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
by a letter stating that his father has died under mysterious circumstances. Upon returning
home, fartand to open his mind to the possibility that his father's death and
his hometown of Eterno was not everything that had appeared to be. Welcome to
ethereal embrace. Well, that's me, Vartan. I kind of wish I
didn't need as much while trying to ambush whoever is doing this, probably could
have made it through that tunnel a little bit faster. Day three evening,
the home of Judge Graystone. If you don't have any questions for me,
I know that you seemed a little perturbed earlier when I asked you, and
I know this is a lot to take in, But what are your intentions
now that you're home? Well, I definitely don't want my mind wiped.
My intentions right now are to find out what's someone in the zool, or
who is someone in the zoo, and finding out who killed my father or
or maybe faked his death. I don't know. You're sure he's dead.
I am not sure about anything one hundred percent right now. But I saw
his dead body, infected and bloated. I saw the sting wounds. Sting
wounds, all right, I guess that goes along with those things, the
chasms. They have purple stingers on their nose, do you Yeah, what
do you know about necromancy? I don't know much about it. We we
wouldn't need something like that here in Eterno. No one would ever even think
to study it. That I'm aware of. What's your thoughts on it?
Like your own personal thoughts on it. As a firm believer in Grayhawk,
I believe that it is disgusting and immoral. I think that's all I got.
We need more information about Cody, Yeah, I think that by A
completely believes in this guy now Graystone. Yeah. Um, So she's going
to give him a hug and say, I appreciate everything you do for the
city. I know it can't be hard, I know it can't be easy.
Um, thank you, oh, thank you for the huge while she
said while she's hugging him, and be like one more thing, Like I
haven't had a chance to stop by and see Emory since I've been back,
Like everything cool with her. I think she's a little broken up about your
father, but she has no memory of everything going on. No, her
memory has been wiped as well. What about her magic? Because she's a
powerful magic user, right, I uh yeah, this this hug has been
going on for a really long time. Yeah, yes, let me see.
I'm sorry. Um, And she like Pats's cheeks, thank you,
thank you. M Yes, very a very powerful magic user. Like what
what kind of magic do you know? Like that that she does? Like
I don't. I don't remember much from whenever I was around before, but
I mean I've been gone for a little bit, took in the world.
But yeah, what's she doing. I think she's got a little bit of
most magics. I think that she. I mean she helps with a lot
of our mending for tools and stuff around the farms, and she helps with
houses. She helped tear out and build and construct the entire sewage system here
and Eterno by shaping the earth below the ground. Took her several days,
but she was able to do that all on her own. I believe under
Kyrian's instructions, they worked together to map out an entire infrastructure for below the
town. How accurate were they working with anybody else? I'm sorry, go
ahead, this was out of conversation. How accurate or is the dwarf stone
cutting scents or whatever like? Would uh brass Cane be fool if she curved
out that big cave with magic? Would it fool brass Cane into thinking dwarves
did it? I rolled a gnat twenty for brass keting down that stone cutting
thing. Okay, so he yeah, he was, he's but to get
down there wasn't wasn't dwarven craftsmanship to get down there? Right? And also
under your house wasn't dwarven craftsmanship that was Remember there were wood plank says,
load bearing walls, stuff like that. That's not how Dwarves do things.
Yeah, Dwarves wouldn't create a thing you have to shimmy through to get to
it. It would be like this big, magnificent hall. Yeah yeah,
huh, now you know what that that's actually really interesting. I would love
to see the sewers. Do you know if she worked with anybody else,
not that I'm aware of. I mean, she went into several townsfolks houses
to gain access through sellers, but she would mold the earth right through the
cellar walls and connect it to the network of sewage pipes and tunnels. Okay,
So does everybody's house have a connection to get like for them to crawl
down in the sewer and like get blockages out or anything like that. I
wouldn't say they have a full connection like that. I would say there are
maybe a half dozen houses outside of a couple of bricks buildings here, and
I believe the temple has access. Your house has access. I'm pretty sure.
Yeah, I'm guessing your house would have access to Actually, no,
my house does not have access. M what about timmering or tyran Nail.
The farms are farther outside the city. I don't you know. Oh yeah,
I guess I got that out house. Yeah. Do you happen to
have a layout of all the houses that have connection to the sewer? Your
father has it in his works. I have a few things here as far
as the city goes, but as far as the infrastructure for the steward,
it's in his office. All right. Sounds good? So once again,
Graystone, thank you. Gee gives him mine quick tight hug, Thank you,
Stay safe. I'm sorry that I wasn't completely honest before, and I
have the feeling that you gathered that I was holding back, But you can
understand the greater scheme of things now and why I had to position myself the
way I did. Absolutely, I can't imagine the mental turmoil that you must
go through with this great of a burden put on you. When I said
I missed your father greatly and that he left a gap that I can't possibly
imagine having filled. I hope now you understand how truly honest that statement was.
