Transcript:The Frigid Doom

List of Transcripts

Pre-Show
MATT: Hello, everyone, and welcome to tonight’s episode of Critical Role, where a bunch of us nerdy-ass voice actors sit around playing Dungeons and Dragons and say inappropriate things before the camera starts.

TRAVIS: Every time!

MATT: Anyway, we have back in person our illustrious rogue, Vax'ildan.

TRAVIS: Welcome back, baby!

MATT: Happy to have you back. Let’s get through our announcements quickly so we can hop into the game, because we have a lot to discuss. A lot of things to see. A lot of places to go. First and foremost, if we can give an awesome shout-out to our sponsor Loot Crate. Once again been awesome to the show. Once again, they have their theme this month. Sam, did you want to say a thing or two?

SAM: The theme this month is Sam.

(laughter)

SAM: It’s an odd theme. It’s all shirts that I’ve worn. No, the theme this month for Loot Crate is the anti-hero. That’s part of the Loot Crate theme and the Loot Wear theme. Not just the box, but the bag as well. But you know what I love?

ALL: What do you love, Sam?

SAM: I love toys. I love socks. I love shirts. I love posters. I love collectibles. I love pins. I love boxes. And I love deals. And you can get all of those things in combination if you get a subscription to Loot Crate. If you use lootcrate.com/– that’s a forward slash– CriticalRole, you will be instantly shown a showcase of all the Loot Crate offerings. And you’ll get three, not one, not two, a little less than four, but $3 off a monthly subscription.

LAURA: It’s just the first month. It’s just $3 off the very first month.

SAM: Well, that’s not as good.

(laughter)

SAM: But let’s be real, it’s still pretty good.

TRAVIS: Where’d you get that great t-shirt you’re wearing?

SAM: I am the best at advertising.

(laughter)

TALIESIN: Why did you have those notes with you?

SAM: (clears throat) Goodbye, Loot Crate.

(laughter)

SAM: $3 off the first month is great, though. It’s still great. It’s still a good intro. It’s essentially like getting– I don’t know, I’m done.

LAURA: It’s $3 just for writing a word.

LIAM: It gets you in, and when you’re in, you don’t want to get out.

TRAVIS: And they got really good stuff. You got your t-shirt from Loot Crate, Voltron.

SAM: Oh! I’m wearing a Loot Crate t-shirt right now. It fits. It makes me look strong and handsome.

MATT: It’s true. It’s true. If that $3 can buy you a six-inch sandwich at an undisclosed location where sandwiches can be constructed, purchased by artisans.

TRAVIS: Yes!

MATT: Thank you so much, Sam.

SAM: Sure, I did really good.

MATT: You did great, Sam. That was wonderful. Taliesin, you’re handling it next week.

TALIESIN: (groans) Okay.

(laughter)

MATT: All right, next announcements. Two weeks from now, the first Thursday of September, I myself, Marisha, and Taliesin will be out of town. We’ll be in the middle of the desert. However, the rest of the crew here will be playing a one-shot game, dungeon mastered by our wonderful, recently proven skilled dungeon master here, Liam O'Brien.

LIAM: I’m all growed up.

MATT: Somehow in the canon world of Exandria. So we’ll see how that plays out for you guys. I’m really excited to see what you pull together, man.

LIAM: I have something very delightful planned.

MATT: So that’ll be fun. So look forward to that in a couple of weeks. We’ll be thinking of you guys while we’re not here, but watch this guy be evil. It’s going to be great. Anything else anyone wants to discuss?

LIAM: I would like to announce that I am so goddamn happy to be back in this room.

TRAVIS: Yeah! Back in the pilot chair.

SAM: Wait a second, pilot chair?

MARISHA: Just don’t think about it too much.

MATT: Can I also point out today that the official World of Warcraft Twitter made a Critical Role joke?

TALIESIN: Is that true?

MATT: Someone sent them a piece of fanart that had a Jaina and an Illidan talking, and the Critical Role, or the response to me from World of Warcraft, was: the Legion is coming towards you. How do you want to do this? That made me happy. So let’s dive in to tonight’s episode of chaos and heroic whim.

LIAM: What’s going to happen?

MATT: Out here, we dive into tonight’s episode of Critical Role.

[dramatic music]

Part I
MATT: Welcome back. Last we left off, Vox Machina, in their search for the Vestiges of Divergence to gain artifacts powerful enough to rival, hopefully, the power of the Chroma Conclave, a group of chromatic dragons that have been terrorizing the countryside of Tal'Dorei. The party has just finished their journey through the Feywild, a strange, magically overgrown realm of fey creatures, illusion, and apparently, corrupt tree-bros. After a fight with this long-mentally disturbed fey, heartbroken and driven to vengeance and soiling the land around him, you defeated him and took from him the bow, Fenthras, which you’ve been seeking. Your Vestige, Vex.

LAURA: That’s right. That’s right.

MATT: You then gathered hands and through the magical capabilities of Keyleth, the druid of the Air Ashari, you managed to Plane Shift the rest of the party back to Whitestone itself. Speaking of which–

LAURA: Already? Already?

MARISHA: How long have we been gone?

MATT: All right, and I also need Scanlan, Percy, and Grog to roll wisdom saving throws.

SAM: What did we do to deserve that?

TALIESIN: We all deserve it. We know we do. That was terrible. I have a thing called Resolve and I have one usage of it left. May I use it?

MATT: You get to reroll a saving throw? Yeah, you may.

TALIESIN: Okay.

SAM: Would this be magic, Matt?

TALIESIN: That’s double.

MARISHA: Goddamn it.

MATT: It’s a magical effect.

TRAVIS: We’re in trouble.

SAM: If it’s not magic, then I have an 11.

MATT: Okay.

LIAM: Guys, drama needs conflict.

TALIESIN: Eight.

TRAVIS: Six.

LAURA: Oh my god!

LIAM: Hot damn!

TALIESIN: I’m so excited.

MATT: No. As the portal shifts closed behind you, you all step out into the center of the Whitestone city square. You can see behind you the Sun Tree where you guys left originally. It is midday. Clouds are high in the sky. Little breaks where you can see beams of sunlight coming through. Looks like there’s a darker rainstorm coming, probably in the next half-day or so, off in the distant northwest, and there are now townspeople looking about at the group of you guys. Keyleth, Scanlan, Vex, and Vax: returning, your mind feels a little fuzzy, but overall nothing seems to have affected you. You’re glad to be back. Percy and Grog, you are very confused how you got here and not quite sure why nothing has happened since you gathered here as friends. Yes?

TALIESIN: So do we have a straight piece of missing time? Are we still waiting to go to the Feywild?

MATT: As far as you guys know right now, you guys are still waiting.

MARISHA: That’s horrible for Percy. You’ve wanted to go your whole fucking life!

TRAVIS: All right, I’m ready to go!

TALIESIN: How long does this spell take?

TRAVIS: Yeah, do we have to wait long, because I have the pee. You know? Where you’re like hide-and-go-seek pee?

TALIESIN: I did, but I feel fine now.

LAURA: Ready to go to the actual castle?

TRAVIS: Feywild.

LIAM: Keyleth just brought us back. We’re back.

LAURA: We’re back from the Feywild.

TALIESIN: You’re a terrible liar. (laughs)

LIAM: That’s true, but it’s irrelevant. What the fuck are you talking about?

TALIESIN: What are you talking about?

MARISHA: Does the name Garmelie ring a bell?

LAURA: If he doesn’t remember we went, does that mean I lose my title?

LIAM: Maybe you can work it out?

MARISHA: You titled Vex'ahlia.

TALIESIN: I did what?

LAURA: Oh no!

SAM: You gave Vex'ahlia a title in your Whitestone kingdom. She was the Duchess of some hut.

TALIESIN: Can someone who can’t successfully lie to me please explain to me what’s going on?

LAURA: Baroness. Lady Vex'ahlia, Baroness of the Third House of Whitestone, Grand Mistress of the Grey Hunt.

TALIESIN: How do you know about the Grey Hunt?

LAURA: I don’t know anything about the Grey Hunt, but it’s written down on a piece of paper you gave me, Percy.

TALIESIN: Is it written on a piece of paper?

MARISHA: It is written on a piece of paper.

LAURA: That I actually threw out because I fixed up my notes. So I don’t have the piece of paper in this world binder.

TRAVIS: What a dicklord. You did not throw out the paper.

MARISHA: Someone wrote it down, right?

TRAVIS: You piece of shit. Why did you throw it away? What a fucking–

TALIESIN: This is how I know you’re lying, because if I had written that down, you wouldn’t have thrown it away. That’s ridiculous.

LAURA: No, no, it’s definitely right here.

LIAM: Are you certain you’re not trying to do comedy right now?

TALIESIN: I feel funny. I don’t know– for the sake of actual sanity, does she actually have the piece of paper that he wrote down?

SAM: Did he write something down?

TALIESIN: I did, I wrote it down for her and handed to her.

LAURA: He did, and it’s just, it’s in my– so I don’t have it.

MATT: You would’ve had it with you. You would’ve definitely had it with you. And yeah, she does. LAURA: I would still have it. It’s just not in this particular not-in-that-world binder.

LIAM: It’s not in this realm.

SAM: The binder that Vex carries is much, much better.

TALIESIN: It’s got like fur. And some like–

LAURA: Keeps it under her arm the whole time.

LIAM: There are more worlds than these.

LAURA: It’s got a happy kitten on it that says “hang in there.”

LIAM: It says life– (laughter)

LAURA: Life needs things to live?

TALIESIN: I don’t know what’s so funny about that either. I don’t remember any of that.

LIAM: It grows on you so quickly, though.

LAURA: Grog.

TRAVIS: What?

MARISHA: Show him the paper, Vex.

LAURA: Oh, here. It’s right here. Right here. That’s your handwriting, don’t you see it?

MARISHA: We were committing.

TALIESIN: It’s fine. I’m happy to commit to this. Why? What hap–? What?

LAURA: Oh god.

MARISHA: We were in Syngorn.

SAM: Wait, I think I can help. I’m going to cast Modify Memory on Percy.

LAURA: And Grog’s just content sitting over here completely blank.

LIAM: Eating chicken that he found on the road.

TALIESIN: This is so exciting.

MARISHA: Little gamey?

TALIESIN: I’ve never seen him laugh like that before.

MATT: This is– this is a way to do it. All right. All right.

SAM: I can help you remember, Percy. Just look into my eyes.

TALIESIN: I don’t want to.

SAM: Look into my eyes.

(laughter)

TALIESIN: Well, that’s getting giffed. Okay, yeah.

LAURA: But wait, are you just going to make up what he remembers? No!

MATT: Percy, I need you to make a wisdom saving throw.

TALIESIN: Oh, and I’m out of Resolve.

MATT: What is your spell DC? Is this with the cone? Scanlan, is this with the cone?

SAM: With the cone. I want this to work.

MARISHA: You’re going to pull– screaming in his face.

TALIESIN: Wow, eight.

MARISHA: What the fuck?

MATT: Scanlan, how do you modify his memory? Because at this level you can alter the memories of an event that took up to seven days ago.

TRAVIS: What level are you doing?

SAM: Level seven.

MATT: But you can only modify ten minutes of it.

LIAM: Speaking as Liam, remember that this is a man who gave an evil sword– he gave crystal meth to Grog.

TALIESIN: The best crystal meth! The finest crystal meth in Christendom.

SAM: I can change any memory. Ah, what was it called?

TALIESIN: Ten minutes.

SAM: What was your title called? There’s nothing on this piece of paper!

(laughter)

TRAVIS: Inception.

LAURA: Lady Vex'ahlia. Baroness of the Third House of Whitestone and the Grand Mistress of the Grey Hunt.

SAM: Jesus Christ. Baroness of what?

LAURA: Of the Third House of Whitestone.

TALIESIN: And Grand Mistress of the Grey Hunt.

LIAM: I have no patience for any of this shit.

SAM: Whitestone and Grand Mistress of the Grey Hunt.

LAURA: Of all the ten minutes to have him remember, maybe that’s not the one to focus on.

TALIESIN: It’s not remembering. He’s going to be making it up. I’m not actually going to remember it, he’s going to lie.

LAURA: Make up something wonderful for him. He’s wanted to go there his entire life. Make something magical.

TALIESIN: You don’t have time to have this conversation. This is happening right now.

MATT: Yeah, go for it.

TALIESIN: This isn’t happening. Fuck with me. I’m so excited.

MATT: Scanlan.

SAM: Oh my god. When did we leave? How many days has it been?

MATT: It’s been close to a week in the Feywild total, all the nights you’ve rested.

SAM: I can only modify ten minutes of time.

MATT: Correct.

SAM: So I can’t build the whole story up.

MATT: No, he’ll remember ten minutes that you plug in right now.

TALIESIN: And by remember meaning whatever you explain.

SAM: All right.

MATT: And remember, as truth, whatever ten minutes he hands out. This spell is one of my favorite spells in the game.

TRAVIS: This is amazing.

SAM: All right, I don’t know. I’m going to make him remember that we landed in the Feywild together as a group. It was a beautiful field filled with naked nymphs and fey creatures that all came to him and gave him a wonderful full-body massage.

TALIESIN: Very uncomfortable, all right. But no, that was tension. Okay, yes.

SAM: Vex saw him and he did not want anyone to know about this moment that he had. So in a fit of panic, he gave her something, anything, a title. A title to make her keep her confidence. The title was Lady Vex'ahlia, the Baroness of the Third House of Whitestone and Grand Mistress of the Gray Hut.

(laughter)

LAURA: Oh no.

SAM: She agreed to keep his secret and he had a wonderful time before his memory fades.

TALIESIN: Oh my. Wait, that was– we were– but there was– you shouldn’t, no! Yes! I did do this. Yes.

LAURA: You remember?

TALIESIN: I do, and we will never discuss why again, but yes, I did do this, and I’m so glad I wrote it down correctly because that was very embarrassing. I’ll have this approved.

LAURA: Approved?

TALIESIN: Yes, well, I’m going to make sure I have to– of course inform– Yes.

TRAVIS: Who’s yes?

MATT: It seems the awkward curse of the Feywild has set into a couple of your allies.

TALIESIN: I, apparently, am missing an awful lot of time. But this did happen. Yes, okay.

LIAM: Well, Percival, look at this. Show him the bow.

TALIESIN: Oh, that kind of bow.

TRAVIS: Whoa!

LAURA: Oh, Grog, it’s really badass. You killed the guy that was holding it. You.

TRAVIS: Me? So it’s mine?

MARISHA: I pull out the piece of the petrified crocodile. We killed this, too. This is all that’s left of him.

TRAVIS: What? Those are like amazing things.

LAURA: Wait, is this normal? Would we have known that this is normal for people to lose their memory when they come out of the fucking Feywild?

MATT: No, you would have no idea.

LAURA: We wouldn’t have learned any of that in our studies. No?

MATT: Your studies aren’t extensive on the Feywild, and the people that may know, partially, are suffering from the circumstance.

TRAVIS: There’s a petrified crocodile. What else did you see while we were in this magical place?

SAM: To be honest, my memory is foggy as well.

MATT: No, a little bit. But you guys weren’t heavy studiers. You weren’t the most studious children.

LAURA: (whispers) I was a studious child.

MATT: For certain things.

LAURA: I was a very studious child. He cheated off my tests all the time. I was incredibly studious.

MARISHA: Percy, I am so sorry. I know how badly you wanted to go there. But here’s the good news. Now that I’ve been there, we can go back at any time.

TALIESIN: Really? You promise?

LAURA: Grog, did this happen last time you went to the Feywild?

TRAVIS: What?

LAURA: When you– do you remember– okay.

LIAM: I really don’t think we need to worry about Grog so much. I think he’s fine.

TRAVIS: Thank you.

LAURA: You killed so many things, Grog. You fought so many people.

TALIESIN: Oh god! Did we get alcohol? Did someone give us alcohol?

LAURA: No.

TALIESIN: Damn.

LIAM: But that can happen today.

TALIESIN: Yeah, but it won’t be fairy alcohol, but I know.

MARISHA: Yeah, we’ve been, naturally, without alcohol.

LAURA: We need to find Pike. Pike came to help us.

TALIESIN: How long have we been gone for?

SAM: Pike was there.

LAURA: Five days?

SAM: I don’t know, it’s a bit foggy, but a few days.

LIAM: Guys, let’s just go find a wizard and some alcohol, in whichever order.

TALIESIN: I’m going to go file this and I’ll meet you in a moment.

LAURA: There’s Gilmore, we could talk to him. Allura? Maybe she can help.

TALIESIN: Here. I’m going to make sure that that’s finalized with the correct spelling.

LIAM: Jabba the Hutt. Not that grand to me. I start walking off towards the castle.

SAM: We’re in Whitestone?

MATT: You’re in Whitestone, currently, yes.

LIAM: Come on!

SAM: All right, let’s go.

TRAVIS: We just left there.

LIAM: Just eat your pigeon and come along, Grog.

TALIESIN: Strange. Suddenly, I am hungry. Are you suddenly hungry?

TRAVIS: Yeah.

TALIESIN: We should eat something.

LAURA: I make sure Trinket’s out of the necklace.

MARISHA: Yes, I could use a glass of wine.

TALIESIN: I could use a carafe of wine.

MATT: Trinket licks the side of your face. Nuzzles you as you walk towards the castle.

TRAVIS: Wait, if you got a bow, and there were pixies, and you gave her something, did I get anything? Did I pick up any diseases?

LAURA: Lots of diseases.

SAM: You fought bravely. And often. You wielded your weapon strongly and proudly, and had many definite physical encounters, and were never frozen. And showed your power and defended us to the best of your ability.

LIAM: You waded through blood, Grog.

TRAVIS: Can I insight check Scanlan?

MATT: (laughs) You can. Scanlan, make a deception check.

TRAVIS: Six!

SAM: Okay, good. 17.

(laughter)

TALIESIN: Holy Jesus.

MATT: Seems legit, and a part of you is disappointed that you can’t recall this memory. But even just them speaking of it is almost half of the fun, so.

TRAVIS: That’s pretty great. I like all those things you said.

SAM: You were great.

TRAVIS: Did I get any new weapons? I won’t be able to pull it out of the bag of holding unless I know what’s in there.

SAM: That’s true.

TALIESIN: I’m going to check my pockets for anything interesting.

TRAVIS: I don’t have pockets.

LAURA: Percy, your sketchbook.

TALIESIN: My sketchbook, yes, what about it?

LAURA: You made sketches the entire time.

TALIESIN: Oh my god! I did!

MATT: And you look through the pages and there are sketches you don’t remember drawing.

TRAVIS: Oh fuck! I mean, oh fuck!

TALIESIN: This is so weird.

MARISHA: You had a lovely time.

TALIESIN: This’ll do.

MARISHA: We can go back. We’ll take a lovely vacation.

TALIESIN: No, no, this and liquor will do.

LAURA: You used your lightning javelin. You–

MATT: As you guys approach–

LAURA: Yes! You have a little statue. You have a little statue, Grog.

SAM: Oh, that’s right. A little statue of a dog that might be magical.

TRAVIS: A little statue of a dog.

SAM: An onyx statue of a dog.

TRAVIS: Can I reach into the bag of holding for an onyx statue of a dog?

MATT: Make an intelligence check.

SAM: I’ve seen it, I can reach in there.

MATT: One of you guys can reach in there and get it if you want to. I just want to see if he can.

TRAVIS: 11.

MATT: Unfortunately, your lack of imagination is finding it difficult based on the words you were given to formulate enough of a solid creative thought.

LAURA: It’s black. Onyx means black.

TALIESIN: Honest statue of a hog. It’s an honest statue of a hog.

SAM: Doesn’t know what onyx is. He’s picturing–

MATT: He barely knows what a dog is at this point.

TRAVIS: If you want to reach in here and reach in my bag. Oh.

LIAM: Sam, you can do this to me too.

MATT: And there you have it. The onyx mastiff is there before you.

LAURA: It’s an onyx mastiff. It’s an onyx statuette of mastiff. If you use an action to speak the command word–

LIAM: Which we don’t know–

LAURA: I know. And throw the figurine to a point on the ground within 60 feet of you it becomes a living mastiff for up to six hours.

LIAM: I thought the guy told us we’d have to figure it out. Did he whisper anything to you?

LAURA: It was etched on the bottom and I totally understand it.

LIAM: Oh, you read Elvish?

LAURA: I do.

LIAM: You’re partially elvish.

LAURA: It’s right there.

SAM: So wait, it’s insta-dog?

LAURA: It’s insta-dog.

SAM: And then what does it do? Can it fight?

LAURA: It fights. It has sight and hearing checks. It bites and it claws just like– oh, no. It just bites.

SAM: And what happens if it gets killed?

LAURA: I’m looking, I’m looking.

TRAVIS: It has an intelligence of eight.

SAM: What’s your intelligence?

TRAVIS: Six.

SAM: Oh my goodness.

LAURA: The creature reverts to its figurine form. It reverts to a figurine early if it drops to zero hit points or if you use an action to speak the command word again while touching it. When the creature becomes a figurine again, its property can’t be used again for, ugh, seven days.

TRAVIS: Get to the bottom part, come on.

LAURA: Mastiff has an intelligence of eight (laughs) and can speak Common. It’s smarter than you.

SAM: Oh, it’s a talking dog?

LAURA: Yeah.

MARISHA: I wonder if it has a name.

MATT: It can also see invisibility.

SAM: It can see invisibility?

MATT: That’s why it’s a good guard dog if you–

LAURA: And objects within that range.

SAM: I like this dog.

LIAM: The only important thing on that paper.

MARISHA: And how long does he last? He just lives until he’s done?

TALIESIN: Six hours.

LAURA: Sorry, I didn’t mean to read all that and make it not interesting.

TRAVIS: If you set camp though, good sentry.

SAM: But we need to know the magic word.

LAURA: We know it. It’s good doggie.

SAM: Oh, we know the word already?

MATT: It’s part of the enchantment, yeah.

MARISHA: Good doggie.

SAM: Can you teach us how to say that in Elvish?

TALIESIN: Don’t teach him how to say it in Elvish.

LAURA: You can say it in Common. He understands Common.

TALIESIN: He understands Common, that’s fair.

LIAM: Vel'ena. Vo'el'ena.

SAM: Vo'el'el'ena?

LAURA: Yeah, that’s it.

SAM: Vo'el'la'la'la.

TRAVIS: All right, we start walking back to Whitestone.

LAURA: Grog, I’m sorry.

SAM: Let’s get the dog out here.

TALIESIN: Let’s hold off on the dog.

MATT: As you guys make your way towards the castle, there’s a small group of figures. You see three armored Whitestone soldiers with one figure following them. Different outfit, looks to be simple dark blues and grays. Dark skin, short dark hair, carrying his crossbow at his side. As you make eyes, you immediately recognize this as Jarett.

MARISHA: Jarett!

MATT: Jarett is coming down and he sees. “Aye, friends, it has been a while. I’m so happy to see that you survived. It’s been a while. Is everyone okay?”

LIAM: How long?

MATT: “Aye, most better part of a week.”

MARISHA: So it is like Saturday here, right? Time runs the same?

MATT: “Yes?”

MARISHA: So it wasn’t yesterday?

SAM: Why did you taste the wind?

MATT: “I don’t know why. It’s a strange question.”

