List of Transcripts

Pre-Show

MATT: Hello, everybody, and welcome to tonight's episode of Critical Role, where a bunch of us nerdy-ass voice actors sit around and play Dungeons & Dragons. (whooping) (garbled vocalizing)

MATT: Mm-hmm. Before we get into our session for tonight, we have some quick announcements to get through, including our first sponsor of the evening, NordVPN. Sam, take it away. (cheering)

SAM: NordVPN, the fastest VPN on the planet, offering amazing features like enjoying your favorite streaming content anywhere in the world, a dark web monitor that guards your online accounts, and most important, NordVPN can foil scams and malware with threat protection. You would not believe how easy it is to be tricked these days. You never know when it's going to happen. [alarm ringing]

LAURA: What is that? [alarm ringing]

SAM: I don't know.

MATT: Okay, I don't know what--

SAM: What is that? [alarm ringing]

ASHLEY M.: Fire, fire alarm! Fire alarm. Get out, get out!

SAM: Fire alarm?

MATT: Okay.

SAM: We got to go. We got to go.

ASHLEY M.: Fire, this way. Everybody go.

SAM: Fire alarm. Go, go, go. Fire, fire, fire!

SAM: Okay, okay.

MARISHA: This whole set is a hazard.

ASHLEY: Oh, jeez! [alarm continues ringing]

ASHLEY M.: Okay. Save Mister too, yeah. [alarm continues ringing]

SAM: (giggles) They bought it! See how easy it is to trick people? That's what I was talking about, and that's why everyone needs to download and install NordVPN to protect your devices from tricksters, like me! Okay, now that the ad's done and I've got all the cameras to myself, I can spill any secret about anyone at the table, like, oh, like Matt! Okay, Matt pretends to be all nice and sweet with his hair and his good looks, but when the cameras are off, oh, ho, ho, he is actually-- Okay, actually, he's actually kind and wonderful. But that's a bad example! But Taliesin, ho, oh, Taliesin. Okay, sometimes, when he's at Burning Man, he likes to take new Burners under his wing and make sure that they're safe and comfortable. That's also terrible, terrible gossip. Let me think. Fuck. All right, you know what? I'll mess with Laura's dice. Oh, she's going to hate it! She's going to hate it! She's going to fucking-- (groans) Ah, I can't do it. She sends me funny TikToks all the time, and it's the highlight of my day, and I look forward to her texts. (stressed groan) This is so hard. I want to roast them, but the truth is they're my best friends and I love them very much, okay? But just don't tell them I said that, okay? Act like I spilled some nasty scandalous tea about them, okay? Promise me? Promise me?

LIAM: Riegel!

SAM: What?! Oh shit.

LIAM: Riegel, what were you doing in here?

SAM: Nothing! Nothing!

LIAM: What are you telling the audience when we're out of the room?

SAM: Nothing! Nothing! You'll never find out. But you will find the NordVPN deal at nordvpn.com/criticalrole and get an extra four months. Try it risk free now to get a 30-day money back guarantee. Deal details: Two year plan plus four extra months.

MATT: Get back in.

SAM: Matt, hack to you.

LIAM: Okay.

MATT: What the hell was that? Okay, thank you, Sam.

TRAVIS: What was the--

MARISHA: Can we come back in now?

MATT: Sorry, that was a false alarm.

TRAVIS: It was a false alarm the whole time?

SAM: It was a false alarm.

ASHLEY: Oh, oh, oh.

MATT: It was a false alarm, apparently.

TRAVIS: What even was that sound?

SAM: It was a false alarm.

MARISHA: I don't trust you, you piece of shit! (laughter)

TRAVIS: "War of the Worlds" in here.

MATT: All righty, well, for our second sponsor tonight, coming straight from the pages of the land of Exandria, we have two pairs of adventurers that have arrived in the UniVersus' collectible card game! (cheering)

MATT: Who would win in a fight? Vex? Vax? Jester? Nott? I don't know, but you can figure it out by fighting it out in the Critical Role Challenger adventure series--

TRAVIS: They're so cool.

MATT: -- Vox Machina and Critical Role Challenger series, Mighty Nein, available now at your local game store. For more information, go to uvsgames.com/criticalrole. It's really fun, you get to go watch a video of me and Liam playing and I'm going to be dragging Marisha into a game at home as soon as we have a moment of free time.

MARISHA: Really?

MATT: If she wants to.

MARISHA: Yeah!

TRAVIS: Kick his ass, Marisha! (laughter)

TRAVIS: Kick his ass!

MARISHA: Yeah.

MATT: I put them all in sleeves and I have them organized and they have their own little deck boxes. Anyway. (laughter)

MATT: They also have cool art--

LAURA: Oh my gosh, these are so cool!

MATT: -- playmats on them.

MARISHA: Yes! Those are so pretty.

LAURA: These are really, really pretty little mats.

MATT: Which is really fun. They're awesome. They gave me a bunch.

LAURA: Did they?

LIAM: I've been playing--

SAM: Oh, wow.

LAURA: Whoa!

TRAVIS: Actually, I gave him a bunch.

LAURA: Save them, because I've been wanting a new mat for my computer anyway.

MATT: Great, great! I'm going to keep these on the side. Laura, go ahead, it's your turn.

LAURA: Oh, oh!

LIAM: I played it like 20 times at home.

LAURA: I have stuff. I have a shirt.

TRAVIS: I'm on the merch side. It's weird over here.

ASHLEY: It's weird, right?

TRAVIS: It's weird, yeah.

LAURA: Look at this!

TALIESIN: Hey!

LAURA: So it's our Bells Hells design, but now it's on a lightweight hoodie.

MARISHA: Aw!

LAURA: Which you can wear it in the summer. You know, you could wear it in the spring, in the fall, you can layer it.

MARISHA: When it gets cold on the beach.

LAURA: Art by Bryan Weiss, amazing. It's available, I didn't read that part yet! It's available in the U.S., Canada, U.K. and the E.U.

LIAM: Ew?

ALL: E.U.

MATT: Awesome, thank you so much, Laura. Marisha, you're up next.

MARISHA: I have announcements, too. The VOD for the second episode of Candela Obscura-- (cheering)

MARISHA: Circle of the Crimson Mirror is now available on Twitch and YouTube. As the investigations of this eclectic circle take them to a masquerade auction with a grim task! I should've read it at least once beforehand, but I didn't. Check it out!

TALIESIN: It's dark as fuck.

MATT: Awesome. Dark as fuck.

TRAVIS: Candela Obscura.

SAM: Wait, is it?

LIAM: Fancy.

TALIESIN: Oh, it got real fancy. That shit got crazy.

MARISHA: Taliesin lived his best spooky life.

TALIESIN: Oh, it's beautiful.

MARISHA: Fancy spooky.

LIAM: Taliesin shines.

TALIESIN: I had some fun on that one. That episode. (smooches)

MARISHA: It's like one of your best characters.

LAURA: Spooky Taliesin has normal hair.

TALIESIN: It's true.

MATT: It's true.

TALIESIN: If you want to see my normal hair. (laughter)

ASHLEY: When I saw the picture, I was like, "What's wrong?" (laughter)

ASHLEY: Oh, he has like normal hair.

TALIESIN: Yeah, I grew it out. I stopped coloring for a while.

MATT: Yeah, when all the cast photos went up, we had people being like, "Who's this cast member? Oh!"

LIAM: Here's my pitch to our audience. It's my favorite thing that Taliesin has done after Percy.

ALL: Ooh!

TALIESIN: You did text me that.

LIAM: High praise.

TALIESIN: You did text me that.

MARISHA: It's good.

ASHLEY: Shit!

TALIESIN: Yeah, Leo's a vibe.

LAURA: But Sir Danté!

TALIESIN: Sir Danté is a different vibe, but they're in definitely the same family.

LIAM: It's the same character.

TRAVIS: (shouts) We have more announcements!

LAURA: Oh, sorry.

TRAVIS: Announcements!

SAM: What do we do?

MATT: Also, thank you so much to everyone who has helped us so far playtest Daggerheart.

ASHLEY: Yeah!

MATT: Thank you, Travis.

LAURA and LIAM: Yay!

MATT: Like genuinely, it's an invaluable part of the development process and we've just loved getting to see all the creative ways that you've made characters, you've made worlds, you've made stories together and broken the system in all of its beautiful ways that it can be broken, so we can fix it and make it back even better for the next update and the eventual release. But if you haven't had a chance to try it out yet, you can go to daggerheart.com for the latest materials and information about it. So please be sure to tell us what you think through our official surveys, because that official channel is what we use to look at all the feedback. You know, sending messages to us online, we won't look at those, but the official surveys, we will obsess over them. So, yeah. I think that concludes our announcements.

TRAVIS: Oh man, we're going to split it up! (yelling)

MATT: Let's go ahead and jump into tonight's episode of Critical Role.

♪ Critical ♪
♪ Critical ♪
♪ It's Thursday ♪
♪ It's Thursday night! ♪

ASHLEY: ♪ One-by-one, we climb until we reach the top. ♪
♪ Two-by-two, we fall. ♪

LAURA: ♪ Will we meet our end or meet our destiny? ♪
♪ Hold your breath and roll! ♪

MATT: How do you want to do this?

ALL: ♪ It's Thursday night ♪
♪ All ye Critters, come join us ♪
♪ It's time to continue our plight ♪
♪ There is magic and mystery ♪
♪ Who knows what will happen? ♪
♪ He might! ♪
♪ But one thing's for sure, ♪
♪ We never give up on the fight! ♪

LIAM: ♪ From the healer ♪
♪ To the renegade ♪

MATT: ♪ We all share the same goal ♪

MATT and TALIESIN: ♪ Adding more allies ♪
♪ Taking more chances ♪

SAM: ♪ Hold your breath and roll ♪

MARISHA: You can certainly try.

ALL: ♪ It's Thursday night ♪
♪ All ye Critters, come join us ♪
♪ It's time to continue our plight ♪
♪ It's Thursday night. ♪
♪ There is magic and mystery ♪
♪ From darkness, our friendship will rise ♪
♪ But one thing's for sure: ♪
♪ We never give up on the fight ♪
♪ Oh, get ready, ♪
♪ Get ready, ♪
♪ It's Thursday night! ♪
(flames whooshing)

Part I

MATT: Welcome back. (laughter)

MATT: So last we left off, Bells Hells, deep inside the moon of Ruidus, into the crux of the main core of its long hidden civilization, the capital city of Kreviris, here in Vaterra Kreviris, the subterranean mass of this metropolis. You have made allies with the Volition, the resistance force that has long fought against the Weave Mind and the Imperium that rules over pretty much all living sentient beings here on the moon. They've been discussing their plans, many of which are all to transpire today. The initial one being a sabotage detonation of their core digging tunnel beneath the glass pillar that marks the center of the city, that distraction setting off multiple other tracks. You have decided to split and be part of two of these four missions, with the individuals here planning to be part of the demolition crew alongside Ira Wendagoth, the Nightmare King himself and this crew on this side being part of a search and rescue mission for a spy operative for the Volition that has gone missing. As you've gathered your materials, you've requested some of the general notes as well as other things that might be pertinent to Evoroa, the individual you're seeking, this Bormodo scientist working among the various engineers. You've gathered your things, you've had Invisibility and See Invisibility cast on most of you.

TRAVIS: I have my--

LAURA: 100% should have--

MATT: Yeah, so you got that possibility, though casting that will drop your Invisibility.

LAURA: If we're all attacking shit--

TRAVIS: Oh fuck.

LAURA: -- we're going to fight.

TRAVIS: Well, now it even gets more exciting.

MATT: Exactly.

MARISHA: Well. We need cooler shit.

MATT: I'd say at this point, as we watch the two groups diverge, let's hop in first--

LAURA: You can't see us, but--

MARISHA: Oh, that's right, we're invisible!

LAURA: We're saying bye!

MATT: But we still wave!

TRAVIS: We saw each other as we left.

SAM: But we can still talk to each other.

MARISHA: We can still talk.

LAURA: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

MATT: Let's hop in with, I'm going to roll for it. Let's see who starts first.

LIAM: We already deviated.

LAURA: Yeah, yeah.

MATT: One, two, three, four, five, six.

TALIESIN: Yeah.

LAURA: Like a septum.

MATT: All right yeah, on two.

ASHLEY: I was just waiting for this, because--

MATT: All right, so we're going to be jumping in with the bombing mission.

TRAVIS: Oh, you guys are dead!

MARISHA: Let's go.

TRAVIS: You're dead!

MARISHA: Let's go!

ASHLEY: On no!

MARISHA: Come on, Team Bomb.

MATT: All of you somewhat cloaked underneath the Seeming illusion that the Nightmare King had placed you under. We have a curious looking crew here. We have the standing gray-furred Quanikka here. We have a Bormodo traveling, their squat, skitterish self, and a tiny myceit who is following along as Ira has taken on the form of one of these Thought Eaters.

SAM: I'm just a sneaky little myceit.

ASHLEY: You're just a sneaky lil myceit, that's all you are!

LAURA: Aw!

MATT: But as you scatter away from one of the hidden exits of the current safe house that the Volition uses, you enter the outskirts of the region of the city known as the Sprawlgrotto. Here, as you look about, there is an, especially from a near ground floor level, an endless, almost M.C. Escher-like maze of streets and stairs and stone walkways that weave and twist into each other, buildings popping out at almost odd, angular directions, built upon themselves. It's, beautiful as it is, also a bit intimidating. But Ira takes notice of all of you processing the expanse before you and turns around, glancing at all of you. "Do not worry, friends. Just stay close and follow. If you see anything strange, speak up. Well, you'll see a lot of things that are strange. Anything that seems threatening."

SAM: All right. You're not going to leave us to die like the group you just tried this with, right?

MATT: "Oh, I didn't leave them to die! They just happened to die, and then I left." (laughter)

MATT: "It's an important distinction."

SAM: Sure, sure. Well, just don't do that either, okay?

MATT: "No promises," and begins to glide away as you begin to follow suit behind, stepping into the bustling streets around you. You can look around and see there are families walking around with bundles of, looks like either farmed or traded, bartered for, fungus and vegetation. You go by and see the small crafting huts and tents that are set up. It's a unique mirror to the Exandria life you're used to, because a lot of it seems a very unique interpretation of I want to say familiarity, but familiar things in the daily life that you're familiar with. You see people pulling beasts of burden through, wuukors being pushed along, dragging carts behind them. Their heavy breathing and low guttural growls (soft growls) echoing across the street. The dust getting kicked up underneath your feet, that slight layer of red that comes and settles as it does. The lanterns themselves, the beautiful glowing blue shifting and pulsing with the movement of the nearby populace. You find one Reiloran beggar that comes up, themself looking quite destitute, that emerges and puts their hand out, and within, it'll be going straight to you, actually, Fearne.

ASHLEY: Sure.

MATT: You hear in your mind, "Please, tools or anything?"

ASHLEY: Oh, oh, yes, just a moment. I will take out some-- Shit.

SAM: We got lots of stuff.

TRAVIS: They got some shit?

TALIESIN: You've got lots of it.

SAM: Need some help there, Fearnie?

MATT: As you're looking, Ira goes, "(snarls)" and glares at the beggar who, "(gasping)" and darts back off into the shadow. Ira adjusts.

SAM: You don't have to mean like that!

ASHLEY: What did you just get mad at them for?

MATT: "Act the part."

SAM: Is everyone here a dick?

MATT: "No, but if we're officials, if we're trying to not raise suspicion if you're traveling with me."

SAM: All right.

TALIESIN: Dicks.

ASHLEY: I'll take out--

SAM: We're dicks today?

TALIESIN: Mm-hmm.

ASHLEY: I'll still take out some change and I'll just try to--

MATT: Make a sleight of hand check. (laughs)

SAM: Reverse steal.

TRAVIS: Look like you're not throwing change on the ground. (laughter)

ASHLEY: I'm just trying to-- Oh, natural 20. (laughter)

MATT: That was the most casual natural 20. "Oh, natural 20."

TALIESIN: Bing.

MATT: As the beggar frustratingly sneaks away and watches most of your crew begin to vanish, looks down and what do they see in their hand?

ASHLEY: You asked for tools? I gave them a little hairpin. I know it's not really, it may work for something, I don't know. It's really strong. Sorry.

MATT: They take it and look at it. Look back over to the Thought Eater Mystic visage that Ira has, shrinks away, but gives a nod of acceptance and thank you.

ASHLEY: Okay, bye, I'm going to go be mean. (chuckling)

TALIESIN: You just gave that guy an alien artifact, by the way. I just hope you--

ASHLEY: Oh yeah, that's true. Well, you know.

SAM: Yeah, it's super cool.

ASHLEY: Yeah, that's pretty cool, right?

SAM: Yeah, yeah, yeah, metal's hard to come by here.

ASHLEY: Yeah, metal's hard to come by, okay, good.

TALIESIN: Just putting that out there.

SAM: You can hear the, as you cluster around Ira's movement, though the Mystic image that he carries, a taller than usual Mystic, which definitely catches a few eyes, but you get the sense there's not much that can be done about that to a certain point. Yeah, is just unarmed and carrying no extra provisions. You do hear the occasional shift and clank of the explosive materials that he's hidden within the satchel that hangs on his back. You notice it. Thankfully, no one really gets close enough to a Mystic of this sort of dress that is walking the standard streets of the Sprawlgrotto. You do notice that as you move, there's a wedge that begins to form amongst the crowd. Everyone keeping a wide berth and a nod of reverence as the four of you pass by. There is definitely a heavily enforced classist structure within this city, with the higher rungs going to the Mystics and the psychically gifted of the Reiloran.

SAM: Psst, Ira! Just so I can act the part, I can't talk, right?

MATT: "Do not talk."

SAM: Okay.

MATT: "Just be obnoxiously cute."

SAM: Well, while no one's looking here, maybe we should carry one of the bombs in case we get to the target before you do.

ASHLEY: Great idea, great idea.

MATT: "We'll distribute in a safe place, but we should not do that in the middle of the street."

SAM: Okay, okay. Hey, by the way, what is the target? What are we blowing up?

TALIESIN: Oh boy. (soft laughter)

SAM: I just want to be prepared!

MATT: "There are a few opportunities here. I have not been to this particularly fresh tunnel, so we are looking for either signs of a central, weight-loading pillar or a place of extreme weakness in the structure that could bring down the majority of the tunnel, or perhaps the source of their actual dig and destroy their means of digging further in this and perhaps other places, unless they have something ready or repair it within a short time. So keep your eyes peeled."

SAM: All right.

ASHLEY: All right. Eyes are peeled, eyes are peeled.

MATT: Shifting on and following the paths, it's almost dizzying as some of the walkways, what you would see a standard street suddenly splits in two different directions and rises, like small footbridges that go over other buildings and then one will weave back down to a separate street. It has this almost, if it wasn't static, it looks like it's built with momentum, like if you were to go through it quickly, it would look like it's organic in the own way that the streets flow and move. You get the sense that a lot of the architecture is inspired on the dreams they experience, and many dreams themselves are also very odd and amorphous, and some of that is captured in the layout of the city. At certain moments, the way that streets tend to bank and turn as they shift around, you begin to question really which way is up, especially being underground as long as you are, and if any of you were prone to vertigo, you would begin to feel it kick in around this time a little bit. But you continue on. You begin to hear the distant echo of numerous barking sounds and these odd, throaty calls. As you come around one bend, Ira says, "Stay close."

ASHLEY: Do you hear those throaty calls?

MATT: "I do."

ASHLEY: Okay. Just making sure.

SAM: Earlier, when you gave that hair pin away--

ASHLEY: Yeah?

SAM: You should have said it was a gift from Chetney Claus.

ASHLEY: Oh, I should've so we could've started the thing.

SAM: So we can start the legend.

ASHLEY: You know what? If it comes up again or if I see them again for some weird reason--

SAM: Yeah.

ASHLEY: -- I'll tell them that was from Chetney Claus.

TALIESIN: How many hairpins do you have?

ASHLEY: I have probably hundreds.

TALIESIN: Oh my god.

ASHLEY: I don't know. They all just stick into my fur.

SAM: Are you two going to do your, or no, are you going to do your rock thing, or--?

TALIESIN: If I have to.

SAM: Okay.

ASHLEY: I don't know yet. I don't know yet.

SAM: What is your thing that you do now?

ASHLEY: Well, we'll have to wait and see, won't we?

SAM: Oh boy!

TALIESIN: It's a surprise.

MATT: Continuing on, as you come over this large, rising crest, you can see the dull, white glow of the central glass pillar with that shift of green and teal and blue that sparkles throughout it. It's even larger when you're sitting towards the base of it. You have a hard time grasping the scope and scale of it amongst the buildings because the further in you go, it doesn't seem to get that much larger while other buildings pass by. It is incredible the size of this massive vein of Ruidian glass. Amongst the core of it, too, you can see the dark spots, almost like sun spots against a star where the structures that are built into and through it emerge, the center of that being the Arx Creonum. Beneath that, as the massive stronghold twists down and shifts, you can see the rising towers that do eventually become the Colloquium of Candescence where you know your friends are on their way towards, and you think a little thought for the success of their mission. But the animalistic sounds get louder, and as you come past that one large land bridge that comes over a wall, you can see below what you can only describe as beast pits. There's these massive paddocks that sit around some smaller military barracks and you can see a number of avadons that are all armored and kept. You can see some of them have reins, and some of them have weapons affixed to their back. You can see there are clusters of what look to be metal netted-in slithers, almost like when you bring up fish off of a side of a boat. They're kept within a large net, a dome, a Thunderdome-esque type so that keeps them from burrowing away. You can hear the cracking of what sounds like a whip or some a disciplinary device as Reilorans in soldier armor are in the process of working with and training. You can glance down and see these terrifying looking insect entities that are 15 feet tall, if not larger themselves. They have these massive mantis-like claws and this long, crested head that comes up into multiple spikes, reminiscent of the Reiloran head crest, but even wider and jagged at the edges. It has all these tiny legs and you can see them affixed with their own sets of armor and straps. There are, on a few of them, multiple Reiloran that are climbing and holding them. These are massive siege creatures of some kind.

SAM: Whoa.

LIAM: War bugs.

MATT: Fearne, make a perception check for me, if you don't mind.

ASHLEY: 18.

MATT: 18. Okay. You glance over and there's a couple things you notice. One, these massive insect creatures, the shape and size of the head is reminiscent of the skull that you saw above the glassworks when you first got to the city of Kreviris. There was a particular skull that you were told to look for and vidulch was the creature. You now, this is your first time seeing an actual live vidulch, and you can see a number of them that are being prepared for some sort of battle--

ASHLEY: How do you say it again?

MATT: -- or travel. Vidulch.

ASHLEY: Vidulch.

MARISHA: Vidulch.

MATT: The second thing you notice is on one rocky precipice that sits near one section of the heavy barracks with what looks to be siege defense weaponry attached to it, chained to this pointed crest is a massively folded wings that are curled in. You see a creature that is sleeping, a familiar sight as you see--

ASHLEY: (smooches)

MATT: -- the resting, gargantuan form of Gloamglut, the fey dragon that the Sorrowlord took as their mount.

MARISHA: He brought his fucking dragon.

LAURA: To the moon?!

LIAM: Wouldn't you?

LAURA: I mean, yeah.

MARISHA: And I can't fly my corgi--

LAURA: Steal it right now! Steal it right now!

MARISHA: -- on a fucking airplane!

SAM: Steal it? Oh my god, we could steal it!

ASHLEY: I want it so bad. I want it so bad.

SAM: We could steal a dragon!

TRAVIS: You could (mouths words) fuck a dragon.

ASHLEY: Well, that wasn't my first option, but sure. (laughs) Might as well give it a try.

MARISHA: Wait. Fuck the dragon?

TRAVIS: What? Marisha!

ASHLEY: Wow. (laughter)

SAM: Disgusting.

ASHLEY: How dare!

TALIESIN: Really?

SAM: This is a children's show! (laughter)

ASHLEY: Adult children.

MATT: As quick as you notice it, you watch it fidget. Its head comes up for a second and it looks over the beast pits around it and you instinctually recoil in fear that maybe it noticed to you, but it just seems to be bothered by some of the nearby sounds and gives this (spitting growl) sound out that echoes, and the beasts get quiet for a second. You see all the workers look up towards it. It readjusts, like one turns over on its other side in bed, and then curls back to sleep. With that, Ira glides you all off this path and underneath a small, brief set tunnel that comes towards the base of the Prime Pillar that sits in the center of Kreviris. There, you can see there are four structures that are currently manned by a mixture of soldiers and miners and what looks to be a fresh excavation tunnel that's about 30 feet wide and about 20 to 25 feet tall, itself heavily reinforced in a dome that descends towards the rocky, heavy base before the glass of the central pillar begins to shoot upward. Ira leans into the rest of you and says, "This is the entrance to our target. So let's do our best to stay close."

MARISHA: (whispering) There's a little light?

MATT: "Talk only when necessary. If anything goes sideways, creatively find ways to do away with unwanted curiosities."

TRAVIS: Shit.

MATT: "Come." As he glides towards the entryway and the three of you begin to follow, we're going to come to this troop over here.

SAM and LAURA: Oh!

ASHLEY: (squeals)

TRAVIS: Oh shit!

MARISHA: Oh my god.

TALIESIN: (laughs)

MARISHA: Oh my god.

ASHLEY: Okay, okay, okay, okay.

LAURA: ♪ (sneaky tune) ♪

MATT: (laughs)

TRAVIS: ♪ (continues sneaky tune) ♪

MATT: Team Invisibility.

MARISHA: Team Infiltration!

MATT: Indeed. Both, either. Take your pick.

MARISHA: Invisible infiltration.

MATT: Invisil-tration.

MARISHA: Invisil-tration.

TRAVIS: I-I!

LAURA: I Squared!

MATT: There it is.

MARISHA: (laughs)

MATT: As you trek away from the separate exit that you were pointed towards, you emerge into a separate part of the city and begin to-- You know at least the direction of the target and you got a sight of it before you left from the overwatch position of the safe house crystalline wall. But the trek in getting there is a little bit up to you since this is unfamiliar.

LIAM: So we're on city streets at this point? In the Escher?

MATT: Yeah. You're on some part of the street level of where the Escher roads begin to emerge to join with the Sprawlgrotto.

LIAM: Sprog rock.

MATT: Yeah, the Prog Rock Grotto.

LAURA: (laughs)

MARISHA: (laughs) Prog Rock Grotto!

MATT: I want to go to there. (laughter)

MATT: Just Alan Parsons all day. Hell yeah! (laughter)

MATT: Who is leading this search?

MARISHA: Is it just the four of us, or are we being accompanied by anybody else?

LIAM: We have no--

LAURA: We have no accompaniment.

MARISHA: We're on our own.

LAURA: It's just us.

MATT: You're the only team of four that are invisible and able to make this journey.

LAURA: Well, we need to head towards the giant tower because that's where the Colloquium of Candescence is going to be, right?

LIAM: Can we see--

MATT: You were pointed to where the Colloquium is. You were guided where on the massive glass pillar it resides. So you know what it looks like from a distance, and you know the basic direction from where you are. Just getting from point A to point B is going to be its own journey.

LIAM: Can we see each other?

LAURA: We can see each other. We can see Chet. Chet can't see us.

MATT: Correct.

LIAM: The three of us can see each other.

MATT: Yes.

LAURA: We can also see Chet.

LIAM: We can see Chet.

LAURA: But Chet cannot see any of us.

TRAVIS: I've got my hand on Orym's back.

ASHLEY: Oh, that's right.

LIAM: Okay.

TRAVIS: Hold on.

LIAM: Cool.

ASHLEY: He didn't take the--

LAURA: Yeah.

TRAVIS: I didn't take the mark of the beast, okay? (laughter)

TRAVIS: I'm the one who's going to live here.

LIAM: That doesn't stack.

TRAVIS: Yeah! (laughs)

LAURA: What's your survival? What would this be? Survival?

MATT: Hmm?

LAURA: What would this be?

TRAVIS: I think it's perception?

LIAM: Investigation?

MATT: No.

LAURA: Investigation? Perception?

MATT: For this it would be either investigation or survival, I'd say.

LIAM: These are city streets.

MATT: Because part of it is figuring out the flow of the city or naturally following the flow of the rock--

TRAVIS: I'm real good at investigation.

MATT: -- and shift of the inside of the cavern. So this is yours.

LAURA: All right. Well, Chet. All right, then how about Chet, you lead the way since you--

MARISHA: Since we can see you.

LIAM: -- seem confident. We can see where you're going.

LIAM: Yeah, I'll put my hand on your shoulder, Pops. You go first.

TRAVIS: Oh! Invisible hands touching me!

LIAM: Ope, sorry! Let me go higher.

TRAVIS: It's been 400 years-- (wails)

MATT: (laughs) All right, investigation or survival.

LIAM: He keeps it tight.

MATT: Your call.

TRAVIS: Okay. Investigation, please. Nine plus-- 16.

MATT: 16. Okay. You feel fairly confident that you can find a short-ish path to your destination, and you begin to trek that way. As you move through the streets to be unseen, unheard, I'd like a group stealth check from the four of you, please.

LIAM: How busy are the streets?

MATT: As you begin to enter, parts are not as busy and others are quite busy. You begin to see-- Well, let's roll and I'll tell you what you see along the way.

LIAM: Right, because we don't want to--

MARISHA: Oh my god!

LAURA: Oh no! What'd you get? What'd you get?

TRAVIS: Natural 20 for a 30.

MATT: Woo!

MARISHA: I got a natural one for a natural one.

MATT: Now, you have advantage on this because you're invisible.

LAURA: Yes!

MARISHA: Oh!

LIAM: Oh! I did roll advantage, I thought I did it wrong. Natural 20.

SAM: (laughs)

MATT: Oh shit! Okay.

TRAVIS: Dang!

MATT: Yeah, invisibility gives you advantage.

TRAVIS: Come on, you guys. Two more and we win the game.

MARISHA: I rolled a two.

TRAVIS: Fuck you!

TALIESIN: Hey, you did twice as well!

LIAM: Get out!

MARISHA: I did!

TRAVIS: Get out and come back in! Reboot!

MARISHA: That is a 100% improvement.

TRAVIS: (laughs)

MATT: That is, actually! That is! (laughter)

LAURA: I'm proud of you.

TRAVIS: 100% better than the first time.

LAURA: I rolled a 13.

TRAVIS: It's true.

MATT: Okay. Okay.

MARISHA: So a two for-- My stealth is high. For an eight for me!

MATT: Okay. That's, you know, better.

MARISHA: High roller, baby!

MATT: Better than a one!

TRAVIS: Yee!

MATT: So two natural 20s, the two crits certainly helped. As you begin to weave through the varied alleyways and discovering areas where they come to a rapid and unnecessary close, clambering over roofs to get to the next area and get a viewpoint. You have a couple of close calls of nudging something or knocking something over, and people look, but nobody seems to reach out or spend too much time investigating this far out into the city. There's enough going on. With enough going on, you begin to pick out what is going on in a lot of places. The people of the city are indeed packing. You can see a lot of structures and buildings, places of business are picking up their banners. You can see people are loading up carts. You can see wuukors and other, even avadons that have been trained are being loaded up with goods, not for an immediate bit of movement, but you can see people making the steps of an eventual relocation. Among them, you see all manner of Imperium soldiers, warriors, both being guides to the populace there, not in an aggressive way to the Reilorans, and occasionally to a dismissive way to some of the other species, but guiding everyone to answer any questions, keep people organized. You also notice, as you're traversing through here, there are numerous bands of myceit, clusters of them that are coming up from various small tunnels on the outskirts of these various pathways, and they are bundling masses of multicolored fungus, some that looks like it's been dried and folded and some that looks fresh and somewhat moist and vibrant in its blues and purples and reds. You see clusters of the same spongy, fungus tree material you saw growing on the surface that was being harvested as well.

TRAVIS: It looked like veins.

MATT: Yeah. These are being placed into large collections. There is quite a bit of business going around the city all around and everything seems to be building towards an energy of many leaving.

LAURA: Yes, Chet?

TRAVIS: I raised my hand. Thanks. Are they gingerly carrying the fungus, or are they roughly throwing it and collecting it together? Or is it more--

MATT: It's ginger. They're pretty ginger in their approach to most all activity that you've seen.

TRAVIS: Not chucking hay bales, though. They're moving with purpose.

LAURA: They're being sweet.

MATT: Yep.

TRAVIS: Maybe treating it with a little delicacy?

MATT: They could be. But you do also notice some of the soldiers come up and give them demands and guide them in different areas, and they just continue to follow orders and go off. You get the sense the myceit are either also under Imperium control or at least are used to following whatever seems like the whims of those around them.

LAURA: I love them!

LIAM: What's the demeanor, the vibe check of the people who are not Imperium? Are they looking haggard? Do they look put out? Or is it just someone getting ready to move from one house to another?

MATT: You begin further out in the city, and from the outskirts of the Sprawlgrotto, what you do see, the soldier presence is minimal and most people look like they're in some level of just above squalor. Not quite as bad as some of the people that you saw on the top side, but it is definitely, they don't have a whole lot to pick up and move, and so they're slowly putting it together while still taking care of their families and checking in on each other. Occasionally, you hear the screech of a unseen flying creature ahead and you can see them look a little nervously and then continuing whatever business they're doing for the day. I mean, a lot of it is people just going about their lives, just with a little bit of that odd energy of something's coming and they're getting ready for it.

LAURA: I wonder what kind of a timeline they've been given.

LIAM: What do you reckon? Weeks? Not many.

LAURA: No, I don't even think weeks anymore.

MARISHA: Might be something to ask when we finish this.

LAURA: When we're not invisible?

MARISHA: Yeah.

LAURA: What about that ball?

MARISHA: (grunts)

MATT: (laughs)

LAURA: Yay.

MARISHA: I've got a proxy on this side of the table.

TRAVIS: Treshi scry ball.

MARISHA: What is it?

MATT: (laughs) Yep.

MARISHA: Do I see?

MATT: You notice the glow itself is now--

MARISHA: It's pretty.

MATT: -- pointing towards the center of the glass pillar, the Prime Pillar, in the direction of the Arx Creonum.

LAURA: That's where we're going.

MARISHA: Where we're going, right.

LIAM: Still down or more whoop?

MATT: Kind of central to it. Where you're heading is towards the base.

LIAM: So she's moved up, right?

MARISHA: So she's up.

MATT: She's further up in the major stronghold in the center of the pillar.

LAURA: Oh.

TRAVIS: Space, space.

LAURA: She's with the Weave Mind.

MARISHA: (sighs)

TRAVIS: We could take her.

LAURA: On our path, as we're going, do I see the music hall anywhere?

MATT: Make a perception check as we're traveling along. Go for it.

LAURA: Okay.

MATT: Go for it, yeah.

LIAM: The Woven Music Grand Hall.

LAURA: Yes, that.

LIAM: Looks like a big shell.

LAURA: I don't see it.

MATT: Okay. (laughs)

MARISHA: Jeez louise, it's because you're sitting next to me.

