Recap: Episodes 21–40

This transcript is machine-generated and may contain errors in names, terminology, or attribution.

Welcome in, everybody. I'm Jasper. I currently play Ruby Pedigrew on Dungeons and Randomness. If you've been listening to our show for a while, you've probably heard me play a handful of different characters across a lot of years, often in a lot of very bad situations. Now, today's episode is a little different. It's a pause, a breath, a chance to step back and get our bearings. What you're about to hear is a recap of episodes 20,000. of Frostborn. We did the same thing right after episode 20 if you scroll back in the feed. It's a great place to start since we'll be diving right in today.

If you're brand new or you fell a few episodes behind and the backlog started looking less like entertainment and more like a personal challenge, this is for you. Think of it as the shape of the story so far, not every single detail, the important turns, the emotional weather, the things that mattered and the things that are about to. And if you've been with us the whole time, if you know exactly how we got here, this is still for you. Because these episodes don't just add information. They change direction. Okay, with that, let me back up. This is Dungeons and Randomness.

We've been telling stories together in the world of Theria for 15 years. Long-running campaigns, we call the marks, shared history, consequences that stick around longer than anyone expects them to. A world that remembers what you do to it. Theria is big. It's dangerous. It doesn't bend just because the story would be cleaner if it did. People make choices here and those choices echo. Sometimes immediately. Sometimes much later when you'd really rather they didn't. And that brings us to Frostborn. Frostborn is our sixth major arc and it's meant to be a place you can step into without homework.

You don't need the old campaigns to understand what's happening now. But if you've been with us for a long time, you'll feel the weight of that past in the background. And it's meant to be a place you can step into without homework. You don't need the old campaigns to understand what's happening now. But if you've been with us for a long time, you'll feel the weight of that past in the background. names that matter, ideas that refuse to stay buried, old scars showing up in new places. Okay, so the early part of Frostborn is about arrival, about strangers coming together under pressure and about learning the rules of a place that doesn't explain itself.

By the time we reach these later episodes, though, that phase is over. We are nowhere close to done, but damn if we aren't battle-weary already. Episodes 21 through 40 are where the campaign really gets its legs. starts asking harder questions. About loyalty, about survival, about what each of these characters we play is actually willing to carry. Plans begin to form, lines get crossed, certain doors close very firmly and others open in ways that are concerning. So, summing up, this recap isn't here to replace the show. It's here to orient you, to remind you what's in motion, what's unresolved, and what's already slipping out of reach.

Okay, a little bit of a prologue. Let's talk about how things stopped being simple. The Frostborn story still in progress, mind you, takes place on the continent of Alara, which has been locked in an endless winter for over a century. Not just a bad season or a curse people are waiting out. This is from what anyone can tell, a permanent condition. It was unleashed when a black dragon named Aruthamar, lost everything she was trying to build and decided the world could just freeze with her. Cities survived by adapting in ways that made sense at the time and feel questionable now.

Winter Haven, for example, sealed itself under a magical dome. Aubrey repped piety around violence and called it order, and on and on and on. The rest of Theria learned to live cold, desperate, and alert. So that's the board we're playing on. so to speak, and our party didn't stumble into it or even into each other. Instead, they were assembled. First, Lagrin Kragborn, a disgraced Dwarven Marshal whose clan, the Kragborns, were scapegoated and cast out after a political coup in the heavily fortified stone-sunder mountain. He didn't leave as a young dwarf to wander.

He left to fix it, slowly, methodically, with a plan that takes decades instead of standard hack and slash heroics. Second, Nithera Rihileth. A 150-something-year-old elf rogue, really an assassin, but let's be real. She's nothing if not precision and restraint. Someone who knows exactly how much damage she can do and chooses carefully when to use it. She's the reason bad situations don't spiral faster for the group than they already do. Third, Chimera, the charismatic Teflin Warlock. He draws power from a demonic Teflin Warlock. thine named Colgoth, a presence that never really leaves the room.

Their relationship is not just spooky flavor. It's more of spooky-toxic relationship that Chimera swears up and down is totally fine. It is not. Colgoth has Chimera's best interests at heart and often goes out of his way to fix situations because of it. But he expects things in return. And everyone in the group knows deep down that this arrangement has an eventual cost. And then there's Ruby, my character. She's a half-work with bright red hair and a bowler hat and gadgets everywhere. She is curiosity and chaos with a wrench in one hand and a bad idea in the other.

If something is dangerous, mysterious, or clearly labeled, do not touch, she's not just interested. It's too late. She's already touching it. Sometimes that makes things worse. Sometimes it's the only reason anyone survives. So that's us. Early on in our story, the group left away. Winter Haven's dome and claimed a ruined fort in the wilderness. Fort Frostborn isn't impressive, but it matters. People move in. Families depend on it. And of course, that means we had to get out there before things got comfortable. And threaded through all of this and the rest of our story is what we'll just call Logrin's plan.

Logrin has been collecting specific components, rare metals, monster parts, impossible materials, not for wealth and not for power. It's all part. of the end game of his master plan. Build an artifact designed to enter dreams. Why? Well, specifically, the dreams of someone called Neymara Stone Sunder. She's the rightful dwarven ruler, trapped in a magical coma while a questionable usurper sits on the throne. The story goes, if Lagrin can reach her, wake her, and convince her to abdicate, the political lie that destroyed his clan collapses. No war, no siege, no blood.

No blood. just the truth delivered at the only place it can't be intercepted. So that's the goal. That's what all these errands travel and risk are bent toward. Along the way, the party makes a consistent, dangerous choice. They don't take the easy exit. They spare people. They intervene. They take responsibility. That's how they end up escorting four teenagers from the northern city of Aubrey, Chet, Vetti, Ora, and Baz, out into the frozen wilds instead of leaving them to be erased by the city. It's also how one of those kids nearly dies, how they're forced to choose between cutting losses and doubling down, and how the party learns what it actually means to let others follow in your footsteps.

Along the way, we also find things we shouldn't. A slaughtered caravan, a sealed box, a warning that is very clear and very ignored. Inside it, something ancient, vampiric enough that even Colgoth is afraid. The group doesn't destroy. They bury it, collapse a mountain on top of it and walk away knowing full well that this is a delay, not a solution. We're very good at the somebody else's problem thing. By the end of episode 20, the party has reached Esther Holt, a functioning city warmer than most and deeply important going forward. It's a place where vampires have a legal district, where information moves faster than caravans, and where Logrin finally lays his plan fully on the table for a few other folks, including you are loyal listeners.

The kids are left there for safety. Supplies are secured. Guides are hired. The next step of the plan acquiring some valuable and incredibly hard to find Adamantine in the mountains awaits. So that is where we begin. So we have a world that is not particularly forgiving, a plan that can't fail quietly, an artifact that isn't finished yet and a group of people who keep choosing a harder path even when they know better. So if you're jumping in here, I think you're ready. Let's talk about what happens next. So in Esther Holt, we packed up our supplies, we made plans with the squirly quickbolt brothers, Jesse and Austin, to meet us in the mountains for an introduction to the Durgaar.

The DoorGar keep to themselves, they're reclusive, focused on their work, whatever that is, with a reputation for being kind of particular. That's fine. But we need a some of their adamantine for our bigger plans. Asking the pretty much closed-up Dourgar was the most straightforward way to make that happen. So we finally left Asterholt. First, the kids. That was handled. Beds, food, loose supervision, and just enough advice to hopefully keep them from immediately reinventing crime as a lifestyle choice. Ruby showed off her new loyalty tattoo from the potion shop, which Lageren processed the way a dwarf processes any unexpected information.

Did you join a gang? Worse, Ruby said. 20% off, though. And honestly, that tracked. Then we headed for the gates. And on the way out, Esther Holt reminded us why leaving felt like the right call. The guards just felt tense. It kind of dawned on us that the paladins in the city were split into two very uncomfortable-looking groups who definitely had opinions about each other and were definitely not discussing them calmly. Nobody was fighting. Nobody was moving. either. But the city had that about to boil over feeling, and we noticed it. Once we were out past the walls, things got simpler, but in a more treacherous way, you know, the way mountains do.

We were plotting our way through the foothills, looking for a place to camp, when chimera slipped. Not dramatically, nothing crazy, he just slipped, but he didn't hit the ground. One second, he was there, the next second, from everybody else's point of view, he was gone. No slide, no body, no sound. Just absence. No chimera. Nithera felt it immediately. A shimmer. Kind of like that heat haze on a tarmac or on a road. Except it was winter and there was absolutely no reason for that to exist. She named it quickly from what the elves call it. The Faye Wild.

Now, you should know, in official Therian lore, this is the first time in the show we've seen the Faye. So, you know, pretty cool. Okay, on the other side of that tear, chimera in the fay wild landed in a meadow that looked like someone had cranked the color saturation until it broke. Purple grass, the air was way too warm, trees that felt like they were watching them, and chimera, being chimera decided to poke around, start picking things up. Fruit, mushrooms, grass, you know, completely normal behavior. That's when Colgoth showed up. cold, shadowy hands creeping over chimera's shoulders, nails digging in enough to remind him who's in charge.

