Pre-Show
MATT: Hello, everyone, and welcome to tonight's episode of Critical Role, where a bunch of us nerdy-ass voice actors sit around and play Dungeons & Dragons.
ALL: (garbled) We play Dungeons & Dragons!
MATT: Miss you, Travis.
SAM: But only Travis.
MATT: Only Travis, only.
MARISHA: No one else.
MATT: Everyone-- Shut up. (laughs) You make me look bad.
MATT: Before we start our session tonight, we do have some announcements, beginning with our first sponsor, Old Spice. And what's up with the robe, Sam?
SAM: Well, remember last year? You do, Matt, when Old Spice teamed up with Netflix's "The Witcher" and unveiled these super stinky fragrant fragrances to remind people how smelly "The Witcher" world would be without Old Spice? Well, I'm going to put them away, gently. (laughter)
SAM: Well, this year they've teamed up again, and this time no more stank. They're going to keep things fresh.
MARISHA: Ooh!
MATT: I actually had no idea you were a "Witcher" fan at all.
SAM: I am, Matt!
MATT: Well, what's your favorite part? The Kikimore, Yennefer's transformation, the Myriapod ambush?
SAM: I don't know any of those things.
MATT: Gotcha. (laughter)
MATT: I thought you were a fan.
SAM: I am... of Roach.
MATT: Geralt's horse?
SAM: Yes! I've got all kinds of collectibles, like this horseshoe!
MARISHA: Yes. (laughter)
SAM: I know all kinds of Roach trivia. Did you know that his name comes from the Polish word ploc, but the horse actor who plays him is named Zeusz?
MATT: Well, I hope for all of our sake, especially yours, there's a new Roach in season two--
SAM: No! No one will ever beat the original! Netflix, don't you dare! If you do, I will sit in the shower and cry while washing my body with Old Spice Swagger Body Wash with its energizing scent of cedarwood. (inhales) Mm! Now, I would like to show you my collection of eight by tens that are all signed by Roach.
MATT: Oh my god! (laughs)
MARISHA: Oh wow. Oh, Sam.
SAM: What?
MARISHA: Did you see?
SAM: What?
MARISHA: Netflix sent us this!
SAM: Whoa!
MARISHA: This is Yarpen Zigrin's actual martel from the series!
SAM: Is that something I should know what it is?
MARISHA: Of course you should! He's a dwarven warrior from season one, question mark? He's in the Old Spice commercial we're airing tonight, where Ciri has a vision and he gets magically transformed by Old Spice's 24/7 lasting freshness and a blossoming and powerful vocalist sings, ♪ Old Spice ♪
SAM: Tell me more, Marisha!
MARISHA: This is a perfect replica of the actual prop he used in filming.
SAM: You're telling me that that's the actual prop?
MARISHA: No, this is an actual perfect replica of the actual prop--
SAM: Oh, got it.
MARISHA: -- he used in filming. (laughter)
SAM: Has the replica prop ever touched my favorite horse, Roach?
MARISHA: Probably not.
SAM: Can it hold a bottle of Old Spice's Swagger Body Wash?
MARISHA: That is a yes.
SAM: Then I love it.
MARISHA: Great!
SAM: Old Spice grants 24/7 lasting freshness with daily use. Watch "The Witcher," only on Netflix. Volume One, June 29th. volume Two, July 27th, and stay tuned for an awesome Old Spice video during the break.
MARISHA: Uh-huh.
SAM: Matt, please talk now. (laughter)
MATT: Our second sponsor. for tonight is D&D Beyond. (cheering)
MATT: Be the hero of your table with a free D&D Beyond subscription trial. Get exclusive access to monthly subscription perks to personalize your play. Share your D&D books with your party and make unlimited character slots to bring all your character ideas to life. You can start your 30 day free trial today at dndbeyond.link/crsub.
SAM: Wait, your ad was slightly shorter than mine.
MATT: Just a little bit. (laughter)
MATT: Shaved a few hours off it.
SAM: Shit. Marisha.
MARISHA: Oh boy.
TALIESIN: Breathe.
MARISHA: You guys, the mystery continues as we follow our esoteric order of investigators in the second episode of Candela Obscura. Tune in next Thursday, June 29th at 7:00pm Pacific on our Twitch and YouTube channels. Friendly reminder that you can play your very own game of Candela Obscura right now.
SAM: But how?
MARISHA: Well, you can find our quick start guide--
SAM: Oh shit!
MARISHA: -- and more information at darringtonpress.com/candela.
MATT: Fantastic.
MARISHA: The show's got so many things including bespoke actual prop replicas.
MATT: Oh my god.
MARISHA: It's great.
MATT: Oh! Now that that's done, I think that concludes our announcements.
MARISHA: (relieved sigh) (stifled laughter)
MARISHA: That's really disrespectful.
MATT: On that note, let's go ahead and jump into tonight's episode of Critical Role. (cheering)
♪ Critical ♪
♪ Critical ♪
♪ It's Thursday ♪
♪ It's Thursday night! ♪
ASHLEY: ♪ One-by-one, we climb until we reach the top. ♪
♪ Two-by-two, we fall. ♪
LAURA: ♪ Will we meet our end or meet our destiny? ♪
♪ Hold your breath and roll! ♪
MATT: How do you want to do this?
ALL: ♪ It's Thursday night ♪
♪ All ye Critters, come join us ♪
♪ It's time to continue our plight ♪
♪ There is magic and mystery ♪
♪ Who knows what will happen? ♪
♪ He might! ♪
♪ But one thing's for sure, ♪
♪ We never give up on the fight! ♪
LIAM: ♪ From the healer ♪
♪ To the renegade ♪
MATT: ♪ We all share the same goal ♪
MATT and TALIESIN: ♪ Adding more allies ♪
♪ Taking more chances ♪
SAM: ♪ Hold your breath and roll ♪
MARISHA: You can certainly try.
ALL: ♪ It's Thursday night ♪
♪ All ye Critters, come join us ♪
♪ It's time to continue our plight ♪
♪ It's Thursday night. ♪
♪ There is magic and mystery ♪
♪ From darkness, our friendship will rise ♪
♪ But one thing's for sure: ♪
♪ We never give up on the fight ♪
♪ Oh, get ready, ♪
♪ Get ready, ♪
♪ It's Thursday night! ♪
(flames whooshing)
Part I
MATT: And welcome back. Our troop of scallywags that have found themselves together--
MARISHA: Scallywags.
AIMEE: (goofily) Scally!
LIAM: Scally, scally, scally!
MATT: I don't why I chose that, but I did.
EMILY: Everyone is watching us, thinking--
MARISHA: I don't know if I've ever heard you say the word, scallywags.
EMILY: Why, just a scuttle of scallywags!
MATT: I mean.
TALIESIN: Nope.
UTKARSH: They're not wrong.
MATT: Well, it only took us a few episodes to get there, but I think you're all pretty scallywaglicious.
UTKARSH: Yeah.
EMILY: (laughs)
MATT: After finding themselves shunted across the world and lost on the continent of Issylra, have come together as a troop out of survival necessity, have traversed elements of the mysterious land, and recently were guided northward to the shrine of the Emerald Tree. Upon searching for the individual who has been watching over the shrine, Hevestro, apparently an individual who would give you the option or the ability to return to where you wish to go, where you once came from. You began to delve into the shattered interior of the shrine, finding signs of life at some point, furniture and homey alcoves with decor and signs of hosting. But no people. Upon pushing deeper and deeper within, you found a larger crystalline chamber. Within this space, as the central rock mountain that consumes the far back wall of the interior rises up, you can see the green emerald stone-like pillar that sits up above, glowing with a shadowed interior. As you all began to look about, you could see signs of recently abandoned rituals. You could see remnants of magical incantations that had been abandoned. Within that space, as you're all glancing around, you, Orym, looked up, and amongst the ceiling shadow, saw a face that looked back at you and then smiled. It's here, as I set my lights for proper setting on this, you see this shadowed expression of a smile that vanishes into the shadow of the ceiling once more.
AIMEE: Is he looking at you?
LIAM: Did it look corporeal, like flesh and blood, or--?
MATT: You saw, what little bit of light there is in the chamber that you've created as you entered, what you saw was bits of cheek bones, eyes, almost like a nose and a smile. Just a hint of it--
LIAM: Okay.
MATT: -- that grinned and then disappeared.
AIMEE: Creepy cat vibes.
EMILY: Did it seem fey?
LIAM: Look.
UTKARSH: Whoa!
EMILY: Okay.
UTKARSH: What? What did you see?
TALIESIN: What?
LIAM: Someone's up there.
MATT: (ghastly, snarly) "You are intruders--"
AIMEE: Oh!
MATT: "-- within my domain!"
AIMEE: Do we see it now? Sorry.
MATT: You see nothing, but the air instantaneously gets colder.
AIMEE: Oh shit.
UTKARSH: Hevestro? Is that you, Hevestro? Abaddina sent us from-- Where were we?
AIMEE: Hearth Home.
EMILY: Hearth Home. Hearthdell.
UTKARSH: From Hearth Home!
MATT: "Hevestro is not available."
UTKARSH: Well, shit.
AIMEE: Who are you?
UTKARSH: Friend.
MATT: "I am Evithorir, and you are in my home uninvited." As that growled bite comes down on that word, the light that you have up--
AIMEE: Evithorir.
MATT: -- seems to dim ever so faintly. Your breath is now visible in the air around you and you can almost see wisps of shadow, drifting and fading as they seem to cascade from the ceiling.
AIMEE: Hmm.
LIAM: Where is the Hierophant?
MATT: "Hevestro is mine! Oma-Dua is mine! This valley belongs to me!" As that happens, the shadow seems to drip in a massive slow column. From the tip of it, as it descends, you see that face emerge from it, grinning, smiling, pale gray, pointed, sallow, pulled tight against bone, if there was any. The sunken sockets where they are, the eyes themselves paled over with a faint blue, light hue. As the lips curl back, the elongated teeth meet at the center, crooked and cracked. It sits there above, its eyes shifting to take you all in independently.
EMILY: The cold, the shadow is making me think of the Shadow Realm. Is this anything that seems familiar to me?
MATT: Make an arcana check.
EMILY: Okay, I'm going to do it with my 20, that rolled a 20 and then two ones. Yes!
AIMEE: Yeah!
EMILY: It's going to be 27.
MATT: 27? Dang!
AIMEE: Yes!
MATT: There is a heavy amount of shadow here. Shadow can come from all certain spaces, but there is also a faint fey energy and element to this.
EMILY: When you tell me that, can I, looking terrified, grab Ashton's hand? Because I know he has that hematite iron ring and I want to Prestidigitation it to be extra cold. Just because I've heard of mythologies in which fey are weak to cold iron. So just hold my hand.
TALIESIN: Okay...? (laughter)
EMILY: Okay.
LIAM: Orym points his Seedling at the pillar. The Hierophant in there?
MATT: "(cackles) The Hierophant is in me."
UTKARSH: Can we talk to him?
MATT: "(guttural noise)" Make a persuasion check.
EMILY: Ooh!
TALIESIN: I appreciate the attempt to make friends.
EMILY: Yeah.
MARISHA: He said Hevestro is mine. What is mine?
EMILY: Omathor.
MATT: Oma-Dua.
MARISHA: Oma-Dua.
EMILY: Yeah, he probably knows better than I, but I got Omathor.
UTKARSH: 17.
MATT: 17. There's the grin, and the head twitches to one side and says, "I think not!"
EMILY: We-- Oh, go on.
AIMEE: Go ahead.
EMILY: We actually-- We don't have anything invested in Hevestro. So if this suits you as your new home, who are we to stand in the way? We merely mean to borrow some of the powers that lurk here. Coming here probably with similar intentions as you once did, but we don't want to stay any longer than we have to. We have places to be.
MATT: "(wet sniff) (wet sniff) You smell of potential."
MARISHA: Yeah. Well, thank you.
TALIESIN: Thank you?
MARISHA: Yes. To Prism's point, if it's maybe a little collaboration that you're talking about, we could maybe arrange that.
UTKARSH: We want to teleport to Wildemount. Can you help us?
MATT: "Heh. Come here."
AIMEE: No, no, no.
MATT: It drips slower from the ceiling.
AIMEE: We're like, "No."
LIAM: Is there anything happening in the periphery right now while whatever this is--
TALIESIN: Good call.
LIAM: -- has our rapt attention?
MATT: Make a perception check.
TALIESIN: Good, good call.
LIAM: Not great for me. That is a 19.
MATT: 19. You don't see anything in the periphery. The light within the chamber seems to have diminished in the proximity of this entity. You see two faint points of dull red light that seem to be barely masqueraded within the shadow that surrounds this creature as it descends slowly.
LIAM: They're within?
MATT: Within.
UTKARSH: What are they?
MATT: Almost like two points of lantern light obscured by smoke. You occasionally see a bit of red.
UTKARSH: I would prefer not to come closer to you before we can establish some rules of engagement.
TALIESIN: Wow.
MATT: "Then, leave!"
UTKARSH: Shit.
AIMEE: So wait, hold on. So this wasn't your house either, right? So you came here uninvited?
UTKARSH: Mm.
AIMEE: Now you're saying it's your house?
UTKARSH: Easy.
MATT: "It belonged to me long ago."
AIMEE: Oh, okay. Well, do you have, like--
MATT: "(guttural breathing)"
AIMEE: -- a leasing agreement we could see, or--?
EMILY: Mm.
AIMEE: I'm just saying, we're all on the same boat here. You say this is yours. I could come in and say it's mine. I don't know.
MATT: Are you trying to intimidate this creature?
AIMEE: Oh, yeah.
MATT: Make an intimidation check for me.
MARISHA: Yes, come on, Deni$e!
UTKARSH: This is--
AIMEE: Whew!
AIMEE: Oh no. I have minus two intimidation. Don't fuck me.
LIAM: Roll high.
MARISHA: Deni$e says, "Squatters' rights."
LIAM: Yes!
AIMEE: 19.
LIAM: Yes!
MATT: 19.
AIMEE: Yeah. Deni$e said, "Squatters' rights." I pay the electric bill!
MATT: The creature which has distend, it's dripped down to where only about 10 feet above and focuses towards you, as you shout up towards it this way, turns its head, its eyes narrow. It pulls back upwards and it vanishes into the shadow.
AIMEE: Mm.
MATT: A moment later, you watch it plop down on top of the risen platform where the green crystal emanates the dull energetic green glow within the top of the chamber. As it spills out, you see shadow curl outward and then drift off as it reforms back up into this looming oval-like torso that then slowly takes shape into an elongated form, the head peering out on top.
LIAM: Ooh. What's the head? It's a humanoid head at this point, or just a pseudo-blob of goop with eyes and face?
MATT: From what you can see now, it looks like it's mostly a black shadow form. It almost looks like a hood, but the face emerges from the front of it like a mask.
AIMEE: Oh god.
TALIESIN: It's a running theme.
AIMEE: Look, we're just coming in here asking for a glass of water. Either you give us a glass of water, or we'll take it from you. Whatever you want.
MATT: There's a slight pause as the chill in the air grows slightly colder still. You hear this slight crackle of stone on stone.
LIAM: From this thing's vicinity?
MATT: From behind you.
AIMEE: Oh fuck.
UTKARSH: Shit balls.
MARISHA: Where the Emerald Tree is?
MATT: It's up by the emerald platform. You guys are in between that and the chamber. Then from where you walked in, you hear that, and as you look back, you can see some of the roots that grow through the stone here are starting to form up to create a barrier behind you.
TALIESIN: Closing up the way out.
AIMEE: You know, before you go any further with this, I think we may be on the same team here because we just came from a town, I saw this kind of magic there. The lady who told us about this place used this kind of magic. I'm just saying, maybe we're friends, we don't even know it.
TALIESIN: I don't know if you know what's been going on out there, but it's gotten very weird.
AIMEE: It's only going to be a matter of time before it comes in here. We might be the only people stopping it.
MATT: "Whatever happened, it freed me."
TALIESIN: Ah.
MARISHA: Ah.
MATT: "I have no interest, for now, in leaving. I'm home, and you are intruding."
AIMEE: Did you want to do a facial? Did we stop your plans for the night? Like, just saying here, we just want to do one thing. You're going to give us a hard time about the one thing we want to do? Maybe we could help you by not telling people you're in here.
EMILY: Or perhaps we could secure the perimeter so that your home is safer.
MARISHA: Yes, Deni$e is right. You know, we just helped this whole other town. We could help you, too.
MATT: Go ahead and make a persuasion check. Either two of you roll independently, or one of you take--
MARISHA: Deni$e, double it up.
MATT: Okay, so Deni$e, roll persuasion with advantage.
MARISHA: Although, I have a plus four in my persuasion.
AIMEE: I have a plus two, so you go.
MARISHA: We'll roll together.
AIMEE: Okay. Ready, one.
MARISHA: Oh, it cocked. Okay.
AIMEE: 18.
MARISHA: 21. No, 19.
MATT: 18, 19. "I know how you can help me. You can join Hevestro. You have potential. I want it. I want it!"
AIMEE: I grab my whip.
MATT: I need you to roll initiative.
AIMEE: I knew it!
MATT: 20 was the DC on that. You're like, you're like, "21! Uh, 19!"
MARISHA: Fuck.
MATT: I have to go.
AIMEE: All right.
TALIESIN: Well.
AIMEE: Well. At least we have a fight.
UTKARSH: Okay, guys.
TALIESIN: Let's beat the living fuck out of a shadow monster. This is going to-- Oh, fuck right off!
AIMEE: Woo!
EMILY: Oh my god!
AIMEE: Oh shit!
MARISHA: Look at the shim-- the crystal!
EMILY: She's gorgeous. Wait, are these the same? Are all of these the same crystals?
AIMEE: The crystals that we stole?
EMILY: That we saw on the outside of this keep?
MATT: They look similar.
EMILY: Interesting.
TALIESIN: Huh.
UTKARSH: Ooh! That's a cool one.
MATT: All right. So you have all entered this space here down to the entryway. This has all been closed off by the vines.
EMILY: I've had Dynios manifest like all day. I don't think he has a time limit that he gets to manifest.
MATT: No, that's true. If anyone has any preferences as to how they would be arranged back here during this conversation, you may tell me.
UTKARSH: I don't know. We were out in front. Aimee and I were in front.
MARISHA: Yeah, I didn't get any prep spells popped off.
LIAM: By the way, Marisha, did you know that this combat is brought to you, specifically, by WizKids Minis?
MARISHA: To me?
LIAM: Yeah, they wanted you to behold Cree, Vessel of the Pattern, in all of her twisted glory!
MARISHA: Oh my god, I'm so lucky.
LIAM: Marisha, you and only you, and everybody else, should pre-order this tangled monstrosity today. Expand your collection of Critical Role miniatures at WizKids.io/CRMinis and your local game store.
MARISHA: I think I will.
AIMEE: "Cur minis." (CRMinis)
EMILY: Yeah, you love WizKids.
UTKARSH: I love WizKids. Good job, WizKids. (laughter)
EMILY: I think when we were walking, I was in the middle because I am a coward. But I would've been having Dynios be 30 feet from me probably--
MATT: Like over here?
EMILY: Yeah, like scout zone. Then probably same with Mother.
MATT: Same with Mother.
EMILY: Although, usually Mother, I try and keep near the three of them.
MATT: Okay. So Mother, I'll have fluttering over in that space.
TALIESIN: Oh great.
MATT: Anybody else have any preferences for placement before we begin?
TALIESIN: Oh boy.
MARISHA: Figure it out.
LIAM: Let's say Orym, if this doesn't touch the ceiling or anything--
MATT: It does not.
LIAM: -- crept up here to get his look at the ceiling in the chamber earlier.
AIMEE: Oh, that guy's bigger than I thought he was.
TALIESIN: Yeah, that's a big one.
EMILY: Yeah, I mean, right now, I would love to just not have us all crowded together, but realistically, that's what's happening.
TALIESIN: Yeah. We're going to have to scatter a little bit.
MARISHA: Yeah.
TALIESIN: That's bad.
MATT: All right, everyone happy with this placement?
TALIESIN: Yeah.
MARISHA: Yeah.
LIAM: I mean, it'd be better if it was placed in a different chamber.
AIMEE: Yeah.
LIAM: But other than that, good.
MATT: Okay.
UTKARSH: Sure.
MATT: So, initiative?
AIMEE: I rolled already.
MATT: Rolled already?
EMILY: I'm going to roll with the big one.
TALIESIN: Oh shit.
MATT: Okay, 25 to 20.
MARISHA: Uh-ohs.
MATT: 20 to 15.
TALIESIN: Oh, I'm 21, sorry. I'm still doing the math.
AIMEE: I'm 17.
MATT: 17. 20 to 15?
EMILY: 15.
LIAM: 15!
MATT: All right.
LIAM: Oh, we got to do Rollies.
EMILY: No.
LIAM: Or dex, what's your dex?
EMILY: Not yours.
LIAM: No, it's not?
EMILY: You're not going to believe it.
LIAM: Okay.
MATT: Okay, 15 to 10?
UTKARSH: 12.
MATT: 12, all right.
TALIESIN: I assume we're heading up the hill.
MATT: And you are?
MARISHA: Seven.
TALIESIN: Ooh.
AIMEE: Is it too late to move? Because I feel like when I was talking to him--
MATT: You probably would've stepped forward a bit?
AIMEE: I would've stepped forward just a skosh. I mean, I don't know.
TALIESIN: Yeah, sure.
MATT: Like up there?
AIMEE: Yeah. Whatever gets me into--
EMILY: Yeah, that's true.
MATT: That makes sense to me.
AIMEE: There's 70 feet of--
TALIESIN: Well.
MATT: All right, so to that point.
LIAM: Oh boy.
MATT: Ashton, you're up first.
UTKARSH: Get 'im!
AIMEE: Give 'er--!
MATT: So those two little dull, red glows that you had spotted earlier begin to brighten within the shadow of its form. And you--
TALIESIN: Oh, it's within its form?
MATT: Somewhere within its shadowed form.
TALIESIN: Okay. I'm going to, well, first I'd like to fucking rage.
MATT: Okay.
MARISHA: ♪ Fucking rage ♪
TALIESIN: Burn that fucking rage. And then--
LIAM: Fuck and rage.
TALIESIN: I'm going to start heading up the hill and try and maybe take cover under that first crystal.
MATT: 20, 25, 30, 35 will get you there.
UTKARSH: Ooh!
TALIESIN: Yeah, 35 and hold my action for. Actually, I didn't find out what the fuck I got. That would probably help. All right, all right, fine, that'll do, I think.
MATT: Okay.
TALIESIN: Yeah, it would have kicked in by now. All the light around me starts to go black and white like I'm in a strange silent film.
MARISHA: Oh, I was going to say in the "Take On Me" music video?
TALIESIN: Yeah, the "Take On Me" music video.
MATT: Perfect.
UTKARSH: ♪ ("Take On Me" melody) ♪
TALIESIN: Yeah.
MATT: All right, you got it. Finish your go, Ashton?
TALIESIN: Yeah, I'm going to hold my main action for if he becomes hittable.
MATT: Okay. Deni$e, you're up, with Orym on deck.
AIMEE: How far am I from the mister?
MATT: From the guy up here?
AIMEE: Yeah, like lots?
MATT: About 50 or so feet at a direct angle, but with a lot of climbing to get up there.
AIMEE: Sure. Well, I'd love it if I could get-- Could I get, with my two-story work-- No, no, with my dash--
MATT: Mm-hmm.
AIMEE: Could I get right to that crystal to that side of him?
MATT: Over here?
AIMEE: No, like one up.
MATT: Oh, right there?
AIMEE: Right there. Can I get there?
MATT: You could say five--
AIMEE: I think 70 feet.
MATT: -- 10, 20, 25.
EMILY: Aren't you good with climbing, too?
AIMEE: Yeah.
EMILY: Yeah, so she's good with climbing.
MATT: Yeah, but either with, two-story work only increases my movement by three feet, so 38, or I could do dash, which is the double, right?
MATT: Right, as a bonus action.
AIMEE: Yeah, so I think I'm going to do, how far can I get with the 70?
MATT: What's your movement?
AIMEE: 35.
MATT: 35 gets you there and then with the dash.
AIMEE: Mm-hmm.
MATT: That's your movement and then dash is--
AIMEE: Yeah.
MATT: One, two, three, four.
UTKARSH: How much does a dash give you?
MATT: So that'll get you about there with the dash and you still have 10 feet of movement left.
AIMEE: Yeah, can I sort of like hi-- not hide, but get close to those crystals there? Yeah, right there, that's great. Then I'm going to hold my action as well.
MATT: You got it.
TALIESIN: God, you got far.
AIMEE: Yeah.
MATT: It's that bonus action dash. A little bit of rogue there.
TALIESIN: Yeah, that's nice.
MATT: All right, so holding action, holding action. Orym, you're up, with Prism on deck.
LIAM: All right, lightning quick, Orym will crouch down with the boots and spring across this gap to there. I think that'd be five, 10, but with the jump, it's no big deal for him. Up to here to here, that's about 20. From that spot, I'm going to whip out a dagger, whip out a dagger and see what it does to see what we're dealing with.
EMILY: Yeah, that's good.
LIAM: I have a little bit of movement left, which I'll use in a second.
MATT: Okay.
UTKARSH: It's going to swallow your dagger.
MATT: The dagger range is 20/60, right?
LIAM: Yeah, so it's at disadvantage, right?
MATT: It would be at disadvantage from that point, yeah.
LIAM: Cool, so both are high. That is a 23 to hit.
MATT: 23 hits.
LIAM: Yeah. Let's see what it does.
AIMEE: Is it holding that staff or no?
MATT: The staff was on the mini, but this figure is just made of shadow.
LIAM: Eight points.
MATT: Eight points of damage. Non-magical dagger?
LIAM: Not a magical dagger.
MATT: All righty.
LIAM: I'll pause for a micro hair to see if it reacts in any way, shape, or form.
MATT: It just vanishes in. You see it twitch ever so faintly.
LIAM: Mm-hmm.
MATT: So it definitely felt an impact, but minimal.
EMILY: Okay.
LIAM: Then with my last movement, I would love to juke to the right and then roll off the side and land on that little mini-ledge, crouched down, out of view.
MATT: You got it. Okay. After the dagger (whooshes) into its body, the face on it seems to like, one of the eyes follows you as you move along and the mask shifts down lower into the body. At the end of your turn--
LIAM: Yeah.
MATT: It's going to use a Shadow Spear on you as you move.
LIAM: Okay.
MARISHA: Shadow Spear.
MATT: That is going to be a 20 to hit.
LIAM: That hits.
MATT: That hits?
LIAM: Yes.
MATT: All right. You take eight points of necrotic damage and you are pushed back 20 feet.
LIAM: 20 feet?!
AIMEE: 20 feet?!
TALIESIN: Whoa!
LIAM: Whoa!
MARISHA: Wow.
MATT: Okay.
LIAM: So as I tried to roll five feet over a ledge, I get knocked down way back.
MATT: Knocked down.
UTKARSH: Sweet!
MATT: I need you to make a dexterity saving throw.
LIAM: That's a 21.
MATT: 21.
UTKARSH: Good.
MATT: As it strikes you, you manage to pull away as it vanishes into the ground and there's a little bit of an existing black metallic spear stuck there like it was trying to pierce and pin you.
LIAM: Wow, I'm no closer than when I started.
UTKARSH: Scary.
LIAM: Next!
MATT: All right. With that, Prism, you're up.
EMILY: Okay. I think that right now, the move is scattering. I think what I want to do is I want to send Mother and tell her to work with Orym this battle.
MATT: Okay.
EMILY: So my action is whatever Orym needs, help him out.
MATT: You got it.
TALIESIN: You got a bird.
EMILY: Then I think I'm going to do, I think I'm going to go invisible.
MATT: You got it.
EMILY: And dive behind. Let's see, my movement. I'm going to dive behind this guy. Actually, can I dive behind this guy? Would I be able to get to this guy?
MATT: You could come over here. You can go five, 10, 15, 20 to get over here behind this.
EMILY: So I'll dive behind that guy. Then bonus action, move Dynios behind that one.
MATT: You got it. Okay. We'll put this as your invisible self right there.
EMILY: Yeah. Aw!
MATT: For the time being.
TALIESIN: Fascinating.
MATT: The standard Invisibility or Greater Invisibility?
EMILY: Greater.
MATT: Got it.
TALIESIN: (whistling)
MATT: All right, so finishing Prism's go. Bor'Dor, you're up.
AIMEE: Bor'Dor.
TALIESIN: Bor'Dor.
MATT: Did not roll amazing initiative.
EMILY: That's good, though. Gives us a prep turn.
MARISHA: Has it not gone yet?
TALIESIN: That gives us a minute to figure our shit out.
MARISHA: Oh, it just had a legendary action.
MATT: Actually, however, at the end of your turn, though, it is going to use a legendary action.
TALIESIN: Boo.
LIAM: There we go.
MATT: Two to do Frightening Gaze.
AIMEE: Crikey!
MARISHA: Frightening Gaze.
MATT: As you're there, the mask that shifted, the face turns and folds into the body and emerges out the side. It's stretching like No-Face from "Spirited Away," like pushes outward. As it looks towards you, the eyes sink in and you can't help but glance directly into them. I need you to make a wisdom saving throw for me, please.
