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: We play
Dungeons & Dragons! MATT: Wow.
SAM: Oh no. MATT: What a perfect time
for me to malfunction because it's our eight-year
anniversary doing this shit. (cheering) MARISHA: Eight crazy years.
TRAVIS: We didn't break it yet! ASHLEY: Woo!
(laughter) MATT: Which, not to add to all the hilarious
discourse about scripting, but we're apparently synchronized
a wild event likelihood with our anniversary. MARISHA: Yeah.
TRAVIS: (laughs) Just like you planned. MATT: Just like I planned. MARISHA: Episode 50,
except this is 51. MATT: This is 51,
exactly. You know-- TRAVIS: Read into that.
MARISHA: Fuck. MATT: Look.
TRAVIS: Read into that one. MATT: Everything is a pattern, Marisha.
MARISHA: We were so close. MATT: But thank you
so much for joining us. Before we jump into
our session tonight, we do have some quick
announcements to get through. Beginning with our first sponsor
of the evening, actually, I think our only sponsor to
the evening, but a big one, "Octopath Traveler." Sam. (cheesy infomercial music) SAM: Hey, hey, hey, shoppers.
Have I got a deal for you. Introducing the incredible
new "Octopath Traveler II," a brand-new entry in the
"Octopath Traveler" series that takes HD-2D graphics, a fusion of retro
pixel art and 3D CG to even greater heights. (airhorn)
But that's not all. "Octopath Traveler II"
fights tough grease stains. Here's how poorly
a leading RPG game cleans this gravy
stained T-shirt. (sad trombone) No thanks. But here's "Octopath
Traveler II" dealing with that
same tough stain. ALL: Whoa! ASHLEY: Wow. (wrong answer buzzer)
SAM: That's not true, but it is incredible. TRAVIS: How does that happen? (airhorn)
SAM: But that's not all. "Octopath Traveler II"
is a tale of eight travelers'
intertwined journeys across an all new
world called Solistia, a world that changes
between night and day to give players more freedom. And it slices and
dices with ease! SAM: Ooh. LAURA: Oh!
(laughter) ASHLEY: Wow. SAM: Again, again, (wrong answer buzzer)
totally false, but totally incredible. (airhorn)
But that's not all! Don't take it from me, here's testimonials
from real people who enjoy
"Octopath Traveler II." Here, Taliesin.
TALIESIN: Oh! With no relation to
previous versions, series veterans and
new players alike can enjoy "Octopath
Traveler II" without issue. Plus, it smells
minty fresh. (sniffs) Oh wow, that just
opened that up. Okay. LIAM: Familiar mechanics
from the original game have been preserved, new mechanics
have been added, and it cleared up my acne
and whitened my teeth. ASHLEY: Ooh. LAURA: Ooh.
TRAVIS: (laughs) SAM: Are these testimonials
completely fabricated? Yes. For a game like this, you
might expect to pay 5,000, 6,000, even $80,000, but if you purchase now, you'll get it for
much lower than that. (airhorn)
But that's not all! (laughter) SAM: I don't know
the actual price. (wrong answer buzzer)
I can only assume it's less than $80,000. TRAVIS: One people would
pay for, yeah, uh-uh. (laughter continues) (airhorn)
SAM: But that's not all! Order now and we'll also
throw in characters like Hikari the warrior,
Agnea the dancer, Castti the apothecary. (laughter) SAM: Partitio the merchant, Osvald the scholar, Throné the thief. (laughter) SAM: Temenos the cleric, and everyone's
favorite, Ochette-- (laughter) LIAM: (laughing)
Oh shit! Oh shit. SAM: -- the hunter. (warped airhorn)
But that's not all! "Octopath Traveler II" is
available on Nintendo Switch, Steam, and
PlayStation 4 and 5. Go to
octopathtraveler2.com today. (airhorn)
But that's not all! Actually, it is. That's all. Matt, back to you.
(laughter continues) MATT: Now, for our
podcast audience, I'm legally required to
state the following. One, "Octopath Traveler II"
does not fight grease stains. Two, "Octopath Traveler II"
does not cut things. ASHLEY: Boo! MATT: And three,
"Octopath Traveler II" is available for $59.99 USD. But the price
may vary depending on where and when you buy it and with what
currency you use. Number four, Sam Riegel
is wearing fake teeth, that's why he sounds weird.
TRAVIS: Nice. SAM: That's actually--
MATT: Okay. SAM: Okay. MARISHA: That is
actually not true. MATT: Now that's
out of the way, Marisha, up to you for
the next announcements. MARISHA: Yes, next week, Matt
and I will be doing a panel at South by Southwest, which is bonkers.
(cheering) SAM: South By, South By.
MARISHA: Yeah, South By, South By, that's what the cool kids call it.
SAM: Mm-hmm. MARISHA: About storytelling and
world-building through games. The panel will take
place on March 13th and you can attend in person
or with an online badge. You can find more
info at critrole.com. TRAVIS: .com.
MATT: Awesome. Thank you, Marisha. Laura/whoever's
helping Laura. ASHLEY: I was going to say--
LAURA: I don't have much of a voice tonight. SAM: Oh!
TRAVIS: Oh no, it's so sad. MARISHA: It's so sad. LAURA: So, Liam, can you-- LIAM: How do we do the-- (like Jester) Hey, hey,
hey, you guys. We got merchandise.
Beauty of Exandria: Creation, Yasha Nydoorin's slashed sleeve.
(exclaiming) LIAM: ♪ (triumphant fanfare) ♪ MATT: That's actually rad.
SAM: The sleeves are pre-cut? MARISHA: Sleeves
are bullshit. LAURA: It's so cool,
it's so pretty. LIAM: It's a crew neck sweatshirt
by artist Adriann Helton. ASHLEY: Good job.
LIAM: Very good. LAURA: Check it out.
TRAVIS: Cool as hell. LAURA: Yes, I wore it out in public
and I got compliments on it. SAM: Did you really?
LAURA: I did. SAM: By just randos? LAURA: Yeah.
ASHLEY: You show some skin. TRAVIS: I haven't even seen it.
ASHLEY: So sexy. MARISHA: So hot.
ASHLEY: Sexy top. SAM: Sexy, or empowering. ASHLEY: Or empowering.
MATT: Both can be. ASHLEY: Both can
be. I'm both. MATT: There you go.
(clicking tongue) (laughs) Awesome. Well, thank
you very much. And I believe that concludes
our announcements. So let's go ahead and jump
into tonight's episode of Critical Role. MARISHA: Wait,
what's our plan? ♪ 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. So last we left off, Sam found a bunch
of hands. (laughs) And also, Bells Hells, upon traveling
all across Marquet in search of a number
of varying threads, have watched them converge as are the various leylines towards this nexus point on the northeastern side
of the Hellcatch Valley, here above an ancient ruin that has been
partially uncovered by one of the
nearby academies, and then taken over
by the Cerberus Assembly, specifically Ludinus Da'leth, in preparation for the
Apogee Solstice, which is nigh. You've all taken your
airship, the Silver Sun, to this location,
divided your troop, along with some
allies you brought up with the crew of the ship. You have on the ship,
currently waiting, your second team,
which is FCG, Fearne, and Ira Wendagoth,
the Nightmare King. They are standing by
at the ready while the rest of you
have begun a slow infiltration of this sunken
pit of an excavation site, along the way, you encountered
a couple of members of the Ruby Vanguard. You defeated them, partially disabled one
of the massive automatons that they were using
to guard the space, and encountered two
other individuals that were also in the process of scoping and
infiltrating this: Beauregard Lionett
and Caleb Widogast. LIAM: Precious babies. (rapid hands clapping) MATT: After a
brief conversation and aligning your
interests and goals, some information was traded and your groups
scattered out amongst the region of this
excavation. (laughs) Helps to build the tension
by staring at you, quiet. But nevertheless, while the
ground team gathers themselves, up on the ship, FCG, Fearne,
what are you up to? SAM: Oh.
ASHLEY: Oh. SAM: Oh god. (clears throat) TRAVIS: You had a week.
I'm sure you're ready. SAM: Did not think that
we would be going first. So Xandis is with
us still, right? MATT: Yeah. Xandis
is with you. The rest of the crew's
currently off and is keeping safe near a cavern
quite a ways away. The dust storm,
while definitely blocking visual past
a certain range, is not in danger of rocking
the ship at the moment. TRAVIS: The best
Lestat vibes right now. ASHLEY: There's really--
Yeah. This is Lestat.
TRAVIS: Have you said your goodbyes to the light? (laughter) SAM: Honestly, I think
we would be practicing with Xandis, going over
and over and over, the plans for the--
ASHLEY: Going with the motions, going over the buttons. SAM: Yeah, the skyship. ASHLEY: The flying, the sailing.
SAM: Yeah. Securing the payload. ASHLEY: Yes.
MATT: Okay. SAM: Getting the bomb
ready, arming it. ASHLEY: Yep, polishing the
knobs, doing all the-- SAM: Polishing the knobs. ASHLEY: On the thing. SAM: There's nothing worse-- ASHLEY: Polishing the knobs on the driving wheel.
SAM: -- than a greasy bomb. You want it to
be nice and shiny. ASHLEY: You want it to be a
nice and shiny driving wheel. MATT: Okay. SAM: Driving wheel. MATT: Fair enough. All right. SAM: But also, maybe, maybe, maybe I'll chat up real
quick, real quick. I don't want to-- Ira. MATT: Certainly. Ira is currently
at the end of the ship, the long eyepiece, the spyglass that you've
seen him wield and glance. He's now currently piercing
through the storm with it, some distance in the direction
of where this excavation is. ASHLEY: Wait, did I
take that from him? SAM: You gave it back.
MATT: You returned it. ASHLEY: Oh that's right,
that's right, that's right. SAM: Can you see
our friends, Ira? MATT: "Oh, I can
see some things, "though not them
at the moment. "This device, it is "different than my
original designs." SAM: You mean the device
you're using right now or the device that
we're going to explode? MATT: "Yes." ASHLEY: What's different
about it? MATT: "I don't fully know.
I need a closer look." SAM: Well, you're
going to get one later. MATT: Go ahead and-- Yep, it's at the time being-- SAM: Guidance!
MATT: Ira goes-- (laughs) Ira goes, "I may
need to get a bit-- "(sighs) I guess when
it's time to get close "and we're about
to prepare ourselves "for the final descent
of your fine skyship, "I'll see what else I
can suss from its design. "For right now, this
storm is frustrating." SAM: You know, I know
that you hold ill will towards the folks
that built this, but also your allegiances
are a little bit murky. What's your ideal? Like, at the end of
the day today, what do you hope happens? ASHLEY: Yeah. End goal
type of a thing. SAM: Yeah, what do you want
to manifest to happen today? MATT: "No one really
asks me these questions. "It's been so much--" SAM: Well, important
to set a goal, so you know if
you've achieved it. MATT: "Hmm."
His long fingers curl and scrape across
the pointy chin. "Ah, wanton destruction, "punishment of those
that wronged me "and disrespected my ability. "Maybe take a few pieces
of odd, obscure, "and somewhat curiously
twisted machinery or... "I don't know, whatever
can be scavenged "from the destruction. "Laugh in the face of those
that crossed my path, "see them to their demise or
wherever else their punishment "and imprisonment may
bring them, and then... "I don't know, where
the winds take me." SAM: Where the winds
take you? I mean, you don't have
any plans beyond that? Like, what's your... What's your five-year plan? Do you have an
end goal in life? I mean, are you
just wandering around, causing mischief
and menace, or do you want to
settle down, or--? MATT: Make a
persuasion check. SAM: Start a family? ASHLEY: Guidance. TRAVIS: Little
nightmare kiddos? SAM: Persuasion? MATT: Yes. SAM: That's a seven. ASHLEY: Oh.
MATT: (laughs) "(sighs) I don't like to
discuss long-term plans, "namely, because I don't "spend a lot of time
considering them. "I'm goal-oriented, meaning
I focus on the goal. "I've been focusing on this
goal for a number of years, "but not much past it. "I like that freedom, "that possibility of seeing
what inspiration hits "in the moment of--" SAM: Huh, you know--
MATT: "Anything." SAM: Fearne, you're
like that, too. You're very--
ASHLEY: Oh yes. SAM: Very in the moment. ASHLEY: That's what
keeps life fun, you know? SAM: Hmm. ASHLEY: Yeah,
flying by the seat of your pants situation. SAM: Maybe I need to do that, too.
MATT: "Yes!" ASHLEY: Of course, it's fun.
SAM: Maybe I need to be more in the moment and stop
worrying about stuff. ASHLEY: Don't need to
worry. Just...yeah. Well, you know,
it can be fun, except when bad stuff
happens, like with us, and then you start
to worry and then-- Anyway, I think it's fun
to just be carefree and-- SAM: All right. ASHLEY: Yeah. I feel
a little bit nervous. SAM: I can sense that.
ASHLEY: Yeah. MATT: "You want to know
what the secret is?" ASHLEY: Yes. SAM: To life? MATT: "To feeling
completely free?" SAM: All right. MATT: "Friends
complicate things." SAM: Oh. MATT: "The less threads
you need to maintain, "there's nothing to
hold you back." LAURA: (whispering) He
needs some friends. SAM: All right. MATT: (spyglass clacking) Continues to look out
into the dust storm. SAM: Should we reach
out to them? ASHLEY: Yes.
You're able to, right? SAM: I am, but, I mean-- ASHLEY: We don't have a
signal. Did we have a signal? Did we come up with a signal of when we were supposed to--
SAM: They said they were going to call us, but I don't-- It's been a while. ASHLEY: Well,
we can just wait. We can--
SAM: No. No, I'll reach out now.
ASHLEY: Okay. SAM: I'll reach out.
Who should I call? Who's good at this stuff? Who's really good at
talking right now? Imogen? ASHLEY: Well, I would
reach out to Imogen or I would reach out
to Laudna or-- SAM: Maybe I'll do someone that we haven't heard
from in a while. LAURA: Don't cut me out. (laughter) SAM: Well, I mean, (chuckles)
I don't want to-- (pigeon coos) (laughter) SAM: You want to
save your voice for when you actually
might need it later. MATT: (laughs) TRAVIS: All in. SAM: I will send a Sending to Orym of the Air Ashari. MATT: All righty. SAM: (clears throat) Fearne and Grass,
checking in. Have you made it inside?
Are you safe? Are you going to let us
know when to go? How's Imogen's voice? (laughter) ASHLEY: You have three
more, three more words. SAM: Okay. Ira hates friends. (laughter) ASHLEY: That was good,
that was good. TALIESIN: Sure got a really
good laugh out of there. ASHLEY: That was really good. LIAM: We've made it. Made some friends? Could use some help with
robot here, Letters. Any advice for a jumpstart? Not sure.
Plan might be changing. LAURA: Give them
something solid. SAM: Location, location. LAURA: Don't come. LIAM: We're on the rim. LAURA: (blows nose, laughs) LIAM: It wasn't an accident. (laughter) SAM: Oh my lord. ASHLEY: What? What? What?
SAM: My Lordt. (laughter) SAM: I heard Imogen
sneezing in the background. I think she
might have some postnasal--
ASHLEY: It's probably dust. Yeah, yeah, yeah. SAM: Oh, the dust.
ASHLEY: Yes. TRAVIS: Got to bring those goggles.
MARISHA: Yep. SAM: They said
that they found an automaton of some sort
and they need help with it. ASHLEY: Well, that's right
up your alley, right? SAM: Yeah. I could-- Oh man. But where he-- Oh. I could go. I don't want
to leave you. ASHLEY: Well, we could just--
SAM: They're not too far. ASHLEY: No, they're not too-- Well, how would we
even get there? SAM: I mean, what
can you do? You can turn into
something, can't you? ASHLEY: I can, but I was
going to save something to make sure that the
people on the ship live, but I mean, that
doesn't matter. LAURA: Just run. ASHLEY: I mean,
technically if we succeed, everybody wins
and lives, so. SAM: As I established
before, last time, I thought it was
bizarre at the time when I flipped the coin and my god told me to leave
innocent people on the ship. I think she may
have been foreshadowing <i>this
moment</i> right here. TRAVIS: Here we go.
TALIESIN: Oh no. SAM: I think in
a weird way, she was telling me "Leave the skyship "in the capable hands
of Xandis and Ira." ASHLEY: I don't know
who to trust here. SAM: Me or this. ASHLEY: I trust <i>you</i>. I'm not sure about the coin.
SAM: I trust the coin. ASHLEY: (sighs) Well, maybe
you need one more flip. SAM: Okay. Heads we stay, tails we go? ASHLEY: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
TRAVIS: (claps) Sorry. ASHLEY: Yeah. SAM: You know what, though? Ira just said to
live in the moment, to be present, to just go
with whatever happens. ASHLEY: So we should leave.
SAM: This is happening. ASHLEY: Okay... SAM: Maybe it was a sign. I'll flip, just in case. ASHLEY: You flip.
(laughter) SAM: We go.
LAURA and MARISHA: (gasp) ASHLEY: Okay. I'm going to go over
to Ira and Xandis, are they in the-- MATT: Ira's at the front of the
ship near where you guys are. Xandis is back, actually,
still controlling the ship. ASHLEY: Do you want
to deal with Ira or do you want to deal with
Xandis, or do we go as a team? SAM: First of all,
before we do anything, I'm going to use the
Pearl of Possibility, is that what it's called?
TRAVIS: Mote. ASHLEY: Oh, I have one of those too!
SAM: No, not the Mote of Possibility, The Pearl of Power.
MATT: Pearl of Power. MARISHA: Pearl of Power.
ASHLEY: Well, I have a mote. SAM: I'm going to restore one
3rd-level spell to myself. MATT: Okay, yeah.
SAM: Okay, okay. Give me back my Sending
that I just took away. MATT: You got it.
ASHLEY: What's the mote thing? SAM: The mote gives you
rerolls, I believe twice a day? LIAM: Each one is one,
isn't it? MATT: You drink the potion and it should say on the
Potion of Possibility. SAM: The potion says two a day.
MATT: I think it gives you two-- LAURA: You get two.
LIAM: Last time, you got three. LAURA: No, it gives you two.
TRAVIS and ASHLEY: Potion of Possibility? TRAVIS: Yeah. ASHLEY: (mumbling) SAM: It just lets
you reroll, though, it doesn't give you extra spell slots.
TRAVIS: "Lasts for eight hours "or until used." LAURA: Eight hours?
TRAVIS: "One--" MATT: It lasts for eight
hours until it's used, yeah. TRAVIS: "Attack roll, ability
check, or saving throw. "You can expend your fragment
to roll an additional d20 "or choose which of
the two d20s you use. "Alternatively, when an attack
roll is made against you, "you can do the same thing
and make them reroll." LAURA: Are you going to take it?
ASHLEY: Yeah, I think so. LAURA: Okay.
LIAM: It's a luck roll. ASHLEY: (glugs) SAM: Do you want to try to
convince Xandis to stay with this--
Oh my god, you're glowing. MATT: Yeah.
ASHLEY: Really? MATT: It's odd, because
when you drink it it has a cold metallic
sensation to it. It's flavorless. It makes your hair
stand up a little bit from the immediate
cold sensation, and then becomes
this weird buzzing in the inside
of your stomach, like a weird static. Then suddenly, for
a brief moment, you feel like there's
trails off your hands. For a second, it
maybe reminds you of when you ate
some of the things you weren't supposed to in
the middle of the forest. But then a clarity hits you, and you have the sense that
you have a little more control over your direction in
life than you normally do. SAM: Hmm. ASHLEY: (sultry) Hello. (laughter)
SAM: Oh! ASHLEY: I feel so tuned
into everything. SAM: What is this
deep baritone? ASHLEY: Oh, this deep baritone?
SAM: Yeah. (laughter) ASHLEY: I don't know. I feel like, you
know that feeling when you put your
tongue on a battery? SAM: That's how I
feel <i>all the time</i>. ASHLEY: Is it?
TRAVIS: Batteries. ASHLEY: Okay, do we talk-- Are you going to take Ira or
are you going to take Xandis? SAM: I have a good
thing going with Ira. Maybe you should
talk to Xandis. ASHLEY: Great. We're just telling them they're going to take
the ship on their own? We're leaving? SAM: And that Xandis
can trust Ira... ASHLEY: That--
TRAVIS: Look at Matt. ASHLEY: -- does not sound like
a very convincing argument. SAM: (sighs) But we do
know what Ira wants. Crashing the ship aligns
with Ira's goals, saving Xandis' life
might not. So how do we... ASHLEY: How do we-- I mean, and there's so many
other people on the ship. SAM: No, no, we
got them all off. ASHLEY: That's right,
we got them all off. Jeez Louise!
MATT: (laughs) ASHLEY: Sorry, I remember. I remember, I remember,
I remember. SAM: All right, all right,
it's going to be fine. ASHLEY: All right, all right.
SAM: It's going to be fine. Hi, guys! MATT: (laughs)
SAM: Heya, fellas. ASHLEY: Hey! MATT: You see Ira's still
glancing over the edge, big long knee bent
over the front like a captain in the front
leaning into a storm. Pulls the spyglass
back (whirring). ASHLEY: We need to have
a group meeting. MATT: "Well, I suppose we
should go to the captain then." ASHLEY: Yes.
MATT: And skitters off in the direction of Xandis. Xandis is like, "What sort of
meeting we talking about, huh? "What's going on? "Really tell me. "I'm kind of in the dust here,
literally and figuratively." ASHLEY: Sure, sure. Well, we were thinking
that we need to leave. SAM: Guidance.
MATT: "Oh, we're going now?" ASHLEY: Well, we were
thinking of the two of us needed to go separately
right now, possibly, and then you and Ira are going to do the ship
into the thing yourselves. But-- MATT: Xandis glances
over the wheel and Ira's just curled there. Looks up and smiles at them. (Ira) "We can do this." Xandis goes, "Oh, okay. "Great, no, I guess we should
have a conversation for once, "me and this person who my
life's in their hands, okay." ASHLEY: Oh, yeah, yeah,
yeah, yeah. SAM: Yeah, Ira,
it's <i>very important</i> that you get Xandis
safely off this vessel before it crashes. MATT: (Ira) "Of course." SAM: Can we... Can we trust you on this? He's very important to us and to our escape plan, and
to <i>your</i> escape plan as well, to get us all out of here. MATT: "I'm a creature
of my word. "I will get your captain
off this vessel safely. "I promise." SAM: Insight check.
MATT: Make an insight check. SAM: (nervously pants) Okay.
MARISHA: I mean, he is... SAM: 23.
ASHLEY: He has been-- SAM: Oh my god. TALIESIN: Hey! SAM: I'm getting a whisper. MARISHA: Oh! SAM: Oh. MARISHA: This whisper,
Sam does this, is brought to you
by WizKids, I guess.
SAM: That was it. That was it.
MARISHA: That's it. MATT: (laughs) TRAVIS: Sam did a lot of
pharmaceuticals before this game. MATT: Apparently.
LIAM: <i>This game.</i> SAM: How will you get
Xandis off the vessel? ASHLEY: Well.
SAM: You said you have some-- Well, okay. Okay.
(laughter) MATT: "What am I hearing? "I'm only catching
a few words." SAM: You've got a spell
that can take you and a fellow creature
short distances, correct? MATT: "Yes." SAM: Not too short, though?
TRAVIS: Too short, baby. SAM: Like as you're
plummeting from the sky you'll be able to to get
safely to the ground. ASHLEY: With someone else,
not just yourself. With Xandis.
MATT: "Indeed. "Just one of you, though." ASHLEY: Just Xandis.
MATT: "Which would be Xandis "if you leave us behind. "So yes, that is true." ASHLEY: So then you and I just--
SAM: You feel good about this? ASHLEY: No,
but I don't know-- Yes, I do, I do. I trust you. I trust you, Ira, as a... You're going to do this. You're going to do this,
and you're going to do it-- TRAVIS: As a what?
ASHLEY: -- so good. MATT: "I appreciate your
vote of confidence." The black vacuous space
that is his eyes looking back at
you unblinkingly. ASHLEY: But what I need you to do--
MATT: "Hmm?" ASHLEY: Is to destroy, okay? MATT: "Oh, I intend to."
ASHLEY: Okay. MATT: "When do we destroy?" SAM: We will send you
a message psychically when it's time to go. MATT: "Very well." SAM: Captain Xandis, to
help you in today's events, here, take this, and I'll give him the
Potion of Possibility. MATT: Mm. SAM: Can you drink that now? It'll make you just a
little bit more fortunate. MATT: They glance over at it. "I've dranken weirder things "without really asking any
questions, so, bottom's up." (glugs) "That wasn't even liquid. "That was (exhales). "Okay." Throws it over
their shoulder. (glass shattering) ASHLEY: All right. So we're going to go in. SAM: I can't see anything
with these glasses on. MATT, LAURA, and SAM: (laugh) ASHLEY: We're going to go in now.
SAM: Yeah, we're going to go. Changebringer, please grant
them good fortune and luck, and we'll see you there. MATT: (Ira) "Indeed." Ira leans in real
close to you and gets right up into
where your ear would be and just goes, "I think it's
missing a lens." SAM: Oh. ASHLEY: What did he say? SAM: The big one? MATT: "Just an observation." TRAVIS: You mean like the one
that we had that, but was (clicks).
MARISHA: Yeah. TRAVIS: You're welcome.
SAM: That's good, isn't it? MATT: "Could be. "Might be that
they're not ready." SAM: (gasps) Thank you. I'll tell the others. TRAVIS: Don't fucking
act like. (laughs) MATT: "Safe travels."
SAM: You too. LIAM: All part of the plan. SAM: Okay, let's go. Are you carrying me? Are we just walking? Are we stealthing? ASHLEY: We could
use magic, right? SAM: We can use magic,
yeah, of course. Why wouldn't we? MATT: "You want me to get
you a little closer "and drop you off? "What's safer? I don't know."
SAM: No, no, no. ASHLEY: It's fine,
it's fine, it's fine. SAM: We're going to walk. ASHLEY: We're going to walk,
we're going to walk. We're going to walk.
SAM: Yeah. ASHLEY: Because we should,
yeah, we're going to walk. SAM: I'm not really stealthy.
ASHLEY: No. SAM: Okay. ASHLEY: But isn't there-- Yeah, we're going to walk.
SAM: We're going to stealth. We're going to stealth over. MATT: "I'll take it down to
drop you off on the ground "because I don't think
you're going to want "to jump off from
this high up, so--" SAM: Oh, we're
floating right now? Okay, okay, yeah. Please do.
MATT: (whooshing) Takes you down. (thudding)
Drops you onto the surface of the Hellcatch Valley. TRAVIS: Should've
just jumped. MATT: And leaves you
to your devices. So here you are now standing, the two of you alone in
the middle of this (whooshing) rapidly coasting dust storm. ASHLEY: (coughs)
All right, here we go. SAM: Yep. MATT: Right before
you leave, Ira goes, "That way! "And don't get lost." ASHLEY: I didn't know
that was a possibility. I can see it. We can see it,
right, from where we are? MATT: No, you're like
a mile away, right? SAM: We're just going
to go that way. ASHLEY: We're going
to go straight. LAURA: It's a 10-minute walk. ASHLEY: Yeah, 10-minute walk.
We can go. MATT: All right. SAM: Extra slow for stealth. MATT: Okay.
ASHLEY: Yeah. MATT: I'd like
you both to make stealth checks
for me, please, with advantage
because you are in the middle of
a dust storm. SAM: With disadvantage for me
because I'm me. So just a single roll. LAURA: Guide yourself.
LIAM: Beep bop boop. SAM: Forgot to. I still got a 14. ASHLEY: You said advantage?
MATT: Yes. ASHLEY: Okay. Okay, okay, okay. Where's the sharpies? LAURA: We've been
playing Rollies with Ronin at home
all the time, and he's got his own method for rolling dice.
MATT: He's built a technique for dice rolling?
LAURA: Yeah. MATT: Aww!
TRAVIS: He won 20 to six yesterday
against me. LAURA: He beat Travis' ass
in Rollies. ASHLEY: 17.
MARISHA: At Rollies? MATT: 17 and 14, okay.
SAM: 14. MATT: I'll take him to Vegas. You cruise forward
into the dust storm in the direction where you
believe Ira was pointing, carefully and quietly. Because you're
going stealthily, it'll take you a
little longer to get there, but who's guiding? Who is paying attention to
push through this storm? ASHLEY: I'm going to
be paying attention. MATT: Whoever it is, they'll be rolling
perception or survival, so. ASHLEY: I have
pretty high both. What do you have? SAM: Well, we don't know.
ASHLEY: We don't know. SAM: We don't know. I trust you.
ASHLEY: You do? All right. SAM: Can I Guide her?
MATT: You can. SAM: Okay, I'll Guide
the shit out of her. MATT: So Fearne, make a perception or
survival check. ASHLEY: (sighs) Come on. Okay, okay. SAM: With--
ASHLEY: And with the Guidance. SAM: Yeah. LAURA: You should move this.
ASHLEY: I know, I should. SAM: (raspy)
You should move this. LAURA: Shut up. ASHLEY: 27.
SAM: Oh ho ho <i>ho</i> ho ho. ASHLEY: (snaps)
MATT: Okay. ASHLEY: I know exactly
where to fucking go. SAM: Shit.
MATT: You do. You saw the
point of Ira's arm and quickly picked
out a few shadows on what little bit of
horizon you could see through the dust storm. Watching the pattern of
the wind as it's traveling and waiting for it to shift, you begin to triangulate
where you're going and where you're standing and do not lose any
time in the approach. So what would've
been 20 minutes-- What is 20 minutes now because you're moving
at half speed stealthily to approach
the edge of this pit, it would've been longer,
or you would've been lost. ASHLEY: We did it. MATT: You would've had
to have been found. But you feel confident
in the direction you travel. While you are traveling and
trying to catch up with this, what are the
rest of you doing? LIAM: Letters? Letters? I mean, they just checked in, but that was all I got. MARISHA: Are they coming? LIAM: They were asking if
everything was on track. Is everything on track? MARISHA: Did you tell
them to come here? LIAM: Do we want them
to come here now? LAURA: Are they coming?
LIAM: They didn't say. SAM: Oh shit. LAURA: Do we need to-- Are we waiting for them
or do we go down? TALIESIN: I say we give
them five minutes and then we just
head straight-- LIAM: We've been spotted the second we got boots
on the ground here. I don't know. I mean, the inside of this
thing is pretty cavernous. We could hide inside of
that, if we could make it go, but I don't know if we
want to call them back or-- MARISHA: How many uniforms
did we just swipe? How many uniforms--
MATT: Three. LAURA: We took three
and we already had-- TALIESIN: So we have
how many uniforms total? MARISHA: Three, or we
had some that were shite. TALIESIN: Three good ones
and three iffy ones. MARISHA: Three
good ones, okay. TALIESIN: All right. TRAVIS: I've got 20 minutes
left on my wolf form, I think. MATT: Mm-hmm.
SAM: Oh no. MARISHA: How many
of those you get? Three?
TRAVIS: <i>Uno</i>. SAM: Oh no. MATT: Unless you take
a short rest, right? TRAVIS: Yeah.
LAURA: I mean-- Oh, but that's an hour. TALIESIN: I mean, how long
have we been here for? MATT: You've been
here for about, I mean, actual arrival,
about 20, 25 minutes or so, from the combat to
meeting Beau and Caleb to-- It's up to you guys. You don't know quite how
imminent the solstice is. It's your call. TALIESIN: If we're
waiting for them, we can start
burning a short rest while we're waiting for them. MARISHA: We already
got a little bit of a head start
on that short rest? LIAM: Well, we got
this Warder, if that's what
they're called, on its back
half-hidden by a tent. Do we want to try to stand
it up or leave it hidden? Half-hidden?
TALIESIN: I think we leave it where it is
until Letters gets here. LIAM: There's people walking
all over the place here. TRAVIS: That's okay, if
they come over to inspect it, we just, you know,
cut their Achilles' heels and add them to the pile. TALIESIN: Or we just
be irritated at it. I get the feeling this
is the sort of thing that happens all the time. This is a very complicated-- MARISHA: Oh, just look-- TRAVIS: I could be
the head mechanic. I love working with metal. LIAM: They spot--
Oh wow. Make a deception check.
(laughter) LIAM: They spotted
you and I like that. MARISHA: It's
very frustrating. We had scarves
and everything. TALIESIN: I feel like that
was special circumstances. LIAM: Yeah. MARISHA: I think that these
uniforms we have are better. She said, convincing herself. LIAM: I really wish Letters
and I had exchanged more meaningful information.
SAM: (laughs) TALIESIN: It's
just like them. MATT: It's about this moment, about halfway through
your short rest-- LAURA: Oh shit. MATT: That you notice
a pair of individuals beginning to approach
from a western angle. You can see their scarves
and cloaks flowing a bit in the dust storm
as they begin to look in the direction
of the hulking automaton that is partially covered. LIAM: Friend or foe? MATT: Very much not friend, or at least you don't
recognize these figures. They appear to be
in similar garb as to-- At least one of them appears
to be in Vanguard robes. MARISHA: Fuck. TRAVIS: You want me
to handle this? LIAM: Approaching--
LAURA: We can just say our Warder went down. TRAVIS: Yeah.
Corrupted power core. Waiting on replacement parts. LAURA: Sure. The bodies
are hidden, right? MARISHA: Yes. LAURA: Or the soldiers--
TRAVIS: They're in the big tent. MARISHA: Stripped them and then
put them in the-- All right. Then we threw on some
of the extra gear. MATT: Sure. LIAM: We don't all have
to be out here, too. Chet, do you two
want to handle it? LAURA: Sure.
LIAM: I'll duck into a tent. TALIESIN: Yeah, I'll
duck into a tent. MARISHA: If, um-- If I say "chickpeas," that
means it's an emergency. If I say "chickpeas," that
means it's an emergency. TALIESIN: "Chickpeas" means
punch somebody? MARISHA: Yep.
TALIESIN: Okay. LIAM: Now I want
chickpeas. Let's go. TALIESIN: Oh god,
I'd kill for some chickpeas.