(laughter)

TALIESIN: It tastes like Saturday, certainly.

MATT: “More confused by the question, but it’s fine. All right.”

LAURA: How are things here?

MATT: “Well, (sighs) let’s just say better for the time being.” And as you look up, what you didn’t notice before when you saw the clouds is there’s this slight light blue hue to the entire sky.

TALIESIN: Excellent.

MATT: There’s this very faint shimmer to it. And he goes, “Ah, the barrier is now up, which is good. As soon as they finished that, Allura, Drake and Kima all left to find information on the green dragon.”

LIAM: Where?

MATT: “I did not inquire as to the location, but they said they should be back in the next few days.”

LAURA: Cassandra might know.

TALIESIN: She will.

MARISHA: When did they leave?

MATT: “It’s three days ago? They were hoping to get insight on Thordak’s current situation while we amass as many armored folks here as possible and continue to reach out for allies. I think that is the main goal right now, is to find as many allies as we can. It was interesting to put a stake into this fight.”

LAURA: So you’re leading an army?

MATT: “Well, we’re building whoever we can in this vicinity. There’s not many. At the very least, defend, in case this ends up falling.”

LAURA: And what’s your role in it?

MATT: Welcome back. Slight little technical issue there. We’re going to roll back in. Little bit of information, step into the moment. As Jarett has walked down the steps of Whitestone and began a conversation with Vox Machina about the current situation here, he says how, “Currently, Allura, Kima, and Drake are off trying to find information on the green dragon, Raishan, and trying to discover what best can be done regarding the attack on Thordak in Emon. Here, I am doing the best I can to build what armed forces we have at our disposal, and we’re trying to reach out to bring whatever allies are willing to put their stakes into this battle. But yes, this is a monumental task based on my own experience, and I’m doing the best I can. But bear with me, it’s–”

LAURA: We have faith in you, Jarett.

MATT: “Thank you, I’m glad somebody does. Assum actually just arrived here. About two or three hours ago.”

LAURA: Yes. We were wondering what happened to him.

MARISHA: Haven’t seen him in a while.

MATT: “As were we. Last we heard from Gilmore that he disappeared with Tofor within Emon after the attack.”

LIAM: Shaun’s still in the city?

MATT: “Shaun is still in the city. I believe he’s actually up meeting with Assum and Cassandra right now in the castle.”

TALIESIN: Let’s clean up and head in that direction, I’d imagine.

MATT: “Certainly. Well, if you need me, I’ll be around. Just–”

MARISHA: Jarett?

MATT: “Yes?”

MARISHA: Has there been any eyes on the green dragon here recently?

MATT: “None of us have seen the dragon. None of us know its whereabouts, and attempts to scry have been balked. I do not know.”

MARISHA: Okay, thank you.

MATT: “It’s all right. I believe there is information on the whereabouts of the white.”

MARISHA: Do we know where?

MATT: “I do not know. That is more for what they hold at the castle.”

MARISHA: Okay.

MATT: “Yell loudly if you need me.”

MARISHA: Thank you.

MATT: “It warms my heart to see you all safe.”

MARISHA: Same.

MATT: He gives a little salute and a smile, and continues with the other guards back towards the center of the city. As you guys ascend the steps to Castle Whitestone, you enter the large gates that slowly creak open as you come to the familiar interior. You can hear the voices echoing in the distance from the nearby– what was once the guest dining area of the castle has now been converted into a war room. As you approach the outside of the doors, they’re partially ajar; on the inside you can see your sister, Cassandra, sitting at a table. Gilmore is leaned back, arms crossed, tugging on the end of his chin goatee, and you see Seeker Assum currently facing towards Cassandra. They’re in mid-conversation right now. As soon as you enter the room: “It is good to know that you all survive, as they’ve told me.”

MARISHA: Same to you, Assum.

MATT: As he turns and looks towards you, you can see the side of his face that has all the heavy tattoos now bears heavy acid scars that have blended the tattoos into the scarring. It’s not a very pretty sight, but he seems to at least be in one piece right now. He still has his thick, hooded cloak around his shoulders, and where normally he has a shaved head, some of the hair is growing in in areas that can grow hair based on the damage to this side of his face.

SAM: What happened to you?

MATT: “What happened to me is I made out a lot better than many of the people there that day. This– I’ll take this.”

MARISHA: I’m so sorry.

MATT: “It’s fine. I’ve had worse. Trust me. Come, sit.” Cassandra sits up. “My brother.” She comes up and gives you a big hug and holds you for a second.

LAURA: Pardon our appearance. And stench.

TALIESIN: Yes.

TRAVIS: Do we smell?

LAURA: We’re covered in that black messiness, I assume.

TALIESIN: I hadn’t even noticed, actually.

MATT: You do. And it is. Its scent has faded a bit, but you all still are not in the most presentable means. However, the conversation’s dire tone seems to be enough where no one pays much mind to it.

TALIESIN: We were successful. I will let the others fill you in with some details, although I do– and I’m going to double check, and I’m going to find the brief letter explaining what I’ve set up with Vex, although it will not have any of the reason why, but it will have at least the nature of what’s been done. And we have acquired, well, Vex. Vex'ahlia, if you would.

LAURA: Another Vestige.

MATT: As you pull it out, they all step back. Gilmore leans forward. “Very good.”

LAURA: I would love for you to take a look at it, Shaun.

MATT: “I would love to have a look at it.” He takes it. As you hand it to him, it actually curls around the back of his hands and whips back into a strong, tensile stance, and he– “That’s weird.” He takes it and starts looking over it as Cassandra looks back. “I’m glad you’re all safe, and apparently named. Welcome to Whitestone, Lady Vex'ahlia.”

LAURA: Thank you.

MATT: She takes it, folds it. “I’ll have this put in the books immediately.”

TALIESIN: I appreciate your kind generosity.

MATT: “I will request more information soon.”

TALIESIN: We’ll see, yes. That might be complicated, but yes.

MATT: “Anyway, have a seat. Assum, please, inform them of what you’ve been telling us.” As you all find a seat, he sits there quietly, his eyes darting around in his head, ruminating over the thoughts and trying to formulate his presentation. He crosses his fingers in front of his face. “Things are a bit of a mess within the city. None are allowed to leave. Living under the watch of the wyvern guard, hundreds of lizardmen worshipers of Thordak have been watching the city from above. Some have tried to flee beyond the walls, but ultimately end up being returned at the end of a set of talons and not seen again. Thordak calls a gathering every dusk of the surviving populace. Tens of thousands forced to come and gather at the center of the remnants of the Cloudtop District. He gloats, instills fear in all that behold this, and offers forgiveness to those who offer fealty to him. All are to cheer his name, applaud his statements, and thank him for his mercy. Those that fail to do so are pulled from the crowd by his lizardmen and devoured by the beast himself, lined up to the slaughter as a show. And there is laughter from the beast that pushed them into his maw. Most of the wealth of the city is now amassed in the ashes of the district, forming a massive wall of shiny chunk and coin, like a nest around the fucking beast. He’s enslaved a number of the greatest sculptors of the city to begin making his likeness in the surrounding stone. They chisel away at the tall, proud walls of the interior, showing his terrible face where it does not belong. A vain fucker. He’s crazy, that one. What’s more dangerous than an intelligent dragon than one who’s crazy? I’ve been keeping an eye as best as I can. Thordak gives direct orders to his wyvern guard often, some off to communicate, I presume, with the other members of the Conclave; I know not. I’ve been stuck within the city. Most survivors stay indoors. I’ve been working with the Clasp, believe it or not, to shepherd over a thousand people below the city streets for protection. The lesser of two evils, to be sure, but at the very least, at the moment they have nothing to gain by working against us at this juncture. Naught but six hours ago, the Cinder King was roaring in anger, his cries echoing through he streets. The people fell to their knees, thinking this was the end. Stepped up from his volcanic throne, and sent the majority of his army eastward. I used this distraction to slip into the now-unguarded Lyceum, find a port scroll and a sigil for Whitestone before they returned. Came here to see all of you alive, so that’s the best news I’ve had in weeks. That’s the best I have to bring you about the current state of the city.”

MARISHA: That’s our home.

MATT: “That’s our home.”

TALIESIN: What is eastward?

MATT: “Kymal. Westruun. Technically, here.”

LAURA: Did you bring any other survivors with you?

MATT: “I was the only one who could make it into the Lyceum unseen. Tofor is still back there, fighting the good fight. She’s working with Shenn. They’re trying to get as many below ground as possible, and out of harm’s way.”

LIAM: And Greyskull Keep?

MATT: “I haven’t seen it. I’ve been within the city walls.”

LAURA: Did you say Thordak’s wife? Did I mishear you?

SAM: Wyvern guard.

MARISHA: Wyvern. I heard wife.

LAURA: Wife and guards is what I heard, and I was so fucking confused.

MATT: Sorry.

MARISHA: Wait, his wyvern guard is often…?

MATT: He sent a majority.

MARISHA: Oh, that’s still me manufacturing shit. Okay.

TALIESIN: We don’t know where they’ve been sent. We don’t know why.

SAM: Eastward.

MATT: “That’s all I’ve seen.”

TALIESIN: We need to find out where they’re going.

MATT: “I had to use that time to get to the Lyceum. Usually it’s too heavily guarded.”

TALIESIN: No, of course. Just making a list.

LAURA: You’ve done so much.

MATT: “I’ve done so little. There’s more to be done. But the more time that passes, whatever it is they’re planning, I’m sure is getting closer to fruition.”

MARISHA: Do we have any known whereabouts on the white or the green dragon?

MATT: He looks over and Gilmore steps forward, sets the bow down, and says, “First and foremost, this is a glorious piece. I could only hope to eventually create something of its majesty.” He hands it over. “A bit creepy in ways, but I think you’ll make good use of it. Once we complete the barrier and put quite a bit of concentration each day into maintaining it, of which Pike has been of great aid to me, between the arcane and divine magics, I think we found a fine balance. Hopefully. But anyway, I’ve been putting the rest of my energies towards trying to procure this information. The green, Raishan, as I believe you’ve told me, eludes my watch, my gaze. There is a lot of protection around that one. I get the sense that of those in the Conclave, she is probably the most trained in my arts.”

LAURA: She’s the one that released Thordak, so that wouldn’t surprise me.

MARISHA: She’s on my shit list.

MATT: “I think she’s on a lot of people’s shit lists. Mine as well. The white, however. I know not its name, but I was able to look towards it. I was able to find it sitting amongst a large pile of rock and rubble. Looks like a fallen city, crumbled and destroyed. From what I saw, there were smoldering ruins, toppled landscapes of buildings and temples, arcane crystals crashed and cracked, deep inside a ravine. There, the white dragon perched, setting up this slow-rolling winter amongst a shivering horde of dragonborn.”

TRAVIS: Oh, shit.

MARISHA: What did he just say? What?

LIAM: Shivering horde of dragonborn.

TRAVIS: Amongst a horde of dragonborn.

LAURA: Draconia?

MATT: “What remains of it.”

LIAM: Fuck.

MATT: “That was days ago.”

TALIESIN: That’s a card we no longer have.

MATT: “I need to be careful when doing this.”

LIAM: The city was razed?

MATT: “From what I could see, yes.”

TRAVIS: Did you see any motion? Any slaves?

MATT: “Oh, yes. There were many survivors, but they were not in the best of states.”

TRAVIS: This white dragon, does he bring weather, or any sort of change? It’s all ice and snow, yeah?

MATT: “The very essence of each ancient wyrm, if you will, carries with it its own element. It slowly transforms the landscape around where it takes up its new den. If it seems to sit atop the remains of the once-proud Draconia, then it now falls under the icy grasp of the beast.”

LIAM: And the will of the people there?

MATT: “I could not look that deep. My apologies.”

MARISHA: Is this just with a simple Scrying spell? Okay.

TALIESIN: We must be careful. We cannot let Whitestone be discovered.

MARISHA: Yes, and as we’ve learned before, Scrying can alert your position.

MATT: At this point in time, you guys hear heavy footsteps heading up from the lower floor of the castle. You hear two voices shout out, “Lady Cassandra! Lady Cassandra!” They enter the room real fast. You see one man, probably in his mid-20s or so, sweat pouring down his face, his eyes wide. “My lady.” At that point you hear, echoing outside of the castle, this loud, piercing, shrieking roar.

MARISHA: Oh my god.

MATT: (roar)

LAURA: Shit balls motherfucker.

MATT: It’s distant, but even at that distance, it is loud.

LAURA: Gilmore, does the screen keep us hidden?

MATT: You look back, and even in his most damaged state, Gilmore had an essence of confidence, and this is a moment where you’ve never really seen him so pale. “We’re about to find out, aren’t we?”

TRAVIS: I’m going outside.

LAURA: I’m going outside, too.

LIAM: I walk up to Shaun and slap my hand on his forearm and say, what about the bow? Is there anything you can tell us about the bow?

MATT: “In due time. Keep it at the ready.”

MARISHA: I turn to Cassandra. We need to get all of the citizens underground, immediately.

TALIESIN: We can’t fit everybody.

MATT: “We can certainly try.” She turns to the guard. “Gather everyone we can. Gather–” And there’s another roar from outside, this time louder still. “Go! Now!” Everyone starts rushing down the stairs to the outside of Whitestone Castle.

MARISHA: I go out and I do a Skywrite in the sky again.

LAURA: Wait! Skywrite?

MARISHA: They already know we’re here!

LAURA: No, they don’t! They don’t necessarily.

MARISHA: Making pictures in the clouds right above the city. It’s fine.

SAM: Maybe not.

LAURA: I wouldn’t Skywrite anything right now, Keyleth. That screen could keep us hidden. He could be searching for us right now.

MARISHA: And what about the citizens?

SAM: We’ll find another way to alert them. Send out the dog. I don’t know.

MATT: Are you guys exiting the castle now?

LAURA: Yes.

MARISHA: Do it by hand? We might not have that much time.

MATT: As you step out into the front open patio area, just outside of the castle’s main gates, you look up and that faint blue shimmer that encases– and you can now see it as a dome, and it comes down around, just directly around the city, closing at the very outskirts of the castle. You look in the distance as you see a few dark shapes growing larger and larger.

MARISHA: They’re coming this way!

TALIESIN: Hold.

MATT: I need you to make a perception check, all of you.

MARISHA: Fuck!

TRAVIS: 17.

SAM: Nine.

MARISHA: 26.

TALIESIN: 23.

LIAM: 26.

LAURA: 16.

MATT: All right. Vax, Keyleth, and Percy. You guys glance off and you can see there are a number of shapes. It looks to be probably two, three dozen large winged entities flapping. You can’t make out too much of the detail of their form, but you can definitely see some sort of aerial transport with large wings. At the forefront of them, you see one far larger than the rest. While you can’t make out the details at this distance, the one thing you do catch is the bits of sunlight that peek through the clouds, hitting the side of its hide. A bright, piercing white color.

TRAVIS: Fucking fucked.

MATT: You see it coasting at an angle around the outside of the city, making its way very quickly towards the outskirts of the town.

MARISHA: It’s Thordak’s army. Assum said himself we’re eastward. We’re directly in its path.

TALIESIN: Hold.

MARISHA: Dragons have truesight. They already know we’re here.

SAM: Maybe they can’t get through this.

MARISHA: Any second we wait longer, more people could die!

LAURA: Send out the guards.

MATT: The guards are already running down, by the way, based on Cassandra’s orders, and are making their way towards the city. You can already see people coming out of the streets and looking up, covering their ears. Some people are falling to their knees and crying.

MARISHA: Percy.

TALIESIN: Pick them up. Keep running until the moment they can’t.

LIAM: They know we’re here. This is not a coincidence. They’re not flying by. They know we’re here. They know.

MATT: (whoosh) You now see the dragon and the flying horde have just come within a mile of the southern portion of the city.

MARISHA: Percy!

TALIESIN: Wait!

LIAM: Do it.

LAURA: No. Don’t do it!

LIAM: They’re coming for us!

TALIESIN: This is my home. Wait.

TRAVIS: This is his home.

MARISHA: Percy.

TALIESIN: Keep moving.

MARISHA: You have five seconds to come up with a better fucking plan, or I am doing it.

TALIESIN: Spread out. Keep moving. Find a position.

MATT: Okay. What order are you guys rushing down in?

LIAM: What are we looking at from our vantage point?

MATT: You guys are looking down at the wide, 60-foot earth path that leads down from the base of Castle Whitestone into the city itself.

TALIESIN: If I’m towards the front, I’m moving everyone towards the house where we made the tunnel that goes underneath the Sun Tree.

MATT: All right, so we have Percy at the front.

TRAVIS: I’ll be right behind him.

MATT: Okay, Grog’s right behind Percy.

LAURA: I’ll follow behind Grog.

LIAM: We’re up above, though? Or are we on ground level at this point?

MATT: You guys are now on ground level. You’re above on the grade that leads down into the city itself.

LAURA: I pull out the broom and I get on the broom.

MATT: Okay, so you’re on the broom.

MARISHA: It’s clear they’re not deviating the path.

LAURA: It’s not clear. We could just be in their way.

TRAVIS: He said they’re curving.

MATT: They’re now curving around the outside of the western side of the valley.

TALIESIN: What are you going to write? What are you going to write?

MARISHA: I would throw up the De Rolo crest, just like before. It’s a good alert sign.

LAURA: People would just come out screaming. They won’t know where to go.

MARISHA: Then come up with a better damn plan.

MATT: (roar) Echoing through the valley. You watch as the entire crowd of these entities flies around the west side of the city, curves past. The shadow of the light of the sky, you can see the dark, heavy shadow of the dragon and the wyverns pass over the western side of the city. You can hear distant screams as people begin to freak out at this. It passes over the western side of the city, flying right towards the castle.

MARISHA: Percy.

MATT: Arcs past the castle, over the forest, and the entire cluster slowly flaps down and lands at the southernmost beginning peak of the Alabaster Sierras, just north of the city. The dragon (crash noise) lands.

TALIESIN: Alert everyone you see.

MARISHA: They’re scouting us.

TALIESIN: Tell them to get underground. Tell them to be silent.

LAURA: They don’t see us, but they know we’re nearby.

TRAVIS: What direction are they looking?

MATT: Right now, they’re looking in all directions, actually.

LAURA: We need to get everybody underground while we can.

LIAM: We have time. We have time.

TALIESIN: Thank you. Find everyone. Tell them, silence. We still have the cavern we built underground. Start making it larger.

MARISHA: Okay.

TRAVIS: Shall we scatter? Spread the word?

LAURA: Spread the word. Tell everyone to get underground.

TALIESIN: Under the tree.

MARISHA: I go to the cavern under the Sun Tree and I start casting Move Earth and I start clearing it as fast as I can.

MATT: Okay. It’s going to take you a while, but you begin building this cavern.

MARISHA: As fast as I can.

TALIESIN: More people.

SAM: Where are we telling people to go?

TRAVIS: We’re scattering.

TALIESIN: There’s the inn that was broken. It’s got an entrance. They either go there or they go underneath the castle.

SAM: That can hold 30, 40 people?

TALIESIN: She’s making it bigger.

LAURA: Can we send people under the castle as well?

SAM: Okay, under the castle, yeah.

MATT: You guys all begin scattering, grabbing everyone you can. The guards are starting to gather people, and as you get the word out, people begin to quiet, holding their mouths. The guards are holding people silently. People begin ushering en masse up towards this giant exodus from the city, pouring like a funnel up this walkway to the base of Castle Whitestone. Keyleth, as you’re down there, you’re pressing. The dirt itself is slowly molding its way into this large cavern, pressing downward further and further and opening, further down and opening.

MARISHA: Fallout cavern style. Big, lower, bigger, lower.

MATT: You get about three platforms down before the earth stops responding.

MARISHA: What do you mean?

TRAVIS: Fucking ziggurat!

MARISHA: The fucking ziggurat!

TALIESIN: Other way, other way!

MARISHA: I go the other way!

LAURA: Don’t empty out the earth too much, or it won’t support the city.

MARISHA: Fallout style. Little pods.

MATT: All right. You start creating all these various things, and people start ushering in. It’s getting to the point now where there’s so many people. You hear crying children, families pressed in, you’re feeling claustrophobic and the room’s getting hotter and hotter the more bodies that are in there. You keep concentrating and pushing the earth out. You can feel the sweat beads pouring down your face, concentrating, concentrating. You hear the crying and sobbing, and people trying to comfort those that are freaking out. Every now and then you hear a distant echoing cry, a scream of a dragon in the distance, and everyone in the room tenses, and the sobbing gets even louder, then hushed again with whispering silence. You keep pushing and keep pushing, opening. You guys all begin to gather the rest as you watch, with that final cry, the dragon and the wyverns pick up (whoosh) and swoop towards the center of the valley, arcing to the west, and do a wide sweep of the mountain range. (flapping wings)

LAURA: Where’s Gilmore?

MATT: Gilmore has been bringing people en masse down to the castle. You haven’t seen him for a number of– probably 15, 20 minutes or so. The dragons coast around, and begin to disappear in the southeastern distance where they came from. You do, at this point, catch Gilmore, who has moved to the top of the castle and is currently, arms out, concentrating, pouring all the energy he can into that barrier.

TRAVIS: Looks like the spell worked.

LIAM: Good work. Good work.

LAURA: Gilmore. Good job.

MATT: He eventually comes down from the top of the castle. He is– eye sockets are sunken. You can see he’s pouring with sweat. “I’m going to need a spa day. Because I’m done.”

LAURA: Where’s Pike?

MATT: You guys find Pike. She, during this whole period, was over by the temple of Pelor that she was helping right and construct. Going over and finding out where she’s been placed, you guys see that she’s shepherded in a good 200 people into that temple, and has been keeping them divinely protected the whole time. As soon as you approach the outside, the people begin to slowly disperse back into the city. Pike walks out, looking out to the sky and locks eyes with you. “You’re back!” Runs up and gives you a big hug. Jumps into your arms at this point. You catch her, and realize how heavy she is with the armor on, put her back down.

LAURA: I drop her, because I’m fucking weak.

MATT: “Guys! Hi!”

LAURA: You did an amazing job with that.

MATT: “That was mostly him. I’ve never done something like that before. That was– everything okay in the Feywild? I’m sorry, I lost my connection. We had to finish this ritual.”

LAURA: No, it was fine.

MARISHA: Hi, Pike. Sorry.

MATT: “Don’t be. I’m glad you’re all okay.”

SAM: Do you remember the Feywild?

MATT: “Yeah. We were–”

SAM: Okay. Just making sure.

LAURA: He doesn’t remember, Pike.

MATT: “You don’t remember?”

TRAVIS: Yeah. Apparently, we went to the Feywild, and everybody remembers it but me and Percy.

MATT: “Why is that?”

LAURA: I don’t know.

TALIESIN: It’s funnier that way.

MARISHA: Maybe you can look at his head later.

LAURA: Maybe there’s a way to cure it.

TRAVIS: I’m just too smart.

MATT: She walks up and takes a look at you, walks up to Grog. Has a good look at the side of your head, knocks you in the temple a few times.

TRAVIS: What do you see?

MATT: “There’s nothing… physical. I’ll try a restoration.” She would have, let’s see here.

SAM: Pike stats!

TALIESIN: I was about to say, you have an Ashley app. That’s so adorable.

TRAVIS: Don’t make me any dumber.

LAURA: Grog, that’s not possible.