UTKARSH: You can do it.
MATT: That was you.
LIAM: The mask is staring at you.
AIMEE: Oh, I'm sorry. I was like, legendary actions are usually taken by a spell cast or ability outside of a creature's turn! I have to-- sorry, you said wisdom?
MATT: Wisdom saving throw, as it's making a Frightening Gaze towards you.
AIMEE: Oh yes, 20.
MATT: 20. You've already intimidated this fucker once. He's not going to throw it back in your face.
AIMEE: Good.
MATT: You're great. All right, so. Bor'Dor, you're up.
AIMEE: I love this. (kisses)
LIAM: It's treating you right.
UTKARSH: How far away am I from him right now?
MATT: From him, you are approximately about 55 to 60 feet.
UTKARSH: Okay. I'm going to pull out my crossbow and cast something huge. Something raucous.
MATT: Please.
UTKARSH: Something... cave-shattering.
TALIESIN: Cave shit.
UTKARSH: Just a Lightning Bolt.
MATT: Okay.
UTKARSH: A 4th-level Lightning Bolt.
MATT: 4th-level Lightning Bolt up in its direction. Let's make a saving throw. It fails, but will use a legendary resistance to succeed.
EMILY: Good, burn them.
TALIESIN: Burn them.
MATT: So roll damage. At level four, that'll be 9d6. Ooh, nice.
UTKARSH: Four is
EMILY: That's good.
UTKARSH: Nine and four is 13.
EMILY: Yeah.
UTKARSH: 14, 15, 16.
MATT: Not good.
UTKARSH: Three ones. 16, 20, 22, 27.
MATT: 27, okay. That is going to be 13 points of lightning damage as it strikes through. But you see, it seems to form away from it. It doesn't seem to take the full brunt of the electrical energy from your lightning bolt.
EMILY: The lightning.
AIMEE: Aye-yai-yai.
EMILY: Okay, okay.
UTKARSH: Is my crossbow still good?
MATT: Crossbow's fine.
UTKARSH: Yes.
AIMEE: (laughs)
MATT: Faint smell of burnt cedar, I'll say.
AIMEE: Ooh, that's nice.
TALIESIN: Mm. That would be nice.
MARISHA: That is nice.
EMILY: You could've had another spell in that.
TALIESIN: That's fine.
UTKARSH: Do I get to move?
MATT: You can move and you have a bonus action still, if you'd like.
UTKARSH: What's a bonus? What do I do with a bonus action, guys?
MATT: (laughs)
UTKARSH: Can I cast another spell?
MATT: If you have the Quicken spell, Metamagic feat as your sorcerer, you could. But other than that, unless you have a spell that takes a bonus action, likely not.
UTKARSH: WizKids. (laughter)
UTKARSH: I will--
AIMEE: WizKids.
UTKARSH: -- just go as far that way as I can.
AIMEE: Those little rascals.
MATT: This way?
UTKARSH: No, the other way.
MATT: This way? Okay.
UTKARSH: Yeah, to my right.
AIMEE: Scallyways.
MARISHA: Scallywags.
TALIESIN: Good call, good call.
MATT: 25, 30.
EMILY: That's good, that's good.
TALIESIN: Yeah.
EMILY: We're nice and scattered. It's good to see this.
TALIESIN: Scattering out.
MATT: All right, that finishes your turn.
TALIESIN: God, rogues, god!
EMILY: Nice work.
TALIESIN: Look at you. You moved across the fucking--
AIMEE: Yeah.
TALIESIN: So fast.
MATT: All righty. It is now the entity's turn.
MARISHA: So that one's after you.
MATT: As Evithorir--
AIMEE: Oh, boy.
MATT: -- up top begins to shift the face upward. It grows strangely thin and tall, like it's mimicking the shape of the spire behind it. From within, you see these thick, meaty, black hands that don't match the somewhat thin feel of its form. As it reaches out as it does, its fingers curl upward and the ground around you begins to shake and dull green necrotic power seems to (energy rising) seep up from it around you. Glyphs appear and glow on the ground. For a--
AIMEE: I fucking knew those green things were something.
MARISHA: Oy.
MATT: A 60-foot radius sphere.
TALIESIN: Yeah.
AIMEE: Shit.
UTKARSH: Oh god.
MATT: Which is everything in the chamber.
AIMEE: Oh no.
TALIESIN: Yep.
MATT: I need all of you--
EMILY: Is this a spell?
MATT: This is a spell.
EMILY: Can I try and Counterspell it?
MATT: Are you within range?
MARISHA: I was debating it.
EMILY: If my--
UTKARSH: Yeah.
EMILY: -- mind manifest is within range.
UTKARSH: You're in the chamber.
AIMEE: Yeah, we're in the chamber.
MATT: You are within 60 feet.
MARISHA: Yeah, I mean it's 60 foot.
MATT: If you want to attempt it.
EMILY: Yeah, I feel like gambling. I'm just going to do a 3rd-level one and roll for it.
MATT: Go for it. Okay.
MARISHA: Come on!
MATT: As the glyphs begin to light up and the necrotic energy begins to spill throughout the entire floor of the chamber--
TALIESIN: Big money, big money.
MATT: Go ahead and roll.
AIMEE: Oh baby, oh no!
MATT: (laughs)
MARISHA: No! (laughter)
AIMEE: That's not good. We dead.
UTKARSH: Is it that one?
LIAM: Well, you gambled.
EMILY: Shout out to The 2 Crew. (laughter)
EMILY: All right. It's fine. Okay.
MATT: A worthy attempt.
EMILY: I felt like gambling, and you know what? That's part of gambling.
MATT: Indeed, but whatever ancient power and incantation that calls this forward, overwhelms your attempt to try and unravel its magical essence. All of you suddenly-- (energy blast)
AIMEE: Oh fuck.
MATT: -- are surrounded by an extremely intense, freezing, screaming burst of necrotic power. I need you all to make constitution saving throws for me.
MARISHA: (nervous babbling)
EMILY: Ooh, brother.
AIMEE: Here we go.
LIAM: All right.
AIMEE: Don't fail me now.
TALIESIN: Yeah.
AIMEE: Oh great, I have plus eight constitution.
UTKARSH: Oh gosh.
LIAM: Yeah, hardy.
MARISHA: I rolled the same thing.
EMILY: Failed.
MATT: All right, so?
MARISHA: 13.
MATT: 13. 28 points of necrotic damage. (shocked groans)
LIAM: But she's made of necrotic.
UTKARSH: Seven.
MARISHA: I know.
MATT: 28 points of necrotic damage.
TALIESIN: Ooh!
EMILY: 10!
MATT: 28 points of necrotic damage.
AIMEE: 22.
MATT: Ah, you take 14 points of necrotic damage.
AIMEE: That still sucks.
LIAM: 24.
MATT: 14 points of necrotic damage.
TALIESIN: 21.
MATT: 14 points of necrotic damage.
AIMEE: Oh, no, I'm necrosing-ing.
MATT: You all feel that horrible shrieking pain in your chest.
EMILY: I'm still invisible.
MATT: There you go. Good on you. As you almost fall to your knees, the breath pulled out of you, you have to catch yourself again as a bit of your life force itself is swallowed and snuffed. With that, it's going to step down.
AIMEE: Oh, you caca feet.
LIAM: Ah, shit.
MATT: To you.
AIMEE: Well, if I held my action, could I do something?
MATT: If you held your action to attack, you can do that now.
AIMEE: Okay, how close is-- Is he in melee at this point?
MATT: He is now. He steps down (ethereal swooshing)--
AIMEE: Okay. Great. Oh, how nice.
MATT: -- over in your direction. The face (soft shifting) over to you.
AIMEE: Okay. I'm going to rage. I'd like to rage and then I'd like to take my sickle and take a slice.
MATT: Unfortunately, you can't rage because you used your bonus action to dash last turn.
AIMEE: I only get one bonus action?
MATT: You get one bonus action on your turn, yeah.
AIMEE: Oh, that was last turn!
MATT: Right.
AIMEE: Oh, thank god.
MATT: No, no, no, sorry.
AIMEE: Okay.
MATT: You get it on your next turn.
AIMEE: (stressed moans) It only works if I rage, Matthew.
MATT: I understand.
AIMEE: Okay. I will take a swipe. Oh, wait. So yeah, I can still move though, right? After this?
MATT: On your next turn, you can, yeah.
AIMEE: But not now.
MATT: Not now.
AIMEE: I would have to use my action to move.
MATT: If you wanted to right now, yeah.
AIMEE: Well, I'm going to do that!
MATT: Okay. (laughter)
AIMEE: I'd like to move. I'd like to hide or move or whatever.
MATT: Okay.
AIMEE: As far to that green thing as I can get.
MATT: Up here?
AIMEE: Yeah.
MATT: Okay. You can't go through him, so you'd have to go up the wall.
AIMEE: Yeah.
MATT: Which is a challenging climb here, so I need you to make an athletics check to do so.
AIMEE: Okay. Even though I have the two-story work?
MATT: Two-story work?
AIMEE: Yup. That's fine, my athletics is good. Let's see.
MATT: Yeah, give it a shot. I'll say two story work on--
AIMEE: Oh, 17 plus nine. Which is-- What's 17 plus nine?
LIAM: 17 plus nine?
MATT: Oh god, yes.
TALIESIN: 26.
MATT: You're fine.
AIMEE: Okay, 26.
MATT: But just to read--
AIMEE: Yeah, I don't know. Well, I have it here because I wrote it down.
MATT: Go for it, go for it.
AIMEE: "Climbing costs no extra movement when making a running jump, distance increases by three feet."
MATT: That's great. So, yeah. So you still have to roll to do it.
AIMEE: Okay, got you.
MATT: But you leaping across means that you getting up here would normally take twice as much movement.
AIMEE: Got it.
MATT: That's just 10 feet of movement to get up there.
AIMEE: Great and hiding would be an extra thing that I don't have available to me.
MATT: It would be.
AIMEE: Okay, got you.
MATT: Correct.
AIMEE: Well, that's fine.
MATT: You want to stay put there?
AIMEE: Well, I don't think I have an option.
MATT: You have 20 more feet of movement, if you want.
AIMEE: Oh, can I hide behind the-- Or move behind the obelisk?
MATT: You could move precariously behind here.
AIMEE: Precariously behind it.
MATT: It's a little--
AIMEE: But that's fine because--
MATT: It's a little iffy.
AIMEE: Because if he's going to throw something at me, maybe it'll hit that. Maybe that'll dissuade him.
MATT: Maybe. It does give you half cover. Or three quarters cover--
AIMEE: Great, that's fine.
MATT: -- from what you are.
AIMEE: I'll take that cheat code.
MATT: Okay, as you're holding yourself there--
AIMEE: Yep. Sorry.
MATT: That's going to finish its turn, as it spins and looks about the chamber at you darting off. That brings us to Laudna's go.
MARISHA: All right, I'm trying to figure out what to do here. The landscape. Do I still see the two glowing flickers?
LIAM and UTKARSH: The red.
MARISHA: The red flickers?
MATT: Ooh, you know what? I think it's a valid point. He has a bonus action.
MARISHA: Well, that doesn't answer my question.
EMILY: Wait, how come he has a bonus action and Deni$e doesn't have two?
UTKARSH: Way to go, Laudna. (laughter)
MARISHA: What the fuck?
MATT: That's a very valid argument.
AIMEE: It's only fair. What the fuck?
MATT: This red sphere fires out of the shadow and then forms this glowing red orb in the vicinity. Both Ashton and Bor'Dor, you feel like all the color in the world around you dissipates and you're already sitting there, but now notices you looking at this.
TALIESIN: Yeah.
MATT: All the color in the room goes to black and white. That's all.
EMILY: Now, where do I--
MARISHA: All the color goes to black and white.
EMILY: Black and white.
UTKARSH: What's that mean?
MARISHA: So this is-- Wow, okay. What to do? This was the glowing orbs, though, that we kind of saw?
MATT: That was one of them. You watched one emerge and it takes form right there.
MARISHA: I don't like that at all. I was going to try and save them, but now I don't know what to do! Okay, well, I'm going to for sure pop off Mirror Image on myself.
MATT: Okay.
TALIESIN: Good call.
EMILY: Yeah, that's good.
MARISHA: Then I am going to-- I'm going to cast Darkness on the little red orb.
MATT: Okay.
LIAM: What are we thinking, that Everclear came out of this obelisk and was released?
AIMEE: What's Everclear?
LIAM: Evithorir.
AIMEE: Oh.
LIAM: Shot the beam.
UTKARSH: About to rear.
MARISHA: I'm guessing it was--
LIAM: He said he was released--
MARISHA: Well, obviously, something with the solstice.
LIAM: Because of it. And there was a cavity described inside the obelisk.
UTKARSH: Where he was imprisoned.
TALIESIN: Yeah.
MATT: You haven't got a really close look at that, necessarily. You just saw there was a dark shadow on the inside.
UTKARSH: I thought it was the teleporter.
MARISHA: But they described the thing as a tomb. It keeps talking about how this is like a shrine. I'm not getting prison vibes.
AIMEE: But then they said that they had enclosed her in the tomb, remember?
MARISHA: Mm-hmm.
EMILY: Yeah.
AIMEE: I don't know.
TALIESIN: Maybe, yeah.
MARISHA: The obelisk feels like a tomb to me to something else. He feels like--
EMILY: He feels like a grave robber almost from another plane that somehow got in here.
MARISHA: Yeah.
TALIESIN: Interesting vibe.
LIAM: Well, he said he came back, too.
EMILY: Oh, yeah, yeah.
TALIESIN: Yeah.
UTKARSH: I mean, Fireball him.
MATT: You cast Darkness in that space, right?
MARISHA: I cast Darkness. I want it not on the space. You can attach it to a thing. Can I attach it to the orb?
MATT: Oh, yeah. So, yeah, the orb is currently-- Now, what you saw, the black glowing, becomes this 10-foot radius, globe of black, lightless space.
TALIESIN: Interesting.
MATT: So now, it's this dome of darkness around it.
MARISHA: Did it do anything to bring back some of the color? Do I see any immediate effects by shrouding that in darkness?
MATT: You do not see any immediate effects from being shrouded in darkness, but you're uncertain as to any other effects it may have.
MARISHA: That could end up fucking us, in which case, I'll drop the Darkness, but I wanted to see what happens.
EMILY: I think that's the right instinct. I love trying shit out.
MARISHA: Just trying shit out and then--
LIAM: We're experimenting right now.
MARISHA: Yeah.
UTKARSH: Can you get out of the darkness?
MARISHA: It's attached to it, so everywhere it goes, it's going to be covered in darkness, unless it can magically see out of it, then it can't--
UTKARSH: Hurt us.
MARISHA: It can't aim unless it doesn't have-- I don't know, we'll see.
EMILY: I love it. I think it's a great move. I think it's a great move.
MARISHA: Okay, okay. I'm going to move that way. I'm going to move--
MATT: Okay.
MARISHA: -- away.
MATT: 10, 15.
MARISHA: Who's that? Is there someone hiding back there?
EMILY: It's me, it's me.
MARISHA: Oh, it's Prism.
UTKARSH: (laughs)
MARISHA: Oh shit.
EMILY: Laudna, don't be scared. It's me. It's me.
MARISHA: What?
EMILY: It's me.
MARISHA: Oh shit!
EMILY: Yeah, it's me. I'm just invisible.
MARISHA: Am I--
EMILY: Throw flour on me. (laughter)
MATT: Perfect.
AIMEE: Throw the tooth!
LIAM: Antiquing.
MARISHA: Is that all my movement?
MATT: You can get five more feet over here, if you want.
MARISHA: Directly behind Prism.
MATT: Yep!
MARISHA: I don't want to stack. I'll move us.
LIAM: Do we want to get Bor'Dor over there, so we could bunch up all our--
EMILY: Oh no!
MARISHA: Yeah. (laughter)
EMILY: Squishiest of folk.
MARISHA: All right, I guess that's my turn for now.
MATT: Okay, you got it.
UTKARSH: Shit.
MATT: End of your turn.
UTKARSH: This guy's scary.
MATT: (swoosh)
AIMEE: Oh no!
TALIESIN: Goddamn it!
LIAM: Cool, cool story, bro.
MATT: Then he appears--
AIMEE: Absolutely not.
MATT: -- on the ground over here.
AIMEE: Oh god, going to keep having to dash.
MATT: That brings us to Ashton's go, with Deni$e on deck.
LIAM: Jeez.
AIMEE: Damn it, Matt.
TALIESIN: I turn and see this happen.
MATT: (laughs)
TALIESIN: Oh, no you don't, fucker. I'm going to head nicely down that little thing and--
MATT: (thump) (footsteps)
TALIESIN: -- take a nice swipe right there.
MATT: Go for it.
AIMEE: Juicy Couture.
TALIESIN: Not quite ready for reckless. I want to see where we're sitting with this before we go hog wild. That's a one.
MATT: Ooh!
MARISHA: (groans)
MATT: You go to swing wide, and as your hammer goes through the air, it hits the edge of the shadow and like hitting a shadow, (swooshing) makes purchase on nothing.
EMILY: No!
TALIESIN: Oh, for fuck's sakes.
EMILY: Oh, right.
TALIESIN: I'm going to try and swing up a little higher to see if maybe there's some meat to this damn thing.
UTKARSH: Go!
MATT: Okay.
TALIESIN: 21 to hit.
MATT: 21 does hit.
AIMEE: Oh, thank god.
TALIESIN: Good to know. All right, let's start slow. Let's figure out what we're doing here. Actually, I'm going to put some fire in this, too. So let's--
EMILY: Ooh, yes.
TALIESIN: -- start with base damage, which is, oh my god. 11 points of damage.
MATT: 11 points of damage, all righty.
TALIESIN: God, that was embarrassing. Then, let's-- new thing.
MATT: Now, you-- No, you did take damage last round. You're fine.
TALIESIN: Yeah, no, I'm fine.
MATT: You did.
TALIESIN: I thought about it. Then I'm going to also get the ring powered up and I'm going to throw a charge into that. Let's do a little extra 2d6 of fire damage and see how that goes.
MATT: That's if something melee attacks you.
TALIESIN: Oh, that's right. I'm so sorry. Yes, you're absolutely right. Never mind, I'm-- Yeah, I'm good for now.
MATT: Okay, finishing Ashton's go. Deni$e, you're up, with Orym on deck.
AIMEE: I'm going to Floyd Mayweather this situation. (laughter)
AIMEE: I think what I'm going to do is I'm going to rage and then I'm going to use my full 35 feet of movement to get as far as I can. Does that get me to that big thing of pillars right there?
MATT: 15, 20. 25, if you want to leap down here to 30--
AIMEE: I'll do that.
MATT: All right, make an acrobatics check to try and catch yourself on the ground.
AIMEE: Not athletics?
MATT: No, acrobatics. It's not a high DC.
AIMEE: Okay. What's that?
EMILY: I don't know.
AIMEE: Oh, jesus.
EMILY: Don't use metal dice.
AIMEE: Is that bad?
EMILY: They're so cursed.
AIMEE: Eight.
MATT: Eight.
AIMEE: I twist my ankle on the--
MATT: Crack.
UTKARSH: Ouch.
EMILY: Oh no!
MARISHA: Oh jeez.
LIAM: It's the heels.
AIMEE: It's the heels!
MARISHA: But you look fabulous.
LIAM: Yes.
MATT: All right, you take two points of bludgeoning damage as you (cracking) roll the ankle a little bit.
AIMEE: I go: Fuck!
MATT: Yeah, it's not far enough to knock you prone.
AIMEE: Okay.
MATT: You can get up to there, that's your movement. I'm reaching down there.
AIMEE: Yeah, that's great.
MATT: If you wanted to bonus action dash, you could then make the rest of the go, if you wanted to.
AIMEE: Oh, no, but I used my bonus action to rage.
MATT: Oh, that's right. Then, yeah.
AIMEE: So, I don't think so.
EMILY: Just throw something at it.
AIMEE: Okay, sure.
EMILY: I mean, do you have an action left?
AIMEE: Yeah, why not? Well, yeah, I do. I don't think my whip'll reach him, but my sickle might, but then if I throw it, am I going to get it back?
EMILY: Don't throw your--
AIMEE: That's my problem. Maybe I'll take my whip out and go (whip cracking). Just make some noise.
MATT: (laughs) Sure.
AIMEE: Eyes up here!
MATT: (whip cracking) Make an intimidation check.
AIMEE: Oh, yeah!
UTKARSH: Yes!
AIMEE: Yeah, I'm going to stop rolling this one!
EMILY: Yeah, the metal ones are cursed.
AIMEE: Mire. Intimidation. Goddamn it. Nine.
MATT: Nine. (whip cracking)
AIMEE: My luck ran out.
MATT: Very focused on him.
AIMEE: He didn't even look.
MATT: You're just like: Dang it! Over here!
AIMEE: Come on! Got my titties out! (laughter)
AIMEE: Cleavage out!
MATT: All right, does that finish your turn?
AIMEE: Yeah, finishes my turn.
MATT: All right, end of Deni$e's go, Orym, you're up, with Prism on deck.
LIAM: Okay. Mother, stay with me, we're moving. I start booking it. I'm going to flea jump from--
TALIESIN: Oh shit, I should've--
LIAM: -- there up to here--
TALIESIN: Fuck.
LIAM: -- to about there, I think I can do that in one--
TALIESIN: I'm an idiot.
LIAM: -- ish turn.
EMILY: Mother's got decent movement. She can follow.
LIAM: Yeah, and then I'm going to use my action to keep going and I'm going to run maybe here to here and then cannonball through the air and land on the ground.
AIMEE: Woo!
LIAM: Right behind it.
MATT: Behind it. You got it.
TALIESIN: There we go!
MATT: Go ahead and make an acrobatics check to make that leap arc.
LIAM: That would be acrobatics, you say?
MATT: Yes.
LIAM: 21.
MATT: 21. (jumping) No issue landing.
LIAM: Action surge.
EMILY and AIMEE: Yeah!
MATT: Go for it.
LIAM: I will slash away, goading attack.
MATT: All right.
LIAM: At advantage because I'm flanking.
AIMEE: (laughs)
LIAM: That is a 24 to hit.
MATT: That hits.
LIAM: Goading attack.
MATT: Wisdom save.
LIAM: Yeah, wisdom save.
MATT: Fails. But is going to let it slide.
LIAM: This is nine, right? Not the worst thing for me. Nine plus-- First attack does 14.
TALIESIN: Nice.
LIAM: Then I'll keep going. That's at advantage. That is a 20 to hit.
MATT: 20 hits.
LIAM: Okay. That one is 11 points of damage.
MATT: 11 points of damage. So as you (striking) strike through twice, between the impact of your mild hammer hit through and your double strike, you are-- There is some resistance within the shadow, and then you're hitting something thick within.
UTKARSH: Hey!
MATT: As the blow comes through, you watch as the shadow dissipates, and for a brief second, you see a shoulder and a face--
LIAM: Yeah.
MATT: -- of a person inside the shadow before it--
LIAM: Yes.
MATT: -- takes over.
EMILY: Okay.
AIMEE: Hell door, what?
UTKARSH: Who is it?
LIAM: So it's the Hierophant.
AIMEE: Hierophant, yeah.
LIAM: Hevestro is in it. Like it said. There's also a red glowing light still in there as well?
MATT: Mm-hmm.
LIAM: Okay. All right. Stand my ground.
AIMEE: Sorry, can I ask a question?
MATT: Yeah.
AIMEE: So is the person in there taking the damage as well?
MATT: You don't know.
UTKARSH: Fuck, I hope not.
EMILY: Well-- Yeah, I mean, I think--
LIAM: Could be.
MARISHA: Probably, right?
EMILY: They're going to take it if--
AIMEE: Yeah, right.
EMILY: There's not much of another option.
AIMEE: No, he's totally safe in here. Have at it. (laughter)
AIMEE: No, he's nice and warm.
TALIESIN: It might be-- It might be worth killing the orbs, maybe. I don't know. All right.
EMILY: We got to find out what can affect this.
MATT: All right. So finishing up Orym's turn. Prism, you're up.
EMILY: Yeah. I want to find out what kind of damage will affect this creature. So I'm going to use my little spell book to do a Chromatic Orb that is force because I'm going to do it 4th-level. I have Dimension Door, that has force damage. So I can change it to that.
MATT: Okay. As a note, your book is unable to see the creature because of the shadow that surrounds this space. But you can move it, if you'd like it to.
EMILY: Yeah, I can move it 30 feet as a bonus action.
MATT: All right, you got it.
EMILY: Move it there.
MATT: Just over there.
EMILY: Then going to try to Chromatic Orb it. Please hit, even for the sake of finding out if force damage does anything. 23!
MATT: 23 indeed hits.
EMILY: Okay.
AIMEE: All right.
EMILY: All right, all right.
TALIESIN: Yeah, all right.
EMILY: That is 6d8, I'll take it. Goddamn it.
LIAM: Always fun.
EMILY: 10.
TALIESIN: Eight? Not too bad.
EMILY: 27 force damage.
MATT: 27 force damage.
TALIESIN: Woo!
AIMEE: All right, baby.
MATT: As the orb explodes on the outside, you watch the shadow gets pushed away, almost like it's stretching it like a tar before it snaps back. For a brief moment, you see an elven figure that's partially obscured by within that looks shriveled a bit--
AIMEE: Oh no.
MATT: Pale, and "(gasps)" seems to take the impact as well before--
EMILY: We're coming for you!
MATT: -- the shadow slips back over it.
EMILY and MATT: (laugh)
AIMEE: (fast) We're coming for you!
TALIESIN: Okay, okay.
EMILY: Okay, force damage. I communicate that to Laudna. (whispers) Force damage.
MARISHA: Force damage.
EMILY: Force damage.
TALIESIN: Light might be an interesting thing.
EMILY: I just don't--
MARISHA: We don't--
EMILY: -- have that.
MARISHA: But we don't have that!
TALIESIN: I'm well aware!
MARISHA: Look at this group!
EMILY: Limited!
MATT: (laughs)
EMILY: I wish I had radiant, but I don't.
MATT: All right.
EMILY: Okay, that's my turn.
MATT: Okay. So you peek out from the side.
EMILY: Yeah. I'm peeking to get eyes.
MATT: Eyes on in it and then back in?
EMILY: Yeah.
MATT: Okay.
EMILY: I could've shot it from my book, but I also want to have eyes in case I want to try and Counterspell.
MATT: Understood. The orb that apparated off the side slams into it. Finishing your turn, Prism, that brings us to Bor'Dor. By the way, did you want Mother to follow at all?
UTKARSH: Mother is with--
EMILY: I wanted Mother to follow--
MATT: Correct. So Mother is there?
EMILY: Yeah. Orym, yeah. She's got decent movement, so she could probably--
MATT: Yeah, I'll put her there.
UTKARSH: (clears throat) I'll move as far that way as I can.
AIMEE: (laughs)
MATT: All righty. Five, 10, 15, 25, 30.
UTKARSH: I got to do Cure Wounds, because I've got nine HP left.
TALIESIN: Jeez.
EMILY: Oh, Bor'Dor!
MATT: All right, cast Cure Wounds on yourself. What level?
TALIESIN: Did you heal the last time we did a long rest, or--?
EMILY: No, we--
UTKARSH: No, we lost five.
TALIESIN: Oh.
UTKARSH: We fell.
TALIESIN: Right.
EMILY: I forgot how many--
MARISHA: We fell and then--
LIAM: Then it just--
MARISHA: -- that massive.
EMILY: Oh, that's true. I did False Life and most of that came through on a False Life.
UTKARSH: I'm just the new guy.
MATT: All right, you want to cast it at what level?
UTKARSH: Four.
MATT: 4th-level?
UTKARSH: Mm-hmm.
MATT: All righty, so that's 4d8 plus your spellcasting modifier.
MARISHA: He's got Cure Wounds.
UTKARSH: Eight plus 13 is 21.
MATT: It was four there. You rolled four.
UTKARSH: Oh.
MATT: So 21 plus your--
UTKARSH: 21.
MATT: -- spellcasting modifier, which, I believe, for you is charisma.
UTKARSH: Oh. Hold on.
MARISHA: Sorcerer with Cure Wounds.
TALIESIN: I didn't know that was a thing that you could...
UTKARSH: 21 plus four, 28. I mean 25, excuse me.
MATT: So you heal yourself 25 hit points.
UTKARSH: Yeah, thank god. Then-- (laughter) (laughter)
AIMEE: Truly.
UTKARSH: Then I'm going to be like: I'm coming!
MATT: Okay. You have a bonus action, and you have points you can spend as a bonus action to regain spell slots, if you want to.
UTKARSH: I'm okay for now.
MATT: Okay. All right. Finishing your go, that brings us to the entity's turn.
AIMEE: Oh no.
MATT: Which, actually, at the end of your turn, it's going to fire another Shadow Spear at you, Ashton.
TALIESIN: Cool.
LIAM: Disadvantage.
EMILY: Lucky you.
MATT: That's right, disadvantage.
EMILY: Ooh!
AIMEE: Why?
MATT: Ooh, disadvantage brings it down to a 17.
TALIESIN: Misses.
MATT: Misses you.
UTKARSH: Yes!
EMILY: Yes!
