Due to some violent content, Parental 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 Eternal. With the help of some very unlikely allies,
Bartan works to uncover the mysteries of his hometown and put an end to
the nightmares that plague his people. Welcome to Ethereal Embrace. Let's be honest.
Is there anything that can't be hidden by a tarp in a basement?
I don't think so. Day three, Vartans home. So, yeah,
you guys hid the chest down in the basement, and Morgan promptly forgot where
the basement was as soon as she was no longer within a view of it,
and you covered it with a tarp. And yeah, it's later in
the day now, you know, bordering on nighttime. So you had talked
about a couple different things that you could go potentially do tonight or wait till
sun is up tomorrow. I'm good with a long rest. Yeah, probably
a good idea. The demons in the in the storage building I know we
sent brass Kane to go burn them, like, for real, just go
ahead and burn them with Sean. But do we trust that to get done
without the cult is getting involved and taking the pieces that they need. Well,
Morrigan, how well do you trust your friend Sean to get this done?
Sean will get it done. It's not going to be a problem.
She told me she'd help, and she'll help. She's my pair. Now
if somebody gets in her way, I I guess it kind of depends on
how good they are. She's your pair, like, oh, pair,
like she babysat you. No, she's my partner. We're like partners in
crime, for lack of a better word. We're always paired together. We
watch each other's backs, we do missions together. When we're sent out on
our own, we're generally not apart from each other unless we're assigned to be
so the Robin hired criminals. Interesting, Yeah, I mean maybe we check
on them. What do you think far too? Yeah? I mean last
time we sent somebody to go do something, they ran into five cultists,
and that is I just think, Uh, I don't know, I just
gotta I gott a weird feeling about it, and maybe we need to inspect
those bodies again now that we know that those pieces they might already have them,
and then come back here and get some rest. Yeah, let's go
check it out. So we want to go to wear brasskne where we sent
brass Kane to the bricks the warehouse. Okay, so you go to the
warehouses in the bricks where he kept the first zill. So you make your
way through town. Town is kind of quiet. You do notice some of
the city guard is paired up with some of the doves to go check on
the empty houses, but for the most part, people are kind of sticking
together. You do see a couple one offs here and there, but everyone
that is either walking by themselves or in a pair is armed. At this
point. Everyone else, citizens wise, is at home for the night.
Okay, are they going home or they going to the to Timaran's barn.
The citizens are either at their home or in Timaran's barn. So not all
of them wanted to go to Timarans. Some of them wanted to stand their
own in their own homes. None of them are walking the street. It's
only guards and doves patrolling. So you make it to the bricks and you
get to the warehouse and it's all dark. There's one torch that's kind of
out in front of the main entrance that takes you to the different warehouse doors,
but for the most part it's it's pretty dark and creepy looking. As
you approach, I'm gonna light my non weird lantern, my regular lantern.
So you you light your regular lantern and you make your way inside. You
do hear a rustling toward the back of the third warehouse. There they are
sectioned off and partitioned off, you know, different types of foods and grains,
and then farming equipment and and you know. So it's the third one
that you hear some noise coming out of what's that? I think we should
check it out with everything going on, Well, wait a second, let's
just stand here for just a second, see if we can perceive anything.
Oh okay, all right, so perception rules, Yeah, if we're all
going to listen actively twenty four eight, twenty twenty six, the smart one
of the group that says you should stop and try to perceive stuff didn't hear
anything, but you other two after taking her advice, do hear something being
dragged across the floor and low voices talking to each other. With those high
of roles, you definitely recognize that it is brass Cane and Dove Sean.
More importantly, are they getting along? It sounds like they're trying to move
something heavy together. So no, no, they're not getting along. If
you ever tried moving something ridiculously heavy with just one other person. They're bickering
exactly as I thought. I hope that's the first body they're moving. I'd
prefer it to be the last. Well, that would mean they're done.
Oh, that means it the others left unattended. That's true, all right,
So you make your way to that third bay. Hey, Braskane,
it's made Bartan. He kind of jumps a little bit. He's like,
God, by the twelve Gods, Bartan, I'm in here. Sean.
You're doing okay in there? Yes, we're doing just fine. Are you
here to help sing as heavy as the Nine Hells? Yeah? Oh I
can't beat that bad. I'm gonna pick it up. I'm gonna try and
just pick it up by myself. Yeah. Oh yeah. If you're gonna
do it by yourself, do it like an athletics. Because it's a it's
a pretty big sized demon. So oh, you just go on your shoulder.
