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: (enthusiastically garbled)
TRAVIS: (high-pitched) Dungeons & Dragons!
MATT: There it is. Before we jump into tonight's episode, we do have some announcements to get through real fast, beginning with our sponsor of tonight, SINK!. (cheering)
MATT: A brand new fifth edition supplement created by our very dear friends Johnny Stanton, Sam Rusk, and Rick Esquivias. I got it right.
MARISHA: Yes! In partnership with Hit Point Press. Sam!
TRAVIS: (laughs)
SAM: Thank you for the touch base, Mr. Mercer. Time to circle back and move the needle on today's agenda. Now to illustrate the benefits of SINK! Adventures of the Caldereach Sea, I've in-sourced a dynamic PowerPoint presentation.
LAURA: Wow.
TRAVIS: Oh my god.
SAM: First slide.
LIAM: Cool.
SAM: According to the boys down in R&D, SINK! is the ultimate pirate and tattoo supplement book for 5e. It launched on Kickstarter two days ago and as you'll see from this pie chart, it will dazzle RPG fans--
ASHLEY: Whoa, cool!
SAM: -- and shareholders. (laughter)
MATT: That's pretty cool.
SAM: Market research tells us that the book features a thrilling archipelago campaign setting, a level three to 10 adventure, new mechanics, subclasses, and magic item tattoos. Now let's drill down to the balance sheets, shall we?
MATT: Sorry, Sam. Why are you doing it like this, though?
SAM: Don't micromanage me, Matt. We're on the bleeding edge here! SINK! is filled with illustrations rendered in stunning pop traditional tattoo art by Sam Rusk, whose art appears in our pre-roll footage and-- Oh, is this the next slide? Nope, it's not. It's not. (laughter) -- and the famous Loot his Corpse, Taste-- Take his Vest illustration.
MATT: You can taste my vest too, if you want.
SAM: These KPIs really leverage her core competency.
MATT: Sorry, I legitimately just don't understand why you're trying to sound like a businessman.
SAM: I've talked B2B, now let's talk B2C and run this up the flagpole.
ASHLEY: (groans) This guy.
LAURA: No!
SAM: SINK! has four brand new subclasses.
TRAVIS: Slug classes. (laughter)
SAM: More than--
ASHLEY: Whoa! These are so cool.
SAM: They are.
TALIESIN: Ooh.
SAM: More than 50 magic item tattoos.
ALL: Ooh.
SAM: A soul link hit die mechanic, modular dungeons, feats, backgrounds, spells-- Oh, I should have done that slide before. (laughter)
SAM: -- and of course, synergy. (laughter)
MATT: The Papyrus font?
ASHLEY: Papyrus! (laughter)
TRAVIS: Papyrus!
MATT: Stop, stop. Sam, this is-- I'm begging you, please. This is a pirate book. Could you please maybe try it as a pirate character?
SAM: I am, Matt, because corporations are the modern day pirates.
MARISHA: (groans)
MATT: I mean--
SAM: That's right. Skulls and crossbones have been replaced by mergers and acquisitions, and you and you and you and you are all part of the problem.
TRAVIS: Am not.
SAM: The next slide shows you how capitalist greed has corrupted your soul, and the only way to save the working class is by burning it all down.
ASHLEY: Whoa!
LAURA: Puppies!
MATT: This slide?
TALIESIN: Yeah, no.
SAM: That is the wrong slide. (laughter)
SAM: This slide reminds you to head to sinkrpg.com and find out more, you capitalist pig.
ROBBIE and ASHLEY: (laughs) (sparse applause)
TALIESIN: Seize their means of production.
LAURA: I love the little puppies, though.
MARISHA: Yeah. Beyond that, though, don't forget to check out our SINK! Everything Is Content on Tuesday, September 24th at 7:00pm Pacific Standard Time on Twitch, YouTube, and beacon.tv featuring me--
TRAVIS: Oh.
MARISHA: -- as well as Taliesin Jaffe.
TALIESIN: Yeah.
TRAVIS: Oh!
MARISHA: And of course our besties Johnny, Rick, and Sam.
SAM: Not me. Sam Rusk.
MARISHA: All of the creators of SINK!. It's awesome. A big thanks to the Hit Point Press team and to the SINK! team for sponsoring this episode. It's really fun. We get wet.
TALIESIN: Crazy surprise. Yeah, we do get wet. That's true.
LIAM and LAURA: (laughs)
MARISHA: How is the surprise.
LIAM: Is it, though?
MARISHA: Where is the surprise. You don't know. Matt, SINK! to you. (laughter)
LIAM: (groans)
MATT: This got awesome.
ASHLEY: Noice. (laughter)
TALIESIN: I'm so excited.
TRAVIS: This got awesome.
LAURA: Oh yeah, that is--
LIAM: Ooh.
TALIESIN: Yeah.
LIAM: Wow.
MATT: Also, folks! (laughter)
MATT: Daggerheart, our final... No. What the fuck? (laughter)
MATT: Burn the day! We're done! It's trash! It's garbage! We're done!
ASHLEY: You got it! You got it!
MATT: No, all right.
LIAM: Can we please get a super cut of all these moments someday?
TRAVIS: Taylor will help us out.
MATT: Sorry. So sorry, Taylor. (VCR clanging) (jaunty music)
MATT: Hello, everyone, and welcome to tonight's episode of Critical Role, where a bunch of us dirty... Dirty?
TRAVIS: Dirty?
MATT: A bunch of us--
TRAVIS: Dirty ass voice actors!
MATT: Hello everyone (laughs) (laughter)
LIAM: Yes, keep it in!
LAURA: They're sweaty. They're not sweaty. They're just-- (laughter)
TRAVIS: What the fuck?
MATT: Every pair comes pre-sweated.
TRAVIS: Why would they be sweaty? (laughter)
MATT: Ay-rora. Eye-rora. Aurora. There we go! (laughter)
TRAVIS: Presale for bacon. Beacon. Beacon? For bacon members?
MARISHA: Pocket Beacon.
TRAVIS: Got to keep that pocket Beacon.
LAURA: Welcome to ligalet ligament. (laughs)
SAM: What?
TRAVIS: What?
SAM: What?
LAURA: (gibberish)
MARISHA: Shore back.
TALIESIN: Nope.
MARISHA: Fuck!
TRAVIS: Whoa!
MATT: Sure. (VCR clanging)
MATT: Also, Daggerheart, our fantasy tabletop role playing game from Darrington Press is officially available for preorder!(enthusiastic cheering)
MARISHA: Preorder!
MATT: So, whether you want to sign up a short one shot-- Sign up? Spin up. I can't read.
LAURA: You're doing great, Matt.
MATT: No, I'm not. But I appreciate you. (laughter)
SAM: It's your corporate greed!
MATT: Whether you want to spin up a short one shot or have a long form campaign with rich character development, you'll be playing the game in no time with all the included character cards, resources, and tools at your disposal. The game's main mechanic features its two 12-sided dice. One designates Hope and the other Fear, creating a duality of forces that drives your story forward with every roll. You can preorder Daggerheart in two versions. We have the Daggerheart core set.
TRAVIS: Core Set.
MATT: And the limited edition box set, which features alternate cover art, a GM screen, dice sets, and other exclusive extras for the special package. The full game is slated to release in the spring of 2025. So really, not that far away, y'all.
TRAVIS: Whoa.
MATT: But in the meantime, you can learn more and preorder now at daggerheart.com.
TRAVIS: daggerheart.com.
TALIESIN: Open preorder.
ASHLEY: Oh, I thought he said corset.
LAURA: Oh my gosh.
MARISHA: I love a good core set.
MATT: And I believe with that, we conclude our announcements. So let's go ahead and jump into tonight's episode of--
LAURA: So fast.
MATT: -- Critical Role.
ALL: ♪ 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 ♪
TRAVIS: ♪ From the healer ♪
LIAM: ♪ To the renegade ♪
MATT: ♪ We all share the same goal ♪
TALIESIN and MATT: ♪ 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 crackling)
Part I
MATT: Welcome back. So, last we left off, Bells Hells, after being granted one of the highest responsibilities in the days to come, had intercepted via your mother psychically telling you of a meeting between Ludinus Da'leth, or his a simulacrum, the Sorrowlord Zathuda, and the Unseelie Court in the Fey Realm to shore up and discuss the coming conflicts. You then traveled to the Fey Realm to intercept this communication. You slowly destroyed all the guardians on the outside of the abandoned Arch Heart temple where they were having this meeting, and then stepped in to talk, and then ambushed them. A massive conflict ensued in which the structure of the temple was heavily fractured, and then eventually set to collapse. With the Sorrowlord brought to near death, the emissary left unconscious as well, Ludinus' simulacrum destroyed, and Gloamglut, the fey dragon, escaped through the temple roof as it collapsed. You all rushed to the exterior, with only most of you making it out. However, Imogen and Braius, who were left in the rubble, found themselves protected by some unseen force, and the crumbled temple reassembled itself and called you all into its sanctum. There, the now restored statue of the Arch Heart spoke to you as you were plucked from your current awareness and brought to the Arch Heart's realm into communion with one of the gods of Exandria, the one that you saw in your vision of the fall of Aeor. Here, you conversed. Here, you were asking questions of each other, debating, and then eventually given a surprising message of intent from the Arch Heart. That the god of beauty, art, arcana, and the fey seems to believe that the time of the gods is done and wishes you all to be the harbingers of Predathos' release, to chase the Pantheon away and begin a new age where mortals reign over their future. As that vision came to a close, you all found yourself set back into the sanctum of this temple, this Shrine of Gilded Gifts. as you still process the moments that have just transpired, you glance around at this quiet space, at each other, and the two unconscious prisoners that you keep here. So, what would you like to do?
LAURA: I forgot to take damage from that staff. Should I do that?
MATT: You cast Passwall from the staff?
LAURA: I cast Passwall from the staff.
MATT: Then that would be 1d4 damage per--
LAURA: Charge.
MATT: -- charge. Yeah. So, that was four charges?
LAURA: Four charges.
MATT: Roll 4d4 for me.
TRAVIS: What's your HP?
LAURA: 17.
MARISHA: It's going to be really weird.
TALIESIN: Fine.
LAURA: It's fine.
TALIESIN: It is fine.
LAURA: I can't die from it. It's impossible.
MARISHA: Wow. What an amazing-- (death croak)
LAURA: (retching) Oh my god! Oh no!
LIAM: Oh wow! Pretty high.
TALIESIN: Wow. I looked, I saw half of that and that was bad.
LAURA: 15.
LIAM: Three fours and a three.
LAURA: I rolled 15.
ASHLEY and TALIESIN: Ooh!
LIAM: It was almost all fours.
ASHLEY: You are hurting.
TRAVIS: Why can't do that when you're attacking?
LAURA: I know! Why?
MATT and ROBBIE: (laugh)
LAURA: Okay, so I'm down to two hit points, y'all.
TALIESIN: Oh, stop hitting yourself.
ROBBIE: How does everyone look as a group right now? Are we roughed up pretty bad?
MARISHA: Not great. She did have a temple fall on her head. Also, we're in the Fey Realm so like, a blade of grass could just look at you angrily--
TRAVIS: Assasinate us.
MARISHA: -- and kill you. Yeah.
TRAVIS: Yeah. Yeah.
LAURA: Yeah.
ROBBIE: How's everyone feeling, all right?
LAURA: I feel pretty shitty, if I'm being honest.
ROBBIE: I don't feel so great myself.
ASHLEY: Not awesome
SAM: Would you like some healing?
ROBBIE: Ah, oh! Sure. I mean, I was going to, but if you want to.
SAM: Well, we should probably share those duties.
ROBBIE: I think we should. Yeah, of course.
LAURA: Maybe--
TALIESIN: Start there, maybe, and then work your way around.
SAM: How about we, you know, double team a little bit?
ASHLEY: A little tag team?
SAM: Yeah.
ROBBIE: Do you mean that the way I think--
SAM: I just mean that we're going to heal her--
TALIESIN: We know exactly what he means.
SAM: -- on both sides of her.
LAURA: No, Braius. No.
SAM: I just want--
LAURA: No.
ASHLEY: Like sandwich?
ROBBIE: I understand.
SAM: We played Spin the Bottle--
ROBBIE: Yes.
SAM: -- I just felt like there was maybe something.
LAURA: There wasn't. There was nothing.
ASHLEY: Maybe just a little?
LAURA: No, no. I mean, I felt a little cow tongue, but that's not-- It didn't--
SAM: Well, sometimes it takes a while to get used to somebody, and--
LAURA: (frustrated denial)
SAM: All right, I'll let you--
LAURA: You're great.
SAM: I'll let him heal you.
TALIESIN: Very big on first impression.
MATT: Orym--
LAURA: I'll take--
TRAVIS: "But you're great."
MATT: -- it's about now that you notice the two shadows of the armored Unseelie guardians begin to step into the light of the distant hallway entrance across from the temple start.
LAURA: Oh shit.
LIAM: Are these the hypnotized?
MATT: Yes, but they were only held for about a minute.
LIAM: For a bit, right.
ASHLEY: Oh shit!
LAURA and ASHLEY: I forgot about them.
ROBBIE: Yeah, for one minute. Wait, we might have--
MATT: They were stepping into the tunnel, and they both stop and just stay there.
LIAM: Careful. It's not safe in here.
ROBBIE: Can we all gather up for a second? Just a little huddle up, a little team huddle. Then I'll cast Mass Cure Wounds.
MARISHA: Let's go, let's go.
MATT: Slick.
ASHLEY: Okay, okay.
ROBBIE: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
MATT: All righty.
TRAVIS: Damn.
ROBBIE: That's a 30-foot radius. I'll try to hit, I guess, everybody.
TRAVIS: Yeah. I just bit my tongue.
LIAM: And where--
ROBBIE: Six.
LIAM: Theater of the mind, where are we? We're outside at this point or in the temple?
MATT: No, you're all still inside the temple.
LIAM: The front hallway portion where we ran.
MATT: Correct.
LIAM: Okay. And they're right at the door?
MATT: Yeah. They're standing right at the entryway.
LIAM: Okay.
ROBBIE: Everybody gets 16 hit points each.
TRAVIS: Let's go.
LAURA: Okay, okay.
TRAVIS: Welcome.
TALIESIN: I'm going to-- Can they see all of us right now?
MATT: You don't know. All you can see is the outline of them silhouetted by the exterior.
LIAM: I mean--
TALIESIN: I'm going to drop underground and I'm going to head to the front door and just post myself quietly just in case they try and book it.
MATT: Okay.
LIAM: I want to know how aware they are of the situation, and if they're talking at all, even if they're at a distance, I want to read their lips.
MATT: Make a perception check.
SAM: Imogen, I'll give you an extra 30 points.
LAURA: Thank you.
LIAM: That's 27.
MATT: 27. They're standing still, kind of perfectly still. Maybe swaying gently, no conversation.
LIAM: Swaying?
MATT: Like--
LAURA: Oh, they look a little still hypnotized?
LIAM: Well, this might--
MATT: Could be. They seem to be just idling there.
TRAVIS: Or something.
ASHLEY: What do you mean, could be? Is it something else?
LAURA: Something's going on with them.
TRAVIS: We'll be right, right with you. Hunter's Bane. Do I notice anything different about them?
MATT: No. But, you know, you are surrounded by fey and fey powers and fey energies and there is one fey of your troop that you do not have eyes on right now.
SAM: Ira Widogast?
LAURA: Oh.
LIAM: That's it.
LAURA: Oh, can I use--
MATT: Got it in one.
LAURA: Oh, can I use one of my sorcery points to give myself See Invisibility?
MATT: Sure.
LAURA: All right.
SAM: By the way, while I was healing you, I just said a quick prayer: Please let the spirit of the Hells enter this one's heart. (laughter)
TALIESIN: ♪ (heavy guitar riff) ♪
LAURA: Thank you, Braius.
MATT: (laughs)
TALIESIN: (sighs)
ROBBIE: I cast Forcecage and block the entrance! No, I'm kidding. I don't, I don't, I don't, I don't. I definitely don't.
LAURA: Do I see anybody--
MATT: The opening chords of "Knee-Deep In The Dead" start kicking in from "Doom II."
LAURA: Do I see anything now that I See Invisibility? Can I see Ira anywhere?
MATT: You do not see Ira.
TALIESIN: We're still telepathically bonded, so I would have already popped my head outside. Do I see anything?
MATT: So you glance around, slowly emerging from the earth there. As you look, they're both just stepping into the doorway and stopped, and perched on top of the archway on the outside of the temple, like a Spider-Man edge of building, holding himself there with his elbows and knees up, glancing down and just going "(soft chirping)" and is just watching them. They just seem to be stunned, not dissimilar to what Dorian had done to them earlier.
TALIESIN: I will quietly: (silently) Did you do that?
LIAM: I'm going to--
MATT: (Ira) "For a time."
TALIESIN: I'll just come out of the earth and just sit and keep an eye on them.
MATT: Okay.
LIAM: I'm going to approach. I'm going to stand with them.
MATT: Okay.
LIAM: So I can get a full look?
MATT: Yeah. You walk towards that and then you see just this faint bit of magic that's sparking and slightly drifting colors that are mostly immaterial in the air, and they're both just staring straight at it.
LIAM: They're just inside the door?
ROBBIE: Stunned?
MATT: They're just at the entryway. Yeah.
LIAM: Cool. I'm going to slide under one of their legs and stand just outside the door.
MATT: Okay.
TALIESIN: Hey.
LIAM: Hey.
MATT: What are the rest of you doing?
TRAVIS: We got to get outside, right?
LAURA: Yeah. I mean--
TRAVIS: Our people are out there.
LAURA: They can't walk away from this.
MARISHA: Wet willy.
MATT: (laughs)
LAURA: Right?
MARISHA: Nothing.
ASHLEY: I think we should go back to Nana's.
LAURA: But these two, they can't be--
TALIESIN: What do they know?
SAM: Can we modify their memories somehow?
LAURA: I can't, but--
SAM: Can Ira?
ASHLEY: Has he already?
MATT: He's outside.
LAURA: Well, we still have Telepathic Bond up.
MATT: That's true, yeah.
LAURA: Ira, are you doing this?
MATT: "I'm doing a few things."
TRAVIS: (chuckles)
LAURA: Can you make these two lovely soldiers believe that Ludinus turned against them?
MATT: "I can do that."
LAURA: That would be great.
TALIESIN: He had some--
MATT: "Limited in my abilities. I can do it a few more times. Depends on what the utility is to you in your endeavor." (laughs sinisterly) "Pick and choose."
LAURA: Should we do it to these two and then bring the others to Nana?
SAM: How many are there?
LIAM: Yeah, I guess we can buy time at Nana's.
ASHLEY: There's two.
LIAM: Right now, we should handle these two.
TALIESIN: Two guards and then the emissary and Dad.
SAM: Emissary is more important than these guys.
LAURA: Can you give these both the same memory, that Ludinus betrayed them and tried to kill everyone?
MATT: "I can certainly try."
LAURA: He didn't respect the Unseelie.
MATT: "I can imagine that."
TALIESIN: He had soldiers with him.
MATT: "(evil laughs)"
TALIESIN: Ruby Vanguard. I'm going to go in and I'll pull a little bit of one of the capes. We'll put it in one of their hands.
ROBBIE: Should we do the emissary as well, or--?
SAM: Yeah.
LAURA: Yeah.
ROBBIE: All right.
TALIESIN: That would be smart if we do three.
LAURA: Yeah.
ROBBIE: I'm going to walk over to him, hoist him and throw him over my shoulder. As I walk him toward the other guards, if I cast Cure Wounds on him it'll wake him up, right?
MATT: Yep.
TALIESIN: Yeah.
ROBBIE: Okay. Yeah.
LAURA: But wait, to do that until Ira's ready.
ROBBIE: Sure.
LAURA: Right? You don't want him to wake up and start struggling.
TRAVIS: Ira, or do you prefer Nightmare King? Which one is it?
MATT: "For friends? Nightmare King."
LAURA: (laughs)
TRAVIS: I thought so. It's a dope-ass title.
MARISHA: It's so cool.
TRAVIS: Did you? Did you happen to see our guest just now?
MATT: There's silence. "Meaning the Sorrowlord?"
TRAVIS: Yes, him. You know me. The old Chet speaks in riddles. That guest-- (whispsers) He's just curious. Nope. Yep. We're good.
TALIESIN: Laudna, I don't know if you're in the mood, but--
MATT: "Curious, indeed."
TALIESIN: -- but tying up daddy and gagging him might not be a bad idea.
MATT: Make a deception check for me.
TRAVIS: Ooh! (laughs) I suck at these.
ROBBIE: (laughs)
TRAVIS: Historically.
TALIESIN: You seem like, you know.
TRAVIS: 18.
MARISHA: (scoffs) Yes.
MATT: Okay.
TRAVIS: Not horrible.
LAURA: Can you do it three times?
MATT: "I can attempt it three times. As to whether or not it'll actually affect my targets, well, as Fey tend to be a little resilient against magic. So we can try."
ROBBIE: Maybe we can start with him and I'll flop him down in the archway, sit him up next to the two guards.
TALIESIN: Good call.
TRAVIS: Can you dance? (laughter)
TRAVIS: Oh shit! (laughter)
ROBBIE: My pants! (laughter)
TRAVIS: Stick that needle back in there.
ROBBIE: It was supposed to be a pedestrian action. (laughter)
TRAVIS: Pedestrian!
SAM: Do we know-- above table-- Do we know anything about the emissary, like what class he is, or--?
TRAVIS: Orym might.
LIAM: Yeah. I mean, I know that they're--
TRAVIS: I don't even know his name.
LIAM: Hold, hold, hold.
LAURA: Ira might know the emissary.
MATT: You heard a name in their conversations. Those who were closest there. Cashadoor.
LAURA: Cashadoor.
LIAM: No, I can't learn with class. It's more like how they stack up in comparison to me.
SAM: Can't learn in class anyway.
LIAM: Just have it.
TALIESIN: Yeah.
MATT: Not everyone can be as cool as you.
ROBBIE: But he is bound right now. I tied him up--
TALIESIN: Oh, you did?
ROBBIE: -- while he was outside. Yeah.
TALIESIN: Tied and gagged also so they can't cast spells.
MARISHA: Who's Sammanad?
TRAVIS: That's the Unseelie.
MATT: Sammanar is the-- They're the leader of the Unseelie Court.
SAM: That's when you want to order wine at a fancy restaurant.
LAURA and ROBBIE: (laugh)
ASHLEY: Can I talk to your Sammanar?
MARISHA: Sammanar and then Cashadaw is the--
MATT: Cashadoor.
TRAVIS and TALIESIN: Cashadoor.
MARISHA: Ka-sha-dore.
SAM: That's chicken Cashadoor.
MATT: (laughs)
TRAVIS: Ashadori Chicken.
SAM: I think it might help if we give a little benefit to Ira if he's going to do this spell, right? No, it's a save.
LAURA and SAM: It's a save.
LAURA: So what is it that works to destroy saving throws?
TALIESIN: Who's got Bane?
TRAVIS: I'll Bane him.
TALIESIN: Bane all three of them.
LAURA: That's a check, isn't it?
MARISHA: Are Banes against checks or saving throws?
TALIESIN: Banes are against saving throws.
LIAM: Yeah. Bane and Bless affect saving throws.
TALIESIN: Saving throws.
LAURA: Okay. Great.
MARISHA: Great.
TRAVIS: I walk over.
LAURA: Bane him.
MARISHA: It's going to get.
TRAVIS: Pull up my nonexistent sleeves.
TALIESIN: Oh my god.
TRAVIS: Bane! (laughter)
TALIESIN: Bane!
LIAM: I walk up, pull out my glock.
MATT: You Bane them?
TRAVIS: Yes, I Bane.
MATT: With your feat?
TRAVIS: With my... Yeah, it's a feat. I got Bane and Misty Step.
MATT: All right.
TRAVIS: With my Fey Touched feat.
MATT: Is it a wisdom save against Bane?
TRAVIS: It is charisma for me.
MATT: Charisma. All righty.
ASHLEY: Charisma.
MATT: So that will bring us here.
TALIESIN: Cha!
TRAVIS: Charisma.
MATT: What's the DC?
ASHLEY: (laughs)
TRAVIS: 17.
MATT: 17. All right. So, Cashadoor.
LIAM: (Batman's Bane nonsense)
MATT: Cashadoor. Natural 19. Resists it.
TRAVIS: Oh yeah.
MATT: They have advantage on all of these.
LAURA: Uh.
MATT: And the two guardians.
LAURA: All right.
MATT: That's going to be 16. One of them is affected. And the other... They're both, both of the regular guardians are affected, but the--
LAURA: Emissary?
MATT: -- the emissary is unaffected by Bane.
LAURA: Okay.
ASHLEY: Okay.
TALIESIN: It'll help.
ASHLEY: Yeah.
LAURA: All right.
TRAVIS: Two out of three ain't bad.
MATT: The colorful pattern begins to fade and they both blink their eyes for a second and Ira says, "Now?"
LIAM: Start fighting.
LAURA: Yeah.
MATT: "Which first?"
LAURA: Well, the soldiers failed it, so I think start with them. And bring the emissary--
SAM: Sure. The emissary is still unconscious.
ROBBIE: He's still out.
LAURA: Yeah.
MATT: So he casts Modify Memory on one of them rapidly while they're still coming out of their haze. Somebody roll 2d20 for me with advantage. I'll let you do this because this is.
LAURA: With advantage?
MATT: Yes.
LAURA: For Ira?
TALIESIN: I've been rolling pretty well.
SAM: Because they're Feys.
MATT: Because they're Fey. They have advantage against spell effects. So.
TALIESIN: Then a d4.
LAURA: (cackles)
ROBBIE: Ho, ho, ho.
LAURA: Seven with advantage.
MATT: Seven with advantage? Okay.
ROBBIE: Nice.
LAURA: Then a d4.
SAM: Okay. Yeah, because they're Baned.
MATT: Yep.
MARISHA: Minus four.
LAURA: Minus two.
MATT: Okay. So, five and roll with advantage for the other one.
LAURA: Oh, the other one rolled high. 14.
MATT: 14 plus...
TALIESIN: Yay, Bane!
LIAM: Turf.
MATT: 18.
TALIESIN: Bane and Bless are such interesting--
MATT: Okay. That one just passes.
LAURA: Ugh.
ASHLEY: Oh.
TRAVIS: He's got it tight.
MATT: It's bonus on that one. All right. So, Ira crawls across the ceiling, like, (footspteps) Then drops down in front of the two of them and stands up as one of them rubs its eyes and looks at him. He goes, "Shh. It's been a long day," and puts his hand over their face for a second. Their eyes flicker and roll back for a second. (rapid exhales) (exhales) "Well. where'd they go? Where's the Vanguard?" He turned to the other one and goes, "What are you talking about? Where's the emissary?"
TALIESIN: Okay, I suppose we should just take care of this now.
LAURA: Yeah.
TALIESIN: I'm going to...
TRAVIS: What does that mean?
LAURA: I'm going to Psychic Lance. I'm going to Psychic Lance the one that passed. Past where the emissary is.
ASHLEY: Shoot.
MATT: Okay.
TALIESIN: We'll-- Wait! No, because Modify Memory.
LAURA: Nobody can see that I did it.
SAM: Do we know that one of them passed the other one?
LAURA: Well, he can ask where the emissary was.
TALIESIN: Yeah, then...
ASHLEY: We just put the portable hole outside of the hallway.
MARISHA: I know, I've been thinking about that, too.
SAM: He's sent to guard the emissary whether he thinks he was attacked or not.
LAURA: Okay.
SAM: I don't. I genuinely don't know which one is which at this point.
TALIESIN: It's whoever runs.
LAURA: Well, one said Vanguard.
SAM: Which one was that?
LAURA: The other one said, what are you talking about? Where's the emissary?
SAM: Oh, yeah. Let's kill that guy.
LAURA: Yeah. (laughter)
LAURA: Well, it's just a Psychic Lance.
ROBBIE: Oh.
LAURA: So you can't. There's no, like, physical damage.
SAM: Sure.
LAURA: What are you talking about? Where's the emissary?
ROBBIE: (whispers) Do it.
LAURA: That one.
MATT: Okay.
LAURA: That's a-- I only have a 7th-level spell.
MATT: It's a verbal casting. Okay, so it does have a verbal component. So you say something to do the Lance.
LAURA: Yeah. No, if the named... Oh, wait. "On a creature you can see within range. Alternatively, you can utter a creature's name."
MATT: If it's within range. Yes.
LAURA: Yeah.
MATT: But you can see this one.
LAURA: Yeah.
MATT: All right.
LAURA: I can only do it at a 7th-level because that's what I have. So that's 10d6 psychic damage.
MATT: Okay. It's a charisma?
LAURA: It's an intelligence save.
MATT: Intelligence. Oh. Oh, that's a 15. (laughs)
LAURA: That fails.
MATT: Okay, roll damage for a 7th-level Psychic Lance.
TALIESIN: Oh boy.
TRAVIS: On this fucking guard.
ROBBIE: (laughs)
LAURA: That's what I have ya'll.
ASHLEY: That's fey.
TALIESIN: Might as well end it.
ASHLEY: Take care of the problem. Real quick, real quick.
LAURA: Four, five, six, seven, eight, nine. I have so many dice, you guys.
TRAVIS: His eyes are going to pop chameleon in different directions.
LAURA: Okay.
ASHLEY: Ooh.
LAURA: 10.
TRAVIS: Remember "Mission: Impossible III"? "Oh, thank you, Ethan." (neck snaps)
ASHLEY: Yeah. (laughs)
TRAVIS: Bomb goes off in her head.
LAURA: 30. 34. That's not high. 34 points of psychic damage.
MATT: Okay. One of these two had taken damage before and the other had not.
LAURA: Uh-huh.
MATT: I'm not sure which one is which, so roll a d20 for me. On an 11 or higher--
LAURA: 13.
MATT: 13. Okay. The one that you cast this on. It's like. "Where's the emissary? What?" (choking) And just.
TRAVIS and ASHLEY: (laugh)
MATT: Down there and then.
ASHLEY: (laughs)
MATT: Then crumble to the ground and the other one goes.
SAM: Oh no. He had an aneurysm.
MATT: "Ademadon! What happened?"
ASHLEY: What happened to him?
SAM: It's an aneurysm. I've seen this before. I can take care of him. Here. I'll drag the body.
MATT: Make a deception check. (laughter)
SAM: Sure.
SAM: Uh... ooh. Not great. Deception. Okay. 22.
LAURA: That's pretty good.
MATT: 22. They put their shield and blade up and be like, "What's going on?"
SAM: Uh-oh.
MATT: "Where's the emissary?"
ROBBIE: He's right here. We were taking care of him.
LAURA: We're trying to save him. The Vanguard tied him up.
ASHLEY: Are you okay?
LAURA: In Ira's head I'm going to go: Can you fucking Mind Morph the emissary so he thinks he was tied up by the Vanguard?
MATT: Ira, who's like, standing in the hallway watching this transpire. His fingers folded in and just watches the soldier walk by and, shiver as it walks by Ira to head towards the tied up emissary that's been dragged across the ground and gives you a nod.
ROBBIE: Oh.
LAURA: Okay.
MATT: Someone roll 2d20 for me.
SAM: Well, we got to wake up with the Unseelie.
MATT: With advantage.
LAURA: Well, no. Is he doing it with them unconscious? Is it possible to do it unconscious?
MATT: Yeah.
SAM: Oh.
ROBBIE: Oh, oh, oh.
LAURA: Oh, do you want me to roll for this again or somebody else want to roll?
TRAVIS: Orym--
MARISHA: I'll do it.
MATT: Whoever wants to.
ROBBIE: If it works while he's out.
MARISHA: Wait, what am I trying to hit?
LAURA: You're trying to roll really low.
MARISHA: With advantage or disadvantage?
MATT: With advantage.
MARISHA: With advantage. 12. Pretty low. Is he Baned?
LAURA: No. He succeeded against the Bane.
TALIESIN: No.
MATT: 12 rolls... Hm.
LAURA: Does he succeed?
TRAVIS: We said low, Marisha. Come on.
LAURA: I know that's.
ASHLEY: Pretty good, pretty good.
MARISHA: That's pretty mid. That was a 19!
TRAVIS: Shut up.
MATT: Okay, so.
MARISHA: (laughs)
MATT: The guardian walks up towards the emissary and has this blade out and starts going in to start cutting the ropes free and is keeping eyes close on all of you. (sawing) "Oh my goodness. Cashadoor."
ASHLEY: You need help.
ROBBIE: Do we not know if this worked or not?
LAURA and SAM: No, we don't.
