The Point of No Return | Critical Role | Campaign 4, Episode 22 Part 1
123 min
•Apr 16, 20265 days agoSummary
Critical Role Campaign 4, Episode 22 Part 1 features a flashback to the Golden Orchard 12 years before the main story, introducing young versions of main characters Octus Tukonis and Thimble during a political trial. The episode then transitions to the present-day sewers of Dolmakiara where the party engages in a dangerous combat encounter with Crow Keepers and a mysterious sludge creature while attempting to rescue the captured mage Demetis Blix.
Insights
- Narrative structure using flashbacks establishes character backstory and relationships that inform present-day motivations and conflicts
- Combat encounters benefit from environmental storytelling and dynamic NPC interactions that create emergent gameplay moments
- Player agency in creative problem-solving (illusions, deception, tactical positioning) can resolve combat encounters without direct combat
- Character-driven roleplay moments (Hal's emotional connection to Demetis, Azune's intimidation check) create memorable narrative beats beyond mechanical resolution
Trends
Narrative-first tabletop RPG design emphasizing character relationships and emotional stakes over pure mechanical optimizationUse of sensory-rich environmental description to enhance immersion and player investment in world-buildingCollaborative storytelling where player creativity in spell use and tactical thinking generates unexpected narrative outcomesIntegration of comedy and dramatic tension through character personality clashes and situational humor in high-stakes scenarios
Topics
Tabletop RPG Combat MechanicsNarrative Worldbuilding in Fantasy SettingsCharacter Development Through FlashbacksSpell Casting and Creative Problem-SolvingEnvironmental StorytellingNPC Faction DynamicsPlayer Agency in Emergent GameplayTactical Combat PositioningDeception and Illusion MagicCharacter Motivation and Backstory
Companies
Beacon
Critical Role's streaming platform offering exclusive content, member benefits, and early access to full podcast epis...
Darrington Press
Critical Role's game publishing division releasing 'A Familiar Fine' card game and other tabletop gaming products
Thorom
Jewelry and watch company founded by Caleb Martin, featured in a comedic vertical drama advertisement during the episode
FantasyGrab
Virtual tabletop platform providing campaign management tools and rules integration for online D&D gameplay
Vox Machina
Animated series based on Critical Role's first campaign, with Season 4 premiering June 3rd as announced during the ep...
People
Brennan Lee Mulligan
Serves as DM for Campaign 4, narrating the Golden Orchard flashback and present-day sewer combat encounter
Sam Reich
Presents sponsor advertisement for Thorom jewelry in comedic vertical drama format
Liam O'Brien
Announces Daggerheart availability on FantasyGrab virtual tabletop platform
Travis Willingham
Announces Season 4 of The Legend of Vox Machina animated series with June 3rd premiere date
Aabria Iyimide
Player character Thimble in the Golden Orchard flashback sequence
Erika Ishihara
Player character Azune Naya in the present-day sewer combat encounter
Caleb Martin
Founded Thorom jewelry company and featured in comedic advertisement during episode
Quotes
"You look down and see that the fish are flying over a separate wing of the castle, which is under the lake."
Brennan Lee Mulligan•Early in Golden Orchard scene
"They don't really care what I do. Or when I'm where, they just leave me alone."
Octus Tukonis (character)•Golden Orchard flashback
"You picked up his sword. Well, you'll die like he did."
Zagi (NPC)•Sewer combat encounter
"We're going to have to talk about reading the room."
Azune Naya (character)•During sewer combat
"First time in the sewers."
Laumi (NPC creature)•Final combat moment before Part 2
Full Transcript
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. Golden light cascades from towering trees that stretch towards a sky gleaming with a light knot of the world of Oremon. Glittering white towers, banners flapping in the wind, we hear trumpets blaring, calling home the banners of House Royce. Flying in the wind, the tree in key, the sigil of their house. What a glorious day here in the world between worlds, the golden orchard. Trees of trees taller than castle walls whose leaves reflect added light such that shadow dapples with a luminous glow as flittering butterflies made of magic itself arise from the foliage rich jasmine and moss, the smell of flowers as horses thunder down the main thoroughfare towards the open courtyard of a castle. We see a massive eagle flying overhead as the envoy of House Einfassen arrives. We see the horses of House Royce and DeVinos and the various vassals of this place and a carriage with iron bars as a prisoner of war comes to face trial. We see a carriage black as midnight and the clanking of plate armor as House Tukonis approaches. It is the year 59, some 12 years before our story begins. The banners have been called home for the Falconer's Rebellion has ended and the houses of nobility emerge victorious from this failed revolution. Alex, where on the grounds of House Royce is a eight-year-old octus Tukonis? I presume hiding. I think octus is off to the side as much as he can get away from the rest of his family in that he's never really comfortable or welcomed. So I think he's just often investigating some of the trees. He's never seen trees like this. This is his first time anywhere like the Golden Orchard and it is blowing his mind. He is so engrossed in just the light and the feeling of magic that's here that's so different from home. Going around as your father primus Tukonis exits speaking to his children, you see Petra and Raya, your older siblings are quite nearby. This matter will begin shortly. I know Royce is going to make some endeavor to save the life of this theazi fang but we have, I think, a legal case that may in fact, and you see doors of gold open as a very young Aranessa Royce commands a magic that she will no longer have as our main story begins for indeed the gates of fairies are still open. Lord Primus, my father wishes to speak with you. This turns around looking at those of his children who are here and says, stay close, look in order, you see his eyes, a light over to you, Octus. Why don't you use this opportunity in this demiplane to see if your connection to the Tenebril reaches might be aided by the abundant magic of this place. Yes, father. Some recitations perhaps? Yeah, okay. Times of the essence, young Octus, and you see that he moves away. Many of your siblings had already begun to manifest some powers by this time. You look around from the courtyard, white gravel stone, enormous trees, as the Tukonis emerging, you see that two of the trees shake and faces appear. Welcome to the golden orchard. And you see that one of the trees looks down at you, sort of off from the main gate. These two eyes open and a seam of bark opens along the mouth. Hello, little boy. Hi. Wow. Are you entering inside the castle walls? I don't know. I think they want me to stay out here. Would you like an apple? Sure, yeah. A golden apple that you see, even through the wax of its skin, smells sweet. It's like you can smell fresh cut apples just holding this thing. Everything here is alive and rich and filled with energy. I can eat this? Yes, of course. It takes a huge bite of the apple. Looking next to the courtyard, you see that there is an enormous shimmering lake that has these huge, like 15 foot long, beautiful goldfish sort of swim through it. You look down and see that the fish are flying over a separate wing of the castle, which is under the lake. You see that there appears to be people walking those parapets down there, and they don't appear to be wet. It's like something, maybe this lake is like some special kind of water, you can't tell, but it just looks like you're looking through the surface of a pond and seeing another castle down there. At this moment, you hear behind you a sort of scuff, and you are pelted for one point of blood and damage as your older brother, Etherand, throws a rock at your head. Etherand. What? It hurt. Oh, it hurt? Well, you should be focusing. You should already be able to manifest some lights or something. You're gonna embarrass everybody. I'm trying, please. You see that eye turns around. At this moment, are there any other creatures nearby? Witnessing this act of aggression as a little kid throws a rock at his brother's head. Yeah, I'm up in the tree sitting with my brother, and we're both snickering. Next to you, you see wearing that kind of Royce green little needle sword at his side, looking also very childlike. What does Thimble look like in this memory? She is, oh, she looks about 10 years old, and she's wearing these little green overalls that are a little bit rugged. They look like they might have been nice at some point, but she rolls in the dirt a lot, and they're just kind of messy. Her hair is a little bit longer and into little pigtails. Thimble, your brother Twig is near you. You see he's taken an enormous bite of a blueberry that's holding up most of his hand. He looks down and says, poor kid. Are they the Tacona's family? Yeah, they're shitheads. Although, I don't know, he doesn't seem too bad, but Tacona's in general absolute dog shit. Really? Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Were you fighting these guys out there? Yeah, we were fighting them all the time. You wouldn't believe it. They were weak as fuck, but they do have some pretty cool magic. That's pretty good. Inside you hear Trumpet's blaring, and you see that there's a shout from one of the Einfassen saying, the pixie companion of the captive has escaped. Listen, so they're putting, they're putting Thaz on trial today? Don't worry, nothing bad's gonna happen. What, on trial? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think the Taconuses are trying to get him killed or something, but we don't have anything to worry about. Oh, well, Lord Royce is not gonna let anything like that happen. He's still married to Lady Ernaz. All right, yeah. All right, should we go stab this older kid? Sure. You see Ether in sort of menaces, octas some more, and Thimble, what do you do in this moment? I'm gonna fly down and pick up a rock and throw it at Ether. Go ahead and give me an attack. Okay. Oh, geez, oh, geez. I was rolling all these dice. Let's see. Oh, cool, three. Three. The rock whizzes by, so Ether goes, ah, stupid fairies. Get out of here, you're not welcome in our orchard. Yeah, I am. Our families are allied. The Taconuses are a proud family, and we're allies with House Royce. Yeah, all right, then get inside and get out of my orchard. What are you gonna do? I'm gonna hang out here. He says, oh, no, I meant like, okay. And you see that Tweed looks over and goes, hey, you should listen to my sister. She's killed, I think, dozens of your family in Bannerman. Yeah, pretty much. You see Ether and goes, that's not true, is it? Yes, it is. Yes, it is. I've been in battle. I'm a hardened warrior, a warrior. Ether and, go ahead and give me Intimidate Rolls of the Damage. The energy is absolutely perplexing. Oh, 19! 