Vindicta & Vale | Critical Role | Campaign 4, Episode 18 Part 1

Why hello there, I'm Brennan Lee Mulligan and welcome to Campaign 4 of Critical Role. Thank you for joining us on this journey as we explore Oremon, a world of fractured kingdoms, tumultuous rebellion, and sorcery that rises from the graveyard of the gods. You're listening to Part 1 of this adventure, with Part 2 arriving this upcoming Tuesday. Our episodes typically arrive on the Critical Role podcast network a week after our initial Thursday night streams on Beacon, YouTube, and Twitch. But if you'd rather listen to a full podcast episode of Campaign 4 right when it airs, without any ads, consider becoming a Beacon member. You'll receive access to exclusive content, discounts at all our online Critical Role shops, pre-sales for live events, and so much more. Start your 7-day free trial today at beacon.tv. Now without further ado, let's begin this episode of Critical Role. Not far from the Caller's Perch, a tiny little tavern hanging over the edge of a cliffside on wooden stills. This is a shepherd's hamlet, high in the Covarosi Mountains. You have stopped to gather supplies yourself and Taor, fanned out along with Thimble, looking for a place to gather what rations and goods you need to make the rest of your journey back to Dolmokjar. And traveling through town, looking for some general goods store. Wick, it is about a day or two after the first candle feast of your life that you have not celebrated. And you see there is a small shrine of the Candescent Creed here. There is a little sort of wooden chapel built into the side of the mountain on the other side of a little pathway. And you see wearing humble looking, kind of, they look more like cream, sort of like wool robes. There is a young man with a sort of humble, knobbly broom sweeping snow off the threshold of this little Candescent shrine. Amazing. Yeah, I'm going to walk over there. First I'll, we're all wearing cloaks, I think, at this point. I'll bring the hood up over my hair and so my face is sort of in shadows and I will walk over and walk up to the gentleman. Hello, hello, may the beam reach you? And may the beam reach you, sir, it's a pleasure to meet you. I'm the luxe of this shrine, I'm the luxe, Ossly Coughland. Ossly? Luxe Coughland, it's lovely to meet you. My name is Nick and I, Candle Feast has just passed and I, well, for the first time I didn't get to celebrate it with my family. I'm so sorry. Or any of my loved ones really and, well, I was hoping I could just take a moment and maybe light a candle here. Of course, travel of course. Does your cloak fully disguise your clerical garments? I would like it to. Okay, I'll go ahead and make a perception check for a friend here. You see, looking at him, this kid is actually probably like two or three years younger than you. He is, it looks like he may have just received his holy orders. This tiny little roadside chapel, which you look in and see that the pews are eight chairs. There's the central aisle, two chairs next to each other, two chairs next to each other, a small altar. That's it. That's about as many things as can fit in this shrine. The shrine, truly, you could put a toe on one wall and touch the other wall with a hand. It's a quite humble little shrine. You see, he comes in and says, please do come in and light a candle. Let me, you see, he goes over and lights a small little oil lamp on the altar and goes into a small drawer and takes a pearlescent white, fresh candle out of a drawer and stands behind the altar and waits for you to approach. Oh, this chapel is lovely, by the way. In all my travels, I don't have my own candle with me. May I borrow yours? He smiles, reaches into the drawer, takes out a second candle and presents it to you. Thank you. This is your chapel. I should probably let you lead the ritual, but if you'd like, I could kick it off for us. What would your family have done if you had been home with them to celebrate? Well, we would have revealed the first flame and the weighing of the wicks, and it was all very formal, really, in my house. We would always wear our best clothes and... Is your whole family devout? They are. They are. He smiles and says, that is a true blessing. It is. You know, maybe we could just, um, skip to the part where the naming of the shadows, there's something I'd like to confess. You see, he smiles and says, of course, I present my candle. Bent wicks are straightened, spent wicks are trimmed, not all vessels are ready to bear the light. He gestures to the lit oil lamp for you to light your candle. I touch my candle to the light and it comes to life. I just take a moment to see the shadows dancing across the humble walls. And may I share my flame with yours? All flames are one. Let us then share the light. And, uh, lights the candle. Here in this holy space, let all shadows be abjured and all come into the light. If you have been carrying darkness, my brother, you need only voice it here and the light shall dispel it and make your soul light. Like I eloquently said, I think, I think I'm at a bit of a crossroads. What would you do if, no, what would our teachings say if, what if someone you loved was wrong, very wrong? And the only way to make them right again was to, well, was to punish them. To undo the things they've done and potentially hurt them. Can I hurt another person? Someone I loved and who loved me, if it means doing the right thing? Well, what the seven shining tenets tell us is that the sixth tenet to live aglow or be unmade, that to err is to dim and to glow with rightness is to spark. The sparked soul shall be rekindled. The dim burned. What I take that to mean is that punishment shall be meted out by the light itself. It is not yours to punish but the, but the lights and, and, but also we're told that light casts its own shadow and that he who holds the torch must mine the darkness it throws. Maybe forget all that. What do you just think as a person? Is it all right to do bad things for good reasons? Is it all right to do bad things for good reasons? No. But it is not all right to do bad things for good reasons. But if the reasons that you are doing it is because the action will be good, then is it truly a bad action? To be honest, I'm a very new Lux and I don't know- I'm so sorry. I'm overloading you with stuff. Well, have you come then to confess or have you come then to seek guidance because they are not one and the same? I suppose I've come to confess. I have turned my back on my family. I have done bad things in the name of good. I have hurt people and I fear I will continue to out of necessity. But mostly I feel I've lied a great, great deal to a great many people, including to my faith. Well, you're telling the truth now, Nick. Let me then say, even though it is not the true date of Candle Feast, perhaps the light and its brilliance can accommodate one who wishes to reach out. I know my family doesn't follow the light and in some ways it feels like I've turned my back on them or they've turned their back on me. Do you still talk to them? No. No, they are dimmed. And you just have abandoned them entirely? Or they've abandoned you? How do you exist in a world all by yourself without them? I'd let us then, let us then recite to him a refraction. You see, he stutters and reaches out a hand and goes, we are the colors of the flame, borrowed, brief and bright. No hue may claim the fire itself, no voice may on the light. Shall it pass through trembling hands, broken though we bend, a single gleam, a thousand beams with neither stock nor end? As he breathes, Wick, you notice that your breath is misting in the cold mountain air and his is not. Are you all right? Yeah, I'm all right. So, you're not in a position to take off, is that an affliction that a healer could help with, possibly? No, no, I had the bellows fever a while ago, but the light made me whole and I trained to become a luxe. Oh, can I just, do I know what I'm seeing here? Have I seen this condition before? Give me medicine, if that makes the most sense for you. Sure, I mean, I'm terrible at it, but sure. Yeah, I mean, that's a seven. You don't know why his breath is not misting. If you wanted to try another skill to interpret what you're seeing here, you can, but on a medical, you have no idea why. He mentioned the bellows fever. Bellows fever, do I know what that, we've heard that before, right? Yeah, people had it in Timony. It made their lungs very hot and it was sort of a choking. Can I just do, can I just sort of not look at him medically, but just sort of see if I can get a sense for, a sense for his, not his soul, his spirit, but just sort of like his holiness, is he been corrupted by anything or possessed by anything or... Are you casting magic about this in this moment? I haven't done this in so long. What do I have? I would like to, yes, but I don't know what I have. I mean, there's cure wounds, there's protection from good and evil, I don't think that's a good thing. Give me, I'll say this. Do you have detect magic or no? Do I? I feel like I did. I don't know how to play this. I don't know how to play this game. I don't know how to play this game. Go ahead and give me a sorcery, no. I will allow you to use a protection from good and evil here to roll an arcana check with advantage. Essentially, as you're reaching out to try to like abjure dangerous spirits with a protection spell, you can see some like glyphs maybe here. Go ahead and give me arcana with advantage. Also a seven and arcana, 13. 