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large i'm shraya and i'm your dm ethan welcome to venture forth
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[Music]
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previously the party had ended an epic battle within the dakir ruins
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you all had come to blows with members of the order of the red wolf
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and fallen to their blades and spells
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reawoken attached to pillars you all had come too and
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discovered that the remaining members there were attempting to open a portal to the plane of fire
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[Music] after a brief talk with the newly freed
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zorkhall it was determined that the iron light was being hunted
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most likely by one of their own zorkhall had spoken with flynn and relayed information that kalyn had
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taken herself up north [Music] and begun investigating this sinister
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plot of murders it was shared with the rest of the group that flynn himself might be in danger if
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this culprit was not found out though unfortunately the rest of the party would be too slow to get to keid
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where kailyn was currently presiding it was determined that stryo was the only one with the speed to get there in
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time to relay the crucial information as the group said their goodbyes
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and gave shraya some parting gifts and some parting words of wisdom
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shraya you transformed yourself into an eagle
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and with the wind underneath your wings you took flight over the bartok rise
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towards marstock so try
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as you soar high and high up into the sky you take one last look back
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and see the rest of your party there soon though they are
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completely dissipated within the clouds that become thicker and thicker as you climb this
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mountainside soon you can't see them at all soon you can't hear them at all
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you continue to climb and climb and climb and as you look forward peaks start to rise peaks of stone and
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rock and and these gray knife-like shards coming up out of the
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earth you continue to rise and ascend you continue to fly up
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and this bartok rise seems almost endless as all of a sudden on the ground on the
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rocks you can begin to see patches of snow you can see these little
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white patches that become thicker and thicker the more you climb into the sky
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how is it uncomfortably cold like is it starting to to to work at me or is it it
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is not impeding you okay so ever but as you continue to climb
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the first thing that hits you is not necessarily the cold but almost the lack of oxygen
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eventually you begin to to feel the cold start to pierce your wings and and pierce your feathers
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i start to steady my steady my uh climb as i continue determinedly to
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get over this ridge looking around uh
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i'm darting around the the tops of the ridges just desperately trying to find a
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like some kind of inlet between the peaks that i could possibly get through can i see anything make a perception
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check for me and as an eagle do you have any advantage on that yes i actually get
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advantage on uh on that role so in this case uh that is
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uh 23 23. um your your eagle eyes dart back and forth and
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pretty soon you expertly carve a path through these mountain ridges you see almost like a river breaking through
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these rocks um this inlet that you can perfectly dive through it
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actually shelters you a little bit as these rocks are jutting out from the side of the mountain it almost protects
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you from the winds that are now picking up i i uh duck my my beak down and uh
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flare my uh tuck my my back wingspan as i dive through this uh opening
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and just squint uh ever sl ever so uh nimbly
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maneuvering my way uh through this this inlet uh toward the
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other side all right and as you do you look towards the mountain once again
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and at this point you can see nearly no gray you have completely lost the rocks
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as as it is now all overtaken by ice and snow and you for a moment have a hard time
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differentiating between what is the snow on the rocks and what is this thick white cloud
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that has formed around you for a brief moment i arc my feathers back uh almost in attempt to retreat
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uh and then remembering that i can't go back uh i flare my my feathers out again as i
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uh open them out catch some air to try to get above
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uh to get above this cloud is that possible and as as soon as you have this thought
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of fortifying yourself you burst through the top layer of the clouds
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you look out and like a blanket laid out there over elbor
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you can see this thick white cloud laid out before you just at a couple points you can just
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barely see these these peaks rising up above the mountain and for the first time
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in what must be the better part of two hours of you climbing the side of this this mountain
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you feel warmth you feel sunshine on your wings as you have
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finally broken the veil of this cloud i kick back uh in in a moment of of relief
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uh and uh acknowledgement that in this almost pure form of
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of winged beast of winged animal that i feel slightly even more at home with i kick back my wings and uh
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soar straight upward toward the sun and bathe myself in the warmth and light uh as i take in the fullness of the
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peaks of the ridges below me and i and i let out just a a joyful shriek
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and i flip around and uh coast myself to where i'm uh just
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feet from the the top layer of clouds getting to know the contours of them
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ducking into them almost playing with the clouds as i as i coast further away from the peaks
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uh toward what's next and not even five minutes after you break
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the surface thoughts of any cold uh any any snow any
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chills that had run up your body are completely gone as you feel completely free and comfortable to fly above the
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clouds here uh even as i continue to weave in and out of these cloud layers and and up and
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through uh for a second i i even forget what i'm doing i'm so lost
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in it and i have this moment of remembering
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the last time i was alone the last time i was on my own bound for somewhere that i didn't even
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really know uh and first for a moment uh i i pause and my wings arc and i go up
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and i move up toward the sky and hover for a second and and
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just clock [Music] the fact that
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i am a beast again and i make and as i
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finish pausing and just re-getting my bearings i take myself out of
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survival and instinct and remember that i'm fighting for a greater purpose and i'm gonna blast down
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below the cloud layer and see what's below and as soon as you break that initial
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layer of of clouds your vision begins to expand once more
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and you can see now laid out in front of you the clouds beginning to dissipate
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as you have made it to the other side peaks no longer jut up from the ground
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but rather a steep slope greets you as you break through these clouds you
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can see a steep slope downwards as the height of the bartok rise is now
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behind you you're gonna have to descend for a little while before you can fully clear all of the fog and and completely
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clear the clouds but it seems as though the peaks have been dealt with so at
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this point i can i can tell which way is up and which way is down and i'm very much yes i'm interested in descending
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down the other side of this ridge as you break through this veil and begin descending down
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you start coasting on the updrafts that are created by these these massive boulders and different rock formations
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that are naturally occurring here and you find it almost easy to drift down floating