MATT: The two figures approach. One of them appears to be
a stockier dwarf-like figure from what you can tell. Not wearing Vanguard
attire, this one appears to be more in a patchwork
Paragon's Call outfit. And is walking two feet away from a tall, thin figure. Humanoid, hood up, you know, both of them with scarf
wraps over their face. As they begin to approach-- MARISHA: I just kick it. Dahh! Ahh! MATT: A voice enters your mind
and sourcelessly goes, "What is the problem here?" MARISHA: Damn thing
just went down, just started shorting out and going crazy and
then hit the ground. I say back in his brain. MATT: Make a deception check. MARISHA: I'm okay at those. 19. SAM: Whoa. Okay
MATT: 19. Okay. The figure, you don't make
any details out of from beneath the
scarf, necessarily, but it's odd to have
another voice in your mind. You're only used
to really one. The individual glances
and looks over, the Call figure walks up and you can see the
beard beneath the scarf, (wind whooshing)
blowing to the side as they pull their
walking stick, their staff-type thing
they're walking with, and they (jabbing) poke the sides of it. "These things are
ridiculous. (groans)" The individual
looks back at you and you hear the voice go, "Well, find someone to
fix it immediately." MARISHA: Yes, sir. MATT: They both turn
and continue to walk and loop around the outside. MARISHA: I look busy. TRAVIS: Did you
recognize the voice? MARISHA: Yeah, did
I recognize the voice? MATT: Mm-mm. ("No.")
TRAVIS: Male voice? MATT: Male voice, yeah. LIAM: Accent? MARISHA: Sound affluent?
Elven? MATT: More or less, yeah. MARISHA: Wizard shit? MATT: Not sure
if it's wizard shit, but definitely sounded
like at least a-- MARISHA: Mr. Fancy Pants? MATT: Little fancy, yeah. TRAVIS: The person
they were with, the gruff voiced individual.
Physical type? Big? Strapping? Small?
MATT: No. Pretty wide and beefy. TRAVIS: Strapped? Weapons? MATT: Make a perception
check for me. Disadvantage because
the dust storm, actually. TRAVIS: Eugh.
That's a dirty 20. Not bad. 14. MATT: 14. Yes, there was a
large, rifle-like device that was strapped
onto their back, and you could see a cutlass or some sort of a curved
shortsword on the right side. Then, of course,
they have the staff they were walking with
through the dust storm TRAVIS: The one that
barked out the orders, did they seem to have
any armaments on them at all? Or unarmed? MATT: Unarmed. TRAVIS: Everybody clock that? LAURA: Mm. TRAVIS: That's a big disparity
between those two. MARISHA: Or the other
doesn't need to be armed. TRAVIS: (laughs) I know!
MARISHA: Yeah. MATT: But because there
wasn't any sort of occurrence, through a quick
bit of deception-- MARISHA: We can continue
our short rest? MATT: You can continue
your short rest. MARISHA: Okay. MATT: Before you finish
your short rest, you see two more figures begin to arrive--
MARISHA: Goddamn it! MATT: -- through the dust.
LIAM: That's fair. MATT: There are
many individuals that are doing patrols and
keeping watch around here. You very rapidly notice
these figures both look odd in their shapes.
They are not normal individuals. SAM: Where are we? LIAM: (goat bleating) MARISHA: Oh, okay.
Oh god, are these-- TRAVIS: I'll take
these ones out! MARISHA: (laughs)
TRAVIS: (growls) LAURA: FCG? Is that you?
SAM: (gasps) SAM: Oh god! LAURA: Over here.
SAM: Fearne? ASHLEY: What? SAM: I'm hearing things. LAURA: Oh, come on. SAM: It's a voice
I don't recognize. (laughter) SAM: It sounds evil,
malevolent of some sort. ASHLEY: Oh, someone's already
trying to break in? SAM: Something tired,
worn, withered. ASHLEY: Say, "Get out of here,
I don't want it." SAM: Sickness.
ASHLEY: Get out of my head. SAM: Get out of my head. Get out of my head. LAURA: Go back to
your fucking ship. SAM: You devil woman. (laughter) SAM: Wait! ASHLEY: Who is it? SAM: It's got a twang. A familiar twang,
it might be-- ASHLEY: Who do we know
that has a twang? LIAM: It's Holly Hunter.
ASHLEY: What's a twang? (laughter) LAURA: Imogen, is that you?
Can you hear me? LAURA: Yeah.
SAM: (gasps) What have they done to you? LAURA: It's a dust storm,
you know, it just got-- (clears throat) SAM: Oh no!
LAURA: Just get over here. Stop making me talk. SAM: Okay, I'm sorry. Yeah.
Where are you? Oh! You're right
in front of me! ASHLEY: I see them, I see them,
I see them, I see them. (laughter) ASHLEY: Hi. Hi. LAURA: Hi.
SAM: Hi. ASHLEY: Hi.
You're all still alive. LAURA: So good you came. ASHLEY: Yeah!
LIAM: What are you doing here? SAM: You told me to come! LIAM: I asked you for
advice on that thing! ASHLEY: Huh?
LAURA: This is the thing. SAM: Yeah,
that's why we came. You said you needed
you needed a robot. LIAM: What's going on
with Xandis? ASHLEY: Xandis and Ira
are taking care of it. SAM: They're actually
getting along great. ASHLEY: The two of them
are going to do it. SAM: They have
a lot in common. They both live in the now. LAURA: You're now in red. LIAM: Ira's a fey sociopath! SAM: Well, now let's not
judge lest ye be judged. LIAM: I will judge him! ASHLEY: It's a certain
way of thinking, that he said that-- SAM: Watch who you're
calling a fey sociopath in front of, you know? (laughter) LIAM: She's <i>our</i>
fey sociopath! ASHLEY: That's true,
I belong to you all. MARISHA: But you know,
she's-- Ira's a man of his word. ASHLEY: Ira is a man
of his word. He even said that,
and I think-- MARISHA: See, he said it. TRAVIS: ("Follow the Yellow Brick Road")
♪ Ira's a man of his word ♪ TRAVIS, ASHLEY, and SAM:
♪ Ira's a man of his word ♪ ♪ Ira's, Ira's, Ira's ♪
LIAM: ♪ Murder, murder, murder ♪ TRAVIS: ♪ Ira's a man of his word ♪
LIAM: ♪ Murder, murder, murder ♪ ASHLEY: I really think
they're going to do it. SAM: He's so fueled by rage, and wanting to
destroy this thing. I think he'll do
whatever it takes, even if it means
doing the right thing. SAM: He told him a secret. He said he was
looking through the-- SAM: Oh yeah! He mentioned-- Thank you.
ASHLEY: You're welcome. SAM: He mentioned that he
was studying the thing that we're trying to explode, and he said that it looks
like it's missing a lens. I don't know if that-- LAURA: Like the one you had? SAM: I don't know if it's ready.
ASHLEY: Probably. SAM: It might not
be ready to go, which might buy some time-- LAURA: That's great!
LIAM: That'd be good. ASHLEY: But that means
it wouldn't work, right? TALIESIN: Or that it
would work wrong. LAURA: Mm.
ASHLEY: Oh. MARISHA: Well, then it
could be ready any moment, they could be transporting
it from someone's pocket. So I think
we should operate-- SAM: So if we see anyone go
up and start working on it-- MARISHA: Just murder! LIAM: Like the last little piece.
TRAVIS: Or! Or we need to-- (deeply) Or if we need
to act like we have top secret clearance--
SAM: Wait! TRAVIS: We could have news
on the delivery of the lens. SAM: Do we still
have the other lens that we broke and re-fixed? TRAVIS: We still have it,
but it doesn't work. SAM: Yeah, but
they don't know that! TRAVIS: That's right.
SAM: We could hold it up and say, "We're supposed to put this
on the top of the thing, "let us through." MARISHA: FCG,
that's brilliant! SAM: Well, I think it
was more Chetney's idea. TRAVIS: It was
a co-sponsored idea. MARISHA: Chetney,
that's brilliant! SAM: Ah, your voice is
weird, too. Is it the dust? TRAVIS: The fucking dust
just got in there. MARISHA: (laughs) TALIESIN: So Laudna,
that was a great idea. It's in the hole,
let me open it up. MARISHA: Thank you.
TALIESIN: Gah. I'm hopping in.
MARISHA: I'm brilliant. LAURA: Do you want to
see if you can get this big thing working? SAM: Oh, this is the thing? MATT: You look over
and you can see this massive automaton, probably 15 to 20 feet tall, it's hard to tell
from this angle. It's partially now
covered on the base, of the dust that's
blown in around it. But it is a rotund,
egg-shiped-- Egg-shiped entity.
Apparently-- Egg shiped! I don't know why that happened.
LIAM: (Kiwi accent) Bacon and eggs. MATT: (laughs)
ASHLEY: (Kiwi accent) Bacon and eggs. SAM: All right, so-- LIAM: Oh, before that-- Back off a second. How is it Xandis and Ira
are getting off that ship? Do they have a plan?
Did you have a plan? SAM: As they're plummeting
to their death, Ira is going to grab Xandis and teleport them
somehow to the ground. ASHLEY: He promised he would. SAM: He vowed to us. ASHLEY: Yeah.
SAM: They'll be okay. ASHLEY: Yeah, I think
they're going to-- They got this. TRAVIS: Nothing to
do about it now. TALIESIN: I'm
calling it 60/40. SAM: Okay, which is the 60? TALIESIN: I think I'm going to
keep that to myself, but-- LAURA: I don't need
to read your mind to-- TALIESIN: No. SAM: You want me to turn on
this robot to fight for us? SAM: You want me to turn on
this robot to fight for us? LIAM: I don't know, maybe,
or to get us down inside. MARISHA: Yes. Maybe you
could pilot it. TALIESIN: Or we could
hide some of us in it. MARISHA: Yes.
It's got a big old belly. LIAM: It's like a
one-bedroom in there. SAM: All right,
someone hoist me up, and you guys are watching out
that no one's coming, right? TRAVIS: I got you! TALIESIN: People are
coming all the time. Let's just put them in. TRAVIS: The wind's so strong.
SAM: (concerned yelling) ASHLEY: I'm keeping
a lookout. MATT: There is a doorway-type
front to the compartment that is its central torso. It looks like it's essentially a
central cargo space in the middle of
this automaton that is used both for defense and being sentinel
to the facility, but also for carrying
and helping construction, hauling of things
to and from. But as you, with
Chetney's wolven help, crawl inside
and look about it, it's definitely
sustained a bit of damage. There are some scuffs
and some dings on it. The interior, you can see the power core
is completely fried. You see the bits of
the inside basically-- Based on the
conversations that you had with both the professor and-- SAM: Imahara.
MATT: -- Imahara Joe, you thankfully glean
at a quick glance the basics behind what should
work inside, though it's not. SAM: And I have a sense of-- So I know how
it's supposed to work, can I figure out what's
wrong with it? Is it just-- MATT: The power core's fried. SAM: It's just
the power cord? MATT: Yeah, you look inside and there is one
of those arcane orbs that's built up in the inside and it's housed within. You can see it's
cracked and dark. SAM: So there's one power
cord that I can identify that's the fault? MATT: It's the power core.
SAM: Oh, the power core, I thought you said cord. MATT: Sorry, the orb there, there's a central arcane
claw at the bottom of it that connects to the rest
of the device, the inside. SAM: I mean, wow. Okay. I'm going to try. Is there anything
attached to the core? MATT: Yeah, there's a
claw-like piece of machinery that's clung to the top
of it that arcs off and attaches to where
you see runic, splayed vein-type bits
of machinery spread throughout the
rest of the device. SAM: That's the only
connection point? Is this like--
MATT: But you can see, I mean, half of it's embedded
into the top where the head is. TRAVIS: Going to hop
in the core? SAM: Can I investigate
around to see if I can... If I were going to tether
myself to it somehow, is there any
plug, socket? MATT: Make an arcana check. SAM: An arcana check. TALIESIN: With the guide. SAM: Guidance. Thank you. TRAVIS: With a guide.
TALIESIN: With a Guidance. TRAVIS: (deeply) Fucking
pigeons in the sandstorm. SAM: It's not great. Not great.
TRAVIS: (deeply) Desert pigeons. SAM: Seven? MATT: Seven? You don't see anything speci--
SAM: Wait, wait, wait, wait! It says there's a little
A next to my arcana, that says that means--
LAURA: Advantage! SAM: I can't tell
why, though. MARISHA: Whatever.
Trust it. SAM: It says advantage on-- MATT: Because of your Aeormaton
ability? Harmonious-- SAM: It says, "Intelligence checks made
to reveal information "about a creature or
object you can see." I can see this.
MATT: Yeah. So roll again. LAURA: And Guide yourself.
SAM: A natural 20. (cheering)
MATT: (laughs) ASHLEY: Let's go.
TRAVIS: Let's go. MATT: You glance up and you
see the cable that's connected to this power core, it's
dug into the crystal, but you can see the cracks
that have spread throughout and make it loose
on one side. So since it's on its side,
you reach over and grab and yank on one end
and it dislodges. You pull enough and
(thuds) it comes free and you can see it's
a three-pronged claw at the end of it. You realize it has a
small connecting point in the center of it, and when it's affixed
to a source of power that can be used to generate
and run power to the automaton. SAM: Okay. I got to open myself up, or maybe I don't. I got to try something
first before I pop-- I don't know if I can
even pop open myself. I'd have to do
surgery on myself! Wow. LAURA: Wow. SAM: First, I'm going to try
this first and see if it works. I'm going to undo
my scrunchie, and take my hair
down, my wires, and I'm going to try to tie them into
this connection point. to tie them into
this connection point. See if I can't wrap them
around in a specific way to get to metal on metal.
TRAVIS: To hot wire it? MARISHA: He's totally
hot wiring, guys. MATT: With a natural 20 on your
arcana check, I'll allow it. SAM: Okay.
MATT: So you you take these, You know that you could
probably get this up inside and attach it to
your actual core, but you attempt to see if there is some sort of
loose connection here. While it's probably
not as much power as could be put into it, as soon as you begin to
tether them in there, and basically wrap the
claw under your head, (crunches) It grasps on. You all see a blue flash of
sparks (electrical sparking) from the inside
of this area and suddenly the still,
lifeless automaton (power humming) begins to hum slightly.
SAM: I'm going to try pump a little bit more
energy into it or something.
TRAVIS: Are we turning it back on without changing
its programming or altering the runes
or anything like that? SAM: I don't know. We're
going to find that out next. MATT: As soon as that comes
on, you're still yourself, but you sense
your consciousness also connected to
whatever this is, and it is more or less
a blank psychic cockpit, and it is more or less
a blank psychic cockpit, if you will. You suddenly sense-- You have control
of your body, but you now sense arms
and legs beyond your physical self.
LAURA: Oh my god! Get away from her, you bitch! (laughter) ASHLEY: Boosh! SAM: Oh man. All right. I've never had legs before,
this thing has legs, right? MATT: It has legs.
SAM: Oh! All right. Like Bambi-- (laughter) TRAVIS: That's what you want?
SAM: I'm going to-- I'm going to try-- MARISHA: I thought you were going to say Ariel.
TRAVIS: That story ends real good. SAM: I'm going to try
to stand up on my legs. MATT: (robotic staggering) ASHLEY: Oh! Look at him go! SAM: Oh!
ASHLEY: Oh, he's standing! SAM: Just watch out!
Watch out everyone! LIAM: This is what all that
time with the wooden feet was for, Letters.
SAM: This is different. MATT: The tent wrapping
(whooshing) gets lost in the
storm and vanishes, but you now have
a freestanding, 16-, 17-foot tall automaton.
TRAVIS: Oh shit! ASHLEY: Oh my god.
TRAVIS: Oh shit! SAM: I'm going to try to move
its appendages, try to see if I can get
a sense of balance and limitations on rotation,
that kind of stuff. Maybe do a little
bit of a chicken dance to get my bearings here. MATT: Yeah, it's
functional and fluid. You know, there's a
little bit of a stickiness in the right shoulder, it looks like some of the
plating has been damaged from the battle
that it's sustained. SAM: Can I do the robot? MATT: Make a dexterity check. SAM: A natural twen--
No, it's a four. (laughter) MATT: Weirdly, not a very convincing
robot from a giant robot. ASHLEY: It's a bit predictable.
SAM: Oh, yes. LAURA: Are there any of those
things down in the pit, or are they just
along the rim? MATT: When you were down
there, you saw one down there in your earlier vision, you saw more around
the perimeter as well. But that's just the
glances that you've had. LAURA: Okay.
TALIESIN: Who can we put, it-- Who else can we put
inside this thing? SAM: What do I do, guys? LIAM: Well, first off, do we
get that short rest? MATT: Yeah, I'll say you guys
can take a short rest. TRAVIS: Dope! LAURA: So I regained a
couple spells before with my sorcery points, and then I'm going to
use the short rest to get my sorcery points back. MATT: Okay. SAM: You didn't turn
into an animal. TRAVIS: I'm going
to use two-- Three dice. MATT: Outside of you, you could
fit four standard people MATT: Outside of you, you could
fit four standard people uncomfortably on
the inside, with two smaller people
acting as one, likely. SAM: Four people. So three medium-size or... MATT: Four medium sized,
or if you have-- SAM: Two smalls.
MATT: Two small acts as a medium. SAM: Got it. Is that everybody? One, two, three, four,
plus two smalls? No. No. We're short one. One person can't come. ASHLEY: Are you looking at me?
SAM: No, no! ASHLEY: You want me to be on the outside?
SAM: No! I'm just telling you because you're my friend.
ASHLEY: I can be on the outside, absolutely.
SAM: No, I don't want you to go outside! ASHLEY: I don't know if I like
being in small, confined spaces. SAM: Oh.
ASHLEY: I'll do it, if I need to. I'm not very stealthy, so-- TRAVIS: I am. I'm very stealthy. TALIESIN: Did we end up using
a short rest last time? MATT: Technically,
being a small creature would be a free ride if you wanted to--
TALIESIN: Pass Without a Trace last time? I burned one?
MATT: -- burn that. MARISHA: I think you did. LAURA: I don't think you did
because we were in costume. TALIESIN: Yeah, I
think I helped... I will wait for some
sort of confirmation. LIAM: Could Orym hide inside--
TALIESIN: Can't remember. Actually, I don't--
LIAM: -- this thing's fist, if he cradled it
slightly open? MATT: You can certainly try. MARISHA: Other thought. We could take
the hole, and maybe line the bottom
of the robot with the hole and give us an
extra 10 cubic feet. TALIESIN: I don't think it'll
fold out enough for that. MATT: I'll say, the interior
of it, the floor isn't flat. MARISHA: Oh, okay.
MATT: So. MARISHA: Never mind.
TALIESIN: It was a good thought. MATT: It was a good thought.
ASHLEY: It was a good thought. SAM: Well, it's just
one of us, right? You mentioned friends. We don't have anyone
else with us, right? LIAM: Oh, right, we met... We just met two people
that are down in there now who are working with Ryn.
MATT: You did burn one rage. SAM: Great!
TALIESIN: Oh, I did burn a rage. It was just a--
SAM: Great! TALIESIN: Pass
Without a Trace. TRAVIS: Yeah.
SAM: But they're gone. TRAVIS: Yeah, one was named
Do and the other one was Re, TRAVIS: Yeah, one was named
Do and the other one was Re, and then Mi.
TALIESIN: I don't think-- TRAVIS: The three of them. SAM: Do, Re, and Mi?
TRAVIS: Yeah. MARISHA: There was such
a musicality to them. TRAVIS: I don't know
why the a capella groups get so radical out in these parts, but--
MARISHA: I know. They just have to have puns. TRAVIS: Yeah. LIAM: But they seem to know a
lot about the Cerberus Assembly. One of them looked like she could handle herself
in a fight and then some, and the other one looked
like some sort of a-- LAURA: Like a daddy,
you know. LIAM: Like a magic
zaddy or something. SAM: Oh, he was the zaddy.
ASHLEY: Like a magic zaddy. LIAM: Either way--
MARISHA: They were both the zaddies, let's be honest. ASHLEY: Oh. MARISHA: But yes, they were like--
ASHLEY: A couple zaddies. MARISHA: He said that Ludinus
hasn't been seen for like, three days, he's MIA, but also that he's
getting a little radical and a little on
edge, you know? And that maybe he's
anticipating some sort of-- LAURA: Are you okay, Laudna? MARISHA: Yeah, I'm
really excited. It's the adrenaline. LIAM: Yeah, the way they
painted it was either, Ludinus is getting a
little loopy, right? He's letting things slip, or
that's a feint of some kind. They said that Ryn was turned
to stone from a glyph, some sort of a magical
ward in here, so we should be looking
out for those. Then the ginger guy, the dude had red
hair said that-- TALIESIN: With the accent, yeah.
LIAM: Yeah, accent, said that there was some
sort of mesh devices on the key itself,
that he thought had-- MATT: Around the
cavern walls. LIAM: Cavern walls?
TRAVIS: Yes, like the pulses. They don't come
from a single point, they seem to like, do,
do, do, do, do, do. LIAM: Shimmer through.
TRAVIS: Yeah. TALIESIN: Oh, and then did
we mention the golems? The mage hunters? LIAM: Mage hunters.
TALIESIN: Mage hunters. LIAM: Golems. ASHLEY: Oh.
SAM: Oh my gosh. LIAM: It's a lot.
LAURA: There's a lot. TRAVIS: So no magic. ASHLEY: No magic.
TALIESIN: Keep it on the down low. TRAVIS: Unless we're in a
fight, or it's immediate. MARISHA: Then this whole
thing is amplified by a bunch of these
mirror-like structures, and then there are these
four hook-like spires, and it's all powered by
a bunch of magic orbs and residuum that is buried.
TRAVIS: It seemed to be buried underground. MARISHA: Yes.
TRAVIS: They're not out on the surface this time. SAM: So we're going
down in there? LAURA: Mm-hmm.
MARISHA: Yes. SAM: Matthew?
MATT: Yes? SAM: How do I see? TRAVIS: You take
the glasses off. (laughter) MATT: This automaton
does have a dual sensor that's actually connected in
the center in the front, that is magically utilized to scan the space
in front of it. From the standpoint
that you see, mainly, there's less color and
more texture and geometry. SAM: Ooh.
MATT: So it's a unique perspective from what you're not used to. TRAVIS: Topographic readout.
SAM: Terminator? TRAVIS: Yeah.
MATT: Kind of, yeah. (beeping)
TRAVIS: Cybernetics. TALIESIN: Gave him your-- MATT: But you can
see through that if you were to concentrate
on that vision to pull out of your own. MARISHA: He's beginning
to believe. LIAM: That's way cooler
than a belly button hole. (laughter)
ASHLEY: Yeah. MATT: That's all you
guys got, though. So all you guys have a little thing.
TRAVIS: Let me see through the hole. ASHLEY: Move!
TALIESIN: You think it's a good idea, since we can't get
everybody inside, should we have two people
outside to chaperone? LAURA: I'm pretty
good at lying, so I should probably
stay on the outside. SAM: In costume? LAURA: Yeah.
TALIESIN: In costume. MARISHA: Just make sure
you cover your hair. LAURA: Yeah.
ASHLEY: Yeah. MARISHA: All right. ASHLEY: Who else should
be with you? MARISHA: Or use your
hair if the moment-- SAM: You're going
to tell them that you're Miley Cyrus
or Emma Stone? TALIESIN: Oh wow. SAM: Or someone-- Lindsay "Lowan" (Lohan)? TALIESIN: I think one of the--
ASHLEY: "Lowan"? SAM: Yeah.
ASHLEY: Is it "Lowan"? SAM: I don't know.
MARISHA: Lohan. Lohan. LAURA: Yeah.
ASHLEY: Aw, get in the tummy tummy. LIAM: I feel like it might be--
TRAVIS: Sorry about that. LAURA: It's the climb. LIAM: I like the idea of this
thing holding me in its hand, LIAM: I like the idea of this
thing holding me in its hand, and then I can
be out there, I can be looking
for those glyphs on the ground
the whole time, and then if things
go be-wrong for you, I can just--
LAURA: Be-wrong? LIAM: Be-wrong. TALIESIN: Well, then it can be
everybody but the two of you because there's no
point hiding you if you're sitting
in the hand, anyway. We could just
be intentional. LIAM: Huh?
TALIESIN: I mean, why not just walk around if you're going to
be outside of it? LIAM: Well, I got
spotted immediately. LAURA: Yeah, hide in the hand. Hide.
TALIESIN: Yeah, that's fair. SAM: Oh my god. MATT: You're probably back
down to your Chetney form? TRAVIS: Yeah. MATT: All righty.
TRAVIS: Fun-sized, baby! LIAM: Also, I just
kind of want Letters to cradle me like a little bird.
TALIESIN: I'm definitely a terrible, terrible liar. LAURA: Oh my god. MATT: Here we go. There's team-- LIAM: Don't break the minis.
MATT: That's a golem. No, I'm just leaving them there.
LAURA: I'm the only one outside now? SAM: No, Orym's
out there, too. LAURA: But he's in a fist. SAM: Yeah?
MATT: Orym is staying in its fist.
TALIESIN: I think we need a second person. SAM: I'm fisting Orym.
LIAM: Fist him. MARISHA: Wait, are
you suggesting that Orym basically acts
like he's a prisoner, like he's dead? LIAM: No, I think
he's small enough that at most you'd see
his little cloak hood and it would just look like
some shit in the thing's hand, if you saw that at all. He's so wee. MATT: Is that the plan? LIAM: I'm not riding
on top, I'm riding-- SAM: We'll find out.
ASHLEY: That type of a situation. TALIESIN: I feel like one more
person outside, but that's just me. ASHLEY: I know.
TALIESIN: Keep one at the top rather than one.
LIAM: Swing by his side. ASHLEY: Should anybody
else be outside? MARISHA: Let's try this, we can always--
LAURA: I mean, if we're trying to take out some of
these mirrors, right? On the way down. MARISHA: I think it'll be a
pop-in, pop-out situation. TALIESIN: All right, all right. MARISHA: Actually, can we
do a quick fire drill and see how long did it just
take us all to get inside? MATT: It took you about 20,
30 seconds to get all inside. LAURA: That's fast. MARISHA: That's not too bad.
TALIESIN: Kind of a mess, though, so maybe next time
we'll go a little faster. TRAVIS: It's not
fast in a fight. MARISHA: No, it's not.
TRAVIS: Just making sure everybody's aware. LAURA: That's true.
ASHLEY: All right. MATT: It's bit of clown
car circumstance, so. TRAVIS: Are you controlling
the pop-the-hatch button? SAM: Am I? MATT: You would be the one, or--
TRAVIS: Because if trouble comes, you can't be slow
on the trigger. Got to be decisive. SAM: I am in this thing. I am tuned into every
nook and cranny of it. If you say "Pop," I'll lock.
TRAVIS: Got to shoot first. Okay. LAURA: Plus, I can communicate
to y'all on the inside, like what I'm seeing. TALIESIN: Just don't lock. SAM: I won't pop
when you say lock, and I won't lock
when you say pop. LIAM: Where's the entrance? Is it a shitting
them out situation, or a puking them
out situation? MATT: It's the front
of the belly. MARISHA: Belly.
LIAM: Belly. It's a Kuato situation. SAM: It's a cesarean.
MARISHA: Oh, well that's cool, you could pop it
open, and maybe like-- TRAVIS: "BioShock."
MARISHA: Yeah. Yes. (laughs) Hm. SAM: Also, where am I going? LAURA: Down.
TALIESIN: Going down. SAM: I'll just follow you. You're the little girl who's
leading around the big robot. ASHLEY: Aw!
TALIESIN: Going full "BioShock." LIAM: Oh yeah.
TRAVIS: Did you get the lens? TALIESIN: Yeah,
I have it out. Boop. MARISHA: That's a good story. TRAVIS: That's a last resort.
LAURA: All right. MARISHA: Last resort.
MATT: Okay. (energy pulsing) Another wave of warm--
LAURA: Oh lord. ASHLEY: But then if we give
them the lens it'll work, right? MATT: -- magical energy--
LAURA: No, because this one is not working. MATT: -- pulses out
from the outside. As you're now getting
closer to the edge you can see that again. MARISHA: So feel
free to just-- If you see anything. SAM: Say something.
MARISHA: Yes. TRAVIS: I'm excited.
MARISHA: TSA. ASHLEY: I'm excited, too.
TRAVIS: This is going well. ASHLEY: Yeah.
TALIESIN: This is a plan. TRAVIS: Remember this moment.
TALIESIN: Our last minutes. SAM: Don't forget, you know--
LIAM: Yeah, it's all planned. SAM: -- at some
point someone-- I can't probably, while
I'm attached to this, someone's going to have to tell
Xandis to go at some point, when we're ready.
ASHLEY: Oh. MARISHA: The goal is
to tell them to go once we maybe disable this meshy mesh?
SAM: Maybe I can. We'll see. We'll see
when we get down there. TRAVIS: Criteria for
telling Xandis to go. Ryn is secured, maybe. The mesh is disabled.
LAURA: That's the main thing, yeah. TRAVIS: What else? MARISHA: Shit hits the fan and
we have no other option. TRAVIS: Just those two?
LAURA: Shit hits the fan. TRAVIS: Just making sure.
LAURA: Okay, now the other question. It's going to take an hour for The Ashari to
get here, right? LIAM: They're bonafide. LAURA: They're bonafide.
TALIESIN: Mm-hmm. LAURA: So should I tell them now?
ASHLEY: ♪ Leather ♪ LAURA: Because it's going to be--
SAM: We don't know. This could take hours! TALIESIN: I'd say
tell them now, because if things start in an
hour, that would be great. LIAM: Even if we
do tell them now, don't we want to be able
to send them a signal at the last moment? The moment?
LAURA: So maybe I'll tell-- Oh, god. ASHLEY: Maybe like, "Hey, we're real close."
SAM: Let's go in and just see what we see. Doing a Sending isn't-- It takes two seconds, right? MARISHA: Although doing
a Sending is magic. SAM: True, but--
LIAM: But it's quick. SAM: We'll have to time it-- ASHLEY: Yeah, what if we get in there--
SAM: -- between the pulses. ASHLEY: -- and then we can't do it?
TALIESIN: Also, the mage hunters. MARISHA: The mage hunters
is what I'm more afraid of. SAM: Okay. LIAM: What does that even mean?
LAURA: I don't know. TALIESIN: Honestly,
I'm happy to just say, "Ticking clock, one hour, "and if you hear from us
sooner, then start then." Shit drops, Ashari
come in one hour. ASHLEY: Oh boy, I'm fidgety. SAM: Do you want me to try to
do it to save you your spells, or are you okay?
LAURA: Whichever. TALIESIN: That's
what I would do. LAURA: You've talked
to them before. LAURA: Sure. TALIESIN: Don't do that
with your shoulders. TRAVIS: You know, I'm
down for an hour timer. Keep the clock running.
ASHLEY: Yeah. Yeah.
LAURA: All right. TRAVIS: It'll be a fucking
miracle if we make it in an hour. SAM: Will they think it's you calling?
TALIESIN: Looking at the size of this ruin, does an hour seem
feasible for getting-- MATT: Oh, you haven't gotten
to the edge of it yet. TALIESIN: Okay, well,
let's get to the edge and then we'll take a look in.
LAURA: Okay, let's get to the edge. ASHLEY: Oh god.
MATT: Okay. TALIESIN: Then we'll see where we're at.
MARISHA: Yeah, what it's like riding in this thing?
TRAVIS: (laughs) SAM: Oh god.
MATT: You're all crammed in very intensely
with no light, unless you create a small
light source within. But it is like (banging). TALIESIN: Small light
source would be a-- ASHLEY: Sorry.
MATT: You're pushing into each other, elbows are smashing into
the side of rib cages, it's not comfortable by any means.
ASHLEY: Chet, P-U! (laughter)
TRAVIS: I'm relaxed. MATT: For you, FCG, it's a fascinating
sensory experience. Your body, you feel pressure, there's something unique
about your construction that is sensory in
ways that this is not. This definitely feels like
wearing a suit of armor. But as you walk, you
feel the power behind it, you feel the weight,
the heft, the strength. It's interesting. SAM: It's interesting. MATT: Yeah. ASHLEY: How do you feel? SAM: I like it.
I like it a lot. ASHLEY: Do you feel
like a big ol' daddy? (laughter) ASHLEY: Big Daddy. (laughs) I was trying to give him a different name--
TRAVIS: Is that a thing with you? ASHLEY: -- but it
sounded a little weird. TRAVIS: Is that a thing? I'm taking notes.
SAM: It's a thing today. TRAVIS: "Big ol' daddy." MATT: As you begin to step (heavy mechanical footsteps) to the edge of
this excavation, with you, Imogen,
following alongside, you can see at the
edge of the rock before it begins to plummet
off into this deep pit, the network of
structured bridges and long wooden walkways that cross the outside
edges from place to place down the interior. While the dust
storm blows overhead and there is some
level of dust that still finds its
way down within, it is much clearer
past a certain point. The first thing you
notice at the edge are a number of
pikes and spears that are placed into
the rock and dirt along the edge which look like
they're holding beads, necklaces. SAM: Beads? MATT: Upon a quick glance, you can see some weapons
hanging on them, you can see heads.
SAM: Oh. MATT: You can see an iron
mask without eye holes and script scrawled into it. LAURA: Oh.
MARISHA: Judicators. MATT: You begin to
make out that maybe these are Call's trophies
placed on the exterior as both a warning and
an intimidation attempt. TRAVIS: Vasselheim Judicators?
LAURA: Uh-huh. MATT: With that context, you also see a lot of
these things adorning it are holy symbols of
different gods and entities that had come, likely on the
previous vessel that crashed. TRAVIS: Fuck. MATT: Left as a display of the things they cast
outside of this pit. TRAVIS: We're fine.