MATT: You dodge out of the way and it hits the wall and you see where this black, iron sphere digs deep into it and the black shadow still surrounds it, and it begins to dissipate at the tip, but still hold its physical form there for a time. That's going to bring a finish to that.
TALIESIN: I've seen your shit.
MATT and UTKARSH: (laugh)
MATT: Now, top of its turn.
UTKARSH: Cool fan, by the way.
MARISHA: Thanks.
MATT: It's going to--
MARISHA: It's a good one.
MATT: -- shift around you, which means you get an attack--
TALIESIN: I'm going to hit it with Orbital Decay--
MATT: -- of opportunity.
TALIESIN: -- and it's going to lose 10 feet of movement if it tries to move away from me because I'm in Gravity Well right now.
MATT: Indeed. It does.
EMILY: Ooh.
AIMEE: Because you're what?
MATT: Five, 10--
LIAM: He's got gravitational pull.
AIMEE: Gravitational pull.
MATT: 20. It can only get there.
TALIESIN: Yeah.
EMILY: (sarcastic laugh)
MATT: As it's trying to move away, you watch as the shadows being pulled towards--
UTKARSH: Sick!
MATT: -- Ashton. It's like (whooshes).
TALIESIN: It also has disadvantage targeting anybody but me now, but he already has disadvantage to target anyone because he's got so--
MATT: He just has disadvantage.
TALIESIN: I think he's just fucked now.
UTKARSH: Yay!
AIMEE: He's unlucky. (laughter continues)
TALIESIN: The gravity pull is happening at this point.
MATT: All righty.
LIAM: (gurgling vocalizations)
EMILY: (laughs)
TALIESIN: Fucker.
MATT: As it pulls away, the jaw of the exposed face "(gasps)" opens up as it turns slightly askew to the side. As it does, this pure, green, noxious fume--
AIMEE: Oh!
MATT: "(groans)"
AIMEE: Caca.
MARISHA: Aah!
TALIESIN: No! Boo!
EMILY and MARISHA: No!
EMILY: Is this going to be...
TALIESIN: I hate all of this.
MATT: Cloud Kill.
EMILY: Cloud Kill?
TALIESIN: Fuck!
MARISHA: Wait, is this--
EMILY: 5th-level Counterspell!
MARISHA: Yes!
UTKARSH: Yeah!
MATT: 5th-level Counterspell?
EMILY: Yep, I'm doing it. I saved it for this.
UTKARSH: (vibrations) (oohing)
MATT: As it pulls outward, suddenly you watch as the heavy fume seems to dissipate into a fine mist, and join the moisture in the air around.
LIAM: What's sexier than wizards?! (laughter)
AIMEE: Woo!
MATT: As that happens, the head turns towards the spell book where the--
EMILY: That was actually from me.
MATT: That was from you over there?
EMILY: Yeah.
MATT: Then it turns over in the direction of where the incantation came from. It seemed to acknowledge the direction, though you're uncertain if it sees you or not.
MARISHA: Right, but I'm standing behind Prism.
MATT: Yeah. So it's looking right at you.
EMILY, UTKARSH, and MATT: (laugh)
MARISHA: What?! That was not me!
MATT: "(guttural sigh)" (laughter)
MATT: "How cute!"
MARISHA: Fuck!
EMILY: You have bad breath and I gave you a mint. What's the problem?
MATT: (laughs) "What interesting tricks you bring." That's movement, action, bonus action. The other red light--
AIMEE: Oy!
MATT: -- apparates outward and stops right behind you.
TALIESIN: Okay, so it doesn't leave my range? I can't take an attack of opportunity?
MATT: Correct.
TALIESIN: Okay.
MATT: It just kind of (whooshes).
MARISHA: What do they do?
MATT: Appears and stops there. Once again, the area around, and you both feel it, too. The air, the space around you, it would be, yeah, both be Laudna, Orym, and Prism, all the color in the space around you goes to a desaturated black and white. You're uncertain what that necessarily means. That's going to finish its turn. That brings us to Laudna, with Ashton on deck.
MARISHA: (inhales)
UTKARSH: You've got it, buddy.
MARISHA: All right. Form of Dread.
EMILY and MATT: (laugh)
EMILY: I though you said, "For Madrid." (laughter)
AIMEE: For Madrid!
MATT: For Madrid! (laughter)
EMILY: That's a location! Not very original, Matt, but okay!
MARISHA: Shout out to Madrid. (laughter)
MATT: We will avenge you! (laughter)
MARISHA: Ooh, that's good! I rolled a 10.
MATT: (laughs)
EMILY: ¡Por Madrid!
LIAM: You got me. (laughter)
LIAM: Oh.
MARISHA: Okay, I rolled big on my temporary hit points. I'm going to back way the fuck up, as far as I can.
MATT: You get about there before the rest of the vine cover closes off that--
MARISHA: Yeah. As I'm backing up-
MATT: You know, for the fun of that, just a visual perspective on that lack of escape.
EMILY: Ooh, fun.
MATT: We're going to put these here.
MARISHA: Oh no!
TALIESIN: Cool.
AIMEE: For some reason, that's very upsetting to me.
MATT: Good.
EMILY: Oh my gosh.
AIMEE: Oh!
EMILY: I'm so low on spells already.
AIMEE: It's like Audrey II.
TALIESIN: Mm.
MARISHA: They're vines, so they're organic. They're vines that he did.
MATT: It seems to be. They're--
MARISHA: Wow.
MATT: -- elements of the surrounding nature that were bent to create. You're uncertain if it's impassable, but it's definitely challenging to get past.
MARISHA: All right.
EMILY: Okay.
TALIESIN: Where's my pen?
EMILY: You know what? We want to stay here and bang.
MARISHA: Yeah, it's fine.
EMILY: So we love it.
MARISHA: We can handle that later. I'm going to do two Eldritch Blasts, listening to Prism.
EMILY: Yeah.
MATT: Go for it.
MARISHA: To do force damage. Okay, 18 and an eight, so--
EMILY: You got this.
MARISHA: 16 and 26.
MATT: Both hit.
MARISHA: Both hit?
UTKARSH: Heck yeah.
MARISHA: Okay, great. Great.
UTKARSH: This fool's going to move again, isn't he?
MARISHA: (groans) Terrible damage.
TALIESIN: Yep, yep.
MARISHA: Damn!
UTKARSH: Better than zero.
MARISHA: I hate it.
TALIESIN: Fuck, I should've-- goddamn it.
MARISHA: So that's five--
TALIESIN: Shoulda, coulda. Next time.
MARISHA: Plus seven.
AIMEE: Can I do it?
MARISHA: Five and seven.
MATT: Okay, so 12 points of force damage.
MARISHA: Shit.
MATT: (impacts) As they impact, you can see the shadow being brushed off and you see the edges of the arms of the humanoid being that is currently encased within briefly exposed before it forms back over them greedily.
UTKARSH: What if we yanked the body--
MARISHA: That's what I was going to say.
UTKARSH: -- away from the shadow?
MARISHA: Can you whip him with Seedling?
LIAM: Yes.
MARISHA: Are we jumping on your shit?
LIAM: Yep.
MARISHA and UTKARSH: I'm sorry. (laughter)
MATT: Hey, group tactic, doesn't hurt. (laughter)
MATT: All righty.
AIMEE: When we see him kind of, right, is this creature's head above his head or is it exactly the same shadowy body? He's just a shadow on top of it?
MATT: The face of this keeps changing location across its form.
AIMEE: Oh!
MATT: It's this blanket black, like a heavy drapery that keeps shifting with shadow.
AIMEE: Ugh!
EMILY: Whoa.
MATT: Occasionally, you see a normal humanoid elf on the inside exposed at the moment of impact.
AIMEE: Copy.
EMILY: This is really cool.
MATT: Hey!
EMILY: (laughs)
UTKARSH: Double thumbs up.
MARISHA: Can he be feared, by the way?
MATT: Hmm?
MARISHA: Can he be feared from my Form of Dread?
MATT: Nope.
MARISHA: No?
TALIESIN: No feeling?
MATT: No-- No sense of fear coming from this entity.
EMILY: Mm-hmm.
MARISHA: Meaning is he immune to the frightened condition?
MATT: Yes, he is.
MARISHA: Okay.
MATT: (laughs)
MARISHA: Great.
EMILY: Okay.
MATT: All right, does that finish your turn?
MARISHA: Yeah.
TALIESIN: I mean--
MATT: Ashton, you're up, with the Deni$e on deck.
TALIESIN: Oh boy, decisions, decisions.
MATT: Actually, at the end of your turn--
AIMEE: No!
TALIESIN: Fuck a duck.
UTKARSH: Red ball.
MATT: It's going to go ahead and--
MARISHA: "I don't like it."
EMILY and AIMEE: "I don't like it." (laughter) (laughter)
EMILY: I can't believe that sustained.
MATT: It's going to spend two of its actions after the heavy hit that you gave it last turn and the strange, pulling effect that you left on it--
TALIESIN: Barely a hit, but okay.
MATT: It's going to glare at you for a bit and grin, and its eyes flare.
TALIESIN: For fuck's sakes.
MATT: Make a wisdom saving throw for me, please.
TALIESIN: Fuck off. Oh, I hate that.
MARISHA: Wisdom save?
TALIESIN: Yeah.
MARISHA: Wait, his eyes glew red? Glew red?
TALIESIN: Yeah, that's a bad--
MARISHA: That's not right.
EMILY: Glowed red.
MARISHA: Glowed red?
TALIESIN: Eight.
MATT: Eight?
MARISHA: Ah!
MATT: The Frightening Gaze leaves you frightened of it and unable to move towards it. (groaning)
EMILY: Unable to move?
UTKARSH: Oh, we lost--
EMILY: Does it look like something that he could be shook out of it?
MATT: It's possible.
EMILY: ♪ Shake it off ♪
MATT: Suddenly, you feel your knees buckle at the sight of it.
AIMEE: No!
MATT: Every impulse in your body tells you to run away.
TALIESIN: Fuck.
MATT: It's your turn.
AIMEE: Don't do this.
EMILY: No!
TALIESIN: I'm going to turn around and take a shot at the little red orb.
MATT: All right, go for it.
EMILY: Okay. Oh wow, like a punching bag.
MARISHA and AIMEE: Yeah! (laughter)
TALIESIN: Yeah, let's make it reckless. Fuck it.
MATT: Go for it.
TALIESIN: I'm going to be running anyway.
EMILY: Go reckless on an orb.
TALIESIN: All right, here we go. Thank god, because that's an 18 to hit.
MATT: 18 hits.
TALIESIN: All right. Come on, let's do a little bit of damage. Do I want to get weird? Yes. Let's just see what happens. I'm going to add a Chaos Burst, too, to this.
MATT: Sure.
TALIESIN: Just see what happens. We are going to start with the real damage. Ah, that's better. 17 points of damage.
MATT: Okay.
TALIESIN: Then adding a Chaos Burst to this. Let's do just to see what this does. 10 points, that was fun, of cold damage.
MATT: All right. So wham into them. That's one hit slamming into the side of it. As you hit the orb, it seems to crack. It falls back. It's slamming into a stationary pillar, but you see it shift slightly, like it's locked in place, but still has a give from the impact as your hammer glides off at the rest of it. The ice shatter across, the crystals of it pushed outward and frozen. They eventually crack and crumble, and you can see cracks in the exterior of this magical orb. It looks like it shrugged off some of the impact and some of the ice, but it definitely sustained a heavy hit.
TALIESIN: Okay. Interesting, interesting. There was something else. Technically speaking, I can move it five feet with that hit, too, I believe.
MATT: You can.
TALIESIN: I'm going to move it five feet to my right. Cool. Now I'm going to hit it again. I can do that every hit or just once a turn, if I recall?
MATT: You can look it up.
TALIESIN: Once per turn, okay. I actually may push it. Well, I'm not going to do the five feet hit yet.
MATT: Okay.
TALIESIN: So, yeah, you can move him back.
MATT: You got it.
TALIESIN: I'm going to be a little smarter. Play smarter, not harder.
MATT: (chuckles)
TALIESIN: That's 27 to hit.
MATT: You definitely hit. Go ahead and roll damage.
TALIESIN: All right.
UTKARSH: Let's duke it out.
TALIESIN: So that's, yeah, that's what I'm talking about! Eight, nine, 10, 19 points of damage.
UTKARSH: Heck yeah.
EMILY: Yeah!
MATT: 19 points of damage.
TALIESIN: Swinging right back around.
EMILY: Gorgeous.
TALIESIN: Popping it forward.
AIMEE: Gorgeous.
MATT: Which as you swing it around and slam into it, it shatters into hundreds of pieces.
AIMEE: Whoa.
MATT: Like a glass sphere that blasts into thousands of chunks of shattered crystal, and they all dissipate into red mist and vanish.
AIMEE: Bye!
EMILY: Whoa.
TALIESIN: One down! I'm going to take my movement to get under that clearing over there. Just to get out of the blast radius.
EMILY: Honestly, it was good that you got feared, because that was good to get that thing out of there.
TALIESIN: Yeah. Yeah, that worked out.
UTKARSH: Unless it's our friend.
EMILY: That really worked out.
MARISHA: I know.
TALIESIN: Are you going to be okay? You're going to be okay.
UTKARSH: Hevestro, you know?
MARISHA: What if it's their souls?
TALIESIN: Other than that, I got nothing else. I'm good.
MATT: All right, end of your turn. It's going to use its last legendary action to Shadow Spear you directly in front of it.
LIAM: Okay.
UTKARSH: Fudge.
MATT: Now because you--
EMILY: But it does have disadvantage, though, right?
LIAM: Does it have disadvantage from Ashton?
TALIESIN: It still has disadvantage.
MATT: Mm-hmm.
TALIESIN: Yay, gravity.
EMILY: (laughs)
AIMEE: ♪ Gravity ♪
MATT: With disadvantage, that puts it at a 21.
LIAM: Hits.
MATT: Hits.
MARISHA: Silvery Barbs.
EMILY: Yes! Yes!
UTKARSH: What does that mean?
AIMEE: Distraction.
MATT: Same roll, 11.
MARISHA: Fuck!
UTKARSH: Ugh.
MATT: 21.
LIAM: Okay.
TALIESIN: Damn.
UTKARSH: Nice.
MATT: Releases this corkscrew point of an arrowhead that's formed out of the shadow within. It appears just for a moment in your direction. It smiles at you before--
AIMEE: Wow.
MATT: It just darts off. You try and put the shield up, but it glides off the shield in, and catches your shoulder.
UTKARSH: Oh.
MATT: You take 14 points of necrotic damage and you are pushed back and it pins you to the wall. It now stays in your shoulder and you can't move from the stone.
LIAM: Mm-hmm.
MARISHA: Shit.
MATT: At the moment, you are considered restrained.
LIAM: Okay.
UTKARSH: (gasps)
EMILY: Restrained.
AIMEE: (nervous noises) My turn, I think. Okay.
MATT: Now it's your turn, Deni$e.
AIMEE: I'd love to--
EMILY: Okay, okay, okay.
AIMEE: -- get a little bit of a jumping start, maybe with a little dramatic flair.
MATT: I like it.
AIMEE: Do a somersault in the air, and as I come down, strike him with my sickle, the curved part of my sickle, like if I'm doing an autopsy cut or something.
MATT: You've got it.
TALIESIN: Nice.
AIMEE: Let's see.
MATT: Roll an acrobatics check for me, just because it's fun.
AIMEE: Okay! Mm-hmm, that's going to be a five.
MARISHA: Oh no!
MATT: A five? Okay.
UTKARSH: Yeah!
MATT: So you--
EMILY: Deni$e, you've got to-- The heels are not working for you.
AIMEE: Take the heels off, bitch!
EMILY: You're on the third day of the bachelorette party weekend.
MARISHA: Yeah!
EMILY: So many Band-Aids in there.
AIMEE: Too many!
MATT: You take one point of bludgeoning damage.
AIMEE: Gah, fuck.
MATT: Not too bad. You can't reroll the same rolled ankle, but you still push through on it, but you land next to it, and you can make your strikes, if you'd like.
AIMEE: Please, do this. (unhappy sigh)
MARISHA: No!
AIMEE: 15.
MATT: 15 misses, unfortunately.
TALIESIN: Now we know.
MARISHA: So 16 is--
MATT: You go to do the first strike, but you strike right as you land and (groans in pain) and just go wide with the shot.
AIMEE: Okay.
MATT: But you still have your other attack and your bonus.
AIMEE: I sure do. I have a question.
MATT: Yes?
AIMEE: If I want to use my whip for something, that is my bonus action, right?
MATT: Correct.
AIMEE: I couldn't, okay, so what instead I'm going to do, I'm going to try to take another swipe with my sickle.
MATT: Okay.
AIMEE: Okay, por favor. Here we go. Goddamn it, what is this? 16.
MATT: 16 just hits.
AIMEE: Oh!
TALIESIN: Now we know!
AIMEE: Oh, thank god. Do I get sneak attack because anyone's around or Mother or what?
LIAM: You would, if I hadn't been speared to the wall.
MATT: He got speared to the wall, so you do not get sneak attack.
AIMEE: Darn it.
MATT: That's also where the reckless attacks come in handy.
AIMEE: I know, but I don't want to do that, because hello?
MATT: I know.
AIMEE: (laughs)
MATT: Oh.
EMILY: No!
AIMEE: ♪ Seven damage ♪
MATT: Seven points of damage.
AIMEE: Bye! Then what I'm going to do as my bonus action is disengage.
MATT: Okay.
AIMEE: Because that's it. Where can I go with that? Is it just 35 feet?
MATT: So from where you were, it was five, 10.
AIMEE: 10?
MATT: Then you have disengage, so you can move 20 more feet.
AIMEE: Can I go--
MATT: 25 more feet?
AIMEE: Can I go--
MATT: You can go back up if you want to try and climb.
AIMEE: Go back up, behind those crystals there.
MATT: Over here?
AIMEE: Yeah. Is that even worth it?
EMILY: Deni$e scryed on her ex, and her thoughts are all--
AIMEE: Are scattered. (laughter)
AIMEE: What does he smell like? Oh my god. He looked worried.
EMILY: (laughs)
TALIESIN: Evict him.
MATT: (laughs)
TALIESIN: Evict him.
AIMEE: I can't believe I rolled a one.
TALIESIN: He hasn't paid rent in months.
AIMEE: Yeah, right?
MATT: All right, does that finish your turn, Deni$e?
AIMEE: Yeah, that finishes my turn.
MATT: Okay. Orym, you're up, with Prism on deck.
LIAM: Okay, quick question, a dorky question.
MATT: Yes?
LIAM: The tiles are slightly misaligned. Am I within 15 feet of this thing?
MATT: Hmm.
LIAM: Would you say?
MATT: Five, 10, you're about, technically, that's in the way. I'd say you're about 15 feet, yeah.
LIAM: Okay. So. Smarter, not harder. He spins the blade and then I cut the air twice, pinned to the wall.
MATT: Gotcha. (slicing)
AIMEE: What is happening?
MARISHA: Come on!
LIAM: Natural 20. (cheering)
LIAM: Second was almost a natural 20. Second is an 18.
MATT: Okay. Both hit.
LIAM: Okay, so we'll make the goading attack out of the first.
MATT: All righty.
LIAM: I'm trying to strike at the mask.
MATT: That's a failure on its save.
LIAM: Okay.
MATT: It's a 14, right? Fails?
LIAM: Yep.
MATT: All right.
EMILY: I have Mother, if you ever want to use her for advantage. Those are good.
TALIESIN: ♪ Mother! ♪
LIAM: But can Mother--
MARISHA: Mother!
TALIESIN: I can't help it.
LIAM: Can Mother move when I need her to?
AIMEE: Mother, help me, too.
LIAM: Okay, so that's doubled. Eight plus six is 14, plus the superiority die.
MATT: Which is also doubled.
LIAM: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Eight plus 14.
AIMEE: Finish him!
LIAM: 14. (scoffs) Right.
EMILY: (laughs)
LIAM: 14. 22 total on the first and then the second is 12. So the blade slashes quick and the wind goes (whooshes) in an X of an angle. Then as a bonus action, I stick out the blade and a Grasping Vine--
MARISHA: Come on!
AIMEE: Yes!
LIAM: -- shoots out of it and inside, and I'm reaching to grab, I'm playing the claw machine.
AIMEE: Yes!
MARISHA: Does it work?
MATT: Okay, so as the two blades cut through, it blasts back and exposes part of the interior of the shadow. You can see the chest and part of the shoulder of a humanoid within. You release the vine from your blade (whooshes) into the section. You see it adheres and wraps around the shoulder. Go ahead and make a strength check. This is you versus the creature.
AIMEE: I wish I was behind you, just (crunches)
MARISHA: I know!
LIAM: So just not a save. It's not a save at all.
MATT: No. Just a--
LIAM: It's a 13.
MATT: 13.
EMILY: Could Mother help with this?
MARISHA: But it's a shadow beasties.
EMILY: Clawing.
MATT: Mother, unfortunately, is a bit too far from it. Couldn't quite get next to it. But good trying out.
MARISHA and AIMEE: (cawing)
LIAM: The spell says-- you rule, but-- the spell says, "The creature must succeed on a dex save throw or be pulled 20 feet directly toward the vine."
MATT: Correct. This isn't the creature being pulled, just yanked.
LIAM: This is just fighting the shadow.
MATT: This is you fighting the strength of the shadow to keep it from you.
LIAM: Right you are.
MATT: Because he doesn't dodge it. He takes the hit.
LIAM: Gotcha.
MATT: However, he did roll a natural nine and this entity is not extremely strong. The body (whooshes) gets pulled out of the shadow. (cheering)
MATT: (thumping)
AIMEE: Oh my god!
MATT: Onto the ground next to you.
MARISHA: That was a good idea we had.
UTKARSH: Yeah. (laughter)
AIMEE: Good job!
UTKARSH: Thanks for listening to us.
MARISHA: (laughs)
AIMEE: Team Jersey Insecurity! (laughter)
MARISHA: Jersey Insecurity!
MATT: Onto the ground there as you hear the shrill shrieking of Evithorir, just "(horrifying shriek)"
LIAM: Woo!
MARISHA: Did you say Evith? Oh, right. That's its name.
AIMEE: Evithorir.
EMILY: Evithorir.
UTKARSH: Bor'Dor's like: What was that?
AIMEE: For Madrid! Evithorir!
MARISHA and EMILY: For Madrid!
LIAM: Final question for you.
MATT: Mm-hmm.
LIAM: I'm trying to push the envelope here.
AIMEE: Evithorir.
LIAM: If Orym hurts himself, can I use Bait and Switch to rip myself off of the barb holding me to the wall and get in front of this person on the floor?
MATT: I would say, unfortunately, no. You've done a lot this round.
LIAM: I have done a lot.
MATT: It would be an action to try and pull yourself off of this.
LIAM: Totally fair.
MATT: But good trying out.
LIAM: Totally fair.
AIMEE: Does this man say anything? Hevestro.
LIAM: (pants)
MATT: Just (whooshes) not moving, on the ground. All right, that finishes your turn, Orym. Prism, you're up, with Bor'Dor on deck.
EMILY: Okay. This is so crazy and I shouldn't--
TALIESIN: Shit! Oh fuck!
EMILY: I shouldn't.
AIMEE: Do it!
EMILY: But should I Dimension Door this body out of here?
MARISHA: Ooh!
TALIESIN: (grunts)
TALIESIN: At least--
LIAM: I'm not saying shit. I'm just a fighter.
MARISHA: To get him away, at least?
EMILY: To get it away.
AIMEE: Because he might help us.
EMILY: Because it might need another host or--
LIAM: It might try to nom-nom the body back up.
AIMEE: Yeah.
EMILY: That's what I was worried about. But you know what? I think you are going to be able to protect, I think you guys are going to be able to protect this body. So I'm going to--
TALIESIN: Don't look at me. I'm far away.
AIMEE: Can you make him invisible?
UTKARSH: That's a good idea.
MATT: He's pinned to a wall and he is far away, running.
TALIESIN: Yeah.
EMILY: Okay. Then you know what? You know what? I think it's too much of a gamble to Dimension Door it out of this cave. Instead, I'm going to, this is my final 4th-level spell, going to send Dynios over to the downed body and have it-- Oh, but he can teleport. So Dimension Dooring it doesn't even do anything.
AIMEE: He can teleport himself?
MATT: You watched the entity teleport once.
AIMEE: Oh, right! Can you cast Invisibility on him? Without dropping yours?
EMILY: No, I can't do that. Fuck!
MARISHA: Mm.
EMILY: I feel like you guys all think I should do something really specific, and I'm missing it!
MATT: No, no!
MARISHA: No.
AIMEE: I have no fucking clue!
LIAM: I have no idea.
MATT: This is your turn.
LIAM: Just fucking rock our socks off, okay? (laughter)
EMILY: I already have. (laughter)
AIMEE: Make him lunch.
EMILY: Okay, I just want to get this body away. Okay, give me one second. I'm looking at this body. This looks like an innocent body that, if I sent it elsewhere, it-- Fuck me! (laughter)
UTKARSH: We probably need him, right? If it's Hevestro.
EMILY: This is what I wanted. I wanted the weight of important questions on my shoulders, and here I am.
AIMEE: Here they are.
EMILY: Dynios, let's fucking do it! I'm going to Dimension Door this body. I don't want to Dimension Door it out of here. I'm going to dimension it. Yeah., I'm going to Dimension Door this body out of here.
MATT: Okay. Where are you sending him?
EMILY: (groans) No, I can't because he might be able to help us. I could just heal him, is the thing.
AIMEE: Mm!
EMILY: Fuck! Does the body look like-- I'm so sorry. Does the body look like I could heal it?
MATT: I mean, it's a body on the ground, face down, not moving.
EMILY: Does it look dead, or like if I gave it some hit points, it would come back to life?
MATT: You're uncertain. In the low shadow of this chamber, you'd have to make a choice.
EMILY: Matthew!
EMILY and MATT: (laugh)
AIMEE: Can Mother see it?
EMILY: You know what? Fuck it! I'm going to Dimension Door it right to Ashton.
MATT: All right.
EMILY: Just to get it out of its way. I know that Ashton is strong.
TALIESIN: Yeah.
EMILY: We're just doing that.
MATT: As you're running, Ashton, (grunts) up against the rock. Suddenly, (whooshes) the book and a body of an unfamiliar figure land on the ground and the book turns and goes, "I don't know what you're supposed to do, but apparently it's something!"
AIMEE: (laughs)
TALIESIN: Okay?!
MATT: "Good!"
EMILY: Protect the body! Just protect the body! That makes sense, right?
MATT: "Protect the body! That's the one! Yes, please."
TALIESIN: Why did you put it here?!
EMILY: (laughs) Because you're super strong!
MATT: "You're super strong!"
TALIESIN: You should've healed it! Okay. Carry on.
EMILY: Okay.
UTKARSH: That's really funny.
MATT: All right.
EMILY: But Bor'Dor can do that better than I can. For me to heal, I have to do damage to myself.
AIMEE: Really?
EMILY: Yeah.
LIAM: Orym also just went: Ha! Wha?! (laughter)
EMILY: I don't communicate anything to Orym.
MATT: Nope!
AIMEE: Tough shit on Orym!
TALIESIN: We're good.
MATT: All righty. That finish your turn?
EMILY: Yes.
MATT: Do you want to move? Stay?
EMILY: Yes.
MATT: Okay. Finishing your go, brings us to Bor'Dor.
UTKARSH: Can I get to the body from where I'm--
MATT: From where you are, you can try to move. You would get not to it, but about that far, within 30 feet of him.
EMILY: Healing Word?
UTKARSH: I'll go up towards the green crystal.
EMILY: Oh, I should have Dimension Doored it to fucking Bor'Dor!
UTKARSH: As far as I can go.
EMILY: I'm a fucking idiot.
MATT: 15, 20. Make an athletics check to attempt to climb the wall.
UTKARSH: Two. Two.
MATT: Two.
AIMEE: Do you have to add anything?
UTKARSH: Well, why bother? (laughter)
AIMEE: It might be 12!
TALIESIN: It'll work. I have some ideas, so--
MATT: Okay.
UTKARSH: No, it's two. I have no athleticism.
MATT: Two. It is a tough climb from this position. You stumble a couple times and you do manage to get up to the edge, but it takes all of your movement to do so.
UTKARSH: Okay. Oh, but that thing is covered in darkness, right?
MATT: You see the source of the darkness, but you don't see it directly in there. Yeah.
TALIESIN: You could make a guess if you wanted, but ehh.
UTKARSH: What else am I going to do? I'll shoot again. Wait. Can I? Let see. I want to do something.
TALIESIN: Yeah, if you have something with radius, then it would be an easier hit. But yeah, you might miss.
EMILY: If you have Healing Word, you could heal that guy.
UTKARSH: No, I don't. I'm going to shoot a Fire Bolt into the--
MATT: Into the void?
UTKARSH: Yeah.
MATT: Okay. Roll with disadvantage. You have a pretty good idea of where it may be, based on the sphere, but you're not entirely directly sure, so you're kind of making a guess.
UTKARSH: 15.
MARISHA: That's good!
MATT: 15?
MARISHA: Plus your--
MATT: 15 just hits.
AIMEE and EMILY: Yay!
MARISHA: It's plus seven, I think, too.
MATT: Oh, well then, yeah, definitely hits.
MARISHA: Good.