Yeah, yeah, athletics. All right, twelve, I rolled a
four. Geez well, I mean twelve is still better than average. But
it's a pretty big demon and there's like claws and stuff. So you come
over and you start to pick it up, but I'll grab the other end
then. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, those who were dragging it already,
So you just kind of lift up the butt of it, and they're holding
the other the front of it. And there's a difference in height between you
and brass cane by a substantial amount. So yeah, he's a cup.
Thanks. There's a wagon out here. We're taking it too. We'll toss
it in the wagon and we'll wheel it out and burn it. Is this
the first one? Yeah, it's finally dark enough that I can move it
without anyone seeing us. All right, yeh, mind if we inspect it
real quick, We'll get it on the on the Wilburrow and inspect it.
Where's the other bodies at Yeah, they're back there. There's two more in
this warehouse right here, and then the two chasms are in the warehouse next
door. All right, I think we need to start investigating. Do you
want Sean and I to go investigate the chasms and see if there's anything missing
from there, or do you think we should all stick together in case the
cultists do show up. I think we need eyes on all the bodies.
So if that's what she thinks best. That's not that far away, is
it or the bay? Is that what you're asking? Yeah, it's still
in the same building, right, it's just yeah, like we have eyes
on it all around. Right. Oh okay, Yeah. Imagine like a
truck warehouse, right, So it's this big warehouse and then there's different bays
where people can cart stuff in and unload it and then load some carts in.
So there's like walls between each each bay, but it's all the same
building with an eye aisle in between. Yeah, the base. Let's let's
lay them. How about we lay them out in the in the aisle,
get some light on it, and get a real good look at them before
we before we burn them. That sounds like a good plan. That sounds
good to me. See what we're going to be up against if anybody got
any parts off these guys. Yeah, you take the bodies and you line
them up between the bays right here, and these are only the Zill and
the Chasms that they have kept. So you notice right away that the Morrisey
is not a part of of the bodies. And you wanted to go ahead
and take a look at the bodies to see if any bits were missing,
right, yes, yes, okay, I do want to ask about the
Morrisey too. Okay, so go ahead and rolling in. Well, either
investigation or medicine. We'll do either one for that. To investigate the bodies
that are out in front. This is going to be low roll of only
ten to get a success. Of course, I got a twenty one this
time I got five thirteen Baya and Vartan. You, when you're looking at
it, you can tell right away that most of the Zill are killed with
wounds to the back of their neck, pretty much where you had been focusing
to kill them, and other people had focused to kill them as well.
You uh checked the spots that were discussed in the book. I believe their
lungs, the Chasms had their stinger and both of them still have theirs,
and then the Zill had It was their stomach and their eyeballs. Of the
Zill that could be utilized, and from what you can tell, even though
some of the zill have wounds to their stomach, none of them appear to
have been dissected and used for parts. So nothing surgical here. What about
their eyeballs? Their eyeballs are all intact. Some of them are kind of
swollen and damaged from the fights, especially the weapon damages that had impacted the
back of their heads, but none of them appear to have been cut out
or carved out. I'm not sure if I can do this, but maybe
just while we have them sitting here, can somebody scramble their eyeballs and stab
their stomachs? Yeah? I could? Do they have to be intact?
Or can they just like take them out even with the damage. I mean,
if you scramble an eyeball, is it even an eyeball anymore? I
guess the eyeball I can see, But what about the stomach, I mean,
just stabbing it in the stomach. Well, if you scramble an egg,
it's still an egg. That's that's a fair point. Martan. Yah.
I mean I probably just I feel like, you know, whenever you
bake, what are those cookies they make on that one continent? That's very
you know, they have like feet, It's like a macaroni cookie, you
know what I'm talking about, And they're very sensitive. I feel like crafting
a spell would be very delicate work, in crafting a spell with a scrambled
eyeball versus a whole eyeball, you know. Yeah, it makes sense.
As somebody who does craft spells, I would say they take very specific items.
