Episode 234 - So Fresh, So Clean

## Intro

**Episode description:**
n/a

**Opening Quote:**
Stephanie: God, I- I- I - you lost me after like - I- you know what, I was gonna name one, and I don't remember a fuckin' one of 'em.

**Player introduction:**
Sean: Hello and welcome to another episode of the Tabletop Champions podcast, I'm Sean your dungeon master and with me tonight we have Kyle who plays Cam...

Kyle: Hi.

Sean: Ben who plays Kallas...

Ben (in Kallas' voice): Greetings.

Sean: Stephanie who plays Boone...

Stephanie (in Boone's voice): Ahoy-hoy.

Sean: Lauren who plays Dagna...

Lauren: Why did the drow become a bard? For the Lolth.

Sean: I liked that one actually.

Kyle: Yup.

Sean: That was a good one. That was a real good one.

Kyle: That one works.

Sean: And Matt - uh, who are you playing this week?

Matt: Uh, I'm playing Cyrus.

Lauren: Are you?

Ben: Or are you?

Stephanie: TBD.

Sean: Last I remember, we just- there was a wish. Nothing ever actually happened.

Matt: Wait—I thought you said a wish did happen.

Sean: Uh there was a wish-

Stephanie: He did not confirm-

Sean: -a light did shine down.

Matt: Well shit. I don't know then.

Sean: So Boone - Boone -

Stephanie: You should have been thinking about another character, my dude.

Kyle: Sean I super need you to bring him back so that I don't have to feel bad about killing him.

Sean: Right? Um...

Kyle: You really... it's super helpful for me, cause then I don't even have to, like, worry about it, he's fine. He's back. Whoopsies.

## Episode Summary

The episode begins with Boone having just *wished* for a *True Resurrection spell* for Cyrus233. She can feel the spell reaching for his soul, but it meets resistance: Cyrus has died too many times for the spell to easily take hold. Instead, it hovers above his body as a pulsing ball of light. Cam reaches out to it, pushes through a force, and grasps the ball. A black tendril of light emerges from the ball and goes into Cyrus' chest, grasping Cyrus' soul in the ethereal plane. Dagna lays her hands over Cam's and sings her clan song, trying to inspire Cyrus' soul and call it back. The song manifests as little particles of light, which work around Cam's strand to form a stronger tendril. It reaches out and grabs Cyrus' soul. He regains some consciousness, sees the tendril grabbing his wrist, and follows it up to a rip in the darkness, where he sees his friends pouring energy into the tendril.

> “*You can see this tendril coming off their hands. And you feel that they need you. [...] All of a sudden the tendrils let go, and instead of being formless they now form what appears to be an ethereal hand reaching out.
>
> I look at it and he's like, "I guess one more shot." And I grab the hand.
>
> You guys immediately feel it's time to pull. And as you do you summon all your strength, Dagna's song comes to a crescendo, Cam's gritting his teeth, the sweat is pouring off of his brow, and all of a sudden the brilliant flash of light in Cyrus' chest explodes in the room, some icicles begin to fall from the ceiling landing in different places, there's a huge crash, and all of a sudden, Cyrus - you open your eyes.*”
>
> —Sean and Matt
>
>

Cyrus returns to life, but senses this is the last time this is possible. Cam doesn't remember being the dragon, or the fight233. Cyrus' cursed eye is now healed, matching his other eye, though he still has the ability to curse people. Both his eyes are platinum now. The scars on Cyrus' back and his *deserter mark* are now gone, which he takes his shirt off to see. Boone's sword bursts with radiant light and Boone is no longer blue, the scar on her neck and the tattoo on her face are gone, as well as the tattoo on her face, and her voice is no longer raspy. Everyone is fully healed.

The group demands an explanation for why Cam didn't help in the fight, and he describes his time loss. They decide crowns are bad for wearing but good for selling. Everyone tells Cyrus to stop dying, and Dagna thanks Kallas for not letting her die.

Dagna attempts to open the door behind Jarls233 with *Mage Hand*, but it's too heavy. The party fails to shove it open, so Dagna *shatters* a hole into it. On the other side is a huge stone room with carvings all around the room. Looking at the art, Cyrus believes this place belonged to Empyreans, which he explains to be giant-sized celestials. The carvings appear to depict different events in *Empyrean* history. They speculate that *"the Artifact"* may be here, and explore further.

