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Runtime	Break start
6h 19m	2h 34m

Episode 31: Trick of the Light

We return to tonight's episode of Critical Role. What a wild couple of episodes it's been. Hoy hoy!
Once again, we see that (in our previous episode) the heroes of Aramán have seen (after their various quests throughout the world of Aramán) returned to discover on this momentous night that there were three objectives in front of them:

1. to spy on the great meeting of the Sundered Houses (to see if the House Tachonis could indeed be backed into a corner by all of the achievements of our heroes)
2. to infiltrate Obrimus Manor (to rescue Thjazi's co-conspirator, Mara the Wing)
3. to protect and ensure whatever magical goings-on were going to occur at this opening night of the play, "KoTher'ai", which (due to the machinations of forces both near and far) promised to be one of the most momentous, magical evenings in occurrence.

• the Sundered Houses were successfuly spied upon
• Mara the Wing has (to our knowledge) been at least momentarily rescued (not without great cost, though your characters do not know it, Teor Pridesire has left this world)
• at our play, we see that paint rendered from an ancient River Styx, composed of blood (the Gavzidra), was painted by a young daughter of the families Lloy and Fan into the murals of a Hallowed Round that is indeed now hallowed (the story of Vokjan's revolution calling out to the souls of those orcish heroes captured in an afterlife that had been severed from this world (following the death of the gods) no more).

In addition to the most momentous magical discovery of the last 70 years (the fact that the Shapers' War did not destroy the afterlives) a hanging question that has haunted this world for 70 years and spurred the retribution and violence during the Ghost Wars and all manner of horrifying things. That question has been answered. Those souls are not lost. Perhaps souls never can be. Perhaps only lost for a time.
You also see that as those souls of orcish spirits cross the proscenium of the theater that they are rendered in celestial status. Here in this story being told by their descendants in this place of their heroism, they are filled with light. More than that, as the magic became unstable, we saw in the letter of this "professor" (some other co-conspirator of Thjazi Fang's). We saw in this letter of the professor "A Stable Trinity of Bridges". One Anchor, the Pariah Blade, now painted and held aloft as a symbol rather than just a sword, by young Shadia Fang, as a member of the chorus.
The paint rendered in the workshop of Tsul'rekshi into a series of murals depicting the great stories of the history of the Rungjani.
And the Stone of Nightsong (used here for its connection to Faerie) has just been sundered by a Sister of Sylandri, smashed apart, sacrificing a dream she has held for 70 years, because to seize that dream would be at the detriment of these still-living people. What a choice Vaelus has made. She risked her life to do both. But only able to do one, she raised her censer on high, and in the city that we first met her coming to seek the Stone to return it, has chosen to destroy it.
Alongside Azune Nayar, speaking a word in Navika'an (the language of his people that he has not had much occasion to speak) saying, "Remember". That word spoken in Navika'an, the lost language of dragons.
As a dragon reared its head from Lake Nahami (a dragon that had been asleep, perhaps since long before even the Shapers' War) arose to take that shattered remnant of the Stone of Nightsong, push it into the ground, and create a cavern of moon crystal (much like the one that our Soldiers Table saw in Hawthorn's Glade). Where the forest of Tintazi meets Lake Nahami, an anchor to the spiritual energy of Faerie has been created (more powerful than any we have yet seen in the story we are telling). It is that anchor that stabilizes the connection between the afterlife of the Runjani (or the once-afterlife of the Rungjani, I should say) and the playhouse (The Hallowed Round) and by extension, all of the living world of Aramán.
For all of you. Murray! You see everything stabilize. Those tendrils reaching out. That connection has stabilized. I cannot begin to tell you all of your worst fears of what was going to happen tonight (the reason that you had a hundred Magpies in the wings, all of the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man, the-dead-pour-forth chaos and ruin)? I had all of my notes ready for that to happen if you went home with your family, and instead those bridges stabilized.
However, Hal and Thaisha (and Murray as well) you see that while the connection is stabilizing (which means that the planes don't come unfurled and the dead don't pour forth into living Dol-Makjar). The living world of Aramán is fine, the people here are watching a nice play, but you see that same sense of crisis on the other side still unfolding (of the spirits feeling panicked). Their celestial status is wavering as they cannot tell whether they should walk the Path or stay and defend this place (and I think you both see paint still bubbling up as raw, untapped, magical energy that seems to require what paint perhaps always requires, which is direction and intention).
For those of you here, we will begin, first of all, with a little bit of business. Hal, you need to roll hit points.
The second act of the play commences. And this is the act, by the way (because the end of the first act ends on a high note) which if the first act ends on a high note (oh no, we're watching a tragedy! because it's setting up for the fall in the second act), and we see that this is what begins to happen (the story of Vokjan MUrzat being betrayed by those close to him to the priests of Azgra) and as the story commences, it becomes harder and harder.
Turning it over to Hal here for a second, what do we see in that second half of the play as it begins to unfold?

Map of Dol-Makjar