UTKARSH: Plus eight.
MARISHA: Plus eight. Fuck yeah!
UTKARSH: Then these are d10s, right?
EMILY: Yeah. This is a d10. That's a d10.
AIMEE: d10s are the most confusing for me.
EMILY: That's a d8. You don't want that.
TALIESIN: Yeah, they look too much like d8s.
AIMEE: I'm like what the fuck do I do with this?
UTKARSH: Four and five. Nine.
MATT: Okay, got it.
UTKARSH: Do I add this to it?
MATT: No, it just does the 2d10. So you fire the bolt into it. (whooshes) It vanishes into the darkness. You're uncertain if it hit or if it did any damage.
UTKARSH: That felt good! (laughter)
MATT: All right. Anything on your turn you want to do? Bonus action?
UTKARSH: I will use some of those points that I have.
MATT: Okay.
UTKARSH: To get back another spell slot.
MATT: Get back a 4th-level?
UTKARSH: Yeah.
MATT: Okay. So spend the appropriate amount of points for that.
TALIESIN: Oh, sorcery points. You're so crazy.
MATT: You got it. All right! Finishing Bor'Dor's go, it is now the entity's turn. It gets it--
EMILY: Thank you.
TALIESIN: Yep.
AIMEE: Whoa! Virgo!
EMILY: That one has--
MATT: -- that back here.
TALIESIN: Probably having a bad moment.
EMILY: Yeah, I think almost--
MATT: It's going to-- Five, 10, 15, 20.
LIAM: Can I slash as it goes?
MATT: 25. No, it moves around your range.
AIMEE: Oh no! Goddamn it! Deni$e is useless!
MATT: 30.
EMILY: I'm so sorry, guys!
MARISHA: Oh!
MATT: It is now (whooshes) looming up on top of the platform, looking down at the body and you see the shadow-like tendrils that are reaching off and almost reaching out for the unconscious humanoid on the ground.
EMILY: I just forgot Bor'Dor could heal. I thought he was a crossbow guy.
UTKARSH: I'm trying to get over there, too.
AIMEE: I thought you only fucked with crossbows.
MATT: (laughs)
UTKARSH: I just figured it out!
MATT: With that--
AIMEE: Ay-yi-yi!
MATT: Hmm.
TALIESIN: Mm.
AIMEE: Chasing him around the board.
LIAM: Yeah.
MATT: You know what? It's going to--
AIMEE: I don't like the turn.
MATT: Instead over in this space and is going to (whooshes) release this small-- Actually, it's not pretty small. It's a pretty thick, black, shadowed hand that puts a arm out there and this little bead of light fires outward. (whooshes)
MARISHA: Counterspell.
AIMEE: (laughs)
MATT: You Counterspell?
MARISHA: Yeah.
MATT: All right. It's going to use its reaction to Counterspell your Counterspell.
EMILY: I'll counter! I'll Counterspell his Counterspell! (cheering)
LIAM: Bing, bing, bing, bing!
AIMEE: (party horn) (laughter)
LIAM: ♪ Pinball wizard ♪
EMILY: (laughs)
MATT: As the beam of light shoots outward and (whooshes)
MARISHA: I don't want no Fireballs up in this bitch!
AIMEE: We can't afford it!
MARISHA: That's what I felt like it was! I can't afford no Fireballs!
MATT: Apparently, he can't either because it got Counterspelled.
EMILY: (sighs)
LIAM: The rent is too damn high.
MATT: (laughs)
MARISHA: Fuck yes!
TALIESIN: Did it look like a Fireball?
EMILY: I think they're not.
MARISHA: I'm assuming. It seems something--
TALIESIN: Yeah, okay.
MATT: You've seen Fireballs before. It feels like it may have been something adjacent to a Fireball.
TALIESIN: Okay. Okay.
MATT: "(shrieks) I'll eat all of you!" As it stands there angrily, the mask pulls inside the shadow. The face pulls inside. The shards of the red orb shake.
MARISHA: Uh-oh!
MATT: (whooshes) And pull inside of it for its bonus action. That's going to finish its turn.
MARISHA: Oh. Maybe it's a bit of his life force that he's putting on the outside?
UTKARSH: Horcrux-y?
MARISHA: A little horcrux-y.
UTKARSH: This one is still in darkness?
AIMEE: Well, he was sucking the life force out of our guy.
MATT: That one is still in darkness, yeah.
MARISHA: Yeah.
MATT: That's going to finish his turn. Laudna, you're up.
MARISHA: All right. I'm going to drop the Darkness because I don't think that that is doing anything. I'm going to bonus action Hex him.
AIMEE: Yes!
MATT: Okay.
MARISHA: Then I'm going to, once again, lay some Eldritch Blasts into him.
UTKARSH: Beautiful!
MARISHA: Let me pop up my Hex.
AIMEE: I love warlocks so much!
MARISHA: Cast. Thank you. Okay. Two Eldritch Blasts. ♪ Ba ba ba ♪ Yeah, that's a 19, a natural 19, and then a 16 on the second one.
MATT: Both hit. Go ahead and roll damage.
MARISHA: I swear to god. Then I get d6s with these.
TALIESIN: Mm!
MARISHA: Come on! Oh, that was cocked. Ugh! Super average! Okay, so hang on. Let me think. So for the first one, 10, 14 for the first one.
MATT: 14. All righty.
MARISHA: 10 for this second.
MATT: Okay.
MARISHA: Then--
MATT: "(snarls)" You can see, as it's getting the hits, the shadow is starting to drip off and its form is starting to have a challenging time maintaining a semi-corporeal form. It's starting to show some wear and tear.
MARISHA: I'm going-- I don't know if this is going to work. I am going to Quicken a spell.
MATT: Okay.
MARISHA: I'm going to do Chill Touch.
MATT: Okay.
MARISHA: So I'm going to once again slam my hand into the ground and you see a skeletal hand rise.
MATT: "(snarls)"
MARISHA: I'm going to grab him, just head bash him.
AIMEE: (laughs)
MATT: Okay. Is that an attack roll or is that a saving throw?
MARISHA: It is an attack roll.
MATT: All right, go for it.
MARISHA: Yeah. 18.
MATT: 18 hits.
MARISHA: Then he takes 2d8.
MATT: His movement speed is reduced by--
MARISHA: No, he can't heal.
MATT: Mm.
MARISHA: Yeah.
MATT: Okay.
TALIESIN: Interesting.
MARISHA: 13.
MATT: 13.
MARISHA: Damage, and he can't regain hit points.
UTKARSH: Wow.
MATT: So if he is--
EMILY: Mm-hmm.
LIAM: He's fucking with that shit.
MATT: Okay.
MARISHA: Mm-hmm.
MATT: The Chill Touch strikes (impacts) and the ice impacts, but doesn't have as much of a heavy impact as you would hope.
MARISHA: Sure.
MATT: But nevertheless, the chill continues to pervasively spread throughout the shadow, and you get a sense it's made an impact on its healing capability.
MARISHA: I look at him, and in Shadow Cant, I say: Game recognizes game!
MATT: (laughs)
UTKARSH: (whistles)
AIMEE: Yeah, baby!
MATT: In the black sphere there, the face emerges from the shadow once more to meet your gaze, but just the tip of it. You don't even see the eyes. You see the brow, the nose, and the outside of the lips and the jaw and the cheekbones. He goes, "Game recognizes game!" All right. Does that finish your turn? You want to stay put or move?
MARISHA: I will-- I don't think I can move much. I'll shift that way, towards where Taliesin.
TALIESIN: Oh, that's not me.
MATT: Taliesin is this way.
MARISHA: Sorry! Towards real life Taliesin.
TALIESIN: Oh! Well, fine.
MARISHA: Not in-game Taliesin.
MATT: Full movement?
MARISHA: Yeah, I'll hide behind that pillar.
MATT: You got it.
MARISHA: A little bit.
MATT: All right. End of your turn, it's going to use some legendary actions. (whooshes)
LIAM: Cool!
EMILY: Ugh!
MATT: (whooshes)
MATT: Appears next to the figure, and the shadows (whooshes) begin to reach out and try and grab, and you can see it's wrapping around parts of its arms as the unconscious figure lays there, begins pulling it across the stone in its direction. Finishing your go, Ashton, you're up, with Deni$e on deck.
TALIESIN: Well, first I get to make a wisdom save, don't I? This is the top of my turn, and make a wisdom save?
MATT: At the end of your last turn, you should have made one.
TALIESIN: Oh. Well, here. At the end of my last turn.
MATT: So make that now.
TALIESIN: (blows raspberry) (laughs)
MATT: Still frightened of it, buddy.
TALIESIN: So. Yeah, and I've still got my rage going. That's okay.
EMILY: Maybe you should grab the body.
TALIESIN: I'm going to--
EMILY: Undo my little mistake.
TALIESIN: -- pick up the body.
MATT: Okay.
TALIESIN: I'm going to book back towards everybody else.
MATT: Okay.
TALIESIN: Full speed.
MATT: All righty. (laughs) You grab it and it's half movement.
TALIESIN: Not yours, fucker!
MATT: So 20 feet.
TALIESIN: That's fine. 20 feet.
UTKARSH: That's good.
MATT: So that's five, 10, 15, 20.
TALIESIN: Then, I'm going to use my action to offset the dash.
MATT: This unconscious, face down figure's (thumping).
TALIESIN: Oh no, I've lifted them up. I've got them up.
MATT: Okay.
TALIESIN: I bundled.
AIMEE: 20 points of fucking stone damage.
TALIESIN: I bundle and I'm going to do another 20 feet with the dash action.
MATT: Okay.
LIAM: I'm still (thumps) alive! (laughter)
MATT: To there?
TALIESIN: Yeah. Then I'm going to put them behind me.
MATT: Okay. We'll still put you back there.
EMILY: See, Ashton? This is why I Dimension Doored him to you.
TALIESIN: I can't feed a healing potion as a bonus action to somebody else, can I? It's only to myself.
MATT: It's an action to apply to somebody else.
TALIESIN: Okay! Yeah, yeah. I'm good. I'm going to have to, yeah, that'll be the end of my-- My rage ends at the start of my next turn.
MATT: You got it. All right. End of Ashton's go, Deni$e, you're up, with Orym on deck.
AIMEE: Can 70 feet get me anywhere near this man?
MATT: 70 feet?
AIMEE: Or the spirit?
MATT: 35. Yeah, you can get right up to it.
AIMEE: Right up to it? Okay. I'm going to, I suppose-- Wait. Can I throw some things out and you guys nod or not. I could go over to the elf. I have a poison. Or no, I think I have a potion because I bought one from what's-his-face. Is that the one that comes in the red thing?
MATT: Mm-hmm.
AIMEE: Okay. I have one of those. So I can even either give that to the elf or half-elf or whatever. Or I could take some swipes at Big Baddy.
EMILY: Either is good.
AIMEE: What's better?
TALIESIN: There's no wrong answer here.
LIAM: Whatever is more fun.
TALIESIN: Yeah, have fun.
AIMEE: Well, I think, honestly, I would like to get him a lot, pick him up.
EMILY: Yeah.
AIMEE: Would this work? Would this be a good way to do that?
MARISHA: Yeah.
EMILY: I mean, yeah.
AIMEE: Healing potions.
UTKARSH: He might be able to help us escape.
AIMEE: If he's alive. But we don't know if he's alive.
MATT: You don't know.
AIMEE: Well, I suppose--
MARISHA: We can assume he's alive.
AIMEE: We will try it.
MARISHA: Yeah.
AIMEE: So I'm going to go over to the elf and I suppose as my action, I'm going to give him my healing potion that I purchased.
MATT: Okay, so it's your action. Go ahead and pull it off and take it and jam it inside.
AIMEE: (glug, glug, glug)
MATT: All right, so do you have the potion with you, or?
AIMEE: You know what? I left it here the last time.
MATT: Here.
EMILY: I remember.
AIMEE: Thank you.
MATT: Go ahead and roll that.
AIMEE: Oh yeah, yeah.
EMILY: Oh, you can roll them in there?
AIMEE: Ay, por favor. Help.
EMILY: Cute!
TALIESIN: 2d4 plus two.
AIMEE: Wait, so I just do this?
MATT: No, you can take the cork off--
TALIESIN: Roll it out.
MATT: -- and pour it out.
AIMEE: Okay. (laughs goofily) Oh! Seven!
EMILY: Ooh!
TALIESIN: Plus two or--?
AIMEE: It's four, three.
MATT: Yeah.
AIMEE: So that's seven plus two is nine.
MATT: Plus two. Nine points.
MARISHA: Nice.
MATT: All righty. As you finish applying it, the figure-- (coughing and gasping for breath)
AIMEE: Oh!
EMILY: Yay!
MATT: The eyes roll back for a second before focusing in.
AIMEE: She goes like this.
MATT: They're-- (laughs) "(choking gasp) What's, what's happening?"
AIMEE: Well, you were eaten by this animal, no, by this shadow, and now you're okay. And don't forget we did this, okay? Thanks!
MATT: Okay. Now, getting a better look at this figure, you see it's an elven male on the old, middle-aged elven scale, which means probably a few hundred years.
AIMEE: Sure.
MATT: Matted black hair on tanned skin adorned with all manner of tattoos and markings. Vestments of painted leather strips over thick cloth robes, metal bracelets that clink as he moves.
AIMEE: Good style!
MATT: Eyes are, now that they've focused in, are a vibrant lavender color. You can see there's a hint of smile wrinkles at the sides of the eyes. But right now, he's (labored breathing) barely getting back into the sense of where he is.
AIMEE: Well, you're gorgeous. Well, I don't think I have anything else to do as a bonus action. Well, I guess, unless this motherfucker's going to move again. Oh no, that was my bonus action. That was my action?
MATT: That was your action, so you have a bonus action.
AIMEE: I have a bonus action.
TALIESIN: And you have movement left.
EMILY: You could go into rage again.
AIMEE: I was already in a rage.
EMILY: Oh, you are.
AIMEE: Have I lost my rage?
MATT: Unless you were attacking something or taking damage, you lose your rage.
AIMEE: Oh. Okay, I'm going to do my rage again or I can move towards the guy. Fuck! Well, he might-- No, he's going to come over here.
TALIESIN: Yeah.
AIMEE: Yeah, I'll rage again.
MATT: Okay. So you maintain a rage with another use.
AIMEE: Yes.
MATT: You got it. All right. So you're holding that there.
AIMEE: That's my turn. Yep.
EMILY: Prism watches this, beaming, realizing that actually Dimension Dooring the body--
AIMEE: Was a good idea!
EMILY: -- to Ashton was the correct answer. (laughter)
TALIESIN: I should have re-upped my rage, but that's okay. Goddamn it. Yeah, I totally should have re-upped my rage last.
MATT: That's your turn.
TALIESIN: That's okay, that's fine.
MATT: All right, so that finishes Deni$e's go. Orym, you're up, with Prism on deck.
TALIESIN: So all over the place.
LIAM: Okay, I assume it's going to take all my juice just to get off, but I'll take my action to rip myself off.
MATT: You'll take an action to try.
LIAM: Which I do.
MARISHA: Yeah. (laughs)
MATT: Okay.
LIAM: Okay.
MATT: You pull off the orb.
TALIESIN: I need a Laura Bailey.
MATT: You're no longer restrained.
MARISHA: Oh, forgot about ding.
TALIESIN: Thank you.
LIAM: Okay, and with all that I have left bleeding out a little bit, I'm going to run over here, leap, sail through my friends past the elf, and then Bait and Switch, I'm going to slide them into this alcove.
AIMEE: Nice.
MATT: Okay.
LIAM: Accidentally kill Deni$e.
MATT: No!
AIMEE: Watch it!
LIAM: I throw my shield up and I squat down like a little turtle to protect the elf and give how much to their AC? Eight.
MATT: Eight, nice.
LIAM: An additional eight to their AC.
TALIESIN: Whoa!
MATT: That's great.
TALIESIN: To all of us, or?
LIAM: No.
MATT: No, just to the person.
LIAM: I'm protecting our--
TALIESIN: The person. Okay.
MATT: Just to the elf. All righty, you've got it. All right, finishing your go.
TALIESIN: Good, good, good.
MATT: Prism, you're up, with Bor'Dor on deck.
EMILY: So, my spell book lets me swap out types of damage as long as I have a spell prepared of the same level. Can I do that with cantrips? Can I swap out-- I can basically switch types of damage. So I have a cantrip that does necrotic, but I also have one that does radiant. Can I swap out for the radiant?
MATT: Yeah, I'd consider a cantrip just a low-level spell.
EMILY: Okay, cool. Then I'm going to follow Laudna's lead and I'm going to shoot a radiant Chill Touch at this guy.
MATT: Okay, okay.
TALIESIN: Woo!
MATT: Go ahead and roll for the attack.
MARISHA: Those Chill Touches.
EMILY: That's going to be 20.
MATT: Okay. This also emanates from you or from Dynios?
EMILY: This is from me.
MATT: Okay. So as Dynios is there floating like, "Whatever you are, I kind of like your style!" (laughter)
EMILY: Dynios!
AIMEE: Dynios, don't flirt! (laughter)
MATT: "What? I'm from the Shadowfell. I like what he's doing!"
EMILY: Okay.
MATT: "You can be evil and fierce at the same time."
EMILY: Okay, so that's just nine damage, but it's radiant.
MATT: All righty. Got you. All righty.
EMILY: Then bonus action, maybe I will start to move Dynios back to that cluster.
MATT: Okay, you got it. So with that, Dynios shifts--
TALIESIN: Yeah, we're getting a little tight over here.
MATT: -- back over this direction.
LIAM: Yeah.
TALIESIN: We're definitely getting a little tight over here.
MATT: All righty.
LIAM: Hopefully he only hits in one spot.
AIMEE: It's fine because I'm going to chase him around.
MATT: At the end of your turn--
TALIESIN: I'll Fireball both.
MATT: As it now saw you casting the spell and the bit of energy that was coming off of you, catching a bit of tension, it glances in your direction. It's going to use two of its remaining legendary actions to attempt to Shadow Spear you. It does have disadvantage in the attack because you're invisible.
EMILY: I currently have a 15 AC actually because I-- I mean, 14 AC.
MATT: 14. However, you do have half cover because you are behind some of those things there.
EMILY: Yes! Yes!
MATT: That brings it to a 17.
MARISHA: You're invisible. So he knows where she is?
AIMEE: General direction.
MATT: Which would be a 25 to hit and--
EMILY: And Shield can't help me.
MATT: Unfortunately. Oh well, not with that one. But it had disadvantage because you were invisible and the other one brings it to a 16.
UTKARSH: Whoa!
AIMEE: Whoa!
EMILY: Yes! I have an 18 shield!
MARISHA: Yes!
EMILY: Yes!
MATT: So right as this black shadow bolt (zooming bolt) strikes out towards you, you put up the arcane shield instinctively. (force field boom) As you back out of the way, it deflects off and shatters into a puff of black smoke-like energy and dissipates.
EMILY: That's right, I'm becoming a little bit of a battle mage! (laughter)
TALIESIN: And it's all gone.
MATT: There it is. (laughter)
AIMEE: And she spoke.
TALIESIN: Yep.
MATT: Does that finish your turn?
EMILY: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.
MATT: Okay.
TALIESIN: Just don't speak.
MATT: Bor'Dor, you're up.
TALIESIN: Just don't.
AIMEE: ♪ Don't speak ♪
UTKARSH: The crystal enhances spells or does it break--
MARISHA: It seemed to refract them.
TALIESIN: Yeah, breaks them into bits is what we saw last time.
MARISHA: Yeah.
UTKARSH: In a good way or in a bad way?
EMILY: But I don't know if these crystals will do the same thing.
AIMEE: But it was something to do with the light.
LIAM: We don't know yet.
AIMEE: I don't know.
EMILY: When he cast a spell around all of us, it didn't have a--
MATT: No. These refracted. They mentioned that this looks like a thing they said called residuum, which they said was an amplifier, if that's what it is. But the other ones take energy and refract it into a series of smaller distributions of the power.
UTKARSH: I'm going to keep going up to the green.
MATT: Okay.
TALIESIN: All right.
UTKARSH: As far as I can get close to it.
MATT: Make another athletics check to try and climb up the side here.
UTKARSH: It's about to be a 40. 10.
MATT: 10? That's a tough-- Well, if you're climbing up here. So there's five, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30. It'll get you about there.
UTKARSH: Okay, I'm going to turn around and I'm going to shoot a Lightning Bolt through the crystal. They're both in a line, right? This red and the baddie are lined up, aren't they?
MATT: Oh, you can from here if you want to along the way.
UTKARSH: Okay, let's do that.
AIMEE: Yeah, that's cool.
MATT: Okay.
UTKARSH: I'm going to shoot just to see what happens. Nobody's going to get hurt, because none of you guys are around.
MATT: Okay, you got it.
MARISHA: (laughs)
EMILY: Perfect.
MATT: So you fire the Lightning Bolt, forming it at the front of the crossbow, and (whooshes) it fires and hits the orb directly before shooting down into the crystal and whatever that will do. So roll damage. The orb has no dexterity, so it automatically fails, so it takes full damage on that.
UTKARSH: Eight, 10, 14, 14, 23.
MATT: 23 damage. Okay. The orb (crackles) visually cracks heavily as the lightning strikes through it and continues pushing past. It hits the crystal below and as it impacts, the crystal glows a vibrant blue before (shattering) it shoots out in a cone spray of lightning energy outward.
MARISHA: Cool.
MATT: Which prevents him from making a dexterity save at all because it's now multiple spray in all directions.
AIMEE: Oh! Hey!
TALIESIN: Hey!
MARISHA: That is sick!
MATT: So he takes full damage on that.
AIMEE: All right.
EMILY: Yeah!
MARISHA: That is sick. Yes!
TALIESIN: That worked out real good.
MARISHA: Bor'Dor!
EMILY: Yeah! Bor'Dor!
AIMEE: All right!
MATT: (horrendous groans)
TALIESIN: Lightning spray.
MATT: The face sinks inside and pushes out the other side towards you. (deep growling)
UTKARSH: I turn around. I just turn my back to him. Nope, nope, nope.
AIMEE: Nope.
MATT: Don't look at it, don't look at it. (laughs)
AIMEE: I won't be scared.
LIAM: Did you still want to climb up, though? You were on your way.
MATT: Right. So if you wanted to keep climbing, you can get up to there.
UTKARSH: Yeah, perfect.
MATT: Okay.
UTKARSH: So I'll get to my-- There.
MATT: You've got it. All right, finishing Bor'Dor's go.
TALIESIN: Oh, god.
MATT: It's now its turn. It gets its things back here.
MARISHA: You said it was looking rough-ish?
MATT: Yes.
UTKARSH: I'm going to expend a-- Sorry. Oh, was that a bonus action or can I?
MATT: No, that was an action. You still have a bonus action if you want to.
UTKARSH: Okay, I'm going to refill that slot.
MATT: Okay, go for it.
UTKARSH: With a point.
MATT: All righty.
UTKARSH: Your turn.
MATT: All right. It's going to move.
MARISHA: Oh no. Oh no, it's going to the party.
MATT: It shifts over. You know what? No. It's learned its lesson from last time. Back over in this direction from behind there. Angrily, it opens its mouth. (snarl) In the center of its jaws, another spark of light energy swirls.
TALIESIN: Oh shit.
AIMEE: Fuck.
MATT: Firing out in this direction. (explosion)
AIMEE: Fuck, I got beat.
UTKARSH: No more Counterspells?
EMILY: I am out of 3rd-level spells.
MATT: Fireball detonates over here.
AIMEE: Oh, god.
LIAM: Dex save?
MARISHA: Is this a new round?
MATT: No, it's not. This is on his turn. Almost to the end. You're up next.
MARISHA: Okay.
MATT: But that will be...
MARISHA: I think I did it on the last--
UTKARSH: Mm-hmm. You did.
MARISHA: I think I'm out of reactions.
UTKARSH: That's why he's doing it now. (laughs)
MATT: That's going to be-- You're caught in this as well, unfortunately.
EMILY: Okay.
MATT: Because it goes around corners. Let's see here.
AIMEE: Is it a dexterity?
LIAM: It would be a dex save, yes?
MATT: It would be.
LIAM: Yeah.
AIMEE: Come on, don't fuck me up.
LIAM: Shit.
TALIESIN: I still have advantage on dex saves? Yeah.
MATT: Okay, so.
EMILY: I only have 12.
TALIESIN: I have advantage.
LIAM: Fail. Seven.
MATT: 35 points of fire damage to you. (explosion)
LIAM: (laughs)
MATT: To you, Deni$e?
AIMEE: 14.
LIAM: Ouch.
MATT: 35 points of fire damage to you. (booming force) Ashton?
TALIESIN: 17.
MATT: 17. You just succeed, taking instead 17 points of fire damage.
TALIESIN: I'm also going to use the ring of volcanic flesh and reduce that.
AIMEE: Oh fuck.
TALIESIN: It's at 17 right now?
MATT: Mm-hmm.
TALIESIN: To-- Oh, let me. Where did it go? No, okay.
MATT: Just roll again.
TALIESIN: I'll just use the big demon dice.
AIMEE: Do you remember how much damage you took earlier for that--
TALIESIN: A nine.
MATT: Okay.
LIAM: It was in the teens.
TALIESIN: Which is six point? Oh, I should mark that, shouldn't I?
MATT: 17 minus--
TALIESIN: Nine is--
MATT: -- nine is eight.
TALIESIN: Eight.
MATT: You take eight points fire damage. And?
TALIESIN: Eight damage.
EMILY: 12.
MATT: 12. 35 points of fire damage.
AIMEE: Ay, good.
UTKARSH: Can you use a sorcery point to fill somebody else's spell slot?
MATT: Just your own.
TALIESIN: No.
EMILY: 35 divided by two.
UTKARSH: Told you.
EMILY: So I have to get 17.
MATT: Yeah, so 17 constitution saving throw.
TALIESIN: There it is.
EMILY: I'm no longer invisible.
MATT: And you're a little toasty.
MARISHA: How's everyone doing?
LIAM: Bad.
UTKARSH: Bad?
EMILY: Really bad.
UTKARSH: Okay.
TALIESIN: How's our elven friend?
MATT: Elven friend is now singed--
LIAM: Probably down again.
MATT: -- and unconscious once more.
AIMEE: Oh!
TALIESIN: Okay.
UTKARSH: Shit!
AIMEE: Give me a potion! Give him your potion.
UTKARSH: It's okay.
MATT: As a bonus action, it's going to send out another red orb.
AIMEE: Oi.
UTKARSH: What the heck?
MATT: He can reform.
AIMEE: Oh, he has a bunch of red orbs.
MATT: It recalled the shards of the previous one within and then next turn, it pushes it back out.
AIMEE: Oh, it remade it? Oh! Crafty little bitch.
MATT: It can only put it out 30 feet. So it'll go there, which doesn't... No, it grasps just to you, Ashton. Just you are caught in that outer radius.
TALIESIN: Okay.
MATT: All right. That's going to finish its go. Laudna, you're up.
TALIESIN: It's got a thing that will happen.
MARISHA: Oh no. Okay.
TALIESIN: That I'm going to get out of the way of.
MARISHA: New round. I'm still questioning if I could have potentially Counterspelled that, but it's done now.
MATT: At the distance you are from it, you would probably not have been able to with the range. It's about 60 feet, intentionally so.
LIAM: Too bad.
MARISHA: That is true.
MATT: With two Counterspells, he is keeping away.
MARISHA: That is very true. Eldritch Blast.
MATT: All righty.
MARISHA: (coughing) Excuse me.
TALIESIN: Bless you.
UTKARSH: He's good.
AIMEE: If you do it to the crystals, does that help?
MARISHA: Yeah.
UTKARSH: Matt's very good.
MARISHA: 20 and 21?
MATT: Both hit. Go ahead and roll damage.
EMILY: I made so many mistakes.
MARISHA: He still has hex up.
TALIESIN: Mark that in second, so I'm going to get that ready.
MARISHA: Good. Okay, so--
UTKARSH: Yes!
MARISHA: 19 damage on the first one.
MATT: Ooh!
MARISHA: Force damage. Then 16 damage on the second one.
MATT: Oh! (booming impacts) (guttural growls turning to snarls) Now, you see the face, that weird plasticine face is cracking and pulling apart in places. The jaw is now lowering itself deeper into the body. Parts of its cheekbones are pulling apart. The face is almost expanding in nightmarish ways. It's beginning to tatter and look like it's about to discorporate. It's looking really rough.
MARISHA: About to discorporate.
UTKARSH: Hit it again!
MARISHA: Can I quicken Eldritch Blast and do it again?
MATT: It's a cantrip. You can cast it as many times as you want.
MARISHA: I'll quicken Eldritch Blast. Another pop pop.
TALIESIN: Thwip thwip.
MARISHA: Laudna's pop pop! Yeah, that's a 16 and a 14 on the dice.
LIAM: Zip zip.
MATT: Both hit.
MARISHA: Both hit.
MATT: Go ahead and roll damage.
MARISHA: I don't remember. I don't math!
TALIESIN: God, it's amazing.
MARISHA: Okay, yeah--
TALIESIN: I do this all the time without a camera, and math is like--
MARISHA: 14 damage on the first one.
TALIESIN: But then when it's here, it's gone.
