Due to some violent content. Brintal 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, Farten discovered something evil fester in
beneath the city of Eterno. With the help of some very unlikely allies,
Farten works to uncover the mysteries of his hometown and put an end to the
nightmares of plagueist people. Welcome to Ethereal, embrace. Hey, that's me
Barten. Oh man, oh ah, I just rode that sucker to the
ground. Well, I hope somebody saw that. That was really cool.
Day four, the part he stands over the corpse of Yagnloth, so much
hate and death for power. It breaks my heart. At least this is
one more, the one less that we have to deal with now. I
mean, he's nice shot, by the way, Vartan, excellent shot.
Fartan's just gonna He's not even gonna lift the hammer out of the head.
He's just gonna. He's just he just nods to Morgan's compliment and just kind
of walks as it like drags out of the head. That's when you hear
again a murmur, almost like a whimper from that man that was screamed out
in pain earlier. He's still in pain. Baya looks around. You can
see a figure pinned up to the wall, the outside wall. It's just
a silhouette of a person pinned to the upside or to the outside of a
wall. On the last stop, Tavern and In. I think that Robin
Torment is lost to this world. We should go try to help this person
if we can. Yeah, I agree, And Morgan's gonna start running in
that direction, all right. So you run that direction. As you get
closer to the last stop, you see that it is Cody. He has
been tossed up against the wall. His feet are about four feet off the
wall or off the ground on the outside wall of his house, and Susan's
spear is sticking out of his back and he's pinned faced first to his own
building with the spear through his back holding him there. So he's trying to
reach back behind him to yank the spear out that's pinning him against the wall,
but he cannot. I'm going to summon the spear. You cannot.
Oh, well, then I'm gonna think about it, but it doesn't happen
while he's thinking about it. Baya is running with his body towards it and
just pulling it out, and Morgan's kind of trying to steady him so he
doesn't just fall when he has nothing supporting him anymore. Okay, yeah,
so so by you kind of lift him up by the legs, Vartan or
Morgan you lift him up by the legs. Baya and Vartan you collectively pull
the spear out of his back, and Cody falls down to the ground and
you can see his chest and his body and his wounds start to repair them
so elves and heal the damage that was done. But you again have Susan's
spear, and Susan is nowhere to be found. Cody, what happened?
I I confronted Susan. I saw her running away from the warehouse, so
I came to talk to her to figure out what was going on. When
I tried to stop her, she threw me up against the wall and then
chucked her spear at me. She didn't even have her spear when we started
talking. She must have summoned it back to her. She's got that ability.
But it pinned me up there, and then she left, she teleported
away. How did she know that her spear was in this realm? WEE
can sense where our core items are. So was she trying to kill you?
Or just slow you down? Just slow me down? If she was
trying to kill me, she had every opportunity. Do you have any idea
where she headed? No, she didn't say anything before she teleported. No,
what did you say to her? I told her that she needed to
stand trial for the injustices that she had done here, and that she needed
to come with me and turn herself in. That this isn't what we are,
and this isn't who we are as the first people. We need to
stand for something better than this. And she said she didn't have time for
this and then threw me up against the wall. That sounds like Susan.
Yeah, do you know? Do you have any inkling or idea about where
she would have went, leaving her core behind? No. By leaving her
core behind, she leaves herself open to attack from us. I can destroy
it and make her mortal. She must have done it for a reason.
Yeah, I think I know why. I mean, she said, I'm
supposed to fight the Avatar of gray Hawk. Imagine she left it give me
a fighting chance. I got to use it in the Demon Realm and it's
the most powerful thing I've ever held in my hands. And if she can
sense where her core is, surely she sensed that her core was repaired.
I'm sure she did, and that's what brought her back here. But leaving
it behind just doesn't make sense with what she's trying to accomplish. I mean,
I'm sure she wants to protect you of ourn, that's no question,
and it is a powerful weapon, but she had intentions with it. She
intended to close the portal forever. Does she not still need it for that
purpose? Do you want to go look at the portal? Yeah? I
think we think we need to, or at least inspect the ruins. She
said you were supposed to face off against the Avatar of Greyhawk. Did she
say anything else? Did she tell you your if you had a title?
I don't know anything about that. The lost one, the stable one,
oh, the broken one? Okay, that does sound familiar. Where have
I heard that before? Typically those who face off against Greyhawk are one of
those titles. She didn't give you a title? Yeah, I don't have
any clue on that. I don't remember saying or giving me a title.
Well, typically there are supposed to be three of you. I guess we
can take a look around. Some of the first people have the ability to
sense which one of the roles is filled by which person. Susan had that
sense. I can see if maybe an old friend might be able to come
out and figure that out for us, but that will take a while.
