Transcript:The Oh No Plateau

Pre-show
AABRIA: Hi. My name is Aabria Iyengar, and I am not a professional, but I am here to welcome you to Exandria Unlimited.

(cheering)

AABRIA: I am your game master, this is my table. Let's introduce ourselves, starting with Robbie.

ROBBIE: Hello, I am Robbie Daymond, and, as last time, I am playing Dorian Storm, stage name. (laughter)

LIAM: Dorian Stage Name?

ROBBIE: Did I just give away something?

ASHLEY: What an interesting last name.

ROBBIE: Uh-oh.

LIAM: Spoilers.

AIMEE: Spoilers!

MATT: I didn't know his last name was Stage Name. That's crazy. (laughter)

AIMEE: That's hilarious.

ROBBIE: New lore, put it in the lore.

LIAM: Hi there. I'm Liam O'Brien, I'm playing Orym of the Air Ashari, a fighter with no magical powers at all, just a sword.

AIMEE: A sword.

ASHLEY: Hello, Ashley Johnson here, playing Fearne Calloway, who is just a simple faun druid. Very simple.

MATT: Very simple.

ASHLEY: Yeah.

MATT: Hi, I'm Matthew Mercer, and I am playing Dariax Zaveon, the dwarven sorcerer, and apparently (laughs) receptacle for bodily functions.

AIMEE: Sounds about right.

MATT: Yeah.

AIMEE: Hi, I'm Aimee Carrero, and I'm playing Opal, the hexblade warlock, no last name, no stage name needed. Honestly, I just couldn't come up with one, but she is-- we are on a first name basis, so you can call her Opal.

MATT: There you go.

AABRIA: Amazing.

ASHLEY: Opes.

AABRIA: All right, and since these are pre-taped, we're going to throw it to future Cozy Matt for some announcements. Take it away, Cozy Matt.

MATT: Thank you, Aabria. And thank you everyone for joining us for episode two of Exandria Unlimited. Now, this episode is sponsored by our friends at Skillshare, an online learning community with thousands of inspiring classes for creative and curious people. Skillshare offers classes designed for real life and all the circumstances that come with it, including graphic design, creative writing, and music, three things that you are incredible at, aren't you, little buddy? With memberships starting as low as $10 a month with an annual subscription, Skillshare is a great way to learn and explore classes to unlock your creativity for social good. As a special offer for our audience, the first 1,000 Critters to join Skillshare by following the link skl.sh/criticalrole07211, pretty sure you got that on the first try, will get a free trial membership of a premium membership. So go check out Skillshare for yourself now and thanks to them for continuing to support this show. Now, the second sponsor for tonight is Fandom Gaming and D&D Beyond. Their new Master Tier of subscription allows you to buy a book and choose to share it with all the players in your campaign. They save money and everyone has more fun. Plus subscribers get new perks every month. For July, it's the bloody Sanguine Digital Dice Set and five exclusive backdrops to customize your character sheets. Check it out now at dndbeyond.link/master. Also, thank you so much for joining us live on Twitch and YouTube. So to join in our live moderated Twitch chat, however, please head on over to our Twitch channel. And get ready to meet some awesome folks in the tabletop community with a new episode of Critter Hug, hosted by myself and Mica Burton this Tuesday, July 6th, at 4:00 PM Pacific on Twitch. If you miss the broadcast, the VOD will be on YouTube Thursday, July 8th. OMAR: (sneezes)

MATT: Oh! Bless you. And Aabria, back to you.

AABRIA: Wow, Matt, you sure look comfy. Omar was adorable, and that glitter beard was amazing.

AIMEE: Whoa!

MATT: Goddamn it.

AABRIA: Yep. (laughter)

AABRIA: Well, with that little gauntlet dropped, let's take it away and begin tonight's episode of Exandria Unlimited.

ASHLEY: Eyy!

(dramatic music)

Part I
AABRIA: Last time-- (laughs) Damn it. Last time, you all woke up post-a rooftop pissing contest, grabbed some brunch together at a lovely little inn and tavern called The Third Wing. You met a Nameless One, who went by Poska, who gave you a job to head down to the docks, liberate something fancy, and leave it in a warehouse. You all boarded the Blightstar, an Issylra galleon, took something of great interest, and then, in a warehouse, were jumped by some thieves with an interesting ability to vanish and reappear. You now are all in the midst of a rainy day in Emon, crossing town. That's where we'll begin. Where are you headed? What are you doing?