MATT: Yeah, she’s going to try Greater Restoration. Let me check something here real fast.

SAM: That was not fun.

LAURA: No.

MARISHA: Percy, are you sure it’s okay for me to let these people out?

TALIESIN: Of course it’s not, but yes, definitely let them out. We’ll have to make it more secure and safer.

LAURA: I think it’s gotten quite a bit away from us.

MATT: So Pike reaches up. The gauntlets begin to glow, and as she touches each side of your temples, your eyes close. As some of you watch this, Grog’s eyes flash open, and where his pupils and the whites of his eyes were, you now see a flash of divine golden orange light. As it fades, you are slammed with a series of memories that were previously taken from you, and you recall every moment in the Feywild.

TRAVIS: (surprised noises)

SAM: I’m sorry! I’m sorry, you didn’t get to kill anything. I’m sorry.

LAURA: No, he did! He still killed the big bad guy!

SAM: Oh, you did! You did, you killed the one thing. Okay, good.

TRAVIS: I got petrified!

LAURA: Yeah, well, stoned.

TRAVIS: I tried diplomacy! Never again.

SAM: Lesson learned.

TRAVIS: Holy shit.

LAURA: Can you only do that one time a day?

MATT: “No, I can do it once more.”

SAM: Maybe… well…

TRAVIS: No, it’s okay, yeah! Percy will remember the nude massage.

MATT: She walks up to Percy.

LIAM: Think of what he’s losing, though.

TALIESIN: I’m not losing it.

LAURA: Potentially.

TALIESIN: No, because it doesn’t matter. It’s there anyway.

SAM: Actually, I don’t know. I don’t know.

MATT: Yeah, you have overlapping memories. So she reaches up and you bend down. She takes your glasses off. Hands them to Vex. Reaches up and touches the sides of your temple. “Now, concentrate.” Close your eyes, and there’s a burst of warmth towards the front of your lobe, almost like someone’s dipping your head into hot water. And with that, there’s a smattering of memories that are rushing into your mind. It takes you a moment. Your head swims, and you have to almost sit down. You almost stumble off your back foot as your brain now has to reorganize those lost moments. Seven days now immediately restored.

TALIESIN: Seven days, ten minutes.

SAM: Greater Restoration kills Modify Memory.

TALIESIN: Oh! But do I remember having the fake memory? Or do I not remember having a fake memory?

MATT: You would remember the spell being cast. You remember the fake memory, but you’re aware that it’s fake.

SAM: And that I did it?

TALIESIN: Yes.

MATT: Oh yeah.

SAM: Fuck.

LIAM: Just say thank you, Percival.

MATT: “Did it work?”

TALIESIN: I give her a big hug. I’m so tired. I’m sorry. I’m going to sit down.

LAURA: What?

MATT: “Glasses?”

LAURA: Oh, but they’re so fun to look through! All right.

TALIESIN: They’ll give you a headache.

MATT: She takes the glasses, and as you’re resting, she takes your hand away from your head and puts them back on.

MARISHA: I start slowly releasing people from the pods.

TALIESIN: Thank you.

MATT: People begin to emerge, and where once there was this air of tension, fear, and desolate acceptance of the end, there’s laughter. There’s smiles, and even more tears as people begin to realize they have another day to live.

LAURA: Can we tell the people as they come out, I know you’ll want to celebrate, but please keep it as quiet as possible tonight. We don’t know when it could be back.

MATT: There’s a stillness and a slow understanding and nodding. While everyone takes in the information, one young woman, smeared dirt on her chin, dried tears on her cheek, steps forward and goes, “Thank you. Thank you.” And everyone else starts saying, “Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.” This sea of thank-yous begins to spread through the crowd immediately in your vicinity.

SAM: Don’t thank us. Thank Shaun Gilmore.

LAURA: Gilmore and Pike. Allura.

MATT: They all quietly go back to their silence and begin to slowly disperse themselves throughout the city where they were before this incursion happened.

MARISHA: I go up to Percy.

TRAVIS: I forgot that Shaun was Gilmore’s first name.

LAURA: He was like, who’s Shaun?

SAM: Intelligence of six.

LIAM: So fucking method. Method, man.

MATT: Keyleth.

MARISHA: I hope you know that I would never–

TALIESIN: Shut up. Thank you.

SAM: I hope you know that I was only trying to improve your life with a wonderful happy memory, and it was mostly true.

TALIESIN: I know where you sleep. People work for me.

MATT: Assum has caught up to you now as you guys are walking back to the city. You can see him. He’s still, eyes to the sky, not truly trusting this quiet. He goes, “It seems we don’t have any time to lose. What resources do you have to fight back? What have you learned? Please tell me you have better news than I have.”

TRAVIS: Well, we’ve got a few of these Vestiges, so we’re a little powered up. But we’re not quite sure what their full abilities are. It’s significant, but we think they do more, we’re just not sure how much.

MATT: “What more do you need?”

LAURA: Can I fly up in the air while this conversation’s going on?

MATT: Sure.

SAM: Don’t go too high.

LAURA: Not too high.

SAM: We don’t know where the thing is.

LAURA: No, I know, I want to go to the very top where I see the shimmer.

MATT: Yeah and it’s a squat shimmer, not a full dome and it’s like a very extended type dome.

LAURA: Okay. But it’s high enough, that I mean it’s higher than the castle.

MATT: It’s high enough where you can get about 80 feet up and you start to see enough detail in the shimmer where you’re like, “Okay, I’m getting close.”

LAURA: Okay. The direction that the dragons went. Is this stupid? Can I shoot my Oracle Arrow in that direction?

SAM: No. Absolutely not.

LAURA: Why?

SAM: (high-pitched) Why would you bring attention to us?!

LAURA: It’s an arrow!

LIAM: They’re long gone.

MATT: They are gone. The time has passed. They’re miles and miles and miles and miles and miles at the speed they were traveling. You’re a good shot, but I don’t know if you could arc an arrow that far.

LAURA: Oh well, I guess that’s true. I thought it was a ten-minute, because it’s Fenthras I thought it was a long-ass arrow.

TRAVIS: Can’t you tell what direction the dragons were heading?

LAURA: Oh! Wait, okay, so the Oracle Arrow, is it like you fire it, and then it shoots somewhere and it sticks there and I can see through it for ten minutes?

MATT: Correct. Or see through it as it’s fired, the minute it leaves the bow you can project your sight through the arrow for up to 10 minutes.

SAM: It can’t fly for infinity?

MATT: No. It still arcs like a regular arrow.

LAURA: That makes sense. I foresaw it just going, because I thought it was like a special kind of arrow.

LIAM: It’s really good for people without flying brooms.

LAURA: Right. Cool. Then I’m not going to use it. Because now I understand how it works. I’ve learned something.

TALIESIN: What direction were the wyverns traveling, were they traveling back? Or were they traveling along–

MATT: They were heading southeast.

TRAVIS: So not back, they came from the west, right?

MATT: They swooped in from the west, from that side.

TALIESIN: But they originated in the west, and they are currently traveling southeast?

MATT: Correct. However, it was Vorugal, it was the white dragon, which from what Gilmore is saying has been roosting over at the top of the ruins of Draconia.

TALIESIN: Which is to the east.

SAM: So this was not the group that had set off from Emon.

TRAVIS: To the west.

TALIESIN: No it’s– Draconia is to the southeast. Why do I know that?

SAM: Here, here’s the map. We’re up here. This is the group that was coming from Emon. These guys came from somewhere over here? Where’s Draconia?

LAURA: Can I cast Primeval Awareness and see if it’s within six miles of us right now, still? Or if it’s farther away from that.

MARISHA: I thought that Draconia’s on a whole another continent.

TALIESIN: Yeah, it is. It’s over here.

MATT: It’s over on Wildemount.

LAURA: I want to see if they’re just camping out around us or if they’re going away.

TALIESIN: Are they going back?

MATT: Using for dragons, I assume, right?

LAURA: Yes. It’s my favored enemy.

MATT: Yeah. I would say as part of your Primeval Awareness–

SAM: If this is the United States, we’re in Maine. Emon is LA.

MATT: Yeah. Sensing at this point, with the day of travel and everything, you have no sense of dragons in that direction or anything.

LAURA: Okay. They’re further than six miles away.

MATT: Yeah, there are minor essences in the northern area, but nothing beyond what you’ve already sensed in the Alabaster Sierras. Nothing on the level of strength that the draw of an ancient dragon would bring on your radar.

LAURA: Okay.

TRAVIS: To answer your previous question, there are four Vestiges left.

TALIESIN: That we know of.

LIAM: There’s a dagger, there’s a cloak. Armor. There’s a staff.

SAM: Wait, there’s other objects that we haven’t–

MATT: “All right.”

MARISHA: Four left. Because we have Whisper, right?

LAURA: No, no, we don’t have Whisper.

MARISHA: So there’s five.

MATT: “Do we have any other allies, friends, people who are sworn to aid us and–?”

TRAVIS: Ooh! Yeah, yeah! Your parents.

MARISHA: Yeah.

TALIESIN: That’s right.

LAURA: Technically, the elves of Syngorn are building an army. However, who knows if they’ll actually come through.

TALIESIN: The werewolves could be called upon.

MATT: “I think they would understand it would do them well to help what is a threat to all of us.”

TALIESIN: You would think.

SAM: One werewolf has vowed allegiance to us.

LAURA: In the Feywild.

TRAVIS: In another plane of existence, which I don’t know if that’s a problem.

MATT: “Not going to count on that one.”

TALIESIN: It’s not as ridiculous as you think.

SAM: Yes. Your former pals.

TALIESIN: Whatever remnants of Draconia perhaps?

MATT: “Wait. So the last time we saw the main portion, the bulk of Emon’s army from Fort Daxio was sent to Syngorn before this attack happened?”

MARISHA: Yes.

MATT: “Do we have any knowledge on their whereabouts?”

MARISHA: A lot are there.

MATT: “They’re there?”

MARISHA: A lot of– at least all of our guards from Emon are in Syngorn, right?

LAURA: No. Our guards aren’t in Syngorn.

MARISHA: Not our personal guards, but Emon’s guards.

LAURA: No.

MATT: You did see quite a few soldiers from Emon there.

LAURA: Oh we did?

SAM: Yes.

LAURA: I was distracted.

MATT: That’s okay. You did have a lot to think about with your dad.

TALIESIN: They would not answer our call but if someone has relations with the Clasp, they are always an option for manpower.

MATT: “Well, I have been dealing with them and definitely– they’re not much of an army, but they’re definitely good at acquiring information and I currently have a few of them trying to find out as much as they can about Thordak.”

MARISHA: There’s also the Ashari druids, who will definitely want to help our cause.

TALIESIN: This is very true.

MATT: “That is good to know. Well, any more that come your way or any possibilities you have to bring more to our cause, please, do so.”

SAM: There’s a candle-maker who might help out. I would put him in the strong maybe category as well.

TALIESIN: Don’t mention that Vex flies.

MATT: “Good, well keep tabs on those you’ve found and any possibilities of others, especially those who have… I don’t know, more of these Vestiges that you speak of, or armies at their disposal. Big weapons, anything. I’ll take anything at this point really.”

TALIESIN: There are options but we need to discuss what happened today. This changes some things.

TRAVIS: Yeah, we need more offense, less defense. I don’t know if that will work a second time.

TALIESIN: You’re mad. We need defense. This is not a site of a victory, this is a site of our end. We need bunkers.

LAURA: Yeah. We need to move everybody underground the same way we did in Emon.

MARISHA: I can spend more time fleshing out and reinforcing the bunkers to make them–

TALIESIN: I’ll discuss a warning system to get people underground.

SAM: But when the dragon came here just now, they saw nothing, correct?

TALIESIN: We hope.

SAM: Is there a way that we can spread false rumors that the city of Whitestone has been

magically moved to another plane or something?

LAURA: That’s wonderful. That’s smart.

SAM: Some way of getting that word to Draconia or I don’t–

TALIESIN: Putting the word out that we’re other places than we are. Putting the sound–

MATT: Assum thinks to himself and goes–

LIAM: Can’t we drop it into the Clasp’s pipeline?

MATT: “I can do that. Definitely. We can find a way to get that information. There are a number who have sworn allegiance to Thordak and, you know. Some folks who don’t see honor but the necessity to stay alive override any sort of previous friendships.”

TRAVIS: Best not to mention our name. I don’t think we’re cool with the Clasp after our last meeting.

LAURA: Yeah, they don’t like us.

MATT: “Good to know. I’ll look about planting that information. I’ll do the best I can in that regard. I’ve been told that you’ve already felled another of the Conclave, is that correct?”

TRAVIS: Yes.

LAURA: That’s true. Umbrasyl. Dead and gone.

MATT: “That will certainly stir some attention from them.” LAURA: Yeah, and if not that, then the message left in there.

TALIESIN: They know we did it.

TRAVIS: Strange that he had all those wyverns with him, though. Umbrasyl had none. He was by himself.

LIAM: They don’t like each other, though, this is some sort of loose partnership.

TRAVIS: Yeah, but didn’t they say the white one was more savage. More emotional?

LAURA: The white one was more vain.

MARISHA: Yeah, the black one, Umbrasyl is the one that’s–

SAM: Oh you’re right, the white one is a hunter, it’s primal. Hates others. You’re right.

TALIESIN: Maybe the army’s going to head to– no, we could be so lucky if it was on its way to attack it.

MARISHA: Black ones like torture, right?

LAURA: Yeah, they like to make people suffer.

TALIESIN: I feel like there should be trading cards.

SAM: So the white one’s like Predator?

LAURA: Shut up! There’s notes somewhere in here!

MATT: “Just be warned: fell one dragon, that might make them nervous. Fell another and that’s almost certain to bring retaliation.”

TALIESIN: We were hoping to distract them.

MATT: “Well, the next wyrm you decide to fell will probably be the start of this war.”

TRAVIS: Can we ask, why would it bring retaliation? How would they know it was us?

TALIESIN: We did sign the card.

MARISHA: We left our names.

LAURA: Maybe the next one we can sign as somebody else.

TRAVIS: What if we don’t sign it?

LIAM: Even if we don’t, they probably are going to get much more vindictive overall.

MARISHA: And just as much as we can scry on them, they can scry on us. I’m sure they’ve been watching us.

TALIESIN: I don’t think they know where we are. I think they know when we travel, I just don’t think they know where we are.

MATT: “Have any of the living ones seen you?”

LAURA: Have any what?

MATT: “Have any of the living ones seen you and know you for who you are?”

TRAVIS: When we killed the first one, there were a bunch of jewels in the wall and we saw a bunch of eyeballs.

TALIESIN: He did not know our name, but he has seen us.

LAURA: Raishan saw us, the white one saw us, all of them saw us.

MATT: “Then it is very possible.”

SAM: Wait a second, you just said no one knew we were here, none of them knew we were here.

TALIESIN: Here.

SAM: They just attacked here. And we just got back here.

LAURA: Gilmore was scrying on them. It took three days for him to get here. That’s how he knew.

SAM: Because Gilmore was scrying on them. Got it. Not because we have a leak.

TALIESIN: We probably do. We should assume we have a leak.

SAM: I’m going to blame Shaun.

TALIESIN: Is he Shaun now?

MATT: “You’re more than welcome to.”

SAM: Sorry! (chuckles)

MATT: He’s sitting down, wiping his brow with this really fine scarf.

MARISHA: Judging based on what happened in Emon, we know that they have an insider, we just don’t know who yet.

SAM: They do? We know this?

TALIESIN: I would assume that there’s nothing we say that they don’t know at this point.

LAURA: They struck during a political–

MARISHA: During a council meeting.

LAURA: Somebody has to be telling them things.

MARISHA: Someone probably very high up.

LAURA: It could be Raishan taking the form of a human again, for all we know.

SAM: Who was there and lived? Besides us?

MATT: Jarett catches up, by the way. (panting) “Is everyone all right?”

LAURA: Yes. How are the citizens? Did you get everyone in there?

MATT: “Everyone seems to be safe and accounted for. There was a lot of fear, of course, but elation, whatever you did.” And he looks at you and looks at Shaun. “Whatever you did, keep doing it, please.”

TRAVIS: I insight check Jarett.

MATT: Make an insight check.

TRAVIS: Seven.

MATT: It’s hard to read that fella. Slippery.

LIAM: Can I do an insight check on Assum?

MATT: You may.

LAURA: What are you doing?

SAM: Ooh, that was a Luck.

LIAM: First one was good anyway.

LAURA: Oh, you’re just hoping? First one was really good.

LIAM: Damn. I can choose whichever one I want. 21.

MATT: 21.

LAURA: About Jarett?! You’re insighting Jarett?

SAM: Seeker Assum.

TALIESIN: Perhaps we should not have… assumed.

MARISHA: Hey, Travis! How is it you’re on this side of the table?

TRAVIS: Well I was looking for a Loot Crate. Have you guys seen any Loot Crates?

SAM: Oh! Well I’ve got some of the great swag that you can get in a Loot Crate. Why this shirt came in one last week.

TRAVIS: That’s incredible! How do I get one of those?

SAM: You go to LootCrate.com/CriticalRole to see your selection and then if you sign up, you get three dollars off the first month, which is a really good deal!

TALIESIN: Ironically when we played the game at home this is exactly what we’d do.

MATT: Totally.

LIAM: Sam who are you talking to? You’re facing a potted plant.

SAM: I’m talking to Seeker Assum! He’s a big fanboy.

MATT: Gilmore stands up and catches the edge of Vax’s shoulder.

LIAM: Hey.

MATT: “All right, so, what’s your plan? What’s the next order of business?”

LAURA: Get you a drink, I think.

MATT: “A drink would be great.”

TALIESIN: I think we talk and drink.

LAURA: Yes. We need to talk about barricading underground. Making it more secure.

MATT: “Come. I can definitely use that right now.” You guys are led into the nearest open– it looks to be an unused tavern, but there are drinks, ale and things that are at the ready. There isn’t much commerce currently happening in the city, since right now everything’s in survival mode, so there’s no exchange of money, you guys are presented with drinks. The lanterns are lit on the inside from other villagers that are just happy to help. And the central table is set where you all sit around and quietly have a few sips.

LIAM: While everyone’s sitting, can I just pull him over to a corner for a second?

MATT: Yeah.

LIAM: How are you doing, personally?

MATT: “Me?”

LIAM: Yeah.

MATT: “Wondrous! I’m doing great! (chuckles) I’m exhausted.”

LIAM: Shaun, I–

MATT: “I’ll be fine.”

LIAM: You sure?

MATT: “Yes, I’m fine.”

LIAM: All right.

MATT: “It’s been a long time since I put my energy and talents towards anything beyond making shiny things. Feels nice to be helping others.”

LIAM: Well, I feel we’re seeing your true talents.

MATT: “I’m at my wits’ end with these. Do you want to see true talents? You should ask Allura to show you what she’s capable of when she gets back.”

LIAM: She is pretty nifty.

MATT: (sighs heavily)

LIAM: Well, come on, come and have a drink.

MATT: And he like leans on you a bit and you both make it back to the table. The rest of you–

SAM: This booze is okay, but Grog, I could really use the finest wine I’ve ever had.

TRAVIS: Oh shit, hold on.

LAURA: We’ve got some fancy-ass bottles.

TRAVIS: I reach into the bag of holding and I grab five expensive-ass bottles of wine.

LIAM: Holla!

MARISHA: Scanlan and I will share one.

SAM: Good idea.

LAURA: Just one bottle between the two of you?

SAM: We don’t weigh very much.

MARISHA: No.

TALIESIN: I’m involved in this. This is exciting.

MATT: You guys scatter the wine amongst your glasses. Drinks are had as you begin to discuss the plan.

TALIESIN: Pour one for the landlord as well. He’s letting us drink our wine in his room. MATT: Assum leans in. “All right. So. Vestiges. Defenses. Allies, what’s the next plan? "What’s the next–”

TRAVIS: Well, I’ve a question. If I were to call somewhere a City of Brass, where would you think that would be?

MATT: Assum goes, “There are cities that use brass in parts of construction in Wildemount, that’s as far–” Gilmore leans forward and goes, “No, that’s in the Elemental Plane of Fire. That’s a dangerous, terrible place that you should never go.”

TRAVIS: We were already there once, actually.

TALIESIN: Terrible dangerous places you should never go are practically our middle name.

LAURA: We saw Thordak there, actually.

MATT: “Oh! Even more of a reason not to go!”

MARISHA: Well, he’s here now, so Fire Plane’s probably safer!

TALIESIN: She’s got a very fair point.

LAURA: Why do you ask, Grog?

TRAVIS: Well, look, the Plate of the Dawnmartyr is in a City of Brass, but I don’t know where that is.

LAURA: I bet that sounds something Pike would like.

TRAVIS: Draconia is in Wildemount?

MATT: “Draconia is in Wildemount, yes.”

TRAVIS: Right. And so is the big white fuck, right?

TALIESIN: Yes. Are any of the Vestiges in Wildemount?

TRAVIS: The City of Brass?

MATT: “Whereabouts are the Vestiges?”

LIAM: One at the bottom of the sea.

LAURA: One is in Marquet?

MARISHA: The City of Brass is in the Plane of Fire. We’ve covered that.

SAM: It’s not in Draconia? It’s in the Plane of Fire?

MARISHA: The city is in the Plane of Fire.

SAM: Correct. Where’s Ank'Harel?

MARISHA: Ank'Harel is on the continent of– what’s it’s called?

MATT: Gilmore chuckles to himself, “Ank'Harel. It’s been awhile.” And looks at–

MARISHA: What’s the continent? I suddenly blanked on it. You just said it.

MATT: Marquet.

MARISHA: Marquet. It’s on the continent of Marquet.

MATT: Ank'Harel is also where Jarett is from, which is where you first heard. Gilmore smiles. “It’s where I grew up, or nearabouts, at least.”

SAM: Where you grew up, Gilmore?

MATT: “Well, not in the city, a little ways out a bit.”

SAM: You’re Marquatian?

MATT: “Originally, yes, but I’ve been living here most of my life. Soon as I had the opportunity to leave– It’s a free plane here in Tal'Dorei and all the shops I can muster… until they all got destroyed.”

LAURA: Good times.

MATT: “It’s fine. I’d made the bottom floors too small anyway. More space. Next time.”

LIAM: You ever want to revisit home?

MATT: “Maybe. Nah. I need to stay here and maintain this.”

LAURA: Yes you do. If you don’t mind.

SAM: What about the endless maze of the Abyss? That’s another place that we’re supposed to go.

MARISHA: Also another plane of existence.

MATT: “I don’t know much about the Abyss, but I know that it’s probably the worst place ever.”

LAURA: Abyssal. That’s where demons come from.

TRAVIS: Worse than the Fire Plane?

MATT: “That’s correct.”

LAURA: That’s the thing that killed Pike.

TRAVIS: Wait, isn’t that where the rakshasa’s going to be?

MARISHA: That’s in the Nine Hells.

LIAM: He’s a devil.

TALIESIN: Ironically is somewhere else entirely.

LIAM: And I think we can table Meowmix for a little bit. Somebody told us it takes a while.

LAURA: Months and months.

MARISHA: Months but we also don’t want to wait until–

LIAM: Not forever.

TRAVIS: Who’s got a map?

SAM: I’ve got a map.

