, if we're dash and we're going 120 feet per second. And I'm also a kitty. Per round. And yeah, you're... My goal... My goal would be to get as high as possible to try to be able to calculate and triangulate how far we need to teleport. You see my very big brain. Yeah. And we have the map too, so we can go like a sense of... Sure. One sec. Drive the car. Drive the bus. You fly into the sky. And you see the glow of the blood red sun. As it hums and hums and hums. And you see now that it's a wash over the entire city of Zentra. And you see now that the glow... You yourself are... It's... Everything is so red. It's almost different shades of red. As you rise, you see the entire city completely empty. You see carnage and chaos, but not a single humanoid body. You see the livestock torn apart. You see cats and dogs. Anything. No birds. No humans. Just... The death of everything that is not avian or anything that could become avian. As you fly higher and higher and you realize you yourself are in a being that extends all the way to the edge of the core of that to Zentra. The entire city has been transmogrified into horrific demons. But it moves no further. You look beyond and you see some faint movement of carts in a small town that's very far. You see the clockwood where you... Against which you had fought against Molok and the hordes of the Horde and Legion. It seems as if by slaughtering the High General, by slaughtering Furman, he was unable to utilize you to extend this horrible transformation beyond Zentra. Silver linings. However, as you fly higher and higher, you start to notice something that is perhaps far more horrifying. How? Although it has taken much longer given that the entire nation itself did not transform into bird-like demons. You look up and almost just as large as the sun is a massive flock of winged creatures. And you see the blood red sun. As you see a small curve of pitch black start to move and start to blot out the sun. It looks like an eclipse, but there is no moon. This is Pazuzu's flock. As the eclipse begins, just as Pazuzu swore. It doesn't also feel like the reverse of an eclipse or solar where the shadow of the planet that we're on. But that's casting the... It does not feel like this is a lunar eclipse, right? Regardless... It feels like a magical... It's a magical solar. It's a solar eclipse that is being done by a massive colossal flock of bird demons. So it's like the edges are like... And it's actually they're forming in almost a disc-like formation as they're flying across the sun. Okay. So do we feel, based on what you described, that we have done enough to stop the spread of this transmutation? Yes. Yes. So if let's say if one of you had... And I'll say you probably are able to piece this together from what Furman said, from the designs and from what you had found in there. Okay. That basically had one of you accept it, it would have been the next ring out. And if two of you, it would have been two rings out. Gotcha. And so basically it was, and if he killed you and was still alive, he would have then taken you and put you in a circle. It would have instantly transformed you into a horrible, in a much worse version that you guys got actually got turned into. And it would have been immediately shot out to another ring. Holy shit. Okay. So that's why, and you saw also streaks of blood, you get the sense that people were perhaps killed and similar to how Alexi had the trans... Like once they were killed. And you saw this magic way back at the Lockfeather Lodge. Oh, right. From the kind of corruption that the arrows at the harpies were shooting. And you had burned all of those bodies. And the dead were rising as well. We gotta get back down. We can't stay up here. It's too dangerous. We don't have much time left anyway. Let's make our way. Just leave the white. Should we try to get out of the city? So it sounds like there's no more ritual to stop, but... Right. I don't know if there's any way we can stop the eclipse. I don't know either. I don't know either, Sova. And you see as it continues to move and move, the swarm gets bigger and bigger. I don't want to be here when that thing is fully covered. The ritual has not stopped. As the beam continues to shoot in the air, turning the sun absolutely red, the... ...corner's along the black flock of Pazuzu's chosen and faithful start to glow horrible fiendish red, shimmering like the edges of a portal. Jesus. As they fly further and further, the flock of the swarm gets larger and larger. As it begins to cover the sun halfway, and it picks up in speed, as the disk of demons flies faster and faster. As the red glow starts to dim. As the sun itself is blotted out. And suddenly pitch blackness