SAM: We're fine. TRAVIS: (laughs) MARISHA: We're smarter
than all of Vasselheim. TRAVIS: Yeah, the things we
were running from, they were-- TALIESIN: We're weird. MATT: (heavy automaton footsteps)
TALIESIN: That counts for something. MATT: You step up to the edge and you can see one of
the ramp-like declines that is carved into
this excavation that begins to wrap
down the inside of this. There are a few of them, but the one that's
closest to you is not too far from where
you met the edge of the pit. The two of you, side by side, begin to slowly descend
down, down, down. begin to slowly descend
down, down, down. Glancing over the way, you can see a
number of sources of what is like a combination of
torchlight in some places, others a soft blue glow
of magical light orbs used to illuminate
the space below. You can already see
from way up here, all manner of ruins
exposed below. You can see tables and
signs of the excavation You can see tables and
signs of the excavation that previously had
taken up residence here before it was co-opted. Even looking below, you can see dozens of
figures walking around, handling business, too far to really make
out too many details, especially with your vision
being a little separate especially with your vision
being a little separate than what you're
used to gleaning from. But looking below,
you can see there, almost the entire
height of this pit, maybe about a little
past halfway up to three quarters of
the way up its full depth is the spire itself. You can see the
thrumming glue-- Glue -- green pulsing glow of the residuum
that now lines it throughout the extremely
dense black metallic armor that has been heavily reinforced
around this central spire as it comes to that
fork towards its peak. You can see the
four smaller spires that hook inward
facing its direction where there are other
clusters of individuals either working on them,
loading something, you can't quite tell
from this distance. (energy pulsing) Another pulse of that
odd Dispel-type wave shoots up the side. Make a perception
check, both of you. LIAM: I'm peering out from
this thing's hand, too, I'm outside the--
LAURA: So you should be able to see. MATT: That's true. SAM: 11.
LAURA: 17. MATT: 11, 17. LIAM: 21.
SAM: Nice. MATT: 21. Right before the (energy
pulsing) happens, you see it seems to emanate from
two devices along the base, not from the the spire, not
from any of the mirror devices, though you see them all
gently light up in reaction as this wave cascades upward, like everything with some
sort of arcana attached to it reacts in some way as it
carries up and passes through. As the wave hits you, it
scrambles you for a moment. You don't lose control, but for a second
your vision (static) begins to get fuzzy and you have to take
a moment to right yourself before the weird static
and this loud hum that it seems to
thrust into your mind begins to slowly fade. But you glance
down over the side and once more you
see that (energy pulsing) and the next wave come. These two devices
that are set, at the northern
and southern edges of the base of
this excavation, beginning to glow different
glyphs across them before they send out
the wave simultaneously. LAURA: What do they
look like, the devices? MATT: You can't quite see
the full shape of them, you just see the glow and then
the pulse emanate from them. LIAM: Can I ask just
for structural clarity, so we've got this prong or
key or whatever this thing is that doesn't clear
the top of the pit? MATT: Correct.
LIAM: From where we are, does Orym have a guesstimate
how far to the bottom we are? MATT: Probably
about 150 feet. LIAM: 150 feet,
and then you said there are four smaller,
not keys, but other-- ASHLEY: Spires.
MATT: Arced towers that are facing in towards
the key around it. LIAM: Are they coming
from the bottom or are they coming from somewhere
halfway up from the pit? MATT: They're coming
from the bottom. LIAM: The bottom, okay.
MATT: Yeah. LAURA: You said the spire
key goes halfway up the pit? MATT: Yeah, a little bit past
halfway, almost to three quarters. LAURA: Okay.
LIAM: Okay. MARISHA: There's little glowing, the glowing that's emanating
from the four prongs? LIAM: No, from
the two devices. MATT: There's two
devices at the base that are emanating this kind
of a Dispel thing, yeah. MARISHA: Okay. MATT: It's dark down there other than the lighting
up of the glow? MATT: No, there
are light sources. There's people working
and there's torch light, there's orbs that are
giving off blue light. There's a lot
of bustling work. You see other figures that are walking on different
levels of the pit's curving pathways and across
some of the extended bridge-- SAM: Catwalks?
MATT: -- long catwalks that run across the excavation
to different places. There are tunnels
or cavern holes, cave entrances you
can see along this path, where storage spaces
are off to the side. What would you like to do? SAM: If we keep walking down, will we spiral all
the way to the bottom? MATT: It looks like
you would, yeah. TALIESIN: How long does it
look like it'll take? SAM: I'm not moving very fast.
ASHLEY: You said there's four of those extra spires coming out?
LAURA: Uh-huh. MATT: Yeah, the smaller
curved ones, yeah. LIAM: Can we see the mesh
that Widogast described? Mesh-like devices on
the edges, or is that-- MATT: When you see the Dispel
wave, (energy pulsing), like how everything that has some sort of arcana to
it slightly glows. You can see dozens
of these little dots that are embedded in the sides of the tunnels.
LIAM: They're spots? MATT: Yeah, but it's all mainly
based around the bottom of it. TRAVIS: Fuck.
LIAM: Okay. TRAVIS: No point in like (click).
MARISHA: Yeah. But it's all coming from
those two main glowy points that then emanates
out to all the little motion capture balls? MATT: Correct.
LAURA: We should try to make our way down, right? SAM: Sure.
MARISHA: And-- TRAVIS: ♪ We should
make our way down ♪ MARISHA: Beau and Widogast were going to go
for one of them while we try and do
the other, correct? LIAM: I don't have Keen
Mind. What did they say? MARISHA: I'm pretty sure
that's what they said, because they got a headstart.
LAURA: Do we remember if they said they were
going to go for one of them? MATT: They're going in
to try and disable both of the device
that's dispelling this and/or looking for any means of disabling the power
sources for the key. TRAVIS: So they're going
for the whole smash. MARISHA: I message
Imogen and say: Any eyes on our friends? Fuck that, we
wouldn't see them. They're too good for that.
MATT: They're little too high up at this point. But you continue to
walk down, I believe. SAM: Yeah, please. MARISHA: I guess, when should
we call on the Ashari? We should call it-- When do we want to
set the clock? LAURA: I mean-- TALIESIN: Does it look
like a one-hour walk? MATT: To the base? No. Probably about, at
the speed of this, and doing it carefully
without drawing attention, about 10 minutes. LIAM: Well, we want a
distraction? That's the plan? LAURA: Yeah. We should call them in.
LIAM: To draw people out here. How fast do we think
we can get down there? LAURA: 10 minutes.
LIAM: Yeah, yeah. TALIESIN: Or even
less than that. LIAM: Heat of battle, things
just pop off like that. LAURA: Okay. I'm going to wait
until one of the pulses goes and then immediately after,
I'm going to cast Sending. MATT: Okay. Going to step down, down the sometimes 15-20
foot wide walkway. down the sometimes 15-20
foot wide walkway. Sometimes it looks
like parts have chipped or fallen off and it gets
to about 10 feet wide, which gets a little
nerve-wracking for the width of your
current shell, but doable. TRAVIS: Thinking on the
sight of the adjudicators hanging on the pikes,
just thinking on it, did we notice any
signs of damage, ruptures, slashes, or did they look
mostly intact? MATT: I'll say make an investigation
check in hindsight as you were glancing
through, peering through the front belly entrance.
TRAVIS: Dirty 20. MATT: Dirty 20, nice. They appear to be
worn, damaged, like there was some sort
of, whether it be from if they were part of a crash or
they were part of a scuffle, you're uncertain. But
you do definitely see-- (laugh) Goddamn it. LIAM: We had Matt as
a guard as well. MARISHA: Yeah, Matt as
a guard might count. TRAVIS: They weren't technically
guards, those were NPCs. SAM: We'll see.
TALIESIN: Thank you. TRAVIS: NPCs don't
wear fucking cutlasses and a goddamn rifle
on their back. MATT: But yeah, they
looked like they had seen some sort of wear. TRAVIS: Okay. MARISHA: What saw wear? MATT: (energy pulse)
SAM: Oh! MARISHA: Oh fuck!
MATT: The next wave comes through as you time yourself to cast your spell right
as it passes past. LAURA: Mm-hmm. MATT: What are you doing? Casting Sending towards...? LAURA: Keyleth.
MATT: Keyleth, all right. LAURA: We're heading
into the pit. If we start the clock now,
you'll be here in an hour? That should give
us enough time. Anti-magic pulses every minute,
we're trying to take it out. SAM: Love,
Scarlett Johansson. (laughter) MATT: She responds. "Okay. I'll gather
the forces I have. "I found the tree. "Within an hour, likely.
We'll look for a sign." LIAM: (exhales) No pressure. MARISHA: Look for a sign. LAURA: Cool. MARISHA: DM.
MATT: Mm-hmm? MARISHA: I can assume as
soon as Pâté gets hit with one of these
anti-magic blasts that he'll go bye-bye? MATT: Oddly no.
MARISHA: No? MATT: You watch him lose
cohesion for a second and then pick right back up. MARISHA: My baby!
LAURA: Weird. MATT: It's odd, the
energy waves of this aren't fully
Dispelling things. They're just scrambling
a little bit. MARISHA: Interesting.
LAURA: Huh. TALIESIN: The rest of
us feel anything? MATT: You feel a (energy wave). TALIESIN: Okay, that's all.
Nothing in my-- MATT: Like a gentle breeze suddenly blows by with
a bit of warmth to it. TALIESIN: Okay.
MARISHA: It would maybe come back. LIAM: Did you describe, I think,
that when those pulses come, all the dozens of little
points down below flare a little bit as well? MATT: Yeah,
everything that has some sort of
enchantment to it seems to light up
slightly, like there's a wave of lights
going up the side. LIAM: Orym remembers that
Caleb and Beau told them that Ryn got hit with
a petrification glyph, so he is looking for
those on the ground, especially when
the surges happen, to see if anything lights
up on the ground or walls. MARISHA: That's a good idea.
MATT: Okay. So I'll consider
your passive perception as we're descending
and when you get closer to the actual base, too, we'll make an active
check for that, too. MARISHA: That's right, we
could theoretically use some of this to our advantage if the glyphs
disable for a minute but then come back
when they pass. TRAVIS: Yeah, plus
we have to consider that it can't be
a localized glyph. People have to go down there
and service that thing, it has to be in
reaction to something trying to disable it
or hurt it, right? MARISHA: I don't know. TRAVIS: People have to work on
that shit all the time. LIAM: Hopefully, we're going
to know where they are. Hopefully, we'll see. SAM: Those kinds of glyphs,
I mean, we don't know this, but those kinds of glyphs
can have a condition set to fire off, right? TRAVIS: I don't know.
SAM: So it could be an order given or--
LIAM: Those can be all kinds of stuff. I mean, I don't know
how magic works. MARISHA: Can I check in
with Pâté, and say: How did that feel? Did you black out
for a second? Did you go away, or
was it just a little woozy? MATT: "No, it's more of
a little woozy. "Just like someone kicked me
in the nuts for a second "and got a little fuzzy,
then I was good to go. "Actually, I didn't
mean to say that, "I don't even have nuts.
What's it like to have nuts? "You don't know,
you don't have nuts." MARISHA: I don't know!
(gasps) We should add-- Chetney! TRAVIS: What is that?
MARISHA: What's it like having nuts? TRAVIS: How big are yours? MATT: Curls up and they're--
TRAVIS: Ah! MATT: You tell me,
you constructed him. Did you build him with nuts? LAURA: Rats have
really big nuts. TRAVIS: What?! (laughter) LAURA: They do! TRAVIS: Rats?
SAM: How do you know this? LAURA: Because I used
to have hamsters. Hamsters, if you-- MATT: Hamsters have
giant fucking nuts. LAURA: They have big nuts, and
I think rats are the same way. MARISHA: I mean, it was
a dead rat body, so I imagine they'd be
shriveled and a little decayed, but I wouldn't have
taken them off, that would've been cruel! LAURA: (laughs) MATT: "May not be
the proudest of raisins, "but they're my raisins." TRAVIS: I have no notes. (laughter) MARISHA: Fantastic.
TRAVIS: His mind's right. MATT: It's right
about this time, you see two figures that
are walking up the ramp, and are probably going to be
crossing past the two of you. You see them walking by what is now, this would be
on the left-hand side, an open cavern that leads into the side of the tunnel. You're about maybe 20, 25 feet
down from the top. LAURA: Let's go into
that little cavern. SAM: Squeeze a little
bit on Orym. LIAM: I take my cloak
and I lower my face. TRAVIS: (fart sound) LIAM: (squishes) MATT: I will say for this, I need you to make
a stealth check. LIAM: Okay. (scoffs) 11. MATT: 11, okay. Well, you both
continue to walk down. You head to the edge of this. The two figures that pass by, you see another
one in a Vanguard robe, hood up, scarf half down. What looks to be
either a half-elf, or an elf without quite
as exaggerated features, female, older, glancing back at you and the
large automaton as you pass by. The other figure,
you do recognize as an armored
General Ratanish. LIAM: Ooh.
MARISHA: Oh shit. LAURA: Well, we're covered,
I'm covered. MATT: Yeah. MARISHA: Why do we keep
running in to people we know? There's got to be
like 500 people here. SAM: Was he Paragon's Call? LAURA: Yes.
MARISHA: Yeah, he was like
Otohan's right hand. LAURA: Plus, I had a shaved head
the last time I saw him, so-- MATT: Correct. LAURA: Or no hair, rather. MATT: As you're walking,
Ratanish goes, "What did you find?" Points at the hand. LAURA: Prisoner,
it'll be fun. MATT: "Really?"
LIAM: I hear this and Druidcraft a flower with
red berries growing from it and I go (squish) across my
mouth and face and wait. MATT: Okay.
LAURA: Nice. MATT: "I want to see
if perhaps this is one "of the friends "of our fine
new decorative lady." LIAM: Decorative.
ASHLEY: Ryn. She's a decoration. SAM: He's going to recognize. He's going to recognize Orym. LAURA: Will he?
SAM: I don't know, has he seen Orym? LAURA: I don't know. MATT: Orym was one of-- I mean, you were
at the event, but you were
just in the crowd. LAURA: Yeah, open up. MATT: All right,
I'll just sort of roughly throw him
on the floor. MATT: Are you acting unconscious? LIAM: Oh yeah, potato,
I just play possum. MATT: Deception check for me. MARISHA: Come on. LIAM: It's not high. ASHLEY: Guidance, Guidance,
can I Guidance him? LAURA: No, you have
to touch him. LIAM: 18. SAM: Hey! MATT: Ratanish glances over. "I almost feel bad
for the thing." LAURA: He was spry.
It'll be fun. MATT: "All right," walks over and gives a little
kick to the side. Puts the hand on the
side of his battleaxe that's hanging on
the side of the belt. "Apparently, there has
been sightings of, "whispers of more coming from
Vasselheim, so stay perched. "I don't think they'll
get here in time, "but just in case." They step around the
outside of the cavern entrance and continue heading up
the ramp towards the top. MARISHA: Interesting. LAURA: Hmm. You can pick him up. TRAVIS: Kick him
one more time. LAURA: Kick him again. SAM: Grab him by the legs.
TRAVIS: Oh, wrong command! SAM: Throw him
over my shoulder. MATT: (springing)
TRAVIS: (blows raspberry) Oh! (laughter) ASHLEY: How's
everybody doing? SAM: Put him in my hand.
LAURA: Put him in your hand. LIAM: I'm going
to give myself one point of
bludgeoning damage. MATT: Yeah,
I'll allow it. (laughs) TRAVIS: I'm feeling great. ASHLEY: Yeah?
TRAVIS: Yeah, I got to pee, but it's always
when you're hiding. SAM: Just let it out,
just let it go. TRAVIS: In here?
SAM: Yeah. TRAVIS: Everybody cool
for the whiz? MARISHA: Oh, please don't. ASHLEY: We don't know what
it's going to do to the robot. It might, you know-- TRAVIS: So, vote for
yes, no, maybe? TALIESIN: No, no, just no.
TRAVIS: Fuck, all right. Missing out.
TALIESIN: Later. MATT: As you're walking
across the catwalk, a couple of other figures that are inspecting and looks like
they're writing notes, down looking over
the central device. Further down the pathway,
you can see another tunnel that leads off to
the left-hand side. This one is a bit wider
and you can see within there's two tents
that looks to be some open and emptied
rates, some cots. And you can see
a pile of bodies. LIAM: Recognize anybody? MATT: You? From what you can
see from within the hand, don't recognize
anybody at a glance, no. LAURA: Wow, there's a lot
of dead people in here. Should I go look? LIAM: Talking about 10, 30? MATT: Quick glance,
close to 10. LAURA: What kind of clothing
are they wearing? MATT: I mean, they're
wearing thicker, desert and badlands-ready
outfits, cloaks, scarves. But they all look to be
just travelers' garments. Nothing that
signifies Vanguard. Nothing that signifies Call. TALIESIN: Unlucky fuckers.
LAURA: Okay. ASHLEY: Can I have
one of yours? LIAM: How long dead
are they, like weeks? MATT: It's hard to tell
from this distance, you have to get
close and inspect. LIAM: No, I'll stay put.
MATT: Okay. (thudding footsteps) You continue to
curve around the edge of the descending pathway. I would like you to make
a dexterity check for me, for the machine.
SAM: Sure, sure. ASHLEY: Guidance, Guidance. TRAVIS: No magic. ASHLEY: Oh wait, fuck. TALIESIN: You start
and we just-- ASHLEY: Wait,
but can't I just try? TALIESIN: <i>No.</i> ASHLEY: That's right, because
it's going to point at us, I'm so sorry. SAM: It's a dexterity check? MATT: Yeah, just roll a d20. SAM: Okay, 17.
MATT: 17. As you're stepping
along the side, it's a-- TALIESIN: We just-- No! MATT: Because you're not so
terribly used to this body, there's a moment
where you see where elements of this
slow curvature crumbled and you saw it,
and getting bit nervous at its approach,
the moment you get there, you (deep breath)
hold yourself steady and then push past
and deftly. You're picking up
the swing of this body. SAM: Wow, feet are so fun! MATT: (heavy footsteps) Back onto a firm space,
and continuing to descend, you can see as
it widens a bit, there are three figures. Another one in Vanguard, two
other Paragon's Call members, and behind them
a secondary Warder that is approaching
from behind. LAURA: How do you get past if
there's two Warders on the--? MARISHA: Yeah, is it--?
(laughs) SAM: Are Warders what
I am right now? MATT: Yeah. I mean, the
pathway here is a little-- There are parts that get
wider, like outcroppings, that stand there as
positions to watch over. Where the long catwalks
are attached to, there is a space
they can go across, but it's going to be
a tight walk. They get there first,
and they do stop and wait, knowing that you're going to
be making a passage there. TRAVIS: Assert
your dominance. SAM: All right, I'll-- LAURA: Are they looking at me?
Are they making eye contact? Do they seem like
they don't care? MATT: At the moment,
they don't care. LAURA: Okay. SAM: Just adjust a little,
do a quick little adjust. MATT: Next wave hits. You feel it cascade
through your form. The runes on the outside
of the automaton shell light up once more as you push through
that scattering, that static and
eventually come to the opposite end
of this outcropping. With that, you do-si-do
and passing each other. They're definitely
leaning on the inside, forcing you to go around. SAM: Oh jesus. As you do, they do get
a close look at you. I would like you to make
a stealth check again, and I would like you to
make a deception check. LIAM: 13 this time. LAURA: (whispered) 12. TRAVIS: That was a 12,
for everyone at home. LIAM: (laughs) MATT: All right,
they walk by, the automaton
just cruises past. The two Call members walk. The one Vanguard member stops and turns its head
in your direction, and you hear a voice
in your head. MATT: "What's your business?" LAURA: Delivery for
General Temult. MATT: "I don't think I've
connected with your mind before. "What's your name?" MARISHA: Did he say
"your mom"? SAM: "With your mind."
TRAVIS: "Your mind before." MARISHA: Your mind. LAURA: That's none
of your business. MATT: Make an
intimidation check. MARISHA: Come on! Come on! SAM: Come on, Will Arnett.
LAURA: Okay. Okay. (laughter) LAURA: Natural 20. (cheering)
MATT: No fucking way! ASHLEY: Yes! MATT: As this individual is-- TRAVIS: ♪ The thunder rolls ♪ (laughter)
ASHLEY: ♪ And the lightnings strikes ♪ MATT: An untrusting curiosity and a forceful push
into your mind, and you're, up
until recently, unfamiliar with having that
sort of willpower resistance within your own will.
But you are focused, and you immediately push back and slam them out
of your consciousness, as they visibly-- "(throat clearing)" Clear their throat
and catch up with the other two
Paragon's Call members and begin to dally up.
TALIESIN: Mm-hmm. LIAM: (cracking voice)
I'm Batman. (laughter) LIAM: Cool.
LAURA: That was fun. MATT: You're about
halfway down the pit now, and you've gone past the peak
of this massive Malleus Key. As you descend, you can see
the cresting pulses of greenish glass exterior veins
of the residuum that has been burned within, and now you can see at
the bottom of this platform, the massive machine
that is affixed to the base of this Key. You can see the glowing engines
and the armored exterior. This thing has been
heavily reinforced. And now-- (energy pulsing) With the with the wave
of energy around it, you can see there's also some sort of an arcane
field around this device, some sort of a
shell or shield. TRAVIS: Like an energy, not a physical barrier
but an energy barrier? MATT: Like some sort
of arcane boundary is visible on parts
of this machine. You also see a number
of these figures that are based around these
four smaller curved spires. They have ladders
and staircases and they're up inside and
they're placing things within and you recognize the crates
that they're reaching into and the small vials that
they're removing from them and affixing up inside
these four smaller spires. They are filling with,
installing into them more of these vials
of possibility. LAURA: Oh jeez. TRAVIS: Dude. What the
fuck are they making? LIAM: Gallons of possibility.
TRAVIS: Oh my god. MATT: You also see
another familiar figure step through one
of these groups. TRAVIS: This is the worst
dairy farm ever. (laughs) MATT: A dark red tattered
cloak and cowl-- TALIESIN: Mm-hmm.
LAURA: Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit.
MATT: The gray hair-- LAURA: Shit, shit, shit, shit,
shit, shit, shit, shit. MATT: The familiar
frightening visage-- MARISHA: When I
check my scry ball. MATT: Yeah, right there.
SAM: Ah! TRAVIS: (radar bleeping)
MATT: Right there in front of you. (laughs) ASHLEY: I see it. I see it!
TRAVIS: Put it away! Put it away! MARISHA: You got--
Your circlet can-- LAURA: I got my circlet.
MATT: The legendary Otohan Thull who steps up and
speaks to somebody and turns around and
pulls her cloak up. You watch as something
behind her ejects. Two vials-- (rolling thud) fall to the ground and
somebody else installs two-- (clicking) into the back. The cloak falls
over it once more. LIAM: Same cylinders that
are going into the spires? MATT: Mm-hmm. LAURA: So she's just getting
all these possibilities? She's just getting to
roll luck all the time. TRAVIS: We got to find the Dunamis bunny.
SAM: Or it's keeping her alive or something like that. LAURA: Bitch.
TRAVIS: There's a Dunamis bunny around here with
a drum, just-- (drumming) MATT: She then walks off and exits the central
area to some direction. If you want to see
where she's going? LIAM: Yes, I do. TRAVIS: Comes in
threes, right? LIAM: That is a 24. MATT: 24. You keep an eye out and
you can see now down here there's at least
25, 26 people in the immediate visual range
that are running different bits of the preparation
around here. You watch where
Otohan scoots through and heads towards
one entrance way, or I would say cavern entrance
that descends out of view. LIAM: Okay LAURA: Shit.
LIAM: Okay. LAURA: In your head you hear: Well, fuck. We didn't
really think about what we were going to do
when we got down here. LIAM: Nope. Tilt your head
down to the right. See that entrance down there? LAURA: Mm-hmm.
MARISHA: Holy shit. LIAM: That's where she went.
LAURA: Yeah. (laughter) LAURA: Yeah, what about it?
LIAM: That's where she went. LAURA: Oh yeah. No, I saw. LIAM: You didn't see shit. I saw.
LAURA: (laughs) MATT: With the roll
that you made, you do see there are some
small alcoves built into it, but there are four-- You rolled pretty decently. You might have to
get closer, but you can see at least the one
that she went through looks to be more
freshly opened. You can see there are mounds
of dirt on the outside and piles of rock, like the tunnel she went
through was recently excavated. SAM: It's a freshly
cut crevasse? MATT: Indeed.
LIAM: Wow. LAURA: At the base,
do we see Ryn? MATT: From this
angle, you do not. You continue to descend, passing by one other Call
member that comes by carrying an empty crate, doesn't seem to pay
much mind to you. As soon as you get
a secondary look, you now see towards the southern base of the key, hidden within some
of the twisted ruins, and you can now get a better
view of these ruins, too. There are staircases
and structures, like this was the
center of a society, some sort of a small village
or city that was built here that was long lost to
time around this device. Tucked into one of these
curved bits of ruined stone, Tucked into one of these
curved bits of ruined stone, you see a statue-like figure. You're uncertain if
this is part of the ruin or if this is Ryn, but you do see what looks to be
a still, stone-like figure. but you do see what looks to be
a still, stone-like figure. LIAM: The ruins, do they
look like they were excavated by the previous people here? Were they built into the sides of the pit at all? MATT: No.
LIAM: They were uncovered? MATT: They're uncovered.
LIAM: Yeah. MATT: It looks like
this existed long ago, and part of this excavation, whatever sinkhole
seemed to emerge here or whatever excavation
long dug within has been slowly peeling away
at this city lost to time. LIAM: Okay, okay, okay. SAM: What do we do now? LIAM: Is Ryn--
SAM: Grab her? LIAM: -- completely out in
the open for all to see, or-- MATT: Yeah.
LIAM: She's not hidden amongst junk? MATT: No, she's right next to
one of those four curved spires and surrounded by about-- Easily within eyeshot
of about 20 people. LIAM: 20 people.
LAURA: How many people are down there?
Like 20 people? MATT: Like 25-ish. SAM: We had Matt as a guard. MATT: There are individuals
leaving into other tunnels and there are some that
are coming back up. There's definitely an energy about the movement here that people are getting
ready for a big event. MARISHA: Maybe we start by
disabling some of these, and maybe that
creates a distraction? TRAVIS: Here on
the ground floor? LAURA: Is there anywhere
on the ground floor that looks like it's hidden? Anywhere that looks hidden? TRAVIS: Alcove or--
LAURA: Yeah. SAM: Under a bunch of bodies? MATT: (laughs) It looks like there are
a couple of alcoves, small, not full caverns,
but little 15 foot space ways into the
bottom outer wall as well as a number
of other tunnels and caverns that splinter
off from it, yeah. LIAM: Also, as on
the trip down, looking at all these
people scurrying around, there's like 20 of them, if I get a bead on
one or two of them as I'm looking everywhere,
do I get a sense of-- Obviously not Thull, but of all these
strangers walking around, if I pick one or two, do I get
a sense of their class level and their HP
compared to mine? MATT: Sure. Yeah. Glancing at a few of
them, you look at, let's say a Paragon's
Call member. Class level's lower,
strength is higher. LIAM: Mm-hmm. MATT: What was the
other one you asking? LIAM: Well, I just asked HP
and do they seem formidable? Would one person seem formidable
compared to any one of us? MATT: One person doesn't
seem as formidable, but there's a lot of them.
LIAM: A lot of them. Yes. MATT: There's a lot of them.
LIAM: Yes yes yes. MATT: They're no pushovers. At least the the
Paragon's Call member. You glanced at another individual
who's in Vanguard robes and they're maybe a
little less on that scale. LIAM: Mm-hmm. MATT: Make a perception
check for me. LIAM: Boy. Super low. Two threes. That is a 12.
SAM: Oof. MATT: Gotcha. Okay. MARISHA: Should we check out
some of these alcoves? LAURA: Yeah. Do I see my
mom around anywhere? MATT: Make a
perception check. LIAM: Come on. Ma-maw.
LAURA: 17. MATT: 17.
LAURA: That's really good for me. MATT: You look about
the crew beneath here. Amongst the the various
Vanguard robed figures, the Paragon's Call members and even a couple
of individuals that are shackled
and put to work that aren't adorned in any familiar symbols or colors of the factions that
you know have adjoined here set amongst the
center of the crew. You get this weird sense and you glance up towards
one of those catwalk bridges and you see a
figure leap from it and then begin to
slowly drift down. Within the dark
shadow of the space, you see the silhouette of
the figure as it descends and as the glow from underneath
the various light sources that are patterned out
amongst the busyness that encompasses the
bottom of this pit, you see the long leather
coat flickering by, the braided, familiar color
hair of your mother as she just glides down and begins conversing with
one of the other figures at the base of the Key. SAM: She's a vampire.
LAURA: That's one way to get down. SAM: Wow.
MARISHA: That's pretty cool. SAM: Boy. what are we doing? People in my belly, come up with a plan!
MATT: You watch as she gestures, and a large piece
of metallic armor, one of those jagged plates that you've seen being
shipped down from above lifts up off the ground by
itself as she gestures over, and it (metallic clasping) fits itself and
clings to the outside. MARISHA: Fuck, that's cool.
TRAVIS: One of the spires or the Key? LAURA: She's a lot stronger than me.
MATT: The Key. LAURA: She's a lot
stronger than me. SAM: No, no. If you
believe in yourself... MARISHA: All right, FCG? SAM: I'm doing stuff.
What do you want? What are we doing? MARISHA: Do we want to start
with one of these alcoves? SAM: Are we breaking
things? Are we hiding? What are we doing?
MATT: (energy pulsing) You see now another
wave come through, this time with
a closer-up look, you can see these devices. They're small,
self-contained arcane engine
looking devices. There's one on one end
and one on the other and they have these V-shaped
spikes that shoot out. As they flare up,
there's a weird crackling and a hum noise that goes-- (growing energy hum) (blast) When they both blast, you can see that wave
cascade out and upward. Now that you're closer to it, you can see it's
not a central wave, it's two patterned waves that bounce off as
it heads upward. That seems to pretty much cover the entirety
of the site. LAURA: It's bouncing off
the mirrors? Or it's like-- MATT: No. They're
ricocheting off the walls. LIAM: Is Ryn's form within that flow of energy that we're seeing go up? MATT: That flow of energy hits
everything in the chamber. LIAM: Everything in
the chamber. Okay. Other question is that the
passageway that Thull went into, and other passageways
down here, are they big enough for
the Warder to fit into? MATT: Make a perception
check for me. LAURA: Maybe the Warder
can stand in front of it. LIAM: 20... TALIESIN: Did Ryn have--
LAURA: Of the passageway. LIAM: Three.
MATT: 23. SAM: Oh, to block?
LAURA: Block it. TALIESIN: Mm.
LAURA: While people get out? MATT: It would be
very, very tight. And that's at the entrance. You're uncertain if they widen
or grow smaller upon entry. LIAM: We could start a
confrontation out here, but the two people
from Wildemount said that they have
the power source squirreled away in chambers
dug out underneath, so that's got to be what she's
going to and there's more. Do we want to try to zap
them of their juice? TRAVIS: Yeah. MARISHA: It feels like
that's a place to start. LIAM: Do we walk the
Warder up to one? I keep thinking of water. Can you fetch me some war-der? MARISHA: Yes. That's
how my grandma says it. MATT: Yeah, that's some
Kentucky shit right there. SAM: I'll mosey on up
towards one of them. TRAVIS: Do we want to
get out of it first in case they're not
welcome down? LAURA: That's what I mean.
SAM: Right at the door. MARISHA: Let's scout. Yeah,
scout. See what's in the cavern. SAM: All right, I'll
walk over to the cavern and peek inside. MATT: Okay. You come down to the
base of this walkway. You're now effectively on the
ground floor of this tunnel, and there's broken rock
and shale around you. You can see there are
tools, pickaxes, shovels, all means of excavation
within here. You can see empty
crates and boxes that have been
stacked to the edges, things that have been
carried in here, familiar crates, many that
you saw within Hexum's abode that carry these vials as well as a handful
of small black cases that are marked for
the Cerberus Assembly. You can see the occasional, somewhat flinted
shard of residuum left on the ground, like a small little flake
of it that glitters and glows when
that energy field (energy pulsing) fills up, and it's like
seeing a hint of glitter scattered across the
dust before you. Many of the figures
watch as you approach and keep an eye out
as you begin to enter. Those who are visible, which would be both of you, primarily just you since
you're the non-automaton. How are you passing
yourself off as you begin to enter
the exterior, the surrounding space
of this excavation? LAURA: Fuck. What the shit? Head held high. MATT: Mm-hmm. LAURA: Do I have a
notebook or anything? MATT: Do you? LAURA: I don't really
have anything like that. SAM: Just like a
proud Tara Reid. (weak laughter) LAURA: I'm going
to cross my arms and look around like
I'm keeping an eye out for people fucking with us. MATT: You got it. You
do glance around and you see a few more bodies that are pushed
to the edge of this-- SAM: Good god, don't
they clean up? MARISHA: (laughs) I know.
MATT: (laughs) Looks like they weren't
important enough to evacuate, but at least to
put off to the side. These look like they
were dropped within or fell into the pit, and are a bit enmeshed. LAURA: Oh. MATT: One of them
does appear to be the familiar physical
form of a Judicator that you had
encountered before, though arm heavily broken as it seemed to have landed
somewhere on its torso. You can see where its
face is in the ground. Most of the dust that has
poured through from the storm has filled up
most of the gaps, but you can see where the
face is, the mask removed, and it's this bloody skull
where it was pulled from. (heavy cracking) Another big crate cracks open and you see two more large
metal armored shards lift up in the air as Liliana is guiding
the reinforcement of the devices not far from you. TRAVIS: Can you recognize the
material that these shards are? LAURA: Metal. TRAVIS: Cool.
SAM: Yeah. Metal as fuck. MATT: Make a deception
check as you pass through. SAM: Jesus Christ.
MATT: I'll give you advantage because you are accompanied
by an automaton, you're not walking
straight through, and you are wearing
proper vestments. LAURA: 21.
SAM: Dang. Dang! MATT: Okay. Now are you heading towards
one of the alcoves, or you heading towards
one of the cavern entrances, or are you heading to
where Otohan was going? What are you doing? LAURA: An alcove. SAM: I follow your orders. LAURA: An alcove that looks
like it's not very busy, so I can get FCG Warder up against it. MATT: Okay. You glance off to
the left-hand side, coasting on the outside
edge of this excavation, so you don't have to get directly
face to face or rub shoulders with any of the
immediate workers here. There is one alcove that
looks like it's large enough, about 20 feet in or so, and it looks like this
was a storage alcove. You come into this
space as you walk over, the heavy footfalls of FCG's Warder automaton
(footsteps booming) behind you. A couple of figures
glance over and look and then shake their head
and go back to their work. On the inside of here, you can
see there are a few tables, and there are other clusters
of tools and materials that were used
for the excavation that now lay abandoned
at the moment, no longer finding
a purpose. Mostly dark, no light source, beyond anything you wish
to bring to the space this far end of the base. LAURA: Seems like a
good place to get out. MATT: (energy pulse) The
next wave goes through. TRAVIS: Just two things. I don't know how we
get Ryn out of this. And two, this is the
best transport we've had. If we get out, it
changes the odds. LAURA: Yeah.