TRAVIS: Where’s the Ozmit Sea?

TALIESIN: Before we even think of this, we should see what we’re– I don’t think we’re going to collect all of the Vestiges. We should see what other Vestiges we think are going to be helpful.

SAM: It’s like the Pacific Ocean.

TRAVIS: Which direction is it? Towards Draconia?

SAM: No. Draconia’s across the Atlantic Ocean in France.

MARISHA: But the Ozmit Sea is where the Water Ashari reside. And I have to go there anyway. It’s also where Pike is very familiar. I’m pretty sure that’s the sea that she sailed?

LIAM: And the Vestige there is the staff?

LAURA: Whisper, right?

SAM: Whisper, the blade.

MARISHA: Whisper, the blade.

TRAVIS: Well, look, hey, so I have an idea, right. Someone mentioned that the white dragon is very vain and very savage. He’s got like all those wyverns around him. That’s a little bit of a bitch for us. We’re usually good one dragon on all of us. You got a whole gang, worse for us. So what about if we played to his vanity, and maybe sent him knocking on one of his Conclave brother’s doors. Maybe start a little beef that maybe’s not there.

SAM: How do we do that?

TRAVIS: I don’t know, the idea just popped up. I’m looking for your help and shit.

LIAM: He’s a big picture man. Here’s the detail fellow.

TRAVIS: You know how tired I am right now?

LAURA: We’re so tired.

TALIESIN: I think that we’ve been thinking about this the wrong way. I think that we’ve been treating this as a battle. And we have to start treating this like a war, which is a very different creature.

SAM: Are we guerrillas?

TALIESIN: We are absolutely not.

LIAM: Beret.

TRAVIS: Wolverines!

TALIESIN: We need to reinforce this city not as a final stand, but as a place where there might be survivors. Because if they come here, there’s no battle to be fought. It’s just a loss.

LAURA: We need to take it–

MARISHA: Elsewhere.

MATT: At this point Jarett steps out from back of the room and says, “The more time that goes by, the more chance there is that the battle, the war, will be fought here. On our turf. The faster we move, the better chance we have of bringing it to theirs, so let us not dilly-dally.”

MARISHA: You mentioned about having our own mole at one point. Our own inside man.

TRAVIS: Yeah. Scanlan.

SAM: I’m not going to volunteer myself as a slave to the dragon.

TRAVIS: Keep thinking about it.

LIAM: You are a sexy dinosaur.

SAM: I’m considering it.

TRAVIS: You’ll be the Hercules Mulligan of Vox Machina.

ALL: Hercules Mulligan!

TALIESIN: I would like to talk to some of the magic users about installing some sort of– or perhaps helping me install a non-magical dragon raid signal so that the population knows to be quiet, and knows to quietly go underground. In the event of the next fly-by.

MATT: They all look at each other and Gilmore nods. “That’s actually, I wouldn’t say rudimentary, but it’s definitely within my skill set.”

TALIESIN: Would triggering it possibly alert them to our existence? Does it make holding up the shield–

MATT: “Not if I can maintain it underneath the barrier.”

SAM: Does the barrier block sound and visuals?

MATT: “It should.”

SAM: And is there any way that we can help you make this barrier more permanent and stronger?

MATT: “I don’t know. This was crafted for this reason. This isn’t a long standing existing incantation. This was crafted through the minds of Drake Thunderbrand and Allura and myself and Pike’s aid. This is a new magic, it’s experimental, and to be perfectly honest, I’m very glad it succeeded because I was–”

LAURA: Just guessing?

MATT: “Essentially.”

LIAM: Also, Gilmore, as a sidebar, what about that black ball beneath the city? Has anything been learned of it?

MATT: “We’ve been a bit distracted.”

LIAM: That’s what I thought.

TALIESIN: I would like to put it to use.

LAURA: Wait, what?

TALIESIN: We’re at war.

LAURA: We can’t move it.

TALIESIN: We’re not going to move it.

SAM: We’re going inside it.

TALIESIN: I want to put the private council table in the room with it.

SAM: In the room where it happens?

LAURA: So they can’t scry into the room, it cancels all magic.

TALIESIN: So no glamor will survive, no magic will survive, no trick can be allowed.

MATT: “I love your mind, Percy. Have I told you that? I love your mind. I love it.”

TALIESIN: That’s probably a bad sign, but thank you.

MATT: “We’ll do that immediately. It sounds like a grand plan.” Assum says, “Not a worry. We’ll do that immediately.”

SAM: We’ll just have to Seeker Assum that it happened?

(laughter)

TALIESIN: We should move quickly. We should pick a couple of Vestiges and move quickly, collect them. Start finding more allies, move quickly. But we should not dally too long.

MARISHA: And I agree, we might not be able to wait to get them all before we start taking on dragons. We might want to do both.

MATT: Jarett says, “If you’re looking to go to the Ozmit Sea, you’ll probably need a ship of some kind. It’s quite a far travel and that distance as well and the docks on the west coast right now are, well they’re locked down at Emon.”

TALIESIN: Could Cabal’s Ruin–

LAURA: How long is the travel to Marquet?

MATT: “Travel by boat, across the Ozmit, maybe about a week, a week and a half. Skyship, maybe half as long.”

SAM: Airship. Airship. Airship?!

MATT: Gilmore actually steps in and is like, "Technically, I have a teleportation sigil outside the city. I could probably just get you there.”

SAM: Wait, to go to where? Marquet?

LIAM: Walking is really good for the health though.

MARISHA: And first level characters, which we are not.

SAM: Hold on. Before we decide that Marquet is the thing.

TALIESIN: It’s Cabal’s Ruin, correct? We’re going to search for Cabal’s Ruin.

TRAVIS: Are we at all just forgetting the fact that Draconia is lying in ruins?

TALIESIN: We don’t have time.

LAURA: No, it’s not about time. The dragon is sitting on top of Draconia.

SAM: So we know where to find him to kill him.

LAURA: Unless we know how to take on that dragon, we can’t save anyone.

SAM: We’ve killed dragons before.

TALIESIN: I will feel better with one or two more Vestiges in our pocket.

LIAM: By the skin of our teeth, Scanlan. By the skin of its gut.

TALIESIN: We got lucky.

SAM: I like Grog’s idea. Is there a way to explore that any further?

MARISHA: Pitting the dragons against each other?

SAM: Yes!

TALIESIN: I think it’s a great idea worth exploring.

LIAM: Seeker Assum is on it. He said that he was going to–

SAM: Seeker Assum is great, but we’re the best in the business. I wouldn’t leave our plan A to someone not us.

LAURA: Seeker Assum is telling people that this city has been magicked away.

MATT: Assum is also still at the table.

MARISHA: Yeah, he’s right there.

TALIESIN: We’re drunk, we will talk about you in third person as much as we want.

LAURA: We’re just reiterating the things that you told us you were going to say.

MATT: “That’s all right.”

TALIESIN: We figured you would speak up if you had issue.

LAURA: Plus it’s really fun to say your name.

MATT: “Never heard it before, I assure you.”

TRAVIS: How far away is Draconia from here? Travel wise?

MATT: “Well, my usual travel to Wildemount is across the northern channel here. I’d say you’re looking at about two weeks of travel by ship across the Lucidian Ocean.”

MARISHA: Or we can always teleport. I can Tree Stride. I can always Tree Stride.

SAM: Have you been to Draconia?

MARISHA: I can scry and look at a tree.

MATT: Tree Stride is a short distance. You mean Transport via Plants.

MARISHA: Whatever. They all sound the same. I can scry, look at a tree, and then we go through that tree.

SAM: If there’s any trees left.

LAURA: There’s definitely at least–

MARISHA: I’m hoping there’s a tree on that continent.

LIAM: Are we talking though about how scrying is a little dangerous right now?

MARISHA: When you’re scrying on dragon.

LAURA: When you’re scrying on a tree.

MARISHA: Yeah, the tree doesn’t know it’s being spied on.

TRAVIS: Doesn’t Draconia have an army there? If there are any survivors, anyone we can bring back to Whitestone, shouldn’t we be accumulating those people?

TALIESIN: I think if there’s a dragon sitting on top of them, removing people from him is–

TRAVIS: We’re sneaky, we’re so sneaky!

LAURA: Are we sneaky?

TRAVIS: Yeah! Pike’s not even here.

LAURA: You have your memories of the Feywild, do you remember sloshing around in that black sludge? Very loudly?

MARISHA: Do you remember us walking into the town center to kill Kevdak? That wasn’t sneaky.

TRAVIS: No, no that was personal.

TALIESIN: Grog, I think you’re thinking of a battle we can win, as opposed to a war we’re losing.

TRAVIS: Yeah, no, look I’m not trying to pick a fight with a dragon, I’m just going to make sure that dragonborn are there and we can help them.

TALIESIN: We can help them by killing the dragon.

LIAM: Yes.

TRAVIS: Wow.

TALIESIN: Vax is agreeing with me.

MATT: “Actually that’s pretty sound. If you manage to defeat the dragon there, you’ll probably gather the survivors and have them join the cause against Emon. If you have means of transporting them. Remember, once a dragon is down, it’s–”

LAURA: It’s on.

MATT: “It’s on.”

SAM: Grog is the best thinker.

MARISHA: Yeah. We pull the trigger on one, we pull the trigger on all of them.

LAURA: I can’t believe if we fight one that means we have to fight–

TRAVIS: Well, listen. Again, I’m not trying to kill the white dragon.

TALIESIN: What is the white dragon going to do–

TRAVIS: I want him to go pick a fight with the other dragons.

LAURA: How are we going to do that, though?

LIAM: We’re working on that as a side venture. What are we going to do there to make that happen?

MARISHA: We can’t really stroll up to it and be like–

TRAVIS: You guys don’t know how to pick a fight? You honestly can’t brainstorm one way to pick a fight?

MARISHA: We are very good at picking fights. It’s getting the dragons to pick fights on others.

SAM: We can probably plan a ruse.

LAURA: Oh, and how would you do it, Grog?

TRAVIS: I would talk mad shit to the white dragon on behalf of the green dragon. I would rep the green dragon.

LAURA: Oh my god, Grog, he will never see through that! That’s brilliant.

LIAM: You are really strong. That’s the end of it, I have nothing else to say.

TRAVIS: I’m just saying, I feel like an opportunity’s being wasted here.

TALIESIN: I think an opportunity’s being tabled briefly.

MARISHA: We’ve got to think about it.

TALIESIN: I don’t think this is nearly as time sensitive.

TRAVIS: Fine. Someone else do the thinking.

MARISHA: Breeding hostility between the two is something that could take weeks, which we don’t have.

TALIESIN: Well, we could start it. It’s also something other people can do while we do other things.

LIAM: Yes. Delegate.

MARISHA: But how? It literally involves going to one dragon and saying: Hey, did you hear what that other dragon said about you? That’s all I got.

TALIESIN: Well, there are other ways to do it. In traditional warfare, you can do things like cause damage to the property of one dragon and leave scant evidence that the other dragon, or one of the dragon’s people, was somehow responsible. Have a raiding, somehow get wyverns to raid near–

MARISHA: Wait, hang on. That first thing you said.

TALIESIN: Yes. It’s the easiest level.

MARISHA: I think I might have an idea. Okay, we know the white dragon is vain.

LAURA: Right? We know that?

MATT: All dragons to an extent are vain. It’s part of the nature of the chromatics.

SAM: White dragon loves the thrill of the hunt.

MATT: The white dragon is the most comparably primal. They’re all in various stages of hyperintelligence. The white dragon is the one that’s the most… beastlike.

TALIESIN: If the white dragon is a hunter, the easiest way to incite damage is to sneak into the city and start mauling and killing Draconians that are left over, and just leaving bodies everywhere that he wasn’t responsible for.

MARISHA: What?!

TALIESIN: That is the sort of decisions we’re going to start having to make.

LAURA: What if somebody can Polymorph into a little green dragon or something?

MARISHA: Yeah, you went to 11 there on let’s start continuing the genocide.

LAURA: Fuck shit up as a dragon and leave evidence behind as a green dragon.

SAM: I’ve seen the green dragon. Raishan?

MATT: You have seen the dragon.

SAM: How big?

MATT: Gargantuan. And you cannot Polymorph into dragons. You can only transform into beasts.

SAM: I understand.

MATT: Fairly large, yeah. I’d say probably– Raishan is the smallest of the dragons you saw, but even at the smallest of them, is still a good 30 feet to the shoulder.

SAM: I could do that.

LIAM: Gather all the papier-mâché you have in the city.

SAM: I could do something pretty close to that.

TRAVIS: I bet you could do a lot of incredible things.

SAM: Are you Tony Robbins?

(laughter)

TALIESIN: I think this is a conversation that can continue through Marquet. I don’t think we’re going to come up with the best idea tonight.

MARISHA: But we need to get something started. Here’s what we learned.

SAM: At dawn.

MARISHA: At dawn we drink some more. We learned that Thordak is enslaving sculptors to build his image all around Emon. What we have learned is it seems that each of the dragons have picked a city, a domain. Maybe this domain was part of the bargain to join Thordak’s cause. Help me, you get your own city.

TALIESIN: A reasonable and astute observation, yes.

MARISHA: So I bet the white dragon would be real pissed off if statues of Thordak started popping up around Draconia.

LAURA: Or the green dragon.

MARISHA: Or the green dragon.

TRAVIS: Or maybe even statues where Umbrasyl’s nest was.

TALIESIN: Let’s pick a dragon.

LAURA: Vorugal is the white dragon?

SAM: Raishan is the green. Here’s the problem with goading Vorugal the white to find and kill Raishan the green. No one knows where Raishan the green is, including Vorugal.

LAURA: How do you know Vorugal doesn’t know?

SAM: Because Raishan’s the shapeshifter, and no one knows where she is, including Gilmore, who’s been scrying for a week to try to find her.

LAURA: Yeah, but the white dragon might have some way to communicate.

TRAVIS: Do we know how they communicate?

LIAM: Yes, we do. There were some baubles in a wall in Krieg’s secret cave.

LAURA: They have other balls, right?

TRAVIS: Gilmore, Assum, do either of you have a theory on how they communicate?

MATT: Gilmore looks to Assum. “I have not been to any of their bases. Assum, you’ve been watching Thordak.” He looks back. “Within his domain in the Cloudtop, he has… apparently an overhead airplane.”

LAURA: It’s very loud.

MATT: Trust me, it was strange. “He has a number of various spies that are sworn to him that act as his network of information to and from the Cloudtop and his throne of black glass and molten rock. He does have singular pillars placed around that contain four orbs that he would speak into on occasion.”

MARISHA: And didn’t we see something similar in Umbrasyl’s and when we killed the blue?

LAURA: We saw orbs in Umbrasyl’s?

MARISHA: Yeah, remember, it cracked and it was like, I’m coming for you! And we were like, we don’t know what that means! And we ignored it.

LAURA: That was in Brimscythe’s.

LIAM: Did we see that in the black?

TRAVIS: They were broken already.

MATT: Yeah. They were already shattered.

LAURA: He shattered them. Fuck.

SAM: Why did he shatter them?

LAURA: So that we wouldn’t be able to scry on anyone else. Or he was pissed!

SAM: He was pissed at the other dragons, maybe.

LIAM: But it’s not safe to assume– Assum, sorry– that they’re not in communication. We have to assume that they are. I’m so sorry.

MATT: “It’s all right. It’s not like my childhood friend Purvon.”

(laughter)

TALIESIN: There is a thought. This is a very good idea. You’ve got a very good idea.

SAM: What’s the idea?

MARISHA: I said we start planting statues of Thordak or Raishan in other dragons’ territories. Ultimately, though, what we need is we need someone who knows the dragons’ weaknesses. We need to know what pushes their buttons.

SAM: We know what pushes their buttons.

TALIESIN: We need to know what pushes the reset button. Why am I speaking in video game metaphor?

LIAM: What?

TALIESIN: Nothing. Drink.

SAM: We can throw up some statues and cause some havoc, but if they have these orbs that communicate with each other, then the white can call Thordak and say: Hey, what’s up with these statues? And Thordak can say: No, it’s not me.

TALIESIN: Not statues. Idols. Small images of the white dragon for worship.

LIAM: You’re gambling on jealousy.

TALIESIN: Start hiding them in places. If we start seeding them, especially in Emon, as if he is trying to get people to worship him in other cities as well, silently, quietly underneath–

SAM: We’ll make t-shirts that say Team Vorugal.

TALIESIN: We just have to make sure that we don’t use the stone from here.

MARISHA: Well, because we know that Thordak is definitely vain.

TALIESIN: And this will piss him off. And if he says what are you doing, I don’t know anything about this.

LAURA: Yeah, he would deny it. Of course he would deny it.

MARISHA: And we’re assuming– sorry– that they’ll ask instead of jumping to conclusions.

TALIESIN: I like it.

LAURA: Even if he jumps to conclusions, he would be pissed.

SAM: But we know that Thordak is a total asshole– Sorry.

(laughter)

SAM: So we know he’ll be pissed off, more or less.

MATT: His scarred eye twitches for a moment.

MARISHA: And we wonder why people hate us.

MATT: Assum leans into the conversation and goes, “We have many crafters and artisans that are within the grasp of the Clasp as well, within Emon. We can begin to have these made and scattered throughout the various offerings brought to the center of the city.”

TALIESIN: Little shrines, hidden in ruins.

MATT: “I like this.”

MARISHA: Hashtag Team Vorugal.

MATT: “We can make this happen.” You can make that happen. Hashtag Team Vorugal.

TALIESIN: I still will admit that Cabal’s Ruin is one of the Vestiges I feel would be– and not just because I would like to use it.

MARISHA: Is Ank'harel and the Ozmit Sea in the same area? Can we hit one on our way to the other?

MATT: The Ozmit Sea is in between Tal'Dorei and– from your perspective, it’s Tal'Dorei and Marquet, and the Ozmit Sea is what’s in between.

TALIESIN: So we could do a triple.

MARISHA: We could do a triple. Because I have to get to the Water Ashari at some point.

TALIESIN: And that’s very important, because we need them on our side.

SAM: Between what and what?

TALIESIN: Ozmit Sea, so it’s over here.

SAM: It’s between what and who?

MATT: The Ozmit Sea is between Marquet and Tal'Dorei.

SAM: Is this Tal'Dorei?

MARISHA: We’re on Tal'Dorei.

SAM: So Marquet is Japan.

MATT: More Australia.

SAM: Got it. Is this world round? Can we go the other way?

TALIESIN: Actually, this world is shaped like a d20, so we’re on the flat part at the five.

SAM: Can’t go the other way?

MATT: You could eventually get there. It is round.

LAURA: Would I know how fast dragons can actually fly? If it’s a two-week trip to get to Draconia from where we are–

MATT: Two weeks via ship. Ocean ship.

LAURA: Okay. If they were flying, how fast could they get there, potentially?

TRAVIS: I’m only saying, maybe it’s empty, right?

MARISHA: What is?

TRAVIS: Draconia.

MATT: I’m going to make some mathematics here, if you’ll excuse me.

TRAVIS: I’m only saying, if they were just here–

SAM: But we could bamf there right now.

LAURA: Check it out and get out before they get back.

TRAVIS: Get people out, do recon, whatever.

SAM and MARISHA: Plant some seeds.

LAURA: They’ve probably left a good amount of army there to keep people under control. We’d have to get in and out in a couple of hours.

SAM: And what would our mission be?

LIAM: Dump a couple of statues.

LAURA: We don’t have them.

TALIESIN: Let other people do that.

SAM: Wait. What about, instead of dumping statues, we find these orbs? We find his lair, we find his orbs, and we call Thordak and we do a voice like: Yo, Thordak! You’re a dickhead! I’m going to come kill you! Or we just smash them.

TALIESIN: I don’t know why everyone’s so excited about the notion of pissing off the dragons to the point at which they all come here, but it is a way to go.

SAM: They don’t know we’re here.

TALIESIN: They know we’re here.

TRAVIS: I’m just pointing out an opportunity where there is one.

SAM: That’s true.

MATT: A few days.

LAURA: It would take them a few days to get there?

TRAVIS: A few days? We would have a whole fucking day!

MARISHA: What time is it?

MATT: At this point in time, it’s mid-afternoon, evening.

SAM: We have to rest.

LIAM: Percival, even just for intelligence, even if it was brief, even to see what is going on there.

TALIESIN: We have to make sure that we can get out immediately, and we also have to agree that if things start looking too iffy, we run.

MARISHA: I have an idea.

SAM: You have the best ideas.

MARISHA: Thank you.

SAM: Lay it on me.

MARISHA: Can you Seeming us to all look like lizard army members?

SAM: Tomorrow. And we’ll look like us, except vaguely like lizard people.

TRAVIS: Why not wyverns?

SAM: First of all, the lizard army, is that different from wyverns? So they’re just scaly creepers. I can do that.

LAURA: Have you seen the lizard people?

SAM: No, but I’ll see them when we get there.

LAURA: Okay.

MATT: You’ve come across a few of the lizardfolk. They attacked you in Emon. They were on the wyverns. They’re humanoid. They’re a little larger than one of your half-elf companions or Percy.

MARISHA: We fought them on the airship, too, right?

MATT: No, those were bandits. You fought wyverns.

SAM: We could be lizard people, for sure.

LAURA: Wait, what?

TALIESIN: We could look like lizard people, and it would trick anybody who wasn’t a dragon. And if the dragon came, we would be fucked. That would be the end. That would be game over.

SAM: (singing) We could be lizard people!

TALIESIN: I’m going to go on record as saying I do not think this is the right move.

LIAM: What do you think is the right move?

SAM: He wants to go to Marquet to find some cloak that may or may not help us in a week.

TALIESIN: Will help us. Getting three more Vestiges, two more Vestiges, just a little bit more power before starting to play chess again.

LAURA: Really the only point of going there would be reconnaissance. That’s it. No fighting.

TRAVIS: When else are we going to know for sure?

TALIESIN: There’s an ancient dwarven saying, and I’m trying to remember where I heard it, but it goes somewhere along the lines of, it’s never a three-hour tour. That’s my fear.

TRAVIS: Yeah, I know an ancient dwarven one that says no risk…

SAM: That’s it.

TALIESIN: Your mind is a grandfather clock, you know that.

TRAVIS: Thank you.

TALIESIN: It’s correct twice a day, easily.

SAM: If we go, what is our mission?

TALIESIN: Thank you.

MARISHA: To get as many innocents out as we can.

LAURA: No. That sounds wonderful, but if we get people out, they’re going to know something happened.

MARISHA: I figured if we find good fighters once again, and do our tree, our teleport thing–

SAM: We can get 13 people out. That’s it.

MARISHA: But it could be the 13 people that could change the tide.

TALIESIN: This is not going to be a fight of 13 people.

SAM: We had a group of 50 goliaths, and they were all killed instantly.

MARISHA: That’s what I’m saying.

LAURA: Plus, if we’re lizard people, the survivors aren’t going to be wanting–

TALIESIN: They’re going to be wondering who we are, first off.

LAURA: They’re going to be afraid of us.

SAM: I would only want to go there if we had a distinct plan to disrupt or trick or steal.

TRAVIS: Disrupting communications is a great tactic.

TALIESIN: We’re not going to be able to disrupt communication.

TRAVIS: You don’t think we’re going to make it to the jewels and smashy-smash?

TALIESIN: No.