MARISHA: Then that is going to be 12 plus another four, 16 damage on the second.
MATT: 16 damage on the second. How do you want to do this? (cheering)
MARISHA: Oh!
EMILY: (sighs)
AIMEE: Thank god.
LIAM: Game recognizes game.
MARISHA: Game recognizes game. Yeah, yeah! I-- With my Form of Dread. I, as Laudna is wont to do, starts mirroring him a little bit so her face droops a little bit like his mask, and she gets shadowy as it starts to billow. She like, machine guns these Eldritch Blasts into them. I don't know, you take it from there and make it cooler.
MATT: (booms) "(growls)" The face expanding almost to where the entirety of his shadow is becoming a massive head for the face pulled out in a terrifying scream. As the last two hit it, you watch as "(gasps)" they sink into it and the black blob seems to lurch forward like it's trying to crawl over the side, trying to escape like a wounded creature that begins to skitter. As it begins to move, you watch as it leaves a trail of black liquid behind and it grows smaller and smaller in form as it slithers across the ground, making a horrible gasping sound as it shrinks, leaving more and more threads of itself behind. They all evaporate into a black mist until it's a small looking, feeble, blackened creature. Then it looks over in the direction of you, the face now small and crushed, just a black gloop with arms and pseudopods that are pulling out.
MARISHA: I extend my hand, my goopy hand, and I just suck it in, and just squish it. (laughter)
MATT: You squish it and it all (squelch) (sucking sound) seeps into you, having taken the necrotic energy of this fallen moment into you.
MARISHA: Shadow v. shadow.
EMILY: (laughs)
AIMEE: Nicely done.
UTKARSH: Gorgeous. Are the red orbs gone, too?
MATT: The red orbs all fall to the ground.
LIAM: Somebody help this elf!
MATT: And shatter.
EMILY: Bor'Dor?
UTKARSH: Yeah, I can do, I'll do a--
EMILY: I could use a cure myself.
UTKARSH: Well, can I get to, from there, I have a 60 feet range. Can I get to all of them? Or can I walk over to them now?
MATT: In climbing down?
LIAM: All the rules are gone.
UTKARSH: Rules are all gone?
MATT: Well, there's still a danger in here. So if you wanted to leap down and carefully get over there.
UTKARSH: Just get me within 60 feet of them.
TALIESIN: I was going to say, are we still in order, or are we just?
MATT: 60 feet'll get you about there.
AIMEE: Damn.
UTKARSH: Cool. I'll do a Mass Cure Wounds.
MATT: Okay.
MARISHA and TALIESIN: Oh, hell yeah.
EMILY: Amazing.
MARISHA: What does your Mass Cure Wounds look like?
UTKARSH: I don't know. It's cotton candy. (laughter)
TALIESIN: It wouldn't be the first time.
EMILY: Amazing.
AIMEE: Yummy!
MATT: Clusters of cotton candy appear within your grasp and you feel a radiant warmth to them.
EMILY: See, I assumed he was going to use the Mass Cure. That's why.
TALIESIN: This is so fucking weird.
UTKARSH: Blue cotton candy. These are d8s, right?
MARISHA: Mm-hmm.
UTKARSH: Six, 10, 14.
LIAM: I got roughed up.
EMILY: Thank you.
AIMEE: So we all 14 heal?
LIAM: 14 total?
TALIESIN: 14 to the whole little cluster over there?
UTKARSH: Yeah, everybody over there gets the 14.
EMILY: Amazing.
UTKARSH: Including--
EMILY: The elf.
UTKARSH: The burned guy.
MATT: Okay.
UTKARSH: Hevestro.
MATT: Hevestro.
TALIESIN: That's nice.
MATT: Hevestro sits up in space. "(groans)"
UTKARSH: In Elvish, I'll say: Wake up, we need your help.
MATT: "I am quite awake and I appreciate your-- Your aid this day." As he sits up and looks about the chamber and coughs up a bit of blood. You can see the singe marks across his skin where it's burnt and cracked and beginning to heal up rapidly from the cotton candy that you've given him to scarf. (laughs)
UTKARSH: In retrospect, maybe we should've picked something else. It's cotton candy.
MATT: It's cotton candy. We're there, we're there. We'll go with it.
TALIESIN: Work with it.
EMILY: I love it.
MATT: Look.
MARISHA: Just be divine cotton candy.
MATT: Laura Bailey beat people with a giant spectral lollipop last game. We're good.
UTKARSH: Ooh, great.
TALIESIN: It was a good vibe.
UTKARSH: Hevestro, we're assuming he's-- I assume you're Hevestro.
MATT: "I am, indeed. (groans)" Puts his arm up on the wall and stands to his feet.
UTKARSH: Well, we freed you and he owes us. You owe us! So turn on the green thing and get us out of here.
TALIESIN: That's a--
MATT: "It's not about turning on a green thing. I'm charged with protecting her."
TALIESIN: Is she still in there?
MATT: "She is."
AIMEE: We were sent by the Elder Abaddina. You know her?
MATT: "I know Abaddina, yes."
LIAM: What happened here? Do you remember anything?
MATT: "(exhales)" Sits over and finds a rock and sits down for a moment. "Any solstice is a strange time, and in preparation for it, we were hoping to reinforce the protective wards to our interior. I do not know how, but Evithorir, The Taker seems to have escaped and made their way back."
EMILY: Where were they sealed?
MARISHA and TALIESIN: The Taker?
LIAM: Evithorir, The Taker.
MATT: "I'm the keeper of this shrine that holds the remains of the guardian spirit of an ancient Gau Drashari, named Oma-Dua, who rooted here and became the protector of this land centuries ago. You may or may not know, but archdruids often bind with an eidolon spirit to slow their age and truly become one with the realms they protect. Her presence here as a powerful entity, at least, as the fable goes, drew the attention of this dark fey entity that you managed to frighten off, Evithorir. They are a thief of essence and natural magics. They battled Oma-Dua long ago, which diminished The Taker and Oma-Dua sealed it away beneath the rock of Cofferfall Hill to the west and has been sealed for centuries. I know not who is responsible for freeing him, but the night of the solstice, me and my circle were present. Within moments, they were slaughtered and I was taken to darkness until now. I just knew who this was as they laughed at me, caught within their eternal shadow."
AIMEE: While you were in there, any mention of how they got out? Any mention of what magic brought them out or who let them out? Who let the dogs out?
MATT: "I think even they didn't know. From what I can understand, they just seemed pleased to be freed once again."
AIMEE: Does the name Ludinus Da'Neth ring a bell?
MATT: "It does not to me, unfortunately."
TALIESIN: I have a few questions before we go anywhere and I'm going to do them in no particular order. What happened to the bodies? There's no one here.
MATT: "I don't know. Oh, dear, if my circle..." You see a wave of sadness and grief wash over his face. "You saw no one?"
EMILY: Yes, but we didn't see sign of struggle or anything. Almost like they all disappeared.
AIMEE: Maybe they got away.
MATT: "Perhaps."
TALIESIN: Did you say Hishari? I heard, I'm so sorry. I got a little--
MATT: "Gau Drashari."
TALIESIN: Gau Drashari, okay.
MATT: "Not Hishari, heh."
TALIESIN: I had a moment.
MATT: "Definitely not Hishari."
TALIESIN: Oh! What do you know about the Hishari?
MATT: "Not a terrible amount, just what the locals are aware of."
TALIESIN: Well, we are clearly not locals.
MATT: "(coughs)"
TALIESIN: We have just done you a lot of service.
MATT: "Where to begin?"
MARISHA: Pour a little bit of water from my skin.
UTKARSH: Nice.
MARISHA: And pass it over.
MATT: "Thank you."
UTKARSH: Can we talk to Omadea? Oma-Dua?
TALIESIN: We'll get there.
MARISHA: (laughs)
TALIESIN: Oh yeah, we are going to get there.
MARISHA: Are you all right, Ashton?
TALIESIN: I'm a little tired, but fine.
MATT: "To your question, the battle with The Taker left Oma-Dua with a mortal curse upon herself and she used her final years before it took her teaching her ways and installing herself as a natural fane of power for the region. Her proverbial children of the circle, myself as the keeper of the shrine, now tend to her, or what she is now known as, the Emerald Tree." Gestures to the obelisk at the top of the chamber.
TALIESIN: That's residuum, isn't it?
MATT: "I'm not familiar with the term."
TALIESIN: It's an amplifier.
MATT: "It is a powerful centerpiece for ritual and enchantment, yes."
TALIESIN: Okay. Okay.
MARISHA: What was wrong with the Hishari? Why don't you like them?
MATT: "Well, I have not personally encountered them. There was a humble village of farmers and crafters that was called Tumilo, for a number of years. Welcoming folk. I believe I passed through there about 60 or so years ago when I was going on a personal pilgrimage in the region. But about 50 or so years ago, a charismatic figure arose in the region named Efterin. Efterin was traveling from town to town, displaying impressive abilities, giving sermons on the elemental spirits of old and the enduring need to restore the Primordial powers within our world. A task that is impossible and foolish. They were scattered by the gods long ago. But even so, he drew many to follow him. Eventually settling in Tumilo, taking the town through his charismatic will and his words, and renamed the town and his followers ‘Hishari’ as a tribute to the historical druid cultures of Exandria, of which, the actual Ashari, descendants of the Gau Drashari were not very keen on. I know not the specifics, but last I heard, that the source of Efterin's power was likely his downfall, leading to the destruction of the village, many of the people and the survivors scattering. It is considered now a tale to pass down as a word of warning to those who delve without understanding what powers they seek."
AIMEE: He was like a false prophet.
MATT: "A cult leader, if you will."
TALIESIN: Where was this town?
MATT: "It was fairly far west of here. Not too terribly far from the edge of the-- what would be considered the Utesspire Mountains, the beginning of their base to the far west. They had to do their-- Their work and discussion as far from Vasselheim's prying eyes and the judgment of the fine people of this valley to do what they will, but--"
TALIESIN: Okay.
MATT: "This Abaddina you speak of was one of these Hishari, one of the surviving members. But has since come to see the fault in their thoughts and ways and has made quite the place as the elder of the Hearthdell village."
MARISHA: Abaddina told us that you were her mentor.
MATT: "For a brief time. We didn't always see eye to eye, but I did take her under my wing for a brief spell of three or four years after Hishari fell to ruin."
EMILY: Do you think it's possible that with the changes happening that she could be re-radicalized?
TALIESIN: Things are getting weird out there.
MATT: "Indeed."
EMILY: If there's power to be grabbed, might she use it to fuel these ideas of Primordial resurgence?
TALIESIN: The gods are weakening.
MATT: "I certainly hope not. There is a heavy lesson and a price that was paid that day."
EMILY: May I ask how-- What happened? I don't-- I'm not trying to pry.
MATT: "I was not present, but from what the whispers say to me, they were attempting to channel an extremely powerful source of elemental magic, an artifact of some kind or something. Something that became a centerpiece to their cult. In not knowing what it is they toyed with, they could not control it. It's now considered a cursed site and we don't go there."
EMILY: Interesting.
LIAM: Well, Abaddina said to--
EMILY: Does anyone go there? You go.
LIAM: No, you go.
EMILY: Does anyone go there?
MATT: "At their own peril."
TALIESIN: Huh. Do you know what elemental power they pulled?
MATT: "You ask intense questions. I think you might be somehow connected to this."
TALIESIN: Sure.
MATT: "Well, the power of the Primordial Titans is what I imagine."
EMILY: Hmm.
TALIESIN: Huh.
UTKARSH: Hmm. Interesting.
MARISHA: Abaddina was certainly looking at you with curiosity.
TALIESIN: I'm surprised she didn't say anything.
MARISHA: I think she knew that would be a mistake.
TALIESIN: Definitely would've.
MARISHA: She also talked quite a lot about the rise of the Primordials. The return, I guess, of them.
EMILY: Yes.
MARISHA: How that this world rightfully belongs to them first.
MATT: "She's not incorrect."
MARISHA: Yes.
MATT: "But in the conflict between the gods and the Primordials, it was proven that perhaps, such power should not be focused in only a handful of individuals. With their destruction and the eventual dispersal of the presence of the gods, the lands were left to largely live themselves, outside of the influence of the temples and the local governments. That's where the eidolons thrive. That's where we thrive. That's why this valley is sacred. Why we pay such strong mind to keeping it as it always has been."
LIAM: Abaddina also seemed to believe we could find aid here. We need to cross the ocean. Fast. Do you know why she would've thought that?
MATT: "Well. I don't recall much since the solstice began. So, perhaps maybe you inform me of what has transpired while I've been lost in the darkness."
AIMEE: Can I insight check him?
MATT: Yes, you may.
AIMEE: To see if he actually doesn't know.
UTKARSH: Nice.
AIMEE: Well, that's going to be a five.
MARISHA: (laughs)
TALIESIN: Read him like a book.
EMILY: You roll another ankle.
AIMEE: Read him like Dynios.
MATT: Hard to pick up anything that sets off your--
AIMEE: Got it.
MATT: -- radar, necessarily.
MARISHA: I cast Silent Image in front of us and I'm going to recreate what Marquet looks like right now with the Malleus Key and Ruidus pulled down to this earth.
MATT: Okay.
MARISHA: Or this Exandria. As a quick TL;DR.
MATT: Right. As you--
AIMEE: That's actually really useful for everyone else. (screams)
MARISHA: Yeah.
EMILY and MARISHA: (laugh)
AIMEE: Wow, that looks like shit!
MARISHA: Yeah. (laughs)
MATT: (laughs) As you recreate the imagery of the terrors and challenges that have transpired in previous days, and share the information you feel is pertinent to give to this keeper of the shrine, we'll take a break.
AIMEE: Oh!
EMILY: No!
MARISHA: Every time!
TALIESIN: Fuck!
MATT: We're at about the two-hour mark or so. So I think it's a good time to take a break. We'll come back at the end of this conversation and pick up from there and see what happens next. Thank you all. We'll see you in a few minutes.
EMILY: God dang.
UTKARSH: This guy.
Break
(man sniffs) What do you smelling at? (man laughs) ♪ Old Spice (singer vocalizes) Freshness all day and night ♪ ♪ Long-lasting Old Spice, Freshness all day ♪ ♪ Old Spice, 24/7 long-lasting freshness ♪ (man sniffs) Oh, that's ripe. (laughs) (birds chirping) ♪ Spice ♪
(adventure music) (mysterious music)
LAURA: Hey Critters! Laura Bailey here to guide you through what's new in the Critical Role shop. (gasp) Could anything be more perfect? Roll an investigation if you want. It's basically perfect. The cuteness! It's overpowering. Go ahead, darling. Treat yourself. Oh my gosh. It's so amazing. I mean the Traveler always says, impulse purchases are a good decision. This is a lot of stuff you guys. We have so many cool things right now. And hey if you want, you could head over to the Critical Role shop right now.
(adventurous music)
TALIESIN: Knowledge of what lies beyond The Flare continues to be elusive. Glimmers of understanding lead us down branching paths with no discernible end. The mark of a strong investigator is to always question the status quo. An extraordinary investigator is one who's not afraid to question the nature that lies within them. The phenomenon which occurred in Newfaire at The Steel was the catalyst needed to test such a theory. Lightkeeper O'Neill had her concerns that the newly found circle in question could benefit from further training. But, then again, there is no sufficient preparation for the horrors that bleed into our world. Thus begins the trials of the circle known as The Vassal and the Veil. Assignment 436: The Cold Embrace.
(dramatic music)
Hi. We're the narrators of Midst. What's Midst? It's very simple. It's a weird surrealist fourth wall breaking reality bending science, fantasy space western about a small, doomed planet floating in a cosmic ocean of spooky darkness. Upon whose alien landscape an ensemble cast of characters, including a crotchety outlaw, a freakishly virtuous cultist and a weird, diabolical bastard, make awful decisions and fight like hell to survive when the moon falls out of the sky and a large number of terrible things happened in rapid succession. It's exciting, it's funny, it's scary. It's got neat sound, weird music, amazing visuals, and every episode comes with bonus content you can read and examine. Midst is performed solely by yours truly. As the three of us narrate all the action, play all of the characters, and bend a lot of the rules about how telling stories is normally supposed to work. Midst is pretty fun, very strange, and it feels like VR for your brain. We believe you'll enjoy it. Or maybe you won't, but there's really only one way to find out. You're going to have to listen to Midst.
(epic music) (mischievous music) (typewriter clacking) (peaceful music)
Narrator: When the forces of evil threaten Exandria, these heroes are there to answer the call.
TALIESIN: I'm Super Scanlan, with my Critical Role Twitch subscription, I can watch all my favorite CR shows before they come out on YouTube. Take that evil doers!
ASHLEY: Here comes Jester, with her Twitch subscription to Critical Role. She can access gnarly emotes and post links in the chat, too.
TALIESIN: Radical!
ASHLEY: Boosh! ...Oh no! Here comes some trolls to jam up our live chat.
TALIESIN: Don't worry, Laudna will stop them with the help of Critical Role's Professional Moderators.
ASHLEY: She's spooky, but I like her. Here comes Laudna's friend Chetney. He has an Amazon Prime membership, which gives him one free Twitch subscription of his choice. Of course, he subscribes to Critical Role. It's the power of teamwork. Die, die, die!
TALIESIN: I'm spooky.
ASHLEY: I cast Agonizing Bolt!
TALIESIN: Scanlan's Hand!
ASHLEY: Stab 'em Chetney! And look, there's Caleb with the power of introspection and existential dread. (cows mooing)
TALIESIN: Now that we've defeated all the bad guys, let's gift subscriptions to other users. You can do that by name or randomly.
MATT: Taliesin, Ashley, please. I've told you so many times just don't play with those, okay? They're super fragile, custom made, custom painted. You know what? We have to film in about 30 minutes, so why don't you two just come with me. Come on. (clicks tongue) (footsteps receding)
ASHLEY: Oh, it's Major Buzzkill here to take away all our fun. (indistinct exclamations)
ASHLEY: Is it Thursday yet bitch?
TALIESIN: You can certainly die!
ASHLEY: Oh! Good one.
TALIESIN: Loot his corpse! Take his vest!
ASHLEY: Goooosh!
MATT: Would you please stop that?! (fast bright music)
ASHLEY: Grog smash!
Narrator: Subscribe to Critical Role on Twitch and collect all 21 action figures. Alternate forms and familiars not included.
Part II
MATT: And welcome back. So--
TALIESIN: Good job.
MARISHA: Yeah.
MATT: Showing information about and discussing what has transpired in the past few days since the Apogee Solstice. Hevestro takes it in a bit. "Well, with such massive shifts I can see perhaps some things have been changed for better or for worse, for good. Especially if the solstice endures beyond its window. Perhaps this is what pushed Evithorir outside of his imprisonment. Well, what is it you've come here for? What wisdom do you seek? What--"
AIMEE: We seek a ride.
UTKARSH: Transportation to Wildemount.
MATT: "To Wildemount."
MARISHA: And to Marquet for us.
MATT: "To Marquet."
AIMEE: To Tal'Dorei for me.
MATT: "Tal'Dorei."
EMILY: I have to talk to my book before I tell you where I go.
MATT: "Very well. I-- (groans)" They get up a bit and crack their back a little bit.
AIMEE: Can Deni$e go and do those back cracks on him?
EMILY: Oh, like this?
MATT: "(yells)"
AIMEE: Go like this, go like this.
MATT: "(groans)"
EMILY: (groans)
MATT: "Oh my goodness, that was incredible."
EMILY: God, that sounds good.
AIMEE: Yeah, you know--
TALIESIN: You had to get up on a rock to do it.
AIMEE: Yeah, yeah, for sure.
MATT: "It's interesting, you do so much morning yoga through the years and it just can't get everything. That was a crack, oh my goodness."
AIMEE: Yeah, it's the little things you don't really think about.
MATT: "Nearly shot out of my body. (groans)"
LIAM: I love that with a height differential, too.
AIMEE: Yeah, because I'm on a rock. (laughter)
MATT: You basically bridged him from behind. "Oh, thank you kindly."
AIMEE: Anytime.
MATT: "I'm happy to do this, but I fear I do need to recover my capabilities. I've been relatively drained by The Taker when I was within his grasp. A night's rest. Tomorrow morning, I should be able to send you on your way."
EMILY: Okay.
MATT: "But you are welcome to stay here. Hold on." You watch as he pushes by with that ghosted look in his eyes remembering out of your conversation, the thing at hand, something else beyond. He stumbles out of the cavernous chamber and heads further down. Do you follow suit or do you stay in the room here?
AIMEE: Oh yeah.
UTKARSH: I'll follow, yeah.
EMILY: Yeah, I think--
TALIESIN: Sure.
LIAM: Didn't know their way about.
MATT: You follow back, and within the room, you can see there are three figures, three skeletons that Hevestro is pulling up from the nearby dirt, like he's looking at the ground and they rise and apparate.
AIMEE: Physically or he does it through magic?
EMILY: Does he seem fazed by it?
MATT: He does it magically.
EMILY: He's doing necromancy?
MATT: Well, he's at least pulling them up from the ground. He looks at the three of them, nods solemnly. "(sighs) Ennorai, Oldaan, Keese. Three followers within my circle who looked to me for guidance. In these unexpected times of challenge, I failed them. Indeed, the namesake of that creature continues to haunt the legacy of this land." He looks back sadly, a stillness to his face. You can see the sadness, but not a tear falls. "I will tend to their rest, if you'll excuse me for a bit."
EMILY: Can I ask you one more question?
MATT: "Of course."
EMILY: What do you know of the githzerai? It seems like you have knowledge of such ancient times. It's okay if you know nothing of them.
MATT: "I know I've heard of them."
EMILY: They're like the psychic sky people.
MATT: "Indeed. Not of this realm. They call their home in the Astral Sea, between the many realms. The gossamer tether that sits like the sea connecting the shores of the various disparate dimensions. But I have not encountered or spent much time studying upon them."
EMILY: Okay. Thank you.
MATT: "Of course."
TALIESIN: Psychic sky people?
EMILY: I mean, the mythology I'd heard is that-- that's the being that we found.
TALIESIN: Oh yeah.
UTKARSH: Right, right.
EMILY: Yesterday, the skeleton.
TALIESIN: That's right.
EMILY: It's sort of a sky people, but I believe they're the psychic ones.
EMILY: There's-- Yeah.
UTKARSH: Let me help you.
MATT: You watch as he crunches his fingers together and some of the exposed roots in the ground push the bones up and begin to form them almost into bundles.
UTKARSH: Whoa.
MATT: Each of them curling over and encapsulating them. As he finishes his concentrated actions, gathers them under his arms, takes a deep breath, exhales, and looks over his shoulder to the rest of you. "The shrine is your home for the evening. I sense within the space for a time, you can rest safe. I'll return later this day."
UTKARSH: Are we just going to let him go?
AIMEE: Yeah, I think it's a private moment.
EMILY: I think, yeah, he just needs rest.
TALIESIN: I could use rest myself.
EMILY: Yeah.
TALIESIN: Everything hurts.
MATT: He steps out of the shrine, out into the afternoon light and carries the collected remains of those who could not protect the shrine in recent days.
EMILY: How did their bodies become bones so quickly? Because they were consumed by the shadow monster?
UTKARSH: The shadow goo, yeah. Sucked it right off.
EMILY: I see.
TALIESIN: Maybe yeah, they just used them up one at a time.
UTKARSH: Oh, wasn't it necrotic energy?
EMILY: What a way to go.
MARISHA: It did necrotic.
EMILY: Yeah.
LIAM: He was very sickly looking when we pulled him out.
TALIESIN: Yeah.
EMILY: Yeah. All right.
LIAM: So we're just camping out here for the night, I guess.
MARISHA: Is it weird to take their bedrooms?
LIAM: Well.
EMILY: Hmm.
TALIESIN: I mean, before we say no, we should probably find out how comfortable those beds are.
MARISHA: That's true.
EMILY: Okay, I run and I jump into one.
MATT: (laughs) (pillowy thud) (laughter)
AIMEE: They're hard as rock!
EMILY: I think it was an illusion. (laughter)
MARISHA: Oh, my tailbone!
MATT: Right on the tailbone, yeah.
AIMEE: My neck broke!
MATT: They're not the most comfortable beds, they're more semi-luxurious cots, at most. But there are furs, there are natural, gathered bits of cotton that have been placed within heavy leather, bedding set over it. It is comfortable, at least more comfortable than the ground. With any of the bedding that you've brought with you, it can be made more comfortable.
TALIESIN: I'm going to make the fire.
EMILY: Yeah.
AIMEE: Inside, or--?
TALIESIN: Yeah, we got a little pit, if I recall.
AIMEE: Yeah.
TALIESIN: There's a fire pit, right?
EMILY: I think it's okay.
MATT: Yeah, there's two within here.
TALIESIN: Yeah, I'm going to put up the fire pit.
EMILY: Yeah.
TALIESIN: We've got some jerky left over, if I recall.
EMILY: And some fruit leather.
LIAM: And we have the fruit.
AIMEE: Oh.
LIAM: Cave-core.
UTKARSH: Yeah, the blueberry fruit leather.
AIMEE: Bor'Dor, you dropped something. She produces his shot put, shot--
UTKARSH: Oh, the slingshot?
AIMEE: Slingshot. As he reaches to go get it, I twist his arm and put it behind you.
UTKARSH: Okay.
MATT: Oh shit. Do you resist?
UTKARSH: No.
AIMEE: I feel like you're not telling us everything.
UTKARSH: What more do you want from me?
AIMEE: I don't know. I don't think you have a brother.
UTKARSH: Probably don't have a brother anymore.
AIMEE: No, that's not what I meant, don't try to make me feel bad. I'm immune to the Feeling Bad condition. (laughter)
AIMEE: I just feel like, listen, I don't want to be too aggressive here, as I have his arm.
UTKARSH: Yeah. I'm stuck.
MATT: Yeah. You're literally like-- (laughter)
UTKARSH: Now, I'll try and resist.
MATT: Okay, make an athletics check with a contested athletics check.
AIMEE: What is contested?
MATT: Well actually, athletics or acrobatics, your choice.
AIMEE: Whoever rolls highest?
EMILY: If it's athletics you could--
TALIESIN: Rollies.
AIMEE: But I can add.
EMILY: -- you could rage and get advantage. (laughs)
AIMEE: Oh. Well, that's a 15 plus nine.
EMILY: Okay.
UTKARSH: Damn, I got 19.
MARISHA: Ooh, dang.
MATT: Oh, still pretty close, give some resistance. But you are held firm within Deni$e's grasp.
UTKARSH: Oh, I got 21, but you still got me.
MATT: Still, still.
AIMEE: Look, if you relax, it'll feel like a hug. Let me just ask you.
UTKARSH: Fine. I lay my head gently back on her.
TALIESIN: That's how you do it.
UTKARSH: Wait, no, I'm way taller than you.
AIMEE: Oh, you lay your head. (laughter)
LIAM: Can't quite.
TALIESIN: You're doing a plank.
LIAM: Can't. Where?
AIMEE: Just consider it payback for the fucking Lightning Bolt you threw my way. I just don't feel comfortable sleeping in the same area without knowing all there is to know.
UTKARSH: Well, I don't need to sleep here then, I'll go sleep outside.
AIMEE: Well, you'd rather sleep outside than just tell us the truth about--
UTKARSH: I've told you everything I need to tell you.
AIMEE: Well, I think I need to know a little bit more.
MARISHA: "Need to tell you."
TALIESIN: We could play the game.
MARISHA: Ooh!
UTKARSH: Let go of me first.
AIMEE: Why?
UTKARSH: Because I don't feel safe.
AIMEE: All right, if I let go of you and you try anything, I'm going to get my whip and I'm going to hit you with it.
UTKARSH: That sounds not fun at all.
AIMEE: So I let you go, but then push you down on the ground so you're sitting criss-cross applesauce.
UTKARSH: Criss-cross applesauce, okay.
TALIESIN: It's been so long since I've heard that.
UTKARSH: Okay.
MARISHA: I'm making some tea while all this happens and watching.
TALIESIN: I'm bringing something over to spike that tea with.
MARISHA: Yes.
TALIESIN: Yeah.
AIMEE: Look, I don't need to know your deepest, darkest, embarrassing secrets. I just want to know if you're trustworthy. I just feel like you're keeping something from us, like you're lying to us about something. How do you have magic without--
UTKARSH: You're right. I don't know!
AIMEE: Okay.
UTKARSH: And I don't have a brother. I was scared and I wanted to make you guys like me. I thought having a story of a sick brother would endear me to you.
TALIESIN: Insight check.
MATT: Make an insight check.
TALIESIN: Oh, got to insight check.
TALIESIN: 11.
MATT: 11. I mean, you don't think there's a lie there, it's hard to tell.
TALIESIN: Okay, so this might just be literally what is going on.
MARISHA: Hmm.
UTKARSH: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
EMILY: Bor'Dor--
MARISHA: You know--
TALIESIN: (laughs)
MARISHA: Oh. Yes.
EMILY: So if you feel comfortable speaking your truth, when we did those scrys, did you recognize either of those places?
UTKARSH: No. No, I didn't. I've never seen them before. I'm telling you the truth.
EMILY: So--
AIMEE: Are you really a farmer?
UTKARSH: Yeah, I said a sheep--
AIMEE: Herder.
UTKARSH: Sheep herder.
