Due to some violent content barntal discretion as advised. In the year two forty
seven, in the Age of Judges, Vartan was summoned home by a letter
stating that his father had died under mysterious circumstances. Upon returning home, Vartan
opened his mind at the possibility that his father's death and his hometown of Eturno
was not everything that had appeared to be welcome to etherial embrace. Did you
know that there were no documented evidence around birds before the first chroniclers? The
age of chroniclers was also when the first structured government was created. A coincidence,
Pound signed birds Aren't Real. Day four, late morning, the Temple
of Grayhawk. Tell Mika is laying on the floor unconscious as you can see
her. But she's not bleeding out or beaten unconscious. It seems like maybe
maybe the droning got to her and knocked her out unconscious the same way it
did bya But she's not wounded at all. I mean, she's got the
bite taken out of her leg. Yeah, but she has a bite taken
out of her leg. But but that's it. Yeah, Okay, she
does she looks a little like malnourished, you know, like she hasn't been
eating or sleeping well. And she's been locked in a basement for a while
now, but she doesn't look like she's been beaten or tortured or anything crazy.
We gotta get her out of here and get her to somebody, get
somebody to tend to her. So she's still got shackles on her on her
hands, and she's tied around this giant iron stove assembly. I'm gonna take
my axe off my back and I'm gonna chop the chains. Okay, that
might work, all right, So make an attack roll against the shackles.
That's a twenty five okay, so you hit it and go ahead and roll
your damage on it. That's twelve damage. Okay, that breaks the chain
on the shackle. So you do break it, they'll pick her up.
Hey, Bye, is that pen still frozen? Yeah? Bye's gonna check
on that pin, and just to be safe, she's gonna cast um Maria
frost on it again. Yep, it's still frozen, and the redundancy is
good. It freezes it back in place. There's giant ice chunks on it
now, all right, and I'm gonna take off running towards the town.
Uh what um all, I guess towards the center of town? Where?
Oh where would uh? I mean the tavern is right next. We don't
don't trust I guess we can trust Cody. Well, I don't know if
we can trust Cody. I think we can trust him enough to drop Telmika
off there and be like, get her help and then go deal with the
bad guy. All right, As we're on our way, do I see
a guard that brass Kane set up to tell Cody? Yes, you do,
actually, and they're running right at you in your direction. All right,
all right, convenience, say you need to go get brass Kane right
now, get get all of his people together and get set up at the
mouth of the cave. And she says, I just ran all the way
back from the cave to tell you that Cody went down into the cave about
an hour ago. And uh, it took me this long to get back.
But that was my orders, was to tell you if that happened.
I'm on my way to find brass Kane right now. All right, h
can you take tell Mika uh and get her some medical attention. She's been
injured and she's uh, she needs food, water, and just medical attention.
She puts her two fingers up and takes her pulse for a second and
puts her hands on her knees to catch her breath from running. And she's
like, yeah, yeah, just give me one second. Who that was
a run? All right? Okay, all right, give her here because
Tamka is a big dragon boy and yeah she's she's not a small person.
Yeah, oh yeah, that's right. Oh well, what did Cody say
anything act? Was he acting weird? Anything going on with the with the
She takes tell Mika from you and puts Talmica over her shoulder to carry her,
and she says, I, uh, I didn't talk to Cody.
I just I just tailed him quietly. I shadowed him. I don't think
he saw me. All right, Oh, you don't happen to have a
potion on you, do you? Uh? I do? And she takes
off her backpack and she says, there's there's one in here, and some
rations too for the day, some lunch, but yeah, there's a there's
a potion in here. And she hands you her this little satchel that she
had around her back and a water skin is attached to it and she says,
Oh, can you give me that water skin back real quick? Yeah,
that's fine, I only want the potion. You can keep your rations
in your in your water, and I'm just gonna grab the potion out and
put the bag around her. She's like, okay, I'm gonna I'm gonna
go find brass Cane. Now do you know where he is? No clue?
Okay, I guess I'll check the office. And she starts jogging as
well as she can, carrying a dragon board. Emory. Emory might have
some medicine for her, she shouts over her shoulder. She's like, good
idea. Oh, get back still too. He should be at the bread
shop at the bakery. Oh yeah, oh my god. Fine, she's
we set everybody up, like we know where they all are. We know
where? Yeah? True, I told you we couldn't trust Cody that I
popped that potion. Oh okay. So the potion that she had on her
was two D eight plus two eight eight ouch okay, all right, yeah
I rolled out five and a one. So how many hit points are you
at? Now? I am at thirteen with a maximum of twenty one.
