Due to some violent content. Barental discretion is advised. In the year two
hundred and forty seven, in the Age of Judges, Vartan was summoned home
after the death of his father. Upon his return, Vartan discovered something evil
festering beneath the city of Eterno. With the help of some very unlikely allies,
Vartan works to uncover the mysteries of his hometown and put an end to
the nightmares that plague his people. Welcome to Ethereal embrace. I'm by it,
And you know, I don't really drink the coffee that we order at
Cody's actually incapable of it. I just like the smell of it. But
Vartan, there is nary a crumb ordered that is left uneaten. Day one
in the Last Stop tavern, and in you finish eating your head out across
town and into the bricks. And just reminder, the bricks are the brick
buildings around town that house the business district. There's only you know, a
handful of these buildings. But Emory's shop is an arcanus shop, and so
you walk in and you can hear different concoctions bubbling. She's got all sorts
of different items in her window sill getting sun, different plants, growing,
bunch of magical books and stuff that are up on shelves. It isn't disarray,
but it's an organized chaos for Emory. So you walk in an Emery
is in the middle of scrolling out something on a piece of scroll, and
she says she doesn't look up. She continues what she's doing, and she
says, j a minute, go ahead and look around. I'll get with
you as soon as I can. Oh'll take your time. Oh my god,
Vatan, is that you. You're I'll being out of bed. Oh
my god, look at you. You're beautiful. Come here, let me
hugs you. And so she comes from around the counter to give you a
hug. Oh, oh, thank you. I heard. I've been asleep
for a while, so thank you for taking care of me. I did
finish the broth you left me, and and the tea. You've finished the
broth and the tea. You must have been very hungry. So you drank
the broth? Are you like threw it out? I mean when you say
finished, what do you what do you mean by finished? There? I
drank it all and then went down to Cody's and had some had a a
proper breakfast. Okay, all right, yeah, the the broth, Yeah,
that was a spell component reagent. It's made out of slugs and you
know, water and a few other things. I don't think it will have
any negative reactions on you. Just really gross, on, really really gross
that you drank that. That's uh, that's what I was using to keep
your stomach full while you were sleeping for that long. That's just that's my
bad. I shouldn't have left it there. I should, I thought to
myself. I throw it away every morning. I should have thrown it away.
That's really gross. Let me get you some bread. You must be
famished. So she goes behind the counter and grabs a half loaf of eating
bread, hands it tea. Oh oh thank you. I'll I'm gonna be
walking around a lot. There's something to snack on. Yeah, absolutely,
yeah. Yeah. So you're you're up and about and you must have questions.
How are how are you feeling? I mean I feel all right,
Oh baya, you feel all right too? Right? Yeah, I feel
really good. Thank you so much for taking care of Artan. I really
appreciate that. And I'm sure you'll be fine, Vartand it's just slugs.
It's not that gross. Oh I've I've eaten slugs before. Baya, It's
so nice to see you out in about as well. I'm I'm glad you're
here. How are things going with you? Good? I honestly didn't realize
that much time had passed. I was under the impression, as was vartand
that it was just one night. I don't know how I missed a whole
week, almost two. So yeah, but what were you doing? Reading?
Reading? Okay? Yeah, right, anything good? I read this
book called Eyes of the Rune Keeper. Have you heard of it? I
have not. That sounds fantastic though, Yeah, and basically teaches you how
to read things that you wouldn't normally be able to read. So I can
basically read anything. And it does kind of make sense that more than a
night had passed, because that's quite a skill to learn overnight. Yeah,
yeah, I would agree with you. So you can read everything? Yeah,
very very good? And uh Ovic yes, ovicia Ovic's finish, Ovic's
finish. Ovic's business has finished. He completed what he came here to do,
and he left in the middle of the night and wished everyone farewell.
Oh well, that that must be good. He must be on his way
to do something else, very heroic. So that's good. Good to know.
Oh yeah, he takes care of dead people. Yes he does.
That's a thing he does. That's what we say. He helps people pass
on from one life to the next, that's what he does. Ah,
much more eloquently put, I like it this way. So have you talked
to Graystone yet? No? Not yet. Oh well, I'm flattered you
came to see me first. But when you talk to him, he's got
some news about a robin is coming down from the nest. They are coming
to investigate the town. Oh what do you think about them coming with the
with the piteous piteousness? Yeah, I'm I'm I'm okay with it. I
mean, they're all right, I don't. I mean, how are you
feeling about it? I mean, I mean my time out there on the
road Church of Grayhawk wasn't too kind to me. So yeah, I'm not
crazy about the idea. Then I'm not crazy about it either. I think
it's I think it's a mistake them coming. And I am behind you wholeheartedly,
voughtan I do know that they're bringing in a full piteousness, which means
eight eight doves all all together. And they're gonna be investigating and talking to
the locals, it sounds like, and they're gonna want to see the demon.