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very similar to the way a leaf floats along the currents of air
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and by the time you can actually see where the mountains end where you can see where the foothills meet
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the ground you haven't had to flap your wings once on the way down it has been an easy
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coast as you are expertly finding the best currents of air to ride
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but as you get to the foothills of the mountains you look forward
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and you can see that these white clouds that have been
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accompanying your travels so far begin to darken and turn gray along the horizon
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as you can start to see the beginnings the edge of a forest beneath you
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you can also see just above them the start of storm clouds
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uh as i take in these storm clouds and the what are do
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in terms of how full they are like the how dark they are uh and
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how my visibility as i'm moving toward them uh i want to take a second and see
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what would be the most efficient way to either circumvent them by perhaps flying above
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them or even like coasting because you said there were
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trees here right as this canopy is starting to emerge or perhaps if i were to just
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uh glide along the tops of the trees uh how thick does the how thick does the
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cloud how thick do the clouds in front of me appear and how far can i see into the uh this oncoming what appears to be
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a storm i'm gonna have you make a survival check for me fantastic
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seems fitting uh 15. a 15. um yeah so as you are
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looking out you can see really three possible avenues for you to
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take at this point it would be possible for you to coast at a higher altitude and
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completely fly above these storm clouds you could fly through the trees
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and possibly navigate around some of the uh some of the fog that's created
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or as you're looking out over this forest you can see that these storm clouds
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aren't quite thick enough to produce rain yet
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it probably wouldn't be too treacherous for you to simply fly through them
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though that could change at any moment as you know that storms are quite temperamental
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you can see however on the horizon um that these storm clouds do get thicker
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and thicker you cannot see or hear any rain or thunder yet but you can see that they are
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beginning to accumulate on the horizon uh and how thick is the forest that i'm
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approaching is it is it like you can hardly you can see it's it it's just at the foothills of the
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mountain it's a little bit sparse but you can see um off in the distance it does get thicker and thicker
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uh one more thing i'm going to just look for as i as i like are there areas of the landscape
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ahead of me that that seem to sink like i might be looking for like a creek
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or uh or some sort of water source to be able to follow along don't have you make a perception check amazing okay great
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i don't need to have advantage on that oh i do you are still so let's see if i need to nope don't do
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better than that uh 20 30 20. dirty 20. um yeah so as you're as you're looking
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through this forest um a normal observer probably wouldn't be able to see this but you can
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just barely see where some of the trees are sort of
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coalescing you can see almost like a river of itself running through this this area of trees that are
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just a little bit more full a little bit greener probably indicative of them being close to a water source a
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large water source uh feeling the the weariness and the
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uh effort that it took to to uh surpass those mountains
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uh i'm going to glide along i'm going to
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gain speed and gather speed and then attempt to maneuver across that water
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source just above uh where the
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branches and trees get very thick as in addition to i don't want to get ahead of myself but as as i look down toward
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that water source i also look for uh like tiny
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um rodents or rabbits or anything that i can possibly eat along
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my journey all right um so you do dive in and before the forest gets too thick before you would be able to not be able
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to um penetrate that top layer of canopy you are able to find a way into
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uh the the forest itself you begin to navigate around and after
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just a brief minute or two you're able to see and hear a small creek running through
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um not by any means a large river but a water source nonetheless and as you
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begin to trace that with your your pattern of flight i'm gonna have you make another perception check um
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to try and find some rodents great [Music]
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uh that is a 24 and before
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i don't know if i can bake this into the same perception check but uh how do as i enter the forest
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uh and now that i have some sense that different forests can
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display different characteristics uh how am i getting a reed on this forest
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does it feel different does it feel magical does it feel uh just like a very natural forest okay i'm going to have
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you make a spooky vibes yeah thank you
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ah that is a 14 on the spooky vibes a 14. um as you are flying through this
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forest um you don't get any
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foreboding senses um as you look around you don't quite feel
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as watched as you had in say previous forests you don't feel like someone is always
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watching you you're not really getting that feeling there isn't as much of a darkness within this forest but
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for the last time you're able to look up into the sky before the canopy gets thick enough to
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where it's completely covering the sky [Music] and for a brief moment
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you look up and you see the storm clouds and you just get a little shiver
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on the back of your neck before the sky is completely covered by the canopy of trees green are all around
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you singing of birds the uh the gentle bubbling of the creek beneath you
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um and a small little mouse who is currently
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taking a drink at that creek i hover ever so slightly as i approach it
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and with a seamless uh
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quieted slow hush i descend as lightly as possible and right at the
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last second let's see how effectively i can do this uh i'm just going to lightning quickly
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reach out my talons and attempt to carve my talon through the skull of the rodent
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and through its body all right delivered into my mouth in one sweeping motion i'm gonna have you make a stealth check
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for me all right great [Music]
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there we go seven a seven okay you are
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sweeping down and just as you do it seems that the mouse
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drinking from this small little creek has seen a slight reflection in the water and looks just up behind it to see
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you approaching i'm gonna have you make um i'm gonna have a actually roll initiative oh great against this mouse
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15. that is a 15 for you and
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[Music] uh that is a nine for the mouse
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right um i'm gonna have you make an attack roll great yeah that'll just just be a simple uh claw
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attack and yeah talons
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uh yep [Music] fourteen does it fourteen hit a fourteen
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um lightning quick as the moment the mouse sees you
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it is completely snuffed out as now it has a talent buried deep into
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the back of its skull uh and as i with the same motion that that is that i bury the talon in i scoop
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uh i scoop the mouse back into my
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beak as i sweep up from the creek
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carrying it in my mouth i use the momentum that i'm carrying up with and briefly uh rear back to throw the mouse into the
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air and then i catch uh i catch it in my uh as it go i catch it in my beak