Yeah. I don't know a whole lot about magic. I mean,
I guess it's better than nothing. I mean, have that at Bartan,
rip the stomach in half. Don't just damage it, just rip it in
half or something. M Yeah, we can go ahead and toss it in
the wheelbarrow. I guess, I don't know. I'm gonna pull the javelin
off of my back and start stabbing the eyes out, and man, I
guess flip it over and start carving into its stomach more and stick my javelin
in there and scramble it all up. Dove Sean begins doing the same thing
you're doing to some of the other you know, to the chasm and brass.
Kane is completely disgusted. He's like, oh, I do not like
this. This is it smells awful. And he stands back out of the
way while you do your work, kind of covering his mouth up with a
cloth. Now those stingers, maybe I can crush them. Are we preparing
their spell? Oh? No, we we might be preparing this spell.
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I'm gonna slam my hammer, my great hammer onto the stingers and just
break them. Morgan, Maybe if you spit into the stingers, it'll ruin
the potency or something. I don't know, you know, the crush,
the crush stingers. I don't know if you mix human you know, I
don't know. I'm just coming up with ways. I don't want to get
ambushed on, you know when we leave here. I'm just very paranoid,
as you can tell. Ah, okay, well, I mean if spit
would contaminate it. And she just kind of looks over a brass cane whom
I'm assuming he is looking quite green at this point. Oh yeah, and
just kind of kind of Saunter's sideways over and kind of grabs him by the
arm and leads him over to the pile of stingers and just goes, so,
so, what did you think of all the stomachs and the acid and
the the gross that see that, and just kind of reaches her short sword
into kind of some of the goop and brings it up to his face,
like what do you think of that? Oh? Do smell alone as you
bring it up away from the body. Is awful. It's been dead for
i mean almost like three weeks, you know, like coming up on three
weeks in a year, and so it's like rotting. And he just vomits
all over. Yep. I just kind of lean him over the pile.
I let him puke right in it, and then it's kind of swish it
around with my sword, wipe it off on something later and be like,
thank you, brass Kane much appreciated. How's that? Says nice? I
thought so. I thought you'd appreciate that too. So where's the moors?
He he wipes some spittle from his mouth. It's it's in the fire chamber.
We kept that one locked in a concrete tomb. We didn't know if
it would come back or really anything about it, so we wanted extra security.
All right, Yeah, I think we need to check it out before
we take anything out out. Is there any way we can start burning this
the ingredient pieces at least somewhere, and then we can go check it out,
because at least then there's nothing left for them to take. Yeah,
yeah, I think so we could take the ingredients. Well, we got
to scoop it up with the with the vomit. Yeah, throw it on
the We need somebody to stay and watch the bodies while we take it out
and start burning it. I could cast fireball, all right, Okay,
I cast fireball. Do you do it in the warehouse or do you take
this stuff out of the warehouse or yeah, I think we were taking it
out. Yeah. Yeah, we skitched it all up into the wheelbarrow,
went outside. We got all the ingredients in the zill to go burn.
So all the ingredients and one one zill, one whole sell in the wagon.
Yeah. Yeah. You take that out a little ways, uh,
northeast of town, away from all the houses in the city, kind of
out of the field, just before the forest line. You pull all the
stuff out of the wagon and move the wagon back and cast fireball. Yeah,
and it goes up in a big bout of fire. It just lights
right up and it smells again, awful, like burning, awful mouth.
I wonder if anybody's gonna notice that. Probably, Yeah, we should probably
hurry. Yeah, yeah, we check. We should go check out that
mora isy first. Yeah, brass Cane takes you back to the far bay
and takes you to a stone casket kind of looking thing. It's standing upright
though, And he says, here, help me with this, and he
unlatches two latches and he tries pulling the heavy door to the side. All
right, I'll help him, all right, And in there the body is
tied up and secured standing and the moresy has man. You kind of beat
the shit out of it. When you guys fought it, you you definitely
wrecked it. So it's pretty beat up. But you do notice that there's
been a surgical cut across its stomach. Baia is going to scroll through the
pages that they have. Does she find anything about a morisy or a stomach?
Yeah, so you've looked through it before and you had a hard time
finding specific things. But now that you know really what you're looking for,
you do find a spot where it mentions that there is a sack in their
stomach which allows them to process someone they have eaten and assumed their form.