ROBBIE: Do I bring it back around?
ASHLEY: Are you okay, sir? What's your name?
MATT: He just glares at you.
ROBBIE: I can! I've got my hand on--
MATT: This individual seems deeply untrusting of all of you and is now panicking to try and get out of here as soon as possible. He reaches into a pouch and pulls out some moss and jams it around their palm and sprinkles something in it and sets it down and places it upon the wounds in the corner of Cashadoor's mouth. Cashadoor like, (hollow gasps) flicks their eyes open.
LAURA: Is there anything we can do to help? The Vanguard would hurt us, too.
LIAM: We drove them off.
MATT: Sits the emissary up and the emissary like, (coughs) Whispers something to the guard.
LIAM: Can I read it?
MATT: Make a perception check.
LIAM: Well, I can read lips. The Observant feat. It's a 31.
MATT: (laughs) He says, "On a three count, push and run."
LIAM: Push and run?
MATT: Yes.
LAURA: Didn't work.
LIAM: Didn't work.
LAURA: Didn't work.
MARISHA: Go for it! Go for it!
MATT: The guard stiffens up for a minute.
LAURA: Force Cage! Force Cage!
ROBBIE: I need a minute.
SAM: It's okay.
TALIESIN: I'm--
MATT: You hear clicking on the stone on the ground.
ROBBIE: No. It takes a minute for me to do it.
LAURA: Oh.
TALIESIN: I'm going to--
MATT: Immediately the guardian spins around with the shield (grunts) and does a loud push.
ASHLEY: I'll Thorn Whip him.
MATT: Okay. So, the one that was closest was you since you walked up and said you wanted to help heal.
LAURA: Yeah.
MATT: Right?
ASHLEY: Yeah. Yes, I did. Yes, I did.
MATT: All right. He's going to try and shield bash you back. You try and hit him with a Thorn Whip. Go for it.
ASHLEY: Okay. I'm trying to get his legs and trip him.
MATT: Mm-hmm.
ASHLEY: I'm going to do this one. Oh. 27.
MATT: 27. Definitely Thorn Whips him.
ASHLEY: Okay.
MATT: He rolled a three. So he goes to try and bash you with the shield and you just whip him around the ankle and pull his feet out from under him. "Whoa!" Hits the ground and gets dragged a little bit towards you. Gets back up onto his feet.
ASHLEY: Nine points of damage.
TALIESIN: I was going to already ready to charge.
MATT: Okay, so you go ahead and--
LAURA: Fuck.
MARISHA: Did this just completely backfire?
LAURA and ROBBIE: Yeah.
TALIESIN: Yep, yeah.
MARISHA: (laughs)
LAURA: I think it did.
TRAVIS: You might also not know where he is. And so.
ASHLEY: Yeah, I wasn't trying to hurt him.
MARISHA: Should we try and talk to him?
LAURA: Who?
TALIESIN: Is he prone?
MARISHA: The emissary.
MATT: The guy that she Thorn Whipped? No. She pulled him towards him and he got-- He just got back onto his feet.
LAURA: I mean, is he still tied up?
TALIESIN: Okay.
LIAM: We can't let them go.
TALIESIN: I'm going to--
LAURA: No.
TALIESIN: I'm going to. I'm going to hit him and I'm going to try and knock him down also.
ASHLEY: Guard or?
TALIESIN: No, the guard. The one who just shield bashed you.
ASHLEY: Okay.
TALIESIN: Because we haven't. Yeah. So that's.
MARISHA: Somewhere.
TALIESIN: Oh boy. That's a nat 20.
ROBBIE: He's up there.
TALIESIN: Yeah, let's. This is going to really hurt. This may knock him out. I don't know where he's at. An extra 2d6. Oh boy. Then also doing a Chaos Burst. So hold on.
SAM: We're attacking the guard so far, right?
ROBBIE and TALIESIN: Yeah.
SAM: The emissary is just sitting there?
LAURA: Is he still tied up?
TRAVIS: While they're focusing on the guards and the emissary, where is Zathuda?
LIAM: I thought he said "We're out of here."
MATT: Where is Zathuda?
TRAVIS: On the map.
MATT: Huh?
TRAVIS: On the map, where did we leave him?
LAURA: Braius has him.
MATT: You all haven't left the temple yet.
LAURA: Yeah, he's in the temple.
TRAVIS: Okay.
LAURA: Zathuda would be in the temple, right?
MATT: Unless you guys pulled him out for whatever reason.
LAURA: No, he's still in there.
TALIESIN: 44 points of damage on the first attack.
LAURA: Do we see him? We see him.
MATT: 44 points of damage.
TALIESIN: I'm also, he has to make a strength save, really quick.
MATT: That would be a 19. No, sorry. 20.
TALIESIN: All right. He's fine. Then another hit, if he's still standing.
MATT: Barely.
TALIESIN: Okay, I'm going to try-- if he looks real bad, I'm going to go for knockout damage. Well. No. We're...
TRAVIS: Emissary or guard?
TALIESIN: The guard.
ASHLEY: Guard.
MATT: Well, what are you doing?
TALIESIN: I'm going for-- Go for fucking--
LIAM: What are you doing?
TALIESIN: I'm going to--
MATT: What are you doing?
TALIESIN: I'm going to kill the guy.
MATT: Go for it.
MATT: Roll damage.
LAURA and ASHLEY: (laugh)
LAURA: I'm just fucking angry with the other one.
TALIESIN: I mean, honestly, it doesn't matter. He's going to go unconscious anyway.
TRAVIS: Knock him out. Just knock him out.
LIAM: I'm going to zip in there and I'm going to whap the emissary in the head with the Caleb Widogast Sending Stone and knock him back out.
MATT: Okay.
TALIESIN: 17. Yeah. That hits. I will say at the last minute. Fuck it. I'll go for knockout. We can decide that later.
MATT: Okay.
TALIESIN: If this goes down, that's 24 points of damage and I was like, fuck. I'm going to knock him on the head.
MATT: Yeah. This guy (heavy crack), you hit the other guard. As soon as he gets up off the ground from Fearne Thorn Whipping him forward. As soon as he gets back up, the first hit cracks in the back of the armor and he's like (chokes). Like the spray of blood and the inability to inhale from just the sheer shock to the back of the shoulders. The second hit knocks him heavily onto the ground and he's just out.
TALIESIN: Yep.
MARISHA: Can Chet and I tie up Zathuda?
MATT: Sure. Well, because now we're back in conflict.
MARISHA: While all this is happening? Let's roll initiative.
LAURA: Oh god!
MATT: This is not a massive scale thing. So we're just going to do Theater of Mind. But.
ROBBIE: Oh.
LAURA: God.
SAM: This combat is brought to you by WizKids!
MATT: (laughs)
SAM: Bells Hells box set, available now. Enhance your home games with Critical Role Minis by WizKids. Available at wizkidz.io/CRMinis.
MATT: All righty. So 25 to 20?
LIAM: 23.
TALIESIN: 22.
ROBBIE: Nat 20, 26. (cheering)
MARISHA: 21.
MATT: All right.
LAURA: Jeez Louise.
TRAVIS: Dang.
TALIESIN: Where has this been?
MATT: I know. (laughs)
ROBBIE: (laughs)
TRAVIS: Dorian, Ashton. What? Orym, Ashton?
MARISHA: Dorian.
LIAM: Dorian, Orym, Ashton.
MATT: Laudna.
TALIESIN: Laudna.
MATT: Here, I'll tell you what. Dorian, what are you doing? The rest of the initiative might not even matter. (laughs)
LIAM: The Orym action.
ROBBIE: Yeah, yeah.
MATT: You guys rolled really high on that. High on that.
ROBBIE: Rope's cut. I just watched you donk him out.
LIAM: No, I didn't get to do that. That didn't happen.
MATT: Ashton just knocked the hell out of the other guard.
TALIESIN: I knocked the other one out.
ROBBIE: Oh, okay. Well, I was right next to him, like, ready to heal him before his guy did. So I'm going to slither up behind him and try to put him in a rear naked choke and just grapple him.
MARISHA: Yes.
MATT: Okay, so you're just. All right. You're going to make an athletics check. It's going to be against Cashadoor's acrobatics.
ROBBIE: That would be athletics 25.
MATT: Oh, you definitely succeed. So as the emissary Cashadoor's like, sees this charge happen, gets up to go for a sprint, sees his friend get knocked the fuck out. Tries to juke to the side a little bit while looking at this. Doesn't see you come up from behind and (choking), You caught them now in a full grapple.
LAURA: It's so--
ASHLEY and ROBBIE: (shushing)
MARISHA: Yeah. (laughs)
MATT: All right.
ROBBIE: It's okay.
MATT: Orym, you're up.
LIAM: Because you slid behind him, and if I run direct, that means I'm flanking when I get there.
MATT: Sure, yeah.
LIAM: I flea jump at him with the Caleb Widogast sending stone in hand and bean him in the head for a 30 to hit with a rock.
MATT: With a rock. Goes limp in your grasp immediately. Combat's over.
LAURA: Okay.
LIAM: Oh!
MATT: (laughs)
LAURA: That went well!
ROBBIE: (laughs)
LAURA: Zathuda.
MARISHA: Yes, so me and Chet are back to back in initiative, so we're going to run over and start tying up Zathuda.
MATT: All righty.
TALIESIN: I'm going to keep an eye on Daddy again, see if Dad's awake--
TRAVIS: And mouth.
TALIESIN: -- because Dad's still unconscious.
MATT: Dad's still unconscious.
TALIESIN: All right.
TRAVIS: Hands, feet, and mouth.
MATT: It's only been a few minutes.
LIAM: I'm thinking we move this get together to Nana's.
LAURA: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
LIAM: Sooner rather than later.
LAURA: As fast as we can.
LIAM: Because it's her turf, they're not going to go anywhere once we're there, and she has the means.
ASHLEY: She'll keep them there.
MARISHA: Who are we dragging?
TRAVIS: The meats? She has the meats?
LIAM: The meats.
LAURA: Now, don't forget, y'all--
SAM: She has the meats.
ROBBIE: Yeah. (laughs)
LAURA: We took spiritual horses here. It's a bit of a trek back to Nana's.
MARISHA: That's a good point.
ASHLEY: Oh. Wait.
TALIESIN: Do we not have another way over there?
MARISHA: We could try and teleport?
SAM: Mm-hmm.
TRAVIS: With the staff?
SAM: Yeah.
ASHLEY: Hey Chet, it's time to be a planerider. Let's go.
LAURA: It's out of charges. It has four charges left.
TRAVIS: Mm-hmm.
LAURA: Teleporting takes eight.
LIAM: Oh.
LAURA: Seven.
LIAM: That's hard.
MARISHA: Hmm.
ASHLEY: Ira?
LIAM: (sighs)
MATT: "Yes?"
ASHLEY: What's the best way back to Nana's?
MATT: "That way."
MARISHA and ROBBIE: (laugh)
TRAVIS: Don't suppose you'd want to give us a lift or a shortcut or a--
LIAM: Phone a friend.
MATT: "Well, if I hadn't spent all of my abilities manipulating the minds of those you just killed and knocked out, then maybe I'd have a little more at my disposal, but--"
TRAVIS: That's very fair.
MARISHA: That's very fair.
ASHLEY: Can I peek outside real quick?
MATT: Sure.
ASHLEY: Can I see if I can see Gloamglut?
MARISHA: I know, I was just thinking that, too.
MATT: Make a perception check.
ASHLEY: Okay.
LAURA: (twinkling chimes)
ASHLEY: This feels like a Gloamglut.
TALIESIN: I lose my rage.
LAURA: Yeah where are we, are we here?
ROBBIE: Sounds like two problems.
MARISHA: Anyone have a Polymorph, or we have a druid?
SAM: I can summon a horse.
ASHLEY: 29.
MATT: 29.
ROBBIE: So I'm going to hoist him on--
MARISHA: You can summon a horse?
ROBBIE: -- my shoulder and I'm going to-- If you tell me exactly what to do, because I'm not so certain--
MATT: No sign anywhere.
ASHLEY: No sign anywhere.
ROBBIE: I can take him by myself.
LAURA: Both Zathuda and the emissary?
ROBBIE: No. Most likely just myself and one more.
LIAM: Just fireman carry for miles?
MARISHA: No, he's got his horse.
LIAM: Ah.
ROBBIE: Yeah.
MARISHA: But you can turn into a magical flying creature.
ASHLEY: Yeah, I can.
MARISHA: And take a couple people.
ASHLEY: Yeah, I can.
LAURA: Yeah, yeah.
ASHLEY: Yeah.
TRAVIS: For how long?
ASHLEY: I could shoebill.
LIAM: Do you think Nana would be able to help us if we reached out to her?
ASHLEY: Maybe.
LAURA: I could try--
ASHLEY: She could probably come get us.
LAURA: I can try talking to her.
LIAM: She might have a quicker--
LAURA: Yeah, that's true.
LIAM: -- method for us to get back.
LAURA: I'm going to send a message to Nana Morri.
MATT: Okay.
ROBBIE: Split the party?
MARISHA: Yeah, you could have a "go" team.
LAURA: In the Fey-- Yeah.
MARISHA: And a "we'll meet you there" team.
LAURA: Who's counting? I'll count.
LIAM: I'll do it. I got you.
LAURA: Okay. We may need some help getting back to you with a couple of prisoners--
MARISHA: Hostages. Friends.
LAURA: -- for you to have some fun with.
TALIESIN: 11 total. 12 total.
MARISHA: Including us.
TALIESIN: 12. Yeah, 12 including us.
MARISHA: Yes.
LAURA: 12 people total.
MATT: 12? Or 11.
LAURA: I don't know.
SAM: Eight of us, Ira--
TALIESIN: Eight of us, Ira--
SAM: Emissary and the other--
TALIESIN: The emissary, soldier, and--
SAM: -- Zathuda.
MATT: That's 11.
TALIESIN: -- Shadowlord.
LAURA: That's 11.
TALIESIN: That's 12.
LAURA: Wait, what's our math?
SAM: That's 11.
LAURA: (laughs) 11.
SAM: Yeah.
LAURA: Well, pretend I said 11 then.
TALIESIN: That's 12!
MATT: Okay.
LAURA: Because--
MARISHA: 11 to 12.
SAM: And the Dungeon Master.
MARISHA: One friend might show up for cocktails later. (laughter)
MATT: It's eight of you, Ira's nine, and then, the Emissary and Zathuda is--
SAM: One plus one, plus two plus one.
TALIESIN: I thought we were also taking Fearne's dad?
SAM: One plus two plus one.
LAURA: Who?
MATT: Right. Fearne's dad is Zathuda.
TALIESIN: Oh, Zathuda--
MATT: Are you taking one of the guards as well?
TALIESIN: The one living guard, or what are we doing with the living guard?
LAURA: No, not living. Oh, the living guard.
TALIESIN: Yeah, we got one guard that we have not killed yet.
SAM: I'll just kill him.
LAURA: The living guard.
TRAVIS: We don't have to take him with us, but he doesn't have to die.
ROBBIE: It would be more convincing if--
SAM: I don't mind killing him.
ROBBIE: -- there were two of them alive instead of a sole survivor.
TALIESIN: Oh, we know.
MARISHA: I agree, actually. Let's take him, if we can.
LAURA: So 12?
MARISHA and TRAVIS: 12.
LAURA: So the number was right.
LIAM: Bring them all to Nana.
MARISHA: (laughs)
TALIESIN: Unless somebody-- Yeah.
LAURA: If she can do it.
ROBBIE: I mean I could get there on the horse, it would just be slow.
LAURA: Oh, that's true.
ROBBIE: I could throw a body on the haunch and fly. I would just be behind you.
TRAVIS: We'll see what Nana--
LAURA: But you'd be fighting Gloamglut because he might come after you.
TRAVIS: Let's see what Nana says!
MATT: (laughs)
ASHLEY: I could fly for five hours.
MATT: I'll just keep listening.
ROBBIE: Call grandma. She'll save us.
MARISHA: Yeah.
MATT: "Ah. Well, dear, that's quite a few people to remotely bring home. I could try flying that way and grabbing a few, but even I have my limitations."
TRAVIS: That's fair.
LAURA: That's fair.
TRAVIS: Yeah.
ASHLEY: I can fly. I can fly for five hours.
TRAVIS: Only necessary personnel.
LAURA: I wish one of us had that ability to do what Keyleth does and open up a tree, damn it!
ASHLEY: I know!
LAURA: That would be so great.
ASHLEY: That would be so cool.
TRAVIS: I can open up a tree, but we can't walk through it, not without a couple of hours--
SAM: Why don't we send--
TRAVIS: Okay.
MARISHA: Yeah, why don't we send a few with Nana Morri and maybe Dorian?
TRAVIS: Yeah.
MARISHA: Then the rest of us can meet you there.
ASHLEY: I can fly some people.
SAM: Yeah.
TRAVIS: Yeah, sure!
LAURA: Yeah, so maybe fly--
MARISHA: We'll split the party. You guys go and we'll meet up.
LAURA: So Dorian and the emissary, Fearne, and Daddy.
LIAM: Take the prisoners.
MARISHA: Yes. Then, is Nana going to come? We should have her come, right?
ROBBIE: Well, not if we're trying to fly to meet her.
LAURA: No, and then you guys will just fly. I mean, Nana could probably get--
TRAVIS: Another idea on Fearne and Daddy. If Daddy is attached to Gloamglut or vice versa, Gloamglut's going to be looking for Daddy unconscious or otherwise, so if Nana can take, Daddy should go with.
LAURA: Okay.
TALIESIN: Mm-hmm.
MARISHA: Yeah, let's--
LAURA: Okay. Okay, I'll send another message, then.
TALIESIN: I'll be mildly useless in a few minutes, in 30 minutes.
TRAVIS: High value target and all.
MARISHA: 100%.
LAURA: We're willing to split up. As many as you can take would be helpful.
MARISHA: (pigeon coo) How long would it take--
LAURA: How long would it take you to get here?
SAM: Nana Morri.
MATT: (laughs)
ASHLEY: Love you.
TRAVIS: Doughnuts!
MARISHA: Love you!
LAURA: Love you!
LIAM: Zwei, bitte.
ASHLEY: Just seeing if I can hear her.
MARISHA: (laughs)
LAURA: Yo Assa, just right next to me.
MATT: "If I leave now, about an hour."
LAURA: An hour.
MATT: "I can carry about three comfortably."
TALIESIN: Oh, that's good.
MATT: "Four at a burden. Apologies for the smell."
SAM: Oh, gross!
TRAVIS: (laughs)
LAURA: Should we take a little rest?
TRAVIS: Yeah.
LAURA: Heal up, wait for Nana.
LIAM: Let's truss these fellows up real good.
LAURA: Then, we stay in the temple. That seems like a smart idea.
TRAVIS: Yeah.
LAURA: Yeah?
ASHLEY: Yeah.
MARISHA: Before we stay in the temple, are there any other buildings nearby that look, just in case Gloamglut comes back to the scene of the crime?
LIAM: Yeah, you know what? I'll flea jump my way up to the top of the Arch Heart's Temple and get as high a view as I can of the surrounding territory and see if I can see Gloamglut, if I can see any other threats that we're unaware of, any other buildings.
MATT: Sure. Make an Acrobatics check for me.
LIAM: Sure. That is a 28.
MATT: 28. Leaping from roof point to roof point, and it's odd because with each landing, you're landing on crumbled rock in sections of broken roof that have been reforged and reformed by the Arch Heart's power, you presume. So with each landing, you're almost expecting visually for it to crumble beneath you as you hit, but it's sturdy as it's ever been. (acrobatic leaping) You get to the very, very top and clutch one of the two spires that marks the top of the temple. As you glance down, you can see the full scope of the abandoned and overgrown village around you. Make a perception check.
LIAM: I run my thumb along another crack in that spire that I'm holding onto, remembering just how unsettled and unsettling that encounter was. That is a 25. Yeah?
LAURA: Yeah.
LIAM: 25.
MATT: 25? No sign of Gloamglut. There's some other clusters of fey birds that are doing perimeter in the distance and a few other shapes in the distance, but nothing that matches your memory of the massive fey dragon.
LIAM: I think back to the group: I'm going to stay up here for a bit in case anything appears on the horizon.
TRAVIS: Copy.
LIAM: Call me if you need me.
ASHLEY: Hi, hello.
TALIESIN: Got you, got you.
MARISHA: We might as well hunker down here then.
TRAVIS: Yep.
LAURA and ROBBIE: Yeah.
MATT: Okay. So you all begin taking a short rest here as you wait.
MARISHA: Yes!
TRAVIS: Yes, please.
MATT: About 10 minutes into the short rest, you see a bit of movement coming from Athion Zathuda.
LAURA: Oh.
MATT: Glancing over, you see an eye open. He turns his head over.
SAM: Knock him out?
MARISHA: I kind of think so.
SAM: Okay.
MARISHA: He's very powerful.
SAM: I knock him out. (laughter)
MATT: Knock him out? Go ahead and make an initiative roll for me.
SAM: Oh boy!
LAURA: Oh my god.
ASHLEY: I'm going to back up behind Braius to be of help if--
SAM: 13.
MATT: 13? Okay. Make an attack roll to knock him out.
LAURA: (laughs)
TRAVIS: I don't like the way he said that.
MARISHA: I don't either.
SAM: I don't either.
TRAVIS: The inflection on that was fucking fucked.
SAM: What is that?
ROBBIE: That's an 18. No, no. 10, 10.
MATT: He is prone, so you have advantage--
SAM: A 10 or an 18?
MATT: -- because he is on the ground.
TALIESIN: Oh yeah, you have--
MARISHA: You have advantage.
SAM: I have advantage?
MATT: He is prone and tied up. (laughs) He's restrained. There are multiple reasons why you have advantage.
SAM: What's that?
ROBBIE: 13. 13.
SAM: Oh, okay. I really can't read these.
ROBBIE: Those are tough to read.
SAM: 25.
MATT: 25! Yeah! So as he comes to consciousness and looks over in the direction towards the rest of you, he does a--
SAM: Oh no!
MATT: (thud) He's out. (laughter)
ROBBIE: He's got to get a hemorrhage.
TALIESIN: That looked like fun.
ROBBIE: Just brain damage!
LAURA: Concussions. Yeah.
TALIESIN: Yeah. That looked like fun.
SAM: I'll stabilize him just to make sure that he doesn't die. (laughter)
LAURA: Shit!
MARISHA: Just so much brain damage being caused.
SAM: (laughs)
LIAM: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
MARISHA: While we rest, I will take a moment to summon Spirit of Death.
MATT: Okay.
MARISHA: It says it's somebody that I've killed before.
MATT: Mm-hmm.
MARISHA: Uh-oh. I'm sure I've killed-- (gasps)
LIAM: So many to choose from.
MARISHA: I'll make it Bor'Dor. That's so dark!
LAURA: Mm. Mm-hmm.
ASHLEY: Ooh!
TALIESIN: Ooh!
MATT: Okay.
MARISHA: But also, I love Utkarsh and I miss him.
MATT: True. So it is a-- Spirit of the Dead, you said?
MARISHA: Spirit of Death.
MATT: Oh, of Death. Okay.
MARISHA: My last 5th-level spell. I'm going to have him pop out and I'll be like: Hey, how's it going? Will you haunt this guy?
MATT: (laughs)
TRAVIS: Zathuda?
MARISHA: I'm going to have him haunt Zathuda.
LAURA: (laughs)
MATT: (laughs)
LAURA: That's amazing!
MARISHA: I need you to babysit him.
MATT: All right.
TRAVIS: (deathly rasp)
MATT: So as Bor'Dor's spirit emerges and looks over you and goes, (sighs) "Really?"
TRAVIS: (laughs)
MARISHA: Oh my goodness.
MATT: "You--"
MARISHA: So good to see you!
LAURA: Is this the--
TALIESIN: Can we see this?
MATT: Yeah, you see this spirit apparate.
MARISHA: Oh my god!
LAURA: This is the guy! This is the guy!
ASHLEY: That's Bor'Dor?
MARISHA: This is the guy!
TALIESIN: What are you doing?
LAURA: This what made you go all--
ASHLEY: Oh!
MARISHA: Yes.
MARISHA: He tipped me over the edge a little bit. Yes.
MATT: So, somebody roll a saving throw for Zathuda.
LIAM: I got it.
MATT: He has advantage. This is a--
LIAM: At advantage, 16 I rolled.
LAURA: You always roll so high.
LIAM: No, I don't. I fail all the time.
SAM: What kind of save is this?
TALIESIN: Do you?
ASHLEY: Yeah bro, you do.
LAURA: I feel like your average--
LIAM: How long have you known me?
ASHLEY: Your average is high.
LAURA: No, your average for failing is much lower than my average.
TALIESIN: Especially with that die. That die seems--
MATT: Oh, I see! No, you just summon the spirit. There isn't a save it makes.
LAURA: (laughs)
MARISHA: No, I summon the spirit and I can tell it to haunt a creature. While the target is haunted, me and the spirit sense the direction and distance to the target if it is on the same plane of existence. The target remains haunted until it dies. The spirit disappears or the spirit uses this action again.
MATT: Weirdly, the one I'm getting on D&D Beyond is entirely different. Weird.
LIAM: Ruh-roh.
ROBBIE: Hmm.
MATT: Spirit of Death, you said?
MARISHA: Spirit of Death.
MATT: 4th-level?
MARISHA: 4th-level.
LIAM: Did it change in the--
ASHLEY: Spirit Halloween.
SAM: Update?
LIAM: -- restructuring.
LAURA: Spirit Halloween.
MARISHA: It might have.
MATT: I'll go by yours because it has more utility and it's more interesting to me. So all right. So the spirit just (ghostly moan) drifts over Zathuda, and you watch for a moment as Zathuda's breath becomes visible, the very temperature around him begins to drop and the spirit embraces his unconscious body and then vanishes within, and you see the teeth begin to chatter on the unconscious Sorrowlord.
SAM: Cool.
TALIESIN: You finally managed to creep me out. Wow.
LAURA: Did you just haunt Zathuda?
ROBBIE: Nice!
MARISHA: He's haunted.
ASHLEY: That's so cool.
SAM: Just a pitch here. Just a pitch.
ASHLEY: Yes. Yes, yes, yes.
SAM: You know me, I love lying. If Nana Morri can't do this mindbending trick because Ira couldn't do it, no offense, Ira, what if we staged a little bit of a play? Like, we wake up Zathuda for a second and he sees the Vanguard attacking, and then we knock him out again. Then we wake him up again and then he sees another glimpse of more stuff happening in front of him and we knock him out again. Just a few glimpses of a play that we put on, and then the third time we wake him up, he's like: Oh my god! I saw everything. It was crazy. The Vanguard were here! And he believes it.
LAURA: I feel like that'll work with the emissary. I think Zathuda--
SAM: Oh, I'm sorry. I meant the emissary.
LAURA: That one? Yeah! I'm fucking all for it!
ASHLEY: That's a good idea. Yeah.
ROBBIE: Maybe the guard too?
ASHLEY: I love a play.
TRAVIS: You give him multiple concussions in a single hour?
MARISHA: It seems like.
LIAM: How do we factor into the story--
LAURA: That might make it more believable, you know?
SAM: Some of us would be fighting with the Vanguard!
ASHLEY: We could put on the capes.
LAURA: The robes.
LIAM: But some of us slapped them in the face with a hammer and hit them with a rock and--
SAM: Sure, we can disguise ourselves, right? There's hoods and robes.
ASHLEY: Yeah, yeah, yeah!
SAM: I can disguise myself.
ASHLEY: I can disguise myself.
LIAM: Those are the future things they'll witness. But they've witnessed past things that involve some of us.
LAURA: Then maybe the ones that attacked them put the fucking cloaks on!
TALIESIN: But they'll still remember--
LIAM: I guess I popped down from the roof. (laughter)
MATT: I guess so. Yeah.
TRAVIS: (acrobatic leaping)
TALIESIN: They'll still remember the--
SAM: We could show--
ROBBIE: Things get a little muddy.
SAM: We could show us killing you! You could die!
LAURA: Yeah.
SAM: I don't know. (laughs)
LIAM: I feel a little nervous setting them loose to potentially blab.
LAURA: That's true, that's true.
TALIESIN: I'm a terrible actor, too.
ROBBIE: I can use Geas twice total, and then I'm out.
LAURA: Remind me again what Geas does.
ROBBIE: It is a commanding--
SAM: Isn't it Gas?
LIAM: Great Smashing Pumpkins album.
ROBBIE: No, it's not gas, I got hammered for that one. I got lit up for that.
SAM: You got hammered for gas?
ROBBIE: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well. (laughs) (laughter)
ROBBIE: They said it was Geas.
MARISHA: Whom? Whom said it was Geas?
ROBBIE: The internet. (laughter)
LAURA: Okay.
MARISHA: Well, they're always right.
ASHLEY: I mean, the thing is, it really should be spelled a little differently if that's the case.
SAM: Goosh.
ROBBIE: Correct.
ASHLEY: Just put a little H on the end.
ROBBIE: I can issue a command to a creature who can hear me and they have to do it, and if they fight against it, they take a massive amount of damage. But it would be better if we had a softening story ahead of it to make it more believable.
MARISHA: Believable.
LAURA: Okay.
ROBBIE: But I could do it to the emissary and the guard.
LAURA: Okay.
ASHLEY: Okay.
SAM: Okay. But that doesn't change their mind, it just compels them to do something.
LIAM: They're not fooled.
LAURA: Yeah, they just have to tell--
LIAM: They're just being forced.
LAURA: Then as soon as they do it, though, aren't they free of it?
SAM: Wait! But if his command--
ROBBIE: It depends how we word it.
SAM: -- to the guard, for instance, if his command was: Try to get to the material plane, and that's all he can do for the rest of his life, he can't go tell other people anything.
TALIESIN: It can't take that long to get to the material plane.
MATT: It does last for 30 days.
SAM and ROBBIE: 30 days.
LAURA: 30 days.
SAM: So that'll take care of him for a while.
ROBBIE: My command to the emissary would be something along the lines of: Convince the Unseelie to lay down their arms.
ASHLEY: Probably by 30 days--
MARISHA: Yeah, every single one.
TALIESIN: By 30 days, it'll hardly matter.
LAURA: What is it? What's the save on it?
SAM: We'll all be dead by then and we'll be living in the third circle of Hell.
ASHLEY: Whoa! Okay, Negative Nancy!
SAM: No, that's positive! That's where I want to go.
LAURA and ASHLEY: Oh.
ASHLEY: Oh, oh, oh. Fair then. (laughter)
TALIESIN: Shoot higher. Go for the first circle of Hell. Really, you deserve it.
LIAM: Too expensive.
TALIESIN: Well.
LAURA: (laughs)
SAM: Rents are crazy.
ROBBIE: Wisdom 16.
TALIESIN: Demonic. Wisdom 16 and we still don't have a Bane on this.
LAURA: Oh man.
TALIESIN: So it may not work.
MARISHA: I mean, I could Bane him.
SAM: I could help with one save. I could help--
TALIESIN: Bane him. Let's try and Bane all three of them.
MARISHA: Okay! I Bane all three.
SAM: All three? I thought we killed one.
ROBBIE: Do we want to do the story thing first?
SAM: Oh, no. There's a third one, too. Shit!
MATT: All right. So for the emissary, natural 20. They succeed.
TALIESIN: Fuck!
LAURA: Is it charisma save on it for you as well?
MATT: The guard--
MARISHA: It is a charisma save. Got a natural 20.
MATT: -- that's going to be, a 17 on the other guardian.
MARISHA: Fail. Then on Zathuda, a 14.
MARISHA: Fail.
MATT: All righty.
TALIESIN: She got two of them.
MARISHA: I guess I could try again because the emissary is the one we want, right?
ROBBIE: It has to be the emissary.
TALIESIN: I don't think you can. Double check. I think you can only try and Bane a creature--
MARISHA: It's a concentration, so I would have to drop this and try again, but the emissary is the one we want.
TALIESIN: Oh yeah, because it's a concentration, you can keep trying--
MATT: You keep trying to Bane something until it works, yeah.
TALIESIN: -- to Bane something.
MARISHA: I will Bane again.
MATT: Okay. Emissary fails.
TALIESIN and LAURA: Yay!
ASHLEY: There we go.
MATT: A four and a one with advantage. Sorrowlord, natural 20 with advantage.
LAURA: Oh my gosh.
TALIESIN: That's fine.
MATT: The other guardian, that's going to be a 19, so.
MARISHA: Wow.
MATT: But the emissary is Baned.
TALIESIN: We got the one.
MARISHA: We got the one.
LAURA: All right.