19! Ether and goes, mother! And rushes inside. An artist, you are there looking at two pixies hovering in the air. Believing the exact same thing that Ether and believes. He's just, you should duck next time someone throws a rock at your head. I didn't see him throw it. I looked down at the apple. You know, if you let it ferment, it'll get you real fucked up. I don't know what that means. Drunk! Oh, oh, okay. I've never been drunk. Really? I'm just a kid. We're kids forever, and we get drunk all the time. What? I'm sorry. My name's Octus. Hi, who are you? Hello. I'm Thimble. This is my brother, Twig. Hi. Hi, Thimble, Twig. Hi, nice to meet you. Are you gonna throw rocks at me too? No. Unless you are like the rest of your family. Hearing the barking of dogs from inside, you see that Twig says, you better go hide. I'll go hold him off. He darts into the castle. We should go hide. Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah. Although, here, come with me. And I'm gonna lead him to where there's like a window that we can like peek in and watch the trial and make sure nothing super bad happens that don't worry, that is not gonna get hurt today, okay? Okay. He's just on trial. It's no big deal. Right, seems like a big deal. Go ahead and give me stealth checks both of you. A reminder right now, Thimble, your first level and... I'm a child. You're a child. You have child stats. I got child stats. We all know child stats. Oh no. No. That's a 19. Oh good, I rolled a two. A 19 and a two. On a group stealth check, Octus, you see that Thimble begins to... Just shy of crits both ways. Just shy of crits both ways. You see that Thimble darts forward towards a window. You are pretty sure that that window is magically guarded, although you don't feel anything in the pit of your stomach telling you that. You know that your family would be able to sort of sense it innately, but... Wait, wait, wait, wait, don't go through there. Thimble, you hold up and stop real quick looking into the window, into the room, and you do see that around the edge of the window, as Octus stops you, there is some humming kind of entity, and you realize this is one of many sort of arcane protected windows. That was never there before. Looking at it from an angle, you see that yes, this window shows you inside the castle, but if you were to fly through it or touch it, you see an endless stretch of... Black leafless trees stretching into hero. The home of the Dark Fae on the other side of the Golden Orchard. I think they put some extra protections up today because... Because of you? No, not because of me, because of you. Because of your family, because you guys are here, and they don't know what you're going to do. Yeah, that makes sense. What are you going to do? What are you doing, by the way? Why were you outside when the rest of your family was inside? I can't do anything. Aw. They, they, I don't... I don't have any magic right now, at least. I'm sorry, I have a spot I... Hasn't happened yet. I'm going to fly and like look in your ear. That sucks for you. Yeah, so they don't really care what I do. Or when I'm where, they just leave me alone. That's lonely. Yeah, it is. I got lots of brothers and sisters. They're all pretty cool. I have lots of brothers and sisters. Not pretty cool. They're really powerful though. Yeah. I know, I really did fight them. Yeah? Yeah. That's cool. Do you think, the Aussie is the criminal, right? He's not a criminal. But yeah, he was fighting your family. They're going to... And, Aronessa's family, which is a little messed up. Why? Well, because he's married to Aronessa. Oh, whoa. I know. That's... Why would he... That's complicated. Yeah, I don't think she liked it very much. In fact... You look inside and see, in the defendants sort of area, that a manacled the Aussie Fang is standing there. You see his arms are crossing manacled behind him. And you see that he sort of stares out despondently. Aronessa, you can see, is looking across the chamber, heartbroken that he's not making eye contact with her. And you can see that the Ain Faz and the Quamrae are here. And you see that the... That Aronessa's father is speaking. You see that Lord Otto Ain Faz is speaking and saying, the burden of proof will be on you, Lord, to Conniss that he is a mercenary. All of his fighting was contracted work. The laws of our land are clear. If we were to execute him, think about what would happen to all of the mercenaries. No one would take a contract again. We ourselves would not be able to hire these. This rule is in place, and you see it as he's speaking. Both of you give me a perception check. Oh, God. 10. 15. You see that Fiazzi sort of scratches the side of his head. And I think as you see him do that, it just sort of looks like he's sort of standing there, swaying, scratches his head. About 30 seconds later, scratches his head again. And as he does, you realize that he's slipping his hand out from his manacles to do that and come back. And you recognize that he's doing the exact same motion on loop over and over again. And a moment afterwards, you hear a voice behind you invisibly go, Thimble, how's it going? And you see that Fiazzi appears behind you. We only have a few minutes. They're going to notice. We should get back to my old room because there's a couple things that I left up there. Do you want to? Hi. This is Octus. Octus Taconus. Yeah. But don't worry, his brother threw a rock at his head. I don't think they like him very much. Yeah. You got a rock thrown at your head by your brother. That's not nice. Right? They don't like me that much. Oh. Why are you left out here? Everybody else? My dad thought that maybe this place would stoke my abilities and make me have magic that I don't have. He's powerless. It's sad. Thimble, don't say things are sad so loud. Sorry. He looks and says, okay, there's a lot of ways to get magic. Really? Oh yeah. Oh yeah. I'm not supposed to have magic. I grew up, you know, a few minutes outside the Tanners in Dolmokyar. Yeah, and then he started snorting Pixie Dust up his butt and suddenly he's super powerful. Yeah, I snorted it up my butt. How did he snort it up? Yeah, I used my lungs to snort it up my butt. That's great, Thimble. He's really strong. Look, we got to rob myself. My old things are upstairs. Do you? You're interested in magic, right? Yeah. Thimble, why don't you take our young friend here and head up? Oh, because you're a Taconis and you're welcome here. Technically. Technically is how a lot of very clever things work. I'm going to head over to the stables. You head upstairs tonight. Okay. Hey, Aronessa was looking at you in there. Longingly. I don't know if longingly is what the look is, but you got it. Thimble. I'll have none of that. Octus, nice to meet you. Nice to meet you. I'm Thimble. I'll go get your shit. All right. Good. You see, he turns off to head away. Octus, you look out and see Thimble next to you smiling as the Ozzy leaves and turns invisible again. What do you do in this moment? So that was the Ozzy? Yeah, that was really great. He has magic. He's got magic. Didn't always have magic. Come on. Okay. So we're going to head up off the stairs running up each stair, a light with a small glow of multicolored energy as notes of music play, extending the staircase. And you begin your first, I'll say, misadventure together. And that's all for this vision of what once was in the Golden Orchard. We'll continue our story with our schemers in Dolnakiara on tonight's episode of Critical Role. Hello, everybody, and welcome back to the Critical Role announcement playhouse. Our sponsor for this episode is Thorom, makers of cool rings and watches. Sam, what do you got to say about it? Thorom makes rings out of meteorite, whiskey barrel, ironwood, dinosaur bone, and more. And they offer minimalist watches in a variety of materials. Founded in 2012, founder Caleb Martin couldn't afford an engagement ban for his now-wife Steph. So he made one and proposed how romantic is that? And these days, when I think romance, I think vertical dramas. Now, these are super dramatic mini series for phone viewing shot vertically. Very soapy. You know what they are. So with the help of some amazing actors, I would like to present to you a recreation of the proposal of the founders of Thorom, but as a vertical drama. I take you there now. Okay, here we go guys. Ready and action. Hey Steph, it's me, your boyfriend, Caleb Martin. Ah, you're so beautiful. Will you? Oh Liam, just a little bit over. Could you move further? It's a vertical drama, remember? Yeah, great. Keep going. I'm sorry. Steph, my love, will you marry me? A little bit closer. Yeah. Caleb, my darling, you know I would. A little bit closer. You really got to get closer to the vertical drama, you guys. You know I would if only we could afford a stylish wedding ring. But that's just it. Look, I made you this ring. Oh, you know what, Liam? You got to hold the ring in frame. This is a vertical drama. I can't, I can't stress that enough. But look, I made you this ring. Wow, that ring is so unique and stylish. We would even closer, even closer together if you can. I went to NYU. We should create a company that makes unique and stylish rings for everyone. It will never happen now that I've stolen your prototype. Allison, we cannot see you. We cannot see you. You have to get into frame. This is a center up. Center up. Even closer. Now you can never get married. I'm sorry, Sam. This is really awkward and has really hit my goonie ear. Yeah, honestly, one of us smells like organzola. I think that's you actually. It's melting my mustache off. And cut. Wow, that was amazing. Good job, you guys. Good acting. Really good. With over 10,000 five-star reviews, free silicone activity bands and walnut wood ring boxes, free shipping and a lifetime warranty or a warrant, as it says in the prompter. Oh, you. Get them. Arrest them. Wear your story with Thoram. Whether you need a wedding ring, anniversary ring, or just want a ring that looks awesome, head over to thoram.com and use code critical role. Matt, back to you. Thank you, Sam. Liam, you have an announcement, I believe. Oh, gee, we're excited to share that Daggerheart is now available on FantasyGrab. This virtual tabletop provides tools for campaign management, maps, rules integration so you can jump into a campaign online and focus on telling the great stories without worrying about managing the mechanics. Am I right? FantasyGrab is totally free to start, so you can bring your table together for adventures anywhere, anytime. Maps. Maps. Maps. Maps. Maps. Maps. Maps. Maps. Maps. I miss our vertical drama right now. All right, well then. Travis, I believe you have a little thing to talk about, don't you? Oh, yeah. Travis, you missed it. Season four of The Legend of Vox Machina will premiere on June 3rd. Let's go. We're at the beginning of another incredible story arc and we guarantee you that Vox Machina will fuck shit up. Plus, Wayne Brady is Terry and Darrington. Many more updates to come and art and trailers, so please keep your eyes peeled on our socials and newsletters and all the good stuff so you don't miss a beat. Brilliant. This is going to begin. Thank you all. Darrington Press' newest game, A Familiar Fine, is now available in the Critical Role shops at the Darrington Press Guild stores. Now, Familiar Fine is a lighthearted card game where you play as an animal companion racing across all corners of Alexandria to gather magical ingredients, but you're not alone. Rival, familiar as it lurk nearby, attempting to set traps and sabotage your plans at every turn. Oh, your friends will hate you until by the end of it. It's great. It's not true. It's wonderful. The game is sized to travel anywhere you go and includes 10 familiar characters to play, each with their own unique abilities, including beloved beasts such as Trinket, Mister, and Pate. My boy. I think it's Pat. A Familiar Fine was designed by Ian Zhang with art by John Ramsey and Svetlana Kucherevenko. And if you grab your copy from your local Darrington Press Guild store, you also have a chance to receive unique location promo cards with your purchase. So grab yours today and learn more at DarringtonPress.com slash A Familiar Fine. I want to see. I want to see. Go for it. And, Risha, you got some announcements. You guys are beaconshow Daggerheart Azzarum, featuring the talented cast from Viva La Darte League, just wrapped up on the Beast Feast campaign frame and has now jumped into a brand new storyline, Hammer Time. Hammer Time. Is it about that song? No. We can't afford it. No, we can't. For anyone who has been waiting to dive into the world of Daggerheart Azzarum, now is the best time to start watching each distinct campaign arc, while part of the larger ongoing series is designed to function as a wonderful, yet self-contained story. So if you're not already a beacon member, you can start a free seven-day trial and check it out right now at beacon.tv slash join maps. MC Hammer, always a report. Got it. Join. Boom. That's a piece. I think that concludes our announcements. So with that, let's go ahead and jump back into Oremon. Woohoo! Oh, oh! What do I do with my hands? Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Hello, and welcome to another episode of Critical Role. We return here to your wondering. You're wondering if I'm gonna narc on you. Yes I am. I am too. Yes I am. Well, I'm afraid this, Liam said always be masturbating. There was context. There was context. Honestly, almost makes it more weird. I don't know. Yeah, I tried to help them. I'm new. We don't know. We return to the Schema's Table here in Dolmacka, deep in the sewers under Caravan Hill, where brave adventurers have gone underground. One adventurer sort of becoming an adventurer fully this night. Indeed, how in deal Fang waiting at the gate looking down and realizing that the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step and the road goes ever on. This road led down into some nasty sewers because you've been hot on the trail of Demidus Blix, the illusionist grad student of the Pentevral, who went missing after you discovered he helped the house of Taconus, perhaps unbeknownst to him, cover up the massacre at the Palazzo De Vinos. Having sprung Misha Andragore from prison, you guys had an eventful night at the Seven Stars Tavern, how connected with Romina Roundtree with all of the intel she had from working at the Stahlkeep, the sort of mants here in Dolmacka of House Einfassen. You Bolare played a hand of cards with a horrifying merchant named Drespen Fortunata, a traveling wizard named Arnisha Vane, having taken the seat of Gnomish smuggler, Pimley Morn, and played a hand of cards with King Augustus Valiant, who was coming absconded from the Seven Stars as Hound of the King Sir Martin came and found his liege and got him the hell out of this bar to get back to the business at hand, staying with Mr. Bowsprit, a merchant that you have some familiarity with. Murray, pinned down Pimley and found out that he had indeed, having recognized the blue flame of the candlelight, had indeed been part, at first, of trying to get Demetis Blix out of town after whatever task he accomplished for the Taconus, seemed that he must have gotten the hell out of Dodgers from seeing the writing on the wall, and Pimley realized that this was a little too hot for him and dumped the desperate Demetis, who was depending on him for help, into the clutches of the Crow Keepers, to whom Demetis owed some money. Following the Crow Keepers after Murray made contact with an ally in Caravan Hill, the soothsayer, Tamilo, Tamilo gave you a reading of your cards, speaking surreptitiously of the eye she had been keeping on the guard tower, the old tavern, frequented by the leadership of the Crow Keepers. Crow Keepers, you were told, were in disarray, their guild master Solomon, having been killed several days ago by the elven warrior, Vaelis, who then left town after the world's first known revenant was created. You see that they seem to be in disarray, and took Demetis into their own custody after paying Pimley more handsomely for doing so. You went deep underground, where you discovered this hiding place of the Crow Keepers, and them speaking to something inhuman in the chamber beyond. A careful illusion was cast and created for you to look out and essentially draw some of the Crow Keepers away. This city thief is affected by a phantasm for us and heard an illusion from Hal and a rock hurled into the muck water beyond, and many of them are about to peel out. However, we must resolve at the top of initiative one of them who spotted a strange sight of a mask peering around the corner here. We enter initiative, but before we enter initiative, we must first produce your heroes. Oh! Yes! Murray Magnussen! Yes! Look at him! He's here! Halindiel Fane! Oh, wow. Oh, wow. Boler Lothalia! Oh, my man, look at him, he's so pretty. And Azune Naya. Yeah. Gimme, gimme, gimme. So cool. Wow. I will let you guys have, you can see the extended version of the map with the pathway you guys have taken down here. Kindly place your minis where you would in this area here. Okay. Boler, you were like up and peaked around the corner. So I'm gonna be in the far corner there. Great. Far corner where? Like in the corner over there. Here where the crates are? So yeah, like you just, so you're like here amongst the crates essentially, right? Yeah, okay, gotcha. Yeah, dipped around the corner, dipped back. I might have even tried to go a little deeper, but yeah, that'll do. Murray's gonna stay towards the back. Cool. Yeah. I wanna be up, I wanna go back. Murray, by the way, you remember that you did your tremor sense to get a lay of the land beyond. That's true. And kind of see a vision of all of this and communicate it to your partners. You also know that there is a way to go back up the staircase and find your way down these ladders essentially. Well actually, I would throw me in the far, I think I would have been back to wall back there because I know I got tagged. So back. And like here? Or you were like in high-climbing frames. Yeah, like actually, but it was Bolier's mask that popped out for a second. Yes, correct. Alerting one of those two. Yes, one of them, there was a lot of noise and ruckus and this one is shouting guards, guards, guards. You have, you know that it's this sort of hulking, bruiser looking guy right there that is the one who made you. Yeah, I want him to get in there. But again, I think it's important to say in this moment with a lot of chaos happening, made is a relative term, right? In other words, he saw something down that passageway, but it's not that he didn't hear the splash or the illusion or anything else. It's not that he's not hearing his companions say they're going that way, but he knows he saw something. He saw something. And I'm, yeah. And what we've seen is you peek out, do something, and then just kind of back up and get back in. And I backed out into the corner. Okay, I think I would be maybe right next to howl. Is that a place that I can stand on, that kind of platform? Sure, yeah, right there, man. I think I would be there. Hell yeah. And Dien, can you remind me, one of the two people guarding that sewer entrance has the whammy on them from Bolaire. Whammy right here. In fact, let me get a token on there just for us to be super clear. Great. And that's a temporary whammy? That is, hold on, I can give you the whole rigmarole family. And the other one is in his right mind. Best we know, I mean, we can't see him, but you narrated that he spotted a weird horror movie mask peeking around the corner. Okay. And there's a group of other folks going, get him as they run after the illusion that we see. That running has not started. This one is, we're sort of doing the immediate moments after that illusion. So this one is shouting into the room, alerting other people of what's going on. I can, yeah. He's affected by, it's a concentration spell, so he thinks he saw and I can drop the concentration spell and he'll stop seeing it or be aware of it, but like, which I have to do because it's just far enough back there where once he hits it, I don't think I can move a phantasmal force. Oh my gosh, but what he believes is that enemies ran off down the hall. We mixed some things together and they heard someone else. And I'm debating whether or not to let him die so that they clearly, something bad is up there or not. I don't know. Mm. I don't know. So, yeah. Once he gets into my target, I can have him take 2d8 psychic damage, but he would have to actually pay attention and make an attempt to, he would have to do an investigation check to see if it's not real, but also if I drop it, he still will think it's real. It's just he won't see it anymore. Okay. Yeah, we can do it. So yeah, he's fine. He would have to see, someone would have to prove to him that there was nothing there. Okay. Yeah. So, yeah, are you all placed? I think so. The first thing we are going to resolve is what happens as this Crow Keeper, as this one turns to shout into the chamber about what he's seen, this other one, not seeing any of this, is going to rush around the side here. Okay. Rushing around the side, I'm going to roll. Okay. Moving around the corner, it enters here. Do you guys have visible sources of light on you? I extinguished my torch. Extinguished your torch. Is there no light? I mean, that was our only light source and what we were relying on was the torches that were being lit from the area itself. Great. So in that case, with that torch light extinguished, this human rogue rounds the corner, stepping forward, I'm going to need everybody here to make one final group stealth at the top of this. Because you have extinguished the torch, you may do so with advantage. Oh, advantage. I think that makes it a straight roll for me. My stealth checks are at disadvantage because of my armor. Yep. That's true. Yep. That could be worse. What do we got? 14. 14, okay. Don't make that face. Could be worse. What do we get, how? A seven. Oh no. Could be that. Seven, great. 14, seven. 12. 12? 