Yeah, it's not good. No, you guys are now standing in this
little grassy area. This like side yard next to the last top tavern.
So yeah, I'm gonna let them do what they need to do before popping
that way stone. I'm not feeling too good, but man, we don't
have much time. Um well, before we go chase more zuh. This
should make you feel make all of us feel better. Um. So I'm
gonna cast aid at third level. It bolsters your allies with toughness and resolve.
Choose up to three creatures within range. Each targets hip point max and
current hip points increased by five um and then they get an extra five four
casting it above second level. So everybody's max goes up by ten and their
current goes up by ten. Wow, twenty three your max is now what
thirty five? Thirty one? Okay, it's not as bad. Okay,
now we can pop that portal and go take out more Zy. Before we
go, we still have all three of the stones that were in that box,
right, the Rainbow Egg, the Agatte, and the ruby. Yeah,
yeah, we still got him. Yeah, I mean the luck stone
just always gives you luck. The Red Stone was a way stone, and
the dispelling stone was the Agatte. Right. I think the rain. The
rainbow egg was the dispelling stone. The polished agatte was the luck stone.
The luck stone. Yeah, I mean I guess we will um pop that
way stone. Yeah, unless you'll unless you'all want to go get Bastile.
I know we sent someone after him, but I think we need to go
after Morsey. Um. We told the guard to get Bastile from the bakery.
We need to go and this, Yeah, I agree. I mean,
if if nothing else, we could slow him down and everybody else get
there with bast still and fight off whatever we can't. All right, all
right, does that do it? You guys open the waystone. So standing
out in the grass next to the last top tavern, you guys activate this
way stoning crumbles in your hand, and the portal opens up that leads right
into the cave, right where it did the first time, and you step
through. Yes, so you step through, and your staff goes off again
and it says, I just want to tell you how I'm feeling. Gotta
make you understand, And do you look around real quick? Yeah? Okay,
So you step through and you see a frightened Cody who is in I
mean, I guess he sort of looks frightened more like so like startled,
Yeah, like a startled panther like so very very dangerous looking. But also
he's not trying to leap out and attack you. He's in a defensive stance
with his sword drawn, the one that was hanging behind the bar. Okay,
can I light my lantern real quick on my belt? Yes, I
would say. I would say that would be your instinct jump into the cave.
At this point, you've already been here twice, so you would just
know like before, like as you're walking through the portal, you'd probably light
your lantern. Yeah yeah, And it's I just gotta hanging on my belt
so I don't have to hold it, and I could just say, yeah,
all right, uh bye, is gonna cast a tech thoughts there you
go? Okay, all right, so it's the safe he has to make.
Okay, he rolled in not twenty um, but but that's only if
I'm probing deeper. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah that's fair. So I
just get the surface level. Surface level thoughts are he's pretty confused on what
you're doing here and how you just opened a portal into this cavern, And
he will actually say, fartan, what are you doing here, and he's
in his on guard stance still. I was just about to ask you the
same thing, bya goes, and I actually just read your thoughts. So
I know that you're curious as to why we opened this portal. I know
more things than that, So why don't you use your own words instead of
me probing deeper into your mind and tell me what's going on here? He
yeah, I mean that's obviously deceptionable. Yeah, yeah, all right,
So he's gonna make a save twenty three. Ah, he believes you.