LAURA: (laughs)

MATT: There's also a lot.

LAURA: (gasps) Maybe we should roll each other's dice. (laughs)

MATT: It's a fresh, unique and busy place, and so there's just so much to see. From a distance, parts of it look like an anthill with the people shifting through the different elements. The blinking of the lantern lights, it's almost hypnotizing, and you have to catch yourself and keep pushing forward. You also begin to hear the sound of music, and that perks your ear. As you follow it for a moment, no music hall, but you do see what looks like a pair of Quanikkas and a Reiloran, in normal, if a bit ragged clothing, with a handful of instruments, that are playing music in the side of the street together, just having a miniature jam session. This little bit of art, this little spark. The instruments look familiar, but not quite the ones you're used to. One of them almost resembles a lute or a guitar, but it has a backward bend to it, and he plucks it on the front, like this. You see another one that has this long like didgeridoo, but it's played like a flute with the finger flaps, like. ♪ Doo, doo, doo, doo, doo ♪ It has this weird bassy.

TRAVIS: Cool.

MATT: ♪ Ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh ♪

LAURA: Awesome.

MATT: It creates a very, very new sound to you. It adds an element of jovialness to this otherwise intense atmosphere.

LIAM: Super surreal.

LAURA: Does it seem like the people on the street are-- ♪ People on the street ♪

MARISHA: ♪ Dab, ah, dah, dee, dah, dee ♪ (laughter)

LAURA: -- are enjoying the sound of music? Is anybody stopping and watching the jam session?

MATT: Yeah, a few people stop and listen in, and then go on their work. You see a Bormodo child and a Reiloran child that are curled behind what looks to be a half-filled box by some sort of odd herbalist setup there. They're both watching and listening in. This little slice of life here in the moment that feels nice amongst the rest of the tension that's been there.

TRAVIS: Is there anything in the air, anything patrolling, creatures, caves on the surface? Anything above us that we might need to be tracking or thinking about?

MATT: Make a perception check.

LIAM: You mentioned flying creatures.

MATT: Mm-hmm.

LIAM: Man, I'm always looking for things that are going to kill us, but I rolled balls.

TRAVIS: You did?

LIAM: I did.

TRAVIS: 18.

LIAM: 15 for me.

SAM: (laughs)

MATT: You don't see anything patrolling.

LIAM: Get the other side.

TRAVIS: (laughs)

MATT: Don't see anything patrolling, but glancing up in some of the cleft and crevice-like shadows along parts of the ceiling, you occasionally see something shift, like a wing that flexes a bit and then goes back, and you get the sense that there are probably a number of subterranean flying beasts here that nestle up within those areas.

TRAVIS: Okay.

MATT: You don't know if they're patrolling or they're just part of the natural ecology.

TRAVIS: Got it.

MARISHA: Do we see an obvious path downward?

MATT: Well, because of you guiding them with your investigation, you do bring them to an area where the city begins to build up even further. The standard homesteads and rough and tumble stone buildings and hut-like structures that made the outskirts of the Sprawlgrotto begin to give way to larger and more refined buildings. Here, the populace begins to be less diverse and more primarily Reiloran. You begin to see them dressed a little better, you begin to see a sense of adornment and accessorizing that uses a lot of the Ruidian glass that uses a lot of precious metals that are fairly uncommon in the outskirts of the city, as well as a stronger military presence. This area is more heavily patrolled, and definitely, there is a noticeable division the further in you go from the people that are closer to the Weave Mind and its vision, and those that are not.

MARISHA: It makes me wonder--

LAURA: Hmm?

MARISHA: -- if the Reilorans think this highly of themselves, how are they going to do when they're plopped in the middle of Exandria and they're not top dogs anymore?

LAURA: Well, they are pretty powerful, at least a lot of them, so they may be top dogs.

MARISHA: Seem to like their systems.

TRAVIS: I mean, not a lot of people reading each other's thoughts or able to enter each other's thoughts in Exandria, so.

MARISHA: I don't know, just makes me wonder.

LAURA: Speaking of, does it seem like any of the Reilorans that we pass can sense our thoughts, can sense that something's around that they can't see?

MATT: Make an insight check for me.

TRAVIS: I also farted, but I just felt bad for Orym.

MATT: (laughs)

LIAM: I was trying to play it off.

MATT: (laughs)

TRAVIS: That was a 400-year-old one.

MARISHA: Jeez, aw.

LAURA: Aw, did you see that shit, shitty shit?

MARISHA: I did, I did.

LIAM: Speaking of the Calamity.

MATT: (laughs)

LAURA: The first one was a two, though, so that would be a seven.

MATT: Seven. Kind of hard to tell.

TRAVIS: 200-year-old.

MATT: You've learned a bit about their mannerisms, as creatures, as entities, as people.

LIAM: Afraid of the bottom of my tool box.

MATT: But you're uncertain if you're able to pick up any sort of vibe or physical acknowledgement of you passing by.

MARISHA: We're not going to have any d20s by the end of this.

LAURA: Yeah.

MATT: (laughs)

SAM: Couple more over here.

TRAVIS: It's definitely the dice and not you.

LAURA: Oh!

MARISHA: Whose are these?

SAM: I don't know, I just found them.

LAURA: That one's mine.

MARISHA: That's cool. This one's mine.

MATT: There you go, you got some more, perfect.

LIAM: Ah, if there are--

LAURA and LIAM: Nope.

MARISHA: What the fuck?

SAM: (laughs)

LAURA: That one's out. (laughs)

TRAVIS: We're managing to stay away from trafficked areas where?

SAM: Liam'll never get to talk.

MATT: Yeah.

TRAVIS: Okay.

LAURA: I'm sorry, Liam.

MATT: With you leading and being the sneaky bitch that you are.

LIAM: I don't like talking, anyway.

TRAVIS: Yeah, I am.

LIAM: Don't perceive me.

TRAVIS: I am.

MARISHA: What were you going to say, Orym?

LIAM: I forgot.

MATT: (laughs)

LIAM: I think that if their intentions were on the up and up, there would be open communication going in two directions that wouldn't just drop out of the sky.

LAURA: The Reilorans--

MARISHA: You mean the Reilorans in Exandria?

LAURA: -- coming to Exandria?

LIAM: Yes, I was hearkening back before Chetney's fart, which distracted me.

MATT: (laughs)

LAURA: But it's very possible, they have no communication outside of Ludinus, all that they know of-- (laughs) You're such a dick, Chet.

LIAM: It's very hard to concentrate on a conversation.

LAURA: We can see you. We can see you.

TRAVIS: It's not dispersing. It's not dispersing, I'm just saying.

LIAM: I'm not looking at you, but I can smell you.

TRAVIS: It's hard to get rid of, just like me. (laughter)

MARISHA: You were talking about the brutality of caste systems, continue. (laughter)

LIAM: Sorry, he cast Stinking Cloud.

MATT: Constitution saves all around.

LAURA: (laughs)

LIAM: Moment has gassed passed.

LAURA: (laughs)

LIAM: Let's keep looking.

MARISHA: All right. (laughs)

TRAVIS: (laughs)

MATT: Another 15 or so minutes of skirting through the shadows before you find a break in the more upscale neighborhoods that you've been skittering through. Here, you come upon that gap that sits beneath the large and winding walkways. There you can see the distant beast pits and hear the barking and calling of the various creatures that are being prepared for what is to come soon. You also can see here at the base of the incredibly immense Prime Pillar, the stronghold that is the Arx Creonum embedded in and spiraling around the exterior. You get the sense that it's probably built into, to some degree, but much of it that sits outside is impressive in its own right. Orym, you, focusing in and looking, can see a couple of things moving around. With a brief little bit of focus, you can see they're Reilorans, Mystics that are just floating around and--

LAURA: Floating around.

TRAVIS: The exterior, just flying around.

MATT: Yeah, just moving from level to level.

LIAM: How high above is the nearest of those?

MATT: 600 feet.

LAURA: (sighs)

TRAVIS: (grunts)

MARISHA: 600 feet.

LIAM: I mean, I know that we're looking through, I'm sure I can't see, unhindered, my sight doesn't go to the top of this cavern--

TRAVIS: Maybe it does.

LIAM: -- but looking through holes through different Escher stairs and bridges and stuff, how high do we guesstimate that this pillar goes?

MATT: Quarter mile.

TRAVIS: Quarter mile?

LAURA: Wow.

MATT: This is a very large--

LIAM: Right, it's like Grand Canyon-sized scale.

MATT: Yeah, yeah.

ASHLEY: Wow.

LAURA: (blows)

MARISHA: All right. Well--

TRAVIS: Is there a footpath that would lead us anywhere near, even at the base, the exterior of this main pillar, or is that?

LAURA: We're trying to get to the colloquium, right?

TRAVIS: Yeah.

MATT: Which you saw at a distance and now, as you get close, you follow the towers of the colloquium that eventually curl up and merge with the bottom of the arc, the Arx Creonum. You can see the actual Hall of Higher Learning just off to the right-hand side of the pillar the way you're looking at it now. It looks more like a castle of shaped rock and marble, probably about 200 feet up at its bulk, and then some of the towers rise up to connect with and meet the base of the central stronghold of the pillar. You can see winding stairways and other scattered buildings rising up from the entrance, it's like each structure is a wasp nest built into the side of this glass pillar. From a distance, it looks rough and grown, and as you get close, you can see the refined details of the architecture--

LAURA: Wow.

MATT: -- this odd mingling of organic and refinement of mortals. You can see there's balconies that sit all up along the edges of this. So those different sections and different portions of the colloquium have their own unique personality to it. You eventually rotate around and can see the entrance, where there are two massive 10-foot bronze doors that mark the prime entrance, currently guarded by what looks six armored Reiloran soldiers.

TRAVIS: Six.

MARISHA: Six.

LAURA: Cool, cool, cool, cool, cool, cool, cool.

LIAM: On that arc around, any other anthill entrances that are smaller, out of the way, higher up?

TRAVIS: Windows?

LIAM: Yeah, right.

MARISHA: A fence?

LIAM: Anything that could be flown to by those of us who can fly?

MATT: Oh, there are numerous balconies.

LIAM: Yeah.

MATT: There are numerous balconies that sit along this. You can't quite get enough detail at this distance, if they're enclosed or there are doors involved. When you get closer, you can look for such specifics. But yeah, there are numerous entrances beyond just the main entrance. They're just tall, and it would be a climb or a flight to get there.

LAURA: You have a--

MARISHA: I could Spider Climb and maybe bring someone with me on my back.

TRAVIS: Six.

LAURA: Do you have to cast Spider Climb, though?

MARISHA: I do.

LAURA: So you could cast Spider Climb, then I could recast Invisibility on both of us so that you could get up there without being seen.

LIAM: You can climb and you can fly--

LAURA: Sure, but I wouldn't be able to--

LIAM: -- but you can't do both at the same time.

LAURA: -- do it while I was invisible, so--

LIAM: I mean, I don't know that.

LAURA: -- if you cast Spider Climb, I can at least recast Invisibility on you so that you can get up invisible.

MARISHA: Are you all right using your spell like that?

LAURA: What do you mean?

MARISHA: I just don't want you to feel like it's a waste. If I do anything--

LAURA: Shh.

MARISHA: That was nice. She touched me.

TRAVIS: Before we rule out the front door entirely--

LAURA: (laughs) Aw.

MARISHA: Aw, we get to sit--

LAURA: Aw. (laughs)

MARISHA: Girlfriends.

TRAVIS: Those two 10-foot bronze doors, the six guards that are guarding them, are they within 10 feet of the doors or are they down a set of stairs? Is there a distance, a gap between them and the doors?

MATT: There are two Reiloran hulks, the ones that are the massively muscular, taller, brutish ones, that some are juggernauts and other types within the military. There are two of them that sit about five feet in front of the doors.

TRAVIS: Five feet, yeah.

MATT: There are four other standard Reilorans, as you get a decent glance and Orym can definitely see their details from this far away with your incredible passive perception--

LIAM: It's only going to get better.

MATT: -- (laughs) they all carry variations of glass weaponry as well.

TRAVIS: Are they also five feet within the door or a bit further?

MATT: No, no, sorry, they are like a flying V down two different staircases that curl up and merge at the top. So there's the two at the top, and then there's two more, and then two more.

TRAVIS: Okay.

LIAM: The door is shut?

MATT: From what you can tell, it is shut, yeah.

MARISHA: It is solid?

LAURA: If we even tried to get near them--

MATT: Yeah.

LAURA: -- if they had all their weapons would light up for me.

MARISHA: Oh.

LAURA: Those weapons light up when I get close.

MATT: Those weapons are currently lit because they are also--

LAURA: Because there's some other ones--

MATT: -- near other ones, yes.

LAURA: Okay, that's good, then.

TRAVIS: I can take care of the two big guys and get us through the door. It's the other five I'm worried about.

LAURA: How about, as we get closer, let's look at if we can get up to a balcony?

MARISHA: Take care of them how?

TRAVIS: I mean, I'll distract them and pick the door, and we could get in, but I'm worried about the other five maybe hearing us or something as we go by.

LIAM: Yeah.

LAURA: So if we could sneak in, that'd be better.

MARISHA: It's a solid fucking door, too, right? It's not like?

MATT: Correct. I mean, it has carving in it, it has designs, you can't quite make out the specifics of it from a distance, but it--

LIAM: Right, this is an important structure.

TRAVIS: We're in the middle of the moon, it's not that impressive. (laughter)

TRAVIS: How much can they know about doors? (laughter)

MARISHA: What do you think is the likelihood of somebody coming in and out soon, though?

TRAVIS: It's wisdom. (laughs)

MARISHA: If someone comes out or goes in soon, then maybe we could (quick tiptoeing) just sneak by.

ASHLEY: Wow.

LAURA: I mean, if we luck out and that happens, amazing. If not, then I think we should try to climb the balcony.

TRAVIS: Okay, yeah.

TALIESIN: I had to.

MARISHA: So maybe we--

TRAVIS: Do you have a climbing plan of attack?

LAURA: Well, she's got an Immovable Rod, we've got some rope. She climbs up, clicks it, we all climb up the side.

MARISHA: They'll see the rope.

TRAVIS: That's great.

MARISHA: But--

TRAVIS: Does anybody have the ability to?

LIAM: Can we-- Can we spend 10 or 15 minutes trying to move around, do a full sweep all the way around? Is it dark, is it well lit everywhere?

TRAVIS: Yeah, a little casing recon action?

MATT: I mean, around the base of it, there are a number of military structures that are scattered about. There are, around the base of the pillar, wider gaps and roads than further in. There's almost an intentionally built reverent distance to the central pillar between a lot of the architecture. Most of what sits around the base seems to be either an extension-- Oh my god. An extension of the--

LAURA: What is that?

SAM: I don't even know anymore. (laughter)

LAURA: What is that?

TRAVIS: It's a good smolder, though. I kind of like it.

MARISHA: What?

TRAVIS: Is that from?

LAURA: What is that from?

MATT: I don't even fucking know.

TRAVIS: That's good.

MATT: I don't remember.

TRAVIS: It looks like you're watching a nuclear bomb going off.

LAURA: It looks like you were in a romance novel or something.

MARISHA: Was that when you were the pizza delivery guy in that short film?

TRAVIS: ♪ Somebody save me ♪

MATT: I think that's exactly what that is.

ASHLEY: (laughs)

MATT: No, no, no.

MARISHA: That's old.

MATT: No, that was from the "Geek USA" movie where I was a burnout, I think.

MARISHA: Oh my, yeah, that's right.

MATT: Anyway, regardless. (laughter)

LAURA: Your jawline looks really good.

MATT: Yeah, it's all been downhill since then. (laughter)

MARISHA: That was a long time ago.

MATT: Look what nine years of streaming have done to me. (laughter)

MARISHA: Holy shit.

TRAVIS: Just made you handsomer.

LAURA: (laughs)

MATT: Just made me eczema.

LAURA: He looks like his brows are so close together on there.

MARISHA: (laughs) They do.

LAURA: Yeah, just keep your pecs apart.

LIAM: He's imploding.

TRAVIS: Okay, okay--

MATT: I hate this.

TRAVIS: -- so reverence in between the structures. (laughter)

MATT: Sorry. (laughter)

MATT: Okay, back in now. (laughs) I got pulled out of my head space.

LIAM: So wide reverential space around the base.

MATT: Correct. There are nooks and crannies between where rocks and stones, because the pillar doesn't just rise out of the ground, there is an element of the eroded rock and stone over time--

LAURA: Great.

MATT: -- that's built along the base to give a gradual incline to where the structures are built out of and merge around the pillar. To go completely around the pillar would be an hour, if not longer.

TRAVIS: Yeah, it's a long--

MATT: It's a massive--

LAURA: But there's little crevices that we could hide in?

MATT: To a certain extent, yeah.

LAURA: Maybe you could drop the rope down a crevice.

LIAM: Rope down a little irregularity.

MARISHA: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

LAURA: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

TRAVIS: Just to ask it: The crevices in between the structures, there's no exposed part of the column where you could move in between buildings and actually reach the column, the blue glass?

MATT: I mean, you could. The structures themselves are built into it solidly.

TRAVIS: Yeah.

MATT: Any other space where it's natural rock--

TRAVIS: Still, they're like the base of a tooth.

MATT: Correct, yeah. You could get to it, but you'd be out in the open.

LIAM: Right down.

TRAVIS: Got it, got it.

MATT: But if you're invisible, not a huge deal. But you could definitely do that, yeah.

TRAVIS: Okay. I kind of want to touch the column.

LAURA: We will, Chet.

TRAVIS: Will we?

LAURA: We will.

TRAVIS: We're going to balconies and stuff.

LAURA: We're going to touch the column. Don't you worry.

TRAVIS: All right.

MARISHA: Balconies and stuff.

LAURA: All right. As we get closer--

LIAM: Is that a euphemism?

LAURA: -- can we keep eyes open for balconies we could reach with a Spider Climb?

MATT: Sure. There are a number. There's a few things you notice. The lowest balcony, not far from the entryway where you're standing on the outskirts of the Colloquium, is about 60 or so feet up. They're all about maybe 50 feet apart, and they're all situated among different sections of towers that emerge from it. It has that weird castle parapets, but they're like a pipe structure that are built outward and then up, and then come to an end where there's a visual point, and that's where a balcony sits. There's occasionally a small balcony along where that tower rises. It looks like a massive pipe organ in how the Colloquium rises up on the side.

LAURA: That's cool.

MATT: Many of them stop and become their own little sentinel perches or overlooks for the beautiful, you can imagine the view would be incredible from up there, and then a handful of them continue upward and then connect with the central stronghold of the Arx Creonum.

MARISHA: How long has this been? How long have we been on this little journey?

LAURA: Yeah.

MATT: Creonium, I keep saying it wrong, sorry.

LAURA: Creonium?

MATT: Yeah, Arx Creonium.

LAURA: Arx Creonium.

LIAM: Creonium.

MATT: Creonium.

LIAM: Okay.

MATT: That's on my head.

LIAM: Creonium.

MARISHA: How long has it been since we set off? Since we got our invisibility spell?

MATT: You rolled decently. I'd say it's been probably about 35 to 40 minutes.

LAURA: Okay, so we're halfway through it.

LIAM: Flirty minutes.

LAURA: Did you say flirty minutes?

LIAM: I did.

MATT: Yeah.

MARISHA: Well, maybe we should just do this now, because if we wait to try and see if the doors open--

LIAM: I think it's a solid option.

LAURA: Yeah.

LIAM: It's better than taking the door head on.

LAURA: Yeah.

LIAM: Yeah, go for it.

MARISHA: All right.

MATT: You also notice--

SAM: Oh shit.

MARISHA: Oh shit.

MATT: This is fine.

ASHLEY: This is fine.

MATT: -- what looked like a solid pillar of glass from a far distance, as you get close, there's texture to it. And the closer you get, you can see the majority of it is just solid pillar, but there are little branches, it looks like. Tiny little, either individual or clustered bits of glass that reach out like branches of a tree. You can see elements of it growing through parts of the structure, or the structure was built around it.

LAURA: So it might help us to climb.

MATT: At a certain point. The lowest ones are about 30, 40 feet up.

LAURA: Okay.

MATT: They're disparate. It's not like hair on the back of a hand, necessarily, but it is a unique--

TRAVIS: Interesting. So it's not smooth.

MATT: No, the closer you get, the more detail that comes out of it. You can see there are parts of it that sprout off on a smaller scale. When I say smaller scale, I mean--

LAURA: They're still pretty big.

MATT: -- 50 feet long to 150 feet long, almost coming out the side, branching out a little bit.

LIAM: But glass, you said?

MATT: It looks like it's made of the same glass material with that dull light--

LAURA: Crystal-y.

MATT: -- that emanates from it.

LIAM: Right.

MARISHA: Do they feel like crystals, or are they, like you said, branches?

TRAVIS: We'd have to get over there to find out.

MATT: Yeah.

LAURA: What if it's part of Predathos' brain? These crystals, it's like his brain growing into the hive mind.

MARISHA: That's a very interesting idea, and Matt, his face is very blank right now, almost seemingly intentional.

TRAVIS: That's the poker face. That's the one.

MARISHA and LIAM: Yes.

ASHLEY: Poker face.

TRAVIS: Yeah, he doesn't give us nothing.

MARISHA: That's brilliant.

TRAVIS: Should we move over towards the balcony? If we can get close enough to the column--

MARISHA: Yeah.

LAURA: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

TRAVIS: -- we'll see what it feels like?

LIAM: Probably just his wang.

MATT: All right, as you trek up to the shattered edge, we come back to this crew here.

MARISHA: Oh boy. (laughs)

SAM: Oh no.

MARISHA: Back and forth, back and forth.

SAM: Okay, okay.

ASHLEY: Okay.

TRAVIS: Get your shit together.

MARISHA: I want some gum.

SAM: I don't--

MARISHA: Jesus. Jesus.

MATT: We're doing little mini time jumps here as we go, too. So Ira, unchallenged upon arrival to the outside of this excavation entrance, other Reiloran and Quanikka soldiers step aside and let you pass within, and you can see now the illusion that you've been placed in, the equipment and armor that you're wearing is very much in line with a number of the other soldiers that are looking over this excavation. There is a moment of them where they might have looked for any sort of recognition, but the presence of a Mystic in the attire that Ira has taken as a guise sets them to not look too much into it. But you begin to press into this large tunnel, and you can see, there's the rough stone elements of it, and then the further in you go, it looks like it's been shaped, smoothed over. Not too dissimilar to when magically, stone is worked or retooled, it looks like a lot of the interior structure of this tunnel, once it's been dug into, has then been, like when you would fire over sand to make glass to give it structure, the stone here has been smoothed and hardened to become a structurally sound tunnel.

SAM: Sure.

MATT: There are pockets where tools and materials are set off to the side. There are occasionally passing miners, and you can see heavy carts that are coming up that are containing the loose red and brown rock and shale that has been excavated from below, as well as clusters, broken bits of glass dust and chunks of glass that have been either found or broken or dragged out from their source. You can see numerous of these carts being carried out, and the massive piles that sit on the outside, you can see them moving this in sections and chunks. But you continue to push in further.

SAM: No one's stopping us? No one's looking at us funny?

MATT: No, not at the moment.

TALIESIN: Is it all worked? All the stone has been worked? Or are parts of it still in process?

MATT: Parts of it are still in process.

TALIESIN: Okay.

MATT: It's not like the whole thing is solidly done that way, but any area where it would be-- I'd say every 30 or so feet, there's a 10-foot section that is worked over like that to make sure that-- It's better than building a wood brace. They don't have wood as a very prominent resource here.

TALIESIN: Gotcha.

MATT: You eventually begin to notice that the mining population grows thicker. As the tunnel, it goes down in an intentional direction. This isn't a meandering mineshaft where they're just looking for ore veins willy nilly. This has a very specific direction and is descending at a pretty standard decline. The carving of the tunnel, its shape, is imperfect, meaning it isn't a central worm bore tunnel, or at least if it was, it's been expanded in places and it's given it a slightly uneven width at times. But you do see the mining population begins to become more dense. You can hear chatter of the various species that call Ruidus home, themselves carrying various tools for mining and digging recovery. You can see there are different piles set on the outside of a small resting area, and another of what looks like soldier barracks that has been makeshift and built here. Some of these piles have ore that have been recovered. You can see there's silver, iron. Precious metals and things that you don't see much of here have been recovered as part of this excavation, and are being set aside for use for the Imperium. You also see to the right hand side, the makeshift barracks, all of these separate alcoves and tunnels that are burrowed into the wall that have themselves, stone doors have been placed. You can see chairs and benches that have been built out of the ground, out of the stone.

SAM: Like break rooms?

MATT: It looks like break rooms or resting spaces, and there are about three dozen different soldiers, pretty much specifically Ruidian-- Or sorry. Ruidian? Sorry.

TRAVIS: Reiloran?

MATT: Reiloran, thank you, of different varieties that are watching over this excavation. There is definitely an officiousness with which they walk around.

SAM: Boy. I think to Ashton and Fearne: If we can get in there and do this, how do we get out? How do we run?

ASHLEY: Well--

SAM: Can you turn us into gnats or something?

ASHLEY: I mean, I could try. I haven't really thought that far ahead yet.

SAM: Okay.

ASHLEY: But that's going to be important when it comes down to it.

SAM: Maybe think of our escape plan, I guess is what--

ASHLEY: I mean--

TALIESIN: I feel like we're getting ahead of ourselves there.

SAM: We're going to need a way out, because Ira's not going to--

ASHLEY: No, he doesn't give a shit about us.

SAM: Yeah.

TALIESIN: We'll find out.

ASHLEY: All right, okay.

SAM: Just think about it.

ASHLEY: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm thinking about it. Hey, Ira.

MATT: "Yes?"

ASHLEY: How much further are we going down?

MATT: "As far as we need. I've not been to this tunnel before."

ASHLEY: Okay.

MATT: "We'll know when we get there."

TRAVIS: (laughs)

ASHLEY: Okay. I don't love that, but sure.

MATT: At which moment, immediately, Ira goes--

SAM: Oh!

MATT: You turn to the side, and you see two Reiloran soldiers with decorated shoulder armor approaching quietly. They stare in Ira's direction and Ira stares back, and they nod and give a hand wave, and Ira gives a nod and looks back at the rest of you and goes, "Oh boy. Follow me."

ASHLEY: What, what, what, what? What was that?

SAM: Close call?

TALIESIN: You notice him now following in step with the two other soldiers that approached.

SAM: Oh.

MATT: Heading towards the barracks.

ASHLEY: Are we in--

SAM: We can't talk to him.

ASHLEY: -- linked up with him?

MATT: Mm-mm.

TALIESIN: Mm-mm.

SAM: Shit.

ASHLEY: Shit.

SAM: I guess we just go. We just go.

ASHLEY: We just go.

SAM: We can talk to each other.

ASHLEY: Should we just let him go in by himself?

SAM: No, we don't even know where we're going.

ASHLEY: Okay.

TALIESIN: We got this.

LAURA: (laughs)

MATT: You shift into the nearest entryway, which is a half circle, 10-foot opening in this rock wall. As you step inside, the immediate smell hits you of almost an incense or tobacco type smell. You can see there is a handful of Vanguard soldiers wearing the Vanguard garb, but armored up a little bit. One of them has a heavy tobacco pipe, and is currently smoking in the corner. Looks to be human and older, soldier sort of vibe. Most of the other soldiers in here are all very much standing to attention, and there is a stillness to the chamber, for the most part. You hear hushed conversation from a chamber beyond as Ira steps up into the entryway to the right. You can't quite see what's in there, and he just stands there and nods. As you come around the corner and look within, there is another Mystic across the way. There are a number of well-armored soldiers that surround the perimeter of the inside of this chamber. Over a central table, you see a dark armored figure.

TALIESIN: Shit.

SAM: (gasps)

LAURA: (anxious scream)

SAM: Papa?

MARISHA: It's already, it's now. It's begun.

SAM: Papa?

ASHLEY: It's happening!

TRAVIS: Say it.

LAURA: Help, it's begin!

MARISHA: Help, it's begin.

MATT: The Sorrowlord Zathuda stands at the table with his helmet off to the side.

TRAVIS: Oh!

MATT: You can see his--

TRAVIS: God!

MATT: -- facial hair has grown a bit unkept, and even at a glance, his discomfort at being here is apparent. He is in the process of conversing with a figure you've never seen before, but cannot be ignored. Across the table from him, flanked by two avadon beasts that are curled up at the side, themselves with these massive, golden-ringed neck armor adornments, as well as spiked shoulders, and their open, eyeless mouth growls as they preen themselves on the floor. Both of them flank their master. You see a massive Reiloran hulk in smooth, polished mask of dark iron that sits on his face.

SAM: Ooh.

MATT: His entire face is encased in this pointed, black, smooth mask, like a Predator mask sort of vibe.

MARISHA: Cool.

MATT: You see he is wearing incredibly intricate bladed body armor. It looks like a graphite-colored metal with tusks and bladed edges that are woven in and shoot out to the sides. You can see the armor itself is adorned with long, ragged strips of black and red dyed leather that seems to tear and get rough before it touches the ground, and Zathuda looks tiny by comparison. Zathuda still stands at probably a solid six and a half, seven feet. This hulk probably at full height is about 10 feet or so--

SAM: What?!

MATT: -- and is leaning on the table, and they are both--

LAURA: (stage whisper) Don't die!

MATT: They are both having an intense, or at least what you assume now to be a very important figure is having a very intense, quiet stare at Zathuda, before Zathuda goes, "I do greatly hate this whole mind speak. (resigned sigh)" You see him huff for a minute, and stares. The figure continues to glare and slams its fist into the table. The two avadons (soft growls) get up and stare. The entity runs its fingers over the neck of the one that stood to attention, like it's petting one of its companions. As it stares back, its expressionless iron mask looking back towards the Sorrowlord.

TRAVIS: Jesus.

MATT: It gives a nod and it turns around. Both of them stand up and linger for a second as it leaves for the exit to pass in your direction, one of the beasts looking back at the Sorrowlord, the other one following behind it. Zathuda stands there, arms crossed, almost looking a bit--

SAM: What do we do? Sorry.

MATT: -- a bit out of his element here.

SAM: Wow!

MATT: The last thing you hear from the Sorrowlord towards this figure, he goes, "What thy will might be, Sunder Lord. The Vanguard will see it through," he says through gritted teeth and a bit of a sour scowl.

SAM: Sunder Lord.

MATT: The Sunder King, you've heard before previously.

SAM: We've heard the Sunder King.

MATT: The Sunder King Cruth.

LAURA: Right.

SAM: Oh! Oh!

MATT: Hm?

LAURA: Is this the same person? We don't know.

MATT: You get the sense this may be the Sunder King Cruth, the head of the Dominion of Cruth.

SAM: Iron will, because he's got the iron mask.

LAURA: The big giant guy?

MATT: Yes.

MARISHA: Oh.

SAM: He's the big guy in charge. If we can take him down, we can blow the lid off this whole thing!

LIAM: Zathuda called him Sunder Lord?

MATT: Sunder King.

LIAM: Sunder King.

MATT: If I misspoke. Sunder King was the intent, sorry.

LIAM: Sunder King.

ASHLEY: What was that? Cruth?

SAM: Sunder. Sunder! Sunder!

TRAVIS: Sunder! Ah!

ASHLEY: Sunder Cruth!

MARISHA: (laughs)

TALIESIN: ♪ High ♪

MATT: As he steps from the room, and you see he has to dip down to go through the entryway, and Ira, there as the Mystic, drifts back and gives an acknowledging nod.

SAM: I'll nod as well.

MATT: The Sunder King doesn't even pay any attention to Ira, and the rest of you are but ants in the presence, and it is a presence. There is a vibration in the air as he walks by. You look through the strips of leather, these wide, two-inch strips that dangle past where the mantle, and you can see the arms flow through easy so he has no restriction in movement, and through the glimmers of it, of the massive arms, you can see numerous weapons that are sheathed at his sides. You see a mace and a massive saber. He is surrounded with weapons.

MARISHA: He's cool.

MATT: The two avadons that follow him behind, in their own unique ceremonial armor, growl. They're massive in their own right, but even next to him, they're about the size of a large dog.

ASHLEY: Good boy, good boy, good boy.

MATT: As you all step back, one of them (growls).

ASHLEY: Good boy.

SAM: Help.

MATT: It seems to be taking a particular interest in your direction.

SAM: Oh boy. You got a treat or something?

ASHLEY: Good boy, good boy. Don't you have any baked goods left?

SAM: I might! I do!

LAURA: What do they eat?

ASHLEY: Hello, hello, sir? I'm bending down.

LIAM: Do we hear this from a half mile away?

MATT: So he's walked by. The Sunder Lord has--

TRAVIS: Passed. These are the two--

MATT: -- passed, and is exiting.

ASHLEY: Okay.

MATT: One of the avadons has gone with him. The other has slowed, and is--

TRAVIS: Bull mastiff, sniffing your nuts.

MATT: Eyeless.

ASHLEY: I'm trying to remain--

TRAVIS: Get your dog, dude.

MATT: (growling)

SAM: I have a little dark chocolate. Do dogs like that?

ASHLEY: Maybe they can eat it. I don't know.

TRAVIS: What about grapes?

ASHLEY: Give him some chocolate.

SAM: Okay.

ASHLEY: Give him a little chocolate.

SAM: I'll break off a little piece of dark chocolate and throw it at him.

MATT: (sniffs) It follows it with its head.

SAM: (whimpers) I don't talk.

MATT: Goes over and sniffs it. (scoffs) A little bit of spittle (spits) on the ground. You can see this thick, viscous saliva coats the area where it was. It turns back around. (growling)

ASHLEY: Go get your daddy. Go get your daddy. He's waiting for you.

SAM: Oh god.

ASHLEY: Oh shit.

SAM: Oh god.

MATT: The other soldiers around are wide-eyed, the various Reilorans, their black, shark-like eyes circles, as you get the sense this isn't the first time they've seen someone be checked by one of his entities. What are you doing?

SAM: I don't know!

TRAVIS: You know Talk to Animals?

SAM: I can, but do I want to start talking?

ASHLEY: I know, I know, I know.

SAM: I was told specifically, don't talk!

ASHLEY: I could talk to it, too, but won't that bring attention to us?

SAM: Maybe better you than me, since I'm not supposed to talk.

ASHLEY: Speak with Animals.

MATT: Okay, so you quietly--

TALIESIN: Oh boy.

MATT: -- cast Speak with Animals on yourself.

SAM: Oh god!

ASHLEY: Is this a dumb thing to do right now?

TALIESIN: Who knows?

MATT: (laughs)

LAURA: It looks so wet. (groaning)

MATT: No!

ASHLEY: Ew!

TRAVIS: Sam!

ASHLEY: That's disgusting!

LIAM: Boo!

TALIESIN: The joy of sitting here is I don't have to look.

LIAM: Boo!

TALIESIN: Not even a little.

