MATT: Hello, everyone, and welcome to tonight's
episode of Critical Role, where a bunch of us
nerdy-ass voice actors sit around and play
Dungeons & Dragons. ALL: (garbled) We play
Dungeons & Dragons! MATT: (laughs) Yeah. But before we get
into tonight's episode, we have some quick
announcements to get through, beginning with
our first sponsor, which is a brand new
sponsor to Critical Role. LAURA: Woo hoo!
MATT: An awesome clothing company called Snag. Sam, tell us about them. SAM: I will. Snag started five years ago
in (Scottish accent) Scotland. MARISHA: Ooh!
TRAVIS: Oh! SAM: But already has two
million customers worldwide. They're a fully size-inclusive
clothing company whose clothes actually
fit every body. (murmurs of approval)
SAM: If you've ever been told, thank you, if you've ever been
told you're the wrong size, shape, or gender to
wear what you want, you're not the problem,
the fashion patriarchy is and Snag is on a quest
to take them down one pair of legs at a time. Snag makes all
kinds of clothes, but their original and most
popular product is tights. But you shouldn't listen
to Sam Riegel about this. TRAVIS: No?
SAM: Tonight, why don't we let the
tights do the talking? LAURA: Oh boy. MARISHA: Oh boy.
TRAVIS: Where are you going? LAURA: Oh god,
what's happening? SAM: Okay. (grunts) LAURA: We can't even see you. SAM: (grunts) Okay. I think I can-- (goofy voice) Hello world,
it's me, Snag tights. ASHLEY: (laughs)
(general sighing) SAM: I'm-- (laughs)
ASHLEY: (laughs) SAM: I'm plastic-packaging
free and I use vegan dyes and develop my sizes
on real people. I come in lots of varieties. Like-- MARISHA: Can the mic pick
you up down there? SAM: Yeah, we got one
down here for me. MARISHA: Oh, good.
(laughter) SAM: Check out these. (laughter)
ASHLEY: Oh my gosh. MARISHA: Oh. SAM: These over here, these! Cable knit Merino wool tights.
ASHLEY: Those are actually pretty cool.
SAM: Perfect for cold weather. ASHLEY: Ooh!
SAM: Yeah, so warm. LAURA: Gross!
I don't like it. SAM: Or these!
LAURA: I like the tights, I don't like Sam. SAM: These fishnets, when
you're feeling fancy. Ooh la la! LIAM: I've actually seen this--
SAM: They have tights-- LIAM: -- 1,000 times.
SAM: -- for every occasion, the office, a night out,
a cosplay convention, even a Critical Role
live show! Snag has your legs covered. Also, the blood is
rushing to my head and I'm seeing
strange colors. Wait, that's not
me blacking out, it's the dazzling array
of colors and styles that Snag come in.
TRAVIS: This is kind of perfect. SAM: Look at these! And these! (laughter) SAM: Oh no! I can't
feel my extremities. Mommy! ASHLEY: Oh.
TRAVIS: (laughs) MARISHA: Oh, no.
LAURA: What? MARISHA: Oh yeah,
he passed out. ASHLEY: Well, whatever. Snag actually anticipated
this happening, so they send all
of us tights. Look at all these! MARISHA: Yay.
ASHLEY: Woo! Show them off! LAURA: ♪ (joyful humming) ♪
ASHLEY: Clothes and tights that actually fit. Why the Snag not? Be sure to check out-- TRAVIS: (laughs)
Why the Snag not? ASHLEY: -- all of their
collection online at snag.world/CriticalRole. This is the back. Should we call an ambulance? LAURA: Nah.
ASHLEY: (laughs) TRAVIS: Nah, he's fine, he's dead.
MARISHA: He's fine. TRAVIS: We don't really need him.
MARISHA: He'll be great. LIAM: Finally free.
ASHLEY: Nah. SAM: Trade up.
ASHLEY: Matt, Snag to you. MATT: Yeah, boy, thank you, Ashley.
TALIESIN: Well that's fun. MARISHA: (laughs) MATT: Eh, he'll probably
get more people on his Only Sams after that. (laughter) MATT: News from
the royal court. LAURA: Did you say Only Sams?
MATT: I did. TALIESIN: Oh!
ASHLEY: Nice. MATT: News from
the royal court of Darrington Press, the second edition for,
For the Queen, by award-winning game
director Alex Roberts is coming later this year. TRAVIS: For the Queen!
MATT: For the Queen is an amazing, easy-to-learn
collaborative card-based game of building a tale
of love, betrayal, doubt, and devotion
towards the queen as your characters accompany
her on a journey. I love this game so much. Find the second edition
of For the Queen, which includes
a ton of new art and additional story
cards on May 14th at Critical Role online shops,
Darrington Press Guild Stores, and other familiar,
familiar, friendly, local game stores.
Brain, short circuit. But sign up for updates at
DarringtonPress.com/newsletter. TRAVIS: (whispering) Newsletter.
MATT: Marisha, you're up. MARISHA: Let's talk
Candela Obscura. TRAVIS: Oh boy! MARISHA: The esoteric
investigations of the Circle of
Tide & Bone came to a rousing conclusion
last Thursday. You can now watch the
whole thing on Twitch and YouTube, especially
for those of you all who binge watch, I see you, I know
you're out there. I would like to give
a massive thanks to our GM, Aabria Iyengar.
(cheering) ASHLEY: Woo!
MARISHA: Oh! LIAM: Yes!
MARISHA: She's so dreamy. ASHLEY: Yes! MARISHA: For leading us
on these assignments, and of course players,
Sam Riegel, Noshir Dalal, Gina Darling,
and Liam O'Brien. ASHLEY: Whoop whoop!
LIAM: Oh. MARISHA: We hope their
investigations inspire you to go on your own. Also, Midst, Season 3--
TRAVIS: Three! MARISHA: -- is launching
on February 14th. MATT: Woo!
ASHLEY: 14th! MARISHA: It's a great little
Valentine's Day present. So now you can snuggle up. The Midst narrators will
join us for a round table next Wednesday,
February 7th, with Sam and I. They'll answer questions
about Season 2, showcase gorgeous
episode artwork, and tease what's to
come in Season 3. MATT: Ooh.
MARISHA: While Season 3 will bring the current
narrative to an end, do not worry, because
there's so much more to this cosmos
that it has to offer and we're so excited--
TRAVIS: Fire! MARISHA: -- to explore everything the Midst
universe has with the amazing creative
team at Third Person, and yeah, maybe talk about some new projects
in the future. TRAVIS: Oh snap. Do you know if Sam is
still alive down there? MARISHA: He's purple,
but he's all right. On January-- Wait, let me start over. Our January-- (laughter) TRAVIS: I distracted her!
MARISHA: On January, it's done now. Our January 4-Sided Dive with
our guest host Abubakar Salim. Our January 4-Sided Dive with
our guest host Abubakar Salim. ASHLEY: Woo!
TRAVIS: Yeah, baby! MARISHA: It's
available right now. It was fun. I think we annoyed the hell
out of him, it was great. LAURA: He's awesome.
MARISHA: He's so great. We don't deserve him.
TRAVIS: Abu! MARISHA: Now, we will not have
a 4-Sided Dive this month, the month of February, so look forward to
the next one in March. We just have a lot
of shit going on. It'll make sense in time. TRAVIS: Mm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
MARISHA: Yeah. MATT: Thank you.
LAURA: Speaking of March. TRAVIS: Oh!
MATT: Yes, Laura. LAURA: Nope,
speaking of merch. (laughter) TRAVIS: Out of the blocks!
TALIESIN: Oh, I love it! LAURA: We have some. Would you like to see it?
TRAVIS and TALIESIN: Wow. ASHLEY: Yes!
MATT: Yes! ASHLEY: Oh, yes.
LAURA: This has been out for a little bit,
but I'm showing it now. We have this.
TALIESIN: Ooh! MARISHA: Yeah!
TRAVIS: Hey! ASHLEY: Yay! LAURA: It's our
Chetney Pock O'Pea pullover knit hoodie. Check it out! On the inside,
it's like his hat. TRAVIS: It's so comfy, y'all!
MARISHA: So cute! LAURA: Yeah, Travis has
been wearing this one. TRAVIS: I wear it a lot at
home and I don't wash it. LAURA: Yeah, I'm like--
(laughter) TALIESIN: We know.
LAURA: I didn't know that. (laughter) I might keep that
one for myself. ASHLEY: Okay, okay.
LAURA: Or you can keep it, I have other ones, I'm sure. Then we also have, let me
make sure I say it right. Yes, we have--
♪ (triumphant fanfare) ♪ MARISHA and SAM: Ooh!
LAURA: This is from Candela Obscura.
TRAVIS: (whispering) Candela Obscura! LAURA: It's our blueprint T-shirt.
ASHLEY: Ooh! LAURA: You may notice--
ASHLEY: I love the blueprint. LAURA: -- or you may not, that it is an arcane
siphon blueprint. MARISHA: Yeah!
The artist is Shaun Ellis. He's one of the illustrators from the Candela Obscura
Core Rulebook. MATT: Shaun!
MARISHA: He's so great. LAURA: It's amazing
and awesome and I liked the
design so much that we put it on
a blue one for the-- ASHLEY: Ooh! LAURA: Because, you know,
variants and stuff. MATT and TRAVIS: (laugh) ASHLEY: Cute.
MARISHA: It's so cute! TRAVIS: Watch out for that bleed.
MATT: That's awesome. Thank you, Laura. Liam!
LAURA: That's all I've got. TALIESIN: Oh!
LIAM: I'll talk about comic books,
because we make them! Over at Dark Horse, we're back to Vox Machina
Origins after a break. Series 4 begins with
issue number one! TRAVIS: Let's go, baby!
ASHLEY: Woo! LIAM: Oh,
mysterious disappearance, an ominous basement. Remember that from
the home hame? TALIESIN: Oh yeah.
TRAVIS: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. LIAM: Dark surprises await--
TALIESIN: Good times. MARISHA: God, yeah.
LIAM: -- Vox Machina. TRAVIS: There's an asshole
in that one. LIAM: The creative
team features a new artist to the series. Love, love the work on
these pages by Noah Hayes, and we have returning
colorist, Diana Sousa, and letterer, Ariana Maher. You can look for
it on May 29th, I don't know why I'm
steepling my hands, at your local comic store.
MATT: I don't trust you suddenly. TRAVIS: Don't ditch it,
don't ditch it. You can't abandon it now. LIAM: For the latest updates
on our comics, graphic novels, and other creations
with Dark Horse, check out
CritRole.com/DarkHorseGuide. LAURA: ♪ (triumphant fanfare) ♪
LIAM: That's it. MATT: Great.
LIAM: Comic books! MATT: Thank you, Liam.
Appreciate it. (laughs) Speaking of which,
I think that's-- MARISHA: Oh god!
(laughter) MARISHA: That was
that metal one! TRAVIS: I got him in the dick!
MARISHA: Holy shit! (laughter) SAM: You got me in the dick!
(laughter) TRAVIS: It took me two, but the second one was true! ASHLEY: Let me try it, let me try it!
LAURA: The metal dice! The metal dice! ASHLEY: Wait, go back.
MARISHA: You want to try?! ASHLEY: Did you use a d4?
TALIESIN: Did you hit a nat 20? TRAVIS: I had to
gauge the windage. TALIESIN: I was really proud of that.
LAURA: Are you serious? You're going to try it, too?
ASHLEY: Yes! LAURA: Sam!
MATT: While you prepare for your various--
LAURA: It's sharp! ASHLEY: Why are you covering?
LAURA: That's a sharp one! (laughter) TRAVIS: We're on the moon!
We got to get serious! SAM: I'm not covering. MATT: There you go. There
you go, that's the one. Hey-oh.
LAURA: I don't want any of my dice touching Sam's dick.
ASHLEY: Sorry, I got distracted, too. MATT: With that, children-- TALIESIN: Yes.
LAURA: Sorry. TALIESIN: Side quest. MATT: That concludes
our announcements. Let's go ahead and jump
into tonight's episode of-- LAURA and ASHLEY: Oh no! MATT: -- Critical Role.
(excited roars) ALL: ♪ Critical
(It's Thursday) ♪ ♪ It's Thursday night ♪ ASHLEY: ♪ One-by-one, we climb
until we reach the top ♪ ♪ Two-by-two, we fall ♪ LAURA: ♪ Will we meet our end
or meet our destiny ♪ ♪ Hold your breath and roll ♪ MATT: How do you
want to do this? ALL: ♪ It's Thursday night ♪ ♪ All ye Critters, ♪
come join us ♪ ♪ It's time to ♪
continue our plight ♪ ♪ There is magic ♪
and mystery ♪ ♪ Who knows ♪
what will happen ♪ ♪ He might ♪ ♪ But one thing's for sure ♪ ♪ We never give up ♪
on the fight ♪ TRAVIS: ♪ From the healer ♪ LIAM: ♪ To the renegade ♪ MATT: ♪ We all share
the same goal ♪ TALIESIN and MATT:
♪ Adding more allies ♪ ♪ Taking more chances ♪ SAM: ♪ Hold your breath
and roll ♪ MARISHA: You can
certainly try. ALL: ♪ It's Thursday night ♪ ♪ All ye Critters, ♪
come join us ♪ ♪ It's time to ♪
continue our plight ♪ ♪ It's Thursday night ♪ ♪ There is magic ♪
and mystery ♪ ♪ From darkness, ♪
our friendship will rise ♪ ♪ But one thing's for sure ♪ ♪ We never give up ♪
on the fight ♪ ♪ Oh, get ready (get ready) ♪ ♪ It's Thursday night ♪ (flames crackling) MATT: And welcome back.
SAM: Poop. MATT: So last we left off, Bells Hells, after meeting with some of the various
important Exandrian figures trying to plot along with
you what is happening upon Ruidus and
how to stop it, you put yourselves forward
as the ones to do this intel mission to figure
out as much as you can about the goings on so
the Exandrian forces can plan accordingly
when the time is right. In doing so,
you rallied yourselves, and with the help of
the Voice of the Tempest, you snuck into the Tishtan
Excavation Site once more, seeing them now bolstering
their defenses, new technology
being incorporated into the surroundings
of the Key itself. You stealthed past many
members of the Ruby Vanguard and the Reiloran defenses. Attempting to climb
to the Malleus Key, it seemed that combat
was a necessity after some not quite
as smooth stealth attempts had transpired,
but I think, overall, you managed to climb
towards the top piecemeal, somewhat rickety map piece, of an advancement to the
Malleus Key, my apologies. But in doing so, you
damaged and distracted a number of the surrounding
guard in the vicinity. You fought the Thought Eater, one of the various powerful
mystic Reilorans that was guarding the
spot behind Otohan Thull, who had darted off
towards the distraction that had been built
by the remaining forces of the Exandrian mines. Upon climbing it,
did so while also bringing along
with you (laughs) a possum-transformed
juggernaut. As you all found yourselves
being thrust through the energy blast
that is the Bloody Bridge, you found yourselves now
standing on the surface of the red Moon of Ill Omen--
TRAVIS: Let's go! Let's go! MATT: -- Ruidus.
SAM: What. What. MARISHA: Looking up you
can see a portion of the sky is now encompassed
by the beautiful, glowing blue-green sight
of your home world, Exandria. As your eyes come down
on the space around you, on the horizon you
can see the majority of which is clouded
in ever-shifting, either away or towards you, roiling dust storms
of red in the distance, the dappled stars above
still being slowly consumed by the ever-prominent and
dangerous-looking storms, very familiar to you. As you look into
the space around you, you can see the
glow of the ground where the Bloody Bridge
arrives here, filling the space with
the reddish energy and beyond that, you see what looks to be
a makeshift encampment. There are built walls
of bone and glass and stone that have
been put together in a ramshod manner. You can see there are tents and small structures
surrounding this, like a temporary military
encampment had been built around this arrival site. You can see there's
a large pillar with a bell hanging on it. You can see there's the weird,
reddish plant material, like a scrub brush
that is growing and grasping onto bits of
exposed stone around here, the first real sign in person
of vegetation on this land, though unfamiliar
in some odd ways. You can see spires
of strange rock poking through the
ground in places, like the very presence of
the magic of the Bloody Bridge is tearing and
pulling elements up from the ground beneath. But, this is an encampment
and you have no idea how many people may
or may not be in it, and you know there's
something coming behind you, likely very soon. In this brief moment, before we go into possibly
another initiative, what are you doing? LAURA: Can we see anybody
visible right now? MATT: I'll put down the map
for you so you can see it. (excited clamoring) SAM: This map
brought to you by-- LAURA: That fast, that fast. SAM: This map combat
brought to you by WizKid Minis.
Fresh Cut Grass-- that's me-- Ashton Greymoore,
and Fearne Calloway are ready to join
your couch party. LAURA: Yay!
SAM: That sounds dirty. Order your plush
friends today. Check out the
Bells Hells Plush at WizKids.io/BellsHellsPlush.
LAURA: They're so cute! TRAVIS: Yo. Oh, snap.
ASHLEY: Whoa! TRAVIS: Okay, so maybe not
as ramshackle as I thought. SAM: Whoa.
TRAVIS: Is that the bell tower? SAM: Did we see this before?
TRAVIS: What is that for? MATT: That's the bell tower.
LIAM: No, we didn't. TRAVIS: What the fuck
is that for? MATT: And--
TRAVIS: Oh, if Scanlan could see me now,
my sweet boy. SAM: Wait, what?! (laughter) SAM: You're Scanlan's dad?!
TRAVIS: Huh? You don't know who--
MARISHA: Just dropping that shit right off the bat.
SAM: Who's Scanlan? TRAVIS: Uh-huh!
MARISHA: Oh my god. Look at the portal light! MATT: You all--
LAURA: Oh, that's where we come in. SAM: From which perspective--
MATT: This is backward. SAM: -- it does look like
we're standing on pudding. (laughter) LAURA: I was going to
say like Brie cheese. TRAVIS: Brie cheese, yeah.
ASHLEY: Yum. SAM: It's like
some nice tapioca. TALIESIN: We got a moon. We're like, I knew it.
LAURA: You guys. Do you remember our brunches? MARISHA: I know, it's what
I immediately thought about. TALIESIN: Ooh, I love the little--
MATT: You're still in your wolf form. TRAVIS: Yes.
MATT: Yeah. TALIESIN: Okay, that
visual effect is amazing. LIAM: Well, right away,
Orym's going to hop up onto Fearne's shoulder
and hold onto her horns and scan around and see if
anyone is in sight sees us. TRAVIS: I'll--
MATT: Perception check. TRAVIS: I'll match his
perception and look for cover, like structures.
LAURA: We need to move. MATT: Still standing
here in the center? TRAVIS: Yeah.
LAURA: We need to move <i>now.</i> That Thought Eater
was coming through. MARISHA: It was a--
TRAVIS: Left to right. MARISHA: -- a Thought Eater
and a juggernaut that's coming through?
MATT: Possibly. SAM: Juggernaut might
already be through. I'm looking for the possum. MATT: You look down and
see this tiny little possum biting at your wheel.
(ferociously chewing) SAM: I wheel back to him.
LAURA: Don't do it. Don't-- Pick him up.
Take him with us. ASHLEY: I had the bag, I was
trying to put him in the bag. MARISHA: Yeah, yeah,
yeah, yeah, yeah. SAM: I'll gently put him--
TALIESIN: We got to move. SAM: -- into the bag.
LAURA: Yeah, let's go, let's go! TRAVIS: Question for the DM. Is that an open space
between the fences, or is that enclosed? Like are we in an enclosed-- LIAM: But is that
just miniature? MATT: Correct, that is
just miniature setup. It is enclosed.
TRAVIS: Oh shit. How the fuck do we
get out of this fence? SAM: Jump. MATT: Well, make
a perception check. LIAM: 27.
MATT: 27. LIAM: Looking for anybody.
MATT: Leaping up over that point, 27 is pretty decent. You do see,
over in this area, there are two
conversing Reilorans over on that edge. SAM: We can see
through the fence? LAURA: No, he jumped
up over-- MATT: He jumped up onto
Fearne's horns and is glancing over quickly. You can see other
figures walking through some of
the tents. It is, now that you
get a top view, you are in the center
of probably about 60-ish buildings built
entirely around the center of the Bloody Bridge's
arrival place. LAURA: So cool!
MATT: You've dropped right into the center of another encampment. LAURA: Can we jump up
and over and hide behind these rocks
right here? MATT: Right here?
LAURA: Just get out of this way, I was
thinking that way. TALIESIN: They're going
to hit the bell. MATT: Yeah, you can. All right, so you
rush over this way? LAURA: Oh, yeah, if we--
SAM: Sure-- LAURA: Will they ring
the bell, you think? Is that an-- TALIESIN: Well, I think there's going to be--
LAURA: -- alarm or something? TALIESIN: -- people that come
through, start looking for them. SAM: Are there any gaps? Yes, let's all move
over there so we can huddle and
discuss real quick. Are there any doors,
gates, gaps in the-- LAURA: This looks like
we're right by a tent. Is there somebody
in this tent that we're just hopping over? MATT: You don't know. LAURA: Is there a door?
TRAVIS: Go, go, go. LAURA: We got to move.
TRAVIS: I will (sniffs) smell and use my keen senses to try and perceive if
anybody's in there? Do I sense smell here?
MATT: Sure, sure. TRAVIS: Anybody in there?
LAURA: I think we should all be crouching and ducking
behind things as we can. TRAVIS: 19.
TALIESIN: I'm following the group and I'm trying to keep an
eye on anything to hit. MATT: Okay.
LAURA: Do we still Pass Without? No, we don't Pass Without--
MATT: So people are still moving back over this way.
ASHLEY: We don't. I think I'm going to-- TRAVIS: Wolf nose-- MATT: No, because you're
currently concentrating on-- LAURA: The Polymorph.
MATT: The Polymorph. LIAM: Yeah.
LAURA: Oh, that's a concentration. ASHLEY: Shit.
MATT: Yeah, it is. Fearne, where are you going? ASHLEY: I'm going to go
over there as well. MATT: Rest of the group
moves over this way, too. ASHLEY: Since Mr. Possum is in
the bag of holding now, can I-- Unconcentrate? (laughs) MATT: You try to throw him
in the bag of holding? LAURA: We put him in
the bag of holding. ASHLEY: That's what we were
attempting, FCG and I. MATT: Okay. Okay, well,
who's going to try that? It's going to try and
resist being grappled. SAM: Oh, I was trying
to shove it in and she was helping
by opening the bag. MATT: Okay, so make a
strength check for me. SAM: Strength?
LAURA: I guess the possum-- TRAVIS: Possums are fucking--
They're nasty. MATT: They're wiley.
LAURA and MARISHA: They're nasty. SAM: Okay? Just a strength check, 15. MATT: Athletics, I'll say. SAM: Okay. Still 15. MATT: Still 15. Yeah, no, he didn't
roll well. (laughter)
MATT: (angry squealing) SAM: Just git!
MATT: He vanishes into the bag of holding. SAM: Good. You're going to
unconcentrate? TRAVIS: Yeah.
ASHLEY: He's in the bag now. He's out in the void. SAM: But won't he poof out and explode the bag?
LAURA: No, it's a bag of holding. ASHLEY: No, he's probably
going to-- TRAVIS: Suffocate.
ASHLEY: -- die in there. SAM: Aww.
TRAVIS: Yes. MATT: Laudna, what
are you doing? MARISHA: Are people hiding? MATT: Yeah, they're all
clambering over this side. MARISHA: Oh, I'll hide. (laughter) LIAM: Now we're back
SAM: That's a lot of darkness. MATT: Dart to join
over to this space. TALIESIN: Here we go.
MATT: You following suit? LIAM: No, it's better to
stay together right now. Yeah, I'll follow suit. MATT: Okay. LAURA: Now you can Pass Without a Trace?
MATT: Running low on space over here, but you have a pretty leap so you can come down to this side if want you to.
LAURA: We're trying to hide? MATT: You leap down
into that space, which immediately
reveals to you the opening to the
back of this tent. On the inside, you hear
something rustling. ASHLEY: Pass Without a Trace. MATT: Okay, you guys have Pass Without a Trace.
SAM: She yells that. LAURA: Pass Without a Trace!
ASHLEY: (yells) Be real quiet! (laughter)
MATT: What do you do? TRAVIS: I was running
towards the tent and I rolled in 19 to use
my senses, nose and ears, to see if there was
anything in the tent. MATT: Okay, so as you
darted, passing him and land next to Orym
in this space, you both (thuds). You hear the rustling. The scents here are unique. You've not smelled a
space like this before. You've been near Reilorans, and you can pick up their
scent a little bit more. But like, all of the
surrounding flora, the stone and dust
around here, it's overwhelming
you for a moment, but it also means that
you can very quickly pick up the scent of what is
likely Reilora in that tent. TRAVIS: (deeply)
Should we rush him? MARISHA: In the tent?
TRAVIS: Yeah. LAURA: He'll send out a
message to everyone around. TRAVIS: Oh because they
do mental shit? LAURA: Yeah. MATT: It's about this moment--
LIAM: Yeah. SAM: (sucks teeth)
LAURA: Fuck. MATT: -- that you
see (ominous fizzing), a flash, a pulsing
burst of energy from the Bloody Bridge itself as it descends into this place
(thuds) immediately. MARISHA: Shit.
LAURA: Are we hiding? We're hiding, right? SAM: We duck. We duck. MATT: You watch as
the Thought Eater still bloodied and recovering from the recent conflict
with all of you immediately darts out
from the bridge and floats up in the air. Its robes floating around it. Shortly thereafter.
TRAVIS: Celestial body. MATT: (explosion) LAURA: Another Juggernaut? MATT: One of the Juggernauts--
LIAM: Another Juggernaut. MATT: -- that was pursuing
from behind and begins to
clamber through. MARISHA: I-- Fuck, fuck. LAURA: Not now, Laudna-- MARISHA: (laughs) Rain check.
TRAVIS: Unbelievable. ASHLEY: Stress reliever,
but now's not the time. MATT: (laughs) MARISHA: I am going to cast
Phantasmal Force on the Juggernaut, MARISHA: I am going to cast
Phantasmal Force on the Juggernaut, because I think he's going to be--
SAM: (loudly sneezes) MARISHA: Shut up. I think he's going
to be stupider. MATT: Okay.
MARISHA: I want him to believe that he sees-- LAURA: I can't believe it. MARISHA: I can't believe this.
TALIESIN: Wow. MARISHA: He sees the heels
of me and Imogen and Chetney MARISHA: He sees the heels
of me and Imogen and Chetney running this direction
through the fence. MATT: Okay.
TRAVIS: There's no gap. LIAM: There's no gap. SAM: No, there is! MARISHA: We are--
LIAM: It's just an approximation. MARISHA: We are jumping
over the fence. We scaled it and he sees us jump down and we're
running that way. MATT: That's going to be a 15.
MARISHA: Failed. MATT: Failed. He rolled
pretty decent, but yeah. All right, so that's going to
be your casting onto that point. Since they've arrived, and that was your
initial jump point-- SAM: Initiative? MATT: -- everyone roll
a new initiative. (groaning) LAURA: Should we roll
for stealth, since we Passed Without
a Traced and stuff? MATT: Pass Without a
Trace and jump behind? Sure. Yeah, we'll say
everybody can roll a group stealth check. ASHLEY: Okay. Right. LAURA: Okay. Okay.
TALIESIN: Okay. Okay. MATT: So stealth checks here. So we'll go with that first, and then we'll
go to initiatives since that was what
we're doing there. TRAVIS: 35.
MARISHA: Oh, it's better than I thought.
MATT: 35, okay. MARISHA: I thought it
was 2 but it's a 9. Sorry, 25. MATT: 25, okay. FCG, what you got?
SAM: Oh, sorry, sorry. 26, then. MATT: 26. ASHLEY: 20. MATT: 20.
LAURA: Ooh. MATT: All right?
LAURA: 30. MATT: 30.
LIAM: 24. MATT: 24, got it. TALIESIN: 28. MATT: 28, all righty. TRAVIS: What a mood
landing initiative. MATT: All right. TALIESIN: Oh boy.
MATT: So, now initiative, 25 to 20. LAURA: 20. TALIESIN: Oh, that's 23. MATT: 23.
TALIESIN: I think so. TALIESIN: Wait, is that a 1 or nope--
TRAVIS: So, Ashton, Imogen? TALIESIN: Yep, that's 23.
LIAM: 24. TRAVIS: Oh.
LAURA: Goddamn it. MARISHA: Oh wait, so Orym? TRAVIS: Orym, Ashton.
MATT: Ashton. TRAVIS: Imogen.
LAURA: Say it faster! ASHLEY: Orym, Ash.
(laughter) MARISHA: Imogen. LAURA: Orym is before
Ashton? Jesus. LIAM: Sorry, I was too
busy thinking what the fuck are
we going to do? SAM: Uh-huh.
ASHLEY: Yes. Yeah. MATT: All right. TALIESIN: Orym, Ashton-- MATT: 20 to 15.
MARISHA: 19. TRAVIS: 18.
MATT: 19? What's your dexterity? MARISHA: Oh, I hate that. TRAVIS: Yeah, me too. MARISHA: 14 plus 2 to my dexterity.
MATT: 14, got it, all righty. TRAVIS: Laudna, Chet.
TALIESIN: Laudna, Chet. TRAVIS: 19, 18. MATT: All right. 15 to 10? ASHLEY: 15. MATT: 15, all right. TRAVIS: Good job, Fearne! ASHLEY: Thanks.
SAM: Okay. LAURA: Wait, what was, wait. ASHLEY: Wait, I'm 15,
what are you? TRAVIS: Laudna, Chet, Fearne.
ASHLEY: Oh. Laudna, Chet, Fearne, okay. TALIESIN: Orym,
Ashton, Imogen, TRAVIS: FCG, gold balls.
TALIESIN: Laudna, Chet, Fearne. SAM: Two.
LAURA: Whoa. TALIESIN: FC.
SAM: (roars) LAURA: How'd you roll so low? SAM: I rolled a two.
LAURA: You're a cleric. MATT: With the Juggernaut,
immediately like grasping its head
for a second, then looking over in
that direction (booms) slamming its fist together. The illusion that you would
put through its mind, taking hold, our initiative
order kicks in with Orym. You're up first with
Ashton on deck. LIAM: Whew, I have no idea
what we're going to do. So what I am going
to do is crouch just off the side of
the tent's entrance and hold and attack on if
anything threatening comes out. MATT: Okay. So you dart off to
the side where, right in front of Chet and
you keep your weapon ready? LIAM: Yeah.
MATT: You got it. So readying your action
there for an attack in case anything
comes through. That's the end of your turn. Ashton, you're up next
with Imogen on deck. TALIESIN: Well, I suppose
that's the end of my rage. I am going to try.
MATT: Unfortunately. TALIESIN: Is it possible to get
to the other side of that tent without being in
the line of sight of this awful flying
psychic nightmare? MATT: Unfortunately not.
TALIESIN: Okay. MATT: Yeah, there's
not a whole lot to break eye contact with it because every other space
you could do that is filled with your friends
who are also hiding. TALIESIN: Okay,
so there's no-- I suppose I'm
going to hold a-- At the moment,
I'm going to hold a rage. Well no, because then
I spend it no matter what. That's silly. I'm going to-- Fuck it, I'm going to-- I'm going to hold my attack.
Where am I there? We're hidden enough from
this motherfucker, right? MATT: You think. TALIESIN: Yeah, I'm going to
hold my attack, watching, and keep an eye on him, but listening for Orym
to do his thing. If I do, I'm going to
try and take a swing at anything that
gets close to me. MATT: You got it.
Imogen, you're up. MARISHA: Because if they
go ring this bell. LIAM: That bell,
yeah, we need to-- MARISHA: It'd be awesome
if we could silence it, but I don't think we have-- LAURA: But the thing is,
is if they ring the bell, they can let everybody
know with one thought. They don't need a bell
to let people know. SAM: They must need a bell, otherwise they
wouldn't have a bell. ASHLEY: Maybe that's for
the non-Reilorans. Maybe the bell is for,
like, their cattle, like let them know when
it's time to eat and stuff. MARISHA: It's time
for dinner? ASHLEY: Maybe it's for us.
Maybe it's for Bells Hells. SAM: Oh! MARISHA: It's a welcoming gift!
ASHLEY: It's to welcome us. LAURA: I have a question.
ASHLEY: It's a welcome bell. MATT: Yes? LAURA: I feel like
I would know this from having
done spells a lot. MATT: Sure. LAURA: If I cast a spell--
MATT: Yeah? LAURA: -- that is in a
different place than myself, like a distant spell.