13. As you go to cast that spell and look at him, you see something gleams behind the altar, set on a small side table, and you see that there is a scroll there that as you cast protection from good and evil, it seems to react to that spell ever so briefly, though on a 13 you can't tell exactly why. Okay. I'd like to know what that is. You look at it and you recognize what it is. Oh. These are the holy orders of the young Lux. Oh. Are those papers ordaining him as a cleric of the Candescent Creed? And the glyph that they sort of shined with or whatever that was today? It reacted to your spell in some strange way. On a 13 you're not sure why. The Lux looks at you. Thank you. Nick, I wish you well on your travels. I should return to my work. Yes, you were sweeping outside, right? I was. Let me walk you out. He steps out of the chapel. As I walk him out, I will cast Mage Hand and try to grab the orders. Give me a sleight of hand. Oh boy. 17 plus stuff. The orders go in your hand. Wick, you've celebrated Candlefeast by lying about who you are and stealing a priest's holy orders. And we'll continue this story on another episode of Beautiful Role. I'm a bad person. Hello and welcome to the Critical Role announcement playhouse. Hello. Hey, Taliesin, you want to mention something? Oh, yeah. Hi. Sorry, I just got distracted. Coming next week on March 10th, the Legend of Vox Machina, the Whitestone Chronicles, volume two, Cassandra is the second volume in a series of prequel novels, prequel graphic novels, excuse me. There's art. Oh, to the Legend of Vox Machina. And reveals how Cassandra de Rolo survived her time with the Briarwoods, written by New York Times bestselling author, Marika Nykamp, illustrated by Travis Himel and colored by Heisner, nominated colorist. I am still thinking. You're doing great. Diana Soza and lettered by Comic Craft. I can't wait for y'all to see it. It's really great. It's amazing. Laura, how are you doing? I'm great. I want to watch. I know, I need to watch that show. I'm going to watch the new Campaign Four merch. And the Critical Role shops. First, we have the Campaign Four United Faction Pins in 3D. Wait, which one am I talking about? This one, molded metal with antique gold finish, featuring the United Faction symbol representing the soldiers, seekers, and the schemers all in one. We also have the Campaign Four Faction Three Pack, which is a set of three gold-plated, hard-enamel pins. They're each featuring the logo of the different factions, the Seekers, soldiers, schemers, beautiful. Both of these Faction logo designs are by Hannah Friedrichs. And additional designs by our very own Jordan Torrance. Yeah, Jordan! And there's more! There's a hoodie. Oh, a hoodie! Welcome to our Amon Pullover Hoodie, in fact. Oh, but look. This is a Quarantine World, but wait. Look at this back. Look at this design. Oh, oh, oh! Wow! That is so cool! Yeah, it's super cool. It's dark, it's vintage-y looking. There's other things I'm supposed to say. There's stuff for the sleeves. The illustration here, it has a bunch of different elements from each of the characters. So you have to find the hidden elements for each person. I see a mask. Yep. There's so many different things. It's so, so cool. And this art was designed by Matthew Crompton, who we love. I love this. And the sleeves are really cool. Check them out, they're in the shops now. Fantastic. Thank you, Laura. You're welcome. Thank you, hot boys. Aren't you glad I came here today, just to talk? Yeah. On that note. Yeah! That concludes our announcements. Let's go ahead and jump back into our Amon. Hello. And welcome to tonight's episode of Critical Role. Our ultimate... Our ultimate episode for this... ...amon... ...amon... ...amon... ...amon... ...amon... ...amon... ...amon... ...amon... Our ultimate episode for this ark with our Seekers table. Very exciting! Last we left our Seekers, you had travelled far from Castle Torch down the Tyria via into the Desert of the Endless Night in the ruins of the fallen Obrademian empire. A sorcerous realm of powerful human dynasties that had fallen had fallen some 70 years ago as the house of Oberdi, with their two priestly houses of Tukonis and Halivar, stood to defend Tan-Sul, God of the sun, whose ruin is now smoked over the vast region of never-ending night and shifting sand. Arriving at Tannisar, a holy site dedicated to a posthumous promise predicted by Tan-Sul, God of the sun and shaper of humankind, that should he be slain by his brother, Asghar, which did not come to pass, actually, they died on the same side of a war against mortal beings, that his priestly houses would have the ability to create a celestial. To wreak terror and ruin, presumably, on those that would have struck him down, being Asghar and the forces of Qad and his realm. We see here in this space, when you arrive, ancient celestial writings here, having to do with the creation of what notes that you discovered predicted as the Deva Vindicta, a creature that would have been able to strike from beyond a one last blow struck by the God of the sun against his enemies, and it was here, in the dark that you saw, the fleshless bodies, the skeletal remains, a barrow guard to Conus, and robed figures in the bearing of spellcasters, almost, of those not heavily armored and not heavily armed, and the other bodies seem to have been affected by spell attack. Outside of Tannisar, a moment of magical wonder, essentially, as the Stone of Night song lifted aloft from Taisya's hand back to Vaelis, as the bodies filled in their skeletal remains with nightingales flooded into Taisya's body back into you, and you attuned to the Stone of Night song, gaining, amongst several other powers, the ability to cast to speak with dead. Entering into Tannisar, in the original excavation site, you found tents and missives and equipment. You found a glowing crystal buried into the stone, with which it seemed that the to Conus had helped to facilitate some great working of magic here, a slight necromantic pallor extending over the land why the bodies had decomposed in the span of a day or two, like they had been here for years. On lighting your lights, a giant scorpion. Sarcus, the pet of your cousin, Tersha. You're feeling so bad. Why, a little girl can't have a giant scorpion as a pet? Well, if I could have a giant scorpion, I would have gone for a male. Pretty cool, fair. And the skeletal remains animated around you, defending Tannisar. Repelling the skeletons as quickly as possible, and emerging victorious, you also watched, as on a nat 20, Octus shattered the crystal with a firebolt undoing some spell of his sorceress house. Taysha and Julian collecting the remains and preparing to honor them and inter them. You also found the remains of Pascar Valmonte, a figure who we have not met in the campaign, but who immediately prior to the beginning of our story, Taysha and Octus had gone to Anottis to retrieve the coffin of Olblad from. In the tents, you discovered a tremendous amount of documentation. Octus, you found internal maps of what had been excavated in Tannisar so far, lying in sort of three separate directions. There was sort of a interior barracks where the Taconus sort of were keeping privately to themselves. There is a chamber that were they referred to as the Apotheotic Obelisk. And you also found here, you also found that there was a chamber behind the Hall of Guardian Demons referred to as the Apotheotic, the Apotheotic Vendicta, yes. The Apotheotic Vendicta, which appears to also lead to something called the Sperical Vale. At the end, you also found Vaelis, tons of correspondence and a more military tent dealing with that made reference to Taconus forces stationed outside the Golden Orchard that could not be stationed there for long. A question from Primus Taconus, if the sacrifice needed to occur within Tannisar if the obelisk still stood. Apparently not. I could probably maybe imagine what the response to that letter was. Run it, I got seven others. She's the first one to fucking be doing live. I believe you also found a question about the Halavars having some innate resistance to the procedure. You discovered the terms Ocement and Calcydian. You also discovered in that let me miss about the Golden, about the Orchard, we can't chance the Seador closing. There's a reference to, I should just re-read these texts in full. A new source of Calcydian has revealed itself, but we need to move quickly. The cloak is moving faster than anticipated. If the obelisk holds fast in Tannisar, does the sacrifice itself need to happen in Tannisar? The risks may be necessary. We cannot long keep our forces hidden outside the Orchard and we can't chance the Seador closing. We also found notes about Tersha, being a similar failed experiment that her own connection, what was said is, I believe that her own innate connection to the Tenebral Reaches may have thwarted the grafting of the Calcydian prosthesis. I shall miss her dearly. The puffer's scorpion all along. And the forces outside of the Orchard. Yes, it's fine. It's fine. It's fine. I'm not spiraling. Additionally, we ended our last session with the casting of Speak with Dead on the remains of Pascarred Belmontae, who are you asking essentially he looked at you unrecognizing, wondering if you were some spirit come to guide him to the other side. And when you asked him what happened here, he said in a word, chaos, and he was to chaos that we return. Vaelis, you stand here in the Antichamber of Tannisar. The other three of you basically are watching Vaelis potentially, how are you touching the remains right now as you cast this spell? I think, I know Tisha was preparing the body. Yeah. Okay. Skull. Yeah, I feel like I didn't, I'm trying my best to not disturb him in this moment. I feel a little bad about taking him away from wherever he was going. So I think I'm just, I'm knelt down by the body. I don't think I'm touching him, unless I have to. But I think I'm just kneeling in front of him. Not really. Just hover-handsing. Yeah, just real close. Yeah, the hover-hug. I think I'm just kneeling in front of him trying to speak with him that way. Can I cast guidance on him? Yeah. Okay, sweet. I think if you're like kneeling close enough, I'll probably just like put my hand over hover-hand. Right, just cast guidance. Love it. You've got this. Okay. Beautiful. Looking at this body, all of you watch Vaelis's eyes don't go gleaming white, but turn cloudy. Most of your vision's not here in this realm anymore. And you look and see past the bones lying here within the robe that have already started to fall and clasp into themselves. A sort of light, a sort of light, long-faced, receding hair, sort of close, almost like it was shaved not long ago. Wisps of translucent white mist, a ghostly figure, stands at the beginning of a path. Farther down the path, you can feel the presence of some deep humming thing that is meant to welcome souls to oblivion rather than their promised afterlife. Pascard turns to you and says, in a word, chaos. We arrived expecting to find Takani's forces and instead we discovered the Barogharde, which was a surprise to us. So, who were you fighting? May I ask, Madame, to whom do I now speak? It would grieve me greatly to betray my most important loyalties, this close to not being able to betray anyone ever again. My name is Vaelis. Are you of the living or the dead? I'm of the living, sort of. You don't seem so sure. I do know someone that you knew in your life, Taisha, and I sort of move just so that he's able to see her. I think you invite Taisha just partially behind that veil and just to see her. I think you invite Taisha to see her in the dark. You invite Taisha just partially behind that veil and both of you guys watch as Taisha's eyes get a little clouded as well. Turns. Taisha, oh no, are you no, you're alive. Did you make it to Theazi? Yes. Not in time, but... And you can see that she just wants to absolutely run over this conversation with a bunch of questions. The box, I opened it, I touched it. The