Critical Role

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Runtime	Break start
5h 16m	1h 32m

Episode 118: The Hallowed Cage

Bell's Hells, with the aid of two other disparate groups of heroes, have managed to head towards the depths of Ruidus, trying to follow the footprints and current aspirations of the Ruby Vanguard and Ludinus Da'leth. After discovering through a vision that your mother was seemingly captured by Ludinus and being transferred (her abilities and possibly her physical being being transferred and destroyed into Ludinus through a newly-constructed Quintessence Array) you raced through the subterranean tunnels, befriended a number of the myceits (and the strange fungal culture that exists within the lower layers of Ruidus itself), interfaced with the core of that mycelium network and the hive mind of the myceit culture (to which you also granted the seed of the All-Minds-Burn, to whatever end that might be).
Trekking further on, bypassing some challenges, stumbling past others, eventually you came to the outer depths of the Prime Pillar (whereupon a fissure in the thick glass led you deeper within the tree trunk-like ringed layers of stone and glass revealing themselves) as you began to wind deeper into the central pillar that seems to represent a path to the core of the moon. There you came upon a troop of Exaltants that had surrounded Ludinus, keeping him contained within a psychic shell while he was on the cusp of absorbing the remnants of your mother. You then quickly sprang into action, defeating and dispelling and disrupting the concentration of these Exaltants until one by one they fell. With the last one crumbling, the shield was absolved and destroyed. A rapid series of actions pulled your mother, Liliana, from the jaws of destruction and ash and your resident blue bard here immediately locked Ludinus within a dense Force Cage spell.
In this moment, here within the outer layers of the Prime Pillar, Ludinus seems to nod with a strange bit of approval of what has just transpired. As you see the arching, flaring veins of purplish Exaltant energy crawling up around his neck and his arms, his hair beginning to float and flow around him (the essence of Liliana's Exaltant Ruidusborn gift being transferred, albeing temporarily to Martinet Ludinus Da'leth).
Here as you all stand at the immediate end of an intense conflict, you catch your breath and look face to face with what looks to be a very calm and smug villain. As you all stand there, Ludinus paces back and forth within the cage, like a calm lion, tiger, looking about the rest of your troop. A liger if you will.
L.D.:"Very well. I suppose you have your mother back. That's one thing before the end, I suppose...if it is to be the end."

Previous Episode: "Race to the Ruidian Core"

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