MATT: Yeah? LAURA: They can't tell where
the spell originated from, right? MATT: It depends,
because casting a spell, does it have
a verbal component? LAURA: I don't know. MATT: It means you have
to speak to cast a spell, which does make
a little bit of noise. LAURA: But if I'm whispering. MATT: True. TRAVIS: It's a forceful
whisper. TALIESIN: We're Pass
Without a Trace. TALIESIN: Daddy didn't
raise no whisperer. LIAM: Also, a side question. I feel like he would've
said something, but-- TALIESIN: He's also an asshole.
MARISHA: (laughs) LIAM: Gravity's cool. There's no Total Recall,
eye bulging anything? TRAVIS: Which one is it?
MATT: Make constitution-- No, you're fine.
LIAM: (gags) (laughter)
TALIESIN: Why would you say that? MATT: You're fine. SAM: We can turn
into clouds-- LAURA: Yeah, but it takes a minute.
SAM: -- but that takes a minutes. LAURA: We'd be dead. SAM: We're dumb while
we're doing it, too. LAURA: Yeah.
TALIESIN: We'd have to find really good cover. LAURA: Yeah, we'd have to find--
LIAM: Then normal. LAURA: We have to hide.
TALIESIN: If we're going to do that. MATT: What are you trying to do?
LAURA: So your answer is, "Maybe"? MATT: Yeah, maybe. LAURA: (laughs) LIAM: It's always the answer.
LAURA: Mm. TRAVIS: He's floating in
the air above the fence. People can see him
if we attack him. LAURA: Yeah, we can't
attack that thing. TRAVIS: Stuck.
SAM: What's he doing up there? Is he just like-- Picking his nails?
MATT: Right now? He's looking around.
SAM: Picking his nails? MATT: Looking for all of you.
LIAM: Yeah, because he chased us here.
TALIESIN: Do you have anything defensive?
SAM: He's checking his texts, now that he's home?
TALIESIN: Nothing defensive. MATT: Uh, no, checking
his Apple watch. SAM: Okay, good.
TALIESIN: I don't know. It's more polite. MATT: Reilora mystics,
they're upgraded. Better than I am. MARISHA: We did see
the Juggernaut, be like, "Gaw,"--
TRAVIS: Got no ranged stuff. MATT: You did.
MARISHA: -- towards the direction. MATT: You're the only
one who has context for what you did to it. So you noticed that. What you got?
SAM: I can get us out of this wall if we
can last a round. LAURA: To get out of
the wall and then run? LIAM: Keep silently? SAM: We can silently
open a hole in the wall. LAURA: Great.
LIAM: That sounds good. LAURA: Okay. Then, once we're on the
other side of the wall, we have a bunch of tents
of Reilorans to get past. SAM: Yeah, but--
LIAM: Yeah. SAM: -- they're not
expecting us. TALIESIN: We're not readable.
ASHLEY: Are we still dressed in the? SAM: Oh, didn't we take
some clothes and stuff? MARISHA: Didn't we dress like-- LAURA: Yeah.
ASHLEY: Dressed like the Ruby Vanguard?
MATT: Yeah, you still have Vanguard outfits on. TALIESIN: Oh.
MATT: For those of you that were dressed. ASHLEY: They might think we're just--
TRAVIS: We'll just be fighting. These two definitely
know what to look for. LAURA: Yeah, but not everybody. TALIESIN: Yeah, but not everybody else. TRAVIS: Yeah, yeah. Right. TALIESIN: I think we're psychically
cloaked still, if I recall? LAURA: Yes.
MATT: Yeah, you're able to talk psychically to each other.
LAURA: Yes. So all of this
conversation is just-- MATT: Yeah.
TRAVIS: Happening in half a second. LAURA: Okay, I am going to-- TALIESIN: Oh, that's great. MARISHA: Which is valid,
that's a great point. So I tell everybody, I think
I distracted the Juggernaut. LAURA: Okay.
MARISHA: I tell them that. So they hopefully
don't ruin that. SAM: Do you tell us that as
confidently as you just said that? MARISHA: Yes.
TRAVIS: What's your initiative roll, Orym? SAM: Yep.
TRAVIS: We got through Orym? MATT: Yeah, we're on Imogen's. TALIESIN: Imogen's, maybe Laudna--
MARISHA: Can't confirm or deny. TALIESIN: -- and no one said what
was going to happen before Laudna's. LAURA: Can I hold a spell? MATT: What do you want to hold?
LAURA: For if they spot us? MATT: Sure. SAM: Yeah.
LAURA: Okay. MATT: Okay.
LAURA: Or if, yeah. If there's any aggressiveness
towards us, I'm going to hold. MATT: Okay, you've got it.
SAM: Let's go. MATT: All right, that
finishes your turn. What spell are you holding? LAURA: That's a
good question. (laughter) SAM: The Finger of Death. LAURA: I was debating.
I was debating. SAM: (laughs)
LIAM: Mending. (laughter) LAURA: I think (groans). I think I'm going to
hold Lightning Bolt. MATT: Okay, got it. SAM: That's a good one to waste.
MATT: All right. MARISHA: That's a good
one to waste. MATT: All right, so,
that finishes your turn. That brings us to the
Thought Eater's turn. LAURA: We're trying to get away.
SAM: You're right. You're 100% right.
ASHLEY: Yeah, yeah, yeah. MATT: The Thought Eater's up
there and scanning the vicinity. LIAM: Jeez.
LAURA: Everybody, empty your brains.
Don't think anything. SAM: Oh shoot, I'm thinking
about not thinking about that. TRAVIS: It just
popped in there. LAURA: It just popped in, right? MATT: The Reiloran glances
around for a second and you see it
look frustratingly and it takes it left
hand and does this. LAURA: Oh, the bell.
MATT: As it does the bell-- (loud obnoxious ringing) (faster ringing)
LIAM: (groans) LAURA: Told you we should
have silenced the damn bell-- SAM: How can we
silence a bell? MARISHA: We should run over--
SAM: That kind of magic-- MARISHA: -- and ram it.
SAM: -- is impossible. (laughter) TRAVIS: We can't hit him.
TALIESIN: Probably not now. He's in clear view. MATT: He climbs up.
SAM: Ska doo doo doo! LAURA: He gets higher? MATT: Yeah, he gets
taller up there. LAURA: Shit. MATT: Because he's looking
for a better vantage point, because he cannot seem
to pick up your minds. TRAVIS: Also, if you
could refresh us. SAM: Rings of Mind Shielding. TRAVIS: I know we
just fought him. Was he super rough
in any way? MATT: He's look wrecked. He's looking real wrecked. TRAVIS: Shit.
SAM: Take him out. Shit, we shouldn't have
taken him out. ASHLEY: But we can't
take him out there. TRAVIS: I forgot to ask
how fucked up he was. SAM: I think Matt said it,
but we just are too nervous. TRAVIS: Is that right? MATT: Mm-hmm, it's okay. MARISHA: Did you say that?
SAM: He did. ASHLEY: Yeah, but I mean,
he was still floating in front of everybody. TRAVIS: Kind of.
SAM: Yeah, yeah. Also, an attack with
magic would've-- Everyone could see it. ASHLEY: Everyone would see it.
SAM: It's like, it's bad. It's bad.
LIAM: Laudna succeeded-- LAURA: But now it's super duper-- LIAM: -- in messing
with the big guy's mind that he saw people
climb over the fence? MATT: Maybe, we'll see.
TALIESIN: God, no. MATT: That finishes his turn.
MARISHA: Looks that way! Ah! MATT: Laudna,
it's your turn now. The bell has rung loudly and now that
it's come to your turn, you hear howls
in the distance-- ASHLEY: Fuck.
SAM: Like wolf howls? MATT: This odd,
echoey, like-- (howling and growling) Like, off in an area.
TRAVIS: We got to push in that hole and run, yeah.
ASHLEY: We got to go. TRAVIS: We got to move. We're on the X. SAM: (laughs) There's moon wolves? TRAVIS: Even if there's
a dude in this tent, we need to get
moving this way. TALIESIN: I'm sure he's
scanning the horizon. How quickly is he turning? What's the spotlight
speed here? MATT: On him?
TALIESIN: Yeah. LAURA: The guy facing. MATT: I'd say he's drifting-- SAM: If a werewolf
is on the moon, is it always a full moon?
MATT: Like he's doing the full-- TRAVIS: Uh-huh! (laughter) LAURA: How do you feel?
How does you feel, Chet? TALIESIN: So we could
possibly clock out of his range of speed
if we were-- MATT: You can certainly try.
TALIESIN: Certainly try, okay. MARISHA: He's turned right now.
LIAM: Yeah. MARISHA: Were we going to
try and loop around and this guy also turned
that direction, right? The Juggernaut? So they're both looking away. TALIESIN: I was going to say hopping into the tent
is a great idea or at least
a temporarily great idea. LIAM: There's someone
in the tent. Letters are saying that
can make a hole that way. SAM: I'm not trying to
make it harder for us. I'm just wondering
how this works. This is just
a morbid curiosity. We can all speak to
each other in our minds, but we also have shielded
our minds from-- LAURA: No, but it's
only against unwanted. SAM: Okay, okay, okay, okay.
MARISHA: It's Scrying and stuff. SAM: Okay, okay.
MATT: Outer divination and things like that.
SAM: Okay, okay, okay. It seems to prevent the--
ASHLEY: Don't question the magic. SAM: I just wanted
to know how it works. LAURA: Yeah, it's the exact
same as my circlet. TALIESIN: Whatever's in there
will be surprised when we-- MATT: Gating what is not
wanted for the time being. SAM: Got it. Okay.
LIAM: Go to the corner. MARISHA: Fuck. Shit.
ASHLEY: Should we try to-- TALIESIN: It's about to
come out, anyway. TRAVIS: It feels like it's
overwhelm the person in the tent or make a hole in the fence
and run and start running. TALIESIN: He's about
to come out, anyway. LIAM: We have no idea. It could be
a scrub in the tent. It could be
some heavy hitter. We have no idea?
TRAVIS: No idea. TALIESIN: But they just
heard the bell. TRAVIS: Also, it feels like
we got to go by the tent to get to the fence. LAURA: Let's just go
behind the tent. MARISHA: I'm going to
cast Darkness at the front of the tent. MATT: Okay.
SAM: So we can't see when they come out?
ASHLEY: So he can't see when he comes out.
LIAM: How wide is this? SAM: Or so we can't see
them when they come out? LAURA: How big is Darkness? MARISHA: 15 feet.
LIAM: Oh my god. TRAVIS: Can we go behind the tent?
LIAM: They're going to see darkness. TRAVIS: Can we go around the back?
LAURA: They're going to see the darkness. MARISHA: But then we can
maybe run around before, and scooch by without a--
LIAM: But that's going to pinpoint us to where
the darkness is. MARISHA: I can not do it,
if it's a bad idea. SAM: No, it's too late.
It's too late. It's done. TRAVIS: Do it.
LIAM: No! SAM: Does the darkness
stay there? TRAVIS: I like it. MARISHA: That's way bigger
than 15 feet, isn't it? MATT: 15-foot radius is that. SAM: Not diameter.
TRAVIS: Radius. MATT: Five and 15.
SAM: Does it stay there? Does it stay put or
does it travel with us? MARISHA: It stays put.
SAM: That actually might be good because they could
all converge there, we're gone.
ASHLEY: Yeah, yeah, yeah. LAURA: Okay.
TALIESIN: Actually, if it's covering
part of the wall, then that's where we could--
MARISHA: I'm doing it, I said it out loud.
ASHLEY: Do it. MATT: You toss it down, the area right there
(magical energy) fills with a sphere
of pitch-black shadow that encompasses both
Orym and Chetney. MARISHA: Okay.
MATT: Both of you, your sight goes
(vanishing) to darkness. TRAVIS: Cool.
SAM: But you can still hear and smell.
TRAVIS: (sniffs) MATT: Indeed. You still have
your other senses about you, but suddenly, your vision--
TRAVIS: I put my hand on Orym's shoulder.
MATT: -- blinks out in an instant.
TRAVIS: Yeah, yeah. MATT: Yeah, you reach out and grab--
TRAVIS: Stay with me. MATT: -- Orym's shoulder.
TRAVIS: Yeah. MATT: Okay, cool. Laudna, are you staying
put or are you moving? TRAVIS: I'm like Matt Murdock.
MARISHA: No, I'm going to move through.
MATT: You can see through magical darkness.
MARISHA: I can see through dark vision,
or through darkness, so can I reach over
and grab Orym and drag him with me? MATT: I'll allow it
if you want to. TRAVIS: Darkvision doesn't
work in this, right, though? Because it's magical?
MARISHA: I have-- LAURA: Magical darkness.
MATT: Yeah, you can see through magical darkness.
MARISHA: I can see through magical darkness.
TRAVIS: Damn! Pasta! LAURA: I was
prepping the spell. I can still move
though, right? MATT: Yeah, if you wanted to.
LAURA: Can I try to get closer to the fence? Sorry, I would've done that, I just didn't say it.
SAM: Goddamn it. MATT: Okay. MARISHA: Oh boy.
MATT: Now, here's the thing, you're all stealthed when you're--
SAM: Damn it. LAURA: Holding still?
MATT: -- holding still. SAM: I can't close the--
MATT: If you're going to move-- SAM: -- the hole.
MATT: I'm going to say, because he's watching,
he's looking away, it's still going to be
another stealth check to see if he can pick up on you.
LAURA: Oh. MATT: But we can do it. LAURA: Okay, so we have
to roll a stealth check to move anywhere?
MATT: So you move. MARISHA: Okay.
MATT: You feel another hand, Orym, on you.
LIAM: Cold. MATT: It begins to
pull him forward. We'll say, Chetney, if
you want to go forward, since you're next anyway,
you could follow suit. TRAVIS: Yep. MATT: Okay. So make a
stealth check for me, Laudna, if you don't mind.
LIAM: We got to go right now. MARISHA: We still have
Pass Without a Trace. TRAVIS: Stay with me, son.
MARISHA: Do I have any other bonuses being in darkness? MATT: Nope.
LAURA and LIAM: (laugh) MARISHA: (laughs) Oh my god.
LAURA: We're going to die, man! We're all going to die! LIAM: There's a dead thing picking me up--
MARISHA: It's going to be a good year, it's going to be a great year.
LIAM: -- that I can't see. MARISHA: That's a natural one.
ASHLEY: (groans) LAURA: Oh fuck!
MATT: A natural one. LIAM: Fuck!
MATT: Well, here's the thing-- MARISHA: I don't know
why I can't roll this entire campaign. I'm pretty sure it's the dice.
TRAVIS: Everything happens for a reason. This is how it's meant to be.
MATT: So you create the darkness, you reach over and you
take Orym's shoulder. Right as you move in, your foot hits this small
divot in the ground, and your ankle, (cracks) pop! Pops out for a second.
SAM: Fuck. SAM: Ow.
MATT: You (tumbling) collapse onto the ground. Now, you make
an impact sound, which draws at least the
attention of this fellow-- ASHLEY: Fuck.
MATT: -- who turns, and he just sees a sphere of shadow--
LAURA: Fuck. MATT: -- that sits there--
LIAM: A duck. MATT: -- which is now
visibly present. SAM: Let's go.
MATT: But nevertheless, that finishes your turn.
MARISHA: He can't target us. LAURA: Would I have moved?
MATT: Chetney, you're up. LAURA: Should I roll a stealth check?
ASHLEY: Eyelash. MATT: Oh yeah, if you
wanted to move at the end of your turn,
then yes. SAM: Maybe we
should just fight. TALIESIN: No, this
is still working. LAURA: Okay, that's great. SAM: It is?
LAURA: That's a 13. MATT: Okay.
TALIESIN: We end with your turn, you make the hole, and then--
MATT: So over this way? LAURA: I would've gone
over to the wall. TALIESIN: It'll be
everyone else's round, practically, before--
ASHLEY: Everyone's going to get back. MATT: You're now, as you
rush over to the wall, (vanishing) just
darkness around you. TALIESIN: He doesn't get to
move until a full round, so we're pretty good.
MATT: All right, Chetney. TRAVIS: I'm going
to continue moving towards the fence.
TALIESIN: Yeah, but we'll be gone. MATT: Okay.
SAM: He's going to see a big hole
TRAVIS: I've got Orym in tow. TALIESIN: No, it's in darkness. TRAVIS: So I'm moving towards--
LAURA: Can you make the hole in darkness?
TRAVIS: -- where we were headed towards.
SAM: We won't see the hole. TRAVIS: Even in darkness,
I'll use my sniffing and hearing to hopefully keep
a straight line. MARISHA: I can cancel whenever I want.
TRAVIS: Like swimming in the ocean at night.
MARISHA: It's concentration. MATT: Yep, and you do.
Then (splats) your nose hits the
edge of the wall. TRAVIS: (whimpers) (laughs)
MATT: As you just catch the, at the edge of the darkness. TRAVIS: Great.
MARISHA: 10 minutes. TRAVIS: I'll whisper back
to FCG: (whispers) Wall! LAURA: In his brain.
TRAVIS: I will hold-- In my brain, yes, thank you.
MATT: (laughs) TRAVIS: In my brain.
SAM: Wall? TRAVIS: I will
hold my attacks in case I see someone up in my face.
MATT: You got it. All right, that
finishes your go. Fearne, you're up.
TRAVIS: Actually-- MATT: Oh!
TRAVIS: I hold, with a bonus action,
Blood Curse of the Binding. MATT: I'll allow it, yeah.
TRAVIS: Yeah? MATT: You're normally
it's holding an action versus a bonus action--
SAM: I have to be able to see what I'm doing.
MATT: -- but I'll-- TRAVIS: Let me just--
I'll hold the attacks. LAURA: It's already done.
TRAVIS: I'll hold the attacks. MATT: Okay.
TRAVIS: We're on the moon, we got to start off
on the right foot. MATT: All right, sure.
LAURA: That's what I was asking. ASHLEY: Hi. Okay. MARISHA: Well, you
can find a path, just a part of the fence that is not in the darkness.
TRAVIS: Ash, dude. ASHLEY: Yes?
TRAVIS: Ignore these people. TALIESIN: No, he can't.
ASHLEY: All right, so what I'm going to do, I'm going to prepare--
TALIESIN: There's darkness there, he can't see.
ASHLEY: Well, I'm going to bamf out Mister.
MATT: Okay. ASHLEY: Let's get him out,
ready to go, rearing and ready.
MATT: (monkey hoots) Where do you want to throw him around?
ASHLEY: Hi, baby. Just next to me.
MATT: Okay. TRAVIS: Otherwise we're
just sitting there like-- TALIESIN: Yeah,
the wall's covered. TRAVIS: Yeah.
ASHLEY: Then I'm going to prepare--
SAM: Om-ina Om-ina. ASHLEY: (sighs) I'm going to run
to the darkness, and run 'til I hit the wall. MATT: Okay.
MARISHA: Yeah, if you keep running you'll hit the other side.
ASHLEY: Yeah, yeah, yeah. MATT: 25, 30's your movement? ASHLEY: Yes. No, 35.
MATT: Okay, 35. (thuds)
ASHLEY: Ow! MATT: You run into the wall--
LAURA: Shh! In your brain you can say ow.
MATT: -- alongside Chetney. ASHLEY: I said it in my head.
TRAVIS: That's my strong backside. ASHLEY: Oh, oh, oh!
(laughter) MATT: Mister's
going to follow? ASHLEY: Mister's
going to follow. MATT: He follows behind
you in the shadow, and you hear
(concerned monkey hoots) once he goes into the shadow.
ASHLEY: It's okay, it's okay. MATT: (concerned monkey hoots) ASHLEY: What are we doing?
What are we doing? LAURA: We're trying to get a hold in the wall.
SAM: We're getting out of here. MATT: All righty.
ASHLEY: Okay. MATT: That finishes your go?
ASHLEY: Yes. Can I hold--
LAURA: Oh god. Now you have to make the hole.
TRAVIS: If you're going to hold a spell on an action?
ASHLEY: I'll hold Scorching Ray. TRAVIS: Yep. MATT: Okay, until you
have sight on something. ASHLEY: Until I have
sight on something. SAM: Sight unseen. MATT: Okay.
ASHLEY: Yeah. MATT: So it is now
the juggernaut's go. SAM: What? MATT: The juggernaut
is going to bound-- (leaping whoosh)
LIAM: Hey! TRAVIS: Nice. Nice! Nice.
MATT: (thud) ASHLEY: Good.
MATT: -- and begin searching around in the vicinity this way.
TRAVIS: No one make a move. LAURA: Good job. Good job.
MARISHA: I'm stressed. (laughs) TRAVIS: Tell me I'm wrong.
MATT: Actually, it's an interesting question, Phantasmal Force
is concentration, Darkness is also
concentration. SAM: Oh no.
MARISHA: Wait, no, Phantasmal Force is--
TRAVIS: One followed the other, right?
MARISHA: -- not. MATT: Phantasmal Force
is concentration. MARISHA: Is it?
MATT: It is. MARISHA: Well, he still
saw that-- MATT: He did.
MARISHA: It is. MATT: He did.
MARISHA: He still saw it go that way. MATT: He saw it, he
leaps over there. MARISHA: So now it's--
MATT: Now it's gone and he looks confused. MARISHA: Yeah.
MATT: Looks up at the Thought Eater, and looks over at the globe of
shadow on the opposite side, and goes like, (roars) and is preparing himself now to try and return. LAURA: Ruh-roh. TRAVIS: At least he
went the other way. MARISHA: He did.
MATT: He did, all right-- TRAVIS: Mind the gap.
MATT: -- so finishing his go, you watch as a Reiloran
steps out of the tent and immediately into
the orb of shadow and you-- Actually, you don't
see anything, except for FCG and Ashton. The rest of you hear some--
ASHLEY: And me. MATT: Yeah, and you and you. You hear the footsteps,
something step into the space. TALIESIN: Is he within
striking distance or no?
MATT: Immediately steps back into the-- TRAVIS: (laughs) Yeah.
(laughter) TRAVIS: I hate this post. (laughter) MARISHA: (claps)
(laughter) LIAM: He did the Travolta.
TRAVIS: Fucking something new every day.
(laughter) TALIESIN: They're
not all badasses, they are not all badasses. Good to know.
TRAVIS: Matt, name a day of the week in this world?
MARISHA: He Homer Simpsoned. LIAM: Travolta memed.
TRAVIS: What's a day of the week in this world?
MARISHA: (laughs) MATT: Oh, we'll say Miresen. TRAVIS: Miresen sucks. MARISHA: (laughs) SAM: Miresen?
MARISHA: Wait, his name is Miresen?
MATT: No, it's the day of the week.
SAM: No, that's the name of the day of the week. MARISHA: Oh.
TRAVIS: Because I know the days of the week, I was just
having him pick one. MATT: Right.
SAM: There's eight. TALIESIN: Miresens, am I right?
MARISHA: I hate Miresens. (laughter) TRAVIS: Miresens, am I right? MATT: Nah, I got that wrong. Anyway, so--
LAURA: (laughs) "Got that wrong." MATT: -- that brings us to-- LAURA: It's different
on Ruidus. (laughs) MATT: I know. Days, it's
hard to pick a day here. MARISHA: (laughs)
MATT: No, no, FCG, it's your go.
SAM: Okay. LIAM: We're one day ahead here.
SAM: So much to do on this turn. First, glancing up, going to take a mental image of what Exandria looks like, because I'm going to check
again in a few hours and see if it's
rotated at all-- LAURA: Oh.
SAM: -- to prove that it's a sphere.
ASHLEY: Good call, you're smart.
LAURA: Wow. MARISHA: (laughs)
SAM: If it doesn't, it means it's not. (laughs) TRAVIS: Yep. SAM: Second-- TRAVIS: Yep, that's first. SAM: (laughs) LAURA: Priorities. SAM: Second, theater of the
imagination here, Matt, it's a sphere, it's a sphere of
darkness, right? MATT: Yeah.
SAM: It goes 20 feet up as well. MATT: Well, the point where
you pointed it at, it would be a dome
from your perspective, because you point it at
a point in the ground and it creates a dome area. MARISHA: Yeah, 15 feet. It's a sphere. TRAVIS: So 15, 15, 15.
SAM: So 15 feet up? LAURA: Yeah.
SAM: Okay, okay. So I'm trying to
do my math here. So from his perspective, there exists a point-- TRAVIS: A horizon?
SAM: -- yeah, behind which he cannot see.
LAURA: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.
TALIESIN: (laughs) I see what you did there.
MATT: Correct. SAM: Yeah. (laughs)
ASHLEY: Math. TRAVIS: Damn it, it's
not fair. MARISHA: (laughs)
SAM: So I'm going to scoot around the outside
of the sphere, if I can still, stealthily.
MATT: Okay. (wheels squeaking)
MATT: 25, 30. You can't get around
it, unfortunately. 30 feet only gets
you partially to the side.
TRAVIS: Where we're going, we don't need dice.
LAURA: If you go straight through-- LIAM: Because of them rocks.
LAURA: -- would he have gone straight through and hit
the other side? MATT: If you want to try
and come around this way, (laughs) you might cross
visual perspective, but that'll get you a
visual sight on the wall. But this way, you just
don't have enough movement to get around the
entire sphere. SAM: But I can see the wall, I just can't see the wall
that's right behind the sphere? MATT: Correct, you can see
the wall over on this side. SAM: Yeah, that's probably
in his eyesight as well. LAURA: Could you have
gone straight through? Does the sphere
touch the wall? SAM: Could I have
gone through, sort of bisect the
edge, (laughs) in a as-the-crow-flies way and cut off five feet? MATT: I'll say because of
the height you had up here and the sphere 15 feet, you could probably make a
perception check for it. SAM: Okay.
MATT: Let's do that. SAM: Okay.
TRAVIS: Let's give it a try. MATT: Let's see how keen
your vision is here. SAM: Perception, 19. MATT: 19. As you're coming down
the broken rock here on the edge of this platform where the
Bloody Bridge lands, you see there's
one little point where the dome of shadow and
the top of the tent meet, and you have one
little perspective point right there in the center where you think you
can hit the wall-- SAM: Okay.
MATT: -- that might be blocked by either the sphere
or the tent. SAM: Okay, I will do that. I will use the Staff
of the Dark Odyssey, and I will aim it, and I'm going to
cast Passwall-- MATT: Mm. SAM: -- at the wall, as low as I possibly can, maybe a four-foot-high door.
LAURA: (gasps) MATT: Okay.
LAURA: You can make it go way past that. SAM: It can go as deep
as I want it to. I don't know how
deep the wall is, so I'll try and make it go (laughs) 20 feet deep. MATT: Okay, so you do that, and the portion of
the structure there, dust goes (poof) around it in the shape of
almost a slightly rounded door about 3 1/2 feet
off the ground, four feet off the ground.
TRAVIS: Awesome. SAM: Okay. MATT: Nothing's open,
but you see that shape (whooshes) appear there. SAM: Wait, it's not open? MATT: Meaning it looks
like a door-like space has been carved around it.
SAM: Oh, okay. Great, okay, I will
telepathically say, "There's a door open to
the left of the sphere," and then I will use my
movement to head toward it. MATT: Okay, and the
last of your movement will get you 10
feet this way. So you are now within the
sphere of darkness as well. SAM: Okay. (laughs) LAURA: Great.
SAM: Right, I think that's my-- Oh wait, do I get
a bonus action, or is my bonus action telling
everybody what's going on? LAURA: Thinking.
MATT: I'll say between glancing
at everything, unless you have something
at the ready right now? SAM: I don't. Go.
MATT: All right, then we'll move on to Orym
with Ashton on deck. LIAM: Wait, help
my mind palace, I'm in the sphere or
out of the sphere right now?
MATT: You are in the sphere. TRAVIS: You are next to me
against the wall in the sphere. LAURA: You know it's to
the left of the sphere. LIAM: Of the sphere. (sighs) Jeez.
LAURA: So walk left on the wall. LIAM: Yeah.
MATT: Your mind palace is as good as it would
be for Orym right now-- LIAM: All right--
MATT: -- who's been in darkness for the past four seconds.
LIAM: -- so I'll do this. along the wall.
TRAVIS: Yeah, yeah. MATT: Okay, so you push
forward to the edge of it, you move your hand, and you feel a part of
the wall (whooshes) give, and that section of it
(thuds) hits the ground as dust kicks up. You step out of the shadow, and you're now looking
out beyond the wall into what looks
like an alley, and some stones and
rock outcropping. You can see edges of
the tent on either side. LIAM: Any threats for a 21 perception check?
MATT: 21? You don't see any, but you can definitely hear
those howls in the distance, and they're getting louder, as well as hearing footfalls scatter in the distance. You don't see
anything immediately. LIAM: Okay, so there's
alley ahead of me here? MATT: Mm-hmm, there's alley
this way and this way. LIAM: Okay, so it's going
like this right where we are? TRAVIS: Yeah.
LIAM: Okay, okay. TRAVIS: Like a T-junction? MATT: Mm-hmm.
LIAM: I think really quick, "Left or right?"
to the group, which would mean cutting
up this way or going-- TRAVIS: You're the first.
Make the call. LIAM: (sighs) LAURA: Or go straight
out and run. (laughs) LIAM: (laughs) But it's not that way.
TRAVIS: (bashes) LIAM: He's saying it's this.
LAURA: Oh, it's an intersection. Left, always left. LIAM: Where he's looking, where the--
MARISHA: Always left. TALIESIN: He's going
to keep turning. Well, actually-- LIAM: No, they're looking
at the sphere. I'm going to go right. I'm going to this way.
MATT: Go right. TRAVIS: Towards the people?
LIAM: Because they looked at the ball, so I'm going
the opposite direction from where they're looking, in my opinion.
MATT: Okay, so that'll get you about here, following
the edge of the wall. You're like (pattering).
LAURA: You're moving towards them. LIAM: No, I want-- LAURA: You're following
that wall? LIAM: The alley goes-- MATT: The alley goes this
way and this way. LIAM: Yeah, so I'm
imagining, guys, that they're going to be
like, "What's that way?" So I'm going out of their line of vision.
LAURA: Okay. MARISHA: Oh, these guys? TRAVIS: Well, he--
MARISHA: I think we're talking about those guys. TRAVIS: Yeah, these guys.
LIAM: I don't know what's out there in invisible land. TRAVIS: I think Laudna--
LIAM: I didn't say I was curving up the fence
towards those guys. MATT: Okay.
TRAVIS: Yeah, you could come by the back this way.
MATT: Go by this way here? LIAM: Yeah, yeah.
LAURA: Yeah. MATT: Okay.
TALIESIN: Okay. MATT: It'll be your
dash action to get there. LIAM: Yeah, that's fine.
MATT: I need you to make a stealth
check for me. TRAVIS: You got this. SAM: It's right in
his line of sight. LAURA: Right in his
line of sight. LIAM: That is, it's good. TRAVIS: Yes!
LIAM: Two, 32. MATT: 32.
SAM: 232? LAURA: 232.
MATT: (laughs) 232. LIAM: That's what it is. TRAVIS: That's my boy. (laughter) MATT: Okay, you keep low, take some of the dust and scatter it on the shield to almost blend in
with the ground as you dart by as
quietly as you can and get behind the rock, and almost tumbling
into the shoulder as you get behind it
and hold against it. You're fairly confident that
nothing saw you for now. LIAM: Okay, so I'm looking
for <i>new Reiloran</i> or anybody, and watching the hole
where I just left. MATT: Okay, you got it.
LAURA: Always watching the hole. TRAVIS: Mentally, were
you communicating where you went as you did it?
MARISHA: Yeah. TRAVIS: Awesome.
MATT: All right, finishing your go. Ashton, you're up, which
means Imogen on deck. SAM: Are we going that way?
TALIESIN: All right, I just saw that shit happen, and I just heard FCG's shit. I'm going to,
in my head, say, "Hey, Laudna, I could
use some directions "when I get in here, "so I'm going to
pick up the healer "so I'm going to
pick up the healer "and make towards the exit. "Tell me if I'm going
the wrong way." I'm going to go
directly towards where I saw FCG dash to.
MATT: Okay. MARISHA: Yeah.
SAM: ♪ Doo, doo, doo, doo, doo ♪ MATT: You stumble
almost into FCG, and you're now in the
shadow if you keep moving. TALIESIN: I'm going
to grab FCG-- MATT: Okay.
TALIESIN: -- and I'm going to-- MARISHA: Just walk
straight through. TALIESIN: -- and I'm going
to follow Laudna's advice. MATT: Okay.
SAM: Do I recognize his rocky hands? MATT: It's hard to miss.
TALIESIN: Yeah, no. MATT: The rough texture.
ASHLEY: ♪ Daddy's hands ♪ (laughter) TALIESIN: Make it weird.
