Due to some violent content. For rental discretion is advised. In the year
to forty seven, in the Age of Judges, Fartan was summoned home after
the death of his father. Upon his return, Barten discovered something evil fester
in beneath the city of Eterno. With the help of some very unlikely allies,
Fartan works to uncover the mysteries of his hometown and put an end to
the nightmares of Plague's people. Welcome to Ethereal, embrace. Hey, that's
me Barten. Hopefully this plaid works out, but the precautions were taken.
I'm glad we got this food pack. Don't think we'll get much time to
stop. I wonder if Timarin has some of that watermelon wine to go with
it. Day three, all right, so you make your way down next
to the field and you get too Timmarans. You actually see him outside with
some of the farm hands working on making repairs to the farm, not only
to some of the equipment that got ruined, but it looks like they're actually
rebuilding some of the actual platforms, the guard platforms that got ruined as well,
So it looks like they are beefing up security again. And he sees
you, and he says, vatain you mis don't deceive me. It's very
good to have you back on the farm. Oh yeah, please head this
way, and he nods towards the house. Yeah, sorry, Timmer,
and I hadn't been able to make it this way with everything going on.
No problem, no problem at all, Son, Go ahead, I'm on
this way after you to Morgan and buy it. Do you have any more
of that watermelon wine? That's a good idea. Yeah, I'll get us
a couple of glasses. He goes to get the glasses, and then you
notice he shuts up the house, which is something he's never you've never seen
him do so, not just like the screened indoor that he's got, but
he actually shuts up the hard wooden door that would only typically be closed at
night, like when he was going to bed, both the front then the
back door, and then he closes one of the windows and then grabs a
picture of watermelon wine. I'm very skeptically saying this what's going on? He
looks suspiciously at Dove Morrigan and says, I don't know if your friend here
should be privy to what I have to report. To you. She'll be
all right. Oh, we've already we've already checked her out. Should be
all right. Does she know the nature of eternal? I can me and
Morgan can go for a walk, can we? I don't know. I
thought I thought you needed to talk to this gentleman. No, Vartan will
stay here and you and I can go down looking at the crops. Just
go for a little walk while they have a catch up. Yeah, take
some take some watermelon wine with you. Do you like I seen your wine?
Morgan? No, no, no, no ice in my wine.
Oh you gotta try it. I like it. But we're just gonna head
down that way. See, just maybe if we do like a quick lap
around the fields, that should be plenty of time, right Vartan, Yeah,
I think that's part time. Yeah. Uh, where where's where's your
fields? Timber? And there right outside? I think I might be just
as confused as you are, my friend, you know, Vartan. If
you say she is safe, maybe we can just be mindful of our dialogue.
Yeah, it's probably best biased stay here too, unless it poses a
direct threat to my mission of making sure that the robin is safe and assisting
with the investigation that I'm in at least for the moment, I can keep
anything quiet without further discussion with the group. I don't have to report everything
back immediately. Fartan and Bay a role and insight role. Yeah, on
timmerin twelve twenty one. You both know that you don't get along super well
with Timmern. He didn't want you to be the third pillar of the city.
He didn't want you to know what was going on, and he had
reservations about Kirian. Then the strange letter showing up at your house in a
very formal script is really kind of the first, you know, summons he's
actually had for you specifically where he wanted to talk to you. So you
think maybe that letter that he wrote in such a formal fashion was done that
way because he might be getting a little paranoid. He may have thought that
that letter would have been intercepted by the Doves, and he has some very
serious concerns about the Doves being in town. But he's willing to we'll talk
to you here. But that's what you pull out of all of the information
that you have at this point. Timmer and you know, you know the
murders that are going on I've been informed. That's why I wanted to talk
to you. We know for a fact that Morgan is not involved in those
murders. So if it involves those murders, then you're afraid to talk about
it? All right, vault Anne, I have some questions and I'm hoping
maybe you can enlighten me. All right, But first, these murders only
apparently are happening on your properties. Do you think someone's targeting you now that
you're home? You know what it it could be? Uh, maybe it
has to do with Maybe it doesn't have anything to do with me. Maybe
it has to do with my father being gone. Do you think more and
murders will happen on your properties? I'm hoping that we can stop and more
murders from happening, But we know there's more out there. We know they're
in the town, and we know that they're outside of town. We suspect
that there may be about a dozen of them left. And do you think
there's a pattern to these murders, these heinous acts? Yeah, I believe
there is, and we've already discussed it amongst ourselves. We think that there
is a cult involved, and so far they've murdered. They murdered the briars,
but the second was not a murder. It was a suicide sacrifice,
not one of our own. No, it was one of theirs. And
we got rid of four of them and have one in custody. All right,
I'll be very clear with you on my perspective on the Greystone would like
to send people out at the village. He thinks they might be attacked in
their homes and we can't figure this out. He thinks that while they're gone
we can protect them and figure out what is going on. Now. I
want people to stay home and put out a curfew. And the reason is,
despite what Greystone may say, I'm afraid if people leave, the town
won't let them come back. The magic that repels people seems to be getting
stronger. Do people often have trouble coming back? Yes, they do.