The message was simple, however. Kimer was behind on some debts. 48 hours, Golgoth filled him. One sentient life. Death or servitude. Camara had no choice. He agreed. There wasn't really another option. Then the Fay Wilde itself woke up a little. Something big moved above him. Tentacles, branches tearing, the sound of glass breaking, and chimera immediately decided it was time to leave. His solution was to blast the ground and try to launch himself back through the tear, which almost worked. On our side, we got a brief unforgettable glimpse of chimera flickering into existence, but mostly a glimmer of his oh-so-perfect ass, before he snapped back out again.

Huh, glimmer of ass should have been the name of this episode. Anyway, Colgoth pulled him the rest of the way through a moment later, with just a touch of some brief shadowy wings all the way back to us. Camara hit the snow hard, alive, breathing, and very much not okay. Nithera checked him immediately. Ruby hovered, Lagerin looked relieved. We marked that tear, maps, notes, landmarks, whatever we could do, because none of us wanted to accidentally find it again, or, in fact, find it again if we really needed to. And then the Faye Wild made one last attempt.

A tentacle snapped through and grabbed Kimera. Nithera cut it clean. Yellow goose spilled out onto the snow. And the snow answered. Dead climbers from ages past pulled themselves up fast and angry, like the mountain itself had decided to get involved. The fight was quick and ugly. Lagren took a hit that hurt, Ruby shot on instinct, Chimera threw fire like he was still half somewhere else. Nithera killed a couple of them, and then didn't let them stay dead thanks to some fun from a magic dagger she has. So imagine this. Purple flame, dead-eye, obedient, necromanic.

We finished the fight standing in the snow with a couple of borrowed corpses on a short leash and a lot of questions we did not have time for. Because that's when we saw a torch and two tall horned figures walking towards us through the dark. This was how the mountains said hello. Okay, so out of that dark came two silhouettes. Big ones. Horns. Snow kicking up around their legs like they owned the place. Nithera was the only one who clocked it clearly at first. Chalk it up to Elvanize, I guess. She squinted, paused, and calmly informed the rest of us that there were just two minotors approaching with weapons drawn.

Chimera meanwhile was distracted by a severed fewhile tentacle. This is important. Before anyone could argue about strategy, however, Logrin did what Lagrin always does when facing a potentially violent situation. He walked forward. He walked forward. and tried to hire it. Shockingly, this worked. The minotors didn't charge. They didn't fire the cannon one of them was carrying, yes, carrying, like under his arm. They stopped, looked at Lagrin, and decided, maybe this weirdo dwarf had some confidence worth listening to. All right, so we learned their names, Dozer and Brax.

Diplomats, technically, sent ahead by the Minotors of Ebony Harbor. That's on the northwest coast of the continent. Historically, it's a center for menorough. Minotaurs. Anyway, totally unrelated to anything we were up to, they were sent to meet with the Doorgar themselves as well, about a potential alliance and also some very valuable Adamantine. Coincidence. That meeting, it turned out, had gone badly. The Doergar leader they'd spoken to was, how they put it, off, flat, empty, like someone reading lines without understanding the words. Enough to set off alarm bells even for Minotors. who are not generally known for subtle vibes-based analysis.

So this got our attention. Logron in particular was doing that thing where he asks perfectly reasonable questions that slowly made them realize that they didn't actually have a plan. Somewhere in the middle of all of this, chimera offered the minotors a taste of some freshly cooked, severed, fay-wild tentacle. I wish I was joking. Dozer ate it, though. Chewed very thoughtfully. Ruby tried it, too. For science, Ruby will eat anything once. Let me tell you. All of this inexplicably, but maybe not, kind of bonded everybody. We made camp together, and that's when Chimera tried to be helpful, making some small talk.

Remember, though, he's kind of in a bit of a bind with Colgoth, and the heat has been rising. He suggested very badly that there were ways to give people magic if they wanted it badly enough. He didn't phrase it very well at all. It came off less interesting opportunity and more deeply insulting accusation involving. involving somebody's mother. The temperature dropped. The Minotors bristled, and Chimera, to his credit, immediately realized he had messed up. What followed was the most stressful campfire conversation imaginable. Chimera scrambling to walk it back, Lagerin quietly intervening, Nithera redirecting one Minotaur's attention to the cannon, which promptly went off with a deafening blast that nearly sent Ruby into a combat crouch, just on reflex.

Eventually, cooler heads prevailed mostly. Later, Logrin pulled Chimera aside. And this is where things kind of got serious, but in a quiet and worrying way. Camera laid out the truth. Colgoth wanted a life. 48 hours. No extensions promised. No loopholes obvious. The tarot cards he was using spelled it out to Logran bluntly. Help. Logrin didn't hesitate. Whatever was coming, Chimera wasn't facing it alone. Before anyone could spiral too hard, we were interrupted. by the quick bolts. Jesse and Austin are contacts arriving early and out of breath. They confirmed exactly what the Minotaurs had felt.

Something was very wrong inside the Durgar stronghold. The leader wasn't himself. The whole place felt controlled. Like mind control. Possession. Something worse? That left us with a choice. Walk away or walk straight into a mountain full of armed Durgar who might not be acting of their own free will. Naturally, we chose the second The minotors agreed to come with us. Not even as hired muscle, really. Not even as allies. Just to see what was really going on. We went to sleep knowing three things. The Durgar had adamantine. Something was controlling them. And Chimera's clock was ticking.

You know, no pressure. You know, no pressure. All right. Let me be clear about one thing up front. We did not sneak in. That decision was made very quickly. When your party consists of two minotors, two humans, a dwarf in full stone armor, an elf, a half-orke with guns, and a warlock who absolutely cannot be trusted near industrial magic, stealth is more of a vibe than a plan. And Nithera's undead, remember them? They were still technically helping, but increasingly a liability from a public relation standpoint. So we walk straight up to the front doors of the door gar stronghold.

And let me tell you, those doors were serious. Massive, blast door-fixed slabs of metal worked directly into the mountain. The kind of doors that don't open unless everyone involved agrees it's happening. We explained who we were, who sent us, and after some discussion, the guards led us inside, on the condition that Nithera's undead climbing assistants stayed outside, which, you know, fair. Nithera tried to be responsible about it, gave them simple, and go to the other side of the valley and wait. Spoiler. We still have absolutely no idea if they're still there or not.

Probably. Anyway. Inside the mountain, the vibe shifted immediately. The Dorgar Stronghold was not ornate. It wasn't proud. It wasn't even ugly in a fun way. It was efficient. Flat walls. Perfect angles. Identical corridors. Everything labeled, catalogued, optimized. We passed storage halls stacked with ore and gems, transport lines running constantly, and workers who barely looked up as we passed. Not because they didn't care, but because whatever they were doing mattered way more than us. We entered the forge levels, and the temperature spiked so hard it felt like we walked into a kiln.

And then we smelled it. Logrin caught it first, something metallic, rich, and also wrong. Not iron, not steel, something full. far more rare, something valuable. Adamantite. Not just present either, but actively being refined and not in small amounts. We found the furnaces, massive industrial machines pouring molten, arcane-infused adamantite into enormous ingots that shimmered with magical energy even after it cooled. This wasn't just rare, it was dangerous. The kind of thing that could outfit armies or even end them. Chimera realized something else.

The furnaces vented magical byproduct, I guess you'd call it, arcane runoff, basically. So, chimera, in a moment that surprised no one who knows him, stepped directly into that cloud and huffed it. He breathed it in. His eyes lit up. Magic flared visibly around him. His senses sharpened to this absurd degree. He could see magic now, not spells, but people. Horus, corruption, even traces of arcane poisoning in the Durgar workers from long-term exposure. He was, for lack of a better term, magically high out of his mind. Also, terrifyingly powerful, but we'll get to that.

Cole goth showed up immediately, delighted, of course, approving, and absolutely not helping. Ruby recognized the signs instantly and did what she always does when chimera starts vibrating at the frequency of a catastrophe. She tried to ground him. Water, physical contact, gentle steering away from the vents. Before that, though, Chimera managed to bottle some of that arcane gas into some small vials. He was obsessed. This is all going to matter later, trust me. In fact, this whole drunk off of power enough that I could punch a god stuff keeps kind of coming back up and eventually comes to a head to some degree.

So just keep an eye on this storyline. Eventually, the Quick Bolt, Jesse and Austin, insisted we leave the forge levels before chimera ascended into something unclassifiable. We made our way deeper into the mountain, past uniform living quarters, identical bunks, identical rooms, until we reached the throne room, which we had been invited to. And that's where things broke. The king, and yes, I'm doing air quotes, sat alone. No guards, no advisors, no movement, no movement, just staring, unblinking. Immediately wrong, right? Chimera could see it, plain as day.

That wasn't A person. It was an illusion. Something pretending very badly to be alive. Ruby found a lever built into the floor, subtle, modular, kind of hidden in plain sight, and without hesitation, she lunged for it, pulled it. Something had to be done. The illusion tore itself apart mid-sentence. The throne sank the wall behind it, split open, and there bathed in raw arcane runoff, stood the real Durgar king. Hands submerged in with magic. Eyes, glowing, body barely holding together everything under the strain. And he turned, and he screamed. I said, I did not want to be interrupted.