Truly. Thank you. Yeah, anything that you need comfort, whys
while I'm here, just let me know, not like, oh that sounded.
One more hug before you go. He puts his arms out, and
don't and don't count me out yet on the on the staying in town,
because I got a job to do first and then we'll figure it out from
there. Baya gives him another big hug, handy kiss on the cheek.
She puts her hands around the back of his head. Thank you, truly,
I can't imagine this type of burden. I've lived quite a while,
and even my short lifespan has is nothing compared to yours and what you must
be going through. Thank you, and she pulls away, thank you.
As you guys are leaving, he says, I did see Emery at your
house today. I think she was stopping by as well. She was talking
to Abigail out by the stables. I know you were asking questions about her,
but it's worth a shot. She's probably sleeping now. It is late
tonight at this point, but she was by your house earlier, all right,
she would Did she go inside? No, her and Abigail were near
the stables. I don't know if she went inside. I knocked on your
door and no one came, so I slid my note under the door.
All right, I think that's all we get. Have a good night,
Vartan. Are you too by waves by leave? Okay? All right,
so you guys heading back to the house to call it a night. Yeah,
yeah, there's nothing else we can do tonight. Yeah, check the
note, and we'll stop by the stables make sure everything was it. It
looks like it was clean today and everybody was fed. And uh yeah,
check the note. And I definitely want to check the office for the layout
of the sewer system and what houses have connection to the sewers. Yeah,
so you open the door. The note is on the ground right under the
door, you know, slid under the door right how we said it was.
Yeah, you make it to the office knowing what you're looking for,
you easily find the schematics in the layout for the sewer system. Yep,
you've got everything that okay, that you were looking for. Nothing, nothing
suspicious on the houses that have connection to the sewer system. You do notice,
I mean, so the sewer system you know, runs north from your
basement, and there is none of that in the schematics. Okay, it
just stops at your house and that's opposite direction of the rest of the town
the cave. And yep, your house is the northernmost property on in eternal
fuck. Um, do we have time to check the sewer We didn't really
use up We all didn't really use up spell slats or anything for todays.
Yeah. I can't imagine it take too long to at least see it's that
direction to investigate the sewers. There were no traps originally, when we still
get a solid eight hours, can I be shredder? This is how the
Tortal race was born? Okright, Yeah, let's um Baya is going to
recommend we go and check that out. Yeah, let's go light my lantern.
So you go down into the tunnels and there is the smell of sewage
and stuff that's down in the tunnels. But it's not like a large city
sewer tunnel where there's a big, you know, river of everything gross.
It's really I mean Eternos, a smaller town, and the stuff really flows
south. Anyway. You just kind of get the feeling, the smell,
the sense of being in a sewage system. There are walls that are carved
out of stone and certain spots, and then it breaks away into dirt and
into clay and other spots. And there are different areas where wood is put
up as load bearing fixtures to help keep it from collapsing. But I assume
you guys hop down into the tunnel and take it north. Yeah, okay,
So you take this tunnel north and are you looking for anything as you
go or are you just trying to find out where this tunnel takes you.
I guess we'll see if if things stand out, or at least I will
if anything changes about the sewer system as we go. I guess I don't
know if you want us to roll for that or if it'd be obvious.
No, I do want you to make a roll, make a survival check
all of us. Yeah, if you're if you're paying attention as you're walking,
twenty one eighteen twelve, okay, I am not paying attention anything over
fifteen. Kind of got it. So you guys, even though you're traveling
north, it does seem like you're going farther down and deeper into the ground
as the sewage system goes which rolling as well as you did kind of is
interesting because the sewage system actually flows south, so you are going down deeper
into the earth, but the sewage system doesn't flow this way by some mad
designs, so we don't have to worry about stepping on shit like as we're
going down right right right, and actually you're getting farther away from that sewer
smell as you continue to go down, and it just gets more earthy as
as you're going. Okay, eventually you get to a spot and you feel
that the path does start to twist more west as you're walking. But you
get to a spot where you find a large rune that is a nimbus green,
the same green as the last spell that buy A asked in that cavern
on the ground in front of you, and it spans out to the left
and to the right. You can see it a little ways away as you
approach. But you see that same ring. Huh. So it looks like
the same ruins that were It looks like the same ruins that were in that
place, that little cavern that we were in, exactly. And it's the
same green color from the last spell that you cast on them while you were
in that cave. As we approach. Yeah, you see it as you
approach. These are possibly the same ruins that we saw in that basement area.