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as it goes down my throat and uh i continue along the same path
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uh that i was soaring at before amongst the uh top layer of canopy all right and
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without missing any time you continue your glide forward and continue making your way through
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as the forest around you gets thicker and thicker you are beginning to have to dodge in
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between trees in between branches up and over slight hills are you going to continue on through the
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forest uh as i as i dart between the the canopies and the the treetops and the
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the branches uh i start to remember even though this is a very different
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forest i start having images and memories of my of my fellow party members and i
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start to miss them and i start to just even imagine
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what my previous role as a scout might have been and i have a yearning in my heart for them
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as i as i just dart around my eyes toward the forest floor almost looking for them uh
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do i do i see anything along the forest floor as i'm as i'm just looking uh kind of wisply
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um nothing out of the ordinary you still see the creek that you are um
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that you were flying over um every once in a while you will see um
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larger um both flora and fauna as as you move through uh that are coming to
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partake within this creek nothing out of the ordinary though uh and before i resolve to
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as i as i see it's getting more difficult uh i resolved to to to break to find an
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opening in the canopy and break above it uh my last flashing thought before i do
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that as i not i'm not casting a spell to speak with uh the plants but i but i i
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cast out this this like just message uh almost to myself
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and to the forest of like how old are you
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[Music] and how do the trees look in terms of like does this forest look
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like it's been here for a while or does it seem like new growth new sap new seeds
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um looking around you see a a mixture of
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trees that have the the size and the bark texture
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of trees that are ancient and on top of that you can see
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moss and growth and flowers that are relatively new but you can see that the
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the base layers of this forest are very old orlando does it look like does it look like the
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trees are like are able to be well kept and they've like cemented their status here or does it
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seem like there are other weeds and other under overgrowths and undergrowths the majority of the forest seems very
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well fortified within this area and all of the the um
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plants and animals around seem to be very much in harmony
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with everything else the one thing that might make it better
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somehow my companions were able to be with me say under my breath as i uh break the top layer of canopy
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and what do i see when i break the top layer um as soon as you break the top layer and it actually takes you a couple
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minutes to find a place to break right as as you would have to um
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pretty much claw your way through um trees and branches you're able you're able to find a uh
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small opening and as you break the top of the canopy you look up and once
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again you see gray clouds getting thicker and thicker off in the
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distance but as you look off into the horizon you can see
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that the forest itself begins to dissipate trees get more and more sparse
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as you can see the end of the forest in front of you uh i'm going to try to make my way
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toward what looks like the end of the forest uh do i see anything beyond that end of
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the forest other than clouds the clouds um yes you are just on the horizon
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able to see an additional mountain range you can't quite
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see the town of marstock just yet as it's still quite far away but you can see that
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mountain range um that you know accompanies marstock to the west
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[Music] as the forest changes on the on the
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horizon uh do i see any like i'm approaching the peaks uh
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is there does it look like there's anything beyond the forest that's like not town and not forest or am i still is
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the forest still too thick for me to be able to see beyond that at this point um at this point laid out in front of you
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you're able to see the forest below you you're able to see the mountain range the sort of southern
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piece of the elder peaks um and sort of off to the north you can just
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barely catch a larger river that seems to be running
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south and into this forest and you can assume that this is probably the source
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of that creek ah just out of curiosity i'm just going to make my way toward where that larger
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body of water is and uh attempt to see
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now my hunger has been slightly sated but i have a love for all of the beings
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i i think to myself i wonder what sort of beings creatures
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inhabit this part of the wide world and i'm just gonna look out and you mentioned harmony and the harmony of
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nature in this forest and this the way it's idyllic uh and my own solace and
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and uh appreciation of that guides me toward the mouth of that water source
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all right and as you approach um now you can see laid out in
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front of you as the forest comes to an end the beginnings of a much larger river
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the sound below you almost thunder like in texture
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begins roaring beneath you it begins to get wider and wider and wider as you are
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as you are moving along it and at this point you can see if you continue following this river you can just barely
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see a point off in the distance that you can identify a town marstock just off in the distance
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are there structures along can am i able to see any structures along the banks of the river or as it as it winds out from
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the forest uh you are not at this point okay it seems that there are no
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um civilized structures along this this river at this point
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okay uh briefly uh how did the by the way as the as the
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river approaches uh the the beginnings of the forest uh
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is there any change in the landscape that the river makes as as it approaches
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the forest like is there any like is there a waterfall is there like a go like is there a gorge is there like is
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there something that kind of marks the transition between the the river itself and the forest um yes
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yes there is um and as you look down and and you are currently gliding over this
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area you can see that the the creek itself that originates this this river
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um moves out of the forest and beyond the tree line and it actually meets into
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several larger pools and it doesn't quite form it's not quite the
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size of a lake but you can see that these that these pools of water um distinct
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in themselves but sort of flow through one to the other um only differentiated
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by these large boulders um natural formations that sort of carve through
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you can see that the water accumulates here and then forms into the much larger river ahead
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um you can see that there are several sort of smaller waterfalls as these pools move from one to to the other
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uh i'm as i can i'm going to sweep down and attempt to break through one of the
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waterfalls to clean myself uh without uh getting caught in the
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currents of the waterfall all right i'm gonna have you make an athletics check for me as an eagle
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see we can overcome the power of this waterfall uh great
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natural 20 natural twilight do it um you fly through
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and at the very last moment as you have your wings extended and are doing last-minute
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course corrections at the very last moment you whip your wings back and form almost a a dart that flies through