TALIESIN: So we can try and convince. That's a really good-- that's a good command.
MARISHA: Yeah, I like it.
ROBBIE: If we only care about the emissary, I can try it twice.
LAURA: Maybe we do the knock him out, wake him up, knock him out, wake him up, and then when we wake him up on the last one, then you do Geas.
TALIESIN: I actually-- I don't think we need to-- I think we can just tell him, do whatever it takes to keep them out, and he'll make up his own convincing story.
LIAM: The only thing is, whatever we do can have no chance of failure because we are trying to stop an army from showing up at the moment.
LAURA and ASHLEY: Yeah.
LAURA: He might sacrifice himself to get the honest truth across, which is--
TALIESIN: Yeah.
LAURA: We're relying hard on his self-preservation.
TALIESIN: He'll have to do whatever it takes.
SAM: They may have mages among them that could dispel such things.
TALIESIN: They would have to know, though.
MARISHA: If they know.
SAM: If they knew, if they knew.
LAURA: How long has it been? How long until Nana Morri gets here?
TALIESIN: He would have to be very, very clever.
TRAVIS: We're in the middle of a short rest, right?
MATT: Correct, I would say it's been probably 40 minutes.
TRAVIS: I rolled some hit dice.
ROBBIE: The perfect combo--
TALIESIN: Oh, probably I'm turning back.
ROBBIE: -- is Modify Memory. That's the perfect combo, to where he believes it and he's not fighting against the Command.
SAM: Ira doesn't have another Modify Mem, right?
MATT: Mm-mm.
TALIESIN: No, Ira's tapped.
LIAM: I'm not a caster.
ROBBIE: I mean, we could--
LIAM: It's 10 minutes.
ROBBIE: -- put a memory in his head--
LAURA: Modify Memory?
ROBBIE: -- but not have him do what we want.
LIAM: Not an hour, not two hours, it's 10 minutes. So there's the time when their fight was going on, and there's the moment when we beamed people in the head and those are split apart with more than 10 minutes.
LAURA: Oh yeah.
TALIESIN: Yeah.
LAURA: Unless you do it at a really high level.
SAM: Yeah.
LAURA: The higher level you do it--
TRAVIS: Short rest isn't time to attune to items, right?
LAURA: -- the further back you can take it.
LIAM: How's magic work?
LAURA: (laughs)
TALIESIN: I shrink down to normal size at this point if we're 40 minutes in.
TRAVIS: Really? Why not.
LIAM: A little shrinkage?
TALIESIN: Fuck, I hate it.
MARISHA: So I can do Phantasmal Force on him.
LAURA: Okay.
ROBBIE: Okay.
LAURA: And make him see?
MARISHA: It lasts for up to a minute. "Craft an illusion, takes root in the mind of a creature you can see within range. They have to make an intelligence saving throw." But on a failed save, they see a object, creature, phenomenon, whatever, and they believe it.
LAURA: Okay.
ROBBIE: For a minute's worth of backstory.
MARISHA: For a minute.
ROBBIE: They only believe it for a minute, or forever?
MARISHA: Well, "The target is affected by the spell, the target treats the phantasm as if it was real. It rationalizes," blah, blah, blah. "An affected target is so convinced it can even take damage."
SAM: What does the emissary look like?
MATT: The emissary is a pale, gray-skinned fey elf. Long, exaggerated ears, sallow cheekbones. The eyes themselves have an almost sky-blue to white color to the irises.
SAM: Oof.
ROBBIE: I know, yeah.
MATT: The teeth are somewhat sharpened into points.
SAM: What about, Laudna, what if you put on the emissary's clothes and just be the emissary for the rest of your life? (laughter)
SAM: Just go back and pretend to be him for a while, and we'll kill the real one.
MARISHA: That feels like a gross underuse of my time and capabilities.
MATT: The emissary is beginning to stir.
LAURA: (groans)
SAM: Oh Jesus. Quick put on a play.
LAURA: Quick, somebody put on a play. (laughter)
LIAM: Above the table. Above the table. I'm not sure it is longer than 10 minutes, and if that's true-- this is above table and not Orym-- that means that the emissary's expiration is passed--
LAURA: Yeah.
TALIESIN: Mm-hmm.
LIAM: -- like a bad can of soup. But the guard was hypnotized and missed everything and came back, so he's only had a few moments. So you could make any memory, that he's the one to focus on. Okay, I'm Orym again.
SAM: Wait, who? Who's the one before?
LAURA: The guard is the one we had to really--
LIAM: The guard who believed what we did.
LAURA: -- make him believe.
SAM: So we should focus on that guy and just kill the emissary.
LIAM: Well, those two could be Nana's, but we can't unless--
TALIESIN: I'm knocking the emissary back out.
LIAM: -- you hit the emissary for two.
SAM: If the guard goes back and tells this story, that's just as good as the emissary going back and tell this story.
LIAM: Yes, yes.
SAM: All right, I'll kill him. (laughter)
LAURA and ROBBIE: No!
ASHLEY: Before the emissary stirred, I did want to give him a little pat down. See what's going on.
MATT: Sure, make an investigation check.
ASHLEY: See if he has anything in his pockets, some orders.
LAURA: I have put on a Ruby Vanguard cloak. (laughter)
MATT: You got it.
ROBBIE: We're just blank?
SAM: Oh, I'll disguise self and become...
LIAM: Ludinus.
SAM: Ludinus! (laughs)
LAURA: Yeah, good call. Good call.
ROBBIE: While everybody's doing a costume change, I'm nervously tooting my flute and everybody, I think I'm going to do--
TRAVIS: Give me the staff.
ROBBIE: -- Song of Rest.
LAURA: Huh?
ROBBIE: So since we did a short rest.
TRAVIS: Give me the staff.
MATT: Sure.
LAURA: Oh yeah, I'm going to give the staff of Dark Odyssey to Chet.
LIAM: What's that do?
TRAVIS: I don't think I actually used it right. I'll attune to it, thanks.
MARISHA: With Phantasmal Force, it doesn't necessarily say that once the spell stops that they stop believing what they saw.
MATT: Right, the illusion is no longer present.
MARISHA: The illusion's no longer there.
LAURA: Okay.
MARISHA: So we could try it and it could have Ludinus be like, "Fuck the Seelie."
LAURA: He's already that, he can do it.
SAM: Oh, I can be somebody else. I could be a Ruby Vanguard. You could make--
ASHLEY: Ruby van guy?
LAURA: We wouldn't be able to hear Ludinus. We'd only be able to see.
MARISHA: It would be like motion capture. You'd be a green screen actor.
SAM: So wait, where's Ludinus? Use those tennis balls. Oh, Ludinus.
LAURA: This seems like it's upping the difficulty. How about we just--
LIAM: T-pose, please, T-pose.
TALIESIN: Too many moving parts.
LAURA: You be Ludinus. (laughter)
LAURA: You be Ludinus, I'll be Ruby Vanguard, and we'll have a conversation about, "Everything's going to hell. The Unseelies are going to know your plan and we got to kill them."
SAM: Yes.
ROBBIE: The show's in 15 minutes. No one's off book. (laughter)
ROBBIE: Song of Rest, if you want it. If you have one or more hit dice, you can get an extra d10 hit points back. I know we're all kind of dinged up.
LAURA: Yeah, well we haven't gotten our short rest yet, so I haven't--
MATT: We're part way through.
ROBBIE: Oh, okay, well I'm going to do it in case.
MATT: If you took it, it's fine. What's your investigation check?
ASHLEY: Investigation, okay. 12.
MATT: 12. Okay, yeah, you find some bits of really nice jewelry that the emissary is wearing. Two gold rings inset with some beautiful gemstones. One's worth about 150 gold, the other's worth about 300 gold.
ASHLEY: I'm not going to take anything. I was specifically looking for things in his pockets. Orders from above.
MATT: Unfortunately you don't find anything.
ASHLEY: Okay, I'm going to leave the jewels. I'm going to leave the jewels.
MATT: Okay.
ASHLEY: And the gems.
MATT: You've adorned the robe. Are you transforming into something?
SAM: I'm transforming into Ludinus Da'leth and getting into character.
MATT: All right.
ASHLEY: Can I throw on a robe?
LAURA: Yeah, throw on a robe. You're envisioned to throw on a robe.
ASHLEY: I'm going to robe. I'm going to robe.
LIAM: I don't believe in any of this, but I'll put the cape on.
LAURA: He knows that you're Zathuda's daughter. You can't be in this play.
ASHLEY: Well, I'm going to cover my head.
LAURA: No, get out! You've got hooves. (laughter)
ASHLEY: I rip off my clothes again.
MARISHA: You can't be in this play!
SAM: What about you? You're a good actor?
ROBBIE: Hm? Who said I was a good actor?
LAURA: Because we played--
ASHLEY: You have high performance.
LAURA: -- we did a play a long time ago.
ROBBIE: I've been riding on charisma for years.
TALIESIN: I have already walked out of this room. I am out of this shit.
ASHLEY: We're the performers of the group.
LAURA: Yay.
ASHLEY: Or, yeah, deception.
ROBBIE: I'll be an extra.
SAM: What are we saying? (laughs)
LAURA: You're saying that you wanted everyone to die. You hate the Unseelie and--
SAM: But we've left him alive for some reason?
LAURA: Everything's gone to shit.
ASHLEY: This is so stupid.
LAURA: Too many of the guards were surviving, I had to take them out.
SAM: We're going to do it!
TALIESIN: Just watching from the corner. Oh god.
ASHLEY: Yeah, I'm going to get behind.
LAURA: All right, tell me when he's awake.
LIAM: So he's going to get knocked out, that's the plan?
LAURA: In a second, after he sees a little bit.
SAM: Ashton, get ready to knock him out.
LIAM: But wait, hold on. I hate this plan, but what if you monologue for five seconds and then I jump you and then he gets knocked out.
SAM: Okay, okay.
ASHLEY: Who's knocking him out? Who's knocking him out?
SAM: Ashton's the knockout guy.
TALIESIN: I'll knock him out.
ROBBIE: But then one of us should die to make it look like we've lost someone.
LAURA: Yeah, sure.
ROBBIE: And we're fighting against.
LAURA: Wait.
ASHLEY: Who's dying?
LAURA: Okay, I'm so confused, now it's a lot.
MATT: The emissary is slowly coming to consciousness once more.
SAM: Okay, here we go.
MARISHA: Let's do it. Let's do it. It's go time.
MATT: So, eyes open up. (grunts)
LAURA: Everything's gone according to plan, Ludinus.
SAM: You mean all of the Unseelie guards have been taken out?
LAURA: Yes, we took them all out. There was a little bit of chaos at the end there, but--
SAM: You left the emissary alive?
LAURA: So far.
SAM: Oh, I'll take care of him. It will be my great pleasure.
LAURA and SAM: (ominously laugh)
ROBBIE: Donk! I just donk him!
LIAM: Your schemes are at an end! (laughter)
MATT: As soon as Orym enters for his scene, the emissary is unconscious. (laughter)
TALIESIN: I was literally standing behind him ready to knock him out. Why would the--
MATT: No, hold on, hold on. Continue your scene, please.
ROBBIE: You were cut for time.
LAURA: Wait. Did we knock him out?
MATT: No, hold on, no, no, no, continue your scene.
LIAM: Your schemes are at an end, Da'leth. It ends now!
SAM: No, not Bells Hells!
LIAM: Not in this realm or any other! I try to bean Braius through the illusion on the head.
MARISHA: I really think he should have knocked him out, this is getting weird.
MATT: Okay. Oh, you knocked him out. (laughter)
MATT: I just wanted them to do the scene. (laughter)
MATT: Because you don't know.
SAM: I feign getting hit. (groans)
ASHLEY: He's out! Get out. Get out.
LIAM: Now I stab you.
SAM: (groans) Okay, okay.
LAURA: Your illusion ends.
SAM: Now I sort of peek. Did he buy it?
MATT: You look over and he's just unconscious in Dorian's grasp.
SAM: Damn it, Dorian!
LAURA: How far did we get?
ROBBIE: I'm sorry. I think I jumped my cue? I thought "Mwa-ha-ha" was the end of the scene!
LAURA: No, it was-- that felt like a good end. It was fine.
MARISHA: I think he might've gotten, "Ludinu--" and then that was it.
LAURA: It's fine. It was chaos.
LIAM: Fog of war, fog of war.
SAM: He can wake up again and see you on top of me choking me or something.
LAURA: Should we roll a deception check for?
TALIESIN: You were all just defeated by a rehearsal.
MATT: Yes, you will.
TALIESIN: I'm just pointing out, you are all defeated by a rehearsal!
MARISHA: So, it was a dress rehearsal. It means the real thing's going to be amazing.
ROBBIE: Just give me the cue to when to bring the lights back on.
MATT: So I would like both Imogen and Braius to make deception checks for me, please.
SAM: Of course we inspired ourselves before this. No, we did not.
LAURA: Yeah, obviously and she Guided me.
ASHLEY: Yes, Guidance.
LIAM: Is this for the fooling of the?
SAM: Permanent fooling.
MATT: I'm going to say because you threw off your robe and ran out of the room before any of this started, Guidance will not apply to this.
SAM: Sure, of course.
ASHLEY: Oh, shit. Sorry that's--
LIAM: Can I give Braius advantage because I definitely stabbed you.
LAURA: You know if you stabbed him it would've gone through the disguise.
SAM: Yeah, but it's still blood.
LAURA: Okay.
MATT: That's part of the deception, so it does not give him advantage.
LAURA and SAM: Okay.
LAURA: What did you roll?
SAM: I rolled a 20.
MATT: A total 20?
SAM: Total.
MATT: Okay.
LIAM: Oh, a low roll for you.
LAURA: I know. I rolled really low too. I rolled 17.
MATT: Okay.
LIAM: What, we just keep trying and whiffing here?
LAURA: Oh, and that's a 19, of course.
MATT: Okay, so Emissary's unconscious.
ROBBIE: What's act two going to be?
TALIESIN: Chet, how are you doing?
SAM: Yeah, choking me out.
TRAVIS: Chet's taking a nap. (laughter)
LAURA: We'll drag Chet over. He'll look dead.
ROBBIE: Oh yes!
MARISHA: Oh, that's good. That's good.
ROBBIE: Does anybody have a little-- Can I take blood off of something else to smear it on him?
SAM: Take some of my blood. He just stabbed me.
ROBBIE: Yes, yes, there you go.
TALIESIN: Actually, he's usually covered in it anyway. I think you're probably fine.
LIAM: He's got that bloody bib.
MARISHA: I'll hold Chet's sleeping, unconscious body and be like, (tearily) "Come back to me." Yeah, yeah, yeah, this one's good. I'll be deep in the background, though, so it's background action.
TALIESIN: Nobody knocks out the emissary but me. Are we clear?
ROBBIE: I'll be lights up. You be lights down.
TALIESIN: Okay. What is the end of the scene, motherfuckers?
SAM: I think it's just choke, choke, choke for five seconds and then knock him out.
LAURA: Yeah, it's just real fast. It just needs to be a blip. He needs to not--
SAM: This is a vignette.
LAURA: It's confusing. It should be confusing.
TALIESIN: I want to see someone drop unconscious.
SAM: I'll do that. I'll drop unconscious.
ASHLEY: Just a blink.
SAM: Inspire me, please.
ROBBIE: Sure!
SAM: I'll inspire you.
LAURA: Okay, thank you.
ROBBIE: You're doing great.
LAURA: We should have been inspired, really.
TALIESIN: Need some more direction around here, my god.
SAM: Actually, you inspire her. I'll inspire me.
ROBBIE: Yes.
LAURA: Okay.
MATT: (laughs)
TALIESIN: Places.
MATT: You can't inspire yourself.
SAM: I'll inspire you. Give me that. (laughter)
ROBBIE: You both are doing great.
TALIESIN: Places!
LAURA: Oh, it's a six?
SAM: Yeah.
LAURA: Okay.
TALIESIN: God.
LAURA: Okay.
TRAVIS: What are you doing, Laudna?
MARISHA: Just--
TALIESIN: Ready?
SAM: Yes.
LIAM: Hold on. I'm going to Sense Memory.
SAM: Oh, right! Disguise Self again.
MATT: Okay.
SAM: Ludinus again.
ASHLEY: What do you see? What do you smell?
MARISHA: Oh shit, can I do this right?
TALIESIN: Yeah, I have not said--
LAURA: I'm going to fly up so I look like I'm doing badass things.
TALIESIN: It'll be "action" for you and then I'll say "now" for everybody else.
MARISHA: Okay.
TALIESIN: Ready?
ROBBIE: Okay.
TALIESIN: Action.
ROBBIE: Cure Wounds.
TALIESIN: Now.
MATT: (grunting)
SAM: (pained screams)
LIAM: Damn you, Da'leth.
SAM: I would've gotten away with it.
LIAM: Are you sorry for all of Exandria?
SAM: I would have killed all the Unseelie--
TALIESIN: Scene!
TALIESIN: And back out.
SAM: -- if it hadn't been for Bells Hells!
TRAVIS: My grandchildren.
TALIESIN: Cut!
LIAM: I slap Braius.
SAM: Ow, ow.
LAURA: (laughs)
TALIESIN: Yeah, I'll let that slide.
ROBBIE: All right, last chance. I only have one Cure Wounds left.
LAURA: Okay, okay.
TALIESIN: Are we really--
LAURA: How did that one go?
TALIESIN: (pained sigh)
MATT: Seemed to go okay. (laughter)
ASHLEY: Wait. I still don't understand why. He has all of the other information already.
MATT: Orym, make a perception check with disadvantage.
ROBBIE: We're softening him up to give him the command.
MATT: It would be a straight roll for you.
ASHLEY: All right.
LIAM: Because this is ridiculous?
MATT: Yeah.
TRAVIS: This is why people are afraid of the theater. (laughter)
LAURA: Wait. Is he rolling deception now?
MATT: No, he's rolling perception.
LAURA: Oh.
LIAM: Oh, perception?
MATT: Correct.
SAM: You have to roll deception.
LIAM: Oh, so a straight?
MATT: Straight roll.
LIAM: Oh okay.
MATT: Because you are in the process of trying to perform while this is happening.
LIAM: Thank god. I thought he was asking me to do deception. 23.
MATT: 23, okay. Okay.
SAM: Mine was 29.
LAURA: Oh, for deception?
SAM: Mm-hmm.
MATT: Sure, go for it.
SAM: Okay.
LAURA: Shut up. I know. That would be--
ASHLEY: Nice.
LAURA: Okay, that's good, 11 plus 15.
MATT: Okay.
LAURA: 11 plus 10! Just a lie, 21.
MATT: Okay.
LAURA: My persuasion's higher.
MATT: All right, he is unconscious once more.
SAM: What do we do?
LIAM: Yeah, what's act three? We've got to tie up loose ends.
TALIESIN: Just Geas, just Geas.
MARISHA: I think it's Geas.
TALIESIN: Geas at this point.
LAURA: But Ludinus has to get away. You have to get away. You can't be dead in this.
TALIESIN: No, we want the third act hanging. What happened? He doesn't know. Keep the mystery.
LAURA: What if, Ludinus, you attack all of us and we fall down. I'm with you. I should also fall down.
TALIESIN: This is how you ruin "Donnie Darko."
ASHLEY: But you should really make it clear what your objective is.
MARISHA: (laughs)
LAURA: What if I get killed and I just lay there?
MARISHA: It's just a field of destruction.
SAM: So I've killed Orym.
LAURA: Yes.
SAM: I've killed my own guard?
ASHLEY: Say it.
LAURA: No, Bells Hells would've killed me.
TALIESIN: Yeah.
LIAM: Just your arrows?
MATT: You hear a little sound of (poof), and you glance over and the ropes that held Lord Zathuda on the ground are--
ASHLEY: Wait! I'm with him.
MATT: -- now empty.
MARISHA: No!
ROBBIE: What?
ASHLEY: (screeches) What? No, I've been standing with him! Shit, but I didn't tell you that. I've been standing with him!
MATT: Yeah.
ASHLEY: I just got too involved in the show and I didn't see it.
MATT: In a burst of shadow. (poof) He vanishes from within.
ASHLEY: Son of a fucking--
TALIESIN: See Invisibility, anybody got it? I am going to be doing my best to like--
MARISHA: No, I'm sure he just bamfed.
LIAM: Chetney, you took his blade last time, right?
ASHLEY: (groans)
TRAVIS: You did.
LAURA: That's okay. He's haunted.
MATT: You've seen him do that before.
LAURA: We know where he went.
MARISHA: He is haunted.
MATT: Yep.
ASHLEY: Wait, so he's haunted, you always know where he--
MARISHA: I do know where he is.
MATT: He's just outside of the temple.
MARISHA: He's just outside of the temple.
TALIESIN: Somebody want to follow him?
MARISHA: What are we going to do?
ASHLEY: Okay.
LAURA: I Misty Step out to him.
MATT: Do you point out which direction?
LIAM: Do we need to follow you?
MARISHA: Yeah, I'll follow. I'll go. I'll go.
LIAM: You lead.
MARISHA: I lead.
LIAM: You're the one who knows.
MARISHA: That's what I meant.
TALIESIN: I'm staying in the temple.
MARISHA: I'm following this initiative by leading.
MATT: All right, so which direction are you Misty Stepping?
LAURA: Towards where he went.
MATT: You tell her where he went?
MARISHA: Yes!
MATT: Okay. So you Misty Step out. You appear.
LAURA: I'm flying still.
MATT: Right.
LAURA: So I'd poof.
MATT: So you poof.
SAM: Let's all take a five on the performance. (laughter)
MARISHA: Fucking--
TALIESIN: Can we be done with this insanity?
ROBBIE: I'm still strangling him.
MATT: Out into this space and you see him charging this direction out into the forest once more.
TALIESIN: One hit will knock him out.
ASHLEY: I'm going to run out as well.
LIAM: I'm sprinting.
MARISHA: Yeah, running, run, run, run, run.
ROBBIE: Get 'em!
LIAM: Sprinting at full--
LAURA: I Lightning Bolt him.
MATT: Okay, well you Misty Stepped, so that's your action, so now that we're in a chase sequence, we will need initiative.
MARISHA: Can you quicken spell? (pigeon coo)
LAURA: Fuck!
SAM: Who has my d6? My black and white d6. It's gone.
LAURA: (laughs)
ASHLEY: Damn it! Such a low-- So low!
MATT: Okay, friends. So 25 to 20?
TRAVIS: 21.
MATT: 21.
SAM: We're all doing this?
ROBBIE: Oh, okay.
LAURA: Yeah.
SAM: 21.
LIAM: A well-oiled machine tonight.
MATT: All right, and 21 for you, Braius.
SAM: Mm-hmm.
MATT: All right.
ASHLEY: Wait, who was up first?
MARISHA: Chet and Braius.
TRAVIS: What's your dex, Braius?
SAM: You can start.
TRAVIS: Okay.
MATT: All right, 20 to 15?
LIAM: 18.
MATT: 18. Okay, and then we have-- All right, 15 to 10?
LAURA: 14.
MARISHA: 12.
ROBBIE: 12.
MATT: All right.
MATT: Which dex is higher?
TALIESIN: Oh, 16, sorry. I'm not part of this.
MARISHA: You.
ROBBIE: I think I'm going to get you on dex.
TALIESIN: Someone's got to stay with these assholes.
LAURA: Dorian, Laudna.
MARISHA: Imogen, Dorian, Laudna.
LAURA: Fearne, really low?
ASHLEY: Yeah, I rolled a five total.
MATT: Okay.
LAURA: What about you, Ashton?
TALIESIN: I'm staying in the temple because we have two unconscious people.
LAURA: Oh, good call.
TALIESIN: I'm also exhausted, so--
MATT: All righty, so, Chetney, you're up first. You watch him go (poof). Laudna points out a direction where he went. Then Imogen vanishes.
TRAVIS: Cool. I'll run out the direction that Laudna is pointing.
LAURA: You have the staff, too. (laughs) He can just Misty Step, anyway.
MATT: What are you doing?
TRAVIS: I run out the temple.
MATT: Okay, so it's 35?
TRAVIS: 40.
MATT: 40, all right, so that's 40 feet to get from where you were in the center of the temple to the mid hallway, dash to get just outside.
TRAVIS: Oh, nice.
MATT: So you emerge the temple from the front, unless you had other plans. That'll put you just out front. Bonus action you can still take.
TRAVIS: Can I see him?
MATT: Yeah, you can see him.
TRAVIS: How far away is he?
MATT: He's about 25, 30 feet.
TRAVIS: I'm going to throw-- Yeah, I'm going to throw my chisel at him. (laughter)
MATT: (reverberating whistle) All right, roll an attack.
MARISHA: Come on. I want this to be a one-r so bad.
ASHLEY: One shot.
MARISHA: One shot.
TRAVIS: 19 to hit?
MATT: 19? That just hit.
ASHLEY: Yes, yes!
MARISHA: Come on!
MATT: (laughs) (laughter)
TRAVIS: I'm going to use the-- Oh, I damaged him, so I'm going to do it. I just took a short rest. I'm going to use the Brand of Castigation on him. (laughs)
ASHLEY: Yes.
TRAVIS: But I'm going to roll for this stupid thing. So it's-- Oh, it's 1d8 now. (laughs) Seven plus--
TALIESIN: Oh boy.
TRAVIS: Where's the chisel? There it is. I'm sorry. Chisels are d6. Six. 15 points of damage.
MATT: 15 points of damage.
TRAVIS: Yes.
MATT: (rapid whoosh) (grunts) (impact) (laughter)
MATT: And just--
LAURA: Oh my god.
MATT: Just full on spin dive into roots and dirt on the outside of the temple.
ASHLEY: Awesome.
TRAVIS: As he face plants and slides, underneath his back garments on his ass, you hear (hisses) as a little Brand of Castigation forms on his butt cheek.
MATT: Got it.
LAURA: What does that do?
MATT: What's it look like? What's the brand look like?
TALIESIN: Like a Care Bear.
TRAVIS: It says C-POP.
ASHLEY: C-POP!
MATT: Hell yeah. Hell yeah. (laughter)
TRAVIS: So now if he does disappear and get away, we know where he is. And yours (whoosh) vanishes.
LAURA: And he's haunted.
ASHLEY: Mine vanishes? Okay.
LAURA: I look over at Chet. That was impressive.
MARISHA: It was so good.
LAURA: You were just asleep. How did you--
TRAVIS: (snores) (laughter)
ASHLEY: (shouts) What do we-- Oh. (laughter)
LAURA: I'm going to fly over to him and stand next to him.
MARISHA: Drag him back in.
LAURA: Yeah.
TALIESIN: We should also take all of his stuff.
ASHLEY: Yeah, I'll help.
LIAM: I'll drag him.
MATT: (ominous whoosh) (shouting)
TRAVIS: Watch out for the dragon! (shouts) Goddamn it! We suck at this.
MATT: As you land over top, all of a sudden this shadow appears and darting out of the tree line. (screeches) (heavy impact) Landing extremely heavily onto the ground.
TRAVIS: Oh, invisible. Of course when you looked outside, we didn't see anything. It was invisible.
MARISHA: Argh!
MATT: It also rolled a natural 20 with its--
TRAVIS: Goddamn it, of course.
LIAM: Stealth.
MATT: -- stealth.
SAM: Best short rest ever.
MATT: (laughs)
LAURA: Did we actually get a short rest, though? Because I didn't take it--
MATT: Technically, I'll say you guys just received a short rest.
MARISHA: Just did one? Okay, good. Wait, and you did your spell?
ROBBIE: I did the spell, if you want your points.
LIAM: Are we in the same initiative order with the dragon added now?
MATT: Correct. (extremely heavy thumps)
TRAVIS: Oh my god.
MATT: So-- (laughs)
LIAM: We'll run like hell and get out of here.
TALIESIN: All right.
MATT: All righty.
LIAM: Can't let the dragon have him.
MATT: So with that--
MARISHA: Goddamn it.
MATT: Gloamglut lands.
TALIESIN: Shit.
MATT: He's going to take one strike at you, Imogen, as you're standing over him at the moment.
LAURA: (groans) Of course.
MATT: It's real bad. That's going to be a--
TALIESIN: Fuck.
MATT: 13 to hit?
LAURA: Oh! That doesn't hit!
MATT: Yep. Goes wide.
LAURA: (sighs)
MATT: He's going to use his other attack to pick him up in its claws.
ASHLEY: He's going to take him the fuck out of here.
MATT: Strikes you and picks him up and with its other claw--
LAURA: Can I--
MATT: -- and is getting down below to start to leap and he's going to finish his turn.
LAURA: Can I do anything?
MATT: When it comes to your initiative.
LAURA: Oh right.
MATT: All right, so--
TRAVIS: He doesn't leave, right?
MATT: No, he's used his action to run to dash in there to even grab him, so--
LAURA: So that was Chet and then Gloamglut comes after Chet?
MATT: Correct. Braius, you're up.
SAM: Movement, I'm still inside, so movement to--
MATT: Right, so full--
SAM: -- 30 feet.
MATT: 30 feet will get you just in the inside of the door, like, about there.
SAM: Oh!
MATT: That's move and dash, like, full all the way get there, so that's your action and your movement.
SAM: Oh, I would move and bonus action, can I bonus action Misty Step? Is that how that works?
MATT: You can cast the spell Misty Step if you still have a spell slot to do it.
SAM: Of course, but it's a bonus action.
MATT: Yeah.
SAM: Yes, I will instead of dashing and then as my action I will use, oh, shit, what is it called? Divine Sense? No. Divine Smite? No. Channel Divinity.
MATT: Okay.
SAM: (laughs) Nature's Wrath. Because he's on the ground right now, right?
MATT: Currently, yes.
SAM: Nature's Wrath, I can ensnare a foe.
MATT: Ah! Okay.
ASHLEY: Ooh.
SAM: "As an action, you can cause spectral vines to spring up "and reach for a creature within 10 feet of you."
MATT: Actually, yeah, within 10 feet.
SAM: That I can see.
MATT: Yeah.
SAM: "Creature must succeed on a strength "or dex throw, its choice, or be restrained."
MATT: Its choice? It's going to try strength.
LAURA: (laughs) It's going to try strength.
SAM: As it tries strength, I can use my reaction, I believe, to use-- (nervous wheezing) (laughs) (laughter)
MATT: Oh, I just fucking saw your shirt. Goddamn it.
SAM: Oh yeah. (laughter)
SAM: It's an easy one for him.
ASHLEY: I'm a cowboy, baby.
TALIESIN: Classic.
SAM: I have another thing where I can change his save to a charisma.
MATT: To a charisma save? Okay.
SAM: Sorrowful Fate? Is that it?
MATT: Is it a spell?
SAM: "Once per short rest, "when you or an ally can see a creature "making a saving throw, "you can expend one of your bardic inspirations to change--"
MATT: Oh, yeah, yeah.
SAM: "-- the type of saving throw to a charisma save instead."
ASHLEY: (gasps)
MATT: All righty, let's go.
SAM: I will do that.
MATT: Okay, so that's going to be a plus five.
LAURA: (groans)
SAM: Better than strength, I assume.
MATT: Natural 20. (groaning)
ASHLEY: Stop it! Come on!
TRAVIS: Amazing.
MARISHA: Wait, what was that for?
TRAVIS: Amazing.
SAM: To save against my ensnare.
ASHLEY: Damn, that was good.
MARISHA: Silvery Barbs.
ASHLEY: Ooh!
LAURA: Oh!
TRAVIS: His favorite.
MARISHA: His favorite.
MATT: That's going to be a 19.
SAM: I don't even know what this is.
LAURA: What's your DC?
SAM: It's 18. It's 18.
ASHLEY: Damn! (groaning)
MATT: As the vines reach out to try and wrap around it, they reach and grapple onto the legs of Gloamglut, who gets pulled down for a second. (gloopy snarling)
LAURA: Yeah, Gloamglut, awesome.
MATT: (snaps) Tears its front arms free. So it's not restrained, unfortunately. That was a good try. That was a good try.
ASHLEY: Yeah, that was a good try.
ROBBIE: Yeah! Yeah, yeah!
MATT: All righty, so that's going to get Braius' turn. Orym, you're up.
LIAM: So I'm in, we're all inside running out? That's the deal?
MATT: Correct.
LIAM: All right, so I'm going to run up and I'll get right underneath Braius' legs, more or less in the same space, because I can do that as a halfling. I can't-- I'm not within 15 feet, right?
MATT: You are within 15 feet.
LIAM: I am?
MATT: Yeah.
LIAM: I'm going to attack Sorrowlord.
MATT: Zathuda?
LIAM: Yeah.
MATT: Okay, it's a ranged attack.