LIAM: Ugh!

ASHLEY: Ew!

TRAVIS: That face is... uh...

TALIESIN: Don't care.

LIAM: Yeah!

TRAVIS: We're going to get banned. (laughter)

SAM: I'm going to add to it. (groaning)

TRAVIS: Man.

MATT: Weirdo!

ASHLEY: Hey, give me-- Let me have one.

TRAVIS: Now I know why.

LIAM: Yeah, he completed the picture.

MATT: What you doing?

TRAVIS: (laughs)

MATT: You cast Speak with Animals on yourself?

ASHLEY: That's very visual, isn't it?

TRAVIS: (laughs)

SAM: It's okay. You can disguise it.

MATT: Is it verbal, somatic, material?

SAM: Verbal, somatic.

ASHLEY: Verbal, somatic.

MATT: Okay, so no material components. So you have a physicality to it.

MARISHA: Is that all your gum?

MATT: If you want to make a sleight of hand check to see if you can mask the movements.

LIAM: (gags)

ASHLEY: Okay. I'll do that.

SAM: Do not look at me.

MARISHA: (laughs)

LAURA: Gross!

ASHLEY: Okay. 13.

MATT: 13. Okay.

ASHLEY: (coughs)

MATT: Okay. No one seems to pay particular mind at the moment.

ASHLEY: Okay.

MATT: You finish casting the spell, using the shape of the avadon that's now coming towards your myceit friend to your left. You cast the spell. What are you doing?

ASHLEY: I'm going to say: Hey, go get your daddy. Go get your daddy. He's waiting for you. Do you see him?

MATT: It turns around. (growls) Its massive, open, rounded mouth just filled with teeth. (growls)

ASHLEY: You're just a big old boy! Oh my goodness! Oh!

MATT: Make a persuasion or an animal handling check, if you'd like.

LAURA: (laughs)

TRAVIS: Get the fuck out of here.

LAURA: Oh. (laughs)

SAM: Probably persuasion, right?

ASHLEY: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

LIAM: That's it. That's the whole plan.

LAURA: The whole plan is insane.

LIAM: There's not a part two. It's just this.

SAM: Come on, girl!

MATT: It would just be animal handling, except for the fact that you can talk to it.

ASHLEY: 13.

MARISHA: Ash with dogs in India.

MATT: 13?

ASHLEY: Yeah.

MATT: It's like, (growls)

LAURA: Oh.

ASHLEY: What's the matter? What you want? What you looking for? You hungry?

MATT: This guttural sound (growly barks) comes out of it and you recognizes it as saying, "I smell dinner. Different meat. New meat. Want new meat."

ASHLEY: I don't know where you're going to find this new meat. This new meat isn't in here. I think the new meat is way out there. That's what I asked Mella, too, which is crazy. It's way out there.

MATT: (yipping growls)

ASHLEY: Huh?

MARISHA: (laughs)

MATT: It starts smelling the air around you.

ASHLEY: Okay. Guys, guys, I don't know what to do. I think this is--

SAM: What did he say to you?

ASHLEY: Yeah. He said that he smells new meat, and I'm pretty sure that's us.

SAM: I don't have any meat on me!

TALIESIN: I'm going to--

ASHLEY: No, I think we're the meat. We're the meat.

TALIESIN: I have some old griffon.

LAURA: (laughs)

MATT: On you?

TALIESIN: I do.

MATT: In the hole or in your pocket?

TALIESIN: It's in my normal bag. Not in the hole.

LIAM: I'm starting to get nauseous real fast.

TALIESIN: It's really old. It might be way too old.

MATT: I'm going to say--

TALIESIN: It's too old.

MATT: You don't have griffon in your pocket.

TALIESIN: No. (laughter)

MATT: You have a slimy stain that sits at the bottom of your pocket.

TALIESIN: It's pretty gross. Let's be honest.

MATT: (laughs)

TALIESIN: Yeah, I was going through. I have meat.

TRAVIS: Trapped by leather.

TALIESIN: Ooh! Yeah, no.

MATT: Yeah. Yeah.

TALIESIN: Oh wow! I'll throw that out later, next long rest.

ASHLEY: Don't be rude! Go find the new meat. It's in the other space. Leave here.

SAM: Got to do something.

ASHLEY: You're a good boy.

MATT: Your words don't seem to be strong enough to quell its interest.

SAM: Okay. Okay, I will cast Speak with Animals.

TALIESIN: Oh boy!

ASHLEY: Shit!

TRAVIS: Fuck these things up!

LAURA: Jesus.

ASHLEY: I'm sorry. I failed.

TRAVIS: Wear its head like a hat.

SAM: Can this stack? This can stack. So I'll cast Speak with Animals. Give it a second. Then I'm going to cast, on top of that... Command. Right? Yeah.

TALIESIN: He'll know you did it, but.

SAM: It's a dog.

LIAM: It's not a dog.

ASHLEY: Why's he looking like that?

SAM: (laughs)

MATT: Okay.

SAM: Wait a second. Let me look at the spell first.

TRAVIS: Okay.

SAM: "Speak with one or more creature I can see within range. Wisdom saving throw or it has to follow the command."

MATT: It is currently right up in your face, and very like Ripley in "Alien 3," the entity's mouth is right there.

TRAVIS: Oh good.

MATT: You said you're casting--

TRAVIS: Only good part of it.

SAM: Either Command or Fast Friends. Let's see. What has the better chance of working?

TRAVIS: Is Fast Friends on animals, too, or just people?

LAURA: It is if you can talk to them.

SAM: Yeah.

LAURA: Probably.

SAM: Where is Fast Friends? Where is it? I know I prepared it. I always prepare it. There it is! I've done, yeah. I'll do Fast Friends.

MATT: Okay.

LAURA: This is my favorite thing he does. Because if you tell him he's not allowed to talk any more because it's his bedtime--

SAM: Wisdom save 16.

MATT: All right.

MATT: Choose one humanoid--

SAM: Oh fuck!

MATT: -- within range.

SAM: Where does that say that?

MATT: The second sentence.

SAM: Well, then I'll do Command!

ASHLEY: Okay.

MATT: Which command... to a creature that you can see within range. Indeed. It can understand your language because you have to Speak with Animals.

SAM: Correct.

MATT: What do you command it to do?

SAM: Oh boy!

ASHLEY: Leave.

TRAVIS: Shoo!

ASHLEY: Scram!

TRAVIS: Shoo? Leave?

SAM: Scram's good.

TRAVIS: Yeah.

SAM: Scram!

MATT: (laughs)

TRAVIS: Flee!

SAM: Just git! Git!

ASHLEY: Git.

MATT: Now are you saying this in Common?

SAM: No, in its language. (barks)

MATT: (laughs) All right. It's wisdom save?

SAM: Command is Wisdom 16.

MATT: Got it.

ASHLEY: But like you're whispering it.

SAM: Yeah. Git!

MATT: That's a 12.

LAURA: Oh! Thank god!

SAM: But it only lasts--

MATT: As it rears back--

SAM: -- for one round.

MATT: -- it's looking like it's about to pounce on this poor Bormodo that it feels a bit focused towards, it suddenly looks up at you--

SAM: Git!

MATT: (growls) and it leaps out and charges out of the door.

ASHLEY: Phew!

MATT: Gets about 30 or so feet before it turns around in your direction. The spell faded and goes (growls).

SAM: Ira, we got to get out of here, buddy.

MATT: You see Ira going--

TRAVIS: (laughs)

MATT: -- beginning to bring his hands up and you hear a voice go, (forceful growling barks)

SAM: (gasps)

MATT: And it shatters the air like a thunder strike. Immediately, the creature (whimpers) (snuffling) and darts off, catching up to its papa.

ASHLEY: Good job, good job, good job, good job!

MARISHA: Oh my god!

SAM: A little metal poop falls out.

MATT: It almost dragged one of you with it. (laughter)

MATT: It was about to pull you out like a toy.

ASHLEY: Woo!

SAM: Dink, dink, dink.

TRAVIS: (impacts)

ASHLEY: Hoo!

SAM: Oh boy!

MATT: At which point, Ira's hands go down, gives a nod, and then one of the soldiers who's present is looking at you with a concerned look.

LIAM: Because you just went (growls)

MATT: You also just cast a spell.

SAM: I did, for sure.

MATT: Without trying to hide it, as a tiny myceit. As it glances at you, Ira lifts over. "Do not worry. You saw nothing."

SAM: (gasps)

TRAVIS: (snaps fingers)

MARISHA: Yes!

ASHLEY and TRAVIS: Yes!

MARISHA: Yes!

LAURA: Come on, Ira!

TRAVIS: Let's go!

MATT: The figure goes (exhales) and just starts walking a patrol.

ASHLEY: (sighs)

SAM: Nice. (laughs)

ASHLEY: Oh, phew!

SAM: It makes the Matt Mercer smile.

TALIESIN: (groans)

MARISHA: (laughs)

ASHLEY: Wolf beak.

LIAM: I really want a scone. (laughter)

MATT: Ira turns back to you three. "We need to keep moving." As you all shift out of the barracks, back into the center part of the tunnel, and on your path, you can hear the soldiers that are gathering up and following behind the Sunder King as he heads up from the path you came. As the Sunder Lord exits out the barracks behind you, puts his helmet on, and turns to one of the other nearby Reiloran soldiers and goes, "What are you looking at? Get back to work! I'm going to cut that head from your shoulders!" The soldiers nod and begin to go back to their posts. The miners start picking up their pace. The Sorrowlord begins walking and looking about the current business around you as the four of you begin to slowly head further and further down the tunnel. Coming back over to the right.

SAM: (shouts)

TRAVIS: Holy shit, man!

MARISHA: Oh!

TRAVIS: Oh my god! Get brain bubbles yet? This is crazy!

MATT: It's fun. You skitter over into one of the nearby shady portions of where some of the heavier rock and stone is broken and the erosion hasn't fully filled the gaps there. There's enough room for maybe one and a half people to really hide in the shadow for a moment.

LAURA: We should hide in the shadow, you and I, Laudna.

MARISHA: All right.

LAURA: Get into the crevice. If we look up, do we see a balcony above us? Anything close by?

MATT: Make a perception check for me.

MARISHA: Can I--

LAURA: Hey Orym, when you look up, do you see--

MARISHA: Yeah, yeah.

LIAM: I wanted to ask if I saw any fuckers up there, but is it peeling up so you can't see what's above on the balconies?

MATT: Correct. They're little outer cup. Yeah, they're just, you know?

LIAM: Right. (laughter)

MATT: It's the rusty trombone is what I'm doing. (laughter)

LIAM: Even on the walk from the out. So it's a big empty space, you said, even on the outer edge when you're the furthest back, you still can't see. It's cupped, if you will, from my vision?

MATT: If you go all the way back, you can probably see into some of the lower balconies.

LIAM: Okay. All right. I'm going to quietly skitter as far out as I can and avoid any fucking individuals, and see if I can see anyone up there before we send Laudna.

MATT: You got it.

LIAM: Hmm. That's not great either! Come on, guys! That's 18.

LAURA: That's not terrible.

MATT: 18? Okay.

TRAVIS: He has high expectations.

LIAM: It's terrible.

LAURA: Yeah.

MATT: The four lowest balconies that are equidistant from the ground across the entirety of the colloquium, you can see two of them are occupied, and you can also see a number of them are occupied. You're not sure if they're by people who are sentinels keeping a watch or if they're students or employees or people that have purpose within this particular structure. But you do see, not the balcony on the furthest left that's closest to the shadow, but the one next to it is unoccupied.

LIAM: Okay, so I pitter-pat back and then steer them away from the one that has someone above. I can't tell for sure, but this is our best bet.

MARISHA: Was there a balcony in between that one and another?

LIAM: I think there were.

LAURA: Was it that way?

MATT: (laughs)

LIAM: So there's one and then there's two and then there's one in the middle.

MATT: (annoyed sigh)

TRAVIS: What about above it? Was there--

MATT: I only have myself to blame. (laughter)

MATT: Oh boy! (laughter)

MARISHA: All right.

TRAVIS: Adults.

LIAM: Guys, this is my favored terrain. Go straight up there. (laughter)

LAURA: Okay.

TRAVIS: Sometimes it leans to the one way.

MARISHA: Yeah. (laughs)

LAURA: Yep.

MARISHA: (laughs)

LIAM: I'm used to height differential.

LAURA: (laughs) Jesus! (laughter)

MATT: You're only plotting the outside. You have to get in there, too, so figure something else out. (laughter)

MATT: There's more to this plan. (laughter)

LAURA: Okay. So that's the balcony we're going to?

LIAM: Yes.

MATT: Yeah.

LAURA: All right.

MATT: Not the one closest to you, but the next one beyond it.

LAURA: Okay. (laughs)

LIAM: It doesn't stop.

LAURA: Okay.

MATT: I'm just going to stop doing hand gestures now.

MARISHA: Do a little reach around. Right.

LIAM: Shoonk! Shoonk!

LAURA: All right. How much--

MATT: Sit on them.

LAURA: How far up is that? How far away from us is that about?

MATT: At an angle, it's about 80 or 90 feet from you.

LAURA: How much rope do you have?

LIAM: I got a 50-footer.

LAURA: I think I got a 50-footer, too.

MARISHA: Yeah. Same.

LAURA: Okay. So great.

MARISHA: All right.

LAURA: So that should be enough.

MARISHA: Do a little (lips smack) loopy-loop knot together.

LAURA: Put it up and over Laudna. It disappears as soon as it's on her, right?

MATT: Mm-hmm.

LAURA: Okay.

MARISHA: Does it?

MATT: Well, let me check, actually.

LIAM: That's a funny one.

LAURA: I mean, you're wearing it.

LIAM: That's 100 feet.

LAURA: You would be wearing the rope on your--

MARISHA: Right. That's true. Yeah.

LAURA: On your hip.

MARISHA: (laughs)

MATT: Let me look into it.

TRAVIS: "Anything the target is wearing or carrying is invisible as long as it's on the target."

MATT: Correct. Yeah. So yeah, advantage. It stays invisible between you passing it over.

LAURA: Okay. Great.

LIAM: The whole 100 feet link of rope.

MARISHA: Nice!

MATT: As long as she's clutching it.

LIAM: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

LAURA: Okay.

MARISHA: All right.

LAURA: So what we've got to do is we've got to tuck into this little nook.

MARISHA: Go real fast.

LAURA: The minute you cast Spider Climb, I'm going to cast Invisibility on the both of us again. Because if I cast Invisibility on her, then I'll turn visible.

MARISHA: Then you'll-- Yeah.

LAURA: Yeah.

MATT: Indeed.

MARISHA: All right.

LAURA: But I'm going to rely on you to tell me as soon as nobody can see above or around.

LIAM: I'm just looking in every direction.

MATT: Yep. Keep an eye, watching people, the handful of soldiers that are walking the perimeter of the open space here, and it's almost like a valley. It's intentionally likely open like this, whether it be for reverence, it's also to ensure that if anything tries to storm, they're wide open before they get anywhere near the base. So you keep an eye out, watch for the patterns of those that are closely doing the perimeter, the ones that are guarding the front entrance, as well as the occasional shifting of those that are moving from balcony to balcony. Nothing changes from the balcony of intent. You find the right moment to give them a signal. You cast Spider Climb. For that brief instant that you appear in that shadow, you also appear next to her to cast your spell. You're casting it at 3rd-level to get both of you?

LAURA: Yeah.

MATT: Okay. (whooshes) You both vanish immediately, but you feel yourself now able to adhere to the terrain around you.

LAURA: Okay.

MARISHA: All right.

LAURA: Give us one part of the rope.

MARISHA: Okay.

LAURA: Otherwise, we won't be able to keep it where we are. Yeah.

MARISHA: All right.

MATT: Okay. So you have two lengths of rope.

LAURA: No, I have the end of the rope and she's going to climb and she's going to--

MARISHA: I've already tied two together.

MATT: Just want to say. Yeah. Okay.

MARISHA: Yeah, we've already--

LAURA: It's 100 feet of rope.

MATT: Okay. So as it unwinds, just so you're aware, it becomes no longer carried by you as an object--

LAURA: I know.

MATT: It becomes something that you're just holding onto.

LAURA: Yeah, so we're trying to keep it tucked into a crevice.

LIAM: To this wedge.

MATT: Right.

LAURA: So that, as it unravels, try to keep it in crevices.

MARISHA: Totally.

MATT: Yeah.

MARISHA: Okay.

MATT: I would like for you to make a dexterity check for me.

MARISHA: So I have advantage?

TRAVIS: Actually, as long as one of us is holding the bottom of the rope, it should stay.

LAURA: It should.

MARISHA: Wouldn't you think?

LAURA: But--

MATT: There's a difference between an item that you carry on your person and an item you're holding.

TRAVIS: In your hand. Right.

MATT: When you're holding a length of rope, the spell affects it, but the minute enough rope unwinds away from you, it becomes something you're holding.

LAURA: Yeah.

MATT: Like a part of the terrain.

TRAVIS: Yeah. Got it.

MATT: That's how I interpret it.

LAURA: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

MARISHA: I think, because I have it marked.

SAM: I think I did.

TALIESIN: You did.

LAURA: Yeah, you did! You gave her advantage!

SAM: Because I have some-- Yes.

MARISHA: So I still have advantage.

SAM: That lasts for, let's see here.

MATT: Yeah.

MARISHA: Because you gave me Enhanced.

MATT: Yeah.

LIAM: But also your Spider Climb, right?

LAURA: Yeah, but I don't think that gives her advantage on this.

MATT: No, this is to maneuver the rope through the--

LIAM: Oh, I see. I see.

MATT: -- various cracks and imperfections and folded bits of shadow along the exterior of the building.

MARISHA: Okay. Okay.

LAURA: No.

ASHLEY: No, no, no.

LIAM: What's the matter witchu?

LAURA: What in the fuck?

LIAM: What are you doing?

ASHLEY: What?

LAURA: What is this? Marisha! You know what that is? That's a crit because you rolled it on both of them.

SAM: Oh yeah!

MATT: That's a crit in Daggerheart.

SAM: Oh no!

ASHLEY: Oh, is it two ones?

TALIESIN: How?

SAM: It's two twos.

LIAM: She rolled two twos.

MARISHA: I rolled two twos.

MATT and MARISHA: Two twos.

TALIESIN: Jacob Two-Two.

MARISHA: So that's great. So that's great.

ASHLEY: Shit!

TALIESIN: It's four.

MARISHA: What can I do here? What can I do?

SAM: You're just, you're doing it.

TRAVIS: Apologize.

MARISHA: Apologize! (laughter)

SAM: You're doing it!

LIAM: Do you have modifiers, Laudna?

MARISHA: Yeah. Five. So that brings me to a five. To a five.

MATT: Okay. So as you clamber up the side--

ASHLEY: Shit--

MATT: You wind the rope into these--

SAM: Fine, it's going to be fine.

MATT: You find little notches and imperfect edges that hold the rope. It's working out pretty well, actually. (laughter)

MATT: You get it situated and you get halfway to the balcony and you're, "You got this! You got this!" As you're paying attention to the balcony, making sure that nobody's up there and you're holding the rope, the rest of you notice the rope just appear and it came untangled from one of the corners, which then the weight of that pulled another and the whole rope just came off of now, and it's this long, bowing rope.

LAURA: Laudna, Laudna, Laudna!

MATT: It's just hanging there now.

ASHLEY: Oh no.

LAURA: Does anybody see it?

MATT: You don't see anybody--

LAURA: Laudna, go back and grab it! Go back and grab the rope!

LIAM: Two or three feet from the structure?

MATT: Yeah.

MARISHA: (nervous noise) Can I reach it and bring it back in?

LAURA: Climb back down? Can she climb back down and gather it up again?

MATT: If you want to.

MARISHA: Yeah. I do that.

MATT: Okay. You regather it. You want to attempt it again?

MARISHA: Yes.

MATT: It's a higher DC. Go for it.

MARISHA: Theoretically--

LAURA: Try this one. It's the advantage dice. Okay, you. You roll yours.

TALIESIN: You only learned the way not to do it.

MATT: Yeah, the perfect moment has been lost.

MARISHA: Okay.

LIAM: Mm-hmm.

LAURA: Yeah.

MATT: But it's not impossible still. However, patrols are now starting to close around. Go for it.

MARISHA: Son of a bitch! I've got advantage!

LIAM: We're running out of time.

MARISHA: Okay, okay, okay, okay. It was a 15. So 18?

SAM: Okay!

MATT: 18? You get up there and as you tangle most of it up, you get to the edge of the balcony and clamber over the edge and get the rope affixed up there. You have your rod. You click it and it clicks in place. Half of the rope comes dislodged and is now visible just from the balcony to the midsection.

LAURA: Shit! Okay. If we climb as we go up the rope, does it disappear as we climb it?

MATT: Are you collecting it as you go? Whoever's collecting it at the bottom.

LAURA: Whoever's last will be collecting it.

MATT: We can certainly give it a shot.

LAURA: Okay.

MARISHA: Let's go.

MATT: We can certainly try.

LAURA: We've all got to try. Okay, so I'll go second.

LIAM: Okay.

LAURA: Or no! Yeah, I'll go second, so if I fall you'll catch me, right?

LIAM: Me?

SAM: You're invisible.

LAURA: They'll still see me.

SAM: Oh, okay.

TRAVIS: I'll catch you.

LAURA: Okay. You won't-- Okay, you won't see me if I fall, Chet! (laughter)

LAURA: You motherfucker!

MARISHA: Yeah. Yeah, I got you. I got you.

TRAVIS: ♪ Trust in me ♪

LIAM: I'll try my best, but I'm half your size.

TRAVIS: Trust in-- (impacts) Oops! (laughter)

LAURA: All right. I'll try to start climbing.

TRAVIS: Just make a noise on the way down.

MATT: All right.

TALIESIN: It's all right if it makes you feel better.

ASHLEY: (laughs)

MATT: I'd like you to make an athletics check for me.

LAURA: Athletics.

MATT: It's not a terribly difficult climb, but it is a singular rope at an angle--

TRAVIS: (laughs)

MATT: -- basically up the side of a building. You're Batman-ing this.

TRAVIS: Up the chain!

MATT: Adam West Batman-ing this.

TRAVIS: Oh yeah.

ASHLEY: Oh my god.

TRAVIS: Oh yeah, oh yeah.

TALIESIN: That one time they met Santa Claus.

MATT: Reverse rappelling.

LAURA: Okay.

TRAVIS: No strains.

MATT and ASHLEY: (laugh)

TRAVIS: Able to deliver dialogue.

LAURA: Okay.

SAM: Easy.

LAURA: Easy peasy, lemon squeezy.

TRAVIS: Gravity, off.

SAM: Come on, come on.

LAURA: 16.

MATT: 16. The adrenaline pumping through your body, your ears (pulsing) as the moment happens, you begin to scurry up that rope as quickly as you can, and you manage to without much of an issue, maybe a little bit of winded breath at the end, your arms a little sore and tired. But you get over the edge of the balcony and meet alongside Laudna. There at the top, you can see there are two doors that mark the interior. It's about six feet back from the flushness of the wall, the balcony itself also going about five feet out from the front, so you have about 10 feet of space here that you can occupy, but the doors are closed.

LAURA: The minute I get up there, I start looking around to see if anybody is looking at the rope.

MATT: Okay, make a perception check for me.

TRAVIS: Do they have the full effects of See Invisibility as it pertains to things that would otherwise be hidden? Like wards? Okay.

MATT: Yeah. Anything else that would be seen from See Invisibility, they have.

LAURA: No, I don't think anybody can see the rope. Nobody sees it.

MATT: All right, you feel good. You're going up?

LAURA: I feel really good about it.

LIAM: I'm still looking.

MARISHA: Why?

LIAM: Yeah. I'll go.

MARISHA: Why?

MARISHA: Gods above, why?

TRAVIS: It's because you're sitting together.

MATT: Athletics check for me.

TRAVIS: Star-crossed lovers.

MARISHA: It's true!

LAURA: What if we're bad luck?

LIAM: What's the height of rope, did we guess?

MARISHA: I know! No, it's a sign!

LAURA: What if we roll each other's dice?

MATT: The balcony itself is about 60 or so feet up, but it is at an angle from where you're at--

MARISHA: Let's try it.

MATT: -- since you're missing the closest balcony, so it's about 80, 90 feet away from you.

LIAM: Okay.

LAURA: Hurry, hurry.

LIAM: I make sure that Seedling is easy to get out if anything goes wrong and I start to climb. 18.

MATT: Great! Following suit in Imogen's path, you climb up the rope rapidly. The last little bit, you do a pull and then leap and then land on top of the balcony next to your two other companions.

LAURA: Don't worry, nobody can see shit.

LIAM: Is that true?

MARISHA: I'm feeling really good about this.

MATT: Make a perception check.

MARISHA: We're doing great.

LAURA: Yeah.

MARISHA: We're doing great.

LIAM: That is a 30.

MATT: All right. You do see one patrol of two Reiloran soldiers that are approaching with a bit of intent.

TALIESIN: (alerted ping)

LIAM: Down on the ground?

MATT: Yeah, on the ground about 100 or so feet off.

LIAM: Chetney, you got company coming. They're going to be there in 20 seconds.

TRAVIS: Okay. I'm coming up the rope! Up the chain! 19.

MATT: 19. The only way that a 400 year old gnome can scurry, you rapidly climb up this rope.

TRAVIS: No legs, no legs! (laughter)

MATT: Gathering it as you go?

TRAVIS: Yep. (winding rope) Maybe a little legs.

LIAM: Touch the side of his nose.

TALIESIN: I hated you in gym class.

TRAVIS: Mm-hmm.

MATT: Because of both the activities, it takes a little longer than just a straight climb, but as you get most of the way up there, the ropes takes into the spell, and as you get over the edge, you watch as the two other soldiers approach. One of them is looking around.

MARISHA: As soon as Chetney clears, I unclick the--

MATT: The rod?

MARISHA: The rod, put it back on my person.

LIAM: Back up.

MATT: One glances about. The other one gives him a heavy elbow to the side.

MATT: Gives a big sigh and they both--

LAURA: Yes!

MATT: -- begin to walk off and continue back on their original path.

TRAVIS: Can we go home now?

LAURA: (laughs)

TRAVIS: Okay, there's a door in front of us, right?

LIAM: How's that look, Chet?

LAURA: Traps? Is it trapped?

TRAVIS: Piece of cake. I'm sure it's not. Can I check for traps?

MATT: Sure, make an investigation check for me.

TRAVIS: 24.

TALIESIN: Ooh.

MATT: 24. It does not appear to be trapped. It does appear to be locked.

TRAVIS: Can I-- I can't pop them twice. (laughter)

TRAVIS: Can I pick the lock, pretty please?

MATT: Yes, you may. Go ahead and roll a dexterity check, adding your proficiency for lock picks.

TRAVIS: Beautiful. No advantage, okay. (counting softly) 27.

MATT: 27. With ease. This wasn't an easy lock, but you've spent your time breaking and entering, and within a 20-second foray with the tumblers, the door opens up.

TRAVIS: Reveal your secrets. (light laughter)

MATT: Immediately, you can see inside. It looks like a study chamber. There are three different tables that have comfortable looking chairs set towards them. It looks like this would be an area where someone would bring books or bring other materials to come and do study work, independent research. It has a college vibe to it, to a certain degree.

TRAVIS: As the door cracks, can I use my wolfy nose just to make sure nobody actually could be in here? Do I detect any scents that I've picked up since being on the moon?

MATT: Make a perception check.

TRAVIS: (moan of realization) I forgot to listen through the door!

LAURA: (laughs)

TRAVIS: 17.

MATT: 17. (sniffs) You don't smell anyone here, but there is a unique smell in your immediate vicinity coming from the small satchel of materials that you were given when you left the safe house.

SAM: Oh.

LAURA: Oh. We should probably look at that.

SAM: What?

TRAVIS: Yeah.

ASHLEY: I forgot about that.

TRAVIS: The satchel? What?

LAURA: Should we get inside first?

TRAVIS: What materials?

LAURA: Let's get inside.

TRAVIS: Okay.

MATT: They requested the letters and notes and anything that might--

SAM and LAURA: Oh!

MATT: -- pertain to--

SAM: From the girl.

LAURA: Oh, maybe you can pick up the scent of--

TRAVIS: Oh, yeah yeah yeah, yeah.

LAURA: Let's get inside. Let's get inside and then shut the door.

TRAVIS: Very quietly close the door. Open up the satchel.

MATT: As soon as you open it up, there's a burst of movement, and something leaps and skitters out.

LAURA: Oh my gosh, it's the thing!

MATT: You see--

LAURA: It's her--

MARISHA: It's her cytaa!

LIAM: Her cytaa?

SAM: Cytaa?

ASHLEY: Cytaa?

MATT: You see a small, thin cytaa.

TRAVIS: Oh shit!

MATT: It has--

MARISHA: Oh my god!

MATT: -- one vibrant, blue, clouded eye and one that's a dark brown. As it comes out-- "(gasping for breath)"

LAURA: Oh my gosh, have you been in here the whole time? I'm so sorry.

MATT: "It took you long enough!"

LAURA: We didn't know! They didn't tell there was anything--

TRAVIS: We had no idea!

LAURA: -- living inside!

TRAVIS: Also, they're just talking to nothing.

LAURA: Well, you know, we're invisible.

TRAVIS: There's four of us here. We're friends.

MARISHA: We're here to--

MATT: "What?"

MARISHA: You can't see us, can you?

LAURA: Can you see us?

MATT: "Who are you?" It's not focusing on anything in particular.

TRAVIS: We're friends of Evoroa. We're going to help.

MARISHA: Can you use your eyeglass and hold it up to its eye?

TRAVIS: I think they have to activate it.

LAURA: Oh, okay.

MARISHA: Oh.

TALIESIN: Also, it's invisible when you're holding it.

TRAVIS: I know.

LAURA: Yeah. We're trying to find Evoroa. We know she went missing.

TRAVIS: (light smack)

MATT: "Evoroa, yes."

TRAVIS: (light smack)

MARISHA: (laughs) Don't smack it!

MATT: "She's my Bormodo."

LAURA: Yeah.

MATT: "You're helping?"

LAURA: Yeah, we're helping.

MATT: "You're helping?"

LAURA: Yeah.

MARISHA: What's your name?

MATT: "My name is Gona."

LAURA: Gona. Gona.

MARISHA and LIAM: Gona.

LAURA: Okay, Gona.

TRAVIS: ♪ Gona ♪

LAURA: When was the last time you saw Evoroa? God, why didn't we do this before we fucking left?

MARISHA: I thought it was a bunch of letters.

LAURA: Yeah, me too, me too.

MATT: "When they took her beneath the bay."

TRAVIS: Beneath the bay? What's the bay? I can't whisper in this voice.

MATT: "The Engineering Bay."

TRAVIS: Oh yes, that's right.

MATT: "Where she was working."

LAURA: Do you know the way?

MARISHA: The what? The bay?

MATT: "I can, yes."

LAURA: Great. Oh shit, I've got to spend my--

LIAM: You two are connected, aren't you?

MATT: "Yes."

LAURA: Would you be able to sense her if you were close?

MATT: "She's still alive."

LAURA: Oh my gosh.

LIAM: We're going to get all of us out here. So how are we going to do this?

LAURA: I can cast again, and cast on-- Wait, if Gona is in our clothing, does Gona go invisible?

MATT: Gona was not visible inside the bag, and then once Gona emerged from the bag, became visible.

LIAM: Mm-hmm.

LAURA: Okay.

MATT: So you assume if there is an object that you are wearing that contains Gona, she will also vanish.

LAURA: Okay, great.

MARISHA: She can hang out in my little--

LAURA: Oh yeah, in your birdhouse.

MARISHA: In my birdhouse.

LAURA: In your soul.

SAM: In your soul.

MARISHA: Yes!

MATT: "I don't know what that is."

LAURA: Here, Gona, I'm going to hold my hands out. I'm touching your face.

MATT: "(snuffling) (snorts of acknowledgement)"

LAURA: Here, just hold my hand. Okay.

MATT: "Oh! Oh, oh!"

MARISHA: (laughs)

LAURA: You're in my hands, and I'm going to hold you up.

MATT: Now the minute she crawls into your hands, she can see you, she's now part of the spell.

LAURA: Is she invisible? Does that mean she's invisible as long as I'm holding her?

MATT: She's invisible, yeah.

LAURA: Oh great, so she can just chill on our shoulders, so she can see what she's doing.

MARISHA: Oh, that's great, that's good. Also, Pâté could've made an absolute horror scene in there.

LAURA: Oh yeah, so maybe it's best.

MARISHA: He's a single bachelor, you know.

MATT: Curls into your shirt.

LAURA: Okay.

MATT: "(nervous panting)"

LAURA: All right. Now, do you know your way around this building?

MATT: "We are--" You watch as she looks around the chamber inside. "We are somewhere in the Study chambers."

LAURA: Yeah.

MATT: "That means we go past the Development Hall, and the Engineering Bay should be beneath that."

LAURA: Amazing.

MARISHA: Great. Which way?

MATT: "Out that door," and they point to the only other exit from the chamber that's on the opposite side of the balcony.

SAM: You guys have a guide.

MARISHA: We have a guide! Treshi scry ball.

MATT: Treshi scry ball. Above you.

LAURA: Oh god, I hate this.

LIAM: How long am I going to be invisible for? You guys just--

MARISHA: We just re-upped.

LIAM: You re-upped.

LAURA: Let me double check. How long is my Invisibility?

LIAM: You said 40 minutes before.

LAURA: It is an hour, okay.

LIAM: Probably five or 10 minutes left for me.

LAURA: Okay.

MATT: I'll say with all the climbing and everything, about 10 to 15 minutes left.

MARISHA: Let's try to move quickly, then.

LAURA: All right. As soon as that time is up, I'll tuck into a corner and have to recast it at 4th-level. Oh no, because you can do it to yourself.

TRAVIS: Mm-hmm.

LAURA: So I'll do another 3rd on us as soon as it's been about 10 minutes.

MATT: Okay.

LAURA: Will I be able to sense, will he be able to sense when it's flickering on him?

MATT: Yeah, I'd say you can feel the magic beginning to fade.

LAURA: Okay.

MATT: If you cast it again, you also lose her, so it'd have to be 4th-level to get all three of you.

LAURA: Motherfucker!

MARISHA: Well, let's just move quick.

LAURA: All right.

MARISHA: We'll cross that bridge when we get there.

SAM: Can Chetney cast it on two people? (pigeon coo)

MARISHA: I think he's just a solo--

MATT: No, it's just on him.

TRAVIS: Can. Will?

LIAM: It's a special--

MATT: (laughs)

SAM: (laughs)

MATT: But as you come to the exterior door, Gona the cytaa goes, "(sniffs) All right. I think I know where we are," and curls up next to your ear. "I'll tell you where to go."

LAURA: Okay. I'll follow Gona's directions.

MATT: Okay.

LAURA: Is there anybody around?