ASHLEY: Wait--

MATT: Yep.

ASHLEY: Did we leave the baby in the-- (laughter)

ASHLEY: -- the prison? (laughter)

LIAM: What a sentence.

MATT: What are you talking about? (laughter)

ASHLEY: The little man, the ankheg. Am I saying it correctly? Yes.

AIMEE: I think we did--

MATT: Sure.

AIMEE: Did we leave it?

MATT: I didn't take it.

AIMEE: I don't have it.

ROBBIE: I think they're fine where they were.

AABRIA: Yeah.

ASHLEY: Well, how would you feel if you were a baby left in prison? (laughter)

ASHLEY: It'd be awful.

AIMEE: Really bad!

ASHLEY: Are we far away from there?

AABRIA: You can head back there, if you really want to.

ASHLEY: Is that ridiculous?

AIMEE: How does Mister feel about it?

ASHLEY: Mister, what if we just went to go get him, and then just let him go free? You know, took him out of his prison, and let him be?

ROBBIE: You want to return to the scene of a triple murder and robbery--

AABRIA: Quadruple.

ROBBIE: -- to save a baby bug?

ASHLEY: Well, I'm only saying because maybe, what if no one gives him any food or water, and he dies?

LIAM: Well, I think that some of their associates will probably descend on that place. And then--

ASHLEY: Okay.

LIAM: -- if we're not careful, descend on us. Also, the mother seemed dangerous, and I know it wasn't as big, but--

ASHLEY: She was just a big baby, and she was just mad because she was stuck in there.

LIAM: She was trying to chew through the bars.

ASHLEY: Because she was trying to get out!

LIAM: I'm not going to say no to you, but where would we take it?

ASHLEY: Well, I was just thinking of letting it loose.

ROBBIE: In its state, I don't know what this baby creature looks like. Wasn't it just a larva?

AABRIA: It was a big old pupa-looking thing.

LIAM: Two to three feet long.

ROBBIE: I don't think they would get very far. No legs.

AIMEE: Mm.

ASHLEY: Oh, that's true, we'd probably have to feed it, and take care of it, and--

MATT: Maybe we can go get it, but we're going to have to leave behind Mister.

AIMEE: (laughs)

ASHLEY: No.

AABRIA: (monkey screams)

MATT: It's only fair! We can't have two babies!

AABRIA: (growling)

ASHLEY: Why not?

AABRIA: He starts pulling at-- he hops down, and he's still holding your hand a little bit, and he starts pulling at it, doing like, "Let me go, let me go."

MATT: What? What? Oh, oh, sure. Yeah, no, right. So, choice is yours.

ASHLEY: I'm going to go get it.

MATT: Sorry, you heard her.

AIMEE: (gasps)

AABRIA: And Mister just looks up with you with these giant eyes that are shimmering.

AIMEE: Aww, Mister.

ASHLEY: Oh no. Well. As long as you guys think that probably someone will take care of it?

AIMEE: Someone will take care of it.

ASHLEY: Someone will take care of it?

AIMEE: For sure, it's too expensive. You said it was expensive? People take care of expensive things.

ASHLEY: That's true.

LIAM: I mean, it was being smuggled into the city, the adult, so you don't do that for things that are cheap.

ASHLEY: Okay, if we come across it again, just know that I will take it.

AIMEE: Fair.

ASHLEY: Okay?

MATT: Got it.

ASHLEY: (sighs) Okay.

AIMEE: So which way to the Fire Ashari?

ASHLEY: Well.

LIAM: They're at the Scar, correct?

AABRIA: Yes.

LIAM: And do I know enough about the city to know the direction that that is in?

AABRIA: Yeah, the fastest way-- You can either cut all the way across the city, and get out the eastern gate, and it's half a day's travel to get there. Or you can go outside of the city wall, and then it's a little bit faster, but you know, less interesting.