So he slightly lowers his sword, but he doesn't sheathe it, and he
says, I came in here to track the creatures and find out where they
were coming from. Magno is around the corner. Magno, you can come
out. You can come back, Magno. And you hear Magno shouting down
from the tunnel where you guys went before. She shouts back up, and
she says, this tunnel seems to go on for a while. I'm coming
back though. For some reason, I thought that our stone took us right
into the cave in front of the summoning portal. It does. Yeah,
so he's in that room right now. Magna was going down the cave,
the extra branch of the cave that took you down that path that led you
to where the ruins are, and that giant cat or that giant hole in
the ground. Yes, magno, darling, that tunnel is about twelve minutes
long. That's what I'm doing here. We found this area, we've found
the summoning stone, and we're currently chasing god demon that came this way,
a god demon. And she says, Cody, I don't think you need
that. It's just Bartan. Put the sword away, And Cody says,
what kind of god demon? And he does. Sheathe his sword as he
kind of relaxes his shoulders just slightly. I don't know. That's that's us
to Men's not. He's not surprised by a god demon at all. Like
he's just like, oh, yeah, it's me. He's like a thousand
years old or something. I don't we don't know. Yeah, he doesn't
claim that. Okay. Um. In response to Cody will say, look,
long story short, the creature that is um fuck, I just forgot
the word responsible. No oh, sorry, you forgot a word, A
normal word. Sorry. Sorry, long story short, The creature responsible for
summoning the Zill is above us or honor its way to the summoning circle right
now to summon more Zill. So we can either wait here for it or
head up the tunnel to the surf and fight it up there. Well,
do we have anything that we can lay as a trap for it if it
comes into here? We have an alert squirrel. It's not a bad idea.
We could lay an ambush for it. It's a pretty powerful demon.
If it takes a bite of you, it can take your shape. Huh.
I think I've heard of demons like that. Is that Cody or Magno?
Yeah, that's Cody and pray tell where. Just from my travels,
I think that was a very vague answer, So I'm going to need a
very specific answer on how to get rid of this demon that is summoning Zill
to this town. I was trying to find something to give you guys,
but this thing is so difficult, he says. The best thing to do
is to have some kind of magical weapon that you can attack it with.
It seems to be more vulnerable to magical weapons, normal magic and normal weapons.
It seems to be able to take the hits pretty easily. Can we
well, never mind. It's a demon, so it's resistant to fire damage.
I was gonna take, say, take those that those wizard fires source
or fires whatever they were called, that we got and rig up some sort
of trip wire device to drop them on its head. But it's only going
to do half damage max. Better than better than no damage. I guess
demons are immune to fire? Are they immune? Not immune? Just resistant?
I say I'm resistant as a tie fling. Ya lifts up of Vartan's
big hammer and says it is this the kind of magic weapon that would do
something like that? Yeah? I say that would do the trick. What
about that sword you got you got there? Yeah? No, my sword
has some magic properties for sure, although I did try to cast light on
it, and it seems that whatever ruin is over there starts sucking the magic
energy away when you cast a spell. Yeah, it does that. That's
why I got this Slanter, I pad it interesting. What about Magno?
M What did Magno have? Wasn't it a sword? Yeahs yeah, she's
got a sword and a dagger. Magno says, my dagger's got some magical
properties. Y'all didn't see anything else coming in here? No? We I
mean we came down the normal cave path lining it up for timing for you
guys, you would know that. I mean you left the temple like three
or four minutes ago, right, yeah, And it took him walking from
the entrance of the cave about an hour to get to where he is right
to get to this room. So they here, Yeah, they just got
here, and Amber just got back and more as he's probably only five or
ten minutes into coming down the cave. Man, can anybody send a message?
Yeah, I have sending me. Yeah, yeah, I've got sending.
It'll be my last third level spill. Oh. I don't want you
to use up here um a big spell like that. So we have this
dispelling stone, and I mean, I get it that it's any spell five
or lower, but I don't know what else to use it for, unless,
I mean, if we want to try and throw it at that portal.
But I'm sure that portal is higher level than five. Cody says,
I've seen portal magic like this before. It needs some kind of magic conduit
to run it. I haven't seen this specific inscription before, so I didn't
recognize it. But drawing magic like it does away from spells typically means that
it requires some kind of magic device to power it. So if what you're
saying about this demon coming down is true, I bet they've probably got a
magic item on there that stores magic that they use to activate or at least
to help activate this portal. I bet that you're dispelling stone may have a
bigger impact against whatever tool that is versus the actual portal itself with the Ruins,
chuck the stone at her as soon as she walks in the door.
Oh, by the way, it's gonna look like Tell Mika, but it's
not Tellmica. Huh. That makes sense as to why she was acting so
strange lately. Is this all makes okay? This all makes sense to you?