TALIESIN: Ooh!
MATT: He is unconscious.
LIAM: Yeah.
MATT: So I'd say it's disadvantage.
LAURA: I mean, better dead than get away.
TALIESIN: Yeah.
LIAM: Yeah.
MATT: All right.
LAURA: We can't let him get away.
LIAM: I'm at advantage?
MATT: You're at disadvantage because he's currently considered prone and wrapped by the claw.
LIAM: Okay, all right, so that's a miss.
MATT: Okay.
LIAM: That is a 28 to hit.
MATT: 28 to hit, that definitely hits. (laughter)
MATT: But even rolling damage, as long as you're doing one point of damage, that's one failed save on him.
LIAM: And--
TALIESIN: It's not two? Oh.
MATT: If it's a crit in melee, it is.
TALIESIN: Oh, that's right.
SAM: Someone hide Fearne's eyes.
LIAM: Can I, and--
ASHLEY: No, I'm going to watch.
LIAM: Can it be a push, and it's a pushing attack. I don't know what that will do with this thing in its hands.
MATT: Sure. I'll say that's against Gloamglut's Strength since he's one holding onto him. (laughter)
MATT: Natural 19.
LIAM: Okay.
MATT: Yeah, it's going to be a 24.
LIAM: That succeeds.
MATT: Okay, that's two strikes.
LAURA: He rolled a 19 and he got a 24?
MATT: Correct.
LAURA: As his total on his strength?
MATT: It was a strength save?
LIAM: It's a DC, so strength save.
MATT: Right, so it would've been a saving throw, sorry. That would've been a 30.
LAURA: 30.
LIAM: 30, okay, so--
MATT: Thanks for the clarification.
LIAM: You just said he failed one death save from that hit, right?
MATT: Correct.
LIAM: Not two?
MATT: Only fails two on a crit.
LIAM: That's a 30 to hit.
MATT: That'll hit.
LIAM: I'll make it a pushing attack again.
MATT: Okay, that's a second death save on Zathuda.
MARISHA: That's true.
TALIESIN: This is a good call.
ASHLEY: Where's Nana?
LAURA: She's going to be here any minute.
MATT: And a 21.
LIAM: 21, succeeds. So it still has a grip, and then I'm out of juice, and I-- And that's it.
MATT: Okay. All righty.
ASHLEY: That's true.
LAURA: Can you still Dimension Door? Do you have it anymore?
ROBBIE: I burned a lot for our play.
LAURA: I know.
MATT: It's Zathuda's go.
SAM: It was a good play!
LAURA: It's Zathuda's turn--
MATT: Zathuda--
LAURA: -- after Orym.
MATT: -- has to roll a death save.
SAM: It's a workshop.
MATT: And expires in the grasp--
LAURA: He just died! Zathuda just died.
MATT: Sorrowlord Zathuda, currently in the grip of the claw, goes limp and-- (weary exhale)
LAURA: Oh shit
MATT: -- exhales his final fey-given breath. The blood father of Fearne Calloway expires in the grip of his bonded fey dragon.
LAURA: His bonded fey dragon.
MATT: The minute he falls limp--
SAM: Dragon's not going to like that.
MATT: -- the dragon pulls up and shakes him for a minute.
SAM: Uh-oh.
MATT: (horrific screech) Does this horrible, baleful screech of pain and fury.
LAURA: Uh-oh.
MATT: All right. Ashton, you're up, with Imogen on deck.
MARISHA: Fuck.
TALIESIN: I'm still inside. I do not know what the fuck is going on in there.
MARISHA: He's with the emissary.
ROBBIE: Me and Ashton are still inside.
MATT: You're no longer in your form, by the way.
TALIESIN: Oh yeah, no. I dropped.
MATT: Yeah.
TALIESIN: So, it would take me three rounds to get out there anyway.
SAM: I can revivify him.
ASHLEY: I wish I was over there, to lurk.
TALIESIN: I'm going to yell at everyone: The fuck is going on out there? in the heads, and I'm honestly just keeping a fucking eye on the--
SAM: Emissary.
MATT: You got it.
TALIESIN: Yeah, on the emissary and the guard.
MATT: So you're staying inside. All right, finishing Ashton's go.
TALIESIN: I'm useless right now.
SAM: No, you're very useful, actually.
MATT: Imogen, you're up. Dorian on deck.
ASHLEY: Shit.
LAURA: I don't know what to do.
SAM: Dragon fight happening.
LAURA: Oh god, I'm in the air.
TALIESIN: Banish, anyone? Banish?
LAURA: Right.
SAM: I've got one more spell.
MATT: Yeah, you can fly. You dropped right below him before dodging.
LAURA: Oh, that's right.
MATT: So you're like-- You can fly.
LAURA: But if I was flying, would I be able to get to the saddle on Gloamglut, or would it be far enough?
MATT: Huh? What's your flying speed?
LAURA: Let me look. I'm sorry. 60 feet?
MATT: 60 feet's your flight speed? Yeah, you could definitely get onto it.
LAURA: Okay, I'm going to try to get on the saddle.
MATT: You grasp onto its saddle there. All righty.
LAURA: I am going to-- Calm Emotions does not work on--
SAM: Oh no.
MATT: That's his sheet.
LAURA: No! Don't throw that down yet!
MATT: Okay.
SAM: He could still be Revivified.
LAURA: He could still come back.
MATT: He could. He could.
TRAVIS: Who's got Revivify?
LAURA: Calm Emotions doesn't work on an animal.
TRAVIS: Do you have revivify?
ROBBIE: I hope he gets away with it.
LAURA: I'm going to-- Can I try as my action to--
MATT: Yeah?
LAURA: Use Animal Handling to calm Gloamglut? I know it's a crazy--
MATT: You can certainly try.
LAURA: I'm going to try to--
MATT: This is a very high DC given the emotional state of this entity.
LAURA: I figured.
MATT: But you can certainly try.
LAURA: Can I try to use a psychic connection with him to amplify it, to help calm him down in any way? Can I reach out psychically?
MATT: Because of your psychic connection, I'm giving you a chance to do this.
LAURA: Okay. Okay.
ASHLEY: Come on, come on, come on.
MATT: What is your bonus to animal handling?
LAURA: Six.
MATT: Six, okay. You will need a 19 or 20 to succeed on this.
LAURA: Cool. Cool, cool, cool, cool. Cool, cool. Cool, cool, cool, cool.
MATT: It's a 10% chance.
ROBBIE: Do it.
SAM: You got this. Easy.
LAURA: Six. (laughter)
LAURA: I'm going to roll a different dice to see if it would've mattered.
MATT: Sure.
LAURA: Nope, it wouldn't have. (laughter)
ASHLEY: Good try.
MATT: As you hold onto the reins, it begins to shift and move. You try and psychically connect with it, and you feel this sadness and anger and fury, the loss of blood connection and bond. It's a lot, and you just can't seem to break through. All right, that finishes your go, Imogen. You still have a bonus action if you want it.
LAURA: Um--
MATT: I do need the sheet because I put the initiative order on it. (laughter) That's on me.
TRAVIS: (rewinding)
MATT: Well, I could just tear off the-- No.
LAURA: All right, I'm going to, as a bonus action, it's not going to matter. I'm going to speak to Gloamglut telepathically.
MATT: Okay.
LAURA: I'm going to say: We can still bring him back, but I need you to stop fighting us.
MATT: Okay.
LAURA: Okay.
MATT: That finishes your go. Dorian, you're up with Laudna on deck.
ROBBIE: Right.
MATT: You hear these shrieks. Dust falls from above. Actually, no, there'd be no dust because the whole thing's reformed itself, so no. But you feel the interior quake and it echoes within, what sound travels through. You see the thrashing of the dragon just beyond the exit of the hallway about 60 feet from you.
ROBBIE: Okay. I'll look down at the emissary and--
TALIESIN: I got 'em.
ROBBIE: Are you sure?
TALIESIN: I'm watching them.
ROBBIE: All right. I'm going to sprint for the front.
MATT: Okay.
ROBBIE: See what's going on out there.
MATT: You get just to the front door next to Orym and Braius. There's an eight to 10 foot--
SAM: It's bad out here. (laughter)
ROBBIE: What happened? Who--?
SAM: He turned into a dragon.
ROBBIE: What?
SAM: No, I'm just kidding.
ROBBIE: I knew it. (laughter)
MATT: But it's a movement and action to get there. So you still have a bonus action.
LAURA: He's still holding Zathuda in his claw?
MATT: Still clutching Zathuda in the claw.
ROBBIE: I literally have nothing I can do, yeah.
MATT: Okay.
SAM: Inspire someone.
TALIESIN: Run back in.
ROBBIE: I mean, I only have one left and I want to save it if I have to.
SAM: Okay, okay, okay.
MATT: Okay. That finishes your go. Then that brings us to Laudna with Fearne on deck.
MARISHA: Okay. Okay. Son of a bitch.
TRAVIS: (laughs)
MATT: What is that, a bonus action?
TRAVIS: Yeah. (laughs)
MARISHA: Okay. I don't know what to do.
TRAVIS: For the new release. Son of a bitch.
MATT: Slippery fey, man.
MARISHA: Are we trying to kill the dragon now? I just don't want the dragon to fly off with his body.
LAURA: We're wasted.
TALIESIN: Yeah, there's no--
LAURA: I don't see how we can--
TALIESIN: I don't think there's a win scenario here unless you got something real wild.
TRAVIS: Cowards.
LAURA: Unless Nana shows up. I mean, I'm holding onto the saddle.
MARISHA: You're on the saddle.
ASHLEY: Hold on, girl.
MARISHA: You're on the saddle.
LAURA: I'm on the saddle.
MARISHA: Okay.
TALIESIN: I'm holding action until they say it out loud.
MARISHA: We have-- Nana Morri, man. I am going--
TALIESIN: It could take another 10 minutes.
ASHLEY: Time.
MARISHA: Son of a bitch. I'm so sorry.
TRAVIS: ♪ Time ♪
MARISHA: I'm so confused what to do.
ASHLEY: Times is a little weird here.
MARISHA: Are we burning down the dragon?
MATT: What are you doing?
LAURA: Why did we fail so hard?
ASHLEY: Should we try to calm him down?
TALIESIN: If we were better playwrights.
LAURA: Yeah.
TALIESIN: The reviews have been rough.
SAM: I take exception to that. This was just a backer audition. This was just a staged reading. We were just trying.
LAURA: Trying it out.
MARISHA: I am so confused with what to do.
LIAM: Can you get the body?
MARISHA: I will, in case it tries to fly, I guess. This is stupid. I'm going to just do a Ray of Frost at it.
MATT: Okay. Go ahead and roll for an attack.
MARISHA: Okay.
MATT: Since you're inside the building, it'll have half cover, but you ignore that with Spell Sniper, so you're fine.
MARISHA: I do ignore that with Spell Sniper. I would also start to move out a bit because I was already running out.
MATT: Okay.
MARISHA: Ugh, that's a fucking four.
MATT: Partway up the tunnel. You're probably about there on the inside.
MARISHA: 17 to hit.
MATT: 17 to hit? Just misses.
ASHLEY: (groans)
MATT: Ray of Frost goes wide, unfortunately.
MARISHA: Great.
MATT: Bonus action?
MARISHA: I will bonus action quicken a spell and do it again.
MATT: Go for it.
MARISHA: Worse.
LAURA: Ugh.
MARISHA: Worse.
MATT: I'm sorry.
TALIESIN: Felt it. Even as I heard the die, I heard the die fall back.
MATT: Okay, finishes Imogen's go, sorry, Laudna's go. Fearne, you're up.
ASHLEY: All right. I'm going to come outside, which I think I was almost a little bit in the hallway or--
MATT: Your movement is 35?
ASHLEY: 35.
MATT: Okay. Yeah, because you were kind a little back, so you would get just out here, just near where Chetney is. So you'd be able to--
TALIESIN: We're in a nice clump when the dragon decides to attack.
MATT: With a rush and a run.
SAM: It's bad out here. (laughter)
ASHLEY: Okay.
TRAVIS: Hand on chest.
ASHLEY: I'm going to take in the scene.
MATT: Yeah, the limp body of your blood father, not an actual father necessarily, in the grip of the dragon that's in the process of thrashing--
ASHLEY: What happened?!
MATT: -- with Imogen on its back holding onto the reins, about to be bucked off. It's bad.
ASHLEY: All right. I'm going to get up close to--
LIAM: Orym hears that and his stomach roils.
ASHLEY: I'm going to get up close to where I can see Zathuda and look up at Gloamglut. I'm going to run my hand along my moon sickle, so I start bleeding.
MATT: Okay.
ASHLEY: I'm going to hold it up to Gloamglut. I'm family! Please, calm down!
MARISHA: Big move, big move. I love it.
MATT: Make a persuasion check for me.
TRAVIS: Oh man!
ASHLEY: Okay, okay, okay!
LIAM: Really cool, Ash.
LAURA: Yeah.
ASHLEY: Which one do I roll, Laura?
SAM: Guidance.
LAURA: I don't know, I don't know, I don't know.
TALIESIN: Which one's the hardest to read?
LAURA: Guide yourself.
ASHLEY: I'm going to do this one.
LAURA: You can't, you're in combat. I always forget, you can't Guidance--
SAM: Guidance.
ASHLEY: You can't Guide when you're in combat?
MATT: No, it takes an action to Guide somebody.
LAURA and LIAM: Yeah.
ASHLEY: Okay.
TRAVIS: It's all right, we've only been doing this for 100 episodes.
LAURA: So you can't Guide yourself.
MATT: I know, it's fine.
ASHLEY: Persuasion, you said?
MATT: Persuasion.
ASHLEY: Okay.
LAURA: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
ASHLEY: (hyperventilating) Okay, sorry.
TRAVIS: Mister? (laughter) (laughter)
ASHLEY: (monkey hoots) Sorry, I've been watching a lot of chimp stuff. Okay. (laughter)
ASHLEY: 31.
TRAVIS: (laughing) What?
LIAM: 31.
MATT: 31!
TALIESIN: 31?!
ASHLEY: 31, 31, 31!
LIAM: She rolled an 18.
ASHLEY: I rolled an 18, and I have a plus 13. That's 31, right?
SAM: Yep.
ASHLEY: Okay.
MATT: Okay.
SAM: Chimp stuff.
MATT: As you hold up your hand there--
TALIESIN: Oh boy.
ASHLEY: (excited monkey hoots)
MATT: -- the fey blood running from the wound, dripping down your arm, the thrashing fey dragon's neck is flailing about, screaming. It slows and looks at you intensely, and you see its two mouths open up, and that energy begins to--
ASHLEY: I don't make eye contact.
MATT: -- boil up within it.
ASHLEY: I try to rub the spot that I know it really likes.
MATT: It smells your blood. It's still tense, its shoulders still held in tight, but its head comes down close to you. (low snarls)
ASHLEY: It's okay. It's okay.
MATT: (snarls and huffs)
LAURA: Do the "How to Train Your Dragon."
MATT: It's smelling your blood, and you have its attention. We'll consider that your round.
ASHLEY: Okay, okay. Okay, okay, okay!
SAM: That was great!
MATT: While it's currently focused on you--
LIAM: Incredible.
MATT: -- Chetney, what do you do?
TRAVIS: I stab it in the chest! (laughter)
ASHLEY: Chetney, no! (laughter)
TALIESIN: Were you sleeping?
TRAVIS: (laughs) I was.
TALIESIN: Augh!
TRAVIS: Then it went--
ASHLEY: Where is Nana? Where is Nana?
TRAVIS: I'll see this display, which is interesting, and I will hold-- How far away would you say I am? Am I in his melee?
MATT: Oh, you're in its melee now, yeah.
TRAVIS: Okay, I'll just stay where I am.
MATT: It landed right next to you when it hit the ground.
TRAVIS: I'll hold Inflict Wounds as a spell if he tries to fly away.
MATT: You got it.
TRAVIS: But I'm going to let Fearne do whatever she's doing.
MATT: Okay. So you keep it at the ready, waiting for any sort of movement outside of what you want.
TRAVIS: Yeah.
MATT: You got it. All right, Chetney's holding that. It's now Gloamglut's go. Gloamglut, who is currently staring down at you, smelling the blood across your wound, looks down at the body of Sorrowlord Zathuda. (heart-wrenching whine) Bumps its head into your hand.
ASHLEY: Oh!
MATT: (heart-wrenching whine)
ASHLEY and LAURA: Oh no!
SAM: (laughs)
MATT: It doesn't do anything else for its turn, currently locked in with you.
ASHLEY: I try to give him a scratch where he likes it.
MATT: Braius, you're up, with Orym on deck.
SAM: Do you want me to--
ASHLEY: Can we keep him?
MARISHA: (laughs)
SAM: Want me to bring your father back to life?
ASHLEY: No, I don't think we should--
LAURA: Not yet, not yet.
ASHLEY: I don't think we should bring him back yet.
SAM: Okay, then I will cast as a bonus action Ensnaring Strike.
TALIESIN: Oh--
MATT: Okay.
SAM: But I'm not going to strike, I'm just going to have it ready.
MARISHA: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
ROBBIE: Just hold him.
MATT: Okay.
SAM: Then can I hold an action, or is that--
MATT: Yeah, that was a bonus action, so you can have the spell ready and then hold an attack.
SAM: Hold an attack.
MATT: Okay, so now we have both Chetney and Braius. You can move up carefully a little closer, if you'd like.
SAM: Oh yes, that sounds good.
MATT: So you shift around slightly, spreading out a little bit, holding yourself there.
TRAVIS: I think we could also say, if there's anybody that doesn't have eyes on what Fearne is trying to do on our turns, we would mentally try and go: Fearne is attempting to tame--
TALIESIN: Oh, we're all--
SAM: Sure.
LAURA: We're all--
TRAVIS: Just making sure.
MARISHA: Oh yeah, we're still--
TALIESIN: The narrative is shared.
MATT: Orym, you're up.
LIAM: I'm holding attack too. She's our only way out of this at the moment, so hold an attack if the other fellows pop off.
MATT: Okay. So you all slowly move around and separate a little bit, keeping your blades at the ready--
ASHLEY: When Nana gets here--
MATT: -- at attention. Okay. Ashton, with Imogen on deck.
TALIESIN: I am going to-- Yeah, I'm going to-- Our two unconscious friends, are the bodies close together for where they're sleeping?
MATT: I think you've probably kept them, you've moved them next to each other.
TALIESIN: All right, I'm going to put the hammer down and click it so that they can't stand up.
MATT: (laughs) Okay.
TALIESIN: Then I'm going to sit and be ready to knock out again where they can't see, if I see one.
MATT: You got it. Okay. Imogen, with Dorian on deck.
LAURA: Okay.
MATT: The thrashing has come to rest. It did not buck you from its back, nor attempt to. You're holding the reins at the moment.
SAM: No bucks given.
MATT: What do you do?
LAURA: All right. I'm going to make sure I'm secure on this saddle so I don't go flying off it, if there's a way I can really get my arms--
MATT: Okay.
LAURA: You know?
MATT: Yeah.
LAURA: Feeling that settling underneath, I'm going to use my Mage Hands to calm him and copy what Fearne's doing and calm down his sides so he feels that calming presence over him.
ASHLEY: (gently shushing)
MATT: Okay, okay.
ASHLEY: I'm just looking and--
MATT: Make another animal handling check for me.
LAURA: Okay.
ASHLEY: Can I Guidance?
MATT: We've got to get to your turn first.
ASHLEY: Okay.
LAURA: 13.
MATT: Okay. Okay.
MARISHA: (silly) "Can I Guidance?"
MATT: It doesn't hinder his current mindset, but it doesn't necessarily calm it further.
LAURA: Damn it.
MATT: But a worthy endeavor. All righty.
ASHLEY: Who's a good boy?
LAURA: Useless.
MATT: Dorian.
ROBBIE: I slink back into the temple.
SAM and MATT: (laugh)
MATT: Okay.
ROBBIE: Maybe 15 feet, to get to the nearest opening or whatever.
LAURA: I'm using my bonus action to convert sorcery points too, by the way.
LIAM: Can you buff her?
MATT: You got it.
LIAM: Can you goose her in any way?
ROBBIE: I could. I guess I could give you my last Bardic Inspiration.
TALIESIN: Yeah.
ROBBIE: As I slink back into the thing, I'm going to go: You're doing great! You're so strong and powerful!
SAM: To her, or her?
ROBBIE: Well, no, wait, who's the one--
LIAM and LAURA: Fearne is--
ROBBIE: You've got the holding one, right?
LAURA: Fearne is persuading, and I'm trying to do jack shit up top.
ROBBIE: Then I'll do it for Fearne. Yeah, yeah.
MATT: Okay. So Fearne, you take a d10 inspiration die.
ASHLEY: Okay.
TALIESIN: Yes!
ROBBIE: Here.
ASHLEY: Okay, thank you.
MATT: All righty. Finishing Dorian's go, Laudna, you're up, with Fearne on deck.
MARISHA: Okay. Okay. I am going to cast Message, even though I know it's not that far, but everyone's very preoccupied, and I'm going to pray that it sends out further. I'm going to go: Nana Morri? We're in kind of a situation. We have a dead Sorrowlord, and the dragon that is currently tamed. Please get here quick, and don't spook the dragon.
MATT: Okay, you send your message out into the ether in hopes that it found a home somewhere within 120 feet.
MARISHA: There's no way she's that close, but I didn't know what else to do.
MATT: Hey, yeah. No worries.
MARISHA: Maybe she can get a fucking radio wave on the wind or something. (laughter)
MATT: You got it.
TRAVIS: (rapid Morse Code)
MATT: A little Voyager transmission out past the solar system.
MARISHA: Yeah, exactly.
MATT: Hell yeah.
TRAVIS: Yeah! (laughs)
TALIESIN: A pigeon somewhere hears it, and then flies toward her.
MATT: (laughs)
MARISHA: I mean, yeah, honestly.
MATT: All right. Does that finish your turn?
MARISHA: Yeah, and I'm going to stay ready to cast.
MATT: Okay. Fearne, it's your turn. You have Gloamglut's attention now focused on you. It is calmed. It is whimpering, with those flashes of anger and emotion behind its eyes, but it has definitely responded to the exposing of your blood, your family blood, and at the moment, you have its attention. What do you wish to do?
ASHLEY: Ooh. I'm going to keep giving him scritches. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. Can I get up there?
MATT: Do you want to try and climb up into the saddle with Imogen?
ASHLEY: Well, I kind of want to ask him.
MATT: Okay, so you're requesting to mount the beast.
ASHLEY: Yes.
MATT: All right.
LIAM: Maybe we say we're taking Daddy to Nana's to make him feel all better.
ASHLEY: Yes.
MATT: Okay, make another persuasion check for me.
ASHLEY: Okay, okay, okay, okay.
MARISHA: Sweating.
TRAVIS: This is bonkers.
ASHLEY: Ooh! That was almost a one.
LIAM: That's all right. You would've been able to reroll it.
ASHLEY: Okay. Oh, that's right. 27.
MATT: 27, okay. That was with the die?
ASHLEY: That was with the die.
MATT: Slick.
ASHLEY: Yeah.
TRAVIS: Woo!
MATT: Okay. Gloamglut leans into your hand a little bit, (deep purring growls) lowers its head and cranes the neck around to allow you to climb on.
ASHLEY: (gasps) Okay, before getting up, I take in his whole, all of his features, and give him a nice scritch along the top of his little mane up there.
MATT: You can see the frills that emerge from the sides of its head. As it breathes, little holes open on the sides. You can see--
ASHLEY: What a beautiful boy.
MATT: -- it has multiple breathing openings across its head.
ASHLEY: Oh, what a good boy.
MATT: (deep growls)
ASHLEY: Okay, I'm going to step up on there, and I'm going to sit behind Imogen--
MATT: Okay.
ASHLEY: -- and hold onto Imogen's arms.
MATT: So Fearne has climbed up behind you, Imogen.
LAURA: Yeah, she has.
ASHLEY: I have my arms around your waist.
LAURA: Okay.
ASHLEY: Because I've never ridden a horse.
LAURA: Oh!
ASHLEY: So I feel like you're going to be better at this.
LAURA: I've never rid no horse.
ASHLEY: Well, yes I have. What am I talking about?
LAURA: Yeah, you rode a spiritual horse.
ASHLEY: What was his name? Carpaccio?
LAURA: Yeah, you rode a spiritual horse.
ASHLEY: Yeah, but those feel a little different. I've never ridden-- It's fine.
MATT: So, as you climb up behind, it gets back up in a position, shakes, its tail flickers behind it, and it glares down at Chetney.
ASHLEY: No no. No no, no no, no no! No, leave it! (shouts) Leave it!
LAURA: Are we in initiative?
ASHLEY: Those are friends!
MATT: We're out of initiative.
LAURA: Can I pull up on his reins a little bit so that he knows not to do that?
ASHLEY: Friends, friends!
TRAVIS: I take a couple steps back.
ASHLEY: I'm going to reach out, like when you're on a horse, and you're rubbing their mane. Can you carry the rest of our friends? We're not here to hurt you, but keep holding onto Daddy, okay?
MATT: (deep lowing)
ASHLEY: Yeah, you're such a good, big boy!
MATT: One of its claws is holding the Sorrowlord. The secondary claw reaches towards Braius.
SAM: Oh! Oh! Am I--
ASHLEY: Yeah, get him!
MARISHA: Let it happen.
SAM: Woo! Ah!
MATT: Now it has both you and the limp corpse of the Sorrowlord.
ASHLEY: Good boy! Good boy!
MATT: Its two winged hands that have these massive claws at the top gets down and snatches Orym--
LIAM: Eh!
MATT: -- and would snatch, reluctantly, Chetney, the two smaller ones nearby.
TRAVIS: Ah!
MATT: That's all the limbs it has.
LAURA: (laughs)
TRAVIS: I mean, it's a lot of limbs.
LAURA: Will Nana be here soon? I'm going to Send a message to Nana. Has she reached out yet?
MARISHA: No!
LAURA: All right, I'm going to Send another message to Nana.
LIAM: (like Laudna) No!
MARISHA: (laughs) Hoo hoo! I tried.
LAURA: Do I have any spells left? I'll cast it at 4th-level, because that's all I got left. So, Gloamglut is under control. We have a few people left for you to carry, though, still. Got room for a dragon at your place?
MATT: The response cackles. (laughs) "How very interesting. It'll make the flight a bit easier, I believe. Almost there." It's at this moment the dragon (flapping)
MATT: -- begins to pick up into the air with both Chetney and Orym. With each big wing beat, you're being thrust around. (laughter)
TRAVIS and ASHLEY: (screams)
MARISHA: That's awful.
ASHLEY: That's a bit of a horror ride.
MATT: As it cruises off into the air, snaking through the winds like a serpent, its bright colors reflecting the never-changing dusk light of this region, with both Fearne and Imogen riding behind it as it takes off towards the horizon.
MARISHA: I Send a message to Imogen. I say, we're right behind you! Just keep going! We'll meet you at Nana's!
MATT: Just as the winged shape of another large entity begins to appear on the horizon--
MARISHA: Oop! Oop! I run over. Ashton!
TALIESIN: All right.
MARISHA: Ashton, time to go! Time to go!
TALIESIN: Double checking our two friends, are they out out? I'm double checking. They seem out?
MATT: For the moment, they appear to be.
TALIESIN: All right. (snaps) De-click.
ROBBIE: Can I borrow this one?
TALIESIN: Yeah, you take one, I'll take the other.
ROBBIE: I'm going to grab the emissary again and throw him over my shoulder, and then I'm going to (whistles) send a little whistle up.
LAURA: Ooh!
TRAVIS: Fancy.
MARISHA: Cute.
ROBBIE: Coriolis will appear out of the sky, out of that--
MATT: Okay.
ROBBIE: Wasn't there a hole in the-- Oh no, it mended itself, huh?
MATT: Yeah.
TALIESIN: We can be walking out at this point.
ROBBIE: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
ASHLEY: (laughs)
TALIESIN: Too many pets in this fucking group now.
ROBBIE: He's going to come in and land at the entrance, and I'm going to load him up, like the unconscious sack that he is.
MARISHA: So it's just the three of us that's left, right?
ROBBIE: Yeah, because we have-- She couldn't take five.
ASHLEY: She said four?
ROBBIE: So I'll take two. I'll take myself and the emissary on the back of the horse.
LAURA: Yeah, and then--
MARISHA: All right.
LAURA and ASHLEY: Great.
TALIESIN: The three of us with Morri.
ROBBIE: Yeah.
MATT: Okay. As the--
TALIESIN: Oh, and Ira.
ROBBIE: And Ira!
MATT: As the shape begins to drift past--
MARISHA: I Prestidigitation and throw up a little flare to indicate where we are.
MATT: (muffled explosion) Easy enough to see. The winged bird body of Nana Morri, in her odd transformed form, begins to drift past Gloamglut. As it does--
LAURA: Can I pull his reins to give him distance from Nana Morri?
MATT: Mm-hmm, you see he tugs against it, recognizing her--
LAURA: I squeeze my thighs! I know how to drive a horse!
MATT: (laughs) You do pull him away from her.
LAURA: That's what I said!
MATT: The urge for round two, since the last time they tussled in the air over the Fey Realm. You manage to pull him a little bit wide. Make an animal handling check for me to see if you can draw him away from the--
LAURA: Can you Guide him now?
MATT: -- need to fight.
ASHLEY: Friends, and I'm Guiding her.
MATT: Yes, you can Guide her.
MARISHA: Come on, horse girl.
MATT: You see her coming.
MARISHA: Come on, horse girl!
LAURA: Please let me roll good finally on this.
ASHLEY: Come on, come on, come on.
LIAM: Yes, she did.
ASHLEY: Yes, yes!
LAURA: Thank you.
ASHLEY: Very good.
TALIESIN: And Guidance.
LAURA: And then Guidance. Okay, so 19 plus six, 25.
MATT: 25. In spite of the want and need to engage with what Gloamglut probably recognizes as a rival foe--
ASHLEY: Friends.
MATT: -- you drift him off to the right, and she coasts by, giving a screech that turns into a cackle. (eerie laughs)
SAM: Jesus.
LAURA: I love it. (laughter)
TRAVIS: Fuck!
MATT: Before swooping down as Coriolis goes and leaps off just as you pass this massive black-feathered entity with an old woman's face in the front that you recognize as Nana Morri, for a split second. The two of you that remain outside still, she doesn't even land, just grabs you in one diving swoop and picks you up as the three of you, the three entities flying off in a trail, each following the other.
LAURA: Don't we have a guard left?
ROBBIE: I have the emissary.
MARISHA: We have the emissary.
MATT: And begin to vanish in the direction of Ligament Manor.
LAURA: What about Ira?
TALIESIN: We've got him, too.
ROBBIE: I got Ira.
LAURA: Oh, we've got Ira?
TRAVIS: He's got his own--
LAURA: Oh, okay.
MATT: Ira was not there for the grab.
LAURA: Oh, Ira!
ROBBIE: Ooh!
LAURA: He'll be okay.
ASHLEY: He escaped.
SAM: I don't know if anyone noticed it as they were leaving, but if they had glanced down as they were leaving the inside of the chamber, they would've seen that the image of the Arch Heart on the floor now has a mustache drawn on its face.(laughter)
MATT: As we pull back from the mustache, we're going to go to break. (cheering)
TRAVIS: He got marooned down here all by himself, he's fine.
ASHLEY: Dang!
TRAVIS: You got a dragon!
LAURA: You got the dragon!
TALIESIN: You got a fucking dragon!
TRAVIS: You got a blood bonded dragon.
MARISHA: Had to kill your dad for it, but you got a dragon.
ASHLEY: But I got a dragon!
TALIESIN: Honestly.
TRAVIS: Patricide.
TALIESIN: Honestly, I feel like you got the better end of that deal.
ASHLEY: I feel like I got the better end of the deal.
TALIESIN: Yeah.
MATT: You certainly have a dragon listening to you at the moment, yes.
LAURA: Listening to you--
ASHLEY: At the moment.
LAURA: How do you fully bond to a dragon? Maybe Nana Morri will know.
ROBBIE: Is he still holding Zathuda's body?
ASHLEY: We can't bring him everywhere!
TRAVIS: You have to have sex with the dragon.
SAM: By the way--
LAURA: He can be invisible.
SAM: --I think we have only 30 seconds or something to heal Zathuda if we want to bring him back.
TALIESIN: No, there's a couple-- Do you have-- there's a spell--
TRAVIS: We should go to break!
SAM: Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah.
ASHLEY: All right. All right!
MATT: We'll come back in a few minutes. See you in a second.
