The Elder Scrolls Online: Blackwood - Part II: A Faulty Foundation

is the second part of Critical Role ' s planned The Elder Scrolls Online: Blackwood series, sponsored by Bethesda and ZeniMax Online Studios. Game Master Marisha Ray leads a group of restaurateurs on their second adventure inspired by The Elder Scrolls Online: Blackwood.

Part I
It is about three months since their encounter with a Daedric beast. The group got plentiful money from their adventures. Now they can afford additional upgrades for the tavern:


 * Tavima bought a beautiful stained glass window to bounce out misbehaving folk. It shatters under the impact, then reforms like it had never been damaged before.
 * Slaughter used his money to get a levitating tray named Rex
 * Mallory installed an extra sick set of double doors to make it harder to reach him. He also hired sous chef Timothy, who had resigned a short time after.
 * Hoa built a small coop for her birds-friends and gave every one of them an individual number/name. When patrons enter the tavern, they receive a bird, who will help them in tracking their orders. She also ordered a guestbook made of Daedric beast, which they slew a couple of months ago.
 * Grelnok upgraded the bar, turned an old cracked wooden board into elegant mahogany.

At 11 am, the group let patrons come inside. Mallory starts cooking, Slaughter takes orders, and Hoa brings up the food. Until a familiar face enters the building: Devin, the tax collector but now he works for  Heath and Safety department. Devin finds many flaws: scunges set too low from the ground that's a fire hazard; floorboards are soft, the foundation can crumble at any moment; Hoa's birds are potential disease transporters; also, there is a gas smell in the kitchen.

Devin's verdict — their tavern is not up to a code. Mainly because of a crumbling foundation, he must shut down their business. Tacoma is not fond of Devin, who for the second time is trying to collect the money from them, thus she throws him out of the window, which strangely helps to win over the inspector. He told them the location of the stonemason Orimen, a couple of hours journey north through the Grahtwoods.

The tavern is closing up, but before they leave, Hoa wrote a note to inform all the patrons about their temporal leave and the soon reopening. Eventually, the group begins their journey from the stonemason. Some time passes until Mallory first notices that the usual forest sounds are gone. Grelnok, who is more perceptive at that moment, also learns from this silence that there must be a predator nearby. At that time, trees start to rustle, steak breaks — a large lizard creature reveals itself.

Tavima and Mallory heavily damage one of them, eventually finished by Grelnok. She cracks the whip around his neck and decapitates it. Hoa sets the Barbed Trap — little bugs come out of her fingers and make a little line, a straight black line behind the creature the last. Tavima pushes him forward through the line of bugs, who crawl into its mouth and tour the body apart.

As they took sufficient damage, the group rests and then continues forward. Hiking for some time, in the canopy opening before them, they see a hill and a small stone cabin embedded into the base of it. There are rusty tools scattered around and the smell of spoiled food inside the hut — all the clues indicating the home was left abandoned for some time and no signs of the Orimen Granoth. The cabin is built with three walls and in place of the last one is a cavern entrance with fresh footprints coming into it. The group follows them and enters the cavern when sudden rubble of stones catches their attention — two large boulders roll toward the party and pin down Mallory and Tavima. Four humanoids ambushed the group.

As the three attackers, two nords and an orsimer, run down the hill, Slaughter casts Trapping Webs on the two of them, who are leading the charge. One of them is grappled and poisoned, collapsing dead on the ground. Mallory, using Lightning Splash, fried another one. After Tavima gets free from the burden of the boulder, she casts Sun Fire, the flame pierces the nord's throat and sizes the body in fire, and he falls dead in a pile of ash. The last foe has a tough position for surviving. Surrounded by the party of five individuals and grappled by Tavima, he goes limp from the final blow by Grelnok.

Player Characters

 * Grelnok Nightbringer, an orsimer dragonknight
 * Hoa Sen, an altmer warden
 * Mallory Klaxton, a dunmer sorcerer
 * Slaughter Grimm, an argonian necromancer
 * Tavima, a redguard templar

Non-player Characters

 * Diven Leson, an Aldmeri health and safety inspector
 * Rex, Slaughter's enchanted food platter
 * Timothy, a former sous-chef of the Grelnok's Skull Tavern
 * A dremora cultist
 * A khajiit family

Mentioned

 * Marty, a neighbor boy
 * Orimen Granoth, a stonemason

Trivia

 * A third and final installment of the Elder Scrolls Online One-Shot  series was announced on 13 August 2021 to be scheduled for September or early October 2021.