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Critical Role Recap: Episode 110 – “The Climb Within”

SPOILERS for Critical Role Episode 110 (obviously).  Go check out the full episode at GeekandSundry.com!
Our recap of Episode 109 can be found here.

Vox Machina explores the inside of an undead titan.

Previously on Critical Role

After creating the prime trammels needed to weaken Vecna, Vox Machina went back to Vasselheim to regroup with their allies. When they arrived, the city was in chaos. They met with various religious leaders and J’Mon to plan their next steps. Unfortunately, part of their plan was overheard by Vecna. Still, they needed to move quickly and try to defeat Vecna as soon as possible. When they found the location of the newly ascended god, he had put Thar Amphala on the top of an undead titan. The party found an passageway into the titan through one of its legs and planned to sneak into the city from below while the others attacked from the sky.

Now

Keyleth moves the flowing water out of the way of the steps. Vex brings Trinket out of her necklace. The party runs up the stairs and ducks through the opening. With each step the titan takes, the caverns around them tremble.

Vax keeps an eye out for undead dwarves. As they go through the tunnel, they see evidence of dwarven development.

Grog touches the ground to see if there is an effect in his knuckles. The hum remains, but it doesn’t change intensity.

As Vax pushes ahead, he sees symbols in a language he doesn’t understand, but nothing stands out to him as a trap. Interestingly, Grog is able to read the Dwarven symbols. Concentrating hard, he sounds out words, and he eventually makes out a warning. It reads “Leave. Death here. No further.”

Continuing on, they see a crack in the tunnel out of which the river flows. They move upwards, trying to make their way to the city. Vex casts primeval awareness. Keyleth notices that the structural damage to the tunnels increase with each step the titan takes.

Suddenly, there an a much stronger impact than before. They grab onto the walls to steady themselves as rocks fall around them. There are several more footfalls before another great impact. Rocks fall from the ceiling. Grog dodges out of the way, but Percy, Pike, and Scanlan are completely buried.

The others quickly dig them out. They are a bit battered by the rocks, but are able to continue on. They come to the bottom of a plateau, and begin to climb up.

Vax uses divine sense, but he doesn’t detect undead within 60 feet of them. Stealthing ahead, he sees a fork in the path. Unable to see what is down either direction, he waits for the others. They go to the left, wanting to stay as close to the center of the titan as possible.

They hear an explosion to the left of Percy. Two limbs made of rock grab him and pull him towards the wall. He vanishes into the wall. He is trapped in darkness, unable to breathe. Other sections of the wall begin to reach out to the others.

Keyleth yells to the others to stay away from the walls. Using transmute rock, she tries to pull Percy out of the wall. She successfully brings him out, gasping for air. Percy looks around, still unable to see in the darkness.

Percy brushes the mud out of his eyes. He brushes the mud off of his flashlight as well, illuminating their surroundings. He backs away from the others.

Keyleth yells to the others that the creatures are weak to thunder and other powerful vibrations.

Grog goes into a rage and attacks one of the beings in the walls, slashing it with his axe.

Vex shoots two arrows. The first one misses, but the second finds its mark.

Vax flies up to the ceiling. Hovering between Percy and Pike, he throws his daggers down at one of the creatures. Parts of its body fall off in chunks, and it barely manages to hold itself together.

Scanlan sings a song to inspire Grog. He then casts thunderwave, hitting two of the monsters. Their bodies crack under the force.

The earth around them attempts to swallow Keyleth, Vex, and Percy. Vex and Percy jump out of the way, but the rock surrounds Keyleth.

As a monster retreats into the wall, Scanlan strikes it with Mythcarver.

Percy is hit twice by the flailing rock arms. Vex is hit as well.

More of the creatures retreat back into the wall.

Keyleth transform into an earth elemental. In her new form, she can sense where all the others are. She goes further underground and casts thunderwave. Parts the tunnel collapse under the force.

Pike runs over to Grog and prepares to attack if another monster appears. Percy also holds an attack until another appears.

Grog, seeing no more enemies, begins to leave, but he is still cautious that the monsters may return.

Vex hops on her broom. She begins to fly and readies her bow for another attack.

Underground, Keyleth attacks the retreating monsters, beating them with her attacks.

Trinket is pulled underground.

One of the monsters emerges again. A flurry of daggers and arrows kills the creature quickly.

Pike is pulled underground by another monster.