falls over the land. All that's left above you is a glowing red ring. And everything is quiet. Everything is still. And you just see above you, crackling, humming. And the beam no longer shoots from the citadel. So we're not like, being red anymore. It is pitch black and you just see a glowing ring above you where the sun had once been. Stay close to my hand. We should get ready to teleport if we need to. Can we teleport up here if we need to? Technically, can we? Well, it takes an action since it's instantaneous. Yes. The answer is yes. I said that in character. If we need to get the hair out of here, then we have an option. Oh, God. And suddenly. Oh, my God, we're fast in ten minutes. The land. Arrows into a bright red as there is no more sun. What had happened to the demons? You do not know. There's no more collapse, but that humming ring is the same. But above you where there had been a sun. You see red barren rock and desert as you see. A disk of Pizunia above you, massive and growing at the center of this disk. You see looking up. You look down as if you have a bird's eye view of an unfathomably colossal black ziggurat rising up towards the portal. And then after just a moment. You see where those demons have gone. Joined by more countless. Pizzuzus flock floods out of the portal to Pizunia that is formed directly above the portal. It's like a black straw. As they spill out along the edges. The red glow of the portal above you is suddenly blocked out entirely as just a shadow is cast from. Thousands, tens of thousands of winged demons flying out and. North-south east-west. So they're coming from the portal. The portal up and they're flying down and out. Yep. Oh, well that's not good. I feel like we're too late. I don't know how we can reverse this. Well, I mean, I think the good news is that at least the openings on this big is sort of, you know, much bigger. I don't know if that helps at all. I mean, the holes, the hole. I don't think it makes a difference to a. I don't think so either. Can we damage the portal? Can we fly into the cigar? I don't think we want to do that. We definitely don't want to be on his turf. I don't know. We have to kill him somehow, don't we? Yeah, we. The little, the linchpin of this whole thing. I just feel like we'll never make it through the portal alive with all those things coming out. Well, there's one way to take a shortcut to him. Say his name three times. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. I feel like that has to be a such a last resort that we're not even there yet. All right, plan Z. Yeah. So do we think, you know, we have to find a way to get rest? I feel like we're not in fighting shape. We're not, but we might not survive the next four hours. Simply in your coming straight down back. No, you get the sense strangely enough that you see a massive glowing portal to Pizzunia and it's a it almost looks like a mockery of a son with the with the red deserts and the red mountains and crags. Glowing with that same red sun that is above the land. But the the red ring of the portal is now completely blacked out as the sides. They're all really spilling out from the sides and going out all around to Corvac. Yeah, but the center, you see that Ziggurat, you are, you would have a clear shot to go straight through. If you were, do they seem to be leaving the city? Yep. They're basically there. They're not like trapped within the ring. No, they are all flying out and spreading over Corvac and Striga as a whole. Well, if going after him is the only way to stop this, then. What about your mom? Plain in the air. Freeze time. Jump to another plane. We'd have to think then to rest. That's a great idea. Out of character, I think we already know the time return to the flying moment. Correct? I asked that a couple of sessions ago. That's because I wanted to cheat the system and become a superman. Can brief doesn't know that. Fix it, fix it, fix it, fix it. No, time works normally there now. We don't have that option. Trust me, it was the first thing I thought of when I realized we were under any kind of time crunch. I figured we could wait it out there and transcend all human capabilities. We don't have that option now. Okay. So, I mean, I think we have two options. Do we go back down into Zentra? We know that it's going to be relatively safe and do we just rest and then fly up there? Or do we just go in and try to hide out there and try to rest? By the way, I think, I mean, Iris is totally tapped out. You're nearly tapped out. I'm beating out. The rest of us are all fucked up. This is mad feelings. You can just go in there and die. I cast my 8th level spell. Oh, what is it? Glipness. Oh, what is, wow, what does that