mask, did you know about what was inside? I'm sorry, no, please. No, you opened the box? Yeah. No, no, when I get contraband to move through Venantus, I don't open it, I frankly... That's normally how I... Nope, not now, I'm sorry. I frankly wished the box, when I found out that the box was what I was moving, I sort of wished they had sent the box in a larger box. Yeah, did you know it was a coffin? But it's a coffin for a child. No, no, so much worse. Don't know how bad, but she almost died. I died a little. Oh, a coffin for Evelyn? Yes. All right, that makes more sense. But the coffin, it is a contrived artifact. Say more. The plates, I do not believe... You see, he... He looks out and says, the plates are the original Holy Artifact from the Shaper Rowan. But there he says, the plates themselves are not the finished thing. I do not think the plates are what Theosy was actually looking for, but it is closer. Hmm. Theosy is looking for these objects of importance, but they do not exist. Do you know one of the first things I learned about prophecy? An old mentor of mine once said, prophecy can never help the cause of the revolution because prophecy is born of the shapers themselves. Oh, yeah. When you are trying to break the world to build the new one, there can be no clean instructions to follow. That makes sense. Everything that is of symmetry and alignment will of course work its way back to the order which established it. But it creates a challenge because whatever Theosy was trying to accomplish, he was looking for a set that is not a set. And I think that the coffin was a contrivance to get closer to finding what they truly needed to find within the realm of the trickster. Why have you come to this? Why are you here in Tannasar? I'm looking for Alogar. He was with the Barrowguard. Alogar? Who is Alogar to you? He's my son. Forgive me, we did not know each other. I'm sure you do not know the names of my siblings. Fair. But Alogar, we... Did you cross paths with him? We did. When we came through the desert, he arrested us. But we allowed it because we thought there had been a confusion. I should explain. After you left Minates, we returned the drowned men to... You're part of the drowned men? This is so. Okay. We... It had taken much of our effort to move the coffin through Venatos. Why? The Tacones were searching for it without their might. To get it to your hands and out of the city was... And when you arrived with the young Tacones for a moment, I thought this was confusing, but also perhaps for the best. Shortly after you left, perhaps a day, a close ally of the Asifang came to Venatos and told us that an important plan had gone horribly wrong. She had been making her way to the tair, the tair in the world, where the storm ruck and the eternal night touch in the Tacones homeland. What's her name? Mara. Anyone wants you to give me a DC-10 History Child? As me not being exactly... I'm not there. I see it. You said Mara was... who? The name of a druid who had spoken to them. You've heard this name before. You heard it spoken by Hannon. He referred to a member of his order that he was searching for, named Mara the Wing. It's gone hard. I was asking for the information that was the relevance of the history check. Got it. I know where I am. Mara the Wing. Okay, I remember it earlier. Wing reference. Wing. In the place of wings. So many wings. Don't make her some birds. Oh, God, she's all birds, isn't she? You guys see an ostrich walks in. We have no time. We must move at once if we have to save our amount. Druids are silly guys. I'm gonna be an elf now. Basilisk, don't look into its eyes. Wow, they really are the natural predators of Basilisk. Yeah. Never turn me to stone. Just a good sense, stop it. You see, he looks and says, Mara had come to Venatos to explain that a planet gone horribly wrong, she was supposed to venture into, she was a powerful druid and had some ability to, well, this is funny. I say she had a powerful ability to venture into the underworld, but perhaps this is not very remarkable as we all do eventually, my present company excluded, and she had the, perhaps it is more true to say she had the ability to return from the underworld. She had been, my understanding was, prevented somehow from crossing the boundary, and this was a grave disaster. And so, she explained very little to us, which is quite, I am afraid, normal. Our plans are best served by us not knowing the fullness of what our partners and allies know as in this line of work. It is quite common to fall into enemy hands, and even the most stalwarts can have their speech compelled. She told us that she needed to make her way at once to Dolmakiar. It was of utmost importance that she traveled us right away, but told us that there was a small Takoni's outpost at Tannasar, and that we had to come here at once, that the fate of Olive Arman was at stake, and we needed to come here and destroy an obelisk. And so, we came. Coming here, we arrived to find a young, spry, lieutenant of the Barogard who arrested us, but we assumed that we had gotten wrong information because we were told to expect the house of Takoni's in this place. So, we were momentarily arrested. I began to explain to this young Alogar the situation, and if I am not much mistaken, here was more receptive to it, to the fact that there might be something foul afoot. By the time I was able to fully explain the situation, we arrived in the courtyard outside and saw that the Takoni has had effectively taken command of this place, and our suspicions were confirmed. I made an appeal to the Barogard to side with us, and it fell on deaf ears, and being told the importance of the situation, we commenced to fight. I am sorry, but I did not see Alogar fall. Thank you. Thank you. I am so sorry. I believe he may even have taken my words quite seriously, and I saw him slip further within Tannisar before. They fighting commenced. Is there anything else that you know about your mission here that you can share with me, with us? He looks and says, We knew precious little, I am afraid. We knew that Mara needed to... Her business was... Had everything gone according to her plan, she would have made her way into Takona's homelands, and from there, using power for magic, would have ventured into the underworld, and was prevented from doing so, and this gave her grave alarm. We were told to attack this place, but I do not think that this place was... I think it was always a desperate gambit, but we were out of time and out of answers. I cannot tell you more, because truthfully, the information that I have imparted to you was given to me in a matter of moments. She exhausted beyond measure, needed every precious moment, and flew at once for Dolmakia. Okay. What are you seeing right now? I see a path which I have been invited to take, and which I know I will be prevented from. Why? Well... I suppose pick your poison. Be Takona's... Do I still have my skin out there? Some of it? Oh, you are being generous. No, no, no. Then you cannot see it. You cannot see the scar that I won from the Takones, which marks me, and you cannot see the contract that I had very lovingly tattooed on my body. What? Um... The Takones have a way of compelling servitude after you die. But... I made the decision when I was very, very young and very foolish, but I became a drowned man when I was much older and still foolish. So, I will not be walking the path. Um... Me and the other drowned men have our way out. Okay. Does it involve a sea door? A sea door? Uh... He looks unfamiliar with that term. Okay. Is there anything I can do for you? Um... Uh... I have a, um... a quite sizeable tab at the... Trumpeters in Venatus, if you would be kind enough. Sure, sure. I am sure. And with a number of the Circle of Ancients, they will simply expunge my debt. Consider it done. Is the Azigon? Yes. That young Takana's boy you brought... As he's... Does he know what his family is doing? Not fully. He is as much a victim... as you... and many others here. I... As I was dying after... the combat concluded, the... the Ranger, the head Ranger of the Barrel Guard, headed out for the wilderness. And I saw in my last moments... your son... with a few of his close companions. I believe having done something successfully within the... Holy Sight that I could not see, he trailed after them, uncaptured. Thank you. I... I do not know if any of the drowned men were able to escape or not, but our... our order, such as it is... is most likely destroyed. But... if there are... if you have a return to Venatis and there are... effects of mine that explain... how to make contact with her... my lady. And you find out that... and you find any other that are promised to the Tzukones, it is a way out. It does work. No, it isn't. Thank you. I have an above table question. So... I hate that he's just like stuck in this... path. Is there... So I see that I have something called Ceremonie. Yeah. And there's something on here. I don't know if this would apply, but there's something on here that you can... called Atonement. That you can restore the target to its original alignment. Would that even have anything to do with what... I think that, Vaelis, you're looking and see that this guy is lost. As you begin to... reach for a ceremony here, do you want to give me a religion check? I'll go for it. I love it. Perfect. No, you're perfect. The most important part of D&D is the list of... Disagree. I'd actually like a religion check and separate it like an insight check from you. A religion and an insight? Yeah. An insight and guidance. And guidance. Okay, great. Okay, well, that's bad. Okay, so let me do D4. Okay, I'm going to do this insight check first. Okay. 13 for insight. Okay. And then I'm going to roll this one for religion. Oh, natural 19. Let's go. Let's go. The nun's good at religion. What? Water is wet? Crazy. Where's religion? Self-apatized. Yeah, right there. 