12. Okay. No bad. So. It's angling. This figure rushes around, like rushes down, rushes around the corner, stops right here in the dark. So you can see him kind of silhouetted because torch lights being cast from here and flickering on this back wall. So it's so dark in here, you can't see his face at all. It's just his silhouette framed against dappled, weak torch light on stone and water behind him. And as he stands with me in the doorway, he goes, Aye! And reaches down to a bag to grab torch for him. Bolare and Azune, you share an 11 initiative. You are going to be the only ones able to act before this guy pulls the torch out. Exciting. Okay. And you are first. I go first. So I'm going to. But I'll point out that with no light here, you also are going to need to make a, you will get disadvantage on the attack rules against him. That's fine. Okay. I'm going to try and definitely circle around him so that he can't leave. Okay. He actually is probably better that you do that. Great. I'm going to get right behind him. Great. And I'm just going to whisper in his ear, Silence. Okay. And I'm going to be casting, I'm casting the command. Okay, great. That is a save against a wisdom of 14. Save against a wisdom of 14. He fails. Whew. I mean, it's perfectly silent. Oh, good. Great. That is your action, any bonus actions from you? I don't even know if I can, let me see. You have major? No, I got nothing. Azune, that is you. Okay. Oh, I have no bonus action. Seeing Bolare move in, I am going to follow suit. If I can reach. Step thing. Get me, yeah please. My arms are not long enough. I'm just going to close in. That's weird. Right there. Great, that's very weird. And you good? Yeah, I just see a thing I'm going to make a note of because I don't know why it's on my. Okay, there's a lot of cool stuff that I could do, but it's all loud or very bright and I'm not going to do any of those things. I'm instead going to just straight up attack this guy. Cool. I would, I'm flanking him, which would give advantage, but I'm also at disadvantage because of the darkness. So good to have you rolling straight. Please hit, please hit, please hit. Bolare, are you like out in the open now? Look what I did. What you doing? You stay in, you stay in. Now 20, all right. Oh, the things I wish I could do right now with them all so loud and bright. Always be masturbating. Oh, I know right, yeah. Good to see you. Thankfully, it's dark, but I definitely know I'm a little visible there. I do want to confirm for you Bolare, that you, I think you only used 15 feet of movement to get there. If anyone else comes down the hallway, you will be visible in that spot. Okay, so do I still have space to move or is that not? You do still have space left. You do still have space left, correct. I will definitely do that then. Okay, is that happening in tandem or will I need to roll that at disadvantage? You both have an 11. We're on the same fucking number. I'm fine with you guys acting in tandem here. Beautiful, cool. So, I love that, cool, so much. Okay, so Azune, you crit. I do, how do we crit? Is it full damage? No, roll double your dice. Double dice, okay. Double dice, that's correct. And he was gonna take, no. Seven and a one. Oh. So it's not, you know, but. To be worse. You take 12 points of damage, 12 points of damage. Can you describe your weapon for us and what it is when you attack? Yeah, okay, yeah, one. Yes, I'm 1d8. So I already had my shield in my hand. Hang on, wait, for clarification. Do you mean double the dice as in, do he gets to roll two d8s or roll one d8 and double it? I believe, unless they changed it in 2024, I believe it's double dice. Yeah, that's a typical. Two dice, they're all two dice, okay. Yeah, my normal weapon attack is 1d8. So I roll two, yes. Two d8 and then plus the four. Plus my four, yes. All right, so seven plus one plus four is 12. 12 damage. So a shield was already in my hand and a part of the attack, I draw my war hammer, which is, it's made of steel, it's slender, it's got leather wraps around the handle and it's a very, it's seen, you can tell that this has done some hammering, it's got some worn bits of it and just lay right into his chest. For Hal and Murray, I don't know, Hal has been in war, was a young kid, he was in the war back some months ago. Decades ago. Murray, I don't know if you have been in war or not or in pitched combat. So Azune, you step forward, this crook, he goes, hey, barking out, because all he saw was a bit of a mask. It's almost like a weird, creepy thing to see. Can't be sure, but he heard the splash, his friend is shouting, guards, guards. He goes for the torch, Bolare slinks behind him and goes, silence. He goes, and as he whips around, horrified by this mask, all you need, Azune, you don't need to see his features, the silhouette is enough and your hammer connects with a thud into his chest such that you can feel the blunt head of the hammer, cuts through cloth that hits his chest so hard. Just, bam, ribs crack and a heart is stopped instantaneously. Blunt force trauma through the ribcage into the heart, dead. Love that. Bolare, you have 15 feet of movement and Azune, this guy is about to drop and make a heavy thud on the ground. I'm gonna try to catch him, or at least interpose myself so that he lands on me instead of. If I am, stay within, I meant to actually stay within range there, can I assist on this if there's just two of us there to pick them up? Yes, I'll go ahead and say that each of you guys can make a dexterity saving throw, DC 10. Try to catch the body as it falls. 19, 17. Hell yes, Bolare, silence, a hammer, as you say, silence, the susurice of it, thankfully, Azune, a hitting this guy, max force in the chest with a hammer, which already through fabric would have made a softer thud anyway, sails sonically under the noise of running water. His body would have made a loud bang, but a hammer blow to the heart, boom, and each of you gets under one of his shoulders, and with 15 feet of movement, you can flatten against the darkness of the wall as you hear footsteps begin to thunder down the hallway past you. We are going, I have my hand on his chest. Yes. I want to feel the lack of his heartbeat. Okay. As we sit there silently. You can feel autonomic twitches in his extremity, even as his heart has stopped. One, I say, under my breath. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. Pulling him to the side. You then hear the voice of a commander of the Crow Keepers go, after them, find out if there's a captain. If it's just guards, slit their throats, and dump them in the water. And you see, Phantasmal Force here grabs three others. One, two, three, and on their turn, they're going to take a double move, and they sprint all the way and get probably to the water's edge here, as you see one of them calls out and says, where are they? And you see that the one with the Phantasmal Force goes, they're right ahead, follow me! With a level of confidence that strikes the other three as deeply confusing, though they all did hear a shout of a guard a moment ago. And there is still, because we tossed it, there's still some ripple in the water. And I drop Phantasmal. Okay, that is their turn. This, you see, one of them is going to rush here, looking out of the hallway. So you hear another footstep there. The commander calls out and says, run them down! Listen, allow me, we don't have time. We are going to move, and I think here, that's one second. And I think here, I think here, I think here, I think here, I think here, I think here, I think here, that's one last turn. Okay. 5, 10, 15, 20. What's that?! Okay. Looks friendly. To the channel. Okay. Mm. Oh boy. Okay. Flinging and effect down the hallway, you hear a voice go, wow. They must not survive to know this place. Something under the water erupts and all of you narrowly missing these crowkeepers who flush to the wall and hitting the area that each of you were standing in, but a half a second before, an eruption of stinking muck moves around. All you can see here on these sort of like wooden barricades that are up is that they are standing there. There is a momentary eruption of jet black filth and sludge that gushers forth like a tidal wave, and as it collapses to the ground in a stinking heap, where these were, there is a few seconds of a hand full of them dripping black sludge before they dissolve and are gone. Cool. Cool, cool, cool, cool, cool, cool, cool, cool. We are going to remain in initiative, however, you do not know if you are made or not, or if your presence is known here in this moment. You just see something, hear a horrifying voice, and see some enormous eruption of magic occur in that moment. How? It is your turn. Wow, wow. This is one clarifying question before I start talking further here. The group that went chasing the illusory noise, are they still in sight? They are still where you see them on the map. Okay. So in other words, to allow them to clear, you would have to potentially either give another round for them to move further on, or take some other course of action. But that's 60 feet of movement from them, essentially. But their attention is not on us. It's not on you as your, whatever your 12 perception was, was enough at least to bypass the passive perception of these Crow Keepers. Okay, so head space wise, Hal is kind of reeling. He just watched Bolare, good friend, but yet living mask, and his warden friend, just Seal Team Six, a guy in six seconds flat. He is feeling totally out of body in this moment. He cannot believe that events have reached this point. He's a little bit paralyzed, and I think all he's going to do is look over his shoulder at Murray and say, you watch my ass and I'll watch yours. And intention and genuine need ripples out from his voice and hits your spine, prickles up the back of your neck, and you take a bardic inspiration. And Hal doesn't know what the fuck to do right now, so I think he's just literally going to creep up to the edge to watch as this group runs, also scared of what looks like corrosive slimes, or sewage, or something. Sticking in the shadow. On your bardic inspiration. Yeah, new class, who this? It is D6. Yes. Murray, that is going to be your turn. Up the stairs then? Going? I just give you a nod. I just kind of look at everybody and be like, tsk, tsk, tsk, tsk, tsk, tsk, tsk. And I'm going to go up and around to this staircase, start, make my way to that stair, that ladder in this way, so open around. So action and movement, 60 feet, right? We're going up there. I believe so. I believe so. Well, there was the one, I mean. There's a second floor that takes us to ladders that go down. Done and done, cool. That's right. Great, yes. I'm playing shell shocked, but that's the smart thing to do. Huh? Kailor, okay, awesome. Thank you for the refresh. Okay, ba-da-boom. Okay, great. You guys are going to move through in that case to, tsk, tsk, tsk, tsk, tsk. So the whole squad is heading up. Is the plan for the whole squad to head up the staircase together? I think so, yeah. Okay. How is it to have a plan, but if that's what everybody does, he's just going to put our hand on your shoulder and very great. Okay, then we are going to fast track through. Do you want this little cork, cork buddy? No, I got you right here. You got one? I got this little cork buddy. We're going to fast track through this, ba-da-boom. And we will re-enter this round of combat. So how Murray, you move up into position, running up the stairs. On the upper level, you see another area of the sewer up here, the ladder comes up and continues also up past you to another level above, but you look down and can hear the voices once again down here. Going back to the top, you hear as you're moving, the zaggy, the captain of the crow keepers, turning around and going, Lao Mi, we have to bring this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, all right, we can buy favor with them. They're found just already. This is going to be given away idly. It must be bargained for. They are searching for her as well. And you see that back to the top of initiative, Azune and Bolare, you guys are going to follow Murray up to the top here. With that, these crow keepers vanish off the map you have successfully with a very expensive series of illusions and a phantasmal force, you have bought four enemies with trickery off the battlefield