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this water um you are knocked back and and it feels
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almost like a shock of cold water that is punching you in the back but after a brief second you emerge on
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the other side and see you have only lost maybe a foot in height um as you
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emerge and once again expand your wings back out and continue flying through the waterfall and and in that moment that
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i'm that i puncture the waterfall uh i find myself
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and part of my reason of doing it was to find myself in this place where i was cocooned
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tucked in nature's ferocity as i hum
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deeply in the deepest part of this waterfall [Music] it's like it's a hum but it's also a um
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it's also a forceful driving through
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as if the land is is breathing through me and i uh
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rooted untether untethered from it uh as i bust out through the other end of
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the waterfall and feel
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both at home and determined once again i look down toward the pools you just
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described and i also i uh again that some time has passed i'm
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gonna look for uh some fish to to save my appetite all right i'm gonna have you make another
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survival check for me uh that will be
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a 16. a 16. um as you look down you see
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a a school of four or five fish maybe
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a foot long as they are circling around each other calmly within the pool
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like to isolate the biggest one that i can see and dive down toward it and grasp it in my
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beak all right um i am going to have you make another stealth check great
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critical fail critical fail as soon as your talons puncture the water um all of the fish
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completely dissipate and and swim off in their own directions and uh as your
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talent emerges from the water once more you haven't even touched a fish on my breath
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yeah get your head out of the falls try as i uh swoop back up and
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not going for a different pool this time uh since that ones i've already blown my cover uh i swoop down toward a different
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pool to see if i can find a different uh source of fish all right make a perception check for me
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uh dirty 20. dirty 20. um yeah as as you fly towards the next pool you can see that all of
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these pools um seem to have almost their own self-contained ecosystem you can see different types of
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fish within each one um and and different types of moss within um
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and you do find another grouping of fish i'm gonna have you roll another stealth check for me
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all right oh that's much better uh 18. 18. um as
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you find the new school of fish uh you notice that these ones are a little bit more brightly colored their scales
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reflecting light uh just a little bit more than the previous fish were so you're able to dive down and get a
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direct bead on one of them and as soon as your claws pierce the uh the veil of
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the water all of the fish dart in different directions unfortunately for the fish one of them darts directly into
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your claws and you sink your claws in and emerge once more now holding a fish
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beautiful uh in a similar fashion of how i tossed the uh rodent up
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uh i'm i'm gonna give this fish a slightly more forceful
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toss so that i can actually see it trying to to swim through the air as it's released
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and seeing this and seeing the getting a little bit lost in the reflection of the
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of the sun sparkling off the scales uh i'm then going to
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uh dive bomb toward it uh washing my wings and i'm just going to completely devour
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it in midair all right um and as you do you sort of
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uh bring yourself back up to a coasting altitude and uh as soon as you're done eating the fish
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you look out towards the horizon and see just in front of you the town of marstock
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you can see several buildings laid out you can see the the single central road
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and you can see it all shadowed by now thickening storm clouds
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uh does it look like there's like an active storm going now does it look like it's raining in the distance the
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visibility um you can see way off in the distance you can just see sort of that that wall of rain where it
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just becomes more difficult to see but you get you see that that rain has not yet reached marstock it's probably gonna
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take maybe a day or two to reach marstock [Music]
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a uh or two uh do i at this point uh
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do i see a area as you know as i've been traveling and traveling and traveling
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i obviously don't want to take as important as this is i still don't want to take on exhaustion
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uh so is there is there a place if the trees haven't completely
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vanished yet uh is there a place along the tree line that i could perhaps like even take a
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short rest to prevent exhaustion oh for sure yeah um at this point the forest
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is there's just the last couple of trees um and you would definitely be able to find
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one to perch into great i'm going to do that uh i'm going to
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find the most naturally occurring uh
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as i hastily construct uh a nest amongst what
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looks like perhaps the most welcoming set of branches as i i'm not going to be here for too too long but just enough
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just i'm going to take just enough rest to be able to sustain me to continue my journey all right um and as you
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take that breath to yourself you can mark down a short rest right and you feel reinvigorated for uh the
37:03
next part of your journey as it's not going to take you very long to get to marstock now at this point um so
37:09
as you complete your rest you once again take flight and before long you are
37:14
soaring over marstock itself um the buildings directly beneath you what would you like
37:20
to do uh i'm going to i've been traveling by uh portal quite a
37:26
bit uh so i'm gonna see if i can recognize uh where
37:32
hayfriez is uh from the air um yeah it's it's the
37:37
layout of the town of marstock um is is pretty easy to follow you can see
37:42
that there's that there's the one long central dirt road with um
37:48
with buildings on either side of it you can see hafrit's temple um down at the very end and fairly easily you can sort
37:56
of pinpoint from hayfried's temple where his house is which is is only a
38:02
few buildings away um so you you fairly easily pinpoint where it is does the town seem
38:08
like alive with uh with activity right now or is it
38:13
uh my my goal here is to not make a huge
38:19
scene of myself entering uh and going into the i'd prefer it if no
38:25
one saw me for sure as a matter of fact um as it is the middle of the day um you
38:32
don't see anyone really in town no as you look out and
38:38
and your eagle eyes give you a little bit of a better sense of this as you look out towards the farms
38:44
that are all around marstock um the farms that that lay out for miles around marstock um you can see
38:51
quite a bit of movement out there uh you assume that most people right now middle of the day
38:57
are probably out farming out in the fields out working uh
39:02
and and not too many people are in the town proper itself at this point oh great okay
39:08
so i'm going to do a quick little circle as if
39:13
i were just intrigued by some element or aspect of the temple itself i'm gonna
39:19
circle a little bit and then i'm gonna quickly swiftly corkscrew down
39:24
toward the entrance and what do i see at the entrance as i uh
39:31
yeah i'm just going to land at the steps of it still in golden eagle form um
39:36
you look forward and you see an empty temple empty temple all right uh
39:42
[Music] i'm going to wander in still in golden eagle form focused on my talons just
39:52
and just going through is the doors open the door is open the door's open as you enter um you see all of the chairs set
39:59
up um all facing forward um you can see the interior which is mostly painted white
40:06
although in areas some of that paint is beginning to chip and and rot away um
40:12
and with each step that you take your claws make contact with the stone and even that in
40:19
this empty building is enough to to just barely echo off of the walls
40:24
uh so caught up and obsessed with speed and efficiency i'm going to attempt to call
40:31
out to hayfreed but all all that's hurt
40:37
[Music] anybody does anyone emerge you do not hear anyone
40:43
ah my thoughts right uh
40:48
as i my eyes roll back and
40:53
i tap into the core of my atoms as i
41:00
thrust them forward [Music] magically
41:05
i my feathers start to warp and reality warps around those feathers as
41:13
you see in the transformation that's starting to happen uh it's almost prisms and shards of
41:19
light that expand and expand and expand as the first thing that's seen is the
41:25
top of my crystal staff as that warps down and materializes you
41:30
see my hand holding it and slowly but surely uh i assume my former uh shraya self
41:38
hey freed uh i call out into the distance of the temple
41:44
you hear your voice echo off of the walls but you do not hear anything
41:49
ah [Applause] i'll find my way to you one way or