do? Oh, does that win the whole day? It's making me very persuasive. It doesn't help shit. I don't know why. I took it. It's like a horseshit. You chose that? Glingly? Glipness? Is that a mistake? Yes. It just makes him very attractive. Oh, were you going to use that for, you know, when you see a... Probably for sex. Or for sex, that's right. He doesn't want to dive in. You learned an 8th level spell just to sleep with someone? No, I didn't learn it. That's really sweet. I've just been making this shit up this whole time. What are you fucking talking about? I didn't learn any of these spells. You couldn't have made up anything. And you made up that? Well, the last time I used an 8th level spell, I turned the mummy into a fucking root vegetable. Yeah, we should be doing that again. That was insane. Shit, why did I keep that up? I was feeling it wouldn't work. Look, I don't think we go back to Sentra. I think we go into Pizzunia. I think we find a place to hide out there. I think that it's the last thing they'll expect. And maybe if we go, if they're coming this way and we're going that way, maybe if we'll... I don't know, stop up the hole or something. I can cast Glimness and if anyone gives us a shit, I'll be like, No. And they'll be like, oh, I'm convinced and they'll walk away. All right, we take the fight to them. You're right, don't ever expect it. Yeah. And then we can hide right under their noses. Right under their various beaks and noses. Right, noses beaks. I have no idea. I guess I don't know which ones we have. Why are we hiding down in Sentra? We're not going to sleep down there. Why? There's nothing down there. Well, that's kind of why... Except for like, thousands of demons that are flooding out all over the place. Yeah, there are tens of thousands of them. They're coming back down here, is the point. Well, they might once they've realized that there's more human ways to completely eviscerate. You know what I mean? All the other ones have been turned or possibly eaten. And I don't want to get eaten. Yes, that's true. Oh, I don't know. I guess you're right. What other choice do we have? There's nothing left. Right, Hesh is abandoning us. Everyone else has holed up in the keeps and castles. Waiting the apocalypse and I guess here it is. We can go through the other side. We can assess the situation. We can patch ourselves up. Maybe like a cave or something. An outcropping. Sure. If we're going to... If someone's going to tell our story, I want them to be like... And then they turn back to Sentra. No. Then they flew into the fucking eye of the storm. And they said, fuck you. That's pretty cool. Yes, that's like metal as fuck. Did you just use glibness on us? No. Look at that biggest poachers. That's just regular type. That's just his midnight sock. Zorbak knows he stuffs his pants. There's a baby rattle in here. Fuck. An Ascension 1. I hope Matt's on the bathroom one time. I toss it and it disappears to Sentra night. Holy shit. My laptop is covered with coffee. I need to clean this up. Oh, you got me. That's my second spit take. Wow, you did. It's like all over the table. I'm used to it now. I welcome it like a homeless man spitting into my mouth. A copy of our first published supplement, The Crikin Moon. A folk horror tome for Dungeons and Dragons 5th Edition. And don't forget to snag all the extra goodies, like dice, miniatures, plushies, a tarot deck, and more. Thank you. Okay. We're flying into. So you guys are talking about that. Basically, you're all flying. Yeah, as long as you don't like, you know, if you give us the whole like, oh, you know, 10 minutes after passing, we can just like, I guess that's what we're gonna do. We have to decide right now. We only have enough of my fly magic to either get down and be safe or go up and find out. I don't think there's any turning back now, personally. Just have a port word across planes if we need to get out. It works with the chain fork we had before, but that didn't exactly work the way I had hoped that it would. We still have the tuning fork. I mean, maybe Azzy, maybe he'll help. He was on our side before. We can always rely on him if we need to. You guys in? I'm in. Let's do this. Yeah. I'm ready. Okay. You ascend Skyward. Now I'm gonna change the music. Oh. I believe I'm a little child. I believe I'm a little child. I'm a little child without having ever had sex. All I got to was the other side. You... Whoa. This is intense. Oh, I was so confused before. Begin to fly... Skyward. As you ascend higher and higher, as the full sun now replaced by a massive portal to Pizzunia, a land of realm you know has infinite portals within it. As you continue higher and higher, as the black swarms of Pizzuzu's flock