LIAM: We're also-- This is like a break room
we're in. Once we're out, and we step out, it's on. LAURA: Yeah.
SAM: I could put Ryn in me. TRAVIS: We have to
pick it up, though. LIAM: Everybody-- TRAVIS: People are paying
attention to the statue in the garden. LIAM: Everybody swarms
this most important place if we kick it off. I don't know if this
is the right idea, but we could follow
Thull and corner her and deal with her alone. ASHLEY: Ugh. MARISHA: Well, wait. We saw people
gathering down here, like they were
gathering for an event. What if Otohan is about to
make a speech or some shit? TRAVIS: That's fair. MARISHA: Maybe there's
some sort of something where everyone
will be focused and then we can wreck some--
TRAVIS: I mean-- SAM: Should we just wait-- TRAVIS: The automatons
are on patrol duty, though. So if it stops to
listen to the speech, they might be like,
what the fuck? Is Johnny Five
alive over here? MARISHA: Why don't
we stay in here? We keep sussing it out and keep jumping
from cavern to cavern. LIAM: Another option,
again, I'm not-- TRAVIS: Mm-hmm.
LIAM: Just weighing options. Thull went down a
freshly cut crevasse, and there were a
couple more, right? MATT: Yeah, you can see from
where you're currently standing a secondary one
about 30 or so feet to the right of the one
that Thull went through. TRAVIS: They're just tunnels that go into the berth.
LIAM: Those are possibly where they're storing-- MARISHA: Residuum and shit.
LIAM: -- their Go Juice. TALIESIN: Mm-hmm.
MARISHA: Yeah, let's-- Because we can always
go in, jump out, fuck that shit
up, jump back in, and keep rinse and repeating until we feel there's maybe
a good opportunity to bust the main power force.
LAURA: How long has it been since I called? MATT: I'd say about
15, 20 minutes. LAURA: Okay. So we got
T-minus 45 minutes. MARISHA: Let's go
to the next one. TRAVIS: It feels like that
might be the right thing instead of getting out here, right?
LAURA: Okay. So yeah, let's go to--
MARISHA: Yeah. LAURA: -- the next cavern,
or alcove, or whatever and see if we
can blow it down. LIAM: Certainly learn something.
MATT: (mechanical footsteps booming) Begin to walk over, continuing your
baseline patrol of the bottom of
this excavation site, passing by a crew that
begins to move over and cross your path. I'd like another deception
check from you with advantage as they cross your walkway
to not draw any suspicion. LAURA: That would be a 27.
SAM: Whoa! TALIESIN: Whoa!
MATT: Woo! LIAM: Acting!
TRAVIS: Come on! MATT: They rolled high, too,
but not as high as a 27. TRAVIS: Whoa! (laughs) MATT: They walk past and
glance in your direction. One of the Call
members just-- You can tell just
to look at them, as they're glancing around, there is a heightened
security state here, and people are
actively looking for any sort of infiltration. You can see from some of
the bodies around here, some of the displays at
the top of the cavern, that they've had a
few incursions already or at least encounters and already know that this
is probably going to increase as they approach
the event. So they have that
suspicious glance, but as soon as they
see the automaton come out of the
alcove (footsteps booming) and you walking comfortably
alongside it, they put their head back down and walk into the far end, pick up some more tools
and begin to head back in towards the
center of the ruin. LAURA: (whispers) That's good.
That's good. MATT: Are you heading
to the cavern that's-- the other cavern or the
one that Otohan is in? LAURA: No. No
LIAM: The non-Otohan. MATT: Okay. So you cross-- MARISHA: The non-Otohan.
TALIESIN: The Notohan. MARISHA: The Notohan,
there it go. (chuckles) MATT: You cross past the
one the Otohan went into and have that
breathless moment where all sounds seems
to (air whooshing). MARISHA: Treshi scry
ball. She's still in there? MATT: Yeah, she's still in
that direction. You pass beyond it
around the outer edge. (explosion booming)
Another one of those waves cuts through, and now you're
glancing around, you can see there
are little glyphs that begin to appear, and little breaks
in the ground. You can see parts of
the landscape within the ruin that the other
workers are-- You watch as they move,
they move carefully. They are avoiding
specific places. You see one in the ground. LIAM: Okay. So I'm going to
whisper those out to Imogen. MATT: You only see one
from this position. You have to get closer
to really make a map. But you're out on the-- On the outskirts, you see one that you
can mark to everybody. MARISHA: Watch where other
people are stepping. MATT: Okay.
SAM: Still bodies everywhere? MATT: Not as many
on this side. But there is another
opposite side ramp walkway that is
a little bit ahead of where this other
secondary entrance is. But you then begin
to approach, and there is a
figure standing who walks over and perches their
back up against it and takes a deep breath, like they're either
taking a break or they're acting as a sentinel to this entryway.
SAM: ♪ Takin' a break ♪ MATT: As you begin to
step up and approach. LIAM: Breakn' their way. MATT: They look over towards
you as the automaton begins to step forward
and they give a nod. LAURA: I nod back and
keep walking. MATT: Okay. You walking
into the entrance? MARISHA: Shift change. Woo.
LAURA: Yeah. MARISHA: (pigeon coos) LAURA Yeah.
LIAM: (laughs) TRAVIS: You could also--
LAURA: Just fully, like I-- TRAVIS: You could also give
them some stank, too. LIAM: Undead owl or--
(laughs) LAURA: Yeah. MATT: This figure's wearing
Vanguard vestments. TRAVIS: Casual appearance
at a sentry post. SAM: You should chat him up. MATT: They put their
hood back a bit and you can see
this human, male, pale, very pale skin, balding ring on the sides
like friar haircut, which crosses his
arms and pulls out some sort of a
hand-rolled cigarette and begins to ignite
it with a flint. LAURA: Smoke break down here? MATT: "We've been working
hard for a while. What?" LAURA: Put it away. SAM: Oof. MATT: "(sighs)" MARISHA: (laughs) LAURA: I'm going to keep
walking like I'm going to go through the entrance. MATT: Make a deception check. SAM: She'll kill you. MATT: With advantage.
MARISHA and TRAVIS: (laugh) LAURA: 21.
MATT: 21? He goes, "Eh," takes it
and flicks it onto the ground and stomps it out, and leans against-- I'd say he's leaning
against the wall, but puts the cigarette out. TRAVIS: Those things
will kill you. Muffled from inside.
(laughter) MATT: But now that you're
approaching this entryway, it looks like it's just
wide enough for the automaton to step in to, and block, and not get much
further than that. LAURA: Do you want to block it?
SAM: Do you want me to open the front door and block it?
LAURA: Block it? SAM: Sure. Sure I'll... MATT: Underneath the
legs there's a walkway, but, you know, you can't get much further
than five feet into it before you become
the archway. SAM: Is Smokey watching us? MATT: I mean, he's off to the
side and he's not smoking, but he is pissed
off a bit and... SAM: Tell me when. LAURA: Well, I want to-- Can I look in and
see what's going on? What's through the entrance? MATT: It is
a descending cavern that winds around,
just out of view. But it rapidly goes
into a 45-degree angle. LAURA: I mean, we could
open up the belly and pop out?
ASHLEY: Let Chet out. LIAM: Yep.
SAM: Go? LIAM: Yep. Abandon ship.
LAURA: Sure. SAM: All right, I'll just--
ASHLEY: We're getting out? We're getting out.
SAM: I'll just (groans) (pops). SAM: Pop open--
MATT: So you step into (heavy footsteps) the belly opens up
(hinge squeaking) and it's kind of-- it's a little janky from the damage it
sustained from the battle and squeaks a bit. It makes a loud
screeching sound, and the figure
who's posted there turns and looks inside, and looks a bit curious
about what you're doing. LAURA: I turn and
kick the Warder. This fucking piece of shit. TRAVIS: (laughs)
MATT: "W-w-what are you doing?" LAURA: That's none of
your business, son. MATT: Intimidation check. (laughs)
ASHLEY: She "son" him! TRAVIS: (laughs)
SAM: "I'm a 52 years old." (laughter) LAURA: I say
that in his head. MATT: Okay.
MARISHA: Ooh, yeah. MATT: Take advantage on
the intimidation check. LAURA: All right. MARISHA: Come on.
LAURA: Okay. ASHLEY: (snaps) LAURA: 24. No, 22, I'm sorry. 22.
MATT: 22? 22. You say that into his head
and immediately he goes-- There's a look of recognition
for a second and goes, puts his hood back
up and then just begins to mingle with the rest of the working crew--
TRAVIS: (snaps) MATT: -- and vanishes out of sight.
TALIESIN: Hot. Hot. MARISHA: Before a-- Has there been a pulse on-- MATT: (boof) Yeah, there is.
MARISHA: Oop. Wait here for a second. I send Pâté down the...
SAM: Oh! MATT: "Don't worry!
I got it." MARISHA: Just be--
shut your mouth. MATT: "Right! Chop chop!"
(lithe footsteps) MARISHA: Look through his eyes.
MATT: And patters down. (air whooshing) The tunnel
curves down, almost in a complete... not full 360, but definitely
a 180 back below, and the ramp eventually exits
into another fresh cavern. It looks like it's
been haphazardly opened. Has an entryway in
the center there, mainly just rock
and broken shale. It's very rough-hewn. But there is, towards
the back of it, a cluster of various arcane
power sources. You can see there
are arcane cores. You can see there
are cylindrical designs. It looks like a
haphazard collection of different power sources
from different places all across Exandria that have been
tethered together. You can see it's partially
armored in places and it's been affixed into
the wall, and there are, where they're all attached, this heavy piece of
mechanical cording. You can see there is,
around the outside of it, residuum tethers that
seem to carry and emphasize the power coursing
upward into the rock and above. LAURA: Okay. MARISHA: I relay that. Any sign of people?
TRAVIS: Headcount? MATT: There are three figures
in there keeping watch. MARISHA: Three figures. MATT: You see two Paragon's
Call and one Vanguard figure that are sitting at a table. They're all faced open
towards the wall. I would like you to make
a stealth check. (laughs) MARISHA: I go: Invisible. I'll tell him telepathically
to go invisible. MATT: Which he can do. MARISHA: Which he can do. SAM: Wow.
MATT: He goes invisible. TRAVIS: As we came down
into this lower area, before we picked this
cavern and went by the guard, that she has mind fucked, about how many caverns
did we see, roughly? MATT: Along the base? TRAVIS: Yeah, different
avenues that we could-- LIAM: Thull went in one. We--
MATT: Yeah, Thull went in one. You crossed over to the next
one. That's all you've seen. TRAVIS: Just two.
MATT: Just two so far, but you've only really been
around 40% of the outer wall. MARISHA: All right. There's
three motherfuckers down there. Currently, you said they
were just chilling, playing cards. MATT: No, they're
not playing cards, they're talking
and conversing. You can see one of them, their knee is bouncing
with nervous energy. Like they've just been
assigned here and-- MARISHA: What are
they saying? Anything of import? MATT: Roll a perception check
for Pâté, if you don't mind. It's not a very
high DC necessarily, but it's always fun to
see what gets rolled. MARISHA: Lucky jade. What would I use, his wisdom? MATT: Yes.
MARISHA: 10. MATT: 10? He listens in, one of
them is like, "(exhales) "I just-- "I don't know. "There's something about this.
It just makes me nervous. "Haven't been part of something
quite this big, you know? "We're just used to
taking people's money "outside of the city." You notice, glancing over,
through his eyes, and this is one of the Call
members who's talking to, partially to the other
Call member at the table and also to the
Vanguard figure, who's faced partially away. The other one who's-- In here, there's this
one small light source which is this
singular oil lantern. It looks like an oil lantern, but the flicker in it is
just a steady magical glow. So it looks like this
is a magical lantern. Most of these
within here are, so as not to run
out of fuel. As it's placed on there,
the other Call figures, a massive half-giant sits back in the
chair and goes, "Yeah, I don't even care.
They're paying well enough. "Let's say I could probably
retire after this." MARISHA: So we have
a half-giant. Who is the other
Paragon's Call? Big guy, little guy? MATT: Little guy. Looks to
be a stocky halfling. MARISHA: Stocky halfling. Then a Vanguard member,
does that person look like a mage? Do they look like some of
the other higher stationed or just another lackey? MATT: This one looks to be-- They're wearing
Vanguard robes. You can't really tell. In the low light, you
can see they're humanoid, but you can't see
more than that with roll a 10,
unfortunately. MARISHA: Okay. I relay
that message. Looks like we've got
one Vanguard member, two Paragon's Call, one
of them half-giant. They seem very uneasy. We might be able to use
that to our advantage. LIAM: We want to get in there
quick and keep it quiet. TRAVIS: Get in,
keep it quiet. Or we could try before
we keep it quiet to have them like, General Ratanish,
General Temult requests you top
side at the rim. Like send them
all the way up. LAURA: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. TRAVIS: Right? With your
mind powers or something. So maybe they walk
and keep going so that we don't have to get noisy.
MARISHA: Murderous? TRAVIS: Yeah. Yeah, but that also doesn't
help us with the noisy that we're going to have to
get against the batteries, right? LIAM: Maybe, yeah. TRAVIS: Unless we can
leave some kind of a-- MARISHA: I wish I had
a Silence spell. Does anyone have
a Silence spell? SAM: Nope.
ASHLEY: Mm-mm. LIAM: We never saw a mage
hunter golem or anything. LAURA: Not like that.
TRAVIS: I think we would know what
it looked like. LAURA: Mm-mm.
TALIESIN: I mean-- MATT: We've only heard about it.
LIAM: Ward like a golem to start. TRAVIS: Yeah. Oh, right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Some
of these are not golems. LAURA: Okay. TRAVIS: We could roll in
three for three plus Imogen, if you wanted to? LAURA: Right. MARISHA: To try and give orders
first, and then if it goes bad-- TRAVIS: Yeah, like
we're the shift change. LAURA: Right. MARISHA: Yeah, shift
change is good. MATT: Okay. Who's going in? TALIESIN: Who's
wearing robes? LAURA: Yeah, we got two
Paragon's Call, right? Robes and one Vanguard robe. MARISHA: Who were in Van-- LIAM: I was in Vanguard. MARISHA: You were
in Vanguard. TALIESIN: I think
I had a Paragon. LAURA: You did.
TALIESIN: Yeah. MARISHA: Then you had Paragon?
TALIESIN: I look Paragon. TRAVIS: Yeah.
MATT: There's a few Paragon outfits. It was taken from
the encounter in Yios. There was three
Vanguard members that you fought when you first
came to the entrance of this. MARISHA: Why don't we
do you three and then the rest of us will
stay back a little bit, but be near. ASHLEY: What if someone
comes up and is like, "What are you doing,
automaton, just on your own?" LAURA: Well,
it's broken down. ASHLEY: Oh,
just acting like-- SAM: Well,
if I look around, are there any other
automatons like me around? MATT: You saw a number
that were in the process of bringing materials. SAM: But they were all
working. None were at rest? MATT: Currently, yes. TRAVIS: They may just--
SAM: Okay. Are there any bodies
around or any big shards of rock?
MATT: Within this cavern that you've wedged
yourself into, none. SAM: Well, I'm going
to back out of the wedge.
MATT: Okay. MARISHA: Yeah, and maybe
look on guard. SAM: Yeah, are there
any piles of rocks or anything that I
can do busy work? Like piling bodies,
or piling rocks, or clearing a path? MATT: You can certainly
do busy work. SAM: I'm going to do
busy work. (laughs) MATT: Okay. All right. Is it just you within? Who
all is staying inside? LIAM: Anyone who's
lagging behind, are they getting
inside the Warder? LAURA: Yeah.
SAM: They're going to stay inside. Yeah.
LAURA: Yeah. MATT: Okay.
So exiting the Warder. Who's exiting the Warder? TALIESIN: I am.
TRAVIS: Ashton, Orym-- SAM: I'm exiting the Warder. LAURA: Okay.
MATT: Oh god. I'll fix your sword
arm at the break. MARISHA: I'm going to
keep Pâté down there. SAM: "(Pâté groan)."
TRAVIS: (like Pâté) Right. MATT: Okay.
MARISHA: And give any... Just continue to be their eyes
until they get down there. MATT and LAURA: Okay. MATT: You got it. So. We have the three of you
walking in Vanguard robes behind Imogen. As you descend the
cavern below-- SAM: So we can see
what they're doing? MARISHA: I can
continue to watch. I can also cast touch
spells through Pâté, so-- MATT: You can. MARISHA: I can help
them that way. LAURA: Okay. MATT: You step into
this rock chamber and it has a winding, rocky stair that's made from digging into
the dirt below. You can see the
table across the way and some of the open crates, as well as the
different pulsing, thrumming glows
of energy sources that are all mashed
together in the far corner. As soon as you step in,
the figures glance over. One of the Call members goes
"(clicks tongue)," and points over. The Vanguard figure
turns around and you see they are
a green-scale dragonborn beneath the hood with one cloudy cataract
eye, glancing over. You immediately hear
in your mind, "What is your purpose?" LAURA: There's
trouble on the rim. MATT: "What trouble?" LAURA: There was an attack. General Ratanish says
to be on the lookout. Y'all are needed up there. MATT: Make a deception check. MARISHA: Come on. MATT: This does
not have advantage. LAURA: 18.
SAM: Okay. Okay.
MATT: 18. This figure goes, "Really? "Well, then, I suppose
we should get to it." Stands up and glances
at the other two. They both look back
at him, give a nod. They stand up. TRAVIS: Shit.
TALIESIN: I want to have a second just to see. I want to see if there's
any funny business. This is making me nervous.
TRAVIS: It is funny business. MATT: Make an insight check. Go for it.
TRAVIS: No doubt, it's on. MARISHA: Yeah, they're going to--
TALIESIN: No, a seven. MATT: Seven?
MARISHA: (groans) MATT: Hard to pick up on immediately.
TRAVIS: There's no question. But they walk past. They spread out a little bit. The two Call members wrap
around the four of you. MARISHA: Yeah, they're flanking.
TALIESIN: Oh shit. MATT: The central Vanguard figure--
MARISHA: They're totally flanking. MATT: -- walks past you to get a very up-close
glance at you. As they move just
past your shoulder, looking into you, you hear in your mind
once more their voice go, "(clicking tongue) "Well, "let's see what
you're made of." I need you to
roll initiative. TRAVIS: Yes!
(groaning) SAM: This combat will be brought
to you by WizKids minis, the Vox Machina box
set, the Box Machina, is available now
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ASHLEY: Oh, whoa! SAM: Whoa, we are in it.
LAURA: Was that an 18 that I rolled? MARISHA: Can I roll
as well for Pâté? MATT: Hmm?
SAM: Whoa. MARISHA: Roll for Pâté?
MATT: You can, actually. TALIESIN: I also, I don't
think I can be surprised? MATT: Does it say that?
MARISHA: This dice always fucks me! TALIESIN: Hold on, where is it?
SAM: Why do you have it? TALIESIN: Let me double check. MARISHA: Because it's pretty! ASHLEY: Wait, we're all
rolling initiative? SAM: Are you in there?
ASHLEY: Well, no. Did you roll initiative?
TALIESIN: "Also, if you are surprised at the beginning of combat, "you can act normally
on your first turn "if you went to rage before
doing anything else." MATT: Indeed.
And so we have-- MARISHA: But let's
see how they do. Let's see how they do.
TALIESIN: So I don't know. MATT: Chet probably
up here, right? TALIESIN: You said
the Ruby Vanguard was in the back.
MATT: You probably would have been a little bit farther.
LIAM: The person here's the dragon? Is the-- MATT: Indeed. SAM: Oh man, it is on. MATT: I don't
have a dragonborn Ruby Vanguard
figure necessarily, but we'll say
that this figure is the one that just walked
past before saying that. Then the other two
Call figures are here. The tiny one, the halfling,
which is that there, and then this one here,
which is the large half-giant. So from that point, let us do initiative. 25 to 20? LIAM: 24. LAURA: Oof. MATT: Okay. 20 to 15? TALIESIN: 17. MATT: Okay. 15 to 10? TRAVIS: 12. MATT: All right. All right. 10 to five? MARISHA: Five
for Pâté/Laudna. MATT: All righty. MATT: I'm going to say Pâté
was probably invisible. I'm going to put,
this is Pâté here, up on the edge of the
cliff keeping watch. MARISHA: Okay. MATT: But top of the round,
Orym, you're the first to react. As soon as you see everyone
tense to move inward, you know immediately
what's coming, and you jump to the task. What do you do?
LIAM: I spring to it. I slide right
under mage's legs and drag my blade along
the lower part of his leg and try to whip him up
and drop him on his back with a tripping attack. MATT: Go for it.
LAURA: Nice. LIAM: Ooh, that's low. That's
not going to hit, probably. That is a 11. MATT: 11 does not hit. LIAM: Then I will
bring it around and his leg, I guess,
slips out of the way, so I will then flip it around and then try to dig it into
his calf and do the same. That's better.
That is a 17 to hit. MATT: 17 just hits. LIAM: The save is strength
against 16, DC 16. MATT: That is a failure.
LIAM: He's on his back. MATT: So the first strike
as you try and carve upward, step's back as soon
as you slide down, and you watch this
mental field deflect, this flash of psychic energy. Then as soon as they
pull their leg up, you smash the other leg
out from underneath with another slice
and they "(grunts)." LIAM: I'm trying to drop him
right in front of Ashton. MATT: How much
damage was that? LIAM: 14.
MATT: 14. All righty. Okay. LIAM: Then I'm going
to dive and roll under Imogen's,
legs crawling up onto this little rock
outcropping here. MATT: This guy might get
an attack of opportunity. LIAM: That's fine. MATT: Over here?
LIAM: Yep, nope, too far. Right there.
MATT: Oh, you got it. Okay, gets an attack of
opportunity against you. LIAM: Okay. MATT: Oh, that's
going to be a 13. LIAM: Doesn't hit and I--
MATT: Smashes into rock. LIAM: -- immediately
do Bait and Switch with Imogen so that
we trade places. I flip roll back under her and
push her up under that rock. You get an extra seven
on your armor class until the start
of my next turn. MATT: So up here?
LAURA: Sweet. LIAM: Yeah, shield
up in front of her. MATT: You got it. Awesome. That finish your go?
LIAM: Yes. MATT: All right, next
up we have the guy who's on the ground.
Gets up from prone for half his movement, and he's going to
move back this way. Actually, no, he's not,
because he's in combat with both of you.
Just stays in place and instead is going to-- TALIESIN: It was a nice thought.
LIAM: Yeah, I was hoping to break it.
MATT: -- cast-- LIAM: Scorsese kick him
before he could do anything. MATT: He's going to
cast Hypnotic Pattern. SAM: Ooh. That's a good one.
TALIESIN: Mm. LIAM: Shit. MATT: All right. LAURA: What level is that? MATT: It's going to create a
Hypnotic Pattern in this space. It does get their
friend in it over here. But I'm going to
need all four of you to make a wisdom
saving throw for me. TALIESIN: Cool. TRAVIS: Advantage. Advantage.
LAURA: I have advantage against being charmed. MATT: You do. TRAVIS: Natural 20.
MARISHA: Woo! MATT: Unaffected.
SAM: Oh snap. LIAM: 10. MATT: 10, all right. TALIESIN: 15.
MATT: 15. LAURA: 15.
MATT: 15. Suddenly you watch as the
figure stands back up and they put their hand out
in front, their eyes flash. You put your gaze away, but the rest of you
suddenly see this splash of technicolor in
front of you. Your arms going to drop to your side--
TALIESIN: Shit. MATT: -- and you just stand
there, currently charmed. While you're charmed,
you're incapacitated and your speed is zero.
SAM: (groans) MATT: You all are
frozen in place. TRAVIS: All three of you?
ASHLEY: Oh my god. MATT: Yeah.
SAM: How's Pâté? LAURA: That would be 16. I rolled 16.
MATT: Pâté was not in there. MATT: 16 succeeds, then. ASHLEY: Oh!
TALIESIN: (groans) MATT: So the two of you do. The two of you drop
there staring into space almost drooling. You manage to
just shrug it off. This is Exaltant energy. LAURA: Oh shit.
MATT: Subtle, not as forceful maybe
as yours, but present. LIAM: I would think that
any bump I was giving to Imogen's armor class is
gone, too, because I'm just-- MATT: I'd say logistically--
LAURA: Is it? Would it? MATT: Logistically, it's him
guarding you, so I'd say yes. LIAM: Yeah.
LAURA: Okay. MATT: From an narrative
standpoint, it makes sense. Nevertheless, that finishes with you both frozen
actually, you're not. He's uncertain-- No, because
you didn't get affected, he's going to stay put. With that, it's going
to come to Ashton's go. Ashton, you lose your turn. LAURA: Ugh.
TALIESIN: I can't do shit about it? No roll except the save roll? Nope. All right, cool. MATT: If you take any damage, or someone uses an action
to shake you out of it. You're going to need
to break out of it. TALIESIN: Okay.
MATT: But otherwise, you just stand there, stupefied. All right, Chetney, you're up.
SAM: ♪ Stupefied ♪ TRAVIS: Cool, this is fun. I'm going to move so that-- If I move opposite of Ashton, is it still considered flanking
even though he's catatonic? MATT: No, because he has to
be threatening the target. TRAVIS: Well, fuck a duck. TALIESIN: You can tap me on the way--
MATT: Technically, his friend was in the-- Oh, he did succeed
with a natural 17. So the Call member
is not affected. MARISHA: Damn.
TALIESIN: You can tap me on the way around, but I'm not going to-- MATT: Takes his action to do that.
TALIESIN: Too much meta. Oh wow. Okay,
never mind. Shit. MATT: But if you do enough
damage to the figure, he might drop concentration,
if you're feeling confident. TRAVIS: Yeah, that's
what I'm thinking. So I will stay where
I am and not move into a flanking position and I will bring out
Turmoil and use the magic word and unleash the full scythe. MATT: The blade shoots
out of the side. TRAVIS: With my bonus action, I'll
draw it up along my calf, ah! You see flame dance up the side of the scythe.
MATT: Awesome. TRAVIS: This is what
we got, motherfucker. I'll take a swing
against the figure that cast Hypnotic Pattern. MATT: Okay, go for it. TRAVIS: Oh, let me run my
♪ (searching song) ♪ blood rite. ♪ That's three. Okay. That is a 19 to hit? TRAVIS: 19 hits. TRAVIS: Okay, 19, and
the second strike will be 19 plus, 27 to hit. MATT: Yeah, both hit.
TRAVIS: Amazing. Okay. Let's do-- 2d6. TALIESIN: Fuck them up. TRAVIS: Eight, 12 plus three,
15 on the first one. MATT: 15 damage.
Maintain concentration. TRAVIS: Amazing, and 13... 16 points of damage
on the second one. MATT: 16 for the second one. Maintain concentration. TRAVIS: And let's
see on both of those... Oh, 1d8 thunder
damage on each, sorry. Or-- Yeah, 1d8 thunder damage. MATT: Yeah, go for it roll and roll those.
TRAVIS: Where's my fucking d8? There is is. Five, one, six points
of thunder damage. MATT: Six points
of thunder damage. All right, got it. All right. Chetney,
you going to stay put? TALIESIN: Did the thunder
damage connect to the save? MATT: It does, yeah.
TALIESIN: Okay. TRAVIS: They're all part of the same attack.
MATT: They rolled high enough, too. TALIESIN: Shit fuck.
TRAVIS: Yes, that is. That's it. MATT: Okay.
TRAVIS: I'll stay there. MATT: All right. So you
stay and finish there. That now goes to these
two figures' turn. This one runs in.
It's going to pincer you against the other, so they both have advantage
on their attacks against you. TRAVIS: Mm-hmm. MATT: First one
here is going to strike you with a big
old mace in its hand. Oh my god. With
advantage, thankfully. Okay. 17 to hit. TRAVIS: That does hit.
MATT: It does hit. Okay, cool. LIAM: Very cool.
MATT: Very cool, I like it. You take eight points
of bludgeoning damage. TRAVIS: Okay.
MATT: It cracks you upside the head. You pull out of the
way just in time before it takes
any heavy impact, but you feel your ear
warm from the cut from the side of the mace. Second strike with advantage
is also going to hit, that's even higher
than that, that's 23. TRAVIS: Oh yeah. MATT: That's only three points of
bludgeoning damage on that one. The opposite side, the other
one is going to strike you with shortsword
with advantage. It's going to be a 15? TRAVIS: Misses.
MATT: Misses. Second one is going
to be a 20 to hit. TRAVIS: Yes. MATT: That one deals five points
of slashing damage to you as they both start
unleashing upon you, side to side, being careful not
to wake up the other ones. TRAVIS: (comical
dodging) Fuck! MATT: Finishing their go, Imogen,
you're up, with Pâté on deck. LAURA: Okay. I'm going
to use my bonus action to talk to FCG because
that's the last person I have a telepathic
connection with-- MATT: Yeah, yeah.
LAURA: -- and say: We're made, get in here. SAM: I think Demi Moore
just said something. (laughter) LAURA: I'm going to put my
hands to the side of my head and lash out with
a Psychic Whip against the dragonborn and the half-giant.
MATT: Okay. You got it. What's they save on that? LAURA: That is a 17
intelligence save. MATT: 17 intelligence. Oof, failure,
and both failures. LAURA: Okay. So that's 3d6--
LIAM: ♪ Mind powers ♪ LAURA: -- psychic damage
to both of them. Wow, that's shit. Six points of psychic damage. But both of them have to make a choice
on their next turn. They can only move, do an
action, or bonus action. They don't get all three. MATT: Got it. All right, so
both of them get struck by that. Concentration check.
It's a natural one. MARISHA: Nice.
SAM: Hey, that's great. MATT: While it wasn't
a lot of damage, you struck right in
the middle of its mind. The dragonborn grabs
the sides of his head and clutches them
for a second. The pattern vanishes and
both Orym and Ashton, your eyes blink back
to consciousness. Frustrated, you grab your
weapons at the ready for when the
next round comes. LIAM: Would you think that my
shield back up in this moment, coming to, would then protect?
MATT: I'd say so. MATT: I'd allow that.
LAURA: Great. I'm going to back
up with my movement. MATT: Okay, you will
lose the AC bonus. LAURA: Oh, I have to
stand next to him? MATT: Yeah, he's guarding
you with the shield. LAURA: Well, then fuck it.
I'm going to stay where I am. MATT: Okay. All right,
finishing your go, that brings us to Pâté,
with Orym on deck. MARISHA: All right. TRAVIS: What's the creature,
the dragon up on the top? MATT: That's Pâté, I just don't
have a Pâté mini at the moment. TRAVIS: Perfect.
MARISHA: I'm going to have him-- MATT: Or actually this will be--
It's a little more viable. I'll use this little bird. MARISHA: Shit.
MATT: It's tiny. That works. MARISHA: I also don't want
him to get fucking punked. Which were the ones that
can only make one choice? MATT: Both of these. MARISHA: Are they
both wearing armor? MATT: The Vanguard
one is not wearing-- It looks like they're
wearing robes. You don't know if they have armor underneath.
MARISHA: Yeah, yeah, yeah. But-- MATT: The other one is. The big one, the half-giant.
MARISHA: The big guy? MARISHA: He's going to
fly up to the big guy and I'm going to dump a
Shocking Grasp into him. MATT: (Pâté) "Gonna
grasp and shock you!" (laughter) MATT: You have advantage
because he doesn't see you. MARISHA: I have advantage,
which I will happily take. Yes! 18?
MATT: 18 hits. MARISHA: Awesome. LAURA: Mr. Mercer.
MATT: Yes? LAURA: Can I change
my mind and back up, because I'm going to lose
it anyway, he's about to go. MATT: Okay, fair enough.
I'll allow that. MARISHA: Oof. Oh no wait, no. Seven damage, no. Yeah, seven damage.
MATT: Seven damage, all righty. MARISHA: And-- MATT: "(grunts)" Takes
the hit to the chest. Falls to one knee for a second.
MARISHA: It can't take reactions until the start
of its next turn. MATT: Good to know.
MARISHA: Does that give Pâté time to back up a bit? MATT: If Pâté wants to. MARISHA: Yeah, I'm going
to have him move back. Yep.
MATT: All right, this figure here does get an attack
of opportunity. MARISHA: I would've had him go the other way.
MATT: Okay, that's what I wanted to check and make sure
that's the case. So he's going to
stay there. Okay. Pâté stays in the place,
bringing to the top, Orym. MARISHA: But does that--
Can we get in now? SAM: Yeah, do
they get to move? MATT: It'll take
you guys about-- LAURA: Oh, they also
don't get a reaction since they failed
on my thing. MATT: That's true,
so yeah, Pâté can move. MARISHA: So he moves farther back.
LAURA: They don't get reactions. MATT: There you go.
ASHLEY: Nice. MATT: For you all
emerging from that, it's going to take you
two rounds to get there. So keep that in mind.
ASHLEY: Okay. SAM: Wait, do you want
to start moving or? MARISHA: Might as well, yeah. SAM: All right, I'll mosey
on back over to the entrance-- MARISHA: Just make sure
you're not being made. MATT: Shimmy up to it? (laughs)
SAM: Yeah. MATT: (squeaking hinge) It opens and you all can
dart out, but you have to-- ASHLEY: Let me
just take a peek. MARISHA: Yeah, anyone watching?
ASHLEY: Is anybody looking? MATT: Well, it's facing
the inside of it, so you only can
see the cavern. MARISHA: Did you see
anybody watching us? SAM: I would have
looked around. MATT: Make a
perception check. SAM: 10 plus six, 16. MATT: 16. There are
many people around. SAM: As I go over there, I'm
going to carry it like a rock and throw it off to the side. Look like I'm doing stuff. MATT: Okay, and then
you lean into it. Door open hinges. Are you staying
inside the automaton? SAM: Yeah, yeah, yeah,
I'm not leaving this thing. MATT: The two of you emerge
and climb out of it. So it'll take you one more
round before you get there. LAURA: Like a Tony Stark cosplay?
ASHLEY: Okay. MATT: All right. Now to
the top. Orym, you're up. LIAM: Okay, Orym is
going to dive into a roll under the half-giant's legs
and end up flanking arcane-- Nope, right here. So I am flanking with Ashton.