How long did it take you to get here once you landed on the continent
of his time? Did seem to take a while? Several days at least?
You were probably walking around the city in circles. Well that's not normal,
Vartan will catch you up, I'm sure. But Vartain, you do
understand my concern about the townsfolk. While I do worry for their lives,
I'm afraid no one would be left in Eternal except these cultists. I definitely
see your concerned. What do you think by it? I would hate for
people to leave their homes and some of them not be able to come back.
I think a curfew is a better idea. However, people are being
murdered in their house. Timmorin the Briars were killed in their own home,
So no matter what time we would have had that stay inside, they would
have gotten murdered. The cultists came in from the woods and no one saw
them and they were killed past curfew, and the same with somehow the cultists
snuck in someone into a home, put blankets up over the windows and had
a sacrifice. So I think if we do a curfew, we need to
be very diligent about patrolling the streets. And then what kind of life is
that for people? AH see a meaning? I don't like it atam?
Do we have other options at this point? How many people live here in
Eterno? I don't know. Do y'all have any other ideas? I mean,
we could do something similar to whenever we were or what the town was
doing whenever the demons were attacking and getting everybody in the same location pass start.
That was kind of where I was going with that. We already have
Telmika staying in our house with Emory keeping an eye. Yeah, our house
is pretty safe. I mean, can we set up some temporary shelters on
somebody's land and bring everybody there so we can keep everybody as safe as possible
while we get to the bottom of this. Does the doves have the capacity
to do y'all have a shelter like that? Well? Not when you travel
here? Yeah, no, we stay in ends, all right. Well,
I mean we had everybody in the whose barn was it? Was it
in Timberan's barn? Yeah, you had a good group of people in his
house and in his barn. Okay, Okay, the church as well.
Yeah, yeah, I think we should give people the option. I mean,
maybe inforce a curfew, but also timberin maybe we can set up a
shelter in your barn for people to, you know, maybe feel a little
bit safer and in the church and have guards patrolling. I believe if we
decide to go that route, then it's time to tell the townsfolk about the
cultist activity here in town. Yeah, I think if we don't tell them,
they're gonna believe it's the demons coming back. And I can't tell which
is worse right now. Yeah, And I definitely don't agree with gray Stone
on sending everybody out of town, especially if they can't get back in.
Well, I'll get to work on building a safe place for the townsfolk,
and I will put together a town's meeting for later tonight. In the meantime,
I had one other request for you, Vontan. Our heroes will be
right back after these messages. Hello listeners. If you are enjoying the show
and would like to take a look at a way to support the cast while
getting yourself some nice perks, please consider our Patreon. We offer ad free
listening as well as this entire season. If you select the binge here or
hire on our Patreon, plus, you'll be directly supporting our cast for their
work as our team over at Creative Typo have begun to pay our voice actors
for our performances, So check out our Patreon at patreon dot com, forward
slash Creative TYPEO. I would also like to give a big shout out to
our executive producer from Patreon, Nick Mead. Thank you Mead. We truly
appreciate your support. Now back to the town of Eterno. In the meantime,
I had one other request for you, Vonta, and I was very
close with the Briars. They were good friends of mine for a very long
time, lifetimes. We don't have a cemetery here, not anymore. You
still have that plot of land up on your property where we buried your dad.
Yeah, you mind if I have the Briars buried there? Yeah?
Yeah, of course, I have three of those scrolls on it. Yeah,
I'm gonna hand him. I'm gonna pull out two of the scrolls because
I still want one. I only ever wanted one. But I'm gonna pull
out two of the scrolls and be like, here, Emery actually made these
for me. I had asked her for one, and she she actually made
me, made me some extra This will make barrier them easier, and I'll
hand it over to him. Thank you. This is much more than I
ever could have asked for. I will see if bass Deal can cast these
spells, and then we can say a few words. Would would tomorrow morning
be okay for that? Yeah? Certainly? Make sure to let those that
are close to him, you know, to be a behind my house in
the morning. I will do. Thank you, Valtan. Hopefully we could
stop stop anybody else from dying. Well, that is the goal. That's
all I had for you. I don't know if you had anything from me.