LIAM: Yeah. Looking, listening.

MATT: As you slowly open the door to peer beyond it, we're going to come back to this group here.

TRAVIS: Oh! Jumping back. We're jumping back!

LAURA: Back to you, back to you guys, all right.

ASHLEY: We're down--

SAM: I think so. We're on the bottom of the big shaft, right?

ASHLEY: Same building?

MATT: Hmm?

SAM: The big, Prime Pillar?

MATT: You are beneath--

SAM: We're beneath the Prime Pillar.

MATT: The entryway seems to go along the exterior and beneath.

ASHLEY: And you guys are, they're up in the shafty bits.

MARISHA: Base of the prime shaft.

ASHLEY: Okay.

MATT: Yes. (laughs)

ASHLEY: Okay. Okay, okay, okay, okay.

MATT: (heavy sigh)

SAM: If it were--

TRAVIS: The best. That was the best.

SAM: Just to get a sense of scope, if it were nine inches tall in scale, are they at four and a half?

MATT: The entire pillar?

SAM: Yeah.

MATT: I can't tell if you're fucking with me or if you're being serious.

SAM: (laughs) No, do we have any sense of where they are?

LAURA: It's a quarter mile up.

SAM: Oh shit.

LAURA: We're 70 feet up.

TRAVIS: Yeah. Right above you.

MATT: Yeah, so they're very much towards the bottom.

SAM: Very much close to the bottom.

ASHLEY: Okay.

MATT: Correct, and both of you are--

SAM: Nine inches soft.

MARISHA: (laughs)

MATT: You both have probably climbed now--

MARISHA: Just waiting for it.

MATT: -- about 200 or more feet below the surface.

SAM: Okay, okay.

MATT: You're near the bottom of the pillar.

ASHLEY: Okay.

MATT: But as you trek past, the sound of immediate mining and the clustered remnants of the body of workers down here thins a bit as you come to what looks to be a wall. A hard wall, a breach wall of thick, smooth stone. It looks like it was physically erected to reinforce the interior of the structure, and is smoothed around it, but also has a blast boundary, almost like they've learned a bit from the previous attempt.

SAM: Oh.

MATT: It appears quite thick. There is a singular ground-hinged, garage-like door that looks like it would go inward. It's about 12 to 15 feet wide, so it looks like there's an entryway that comes down to let something large travel through, or a cluster of people to travel through. But it does appear to be sealed.

TALIESIN: Sealed or closed?

MATT: You can check.

TALIESIN: As long as I'm not going to get stopped by Ira. I'm going to check with him. Can I take a look?

MATT: Ira gives a nod. At this breach door, there are only three current soldiers that are keeping watch. They watch as you approach. They don't question. It looks like the presence of the Mystic definitely adds an air of don't bother, and most folks, upon watching, bow and keep to their own business while you step alongside as the accompaniment.

ASHLEY: Are we going inside?

TALIESIN: We can't yet.

SAM: There's nothing-- We can't open yet.

TALIESIN: I'm going to start taking a look around. Do I see a mechanism? Do I see anything that looks-- Or is it just, have they decided to lock this off because things are now moving at speed?

MATT: You can make a perception or investigation check, if you'd like.

TALIESIN: I may actually, just to make this a little easier, your perception and investigation is fabulous, correct, Fearne, if I recall?

ASHLEY: It's great. So I can assist you.

TALIESIN: I'm, in my head, going to: Fearne, can you come take a look at this?

ASHLEY: Yes.

TALIESIN: Then out loud: (grunts)

ASHLEY: Yes, yes.

TALIESIN: Yes.

ASHLEY: I'm also going to have--

TALIESIN: Be natural. Act natural.

ASHLEY: I'm going to have Mister, pop Mister out.

MATT: Okay. A flaming monkey.

ASHLEY: As the--

TALIESIN: No, he's not a flaming monkey.

ASHLEY: He's the--

MATT: Oh the cytaa, right.

ASHLEY: Yes, he's a cytaa.

MATT: Sorry, yeah.

ASHLEY: So I have him out, or he was already out.

MATT: He's already been out with you.

ASHLEY: He's already been out.

MATT: Yes.

ASHLEY: I'll just mark that.

MATT: I was like, if you're popping him out, he wouldn't be under the illusion, but he's been there the whole time.

TRAVIS: (monkey screeching) Mission over.

ASHLEY: Okay, I'm going to help--

MATT: Snake? Snake!

ASHLEY: -- look around, try to see if it's been sealed or if it's just closed off.

MATT: Go for it.

ASHLEY: Okay. Ooh! Okay.

SAM: Investigation? Perception?

TALIESIN: Either.

MATT: Either one of those two. Different facets you can find with either.

ASHLEY: 24.

MATT: 24, and this is--?

ASHLEY: Perception.

MATT: Perception. Glancing around here, you feel pretty confident, you do not see any mechanism or pulley or any device that opens it from this side. It also does appear to be quite thick and quite closed.

ASHLEY: Ira. What's the plan here? Aren't we trying to get in here?

TALIESIN: I'm going to go back and go to Ira and genuflect. We're having a problem.

MATT: Ira presses into your heads, "They got this up faster than I thought they would, and most of the reinforcement of this tunnel thus far has been less than exemplary. Besides, if they have this closed on this side, whatever they're using to dig might be beyond this."

TALIESIN: What do we do about the guards?

MATT: "I can bring myself there and maybe one other on the opposing side, but that's the extent of my ability."

ASHLEY: Well--

SAM: Ashton, can you--

TALIESIN: I could do it, but it would make some noise, and I can't bring-- I can make a hole, but it'll be very loud.

SAM: Very loud?

TALIESIN: Very loud.

SAM: I could make a hole, and I don't think it would be as loud, but it will be small.

MATT: Ira shifts forward and looks to the others there intently, and one of them looks back and nods, looks back at the other, and the three of them nod, and they all begin to walk up from where you came.

ASHLEY: Great job, great job.

MATT: Ira turns back and says, "I've sent them to retrieve me some materials, so we have a few minutes."

ASHLEY: Oh, great.

MATT: "But they also cannot open it, because they are told to ensure something doesn't happen like we're plotting, and it can only be opened from the other side."

ASHLEY: All right.

TALIESIN: What's your plan?

SAM: Now we can make noise, right? They're gone. So you could go under, or I have Stone Shape.

TALIESIN: Stone Shape might--

SAM: But it's only five feet. So if this stone wall is thicker than five feet, I won't be able to get through it.

ASHLEY: I think I could have Mister-- I could Dimension Door with Mister, but again, that's 15 feet.

SAM: I could try to tunnel. Is the floor stone as well? I guess everything is stone.

MATT: Everything around here is smoothed stone.

SAM: So I could go under it like I'm digging a little tunnel like a skunk does under the--

ASHLEY: Do we have the hole? We don't have the hole. Who has the hole?

TALIESIN: I don't remember if I or Laura has the hole anymore.

TRAVIS: I think you have it.

TALIESIN: I think I have the hole. I don't think the hole will do that, though.

TALIESIN: All right, last question.

SAM: Oh wait, I can do it also with the staff. I can cast Passwall with the staff and make a hole in the door.

TALIESIN: I think that's a great fucking idea.

ASHLEY: Okay. That's not--

TRAVIS: Then there's a hole, right?

SAM: Then there's a hole.

TALIESIN: Yes, but then you can Stone Shape back five feet of the door if we make the door smaller.

SAM: But the door is metal, not stone?

MATT: No, the door is stone, but it's deeply solid, smooth stone.

SAM: Oh!

TALIESIN: So as long as we--

ASHLEY: We don't know how deep it is, right?

MATT: Correct.

TALIESIN: But as long as we can get all the way through, then you just have to make a couple feet of stone. No one's going to kick that as long as it looks like what it did before.

SAM: Sure.

TALIESIN: Should be fine, right?

SAM: Sure. Sure.

MATT: Do you want to do that?

SAM: Yes, let me just see.

TALIESIN: Double check.

SAM: I'm going to check my spells. Stone Shape lasts for how long?

TALIESIN: It's permanent.

SAM: Is it just a one thing?

LAURA: Yes.

TALIESIN: You shape the stone. The stone is shaped and as long as the door is not too big and we're willing to--

MATT: Yeah, Stone Shape is instantaneous and it is permanent.

SAM: Okay.

TALIESIN: So as long as that path, we can get from one side of this door to the other and you can Stone Shape to put the stone back where it came from.

SAM: Okay. All right then, before I do this, before I waste both things, we could just go under the door. I could just make a thing that goes under, but we don't know how thick the door is. The door can't be more than five feet thick, that's crazy! Right? Right?

TALIESIN: Well, we don't have to fill in the whole door anyway. We just have to fill in a little bit--

MATT: I will say, it's definitely built to be a breach wall against explosives.

TALIESIN: So it could be very thick.

SAM: All right, all right, all right. I'm casting Passwall with the Staff of Dark Odyssey.

MATT: All righty.

ASHLEY: All right, good idea.

MATT: All right, cool, so it can up to five feet wide, eight feet tall and 20 feet deep. So are you making a door? Are you carving--

TALIESIN: I would say we want a tunnel, just not too big so that you can just use as much Stone Shape to fill it in as possible.

TRAVIS: Veneer.

MATT: Now--

SAM: A five by five hole but 20 feet long.

MATT: Okay, so you focus on it and the solid smooth stone boundary before you (whooshes) just, this tunnel opens up right there and as you glance through, it's about 15 feet thick.

SAM: Ho, ho, ho!

LAURA: Wow.

MATT: They built this to ensure that something wasn't going to get through it, but, indeed, it exits the opposite side. It is a cartoon tunnel at this point.

SAM: Okay.

ASHLEY: All right.

TALIESIN: Wait, does this tunnel disappear once the spell is over or does it stay?

MATT: The openings disappear when it's done, it lasts for an hour--

TALIESIN: But we can dispel it?

MATT: Or you can end it--

SAM: I can dispel it?

MATT: -- prematurely if you wanted.

TALIESIN: So once we're all through, just dispel it.

ASHLEY: Great, go!

TALIESIN: Go, go, go!

ASHLEY: Wait what if somebody's--

SAM: I'm going to say this, I'm going to say this.

ASHLEY: Okay.

SAM: We do have to escape, but probably we can open the door from the other side when it's time to?

TALIESIN: Yeah, it'll be fine.

ASHLEY: Yes, yes.

SAM: Okay, okay, it'll be fine? Okay, okay, yeah.

ASHLEY: I'm sure we'll be totally fine.

MATT: As you all dart through this opening through the temporary tunnel 15 feet through, you emerge from the opposite side and the dull lantern light that has accompanied you along the way in this tunnel becomes nearly non-existent. It is almost a complete shadow on the opposite side, just the dull blue glow of some distant lanterns that are further in that haven't quite been triggered by your presence to alight. But as you've all stepped through the opposite side along with Ira, you can leave it open or you could close it behind you.

SAM: I think I'll close it behind me. Do we need some light?

TALIESIN: Actually, is it an hour?

SAM: It's an hour, but if they come back in two minutes and see a big hole.

ASHLEY: They see it?

TALIESIN: That is a thing you could do with Stone Shape is you could Stone Shape it and keep it up.

SAM: That's what I was saying. But when we get to the other side of the tunnel, I'm going to--

MATT: Yeah, as you're discussing this, Ira goes, "I believe I can handle this." He's going to go ahead and cast an illusionary spell and as he does, the surface of both sides.

SAM: Perfect.

MATT: Seem to remain, he says, "Now it's our little secret." (laughter)

TALIESIN: Oh, we're back to spooky now? (laughter)

TALIESIN: You were starting to freak me out, big man. (laughter)

SAM: Even though it's low light over here, low light, dim light? Can I just look around and see, is there a way to open this door if we needed to, to let the blast out to cause more damage?

MATT: From this side, what you do see is that the garage door that comes down, there are chained attachments that pull it up and through. So there's actually a contraption on the ceiling above it where it maintains it. There is a heavy metal wench that pulls it up there. It looks like it's been built in to hold it there. On this side, there is a lever that opens.

SAM: That's good to know, good to know.

TALIESIN: Any reason why I shouldn't light up a lantern down here?

MATT: "I don't think so. Let's keep it interesting."

TALIESIN: Touché, all right, I'm going to light up a little, since no one has magic light as far as I know.

SAM: I do, I do.

TALIESIN: Oh.

SAM: But it might look weird coming from a little fun fungus guy.

MATT: Ira extends his hand and you watch as this little spark (crackles) begins to spark and then (whooshes) this will-o'-wisp looking dull blue flame flickers in the air in front of him, and he walks with it drifting about five feet in front of him.

TALIESIN: I don't even know why I bother. Shitbag. (laughter)

TALIESIN: Dick.

MATT: As you continue down, and this side of the tunnel gets a lot rougher. This one seems like it's been recently dug through since the blast door was finished, and it looks like they've pushed beyond it in recent days even. A few things, one, beyond the breach wall, the tunnel begins to, there are elements of erosion that are put into it where something is pushed past and pressed into the nearby rock without reinforcement, you don't see the same smoothed tunnel braces, thank you, brain, built up on the sides of the wall. You do also hear a distant grinding sound echoing further down, and as you approach the nearby lanterns, they glow. As you walk past, they diminish. These look like they're nailed into the wall by these long pikes that keep them held and dangling there, but they're much more sparse. You can see as it begins to light up and the light that Ira carries and you see refracting the little glows, there are elements of glass that now begin to emerge from the wall like wayward crystals, like parts that have grown through or have been here for a long time that have been unearthed, some of which have been broken past, like something has drilled into and through them. You can see where it's jagged and broken and there's glass dust and bits of rough glass rock across the ground mixed with the loose gravel and dirt.

SAM: Okay, okay. Does it look like the glass that my weapon is made out of?

MATT: It all appears to be the same Ruidian glass.

TALIESIN: Mm.

ASHLEY: Okay.

SAM: All right.

MATT: You hear the heavy grinding sound as it gets louder and louder until you curve around the edge of the corner to the right-hand side and through this rough hewn space, the elements of glass that it's curved and pushed into the excavation, it becomes more and more prevalent, like it's burrowing now into the base of the pillar beneath where the cavern ends. You can see there's a large portion of the wall that is now broken glass. The grinding sound is now met with the sound of some sort of a hum and the glow and grinding that pulls your attention down the end of this hallway, and you do see the end of this excavation. There are a handful of Reiloran figures that are manning a machine, a contraption that has some sort of a black exhaust that pours out the sides of it. The smell that fills the space here, it's reminiscent of a burning oil, but also has the smell after a lightning strike and as it grinds and burrows in, you can hear that horrible whining sound of metal hitting glass, and it's having a hard time. You can't tell at this brief instance if it's moving at all, but the sound is now starting to really pierce your ears. Glancing down the way, you begin to take in exactly who's ahead of you. You see the massive device, it's about eight feet wide, it looks like it's on some sort of rollers and there is a massive handle where a hulk is pushing it into the wall and it's a (intense grinding), just grinding into it. You can see bits of the stone crumbling away behind it into destroyed gravel and bits of glass, (whooshing) shearing off, and like ting, ting, spinning around the room. Keeping watch beyond that, you see there are two other small, simply dressed, but officious looking Reiloran that are currently holding the sides of this device, keeping tabs on it and making sure that it functions properly. There is one that has a little more special Imperium Army, Dominion of Cruth armor that is keeping watch down the tunnel in your direction.

TALIESIN: Three Reilorans and a hulk?

MATT: Mm-hmm.

TRAVIS: But one of those Reilorans is fancier.

TALIESIN: One Reiloran has a fancy vibe.

SAM: But it's not the Sunder King?

MATT: No, no, no.

SAM: Okay, okay.

MATT: It's a standard size.

TRAVIS: Does that third one look like a Thought Eater?

MATT: No.

TALIESIN: We've never seen this kind of clothing before, or--?

MATT: You've seen it in members of the Dominion of Cruth. You know what? I would say yes, you've seen this armor, the closest equivalent of it would be the one that you saw in the Glassworks, that you briefly convinced you were one of its children.

ASHLEY: Okay.

TALIESIN: Okay, feels like why. Yeah.

ASHLEY: That's all that's down here?

MATT: That's all you see in this portion of the tunnel, yes.

ASHLEY: Okay. Ira?

MATT: "Yes?"

ASHLEY: What's the plan? Are we going up?

MATT: "We could set them down around here."

ASHLEY: Set them down?

SAM: The explosives?

ASHLEY: The explosives?

MATT: "Yes."

TALIESIN: Do you think this is close enough?

MATT: "Maybe a bit closer, just to ensure everything goes."

ASHLEY: Okay, I have a wild idea. What if we say, you know, like, "Hey, we're going to work on the machine. We were told that we needed--"

SAM: Like we're repair people?

ASHLEY: We needed to repair, good job.

TALIESIN: To three telepaths?

ASHLEY: Well.

TALIESIN: Yeah. (laughter)

ASHLEY: You know, and then we can make sure that the boom boom is right at the source.

TALIESIN: They might be able to alert others, though. I don't know how far, well, you might know how far they can think.

SAM: I like this idea.

ASHLEY: I know, but you're also right, because that is a lot of them that could alert. But then also, how far away from them? They have not seen us yet?

MATT: You do not think they've seen you yet, you just barely saw around the corner and are holding as the turn goes into the main tunnel.

ASHLEY: Okay.

SAM: How big are these bombs?

MATT: Ira puts his hand on the shoulder and pulls the currently illusion-cloaked package from the side and sets it down, as he does, you see it appear on the ground. It is a heavy camping backpack, full on large thing on the back. As he opens up the top and pulls it out, you can see there's elements of arcane cores that you've encountered in Bassuras that power a lot of the devices there and a number of the devices that you've seen Ira build, and they're affixed to materials, rough looking clay-like materials that are mashed into it. You can see there are runes dug both into the material and placed around metal bands that hold it all together. Each one weighs about 30 or so pounds and it looks like he has six of them.

SAM: Oof.

TALIESIN: Nice.

ASHLEY: Were you planning on using all of these down here? Or are you saving some?

MATT: "Of course."

ASHLEY: Okay, got it.

TALIESIN: Go big or go home.

MATT: "We've got to wipe this off the moon."

SAM: Are these a light it and throw it type of a bomb or a timer type of a thing?

MATT: "You set a period of time."

SAM: Okay, okay, we've got to get them closer, though, I assume.

MATT: "Mm-hmm." (laughter)

SAM: What were you going to do if we weren't here?

MATT: "Well, if you weren't here, I was going to walk down here and try and take them all under my mind's sway and have them turn around while I set them and then walked out and blew it all up."

SAM: Sounds like--

ASHLEY: That's a great idea.

SAM: -- a pretty good plan. (laughter)

ASHLEY: Let's just give it a try, I guess.

MATT: "Sure, it worked well last time for me."

ASHLEY: I'm sure the same thing will happen. They'll just walk right out of here.

TALIESIN: Would it be easier to put them to sleep since the door's not open at the moment?

SAM: Do we have that sort of ability?

MATT: "To a certain degree, I might be able to send some of them into a slumber."

SAM: Are you going to need some help?

TALIESIN: The door, I figure, probably makes some things problematic.

MATT: "I guess let's look in to see who we can put on our side for a bit. Stay close."

SAM: Stay close? All right.

MATT: "Or if you wish to stay unseen in case someone slips away?"

SAM: One of you want to stay back, or both of you? I've got some charming things too. You're persuasive.

ASHLEY: So should I go up there?

SAM: I don't know. Do you have any charming type spells?

ASHLEY: Yeah, I do, I do.

SAM: Okay, so do I.

TRAVIS: Somebody's got to play safety.

TALIESIN: I'll play safety.

ASHLEY: All right.

TALIESIN: Anything walks by that I don't recognize, I will hit it until it sits down.

ASHLEY: Okay, go team!

MARISHA: Sports!

MATT: "All right, so you are staying back and I'm--"

MARISHA: I was like, "What does he mean by safety?"

ASHLEY: I think we'll come up and--

SAM: We'll come with you

MATT: "Very well."

ASHLEY: Should you need help.

TALIESIN: I'm playing catch.

MATT: "(sighs) Let's go destroy something beautiful."

ASHLEY: That's a little bit intense, but okay.

MATT: As you all begin to glide down towards the horrible grinding sound at the end of this hallway, turning around the corner, you can see some of the watch look over in your direction and raise a hand, and the machine (clunks) grinds to a stop. The hulk keeps pushing and the other ones had to be like, "Shh!" Turns up and looks around as the mystic and his companions approaches. From there, we're going to come to you all--

SAM: Ah, jesus!

TALIESIN: Reminding you, you can call me--

MATT: -- when we come back from a break. (yelling)

TRAVIS: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SAM: Wait, we're taking a break?

MATT: We're taking a break now.

SAM: A break?

ASHLEY, LAURA, and SAM: Ah!

MATT: I just realized it's two hours now, so I'm going to take a break now, and we'll come back to you guys when we return.

MARISHA: Okay.

LAURA: Damn it, I shouldn't have thrown out my lollipop.

MARISHA: We have more in the lobby. A lobby-pop.

TALIESIN: We're going to do fine. We're going to do fine.

ASHLEY: A lobby-pop.

TALIESIN and ASHLEY: We'll be fine.

MATT: Indeed. we'll see you all here shortly for wherever this split chaos continues. We'll see you in a minute.

LAURA: (sighs)

LIAM: Bye.

Break

(epic music) (unsettling music) (tavern music)

TALIESIN: Delve into a new tabletop roleplaying game of investigative horror with the "Candela Obscura Core Rulebook" using the Illuminated Worlds System by Darrington Press. Roam the turn-of-the-century- inspired setting of the Fairelands, including the bustling city of Newfaire and the ancient ruins of Oldfaire below. Assemble a circle of investigators within the paranormal secret society of Candela Obscura. You'll analyze strange and horrifying events, fight back against dangerous phenomena, and contain the bleed that spreads from corruptive magick. Choose from 10 custom character sheets to empower your investigations and explorations. Use tactical intuition and brawn with the Soldier specialty, use your charm with finesse and flair as the Magician specialty, or study and practice mystical arts as an Occultist. Explore districts of Newfaire, competing organizations, four full assignments, and dozens of example assignments to inspire you. If you choose to brave the role of Game Master, this guide contains everything needed to pave the way for your Candela Obscura investigators. Offered in both a standard edition as well as an ornate limited edition for collectors, the "Candela Obscura Core Rulebook" contains 204 art-filled pages, including maps, items, immersive notes, mysteries, and plenty more to power your very own story. Keep this tome close for the knowledge obtained may be the key to protecting you, your allies, and the Fairelands.

LAURA: Hey Critters! Laura Bailey here to guide you through what's new in the Critical Role shop. Ooo so comfy cozy. Roll an investigation, if you want, it's basically perfect. This is pretty badass. (gasp) Could anything be more perfect? Style should never be a dump stat, Darling. Ooo look at this, look at the details, ooo! Look at this. Isn't it fashion? So much fashion happening here. You need this? You probably need this. And hey if you want, you could head over to the Critical Role shop right now.

TALIESIN: Knowledge of the Flare is not exclusively held by Candela Obscura. There are many in the Fairelands who try to exploit the magical bleed we work to quell. In the gilded halls of the Varnish, the wealthy gather to celebrate their collected avarice and gluttony, but beneath their revels, sinister plots cast shadows of the past onto the present. When Newfaire's most powerful find themselves in competition, it is those who work in their shadows that suffer the consequences. The Circle of the Crimson Mirror: Assignment #4316, The Gilded Graveyard.

NARRATOR 1: Jonas Spahr is getting ready for work. NARRATOR 2: Brushing his hair, trimming his beard, adjusting his uniform. He's very critical of his reflection. Everything must be perfect. NARRATOR 3: Or at least look perfect, today. NARRATOR 1: It's kind of hard to concentrate on looking perfect. He keeps getting jostled. NARRATOR 2: Movers are packing up his possessions and moving him out of the consector's mansion NARRATOR 3: Everything's going in boxes. Movers are bumping around, picking things up. NARRATOR 2: And more movers are jostling around those movers. It's very chaotic. NARRATOR 1: Today Spahr is being moved out of his house, and someone else is being moved in. This isn't his house anymore. Tomorrow he will be getting ready for work somewhere else. NARRATOR 2: Normally, his company entourage would be briefing him on the day's events, current affairs, his schedule, et cetera. He doesn't have an entourage anymore though, so he's catching up on the latest the way any other regular trustee would, by listening to the news on the teletheric.

(ominous music) (epic music) (mischievous music) (typewriter clacking) (peaceful music)

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Part II

MATT: Welcome back. (laughter) So, over here.

MARISHA: (stressed groan)

MATT: The folks who have been sneaking into--

LAURA: (stressed groan)

SAM: (goofy laugh)

MATT: -- the Colloquium.

MARISHA: (laughs)

MATT: Stepping into the hallway and looking out to each side, it looks to be, at the moment, empty. The cytaa, Gona, glances back. "I will show you the way. I will whisper it to you. You continue where you need to be."

TRAVIS: Wait, before we go, should we re-up now? We should. We're in a room.

LAURA: Yeah, you're right. You're right.

TRAVIS: Before we continue on. It's only 10 more minutes.

TRAVIS: Yeah.

LAURA: All right, okay.

LIAM: Let's step back into the room.

LAURA: Right before we go out: Hey Chet, do you want to take any of these books from right here? It's not like it's any texts that we have on Exandria.

TRAVIS: Books? Books about what? Oh, oh.

LAURA: We're in a study, right? Are there any books in here?

TRAVIS: Yeah.

MATT: So the Study, it's a place for bringing research here, but there are no books--

LAURA: Oh, got it.

MATT: -- necessarily present. It's more of a general use quiet room.

TRAVIS: Okay.

LAURA: Got it, got it, got it. All right, I will cast at 4th-level. Chet, do you need-- Can you re-up yourself?

TRAVIS: Hey, I'll drop Invisibility, or I'll let it fall, and then I'll look at Gona and go: I feel, I feel strange. I'll "Terminator 2" pull Chetney's hand off and there's just a big werewolf claw underneath. Oh god!

MATT: "(screeches)"

TRAVIS: (screams)

MATT: "(screeches)"

LAURA: Shh!

MARISHA and TRAVIS: (laugh)

MARISHA: It is pretty good. That's pretty good.

TRAVIS: (transformative cracking) I'll finish transforming into a sexy ass wolf.

LAURA: A sexy ass wolf.

TRAVIS: Then I'll cast Invisibility, or I will activate the monocle.

MATT: You do hear footsteps coming.

LAURA: Oh shit.

MARISHA: Oh shit, oh shit.

LAURA: Okay, 4th-level Invisibility.

TRAVIS: I'll activate the monocle and--

MATT: Okay.

TRAVIS: I'll See Invisibility and cast Invisibility.

LAURA: See Invisibility.

MARISHA: See bidy bibbity.

LAURA: See bidy bibbity.

MATT: So you have See Invisibility and you're invisible. The rest of you have about 10 more minutes of See Invisibility left.

LAURA: Oh, right.

MARISHA: Oh! Oh.

LAURA: I thought that was--

SAM: That was a thing.

TRAVIS: Yeah, but there was no helping that.

MARISHA: Yeah.

LAURA: We're just going to hold hands after 10 minutes.

MATT: You can still See Invisible for 10 more minutes.

LAURA: Yeah.

MARISHA: All right, well let's move quickly.

LIAM: Were you being facetious when you said we heard someone coming?

TRAVIS: Well, let's go.

MATT: No.

LIAM: No.

MATT: The cytaa screamed at the sight of him pulling--

LIAM: I think: Hug the wall, someone's coming.

LAURA: Should we get in the hallway?

MARISHA: Oh, hug the walls?

LAURA: We should get in the hallway. Is the door shut?

TRAVIS: Go, go, go.

MATT: You shut the door behind you, yeah, and then you peeked out.

LAURA: Oh shit.

MATT: So you hear footsteps coming.

LAURA: Oh wait, so the door is open?

LIAM: I went like this and looked out because everyone was freaking the fuck out and I wanted to see if I heard anything, and I did heard something.

TRAVIS: Yeah, backs to the wall.

MARISHA: Backs to the wall.

TRAVIS: Backs to the wall.

MARISHA: Mm-hmm.

MATT: Okay. So you all back into the room, you get into the wall. A brief time passes before (soft footfalls) (hinges creaking) the door opens and you see a Quanikka in longer robes, older-looking fellow, a pair of Ruidian glass spectacles that are polished at the end of his nose that sit right about there. As he lean in.

MARISHA: Cool.

MATT: "Hello? Hmm."

TRAVIS: (deep) "Winston."

LAURA: Shut up.

TRAVIS: No, I'm just kidding. (laughter)

TRAVIS: He got it.

MATT: Dude, terrified me as a kid.

TRAVIS: Yeah, 100%.

MATT: Fucking train filled with heads everywhere. What the hell?

TRAVIS: (dramatic wailing)

MATT: Ernie Hudson, baby.

TRAVIS: Love it.

MATT: All right. The door closes.

LIAM: Wait a good minute and a half--

MATT: Okay.

LIAM: -- of being able to see each other. (nudges door slightly)

MATT: You hear in your ear, (Gona) "Is your friend okay?"

LAURA: Oh. No, never. But--

MATT: "I'm sorry to hear that."

LAURA: Yeah.

MATT: "Well."

LAURA: Me too.

MATT: "We'll complete this mission in his honor."

LAURA: (laughs)

MARISHA and LIAM: (laugh)

MARISHA: (laughs)

MATT: "Anyway, to the right."

LAURA: To the right.

TRAVIS: (skitters)

MATT: All right, I'd like everyone to make a group stealth check with the advantage, because of the Invisibility, please.

TRAVIS: Yeah.

MARISHA: Okay, come on. All right.

LAURA: Come on!

MARISHA: We got this. I'm good, I'm good. I'm good.

LAURA: Oh my god.

MARISHA: Yep. That's a d12. That's a d12.

SAM: (laughs)

MATT: (laughs)

SAM: It'll probably roll better than you're rolling tonight. (laughter)

TALIESIN: The whole night.

MARISHA: To be fair, it almost did.

LAURA: I rolled better than you did on the 20.

LIAM: Ha ha. (laughs)

MATT: (laughs)

TRAVIS: We should start over. Should we start over?

MATT: (laughs) Just take it from the top? Yeah.

TRAVIS: Take two?

MATT: All right, Marisha, what you got?

MARISHA: Okay. 14 total.

MATT: Okay.

LIAM: That's okay.

MARISHA: It's okay.

LAURA: 18 total.

MATT: Okay.

LIAM: Dirty 20.

MATT: All righty.

TRAVIS: 24.

MATT: Okay.

MARISHA: I'll just dream of two-digit numbers.

LAURA: 17 total. My math sucks. 17 total.

MATT: Okay.

MARISHA: Oh my god. (nervous sigh)

MARISHA: That's a bad pun.

TRAVIS: He did something, y'all. He did something. He did something!

MARISHA: Huh?

TRAVIS: He touched something behind the screen!

ASHLEY: Freaks me out.

MARISHA: What? What? Wait.

MATT: You follow the path down that hall, down a set of stairs. You get to the bottom and the hallway before you opens in three different paths. You can see there are a few other robed figures. You see some Reiloran that are just walking down the hall. One pathway, you see one soldier who's coming from right to left. Gona says "To the left. Wait for the soldier to pass, then go where they came from."

TRAVIS: To the left?

LAURA: Mm-hmm.

MATT: You wait for him to pass by and you all scurry on that path as the two distant Reiloran step into another doorway out of sight.

TRAVIS: What is the floor like, is it stone, is it carpeted? Is it just stone?

MATT: It's not carpeted. Most everything here is shaped from stone magically or psychically. Some of them have rougher areas, but this place is a very nice structure and it looks like everything has been intentionally shaped and made through will and magic.

LIAM: Is it more smooth or cornered edges?

MATT: It's still angular in the hallways, definitely cornered edges. But if you look close at the texture, it has a little bit of a more natural smooth stone texture than a straight wall.

LIAM: All right, all right, all right.

MATT: Yeah. There's no brick edges. Everything is built and shaped from the stone as a pure thing. But heading down the hall, it eventually heads to another left-right split and then one spiral stone staircase, a tight one that heads downward. Gona says, "Down the staircase."

LAURA: Got it.

MATT: "Quickly."

LAURA: You're so helpful, Gona.

MATT: "I'm happy to help." You head down to the bottom of the staircase and right at the bottom, closing off the walkway--

LAURA: Shit.

MATT: -- up there are two Reiloran hulks armored in the soldier garb of the Dominion of Cruth, essentially almost like two blockades preventing you from entering the chamber. Gona goes, "(stutters) Sorry." You're all at the bottom of the staircase, looking at the back, the muscular and armored backs of these two hulks.

TRAVIS: So down the stairs and they've got their backs to us?

MATT: Correct, they're essentially guarding other people from getting to the staircase and you are on the backside of them.

MARISHA: Wait, Gona said sorry?

MATT: Yeah.

LAURA: Just because--

TRAVIS: Wasn't expecting this to be down there.

LAURA: They ran us into a couple hulks. How close together are they?

MATT: They're shoulder-to-shoulder.

MARISHA: (anxious grumble)

TRAVIS: I got this.

LAURA: So their legs are apart then, there's a gap at their legs?

MATT: Yeah, there's probably a solid foot and a half between at the base.

MARISHA: Is there--

MATT: Based on their size and scope.

LAURA: Mm.

MARISHA: -- a gap above the door?

MATT: They're pretty tightly in there. There's about a six-inch gap from where the top of their heads and shoulders are to the ceiling that's in this chamber.

LIAM: The stairs here are big enough, must be, to accommodate their massive feet?

MATT: This staircase is not.

LIAM: Not?

MATT: They probably came down here through a different means.

LIAM: Okay.

MARISHA: What do you have in mind?

LAURA: What are you going to do, Chet?

TRAVIS: Toys make the world go round.

MARISHA: (gasps)

TRAVIS: I'll reach into my little pouch and I'll take out two toys that I have worked on.

MARISHA: Chetney Claus is real.

TRAVIS: One is a little wooden wolf that hinges at the waist and when you set it down, it creates a little bit of movement and another one is a spiral stick with a carve going along the side of it that's got wooden marbles that spin in it. I will, like fucking Batman, just throw them both on the floor (clattering) in front of both of the giants.

MATT: As you throw it through their legs and they scatter to the ground in front, they both (confused grunts), and one of them pulls up a fist and they both glance down. What's the DC on this?

LAURA: Oh jeez.

MARISHA: Come on.

TRAVIS: Five.

MARISHA: Come on. I was waiting for this moment.

LIAM: I've been waiting.

SAM: The DC on this?

TRAVIS: 15 wisdom saving throw.

MATT: 15 wisdom saving throw.

LAURA: Please, please, please, please.

MATT: That's a natural nine.

LIAM: Feels like a coin toss.

MATT: And a natural one.

SAM: Woo!

LAURA: Okay.

MATT: (laughs)

MARISHA: Let's go.