I think that brass Cane and gray Stone and Timren have been trying to
prep the city about it, but with the events that took place, many
of the citizens have started talking about moving away. I think the portal is
still open, and brass Cane has the tunnel entrance fully guided, so I
think the idea is to get them out of town as quickly as possible.
Yeah, you don't think we have to worry about them turning the town folk
against the state. I don't think so. These town folk, they're so
committed to our leadership here in town. I mean, they love everyone,
you know. I mean, Bastille is really the newest face around here,
him and Magno so I mean, and they're already welcome and loved. So
I think with the tragedies that have happened, it's going to be really hard
to break the town into different factions. All right, Oh, Fatian,
I forgot you asked about these scrolls to mold the earth, So I went
ahead and made two more of them. I don't know what you needed to
use them for, if what you were going to do, but I had
some time, and so here you go. Here's two more of those scrolls
that you can use to mold the earth to your to your command. Oh
well, I appreciate it that. How much are you for that? Oh?
Nothing at all? On this is totally totally something I wanted to do.
Your father would have been so proud of you. Well, thank you,
Emory. Yeah, do you need me to stop by the house.
I mean I could even stay by the house for a couple of days,
keep you fed. I need to stock up the kitchen a little bit more.
There's not a lot in there, but you know I can. I
can pop by, you know, crash in one of the spare badgrooms.
Yeah, yeah, help yourself. I mean you know how to get in
absolutely. Okay, great, Well I will see you tonight for dinner.
Then all right, I'm gonna look over buy and be late get us some
dinner. That sounds lovely. Thank you, Emory, Oh, no problem,
bya that is my pleasure, so happy to help. All right,
Well, I suppose we better be off to go see Graystone and once again,
Emory, thank you for everything that you did for Vartan while he was
sleeping. Yes, not not a problem at all. And if either of
you start feeling sick from the slug water, you let me know and I'll
put together a tinsture from you, because that's that's just gross. Do you
drink some too? I didn't drink, but I do have a sympathetic stomach.
So just the thought a little bit of slugs and your stomach makes my
stomach feel a little funny. So how about we just don't talk about it
and we just see you tonight for dinner. No slugs, right, no
slugs. I'll see you tonight for dinner. Great, Okay, bye bye,
and I'm Aloray gives a big hug back and and uh yeah, then
goes back to her working on stuff. Our heroes will be right back after
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Now back to the town of Eternal. All right, gray Stone,
Okay, so you guys go to Graystones the judge's office, and Graystone is
sitting behind his desk. You guys, follow your routine. I assume of
just walking right in. He's a public servant, So all right, So
you walk in and he stands up immediately and says, Varten, it is
good to see you. I am pleased to see that you are up and
moving around. How do you feel? Oh, I man, I feel
great. Apparently got a lot of sleep, but I thought it was just
one night, but apparently slept for almost two weeks. Ah. Yes,
Emory said, you may be disoriented when you wake up. Your confusion is
to be expected. It has been twelve days since you battled the more Z,
so I've been hearing around town about this the dove or the Robin,
and the piteousness of doves coming into town. Yes, I have been meaning
to have a talk with you about that. Please have a seat. I'll
sit down and he'll sit back. In Espa. Robin Tormen is a contact
of Bastille's. Apparently Bastille has been sending letters to the Robin. Because of
this correspondence, Torman has decided to come down and investigate. The Robin brings
with him a full piteousness of doves from the Church of Greyhawk. They are
the Knights of Greyhawk. They are likely to arrive within the next twenty four
hours. We don't have much founder be ready for that, No, we
do not. I am hoping to set this up in stages. First we
greet them at your property. We will offer to stable their horses there,
and then we will go out to the townspeople and let them know that they
have arrived. Hopefully, with the last minute announcement, the townsfolk will not
be too excited at their arrival. Stage two will be their stay with Cody
at the end, and Cody will be charging them extortionary rates. This will
hopefully limit the amount of time that they can spend here based on money constraints.
Phase three will be me giving them an accounting of the events that happened
with the Mori Z. You may need to be a part of this,
but hopefully that will satiate their curiosity and they will be willing to leave after
that. Well, if their interest was in tell Mika to begin with,
why do you think that just talking about the demon will satiate their desire for
knowledge? That steal seems to believe that they have interest in eternal only because
of the correspondency sent if, in fact, Almika is their main point of
interest and the reason for this visit, I'm not sure what we will do.