Have you ever heard of the Have you ever heard of the children of
the dead gods? With that, he is taking aback like seriously. A
blow hits him in the stomach and he lets the air out. Yeah,
I have I made it up. Hold on, what did you say you
made it up? Yeah? I made up the ideology years ago. It
was it was a fictional story. I wrote it. I wrote it with
your mother, Susan. I think you should fill him in Vartan all right,
so bye. Here was able to probe one of the cultist minds,
and they said when I asked who was leading them here, they said,
Susan, okay, you hadn't told me that. So Timmrin, when I
was questioning that cultist that we captured, he said that there were at least
eleven more of them left within the city and in the woods. He had
a tattoo of a moon with four dots above it, as did the rest
of the cultists they are killing. They murdered the briars ritualistically and positioned their
bodies in the shape of a room that I think we're that we are both
familiar with. And he did say that Susan was the leader of the cult
roll a persuasion check. I don't know about any specific rooms. Magic was
never my fullte Writing was always my passion. I came up with a story
about the dead gods, and I worked over that story many many years ago
before we decided to wipe our minds. Susan, she helped me with some
of the finer details. But there's one thing. I never wrote that children
of the Dead Gods were not murderers. They didn't kill people, so that
doesn't track. They were seekers of truth and pure innocence. They believed that
once they found their closest point to God, the twelve of them would take
their own lives like the twelve Gods did, and then they would ascend to
the great afterlife with the gods to feast at their tables. I never wrote
about murder in my stories. I don't like murder, So okay, tim
Rin, your writing didn't have them murdering people but ritualistically taking their own lives
when they got as close to the gods as possible. Do you think that
has something to do with our tone? The only connection I have is someone
calling themselves Susan. If Susan's dead, then maybe someone is trying to play
themselves up as Susan and using our old stories as a way to manipulate people
to their own means. Do you have a copy of your old story?
Yeah, yes, I do. Forgive my bashfulness. It's been a long
time since I let anyone read one of my stories. But I will grab
that for you, and I will lend you one of my books. He
walks over to a chest. So he's got a couple of bookshelves with books
on them. But he walks over to a chest in a corner of the
room with some stuff on it, and takes some stuff off the chest,
opens it up and pulls out a book, and he brings it over and
says, here it is the Children of the Dead God. I wanted to
roll in site on him, saying that there was never any murder, but
I rolled a nine, So you trust him. You wrote about the children
of the dead gods like I actually heard about them outside of Eterno. Oh,
I swear I learned about him. Do you know anything about the Children
of the Deep? Yes, yes I do. What do you know about
them? They were a cult that tried to contact the Elder Gods. We
are in a cluster of realms, kind of like a pack of thirteen.
There are thirteen realms that touch a center point, and in each cluster is
one center point. We are the center point of thirteen realms, and part
of that is the realm of the Elder Gods. The Children of the Deep
I believe, worshiped an entity called Cthulhu. They felt that they could contact
him and feel his power on this side of the abyss of the ethereal plane.
What I recognize of these people is that they use magic, dark magic,
and Cthulhu is not a god to be trifled with. So in their
attempts to touch the outer planes, he has continued to sow chaos, sometimes
empowering his servants and other times destroying them. What I do know of Kathulhu
is he forever has one champion in this world, someone who holds his truth
in them, and that's a dark, dark person someone I hope it's on
the far side of Euphrey, far away from here. Yeah, me too.
And that's not part of your fiction. That's that's that's the real deal.
That is the real deal. Kathulu is a god who has a presence
on this realm. All of the Mighty Twelve have a presence on this realm
from what I understand. All right, Well, back to the children of
the dead gods. So my knowledge is Susan left and just never return.
There's no proof that she died. There was never any letters sent back to
a Turno, I'm guessing did you ever receive a letter from I mean,
obviously you were close with Susan. Did you ever receive a letter from her
whenever or any information about her after she left? No? No, I
did not. In fact, I find it hard to believe that your mother
would willingly leave and never come back to see her son. Susan is your
mother, Yeah, if it's the same Susan, a potential cult leader,
is your mother, Vartaan, I told you not to bring the dove into
the house, And this is what I was meaning. I haven't seen my
mother since I was a small child. Well, I'm going to put this
out there. People are dying on your property. Yep, seems like there
might be a link. Well. To be fair, Vartayn does own a
lot of property, more than anyone else in the town, So if somebody
was going to die on somebody's property, it's more likely going to be Vartan's.
I will also point out that I inherited all this property fourteen days ago.
Yep. Okay, okay. I didn't say you knew what was going
on, but I think there might be a link here, and I don't
know maybe. I mean, that's why it was the right time to bring
it up. I mean, I we trust you at this point, and
we're going on your word that you're not gonna relay. I have questions.
I have many, many questions. 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. 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.