TRAVIS: So they are distracted for one minute.

LAURA: Oh god. Okay.

MATT: All right. So both of them immediately reach down. One grabs one and picks it up. The other's like "What?" Sees the other one and goes for it and picks it up, and they both go (gleeful laughs) and just start looking it over and messing with it.

TRAVIS: Time to go.

MARISHA: Go, go, go. Yes, Chetney!

LIAM: But carefully, carefully. So we're going under their sacks?

LAURA: They moved away because they had to bend down.

MATT: Yeah, a little bit of a gap has presented itself as they stepped for the toys.

LAURA: Okay.

MATT: Gona goes, "Okay, forward, keep going."

LAURA: Straight forward? Straight forward.

MATT: Yep, you continue.

LAURA: In the head. This is all in the heads.

MATT: Well, Gona's whispering it in your ears. Gona doesn't have--

LAURA: I respond in their head.

TRAVIS: As we go by, I very lightly whisper: (dreamy whisper) C-POP. (laughter)

MARISHA: Oh my god.

MATT: Perfect. Going down this hall, you pass by a number of open doorways. You glance into them as you do, but Gona's just like "No, no, keep going." But looking into the sides, you can see they are either sleeping quarters or general resting social quarters, but you see Vanguard members in here, people wearing the Vanguard robes. Some look like they're in the process of playing a card game or going through whatever they brought from home to try and remind them. They're not comfortable in these chambers. They're not incredibly well-decorated, they're just standard rooms. You just give quick glances as you go by and see them sitting in the space and it's the mingling of both the Vanguard figures and the Reiloran figures in the current truce they hold and still that odd tension and gulf between them culturally.

MARISHA: Question.

MATT: Mm-hmm?

MARISHA: Do we get the sense, now that we're in here, we're not inside the glass spire, are we?

MATT: You don't think so. Everything you've seen is stone at the moment.

LAURA: Okay.

MARISHA: Okay.

LIAM: Also can we see each other anymore?

MATT: Currently, you still can.

LIAM: We still can.

MATT: You guys have been moving pretty rapidly since you left that chamber.

LAURA: Okay.

MATT: You continue down for a bit and then it curves to the left and continues onward. As you do, you can see out of the wall an element of that glass is breaking through the wall. It looks like it's breaking through and into the ceiling to where about a quarter of the chamber is obfuscated by this lower part of a branch of glass.

TRAVIS: That's branching off of what we think is that giant pillar?

MATT: Yeah.

TRAVIS: This whole thing is--

MATT: You imagine, the direction would make sense.

TRAVIS: Yeah.

MATT: If it's to the left of you.

LIAM: Did this building, this location, the Colloquium of Candescence go all the way around?

MATT: Not all the way around, but just a section of it--

LIAM: Okay.

MATT: -- was built onto it.

LAURA: All right.

LIAM: All right.

MATT: Yeah, only Arx Creonum goes all the way around and it is a spiral up it.

LIAM: Okay, okay.

TRAVIS: How far away is that section of glass that's breaching into the room?

MATT: 20 feet ahead of you.

LAURA: All right.

MATT: You can get around it easy. It doesn't block the path.

TRAVIS: I'll be right back. I'll walk over to it and I want to put a hand on it and I want to use Grim Psychometry.

MARISHA: Yes.

LAURA: Mm.

TRAVIS: Just see what I can feel off of this giant pillar of glass that's the focal point of this area.

MATT: Okay, roll for that.

TRAVIS: Okay.

SAM: Minor Illusion.

TRAVIS: History, advantage, "To recall information about fey, fiends or undead, recall information about a darker past surrounding an object you're touching or a location you're present in."

TRAVIS: Oh, eight.

TRAVIS: Ugh, it's only a 14.

LAURA: Ugh.

MATT: Only a 14?

TRAVIS: Yeah.

MATT: You concentrate and focus, and you get flashes, flashes of red, like a red filter over images just (strobing images) in your mind. You see stone crushing, you see feelings of anger and hunger. You feel a brief moment of aloneness, and that's all.

TRAVIS: Okay. All right, let's keep going.

MATT: Continuing along this way, you go past and you can see it hasn't grown through the stone, the stone has been built around it.

MARISHA: Around it.

MATT: It looks like some buildings would be built around a tree or a structure, this looks like the entirety of this was built on and around any existing protrusions. So either these branches have grown over time and they've accompanied them, or the branches have always been there. You continue down the hall-like curvature at this point. Now previously, it was straight hallways. Now it seems like it's following the slight curve of one edge of the glass pillar.

LIAM: Are we level or are we?

MATT: You're level as you're going.

LIAM and LAURA: Okay.

MATT: As best you can tell. Then it begins to descend a pair of stairs, one that goes straight down in front and one that goes to the left. Gona goes "Let me see. I think it's to the left. I think it's to the left."

LAURA: Okay. All right, to the left. Oh!

MARISHA: Treshi scry ball.

SAM: (slurred) Treshi-shu-shu.

LAURA: Okay, okay, okay.

MARISHA, LAURA, and LIAM: (slurred) Treshi-shu-shu-shu-shu.

MATT: Treshu sha-shu?

TRAVIS: Okay.

MATT: All right.

MARISHA: It doesn't look like it's moved at all, it's just hanging stationary?

MATT: Best you can tell. It's not a perfect GPS. You can get the general distance. It's still above you to a degree.

TRAVIS: Oh yeah, center of the pole, that's right.

MATT: You head down the left staircase and it switchbacks twice. You can smell the air shifting a bit here.

LAURA: Chet!

MATT: (laughs)

TRAVIS: It's something about the moon.

MARISHA: Because it's lower pressure?

MATT: There's a chemically scent that mixes in the air. As you come down the third stair switchback, it leads into a smaller chamber, and in here, you can see there are two Reilora that are currently sitting at two different tables. They have instruments, metal and stone instruments that have various knobs on them, and they are in the process of inspecting samples of some kind. It's a semi-arcane laboratory. Elements of it seem more rudimentary than what you've seen at higher places of arcana, but then other elements seem quite high tech. It's a unique mixture of the two.

MARISHA: Does it look like there are stairs that continue down beyond this chamber?

MATT: This chamber, it's about I'd say a 20-by-30-foot room and there's some decoration and there's a couple shelves that have some things upon them, different types and shapes Ruidian glass. You can see there are jars that contain dark liquid and things that hang in them of different sizes and colorations and there is an open archway on the opposite side of the room that enters into a larger chamber and on the inside there, you can see there is a long table and an extended smaller chamber beyond that, too, a shine of a smooth glass surface within and then another opening that leads to a further chamber beyond that. It looks this is a cavalcade of laboratory rooms, if you will.

LIAM: I think, what did Gona say? They took her beneath the bay?

LAURA: The Engineering Bay. Do we see any signs or anything that show where the Engineering Bay would be?

MATT: There's no signs in here, but Gona says, "This is the bay."

LAURA: Okay.

MATT: "This is the bay."

MARISHA: Is is there a stair step?

MATT: "I don't know. When they took her, they said they were going to hold her below."

LAURA: Hold her below.

MARISHA: Should we try the other stairwell then?

MATT: "We can."

TRAVIS: In this room, can we look for anything that we've seen near that Malleus Key, like green glass, more of that Aeorian-looking tech, anything that would jog our memory from--

MATT: Make a perception check.

TRAVIS: Based off what we've seen before?

LAURA: Can I go up and look at one of the jars? I'm not going to touch it, I just want to look.

LIAM: There's two individuals in there working?

TRAVIS: 18.

MATT: There's two individuals that are working and sitting at two different tables.

TRAVIS: But they're on their work.

MATT: But they're facing away from you and they're currently called into their work.

LAURA: I did not hear a person.

LIAM and LAURA: (laugh)

LAURA: I'm just like (cheerful hum)

TRAVIS: 18.

MATT: 18. On the far, far chamber, not the next one over, but the one beyond that where there are just open archways that lead into each, in the faint light that's there, you can see there on one table, it looks like there is a similar device, at least in coloration and design as the one that you had procured from that contained box when you first arrived at Kreviris.

TRAVIS: But it's large, right?

MATT: This one looks like it's a smaller piece.

LAURA: Would it fit in the Bag of Holding?

MATT: No, it's a little bit too large for that. I've stretched the limits of what can be fit into a Bag of Holding before. I will say you can certainly try.

TRAVIS: I wouldn't do that.

LIAM: You're going to make a noise.

TRAVIS: I might go over and look at it and see if-- I don't even think we looked at it that close. Is there anything I could pull off of it, or a piece of it that I could take that wouldn't make noise? If not, then I would just leave it alone.

MATT: Do you want to go inspect it?

TRAVIS: Yeah.

LAURA: Is it in the same room with the two workers?

MATT: No, it's two rooms over from that. It's through two archways.

LAURA: All right.

MATT: Are you all going in?

TRAVIS: Through two archways.

MATT: Yeah.

LIAM: These last couple of minutes where we can still see each other.

MATT and LAURA: Mm-hmm.

LIAM: And we're still going off of our same stealth at the moment?

LAURA: Uh-huh.

MATT: Correct.

TRAVIS: Just so we have it, so: Room we are in has two Reilorans in it.

LIAM: Right.

TRAVIS: There's a stairwell going down.

LIAM: It goes down, but also two more chambers.

TRAVIS: And two archways into two other rooms.

MATT: You came down this triple switchback, and it leads to this.

TRAVIS: Yep.

MATT: You can go back up, and there's a second stairway that goes in another direction.

TRAVIS: Oh.

LAURA: Got it.

TRAVIS: So this one comes down to here. There are no stairs that go down from here.

MATT: Correct.

LAURA: There might be further on.

MATT: There might be further on, but from where you are now, of the two paths that you could've taken, this one led to this bay.

LAURA: Got it.

TRAVIS: Yeah.

LIAM: Worth it to see what the hell they're doing.

LAURA: Yeah, so we should head--

TRAVIS: We'll quietly go to the archway, but inspect the archway for any sort of traps or runes or anything.

LAURA: Oh, right.

TRAVIS: With my Monocle of Invisibility.

MATT: Okay. Okay, so you glance around. You see within some of these jars as you pass under the first archway, on the shelf, you can see within these different chemicals, there's organs. Some of them look like they're very young, fetal even--

MARISHA: Oh.

MATT: -- that are arranged and labeled.

LAURA: Any labels that we can read?

MATT: You do not recognize the language.

MARISHA: ♪ I've got my Runic Eyes ♪

MATT: You do, actually.

MARISHA: ♪ What do I see? ♪

TRAVIS: What does that mean? What does that mean?

LAURA: Tell me what your Runic Eyes see.

LIAM: It's just Ripley, Ripley, Ripley, Ripley.

TRAVIS: It's all "Alien 3" coded.

MARISHA: Yeah.

MATT: One of them says, "Primary zinc input: Failure." And the next one says--

MARISHA: Zinc?

MATT and LIAM: Yeah.

MATT: Another one says, "Use of strong psychic influence at second stage. Ruined brainstem. Failed." You see these are all different experimental reminders. You don't know how old they are or how recent they are, but you get the sense quickly that a lot of the things that are collected here are essentially older experiments within the Engineering Bay that have been kept for historical and research purposes.

TRAVIS: Are they trying to grow--

LAURA: Remember, they grew--

MARISHA: They said that there's bioengineering being done.

LAURA: That's how the hulks are created.

MARISHA: And how the Weave Mind is probably still alive.

LAURA: Uh-huh.

MARISHA: They probably have been making beasts of burden. Do they look like Reiloran fetuses?

LIAM: Or any of the peoples that we've met?

MARISHA: Or Bormodo fetuses? Yeah.

MATT: Make a nature check for me.

MARISHA: A nature check.

LIAM: I'm going to, too, because I have some questions. Nope.

MARISHA: Nature's not great. We know I've just been rolling so good, you guys.

LIAM: This is the one, though.

MARISHA: Yeah, I rolled an 18 for 19 total.

LAURA: Hey, that's great. That's great.

LIAM: Do any of them look like that?

MATT: Kind of, actually. (groaned yelling)

ASHLEY: Gross.

LIAM: That's so sad.

MARISHA: It's that it's seeping saliva.

LAURA: That's the grossest part.

TALIESIN: Could he walk into a book?

SAM: Look, his little wee-wee fell off.

MATT and LIAM: Aw.

LIAM: Aw, The Seep strikes again. (laughter)

MATT: Some of them look like they could be Reiloran. These are biologies you're unfamiliar with at those stages of development. Some of them look otherwise. You see one looks Bormodo. You see one that looks like it's another beast. Maybe an avadon, you're not sure. But it looks like there's a wide range of different biological experimentation that has gone on in here. That chemical spell is strong.

LAURA: Oof!

MATT: As you pass beyond the archway into the next chamber, you can see there's other tables set around, and there is a massive alchemical contraption to the left hand side, in the corner. There is a monstrously sized, 15 feet across, Ruidian glass tube with that imperfect surface on it where it warps the shape of it, and a thick, green-brown liquid that fills the inside and the shadow of something that is--

LAURA: Moving?

MATT: At the moment, no. You just see a shadow of shapes, almost spider-like, its weird, odd limbs set in this liquid.

LIAM: So roughly about a Luke Skywalker bath, right? That size?

MATT: Yeah, about 15 feet across and about 12 to 15 feet tall.

LAURA: Yeah, you know, when I heard Engineering Bay, I pictured engines.

LIAM: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

TRAVIS: Why?

LAURA: I don't know.

TRAVIS: (laughs)

SAM: It's right there in the name.

MARISHA: It's biological engineering.

TRAVIS: Okay, so big tube with murky green-brown water, so it's hard to see through it.

LAURA: All right, any labels on that one?

MATT: No labels on that one.

LAURA: All right, and that's the only thing? That's the main thing in this room?

MATT: The main thing in this room, to your left. On the right, you can see a couple of other chairs set up to the side. There's one Bormodo researcher that's currently in the process of gathering a few bits of leather that have writing on them, thin sheets, and rolls them up and starts walking over towards the glass and crosses in front of you all, and you step back as it passes by, a heavy, fur-necked collar around its back, and it inspects and looks in the glass and goes and starts checking some of the glass instruments to your left, leaving an opening into the next chamber.

LAURA: All right, all right, all right.

TRAVIS: Yeah, let's go into that third one.

MATT: Gona's like, "I can sense she's around here. Keep going."

TRAVIS: She's not in this tube, is she?

LAURA: What if she's in the tube?

TRAVIS: I don't know. We'll find out. Actually, just before we leave, I don't think this will hit, but Hunter's Bane for fey, fiends, or undead. Can I feel out towards the tube and see if anything pings?

LAURA: Is that a spell?

TRAVIS: Nope.

MATT: Yeah, it's just a sense. So you try and sense for any undead. No undead.

TRAVIS: Okay.

MATT: No fey, no fiends.

TRAVIS: Check those off. Let's keep going.

MATT: Stepping through into the next room, this is the largest of the rooms you've been in. This has numerous tables with all sorts of equipment on them. You can see small creatures set into smaller alchemical vials and tubes that are affixed to walls above. There are numerous experiments going on here. You can see a number of other caged tubes, and you can see there's the glass and the metal around them. The one you previously saw had metal casing on it. These also have a natural metal cage around the outside of the glass. They're like large pills, if you will. You can see a Reiloran shape in one of them. You look at another, and it looks like something smaller that's growing weird and off. You see on one table, there is a body that is open, and someone, you see a Reiloran, is currently in the process of reaching and essentially--

MARISHA: Autopsy?

MATT: Autopsying this figure. This massive, burly figure. You recognize the scars on the face where a mask was once affixed. This is a Judicator that is currently being pulled apart and researched within the laboratory.

LIAM: A Judicator?

LAURA: Oh shit.

LIAM: Alien autopsy.

LAURA: Oh shit.

MARISHA: Whoa. Wait. Whoa. (laughter)

MARISHA: What was a Judicator doing here?

TRAVIS: The big badass.

LIAM: They dragged--

LAURA: It got taken.

MARISHA: Oh, that's right. Because all the--

LIAM: They came to try to stop that.

MARISHA: They came to stop that.

LIAM: So they took a prisoner of war.

MARISHA: That's right.

LIAM: And brought the religious beefcake here.

MARISHA: Yeah.

LIAM: And cut him open.

MARISHA: Because all the Vasselheim ships got rocked. Oh my god.

LAURA: That's fucked up.

TALIESIN: Damn.

MARISHA: Oh my god!

MATT: There are two other Reiloran figures in here that are overseeing. You see one that has the heavy chained head adornment of a Mystic that is gliding a little bit off the ground and inspecting the space.

TRAVIS: Shit.

MATT: You see another one that is the long, thin, shrike-like body, and has on its side three glass blades, one on each side and one across its back, that dangle and swing with it. They're all keeping watch. On the left hand side, you see one more glass tube. One one side of it, there's a structure. It looks almost like an orrery, but it's a halfway open, artistic rendition of a red sphere. You can see layers, like it's been cut in half, and you get a quick glance. This is likely a theoretical interpretation of Ruidus.

LIAM: A diorama of the moon.

MATT: You can see there's pockets of caverns strewn throughout, and certain things are marked, but what you do notice is the center of it is teal.

MARISHA: Teeth?

TRAVIS, LIAM, and LAURA: Teal.

LAURA: It's the glass. It's the glass.

MATT: There is a glass core to this.

MARISHA: I thought he said teeth.

MATT: A number of these pillars pierce out in the crust in certain ways.

LIAM: So we see glimpses of some sort of mass at the center of this diorama.

MATT: Yeah.

LIAM: How big is the mass compared to the total size of the moon?

TRAVIS: How big that gobstopper?

LIAM: Yeah.

MATT: It looks to be... If it's about this large--

LIAM: Mm-hmm.

SAM: It's nine inches.

MATT: It's about the size of a fist.

TRAVIS: Yo.

MATT: So it's a fair core.

LIAM: That's 40% of the mass, maybe?

MATT: 30 to 40%, yeah.

LAURA: Tight, tight. Tight tight tight tight tight tight tight.

MATT: And how... Okay.

LAURA: This is a theoretical representation of Ruidus.

MATT: It is, but the liquid tube next to it catches your attention as well as you see floating within it the shadowed shape of a female Bormodo--

LAURA: Fuck, of course.

MATT: -- who's floating in the vat.

LIAM: In a vat, okay.

MATT: You hear in your ear, Gona go, "No."

LAURA: Okay.

MATT: "She's still alive. I can sense her. We have to get her out."

LIAM: Shit. So.

LAURA: Mm-hmm. In Gona's head, I say: Trust. Just keep quiet. We're going to get her out, I promise.

MATT: We're going to come to you guys.

MARISHA: (groans)

LIAM: Oh jeez!

LIAM: Oh! That felt bad!

LAURA: We need to start--

MATT: As you step out and approach this device--

SAM: Just before we step out and approach, I'm going to quickly, just quickly, bind with these two folks.

ASHLEY: Yes, great. Great idea.

SAM: Do a little Sympathetic Binding.

MATT: You got it, okay. As you bind them and step out, the initial sentinel steps and approaches and begins to head towards the Mystic, a little more bold than some of the others have been, but definitely nothing aggressive. Mostly everyone else has shown a reverence, mostly, towards the Mystic. This one cocks a head out of curiosity and approaches. Ira steps forward and begins to gesture like he's speaking towards it. Moves a hand this way, moves a hand this way, and releases it. Could I have you three roll d20s for me, please?

SAM: He's staying back.

MATT: Right.

SAM: Just a d20.

MATT: A d20.

ASHLEY: Just rolling d20s.

SAM: Cool, cool.

ASHLEY: No big deal.

SAM: Five.

LAURA: Okay, okay, okay.

ASHLEY: 16.

TALIESIN: Eight.

MATT: Eight? So you're rolling the saving throws for these figures.

SAM: Oh, for them?

MATT: Yeah.

SAM: Oh. Oh, good.

MATT: Actually, technically, it would be one more, because it was two engineers and the juggernaut, and the one that's approaching, so roll one more.

SAM: Why don't you roll again? Maybe you'll do badly this time, please.

ASHLEY: Three.

SAM: Perfect.

ASHLEY: Ask and you shall receive.

MATT: So the two engineers that are on the sides of the structure turn over and look towards Ira. The one that he's talking to also looks over and nods. Actually, let me check one statistic on this one here. That would be over here.

ASHLEY: Statistic?

TALIESIN: Say the word and tell me when you need--

ASHLEY: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SAM: Yeah yeah yeah, yeah yeah yeah.

ASHLEY: We'll keep you posted. We're just--

MATT: Okay, yeah.

ASHLEY: It looks like there's some--

MATT: The three of those figures immediately nod and leave their post and begin to walk up the tunnel--

SAM: Oh, that was easy.

MATT: -- as Ira turns and gestures that direction.

ASHLEY: So how many? There's two left?

SAM: There's one left.

MATT: The juggernaut. The juggernaut, which goes--

ASHLEY: Of course, the dumb juggernaut.

SAM: Can you do something there, Fearnie?

MATT: And approaches, looking confused. Gets up close to Ira. Ira begins to gesture incredibly intensely towards this figure. One of you roll another d20 for me, if you don't mind.

SAM: Uh-oh, he's casting it again? Natural 20.

ASHLEY: Stop it!

LAURA: That was for them?

SAM: That was for the bad guy.

TRAVIS: You rolled it for the bad guy?

SAM: I did.

LAURA: Why? Why did you roll for the bad guy?

SAM: He told me to! It's his fault!

MATT: This was not for charm.

TRAVIS: (laughs) Self-inflected.

MATT: This was not for charm. This was for a dominate. So Ira goes and releases this spell towards it, and the juggernaut goes--

SAM: Uh-oh.

ASHLEY: Charm.

MARISHA: Come on!

MATT: Now, I'm going to check one thing. (laughter)

TRAVIS: Charmed!

TALIESIN: You may not be able to. Well, it's a different person casting it.

ASHLEY: Charm.

SAM: Chiggity-charm.

LIAM: (like Fearne) Charms, charms, charms.

LAURA and ASHLEY: Charm.

LAURA: Pleasure, pleasure.

ASHLEY: Maybe I should do this instead.

SAM: (quick breathing)

MATT: Okay, no, I mean, you can still attempt to charm it, if you'd like to.

LAURA: You can do it, Fearne.

MARISHA: You got it.

MATT: Sam, roll another d20 for me.

MARISHA: We believe in you!

LAURA: Roll like shit, Sam!

SAM: 14.

MATT: 14. What's your DC?

ASHLEY: 18.

LAURA: (gasps)

MATT: That would be a total of 16 with its wisdom. (relieved groaning)

TRAVIS: Dude.

MATT: So.

LAURA: She's so charming.

MARISHA: Witches be bitches.

MATT: It brings its fists back.

ASHLEY: Witches be bitches.

MATT: Right as it does so, you release the spell, and it--

ASHLEY: (startled noise)

MATT: It looks towards you, and still continues to bring its fist back towards Ira. What do you do?

SAM: Oh, because he's only charmed for you.

LAURA: Yeah.

SAM: He thinks you're a friend.

ASHLEY: Hey, hey! I'll hop in front of Ira.

LIAM: As a Bormodo.

MATT: You hop in front of Ira?

ASHLEY: Yes.

MATT: Okay, I'm going to say, roll a dexterity saving throw to see if you can get in there before the juggernaut makes contact.

ASHLEY: Sure, sure, sure, sure, sure, sure, sure.

SAM: Makes sense, makes sense.

ASHLEY: Okay.

LIAM: This is the Jim Henson side of the table.

ASHLEY: Okay, that's good. 19.

MATT: 19, okay. You see this happening as Ira's pulling back again, ready to prepare some other spell as you dart in and wedge yourself in front of the way. As you do, the juggernaut stops with its fist and looks down at you like (grunts) and you hear in your head, "What? I do not think this is what it's supposed to be."

ASHLEY: Oh, but it is. You need to do what he told you to do, because he told you to leave, I'm pretty sure. He told you to leave, in your head. Listen, I know you're doing your job, but we came down here because we had to do something.

MATT: It regards you as an ally, but the conflicting orders are challenging. Would you roll a persuasion check for me, please?

ASHLEY: Okay.

LIAM: Come on, Bormodo.

SAM: Easy.

ASHLEY: Persuasion? Okay.

MATT: This is also a Bormodo giving commands, friendly as the spell may be, to a juggernaut.

ASHLEY: 22.

MATT: 22. The juggernaut releases the tension in the fingers, and the arms drop to the side.

ASHLEY: We're all friends here, we're all friends here.

MATT: Gives a nod to you. Walks past you, walks past Ira and gives Ira this long look, like the: I don't trust this.

SAM: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

MATT: Then continues walking after the others.

SAM: How far away have they gone? Out of sight?

MATT: Out of sight.

SAM: Whoa! That's awesome.

TALIESIN: I see them--

ASHLEY: I'm going to tell Ashton.

TALIESIN: I assume I see them walking.

MATT: You do.

ASHLEY: They're walking by.

MATT: They're coming up your way.

TALIESIN: All right. I back to the side and--

MATT: Okay.

TALIESIN: Then walk over to where they are, and I'm going to very quietly walk to watch to see what the heck they're going to do.

MATT: Okay. You continue down, and as you do, the juggernaut comes up behind the initial wave of them as it approaches and looks over towards you as it lumbers past. Just make a deception check for me.

SAM: (panicked breathing)

MATT: It's not a terribly high DC.

TALIESIN: It's me, though.

MATT: (laughs)

TRAVIS and LIAM: (laugh)

TALIESIN: It's hardly fair.

MARISHA: You're so charismatic.

TRAVIS: Hardly fair!

TALIESIN: Deception check, really? Okay.

MATT: Yeah.

TALIESIN: Come on.

MATT: Just beat a 10.

TALIESIN: Oh fuck no, that's not possible.

ASHLEY: (groans)

MATT: (laughs)

TALIESIN: Are you kidding?

MATT: What did you get?

TALIESIN: I got a three.

TALIESIN: (laughs)

MATT: Ooh.

TRAVIS: What did you roll, a five?

TALIESIN: Yeah.

TRAVIS: Oh boy.

MARISHA: What?

TALIESIN: I got a negative two to deception.

TRAVIS: Yeah. Yeah.

ASHLEY: I'm going to double to check on Ashton and the juggernaut.

MATT: So this is a little out of your sight, because they've curved around the corner here, as you sent them off and warned him.

TRAVIS: (laughs)

MATT: At this point, Ira is rapidly pulling out the explosives--

SAM: Sure, I'll help.

MATT: -- and is handing them to you and is dancing about, like it's the "Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy." "(maniacal laughter)"

SAM: All right, Keep it professional, Ira.

MATT: Sets it.

ASHLEY: You're getting a little bit too excited about this, it's a little bit much.

MATT: Goes and places one underneath the device, spider crawls underneath and affixes one to the back.

TRAVIS: Jeez.

LAURA: Yes, yes.

MATT: Crawls back on top.

SAM: How big is the device, wide?

TRAVIS: The Grinch.

ASHLEY: Eight feet?

MATT: Wide, it's probably about, I'd say 10 feet-ish from side to side.

SAM: Okay.

MATT: Sorry, from front to back, and about eight or so feet from side to side, and at the front, there is this massive, ragged-looking drill that has been burrowing into the chamber.

TRAVIS: ♪ You're a mean one ♪

TALIESIN: I didn't even do anything, man, I just stand there.

LIAM: April issue is pretty good.

SAM: It's okay. I'll just say to Ira, before you trigger it, tell me, because I'm going to help.

TALIESIN: Guys, I may have a problem.

MATT: "I think it would not be best for us to trigger it while we're in the chamber."

ASHLEY: Whoa!

SAM: Okay.

ASHLEY: Wait, but what's the trigger time? How much time do we have?

MATT: "Haven't set it yet."

SAM: Okay.

ASHLEY: He didn't answer my question. That's totally fine.

MATT: (laughs)

ASHLEY: Ashton, are you doing okay?

TALIESIN: (anxious moan) I'm getting eyed.

MATT: The juggernaut approaches and looms over you, looking down. "(huffs)" You hear in your head, "Who are you with?"

TALIESIN: I'm with them. (thunderous grasp)

SAM: Oh!

MATT: Grabs your throat and lifts you up against the stone and gets real close to inspect you. "Who is them?" The other figures have walked towards the blast doors and stop and turn and are intrigued by this.

LAURA: (coughs) Sam, Sam.

TRAVIS: Shit, shit, shit.

SAM: We're not there.

TALIESIN: Guys, need some help.

SAM: Okay.

ASHLEY: I'm going to start walking--

SAM: Go.

ASHLEY: Yeah, I'm going to start walking back.

MATT: Ira's like, "What time should I set?"

SAM: One minute.

LAURA: No!

TRAVIS: Yeah.

MATT: (laughter)

TRAVIS: Yeah. Don't mess it up.

MATT: "All right." Then he goes and starts-- (tinkering)

SAM: But you haven't started it yet though, have you?

MATT: "I just started it."

SAM: Oh shit! (laughter)

TRAVIS: Good.

MARISHA: Oh my god!

MATT: "You told me one minute."

SAM: Set it for one minute, but don't start it yet, Jesus! We got to get the fuck out of here! (laughter)

MATT: "I misunderstood!" (laughs)

LIAM: (laughs)

SAM: Then let's go! Come on!

MATT: You watch him go into a flurry. (rapid tinkering) Almost like multiple arms out of him as he goes and sets them all rapidly and turns around smiling, and he's like, "Shit!" (laughter)

LIAM: Bomb this, bomb this! (laughter)

SAM: So, they're all set, right?

MATT: The majority of them are, yes.

SAM: Okay.

MATT: Five of the six of them, yeah.

SAM: I'm going to cast Silence on the whole thing.

MATT: Okay.

ASHLEY: Oh, good call, yeah.

MATT: So, you cast Silence on this area and you're holding it. All right.

ASHLEY: I'm--

LIAM: That's not helpful for us.

ASHLEY: -- running back--

LAURA: We need that though!

ASHLEY: You do?

ASHLEY: -- towards Ashton.

LAURA: We need the distraction--

MARISHA: You're supposed to be the distraction--

LAURA: -- from the explosion!

MARISHA: -- to kick everything off.

SAM: Cool, cool, cool. (laughter)

MARISHA: For this entire plan.

LAURA: You're supposed to be the distraction.

LIAM: For multiple plans.

MARISHA: For multiple plans.

SAM: Okay. (laughter)

MARISHA: Yeah.

LIAM: Oh god. (laughter)

MATT: So. (laughter)

TALIESIN: You realize that the entire-- We're so fucked.

ASHLEY: But it can't--

LAURA: Everything depends--

ASHLEY: It's going to make some noise.

LIAM: We are playing a game. It's okay.

ASHLEY: It can't just explode, and then--

LIAM: it's a different move this time.

TALIESIN: We'll find out.

MARISHA: (laughs)

ASHLEY: How long does the silent range--

TALIESIN: Not far.

SAM: (laughs)

ASHLEY: How long does it make silence?

SAM: 20 feet.

ASHLEY: Okay.

MARISHA: Yeah, how does sound, if the--

TALIESIN: Let's not overthink it.

SAM: We'll see, we'll see.

MARISHA: Okay.

MATT: Yeah, my minute hourglass is not at the table, unfortunately.

TRAVIS: Hourglass please, if anybody knows where it is!

TALIESIN: Fuck the minute hourglass, man.

MATT: It's all good.

LIAM: Stop forgetting stuff.

MATT: Here, I'll make a timer on my phone.

ASHLEY: It'll still make noise, just not in 20 feet.

MATT: Because it's fun. In the midst of this being wibbly, wobbly, timey, I'm going to set a three-minute timer to activate as the one minute.

ASHLEY: Okay.

MATT: So, what are you doing?

ASHLEY: Did--

TRAVIS: Three minutes.

ASHLEY: Why can't I talk? Ira, did he set all six of them?

MATT: Five of the six.

ASHLEY: Five of the six. So there's one of them that we still have.

MATT: Well, they're all placed.

LAURA: It's there.

MATT: He only set five of them before you stopped him.

ASHLEY: Okay, okay, okay, okay, okay, okay.

SAM: I'm going to send a message to you guys. We have 50 seconds to get out of here--

TALIESIN: Motherfucker, I'm caught!

ASHLEY: Why!?

SAM: -- before it blows.

ASHLEY: Why did you set them already?!

SAM: Ira, there was a misunderstanding.

ASHLEY: That's so dumb!

TALIESIN: I'm going to fucking, I don't know what else to do.

SAM: Can they hear me, too?

MATT: Yeah, I imagine you can.

LAURA: Only if you send it to us.

LIAM: Yeah.

SAM: Yeah, sure. We have 50 seconds left before this thing blows.

MATT: All right. So as you both come around the corner, Ira rapidly behind you, you see Ashton being held against the wall. Ira goes, "Ah, not much we can do about that," and is going to go ahead and--

MARISHA: In regards to--

SAM: I don't know.

TRAVIS: Ashton.

MARISHA: Ashton?

MATT: (laughs) Is going to cast Polymorph on the juggernaut.

SAM: Oh!

MATT: Roll a d20 for me.

ASHLEY: Great.

SAM: 11.

MATT: 11. The juggernaut (shrinking) shrinks down into a snail, and immediately you're released on that point. The other guard's like, "What?" Ira says, "Sorry, we need you to check the machine back there, it's acting up." They all look to Ira and keep running. They seem confused by it.

SAM: All of them go back?

MATT: All three of them run back towards the machine, yeah.

SAM: Great.

TALIESIN: Perfect. We're going.

MATT: You all are going into a run.

ASHLEY: Go, go, go.

TALIESIN: Full speed. I'm going to rage, just to see what the fuck happens, too. Fuck yes!

ASHLEY: Nice!

MATT: Ira reaches up and grabs the handle. (heavy tug)

ASHLEY: Oh, amazing.

MATT: The garage door opens.

LAURA: Great.

SAM: Great.

MATT: He's like, "We're going to take everything down. "Stay close, children," and reaches out and almost sweeps you up in his hands as you all run together. (quick scampering)

TALIESIN: I hit the time point of mine, so I have a walking speed of 80 feet right now, if I want to take it.

ASHLEY: Woo!

MATT: Okay.

TALIESIN: So, I'm pulling everyone. Yeah.

MATT: Okay, so as Ira says, "Take whoever you think is slowest, I'll take the other."

TALIESIN: Got you.

ASHLEY: Yeah.

SAM: Whoa!

MATT: All right. As all of a sudden, you're grabbed by Ashton and both of you are (accelerating) cruising at an incredible speed up this tunnel, Ira is gently running with you. "So."

TRAVIS: No beats.

MATT: "It's nice to spend this time with all of you." (laughter)

ASHLEY: I know, it's been a little fun, it's been a little exciting, I think it's great. I think it's a little weird that you set those with such a short amount of time. (laughter)

TALIESIN: Oh shit.

MATT: "Keeps it interesting, does it not?"

ASHLEY: Well, sure.