41:54
another uh and do i do i remember how to get to his house from the temple uh yeah it's just
42:00
a couple of buildings over okay uh so i exit the temple
42:06
uh i walk down the steps as i make my way toward the house okay um and soon
42:12
enough you make it to the house you try the front door it opens up
42:18
and the first thing that you see sort of off to your right is a large black
42:25
rectangle the size of a door yeah
42:30
i always hate this boot uh i'm guessing this is the entrance of the goopy void this is yes okay
42:36
uh i'm going to slowly sidle my way up to it and then
42:42
uh i'm gonna plunge one hand into it and just uh sensation
42:49
and then i'm just gonna just dive into it all right um and as
42:54
you do uh you can see at this central platform
43:00
that uh that you have come to know um you can see two figures
43:06
first you see the dwarven visage of hayfreed and next
43:12
to him you can see timmy as as hayfried has his hands up in the air you can see him in a very similar
43:19
pattern to what you had seen previously moving and shifting platforms around
43:25
you can see timmy standing right next to him he has a book open and it seems that
43:30
he's frantically taking notes sort of jotting down everything that heyfree's doing and
43:35
as hayfried continues to to move his hands around you expand your view out to the platforms that he's actually moving
43:42
and you can see now that before it was sort of a jumbled mess platforms here platforms there um
43:50
no real order to it you see hey freed sort of organizing them a little bit more
43:56
you can see that there are several platforms with cages some of them now occupied with the foes
44:02
that you had just vanquished and sent here and you can see him with one fluid motion push
44:08
these platforms out into a much more distant
44:13
outer circle still floating around the central platform it seems that he's pushing these these prison cages away from the
44:20
central platform as he takes the rest of them and forms them into a tighter concentric circle
44:27
do i recognize some of the foes that we've sent here within those prison cages yes you do um looking out you can
44:33
see uh a red dragon you can see a half orc
44:39
with a massive hole in its torso and you can see a red tiefling
44:47
i grunt and uh sort of triumphant recognition remember remember
44:54
remembrance uh as i walk forward uh and i say
44:59
hey freed [Music] that the culmination of of your powers
45:06
you know how easy it was for me to just get in here [Music] i should probably start closing the
45:12
front door take note timmy as i look at him jimmy
45:18
kind of shrugs and like puts his head down and then takes a note of that you of all people
45:24
should remember and be aware of how easy it is to be caught unawares
45:30
well i mean i'd pity anyone who decides to come in here unannounced um
45:37
but i mean i gotta keep it open i didn't know when you all were getting back fair enough and uh
45:43
well i is everyone else outside no they've sent me on my own
45:50
i have taken up the charge of oh the small one
45:56
their rumblings of of mischief and treachery amongst the family that he calls home
46:04
i do not know much about it myself yet i do love the short one very much
46:11
and am dedicated to doing anything that will preserve his well-being and the well-being
46:16
of his friends so i may need to commandeer one of your
46:22
teleportation circles in order to be able to complete this mission for
46:27
him and for the good of his kind
46:33
i mean they're always available to you um back in here let me uh and he uh he
46:40
stops waving his hands around and organizing the platforms and uh instead settles his hand on one plucks it from
46:47
the void brings it down and attaches it to the central platform uh you can see that it is the teleportation circle
46:53
platform ah just tell me uh where is it that you need to go [Music]
47:00
ah i believe it would be the closest uh the closest circle
47:05
to a town called keid uh i'm gonna have to refresh my memory um give me one
47:11
second and uh he pulls down another platform uh this one with a a map
47:17
in it's it's in its center one that he had showed you uh the the entire group previously
47:22
uh with several identifying locations of where teleportation circles are um he
47:28
points out keyed on the map which is in uh sort of the the northeastern
47:34
stretch of ondale he points out two teleportation circles he points out
47:42
that there is one in the capital of ondale stillgate and he points out that there is one uh on the eastern coast of
47:49
ondale in a town called saddle mount um both about equidistant from keith
48:00
do you have knowledge of the northern lands do you have any sense that i want you it
48:06
is very important that i get to keep as quickly as possible i've uh i've been up there a few times
48:13
um i mean depends on how you want to get there uh obviously there's the esther grove right
48:19
there which would if you're taking saddle mount that would sort of uh be a bit of a
48:25
hinder but i mean you got wings i guess that's not really that bad but uh still gay you would
48:30
probably have a better chance of like chartering something uh getting a transport there so it just
48:37
depends on how you want to get there i'd prefer to involve as few others as
48:42
possible in this particular endeavor and you're gonna wanna you're gonna want settlement you are not going to want to
48:48
go to stillgate if you want to avoid people yes it seems to be uh
48:54
a place where a lot of decisions are made regarding the the countries in the north right
49:01
yeah that's uh that's what a capital is ah right right yes of course
49:06
cap capital uh saddle mount what do you know of the people there
49:11
i haven't really i mean i think i've been there once uh this sort of a small fishing town
49:20
last i was there not too noisy if you're looking for
49:25
quiet that's probably a good place to go um [Music] i'd say no fishing down yet
49:32
i'd even be able to be able to procure a little bit more nourishment without having to
49:37
find it myself if that's the case uh i'll also say last time i was there was who
49:44
50 years ago 45 years ago what yeah okay the war could have changed a lot
49:53
up to being avoiding the war fronts if possible as well but if there are less opportunities for
50:02
getting snags on my journey and i think saddle mount will probably be the way to go
50:08
jimmy i look over to timmy yep have you learned anything from this
50:13
hey freed since you've taken up residence here i'm i'm really trying my best um
50:20
and he sort of leans over to you he just he just everything is like so fast and it's it's tough to grasp uh but i'm i'm really
50:28
trying my best but um yeah i've been learning a lot um
50:34
i've i've been learning how to clean things really well uh
50:40
out of you and i look around does it look cleaner it looks considerably cleaner
50:46
yes indeed well good good work young one
50:53
uh and as i i'm gonna tap my i'm gonna tap my uh i'm gonna tap my hand on his shoulder
51:00
and uh a blue a blue gray light emerges out of my hand
51:07
um and uh he glows for a second as i cast
51:13
resistance on him keep up the good work thank you i appreciate that
51:19
and um as hayfreed just
51:24
finalizes sort of creating this this inner circle of platforms and then the outer circle
51:30
of of prison platforms um he drops his hands he looks to you and you can see
51:37
these dark circles underneath his eyes and you can see just like a physical and mental
51:44
exhaustion it looks like he's been awake for days as he walks over to timmy sort of pats
51:51
him on the back all right i'm gonna i'm gonna
51:56
go get some rest um you guys got it from here timmy uh
52:02
timmy'll help you out with anything else that you need thank you avery get some rest friend
52:08
hey freed nods to you um he walks along that long bridge towards the entrance to
52:14
the void and he disappears through the darkness emerging into his house
52:21
timmy one word before i go as many words as you'd like
52:28
uh and i sort of raised my wing up just in case hayfried's looking at how closely i'm
52:33
talking to him hayfried is left oh he's left okay he's gone all right uh
52:39
[Music] i don't know if you noticed but flynn had a habit of uh
52:46
good habit i might add trying to learn and pick up as much as he could from the wisdom of this place and the
52:52
wisdom of hatred i know you may not want to go on
52:59
mindlessly cleaning forever there may come a point in time where you may need to help hayfried
53:07
do things that hayfried may have been able to do himself at one point or another
53:13
i would advise even if it feels like you might be breaking the rules a little bit
53:19
seeing the things you might be able to pick up here and there even if that's a book
53:24
ah a way of watching hayfreed demonstrate his talents
53:31
or even asking directly if you could perhaps learn more than you thought you might be
53:37
able to do and be capable of doing just keep your eyes open young one
53:44
i mean i well i mean i have been sort of studying close and i have been
53:49
picking up a few things um i can i mean okay do you want to see oh
53:57
sure yes absolutely all right just just give me give me one second um
54:02
and uh timmy runs over to the corner where there's sort of a table set up there and two chairs
54:09
and you can see that there are several flasks um several like containers
54:16
uh and a couple of boxes of what looks like different ingredients and he starts rifling through them
54:22
you can see timmy pick out looks like a pinch of salt puts it down
54:29
on the table you can see him take what looks like a tea leaf put it down on the table
54:35
and you can see he picks up the pinch of salt sort of puts it on the tea leaf folds the tea leaf over puts it between
54:41
his hands rubs it together opens his hands just a little bit towards his face and whispers a word into it
54:49
and all of a sudden next to him shimmering in this light orange energy
54:55
an ethereal hand pops into existence ah
55:02
that's a that's a magic oh that's quite impressive whoa whoa
55:08
uh and i i sort of mirror the hand uh and
55:14
look at it and what can you do with this thing [Music]
55:19
um pretty much anything that hand can do i can i can send it to different places
55:24
now this is really helpful because now when hayfried asks me to grab a book
55:29
i don't have to run all the way over to the bookshelves and i don't have to get the latter and i don't have to go up i
55:35
can just sort of send this thing over and it grabs the books for me [Music]
55:41
uh i bring both my hands around the hand
55:46
itself and try to feel the energy of it uh what what does it feel like it's stemming from
55:52
make an arcana check for me all righty
56:00
five five you don't really know as you move your hands closer towards it um you can feel
56:05
sort of like a warm almost pulse coming from it
56:10
uh but you can't really determine where it's coming from timmy
56:17
it brings me great pleasure to say this there are now things you know about the world
56:23
and about magic that i could never possibly wrap my head around keep it up on all counts boy oh thank
56:30
you i plan to keep learning um you need to go to saddle mount yes yes
56:37
of course uh no time to lose uh is the portal ready
56:42
um yeah just just give me one moment um and timmy runs over to that same table where he grabbed components from before
56:49
um and he grabs a small piece of chalk he runs over to the the teleportation
56:55
circle and you can see that this teleportation circle is concentric circles all within each other
57:03
and there are a bunch of runes all around it and uh timmy goes over and he starts
57:10
writing in chalk over some of the runes and he looks back at you and he says hayfried can sort of
57:16
just do this i need i need the i need to write it out still i'm not quite that good so just give me one