LIAM: Okay. (inhales) Well, if we want to make sure that we don't get jumped, probably just get out of the city fast as possible.

MATT: I think that's a good call.

ASHLEY: Wait, what are we going to do about Poska?

AABRIA: Yeah, let me get a perception check from the squad real quick.

ASHLEY: Oh.

AIMEE: Ooh. That's an eight.

AABRIA: (laughs)

ROBBIE: 11.

LIAM: 11.

ASHLEY: Natural 20.

AIMEE: Ooh!

AABRIA: Amazing.

MATT: 12.

AABRIA: The moment you hear Orym talking about trying to avoid detection, you look out and around, and you have this sense of eyes on you, watching you, and slinking back into the darkness.

ASHLEY: (whispering) I think someone is definitely watching us.

AIMEE: (gasps)

MATT: Should we walk lower?

AIMEE: Do they think we're cute?

ASHLEY: Maybe. That's entirely possible, because to be honest, we're all very attractive.

AIMEE: True.

ASHLEY: Should we just be cool?

AIMEE: Yeah.

MATT: I've been that since I woke up, but sure.

ASHLEY: That's true.

LIAM: I mean, we probably want to cut ties completely. We don't want to go, I don't think, talk to Poska?

MATT: Oh, Poska, I was like, I mean, if you really want to, I thought we were getting along pretty well.

ASHLEY: Well, you're-- I-- oh, that's right. The residuum.

LIAM: Yeah, I mean we just flipped probably one of their hideouts on its head. That's not really a good way to make peace.

ROBBIE: She certainly won't be happy with us.

LIAM: No.

AIMEE: Yeah, I say we don't go back. We just ghost her?

MATT: Okay. Well, just thinking long-term then, I mean, we're leaving Emon with one or more targets on our back. We're going to the Fire Ashari.

LIAM: Right.

MATT: To give them that. And then...?

LIAM: I haven't thought further than that.

MATT: I like that, it keeps it mysterious.

ASHLEY: We could just-- I think we talked about this. Just giving her a bag of some of the money that we found, and maybe that'll get her off of our tails?

AIMEE: Oh yeah, because she won't know we were at the-- she won't know we were at the warehouse. So we can just be like, "We brought this. Oh, you meant warehouse? We missed that."

ASHLEY: We just went to this big, scary ship.

AIMEE: We just came straight here, we just wanted you to have it.

LIAM: But somebody's watching us right now.

ASHLEY: This is true, someone's watching us right now.

AIMEE: Is it Poska?

ASHLEY: So they know that we've been in the warehouse.

AIMEE: I'm not going to do it.

ASHLEY: Shit.

LIAM: So maybe grifting Poska works, but leaving definitely works.

MATT: I'm going to say, I like that plan. We should just leave, we should go, probably soon.

LIAM: Anybody need anything quick here in town?

AABRIA: Fearne, make a dexterity saving throw with advantage.

LIAM: Oh dear.

ASHLEY: Oh dear. (blow dart firing) (laughter)

ASHLEY: Okay. 18.

AABRIA: With an 18, your eyes keep darting over in that direction, where you saw eyes watching you coming from, And you glance over just in time to see-- There's not a lot of light. It's still raining, but a little flash of silver, and you duck just in time as a tiny dart shatters on the cobblestone behind you.

ASHLEY: Oh, oh, oh, I think someone's trying to--

AIMEE: We should maybe run.

LIAM: Okay, we're moving, yeah. Okay.

ASHLEY: Yeah, we should probably go.

LIAM: All right, why don't we start hoofing it, and hook a hard left at the next corner.

AIMEE: Okay.

MATT: Sure, following.

ROBBIE: Yeah, run. Take off running.

AABRIA: Okay, you know you're being followed. Do you want to do anything to try to give your pursuer the slip?

LIAM: Yeah.

ASHLEY: I don't think I have anything.

LIAM: I think maybe we can just try to stick to alleys as much as possible, and keep making erratic choices till we can get out of the edge of town, the closer edge, not cutting through the city.

AABRIA: Cool, okay.

ASHLEY: Yeah.