MATT: Oh, you got it. LIAM: I'm going to use my
blade to spin him around toward me with one slash.
That is a 21 to hit. MATT: 21 hits! LIAM: That is a
10 for damage. Then the second one
I will try to stab straight up into
his good eye. That is a 21 to hit.
MATT: That hits. LIAM: That is a nine, nine? SAM: Nein.
LIAM: Nein. SAM: Nein? LIAM: ♪ (thinking scat) ♪ Yes, nine damage. MATT: Okay, nine damage.
How do you want to do this? MARISHA: Ey!
ASHLEY: Oh, nice nice nice. LIAM: Exactly what I said. I'm
going to use the first swipe to spin his body
around towards me and then up and catch
the non-cataract eye. So now he's got two problems. MATT: (laughs) Okay. Fatal blow?
MARISHA: (laughs) LIAM: Oh yeah.
MATT: Yeah. (sword swings) (choking death)
Then crumples to the ground. SAM: Orym, no! MATT: All righty. TALIESIN: Are you close
enough to that motherfucker that we can catch him
between the two of us or no? that we can catch him
between the two of us or no? Yeah, you're--
LIAM: The half-giant? TALIESIN: Yeah, the half-giant. LIAM: I mean, it's not-- If you move.
TALIESIN: Okay, I-- Just want to make
sure that's-- LIAM: You could do
diagonal line. You'd have to cross
through the-- TALIESIN: Oh, there's actually--
MATT: A little bit of movement. TALIESIN: There's
actually nowhere I can go where I don't--
MATT: You used five, 10, 15 to get there. LIAM: Oh, you're right. TALIESIN: No, they don't
have a reaction right now. MATT: They don't. LIAM: No, but I can just-- Then get, yeah, sword
up and shield up and then circle around. TRAVIS: Yep.
LIAM: Get him pinned between Ashton and I. MATT: You got it. So you
can definitely do that. LIAM: Good call.
MATT: Holding that in place, that finishes their go. It would be the Exaltant's
turn, but he's gone. That brings us to Ashton,
with Chetney on deck. TALIESIN: You motherfucker.
I say to you. As I say it, I take a swing at the
big asshole right there. Let's get the half-giant. I'm not even going to-- Do we bother to
rage right now? These guys don't seem like
they're really worth it. LAURA: Just don't
jinx this shit. LIAM: Should I rage? TALIESIN: Yeah, let's fucking rage.
LIAM: I don't know. TRAVIS: Yeah, you might--
MARISHA: How many? TALIESIN: I got two more
after this. MARISHA: All right.
TALIESIN: I'll be fine. I say out loud,
like an idiot. LAURA: I mean, we're
basically gods. TALIESIN: Oh!
MARISHA: It's fine. TALIESIN: I give myself
a little shake and the crazy rainbow
sparkles start popping up. So I am suddenly a
terrible little bit of Rainbow Brite madness. I'm going to nail
this motherfucker right in the goddamn head. MATT: Go for it.
TALIESIN: So, that's I get 17 plus
nine, that hits. MATT: Definitely hits. TALIESIN: So let's do some
damage, because it's been a little bit I'm trying to remember
what the damage roll. Okay, there we are.
MATT: This against the half-giant or the tiny guy?
TALIESIN: Half-giant. MATT: Yeah, got it. TALIESIN: I assume we've
already been hurting the half-giant?
MATT: Yes, the other one hasn't been hurt yet.
TALIESIN: Okay, so. That one was cocked. It's six plus eight. 14 points of damage. MATT: 14 points of damage,
you got it. TRAVIS: Which one had
the nervous leg energy before Imogen engaged
the dragonborn? MATT: That was the tiny one there.
MARISHA: Little guy, I think, yeah. TRAVIS: The halfling.
LIAM: Hm. TALIESIN: All right, and
let's do this again. Oh, thank god,
that's 18 to hit. MATT: 18 does hit.
TALIESIN: All right. Ugh, that's the worst!
Wait, can I reroll? I'm trying to remember,
I think I had a thing where I can reroll. MATT: You have
the feat for it. TALIESIN: -- Crusher. Uh. Shit, I can't remember.
Anyway, that's okay. That's a terrible roll.
10 points of damage. MATT: 10 points of damage. That's enough. SAM: Yeah!
MATT: That'll finish that one. TALIESIN: So, I roll him one
way after seeing him do the spin, and as he's going, I try
and turn him back around, but the head comes
clean fucking off. MATT: Oh man, just
full-on (thudding impacts). TALIESIN: That's how you
fucking do it. Now, I'm going
to roll around to the other side of
that little fucking golem-- Well, actually, no,
I'm going to stay there. MATT: All right,
you got it. Finishing your go, Ashton.
Chetney, you're up. TRAVIS: So I'm going to
take the scythe and I'm going to
do a huge flourish. Big swirl over my head and I'll bring the flaming
scythe under the chin of the guy that we
haven't hit yet. SAM: Ooh.
MATT: Yeah. TRAVIS: I'm going to
stare at him, too, and go: You can keep your
head if you want, but you're going to
have to help us. Drop your arms. MATT: Make an intimidation check.
MARISHA: Oh, shit. MATT: I'll give you advantage given the current
circumstances here. MARISHA: Oh, oh!
TRAVIS: Yeah, 19. MATT: 19. Okay, the halfling,
the stocky halfling who currently has the
shortsword out, goes "(gasps), "It's not worth it," throws
his blade to the ground. (blade clanging) SAM: Nice, nice. TRAVIS: Ashton, Orym, help me drag
these bodies out of the entryway. You, come with me. We'll walk over towards the corner.
TALIESIN: I'm so disappointed. All right. Yeah. MATT: Okay. At this point, as you
start dragging the bodies both of you emerge
into the cavern. Or not, you and you.
The two of you, sorry. ASHLEY: We're ready!
LAURA: Oh. MARISHA and ASHLEY: (scream)
TALIESIN: It's fucking over. It's over.
LAURA: We took care of it. MARISHA: Oh shit.
LIAM: Pâté's up there? MARISHA: Yes, he's
still up there. TALIESIN: It's over.
LAURA: Yes. MARISHA: What is?
What did you do? TRAVIS: So the guy that we left
alive, hands on your head. I'm going to
pat him down. Anything on his body,
around his neck, necklace, anything,
undercarriage? MATT: Oh yeah, you see the
symbol of the Duskmaven, the goddess of death
around the neck. Hide armor, couple
shortswords, some daggers. About--
TRAVIS: (weapons clang) MATT: Yeah, 56 gold pieces. TRAVIS: Nah, keep your gold. LAURA: No, I'll
take that gold. MATT: Okay.
LAURA: I used it all. Buying all these shades. TALIESIN: Have we seen any of
this stuff come off this guy? MATT: Which stuff?
TRAVIS: Like, daggers? TALIESIN: Do we watch
you pull everything? MATT: Yeah, you see him take--
TALIESIN: Duskmaven? What the fuck is that
about? Duskmaiden? MATT: "They make us
wear them. What?" ASHLEY: Who?
TALIESIN: Who makes-- Wait, what? Who makes
you wear them? MATT: "The Call, as
part of our attire." MARISHA: Oh, we knew this.
ASHLEY: We knew this. LAURA: How do they get
away having a goddess? TRAVIS: Why do they
make you wear them? MATT: "I don't know, they
tell us to wear them. "It's part of
our presentation." TRAVIS: Fair. So here's the
part where you keep your head. We're going to turn
one of these off and then you get to go free. What you do after
that is your business. How do these work? MATT: "I don't know. "You think I look like
the kind of person "who knows how these work?" TRAVIS: Yeah, but you got
eyeballs, don't you? You've seen people coming in, messing with them,
touching things? Anything you can
recall right now will keep your lower jaw
attached to your head. MATT: "Um. "I mean, they just kind of-- "They put them all
there in the corner "and they combine
a bunch of these-- "A bunch of these, like, "I don't know,
strings through them "and they ran it through
the wall up there." TRAVIS: Any problems?
ASHLEY: Insight check. MATT: Make an insight check. ASHLEY: 14. MATT: 14?
ASHLEY: Yeah. SAM: Ooh whoa, whispers. I got to, I threw away my-- WizKids exists. LAURA: (chuckles) SAM: It's a company. LAURA: Nice.
SAM: Makes things. TALIESIN: Take
the glasses off. LIAM: You were very good in
The Hunger Games, by the way. MATT: (laughs) SAM: I was, thank you. TALIESIN: Only for the read. MATT: "I don't know
this stuff, okay? "I'm a hired hand. "It's supposed to be a
fucking payday. (grunts)" TALIESIN: What do you know? Do you have the slightest idea
of what this thing is about? MATT: "Yeah. "That old elf fucker
keeps talking about it. "Ranting and raving and shit. "I got no love for the gods.
Not a problem to me. "They're paying well,
help them for it, "but if you're all have
problems with this, "please know
it's nothing personal. "I can walk away and no
harm, no foul (chuckles)." TRAVIS: You'll get a payday.
You'll come out with us. So just stay there and
keep your mouth shut. Any way of communicating
with this area? Anything we need to know about
speakers? Communications? MATT: "Usually, it's the--" Looks over towards
the dragonborn that's lying, leaking and no
longer moving on the ground. LAURA: Did you search his body?
LIAM: I'm rifling. Okay, good.
MATT: Okay. LAURA: Let's loot the body. TALIESIN: Keep an eye on the
tunnel entrance, too. MARISHA: I tell Pâté to keep
an eye on the tunnel entrance. MATT: Pâté (flapping).
"You've got it." Clings to the side. MARISHA: All right. What do you-- ASHLEY: I'm just looking at
you, I'm just watching. LAURA: Did you just ask him if
there's glyphs on the ground? Are there glyphs on
the ground in here? MATT: "Right in front of it." MARISHA: Oh, good call! MATT: Right as
you're standing, about the head towards it. LAURA: Okay.
TALIESIN: Oh my god! MATT: You put your foot back. You were so lucky.
LAURA: Yeah. I thought about it
as I moved over there. I was like--
MARISHA: Good call. TALIESIN: Mm.
MARISHA: Any other traps we should know? MATT: "That's the
only one I know." MARISHA: Why don't you
do us a favor, stand right next
to that glyph just so we have
it as a marker. MATT: "I'm not going
to stand on it." MARISHA: Not on it!
Next to it. MATT: Goes over and hands
still behind his head. Walks over and
carefully steps around to the other side,
but on this edge of it, and like-- ASHLEY: There's got to be
another one in here. Why would they
just put the one? You know where
the other one is. MATT: "I don't, really! "They avoid that one every
time they come in here "to attach more to it. "They just keep building. "The past few weeks,
they keep attaching more "of these orbs
and stuff to it." TALIESIN: There's be a
big boom in a second. We'll see if there's
more or if there isn't. MATT: "They had to move
them all down here "and then they just had to
rewire the whole thing, "but that's all I know."
TRAVIS: We can avoid the boom if we could disconnect it. ASHLEY: Where did they
move them from? They moved them all
down here? From where? MATT: "They were
up top first. "Then about a week ago,
they changed everything. TRAVIS: Oh, one, one.
TALIESIN: Yeah, because that'll show any-- One pulse will show
any of these things. MARISHA: I agree with
Chetney, though. I think maybe we could
just disconnect the cables. We might even be able to
position them in a way. TRAVIS: This is inferior
metal working. Can I move around the glyph
and look up on the side at this basic bitch shit
and do an investigation check? TALIESIN: Just check where you're standing--
MATT: Yes, you can. LIAM: Before:
Is there anything on the Exalted one that-- TRAVIS: Yeah.
LIAM: -- is connected to this or what do I find
searching this dude? TRAVIS: Amulets, charms, key fob. (beeping sound)
MATT: No amulets, no charms. Nothing like that. It's actually pretty-- pretty plain equipment. And a locket. LIAM: A locket.
Is it openable? MATT: It is.
LIAM: All right. MATT: And there's a
little girl in there. LIAM: Oh! MARISHA: Oh, why you
have to do this? MATT: Bad guys
are still people. You don't know why
this person was here. TRAVIS: Yeah.
LIAM: Mm-hmm. TALIESIN: You keep that. TRAVIS: Damn, did you say you don't know why
this person was here? (groans)
MARISHA: I wouldn't like his motives. Just making a payday.
TALIESIN: Everybody here is here for the same reason. MARISHA: Money.
LAURA: I mean-- TALIESIN: Well, there's
money and then there's-- LAURA: It's possible
everybody's been brainwashed, I mean-- TRAVIS: Or somebody's
being held hostage, or they want to get something
back that's lost or-- TALIESIN: Or you're
just angry. TRAVIS: That's just
another layer. Okay, investigation
check on the side. MATT: Go for it.
TRAVIS: Thank you. Can I use my-- ASHLEY: Guidance.
TRAVIS: I have advantage clues and deductions
based on the-- MATT: So yeah, just a
single roll on this one. I think it's advantage on-- TRAVIS: "You might deduce the
location of hidden objects, "discern from the appearance
of a wound what kind of--" MATT: Oh, hidden objects?
Oh, this is for what? This is a gnomish thing?
TRAVIS: Hunter's Bane, yeah. MATT: Oh, Hunter's Bane
is for-- TRAVIS: Oh, just for, okay. MATT: For certain
supernatural. TRAVIS: Perfect. Not great. ASHLEY: You got Guidanced. MARISHA: She did Guide you. MATT: Yeah, so add a d4. TRAVIS: I have one.
I swear it's in here. MARISHA: There's one
hiding there, I think. TRAVIS: Thank you. Nice. So 15? MATT: 15. Yeah, I mean, you can see there's
amongst all these devices that are clumped together, the energy is crackling
through and pulsing and you see it's-- In immediate proximity as they're pressed to
touch each other, the pulses seem to
spread between them. So it creates
a larger hive battery, if you will. The ones that can't be
pushed into this pile amongst other
pieces of machinery, there are these rigid cables
that are all attached that have that
residuum vein within and through them. It looks like it's-- It's functional; it's not
well-refined, necessarily. It's functional; it's not
well-refined, necessarily. They had to make a do
with moving these down here and assemble
something quickly. MARISHA: I check the scry ball. SAM: Nice.
MATT: Check the scry ball. It is moving. MARISHA: It is moving?
SAM: But-- MARISHA: Which way,
towards us? MATT: So, FCG. MARISHA: Oh, fuck! MATT: As you are there
putting rocks over, you see--
SAM: Put it over there. MATT: Otohan Thull emerge
from that one cavern with another
Vanguard member talking. They've both begin
walking in the direction of the entryway that
you were just blocking. The Vanguard member
splits off and enters the crowd
with the rest of them as Otohan now begins to walk towards the entryway
of this cavern. MARISHA: Oh shit!
SAM: So, sorry. Otohan's going
in their cavern? MATT: Yes. MARISHA: Not our cavern?
TRAVIS: Our cavern. MATT: Your cavern.
MARISHA: Our cavern? SAM: I will try.
TRAVIS: Or heading towards it. SAM: I don't know
if I can cast, I don't know if
I can do anything while I'm attached
to this thing, but I'm going to try to
cast the Message spell, and tell Laudna: Danger's incoming. MARISHA: Otohan is
heading this way! SAM: I don't know
if it works. I'm cosmically attached
to this thing. MATT: You are. The Message spell
doesn't require you to see the person, right? SAM: You have to point
in their direction. MATT: You know the
direction to them. Yeah, I'll say, given
those circumstances because you are still
able to control your body you cast Message
in that direction and you hope it finds its--
SAM: Yes. The big robot body
points this way. MATT: (laughs) LAURA: Coming down,
coming in here? ASHLEY: Yeah, yeah. MARISHA: I catch that
faintly in my head as I'm already looking
at the scry ball. Otohan's coming.
What do we do? LAURA: Oh (stammers). ASHLEY: Should we hide in
the hole? I don't know. TRAVIS: There's
bodies in here. There's either a diversion that
sends her out of the cavern or it's on. Simple math.
MATT: Otohan steps into the entryway of this
cavern and begins to descend towards where your
friends currently are. And we're going
to go to break. ASHLEY: No! No!
(groaning) MATT: To give you a break
to think about what the fuck you're going to do!
TALIESIN: We actually need to think about what the fuck we're going to do.
TRAVIS: Real simple! TRAVIS and MATT: (laugh) SAM: It's on, guys. MATT: We'll be back here
in a few minutes. See you shortly. (adventurous music) It is our purpose to extend a
helping hand to all those in need. I know what I want:
I want to be free. But I ask you: do you not
wish to know the truth? The fun is just getting started... Hey Critters! Laura Bailey here to guide you through what's
new in the Critical Role shop. (gasp) Could anything
be more perfect? Roll an investigation if you want.
It's basically perfect. I mean the Traveler always says, impulse purchases
are a good decision. Look at this. Isn't this fashion. So much fashion happening here. (gasp) Could anything
be more perfect? The cuteness! It's overpowering. And hey if you want, you could head over
to the Critical Role shop right now. (door unlocking) ♪ Upon a sea that's
tossed and gray, ♪ ♪ We fight to keep
the dreams at bay ♪ ♪ For in our sleep
we hope for peace ♪ ♪ Lest the nightmares
have their way ♪ ♪ Uk'otoa Uk'otoa keep
him locked away ♪ ♪ Chilling thoughts
and watchful eyes ♪ ♪ Await for those
who seek the prize ♪ ♪ But all is not is it was thought ♪ ♪ For the serpent always lies ♪ ♪ Uk'otoa Uk'otoa keep
him locked away ♪ ♪ And if the creature is released ♪ ♪ Our peaceful days
will surely cease ♪ ♪ The winds will wail
as waves assail ♪ ♪ To herald what lurks beneath ♪ ♪ Uk'otoa Uk'otoa keep
him locked away ♪ ♪ A haunted fog comes
rolling through ♪ ♪ The sea begins to toss and strew ♪ ♪ With cutlass and cannon
we make a stand ♪ ♪ Though little might it do ♪ ♪ Uk'otoa Uk'otoa keep
him locked away ♪ ♪ As the serpent rises tall ♪ ♪ His many eyes now seeing all ♪ ♪ The ship won't keep
above the deep ♪ ♪ If our steadfast sailors fall ♪ ♪ Uk'otoa Uk'otoa keep
him locked away ♪ ♪ A flick of tongue and
sharpened teeth ♪ ♪ The only gifts that he'll bequeath ♪ ♪ And those who fought
to stay aloft ♪ ♪ Will be swallowed and
drowned beneath ♪ ♪ Uk'otoa Uk'otoa keep
him locked away ♪ ♪ So heed the words
from sailors old ♪ ♪ Beware the dreams
with eyes of gold ♪ ♪ And though he'll speak
of quests and powers ♪ ♪ Blessed ignore the
lies you're told ♪ ♪ Uk'otoa Uk'otoa keep
him locked away ♪ ♪ Uk'otoa Uk'otoa keep
him locked away ♪ ♪ Uk'otoa Uk'otoa keep
him locked away ♪ ♪ Uk'otoa Uk'otoa keep
him locked away ♪ (waves splashing) (epic music) (mischievous music) (typewriter clacking) (peaceful music) Narrator: Holly Mistletoe
thought she had it all. As you can plainly see,
sales are up 7%. Narrator: But when
she finds herself back in her hometown for
a very special holiday. I can't believe I have to
come back to my hometown, it's so provincial. (gasps) Seamus? Seamus O'Shamrock? I didn't know you still lived here. You own and operate a
small, charming coffee and pastry shop? Only when I'm not raising horses. Narrator: She'll discover
just how much her life was missing. Has anyone ever told you
you're a really good baker? Has anyone ever told
you you're more adorable than the custom emotes
you can use in Critical Role's
professionally-moderated chat with a Twitch subscription? Happy Valentine's Day. Narrator: This holiday season,
or that holiday season, or whatever holiday
season it might be. What is it? Voytech is going to foreclose
on the horse ranch. They can't do that, not on the 4th of July. (fast instrumental music) With the proceeds from our wholesome Halloween
haunted house, we can raise enough money
to save the horse ranch from your greedy
company, Mr. Fatstacks. Damn you Mistletoe. If it hadn't been for your big
city business savvy, I would've been able to fool those small town
provincial pumpkins! We may be provincial,
but we have values. Like watching episodes
of Critical Role before they go on YouTube
with a Twitch subscription! Fiddle faddle! Narrator: Stand up and celebrate. Mr. Fatstacks: I eat my feelings! Ah! Narrator: Make every
day a holiday. Oh, okay. Boo. No. Narrator: And give the gift of love. Is this? A subscription to Critical Role. I can gift those with
my Twitch subscription to Critical Role. Yes. Narrator: Laura Bailey
as Holly Mistletoe. Don't be violent, that's not romantic. Narrator: Travis Willingham
is Seamus O'Shamrock, and featuring Sam Riegal
as Maxamillian Fatstacks in "A Holiday Subscription for Love. The Ballad of Mistletoes
and Shamrocks: Part 2." (lively orchestral music) MATT: And welcome back. So, last we left off--
LAURA: Do we know she's on the way? MARISHA: She walked past him.
MATT: Let me change the scenery here since we're actually subterranean now--
LAURA: And he told us? MATT: -- in this weird underground space--
MARISHA: And I shouted out, "She's coming." MATT: -- to match the
proper lighting and vibe. But, all of you
suddenly were notified that Otohan was rapidly
approaching the chamber. What do you do? LAURA: I'm going to
Prestidigitation the blood on the ground.
MARISHA: Prestidigitation with her. Clean
the murder scene. MATT: Clearing up the
murder scene, okay. TRAVIS: Bodies are dragged
behind crates, both corners. LAURA: Who should hide
up in that corner? TRAVIS: I'm going.
LAURA: To block her in. TRAVIS: I'm going to
go right there. MATT: You go right here?
ASHLEY: I'm going to shimmy in there with Chet, too. MARISHA: Have we
had another pulse? LIAM: I'm going to go
over here with my body. MATT: The pulses don't
reach in this chamber. TALIESIN: Okay.
MARISHA: The pulses don't reach in this chamber.
ASHLEY: Let's fight. MATT: They seem to go up the center.
TALIESIN: I was wondering why. MARISHA: I'm going
to then-- Shit. LAURA: You're just going to take the shit.
MATT: You're going to shit? MARISHA: I'm going to shit.
I'm going to Mirror Image. LIAM: Oh shit.
MATT: Okay. MARISHA: Then I'm
going to Spider Climb and get up on the
fucking ceiling. SAM: Get up on that ceiling. LAURA: I'm going to Mage Armor.
TALIESIN: I'm going to make some room behind those crates + and I'm going to hide
behind those crates. MATT: Over here or over here? TALIESIN: Oh, I didn't
even see those. Yeah. MATT: Your call.
TALIESIN: Yeah, over there. MATT: Over here?
Duck down there? TALIESIN: Yeah, the best
coverage I can get. Actually, that's right
in the line of sight. I'll go to the other side. MATT: Okay, so move this
crate a little bit and hide in this space?
TALIESIN: Yeah. Get down there.
TRAVIS: The entrance is-- MATT: Right here. TRAVIS: I'm actually going to
post up behind this thing and hide my small ass.
LIAM: That's a great spot. TRAVIS: One more up. Yeah.
LIAM: On that little platformy? MATT: Up here?
TALIESIN: And you're stone. LIAM: Yeah.
TRAVIS: Right there. Yeah. MATT: You got it. TRAVIS: Just hiding,
doing the little-- MATT: All right. So Fearne,
with Chetney back there, are you going to-- MARISHA: I would tuck
in more, Fearne. ASHLEY: Yeah.
MATT: Do you want to tuck in this way? ASHLEY: Yeah, let
me tuck that way. TALIESIN: Yeah.
MATT: Okay. ASHLEY: No?
TALIESIN: Well, find some cover. LAURA: Should some of
us be visible, so she-- MATT: Well, you're out
in the open still. TRAVIS: We're just
getting her to come in. LAURA: Just getting
her to come in? Okay, I'm going
to turn around. MATT: To face this?
SAM: Dramatically? LAURA: Uh-huh. TALIESIN: In front of the thing
where if she pushes you, you're fucked? LAURA: Not directly in
front of the glyph, no. I'll go to the side of it. MATT: Over here?
LAURA: Sure. MATT: Okay, fair enough. LAURA: Can I prep a
spell for the minute-- MATT: If you'd like to. LAURA: -- that she steps in? MARISHA: Oh my god.
MATT: What is Pâté going to do? MARISHA: I'll have Pâté. He's still, yeah. I make
him go invisible again. MATT: He can cling to the
ceiling with you up top. MARISHA: Yeah. Yeah. MATT: Okay. All right. LIAM: I also, knowing it
could be the last pastry I ever have, eat FCG's danish. MATT: Nothing like rapidly
hiding and then (scarfs danish). LIAM: Yep.
(laughter) LIAM: Absolutely. (scarfs danish) MATT: Okay. Well, you are
set and you watch as Otohan begins to descend
the short entryway to the subterranean caver, vanishes around the corner. Can I have Liam and
Marisha roll d20s for me? LAURA: Oh no. Oh no! SAM: What's that mean?
MARISHA: This is probably for Beau and Caleb.
LAURA and LIAM: Beau and Caleb. MATT: But you have--
ASHLEY: ♪ Oh no ♪ LAURA: (laughs) MATT: No, you don't have
advantage on this necessarily. Yeah, so just each roll. She would probably have
advantage on this. LIAM: Just a straight roll?
MATT: Straight roll. LIAM: Seven.
MATT: Seven. MARISHA: I would have
advantage. Lucky jade. 13.
MATT: 13. SAM: Garbage. MATT: Okay. SAM: Garbage.
MARISHA: Not great. MATT: Right as Otohan turns
the corner into this cavern, you hear (massive explosions) As light flashes and consumes
the space behind you, you look backward and the two
machines that were emitting that Dispel wave have both detonated.
ASHLEY: Nicely done. MATT: (explosions)
LAURA: Nice! MATT: One second after the next. Immediately as the
flames and smoke begins to billow
up in to space, you can hear
shouting and voices begin to fill the vicinity. The crew that is currently
working on the centerpiece is now scattering
and searching around and you can see
chaos is now erupting in the center
of that chamber. At this point, you all hear
that same explosion upstairs and Otohan turns
and then begins to-- LAURA: I'm instantly
going to let go of my spell and I don't even need to see her.
MATT: Otohan's not in the room. LAURA: I don't
need to see her. She just needs to be
within 120 feet of me. MATT: You don't need to see her?
For which spell is this? LAURA: My Psychic Lance. MATT: Psychic Lance. LIAM: Lance that Bass. MATT: "A creature you
can see within range," it says on the spell. LAURA: No.
ASHLEY: Fuck. MATT: Oh, and also, "You can
utter the other creature's "name, if the target is in
range, then it becomes a target "even if you can't
see it." You're right. I should keep on reading. Okay. All right. TRAVIS: Gets interesting now. MATT: So that is-- TRAVIS: Boy, oh boy. Oh boy. MATT: What save on that one? LAURA: Intelligence.
MATT: Intelligence save. SAM: She's probably
dumb as shit. MATT: That's going to be--
LAURA: She's probably really stupid. SAM: Yeah.
LIAM: She has no dump stat. MATT: That's going to
be a fail on her point. She's going to use
Legendary Resistance-- MARISHA: Aw.
MATT: To succeed. TALIESIN: Hey. SAM: Uh-oh.
ASHLEY: Fuck. LAURA: She knows. ASHLEY: ♪ She knows ♪
MATT: She does now. ASHLEY: ♪ Oh oh, she knows ♪ MATT: She knows
something struck her. LAURA: Okay.
TALIESIN: Doesn't know from where, though, I imagine. Well, we'll find out.
MATT: We'll find out. All right, so roll
damage. Right? LAURA: Okay. Oh, she gets
to resist it even though. So it still does damage.
MATT: It does half damage. She's just not incapacitated.
LAURA: Got it. ASHLEY: She doesn't know what direction?
SAM: I know know if I'm going to-- LIAM: We don't know.
TRAVIS: Hard to tell. LIAM: She's not here.
SAM: It's me against her. MARISHA: Don't fuck with her. SAM: I block the--
ASHLEY: Ooh! TALIESIN: You block it for a
grand total of four seconds. LAURA: 11, 21.
SAM: I can block her for two seconds, then she'll
push me out of the way and fuck me up. LAURA: 22, 24.
TRAVIS: Until we get there and push you out of the way. SAM: Sure.
LAURA: 28. MATT: 28 points damage,
reduced to 14 for the save and
not incapacitated. So you know you
strike the mark, and though you feel deflected
somewhat from the strong will of Otohan, wherever they
stand across the way, you watch, as she
begins to disappear, lurch over for a second and
being looking around rapidly. Let's see if she can-- LAURA: You got to call in. Now's the time to
call in the ship. MATT: No. Otohan looks around angrily and begins to run
back out of the cavern in the direction towards
the rest of the chaos. MARISHA: We let her go?
SAM: Okay, I-- MARISHA: What do we do? Do we let her go?
LAURA: Can you block her in? ASHLEY: Do we let her
go so we can keep-- SAM: As she's coming,
I'm moving a rock and I'm going to look
like a fucking dumb robot, and as soon as
she gets within range, I'm going to chuck
it straight at her. (laughter) MARISHA: Oh my god!
MATT: Okay! All right. I'm going to pull
up those boulder stats here. LIAM: Oh god.
MATT: Oh, there they are. All right, if you
could roll a d10. Sorry, d20, adding 10 to it. SAM: Oh, terrible! 12. MATT: 12.
LAURA: You know. MATT: So right as Otohan
goes charging out, you throw the rock and Otohan,
without even looking up, puts her hand up
and (shattering rock) shatters into a bunch
of rubble and stones that scatter around
her and you could see the psychic field
that shatters it and spits at the foot of you. SAM: Oh, great. MATT: Assuming that it
was a mistake, it seems, but is now charging out
into the open area of the opposite field.
MARISHA: Should we let her go? Maybe we let her go. LAURA: I guess let her go.
Should we call in the-- MARISHA: If the shield is down, yes.
LAURA: Call in the airship? MAIRSHA: We might as well fuck this shit up while we're here.
TALIESIN: While we're at it, I'm going to go in and start beating.
LIAM: Yeah. TALIESIN: I'm going to
find a nice place to start breaking this shit to-- LAURA: It's going to explode
big like the other ones did. TRAVIS: We start working
the cords, right? LAURA: Okay.
TALIESIN: Yeah. TRAVIS: To disconnect.
MARISHA: Cut the cords. TALIESIN: We cut the cords. MATT: Okay. So you hear
the shouting upstairs and you can hear the
chaos up there yelling-- TRAVIS: With somebody
at a watch out front. MATT: No other explosions
at the moment, but there is definitely
a loud swell of activity and
voices from above. You are now standing
there in this form and you can see
out in front of you, now words are
starting to glow up, more are starting
to be initiated. You can see figures
are running around, people are looking
into the alcoves and they're starting to
start checking any spaces for anybody who could
possibly be doing this. ASHLEY: Do you see Ryn? SAM: I'll walk with purpose back and forth.
MATT: Okay. SAM: So it looks like I'm
doing something, and as I do, I'm going to cast Sending and I'm going to tell Ira: It's time. TRAVIS: Project Chicken Little. MARISHA: (laughs) The sky is falling.
SAM: Launch the airstrike. MATT: (Ira) "Very well. "I am so excited. "(evil laughing)"
SAM: Oh boy. MATT: That's all you get.
LAURA: I feel like I should-- SAM: Okay. All right.
MATT: In the interim, you guys are are
attacking these-- TALIESIN: We're
breaking the cables. MATT: Okay. So you
start going through, smashing, cutting,
destroying. For the sake of
this unstable pile-- TALIESIN: Just the cable. MATT: I understand that,
but you don't fully understand. Those who are helming
the strikes of this, I need you to make an
arcana check for me. MARISHA: I'll help with that because I'm proficient in arcana.
TALIESIN: Thank you. SAM: How far away--
Did I see the statue Ryn as we were walking
down the spiral? ASHLEY: Guidance
on the arcana. MARISHA: Copy that.
MATT: You would've probably seen it, yeah. SAM: How close to me now, very far away?
TALIESIN: I'm helping for right now. MATT: About probably 60 or 70 feet from you--
TALIESIN: I'm giving you advantage. MATT: -- towards the center
of where the Key is. MARISHA: Me?
TALIESIN: Because I'm helping. SAM: I'm going to start making my way--
MARISHA: Oh, you're going to give me-- TALIESIN: I'm doing what you tell me to.
SAM: -- to Ryn. MARISHA: All right. Okay. MATT: You got it. TRAVIS: 17. MATT: 17.
TALIESIN: Oh! Oh. TALIESIN: Because I was
helping, I'm being guided. I would not have--
MARISHA: 13 plus four is also 17. MATT: Okay. It jostles a bit. Elements of it begin
to spark and glow and one of them does
detonate in a dull fashion. (explosion) I do need the three of you to make dexterity
saving throws for me. TALIESIN: Okay. MATT: All right.
TRAVIS: Dirty 20. MATT: 20, that's seven
points of force damage. MARISHA: 15. MATT: Seven points
of force damage. TALIESIN: 21.
MATT: Seven points of force damage. You all manage to
dodge out of the way before the bulk
of it strikes you and as it (explosion) detonates and explodes that one core, the others crack, but
stay not triggered into a chain of detonations
like what happened in the Feywild, but
it's on the cusp. TALIESIN: I have a stick of
dynamite that I pull out. MARISHA: (stammering debate) TALIESIN: We can
run and leave it. TRAVIS: Did you say good? MATT: I was saying you feel like
you did a fair amount of damage with the arcana checks here. You're uncertain if it's
enough to necessarily sever all the power, but
it seems like a lot of them aren't connected
at the moment. You can keep going, but it
would take another arcana check to see if you--
LAURA: Maybe try it again? TRAVIS: Maybe only one of us. Does anybody have
anything ranged so we don't have to be
right up on this shit? TALIESIN: I can light this--
ASHLEY: I mean, yeah. TALIESIN: -- throw it
in and we can run. MARISHA: But it goes boom! LAURA: Yeah, we don't want it to boom.
TALIESIN: All right, all right, all right. I don't think they'd
notice, but okay. MARISHA: I mean, I also have--
LAURA: I mean, I have a-- ASHLEY: I could hurl some Scorching Rays.
LAURA: -- daggers. (laughs) TRAVIS: No, no. (laughs) MARISHA: I could try and Eldritch
Blast it from a distance and hope that my aim was really good.