Okay, so how are you going to tell them that a demon got
into town? Well, while I do not like it, Timorin has suggested
that we let them believe Kirian summoned the demon here. To some degree,
this is true, but we would allow the Church of Greyhawk to come to
their own conclusions about Kirian's motivations. So you're going to throw a dead guy
under the bus. I do not like this course of action. Kirian was
a dear friend of mine, and you may recall I defended him to Timorin
during our investigation. But I will be honest, I cannot think of another
way to control the doves while they are in eternal The city guard will not
be enough to impede the investigation of doves. Far Tanton, how do you
feel about that? I mean, I get what you're saying. It's a
it's a ruse. I don't think it's going to be enough to stop them.
Obviously, they're going to draw the conclusion of how old Telmika is.
I don't. I don't think they're going to ignore that. They're going to
dig around in the history of this town. They're going to learn that everybody
that's a lab has been alive this entire time. I don't. I don't
know if that's going to be enough to deter them. And I, for
one, don't like the idea of you dragging my cousin's name through the mud.
Yeah, especially if it's not I don't think it's gonna help. Graystone
hesitates for a moment, registering what you are saying, and then says,
I understand, and I appreciate your position. To be honest, I am
at a loss. I'm open to suggestions, Well, what's Bastill and all
of us guards doing right now, like, what's their schedule like? And
how many? How many does he have? Brass Cane is up to sixteen
guards in total, many of them are not fully trained. He keeps two
guards at the cave entrance on rotation at all times. The rest patrol the
city, typically after dark. Well, they definitely don't need to be allowed
to roam around. We don't want them in your father's house in the basement
or in that cave with the ruins. There's no connection to the tunnels from
the taverns er, I do not believe, so, No, all right,
I should still remember which houses that Kirian hat that I have now that
would which ones would have access to the underground the tunnels, right, and
some of those are empty? Right? Ye? All right, I think
we do need a rotation of probably just one guard on. Is there a
map in there of the town? Yeah, he's got like a city map
on the on his wall, like a big one. I'll put together,
all right, I'm gonna stand up and walk over to it, and I'm
gonna be like this house here and this house. We don't have anybody staying
in those right now, So I think at least somebody there that can at
least make it look like somebody's there so they don't get the inclination to go
inside. Is there something I should know about those houses? Oh? Well,
well you know about the cave system right, Oh? Yes, those
those houses have access in their basements. I believe this is a good idea.
I will make sure to have brass Cane assign a few guards to these
locations as requested. All right, and yeah, I think there should be
guards at the tavern just for well for their protection, you know. I
agree. We can make that happen, and a way for them to communicate
with me whenever they want to be on the move, So me and Baya
can show up and be their escorts, and yeah, to be their escorts
while they're in town. Maybe we can go and talk to bass Steel and
come up with a plan to explain how the Morrissey got here besides denigrating Kyrian's
name. Does the Robin know about the Morsey We do not believe. So.
Bastille does not recall sending a letter about the Morrisey. There were quite
a few people who know about the Morrissey in town. Yeah, at least
the guards for sure, like all the guards would know and the extra volunteers
on top of the guards during that time as well. So, yeah,
people know about the Morsey anti guess. Yeah, who is a member of
this church who has pledged her extended life to this church. There is that
trail that goes out to the cabin too, right, they're gonna see that.
Is there any way that we can hide the entrance to the tunnel or
the cave? I do not know of what we could use to cover the
cave entrance. Maybe Timorin would lend us some of his farm machinery and we
could use it to knock down some of the foliage and cover up the cave
entrance. Well, by, do you have any better idea than getting my
father's name involved in this? Well, if we're just talking about a few
flying demon that they know about, maybe, you know, I haven't thought
of anything yet, but maybe we can pin it on someone who doesn't exist,
you know, like mm hmmm Turmerin, Right, that's a name we
could say. Tourmerin came to this town selling their wares, and when nobody
would purchase them, they brought some demons and then Tourmerin was killed by his
own demons and we buried him on Timorin's farm. I don't know, we
can, we can brainstorm. Let's go talk to Bastille and find out exactly
everything that they know. Yeah, I think I would need to be made
some kind of authority figure in this town for them to have a reason to
respect, let order and escorting them around town. We're like, oh,
I'll just run the stable. I don't think they're gonna be too kind of
me telling them what to do. What if we don't know who did it,
there's no tormer end and we are investigating it and they don't have to
worry about it because we're good investigators. Yeah, hey bye, you know
what, we are good at investigating. Maybe we need to start our own
investigation business. We could be for hire, the city investigators. Yeah,
so we're put in charge of the investigation behind the demons and they have to
go through us for everything. I like this plan. Let me draw up
a writ of service making this formal, and we can date it to the
date of your return, creating a new title of city investigator. All right,
that sounds good. What's the we call it? Etern investigation. That's
not good. Eterno's eyes. Oh oh, I like that. Graystone's taking
notes Eterno the eyes of Eternal. Yes, we know everything that's going on
in this town. That will be our role. They can come to us
with any questions. If they want to go anywhere that may be an act
of crime scene or maybe a place that we're still investigating, they would need
our permission. Yeah, just get in front of it. Yeah, and
we don't know who's summoned the damon, so our investigation is still open and
completely within your jurisdiction. This is good. I will draw that up immediately
and we'll get with timorin and discuss covering up that cave front with Foliage.
