And with that, our time in the Delta draws to a close. There’s just enough time for us to catch our breath and regroup before we go our separate ways and tackle the next big thing.

Dragomir and I have reached a sort of impasse, I think. He wants to have a relationship with his daughter, and for a long time Daria had been that proxy. I still don't know if I want a relationship with my father, because I have made it this long without one. I was afraid, at first, to see what kind of man he would be. Then I was terrified once I learned who he was.

Him? I had thought, remembering that look in his eyes as he slaughtered a hydra or forced Cipru to hold a gun to his own head. This is the man my mother had loved? Still loves, in her own way.

Now, after working and fighting alongside him, I have come to understand him in another light. I won't say that he's a good man, but I can see how he thinks he is one — or at least not a bad one. I say that because I am not a good person in the same ways, and I can see familiar pieces of me in him. I can see the same sort of ache in him that I see in my mother when he talks to me.

He’s not interested in the greater good, but he wants to do right by me. I will give him that chance. I am not a little girl anymore, and he is not the selfless, heroic man I once thought he might be. But he wants to try, for me, for what we could have been if circumstances were different, and that’s enough.

Because if there’s one thing that I’ve learned from working with the Rams this past year, it’s that so long as you’re willing to try, and so long as you care, then that’s enough. There will always be someone there to help carry you the rest of the way.
- From the investigation notes of Elżbieta

Cast:
Bitmap as Ksana the Spear
Cory as Apricus the Luminary
Jade as Viidra Matei
Mab as Elżbieta Wrona
Zachary as The Game Master

Produced by: Mab
Theme song: "Stray Not, And Be Safe" by Zachary Frederickson.
Sound effects: zapsplat and Freesound users matucha, dermotte, julianmateo, and eminyildirim
Other music: Ovani Sound and Kevin MacLeod

Find us on Twitter at SunlessReach, Tumblr at SagasoftheSunlessReach, and Bluesky at SunlessReach. Don't forget to post about the show using #SunReach.

Follow all of Standing Stones' projects @stones_standing

Content Warning for graphic violence and body horror

It seems useless at this point to be asking why? And they’re not even good investigative questions either.

Why do the Errols want to control Tarandaur? Spare me the greater good rhetoric, you’ve proven you’d just as soon control mindless sheep than lead people to prosperity. Endless food supply? Finally a chance at freedom, for your chosen handful?

Why did Hans and Nico want to become vampires? What reward was worth so great a risk? Why subject yourself to such a miserable way of life simply because you eke out the slightest advantage against the common man?

It’s a foolish and childish question. I can’t say I inherently believe in the good of any one individual as a general sense; I’ve been a hunter and an investigator long enough to know that people will do awful, petty things for their own advancement, even if it only earns them inches. It isn’t like the adventure serials where the bad guy always gets their comeuppance.

Why is this the future that the Errols want to promote? Why do I feel like none of them have an ounce of common sense, because all they have created is a breeding ground for dissent.
- From the investigation notes of Elżbieta

Cast:
Bitmap as Ksana the Spear
Cory as Apricus the Luminary
Jade as Orin Nāttsku
Mab as Elżbieta Wrona
Zachary as The Game Master

Produced by: Mab
Theme song: "Stray Not, And Be Safe" by Zachary Frederickson.
Sound effects: zapsplat
Other music:

Find us on Twitter at SunlessReach, Tumblr at SagasoftheSunlessReach, and Bluesky at SunlessReach. Don't forget to post about the show using #SunReach.

Follow all of Standing Stones' projects @stones_standing

Content warning for graphic violence
When we first came to the Delta, there was no real reason for Viidra to have trusted us the way that he did. Implicitly, our presence meant that we were here to disrupt the order of things — undoubtedly Jack had told him stories about us. What we had done in Ruel, and what we looked to do in the Delta. At the time, what did we know of Viidra’s life before our arrival?

He was hired to ferry us about the Delta and to be our local guide while we got our feet under us. Now he’s leading one of the charges against Sofia’s grip on this place. He has, more than any of us, a reason to pry her claws from the beating heart of his home. We merely gave him the leverage with which to anchor his spear.

I am glad that he talked me out of pursuing vengeance against Curwen. The bigger picture dictates that I should join the charge on Viclean, but it is hard to see around the hurt and betrayal that still sting.

The battle against Curwen is one that involves the Sangele; I have no need to overstep the bounds of their generosity towards my presence. Let Viidra see this one through, to solidify in him the knowledge that he is willing to fight to see his home freed from the stagnation it has maintained under Dragomir’s thumb.

