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Runtime	Break start
4h 54m	1h 56m

Episode 6: Knives and Thorns

Welcome back to Critical Role Campaign 4 here at the Soldiers' Table. Our soldiers happened to spend last episode finding, not a fight, but friendship with several wonderful inhabitants of the Kavrosi Mountains north of Dol Makjar (where you headed out).
We met the scoundrel Abalang Howl, an orcish-dwarven smuggler who was hanging up at a gibbet outside the Black Heron Tavern not too far outside of town (with his high spirits but more importantly higher altitude hanging in that cage). He had to get the hell out of there and you guys were happy to help him both to get "someone who might talk" out of your hair and also to get some information about the fact that Casimir Gavendale (the man responsible for the death of Thjazi Fang) is making his way north. It seems that Casimir's betrayal may in fact have bought him a life of unimaginable luxury. No good deed goes unpunished and no betrayal goes unrewarded.
Making your way instead where you thought more likely that Cyd would have traveled (knowing your brother, you took a risk heading into the Dahapshanee Wood given that you couldn't exactly know for sure where his tracks were) and you went to the one place that (due to Kattigan's skills in the forest) you could move faster through than anybody pursuing you. You might think you're the caboose in this train of Casimir chasing Cyd and you guys chasing Casimir, but we all know who's abandoned the Sundered Houses recently and we all know that doing so probably does not come without some consequences.
However on a Nat 20, our friend Thimble was able to discover a nyxie hidden in a spring named Brookmeadow (who asked if you were in grave danger, and then said "Hey are you headed for Hawthorn's Glade?").

Brookmeadow being very cautious about your friends, but maybe not so cautious about doing her job of protecting, it's a hard gig; you're protecting Hawthorn's Glade but you're also trying to find faeries that need Hawthorn's Glade, that's a hard call to make, you're not going to get that right 100% of the time.

So you guys headed deeper into Dahapshanee and made the call to not risk being caught flatfooted in the forest at night. As Kattigan heard in his watch the strange moans of the creatures off in the forest, you probably made the right call.
You also met Ulbid Morn (a gnomish astronomer who was happy to open his gates to you) who was a friend of Abalang Howl's (who had directed you off in that way) who not only kept his telescope pointed skyward (working on behalf of the Old Path, the Druids of the Old Path) to keep tabs on the Stormwrack, that eternal storm. We say eternal. It's been 70 years, maybe after 100 it'll go away? Does that feel like it'll happen? Ulbid Morn doesn't think so. Ulbid Morn thinks it's getting worse, but he also is happy to make life a little easier for himself by swinging that telescope around to keep an eye on who's making their way up and down the King's Way from Timmony (where he acknowledged that he had seen some Crow Keeper wagons moving under the banner of House Tachonis up north) and also happened to spy a royal caravan of the King of Timmony with three red hounds on a white field headed south along the road towards either the Dvalmar Pass or Dol-Makjar.
After that little bit of information gathering:

• he was happy to treat you to some porridge
• keep you safe for the night with his spider climbing goat ready to sound the alarm at any moment
• He was happy to work that evening collecting some of his daughters' toys and was busy working on a sword for Thimble
• and connected with Teor during his watch about the fact that the banner outside his home (much threadworn over 12 years of standing watch over the forest) says in Gnomish, "Welcome Home"

He's tended to it for a long, long time.
Morning has arrived and you guys have a little bit more hope than you had heading out from Dol-Makjar that at least you're on the right trail. You know that Cyd at least made it part of the way through the forest headed north (and you know that it's also good that he's not going to get caught in the immediate future by Casimir, but you also know that they're headed to the same location and that Casimir's got the road at his advantage getting through there). You don't know how fast Cyd can move on his own through the forest. Perhaps he's taking it thoughtfully and carefully. But he certainly didn't find Ulbid, and you don't know what you would've done if you hadn't; danger still looms over this forest.
But it's morning and some bowls of the (still from the night before) little cauldron of porridge has heated up. This time, you see the same porridge is reheated but with some different dried fruits and nuts added into it to freshen the taste profile from what you had the night before.