EMILY: Yeah, are you?
AIMEE: Well, you said farmer a few times.
EMILY: Are you a sheep herder?
UTKARSH: No, I'm a leather worker.
EMILY: I'm going to do an insight check. (laughter)
TALIESIN: It's gotten too deep, it's gotten too deep.
EMILY: That's a 19 plus zero, 19.
MATT: You can make a persuasion-- Roll a d20, and add either your persuasion or deception. You don't have to say which it is, but just give me the final number.
UTKARSH: Okay.
TALIESIN: Persuasion if you're telling the truth.
MATT: Telling the truth, deception if not.
TALIESIN: Deception if you're lying.
MATT: But just give the number.
TALIESIN: But you don't have to say which one.
UTKARSH: 20.
MARISHA: Kills the sheep.
MATT: 20.
EMILY: All right. You beat me.
MATT: You believe that.
EMILY: Guys, he's telling the truth.
UTKARSH: I'm telling you, I'm telling the truth.
EMILY: He's just a leather worker. We saw him with the fruit leather. What more proof do we need?
AIMEE: Then why say you work with sheep if you're just a leather--
MARISHA: It's an oddly adjacent lie.
UTKARSH: I panicked in the moment.
AIMEE: You don't have to say a lie, it doesn't make you more endearing. You have a dead brother maybe and that you work with sheep.
TALIESIN: If anything, only child is actually slightly cooler, in my opinion.
EMILY: Thank you.
MARISHA: Bor'Dor-- (laughter)
AIMEE: Are you an only child?
UTKARSH: You should pull your fan out.
EMILY: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
MARISHA: Yes. What the fuck is up with this guy? Bor'Dor, I do believe you, I do. I actually, if you don't mind, I couldn't help but notice that healing magic you did in there. The thing that looked like wispy cotton candy.
TALIESIN: Goddamn.
UTKARSH: That was surprising.
MARISHA: It seemed to have a divine radiation to it.
UTKARSH: Well, I never knew my mother.
AIMEE: What does that have to fucking do with divine radiation?
EMILY: Well, you never knew her?
UTKARSH: I was told that maybe she had been--
EMILY: A god?
UTKARSH: Not a god, I mean that would be so cool if I was a child of a god.
EMILY: That would be really cool. Are you sure you're not?
UTKARSH: Incredible. I'm pretty almost positively sure that's not in the-- WizKids won't allow it. (laughter)
EMILY: Who were you told that she was?
TALIESIN: Oh, poor WizKids.
LIAM: Not the Cerberus Assembly?
UTKARSH: I stand up slowly, preparing to tell my story.
TALIESIN: He ain't going nowhere.
AIMEE: Okay.
UTKARSH: (deep sigh) This is so hard for me to say.
MARISHA: I hand him some tea. Would you like Ashton to spike it?
UTKARSH: No, thank you, I'm okay.
MARISHA: All right. I hand out tea to whoever wants it.
UTKARSH: Where are we right now?
MATT: You guys are in the common area where the fire is in the center. So everyone's gathered in that space where you've been set down for a second and I guess everyone's whereabouts in that area. Everyone's paying attention?
TALIESIN: Mm-hmm, rapt.
UTKARSH: Okay. So I've stood up and I turn around. Oh, I need my-- Oh, where's my-- Okay, here we go. I'll tell you my story.
AIMEE: Ooh. Uh-oh. Here we go. (snickering)
LIAM: Is that a little book or what are you looking at?
TALIESIN: Pulls out a little pocket book.
UTKARSH: I pull out my--
MARISHA: It's a Lisa Frank diary.
UTKARSH: I forget. Sometimes I forget my story, and so I wrote it down.
MARISHA: Uh-huh.
TALIESIN: That's why we have these, yeah.
AIMEE: I can't tell if you're acting like Bor'Dor or if you're--
LIAM: I always tell the truth.
UTKARSH: Okay, listen.
LIAM: It's the easiest thing to remember.
MARISHA: It's been the problem this entire time.
UTKARSH: Here's the truth. I grew up on Menagerie. It's on the coast not far from Damali.
EMILY: Yeah.
UTKARSH: My mother, her name was Livandra, and she was blessed by the Wildmother.
AIMEE: Hmm.
UTKARSH: She taught me her ways in secret. We lived away from the city and under the guise of humble leather workers, we stayed away from their watchful eyes.
MARISHA: Who's they?
UTKARSH: The people of the city and the church.
EMILY: So--
UTKARSH: My father wasn't touched by the gods. Now my mother taught me and I was inexperienced. One day I had to go into town to get some tools and a group of rich kids started a fight with me, and I couldn't control my powers and I Inflicted Wounds on them. I almost killed one of them. It was an accident, and my mother knew that they wouldn't let me live. So she took responsibility for it, and she took the fall.
MARISHA: Where is she now?
UTKARSH: Well, she believed in the gods, and she said to me that as long as we had faith in them, we would be taken care of. She graciously accepted her fate, whatever that may be. Now my father and my brother were not okay with that. They fought for her freedom against an entire army. They never stood a chance. I watched my mother's eyes as her faith in that moment was shattered. The gods that she had trusted, that we had trusted had let her down. She handed me her dagger and she told me to run. The last thing I saw over my shoulder was her setting off a Vitriolic Sphere on herself and all of the guards as they swarmed her. And I ran.
LIAM: How long ago?
UTKARSH: It's been years. I fled to the Cyrios Mountains. I used my magic to scrounge up coin where I could. I stole, I tricked, and I developed a reputation. Small at first, but soon, I caught the attention of people around me, people who were connected, who were powerful, and I found a community. And I was asked a very simple question, which you all have been asking this entire time. Do I believe in the gods and that what they do is good? And I did not.
AIMEE: What community was this?
UTKARSH: That little piece of crystal, I left it on the ground. When I stood up, I want to fire a Vitriolic Sphere at it right now.
MATT: As he answers that question--
AIMEE: Can we back up?
LIAM: Not that fast.
MATT: Not that fast.
AIMEE: (gasps)
MATT: You watch as Bor'Dor--
UTKARSH: Oh, first thing. First, before I do this. Where there once was a golden, impish, sweet little boy, I'm going to drop that shit.
MARISHA: What the fuck?
AIMEE: (gasps) Oh my god!
MARISHA: The fucking--
UTKARSH: Still same guy. Same guy. But the gold, there's flakes, there's cracks, there's gray underneath, and it's weathered. The eyes that were full of innocence are full of a sadness and a pain that you can only have-- Orym recognizes it-- as a pain you can only have after having suffered great loss, and he finally stands up to his full 6'4" and a half height.
LIAM: Ooh.
ALL: (giggling)
MARISHA: On Tinder.
MATT: (laughs)
UTKARSH: He basically looks fucked up. He doesn't look-- if you saw this guy... Okay, so, and before I do it, I also say-- No. I'll say it after.
MATT: Okay.
UTKARSH: And I'll do it.
MATT: As you all begin to go for whatever reaction you have, this small orb of green, condensed, vibrating magical energy--
UTKARSH: Sorry, guys.
MATT: -- fires towards the center crystal.
UTKARSH: I did cure all your wounds before I did this, though. Let the record state.
MARISHA: Not mine. I wasn't in that radius.
MATT: It splashes out, a massive blast of arcane acidic liquid that splatters towards all of you. I need all of you to make a dexterity saving throw, please.
AIMEE: Is this poison, by any chance?
MATT: This is acid.
LIAM: Acid.
MATT: And I need you, Bor'Dor, to roll 10d4 for me.
AIMEE: Fuck. Dexterity?
MATT: Yeah.
UTKARSH: Ha ha! Take that, WizKids!
AIMEE: Can I make it strength?
EMILY: Fail.
AIMEE: Fuck. Does that count?
LIAM: Fast on your heels.
AIMEE: Does that count?
MARISHA: Dis bish.
EMILY: 13.
AIMEE: 17. You said 13?
EMILY: Whatever you do won't hurt as much as finding out that we don't have new-to-battle chemistry that I thought we had. (laughter)
UTKARSH: That chemistry still exists.
TALIESIN: The real damage--
MATT: What's the total?
UTKARSH: 27.
MATT: Okay, so going around the table here.
MARISHA: 16.
MATT: What's your spell DC?
UTKARSH: Which one is it?
MARISHA: You want me to help you as you assassinate me?
UTKARSH: Hey, come on!
MARISHA: Now?
MATT: Oh, it's 16. So you succeed.
MARISHA: I succeed. So what, that's half?
MATT: So 26, you take 13 points of acid damage, Laudna.
MARISHA: All right.
EMILY: I fail.
MATT: So you take the full-- Was it 27, you said?
UTKARSH: Yeah, 27.
MATT: 27 points of acid damage.
EMILY: I look you in the eyes, and then you see the life leave my eyes.
MARISHA: (gasps)
EMILY: And I pass out.
AIMEE: Oh no!
MARISHA: (gasps)
MATT: Prism falls unconscious.
MARISHA: Prism's down!
MATT: The acid still burning into her flesh.
AIMEE: 17.
MATT: 17. So you take 13 points of acid damage.
LIAM: 23.
MATT: 13 points of acid damage.
TALIESIN: 21.
MATT: 13 points of acid damage.
UTKARSH: Okay, and I yell: I saw you! You killed my friends at Marquet! You were there!
TALIESIN: I'm jumping full speed at this one while I--
MATT: I need everyone to roll initiative now.
AIMEE: What the fuck!
MARISHA: Yes! Are you-- Oh my god!
EMILY and MATT: (laugh)
UTKARSH: I didn't want this to happen.
TALIESIN: You're so fucking-- (screams)
UTKARSH: There was no need.
AIMEE: It's my fault.
UTKARSH: We were almost home free.
MARISHA: What were you going to do? What was it going to be?
UTKARSH: I was going to run away!
MATT: All right. So everyone roll initiative here.
TALIESIN: Oh my god!
MATT: 25 to 20.
EMILY: I think I roll initiative for death saves.
TALIESIN: Oh shit.
AIMEE: Oh, I have advantage on initiative.
MARISHA: Liam and I had theories, and we were both right-ish.
UTKARSH: Yeah. Not wrong. (groans)
MATT: All right. 25 to 20.
UTKARSH: I knew I should have followed homeboy out.
TALIESIN: 23.
MATT: 23.
LIAM: 23.
MATT: All right.
TALIESIN: What's your dex?
LIAM: Max.
TALIESIN: Oh, you first.
MATT: All right, so Orym, then Ashton.
MARISHA: Ooh!
UTKARSH: Do I go, too?
MATT: Yeah. You roll initiative as well.
EMILY: I fall limp, saying: I finally found my purpose.
MARISHA: Oh!
UTKARSH: Damn.
AIMEE: We need to get her back up immediately.
TALIESIN: One of us is already on it.
AIMEE: Okay, okay. Because I don't have any more.
UTKARSH: I got to go out in a blaze of glory. Here we go. I really thought this character was going to live.
TALIESIN: He might live. (laughter)
UTKARSH: No, he won't!
TALIESIN: You're just going to be unconscious. (laughter)
MATT: All right, so 25 to 20. 20 to 15?
UTKARSH: I was so close!
AIMEE: 17. Yeah, 17.
MATT: 17?
AIMEE: No, 16. Sorry.
UTKARSH: Fuck.
MATT: Okay.
TALIESIN: Oh boy.
UTKARSH: I saw you!
MATT: 15 to 10? What'd you get?
UTKARSH: Oh, me. Nine.
MATT: Okay.
UTKARSH: Oh, no, no. Sorry, less than.
LIAM: "Killed my friends in Marquet?"
AIMEE: Yeah. What do you think?
MARISHA: You're less than that? I'm at an eight, Matt.
UTKARSH: I'm a nine.
MATT: Okay.
MARISHA: You're nine, okay.
MATT: All right, so we have--
AIMEE: It's got to be that.
TALIESIN: We didn't, we weren't--
AIMEE: Didn't Ludinus have a bunch of people?
TALIESIN: Part of the fucking cult! Oh my god!
MARISHA: Yeah, he's part of the Crimson--
AIMEE: The Crimson Wastes.
UTKARSH: The Ruby Vanguard.
AIMEE: Ruby Vanguard.
MARISHA: Ruby Vanguard!
TALIESIN: Ruby fucking Vanguard.
MARISHA: Why do I keep calling it Crimson?
EMILY: Six.
MATT: Six, okay.
EMILY: I cannot get over--
TALIESIN: God fucking damn it.
EMILY: -- how funny it is to take out a Notes app, read this little story, and then attack everyone. (laughter)
UTKARSH: Guys, I'm in uncharted territory. I don't know what's going on.
MATT: It's so good.
AIMEE: It was worth it!
MATT: It's so good.
UTKARSH: I'm so lightheaded right now.
AIMEE: Worth it!
LIAM: And, in closing, I cast Disintegrate. (laughter)
EMILY: That was really--
UTKARSH: I don't know!
MATT: It's so good!
EMILY: -- a special thing to be at the table for.
TALIESIN: Oh my god.
UTKARSH: I don't know.
MATT: Orym, you're up first. Watching--
MARISHA: Man, now I'm thinking back to you asking how many people did we kill.
AIMEE: Yes!
MARISHA: Talking about Ludinus, and yeah, Ludinus has got to go down!
TALIESIN: Killed an avatar of the Dawnfather and felt bad about it?
LIAM: It's delicious.
MARISHA: So good!
LIAM: I believe one of those three healing potions is supposed to be over here with me.
TALIESIN: You're going for it?
MARISHA: That's probably true.
LIAM: Yes.
TALIESIN: All right.
MARISHA: Probably one of these middle ones, right?
LIAM: I don't know.
MARISHA: Or these two small ones?
LIAM: I don't know, I just know I've had a potion forever.
MARISHA: Yeah, you Inflicted Wounds on an angel, which feels very deliberate!
EMILY: Yeah.
UTKARSH: Felt good.
EMILY: I was wondering.
MATT: As you release this, it splashes out. All of you are suddenly burned and scarred, the sizzling of the arcane acid burning into your skin. Some of you manage to avoid, most of you manage to avoid, the bulk of it. However, Prism now lays on the ground, still burning.
MARISHA: Did you roll initiative? She'll roll initiative if we can--
MATT: She rolled initiative.
MARISHA: Okay.
EMILY: Six.
MATT: She's still part of it because we have to figure out how the death saves work.
EMILY: I think I'm bubbling in the acid.
MARISHA and AIMEE: (scream) No!
MATT: (laughs) And you, I assume, are turning to try and run, or?
UTKARSH: Fuck yeah, I'm out.
MATT: All right. Orym, you're up first.
LIAM: All right, so--
MARISHA: Aimee's face! (laughter)
UTKARSH: I'm telling you, dude.
AIMEE: My instincts are bad!
MARISHA: Fucking knew it.
UTKARSH: Your instincts are great.
LIAM: Orym was 10 feet away, barely saying anything, listening to see where this was going to go. As soon as that happens, he runs forward, drags his sandal along the floor in an arc, kicking dirt up towards Bor'Dor, and he grabs hold of Prism's lapels and drags her 10 feet away, pulls out this potion.
AIMEE: Yes!
LIAM: Pours it in her mouth. Four, seven, 10--
MATT: Okay, first off, so you grab her.
LIAM: Yeah.
MATT: You kick dirt in his direction. Okay. Grab her, and pull her--
LIAM: Flavor.
MATT: Okay, cool, got it.
LIAM: Yeah, I just pull her away.
MATT: All right, cool.
LIAM: 11 plus four, 15 points. Wait, one, two, three, four, seven, 11, yeah.
TALIESIN: Plus one point for each die.
LIAM: Four, so yeah, 15 points. I rolled pretty high. Then I will slide her further back, Bait and Switch, hold my shield up over her, and you will get an additional eight points to your AC until the start of my next turn.
AIMEE: She's back!
MATT: So you've healed 15, and you have eight added to your AC for this next round.
EMILY: What happened? I had this weird dream where Bor'Dor read--
AIMEE: It was no dream!
EMILY: -- from a Notes app and then cast-- (laughter)
UTKARSH: It's a lot to remember!
TALIESIN: This is so crazy!
UTKARSH: It's a lot of details.
AIMEE: You're beautiful!
MARISHA: You know what was disturbing about it, though?
AIMEE: You're beautiful.
MARISHA: You were like, I need this because I can't remember it, but--
MARISHA and AIMEE: You didn't look at it once!
MARISHA: That shit was in your soul.
TALIESIN: It started there. Once the proper nouns were gone, that was the end of it.
UTKARSH: Well, yeah!
MATT: Yeah.
MARISHA: That's 100% correct.
AIMEE: Not an um or a vocal filler.
TALIESIN: Menagerie Coast. Yeah.
AIMEE: You used your whole chest for it.
MATT: It was fucking good.
EMILY: I loved it.
TALIESIN: Oh no!
MATT: That was fucking good.
UTKARSH: Good, that was my final monologue before death.
MARISHA: (laughs)
MATT: Well, we'll see. So you watch as Prism is pulled off, healed somewhat, though you are still covered in burning acid. You put the shield up and protect her, finishing your go. Ashton, you're up next, with Deni$e on deck.
TALIESIN: I'm going to fucking rage.
LIAM: Oh, 15 hit points.
TALIESIN: God fucking damn it. Okay. The gravity kicks back in, so I am back to that weird black and white. Everything's sort of, everyone's hair is gently pulling towards me. I'm going to book straight forward.
MARISHA: This is epic.
AIMEE: Deni$e is just a block of hair--
MATT: From where you were standing off to the side, probably about 30 or so feet away.
AIMEE: -- gelled up.
TALIESIN: That's no problem. Straight forward.
MATT: Ashton charges towards you. As he approaches, you can feel the actual air, there's a force pulling you towards him, like he's a gravitational force nearby.
TALIESIN: I assume, are you two in close distance, or a little further away?
MATT: He pulled Prism back a bit. So in order to get up to him, you'd be about 15 feet away from that.
TALIESIN: Okay, I was going to--
EMILY: You have to have it known as a spell, which you might.
TALIESIN: Yeah, so I'm going to slip behind to sort of, on the way around, I'm going to drop this right next to Prism.
AIMEE: Oh! That's nice.
TALIESIN: Tossing a potion right down there.
EMILY: Thank you.
TALIESIN: Flip around, use the momentum to bring the hammer around and hit right in the bloody stomach.
MATT: Okay.
LIAM: Oof!
UTKARSH: I'm going to die immediately.
AIMEE: Maybe.
MARISHA and MATT: (laughs)
UTKARSH: I get a death speech. Here we go. (laughter)
MATT: All right.
TALIESIN: I'm not shooting to kill.
MATT: Okay.
TALIESIN: So.
AIMEE: Yeah.
MATT: All right.
TALIESIN: Not shooting to kill. Eh, you know--
UTKARSH: Yes, he is!
MARISHA: Yeah! (laughs)
MATT and UTKARSH: (laugh)
TALIESIN: I'll be gentle.
MARISHA: You're going to be gentle.
TALIESIN: I'm going to be a little gentle. That's a 15 to hit, or is that too--
UTKARSH: That hits.
TALIESIN: Okay. I'm also going to use Density Well with that, so it's going to add, you're going to have to succeed against a strength throw in a second.
MATT: Go ahead and make a strength saving throw, if you don't mind, Bor'Dor.
TALIESIN: Six.
AIMEE: My strength is so good. Look at this shit.
TALIESIN: 11.
LIAM: Brick house.
AIMEE: I never do strength saving throws.
LIAM: You do athletics.
UTKARSH: Could've been fine. Could've ran away.
MATT: (laughs)
LIAM: Like a boulder.
UTKARSH: You had to do this. Where's strength?
EMILY: It is--
UTKARSH: Oh, zero. That's a 10.
MATT: Gotcha.
EMILY: No, you have a plus two to your strength saves.
UTKARSH: Where?
EMILY: Plus two.
UTKARSH: Oh, that's what this is?
EMILY: Yeah, that's the saves.
UTKARSH: You guys, I've been playing a different game.
LIAM: You'll be alive for five more minutes. Use it well.
MATT: Use it well!
TALIESIN: That's 19 points of damage on that first hit.
MATT: 19 points of bludgeoning damage to you, Bor'Dor.
TALIESIN: I assume that my save is higher than 10. I can't find my--
MATT: It is, yes.
TALIESIN: Yeah.
MATT: So what does that do?
TALIESIN: You're prone.
MATT: He smacks you, and you get knocked flat onto your ass on the ground.
TALIESIN: And sorcerer, huh? I'm going to drop down. Can I do a movement with my, instead of a second attack, actually do something with my weapon rather than--
MATT: Depends on what you're trying to do with your weapon.
TALIESIN: I want to try and drop the handle down to gag him so he can't talk.
MATT: To do that, that would be considered your second attack, yeah.
TALIESIN: The second attack is fine?
MATT: That's an action.
TALIESIN: Okay, that's a full action.
MATT: To try and take the time to prevent someone from talking?
TALIESIN: Yeah, yeah, fair point.
MATT: Then yeah.
TALIESIN: Then how badly hurt does he look?
MATT: How badly hurt do you look?
UTKARSH: Very. (laughter)
MATT: The impact, you felt a crack or two in the chest.
UTKARSH: Oh no!
TALIESIN: I'm going to take the hilt of the-- I'm going to take the hilt of the hammer and clock on the head to try and knock him out.
MATT: Okay, go for it. You have advantage because he's prone.
TALIESIN: That's right. (snickers)
UTKARSH: It's that easy!
TALIESIN: Jesus H. Christ, that's like 29 to hit. I'm a monster.
UTKARSH: He misses! (laughter)
TALIESIN: I don't know what reaction you have.
EMILY: Silvery Barbs!
MARISHA: (laughs)
TALIESIN: You could have some kind of crazy reaction.
UTKARSH: Slippery Blobs!
TALIESIN: I don't know.
MATT: (laughs) Slippery Blobs?
TALIESIN: 13 points.
UTKARSH: Okay. Yeah, I'm--
UTKARSH: All right. Still conscious.
TALIESIN: All right.
MATT: Okay.
TALIESIN: I hit that and I'm like: Just knock him out!
MATT: All right.
TALIESIN: I'm blocking.
MATT: Deni$e?
AIMEE: I'm going to go around him and take my whip of warning and just-- I know he's already prone, but try to restrain him.
MATT: Okay, so you're trying to grapple.
AIMEE: Grapple, yeah.
MATT: Okay.
AIMEE: So he can't use his hands. I think that's going to be my turn. Maybe I'll stay there, you know, close to him, to make sure he doesn't, you know, do anything.
MATT: Okay, so just so you know, grappling prevents someone from moving.
AIMEE: Yeah, but he can try to get out of it.
MATT: He can try to get out of it, yeah.
AIMEE: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
TALIESIN: Still prone.
EMILY: Yeah, would grappling, though, keep him prone?
MATT: Grappling would keep, yeah, because you can't use your movement. He can't get up and move, so yeah.
AIMEE: I kind of want to just restrain him.
MATT: Great, so that would be a contested athletics check versus your athletics or acrobatics, your choice.
EMILY: When it gets to my turn, I'm just going to punch him.
TALIESIN: That's fair.
UTKARSH: That will knock me out for sure.
TALIESIN: Yeah, I'm done with my weapon, too, believe me.
AIMEE: That's going to be a dirty 20.
MARISHA and TALIESIN: (groan)
UTKARSH: Mine's 20. What did you call it? A natty 20. 22.
AIMEE: Wow!
MATT: Oh!
AIMEE: Mine's a dirty 20.
MATT: You try and grapple him, and he rolls and slithers out of your grasp.
AIMEE: Sure!
MATT: And is in the process of getting ready to get back up.
AIMEE: Yeah, well, I'm going to try again, because I got two attacks.
MATT: Because you got two attacks. Yeah, go for it.
AIMEE: Just don't struggle! It'll feel like a hug!
MATT: Roll again.
AIMEE: Oh fuck, again. Mine's a dirty 20 again.
EMILY: Okay, but he will have to roll again.
UTKARSH: Seven!
EMILY: Yes! You got him!
MATT: As he begins to slip away, you get another, better grip and pull him back down to the ground and get behind, holding the arms.
AIMEE: Just don't struggle, for the love of fucking--
UTKARSH: I can't even. (choking)
MATT: You're not choking.
AIMEE: No, no, no, no, no.
MATT: You can still move your hands and you can still talk.
UTKARSH: Spitting up blood.
MATT: But you just can't move.
AIMEE: No!
LIAM: Your eye bursts!
AIMEE: I mean, she's firm. She's firm, but fair.
MATT: All right, Bor'Dor?
UTKARSH: It's my turn?
MATT: It's your turn.
UTKARSH: Oh, jesus.
MATT: You're prone, you're bound, you're surrounded, but it's your turn. You're still able to cast because you can still speak and you can still move your hands. What do you want to do?
AIMEE: Should've put the whip in his mouth.
UTKARSH: I really should heal myself first. Can I just talk to them?
MATT: If you'd like to.
TALIESIN and AIMEE: Yeah.
AIMEE: That's all we've been trying to do!
UTKARSH: Hold on a second. Let me see. I mean, I don't feel like dying anymore.
LIAM: Is not throwing acid on them an option?
AIMEE: Right.
MARISHA: You don't feel like dying anymore?
MARISHA: Being clocked with a hammer.
AIMEE: Prozac kicked in?
MARISHA: Yeah!
UTKARSH: Owie!
MATT: You have some interesting spells.
UTKARSH: I do. I wish Get The Fuck Out was a spell.
MATT: You kind of have one.
EMILY: Do you have--
AIMEE: Misty Step? Dimension Door?
MATT: In your 4th-levels.
EMILY: 4th-level's probably going to be Dimension Door.
UTKARSH: Wait.
EMILY: Thunder Step, maybe.
UTKARSH: Wait, this one? (laughter)
LIAM: That's adorable.
EMILY: I know.
MATT: Second towards the bottom.
UTKARSH: What does that do?
EMILY: Do you want me to help you?
AIMEE: If you click on it, it'll tell you.
MATT: You can transform yourself or another person into a creature.
UTKARSH: No fucking way.
EMILY: Oh, Polymorph. You could make yourself really little and run away.
UTKARSH: Good day and god bless you. I would like to turn into a tree sloth. No, I'm joking. (laughter)
TALIESIN: Curses, foiled the fuck again!
AIMEE: Bor'Dor, we don't want to hurt you! You've been the one hurting us!
LIAM: (slowly) Here I go!
AIMEE: We don't want to hurt you! We're not going to punish you.
UTKARSH: I'll turn into a-- I'll use Polymorph and turn into-- What is very, very fast and small? I'll turn into a hummingbird.
MARISHA: Counterspell.
AIMEE: Yes!
UTKARSH: Motherfuck! Now, what do we do?
EMILY: Well--
MATT: Well, that's a 4th-level spell, so--
MARISHA: So I have to roll.
MATT: You do have to roll.
MARISHA: What do I have to roll?
MATT: You have to roll higher than the-- It's 10 plus the spell's level, so it's 14.
EMILY: And I think you add your spell--
MARISHA: Do I add my spell?
MATT: You add your charisma bonus.
MARISHA: My charisma bonus?
MATT: Correct.
EMILY: Yeah. So it's a 4th-level.
TALIESIN: She's oddly hot.
EMILY: Wait, you don't have to roll that one.
MARISHA: I am charismatic. Okay, so I have to roll what? Over a 14?
MATT: You have to roll a 14 or higher.
MARISHA: 14 up? So 10 up stops this.
UTKARSH: What's this?
EMILY: That's not going to come in until--
MARISHA: Fuck me. I rolled an 11. So, for 15.
AIMEE: (relieved) Ah.
TALIESIN: Ah!
MATT: As you begin to move your fingers, begin to mutter the incantation under your breath, as your body's about to shift into an escape form suddenly the spell slips through your fingers and unravels.
UTKARSH: No!
MATT: You look up and see Laudna across the way.
UTKARSH: Beautiful.
MARISHA: Uh-uh-uh.
UTKARSH: Then I'll say--
AIMEE: Tsk, tsk, tsk.
UTKARSH: So now that's it for me?
MATT: That's your turn. You can't move.
UTKARSH: Just do it. Just get it over with.
AIMEE: We don't want to kill you. For the love of god.
UTKARSH: Just get it over with.
EMILY: I am going to punch you.
MATT: Laudna, it's your turn.
TALIESIN: That's fair.
UTKARSH: Just end it.
AIMEE: I am going to punch you.
EMILY: I am going to punch you.
UTKARSH: End it, Laudna. But please turn into the creepy spider when you do it. (laughter)
AIMEE: I want to go in the most painful way possible.
UTKARSH: You killed everyone--
LIAM: Step on me.
UTKARSH: What's the point?
EMILY: This is my chance to actually enact something I've dreamed of (laughs).
UTKARSH: He's just a blubbering mess. He's crying at this point. Bloodied.
LIAM: Ugh.
UTKARSH: Finish it off. I don't have any reason anymore. There's no reason anymore. (sobbing) There's no reason anymore. (whimpering)
MARISHA: I walk up to him. Where is Laudna? Ooh, she's been in a bad spot, you guys. She's been in a bad spot.
TALIESIN: Yeah.
UTKARSH: (whimpering)
AIMEE: Prism is stewing.