26. Wow. Let's go. That's the best person. You look at him and realize, I think on that religion check, you peer through his translucency and what was gone from his body, you actually see... I don't think you... Do you speak Sylvan or no? I don't think you do. Do you speak Celestial? No. You see... I'm looking at my choices and I'm like, why did I do that? You see writing. Looking through him, you see mirrored writing, which you realize you're seeing, because it was written on his back. So looking through him, there are glowing translucent runes through his translucent body, written in Sylvan, the language of fairy. And I think you know that some of your allies here speak Sylvan. Sylvan. If you wanted to extend a little bit of the Stone of Night Song's site, I think it maybe came out before in the campaign that Julian speaks Sylvan. Yeah, Julian. Smell it. Yeah, can you come here just a moment? What do you need? Can I... You read Sylvan, right? Again. Can you take my hand? Take my hand. Looks at the corpse. Julian, staring down at this body, you see translucent script, ghostly like vapor, appear behind the ribcage. You're almost not even seeing all the way to the beginning of the path here, but you read in Sylvan, what at first seems like a poem, the... You can see in sort of Sylvan, it repeats over and over again, rushing down, rushing down, rushing down to water's edge. Sweep the vine and sweep the fruit, deeper still pursue the root, depths of darkness, crashing waves, a life to end, a world to save. And you see that his name is signed at the bottom, Pascar del Monte, and there are fey runes clutching, binding, owning that name, and you believe that Pascar is a warlock, that he has effectively sold his soul. I understand. Thank you. And I think you see in this space of death, someone who sold their soul, how fearless would feel about someone who sold their soul, I do not know. Okay. I don't know what to do now, do we? Is there anything else that you want to ask? Want to ask? Is there anything else you'd like to ask? I have a lot of questions about the back writing, but... Get in there if you want to get in there. It's just kind of harangue a dead man to be like, what'd you do? Now, look. Are we wasting more time? No, we can go. Or just leans out of the tent? He looks at you and says, or I think he looks at you staring at his chest and says, can I help you, my lady? Gifted with the power to speak with the dead. Yes, I'm very curious about the writing on your back. It is... It was written after I died the first time. Only for a moment, the water fills your lungs. You see the dark, you come back. I am part of a noble order of magicians, who gained the power of magic as a byproduct of what they were really trying to do, which was to get rid of their souls. Ask him why? Why? If you have no more questions for me, do you want to find out why? Yes. Yes, are we done? Do we feel done? I know, there. Okay. There's whatever time you need, but we're talking to one dead man. There are other ones that might join him the more time. Sure, sure. Yeah, we're gonna... We'll let you go soon. I hope that you find your son, but the last I saw him, he seems to have matters well in hand. I hope the path that you swim. Agrees with you. He turns, steps onto the path, and as he begins walking, the last thing you guys see is revision that starts to fade back is from distant darkness, sigils written in celestial through with the emblem of House Taconus, snaking like worms through the sky, through, begin to approach to seize this man, and you see that a scar on his shoulder begins to sort of grow in his translucent form, and as they arrive, you hear a spectral voice saying, Your soul is ours. He looks up and says, yours? It's not even mine. And a wave comes from behind you guys, crashes on him before those forms can get it, and sucks him out into a jet black sea, and he vanishes before the Tendrils can reach him, and you are back in Tannisar. Okay, I was given a very hard time for not prescribing to the old path. Seems like there's a lot of ways to the fucking woods. Yeah. You good? I think so. That was wild. That's what I've never been able to do that before. That was... And that was the stone? It was the stone. It just felt compelled, and I... Incredible. Yeah. Okay. You ready to move? Yeah, and I convey everything, especially as it pertains to the Barrow Guard and Allagar, and what was the... Oh, I don't think I know the name of the Ranger Captain. B'erza. B'erza. I know the Ranger. Yeah. Convey that he was taking over. So B'erza went into the Wilds, and the Barrow Guard with Allagar went deeper within, or followed into the Wilds? I think they lagged behind to hopefully take care of the obelisk, and then preside. Then your son is further in? We gotta go. I just start walking. Octus! Yes? You ready? I didn't want to interrupt your conversation. You mean their seminar with the dead? You were a part of it. Little thing, I have a map, so if we need to know where we're going, I can feasibly understand the... excavated areas. Also, Julian, you're going to need one of these, and, Phaelus, I think you should have the other one. Petrification antidotes. What? Basilisks in our future. Fawn is another country cousin of yours? Fawn. Possibly. God, I... I'll take it. Your family is bad. Look, everyone has bad parts of their family. Not mine! Are you sure? Yeah. Okay. Good for you. Thank you. So, do you guys all convey... Is there any information unconveyed from snooping through the tents and the letters and everything else? The conversation with Pascard is conveyed in totality. Yeah. Got it. There is... No, I don't think I keep anything. There's a lot here that doesn't make sense, but I'm sure we'll figure it out whether we want to or not. I am... Some things refer to that... There is a... A material called Calcydian. That they're referring to... But they're referring to it being used in a way that leads me to believe that it's possibly what the stone is made out of. Stone of Night's Arm. Calcydian being... Bones. Bones. Or bones specifically from Celestials. Okay. And they're using it possibly... There's mentions in these books of a Calcydial prosthesis grafting possibly this substance onto people and it failing. A little bit like the way they put the stone in you? A little bit like the way they put the stone in me and also apparently the hillivars are immune. Why? Are you guys like related at all? Well, no, you're related. Okay. Related only in the way that... So they were trying to... What? They weren't trying to kill you? I don't... I have no actual... Two for one? There is... Take the heart as you're in it. As you're conveyed there is... I don't think it's that much of a limb to go out on to say that the reference to can the ritual be performed somewhere else is talking about what happened. Yeah. Question. Can I make some sort of arcana check to see if maybe the scar that you got when your heart was torn open is equivalent to the scar that Pascard got that compelled him into conus service after his death? No role needed. You've made the connection. Cool. I explain, but screaming. I need you to not die again. That would be ideal. Yeah. It wasn't my choice the first time. It's usually not anyone's choice. Look, there wasn't... It was always going to be that there was more to this than just they decided they didn't like me anymore. Sure. So it doesn't surprise me that much that in doing what they did bound me to a use after they killed me and it seems that I'm with your help might have stalled that a little bit. Okay, so... At least for the time being. But your son has left here? He's farther and he's moved into the woods. Then we should follow. Julian, so while you're having this conversation, it's the head checking the ground on the entrance way for tracks of confirmation and beginning to slowly and quietly enter, whether or not you're ready. Go ahead and give me a survival check. A specific point we should be aware of. There are the obelisk that I'm mentioning, but also there is a place that is apparently guarded by demons. 17. Of course there is. That's not my fault. On a 17 survival check, you see a massive set of, you know, like the courtyard is filled with the comings and goings of the excavation site and the workers here and then the fight that happened and then yeah, I guess there are the most recent boot prints leading up and out of the crevasse. If you would have to leave all the way from the excavation site back up to where the wind is brutal up there, I think on a 17 survival you would just know as well, either they went back to the Tyria Via. If they went anywhere other than the Tyria Via, tracking them is a DC 30 at disadvantage. Right, like going off into the shifting sands. It's, forget it, right? As long as they're saying it could be done. They're saying it could be done. I didn't roll a 30 last time. As we are leaving, is it possible for me to quickly try and harvest some of the venom from that giant scorpion? Yeah, absolutely. Go ahead and give me a nature check. Sure, I know, you know what to survive with for me. Worse? Yeah. No, nature's fine. Nature was, I was surprised at how much I had in nature. I was like, oh. Nature being an int is. Which makes no sense. What an interesting choice. Will you survive with me? As we're looking into this, Julian cuts off the end of the tail where the bulb and poison is kept. As you're being to sit down and be like, we have time for this later. I am. Do it later. You're rolling a 13. I was like, I was gonna do the same thing. I wasn't gonna stop and do it right here. I just wanted to take it. Fine, let's go. I'm just gonna suddenly hit you with a message right after this sort of loud revelation about the scar. You may have had a point. We're gonna have to watch him. Welcome to my side of the team. There's a little glance over about it and that continue moving. He's muttering, you know, I do need ingredients to do the spell. It's part of the whole deal. Does Veileth keep any of the things that she learned from the tense secret? I just want to know what she shares, if anything. Oh, everything. I think, are we taking a moment to... Are we going forward? Are we taking a little moment to rest? We're not. We're moving forward. Did you guys take a break? Did that, what we were doing in that area, qualify as a short rest? Yeah, no, it didn't. Right, then we're not. Yes. If you want to take a short rest, you're gonna have to convince Julian. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I believe that I definitely would have shared that information to everybody. I'll say, actually, because we haven't got a chance to share it yet, as Julian is walking off, do you guys pursue Julian or do you stop to share this additional information? I think it's either, because Julian's leaving. Yeah. So I think that it's like, you gotta make a choice here. Wait. Wait. Julian takes a moment and turns and says, someone needs to scout ahead. I realize this, but do you want some information before you scout ahead? Do you think it's helpful for pertaining to our survival, or is it just more of these floating mysteries? Could it be helpful for you to know if you're walking down a hall of demons? He does have a map. What? What do you know about demons? He does have a map. I have a map. Not a whole lot. Then this isn't helpful for me. There is a chamber up ahead that is supposedly guarded by demons. Do you think those demons are like the ones we fought before they were kind of silly? Like the three Stooges sisters? Yeah. I would go out on a limb to say if this is a place that is left over from when this place used to be, these demons are going to be worse. But who knows? They could be maybe... Just hope for a lucky break. It is also possible that a regular guy saw three imps and went, demons. So I don't know. That's probably what it is. Yeah, that's bank on that. Perfect. So, demons. Special place to strike them, to take them down. They weak at the base of the skull. What do you know about demons? I can't check for any possible knowledge. I have what a demon is weak to. Go ahead and give me an Arcana check. Wolf or Stroke? 