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,
Artan works to uncover the mysteries of his hometown and put an end to
the nightmares that plague his people. Welcome to Ethereal Embrace. I am not
one to complain about a nice, quiet breakfast, but the awkward staring made
it a bit weird. At least the biscuits and gravy were good. Day
two in the Last Stop tavern and in Torman comes over to your booth and
Bree is next to him and says, do you have a spot for me
to sit next to you? I have a few questions. You can sit
next to me. Torman, very good, I'm I'm next. Baya's next
too. Oh no, no, hey here, I'm gonna stand up and
be like, go ahead, get on in, all right. So,
so he's puzzled looking at an empty seat next to Morrigan, but he doesn't
want to be rude and says, oh, okay, thank you, Dove
Bree. Maybe you and Bastile could tank the seat the booth next to us,
and then you'll be as close to me as you are trying to be.
He seems a little annoyed, like they've been traveling for a while and
she's been up in his business for a hot minute. You get that,
like Vibe, they are. They're kind of like siblings that are sick of
each other after a really long car ride, because they're both kind of the
bosses, but not the boss. But she sits down behind and Bastille is
Bastille and tell Mika look a little sad that they don't get to sit with
with Torment. And he says, Bartan, I am understanding of your hesitation
to accept help from us, and that's fine. I don't want to press
for it, but I am hoping for some insights into what is going on
around here. Bastille has sent his reports, so I have had enough time
to look at them. But what do you think is happening with which which?
Which one did he say? Did he say which one? Now he
didn't. He's only going off the knowledge that was in the letters that were
sent to him, So for him, it's kind of like a one topic,
that is. Yeah, and we asked by steal everything he put in
the letters. Yeah. Well, I mean I'm I can't help but think
that you might have wasted a trip out here, because I mean, we
took care of those demons that came into town, and I haven't heard from
him since. I mean it's been what almost a couple of weeks now,
And how do you believe those demons came to town. I don't know,
might have came in from out of town passing through. Not exactly sure.
I mean, you just you just walked into town. There's nothing stopping people
from coming into town. I think it might have just been an unfortunate happenstance,
you know, Yeah, it happenstance, or it's just something that you
know, just let dead demons lie, you know kind of thing. You
don't have any fears of more demons attacking you legitimately believe and it's over.
Yeah, I gotta say I do. I mean, as you could see,
we were pretty capable of dealing with it. So, I mean,
if something were to happen again, I think we could take care of it.
Just like this murder. I think we'll be able to handle it.
He pulls out a letter and sets it on the table and opens it up
and says, what about this cave that bast Steal wrote about? And you
hear bass Steal let out a sigh of disappointment that the letter got to Warman.
He's like, fuck, Will, didn't we have a plan for that?
We did? Oh, yes, the cave. So we did kind
of see a few of the demons coming from that cave. So we collapsed
it and covered it over with trees and grass and fauna. So you collapsed
the cave and then you burn the demons and any evidence of their existence in
this town. Yeah, basically, I mean it could be that, you
know, I mean, if we weren't confirming best Steel story, anybody else
would think it's just a fairy tale, right. I do not question the
reports from Bastil in my experience as a robin that investigates demonic activities, Normally
a town would be looking for assistance and reassurances from the church. Having this
much pushback is interesting, to say the least. I understand that. But
see, we have Vartan here, and if Vartan can't take care of something,
then, I don't know anybody else who could church or not you have
I'm sorry, but what you're saying is a little and then Bastille lets out
a cough to interrupt him. I I agree, Vartan is an asset to
this community. Oh, here comes the food. Torman looks like a big
flatter. His food is over there. Yeah, yeah, he had the
pineapple and the spinach salad. I don't know why he ordered that. Yes,
I had the biscuits and gravy. Thank you, And he he's definitely
trying to run interference on the questioning Vartan existence. So the food gets delivered
by Cody, and Torment says, thank you. Are you saying that I
cannot visit this cave there's no more access to it? That's correct, hmm,
how disappointing. But I mean, I could draw you a picture of
the cave, and by it takes a napkin in a piece of I don't
know, charcoal and draws a picture of just a generic cave, poorly drawn,
okay, and then a demon like coming out of it. And then
she said, and then we just kind of demolished it. And then she
just takes the charcoal and scribbles like a big axe over it and then just
colors it all over and then draws trees. Well, he rolled an eight
on his insight, so he's gonna say fascinating. Still unfortunate. Well,
as long as we are here, I guess we'll post up for a few
nights and see if we find anything anomalous. Sounds good, And that was
the play in I'm personally really looking forward to too, looking around for anomalies
myself. Can I see that drawing roll inside on the drawing? Yeah,
by a hands drawing of basically just scribbles and stick trees. I got a
twenty three on the story. I mean we did cover. We did oh
on the story. Yep, because I'm I'm looking at it and I'm good
thinking of the story, and I'm just like, I'm not sure how accurate
this drawing really is. You know, my mother always said that I had
plenty of talents, but drawing wasn't one of them. So you know,
if you like, you could we could hire somebody to draw it better.