Kallas leads the way into a room with two bookcases, a desk, and books strewn across the ground, some face down. Cyrus can read the books, which are written in *Celestial*. The books on the floor are about *Empyrean* culture, songs, and history. Dagna goes a bit further down the hall and hears a storm, and doubles back to the group. Cyrus shows her the songs, some of which are circled. The circled songs all include references to Diorias. She can't read the words, but can tell by the staffs they're written for a seven stringed instrument. Kallas climbs onto the desk and sees an unlit brazier, a spilled inkwell, and a sheet of paper with staffs of music. Every so often there's a weird symbol, but Kallas can't make anything of it. He tosses it down to Dagna, who can tell the symbol is always where an A should be. She tries to fill in one of the gaps, but her ink doesn't leave a mark. Kallas helps her up onto the desk, where a small amount of ink remains in the toppled inkwell. The quill is huge, so Dagna casts *Arcane Hand* to write with it. As the ink touches the paper, they hear harmonious singing. As she nears completion, they hear the song being sung by unearthly voices, both beautiful and terrifying. As she finishes the song, the notes shimmer blue and float off the page. Dagna now knows the song in every fiber of her being, while the rest of the party can't quite recall it. Cyrus asks what it is again, and Dagna sings the chorus. While Dagna thinks she's singing normally, everyone else hears a chorus of beautiful, terrible heavenly voices again. Then they forget again. They repeat this one more time, and then decide to move on. Kallas searches the drawers, which are empty, and then they go to the next room.

Cam scouts ahead, wanting to feel useful. This room has carvings of wealth. Cam goes to a room to the north, which has two chests: one rosewood banded in gold, one a plain iron banded chest. He jostles each with his sword. The redwood one is heavier, and locked with a gold lock. Since he can't pick locks, he opens the other chest, which is not locked, and the redwood chest crumbles into nothing. At the same time, the carvings depicting wealth in the main room shift to artwork of charity and goodness. In the plain chest, Cam finds a dusty old book, in an unknown language he can nonetheless understand. The cover reads, "*Charity brings to life again those who are spiritually dead.*" Cam returns to the group and they debrief, then move on.

Boone scouts the next room. It has two four-sided pillars, each with a word in *Celestial* on each side. Cyrus comes in to translate, and reads *Compassion*, *Honesty*, *Honor*, *Humility*, *Justice*, *Valor*, *Spirituality*, and *Sacrifice*. To the south is a passage in ruins, and on the side they came in on is a staircase leading down, and a walkway with a railing looking over where the stairway leads. Boone asks Cam to boost her onto the railing, which is giant-sized, and looks down. She sees a room with a tableset and a lyre. She jumps down and tells the group. Dagna asks how many strings the lyre has, and Boone asks for another boost. She says six, but doesn't sound sure, so Kallas asks for a boost as well. Kallas sees that the instrument had seven strings, but is missing one. Dagna goes down the stairway. When she enters the room, the tableset resizes and manifests five human-sized chairs. When she steps back, it returns to its previous state. She steps forward again and the same thing happens. At Kallas' prompting, Dagna pulls out the string she has. On Boone's suggestion, Dagna tries to grab the lyre with mage hand, but it passes through. She takes it herself and strings it successfully; the missing string was an A note. She starts playing the song, but feels something is missing: she needs the party to be her audience. Everyone sits at the table, and Dagna starts to play. The room transforms around them, and at the end of the song, they find themselves in a different place, surrounded by angelic beings.

## Memorable Quotes

**Kyle:** *"Thank you for giving me the free, uh no memory Sean, because now I can give him a hard time for dying after killing him."*

**Cam:** *"Are you telling me there was a competition for the pretty one and I wasn't always in first place? What's happening? Where are we? I can't do this right now."*
**Sean:** *"We haven't played* Fuck-Marry-Kill *this season."*

**Sean:** *"I don't know your music ability, as a- as a character?"*
**Ben:** *"Uh, as we may recall, Sean, my music ability got me killed."167*

**Lauren:** *"It probably would have blown up on us."*
**Kyle:** *"Yeah, fair."*
**Sean** *(half-whispering): "It was full of gold pieces that were each individual miniature mimics."*

**Cam:** *"You asked nicely, I trust you. Against all odds."*

**Sean:** *"I'm not taking you to hell, I'm taking you to heaven."*
**Stephanie:** *"Which seems uncharacteristic and makes me scared. Okay?"*
**Kyle:** *"Does that mean a past character gets to come back to life? When we leave heaven?"*
**Ben:** *"Are we dwarves now?"*

## Trivia

* Inspired by *Matthew Mercer* from Critical Role, Sean required two DC 17 checks of some sort to help bring Cyrus back. Kyle rolled an 18 on a religion check for Cam, and Lauren rolled a 32 on a performance check for Dagna. Sean then required a CON save at advantage from Matt, who crit.
* In episode 233, Sean said Cam was fully aware of what happened while being the *clockwork dragon*; and this episode it was just the opposite.
* Jarls the clockwork dragon is back to being *"Jarls"* and not Jarvis.
* Cyrus got plus three points to his Charisma, giving him a 22 Charisma score, the highest in the party.
* Sean (and Kyle in chat) called Ben out for putting funny jokes in chat and not saying them on the podcast for everyone to hear.
* All the railing, clambering, and boosts from Cam happened despite the stairway, rope, and magic carpet being available.
* So many reminders were set for Cam to read the book next session.