17. 17. You remember that one of the scrolls given to Taisha by Amida is actually a scroll of protection against demons. Oh, I think one of the scrolls I gave you from your friend says something just... I don't know exactly, I don't speak druidic, but it did. Dude, don't you? I thought you were reading the book. No, I can do it if I have 10 minutes to sit. Don't yell at me. Why is that why I didn't do anything? It says that I think I caught a word I recognized about demons. Okay, then yeah, I'm going to go ahead and pull out the scroll of protection for five minutes. Great. Wait, wait then. Use it in the moment. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But, herd. And I've got it on deck on my hip. Amazing. Are we going? Will you die if we keep going? What? Will you die if we keep going? I'm probably in a better place than most of you from the looks of it. I'm fine, that's all. I'm great. Let's just go. Venturing further into the chamber, looking at the map, where do you lead these folks first? There's the barracks to the right as you enter through this main passageway. To the left, a long stone corridor that eventually will open out into the obelisk chamber. The bulk of the chambers that have been excavated lead towards the center of old Tannisar, which is the Apotheon Vindicta. Okay, so right goes to the barracks, left long path to get to the apotheotic obelisk, apparently. Well yeah, let's go there. Right, but the barracks is where your son would have been. I don't care where he would have been, I'm trying to find where he... Please, go. I'll let me care about the barracks. Do you think... If he might have left something there, saying where he went. Fine. If you're looking for information, which is what we need. I'm not looking for information, I'm looking for him. How big are the barracks? We do like a quick... The map you see is that these are a number of basically... These chambers were designed as ritual preparatory areas. It looks like you can see, sort of like looking at them, House Tacona of Old did a lot of embalming and a lot of preparation for funeral rites. It looks like these barracks were in a set of chambers that you've seen this layout very similarly in other holy sites throughout the Old Orpidemian Empire. And look and realize these are body preparation chambers for the type of... For whatever would have needed to happen for what Tan Suu intended for this to look like. However, the barracks is a number of smaller chambers. The Barrow Guard were sleeping in bedrolls out in that chamber you fought in. This would have been where Tacona is, and there people were dwelling away from the rabble of commoners. Yes. To the left leads to the obelisk. Let's do that unless you think we should stop at the barrier. Nope, please. Thank you. I think at this juncture, as they're making this point, Julian nods still looking ahead, takes his blade out quietly, takes a breath and is going to use his second wind. However, since he's bloodied, instead of healing, it gives him temporary hit points. Cool. Cool. I would love more spells, lots of them I have. Let's cast Pass Without Trace. Pass. Pass Without Trace goes up. You see... entering this next space. Um... Go ahead and give me a group stealth check. That's a lot of trace. Definitely. What was that? 10. Yeah. 30. Go ahead. 29. Oh my god, 30-20. I thought we were going to be the same. 29, 30-20. 23. 23. 16. 16. Okay. Entering into this next space, Dame Gaia takes a position in front of you, Octus, and... Oh my god. Oh, that's right. I forgot about it. Yeah. One person who's on my side. Yeah, Dr. Talter sort of walks along going, does Pim eat? Oh no. Oh. Um, no. Got it. Look, I'm going to come right at him. You've probably been confused at this point. Both Pim and I are dead. But... It's just, it's going to be easier if I just get it out of the way. Two. No, it's great. Doing so good. I heard my voice. I screamed too loud in the fight. Yeah. I don't think I can scream that good. Okay, you're doing great. Um... Pim, look, you had to... Pim has buttons for eyes. Come on. She... nods and goes, yeah, that makes sense. That did strike me. You guys... Pim's just like wagging it down, looking at it. You guys arrive at a long stone corridor that you realize is headed far enough out that you recognize it's getting towards where the land above it, as you are now subterranean, like slopes down. And you walk into this space where you see a massive chamber, an obsidian obelisk raised tall, written in massive, sort of celestial ruins. The ruins all look badly damaged, and you realize that they had gold set into them. And it must have been in some prior age that tomb raiders came here and scraped the gold off of the obelisk. But the... It is some 60 feet tall, written in celestial. And you see that there... Immediately ongoing here, Dr. Talter, Gasp's and... Octus, you see the room from your vision. This is the room where a young orcish warrior was repelling undead. And as you also look, you see there is a massive, sort of stone wheel that can go over the door that has been pushed out of the way, but probably pushed out of the way for Allagar to exit this space. That this is where Allagar, perhaps some other barrow guard fought. And you see, once again, it's a chaotic site at first. The first thing is the room is so big, it's cavernous, it's sacred, it's numinous, it feels like a cathedral. And the obelisk goes up, and as your eyes come down to the human area where you can interact with this, you know, again, like 60 foot tall, and then the base of it is like almost eight feet wide on a side. Looking up the base of it, some deeply concerning or upsetting things have happened. There is a massive golden brazier at the front of the obelisk facing the door. That brazier looks corroded and warped, but you see there is a small oven, a space for like sacred coals to go under it, and then there is also a pitcher of shattered oil, like a fire was supposed to build on top of it, literally like an oven underneath a roaring fire to create some super heated thing. There's runes around that area, but it looks like that's been corroded or degraded, possibly by magic. Set around the base of this place are basically mirror images of the stone that you warped or destroyed out in the previous chamber. These stones and crystals are also badly damaged. These ones are badly damaged by axes, spears, swords. It looks like some folks came in and wrecked this to shit as best they could the old fashioned way. That's my boy. Fuck those nerds, let's go. Anyone who wants to can give me investigation, arcana or religion here. 26 arcana, hell yeah. 14 arcana? Natural 17 investigation for 17. I rolled a natural two, so what? Vaelis, what's your relationship to the other shapers? I think you're seeing a holy site to tonsil here, that it's one other thing of beauty in the world that has been ravaged and destroyed. Sure. I feel like Vaelis lived over 800 years in bliss and in these past 70, 80 years post the Shaper Wars. She knew about the other gods, but there was no importance of knowing anything about them because it wasn't a part of her life. So as she's been journeying in these past 80 years and in this time, I think is definitely learning more outside of her own world and has been in these past 80 years. So I feel like there's curiosity there. Yeah. Looking at it, on that 17 investigation, you look around Julian at what happened here, which is looking at the footmarks in this place that is so deep subterranean, there is no wind in it. So you are literally looking at, to you, the choreography of bootmarks in here tells a story. And a group of about eight baroguard came in here to attack this place. And what you see is no other Taconus sorcerers joined that fight, but some undead rushed in to attack them while they were, you see basically these people rushed in, two of them went over to try to close the stone, to close the door here. One stood in the doorway waiting for the onslaught of the undead to come in while the others came and just wrecked the stuff around the obelisk. That vision you had of that warrior standing against the undead in that moment. And you always wondered, like, you didn't have a connection to Alagar, why did you have a vision connected to Alagar? You look up Julian and see also as they sort of wrecked this area, you just look up tactically and realize that the topstone of the chamber is actually a very light, cloudy, rosy quartz up above that has carvings within it. And you see even that that through the quartz on a 17, is that sand up above? I think you realize that that thing up above is covered by sand, but might have actually been a window to the sky up above. Before it was buried with time. Before it was buried with time. Looking out, Octus, on the 27, you're like, why did you get a vision of Alagar? The crystals that are scattered all around here on the Alarcaana, they start to hum at your approach. And they're humming in a way that you recognize. They're buzzing like the vibrations of a glass knife in Bolayer's hand. They're buzzing like jam teeth in the back of your university's bursar's mouth. They are connected to something here. You sense powerful divination magic, communication specifically. And I think you look and see that there are several small altars that look like they just got backhand scattered by some of the Barrow Garden here. And there are a number of small gemstones that were clearly concealed in glass. Their glass would have been formed into almost like hourglasses or closed glass instruments that would have been able to levitate these humming small gemstones. The largest of these gemstones is like the size of a thumbnail, right? They're scattered on the ground. On that 27 Arcanas as well, you see the brazier that has been corroded by magic warped and destroyed was done so with Taconus magic. This place was defaced by the Taconus way before the Barrow Garden got here. All of this gem stuff around it is added on. What this was supposed to be was a gold-ruined obelisk praising Tonsul and mourning his death with a brazier that you see the rune in it that you recognize is a rune meaning heart. And you believe that this brazier is for burning a human heart in offering to Tonsul. On that 27 