MARISHA: I don’t think that’s a good idea.

SAM: And I slice the dragon’s throat! And I say, I am victorious!

LIAM: That sounds like a plan. Let’s go.

MATT: So what are you guys doing?

TALIESIN: Tightening up. We’re going to go. What are we going for?

SAM: Smash the orbs.

MARISHA: Well, here’s something else I want to put into perspective. If I scry and teleport us to the black dragon’s lair, I can do one more scry, and then I would burn my seventh level spell to get us there again, and then I’d be tapped out.

LAURA: So we wouldn’t be able to bamf out.

MARISHA: We wouldn’t be able to bamf out that day. We’d be staying the night.

SAM: But I can get us a safe place to stay for the night, no matter where we are.

TALIESIN: But it means this is not a one-day, this is a three-day mission.

MARISHA: I could not teleport us. It depends on how many times. I’ve got two teleports, so I can teleport us there and teleport us out, but we’d be doing it from here.

TALIESIN: We teleport to the black dragon’s lair, we sleep overnight, teleport in, teleport out. And then sleep overnight, teleport either to Whitestone or to Marquet.

SAM: Can you teleport today? Or are you done?

MATT: You can only use that once per day, though, right?

MARISHA: I used Plane Shift. I didn’t use Transport Via Plants. Yes. Wait. No. I Moved Earth. I can’t do it today. It has to be tomorrow. And if that’s the case, it’s tomorrow, then we lose that two-day grace period. Unless we go right now and sleep overnight in Draconia and start first thing in the morning.

TALIESIN: And risk a very reasonable reason that they would know where we are.

MATT: As far as I know, Plane Shift can’t teleport you on the same plane. It brings you specifically to another plane of existence.

MARISHA: Yeah. I’m saying I cast Plane Shift from the Feywild to here. That’s all I’m saying. But I used that, and that’s a seventh level spell.

SAM: So if we go to Draconia tonight, if we want to sleep in the mansion, we can’t, because I changed his memory.

LAURA: Oh fuck.

SAM: So we would have to sleep out in the open as lizard people.

LAURA: Nope.

LIAM: Too many negatives now.

LAURA: This is danger zone.

MARISHA: We’re getting a lot of cons. There’s not so many pros.

TALIESIN: We need to sleep anyway, because we’re exhausted.

TRAVIS: Oh man. I can find all sorts of problems with a situation if I look hard enough.

TALIESIN: That is so astute. It’s 12:00. My god, he had a thought.

TRAVIS: Opportunity. Honestly. There’s a dragon’s perch, and he is vacated, and it will probably never happen again as far as we know.

TALIESIN: I disagree. I think the next time they come to attack and kill us, it will be vacated.

TRAVIS: Cool. While they’re killing Whitestone because we didn’t take advantage of this moment, then we’ll go to Draconia.

TALIESIN: I agree. I legitimately agree.

LAURA: We can sleep and wake up in the morning and teleport there.

TALIESIN: We do have to sleep, regardless. There’s no getting around sleep.

LAURA: We can’t fucking go there when we haven’t slept, Grog. We’ll all die.

TALIESIN: We can’t actually get there right now.

MARISHA: There’s also no guarantee that they’re going straight back there. Maybe they’re heading somewhere else. They were heading with an army to somewhere. It’s probably not a city they’ve already conquered.

TALIESIN: They were heading southeast.

MATT: Southeast is what you saw, yes.

SAM: That’s where they live.

TALIESIN: So they’re probably heading back home.

MARISHA: Balls. Then where did they come from? What were they doing?

LIAM: They were fishing.

TALIESIN: They thought that we might be here, and they took a quick look around, which is why I don’t want to make any more noise around here.

SAM: Let’s sleep.

TALIESIN: I’m going to go to the barkeep.

MATT: There is no barkeep here. This tavern has been opened just for you guys to be served. There is no current owner here. Most everyone who helped you open this are yourselves and a couple of civilians that were just there.

TALIESIN: Is there a civilian waitress?

MATT: There is no waitress. There are a couple civilians outside, but as soon as you guys started talking, all the civilians left the room.

LAURA: They’re so nice.

TALIESIN: There’s no barmaid at all?

LIAM: Your nobility is showing, Percival.

SAM: I need a young boy.

(laughter)

LIAM: These white gloves are sullied. I need a new set of white gloves, please.

TALIESIN: They’re shooting mittens, and you’re so uncouth.

SAM: I have an Unseen Servant. Do you need a servant? I make an Unseen Servant for him.

MATT: There’s a wisp of air.

SAM: Command him as you see fit.

TALIESIN: Never mind. This is what I get for trying to be nice to anybody. I’ve learned my lesson.

SAM: I tip the Unseen Servant.

MATT: You toss the coin and it (clinks) to the ground.

TRAVIS: I pounce on it.

MATT: You (soft impact) into this weird cluster of air. It’s pushing your beard hair back, and your mouth is full of all that air pushing into it as you reach into the Unseen Servant, grab the coin, and pull it out.

TRAVIS: Yeah.

MATT: Well done. You got a gold.

TALIESIN: We’ll sleep for now. We’ll wake up in the morning, and we’ll either go in one direction or the other.

LAURA: Good plan, guys. Good plan.

MARISHA: We came up with nothing.

TALIESIN: That’s so not true. We came up with a lot. We just have to sleep and then make a decision based on what the world looks like in the morning.

LIAM: Dream about a cloak, Percival. Maybe we can get you a cloak.

TALIESIN: That cloak sounds useful.

MARISHA: All right, let’s sleep. Let’s go to the castle.

MATT: You guys find your way to the castle.

TALIESIN: As a side, I want to grab Vex for a quick walk on the way to the castle. I want to go by the cemetery. Has it been worked on, by the way? I suppose I’ll find out.

LIAM: You did say Vex, right?

TALIESIN: Vax.

LIAM: You said Vex.

TALIESIN: Vax. I’ve been drinking. I’ve not even been drinking, I’ve been pretend drinking.

MATT: All right. You grab him.

TALIESIN: I have something to show you.

LIAM: What is it?

TALIESIN: You’ll like it. Well, I don’t know if you’ll like it. I don’t know what you like. I’m going to take him to the cemetery, to the crypt. The title I gave your sister doesn’t come with much, but it does come with one, at the moment, tiny plot of land, on which a crypt sits. This was the resting place of the father and grandfather and assorted family members of the man you killed the first night we came here.

LIAM: You want my sister to live in a mausoleum?

TALIESIN: No. I want something else to live in a mausoleum. This is actually for you. Open it. I go and I light the two little torches on the side. This is very traditional, and it should open. Do you trust me?

LIAM: Uh…

TALIESIN: Good answer. I’ll go in first.

MATT: Percy enters the building.

LIAM: I follow.

MATT: Okay. As you enter the mausoleum, the gentle flickering of torchlight that was lit by Percy shows the interior, though it is low-lit partially, and your darkvision does catch you. What was once a relatively decent mausoleum seems to have been gutted, retrofit, and now you see standing before you, is a mostly constructed shrine to the Raven Queen.

TALIESIN: I figured it would be a good idea. I’ve had my fill of gods, but I’m not so foolish to think that we do not need them still. This is here when you need it.

LIAM: I am having trouble.

TALIESIN: Me, too. I do not want to die who I am. I would like to live long enough to be someone else. I think you understand that.

LIAM: I’ve been really angry at you.

TALIESIN: I’ve been encouraging it.

LIAM: I don’t know if it’s entirely fair, but I can’t shake it. I don’t know that I’m willing to let go of it yet.

TALIESIN: Good. I certainly do not deserve it yet. I don’t know if I ever will. But I can’t think of anything else to do with my time on earth right now, other than… this. I am finished with gods. They will not help me. Maybe you will.

LIAM: Percy.

TALIESIN: Yes?

LIAM: I’ve always liked you. From the beginning, I’ve always liked you.

TALIESIN: I’ve always liked you, too.

LIAM: You are intelligent and charming.

TALIESIN: Thank you.

LIAM: And good in a tight spot.

TALIESIN: It’s the open spaces where I suffer. The tight spots, I feel very good about. It’s the open spaces. This is a very tight spot.

LIAM: I would like to be friends with you again. I just have a condition.

TALIESIN: Yes?

LIAM: My penchant for forgiveness with my sister’s welfare is razor thin.

TALIESIN: I know.

LIAM: If you can respect that, then we don’t have a problem.

TALIESIN: Do you know why I titled your sister?

LIAM: I have some idea.

TALIESIN: She thought she was missing something that– and I use this term loosely– ordinary people… We have a magic we use, to convince people that we deserve the things we get, those of us who were born this way. It was treating her unfairly and limiting her ability to see her world for what it was worth, and it was a simple and easy fix. She is going to wake up one morning– not yet, but soon– and realize that money will not make her happy, and that trying to please that awful father will not make her happy. The first step in that is realizing that he’s weak, and there’s no better way to do that than being better titled than your parents.

LIAM: I don’t agree with that line of thinking.

TALIESIN: I know. But you are not her. And I’m not saying it’s the truth, but it is what I believe is in her heart. I think perhaps that might lift. I will never hurt her. I will never hurt anybody intentionally, especially not you, any more than I already have. In return, I ask: never take your eyes off me. Never trust me. And that is the best friend that you can be.

LIAM: I will recommit to that same promise I made.

TALIESIN: You can like me. I would love that. And in fact, I hope that I can earn your like.

LIAM: I do like you.

TALIESIN: I just never want to earn your trust.

LIAM: Well, then it’s your lucky day.

TALIESIN: A gentle title will suit your sister well. I’m leaving.

MATT: Percy walks out. You’re left alone in the silence and darkness, looking at the small shrine before you.

LIAM: I’m on board. You have me. Whatever you will. I have something I need to take care of, which you know, and I hope you will help me with it. But I do not take your gift lightly. You have me. I close the door again and head back to town.

MATT: Back into town. You guys quietly keep your distance in your walk, find your way back to the castle to your respective rooms, and an evening’s rest takes you all.

MARISHA: Do I hear Vax go to his room?

MATT: Are you waiting to hear Vax go to his room?

MARISHA: I’m waiting to hear Vax go to his room.

MATT: Actually, knowing Vax, you wouldn’t hear anything.

(laughter)

LIAM: 30.

MATT: You wait for a long time, and no sound comes to your ears.

MARISHA: I go to sleep.

MATT: All right. And with that, as you guys rest for the night, we’re going to take a quick bathroom break. We’ll be back here in a few minutes.

Part II
MATT: We had a friend come and deliver a gift to Laura, which you can see presented on the table now. It is a replica that someone, Kiki Day, made this awesome prop replica of Fenthras.

LAURA: I wish you guys could see it up close. Obviously, we’re going to send a picture on Twitter so you guys can see it, but it lights up different colors!

MATT: Design based on David Rodriguez’s concept art for Fenthras.

LAURA: It’s got Elvish for “protector” and “growth.”

MATT: That’s so badass.

LAURA: Did I say it right? Protector, not protection? Protector is right!

MARISHA: Protector and growth.

LAURA: Say what?!

MATT: That is awesome.

LAURA: Thank you so much!

MATT: Thank you, Kiki!

LAURA: You’re unbelievable.

TRAVIS: Should we put it down?

MATT: All right. There we go.

LAURA: Lean it up against the table.

MATT: So. As you guys come to consciousness the next morning, the storm has come in now–

LAURA: By the way, I got terrible sleep. I replayed everything Saundor said in my head a hundred times.

MATT: Make a general wisdom saving throw.

LIAM: You’re paralyzed from fear.

LAURA: I am terrible! Wisdom saving throw? 12.

MATT: 12? Okay. Your evening is hard-pressed. You do manage to get a full night’s sleep; you do not suffer any exhaustion. You do manage to get rest, though the nightmares do come in memory of your last encounter at the Feywild, and Saundor’s words still swimming around in your head, finding cracks in your sense of self. But you still are stalwart against the choice you made and the friends that were at your back. And as you all come to consciousness, the sound of rain outside of the castle against the exterior stone greets you with the morning. You can smell the fresh rain in the air, and eventually come down to find breakfast prepared, a meal earned.

TALIESIN: Not chicken.

MATT: Not chicken, no. This is eggs, fruits. A classic Whitestone breakfast. Chicken is available, but strangely untouched.

LAURA: Baked beans. Tell me there’s baked beans!

TALIESIN: The thick, single-slab bacon.

LIAM: Blood pudding.

MARISHA: Basically an Irish breakfast.

MATT: There are a few farms here, most are in the surrounding fields south of the city. It’s good. It’s fresh.

TALIESIN: The rain is good. It will mean that they’ll have an easier time figuring out the water level while they’re digging out beneath the Sun Tree and making sure that it’s secure. I love this weather.

SAM: Well? To Marquet or to Draconia? What’s it going to be? Should we vote?

TALIESIN: An attempt at an object of power or an attempt at friends in power?

SAM: Which is which?

TALIESIN: Draconia has friends in power.

MARISHA: Speaking of friends, we should probably check up on ours.

TALIESIN: (long sigh) That is true. We haven’t heard anything, but that is true.

MARISHA: We haven’t heard anything about him.

LAURA: It’s terrifying.

MARISHA: I know.

SAM: He’s probably okay.

TRAVIS: Who are we talking about?

(laughter)

SAM: Jarett.

TRAVIS: Oh.

SAM: Our only friend in Draconia.

TALIESIN: I personally would assume that Tiberius would either be on his way to one of the two cities, if he were so inclined. And if he had survived. And if he wasn’t working in the city itself to keep it functioning.

MARISHA: He’s hard-headed enough. So all of those things are very true.

TALIESIN: And again, we’re at war. This is not a battle. We do not win by going to Draconia. We do not win by going to Marquet. We win months from now. MARISHA: You’re starting to make less and less sense, Percy.

TALIESIN: No! I’m making perfect sense.

LIAM: Part of the traditional Whitestone breakfast is–

LAURA: A rambling de Rolo.

TALIESIN: Breakfast needs things to live.

(laughter)

LIAM: I think you got that backwards?

SAM: Whitestone continental breakfast. Two eggs, rambling tirade.

(laughter)

LAURA: Vote, then?

LIAM: Vote.

TALIESIN: I’m all right with a vote.

SAM: All right, all in favor of going to Marquet to find a Vestige that will maybe give us some more power that we need to kill a dragon, say aye!

TALIESIN and LIAM: Aye.

SAM: All in favor of going to Draconia, where we don’t really have a great plan but I think we’re going to go try to fuck up a dragon’s lair and maybe rescue five people and probably die as lizard people, say aye.

LAURA, TRAVIS, and SAM: Aye.

MARISHA: Aye.

LAURA: I’ve changed my mind. I want to go to Marquet now.

SAM: Three to three.

LAURA: Sorry. Oh shit! I didn’t mean to fuck that up. Trinket, what’s your vote?

TALIESIN: Hold on, let’s see if Ashley texts in the next ten minutes.

MATT: Three versus three. Are you going leave it up to the dice, being a game of DND?

SAM: Let’s do it.

MARISHA: Where’s that coin we have?

TALIESIN: I have it. I have it right here. Yeah.

LIAM: You could also do one to ten and 11 to 20.

TALIESIN: One or 20. Ready?

SAM: Wait, we’re just doing one flip?

LAURA: Yeah!

SAM: No. What?!

TALIESIN: Yes. It’s flipped!

LAURA: What is what?

MARISHA: Okay! 20 is Marquet and a one is Draconia.

SAM: What about all the other numbers?

TALIESIN: There’s only two! It’s a coin!

MATT: 20, Marquet. One is Draconia.

TALIESIN: And any other number, we stay home.

LAURA: What is it?

TALIESIN: We’re going to Draconia, and we’re going to see if we could find Tiberius.

SAM: Oh god!

LAURA: Let it be known, I don’t think we should go as lizard people anymore.

TRAVIS: Why?

LAURA: I think we should go as ravaged Draconians.

TALIESIN: I think we should go as Draconians.

MARISHA: We can make ourselves look like dragonborn with Seeming?

TALIESIN: I think that’s a better plan.

LAURA: At least that way, they’ll trust us.

TALIESIN: We don’t have to teleport to the middle of nowhere. Well, we do need to get farther away from here. Is there any way to get farther away from where we are right now before we–

LIAM: Can we get back to Umbrasyl’s lair? I thought that was a good idea.

SAM: We could go there and there and back.

TALIESIN: Well, as long as we commit to 24 hours in Draconia no matter what.

MARISHA: We can go to Umbrasyl’s lair, but it’ll take an extra day, because I can only teleport us so many times.

TALIESIN: I think 72 hours is a perfectly reasonable amount of time to dedicate to this prospect.

LAURA: Pop in, scry, pop into Draconia, look around and next day, pop out. Can we do that?

SAM: Yep.

LIAM: If we stop at Umbrasyl’s lair, is there anything we can do to run Grog out like a labrador? I’m worried about him not getting enough playtime in.

SAM: In Draconia?

LIAM: No, in the mansion. Can you bamf up anything for him in the mansion?

SAM: You’re talking about tonight?

LIAM: No. We’re going to go camp somewhere for a day, right?

LAURA: No, we’re going to Draconia.

LIAM: Right now?

SAM: Go to the black dragon lair, then go to Draconia, then spend a night there.

LIAM: I’ve been traveling with these fuckers for years, and I still don’t understand magic.

MARISHA: Hold on a second. We have two choices if we’re going to Draconia: we can either go to Umbrasyl’s lair to scry from there, then teleport there, which means we will be staying the night in Draconia.

SAM: In Draconia?

TALIESIN and MARISHA: In Draconia.

MARISHA: Or we go to Draconia right now, blindly, and then I’d still have a spell to get us out.

SAM: But they could track us back here.

LAURA: How can we go there blindly if you don’t know where a tree is?

MARISHA: Well, I’d scry.

SAM: And then they’d know where we are.

MARISHA: They could theoretically, if we get caught.

LAURA: We would only scry on a tree. We wouldn’t scry on a dragon.

TALIESIN: I have a compromise.

SAM: Actually, can I just throw this out? The only thing that would detect us scrying is currently flying over the ocean. We can scry right now.

TALIESIN: Let’s scry from the giant’s cave outside the city.

LAURA: It’ll still take a couple of hours to get there, though?

TALIESIN: Couple of hours to get there. It’s fine. It’s nine. It’s seven–

LAURA: It’s 5:00 in the morning!

TALIESIN: It’s 3am! Why are we awake?

MATT: You’re still drunk somehow.

TALIESIN: We get far enough outside of the city so at the very least–

SAM: To the giant’s lair! To scry!

MATT: North of the city, up into the beginning stages of the Alabaster Sierras, you find the abandoned fortress that is there, embedded on the side of the mountain wall. Keyleth, you are attempting a scrying spell? What are you scrying on?

MARISHA: Okay. I have the map of Draconia, let me just see if I can scry–

SAM: You know what you know in Draconia? Do you know what you know in Draconia? You know Tiberius and you know his armor, and you know his objects and personal effects?

MARISHA: No, we don’t know if he’s in Draconia.

TALIESIN: We may end up somewhere random.

SAM: That’s true. but what do you know what is in Draconia?

MARISHA: I know of the things that Tiberius has told us.

SAM: Do you know any of his friends or his family? Have we met his family?

MATT: You have not met his family. You’ve never been there.

MARISHA: I don’t need to have a known location, right? I can just scry in a general area, yeah?

MATT: You need generally a creature of some kind.

SAM: What about his little pet?

LAURA: Are you not scrying on a tree?

LIAM: Lockheed.

MARISHA: Lockheed has a higher chance of being dead than Tiberius.

TALIESIN: I think that’s underestimating, or overestimating– I don’t know.

LIAM: It’s a coin flip.

TALIESIN: It’s a coin flip, really. He’s small.

MARISHA: Well, this could answer our question. If I can’t find anybody, then we might be going to Marquet.

SAM: That’s true.

TALIESIN: Go for it, then. See what happens.

MARISHA: I guess it’s Tiberius, then? He’s all I got. It’s got to be someone that I know? It can’t be something I’ve heard about?

MATT: It can be something you’ve heard about. A person or a creature.

TALIESIN: A person or a creature, not a place?

MATT: Not necessarily, no.

TALIESIN: Can it be a magic object?

MATT: It would be a creature of some kind.

TRAVIS: We know about Tiberius. We know about Kruvanis Stormwind.

SAM: We know of Lockheed.

LIAM: The Mending Wheel. A creature only? Oh shit. Fucking magic!

LAURA: That’s what he just said!

MARISHA: Are we gambling on Tiberius being there?

SAM: You’re going to gamble on Tiberius?

MARISHA: I am gambling on whoever we scry to, because they could all be dead.

SAM: How many times can you scry?

MARISHA: Theoretically, four times.

LAURA: I’ve also got a Scrying Stone.

TALIESIN: Start with the stone.

MARISHA: That’s right, you’ve got that goddamn thing. Give me the stone.

LAURA: Here.

MARISHA: Thank you!

TALIESIN: I think we should call it rock. The Rock.

MARISHA: It doesn’t go away, right?

LAURA: No. it’s a Scrying Eye. You can use it once a day.

MARISHA: Yeah. Let’s do this!

SAM: Start with Tiberius.

TALIESIN: Start with Tiberius. We’ll work our way down.

MARISHA: Start with Tiberius.

LAURA: I was going to bring it out!

TALIESIN: No, you did wonderfully.

LAURA: It was just sitting there.

MATT: You take the object. You close your eyes, focusing on the memory and the life essence of Tiberius Stormwind. You project your thoughts into the ether. The nature energies carry you into the darkness, and there is no response.

SAM: No response?

MATT: No response. The scrying spell finds no target.

TALIESIN: That can mean a lot of things.

LIAM: Yes, does that stretch across the planes?

SAM: Does it?

MATT: Generally, it’s on the same plane of existence.

SAM: Okay. What about his father?

TALIESIN: Or Lockheed?

SAM: Well, Lockheed would be with–

TALIESIN: Not necessarily. How many times have we found stray cats?

LAURA: It’s true. Maybe scry on Lockheed.

MARISHA: Can I try it? Will it expend another spell?

MATT: This one will expend a spell.

MARISHA: It lasts for ten minutes? Oh, per spell.

SAM: So you’re burning your own spell slot.

MARISHA: Yeah, I’m burning my own spells.

LAURA: At least you got one for free.

SAM: Thanks, Vex.

MARISHA: It makes me very nervous.

SAM: We should do his dad.

TALIESIN: That would be who I would kill if I were taking over the city.

SAM: You just want to kill everybody.

TALIESIN: I do.

MARISHA: I’m going to try Lockheed. His dad could be in a place where he’s being watched.

MATT: Okay. So this time, you give the object back to Vex and you sit down and create the ritual space before you. You sit down in the center of the stone floor of the fortress and you close your eyes. This time, you send out your consciousness once more. The druidic energies carry you an extended distance in but a few moments, and your vision clicks in and you see, perched against a snow-covered rock in the inside of a ravine, a shivering, small, green dragonling. Alone, and is partially asleep against the stone. You can see just past over this large, gaping ravine that is the center of this portion of Wildemount, you can see scattered rubble covered in ice and snow and small distant things you can’t quite make out with your vision here occasionally moving through it.

SAM: Can you see any trees?

MARISHA: Do I find any trees?

MATT: Make a perception check.

MARISHA: 19.