Keyleth can sense both Trinket and Pike underground. She grabs Pike and bursts through the earth, reemerging with her gnome friend. Keyleth sets her on the ground.

Vex looses an arrow at one of the monsters. The arrow strikes it, and it crumbles, dead. Trinket shifts the rubble trying to escape. Vex, not knowing that it is her bear, aims her bow at the moving rock.

Calling out to Grog to watch, Pike swings her mace at the last monster. Aiming between its legs, her mace crashes through the rock, and it bursts into small pebbles. She hits its remains a few more times out of frustration.

Trinket emerges from rubble. Vax gives Scanlan his condolences for Trinket’s survival.

The titan takes another step. Keyleth holds the rocks from crushing them and tells them to keep moving.

They continue down the left path. It stops at a cylindrical chamber. In the center of the room, they see a partially collapsed temple. On the stained glass windows, they see a dwarf-like figure on top of a mountain with other dwarves looking up at him. Within the center of the structure, Vax senses undead. Percy speculates that there could be treasure inside.

Pike suggests using her turn undead ability.

Grog notices more dwarven runes on the temple. He sits for fifteen minutes and reads them. He reads the story of a dwarven king. Grog tells them what he found in his own words. Pike worries that she will not be able to turn a powerful undead.

Vax and Pike try to force the door open. It opens about half an inch before closing again. Grog tries to punch the door open. On the impact, the door splinters. On the second hit, it completely breaks open.

Pike quickly looks for undead inside the temple. She and Grog see a antique bronze door in the center of the chamber. Along the side of the room are pedestals, each holding a stone box. Rocks and debris scatter across the floor from the cave-in.

Vax investigates the boxes on the pedestals. The first one is not locked, but it is trapped. He disables the trap and opens the box. It is empty. The second is empty as well. He skips to the fifth box. Again, it is not locked, but it is trapped. This one is empty as well. Checking the middle two, he activates both of the traps. When he first activates the trap, a cloud of mist puffs up in his face. He inhales some of the poison, but not enough to do lasting damage. On the second trap, he inhaled less of the damage, but resisted the poison again. All of the boxes were empty.

Scanlan goes over to the bronze door and inspects it. Engraved on the door is a angry dwarf with a beard that reaches the floor. There is a keyhole and a wheel to open the door. He and Vax inspect the door for traps and find none. The door, however, is lock.

Vax picks the lock. Though the lock is intricate and meant to protect the king inside the chamber, Vax’s expert lock picking skills allow him to unlock the door. When he picks the lock, however, the dwarf on the door’s mouth opens and spews forth a toxic green smoke that envelopes Vax, Pike, Scanlan, and Percy.

Scanlan, Percy, and Pike feel their bodies begin to tighten and their movements slow. They look at the floor with horror and realize that some of the stone rubble may be the tomb robbers before them. Keyleth quickly creates some wind to clear the chamber of smoke. Vax and Scanlan reach out to Pike. Vax casts bless on her, and Scanlan casts greater restoration, relieving her from the effects of the smoke. Still, Percy and Scanlan freeze into stone statues.

Pike rushes over to Scanlan and casts greater restoration. Keyleth casts the same spell on Percy.

Keyleth argues that they should move on, but the others argue that the door is already open.

They enter into the tomb. They see an open rectangular marble sarcophagus in the center of the room. Inside it is the skeleton of a dwarf in golden armor with a black hammer and leather belt of square opals. The skeleton begins to move.

Pike immediately casts turn undead. The wave of divinity blasts past it, not affecting it.

Vax throws three daggers at the skeleton. Before it can completely sit up, it is dead for good. Vax searches the sarcophagus for traps while Scanlan searches the floor for pressure plates. Vax does not find traps, but Scanlan finds two pressure plates.

They grab the hammer and belt before quickly leaving the chamber. They examine the hammer and find that it is not cursed. Grog asks for the hammer. He swings it around and puts it in the bag of holding. Percy is given the belt.

They go back up the tunnel and go down the path they avoided before. Eventually, they get to a hallway of deliberate dwarven architecture. Vax hears a faint sound in the darkness ahead. He warns the others as he pushes on ahead.

He sneaks up a few steps to a raised platform. He sees the ruins of dwarven buildings that have crumbled with the recent movement of the titan. There was once a city here that has since been deserted. He sees a gray humanoid creature hunched by a pool of water. Vax uses his divine sense to see if it is undead, but he finds that it isn’t.