Arcanas, the last piece of information I'll give you is this. The name of the God of humankind and the name of the God of the sun in the shape of humankind has been erased violently from the base of the obelisk and replaced with the emblem for House Taconus. This is the room where I saw Alagar. Okay. What is it? Don't ask me, I don't know. This is the information that I had was that I saw this vision. Alagar was standing here, that was there by that door. That's where he was. And I've been trying to figure out why I had that. I know Alagar purely because of you. I don't have any connection to your son. Okay. Why would I have a vision of him? With that 27 Arcanas, the last piece I'll give you as you ask why is that hum, the hum that you felt when you were being brought back to life, that you look the message from outside saying, does the sacrifice have to happen? If the obelisk is connected, you realized with whatever they were doing to you in the Palazzo Divinos, you didn't get a vision of Alagar, you had a vision of this room. Yeah, so it wasn't about Alagar as a byproduct, it was not about Alagar, what they were doing to me, what they did to me. These stones are a way of transference, they're a way of communication between people, but communication of magic is a way for what they did to me to have reverberated across these crystals, and they were doing a ritual here at the same time. Did they do it? And I point to the corroded bowl. I think so. So your heart was buried? That is the symbol of House Taconus, put there over the place of Tencil's name. So here's my question, if they came here to create a Taconus celestial, did they succeed? I have no idea. Do they realize that the celestial was meant to enact a vengeance on Asgra, and likely the people Asgra shaped? Is that an orc killing angel that was made from your heart? I understand the historical implications of this place, and I know what it was for. It was completely defiled before its use in the ritual. What it was used for currently may not be what it was historically meant to be used for, and I don't think that the Taconus care about orcs specifically. They don't care about their new house? Yeah. They care about us if they're trying to erase the old path, and make sure that they are the only arbiters of death. We should destroy this. Do we need to destroy it if it's already been used? Correct me if I'm wrong, but not all of the circle of ancients are orcs, correct? Correct. So they're trying to destroy the old path, but to make a celestial specifically designed to kill orcs? Doesn't seem to be furthering that plan. Sure. This is a little comfort. Does it look like there's more to it? Look, I'm doing my best. I'm trying to figure this out. You can stop attacking every hypothesis I come up with. It's not meant to be against you. I'm not trying to do anything against you. I'm trying to figure this out and to help. Okay. I'm looking at the actual evidence that exists, not a feeling. Okay. Have you considered maybe that your innate defensiveness is because you hold a fealty to your family despite what they've done to you? I feel like my innate defensiveness in this situation is because you all keep looking at me like I might be in on it. And I'm trying to tell you that I'm not. Okay. I don't know what they did. I don't know what the ritual, if it was successfully completed. I do not know what they created, what they did. I just think based on the evidence I'm looking at and the remnants left here, I think it's safer to assume they completed what they were trying to do. Okay. Instead of assuming they failed. Okay. Something terrible may have been brought into the world. Do you think maybe you're not the only person that deserves to have a fucking panicked response? I understand that. Do you? Yes, I do. Because if you need me to be a calm motherly figure and not jump on your ass about this, I'm happy to do that. But I am worried. I am worried about my family. I am worried about my world. So I'm sorry if I'm not interacting with you with perfect fucking grace. Okay? That's not what I'm asking for. I'm not asking you to do anything different. I'm just letting you know that not every idea I come up with means that you have to make it my fault. I don't think any of this is your fault. That's not how you're acting. You're equating me with my family constantly every time something new, some new piece of terrible information comes up. We're trying to find the connection, Octus. I understand. I'm sorry. It's okay. Let's continue. Julian has been looking over the chamber kind of away, just hearing the background and just kind of says out loud. I hate to admit, but he has a point. Look. Something terrible did happen here. I don't know if it was successful. Let's assume it was. This room was meant to create a replacement artificial celestial in order to defend themselves from something, using a human heart to do so. Defend or avenge? Depends on who you're asking or text your reading. Dr. Talter goes... Sorry. There's a lot of interpersonal... I'm not so sure. My Lord Togonis. Do you read Celestial? I can read it a little bit, yes. I'm not fully fluent. I don't think that this chamber... There are other chambers here in Tannosaur that may have answers to some of these questions. I do not believe that this chamber... Was intended to create a Celestial. How do you mean? I think that Tannosaur has many chambers in it, and I think that this was a very complicated process, and I think that there's... I think that this room has many Celestial symbols and many signs of divination within it. This appears to be a place where there's a lot of people who are not in the room. There's Celestial symbols and many signs of divination within it. This appears to be a place of communicating, and the Brazier is typically associated with offering. I believe that something was to be offered to Tannosaur's domain here, and she just gestures that the obelisk pointing straight upwards. She says, I... Based on what we went over in the tent, I do not believe that this chamber was about the creation of the David Vendicta. I believe this chamber... Is about assigning ownership. Love it. And with the replacement and defilement of the symbology on this, it would be then claiming its ownership to House Tacona. I don't think it seems that the current generational leadership of your family... You imparted the vision you had in the Holy Stones on our approach to this place with the use of the Kibben Emcadaz and speaking to the stone. I think Tannosaur's plan for this place relied on his priests remaining loyal for at least a century or more after his death, and I think he lost that loyalty pretty quickly. This place is terrible. Something happened. But our actual goal in being here was to find your son. And he's not here. So what do we do? If you saw this days ago, this battle happened days ago, which means there is very much a possibility. A possibility that your son is no longer with us. Just prepare yourself. But we still look in the off chance that's true. If he could not defend himself against this undead wave, and this was the majority of their destruction, would they have taken prisoners? Do the Taconas take prisoners? The Taconas take bodies. They are indeed considered prisoners, but they don't need to be alive. As far as I'm aware, I was never, I was far too young to be a part of any sort of thing they would have done. I understand. You do not need to defend yourself any further. No one amongst this troupe has any reason to miss. Trust you more than me, but as far as you've gone together, you have not proven anything otherwise. Just because we are ready for a betrayal doesn't mean until then, we don't have reason to trust you. So we will try to be a little more collaborative. Do not look at me like that again. Look, this is... I apologize, I understand you are under, everyone here is under a lot of stress, and this is something we'll try... I'm processing a lot of information right now about what possibly I am used for now, and I'm sorry if I was unkind. It wasn't mine. Look, we should search for Allagar. Did you, above table, tell us everything that he said? Yes. Pascar said he saw Allagar after the fight. Yes. We don't know if that instance in time is before or after the vision. It feels as though that was after the vision. The vision is what he was doing, he survived it, and had the ability to go and try to catch up with. So, assuming that is the timeline of events, he survived this room. So, it could be somewhere else. You see Gaia looks over at you and says, if your son did what he seemed to do in this chamber, then he would have been persuaded by the drowned man. Which means that he would know that the barrogate were acting under the false authority of House Takonas. Here's the map, and I lay it out. Where'd we go? Reading the map, do we have a sense, can I figure out a sense of what would correspond on the map to the Ranger and Allagar and the fellow baroguard that moved into the wilds? I think that was the phrasing that Pascar used. I think that looking at this, there may be information amongst the Takonas station in the barracks, and there's also who knows what the Apotheon Vindicta is, but it appears to be the central chamber of Tannasar. So, if your son was trying to stop what was happening here to the best of his ability, it's possible that in my assumption of the thought process of somebody who is a martial combatant, and please correct me, the central chamber would be an assumption of where possibly to do the most damage. At the heart of a thing. So maybe we might go our way there, see if he's there. Leaving this chamber, you venture back, pass now to the left. There is a colonnade, massive sandstone columns, looking around, echo of footfalls, clanking of Dame Gaia's armor. As you walk further in, holy places here, this is an area of actual worship and reverence, and you see there are writings here. My light can never leave you. The sun shines always, even where it cannot be seen. Entering further into this space, you approach this one, a chamber that is almost too intimate to private. It is still quite enormous, but it just feels so silent in here. Your footfalls almost stop making noise. You enter the Apavion Vendicta, and you see ancient glyphic writing. These walls are like 40 feet tall, with letters maybe an inch or two high, and every section of wall is filled with writing over and over and over again. Prayer and prayer and prayer. Once again, I'll ask for Arkana investigation. I'll also take religion or nature here. 12 castigation. Talter is also going to, by the way, add her flat plus five to the rolls here, and she can give the help action to either Octus Veles or Tyshio whoever wants it. It's cocked. So that will be in the