I'm into this, all right. MATT: Take FCG, it
slows your movement, but you pull him
along a little bit. TALIESIN: So normally,
I have 40 feet, so that gets us to--
MATT: Right, so it would've been 25 to get you there.
LAURA: (laughs) MATT: Then you finish
your movement at the wall with
everyone else. So if you dash,
you can continue to move out there
at half speed. TALIESIN: I'm going to dash and I'm going to take FCG with me through
the door, and just-- MATT: Okay. Do you allow him to do so?
SAM: Oh, oh, Ashton! Yes, I do. MATT: Okay.
SAM: I enjoy it. MATT: All right, so you
step out of the shadow, and outside of
this open door, you-- actually, you don't
even see Orym, you step out and
you're like, "Uh," there's an alley
going to the right and left of you
with a rock structure on the side.
LIAM: I whisper: On your right of the tent. TRAVIS: Oh, that's right,
we have the-- LIAM: That's what I'm saying. TALIESIN: Do I have
enough room if, well, obviously I can't
bring both of us, but how much movement
do I have left just? MATT: Bringing both
of you, five feet. TALIESIN: Just by myself,
10 feet then? MATT: Yes. TALIESIN: I'm going to
use whatever's left to try and get
the most advantageous, please don't look at me. MATT: Okay, so hiding up
against the wall essentially? Yeah, I'll put you there.
TALIESIN: Yeah, I'm trying to pretend that I'm going, "Wow,
the bell's ringing, what the? "I'm wearing clothes
that makes sense." SAM: Hey.
MATT: Okay, well-- LIAM: Going to cover my eyes
so I'm invisible. MARISHA: (laughs)
MATT: All right, finishing Ashton's go.
Imogen, you're up. LAURA: Okay. TALIESIN: We're through. LAURA: I didn't use my spell, so that wastes
that spell slot, right? MATT: Mm-hmm.
LAURA: Okay. While I'm in the darkness, I'm going to cast
Invisibility on myself. MATT: Okay.
MARISHA: Ooh, good idea. LAURA: Then I'm going to go
find the hole. SAM: Wait, what? MATT: You find the hole
and step through, you see immediately FCG
and Ashton to your right. You heard Orym whisper to
everyone, "To the right," and you glance over and
you can just barely see him off to the side of
the rock on that end. LAURA: I'm going to try
to catch up with Orym. MATT: Okay, so that'll
get you about 20 feet up to about there. You are invisible. LAURA: Okay.
MATT: You're darting off in that direction. That finishes your go. All righty. That brings us to
the Thought Eater. The Thought Eater
is now going to, angrily look about
in this area, is going to float over
to this portion here. is going to float over
to this portion here. LIAM: Oh boy. MATT: Yeah, it's going
to Psychic Slam MATT: Yeah, it's going
to Psychic Slam one of these rocks. You watch as this piece
of stone (crashes)-- TRAVIS: What?
MATT: -- lifts up off the ground for a second.
MARISHA: He's about to toss a fucking rock at us.
LAURA: What is that spell? Can I see him doing it? MATT: It's a
Telekinesis type. LAURA: Okay.
TALIESIN: That's Telekinesis, Kyle. MATT: Throws it into the sphere.
LAURA: (gasps) I need all three
that are there, that's going to be Chetney,
Laudna, and Fearne as well as Mister--
ASHLEY: Okay. MATT: -- to make a
dexterity saving throw with disadvantage because
you don't see it coming. LAURA: No! But Laudna would!
ASHLEY: All right, all right. All right. All right.
MATT: Actually, you would, so you have it fine.
ASHLEY: Okay. SAM: Question for the GM. MATT: Yes. SAM: Is gravity the same? MATT: It feels
pretty similar. SAM: Okay. Okay.
MATT: You haven't had a full moment to
really try it out, but it feels-- It hasn't
affected your mobility. SAM: Okay, okay.
MATT: All right. TRAVIS: 22. MATT: 22. You take
half damage. So that would be 12 points
of bludgeoning damage. Which is, indeed,
halved again because you are in
your wolf form. TRAVIS: Oh my god.
MATT: All righty. TALIESIN: Magic. MARISHA: 15. MATT: 15. You take 24 points
of bludgeoning damage. MARISHA: Okay.
MATT: As you are (forceful projection)
bashed heavily by this rock. TRAVIS: A rock!
MARISHA: You are knocked prone
from its impact. LAURA: You have to roll a
concentration check, right? MATT: You do.
SAM: Oh, on the Darkness. MARISHA: That's true.
MATT: Yeah, DC 12. So roll a constitution
saving throw and get higher than 12.
TRAVIS: ♪ Please stay, Darkness ♪ ♪ my old friend ♪ MARISHA: 18.
MATT: Yeah, you hold onto that. TRAVIS: (rapid panting)
MARISHA: Jesus Christ. MATT: All righty, Fearne.
SAM: Easy. Easy. MARISHA: So easy for me.
ASHLEY: 12. LAURA: (laughs)
MATT: 12? ASHLEY: Yeah.
MATT: You also take 24 points of bludgeoning damage--
ASHLEY: The fuck? MATT: -- and you're knocked prone.
(laughter) ASHLEY: Where did
that come from? (laughter) MATT: I need you to make
a concentration check. TRAVIS: You got hit
by an outcropping and you said: The fuck?
MATT: Constitution saving throw. ASHLEY: Constitution saving throw?
MATT: Yeah. ASHLEY: Oh wait, I didn't
do Mister, either. MATT: No, not yet.
We'll do that in a second. LAURA: Oh! (laughs)
ASHLEY: Oh, a natural 20? MATT: Natural 20, okay. You maintain concentration.
ASHLEY: Wait, what was that? What am I maintaining--
MATT: Pass Without a Trace. ASHLEY: Okay, great.
(laughter) TRAVIS: You did a no-look roll. ASHLEY: What am I maintaining?
MATT: You did great! TRAVIS: She did it like--
MATT: You're good. TRAVIS: She had her eyes on you--
MATT: You're solid. TRAVIS: -- and just went.
MATT: I know! (laughter) TRAVIS: She didn't even know
what she was rolling. ASHLEY: I forgot how to do the--
MATT: It's a good feeling, when the fear
kicks in like that. I'm doing my job.
(laughter) TRAVIS: Panicked as fuck.
ASHLEY: Mister. (laughter) ASHLEY: Mister is at
disadvantage, too? MATT: Yes. Because he cannot see.
ASHLEY: Okay. 12, same. MATT: Yeah, takes 24 points
of bludgeoning damage. LAURA: Oh.
ASHLEY: Oh, is he gone? Hold on, hold on, hold on.
SAM: I think he's dead. LIAM: Gone-zo.
ASHLEY: Is he dead? SAM: He's probably dead.
ASHLEY: No, he poofed. LAURA: That's
probably poofed. ASHLEY: I'll find out,
I'll find out. MATT: Okay. But indeed, (tumbling stone) bits of chunked rock
and weird purple-black slate stone and metal
seem to burrow into the ground and
jam out in chunks as there's now just
rubble around all of you in this darkness.
TRAVIS: Jam out in chunks. LIAM: The Reiloran in the
tent's like: What the fuck? MATT: I know.
(laughter) TRAVIS: (rock slide)
(laughter) SAM: He's in the
corner just like: I don't want to go outside.
I don't want to go outside. TRAVIS: I asked
for a transfer! (laughter) MATT: That's going
to finish his go. TRAVIS: I knew I
wanted to be a cook. TALIESIN: That was
pretty cool. MATT: Now that's going
to bring us to Laudna. LAURA: Five plus five plus--
MATT: With Chetney on deck. You're prone,
so you have spend half your movement to get up.
MARISHA: I'm prone. Yeah, so I get up. ASHLEY: Five times? MARISHA: I head
through the gate. MATT: Okay, it takes
five, 10, 15 feet to step beyond the hole. You're now out
of the Darkness. That's all of your movement.
LAURA: That's 55, he still has hit points.
MATT: You still have your action. ASHLEY: Mister is okay.
MATT: Mister is okay? ASHLEY: Mister is okay, everybody.
MATT: Okay, okay, good. ASHLEY: Mister is fine.
TRAVIS: Really? ASHLEY: He's up. Yeah,
he's got 60 hit points. MATT: He's a beefy boy.
TRAVIS: Six-zero?! LAURA: Yeah, that's--
ASHLEY: He's a chonker! LAURA: By the way, that's
what Trinket had at level 20. TRAVIS: Dang! SAM: But why does Mister
do so much more? ASHLEY: Because
he's a chonk-- Oh wow. MATT and SAM: (laugh)
TRAVIS: No, no. No, no. No, no. No, no. Save it,
save it, save it. ASHLEY: Save it
for the fight. Save it for the fight!
SAM: Save it for the fight. MATT: Laudna, you still
have your action. TALIESIN: Take your time.
MARISHA: Yes, I'm sorry. I'm sorry, I'm sorry.
MATT: It's okay. ASHLEY: I'm gonna
put this right here. TALIESIN: This is a panic.
LIAM: Frumpkin had-- MARISHA: Can I take
a minute to look left and see what is
down the direction, the opposite direction-- MATT: Make a perception
check for me. MARISHA: -- that
we did not go? LAURA: But I stopped
leveling in ranger. So he stopped getting
hit points. MARISHA: Jesus Christ. Why? LAURA: He was just a bear.
MARISHA: 12. MATT: What was it?
MARISHA: 12. MATT: 12?
Glancing down that way, you don't see anything
immediately in your eye line. But you can, kind of
what Orym heard, you can hear the baying
of some sort of beast, multiples of them throughout
the vicinity getting louder and distant footsteps. MARISHA: If I dash,
there's no way I can make it to where Orym did, right? MATT: You can get
part way there. MARISHA: No.
LAURA: Mm-mm. Out in the open? MARISHA: I'm actually going to
head a few feet to the left. MARISHA: I'm actually going to
head a few feet to the left. I just don't want to be
completely crunched up. MATT: You got it.
MARISHA: Maybe a little bit more. MATT: Okay. About 20 feet that way.
MARISHA: And that's it. MATT: You got it, all right.
So finishing that go for you. That's going to bring us to
Chetney, with Fearne on deck. TRAVIS: Yeah, I'll keep
moving forward, having felt Orym
pull out of my hand. I'll step out
towards the door, or towards the wall,
at least, and move towards the left
was the last thing I heard, until I find the door. MATT: Yeah,
you find the door. It only takes you about 10
feet of movement to get there and pull through. You emerge from the
shadow and you can see your friends to the
right and to the left. You can see,
you do not see Imogen, but you can see FCG and Ashton
immediately to your right. With the indication
whisper from Orym, you know that he's to
the right direction. TRAVIS: 25, 30, 35, 40. I couldn't get to where
Orym is, so I will-- MATT: You could if you dash. TRAVIS: That's true. I'm stealthy as fuck. I will dash to where Orym is. MATT: Okay.
TRAVIS: But on all fours and with my belly
in the dirt. MARISHA: Oh!
ASHLEY: Ooh! MATT: Okay. I will say, because this will cross into the eye line of the
entity, and you're going full movement dash here, now that he has attention
in this area very cleanly as well, especially since he shifted
over to the direction, roll with disadvantage. TRAVIS: I normally have
advantage, so just normal? MATT: Yeah, just
a straight roll. TRAVIS: Ugh.
MARISHA: Oh boy. TRAVIS: I liked it more
when I had advantage. MARISHA: I know, you
said stealthy as fuck. But we still have
Pass Without a Trace. LAURA: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
TALIESIN: Yeah. LAURA: Still plus 10,
still plus 10. TRAVIS: Yeah, if it is Pass
Without a Trace, it's 33. Without it, it's 23. Because I'm moving
away from-- LAURA: No, you still have it. You're within 30 feet
of Fearne still. TALIESIN: Yeah.
TRAVIS: Okay. MATT: All right.
ASHLEY: What do we have with this
Heroes' Feast again? MATT: So-- LAURA: Immunity to Fear. TRAVIS: It's literally
crawling through the Sahara, like I'm a lion and
my body doesn't move, but just my haunches do. TALIESIN: I think
that's a lizard. LAURA: (laughs)
TRAVIS: Listen, it's my fucking visual.
TALIESIN: Okay, okay. (laughter) TRAVIS: I am Nala. TALIESIN: That guy's
having a weird day. MATT: From a technical
standpoint, to be mindful of this,
Pass Without a Trace, it's a 30-foot area
around Fearne. So you can't cast it
and someone runs off for an hour and they
can stay stealthy. TRAVIS: Yeah, once you
get away from them. MATT: Once you get more than
30 feet away from Fearne. So, you are just emerging
from the area of that before you get to the area. So you would not get the
Pass Without a Trace bonus as you make the rest of that run.
TRAVIS: So it's 23. MATT: 23, still very good. It still beats his
passive perception. LAURA: Ooh! MATT: You dart past Orym
and after scooting along the ground.
MARISHA: I can feel a twang in my temple.
MATT: The dust is picking up a little bit.
I mean, bits of dust get curled up in
this area anyway from wayward gusts of wind. You manage to follow one-- LAURA: Other than the hole?
MATT: -- gust of dust and dart into it and use
that to protect your arrival as you dart in next to
Orym behind the rock. TRAVIS: (heavy breathing) LAURA: Why the fuck?!
TRAVIS: (deeply) Hey, Orym. We're on the moon.
LAURA: What the fuck? TRAVIS: In my head. What?
SAM: Nothing. TRAVIS: Okay. That's my turn.
SAM: I thought he didn't know anyone on the moon.
MATT: That finishes your turn. SAM: But I forgot that we've been here--
MATT: Fearne, you're up. SAM: -- like seven times. ASHLEY: Okay. Ow.
MARISHA: Do we have to go home? TRAVIS: Eyes are
crossing over here. We must have missed something or forgotten something.
LAURA: And now we can't do it because you used the charges.
ASHLEY: So, I'm prone, right? MATT: You are prone, yes. ASHLEY: So I'm going to try
to find where the opening is. MATT: Okay, are you going to get up?
LAURA: You could have done that as soon as we landed.
ASHLEY: Get up, and yeah, move through.
LAURA: You could have done that as soon as we landed.
MATT: You shift over, you find it.
SAM: Why didn't we talk about this? MATT: The end of
your movement is getting out
of the opening. So you still have
your action. You can dash or you
can cast a spell. ASHLEY: All right.
LAURA: Oh my god! ASHLEY: I'm going to
look both ways. LIAM: Can you still use it?
ASHLEY: Can I see anybody? LAURA: No, he used up the charges.
SAM: No! ASHLEY: What happened?
SAM: Sorry. I fucked up, everybody. LAURA: (laughs)
SAM: I fucked up. MARISHA: You didn't fuck up.
SAM: Go on. ASHLEY: Can't we do it now?
SAM: No! LAURA: No!
(laughter) ASHLEY: We can't,
if we all meet up? SAM: I'm bad at D&D, keep going.
LAURA: No, we can't. We really can't. ASHLEY: No, you're not.
MATT: (laughs) ASHLEY: Okay wait. So if I
go out, look each way, do I see Imogen, do I see? LAURA: No, I'm in Darkness.
MATT: You don't see Imogen. You see FCG and Ashton
to your right and you see Laudna
to your left. LAURA: And Chetney. MATT: I'll say with your
passive perception, you do not see Chetney. LAURA: Ooh!
MARISHA: Should we all go back to the dark bubble?
ASHLEY: So you ended up going to the left? MARISHA: I did,
but just 10, 15 feet. Just because I couldn't make
it all the way there and I didn't want to be
out in the open. ASHLEY: Okay, all right. MARISHA: I didn't want
to clump up, either. ASHLEY: I'm going to just
make a run for it. I'm just going to dash. If I can see-- Wait, do I see Orym?
I'm so sorry. Did you already say this?
MATT: I'd say yeah. I'd say you didn't
see Chetney approach because he was in the
process of stealthing, but you can see Orym
behind the wall. LIAM: I think when I got
on the other side of that tent knowing I was
blocked from those guys' view, I'm popping up like a hedgehog
so that the gang can see me. TRAVIS: Meerkat?
LIAM: Meerkat. MATT: So, yeah. ASHLEY: I'm just going
to make a dash. I'm going to run for it and
I'm going to see Orym and I'm going to run as fast
as my hooves can take me. MATT: About 30,
that'll get you-- TRAVIS: Clop clop clop.
ASHLEY: 35? MATT: Oh, 35?
ASHLEY: 35. MATT: You almost shoulder
slam an invisible Imogen. You see Fearne clomping up
behind you and then (shift). Make a stealth check
for me with disadvantage. ASHLEY: Okay. TRAVIS: Plus 10, right?
ASHLEY: Plus 10. MATT: You are stopping in
the middle of the open here. LAURA: Just right--
SAM: Good lord. LAURA: -- in the
middle of the open. LIAM: Oh my gosh.
ASHLEY: Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck. Okay, I don't need that one. I'll just do another one,
I have so many. Okay. Oh, disadvantage. Okay. 24. MATT: Okay, 24.
Still pretty good. So as you dart
and you realize, you skid and you're not
going to make it in time as you can sense
the Thought Eater looking in your direction. You crouch as low as
you can and kind of-- ASHLEY: Don't perceive me!
MATT: Almost like a-- Oh, what are they?
The dust bunnies. The ones that,
the desert rats that shiver in the dirt and the dust kicks
up around it. You get low and do
that for a second and cause this cloud dust
to get up around you. LAURA: You know what,
her cloak color might actually blend in with the dust of-- MATT: You're uncertain
if it was enough. ASHLEY: Okay.
MATT: You don't know. LAURA: Can I see
her very well? MATT: Yes, because she ran
past you and then (scurrying) into the dirt.
TRAVIS: Started to burrow right in front of you.
LAURA: In her head, she's just going
to hear: Cool. (laughter) ASHLEY: I can still see you.
MATT: Yeah. Is Mister coming?
ASHLEY: Yes. MATT: What's his movement?
ASHLEY: Wait, so even with the dash, that's as far as I can get
is right out there? MATT: Unfortunately,
because getting up is half your movement. ASHLEY: Fuck, I forgot I had
to get up, that's right. MATT: 15, 20 or so feet
to get beyond the door and then it's 35 feet
in a straight line. So you make the run and you're just not quite
going to get there. ASHLEY: Okay.
MATT and ASHLEY: (laugh) ASHLEY: I love that so much. MATT: Mister has
a movement of what? Fly speed of something, 30 feet?
ASHLEY: He has a-- So sorry. LIAM: It's okay, it's just
a quarter mile to go. MATT: It's okay.
ASHLEY: I think he's 30. MARISHA: (laughs)
MATT: So he darts. He didn't have to worry about getting up too
hard from prone. ASHLEY: (uncertain wavering)
I'm going to keep him there. MATT: Keep him in the shadow?
ASHLEY: Yeah. Yeah, I'm going to keep
him in the shadow. Well, fuck.
MATT: You can move him just beyond the wall.
ASHLEY: Yeah, I'll move him a little bit beyond the wall.
MARISHA: Okay, so he comes up behind FCG. "(monkey hoots)" ASHLEY: Perfect.
MATT: Glance off the side, little flaming, floating
elemental spirit. MARISHA: Should we all go back
to the dark, the hole-- MATT: Finishing Fearne's go.
MARISHA: -- then teleport in? SAM: I can't.
ASHLEY: That might be so dumb, what I just did.
LAURA: He can't do it. ASHLEY: That was dumb.
MARISHA: Oh, you're out of charges on the staff? TRAVIS: Big boy's moving,
big boy moving. SAM: Yeah, I did bad,
I did bad. MARISHA and LIAM: (laugh) ASHLEY: No, you didn't.
No, you didn't. SAM: I did bad.
I did real bad. MARISHA: You did not.
TALIESIN: We've got a new problem, so that's okay.
MARISHA: It's make believe. SAM: Yeah.
MARISHA: None of this is real. ASHLEY: Oh, that's worse.
SAM: I made believe bad. (laughter)
MATT: So he leaps. TRAVIS: Oh fuck, he is on us!
LAURA: If one of us dies, it'll be your fault.
MARISHA: Oh, fuck. He jumped. MATT: You hear the-- (rumbling)
LAURA: No, no. MATT: -- nearby of the
juggernaut landing heavily into the shadow on the other
side of the wall still. MARISHA: But we all made it through.
TRAVIS: That's when the sentry comes out of the tent, finally finding his braveness and attacks his
own Reiloran friend. MATT: (noncommittal shrug) SAM: Is he in the darkness,
the juggernaut? LAURA: He's in the darkness,
the juggernaut is, yeah. MATT: Both of these figures-- LIAM: Oh, jeebus.
MATT: -- go rushing by-- LIAM: Oh cool.
MATT: -- in this direction, they're hearing the bell. You see them both
grab to the sides and open a swinging gate to this side of the wall.
MARISHA: Oh! There was a door the whole fucking time?
SAM: There was a gate?! MARISHA: (laughs)
MATT: You never looked. No one looked.
TRAVIS: Yeah, that's fair. MARISHA: That's okay,
this is better. TRAVIS: I was going to say,
did they run up and go like: Why did we never
build a door here? MARISHA: Yeah.
LAURA: Oh, that's true. We were in disguises,
so we could've just bloop, bloop, bloop
walked on out. ♪ (jaunty tune) ♪
Walked over that way. TALIESIN: That doesn't
sound like us. LAURA: That's silly,
you guys. Why would we do
something easy? TRAVIS: None of us went:
Is there a door? Goddamn it.
ASHLEY: We did, we did. SAM: Yeah, we did. We did.
LAURA: I looked for people immediately. ASHLEY: I feel like
we asked for a door. SAM: We did.
TRAVIS: No, we didn't ask for a door. LAURA: We just looked for people.
TRAVIS: Yeah. MARISHA: We did
look for people. TRAVIS: (sighs) We suck at this.
MATT: You asked if these were openings and I said no. TALIESIN: Yeah.
LAURA: Yeah. SAM: Is the eyes in the sky,
is he coming towards us? MATT: I mean, he's definitely
focused in this area. SAM: Okay.
MATT: You're too far away to meet an eye line of black shark-like eyes,
unfortunately. You're not able to figure out
where exactly he's looking. SAM: Got it. MATT: But that does
finish their go. The howls are getting louder. You can hear,
as they approach, and you, Imogen,
and maybe Fearne, can see off to the side here these shadowed shapes
darting past as these bestial entities
come running through-- TRAVIS: Oh shit.
MATT: -- to join over here that are also mounted by-- TALIESIN: Oh, I hate that.
MATT: -- two other Reiloran. LAURA: Cool. MATT: One of them looks to be--
MARISHA: Mounted? MATT: Yes, they are. LAURA: Uh-oh.
MATT: Those creatures have what looks like big, leather and chain mounts
that are put across them. You get one good
view perspective. This one here, it is
a massive, muscular panther creature,
but with no hair. It's a heavy, scaled body with very much a massive,
hunting feline with very much a massive,
hunting feline or hunting cat type body. There is no neck or head. You see it stops and
turns around like this. Where the neck would be, there is just a jaw
and a mouth that-- (bestial growling)
MARISHA and SAM: Ugh! TALIESIN: Ew. MATT: There's no eyes
visible on it. And it, (snarled howling) Now you can hear,
this is one of the things that was howling. LAURA: One of the things. One of the things. ASHLEY: Ooh boy.
LIAM: Okay. MATT: They just enter
the space here. That now brings us to Orym,
with Ashton on deck. TALIESIN: What did you--
SAM: I think you skipped me. MATT: Oh that's right.
FCG, you're at the end. Yeah, you're right. SAM: Do we think that this
guy's coming towards us? I'm going to use my movement to go where everybody
else is going, stealthily. MATT: Okay. That'll get you
just alongside the low to the
ground Fearne there. Go ahead and make
a stealth check with disadvantage
for me, please. SAM: With disadvantage?
MATT: Correct. SAM: I get advantage
on my next roll, because my friend rolled
a natural 20. MATT: That's right!
SAM: So I'll just roll once. Is that cocked? MATT: No.
LIAM: It's not that cocked. SAM: Great.
MATT: (laughs) SAM: What is that,
a six or a nine? LAURA: Nine.
SAM: It's a six. (laughter) SAM: 16! MATT: 16. Okay, got it. SAM: Right?
Because Pass Without a-- LAURA and TALIESIN: Yep.
SAM: Okay, okay, okay. MATT: Okay, you roll past
and you glance up. You couldn't see
the eye line before, but you do notice-- LAURA: Uh-oh.
SAM: Shit. MATT: The head shift
of this gentlemen here. SAM: Oh boy.
MATT: Or lady. SAM: Oh, that's right.
We don't know. How far away, 100 feet? MATT: Uh-- SAM: 90?
MATT: More or less. Probably a little less. SAM: (sighs)
MARISHA: (laughs) SAM: Okay, then
I will hold a spell until it gets within 60 feet. MATT: Okay. SAM: I will hold Banishment. MATT: Okay.
LAURA: Nice. MATT: All right,
that finishes your go as you're now holding
the spell at a point there. Now, Orym, you're up,
with Ashton on deck. LIAM: Jeez, well, uh-- Do you think that out,
that your cover's blown? Or is this
happening too fast? SAM: Sure, I do.
TALIESIN: It's Vox Machina shit. LIAM: Regardless,
Orym is going to creep to the far corner
of that tent. MATT: Over here? LIAM: Yeah, and get some
Metal Gear cover so that I can slash the air with Seedling to attack these guys
if things go-- if I see the fight break out. MATT: Okay. So you're holding your
action to get ready to slice at the first provocation
of them charging. Okay, got it. TALIESIN: Laudna, do you
have a fucking plan? MATT: All righty,
Ashton, you're up. MARISHA: Do I have a plan? You're asking me? TRAVIS: She has been the plan
since we got up here. MARISHA: I would love
if anybody else wants to contribute to said plan! TALIESIN: I'm contributing
by thinking at you: Do you want me to drag you
towards everybody else, or are you fine off
in your own corner right now? MARISHA: I'm fine off
in my own corner. That looks pretty precarious
right now. TALIESIN: Done!
TRAVIS: Yep. TALIESIN: There, by for
the grace of something we go. I'm going to rage,
first of all, because that's where
we fucking are. TRAVIS: (growls) MATT: (laughs) LAURA: I feel like
we should all split up. MARISHA: It's not a bad idea. TRAVIS: Yeah,
that's the tenet. (laughter) MARISHA: In this instance. LAURA: I think everybody split up
and hide somewhere for a minute and then just turn into mist. SAM: Oh boy.
LAURA: If we can hide individually.
ASHLEY: How do we turn into mist? LAURA: You think it. MARISHA: Yeah. You feel it
deep down in your cockles. ASHLEY: You do? Okay, okay. TRAVIS: ♪ Feel it
in my fingers ♪ TALIESIN: Interesting.
SAM: We just got to get rid of this guy,
he's the only one who's got eyes on
us right now. TALIESIN: I'm going to see what
the fuck's going on with me. That's a, oh-- TRAVIS: There's a
chance the big savage guy might not find the door.
TALIESIN: That's a space pull, so I'm getting weird.
SAM: Yeah, it's small. TALIESIN: Slightly see-through.
SAM: They might not even fit through.
LAURA: Didn't a giant rock just bust through
all the wall? TRAVIS: I don't--
TALIESIN: How far away is it? MATT: It slammed into the ground right at the base of it--
LAURA: Okay. MATT: -- and (slamming)
into the wall. SAM: It's very small.
TALIESIN: He's far, he's like 120 feet. MATT: This guy's about roughly
100 or so from you, yeah. LAURA: I'm pretty sure a
juggernaut could bust through. TALIESIN: Okay, I'm going
to also hold an attack until he's within 60 feet, and I'm going to, because I'm worried
about these fuckers. I'm going to take
my 30-foot run towards the people who
are out in the open. MATT: 40 feet, you mean? TALIESIN: 40-foot run.
MATT: Towards them directly? TALIESIN: No, towards our
friends who are fucked. Slightly, yeah, there. MATT: That'll get
you just right there. TALIESIN: Attempting
to be stealthy. MATT: Stealth at disadvantage
for me, please. TALIESIN: For whatever
it's worth. SAM: ♪ Do-do-do ♪
MATT: You do get the benefit because you are within
30 feet of her. TRAVIS: Also we don't want to
look too suspicious, right, because anybody
that sees us-- TALIESIN: 21.
TRAVIS: -- we do look like everybody else ish.
MATT: 21. Okay. You dart past, I mean, the entity
seems to be definitely focused
in your area, but you're uncertain whether
or not you've been spotted. TALIESIN: Yeah. I'm just,
I'm ready to fuck with them if it comes to it.
MATT: You got it, okay. LAURA: We're all in
Ruby Vanguard robes? MATT: Correct.
LAURA: Still. MATT: Correct. Yeah, currently the only ones that are directly
aware of your intent are these two for now. All right, that finishes
your turn, Ashton? TALIESIN: Mm-hm.
MATT: Imogen, you're up. TRAVIS: God, the hindsight.
We could have circled up and just smoked him--
MATT: Actually no, before it gets to your turn--
TALIESIN: Actually no, I'm not going to hold that. Yeah, I'm not going
to hold that attack. MARISHA: Yeah, knowing he's not good.
TALIESIN: Actually, I take that back. TALIESIN: Holding a standard
attack within 60 feet. SAM: Oh noes.
MATT: Two Ruby Vanguard-- TALIESIN: Shit. MATT: -- individuals
come through (heavy thud) onto the area,
and their initiative-- MARISHA: We got to
get out of here. TALIESIN: We got to get
the fuck out of here. This is a run.
LAURA: Yeah. Yeah.
TRAVIS: Mm-hmm. MATT: They're going
to be, okay. All righty. So they
arrive at that spot. Imogen, sorry,
what are you doing? LAURA: (sighs) Fuck me running.
SAM: Are you Imogen? No, you're Laudna. Just to confirm
for the audience. MARISHA, ASHLEY,
and MATT: (laugh) LAURA: Actual fact.
MATT: (laughing) That's awful. TRAVIS: So considerate.
SAM and TALIESIN: (laugh) TRAVIS: Really sweet. Really sweet.
LAURA: Okay. SAM: Oh, look what
I just found in my box. LAURA: I am going to move
forward and hide behind this. Can I move forward?
How far can I get? Can I move up to
the tent at least? MATT: 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, you can get in this area. LAURA: Okay. I'm still
in a hidey area? MATT: More or less, from
multiple perspectives, yeah. LAURA: I can see the--
MARISHA: Shit. Shit, shit, shit. MATT: Correct, you can
see the Thought Eater from where you are. You cannot see the others. You managed to get just
far enough past that rock and through your friends
as you move beside and hold there. The only one you have an eye
line to right now is this one. LAURA: I was going
to cast something, but its distance is far less
than I thought it was! Hold on! Fuck!
TALIESIN: (laughs) MATT: Do you have a Metamagic
that can extend the distance? LAURA: I can, but it
doesn't extend it enough. MATT: Oh, okay.
LAURA: It's a short distance spell. I'm dumb.
MATT: Gotcha. SAM: Can you just
look coquettish, and draw it closer to us? LAURA: Could that guy bring
him down closer to us? SAM: I need him closer. TRAVIS: The big savage
guy's going to get us before Mind Eater does. LAURA: Okay, okay, okay.
I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry. I had it prepped and then it's
not what I can do anymore. SAM: It's D&D's fault. It's not your fault.
LAURA: It's all D&D's fault. If I do something, it's going
to make me not invisible and it's going to let
people know where I am and I'm going to put
everybody else at risk. MATT: So are you
holding a spell, or are you using your
action to move elsewhere? What are you feeling?
LIAM: Tick, tick, tick. LAURA: Oh stop it! MATT: (laughs) LIAM: Could you have the resources--
MATT: It's okay, it's okay. LIAM: -- to teleport us? MATT: You're not under pressure.
LAURA: No, I don't have the resources to teleport us! TALIESIN: (laughs) LAURA: Okay. Okay. Okay. Here's what I'm going to do. MATT: Mm-hmm. LAURA: There's already
acknowledgement that there's shit happening over
where the Darkness is. MATT: Yes. LAURA: Is anybody of our
team still in the Darkness? MATT: From what you can see
in your vicinity? No. LAURA: Then I am going to cast
Seething Storm on that area. LAURA: Then I am going to cast
Seething Storm on that area. I can cast within
150 feet of me. SAM: Cool. MATT: Okay.
LAURA: That's a 20-foot radius as well.
MATT: Okay. MARISHA: Wait,
what are you doing? What? TRAVIS: Seething Storm.
LAURA: Seething Storm. MARISHA: Ooh!
MATT: You're casting it over here?
LAURA: Yes. MATT: Okay, what's
the radius on that? LAURA: That is
a 20-foot radius. MATT: 20-foot radius.