Is there anything else you need from me? Maybe speak with Emery as well.
She is capable of mold earth spells. That is a fantastic idea and
one that should be more easily executed. Thank you. I will speak to
her immediately. Sounds good, Chraytown, thank you, Yeah, thank you.
I imagine going out. We know that there's a scene in the cabin.
There was I mean there was a scuffle in there, so I mean
we could show them that, but it's not going to lead them to anything,
but we would pass by the entrance of the cave. So as long
as that's covered up, as long as it's hidden from him, we should
be fine. Yes, I do not know what time they will be here
tomorrow. Will you be in town and readily available? Yeah? Yeah,
I think we gotta got a couple more people to talk to and and then
of course we'll be ready for him at the at the stable. Appreciate the
information, gray Stone. So I guess you'll you'll stop by tonight with the
with the writ I will be there all right. Well, you have a
good rest of your day. You as well. And he stands up as
you as you go to leave. Out of respect, all right, Baya
comes over and pats him on the shoulder and says, also, Emory is
there. Emory will be there tonight for dinner. You should join us for
dinner. I think that I will. It has been a while since I've
had a good home cooked meal. Thank you for the invitation. Thanks,
And she pinches him a little bit on the cheek before she leaves. Perfect,
okay, all right, So you guys go to leave Graystones. And
as you go to leave Graystones, you see again. Magno was just coming
out of the bread shop and she's got a giant basket full of breads of
bread does kicked up together in a giant basket, and she says, Oh,
Vartan, do you have a second? She shouts at you from across
the street. Yeah, ye, hey, so I meant to ask earlier,
she says that she's walking up to you. I've decided to stay in
Eternal for a while, and with all of these people coming and staying at
the Inn, I was looking to give up my room and maybe rent one
of the properties from you. I heard you were the owner of pretty much
everything that's available here in town, So yeah, I was wondering if we
could come to some kind of deal on what that would look like. Yeah,
hey, you know what, we were needing people in some of the
houses. There's one in particular. It happens to be the biggest property I
got and it's fully furnished, so you know what, you can stay there
for free while. Oh, while the Robin is in town, we need
somebody there. I mean, you know about the tunnels in the cave,
so there's an entrance to one of them in there, so you'll be doing
us a favor by garden it. Okay, yeah, great, and then
after they leave, you and I can sit down and put together some kind
of agreement for me running it out from you. Yeah that sounds perfect.
Okay, Yeah, I thanks a lot. That's super helpful. I really
appreciate that. Yeah. Hey, we were we were just trying to figure
that out. I'll make sure gray Stone knows. Well. I'm glad that
I bumped in you for a second time today. All right, Well,
I gotta get back to the tavern before Cody kills me, so i'll see
you soon, and I'm good to move into that place tonight as soon as
you can. Okay, that one over there, yep, yep, great,
thanks, and she makes her way back toward the tavern fartan she might
need the keys. Oh yeah, you said tonight, right, Uh yeah,
I mean I guess I could do it tomorrow morning, but I think
i'd rather clean everything out and get it all packed up if I can today.
Well, yeah, we're having dinner tonight at our house with Emery and
gray Stone. Why don't you join us. You can pick up the keys,
have a nice meal, and then you know, go clean it up.
That sounds wonderful. Thank you for the invitation. I would love to.
Yeah, I'll be there. What time like dusk? Yeah? At
dinner time? Okay, yeah sounds fantastic. See it at night. See
ya. Thank you for listening to this episode of Ethereal Embrace, a Creative
Typo production. Vartan, the fur bag Fighter is voiced and played by Adam
Culbertson. Bay A Rustin, the half Elf Sorcerer is voiced and played by
Tisha Emery was voiced and played by Fran Drescher's long lost cousin and I am
Nico your GM. Please remember to drop us a five star rating and review
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