And that's where we stopped for the evening, because whatever that was, it was not a conversation anymore. So, you know, roll for initiative. Okay. Ultimately, turns out, is screaming arcane so... Doregarkar King was not interested in any calm discussion. Shocking, I know. First, though, at this point in our story, it was, in a meta way, level up time for us. Because Jason looked at the impending throne room bloodbath and went, you know what would help? An extra attack or two. Thanks, man. So Ruby got beefier, some extra range for some recruits. Nithera becomes even harder to surprise and overall still refuses to be breakable.

Chimera gets fireball, the pinnacle of D&D, and becomes the party's new OSHA violation. More on that in a minute. Logrin, of course, gets a bigger command aura, some boons for friends, and starts picking wrestling moves like he's building Stone's first combat sports league. Hey, you know, this guy's got plans within plans, so who knows? Anyway, so we go right back to where we left off. Fight. We barely had time to process what we were looking at before things escalated. The king was standing in raw, magical runoff like it was a hot tub. Eyes were glowing, skin cracked with power. absolutely furious that anyone had dared interrupt his...

Whatever this was. Chimera, riding the absolute peak of his magical high, tried something genuinely reasonable for once. He cast a suggestion. Just a gentle, hey, maybe calm down, let's talk. Bad roles, didn't work. The king was basically immune to charm effects, immune to poison, immune to reason, and very much immune to the idea of this ending peacefully. So, yeah, initiative, combat started. Now, let me be clear. This fight began as 11 versus 1. There's some other guards and stuff in the room as well. And yet, it still immediately felt dangerous. Ruby opened with a shot that absolutely should have ended a normal fight, clean hit, brutal damage, and the king barely reacted.

That's when everybody realized, oh, we're in trouble. Anyway, Nythera immediately pivoted to non-lethal-please mode and coded arrows with knockout poison. You know, we're fighting a king. We don't want to look bad here. We're actually just trying to like survive, right? Unfortunately, the king was immune to that too, because of course he was. Then, chimera, high on whatever, cut loose. When I say cut loose, I mean he turned himself into a walking arcane disaster. He cast fireball right there inside the mountain. It detonated like a god sneezing. Flames, shockwaves, stone glowing red-hot, and chimera glowing, hovering slightly off the ground, looked like he just discovered religion, and it was art.

The king took it. Burned, cracked, glowed brighter underneath. Still standing, though. That's when the Minotaur is charged. Dozer went in first, horns down, pure fury, and for a moment it looked like it worked. The king staggered. Then the king kicked him. Thunder followed the impact. Dozer was blasted across the room, bloodied instantly. And a moment later, he was dead. That was the moment the fight stopped being tactical and became personal. because the minotaur friend Brax lost it. But before that could fully land, Lagrin stepped up, shield planted, calm as stone, and did the most Logren thing imaginable.

The king swung his massive warhammer at Logren, and he missed. Logren caught it out of mid-air. Disarmed the king, ripped the hammer free, and without hesitation, smashed him with his own weapon, channeling the king's magic right back into him. It was one of those moments, like, We all went silent because there was absolutely nothing to say except that actually tracks. Ruby followed it up by launching herself off Logron Shield, punching the king midair, and hitting him with enough force to make the mountain rethink its choices. Chimera wasn't done.

He threw another fireball. At this point, Ruby physically shoved him away afterward. Like, okay, that's enough spells for one lifetime, because the king was visibly coming apart. His skin burned away to reveal raw, radioactive arcane energy. And yet, the king snapped back with pure rage. He slammed the ground, shattering stone in a straight line that caught Lagrin, Ruby, and Dozer's already fallen body. And that was it for Dozer. Completely gone. The room went quiet for half a second, and then Brax charged. No strategy, no restraint, just grief and momentum.

He gored the king straight through the chest, lifted him off the ground, shook him violently, and slammed his body down in a broken heap. The magic poured out of the king like steam from a ruptured boiler, and then he was dead. All right, the aftermath. Two guards lay dead. One Minotaur dead. The throne room destroyed. Arcane runoff still flowing through channels in the floor. And standing there stunned was Riel. One of the Durgar leaders that joined us, realizing all at once that first the King she knew had been gone. Two, the thing ruling them wasn't him.

And three, the solution. had been this. Lagrin did what he always does in moments like this. He took responsibility. He apologized, not because it was his fault, but because someone had to say the words. He asked, what could be done now? How can we help? Real ordered everyone out of the room immediately, away from the magic, away from the body, away from whatever influence had poisoned the king. Brax, shaking, and furious, finally let Nithera pull him away from the corpse. And Chimera? Chimera was still glowing, still hot. still very much not done paying the price for whatever he had inhaled.

But that was a problem for later. For now, the Dorgar had no king, and the mountain was very, very quiet. After the whole oops we killed a king inside his own mountain situation, we didn't immediately get thrown into Dorgar jail, believe it or not. Real, the Durgar magic wielder who helped during the fight, was clearly in shock. Her guards were dead. The throne room was basically a crime scene, slash blast furnace and the king, well, the king had been turned into a tragic cautionary tale. Ruby, being Ruby, quietly went over to Dozer's body and collected his broken horns.

Not as a trophy, not as a weird goblet project, just a thing that mattered. Like, we need to honor this. Riel pulled us out of the throne room fast and then came the big question. How do we explain what just happened? Logron laid it out carefully because anybody could sell We accidentally walked into a king's arcane meth lab and he exploded. It was him. We explained the whole chain. We came here for Adamantine. We were told the king was acting weird. We walked in, discovered the king was acting very weird. We tried to subdue him. He killed people anyway. Brax finished the fight in a grief-fueled hornstorm.

Nithera even handed over her knockout poison, oil of tagget, and said, you know, see, we literally tried the non-lethal option here. He just wasn't having it. So Riel, to her credit, believed us. She didn't even try to spin it. She said the council would investigate, and that for them, leaders are chosen, not born. And the best thing we could do was just stay put until the door guard sorted out what the hell just happened. With guards that watch you, and you can't leave. But it's not arrest. It's hospitality? Protective? Anyway, sure. Very normal. So we got escorted to guest quarters.

And then we got a long rest. That's when chimera's. bill came due. Chimera had been huffing arcane refinery runoff like it was a personality trait. And now the universe sent the invoice. Jason rolled on the short-term madness table and chimera got basically six hours of on and off screaming, just screaming. Ruby stayed with him trying to help, wash cloth, water, the whole deal. Because Ruby is chimera's ride or die, even when the ride is a demonic panic spiral. Logrin in full dad mode, quietly removed every remaining vial of that arcane huff nonsense from chimera's reach.

He vanished them. The same way a parent loses a toy that makes a noise. Eventually, chimera crashed hard, slept like the dead, like deep, weird, heavy sleep. While he was out, Nithera finally shared something she'd been sitting on. She'd been researching demon-pacts, specifically how to sever them. This goes back to when she and Ruby were in Aubrey, and they had done a little bit of this research in the library. Anyway, she made it very clear to Logrin that she and Ruby and nobody else should be planning to force me. anything on camera. This was more like a if he ever asks, there is a way out kind of a thing.

And while it hasn't come up yet, I have a feeling this is going to be here in the future. All right. Time passed. About three days. We weren't locked in a cell, but we weren't free either. Guards outside doors, controlled movement, friendly supervision. It made sense, honestly. Their king was dead. Nithera finally got what she never gets. Peace and quiet. She took a bath, read her poisoners' almanac, and stared into space like someone who hadn't had a single, uninterrupted thought in months. Ruby, excitedly, got a guided tour of the refinery because the door guard, despite everything, were still very proud of their work.

And she learned something very important. Doorgar refined Adamantine into these, enormous ingots, massive 6 to 8 foot kit cat bars kind of metal that weigh hundreds and hundreds of pounds apiece. Meaning, yes, it was valuable and yeah, we needed it. But also, yes, moving it would be a nightmare. Meanwhile, Logrin and Chimera went to check on the quick bolts. And when they arrived in the brother's room, they heard shouting, because Jesse and Austin were arguing hard about whether to turn us in. Jesse was like, they killed the king, we're screwed, flip, on them.

Austin was like, that's a terrible idea. And also, it's not even true. Anyway, Logren walked in mid-fight like a tired dad stepping into a room where two teenagers were about to throw controllers. He talked Austin down, reframed everything into advantage, and basically said, no, no, no, we're in a good position. Don't set it all on fire. Logren went to Brax's room with Austin, leaving Jesse behind. That comes up in a minute. Brax was pacing like a caged storm, angry, devastated, and trying to hold himself together through sheer horn-based willpower.

Logren did something really solid here. He didn't try to erase the anger. He just tried to steer it. Use it effectively. Don't waste it, Brax. Don't get yourself and all of us killed before we even have a chance to do anything with it. And then Logren did what Logren does best. He pitched a plan. Not attack the mountain, but take the mountain. Without turning it into ashes and bodies. Trying to get Brax on board and therefore the Minotaurs. Brax didn't fully understand the details, but the eyes. idea of no more minotors dying got through, and for once, he wanted something other than revenge.