MATT and LAURA: (laugh)

MATT: "I wouldn't worry too much. I mean, we only have so much time, anyway."

ASHLEY: Do you mean in the general sense of life, or just--

MATT: "Whatever you want it to be."

ASHLEY: Okay.

MATT: You're both (zoom) shooting past people and guards. Soldiers are like, "What the fuck is happening?" and start getting their weapons to follow. You're darting and running and running and running and running and running. It's like a Sonic the Hedgehog moment as you're cruising through, [phone alarm ringing] putting everything dragging him.

SAM: Oh!

MATT: At that point--

ASHLEY: Oh! (muffled explosion rumbling)

MATT: You hear this massive rumble in the ground, and then it gets louder and louder and louder, like a freight train cruising up the way. You see this white light coming, and Ira says--

MARISHA and LAURA: (gasp)

MATT: "I guess it's time."

ASHLEY: What?

MATT: Takes you and holds you, and right as the flames erupt, you both (whooshes) and he Dimension Doors you both to the surface.

SAM: (gasps)

LAURA: Oh.

MATT: You feel it (rapid burst) arrive on top, and he's like, "We need to keep still running. You'll see why." As you both continue to cruise--

TALIESIN: I knew it.

SAM: He left us.

MATT: (massive eruption)

MARISHA: Oh my god!

MATT: The ground begins to erupt for a second, it bulges beneath you and you both get thrown up a few feet before it begins to sink below. The entirety of the ground above this entire tunnel detonates from underneath, and then falls into its own cavernous space. I need you to make a strength saving throw.

TRAVIS: Which one?

LAURA: Who?

MATT: Fearne.

ASHLEY: (squeaks) Wait!

LIAM: Sam and Taliesin--

LAURA: Uh-oh.

LIAM: -- roll death saves.

ASHLEY: Is that a minus two? That's a minus two.

SAM: Uh-huh.

TALIESIN: I have a running speed right now of 160 feet.

MARISHA: It's a nuke!

LAURA: Okay.

TALIESIN: But I know, I'm going as full, I have an emergency for me--

ASHLEY: Eight.

TALIESIN: -- but I don't have an emergency--

TRAVIS: Does it carry through?

TALIESIN: Four rounds.

MATT: As it begins to fall down, you get pulled into the collapsing ground that's falling in from the impact of the explosion and begin to seep in. You see Ira run in the opposite direction and spinning around and seeing you begin to fall within. Ira goes, "(annoyed growl)"

MARISHA: Come on, bitch. Don't be a dick.

ASHLEY: I'm just trying to get out.

MATT: He's going to use his other 5th-level slot, he's going to cast Wall of Force. He's going to create a wall of nearly invisible energy that appears right there on the ground next to you, and you can reach up and grab it and it's like leverage that's not slipping, like a quicksand.

LAURA: Amazing.

MATT: You manage to get yourself up onto the wall.

LIAM: You're so stupid, Rose.

MARISHA: (laughs)

MATT: You get up onto the wall and look, and you don't see him anywhere.

TRAVIS: Fuck, oh fuck. You're on your own.

ASHLEY: Okay. Shit. Is anybody there? Hello? Ashton?

MATT: The two of you who are--

ASHLEY: FCG?

MATT: -- running, you can hear the rumble going-- (growing rumble)

TALIESIN: Is it getting faster and faster?

MATT: It's getting faster and faster, and you can hear the distant screams, (panicked yelling) people who are flashing out--

TRAVIS: (hooting laugh)

MATT: -- as the flame blasts are catching up behind the tunnel. What are you doing?

TRAVIS: (screaming laugh)

TALIESIN: Do you have a plan? Because I have one thing I can do, but I don't know.

ASHLEY: It went off! It went off! It went off!

SAM: You're just fast, right?

TALIESIN: I'm very fast right now.

MARISHA: Oh my god.

TRAVIS: Incineration squeals? Oh boy!

SAM: I'm going to give you a boon. What is it called? Bonded Blessing, so you get a d6 on some roll that's coming up.

TALIESIN: All right.

TRAVIS: Must go faster.

TALIESIN: I'm also going to activate the Shard of Ka'Mort, because fuck it, we're at that point.

LAURA: Yeah!

TALIESIN: Also, I'm super fucking fast.

LIAM: Yeah you are.

TALIESIN: I'm burning through my fucking--

LIAM: Yep. Yep.

TALIESIN: -- through all my shit. I'm going to try and get into the rock. I'm starting to shark my way through the rock.

MATT: Okay, so (earth shifting) you begin to move into it, carrying FCG on the outside of the rock as you do. (buzzing path through rock) The flames are now catching up as the explosion is tearing through this tunnel behind. As you pass by the barracks, and you see as people are emerging to look and see what's happening, and the look of fear and horror in their expression in the moment that they realize that this is the last moment of their life.

SAM: Oh jesus.

TALIESIN: Got anything?

SAM: Stone Shape! (laughs) (laughter)

ASHLEY: Are you okay?

SAM: Not yet! I don't have shields or anything.

TALIESIN: Do you teleport, anything?

SAM: I can teleport 30 feet!

TRAVIS: Can you Banish?

SAM: I can Banish again.

LAURA: Yeah, but then you're stuck in that one spot. Everything is--

TRAVIS: For a minute!

SAM: Hold on. (muttering spell description)

MATT: And then reemerge, buried.

LIAM: Yeah, buried.

MATT: (laughs)

LAURA: Yeah.

TRAVIS: You takes your chances. (laughter)

ASHLEY: Ira!

SAM: So, sorry, we are in a rock tunnel now, that you made?

LIAM: You're in the walls.

MATT: No, he's in the wall, you're being dragged on the outside of the wall--

TALIESIN: I can't pull you into the wall.

MATT: -- still inside the tunnel. So you're still inside the cavern.

TRAVIS: Moving real fast.

MATT: As the landscape behind you is brightening and you can see, you're moments away from being hit by the blast.

TRAVIS: Yeah.

TALIESIN: I don't know what to do, other than moving real fast.

SAM: I don't either. I don't have a traveling shield spell that I can throw up.

TALIESIN: We need to teleport, we do not need a shield.

MARISHA: Can you get in the hole?

TRAVIS: Do you have the staff?

SAM: What hole?

LAURA: Yeah, but he'd have to lay it out, there's not enough time.

LIAM: Can you stone yourself--

TALIESIN: Actually, I'm really fucking fast.

LIAM: -- and get in the wall with him?

TALIESIN: Well, no that's-- Oh shit.

SAM: Hold on.

TRAVIS: You don't have the teleport staff, right?

SAM: I used four of the charges already to open Passwall.

ASHLEY: Shit!

TRAVIS: Right, right, right.

LIAM: Oh boy.

LAURA: Can you open Passwall again?

SAM: Yes, but to where?

LAURA: Up.

LIAM: Into the rock?

SAM: (laughs)

LIAM: So, you're there while explosions go?

LAURA: God, you're right.

TRAVIS: You might get buried.

TALIESIN: Oh, oh, oh! Is there anything flat anywhere around us?

MATT: I mean, yeah, the floor is smooth stone.

TALIESIN: Can I use some of my fucking crazy-ass speed, some of the speed to flash unroll the fucking hole, throw him in, and drag it with me? Or is that insane?

TRAVIS: Drag the hole behind you?

MATT: I'll tell you what.

LAURA: Put him in the hole and then pick it up and take it.

MATT: I'll tell you what.

LIAM: Unroll, throw him in, roll it up.

SAM: Don't have anything.

MATT: I need you to roll, if you want to do this, I need you to make a dexterity check for me.

TRAVIS: Oh, this is going to be all or nothing.

MATT: Roll a d20--

SAM: Oh, you know what? I have one thing I can do.

LAURA: Maybe you should--

SAM: But go ahead.

TRAVIS: What is it? What is it?

TALIESIN: No, no, no.

SAM: Divine Intervention. (laughs)

MARISHA: Try it first.

TRAVIS: Might as well try it!

TALIESIN: Do it first, do it first!

LIAM: Might as well try it!

TRAVIS: Otherwise he's rolling to throw you in a hole as he's going 180 miles an hour!

SAM: I will reach out to the Changebringer. Is this a d100 roll?

MATT: It's a d100.

MARISHA: You got to roll under your level.

LIAM: Come on, Changebringer.

SAM: Which is a 12.

TRAVIS: Come on, Ringu.

LIAM: Come on, Changebringer.

LAURA: You can do it!

SAM: Changebringer?

TRAVIS: Come on, The Grudge.

LIAM: I believe!

MARISHA: This could be so cool.

SAM: I'm about to die.

MARISHA: Please fucking work. Please fucking work.

LAURA: Please, Changebringer. Please, Changebringer.

SAM: 52. (laughter)

MATT: Here beyond the boundaries placed by divinity, the Changebringer, try as she might to come to your aid, doesn't hear your call in these flashing moments of absolute disaster. As you cling on to your coin, time seeming to slow in the moments, Ashton, what are you doing?

TALIESIN: I was going to start going through that, because that apparently--

MATT: I need you to roll a dexterity check.

TALIESIN: It's going to be just a dexterity check?

LIAM: Oh shit.

ASHLEY: Can I sense--

LAURA: But he gave you a six, he gave you an extra--

TALIESIN: He did.

TRAVIS: We're going hard.

TALIESIN: All right. Let's see what we get.

LIAM: You're up on the surface, Fearne.

LAURA: Yeah, you're safe.

TALIESIN: You're nowhere near. Okay, a dex check.

LAURA: You can talk to them mentally.

MATT: So, to put this in context here.

ASHLEY: Yeah. That's it?

MATT: The blast is going to hit you. The strength of the roll is going to determine how much damage you both take.

ASHLEY: (groans) My god.

TRAVIS: I love it.

LIAM: Wow.

SAM: Bring it.

TALIESIN: All right, here we go.

TRAVIS: I love it.

TALIESIN: Come on, don't fuck around. All right, all right. All right.

TRAVIS: Threw an anchor on the table.

TALIESIN: Yes, I did. 20.

MATT: 20, okay. So that halves the damage.

SAM: Hey, that's great, we're fine.

MATT: So before the flames get to you, you can begin to see the exit portion of this carved mineshaft entrance beginning to come into view as it brightens up behind, but before the heat even gets to you, (explosion blasting) the blast comes, and right as it impacts, you're thrown down into a hole, as Ashton also tries to pull into the side and you both-- Heh. You both take half the impact of it before it blows you both out of the cavern. So the hole protects you for a second, but then it also carries you out of the hole. I need you to make a strength check to see if you can hold on to that hole and carry it with you.

TALIESIN: Strength check.

SAM: We're going to lose it forever, aren't we?

TALIESIN: Strength check.

LIAM: Yeah, does the hole stay glued to where it's unfurled?

TALIESIN: That's okay, shit's happening.

MATT: It would stay to where it's unfurled unless he pulls it. You can leave it, if you want to.

TALIESIN: Oh, I'll also say--

LIAM: Dead bodies go flying--

TALIESIN: I don't know if it helps that I cannot be knocked prone or otherwise right now, I know it's crazy, or if that helps anything?

MATT: I'm going to say it doesn't knock you prone, but you can still be pushed and you can still be blown away from stuff.

TALIESIN: Okay, yes. It's a plus six? I mean, no, I'm so sorry, it's a strength check?

MATT: Yes, a strength check to hold on--

SAM: But you're raging, aren't you?

TALIESIN: I am raging.

SAM: Isn't that advantage on strength?

MATT: It is.

TALIESIN: It is advantage on strength rolls, and I'm also, since Ka'Mort, my strength is much higher.

MATT: You got it.

TALIESIN: So let's see what happens.

TRAVIS: I'm still standing!

LIAM: You got a d6 and advantage.

TALIESIN: Come on, little buddy.

MARISHA: No, he already used the d6.

LIAM: Oh.

TALIESIN: That's not bad, it could be worse. 16.

MARISHA: "That's not bad, that could be worse."

LAURA: Oh jesus.

MATT: 16. I'll say that you just barely hold on to it. (relieved groaning)

MATT: 15, 16 was the limit where I was setting it. 16, I think you barely keep on to it, but you lose some of the contents of the interior as you pull it free from the blast, it knocks you both out.

LIAM: Not our dead bodies.

LAURA: Just some dead bodies.

MATT: We'll need to figure out what else it is. However, you both take half damage. Let me roll that.

TRAVIS: Woof! [handful of dice clacking]

MATT: That's a really shitty roll, but that's only part of it.

ASHLEY: Cool, cool, cool, cool, cool, cool, cool.

LIAM: Is it? [more dice rolling]

LAURA: It's a shitty roll, it's a shitty roll. [yet more dice rolling]

TRAVIS: It's even more.

ASHLEY: That's so many--

MARISHA: Wait, is this damage?

ASHLEY: -- dice that he's rolling.

LAURA: This is dice damage.

SAM: It's a nuclear explosion.

LIAM: Yeah.

SAM: Those are some big bombs. [even more dice rolling]

TRAVIS: Some MOABs in that motherfucker.

ASHLEY: He's still rolling!

SAM: Why did he put five down? One would've done the whole thing!

TALIESIN: Well, it's because-- [still more dice rolling]

TALIESIN: We're about to find out why.

LAURA: It's going to take the whole city.

MARISHA: No fucking wonder the other six people he took with him last time--

LAURA: Died?

MARISHA: -- fucking died. Jeez Louise!

TALIESIN: I have weird theory. [another set of dice rolling]

ASHLEY: That is so many!

MATT: Hold on, I'm doing math.

TRAVIS: He's doing math. He's doing math, he's doing math.

SAM: Remember, it's half damage.

TRAVIS: This is great!

LAURA: Half of 2,000. [yes, more dice rolling]

ASHLEY: Oh my god.

TRAVIS: (laughs)

MATT: (laughs)

TRAVIS: (laughs)

ASHLEY: He's laughing?

LAURA: (laughs)

TALIESIN: Yeah.

TRAVIS: This is more than the Keyleth was!

MATT: This is 158 force damage, halved.

SAM: Halved.

TALIESIN: Which is then, hold on. 158 halved is 79--

SAM: 79.

TALIESIN: -- which I also halve, because it's force damage, correct?

LIAM: Almost nice.

MATT: It is force damage, which does not get halved.

TALIESIN: Does not get-- Okay.

LAURA: You're fine.

TALIESIN: 79 damage.

LAURA: You're fine. You're all right.

MATT: Both of you take 79 points of force damage, and you are both cannoned--

TRAVIS: Yeah, potato cannon.

MATT: -- out of the town. Full-on thrown in a massive arc along with bits and pieces of other Reiloran soldiers.

TRAVIS: That's just the blast. You've got to land next.

LAURA: Yeah.

SAM: Oh boy.

MATT: (launch arc begins) (speeding descent) (intense impact) Full-on skip on the ground.

TRAVIS: Bobida-bobida bobida-bobida.

ASHLEY: ♪ ("Bawitdaba" by Kid Rock) ♪ (laughter)

TRAVIS: Holy shit.

LAURA: Oh my god.

TALIESIN: You can hear, I'm just: We're in the air!

LIAM: (grunting)

TALIESIN: Yelling.

MATT: 25 points of bludgeoning--

ASHLEY: What's happening? What's happening?

MATT: -- damage to each of you.

LAURA: Oh shit.

TALIESIN: Halved.

LAURA: Oh shit.

TALIESIN: Halved to you.

ASHLEY: What did you just say?

LAURA: 25 points of bludgeoning.

TALIESIN: Halved, is--

TRAVIS: 104 so far.

MATT: As you both (rolling tumble)

TALIESIN: That's 13 points of damage to me?

MATT: Yes.

TALIESIN: All right.

MARISHA: Are you up?

SAM: I'm good.

ASHLEY: No, you're not!

SAM: I got two points.

TRAVIS: Yeah, we're good, we're good, we're good. We're good. (crazy laugh)

SAM: Two points.

MATT: The rest of the sound (thunderous explosion)

TRAVIS: Now, debris!

MATT: -- rocks the interior.

SAM: Oh no!

MATT: As the sound itself--

SAM: Shield!

MATT: -- is deafening, both of you--

LAURA: Like you have it.

MATT: Your vision, your hearing, is shot for the moment. You are both officially dazed, stunned for a short time. While Fearne, you hear it coming and try and protect yourself best you can. When the blast comes through again, the whole ground shifts. But you're still on the force wall, and you watch rock up around you, the wall catching it. This series of explosions coming after each other are causing different detonations, and that force wall is the only thing that's keeping you from being pulled back under or being blown by the shrapnel that's now flying by the force wall in different directions. You're surfing over chaos right now.

ASHLEY: Are you still there? Ash?

TALIESIN: It hurts, but yes!

SAM: (raspy) Sort of.

ASHLEY: FCG?

SAM: (raspy) Sort of.

MATT: (screeching)

TALIESIN: Heal your fucking self!

MATT: The screech comes through the sky.

LAURA: Uh-oh!

TRAVIS: Is that the fucking Gloamglut dragon?

LIAM: Here comes Gloamglut!

MATT: You hear all manner of beasts barking and cawing and screaming at the sounds.

TRAVIS: You've got to go.

MATT: But that one familiar--

LAURA: You're dead.

TRAVIS: You've got to go.

MATT: -- shriek that you once heard--

LIAM: Gloamglut.

MATT: -- through the skies of the Fey Realm as you attempted to escape after the first Malleus Key interaction, you know that Gloamglut is awakened--

SAM: Oh no.

MATT: -- and unhappy.

LAURA: Fucking heal yourself right now.

MATT: We're going to come back to you guys. (uproarious exclamations)

TRAVIS: No! (screaming)

TRAVIS: Please tell me the audio play in our heads is like: (thuds) (chaotic yells) (impacts)

MARISHA: What do we hear? Do we feel the rumble? Tell us all of it.

LIAM: Let him lay it out.

MATT: So as you're in this room looking at all these things, looking at the chamber, noticing that your target is within this massive case, you hear them say, "It's going to blow in a minute," and you look at each other curiously, trying to figure out what to do.

LAURA: Oh.

MATT: What do you do?

LAURA: Can we get in close? Because I imagine if it happens, they're going to exit the room, right?

LIAM: Right, there's no other exits out of this third chamber. The only way out is the way we came in?

MATT: On the right hand side, there was another archway that leads to a different direction.

LIAM: Different entirely.

MATT: Yeah.

TRAVIS: Can I go over to that archway and look and see, does the archway lead to stairs or another room beyond?

MATT: This one looks like it leads up.

LAURA: Are we in danger where we are?

TRAVIS: We don't know.

TALIESIN: (drawn out) Yeah.

SAM: You in danger, girl.

TRAVIS: I would assume so. We've got to get this person out of the tube, right?

LAURA: I thought that that was going to be a distraction so that we could get him out of the tube.

TRAVIS: We're going to find out.

LAURA: I'm going to go over--

MATT: (hissing) (explosion) The whole room suddenly quakes, and you hear the blast explosion echo through the chamber.

LAURA: Fuck.

MATT: Bouncing off all the stone walls of the massive cavern beneath here. It sounds like an earthquake. The whole room shifts for a second and you see dust and rock fall. Everyone in the room grabs it. Glass instruments fall over and shatter in places. The various scientists and engineers get up and look around. Some of them get under the table. The Reiloran Mystic on the far end looks around and shifts to look in the direction of the stairs that lead up.

LIAM: Did the vat break in all of that action?

LAURA: Or is it still just--

MATT: It is cracked.

LAURA: Okay.

LIAM: I'm going to run at it and--

TRAVIS: Can I also run up the stairs, and from the stairwell--

LIAM: Hmm, no.

TRAVIS: -- can I shout down--

LIAM: It's not Greater Invisibility.

TRAVIS: Everyone, evacuate now! An invisible voice shouts down the stairs to that room.

MATT: Sure, make a deception check.

MARISHA: Come on, come on, come on, come on!

MATT: It is not a terribly high DC in this moment.

SAM: Everyone, evacuate.

TRAVIS: Yeah, 21!

MARISHA: Yes!

MATT: 21. Both of the current engineers that are hiding look out and hear that and grab their shit, grab their notes, and quickly start running up the stairs past them. The Mystic lets them go by. It looks like it's far more intelligent than some of the other entities here, and is trying to sense what's happening.

TRAVIS: Did that clear out the room except for the Mystic?

MATT: You've cleared out the room except for the Mystic, and the one that's carrying the three blades.

LAURA: The shrike?

MATT: The shrike, which is currently going to the other side and is helping check in on the other two engineers.

LIAM: It's three chambers connected by arches.

MATT: Correct.

LAURA: They've gone into the other--

MATT: If it helps, I can give you a visual perspective on this.

LAURA: Yes!

TRAVIS: (unhinged noises)

SAM: This visual is brought to you by WizKids minis. Now you can have your own brumestone-embedded, hovering horror. The ShademMther is sure to turn a few stomachs, and the boxed mini is available for preorder. Check it out at wizkids.io/shademother.

ASHLEY: Look at the vials!

MATT: This is now open there.

LAURA: And the cages we're-- no, where is--

MATT: So this is where, these are some of the other vials along the way.

ASHLEY: Whoa, that's cool.

MATT: This main vial you saw on the left is the large one. This is where she is, and this is where the Ruidus structure is.

LAURA: Okay, okay.

MATT: So we have the-- The shrike is currently over here.

TRAVIS: We came in from that way, right?

MATT: You came in from this way. This is the other exit. The mystic is in the middle of the chamber here. We have the two other Reiloran researchers that are currently checking in with this fellow here. The others have scattered out that direction. You are all currently invisible.

LAURA: God.

MATT: Clustered over here.

ASHLEY: Oh god.

TRAVIS: Except for me. I was in the stairwell.

MATT: Oh right, yeah.

LAURA: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

MATT: You were up here.

TRAVIS: In the werewolf form. I'll give you this guy.

MATT: Oh yeah, werewolf form. Thank you.

LIAM: So they've all been distracted that way. Chet's--

LAURA: Up here.

LIAM: We're heading out this way, we hope.

MATT: Correct.

MARISHA: Who all looks like they're staying around, versus who's leaving?

MATT: I mean, this one is the only one that looks like it's staying around. It looks like it does not want to leave the important things that are in this chamber unwatched.

MARISHA: This isn't an attack. It's just a thing. Unsettling Presence.

MATT: Okay, Unsettling Presence.

MARISHA: It shouldn't make me go un-invisible.

MATT: It doesn't.

MARISHA: Okay.

MATT: So as you emanate this dark atmosphere around you, you watch as the Mystic--

MARISHA: It's that sick vibe of, I should leave, actually.

MATT: Well, it definitely is unsettled. It would take more actions to try and force it to leave, if you want to be creative about it.

MARISHA: It technically has a disadvantage--

MATT: On the next saving throw.

MARISHA: On its next saving throw.

MATT: Correct.

LIAM: Orym is going to--

LAURA: Okay, okay.

LIAM: -- stealth tiptoe over to here to be about 10 feet away from the Mystic, behind it.

MATT: Okay, I want you to roll a stealth check for me.

LIAM: At advantage, because invisible, right?

MATT: Indeed.

LIAM: Natural 20. (cheering)

TRAVIS: That was only a stealth check, but--

ASHLEY: Yes!

MATT: Without issue, you appear behind it, at the ready.

TALIESIN: Thank god something happened.

ASHLEY: I know, I know, I know.

LIAM: Blade out, and we're all mentally connected, and I'm just waiting, if I have to go to town.

LAURA: Okay.

MATT: You got it.

LAURA: Okay, okay, okay, okay. Hold on, hold on, hold on.

ASHLEY: Hold on, hold on, hold on.

MARISHA: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

LAURA: That would only be 10 seconds. Are we going to try to attack this Mystic and then get out?

TRAVIS: You bet your ass.

LIAM: I could try to take them down in one go, if you guys give me the go ahead.

LAURA: What if I--

ASHLEY: What's in that box?

MATT: Both of these have now left.

LAURA: Okay.

MARISHA: What's with the shrike?

MATT: The shrike is returning into the chamber.

LAURA: I have a thing that's a saving throw against it, so what if I hit it, and then you, what if we say now--

LIAM: Now.

LAURA: -- and then we release at the same time?

LIAM: Go together. Yes.

TRAVIS: Do it.

LAURA: Okay.

MARISHA: Is the shrike leaving?

LAURA: I'm going to back up against the wall so anything that is coming through any of the other doors--

MATT: This way?

LAURA: Oh, the shrike is--

TRAVIS: The shrike came back in. Can I also creep back in?

MATT: Sure.

LAURA: The shrike came back in.

MARISHA: Does the shrike look like it's gathering the Mystic to leave, or is the shrike--

MATT: It looks like it's stepping in. They're both looking at each other and having a conversation quietly.

TRAVIS: Worry about the Mystic. I got the shrike.

LAURA: Okay.

MATT: You moved up against the wall back this way?

LAURA: Yeah, it doesn't super matter. Okay, and I'm going to say to Orym--

MATT: Laudna, where do you want to be?

MARISHA: Huh?

MATT: Where do you want to be?

MARISHA: Technically, I still have Spider Climb up, so I'll get up and skitter into the ceiling.

MATT: You got it.

TALIESIN: You're going to Ring girl all the way--

MARISHA: I'm going to Ring girl.

ASHLEY: Yeah, baby.

MATT: I got you. (clicks tongue)

LAURA: Okay.

MATT: Make a stealth check for me, please.

TRAVIS: Yes, sir.

LAURA: I'm going to say to Orym: Now! So he attacks at the same time I do this.

TRAVIS: 26.

MATT: Okay, also unnoticed. Amongst all the chaos, they have very little perception to pick up anything that's immediately in their vicinity when they're worried about the great expanse around them, and it looks like they're both calming. Except for the echoing explosion, it looks like there's not a followup at the moment, and they're both having that conversation. In the moment that they're distracted with each other and in each other's mind, you call, "Now." So, who all is going, and what are you doing?

LAURA: I am releasing a 6th-level Psychic Lance at the Mystic.

MATT: Okay.

TALIESIN: Shit just got so pear-shaped.

SAM: Mm-hmm.

MATT: It has to be over--

TALIESIN: Sedative!

MATT: There it is. Got it, great. All righty, so it's an intelligence saving throw?

LAURA: But at disadvantage, because--

MARISHA: Because me.

MATT: Indeed.

MATT: Which is good, because the first roll was a natural 20.

LIAM: Oh!

MATT: I'm not even joking. Fuck.

MARISHA: Come on, come on.

MATT: That's going to be a 14.

LAURA: All right! Yes!

MARISHA: (excited yell)

MATT: Unsettling Presence for the win on that one.

ASHLEY: All right!

LAURA: So it's incapacitated, and that is 9d6 damage.

MATT: Woo-ooh!

LAURA: ♪ One, two, three, four, five ♪

ASHLEY: Get it, get it.

LAURA: Six, seven. This is fun.

MATT: This is its incapacitation at the moment.

LAURA: Okay, seven. Are you kidding me? 12, 17, 21, 24, plus--

SAM: (beatboxing)

LAURA: -- five, so 20--

MATT: 29?

LAURA: Yeah.

MATT: 29 points of psychic damage. It's like (shattering) Immediately, as the lance strikes into its brain, you watch its eyes go wide and psychic energy flare out of it with that purplish glow from the bolts that streak up your arms, and it falls. It was floating, and it falls to its feet and to its knees, and it looks like it's clutching the sides of its head for the time being. What are you doing?

LIAM: Orym's already running, and his eyes go a deep green, and all three of you see little black blooms start to grow up around this thing's neck and head. So that's the first visual, definitely visual, for other people besides me. Hex, and I'm going to make a tripping attack.

MATT: Go for it.

LAURA: It's incapacitated, so what does that mean?

MATT: Incapacitated means it doesn't have any actions or reactions.

LIAM: Okay.

LAURA: Great.

ASHLEY: I guess this is my life now.

LIAM: That is a 26 to hit.

MATT: Oh, that definitely hits.

LIAM: Okay. Plus six is 11, and it's a tripping attack. 11, so it's another--

TRAVIS: Fuck. I'm rolling my--

LIAM: That's 21 points of damage, and it has to beat, make a strength save against--

MATT: Oh no, it fails.

LIAM: Okay, so it's on the ground.

MATT: It's on the ground. It is now prone.

LIAM: Now attacks are at advantage, correct?

MATT: Yes, they are.

LIAM: Okay, here we go. 18 to hit. Hits, or--?

MATT: Oh yeah.

LIAM: Okay.

MATT: Actually, 18 to hit? No, 18 just misses.

LIAM: Just misses? Okay.

MATT: Even with advantage, yeah.

LIAM: Okay.

MARISHA: Just misses?

LIAM: Second attack is a 27 to hit.

MATT: That hits.

LIAM: Hex is nine, so 15. I'm going to dump a superiority die into it anyway, so that's 15 plus-- That's 18 total.

MATT: All righty.

LIAM: That was three.

MATT: Yep.

LIAM: Action Surge.

MATT: You got it.

MARISHA: Come on.

TALIESIN: Yeah, go for it.

LIAM: Natural 20.

TRAVIS: Yo!

MARISHA: Let's go! Let's go!

MATT: How much damage is that?

LIAM: Huh?

MATT: How much damage is that?

LIAM: I didn't get there yet. On the last one?

MATT: On the natural 20.

TRAVIS: He hasn't rolled it yet.

LIAM: I didn't do the damage yet.

MATT: Okay, go for it.

LIAM: Three plus four is seven. 14 to 28, plus six, is 34.

MATT: How do you want to do this?

LAURA: Yes!

MARISHA: (triumphant yell)

LIAM: So Orym comes running up, flowers blooming on this thing. He cuts it in the leg, and it falls down to one knee. He goes back to slash it in the neck, but it falls down to the ground, and he course corrects and jams it into the back of its neck, slices away. Viscera spatters the glass next to me. Then I change my grip. I let go of the sword and grab it and then go (thuds) into this being's gut. Lift up, up, up, up, up, and drop it into the table.

TRAVIS: Yes!

ASHLEY: Yes!

MATT: It is done.

LAURA: Right as it falls, I'm across the room and I am looking straight at Orym, in his face, as he's doing all that.

LIAM: He meets your gaze and bolts, five, 10, 15, 20, and begins to attack the shrike.

SAM: Whoa!

ASHLEY: Let's do it.

MATT: Which you can do, yeah. He has the movement to do that.

LAURA: With your action surge, yeah.

LIAM: Yeah.

MATT: Yep.

LIAM: 27 to hit.

MATT: That hits.

ASHLEY: Nope.

LIAM: I can't move the Hex yet, right?

MATT: No.

LIAM: No, so that is-- So I should roll that again. Okay, so it's a single d6. Two plus six is eight. Let's dump (heavy exhale) a superiority die. Let's try a tripping attack.

LAURA and MARISHA: (heavy exhale)

LAURA: I like the little--

MARISHA: Yeah.

MATT: So a 12 total. It has to beat the 17 strength.

MATT: 17 strength. Four, no.

LIAM: Four. Down to the ground.

MARISHA: That's right. That's right, bitch.

LIAM: It was almost a natural 20. 19 to hit.

MATT: This is the last attack, right?

LIAM: Yes.

MATT: 19 does not hit.

LIAM: Oh, then it slashes along the ground.

MATT: So as you slash against it, as it falls to its side after the first hit, you see it flicker its hand up, and the three blades that hang at its side suddenly lift off of its waist, and spin and deflect your blade out of the way. While it's on the ground starting to try and crawl away from you, it's psychically surrounding itself with three glass blades that are--

LAURA: Oh shit.

MATT: I scream in my mind: Somebody get this one!

MARISHA: I'm going to hit it. I'm going to hit it with a Bane to set up Chet.

SAM: (Bane groan)

MATT: All righty.

ASHLEY: Nice, nice, nice, nice.

MATT: Saving throw on this one is, that's going to be a natural 18, with plus--

MARISHA: Charisma throw?

MATT: Charisma, just 18.

MARISHA: Son of a bitch!

LIAM: But he is on the ground.

MARISHA: All right, well--

LAURA: Chet!

TRAVIS: That's hot. I will reach out and I will use Blood Curse of Binding, which makes his speed zero, and he can't take any reactions, with my bonus action.

MATT: Okay, so is there a save on that one?

TRAVIS: It is-- Get the fuck out of here. What is this capture QuickNote shit? Yes, it is--

MATT: Or is it constitution?

TRAVIS: Oh, a strength saving throw, DC 15.

MATT: DC 15. No, it does not make that.

MARISHA: Yes.

TRAVIS: Amazing, so speed is zero. Can't take any reaction.

MATT: It starts to crawl away, and all of a sudden, as it reaches its hand out, you watch the shadows from the ground pull it down. It's being held to the ground by its own weird shadow and the blood that's pouring out of it.

LAURA: Sick.

MARISHA: Cool.

MATT: It seems to be sticking into the stone.

MARISHA: Cool!

TRAVIS: From behind me, I'll pull out that new scythe with the blue glass on it, and now that he's prone, these attacks will have advantage, right?

MATT: Yeah.

TRAVIS: I'll take two swings.

MATT: Now, do you want to dart up onto this structure here, or do you want to go around here?

TRAVIS: I can't see any structures.

MATT: You're not quite in melee there. There is a little brazier type structure here.

TRAVIS: I don't want to stand on the brazier! I'll go around.

MATT: Okay.

TRAVIS: You know what, I'm going to stand on the brazier, people are getting blown up around here.

LIAM: Heavy metal.

TRAVIS: I'm sure it's terrible.

MATT: Let's do it, all right, go for it.

TRAVIS: That is a 11 plus-- That's a 22 to hit for the first one.

MATT: Okay, 22 just hits.

TRAVIS: The second one--

LAURA: Ooh!

TRAVIS: Just hits.

LAURA: Whoa.

TRAVIS: Oh my god. 15 plus 11, 26.

MATT: 26 hits, yeah.

TRAVIS: Amazing. 2d6 plus seven.

LAURA: Sheesh.

MARISHA: Yeah.

TRAVIS: 17 plus two is 19 for the first one.

TALIESIN: My god.

TRAVIS: Because it does an extra two to hit and two to damage on.

MATT: Yeah.

TRAVIS: For the second, 17 points of damage on the second one.

MATT: You got it. So (slashes) more blood streaks across the back as it's trying to move and it can't. Okay, that finishes the surprise round. Everyone now roll initiative. (groaning)

TRAVIS: Yes.

TALIESIN: What a fucking surprise round.

ASHLEY: Yeah, that was a great surprise round.

TALIESIN: Like, holy fuck, y'all.

MATT: All righty, 25 to 20?

LAURA: 20, 18 plus three?

LIAM and SAM: 21.

MATT: What's your dex?

TRAVIS: 21 for me, too.

LAURA: Plus three.

MATT: What's your statistic?

LAURA: 16.

MATT: You have the same dexterity.

LAURA: Rollies!

MATT: Rollies, let's go.

TRAVIS: Oh yeah, Rollies with the DM!

LAURA: Aw.

MATT: Natural 17.

