Critical Recap: Age of Umbra – Sorrowlands Ep 3 “Horizons of Promise”

Hello and welcome to Critical Recap! I’m Jared Deiro, the Critical Role Junior Lore Keeper. Let’s dive into Age of Umbra: Sallowlands Episode 3 Horizons of Promise!

HORIZONS

After witnessing the “heretic” be thrown off the side of the Tower of Oxudos, the group chase after a human girl, Clea, whom the elven heretic made eye contact with. Losing her among the winding neighborhoods, denizens within the courtyard glance toward a small gap behind a broken fountain. Dilly slips in and sniffs out the girl through the winding and splitting paths and stairways, until hitting a strange stone wall. Dilly pushes and tips the stone over, finding herself in a small room with 3 other figures, including Clea.

Sister, Caguama, and Alphonse join Dilly. The figures, who call themselves the Horizons, pack their things, upset now that their hideout is blown. Alphonse asks why they’re deemed “Heretics.” The Horizons feel they might be, considering themselves philosophers who instill debate and ask questions. They feel the old faiths are gone, and they want people to actually believe in the faiths, rather than be told to believe it.

As the Horizons leave the safehouse, the group seeks another way out. Dilly sends Badger to scout ahead, where he finds a small chimney flue attached to a small home. Dilly maneuvers toward an opening and sees a group of templars searching for Clea. They begin hammering through the walls to try and reach Dilly, but she sends Badger out as a distraction.

Meanwhile, Mercy breaks handholds into the chimney walls, allowing the rest of the group to climb to the roof safely. They sneak onto a balcony of an old library and make their way to the courtyard. Here, they decide to find Bowen, stay for the night, and leave as soon as possible.

TRUE FAITH

Exploring the tower city, Mercy and Dilly look for Bowen, finding him keeping guard on library duty. Mercy saw something in Bowen, a sense of fear and doubt. Mercy asks if Bowen will join them. Bowen agrees to find them later tonight.

Alphonse looks for people to talk to, subconsciously drawn to the gates. He approaches a young and eager human woman. She tells him they’ve been visited by missionaries from the Feral Call, a brutal beastfolk clan known to take things and people to the southeast. The guard heard from her friend that they invited the Tower to go with them to their gardens. She feels it’s a trick.

Alphonse removes his skull helmet, revealing his hairless, warped, and burned face; his nose missing, along with a piece of his ear, and scripture tattoos written across the entirety of his face and head. He tells her that he too has questioned faith, but when you get to the answer at the end and still hold onto hope, that is true faith. The woman is empathetic. Alphonse asks the guard if there is a quicker way out of the city besides the elevators. She tells him that there are tunnels that run through the tower.

Sister and Caguama go to a garden full of strawberry bushes and violets. Sister explains to Caguama how Mercy became a miracle. Mercy came to The Veiled Sisters with tragedy in his eyes. He was seeking mercy in passing, to forget his loss. But there is beauty in death and beauty in renewal. Her sisters sought to help him, but when they began the ritual, the divine nature changed. They poured more magic, hoping it would take hold, and in doing so, Mercy awoke, forgetting what they wished to forget, but not by joining their loved ones, by being born again.

Sister communes with nature and asks if there are other pathways through the pillar to the ground. She feels what was once a natural water formation is now dry and hollow – cavernous veins that sit beneath a statue of Aratu, the goddess of atonement and sacrifice, within the great crypt of this tower. A possible path.

HERETICS!

Day becomes night as the group plans within their chambers. They hear a knock on the door. It’s Bowen! He’s come to wish them all luck. He doesn’t know what he would do beyond the Tower. He has a familial legacy to maintain, and he feels there are good people here that rely on folks like him to protect them. The group tries to persuade him to leave. Until –

The door is blasted open, as Archon Petra and a swath of templars flow into the room, blocking their only exit. She demands everyone get on their knees and be shackled. She knows they met with the Horizons. The party explodes in a bloody battle with the templars; Mercy is struck down and loses his arm, only for a fungal one to quickly grow in its place. He throws Petra, allowing Alphonse to shoot and kill her.

The group is forced to flee with Bowen leading them down the tower toward the lightless and flooded crypts. Sister leads them to the marble chamber she remembers from her vision. They can hear soldiers storming behind them. Mercy smashes through the marble floor with his knuckle blades; the water sucks them down a whirlpool into an ancient, pitch-black river cavern waterslide.

As they speed toward the only point of light, they are thrown out of the Tower of Oxudos, falling from seventy feet in the air. Mercy activates the glider, and the others grab onto him, except Caguama. Everyone crashes into the dunes below, stressed, injured, but alive.

Thats allllll for Episode 3 of Age of Umbra: Sallowlands!

FINAL THOUGHTS

• I would love to know more about the Horizons, I bet there is such a cool subplot going on there. GO BACK!!
• HELL YES ZACHERY WITH THE FREAKY ASS EX-ACOLYTE LOOK.
• Terrifying waterslide moment at the end. I remember when I was little, I would go on those pitch-black waterslides and think, “This is it, this is it, I’m never coming out of this. I’m in here forever,” and then I’d come out and want to go on it again. This reminded me of that. Anyway, I’m glad everyone is alive! YEESH!

Catch Episode 4 of Age of Umbra: Sallowlands on Thursday, July 23rd at 7pm Pacific on beacon.tv, where Beacon members get access to the entire episode, podcast included! The episode will also release on twitch.tv/criticalrole and on youtube.com/criticalrole and in two parts on our podcast. Is it Thursday yet!?