He will work at the rot blocking the river until the water can run clear once more.
- From the investigation notes of Elżbieta

Cast:
Bitmap as Treju of the Swamp
Cory as Sad Jack “The Axe” Little
Jade as Viidra Matei
Mab as Lilli Kuusela
Zachary as The Game Master

Produced by: Mab
Theme song: "Stray Not, And Be Safe" by Zachary Frederickson.
Sound effects: zapsplat user lukas_tvrdon and others, Soundbible user Tony Phillips, and Freesound users univ_lyon3, homeboylp, slave2thelight, molefimanaka, jaklocke, brendan89, cgeffex, artninja, tosha73, minecraftgamerlr, jessie_s, and britelife
Other music: Kevin MacLeod, Ovani Sound, and AlesiaDavina from Pixabay

Find us on Twitter at SunlessReach, Tumblr at SagasoftheSunlessReach, and Bluesky at SunlessReach. Don't forget to post about the show using #SunReach.

Follow all of Standing Stones' projects @stones_standing

I am not the only one with a deeply personal connection to this course we have plotted. It is still a new concept to me, that this is my family, though they seem so ready to try and drag me in on one side or the other. And as this family starts to tear itself apart, it expands wider and wider across the countryside.

But even beyond that: Apricus has some sort of history with Nico. I don’t really know how to ask him such a personal question, especially considering all of the grief that we have been put through due to their interference. Would he answer, if I did? Would I be able to find some sort of way to be as vulnerable in return, as an equivalent bearing of souls?

My secrets are now known. I did a poor job of mitigating their damage, especially where Curwen was involved, but I have little else to give that would be as personal as who is this person to you? What will it mean for you that we have to kill them?

Apricus has always been a solid supporter and a level head in times where I felt I couldn’t keep one. I feel I am doing a poor job of offering him the same in this moment.
- From the investigation notes of Elżbieta

Cast:
Bitmap as Ksana the Spear
Cory as Apricus the Luminary
Jade as Orin Nāttsku
Mab as Elżbieta Wrona
Zachary as The Game Master

Produced by: Mab
Theme song: "Stray Not, And Be Safe" by Zachary Frederickson.
Sound effects: zapsplat users Still North Media and others, Yellowstone National Park Sound Library, and Freesound users lg, nachtmahrtv, kvp888, julianmateo, eminyildirim, breviceps, nofeedbak, and kev_durr

Find us on Twitter at SunlessReach, Tumblr at SagasoftheSunlessReach, and Bluesky at SunlessReach. Don't forget to post about the show using #SunReach.

Follow all of Standing Stones' projects @stones_standing

There is one thing I keep telling myself with each report from across the Delta: It means nothing if they can’t do this for themselves. With each new day, how much are we carrying the fight on our backs, instead of letting the citizens of the Delta learn they can stand for themselves? They do not need outside revolutionaries, and they do not need Wolves. They just need to know that they can.

I can’t speak for the others beyond what they have reported through Granny Weaver’s spiders. The Sangele are already masters of their own defense, they just need extra hands to help where theirs are tied. The Sunken Tune, their long-standing agreement with Dragomir, the self-imposed isolation. For the future of the Delta, these are things that need to change and have ready solutions.

Despite what Sorren says, I am no master tactician. I see all the same pieces on the board as everyone else does. I just do not have the same obligations and ties to this place, so I am not afraid to tear it up from the roots. I will hand them back the shovel and say ‘now you do the rest’, because once we leave then they will have to learn to rely on one another. They deserve freedom from an Errol’s reign, even if his hand was more lenient than most.

The Rams’ Horns are not here to govern this place in Dragomir’s stead. We cannot take on every responsibility for freeing this place on our shoulders alone and then leave them to fend for themselves. We are here to remind them that it is possible to take what they deserve from the hands that would claim to know what is best.

We are not shepherds. Let the people rule themselves.
- From the investigation notes of Elżbieta

Cast:
Bitmap as Ksana the Spear
Cory as Apricus the Luminary
Jade as Viidra Matei
Mab as Elżbieta Wrona
Zachary as The Game Master

Produced by: Mab
Theme song: "Stray Not, And Be Safe" by Zachary Frederickson.
Sound effects: zapsplat, Freesound users webbfilmsuk, augustsandberg, kyles, plus-one, cgeffex, mycompasstv, julianmateo, fractanimal, halleck, brunoauzet, axiyee, other_kat
Other music: Ovani Sound

Find us on Twitter at SunlessReach, Tumblr at SagasoftheSunlessReach, and Bluesky at SunlessReach. Don't forget to post about the show using #SunReach.

Follow all of Standing Stones' projects @stones_standing

We come, at last, to the first step in the emancipation of the Delta. So much has changed since we first entered months ago. The Anglers are poised against us and Dragomir, the erstwhile father I never anticipated to find here, fights on our side. Not an ally, per se, but the enemy of my enemy…

Old allies are a welcome sight. I didn't mean for my letter to be a summons, but I won't lie and say that I do not wish to have them here. Sorren, especially, after everything—

There's so much we still have to survive. We have to survive the assault against the Delta. We have to survive Sophia. We have to survive each other.