LAURA: Four. (laughter)

MARISHA: So wait, he's going first?

LAURA: He's going first.

MATT: He's going first, then Imogen. 20 to 15?

TRAVIS: 21, sorry.

LIAM: 19.

MATT: Oh, all right, so we have Chet.

TRAVIS: Imogen, Chet, Orym.

TALIESIN: In your heads, you hear:

MATT: All right.

TALIESIN: Hey, y'all doing all right?

MATT: What'd you get?

MARISHA: 14.

MATT: 14 for Laudna.

TALIESIN: (laughs)

MATT: All right.

LIAM: That was some impressive teamwork.

LAURA: Then what did you roll?

LIAM: 19.

LAURA: Okay.

MATT: So its speed is zero and it's on the ground, which means it can't get up. It has to remain prone, because it has to use movement to get up. It is going to, as a bonus action, it's going to shift its telekinetic blades over here.

TRAVIS: Whoa, three of them?

LAURA: Oh no, he's going to try to wake up that thingy.

TRAVIS: Yep, release Kong.

LAURA: He's going to try to wake up the bad guy in the tube.

TRAVIS: It's Dr. Connors.

MATT: It's going to use its action to make an attack with each of them against it.

TALIESIN: Oh no.

MATT: 25 hits. That's cocked, paper. 28 hits, and 29 hits. Wow, he rolled really, really high on all those. That's going to be 2d10 damage each hit. First hit's going to be nine.

TRAVIS: Dang, 2d10. What? This is great. I'm having a fucking ball.

LAURA: (laughs)

TRAVIS: Everything's going sideways.

MATT: The blades all begin spinning in the air as they go over and he's reaching out and controlling them, the blades (loud thwacking) the glass cracks, cracks, (shattering) shatters.

TRAVIS: Oh shit!

MATT: (liquid rushing) The liquid, the thick, green brackish liquid spills out onto the ground. Chunks and shards of glass spread out with it.

TRAVIS: Glad I'm on the brazier now.

MATT: You watch this large shape (loud thudding) onto the ground with a heavy thick thud and slide. You can see immediately a thick carapace of some kind on the ground that then begins to unfurl.

MARISHA: (drawn-out) No.

LAURA: (laughs)

MARISHA and LAURA: (drawn-out) No.

MARISHA: Nuh-uh.

TALIESIN: (drawn-out) No.

LAURA and MARISHA: Nuh-uh!

TALIESIN: No.

LAURA: Is this a thingy?

TRAVIS: It can't get up right there, there are a bunch of blades. It can't stand up. (tongue waggling) (yelling)

TRAVIS: Oh, what is that? What is that? (laughter)

TRAVIS: You can't put that there!

LAURA: That is so much bigger than I thought it was!

MARISHA: That shouldn't fit in that tube!

TALIESIN: There's a bunch of crazy shit sticking off that one.

MATT: As the adolescent and unfinished vidulch is released from its chamber--

LAURA: That's a vidulch?!

TRAVIS: Aw, fuck me.

LIAM: Adolescent vidulch.

MARISHA: (laughs)

TALIESIN: I have a CD from them, it's fucking metal.

MARISHA: That's an adolescent!

MATT: You saw some of them.

LIAM: It's got its learner's permit.

MATT: It's going to roll its initiative order now.

MARISHA: Vidulche and Gabana.

MATT: Which is at the bottom.

MARISHA: All right.

MATT: It rolled a two. (laughs) Still a plus six the end, but yeah, plus four, sorry. All right, so that finishes the Blade Baron's turn. Imogen, you're up, Chetney you're on deck.

LAURA: Okay, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.

TRAVIS: Wait, wait.

TALIESIN: Wait, wait.

LAURA: Wait.

TALIESIN: God, that joke is old.

LIAM: Let's go, casters. Let's go, casters!

LAURA: I'm sorry, I had to check out that one thing and see what I was doing.

MATT: That's okay.

LAURA: One moment, please.

LIAM: Please hold.

TRAVIS: We're thinking.

SAM, MARISHA, ASHLEY: ♪ ("The Girl from Ipanema") ♪

LAURA: Okay, sorry, one more second, I just have to read this spell.

MATT: Do you want Chet to go and we come back to you?

LAURA: No! I don't!

MATT: Okay. (laughs)

SAM: You know it's rough when Matt's getting passive aggressive.

LAURA: I know, I'm sorry, Matthew.

MATT: No, I'm not passive aggressive, he's literally next in the initiative order.

LAURA: It scared me. (laughter)

MATT: It's all good, I'm not trying to pressure you, I'm trying to give you more time if you wanted it.

LAURA: No, okay.

MATT: What you got?

LAURA: I'm going to-- I'm going to--

MARISHA: I'm going to!

LAURA: Hold, no, okay. It's a 20-foot radius.

MATT: I'm going to clench.

SAM: Chetney, you're up.

LAURA: So I'm going to aim it-- I'm going to come out so I can see what I'm doing.

MATT: Okay, you hear the shattering sound and you come around the corner and go, "Oh god," and you step right there.

LAURA: Oh god! Can I do a 20-foot radius that gets the thingy and the shrike without getting Chet?

MATT: From there you can certainly, yeah, you can do that.

LAURA: Okay.

TALIESIN: God, I forget how big a 20-foot radius is.

LAURA: Okay.

MATT: Yeah, it's a big old--

LAURA: I've never cast this before and my hair's going to flare out and it's going to look like slow motion for a second as I force my hands forward and I'm going to cast Synaptic Static.

MATT: Ooh, okay. (oohing)

LAURA: Which is a 20-foot radius.

SAM: Has she done that before?

ASHLEY: No, it's the first time.

LAURA: "Each creature in a sphere must make an intelligence saving throw."

MATT: Does this remain or is it just an instant?

LAURA: Instantaneous.

MATT: Okay, yes, hits both of them.

SAM: Instantaneous!

MATT: All right, intelligence saving throw?

LAURA: Yes.

MATT: Blade Baron fails.

LAURA: Great.

MATT: The unfinished vidulch fails as well.

LAURA: Great.

MATT: (chuckles) With all of its modifiers in, it rolled a two.

LAURA: Great, each of them take 8d6 psychic damage.

ASHLEY: Woo, boy.

TALIESIN: Oh boy.

LAURA: Four, one, two, three, four. Wait, why did I roll like shit? Okay, 10, 20, 25 points.

SAM: Above average.

LAURA: 25 points of psychic damage.

ASHLEY: Okay.

LAURA: And, "For a minute, they both have muddled thoughts. During that time, it rolls a d6 and subtracts the number rolled from all attack rolls and ability checks."

MARISHA: Oh shit!

MATT: That's cool.

LAURA: "As well as its constitution saving throws to maintain concentration on anything."

ASHLEY: Whoa!

MATT: That's rad!

TALIESIN: That's fucking dope.

LAURA: It has to make an intelligence saving throw at the end of each turn.

MATT: To try and shake it?

LAURA: Yes.

MATT: You got it, okay.

SAM: Muddled as a condition?

MATT: So describe how this static looks like as it bursts and emerges to swirl the place.

LAURA: It goes out in a shock of pink lightning and then comes down to a small little sphere and then bursts out again.

MATT: As it tears past them, you watch the Blade Baron who's starting to try and get its-- Oh, does it get to try and save against? Did you just do it for the one round on the binding?

TRAVIS: Yeah, it's just one round.

MATT: Okay cool, got you, yeah. So he's just starting to get up before it hits and it falls to the ground clutching the sides of its head. So it's rolling on the ground, the creature is starting to get up its claws and you blast it and you see now as it pulls back you get a little better look at its body. It has these massive front mantis-like blades that come out and then it has half dozen to a dozen of smaller blade-like legs that it curls on, that all (slithers) around. Its jaws open wide and you can see that long crest where the vidulch skull that you once saw now is a smaller version of it here. The ones that you saw out in the middle of the beast pits who were even larger than this one and being readied as war and siege beasts. This one is now starting to-- If anything, you hurt it and it's waking up. But it's still muddled.

MARISHA: It's pretty good.

LAURA: It's muddled, it's muddled.

TALIESIN: Y'all got to get the Cronenberg out of there.

MATT: All right, Chetney.

LAURA: A minus d6 on all its attacks and saving throws.

MATT: You're up, with Orym on deck.

LIAM: Sic 'em, Dad.

TRAVIS: I will leap off of my brazier wall perch, whatever (meows) and will, actually, I'll use my bonus action from here to cast a Blood Curse of Bloated Agony on this thing that just fell out of this fucking jar.

MATT: You got it.

LAURA: I'm going to use my bonus action to regain a spell with my sorcery points.

MATT: Okay, go for it.

TRAVIS: There is no save on it. "For the duration, a creature has disadvantage on strength and dex checks. It takes 1d8 necrotic damage if it makes more than one attack on its turn."

MATT: Yes, indeed.

TRAVIS: I will come up with the scythe and take two more swings. Both at advantage because it's prone still?

MATT: Both of them are prone, yeah.

TRAVIS: Okay.

MATT: On which one? The Blade Baron or the--?

TRAVIS: The big creature, natural 20 on the first. (cheering)

TRAVIS: Second one is an 18, which with this scythe is also a crit on a--

LAURA: A crit?

TRAVIS: So those are two crits.

MATT: That is two crits in a row. (cheering)

TRAVIS: So 2d6.

LAURA: Get it, Chet!

MATT: Well actually, roll the first crit,

LIAM: The scythe might shatter.

MATT: Yeah.

TRAVIS: Oh that's right, I got to roll, that's right.

MATT: Roll the first crit damage.

LIAM: It would still deliver the pain, right?

MATT: Oh yeah.

TRAVIS: So 17 doubled is 34?

MATT: Well, you double it and then add your modifier.

TRAVIS: Oh sorry, yeah, so it would be-- Jesus, let me start over again. Seven plus two, right, so nine, 18 plus seven, 26.

MATT: Yeah, 25.

TRAVIS: 25, sorry.

MATT: You do another 25 points of damage on them, now roll a d10 for me. Oh sorry, I'm sorry, d20, d20.

TRAVIS: Is it a d20 and then on a what through what it shatters?

LIAM: One through six, I believe.

MATT: One through six.

TRAVIS: 18.

MATT: 18. So the first strike goes through. As you go to swing, you feel the blade almost vibrate and resonate with the psychic energy that's all around this space. Especially as the whole city itself lights up and you're this close to the central glass pillar. It brightens as you carve through one section of its armor, spin it around and it's weightless in your grasp. You go for the second strike, roll damage on the second crit.

SAM: Good lord almighty.

TRAVIS: Okay, this is also a crit, 17, nine, 18 plus seven, same thing, 25.

MATT: 25.

TRAVIS: Exact same number. Then I got to roll another?

MATT: Yep, another d20.

TRAVIS: One through six. (shouts) It's a four!

LAURA: No!

MARISHA: Oh!

TRAVIS: (screams) It's a four!

MATT: As you swing back with the second strike, describe to me how it shatters.

ASHLEY: No!

MARISHA: Wait, wait, wait. Can I Silvery Barbs that?

TRAVIS: (laughs)

MATT: Would you?

MARISHA: (nonchalantly) I don't know. (laughter)

TRAVIS: Don't, don't do it, save it.

MARISHA: No? Okay, okay.

LIAM: That's super temporary.

TRAVIS: I hit it once, it makes amazing purchase as I slice down the second time, the amazing horror makes it shiver and I shank it off of a rib and it's like (shattering). Just echoes and shatters everywhere.

MATT: Hell yeah.

TRAVIS: Uh...! (grunts) (laughter)

MATT: All right, that finishes your go, Chetney?

TRAVIS: I'll use the rest of my movement, actually, considering he's still prone. Five, 10, I'm going to put myself on the other side of the scarab guy.

MATT: Over here?

TRAVIS: Actually, more towards Orym.

MATT: Okay, over here you mean?

TRAVIS: Yeah, go right.

MATT: Got it, yeah.

LAURA: They all failed.

MATT: You got it, all right. So yeah, you didn't leave the scarab, and even though it's prone, it can still make an attack of opportunity, but it has a 10-foot reach on those blades--

TALIESIN: I must ask, are attacks of opportunity out because of the mind fuckery? Laura.

MATT: It doesn't prevent reactions it just gets a minus d6 to all its rolls.

TALIESIN: Got you, okay.

LAURA: Yeah, it's not incapacitated.

MATT: All right, so you're good. Orym, you're up, with Laudna on deck.

LIAM: Little Orym crouches down and then leaps leaving dark little petals skittering behind him and lands on the shrike, still prone. So we've got a 27 to hit. That'll be-- (thinking noises) Oh, bonus action Hex on him, so three plus--

MATT: Okay, so you moved it over, you got it.

LIAM: So that's 10 damage. Second attack, I'm going to reroll my natural one for a 29 to hit.

TRAVIS: These are sneak attacks.

MATT: Oh right, yeah, yeah.

TRAVIS: Nine to the guy on the ground, the scarab. And four sneak attack damage to the creature that came out of the tube.

MATT: You got it.

TRAVIS: I never remember sneak attack.

MATT: That's okay. All right, Orym?

LIAM: 15 damage on the second, is a 29 to hit.

MATT: All right, 15.

LIAM: I will reroll the one just to see if I get a 20. I know I've hit, I didn't. That's a 29 to hit. Six, seven, that is 13 damage on the final.

MATT: 13 damage on the Blade Baron. How do you want to do this?

TRAVIS: Dude, let's roll. The Clean Up Crew! (cheering)

LIAM: So I land on his chest and go right into the chest and he struggles against it, so I pull the sword out and bring it down against his neck and then slash one way and his head goes to the side and then I bring the sword back down and stick it, lands right in the eye, planted into the ground.

MATT: Right as you finish that, you hear (clinging) as the three psychic blades that were being held aloft all plummet to the ground.

TRAVIS: Yeah, fucking awesome.

LIAM: I stand and fling the blood off of the blade and-- Boy-oh-boy oh-boy oh-boy oh-boy oh-boy oh-boy.

LAURA: He's a big guy.

LIAM: He is a big guy. In all the chaos, is there anyone out there, do we know?

MATT: You don't know.

LIAM: Have no idea.

TRAVIS: We got to get this thing out and I think these stairs of the way.

TALIESIN: Yeah.

TRAVIS: I could try--

LAURA: He might not be able to follow us if he's big enough.

TRAVIS: Well, I can try and hold if you guys will grab and run.

LAURA: I could also Command him to stay.

MATT: You also still have a cracked target.

LAURA: We got to get that out.

TRAVIS: Yeah, that's what I mean. We got to grab her before she turns into one of those things. (groaning)

LIAM: Okay, for now, I'm going to move and I'm going to stand in front of Imogen.

MATT: You got it.

LIAM: And that's the end.

MATT: Okay, finishing your go, that brings us to Laudna.

MARISHA: Yeah, that's an interesting point. Does this thing look big enough to where if we move through any of these tunnels it will be able to follow us?

MATT: I mean, these doorways, as opposed to the tiny staircase you went to are meant to house hulks.

MARISHA: Sure, they got to get out of here eventually.

MATT: This creature does have a segmented body where it looks like it could likely travel and move.

MARISHA: Okay, that's fine, that's all I need to know. I am on the ceiling, I'm going to (skittering).

LAURA: So not as cute as I drew it.

MARISHA: As I skitter across. Oh god. Can this thing be afeared of me?

TRAVIS: Afeared.

LIAM: Anything could be afeared of you.

MATT: (laughs)

LAURA: I'm going to give him eyebrows.

MARISHA: I'm just wondering if I need to do damage.

LIAM: Except for things immune to fear.

MARISHA: I know. Let's just go for damage. I'm going to skitter.

MATT: All right, same place, or you moving over where?

MARISHA: I'll move a tidbit closer to it, but not much. That's good, and utilizing the blood and the blood maledict that Chet already laid out, I'm going to reach out, you see my eyes go dark as the blood veins through the floor and reaches up. I'm going to cast Blight on it.

TRAVIS: Yes!

MATT: Ah, nice. So that's a constitution saving throw which it has minus a d6 on it because of the Static Shock. (laughs) I mean, it gets-- The total is two, but I rolled a two, minus two and then plus two for its modifier.

MARISHA: Incredible, that's Bane, that is not Blight. I hit the wrong thing, there we go.

MATT: Yeah, so 8d8 necrotic damage to it. (cheering)

MATT: Let's go, let's do this.

TRAVIS: ♪ Unstoppable, unstoppable ♪ (laughter)

LAURA: God, with the "Unstoppable."

MARISHA: These one, two, three, four, five.

TRAVIS: It's so satisfying. It makes your face cavities rumble.

ASHLEY and TRAVIS: ♪ Unstoppable ♪

TALIESIN: (less coherent "Unstoppable")

SAM: Just roll one twice.

MARISHA: I'll roll one of them twice.

LIAM: Let's go higher than 32, come on. Big numbers, big numbers, above average.

ASHLEY: Big money, big money, big money, big money.

MARISHA: No whammies.

LIAM: Over 32, come on.

MARISHA: It's fair, okay. 10, 17-- 17, shit. 19, 23.

SAM: Plus roll one more.

TRAVIS: Yeah, shake it up good.

MARISHA: (laughs) Oh. 23. 25.

MATT: 20-- You guys have done 25 damage, 25 damage, 25 damage, 25 damage.

ASHLEY: Yeah, yeah.

LAURA: Yeah. Yeah, you're right!

TRAVIS: Seriously.

ASHLEY: Yeah.

MATT: (laughs) That's kind of awesome.

MARISHA: I will--

LIAM: Quarter by quarter.

MARISHA: -- Quicken a spell.

MATT: Okay.

MARISHA: To Eldritch Blaest.

MATT: That's what the warlock does with a sorcerer!

MARISHA: ♪ That's what we do here ♪ Okay.

TRAVIS: (thumps)

MATT: Now, it's prone on the ground, so you have disadvantage on these attacks.

MARISHA: That is correct. Which means the way I've been rolling, which is bad. That's not going to-- Well, I don't know. Maybe. Shit!

LIAM: It's big.

MARISHA: 14?

MATT: Misses.

LIAM: Oh.

MARISHA: And that's big. That one was almost a lot better than what it was. 19?

MATT: 19 just hits.

MARISHA: Okay,

LIAM: Just hits.

MARISHA: Okay.

TRAVIS: (pants)

SAM: Just tits.

MARISHA: Just hits.

LAURA: (laughs)

MARISHA: Oh my god! Why? Why am I here today? Why did I show up?

TRAVIS: Leave!

MARISHA: I knew I shouldn't have come to school today.

TRAVIS: Begone!

ASHLEY: Because we need you!

MATT: Aw!

MARISHA: Six.

MATT: Six damage, or--

MARISHA: I rolled a one.

MATT: That was to hit? Or that was damage?

MARISHA: -- damage.

SAM: Of damage.

MATT: Oh, got you. Six, six. All right.

ASHLEY: How dee do dee do dis?

LAURA: How dee do dee do dur dur?

MARISHA: How dee do dee dur?

MATT: All right. So it's two attacks?

MARISHA: Yeah.

MATT: Don't you have a third for Eldritch Blast at this level?

LAURA: Oh, you do. Yeah.

MARISHA: Yeah. (laughter)

MARISHA: I knew that.

ASHLEY: I was just about to do it.

MARISHA: I was just testing you.

MATT: I know, it's fresher at 12th-level.

MARISHA: That's much better. That hits. That's a 28.

MATT: That definitely hits. Go ahead and roll damage.

MARISHA: Come on, let me do literally anything better than what I've been doing.

LAURA: Yes!

MARISHA: Okay. 10 damage?

MATT: 10 damage. All righty. All right, does that finish your turn?

MARISHA: Yeah.

MATT: It is now the unfinished vidulch's turn. It gets up.

TRAVIS: Unfinished vidulch!

LAURA: Oh god!

TALIESIN: They're never really finished, they're just abandoned.

MATT: Gets back up on its feet.

MARISHA: (laughs)

MATT: You see as it stands up, it gets to its strength point and some of its armor falls off and you see parts of it are still melting.

LAURA: Oh, buddy!

MATT: It looks like it--

TRAVIS: What?!

MATT: The best way I can describe is it wasn't fully finished being cooked. You see, as it starts rushing towards you, it has an odd-- They're both dazed from your spell, but also, it looks extremely dangerous but is also degenerating quickly.

LAURA: Okay! That's good!

LIAM: Oh.

MATT: (ticks) It's going to dart off to the side and leap over you, Chet.

TRAVIS: Wha--?

LAURA: And go for Laudna?

MATT: It's going to land where Laudna is. I'm going to move you here so you can use that reference. It (whooshes) in the middle of all of you.

TRAVIS: He's going to open up.

LAURA: Oh!

MARISHA: Oh no!

LAURA: Ruh roh!

LIAM: Now it's going for all of us.

MATT: Is going to multiattack. It's going to make five scythe claw.

LIAM: Oh!

MATT: Oh, no. Actually, I can choose either of these two. It's going to make two mandible attacks and three scythe claw attacks.

TRAVIS: Would you like fries with that?

MATT: I would, actually. Yeah. We're going to go with the scythe claws first. So three of those. I'm going to do one against each of you because now it's just going berserk.

TRAVIS: Yeah. Yeah.

MATT: So against you, Chetney. Oh, that rolled off the table. That's going to be. Ooh!

TALIESIN: With a negative d6.

LAURA: Oh yeah! Negative d6!

MATT: With a d6. Which, I rolled a six. That brings it to 23.

TRAVIS: Holy shit! Yes, that'll hit me.

MATT: I rolled a natural 18 on that die.

TRAVIS: Oh my god! (laughs)

MATT: So--

TRAVIS: That's a big boy.

MATT: So you get hit with the first scythe attack which deals--

MARISHA: Okay.

MATT: Ooh! 22 points of slashing damage. Reduced to 11.

TALIESIN: It doesn't [inaudible], does it?

TRAVIS: Thank you.

MATT: Against you.

TRAVIS: Woof!

TALIESIN: Okay, just checking.

TRAVIS: That's a big swipe, y'all.

MATT: Natural 17.

LIAM: Misses, Riposte.

MATT: Hold on. Natural 17.

LIAM: Oh.

TALIESIN: Natural.

MATT: Plus its bonus.

LIAM: Oh.

MATT: It rolled at minus four, which would put it to 27 minus four, 23.

LIAM: Oh. Well, that certainly hits.

MATT: Okay. (laughter)

MATT: It rolled really good on these two attacks.

TRAVIS: Yeah, this is good.

MATT: Not great on the damage. You take nine points of slashing damage.

LIAM: Yes, sir!

MATT: Then against you.

LAURA: Uh-huh.

MATT: Rolled really shitty. That's going to be a 14 minus two to 12.

LAURA: Yay!

MATT: Which misses you.

LAURA: Yes.

MARISHA: (laughs)

MATT: Angrily, it's going to follow it up with a razor mandible against you.

TRAVIS: Angrily.

MATT: Yep. (laughs) That's going to be a 14 minus five. It's because the first two were so nasty.

MATT: Yeah, that Synap-- that spell has saved your ass.

TRAVIS: Don't roll 29s!

LIAM: It's covered in goo. It can't. It can't.

MATT: Yeah. It's going to use its last mandible attack on you.

LAURA: Ooh! It's got a lot of attacks!

MATT: It does.

TRAVIS: Five.

MATT: So that's going to be 24 minus two, 22.

LIAM: That does hit.

MATT: Does hit. Orym, you take--

TALIESIN: Damn!

SAM: ♪ What a man, what a man ♪

MATT: 19 points of slashing damage.

LIAM: Got it.

SAM: ♪ What a ♪ mandible.

MATT: Oh, this would be piercing damage, actually. (laughter)

MATT: Then, because it's mandible.

ASHLEY: Wow.

TALIESIN: (groans) No, wait, take that back. I rolled the wrong dice for that one. I was rolling the dice for the other attack. This one would be, eight plus four, 12 points of slashing damage.

LIAM: 12 points of slashing damage.

MATT: And seven points of acid damage.

LIAM: Okay.

MATT: From its mandibles that bite into you.

LIAM: Okay.

MATT: Then, it finishes its turn by using Corroding Spit.

TRAVIS: Corroding Spit!

MARISHA and SAM: Corroding Spit?

LIAM: Yep. Acid spit.

LAURA: That's gross! Oh, that's a-me!

TRAVIS: (Cockney) They didn't put any fluoride in the tube!

MARISHA: (laughs)

MATT: Sprays both of you. I need you to both make dexterity saving throws for me, please.

TRAVIS: (Cockney) It thinks I'm its mummy.

SAM: ♪ It's raining ♪ mandible.

ASHLEY: (Cockney) It thinks I'm its mummy.

TRAVIS: ♪ It's raining ♪ Barry Manilow.

LIAM: 16.

LAURA: 16.

MATT: Both of you got 16? You both succeed, so you only take half damage. So eight points of acid damage to each of you.

LIAM: Okay. (pained groaning)

MATT: That finishes its turn. At the end of its turn, you see part of it fall off.

TRAVIS: Oh.

MATT: It loses an attack, it loses some of its AC, and its speed is reduced. Each turn it gets worse and worse.

LAURA: Great, so we can outrun it. We can--

TRAVIS: Is that because of your spell? Because it wasn't--

LAURA: It just wasn't done.

MATT: It's just falling apart once it's out of the chamber.

LAURA: Oh boy!

TRAVIS: Dang!

LAURA: We still got to get out of here.

MATT: Top of the round. Imogen, you're up, with Chetney on deck.

TRAVIS: We got to get that thing. Er, "to that thing." (laughs) We got to get that girl! (laughs)

SAM: ♪ I want to hold your ♪ Mandible.

TRAVIS: Was she also in the cage that had a glass thing?

MATT: She was, yeah.

TRAVIS: Oh, yeah. Got it.

MATT: Yeah, she was held aloft in liquid.

MARISHA: It doesn't even make sense anymore.

SAM: Nope! (laughs)

LAURA: Oh god!

LIAM: Sam is only thinking of things that--

MATT: Which, by the way, you glance over--

LIAM: -- rhyme with "man."

MATT: -- and you can see that--

SAM: Uh-huh!

MATT: -- Gona is currently holding onto the side--

ASHLEY: ♪ She's a mandible ♪

MATT: - and is slamming the glass.

TRAVIS: Oh, she's awake!

MATT: Well, the small cytaa.

TRAVIS: Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh. Gona, yeah. Gona.

LAURA: Try waking her up.

MATT: It's not doing anything, but she's trying to break the glass to get to her.

MATT: Imogen, what do you got?

SAM and ASHLEY: ♪ She's a mandible ♪

LAURA: I'm going to stick with what I know and I'm going to reach up and try to Lightning Bolt straight through its body.

MATT: Okay. Yeah. You arc down, feel the presence. It's interesting. As you begin to cast your spell, you start noticing now, whenever you unleash one of these spells, all the different chunks and pieces of glass within this laboratory all light up in unison as you release the spell.

TRAVIS: When Imogen does it?

MATT: It's all resonant to the psychic magic around you.

LAURA: Fucking cool! This is a 4th-level Lightning Bolt.

MATT: 4th-level Lightning Bolt? So dexterity saving throw for it?

LAURA: Yes.

MATT: Oops. It has a really nice dex saving throw bonus, but rolled a natural one.

LAURA: Oh great!

MATT: So a definite fail.

LAURA: That's 9d6.

MATT: This is the other side of my good rolls. They're finally coming back to haunt me.

LAURA: One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight.

ASHLEY: ♪ When a mandible ♪

LAURA: I'm going to stop rolling these. (laughter)

ASHLEY: That was a little bit of a stretch.

SAM: That was good!

MATT: I liked it.

LAURA: It's terrible. 10.

LIAM: ♪ 'dible woman ♪

LAURA: 16. 18 plus five.

MARISHA: I love you looking at Sam for approval, like.

ASHLEY: I did! I did!

LAURA: 18 plus five is--

MATT: Plus five is 23.

ASHLEY: Not good.

LAURA: 23.

ASHLEY: Not good.

MATT: 23 points of damage. (whooshes) The bolt strikes through it. It shrieks and slams into the stone behind, parts of its body (whooshes) and a couple of its small legs (whooshes) fall off of it and slam into the ground and continue to twitch, but separately from it. Do you want to stay put?

LAURA: I am going to Quicken. Oh wait, can I? Yes, I can do that. I can Quicken a spell.

MATT: Mm-hmm.

LAURA: I'm going to Inflict Wounds. No, that's 1st-level.

MATT: That's a 1st-level spell.

LAURA: I am going to Shocking Grasp it.

MATT: You got it! Okay. Do you roll the hit or does it roll--

LAURA: I roll to hit.

MATT: Okay, go for it.

TRAVIS: ♪ Shocking! ♪

LAURA: 20?

MATT: 20? That definitely hits. Its AC is now 17.

LAURA: Okay. That's 3d8 damage. Oh. Ooh!

MARISHA: Ooh!

LAURA: That's great! 15 plus three.

MATT: 18.

LAURA: Oh, no! 15 plus six. My bad!

ASHLEY: Even better.

LAURA: Is 21.

MATT: 21! It's looking real bad, y'all.

SAM: Woo!

MATT: All right.

LIAM: Get it, Chet.

MATT: That finish your turn? You're going to stay put?

LAURA: It's going to attack me if I back up.

MATT: Probably.

LAURA: Then, I'm going to stay where I am and hope that everybody else finishes it off.

MATT: Got it. Chetney, you're up.

TRAVIS: With my bonus action, I'm going to reach up with my werewolf claws, I'm going to rip my ears off (screams) (laughs) and flames take their place. (whooshes) (laughter)

MARISHA: That's cool!

TRAVIS: I'll use my Crimson Rite.

MATT: That is my favorite Crimson Rite description I've ever heard! (laughter)

MATT: What the fuck?

TRAVIS: I'll go up and take three swipes against the fucking--

MARISHA: Wait, wouldn't it go to--

MATT: Two swipes, technically, because you use your bonus action to ignite.

TRAVIS: Shit! Yeah, just the two.

MATT: That's okay.

MARISHA: Did Gona see that?

MATT: Huh?

TRAVIS: (deeply) It's getting worse!

MARISHA: Yeah!

SAM: Uh-huh!

MATT: Gona's like (crying). "Cool!" (laughter)

MATT: Rolled really high perception.

TRAVIS: Nine plus. (groans) It's only 19 to hit on the first one.

MATT: 19 hits.

LIAM: Its AC is down.

TRAVIS: Oh, that's right!

TALIESIN: AC's down to 17.

TRAVIS: Amazing! Second one.

MARISHA: Fuck yes.

TRAVIS: 16 plus 10 is 26.

MARISHA: Kill it! Kill it!

MATT: That hits.

MARISHA: Come on.

LAURA: Kill it, kill it, kill it, kill it, kill it!

MARISHA: Kill it! Kill it, kill it, kill it!

TRAVIS: Six plus. Oh, I didn't roll the Crimson Rite damage.

MARISHA: (Mario Underground Theme) ♪ Kill it, kill it, kill it ♪

TRAVIS: Four.

ASHLEY: ♪ Kill it, kill it, kill it ♪

TRAVIS: 12, four is 16. 16 points of damage on the first one. Minus four to me. The second one is-- Yes! Eight. Eight, six. 14 plus four.

LAURA: 18.

TRAVIS: That one!

MATT: How do you want to do this? (cheering)

TALIESIN: Yeah!

TRAVIS: Amazing! Fire-eared werewolf Chetney walks up and, perfectly, he does one swipe up the sternum (whooshes) and then reaches in and grabs the rib cage and goes (cracking).

MATT: Oh!

TRAVIS: Just opens it all up.

MATT: (whooshes)

LIAM: All its little legs.

TRAVIS: (rapid impacts)

MATT: As you pierce your claws into it, you expect hard resistance, but some of its carapace has become soft as it's beginning to disintegrate, and it's pushing into--

TRAVIS: Slough?

MATT: Yeah.

MATT: You pull apart and it (zips) it pulls open like a zipper--

ASHLEY: Ugh!

MATT: -- and you watch as all of the necessary contents of its torso (sloughs) out. It's still standing.

TRAVIS: (scarfing)

MATT: Its rigid structure is still there and it's like (chokes).

TRAVIS: I'm eating a little bit.

MATT: It dies on its feet, the feet collapse a bit and the hardened structure of its outer shell holds it up while the soft parts liquefy and hit the ground.

TRAVIS: Ugh! Does it have a particular taste to its gore?

MATT: Yeah. Very Pine-Sol-y.

TRAVIS: (groans) (spits)

MATT: I mean, look where it was.

TRAVIS: (deeply) We got to get her out!

LAURA: Yeah. Great.

MATT: All right. So what's the plan? What's the plan?

LIAM: Yeah, I run over and start doing what I almost did earlier and I slash at the glass.

MATT: Okay.

TRAVIS: ♪ Slash at the glass ♪

MATT: We'll say you don't have to roll for any attacks here. It's already damaged in between the bludgeoning. It takes you just 10 seconds or so to eventually bash into it before the glass breaks and she emerges from it, the tubes and chains that hold her up being pulled and detached as you grab her and lift her up. She's--

LAURA: Is she awake?

MATT: She's barely conscious, but is awake.

LAURA: Okay, can we--

TRAVIS: Healing?

LAURA: Oh yeah! Healing potion. Can we do--

TRAVIS: Or anybody got a thing to give her a little boost?

LAURA: Do you have any healing?

MARISHA: I could do-- I will do a Wither and Bloom.

MATT: Okay!

MARISHA: Does she have some dice that she can roll?

MATT: I'll say so. Not a whole lot, but. How many can she spend? Equivalent of a short rest?

MARISHA: Okay, yeah. Hang on, hang on.

TALIESIN: ♪ (rhythmic scatting) ♪

MARISHA: It can spend and roll one of its own hit one.

LAURA: One hit dice?

MARISHA: You regain a number of hit points equal to the roll, plus my spellcasting ability modifier.

MATT: Okay, so it's six plus--

MARISHA: So it's whatever she has plus five.

MATT: Plus five. So 11. All right, so she heals 11 points.

SAM: All right!

MARISHA: Yeah.

MATT: So she "(groans) (pants)"

LAURA: Evoroa, we got to get you out of here now. Can you walk?

MATT: "I don't know. I haven't walked in days."

LAURA: Let's try to--

MATT: "(groans)"

MATT: Her legs are a little jelly--

SAM: Ugh!

MATT: And she's like-- she's trying to take a step. They're not like jelly, but--

SAM: Oh.

MATT: -- she's having a hard time keeping her weight on it.

LAURA: Chet, can you help?

LIAM: Yeah, can you carry?

TRAVIS: No. I'm actually going to grab the Mystic. How big and tall is the Mystic?

MATT: At full height, probably about seven-foot, but then it has hunches and--

TRAVIS: I'm going to take its arm and I'm going to put its arm over my shoulder and pick him up like I'm helping him out, and I'll be like: We got to get out of here.

MARISHA: Good idea!

ASHLEY: Oh, cool!