tonight. Wait, did you move? I squandered my movement because I'm... I'll catch up, I have a way to catch up. There's no way in hell I would leave Hao behind. I would ready my move and wait for him, but I'm happy to copy that. Yeah, I think the two of us would just kind of brought you along. In that case, as Murray goes to investigate the way, because Murray is the only one with tremor sense that saw where the entrance was, you guys wait for Hao as Hao you look around. This thing here, you get a glimmer with your dark fission. It is not striding, its corpus seems to inch forward as though guts or intestines made of ropes of filth and mold were spilling from a torso in coiling heaps in front of it. Two dim yellow eyes, some bioluminescent, a sickly maggot firefly in the eyes of this hateful hidden mold spirit as it turns around, tendrils grasping off of it. And you can feel its presence, Murray, because much like a fungus, its visible component is but the smallest of itself. It's his network is in the walls here in space. Turning around, Hao, you get one last look as he attempts to summon something back. I'm gonna roll in front of the board. You don't want a five or a six. Okay. Two. Tendrils seep into the stone, but before this creature can drink deeply of the darkness, whips around and says, Zaghe, you lack vision. And is going to proceed back to this table and begin to ascend up the staircase. You hear the voice of Zaghe go, hands off the merchandise! And the spirit here in the dark stops. Hao, that's gonna be your turn and you can move into position with the rest of them. Yes, so body course still like ears going coursing with adrenaline. In fact, I will use the Orc trait, adrenaline rush as a bonus action, which gives me the dash action and I gain two temporary hit points. Hell yeah. So I will just use dash and movement will get me 60 feet. Yes. I don't know if that gets me to the group. If I need it, I can then use my action to go further. I think you'll need to use your action to get all great. Great. You guys rush up behind, you have your ready to actions. As you rush forward, the four of you are hearing underneath this sort of continuation of Zaghe speaking to the figure that she referred to as Laumi. Murray, that is going to be your turn. The four of you are up here, but while we are very much in initiative because time is of the essence, you do not know if you are made yet. Okay. And... Just out of curiosity, no worries, if not, my tremor sense lasts for 10 minutes. Has it been that long? It has definitely been under 10 minutes. It has. So can I get an idea of... Or can I see pretty well of what's happening in here and what we're working with? With that tremor sense, Laumi is moving across the wooden walkway towards Demodus and it seems that Zaghe just stopped him, saying don't touch the merchandise. Okay. Maybe we could cause a little bit of infighting, continue to take some people off the table here. We'll have to lure them out somehow. Is Laumi looking at Zaghe? At Zaghe? Give me an insight check. Okay. And I'll allow you to do so with advantage here. Okay. Okay, that is gonna be, yeah, thank goodness. Insight you said, this is gonna be 16. On a 16, your tremor sense comes back in. Thinking about the ability to like... You're thinking about what you might be able to do in terms of trickery or infighting. And I think on that insight, you can feel tremors through the ground of A, the other crow keepers running that way, and it occurs to you that with the spell dropped and with them following, there are no guards for them to find. They may come back sooner rather than later. And on top of that, I think you also can just hear the panic in the voice of Zaghe down here. They're with the surprise of the guards, which was a good ruse, but no one is going to hear themselves get discovered by guards and decide to continue with a slow paced negotiation. Whatever's happening down there is going to resolve in the next few seconds. Yeah, we got that. I mean, ideally, I don't think we can really, I think this guy feels far above our pay grade. I think the ultimate goal is to get Demodus and get the fuck out. Do we see Demodus from where we are? I know where Demodus is, and he's right. Demodus is right there. And I have another guard guarding this thing. Yes, there's one right down the ladder from you guys. Okay, I'm gonna try, we're gonna see, we're gonna see. What can we see right now? Right now, with your naked eye, Murray is able to communicate everyone's positionality based on tremor sense, but a line of sight, just the guard down from him. Okay, I have to wait then. So I'm gonna kind of get down if I can. I don't need to see everything, I just need to see a little bit. Can I, with my mage hand, it looks like there's some like little tools or something on this little table, or whatever I can use, kind of coming from the direction of Zaki. It looks like there's a little dagger or even if it's a fucking rock, I know the map's always just an approximation. Can I take my mage hand and take that dagger and fling it at Laumi, as if Zaki is attacking us? Ooh, sick. Okay, sick. Through your tremor sense. Damn. Through your tremor sense, you, I will allow this. What we are going to do here is we are going to use your proficiency in Arcana, but because this is an act of deception, I'm going to ask that we make a, I'll allow you actually, dealer's choice. You can make a Charisma Arcana check or an Intelligence Deception check, because it's a combination of your spell casting ability and you doing this persuasively to make it truly seem like Zaki has thrown this knife. So adding my Int modifier along with deception. Or your Charisma modifier to your Arcana. Ooh. They're hilariously, they're kind of close with the modifiers, but I will try. I've got a little bit more of an advantage with Charisma and Arcana. Cool, so do you have expertise in Arcana or just proficiency? I believe it's just proficiency, right? Expertise is when it's double your proficiency or when it's a double circle. The double circle, I have expertise. Okay, so you'll be adding your Charisma modifier plus four to this roll. Plus four, because I have an eight in Arcana, a plus eight in Arcana. Yes, because you're adding your Intelligence normally. This will be your Charisma, so it's a little bit worse, right? Because if you're doing something that's a little tricky here, it's not pure Arcana. I see what you're saying. I see what you're saying. So you'll add a plus seven to this. Plus seven, and then the other would be, do you, what do you have in deception? Deception would be plus one plus my Int, which is also plus seven, so it's all the same, okay. And you have a bardic inspiration. And I have a bardic inspiration. Okay, let's see, let's see. Let's do this one. In those dice. So plus this plus seven, and I can choose to do this post roll? Yes. I'm trying to make sure 2024, who does? Creature can't roll. When the creature fails, you can roll and add it. Yes, if you fail. So when you learn the result. Keep forgetting that we've updated spells. Yeah. When I add it? Add it, okay. Okay. Okay, 15 total. 15 total. Ooh, thank you. We are going to roll in front of the board the Insight, the Insight check. Insight check of a Laumi. Sludge, innermost monster. Insight check for a Sludge, innermost monster. Might be high. On a 13 or higher. Oh gosh. On a 13 or higher. This will not necessarily give away your location or anything, but it will just be seen as like that flew off the table for no reason, right? So you're looking for a 12 or lower on this dice. Killer idea. That's a four. Ah! Oh my god, that was awesome. Laumi, as all, Marie, describe this spell. What are your companions see of you up at the top of this like hole, this like ladder hole shooting down into the darkness? Okay, so I think they would see, cause I'm kind of trying to get advantage. So Marie, she's a dwarf, she's already a little, but she's kind of like doing one of these. And she kind of starts like tracing her fingers in the very back of her pants. Something that I don't think anyone has seen yet, but she has a couple of daggers tucked behind her cloak. And she's kind of almost like in her head tracing the weight, the feeling as if she were the one throwing this dagger, something that she's maybe done on a weekend or two after a few beers with a Zune. And he's taught her a few pointers. So as she kind of traces the outline of the dagger, you see it's almost as if she draws it herself. And then she just, but she just obviously is grabbing it and flings it, pantomiming as if she was the one doing it. All of you above the station, looking down the hole, as Marie moves her hand, all of you hear a whistle in the air as though a dagger just left Marie's hand. Below you hear, you forget yourself. And... And... By the way, that was the most Appalachia wizard shit I ever saw. You broke it. Throw a knife at him. You'll have a few beers and throw knives. Cats some moonshine McCuzz and Harold just made. Okay. We are going to roll now for the leader of the Crow Keepers has looked and sees this nonsense happen and holds up her hands and goes, Laumi, I don't know what that was, I didn't, and begins to back away. She's going to make a, she's going to make a persuasion check with disadvantage here in this moment. One second. That is an eight on the die. She spends her action backing up and going, going, Laumi, listen, I don't know what that was. She goes, what I cannot buy, I will merely take for myself. And that is the, you hear the captain draw a weapon, you hear Zahdi draw a weapon. We are going to go, Ozone, that is your turn. Oh my gosh. Remember, we got a guard directly below us. We do. I, I can't jump in there. I'm going to stay up here, this escalates. What are all the sources of fire? I see that there's torches on those pillars. Yeah. Is that it? Is there anything on the ground? Oh, there are torches on the pillars. Yes, that's casting light. In terms of other sources of light, other than the torches, no, there's a dim sputtering light in here. But you know, like, I think you would actually know that that will give people disadvantage on perception checks. A dim light is not, it's easier to sneak around in this quality of light, for sure. Okay. Okay. But I will say at the top of our round two, we can roll a D4. Please go ahead and roll a D20 for me. Okay. How about right here in front of me? 12. 