Also, Logren casually tried to recruit Austin as a follower, which was hilarious tone shift from We Are Suspects in a Royal Death Investigation, too, so anyway, you want a job, but again, that tracks for Logren. Austin being Austin, immediately negotiated for pay and back pay and asked if this was babysitting, because of course he did. And Logren pitched him on a criminal network back in Estherhold, training those young thieves, the teenagers we left behind, building an operation, feeding profit back into the fort. Austin was intrigued in a not this is my dream, but more of a, I've had a weird week kind of a way.

Now, let's get to Chimera. Chimera, still on a countdown to his sole contract deadline with Colgoth, decided to do something that at the time seemed like a bad slash good idea. He sat down with Jesse to play cards while they were on their own. Naturally, he became a cheating contest. That's fine. It's part of the flavor. Chimera even used minor illusion to mess with the cards. Jesse cheated too. It's basically two raccoons trying to steal from each other while smiling politely. And while they played, Colgoth, Kimera's toxic demon patron made himself known.

Just a little voice in Chimera's head saying, you're on the clock. And Chimera felt that presence withdrawal. Like the demon wasn't even mad, just waiting. Which is always worse with Colgoth. Camera tried to get Jesse interested in power. Not even in a super manipulative way at first. Just more like, you've got potential. You're sharp. You could be so much more. Jesse predictably leaned in like, oh, you got something for me, and chimera went for it. He offered Jesse a warlock contract. I mean, this is the whole point. Jesse signed immediately. And then everything jumped.

Camero blinked, and suddenly the knife was coated in blood. and Jesse's throat was slid. Jesse was on the floor, dying. Chimera came back to himself just in time to watch the light leave Jesse's eyes and to feel Jesse's soul get pulled into him. And then Colgoth hit Chimera with the final gut punch. Never leave me waiting again. And that's where we ended. Now, in meta terms, you have to understand. Any game master taking control of a player's character is, well, it's taboo. It's just not done, right? In this case, we had a perfect storm of good stuff happening.

I'll go so far as to say that Ian, who plays chimera, was immediately and absolutely not okay, but so okay with how this played out. Think of this like how chimera feels with Colgoth being part of his every waking moment, being watched and manipulated. That part of the story became even more real for all of us in that moment. It was so amazing. After the session, we squealed into light. Let me tell you. It was so good and Jason was amazing. But yeah, back to Chimera and Jesse Quickbolt and Colgoth. A line got crossed. This was not oops we killed a king in self-defense.

This was a different line and a clearly worse one. And even if Colgoth pulled the strings in effect and to everyone else, even to himself, Chimera had just stepped over it. Okay, next session, Chimer came back to himself standing over Jesse's body. Just the sudden horrifying awareness that time had skipped for a few seconds. His knife was wet and Jesse was dead on the floor in front of him. And Chimera knew immediately what it meant. This wasn't an accident. This wasn't a accident. lateral damage. This was Colgoth reminding him who was in charge. So Kimera did the only thing his brain could latch on to.

Fix it before anyone sees. He cleaned himself up first. Trying to get the blood off of his clothes while Colgoth talked at him like a motivational speaker from hell, not asking questions, just narrating the panic, enjoying it. Then chimera slipped out into the hall, smiling at the guards like everything was fine, ducked into the party's room and grabbed Nithera. She just assessed the situation like the professional she is and immediately got to work. Chimera tried to clean the blood with magic and quickly learned that prestidigation is not, in fact, a crime scene eraser.

Now, they needed to move a dead body through a heavily guarded Durgar stronghold. Nithera drank a potion of frost giant strength. And then she drank a potion of invisibility. Boom. Suddenly, Jesse vanished over her shoulder like a deeply unethical magic trick. All right, at the same time, and this part is important, Logren was down the hall doing damage control of a completely different kind. He was sitting with the Minotaur Brax and Austin, Jesse's brother, turning grief and rage about this whole Durgaar situation into something like a plan. Maybe you change leadership, maybe you do it without losing anyone else.

Then, because this is Logren, he decided this conversation required drinks, which meant he left the room. Chimera and Logrin pass each other at the door in that perfect sit-com. time. Logrin cheerful, moving fast, carrying booze. Kimer smiling too hard, absolutely not fine. Kimer gave him the tiniest signal possible. Not good. Stop celebrating. Logren clocked it immediately and kept playing it cool. He even invited a guard to join them for a drink because if you're going to commit a crime, you might as well block line of sight while you're at it. Plausible deniability is one of Logrin's many taglines.

Kimer, meanwhile, became the distraction. And honestly, he freaking nailed it. Smiling, polite, curious, asking questions about furnaces and manufacturing like a man who absolutely did not have a corpse being carried invisibly 10 feet behind him. Chimera and Nithera reached the forge floor. This place was a nightmare of efficiency. Massive machines, railings everywhere, safety standards, which frankly felt rude under the circumstances. No open lava pits, no convenient drop-offs, just enormous grinders designed to pulverized ore into nothing. Perfect.

That's what we used. Ruby showed up right on cue, mid-tour, genuinely fascinated by the machinery, and immediately realized something was off. Kimera gave her the subtle signal they'd used a hundred times before. Naira's nearby. Don't ask questions. Ruby understood instantly. And she did what she does best. Talked. She asked questions of the guard. She pointed. She gestured. She made a show of being deeply invested in how everything worked while Nithera quietly opened a hatch and tipped Jesse's body into the machine. And then, nothing. The machine kept running.

Or poured in. The evidence vanished. Back in the rooms, everyone regrouped. Kimerra finally collapsed into a chair like someone who had been holding himself together with wire and adrenaline and just ran out. Ruby immediately went over to him, the way she always did when things got dark, with her hands, with her voice, grounding him. Kamera told him everything. The ultimatum, the contract, the moment he thought he'd made things right, and the instant Colgoth took control and proved him wrong. Ruby listened, and then she said the most Ruby thing imaginable.

Well, sounds like Jesse dodged a bullet, and told Colgoth to go fuck himself. No love lost. Logrin burst in moments later with drinks and the energy of a man who thought the evening had gone great. He took one look at the room, the tension, the frost forming on glasses, a night there was still invisible, right? And immediately realized it was no longer true. They drank anyway, because sometimes that's all you can do. Kimera told him the bad news first. Jesse was dead. The good news? It was handled for now. Logron processed that in the same way he processed most catastrophes, calmly, practically, without pretending it didn't matter.

They talked through what Austin could know, what he was handled for now. couldn't. What story would hold long enough to get them out of the mountain alive? And then they hit the real problem. None of this was over. They were still guests. They were still being watched, still sitting on a pile of secrets that could collapse everything if they slipped. But for that night, the pieces held together, just barely, and it was enough to sleep. The next day opened with the rarest thing we'd had in days. No one actively accusing us. of murder. Which, given recent events, felt like a win, even if it wasn't true.

The Durgar investigation wrapped quietly. Riel even showed up with snacks, which is generally not how people behave when they're about to throw you in a pit. She apologized, genuinely, and then casually told us we were free to go. Logger, of course, immediately complicated that by remembering why we'd come in the first place. The Dorgar agreed to give us a full bar of Adamantite. The bad news, it weighed 900 pounds. which is the exact moment Ruby Pedigrew stopped bouncing off the walls from cabin fever and instead channelled every ounce of that energy into a single, dangerous thought.

What if we didn't haul it? What if we built something around it? And thus began the week where everyone else processed trauma, political fallout, and grief, while Ruby and Lagrin invented a vehicle. They worked with the Dorgar engineers who brought brutal precision in an unsecretion settling lack of safety standards to the table. Ruby brought half-remembered gnomish tinkering tricks, focal force, spring theory, and the kind of sleep deprivation that unlocks forbidden knowledge. What they built was... alarming. An adamantite framed, forged-core-powered, mountain-climbing engine on wheels.

Warm inside. Horrifically expensive. No seatbelts, no precedent. Fueled by something halfway between magic and nuclear anxiety. It could push through snow. grip ice, recharge slowly from ambient magic, and, if the forge core ever ruptured, vaporize everyone inside instantly. Ruby called it the gear heart. And Ruby, who had not slept in days, stared at it for a long time and said, I think it's done, and promptly passed out. While the gear heart came together, something else quietly unraveled. Austin waited and waited and waited. Jesse, his brother, never came back.

Eventually, Austin confronted. us. Not angrily, just desperately confused. Tired? Asking the kind of questions that make your stomach drop because you know the answers and can never say them. That's when Kimera did one of the hardest things he'd done in a long time. And remember, he was just the conduit for Colgoth killing someone. He lied. He just flat out lied. He told Austin that Jesse had talked about leaving, that he'd found a way out, that he'd cracked under the pressure, that he said Austin could handle this better than he ever could. It was a good lie, too good, and some good roles.