Break
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(mysterious music)
KLAUS: In play, it felt so good.
MOHAMAD: Everybody's engaged at the same time.
ALISON: The Hope and the Fear mechanics are a wild, role-playing ride.
MATT: The game is called Daggerheart, our own fantasy tabletop RPG we've been developing. It's a unique 2d12 dice rolling system that ensures that every roll of the game has some sort of impact on the game itself.
DANI: Daggerheart really fosters that collaborative role-play aspect.
DARIUSH: The way that character building lets you do your own thing and organically be like, "I'll take a little of this, a little of that." I've never seen a party like the one I just played.
CAI: Daggerheart invites you to imagine a more diverse world where you can be an unlikely combination of things.
EVAN: I would say: "Meow" because I was a kitty. Every time I'd do something, I'd be like, I was like, "Meow." (laughs)
DARIUSH: When you're playing with Hope and Fear, there's a natural rhythm to the game.
NATE: Mounting fear, just stacking up and knowing that it could drop at any moment.
DANI: It's, "Oh, we've had a lot of Fear build up, "and now we are going to get punished."
HANNA: The tactileness is really exciting for me.
NATE: Having the art on the cards unlocks the backstory I was creating for the character a little bit.
HANNA: I just feel very represented in this game.
EVAN: I would absolutely play again.
TRAVIS: Daggerheart is fun as hell to play.
MARISHA: It's so fun.
RICH: I absolutely love Daggerheart.
MATT: It's going to be something real special and it's just the beginning. The future is frightening. It's a future which hasn't yet been written.
Vox Machina, your world will be destroyed. This can't be happening. If we want to save it, we have to go to... Hell. Buckle the fuck up. Road trip! We shouldn't be here. Won't be needing jackets. To pull this off we're gonna need all kinds of miracles. What is that thing? Hold him off as long as you can! Vox Machina shall burn! That's a big problem! And I'm an even bigger one! -Ready? -No, but do it anyway! I'm ready to die for the people I love. We have to believe it's going to be alright. And if it isn't... No! ...then nothing matters. Vox Machina, you are now bound for eternity. They got some plush chairs in this bitch. It's okay to be scared. We can face anything if we're together. Oy! You think you can catch us, dingle dick? Maybe don't mock the murder man?
(cheerful holiday music)
(festival music)
XEN: It doesn't occur to any of you that the moon is about to fall out of the sky. And why would it? It's just a regular Monday here on the moon. Goe is watching the gigantic wall of darkness inbound. This isn't going to have transformative, long-lasting, incredibly far-reaching consequences, is it? Unfortunately, it will. We have gathered together a small squad of unlikely chums to seek what perhaps cannot be found.
SARA: This is feeling really weird, really fast.
XEN: I think it's time to go. All aboard. What could possibly go wrong? Such as, for example, the moon literally exploding literally right now.
LIAM: What's in it for you? Helping us...
MATT: If there is even the remotest chance that they are still alive, I have to see that through.
MARISHA: It's not about knowing or not knowing. It's about being willing to find out.
LAURA: Hey Critters! Laura Bailey here to guide you through what's new in the Critical Role shop. Oops. Oh my gosh, it's so amazing. Style should never be a dump stat, darling. Oooh, so comfy cozy. This is seriously magical. Roll an investigation if you want. It's basically perfect. Look at this. Isn't it fashion? So much fashion happening here. I mean the Traveler always says, impulse purchases are a good decision. This is, this is a lot of stuff you guys. We have like so many cool things right now. And hey if you want, you could head over to the Critical Role shop right now.
(ominous music)
(epic music)
(mischievous music) (typewriter clacking)
(peaceful music)
TRAVIS: Move the rook to B6.
MARISHA: Okay, see if that opens it.
LAURA: I'm trying it. [clicks] (gasping) [metal clattering] (cheering)
MARISHA: Okay, okay, okay, okay, okay. Wait, it's blank. There's nothing in here. What the hell?
TALIESIN: The phonograph said that the answer would be in the journal.
TRAVIS: Oh, maybe we missed something, like some clue we're not thinking of!
LAURA: Ah, we only have four minutes left!
MARISHA: Okay, okay, think.
TALIESIN: Okay. The song said, "Look to the beacon." Look to the--
MARISHA: Right. Beacon. Light.
MARISHA and LAURA: (gasp) The lightroom!
LAURA: Get it out.
MARISHA: Okay.
TALIESIN: Oh, uh!
MARISHA: Uh-huh.
TALIESIN: The cryptex!
LAURA and MARISHA: (scream)
TALIESIN: The key is in the cryptex!
LAURA and MARISHA: We know!
LAURA: So if every other letter--
MARISHA: Times two.
LAURA: -- is the combination--
TRAVIS: Did you say times? Times, like a clock. It's in the clock! But how do you open it?
LAURA: (uncertain noise)
MARISHA: Okay. What is it?
LAURA: Okay, it's six.
MARISHA: Okay.
LAURA: Two. Four.
MARISHA: Yeah.
TRAVIS: 624? It's 6:24!
LAURA: Uh. Zero. [unlocking]
MARISHA: (gasp)
LAURA and MARISHA: (excited noise)
TALIESIN: Guys, guys, I think I found it!
TRAVIS: But it's not opening!
TALIESIN: So how do you unlock this?
MARISHA: That's not the cryptex. This is a cryptex.
TALIESIN: Wait, I think if I push my fingers into... No, that's not working.
MARISHA: We just need the code word. What's a six-letter code?
TRAVIS: I think it's jammed!
LAURA: Arlo said that in order to find the answer we need, we have to look to the beacon.
MARISHA: Uh-huh. Right. But Colonel Popcorn's telegram says--
TRAVIS: (grunts) [clattering]
MARISHA: "Be Aware -(STOP)- "Exciting New -(STOP)- "Amazing -(STOP)- "Critical Role Content "Available at Beacon.tv. -(STOP)- "Oh my god. "No Idea How to Finish this Fake Telegram -(STOP)-"
TRAVIS: Reveal your secrets to me!
TALIESIN: Can either of you help me, help me with the--
MARISHA: That's not a cryptex!
TALIESIN: I am very aware. (groans)
LAURA: Okay. What about this? Huh? Um, it says, "Try using Beacon." [shattering]
TALIESIN: Hey, Travis. Could you help with the--
TRAVIS: Not now, dude, I'm trying to save us! We've only got 90 seconds left! [slamming]
TRAVIS: (shrieks)
LAURA: "10% off merchandise. Members-only Discord. Exclusive new series." Is that a clue?
MARISHA: I don't know, it just feels too obvious, like something that a lazy writer would try and shoehorn into a script.
TRAVIS: (shrieks)
LAURA: Well, that would also explain this.
MARISHA: I know. That's useless.
LAURA: Literally no one says "literally" anymore.
MARISHA: Exactly.
TRAVIS: We're running out of time, people! Come on!
MARISHA: Uh. Okay, we just need a six-letter word that unlocks this artifact and also unlocks amazing content!
LAURA: Also, would it kill you to try to help us, Ashley?
ASHLEY: What do you think I'm doing? While you all are busy sucking eggs in La La Land, I was making an improvised munitions charge that'll blow this door off with minimal loss of life and hearing.
LAURA: You don't explode a door, Ashley! That's not how an escape room works!
ASHLEY: Oh, really? Because that is literally what this is, an escape room.
LAURA: She just said "literally."
MARISHA: "Literally."
TRAVIS: 30 seconds!
TALIESIN: Help! It's again!
ASHLEY: Fire in the hole!
LAURA and MARISHA: (scream)
[lever slams] [alarm buzzes] [door clacks]
KYLE: Hey, guys. Uh, good job or not, I guess. Tried your best.
LAURA: Did we do it? Did we escape?
KYLE: No. No, no, you didn't.
TRAVIS: Oh, so close.
MARISHA: It was the stupid cryptex. The code word was too hard.
LAURA: It was impossible!
KYLE: Was it?
MARISHA and LAURA: Yeah!
KYLE: What was the name of the detective?
LAURA: Detective Beacon.
KYLE: Yeah, it was Beacon. Yeah? And where did the murder take place?
MARISHA: Beacon Street.
KYLE: Yeah, yeah. And what was the name of the law firm that hired Detective Beacon to exonerate the Beacon State graduate from the murder on Beacon Street?
MARISHA: Beacon, Beacon, and Associates.
LAURA: And Associates.
TRAVIS: So what was the code word?
KYLE: It's Beacon! It's Beacon!
LAURA and MARISHA: Oh.
KYLE: Yep, see? Here's the room key and here is all the cool new info about Beacon, our new membership program that offers discounts, early access to the Critical Role podcast, and new content like "Critical Role Abridged" and "Re-Slayer's Take," along with exclusive content like "Fireside Chats," "The Crit Role Cooldown," and many more to come.
TRAVIS: So how do you get into the clock?
KYLE: You don't! That's just a clock!
TALIESIN: Kyle.
KYLE: What...
TALIESIN: I have a problem.
KYLE: What did you do? Those weren't even here for the escape room. Where did you even get those? (sighs) ♪ (gentle, upbeat music ♪ "Hello Bees") ♪
THE BEE KINGS: ♪ Hello Bees, it's me again ♪ ♪ Look to the Beacon, ♪ my old friend ♪
Part II
MATT: And welcome back. So coasting across the Fey horizon, you guide your currently mounted fey dragon, clutching half of your team and the dead corpse of the Sorrowlord Zathuda in the direction of Ligament Manor. Behind that, Dorian carrying-- Do you have the guard, or do you have--
ROBBIE: I have the emissary.
MATT: You have the emissary atop your dragon horse. The third troop is being held by the bird form of Nana Morri: Morrigan, the Fatestitcher. Not quite knowing where to go, you pull back a little bit until Morri can lead the charge. The hour that would transpire getting you to the Harrowcall Fens, the Fey marshland where Ligament Manor sits. Is there anything anyone needs to do or make happen while we're in the air?
LIAM: I just have a question. Does Nana have a bird face or something else?
MATT: No. Human face.
TRAVIS: Human face.
LIAM: Human face. That's what I heard.
LAURA: Or a Morri face.
TRAVIS: A giant winged horror show.
MATT: Yeah.
LAURA: Is there anything that needs to happen in the hour that we're flying?
SAM: Do you want your father to be alive?
LAURA: You say in our head.
SAM: (yelling) Do you? Oh yeah.
LAURA: Actually, it's not. It's probably not. It would fade after a little bit. Oh, it would have faded anyway because we had-- We took a break.
SAM: (yelling loudly) Do you want your father to be alive?
LAURA: What was that? Did you hear something?
ASHLEY: I didn't hear anything.
(laughter)
ASHLEY: God, it's beautiful here.
(laughter)
SAM: (yelling) Your father.
ASHLEY: I hear a--
SAM: (garbled yelling) Do you want him to be alive?
LAURA: Sounds like somebody singing down there. I don't know.
ASHLEY: It's floating across. It's probably like-- I can't tell what it is.
SAM: (strangled yelling) Fearne! Can you hear me?
ASHLEY: Is someone singing?
SAM: (garbled yelling) Do you hear me?
(laughter)
SAM: (yelling) Your father! Okay, well, it's probably past a minute now.
MATT: It is now. Yeah.
ASHLEY: It's probably past a minute.
(laughter)
TRAVIS: Bong.
ASHLEY: We can't, we can't.
LAURA: We can't wake him up.
ASHLEY: Come back, we can't. If we wake him up the whole thing could go kaput.
LAURA: It's already went. Let's all be real. But you want the dragon or not?
ASHLEY: I don't know if we need the dragon, but-- but it's going to get us to Nana's.
LAURA: Mm-hmm.
MATT: Then following the stretched black feathered wings of the Morrigan as she circles down atop a large reaching portion of the Harrowcall Fens canopy, you pull the dragon to follow, and you shortly thereafter towards the treetop garden topiary that she has cultivated for quite some time. As you begin to circle and come to land amongst it, you can notice, the two of you for the first time, the extensive, hedgemaze like experience here. Numerous overgrown hedge tops reach up to eight, 10, 12 feet tall, fountains throughout the entirety of this beautiful, if slightly Tim Burton-esque garden. Numerous colorful flowers all turn and greet you as you begin to arrive. You can see a little firebug type glowing bits, or are they will-o'-the-wisps? Too far to tell, and numerous stone statues and massive, green sculptures of carved bushes in the shapes of people, whether they be dancing, reaching, just a beautiful expression of art in this somewhat dark and lively space. A number of critters and creatures begin to skitter out from the nearby roots, brush, and branches to watch the arrival as Nana Morri scoots down (wings flapping) and then plops her clutched payload down into the center of this central garden region before she flaps her wings twice. They shrink in quickly and she returns to her hunched, hulking hag form. She steps off the side from the center stone plinth-like raised platform in the middle of the garden where you had previously had your awakening ritual of your Titan shards within you. There you land with your mount, clutching the emissary over your shoulder, and the dragon (wings flapping) glances down, you can feel tension in it. The vicinity of this space, you get a quick sense, especially with your psychic connection towards it. This is a-- has been previously considered to be a "do not go here" type location within the Fey. An off limits locale and Gloamglut just hovers. (wings flapping)
LAURA: I'm going to-- Can I see Nana Morri?
MATT: You can. You're about probably 100 feet up from where she is right now.
LAURA: I think I can talk to her as long as I can see her.
MATT: You can.
LAURA: Are we safe to land here?
MATT: "Of course. I bid you no ill will."
LAURA: All right. I'm going to try to get Gloamglut to land.
ASHLEY: You're okay. Just go back. Just go in there.
MATT: (groans) (wings flapping) Gloamglut slowly begins to land, its two claws clutching, which I believe were, in the larger hands-- It was Braius.
LIAM: It was Braius and the body.
MATT: Yep.
LAURA: And Zathuda.
MATT: Then tosses Braius about 10 feet up. Boom, boom, boom, boom.
SAM: (grunts)
MATT: Then gently rests the body of Zathuda down in the center before it goes about 15, 20 feet off to the side and catches itself, releases both Orym and Chetney. Before it gets low and allows the two of you to step from the saddle.
LAURA: Do you want to step from the saddle?
ASHLEY: Yeah.
LAURA: All right.
MATT: Shakes a bit as it shakes its body as you rest off of it, all the critters nearby skitter off and vanish into the nearby shadows.
ASHLEY: I just continue to just massage his little spot. Just try to keep him calm.
MARISHA: Thank you for the rescue, Nana.
MATT: "Of course. Thank you for your patience."
MARISHA: I wouldn't have called if, you know, if it wasn't kind of a big deal. I don't want you to think that we're really dependent on you. You know, we want to be self-sufficient.
MATT: "Oh, I embrace my matronly position with Fearne and her sweet friends. Besides, you come bearing gifts."
ASHLEY: Yes. Of course.
MARISHA: Yes, yes. So? So do I sense her looking at him? Like nom, nom, nom, nom?
MATT: Looking at the corpse of Zathuda. Make an insight check.
LIAM: Orym's already scanning over the body, too. He's just thinking about Fearne, and he's thinking about fathers.
MARISHA: Man. Sucking it up tonight. What am I, an insight check?
MATT: Yes.
MARISHA: No, nothing. Four.
MATT: Four? Yeah. Nana Morri's just being her creepy self.
MARISHA: Right. She's so fabulous. So, yes. He kind of died. We have this emissary over here, and then also one of the guards, and we kind of had this plan, and we tried to do it, and then we got interrupted where we wanted to plant a new memory in their head that Ludinus was betraying the Unseelie.
ASHLEY: Because he is.
MARISHA: Because he is. So that they go back to the Unseelie and be like: Oh, Ludinus, he's such a bastard. But things went a little topsy turvy.
ASHLEY: Tits up.
MARISHA: A little tits up. So--
MATT: "Understood. Well. This beast. What's to be done? Fearne?"
ASHLEY: Well, that's why we came here. Because he's not going to-- He's not going to listen to me for much longer, I don't think. What do you think?
MATT: "Well, 'til we decide. Welcome to my domain." She moves her fingers up like this and then curls her finger. (heavy impact) A series of massive, twisting roots and vines burst out of the center of the stone, it cracking and splintering everywhere. Gloamglut (angry shriek) rears back, but immediately (whooshes) gets entangled with this mass of wild vine.
ASHLEY: Don't hurt him.
MATT: "Not yet." And it (thuds) pins it to the ground, wraps over its wings and holds it there as it of strains against the strings. (groaning)
ASHLEY: It's okay. It's okay. Nana, I don't like this.
MATT: "It's all right. I'm not hurting it. I'm just making sure it doesn't hurt any of you either. And besides, I owe it one."
TRAVIS: Oh yeah. That's true.
LAURA: Right.
TALIESIN: Oh boy.
ASHLEY: Okay, okay, okay.
MATT: Still quietly muffled, like, thrashing and (groans) vines covering its mouth, so its noise sounds muffled, muzzling it slightly.
ASHLEY: What do we do with him?
MATT: "With who?"
ASHLEY: With Zathuda.
MATT: "Oh, well, I have plans. (chilling laugh) Perhaps I'll put him through The Loom."
LAURA: (gasps)
SAM: Well, what, The Loom?
TALIESIN: Oh boy.
ASHLEY: Yeah. Could use a new tree in the topiary.
MATT: "(considering hum) The Loom is more interesting."
ASHLEY: That's true.
MATT: "I like to tease the essence over a few generations."
TRAVIS: (laughs)
ASHLEY: Do we need to ask him any questions first? Or do we just let Nana have her way?
MARISHA: Well, let's unpack this a little bit.
MATT: "You can ask him after The Loom, if you'd like."
LAURA: I have it.
ASHLEY: That's true.
TALIESIN: Are those things not mutually exclusive?
ASHLEY: We could talk to him after The Loom.
LAURA: To Speak with the Dead in case there was anything, but we pretty much have the information we need. I mean, what do we need from him? If you were going to Speak with the Dead.
ASHLEY: I don't know.
SAM: What does he know about the upcoming--
LAURA: Plan of attack? That's true. Like what kind of defenses there are?
SAM: Does he know that? Will he know that stuff?
LAURA: He probably would.
SAM: Or is it all of his knowledge confined to the Fey?
LAURA: He would know the defenses at the Malleus Key for sure.
LIAM: Would he share them with us?
TALIESIN: Would you share them?
LAURA: He might share them with you, Fearne, if you spoke with him. I have this coin.
MARISHA: Nana Morri, do you have any powers or capabilities of potentially bringing him back?
MATT: "In what form do you require?"
MARISHA: Well, you know, I was actually talking with Dorian. And I shove Dorian a little bit. You know, we were like. We were just whispering, and we were, you know. Does he still have--
MATT: "Children, hush!" She does this and the-- not you. You think it's towards you, but then the emissary and the guardian who had started to rouse from their unconscious state like, "(mumble), (thud)" and pass right back out. "Shh."
TALIESIN: Thank you.
LIAM: Fearne, what do want to do about this?
MATT: "Where's Ira?"
LAURA: Oh. Where's Ira?
MATT: "Yes."
LAURA: You know, we saw him on the roof, and then he wasn't there anymore.
TALIESIN: He Ira'd.
MATT: "Oh, tsk tsk, tsk! Disappointing. Always playing hard to get, isn't he?"
TALIESIN: Yes.
MARISHA: We were just, you know. Is there some sort of other, grander role that Zathuda can play in this, or do we really feel like we're past that point at this point?
TALIESIN: I don't trust him. If we bring him back.
MATT: "Let me see that token."
LAURA: What? The Speak with the Dead? There you go.
ASHLEY: Well, don't take it. Give it back to her, though, Nana, when you're done.
MATT: And clasps it in her hand for a second.
LAURA: Mm-hmm.
MATT: "Simple tricks. You can only really compel the body to speak to those it wishes. My means are more forceful."
LAURA: Oh!
TALIESIN: We could also maybe get some insight on what to do with our dragon friend.
SAM: So ask him about defenses and also how to... How to train-- How to train your dragon?
ASHLEY: I think we should wake him up, Nana, just to ask him a couple of things. Orym, it's okay.
LAURA: Are you sure?
ASHLEY: Yeah.
LIAM: I mean, you set the tone for this. This was your father. How do you want to do this?
TALIESIN: Father's a heavy term.
ASHLEY: Yeah, it is a heavy term. I have some ideas. I think I just want to talk to him real quick. Nana?
MATT: "Yes."
ASHLEY: Can you wake him up?
MATT: "Like a conversation or an interrogation?"
TALIESIN: We can do both.
LAURA: That's up to you, Fearne. Nana's methods are an interrogation. If you do Speak with the Dead, he has a choice whether or not to talk with you.
ASHLEY: But then we only get five things to ask him?
MARISHA: Five questions.
LAURA: Yeah.
ASHLEY: Five questions.
LAURA: He doesn't have to tell us the truth.
ROBBIE: What exactly is The Loom?
MATT: "(chuckles) It's one of my many crafts. It's how I--"
ASHLEY: It's decorative.
MATT: "-- occasionally spruce up the space. Would you like to see?"
ROBBIE: That sounds loaded to me.
TALIESIN: You want to see. Best to know these things.
ASHLEY: What do you-- What do you guys think? Interrogation?
LAURA: It's up to you, Fearne. It's your father.
TALIESIN: I hate that word.
LAURA: It's your--
ROBBIE: See, but I can't make the choice.
LAURA: He ain't her daddy.
TALIESIN: No.
LAURA: He's her father.
LIAM: You're getting information for the task at hand. It's also maybe your last chance to ask him anything you wanted to.
ASHLEY: I feel like we need to interrogate him. Because we need to make sure that we get the answers that we need.
MATT: "The Loom it is." With an unnatural speed, she lunges forward, almost like a pouncing predator.
LIAM: Okay.
MATT: One arm picks him up and lumbers his body over her shoulder. You hear the whimper and fruitless tension against the vines as Gloamglut watches its master plucked from the ground as her elongated hand pats it, looking into Gloamglut's eyes. "Tsk, tsk, tsk, tsk. Life giveth and life taketh away. Harsh lessons for you, young one," and steps past you all to the stairs that descend deeper into Ligament Manor.
LAURA: Who's going with her?
TALIESIN: I'll go.
ASHLEY: Everybody?
LAURA: If you want that?
ASHLEY: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Let's all be in there.
MARISHA: Yeah. Why not? Unless, do we feel like anyone needs to stay with Gloamglut?
LAURA: I don't think he's breaking out.
MARISHA: He'll be all right, right? Yeah. We'll all trickle in.
MATT: Okay. You all descend deeper into the tree. Following down some familiar spaces. Past your old room. Past her numerous collection chambers. Past a number of platforms with a dull glowing magical lantern light that flickers and illuminates it in beautiful and nightmarish ways, the shadows seeming to shift and move like they themselves are living entities that take root here in the home that she keeps. She leads you down to the base of the tree, to where you had met her, with her tiki bar and her furniture, and continues to descend on a far back staircase that goes beneath the very roots of the tree. This is a chamber that you've only been shown once before and never seen it in functionality. As she leads you down, no doorway greets you, but a thick curtain of fallen roots that (ripping) pull out of the way as she curls in. What you see inside, inside this cage-like chamber of roots and metal, there is... It looks like a chair in the middle of the room.
LIAM: Insight check.
TALIESIN: Finally.
MATT and LIAM: (laugh)
TALIESIN: I've been waiting for this.
MATT: It is made of what looks like wood and natural matter in places, but then bits of stone seem to cup up to grab the limbs. You see a number of chains that are attached to it in places that pull through and dangle in other areas. There are strange looking, tube-like extrusions that connect to it. There are multiple metal rings that are laid open within. She rushes up and places the body onto it and (latches click) latches it in about 12 different places. She grabs a couple of chains and begins to tug them, and as she does, these large metallic arms (stiff clanking) come down with all manner of strange blades and loops and scoops, and she stops and turns to look back at the rest of you. "You probably don't want to see this. Step outside. I'll come get you when I'm done."
TRAVIS: I just stand there, eyes wide open. You can't make me leave.
TALIESIN: I want to see this.
ASHLEY: I'll stay.
SAM: Me too.
MARISHA: I'll stay.
MATT: "Fair enough. Your last chance if you wish to leave."
LAURA: I'm just going to look down.
LIAM: Soak it in.
MATT: She grabs these chains and pulls them down and begins to mutter under her breath. You watch as all these different glowing runic carvings begin to alight around, and these metallic arms that you thought was four turns into eight, turns into 12, and they start (rapid whipping) whipping around. It takes you a moment to realize what's happening. The body of Zathuda, the armor is cut free and his body is being flayed in strips.
LAURA: (gasps)
MATT: Rapidly. (rapid slicing) You see glimmers of muscle, then bone, and you see this faint essence, like his spiritual energy is starting to drift from the corpse. Then you watch as other external arms grab those strange tubes and begin to almost siphon and suck up his lingering spiritual anchor. You watch as these strips of flesh are pulled out, they're then grabbed by other arms that begin to weave them into a tapestry-like singular piece of fabric, and stretching them and pulling them off to different hooks to the sides. You watch as a frame, a hexagonal frame is built, lowered, and then what's built from his matter is stretched across it. What remains of the pale skin--
ASHLEY: (laughs)
MATT: -- of Sorrowlord Zathuda--
LAURA: I throw up. I throw up.
ROBBIE: (laughs)
TRAVIS: You're looking at the ground.
LAURA: In the corner.
MATT: -- has been now turned into a three by three foot hexagonal art piece.
LAURA: Oh my god!
MATT: With his face in the center of it stretched.
TRAVIS and ASHLEY: (laugh)
ROBBIE: Whoa.
MATT: Eyeless.
TRAVIS: (anxious noise)
MATT: As the machine whirs to stillness, she plucks it from its hooks and turns it around.
MARISHA: Oh.
MATT: "It's good to have hobbies."
TRAVIS: Oh my god.
MATT: "Isn't that right?" The lips go, (Zathuda) "That's right."
TRAVIS: Oh man!
SAM: That's cool.
TRAVIS: Oh no!
SAM: (chuckles)
MATT: (Morri 1) "Where should it go, Fearne?"
ASHLEY: Hmm. Maybe, let's put it in the tiki bar.
LAURA: Oh!
MATT: "Delightful choice. Come, come. Let's make sure I put the nail in the right position." She (hasty, plodding footsteps) heads back up the steps and leaves.
ASHLEY: Come on, come on.
TRAVIS: How did he top his previous eerie shit?
LAURA: Fearne.
ASHLEY: Yeah.
MARISHA: It's so good.
TRAVIS: What's wrong with you?
LAURA: You're okay?
ASHLEY: Yeah, I mean, Yeah!
TRAVIS: (skepteical smirk)
LIAM: Insight check.
LAURA: (laughs) Yeah. Insight fucking check.
MATT: You can make a persuasion or deception check, your choice. You don't have to say. Just roll the number and then say your--
ASHLEY: 13.
LIAM: 15.
LAURA: Nine.
ASHLEY: I'm freaking out. Freaking out a little bit. Freaking out a little bit. Freaking out.
MATT: Freaking out a little bit.
ASHLEY: I mean, I've seen some of this shit.
MATT: There's a few decor of this. Yeah.
ASHLEY: I know what happens.
LIAM: But you said you're fine, and you're not fine.
ASHLEY: This is intense.
LAURA: You're not fine.
LIAM: Is the insight.
LAURA: Yeah.
ASHLEY: Yeah. I'm teetering.
LAURA: I think you're fine. She's fine.
ASHLEY: Yeah.
SAM: Are we going with Nana?
MATT: That's up to you.
ASHLEY: Yeah, let's go.
LAURA: Yeah, yeah.
TALIESIN: I'm following up.
MATT: You follow suit. Now, as you approach, you can hear the interior of that portion of her abode is starting to produce beautiful music. Her interior sanctuary orb begins to emit this soft, playful, joyful music and plucking around. Instruments begin to swirl in the air, and she's humming gently to herself as she is like, "Hmm, no."
TALIESIN: I pull a nail out of my ear and hand it. I do not stop looking at this fucking painting.
MATT: "Ah, thank you."
SAM: Can he have a second one, because--
TRAVIS: A nail out of your ear?
SAM: Remember, I also made this that you could hang as well.
LAURA: Oh, that's--
ASHLEY: Next to it?
SAM: Well, I don't know. It's--
ASHLEY: I really love it so much, Braius.
SAM: Is it okay? Do you want to leave it here?
ASHLEY: Yes. Look, he drew this.
SAM: I don't think we can--
MATT: "That's incredible!"
SAM: It's not as nice as yours, but--
MATT: "Oh, this--"
ASHLEY: It's really so lovely.
SAM: But I thought was a--
ASHLEY: It's almost like it's becoming a nice gallery wall situation.
MATT: "I might have to remodel a bit in here."
ASHLEY: Yeah, maybe.
MATT: She snaps her fingers and you watch as the wood shifts and changes. The tiki bar stretches and spreads and shifts over the interior of the manor, making room and adjusting for now what looks to be enough room for an art wall.
ASHLEY: Yeah. Let's put this up.
SAM: Okay.
ASHLEY: We'll leave this here. I'm going to walk up to-- So now, because I'm in the Fey, I'm also looking extra fey when we arrived here.
MATT: Yeah. Your features are more exaggerated and strange.
ASHLEY: But also, just for flavor, I'm going to also cast Primal Savagery on myself, so I'm just a little bit extra.
MATT: Okay.
ASHLEY: Pointier teeth. A little taller, a little longer everywhere.
TRAVIS: Oh!
MARISHA: So cool.
TRAVIS: Sorry.
ASHLEY: I'm going to go up to the frame and really get a closer up look at his face to see what's similar and what's not to me.
MATT: Yeah. There is some similar features around the cheekbones. You imagine from the glimpses you got of the eyes, maybe, though, they're not present anymore, just vacuous holes where they once were. You can-- That's where the resemblance ends, given the process that he's undergone. He just hangs there, stretched and pulled, the expression just limp.
TALIESIN: I quietly make my way next to you. I do not stop looking at that painting.
TRAVIS: ♪ Making my way ♪
TALIESIN: They-- They carve a hole in you. They just dig. They leave this pit, and you spend years wandering below in the dark, looking for them, searching for any sign of them. If you're lucky, you eventually figure out they're not down there, they're the ones who threw you in in the first place. (sighs) I'm very sorry.
MATT: (cocktail tumbler shaking) Nana Morri is currently shaking up a cocktail.
ROBBIE: I assume it's like a tapestry of some kind.
ASHLEY: It's beautiful.
ROBBIE: In the negative space around his face, are there any markings or-- A lot of tapestries have a story or pictographs on it. Is there any visual art on it, or is it just a face in the middle of it?
MATT: No visual art. What you see is the face itself is maintained with elements of the scalp and some of the hair still framing it. Then just beyond that, it is numerous strips of the skin that has been pulled out and then woven through itself in different places, like a beautifully intricate weave of skin.
TRAVIS: Are you okay, Matt?
MATT: I'm fine.
(laughter)
MATT: Hey, man.
ASHLEY: I love it so much.
MATT: This is the other side of the Fey, bud.
TRAVIS: That was my favorite part.
ROBBIE: He's been taking those basket weaving classes.
MATT: Mm-hmm.
ROBBIE: He's really into it.
TRAVIS: Yeah, it's really good.
TALIESIN: Underskin basket weaving.
SAM: Wickermail.
ASHLEY: I'm going to get in there while she's making drinks.
MATT: Yeah.
ASHLEY: Hey.
MATT: (Zathuda) "Hi."
MARISHA: Oh, Jesus.
ASHLEY: You don't know me very well, but I'm Fearne.
MATT: "I know."
LAURA: Oh!
ASHLEY: You don't, though. You don't know me at all. And now you're not going to get a chance to.
MATT: "I know what you are."
ASHLEY: You were just another person looking for power, even if you had to step on your family to get there. I don't like that very much.
MATT: "You don't know what I've done to get you here."
ASHLEY: Well, you should have told me.
MATT: "I tried."
ASHLEY: Well, it's a little late now.
MATT: "Yes." It's odd. The more you talk to it, the more personality seems to slowly drift into it. That faint spiritual glow that you saw siphoned in The Loom's process of extracting him seems to give the faintest light around the features. The cheekbones begin to fill in ever so slightly, and while the eyes remain open and vacant, you can almost see the face beginning to push out from the weave.
ASHLEY: There he is.
TRAVIS: Dang.
LAURA: That's so fucked.
ASHLEY: (sighs) I mean, you also crossed Nana, so there's a couple reasons of why you ended up here.
MATT: "I'm not the first, and I won't be the last."
ASHLEY: That's very true. (laughs) That's very true. I'm sorry. I just-- You're not a father to me. I don't even know you. I was a pawn for you.