MATT: 19. There’s no visible trees in the ravine. Anything that would be living down there has been– from your vision here– obscured by rock, rubble, ruined floating island, and snowfall. You do see growing out of the side of the rock, not far from where Lockheed is perched is one leafless, small branch of a tree that extends out. And as you glance up, there is a very thick tree that is currently jutting out the side of the mountain.

MARISHA: Does it appear to be natural?

MATT: It does.

MARISHA: And large enough to fit Grog?

MATT: Maybe.

LAURA: Jutting out the side of–

MATT: Yeah. It’s not sitting on ground, but is currently over the ravine.

MARISHA: Yeah, one of those. Any other trees? Is this the biggest or closest one?

MATT: That’s all you can make out from this perspective.

MARISHA: How big is the ravine? How deep is it?

MATT: From where you can tell right now, from the perspective you can see, looking at Lockheed, it’s probably a good 50-foot fall before you hit a scattering of broken rock, and eventually it comes into a grade to the bottom of the ravine.

TRAVIS: Not great.

MARISHA: Not a good option.

MATT: You guys have fallen 50 feet and been fine.

SAM: Someone has Feather Fall, right? No?

MARISHA: Did it look like a natural cavern or a man-made cavern that Lockheed was in?

MATT: From what you can tell, it looks natural.

MARISHA: Like he found a little cave and is hiding?

MATT: It’s less of a cave and more he’s perched on this little alcove, this little outcropping of rock on the side of the ravine wall.

MARISHA: Oh, he’s on the side of the ravine.

MATT: On the side of the ravine.

LAURA: Okay, I have an idea. What if we tie a rope on something on this side and we all go out of the rope really fast and drop down?

TALIESIN: Grog first.

SAM: Should you scry one more time, for the dad? Because best-case scenario, we’re in a weird, snowy ravine with no civilization around.

TALIESIN: We don’t want to be around any civilization. And also, that’s one more spell gone.

MATT: You did see, distant, blurred from your perspective, since the focus of the scry was on Lockheed, you did see movement and very small distant objects within the snow at the base of the ravine.

LAURA: They could potentially see us as soon as we come out of the tree.

SAM: Yeah, we’ll be far away.

MARISHA: They could be citizens, they could be creatures? I just saw movement of figures, I didn’t see any details?

SAM: Seems like a good plan.

LAURA: This is risky.

MARISHA: This is ridiculous.

TALIESIN: It’s true. There’s only risk at this point. Is this the risk we make or is this not the risk we make. Grog?

TRAVIS: Oh, are we asking for Grog’s opinion now?

TALIESIN: Only so that we can ignore it.

LAURA: You’re the one that was most adamant about us going there.

TALIESIN: With the new data, how do you feel?

TRAVIS: I think we should take the hint and not go.

SAM: But you said–

TRAVIS: Yeah, but I was picturing meandering out of a nice, beautiful tree in a forest.

SAM: It’s a little jolt. It’s a little fall. It’s fine.

LIAM: That’s it. He created this idea and he’s backing out.

SAM: You told us your famous phrase: all risk! That’s what this is.

TRAVIS: I do hate to have my own words used against me.

SAM: All risk. That’s what this is! We are doing all risk!

TRAVIS: I’m down to party. I’m just saying it was a little different in my head.

SAM: I’ve never known you to be a coward, Grog.

TALIESIN: No! Why would you do that?!

LAURA: Why, Scanlan?!

TRAVIS: I’ll go first. You hold my hand, and I’ll go first.

LIAM: He can play the fiddle very well.

TRAVIS: I’ll go. Let’s do it. I’m ready.

LAURA: Okay, before we go through, I’m going to cast Pass Without a Trace on us so we can stealth through the tree. Like that’s going to work.

TALIESIN: No, that’s a good idea.

LAURA: I’m going to look for something very solid. Are there trees around us that we can go through right now?

MATT: A short walk, you could get down to the base of the forest.

LAURA: All right. I’m going to tie the rope off onto a very sturdy thing next to a tree that we’re going to go through.

TALIESIN: We’re going to rappel.

LAURA: Yes.

TRAVIS: Does the portal only close after a couple seconds?

TALIESIN: Yes. Six seconds. We’re all going to hold on to the rope and we all go.

MATT: Six seconds for all of you to–

LAURA: Jump out!

MARISHA: Bungee-jumping out of a tree!

LIAM: We are fucking idiots!

MARISHA: This is the stupidest–

TALIESIN: This is a terrible plan. I want to go on record for saying I was against this plan–

SAM: We can just leave really quick! She’s got another teleport, yeah. We’re going to climb up to the tree–

MARISHA: I didn’t see Draconia. I saw the ravine, and it was snowy, so we can assume it’s nearby. But I didn’t see Draconia, did I?

MATT: You’ve never seen Draconia before.

MARISHA: But did I see a city in my scry?

MATT: You saw no city.

LAURA: You saw rubble.

MARISHA: Once again, Lockheed could have flown miles away.

TALIESIN: He could have.

SAM: At the worst, this is a quick recon mission. We jump back in the tree, we come back. 15 minutes.

LAURA: But there’s things that were crawling around amongst the dead.

SAM: They were far off in the distance!

TALIESIN: They weren’t that far off. But to be fair, this is what a plan is, is everything going wrong. So I’m all right with doing this, if we’re doing this.

TRAVIS: All right, sweet. I am, too.

MARISHA: All right, fuck it! Let’s do it.

MATT: All right. So you’ve affixed the rope at the base of the strongest tree you can find.

MARISHA: Are we going to tie ourselves to each other again, like before?

LAURA: No! Because that’s dumb. We’re going to break our backs. I’m going to cast Pass Without a Trace on everyone right now because why the fuck not?

SAM: You got a fucking broom. I’m hopping on the broom.

LAURA: Oh yeah, I’m on the broom. And he’s on the broom.

TALIESIN: Vex, we’re going to have the greatest I-told-you-so if we survive this.

MATT: All right. We have Vex and Scanlan on the broom.

TRAVIS: Should you make me some something teensy?

MARISHA: Oh, this is such a stupid idea…

TALIESIN: No, we’re going to need every spell we need in there. No, you’re the weight that’s going to hold the rope down, you’re going first.

MATT: Any of your spell prep?

LIAM: I’m going to pop my wings out and hook my arms under Kiki’s armpits.

MATT: Okay.

TALIESIN: I’m holding on the rope, because I’m an idiot.

MATT: All right. Grog and Percy holding onto the rope.

MARISHA: This is stupid. This is so stupid!

TALIESIN: I hate you all.

MARISHA: We’ve done so many fucking stupid things. But this is really stupid.

MATT: Vex casts Pass Without a Trace. The shadows reach around and embrace your forms. You become more obscured the further the light is from your body. Keyleth, what are you doing?

MARISHA: I cast Transport Via Plants on that big, fatty tree!

MATT: Keyleth touches the edge of the tree, the rope which is affixed to above. The trunk (portal opens).

MARISHA: Everyone ready?

TALIESIN and MARISHA: Go!

LAURA: I fly through stealthily.

MATT: You fly through stealthily.

LAURA: I’m trying to get down to the ground quickly and hide behind something.

MATT: Right. I would like all of you guys to make stealth checks at disadvantage.

TRAVIS: Yes! That’s awesome.

MARISHA: Oh, that’s not too bad.

TRAVIS: 17!

SAM: Pass Without a Trace?

TRAVIS: Oh. 27.

TALIESIN: 20.

SAM: 20.

MARISHA: 22.

LIAM: 35.

LAURA: 33.

TRAVIS: 27.

MATT: All right. As Vex and Scanlan scoot first through the opening, you coast down, and there is a cluster of rocks, but there’s a light snowdust, and you find a snowbank that you guys coast down to quickly. You can decide to float above the snowbank. What do you want to do?

LAURA: We get down on the ground and go under.

MATT: Okay, so you disappear under the snowbank. It is freezing cold, the wet immediately falling snow against your form begins to seep in. But you are below eye-level. Vax and Keyleth? You guys just dart through, you holding her.

LIAM: Fly through, and then once I see them hit the ground, I’m going to dive-bomb us, and I’m going to wrap us in a little wing bubble and roll into the snow.

MATT: All right. As you guys come falling out the side of the tree, you see nearby as a small, green tiny dragon gets startled and flies off. You guys go coasting, the wings expand for a second. It picks up and as you hit, whipping past the 15 feet of jagged rocks that were gathered at the base of the ravine, you scoot over it, the wings fold in around you, and you guys tumble into the snow. Make an acrobatics check with disadvantage because you’re grabbing onto her and are covered in wings.

LAURA: And you’re covered in wings.

LIAM: I rolled a 15 and a 20. That would be a 30.

MATT: You don’t feel the pain. And the wings do cause a significant barrier of impact, as well as the snow. As soon as you land, you go into a classic shoulder roll and use the inertia to not arise above the water. You both essentially coast sideways, stopping within the snowbank. From an overhead perspective, you can see a large swath has been carved through. But from visual eye range, at equal level, you guys still appear to be hidden within the snow. The two of you jump through and start rappelling down, Grog at the bottom end. Bringing the rope, bringing the rope down, bringing the rope down. It slams shuts, the rope cuts at the other end as the portal closes. Percy, you just make it out as the rope gives way. It is now Grog and Percy plummeting toward the ground.

MARISHA: I cast a Grasping Vine to grab Grog.

MATT: You don’t have the opportunity, because this all happens in a period of six seconds and you guys just landed and coasted in the snow.

TRAVIS: Am I right under Percy?

MATT: He’s about five feet ahead of you, yeah.

TRAVIS: (laughs)

TALIESIN: I’m going to let that happen.

MATT: You’re cushioning his fall?

TRAVIS: Yep.

MATT: All right. Make an acrobatics check, just for the hell of it.

LIAM: I love this game.

TRAVIS: 13.

MATT: 13. As soon as you look over your shoulder and see the ground coming, you try and swing your legs underneath to catch you, to slide across. And you begin to. Your feet catch the rock and you feel the muscles tense. Your back gets jammed a little bit. And you catch Percy in your arms, but the momentum of Percy hitting you sends you back over, and you both tumble into the snow. You do prevent Percy from taking any damage, but you do suffer five points of fall damage.

LIAM: Stubbed your toe, big guy?

TRAVIS: I got a booby.

SAM: Is Lockheed within range still? Can we see him?

MATT: You guys make a perception check.

MARISHA: Can I look, too?

MATT: You’re just now getting up out of the ball of wings.

LAURA: 25.

SAM: Six.

LAURA: 25.

MATT: 25. You do see Lockheed is about 50, 60 feet up on the rock right now.

SAM: Where’s Lockheed?

LAURA: Can I whisper in Draconic? Lockheed! And whatever the word is for “Come to me.”

MATT: Seems too far to really be within earshot of a whisper.

SAM: I see her doing this. I point to him, and I cast Message, and I say: Lockheed! We’re down here! Come down! It’s us, your friends!

MATT: Lockheed (wingbeats) and then glides against the rock. And glides lower to the rock. Glides lower to the rock, and flies up– still keeping a cautious distance from you above the snow.

LIAM: Tibs. We’re friends with Tibs. Tiberius. You remember us?

MATT: You can see Lockheed a little closer now. You remember him being fairly sick when he was initially purchased. While the illness has passed, he looks greatly malnourished and thin–

LAURA: I pull out some of my food that I give to Trinket and try to feed it…

MATT: As soon as you pull out the food, Lockheed’s demeanor changes immediately. Darts up and almost latches onto your hand and causes you to jump–

LAURA: I cast Speak With Animals. Is he an animal?

MATT: Nope.

SAM: I have Speak With Small Beasts…

MATT: Not a beast.

SAM: Fuck you!

(laughter)

LIAM: He’s a little small monster.

LAURA: I would have known, as a dragon expert, that he’s not a fucking animal, then. Whatever.

SAM: What is a monster?

TALIESIN: Hit your head in the fall.

LAURA: I didn’t fall, I flew.

TRAVIS: Pike’s a small monster.

SAM: Just grab him and put him in the bag of holding!

MATT: At this point now, the temperature’s really set into you. You’ve heard stories. You’re familiar with the sound. The words you’ve heard of Wildemount, being largely a colder continent, especially to the north where the actual civilizations of man exist. Draconia’s a little further to the south, but also based on the information you have, this being taken recently as the den of Vorugal, there is an almost perpetual small snowstorm that is existing about this ravine, and the wind itself is beginning to cut through. Thankfully, you’re mostly armored up. For the time being, you’re fine. But you can see where this is a difficult weather pattern to perpetually live in. Lockheed finishes eating vigorously and seems to be waiting across your hand.

LAURA: Perch him on my shoulder and get out some more of the little boar meat we have in the bag of colding and feeding him.

MATT: He eats some, happily.

LAURA: Can I speak Draconic to him, see if he understands any of that?

MATT: What do you say?

LIAM: Tiberius was teaching him Draconic.

LAURA: Yeah, I know. I say “Where is Tiberius?” in Draconic.

LIAM: Where is home?

LAURA: Where is home?

MATT: (croaking)

LIAM: Unless Tibs got further along with him, it was one word–

SAM: He was teaching him “sit” and “play dead” and stuff.

LIAM: One word at a time.

LAURA: All right. Stay.

MATT: And stays and digs in the talons at the top of your leather armor shoulder, folds the wings in and just waits there, huddled up against your shoulder for warmth.

TALIESIN: I’m going to look around and see if there’s a direction in which it seems there’s civilization or any signs of battle or otherwise.

MATT: Make a perception check.

TALIESIN: 16.

MATT: 16. You bring your head above the snowline and you can see surrounding you– and you are in the center of this giant ravine that opens up to the sky. Not quite Grand Canyon size, but it’s about half the width. It’s a wide gulf. And you guys are on one side of where the ravine slowly begins to coalesce, and there’s various steps in which the ravine casts down. You were already towards the bottom when you landed. This could have been a lot worse were it higher up. Looking up, you see, just from this vantage point, dozens of large stacks of broken rock and stone. You see pillars that are jutting out of portions of this. You see partially and mostly collapsed buildings that themselves have been destroyed from serious impact. You recall, during the initial attack of the Conclave, that one of the things that was seen through a vision was the fall of Draconia, which were islands of stone that were held aloft through arcane means within this ravine. What you now look upon are all the fallen remains of each of these arcane islands now plummeted, crushed, and fell into the ravine and have been sundered and destroyed. You do see figures moving quickly and crawling over elements of it, and you see a cluster of them fighting over something and then disperse.

LIAM: How far off?

MATT: They’re probably a good 300 feet off.

LAURA: Could we tell what kind of creatures they are?

MATT: They appear to be humanoid, somewhat reptilian.

SAM: Should I make us lizard people?

MARISHA: Can I do a nature check to see if I can see the origin, the epicenter of the storm? Like the eye of the storm? Where it’s coming from?

TALIESIN: Clever.

MARISHA: 16.

MATT: 16. Best that you can view, the storm seems to be slowly spiraling, and a large heavy portion of the snowfall and sleet is hitting about a mile or so towards the right side of the ravine that you guys are looking at. From the wall you’re at, you have the right and the left sides of this current ravine structure, seems to be that direction, about a mile.

MARISHA: I think the dragon’s lair is that way.

SAM: Can you look around for more trees that aren’t so hard to get to in case we need to make a fast getaway?

TALIESIN: We could just keep our eyes open.

SAM: All right.

MARISHA: You said it was a mile. Can we traverse through the bottom of the ravine to get there in that direction?

SAM: Or is it all water?

MATT: No, you can.

TRAVIS: We’re going to crack out the good old Dust of Tracelessness since there’s knee-high snow?

TALIESIN: Let’s not be fleshy.

SAM: You want me to make us Draconians or lizard people?

TALIESIN: If we’re lizard people, Draconians will not trust us.

LIAM: Yeah. We can at least pretend to cower and be afraid of lizard men if we see them.

SAM: I don’t think Grog can cower.

TRAVIS: What is the definition of this word?

SAM: Be a wussy.

TALIESIN: Shaky dance.

(laughter)

LIAM: You know when you bang your balls on a rock or something? It’s like that, you go, (groans).

TALIESIN: Is there anything you’re not good at? Don’t think that hard. Never mind.

SAM: Draconians?

TALIESIN: Draconians.

SAM: I will cast Seeming on the party and make us all Draconians.

MATT: What kind of Draconians? There are many types of colors, there are those with and without tails–

SAM: Wasn’t Tiberius a strange one?

LAURA: Don’t do red!

SAM: He was a strange one, right?

MARISHA: He was the odd man out.

LIAM: They didn’t take kindly to him.

SAM: Metallic, yeah?

LIAM: Bronze?

SAM: Like gray, silver?

LAURA: Maybe it’s good to make us silvers and whiteish!

SAM: Bronze, silver, and gold then, I guess.

LIAM: That’s chromatic. Metallic! Bronze, silver, gold.

SAM: Yeah, we’ll do the Olympics.

MATT: With or without tail? Because you’ve met both.

TALIESIN: They won’t actually be tails. That might actually get us in trouble.

SAM: Which one was Tiberius?

MATT: Tiberius had a tail.

SAM: Do most of them have a tail?

LAURA: Gern didn’t have a tail and he was less than– I don’t think Draconians will like us without a tail.

SAM: We all have tails. Mine’s a little longer than the rest.

(laughter)

MATT: Keeping your normal attire, just on the top of the Draconian form?

SAM: No! What do Draconians wear?

LAURA: Rags! Put us in rags, like we’ve been living in rubble.

SAM: Raw silk and tattered clothes, just rags, terrible gray things.

LAURA: Make us look like we’ve been beat up.

SAM: Sure. We all have a single bruise.

(laughter)

SAM: In a different place on our face. Everyone’s got one face bruise in a different place.

MATT: All of your forms shift into that of various metallic dragonborn, with tails, adorned in rags, dirty. What do you do?

LAURA: Oh shit, who all speaks Draconic here?

SAM: You speak Draconic!

(laughter)

SAM: We’re all mutes. We’re lepers and mutes, and you are our doctor?

LIAM: Everybody else does fearful anime reacts the whole time.

(gasping)

TRAVIS: (speaking in Japanese)

LAURA: Don’t actually speak Japanese, Grog.

TALIESIN: We’re moving towards the epicenter.

MATT: You guys step up out of the snow and begin walking?

MARISHA: Stealthily.

LAURA: Okay, I’m stealthily leading us. That direction, towards where the lair is?

TRAVIS: Keeping an eye out for trees.

LAURA: And for any of the lizard creatures coming towards us.

MATT: Right now, no.

LAURA: Then let’s quietly make our way that direction.

LIAM: Remember, like you’ve been hit in the balls.

TRAVIS: Oh.

MATT: You guys cluster up and begin stepping above the snow, which is still about waist, knee-high for some of you. Making your way to the right of your current location, towards the center of the storm that Keyleth discovered. As you guys begin to walk, a nearby pile of rock and rubble, there was that one cluster of four, five of these moving lizard-like entities. Suddenly, one of them looks at your group, looks back at the rest, and they all stand up and look over in your direction.

SAM: You’re our leader, friend. Do we continue?

MATT: They’re just watching you. They’re not doing anything.

LAURA: Let’s injuredly keep walking.

MATT: They go back to rummaging through. You guys continue to walk. The ravine curves to the right, or at least begins to open up further to the right and you’re met with the next large structure of rubble. What you saw was the edge of an extremely large, once-floating island, now crushed and sundered across the ground. There are sheets of ice across parts of it. You can see the better part of a large palace or library that is now caved in partially. You can see frozen books scattered across portions of the stone and rock on the ground before you. You can see a series of huts have been constructed on top of this rubble, and there are some small fires lit, little plumes of smoke and probably two dozen dragonborn figures that are currently combing through the rubble.

LAURA: Do we see any books that seem interesting as we’re walking through them?

MATT: They’re underneath ice. You can try and chisel some out, if you like.

LIAM: Don’t have time!

MATT: A lot of it’s covered in snow. There’s some bits you can peek through and see sheets of ice and frozen books–

TRAVIS: Are there any frozen bodies?

MATT: As you begin to have a closer book as you walk by, there are many frozen bodies. You see many people, all dragonborn, some atop the rubble, some partially crushed, some partially locked in ice, some destroyed by some sort of an acidic substance. Some of them are covered in boils, and their face is locked in some sort of horrible coughing fit. This was a very terrifying battle scene that has transpired here.

LAURA: That means Raishan was here.

MARISHA: That means Thordak was here.

LIAM: Umbrasyl was here. Acid.

MARISHA: They attacked the cities as a horde.

MATT: There are no signs of anyone burned.

MARISHA: I thought you said ash.

LAURA: The people that are scouring through the rubble, are those dragonborn or just the lizard people?

MATT: Best that you can tell right now, it appears to be dragonborn.

LAURA: Can we look at their behavior and see what it looks like they’re doing?

MATT: Make an insight check.

TALIESIN: I would like to join that insight check.

SAM: I would not like to.

TALIESIN: Nine.

LIAM: Nine.

SAM: I will join that insight check.

MARISHA: I’ll join in, too.

MATT: You’ve already said no.

LAURA: 13. This isn’t having to do with dragons? So it’s 13.

MARISHA: I don’t do insight checks too often, I’m sorry. 22.

MATT: Did you roll or not?

TRAVIS: Oh, I rolled a ten.

MATT: Best you can tell, they’re surviving. They’re scouring through the ruins, trying to find anything of worth. Some of it’s finding wood and throwing it onto these little flame pyres that are scattered around the ruins. You begin to look and see that actually the sides of the ravine, there are hundreds of small caverns are carved into the rock. Not quite like a dense honeycomb style, but it looks like there is an entire cave city that lives within this ravine.

LIAM: And they’re not frozen over?

MATT: Some of them are covered in snow.

LIAM: But snow, not blasted with ice?

TALIESIN: They look like they’re in use?

MATT: Some of these dragonborn, they’re coming out of their huts. Some of them are still looking up at the sky nervously. They look over and see you guys approaching and a voice calls out, “Who goes there?”

LAURA: Friends. Friends of Stormwinds.

MATT: “Friends of Stormwind, you say? We have friends of Stormwind. Approach.”

LAURA: I walk up injuredly.

LIAM: I’m hobbling up behind.

TALIESIN: I’m cowering.

MATT: You guys cower and approach. Keyleth, Vax, and Vex, you notice as you approach that a number of the people that have all stopped and are paying attention are beginning to move around and encircle you.

LAURA: Pardon my friends, their tongues have been cut out by our captors. I’m all that’s left.

MATT: As you walk forward you can see the figure that’s talking to you, a very tall, burly, bronze-scaled dragonborn, long horns that protrude down the back in a slow curvature. No tail. In fact, you now notice that every single one of the dragonborn you’ve noticed here have no tail.

SAM: We had a 50-50 chance!

MATT: “Friends of Stormwind. That would make you Sky-walkers. I see your tails. You survive the onslaught and step into the den of those you persecuted. Well, what are your last words?”

SAM: This was a great plan.

LIAM: Drop it.

SAM: I don’t know what’s going on.

MARISHA: Is this all being said in Draconic?

SAM: It’s Draconian! I don’t know what’s happening.

LAURA: You know what, I don’t know what to tell you. Everyone with a tail’s an asshole. We got what was coming to us.

MATT: Make a persuasion check.