Let's figure out this portal thing first. Yeah, I agree, definitely.
Just then Magno comes running back. She was one of the people helping put
out the fire. She comes running around the corner. Cody, are you
okay? He's like, yes, I'm fine. I need you to put
together a letter. Address it to Abigail, ask her if she can come
to Eterno. I need her help with something, and Magno says okay,
I'll take care of it and heads inside. We should probably head to the
portal. Cody says, do you have another magic stone? Ah, we've
used it up for the day. Man. We blocked the path to crawl
in. The only way I know how to get in there is from the
sewer. Maybe we could go see Emery and get one of those mold earth
things and open the cave back up. Yeah, if she's prepared anymore,
I imagine with death she's preparing them to bury folks. She had mentioned she
was working on additional ones still, So all right, so we'll fast forward
this. You make it to Emory's. She's not there, but the door
is open, and you know where she kept them from the last time that
she gave you some. So you quickly grab two more mold earths and make
your way the whole one hour trek back out to the cave. Do we
have enough to walk through it instead of crawling with the molder? Yeah,
so the part that you closed, Yeah, you closed the part where you
had to crawl through because that was the easiest thing to close up. So
yeah, you could use mold earth too. You could use both scrolls to
make that fully walkable the entire distance instead of closing it up. That makes
more sense right now. Yeah, yeah, we put comfort it's all right.
So you open it up and you make your way into the portal room
and again give me an arcana check and baya. You get it with advantage.
And while you guys are rolling, Cody says, the portal is still
here. But the runes have changed. Ten. Well, I got a
six eleven. So he finishes and says, the runs on the floor here
there, they're different, they lead somewhere different. I think. I think
we're clear of this connecting to the demonic realm, but I don't know where
it connects to now. I think whatever Susan did did disrupt the magic connection
between here and the Nine Hells, but it puts something else in its place.
Maybe her magic wasn't strong enough to dissolve it completely. Yeah, she
didn't have brass Cane as the sacond fast because he's a he's a descendant of
a of a first one. Who did she kill? Then? Dovebrie and
Greystone. I'm sorry for your losses. Yeah, well so lost to the
entire town. Yeah, I'm I'm sure Timarn's gonna want to have some serious
conversations with you about what happens next. Yeah, yeah, imagine. I
don't even know if the Doves know yet. Back in the warehouse, there
were additions to the ruins that spelled out the word corruption. Is that what
we're seeing here? The corruption definitely have played a role in this. If
the corruption around the town was designed to weaken the magic barrier that would have
dissolved somewhat where this portal went to and disconnected it from the Nine Hells.
But the workings of this portal, I don't understand how it's designed and why
it redirected to someplace else. I can't see where this place is. Well,
we have really one choice. If Susan created this, she probably went
through or we're supposed to go through. We have no idea what's on the
other side. Well, she left destruction and corruption in her weak here.
The gods know what she's done. Wherever this portal leads. Why don't we
go breast and we can come back here tomorrow. You're bloody, I'm exhausted.
Morgan's not looking too hot. I've been better. Yeah, we could
probably get some answers from this lantern. It's just it's tapped as much as
we are. Yeah, Cody, can we all head back to the tavern?
I mean, Artan kind of doesn't have a house. Yeah, you're
absolutely more than welcome to stay. Let's head back. Does Cody have the
Can he create the portal to his broom closet? Yeah? Actually yep.
So he creates a portal, he gets down on the ground and starts etching
stuff out again and creates a portal to his broom closet. You all walk
through, and Cody says, huh, it looks like there's a gathering outside.
There's a bunch of torches and stuff out there. It looks like the
townsfolk have come together. We should probably go out and have a chat with
them. Yeah, hell, let's go. So you leave the tavern and
in and you walk outside, and as far as you can tell, the
whole town has grouped together. The remaining Doves are there, Brass Cane and
Telmika are there, Emory's there. There are a couple of bodies laid out
on makeshift stretchers with tarps and blankets over them. You assume to be Graystone,
Dovebrie, just you know, Robin Torman, the people who have been
killed during the night's tragedies. And you see the bodies are kind of surrounded
by the town folk and they're all holding torches, not in a mob fashion,
but just in a frightened they want answers fashion. Baya walks out and
says, people of a turnout, We've suffered great losses today. This has
been a trying time for this city, and I know you want answers.
Let's lay these people to rest, and I promise you with all of my
love that you will get the answers and you will be safe. She asked
Timmron and brass Kane to come over to her. Timorand will you take care
of laying these citizens to rest. Brass Kane, can you say something?