MATT: "Aye. Not that I ever really knew how to show love either."
ASHLEY: Well, since you're going to be here for a while, maybe you can learn how to show it.
MATT: "That time has passed."
ASHLEY: No! There's still time. It may not feel like it in your current condition, but there's still time.
MATT: "I spent my life trying to prove myself. Trying to matter. Trying to take whatever I could to show that I could. And now you have truly become that what I wished to be. So keep taking. Carry on my memory with your need, your want."
ASHLEY: Do you know what my needs are? And what my wants are?
MATT: "No. But whatever they are, I know you'll do what you must to have them. That's in your blood. It's in your Nana's blood." The head twists and creaks against its boundaries in the direction of Morrigan, who is currently pouring. "(whimsical humming)"
ASHLEY: (cocktail tumbler shaking) (Zathuda) "I had any sense of connection beat from me long ago."
ASHLEY: What do you mean?
MATT: "Our people are not the most empathetic."
ASHLEY: What?! No.
MATT: "I'm not your father. Not in the way that you needed. But I am your father. I have given you my curse as well."
ASHLEY: What does that mean?
MATT: "You'll know in time."
MARISHA: Jesus.
LAURA: What the fuck?
ASHLEY: Well.
MATT: "Burn what thou wilt and take what thy wishes from the ash. What you bear is the curse of ambition."
ASHLEY: Well, that doesn't sound that bad. Listen, did you all have any plans? What do you-- What do you-- What's the deal? What were you planning?
MATT: "Me?"
ASHLEY: We were going to come with you, you were going to take the Ruidusborn. We were going to be a vessel. What's the whole plan?
LAURA: What does it mean to be a vessel?
ASHLEY: What does it mean to be a vessel? Okay?
MATT: "From what I understand, the final boundary that holds the god eater, it's built of similar material as the Divine Gate. And what you carry within you, Ruidusborn, is the key to opening that door."
ASHLEY: But there's many Ruidusborn.
MATT: "Aye."
LAURA: I'm just going to peek over her shoulder. Can more than one person be a vessel at the same time?
ASHLEY: What if two people tried to take--
MATT: "I know not. What I know is all the Exaltant gathered, very few will have the strength to do what's necessary."
ASHLEY: What do you think is necessary?
MATT: "What do I think?"
ASHLEY: Yeah.
MATT: "I think Ludinus is a fool. While we might agree on the end game, I just want you to make him cry. As you squeeze the life out of him, I want the last thing he knows is your face taking his dream from him and making it your own. That's all I want. I cannot do it. I couldn't have done it. But I've always known you could. I would have taken you there. I would have opened every back door and guided you right to his throat. But, now I'm furniture."
SAM: Oops.
ASHLEY: (sighs) I'm sorry. I wish I had more empathy. I do--
MATT: "You are my daughter."
ASHLEY: I just... (sighs) Do any of you all have any questions for him?
LAURA: Are there any back entrances to the Malleus Key?
MATT: "Whatever there was has been overwritten by what the Weave Mind did. They raised the Tishtan Ruins as a fortress."
LAURA: Have you visited the ruins since they've gone up?
MATT: "Briefly. But I was sent here to my doom."
LAURA: Nana, how long does he stay here like this?
MATT: She comes back with a tray of drinks. (Morri 1) "Oh, he's mine now. As long as I wish. On holidays, I'll let him talk to the others."
LAURA: Wow.
TRAVIS: (laughs) This is so fucking wild.
ROBBIE: The others? Like the other furniture?
MATT: "Oh, I have two galleries here in Ligament Manor."
ROBBIE: And on the holidays, you let them all have a little party or--
MATT: "Let them face each other and they get to have conversations."
ROBBIE: Oh, that's nice.
TRAVIS: Oh boy.
ASHLEY: She's really great at repurposing things.
MARISHA: What if you get faced across somebody you hate? That sounds worse than what that's all about.
MATT: "(giggles)"
MARISHA: Do you ever get stuck at a party talking to someone you don't want to talk to? It's the absolute fucking worst.
TALIESIN: Every party. What do we do about the dragon? They've seemed to take a liking to your daughter. If you do have any empathy or whatever passes for it, it would be a kindness to put the two of them together at least a little bit.
ASHLEY: I'll take really good care of him.
LAURA: It would make her so much more powerful.
MARISHA: Did you love Gloamglut more than her?
TALIESIN: Clearly.
ASHLEY: I mean, you spent more time with them. That's okay if you did.
SAM: Guys, let the painting answer.
ASHLEY: It's okay.
(laughter)
TRAVIS: "Let the painting answer." Oh my god!
MATT: (Zathuda) "Gloamglut is a good companion. Young for his size and variable based on mood. Perhaps... Perhaps it needs to be free or bound to a new master."
SAM: How do you bind a dragon to a master?
MATT: "Blood ritual."
SAM: Blood ritual.
MATT: "But I haven't that magic. Hemocraft is a rare gift this side of the realm."
SAM: Oh! Oh!
ASHLEY: That's so funny, because one of my family members actually is really good with that.
MATT: "Just be warned. Success brings you a companion. Failure brings you an eternal enemy."
LAURA: Oh!
SAM: That's exciting.
LIAM: So maybe we long rest before we try.
LAURA: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
TALIESIN: Literally.
MARISHA: Just get another boyf--
LAURA: Add it to the list.
MARISHA: Add it to the list.
LAURA: We got brands. We got rings. We got--
MARISHA: We got ghost pirates.
ASHLEY: Where's he from? Like, where does he go if he's free?
MARISHA: Yeah, we have ghost pirates on our side.
LAURA: Well, she does.
MATT: "Where it pleases."
MARISHA: She cuddled with ghost pirates.
SAM: (shushes)
MATT: "This is its home and it hates being elsewhere."
ASHLEY: Okay.
LAURA: If we let it go, will it seek vengeance against us? What's going on with his face?
MARISHA: What's he doing?
LAURA: What's going on with his face?
MATT: He's just straining against the--
LIAM: He's stretching.
MATT: (laughs) He's testing his new boundaries.
SAM: He's got an itch.
(laughter)
MATT: "If you could just... If you don't mind. It's--"
(laughter)
ASHLEY: Dred is scratching with his tongue.
LIAM: I'm trying to set up face recognition.
TRAVIS: Face recog--
MATT: "If you talk to him, maybe not. But I think you're the only one who could."
ASHLEY: Okay. Is there anything else that we need to know?
SAM: We asked about defenses. I asked about dragon.
ASHLEY: We got an answer about defenses?
LAURA: If the Unseelie doesn't come to fight for Ludinus, how many forces does he have on his side at Malleus Key?
MATT: "Hmm. The Vanguard has some trained warriors at their disposal. But many of them have been... Many have fallen in the defense of our endeavors. But now, bolstered with the entirety of Ruidian army forces, Vidulches larger than you can imagine.
LAURA: Oh god, those things.
MATT: "Ozo Cruth. A warrior unlike anything Exandria has seen, atop his personally bound and binded Vidulch beast, a terrifying, manipulated creature by the Weave Mind's understanding of arcana and genetics."
TALIESIN: Manipulated?
LAURA: We saw one on Ruidus.
MATT: "Oh, there are many. So many. Bred and trained since youth. Reiloran combatants. Assassins. Thought Eaters. It's an extermination squad. It's an invasion. So the question is: Who's going to strike first? And why are all the Exaltants disappearing?"
LIAM: You've spent a lot of time at Ludinus's side. What would you say his biggest weaknesses are, aside from hubris?
LAURA: Maybe all of them are on the moon.
ASHLEY: We didn't know that.
MATT: "Hubris is the one. But hubris can be utilized. A being of his ability, his knowledge is dangerous in so many ways. Don't think I haven't spent many hours of many nights trying to think of how to cut his throat when he wasn't watching. But he's crafty. If you're even certain it's him, when you do find him. That's why I want you to do it. You and your... (derisively) family."
TRAVIS: Oh man, god!
TALIESIN: Speaking of hubris, since we're on the subject. Who else do you think is going to turn on him? Who else is plotting?
MATT: "I'm not sure. It's too dangerous to inquire within to show my hand. I'd say what fat lot of luck it did me. But you're still here, and you're still on your path."
LAURA: How can we ensure that the Unseelie don't join the fight?
LIAM: Yeah. What would you tell your kin in the court?
MATT: "That he'll fail. They've had a... A tenuous belief in his ability at best. And the Unseelie are prone to seeing which way the wind blows before hitching themselves to anything beyond their realms of expertise. So, doubt."
ASHLEY: What do you mean the Exaltants have been disappearing?
MATT: "He's been sending them off."
ASHLEY: I'm just...
MATT: "Word is, he's been sending them off. But they don't come back. To what ends, I don't know, but I don't trust him.
LAURA: They're testing that boundary.
LIAM: Throwing logs on the fire.
LAURA: Weakening it.
ASHLEY: Have you ever gotten a glimpse of what you think Predathos is?
MATT: "He never let me get close. I hate him."
LAURA: We do too.
MATT: "Good. Use that."
LAURA: Why do I like him as a tapestry?
SAM: I know. I have a quick question.
TRAVIS: He's handling this remarkably well.
SAM: If I may.
ASHLEY: Yes. Of course.
SAM: Why the long face? Just kidding.
TRAVIS: Oh!
(laughter)
MATT: Tries to spit in your direction, but there's no saliva, really, it's just (dry puffing).
(laughter)
MATT: "I hate this!"
SAM: If I may.
ASHLEY: Yes. Of course.
SAM: And if you don't want to know the answer to this, feel free to just nix it. But I know that you're not really her father, her dad, and she's not you know, you guys aren't family. But biologically speaking, should she be aware of any siblings out there in the world?
ASHLEY: Good question.
LAURA: There is another.
MATT: "I put all my faith in my one."
LAURA: Oh.
LIAM: That's a euphemism.
ASHLEY: Okay.
SAM: One shot.
ASHLEY: One shot.
LAURA: He only had sex one time in his whole life.
SAM: In his whole life.
LAURA: You just had sex the one time. That's so sweet.
ASHLEY: That's a lot sweeter than I thought.
LAURA: It's really sweet.
TRAVIS: Sometimes, one's all you need.
ASHLEY: Were you--
MATT: "I've been careful."
(laughter)
MATT: "There are Fey techniques to ensure."
SAM: The rhythm method?
TRAVIS: Reach up, put my finger in his mouth.
(laughter)
MATT: "We call it the Misty Step."
(laughter)
ROBBIE: Oh no!
(laughter)
TALIESIN: Oh! Oh! I hate it.
LAURA and LIAM: (lingering laughter)
ASHLEY: Did you love her?
LIAM: So many jokes.
ASHLEY: Did you love her? Birdie?
LAURA: Oh god! Birdie's here. (gasps)
MATT: "I don't know."
LAURA: Oh shit, she's going to see him.
ASHLEY: That's okay.
SAM: That's okay.
ASHLEY: She might not--
TRAVIS: Realize? Recognize?
ASHLEY: Nana will figure that out.
MATT: "I think I might have."
LAURA: Oh fuck!
ASHLEY: You just don't remember?
TALIESIN: He doesn't know what love is.
ASHLEY: (chuckles) Do you want someone to show you? Sorry. ♪ I want you to show me ♪ Sorry.
MARISHA: What?
SAM and TRAVIS: ♪ I want to know what love is ♪
(laughter)
SAM: Well. This has been fun.
ASHLEY: Yeah.
ROBBIE: A little light bulb goes off in Dorian's head, and he stops what he's doing and jogs outside really quick to back where we were. Try to navigate myself up to the platform.
MATT: Okay. As you head up there, you can see--
LAURA: Have you had him the whole time?
ROBBIE: Well, we left him, I don't know. I'm going to go get him.
LAURA: I didn't ever say it.
MATT: You see two figures descending the stairs in your direction, passing you by. One is the faun with curly, sunkissed blond hair that you recognize as Fearne's mother, and another gentleman looks to be a male elf. Shaggy mop of brown hair, golden brown eyes. They're both heading down the steps and she goes, "Oh, hi there. We just heard that some folks had arrived. Is Fearne here?"
ROBBIE: Oh yes. (sharp inhale) Ooh. Fearne is downstairs having a drink right now. But maybe, maybe I'll just let them know that you're about to come into the room before you come into the room. I'll be right back.
MATT: "Okay. No worries. This is-- Okay."
ROBBIE: Bye. Bye, bye, bye.
MATT: You hear a voice go--
TRAVIS: (laughs)
MATT: "Nice to meet you." You continue up. All right. So you scatter yourself up the stairs, going all the way to the peak of Ligament Manor, out back to the open Fey skies of the garden.
ROBBIE: Are our two captives still unconscious on the ground?
MATT: They are. Or, uncertain if they're unconscious, but they are wrapped heavily in the same roots and vines that the fey dragon is.
ROBBIE: Oh, they're still wrapped up and confined.
LAURA: Yeah, she trapped them.
ROBBIE: Okay. Okay. And then I'll run back downstairs.
(laughter)
LAURA: Oh, phew. Okay.
ASHLEY: They're still there.
MATT: As you hear the footsteps descend and a voice goes, (Birdie) "Fearne? Fearne, honey!"
ASHLEY: Hey!
MATT: You watch as Nana Morri goes, "Hmm," does this with her hand, and the image just turns invisible on the wall. She turns around. "I made a drink for both of you, just in case they've returned here."
ASHLEY: Hey!
MATT: Hands out a few drinks before sitting back in her La-Z-Boy chair. Also made of tanned hide of something.
SAM: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
MARISHA: Is this beach umbrella made from frog skin?
MATT: "How very observant."
MARISHA: No, it makes total sense. It's like you can web it.
MATT: "And there's a lot of frogs here."
MARISHA: Oh my god! Brilliant.
TALIESIN: The texture is amazing.
MATT: But Ollie and Birdie come up and approach and Ollie's, like, "Fearne, love, it's good to see you. I heard you been off north a bit. Your mother said you just came back from a journey not long ago."
ASHLEY: Yeah.
MATT: "All's well then?"
ASHLEY: All is pretty, pretty fine.
MATT: Roll a d20 for me.
LAURA: Me?
MATT: Yeah.
LAURA: Am I trying to roll high or low?
TALIESIN: How does that--
LAURA: 18?
MATT: 18. Okay. All right. That's all.
LAURA: (exasperated sigh)
TRAVIS: Oh boy. Not in this place. Look at the twinkle in his eye.
MATT and ROBBIE: (laugh)
TRAVIS: (huffs)
ASHLEY: Nana, we also have someone else that we might have to speak to.
SAM: Mm-hmm.
MATT: "More furniture?"
ASHLEY: Well, this might be a little different situation.
MATT: "Very well. Come. Birdie, love, if you'd like to maybe prepare a meal for our guests. How long do you intend to stay?"
LAURA: We won't be able to stay too long, Nana, because there's a lot of stuff happening back on Exandria.
MATT: "Understood." (Morri 2) "We'll miss you."
ROBBIE: Mm!
TALIESIN: I do look forward to a proper vacation when all this is done. Maybe to stay a little longer.
MARISHA: I agree.
MATT: "Anytime."
ASHLEY: Of course.
MATT: "I'll grow you some more guest rooms."
SAM: (laughs)
ASHLEY: Thank you.
MARISHA: Honestly, I would love to pick your brain at some point about your (clicks) artistic abilities. It's just, it's--
MATT: "Oh, it would be an honor. I like your aesthetic quite well."
MARISHA: (laughs) Oh my god!
ASHLEY: Show your little Pâté.
MARISHA: Oh! Has she met Pâté? Actually, you know what? Pâté went poof poof. I would have to summon Pâté again.
ASHLEY: Oh, that's right, that's right.
LAURA: Yeah, he was destroyed--
TALIESIN: Is that what we're calling it now is, "Went poof poof"?
MARISHA: Well, he got (clicks) Pâtéd.
TALIESIN: No, I was just trying to catch up on the new lingo.
MATT: I think if you want to head back up to the garden as you all head out there, and you can see that--
ASHLEY: I just fucking came down here.
LAURA: Come on!
LIAM: We're just going upstairs.
MATT: You all step back out of the top. Emerging where you are, you can see all the vines wrapped around Gloamglut just goes-- (snorts) and just sighs deeply--
(awwing)
MATT: -- still head to the stone.
SAM: Poor guy.
ROBBIE: He's young.
LAURA: Hopefully they're going to let him go.
MARISHA: He's a baby.
TRAVIS: I'll take care of it.
LAURA: He's a baby boy.
TRAVIS: (sword swings)
MARISHA: (laughs) Give him the Old Yeller.
LIAM: He's young for, despite his size.
ASHLEY: He's a baby. He still has life to live.
MARISHA: I wonder what young means in fey dragon terms.
LAURA: Yeah.
TALIESIN: Time is a--
MARISHA: Weird soup.
TALIESIN: -- massive, anyway, it's very soupy.
ASHLEY: It is a weird soup.
MARISHA: As we--
TALIESIN: He's an old soup.
MARISHA: As we walk up, I fall in pace with Orym and out the side of my mouth: You all right?
LIAM: Nah, but does it matter?
MARISHA: You made a choice. You once supported me for making a very bold choice and I support you for doing the same.
LIAM: I don't doubt that I did the-- Ooh.
LAURA: (laughs)
LIAM: -- right thing. We came here to do something, and we're going to do it.
SAM: Oh, you dropped this.
LIAM: Thanks. But if we're lucky to make it through, I'll just keep carrying the weight.
MARISHA: You know Fearne knows that, right?
LIAM: Knows what?
MARISHA: We came here to make hard choices. We will continue to have to make hard choices.
LIAM: From the beginning 'til now, and talking with the gods hasn't made that any easier.
MARISHA: No, we still have to unpack all of that, but it's been, ooh. It's been an intense 24 hours, so--
TRAVIS: Two hours-- three hours.
MARISHA: Yes, it's been a lot, so we'll get to that.
LIAM: You feel his tiny hand, which is warm, wrap around your cold one as we reach the top of the stairs, and crest up.
TALIESIN: I'm going to walk with Fearne as we're going up.
ASHLEY: Hi.
TALIESIN: Hey.
MARISHA: (huffs) Jesus. Full dissociative episode.
(laughter)
ASHLEY: What do you mean? (laughs) How's it going?
TALIESIN: Oh... Great? Everything hurts. I've got a migraine, and I don't know. I'm having a wonderful flashback to a series of abandonment issues. Have you thought, you thought about what you're going to do about the dragon out there?
ASHLEY: I have some ideas.
TALIESIN: You should sleep out there tonight.
ASHLEY: Okay.
TALIESIN: Want company?
ASHLEY: Sure.
TALIESIN: I promise I will not ask how you're doing.
ASHLEY: Thank you.
TALIESIN: (sighs) This shit, right? (grunts)
ASHLEY: Yeah. I'm going to give him a slap on the back and cast Greater Restoration--
TALIESIN: Oh, whoa.
ASHLEY: -- on him.
MATT: Okay.
ROBBIE: Nice.
ASHLEY: Oh wait.
SAM: There's some material.
ASHLEY: I don't have materials.
TALIESIN: No, you're not. You don't have material, do you?
ASHLEY: Diamond dust, worth at least a hundred gold.
TALIESIN: I don't need it now.
ASHLEY: I just--
TALIESIN: I'll take the slap.
ASHLEY: -- slap his back. That's it.
(laughter)
LAURA: I'm going to sidle up next to Dorian while we're walking up, and in his head, I'm going to go: I barfed down there. I threw up.
(laughter)
ROBBIE: Oh, I absolutely saw it. I just wasn't going to make a big deal about it.
LAURA: Dorian, that shit was nasty.
ROBBIE: It was pretty horrible. I mean, I asked to see The Loom, but I thought it would be something different.
LAURA: Like a loom. Not a person.
ROBBIE: Yeah, like a loom loom. Yeah, maybe a nice blanket, or--
LAURA: Where the fuck? What is happening?
ROBBIE: I have no idea. I'm just rolling with it. I'm sorry if I seemed a little bit hyperfocused back there and ran away.
LAURA: No, yeah, you were going to check on the prisoners, right?
ROBBIE: It's just that, you know, I just realized something while everyone was talking about their family feelings. I realized all this time adventuring, I've never actually had a mission before, and I've been really, really focused on it, so I feel like I've been distracted otherwise, but we still have a mission, right?
LAURA: Oh, yeah.
ROBBIE: I'm--
LAURA: Oh, right, yeah, there's definitely still a--
ROBBIE: We were supposed to--
LAURA: -- a mission
ROBBIE: -- come here to stop the Unseelie from joining Ludinus.
LAURA: Mostly we've sort of succeeded so far, but we do have to wrap up that mission.
ROBBIE: So much has happened and I just, I feel like I'm tunnel visioned right now, but I'm sorry.
LAURA: Dorian.
ROBBIE: Yes?
LAURA: You're doing great.
ROBBIE: Then I throw up a little bit in my mouth. (laughter)
ROBBIE: At the compliment. I'll swallow it.
LAURA: Yeah.
ROBBIE: Thank you.
MARISHA: Ew. (laughs)
MATT: Emerging on the roof, the treetop gardens here, you know, with Gloamglut there, the two entities still downed and Nana Morri looming over them, grinning downward. "Oh, your disappearing magics aren't going to work here in my domain, little, little beings. Little fey tricks. Now what do we need of them?"
LAURA: We need to get them back to the Unseelie Court and they have to deliver a message that Ludinus is going to lose, that the Unseelie can't join him.
LIAM: That his ritual that he thinks he has the answer and he's missing the final steps. He's bluffing.
TALIESIN: Eight assholes just took down everything that was going on there in front of them. That's embarrassing.
MARISHA: They were fodder. They were always meant to be thrown into the meat grinder for whatever Ludinus has planned.
ROBBIE: We might have tried to organically put some memories into their head.
SAM: Yeah, most of your work is done.
ASHLEY: We really tried.
ROBBIE: But--
MARISHA: That's true.
ROBBIE: -- maybe if there was some sort of magical means of softening the backstory.
TALIESIN: I'd forgotten how stupid that was.
ASHLEY: Those memories will probably still be there. They'll flash in.
LAURA: They're going to think we're really smart. (laughs)
SAM: You guys were great, by the way, in the acting realm. Have you ever done a play or made a movie or something together before? This was very good.
LAURA: Oh.
MARISHA: We tried once.
LAURA: Yeah, we did.
ASHLEY: We did. Yeah, we did.
SAM: You can really tell.
LIAM: Came close.
ASHLEY: Yeah.
MATT: (laughs)
SAM: You can really tell.
ASHLEY: Came really, yeah, didn't.
MARISHA: We'll tell you later.
LAURA: Yeah.
MATT: "Very well."
MARISHA: Yes.
LAURA: (laughs)
MARISHA: Yes, it was.
MATT: She leans down over one of them, whose... its brow is flickering a bit--
LAURA: Pretending to be.
MATT: -- trying to pretend to be asleep. (laughter)
MATT: She leans in. "Shh. Nana will take care of it," and she runs her finger across their forehead, and this little red line appears that drips blood a little bit, and its eyes go wide for a second before they cloud over.
LIAM: Come on, bro.
TRAVIS: What?
TALIESIN: A 10.
MATT: 10 and two.
LIAM: Ooh, ooh.
LAURA: Okay, okay, okay.
MATT: Their eyes roll back and you watch her fingers move around with an increasing pacing and looking like she's in the process of stitching together a whole cluster of yarn at an impossible speed, but there's nothing there. And as she does, she draws her finger in the opposite direction and the red line closes up and the blood (sucks) pulls back up inside like there was no wound to begin with.
LAURA: We should be straight up stitching the brain.
LIAM: (sighs)
MATT: "I think I've set this one on your path of preference. Now, you," and you hear the one go, (whinnies) and now, you see the emissary down below.
LAURA: Oh god.
SAM: Is that--
MATT: "Is this the important one? It's dressed in more important clothing."
ASHLEY: Yes, yes.
MATT: "Good." (crunches) Every joint, even joints that shouldn't be there, pop as she gets down.
MARISHA: Oh yeah. (heavy stomps)
LIAM: Anybody want to Bane him?
SAM: Do you need any--
MARISHA: I do this-- I go up and I can just go, it'll be all right, and I Bane him. (laughter)
MATT: "(screams)"
(laughter)
ASHLEY: (screams)
MATT: Okay. It does succeed against the Bane, unfortunately.
(awwing)
MATT: A natural 18.
MARISHA: I'll do it again!
(laughter)
MARISHA: It'll be all right!
MATT: That's a 16 plus, it's a wisdom?
MARISHA: Yes!
MATT: It's going to be a 24.
ASHLEY: Oh! Damn!
LAURA: So high.
MARISHA: It's a charisma, it's a charisma, it's a charisma.
MATT: Charisma. It's charisma.
SAM: Oh, it's the same.
MATT: Same. (groaning)
MATT: Yeah. (laughs)
MARISHA: I can do it again!
LIAM: Do it, do it.
SAM: Do it again.
MARISHA: Roll it again!
LIAM: Do it again. Going to bed after this.
MATT: One and three.
(cheering)
MATT: (laughs)
(cheering)
LAURA: Worth it!
TALIESIN: (laughs)
MARISHA: Shh!
MATT: "(panicked muffled whimpers)" Then Nana Morri goes, "If at first you don't succeed..."
(laughter)
MARISHA: I know this one! Wait, I know this one! Wait! Shut up! Wait!
MATT: "Push until they stop moving."
MARISHA: Push until they stop moving! I knew it!
(laughter)
MATT: She's going to draw her finger across the emissary's head and a natural 20.
ROBBIE: Whoa!
MARISHA: Wait, is that for her or for him?
MATT: That's for the save.
(groaning)
ASHLEY: But minus... it doesn't work. It doesn't matter where I can--
LIAM: Oh man.
MARISHA: Silvery Barbs! (laughs)
MATT: Do you have a spell slot?
MARISHA: Yeah, we took a short rest so I got all my warlock spells back.
MATT: Okay.
LAURA: Yes!
MATT: Yeah.
ROBBIE: Do it, do it.
MARISHA: Let me actually make sure. Let me make sure.
TRAVIS: Wow.
MARISHA: Yes, I do.
LIAM: Yes, creepy crawly.
LAURA: Yes, little bitty Barbs!
ASHLEY and LIAM: Yes!
MARISHA: Because I can cast it at a higher level.
MATT: Yeah.
MARISHA: Yeah. I'm burning through.
ASHLEY: Let's go!
LAURA: Get it.
MARISHA: Bam bam.
LIAM: Just burn it all. Burn it all.
MARISHA: Burn it all.
TALIESIN: Whoo, spring break.
ROBBIE: For his benefit.
MARISHA: Kind of seeing him twitch and taking Nana Morri's advice, Laudna presses her thumbs a little into his eye sockets, just around.
MATT: All right. So, reroll one of the d20s and take the lower one. So, I'm going to re-roll this one. I'm using the Ruidus dice for this, because it's apropos. Oh.
LIAM: (groans)
ASHLEY and LAURA: What was it?
MATT: 19.
LIAM: 19!
ASHLEY: What?
ROBBIE: Wow!
TALIESIN: Wow.
SAM: This guy is cheating.
MARISHA: But it's not a natural 20.
ASHLEY: Damn!
LIAM: No?
LAURA: It wasn't a natural 20, so now he can't be Baned, so it's like, does he get--
MARISHA: Bane, so it's minus something.
MATT: Still Baned. Nana Morri (huffs) takes her other hand and carves another groove in an X formation. She's burning quite a few spell slots here, but she's a hag.
LAURA: She's a beast.
MATT: She's been around a while. She can do this spell a few times.
MARISHA: Okay.
MATT: She can only do this a few more times.
LAURA: Yeah.
MARISHA: Come on.
LIAM: Dork.
MATT: That's still going to be a 24.
ASHLEY and LAURA: What?
MARISHA: Silvery Barbs! Silvery Barbs!
MATT: You have another one?
MARISHA: Yes, I still have, this is my last 2nd-level spell slot.
TRAVIS: Ludinus shows up. (laughs)
MATT: Okay.
LIAM: That's lower.
MATT: That's going to be a 21--
TALIESIN: With d4.
MARISHA: With Bane. With Bane.
MATT: Minus the d4. Someone roll a d4.
ASHLEY: With Bane.
LAURA: You should.
ROBBIE: You got to roll.
ASHLEY: You roll, you roll.
LAURA: You Baned him.
ASHLEY: Come on, big money, big money, big money.
LAURA: Come on. Roll a four, roll a four, roll a four, roll a four.
MARISHA: Come on, come on, come on.
LIAM: Let's go.
TALIESIN: No.
LIAM: Ugh!
LAURA: Okay, so 20, but Nana Morri, she's got a really high AC, right?
MATT: Her DC is 20, so that is exactly what they need.
LIAM: Son of a fuck.
LAURA: Her DC, her DC is 20?
MARISHA: I have two 3rd-levels.
TRAVIS: Universe. The universe.
MARISHA: I have two thirds.
MATT: DC20 is really high.
MARISHA: I have two thirds and one fourth and that's all I have left.
ASHLEY: Damn.
MATT: All right. She's going to take another shot.
ASHLEY: Try it again, Nana. Come on.
MATT: This poor emissary, he's like-- "(muffled screams)"
LAURA: What?
ROBBIE: What?
MATT: Okay.
ROBBIE: Wow.
MARISHA: Okay, okay, okay.
TALIESIN: With a d4.
MATT: With that. So, I mean he has advantage on it.
MARISHA: Minus d4.
MATT: Minus the d4.
LAURA: Okay, okay.
ASHLEY: Come on, come on.
LIAM: Roll high.
LAURA: Okay, okay.
SAM: Just do it!
MATT: A three or higher will lower it to a 19, which succeeds.
TRAVIS: Do it!
LAURA: So, you need a three or a four.
ROBBIE: Let's go!
LAURA: Come on, come on, come on, come on, come on.
MARISHA: Should I Silvery Barbs that before I Bane it?
LAURA: Do you have enough? Do you--
MARISHA: Yeah, I can Silvery Barbs it again.
ASHLEY: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
MATT: Up to you.
LAURA: So, with the lower of the two?
ASHLEY: Yeah.
MATT: No.
LIAM: Higher.
ROBBIE: What a--
MARISHA: Okay.
LAURA: He needs to stop rolling that die!
MARISHA: Three or a four.
ROBBIE: Come on!
MARISHA: Come on.
LAURA: Three, three, three.
ROBBIE: (screams)
(laughter)
ASHLEY: Damnit!
LAURA: I wanted to let him live.
ROBBIE: We're going to have to kill him.
SAM: That a kill.
LAURA: Dumb emissary.
MARISHA: Wait. Wait, how-- can she do it again? Wait a minute.
TRAVIS: How much can she--
MARISHA: Wait, I can also buy a pack of spells. I can buy a pack.
LIAM: I can stop anytime I want! (laughter)
TALIESIN: Put it all on red 35!
ASHLEY: We can just--
TALIESIN: Red 35! Red 35!
(laughter)
ROBBIE: This emissary is the toughest guy in the campaign so far.
ASHLEY: Yes!
LAURA: Yeah.
MATT: Man.
ASHLEY: It's been bad.
MATT: Mental shit on fey creatures is really tough.
LAURA: It's really tough.
MATT: They are naturally resilient. This emissary is specifically, saving throws are trained in wisdom and charisma, so it's tough.
LIAM: (groans)
ASHLEY: Did we just--
SAM: Hold on, wait a second.
TRAVIS: Hold on, wait a second.
ROBBIE: Charisma.
SAM: (frustrated noise) What can I do? What will this do?
TRAVIS: (laughs)
SAM: I can use Channel Divinity to turn fey. That creature will be turned. He just needs to move away from me.
LAURA: That's all fey around you, though.
SAM: It doesn't affect his saves. Never mind.
MATT: Okay. No worries.
TRAVIS: Good looking.
MATT: You doing something, or--?
MARISHA: Well, what's she doing?
MATT: She's going to try it one more time.
MARISHA: Okay, I'm going to buy back. I'm going to buy a pack.
LIAM: Hold, hold, hold.
MARISHA: A couple of 1st-level spell slots.
MATT: One and a 13. That's going to put her at 21. Go, roll a d4.
LAURA: Okay.
LIAM: Come on, roll high.
MATT: Need a two or higher.
LAURA: Two or higher.
SAM: Come on.
ASHLEY: Come on, baby!
LAURA: You've only rolled ones on this? Okay.
MARISHA: Well, I switched it.
LIAM: Oh my god.
MARISHA: I switched it.
ASHLEY: You got this.
LIAM: I swear.
LAURA: This is it. This is it.