12. Okay, great. This is our top of the round lock check to see if our other companions give up. Okay, I'll, hmm, seeing that, I'll turn to you. I hope you have a plan for that. Buddy, down below, I'm gonna cast Control Flames on the torch that's closest to the one that's below us. Oh, we're going there, are we? I'm going to dim it. Okay, great. It's one of the things that I can do. So now the bright light that it casts has halved, obscuring things around it, hopefully a little bit better. Great. And that's what I'll do. Great. Oh, yes, that'll be my turn. Incredible, the light flickers. As it does, I think that you sense that that act of magic in the escalating tension of what's happening downstairs, everyone has seen weird magic shit happening in this room before, and it's possible that no one attributes that to each of the sides of this negotiation may be attributing that to the other side at this moment. Adonis, that's your turn, Bolare, that is your turn. I think it's supposed it's time to do some damage. Whoever, I'm going to do a thing that will leave them, hmm? At the guard right below us. That's who I'm going to do damage to, and I think as long as they're line of sight, I don't have to go anywhere, and I don't think this spell will be visible. I'm going to be using, I'm going to try using Mind Sliver. Hell yeah. Which I don't think it will be a visible thing, it's psychic damage. Yeah. So the other thing just to put in mind is that they will have a negative D4 in their next saving throw. Okay, great. That's an intelligent save of 14, so I very, very... That is a failed save. So, let's see where's my, there we are. I'm going to use this one. I should get the weird ones out. Yes. Very gently as I'm looking down, I reach into my mouth, and I pull out the long sliver of glass, like a splinter, and then I crack it, and you can almost see one go in one ear, out the other, and snap in their head. Hi! That is six points of psychic damage. Hell yes. Person down there, ah! As the lights dim, screams. Go ahead if you would, give me a deception check with advantage. Happily. Yeah, maybe he is sewer monster. Shit's going weird, man. Oh, thank God there's advantage, that would have been real bad. That's 17? Seeing the scream from over there, you hear Zaghi say, kill him, pointing to Laumi. And I back out, next. Great. Bolare, after your turn, the other crowkeepers are going to rush Laumi, sprinting forward up the ladder right here, this one running from over here. Oh, he's over there. Oh, he is, please. Rushing over, these thieves rush over to this monstrosity, and are going to take their swings. That, amazingly, is, okay, one of them does manage to hit. And that's going to be, I may not have to use Bane, if this is going. I think I'm just going to eat some popcorn. We can just get, if we can get them and go. I know. It's gonna be hard to keep. Find out. Now that this changes things, I'm gonna look at some shit. Swiping at this monstrosity with their blades, you see one of them does connect into the filth, and you hear a sickening wet snap of a tendon within this monstrosity, as one of them manages to score a hit and a sneak attack on the monstrosity. The monstrosity is going to go. The monstrosity is going to allow me, it's gonna roll again. Okay. This is six. You see, he sucks up a bunch of spores and filth into himself, and is going to reach out. He reaches out to this one in front of him. And thunders a wet, slimy arm that is composed of writhing tendrils into the open mouth of that thief, whose skull cavity fills with rot and blasts out of his eyes. Wow. Oh my god. Of bacterial putrescence falls off to the ground dead. That is going to be Hal's turn. Oh man. Your song, dude's face explodes. You're up. Right. Sorry, one second. Also, the one back here who scored that sneak attack hit on this monstrosity, gets his wrist too close to the body, and the tendrils wrap around and begin to pull him into the back of the creature behind him. What? Guys, if you have black mold in your house. Oh man. It's important to maintain that. Get an air purifier. Look what can happen. Look what can happen. He gets so bad, game. Hal, that is your turn, my friend. Okay, so I think in this moment where insanity is erupting down there, how old does Demetis look to the eye? Demetis, he was about what, 20? He's an grad student. He'd be like 22. Yeah. The chaos of the last 20 or 30 seconds are bringing Hal back to running through war when he was barely more than a boy, himself, blade in hand, seeing people skewered, decapitated, stabbed, dying around him, and this is just a kid. Just like so many men and women, he saw a fall when he was a young man, and he knows that that is somebody's son, and he just starts to descend the ladder. Awesome. You descend the ladder. You can use your movement to get to the bottom here. It is dim light, but that doesn't make you invisible. Right. So you'll need a stealth check here to attempt to, and that'll be an action unless you have cunning action to do it as a bonus action. So stealth would be an action here. Let's say instead that I will use my second and last adrenaline rush. Okay, cool. To bonus action, dash down. Cool, love it. So now I can use my action for the stealth attempt here. Yes, absolutely, and you have your movement left as well. And I'll just leave it with movement after this. Yep. That's not terrible. It's a 15. 15. Ta-ta-ta. On a 15, on a 15, you cannot be certain in the chaos happening down here if you have been spotted or not. Right. But no one reacts to your appearance here in the chamber. And I know that we are on borrowed time here, so I don't stop, and I use my movement to creep up to the side of those crates and get to where I can lay a hand on Demidus's ankle. Yes, or wrist, to check for a pulse. And that's for the end of my time. Great. You, yeah, bonus action down, cross action to stealth. I'll allow you to make a free medicine check as you get to the bottom here. That is a 22. Reaching down, Demidus is stable at zero. 22, you know exactly what his condition is. So he's fucked up. Oh, he's unconscious. He is, shallow breathing is he's unconscious. He's not making death saves. He's not making death saves, he is stable, but they have, you look at this poor young man, he's been beaten to hell. Oh, okay, that's good to know, that's a bunch of things. Fuck them, like, yeah, that makes things, yeah, that makes things difficult. Okay. How that is your turn. Feeling like Bilbo Baggins next to the dragon. Oh, my God. Unbelievable. Murray, that's gonna be you. Okay, this new information. Okay, question, what I was gonna ask was, do we see if Demidus is, is he like, hands tied, feet tied? Yes, manacled. Manacled, but because he's unconscious, he's not tied up, he's not like, tied around a post or anything. And I will say, at the end of HAL's, all of that happening, he whips his head back to you guys at this, you know, at the hole in the ceiling, and gives a very worried but brisk nod, to try to indicate that he's alive. I think some of this is gonna be holding until they notice. 100%. So make sure there's room. Okay. Do I, so manacled, so chains on both hands and feet? You see, give me your perception check. Okay. Bad, very bad. Four. Without being down there to get a better look, you just know that he, you can see the manacles on his hands. He might have him on his feet, he might have other bindings or anything else like that. There are, the arcane marshals have manacles that separate your fingers, they have gags that go in your mouth and hold your tongue still, they have ways of dealing with arcane casters. The crowkeepers have a much older model of handling arcanists, which is to beat them into unconsciousness. Sure, sure. It's classic. It is. Okay, I don't think it makes sense for me to jump down there in the fray. I am going to hold my action. I have to declare which spell I wanna hold, don't I? Yeah. I am going to hold. Yes, wizard, yes, yes, wizard, yes. Yes. I'm gonna hold a chromatic orb in case I need to sling a spell and give Hal backup, but at this point in time, I'm gonna stay the fuck out of the way and just watch and wait. Hell yeah. Get your back. Hell yeah. You should also, I'm gonna bane, so I can also, you can go right after me for that, for that. We'll do a double whammy. We'll do a double whammy. I'm only gonna sling it if I can. Something's never changed. Oh! Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! Were you born in darkness? Fuck. This is great. I love Dereen's and Minnie's and Comet. Minnie's and Comet. Seeing one of her crowkeepers being sucked into this body, the other one literally having his inner flesh of his skull putrified so much that it blasts out of the orifices of his head. Zoggy effortlessly leaps to the table, leaps to the catwalk and lays into Laumi here with a scimitar, scoring two hits across the shoulders in front of you all and partially obscuring you, Hal, who she clearly does not see in this moment. Okay. That is going to be, that is her turn, which brings us back to the top with Azune. Does that person exist? This little guy right here? Yes. Yes, he's jumped up here in the mix as well. Oh boy, okay. Do you wanna hold turn as well? Oh, I'm holding, yeah, yeah, yeah. If I'm holding my action to cast a spell, I'm just trying to remember this rule, it's only the action. If I'm holding my turn, I don't get a full action and bonus action. Yeah. Oh, I did. But if you're holding your turn, you can just delay an initiative if you wanna hold on to the whole action and bonus action. Yes, I would like to do that to the end of this. Like to go kind of in tandem with the two. I think the difference is holding initiative means that you have to decide, like somebody will get a turn before you can do anything. Yeah, I will allow you to delay just because there's no real advantage to just not going, right? So if you wanna just send your turn down the initiative order, the only thing I will say is when you want to go again, you go after whoever is going. This is not my new order moving forward. You fully send your initiative down and when you want to go again, you can't interrupt someone else's turn. Great, right? I am going to go after bullet. All right. Okay, bullet, your turn. I'm going to figure out the best I'm gonna get on, not even hands and knees, I'm gonna get on just almost ready to pounce and I'm gonna get low and I'm gonna find the best angle where I can see the three most irritating people in this group. Great, you'll have to scoot down where the ceiling opens up around the ladder. So you will be visible, you'll have to make a stealth check and you'll have to use an action to make that stealth check. Oh, that'll blow my spell. Potentially it will blow your spell. Unless you have cunning action or something like that that would allow you to make a spell. Do not. Let's say, so you can see what's, you're holding a spell right now. I'm holding a spell, but I'm just basically crouched. I can't see the whole room. In that case, I'm gonna hold my turn, I'm gonna push turn two, because that way I can get movement and a spell. Cool. Arielle just kind of holding. I'm actually gonna, yeah, holding after half. Yeah, cool, that's a great. I'm just gonna hold, hold, hold until something happens. All of you are sending your turn down initiative. That is going to be another seven, that's gonna be another 11. One of these roads strikes out, hits Laumi again. Laumi is not bloody, but has taken a lot of hits, and is going to allow everybody to get a swipe on him. As he moves back over here, going to retreat. Everyone's getting an attack of opportunity. All of our Crow Keepers miss, perhaps Zagi will be more lucky. Zagi exactly hits, dealing another mighty blow. And you can see how, you guys cannot see this, but I think Tremor sent, so Murray and Howl can both sense now. That's going to be, Laumi moves into bloodied status. I think Howl and, Laumi's taking a tremendous amount of damage, but moves into bloodied. He looks out at Zagi and goes, You came into the dark. I have waited for time immemorial. Let's end your short, sweet, summer life. And is going to throw that same filth bomb up. We're gonna center it here, which, Jesus Christ, misses Demetis' head by inches. Boom. Okay. This is so insane. Even if they save for half, all of these rugs are destroyed. Wow. And Zagi needs to make a constitution saving throw, on which she crits. All the other crow keepers are going to come back and be like, what happened? The fuck? The fuck happened here? At the time. Oh boy, okay, okay, okay. Okay, however, Zagi takes a still hefty amount of damage. As she sort of leaps out of the way of this blast of sludge that begins to melt the wood around her. Howl, that is going to be your turn. Okay, I am going to lift this young man up over my shoulder. Fireman carry. Yeah. And I am going to try to quietly make my way to the base of the ladder. Okay, I am going to need a stealth check with disadvantage. Okay. One's a natural 20. Nice. The other one is good, 17. 