now begins to take shape and form, as you see gnashing beaks of all varieties, every single, every single type of bird that you can imagine twisted, and some with two wings, some with four, some with six, some with multiple heads, just twisting demonic avian creatures as they spill out and fly across Korovakia. They spread across Trigga. And at this moment, Lufty, you feel something in your... close to your heart as the second feather... My boot. That's not on your boot. ...begins to glow. And you feel that similar light blue glow that had been in your... in your soul that you'd felt when... when you'd experienced the presence of your guardian angel. And suddenly the feather... whips out from your person. And ahead of you, there's a bright flash of light blue. And you see... another massive swarm. But this is not birds. This is not demons. You see... obsidian, perfectly sculpted, bald-headed, humanoids, armed with holy weapons, marked in strange carvings and runes. As thousands of Vati from the eternal veil of Aka erupt into a cloud above you, as you get a thousand feet from the portal. And you see now spilling around you and behind you, meeting dark wings on dark obsidian skin. The Vati, the creatures, the peoples of wind, of air, of light, and good, have left their silver spires. They have left their perfect, beautiful veil behind. This is what they've been preparing for as soon as you awaken them. And you know that the seven, now eight angels, the Windoogs, have used their great power to smite the chain god. But the Vati are still strong. They've been waiting for this moment. As you have your own flock and they crash into the demons. And you see, similar to your vision, Caprice, you see the war that could possibly end all wars begin. This is the first battle. As the demons now see the divine and elemental creatures flying up at them and they're filled with malice and hatred. And they meet and claw and wing and beak meet with blade. And there's bloodshed as bodies of demons and Vati fall beside you, all around you, and it's almost as if it's raining a terrible black rain. As the bodies of hundreds of demons and dozens of Vati begin to fall as you fly higher and higher and higher. And now Pizzunia awaits. You see. And as I changed the music real quiet. Oh fuck, what was all that? Holy shit! You're allowed to react to this. I can't believe it. See? We made the right choice. We did. We're not alone. We can do this. We gotta make sure that this fight isn't in vain. We can begin to end this while they hold them all off. We've got the skills to pay the bills. Let's go. I absolutely hate flying. It's not that much further. We can have all these toned guys to help us. This is amazing. You rocket Skyward as the massive battle wages above you. And you see that there's hundreds of Vati that do not meet with the initial forces at the portal and are sent flying out to pursue the demons that are attempting to make their way beyond this battle and to spread terror and corruption across Korvakia. The work you've done has bought some time. But not much. As you fly higher and higher. And the portal hums and swirls. You hear the clashing of blades, the screeching of demons, the crying of the Vati. As the battle wages but you pass all of it. There's a very clear ring to enter. And as you get closer and closer, you see the black ziggurat. You see glowing fiendish magic at work. You see the great ritual being done. And you see the very top of this ziggurat, the one who's responsible for it all. It looks as if you have a bird's eye view of him now. Pazuzu stands atop. Ushering in the reign of the conclave, the Queen's conclave. The Oberoth Lords being called to this realm. You see eleven surging portals across this ziggurat. As you see swirling shapes within. As you, this horrible black ziggurat gets larger and larger. You had seen it off in the distance and you'd thought you were certainly closer for how large it is. But it is impossibly large. The monuments of Haraqir have nothing on this ancient black ziggurat. As you fly in and you finally see it before you. You hear the screeching of bird demons all around you as they flood in as they're slaughtered by the Vati. And you see now there's a mere fifty feet before you cross the threshold. What do you do? No, no. You just check my skull. So there's very much like a threshold that we can kind of see. Yep, crossing in. Yep. Where gravity might shift in like, stranger things style. The sense that might be exactly what might happen. I didn't take any spells that could help with this situation. We haven't needed featherfall in about three years. How much time do we have left for flying? Uh, maybe. The priest can recast it, right? No, it's