Critical Role

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Runtime	Break start
4h 07m	1h 19m

Episode 102: Reconciliation

Bell's Hells, following the path of Ludinus and the Ruby Vanguard into the ruins of Aeor, accompanied by Essek Thelyss (somebody who had been there a handful of times).
You delved below and into the darkness that had taken the Vanguard and Ludinus' interest in the ruins, Dominox, a grand demon from lore long ago.
You had gone through and had suffered terrible visions from this demon in proximity to the engine that he still clung to, the Soul Anchor holding him present.
You met a new figure, Braius, a minotaur revealed to have been a worshipper of the Lord of Hells. Also Teven Klask, a devilish entity that has been bound with Fearne.
After getting into battle with Dominox, and Ludinus coming in at the last minute to help you defeat this entity (and claiming no aggression or animus towards you). You stopped after defeating the Dominox and he invited you to join him in the chamber beyond, one of the goals of his excursion. Here in this domed, cracked, partially-ruined chamber, you see amongst the rising stairs and statues of Aeorian mages of old, a central dome-like dais. Ludinus pulls from it a sphere of light blue arcane ribbons, an information keeping device of some kind. He tells you this is the Occultus Thalamus, and it is indeed a record keeping device. What he has found with the time spent with it is of utmost importance to Exandria. Ludinus asked you to look into this.
As he activated it, a white light filled your vision and you all experienced within this record (viscerally, as if you were there and amongst them) the tale of these gods, pantheon members of Exandria, who during the height of the Calamity had called a truce because the last great floating city had developed technology that could abjure the gods themselves.
Scared and uncertain, they reincarnated as mortals and infiltrated this city. Seeking information they discovered existence of a device, the Factorum Malleus, that could (in theory) destroy the gods themselves.
In this information-seeking infiltration mission, they found conflict and allyship. They found means to question everything about their presence and what it is they are doing here on this world. When push came to shove, they all still came to agreement, the city had to die and all of the information with it.
So you experienced from the beginning of the arrival of these beings stepping into Aeor, to the final destruction of the city of Aeor as it crashed into Eiselcross. That is what you are aware of through this vision. The prologue and the epilogue are more just for our fun narrative aspect of it as the audience and players. That is what you have experienced as Bell's Hells. Here as these fragments of information and moments and people and faces and screams and energy whoosh by. Eventually the light fades and here you all stand once more in this cracked and ruined and long forgotten chamber that house the Occultus Thalamus.
As you all take a breath, feeling yourselves back in your bodies, feeling the sensation of your own flesh and touch and the buzzing of energy of the strange, alien, wildly altered magic of these ruins around you.
Ludinus still stands holding his orb, smiling and holding it to his chest.
"Fractured as it may be, the Thalamus gifts us with an unintended boon, a record of divinity's true face. The face I've always known. They wade in their narcissistic fantasy and push forth the decrees for mortal lives. Contradictory among their kin, an endless tapestry of guesses and punishments. Harvesting their faith through reverence and fear, ultimately to redirect the natural flow of the soul to their realms and feed from them.
Here you know what I know is true. The living soul of Exandria borrowed and reshaped to create us as the seeds to their eternal garden of exploitation. We are chained to a cycle of their making against the natural order of life between these realms.
The Eidolons, the natural spirits of the land, they existed before the gods arrived and will exist long after they are gone. They are primordial spiritual life we once were, stolen and industrialized to sustain their self-obsessed tyranny. They funnel the very essence of the world away from it, a sentence of entropy for Exandria in ages to come.
What they did not account for was the strength of our spirit, the drive of our ambition, the desire to learn and grow, make and unmake and make again.
To challenge the mysteries of the universe with the brief time we have.
In their arrogance, they made something more perfect than them, us. In the Age of Arcanum, our enlightenment was revolution, an age where philosophy, art, and the promise of understanding were our purpose. It was their presence, their thrones, their meddling that brought ruin upon our potential. We deserve to inherit the future and they would not dare step aside and let us be greater than they.
I understand it may take some time to truly absorb what they are. What did you see? What do you see them as? What did you experience through this vision?"

Previous Episode: "Downfall: Part Three"

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Braius artwork by yghiilra