Yep, exactly. Are we further north now than we were in the
cave? Yes? Yes, so you are northwest right now from Cyrian's house
from Vartan's house, but the cave was straight southwards from from you. I
couldn't remember. Now, we know that the that the ruined circle the eternal
eternal, and farre Kyrian was trying to expand it. That was a hypothesis.
Yeah. Does the path keep going once we get to the ruin or
does it stop right there? No, So you get to the ruin and
it does cut off to the west and to the east like full on west
and east for the past. So you come to essentially a crossroads and it
has been carved out to match the pattern of the ruins. Okay, so
the ruins go east and west down this path that we've come to yep,
Okay. So this is how Kyrian was studying the ruins. More than likely
he could just get to it from his house this way, possibly trying to
duplicate the ruins north of town to expand the protection. That's how it's in
the mountain. Maybe he figured it out, but it broke it somehow did
it break it? I don't think he figured anything out yet. I think
this is because the runes go I assume it goes in a circular shape around
a turno. We were in the cave in the south. This is the
northern part of the same circle that goes around a turno. So he hasn't
necessarily figured him out. This is just closer to home for him to study
than going all the way to the cave in the south, even though he
could have just teleported. But the ruins go into the mountain or whatever.
I don't know. Yeah, I mean they're underground and they circle, yeah,
all the way around. So he figured out somehow he found he found
the runs, So he basically used possibly out of out of character, he
could have used Emory to dig all of these places to find out where the
why the town is protected. Figured out it's these runs, and he's studying
them, and he had her dig out path. Yeah, so like this
path could totally just go around the entire town and we could spend the entire
night going in a circle. Possibly right, well, we know, we
know it doesn't this path does not intersect that cave. Yeah, because they
went into the mountain right down at some point. Yeah, or I mean
or it possibly doesn't end and we can keep going around and then we have
to climb up five hundred feet to get to the to get to the southwest
room that we were in before. Oh yeah where that yeah? So yeah,
shit how far back? Because the water, the sewage flows to the
south and that abyss ye vault goes into water yea, and the light disappeared,
so it could just be shit water. I'm glad that none of us
jumped into it. If we had had five hundred feet a rope, we
would have tried, We would have or somebody have feather fall or is that
just a wild thing. No, it's a it's a DND thing. M
Getting back up might be a bitch though without a spider climb. Yeah.
Yeah, So how far down these east and west paths do we want to
travel? Or now, knowing where it goes, do we call it a
night and head back to the house. I mean, do we just assume?
Why wouldn't this be on the map though? Is the question? Why
wouldn't this be on Kirian's map? He didn't want anyone to know he's figured
out what's causing the magic. Yeah, but the other tunnel was the other
tunnel with the room in it that had the sigils, that was on the
map. Yeah, the one from the cave was now, baya, you
know how to you know this celestial stuff right? More or less? So
if you copy these routes, like like, write down these routes, because
what Bastia was talking about him being uh repeating, Yeah, but the mountain
was cutting them off there. We could follow the cave until you start noticing
a repeating pattern, and we can figure out exactly the the the spell in
the city. Okay, yeah, we can't read it, but we can
we can coigure up the entire script. Yeah okay, Yeah, Um,
how how many runs long is this spell before it starts repeating? It is
thirty two ruins long before it repeats. So in that initial cave there were
thirty four runs altogether that he could see. Okay, so he did get
the entire Yeah, the entire didn't see where, but didn't see exactly where
it repeated. Yeah, he couldn't confirm that it repeated because he only had
one set. Yeah. Cool, well we got it. Now we just
have to hope the church has a book of ancient celestial Yeah, okay,
I mean I I say that we don't go down any further unless y'all really
want to, but possibly go to the church. And I mean, I
mean, but what what's our next step after this? Do we want to
talk to Emory? Confront? Yeah, we need to talk to Emory and
we need to get Cody's story, But I don't know how we're going to
do that. Yeah, because we only got Cody's story through Magno. Yeah,
that's a lot of ifs, some rights and the legend kind of deal.