It's too bad I can't just go see it. We could start practicing practice
in drawing. Yeah, Morgan just kind of looks over at the at Torment.
It just kind of Squinton just kind of shakes her head. Anyway,
the food's here, let's seat, all right, So the food is here.
Torman tries to engage in some small talk, but you are successfully evasive
in your answers. With the perception role that Morrigan had, she can tell
you're being purposefully evasive, but doesn't know why to what to what end.
And then after you're talking for a little bit, brass Cane comes in to
the tavern and walks over to the table and leans down and whispers into Vartan's
ear. I need to speak to you out outside, if you don't mind,
Yeah, yeah, Hey, Torman Morgan, I'll I'll leave y'all to
it. Hey, there's an extra plate to biscuits and gravy here. I
mean, you probably want more than pineapple and spinach there, So I'll be
right back. I'm gonna kind of like take a few hurried bites and then
I'm gonna take the biscuits and gravy. I must set it on top of
this pineapple spinach salad and just look at Torhim and be like, trust me,
this is better. It's really better. I gotta go, and I'm
gonna run out out of Barton. So outside, brass Kane pulls you to
the side and says, I have these tuves. They're all over the town.
They're driving me crazy. But uh, to make shit worse, there's
been another killing. Damn what Yeah. Yeah, we went back back into
town. I was trying to who's this stuff? It's talking to Graystone and
one of the guards came up to me and said that we found another body.
It's uh, it's different though. It's uh the house where the killing
took place. It's one of your empty houses. Oh damn, where the
guards were posted up. Now come with me, all right, I'm gonna
turn around because Mortrigan said that she was coming. M yeah, yeah,
so be like, oh wait, yeah, since you're out here, follow
follow us. We're gonna go check something out. Thanks for the invite.
I was kind of coming anyway. Which house was it? Was it the
one that we just brass Cane We just posted Magno in a house? No,
it's uh, no one lived in it. We were checking out the
houses that were empty. After you said to check out the ones with the
basements, we decided to check out all the empty houses. In. I
think that's how we found this one, all right, So he leads you
to one of the houses. It's one of the smallest ones in the old
district. It rests on the far east side of the city, with its
front door facing the eastern road leading outside of town. So it would make
sense how someone could get into this house without being seen by anyone, because
the front door, unlike most of the other houses, doesn't face into town.
It faces away from town, so it can look out to the beautiful
view. Man a second killing a part. Didn't we check that camp?