Austin didn't believe it, not really, but he didn't have proof otherwise, and he had no energy left to fight ghosts. So he packed his things, and he left, which somehow felt worse than if he'd screamed. A few days later, with the Gearheart finished and Ruby still asleep under a blanket of grease and pride, we were summoned to meet the new ruler of the Doergar. Queen Illyria Iron Shade. She didn't ease into the room. She occupied it. Scard, older, sharp-eyed, wearing a plain iron crown like it was a tool, not a symbol. Maps spread across the table, military positions already shifting in her mind.

Logren bowed, she nodded once, so straight to business. He laid it all out. The coalition, the plan for stone sunder, the artifact that would let us confront its last ruler without a siege, no bloodbath, no burn city. just leverage, timing, and patience. She actually listened, and she asked the only question that mattered. Who gets the mountain when you're done? Logrin didn't hesitate. Everyone. That answer, more than the artifact, more than the tech, was what convinced her. Illyria agreed to wait. All this Logren's plan nonsense, all this crafting an artifact to make things happen, we now have a ticking clock, four months. through the worst of winter, no military action, and less we failed to return.

In exchange, she wanted the Gearhart designs. Ruby, unconscious and unavailable for comment, was generally outvoted. And if we know Jason, we absolutely know we are going to see the consequences of that in the future. Anyway, hands were shaken, terms were set. As we left, Brax finally asked the obvious question. Did that go well? Logren smiled. Perfectly. So we had the metal, we had transportation. we had four months before an army moved. For the first time since entering the mountain, it felt like the story had shifted. Maybe in our favor? Next, finally, we were heading back to Esther Holt.

All right, so we finally left the mountain. No fanfare, speeches, just an experimental vehicle, an ingot of Adamantite, several unresolved traumas, and Ruby behind the wheel of something she'd built with her bare hands, and zero regard for OSHA violations. The Gearheart rolled out of the Black Rock Mountains like a very loud, very expensive bad idea. Ruby drove. Of course she did. The whole thing had been built around her reach, her instincts, her way of thinking. Anyone else in that seat would have looked like a child trying to drive a wagon from inside a wardrobe.

It wasn't comfortable at all. Imagine sitting on a church pew strapped to a jackhammer. Every few hours we stopped so Ruby could tighten something, adjust something, or mutter. Okay, that's not supposed to do. do that before making it worse and then better again. But it did work shockingly well. And we were making time, real time, 10 miles an hour downhill, which in frozen mountain terms is basically flying. And then, due to some random-ass dice rolls on the travel table, it rained blood. Actual, warm, iron-scented blood falling out of the sky. All right, listen, we're called dungeons and randomness.

So when randomness happens, we roll with it. It's now part of the story, and we suspect very strongly it's going to matter at some point. Logrin noticed the storm moving east, towards Estherhold. Lightning crackled low and wrong. Something also discharged far off into the mountains. A silent explosion followed seconds later by thunder like the world had punched itself. Meta note, this is in the very clear direction of where the newest theory and gods happen to live. That's another story, but yeah, there's no way this doesn't matter at some point. Logrin, in his wisdom, suggested we ignore it, which we did briefly, because Estherhold then fired up a flare.

And if there's one universal truth across cultures, it's that flares mean something is wrong. What could we do, though? We pushed on. Next day, we're getting close to Estherhold, during a white-out snowstorm a bit outside the city, and Ruby, nearly ran somebody over. She slammed the brakes, turned the steering wheel, and slid. The Gearheart fish-tailed, groaned, and stopped inches short of a bundled figure in the snow, bleeding pretty badly, shoulder torn open, barely conscious. Logron hopped out with a healing potion and zero patience for excuses.

The man's name was Cliff. He'd been hunting near Estherhold, something had molded him in the dark, no big deal. Cliff drank the potion, flesh knitting back together with a sound no one enjoyed, and asked immediately. The most reasonable question anybody had asked all week. What is that thing? Pointing of the Gearheart. We offered him a ride. The storm cleared, the road flattened, Cliff Doze, snoring softly, blood drying on his coat, and into the seats of the Gearheart. At the gates of Esterhold, guards gathered, ballastas turned, torches flared. Everyone stared at the Gearheart like it was a dragon that had learned how to parallel park.

While Ruby explained, again, that it was Basically a wagon just without a horse, Nithera felt something grab her, hard. She was yanked backward, clawed hands clutching her coat, fur, slick and clammy. She stabbed on instinct, a hidden blade snapping out, and whatever had grabbed her recoiled with a sound halfway between, a scream and a yelp. Then the thing came out. It burst from the gear heart in a blur of muscle and fur, huge, fast, wrong, and slammed into chimera, teeth sinking into his chest, claws hammering him into the snow, like a rag doll.

The guards froze. Nithera struck again, psychic energy tearing into the creature's flank. It let go just long enough for a chimera, bleeding and gasping, to unleash a cone of fire straight into its face. The werewolf screamed. Flames engulfed its head, and it fled, a burning shape tearing off into the dark hills beyond the city. Camera was hurt badly, but not dying. Something under his skin had hardened, sealed the wound before it could finish him, Something not human. Colgoth, of course. Ruby noticed immediately. Ask the question no one wanted to hear.

Ask him if you're infected. Kimera checked. Whatever had happened wasn't like anthropy. It was Colgoth. Colgoth is toxic as hell, but he has every motivation to keep chimera alive. He's just happy enough for Chimera to feed him whatever excess he can muster. But this, this is a kind of coal-gothing that even Colgoth hasn't yet Colgothed up to this point. I promise you this becomes a thing, so, keep it in mind. It's just the beginning. Anyway, back to the group at the gates of Estrehold. The guards, understandably alarmed, demanded answers. Logren did what he always did.

Talked calmly, took responsibility, and said not to worry about it, we'll figure it out. Ruby, though, shaking with guilt, punched the side of the Gheirheart hard enough to make it ring. She blamed herself for stopping. Nithera told her to stop it. Eventually, the gates opened. The Ghear heart rolled into Esterholt, battered, blood-streaked, dented and absolutely unforgettable. A miracle machine limping home with fresh scars and no good explanation for any of it. Okay, so we're back in Estherhol. Yay! And immediately it felt wrong. Bo. The guards waved us through the gates without much fuss.

The werewolf incident got ridden up as unfortunate but clearly not your fault, which felt generous, especially after all that Durgar king mess. And the Gearhart rolled in looking like it had lost a bar fight with a mountain. Ruby was doing laps between chimera and the gear heart like a frantic parent at a playground. Chimera for his part was mostly fine. The demonic flare had receded a bit. The horns were a little bit shorter, eyes a little bit less terrifying. Still had a very noticeable demon scarred hole in his chest, but look, nobody's perfect. We parked the gear heart near the carriage yards, immediately realized it was melting the snow around it, and Ruby insisted on covering it with some sort of canvas like a nervous pet owner tucking in a dangerous animal.

Then we did the most responsible thing possible. We checked back in to silk sheets. For those of you who don't recall, it's kind of nice. Amazing rooms, saunas, magical armor and clothes cleaning. Mini bar, baths, done. That night, the city stayed loud. The kind of noise a city makes when something bad has happened, but no one agrees on wire whose fault it is. We slept anyway. We had to. The next morning, over breakfast, we heard some news. A vampire had been murdered. right there in town. State clean through the heart. It was public. Central Estherhold. No witnesses, no culprit.

And worse, no agreement on who was even in charge of investigating it. Meanwhile, and of course, two different paladin orders were fighting over jurisdiction. The city guard was annoyed at both of them and a little scared of both of them too. The vampire community was furious and Nithera clocked immediately the something big was still happening near the city's center. Crowds moving the wrong way, people whispering, guard station where they normally weren't. Ruby just wanted coffee and pancakes. They'd earned it. Chimera quietly wondered if this had anything to do with the unsettling vampire acquaintance we had made last time we were here.

Logrin, deeply tired already, made the executive decision to focus on one problem at a time. Problem number one, the kids. We'd left them in Estherhold to get their bearings, set up shop, do some reconnaissance about this crazy list of components we needed to wrangle. And again, now, in the next four months. We headed for the safe house where we thought they'd been staying. And yeah, that didn't go great. The place had been abandoned for at least a week. No food, no signs of recent life. And then there was blood. On the mattress. Old, dried. Not enough to mean someone died there, but enough to mean someone had been hurt.

Pretty badly. My Thera confirmed it. We split up across the city asking questions. about the kids. Potion shops, street contacts, guards, anyone who might have seen an eight-year-old Goliath recently. Because subtlety is hard when you're eight feet tall, right, Bass? The answer kept coming back the same. Yeah, they'd been around and yeah, they'd been asking questions, and then nothing. No one had seen them leave the city, which meant either they'd had enough and left town to probably just freeze to death somewhere, or they were still here and very good at hiding now.

By late afternoon, Lagan was officially having a day. While the Gearheart stayed underneath a tarp, we hired a carriage to cross town. That's when Nythera spotted something important. Someone armed, heavily armed, slipping into the kid's old safe house. We ditched the carriage mid-complaint, paid too much, and followed. Inside, we found a monster hunter. Polite, annoying, armed to the teeth, crossbow, blades, great sword. The kind of guy who introduces himself like he's. He expects you to already know the name. Weirdly charming or weirdly off-putting, depending on who you are.