from his side. I cast five five spells. I got it. I got it. I got it. I got it. I got it. Oh. I got a point. Oh, my god. I got it. So full. Does it look like we have the ability to cast spells down into the fray? Or does it look like it's so far away that we're choosing whether to go there or elsewhere? To the south. What do you mean? Does it look like? So it's a massive portal above you. There are, there's basically a ring of demons just flooding in from the skies of Puzunia. And the Vati are now crashing into them. And they're fighting. And you see now far, far, far past the portal is basically the bird's eye view is if you were the sun over Puzunia, looking down at the Ziggurat. And that's when we look straight at Puzunia. And the battle's happening in a ring at the edge of the portals because they want to stop the birds, the bird demons from flying. And there are plenty there getting past the Vati. Yeah, for sure. But that's what I mean by choice is like does it seem like we could toss a bone to those who are in this conflict or would that be distractio? And we should be just right. You get the sense that they are here to fight all fight this war and for you to go through. I would say that you're not. You don't get the sense that this is not your fight. That is what you're on fire. They're like, yes, it's a massive portal. It's not like a really short. It is absolutely massive. Yeah, I can't be like, oh, well, I'll send a fire spell over. They basically rocket it out from in front and behind you in a massive flash. A cloud basically appeared. And it's the size of a city. It's the size of Zentra. It's really from one end to the other is the size of this portal. OK, so there are thousands of you. Yes, I guess I can't hand and carry for a minute. It won't be all we need and we can still fly. And then we, you know, as flies running out, we can be lowered down and it was in some medicines. No matter what happens, we did our best. And this is the best we can help for. And we have friends on our side and I'll look at all the Vati. We're going to give it our best shot. That's right. Just stay close. Let's fly as close as we can. And when fly starts to feel like it's running out, I'll take over. I think we only have another few minutes. Then let's hurry. I will continue to move forward. And as I feel the spell wearing off, I will cast Arcade Hand. Hopefully as we start to switch to catch us and we can like be lowered down to where we might be headed. OK, you do that. You cross the threshold as you feel the temperature change immediately. The blasting, fiery heat. Puzuna that you've experienced yourself. You only have seen in visions and dreams as the horrific bitter wind, even this high up, blasts you with pebbles and sand as you see a jagged landscape, thousands of portals just gyrating all over this. Iron fortresses rising into the sky. This massive, massive land, this layer of the abyss. And it's at this moment you realize the fly spell on the effects have been completely wiped. You begin to fall. As soon as I feel that I would, you know, having said, like, let's stay close together, I will attempt to cast Arcade Hand to catch us. And then I have a minute to move us where we need to go. I can recast it if I absolutely have to, but it's just very expensive to do so. So I'll try to catch us and move us towards where I think we might have a place to land safely. You are the center as you see now above where a red sun might be high in the sky is now this swirling, surging portal to Evantris. As you see now the there is a sky, but it's dark. You see the red surging from the portal, but the red is mostly from the rocks in the sand of this plane. The sky is dark and you think for a moment that there's there storm clouds, but now they are clouds and clouds and clouds of countless demons. The flock of Pazuzu flying from his realm, invading Evantris. As you see the lone figure at the very top of this ziggurat, four wings, two up, two down. As he holds his hands in this position, one up, one down. As magic, fiendish magic, comes and pulses and surges as the ziggurat itself begins to glow with this demonic fiendish energy. As the final war, perhaps, of this universe is beginning with one individual. And you see as you begin to descend slowly on the giant hand, caught you right? I mean, if that works, yeah. Yeah, it does. It does. Your magic works as you all land. And I would move us as quickly as I can. Yeah, I feel like high five and I slap the big hand. It's very solid. No, you can do it very solid. It's blue shimmering magic. Yeah, I would just like fall to my feet and make the joke that I just made. As you descend, you see that Pazuzu now seems to be wearing a crown. And it's a crown of silver. And you see that there's a great number of points all along. It's almost looking like a crown of thorns. And you see that he's fashioned himself a crown from the shards of the hairpin of Shredanyavon's arm. Whoa. As he is taking his place as the king of demons. And you see far above that there still seems to be that silvery curse, but whatever he's fashioned for himself is keeping it at bay. And as you descend, they never want to make a perception check for me. Oh, geez. Oh, no. I didn't roll right there. Oh, I got a 19. I rolled better than I thought. Oh, I'm going to drag you, Felix. Roger. 