SAM: (sneeze) MATT: <i>Gesundheit.</i>
LAURA: I tear open a gateway of liminal space and boundless,
destructive energy. SAM: Are you making that up?
Because that's really good. LAURA: It is pretty cool.
TALIESIN: That's pretty solid, right there.
ASHLEY: Pretty cool. LAURA: So it's lightning--
TALIESIN: That's some flavor. LAURA: -- lightning
flaring everywhere. MATT: These tendrils
of purpleish lightning are arcing through,
like the inside of one of those plasma balls. Just (electric crackling)
on that space there. LIAM: Is Laudy Daudy clear? MARISHA: I'm on
the other side, yeah. MATT: Yeah.
LIAM: Okay. LAURA: Again, anything in
that space is also blinded. MATT: Mm-hmm. LAURA: Then anything in that
space is difficult terrain. Any creature that starts
its turn in the area takes 2d6 lightning damage, and anything that
ends its turn there must make a dexterity save or take--
TRAVIS: That's awesome. MATT: Great.
LAURA: -- force damage. LIAM: Once again, the guy in the tent.
ASHLEY: Awesome. LAURA: Poor guy in the tent.
ASHLEY: Poor guy. MARISHA: It's still dark--
TALIESIN: He made his choice. MARISHA: -- so it's dark and
a hellish lightning storm. MATT: Correct.
LAURA: Yes. MARISHA: That's awesome. MATT: Yeah, it's been a bad
afternoon for that gentleman. TRAVIS: I'm just trying to
read Brandon Sanderson, man. MATT and MARISHA: (laugh) MATT: All right, does that
finish your turn? LAURA: Yes. I'm no
longer invisible. MATT: Right, your
visibility drops. Okay, finishing your go, it's now the
Thought Eater's turn. It's going to--
(shifting rock) LIAM: Oh no!
MATT: -- lift this rock up. SAM: No! No it doesn't!
LIAM: Oh dear. MATT: It's going
to fly over-- SAM: Oh, oh, within 60 feet?
MATT: -- this way. LIAM: Oh, that
looks precarious. MARISHA: Come on.
LAURA: How high up in the air is it?
LIAM: Oh my goodness. MARISHA: Come on.
LIAM: Save the miniature. MATT: I know.
LIAM: It's right on a bush. You put it right on a bush.
MATT: There we go. TRAVIS: It's on the edge. MARISHA: It's got to be.
It's got to be, come on. MATT: What's the range? LAURA: ♪ I'm on the edge ♪
TRAVIS: 60. MATT: 60 feet. SAM: What is that?
LAURA: Yes, yes, yes, yes? MATT: It's right at 60 feet. MARISHA: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah!
MATT: Oh my god. Oh my god. SAM: It's still got
to make a save, though, it's got to make a save.
MATT: Because its range on this is 60 feet. TRAVIS: Whoa!
MATT: So it's literally going to throw the rock, and right as it gets there. SAM: 15, it's a DC 15, which is not a lot.
MATT: DC 15. TRAVIS: He's got
to roll shit. He's got to roll shit.
MATT: On what save? SAM: I'm looking,
I'm looking, I'm looking. It's under spells. It's under 4th-level,
I think. Where is it? MATT: Is it charisma? SAM: I'm looking.
Charisma 15. MARISHA: Charisma.
MATT: Charisma. TALIESIN: Oh boy.
MATT: Charisma is not his best saving throw.
MARISHA: It might be good. MATT: That's going
to be a nine. (excited cheering) TRAVIS: Shit!
SAM: Yeah. LAURA: Yes!
MATT: Right as it rushes forward--
TRAVIS: Oh shit! MATT: -- the stone, rocking and spinning
in the air behind it, as it starts down,
it does this with its arm right as the stone
begins to arc upward and you watch it,
(quick impact) and finish,
and the rock goes-- TRAVIS: Hope. MATT: -- and slams into the ground.
LAURA: Does it fall into the-- TRAVIS: Hope. MATT: (crashing)
LAURA and LIAM: (groan) SAM: Does it draw attention?
I hope not. MATT: It certainly slams
into the ground heavily over there.
TRAVIS: There's plenty of attention over here, but
there's a barrier now. MARISHA: Yeah.
TRAVIS: Additional cover. MATT: He's gone. TRAVIS: Oh man, that's huge.
MARISHA: Holy shit. LAURA: You just
have to hold that, you have to concentrate.
SAM: I broke it, I fixed it. TRAVIS: Is that concentration?
(laughter) LAURA: Yeah.
TRAVIS: Is it concentration? MATT: It is indeed
concentration. SAM: It is, yes.
TRAVIS: For one minute? SAM: One minute. TRAVIS: We got to get the fuck out.
SAM: We got one minute to get out. LAURA: We got to get
the fuck out of here! TALIESIN: Mm-hmm.
LAURA: Quietly. MARISHA: Matt, you
said these Reilorans are going to go
through this gate. Is it a swinging gate that also gives
us additional cover? MATT: It's a double
opening gate. SAM: Exactly. MATT: Yeah, it's bolted
in the front, now you can see they pull
the brace out of the way and then both pull it open.
TRAVIS: Like one, two, three-- MATT: It (creaks) opens
up that way. LAURA: That's a good way
to describe it. TALIESIN: Should
be a little bit. MATT: Just to help give
you a little perspective, it's this area here. TALIESIN: Nice. MARISHA: I'm just wondering
if, I'm sorry, I'm getting, does it go in or out?
TRAVIS: So if it opens out... MATT: It goes, it opens
out this way. TRAVIS: Yeah, so these
guys might lose visual-- MARISHA: Visual. TRAVIS: -- on this side of--
MARISHA: That's what I'm curious-- MATT: It's possible, yeah.
TRAVIS: Maybe. TALIESIN: All right.
SAM: But they also just heard a huge rock. MATT: They did and they all
looked over this direction and watched the stone
go (impacts) over there. LIAM: Red dust area. TALIESIN: Your orders are
to report to the bell! MATT: It blocks line of sight
to all of you at the moment. SAM: Amazing. TALIESIN: There's a big lightning
attack happening over there. MATT: Their attention
is definitely now starting to
focus this way. SAM: Yeah. MATT: We'll see how
this plays out. SAM: Okay. Okay. MATT: That's going to
finish Thought Eaters' turn. Laudna, you're up, and Chetney on deck.
TRAVIS: Okay. MARISHA: Fuck. (laughter) LIAM: Every round. MARISHA: Things are changing so fast.
ASHLEY: Changing fast, yeah. TRAVIS: You just keep
saving the day. ASHLEY: Not going
to do what I was-- TRAVIS: Keep saving the day.
MARISHA: Okay, okay, okay, okay, okay, okay.
TRAVIS: MVP right now. LAURA: Just get out. TALIESIN: Laudna? LAURA: Move it.
LIAM: Let's go, casters. TALIESIN: Laudna?
TRAVIS: Yeah. MARISHA: Do I see, can I, shit, do I have--
MATT: You can. ASHLEY: Can you? MARISHA: Can I shit?
MATT: You can certainly try. (laughter) LIAM: Not for decades.
LAURA: Establish it for her. TRAVIS: Her body,
it's like (boof). (laughter)
LAURA: Pop-pop, pah. LIAM: She probably spits
stuff out like an owl. TRAVIS: Blergh. LIAM: Goes down, digests--
MATT: Oh god. Just Laudna pellets.
LIAM: Yeah. (laughter) MARISHA: Yes.
LAURA: That's pretty good. TALIESIN: You found
a magic item. (laughter) MATT: Oh god, that's good. (laughter) MARISHA: Fuck,
I'm just going to run. I don't know what else to do. I'm just going to run
and join everybody. MATT: Okay, so five, 10,
15, 20, 25, 30. You just dart past
the outskirts of the (crackles)
lightning energy that's curling over there. MARISHA: I'm going to dash.
MATT: All right, 10, 20, 25, 30 gets you alongside
where Chetney is. TRAVIS: (deeply) Hey. MATT: Make a stealth check
for me with a disadvantage. MARISHA: With disadvantage?
MATT: Yes. You do have the
plus 10 from Fearne because you've now entered the
30-foot radius around her. LIAM: I've forgotten. What's causing
the disadvantage? MATT: It's just full sprint and open.
LAURA: When you're runting. LIAM: Sprinting, thank you.
Runting? MATT: If it's a slow stealth, technically, it's half speed,
but it's a straight roll. I'm going to say if you're
trying to run quickly through an open area,
it's much more difficult. MARISHA: 25. SAM: Whoa.
MATT: 25? Disadvantage, that's great. All right, so you dart past using the the freshly
fallen stone to keep low and not
make any eye line to the creatures along
the way there. All right, that
ends your turn. Chetney, you're up with
Fearne on deck. TRAVIS: Yeah, I'm going
to keep coming this way. I'm going to use 30 feet to
advance past Orym, stealthily, and when I get
as far as I can, Five, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30. It's here on this
side of the rock. Can I make a (sniffs) sight,
ears, everything, and what is this way, assuming we're going to
keep moving that direction. MATT: All right, so make a
perception check for me. TRAVIS: Okay. Fuck you. Seven. MATT: Seven.
LAURA: Aw. Everything's unfamiliar
on the moon. MATT: It's true. It's a lot of fresh scents that are messing
with your head. What you can see
just beyond that is beyond this rock and
a smaller hill area, you can see there are
other tents around here. The encampment itself, it seems like a bunch
of makeshift barracks that have been thrown up
here in previous weeks, when the Bloody Bridge
was established and the Vanguard truly
connected with the Reilora. You get the sense
that they began to throw this together to guard
both sides of the bridge. So everything here looks like
it's been freshly put down and is temporary. So there are a lot of military
tents, tent looking things, some that are Exandrian
based, some that you can tell by the construction
of materials. There's no cloth, there's
heavy hides and leather and other spongier materials that are used at the top
part of some of these tents that has a weird
bluish purple hue, but that has a similar
structure to it. TRAVIS: Cool tents, are there
any bodies moving towards us with the bell ringing? MATT: Not that you can see.
TRAVIS: Okay. That's my turn,
if that was my action. MATT: Indeed. Okay. That, end of your turn. These two figures, now they're
going to rush over to this side. SAM: Uh-huh, uh-huh.
MARISHA: Yes, yes. MATT: They both going to
get up over to here. LIAM: What's in the box? LAURA: Should we
go in, George? MATT: That one's going to
make a perception check-- MARISHA: Push them, push her friend.
MATT: -- to look over the top of the hill. Nah. (laughs) Looks over, looks back
towards the entryway and points towards
them and says, "Over here," and points over
towards the electricity and the darkness that's happening--
TALIESIN: Yeah. MATT: -- and they're both
going to start moving around the outskirts of it, not willing to run into a
bunch of sparkling energy. LIAM: That's fair.
LAURA: Psh. SAM: Scaredy cats.
MATT: That's going to finish their go. Fearne,
now you're up. ASHLEY: All right, so now
that I can see everything, do I have to let loose
my Scorching Ray or that I can...
LAURA: No. ASHLEY: Okay, great.
All right. MATT: Yeah, you
can let it go, you just lose
the spell slot. ASHLEY: Okay, so, I'll, from my little
dust bath, look around, and then I'll just
keep running, see that everybody's
taken off and I'll just keep running. MATT: 25, 30. ASHLEY: Oh and then is--
And Mister too. Yeah, let's...
MATT: Mister. ASHLEY: I'm 35.
MATT: You can dash this way. 35, so they can
see they're on, you still have an
action if you want it. You can keep moving
if you want. ASHLEY: Yeah. You know
what I'll do? I'm going to send a Thunder
Clap 100 feet that way. MATT: This way?
TRAVIS: That direction? ASHLEY: Yes, way far back
behind, away from us. SAM: Within the fence area--
ASHLEY: It's 100 feet, so it can be heard--
SAM: -- or outside? ASHLEY: "The sound can be
heard up to 100 feet away," oh wait, maybe I can't
send it far away. MATT: Wait, is it
a Thunder Clap? LAURA: That's like on
self, that's right. ASHLEY: That's on self. Never mind.
MATT: That's you. LAURA: That would be so bad. (laughter)
ASHLEY: That's not at all what I wanted to do.
TRAVIS: Over here! (impact) (laughter) ASHLEY: I was trying
to do it over there-- MATT: I was like, let me double check.
ASHLEY: I thought it was a good idea. TRAVIS: We wanted to play it hard.
MARISHA: Yeah. (laughs) ASHLEY: Yeah, I'm
going to wait. TALIESIN: San Luis Obispo--
ASHLEY: I'm just going to wait. TALIESIN: -- High School marching band.
SAM: Use can your action to keep moving forward,
by the way. MATT: Yeah, you can
if you want to. ASHLEY: Yeah, I'll keep going
then. I'll keep going. MATT: Okay. So you'll
dash up this way? ASHLEY: Yeah. SAM: (as Fearne) Here I go.
MATT: Next to Chetney, you can see the
cluster of tents. You can also, as you approach and while you didn't
see immediately, you can hear other
footsteps and people that are starting to
filter into this side of this open-- TRAVIS: The central ravine.
MATT: -- the central open area where they began
to push through. So there are more and more
soldiers of this alliance coming and they're all gathering
towards the center. TRAVIS: I'll relay that. (deeply) More coming
up the center. Our side is clear. (laughter)
LAURA: In our head, do we still hear
you as a wolf, or are you just
Chet in our head? TALIESIN: He's doing
the voice in his head. TRAVIS: Just let me
live my dream. (laughter) MATT: Begin the
Juggernaut's turn, it takes 2d6 damage, right? LAURA: Yeah,
2d6 lightning damage at the beginning of its turn. MATT: Go ahead and roll
for that for me, please. MARISHA: You can put
live photos as your-- So whenever you get a-- LAURA: Ooh, 11.
MATT: Okay. 11 points of lightning damage
on this juggernaut. You're like, (crackling) and it's rough terrain,
so its movement is reduced, but it goes ahead and (smashing).
LAURA: Oh, it's getting it. MATT It begins punching
along the wall. TRAVIS: At anything
that could be in this darkness.
LAURA: It's trying to punch along, or trying to get out, or--? MATT: (laughs) It has disadvantage
because it can't see, so this was to hit
the AC of the wall and then one of them's a one. So its fists are
careening off of it, because it's not, it looks
like wood sections here but a lot of it
is stone pillars that have been unnaturally
grown out of the ground. You can see bits of
odd glass pushed out of it in places as well. You can see ropes tied
around them with other bits of flotsam and jetsam,
that are pushed around it. TALIESIN: That's why you
hire a decent contractor. TRAVIS: That's a weird lunar surface.
TALIESIN: Just saying. MATT: Second hit, though,
with disadvantage. TALIESIN: Too real. MATT: Does hit and it
already took a lot of damage from the rock that
fell in there earlier. So we'll see if it's
enough to push through. TRAVIS: Is it crystal
or glass? MATT: You're not sure. You haven't
had a good look at it yet. MARISHA: Wait,
did you say crystal? TRAVIS: Well,
glass means heat. MARISHA: The things you're
working on, the rock here? MATT: That's going to be--
TRAVIS: Sharp things, sticking up out of the ground.
MATT: -- 12 damage. (crashing) Part of
the wall cracks open, and you watch his dust
peels off on that side and the juggernaut begins to
full-on "Here's Johnny" through. Is like (smashing).
TRAVIS: (laughs) Yeah. MATT: It's starting to
pull its way through. It's not completely
through yet. SAM: Oh god. MATT: It is preventing it
from getting through but it is doing enough damage
where that part of the wall is starting to give, but he does finish
his turn in the radius. LAURA: Okay, then he has
to make a dexterity save. MATT: Okay,
that's going to be a-- TRAVIS: This is a good spell.
MATT: -- 15. LAURA: He fails,
so he takes 2d6 force damage! TRAVIS: Come on! TALIESIN: Yeah! MARISHA: Was this guy already--
LAURA: 10 points of force damage. TALIESIN: Yeah! MATT: What's what? MARISHA: Is he dead?
MATT: No. TRAVIS: I don't think
he was as rough as the-- MATT: No! He was nowhere near
as rough as the Thought Eater. TRAVIS: He said that
exuberantly, we're <i>fucked.</i> LAURA: Yeah. That guy's full
of everything. We got to go. MATT: He's full of
a lot of things. TALIESIN: A lot of
piss and vinegar. MATT: (laughs) All right.
That finishes his go. These figures here on the darkness side.
LAURA: Can you move the darkness, Laudna?
That would be amazing. MARISHA: I could recast it. LAURA: Put it to where he's
got another 15 feet of darkness in front of him again. MARISHA: I could
theoretically, I think, cast it on him. LAURA: Yes.
MATT: Around the edge. TALIESIN: Oh my god. LAURA: Can you see him
poking his head through? MARISHA: If he's like--
TRAVIS: You can see his hand. MARISHA: Yeah,
he's doing this. MATT: Yeah. His hand
and his shoulder. He's like (grunting). LIAM: Yeah, Laudna should
be able to see that. TALIESIN: That would
be amazing. LAURA: Oh my god.
TALIESIN: If you could just ruin him.
LAURA: Yeah. I love that. MATT: This guy here
is going to-- SAM: Oh shit,
I forgot about him. TALIESIN: (noncommittal noise) LAURA: I didn't. MATT: There. LAURA: I can't stress
to you enough how much I wanted
that Gudetama mug. MATT: Creature's going to (stomping).
TRAVIS: Oh fuck. Oh!
MATT: Onto the rubble of the rock. SAM: Oh god.
MATT: Then (whooshing)-- SAM: Right next to me! MATT: -- dart down on the
opposite side of the wall. LAURA: Oh no! TRAVIS: The dog and the mount?
LIAM: They went that way? MATT: Yeah,
the dog and the mount. They heard all the scuffle
going over this way, it lept onto this
and then over to try and pincer
on this side. LAURA: Oh no, do they see it?
MATT: It lands. As it lands--
SAM: It can only see movement. MATT: -- the one that's on
this side is riding it, (whooshes)
looks right over at you. TALIESIN: How close
is it to us? LIAM: That close.
MATT: Oh, it's about five feet from him.
TRAVIS: But he doesn't know what we look like because
we're wearing Vanguard robes. TALIESIN: It's not
next to me, is it? LAURA: That's true,
we're in Vanguard robes. MATT: You're in
Vanguard robes. TALIESIN: Yeah, okay.
MATT: And one of you's a robot. ASHLEY: We're in
Vanguard robes. TRAVIS: Which is, I'm sure,
very common. MATT: It's very confusing.
LAURA: Yeah, what would a robot-- MATT: But we'll see how this goes.
SAM: Robot Vanguard. TRAVIS: Ooh-ooh!
MATT: We'll see how this goes. LAURA: Bad guy robot? No. We are definitely--
MATT: Yeah. I'm just saying,
it looks at you curiously. SAM: It's fine.
TRAVIS: Just speak your truth. "Fuck the gods."
MATT: It looks curiously at you. All right,
so that finishes its go. This one here is
going to lean over. SAM: I will never say it. MATT: (whooshes) (impacts) Over to this side and is scoping this space
internally here. Finishing their go, FCG, you're up.
SAM: Shit. MATT: Looking over
the shoulder right at you as the muscular,
panther-like headless beast is right beside you
and in a crouched, pouncing position
in this direction, it's just-- SAM: I can't cast
Fast Friends on him because that's concentration
and the Banishment will undo. Command isn't
a concentration spell, though. MATT: Yeah, things
like Command. SAM: I will use Command.
MATT: Okay. SAM: I will turn to the guy
who just looked at me and I will cast Command. Ooh, it's just a 1st-spell. That's probably
not going to work. But let's try. MARISHA: You don't know.
TALIESIN: You're good. MARISHA: Natural 20.
LIAM: Come on, pull it off. LAURA: It's a Wisdom save?
SAM: It's a Wisdom 15 save. LAURA: Oh no.
MATT: Wisdom 15 save. LAURA: These guys are all wisdom.
TALIESIN: You have to pick a single thing that
you get one round of. TRAVIS: He'll know you're
a foe if you do it. LIAM: Yes.
LAURA: Otherwise, you could just
pretend that you're-- LIAM: I believe.
SAM: You mean just act? SAM: Yeah, well,
maybe I'll do that. Maybe I should just act.
ASHLEY: Are you good at deception? LIAM: Here's the verdict.
SAM: We'll find out. TRAVIS: Matt rolled.
ASHLEY: Already rolled it. SAM: You've already rolled? MATT: Are you casting it
or not casting it? I haven't said
what the roll is yet. TRAVIS: He rolled shitty. SAM: I'll cast it. I'll cast it.
LAURA: Travis. SAM: I already said
I'd do it, I'm doing it. It doesn't matter.
MATT: What'd you say? SAM: I already said I'm
doing it and I'm doing it. TRAVIS: I said he's
going to roll shitty. SAM: I'm doing it,
I cast Command. MATT: You cast Command,
what do you Command? SAM: I will say, the Command is just: Shh. MATT: Okay.
SAM: (laughs) MATT: Okay. Two parts to this. One, it rolled a 14,
all bonuses in, which is why I laughed because
it's right under your DC. SAM: Uh-huh. MATT: So it looks over and
cocks its head strangely. Make a deception check
for me, I'll say with advantage because
you succeeded on the spell. The spell's taken effect,
but this is beyond the spell. This is you trying to pass
yourself off as an ally or at least not
a threat at the moment. SAM: Deception?
MATT: Yes. SAM: 25. (cheering) TRAVIS: This little robot's
got some stank! MATT: What?! LAURA: Are you a super lie-y
and we just don't know? SAM: Yeah, I'm really
good at deception and we never use it for me.
ASHLEY: Why wouldn't we use it? MARISHA: But you're so honest.
TRAVIS: He's a murderer! MATT: What'd you roll?
LAURA: Oh, that's right. He is a little murder bot.
SAM: I rolled a 19 plus six. MATT: That's amazing. Dang! (laughs) Look at that clutch
fucking throw there. TRAVIS: Holy shit. MATT: So you say "Shh."
TALIESIN: Way to Decepticon there. Shit. MATT: It looks at you,
nods, and turns around. TRAVIS: Oh my god.
MATT: Holding onto the reins of this entity
and prepare themself to get ready to
go after whatever tears through that wall
that's not a friend. SAM: Okay.
MATT: For the time being. LIAM: So you fucked it,
then you un-fucked it. MATT: (laughs)
SAM: I might fuck it again still. TRAVIS: Oh my god. MATT: Okay.
MARISHA: So? MATT: So that's
going to finish-- SAM: Oh, and then
I'll use my action or my movement to
continue on with the rest. MATT: Okay. (skitters)
TRAVIS: 15, 20, 25, 30, yep. MATT: It's about right
up there with Mister and (chuckles)
lucky you rolled so high because Laudna
was right behind you and it was a high DC-- SAM: Sure.
MATT: -- because all the rest of you were fleeing for the moment.
SAM: Of course. TRAVIS: Jesus.
MATT: Whew. Okay. MARISHA: How long does it last?
MATT: Lucky motherfucker. SAM: Not long.
MATT: Great. That finishes FGC's go. Orym, you're up;
Ashton, you're on deck. LIAM: Okay, so just
perception-wise, do I hear many inhabitants
of this place coming? That is a 23. MATT: 23. Yes. Now you hear other bells
starting to ring in other parts of the
vicinity, different sounds. This is the big bell and
there's other ones acknowledging the chain to make sure
that everyone hears it. You can hear those howls
getting louder, more of them approaching and in nearby tents
off the main walkways, you hear heavy footfalls of possibly dozens arriving
here in the next half-minute. LIAM: Okay,
so really quickly, I think I would say
walk away casually, but we're going to be the only
ones going in this direction. Are we stealthing serpentine? Quickly, to the group.
TRAVIS: I think it's casual, right? What do you think? LIAM: But if there's
50 people going (grunts) and we're just,
"Hey friends," as we walk in
the opposite direction-- ASHLEY: Maybe we act
like we're stressed. LIAM: What's the story
that tells? TALIESIN: Stealthy serpentine
is my call. LAURA: Stealthily try to
blend in with the people, but run away.
TALIESIN: Tent to tent, yeah. MATT: Which stealth can both
be not being seen or trying to casually work your way in.
LAURA: Being nonchalant. Yeah, let's try to look--
LIAM: Confused in the craziness of it?
LAURA: Nonchalantly. TALIESIN: Yeah.
MATT: Okay. So here's the thing. Stealthing,
I'll put this context. LIAM: Everybody
walk backwards. MATT: Stealthing by
just not being seen has a higher DC, but you get the bonus of
Pass Without a Trace. Stealthing casually, that
spell does not help you blend in. It helps you not be seen.
LIAM: Okay. MATT: So it'll have, with your clothing and
the stress of the scenario, possibly a lower DC,
but you do not get the benefit of
Pass Without a Trace, the choice is yours. LIAM: I think that's
our best bet. MARISHA: Cuban? TRAVIS: Cuban burp. LIAM: Trying to blend in. Whoa!
SAM: (high-pitched sneeze) TALIESIN: Stop it. ASHLEY: What is
happening to you?! (laughter) LAURA: Why are your
sneezes like that? SAM: I don't know. TRAVIS: Got some
Benadryl over here? ASHLEY: You have to
clear your nose. SAM: I do. I do.
MARISHA: So cute. LAURA: It is a cute little sneeze.
ASHLEY: It is a cute sneeze. SAM: It's the cocaine.
TRAVIS: It's fucking annoying. MATT: So what's the plan?
ASHLEY: Okay, okay. LAURA: (nervous groan)
MATT: Shadows or blending? TALIESIN: Will it blend?
LAURA: I feel like-- MATT: Will it blend?
LIAM: Or! Or! Or! MATT: Don't breathe this. LAURA: But plus 10.
LIAM: Or do we run into a tent-- SAM: There's a tent right there.
LIAM: -- and turn into clouds for a minute?
LAURA: Yeah, no. That's what we should do.
LIAM: Together. TRAVIS: I thought about it,
but they're coming this way and it feels
like they'll make their way and check stuff.
LAURA: We should duck into a tent further away.
TRAVIS: Yeah, it feels like it. LIAM: Yeah.
TALIESIN: Yeah. TRAVIS: Even if we
get 50 yards away. LIAM: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. TALIESIN: Then find
an empty tent. MARISHA: You can
pop up a thing? Do I remember that correctly? But yours is more organic.
LAURA: Natural. Yeah, no, that's not--
TALIESIN: That's fun. This is-- MARISHA: That's not going to work.
LIAM: Plus, we're on Mars. TRAVIS: Follow Orym's lead.
LAURA: We should hide in a tent. TRAVIS: Follow Orym's lead,
he'll find a tent. LAURA: What do you
want to do, Orym? TRAVIS: Blend in.
LAURA: Casually look for a tent? LIAM: I want to look
like I'm confused by the alarm going on around
and like I belong here, and start moving away.
TRAVIS: Like we're searching. LIAM: Yes. LAURA: Yeah, like we're
searching the area. LIAM: I'm looking for
my colleagues to help me-- MATT: Great.
LIAM: -- here. MATT: So to that point,
I need a group stealth check without the benefit.
ASHLEY: Without the Pass. LAURA: (groan)
LIAM: Without the Pass? Oh. MARISHA: So that's the thing, we can't use Pass Without
a Trace that way. LIAM: Yes. Gotcha. MARISHA: Okay. All right.
TALIESIN: Don't fuck it up. LAURA: But the DC's lower.
MARISHA: All right. LIAM: I'm going to use--
LAURA: Halfling Luck? LIAM: Indomitable
because I rolled low. MATT: That's for
saving throws and ability checks or
is it just saving throws? LIAM: Oh, it's a saving throw,
okay. Then that's it. MATT: Okay,
we'll start over here. TALIESIN: 14. MATT: 14, okay. TALIESIN: Okay.
MARISHA: Group check, group check. LIAM: Nine.
MATT: Okay. LAURA: 20.
TALIESIN: Yay. MATT: Okay. ASHLEY: 14. MATT: Okay. SAM: One.
LAURA: No. But I'm a huge fan of
the Luck feat, as you all know. So I will use the coin of
the Changebringer to reroll. MATT: Because you can do that.
MARISHA: Did you take the Luck feat? SAM: No, it's a coin. It's not luck, it's faith,
so it's okay. (laughter) SAM: I say a silent prayer
to the Changebringer. I'm coming for you, baby. 16, 15. TRAVIS: Oh.
ASHLEY: Okay. LAURA: That's better. MARISHA: 25.
TALIESIN: Yeah! LAURA: Let's go, Laudna.
MARISHA: I rolled a 19. LAURA: You did it.
MARISHA: I did good! ASHLEY: No, why are
you doing that face? TALIESIN: Right there,
that's a one face. TRAVIS: 27. ASHLEY, LAURA, and MARISHA: Oh!
TALIESIN: Oh, fuck right off, you motherfucker! Boo.
(laughter) MATT: You better make a strong
prayer to that Changebringer because that saved your ass. SAM: Thank you.
MATT: (laughs) MARISHA: What?
LIAM: Nine years later and you did it.
SAM: It's faith! It's faith, it's different,
it's my belief. LIAM: It's good enough
for me. (laughter) SAM: It's different.
MATT: Okay. SAM: It's different
when I do it. (laughter) MATT: Weaving through--
ASHLEY: Did we make it? MATT: -- some of the nearby tents.
LAURA: We did it. MATT: You can watch
as Reiloran soldiers and the occasional Vanguard figure--
ASHLEY: That way, that way, oh my god!
MATT: -- comes darting out, glaive in hand.
SAM: What way, which way? MATT: You can see multiple
weapons at the ready. Some are Exandrian. You can see some of the
other Reiloran weapons themselves are these
massive glaives that are made mostly of bone or this jagged
crystal-like glass material that are strapped together
with bits of errant metal. Most of the armors
they wear are leather and bone with bits
of odd patchwork hides. But they all come
charging through. Some of them eye you
as they pass and then go back
to concentrating. A few of them look over
their shoulder a second time, but then hear a noise
and continue to pursue. You hear the juggernaut
bashing through the wall before eventually emerging
right as the other one pounces and there's a point of confusion
as they both face off, just as you all vanish
into the nearby crowds. With Orym taking the lead,
eventually you find a tent. You glance into each
little flap you can find, there's one heavy leather tent
that's kind of smallish, like it's
a supply containment tent and as you pull back
and look on the inside, it looks mostly empty. There's a couple of boxes that were brought in from
probably Exandrian make that they're open
and mostly empty aside from
some minor supplies, some fire-burning wood and
some other errant things. But this gap could
very tightly fit all of you for a moment. TRAVIS: So one issue, right? If I remember correctly, we can't communicate
when we're clouds and we-- LAURA: No, we can still
talk when we're clouds. MATT: Telekinetically,
you can. TRAVIS: Awesome. MATT: That spell is
the only way you can. TRAVIS: Yeah,
because I was like we don't know
where to say to meet. We're just going to
be venturing out into the
fucking lunar surface. TALIESIN: Fuck yeah. LIAM: So Orym spins
around and says: We need to queef out of here,
let's go. (laughter) LAURA: All right.
MARISHA: Question. The tent flaps-- does it have buckles or--
TRAVIS: (mouth farts) MARISHA: -- something to
help keep it closed? LAURA: It lasts for an hour,
do you need to recast it on us? MATT: Not on the exterior, no.
LAURA: Telepathic Bond. TALIESIN: Interior, yeah?
MATT: You can find something. What clever way would you want
to keep it buckled closed? MARISHA: I was just going to
maybe Mend the fabric so that if someone
tries to throw it open-- MATT: Sure. MARISHA: They'd have to take a sec.
TALIESIN: It doesn't flap open. MARISHA: Yeah,
it doesn't flap open. MATT: As you all
enter the inside and you get a good look
at it, the texture on it, you can see
the hide texture on this. This is leather, this was
once a creature's hide and as you cast Mend, as opposed to watching
cloth reform, it's like watching flesh-- TRAVIS: Oh!
MATT: -- peel and snap together into a solid form.
TRAVIS: Shit, yes. TALIESIN: Nature's Velcro.
MATT: Yes. (laughs) MARISHA: Nature's Velcro. MATT: It (slurps)
back together and it becomes almost
a pink or purplish color. LAURA: Ew.
MATT: A bit of it has-- TRAVIS: Fresh?
MATT: Just a fragment of fresh life to it.
TRAVIS: (cackles) MATT: But no actual
life to support. TRAVIS: That's going to scar. MATT: As you all
carefully step in, you can hear
the bells still going. You can hear other growls and you can start
hearing humanoid shouts. None of the Reiloran have
shouting in the vicinity, but the humanoids and the
Vanguard are giving out cries and the tension's
starting to build. Are you all?
TRAVIS: Do it, say it. ASHLEY: Yeah, yes.