57:21
moment and uh timmy walks over and he and he writes over some of the runes in this chalk
57:27
he steps back and all of a sudden it
57:32
glows with a bright green energy as the teleportation circle to saddle mount is activated
57:38
as i look into it does it just is it is are there any is there's a question about all that
57:44
i've never asked about teleportation circles uh does it just seem like green sparkling energy or as i peer into it is
57:51
there any semblance of what's on the other side you get no semblance no on the other side okay no so it's it's this
57:57
pulsing mass i take one uh last look at timmy uh
58:03
i say [Music] until we meet again there timothy timmy
58:09
timothy uh either one timmy and then i plunge myself into the into
58:15
the teleportation circle all right you feel for a moment as if
58:24
the floor is swept out from under you and you feel that jolt in your heart and in
58:30
your chest that you get when you fall from a great height but all of a sudden the floor operates
58:37
around you and you can see not the void but
58:42
another small room
58:48
uh how large is the room the room is about five feet by five feet okay very very
58:54
small room um and you can see stone walls on all sides except for right in front of you
59:00
where there is a wooden door is it empty or it is completely empty and
59:05
fairly dark you can barely see in here oh uh
59:13
get my bearings take a couple steps out do i still have any like
59:19
void or portal effluence on myself um you very quickly shake it off it seems
59:26
that the the active teleporting sort of overrides any of that any of that
59:32
okay great uh just ruffle my feathers a little bit uh matt down the ones by my head a
59:39
little bit with my neck as i reach my hand out toward the door
59:45
and open it ever so slightly and peer out and as soon as you do you can hear
59:53
muffled sounds of dozens of people i immediately slam the door back shut
1:00:00
realizing that that probably made a noise as i put my ear to the door to see what
1:00:05
i can hear as as you hear outside i'm gonna have you make a
1:00:10
perception check brilliant
1:00:17
uh 21. 21. um as you put your ear up to the door you hear
1:00:23
beyond the door and as even as you opened it the voices and everything was still muffled
1:00:29
so there might it wouldn't be unreasonable to assume that there's another door beyond that door um just
1:00:35
in a very similar way that there was sort of a hut
1:00:40
leading into stairs leading into a room that had the teleportation circle um with an oak inspire
1:00:46
that seems to be the same layout here um but you do hear dozens and dozens of uh
1:00:53
different voices you hear footsteps moving back and forth it it sounds
1:01:00
like the sounds of uh quite a busy city although every once in a while
1:01:05
you can just hear the squawk of a seagull hmm
1:01:11
near the sea i uh go back up to the door
1:01:17
uh twist the handle uh and briefly peer out do i see anyone
1:01:22
in the next room you do not it is okay it looks to be a very similar sort of empty shack type building all right uh i
1:01:31
make my way out through this door close it behind me and then make sure it was exactly the same way it was when i uh
1:01:38
approached it uh and i'm going to i'm in a i'm still in another like a larger building outside
1:01:45
of that building or um yes it's it's sort of like a small shed
1:01:50
um pretty empty but as you move up um you can see that there are
1:01:56
three levers in this room and as you move up into this this shed
1:02:02
area the wall behind you that you are now in this shed area from the wall behind you and
1:02:08
the stairs completely close off this in this shed [Music]
1:02:14
being at the point where that uh reveals itself um
1:02:22
i see another door at the end of yes you see you see a door leading outside um you can see that there that
1:02:28
the the door is pretty solid and doing a pretty good job of
1:02:34
muffling any voices outside is it it's closed as well it is closed
1:02:39
yes okay the levers on the wall what do they look like
1:02:45
um you can see that they are all in the downward position and as soon as the
1:02:51
entrance to the the lower level closes behind you all of them and make their way back into the up
1:02:58
position oh so all three of them were faced down more face down yes okay
1:03:04
uh
1:03:10
i'm gonna attempt to how high is the ceiling in this place no higher than
1:03:16
eight feet eight feet yeah it's not not very tall okay uh
1:03:22
i'm going to attempt to walk through toward the door okay
1:03:28
are you opening the door yes all right um as you do you immediately get the smell of sea air that that salt and that
1:03:37
brine that is in the air fills your nostrils and you hear the sounds of
1:03:45
outside of of creaking wood of people walking on stone back and forth of of
1:03:51
different creatures of of different species talking back and forth um you
1:03:56
can hear uh uh the the stretching and pulling of rope and you can hear gentle
1:04:04
lapping waves coming up onto a rocky surface
1:04:11
so it's a it looks like a i can see out so i'm out i'm outdoors i can see toward
1:04:16
the the the ocean at this point yes so as as you actually look around going
1:04:21
from this very dark room into all of a sudden having bright sun right in your eyes it takes
1:04:27
you a second to adjust but as you look around um you can see that you are in pretty much in the middle of
1:04:34
what looks like a port though you look around and
1:04:40
this isn't seemingly a commercial port there are
1:04:47
not different ships there are not different crews
1:04:52
everything seems to be very unified and as you look even further
1:04:57
you can see that everyone here are soldiers naval soldiers
1:05:04
all wearing very similar dress all with weapons on them weapons of war
1:05:11
and as you look out towards the docks that you can just see to your right you don't see the different sizes and
1:05:17
different types of ships that you would normally see at a commercial port you see a more standardized system
1:05:24
of warships lining the coast here you can see different boxes being loaded and
1:05:30
unloaded onto these ships you can see massive heavy cannons of of intricate and some of them
1:05:37
slightly arcane built you can see all of these ships in this
1:05:42
yard very intricately and and detailed
1:05:48
in their craftsmanship i look up toward the the banners and the colors uh at the top of
1:05:55
uh one of the ships uh toward what might be a symbol or
1:06:00
insignia uh across uh these these displays of of
1:06:05
of how a ship might identify itself do i see anything and immediately you see on the flag the orange and gold colors
1:06:14
of ondale specifically of ondel's military a flag
1:06:19
that you had seen on the day that you met kellik [Music]
1:06:29
the civilizations of the world and all their pride on full display
1:06:35
that i grunt to myself uh and i walk out toward
1:06:42
is is there a way that i can steer myself away from the docks and
1:06:49
what like what the marina might be and and inland toward uh
1:06:54
toward the just going further away from the bay for sure um although
1:07:01
you do notice as you close the doors to the shed um
1:07:07
it almost looks to [Music] fade in and out of existence for a
1:07:14
moment wait the doors themselves to the ship the entire ship oh the entire ship almost
1:07:21
it almost has this waving transparency to it and
1:07:27
as you are looking around you look back and you don't see the shed there anymore
1:07:33
you you think to yourself for a moment no there was a shed here and as soon as you think to yourself
1:07:40
that there is the shed there and you know what it looks like all of a sudden it operates again
1:07:46
and it starts to make sense to you in that moment why in this busy port
1:07:52
no one else has discovered this teleportation circle it seems to you
1:07:59
that only the people who specifically know that it's there
1:08:04
can actually recognize its existence my eyes go wide and i stretch out my feathers and clutch
1:08:12
my staff with renewed vigor as i say to my breath ah hey fred your powers of concealment continue to
1:08:19
impress me [Music] and as you say that right in front of you on
1:08:24
massive wheels and this gargantuan cart a
1:08:29
golden what can only be described as as possibly a cannon
1:08:36
wheels past you you can see this cannon almost looks like it's made of solid
1:08:43
gold but you can see sort of on the back of it an intricate machine
1:08:48
with gears slowly turning in place you can see an intricate framework in the
1:08:54
design of this canon as it rolls along and it goes down the path
1:09:00
and you can see the people behind it pushing it and you can see them taking it out onto a dock and loading it onto a ship where
1:09:07
10 other of these intricate cannons are placed [Music]
1:09:15
i'm going to follow and they don't appear to really notice me or pay me any mind no one seems to no
1:09:22
one seems to okay uh
1:09:27
my uh might be good to not
1:09:33
leave this place knowing nothing of what it once was as i remember the conversation between
1:09:38
hayfried saying he hadn't been here in 40 or 50 years or so uh i'm gonna i'm going to see if i can make my way
1:09:45
toward the center of town if there's like a town square or something yeah so you make your way
1:09:50
through the crowd and it's it's sort of difficult to discern but with the
1:09:55
path of people you can sort of make your way towards the town center uh and and
1:10:02
as i as a the town center there's like a lot of space around me yeah it opens up into a
1:10:09
pretty large courtyard area okay uh i'm just gonna take a quick last glance
1:10:16
around uh you said it's non-commercial does the center of town seem heavily militarized
1:10:21
as well as you move further away from the docks uh it gets a little bit less militarized
1:10:28
though there is still a very heavy military presence it does seem that it is mostly
1:10:35
the docks and the port that have been taken by the military gotcha uh and
1:10:42
uh on the edge of this town square uh i look around see if anyone's looking my way
1:10:49
uh before i kick off into the air and fl and swoop
1:10:54
high into the air uh and before i do uh
1:10:59
just something about having seen the banner on that ship i look toward the center of the square are there any kinds
1:11:05
of uh like monuments or adornments in the center or is it just uh like a like
1:11:10
a crossroads and a green um yeah so as as you're uh
1:11:15
looking you look around and you can see at first glance what appears to be
1:11:20
um several statues although when you move closer and upon closer
1:11:26
inspection you can just barely see cracks where
1:11:32
the joints are you can just see barely little spaces in the stone and if you
1:11:37
look even closer underneath you can just faintly see gears within
1:11:43
the inside [Music]
1:11:50
i take note of this and sweep high high into the sky
1:11:57
uh and i remember hayfried saying something
1:12:02
about a wood grove an ester grove i suppose uh that he mentioned so i'm gonna
1:12:08
i'm gonna soar about 250 feet into the air and i'm going to make a make a gliding
1:12:15
circle uh around where i am and uh be on the lookout for wooded areas
1:12:23
uh away from the coast so as you take flight from saddle mount
1:12:28
you begin to fly up further and further and further into the air and as you fly towards the forest
1:12:36
the first thing that you notice off in the distance the first trees that you see
1:12:42
they are red this deep maroon and where you would
1:12:47
normally expect to see green within a forest as far as the eye can see
1:12:53
red leaves and red trees it shocks you at first but after a couple
1:13:00
minutes of looking at it it it is quite a beautiful sight to behold and as you
1:13:07
are flying uh across these treetops you almost get distracted within these these