We sent Amber to the camp. We should ask we should ask brass Cane
about if Amber came to him about the camp, all right, yeah,
and how could how could they have killed a second time? We didn't even
see them. We were distracted, gone, We're distracted with the torment and
the piteousness. You know. Not to be a conspiracy theorist or anything,
but the first murder was shortly before the doves arrived, and then shortly after,
and then after they arrived there's another murder. I mean, how easy
would it have been for a couple of the doves to march ahead to kind
of find more reason to stay here longer. I mean, I would hate
to think that any of them capable of murder, but somebody did. I'll
keep an eye on more again when she's with us, because I well,
I think I can trust her. I mean, somebody's a murderer. Yeah,
yeah, I think we might need to tell her when she splits off
from us. Yeah, I agree. Hey, brass Kade, Yeah,
did Amber? Did Amber get with you? No? I don't know where
Amber is. I sent her after her. You after she told me that
Robin was here. I haven't seen her since. Yeah, we were having
her check out something that we were investigating. When when she came to get
us, and she said she was going to get a couple more guards and
and try and let you know. But I mean, you were with us
for this front of that, so I'm guessing she she got somebody. Yeah,
I assume so, because I don't see any of my other guards around,
so, I mean some of them, but the few that we're on
duty, some of them are missing. So that tracks okay, all right.
He comes up to the house to the front door and says, Hey,
this house doesn't have a basement, so the killing happened in the main
room. Just adds up, We're about to walk into it. Yeah,
is it as bad as last time? Well, he opens the door.
At least we didn't know this one, and he walks into the house.
Our heroes will be right back after these messages. Hello listeners. If you
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We truly appreciate your support. Now back to the town of Eterno.
So, without any roles, here's what you notice. Blankets were hung over
the windows to keep anyone from peeking in. This house had, even though
it was small, had a big picture esque window on the wall that's facing
outside of town. A large blanket was hung over that so no one could
see into there. A body lay on the floor, naked with two arms
above their head in the shape of a rhombus, and the left leg is
kicked out to the side, and you don't recognize this individual. The briar's
hat were naked as well, right, m and they were in the same
one of them was in the rhombus and one leg out right. Yep.
Baia wants to look at the walls. Some of the ruins have been painted
in blood on the wall, with the most prominent one being the same one
that you've found from before, brass Cane. Did you say you don't recognizes
this person? Yeah, they're not from Eternal. How often do you guys
get visitors? He looks over to Vartan with like a pained expression and say,
I don't know, maybe once a decade and nobody noticed a newcomer.
I mean, everybody seemed to know us, but we wrote in Yep,
that's what makes this very bizarre. Vartan, what is she doing here?
It took me all morning to get rid of the other one, and you
just brought her into this Whatever you're called my friend God yeah, by the
beard of Grayhawk. Yeah, she's uh, she's assistant the eyes, well
assistant. No one comes to this town. He walks in and kind of
stands to the far end of the room and let's you do your thing,
all right. I definitely want to like check around, like not not on
the ruins, not on the body. I want to I want to check
entrances, exits or possible entrances exits, any kind of track something. Well,
he's ruling that. I want to ask brass Cane. Were they murdered
with a knife like the Briars. Yeah, they were stabbed once though,
so this murders not as grizzly as the Briars was. Oh, I were
stabbed. It looks like in the chest, I would assume the heart.
Are there any defensive ones? Are you looking at the body at all for
these this line of question with him, Okay, then you roll an investigation
as well. Okay, I actually kind of want to look into the insight
of this be well, I would guess insight for their only being one stab
wound. I I don't want to say what I think, but because I
might not know, but it would be related to my previous group you're past,
Yeah, yep. And then all right, so well you two are
doing up those roles more again. What are you looking for walking into this
scene? Well, I'm I'm kind of listening to brass Cane and Bartan talking
and since I haven't seen I didn't see the previous murder. So but I
heard something about a single knife wound. Do I see the knife? No?
There is no knife? Okay? Can I Can I search the room?
And while I'm searching the room, I'm going to just kind of holler
over my shoulder. So is this a familiar sight to you? You keep
talking about the other murder that we're also investigating, but this one seems to
be stranger to you other than just the fact that this person is a stranger.