LAURA: Oh, but before we do-- SAM: I think I have to
recast the Telekinetic Bond. LAURA: Or Telepathic Bond?
SAM: Telepathic Bond. MATT: How long
does that last? LAURA: It lasts an hour.
SAM: I don't know how long it's been, though. TRAVIS: Since we cast it
before the fight? MATT: You cast it,
when did you cast it? SAM: I don't know. LAURA: I feel like you cast
it before we even went-- MATT: Before you went left?
LAURA: We started down. MATT: Right.
LAURA: That would've been-- TRAVIS: We do need to
recast it, then. LAURA: Yeah, because
I don't want it to go away while we're farts. MATT: It's pretty close. I will say it's still
lasting on you, of course, because you're using it,
but depending on how long you want it to be in
this mist form. TRAVIS: ♪ I long to be ♪ MATT: You probably have about
I'll say 15, 20 minutes or so before it fades.
TRAVIS: ♪ Under the sea ♪ LIAM: Up?
LAURA: Because you won't be able to cast it once we're farts. (laughter) LIAM: So we go up for a view of the landscape
and decide from there. SAM: Okay.
LAURA: Yeah. SAM: But we're going to
rest or something, right? Because I am spent.
TALIESIN: We got to go. LAURA: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SAM: Okay. I will recast
Telepathic Bond. MARISHA: That's
a spell you have, it's not a scroll, right? LAURA: Yes.
SAM: It's a spell I have. By the way,
a minute's probably up. So Banishment's probably
gone on that dude. TRAVIS: It's been a minute. MATT: As you all step in here
after stealthing around, it's been about maybe
I'd say 30 seconds to find the tent where
you get in there. So halfway through your
concentration, it will drop. SAM: Okay, okay, okay. MATT: You'll feel it (poof). There's a part of
your mind that's like, "Oh god, it's back,
it's angry, "and it's looking for us." SAM: Got it, okay. Yeah, Telepathic Bond. Let's become farts. By the way,
did you see back there? One of the Reilorans
spotted me. TALIESIN: Okay, we're going. MARISHA: We start going
while he's talking. SAM: I held the
Changebringer coin and then he just looked away,
it was amazing. That's Chay-Chay,
she did that. (laughter) ASHLEY: Chay-Chay?
SAM: Chay-Chay. TRAVIS: Pray-pray
to Chay-Chay. SAM: Pray-pray
to Chay-Chay. (laughter) SAM: ♪ You better pray
to Chay-Chay today ♪ MATT: You all are concentrating
on the enchantment that still stays
rooted in your beings. You feel that
confident presence of the Voice of the Tempest
with you here as a quiet wind begins
to encircle all of you and you watch as your
fingertips begin to dissolve, your feet begin to shimmer. You watch as your body
begins to feel lighter and almost like you begin to
lift off the ground slightly. Laudna, make
a perception check for me. LAURA: Oh god. TRAVIS: Dani said we
cast Telekinetic Bond just before we turned
into clouds last time. MATT: Yeah, so with
the travel there because you travel pretty
fast with that spell. SAM: Yep.
MATT: Getting to the spot. LAURA: It would've just--
MATT: Yeah. It's pretty close
to ending, so. MARISHA: Eh.
TRAVIS: There's no guilt here, man. You're lighting up
the field, it's crazy. MARISHA: Yeah, nine.
TRAVIS: You and Imogen are fucking wrecking shit.
MATT: Nine? Okay. MARISHA: Nothing, nothing?
MATT: No. MARISHA: All right. MATT: As the din outside
begins to crescendo, you can sense and feel
that the search is now becoming methodical through
all the nearby structures. You begin to hear
the pushing over of doorways. MARISHA: Can I look at Treshi
ball real quick before I go ghost? MATT: Yeah, if you want to. You look up and your fingers
are mostly gone now and you see it begins to slip
out of your grasp almost. MARISHA: Ooh, oh.
LAURA: Oh no. MATT: Before you catch it and indeed, you see
that blue glimmer. MARISHA: She's here!
LAURA: Ah! MARISHA: I put it away
before I'm a poof. MATT: Okay. TRAVIS: I want to leave
right now, I want to go! ASHLEY: I know.
MARISHA: Can we concentrate faster? TRAVIS: That bitch is so bad!
(buzzes) ASHLEY: Bubble guts. MARISHA: Concentrate harder! MATT: You hear a structure, not a tent, but
a structure nearby-- (clatters)
LAURA: Oh god. MATT: -- slam and collapse. The splintering of wood and rock shattering.
TRAVIS: Stop. LIAM: I love it.
TRAVIS: Stop. LAURA: Oh god.
ASHLEY: (groans) TRAVIS: Stop, Matt, don't roll!
SAM: Do it, do it. TRAVIS: Don't roll!
SAM: Roll it. MATT: (poof) You all
turn into clouds of mist. TRAVIS: Oh, I thought
you meant the fucking tent. ASHLEY: Oh, I thought
something, but okay. LAURA: Oh my god. TRAVIS: I shit
my pants a little. MATT: You all begin to
(swoosh) filter out from the nearby bottom
corners of the tent to emerge into the brushing
wind that's blowing by, the dust kicking up and
trying to ride alongside it. As you emerge,
you can see now ASHLEY: (mouth fart) MATT: -- probably close
to 40 to 45-- MARISHA: (gasps) MATT: -- soldiers of the
factions are now scattered around the core of
this central compound, and you can see them around the corner from
the tent where you were. As you all begin to (swoosh)
drift up into the air, two things you pick up on. One: The wind here, though there is
no immediate storm here, it's a little bit of a fight
against it in your mist form. You move quick, but you
get the sense that moving through a storm in
this form is not advisable. TRAVIS: Mm.
LAURA: Ooh. TRAVIS: Moving through
the wind in the storm in our normal form is
not advisable or as a cloud? MATT: In the current form.
LAURA: As winds. MATT: As the winds buffet you a
little bit from it occasionally and you can see
the dust storms brimming miles off in
multiple directions. Just from this little
bit of the occasional gust, this would probably
be bad in a dust storm. The second thing
that you notice is indeed these
distant dark dust storms are (rumbles) rolling in
full-on "Fury Road" style, are probably a good
20 minutes off from the landing spot
of the Bloody Bridge and you have no real concept
of where to go and what your next
destination is. But for now, you've at least
gotten out of the frying pan. So we're going to
go to break here. (groaning)
TRAVIS: Oh my god. MATT: But since we do
have a moment to breathe, we're also going to level up. TRAVIS: Oh shit, we are?
MATT: Yep. (clapping) MATT: I'm going to
sit down for this. ASHLEY: Shit. MATT: This is the first
real pause moment in the tension of
the past episode, so it puts you guys
all at 12. You can think about
your abilities and stuff during the break,
but at the very least, we can roll hit points.
TRAVIS: Yeah, yeah, yeah. MATT: If you know what
your next level is. LIAM: Come on.
TRAVIS: I think I do. I'll do blood hunter,
which is a 10 or 12? MATT: It's a 10. TRAVIS: Should I go first?
MATT: Sure, yeah. You're already ready. LAURA: You're already
ready already. TRAVIS: Ready ready already.
MATT: (laughs) LIAM: Roger, roger. TRAVIS: Eight.
MATT: Eight on you there. All righty. Laudna? MARISHA: I'll do-- TRAVIS: Don't rush it. MARISHA: (groans) I'll do sorcerer, I feel like there's not much left
for me as a warlock. Okay.
MATT: Delilah would disagree. MARISHA: I know she would.
MATT: (chuckles) MARISHA: That's good. I rolled a five. Right, sorcerers are d6s? LAURA: Yeah, it's a d6.
MATT: Correct. MARISHA: Yeah? Okay.
MATT: That's good, all right, FCG? SAM: I'll take another
level in cleric. MATT: All righty.
SAM: But I'm a cleric of the Changebringer.
MATT: Mm-hmm. (chuckles)
SAM: And I rolled a two. MATT: All right, two hit points,
put it on there, buddy. Fearne? ASHLEY: Um. Can-Can-Can I go last?
MATT: Sure. ASHLEY: Well, I, okay, wait. SAM: Are you going
to do some weird shit? ASHLEY: I may.
TALIESIN: All right. You can go last.
MATT: If you want to wait until after the break,
we can roll yours when we return
to the table, too. ASHLEY: Okay, let's do that. Because I made
some different copies and I'm trying to figure
out which one I want. MATT: So you can continue to
consider after the break. Laura?
SAM: ♪ Friends around the table ♪ LAURA: Hi. I am going to roll a d6. MATT: Go for it. LAURA: Four.
LIAM: Pretty good. MATT: Perfect. LIAM: Sticking with fighter. Five.
MATT: All righty. Five on that and--? TALIESIN: Why argue
with success? Six.
MATT: Six, okay. Fair enough, so
that's everyone rolled there. We'll come back with Fearne's
at the end of the break and we'll see you all
here shortly. Fitting in, dressing for
others, snag that. Meet the tights that
actually fit everybody. Sizes 2-34. We are ripping up
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at snag.world Why the snag not? (fantasy 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
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dangerous phenomena, and contain the bleed that
spreads from corruptive magick. Choose from 10
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and explorations. Use tactical intuition
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Candela Obscura investigators. Offered in both
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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. Hey, Critters!
Laura Bailey here to guide you through what's
new in the Critical Role shop. Ooo so comfy cozy. This is seriously magical. Can you put donuts in this?
Only one way to find out. It's too powerful. This is pretty badass. Roll an investigation
if you want. It's basically perfect. I mean the Traveler always says impulse purchases
are a good decision. This is a lot of
stuff, you guys. We have so many cool
things right now. And hey if you want, you could head
over to the Critical Role shop right now. TALIESIN: Our radiant order
is bound to a sacred mission: Reduce, contain,
and eliminate bleed. For those that attempt to
harness its chaotic power, great danger awaits. When caught in the
crossfire of such phenomena, one cannot be held to account for the scars
they are burdened with. Though, time is
a fleeting luxury when a circle is
knowingly assembled outside the parameters
of our belief. A grim demise awaits those who leverage the powers
of magickal bleed. The Circle of Tide & Bone. Assignment Number 39-26:
Candles in the Dark. ♪ (tense mysterious music) ♪ ♪ (tense mysterious music) ♪ ♪ (tense mysterious music) ♪ (ominous music) Oh hey, it's us. Your friendly neighborhood
ambiguous shadowy weirdos here to say cryptic
things at you as usual. Are you ready for the third
and final season of Midst? We certainly are. Some of you have been
waiting a very long time. Good news: the wait is almost over. Midst, man. What the heck? A lot of questionable characters doing
incredibly problematic things to each other in a series of increasingly
insane escalating circumstances while struggling to follow their warped
moral compasses and do what they think is hopefully
the right thing. Can the Trust get…
worse somehow? Can Phineas get less worse? How much longer can
Lark outrun her past? Are there any objectively
good guys in this story? Other than Moc Weepe. How can any of these threads possibly be
resolved with only one more season to go? And we STILL don’t even know what
happened with that dang moon. Are we ever gonna get some ANSWERS? Yes. As a matter of fact… we will. The third and final season
of Midst unfolds February 14th. Listen to the pure sound experience
anywhere you stream podcasts or watch illustrated video episodes
on the Critical Role YouTube channel. In the meantime, you can
follow us at @midstpodcast or join the Fold on Midst.co to get early access to episodes,
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artwork, and more. Everything’s been leading to this. We’ll be with you to the end. Do you Trust us? (epic music) (mischievous music) (typewriter clacking) (peaceful music) SAM: (whispers)
Hi, Critters. Sam Riegel here. (clicking) There are many
relaxing properties to a Twitch subscription
to Critical Role, so today I'm going to
tell you all about them in soothing ASMR.
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Which stands for Autonomous Subscription Meditative Reaction,
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With a Twitch subscription, you can watch our VODs immediately after
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That's the sound of your blood pressure
decreasing. You also get access to
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And speaking of chat, Twitch is the only place to join our live and
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[loud rubbing] SAM: (distorted)
I'm whispering from really far away. (whispers) And if you're
an Amazon Prime member, you get one free
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[wind whooshing] SAM: -- (whispers) on a
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Am I doing this right? You can also
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to Critical Role. It's like a warm blanket.
PHONE: ♪ Sponsor me ♪ SAM: (whispers) Oh. Oh, hold on, hold on.
PHONE: ♪ Spent their ♪ ♪ commercial budget ♪
properly ♪ SAM: (whispers)
It's my proctologist. Just give me a second, okay? Hello?
(full volume) Hello? Oh, hey, doc.
Yeah, what's up? What do you mean more teeth? I thought you got
rid of them all. Well, no,
don't tell me to relax. I'm the one with
teeth up my-- [gentle calming music] SAM: (whispers) Subscribe. [gentle calming music] [gentle calming music] MATT: And welcome back. So before we jump
in real fast, Ashley, have you decided
on what you want to do? TRAVIS: (laughs) ASHLEY: I'm going to hide.
LAURA: Did you instantly change? ASHLEY: Oh, yes, I did.
TRAVIS: Speak for yourself. ASHLEY: So I am going to do-- (sighs) Don't fucking @ me. (laughter) (laughter) (clapping)
ASHLEY: I'm going to do-- TRAVIS: So defensive!
(laughs) ASHLEY: It's so dumb,
but I'm playing my game. I am going to do a
third level in rogue. MATT: Hell yeah, I love it. ASHLEY: I am going to
do Arcane Trickster. MATT: Okay. ASHLEY: Which I know
is hilarious because my intelligence isn't
very high, but I have reasons. MATT: I love it.
LIAM: That's better. ASHLEY: So leave me alone. MATT: There can be narrative
reasons as well, which I love. ASHLEY: Okay.
MATT: Great, awesome. MARISHA: After almost nine years of
playing this game on the internet, we're like, "Shut up."
ASHLEY: Yeah. (laughs) (laughter) ASHLEY: Don't!
It hurts my feelings. (laughter) LIAM: Just let me make
my dumb choice. MATT: Go ahead and roll
your d8 hit points. TRAVIS: No, we don't know
what we're doing. MARISHA: Yeah. (laughs) MATT: Never have, never will. TRAVIS: Oh yeah. TALIESIN: Wow.
ASHLEY: Okay, okay. TRAVIS: Don't care to. ASHLEY: Let's do this one. Two. MATT: Look at that,
out of the gate. It's wonderful.
ASHLEY: Look at that, right out the gate.
MARISHA and MATT: (laugh) MATT: All right, perfect.
ASHLEY: Okay. I'm going to add that now. LAURA: Do I want to do it? MATT: So, Bells Hells, as you've now ascended into the
lower atmosphere of Ruidus, as you've now ascended into the
lower atmosphere of Ruidus, the red Moon of Ill Omen, storms roiling at all
sides and below you, the sight of the
Bloody Bridge, its singular red
beam (sizzles) firing past you into
the sky above where it strikes down on the
beautiful blue planet, Exandria. Where do you go and
what do you do? SAM: Matthew.
MATT: Yes, Sam? MARISHA: (extended wet burp) SAM: Gross.
LAURA: Gross. That was a gross one.
ASHLEY: (laughs) TRAVIS: Oh look, you
got a little. (laughter) ASHLEY: When you try to keep it quiet.
MATT: Oh my god. LAURA: That was awful. LIAM: I thought it
was pretty great. MARISHA: That one had a little
salsa, not going to lie. (groaning)
LAURA: That wasn't the foul part. That was the foul part.
SAM: Did you eat salsa today? MARISHA: Nope.
MATT: <i>Sam!</i> (groaning) MATT: Sam, you were saying?
LAURA: You tasted it? TRAVIS: I ate it.
ASHLEY: Tasty. SAM: I was saying-- And we're back
from commercial. (laughter) ASHLEY: We'll cut all that. SAM: I was saying
there's several of us-- TRAVIS: Assholes.
MATT: Yes. SAM: -- who in dreaming, have
been to the moon before. MATT: Correct. SAM: Do I, as one of
those beings-- TRAVIS: Oh, okay. SAM: -- do I recognize any
features, any landmarks, anything that we've seen
before in waking dream form? TRAVIS: It's red.
MATT: I will say any who have seen
this landscape before can roll a survival check
or a perception check. MARISHA: I think we've all been
here at some point, right? LAURA: Not all of us. TRAVIS: Okay.
ASHLEY: But in dreams, right? LAURA: Yeah.
LIAM: Yes, yes. ASHLEY: ♪ Only in dreams ♪ LAURA: This is a temporary,
I don't know if this is-- MATT: There's different
DCs for each person based on how familiar they
are with the landscape. LAURA: Was it survival,
survivor-der? MATT: Survival or perception. TALIESIN: I'll take
survival for 19. SAM: (in slow motion) Survival.
MATT: 19. LIAM: I'll use my passive
perception, 24 for the roll. LAURA: I am never rolling
a Ruidus dice again. It was not a one.
It was just a nine. MATT: Nine. SAM: Available in the shop.
ASHLEY: 17. MATT: 17. LAURA: No, that's not
our Ruidus dice. It's just a red die.
SAM: Okay. MATT: Okay.
SAM: 19, perception. MARISHA: Natural one.
MATT: Okay. TRAVIS: I've only been
to Ruidus once, but I rolled a natural 20. SAM: Ooh.
MATT: Did you? LAURA: You're so good, Chet. SAM: Because of the
moon and you're a wolf. MARISHA: Oh yeah.
SAM: The moon wolf, the wolf moon.
MATT: (howls) TRAVIS: My virility is
off the charts. (laughter) SAM: You've just been
erect this whole time? TRAVIS: Yeah. (laughs)
MATT: For a total of? LIAM: Every episode.
TRAVIS: 21. MATT: Okay, I'll say--
TRAVIS: It's survival. LAURA: Okay. (laughs)
MATT: Right, so the threshold on this would
have been about 20-plus, the natural 20 definitely
pushing it over the edge. While the rest of you still
feel lost amongst the storm, Orym and Chetney, it's
less about the landscape because you have no real
correlation of direction. You just see a
storm around you and the only real
landmass that you can see at this point or the
marker on the landscape is that encampment
beneath you. But looking up at Exandria and looking at the direction
of where the continent of Marquet is set and looking
at what would be north, south, east, west from there and then recalling
where you saw that city across the moon when you were
looking through the telescope. SAM: Oh yeah. MATT: You can figure
a general direction that's likely where
the city would be. LIAM: Let's us two go up.
LAURA: Yeah. MATT: So you can pick
that direction. It'll still be a series
of rolls to try and traverse if that's
where you're trying to go. LIAM: So that direction
though, we don't see the city. It's just we're taking
a shot in the dark and hoping we'll get there?
MATT: Correct. TRAVIS: We're going
(inquisitive grumbles). MATT: Yeah. TALIESIN: Cloud geometry. LAURA: From up above--
TRAVIS: (lips blubbering) LAURA: -- can we see
anything that looks like-- TRAVIS: (lip trill) LAURA: -- this kind of
a structure? I feel like this structure was made by the
Ruby Vanguard, potentially. MATT: This section
here you can see, it looks like it's been
mostly constructed by a combination of
both Ruby Vanguard and unfamiliar structure
designs outside of what you've seen in the
attire of some of the Reiloran. So it's a combined effort.
LAURA: All right. MATT: This appears to
be a new encampment. A fresh encampment.
LAURA: Okay. SAM: As we leave the encampment,
from our bird's eye view, do any other structures other than the landing pad
stand out? Is there a central HQ
or any sort of? MATT: There are a
series of larger tents. There's no stone-built structures
or permanent things here. Everything here has
been temporarily set up around the
base of operations. LAURA: Do we see Otohan
from the sky? MATT: How high up
are you going? TALIESIN: High. LIAM: We're only on
the moon once. TRAVIS: You're kind
of leading. LAURA: How high can we go?
TRAVIS: Or you, either one. MATT: You can go as
high as you want. The wind gets stronger
in some places. LAURA: I think we
should stay in-- LIAM: Can we gauge that,
though, as we're moving? As a cloud, do
you start going, "Whoa, this is fucked"
at a certain point? SAM: 240 feet.
MATT: Yeah, all right. So you're leading
in the direction where you assessed
it might be. LIAM: Spiraling up around the Bloody Bridge.
ASHLEY: Do we look like blobs? LAURA: No, we just look like air.
LIAM: On that perception check, looking for landmarks.
MATT: All right. LAURA: Especially with
a dust storm. This place just
has dusty storms. We probably don't
want to do that. TALIESIN: We're not flying into
the storm or anything insane-- LAURA: No.
TALIESIN: -- if we go this direction? LIAM: That's at a
distance still. MATT: Any direction you go,
you're going towards a storm. TALIESIN: Okay, fair.
MATT: (laughs) LAURA: Is it possible to
avoid, try to avoid them or move ahead of them?
MATT: We'll see as you get closer. It's tough to say.
LIAM: But we're not right there. MATT: Most of the time you've
ever been on this planet psychically or dream-wise, it's rare to have not
been in a storm. LAURA: Yeah. MATT: It does break. You're not sure how often
as you arrived in one, but they are
pretty consistent. LAURA: Yeah. LIAM: There's vast
areas of storm, but we're not ringed
in by storm all around 360 degrees?
MATT: It looks it at a full distance.
LIAM: Yeah. MATT: But sections are
closer than others and you're not sure if
they break behind or not. Just from your current
barely moving position, you can see on all horizons
clouds, big red clouds. Just some look like they're 100
miles away, you're not sure. Others look like they're 10. LIAM: We're in space, y'all.
MARISHA: We're in space. Do we see anything? Because you said it's not tenable
to hold this for forever. Do we see anything, though, that looks like a far
enough outcropping, like a mountain or
a cliff face or something that would
be good for shelter? MATT: Along the ground here, as you get more of
a bird's eye view, you can see the landscape of
Ruidus itself is fairly broken. It is a bumpy, jagged
series of landmasses, hills that come up
to jagged points and you can see
there are sections where the ground cracks open and these small chasms
that splinter off and fork for a
handful of miles before they eventually dissipate
back to just crag land. You see to the left of the
direction you're traveling where the clouds are
about to consume it, there looks like there
is a mountain range that looks to be maybe 35, 40 miles off. MARISHA: About to
be consumed? MATT: Meaning that the
storm will probably consume the mountain range before
you get there in this form. LAURA: Yikes. MATT: But you could
then either travel by foot.
TRAVIS: Get close and hunker down. MATT: Then try and make the
rest of the trek if you want. MARISHA: I'm guessing
that looks like the best option right now. LAURA: That's all we can see?
MARISHA: Or else we're just out in the open,
which would be bad. MATT: Kind of, from this
bird's eye view that you have. TRAVIS: Let's do it.
MATT: That that's the most immediate landmass that seems like it has
any real distinction. SAM: If I may, counterpoint. TRAVIS: Just keep
going into space. (laughter) SAM: We only get
this gift of flight like this for six and
1/2 more hours. We don't know how far
away the city is. Shouldn't we go
as far as we can as close to the city?
LAURA: Because we travel really far for
right now, yeah. SAM: Could be 100 miles. ASHLEY: Go as far as we can?
SAM: So if we just keep going as far as we can until--
LAURA: We head towards the city. SAM: -- the spell goes away. LAURA: And try to
dodge the storms. LIAM: Because is
this a one-off? I don't remember.
SAM: I think so. LIAM: It's a one-timey?
LAURA: Yeah. LIAM: Then absolutely go
as far as possible. MARISHA: Cast this on us. LAURA: We never answered
if I saw Otohan. MARISHA: (laughs) MATT: Make a perception
check for me. MARISHA: I think I just had a lapse.
LAURA: Also, Orym, you should look for Otohan.
MARISHA: Is this an episode? TRAVIS: I missed the reference.
LIAM: From space? LAURA: The sky, we're
not in space. We're just above
the encampment. LIAM: If Imogen tells
me to, I help her look. I rolled balls for me. LAURA: I rolled a 16.
LIAM: 17. MATT: You do not see
anyone from this height that resembles Otohan
in the chaos. LAURA: Okay. All right, we
should follow Orym and Chet's lead
toward the city. LIAM: (sputters)
TALIESIN: Speed, whoa. MATT: (chuckles) TRAVIS: Speed runs
in the family. MARISHA: Shiver and quiff.
SAM: (laughs) TALIESIN: Shit, I forgot
about that. MATT: Okay.
SAM: They do fly similarly. TRAVIS:
(high-pitched mouth fart) ASHLEY: (laughs) MATT: Okay, so you can
travel in this form the equivalent of a little
over 60 miles per hour. SAM: Whoa.
MATT: Because it's 300 feet is your movement
speed in this form. You're not going to be able to
travel that speed all the time because there are
storms coming. But you can get to
the mountain range. I said it's about
30, 40 miles away. You won't get all
the way there, but you'll get damn close to
it before it closes there. Or you can just, like I said, you don't have
a direct beeline. You just know it's generally
in that direction and the mountain range is
to the left hand side. Do you want to shoot
for that or do you want to try a straight shot?
LAURA: Let's shoot for the mountain and then see if
we can see past. But I don't want to
get hit by that storm. MARISHA: Maybe we can-- LAURA: Dart in front
of the storm and try to cut it.
MARISHA: Yeah. MATT: Try to cut it off?
LAURA: Yeah. MATT: Okay.
MARISHA: Does the mountain range run in the direction that
we're heading? LAURA: Or is it <i>a</i> mountain? MATT: It's a razorback
mountain range that continues off
like a dragon back that continues to
wind up and down. But it's at an angle
off to the side from where you're
currently standing. So it's a longer range and
it looks like there's maybe two or three main ridges that
travel along that path at, yeah, at an angle
away from you. LAURA: Okay. MATT: Shooting for it? Okay. (swoosh) You go at an incredible
speed once more, rocketing towards that area. You can see in the
distance the (crackles) flashes of odd lightning
sparking through the clouds of the distant and
not-so-distant storms, the occasional one
flashing and hitting some of the ground
landscape in the distance and you can see the (poof)
and hear the rumbles, that (rumbles) as it
echoes around, (swooshes) careening as fast as
you can in that way. You can see the shape of
that one mountain range getting closer and closer. Eventually, as you are not
terribly far off from it, you can see where the storm is
and it's coming in this way. You look to see
if you can try and beat it onto a
left side direction. There's not really a
way to get around it. It looks like an entire front
is consuming this area. It's not like there are a couple
of separate broken storms. It's like you are
one of a handful of eyes in the hurricane that consumes
the entirety of Ruidus, if that makes sense. There are pockets of clear. Otherwise, the rest of it
has some sort of dust-- TRAVIS: Chaos.
MATT: -- and wind. Some areas harsher
than others. You can try and brave
the storm still. I'm not saying
it's impossible, but it will slow you
down and there's a chance that you might get
thrown off course. TRAVIS: The Reynolds
Pamphlet. (laughter) LIAM: What? What? LAURA: I was right there with you.
ASHLEY: It was so quiet. TRAVIS: My head was
halfway going through "The Eye of the Hurricane"
from "Hamilton." MATT: ♪ In the eye of the
hurricane was quiet ♪ LAURA: ♪ For just a moment ♪x MARISHA: It's been a while since
we've had a "Hamilton" reference. LAURA: Yeah.
MATT: ♪ Eliza ♪ (laughter)
TRAVIS: (claps) With love.
MATT: Anyway, with love. All with love.
TALIESIN: Mm. LIAM: Oh my god, yes. MATT: But nevertheless,
the storm is encroaching. To follow the outskirts
of the storm, not certain whether you can
get completely around it, it will take you off course from the direction
you're traveling or you could try and descend
and walk or you can push through the storm in your
current forms and roll for it. What do you want to do? LAURA: I think we
go off course. LIAM: I think we
go off course. LAURA: Unless you want
to go to the mountain. If we drop our form--
TRAVIS: These dice ain't going to roll themselves.
SAM: We're not dropping our form. TRAVIS: We roll for it. MATT: The choice is
all on you guys. SAM: What did you just roll? SAM and ASHLEY: (laugh) MARISHA: That doesn't count.
It was bad. (laughter) MATT: What are you feeling? SAM: We fight the fucking storm.
LIAM: So if we go off course, I think as I'm a cloud--
LAURA: We fight the storm? LIAM: -- flying out
on the moon, if we go off course and we
land in these mountains, then we got to travel
real far on foot. MARISHA: We can keep pushing.
SAM: (sputters) LAURA: Yeah.
LIAM: Right? Or we go off course.
LAURA: We're trying to get to the city. TALIESIN: I don't mind
banking around a storm in cloud form to try and
find the fastest way there even though it doesn't
have to be a beeline since we're not really
beelining anyway. MARISHA: I think eventually
we're going to get consumed by the
storm no matter what. LAURA: Yeah.
MARISHA: But we can just-- LAURA: Try to keep ahead of it
for as long as we can and then if it looks like it's
taking us too far off course, then we bank in and try to
head back toward the city. MATT: Okay.
TRAVIS: I'm good with that. MATT: Sounds like a plan. So with that,
as you all figure this out in your heads to each other, Orym, you shift off
to a front-left direction to try and ride
the edge of the storm like one would ride the barrel
of a wave as it's crashing. SAM: Cool.
MATT: All of you (swoosh) off to the side as the massive dark shadowy
red clouds just (rumble) continue to billow forward,
the flashes of (crackles) causing this dull electrical
light show from the inside that is both beautiful
as it is ominous. You can see the faintest shapes of the ground alongside
the nearby mountain range. You can see
the broken rocky hills and elements of mountain
cliffs that begin to rise up over
portions of the-- SAM: ♪ Rise up ♪
MATT: -- rolling, villa-- What happened there?
LAURA: ♪ Eliza ♪
TRAVIS: ♪ Rise up ♪ MATT: Oh. God-- (laughter) MATT: (sighs)
I'm going to kill you all. TRAVIS: Sometimes, you need touchstones.
MARISHA: It's like it's 2016 again. MATT: I know.
(laughter) MATT: If only.
LIAM: That's what happens when you listen to
a musical 200 times. MATT: Yeah.
ASHLEY: Yeah. MATT: Those were
much more optimistic times. You do also,
as you get lower, feeling like as the storm
is getting closer, the wind above you is
getting a little tenuous, so you naturally begin
to sink a little lower and you can pick up
more of the detail of the landscape below you. While a lot of it looks like just open, barren land, you can see in areas where
these hills begin to break and where these cliffs
begin to jut out and some of these crevices begin
to tear into the ground below. You can see bursts of red brush-- (laughs) Oh god. Goddamn it. (laughter)
LAURA: Oh! ASHLEY: Oh! MARISHA: It's a picture
of Robbie, and it's like,
"What's he looking at?" LAURA: Sorry, Matt. LIAM: Sorry, Matt.
I think we are-- SAM: I'm ready.
LIAM: Ruidian dust storm is fucking cool. (laughter) SAM: I was just
having some water. MATT: I know, I get it.
LIAM: (laughs) LAURA: Oh, he's taking--
MATT: Okay. TRAVIS: No, no, no, no, no!
LAURA: (discouraging noises) He marked it.
LIAM: Kill the robot. MATT: I'm just adding hit
points to things. It's fine. (laughter) No.
SAM: Worth it. MATT: You can see
there are these continued clusters
of those red brush, like a smattering
of desert scrub, but it's this vibrant and
deep crimson tone to it. You can see as
it spreads out, as opposed to normal
clusters of brush, this seems to stretch out
in places and then bloom, and thinly push out
and then bloom. It's like it expands in tethers
and tendrils before blooming as opposed to
a slow, gradual expansion. MARISHA: It's like wormholes. MATT: A little bit,
red weed sort of creep. TRAVIS: Capillary-looking.
MATT: A little bit. You can also see that in
some of these shadowed areas, there is more prominent, tree-like vegetation. You can't quite
make out details at this distance
that you're flying, but you can see what looks
like reaching branches, though you can't
really make out leaves. But there are thin, long,
reaching, branch-like protrusions. It looks like small
little clumps of forests in moments of shadow. You also pick up something
running towards the storm. In fact,
about a dozen of them, these shapes that are running across the base of
the mountain range. You see they're running
right towards the storm, towards the mountain range. TRAVIS: What kind of size?
Even from this distance-- MATT: It's hard to tell
from this distance. You can make
a perception check if you want to pick up
the best you can. You can get closer
for a higher DC. TRAVIS: Balls, total balls.
LIAM: I'm curious as well. LAURA: Yeah, can we
swoop down a little bit to see?