LAURA: Okay, I was going to turn us all invisible, but--

SAM: ♪ Who can take a sunrise ♪

TRAVIS: Oh. (thumping) (laughter)

TRAVIS: (deeply) Good idea!

LAURA: Yeah. You can help Evoroa, though.

TRAVIS: Yeah, I'll help Evoroa.

LAURA: I can get all of us at a high level. Yeah.

TRAVIS: (laughs)

MARISHA: While they do that, I'm going to skitter down, skitter down to the shelf with all the little fetuses.

MATT: Yeah.

MARISHA: I'm going to swipe a few.

TRAVIS: Oh, oh, oh! And the thing! I actually will take the Bag of Holding and try and fit the piece of Aeorian tech.

LAURA: Yeah, the big--

TRAVIS: I will try and put it in the Bag of Holding.

MARISHA: Yes! Yes, yes, yes! Yes! Come on!

MATT: Make a strength check for me.

MARISHA: Come on!

TRAVIS: Okay. I'm in my wolf form.

MATT: I understand.

TRAVIS: Can I get advantage?

MATT: Yeah. You get advantage when you're in your wolf form.

TRAVIS: Okay. All right. If you say so.

MATT: Yeah.

LAURA: How big is the Ruidus model?

MATT: I mean, the sphere is about that big.

MARISHA: Oh!

MATT: It's part of a larger device and its base, but the main core of it is about that big.

LAURA: Can I grab the sphere? Can I like--

MATT: Yeah.

LAURA: Get it on my back.

MATT: Yeah, you can do that.

LAURA: Okay. I'm going to hold.

MARISHA: Cool. Yeah.

TRAVIS: Natural 17 plus four for a 21.

MATT: 21. You push, push, and it resists and stretches, barely. You're afraid it might rip and destroy the device before it (sucks) fits in.

LAURA: Okay.

MARISHA: I skitter over Chetney and go: These, too. And slip a few fetus bottles.

MATT: There you go.

TRAVIS: Okay.

MATT: You got some Aeor tech and some fetus bottles.

TRAVIS: (laughs)

LAURA: Great.

LIAM: In all that chaos, I can't remember if any of us have ever seen a Judicator's face. Is the mask on the Judicator right now?

MATT: The mask is off.

LIAM: Off? What do we see?

MATT: It is a mess of flesh and muscle.

LAURA: It's like they pulled it off.

MATT: The eyes are gone, which is where the mask is. It's almost like a heavy branding burn.

LAURA: (groans)

MATT: You don't know if it's been done post.

TRAVIS: Yeah. Or before.

LIAM: Does it look like a metal mask was burned--

MARISHA: Seared.

LIAM: -- fused, seared onto flesh?

MATT: The shape of the wound is perfectly the shape of where the mask sits on the face. (groaning)

TRAVIS: What the fuck, Vasselheim? We got questions!

LAURA: Fucked up!

MARISHA: Do we see the mask?

TRAVIS: Inside Edition: Vasselheim.

MATT: The mask is not around.

MARISHA: Okay.

LAURA: I'm going to cast 6th-level Invisibility on all of us--

MARISHA: Ooh!

LAURA: So we can get up and out of here.

MARISHA: Damn!

MATT: Okay.

LAURA: That 6th-level gets five people.

MATT: It would, yeah.

LAURA: Yeah.

MATT: You're also hearing the sound of footsteps approaching and other folks scattering about, checking in on stuff.

MARISHA: As we start to, we are moving. We are moving. I'm going to check in. Fearne?

ASHLEY: (wails) What?!

MARISHA: FCG? How's it going? Is everyone all right?

MATT: It's about this moment that you are now saying--

ASHLEY: Letters? Ash?

SAM: We're okay!

TALIESIN: Ow!

SAM: Sort of. I'm going to cast 4th-level Cure Wounds on Ashton.

TALIESIN: Please tell me you're curing yourself, too.

ASHLEY: Do I know where I am?

SAM: Sure.

MATT: Hmm?

ASHLEY: Do I know where I am?

MATT: Make a perception check.

TALIESIN: 4th-level Cure Wounds?

ASHLEY: Where am I?

SAM: 20.

TALIESIN: 20. Thank you.

LAURA: (laughs)

SAM: We're here!

TALIESIN: Great!

ASHLEY: (wails)

SAM: 4th-level Cure Wounds on myself.

ASHLEY: 26.

MATT: 26. You glance around and you can see there's smoke billowing up from the outside of the now collapsed mine. There's flames that have emerged and things are on fire, banners are burning from the outside of that space, people are screaming and soldiers are looking around. It looks like bits of rock and rubble that were fired out of it with your friends also impacted nearby, residential buildings on the upscale Reiloran neighborhood that surrounds the outside of the Pillar. You hear the screech again of Gloamglut that's flying overhead. You triangulate where you are, looking at the wreckage of where the entrance of the mine was, and you now know where you are as you still sit over this wall of force.

ASHLEY: Okay. I'm pretty far from where I think they are underneath?

MATT: I mean, when you got plucked up by Ira, they were traveling fast and got hundreds of feet away, so they got flung even further. So they're probably a good 500 or so more feet away from where you are.

SAM: Four more points.

ASHLEY: Okay.

TALIESIN: Are you sure?

SAM: Yep.

TALIESIN: All right.

ASHLEY: I'm going to try to run to where I think that they would be.

TALIESIN: I'm going to describe what I'm seeing. We're over here.

SAM: What are we seeing?

MATT: Right now, stars. You are both deeply stunned by this.

TRAVIS: Concussed!

MATT: You're just starting to come to. The only reason you could hear what they're saying is because it's directly into your brain. Because right now, your hearing doesn't work. You just hear this high-pitched ring. As you glance around the space, the pain and the aching in your bodies, you see the wreckage and smoke around you, you see people trying to pull others out of the wreckage. It's tough to know exactly where you are and where you got thrown. All you can see is the massive pillar that marks, the massive glass center column of the city that marks a perpetual landmark and some approach, gaining a sense of where you are.

SAM: Is there-- So we can see the pillar and everything else around us is smoke and--

MATT: You can see the pillar, you can see flames, and you can see rock, and you can see soldiers moving around.

SAM: Let's get away from the pillar, right?

TALIESIN: Yep.

SAM: So we'll go away from it.

TALIESIN: Yeah, I'm throwing you on my back and I'm moving as best I can and I'm keeping my eye out for anything that might hit.

MATT: You rolled high enough perception where you can-- now you still all have Seeming on you, so you can see the direction of where the flames were and everything. You rolled 26, is that what you said?

ASHLEY: Yeah.

MATT: It takes you a little bit of time, but you begin to pick up the illusory images of the two of them, but by then they've also moved far beyond. You guys both are traveling at pretty much the same speed away and they're not catching up to you. You think it's them, you just--

ASHLEY: I'm running to what I think is them.

MATT: Correct.

ASHLEY: I'm just trying to find out.

MATT: I'm going to-- You know what? Roll a d20 for me.

ASHLEY: I can't. I'm kidding. (laughter)

MATT: Roll a d20 and--

TRAVIS: I don't want to.

MATT: On an 11 plus--

ASHLEY: I'm scared.

MATT: On an 11 plus-- Actually, just tell me if it's an 11 plus.

ASHLEY: 16.

MATT: 16. You rush up to a Quanikka and a myceit darting away from the wreckage and--

ASHLEY: There you are!

MATT: You both suddenly are surprised by a familiar voice.

SAM: It's us!

TALIESIN: Big fucking hug. Oh god, oh god.

ASHLEY: Oh god, you're okay.

SAM: We're okay. We sort of survived.

TALIESIN: Fuck. Run.

SAM: Yeah, where?

MATT: Now, Fearne, it's about this time that you notice that the red glow around her is brightening.

LAURA: Uh-oh.

MATT: Simultaneously, you feel--

TALIESIN: Oh shit.

MATT: -- this red glow around you brightening.

TALIESIN: It's worse.

MATT: Through both of your minds, you hear this high-pitched scream.

TRAVIS: It's again, we're running.

MATT: This earth-shattering scream of fury and horror and then with that the scream is gone. What are you doing?

SAM: Did it affect them?

TRAVIS: Male voice? Female voice?

MATT: Female.

LAURA: Even through my, even through my--

ASHLEY: A female voice?

LAURA: -- circlet I still got it?

MATT: You felt it.

LAURA: Oh god.

MATT: It wasn't in your mind directly. You just felt it.

TRAVIS: Recognize the voice?

LIAM: Right.

LAURA: Did it seem familiar?

MATT: Maybe.

ASHLEY: Imogen!

LAURA: Yeah.

MATT: You've heard a lot of screams in your days.

LAURA: I heard it. I heard it.

TALIESIN: Heard what?

LAURA: We got to get out of here now.

ASHLEY: There was a scream. I just want to make sure it wasn't her.

LAURA: Make your way back--

MARISHA: Female voice.

LAURA: -- to the hideout.

TALIESIN: Is it still there?

LIAM: Portal voice?

SAM: Well, I'm going to look around and see if I can see any landmarks that haven't been destroyed.

MATT: Make a perception check.

ASHLEY: I am going to--

SAM: Cocked.

MARISHA: Predathos? Is Predathos a lady god?

LIAM: Or Liliana?

ASHLEY: Grab Ashton's hands.

SAM: 21.

ASHLEY: Don't let me float away, please.

TALIESIN: Gotcha.

LAURA: What if it was my mom?

MATT: 21. You look around and you can see a bunch of things in the area. You can make out loosely the pattern of roads that look semi-familiar when you first came here. Ira's nowhere to be seen, but you gather the entry point to the inner circle of the city that you came through and you start heading that direction. At which point, you see this (detonation exploding) another detonation from across the way, this blast of bright energy with a pinkish tone. You see the top of a shell-shaped building explode and chunks of it fly out and stop and float in space. Immediately, you see just like a bullet of a gun, this singular lavender streak of power and energy that enters and lifts and floats in the sky. You glance up on what you-- Imogen is up in the sky and escaped this.

LIAM: Nah.

MATT: What are you doing?

TRAVIS: Oh shit, Matt. (laughter)

LAURA: We're not out yet, though. We're digging our way out.

MARISHA: Treshi scry ball, Treshi scry ball.

MATT: Treshi--

MARISHA and LIAM: (gibberish)

MATT: It is moving.

MARISHA: Moving where?

LAURA: Coming down?

MATT: Moving down.

LAURA: Ah, we got to go, we got to go!

TRAVIS: We can see it, too?

LIAM: But do we?

MATT: Yeah, she's holding it there.

LAURA: We're invisible.

LIAM: We're not underground anymore? We're reached surface?

MATT: No, actually, you don't see it because you've all lost your sight at this point. No, you all can't See Invisibility.

MARISHA: I tell, I tell-- (stammering) Otohan, she's moving down. We're moving up, but she's moving down.

LAURA: We got to go.

TRAVIS: Yeah, we're running. We're coming up through the stairs and trying to retrace our steps back from where we came, although we didn't, we did, it's a different staircase.

MARISHA: Keeping this out.

LAURA: Evoroa would know how to get out.

TRAVIS: True.

MATT: She's guiding you a little bit. She's like, ah, she says back the way you guys came is like, "That's the only way from this point."

TRAVIS: Yeah, let's go, let's go, let's go.

LAURA: Fuck. We go back the way we came.

MARISHA: All right, we go the way we came.

MATT: Okay, as you head back towards that area, you can see now soldiers are starting to swarm in. The way is partially blocked. If you want to, you could try and make acrobatics checks to dodge past the cluster of soldiers here, as a group acrobatics check, to not bump into any as you're rushing through.

LIAM: Okay, okay.

MATT: Now, whoever's holding Evoroa rolls with a disadvantage because you're having to help her through it as well.

LIAM: Give her to me, right now.

LAURA: Okay.

TRAVIS: Acrobatics check.

LIAM: Because it's acrobatics.

LAURA: Okay, okay, okay.

MARISHA: All right, all right.

LIAM: So it's at disadvantage?

LAURA: Yeah.

MATT: Disadvantage for you, yeah.

MARISHA: Come on, you guys, okay.

MARISHA: Okay.

LAURA: Okay.

LIAM: Natural one, which I'll reroll.

LAURA: Woo!

MATT: Hoo, hoo, halflings. All right, what've you got? Chetney.

TRAVIS: 14.

MATT: 14, okay.

SAM: Coward.

LAURA: 20.

MATT: 20.

LAURA: Sorry.

LIAM: It's all right.

MATT: Orym?

LIAM: 20.

MATT: 20.

MARISHA: 17.

MATT: 17. (sharp inhale) You all squeeze through like you're making your way through a football field and dodging past them.

MARISHA and LAURA: ♪ Makin' my way ♪

MATT: You dart through as people are rushing through and crossing past hallways, you eventually squeeze past and find the spiral staircase that leads you back up to where some of the upper levels were. At which point, Evoroa goes, "Ah," and goes to point down the exit that she knows, and down that way--

LAURA: Oh no.

MATT: It's filled with soldiers. They're starting to lock off perimeters and exits.

LIAM: Oh, that ain't going to work.

TRAVIS: Is that down that hallway that we came into?

MATT: No, no, that's the one towards the entrance that she was guiding you. You can try and go back the way you came or you can try and find another path. There's the way in front that she guided you, there's the way to the right where you came from, there's the left.

LIAM: So the way she wanted to go is not an option.

LAURA: It's blocked.

MATT: Correct.

LIAM: Full up.

MATT: I mean, you could give it a shot if you had some creative means of doing so, but--

LAURA: Should we give her a distraction?

MARISHA: Ah, fuck!

LAURA: Do we have any way to distract? We don't, do we?

TRAVIS: No, we should go the way we came in. It's less blocked than the way she wanted to go.

LAURA: Okay.

MARISHA: All right, let's try--

TRAVIS: Or try and find one of these offshoot balconies and go for it.

LAURA: Yeah, right?

MARISHA: Is there an offshoot balcony?

LAURA: If we're peeking in doors as we go.

LIAM: There's this passage which we abandoned and then there's a brand new passage without soldiers in it, correct?

MATT: This is a whole different area. You guys are up on a different floor now.

LIAM: Our choices are clear passage and soldier passage.

MATT: Well, there's two clear passages and the soldiers, a three-way. To the right is to where you came from. The left you have not been and don't know anything about and it seems that Evoroa, who is not a natural denizen that knows the space. She was put in a place and was only kept to what she was supposed to be focusing on. The one exit that she does know towards the front is currently filled with--

TRAVIS: Let's go to the left.

LAURA: Go to the left, go to the left, that's where, yeah.

LIAM: Balcony.

MATT: All right. You dart to the left and lead past. There are multiple open doors along the way and you can see there are Vanguard members getting up and gathering their stuff. You can see there's people that are hiding blankets over them, scared. Some of the younger Vanguard members that are caught off guard by the chaos and you see fear's taking hold within those who aren't ready for conflict or chaos. Continuing down the hallway, it comes to another staircase that goes down below or turns right.

TRAVIS: As we're going by any of those rooms that were open with people inside of them, did we see any balconies pass?

MATT: No, these are all inside the citadel, if you will.

TRAVIS: Got it, got it.

LAURA: We don't need to go deeper. We need to go up to get back out, right?

MATT: Maybe, there are different balconies. You're not quite sure.

TRAVIS: Got to take it; we're going this way.

LAURA: Okay.

TRAVIS: Yes.

LAURA: So we're going straight, we're not going down.

TRAVIS: Think so.

LAURA: I mean we're turning, not going down, right?

MATT: Still--

TRAVIS: Yeah.

MATT: Still the same direction.

LIAM: Same level or up.

MARISHA: Okay, okay, okay.

LAURA: Okay.

MATT: All right. So you all dart past to the right-hand side, continuing down that way. As you rush down, you can see two hulks come darting past a crosswalk, (feet pounding) bounding past as you both, you all stop and let them go. Wait a beat, continue on through as you go past this T-intersection. You look both right and left and you can see more people are coming. The places are starting to swell and swarm with soldiers.

MARISHA: Jesus, we got to get out of here.

LAURA: Anything with light? Anywhere light coming through windows?

MATT: Not a whole lot of light here underground.

LAURA: Oh fuck, you're right.

MARISHA: So we got to get up. We got to go up.

LAURA: I mean, underground at all. We're just trying to find a balcony.

MATT: Right, you continue past the way and you come to a T-intersection, as opposed to a cross intersection. Where it comes to an end. To the left, you can see there's one doorway to the right that is open and you see one sheepish Vanguard figure looks out and then closes the door behind him. To the right, it looks like it continues on and then turns to the right to a curve that goes back into the citadel.

LAURA: We should look, we should open that door.

TRAVIS: Yeah.

LAURA: Maybe there's a balcony that way.

LIAM: Yep.

MATT: Okay. You all go to that door, you grab it and it's like it's held closed, but not by a lock. It's like somebody's holding it on the other side.

MARISHA: Fuck that shit. Yank that, yeah.

TRAVIS: (forceful grunt)

MATT: Strength check.

TRAVIS: Okay.

TRAVIS: 12, 17.

MATT: 17. (bashing door) You kick it open and you watch as this younger Vanguard half-elf character stumbles back, "Aah!" Hits the ground and is like (panting). You can see the fear in his eyes. Looks very much out of his depth, but sees nothing beyond the door and is just waiting for something to come and get him.

LAURA: Is there a balcony in this room?

MATT: There is a balcony across the way.

TRAVIS: Yeah, we go right around him.

LAURA: Yeah, just ignore him.

LIAM: Don't even give him a second to think.

MATT: Okay, you all shift around. Darting past, you see him hearing footsteps, but not really knowing where it's coming from and goes and pulls under this rough-looking chair and digs halfway underneath and holds carefully to himself. You all dart up to the doors that are partially open to the exterior balcony. As you emerge, you step out to the edge and you look. It's only about eight, 10 feet of balcony widths to where the edge is.

MARISHA: We won't have time because I can't do it--

MATT: It's a good 70- to 100-foot drop from where you stand.

LAURA: What about--

MATT: You can see the city all around you.

MARISHA: I still have the rope, we can just rappel.

LIAM: We just tie it.

LAURA: Yeah, just tie it off.

LIAM: Tie it to something real.

TRAVIS: Yeah.

LAURA: Rappel down.

MATT: (detonation exploding) Right at this point, you see the explosion at the top of the building, the rocks filtering out and hovering for a minute.

TRAVIS: Oh, now we're catching up.

MATT: You're now catching up. You see the streak of pink lavender energy (energy whooshing) up into the air and you immediately know the source of the scream that you heard earlier.

LAURA: It was her, it was my--

MARISHA: I knew she was--

LAURA: We got to get out.

MARISHA: -- she was going to be all right.

MATT: What are you doing?

TRAVIS: Get the rope out, we got to get down.

MARISHA: Rope around the balcony, we're going down.

LIAM: Tie a piece of furniture in a room with scared Vanguard member.

MATT: Okay.

LAURA: And drop.

MATT: You all (whooshing) drop down, getting the rope to the ground and other soldiers are gathering. Two of them see the rope and rush up to it confused. Do you guys just continue on?

LAURA: Just keep going, we leave it.

SAM: That's good rope. (laughter)

LAURA: Whatever.

MATT: One of them tugs and pulls on it, calls over some others. They all start rushing up and one of them starts climbing it up, starts giving commands to go see who came up through that area and they're investigating nothing, but as you all scatter off towards the outer open ring to begin to merge with the rest of the surrounding populated buildings that hit the outer outskirts of this region, you see that purple flame flickering in the air and in both of your heads, you just hear the phrase, "Did she know?" We're going to end there.

TRAVIS: What do you mean, "Did she know?"?!

ASHLEY: What?!

TRAVIS: Did she know? Oh no!

MATT: We'll pick up from there next week.

SAM: Your mom hates you now.

LAURA: My mom hates me now.

MARISHA: I mean, I mean, I mean.

TRAVIS: Did she know?

LAURA: I gave her warning. I said, I told her run. I told her run in the dream. I told her.

ASHLEY: You told her. You told her. You told her. You told her. This could mean lots of things.

TRAVIS: Oh yeah, that kicked off a lot of things. That means there was an assassination attempt against her that failed.

LAURA: That's what the scream was.

MARISHA: Which we knew was going to happen. Which means there's probably some dead Volition members for sure like we told them.

TRAVIS: Oh no.

MARISHA: Wait, wasn't Rashinna--

LAURA: Yeah.

MARISHA: -- going to do that one?

LAURA: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

MATT: You know, Rashinna and/or--

TRAVIS: Gaz Tomo.

MATT: -- Gaz Tomo were going to be a part of that.

MARISHA: We told them!

ASHLEY: No, it's Gaz!

SAM: Oh no.

MARISHA: We tried to tell them and she got all bitchy.

TRAVIS: There was also a rescue mission for the Strife Emperor.

MATT: Yeah.

TRAVIS: Oh, oh, oh!

MATT: We'll see what--

LIAM: This is great after talk. Hold up, hold up.

ASHLEY: Okay.

LAURA: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

MATT: We'll have to--

ASHLEY: Fuck.

MATT: -- maybe learn some of these answers next time.

SAM: No!

ASHLEY: No, let's know them now!

TALIESIN: On another edition!

MATT: Indeed.

ASHLEY: Let's just play like a little bit longer.

MATT: I know. (laughter)

ASHLEY: Just like, can we, can we--

MATT: Soon enough, soon enough.

ASHLEY: -- all meet up right now--

MATT: Soon enough.

ASHLEY: -- and talk about it.

MATT: I promise.

ASHLEY: Okay, okay, okay.

TALIESIN: Yeah, yeah.

MATT: Thank y'all. I'm excited for the next one. Shit's getting crazy. Thank you all so much for joining us. We love you very much, and is it Thursday yet? (groaning)

MATT: Good night.

MARISHA: Split the party!

Cooldown

LAURA: Hey, success, though.

MARISHA: We did it!

TRAVIS: Dude, your mom went full Super Saiyan.

LAURA: Oh, my god, she did. She's so cool.

ASHLEY: Did she know?

TRAVIS: Yeah, that's fucking nasty.

TALIESIN: Ira, I have thoughts on--

TRAVIS: You have thoughts on what? Spill it!

TALIESIN: That was a lot of explosion in a very specific place.

SAM: Yeah, those were big bombs. Way bigger than they needed to be.

ASHLEY: I have thoughts.

TALIESIN: I was having that moment as they were setting up going, "Huh."

SAM: I was too!

LAURA: He's excessive. He is dramatic.

SAM: But he saved you.

TRAVIS: Plus, he destroyed the drill, right?

SAM: He loves you.

TRAVIS: Which was part of the target.

ASHLEY: I don't know, I think it's--

TALIESIN: Uncle Ira?

MARISHA: But then also, your dad's dragon! For a second I was like, is he serving you up on a fucking silver plate?

ASHLEY: That's what I thought, too. Then I was like, well, maybe not.

TALIESIN: This is why I love characters like this, because you can always trust them to be themselves.

ASHLEY: Yeah, you're right.

SAM: But Gloom Gluts? That's his name?

MATT: Yeah, Gloamglut.

SAM: He was hovering around after the explosion, but he wasn't--

LIAM: Yeah, he heard the cry.

LAURA: But it might have taken out your dad. That explosion probably took out your dad?

TRAVIS: I mean, it could have. It was pretty big.

MARISHA: That's when he was trying to go-- he has the grudge. Maybe that's why he's so big.

LAURA: It was so big because he wanted to kill everything in that area.

TALIESIN: Or he wanted to crack the glass.

MARISHA: And we didn't see your dad on Gloamglut.

ASHLEY: He could have.

SAM: But your dad--

ASHLEY: But guess who's next in line?

SAM: Does that make you an orphan?

ASHLEY: No, that makes me a lord.

SAM: A sorrowlord?

ASHLEY: I am a sorrowlord.

MATT: A lot of interesting questions to ask. A lot of interesting things to look into.

ASHLEY: I'm going to go with Lord. I like it.

SAM: I like Lord better.

ASHLEY: It's got a better ring to it.

LAURA: But my mom!

MARISHA: We knew she would live.

LAURA: We knew she was going to live.

TRAVIS: We got two pieces of Aeorian tech now.

LAURA: She's so powerful!

SAM: Yeah, so wait. You got--

LIAM: We've got a map of the moon. Model of the moon.

SAM: But that was a theoretical model.

TALIESIN: This is the best remake of the Duck Tales NES game ever.

SAM: The thing inside the moon took up 30% of its volume.

ASHLEY: The core. Its core.

SAM: So that is Predathos.

LAURA: Predathos is the glass.

LIAM: There were multiple sticks, offshoots of blue popping out of the middle, you said?

LAURA: Multiple shafts?

MATT: Correct.

LAURA: Predathos has so many dicks!

LIAM: So this one isn't the only dick.

TRAVIS: This blue glass shard stuff is a clearly different material than the little different angular gemstone rock that was in the middle of the Malleus Key that Ludinus was using to activate the--

MATT: Correct.

TRAVIS: It looks different than a beacon, right?

MATT: Looks definitively different than a beacon. It is a material that you have not seen, both in texture and power, on Exandria.

MARISHA: But it's almost like it's Ruidus itself.

TRAVIS: I thought this shit was the Luxon, and I was like (groans).

MARISHA: It's like a brain. Predathos is like the cerebral cortex with splintering--

TALIESIN: I still want to drop that seed. I want to drop that seed somewhere still before we get out of here.

LAURA: Oh, fuck, I'm sorry.

SAM: Oh, that's right!

ASHLEY: We'll do it.

LAURA: I had every intention to do that. But we're still underground.

TALIESIN: We ain't gone yet.

LAURA: We're still underground.

LIAM: This was some sick teamwork.

ASHLEY: Yeah, this was great work, you guys.

TALIESIN: Ya'll fucked it up.

ASHLEY: Do these have liquid in them? No.

TALIESIN: No, they're just really pretty.

ASHLEY: I just thought that was--

LAURA: My stomach is still-- I feel like I'm going to throw up.

ASHLEY: Was there anything here?

TALIESIN: Yeah, I've got like 55 more minutes before I turn into a lump.

ASHLEY: Was there anything in there?

SAM: Oh, are you going to be exhausted again?

MATT: That right there is an experimentation platform.

TALIESIN: That's why we're alive.

MATT: It's a stone table for surgeries and alterations.

LAURA: Yeah, that was good teamwork.

SAM: We're going to lose some stuff out of the hole.

LIAM: We knocked them down, got them on the ground so they're easier for everybody to hit. Just dominoed.

SAM: What's in the hole that we needed?

MARISHA: The Aeor tech. The Aeor core.

TRAVIS: Well, the surprise round helps. Not jumping right into initiative.

ASHLEY: Wait, do you have the hole?

TALIESIN: I do, but some stuff fell out.

LAURA: But he said we have two pieces of Aeor tech.

SAM: Who keeps the list of what's in the hole?

TRAVIS: I got what's in the bag, but not in the hole.

TALIESIN: I've got some--

LAURA: You're keeping track of what's in the hole, right?

TALIESIN: I haven't updated the last run, but I have everything we did.

LAURA: If you have the hole, you have to keep track of the list.

TALIESIN: Okay, I'll keep the list.

ASHLEY: I was supposed to, but I shouldn't be in charge of that.

TALIESIN: I have it written down.

LIAM: I have it written down in my head.

TRAVIS: Yeah, I guess we have to come up with that because some of it fell out, right?

SAM: Yeah, we need to present a list!

LIAM: There's just bodies thrown across the ground.

MARISHA: If it was fucking core--

LAURA: No, we still got the core. We still got the core. That was so heavy it wouldn't have gotten blasted out like a dead body.

LIAM: Right, that's physics.

SAM: Yeah, bodies are light.

TALIESIN: They're floppy. Makes them hard to lift.

TRAVIS: Screech plum.

MATT: Screech plume, those are other devices that Ira had created for the-- yeah, they temporarily scramble individuals of strong psychic power. Stuns them for a round.

LAURA: They were taking that to my mom. "Did she know?"

SAM: Did she know. She means you.

TRAVIS: Now Mom's pissed.

MARISHA: She for sure means you.

SAM: There's no other "she" that it could be, right?

TRAVIS: Now you're getting in their way.

LAURA: Unless she's talking about Otohan!

ASHLEY: Maybe she's talking about Otohan.

LAURA: Maybe she thinks Otohan tried to doublecross her.

LIAM: Naw.

TRAVIS: No. You're fucked.

MARISHA: You talked to her the night before being like, "Bitch, I'm coming for you."

LIAM: Watch your back, bitch.

MARISHA: Yeah, watch your back. You got to run.

LAURA: I know I said it.

TRAVIS: "Did she know?"

ASHLEY: Yeah, so then she's going to--

MARISHA: You were trying to look out!

SAM: Maybe she'll be proud of you for that.

LAURA: Yeah.

LIAM: Love that for her.

SAM: Like, "My daughter is just an overachiever."

LAURA: Love that for her.

TRAVIS: Did we learn anything else about the tunnel? It was against a wall. They were using the machine. We shut it down. We blew it up. We blew up the tunnel, collapsed a little bit, but we didn't know what they were going for or what they were getting out of it.

TALIESIN: I think they were trying to break the hard candy shell so they could get to the sweet god juice in the center.

TRAVIS: But what they were drilling against, a mix of rock and glass, right?

TALIESIN: The drill had hit glass. I think they were hit--

MATT: Yeah. It was grinding towards pure glass.

TRAVIS: Did we see what the drill bit looks like?

MATT: No. It happened pretty quick.

LIAM: (after Sam and Marisha engage in a mock light saber battle) Man, the new Star Wars is just not as good.

ASHLEY: Skitter down to the-- down to the floor.

TRAVIS: So we're not out, and Imogen's mom is flying through the air,

LIAM: In this massive underground cavern.

MARISHA: We're going to have to get the fuck off the moon. Like, it's bad now.

LAURA: We got to get off the moon. That's like our--

SAM: I feel like we've accomplished our mission.

LAURA: As soon as you can get those charges back so that we can Teleport--

SAM: Tomorrow morning.

LAURA: --to the Bloody Bridge and then up and out.

SAM: Tomorrow morning. Maybe.

LAURA: Yeah, we got to hang out in--

TRAVIS: Why do we got to go back and get anybody? We are crushing this. I say we just win the whole thing.

ASHLEY: What do you mean? Win what?

TRAVIS: We don't need no stinkin' back up.

SAM: Stay on the moon?

MATT: Hey, you know what's fun? Y'all want to level up?

ASHLEY: What?! Really?!

MARISHA: Can we level up?

TRAVIS: See?

SAM: We can do that?

MARISHA: Why not?

MATT: Because I was planning to, very soon, and I think the end of this moment is actually a pretty cool time to do it. Like in the midst of the chaos. We can use this moment. Because you guys have been going for a number of episodes. I've been trying to find the right time. I think on pretty much two successful missions at the end of this with the adrenaline pumping, everyone's kind of hurt, pushing through this chaos. Let's fucking go.

TRAVIS: Getting the crazy shit.

MARISHA: Well, wait, we can think about it. We can think about it.

MATT: Yeah, you don't have to choose right now. But I'm just saying, next time we get together--

SAM: Wait, I'm already doing it.

MARISHA: I'm going to have to think about it.

LAURA: I don't get anything, so it's great.

SAM: What do I get?

TALIESIN: 14's where everything goes crazy for me. I believe.

MARISHA: It's always weird with multiclassing.

LIAM: You're a titan. You're already crazy.

ASHLEY: Always doing this multiclassing shit.

MATT: Intense conversation--

TALIESIN: The third level of Chaos is batshit.

LAURA: Do I get enough...

LIAM: Well, that was pretty good. That was fun.

TRAVIS: We saw an Adjudicator's face.

ASHLEY: That was fun, Matt!

LAURA: Oh, I get a 7th-level spell!

MARISHA: A 7th-level spell?

TRAVIS: Dude. The Adjudicator's face with the mask melted onto it?

LAURA: Oh, my god. What?

TRAVIS: Yeah.

LAURA: Like just fused on.

LIAM: That means they take a searing hot metal mask and press it to the dude's face.

SAM: I get a 7th-level spell.

TRAVIS: Vasselheim has got a-- well, I mean, it doesn't have to answer anything, but-- Adjudicators serve all of Vasselheim. They're not from a specific Dawn Marshal or temple or...

MATT: Some of them are tied to certain faiths, but are exclusive to Vasselheim's high-end clergy, essentially.

TRAVIS: Interests. Got it.

MATT: Essentially.

TRAVIS: Holy shit.

MATT: Yeah, they're long kept as this secret force when they really need to flex. On an independent scale.

LIAM: Dawnfather's got dark side.

MATT: Every god's got a dark side.

SAM: You hate conjurer spells, right?

MATT: I don't hate them, no!

SAM: Conjure Fey, Conjure Celestial?

MATT: I don't hate them. I just want to know in advance so I can have minis at the ready.

LAURA: Oh, my god, what are these spells? They're so cool.

SAM: Conjure Celestial.

MATT: Yeah, if you want to take a conjure spell, just let me know in advance.

SAM: No, I kind of hate them too. It just puts another body on the--

MATT: That's the thing. We have seven players. And it's adding one or more extra things to have initiative order and concentration on, becomes challenging, but once again, I'll make it happen.

SAM: Yes, you're the best.

TRAVIS: And that's only the second time of us seeing the Sunder Lord in person, right?

MATT: It's the first time you've seen him in person. You've heard about them.

TRAVIS: Oh, we saw the dragon before.

LIAM: Sunder King. Sorrowlord.

TRAVIS: Sorrowlord.

LIAM: It's only because he misspoke once.

MATT: Yeah, sorry, sorry. Sunder King--

LIAM: Sorrowlord, Sunder King.

MATT: Cruth is like the head of the Dominion of Cruth, and then the Sorrowlord you met once before.

TRAVIS: Once before on his dragon.

MATT: Yeah, it was at the Fey Malleus Key, and is essentially the representative of the Unseelie Court towards the Vanguard and what Ludinus has been doing.

TRAVIS: And he doesn't seem to be cool with the Sunder Lord.

LIAM: Sunder King.

TRAVIS: Sunder King. Sorry.

MATT: Sorrow King. I'm fucking with you.

LIAM: Oh, come on!

TRAVIS: Which one is it?

SAM: Oh, my god, there's some really good spells.

LAURA: There's some really fucking awesome stuff.

LIAM: Laura's going down a rabbit hole.

TRAVIS: Sunder King seemed to be a Reiloran, like everybody else, but massive. And with crazy ass armor and leather strips and spikes.

LIAM: Yeah. Yes. He's going to be hard to get up close to because he's going to poke you.

TRAVIS: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Why are they fighting?

ASHLEY: Oh, that's awesome.

TALIESIN: Yeah, it's fucking vicious.

LIAM: All right. Well, everyone's descending into their iPads.

SAM: I know. We're just looking at spells now.

TRAVIS: I'm getting out of here.

MATT: All right. Think about it guys. We'll see you next time.

LIAM: Level up! Level up!