21. Yeah, worse. 16. 9 plus 7 is 16. How fast is the hand? The hand? No, sorry. I'm sorry about that. I put it in the wrong spot. Thanks for keeping me honest. Let me check real quick. Oh, my God. Bonus action, 60 feet per bonus action. So like... Oh, so you are going fast down basically. We can move quick. Yeah, if needed. Horrible tomato. Because it's only a minute, so I want to get as close to safety as possible. But I rolled a... you changed my 19 to a 60. Okay. What did everyone else get? 20. 30, 20. 21. 5. Caprice. Iris. You see the clouds of demons flying above you. And although this land is dark, there's light humming from the portal to Evantris. And you see for just a moment, you all see a shadow of a black wing above you. And in a flash of movement, lightning, lightning fast. The two of you see black wing, black wings in the form of a man with a rapier descending towards you for just a moment. Felix, you do not notice this fast enough as you hear a voice almost whisper into your ear almost seductively. Don't you know from your research that this is the land of the infinite portals, boy? And with a swipe of a sword, another portal opens up in front of you and the hand drops through too quickly. And suddenly, you are all engulfed in darkness. Holy shit. He didn't run me through. I thought he was going to suffer off you. I thought I was about to get like, yeah, absolutely run through. Holy hell. So he basically opens the portal in front of us. Basically you're going down and then another portal opens up and you drop into it. Yeah, that's some Doctor Strange shit. Yeah, basically. Allow me to switch the music to something more. I was absolutely sure I was going to die. I'm like, well, this is it. Nothing personal. Yeah, literally. He's fast. Infinite perlings. He's opened the portal to concrete floor. Yeah, we just splattered. Felix, are you all right? Can we see anything? It is dark and your eyes, it takes a moment for your eyes to adjust. Do we hit anything? We're still on the ground. Oh, I put my goggles on. So you are engulfed in darkness. What would you do with the hand as you're falling at 60 feet of bonus action in order to? I mean, I would probably immediately, whoa, and like, slow her down, you know, and I would stop us. But if I can't see where we're going to land, I know the hands going to run out here momentarily. It turns into this. Oh, sorry. I would, yeah, I would stop it. I would stop as quickly as I could, hoping that I don't run into something and then try to gain my bearings and see how long this hand's going to hold out. I might have to cast a little one. You drop into darkness. And you stop. The hand holds you and you realize as you look around, your eyes adjust. You don't need the hand. You feel like you're suspended almost. And it doesn't feel quite like water, but it also doesn't feel quite like air either. You can breathe. Oh, as you see now that you almost you see movement around you as if you've been taken to a drop of ink. It's an inky black void. As you are your eyes adjust and somehow in this space, you're all able to see each other in the hand. What do you do? God, damn it. Was that a shirt? Yeah, he was too fast. I never even saw him coming. Yeah, no, I saw him before I heard him and he must have zapped us to wherever we are right now. Where are we? Damn it. I was too hasty. Maybe he was helping us. Maybe we would go into a certain doom. I don't know. That sounded pretty threatening. No, I think he's trying to fuck us. This is another obstacle. That's not good. You then hear a voice. Well, I succeeded with at least one of you. Meaning you're trying to help us and you turn and you see Escher is standing about 10 feet away from you, but he's not standing. He's also not flying with his wings and you see the bald head, the feathers, the demonic eyes. His veins are coursing with that same taint. Even he's even more birdlike than the last time you've seen him. As he looks at you and and if you hadn't already seen him in this place, you would not have recognized him as Escher. The vampire count that had aided you so