LIAM: You want to dip? Let's dip. MATT: Yeah, you can do that. As you all get down to
get a better view on them, you won't even have to roll
if you're getting closer. LIAM: I'm looking for
signs of life, as well. MATT: Indeed, this is a very
prominent sign of life. You see 13 of these beasts. They resemble burly,
buffalo-like creatures. Massive,
round-shouldered backs and six buffalo-like legs
that are thick, stalk-like at the base, as they thunder
across this area, leaving cracked ground
in their wake. You can see
the thickly furred hide that surrounds the bulk of
their shoulders and back is tangled around
a wreath of horns that seems to protrude, probably about
seven or eight horns on each side of the head that come out and
curl outward in rows. You can see they suddenly
curve down and fully-- LAURA: Ah! MATT: It's like
a mane of horns around the front of its head. You're not at the direction
where you can see its face. You can see the backs of them as they're running
away from you towards the storm that
you're skirting past. But they are all
in a full sprint towards the edge of
this coming dust storm. ASHLEY: It's interesting
they're going towards it. MARISHA: Towards it, yeah. TRAVIS: Bison and
buffalo typically-- ASHLEY: Run towards?
TRAVIS: -- head into a storm. SAM: They do?
TRAVIS: Mm-hmm. LAURA: Ooh, we could
follow behind them. TRAVIS: It gets the storm
over with quicker. LAURA: We could follow--
TRAVIS: It's true. ASHLEY: Are you serious?
TRAVIS: Yeah. LAURA: Are they going fast? What if we go down and--
SAM: Ride them? Tame them? LAURA: -- use their wake
to keep out of the-- MARISHA: Just drift.
Drift on the bison. LAURA: Yeah, can we drift?
How fast are they going? SAM: You mean draft.
LAURA: Is it possible? MARISHA: Draft, that's correct.
MATT: It's possible. You all are traveling
much faster than they are. LAURA: Oh, right.
MARISHA: Ruidus Drift. MATT: You are, for
high fantasy terms, outside of teleportation,
you're breakneck speed. You're all running freeway
speeds when most things are-- These are bison.
LAURA: Right. ASHLEY: Should
we take a minute, dig down a little, and see?
MATT: If you want to. LAURA: I mean, they're
going into the storm. That's what we were doing. SAM: Do you want to
communicate with them with the language of love? (laughter) LAURA: They can't see us,
we're farts. SAM: We'll just note them. LAURA: Yeah, note them
for future. Keep going. MATT: Okay, do you careen away
and continue on your path? SAM: Keep on going.
MATT: Okay. You pull away from the
cluster of beasts pushing-- TRAVIS: How far are we away
from the beasts, roughly? MATT: I'd say right now,
you're a few hundred feet away. You're just close enough to start picking up the
details of their forms. TRAVIS: You can't pick
anything up, can you? Just in case they're
intelligent or something. SAM: I mean,
we could drop the form and then pick it back up
again a minute later. LAURA: I don't think I can,
We can't use any-- ASHLEY: I thought I could.
LAURA: We can? Wait-- SAM: We can drop the form.
It takes a minute. MATT: It takes a minute
to drop the form. SAM: Interact with them,
and then take a minute, resume the form again. LAURA: I don't want
to interact with-- SAM: Well, then why are
we going down there? TRAVIS: They might not
be trying to kill us. They could tell us
about the area, they could give us warnings,
or they could just be beasts and then we're clouds again, just in case they're
fucking yetis or whatever. ASHLEY: I did, I prepped
something just in case. SAM: Amazing, so you can talk
to them and befriend them? ASHLEY: I prepped something
called Beast Sense. SAM: Great.
LAURA: Okay. ASHLEY: It's a willing
beast that you can see. SAM: I can talk to them.
You can talk to them, too. LIAM: Are they on
wide, flat land? ASHLEY: I don't think
I prepped Speak With Animals. MATT: It's wide
and flat in places, but also, the topography
shifts pretty heavily. LIAM: Because if
we go into humanoid form and they are not friendly--
TRAVIS: Oh, it's one minute. LIAM: -- and we want to
turn back into clouds, LAURA: We're fucked.
LIAM: -- we're cooked. Because there's nowhere
to go to spend a minute without getting gored by--
TRAVIS: We just send the robot. LAURA: I don't--
SAM: We take chances. LAURA: I think they're fucking--
SAM: We take chances! LAURA: They're like beasts.
SAM: We take chances! We're on the moon,
we've got to take chances! LAURA: Yeah, but there's
Reiloran ahead. LIAM: We're going to be
taking a lot of chances. Plenty of chances.
ASHLEY: What if we get a little close, just
to see if you get a ping? LAURA: I'm a cloud.
We don't get pings as clouds. We'd have to drop the form. ASHLEY: I understand what
everybody's talking about. TRAVIS: I'm sure
there will be more. There can't be only 13 blood
buffalo on the moon, right? SAM: What if they're
the nicest ones, though? ASHLEY: 13, and they're--
LIAM: They're bluffalo. TALIESIN: Boo. SAM: I could go talk to it. LIAM: That's terrible.
SAM: Then I could just hide, if they are ill-tempered.
TALIESIN: Where? SAM: You know. (laughs) MATT: Do you want to
diverge or continue? The storm that
they're heading towards is growing closer. LAURA: Yeah, they're
going into the storm. TRAVIS: Want to keep going?
ASHLEY: All right. TRAVIS: Let's keep going.
TALIESIN: They're not going to stop and wait for us to take
a minute to turn into-- LAURA: Yeah.
TRAVIS: I'm not going to beg. TALIESIN: This is not going to work.
TRAVIS: It's cool. SAM: Two clouds hang back. ASHLEY: What should we do?
MARISHA: (laughs) SAM: It feels like
we could go down there and talk to them
a little bit. ASHLEY: Should we get a little
lower than everybody else, or do you think
they'll get pissed? TALIESIN: We will buy
you both a puppy later. SAM: You don't even know
which one we are. We just look like a cloud.
I could just be some other-- SAM: I could be Laudna
right now. You don't know. ASHLEY: Maybe. What do you want to do? I'm going to go
a little lower. SAM: Just a little lower. (laughter) SAM: We're going to
get a little lower to see if they
seem ill-tempered. MATT: Okay. (laughter) LIAM: I like this. MATT: So as most of your group
begins to careen off to the left to continue coasting as long
as they can on the outskirts of the oncoming massive
cliff of dust storm, the two of you (squeaks)
get a little closer. You can get pretty quick
up along them there. Both of you roll animal
handling checks, I'll say, to understand the temperament
of beasts and creatures. SAM: Watch this.
LIAM: Yes, sentient clouds. Make animal handling rolls.
SAM: Watch this. LAURA: What can we do as clouds?
SAM: Boom. LAURA: We can't do any--
SAM: 12. LAURA: -- any of our abilities.
MATT: You can move. MARISHA: Boom! MATT: Or you can become
not clouds over a minute. LAURA: Got it. ASHLEY: 19. MATT: 19. Gliding by and getting
a closer look on them, yeah, they're very strong, and the horns,
as they curve around, the front of the head, you can see they have
the side-mounted eyes. They're definitely
prey beasts, by evolution standards. They're not predators,
you can gather by the way that
their eyes are set in the side of the face.
SAM: Cows! MATT: Their nose,
as it protrudes forward, as opposed to
a bovine-type nose, it goes into
this smooth curve, like a stunted elephant in the front
that curves forward. You can see as
they're running, the bottom of it opens up
every now and then. You can see a big row of
square teeth that are-- SAM: Square teeth! Vegetarians!
MATT: There's a foam froth at the corners as they run, but it seems
through activity. There's no sign of fear
in their movement. They're just running. SAM: Square teeth.
Vegetarians. LAURA: Yeah, vegetarians. Have you ever been bitten
by a horse, FCG? SAM: No.
ASHLEY: That's a very good point. SAM: No, I haven't.
They don't bite people. MATT: You do also see that
three of them of the group are of slightly smaller size,
so you see there are some adolescents with the rest there.
(aww-ing) LIAM: Are there
little teeny horns? LAURA: Little babies!
MATT: They do. Little curves. (cooing noises) SAM: We have to know them. (laughter) ASHLEY: What do you want to do?
Do you want to go back up? MATT: You also gather
they're about, front, nose to back end, about nine to 10 feet.
ASHLEY: Whoa! MATT: So they're quite large.
SAM: Nice for cuddling! ASHLEY: I want to give it a spoon!
SAM: I don't know what to do. ASHLEY: All right,
well, let's go back up. SAM: Can our friends hear us?
Hello? Can you hear us psychically?
LAURA: Can we? MATT: What's the distance
on that spell? SAM: That's my spell, isn't it?
MATT: Telepathic Bond? LAURA: I think it's miles. MATT: I think it's miles,
so yeah, you can hear them. TALIESIN: No, you can't.
SAM: Hey! (laughter) SAM: These guys seem harmless.
They're vegetarians. LAURA: Yeah,
they're like bulls. They're moon bulls. SAM: Or-- Or something nicer
than a bull. TALIESIN: Are you both flying
into a dust storm right now? Straight into
a giant wall of death? SAM: No, we're hanging out
with these cuties. ASHLEY: We were just seeing-- TALIESIN: Could you look up
for just a second? Just in front of you?
What do you see? SAM: I don't see you anymore.
LAURA: You see a giant dust storm. ASHLEY: We've got to get up there.
LAURA: Hurry! You're going to get sucked
into that storm. SAM: Not us. We're too good. We're squid swimming
through the storm. (laughter) TRAVIS: Yes! MATT: Did the rest of you
wait up a little bit for your two
scattered friends? LIAM: Are you flying
alongside them? With them? SAM: Yeah, we flew up through
and between them. MATT: Yeah,
you all split off, and they went and followed
the rest of that group. LIAM: But you're 10 or 15 feet
away from these things? SAM: Yeah, between-- ASHLEY: These are the first--
LIAM: You are absolutely blending their fart molecules with
the molecules of your body. MATT: We'll get there.
ASHLEY: These are the first beasts we've seen
on another planet! How can you not go up
and look at it? Have to! Okay, let's go. SAM: The Changebringer
would've wanted this. ASHLEY: I agree. TRAVIS: It's second or
third contact, but yeah. ASHLEY: All right, all right.
Well, you know. MATT: So you're both
now returning-- SAM: Yes, we're returning. MATT: The rest of you
are waiting for them? TRAVIS: Can't believe you guys--
LAURA: Ish. TALIESIN: Eh.
TRAVIS: -- went to visit these buffalo. MATT: Okay.
TALIESIN: Not running. We're trotting. LAURA: Yeah, we slowed down,
but we didn't stop. LIAM: To 50 miles an hour.
MATT: Yeah, there you go. Eventually,
you all gather up once more, and following along
the storm's side, the storm front,
you realize at this point, is hundreds of
miles long, probably. From what you can tell,
you don't see an end of it. You don't see a curve. It continues on
into the horizon, and the open pocket
of clear sky that you've been enjoying
since your arrival is short-lived. So you get the sense
that either you're going to have to
continue to veer further left and it'll be another
series of rolls to try and get back
on course, or you could try and land
or push through the storm. TALIESIN: Is there anything
resembling shelter at all? MARISHA: Do you think the
buffalo would let us ride them? TALIESIN: I thought about it.
SAM: Of course they would. TALIESIN: I'm not going
to pretend I didn't. There's a whole series of
complicated issues there, because we would have to
wait for a whole minute, and they're going
to run away. MARISHA: Wait, let's go
back to Orym's combining with
their fart molecules thing. If we, theoretically-- TRAVIS: We're backtracking
for fart molecules? MARISHA: Well, could we seek
shelter as gaseous forms in the buffalo?
LAURA: Oh my-- SAM: Go up their asses?
TRAVIS: Like a tauntaun? MARISHA: Yes, like a tauntaun, but up their-- LAURA: -- gods. MARISHA: I'm just saying.
LIAM: That would be a high-- TALIESIN: Can
a campaign go by where we don't go up
something's ass? SAM: When you look over to
the Fearne and FCG clouds-- TALIESIN: Just one.
LIAM: We've done it already. TALIESIN: Oh god! SAM: You notice that
the Fearne and FCG clouds are just a little pouty. TRAVIS: Are we pushing on or
are we going down to the ground? SAM: Just a little bitchy. LAURA: We already said! MATT: Make a perception check.
LAURA: If we can't cut it, we'll try to
cut through the storm. Let's try to fucking-- TALIESIN: I'm going to
do a little-- MATT: Perception or survival.
TRAVIS: Give him the order. TALIESIN: 17.
MATT: 17, not bad. ASHLEY: No sense of adventure.
MATT: Yeah, so you can see-- MARISHA: (laughs) MATT: Because you're now
starting to hit that point where the storm is
consuming the mountain range and you're along the base
of the mountain range that you've been
following along the way, where the mountains
begin to rise, you can see there are
cliff edges that protrude out in these harsh endings,
and beneath that, there are alcoves,
the faces of caverns that might burrow deeper
into the mountain. You're not quite sure
how shallow they are. You can see there are
various cracks in the ground, some three, five,
10 feet deep or more, that can also be places
to weather the storm if you wanted
to stay stationary. You also do not know
how long this storm may blow. TALIESIN: Do we want to-- How long does this spell last
beyond where we're at now? MATT: Eight hours. LIAM: We have no idea
how far away the city is. MATT: I'd say for now,
you've traveled about, or you have about an hour
of the spell's being used, so you still have seven hours
of it being available to you. TRAVIS: I think we should
probably ground ourselves, because if we do get hit
and it scatters us, then we're separated.
MARISHA: Mm-hmm. LIAM: We're fucked. TALIESIN: I would say
let's take a minute to regroup in one of
these little shelters, one of the little cliff edges or in one of the crevices,
cliff edge probably. LIAM: Short rest on
a Martian mountain? TALIESIN: Sure. MATT: Okay, you all begin
to descend quickly towards what you find is the
nearest, safest-looking alcove right along the base
of this mountain range. As you careen up to its side
and fit within the space, it's maybe about 25 feet wide
at the mouth of it and about 10, 12 feet tall, so it's very much this
wide, oval-type entryway shape with a jagged top and roof. As you enter in,
it only goes back about another 30 or so feet
before it stops. You do find it a space
where it seems the wind doesn't quite pierce
into the interior. The temperature is
a bit cold out here, but not as cold as it would be
as you all begin to, I assume you're reverting to
your normal forms as you enter? TALIESIN: I would assume
we're taking some person time. MATT: Okay. As you revert
within this cavern, you feel that temperature
rush into you. It's chillier than it was
back at the encampment where you had arrived at,
so you immediately begin to have to
bundle up a bit, too. Be aware that at these
certain storms, it seems, the temperature drops
pretty significantly. TRAVIS: Before we go
into the cave too far, let's just say
before we went in, we cast a look
over our shoulders because we made
a highly arcane-fueled escape from an area where people
were looking for us. Was anything flying in the air
behind us, looking for us? MATT: Perception check, perception check.
TRAVIS: Will you-- LIAM: Always. MATT: I always assume
if there's one there, it's going to be in Orym's--
LIAM: Oh, very average. TRAVIS: Natural 19 for a dirty 20.
MATT: Nice. LIAM: Dirty 20.
Like father like son. MATT: Dang. (laughter) MATT: God. TRAVIS: The source. (laughter) TALIESIN: Shit. MATT: Looking back, and
you have, at this moment, as the storm's just
starting to push over, you can see the periphery
of your vision out back from
where you came from. The dark red is starting
to consume the outside, but you still have
a pretty clear shot from the direction
you came from. You can see, on that end, the
dark, cloud-covered horizon. You can see the occasional
flashes in the distance, the wisps of gray-red clouds
that dapple the open space. No sign of anything directly
in pursuit, or if anything is, you've at least outpaced it
for the time being. LIAM: Can we see the
Bloody Bridge in the distance? MATT: Oh yeah, you can definitely
see that singular thread, and it follows it up
before it nearly vanishes at the cusp of your home.
LIAM: Okay. TALIESIN: Laudna? MARISHA: Are we de-clouding? LAURA: Yeah. MARISHA: All right.
TALIESIN: Got anything on the magic? LIAM: De-queef.
TALIESIN: On the ball of doom? MARISHA: As soon as I de-queef myself.
TALIESIN: (snorts) MATT: (heavy sigh)
MARISHA: I pull out the Treshi scry ball.
MATT: Okay. SAM: Merriam Webster's
new Word of the Year. (laughter) LIAM: De-queef.
ASHLEY: Be-queef? LIAM: Re-queef. De-queef. MARISHA: Be-queefed? (laughter) MATT: (heavy sigh)
LIAM: It's the new, "Be pleased." MARISHA: Yeah, "Be queefed." (laughter) TRAVIS: No, no, no! We don't have any more!
TALIESIN: Stop it! ASHLEY: Don't do it!
TALIESIN: That was brilliant. TRAVIS: No, we don't deserve--
(laughter) MARISHA: So wait,
we have "Bidet," "Minus eyes,"
and "Be queefed." (laughter) TRAVIS: Beep beep. MARISHA: Beep beep. (laughs) SAM: Dearly be-queefed. (laughter) TALIESIN: It's so great
to be back. LAURA: "Dearly be-queefed"? MATT: The scry ball's dark. (laughter)
MARISHA: Okay. (laughter) TRAVIS: Like your heart. (laughter) SAM: I look up and out,
out and up at-- Can I see Exandria from here? MATT: You can indeed, though
it is going to rapidly vanish as the dust cloud
begins to consume the area. SAM: Does it look like
it's moved at all? MATT: Not from
what you can tell. MARISHA: That's not no.
SAM: I'll keep looking. MARISHA: You lie to him.
SAM: I'll keep looking. MARISHA: Tell him
the tround. TALIESIN: Signs of activity?
MATT: They're tidally-locked by the Bloody Bridge. MARISHA: It's tidally-locked.
MATT: This is all fucked. MARISHA: No! MATT: I want nothing more
than to disprove it. MARISHA: It's tidally-locked. LIAM: How much of the sky
does it take up? TRAVIS: Tidally-locked.
LIAM: Exandria? MATT: From where
you are here, if you look out
beyond the cave, which means you have a
decent chunk of your vision is available from where
the cave closes off, Exandria takes up probably
a good fifth of the sky. SAM: Whoa.
ASHLEY: Wow. MATT: A fifth to a sixth of
the sky from what you can see. So it's pretty massive
and it's not too distant. Ruidus just looks
a lot smaller because it is a smaller
mass from Exandria, but Exandria's quite large. LAURA: So we can still see the
sky through the storm coming? MATT: You're seeing it
for the last moment you can as the clouds are
beginning to swarm in. LAURA: Okay. SAM: Have we looked
around this place? I'm looking around the--
TRAVIS: Cave? SAM: It's a cave or a structure?
LAURA: It's a cave. It's an outcropping.
TALIESIN: It's a cave. I want to see
if it seems like people have ever
been here before. Are there footsteps
where we haven't gone? MATT: Make an investigation
check for me. SAM: I'll cast Light
through my eyeballs. MATT: All right. LIAM: What kind of
check did you say? MATT: Investigation.
TALIESIN: Investigation. TRAVIS: I'll do a
(sniff) for any organics or for smells in general.
MATT: Go for it. LIAM: Look how smart,
you're smart, very smart. Oh, it's me and Chetney.
LAURA: I'm not smart. ASHLEY: Can we see
Catha from here? MATT: From this perspective,
you do not see Catha. TRAVIS: 18 on the nose.
LIAM: 19. MATT: Great. LAURA: I could make
my myself smart. MATT: You light up the interior
of the back of this cave. You do immediately notice, One: There are signs
of a small fire One: There are signs
of a small fire that hasn't been used, with a glance over it,
probably in quite some time. This is not the first time something has used
this cave for cover. You can see what looks to be remnants of rope, but it's of a material, once you pick it up
and look at it, it's began to deteriorate
and decay over time. So it's also been here
for quite some time and exposed to the elements. But it's not a standard
hempen rope or a silken rope. The material's almost spongy. Yeah, it has an old,
decaying sponge crumbliness to it as you
rub your fingers on it and the faintest
gray-blue color. Someone make a nature check,
if you want to, to inspect this material. MARISHA: I'll try.
ASHLEY: Guidance. MARISHA: It feels like something.
SAM: Ooh! MARISHA: Thank you.
MATT: Great. MARISHA: That's with a d4, correct, for you?
ASHLEY: Yes. SAM: Look at you,
learning to play D&D. ASHLEY: Oh, who me,
after 10 years? (laughter) MATT: I knew we'd get
there eventually, guys. I'm so proud of you. MARISHA: 21. MATT: 21. You, in particular, being
familiar with the darker, more moisture-based
portions of natural spaces, this is a fungus--
MARISHA: (knowing laugh) MATT: -- or at least
it was once a fungus. Oh my god, you two. (laughter) MATT: (heavy sigh) (laughter) MATT: My friends are dirty.
I don't mind. LIAM: You got to get something
to clear up that Delilah. (laughter) MATT: See, that's the problem,
it doesn't ever go away. It just flares up
every now and then. ASHLEY: It flares up.
(laughter) LIAM: Oh my gosh. MATT: But whatever material
this rope is made of is fungus. It's a dried, treated fungus. ASHLEY: Cool.
MATT: But for fungus to exist, it needs dark, damp spaces.
MARISHA: Something to feed off of and dark, damp spaces.
SAM: (laughs) TRAVIS: Could I--
TALIESIN: Chet, yeah. ASHLEY: Some need
two dark spaces. (laughter) MATT: You're not wrong,
either. TRAVIS: Could I go over to the
campfire and do my damn thing? TALIESIN: I was going to
offer you a knife for that. TRAVIS: Grim Psychometry, touch
the middle of the fireplace and "recall information about "the sinister or tragic
history of an object "or area you're touching
at your current location." MATT: Yeah, make that
wisdom roll for me. TRAVIS: I think
it's intelligence. MATT: What does it
say on the ability? TRAVIS: Intelligence roll,
a history check. MATT: Oh, gotcha. TRAVIS: Plus three,
19, 20, 21. MATT: 21, 21's not bad. As you're looking
over the space, you sit down and concentrate and as you breathe outward, the crimson power that sits
in your body seems to connect with the crimson rust of the
landscape that surrounds you and as you close your eyes,
you see a shape or a shadow. It's you, hunched and squat, swathed in
tattered materials. You gather tools and
watch as a storm clears. Pick your things up, take hitching post reins that have been dangling on
the outside and you can see there's some sort of a beast
of burden on the outskirt. As you begin to move, you hear restlessness. A beast (snorts) and then it tears away
out of your grasp and you see this shape
dart off into the field. You go to give chase
before the ground quakes and tears open beneath it
as a larger shadow just (poof) consumes your mount and is gone. You stay perfectly still and you hold your breath and when you think time
has passed and it's safe, you take a step back. (rumbles) You feel the quaking
once more. You dart out of the cavern
because there's nowhere else to go and you begin to
climb up the side of the rock to try and get above ground, to try and get to a space
where it can't get to you. But in the back of your mind,
you know there's nowhere to escape before the shadow
takes you, too. (poofs) TRAVIS: That's
not good. (gasp) SAM: That look, why have
you got that look? TRAVIS: We got Kevin Bacon,
"Tremors." Oh. MARISHA: Oh.
(laughs) TRAVIS: There's something
that burrows through the ground
and comes up. SAM: Oh no.
ASHLEY: Oh no. TRAVIS: Yeah.
SAM: Should we leave? We should probably leave.
TRAVIS: No, we should stay here. SAM: What?
TRAVIS: Yes, and we should all-- MARISHA: Not move, ever.
SAM: What? TRAVIS: No, no, flying's good.
SAM: Oh, okay. (chuckles) We should leave. TRAVIS: Also, I can't tell
how long that was, but it was here. They were taking shelter,
but they had a mountain that seemed very perilous
on the ground. So it may be good to
be wary of. SAM: Any signs
of recent death, bones or anything like that? MATT: You've done a pretty fair
investigation in the space around this between your Light
and you all taking a look. No sign of bones,
no sign of death. Just been abandoned
for quite some time. TALIESIN: No graffiti, no scratching?
LAURA: We hold still. MATT: You don't see any, and the thing is most
of the ground here, because of the nature of these
storms that blow through, dust gets brought in
in heavy amounts and then gets drawn out
like a suction wind tunnel. So by that nature,
the landscape of the surface and the near surface of this
moon is ever being wiped clean and the near surface of this
moon is ever being wiped clean and changing and
growing and eroding. LAURA: Can I feel
the presence of Predathos? MATT: Do you want to
try and reach out? LAURA: Ooh. TRAVIS: You're in
a protected spot-ish. LIAM: Yeah, you do. LAURA: Just to see? TRAVIS: Surrounded by
friends, no enemies. LIAM: We're here for a recon. TRAVIS: Probably going to
take a short rest. MARISHA: We could
still stay here and we can just be aware
that we might have company. Maybe you just stay quiet. LIAM: What was the vision? Was it out on the ground?
SAM: The shadow killed the mount? TRAVIS: It left the cave.
LIAM: Right. TRAVIS: The mount burst
from the cave and went down to the plains
and in front of it, something seemed to
come up out of the ground. LIAM: So we're talking
"Dune" rules, rock-- TRAVIS: I think so.
LIAM: Structure-- TRAVIS: I think so.
LIAM: Safer. TRAVIS: Yeah.
LIAM: Down where there's-- LAURA: Maybe we take
a short rest and then I see if
I can sense Predathos. TRAVIS: That's fair.
LAURA: Just so we can get a little bit of
our strength back. TRAVIS: It might not
be a cave, it could be a (rumbles).
ASHLEY: What if it's like a blip? LAURA: What if it pings us? Let's take a short rest and
then I'll see if I can sense it because if it lets
everyone know our location, I don't want to
take that risk. TALIESIN: Take a short
rest, then we'll-- LIAM: FCG can teleport us
out of here. It'll be fine. TALIESIN: -- see what happens.
SAM: I got it. Short rest.
TRAVIS: Short rest? MARISHA: Short rest.
MATT: Okay, y'all take a short rest. You can spend your
hit dice to heal up, get back any abilities
and/or spells. MARISHA: How much do we have? We should still have
a decent amount left of our Heroes' Feast,
right? 24 hours? MATT: Yeah, you ate it the night before
you left, correct? LAURA: Yeah.
MATT: To save the spell slot? SAM: Yes.
MATT: Correct. SAM: Yes.
MATT: So that would be eight hours, I'd say nine. So you have about 14 more
hours of your Heroes' Feast, including the travel
and your short rest here. TRAVIS: I'm rolling almost
all of my blood hunter dice because I got fucked
up down below. MATT: Oh, buddy. TRAVIS: (flaps lips) Yeah!
MARISHA: Nine. TRAVIS: 37.
MARISHA: Yeah. MATT: That would
be another hour. TRAVIS: 44. SAM: I don't need to take--
LIAM: Damn it. SAM: -- a short rest. LIAM: Damn it! Nine.
MATT: (laughs) TALIESIN: That doesn't
get you anything? LIAM: Damn it! I'm rolling
so low on all these. SAM: I don't need to
take a short rest, so I'm going to spend
this hour baking. MATT: Okay, you can do that.
SAM: I'm going to bake. TALIESIN: All right. How's the weather outside? LIAM: Okay. MATT: The storm
hasn't let up. TALIESIN: It's still
frightful, okay. MATT: From best you can--
You can't see more than maybe 20 feet beyond
the mouth of the cave. The storm has
entirely enclosed and devoured the horizon. TALIESIN: The wind is heavy? MATT: It is quite
heavy, yeah. TALIESIN: Yeah.
MATT: Yeah. MARISHA: May I--
LAURA: But our max hit points are up from our new roll. MATT: Correct.
LAURA: So it's not going to that.
It should be-- I should have 89. MATT: Just override
HP for now. LAURA: Okay. MARISHA: Matt, question.
MATT: Mm-hmm? MARISHA: If I--
TALIESIN: Are we lost? MARISHA: -- Find Familiar
to get Pâté back, if I have him on me, would he
also take the gaseous form? MATT: No. MARISHA: Okay. LAURA: Okay. MARISHA: So I should probably
not bring him back right now? MATT: I'd probably recommend
doing that at a place where-- MARISHA: We're not--
MATT: Yeah, you can always summon
him again later if you need to at
another location. But he is unaffected
by that spell. MARISHA: Okay.
LIAM: Could you throw him in the bag of holding
when we gas it up? MATT: You could do that.
LIAM: Pull him out later. SAM: Speaking of the
bag of holding-- MARISHA: It's true,
he's not really living. MATT: Mm-mm.
MARISHA: So he can-- MATT: He is quite not living.
ASHLEY: Oh, the possum. MATT: He's just aware. MARISHA: So it wouldn't
bamf him out, I could keep him in the
bag of holding while we turn? MATT: You could.
MARISHA: All right, then I'll bring him back.
MATT: Okay. MARISHA: It's good to have him.
SAM: Here's a question. MATT: Yeah?
SAM: We put a possum in the bag of holding, then you stopped
concentrating. So now is it
a gigantic creature in the bag of holding?
TRAVIS: Bag of holding, there's five to 10
minutes of air. SAM: But how do
we get it out? TALIESIN: We don't have to.
LAURA: We just ask for it. We just call it forward.
TRAVIS: Yeah, you could just call it forward,
but remember, we did this with Dork the Ox.
TALIESIN: It's dead. LAURA: Yeah, but by that
point, Dork the Ox was-- SAM: Doesn't it rip the bag?
LAURA: No, no, no. It just comes out
rotten and gooey. TRAVIS: Yeah.
LAURA: But this one has only been-- MARISHA: It's a
pocket dimension. TRAVIS: Or in pieces. LAURA: This one has only
been dead for a short time. Dork the Ox had been dead
in there for quite awhile. TRAVIS: We're also assuming
that Reilorans breathe. LAURA: That's true,
it could still be alive. LIAM: That's true. MARISHA: Dork was
some home game shit. No one knows what
we're talking about. LAURA: Yeah. I know. (laughs)
LIAM: (laughs) MATT: Some old school folk do. TRAVIS: First animal--
MATT: We've talked about Dork. TRAVIS: -- we put in
the bag of holding. MATT: Then the last. Well no. TRAVIS: Grog put him in there. MARISHA: Yeah. (laughs)
LAURA: Oh, yeah. TRAVIS: It made
sense at the time. LAURA and MARISHA: (laugh) TRAVIS: (Grog) "We'll just
hold this ox 'til later." MATT: The fun part
was watching him put it in there.
ASHLEY: (as Grog) "It's a great spot for him." TALIESIN: Worst case scenario--
TRAVIS: (ox squeals) TALIESIN: -- if he's
not dead, we can kick him right out
into the storm. TRAVIS: "Don't fight it."
SAM: I guess my question is we can still get other
things out of the bag. It's not consuming the space? TRAVIS and LIAM: No.
MATT: Correct. LIAM: Not like that.
ASHLEY: But is there a way to-- SAM: Isn't there a limit to
bag of holding capacity? TRAVIS: Size and weight-wise.
MATT: There is. LIAM: It's huge though.
TRAVIS: But it's massive. LIAM: It's a
Mary Poppins bag. You can be like:
I want my umbrella, and the umbrella comes out.
SAM: Sure, but if this thing is a ton-- MATT: He's taking up a
chunk of space in there. LIAM: Sam, you know this
is all make-believe, right? SAM: It needs to
make sense for me. MATT: There is a limit.
ASHLEY: There's no way to just peek to see how he's doing? MATT: The bag of holding-- The portable hole, you could--
SAM: Now that doesn't make sense. (laughter) MATT: The portable hole,
you can look into like it's a storage chamber.
ASHLEY: That's fair. Yeah, yeah, yeah. MATT: The bag of holding,
you think about what you want when you reach in
and you pull it out. But you can't actually look into it.
ASHLEY: You have to pull it all the way out. I can't
just halfsies pull him out to be like: Oh shit,
he's still alive and shove him back in.
MATT: I mean, you can try, you can certainly try. TRAVIS: He could
probably fight back. ASHLEY: Yeah, yeah.
TRAVIS: If he's alive. ASHLEY: We'll wait on that.
TRAVIS: He can breathe. ASHLEY and LAURA: Yeah, yeah.
SAM: When we leave, we'll pull him out
and leave him here. TRAVIS: Most likely dead.
ASHLEY: We'll circle back. We'll circle back.
LIAM: We'll leave him in there. TALIESIN: Which is why
if someone doesn't know what's in the bag, they can't pull it out.
TRAVIS: As a meat distraction later. ASHLEY: I was going to say,
he could also be food for-- TALIESIN: They have
to destroy the bag and then everything goes poof.
LIAM: Alive or dead. MARISHA: Well that was one
of the juggernauts, right? LIAM: Yeah.
MARISHA: Which was an automaton? MATT: No, just a big beefy Reiloran.
LIAM: No, that was just a big beefcake Reiloran. MARISHA: Oh, that's right.
ASHLEY: Shit. MARISHA: Oh, that's right, okay, okay.