UTKARSH: (whines)
MARISHA: As I slowly step forward, Laudna's body starts to elongate, as branches start to erupt from her body. You see her eyes start to stretch and go dark, and faint purple-ish glowing hue that hasn't been seen in a while starts to emanate where her pupils would be.
UTKARSH: Counterspell.
MARISHA and MARISHA: (laugh)
UTKARSH: I don't have one.
MARISHA: Transforming into my Form of Dread.
MATT: Mm-hmm.
UTKARSH: Holy shit.
MARISHA: As this ghostly, witchy specter. Ooh, another 10. Oh yeah, okay. Walks up to you.
TALIESIN: Shit.
MARISHA: (sharp inhale) Shaking.
UTKARSH: Gives me a hug.
MARISHA: I'm really sorry, Bor'Dor. I just can't stand having anyone else betray me.
UTKARSH: (inhales sharply)
AIMEE: My stomach.
MARISHA: I'm going to reach out--
MATT: Mm-hmm.
MARISHA: -- and I'm going to grab him by the throat and do Hunger of the Shadow.
UTKARSH: What is that?
MATT: You're about to find out.
UTKARSH: Oh shit.
AIMEE: No, no!
MATT: So that's an attack with advantage.
MARISHA: (deep inhale)
MATT: Because he is prone.
MARISHA: (exhales)
UTKARSH: But am I still a hummingbird? No, I'm not a hummingbird.
MATT: No, you got Counter--
EMILY: That didn't happen.
TALIESIN: You got about halfway.
MATT: (laughs)
TALIESIN: Giant rubber band right back.
UTKARSH: I'm just humming. I'm just going (hums). Hoping.
TALIESIN and MATT: (laugh)
UTKARSH: (hums) No, I'm dead.
AIMEE: Flutter in your head.
UTKARSH: I'm accepting my fate.
AIMEE: It didn't have to be this way.
MARISHA: (sighs) Yeah.
AIMEE: I'm talking to him.
MARISHA: Yeah.
AIMEE: You do what you want.
UTKARSH: It was always going to go this way.
TALIESIN: It kind of did. It kind of did have to go this way. Mm.
MARISHA: So that is going to be 20 total.
MATT: I believe that hits. Go ahead and roll damage.
UTKARSH: (mockingly) "I believe that hits."
TALIESIN and EMILY: (laugh)
EMILY: You made this character. (laughs)
UTKARSH: I feel like my hand was forced.
MATT: (laughs)
AIMEE: Don't JM us.
MATT: (laughs)
TALIESIN: It seems to happen to us a lot, man. We've got to be a lot less trusting.
UTKARSH: Oh, that's so much!
MARISHA: Yeah, it is.
UTKARSH: Now here's a question. Okay, just tell me what it is.
MARISHA: Uh. 22 damage.
MATT: 22 points of necrotic damage?
MARISHA: No wait, sorry. 22 plus four. So 26 points of necrotic damage.
MATT: 26 points of necrotic damage.
UTKARSH: (gasps)
MARISHA: Yeah.
MATT: Where does that leave you, Bor'Dor?
UTKARSH: I'm fucked. Out cold. Negative out cold. Probably--
MATT: As the purple light flashes in Laudna's eyes, this terrifying blackened tree creature, this side of her that you've caught out the corner of your eye in the middle of the struggles that you've fought beside each other in turn towards you. A true nightmare of shadow that fills your entire periphery. As you feel the cold, long, jagged fingers grasp your throat. As you attempt to breathe, you feel it drawn from your lungs for a moment as your entire essence is rocked with horrifying pain. You feel like the blood in your veins is filled with frozen water and you fade to unconsciousness.
UTKARSH: (death groan) Thank you.
MATT: Laudna, as you delight in the momentary satiation, the almost delicious grasp of vengeance here, the only thing you hear in the back of your mind is (heartbeat). (heartbeat)
UTKARSH: The void.
TALIESIN: Anything?
MATT: You watch as Laudna's still grasping the unconscious Bor'Dor, who's just lying limp in her hands. Prism, it's your turn.
UTKARSH: Did you let something out?
AIMEE: Wait, listen. Before anybody goes, can I talk? Is it a free action?
UTKARSH: You fucked up, didn't you?
AIMEE: I feel like maybe if we save him, he could give you the information you need on Ludinus. I'm just saying. Maybe he won't talk, maybe we'll kill him again. I'm just saying, if we bring him back, he could have information.
MATT: Roll 5d4 for me.
MARISHA: Laudna doesn't hear any of this.
AIMEE: Fuck.
MARISHA: She's siphoning as her form consumes over top of him.
AIMEE: Then I'm talking to you. But if he was a part of the cult, maybe he was high up. I don't know, maybe he knows something that you don't know that might be helpful to you. I don't give a fuck. I hate the gods.
UTKARSH: 13.
TALIESIN: He was not high up.
MATT: 13. Prism, you take 13 points of acid damage as the acid that still was on you burns into you even further.
EMILY: I think Prism hears this, but as she takes more damage she thinks about how much she felt stronger because her and Bor'Dor were learning together and all of that was a fucking sham and she socks him in the fucking face.
MATT: Okay. (laughs)
EMILY: That's what I want to do.
UTKARSH: Punches his already unconscious body?
MATT: Yeah.
EMILY: You were supposed to be my friend! I don't have a lot of fucking friends. I mostly hang out with books and mages who make me do their work, and you were supposed to be my friend. I'm going to punch him in the face.
MATT: Are you punching him just as a symbol or are you trying to hurt him?
EMILY: Um. I just took damage from him, from his little spell. So I'm trying to hurt him.
MATT: Yeah, there's smoking flesh.
EMILY: Yeah, I'm trying to hurt him.
MATT: Okay, roll an attack with advantage.
TALIESIN: Oh boy. Oh boy.
EMILY: How do you punch someone? I have a minus two to strength. I think I technically can't actually do damage to him.
AIMEE: Well, if you roll a one.
MATT: It's a minimum of one.
EMILY: It's a minimum of one?
MATT: Correct.
TALIESIN: Yeah.
EMILY: Mm. Okay. (laughs)
TALIESIN: This is about to get real weird.
EMILY: Okay. I won't punch him then.
MATT: No, no. Go for it.
TALIESIN: No, no, I mean--
MATT: Do what you want to do.
TALIESIN: This is fascinating. Do what you want to do.
LIAM: We like conflict here.
TALIESIN: Yeah. We thrive.
EMILY: Yeah. I just took damage from his freaking spell and I feel so stupid for thinking he was my fucking friend.
UTKARSH: Waiting to do that for so long.
EMILY: I'm going to punch him in the face. 17 to hit.
UTKARSH: Yeah, that hits my already limp body.
MATT: All right.
EMILY: Okay, I do one damage.
MATT: So, you do-- It is a--
EMILY: A death save.
MATT: It is a melee attack.
EMILY: Yeah.
MATT: To an unconscious individual.
LIAM: So that's two.
MATT: It's an auto-crit. You fail two death saves immediately.
EMILY: (gasps)
TALIESIN: Yep. Yep.
EMILY: I didn't know that.
MATT: Crack and across the face. Blood spatters out the side.
MARISHA: Laudna is still holding on as her form darkens. You can see slowly, ever so slightly, this faint shimmer of a mourning veil, if you look out of the periphery of your eyes, that's starting to fold over top of her figure as Bor'Dor's life essence is being sucked into her mouth and through Laudna's body.
EMILY: I invite anyone else to be reasonable about this but I'm still covered in his goop.
AIMEE: I just think that if we take a little second, just take a deep breath, I'm saying he might have information. I'm not saying his life is worth saving. I'm just saying your friends' lives are worth saving. My life is worth saving. If he has information, it might be good. I don't know.
LIAM: Orym has been completely silent the whole time. Just watching, doing nothing.
UTKARSH: Bor'Dor too.
MATT: Ashton?
TALIESIN: I'm seeing all this. I'm going to drop rage, gently grab Prism, and walk away.
EMILY: I'm fine. I got my revenge.
TALIESIN: Yeah, turning her around because she doesn't need to see this.
MATT: Okay.
AIMEE: Anything, Deni$e?
EMILY: That's right. Yeah. Take me away from him because you know I'm a danger.
AIMEE and MATT: (laughs)
AIMEE: (as Prism) "Pull me away, someone!"
EMILY: (laughs)
TALIESIN: Hold me back.
AIMEE: Deni$e is feeling... I don't think she feels bad often and I do think that this guy was a liar, but she's going to at least take the whip off just because she likes her whip. Also--
TALIESIN: Yeah.
AIMEE: -- there's no need to.
MATT: Okay. That brings us back around to you, Laudna. At the threshold of death, Bor'Dor stands helpless within your grasp, broken and at your mercy. What do you do?
UTKARSH: And that's where we take a break. (laughter)
EMILY: This assassination attempt brought--
MATT and EMILY: -- to you by WizKids. (laughter)
LIAM: Laudna, you can do anything you want, but 15 feet away in your view, you see Orym and you just see this.
MARISHA: (inhales) (sighs) Laudna is barely present right now. The only that is flashing through her head is Bor'Dor's words of knowing true pain. That look of someone who knows true pain. As if her life was flashing before her eyes, but it's all of the trauma that she's experiencing between losing Imogen, and the solstice, and losing her friends, and watching so many people die, and then being hung on the tree. Death upon death upon death. And feeling so helpless and so out of control here recently. In this moment, she has control. She has regained a sense of control and nothing is going to stand in her way. I hate this. Marisha hates this. (sighs)
EMILY: I didn't even think I was going to hit. I have a plus two to hit. (laughs)
MARISHA: I am...
TALIESIN: Definitely shortened this with that one.
UTKARSH: No, no, no. It's okay.
TALIESIN: Yeah.
UTKARSH: We're okay.
TALIESIN: That was a good death.
MARISHA: Wither and Bloom. I'm going to use the last bit of necrotic--
UTKARSH: Oh boy.
MARISHA: -- energy that I have to continue to suck the life force. Like I said, it's barely even Laudna there anymore. It is whatever part of her that she was hoping was dormant this whole time, but the world has just broken her here recently.
MATT: Well, Laudna, how do you want to do this?
UTKARSH: (soft laughter)
TALIESIN: (softly) Oh!
UTKARSH: I wish there was a trap door that I could slide under.
AIMEE: Eject button? (laughter)
TALIESIN: There is, but Matt has it.
MARISHA: Oh my god, I hate this.
UTKARSH: I deserve it.
MARISHA: No!
UTKARSH: I brought it on myself.
MARISHA: But I love you!
UTKARSH: It was very fun.
MARISHA: Ugh. Just the darkness in her... (sighs) I don't know, she just (breathes shakily) gives into the darkness. She can't control it anymore.
MATT: A familiar purple flame burns down her arm. Not seen really this hue since that brief journey through the shadow to try and retrieve her soul from the woman who once kept it at bay. That flame curls. As from the ground, the curled roots and dry brush that has been gathered to fill the floor of this cavern begins to sprout vibrant green and flowers of white petals and blue roses. A beautiful circle of life surrounds the two of them as Bor'Dor's skin pales and cracks. His body limps and thins. In that moment, the apex of natural beauty rising with life along with the balance of death. You watch the troubled life of Bor'Dor Dog'Son reduced to ash and memory.
EMILY: Can I turn around yet?
TALIESIN: Yeah.
EMILY: Oh my.
AIMEE: All of his possessions are also ash?
MATT: No, his possessions are still there.
TALIESIN: Yeah.
AIMEE: In the most respectful way possible, I think Deni$e-- she is a thief, after all. No, but I think she maybe looks through some of his possessions to see if there are any clues as to--
MATT: Okay. Well, you have to get to them first.
AIMEE: Where am I? Oh.
MATT: Right now his body's still in the grasp of Laudna--
AIMEE: Oh, still in the grasp. Got it. Okay, gotcha. Well, I'm going to let her do what she's going to do and then--
MATT: Mm-hm, gotcha.
TALIESIN: I'm going to walk over. I'm not doing anything. I'm just standing next to you.
MARISHA: I think she instinctually lashes out at you. (exhales)
TALIESIN: It's okay.
MARISHA: (teary) Ashton?
TALIESIN: It's okay. It's going to be okay. Come on, let's go sit down. I'll try and lead her away very gently.
LIAM: Orym lingers by the body and after half a minute of just staring at him, reaches into his belt and pulls out the locket that he took from someone he killed by the Malleus Key.
MATT: Mm-hmm.
LIAM: Took it as a reminder because he felt bad for it. We're at war. He tosses the medallion out onto the body.
MATT: Hmm.
LIAM: Then slowly walks off back towards this chamber, and sits on the ground in the dark looking at the remains of a Gau Drashari.
MARISHA: Ashton?
TALIESIN: It's going to be okay.
MARISHA: (sniffs)
TALIESIN: We've all...
MARISHA: W-w-what have I done?
TALIESIN: Nothing that I haven't. Nothing that--
MARISHA: (sniffles)
TALIESIN: I think we're all going to have some nightmares before this is over.
MARISHA: I'm weak.
TALIESIN: No, you're just hurt.
MARISHA: (shaky inhale) (sighs)
TALIESIN: It's okay.
MARISHA: She just cries in his shoulder.
TALIESIN: Yep.
AIMEE: Do I find anything on the body? In the possessions, I mean.
MATT: Indeed, you find a crossbow.
MARISHA: (laughs)
MATT: The one that he's been utilizing. You find that very nice dagger. What else did she find on the corpse of Bor'Dor?
LIAM: That Bor'Dor talked about being important to him, right? Am I remembering that right?
MATT: Yeah.
UTKARSH: The dagger is from--
MARISHA: His mom.
UTKARSH: -- my mother. It's a poison dagger. I didn't get to use the poison.
AIMEE: We should probably bury it with him.
UTKARSH: I would have, though. I would've stabbed each and every one of you.
AIMEE: I know it. (laughter)
UTKARSH: I just want you to know that.
LIAM: (dying voice) I would've stabbed each and every one of you. (laughter)
UTKARSH: A crossbow, and then can I? Then the rest is just farmer's clothes.
AIMEE: Nothing having to do with your position in the cult or anything like that.
UTKARSH: Mr. DM, am I allowed to give the backstory of the character?
MATT: Hmm?
UTKARSH: Can I say what happened when they found him?
MATT: As a conversation at another time.
UTKARSH: Okay.
MATT: Bor'Dor cannot speak at this time, but if somebody were to either speak to his corpse or during an episode of "4-Sided Dive"--
UTKARSH: (gasps)
MATT: -- you may discuss these elements.
AIMEE: So Deni$e will hold onto the dagger--
MATT: Okay.
AIMEE: -- with every intention of doing, you know, either burying it with the ash, I mean, it's just ashes or whatever.
MATT: I mean, there are other things that he keeps to himself.
AIMEE: There are other things. Do I--
UTKARSH: Leather worker's tools.
MATT: There's also a cloak of protection on you.
UTKARSH: Oh, that's right.
MATT: Yep.
UTKARSH: And a hat, some kind of hat.
MATT: A hat of disguise.
UTKARSH: Hat of disguise.
EMILY: You have so many fucking magic items. (laughs)
TALIESIN: Motherfucker.
MARISHA: Whole stack.
AIMEE: Or we'll maybe divvy that, maybe we'll divvy this. But yeah, I guess what I'm looking for is--
UTKARSH: And an immovable rod.
TALIESIN: (gasps)
AIMEE: You have an immovable rod!?
TALIESIN: Fuck right off.
UTKARSH: In case I fell.
LIAM: You're like Steve Martin right now, "Just this, and this,"
TALIESIN: "And that's all I need."
UTKARSH: I just said--
EMILY: I have zero magic items.
UTKARSH: Hold on, I had it.
EMILY: Zero, Bor'Dor!
TALIESIN: Immovable fucking rod!
UTKARSH: Dagger--
EMILY: I'm just a wizard!
UTKARSH: Well, I was trying to just get out of the way. You guys are dangerous.
LIAM: I'm just a helpless farmer with an immovable rod and the cloak of protection.
AIMEE: Rod.
UTKARSH: Dagger of venom, ring of protection, cloak of protection.
TALIESIN: The living fuck.
UTKARSH: Light crossbow. A hat of disguise.
LIAM: This deck with a lot of things.
UTKARSH: And an immovable rod.
TALIESIN: Okay, Batman.
AIMEE: Okay, so we'll collect these things.
MATT: You gather the cloak, you gather the crossbow, the--
AIMEE: Dagger, the rod, and the cloak. But there's nothing, no clue, no back information.
TALIESIN: Symbol.
AIMEE: Nothing that we can--
MATT: Nothing. Anything that seemed to have been tied to who he was before was likely discarded intentionally.
TALIESIN: Which means that he would've known. Yeah, I'm not there.
AIMEE: So I'll sweep up his ashes, I guess, as best I can and try to dig a hole and not shit in it, but put the ashes in it.
MARISHA: (laughs)
AIMEE: Cover it back up.
EMILY: I might.
UTKARSH: Feel free to shit in the hole. It's okay.
AIMEE: Puts a rock on top of it.
MATT: Okay. Prism, what are you doing at this time?
EMILY: I think I'm looking at Laudna. I'm looking at everyone else maybe avoiding my eye contact. I kind of want to talk to Laudna but I'm also, she probably needs space. I think I'm looking at-- I think that this is probably my very, very really the first betrayal of my life. So I feel simultaneously really stupid for seeing red, and just punching him, and just realizing that just one stupid punch from a very weak girl could have such drastic consequences. But I'm also seeing Laudna and what she did. And when she does it, it doesn't seem like something to be ashamed of. Even though I know that she seems like she's ashamed. I don't know, I think I'm just, I feel embarrassed for being hoodwinked. I feel really, really sad that this stupid fiction that-- I had met up with these people, and suddenly, I was becoming someone that I wasn't-- was just a fiction because it didn't feel that way. So I think I'm holding my little fist that I probably broke in the process of punching a corpse and mostly, just feeling really embarrassed, and sad, and wanting to talk to Bor'Dor, but still feeling mad, still feeling the sting of the acid of-- that he literally threw on me and figuratively threw on me. So yeah, I think I'm just scared to initiate any conversation and just standing in the corner with a broken fist.
AIMEE: I'll put a hand on your shoulder.
EMILY: I'm sorry.
AIMEE: For what?
EMILY: I don't know, everyone else seemed to take a really cool stance, and I punched him, and I didn't even think I would hit him.
AIMEE: It's okay. Sometimes you don't know your own strength.
EMILY: Yeah, but that feels like not enough of an excuse for helping take a man's life. But also, he tried to take ours. I don't know. Anyways, I'm sorry. I should have been, I don't know, I should've been smarter.
AIMEE: Well, guess what? You'll never make that mistake again. Maybe you will, but not anytime soon.
EMILY: It was my first time punching someone, and I killed them.
AIMEE: I don't think it was the punch that did it, but you really softened him up for her. You loosened him up.
EMILY: Okay.
AIMEE: I'd take that off your plate. There's a lot of other stuff to worry about.
EMILY: Yeah. Where did you put his remains?
AIMEE: I put it under that rock over there.
EMILY: All right. I think--
AIMEE: (gasps)
EMILY: Oh yeah?
AIMEE: You want to pick something as a little gift, little reminder? You know, we have the dagger, the cloak, the immovable rod.
EMILY: I love that you're already moving into divvying up his stuff.
AIMEE: Why not? He's dead in the ground. What else did we have?
EMILY: I think I'm going to go yell at his grave for a while because I feel--
AIMEE: Okay, you sure you don't want any?
EMILY: -- really mad at him.
AIMEE: This is free magic. You don't want any of this stuff?
EMILY: I just feel like we should give it to them.
AIMEE: Okay, I think, well, everyone's going to get something, but you get first pick.
EMILY: I'll take last pick. Then I think I'll go, and just pace, and shout at his grave, and be like: We were supposed to be friends. This was supposed to work out differently. And stomp on it! Then apologize for stomping on it, and then stomp on it again. And that's that.
MATT: Okay. In time, the keeper of the shrine, Hevestro, returns after their own walk of grief, enters the room, and immediately senses the change in energy and the change in landscape, looking towards the rock and the disturbed dirt and stone. "It seems that these days bring quite a bit of loss in so short a time. I'm sorry for what has brought you here and what has happened since. But do not let this weigh you down. Not entirely. Carry these memories with you. They hurt, but they are a strength as well. At least I have to believe that. You are capable, or you wouldn't have been able to save me from a fate that even my focus prevented me from seeing approach. I have a sense just in the trust the eidolons of this land have already placed in you since you've come that you walk a fateful path. But you do not know me from your families, and I do not wish to pry. Let us all take a night of rest. In the morning, I will usher you to your destinations of choice out of gratitude for the kindness you've done me and in bringing peace to my circle." He reaches over and grabs a stick on by the wall and returns to one of the far-off alcove chambers. He waves his hand in the air, and the roots grow out and enclose it like a door.
EMILY: Laudna, you can say if you don't want to talk to anyone right now. Would you prefer to be alone?
MARISHA: Quite the opposite, I think.
EMILY: Really? Okay. I just want to say that I'm really sorry for losing my temper there, and I feel like your friends, I don't know, I just, I know that you're dealing with a lot, and it seems like that's not the first time you've been betrayed, and I think that was the first time I've been betrayed. I guess I'm really, really sorry that that keeps happening to you. And I'm sorry that I accelerated things.
MARISHA: To be honest, I was so lost in my rage and anger. It was a bit of a blur. I wouldn't be too hard on yourself.
EMILY: Well, I don't think you should be hard on yourself, either. Because when you did it, it made perfect sense to me.
MARISHA: I'm afraid what I did hurt more than just Bor'Dor and perhaps betrayed my friends in the process.
EMILY: What do you think that you did? What did it all mean? The purple.
MARISHA: For many decades, I've had the lingering life force of an incredibly bad woman who was a necromancer latched onto me, puppeting me, continuing to stay alive through me. These men and the others went through great lengths to rid me of her. I can't confirm, but I am deeply terrified that I just opened that door again, that prison that they sent her to. It seems many dark shadows are being released here lately.
EMILY: Yeah. I think if you close that door once, you can close it again. Sorry, I'm just an apprentice. What do I know? Anyways, I just don't want you to feel bad because I thought it made sense what you were doing. At least emotionally, I could understand it.
MARISHA: I feel like control is a fallacy. We've talked so much about it here lately. Us trying to control our current destinies. The town trying to control. The oppressors came to them. The gods trying to control the world. The Titans trying to control the gods. But no one has it. I lost control of myself in exchange to that for the briefest of moment of feeling empowered. I'm just confused.
EMILY: Well, confusion is kind of like acknowledging you don't have control. So maybe surrendering to the confusion will be some healing medicine for that.
MARISHA: You're very smart, Prism. Very capable.
EMILY: Thank you. You're an incredible magic user. I also think that someday you'll probably be strong enough to just beat this bitch back to where she came from.
MARISHA: I hope so. (sighs deeply) Poor Bor'Dor.
EMILY: Yeah. I'm honestly still really fucking bad pissed at him.
MARISHA: Angry and pity don't have to be mutually exclusive.
EMILY: Yeah, that's true. (sighs)
MARISHA: (sighs)
LIAM: I'll just add that Orym is still up top there. I'd like to think with his 31 perception that he can hear most of these conversations echoing here. And is meditating on how complex and broken the centuries of history are between this being held here, and all of us, and where we are today, and appreciating how complicated this conflict is, and how so many people have their reasons for their choices. But in the end, all I can think about what was taken from me- the people that I hold most dear- in the name of philosophy, or ideology, or whatever you want to call it. The last few days, I've been, lost my footing and struggling with it. Sitting here on the stone, I know that we're going to try to kill the people who took from me, didn't care who died to get what they wanted. And I'll just fucking die trying, if I have to.
UTKARSH: (clears throat) A little ways from where Bor'Dor died, on the ground, you can see a sketch photo of a mother, a father, and two boys, one of whom is younger, and who's clearly Bor'Dor.
MATT: Mm-hmm.
AIMEE: Oh. When Deni$e sees it. So should I? Digs a little hole next to the hole. Folds it, puts it in there, and I think she puts the dagger in, too, because it was his mom's.
MATT: Okay.
AIMEE: And covers it up. Puts another rock on it.
MATT: An evening of tense reflection, small conversation, exhaustion, and perhaps, renewed hope in some healthy returns in the morning to come guides you to some modicum of sleep through the night. As the morning comes and the temperature of the cavern itself warms, you all begin to rouse yourselves. You eat your meals. And within time, Hevestro emerges from his chambers as well. His vestments cleaned, himself put together, more so than you previously encountered him. A wave of renewed health to his body. "Well, friends, please do let me know when you're ready, and I will set you on the next length of your respective journeys."
TALIESIN: Do you mind if, I don't know, if I grab a little bit of this crystal before we go? I don't know, it kind of calls to me. In a way.
MATT: He'll close his eyes for a second. "You have permission."
UTKARSH: (chuckles)
TALIESIN: Be right back.
EMILY: Will you grab a little for me? (laughter)
TALIESIN: Come on, come on.
EMILY: (sighs) Feels good to feel curious, right?
TALIESIN: Yeah, you're good at curious.
EMILY: Ashton, um, actually maybe I can talk to you? Dynios, you should come out for this, too.
MATT: "Ah, yes, what is it you'll require?"
EMILY: Um, I've been thinking about how I don't want to go back to the Cobalt Soul. I've been thinking about how, well, this feels really weird to talk about now after what happened last night. That kind of derailed everything that I've been thinking. But I was thinking, Dynios, that you and I, I mean, communication is disrupted. No one knows that we're not mages of the Cobalt Soul. We could use that to gain an audience somewhere to get access to new books, more esoteric tomes.
MATT: "Are you suggesting that we abscond from our duties of the Cobalt Soul and go missing to the larger interests of our entire organization?"
EMILY: I'm asking, Dynios, if you want to be outstanding. An outstanding loan from the library of the Cobalt Soul.
TALIESIN: Ooh.
MATT: "Sometimes books that are checked out just don't get returned to the repository. A shame."
AIMEE: Oh, what a daddy.
UTKARSH, EMILY, and MARISHA: (laugh)
EMILY: Okay, so I have Dynios' approval. Do you think it's okay? I don't know where we'll go. Obviously, Dynios, wherever you want to go. We could go back to Vasselheim. We could. Do you think that's wrong? Because right now, I'm really questioning my own morality.
TALIESIN: Boy. Boy, I think you might be asking the wrong person about that.
EMILY: I know. I think that's why I'm asking, honestly. I think that's why I questioned you.
MATT: (laughs)
EMILY: Because you feel like a sick fuck who's going to egg me on.
MARISHA: Yeah! (laughs)
TALIESIN: I--
EMILY: And I want to be egged on! (laughter)
EMILY: Come on, you sick fuck, egg me on! Egg me on!
TALIESIN: Here's the fucking deal.
EMILY: Uh-huh.
TALIESIN: The thing you just felt last night, you will feel that again, and it will not feel better.
EMILY: Yeah.
TALIESIN: More adventures end this way than the other way. Pretty fucking good at this. And you impress. And I think, maybe, if you try not quite as fucking hard to be someone else, I think this is not a good way to run from yourself. But I don't think you have to. Just be a criminal nerd. You are clearly good at being a criminal, and definitely a nerd.
EMILY: (laughs)
TALIESIN: And yeah, I think it's a good idea. I'd do it. You're asking me? I'd fucking do it. I've done worse.
EMILY: Okay.
TALIESIN: And yeah, I think you'd be pretty good at it.
EMILY: Thank you. All right, Dynios.
MATT: "Where's somewhere you haven't been but you want to see?"
EMILY: Really, the only places I've been are the Shadow Realm, Emon, and here.
TALIESIN: Mm.
EMILY: So I'll go anywhere that you think that there's, you know, scripts that need decoding, and knowledge that's being hoarded.
TALIESIN: Actually, we just got back from Whitestone, which was very nice and had a library, and the Lord of Whitestone is a total dick, so if you stole a bunch of shit from him, that'd be amazing.
EMILY: Do you think that's he's got salacious secret magics, and--
TALIESIN: Oh yeah.
EMILY: -- cosmological secrets stored on leather vellum?
TALIESIN: Oh, he's such a paranoid prick, I have no doubt.
MATT: "Is he extremely powerful and dangerous? A renowned mage through the ages?"
TALIESIN: I guess. Yeah, sure. I don't know, he's an asshole. Yes. I mean, he's-- yeah, sure.
MATT: "I don't believe him."
TALIESIN: Go check it out.
MATT: "Perfect."
EMILY: (laughs) Okay. Then we'll do that.
MATT: "Very well."
TALIESIN: Make some problems over there, that'd be fun.
AIMEE: Also, if you want to really see the pit of humanity, how about going to Kymal for a little bit? That's where I'm from.
MATT: As Deni$e kind of bursts into this conversation.
TALIESIN: I'm into it.
EMILY: What's Kymal like?
AIMEE: Oh, that's where I'm from. It's the pit of humanity and existence. You want to really get down and dirty? And no one's going to question shit in Kymal.
TALIESIN: Now I want to go to Kymal.
EMILY: What do you think about that, Dynios?
MATT: "Well, Kymal is not terribly far from Whitestone, and this is all upon Tal'Dorei. From what I understand, Kymal is quite the moral-less den of sin, and I am intrigued."
AIMEE: Oh yeah. You could wet your whistle and do a little magic.