SAM: ♪ From a distance ♪ TALIESIN: I don't know if--
Well, we'll find out. LIAM: I can slice
it from a distance. I'm shit with arcana. ASHLEY: Yeah, same. TALIESIN: Somebody could tell you where to hit.
MARISHA: That would be another arcana roll? TRAVIS: It is another arcana roll.
MATT: It is another arcana roll to try and,
whoever's doing it, to see that they can do it
in a way that doesn't trigger the chain reaction
of all the detonations. MARISHA: I'll toss an
Eldritch Blast at it and see what happens.
TALIESIN: Let's all back the fuck up. ASHLEY: Yeah.
MARISHA: Do I get advantage on this? ASHLEY: I'll help. I can help.
MARISHA: With an Arcana check? MARISHA: Yeah.
MATT: Yeah, so make an arcana check, and this is you using
the Eldritch Blasts as the precision
elements here. MARISHA: Do I get advantage
on this with assistance? LAURA: Can you Guide her?
ASHLEY: Guidance. Guidance. TRAVIS: Don't you also have
a (throwing magical bolts). MATT: I'll say-- LIAM: (Foghorn Leghorn)
"I say, I say." MATT: (Foghorn Leghorn) "I'll say,
I'll say, yeah, take advantage "on this one now." LAURA: That's a cantrip. TALIESIN: Plus Guidance. MARISHA: Similar roll.
18 for this one. MATT: 18.
TALIESIN: Plus the guidance? MATT: Plus the guidance. Oof. Yeah.
MARISHA: Not a great-- You do strike
a similar space. It causes another one to detonate. (explosion)
MARISHA: But we're back. MATT: But you're
all further back from where that core was and
you watch that one detonates, it sends the
other ones rolling, and then a third one
(explosion) detonates and sends rocks
spinning this way. There's a bit of
a chain reaction. It does make a little bit of noise.
MARISHA: Going boom boom. MATT: You're uncertain if
anybody heard it at the moment, but you have done a
significant amount of damage between a number of
these power cores and you've separated
a number of them away from the connected
devices that carried the power up to the upper region. FCG. SAM: Yeah. MATT: You see, one, the flying woman who
is gliding around, ends up landing
on this platform that's halfway up the
Key and is looking around. People begin looking up at
her and then scattering off and you get the sense,
having known Imogen as far as you
are, they're receiving-- SAM: She's communicating
with them. MATT: They're receiving orders silently.
TRAVIS: Jesus. MATT: You also see (magical
blasts) two flashes of light. One you see apparate
this massive 12 foot tall metallic entity that
has armor across it with blue streaks in it. It's a refined humanoid form.
SAM: I'm going in. MATT: One is this
massive armored iron fist. The other one is this
large man catcher claw device with hooks on it and
runes all across it. The other flash near
the base of the Key, you see an older elven gentleman with long silver hair.
LAURA: ♪ Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck ♪ SAM: Oh my god.
MARISHA: Oh no. MATT: An extended staff with
a hooked point at the end, almost a fork in a
similar design as the top of the spire of the Key. Has long blue robes with his
pointed shoulder pauldrons out. This is both a
beautiful make and almost ceremonial garb
as much as it is armor. TRAVIS: We're totally
ready for this, you guys. ASHLEY: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
LIAM: Just three heavy hitters. SAM: They're near the
base of the main spire. MATT: Correct.
SAM: And Ryn is close to that? MATT: Yeah, about 15 or
20 feet from the Key behind one of the four smaller curvature points.
SAM: But there's still action, activity around. MATT: Oh, yeah.
SAM: Me walking around this space is not
going to be like, "What the fuck is going on?" People are moving. MATT: They're moving. You're not certain how
they move normally and if they'll take notice, but we'll find out.
MARISHA: Should we come and run and jump back in with you before you go? LAURA: It's a little too late.
SAM: I've already walked away. MARISHA: You've already
walked away, all right. SAM: I'm going to keep on--
TRAVIS: Maybe once we go to the other cavern.
SAM: -- maybe not making a beeline to Ryn, but trying to follow--
TRAVIS: Seal that one off. SAM: -- the traffic patterns of other people and trying
to weave my way closer. MATT: Understood. ♪ Weaving your way. ♪
ASHLEY: ♪ Weaving my way. ♪ (laughter) MATT: Go ahead and make
a deception check. SAM: Can I Guide myself? MATT: I'll allow yourself-- Yeah, you can Guide
yourself on this. It isn't a super high DC, but
it is definitely a challenge. SAM: What did you say, deception? MATT: Deception. SAM: Deception, dirty 20. MATT: Dirty 20. Okay, okay. That's pretty good. You scooted past the DC, so
as you begin to weave through, you hit the side of
one of the ruined walls that crumbles a bit, but
it's moderate damage to an already damaged ruin that nobody seems to
immediately pay attention. Couple look back and
go, "Eh," shrug it off. But you can see
individuals are now, one, searching tremendously
around every nook and cranny for anybody who was
responsible for this. The two devices you
can see are twisted and splintered open like
they were detonated from the inside, whether
it be from an explosive or somebody that knew
how to trigger them to explode themselves, but you can see there's black
cinder circles on the walls and space around where they were. SAM: Fire magic. MATT: The woman who
is floating and landed is in the process of
quietly communicating with the silver-haired
man that you assume, at this point, to be Ludinus. It is chaos in here
at the moment, but it is beginning to
calm and it's beginning-- the initial energy is beginning
to get a little more focused as people are finding paths around and things to look for.
TRAVIS: Just so we're clear, the floating balloon one is in a trench
coat with braided purple hair? MATT: Yes.
TRAVIS: Got it. MATT: You start sauntering up and you are now within eye-- you're about 30 or so feet
from the both of them. SAM: Jesus. TRAVIS: You got this. MATT: You saunter up in
the middle of the room. You're the only one
in the middle of this and people are moving around
you and there's that moment where you're like, oh,
you're in the thick of it and you're not sure. TRAVIS: One man army.
♪ ("Terminator 2 Main Theme") ♪ SAM: No spells.
MATT: What's going to happen? SAM: There's magic-y
mage-y things around me. MATT: What are you going to do? SAM: Is there anything
near Ryn that's not Ryn? MATT: There's a ruined wall. There's stones and pieces of rock and there's the large curved
tower that Ryn's right behind that's pointing towards
the central Key. SAM: And that's not damaged at all? MATT: No. SAM: Okay. I mean, I'm just going
to go pick her up. (laughter) SAM: Yeah, maybe with
one hand, I'll grab a piece of that ruined wall and
again, move it aside like I'm trying to clear
it off or something and then with my other
hand I'll reach down and grab her so it all
sort of looks fluid. MATT: This this is
going to be fun. (laughter) SAM: I'm a dumb robot
grabbing rocks. She seems like a rock to me. MATT: Yeah, yeah, no. ASHLEY: You don't know. MATT: Go ahead and make
a sleight of hand check. MARISHA: Come on. MATT: From within--
LAURA and LIAM: Guide yourself. SAM: I will Guide myself,
if that's possible. MATT: Yes, it is.
SAM: Sleight of hand, I have a plus zero. MATT: Great.
LIAM: Oh my god. MARISHA: Come on, she's a rock. What's in the rocks? SAM: Okay, that's a five.
(groaning) MARISHA: Oh, my heart. LAURA: Fuck. MATT: So you grab the chunk
of wall stone, right? ASHLEY: No, she's too cool! MATT: You hit it, and the
wall-- (stone grinding) SAM: Oh god! MATT: You hit one of the load
bearing sections of the ruin as it now falls--
LAURA: Oh god. SAM: Onto Ryn? ASHLEY and MARISHA: No, no, no!
LAURA: What the fuck? ASHLEY: Why did you say it? SAM: (screams) I thought that's
what he was talking about!
ASHLEY: No! MATT: (stones falling) onto Ryn. (screaming)
ALL: No! ASHLEY: No, he didn't!
TRAVIS: (intense screams) SAM: I killed Ryn!
MARISHA and ASHLEY: No! SAM: Guys, I killed Ryn. LAURA: You picked up Ryn
right as it was happening. You were trying to. MARISHA: Did you scoop
up Ryn, though? SAM: We'll see, we'll
see. I really killed Ryn. It's okay, it's okay.
She's an NPC. (laughter) MATT: It's about a 20 foot
wall that tumbled over onto the side, and you see where Ryn was, it's
now just stone and rubble. You don't see Ryn at the moment.
LIAM: Oh my god! TRAVIS: Because she's also stone and rubble.
MATT: But now the room, all the heads go-- (whooshing)
SAM: Her head's gone. MATT: -- and shift right
over to where you are, because after two essentially
terrorist attacks in the chamber--
SAM: Sure. MATT: -- another wall
collapsed, and you're standing in the middle of it,
clutching a piece of stone. SAM: I will, with my body
language, because I can't communicate like this, just hold
up the rocks and go-- (laughter) SAM: As if to say, oops! Sorry! LIAM: (laughs) He is the meme.
MATT: Make a deception check. LIAM: He is the meme.
Guess I'll die? (laughter) SAM: Can I Guide myself?
MATT: Sure. SAM: Much better.
This is <i>deception</i>? MATT: Correct.
SAM: 22. ASHLEY: Okay, that's
good. That'll do it. MATT: Now this is,
there's two rolls here. One is for the populace, the
other is for the-- SAM: 23, actually.
MATT: -- the generals. LAURA: 23, 23.
MATT: 23. Populace, natural one. LAURA: Great.
ASHLEY: Good, good. MATT: You see most of the crowd
around you be like-- (sighs) (groans) And they just go about
their business. ASHLEY: Come on!
MATT: Super frustrated with this imperfect
arcane tech. The generals-- TRAVIS: Uh-oh. MATT: That is, hold on. ASHLEY: I can never remember!
MATT: This is close, this is close. That was a natural 11. TALIESIN: Ooh.
SAM: Let me be. MARISHA: I know. SAM: Plus 13.
LAURA: That's a high-- well. SAM: He's looking. He's
looking everywhere. MATT: There it is.
That is... SAM: Oh god.
ASHLEY: What's the eyebrows? LAURA: I don't know! MATT: You're so fucking lucky. (relieved sighing)
TRAVIS and MATT: (laugh) MATT: You see the lavender-haired
woman in the coat looking down at you, glances
over towards Ludinus. Ludinus looks back at her,
and she takes up and flies up through
the center of the area, dodging through the
various catwalks as he looks down
and goes-- (scoffs) Then does this
with his hand. The entire automaton
deactivates around you. ASHLEY: Oh! SAM: Do <i>I</i> deactivate because
I'm tethered to it?! MATT: You do not deactivate, but you currently <i>cannot
move this automaton</i>. You are frozen right in
the middle of this space right now with everyone
running around you. SAM: Oh god.
LAURA: Okay. MATT: This also means you lost
your visual perspective, too. SAM: Oh god.
LAURA: Oh my god. MATT: You're now within essentially
a dead shell with no vision. Meanwhile, what are the
rest of you doing? TRAVIS: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
MARISHA: All right. LAURA: I think we were
going to try to-- MARISHA: Dart to the other one.
LAURA: -- try to stealthily--
TRAVIS: To be clear. This is toast, right? MATT: This is very much toast. Anything that might function
there is going to be working on a minimal amount
of power, if at all. LAURA: Okay.
MARISHA: They are looking for us. Do we want to have
a few invisible people, and some of us
get in the hole? TRAVIS: Actually, I need
Ashton and Orym to come over to the guy that
gave up. (clicks tongue) TALIESIN: Yeah, all right. (sighs) All right, here's what we're
going to need you to do. You see that thing?
MATT: "Yeah." TALIESIN: (blow thudding)
SAM: Oh! MATT: (laughs) "(grunts)"
(body thuds) ASHLEY: Well.
TRAVIS: You made your choices. TALIESIN: Sorry. ASHLEY: Had to be done. MATT: All right.
TALIESIN: Really quick, do we have a second or no? TRAVIS: A second? TALIESIN: Quick rifle through the
pockets, see if there's anything. MARISHA: He already rifled.
TRAVIS: We already did. TALIESIN: Oh, you already did?
TRAVIS: Yeah. We already did. TALIESIN: Anything personal.
All right, never mind. MATT: Okay.
TALIESIN: Fuck, man. Didn't like that. MARISHA: Are we going to take
the invisibility route, or try and act confident? TRAVIS: I think everybody's
pretty hurried, so we should just get
in there, I think. MARISHA: All right.
TRAVIS: Without the invisibility. MARISHA: Act confident,
act hurried. Let's go. TALIESIN: Do we need anything
from the hole before we... MARISHA: We're all pretty geared up, I think.
TRAVIS: What would we-- TALIESIN: Hm? TRAVIS: Do you need anything? TALIESIN: I'm going to open up the
hole real quick before we go. Or no, we're going?
MARISHA: We don't need anything. TRAVIS: Yeah, I don't know
what would be in there. Let's move it.
TALIESIN: We had a second. LIAM: Orym, though, as
they're leaving, will drop down and
rip that locket, spool it up, stick it in
his pocket and follow. LAURA: I can turn one
person invisible. MATT: As you are heading up
towards the tunnel, two Vanguard, or, sorry, a Vanguard and
a Call figure begin running. You hear footsteps rushing down. They're now searching the alcoves. MARISHA: Are they rushing in?
MATT: They're rushing in, yeah. MARISHA: Act frantic.
It's fucked. I have Pâté with me, but he's
still invisible as well. MATT: All right, okay.
MARISHA: I have him as my eyes.
MATT: Who here is not adorned in a disguise? MARISHA: I think we all are.
LAURA: No no no, I put red on you. ASHLEY: Never mind.
LAURA: Everybody's got it on. MATT: All right, I will need
a group deception check as you try and pass
by these two figures. LIAM: Come on. Come on. ASHLEY: Okay.
TRAVIS: Fuck yeah. Dirty 20.
MARISHA: Dirty 20. MATT: Dang. Fearne?
TRAVIS: Plus 3. ASHLEY: 11.
MATT: 11, okay. TALIESIN: Shit. LAURA: 23.
ASHLEY: Ah! MATT: 23.
LIAM: Dirty 20. MATT: Dirty 20!
TRAVIS: Whoa! TALIESIN: 10, which is
really good for me. MATT: That, well done. You rush by as
the two figures come by like,
"Anyone in here?" ASHLEY: No, there's no one.
LAURA: Something's happened. MATT: "Shit!"
MARISHA: It's compromised. MATT: They both run in
rapidly as you all push past. One of them goes,
"Compromised? What the fuck?" ASHLEY, LAURA, MATT,
and LIAM: (laugh) MARISHA: Just go!
TRAVIS: That was the line? MARISHA: It's been compromised.
TRAVIS: Everything's fine! You can go look somewhere
else! No, we got it covered! No, something happened! MARISHA and TRAVIS: (laugh) LIAM: We left the fire behind. MARISHA: We did. All
right, let's go. MATT: All right.
MARISHA: Quickly. MATT: As you're exiting
now the chamber entrance and you look out
into the base here, all of you hear a singular
voice come through your minds, except for maybe you, since you have a device
that doesn't let you. It says, "Friends! "Individuals who have come
with us on this journey, "our timetable is
being accelerated. "Please, gather
at the Key." MARISHA: Gather at the Key. LIAM: This is not a voice
we've ever heard before? MATT: You recognize this
to be Otohan's voice in an elevated bit of-- An energized tone, I'd say. LIAM: It's a mind PSA. MARISHA: She's gathering,
okay. TRAVIS: Which means we're
now going to be going against the stream
and standing out. MARISHA: People are
going to be gathering, so we have literally this quick two minutes.
LAURA: We can face it and move backwards. MARISHA: Let's maybe swing
wide instead of cut through. MATT: You swing wide
and head around. LIAM: Eyes on
the Warder, too, looking for FCG as
soon as we're out. We see this in the middle of the chamber?
MATT: You walk out and you see this. Actually, it would be shut
down, so it's leaned forward, but you see the Warder in
the middle of the ruins, now locked in place. MARISHA: Any sign of a-- MATT: If I could have both
of you roll d20s for me. ASHLEY: Come on. LIAM: Five.
LAURA: Ugh! God!
MARISHA: Ugh, fuck. Let's do the big
boy. Come on, Beau. LIAM: We could run.
LAURA: Oh my god. No! MARISHA: Six.
MATT: Six, all right. LAURA: You made a one face. MATT: As you both, all of you
are gathering at this space, looking out into the group,
you can see everyone's now beginning to filter out
a bit from the chambers. They're still holding
up posts and looking. People are looking
up to the center, and the first thing
you see is a figure begin to fall rapidly and
then stop in place, and you watch as this figure
suddenly (impacts) gets grabbed from, actually, it would
be this hand, from behind. The lavender-haired woman
glides down gently behind it as the... form of Caleb Widogast stands with the mage
hunter golem clasped around the back of his neck
in the middle of the city. TRAVIS: This is an interesting
position to be in. SAM: Fuck him. <i>We</i>
got to get out of here. LAURA: The ship's coming in.
SAM: We don't know these people. MARISHA: No sign of Beau? MATT: Not at the moment. ASHLEY: How far is that? MATT: From where
this is happening? This is about 60, 70 feet
from where you are. SAM: Uh-oh-regard.
TRAVIS: To the battery! (laughter)
TRAVIS: To the battery! MARISHA: Oh, it's been a
while. Happy anniversary. (laughter) LIAM: How are we doing
for random people running all over the
place in the chamber? It's full of people? MATT: It's filled now. It looks like there's
about 60, 70 people all gathered throughout
the city looking inward towards
where this Key is. LIAM: So we're on the periphery
of a lot of people down below looking up at a show.
MATT: Correct. MARISHA: Any sign of
a fucking airship? SAM: I thought that was the
end of the sentence. MARISHA and SAM: (laugh) MARISHA: It's the end
of the world! MATT: But you do see another
figure begin to descend the stairs, the slight ramp that
leads to the base, the opposite side from
where you entered. This is a familiar woman
with long, blue robes, sleeveless, dark skin with
the hair up that you had met, the Beauregard figure,
who is walking as the lavender-haired woman
has her hand extended, and you hear the voice
ring out from the center as Ludinus, arms out, goes, "Thank you all for joining us. "It seems we've had "expected guests. "Caleb, Beauregard,
you have been "thorns in all of our
sides for quite some time. "I think it's only fitting that
we give you front row seats "to what you've worked
so hard to fail to do." At which point Beauregard
now begins to walk through the crowd, and as
they gather, they begin to shackle and chain,
gag and set her there. MARISHA: We've got to
keep doing our thing. TRAVIS: We're going
to the battery. MARISHA: We can't be gr--
Still going. Through all of this. MATT: Ludinus looks down. "Someone please free
our ornament." People start shifting the
stone out of the way. MARISHA: Oh no! MATT: Pull up the slightly
damaged statue of Ryn, the right arm broken off. LIAM: Oh!
LAURA: Oh no. Oh no. SAM: Guys, I broke Ryn. TRAVIS: I mean, that's a lot
better than where I thought she was.
MARISHA: I thought she was shattered. MATT: He says, "Hm."
MARISHA: She can regrow an arm. MATT: "As I'm sure
you all heard, "we are working "at an accelerated pace. "A number of entities
look too close, "and I would hate to disappoint
with the timing, so." He turns around, and where
he's standing on the platform with the Key, you can
see there's this six-inch wide opening,
a space in there, and he places his arm into
there, about the elbow. As he puts his
arm in there, you watch as those
green residuum veins begin to light up and glow
up the entire spire as he's now essentially
fueling it with his own arcana. "And it's taken many years
of research to ensure "that my appreciation
for perfection "can be rightly accomplished." He looks over
towards Liliana, who's floating there, and she puts her arms, pulls them outwards, and you
watch as partway up the spire, about 25 feet above him,
armored sides of the spire shunt downward, exposing
some openings in the side, and there you see,
held in place, this small, 12-sided device, this dodecahedron. About this big--
TRAVIS: A fucking beacon! SAM: Ooh!
MATT: -- rimmed in gold. TRAVIS: Holy shit. MATT: That is affixed
in the center of this portion
of the spire. As the energy's flowing
through it, Ludinus calls out, "Well, I guess it's time
we brought it to us." Energy charges up into it. You watch as this
device begins to glow, and everyone around
you in the chamber seems to freeze in place. All of you feel yourselves
stop, like you can't move. You're not breathing. Everything's just locked, and the stars above,
the storm, (wind whistles) pass by. Hours go by in seconds
LAURA: (gasps) MATT: Before the red moon is held aloft. SAM: What?
LAURA: He shifted time. MATT: All of you come
back into place as Ludinus pulls
his arm out. "(grunts)" You see the hand, his arm is
now somewhat withered and dark. "(chuckles) "Very well." While this is happening, I
figured it'd be best to show you the scenery around you,
just in case you want to. TRAVIS: Yes, please!
SAM: God! TRAVIS: Oh no! MATT: I think it would be a
good point of perspective. SAM: Oh god, Matthew.
TALIESIN: Jesus. SAM: This is brutal. TRAVIS: That'd be great if it
was like The Time Machine. We sped up time, and the
skyship was like, wham! (laughter) TRAVIS: 1,000 miles an hour.
(explosion) (screams) LAURA: If he did speed up
time, then where are they? LIAM: We don't know. SAM: Did he speed up
time or did he-- TRAVIS: Hours passed
by in seconds. SAM: But did he freeze us?
TRAVIS: I don't know. ASHLEY: What?
LAURA: How much did he freeze? TRAVIS: Whoa!
ASHLEY: Oh my god! That is so cool!
SAM: Whoa, that is cool. MARISHA: That's so cool!
TALIESIN: Oh no. Oh no. ASHLEY: Wow!
SAM: What a craft project. MATT: Well, this fell.
LAURA: Oh my god. TRAVIS: Nice job, FCG.
ASHLEY: Okay. SAM: I was trying to save
our friend's life! MATT: With the statue there.
LAURA: Oh my god. MATT: Here, have a Ludinus. LAURA: Oh, he's all
the way up there? MATT: Yeah, he's up
on the platform above.
LAURA: He's going to fall. SAM: He might be. TALIESIN: He's doing okay. SAM: That platform might fall.
LIAM: Fucking dick. MATT: Liliana floats--
(groaning) LAURA: Hi, Mama.
MATT: -- in the sky above. Here, in the middle of
this space, lies... TRAVIS: (powering down noise) MARISHA: That's pretty great. MATT: There are many, many--
SAM: Oh god. MATT: Many--
SAM: I think we can take them. LAURA: Yeah, no problem. TRAVIS: That's okay, those
other two people are going to-- Oh wait, they're
fucking under a trance. I'm sure we won't
have to fight them! SAM: They'll be fine.
LAURA: Beau's chained up. LIAM: Beau's chained up. Caleb's calmed by a robot.
MATT: Beau is chained there on the ground. Caleb-- (aw-ing)
LIAM: Oh, there we go. LIAM and LAURA: We won!
MATT: (laughs) Caleb is currently held--
TALIESIN: (yells) Wilhelm.
MARISHA: Our minis. LAURA: Oh my god. MARISHA: It's been a while. ALL: ♪ Been a while ♪ TRAVIS: Oh my god, dude. MATT: And many, many more. All gather around.
ASHLEY: I wonder what those pulleys are for. SAM: Which ones? ASHLEY: Those pulleys.
SAM: There's pulleys? ASHLEY: To the left.
SAM: Oh, I see. Levers. ASHLEY: Levers, I mean. LIAM: Pulleys, like Rollies? ASHLEY: Rollies, yeah. TALIESIN: Oh shit. MATT: He looks up. LAURA: Where are we? MATT: Cocks his head strangely-- SAM: Oh no, here they come. MATT: -- as a shadow seems to obfuscate the red moon above. MARISHA: Oh my god.
LAURA: Yes. MATT: Before (air whooshing)
rapidly descending. SAM: Can I try to
jumpstart myself? MATT: While this is
happening? Sure. Make an arcana check for me. SAM: Oh god. MATT: Well, you know what? Go ahead and roll a d20 and
add your spellcast modifier, which would be your wisdom. TRAVIS: Just check in
with the Changebringer to see if you should
jumpstart yourself. Maybe she says no. (laughter) Are you Guidance--
cast Guidance? SAM: I did not. Well, is this a check? MATT: This is a spellcraft
check, so yeah. SAM: Okay, well, I'll Guide. 15.
MATT: 15. No, it's nothing, it's
been shut down. SAM: Okay.
LAURA: Get out. MATT: (buzzing whoosh)
You all hear the sound of something heavy,
high-pitched whine streaking. You can see the blue glowing
stones of the brumestone as the Silver Sun comes
descending at intense speed straight down into the tunnel. Everyone below goes
(surprised grunt) You watch as Ludinus goes
(growl, grunt of effort) throws his other hand up,
the non withered one, and right as it is
coming down on top-- SAM: Whoa! MATT: -- a force field
(air whooshing) appears right on top. (Silver Sun crashing) It impacts and shatters,
(air whooshing) scattering outward
and just killing dozens and dozens of
the surrounding watchers and workers here of
the Paragon's Call. The rubble of the Silver Sun
just rings the exterior. No damage to the central spire, but in this space around, rubble. SAM: Oh god. MATT: And wreckage. SAM: Oh god. This is so violent. MATT: Destroyed bits. LAURA: Oh god.
SAM: Oh. Oh. MARISHA: Any sign of-- MATT: Flames immediately
begin to encompass the area from the crashed wreckage. TRAVIS: There's that Cobalt
Soul monk in the front. SAM: Maybe she's okay.
She was under a dome. LAURA: They were under
the force field. I feel like they were
under the force field. MATT: They (air whooshing) shot outward at this point. LAURA: Where are we? TRAVIS: We're over-- MATT: You're on the
outskirts over here. MARISHA: Any sign of
Xandis and Ira? MATT: So we'll say you guys
are out over on this edge here. (laughter) SAM: And that's when
Scanlan Shorthalt arrived. (laughter) TRAVIS: And so it would
be fair to derive that that force field
was from Ludinus and not some sort of
enchantment cast on the-- MATT: Correct.
TRAVIS: Okay. MATT: This is a
semi-spherical Wall of Force that was placed to
protect the top of this. TALIESIN: Oh boy.
TRAVIS: This is big league shit. MATT: So, many of
the figures now, as soon as the wreckage
(ship crashing) slams into the ground flames begin to
emerge from it, smoke pours up and
begins to fill the space. People around start shouting
and people are like, (groaning) You can hear the cries of
pain and aching in the vicinity. In this moment of chaos,
are you doing anything? MARISHA: Can we see
Xandis or Ira? MATT: Make a perception check,
those who would like to look. TRAVIS: Oh. MARISHA: Okay. Anyone who can.
SAM: I guess I will. I guess I will try
to disconnect my wires.
ASHLEY: One. MATT: Okay. You disconnect
yourself fairly easily. SAM: The door is closed. I don't have the
servos to open it, right? I would have to
sort of blast out-- MATT: Correct.
I mean the front of it was kind of damaged
when you got there, so it's a little bit ajar but you can try and
force it if you want to. SAM: I will try to push it out
and see if I can open the door. MATT: Make a strength
check for me. SAM: Gingerly. Strength check, that's an eight. MATT: Eight. It's not moving. (door squeaking) SAM: That was terrible. MATT: What are the
rest of you doing? MARISHA: Dirty 20 for--
TRAVIS: 17. MATT: Perception.
LIAM: 17. MATT: On one of the
upper curved walkways that separate the
center of it-- There's the two
that wind around. The one you came down
is on this direction. The one on this way,
you see, (air whooshing). Two forms appear, one tall, spindly one--
ASHLEY: Great. MARISHA: Oh, fuck yeah.
MATT: -- one humanoid looking one. MARISHA: Okay, okay. MATT: Just as the spindly one skitters away out of sight. SAM: Is the humanoid
one just like, "Holy shit, what's going on?".
(laughter) MATT: The figure goes-- And just goes running up
the side out of sight. SAM: Okay. See, man of his word.
We told you guys. ASHLEY: Yeah.
MARISHA: He did. ASHLEY: He did. LIAM: Is anybody except
for our major players moving on the ground
in all this wreckage? TRAVIS: Are people backing
away from the carnage of this? MATT: Yeah, people
are backing away. They're trying to help friends
out from underneath it. TRAVIS: Do we even dare
go for the other battery or it's here, the moon's here. They're going to push
the button, right? LAURA: (indecisive stammering) SAM: I think we--
LAURA: I feel like I want to free-- TRAVIS: Yeah, we're here.
LAURA: -- Caleb and Beau. We should get them.
ASHLEY: May I pop out Mister? MATT: You may.
ASHLEY: Please. LAURA: How long has it been
since I called the Ashari? MATT: With the time setting up, I think this has
probably been-- LIAM: Is it about time now?
MATT: It's pretty close to an hour. TRAVIS: Can I ask, on Beau, is it multiple pieces
of manacles and chains or is it one big-ass
body harness? MATT: Oh, it's like-- (laughs) TRAVIS: All the trappings. MATT: It's multiple clasps
across both ankles, legs, knees, wrist cuffs,
elbows, behind the body. Ludinus knows who
he's dealing with. TRAVIS: And is--
ASHLEY: Is-- TRAVIS: Is Imogen's mom
still holding Caleb? MATT: No, Caleb is being held--
LIAM: Caleb is being held by the mage hunter.
MATT: By the mage hunter golem. TRAVIS: Oh, the mage hunter.
LAURA: Does he have the collar on or is
it just around his-- MATT: It's just
around his neck. LAURA: It's around his neck.
MATT: It's holding him there. ASHLEY: With Beau's manacles,
are there, is there-- so the different chains, are they pulled
together at one point? MATT: It's not like
loose chains manacles. They're like both arms
are held together by short clasps of metal at the elbow or,
you know, the wrist, the elbow, and the
upper arm from behind and then down on her knees
is clasped at the ankles and then across where
the knees are. ASHLEY: May I cast Heat
Metal on the chain parts-- SAM: Ouch.
ASHLEY: -- of the manacles to try to just
drippy drippies, heat the little metal bits? MATT: You can certainly try. LAURA: You might get
Beau in the process. MATT: You can go ahead. I'll say for this, because
this is very specific. ASHLEY: I'm going to wait. MATT: It's possible. ASHLEY: It is, but-- TRAVIS: I'm going to go, unless
anybody else has any ideas? MARISHA: Go which way?
LAURA: I'm going to go, too. TRAVIS: I'm going
to kick it off. MATT: Right. Where
are you going? LAURA: I want to step up
and look at the golem. MATT: Okay. So you
begin to approach the side of the
golem over here and you can see it's
holding him off, but it's like-- TRAVIS: I'll move with Imogen,
but I'll move around the side closer to Liam and Tal. MATT: Okay. So
over to this side? MARISHA: Which
direction is the-- TRAVIS: Maybe up on this rock
next to-- Yeah, right there. MATT: You got it. MARISHA: Which direction is
the other power supplies? MATT: The one that Otohan was
first at was that direction. There is-- Now that
you're looking across you can see there are
a couple other tunnels on this side, too. TRAVIS: Was there a second
mage hunter golem as well? MATT: This is only the
one you've seen so far. TRAVIS: Yeah. That's fun. MARISHA: So I saw Ira. Can I quickly, before he
gets out of range, send him a message? MATT: Sure. MARISHA: We took down one
of the power sources, but it's likely not
going to be enough. How do you propose we take
down this fucking telescope? MATT: (Ira) "Hmm, that
is indeed the question. "With all eyes upon us, you'd
have to do a frontal assault "and that would be suicide. "Let me see what I can muster "on the other side
of this chamber." You see another--
(air whooshing) SAM: Ooh!
MATT: -- and they vanish off. MARISHA: Should I try and
get this power source behind me and keep with that? MATT: He's out of range now.
MARISHA: Fuck! LAURA: (laughs) MATT: Ludinus
continues to speak. SAM: Oh.
LAURA: Oh. LIAM: I'm going to say that
I'm running alongside Imogen, but I'm going to aim
toward FCG's position as this progresses.
MATT: Okay. TALIESIN: I'm going to
start making my way. MATT: ♪ Makin' my way ♪
TALIESIN: Thank you. Taking cover behind
that part of the ship. MATT: Okay.
TALIESIN: A little further back. MATT: A little further back?
MARISHA: I feel like I should look for the other power source.
TALIESIN: Right there. MATT: Okay. Ludinus shouts out amongst
the chamber, shrugging off. As people are freaking out, you can see Liliana
looking across the field and as she does, everybody
in the area begins to calm, like they're being consoled. Their emotions begin to
relax a bit and they all, even as their friends
are on the ground bleeding out or expiring,
they just look back towards the center
as Ludinus speaks. "The greatest lie ever told "is that we need them. "We are their gardens, "their cattle. "They created us to feed
them with our faith, "our hopes, our souls. "Lapping up their fables, give
them form, purpose, control." "Lapping up their fables, give
them form, purpose, control." What are you doing? MARISHA: I'm going to
try and take cover on the far side of the map. MATT: Over here?
MARISHA: Yeah. MATT: Okay.
MARISHA: Stay hidden. ASHLEY: I'm going to
go behind that box. MATT: Over here?
ASHLEY: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right there.
MATT: You got it. That box, as you look at it,
is a chunk of the Silver Sun. You glance and you're like, "Oh, I know this room."
ASHLEY: Oh yeah. LAURA: (laughs)
ASHLEY: Oh, that's our boat. SAM: Beau isn't
being held by anyone. She's just in shackles? MATT: At the moment, yeah. TRAVIS: A ton of restraints.
MARISHA: And she seems mind controlled. MATT: In fact, the person who
was holding her got crushed, the person that shackled her. ASHLEY: So she's no longer mind controlled?
LAURA: That's good. MATT: You don't know. ASHLEY: I'll wait.
TRAVIS: Does she seem like she's fighting against
her restraints or just-- MATT: Make a
perception check. TRAVIS: Nine. 10. MATT: 10. You have no idea. TRAVIS: Yep. LAURA: I'm going to try to look
at the golem in front of me and I'm going to
whisper: Release. MATT: To the golem?
LAURA: I'm going to try to cast Command on it. MATT: Cast Command
on the golem, okay. Let's go ahead and-- That is what save? LIAM: Wizzy, got to be. LAURA: Wisdom. MATT: Wisdom. Okay, he fails. The golem pulls away and the claw (click) disconnects from the arm and is now a collar
latched on to Caleb. He's been released. LIAM: Mm. TALIESIN: It was
a good thought. SAM: So he's fine?