Um. I would I would say confront Emory for sure with that that
we know all of this information and try and like find out what the hell
she was up to, what the hell she was up to with Kirian,
and if she knows anything about the summoning circle. I'm surely she would have
seen it if she helped dig to it, if she dig if dig to
it, but I mean I think the sewer Yeah, yeah, Kirian might
have dug this portion by himself. Can we do some sort of like perception
check to see if the it's the same style as far as the dig style
from the cave to what you're in right now. Well, no, not
the cave, but the rest of the sewer system. And this portion that's
not on the map, is that? Oh? Is that the same style?
So that way we know if Emery had anything to do with it,
or if it was dug a different way so it'd have different tool marks,
or absolutely go ahead and do a perception check to see or in our counter
check, chevery, you're veteran, it's the same gross What was the other
check besides our perception sixteen? Okay, anything over a fifteen will we'll get
it. Yeah. The cave structures for the path that follows the ruins and
the sewer system appear to be the same type of magic that used or that
was used to build out the network. So Emory might have We still don't
know that Emory had anything to do with it. It could have just been
the same spell. A hold on, there's a book. We have a
book or a diary or a journal or something like that of Kirian's that tells
us everybody who could could cast any kind of spell. So is there anybody
else who can cast the same kind of spell that does cave digging? I
don't know. Uh, yeah, shapes stone whatever, ye shaped stone,
mold earth. No, Emery is the only person in the city that is
known to have in Curan's abilities. And this is through Currian's basement, so
yep, and it was Currian's project according to Graystone. Okay, I got
another question. Uh, thinking back on climbing through that tunnel and everything climbing
through that tunnel, does it does it feel like or does it seem like
like that was cast by magic? Or is that something like more like a
burrowed tunnel um that I had to I had to shimmy through like a base
or football field of shimmying barely able to fit like that two foot area.
Is that more like like burrowed by like some kind of creature or is that
was that cast by magic? In the caves? That that spot there seems
like it was more burrowed. Okay, I'm gonna pull out the map again
and I'm gonna see who all had access to the sewer system from their homes.
Oh okay, so you have there were six NPCs that I don't have
names for. We can call them whoever we want, the seven Dwarfs,
minus Sneezy because gross, yes, that guy Sneezy is in the clear.
So there was those six. There was also Kirian's house, the temple,
the storehouse, and two other properties that Kirian owned that currently do not have
tenants. Remember he owned some properties properties that you guys got in the will.
Yeah. Yeah, two of those properties have access, but nobody living
in them. Okay my my memory of my childhood, did anybody ever live
in those houses? Nope? So they've just been completely empty residences for two
hundred and whatever years, two hundred and sixty years. So did you say
that the six the six NPCs did have access to the sewers, Yeah,
they were. Out of all the residential houses, only six of them have
hatches that give sewer access. But they're nameless, so they're a little nobody.
They're not going to be the just regular people. Yeah yeah, yeah,
I mean there's dope, grumpy, fleepy unnamed NPC is gonna end up
being the big bad guy. The storehouse. Am I missing something here?
Do I know where the storehouse is? The storehouse is in the northern ward.
It's just above the bricks. So okay, storehouse is the northern wards.
It's just above the bricks yep. So on the map you've got the
bricks, which is the six businesses that are that are there and they all
share the storehouse. Just okay. So the bricks has the baker, the
carpenter, the tailor, the arcanist, the apothecary, and the blacks.
The storehouse is where the zill was stored, right yeah, one of the
one of the storehouses had the dead zill. So so many people that have
access to the storehouse are brass, cane and the guard and well that's not
true. Yeah, I mean you said the arcanist, the apothecary. Have
we ever met our the wrote rough what half rough narugal rough, rough,
narrow roof. Everybody just called them r r. I don't even think I
ever wrote that we haven't met have we met sire Route New Nope, those
are all the shop owners And you guys haven't really gone to the shopping.
You haven't really gone to the bricks to do any shopping or anything. You
guys knew about McHale and Vale, but that's because they had bread and stuff
that I think you guys picked up on day day two when you were wandering
around. Okay, the two houses that don't have residence where they located like
area on the map they are. One is in the most southern part of
the old district. It is this little small house and the very southern it's
kind of separated from everything else. Yep. Okay. And then one is
the farthest right house in the old district. It's like a large triangle house.
It's a big house. It is a really big house. Yep.