flat plus five. Okay, so that's going to be 28. Let's go. No, Arkana. And it will be 26 religion, depending. Any other? Eight. Eight. Yeah, 15 religion. Dr. Talter goes, my god, and sees up on the wall amidst the writing. An image of a celestial. This is the Deva Vindicta. So this is the room where it would have been made? This is the room where it would have been made. You see that there is an altar. There's a stone slab under the room with, it's in the shape of a sarcophagus, but it is just solid stone. And what you see is there is actually a massive stone circle behind it where this is an intermediary chamber where it would come here and prayers would be recited. And this is where a body would actually be prepared. On a 28, you look and see. You haven't been to the barracks yet, but you know that when the body lands here, there is a way to embalm someone in advance. In advance of their death. A way to prepare them to... Yeah, that was a fucked up sentence. Yes, yes! What? Are you guys psyched about the Seekers table? Is this the table you wanted to be at where we find out all the nasty shit? I want to unseek all of this stuff. Is that technically a BBL? You see that there's a place, and you can see that the writing around this altar. It's an EBL. An EBL. There's a right... On the altar here, this is the instruction for a heart to be removed from a living body. The heart to be removed from a living body. You see the writing up on the wall, massive, that you guys can all hear, a taltar just starts to say it, sort of like, just like eyes wide reciting it. She looks out and says, In its right hand shall it wield my scepter, And in its left will it hold aloft the sun, Crowned in glory shall be terror to God and mortal alike, And from the earth in heaven shall no foe be suffered to live or die without its terrible command, No passage given, Nor to stay from passage suffered without the grim pronouncement of its edict, Woe to the foes of man in the age of the final angel. You see, Looking out, You see around the base of this altar, Flesh of the world, heart of light, flesh of the world, heart of light. And following the arcana again and again, You can see the instructions given in this chamber. This is where Tonsil explains how to do this, And moving from the poetic into the actual, You see this final celestial that would enact Tonsil's vengeance on the world, Would be a meeting fully of the divine and the mortal. And what it would require is the body of one of his chosen priests, Either from the house of Halevar or the house of Taconus. And what is referred to as Calcydian is a translation of calzus here in the sort of text of this ancient place, Which is a heart crafted from the body of a celestial. You got one of those? So you see that the ritual that would have occurred here would have been to prepare the body on this slab, And at this point in the ritual explained in the glyphic writing on the walls, Essentially the heart would be removed, the heart of flesh, And a contingent of priests would walk back down the hall in ritual procession, prayer and chanting, Would take the heart of flesh and offer up that heart of flesh at the obelisk to Tonsil. And it would be that even in his death, his realm and final edict would control the heart of this David vindict. And he would follow his last commands or pronouncements in death. And the body would be taken down to the seprical veil. And you see this massive stone that is a stone cap covering a staircase. And you can see that there is a massive hafted crank to open up that lower chamber that is currently capped off in stone. I will also say at this point, you look out and see, all of this is you in this chamber seeing these vindicta here, And you guys look out and see the small area that you walked through coming into this space on that very high arcana. You look over and see this little sort of like anti chamber area at the beginning of the room that is part of this, but a little bit separate. And you can see that there are in the dark there, there are some shapes, but the darkness hanging around them is almost like magical in nature. There is like almost no, but you see that there is a small area with some non celestial writing included amongst the celestial grips there. And there are four sort of stone bases. I'll wander over. I grab you the moment you start to move. I think we need to have a conversation. On that arcana, by the way, before you answer that, I just want to say the body would have been taken downstairs. It is downstairs that the heart of light would have been inserted into the body. The becoming would have happened downstairs. But I think, Octus, in this moment, you are aware of that moment. Two things happen here as well. The last thing I'll say about reading this before we move on, which is just the final stanzas of the prayer. Offer that the soul of the mortal priest that would be assuming this transformation would have to walk to the gates of the golden sky. Would have to walk past a certain point. And I think you realize this ritual was fully foiled. If this had been successful, this thing, here's the issue. If this worked, your body would not be yours anymore. It would have been a physical transformation. And that physical transformation, looking at the celestial depicted in both in writing, but also fully depicted as an image of this vast angel of death on the wall of the temple here, holding a scepter of the sun and holding the sun in its left hand. You see, that's not you. This ritual did not occur. And it couldn't have occurred. The ritual was disrupted in the moment that Tisha told you to step off the path, because part of the ritual was for the soul to actually make it all the way across the veil. And it was certainly fundamentally ended when you removed the Stone of Night Song from your body. You mean you want to talk about how they were turning me into this? Yes, but I think, especially since I don't know that little bit that you just sort of sussed out, I'm worried we're walking you to the completion of this ritual right now. No, we're not. I feel the same thing. Looking at this, I'm understanding something. The ritual, this place here, was where the heart was removed, and then the body was taken somewhere, lower, to the, what was it called? The Sapokroveil. The Sapokroveil, and that's where the Calcytian was implanted. A false heart crafted from the body of the celestial, from the bones. A'ee, the Stone of Night Song. And it was placed in the body, and they had to get to a certain point along the path for it to work. And I didn't go there. You stopped me. You stopped you? It didn't work. The ritual failed. If it had worked, I wouldn't be here. I would be gone, my body would have transformed into. You're confident that you're not just waiting for the final step, it is done, it is ruined, it is over? That stone needed to be inside my body, for any of this to work, and I needed to get to the Golden Gates, which I did not do. I hear you, and I believe you. All of those pieces needed to be in place, and that stone needed to be in my body, and if it had worked, this would all be gone. Okay, I am. Is there any universe where, because all of the components of the ritual are here together? I'm just trying to figure out where your family, why your family isn't here, if they are waiting to ambush us and finish the ritual now that we've crossed the desert to complete it here. That I don't know. That's my only fear. Yes, and I agree. But, for this ritual, if I'm understanding exactly what all of this means for that ritual to work, I needed to not be interrupted in my passage to death, which I was. Okay. And, this is without the knowledge of whether or not they could force me to walk that, but if that's, if they could, they would have. Yes. And they didn't. So, knowing that the ultimate choice is to whether or not I walk this path, when I, if I were to die again, I can just not. Okay. And it doesn't happen. Okay. I would heavily suggest, no matter- Can you get the stone away from you? No matter how strong of a sense you get, don't put that back in my body. Oh, trust me, I will not. My turn. Now, can you hide it in somewhere other than your front pocket? But that doesn't mean they can't do this. Put it in my back pocket? The important thing here is that they can do this to someone else. Yes. That's why I was saying, should we destroy the obelisk so they can't do it again? Okay. Possibly. Yeah. But, I'm not, the but is not a disagreement. The but is, that's a lot of time. We don't have supplies to demolish a place. Yeah. Hold on. I don't know what the book does. That's your weird book. I can help you translate. Do you think you can convince the obelisk to not be itself? Ah. The book is a book of names. The book allows me to know the history. It doesn't necessarily, as far as I, my general knowledge of what it does as I've only had it for a couple of days, doesn't allow me to communicate with stone as much as it allows me to know what the stone has seen. I know the history of where it's been. It doesn't speak or communicate in a way that is like, hey, do you think you could fall apart for me? You know. Fair. Do you think maybe there's something in the creation of it that might give us a clue to a speedier destruction of it? I can try. If you don't want to open the book. No, no, it's fine. I can open the book. I'm just, um, look, the Kibbenim Kedaz. Nice. Um, says you were saying it refreshes at a dawn, correct? Yeah, gosh. Which it does, has we've not gone through a dawn since I used it. Oh, there's no dawn here. That's right, there's no dawn here. Yes. The issue is it has not refreshed since the last time. I can only use it once per dawn. And we are in nighttime. Tons of... So that's unfortunately locked to us at the moment. Gotcha. Okay. Okay. Look, there's a world where my son is fine or not. But because we are not currently fighting waves of undead, some of the immediacy has left. Yes. He could still be here. Um, look, I'm normally not someone who wants to destroy history or blow up a place that is incredibly ancient. Yeah, but there... Let's try and find your son and think on how we could disable this place. Do we want to go look at the seprocal veil? Or are we leaving from here? Well, he's not here and there's only a few areas of this place that have been uncovered. Yeah. So I guess we look. This bit that is not the original writing. Yeah. Can I look at it? You do. You step into a sort of darker anti-chamber right before the Apotheon Vindicta. Do you create any sort of... You guys, there's some magical darkness on this place. I always use dancing lights, but in the way where you make a... You're allowed to make it like a medium creature size sort of shi-rate and vague shape. You make a guy? I make