Thane Silver Fox. He claimed he was tracking a werewolf, suggested there might be more than one in the city. Casually admitted he was hoping for a payout. The exchange went nowhere productive in the moment, but we did learn a few things. The blood in the safe house likely belonged to a werewolf. The kids probably weren't there when it happened, and Esther Holt might have multiple monsters to loose right now. Thane left, promising we'd run into a warwolf. The kids probably weren't there when it happened, and Esther Holt might have multiple monsters to loose right now.

Thane left, promising we'd run into a war wolf. each other again, which is never something you want to hear said casually. With daylight gone and patience exhausted, we finally went where we should have gone hours ago. Bonzo's dark, because where's a better place to collect your thoughts after a long road trip where you've helped murder a king, install another, create a new type of machinery that is likely going to change the face of Theria and set a werewolf on fire, but a noisy, saturated theme restaurant in the Vampire District of Esther Holt.

And guess what? There they were. were all four kids, alive, laughing, dancing, surrounded by vampires like this was the most normal night of their lives. Everybody looked fine, mostly, except Chet. It's always Chet. Chet looked paler than usual. So the good news was the kids were alive. The weird news was they were alive. The weird news was they were alive at Bonzo's Dark. Logrin didn't yell, which honestly might have been more unsettling than if he had. He just sighed this long, world-weary sigh of a man realizing this conversation was going to take a while and we got a booth.

Ruby did what Ruby always does when emotionally overwhelmed, ordered aggressively. Harpy knuckles, something on fire, something sweet enough to peel pain, and then stared into the middle distance like her brain had filed for vacation without telling anybody else. Chimera just watched the kids for a while, not judging, not planning, just relieved, which given the last few days felt earned. And then there was Chet. There's always a Chet factor. Paler than usual, not needs a nap, pale, vampire district, pale. The kind of pale that comes with follow-up questions.

Once everybody had food, the kids finally sat down and told us what happened. Short version, someone had tried to assassinate the man they were staying with. Chet, inadvertently, got stabbed. Clerics, not very helpful. A vampire stepped in, and now Chet was in between. Not fully dead, not fully undead. A thrall. A temporary solution with a ticking clock. And to their credit, the kids handled it. They made decisions and they survived. They didn't spiral, which meant nobody had to yell. Nithera asked if he was okay now, and Ruby reassured him in the most Ruby way possible.

We fixed worse. You're not a problem. You're just on the list. Logrin listened quietly. He didn't approve. He didn't disapprove. He just took it all in. Clocked the timeline and mentally. added, figure out vampire politics to an already terrifying to do list. Then the kids dropped one more thing. They'd made contacts, vampire contacts, potential allies, fighters, scouts, people who wanted out of Estrahold and into something bigger. Logrin didn't say yes but he didn't say no, which is basically a glowing endorsement. Somewhere in there it also came out that the kids had made a lot of money while we were gone, enough that several nearby vampires suddenly paid very close attention which prompted a quiet, immediate decision that it was time to wrap it up before somebody got any ideas.

Ice cream arrived, fang-shaped, bonzo's specialty, bills were paid, promises were made to talk the next. Everybody went back to their rooms carrying equal parts relief and exhaustion. Later that night with Logren and Nithera in one room and Ruby and Chimera in the next, Nithra told Logren, the vampire who'd been murdered in the street, she'd known him closely. And no one was investigating. Lagernd didn't argue. He just said, then we will. And he meant it. In the other room, Ruby soaked in a bath, letting the noise drain out of her bones while chimeras stayed nearby, not fixing anything or pushing just being there, which it turned out was exactly what they all needed.

Tomorrow was going to be busy, political, messy, dangerous. But for one night, everybody was alive and fed. And nobody had to make another impossible decision until morning. Morning came the way it always does after a long night in Estherhold. Too early, too bright, and already making demands. Ruby peeled herself out of bed long enough to ask Logren for some time alone with the Gearheart, to fix things up. Now this begins a little story arc where the party actually splits up, not by design, mind you, this is genuinely what our characters would be doing.

From a story point of view, the next few episodes, so good, such an amazing story the way it all weaves together. Again, and I'm not paid to say this, but God damn if Jason isn't a genius. Anyway, Logrin, Nithera, and Chimera headed across town to the gloaming quarter, armored, alert, and already tired. Halfway there, a body hit their carriage. Because, of course, it did. A man with his throat torn out, slid off of a roof, and hit the street in a spray of blood, followed shortly by Thane Silver Fox, Monster, Monster, Crowdpleaser, and Walking Public Execution.

He tested the blood after killing the man, confirmed it was a werewolf, bowed to the crowd, accepted applause, and casually paid for the carriage damage. Like, this was all part of the day's work. They parted ways, but not without Silver Fox, making it very clear he was open to being found later, winking at chimera. A little too open, honestly, but hey, what's all this insanity without a little flirtation in the mix? Okay, here's where we start playing table tennis with the story a little bit. Meanwhile, on the other side of the city near the gates, Ruby reached the gate. your heart, ready to unpack her tools, roll up her sleeves, and get to work making this thing roadworthy again, and froze.

Remember, this had been torn to shreds inside by a whirlwolf. Lots of blood, lots of bent metal, leather straps that needed repairing. But it wasn't damaged, and it wasn't needing repair. She looked the whole thing over, inside and out, and it was perfect, cleaned, polished, re-upholstered even. Titan improved, improved, the fours and it was core completely secure. The blood all gone, the dense erased. Someone had spent weeks of skilled labor restoring it while it sat under a tarp in a guarded lot. Except it hadn't been weeks. It had only been a few hours.

Ruby stared at it in silence, went through every possible explanation, rejected all of them, and did the only sane thing left. She started upgrading it anyway. If someone was going to mess with her machine, then fine. She'd make sure it was hers. Storage, warmth, hooks, rails, levers, mystery switches, label things like more, less, light them up. Some worked, some would someday. All of them felt right. Ruby went all out thanks to some insane engineering checks, so, you know, score. Back in the gloaming quarter, though, the rest of the group arrived at the massive Gothic church where the kids had been staying and immediately walked into vampire politics.

Two factions. One pushing for representation and reform. Another quietly talking about purification and destiny. Neither subtle, both very intense. They met Avaline Duskward, leader of the more reasonable faction, who offered help, protection, and diplomacy, not conquest. Logan was clear in return. No war, no promises, no violence. If stones under fell, it would be clean. That earned trust. She asked one thing in return. Investigate the murder of one of one of the murder. of their own. A murder no one else in the city was allowed to touch. Lagerne agreed, hey, we were already going to do that. 24 hours, maybe 48, and in thanks, she handed him a centuries old bottle of Dwarvenail, the kind you don't give unless it matters.

She also very politely asked him not to meet the other vampires. They took the hint and they left through a hidden passage. Then ORA caught up with chimera. You know, those two have a connection. It's really sweet. Turns out she did a great job recruiting potential warlock candidates, just like Camara had asked before we left in the mountains. She kind of did too good. One group wanted a demonstration to prove Camero wasn't a charlatan. Another wanted a trial by combat, specifically to the death. Also, she'd taken 15,000 gold from them. Camerah blinked. Logan pinched the bridge of his nose.

Nithera reached for her daggers. And just as Ruby, on the other side of Estherhold, notice guards sprinting towards the front gate, The horns sounded. She bounded up, asked what in the ever-loven heck was going on. No big deal. A Minotaur army stood outside the city's walls all at once. Well, at the gates, Ruby heard the rumors first. 40 or 50 minotaurs stood outside the walls, not charging or negotiating, just standing there, enough to make the guards nervous. Well, Ruby did what Ruby does when something feels wrong but hasn't exploded yet. She tightened bolts, rerouted power, and made sure the gear heart could move if it needed to.

So she worked quietly, making sure this miracle machine didn't become a tomb at some point. Meanwhile, the rest of the party were navigating the streets when ORA came running up with that tone in her voice that meant this was not great news. That gang she'd recruited for a camera, they were looking for him right now with murder in mind. They'd just work themselves up into a frenzy for some reason. Kimer, to his credit, didn't panic. He disguised himself into a very handsome, completely normal human man. No horns, no tail, no red skin. Just a guy named apparently Gilgamesh.

Anyway, Nithera peeled off with Vetti to investigate Zira's house. Now, Zira, of course, is this vampire who had been killed. Inside, the place was too clean, freshly dusted, meticulous, like someone had erased a crime instead of living there. And then they found a hidden compartment and found what they needed. Zera had been watching Fane Silver Fox. Notes, dates, patterns, enough to suggest Silver Fox didn't just hunt monsters. He showed up after the fact. Bodies already dead, likeanthropy appearing post-mortem, and in one case, a supposed victim later seen alive outside the city.

The possibility just hung there. Silver Fox might not be hunting monsters. He might just be very good at killing people and writing the story afterward. Back on the streets, the gang found chimera. Nine guys, loud, mean, proudly stupid. They were convinced chimera had a demon inside of him and that beating him to death would grant them power. I mean, they're only half right. Logrin stepped in front of chimera without hesitation. Shield planted, options offered calmly. Leave, fight him. or make things much worse. They chose violence. Okay, that's when Chimera decided to talk.