1:13:13
deep reds and in some points they change to a slightly darker orange
1:13:19
but pretty consistently red throughout and as you are flying over the tops of
1:13:24
these trees i'm gonna have you make a survival check ah yes
1:13:31
natural 20. natural 20 nice the beauty of these trees however do not distract
1:13:36
you in the slightest from your mission as over the next couple of hours you are able to glide and coast over these these
1:13:44
beautiful groves of red trees and finally are able to see
1:13:50
the northern coast of ondale that leads into a river heading south
1:13:56
and just beyond this red forest you can see the town of keid
1:14:04
as you approach and get closer and closer you can see that keed is perfectly positioned itself between this
1:14:10
river that leads out towards the ocean and the red ester grove
1:14:16
you can see that the the trees and almost the forest itself inner weaves and and intermingles with the town of
1:14:23
keyd you can see that it's the color red pretty much blankets this
1:14:30
entire area not only are the trees that color but it seems that the town itself
1:14:35
has somewhat taken some design inspiration from its surroundings you can see most of the rooftops here
1:14:43
are a dark red or a dark orange and it creates this this beautiful tapestry um playing
1:14:51
off of the blue of the river that you see in front of you and the red itself
1:14:56
so now as you glide just above the town of keid what would you like to do
1:15:03
uh i'd like to if i can uh see if i can trace my way above
1:15:09
some of the scenic-looking trees like the veins of trees that you were describing earlier
1:15:16
uh toward what the like where it meets the banks of the
1:15:22
river that's possible a little bit a little bit caught up in in their natural splendor
1:15:29
definitely um and as you do you notice that
1:15:35
to the casual observer if if you were just flying over this town casually you might not even notice that it was there
1:15:41
walking down with the red rooftops playing in with the red trees um and at this point as the sun is just
1:15:49
going down over the horizon you catch this beautiful transition in the
1:15:55
water where the water no longer reflects the blue of the sky
1:16:01
but it's now reflecting the yellows and oranges of the sunset and
1:16:06
it almost appears as though a red pane of glass has been put in front of you like a red pane of of
1:16:15
transparent glass over the entire scene here
1:16:20
as you can see the oranges and the yellows dancing within the river [Music]
1:16:26
i'm going to because i i've had a full day of track i've reached my destination now
1:16:32
i'm going to touch down by the banks of the river itself uh and i'm gonna look around uh
1:16:40
up at the trees from below now uh in their splendor uh is there anybody
1:16:47
down by the river is does the town actually like on the other side of the river does the town continue or does the
1:16:53
river mark like an outs like does the river mark the edge of town um you can see that the the town itself uh is
1:17:02
mostly relegated to one side of the river although there are um there are quite a few buildings on
1:17:07
the other side of the river as well though majority of keed seems to be on the eastern side of the river looking
1:17:13
around can i get can i observe anyone who's like noticed me touching down
1:17:20
i'm gonna have you make a perception check for me uh 21 21 nice um as you are looking at
1:17:28
this town sort of on the banks from a little bit of a distance
1:17:34
you can see a singular boat going past you it seems to be a very
1:17:41
like like a long canoe and you can see a single occupant in the back
1:17:46
standing about three quarters of the way in the back with a long paddle
1:17:52
in their hands and as they slowly paddle one side
1:17:57
lift up the long paddle slowly tread the water on the other side
1:18:03
they look over to you and you can see a human man
1:18:08
[Music] a little bit on on the younger side maybe
1:18:14
20 years old and you can see just behind him a bucket
1:18:20
filled with fish and in the front of the canoe a large net that seems to be wrapped up
1:18:27
for the day he is the only one that you can see as he looks over to you
1:18:32
and continues rowing he sort of gives you a gentle nod as he continues rowing up the river back towards keep
1:18:41
uh i'm going to look off into the distance of the direction that he's rowing is he rowing
1:18:48
toward any kind of like a place to i suppose dock his his canoe for the night is there like more
1:18:53
activity toward where he's headed yes you can see quite a bit more activity where he's headed you can actually see
1:18:59
um uh a couple of docks that are there and in
1:19:04
sharp contrast what you had just seen in saddle mount these are not huge warships
1:19:11
this is not a a place where immense trade is done
1:19:18
you can see that over the course of 15 20 maybe 30 docks here there are no
1:19:27
boats larger than this large canoe that you see this this young man paddling
1:19:35
all right i'm gonna i'm gonna make my way over there uh i'm going to hold an action though i'm going to hold
1:19:41
uh wild shape as i approach the more populated area okay
1:19:47
um and as you walk up you start to see a small path forming underneath your
1:19:53
feet um it was just dirt and and sand as you were walking
1:19:59
along the banks here but eventually there is a slight path that begins to form that you can see whines along the
1:20:06
bank and leads you into town um there seems to be a small house off to
1:20:11
your left another one off to your left another one off your left and they begin
1:20:17
to become more and more uh densely packed as you come across the town and actually
1:20:23
walk into heed itself uh looking around
1:20:28
uh since it's dusk at this part the day is uh
1:20:33
does the town look like it's similarly to what i asked before is there a lot of activity uh are there
1:20:39
different types of beings around like what you know what were they from what do they look like uh
1:20:46
if there are you see a myriad of of all different types of
1:20:52
creatures uh most of them not most but there are there seem to be
1:20:59
more humans here than any other race although
1:21:04
if you're looking for a particular race you can pretty much find at least one of of any any particular kind that
1:21:12
you're looking for although humans seem to to be most prevalent here
1:21:19
uh what i'm going to do i'm going to
1:21:26
clutch my staff to my chest uh as reflecting mirrors kind of spurt out
1:21:34
from all directions uh and quietly collapsed
1:21:40
uh as my staff absorbs into my body uh and i'm going to wild shape into a
1:21:46
squirrel okay um and as you wild shape into a
1:21:52
squirrel your form reduces in size and you start to get these little puffs
1:21:58
of fur replacing your feathers and as you get down to the size of a squirrel
1:22:04
you look at your paws in front of you and where you would normally see
1:22:10
brown and and and sort of a tan color to to the squirrel
1:22:16
you can see that the fur is just very slightly red [Music]
1:22:21
so seeing this and seeing this form that this is taken in this environment
1:22:27
i'm going to find the nearest tree uh climb up and i'm going to start weaving my way
1:22:34
through the network of trees i'm going to start listening in on conversations people are
1:22:41
having i'm going to get a better sense of the town and it's architecture and structure and layout and
1:22:48
i'm just going to i'm just going to listen for
1:22:53
just the town gossip the happenings the goings-on but i'm going
1:22:58
to try to pay it particular attention to any time someone mentions kaelyn or
1:23:03
conflict or violence or uh things of that nature uh i know that
1:23:10
it's a very broad action it might take some time that's okay um okay i'm gonna have you make
1:23:17
an insight check for me okay great
1:23:25
[Music] yes seven not the worst
1:23:31
seven um you dart from tree to tree and you can start to listen into conversations the first couple that you
1:23:38
come across uh are are gossip yes but it seems to be very
1:23:43
personal gossip it does not seem to concern anything that you're that you're listening to um the first uh the first
1:23:50
group that you come across are um there there is uh two human men and one half
1:23:56
orc woman and they seem to be gossiping about how the
1:24:03
the baker that they normally go to has started to raise his prices and how
1:24:09
they aren't too happy about that although they're debating back and forth
1:24:14
whether that increase in price is worth the product itself um you come across a couple of other
1:24:20
conversations in a very a very similar vein it seems like this town
1:24:25
as a whole is sort of a quiet
1:24:31
place it's it doesn't seem that these people's problems are on a very large scale it
1:24:37
seems to be sort of very personal problems um but
1:24:42
you do look around and you don't hear anything
1:24:49
concerning kalyn you don't hear anything
1:24:55
concerning conflict but after about
1:25:01
an hour and a half of trying to listen to people [Music] you hear the word
1:25:07
iron light hmm uh the
1:25:14
who do i hear that from is it two people is it a small group is it like one person like making a note and something
1:25:21
like what is it uh how do i what's your concept from tree to tree you almost miss it
1:25:26
as you land on one tree you you jump from one tree and land on another and as
1:25:31
you land some of the the leaves rustle together and you're mainly listening to the leaves rustling
1:25:38
but just just off in a corner you hear the word iron light which catches your attention you look over and you can see
1:25:44
in between two buildings um which as you look around and come into
1:25:52
more of the center of keyed it doesn't seem like there are any two-story buildings all
1:25:57
these buildings seem to be one story very low to the ground very simply built um but in between two of these buildings
1:26:04
you can see two what appeared to be two human men talking [Music]
1:26:10
uh as i listen to their conversation obviously here one of them say aaron like
1:26:16
uh do i hear any i'm just going for proper names now
1:26:22
uh do they bring up any particular name or location or
1:26:28
uh type of or type of like spot more than once or or do they
1:26:34
refer to something over and over again what's the nature of their conversations you begin listening to this conversation more and more
1:26:39
you um you hear one man say to the other
1:26:46
i don't think so i think she was just i think she's just uh a
1:26:53
passerby i don't i don't we have no reason to think that she's part of the ironlight
1:26:59
the other man replies i don't think we should
1:27:06
take our chances either way she's has the potential to be dangerous
1:27:13
and i think we should let someone know about this
1:27:19
but she she did good for us i just i
1:27:25
i don't know i say let her pass through if she stays for more than a week i don't think we should i think we should
1:27:32
probably go and tell someone if she stays more than a week if not she'll just pass right through and and she'll be on her way
1:27:40
all right um i'll i'll give her i'll give her a week but then after that i'm gonna start
1:27:46
telling people as i hear this i'm gonna make my way down toward uh one side of the tree
1:27:52
and as quietly as i can uh
1:27:57
wild shaped back into my former form uh
1:28:02
as the as the feathers settle and the uh
1:28:08
the fullness of my form is solid once again i'm gonna slowly make my way uh using my staff
1:28:15
kind of uh as a walking stick and and and
1:28:21
uh how far how far how close were they to this tree by the way you were pretty much direct directly
1:28:28
above them yeah it was close enough to where you could they were speaking somewhat softly and
1:28:33
you could hear them very clearly uh this is my own lack of knowledge on iron