ASHLEY: I thought it was a juggernaut. LAURA: I regained one of my
spells with my short rest. MATT: Okay. Also, as you're having
the short rest, Imogen.
LAURA: Oh fuck. TRAVIS: No!
SAM: Yes! TRAVIS: I mean yes. (laughs) MATT: You're concentrating
and focusing and everyone's going
about their business, you notice this shimmer of the faintest bit of energy that just rests in the air, like how magnetic powers near iron filings
can draw them together. There's this
ever-present red energy that sits around you. If you look off into space into the blue sky
for too long, you can just make out the ever-shifting pattern
of this energy. It's always been there and you've come to now realize
it's probably part of your essence of a Ruidusborn. But you can see it
drawn in a direction and you watch it shift and the only thing
that's shifting is Fearne, like there's a part of your
energy that's reaching out like there's a part of your
energy that's reaching out or at least is connected in some way that
you can't describe. ASHLEY: I'm just
moving slow-mo. (laughter) LAURA: Dat ass, though. (laughter) TRAVIS: ♪ (humming) ♪
MATT: Oh my god. LAURA: Fearne. ASHLEY: Yeah? LAURA: (laughs) Can you come over here? ASHLEY: Sure.
LIAM: Slowly. LAURA: As she walks
toward me, does it get stronger,
that feeling? MATT: It does, faintly. You saw this once before. LAURA: When it-- MATT: Right before the
Bloody Bridge was created when the event happened
at the Malleus Key and all the various
Ruidusborn felt this previously unknown
energy of, Exaltants or not, being drawn towards
this central event. But that never went away,
it wasn't expended. That was just a manifestation
of this innate power, and now here on this planet, it seems like it's
slightly more present or visible than you
could previously expect and so if you concentrate,
but hold still and don't focus
directly on something, but let your vision take in
the space, you can see this ever so faint ethereal red
tether between the two of you. LAURA: Do you see that? ASHLEY: What? Do I see it?
LAURA: Unfocus your eyes. Have you ever looked at one of
those magic images, you know, where you--
ASHLEY: Oh yeah. LAURA: You unfocus your eyes--
ASHLEY: Where your eyes get all weird and everyone's like--
LAURA: -- then you see something else? ASHLEY: -- I see this.
LAURA: Yeah. ASHLEY: And I'm like: I can't.
LAURA: "Oh, it's a sailboat!" ASHLEY: But my eyes just hurt.
LAURA: Yeah, yeah, yeah. ASHLEY: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I know what you mean. LAURA: Try to do that. ASHLEY: Okay.
MATT: Now Fearne, you have a pretty high
passive perception. So it's very easy
for you to pick up on this particular pattern.
ASHLEY: Oh, oh, oh, this thing.
LAURA: I know! LIAM: They make them in Rosohna. LAURA: We have a Bloody
Bridge between us. ASHLEY: (laughs) Wow. ASHLEY and LAURA: (laugh) MATT: You begin to consider what this could be. LIAM: They're synced up.
MARISHA: Yeah. (laughs) LAURA: (laughs)
ASHLEY: We're in sync. (sporadic laughter) TRAVIS: ♪ Bye bye bye ♪ LIAM: We're in
a mood tonight. MATT: I can tell.
ASHLEY: I'm sorry. MATT: Oh, we're all punchy.
ASHLEY: It's been a while. (laughter) SAM: Children, just absolute children.
ASHLEY: ♪ It's been a while ♪ MATT: This is
extremely unrealistic for any true D&D campaign. LAURA: (laughs) Yeah.
TRAVIS: Yeah. MATT: Everyone's
always very serious. TRAVIS: (laughs) Yeah. MATT: But even
taking a moment, you had not really focused on the connection
between Ruidusborn and those power sets,
those seeds of Predathos' ability that rest
in each of you. But you now see that
it's not independent, meaning there is something
that connects you all, even on some unseen level that is only just
barely visible here. If you want to check
your feats real fast-- SAM: Ooh.
MATT: -- you have a new feature. LAURA: Me?
MATT: Yes. LIAM: Stealthed it in. TRAVIS: Damn.
LIAM: Does that mean that-- TRAVIS: While we
were watching him. LIAM: -- all the
living Ruidusborn are a network?
TRAVIS: Sneaky. SAM: Could be.
LAURA: Wait, wait, where? LIAM: Flesh batteries?
TRAVIS: Yeah. If those "War of the Worlds" capillary-looking vegetation
is any indication, maybe it is all part of one big shared--
ASHLEY: What do you see? LIAM: Ooh!
TRAVIS: What if y'all are like red blood cells?
LAURA: (gasps) (gasps) TRAVIS: Double gasp? TALIESIN: What the fuck do you
think they're doing over there? LAURA: Whoa!
TRAVIS: You could read it aloud. MARISHA: I don't know.
TALIESIN: That's weird. LAURA: Sick!
ASHLEY: Whoa! That's cool!
TALIESIN: I don't like it. ASHLEY: I get a benefit
just from being around her because I'm Ruidusborn, too. TRAVIS: Won't you share
with the class? MATT: (laughs) TALIESIN: How's y'all doing? LAURA: We can share magic. SAM: Oh.
TALIESIN: Oh. Oh? What? LIAM: They're in sync.
ASHLEY: That's cool! MARISHA: They're synced up. LAURA: We're synced up!
TALIESIN: Bound to happen. MARISHA: Moon stuff. LAURA: "You can spend your
sorcery points to replenish "target Ruidusborn of their
expended spell slots." So I can use my sorcery points
to give her some spells back and she can also
sacrifice spell slots to give me sorcery points. ASHLEY: That's fucking cool.
LAURA: So, if you have a ton of spells
left and I have none, you can give me
a spell slot basically because I can replenish
from my sorcery points. ASHLEY: If I have a tampon
and you do not-- LAURA: You can give me one.
ASHLEY: I'm so sorry. LAURA: And if you're
all out of spells and I have sorcery points, I can give you a spell slot.
MATT: I should have foreseen seen this-- ASHLEY: I am so sorry.
MATT: -- immediately. TRAVIS: This is good.
ASHLEY: Okay, okay, okay. LIAM: We've been making
Bloody Bridge jokes for months. Months. LAURA: Matt.
ASHLEY: I'm sorry. LAURA: Matt.
ASHLEY: It's just going to come out. LAURA: Moon pearls. MARISHA: Moon pearls.
ASHLEY: Okay. LAURA: (laughs) MARISHA: The pearls
are the best ones. TRAVIS: Or if you
have one spell that's really working
and the rest aren't, then you can crank it
into the other person. LAURA: Yeah. I wonder if we could
maybe use this if we did a spell in
conjunction with each other? ASHLEY: Yes.
LAURA: It might amplify it in some way?
ASHLEY: It could amplify it. TRAVIS: I can't handle
this bloody conversation. ASHLEY: This is very cool.
MARISHA, MATT, and TRAVIS: (laugh) LAURA and ASHLEY:
This is very cool. SAM: This is just women
feeling their power. ASHLEY: Yeah.
SAM: We should just let this happen. ASHLEY: We're just stepping
into our bloody power. SAM: (laughs) SAM: Are you okay, Laudna?
TRAVIS: Jesus. MARISHA: Do I have an aura? SAM: Yeah, are you
jealous or anything? MARISHA: No!
SAM: Okay. Because they seem
like they're bonding. MARISHA: Do I have an aura? LAURA: Step closer.
ASHLEY: Yes, you do. LIAM: Do you have blood?
ASHLEY: You've always had one. LAURA: Yeah. I see it, there's a tether. SAM: But can you
guys share spells and stuff like you're
talking about with Fearne? MARISHA: I don't think so.
ASHLEY: I don't know. LAURA: I don't know.
Is Laudna Ruidusborn? MARISHA: No. No, definitely not. I'm maybe Ruidus-dead.
LAURA: (laughs) ASHLEY: There are lots
of threads, though. LAURA: Yeah, I see-- No,
seriously though, everybody-- SAM: That's just
her hair I think. LAURA: -- looks-- (laughs)
MARISHA: I'm sorry. It falls out in clumps.
LAURA: You said we could see little connections with
everybody here, right? MATT: I mean-- SAM: Right? (laughter) LAURA: Obviously
I'm not trying to take advantage
of this feat. That would just be--
MATT: To be specific, what you're noticing here
seems to be primarily, or, ultimately
between Ruidusborn. LAURA: Okay.
ASHLEY: Okay, sorry. I misunderstood,
that was my bad. MATT: The second thought
that comes to you is if this is what can
connect the two of you-- SAM: Ooh. TALIESIN: Oh.
LAURA: Oh. LIAM: Network. TALIESIN: We should-- SAM: Then it's what can drive you apart as well.
ASHLEY: It's a whole neural network. TALIESIN: Well--
MARISHA: Also, other people could--
TALIESIN: Other people who can follow the thread. MARISHA: Or could take
advantage of that. SAM: Or your mom could
sap your sorcery points. MARISHA: Yes, that's what I was thinking.
LIAM: That was my question. Do you have to willingly
give up those spell slots or can you vampirize
someone else's slots against their will?
LAURA: It doesn't say. It says they can sacrifice
their spell slots. TALIESIN: Interesting.
LAURA: It doesn't-- TRAVIS: You don't know
if you don't try. MATT: You haven't
tried it, but-- LIAM: Your mom is super strong.
SAM: Maybe you could sap some magic from Otohan or she could sap some
magic from you. ASHLEY: But I wonder, because you were made by fate and I was-- TALIESIN: Weren't we all?
ASHLEY: -- made by design, I guess. So I wonder if I'm off
the grid a little bit. LAURA: I mean, you come from the Fey Realm.
ASHLEY: You know what I mean? LAURA: I don't think there's
a lot of Ruidusborn in the Fey Realm. ASHLEY: Yeah. All right, well we're going
to have to tinker with this. This is cool. All right.
LAURA: Sick. SAM: I love you too. MATT and SAM: (laugh) You're great. MARISHA: Your aura is a soft blue. SAM: Oh yeah? And it's connected to you? MARISHA: It's just,
I don't know. It could be just the way the
light is bouncing off of you. SAM: Yeah, that's what it is.
MARISHA: I'm not entirely sure. SAM: My lights are on.
MARISHA: Mm-hmm. (laughs) TRAVIS: Don't forget,
you're a high value target. Somebody tried to kill you. ASHLEY: Yeah, I know. Yeah. TRAVIS: Mm-hmm.
ASHLEY: I mean-- TRAVIS: I don't even think
we know that whole story. ASHLEY: Yeah. TRAVIS: We'll keep
our eyes peeled for anything
Seelie in nature. SAM: Mm.
ASHLEY: Yeah, yeah. LAURA: Should I try to connect to Predathos? Feel it out? TRAVIS: I mean--
SAM: Yeah, sure. Are you Scrying,
what are you doing? LAURA: Probably just a
little opening up my mind to-- SAM: Okay.
LAURA: -- what's-- TALIESIN: As long as we're
okay having to take off pretty quick if
things go south. TRAVIS: It could be a (shoots
a flare), but we're all right. LAURA: Yeah.
ASHLEY: A flare. LIAM: It's also the
whole reason we're here, and we're alone for now. MARISHA: But do you
think your mother could connect to that? LAURA: Maybe.
LIAM: Maybe. MARISHA: I'm not saying
it's not worth it. LAURA: I think it is good
that we still have this spell on us that keeps
anything from prying in. That might help
protect us a bit. I don't know, though. TRAVIS: It's not like we're
super stealthy either. We made a fucking
mess coming in. TALIESIN: We make
a mess wherever we go. TRAVIS: Yeah.
LIAM: But if it goes wrong, we can leave fast.
TRAVIS: Yeah. LIAM: Faster than we'd
be able to tomorrow. TALIESIN: It's true.
TRAVIS: Do it. MARISHA: Do it.
TRAVIS: We'll kill you if it goes sideways. TALIESIN: We'll kill him
if it goes sideways. MARISHA: I didn't--
That's not true. ASHLEY: I wonder if I
would feel you connect? LAURA: I don't know. Let me know.
TALIESIN: Fuck around and find out. ASHLEY: Let's see, yeah. I'm going to turn around
so I'm not looking at you because that'll make
a big difference. SAM: I'm going
to pinch Imogen-- LAURA: Ow! What the fuck?
SAM: -- and see if you feel it. ASHLEY: I didn't
feel anything. TALIESIN: That really hurt,
you motherfucker. SAM: Oh, what the? (laughter) LAURA: We're all connected
here. All right. I'm going to sit down and put
my palms down, like I did in my dream.
MATT: Yeah. LAURA: Put my palms down
on the ground and reach out with open mind and
try to sense Predathos. MATT: Okay. LAURA: That energy that
I felt in my dream. MATT: You close your
eyes and recall that sensation that's simultaneously reaching out and opening up. It doesn't take long for that feeling of
you dropping out of your own consciousness. LAURA: Oh shit,
oh shit, oh shit. MATT: Like you are tumbling
out of the back of a swing and there's no ground
to catch you, as you feel the cavern vanish and the shadow of the
surrounding rock takes you. Here in this familiar void, you feel that presence,
that overwhelming presence that vibrates like the
slowest, most ancient snore, rumbling through everything
that surrounds you. You feel that connection, that welcoming, earnest draw, like you've never belonged to
anything more in your life. You feel that tug down, down, down. Then you feel it shift
as it notices you. LAURA: This might
have been a mistake. MATT: You hear in your
mind, in your soul, in every vibrating atom
in your body, you feel it. in every vibrating atom
in your body, you feel it. "Welcome home. "Join us. "Wake us." Make a wisdom saving
throw for me, please. TRAVIS: Did you say "Wake us?"
ASHLEY and LAURA: Wake us. MARISHA: You've got advantage.
SAM: Wisdom saving throw with advantage, yes.
MARISHA: You've got advantage. SAM: Advantage.
MARISHA: (pigeon coos) LAURA: Oh, jesus. Oh god, my wisdom is so low. SAM: Heroes' Feast,
you've got this, boo. ASHLEY: Guidance? I don't know.
MATT: No. ASHLEY: I'm just throwing
it out there. MATT: Hey, it doesn't hurt to try.
LAURA: Advantage, advantage, advantage, advantage. LIAM: Okay. LAURA: It's not good,
it's not great. SAM: It's great.
LAURA: It's 14. SAM: That's terrible.
MATT: 14. MARISHA: (laughs) LIAM: That must've been--
LAURA: It's not terrible. LIAM: Okay.
SAM: It's a god. MARISHA: It's a god. (laughs) MATT: This presence,
they're not even words, they're just emotions that your brain can only
try and comprehend. The way that it
swallows you shakes you to where the steeled
will that you've worked so hard to build
suddenly crumbles. In that moment
of faltering fear, you let it all in. LAURA: (fearful moan)
MARISHA: (gasps) MATT: When it does, you are pulled deeper
into the darkness, and suddenly you can see hundreds of little red lights
here in the shadow. So many of them. One of them that
looks like Fearne. Some very bright ones. One that looks
like your mother. And they're all moving down. You feel all of you
(quick clicks) all connect and
network and, suddenly, you can feel them all
looking towards you. Through all of them,
you hear once more, "Wake us." Do you resist or
do you delve deeper? TRAVIS: (laughs anxiously)
SAM: Go in, go in, do it!
LAURA: No way, no way, no way, no way.
SAM: We're here for a reason. TRAVIS: Woo hoo! SAM: We're here for a reason.
LAURA: No way, I'm going to try to fight it.
SAM: We're here for a reason! LAURA: No, I'm going to try to fight it.
TRAVIS: Wake us! LAURA: I don't want
to wake up anything. TRAVIS: Start that lawn mower.
LAURA: No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
LIAM: Wake us. SAM: He didn't say do
you want to wake them. He said do you want to
let yourself go deeper? LAURA: No I don't want to go deeper.
I don't want to go deeper. I don't want to go deeper.
LIAM: She's all by herself. She can make her own decisions.
TRAVIS: Why? LAURA: I don't
want to go deeper. Because if I go deeper, I won't be able to fight it,
I'll be part of it. SAM: You got your
friends here. TRAVIS: Are you sure? SAM: You've got us.
LAURA: I really, really, really, really think so.
SAM: You're connected to Fearne, and you love her.
MATT: Okay. Make a wisdom saving throw.
SAM: I'm here too. MARISHA: (gasps) ASHLEY: Oh my god.
MARISHA: Does it have advantage? TRAVIS: Do you think
your mom's fighting it? Do you think she gave in?
LAURA: I think she tried to fight it,
but she's still here. She still wasn't helping us
because she got sucked in. But she was trying
to fight it for so long. SAM: Just give into it. ASHLEY: Okay, okay.
LAURA: Okay, that's better. LIAM: At advantage? LAURA: Yeah, that's an 18. MATT: It's an 18? LIAM: Oh, there's a
little one in there! LAURA: Yeah, isn't it cool? LIAM: Oh, that's how it goes. MATT: That series of
red connecting threads, like the tiniest
little bridges between all of these people, this network of Ruidusborn, all of these seeded figures
that have gathered or are still gathering
here to this world, for what purpose, you don't
understand or now you do. To wake them, to wake it. You--
TRAVIS: That's why she told you to run. MATT: -- begin to feel--
ASHLEY: I think you're right. MATT: -- these tethers
get stronger-- MARISHA: Oh my god.
MATT: -- and stronger, and you pull back and with all of your might, in the memory of being a
child lost in these dreams, surrounded by dust and
red and hopelessness, you scream and the
darkness shatters and you are back in the
cave around your friends. You all watch as Imogen
just screams loudly, her eyes bright red
and you watch as all of the spider-like lightning
marks on her body brighten like the end
of a heated ember before they slowly
subside as she returns. MARISHA: I quickly grab her
and say: Shh, shh, shh. LAURA: Sorry. MARISHA: It's all right,
it's all right. Chetney, will you go
check the front? TRAVIS: Yeah. (skitters) MARISHA: What happened? LAURA: There's still time. There's still time. It's not awake yet, not all the way. Y'all, I don't know if I-- I don't know if I'd be
able to fight that again. MARISHA: Do you
think you're like their messiah,
their chosen one? LAURA: No. No. MARISHA: If it's
not your mother. LAURA: They're all-- They're all chosen, it's all, I saw everybody here. I saw all the Ruidusborn
that are here. I saw you.
ASHLEY: You did? LAURA: You can't fight it. MARISHA: But Fearne-- It seems your experience
is so unique compared to, I don't mean
this in a bad way, but compared to Fearne and--
ASHLEY: No. Listen-- SAM: They seem like
they need you. MARISHA: Yes.
ASHLEY: Yes. MARISHA: I don't think if Fearne tried to
do the same thing she would have
the same results. TRAVIS: I come back
from the front. Are there are any, is anything
moving, flying, crawling? MATT: Storm's still
blowing through. TRAVIS: Great. ASHLEY: When-- From my perspective,
did I feel anything when she blipped online? MATT: I mean, her presence,
just the nature of her power is something that is very
affecting in the vicinity, but when she flared--
ASHLEY: It's different. MATT: -- that tether
between the two of you, for a brief moment, like the filament
in a light bulb, kind of (igniting) glowed. ASHLEY: Did the
webs of all the, ASHLEY: Did the
webs of all the, did they get wider
and then smaller or they just were brighter,
or I couldn't tell? MATT: They were just brighter.
ASHLEY: Okay. LIAM: You know, Imogen, I believe you. I'm guessing
you're not wrong, but what they're all
gathering here to do is they're going to make it
happen one way or another. You're our best shot of getting close
and understanding. LAURA: You want me
to go back in. LIAM: I need you here with
us, and we need to get-- We need to keep going. MARISHA: You don't have
to do anything you-- LIAM: Of course she
doesn't have to. MARISHA: -- don't want to do. LIAM: But you know
what's at stake. LAURA: Of course.
MARISHA: You're still pressuring her, though.
LAURA: But I want to be able to-- No, it's-- I don't think you understand.
My mother-- My mother reached out
to me my entire life. As soon as I started
feeling that pull, she tried to get me
to run away from it. She knew. She knew that once you were
in it you couldn't escape, and I think that's, I think that's what's
happening with her, you know? LIAM: Okay, game
it out with me. We turn around. We run away. LAURA: No, I'm not
going to run away. I'm not going to run away. We need to fight this.
LIAM: Uh-huh. LAURA: I'm just saying,
I don't think if I can, if I can keep from
delving like that again. LIAM: That's not
where I'm going. What you just
did was dangerous, and we know more now than we did 10 minutes ago.
LAURA: Yeah. LIAM: But this is
going to test you. LAURA: Yeah.
LIAM: The risk, you're right, it's real. But I don't even want to
think of the alternative. So does she have
to do it? No. But I am pressuring
her to do it. TALIESIN: Let's not pretend
it's not going to happen one way or another anyway. You're either going to end
up down there on your terms or on somebody else's. It's just a fucking
inevitability. LIAM: And I'm not
just pressuring her, I'm pressuring you and him and them, me. MARISHA: We're all here. LIAM: Yeah. It's not a tourist stop.
MARISHA: No. LIAM: We're risking everything
because we have to. LAURA: Don't forget, Orym,
this is a research mission. We're gathering intelligence. We're not going to
fight it right now. LIAM: You just did, and there's more to know. LAURA: Yeah. TRAVIS: I have
another theory. MARISHA: (laughs) TRAVIS: I actually think
you might be the key. Your mom, when you
saw her before, she didn't try and persuade
you to join, right? It was: Run. LAURA: Yeah. TRAVIS: If they're
saying: Wake us, maybe your mom is actually, hear me out,
like a secret agent. Maybe she's trying
to keep tabs. MARISHA: She's still resisting.
TRAVIS: And the thing that they need is you. Otohan tried to
unlock you, right? So what if this whole time
the thing they need is you? MARISHA: I agree with that. It's kind of what
I meant by the-- ASHLEY: Yeah.
MARISHA: -- messiah thing, their savior. It's kind of a similar vein. TRAVIS: Which puts us in a
very advantageous position. I'm just saying. I would rather have the
thing that they want and need than not be able to affect
any kind of influence at all. Plus, it might help explain
why it's been connected in the sky for so long and-- MARISHA: Nothing's happened.
TRAVIS: -- nothing's really happened. SAM: It could also be
somewhere in between where they need her
to make it sooner, faster, easier, but they can still
do it without her. TRAVIS: Mm-hmm. SAM: If it was really,
if we knew that it was her, then we should not
have you here at all. We should lock you away where
they can't find you somewhere. TALIESIN: I don't think
that that's an option. ASHLEY: But also, I feel like all the Reilorans
that we've met, they seem wonderful
to me, you know? This is their home. MARISHA: But to that point, remember when we were
coming up here and the one Reiloran alluded to good guys versus
bad guys up here. to good guys versus
bad guys up here. LAURA: Yeah.
MARISHA: Your-- LAURA: They called it
what, the Imperium? TALIESIN: Mm-hmm.
LAURA: Yeah. MARISHA: So, in addition
to this research mission, I feel like it would
be very beneficial to figure who that faction--
TRAVIS: Yeah. MARISHA: -- of good guys--
LAURA: Rebel alliance. MARISHA: Yes.
LAURA: Yeah. SAM: Oh yeah.
TALIESIN: That's who we need to find. ASHLEY: But the thing is--
SAM: That's definitely something we should find. ASHLEY: My stomach is making
so many noises. Sorry. MARISHA: (laughs) ASHLEY: What if-- Okay, just hear me out. I'm just going to try
to circle the square here. What if you're
supposed to wake up the good guys
type of a thing? I know you're
a messiah situation, whatever you want to call it. But maybe your mom
wanted you to run because of all the
other shit going on, and maybe because you are supposed to
wake something up. I don't know. I feel
like the Reiloran-- LAURA: That's interesting.
ASHLEY: Reilorans are not-- I feel like we
should help them. I mean, this is their home. MARISHA: Well, and you said
you saw Fearne in this group. LAURA: Yeah.
ASHLEY: I'm not a bad guy. LAURA: To that point--
SAM: Are you? MARISHA: (laughs)
ASHLEY: No. TALIESIN: Well, I mean--
LAURA: Did I get a sense, when I was there,
her location? Could I sense that
she was next to me? MATT: You could sense
that she was very close, and the network of
people that you saw, there were very bright ones.
LAURA: Yeah. MATT: You were
a very bright one. Your mother was
a very bright one. LAURA: There's more people.
MATT: You saw maybe two dozen ones of around that equal
level of brightness with some varying, and there were dozens
more that were fainter, like Fearne. All Ruidusborn,
but you could make out that there were
Exaltants like you, the true final evolution of what the Ruidusborn was
intended to eventually be and those that are
part of that network, supporting that network. You also got a sense that
you could see loosely where they were, the direction where
they were from you. Now that you think
of where you are and where you were sitting, you also have a
pretty strong idea-- SAM: Ooh.
MARISHA: Of the city. MATT: -- of where that
network seemed to gather. SAM: Is it the direction
we've been going in? MATT: It's loosely
in that direction, but you have a much clearer pinpoint now.
MARISHA: Stronger. SAM: Nice. ASHLEY: Okay.
MARISHA: Question. Oh, sorry.
ASHLEY: No, no, go. MARISHA: Has Imogen,
above table, has Imogen always been
Exalted, or when Otohan-- TRAVIS: Nuked her.
MARISHA: -- forced her, did she then become Exalted? SAM: Above table, how
does the campaign end? (laughter) MATT: The best that you
can ascertain is that, and from what was read in some of the Grim Verity's research notes is that Exaltants
are just naturally is that Exaltants
are just naturally the most powerful version
of a Ruidusborn, but usually through either
a really traumatic event or some sort of
outside stimuli causes them to exalt into their realized self. ASHLEY: Okay.
MATT: So you get the sense that she's probably
always been an Exaltant, but it took that
moment to unlock her. TRAVIS: A walking vestige.
MARISHA: So theoretically, Fearne could be an Exaltant, but just hasn't reached
that level yet? TRAVIS: In waiting.
MARISHA: In waiting? ASHLEY: I think it's different
because I was made by design as opposed to natural, right? MATT: Best that you can tell, Exaltants have always
been Exaltants. SAM: Naturals. Always the best.
MATT: They just didn't know the full potential
of their power. MARISHA: Okay.
MATT: There are many more Ruidusborn that are just
faintly Ruidusborn and kind of affected
by those energies. MARISHA: Okay.
MATT: But are the long
historical predecessors of this thousands
year long process of this thousands
year long process of Ruidus, of Predathos, getting to whatever
its end is. TRAVIS: Our orders are clear. Beat the shit out of Fearne
until she levels up. MARISHA: (laughs) Yeah.
(laughter) MATT: Hell yeah. ASHLEY: Nothing's happening!
Ow! (laughter) ASHLEY: Another above table. Did we ever
learn about (laughs) is Otohan Ruidusborn? LAURA: Yeah.
MATT: Otohan-- LIAM: Oh yeah.
MATT: -- is also Exaltant. LAURA: Yeah, she's an Exaltant.
ASHLEY: Oh, she's an Exaltant. That's right, that's right. SAM: And so is Ludinus. LAURA: Way more powerful--
ASHLEY: Ludinus is not. LAURA: -- Exaltant than me.
MATT: Ludinus, you don't know. SAM: Oh, right.
LIAM: Liliana is, though. LAURA: Yeah, Liliana is a, yeah, Exaltant.
TALIESIN: So-- MATT: Though, in all
of your networking, you haven't seen
anything regarding-- LAURA: Makes it sound like
we're going to mixers and-- MATT: I know. We're
all just hanging out. MARISHA and LAURA: (laugh) MATT: You've never been able
to recognize any signature or tether towards Ludinus.
SAM: Hmm. MATT: Which means
either he doesn't or he's hidden it somehow.
LAURA: Or it's hidden. MATT: You don't know.
LIAM: Guess he's Tricky Dick. TRAVIS: Or he's not a person. SAM: Should we press on? Don't we still have a
few hours of cloudiness? LIAM: Many hours.
TRAVIS: Storm's still wrecking outside, though.
LIAM: Short rest is an hour, and all this conversation is happening toward
the back end of our hour. TRAVIS: Storm's still
doing its thing. SAM: But can't we press
through? We got to-- TRAVIS: We could, but
we'd risk being dispersed. LAURA: Yeah, so this is--
SAM: When you got a direction, did you get a distance? MATT: Not really,
because it was-- Imagine a pinpoint lattice.
TRAVIS: Cluster of fireflies. MATT: Yeah, a cluster of fireflies
is a good way to put it, in the middle of
a shadowed space. So you have a direction, but
you have no idea of the scope or scale of what
you were looking at. LIAM: There's no map key.
MATT: Yeah. ASHLEY: I'm kind of
glad you waited. I'm glad you waited
because I feel like we need more research. We need more stuff to know
because we also don't know if you do give
yourself over-- Because I feel like some
of the other Ruidusborn that we've seen,
they don't have-- Do they have the markings that
Imogen does? We don't know. LAURA: I mean, I haven't seen--
ASHLEY: I mean, I don't. MATT: The only other Exaltant
that you've really encountered aside from your
mother is Otohan. LAURA: Is Otohan. MATT: She has been armored--
LAURA: Covered up. MATT: -- from pretty
much neck down. LIAM: Thank you for
doing what you did. ASHLEY: Yeah.
LIAM: I feel like the thing that makes
you such a risk is also our greatest
strength right now. It makes you kind of like
one of Letters' coin flips. SAM: They always
are right, though. LAURA: That's right. TALIESIN: It only takes
one wrong one, to be fair. SAM: Hmm, that's true.
LAURA: Do we take the extra time, go to the city,
try to see more or do we head back
and let them know what we found so far? TALIESIN: We are not
ready to head back. We need so much more.
LIAM: We don't know anything about the Reilorans.
MARISHA: We should go to the city. SAM: It would be great if
we could find some glimpse of the Imperium.
LIAM: Yeah. SAM: Also, to find out
the layout of this place. LAURA: Yeah, so?
MARISHA: We can let the Imperium know that they've
got allies on Exandria? TRAVIS: Then you give in.
ASHLEY: Wait, did you say-- LAURA and SAM: (laugh) ASHLEY: -- the Imperium is what the Reilorans call
the Ruby Vanguard? LAURA: Yeah.
ASHLEY: Okay. MATT: Well, the Imperium-- LAURA: That's what
I heard. Sorry. SAM: They're the good
Reilorans, right? MARISHA: Who are the goodies
and who are the baddies? TRAVIS: The Imperium
are the Reiloran that work with
the Ruby Vanguard. MATT: Correct.
LAURA: Yes. SAM: Oh.
MATT: The Imperium is the faction that is aligned with
the Ruby Vanguard. SAM: Oh, so they're bad.
LAURA: Yeah, those are the baddies. SAM: Oh, why did I write
down good Reilorans? TRAVIS: Because you didn't read Dani's notes--
LIAM: I don't know, they have a fancy name.
TRAVIS: -- like I did. LAURA: Maybe you
wrote down Imperium and also good Reilorans. SAM: Nope.
Now I wrote equals. TRAVIS: Not to be confused
with Sand Imperium. MATT: Yep.
LAURA: Baddies. SAM: Are there good Reilorans?
LAURA: Yeah, there are. SAM: But we don't know
what their name is. TRAVIS: There are?
LAURA: No, but the one that I called--
MARISHA: Yes. LAURA: -- before we
left was saying that they were not
part of the Imperium. MATT: Yeah, you've encountered
Reilorans that stated they didn't have an
affiliation with the Imperium. SAM: Mm.
MARISHA: They looked and them and they were like: Ew, icky. LAURA: Uh-huh. Ooh,
I don't like them. MARISHA: I don't like them. LIAM: What we know
is we don't know much. TALIESIN: And we need to know more.
TRAVIS and LAURA: ♪ I don't know much ♪ TRAVIS, ASHLEY, and LAURA:
♪ (humming) ♪ TALIESIN: Before we head out,
do we want to do a quick, well-- LAURA and TRAVIS: ♪ (continue goofy singing) ♪
SAM: Quick what? TALIESIN: We got to
figure out how we're going to cloud out
of this and-- MATT: Almost as rapid
as it swarmed in-- SAM: Oh, look at that. MATT: The wind
begins to fade. LAURA: Hey!
MATT: And light begins to return to the outside of
the cave entrance. LIAM: Oh.
MATT: These storms can be devastating and fast, but they can also leave just
as quickly as they arrived. MARISHA: Oh!
TRAVIS: On foot, here we go. LAURA: Instantly, let's go.
MARISHA: Wait, real quick. Wait, wait, wait.
LAURA: What? MARISHA: I take Pâté, who I
spent the time to summon again. MATT: "Wait, where are we?" TALIESIN: Oh, for fuck's sakes.