Timuran says yeah, I'll get right on it, thank you, and he
walks away and call a couple of the city guard over to assist him,
and brass Kane says, I don't know if we're truly out of danger or
not, but I do know with vartand here, we're as safe as any
place in the world. The trust I have in him is beyond measure.
So if you need a place to stay, Timarin's Barn and tell Mika's Church
are both welcome for any to spend the night. Tonight, we'll get some
rest, and then tomorrow morning those of you who'd like to leave can take
passage out to the nearest town. We'll give it a week to make sure
the danger is gone, and then we'll send for you to come home.
But if you are going to travel. You need your rest. The gods
know I need my rest, So please put out your torches and find a
place to lay her head. And the group starts to head to their places
for the evening. Many go with tel Mika to the church, which she
wasn't super comfortable staying there alone, but now that she has a crowd of
people, she feels like she's taken care of. Kind of puts her back
in her natural habitat of caring for people rather than dwelling in fear. Yeah,
Braskane, who's still recovering from poison, makes his way with her,
but he's helping children, you know. The few children from Eternal make their
way over to Timarin's barn. And yeah, the group eventually disappears out into
the out into the night, heads back to their places. Timorin, can
we set up a time and some I guess memorials for these three. I'll
work with the city guard here tonight. We'll get something set up for bright
and early in the morning. I think Emory has some more of those grave
digging scrolls that you lent me the other day. Maybe we can use some
of those, and maybe we can lay these good folk to rest before the
townsfolk cut out tomorrow, give a little bit of closure before people's out there
travels. Baya pulls Timaran into a big long huck. Oh all right,
then, Timmorn. I know it's been a while, but I've always considered
you family. Thank you for what you do for the city. We suffered
a great loss today, but I think you and I can work together to
put this city right, make it safe again. I think so. Thank
you. Hey, Timmarin, Sorry, Baya. Eventually we're going to have
to deal with the nest. This is a lot to explain, and I
don't want them coming here. I'll be open for conversation and ideas maybe after
we get some rest. Definitely just wanted to kind of put that on your
radar because this is a bit disastrous for your town on many levels. God's
be willing. Hopefully they don't even think about it. Turn out this place
sort of has that way about it. I don't know how your doves came
here to begin with. We were brought here and it took us forever to
find it, so maybe nobody else will find it easily. Well, we
will plan for that, all right. Is there anything else you need from
me? No? I think we just uh oh, we just need to
rest. All right, you all get some rest. Now we're going to
get to dig in these graves. I'll see your first thing in the morning.
Yeah, well, I hope you. He heads off with the city
guard and there, well, the city guard that he had talked to were
already kind of hauling the bodies away to a safe place. But he heads
off in that direction. You guys head back to the last stop, taverning
in and get some rest. Yep, all right, 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 t here
or higher 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 Typo. 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. The next
day passes with Vartan in a numb haze. The bodies of the victims were
buried, would tell Mika, giving the last rites to each person. There
were no gatherings to celebrate the dead tell. Mika simply rounded up the citizens
that wished to leave, and then set her goodbyes to those who chose to
stay. Vartan met with several people throughout the day, but he could not
recall any details from those conversations. The important decisions would come later. For
now, he simply needed to rest. He stands in the ruins of his
family home and watches the soun set. Morgan stands quietly next to the giant
fur bog. If her detective novels have taught her anything, it's that there
is a time for dialogue and there is a time for self reflection. She
remains quiet but close. In the first moment of true clarity since the day
began, Vartan pulls the lantern from his pack. He refills the oil into
the magic item. Vartan looks back at Morgan and then lights the lantern.
The now familiar smoke crawls up to create a window, this time into the
future. Susan sits alone in a boat. The boat is small and looks
like it maybe could hold six people in all. It is currently attached to
a wooden stake that has been hammered into a beach. As she unwinds the
rope to free her small boat from land, she sees the window appear and
pauses for work with the not I guess it's time we had that private conversation.
Isn't it just explain to me, why, why, what all of
it? Susan releases the rope and sits back in her boat. I first
came to a turn out when it was just a small village. I came
for the same reason as Cody, seemingly, to find a place to live
where people around me wouldn't die so quickly after people in the city started to
hide away for fear of death. It was my idea to erase their memories
and return them to their quality of life. I showed Emory how to complete
this process, and then I was the first to undergo that erasing. I
didn't think that through because when I erased my mind. I forgot who I
truly was. I am one of the first people, and that carries with
it a weight. See. I swore I never would have a child,
because I never wanted to burden my child with the task of facing the Avatar
of Greyhawk. But with my memory gone in centuries of peace, I broke
that promise to myself and I had you. A strange thing happened after I
had you. I began to get my memories back, all of them.