Cool? Yeah, she's all right. I mean you have confronted demons
before and previous areas a long time ago, so I guess. I mean,
we have a little bit of time. We're going to throw this dispelling
stone at the fake Tell Mica when they come in. That is the morrisey,
And we have two weapons total out of more than two people to attack
with. Well, my weapon has magic. My long sword is magic,
so mind is not. I'm basically useless until we get that dispelling stone on
that person and cancel the power to this portal. I'm gonna whisper to buy
an OVID and be like we still have that that hallow stone, Oh yeah,
what's it? That big basically creates an area a radius up to sixty
feet. First celestials, elementals, faye, fiends, and undead can't enter
the area, nor can such creatures charm, frighten, or possess creatures within
it. You can bind an extra effect to the area. Choose the effect
from the following list, and you could like stop it from doing something.
Choose an effect offered by the DM. So so the extra thing that was
put into this was the extra dimensional interference okay, which means the affected creatures
cannot move or travel using teleportation or extra dimensional or interplanear means. So if
we put this hollow the spell down that makes the portal not function, like
the ruin will still be powered and it will still absorb any magic that we
cast, but more Zy won't be able to turn the portal on and bring
more zill through. Will it absorb theow the hollow, though, I think
our best bet is to hit it with the spelling stone and hope it's strong
enough to break whatever item it uses to activate the portal. Yeah, and
maybe that'll turn the run off at the same time, and then we can
start using magic. Yeah. Other than that, I don't know what other
options we have besides just hitting it with all of our swords and hammers until
it or we die. Yeah, it's all I got. If that doesn't
work, we can use hallow and he won't be able to summon anything or
teleport away. Yeah. Sorry, how long did hello last? Twenty four
hours? I mean, why don't we just do it now? He's on
his way. He won't even be able to enter Willie or is he No,
Well, it's only a sixty foot radius, so you could put it
on the wall where the hortal is and then he could still come into the
cavern area. Okay, because he's he's not any of these things. He's
the things that can't enter the area first celestials, elementals, Faye, fiends
and and did Yeah, so he's a fiend, So he just can't come
into where you put the hallow spell. But yeah, he could still come
into the cavern area, just not to he couldn't get to the point where
the ruins are on the ground, okay, which we I don't think we
want him anywhere near runs. No, the idea keeping him away and then
I mean we could stand inside that area and chuck the stone at it.
Yeah yeah, and hope that destroys the item. Is my trap still set
up? I never took it down. Yeah, you never took it down?
What was your trap again? I think I broke like a stalactite or
something and like dragged it up to like hit him like like predator style.
Right, yeah, yeah, yeah, I think it's still there. Yeah,
okay, I want to I want ship. Are you gonna roll to
see if Cody and Magno set it off when they came down? Yeah they
did. They did not set it off. I did just roll. They
got a twenty one to find it and get past it. They're good?
All right? Uh shit? Should we set up the alert spell down towards
where, like down the cave a little bit so we know when he's coming.
It's a good idea. Give us a few minutes warning. Yeah,
all right, we'll run down there, alert it, run back, and
not set off the trap. Okay, So is that what we're doing?
Are we ready to move forward? I don't want to force anything on you.
Guys, though, I feel like I think that's the best. Did
we set up the hallowstone. We set up the hollow stone. It's covering
the area, all that good stuff, yep, yep. And then I
think we should all stand inside that circle so he can't it can't bum rush
us. What if I stand like next to the wall where he's going to
come in, and then and then I could turn invisible because I can do
that as a fur ball. I could turn invisible and then like as he
walks in, and then I could get behind him and block the exit for
him to leave, and I'll like shove him and he won't be able to
go into the thing. So he's like it's like a wall. Probably got
he's probably got double sight. Oh that's right, yeah, which he'd be
able to see you. Yeah, but he'll be distracted by a stalactite hitting
him and and y'all throw in a dispelstone. Now I don't know. Yeah,
yeah, what's the circle? All the standing in the circles? Yeah,
all right. I was gonna say, if you want to hide,
I can do the fifteen foot radius of darkness. Yeah, I'll just stim
all right, Fine, we'll get ready in you carrying around bat fur Baya
is gonna rest until he gets there, hopefully getting at least a short rest
in thank you for listening to this episode of Ethereal Embrace and a Fool's Quest
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
Ovic. The tie Fling Cleric is voiced and played by Chris Johnson 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 Dragon soundtrack. If you would like to follow us
on social media or say hello to the cast, details on where to find
us will be in this episode's notes. Remember, be safe, we love
you all, and stay foolish.