Please don't search places without us, and she whispers to brass Cane she
might be covering up evidence. Oh my god. Okay, So Morrigan,
you're looking around for the murder weapon, right, that's what your role is
going to be. Okay, So you're searching for it, and that it's
an empty house, so no one lives here, so there's no furniture or
no dressers, nothing like that, so you can kind of quickly make your
way around and look under or behind things that would be pretty easy to identify
if there would be a missing knife there somewhere. All Right, So everybody,
what did you get for your roles? And then we will talk through
what those mean. I got, I got a thirteen for investigation. For
your investigation, you're still not investigating the bodies, right, you're trying to
stay away from the bodies. You see the one knife, woon, but
you're investigating the rest of stuff again, like footprints, stuff like that,
and then you're just trying to make an insight role onto the history or how
that might come. Okay, so I think I think the connection to my
past is this person was a willing sacrifice to do this murder. Well,
it wasn't a murder, it was a sacrifice. So you're putting that together,
I'm gonna say, I'm gonna say insight with advantage to see if you
get that. Oh, I already had twenty one m that's the twenty so
okay, and then bio, what did you roll for your investigation on the
corpse to resolve that? And then I'll go through them all. Sixteen Okay,
Yeah, she was specifically looking for defensive wounds, and by I also
need an arcana roll from you. Okay. Arcana is fourteen for more.
Again, you are walking around looking behind things, moving doors, opening cupboards,
trying to find a murder knife. But you don't find a murder knife
anywhere. Not only that, you don't find any signs of any kind of
struggle either. There's no blood splatter anywhere, there's no holes in a wall,
there's no dens or anything out of the norm. It looks kind of
just dusty and old bio. With your arcana role, you first recognize that
the ruins are kind of spread out, but the body is positioned in a
way that matches that one specific run. If you were to draw a circle,
a perfect circle around this corpse, it would match that rune that you
keep seeing that is for disolation, dissipation, cessation, destruction. Yep,
so you would you would note that. I mean, obviously it's a corpse,
so it's kind of you're kind of limited on how you can position it.
But you can tell with how it's kicked out, how the arms are,
how the head is twisted. They're trying to mimic that as much as
possible. It's missing a couple of things, but you can see now that
that's kind of the detail behind them doing that. As far as the dagger
for the insight role goes, you would know that this is a willing sacrifice,
that there would have been some kind of ritual that had went along with
it. There probably would have been candles, It probably would have been a
specific time of night or morning. There would have been a ritual to go
with it. But the one knife wound, the being naked, the no
struggle. You've seen this happened before bya for your investigation on the body to
see if there was any kind of struggle. Not only is there no other
bruising or any kind of suspicious damage to the body that would tell you that
there was a struggle. There is a bright red hint to the lips of
the corpse's not like a lipstick, but like a juice, like a berried
juice, like a lot of it. So with your investigation check you can
see that this person drank poison first, probably before they were murdered. Also,
on the inside of their left arm there is a tattoo with a moon
with a set of four black dots above it. And then finally the last
roll of all. This was Vartan's investigation for the area around Again, you
do find some boot tracks that lead back out toward the woods. Oh shit,
okay, this is this might be kind of urgent. Bye, yes,
come come here for a second. Oh what if they were doing this
whenever we were out there. That's why the camp was empty and we sent
Amber and two other guards. Maybe they're a raven whenever they're a raven kind
of deal. But there were no footprints leading back to town. We lost
track of them. They stopped at the camp. Oh they used magic to
cover the s to their footprints. Yeah, the trees were guiding us,
but we couldn't find a trail. Yeah, we need to go. Let's
bring brass cane. Yeah, brass cane, Morgan. We we got to
get it out to the out to the tree line, and uh see if
we can find Amber. We got a hurry. Okay, you said she
took soldiers with her right or or somebody. You didn't let her go by
herself. Well yeah, but they might have ended up in the same place
at the same time. If she came back, gathered people, and then
went back out, that's not good. Bart Do you have one of the
keys to this house. I want to lock it up so no one gets
in here. Yeah yeah, actually, uh I would. I would have
grabbed them all. Yeah, with with everything going, had like a master
skeleton key to all of his properties. Oh that's perfect attributes. Yeah yeah,
let's get out. I'll lock it up real quick and be like we
can we can talk on the run. 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 Morrigan. 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 Dudgeons and Dragons soundtrack. If
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Remember be safe. We love you all. A foolish