much. We are lucky that my new patron is preoccupied. That we may speak plainly in this place. We are ugly. I was kind of like, just went up like an inch or two. Do I go like up off the hand? What is this? We are in the abyss. You really are stupid. If things were different, I'll climb you like a mountain. Oh, I've given piggyback rides to friends before. That's not what he means. Felix has done that. Not like that. Oh, has he? Not like that. Anyways. Oh. You are a whole less slippery lot. I tried to spare you all this. But I knew that you would outsmart Brutus. It was really inevitable. To be fair, he got us pretty good. He did. We just sort of eventually got it. Those gargoyles. Good work. But I hate you. You have every right to. I hate myself that makes six of us. He sheets his rapier. We are in the forgotten land. This is the lair of the abyss. The home of Ereaks, the forgotten prince. A demon lord, one of the twelve surviving Oberys. That is attempting to regain his form and his dominance on the ziggurat as we speak. Along with many other powers I imagine. It's more than just this one. Yes. They are twelve surviving. He attempts to bring all of them to Puzunia. And then bring Puzunia to Avantraus. To our home universe. Become the king of demons. And do. He says he, the queen of chaos, he serves her. And he will just be her king, her king consort. But. Oh, excuse me. Kazuntite. That means health. I know what it means. I hate condescension. I just, you know, like the Casper. I guess you really will die a virgin. Shit. That's that baby rattle. It's smashed in the streets of Avantra. Wait, so who's the queen of chaos? She's one of the Oberys. Oh, she's the leader of all of them? She assumes herself to be. Puzuzu pledged himself as a loyal servant of the Queen's Conclave. But you don't believe him, do you? I don't believe that anything that he says is all twisted lies. He outsmarted and duped the Lord of Lies himself. He was the dark angel of the Four Wains. A fallen, false angel himself. But this is how we can help each other. Ah, fragments of power from these Oberys. Fragments of power from Miska the Wolfspider. His six eyes when he devoured the former Prince of Demons. How he was able to achieve so much. He is very clever, but his pride is unmatched. And he used that power to gain leverage on me. You saw what happened to my little bat, didn't you? Was that him who did that? Puzuzu took her away after I bisected her. Yeah, you did. But then he ripped her apart. Twelve pieces. A spider for a spider. He found it quite amusing. And he spread her pieces across the Abyss. The twelve layers of the Oberys. Knowing that I wouldn't have the time to get twelve pieces. And try to stitch her back together. Before he knew. But we are lucky. The Oberoth Lords are distracted now. Puzuzu is distracted now. With, if you help me reclaim the pieces of my daughter. You will also have the means to rip the power of Miska the Wolfspider. The first Prince of Demons. From his very being. How much time do we have? Does it matter? What hope do we have? He said it's true. We were so flung around with him the whole lot. You've got a weird definition of lucky. We do not have much time. Right now they're people heroes. Throwing themselves at the forces of the Abyss. That's what they were made to do. They were fulfilling their destiny. Yeah. Well, have you ever made an arm with Caprice? Once. How many eggs did you break? Oh, three eggs. It's far too big for a moment. Wow, that's a really good metaphor. Thank you, and I got it while observing Brutus making me. A breakfast that I would not eat. I just wanted to feel human. You have already deceived us once. You've already broken promise once for this daughter of yours. And now you ask us to help you save her yet again. When so much of this was caused by your foolishness. That is true, yes. You were the one who you yourself called on Beeman. We warned you. We tried. I'll look at you. I told you never ever to do that. Have you ever had children? Any of you? What a fucking virgin. What do you think? I could have had my daughter without ever having sex once. She is not of my blood. That's a good point. She is the blood of monsters addicted to pastries that made their dreams pleasant. They treated her like an animal. And those pastries were made from children's remains. That's what blood relation did for her. Family has nothing to do with blood, the priest. You of all people should have learned that by now. I don't have any children. I mean frankly I don't blame you for what you did. I do. You have every right to. I have a son. Where is he? With my family. The difference is, those around you right now are also my family. Not by blood, but in the exact