TALIESIN: Wow!

LAURA: 19?

MATT: He turns his head to the side a bit. (spits) “What skills do you have?”

LAURA: I can shoot.

MATT: “Is that all?”

LAURA: He makes boots.

MATT: “That’s a skill.”

LAURA: She’s really good at stonecraft.

MATT: All the other dragonborn that come behind you are now holding spears, some of them rudimentary-looking pikes that are just held up and pointed in your direction. You guys are now enclosed by about two dozen dragonborn. “Here are your choices: You die here like the scum you are–”

LAURA: Choice B.

MATT: “Then slavery it is.”

(laughter)

MATT: “You will join the rest of your ilk, and you will seek food for us. You will know what it’s like to be bent beneath the knee of those who do not deserve it. Put them in chains!”

LAURA: Oh, they’re going to know, as soon as we’re in chains.

LIAM: Well, we’re going to have a fight here.

LAURA: Oh, shall we drop Seeming? Perhaps we should drop Seeming?

SAM: What? Is it going well?

LAURA: Wait.

MATT: They approach, and stop for a second. A few of the folks who came over and went to grab for chains have stopped and are holding them in their hand.

LAURA: I have to tell you something. We’re not actually Draconian.

MATT: He leans in and gives you this very keen look now, and takes a few steps closer. He’s about five feet from you now. “From where I stand, you look pretty fucking Draconian to me.”

LAURA: Well, we have some really good magic users with us. Look, forgive us for making tails. We don’t know anything about your culture. We’re idiots! We came here because we know you’re under attack, and we’re trying to help.

MATT: “And you just wander into the caves of the Ravenites, dressed in the face of those that broke our backs?”

LAURA: Yep, because we’re stupid!

MATT: Make a persuasion check with disadvantage.

SAM: Disadvantage. Not good.

LAURA: 14?

MATT: 14? “Bring the chains. You have ten seconds to prove–”

LAURA: Drop Seeming, just drop it.

SAM: Really? It’s one of my better spells.

LAURA: I know, I’m sorry!

SAM: All right, poof. We’re back to normal.

MATT: All of your images fade. Everyone takes a step back. The spears come up even further, and there’s a little pause.

MARISHA: My tail’s gone! Bummer.

LAURA: No, believe me, you don’t want the tail.

MARISHA: But I enjoyed it.

LIAM: Does this make things better or worse for us?

LAURA: I repeat him.

MATT: Yeah, the reactions you get from them, you gather most of these don’t speak Common and none of them seem to understand what you’re saying.

LAURA: Here’s the thing. You’re being attacked by a white dragon.

MATT: “The white dragon came, and he tore down the Sky-walkers.”

LAURA: So you’re happy with it?

MATT: “Well, it’s put us in a better position.”

LAURA: Right. But now that the Sky-walkers have already been torn down, do you want to keep the dragon in charge?

MATT: “We owe the dragon for the freedom that he gave us.”

LAURA: So you serve one.

MATT: “For the time.”

LAURA: And he doesn’t punish you at all? He’s a good master?

MATT: “Those who deserve punishment get it. But we hunt with it. It brings us power. It promises expansion of the Ravenites, and we will no longer live under the boot of those in this countryside and this continent.”

LIAM: How’s it going?

LAURA: Really bad.

MATT: “We have children to feed. We have families of our own.”

LAURA: How can we help?

MATT: “How can you help?”

LAURA: That’s what we’re here for.

MATT: “Bring us food, bring us warmth, chop some firewood. Bring some trees. Work.”

LAURA: Gladly. But not in chains. We do this freely.

MATT: “Give us your weapons, and you can walk freely.”

SAM: Let’s kill them all.

LAURA: I’m sorry, that’s not happening.

MATT: “Then leave.”

LAURA: That we will.

MATT: “What is your business here, she who wanders in the faces of others?”

MARISHA: That’s a cool title.

LAURA: Yeah, add that to the list. Our entire landscape is under attack. Now, Vorugal has helped you, but they’ve made many others suffer, not just Draconians. Entire cities brought down, for nothing. We’re here to right the wrong and help in any way we can.

MATT: “You should talk to Tooma.”

LAURA: Tooma.

MARISHA: Tooma. It is not a tumor.

LAURA: We knew that was going to happen.

LIAM: Took about 1.5 seconds to fuck with Matt’s name.

TALIESIN: I think he assumed.

MATT: All you’re doing is putting fuel on the fire.

(groaning)

SAM: Is it Tooma?

MATT: Tooma. T-O-O-M-A.

LIAM: That’s totally different.

LAURA: Who is Tooma?

MATT: “Tooma is our chieftain. I’m not to make this decision. Come. No chains, for now.” They all stay with their spears still out in front, but they nudge you forward.

LAURA: I explain everything that’s happening in Common as we walk. Is everyone still cool with this? We’re going to the chieftain.

SAM: Just tell us when it’s time to kill everybody.

LIAM: We improvise. It’s what we do.

TALIESIN: I think this is actually going far better than I had hoped.

SAM: Just remember Vex, ticking time bomb here. We’ve got to get in, get out. We’ve got one day here.

TRAVIS: Are there any trees that we can see as we’re walking?

LAURA: They actually said they wanted us to chop firewood, so if we can get sent on that mission, we’re set.

MATT: Make a perception check.

TRAVIS: Hey, 19!

LAURA: Are we in the mountains? No. Are we?

LIAM: 29.

MATT: You’re in a ravine. Perception check was just for Grog, as he’s the only one that asked to look for trees. But you rolled a 19?

TRAVIS: I did!

MATT: Looking around, occasionally poking out of the rubble, you’ll see a tree. Most of them seem to have not fared so well with the cold weather and have been snapped or broken in the process of the falling rubble. You do make out, towards the edge on the other side of the ravine, beyond this giant one, you can see this one island, one larger island of the cluster that made up Draconia, fell in the center here and is broken apart. On the far end, you can see there’s a small cluster of trees, the hint of green still to them, some of them varying thickness.

MARISHA: I could work with that.

TRAVIS: Might be a long way, though.

LIAM: We’ve been here, what, ten minutes?

MATT: I’d say about 20.

SAM: So we’re going to go see Tooma, or we’re going to chop down some fucking trees?

LAURA: We have to go. They’re walking us to the chieftain. Can’t just walk away now.

MATT: You guys are prodded along, over the rubble, and as you come around you can start to see, where the outside of the island is broken rock, the center of it is broken structures. Buildings, homes, giant great marble halls, everything is mostly fallen in. You still see some structures standing, but at odd angles. There are sections of buildings that still show the outer outline of what once stood, but it is all a complete ruin. You do see every now and then a few large spikes of ice that are jutting out of portions, and you see bodies that are jabbed onto the spikes and left to freeze.

LAURA: Do they have tails?

MATT: They do. You move over the bulk of this giant pile of rubble and begin to descend the other side, and you can see now there is an active village here that is half-frozen entirely. Half of it seems to be abandoned; the other half of it is completely coated in solid ice. The crowd leads you past that abandoned village to a series of tunnels against the wall, maybe 300 or 400 feet past that cluster of trees that you saw. Leads you into this tunnel, and on the inside, there are small glow stones set in portions of the stone. Not naturally forming, but essentially small natural bits of torchlight just pressed into the stonework to give some sort of a light source. You’re led in for about five or so minutes. and you see other offshoot tunnels. It’s like a giant anthill weaved throughout this, and you can see rudimentary furniture made of wood and stone, with limestone rock, whatever’s available within the actual ravine here.

MARISHA: Can I get a sense on when this was carved? If this was carved recently or if this has been here a while?

MATT: Make a nature check.

MARISHA: Ooh, 27.

MATT: Best you can tell from looking at the rock and knowing the amount of erosion versus the curvature of it, these tunnels have been here for a very long time. This portion opens up and you can see now there is a much more refined, village-type structure inside, maybe 30-plus small homes carved from rock and stone. Built much better than the makeshift huts that you saw outside. You also see a giant pile of broken chains to the left side of the entryway. Many of them are manacles and neck vices that are just thrown and discarded in this large pile.

MARISHA: Tiberius never mentioned this side of Draconia.

MATT: As you are brought into the center of this larger chamber you see two dozen Draconians that are out and about just currently gathering materials, talking and walking, and stop and see as you enter and just watch as you pass by. Colors range from metallic to chromatic, all spectrum; it’s a mish-mash of all walks and sizes.

LIAM: And the chromatic– the red, the blue, the green– are we seeing tails on them?

MATT: Nope.

MARISHA: No tails.

LAURA: Nobody has tails down here.

SAM: I could make us all Draconian again without tails.

LAURA: That would probably work at this point, right?

MATT: You’re led past a couple of these stone structures and there is a central, open circular plot between a lot of these. There’s a fountain that seems to spring a very clean source of water within the center of this chamber. Beyond that, there is a larger temple-like square structure that has a slight trapezoidal appearance to it. The entranceway is an open arch, and you can see a large fire burning on the inside of it. You are led around the fountain and led to the inside. There, sitting on a large stone seat made of haphazard bits of rock and stone, it looks relatively uncomfortable, a large stone throne, there is a female dragonborn. She wears long, drab, gray robes, tattered at the edges, a hood loosely pulled back and a large scarf or wrap around her neck and shoulders. She just sits there with her hands over the side, draped, and as you walk in and your eyes adjust you can see that she looks very old. As you’re brought in, the rest of your crew still pushes you in with the spears. She leans forward. “Are these prisoners of ours?” The dragonborn who brought you in goes, “They are, for the time being. They say they come here because the Frigid Doom and other dragons who came are killing their people, as well. They have come to fight the dragon, or so they claim. They walked in under guise of our enemy. It is your wisdom to make these choices.” And the larger dragonborn bows his head and steps away, the spears pull back and they step, blocking the exits that you walked through; the entire archway now is shoulder to shoulder dragonborn with spears at the ready.

LAURA: Tooma. We apologize for coming in the guise of your enemies. Unfortunately, we don’t know much about your culture, and no one ever informed us of what you have suffered, and we apologize.

MATT: Make a persuasion check.

LAURA: 23?

MATT: You’re saying this in Draconic, I assume? She leans in a bit, and the firelight crackles under her chin, and you can see the teeth on one side pull out beyond the lip, and it gives her this lopsided look. The tongue wipes across the front, and she leans in toward you. “You come here to fight the Frigid Doom, you say?”

LAURA: Yes.

MATT: “I would be lying if I said it did not bring a chance for freedom to all of us Ravenites.”

LAURA: Much deserved.

MATT: “But as time progresses, I fear we shake one bond to step into another. The dragon presented itself as our savior, but has since required an ever-growing fealty.”

LAURA: They do that.

MATT: “Without the Draconians, without the Sky-walkers, and without the Doom, we would be free. Rebuild our culture.”

LAURA: I want nothing more for you than that. Let us help you.

MATT: Now, the rest of you hear this: “Do your friends speak Common?”

TALIESIN: Oh, that’s lovely.

MARISHA: Hi!

SAM: Hi, yes.

LAURA: Much relieved. Yes, they do.

SAM: Grog doesn’t, but we do.

TRAVIS: (moans)

(laughter)

MATT: “If we are to let you go, do you promise to slay this creature?”

LAURA: We will do everything in our power to watch it die.

LIAM: It is our only purpose.

MATT: “It has been gone for days.”

LAURA: It should be back very soon.

MATT: “Took most of its army with it.”

SAM: Grog was right! He’s always right!

TALIESIN: That was our hope, that we would be able to come here when it was at its weakest and get a sense of it.

SAM: Do you know where its lair is?

MATT: “I do.”

SAM: Is it far?

MATT: “It is not far, but one hour walk.”

LAURA: Can I roll an insight check on her?

MATT: You may.

LAURA: 19.

MATT: 19?

SAM: (gasps) Oh boy.

TALIESIN: Do you know what I like as much as whispers? Loot Crate.

SAM: What? Taliesin. You’ve got to do better than that. Try something like this: You know, Matt’s an asshole, but you know who’s not? The good people at Loot Crate.

TALIESIN: Loot Crate doesn’t decide to just tell one person about what’s going on. They let everyone know, not just Vex.

SAM: Hey, you never told us what he whispered to you before.

MATT: No, he didn’t.

LIAM: We’re good.

SAM: Oh boy.

LIAM: I’m a vampire. Just deal with it.

MATT: “If you come here to kill this dragon, I assume you have the means and a plan.”

SAM: We definitely have plans.

MARISHA: Totally have a plan.

MATT: “Then let us set an ambush.”

SAM: Ambush? Sorry?

MARISHA: Come again?

LAURA: Well, we tried to do that one other time. While it did pay off, and its brother is dead, a lot of people died in the process. A lot. Very large, strong people.

MATT: “So what do you insist? We not have an ambush, we just wait for it to land and attack head-on?”

SAM: We were going to use this opportunity to find our way into its lair and find its weaknesses, and plan.

MARISHA: Sabotage, from the inside.

TALIESIN: There’s more than one dragon, and they are supporting each other.

MARISHA: We kill this one, it’ll set off a chain reaction that we might not be able to recover from if we’re not fully prepared.

TALIESIN: We want to make the means to make sure that when the time comes, we can destroy them all in one fell swoop.

LAURA: The risk here is that by destroying Vorugal–

SAM: The Frigid Doom.

LAURA: We’ll bring the wrath of the others upon you.

TALIESIN: He is not the strongest.

LAURA: Thordak is much larger, and I don’t think he’s been here.

MATT: “You speak with accents I do not understand. Where do you come from?”

TALIESIN: Everywhere.

MARISHA: We’re a motley crew.

LAURA: Lots of different places.

TRAVIS: Do not answer that question.

TALIESIN: We can answer the continent.

LAURA: As you can see, we’re half-elves.

MATT: “We are to walk to the den. We are to learn your information. Then what?”

TALIESIN: Set up a situation where we can monitor you and possibly contact you when it’s time, and even let you know if we think the dragon’s about to leave, so that you can prepare.

MATT: “I have lived to see this day by not being deceived or tricked. You speak words that are not direct. They wind. They spin. They circle. What guarantee do I have that you will not just flee?”

MARISHA: To be fair, what guarantee do we have that you won’t kill us, and the ambush was meant for us? I believe there is untrust on both sides.

MATT: At which point, she steps off of the throne, steps on both of her feet, and when she’s off the throne, her imposing form becomes far less imposing. You can see now there’s a very heavy hunch to her back, and as she scuffles forward, she’s an almost pitiful-looking sight, physically. As she pulls forward to walk straight to you, Keyleth, you see the somewhat clouded, cataract-ridden eyes of the dragonborn female Tooma. She comes up to you and goes, “We are a proud people, even when pressed into the dirt for as many years as we have been. We reclaim our honor. We reclaim our place in this world. We wish to do this as peacefully as possible, but we have been forced to scrounge and survive through this freedom. We wish you no folly. We wish you no ill will. But we also have learned that trust needs to be earned; it cannot be spoken and given so freely. Both ways. You are right to mistrust, as are we of you. But that is the impasse. One must have faith, in one way or another, if there is to be a compromise.”

MARISHA: I think faith and trust are not mutually exclusive. I can not trust you and still have faith, and you should not feel lack of pride for living in the dirt, or surviving. There’s nothing wrong with that. But I understand your urge to want to rebuild, become the great culture that I know you all are. So you should at least trust that we have similar interests in the end.

MATT: Make a persuasion check.

MARISHA: Ooh! 19!

SAM: Was that opal?

TALIESIN: Yes, it was.

MARISHA: Opal’s back! 25.

MATT: 25. She reaches forward and extends a finger that gently scrapes the bottom of the chin, not too much to hurt, but to go across the skin and pull your chin upward into the light of the fire a little bit. “There is much wisdom in there for so young a face. All right. There are not many options we have, either. Come. We will walk. And at the very least, if you decide to flee, never return.”

MARISHA: We can give you that word.

LAURA: Tooma. Are the Frigid Doom’s armies around? Will they see us?

MATT: “There are a handful of dregs that stayed behind, but you tell me you wear many faces.”

LAURA: We certainly don’t want them to see ours.

SAM: What should we disguise ourselves as?

MATT: She points past, over your head, and goes, “Tiny gnome, the faces of those that lead you here.”

SAM: Okay, tiny is uncalled for, but I understand. The faces of your tribe, of your clan. All right.

MATT: “Be glad you walk with one as wise.”

MARISHA: Is she talking about me? That’s awesome!

MATT: She begins to shuffle over, and you watch as two of the dragonborn walk over and scoop her up shoulder to shoulder, and she shrugs them off and pushes them away. “I can walk myself.” She begins shuffling, and they separate and open. She walks partway out as you guys stand there, and turns around and beckons. “Well, come.”

TRAVIS: We follow.

LAURA: Can you cast Seeming again?

SAM: I can do Seeming one more time. All right.

LAURA: Wait, if you cast Seeming, will we still be able to get into the–

SAM: We’ve still got the mansion. Handicaps me a bit, but I will cast Seeming again on the party and do the same thing, except slightly different colors and slightly less tail.

(laughter)

MATT: The larger dragonborn that let you in–

SAM: My tail nub is slightly larger than the rest. It’s a cube. It’s a tail cube.

MATT: As the rest of the guards circle around and begin to walk, a little bit of trepidation, but going along with Tooma, the large one who let you in goes, “Tooma. Are you certain?” She turns around and goes, “Skork, there are few things that are certain in this world. I am not long for it, but if we are not to seize the opportunity of kinship, we miss the opportunity for survival. Is it a risk? Yes. Sometimes it’s a risk worth taking.” And she keeps walking. The rest of them gather behind, and the now-named Skork gives a nod and continues walking along.

SAM: Have we heard of Skork?

MARISHA: Is that his name?

LAURA: He was the guy that we talked to right when we got here.

MATT: Yeah. You guys are led out of the tunnel, back into the freezing air. The wind has picked up a bit, and you can now hear this low hum as it hits certain portions of the cavern and causes low vibrational whistles in the distance. The snow has begun to fall a little heavier now, and as you walk out, you can hear the crunch of your footsteps as you’re stepping through heavier and heavier blankets of snow.

LAURA: Can I tell Tooma, as we walk out: P.S., if that dragon comes back, we need to bolt.

MATT: She nods. “If that dragon comes back, we never saw you, you never saw us.”

LAURA: Thank you.

MATT: She’s very slow, by the way. Your passage of travel is about half speed as she leads the charge, but everyone respectfully keeps in pace with her.

SAM: Tooma, have you ever heard of a dragonborn named Gern Blanston?

MATT: She thinks for a second. “That name has not come to my mind, no.”

SAM: Us neither.

MATT: Pushing on, it’s gotten a little lighter in the sky. You figure, based on your arrival, you may have just come in at the cusp of dawn, and the sun has now gotten higher in the sky. You’re on the entire opposite side of the planet now, so the cycle has changed based on the location you’re currently in. Well, you had rested, actually. You left in the morning. You would’ve gotten here– actually, opposite of that. It’s actually now getting to dusk. Even though it’s only been a couple of hours of daylight that you’ve seen since you woke up this morning, it’s already beginning to set, and the sky is getting darker.

LAURA: We lost a day, but the dragon will still take the same amount of time.

LIAM: Ugh. I’m so tree-lagged, though.

MARISHA: I know. Always sucks going west to east.

MATT: You’re led over a portion of the ravine, ever so slowly, that lifts up, and then as you get to the crest, it bends down into a far deeper and wider portion of the ravine. This is now the center part of this entire giant physical anomaly that is this giant crack in the ground, and you can see the bulk of the fallen city is in the center of this area.

LAURA: Do we see any big trees around here?

MATT: You see a couple of larger trees that sprout out from the rubble. There’s ones that managed to survive the impact of certain areas of stone, though it looks like a lot of the bark has been stripped, and they might not be alive that you can see from this distance. There are smaller trees towards the edge, and a few still protruding from portions of the walls.

SAM: Note every tree as we walk by.

MARISHA: Yeah, I’m paying attention to the trees. That’s the biggest tree that’s now closest to us. Now that’s the biggest tree that’s now closest to us. Now that one.

MATT: As you’re led down into the ravine, you reach this central structure, and you can already see from this distance, as the snow falls, hitting and covering the rocks, there are dozens and dozens of those spikes of ice jutting out of the rock, each with one or two various frozen corpses impaled on them and left. At the top of this, you can see a large cluster of ice that is in a somewhat round gathering, and you can see– actually, no, you don’t see that. Sorry. A note that will come into play in the future.

TRAVIS: Can I ask a question? The bodies on the spikes. None of them look familiar, right?

MATT: You can keep watch as you go. You push towards the center of the ravine, and upon the large island of rubble, you begin to move, and it takes a good 40, 50 minutes, an hour, to traverse, a lot further than you would’ve expected in that time period. Sorry, a lot less than you figured you would traverse in that time, being weighed down by Tooma’s gait. However, the rubble begins to subside, and you begin to see steps of ice. Not perfect, carved steps, but elements of encapsulated broken platforms of ice that act as stairs. Vax, Vex, and Keyleth, as you guys begin to move up the steps, and you especially, Vex, you can see, with what little bit of light is beginning to shine down through the ice, you can see mounds and mounds of coins and jewel boxes and many expensive knick-knacks and collections, all below feet of solid ice, all clustered towards the apex of this collapsed, ruined island.

LAURA: Tooma, is Vorugal having you collect all of this?

MATT: “Vorugal sends us to pay the debt we owe for being freed, yes. We scavenge. We spend our days searching for food, for the means to survive, and finding what we can from the ruins of the broken Draconia.”

LAURA: And when you can’t find anything? What then?

MATT: “These are the thoughts that consume me. It is the reason you are still alive.” Everyone make a perception check.

SAM: Yeah, dog! 14!

MARISHA: 28.

TALIESIN: Natural 20.

SAM: That wasn’t the golden snitch?

TALIESIN: No, I put the golden snitch away for the evening.

LAURA: I got a natural 20 when I dropped it. Giving up on it.

MATT: As you guys begin to approach, you can see now the ice that encases the golden coins begins to ripple upward, and it’s getting harder and harder to climb. You can see now, it comes to an apex in this bowl-like formation, and as you get to a point where it’s harder to ascend, you can see Tooma stops and sees that she can’t go much further, and she points up and goes, “That is where it sleeps. That is where we come to give what we find. And that is where it should fall.”

LAURA: What is its nature? Is it vain? Does it want you to bow before it?

MATT: “It does not ask for kneeling. It asks for fear and respect. It asks us to bring the most powerful creatures in the land for it to chase.”

LAURA: Can I roll an insight check on her again? Jesus. This is creepy. 27.

MATT: 27.

LIAM: So the box is full of loot?

SAM: No, it’s a crate, Liam.

LIAM: The crate is full of boxes?

SAM: Yes. A crate full of boxes. Box Crate, our best sponsor. Inside the boxes are tinier boxes.

LIAM: When do you get to the loot, though?

SAM: No, it’s a Russian nesting doll of boxes and crates.

LIAM: Box-box.

SAM: Box-box, and then inside is a box-crate, and inside that is tiny-bag-crate.

LAURA: What are you guys talking about?

SAM: Liam! Do you want all those boxes?

LIAM: I need boxes.

SAM: You get $3 off the first box of boxes. Crate-crate.

MATT: All right. So. “This is its home. This is its shrine.”

LAURA: Check for fucking traps before we go in there.