17. Okay, okay. Demetis is not large. He's a small gnome. He goes up in your hands pretty quick. Incredible, you have your movement and bonus action. Is he slow movement at all? No, he does not go past your increments. Okay, so that was my action was to lift him. Was to lift him and stealth. And stealth. All right, so then I creep back to the base of the stairs. Maybe I can even get one like one or two feet up the ladder. Yes. And bonus action. I will quietly whisper to this kid's ear. Time to go kid. And that reverberates through his sleeping mind and I will cast its bonus action, Healing Word. Hey! Hell yes. Good idea. Six hit points. Six hit points for our friend. He's at full speed. He's worried about the run. Yeah, pretty much. Anybody hits this kid or throws goop at us, he's a dead. Yep, hit points of a kitten. Okay. This one. Ta ta ta. Yeah. You see in this moment, Demodus, now that you actually gone and picked him up, Demodus has gotten beat to hell by these rugs. His shirts and tatters, you see he's got like a sort of flop of hair, big swollen black eye. He comes to, he's got his little sort of like pentaveral vest that has some like badges and other sort of school pride things on it. He's got a chest binder that has a deep rich blue with like wizard stars over it that wraps around his chest. And he looks up and goes, yeah, I'm dead. No, oh I'm almost dead. And he is going to, he is going to cast Mage Armor on you. He casts Mage Armor on you, your AC becomes 13 plus dex mod. Okay, okay. And I think you begin to ascend up the ladder at this point. I'm going to roll one quick stealth check for Demodus to cast this spell on. See, Demodus has a plus two to stealth rolling in front of the board. That's a natural one. Eww, child. He, he, he looks, he looks and goes, he goes, I'm almost dead. Don't worry, I'll take care of you. And his Mage Armor goes, boom, and the fireworks shoot and you are covered in gleaming beautiful armor that shines with starlight because this kid only knows how to do things loud. Oh my God. That was enough time to turn towards the frango. Um. Oh my God. Wait, that wasn't like a wild magic roll. It's just to see if he No, it's just, it's just his style. He just sucks. He just, he's just, he's an illusionist. She's an illusionist, his Mage Armor's made, people pay a lot for Mage Armor that looks this good. Okay. So. Oh boy, okay. And he says, oh. And grips around. Murray, that is your turn. You see how, how's like four feet up the ladder, like literally clinging to the wall, turning around with Demidus in his arm, as Demidus twists around, blood come out of his nose and goes, hi, I'm as he is looking around as Laumi and Zagie both turn around to see that the daring escape has happened. Okay. Murray, it's your turn. Okay, so I know I just look at Demidus and just kind of shake my head. You nitwit. I'm going to who do I slam? I'm going to slam. Do you, does this require a save on their end? Or is this just an attack? The chromatic orb that I was holding is just an attack. Okay. Oh, you held and lost the action that round, right? I held and lost it. Okay, so I don't have to do chromatic orb if I don't want to. And you guys are sending your initiative down, down the line. So you guys can go right after Murray, if you want to go after Murray. Okay. Right, but if Murray, if you're looking like down the hatch, here we go, then you, you may do that. No, you know. Because we can double up then, because we can differ holding ours, then we can just. Yeah, you guys could basically all act at once, right? The main goal is to get the fuck out of here. I am going to. Too far away for you to do that. I'm going to turn to Zune and be like, hold my feet. And I'm going to go down and grab Dimitus. Cool. And try and lift him up the ladder the rest of the way. Go ahead and just give me athletics. We'll call it, he's a very small guy. Give me DC 10 athletics. Just a little guy. Just a little guy. And I'm just a wizard, but here we go. And Medu fuck me sup. That's good enough, 13. 13. Up, down the hole. You grab this kid and you come back up out of the hole. Dimitus is up on the upper level with you. Bam. Fantastic. That was my action. Yes. Am I able to kind of grab him and start moving in a direction that resembles out of here? Yes, you can grab him and start moving in a direction that resembles out of here. Okay. That's what we do, even if it's, even if it's 10 feet, just want to start getting him out. Hell yeah. Awesome. That is going to be a Zune and Bolare. I will remind a Zune and Bolare, oh sorry, no. It's going to be Zagi. Zagi is going to... Oh, I would, can I... Oh no, yes, you guys go before Zagi. I want to get in before Zagi. This will be fun. They've all turned their heads towards us, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. We'll be fine to pitch it. I'm just going to hop down just far enough to cast Command, because Command's so great. And I got another one. This is, this is my... Is this your last one? No, this is what I do. Okay. Thankfully. And I'm just going to say, what am I going to, I'm just going to tell him to drop, drop it. And next turn, apparently he has to drop whatever he's holding, then it ends his turn. This is to Zagi? Yeah. Okay, gotcha. And then I'm going to run him right back up with a little, and I'm back up. Alright, great. Mass pops down, drop, bam. And that is to Zagi, correct? So this is a wisdom saving throw. A 14. 14, and then you're up. Great. Zagi fails to save. So on his turn, he will be dropping anything in his hands and going, what the fuck just happened. Okay, amazing. And... It's like, she, Zagi's the one that's... So she will drop her weapon. It is starting right here. Cool. Ozunate, at the top of your turn, please roll that D20 for me about the other crooks. Oh my, is that a one? That's a one, there they come. That's a one. Murray, as you begin to rush down the hallway up here, do you hear footsteps coming in your direction going, no! This way! I just look at the others and go, dang. Time to go. Yeah, we're in a tight spot. Dang, we're in a tight spot. Damn, that movie's worth a rewatch again. It's been a minute. Well, Ozunate, that's you. I just tell everybody, time to go. Time to go. No time for that. No, no. It might just be, don't do anything this round. Might just be run. Hopefully the guards get back, see Carnage, and immediately start attacking the sludge monster. Right, did we hear them coming from where we are? Like, if we run that way, did we have guards there? So here's the thing, on a nat one, I have to fuck you guys. Yes, yes. So, they are coming from the only direction that you know to make your way back. There are, the hallway does go a different direction, deeper into the dark where you don't know. Get out the way we first entered, we run towards their voices. Yes. Okay, okay. And let's run into Les. I am putting all this together, as soon as you give me that directive, Ozunate shifts, he kind of gets, his center of gravity gets a little bit lower into the ground, and I whip into the direction where I think those guards are, and bonus action. I'm activating innate sorcery, the ground around me starts to spiral around me like a mini vortex. There's sparks gathering, little small bits of fire gathering around me, as my eyes start to glow. The water part of my iris, the blue part of my iris starts to look liquid. The sunset part starts to emanate light, and I'm rushing towards where those guards are. The first one I see, hell yeah, I will do stuff too. Look at this. You are able to rush forward to this other passage. I'm gonna elevate this one ever so slightly. Making it up on the fly. This is what we do here. This is what we do here. This is what we're doing, I love it. Okay, here we go. The circus must go on. The circus must go on. Okay. Da-da. Okay, so rushing into this other chamber, Azune. Da-da-da. Love it, here we go. Nice and precarious, this is what we like to see. Yep, there we go. Okay, Azune, rushing forward into this chamber, boom. You behold the other four crowkeepers rushing in towards, following up this passageway here. Your guess is they doubled back when one of them noticed that their companion was not with them, right? So, you rush into this room, they are before you. You cast Use, Enate Sorcery, it is your turn. Okay, I look upon them and there's just something about the scum of these crowkeepers that reminds me of that first mercenary group that I was with. And I know that we've tangled with them before. I'm going for that one, not the one that's closest, actually, the one that is to my left, where the tunnel is showing. I'm moving into that one and I have my Warhammer, and the sparks and the fire that's gathering around me, it gets absorbed into my Warhammer as I cast Booming Blade on him. Pop! Hell yeah, go for it, give me your attack roll. And it's at advantage with Enate Sorcery. So, bad, bad, bad. Holy crap, it's not a great roll. It is a tend to hit, tend to miss. Swing pass, that is a miss, and Enate Sorcery is your bonus action. And I'm positioned right next to them, so those two are adjacent to me. Okay, that's okay. Bolare and Azune have both acted in this moment. Zagi drops the weapon, drops to the ground, looking at you, Hal. Frozen there to the wall as Demetis is yoinked out of your hands. She stares at you dropping her weapon in the sludge, the bones of her guild members around her as this thing in the dark calls filth to itself, sort of raising up higher and higher, becoming eight, nine, ten feet tall. She looks at you frozen with Bolare's command and goes, Mibler, play right? And looks down to the sword on your belt and goes, You picked up his sword. Well, you'll die like he did. And that is the end of her turn. Top of the round, having sent your initiatives down, it is going to be Crow Keepers. Azune, you're in the one situation that in the Brethren Hall, they tell you never to get in, which is surrounded by rogues. No. Is it though? I'll say by the way, this doorway is right at the edge of this block here. So you guys are like 30 feet from the madness, right? So around a corner, I'm guessing. No, like literally directly, like they're on top of you. Azune, your armor class is 20, correct? They are getting advantage because they're flanking. So that's going to be a hit with sneak attack. Oh, sorry. No, no, no. I'm incorrect. They only have a plus three to hit, so a 16 does not hit with advantage. That is a miss, but when they hit, it will be with sneak attack. Okay, I'll need to know if they hit because I have something. I hate it. That is a hit on a natural 19 on the die. Reaction, I cast shield. Your armor is 25? My armor is 25 now. And it looks, it almost looks like a figure, a steps in front of me and just crosses its arms and becomes almost like a spectral barricade for me. I think Murray and