Vax throws three daggers at the creature. The first dagger finds its mark and kills the creature. It falls face-first into the water. The second two fly past where the creature sat moments before. Vax searches the creature but finds nothing of interest.

The rest of the party joins him, and they all continue on.

Percy attunes to the belt. He finds that it is a cincher of the stone king. It gives the wearer various immunities and prevents them from being knocked prone. It also gives the wearer the ability to channel their anger into a shockwave of energy.

They come across two stone doors. They do not find any locks or traps. Grog hints that he wants to bust through them. Vex lets him but says to just push instead of smashing. He pushes the door and it collapses, the hinge broken.

Grog: “I know a saying for this: they make them like they used to!

Looking inside, he sees rectangular chambers. The floor is covered in shale and rubble. With each footstep of the titan, more rubble and dust falls. Vax looks for traps while Keyleth searches for weak areas prone to cave-ins. Vex searches for cracks or windows to the outside.

As they go through, Keyleth realizes that this was once a vault. Vex finds a bit of airflow coming from one of the chambers. Vax does not find any traps.

They all walk into the next chamber. There are signs that the vault has already been raided. One of the piles of rags ahead begins to move. Vax uses his last detect undead on it. It is indeed undead.

Up from the piles of rags rises a rotting, undead troll. It charges in their direction.

Percy shoots at the charging troll, but misses. He loads his gun, getting ready for the next shot.

Vex looses her arrows, but misses as well.

Pike swings at the troll with her mace. It hits the troll. She swings again and hits once more.

Grog takes the hammer he recently attuned to and swings it at the troll. He recklessly attacks it. The hammer swings back at him and hits him in the face.

Confused, he swings the hammer again, this time much harder. This time, the hammer hits the troll. It falls to the ground, dead.

Grog holds his sore jaw.

Vax sees more trolls coming from around the corner. Vax throws his daggers at them.

One of the trolls attacks Pike and grabs her, pulling her towards its mouth. However, she manages to throw up her shield and get out of its grasp.

Scanlan pulls out Mythcarver and stabs one of the trolls.

Percy fires a shot and blows pieces of the troll off, but it still stands. He fires again. Organs fall out onto the ground, but it still stands. He wonders if something is holding them together.

Pike uses her final channel divinity to turn the undead. They run away from the party.

Grog runs after one of the trolls and hits it with his hammer. He knocks its jaw clean off. He swings again and hits himself once more.

The trolls bite at Scanlan. One successfully bites down, but Scanlan doesn’t take any lasting effects.

Scanlan pulls out his wand of fireball and launches a fireball.  Trinket, Vax, and Pike are also in the blast radius. However, both trolls are killed in the process.

Keyleth tracks down the remaining troll and attacks it with a fireball. She then pulls out a flameblade from her staff.

Vex looses more arrows at the troll. Both hit it in the chest.

They all notice that the blast from the fireball has compromised the integrity of the ceiling.

Pike runs over to the troll and casts guiding bolt. It streaks through the air and hits the troll, killing it. The remaining flames from the fireball consume its body.

They quickly loot the chambers. They find about 35 gold pieces.

One of the doorways collapses.

Pike casts greater restoration on Grog to free him from the hammer. He begins to attune to his bloodaxe again.

They take a short rest and discuss their next steps on the path to Thar Amphala.

To be continued…


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About the Artist: Nick Uroseva (@Nick_Uroseva)

Nick is a professional graphic artist from Youngstown, Ohio. He has a BA in Multimedia Technology. When he isn’t doodling for one thing or another, he spends is his time writing and Dungeon Mastering several D&D games, enjoying craft beer, shooting zombies with Nerf blasters, and tweeting about #CriticalRole.

Fiona L.F. Kelly (@FionaLFKelly)
Fiona L.F. Kelly is a writer, editor, and podcaster. She has published numerous articles about all things gaming and pop culture on websites all across the internet, was also a writer for Trinity Continuum: Aberrant 2e, and has been published in books and magazines. She is an editor for the pop culture and media website GeekGals.co. In addition to her writing and editing, she has also been a guest and host on several podcasts. She hosts the Project Derailed podcast Big Streaming Pile, produces and performs on Fables Around the Table, and plays the githyanki pirate Rav’nys on Tales of the Voidfarer. Buy her a coffee: ko-fi.com/fionalfkelly

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