So the morisy have to bite someone and eat a trunk of them to be
able to assume their form. That's what they did with Tell Mika. This
sack can be used to create a trinket that would allow someone to assume someone
else's form. Hey, so I found this page in this book. Apparently
this Morrisy how they turned in Tell Mika was this particular organ in their stomach
that digests that digested Tell Mika and turned the morsy into her and in Baya
like sticks her fingers and the stomach to see if it's it's there in that
surgical cut in the Morris e it's been removed and it is not in here.
And she takes her hand and she likes like, uh, flings her
hand down to the ground with the stomach goop going everywhere. It's not in
there. So brass Cane starts dry heaving again. He has nothing left to
throw up, but just you shoving your hand to that and then splattering stuff
around right near his feet. Yeah, he's he's struggling. Deep breaths,
brass Cane. Deep breaths, brass Cane. I think you need to get
a stronger stomach for this job. Well so, and she flips through the
book. So what they can do with this sack from the stomach is they
can turn into whomever they whose. I would assume they would have to cut
a piece of somebody to do that. So I guess be on the lookout
for anyone who is slightly injured. So two things. One, they can
literally be anybody. Two, there's probably a lot of people who get minor
injuries every day. I mean, this is a farming community. Can they
do it off of like a hangnail? I mean, what do they need
that? This is not good by looks In the book, does it say
anything about hangnails? It doesn't say anything about hang nails. It says the
only thing that it does remark is that the most trusted source of energy to
power the trinket is blood. Blood. Well, I'm not sure about a
hangnail. Do hangnails bleed significantly? I don't think so. You would need
at least I would assume at least a drop of blood. I don't think
hangnails bleed enough to cause a drop of blood. Right, our previous victims
and the sacrifice produced a lot of blood. Yes, but we know who
they are. So if they show up walking around tower the trinket with the
I don't know nico. So it has to be the person's blood they want
to turn into to be that person, or they could just take any blood
whatsoever and then just choose to like be anybody in the world. It's the
blood of the person they want to turn Okay, Yeah, so if we
see a person that's supposed to be dead, we might point that out and
be like, hey, you're dead. They're not who you're not who you
claim to be. I guess you're right. I mean, anybody with a
womb, you know, could be impersonated without an injury. Yeah, yeah,
hmm, well this is problematic. Are you can't go around just asking
everybody? Yeah? I guess it would take too long. Yeah, but
even if even if so? What they to tell Mika though, was they
they injured? You know, the Morrisey injured her and then locked her away,
So you know, this person could injure someone, lock them away,
and then they themselves wouldn't look injured. Has anyone been acting strangely? Possibly?
You? I don't know. I could say the same thing. Let's
just put that out there. Who had access to in here? Myself and
Greystone? That's that's it. We didn't even tell the doves no offense about
this place because you know, no snooping? Right? Yeah, but before
we got here, did anybody else have access? I mean, how secure
were you keeping this place? I've got the only key in my office for
these bays. Who has access to your office? Greystone, Bartan, myself
short list to start with, although I'm pretty sure Vartan's just Bartan. I
don't think there's many more like him around. I hope. Yeah. I'm
pretty sure I didn't go in his office. I was sleeping for twelve days.
That is true, he was sleeping for twelve days. Maybe we pay
a visit to our friend, Judge Greystone. 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 hurts In. Baya Rustin, the half Elf
Sorcerer, is voiced and played by Tisha Morgan. The Human Monk is voiced
and played by Nari Quack and I am Nico your GM. Please remember to
drop us a five star rating and review on your favorite podcatcher. Music provided
in part by Midnight Syndicate, makers of the original Dungeons and Dragons soundtrack.
If you would like to support our show or any of our other shows,
you can join our family of patrons at patreon dot com. Forward slash Creative
Typo. Remember, be safe, we love you all, and stay foolish.
To be fair, Okay, to be fair, you sent that person
out to the cultist campsite by themselves, out in the middle of the woods.
It's not like you send them to the in fire five, we're also
sending two people to a place where the oldest really wanted to get. Yeah,
that was no. I don't think it's a bad idea. I just
thought it was funny how you worded it, Like last time we sent somebody
to do anything, well, yeah, you sent it to their campsite.
Yeah, of course they might have bumped into someone. That's what I was
thinking, But that's what Bartan said. Yeah, all she had to do
was go get some coffee, and like all of a sudden, boom.
I don't know all I asked for two sugars in my coffee, and she
brought one. I sent her for the second, and then boom, five
goldists. I don't know how that happened. It's a totally normal Tuesday.