1:28:38
light lore but just from my own memories uh what was the what was the colors of the iron light
1:28:46
collective that i that i had seen just from going in in uh in addersfeld
1:28:51
um green and brown green and brown okay so earthly sort of uh to camouflage with
1:28:57
forests seems like so at before i would have walked out i would have stamped my uh
1:29:03
my staff against the ground and i think this falls under druidcraft
1:29:09
will uh humor me uh so from the from the and it's just a simple tap because this
1:29:14
is you're dealing with color and light uh you're you're gonna see the color of the crystal change and instead
1:29:21
shine a bluish like a burnt bluish light coming out of the center of the crystal
1:29:27
as i as i walk toward these these two and uh
1:29:33
say i know your business is your own but i couldn't help over here
1:29:39
somewhat of your conversation uh you'd mentioned you
1:29:44
suspect they iron light and they may have a presence here
1:29:53
yeah have you heard or seen anything well
1:29:59
i must admit i i'm not quite sure myself of the their
1:30:07
true nature whether they can be trusted or not like
1:30:12
and then i look around a little bit may not have seen my like before
1:30:19
i come from a place far far away from here but i was
1:30:25
uh sent myself to to see if these lands uh even possess
1:30:31
members of this disparate group what what do you even know of the iron light itself my knowledge is scanned at best
1:30:40
well um we know if you come across one
1:30:45
just be careful we we try and stay away they they are nothing but trouble
1:30:51
and cause nothing but chaos and death
1:30:57
well uh and i and i pressed my crystal close to their eyes
1:31:03
i was told that if you and i uh sort of scan from side to side uh
1:31:11
up by their heads i i was actually told that if uh if a member of the iron light looks upon
1:31:18
these hues they will have no choice but to out themselves as as members and and i uh
1:31:25
graze the light amongst their eyes i can tell that the two of you are clearly not
1:31:31
not members because nothing of your countenance changed at all when this light passed above your eyes
1:31:37
but perhaps if uh you bring me to this person that you
1:31:43
perhaps suspected and we uh talk to this person
1:31:48
maybe my trick will work on them can they can they tell that i'm clearly
1:31:53
bullshitting them make a deception okay yeah uh
1:32:02
uh yeah that's a that's a four they look you up and down
1:32:07
very clearly suspicious um well i don't know if that's a thing i
1:32:15
don't know if that's really a good test but
1:32:21
i could i could take you to where i last saw her i don't i
1:32:27
i don't even know she was part of the iron light um it looked like she was i haven't seen
1:32:33
one personally in a very long time um but i can take you to where i last saw
1:32:38
her that would be great it uh behooves me to make sure
1:32:44
that on some level i know their presence or non-presence
1:32:49
what are your names by the way um my name is dorsten and my friend here is greg
1:32:55
greg dawson are you natives of this place um yeah we've been here
1:33:00
all of our lives
1:33:06
so you know if you would know more than a passersby as you mentioned before
1:33:11
if anything would be out of ordinary out of the ordinary here we were able to spot it right away um
1:33:20
not too many newcomers here to keed though when they do come most of the
1:33:26
time we are welcome though not to iron might
1:33:33
yes please uh take me to this last point where you might have encountered this this person
1:33:40
that you suspected all right right this way and uh dorsten
1:33:47
leads you off down sort of towards the river and he leads you down to
1:33:53
a place that's that's a little bit sort of on the outskirts of town and you can see that there's this little
1:33:59
handmade dock there um it doesn't look super well crafted
1:34:05
though it seems functional um and he walks out onto the dock
1:34:13
sort of points his hands down right here this is a spelt
1:34:18
yeah um well i was i was coming back i took my boat out
1:34:24
earlier today and well when i came back i saw
1:34:29
what appeared to be a young half elven woman
1:34:35
who had her her sword out was a light with these green flames and
1:34:44
there was well it seemed to be something in the water that she was entangled with
1:34:51
did you something was she was wrestling with something it seemed that she was in some sort of
1:34:56
combat with with a uh uh uh creature that was coming out of the
1:35:02
water it seemed to be well it might sound crazy but made of the water itself
1:35:10
as i as i wrote closer to see if i could be of any assistance i don't know what assistance that would be but that was my
1:35:17
instinct i got closer and it seemed that she came out victorious
1:35:24
and she walked off of the dock back into the forest
1:35:31
you've been here all your lives is there something about the waters here
1:35:37
that is innately alive lay our consciousness within the water
1:35:44
not that i'm aware of i've i've been here my entire life and i've never seen anything
1:35:49
like that creature but it did seem to be a creature
1:35:55
it it seemed so
1:36:02
she just went sort of and he points off into off into the forest just sort of went
1:36:09
off there and this forest is pointing towards that on the opposite bank of the river or
1:36:14
is that oh that is on the the side of the river that you are on oh okay all right
1:36:20
um okay you two have been a great help
1:36:27
if there are any more rumblings of the iron light in in keyed
1:36:32
we will root them out and uh i'm going to give them like slaps on the shoulder
1:36:40
uh also if you could keep this between us it is very important
1:36:46
you didn't see me today as i uh walk toward the forest that that they
1:36:53
had directed me toward all right um they seem they seem a little confused just at this
1:37:00
strange interaction um but they seem to to walk back towards where you first saw
1:37:05
them and as you walk in closer towards the forest
1:37:11
the trees begin to get more and more dense there's more of them around you and you notice that
1:37:18
the bark of the trees itself is also this this maroon color uh which which
1:37:26
sort of plays beautifully that this that the wood is a darker maroon and the
1:37:31
leaves themselves are almost a brighter red but as you're walking through i'm gonna
1:37:38
have you make a perception check for me
1:37:44
[Music] 23 23 yeah just keep i keep getting really great roles you're going to get
1:37:50
on perception today as you're looking through the forest and you just sort of start glancing back and
1:37:56
forth trying to inspect where this person that you heard of went
1:38:04
you feel like you know forests pretty well
1:38:09
and you know what a say bird landing on a branch sounds like
1:38:15
you know what a squirrel skittering across a tree looks like you know how many leaves would be affected by that
1:38:23
off to your right you hear something up in the tree much bigger than any bird or squirrel
1:38:33
you hear leaves being rustled just ever so faintly
1:38:41
but a creature definitely larger than would normally be in a tree
1:38:48
is it just trees around are there based on the landscape of this forest
1:38:53
are there are there like like boulders are there are there any
1:38:58
things that jut out amongst the trees or is this all as organic matter as you look around
1:39:05
you see trees on either side of you and the faintest remnants of a stone
1:39:10
pathway beneath your feet though now at this point long covered by red leaves
1:39:15
dirt overgrowth grass peeking up in between each of the stones
1:39:21
and you can see larger stones probably
1:39:27
about the size of about the size of your head not too big
1:39:32
stones sort of marking the edges of this path moving forward and every 15 feet or
1:39:38
so you can see square stones about a foot by a foot by a foot
1:39:45
four of them stacked on top of each other marking distance and and just trailing
1:39:51
off into the forest that's the only non-natural thing that you see around you
1:39:58
uh and which direction i heard that i heard a rustling of a of a creature
1:40:03
right into your right up into the right maybe maybe two or three trees away from you
1:40:08
i'm wondering and it's your call on this uh i'm wondering i want to be able to camouflage myself
1:40:16
by casting melden to stone on the stone path itself is there enough massive stone there for
1:40:23
me to be able to do that what are the requirements of the spell uh as long as it is a surface of stone large enough to fully
1:40:31
contain my body i can meld into it i'm gonna say yes all right
1:40:38
brilliant you begin casting the spell and it takes you a second just because
1:40:45
there is so much growth itself on the path itself right
1:40:51
it takes you a second to find grasp on that stone but you are able to
1:40:56
cast your spell so uh the synapses and electricity in my mind
1:41:04
just becomes completely still as the light that was once in my crystal uh just goes out and withers and hardens
1:41:13
and from the center of the crystal you see it uh pop and it starts to contain the colors of the
1:41:19
stones on the path uh as every molecule of my being just goes
1:41:24
still and almost gets frozen in time
1:41:30
as the stillness of myself laying along the path uh
1:41:36
sp it almost speeds up in a sort of uh decay as as if time were taking its course and
1:41:44
building a mound uh and slowly but surely uh i
1:41:51
take on the character and the uh attributes of the stone path itself as
1:41:56
my physical being becomes indistinguishable from the path itself
1:42:02
and you sit there in your stone form for a second
1:42:09
it's very quiet all around you
1:42:14
you can hear the natural sounds of of a slight breeze rustling the trees
1:42:22
when all of a sudden a humanoid figure jumps from one of the trees lands on the path you can see a
1:42:27
dark black cloak with a hood up figure standing about six feet tall you can't see their
1:42:35
face [Music] they reach to their side slowly unshe the sword
1:42:44
and with two taps the sword lights up with green flames and that's where we're gonna end this
1:42:49
session i got you now
1:42:54
we're going to call it right there thank you all so much for listening and we can't wait to see y'all again next week bye nerds bye nerds hey nerds it's
1:43:02
rebecca here thanks so much for listening if you like what you're hearing please go ahead and like share
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subscribe on any platform if you're listening to this on your phone go to the app that you're listening to
1:43:14
this on and drop us something anything it really truly helps the more people
1:43:19
who like us share us subscribe to us the more people see us so there actually is like a direct one-to-one connection so
1:43:27
um if you like what you're hearing and you want your friends to also like what they're hearing share it with them
1:43:33
okay bye nerds [Music] [Applause]
Venture Forth is a Dungeons and Dragons podcast. We play 5th edition (5e) Dungeons and Dragons in a home-brew D&D setting. Our campaign takes place in the high fantasy realm of Elbor. A world filled with monsters, heroes and epic tales to be told. We've had the honor of partnering with DnD Beyond so if you'd like to support the podcast, be sure to head over to dndbeyond.link/venture !
Venture Forth is a Dungeons and Dragons podcast. We play 5th edition (5e) Dungeons and Dragons in a home-brew D&D actual play setting. Our campaign takes place in the high fantasy realm of Elbor. A world of monsters, heroes and epic tales to be told. D&D is a TTRPG, a tabletop roleplaying game, also known as an RPG. Our gameplay is perfect for beginners to Dungeons and Dragons from episode 1.Olma, Flynn, March, Ceallach, Shraya
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