(shouting) (laughter)
ASHLEY: No fucking way!
(laughter)
LIAM: (gun firing)
ASHLEY: Okay.
TRAVIS: You should just leave.
LIAM: Did you Bane yourself?
ROBBIE: Oh no.
SAM: I take out my flail. I'm going to kill this guy. We have no other choice, right?
MATT: Nana Morri goes--
TRAVIS: Just on principle.
MATT: "I can see why they are the emissary. Quite a resourceful and mentally resilient entity."
MARISHA: I can keep going, if you can.
MATT: "Do they both need to make their way back?"
TALIESIN: Technically, Silvery Barbs will still work, because the Bane happens before you would Silvery Barbs that anyway.
MARISHA: I could try and Silvery Barbs it one more time, if you would allow that.
MATT: Up to you.
SAM: His roll?
MARISHA: His roll. Might as well, might as well. Let's try it.
LAURA: Lower the--
ASHLEY: Try it.
ROBBIE: Truly the last, last chance?
MARISHA: So wait, he rolled a 13, right, so he's got to roll under a 13.
LAURA: Under 13.
MATT: I'm rolling.
ASHLEY: What was it?
MATT: 19.
ROBBIE: 19.
TALIESIN: Fuck!
LAURA: You're rolling so high for him.
MATT: I'm showing y'all!
LAURA: I know!
ROBBIE: Yeah. Yeah!
LAURA: Yeah.
TRAVIS: Let's go, big dog.
ROBBIE: Okay.
MATT: All right, so she goes, "Mm. Well," and puts her hand over the face of the emissary, whose eyes go, "(moans)" and then roll back a bit like it's in a stupor. The vines pull away and she lifts it up in her hand, limp in her grasp, and goes, "Where do-- There!" She walks over towards an open part of the garden and sets the emissary on its feet. Emissary stands, and then-- "(grunts) (sputters)" and you watch as greenery, leaves (hacks) out of its mouth, out of its ears, out of its eyes. The eyes pop out as leaves begin to grow, until eventually, the emissary's body is completely surrounded and has become a bush.
MARISHA: Question. The other guy didn't see that happen?
MATT: No, the other guy's bound on the ground and looking away in the other direction.
MARISHA: Okay.
TRAVIS: Oh jeez.
ASHLEY: Yeah, we would've made sure of.
LAURA: All right.
ASHLEY: Okay.
ROBBIE: That was the altered memories one, or--
TALIESIN: Yeah, he's okay.
LAURA: Yeah. He's the one that--
LIAM: We got a guard. We've got a low-level guard.
LAURA: He's the one that we succeeded on the original Modify Memory, and then had the attack fest, and then he's been modified again. So this guy, he's all sorts of tripped out.
LIAM: He's the worst in the Unseelie Court.
MARISHA: But his memory is modified, so if you want to Geas with him.
(laughter)
ROBBIE: It works!
(laughter)
TRAVIS: Woo hoo hoo!
LIAM: Slip him the Geas.
ROBBIE: Another roll? Surely we're due a good one, right?
SAM: Laudna, do you want to be the emissary for the rest of your life? That's still an option.
MARISHA: Why do you keep suggesting this?
SAM: I mean, it just feels fun, just to play a part.
(laughter)
SAM: Really commit to a long campaign of--
LAURA: Do you want to be the emissary for--
SAM: What?
LAURA: Do you want to be the emissary?
SAM: I don't think I'm the right body type.
LAURA: Mm.
MARISHA: I mean, I could try, but I'm not very good at accents.
ROBBIE: I feel like--
(laughter)
ROBBIE: Braius, I feel like you're the best among us at deception.
SAM: Mm!
ROBBIE: If our goal is to get him to deceive his compatriots and I have to issue him one command, what would be the perfect thing to say?
SAM: Well, what does he think happened now, with his modified memory?
MARISHA: Yeah! (laughs) Yeah.
MATT: "Well, I peered back into earlier this day where you and all of your friends came and murdered his. So I changed that to several Ludinuses slapping him for a good five, six minutes and calling him names."
SAM: Several Ludinuses?
TALIESIN: Ludini.
ASHLEY: Ludini, yeah.
TRAVIS: Ludi!
LIAM: Ludi.
MARISHA: Wait, wait, wait. When you were looking back--
TRAVIS: Wait.
MARISHA: -- through his memories, did you see the play that we put on? Never mind, don't worry about it.
TRAVIS: (laughs)
MARISHA: Don't worry about it. If you can't remember--
MATT: "Sorry, I was a bit distracted."
MARISHA: -- it couldn't be good.
MATT: "But, in all sincerity--"
TALIESIN: She saw it. She didn't like it.
ASHLEY: Yeah, she didn't like it.
MATT: "-- I left them with a terrifying exchange with Ludinus, and I think enough information to set them on the path you require."
LIAM: How does your trick work? Is it a one-word deal, or you just have to--
ROBBIE: It's a command. It's not one word.
LIAM: It's not one word?
ROBBIE: We can be specific, but we have to be specific.
LIAM: He needs to convince the court of Ludinus'--
LAURA: Ineptitude.
SAM: Deception.
LIAM: -- trap for them. If they believe that Ludinus has got a trap ready to spring on them--
LAURA: Oh, that's true. Setting them up to fail.
ASHLEY: And they're going to believe this guard?
TALIESIN: He's the only survivor.
LAURA: I mean, he's the only survivor.
SAM and ROBBIE: He's the only survivor.
ROBBIE: All right--
LAURA: If they look into his memory, they'll see--
ASHLEY: Those memories will be there?
SAM: Convince the court that Ludinus will betray them.
LIAM: They have a trap in place for the Unseelie Court's forces.
MARISHA: Yes.
LIAM: If they show up that day, they're all going to die.
ROBBIE: Say it again, but slower. What do I tell them?
LAURA: Ludinus is setting them up to fail. They are fodder for the fight.
ASHLEY: Should we implant any memories of the journal?
ROBBIE: Lay down your weapons?
LAURA: Don't show up.
LIAM: Don't show up.
ROBBIE: Don't show up?
LIAM: Don't come.
LAURA: Don't join with Ludinus.
ROBBIE: I think I've got it.
LAURA: Okay.
ASHLEY: It's a trap.
ROBBIE: All right.
LIAM and LAURA: (like Admiral Ackbar) It's a trap!
MATT: "Do I release him?"
ROBBIE: He likes us, right? He should.
LAURA: Not necessarily.
ROBBIE: We saved him.
LAURA: Maybe you can give him the command.
MARISHA: Then we release him.
LAURA: He's awake. I mean, look, he's right there.
ROBBIE: He's plastered against the ground. I'm going to lay down on my tummy and get face to face with him. (laughter)
ROBBIE: Hello!
MATT: "Hmm?"
ROBBIE: Oh, Nana Morri, could you...?
MATT: "Oh yes, of course." (ripping) (guard) "(heavy breath) How did I get here? What-- The dragon brought me here?"
ROBBIE: We saved you, remember?
TRAVIS: Good question.
ASHLEY: Yeah.
ROBBIE: Yes, yes, search your memories, your very new--
MATT: "Yes!"
ROBBIE: -- and real memories.
MATT: "Right! Who are you?"
LAURA: (sighs)
ASHLEY: We had to get you out of there.
LAURA: We can't-- Ludinus is a danger.
SAM: We're friends.
LAURA: Fuck, I don't know.
MATT: "He wouldn't stop slapping me." (laughter)
LAURA: Yeah, he slapped us too.
MATT: "Killed all the rest, but just slapped me."
ASHLEY: That was awful. It was awful: we saw it.
TALIESIN: No one knows why.
ROBBIE: As he's freaking out, I'm going to stroke his hair and I'm going to hum a little tune. You have one minute to chitchat with him before I finish the spell.
SAM: In your-- It was a crazy day. It was a crazy experience. By any chance, do you remember, because it's foggy for me. Do you remember the part where someone was attacking Ludinus and he was like: Oh no! Get off me! Then someone stabbed him. Do you remember that part at all?
MATT: "Yes, there was--"
SAM: Do you remember him conspiring with one of his red-robed miscreants about destroying--
MATT: "Oh yeah, that was you."
LIAM: We barely got you away--
LAURA: No, no, no! He was disguised.
SAM: No, no, no. That was--
MATT: "I'd recognize that voice anywhere."
TALIESIN: (laughs)
SAM: No, I think I was doing a higher-pitched thing.
MATT: I'm just fucking with you.
(laughter)
MATT: I was just fucking with you.
ROBBIE: Who's getting deceived now!
MARISHA: "I was doing higher pitched thing."
MATT: No, he's like, "I do. What is happening?"
SAM: It was convincing though, right?
MATT: "Where am I?"
SAM: Oh yes.
ASHLEY: There's proof that Ludinus is doing bad things? Remember they were talking about proof?
MATT: "Right."
SAM: Tell us your name.
MATT: Kamal.
SAM: Okay.
ROBBIE: ♪ Sweet Kamal ♪
LAURA: We barely got you away from him. We all fled here. Ludinus and his people are going to take out anyone there. He's a danger to everyone around him, especially the Court.
ROBBIE: Right as Orym says that, the spell is finished being cast, and I lean down to his ear and I whisper: Sh, sh. You must convince the Unseelie not to fight. No matter what you do, they must not join Ludinus.
SAM: You've been Geased!
(laughter)
ROBBIE: Or have you? I don't know.
MATT: He has to succeed on a wisdom saving throw against this.
LAURA: Is he still Baned?
MATT: No, because you've recast Bane on the emissary.
ASHLEY: I can give you advantage.
MARISHA: I could Bane him again.
TRAVIS: I can cast Bane, yeah.
SAM: That's fine.
MARISHA: I bought back spells.
LIAM: He already Geased him.
MATT: Do you want to Bane him?
MARISHA: (lackluster) Bane.
LIAM: (laughs)
MATT: (like Marisha) Bane!
(laughter)
TRAVIS: Bane!
TALIESIN: Bane!
ROBBIE: Oh my goodness!
MATT: Succeeds.
LAURA: Can we give you different dice to roll?
SAM: Against Bane?
MATT: Sure, I'll take different dice.
TALIESIN: He's Baned.
SAM: That was against Bane?
MARISHA: That was against Bane? He succeeded against Bane?
MATT: That was against Bane.
TALIESIN: He's Baned.
SAM: So now he still has to roll against his spell?
ROBBIE: Yeah, against this spell.
TRAVIS: ♪ He Baned, he Baned ♪
LIAM: (like Bane) This literally never happens to me.
SAM: (laughs)
ROBBIE: I was so gentle with my touch.
TALIESIN: I was waiting for it.
ROBBIE: Surely this will work.
MARISHA: I could try and Bane him with my last 3rd-level spell.
TALIESIN: He's Baned.
SAM: That's fine.
MARISHA: He's not Baned.
MATT: Natural 20 and 18.
LIAM: Oh!
ASHLEY: What is this baloney?
TALIESIN: Silvery Barbs?
MARISHA: Silvery Barbs. Silvery Barbs! Silvery Barbs!
ASHLEY: Silvery Barbs!
(laughter)
ROBBIE: Oh boy.
LAURA: On an 18, though?
LIAM: Three!
MATT: And a three.
ROBBIE: (gasps)
MARISHA: That does it?
MATT: That does it.
TALIESIN: He needed a one.
ASHLEY: Yes!
LAURA: Thank god.
MATT: (laughs)
ROBBIE: You deserve it.
MATT: I--
LIAM: It only took--
ROBBIE: You worked so.
MATT: -- can't believe I rolled that well that whole time.
ROBBIE: Wow.
ASHLEY: That was--
LAURA: That was like Ashton's trial.
LIAM: It only took you like 10 tries.
TALIESIN: Oh, it was so rough.
MATT: I'm glad I did that before you guys, or I would've been stabbed in the parking lot. I would've been like, "You saw!"
ROBBIE: Wow.
MATT: I don't fudge shit. I don't fudge that shit.
LAURA: That was amazing, though.
ASHLEY: That was crazy.
MARISHA: Laudna has a little black bead coming out of her nose.
MATT: (laughs)
MARISHA: She's just like (groans).
LAURA: I'm rubbing your back.
TALIESIN: Laudna, you've got ichor on you.
MATT: As you're saying this, Nana Morri's head stretches into view.
MATT: "Now?"
LAURA: Yeah, now we can let him go.
TALIESIN: Yeah.
MATT: Lifts her hand and all the vines and heavy, thick roots go, (thick retracting) and reveal and the guardian sits up fast, "(pants)" turns around, reaches for its weapon. There's no weapon there.
LAURA: Go, now!
ASHLEY: Save us! Save the world.
MARISHA: You know your mission.
SAM: Save the cheerleader.
ASHLEY: Save the world.
LAURA: Damn the man, save the empire.
SAM: Geas it!
(laughter)
LIAM: Guys, come on!
MATT: All right.
(laughter)
MATT: So as part of this, I'll give one final deception check. Who wants to make the roll?
LIAM: Maybe Sam does?
LAURA: Sam or--
SAM: Wait, for him, right?
MATT: Yeah.
LAURA: To pass the deception check.
ASHLEY: Can I Guide anyone?
SAM: Wait, sorry, who?
LAURA: You're rolling a deception check.
ROBBIE: Yep.
MATT: Against him.
SAM: Oh. Okay, that's 29.
MATT: Okay. He's like, "(pants)" He runs off further into the garden, and then runs back. "How do I get out of here?" Nana Morri's like--
ROBBIE: Come here. I'm going to grab his--
ASHLEY: It's this way, sorry.
ROBBIE: I'm going to take him with me and like: You have to go back as quickly as possible. I'm going to put him on Coriolis.
SAM: Ooh.
MARISHA: Oh!
ROBBIE: Give him the ass slap and whisper to Coriolis: Take him to the Unseelie. Smack.
ASHLEY: Nice.
TRAVIS: Oh!
ASHLEY: Sick!
LAURA: Wow.
TRAVIS: That's fucking great.
SAM: Coriolis comes back: How do I get there?
ROBBIE: Fuck!
(laughter)
ROBBIE: You can talk?!
(laughter)
LIAM: Which way is it?
(laughter)
TRAVIS: Fucking Mister Ed fey horse.
(laughter)
MARISHA: Mister Ed!
MATT: Oh my god.
(laughter)
MATT: All right.
ROBBIE: Please don't.
MATT: As they vanish in the distance, Gloamglut is still there, given into this. Nana Morri looks at the rest of you. "Well, it seems you've succeeded in setting your seeds of doubt."
ROBBIE: (exhales)
LAURA: Yes.
SAM: We did great. We did great.
ROBBIE: Mission complete!
LAURA: Yeah, mission complete!
SAM: Level up!
MATT: "Are you on your way?"
MARISHA: I'm so dehydrated.
SAM: I think we need to spend the night, right?
TALIESIN: I think we need a night of rest, actually, would be real--
LAURA: I mean, as long as--
ASHLEY: We could stay in the vardo. There's spots, but I know time is weird.
LAURA: Of the essence, but we got to sleep.
TALIESIN: We've got to sleep.
LAURA: Would we be able to make sure that time doesn't pass too quickly over there again?
MATT: "Leaving from my domain, I should be able to guide you back, but only in my domain."
LAURA: Well, then we'll stay here.
ASHLEY: Yeah, we'll stay here.
MATT: "Very well. Then come. I'll make sure the rooms are clean. They're clean."
(laughter)
ASHLEY: Awesome!
MARISHA: I'm so jealous of that.
MATT: She sips from her tiki drink.
TALIESIN: I'm going to go grab a blanket and a pillow and I'm going to head down to the meadow.
LIAM: That blanket was a senator.
(laughter)
ASHLEY: Imogen?
TALIESIN: It has a smell.
LAURA: Huh?
ASHLEY: Do you think you'd be able to peek in in your dreams or something tonight?
LAURA: To who? To what?
ASHLEY: I don't know, try to tap in somewhere.
LAURA: I could try. I could try. To who?
ASHLEY: Predathos?
LAURA: Oh jeez.
ASHLEY: That's a little crazy.
LAURA: I could try. I mean, I'm not on the moon, so maybe it wouldn't be quite as bad. Maybe I could try to see what's going on up there.
MARISHA: We do, I feel, have a mild dilemma as well. We successfully crashed this little meeting, this little party between Ludinus and Zathuda.
LAURA: Mm-hmm.
MARISHA: Ludinus is going to know that someone tipped us off. And now Zathuda is dead.
LAURA: Well, he doesn't know that. As far as he knows, Zathuda just abandoned him.
MARISHA: That's true.
ASHLEY: Yeah.
LIAM: Came at a cost, but, it's hard to say this, but I think we can chalk this up as a win.
TALIESIN: I definitely think we can chalk this up as a win.
TRAVIS: Plus, we've totally executed on our part of the deal. That's one of three missions is a success. We'll report back, they'll hail us as heroes. We'll probably get a feast. Maybe not that last part, but.
MARISHA: Mm.
SAM: This wasn't one of the three missions, though. This was a side quest.
LAURA: No, but at least now we know what Keyleth's friends will be facing when they go to the Key.
SAM: Mm-hmm.
ROBBIE: Hopefully minus one extra army.
LAURA: Yeah.
ROBBIE: Hopefully.
SAM: Mm-hmm.
LAURA: But, oh my gosh, if that's true, those Vidulches, y'all remember what that Vidulch looked like?
MARISHA: Big.
LAURA: If there's a ton of them on the surface now-- He said it was an invasion army. That's not-- He kept saying it was peaceful, that the Ruidus just wanted to-- That's an invasion.
TALIESIN: Armies are armies.
TRAVIS: I'm sure if they had the choice, they wouldn't stay up there.
LAURA: Yeah.
ROBBIE: Don't they dream of the--
TALIESIN: I'm sure if they had the choice, they would choose, as opposed to invade. That's what we're going to need to hammer home, so to speak.
MARISHA: We saw the Weave Mind. We knew it was like this.
ASHLEY: Remember that time when we talked to the Arch Heart?
LAURA: (laughs)
ASHLEY: That was nuts.
LIAM: Two hours ago?
ASHLEY: Yeah.
MARISHA: That was today.
LAURA: No, but--
TALIESIN: That was great.
LAURA: -- how did y'all feel about what he was saying? They made some really amazing points.
TALIESIN: It's a deal I can get behind.
MARISHA: I really liked him.
ROBBIE: I really didn't, but I liked the points.
TALIESIN: It's a deal I can get behind.
ASHLEY: Yeah, but--
LAURA: Do we really want to follow through?
ASHLEY: The deal is that we would--
LAURA: We would still wake up Predathos. That's the deal they want: wake up Predathos.
SAM: And be Predathos.
LAURA: Potentially.
TALIESIN: Everyone gets what they want.
LAURA: Well, except for the people who believe in the gods, like the--
ASHLEY: Most of the world.
TALIESIN: Well, not most. A lot.
ASHLEY: Yeah, so.
MARISHA: The other scary thing is if he's sending Ruidusborn to their deaths, is he testing the boundary or are they testing who's powerful enough to possibly take Predathos into them?
ASHLEY: I wish there was a way to peek in.
TALIESIN: That'd be nice.
LIAM: We've yet to see one thing that proves to us what will happen after that thing is let loose. We've had people tell us it will be fine, we've had people tell us it would be destructive. We've had a god tell us to fight. We've had a god tell us to burn it all to the ground.
MARISHA: What makes you think that anyone, including Ludinus, knows what will happen when Predathos is let free?
LIAM: I don't think anyone does, which is why I wouldn't light that match.
ROBBIE: I think it's coming, one way or the other, and I'd rather be there when it does.
MARISHA: I agree.
LIAM: I do not.
LAURA: The Arch Heart made it pretty clear that taking Predathos on would be--
MARISHA: Deadly?
LAURA: Yeah.
LIAM: That's why we're making a play for Ludinus.
ASHLEY: But what about the other gods? Well, what if they have different ideas? I mean, we're going on--
LIAM: They do.
TALIESIN: They get to live.
ASHLEY: We have one god telling us fight. Should we get more opinions?
TRAVIS: There was one other god that the Arch Heart said shared a similar opinion.
LAURA: I wonder--
MARISHA: Yes.
ASHLEY: Oh, that's right.
LAURA: Yeah.
MARISHA: Sort of alluded that it was the Matron of Ravens.
LAURA: Did he?
TRAVIS: Is that right?
ASHLEY: Huh?
ROBBIE: I think that was--
TALIESIN: I find that hard to believe.
ROBBIE: -- our guess.
LIAM: Yeah.
MARISHA: Well, he looked at me and said: Spooky lady wants to talk to you.
LAURA: Oh, he did?
MARISHA: Remember?
MARISHA: Right, that did happen? I'm not crazy?
LAURA: Did any of us hear that, or--
MATT: Described a vision of a porcelain mask.
LAURA: Oh, we didn't see. We didn't see that. That was just you.
MARISHA: That was just me?
LAURA: So you just--
MARISHA: Matt said it out loud, but, yes.
(laughter)
ASHLEY: Maybe you should talk to her?
ROBBIE: It was really high level RP.
MARISHA: Yes, really high level.
ROBBIE: Pretending not to know.
ROBBIE and MARISHA: (laugh)
ASHLEY: What if you tried talking to her, Laudna?
MARISHA: You know, it's really funny, because I always assumed that she of all people, gods would really hate me, because I think she gets a little, (moans) with the whole undeath thing.
LAURA: But her priestesses stood up.
MARISHA: I know! So strange. It was kind of--
TALIESIN: I will say, he's the one I trust so far.
TRAVIS: The Arch Heart?
TALIESIN: In the-- In what we saw, he was the only one who had clear misgivings. Everybody else was hand wringing. He was the only one who was actually-- He was the only one with a big picture.
LAURA: He seemed tired.
ASHLEY: He seemed tired.
TALIESIN: He's also a coward.
ROBBIE: Cowards are often honest.
TALIESIN: And very honest. I trust a coward.
LIAM: It's a big coin toss, guys.
TALIESIN: Big coin.
MARISHA: Well, the other big factor that might push our hand is if Ludinus is successful in broadcasting everything that we saw--
SAM: Mm-hmm.
MARISHA: -- in Aeor.
LAURA: Oh god, that's right.
MARISHA: If that does happen--
ASHLEY: Shit.
LAURA: They might be doing that right now.
MARISHA: Correct.
TALIESIN: I feel like we would know.
ROBBIE: Is there a chance if he does, the gods strike back--
MARISHA: Yes.
ROBBIE: -- as they feel their power waning?
LAURA: Maybe.
MARISHA: I think to your point Dorian, if that happens, something.
LAURA: (laughs)
MARISHA: It'd be inevitable. Either someone will release Predathos--
TALIESIN: Or before they get to it, the gods will open the gates and everything goes to chaos.
TRAVIS: Well, that's interesting. Didn't they say the substance, the last bit of the lock on Predathos, shared a similarity with the Divine Gate?
LAURA: Yeah, that's right.
TALIESIN: Yeah.
TRAVIS: So if they break down the gate, does it pull the pin on Predathos, keeping them--
LAURA: Shit.
TRAVIS: -- maybe back for a little bit?
LAURA and TALIESIN: Maybe.
TRAVIS: Because if they do, then it could be fair game.
LAURA: Maybe. Oh-- Oh god.
TALIESIN: I do think that most scenarios in this current situation lead to just the worst that we can imagine.
LAURA: Sure.
MARISHA: He said himself, a second Calamity.
TALIESIN: But I trust these two.
ASHLEY: Who?
LAURA: Yeah, we're super trust--
ASHLEY: Oh, us.
LAURA: Yeah, you and me.
TALIESIN: I could trust you and the monkey.
ASHLEY: Yeah.
TALIESIN: You're pretty good, too.
LAURA: (laughs)
ROBBIE: There's no one I trust more than us.
ASHLEY: Sure.
LIAM: That I can agree with.
TALIESIN: It should be us.
LIAM: But Ludinus is at the end of the road no matter what.
TALIESIN: Yep.
LAURA: Yeah.
LIAM: I don't know that we need to decide that we have to throw the switch instead of him when we at least have a chance to cut off his hand before he pulls it.
TRAVIS: Yeah.
TALIESIN: Job one. He doesn't touch the switch. That is job one.
LIAM: It can end with job one if you do it successfully. There's nothing saying that you have to flip the switch and turn reality upside down. None of you can tell me what will happen if one of our friends does what Ludinus wants to do. None of you have any evidence, proof. Intuition doesn't cut it. Your gut does not cut it. You are putting the population of this world at risk. So I hope you are all fucking sure at the end of that road. I'll be there to get you there. I'll stand by your side. I will do my damnedest to keep you all alive. But don't let it be a coin toss or "let's see what happens," because you just don't know.
TALIESIN: Well, then we're very lucky that we no longer have anyone who believes and puts their faith in a coin toss. I'm going outside.
TRAVIS: Imogen, Fearne.
LAURA: Hmm.
TRAVIS: I'm not Ruidusborn, so it's not really up to me. How do you feel about the notion that one or both of you could be asked to be a vessel? Where are you? How are you feeling about that?
LAURA: I don't-- I haven't really thought about it yet, Chet. I've been of the notion that I don't want to let Predathos free. I know so many people disagree with what the gods do, and so many in our group do. But a lot of people on this world depend on them. To throw that all away seems callous.
ROBBIE: Faith's a hard thing to let go of.
LAURA: It is. It's not like, you know, their faith would be shattered because they don't know. Their faith would be shattered because their gods abandoned them. Their gods would have run away from them in their time of need, when all of the Ruidians or Reilorans are destroying their lands and demons from the depths are breaking through portals. I don't know what will happen, to Orym's point. So I don't know how I feel about backing that play up. But I think if it's going to happen, if it has to happen, if there's no stopping it, if it comes down to it and he's coming out, then I would gladly step up and at least try. But there's no way I'm more powerful than some of the Exaltants up there already.
TRAVIS: I don't know.
MARISHA: You are very capable.
LAURA: (laughs)
MARISHA: We saw you level a city block. Some, I believe most, and this is not me being dismissive or demeaning, Ruidusborn just happened to be born under a red moon. I don't think it necessarily grants them godlike or god eater powers.
LAURA: Yeah.
MARISHA: If it's not your mother, it's probably one of the two of you. Let's be honest. And that makes my stomach turn.
LAURA: I think us combined, there might be some hope.
ASHLEY: Yeah. I mean, listen. If it's something that's got to be done, it's got to be done. Personally, I think-- I don't know, I think if something is captured up there, this Predathos, does it make us any better that we're keeping him caged up just to save other people and other things?
LAURA: What if he's like Gloamglut? (laughs)
ASHLEY: Yeah, what if he just wants to--
LAURA: He's just young.
ASHLEY: -- go back and be with his family?
LAURA: Well, I kind of sensed him. He wants to eat.
ASHLEY: I know, but--
ROBBIE: Fearne, you're so sweet. It's hard to believe, but there is real evil in the world.
ASHLEY: Yeah.
ROBBIE: I've seen it. Not everything deserves a second chance.
ASHLEY: Yeah.
ROBBIE: But maybe you're right. I wish you were. I wish the world were the way you saw it, but, well, that's not a chance I'm willing to take either. I think Predathos is a weapon. Do we want to have the power to wield it? I don't know. But I trust us more than anyone.
LAURA: Maybe we need to talk to the Matron of Ravens, see what she has to say.
MARISHA: Yes. If there's one thing that we've learned, the gods certainly aren't a monolith.
TRAVIS: Well, how do we do that? Do we go back to Vasselheim and topple a temple and hope she shows up?
LAURA: I don't think we have to topple a temple. Maybe just go to her temple.
TRAVIS: Oh.
ASHLEY: Or--
LAURA: (laughs)
MARISHA: I mean, there's--
SAM: Or?
MARISHA: if three spoopy ladies stood up--
LAURA: Yeah.
MARISHA: -- and went like: Ooh, we trust the spooky one. So maybe you could start with them.
LAURA: Yeah.
ASHLEY: Nana could reach out.
LAURA: To the Matron of Ravens?
TRAVIS: What do you mean?
ASHLEY: They have a thing. I mean, listen. Nana-- They both are kind of bitchy to each other and they kind of have a thing. Maybe-- I don't know.
TRAVIS: What, like on the reg?
ASHLEY: No, not on the reg, but I just, I think she gets irritated with Nana because she gets in her way, futzing with strings and things.
LAURA: Oh yeah.
ASHLEY: I don't know. I know there's some beef there between the two of them. Maybe she could be like: Hey. Could reach out. I don't know.
MARISHA: With all due respect, maybe I don't want Nana Morri vouching for me.
ASHLEY: Maybe we don't do that, actually.
LAURA: Yeah. Maybe her priestesses should--
ASHLEY: Maybe we bypass Nana.
LAURA: Yeah, yeah.
ASHLEY: That might make her actually angry.
MARISHA: I don't want it to start--
ASHLEY: No, no, no. You're right, you're right.
MARISHA: -- in a contentious--
TRAVIS: I mean, in all honesty though, I don't know if it matters. If you make contact, she's going to know who you are. They're a god.
LAURA: She'll see our--
MARISHA: That's fair.
LAURA: -- threads regardless.
ASHLEY: Yeah.
MARISHA: You can certainly ask.
ASHLEY: That's true.
LIAM: I also just over the last months have the feeling that we're walking some line and that's why so many of them are paying attention to us. Maybe they see us as a last ditch effort.
TRAVIS: That's crazy. Us?
LAURA: (laughs)
LIAM: It is, but it's uncanny.
LAURA: Did we go too far today?
SAM: Oh, never. We're on a mission to save the world. Some stuff's going to happen. It's all in service of a greater good.
LAURA: Yeah.
LIAM: No one said it was going to be easy.
MARISHA: We're the worst. Like just in general, like we are a bunch of fuck-ups. We're kind of the worst. Strangely, I think-- I think that's the quality that everyone sees in us that makes us the best for this job.
ROBBIE: It was so ugly the way we did it, but we did do what we came here for.
LAURA: Yeah.
SAM: At the end of the day, whoever succeeds, whoever has power, whoever accomplishes their goals, they can make things right. You have to win first.
TRAVIS: Right.
ASHLEY: Chet, what's going on over there?
TRAVIS: It's just the weird part is all these different parties have the same goal, to push the reset button, to grab the reins. We all have different perspectives. The Unseelie want the chance to do it and wipe the slate but they want to be in charge. Ludinus, same thing, but he wants to be in charge. I'm not saying we're wrong. I think we're better, but we're really no different.
MARISHA: No.
LAURA: What the Arch Heart is trying to convince us to do is the exact same thing that everybody else is trying to do.
ASHLEY: Yes!
TRAVIS: I was asking if he had talked to Ludinus or done this before, like a catalyst, like a voice in your ear. I don't know.
ROBBIE: You think we're getting our strings pulled?
TRAVIS: It feels like it, doesn't it?
LAURA: Well, then maybe talking to the Matron is the wrong idea. If anyone can pull strings...
TRAVIS: She was. We should do it. Conversations are important. Everything breaks down when people don't talk.
MARISHA: We learn more every day. We're still on this journey. No decisions have been made. We're not speaking in absolutions.
LAURA: Can she see the future, you think, the Matron?
MARISHA: If I had to guess, she sees versions.
LAURA: Well, do you think she knew that her champion would become the catalyst for the Key? I mean--
MARISHA: Hmm.
LIAM: That's a good question to ask.
MARISHA: Yes. I mean, if anything, she's-- has a reason to take all of this very personally, more so than any of the others.
ROBBIE: I bet she's motivated by fear as well. I would imagine if you could see the future, the one future you couldn't see is the future where the gods come to an end.
TRAVIS: (laughs)
LAURA: That makes sense.
TRAVIS: (burbles)
MATT: (laughs)
TRAVIS: The bubbles.
LAURA: So the plan is we sleep. We go back to Vasselheim.
SAM: The plan?
LAURA: We go to the temple. And then--
LIAM: Then we start figuring out how to stop Ludinus.
LAURA: Then fuck shit up.
LIAM: Yeah.
SAM: Just one thing before that. We're going to wake up tomorrow and tame a dragon?
LAURA: Oh. Well, that's up to you, Fearne. I feel like we need to let him go a little bit, but that's just me. He's your dragon.
ASHLEY: He's not my dragon.
SAM: He will be after you tame him tomorrow.
ASHLEY: That doesn't mean he's my dragon.
SAM: Yeah, but wouldn't it be cool to have a dragon at your beck and call?
ASHLEY: It would be so fucking cool.
SAM: I don't think it'll take extra time. Nana Morri seems like she can send us back like (clicks) same minute we left.
ASHLEY: I don't know. I don't know. I think we'll cross that bridge when we get there tomorrow. But--
SAM: Sleep on it.