He explained, listen, killing him is not going to grant them power. That's not how it works. Also, he was hard to kill. Even if they succeeded, most of them would die in the process. Lose, lose, lose. So he offered them a test. Let him choose the strongest among them. Give that one a taste of power. Then they fight each other. Last one standing proves who deserves it. Colgoth loved the idea. Ora loved it even more. She suggested contracts. Waivers. Everybody signs. Anyone who dies forfeits their soul cleanly. No ambiguity. Chimera should have stopped this, but he didn't.

After a very brief and deeply stupid conference, the gang agreed. They escorted us toward a dive bar ready to formalize the deal. So at this point, Esther Holt is feeling less like a city and more like a collective. of unrelated, unresolved fires we were politely pretending weren't connected. Ruby was alone with a gear heart, tools out, mind locked in. She reinforced, rebalance, made sure the forge core wasn't one bad pothole away from turning the street into a crater. The thing was stable, too stable, almost like it had been helping itself. Ruby did not love that thought but there were some bad roles and she had no idea what was going on.

While she worked, 40 or 50 Minotaur's were escorted straight through the gates, armed, calm, almost like a parade, heading toward the city center like they had an appointment. Both Paladin factions mobilized. Ruby filed it away for Logren. Elsewhere, Chimera had turned a basement under the worst bar in town into a fight pit. Violent idiots signed magical waivers and beat each other for the chance at Warlock Power. Logren hated every second. He ushered the kids out like a time. tired dad removing children from a cursed carnival. Ora stayed behind, though, hurt, defensive, convinced she'd found something she was good at.

Kimmera leaned into showman mode. Each round fed him more power, literally soul by soul. And then the realization hit. This wasn't fun anymore. This was actually dangerous. Above ground, Nithera confirmed what she suspected as she moved closer and closer to Ruby's side of the city. Thane Silver Fox wasn't just suspicious. he was very likely a murderer. Silver Fox made his move anyway. Close to the gear heart, Chet got shot. A crossbow bolt laced with something nasty hit his shoulder. Ruby tackled him out of the way and realized this wasn't a warning. It was an execution attempt.

Nitha spotted Silver Fox on the rooftops and took off. I see tiles, sliding jumps, one perfectly thrown dagger that sent him tumbling through a roof. He got away, but not clean. Back in the basement on the the other side of town, the final fight ended. The power surged. Chimera lost control. He grew, changed. The room went from violent to apocalyptic in seconds. Someone hit him with a pool cue. He responded by turning the room into a slaughterhouse. Logren didn't hesitate. He sent Ora away immediately, grabbed his shield, and walked down the stairs toward the monster chimera had become.

No shouting, no spurious. speeches. Just one clear message. Enough. And that's basically where we ended the session. Nythera hunting a killer, Ruby stabilizing a bleeding kid beside a machine that might be alive, I don't know, or a running from the consequences of her own success, and Logren standing between his friend and what he turned into. Next session, we picked up with no one okay. In the basement, Logren stood alone with what used to be chimera and was now an infernal problem wearing his friend's face. Bodies everywhere. Blood in the floorboards.

Camara wasn't gone. He was inside something louder and hungrier. Colgoth himself wasn't even steering anymore. Loggerin tried words. They failed. So he planted his shield, racked his shotgun, and fired twice. Chimera took the hit, stood back up, heeded the weapon until Lagrin had to drop it. and teleported up the stairs in a flash of fire. A hand axe followed him. Listen, the basement began to come apart. Across the city, Nythera did something she hasn't done in a very long time. She put on her raven mask, the one that gave her a nickname, Raven's Breath.

Shadows bent, her voice went colder. She followed Fane Silver Fox into a dark kitchen and told him she was done pretending. He shot first, missed. Nithera answered with poison steel and a pot of boiling soup to the face. He ran. Ruby arrived just in time to tackle him straight through a wooden fence and into the street. Guards drew weapons, Nithera's step from the shadows, darkness whispering, kill him, kill him, kill him, kill him, kill him, kill him. And then the Gearheart roared to life. Only Ruby heard it, but unmistakable, and faster than it ever had traveled.

It tore into the night, driven by two unsupertube. supervised children who absolutely did not have permission. Back in the basement of grizzle bits, Logren and Chimera were chest to chest in the wreckage. Chimera, patron saturated and furious, insisted, this is what Lagrin wanted all along. Logren did not agree. He climbed chimera, grabbed horn and jaw, and tried to end it with a hatchet. Not end chimera exactly, just the situation. The horn cracked. Something molten showed underneath. Camara laughed. He clawed Logren's armor, leaving a mark that felt like a signature, then tried to escape through the door, where Oro was holding the other side and realizing she was in way over her head.

What Logren was looking at was something close to a greater demon, and we need a greater demon horn as one of our components. I mean, meanwhile, and this is connected, trust me. Vetti drove the gear heart across half of Estherhole at speeds, no one consented to. All to get Chet some help urgently from people she trusted back in the gloaming quarter. Venders fled, walls scraped, Ched bled in the passenger seat, and interestingly, the Gearheart actually picked up a bit of speed at that point. Hmm. Anyway, then right on cue, the Gearheart blasted through the wall of the basement of Grizzle bits.

Somehow, Vetti figured out how to put it all in reverse and they continued to wherever they were going and hi-tailed it. Now, there's a little bit of the basement of Grizzled it. a big hole in the wall. Okay, back to the fight, which I am absolutely not doing justice to here. In a nearly final terrifying wrestling move, Chimera detonated power into the ceiling, bringing himself and Lagerin down in a crater of wood and stone. The blast sobered him. Pain does that. Buried in rubble, the wear-deemon weirdness that was happening loosened up. Chimera came back just long enough to see what he'd done.

The tavern basically destroyed. and ORA was trapped. And at that point, chimera blacked out. Elsewhere, Nithera fought the masks whisper to kill. When she saw Ruby standing between Silver Fox and a crowd, something kind of held, she couldn't remove the mask immediately. Too much mental strife too quickly. I mean, it had been a while for her. Ruby reframed the situation with Silver Fox loudly, invented a story about a werewolf heading for the city center, and forced Silver Fox to choose between exposure and performance. He chose performance. The guards followed.

This is not over, he said. Great. Problem delayed. Nythera had enough wherewithal, however, to make an audio illusion of a werewolf howl in the distance, lending a little bit more credibility to the story Ruby had pinned Silver Fox down with. She slinked away without anyone seeing her to take the mask off and catch her breath for a moment. Ruby found her and they both hobbled off to silk sheets to rest and catch up with their friends who they didn't know were just finishing up their personal fight club. All right, the next day, Logren crawled out of Grizzlyitz first, chimera lay unconscious, back to normal size.

That alone felt like a miracle. Then he found Ora buried, not. He dug her out, forced a healing potion into her mouth. Not awake, not okay, but alive. Good enough. With chimera over one shoulder and aura over the other, he found one of the paladins. In fact, one of the paladins that had been sort of caught up in this fight club, Barnaby Heftic. Well, that's not his real name. It's complicated, but we call him heftic. Anyway, he probably didn't want anybody to know he was there. Logrin says to him, listen, there was a werewolf. It got away. It killed all these people.

It was terrible. You can even take credit for the story. Barnaby didn't love it. He also didn't argue. He saw the point. He told them he'd help find them a place to hold up for a little bit, get a little bit of healing. I mean, Grizzlebits was a crime scene. They needed to get away from there anyway. Camero woke up tied to a bed in Barnaby's childhood bedroom. Logrim sat nearby. Your conversation was calm. About control, about ambition, about ambition, about loyalty with expectations. Nothing was fixed, but they were aligned. Ora, unfortunately, was gone. Across the city, Ruby and I Thera woke at silk sheets after sleeping like the dead.

Then reality caught up. Their friends weren't there. What's going on? So they grab some coffee and a muffin and they race to the other side of town, trying to find where Lagran and Chimeric could be. When they passed grizzled bits, they found paladins, wreckage, and an official werewolf explanation. Ruby read the street instead. Scraped marks, burn scars, firework residue she recognized immediately. The Gearheart had been here, and it probably made this big hole. They followed the trail into the gloaming quarter where it ended behind the old church. Machine had stopped hard.

Drag marks where someone had shoved it out of sight. Scraped, scorched, not wrecked, Cosmetic injuries. Expensive ones, though. But no one inside. Nithera followed screaming into the church. Inside, the vampire community was fracturing in real time. One faction arguing for restraint, the other, done pretending this wasn't already a war. A vampire had been murdered. The city wasn't investigating. Specialized weapons were showing up. The screaming, however, was chet. He laid delirious on a table, a crossbow bolt embedded in his chest. The wound wasn't just bleeding.