EMILY: Wet my whistle.
AIMEE: (laughs)
EMILY: All right, Dynios, let's go wet our whistles.
AIMEE: (attempted whistle blowing)
MATT: "Very well."
EMILY: (laughs) Okay, thank you. Thank you. That's good, then.
TALIESIN: I look forward to hearing people cursing your fucking name.
EMILY: That's cool.
TALIESIN: Yeah.
AIMEE: "Prism, that bitch!" (laughter)
AIMEE: "That badass!"
EMILY: You know what? You were saying, "Don't run from yourself," but right now, I think I'm running to myself.
TALIESIN: That's what I'm talking about.
EMILY: Yeah. Little b-- Yeah. Fuck yeah. All right, I smush Dynios back into the book, and clutch him lovingly.
MATT: "(groans)"
EMILY: We're going on an adventure.
MATT: "(garbled muttering)"
MARISHA and EMILY: (laugh)
TALIESIN: What's the plan, Deni$e?
AIMEE: Oh.
LIAM: You going to go find our guy?
AIMEE: Yeah. I'm going to go find my guy.
TALIESIN: Kick his fucking ass.
AIMEE: Yeah, that too.
TALIESIN: He don't deserve you.
LIAM: Where you going to start when you get there?
AIMEE: Ah, I might go back to Emon. I mean, I was being chased down by, you know, some local whatevers. Maybe they got shunted off, too, so maybe I'll have more luck, but good place to start, assuming he's still there.
EMILY: Would you want me to scry on him one more time?
AIMEE: Sure.
EMILY: To try and find out?
AIMEE: I would love that. But I don't want to like mess up your slots or whatever. I don't know how magic works. (laughter)
EMILY: You would be messing up my slots, yeah, but I mean, I think it's--
AIMEE: You're not going to use them today?
EMILY: No.
AIMEE: Okay, sure. Is there a way that Hevestro could see this and have an idea of where this person is? Because I may be shooting off to Tal'Dorei, and maybe he's somewhere else. Middle of nowhere.
MATT: It depends. You got to gauge from the scry where he might be.
AIMEE: Yeah.
MATT: And then ask for a tree that is close to the location.
AIMEE: Okay. If he's in a city.
EMILY: Tree Stride.
AIMEE: Fuck. Okay, well.
TALIESIN: Trees have a city. Cities have trees.
AIMEE: Yeah, okay.
MATT: Trees do have cities.
TALIESIN: Lots of trees have cities.
AIMEE: Sure.
EMILY: I mean, a lot of local flora--
MATT: Trees need cities to live.
EMILY: -- that might be away.
MARISHA: (laughs)
AIMEE: Oh, yeah! Like a plant store?
EMILY: Yeah.
AIMEE: Shoot me into a ficus tree? Sure. And I give you the little tuft of hair.
EMILY: Okay.
AIMEE: You know what? I have other facets to my personality other than this guy. I'm not just about this guy.
TALIESIN: Aight.
MARISHA: We know.
EMILY: Yeah.
LIAM: I've seen it in action.
AIMEE: All right.
MARISHA and EMILY: (laugh)
EMILY: Can we scry one more time on Deni$e's ex?
MATT: Indeed.
AIMEE: Matt's like, "Please don't."
MATT: Indeed.
LIAM: Scry this guy.
AIMEE: "Don't."
MATT: You focus on this and feel your consciousness drifted above where you stand, pulled off into a cloudy liminal space, and then traversing the wide skies of Exandria until you feel yourself plucked down from that aerial perspective, and then jettisoned down through a roof.
AIMEE: Oh no.
MATT: Into a low-lit, somewhat noisy interior. You see there are patrons around, though a bit blurred for detail. There are servers rushing by. It's a mid-afternoon bustling tavern of some kind. And there you see, sitting at a table with a half-eaten plate of potatoes and meats and some greens that haven't been touched and pushed off to the side of the plate.
EMILY: He needs to eat his greens.
MATT: Sitting like a petulant child, hand grabbing the outside of a mug, just looking off into space. A heavy sigh. The man that she's been talking about.
EMILY: Do I see any distinctive flora or fauna?
AIMEE: Is there a tree in the tavern? (laughs)
MATT: Not around here, but make a--
EMILY: Like a certain mouse in the corner that--
MATT: Make a perception check for me, if you don't mind.
AIMEE: Yes.
EMILY: Come on, girl.
AIMEE: Come on, girl!
MARISHA: Ooh.
AIMEE: No, come on, girl!
EMILY: That's going to be a six.
MATT: A six. No flora or fauna, especially large enough to do this in here.
AIMEE: Can you imagine?
MARISHA and EMILY: (laugh)
MARISHA: You come out of a tree.
AIMEE: Yeah.
MARISHA: You're on the table.
AIMEE: "Just excuse me."
MARISHA: Yeah.
MATT and MARISHA: (laugh)
AIMEE: Table's made of wood.
MATT: You do, however, I'll say for the fun of it, because as you're tracking down through the scry, you get a sense of the tavern he's within, the space, this is central Tal'Dorei.
AIMEE: Hmm.
MATT: And you know, as part of central Tal'Dorei, bustling towns and taverns, as they might be of this size, this is likely Westruun.
AIMEE: Oh, he's back in fucking Westruun?
MATT: Mm-hmm.
AIMEE: Okay.
LIAM: This is something like Prism sees the image? I can't remember.
MATT: Correct.
EMILY: Oh, yeah, but I'm--
AIMEE: You tell me.
LIAM: Imparting, sure.
AIMEE: It's like that "Pootie Tang" movie where it's like, "I was so sorry." He's like, "I'm so sorry."
EMILY: I fucking see--
MATT: I love you dropping the "Pootie Tang." That is amazing.
AIMEE: "Pootie Tang."
EMILY: So old.
MATT: It's so good.
EMILY: Okay. Yeah, but I'm communicating. I'm saying it all as it's happening.
LIAM: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Absolutely.
AIMEE: And I say thank you so much.
EMILY: Of course.
AIMEE: Do you see any bitches with him?
MARISHA and MATT: (laugh)
EMILY: No, in fact, did I see anyone with him?
LIAM: Yeah, was there anybody with him?
MATT: At the table with him?
EMILY: Mm-hmm.
MATT: No.
AIMEE: Hm.
EMILY: He was eating by himself.
AIMEE: He was eating by himself?
EMILY: By himself.
AIMEE: Oh, that's really sad.
TALIESIN: That's so sad.
LIAM: You know that--
EMILY: It's kind of cute.
LIAM: -- reminds me, actually, hold on. This is probably not going to work. I pull out one of my two sending stones.
AIMEE: Aw. I was going to ask you if you wanted to say something to him.
LIAM: Well, and this is not going to get ahold of Dariax, but sometimes they run together. Um. Dorian. Still alive. By the skin of our teeth. Want to talk more. You know where Dariax is?
MATT: Roll a d100 for me.
AIMEE: Ooh!
MARISHA: Oh boy.
AIMEE: Oh!
MARISHA: A one in 100 chance here.
TALIESIN: Yeah, never use those, do we?
LIAM: 63.
MATT: 63. As the speech leaves your lips, the final words escape, you feel that staticky vibration feedback within the stone. It shakes in your grasp and your ears begin to feel that (hissing) before it fades. You're uncertain if it found its destination, and there's no response.
LIAM: Just going to thumb the stone for a second and then put it away.
AIMEE: Do you want me to tell him it? Oh, by the way! She pulls out like a-- At some point, in looking for Dariax in the last however many months, she kept seeing wanted ads.
MATT: Mm-hmm.
AIMEE: -- for the Crown Keepers everywhere after they fled or were on the run from the Nameless Ones, I think it was.
MATT: Yeah.
AIMEE: And so she pulls out--
MATT: They left a splash in Kymal, definitely.
AIMEE: Yeah. Um, look! This is you, right? And it's a picture of all of them, but really, I just want to show you my sticker. But look, that's you, right? You look so cute there! (laughter)
AIMEE: But why are they calling you Nancy?
LIAM: Where did you get that?
AIMEE: Oh, I got it in, I don't know, somewhere on Tal'Dorei. Everyone's looking for you.
LIAM: Everyone?!
TALIESIN: You're famous!
AIMEE: Yeah! Well, like, the mob.
TALIESIN: You're special famous.
LIAM: Hi, Poska.
AIMEE: Oh, yeah. Yeah, I heard about her. Anyway, you look really cute in that picture. I meant to show you that before.
LIAM: Boyish good looks. Um, shit.
AIMEE: And Dorian's in that picture, too.
LIAM: I--
AIMEE: That's a guy. The other guy.
LIAM: Good guy.
AIMEE: Blue guy.
TALIESIN: He's a lot.
LIAM: Good blue guy.
AIMEE: Now do you want me to say anything? I mean, assuming this works, would you like me to relay a message?
LIAM: I mean, tell him everything that happened if you find them.
AIMEE: Okay.
LIAM: (sighs) Tell him we miss him.
AIMEE: Now who do you miss? Dariax or Dorian?
LIAM: Well--
AIMEE: I think they're together.
LIAM: All of them.
AIMEE: Oh, okay.
TALIESIN: Dariax.
MARISHA: Dorian. (laughter)
LIAM: All of them, all of them.
AIMEE: All right.
LIAM: Do you-- This is presumptuous. Do you want that flyer?
AIMEE: Oh, you want it? No, I know what he looks like. You can keep it.
LIAM: Hm.
AIMEE: But why are they calling you Nancy?
LIAM: I don't know. (laughter)
TALIESIN: His name was Miguel. (laughs)
AIMEE: (laughs) McGill? Or Miguel?
TALIESIN: Miguel. We called him Will. Anyway.
MARISHA: Deni$e, it was truly a pleasure.
AIMEE: It was a pleasure meeting you.
MARISHA: You're a good one.
AIMEE: Thank you, you too.
MARISHA: Thank you for not betraying us.
AIMEE: Oh.
EMILY: Yeah.
AIMEE: Never.
EMILY: Yeah, so--
AIMEE: I'm so fucking loyal to a fault.
EMILY: That's actually good, actually. Before we all depart, the rest of this was real, right? Like, I can feel like this was a real human experience beyond my books?
TALIESIN: Oh, I was like, "Are you going to wake up in a field?" Like suddenly from a strange dream filled with weird psychedelic plants or something?
MARISHA: "And you were there, and you were there."
EMILY: No, I'm not asking if it's a dream, I just have been--
LIAM: If we were all fucking with you, too?
EMILY: Yes, I just--
TALIESIN: Oh.
EMILY: I've been in cloistered academia for so long, and just really haven't been around a lot of people, and this just felt like really fun and exciting, and like, kind of like, you know, like friends or whatever, and so I just was making sure that the rest of you didn't have hidden agendas like Bor'Dor. Can I walk away from this experience feeling like something happened?
AIMEE: Yeah.
MARISHA: If Deni$e is loyal to a fault, I'm often trusting to a fault.
TALIESIN: Everybody's got an agenda, but no, everything here was great.
EMILY: Everything else is real. Great.
AIMEE: Yeah.
EMILY: That's a comfort.
AIMEE: Now, do you guys want all this shit? And she pulls Bor'Dor's shit out.
MARISHA: Oh yeah!
AIMEE: We got a cloak, we got an immovable rod, we got a slingshot.
TALIESIN: What happened to the knife?
AIMEE: Oh, I put that back. It didn't feel right. It was his mother's.
TALIESIN: Oh, that's fair.
UTKARSH: Blueberry jerky.
TALIESIN: Fair.
AIMEE: Blueberry jerky.
TALIESIN: Now, I feel really bad eating the blueberry jerky. That actually weighs heavily on me now. God, it was really good, though.
LIAM: Poke.
MARISHA: I just want the slingshot.
TALIESIN: There was a ring and a rod.
AIMEE: There was a ring. What was the ring?
EMILY: Ring of Protection.
AIMEE: Ring of Protection.
MATT: Technically, it was supposed to be just a cloak, but yeah.
UTKARSH: Oh really?
MATT: It's all good.
AIMEE: Well, what about the Immovable Rod?
MATT: Yeah, the rod.
TALIESIN: I'll take the rod.
AIMEE: You want the rod?
TALIESIN: I got plans.
MATT: And the hat which is more of a bandana.
AIMEE: Hey, you look good in a hat.
LIAM: Really?
AIMEE: Yeah.
EMILY: Oh yeah, for sure.
LIAM: What kind of hat?
AIMEE: Well, it's a hat of disguise.
LIAM: I tie it on my head.
TALIESIN: Everyone looks good in it, technically. (laughter)
AIMEE: Fits his tiny little head perfectly.
LIAM: A tricorner hat appears. Like this?
AIMEE: Oh, that's so cute.
TALIESIN: It is a look.
EMILY: That's really cute.
LIAM: I feel like the aerodynamics might not be a good thing.
AIMEE: Unless you want the cloak.
EMILY: You're pretty aerodynamic, though, I saw you use Mother as a glider.
LIAM: This is going to fly off my head, is what I'm saying.
EMILY: True, fair.
AIMEE: What if we make it a little Bo Peep thingy?
EMILY: Yeah, give you a little chin strap. Let's put a chin strap on the tricorner hat. (laughter)
TALIESIN: So we've got the... I mean, if you're getting rid of everything, we got the slingshot, cloak, and maybe the hat goes that way if you're going to be super spy.
EMILY: Oh, I don't need a parting gift, don't worry about me. Fine, I'll take the hat, fine, I'll take the hat. It's also a tricorn hat, but now it has a chin strap. (laughter)
EMILY: As it was meant to be! What Orym didn't have the guts to do. (laughter)
TALIESIN: Did it turn into another beret, on top of the currently existing beret? Are you double bereting it? Okay.
EMILY: Quite literally a hat on a hat.
MARISHA: Hat on a hat, yeah.
AIMEE: Hat on a hat. (laughter)
MATT: Perfect.
EMILY: (laughs)
AIMEE: Good.
MARISHA: It truly was just an honor and a pleasure to meet all of you. Even Bor'Dor, honestly.
TALIESIN: Yeah.
AIMEE: I'll go over and give Laudna a kiss on the cheek, and then push her in my bosom. You know, this comforts a lot of people.
LIAM: Bend way down.
AIMEE: You're going to be fine.
MARISHA: It is warm.
AIMEE: Listen, listen, you're going to be fine.
TALIESIN: Tree in a hurricane right now.
AIMEE: Trust your instincts.
MARISHA: All right.
AIMEE: They're good instincts. Don't second guess yourself.
MARISHA: Okay.
AIMEE: You're doing great.
MARISHA: All right.
AIMEE: All right. Nice to see you.
MARISHA: Nice to see you, too.
AIMEE: Lots of love.
MARISHA: She smells like lemongrass, ooh. (laughter)
AIMEE: She would. Okay, gives Orym a little peck. Gives Ashton a little peck.
TALIESIN: Yeah.
AIMEE: Okay, I'm ready.
MATT: (Hevestro) "Well, let us--"
MARISHA: Trust falling in? (laughter)
TALIESIN: It's like the water slide fall when you're in the tube.
MATT: "Let us find the proper tree then."
AIMEE: Oh, okay.
TALIESIN: Yeah, we got to find a tree.
LIAM: Last chance to throw everything away. Come with us, fight impossible odds, save the world.
EMILY: Where are you going?
AIMEE: Oh.
LIAM: Well, we're going to start in Marquet.
EMILY: Dynios, come back out.
MATT: "Yes, yes, quite."
EMILY: What do you think about Marquet?
MATT: "Marquet is a very unique land of which has a storied history of natural disasters, changes, glorious societies, quite a bit of magic and mischief. It was a very unique place."
EMILY: God, everywhere sounds fantastic. You know what, I'm just going to go dealer's choice.
AIMEE: What does that mean?
EMILY: It means I just let them teleport me wherever.
TALIESIN: No, I'm into that, that's fucking great.
AIMEE: Hey, I got a deck of cards.
TALIESIN: Big win.
EMILY: Dynios, We're just going to go crazy, and just dealer's choice, let the elf send us where he may.
MATT: "That is atrocious. What is wrong with you?" (laughter)
MATT: "But so be it!"
EMILY: I'm wearing two hats and I don't give a shit. (laughter) (laughter)
MATT: All right. As you are guided out of the Shrine of the Emerald Tree by Hevestro, the large, hill-like creature that seems to be guarding the nearby water, shifts on approach and Hevestro raises a hand up and the creature lays low, docile, and leaves you all to pass by. In the middle of this beautiful clear day, you can hear the birds and the trees, here, nature thrives, untouched by most of civilization and to a certain degree, from what you've seen, untouched by the meddling of gods and powers that try and maneuver and change the world around them. With his help, there's a hidden path up the crevasse, and as you all step to the edge of the north-side cliff, all manner of large trees sit at the ready. Hevestro turns. "Who would like to travel first?"
AIMEE: Maybe send this one over just to make sure it's safe. Sorry.
EMILY: What?
AIMEE: Maybe you should go first.
EMILY: Why?
AIMEE: I just want to make sure if you die, I don't. (laughter)
EMILY: I'm the canary in the teleportation?
AIMEE: Yeah. (laughter)
EMILY: You know what? I think I've gained enough confidence in the past couple days to say no. (laughter)
AIMEE: All right, to Westruun.
MATT: "To Westruun, Tal'Dorei."
LIAM: (zapping)
MATT: Yeah. (laughter)
AIMEE: Oh shit! Just me and Bor'Dor just: Hey, how'd it go for you?
MATT: He grasps his staff.
UTKARSH: Yeesh. Sucks, right? (laughter)
UTKARSH: Yikes.
AIMEE: Guess it was my fault.
MATT: You can see these runic protection sigils along the side of the staff glow almost like showing the amount of magic that it holds. You watch as some of them go dark, expending some of the power within, and he opens his eyes and reaches forward towards the nearest tree. You watch as the center of it tears open into a glowing, green portal, the energy encircling the outside of the bark. Beyond that, you can see there's a few feet of striated wood, the interior of a tree, and it opens up on the opposite end, like a secondary doorway beyond a long hall. There you see a beautiful little park, surrounded by benches and stone walls and buildings beyond that with beautiful stonework, and curled thatched roof edges and high towers in the distance. You see a rising hill with a tower in the distance and you hear the faint sounds of some sort of a bell gonging. Children run through the park and stop playing and turn and look at this and go, "Wow!" Hevestro gestures to you.
AIMEE: All right, bye, guys. Dari--
EMILY: Wait, before you do! I'm going to grab a piece of hair so I can scry on you.
AIMEE: Oh! (laughter)
LIAM: Just as she's running by?
EMILY: So I can keep in touch!
AIMEE: Oh, wait, maybe you should scry on their friends so they know where they're going. Bye! Dariax, wait up!
LIAM: Keep slaying!
AIMEE: I will!
MATT: You watch Deni$e rush through the portal as it...
AIMEE: Just titties like--
MARISHA: Yes, yeah! Boob physics, yes! (laughter)
MATT: As it closes behind and she is on her path.
AIMEE: Yes.
MATT: "Who wishes to travel next? I have maybe two more of these at most."
MARISHA: Are you able to scry again?
EMILY: Have I taken an arcane recovery?
MATT: If you want to take a short rest since then, you can, yeah.
EMILY: I'll take my short rest.
TALIESIN: Arcane recovery.
EMILY: Why yes, I am able to scry again.
MARISHA: I take off one of the rings that Imogen gave me to see if we can scry things. Thanks, dead Bor'Dor. (laughter)
AIMEE and MARISHA: The ghost of Bor'Dor--
AIMEE: -- is now your friend!
UTKARSH: Well, you sucked me up into you.
MARISHA: That's true. Oh man, maybe you'll get to meet Delilah. (laughter)
AIMEE: What? Who's Delilah?
TALIESIN: He's going to be hanging on your tree.
MARISHA: Yeah. (groaning)
MATT: So.
TALIESIN: Dark.
EMILY: Looking at your friends. Oh, I'm scrying, this is me scrying. Was that not clear?
MATT: No, I figured as such.
MARISHA: As Matt just stares blankly at you.
MATT: It's good you scryed now, if you had scryed later last night, you may have seen something you may not have wanted to.
AIMEE: Oh shit. Yeah.
MARISHA: Yeah.
MATT: As you focus, you feel yourself pulled from your physical form, jettisoned past the sky stratosphere of Exandria, and then dropped down into a temperate jungled region. A massive, wide canyon surrounded by mountain ranges and lush jungle for hundreds of miles. Here, you see a city of carved stone spires standing up, five of them, surrounded by city built into them, an intricate metropolis constructed around these rising, tower-like pillars of rock. You can see the bustling landscape of people and there, in a torch-lit tavern inn interior, you see the figures that you saw scryed on once before, gathered around in conversation with a bit of anxiety and hope in their eyes.
MARISHA: They went back to where it all started.
TALIESIN: Back home.
EMILY: Is this where you thought you were going?
TALIESIN: No.
AIMEE: Good thing you scryed.
MARISHA: Mm-hmm. To Jrusar, then?
TALIESIN: Yeah. Come on, family. Let's go get the rest of the kids.
LIAM: You're going to bring up the rear?
EMILY: To Jrusar?
LIAM: Well, last to go, you're welcome to come. You're very talented, we could use it.
TALIESIN: I actually kind of want to see where you're heading.
EMILY: You want to see where I'm going?
TALIESIN: Yeah. I'm actually, at this point, I'm going to pull off a piece, just one of the pieces of my jewelry, just one of my bullshit rings and just: So if you ever want to check in.
EMILY: Thank you.
EMILY: May I have a piece of hair or a nail clipping?
LIAM: They're really short.
TALIESIN: Actually, if you want hair instead of that?
MATT: Not creepy at all.
EMILY: Ding!
TALIESIN: Pull a piece of amethyst off.
EMILY: If it's not too invasive, it's just how I think I'll be able to keep--
MARISHA: A whole clump of hair falls out. (laughter)
AIMEE: Oh no.
EMILY: Wow, this is going to get its own Ziploc bag. (laughter)
EMILY: Yeah, yeah, you're right.
TALIESIN: Constantly shredding it.
EMILY: Okay, then I guess I can go next. Dynios, you should be out for this.
MATT: "Yes, where are we off to?"
EMILY: I don't know. Marquet or Whiterun, or where do you think?
TALIESIN: (laughs) Whitestone.
EMILY: Whitestone?
MARISHA: There's a lot of--
AIMEE: Kymal.
TALIESIN: Westruun.
LIAM: Westruun.
MARISHA: Kymal.
TALIESIN: Westruun. There's a lot of Ws.
TALIESIN: Yeah.
MATT: "Look, I'm unfortunately tethered to you for some time to come. I do not think I'm allowed to make these decisions."
EMILY: Okay, then let's go to Marquet.
MATT: "Very well."
EMILY: That's kind of the heart of where all this is happening, right?
MATT: "From what we've heard, yes."
TALIESIN: More or less.
EMILY: I'm feeling drawn to danger; let's do that.
MATT: "Very well," as Hevestro goes, "Then that would be the rest of you to Jrusar, you said?"
TALIESIN: Yeah.
MATT: Closes his eyes, lifts the staff and the remaining glowing sigils on the staff deplete. Opens his eyes, the flash of green energy and then when he extends his hand, the tree once more tears open and that entryway appears. You can see that same hallway of striated, darkened wood, the green glow permeating throughout, and then the opposite side as the door opens. You see a garden that sits on the precipice of a stone outcropping with a beautifully-carved wall on the exterior. It is high in the air, Prism, it is a quarter mile, it seems almost, high in the air, with a view of the jungle far below. You're uncertain quite how tall, but it is dizzying for a moment as you see birds flying in the sky above. It's elevated in ways you weren't expecting, and from this garden, it travels off into a main road that leads into a vibrant city alongside a mountain spire.
EMILY: I think I'm going to take a page from the Orym playbook and I'm going to Enlarge Mother and try and hang glide in. (laughter)
MATT: "(screeching)" She just coasts into it. (laughter)
AIMEE: Someone arrest that bitch! (laughter)
AIMEE: Call the cops!
MATT: Hevestro stands there, sweating a bit. "I can only hold this for a moment, please do hurry."
MARISHA: Go, go, go, go.
EMILY: Oh shit, sorry, I thought this was mine! (laughter)
MARISHA: It's all of us.
LIAM: (quick footsteps)
TALIESIN: Yep.
MATT: So all four of you rush through and it closes behind. There, at the exterior of this tree, Hevestro nods. Takes a deep breath, holds a hand up as some leaves tumble forth and land in his fingers. Rubs it in his fingers. "Everything's changing." He turns and walks away. As the memory of Bor'Dor, are there any final words you'd like to leave on the wind here in Issylra?
UTKARSH: I think I'm at peace. I'm with my family again.
MATT: With that memory left, both echoing in the memories of those you traveled with, with the one you saved, you're put to your rest here in the mountain, away from the gods, under the watch of the guardian spirits that first crafted this world. And that's where we're going to go ahead and end the episode.
AIMEE: (gasps)
TALIESIN: Ooh.
AIMEE: Ooh!
MARISHA: (sobbing)
MATT: My goodness.
TALIESIN: Shit got dark. Fuck off, motherfucker.
MATT: Yeah, it did!
EMILY: That was so funny.
MARISHA: I'm getting teary.
UTKARSH: I was waiting until we were going to go through.
AIMEE: Oh, I'm sorry. (laughter)
EMILY: Wait, you were going to kill us on the way through?!
UTKARSH: Yes!
AIMEE: Oh my god! Then I'm not sorry!
UTKARSH: Not kill you. There's no way I could've killed you.
TALIESIN: (uncertain noises)
UTKARSH: But, at least, you know, a little dramatic--
AIMEE: You cast a Fireball at us. You little shit.
UTKARSH: What's it called? Vitriolic Sphere.
AIMEE: Yeah, that shit would've burned.
EMILY: (laughs)
TALIESIN: That's a rough one.
UTKARSH: It would've hurt. That was fun, though.
MATT: That was awesome!
LIAM: That was amazing!
MATT: Utkarsh, well fucking done, man.
MARISHA: Well fucking played.
UTKARSH: I thought about begging for my life, and then I was like, "Just let it go."
LIAM: So, so well played. All three were fucking great guests.
MATT: Seriously.
TALIESIN: So much fucking fun.
EMILY: Thank you.
MATT: Thank you so much for joining us, friends.
AIMEE: Thanks for having us.
TALIESIN: Scarred for life, scarred for life.
LIAM: I have one lingering question. When Prism paraglided to the door, did she keep going off the balcony over the edge and total Link, just glide down half a mile?
EMILY: I thought we were going to two different places, so I thought I was just going to paraglide and it would close up behind me.
AIMEE: Well you definitely did end up going in two different places for fucking sure.
MARISHA: We start the next episode with like, "And Prism falls to her death."
AIMEE: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
MATT: I mean, yeah.
TALIESIN: Burn bright.
MATT: We'll see how we start the next episode, because they're coming in quickly behind you. I mean, you do have a bit of runway before you go off the edge. So I guess think about what you're going to do when we jump in next time.
LIAM: You know, you just do that thing where you drop for 500 feet and put it up and then drop.
MARISHA: Yeah, yeah.
MATT: (whooshes)
AIMEE: Mother, Mother! Help!
MATT: Well, we'll start the next episode to close your story, if we can have you for that. Aimee, you were incredible.
MARISHA: Aimee!
AIMEE: Thanks, guys. Thanks so much for having me.
MARISHA: Deni$e legendary.
LIAM: With the dollar sign.
AIMEE: Deni$e with the dollar sign.
LIAM: Whatever that is.
AIMEE: Whatever that is.
MATT: It's a dwarven currency.
AIMEE: Yeah, we're really ahead of our time.
TALIESIN: It's Dol'ar, yeah.
MARISHA: Dol'ar. Dol'ar.
TALIESIN: Dol'ar, yeah. (laughter)
MATT: Aw, you're incredible. Thank you so much for joining us.
AIMEE: I'll come any time.
UTKARSH: For real.
MATT: Utkarsh.
MARISHA: Utkarsh! (applauding)
UTKARSH: Super fun.
MATT: So much fun, thank you for joining us. Thank you for going the route rarely chosen.
AIMEE: Yes.
MARISHA: Yeah.
UTKARSH: Oh yeah.
EMILY: Thanks for covering me in acid and killing me.
MARISHA: You played dumb so well. I've never seen anyone play dumb like that.
UTKARSH: Well, my wife says the same thing. (laughter)
TALIESIN: I have private questions.
MATT: Well, that's what "4-Sided Dive" is for.
MARISHA: "4-Sided Dive."
MATT: I'd say the moment you used your movement in your first round of combat to just lay down, I was like, "This is going to be something special."
AIMEE and MARISHA: Yeah.
EMILY: Yeah.
UTKARSH: It took a while.
TALIESIN: His first action was trying to kill one of us.
AIMEE: Yeah, that's true, we should have known.
MATT: Yeah, out of the gate.
MARISHA: That's true.
TALIESIN: Aw!
MATT: Well...
LIAM: Good stuff.
MATT: Very, very good.
MARISHA: Good stuff.
MATT: We'll pick up from there next time. Once again, one final thank you for all of our guests. Thank you for joining us, we love you very much, and is it Thursday yet?
LIAM: No.
MATT: Good night.
AIMEE: No!
UTKARSH: (laughs)