MARISHA: Ooh, oh my god, that's right! You totally died right
before we got to the moon. We're on the moon! MATT: "That's so
freaking cool!" MARISHA: I know!
LAURA: (laughs) MATT: "So what's the plan?" MARISHA: Okay, well, we're on
a sneaky sneak mission. MATT: "Oh,
I'm good at those." MARISHA: You get, well--
(hums doubtfully) You got to be quiet,
all right? In fact, so we're going
to turn into clouds, and you can't turn
into clouds, but we can fly so fast
when we're clouds so-- MATT: "Well, I've never tried."
MARISHA: Nope. Hmm, you can't. I'm not trying to
shoot you down. I believe in you. You can do anything
you want, you just can't turn into clouds.
TRAVIS: Mixed signals. Mixed signals. MARISHA: But you get to
take a little ride in the bag of holding! MATT: "Ooh, what's that?" MARISHA: So I actually have
a little mission for you. You have a--
MATT: "Ooh, I like missions!" MARISHA: You have your
little mini-mission. MATT: "Okay."
MARISHA: Okay. TRAVIS: (laughs)
MARISHA: All right, you ready? TRAVIS: Oh, this is smart. MARISHA: I'm going to put
you in the bag of holding. MATT: "All right,
what's that?" MARISHA: It's like
a little pocket void where there's no air, but it's okay because
you don't breathe. MATT: "Okay,
that sounds fun!" MARISHA: But here's the fun part.
MATT: "Yeah?" MARISHA: We stuffed a giant behemoth of
a Reiloran in there. MATT: "Whoa!" MARISHA: So I need you
to go in, look around,
see if you can find them. Tell me if they're
alive or dead or if they've exploded
from extreme pressure or something like that. MATT: "What?" MARISHA: And then--
MATT: "Okay." MARISHA: I'm going to
pull you back out. MATT: "Yeah."
MARISHA: And you're going to tell me what you saw. MATT: "Sure!" MARISHA: Okay, ready?
MATT: "Yeah!" MARISHA: Thunk-unk!
ASHLEY: Auntie Fearne's bag. Hop in. MATT: "Ready!"
(laughs) TRAVIS: Got shoved in something
else and then in the bag. LAURA: Yeah. TALIESIN: I'm digging a little
hole in the back right now. MATT: "(Pâté groans)" MARISHA: What did you see? MATT: "It's just
very dark in there. "It's nothing
but just darkness." MARISHA: You didn't see
anybody else or anything else? MATT: "No, I just did
a little loop in this space "and there was nothing there." SAM: Oh. MARISHA: I guess they're in
their own little compartments. ASHLEY: That's a good idea.
TRAVIS: I think it's just huge. MARISHA: It's just that huge?
TRAVIS: Yeah. TALIESIN: -- a better idea. LAURA: I thought about it
here, I really did. MARISHA: Well-- SAM: What's going on
over there? TALIESIN: All right.
As long as you're-- MATT: So the nature of
the bag of holding. MARISHA: You'll be in
there for longer. Oh, yes. MATT: As you put the
two and two together. TALIESIN: I trust you.
MATT: It's like a void space. MATT: So you put
the item in there and then just vanishes
in this void space. There is a limit to it, but they exist
in this void space, and then when you think
about it, as you reach in, they--
MARISHA: It manifests. MATT: It manifests
in your hand. SAM: I think we should
pull out the big guy. What are you talking about? TALIESIN: We're making plans. TRAVIS: Just talking
and talking and talking and talking.
SAM: Do it on your own time. TALIESIN: This is
our own time. MARISHA: Down here
is our time. SAM: Should we just
pull them out? MARISHA: The Reiloran.
TALIESIN: I'm having a bad idea. TRAVIS: Yeah, let's fuck them
up right here if he's alive. SAM: Just leave them here,
turn into clouds. MARISHA: I agree, we reach in
and we pull out the fatty. TRAVIS: Do it.
LAURA: The juggernaut. MATT: You reach in, you pull, you grab in and
you can feel the arm, the heavy wrist,
this thick, trunk-like wrist of the juggernaut,
and as you tug, I mean, even getting him
in there was like stretching the limits
of what the bag can do and it was
a group effort to like-- Well, actually,
get him in there. You put him in there as a possum.
SAM: He was a possum, yeah. MATT: Getting him out is
a whole different scenario. TRAVIS: Come on, bitch. MATT: As you tug on him
and he gets one arm and a shoulder out and it's-- SAM: Dead.
MATT: It's definitely dead. The hand is limp,
but it's not coming out. TRAVIS: You know what?
ASHLEY: Just leave it. TRAVIS: There's
a way around this. SAM: (saw buzzing) (laughter) TRAVIS: Go to town, FGC! SAM: (yelling)
TRAVIS: (yelling) Oh! It's in my eyes!
MARISHA: (excited giggling) MATT: Like a "Cavern"
horror film. TRAVIS: "Rocky Horror."
Not "Rocky Horror," I was going to say
"Little Shop." MARISHA: "Little Shop."
ASHLEY: Yeah. MATT: This is the Sam Raimi
moment of this current session. TALIESIN: Oh boy.
MATT: Blood splatter on the wall side.
LAURA: Oh my god. MATT: Buzz saw sounds
and cutting. Laudna in the corner grinning like a child
on Saturday morning. LIAM: "Who's afraid
of Virginia Woolf?" Violence, violence! MATT: Yep, but you have now a
Reilora juggernaut in pieces. MARISHA: Can you chop off his--
MATT: Individual arms, legs, head. MARISHA: -- index finger
for me? SAM: Oh boy.
MARISHA: Thank you. TRAVIS: We should
actually put these back because, to Fearne's point, we could need bait,
we could need a distraction. You never know when
you'll need a thigh. SAM: All of it?
TRAVIS: Sure you do. SAM: Maybe just
a couple pieces. TRAVIS: Want to leave
something behind? SAM: Yeah, for
the whatever lives here. TRAVIS: Oh, like
a little tip, that's fair. TALIESIN: Is this an insane place
to try and plant something? Is it like--
MATT: You tell me. TALIESIN: I've been trying
to tap with my hammer and see if I can--
TRAVIS: Is there soil? TALIESIN: Soil down like--
MATT: Oh, to <i>plant.</i> TALIESIN: Plant something. MATT: What are you
trying to plant? LAURA: Well-- MATT and MARISHA: Oh. SAM: Oh wait, do we have a thing?
TALIESIN: We owe a debt. SAM: Are we supposed
to plant? (gasps) On the moon, we talked--
Oh, what, it's a seed. TALIESIN: Yeah, from
the All-Minds-Burn, we owe a debt and-- MATT: I mean,
it's up to you. Think: What does a fungus
need to survive? LAURA: See, that's
what I was saying. I think we should
do it deeper. I think we should do it under
because remember, it was low. It was deep underground
when we found it. TALIESIN: That's very fair. LAURA: I think we need
to plant it deeper. I-I-I want to do it. TALIESIN: Okay, I was
just triple checking. LAURA: Deeper. TALIESIN: Want to do it deeper?
LAURA: Yeah. TALIESIN: Okay. MATT: The juggernaut is-- It has its helmet
part on the top, its head just
off to the side. ASHLEY: Are we keeping it in the bag?
TRAVIS: Yeah. MARISHA: We're going to
put some of it-- TRAVIS: We're leaving a tip
for the cave, though. MARISHA: We'll leave his torso
and we'll put some of his limbs back in there. Limbs are easier to get out. TALIESIN: He didn't have anything
interesting on him, did he? MATT: He had his bone cestus,
which are these giant nasty-looking knuckle weapons
that are across his fingers that are made from some
sort of extremely dense bone that have these barred hooks. Like it's been either
carved to make them or maybe they were
naturally formed in whatever
they took them from, but those are
grips on the hand. SAM: (high-pitched sneeze) MARISHA: Bless you. MATT: That was adorable! TALIESIN and LAURA:
That was really cute. TALIESIN: Well, shit,
let's keep those, man. Fuck. TRAVIS: Yeah,
we'll take those. MATT: There are bits of
shoulder armor and spikes, all manner of battle attire
and adornment on it. TRAVIS: I'll take one of
the shoulder spikes as a pauldron for dressing
to let people know not to fuck with us. SAM: I'll take the other one.
TRAVIS: Yeah! MATT: All right, there you go. SAM: Like father, like son. (laughter) TALIESIN: I was just curious.
TRAVIS: My three sons. TALIESIN: All right,
yeah, I'm good then. MATT: Okay. MARISHA: Shit, I forgot
what I was going to say. It doesn't matter. (laughter) LIAM: I love that's
a character. TRAVIS: Can we take
the little claw weapons and get a description
for them later? MATT: Yeah, yeah,
you can totally take those. TRAVIS: Great.
SAM: Onward. MARISHA: All right.
Shoving Pâté back in the bag. MATT: Okay, Pâté's
back in the bag. LIAM: (Pâté grunt) TRAVIS: No coins or potions
or anything like that, right? Just the weapons,
okay, great. Let's do it. SAM: Quickly, apple fritter. Apple fritter.
ASHLEY: Thank you! SAM: Apple fritter.
LAURA: Oh, thank you. SAM: Apple fritter. LAURA: What does
it give us again? SAM: Four temporary hit points.
LAURA: Yay! LIAM: On top of the max
that we have? SAM: Yes,
those are different. Those are--
LAURA: Ooh! SAM: Yeah. MARISHA: Wait,
just a flat four? SAM: Four temporary.
TALIESIN: Everybody, everybody. SAM: If you, no, not you.
TALIESIN: Oh, that's fine. SAM: Or Travis.
TALIESIN: That's fine. TRAVIS: Who's Travis?
SAM: You're beefy. TALIESIN: That's fair.
TRAVIS: Sounds fucking awesome. MARISHA: That's nice. TALIESIN: This fucker has more
hit points than I do now, but I'm good
that because I can-- MATT: Which parts of the
juggernaut are you keeping? SAM: Limbs and asshole. No, limbs and head. MATT: Limbs and head, okay.
SAM: Limbs and head. MATT: All right, so you put
the limbs in the head back in the bag with Pâté,
leaving the torso behind. SAM: Looks like a hot dog. Lips and asshole. (laughter) LAURA: Oh, really don't.
TALIESIN: Okay. MATT: You gather
your materials and concentrate for
a moment before you all (fluttering) dart back off into
the atmosphere beyond this cavern and
back up into the eye-- the eye-- the sky above, coasting up the side
of this mountain peak and over in the direction that
you recall from your vision. You continue on for the next
hour or so in that direction enjoying this breaking up
of the dust storms that put you there,
but you can still see the tumultuous landscape
pushing around you as well as the closing of sunlight upon the surface of
this part of Ruidus. LAURA: (high-pitched sneeze) MARISHA: Bless you.
TRAVIS: Really? MATT: You sense
the coming of night. TRAIVS: Another
sick day coming. MATT: Apparently. But you begin to come towards a secondary mountain range that pushes just beneath
the direction you're going. This long, thin ridge
that winds on each side and you can see forks off
in different directions, like a weird bone shape
where the edges of it splinter off on the edges. You could see three
different patterns of chasms that break around the base and one that cuts
straight through and divides it in the center where it looks like the
mountain range tumbled in. There's a gap of about
a quarter mile or so that just falls
in the darkness. You also,
as you continue along, you can make out a couple
more of these small herds. SAM: Oh! MATT: That are curling up
the side of the mountain range to the right-hand side. You follow the sight
of where they're going, and the next thing you see are a handful of
flickering bits of light. LIAM: Going down.
LAURA: Oh. MATT: As you get
a little bit closer, you see a village folded in part of
this dual rising spires and part of this mountain range
nestled in the center of it from what looks like,
can only describe it as a moon ranch
with paddocks, little abodes that are built
into the sides of that crevice and you can see
probably 60 to 70 more of these beasts all
nestled in there. It's unique to have
grown up where you had to see similar arrangements
of the local livestock to see similar arrangements
of the local livestock and you see figures moving
and tending to it below. Beyond that,
you can see the storms still approaching,
though quite a distance off, but you know there'll
be more dust to come. What would you like to do? TALIESIN: I want to
seek shelter and meet some locals,
personally. LIAM: This is what
we're here to do. TALIESIN: This is
the perfect place. LAURA: We should land a little
bit outside of it, though, and-- LIAM: Walk up.
TALIESIN: Yeah. LAURA: Remove our--
MARISHA: Question, though. Maybe it's best to do
little wispy fly by. LAURA: I know, I want to get
close and see if they look like they're dressed
like the Imperium, or like the Reilorans
that I've called. MARISHA: Because if we come trotting through
as the Ruby Vanguard and they're not welcome here,
that might not be good. SAM: Smart.
MATT: Okay. You coast down closer
and do a slow distant buzz of the top of
this village and it's-- MARISHA: Do you have Seeming?
SAM: No. MATT: You gather
the population here probably couldn't be
more than 1,000 people tops scattered amongst all
these different homes. It reminds you of
a smaller Zephrah in some ways because it is high in
the mountains and nestled in, but the first thing
you notice is everything here
is very simple. The homes and abodes
are smoothed rock or made of thatch and mud
that have dried over and it gives this natural popcorn vibe amongst the different
clusters of homesteads between the open portions of
paddocks and holding areas between the open portions of
paddocks and holding areas for the various livestock. You can see some of that
red brush and odd plant life You can see some of that
red brush and odd plant life has been cultivated
in clusters here and within some of the shaded
sections of the broken rock where portions of the mountain
have actually been damaged and carved away to
make room to plant this sustainable pattern
to maintain the livestock. You also see
amongst the populace in a quick glance overhead,
there are, I'd say only about maybe
20% of the population appears to be Reiloran. The majority of
the rest of the people here are a much shorter
and squatter folk. Just at a quick pass by, there's a people here
you've never seen before. SAM: Ooh! MATT: Most of them are heavily
swathed in hooded shawls MATT: Most of them are heavily
swathed in hooded shawls and tattered bits of robes
made of a heavy material that when it billows, it billows
like starched canvas, so when the gusts
hit it, it cracks as it moves behind it
and when they're moving out of the wind,
it doesn't billow with them, so it's like statues
moving through. Occasionally, you catch
the sight of a hand, and its thick, meaty grasps
that grab reins, and you begin to recall the
vision you had in that cavern as being very familiar
in size and form. Too far away to get much
more detail beyond that, especially with the night
coming to the moon Ruidus. LAURA: But we don't
see any of the armor, like the Imperium
that we've seen. MATT: Oh, you do see people
wearing similar designs. You do not see any Vanguard. LAURA: Okay. MATT: But you do indeed see
Reiloran wearing similar armor, though less battle-ready
front lines. You do see
a handful of juggernauts as well as just
standard Reilorans, but they're half-armored
and more just present and it doesn't
take long to realize that they're definitely... keeping watch. They are--
LAURA: Oh. MATT: -- managing this space. They are ordering
these people and there is a general air of tension in certain arenas. SAM: Then maybe
we shouldn't walk up. We should get in there, find a shed or something
to spend a minute. We don't want to walk up
and get confronted by the baddies, right? LAURA: Said like 20%,
that's like 200 Reilorans. MATT: 20% are Reiloran. LAURA: Yeah, that's
what I mean, like 20, yeah, like 200 Reilorans. SAM: But if we could
get in past them and talk to the people,
the real people, we might be able to get
a read on what's going on. LIAM: Maybe we could
hover out and find a spot that is thin on Reiloran
and heavy on these others. SAM: Yeah.
LIAM: On the hiding spot. MARISHA: Tensions, do we see
any percentage of the population that looks human or fey
or anything like that? that looks human or fey
or anything like that? MATT: You're kind of high up,
do you want to coast closer? SAM: Sure.
MARISHA: Yeah. SAM: We're clouds, right?
LIAM: We're farts. MATT: I mean, you are clouds,
but you're not invisible. You are still a cluster of
mist balls that go-- (swirling) LAURA: Yeah,
we're noticeable. LIAM: Is it
possible to act casual? (laughter) TALIESIN: I mean, if we get
right down to the ground, could we look
like a dirt devil? SAM: This is how clouds move. MATT: You could
certainly try. TALIESIN: Let me know,
I'm going to try really quick to speed around on
the ground and look like, you know, you've seen those
little weird dust cyclones. LAURA and SAM: Dust devil.
TALIESIN: Yeah, dust devil. MATT: Okay. TALIESIN: Just before we
even go in, I'm just like, grade my performance. MARISHA: All right.
SAM: Let's see it. LIAM: You're just
moshing as a cloud. TALIESIN: Yeah.
(laughter) MATT: Make a--
TALIESIN: Nice little mosh circle. MATT: Make a performance
check for me. TALIESIN: Fuck yes.
LIAM: Definitely. TALIESIN: This is going
to go real poorly. Yep, no, two.
SAM: (laughs) MATT: You watch
this wisp of cloud separate from the group and then rush down and
hits the ground and goes-- (two whooshes) TALIESIN: Yep, no. MATT: (staccato whooshes) MATT: It overtly looks
like it's trying to draw attention.
TALIESIN: Shit, okay. MATT: You see it as six of
the locals still hoods up, look back towards it
and confused and start whispering
to each other a bit-- SAM: Oh boy.
MATT: -- pointing over to this weird, errant
little mist pocket that's shifting around
all on the ground. SAM: Just kind of
Jonah Hill it. TALIESIN: I was hoping to
do this further away from an actual audience,
but okay. MATT: I understand.
TALIESIN: Yep. No, that's, everyone's a critic.
MATT: It's not super close to them, but they still think--
TALIESIN: It's that bad. MATT: On a two,
they pick it up. TALIESIN: Yeah, no,
that's real bad. LIAM: Who's seeing it, shorter
folk, Reiloran or both? MATT: Shorter folk.
LIAM: Shorter folk. SAM: Are there any structures
around here, barns? MATT: There are
a number of structures and you can see some
that resemble barns. I mean, best you can. There's no
standard barns here. Everything has
a domed feel to it because a lot of the material
that it's built from is from the surrounding rock
and/or other materials that you haven't even gotten
close enough to inspect. There's definitely a mud
or adobe texture in places. You can see areas of like, it's almost
a thatch weave to it, but you haven't seen anything
that could create thatch here. As the light
continues to fade, color begins to mute and
texture begins to blur, so at the distance
you're keeping, you're losing detail
the longer time goes. LAURA: We won't be able to-- We can't take
a long rest here, y'all. SAM: Why not? These could be allies. LAURA: We will lose our-- Yeah, but there's
Reiloran here, too, and we'll lose
our misty forms. SAM: How many more hours
do we have of it, though? MATT: You have about
five hours left. TALIESIN: Oh.
SAM: That's a lot. LAURA: We can't take
a long rest. SAM: We got to talk
to these people, find out what's going on.
LAURA: Yeah. LIAM: That's fine, but--
TRAVIS: We also don't have to do it in a group.
LAURA: We'll be traveling in the night.
LIAM: -- we can't take eight hours, we'll lose our fast travel. LAURA: We got to
talk and get out and keep going towards the city.
SAM: Well who wants to talk to them? TRAVIS: One person go in--
TALIESIN: Let's find a bar, maybe. TRAVIS: -- ask questions, get out.
SAM: Two people. TALIESIN: I was going to
say, if we are sneaky and go window to window, do you think we can find
some sort of public house, something like that? MATT: You can certainly try. TRAVIS: (laughs)
SAM: Yeah, you want to scout around for--
LAURA: Somewhere where there's not Reilorans poking in and it's just the locals.
SAM: -- a tavern? TALIESIN: Something private. MATT: You watch as
it's getting darker, and as you're having
this conversation and planning amongst yourself,
taking in the scenery and as the shadow of
night begins to creep across the ruddied
landscape of Ruidus. The interior of these
abodes begin to brighten up this faint
bluish-green color, some of them almost
a purple tint. You can see that
most of these beasts are brought into their
respective paddocks and the locks and
doors closed upon them. You can see many of
them bundle up together and form these masses
of fur and horn and bundle down
so they can sleep through the storms
and be unbothered. There isn't an air or tension
of oppressive violence There isn't an air or tension
of oppressive violence or anything in the city,
but there's definitely, people are working
under watch. TRAVIS: From where we are,
can we see any signs of horticulture or mining,
or is it literally the management
of livestock on land? MATT: From what you
can tell here, make perception check for me. TRAVIS: I only should've
rolled one of those. 17.
MATT: 17, not too bad. You don't see any
signs of an open mine or a mining enterprise
here at all. or a mining enterprise
here at all. The largest things
and the easiest to see are the livestock
management here. But there are clusters
of these villages where you can assume there's
probably other crafts involved or maybe less overt and
land-intensive endeavors or maybe less overt and
land-intensive endeavors that are transpiring. TRAVIS: No clear rows
of crops or mining or-- MATT: There's no crops.
TRAVIS: -- belts? Got it. MATT: There's no farmland
that you can see. TRAVIS: Cool.
MATT: What you can see are where they've planted all of this red brush, that you've only
seen at a distance, into all these different
cracks in the stone. You can see where some of
the cracks seem natural, some look like they've
been carved deep into it, and in these
places of shadow, you can see where
that red flora is bursting forth. Occasionally, you can watch as some of these massive
bison-like creatures will stumble up and
start eating from it. MARISHA: Hmm. Well, we should talk
to people quickly before they all
start going to bed and then we're very creepy.
SAM: Who wants to do this? LIAM: Maybe some of
our shorter members. SAM: Oh yeah.
LAURA: I could try. SAM: Two shorties.
LAURA: Oh right. SAM: Or unless
we have someone who can change their
appearance to look like them. ASHLEY: I can
disguise myself. SAM: You can?
ASHLEY: Yeah. LAURA: The only thing is, is
they might not speak Common. So I can speak to
them telepathically and they can understand me. SAM: I have-- What do I have? TRAVIS: Fearne,
can you disguise-- SAM: I can touch Fearne-- ASHLEY: Let me see.
SAM: -- and give her the ability to understand any
spoken language. LAURA: All right.
SAM: And speak it. LAURA: Great. MARISHA: When Delilah
came back, I got Eyes of the Runekeeper
again, so I can read. LAURA: Oh, nice. MARISHA: That's it.
That was it. SAM: Yeah, I could, and
it's not concentration, so I could do it
on two people. I could touch two people and
you can talk their language. MARISHA: Maybe send in
our charisma people? SAM: That would be-- LAURA: Pretty good charisma.
SAM: -- Fearne and you? Or Orym? LIAM: No, my charisma's not good.
LAURA: My charisma's-- That's what my spell
is based in. LIAM: She's max.
TRAVIS: I'm just the smartest person in
this group, that's all. MARISHA: I'm also max. LAURA: My persuasion is-- SAM: You're max?
ASHLEY: You're max for your-- SAM: Oh, you're max charisma.
Yeah, you are! MARISHA: Sorcerers.
LAURA: Yeah, Sorcerers. MARISHA: It's our spellcasting thing.
LAURA: Max charisma. SAM: Well damn!
TRAVIS: Get in there. ASHLEY: Should you guys go?
LIAM: All right, ladies. MARISHA: We can do it. SAM: But you can't
look like them, but usually it doesn't matter if you've got high enough
charisma, you can still-- LIAM: None of us
look like them. SAM: Yeah, you guys go. MARISHA: Do you want to go?
LAURA: Sure. SAM: ("intimidating")
Do you want to go? Do you want to go? LAURA: (laughs)
MARISHA: Maybe we can find some children. LAURA: (doubtful) Mm.
SAM: I don't like the way you said that. (laughs)
MARISHA: (mumbled justification) All right, all right.
TALIESIN: I was with you. LAURA: They're innocent.
MARISHA: They're innocent and they're brutally honest and they tend to not
have machinations or a motive to hide things. TRAVIS: Plus, dressed this
way, they'll listen to you if you ask them to
come over, right? MARISHA: We should maybe change.
TRAVIS: The Ruby Vanguard seem to be in charge
around here. LAURA: Well.
MARISHA: I don't know if, well-- LAURA: It could just
be Reilorans-- ASHLEY: Is there anything we
can do to buff you guys up? LAURA: -- are not nice
in general, I don't know. TRAVIS: Could be. Go find out.
LIAM: What did you say the features were of these? LAURA: We couldn't see them.
LIAM: We're too far away. TRAVIS: He said meaty hands.
MATT: You're too far away. You can see that they seem
to be bipedal humanoid, but they're definitely squat, and as they move, you can see when their
hands reach out and grab, their fingers are that
thick and it's very, these massive extremities
proportionally to what are
shorter, thicker-- More exaggerated than dwarves
to a certain extent. There seems to be a hunch and a hulkingness to them, but you have no real
proportional size beyond the few Reilorans
that pass by and you gather they're probably
no more than four feet tall. They're just bulky.
LAURA: All right. TALIESIN: I'm willing to
put, I guess good money, whatever that means here, that most Reilorans
are fucking fine. LAURA: Yeah.
TALIESIN: We have only met ones at military
and battle posts, and if I only met people from
military and battle posts, I'd think everyone
was a piece of shit, which I kind of do,
but still. SAM: Can we find
a spot outside of the visual range
to transform? LAURA: Yeah.
TALIESIN: Like a barn. SAM: Yeah, shed, something.
TALIESIN: Esque. LAURA: Yeah, that's
what we were looking for. SAM: Okay. MATT: You find some sort of a storage shed-like dome that sits
on the outskirts of the nearest side of this village.
SAM: Skrrt. LAURA: (chuckles) MATT: You shift over
to that space and you can see this
one fenced-in area, there's one figure that's
currently in the process of carrying a large
satchel that is filled with those red leafy bush, with those red leafy bush, harvested clusters inside, as well as another
odd looking, like a faint aqua or turquoise-colored material,
you don't know what it is. You watch as they're reaching and putting them out
into a round trough. SAM: Cool. MATT: There's currently,
there's no other creatures in this area, it's like they're
preparing for something. You can just see them from
the back, their hood up. But the storage shed
that they came from, the door's ajar
and it looks like it's maybe about
15 by 20 feet, an ovoid shape a little bit, for the strongest
dome structure. LAURA: Yeah, can we--
SAM: Do we go in there? LAURA: Especially if
it's getting dark, we can-- MATT: It's getting dark,
it's easy enough. You all filter inside. ASHLEY: Sun's getting really low.
TRAVIS: Do some of us want to stay in wispy form
and be over watch? MARISHA: I think so, I think so.
LAURA: Yeah, yeah. TRAVIS: In case you get a visitor.
LAURA: Smart. SAM: I'll have to change
to cast this on you. So I'll start the process
of changing back. TALIESIN: Do we want
some emergency muscle? I'll wait behind, but-- SAM: Sure, just to stay in here, just in case.
LIAM: That makes sense. Yeah. TALIESIN: Yeah.
SAM: Sure. TALIESIN: Since it's going
to take 10 minutes for everyone to change over.
MARISHA: So, wispy, wispy, wispy. Going in.
LAURA: It should only take two minutes.
LIAM: We can talk in our minds even from cloud to-- LAURA: Yeah, yeah.
LIAM: Yeah? Cool. MATT: So who's staying in--
LIAM: I'm clouding it for perception.
TRAVIS: Clouds, hands up. MATT: Okay, so that's three
of you are staying up there and the rest of
you are going down. Okay. MARISHA: I don't know if
the Ruby Vanguard cloaks are the right approach.
I'm wondering if we should-- LAURA: I think we should
take them off when we-- MARISHA: Talk to them.
LAURA: Yeah. MARISHA: All right.
MATT: All right. ASHLEY: You're going--
TALIESIN: Good for walking around. SAM: I have to be--
TALIESIN: Take if off when we talk to somebody. SAM: I have to cast
spells on them. ASHLEY: I'm going to go
down with with FCG. SAM: Great, come on down.
ASHLEY: Yeah. MATT: Okay. So that's
five of you down, two of you in the air. SAM: Great.
TALIESIN: That works, too. MATT: Okay. The five of you
(wispy floating) just down into the
ajar entryway to this storage chamber. As you pull in the
dark space inside, there is no light
source in here. You get the sense
that the entity that was using it probably
brought along some sort of light source
or doesn't need it, you're uncertain. But you come inside. You have darkvision, so you can make up
the interior here. It is shelves and
bundles of supplies. It's a storage room. You can see there's
lines of tools, some for harvesting,
some for training and domestication of beings. A lot of harnesses. You can also see a lot
of empty containers and satchels that are
hung up on the side. All sort of yard and
farm work type materials, but familiar in the sense that they're all
completely unfamiliar until you begin to
see them in context. You're like: Okay,
this is a tool shed, this is a storage shed. But yeah, it's pretty full, so it's not a wide
empty space. You're all cramped if
you were to revert, but you can do it. MARISHA: All right, we do it. MATT: All right. You all
begin to transform back, your bodies coming to form. About 30 seconds into
that transformation, the two of you
notice the figure finishes up and
starts walking back towards the storage shed. SAM: Oh boy.
TRAVIS: Incoming. TALIESIN: Oh shit.
LAURA: Oh shit, we're going to just
pop up right? MATT: Comes around the corner,
you hear this dull whistle. "(absent-minded whistling)" Steps inside and they
pull this little necklace up from their neck
and flick it twice up from their neck
and flick it twice with their giant meaty hand, and you hear the
(tinging) as it does. (soft illuminating)
TRAVIS: Sweet. MATT: It glows this
faint, blue glow. All of you, mostly
apparated, stand there in the middle of the space--
SAM: Oh god. MATT: -- as the creature
looks up towards you. LAURA: Don't scream. Please don't scream.
MARISHA: Shh, shh, shh, shh. LAURA: In his head
he hears it, just in case he can't
understand what we're saying. Now, as you look at
the face lit up, you can see the hood
pulled back a little bit. This extremely rotund,
almost cherub-like face with mostly black eyes,
just the very edges of it you can see whites
that are available with wrinkles underneath
here and smile marks. Just a flesh nub where the
nose would be with slits, and this deeply-set mouth that is open and agape,
and the rest of it, the cloak is
covered around it as it holds the thing.
"(fearful sputtering)" LAURA: No, no. MATT: Make
a persuasion check. LAURA: Okay. MARISHA: Can I assist her? Can I aid in that by throwing up my hands and telling them hush? LAURA: Or would that
give me disadvantage? MATT: No, no, that's
what I'm thinking. Because it's Laudna.
ASHLEY: Cool. MARISHA: Uh-huh.
MATT: (laughs) LIAM: But neither of you look like them.
MATT: I'll allow it, I'll allow it. LAURA: Yeah, we don't
look like them, they don't know
that she's scary. LIAM: Yeah, you're
aliens to each other. LAURA: We're both scary.
MATT: That's true, you're both scary, so yeah,
it won't make a difference. MARISHA: Fearne is there
too, right? TALIESIN: And I'm there.
LAURA: Natural 20! ASHLEY: Nice!
LAURA: For a total of-- ASHLEY: Oh, we're
all in there. LAURA: -- 33. TALIESIN: Whoa.
MATT: He goes, "(quick gasps) "What? Who? "Who are you?"
SAM: Oh! MATT: He speaks in Common. TRAVIS: Cool.
LAURA: Wow. SAM: Just saved me
two spell slots. MARISHA and SAM: (laugh)
MATT: And that's where we're going
to end tonight's episode. (uproar)
ASHLEY: No! SAM: We want to talk to him! MATT: I know, and we'll
start the next episode with this conversation.
LAURA: Okay, okay, okay. MATT: I envision this
almost like a weird muscular pod person
from Dark Crystal. That kind of face vibe a little bit.
LAURA: Oh, so cute! MATT: Yeah. LAURA: Oh my god.
TRAVIS: Human skin tone or a certain color? MATT: The blue is--
TRAVIS: Blue, got it. MATT: -- making it change, everything here is lit
blue around his necklace, so you can't really tell in this dark light.
TRAVIS: Okay, okay, okay. Cool.
MATT: But yeah. TRAVIS: Whoa, we got
a new type of person! MARISHA: Oh boy!
TALIESIN: Knew it! LIAM: We're on the fucking moon.
SAM: Cool, cool, cool. ASHLEY: We're on the moon! MATT: Ruidus has been
around for a while and it has its
own ecosystems. TRAVIS: Oh man, I'm stoked. SAM: A moon man.
MATT: This is only the surface. TRAVIS: I'm stoked. TALIESIN: Stop it. LAURA: Okay.
ASHLEY: (excited groan) MATT: I've been waiting
for this for so long! TRAVIS: Good shit, Matt.
LAURA: Yeah. LIAM: This is the game.
LAURA: This is really fun. ASHLEY: Yeah, this is a good game.
LIAM: Fun game. MATT: Well, we'll pick
this up next episode. Thank you all so
much for joining us. We love you very much,
and is it Thursday yet? Good night.
(cheering)