LIAM: Still muzzled. LAURA: He's still shackled.
TRAVIS: Nerfed. LIAM: He can move,
but he's muzzled. MATT: (Ludinus) "They did
not give us this world. "They took it
from the titans, "slew them in their home, "and tilled its
soil to harvest us "for all eternity." What you doing? MARISHA: I'm going to tell
Pâté, invisible Pâté, to go follow in the
direction that Ira went. MATT: Follow the
direction that Ira went? MARISHA: Yeah. MATT: All right. LIAM: So, is it pretty-- Is the sound of
fire and wreckage falling and
crashing around us? Or is it quiet?
MATT: Yeah, bits of it-- It's still crackling and
there's still some moans and there's still,
things are creaking and there's still
bits of wreckage. They hit the sides
of the tunnel, they're (wreckage
thumping) falling. It's a half nightmare
hellscape, but there's just this calm
upon everyone who's watching and Ludinus just holding court
in the center with Liliana. LIAM: Okay. Orym is going
to sneak through the rubble and get down in
front of the Warder and I'm going to use Seedling
to squirt some vine up-- MATT: To the
Warder over here? LIAM: The one the FCG is in.
MATT: Yeah. LIAM: And sort of-- MATT: Make a stealth
check for me. LAURA: Oh! MATT: Try and scoot
through the wreckage. LIAM: That's shit.
That's seven. SAM: Ooh.
LIAM: Rolled a two. MATT: A seven. You begin to scoot
through the crowd there and one of the people that
stepped out of the wreckage just grabs you on the side of the
shoulder and goes, "Sh!" LIAM: I will pause for a second
and think and let time pass. MATT: Okay. They just hold
your shoulder in place and they look back
up towards Ludinus. (Ludinus) "But we,
their special children, "surpassed our masters. "We questioned their gains,
we found our own will, "our own power, "our own drive to create
that eclipsed their own. "We unraveled their weave
and killed one of them, "became one of them. "Then, then they feared us." Who's doing what?
LIAM: I will Grasping Vine that person in the face and yank it hard as I
can against this wood to try to knock
them the fuck out. MATT: Okay, that's a
dexterity save for them? LIAM: Yes, it is. Right. MATT: That is a natural 2. LIAM: Okay. MATT: Crack! I'll just, for the hell of it,
for the narrative reasons here, I'll just roll
and see if they-- With an eight, yeah. Crack! They go for
the moment, unconscious. You are--
SAM: Did that alert anybody else or-- LIAM: I'm hoping with
all the fire and-- TALIESIN: Keeping an eye on things.
MATT: Make another stealth check for me. LIAM: Cool.
ASHLEY: Question. LIAM: It's 14. MATT: 14. Okay. At the moment you're pretty
sure nobody noticed it and they're on the
ground unconscious with a bloody nose. SAM: Can I see at
all out of my-- MATT: You just have
a little bit of view of the ground before you and the flames around it.
SAM: The ground, that's it. All right. Okay.
MATT: All right. TRAVIS: I'm going
to turn invisible. MATT: All right.
TRAVIS: I'm going to go straight for
the wooden stairs. MATT: For the wooden
stairs over here? TRAVIS: These wooden stairs. MATT: Okay.
LIAM: Oh shit. MATT: You turn invisible. TRAVIS: I'll dash. LAURA: Please no glyphs.
MATT: Okay. Well, that was your action to cast the spell.
TRAVIS: Oh. MATT: Then movement
to get there. TRAVIS: You're right.
MARISHA: Fuck it. It may be moot, but I'm going to go
for this other cavern and disconnect this
other power source. MATT: Okay.
MARISHA: I don't know what else to do in the meantime. MATT: So you're just going to
double move off in that direction? MARISHA: Yep.
MATT: Okay. Are you doing it stealthily or-- MARISHA: I'll do it stealthily.
MATT: Make a stealth check for me. LAURA: We are so split
up right now, y'all. MARISHA: We're very split up. TRAVIS: That's a good thing. I think.
ASHLEY: What's that little ball on top of the... the things coming out of it? TALIESIN: How bad?
ASHLEY: Is that the beacon? No.
MATT: No. Beacon is actually housed partly in here.
MARISHA: Bad. Can you do something about it? ASHLEY: Oh, got it. TALIESIN: If it's that
bad, I saw you leave. MARISHA: Mm-hmm. TALIESIN: I'm going to turn
and head towards you with-- MARISHA: Pass Without a Trace? TALIESIN: Well I'm going to
be, at the very least, right now I'm going to
be heading towards you as if I'm going
to see what's up. MATT: Okay. So double dash, yeah,
you can get over to her because you're much
quicker on your feet. TALIESIN: Pass
Without a Trace. MATT: Okay. MARISHA: 18. MATT: All right,
18. Stealth check. LAURA: I'm going to use
Invisibility on myself as well. MATT: Okay. So you
vanish as well. TALIESIN: 25. MATT: 25.
ASHLEY: Nice. MATT: Okay, great. So you both head
that way stealthily. MARISHA: Once we hit
the cavern and we're out of sight, we'll haul ass.
MATT: We'll say this is you, Fearne. TALIESIN: (whispering)
What are you doing?! MARISHA: I just might as
well keep with the plan until something else changes. MATT: That puts you two about there.
TALIESIN: Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck. SAM: Can I cast Enhance
Ability on myself? MATT: Sure. So, you're right there.
SAM: Bull's Strength. MATT: Bull's Strength.
You begin darting over in that
direction, right? You have to move through,
it's rough terrain. So dashing will get you
to the bottom there and that's going to
be end of your turn. LIAM: Okay.
MATT: You cast Bull's Strength? SAM: Yeah.
MATT: All right. Cast on yourself and going to
try and force your way through? SAM: I'm going to try to
push open the thing again. MATT: Strength check
with advantage. SAM: Terrible. Even worse. Can I also Guide myself?
I guess I should've-- MATT: It's a little late
on that, unfortunately. SAM: No, they're both terrible anyway.
MARISHA: Pâté's with Ira. SAM: 10.
MATT: 10. (grunts) It's-- unfortunately, it's
sustained some damage and without the control of
it, it's locked in place. As you just kind
get up underneath. TRAVIS: Okay.
MATT: Ludinus continues. "The Calamity was
not a tragedy. "It was a punishment. "Their war amounted to them
little more than a contest "and we all suffered
for our excellence. "A genocidal admonishment
for following our own will. "A genocidal admonishment
for following our own will. "They still fear us. "Hiding behind their gate, "reaping our dreams
as they deceive us "into ceding our agency to
their whims and squabbles. "They should be afraid." What are you all doing? TALIESIN: Get Pâté
down here, now! TRAVIS: I'm going
towards the stairs. MARISHA: He's too far away. TALIESIN: What are we going
to do when we hit a glyph? TRAVIS: Going up the stairs
with all of my 35, if I can. MATT: Gets you right there.
MARISHA: I don't have to get close to it. I can hit it from a distance. SAM: I'm trying again. TRAVIS: I'm going to--
LIAM: Wait. MATT: Well, you get
to go first. LIAM: I'm going to-- There was a little bit of
broken gap in that doorway. MATT: Yeah.
LIAM: Can I see Letters through that
little bit of hole? MATT: You glance under, there's
no lights source on the inside so you just see darkness, unfortunately.
LIAM: Okay, well, I'm going to
stick with my plan. I'm going to use another
Grasping Vine on the front door or whatever opens
up on this thing, and then I'm just
going to plant a foot against its leg and pull
as hard as I fucking can. MATT: Okay. Roll again, as you're pushing
at the same time. This will be both of
you, working together to try and get it open.
SAM: Guide myself. MARISHA: I still
have Spider Climb up I don't have to
touch the ground. SAM: Ooh!
MARISHA: So you watch yourself. SAM: 19. TALIESIN: I still have stealth up, too.
MATT: 19, yeah. SAM: 20.
MATT: The DC was reduced with your help. So with
that, you went and pulled and part of it (metal ripping) breaks of at the hinge and opens up--
MARISHA: Don't come in. MATT: -- giving you
enough room to get out. You pull the vine back down.
SAM: Did anybody see us? Are we are okay? MATT: (laughs)
LIAM: We're right under Mama Temult there.
LAURA: Yeah. MATT: Liliana--
LAURA: Right as that's happening-- MATT: -- looks down. LAURA: -- I'm going to
say in her head: Mama. MATT: You notice right
as she's floating there, she looks down and she
begins to lift her hand in the direction
of you, Orym, and then as you
say, "Mama," she-- You hear, in
your voice, "Imogen?" LAURA: Mama. It doesn't have
to be like this. MATT: (Liliana) "Where are
you? I can't see you!" LAURA: Mama, I love you. The better halves make a better whole. Please remember! MARISHA: Oh! The locket! MATT: Make a persuasion
check with advantage. TRAVIS: Ooh!
MARISHA: Come on! Locket shit! TALIESIN: Oh god.
MARISHA: This is it! This is it! LAURA: Okay, okay. 19. MATT: 19. You watch as her hand's out and you, for a
second there, Orym, you feel your arms
all of a sudden (cracking) almost begin to
pull apart at the seams, like they're locked in place and starting to tear
out of the shoulders. Then, it stops, and she looks past you. You hear, in your voice, say, "Imogen, I told you to run. "I've been telling
you to run. "Why did you come here?" LAURA: I want to
help you get free. It doesn't have
to be like this! MATT: "It's the only
way we can be free." MARISHA: She's too far gone. LAURA: No! MATT: "We're its seeds,
you and me. "Why do you think we
have this power? "The Ruidusborn,
the Exaltant. "It's been building a bridge "and we're the mooring." LAURA: This is all
stuff he told you. How do you know he's
telling you the truth? MATT: "I just do." (explosion) There's a deep, bass-y
detonation beneath the ground. It quakes and moves and everyone
turns for a second, and then they all look
back to Ludinus for direction. He's just holding
his one darkened, somewhat withered hand, gives a motion to not bother. MARISHA: I check
in Pâté's eyes. Was that Ira? MATT: Mm-hmm. That was Ira. ASHLEY: Nice! TRAVIS: With my action, I'm going to try and climb the side of this telescope
as quietly as I can. I don't know what it'll do, but it's another 35 feet
of movement going up. MATT: Okay. Make an
athletics check for me. SAM: It's like King Kong! TRAVIS: It says I
have advantage, but only when I'm
in my wolf form. MATT: Only when you're
in your wolf form. TRAVIS: Oh, it's balls!
MARISHA: (groans) Oh jeez!
TRAVIS: 11. MATT: 11. You get about
three, four feet up and it's too slick and
the edges are too sharp. You cut your finger and
fall back and hit the wood with a heavy thud and you can see Ludinus. Like he heard something. TRAVIS: I mean, crashed
ass airship right here. MARISHA: I'm going to Spider Climb--
TRAVIS: Probably nothing. MARISHA: -- into-- Yeah. Spider Climb into the chamber that I was rushing into as
to not set off any glyphs. TALIESIN: Is there
light anyway? MARISHA: There should be light.
TALIESIN: Okay. I'm going to follow-- MARISHA: Just watch.
TALIESIN: -- the well beaten path quite slowly into this room.
MARISHA: Yes. MATT: Okay. After the explosion happens, Liliana turns and looks. Out of the corner
of that chamber, (slick, sneaky movement) you see Ira begin to shift
rapidly through the ruin. Liliana turns and (whooshes)
puts a hand out. SAM: Oh no. MATT: Oh, does he
have advantage? Yes, magic resistance
he has advantage on. She Banishes him. (gasping) TRAVIS: Oh! (laughs) SAM: That's okay. He's fine. He's fine.
MATT: That sucks! (laughs) TRAVIS: Wow!
SAM: He's just gone for a minute. TRAVIS: Wow!
LAURA: No, he's from another realm. LIAM: Yeah. So he's staying there.
TALIESIN: He's gone, gone. MATT: As long as she maintains concentration.
LAURA: He's back to the Fey Realm. ASHLEY: All right. I would like to question myself. TRAVIS: Nice move, Matt! MATT: But she has to
hold it for one minute to banish him permanently. MARISHA: She has to
hold it for one minute to banish him permanently.
LIAM: Yeah, we got to conk her in the head
in the next 60 seconds. ASHLEY: I would like to try--
MATT: Mm-hmm. ASHLEY: -- with my
ring of telekinesis-- MATT: Mm-hmm. ASHLEY: -- to try to look at
some piece of the telescope and try to pull something. So to get it a little more--
LAURA: Well, they lifted the shield
around the beacon. So that is up right now. ASHLEY: Fuck! What about in the front?
LAURA: No, but I mean the beacon. So the beacon is exposed. MATT: It is somewhat.
ASHLEY: Do I know what the beacon is? MATT: You have no idea what the beacon is.
ASHLEY: I know. MATT: None of you have any idea.
LAURA: But it looks like a power source. I mean, it's a thing that they unshielded.
MATT: Looks important. Looks important. ASHLEY: I was going to
try to go for the beacon, but I didn't want
to metagame. MATT: Yeah, you wouldn't-- ASHLEY: But it
looks important? MATT: Make a perception check.
SAM: Where is it? Where is the beacon? ASHLEY: I'll make a perception check.
MATT: I'll say make a perception check. LIAM: It's kind of under-- MATT: It's underneath the
device right there where he-- SAM: Cool.
ASHLEY: 17. MATT: 17? You see many things
look important here. ASHLEY: I'm not going to do it. I feel like that's metagame-y, even though I want to.
MATT: But you're going to try and use your Ring of Telekinesis to pull--
ASHLEY: Yeah, I'm trying to maybe even the little ball, or something on that front piece. Is the whole thing covered
or just the top bit? The whole entire thing? MATT: Most of this thing
is armored in places. It's been reinforced
for over a week because of the destruction
of the Fey Key. ASHLEY: Okay. Hang on. Somebody else can go.
MATT: Okay, well. ASHLEY: Let me--
MATT: Ludinus continues to talk. LAURA: (groans) SAM: By the way, is golem
that's holding Caleb back to normal again or is he--? MATT: Yes, it's returned
back to its position here. SAM: But is it holding Caleb? MATT: No, Caleb is
no longer held, but Caleb has a collar locked on.
LIAM: Has a collar on him. SAM: Yeah. MATT: And you are
freed at the moment. LAURA: How did-- SAM: I'm still sitting in
the belly, just watching. TRAVIS: Not easy.
MATT: Yes. SAM: That's metagaming. MATT: At this moment,
Ludinus looks to you. SAM: To me?! MATT: Yeah.
SAM: I'm inside the belly! I didn't come out! MATT: You made a loud
noise off of the side, glances over. SAM: That's fair. MATT: "You? "You are not given life
by any god, "but by the hands of
mortal creators like us." SAM: I clutch my coin. MATT: "We are the
new source of life, "of creation! "Stain my legacy all you wish! "I have worked selflessly
for 1,000 years "to find the means of
shattering these chains "of fate and oppression! "Let me be your villain, "if it means liberation
for all and forever." You begin to hear the
sounds of fighting at the top of the pit. MARISHA: The Ashari?
LIAM: Yeah. MATT: Wind begins to
(whooshes) pick up above. You're both down there, trying to destroy
another power source? MARISHA: Yes.
MATT: All right. You are at that moment, now you've rushed down there. We'll say, because this
is a weird time where it's moving more
in little bursts of action. So you get down there
and you're facing it. You're not sure where
the glyphs are in the room. MARISHA: I was spider climbing on the walls to avoid them.
MATT: Okay. (skittering) TALIESIN: I was watching
for footprints. There clearly is going
to be a beaten path and I am gingerly taking it. MATT: Perception or
survival, I'll say. So right off of the
tracking element of it, perception, you
just pick up the-- LIAM: Stressful! MARISHA: So stressful! TALIESIN: None of them
are particularly good. Here we go. TALIESIN: 17! MATT: 17, okay. You follow the pattern and
you feel fairly confident? TALIESIN: I'm not going
to get all the way up to the damn thing
or anything. MATT: You get within
10 feet of it. TALIESIN: Oh, I'm not even
going to get that close. MATT: Okay. I'd say you get
somewhere in that space and be like, you're fine, and you think you see a
direction where there's nothing. TALIESIN: I'm good
for the moment. MATT: All right. Laudna? MARISHA: I'm going to unload some Eldritch Blasts, similarly very pinpointed
to do this directly. MATT: Hmm. Okay, roll an
arcana check for me. MARISHA: Why did he do
it like that? MATT: Because it's fun. TRAVIS: There's no good-- MARISHA: 18. MATT: 18. (thudding) See two of the cores
(explosion) detonate and you see some
of the tethers go fraying out and
arcane sparks fly off. There's still a large
chunk of it connected, but you did some damage to it. MARISHA: I'll do it again. TRAVIS: God, I wonder if
they're just fucking decoys. MATT: I will get to
that in a second. (explosion) There's a
few other booms. TRAVIS: That fucking beacon
is doing something. Shard. TALIESIN: I'm watching
behind us now to see if anyone's coming. MARISHA: I don't know how
much power he needs. MATT: Okay, make a
perception check. MARISHA: Actually recycling shit. I have a feeling we're moving
towards a mixed success. MATT: The rest of you
are watching from this and you can see the veins of strongly reinforced threaded residuum that
is marking through it. They've all been solid
this whole time. You see two of them
(whirs) dim slightly. LAURA: Okay, okay, okay. TALIESIN: 18. MATT: 18? Okay, glancing about,
you don't see anyone coming at the moment. TALIESIN: I'm just
keeping an eye out. MATT: Okay. MARISHA: I'll try and call
Paté back to me in this time. Keep going. It's going
to take him a minute. MATT: Begins to fly back. Ludinus still--
MARISHA: Or you know what? Keep him in this area for me. MATT: In this area? Okay.
MARISHA: He's my eyes. TALIESIN: So we can
keep watching. MATT: Ludinus looks up
towards Liliana. Liliana, you can see
sweat on her brow and she's still lost in
thought for a moment, figuring out what to do. You feel her tether
control loosen on you and you hear back, in your voice, "Imogen, it's already done. "It's going to be okay." LAURA: It's not too late! It's not! You're strong, Mama! You're so strong! MATT: "He's stronger." You hear Ludinus say, "Born in you,
chosen Ruidusborn, "seeds of Predathos' power. "The burgeoning scions
to now break these bonds. "You have all gathered here
for your true purpose." You see a lot of the
surviving members of the vanguard
around, looking up, and you can see this
dull, red glow beginning to emanate-- TRAVIS: What? MATT: -- from their skin. SAM: From their skin? MATT: From Liliana, you
can see around her body and through the coat
from the inside, red energy beginning
to (whooshes) drift up from underneath.
TRAVIS: (gasps) LAURA: What's that? MARISHA: Oh no!
ASHLEY: We can't see her. She's invisible.
MATT: In the invisible space where Imogen is standing, her outline begins to appear as red mist-like energy--
TRAVIS: No! MATT: -- begins to drift
off of her body. MARISHA: Oh!
SAM: Oh no. MATT: Fearne, a faint
bit of red mist begins to emanate from you.
ASHLEY: Oh fuck! I forgot! MARISHA: Oh! LIAM: You didn't know that
was going to happen? No? MATT: The fighting--
SAM: And also me? (laughter)
MATT: Nah! SAM: I'm not alive! MARISHA: (laughs) MATT: You continue
to attack the-- MARISHA: (blasts) MATT: Roll again,
another arcana check. MARISHA: Come on, bitch,
come on, bitch! Come on! TRAVIS: Can I try and make
another crawl up the thing? MATT: Yes, you may. Roll an
athletics check for me. MARISHA: Not great,
not great. TRAVIS: Dirty 20. MATT: Dirty 20. You
begin to climb up. This is a real tough climb. You just hit the DC to
start climbing this. So you get about 15 feet
up on the side there and your fingers are hurting,
but you're holding onto it. TRAVIS: Okay. MARISHA: Eight. SAM: Where's Fearne?
MATT: Eight? (whooshes) you hit a
couple other parts of the device that
are already defunct and it's not doing
additional damage. MARISHA: Anything you
got from a distance? TALIESIN: I pull out
the dynamite. LAURA: (squeaks) MARISHA: Fuck it. TRAVIS: Mm-hmm. TALIESIN: Ready?
MARISHA: Ready. TALIESIN: Light it.
MATT: You light it. (whooshes) Throw it in there. (thumps)
TALIESIN: Let's go! MARISHA: All right.
MATT: You both go running back out, (laughs) hearing that's
(sizzles) behind you as you're charging out of there. Okay, okay. TALIESIN: If we get to the
entrance before it goes? MATT: You don't even have a
chance to look at how long it will take to go.
TALIESIN: Oh. No, no. LAURA: Too long. MATT: It's just going,
so you guys start going. All right. (Ludinus) "Everything
scales in the universe, "even ecosystems. "Tonight, we unleash the
natural predator of the gods. "Tonight, we unleash the
natural predator of the gods. "Tonight, the children
inherit the world." You hear (whistling) (explosion) Dust (grunts) kicked
up in the air. The cloud of earth that's
risen and thrown up begins to slowly dissipate, as you see a large boulder has slammed from above. As the boulders
slowly (crumbling) (gasps) TRAVIS: Yo!
LAURA: Keyteor! MATT: -- begins
to unravel itself in the center of the ground.
MARISHA: Ashari power! (oohing)
SAM: What's happening?! LAURA: Whoa! Look at the antlers!
MARISHA: (roars) LAURA: Keyteor! Keyteor!
ASHLEY: Whoa! LIAM: Holy shit! ASHLEY: Double Marisha. MARISHA: (laughs) TRAVIS: Yeah!
SAM: Oh my god! Triple Marisha! LAURA: Triple Marisha. MARISHA: (giggles) MATT: As she lands, just--
MARISHA: Triple churned! (deep voice) "By the Voice
of the Tempest--" LAURA: Oh!
MATT: "-- halt this!" In the deep rumbling, earth
cracking sound of the voice and casts Mass Cure Wounds. You can see many of
the wounded around suddenly come to bear. Any of you who've taken damage
from previous in here? TRAVIS: Yeah.
MARISHA: Oh! I just hope she doesn't
get fucked up, 'cause that's--
TALIESIN: I don't know if we're there yet.
MARISHA: -- my characters tonight. SAM: What if they all die? MARISHA: What if they all die?
SAM: Including the new one. MARISHA: I know! (laughs) MATT: 35 points of healing. TRAVIS: Amazing. MATT: Anybody else hurt? TALIESIN: I mean, yeah, but
I don't think we're there yet. MATT: No, you're not
there. You shouldn't see. TRAVIS: I'm going to be crazy. ASHLEY: Is there still
seem like there's a cover over this whole thing, like a protection? MATT: A slight barrier?
ASHLEY: Yeah. MATT: You don't see
one at the moment. SAM: I don't know
what that was. MATT: As she lands--
MARISHA: (shouts) MATT: -- Ludinus looks
down and smiles. "Right on time." SAM: Oh no.
LAURA: No! TALIESIN: (whimpers) MATT: He just says-- MARISHA: You guys. MATT: "Down." Casts Power Word Stun on her. LAURA: (gasps) MATT: She immediately
(crackling) freezes up. Turns over, and you watch as
Otohan darts out of the shadow. SAM: Oh shit, I forgot about her! MATT: All three. (whooshes) SAM: (gasps) Oh no! MATT: Other echoes that she
creates from the back surround-- LAURA: No! MATT: -- Keyleth, who
is unable to move due to Power Word Stun. Let's do a full round of
Otohan Thull attacks, if you don't mind.
LAURA: Right as she comes up, can I let go an attack?
SAM: Oh god. MATT: Let go an attack? LAURA: Yeah. MATT: I'll say--
LAURA: Can I see her? MATT: Roll initiative
against Otohan Thull because this is not a
surprise round, necessarily. Otohan Thull, by the way, also had red mist
drifting off of her body. LAURA: Of course. TALIESIN: Oh shit.
LAURA: 12! SAM: Can I roll initiative, too? MARISHA: Y'all going to
be super powerful? MATT: Yeah, if y'all want
to roll initiative on this. Anybody who wants to
jump in that's nearby. Only you two aren't there. You're rushing there. All right.
TRAVIS: I'll jump in, too. MATT: Okay, we got it. This is Otohan Thull
versus the troop here in the middle, this way. That--
TRAVIS: My target would not be Otohan Thull. MATT: No. Fair enough.
TRAVIS: Okay. MATT: All right. The 25 to 20. SAM: 20. MATT: All right. TALIESIN: Oh fuck, fuck,
fuck, fuck, fuck! MATT: All right. 20 to 15? LIAM: 17. ASHLEY: 15. MATT: All right. LAURA: Oh, wait! 17, 15?
SAM: Shit. ASHLEY: Yeah. MATT: All right. So Fearne, you were 15? ASHLEY: 15, yes.
MATT: All right. 15 to 10? LAURA: 12.
TRAVIS: I rolled a 14, but I think it's just Otohan. LAURA: Oh, you rolled
14 as well? MATT: No, you're part of
this initiative, too. TRAVIS: Okay.
MATT: Since this is now-- TRAVIS: Yeah, 14. MATT: All right, and then
who is lower than that? Imogen, what did you get? LAURA: 12.
MATT: Imogen, all right. LAURA: Fuck. MATT: 10 to five? All right, we'll get to
you guys here in a minute. So at the end of each round, we'll see how close
you can get there. So top of the round with 21-- SAM: Yeah, go. MATT: -- is Otohan. SAM: Mother... TALIESIN and LIAM: Fucker! MATT: Otohan rushes in.
ALL: (sighing) LIAM: Not again! MATT: Advantage on
the first strike is to the Summit Blade. MARISHA: I really don't want all my characters to die.
MATT: Two 18s! MARISHA: That would be sad!
MATT: Okay. MARISHA: Maybe if one died. LAURA: That would be a lot.
MARISHA: That would be cool. TRAVIS: It would be an honor.
MARISHA: It would be. MATT: So that's going to be 1d8. And that's 15. TRAVIS: Take your time, Matt. MATT: Voice of the Tempest. Here we go.
TRAVIS: Take your time. MARISHA: She got a lot of
hit points as an earth elemental. TALIESIN: Then once the
earth ellie's done. MARISHA: Then she's...Then she's herself. MATT: Going to use a psi
dice to do Psionic Strike, which does an additional-- LAURA: Just think, if you would
have rolled better than five, we could've ended up in this fight. MATT: Additional 14 points
of damage on that one. They have to make a strength
save to be knocked prone. She's stunned,
so she can't make it. She gets knocked prone. (thumping) TALIESIN: Oh no!
MATT: At that point there. TALIESIN: Oh no, no. MATT: So now she has advantage
on the strikes again, but she does
additional damage to things that
are knocked prone. Second strike. It's going to be-- Yeah, that'll hit.
TRAVIS: Hang on, boys and girls. SAM: I'll--
TRAVIS: This is going to be a ride! SAM: Do I see what kind
of strikes these are? Are these just melee types? MATT: These are
melee strikes. (slashing) This is a
full on ambush. TRAVIS: This is a piranha
feeding. It's just an absolute-- SAM: That last strike,
I'll take half of it. MATT: Take half
of this last one? SAM: Yeah.
MATT: The last one that she took? SAM: Yeah.
MATT: That would've been 29 damage total, so you would've taken 14. SAM: Okay.
ASHLEY: Don't. Don't. MATT: Okay. TRAVIS: Don't, don't. MATT: This one is
going to be-- MARISHA: Oh my god. MATT: 20 damage on
the second strike. It's going to add
a third attack. That's a crit. SAM: Ooh. MATT: That's going to be--
LIAM: What the fuck? MATT: 22, 28 points of damage.
ASHLEY: Are you taking that, too? TRAVIS: Are you going to pop--
SAM: No, I-- MATT: She has 150, sorry, 126 hit points as an earth elemental.
TRAVIS: We got one minute before he's just gone.
MARISHA: How much did you say? ASHLEY: 126.
MATT: 126 hit points as an earth elemental, and
then Keyleth's hit points after that.
TRAVIS: Break concentration. MARISHA: That's how
many she just took? SAM: No, no, no. That's how many she has.
MARISHA: That's how many she can take. LIAM: That's the max
as the elemental. MATT: Yeah, so--
LIAM: Before back to Keyleth HP. MATT: Yeah.
TRAVIS: She's gone. TALIESIN: Does the stun-- SAM: She's got this.
She can't be killed. LAURA: I don't think so. TRAVIS: Just break
her concentration or the Nightmare King is gone.
MATT: Power Word Stun's a rough one. LAURA: Somebody else
should hit her. If I hit her, I feel
like it's going to-- TALIESIN: Me and Caleb--
LAURA: -- ruin any chance I have of persuading her to come to our side.
MATT: 21 points of damage there. TRAVIS: That gives a chance-- MATT: So that's--
LAURA: Yeah. TALIESIN: Okay.
SAM: With your mom? MATT: Then she's going
to offhand strike with Scream Needle. LIAM: Do you have Dispel? SAM: Dispel Magic?
MATT: Because she used Unleash Incarnation--
LIAM: Yes. MATT: -- to get that
fourth strike on that. SAM: Yes. MATT: That is going to be,
with advantage, another crit. LAURA: Yeah.
TRAVIS: Wow! LIAM: What?
MARISHA: This is still the same run of attacks?
LAURA: She's still going? TRAVIS: Yes. Yes, yes.
MATT: Yes. SAM: She gets two for each--
MATT: That's 12. SAM: -- duplicate, I think.
So she gets six attacks-- MATT: 24 plus four, 28. TALIESIN: Fucking
echo knight. MARISHA: This is bonkers. LAURA: We should've
fucking pinned her down when we had a chance
in that little tunnel. MARISHA: I know, I know. TRAVIS: She was in between--
MARISHA: But I don't know, it could've-- TRAVIS: It wasn't like he could
just drop and close it off. She was already moving back. MATT: Yeah. MARISHA: I could've just gone bad.
MATT: Then is going to action surge. TALIESIN: Yep, there we go.
LIAM: (sighs) MATT: So, next attack,
with advantage. That hits. SAM: Oof.
MATT: For 21 points of damage. The earth elemental
form falls. ASHLEY: Fuck.
LIAM and TALIESIN: (groan) MATT: Now on the ground--
TRAVIS: Yo, what's up? What's up, bae? Oh shit, sorry. MARISHA: (groans) Look, and her mini
is so pretty. SAM: Is Keyleth on the Bingo
already, or is that done? LIAM: No, she's circled. SAM: She's already circled? TRAVIS: Yeah, she's already--
MATT: Two more strikes. LIAM: Two more.
LAURA: Jesus Christ. TALIESIN: Yep. This is some high level--
LAURA: Can we end this game? TALIESIN: High level echo
knight's fucking vicious. MATT: It's funny, it's not
even an echo knight. TALIESIN: This is not an
echo knight? Fuck off. MATT: No, that backpack she has--
TRAVIS: This is just getting good. MATT: -- gives her the
echo knight abilities. TALIESIN: Oh my god. MATT: But that is going to be--
TALIESIN: I don't know that, okay. MATT: 12, 16 points of damage. TALIESIN: I don't want
to know that. SAM: Beau's just standing
there, watching Keyleth die. MARISHA: (groans) SAM: Being watched by Pâté--
MARISHA: She can't do literally anything about it. SAM: Being watched by--
MATT: 14 points of damage, and because you can
do with action, is going to do another
Unleash Incarnation for another attack.
SAM: (as Pâté) "There's a couple of ladies "being killed out there!" MARISHA: She's still going,
she's still going. ASHLEY: (sighs) Fucking
piece of shit. MATT: That is going
to bring us to... TALIESIN: Jesus H. Christ. MATT: She's not looking great. TALIESIN: One round, man. MATT: As Otohan goes, and (whoosh) strikes (boof, boof, boof) All the incarnations
just into this frenzy, the earth elemental
form cracks. Then what was once
shale and pebble becomes red blood
scattering on the ground as Keyleth lies
frozen, eyes wide. Otohan goes for a
heart strike, and there is a dark flash
in the air, swoosh! You see where Otohan's
blade was. Instead, you see a
cloak of feathers. (gasping) TALIESIN: Oh, jesus fuck,
what the hell? MATT: Black raven feathers. MARISHA: Wait, pull out the
bingo, pull out the bingo! LAURA: Is Vax on there? MATT: You see a masked
figure with long-- TRAVIS: Shut the fuck up, Matt!
MARISHA: (screams) TRAVIS: Shut up!
MARISHA: What is happening? TRAVIS: No fucking way!
MARISHA: What is happening? TRAVIS: You cannot be serious! MARISHA: Oh my god,
where is it? I don't know--
MATT: Who is now standing over and protecting her body. (gasping, screaming) MATT: Daggers in each hand.
ASHLEY: Oh my god. MARISHA: (laughs) MATT: (as Vax) "Don't
you even dare." (screaming, laughter) SAM: Oh my god,
oh my god, oh my god. MARISHA: (laughs) MATT: FCG, your turn. TRAVIS: What are you talking about?
MARISHA: What is happening? TRAVIS: What are you talking about?
(laughter) ASHLEY: Oh my god. MATT: Oh, I forgot to bring
over the Vax figure, fuck! I'll be right back. While you
think about what you're doing! TRAVIS: What do you mean,
we'll be right back? MARISHA: That's a double Liam! TRAVIS: What do you mean?
TALIESIN: Shit. SAM: What happened?
TALIESIN: Something's happening. SAM: Where?
TALIESIN: Shit, this is madness. TRAVIS: What is happening?
SAM: He's dead, he's already dead!
TRAVIS: He's unhinged! You can't do this!
ASHLEY: Oh my god. LAURA: Ooh my god.
SAM: He's going to start bringing in-- He's going to
going to bring in characters from campaigns we
don't even know about! (laughter) ASHLEY: Who's that?
(laughter) TRAVIS: Holy shit.
MARISHA: What is going on? SAM: Okay, wait. I'm sorry.
LAURA: Tonight is the-- SAM: Who am I helping here? TRAVIS: Is he going to be
any other characters besides Marisha and Liam?
LAURA: It's just Liam and Marisha, apparently. TRAVIS: Oh, okay.