a guy and I'll have it kind of stand. Walking there, you recognize that there is some writing in Celestial containing a few short pieces of demonic script. And you see this very small chamber is what they refer to as the Hall of the Guardian Demons. This suddenly revealing it, you see that there are four inscriptions. Does anyone here read demonic? I do not. Go ahead and give me an arcana check. I'm gonna look, but I know I don't. Not the best that's going to be 17. The words are... There are full names here that you can't quite read. There are some terms here that you're trying your best to translate. I think on a 17 it's not quite high enough. The words sort of escape you in this moment. If, look, I know we don't have the time. I can read all of this if I have 10 minutes. But I don't know if we do. You also see the actual shapes of these names written at the base of statues. And you see that there are four bases and only three statues. You see that there is a standing looking, almost saintly and confused. There is a beautiful... It's rendered quite beautifully. There's a young, youthful... It might be like a young boy or adolescent who's looking up with sort of wavy hair and stone to extremely small horns and this beautiful celestial face looking up. And then otherwise, featureless. In terms of the faces is there, but there's like a sort of muscled chest with... This is going to be funny to say, but it is a little bit disconcerting. There are no secondary sexual characteristics or primary sexual characteristics. So... Dorval little kendall. Dorval little kendall. There are no nipples. There are no anything that would denote like a biological status. There's just a shape here. Kind of staring up, looking confused. You see there is another figure. This one, sort of an old smiling man. I was like a goatee and these wild horns that curl all the way back around. Almost like giant, almost connecting into a full hoop. Pointed ears, goat-like legs standing out. Who you see has a small stone pouch hanging from a cord around his neck and a stone staff that sort of curls. There is one final demonic statue here. This one is a extremely tall, broad-shouldered, masculine figure who appears to be wearing some kind of ancient armor and you see has bat wings that come sort of off and wrap around. But you see that the doesn't appear to have horns but has a circle of stone, almost like a halo that comes around but is sort of broken or shattered in the front. And looking down, you see a very handsome masculine face with two eyes and then two more on each side here, but otherwise strong jaw who seems to be looking down sorrowfully. The fourth pillar, the fourth base. Does it look like it was forcibly removed? Looks like it was shattered, destroyed. I guess somebody wanted to make sure they always travel in threes. Now, here's my perspective on this, glancing over the chamber. I see two paths here. Either this place has lost its importance to the Taconus and they've entirely abandoned it, which means it's safe to quickly gather what its secrets might keep, or it still holds purpose and it would not be stupid enough to leave it abandoned, which means there could still be Taconus representatives here, right for interrogation. Then let's... This chamber where these statues are, is this a chamber that goes through to another area that we need to get through? No, this was a little darkened. First of all, you are almost perturbed by how easily you walked past these statues on your way into this space. Oh, we came through these statues? You came through this little thing. It was like a threshold and that magical darkness you almost like stepped through because you were looking at the massive angelic painting on the wall past this. These figures appear to be here as part of the original construction of this space and they are demons, but demons don't have necessarily the same adversarial position to the faith of the Seven Shapers. We shouldn't copy and paste our understanding of the devil to this. These demons existed in an ecosystem along, in sort of a cosmology of faith alongside everything else, as beings of chaos and destruction and entropy, but they were not all united in purpose and therefore these ones seem to have been like these statues depicted here in this space. Guardians, can we shatter the statues? I'm sure we're capable of doing it. Do you have a good reason for me to not? And I think I'm just sort of like a golfer just lining up a shalely swing. Does the statue look like it was shattered a long time ago or recently? Quite recently. Anyone who wants to give me an investigation? Yeah. 16. Do it. Investigation. 16. 21. 21. You believe that this was destroyed by martial weapons, that possibly the Barrow Guard came in and smashed this one here? It's possible that your son destroyed one of these. Strong instincts. What I worry is that maybe he didn't. Maybe us passing through let something out, but I have no evidence to back that up. That's just a gut feeling. But if we want to try and smash them, either they'll break or they'll wake up. I'm still trying to suss out why your sister sent the Barrow Guard here. Were they part of the sacrifice? It's possible. They literally showed up and then destroyed a bunch of stuff. Well, I don't think my family was counting on the drowned men to offer that piece of alternative information. Fair. It was only a few that took up the drowned men's cause. The rest of the Barrow Guard acted under Tacona's interests. It's possible that... I'm sure you understand. You've dealt with plenty of nobles in your life. They are quick to assume that people who are not nobles are stupider than they are. So it's possible they just assumed the Barrow Guard wouldn't ask any questions. Fair. Okay. You can be an insight with advantage. I think if you want to destroy them, by all means. That's a strong sense of they're gonna wake up because we were in the realm. I have no idea. I don't get any... I just don't want to fight that one. And I point at multiple eyes and wings. I'm like, he seems like the worst. I gotta assume my son and his friends saw the other one that was also very bad. And they're like, I can take a baby with no nipples. On a fortune insight, I think Julian, you're thinking like the Tacona sent the Barrow Guard here with almost no notice. The Barrow Guard got here, what, a day? A day or two? Because you're thinking about the Drowned Men coming from Venadas, which is a few days into the desert. And then Castle Torch, which is like a day and a half away. I think you're thinking about two things. Petra and Raya looking at Gaia Saramai and saying, here's an order. It's from the Revolutionary Council. We don't have proof. But send the head ranger and send a battalion into the desert. And you're also thinking about that letter from Primus Tacona saying, does the sacrifice need to happen here? Or could it happen elsewhere if the obelisk is up? I think our fortune insight is not high enough to get a lay of what the plan is. But one thing Primus and his two eldest daughters have in common is that they were cutting a lot of corners. Here. I guess we should... Do you want to explore the rest of the rooms? And double check and make sure. I would like to make sure that if there is any remaining Taconas, we can get them in chains. And, or... Alligar. I don't think Alligar is here anymore. No, I don't think so either, but you'll never know. Can you cast like, don't in this room? Because you're a Taconist? Although the famous spell don't? Yeah. I don't know what wizard things you learned in school. I... there's nothing that I can do that will... You cast no, no, can. Nope is forthop all over the world. Ah, shoot. My family doesn't necessarily deal in demons, so this is not something that I, generally speaking, understand or have done anything with in the future. This looks like if I'm making a complete wild guess, this is a combination of... We all know the Halavars have demons with them. Oh, yeah, oh, yeah! Do you think this is... oh, sure. I think this might be left over from the construction of this place in conjunction with both the Halavars and the Taconas. Okay. So I don't know if this is an immediate concern, this might be these statues, these guardian statues have been here for a very long time. Oh, do you think the fourth one was... maybe if it wasn't shattered? It was tyranny, just being like, ah. That would mean that a lot of problems are probably happening with everybody else right now. There's a part of me that would feel sympathy or empathy or not wanting... It's been a bad time here, I hope everyone's a little stressed out. Yeah. You see that Gaia looks and says, so we wish to explore the rest of this place to see if there's any sign either of your son or of the Taconas that are here. Yeah, that seems like the plan. She says, all right, looking at the demons around here, you see she says, do we wish to start and she nods her head over to the closed door to the sepulchral veil. She says, do we wish to investigate the veil? The barracks both, neither? The veil seems like a place of importance that if there were Taconas here, they would be there. So help me, if you turn into a killing angel when we go through there, you better kill me first. If not, I'm going to haunt you with what I told you so. Look, I have... if my very, very rudimentary understanding of what this ritual is means, I won't have any choice in the matter. Yeah, fair. Hell yeah. You guys head over to the sepulchral veil. Gaia looks over to you with the half to begin turning it. Stone cap rotates. Sort of the stone doesn't rotate this way, it rotates fixed at this point and the circle moves. Revealing a descending staircase going down. That's cool, but I hate down. I'll go first. You go first. Do I send your light man to help you guys see? I... well, you have vision, you can see. I have vision. Julian's going to pull up just after you. For the sake of this, I'm going to banish dancing lights. Julian, if you want to hold on, I will hold on to you. Let's try and not have light preced us into this place in case there are people down there. Okay. Proceeding down to the dark, you begin to see glowing crystal light, ancient, beautiful temple structures. You approach and see the altar where the body changes, the place where the David Vindicta is supposed to be born. Before it, a massive well filled with blood. And you hear the scream. I need you all to roll initiative. And that's where we go to break. Hateful. Okay. It's fine. We could have left. You guys had a huge stack, you were on a hot streak. Let's keep rolling, baby. And that's where we'll leave our story for now. Part two of this episode of Campaign 4 drops this Tuesday. Thanks for listening and we'll see you soon for more Critical Role.