He was eating him alive. Nithera recognized the poison immediately. It's called the uninvited, custom-built to kill vampires. She knew how to counter it, but barely. There was a safer option. Finish the transformation. I mean, he's a thrall. Flood him with vampire blood. Higher survival rate, bigger consequences. Now he's a vampire. Ruby leaned in close and asked him, Do you want to be a vampire? Chet couldn't answer. So Ruby said no for him. They burned the poison out. Boiling antidote poured into the wound, flesh sizzling, Chet screaming, step by step, until the final injection drove it through his system.

He passed out in a good way, alive. Fetti apologetically confessed to Ruby, she'd taken the gear heart because she didn't know what else to do. Ruby realized that this chaos was exactly what the machine was built for. Later, Logrin and Chimera found the gear heart too. Chimera felt something before he understood it. Another presence. A soul. Jesse Quipold. Somehow, bound into the adamantite. Not alive, not dead, just there. Chimera told Logrin. Lagerin. Lagerin asked him politely to never say that again. Inside the church, the arguments escalated. And as they passed through, Kamirolete, Chimera overheard something that hadn't come up in a long time.

The blood rain. Not as weather, but as a sign, a return. And that's kind of where we ended that session. Chet was alive but fragile, aura still missing. The Gearheart quietly haunted, Ruby has no idea, the vampire community splintering even further, and the party almost back together. Chimera and Lagrin reunited with Ruby and Niferra just in time to learn at least a little bit about what happened the day before. Chet was attacked by Silver Fox, who's evidently a serial killer, but Chet's alive and resting in the back of the church. A few words mentioned about a bar fight that went a little too far, but not a whole lot of details yet.

Just enough to know that this might be over for now, but it's not over for good. All of that needed to be put on the back burner because Chimera insisted they searched for aura in me. to make sure she was, well, okay. All right, off we go. On the way out, Ruby quickly covered the gear hard up and ripped out some essential wiring so nobody can drive the thing until she's okay with it. Vetti took us to ORA's favorite emo teenager slash Batman brooding over the city spot, a tall abandoned research tower somewhere in the middle of Estherhold. At the top, we found ORA on the rooftop near the edge, clearly wrecked, clearly wrecked, trying not to show it and absolutely not in the mood for anyone to get closer.

Chimera does the one thing Chimera does when emotions get scary. He walked straight into them and tries to apologize like a functional adult. For a moment, it almost works. Then, the universe remembered, we were having too much character development, because aura turns and we see it, deep scars down the left side of her face and neck, the kind of things that don't just hurt. They're the kind of things that change a person. But before anybody can process that, it gets even worse. A hand in her hair, a cross-bow at her head, and Fane Silver Fox steps out like he owns the roof and can essentially do anything he wants without repercussions.

Why? Turns out the city has promoted theme, and he's here to cash in. Evidently, he needs a werewolf for the publicity, and while he's at it, he just wants to take care of Nithera for being a nuisance. God's help him as he thinks he's somehow got the upper hand here, but it did look like it. Thane has a couple of guards on his payroll, evidently, so now they're caught in the mix. With Ruby ready to take a shot at Thane with her wrist balista, Kimer tried to cast suggestion to get him to back down. With some good rolls from Thane, no luck. So, Niferra moved sneakly from behind.

Quiet, fast, surgical. She tried to redirect the crossbow away from Ora while grappling Thane, but he reacted fast, shoving Ora aside, and whipping around with something in his office. hand. So, roll for initiative. So there we were on the rooftop, ready to get into it. Logrin sizing the situation up, Nithera closing in for the kill, Ruby distracting with words and Chimera desperate to get Ora and Vetti out of there. We also have these two city guards in the middle of everything, in way over their heads and not sure what they'd signed up for. Lastly, there's Thane Silver Fox with just enough confidence to think this was going to end well for him.

Logren tried bribery one more time because of course he did. The guards declined, which in hindsight was a mistake. Because once the talking stopped, the stabbing began. Nitha went first. Immediately crit failed, threw her weapon across the roof, and then crit failed again. Ruby ran up and tried to punch Thane and somehow punched Nithara instead. This is not going very well. Kimeras set a guard on fire. Logrin shot the sky so hard the weather actually changed. Yeah, it was a weird role, but we went with it. Ice and wind started tearing across the rooftop.

Everyone was slipping, everyone bleeding, aura got stabbed, Nithara dropped to a single hit point. Vetti, sweet, loyal but now furious Vetti, stepped in and drove a blade into Thane hard enough to split his armor. That was the first moment he stopped smiling. Chimera heated Thane's weapons until they burned in his hands. Ruby hammered him with a ghostlyne. ly dinosaur-jaw-forced from her power gloves. Logrin disarmed one guard and threw his spear off the roof like he was cleaning up after children. And through all of it, they just kept talking. A smug, self-righteous monologue about how he was the only thing keeping Esther Holt safe, how Nithera was in his way, how she was the real monster.

And then he made his move. He grabbed Nithera by the collar and tried to throw her off the roof. For a split second, it almost worked. But Ora, bleeding and shaken, saw it coming. She bent luck. The future shifted just enough. Nitha didn't fall. She caught her balance, shifted, and used that momentum to roll forward instead. She looked Thane dead in the eyes, blood in her teeth, and told him the difference between them was that she still had her friends. And then she buried a blade in him, twice. And Thane Silverfox, Monster, Hunter, Public Hero, Serial Killer, fell backward into the the storm and disappeared over the edge of the roof.

No last words, just gone. The two guards stood there in the snow, watching their employer vanish into the fog, and suddenly remembered they had families and maybe some complicated feelings about corruption. Lagerin immediately disarmed them, decided everyone was going to have a conversation with the mayor in person, immediately. And then when it was quiet, Chimera knelt beside ORA. The adrenaline was gone. The fight was over. She tried to hide the left side of her face. those scars she got from the insane weird demon battle at grizzle bits. They both admitted they weren't okay, not at all, but realized they could be not okay together, and at least that was something.

So for now, while that was the end of Thane Silver Fox, it wasn't the end of the mess. Because now we had two corrupt guards in custody, a dead public hero in the street below, a city already on edge, and a mayor who had given that man authority, which meant whatever came next was going to be about consequence. And somehow, those are usually worse. Okay, I know what you were thinking, and yeah, we were too. Let's make sure we can find the body, right? Never fear, however, as we confirmed Fane hit the street and stayed there. No less words or legendary actions, just gravity doing what gravity does.

We immediately put the two corrupt guards in manacles and marched straight into the next problem, explaining to the city guard why there was a dead hero in the road and several blood-covered adventurers standing over him. Nithera confirmed the kill personally, and while the city guards were at first rightly confused as to exactly what they needed to focus on here, ORA stepped forward and made it very clear. This was not random violence. This was a hostage situation gone wrong for the hostage taker. Everyone ultimately was escorted under heavy suspicion to Mayor Corbyn Hayle.

In his office, Logrin laid it out plainly, which is what he does best in these moments. Thane wasn't hunting werewolves. He was staging them, killing people, infecting bodies after the fact to create proof. He murdered the vampire Zera to cover it up, shot Chet, and paid guards to look the other way. Then more receipts hit the desk. Zer's Journal, the stolen dagger, Thane's collection of poisons, and a weapon made from a the story stopped sounding dramatic and started sounding airtight. Mayor Hale, who was overworked and also looked like a man already several crises behind, listened.

And to his credit, he believed the whole thing. Those captured guards were taken in for questioning, and our party was offered protection as personal guest while the city sorted itself out. Before leaving, Ruby mentioned those minotores crowding the city. Hale admitted he was trying to keep that situation from becoming a second. catastrophe. Logrin offered to help de-escalate it, maybe even use it as a moment to make a much-needed alliance. In return, we ask for silver to help upgrade our weapons, because while Thane's werewolves were mostly fiction, we know from experience there's still very real ones outside the walls of Estherhold.

And so, that takes us through episodes 213.3. through 40 of Frostborn. Evidently, this stretch is where we narrowed our focus for a bit and immediately proved that focus does not in fact mean control. So here we are in this future frozen world of Theria, and still at the center of our story is Logren Kragborn, with a plan to reinstate his entire clan and others into Stone's Under Mountain. He's built a team of loyal experts and friends to help him do just that, Nithera, and Ruby. What's next? Well, whatever happens in Estherhol might take a day or two, but something tells me the gang is ready to leave this city behind for a while.

Logrin's plan needs to move forward, the map needs to open up a bit. Remember, there's a ticking clock on this now and a lot for us to accomplish if we want to make this happen. We have a lot to think about, and really not enough time to get to at all. There's still blood-rain omens to figure out, a gear heart with a quick-bolt soul in it to address, a dour-gare queen watching the clock closely. A few teens we still need to make sure are not in constant. mortal danger before we leave them behind. And honestly, we just need to get going on finding more of those components for the dream artifact.

Oh, and one more thing on the list. Kimer. Because somewhere along this journey, the relationship he has with his patron Colgoth really stopped being a background hum and started being the loudest thing in the room. Question is how to manage it. All right, so consider this your warning and your invitation. You're all caught up. If you've been listening this far to dungeons and randomness, thank you. If you're new, this is the perfect place to jump into our story. We'd love it if you rate the show. Drop us a comment wherever you listen to your podcasts. And please share this recap and the one before it with friends who might love this kind of story telling.

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