(laughter) SAM: Who am I helping? Am I helping the Ashari woman
who seems to be almost dying? LAURA: Well, she's
being helped by a-- SAM: Sure, but she
seems on death's door. LAURA: -- a raven man now. MATT: Sorry--
MARISHA: Another skyship comes, and it's Fjord and Jester! (laughter) MARISHA: Flew in
from the ocean. LIAM: I thought you
said 40 Jesters, and by level 20, that
might be possible! SAM: (like Jester) Oh, technically! MATT: FCG, what
are you doing? SAM: I want to help the
woman who just got rocked, because I know that
that's Orym's bae. But I mean, other than
healing her a little, (laughs) I don't think
I could do much. I feel like if
she gets a turn, she's going to probably be
able to do something good-- TALIESIN: Zoom.
SAM: -- or get out of there, right? MARISHA: Oh, she's a level
20 druid, theoretically. SAM: All right. I'll jump down--
MARISHA: But who fucking knows? SAM: -- and scoot forward towards
the fight. Yeah.
MATT: Make an acrobatics check for
me, if you don't mind. SAM: Oh god. Please, god. Guidance myself. LAURA: Through all of this,
Ludinus is just up there. What the fuck?
SAM: Acrobatics. TALIESIN: He gives no fucks. TRAVIS: He's just
waiting for a turn. SAM: It's 11. TRAVIS: I'm sure he'll go crazy.
MATT: 11? 11's enough to land and
not drop on your ass. You needed 10.
SAM: Okay. MATT: This is only
a 10-foot drop. So you land and you wheel
over, and you're now over at the base of
the ground over there. You're about 15 feet from
the Voice of the Tempest. SAM: I want to help her, but I don't think I can do
anything that would do <i>anything</i>. So, yeah, I'll--
MARISHA: Where'd the dry erase go? TALIESIN: No, there's-- Well. Nope, can't
help. Cannot help. SAM: I mean--
LAURA: Can you Dispel-- Can you get? SAM: I can Dispel
his collar, but-- LAURA: Do that.
SAM: I don't even know who that man is. LAURA: Yeah, but-- MATT: What are
you doing, FCG? SAM: Or what his collar is. TRAVIS: He's been
real strong, though. MATT: FCG.
SAM: Who's he? MATT: What you doing, buddy? SAM: Caleb?
TRAVIS: Oh yeah, you weren't here.
ASHLEY: We weren't here to meet them. LAURA: Yeah, but you saw me release--
SAM: I don't know that man. LAURA: Oh, you didn't.
SAM: You told me that there was some people. I don't
know what's around his neck. LIAM: I said a ginger.
I said a red-haired man. SAM: Sure, you did.
Sure, you did. MATT: What you doing, FCG? TALIESIN: Who is clearly a villain--
LAURA: Do it. TRAVIS: This is all we've got.
TALIESIN: -- because he's being all-- SAM: Do I have any sense that this collar around
his neck is magic? MATT: Based by the glowing
runes that are currently affixed around
the throat, yes. SAM: Okay. I will
Dispel the collar. MATT: Okay, roll a d20 and add
your spellcasting modifier. This is a very high DC because it is a
very high enchantment. SAM: Okay.
LIAM: Ugh. TALIESIN: Oh boy.
TRAVIS: (whispering) Guidance. SAM: I don't think that
Guidance works on this. TRAVIS: I'm just
saying words. SAM: Okay, 13. MATT: 13. You
unleash the Dispel, and you watch the runes glow and then lock
themselves in place. Wasn't high enough to break it.
SAM: (sighs) MATT: I'm sorry.
SAM: That's fine. TRAVIS: Yeah, yeah.
SAM: That's fine. MATT: It was a good
shot. Good shot, though. TRAVIS: It is a chance for a turn.
MATT: You know that it reacted. SAM: Uh-huh. Mm-hmm. SAM: That's it. That's my turn.
MATT: Okay. SAM: That's all I can do.
MATT: Finishing FCG's go. Orym, you're up,
with Fearne on deck. LIAM: Here's what I would like to happen.
TRAVIS: We rolled initiative. So much shit just happened. (laughs)
LIAM: Matt. MATT: Yes
LIAM: Here's what I would like to happen. MATT: What would you like to happen?
LIAM: Let's see if it happens. Orym comes trucking off of
this rubble like a ramp-- MATT: Mm-hmm.
LIAM: -- and with the boots of striding and springing, leaps, and in the air,
Grasping Vine to that. I want to swing down and
land right next to Otohan. MATT: By all means. LIAM: Action surge, because
I assume that took action and movement to do that much. MATT: From there? Well, it
was run and the leap, and then the grab on
that has a 20-foot pull. LIAM: Okay.
MATT: Make an acrobatics check for me. This will let me
know whether or not you have to use your
action to do so or not. LIAM: That is a 15. MARISHA: Yeah. (laughs)
MATT: 15? That's good enough.
SAM: What a dick. MATT: So you run and leap
off with with the boots, use that vine to pull
you and arc around, which gives you the
arc of movement without having to--
Because it's a bonus action to use the vine.
LIAM: Yes. MATT: So you land there.
You still have your action. LIAM: Okay, so I land
behind and I pass by a feathered
angel on the way by? MATT: Yep. LIAM: Land behind Otohan.
LAURA: He's just so attractive. LIAM: I'm busy. I'm busy!
(laughter) I'm right behind Otohan.
MATT: Mm-hmm. LIAM: I want to slash the
fuck away at the contraption on her back and
break it to shit. MATT: Okay. So
make two strikes. MARISHA: Come on.
LIAM: Hits. 18 plus nine. MATT: Okay. 18 plus nine?
Yes, that does hit. LIAM: I'm just, I'm not
even trying to hurt her. MATT: Yeah, just the device.
LIAM: I'm just trying to wreck that thing. LAURA: He didn't think about it.
MARISHA: He didn't think about it. LIAM: That is 12 points. MATT: 12 points of damage. LIAM: Next one also
hits. 16 plus nine. MATT: That hits as well. That literally-- (laughs) You have to have a 20...
TRAVIS: Five? MATT: -- five to
hit this, so. LIAM: Okay. That's
10 points of damage. MATT: What was it your second time?
LIAM: Is it still holding in place? MATT: It's still holding in
place, but as you-- (slashing) LIAM: Action surge. MATT: You see it's
starting to spark, and Otohan already is
looking over the shoulder, and (groans). LIAM: Action surge.
MATT: Okay. LIAM: That is a 22 to hit. MATT: 22 does not
hit, unfortunately. LIAM: (sighs) Misses. Shit. MATT: It is barely holding
on from what you can see, but you strike a second, and Otohan backs up, parries one blade, and
then with the other arm, captures your other sword--
LIAM: Goddamn it. MATT: -- and holds your other
attack in place, and goes, "Don't you even
dare interrupt." LIAM: Not one more time.
That's the end of my turn. MATT: Okay. Finishing Orym's
go, Fearne, you're up. LIAM: Fuck.
LAURA: Because all of her duplicates-- SAM: Oh, I take 14 points of damage.
LAURA: -- get attacks, too. ASHLEY: All right, all right. MATT: You do, yeah. ASHLEY: Oh dear. Okay.
SAM: Ah! ASHLEY: All right.
All right. All right. All right. What we're going
to do here is... TRAVIS: Oh boy. ASHLEY: I'm just going
to peek around-- MATT: Just so you know, it's
got three hit points, so. LAURA: Mm. LIAM: Is it too late to make the--
ASHLEY: Three left? LAURA: Three hit points left.
SAM: That's it? LIAM: Can I make the final
one a goading attack-- MARISHA: He was going after her jet pack.
LIAM: -- so that she can't hit, and so that she's-- MATT: I'll allow it.
LIAM: -- fucked. You will? MATT: Because it's still
her, technically. LIAM: So, two things have
to happen if you allow that. MATT: Okay.
LIAM: She has to make a wisdom saving throw to see if the goading
attack succeeds, and it's eight more
damage, or it's a roll. MATT: Okay. Go ahead and roll. If it's three or higher
you destroy the device. LIAM: It's one.
(groaning) ASHLEY: Oh, come on!
MATT and TRAVIS: (laugh) TRAVIS: That's perfect!
MARISHA: Aw! MATT: Oh, that's so good.
TRAVIS: Oh my god, oh! MATT: It is a 14 on the
wisdom saving throw. LIAM: She got a 14?
MATT: Yeah. LIAM: Then she's at
disadvantage on anyone else-- MATT: But you.
LIAM: -- except for me. MATT: You got it, okay. TALIESIN: Oh boy.
LIAM: Fuck. ASHLEY: All right,
that changes things. LAURA: That was close.
MATT: That was so close. MATT: All right, Fearne.
ASHLEY: All right, all right, all right. MATT: I know, it's so close.
SAM: Are the Ruidusborn-- They're just glowing
and fizzling, or-- MARISHA: Are they more power-
SAM: Are they going away from us right now? TRAVIS: Think so. ASHLEY: All right. Where's Otohan?
MARISHA: Are they more powerful? MATT: Otohan is right here.
SAM: I think they're going away. MATT: With the three echoes right there.
MARISHA: Beam me up, Scotty? SAM: Yeah.
ASHLEY: Okay. So I've been seeing what Orym has been trying to
do with the pack. MATT: Mm-hmm.
ASHLEY: So, I am going to peek out from behind.
SAM: Oh, hi. MATT: Mm-hmm.
ASHLEY: Just my head. I'm going to keep my legs--
MATT: Boop. Over here? ASHLEY: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Then shoot Scorching Rays at the pack. MATT: Yeah, go for it.
ASHLEY: Okay. MARISHA: Come on. Roll high, bish.
ASHLEY: (sighs) MARISHA: Roll high! TALIESIN: Higher than you've ever rolled before.
LIAM: That's three separate rolls, I think. MARISHA: It is.
MATT: Three separate rolls. LIAM: You got three chances.
SAM: She'll be okay. LIAM: Three chances. SAM: Garbage.
ASHLEY: Probably not that one. LIAM: Three chances.
SAM: Absolute garbage. MARISHA: Good rolls. ASHLEY: 14.
MATT: 14 misses, unfortunately. ASHLEY: It's okay,
it's okay. Here we go. LIAM: Come on, witch.
ASHLEY: That's worse. MATT: Two go wide. LAURA: Here we go, this
is the one. Natural 20. SAM: Just absolute--
ASHLEY: None of them. SAM: Absolutely disgusting.
ASHLEY: Get rid of that dice. ASHLEY: None of them.
MATT: Aw, I'm so-- TRAVIS: 25 is hard to hit.
ASHLEY: None of them. MATT: Yeah, I know.
ASHLEY: None of them. MATT: But it's a very specific
small part of the back, it's already hidden by a cloak, and you could disable part
of her skillset to do so. ASHLEY: Okay, that's
all right. Mister. MATT: Yeah? ASHLEY: (cocking gun)
Lock and load, baby. (laughter) MATT: (monkey screech) Shits into a gun. LIAM: Please let this
monkey shoot this. ASHLEY: Okay, he's going
to take some shots. MATT: He gets one shot, right? ASHLEY: He gets
two, I believe. MATT: Ooh, with
the Flame Seed? ASHLEY: No, maybe not. I'm just getting little
carried away here. LIAM: Oh my god. MARISHA: Can I--
TALIESIN: Let a monkey end this. ASHLEY: It's one.
MATT: Almost. Just a second. MARISHA: Carry me. TALIESIN: That was my-- MARISHA: So I can watch
through Pâté's eyes. TALIESIN: That was my plan.
MARISHA: All right. ASHLEY: Sorry, it's just
one. It's just one. MATT: Okay, so roll a d20. MARISHA: Okay. ASHLEY: Mister, don't fuck around.
LIAM: God. MARISHA: I'm going to laugh if
this monkey gets the shot. ASHLEY: 17.
LAURA: No. ASHLEY: Goddamn it.
MATT: 17 does not hit unfortunately. LAURA: It's got to be 25.
MATT: It does-- (wet splat). (laughter) MATT: Otohan's like, "What?" ASHLEY: What a dumbass turn. TRAVIS: (laughing) What?
ASHLEY: Okay. SAM: No. I mean, for-- ASHLEY: I'm going to
stay tucked in there. MATT: Okay.
MARISHA: I mean, just trying to roll the dice to get it up there--
MATT: You are backed into this space.
MARISHA: -- is a good idea. MATT: All righty. It's Liliana's go. ASHLEY: Ugh! Piece of shit. MATT: Liliana is
looking at Ludinus, the energy
drifting off of her, and just witnessing
all these things, this culmination
of so much work, so many things
through the years, and also you being here,
and the conversation, and she's just
looking at you. She's going to
hold her action. ASHLEY: Okay, okay, okay. MATT: With that, it is now
Chetney's go with Imogen on deck. TRAVIS: Is it not Ashton's? MARISHA: They're still running in.
MATT: At the end of the round. They haven't got there yet.
At the end of the round, they put themselves
in the initiative. MARISHA: Can I, as I'm
running, too, Mirror Image? MATT: Okay, got it.
So, Chetney. TRAVIS: So I crawled 15
feet up the telescope. MATT: Yep. TRAVIS: All right, see y'all. 15 feet up, invisible.
MARISHA: Come on, bish. TRAVIS: I'm going to Hybrid
Transformation, turn into a werewolf. MATT: Okay, so you are
no longer invisible. TRAVIS: No longer invisible. I am going to use the claws
that are (claws extending) and I'm going to
(running) (leaping) and jump, and I'm going
to try and backpack onto the back of Ludinus. (laughter)
MARISHA: Yes. ASHLEY: Awesome.
MATT: Roll an athletics check to climb the rest
of that distance. You have advantage because
you're in your wolven form. TRAVIS: That is--
MARISHA: Is that good? TRAVIS: -- a 24. MATT: 24 will succeed, as
you climb up the side here, and you're going to leap
towards Ludinus. (laughs) Okay! I have his stuff right-- SAM: (as Ludinus) "The
gods do not deserve-- "Oh fuck!" MATT: I know, right?
(laughter) TRAVIS: You said something
about natural predators. MARISHA: Ooh!
ASHLEY: Ooh! MATT: Ooh!
LAURA: Woo! MATT: All right, so you're
trying to grapple him? TRAVIS: I am trying
to strength grapple his hands to his
side if I can. I know it won't do much,
but I'm just doing it, and getting those fingernails
in there if I can. Just (clasping). MATT: Okay, so you're--
Okay, got it. TRAVIS: Restraining his hands, and trying to keep him from
doing all of this shit. MATT: All right. TRAVIS: We're being
in the car wash. MATT: All right. I'll say for the purposes of this--
LIAM: Oh god. TRAVIS: Yeah, I'm
going after Ludinus. (laughs) MATT: I love that.
MARISHA: Hell yeah. MATT: This is going to be
athletics check versus his AC. TRAVIS: Okay.
MATT: Because this isn't just a grapple which
stops him from moving, you're trying to actually
bind his arms for the moment. TRAVIS: Yeah. MATT: For that
sort of targeting, it's going to be considered
an attack roll, technically. So, it'd be an athletics
check versus his AC. TRAVIS: I usually have
advantage in the hybrid form, but do you want to
do it a straight roll? MATT: No, you have advantage. TRAVIS: Okay. MATT: As you leap
down towards him. TRAVIS: That's a 19. SAM: Oh, nice. MATT: 19 is his AC. SAM: Uh-oh, he falling. MATT: Shield. SAM: (groans)
TRAVIS: Not anymore! MATT: You leap towards his back--
TRAVIS: (laughs) MATT: -- and right as
you jump towards it, he's just looking
out this way, and he goes, "Huh?
(magical shield)" and you watch as
this field (whoosh). You skid across the top
and slide over-- SAM: Oh no. MATT: As you go over the top,
you get one upside down glance of Ludinus just scowling at
you as you begin to fall down. TRAVIS: (groans)
LAURA: Oh no. MATT: (impacts)
SAM: Oh no. TRAVIS: I thought I got harpooned on the--
MATT: I will say-- MARISHA: Yeah. MATT: Well, I need you to make
a dexterity saving throw. TRAVIS: Okay.
Okay, that's fair. Go hard or go home. Natural one. LAURA: Oh no!
TALIESIN: Oh! SAM: He's going
to get harpooned! MATT: (slices)
SAM: Ah! TRAVIS: (howls) TALIESIN: This got Hammer Horror real quick.
LAURA: This is going to shit-- LIAM: Yeah.
LAURA: -- real fast. MATT: You take 12 points
of piercing damage and are currently restrained, as you are now partially
impaled on a section of the Malleus Key.
TRAVIS: This is okay. (groaning) This is okay! (laughter) TRAVIS: Only half to six
because it's piercing. MATT: Yeah, fair.
TRAVIS: But yeah, okay. MATT: Yep. But just
(slicing) through you. You know, if you get
yourself off of this, the wound will start
to close a little bit. TRAVIS: Just out of curiosity
because I'm laying there, ugh, ugh! From where I am, can I
see any glowing parts of the telescope
from that point, or is that piece higher
than where Ludinus was? MATT: The glowing parts
of the telescope? I mean, there's--
SAM: The gray glowing part. TRAVIS: Like the angular
piece that was-- SAM: The dodecahedron-ish.
TRAVIS: Just out of curiosity. MATT: It is fitted
just below here, so it's about 10
feet away from you. TRAVIS: That I can totally
reach as my thorax is impaled. MATT: Yeah, that's the issue. But (laughs) sounds good. That was a worthy sacrifice. Good shot. Imogen, you're up.
SAM: Oh god. (as Imogen) "Mama?" LAURA: Oh god. ASHLEY: ♪ Mama, can
you hear me ♪ LAURA: Yeah, I'm going to
step out so I can see what the fuck's happening. MATT: Okay. LAURA: (laughs) I'm going to try to help out Orym and Witch Bolt the pack-- ASHLEY: Nice, nice. MATT: Okay.
LAURA: -- on Otohan. MATT: Because Otohan did
turn to parry the weapon, you do now have a view. As she spins, the cloak's
(whooshes) up in the air, and you see the damaged,
cracked device. Roll for Witch Bolt. You are invisible,
technically. LAURA: Uh-huh.
MATT: So you would have advantage on the strike.
ASHLEY: Yes. MATT: You would break
invisibility, though. LAURA: Okay. I don't think-- Well, a 21.
SAM: Hey! LIAM: It's got a 25.
MATT: 21 unfortunately does not hit. It's 25.
ASHLEY: Oh! LAURA: I didn't know if maybe
I had a better view because-- MATT: No, unfortunately. But the Witch Bolt
(whooshes) goes wide and (crackling) hits the
ground and arcs off, burning the ground
around you. You've definitely drawn
Otohan's attention. Otohan looks back at you, and you can see she's trying
to speak into your mind, but there's just
a blank there. "(growls)" LIAM: The person you are trying
to reach is not available. (laughter) MATT: Does that
finish your turn? TRAVIS: Anybody want to take
a shot at Imogen's mom for the concentration?
LAURA: For my bonus action-- LIAM: I worry that'll--
SAM: (sleazily) Anybody want to take a shot at Imogen's mom?
LAURA: I'm going to say into Mama's head--
MATT: Hold on. LAURA: I'm going
to say: Help me. Because I'm visible now. MATT: You are.
LAURA: I'm going to look up at her. MATT: Yeah, she sees
you on the ground now. Make another
persuasion check. LIAM: Oh man. Luke to Vader, here we go.
LAURA: (flapping lips) I'm scared of all my dice.
SAM: It's me, Mama. Janis Joplin.
MATT: (laughs) SAM: Oh god. MATT: A one?
TALIESIN: Really? Really? Yeah, that's where we're at. MATT: She looks down at you
with this sad look in her eyes and the tear crawling
from her cheek as the tear
drifts off, joining the rest of the glowing
energy and mist around her. She just says back
in your head, "This is for the best." MARISHA: Dude, they're
about to be raptured. I think you're totally
fucking right. MATT: Does that finish
your turn? LAURA: Um. Let's see. (laughs) I'm going to
use my bonus action-- MATT: You just used your
bonus action to talk to her. LAURA: I'm going to
stand where I am. MATT: (laughs) It's all good. All right. That brings us to
Ludinus' turn. Ludinus, looking down at all
of this happening before him, just smiles. Grins over the space and says, "And now the final piece. "The sliver of
divinity, the lens." And he snaps. As he reaches his other
non-withered hand back into the device, as Liliana, who is
holding her action, goes ahead and
casts a spell down towards the
Champion of Ravens. You watch as suddenly
all the mirrors on the side of the tunnel
(buzzes) turn on at once, and these bright
beams of energy (whooshes) shunt into him like hundreds of
reflecting mirrors.
LAURA: She was bait? MARISHA: She knew-- MATT: He triggers something
within the machine, and you watch as the Champion
(groans) screams out in pain and is compressed down into
a sphere of dark shadow. LAURA: He, he-- MATT: Vax is pressed
into just a sphere. Liliana lifts it up with
her Telekinesis and places it into the
empty spot of the machine. LIAM: (whispers) Aah! SAM: (whispers) Cool. But awful, but cool. LIAM: (slaps) MATT: "And now,"
(goopy impact) you see sparks shooting
off parts of the machine, the power's not quite there, and he's like, "(groans)." MARISHA: Did we hear a
boom go off behind us yet? MATT: Mm-hmm. (explosion) The explosion of dynamite hits and you see other parts of the
power (buzzing) power down, and he's like, "(growls) "It'll have to do. "It is time, my children." Right as you look up, you can see there's other
skyships beginning to appear. SAM: Oh, what? MATT: Different Vasselheim
and other forces have begun to arrive just as
the red moon glows above. have begun to arrive just as
the red moon glows above. TRAVIS: (laughs) MATT: You watch as every
Ruidusborn in the chamber (crackling) stands tall--
ALL: (gasping) MATT: -- including Imogen, as red energy (whooshes)
filters out into the center
of the spire. (whooshing) It's being drawn in
and glowing, just all of these
living batteries all pouring into
the center device as it begins to rise
and crackle before... ASHLEY: Ooh!
SAM: Oh, cool! LAURA: Hey, I have one of those on my--
MATT: The energy begins to gather and form. Ludinus glances up. "Let us destroy what
will unmake them." And (whooshing) you watch as this incredible thick
beam of red energy (booms) fires up
into the sky. It lights up and
sets every cloud scattering out of
visible sight, up into the air, up towards
the red moon of Ruidus. You watch as all the skyships
that were just landing (crackling) begin to
crumble with the force, blown away from whatever
fires up into the darkness. In that moment, Ludinus, still holding his other arm
into the machine, smiles, his eyes wide. "A thousand years. "You couldn't stop me. "You couldn't," (sparks) some of the machines
spark a bit. He's like,
"(breathing heavily)" he looks a bit nervously. Swallows deeply,
"It's too late. "It's too late!" (malevolent laughs)
SAM: It's too late? What is happening?
MATT: The red begins to glow brighter. LAURA: Attack the machines, attack the machines.
MATT: You watch as all of the tethered nexus energy, all the converging power
of the leylines begins to spark and grow
lighter and lighter. (sparking) Magical energy begins to flow out in
all directions. The sky goes from pitch
black to a deep red, to a multicolor explosion of magical arcane
energy, into white. A familiar white. The high-pitched
whine subsides and your vision
comes back to you. Images racing in
your head of, where, what happened? It is confusion, it is a
pain, a fog, a fugue. It is confusion, it is a
pain, a fog, a fugue. Laudna, you glance around as your
vision comes to, and you see yourself sitting on the edge of a
rocky cliff, almost. The smell that hits
your nostrils is sulfurous and acrid,
acidic almost. is sulfurous and acrid,
acidic almost. It's hard to describe. You're unfamiliar with it. And you look around you and there are these pools
of strange colored liquid under the shadow of night. Only the things in your close
proximity you can make out with your predilection
to experience the dark. But you're in an
unfamiliar landscape. It seems terrestrial. You look to your left
and you see Ashton half-draped over
this outcropping. You come to consciousness
a bit and shake your head and look over and see Laudna, and you both see this almost
like chasm space below you. You can see these
little bits of natural geysers
like (puffing). Poofing steamy water. MARISHA: Ashton. TALIESIN: We won, but we-- We did it. What? MARISHA: Where are we? TALIESIN: Where is everybody? MATT: You glance upward, and
you see about 10 feet up, slowly sitting
upward, Orym. Orym, you almost fall off
the edge of this cliff, as you catch yourself
and look down, and you see some rocks
tumble, (small impacts) and you can see
Ashton and Laudna, both separate below you,
about 10, 15 feet. MARISHA: Orym.
LIAM: I start looking for the Voice of the
Tempest as well. What is this?
MARISHA: I don't know. Do I have Pâté with me?
MATT: Pâté isn't with you. TALIESIN: We're okay though,
we're not hurt, we're not-- MATT: No more than you
were moments ago. TALIESIN: Where's everybody else? I'm just going to
start searching. MATT: Perception checks.
LIAM: Yes. 26. MARISHA: While they look around, I look up to the--
MATT: Okay. TALIESIN: 20.
MARISHA: Does this cosmos look different? MATT: The stars look familiar,
little bits of clouds. You glance around and don't
see anybody else around you, but as you look up and
you scan the horizon, in some distance you see,
just above the cloud line, the red moon,
Ruidus, standing and a singular
solid red beam that just vanishes below some
sort of far off mountain line. TRAVIS: What? LIAM: We were in a pit,
but now it's an endless-- TRAVIS: Where did you go?
LIAM: -- landscape? MATT: You were in some sort
of odd valley-like chasm with no light beyond
the starlight, so you can't make
out much more than the details that are
immediately around you. LIAM: I don't understand what
you mean by red beam yet. MATT: Meaning you just see Ruidus off in the distance.
SAM: Miles away. MARISHA: It's away, we
can't see it very far. MATT: With just a red
beam that's just-- LIAM: Oh.
MATT: -- sustained beneath it. LIAM: Thanks. MARISHA: Are we even
still on Marquet? TRAVIS: Oh god. SAM: Why the three of them?
MATT: FCG. SAM: Oh! MATT: You, (poof) hit
something soft, and you look around, and it's the just
faintly dawn light and it's the just
faintly dawn light cresting over
some direction. You gain your bearings
and you look around you and you reach your arms in this crowded dust or
a sand, but it's white. It's like fine crystal,
like a snow. You reach around and
pull yourself up, but your wheel scoots
a little bit in this weird crystal
desert landscape. SAM: No features? Is it dunes?
MATT: It's just white dunes. SAM: And the sky above me? MATT: Sky above you is stars
and the slightly rising sun. SAM: I just look,
360 all around me. Anything in the distance? Any clouds? Any anything?
MATT: No, it's a clear sky. No Catha, no Ruidus. MARISHA: (gasps)
LAURA: (whispers) Where are you? SAM: I have no idea. Clear sky, no features, sand. MATT: It's just dunes. TRAVIS: Are you on Catha?
SAM: I-- LIAM: Sun's up. SAM: But the sky-- Are there stars?
MATT: There are stars above, yeah. SAM: Do they look the
same, or are they-- I wouldn't--
MATT: Make a nature check, or survival check.
TRAVIS: Jump. SAM: Nature is terrible. Four.
MATT: You have no idea. You have no idea
where you are. SAM: I'll just try to
move around a bit and see if anything-- MATT: Kind of scoot up
the dune a little bit and head over the top, and the first thing you notice is there are these
rocky outcroppings, like the occasional, looks like built-up
cliffsides or mountains that pierce the middle
of this tundra around you, this almost snowfallen desert. You can see mountains
far in the distance. Make a perception
check for me. SAM: Guidance. 26.
MATT: 26. You see, from where
you're standing, you get the highest dune
you can in the space, and you can see,
in one direction, there is just
this endless snow-covered desert
it looks like. The air itself is cold. You see, to the east of you, this large snowcapped
mountain range. To the south, you can almost see this
heavy snow-covered forest that seems to just spread out. In a northern direction you see what looks to be an ocean. LAURA: (whispers)
Where are you? MATT: You also, with a high
enough perception check, glance down and you see, slowly digging their way
out of the snow, Fearne. SAM: (gasps)
ASHLEY: (coughs) SAM: But wait, she
was Ruidusborn. LAURA: (coughs) SAM: Fearne! Fearne!
ASHLEY: Hi. SAM: Is it still you? ASHLEY: How would I know? SAM: Is she glowing? Is red dust coming off
of her or anything? MATT: Nah, not that
you can see. SAM: Where are we?
We're in the snow. Are you cold? ASHLEY: No? No. I'm going to look around. Where, where-- What--
SAM: I don't know. Is anyone else around? ASHLEY: I'm going to look
around for anybody. SAM: Orym? MATT: You begin to
yell and shout out, and Chetney, you hear
them call out just as you're figuring
out your bearings. Imogen, as you--
SAM: Oh! MATT: -- feel your vision return, begin to hear these
shouts as well as you both begin to climb
opposite sides of this dune to meet up with
the other two. FCG and Fearne. LAURA: What?
ASHLEY: Where's Orym? Where's--
SAM: I don't know. LAURA: Where's Laudna? Where are we?
ASHLEY: Where's Ashton? SAM: Were we--
TRAVIS: (sniffs) I smell around. Do I pick up any scents
of Orym, Ashton, Laudna, anything on the wind? MATT: Make a perception check. LAURA: I'm looking
up at the sky, I'm looking for Ruidus.
TRAVIS: 20. MATT: No sign of Ruidus. No scent of your missing
friends anywhere. But as you glance
around the horizon, you know where you are. You're in the middle of
the Crystalsands Tundra. SAM: (whispers) What is that? MATT: From where you stand, to the east you see
the Flotket Mountains-- SAM: (whispers) What is that? MATT: Where your hometown
of Uthodurn resides. And that's where we're going
to finish tonight's episode. ALL: (groaning)
TALIESIN: Yeah. MARISHA: Where are we?
TALIESIN: Oh my god. MARISHA: Where are we?
TALIESIN: Who the fuck knows? LAURA: You split the party. MATT: Yeah. TRAVIS: Holy shit, Matt. SAM: Why did-- TRAVIS: The beam is
still in the sky? MATT: Yeah.
MARISHA: We can still see the beam and the moon. MATT: Yeah.
MARISHA: So we still have visual. MATT: Yes, you do.
MARISHA: But you guys are on the other side of the fucking planet.
TRAVIS: We are-- SAM: Where's Uthodurn? Is that north?
LAURA: Wait-- TRAVIS: We are thousands
of miles away. MARISHA: North of the mountains,
north, north, north. ASHLEY: I need a minute.
MATT: Maybe. SAM: Like the North Pole? MARISHA: Getting close!
TRAVIS: Yes. LIAM: Who has the Sending
Stone to Beau and Caleb? MATT: Actually, I will
note to all of you, which I should've
remembered in this, amongst the stars in the sky you do still see the glowing
gossamer-like auroras of-- you do still see the glowing
gossamer-like auroras of-- TRAVIS: The lines?
MATT: Of the leylines and the still very
present Apogee Solstice and the still very
present Apogee Solstice setting across the skyline.
LAURA: What sent us away? SAM: Where did we Geauregard?
MARISHA: (laughs) MATT: But we'll pick up
there next time. SAM and LAURA: (groan)
TRAVIS: Oh my-- TALIESIN: Whoa.
ASHLEY: Oh my god. TALIESIN: Fuck. MATT: Oh, I should've
mentioned, too, when she did Telekinesis,
he reappeared. So he wasn't fully banished.
LAURA: Oh, good. SAM: Oh.
MATT: But couldn't do anything in time before all this went off.
TRAVIS: Okay, okay. SAM: Thank god Ira's okay. MATT: I just wanted to make
sure you know that. It's important.
ASHLEY: Okay, good to know he's not-- MARISHA: Did Vax die again? TRAVIS: The Champion of the
Matron of Ravens-- SAM: He became a lens.
TRAVIS: -- became a spherical lens that was put into the
telescope before it went off, used the Tempest as bait,
and we played into it. Cool.
MARISHA: Played right into it. SAM: We called her in. TRAVIS: We called her
Planerider in. SAM: Oh boy, no. TRAVIS: All right, I'm done.
MATT: All right, on that note-- MARISHA: He shot
through the beacon, he used the beacon,
so maybe the beacon... TALIESIN: This is coffee
table talk. MATT: Yeah.
TALIESIN: We'll save it for-- ASHLEY: Okay, okay, okay.
TALIESIN: -- while we're coming back. SAM: We need an after show.
MATT: Yeah. (laughs) It's almost like we
have one of those. Nevertheless--
ASHLEY: But-- MATT: I think we'll go ahead
and finish there tonight. LAURA: Oh my god.
MATT: We'll pick up next time. Thank you so much for joining us-- SAM: What an anniversary.
MATT: We love you very much. TRAVIS: Eight years!
MATT: Happy eight-year anniversary. ASHLEY: Eight years!
(cheering) MATT: And is it Thursday yet?
SAM: Happy anni-Mercer-y. MATT: Good night. (laughs)
(groaning)
New photoshoot! I like they represent every character’s colour palette/dress code.
Theory: Lily blasted BH away to save Imogen from being “beamed up”. Vax is trapped and Ludinus will leave Kiki, and M9, alone as they are “beneath him”. BH gets divine guidance and take on Ludinus only to find he’s released Pradathos as new BBEG.
Very curious what happens next.
What does Imogene's mom do now? Does she look for her daughter now that it's done?
Is it done? Did the sky become red, then all colors and then white mean it worked? Or was it just Exandria's Divine Gate being destroyed or cut open, so Rudious can be reached, and its gate broken?
I guess if Predathos is not yet free, I guess things stay mostly as is, they find each other, find allies and try again to stop Ludinous.
If if it worked, is Imogene's mom free to find her? Do Imogene and her mom still have magical ability?
Does the "corrupt" life "twisted" by Rudious show up on Exandria?
Will there be another war between the gods and Rudious? All the gods together, including the betrayers? And all/most of the humans?
Do we lose a few more gods? All gods?
Was the Raven Queen used, or was the secretly involved?
If what Ludinous claims is true and humans created life like fresh cut grass, does he know how to do that? Can he create more?
Lastly how evil is Ludinous? Is he truly selfish and just wants the gods gone, so he can be on top of civilization?
Or is he bad, but actually does want to help humanity, in his own narcissistic way, and will train anyone who wants to learn the magic required to become a God!
I'm so glad i managed to avoid spoilers. This was an experience.
So did ludinus just release the god eating entity (that just sounds like a eldrazi titan)