Bolaire look through and see Azune, who is ever, you know, like seeing Shamad and these other arcane marshals. Azune, your, your like friend who speaks with a voice of like understanding and knowing this city and loving this city has transformed into a beautiful nightmare in the room beyond you. These guys don't know they're in a game of D&D, but on an intuitive level, they know what it means to miss on a 19. Meaning, meaning to hit this guy, it takes a fucking miracle, right? I can only hit on a crit. Oh my God. Their attack bonus is not high enough for a 25 armor class to be anything other than the stuff of legends, right? So, I've been waiting for this moment. Just hitting the armor, boom, shield up, war hammer up. They all take swings with advantage and have nothing to write home about. Incredible. And that is going to be Rao Granath. We're going to roll this D6. Oh, no. Not one. That's a two. That is a two, which means, which means, that Laumi, our Rao Granath, which is the name of the type of being they are, is going to, Laumi goes five, ten, and looking at you, Hal, but not wanting to waste an action of double moving. Um, Laumi, again, moving by spilling these writhing, putrid innards from out of a torso, moves up, Laumi cannot move, and you see that all Laumi does is not even raise his hands, just moves into Zagi's square, that his body envelops her, and you watch sludge-covered bones fall out of his body, as Zagi's remains just clatter to the ground. As Laumi looks at you, Hal, and goes, First time in the sewers. Oh, shit, Hal. Oh, God, just go. That's Laumi's turn, Hal, that's your turn. So Zagi's off the map. Off the map. Two hits at average damage, clears. I allow Hal two seconds just to gape stupidly at what he's just seen, and then he will pull up some reserve of strength he didn't know he had, and he shouts in a very loud voice, deal with darkness, die by it, and his voice echoes through the entire chamber here, and that is the casting of the second level spell Shatter, which I will aim for the, not actually, it's got a 10-foot radius, so I focus it on the wooden platform that Raumi is standing on, so both Raumi and the platform are going to get thunder damage. Hal, yes. Hal's magic is all smoke and mirrors trickery, except for the things that aren't. That's a good one. Go ahead, roll damage, and I believe it does double damage against... Those kinds of structures. Crystalline, it's crystalline. A construct has disadvantage on the save, a loud noise erupts from the point of your choice, within range, each creature in a 10-foot radius sphere centered there makes a constitution save, 3d8 thunder damage on a failed save, half as much on a successful. Okay, go ahead and roll 3d8. I'm going to make the Khan save for Raumi. That is a failure for the Khan save for Raumi here. One, a single one, but the other ones were high, so that is 16 points of damage. 16 points of damage. Okay, I want you, Hal, to also give me a... Either give me Arkana or investigation in this moment. I'll call this a DC-20. Okay, I'll make it Arkana. Cool. Okay, so the same. DC-20? DC-20. Not enough, 17. 17. The Shatter Spell goes off, the wooden bridge collapses, falling away into sludge and nothingness, as Raumi falls as well, and you hear a collapse. It also, because it's a sphere, it hits the stones above it, it hits the stones below it. This is a, let's be very clear, dangerous spell to cast in a honeycomb of interconnected waterways. Oh, the way that. Oh, shit. And Raumi, as your voice carries out, booming throughout this space, announcing yourself as a spellcaster for the first time in the darkness here. And with my movement, I'll say, where's all folks? And you scramble up the ladder to join Murray and Bolare up here. Incredible. How? That's your turn. Demetis. What is Demetis going to do? You see, my situation? Yeah. I'm okay. Murray, you can have it. I'm alright. There you go, Zune, good to have a look. That's fine. That's real bad. Is it? No. You're okay? Are you sure? No, you can, people are welcome to help. I've got another plan. You got other stuff. I got this guy. Yeah. He's presumably Rogues, all at advantage. Yeah. I'm okay. For two more rounds. Okay. Demetis looks at you, Murray, and he goes, how? He goes, Professor Magnussen, you showed up. Bolare, you showed up. Oh, sorry. Sorry. I don't know who you are. No. And you see that Demetis goes, monster or these guys and starts to summon some magic into his fingers. Those guys, we got to get the fuck out of here. As Zune, as these Rogues surround you, looking at their inability to harm you in any meaningful way, you gleam with light and you see Demetis looks over and goes, wow, beautiful. And behind you, you see a 12 foot tall knight made of light erupts and says, brother, I have arrived to aid you. And also a handsome knight and 100% real. Oh my goodness. I just look at Demetis and go, we're going to have to talk about reading the room. I'm helping. Stop helping. Don't help. And Murray, that is your turn. Acting is about doing less. Don't show your work. You say doing less and he goes, he goes, got it. And then you see a bunch of magical bottle rockets fire out. He's so much fun under every other circumstance. This right now. Just for flavor, I do up my own lighter illusion and I go like flashing red light your time's up and I want to get like a cane with the fork at the end and I want to yoink him as if you hear the Oscar music playing, playing him off stage. Dig deep folks. Murray, that is your turn. Can I just literally grab him by the collar, scoop him up under my own arm and we just keep heading out? Are you heading out into the room that is the way out with Azune or are you heading deeper into unknown darkness? I think it's... I'm busy. And I'm looking. Have you been taking any damage or you hurt? Uh-uh. They didn't touch me. I think in this instance it's almost better to go into where Azune is and go past and go the way that we know. Go in the most direct route. I don't want to go down a hit at that end. So you're going to grab Demodus and you're going to go 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30. If you move this way, this guy's going to get an entire opportunity on you. Shit. Right? There's a crowded room in the sewers for you trying to get out through your exit here. Just give me one second. Is that my move and my action considering I'm trying to get him? You have an action. I do still have an action. Okay. You... Fuck it. Shit. Balls. Okay. I am going to... Man, he's surrounded. Yeah. And that one was rough. But looking out here you can see if you attempt to run around, I think your options as such right now are they're going to get some swings on you if you try to run around them and hope that they stay pinned on Azune. Yeah. You can use your action... At a certain... You can also use your action to fight them or to try to blow your way past them, which might also help get Azune out of here sooner at the cost of you. It's basically your weighing is the ultimate priority, beating feet, even if they get swings on me versus are we fucked and need to fight our way out? How's your constitution? Pretty good. All right. We're going to do a little color spray. Let's do a little color spray. Hell yeah. You best better save it. I hope so. It's a 15 foot cone. Great. Let me see if I can see and then I'll see which way if I'm going to try and hit all of them with Azune or if I pick a lane. Great color spray. 15 foot cone right here. 15 foot cone. I think 15 foot cone. You can get these three right here in one cone with that and hit Azune. Or potentially if you wanted to avoid Azune entirely you could like sidestep and just get two of them in a line. Just the two. Not hit you probably because if you're feeling good, let's do that. Let's sidestep. I'm going to try and position myself to only get those two. Hell yeah. So it's a constitution saving throw because also if you fail I don't want you to be blinded. That would be real bad. Oh yeah. That would be... Okay. Mm-hmm. Two fails. Wow. Okay. There it is. So yeah. What does your color spray look like and what effect does it have on them? This is going to be so stupid. Can I do it? This is going to be dumb. Okay. So yeah. If we're going to use my 16-inch consumer or blinded condition until the end of your next turn. So can I like because I'm holding Dymidus like a sack of potatoes and he's the illusion guy. Can I take him in his glittery magic that's already swirling around him and like use him like a shotgun? Like holding up a skunk and just being like... And I'm going to take it in just whatever sparkly magic. Just you want to... Yeah he already has going on because it's an illusion spell. I'm going to take what he has and just amplify it into their face. You reach into one of his pockets in his shirt. There's a bunch of broken spell components from when he was getting beat up. You just grab the thing and whew. A bunch of glitter. Both Crow Keepers real back blinded as whew. Glitter just dances over their face and you can see almost like their faces become like mirror glass of iridescent light. Creeping into their eyes as they are blinded. That is your turn. That's my turn. Hell yes. So they're both blinded. That is going to be Azune and Bolare. Bolare and Hau are still standing over the hole covering hearing the growling hiss of the entity down below. And then Azune you are in the room now with Marie and Demetis. Would you like to go first this time or do you want me to? I just want to have a little fun. Have all the fun. I'm going to pop down the ladder just a bit. Just hang, actually I'm out of curiosity. How well built is this ladder? Quite well built. Okay. It's sturdy. Let's go sir. Good to know. And I'm going to cast on our little mud friend over here. I'm going to cast Disinit Whispers. Hell yes. What is the save on Disinit Whispers? It's a 14 wisdom. That is a failure. Okay. So I crawl down just a bit and look directly at this creature. Eyes lock. And it almost seems like the mask itself becomes concave and reflective and there's this twisted version of its own face that's suddenly looking at it. And it hears a quiet, quiet roll in its head. Creature of refuse and filth. How else would you find your face than to be buried in the sewers forever where you belong? And let's do some damage. That's a... Come on. Come on. 11, 12. That's 12 points of psychic damage. And he has to run away from me. He must immediately use its reaction if it be able to move as far away from me as I can on a special level. Oh yeah. I am going to ask you for an intimidation check. And I'm going to... I'm going to ask for intimidation check in this moment if it's so complicated. Yeah, no problem. Natural 20. So that gives me just for fun a 26. This is what I was born for. Mean and correct. Now that none of your friends can see you, you decide to prove that this guy's not the freakiest thing in this dark pit. And moving down the ladder, you not only move Laumi to a quarter of his hit points total, but with that reaction being banished to flee, Laumi looks and goes, I am sorry. Boom. And zooms in the... As the water seeps through the cracks of Hal's Shatter spell in the floor, he flushes himself down into a deeper darkness, vanishing at the horror of your dissonant whispers. Laumi exits combat in this moment. And we will come back after the break. Oh, fuck you. 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.