It's a waste yep. And they're right on Okay, So like try like
there's a triangle going on here between uh Carrion's house, the southern house and
the far you said east house, Yeah, East house. Those are good
entry points for coming in from working on a circle. Oh that's surrounding the
town and the storehouse kind of fills in there too. On a lot of
people though, is the problem Because a lot of people in there. I
feel like like, uh, like the storehouse it's going to be run by
somebody or like the the town leader, or like it's being used to store
a zill um for the for the town guard, and they've had it locked
up from people getting inside of there with that zill inside there um, So
it's not like everybody has access to it right now, Nico did you what
did you say? Who all has access to the pocket there? Has access?
Like? Yeah, so all six of the the emergence, the baker,
the carpenter, the taylor, the archanist, the apothecary, and the
blacksmiths are allowed to have access to the storehouse for their goods. The storehouse
is there for their needs. It's also there to help for the city guard,
which is why the zill is locked up in there. It's in the
city guard section. There is access to the sewer there, but I mean
all of the all of the shops would have access and the city guard would
have acces of all of the zill except for this piece and buy a pulls
out this. Yeah, I'm gonna guess they put the other two that we
killed in there too. I guess like we can call it a night here.
But maybe these these three other locations might have a pathway that leads out
as well. Um, I don't know, but I guess it all comes
to here anyways, so it can all. I guess if we were to
walk the entire circle, we would see if there's any other deviating paths.
But I'm getting real weird vibes about the temple. Um you know, yeah,
yeah, and um tell Mika used magic to erase her mind and the
after he died. Yeah, and it was before he dealt Yeah, it
was before. Okay, But she's because Judge Graystone replaced Tell Mika tell me
to mind, because she didn't want to keep living. But she's been a
circle pulls magic And I'm maybe like stretch armstronging it here. But if if
she has magic in her brain, you're raising her memory in this portal pulls
magic, it would make more sense for her to be a little loopy.
Well, wouldn't have done it the brass Cane too. Did brass Cane get
his memory raced? Or is he knew her. I thought he was younger.
I thought he was your age. You didn't get your brory raced.
You were born after the memory race. That's right, that's right. Shit,
Bastille never had his memory raised. Yeah, holy shit. Yeah' tell
Mika might be might be the one behind this. I mean she said that
it was too much on her and she gave it up and memory knowing what's
going on, she would have totally explored the sewers if she came across it.
Who made the summoning circle is the thing? Who made that thing?
And why somebody made it? I think, well, we're connected, we
have the we have the stones that connect to it. Yeah, so maybe
you're fought. No, so Kirion made it. Portal stones that teleport us
back and forth. Those could just be created after Kirian found it, and
it's like, hey, let's make a summoning stone as a shortcut. They're
not necessarily connected any more than that. The summoning circle may well was it
the same style room in the center of the room that kept sucking magic as
well. The summoning circle had a celestrial. The summoning circle had. It
was like a repeating There are two summoning circles that are tied to the stones
that you have. Both of those are one style. We'll call that style
A. Then there's the style be summoning circle that created the sphere that that's
the one that's sucking in magic when you use magic around it. That one
is different than Style A. Then there's the entire summoning not a summoning circle,
there's the entire magic ring that circles all of Eterno. That is a
third type of that style C. I'm thinking that's ancient dwarf. That's a
ancient celestials YEA. The summoning circle that has the sphere and the summoning circle
that has that that summoning circle A for the two stones, those are not
celestial and did we well, we didn't pay that much attention to them.
And the fact that Tellmica kept telling Bastion to not go a waste a whole
day or waste time going towards the area. So I mean, it's it's
really awkward because I don't want to tell me get to be the bad guy.
But she's not here. Why would she reach out to me? Why
would she reach out to me? Though? Like, why would she why
would she tell me to come back to town after my father died with all
that too? Like, if she is behind it, or if, like
the the memory wipe is glitching and it's making her loopy, she might not
have there. She might have a split personality. And there's the half that
told you about your dad dying, and there's the half that's doing evil things
and summoning Zill. Yeah, I don't know. Maybe something went wrong.
Would she cast the memory wipe spell on herself? Who knows what the alterior
motive is here. We just know it's funky. Like the sewer that we're
in. We can't have everybody watched by brass Kane's guard, so we have
to find We have to figure out where we want to approach. So do
we either go to Emory confront her about the tunnels? I mean, I
think that's the smartest thing to do. I'm super obviously, super suspicious of
Telmiga at this point, just because of she's not your clues. Oh and
also she's not in front of me right now. Well, yeah, I'm
thinking Emory and then tell Emory sounds a good like a good starting point for
sure. In the morning, Tera Nil is I'm still kind of wondering what's
going on with that, but uh, but yeah, Emory first for sure,
whenever we when we do that. 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 by 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 Dudgeons and Dragon's 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.