SAM: Is it up? Is it down? Is it through?

MATT: The top comes into this giant bowl, this platform of ice, and it’s almost like a nest where it sits.

TRAVIS: A big icy dog bed.

SAM: By the way, we’ve been in dragons’ lairs before, and the lairs themselves do things, right?

LIAM: Yes, with the dragon in them.

SAM: But when the dragon’s not in them they don’t do anything?

LIAM: My sister and I are going to have a look around. I have a question for you, though. If we make a stand here today, in theory, is it worth it to you to stand with us?

MATT: “If you feel confident. Otherwise, we walk to our death prematurely.”

LAURA: Yeah, let’s not do that today. This is reconnaissance.

TALIESIN: If all goes well, we will have one more conversation.

LIAM: All right. I’m going to start searching the ground for traps.

TALIESIN: I do have one other question: The bodies on the spikes. How did that happen? What was that?

MATT: “When the islands fell, there was a great fight of those that survived against the dragon. We did not join in, out of fear, and out of not knowing which side would come out. Vorugal stayed behind as the other two flew. The dragon asked us why we do not fight. We said, ‘Because it is not our place.’ The dragon said, ‘Well, your place is now that of free kin.’ The dragon summoned forth these spikes, and drove it through the hearts of many of the Sky-walkers. Many of us cheered, for it was a symbol that many had wished to see for a long time, but at the same time, the older ones of us… It was not what we wanted. It was not how we wished to be freed. But we had no way of stopping him. As time went on, and with each surviving Sky-walker that was found, there were no more cheers. Just the dread of knowing that maybe in time, when all the spikes are filled, it may be us on them next.”

TALIESIN: Thank you.

LIAM: 29. Looking for any traps.

MATT: Okay. You spend the next 15 minutes or so, 20 minutes, skirting around the outside of this large frozen bowl, looking for some semblance of a set trap. You don’t recognize anything as any sort of mechanism placed that would set off your warning defense systems as a rogue.

LAURA: Can I stand on the top and look out from the platform and see what is visible from the platform and what areas seem hidden in the landscape?

TALIESIN: I’m going to join you on that.

MATT: Both of you guys roll perception checks.

SAM: I have an idea.

TALIESIN: Natural 20.

MARISHA: Natural fucking 20.

LAURA: I don’t even need to look. Good.

TALIESIN: You both saw that, right? That just fucking happened. This is not my normal die. This is something I bought at Comic Con.

MATT: Oh, it’s not the dice anymore. We know that you’ve somehow gained the favor of some Aztec deity that’s trying to reclaim its foothold in the current-day pantheon through you.

TALIESIN: Sumerian, you asshole.

MATT: It would be Sumerian.

TALIESIN: I’m bringing a shrine to Burning Man, by the way.

LAURA: Oh, this is pertaining to dragons!

MATT: No, this is more of an icy terrain. Nevertheless, between the two of you keeping an eye out, through this Marduk Enki-loving fool over here–

TALIESIN: Bless you for knowing a Sumerian deity.

MATT: You look off and see that most of it, and its design here is to be a sentry point. The reason it’s built over the structure is it has a view of the entirety of this central open valley in the ravine. There are nooks and crannies. There are elements of ice that can be carved away. There are small alcoves that could be out of sight, lower beyond the ice steps and such, but there is no extremely visible pockets or things that are completely out of the visual sight from that perch. It was designed specifically to be a place to survey everything.

TALIESIN: Are there other perches?

MATT: From what you can see here? There are outcroppings of stone and elements that jut out naturally from the valley wall, but it’s a wide berth from each side.

TALIESIN: Does this seem like the only thing, or would there be other sentry points, as well?

MATT: If flown to and held in, yeah. There are a couple of other rock areas where the dragon would be able to hold himself, but this is definitively–

LIAM: Is this the highest?

MATT: Which one?

LIAM: The highest.

TRAVIS: The highest point.

TALIESIN: So we have a really good vantage right now.

MATT: From here, yeah. This is the highest point in the ravine.

TALIESIN: Do we see the orb? Do we see an orb?

MATT: Make an investigation check.

SAM: Can I help?

LAURA: We’re all looking.

TALIESIN: There we go. See? That wasn’t great.

SAM: 28.

TALIESIN: 11.

LIAM: 17.

LAURA: 16.

TRAVIS: Nine!

MATT: You guys take a while glancing about. Nothing. Scanlan, you dart down and begin peering up against the ice walls that surround it. Going down into the actual scooping bowl of this dragon nest, and looking down, you can see a little glimmer of light that refracts at a different angle than the rest of the ice. A spherical surface is visible about two and a half feet below.

SAM: Okay. Do we smash it? Do we use it to make a crank call? What do we do with it? Steal it?

LAURA: They’ll be able to scry on us for sure if we steal it. They see us. The minute we looked into Brimscythe’s.

SAM: I could do a Vorugal voice and say: Thordak, you’re a cock!

TALIESIN: We don’t actually know his voice.

SAM: I could say: Thordak, I’m in desperate need of pay!

LAURA: Do you speak dragon?

SAM: I guess you’ll have to do that. What do we do? Do we break it so he can’t communicate with the outside? That way when we kill him, he can’t call for help.

TRAVIS: If we do, then we violate what we said we were going to do.

SAM: What did we say we would to do? I have a great idea for how to kill this fucker.

LAURA: You have a great idea of how to kill it?

SAM: Well, I have an idea. Tooma told us that they bring animals to hunt. We could be one of those animals and draw it to a certain spot.

TALIESIN: And draw it to a certain spot?

SAM: Where we kill it.

TALIESIN: With our…

SAM: With our army of fucking Draconians and our ice thing that we’ve shaped into some sort of a trap.

TALIESIN: I get a distinct impression that it is not impressed by ice.

SAM: Fire trap. Rock trap.

MATT: And you’re saying this out loud amongst the crew, right?

SAM: Just us.

MATT: Okay.

SAM: Oh shit.

MARISHA: The ears have walls.

LAURA: And also, you’re right in front of the scrying circle.

LIAM: It’s buried by ice.

MARISHA: It’s buried by ice, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t work.

MATT: As soon as you called them Draconians, there were a few hisses from the nearby crew.

MARISHA: The Ravenites.

TALIESIN: Do they speak Common?

LIAM: Some of them do. We spoke to them in Common.

LAURA: We spoke to Tooma in Common.

TALIESIN: Let’s make a plan.

SAM: I just did. I made a plan. It’s an ambush plan.

TALIESIN: Okay, and then we go home and the dragons are at war. Then what?

SAM: What do you mean, the dragons are at war? There’s only two more dragons at that point. We killed three-fifths of them.

LAURA: If we attack one dragon, we start the war. That is something we’ve been told over and over.

SAM: What does that even mean? We’ve already attacked two dragons. There’s been no war.

LAURA: Once one more is dead, they’ll probably all attack.

SAM: Attack what?

LIAM: They’ll stop playing nice. They’ll start destroying.

SAM: We have to kill them at some point.

TALIESIN: Yes, and now is not that point.

LAURA: The greatest plan we have is what Grog came up with, which is pitting them against each other.

SAM: All right, so how do we use this orb to do that right now?

MARISHA: Do we have to use the orb?

SAM: That’s why we came here!

LAURA: We came here to find out what its lair looked like.

TALIESIN: What we are going to need is we need to sneak you in there, and we need you to take a movement.

SAM: What does that mean?

LIAM: A poo, Scanlan.

SAM: I can’t do it anymore.

LAURA and LIAM: What?!

SAM: I used my last magic poo to look at my daughter.

LIAM: What a sentence! What a sentence.

LAURA: In every aspect, Scanlan, disgusting.

MATT: That’s the next t-shirt.

TRAVIS: That’s amazing. I used my last magic poo to look at my daughter!

SAM: I need to know where she is. I need to know she’s okay. Gilmore can maybe make me some more potion, but I haven’t wanted to bother him about it because he’s busy keeping a shield around Whitestone.

LAURA: Don’t!

SAM: Shit.

LAURA: You didn’t say that out loud. You did not just say that out loud.

SAM: I said it in an accent.

MATT: That was out loud.

MARISHA: All right. Hang on. Let’s think about this for a minute.

LAURA: Can we just step away from the orb while we talk?

MARISHA: Yeah, let’s do that.

TALIESIN: We’re not near the orb. We’re near the Draconians, aren’t we?

TRAVIS and MARISHA: Ravenites.

MATT: They’re still all gathered around the base. They walked you here and they’re basically watching you set up for this ambush preparation or gathering. They’re not going to leave you to your own devices. They’re still not quite sure of everything.

LAURA: Can we sketch what it looks like? I think you should sketch, Percy.

SAM: We need to use this opportunity. We’re never going to be in this dragon’s lair again! This is it. Crack the thing. Set a trap. Burn it down.

TRAVIS: I have a suggestion.

SAM: Yes, Grog, you’re the best.

TRAVIS: The white dragon is primal, right? He likes to hunt creatures. We’ve got to go now. We leave. We leave them alone. That way we’re not in danger, they’re not in danger. We promise to come back, not only with forces to help remove the white dragon, but also with something for it to hunt. That way we’re not fighting it in its fucking lair.

TALIESIN: We know a lot already.

SAM: I can pretend to be a beast.

TALIESIN: Scanlan, why would you bother to pretend to be a beast? If he just finds you, he’ll hunt you and kill you.

TRAVIS: We know that there are people that will work with us. We know what the terrain looks like. We know what his lair looks like, which we don’t want to be in when we fight him. And we know how to get him out of it, possibly. It’s a pretty successful trip.

LIAM: One possibility is we could come back with Galdric, and he and I could play bait.

SAM: Galdric is the wolf, right?

LIAM: He’s a big fucking wolf.

TALIESIN: We’ve made allies. We’ve got a look at everything. We know the terrain, and we know the political terrain.

LAURA: Maybe Urukat would want to come and fight a dragon.

MARISHA: He might.

TALIESIN: I will also add that we can leave them with something.

MARISHA: That’s what I was thinking. Maybe this isn’t about destroying something. Maybe it’s about planting something. If we destroy anything, the dragon’s going to immediately blame the locals.

LAURA: What would we leave? I don’t want them able to scry on us.

TRAVIS: How about a little wine?

TALIESIN: How about a small grove of trees?

MARISHA: I could leave trees.

TRAVIS: They did want trees.

LAURA: I could leave trees, too.

MARISHA: We also have this Scrying Eye. Can I use this remotely?

MATT: No, you have to have it in your hands to utilize it.

TALIESIN: It’s all right.

TRAVIS: I like the tree idea.

LAURA: Tooma, just in case something happens and a big red dragon comes to pick a fight, everyone hide. Get out of the way.

MATT: “I appreciate the advice. I can guarantee you there would be no other course of action.”

SAM: Can we carve in the lair “Thordak was here” or something?

LIAM: They’ll know it was you.

LAURA: I think we got the information–

TRAVIS: Tooma. Forgive me, I’m not the best speaker, but we have learned from fighting these dragons that if we fight them in their lair, we are at a severe disadvantage.

MATT: “Then get it from its lair.”

TRAVIS: We are of a mind on that.

LAURA: What kind of creatures do you offer to it for hunt?

MATT: “It is growing bored with dire beasts. We’ve even brought it to the ocean, where there were some great terrors beneath the sea, but it tore them asunder. There are, northward, large segmented insect-like creatures they call the remorhaz. That was a scuffle, but I fear the dragon grows bored.”

SAM: Got to go find us a beast and bring it here.

TALIESIN: No, I’ve got a better idea.

LIAM: Spit it out.

TALIESIN: Once we’ve gathered some resources, when we return, we prepare to attack post-hunt. Once it has exhausted itself on something large and angry, that is when we strike the dragon.

LAURA: How will we be able to communicate with them, for them to let us know?

SAM: We’ll be here the whole time.

TALIESIN: When we come back, we stay until it’s time. When we come back, it is to end this.

LIAM: For now, we leave a back-door entrance.

TALIESIN: With the trees, we will know how to return quickly with a force.

MARISHA: This might be something we go to the Slayer’s Take for. They always have a roster of big beasts.

TALIESIN: With a little bit of information, we could even keep them informed of things for it to kill that they may find around here, with the Slayer’s Take’s help. We can keep you in supply of things to amuse it.

MATT: “I trust you know what you say. These words mean nothing to me.”

TALIESIN: We are sorry that this cannot end as quickly as would be agreeable. We can do our best to help make you comfortable, and if you need some proof of the power that we wield, we can offer a token. I have a thought. But if you wish, a token of our power.

MATT: “How about this. I trust you to return. Let’s set a time, so we know where the limits are. Eight days.”

MARISHA: Wow. That’s soon.

TALIESIN: We can send a beast before, perhaps, but our travel is long. We may need more time. We have two more continents.

MATT: “How much time do you need?”

LAURA and TALIESIN: Two weeks.

MATT: “Two weeks?”

TALIESIN: Continents. Further than you have walked in your life. We move quickly, but there is only so much that can be done.

MATT: “Two weeks. 14 sun cycles past. If we do not hear from you, the Frigid Doom is known to this Whitestone you speak.”

LAURA: Fucking shit balls, Scanlan.

LIAM: They’re extorting us.

MATT: “Not extorting. Making sure you are of your word, because otherwise you leave us here to die on promises that are fake and false.”

LIAM: To-may-to, to-mah-to.

LAURA: We don’t do that.

MATT: “Good. Then we’ll see you before two weeks is out.”

LAURA: Yep.

MARISHA: I will leave you with a parting gift. I will leave you with a grove of trees that should be ever-growing and present.

LAURA: If you do that, he’ll know something is different.

MARISHA: He will.

TALIESIN: No. We plant one tree.

MARISHA: One?

TALIESIN: No, we have to plant some trees. Find a place that is secret.

MARISHA: I can plant these trees anywhere. Just need solid ground.

TRAVIS: If you can get away from the city–

MARISHA: I can possibly do it subterranean.

MATT: “There is solid ground here. Up there, above the ravine, wherever else you need it to be.”

MARISHA: Where does the dragon not tread? Where do you know he will not see the trees?

MATT: “Probably out of the ravine. He stalks inside quite extensively.”

TALIESIN: Let’s find a place. This will be where we leave, anyway.

SAM: Tooma. I have one more question about Gern Blanston. I raise the hand cone, and I cast Modify Memory on her.

TRAVIS: Oh no. Oh jeez. Oh man, I love it.

LIAM: Look at Matt’s face.

MATT: Okay.

LAURA: We’re about to get attacked.

TALIESIN: No, we’re about to run.

LIAM: Can I roll my initiative in advance?

MATT: There we go. All right, what’s the DC?

SAM: 21.

MATT: What are you trying to do?

SAM: I’m trying to change the moment that I said “Whitestone” into “Emon.”

MATT: You watch as she leans in, and she shakes her head for a minute and goes, “What was your question? I do not know these words you speak.”

SAM: Candles. Have you ever met a candle-maker?

MATT: “I know not of a candle-maker.”

TALIESIN: I do have a request on our way out.

MATT: “What is your request?”

TALIESIN: Would the dragon notice if any of these bodies were disturbed?

MATT: “Many, yes. But small amounts… why? If you wish to take what they have, they mean nothing to us. One or two turned over will make no difference to the dragon.”

TALIESIN: Pull that one down, then.

MATT: “Right.” She points to it. Some of the Ravenites come over and haul one of the corpses off of the spike. It breaks off and snaps, and they bring it and throw it to the ground and step back.

TALIESIN: Thank you. (sighs) It is exactly what I expect, I would assume.

MATT: The robes are familiar. The scale color is familiar.

TALIESIN: I look it over. I check.

MATT: There, locked in the moments of valiant defense of his city, frozen and lost, the remains of Tiberius Stormwind, left a hero defending his people, defaced by Vorugal the Frigid Doom.

TALIESIN: Let’s bring him inside, at least.

TRAVIS: Yeah. I go and I gather the remains.

MATT: They are stiff and frozen, but light enough for you to carry.

LIAM: Where are we taking him?

TALIESIN: I don’t know. The remnants of the library, perhaps. The ground’s too hard to bury.

MARISHA: We can’t even pretend like he was our friend.

TALIESIN: No. We absolutely cannot.

TRAVIS: I have a horrible thought. If we move him, will the dragon know we were here?

SAM: Was he on one of those stakes?

TALIESIN: He was. No, I checked. Unless he’s very clever and very keen, and I don’t think they are. I think that if they knew, he would be in a more exalted position of defacement. I think this is just slaughter. Things vanish. I’m all right with making this vanish. That’s as much of a calling card as I feel we need to leave.

TRAVIS: Where should we bring him?

SAM: His home doesn’t really exist anymore.

MARISHA: His home was with us.

LAURA: Back to Emon.

TALIESIN: I have a thought.

LIAM: To our keep. It was very important to him.

SAM: This is his place.

TALIESIN: We’re not bringing him to us. We’re leaving him here, but we’re putting him somewhere appropriate.

LIAM: We’d take him away. Can you melt ice and snow, and we’ll lay him here?

TALIESIN: Put him with the books.

LAURA: He always loved them.

SAM: For now, anyway. And then when we free this place, we can find a proper tomb for him.

TRAVIS: We take him back to where the frozen books lay.

MATT: You find the remnants of the library. As you find a section of the stone rubble that’s loose enough, you pull it open, and there beneath, you can see there are hundreds and hundreds of books, many still pristine, if a little soggy from the melted snow. You gather a lot of time was spent in this library in his youth, and it’s probably as good a place as any to leave his memory for the time.

LAURA: Are any of the Ravenites around us, or are we alone?

MATT: They’re keeping their distance, but they’re watching. You get the sense that they understand what’s going on, but they’re not taking any offense to it.

TALIESIN: This will do.

LIAM: I start pulling books out.

MARISHA: I start melting ice.

LAURA: Is Lockheed still on my shoulder?

MATT: Lockheed is still on your shoulder.

LAURA: I bring him down so he can say goodbye.

MATT: As the ice melts, color comes to the body. You can see the tattered robes that show a fierce battle was fought. Regardless of this condition of finding him, knowing him as well as you did, he still probably left a hero. As you lay him down on the books, mostly thawed now, Lockheed finds a moment of recognition and immediately flutters onto his chest and curls up, mews a bit, nibbles at the chin.

LIAM: I’m going to sit three or four feet away from him, facing him, and start privately thanking the Raven Queen for ushering him on.

TRAVIS: I’m going to take a chalice out of the bag of holding, and I begin to fill it with ale, and then remember he preferred water, and I take the alchemy jug and I pour fresh water into the chalice and lay it with him.

MARISHA: I take and I rip off a piece of his robes. Tuck it away.

TALIESIN: Can you seal it?

MATT: As you guys step back, the nearby stone clatters to life.

LAURA: I get Lockheed out of there. I don’t want him to stay in. Do you want to come?

MATT: Lockheed resists and resists and doesn’t want to leave.

LAURA: In Draconic I say: It’s all right.

MATT: Lockheed curls up onto his face and nibbles a bit on the forehead, then turns back and flutters up onto your shoulder. The stonework clatters closed over the top of the rubble of the library.

MARISHA: Keyleth drops to her knees and starts crying.

MATT: Vax. In this moment of sadness, there is a bit of warmth, as you sense, though remote as it is through the Divine Gate, the Raven Queen’s assurance that his spirit has made it to the other side.

LAURA: I put my hand on Keyleth’s shoulder. He loved you well, princess.

MARISHA: He was so stupid.

LIAM: He meant well.

TALIESIN: I’m going to find Tooma. Is she behind us?

MARISHA: He should have never left our side.

TALIESIN: Hopefully, this war will go on schedule. But there’s our promise. That’s the best you’re going to get. I head out.

MARISHA: I follow Percy.

SAM: I turn around and say: Goodbye, old friend. We’ll come back and we’ll fix this. Because this is… poppycock.

MATT: As you gather yourselves up, here amongst the ruins of Draconia, the last of the sky’s light, the sun has faded and the night has taken its form. You hear the distant caws of the evening birds as they begin to take to the skies above the ravine. Tooma and the rest of the Ravenites give a nod as you join hands. Keyleth?

MARISHA: Let’s go home.

TALIESIN: Yes, let’s. There’s much to do.

MARISHA: Back to Whitestone.

LAURA: Were you going to leave a tree?

MARISHA: Yeah.

TALIESIN: We let them know where the grove would be found, before we left them.

MARISHA: I do Plant Growth. Make a big old tree.

MATT: All righty. Where do you create the tree?

MARISHA: Wherever we decided it was best to create the tree.

LAURA: Outside of the ravine.

TALIESIN: At the top. A little grove of trees.

MATT: Which, with a simple use of the broom or wild shape, you can make your way up there, find a small patch of bushes, create a single tree that didn’t exist there previously, a small sapling now grown to full height. The bastion of a promise to be kept. Keyleth returns. You take hands. You step through the nearest tree as the portal opens, and find yourself emerging from the other side of the Sun Tree, back in Whitestone.

MARISHA: I give the Sun Tree a little pat.

MATT: The morning sun begins to rise.

TALIESIN: We’ll report what we’ve seen. We’ll try to gain our bearings again, get sleep tonight. We’ll report what we’ve seen in the new room. No one else. And we will never utter this city’s name outside these walls again.

SAM: Totally. Dick move.

MATT: You find yourselves to rest, keeping memories fresh until sleep takes you.

MARISHA: Knock on Vax’s door.

SAM: Oh god.

MATT: All right. As everyone else is going to rest, Keyleth, you find your way to Vax’s door.

MARISHA: Can I stay with you tonight?

LIAM: I don’t fuck anything up with words, and I open the door.

SAM: What?

LIAM: I’m not going to fuck it up by saying anything. I open the door.

MARISHA: I just go in.

MATT: Whether or not you are taking the time to sleep or ruminate on the events, as it’s only been half a day since last you woke up, you take some time with Lockheed. He eats a little more food and leaps to the window of your room, and then takes off over the rest of Whitestone. You process this time, this moment, this memory, and realize how much has been lost through this journey, but yet how much is worth saving. How much is worth fighting for. And then, as much as you bunch of fuck-up misfits that came together as friends years ago have come to a point of understanding your true worth and what the importance is of really standing up for the things that you believe in in this world, and the people that need protecting, and know that the next step of your journey should come soon. Whether you stand or fall, this is the fight that needs to be fought. And with luck be at your side, that terrible fucking dragon will meet its end soon enough. And with that we’ll pick up next week on Thursday.

TALIESIN: Glad we decided to take a light-hearted game.

SAM: It’s a fun romp after the Feywild, a fun romp.

LIAM: Bar hop! Bar crawl!

MARISHA: I need a stiff drink.

MATT: I was simultaneously looking forward to and not looking forward to the return to Draconia for that reason.

LAURA: Man.

MATT: We’ll pick it up next week, guys.

MARISHA: Yay.

MATT: I’m sorry. Sorry, guys. Sorry to you.

LAURA: Thanks, Loot Crate.

SAM: $3 discount.

TRAVIS: Pour one out for Tibs. We will be.

MATT: Not all narrative is bright, but it has its purpose.

SAM: We’re next.

(laughter)

MATT: We love you guys. Thank you for sticking through us for an emotionally draining evening. We’ll be back next Thursday to see the next length of Vox Machina’s journey. Is it Thursday yet? Good night.