same way that your brother Novia's family to you, in the same way that little Thomas's family to me. Where we differ is I would never throw the world into turmoil to save any of them. For what life could they possibly have in a world like this? Your choice was ill-gotten. You're selfish. You're thoughtless. You're careless. You're short-sighted. My job is not to help you. It's not to save your daughter. My job is to make a better world. For my son. For my family. For everyone who has sons and daughters and friends and loved ones. And if that means that someone I love must die, death comes for all of us. And one day, a more for one, it will come for you too. I know. Everything you said is correct, Iris. Every single word. And I would be lying if I said I did not fear the abyss that awaits me. I do not have a soul. I do not know what fate awaits me. I do not know if my soul belongs back in the mist of death itself, that belongs to the horrors beyond the stars. I do not know if it is simply obliterated. If there will be peace, that perhaps is the nicest option. But, if there is anything that I can do for my daughter to have a better life, you must know that I would do it. And you then must know that for my daughter to have a life, there must be a world for her to have a life in. And you should have thought about that before you betrayed us the first time. Your daughter and her twelve pieces are not a problem. Deal with it yourself. I am telling you that it will be a mutually beneficial agreement. His six eyes give him the power to see beyond, see into souls. He gave Thurman the power to see his demon eye. He gave so much to Zern. And that was a fraction of it. The wolf spider was impossibly powerful. It was only the rod of law and all seven Windooks that allowed him to be in a state where Pazuzu could devour him. And he still would have survived if it was not for the treachery of the Dark Angel of the Four Winds. Realizing that he had said Pazuzu, he looks around. It has to be a succession or an assault. So, if we farm these pieces, we're able to redeem of that power. He will be killable. But not before then. It is only we will have to remove that crown from his head that he is fashioned for himself. That was my fault, I apologize. And as a byproduct of this quest, if you go and find these pieces and redeem of the Simartality as an unrability, we'll find pieces of your dog. Yes. Look, even if we don't want to help him, if it's the only chance that we have to get an edge up on this guy, we gotta take it. I don't see any other option right now. We have no leads, we've got no advantage. And I... We've got our time. Asher, I'm not mad at you, I'm just... I'm sad that you didn't listen to us. And now you're in this position. It all could have been avoided in the first place, like I already said. You're right. I do not know what would have happened. To Pazuzu. What his dark goals would have been, how he would have advanced if I had not been made into nothing more than a pawn or a throne. I am more than willing to use my power of Pazunia to open a portal right back to that realm. I can drop you right on top of him. Right now. He knows you are coming. But he is distracted. He has the power of the Chained God with him. He has the power of the Prince of Demons with him. He devours and he consumes. And he steals. It's not his own strength. Bird's hollow bones. He takes what he wants through manipulation, treachery. Alright, well I think we will do this. It feels like it's the only way and I do believe you're trying to help us. Regardless of what your past decisions are, the past is in the past. And I believe that right now you're trying to help us. Where do we stop? Here. It's here where the first piece will be. It is here this realm was not always like this. I've learned so much. I wish I did not learn as much as I have of the nature of our universe, of the nature of the Abyss. A reek's, this forgotten Prince is forgotten by most, but not all. Pazuzu keeps his memory alive. It is. He was a demon lord himself, no one recalls what he had once looked like, but he had heard whisperings, gibberings from beyond the stars. Something about someone talking to him, him who watches from beyond the stars. And this force was able to outsmart an Oberith more ancient than this universe and led him to his ruin, not just him, but his entire realm. And it is here that we will find my daughter's head. And that is all in the session. This took a very interesting twist. I didn't see this coming. I'm very interested to see where this goes next. Thank you so much for listening to the Legends of Avantris podcast. We hope you enjoyed the session. 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