I plan to use the favor won from Dragomir to see him leave the Delta in peace, but if he and Ksana are determined to come to blows, I will use that favor to get him to stand down.

I do not doubt that he will do anything I ask, even if he puts up a fuss now. I just don’t yet know how far I can push him. He may claim to know me by sight, but he is a stranger to me. And we have miles to go before he can earn the right to call me ‘daughter’.
- From the investigation notes of Elżbieta

Cast:
Bitmap as Ksana the Spear
Cory as Apricus the Luminary
Jade as Viidra Matei
Mab as Elżbieta Wrona
Zachary as The Game Master

Produced by: Mab
Theme song: "Stray Not, And Be Safe" by Zachary Frederickson.
Sound effects: zapsplat and Soundbible user Tony Phillips
Other music: Kevin MacLeod; "Streets of Democracy (ID 2368)" by Lobo Loco, licensed under CC-BY-4.0

Find us on Twitter at SunlessReach, Tumblr at SagasoftheSunlessReach, and Bluesky at SunlessReach. Don't forget to post about the show using #SunReach.

Follow all of Standing Stones' projects @stones_standing

It has been a little over a year since I learned that I was an Errol. It has been mere days since I learned that I was Dragomir’s daughter. And of everything those revelations have brought to light and have forced me to understand about myself, what Dragomir said today highlights the one fear I’ve always had about my lineage.

Blood compels.

I am only a dhampir. I can stand in the sun, can eat and drink like a normal person, and I bleed the same as everyone else. But before I received this gift from Quester Apogee I could be harmed just the same as any full-blooded vampire if the powers of life were turned on me. So where is the line, really? Who am I when compared to Curwen, who yearns for everything the name Errol should give him by birth.

Power, prestige, strength.

If I had grown up as he had, chasing my father’s shadow instead of under my mother’s protection, would I have wanted it as he does? I told Granny Weaver that I wouldn’t have, but that is because I answer as myself, as a Wrona, who has known what it is to live in fear of what I am and not know that I could demand respect as an Errol.

Blood compels, but I still do not think that I would have wanted anything else.

My father hides here in the Delta. He protects the small world he has claimed for himself, and nothing more. I think, in his own way, he is afraid of what he is, too.
- From the investigation notes of Elżbieta

Cast:
Bitmap as Ksana the Spear
Cory as Apricus the Luminary
Jade as Viidra Matei
Mab as Elżbieta Wrona
Zachary as The Game Master

Produced by: Mab
Theme song: "Stray Not, And Be Safe" by Zachary Frederickson.
Sound effects: zapsplat user Still North Media and others, Soundbible user Tony Phillips, and Freesound users monkeyedz, kyles, webbfilmsuk, halleck, artninja, julianmateo, molefimanaka, brunoauzet, eminyildirim, and cgeffex
Other music: Ovani Sound

Find us on Twitter at SunlessReach, Tumblr at SagasoftheSunlessReach, and Bluesky at SunlessReach. Don't forget to post about the show using #SunReach.

Follow all of Standing Stones' projects @stones_standing

Momma,

I met him recently.

Did you know this would happen? When I wrote to you weeks ago and said that we were going into the Delta and that our next target was going to be its Warden. Even if your response had been able to reach me in time, would you have warned me off of that course of action?

Would you have finally given me an answer, told me the truth, or would you have begged me to find someone else to go in my place without an explanation?

Actually, this is the third time our paths have crossed. Twice he was a monster who never acknowledged my presence. The third time, he sat across from me like an estranged father would, looked me in the eye, and had the gall to say I had the best of you.

I already knew that. I did not need him to tell me. I did not want him to tell me.
- Unsent letter from Elżbieta Wrona to her mother, Mariska

Cast:
Bitmap as Ksana the Spear
Cory as Apricus the Luminary
Jade as Viidra Matei
Mab as Elżbieta Wrona
Zachary as The Game Master

Produced by: Mab
Theme song: "Stray Not, And Be Safe" by Zachary Frederickson.
Sound effects: zapsplat and Freesound users jfm, arnaud-coutancier, cgeffex, nachtmahrtv, hannagreen
Other music: "For Endless Days" by Pamela Yuen, licensed under CC-BY-4.0; changes made to loop certain segments of the song.

Find us on Twitter at SunlessReach, Tumblr at SagasoftheSunlessReach, and Bluesky at SunlessReach. Don't forget to post about the show using #SunReach.

Follow all of Standing Stones' projects @stones_standing