I assumed this happened because the magic in our blood is so strong. Other
people have had children without regaining their memories of Eterno's power. But I digress.
After you were born, it was easy for me to run the ritual
and identify you as one of the Chosen, the broken one. I then
sought out the other two. That was when I decided to leave the city
and leave you. Before I left, I attempted to close the portal.
I went into the portal and attempted to close it from the other side.
I broke my spear to complete the ritual and then step back through the portal
as it closed. I thought that would be the last of it, and
you would be free. I was wrong. So for years I prepared the
children of the dead gods to come back into Eterno and corrupt the magic of
the city, and the magic powering the portal would dissolve. You saw how
successful that attempt was. I was able to complete the ritual and corrupt the
magic, but I'm not certain if it will be enough to close the portal
entirely. Only time will tell. We looked at the ruins. Cody said
that the ruins are changed now. They will not lead to the Nine Hells
anymore. Where will they lead? I could not say for certain. They
could lead to any of the other twelve connecting universes, or they could lead
to the Ethereal Realm, which many refer to as the in between. Hopefully,
the corruption continues to spread and the portal will close permanently, leading to
no place. Susan, you said you were sorry for what you did to
me. What did you do to me? Bia? Yes, I mentioned
that I left a turnou to find the other two, the lost one and
the stable one. The stable one was more difficult of the two to find.
It was because he had not been born yet, but he was close.
Ovic was still a baby yet to be born of his mother. In
order to save my own child, I took the life of Ovic and his
teefling mother. It was one of the hardest things I've ever done. The
lost one was easier of the two to find, but the more difficult to
kill. It was you, Biah. In a moment of weakness, I
found that I could not bring myself to do it. I could not kill
you, So I sent an assassin, a traveling woman that was supposed to
dispatch you in a respectful and painfree manner. She took much longer than she
had agreed to, and I do not know exactly why, but eventually the
job was done. I didn't know that your soul would somehow connect of our
hands. I don't know how you're still here, or how Ovik remained.
For that matter, I now see that there is no stop in the colling
for you three to face the avatar Greyhawk again. I was wrong, and
I am sorry. And what of this spare? Why did you leave it?
Cody says, you could have easily killed him, but you chose to
leave it here. You'll need the spear as a conduit when you face the
Avatar of Greyhawk. I don't know the details, but I do know you
need a core item from one of the First People. It's only fitting that
it would be mine. I know the things I've done are awful. I
make no excuses and I accept all blame. Maybe all of the First People
have gone mad. Maybe we can't see how much damage we caused to the
world. Maybe it's time for all of us to fade from existence. I
don't know, but I swear to you I will bring no more harm to
the people of e Turno. Cody will be able to train you to fight
the avatar. He'll show you how to use the spear. I wish you
all the best of luck, and I am sorry for the pain I have
cost. Goodbye of Artan. Ayah and Ovicus pushes her small boat away from
shore, and the lantern's window begins to dissolve. As the window closes,
the smoke again attacks Vartan, but this time it surrounds his body completely and
lifts him into the air. His body rises about six feet into the air,
where it stops and begins to levitate. In Vartan's mind's eye, he
finds himself on the beach one more time. This vision is more detailed than
the first two. He recognizes the corpses that lay strewn about the beach.
He has been a humble member and servant of this cult. He knows many
of the dead by name. Their lifeless bodies lay twisted and contorted across the
beach. Ruins drawn in blood are scattered among the corpses, drawn on the
beach, on stones, and sometimes even on the bodies themselves. Vartan's large
hands two are covered in blood. This, all of this was his doing.
This was always his doing. Sounds from the waters ahead draw Vartan's attention.
The enormous creature rising from the water strikes immediate fear into Vartan's mind.
He fights back against the madness, but falls to his knees as the creature
continues to rise. Towering over the beach, The scaly arms of the creature
reach out toward land. Water drips from the creature's webbed hands as the claws
extend over. The corps's long, narrow wings stretch outward to blot out the
sun, casting an enormous shadow across the beach and Vartan. Its voice rang
out from every direction, but does not originate from the creature's octopus like head.
Vartan, son of Susan Mantle of Relief. Your service has proven your
faith, just as your blood has proven your worthiness. To you, I
bestow my booty rise, Avatar of Cuthulhu, Take your place among my children
in servitude. Fulfill your destiny. Kill the Avatar of Grayhawk. Thank you
for listening to this episode of Ethereal Embrace, a Creative Typo production. Vartan,
the Furball Fighter is voiced and played by Adam kl berts 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 Dudgeons
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.