ASHLEY: I'm going to sleep on it. I'm literally going to sleep on it.
SAM: You going to sleep on the dragon?
ASHLEY: Maybe. I don't know.
(laughter)
ASHLEY: That's the only time I'll be able to probably do that.
SAM: Doesn't hurt.
LAURA: Aw.
ASHLEY: You know?
LAURA: That's really sweet.
ASHLEY: I want to snuggle in and take it in because it might be the only time.
LAURA: Yeah.
LIAM: And despite how, above table, how fractured this group is, especially how hardheaded Orym is about what he thinks they have to do and we have so many different opinions, Orym still very quietly floats through the group and ends up next to Dorian and leans on his hip.
ROBBIE: Put my arm around him and my little half-cape is like a little bird wing.
LAURA: (laughs)
ROBBIE: I got him tucked in tight and just like I did with the guard, I'm going to stroke his hair and hum a little tune.
LIAM: Go to sleep.
MATT: (laughs)
ROBBIE: Don't wake. (shushes)
(laughter)
SAM: (gags)
ROBBIE: I just whisper: Don't worry. I'm not casting a spell on you.
LAURA: (laughs)
MATT: (laughs)
MARISHA: The most unsettling thing to hear.
(laughter)
MARISHA: I swear.
ROBBIE: Deception check.
MARISHA: Yeah.
LIAM: (magical thump)
LAURA and MATT: (laugh)
MATT: Okay. Do you guys wish to rest for the evening then?
MARISHA: Does anyone else want a nightcap? I think I might go get just, you know, one more little top-off.
ASHLEY: Drinky drink.
LAURA: I'll sit down there and drink with you.
MARISHA: Okay. We'll get a--
TRAVIS: Or a bath. I could use a bath.
LAURA: God, yeah. I think there's baths in the bedrooms.
ASHLEY: Baths.
LIAM: Fearne, are there--
ASHLEY: Saunas.
LIAM: -- the equivalent of a hot springs here?
ASHLEY: There's--
LIAM: We could all take a dunk.
ASHLEY: Yeah, there is if you want to go close.
LAURA: Just a little dunkies before we go to sleep.
TRAVIS: I wouldn't mind a little relax.
ROBBIE: A soak? That sounds great.
MARISHA: I take a tray of the creepy froggy mai tais.
(laughter)
TALIESIN: If you hit the bar, you would've caught me in the bar having a drink as well.
MARISHA: Oh, you would've been at the bar.
TALIESIN: I would've been at the bar. Is Daddy Portrait visible at this point? Back to visible, or no?
MATT: Still invisible.
TALIESIN: If I had touched it, would I have felt it?
MATT: You go and poke in the space where it is and (squishing) There's a dried, tanned hide strung.
TRAVIS: Oh.
TALIESIN: As I take a little bit of, not even a mai tai, I'm just drinking straight, and I find a little shrimp cocktail sauce and I quietly draw an invisible smile behind the invisibility.
(laughter)
LAURA: Gross.
TALIESIN: You're so lucky you finally get to know your daughter. Excuse me.
MATT: (laughs)
TALIESIN: I'm going to--
MARISHA: I bump into Ashton.
TALIESIN: I apologize. I just knew I was going to start a fight, so I thought I would walk away before I started a fight.
MARISHA: No, I think that's very smart. You're learning to control your emotions. I think that's good.
TALIESIN: At least put them in a box and carry them.
MARISHA: Yes.
TALIESIN: I think that's great.
MARISHA: That's good. It's good to take a little walk sometimes.
TALIESIN: Yeah.
MARISHA: All the super existential talk is kind of done. We're going to take a little dip in a hot spring if you would like to join us before--
TALIESIN: Promise that no one's going to talk about the nature of the universe, our place in it, and whether or not what we do matters, if it's important, if it's too important, if we're ending the world, if we're ending the world because other the people are telling us to do it, and if we're--
LIAM: If we drink enough.
TALIESIN: Fucking into it. All right, I'm going to grab another drink.
(laughter)
TALIESIN: (sighs) My fucking god.
(laughter)
LIAM: Ooh, these frog cups float.
MARISHA: Let's go. Let's go.
TALIESIN: Ribbit.
TRAVIS: Of course they have a tab.
MARISHA: Yeah. Yeah.
TRAVIS: (carbonated air releasing)
MATT: Anybody else doing anything for the evening before you bed down?
ASHLEY: I'm going to spend the night out with Gloamglut.
TALIESIN: I was going to join you in that too.
ASHLEY: Yeah.
MARISHA: I will use my last spell splot to bring back Pâté while we're soaking.
ROBBIE: (laughs)
MATT: Okay.
MATT: (splash) "(gurgles) Oh, hey, sorry about that. Got a little crazy over in the temple and, you know, getting killed and stuff. Well, hi."
MARISHA: You float like the frog cups! And I just spin him.
MATT: "(thrilled exclamations)"
(laughter)
TALIESIN: Well I'm off to bed, if that's cool. Okay.
MATT: "Oh, I'm sure I'd vomit if I had organs."
MARISHA: (laughs)
SAM: I'm going to go off on my own and pray. I'm a man of faith, I must pray. So, yeah, I'm going to, yeah, I'm going to splatter some paint on the wall and kneel before it and ask if my mission is to destroy Ludinus, but that results in the gods being chased away. Is that my mission? Or, do I need to prevent that from happening?
MATT: To which god do you direct your prayer?
SAM: Good question.
TALIESIN: Ooh!
SAM: Good question.
TRAVIS: (whispers) Chetney.
(laughter)
TRAVIS: Yes, my child.
(laughter)
SAM: I'm going to open my mind, and whatever god responds. I might not even know what god responds, or if any god responds. I'm going to open my mind to both and hope that some answer comes back. If killing Ludinus chases the gods away, is it worth doing?
MATT: You stare at the splatters on the wall and the dripping ink-like paint seems to glide down slowly, then arc, and return, and arc again. The ink expands, no longer just scattered lines, but spilling out into an inky void where flames erupt, as horns rise, framed in shadow within the dark. What faint bit of interior light glitters across an iron crown.
LIAM: ♪ (heavy riff) ♪
MATT: "If what is to come is inevitable, then chase the rest away, and we remain." You blink, and your splatters are as they were.
LIAM: Turn shit that up!
LIAM, TALIESIN, and MARISHA: ♪ (heavy metal guitar) ♪
(laughter)
SAM: I'll reach out and grab the, spread my hand across the wet paint and rub it on my eyes and face.
MATT: (Morri) "Beautiful work you do."
SAM: Oh! Sorry, Nana.
MATT: (slurps drink)
SAM: I didn't mean to get the walls dirty.
(laughter)
SAM: I'm not as talented an artist as you.
MATT: "Oh, I made room for this purpose. I like it, it's passionate, inspired, and dripping."
SAM: Can I admit something to you?
MATT: "Of course, many do."
SAM: Everyone is... Everyone seems so happy out there. Dorian and Orym, happy together. Fearne and her dragon, and maybe Ashton. The two that I can't, Imogen, one's Imogen.
(laughter)
SAM: I know that. The other one I get confused about.
(snickering)
SAM: I don't want to be alone tonight.
LAURA: (gasps)
MATT: (slurps drink)
(laughter)
MATT: Sets the drink down. "The secret is, everyone's miserable. They're just looking for the chance to forget it, even if for a moment." She slaps you square on the ass and begins walking up the stairs. "I'm in the cherry blossom suite."
LAURA: Oh my god!
SAM: I will clip clop after her.
(laughter)
TALIESIN: Fucking legend.
SAM: Clip clop, clip clop.
MARISHA: MILF Manor: Morri I'd Like to Fuck.
ASHLEY: Yes!
(laughter)
ROBBIE: Oh my god.
MATT: Oh no.
TRAVIS: Wow.
LIAM: Don't keep me waiting.
TALIESIN: Everything is dateable.
LAURA: Everything.
MARISHA: Yeah.
(laughter)
LAURA: ♪ Date everything ♪
TRAVIS: Date everything.
SAM: You can date the paintings.
(laughter)
ROBBIE: You can.
ASHLEY: Yeah.
(laughter)
TRAVIS: Ligament Manor--
MATT: Best DLC.
(laughter)
MARISHA: Convince them that that's the DLC.
MATT: We'll talk later.
(laughter)
LIAM: Surely not this cursed painting.
(laughter continues)
ROBBIE: Oh my god.
LAURA: You can date the bushes.
(laughter)
TRAVIS: One other thing, I also want to join the spa, but I can't keep reading this, I can't stop reading this card. Can I try and take off the demonshell armor, along with everything except my skivvies, just to get in the pool?
MATT: Sure. You take off all the rest of your equipment, and you look down at the demonshell armor, and you will it off of you.
LAURA: (gasps)
MATT: And it slowly seems to move. Make a wisdom check for me.
TALIESIN: (grunts)
LAURA: You can't ever get clean.
TRAVIS: That's not what the card says. (laughs) A wisdom check, straight up?
MATT: Yeah.
TRAVIS: 13.
MATT: Okay. (slurps) It slides off of you and returns to its cape form, dropped on the ground. It was just a brief little unsettling moment of-- It took a second, but it got there.
TRAVIS: It's just old.
MATT: Yeah.
TALIESIN: You updated it.
LAURA: Just like you.
TRAVIS: It's little pliant. That's right. These joints need a little love in the morning.
ROBBIE: Chet, get in here!
TRAVIS: Okay. Jack knife!
MATT: (splash)
(laughter)
MATT: Right as you get up in the water, you see this shadow begin to appear at the edge as this hulking form with fur and scale emerges. You look up to see-- Are you joining them in this hot tub?
ASHLEY: Well, I had jumped out, but I--
MATT: Okay, you're gone.
ASHLEY: But my baby is coming out.
MATT: You're gone, the rest of you--
ASHLEY: Okay, okay, I'm gone.
MATT: -- had seen this once before. As Bompers, the massive, weird-furred, oily, fur-matted alligator creature goes (stomps and growls) (leap and splash) into the water behind you.
TRAVIS: (screams)
(laughter)
TRAVIS: Just ride the wake out. Oh fuck.
ASHLEY: He'll give you a little banana boat.
LIAM: Orym washed eight feet out.
TRAVIS and MARISHA: (laugh)
MATT: It comes up again. (gurgling babbles)
LIAM: Hey buddy.
ASHLEY: He's a nice boy.
MATT: (spits)
TRAVIS: (screams)
(laughter)
MATT: (gravelly grumbling)
LAURA: Is he friendly?
MATT: Just slowly leaves the water and goes on its own.
ASHLEY: Bye, Bompers!
(laughter)
TRAVIS: I love it.
MATT: A lot cleaner, and leaving the water a lot dirtier.
(disgusted groans)
TRAVIS: That's it.
MARISHA: All right, that was nice while it lasted.
LAURA: That was fun.
TALIESIN: Yeah.
LAURA: Hopping out.
MATT: (laughs)
TRAVIS: (suit reforms to body)
ASHLEY: I'm going to go over to Gloamglut, I'm going to go over there.
MATT: Still resting there, bound, eyes half closed. As you approach, you hear breathing. (rumbly breathing)
ASHLEY: I'll approach easy, so I don't wake him up or startle him. Hello.
MATT: (soft rumble)
ASHLEY: This is Ashton.
MATT: (soft grumbles)
ASHLEY: Hey. I want to-- There's something snapping his neck down?
MATT: There's multiple roots and vines that are wrapped around it, holding its wings and its legs and its head and neck to the ground.
ASHLEY: Okay. I want to undo the ones around his neck.
MATT: Okay. You have some control over nearby plant life and such, so you undo the ones around the neck and it like, (soft rumbling) stretches, its jaw (cracking) stretches itself. (warbles)
ASHLEY: I'm going to let you go.
MATT: (curious growl)
ASHLEY: But I think you're very cute and I would like to rest here with you tonight, curled up around your, like a little nook. It's a dream I've always had, sleeping in a little dragon.
MATT: Gets close to you. (sniffs)
ASHLEY: Oh.
MATT: It bumps its head against yours and rubs its face against yours.
ASHLEY: I do the same, I start nuzzling in.
MATT: (purrs)
MATT: It curves its head around, now that it can flex, and wraps around you a little bit to form a little nook.
ASHLEY: Oh my god!
LIAM: Its head is the size of a Mini Cooper, right?
MATT: Yeah, it's massive.
ASHLEY: He's a big boy.
TRAVIS: Yeah, it's massive.
MATT: (laughs) Though, interestingly enough, in its diminished state here, held down, its size seems to have adjusted to be smaller than you recall it.
SAM: Mm.
ASHLEY: Oh!
MATT: Almost like its current physical state is informed by its emotional state.
LAURA: Oh!
LIAM: Oh, it's feeling smol.
MATT: In a space bereft of confidence, it seems to have taken a smaller form. Still big.
ASHLEY: Since I'm wearing pieces of either jewelry or clothing or something from everybody, I want him to get used to those smells.
MATT: Okay.
ASHLEY: We're your friends. We're not going to hurt you. Then the next hour, I want to sharpen his nails--
LIAM and MATT: (laugh)
ASHLEY: Clean his teethies, clean his ears.
MATT: (comfortable purrs)
ASHLEY: Then once I've done all that, I'm going to undo the rest of his shackles.
MATT: Okay.
ASHLEY: You can go if you want.
MATT: (powerful arms set stance)
ASHLEY: But you can also rest here for a little bit.
MATT: Wing stretches, and flaps its wings a bit, the nearby bushes (rustle) shift from the gusts, the sound of all the nearby leaves and branches (soft rustling) shifting a bit.
ASHLEY: I don't want you to leave yet, but you can.
MATT: (footsteps crunch) (snorts) (snarls) It bites out and grabs the edge of your armor and picks you up. Circles once, (stomps). it goes and rests in this tight curled circle and places you right in the center of its coiled body, its tail wrapping around.
ASHLEY: Oh! This is my dream.
LAURA: (laughs)
ASHLEY: He's so scritchy. I want to scritch him so bad!
MATT: (laughs)
ASHLEY: All right, and I rest there and look at Ashton. This is so cool!
TALIESIN: I don't know if I'm invited.
ASHLEY: May my friend come in?
MATT: (low growls)
TALIESIN: I don't have to. I can keep guard out here.
MATT: Its tail pats you from behind.
TALIESIN: Everyone keeps doing that today. (laughter)
TALIESIN: Not my right hand, because that one is rough, but I very gently run the smooth stone on the left hand as I walk through.
MATT: (rumbling purrs)
TALIESIN: Everyone deserves to choose everything.
ASHLEY: Amen.
MATT: (coos)
ASHLEY: I love him. Just for the rest of the night until we fall asleep.
TALIESIN: It's like a lizard nest.
ASHLEY: Yeah. It's really lovely, huh?
TALIESIN: We get to see the best stuff.
ASHLEY: Yes, we do.
TALIESIN: Does anybody, it's like the others don't think-- I--
ASHLEY: This is so cool.
TALIESIN: No one else has ever done this.
ASHLEY: No.
TALIESIN: Worth every moment.
ASHLEY: Worth every moment.
TALIESIN: You are the fucking best.
ASHLEY: I know.
TALIESIN: Good.
ASHLEY: We'll continue to take him in, because I know that this is a fleeting moment of being so close to such a beautiful creature.
MATT: Its breath becomes gentler as it grows comfortable. The little peaks amongst the cloud-covered skies over the Harrowcall Fens breaks the bit of the Catha moonlight that haunts beyond the clouds the Fey Realm at times, the Moonweaver's presence still lingering on the outskirts, looking down upon those who seek the shadows for secrets. His head curls up at one point to look up towards the light before giving one final (soft howl) (purrs) It curls up once more. As the two of you lay curled, cuddled up in the--
ASHLEY: I'm going to lean on Ashton.
MATT: -- wrapped spiral of the dragon, near the top of the Ligament Manor, the beautiful little glowing flickers of thousands of fey firelights drifting through the nearby branches of this treetop garden. A night of well-earned rest comes to all of you. And what is to come in the day or days before, briefly forgotten. And that's where we're going to finish tonight's episode.
TRAVIS: Oh man. So good.
ROBBIE: Yay.
TRAVIS: So good!
ASHLEY: Ooh! Damn.
TALIESIN: I want a dragon bed.
LAURA: I know, I want a dragon.
MATT: (laughs)
ASHLEY: I know.
TALIESIN: I want a dragon bed.
MARISHA: Something about animals mourning their owners gets me every time.
ASHLEY: Me too.
MATT: I know.
MARISHA: Even imaginary dragons.
TRAVIS: How'd you make Ligament Manor feel cozy?
LAURA: Yeah.
MARISHA: I know.
ASHLEY: Because it is.
MATT: It is! It's horror cozy.
ASHLEY: Yeah.
LAURA: Yeah.
MATT: (laughs)
ASHLEY: At night, it comes alive.
TALIESIN: My cat's going to mourn me by slowly starting to chew my face within, actually 20 minutes before I've died. It's going to: I sense it coming, I'm getting him while it's fresh.
TRAVIS: (laughs)
MATT: Fair. (laughs)
ASHLEY: Ah man.
TALIESIN: He'll be crying.
MATT: We'll pick up from there next time. Thank you all so much for joining us. We love you very much, and is it Thursday yet? Good night.
(cheering)
Cooldown
ASHLEY: Dang, what a game.
TALIESIN: Wow!
LIAM: Oh, so much.
TALIESIN: I'm having so much fun.
LAURA: Why would I put the heavy one on the top?
SAM: So many dice rolls.
TRAVIS: So much Bane.
TALIESIN and MATT: So much Bane.
TRAVIS: So much Bane.
MATT: All of the Bane.
SAM: Silvery Barbs, Bane, Silvery Barbs, Bane.
LIAM: Let's drive to Vegas right now.
MATT: Right now, let's go.
ROBBIE: That was crazy!
MATT: Could you believe those fucking rolls, man?
LAURA: God, Matt.
SAM: Dude.
LAURA: You were rolling so well for them.
ROBBIE: That was wild.
MATT: Every now and then, I don't know what it is.
TALIESIN: Just stop fighting.
LAURA: It's just the dice. The emissary was just a good--
TALIESIN: Stop fighting, you're going to be a bush.
MATT: I mean, they're fey so they have advantage on any sort of rolls against--
LAURA: But still, you were rolling so high, regardless.
MATT: Well, the emissary had a plus eight on his wisdom saving throw, and a plus eight on his charisma saving throw.
LAURA: Sheesh!
MATT: So it was like any spells that hit either of those two--
ASHLEY: Yeah, there was no-- I don't know how we won.
MATT: Well, if I just rolled low, but with the advantage, it really offsets it, so it's meant to be a difficult thing to do. So it took a while for you guys to push through it but you did it.
LIAM: He was also a great novelist and very active in his community, and now he's a shrub.
MATT: Yeah! (laughter)
ASHLEY: I love it so much.
MATT: Oh my goodness. Good game, y'all.
LIAM: We came in here going like, man, now it's time to unpack and grapple with what happened with the gods.
SAM: Nope.
LIAM: "No, fuck you, here's some more trauma! Stuff it down!"
SAM: We messed up the last two games.
LAURA: Yeah, we did.
TALIESIN: I don't think we have!
MATT: I don't know. Yeah, you didn't mess up.
LAURA: I mean, it happened.
MATT: You can say you messed up if your goal was not achieved and things were made worse because of it. If what you did may not have been the means of doing so, and may have ultimately saved many lives, although maybe at the cost of something that is, you know, worth considering.
LAURA: Just our souls.
SAM: We killed a lot of people.
TALIESIN: We do that all the time!
LIAM: Grind up our hearts and souls.
SAM: It's fine by me. You all have to deal with it.
MATT: Also, there are 17 different ways to handle every scenario.
SAM: Sure.
LAURA: Yeah.
SAM: We picked the killing one.
TALIESIN: We find the 18th.
LAURA: We pick the kill one.
TALIESIN: Every time.
LIAM: We pick it? Nobody chose it.
MATT: That's true.
LIAM: We fell backwards into it.
TALIESIN: I felt that the framing and mounting of your father very therapeutic for myself.
LAURA: You know, it's funny, but I think he's going to be happier here. It's a more peaceful existence.
ASHLEY: I do too. It's less responsibility.
ROBBIE: Happier!? He doesn't have a butthole anymore! He can't scratch an itch!
TALIESIN: That sounds great. I don't want a butthole. I want that gone.
ROBBIE: That's a skin man.
LAURA: How does he--
ASHLEY: "I don't want a butthole."
LAURA: Does it get itchy though, Dorian?
TALIESIN: I mean, that's the thing. If you start at a happiness of 2, hopping up to a 3 is pretty--
LIAM: That's what Dexter said with every kill. "He's just going to be happier."
LAURA: He's happier.
ROBBIE: Going to a better place.
TALIESIN: Say hi to Lassie! Bye!
ASHLEY: If things go different, he could possibly be changed in some way. I don't know. Maybe he's there forever, maybe not. You don't know.
LAURA: He's there forever.
ASHLEY: We don't know.
LIAM: It's theoretically possible.
LAURA: He's Nana Morri's now. He is there forever.
ASHLEY: Yeah, theoretically possible.
LAURA: He ain't coming back.
ASHLEY: No, unless Nana was like--
LAURA: Could you True Resurrection?
LIAM and TALIESIN: Yeah.
SAM: You need--
LAURA: No, but-- what she does there, does that keep you from ever being able to resurrect that--
MATT: No, you could True Resurrection, but it would be contested with her power.
LAURA: Oh, gosh. Wow.
MATT: Because it's in her domain.
TALIESIN: What's the other, the wild one? When you can come back in a different body?
MATT: Oh, Reincarnation?
TALIESIN: Reincarnation. That could be crazy.
SAM: Do you need a body for that?
LAURA: Any body.
MATT: Reincarnation I think you need a body. But True Resurrection you don't need a body.
ASHLEY: I love Nana so much, Matt.
TALIESIN: She's the fucking best.
LIAM: Oh yeah.
TRAVIS: Pretty cool.
MATT: She's rad. She's terrifying.
MARISHA: So good.
MATT: I love her.
TRAVIS: And she's getting ass tonight.
MATT: Dude!
ASHLEY: Yeah, she is!
MARISHA: Yeah, how could you say we fucked up the episode?
TALIESIN: Play of the game!
TRAVIS: Bo-vine! Bovine!
SAM: We're going to roleplay that when we start the next--
MATT: Oh, I'm reserving the first hour and a half. Get your dice ready, man! We're doing constitution saving throws--
TRAVIS: Yeah, roll for mouth--
MATT: --dexterity saving throws--
TRAVIS: Roll for face.
LIAM: How do the two faces work in tandem? That's--
MATT: You know, I'm going to leave a lot up to your imagination.
LIAM: I'm writing a fanfic. I'll have it next time.
TALIESIN: It's already going. It won't stop.
MARISHA: For some reason, I didn't think about it until you just said that, and now it's--
ASHLEY: I thought about it!
ROBBIE: A love bomb!
ASHLEY: I was like, "Huh."
LAURA: "Huh."
ASHLEY: That could be really--
MATT: Nana Morri's physiology is... I'm leaving it open to interpretation and your imagination.
SAM: It's fluid.
ASHLEY: Yes. Love it.
MATT: (to Sam) Especially yours.
SAM: Yeah.
TRAVIS: Just makes me laugh and uncomfortable at the same time.
SAM: I'll give it some thought.
TALIESIN: Are there other faces? Suddenly I'm wondering.
TRAVIS: (laughing) Yeah.
ASHLEY: Could be. You don't know.
MATT: I didn't think we'd ever get to The Loom. That was fun.
TALIESIN: That was fun!
LAURA: Oh, my god. She mentioned it before. That's exciting we got to--
LIAM: And in the throes of passion.
ASHLEY: That was rad, Matt.
MATT: It's horrifying.
TRAVIS: And the part that's in the spiritual energy?
ASHLEY: That was so cool.
MATT: It's funny, because I made a note for myself a long time ago. It was like "The Loom is basically one of her means of turning those that she had captured that she really didn't like into ornamentation" was all that I had noted to myself, so I didn't quite think about what it would be, the process, until it came up, and I was like, "What the fuck is this going to be?" Let's follow the logic and see where it goes. And it was really dark, and I'm sorry.
ASHLEY: So cool, Matt. I love it.
TALIESIN: Is it just paintings, or can she make throw blankets out of them, or some other...
MATT: Oh, there's a number of pieces of furniture around her house.
TALIESIN: I was hoping it wasn't just paintings.
MATT: No, there's a couple chairs, and--
ROBBIE: Yeah, she had a man--
SAM: Yeah, we saw the couch or something when we were here before, right?
MATT: Because a lot of them stop talking after a few centuries. (laughter)
TALIESIN: That's really on Nana.
ROBBIE: Physically? Or do they just, they don't want to do it. They're just over it.
ASHLEY: That's so disturbing.
LAURA: "She keeps sitting on me. I'm done."
ASHLEY: I love it so much.
MATT: Yeah, at a certain point they just give up.
TRAVIS: "I keep getting farted on. In my open eyelids."
ASHLEY: I love it so much.
MATT: She's a nightmare.
LAURA: She's a nightmare. She's your nightmare.
ROBBIE: I just about cried when you shrubbed my emissary. I've been babysitting that fucking emissary for three sessions.
LAURA: I know, dude.
ROBBIE: Three sessions! He's my cross to bear! And he rolled himself to death!
MATT: He did! It's not your fault! It's not your fault! Don't hold that!
ROBBIE: I literally, when you said that, I was like, "Fuck!"
TRAVIS: Like that baby bird you're trying to keep alive for months.
MATT: I know.
ROBBIE: It hurt. It hurt bad.
ASHLEY: He's not gone forever.
LIAM: If it helps anyone at the table, if you think about it, Matt killed him with his roll.
MATT: I did.
ROBBIE: Yeah!
MATT: No, that's what I'm saying. This is on me.
ROBBIE: For being too good.
MATT: I bear this responsibility. Those dice wanted to embarrass me in front of y'all.
LAURA: Those dice.
MATT: And they did.
ROBBIE: I know. We still got it done.
LAURA: Those dice wanted him to die.
MARISHA: Yeah, you can't say we didn't try.
ASHLEY: He's just a beautiful dolphin now coming out of a wave.
TALIESIN: Okay, you don't know his name.
LIAM: I like the idea of Laudna--
LAURA: Kamal.
LIAM: --like a little Edward Gorey character--
TALIESIN: That's the other one.
LIAM: --just like spreading darkness--
MATT: Cashadoor.
LIAM: It's not enough, so she's radiating harder and harder and harder and harder.
ROBBIE: Cashew bush.
MARISHA: It's like I said, just black dripping from my face--
MATT: So he's like, "(screams)"
MARISHA: --into his face.
ASHLEY: "I've got you."
ROBBIE: Try this again. I can try this again.
MARISHA: Give in!
MATT: Went full Sylar on it.
TALIESIN: Do you have role models? What a role model for you.
MATT: Second "Heroes" reference tonight.
TALIESIN: Nana Morri, she feels like such a role model for--
MARISHA: Yes.
TALIESIN: She's the first person where I feel like--
MARISHA: I want to be her when I grow up.
ASHLEY: She didn't get to see Pâté yet, did she?
SAM: She did.
LIAM: At the very end.
MATT: She's met Pâté.
MARISHA: She's had to have had.
ASHLEY: She had to have met Pâté.
SAM: If we do go talk to the Matron, will you be the one who does the talking?
MARISHA: I mean...
SAM: Do you feel a kinship?
MARISHA: Me and the Arch Heart-- the Arch Heart was like, "She wants to talk to her."
LAURA: Go talk to her.
SAM: That's cool.
MARISHA: Or to you, so...
LAURA: Yeah.
SAM: What are you going to say?
TALIESIN: 'Sup?
LAURA: What's up, B?
MARISHA: Hey, girl. Crazy meeting you here. Heh heh. Fuck.
TALIESIN: Nice--
ASHLEY: "Amazing what you did."
TALIESIN: "That mask is great. Etsy? Etsy?"
MARISHA: Etsy. "Oh my god, I love your Matron cosplay."
MATT: Whoever wants to try and commune, that's up to you.
ROBBIE: We're not going to get shit from the gods. We just got some god flavor, and it was "Make me the--"
LAURA: (waving the sheet for the Ring of Remembrance) It was great. Are you kidding me?
ASHLEY: Yes. Yes.
LAURA: From the Arch Heart.
ASHLEY: Maybe we should see all of them.
ROBBIE: Oh, no, the Arch Heart was great. I'm talking about... (points to Sam)
SAM: Asmodeus.
ROBBIE: Fucking Asmodeus.
LAURA: Oh, Asmodeus.
ROBBIE: Just came in and said, "I want to be the one true Satan god." That's scary. That's bad. That's real bad. Are you going to tell us about that?
SAM: No.
LAURA: No.
ROBBIE: Damn it!
TALIESIN: It's just Asmodeus. He's always the guy.
ASHLEY: Maybe he's in the same boat as the Arch Heart, then. Right?
LAURA: No, Asmodeus is like, let them all run away except for me, so I can rule Exandria.
ASHLEY: Yeah, they're all going to have a different thing that they're going to say.
ROBBIE: Yes!
LAURA: Let all of the people in Exandria burn in hell, basically.
LIAM: Yes, because they're as fucked up as we are.
ROBBIE: Yes!
TALIESIN: Asmodeus is going to get fucked up.
ASHLEY: He's going to love the chaos of it all.
LIAM: But I think the Matron would answer the phone because I feel like the gods are watching our little group of fuck-ups somehow impossibly at their trajectory going (descending sound) right to the heart of it all, so.
LAURA: Well, also, is the Arch Heart and her, if they talk, maybe he's like--
MARISHA: Yeah.
LAURA: "Yo. I just talked to that group. I'm sending them to you."
LIAM: "I cast Suggestion and sent 'em on their way. Do the rest."
ROBBIE: To Chet's point, the more we lean on the gods, does it make us more susceptible to being manipulated?
LAURA: I mean... yeah.
ASHLEY: Well, they also need the help.
ROBBIE: Do they?
LIAM: But then I also just want to go talk to them.
ROBBIE: Asmodeus wants to be king of the gods, and set us all on fire.
LAURA: What if she did send-- What if she knew that Vax was going to get turned into an orb, and she was like, "Look, bro."
ASHLEY: It's what had to be done.
LIAM: (sighs)
LAURA: It's fucked.
ASHLEY: We got to talk.
TALIESIN: They don't need our help in the end.
MARISHA: But we've established that the gods aren't necessarily all-knowing. We've established that.
MATT: Yeah.
LAURA: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
TRAVIS: Yeah, does the Matron have to grant Vax a field pass to--
LAURA: That's what I mean. Doesn't she? Unless he just was like--
LIAM: Matt implied that he broke the rules to go--
LAURA: Oh, okay, okay.
LIAM: --help Keyleth.
TRAVIS: Got it. Went rogue.
LIAM: Vax.
ASHLEY: That Vax went rogue.
TRAVIS: I try.
TALIESIN: I'm here for you.
TRAVIS: I was trying.
MARISHA: Yes, Sam.
TALIESIN: I see you.
SAM: Yes, yes, yes.
MATT: I'm just so excited that Nana's getting some play.
TALIESIN: As she should. She's earned it.
ASHLEY: Get it, Nana!
LAURA: Get it, Nana.
ROBBIE: Oh, my god.
MARISHA: Wonder where Ira is?
MATT: Both of them.
TRAVIS: Shrieks of joy and horror.
SAM: Yeah.
TALIESIN: As it should be.
MARISHA: What if as you guys are boning Ira's in the ceiling?
SAM: Ooh!
LAURA: "Where did Ira go?"
MATT: Just "Heredity"-ing up in the corner.
LIAM: He's 700 miles away with a long curved telescope going, "Yeah..."
MATT: Why do you think she sent him the lens?
TRAVIS: "I remember those moves."
MARISHA: Yeah, you got the lens, Ashley.
ROBBIE: You know there's that one chair in the corner of the hotel room. We all know what it's for. That's the Ira chair. (laughter)
LIAM: "Nana, Nana, the chair in the corner, it's shaking around. What--?"
MATT: Oh my god.
LIAM: (as Ira) "That's the stuff. (whispers) I mean, that's the stuff."
TALIESIN: What is wrong with us?
MATT: Everything.
TALIESIN: My god.
MATT: Everything. Well, I for one am excited to see where any of this goes next time.
ASHLEY: Same!
MATT: All right. I'm gonna go home.
SAM: Okay, bye.
MATT: Love you guys.
LIAM: Bye, guys!
ASHLEY: Bye!