MATT: I'm going to-- I can, as we're ducking into an alley, use Thaumaturgy as a cantrip-- to go ahead and throw-- it says here I can create instantaneous sound that originates from a point of my choice within range, like a rumble of thunder, cry of a raven, that kind of thing. I'm going to go ahead and put my voice going: Hey, over this way, free shit!

AABRIA: (laughs)

MATT: On an alleyway across the street from where we're going.

AABRIA: Amazing, you know what? Give me-- we're going to call this a deception check.

MATT: Cool.

ASHLEY: Come on.

MATT: Not too bad, 19.

AABRIA: Okay, as you guys are moving, do you stop at all to try to see if you're giving your pursuer the slip? Or are you just going and not worried about it?

AIMEE: I feel like Opal would just go, but--

ASHLEY: What do you think is the best way to do this, Orym?

LIAM: I don't know what the best way is, but I'm going as fast as possible--

ASHLEY: Okay.

LIAM: And I'll deal with problems if they arise.

AIMEE: Yeah.

AABRIA: Okay, And just Dariax, you have a sense, as you throw your voice, and wait a bit, you hear three sets of footsteps peel off in the opposite direction.

MATT: Hell yeah, I would say, probably too loudly. (laughter)

MATT: And go to catch up with them.

AABRIA: Okay, okay, give me-- Let's go stealth rolls for the squad.

LIAM: Okay.

ASHLEY: Hoo, boy.

AABRIA: Let me know if you get lower than a 12. Buddy!

ROBBIE: Yikes.

AIMEE: Ooh. That's me too.

ASHLEY: I got lower than a 12.

LIAM: 23.

AABRIA: Oh, thank god.

ROBBIE: 13.

AIMEE: This is a bad day.

ASHLEY: Six.

AABRIA: Hoo!

ROBBIE: Wow.

AIMEE: Seven.

MATT: 11.

AABRIA: Yeah, you guys are making your way down and around towards the southern gate of Emon, so you can bank out and head eastward. And you get closer to the gates, and you've been ducking behind into alleys and skirting around carts, and trying to hide your movements. And then you see a couple of cloaked figures, looking extremely shady, hanging out by the southern gate. And as you round a corner, they look up, and seem to clock Dariax and Opal in the front.

ROBBIE: And does this gate seem to be our only way out of the city at this point?

AABRIA: Unless you want to try to head back into the city, and go out of either the northern or eastern gate.

MATT: Do these figures look at all like the figures that I saw run down the alleyway? Or no, I heard them, right?

AABRIA: You heard them.

MATT: I heard them. Do their boots look like they would make that sound?

AIMEE: (laughs)

AABRIA: Yes, because there's, like, two types of boots.

MATT: I cast Thaumaturgy and say: More free shit, this way! Like, in full sight of them.

AABRIA: I was going to say, do you hide your hand a little bit to cover the--?

MATT: Yeah, I'm good at hiding my hand, I think.

AABRIA: Oh.

LIAM: (laughs)

AABRIA: They both look up and snap-- Hold on, I have to make-- Yeah. They both look up, look in the direction of the thrown voice, and then look back at you, turn their heads.

MATT: I turn to the rest of the group, like: Don't worry, this already worked once.

AIMEE: I'd like to cast Charm Person.

AABRIA: What's the range?

AIMEE: 30 feet.

AABRIA: Okay, So they're a little bit farther away than that. They're about a hundred feet away.

AIMEE: Oh.

AABRIA: So.

AIMEE: Oh.

AABRIA: But it's okay! Because they're coming over now.

AIMEE: Okay.

AABRIA: My question was, do you want to go and meet them--

AIMEE: Yeah.

AABRIA: Or wait for them to--

AIMEE: No, I'll go and meet them.

AABRIA: Okay.

AIMEE: Why not?

MATT: We'll back you up.

LIAM: You taking point?

ASHLEY: Yeah.

ROBBIE: Does Charm Person only affect one person?

AIMEE: Two.

ROBBIE: There's two of them?

AABRIA: Uh-huh.

AIMEE: It's a bad move when a couple's involved.

ROBBIE: I would like to follow Opal's lead, and I'd also like to cast Charm Person.

AIMEE: Yeah, baby!

ROBBIE: On the person that she's not casting it on.

AABRIA: Okay, so the two of you walk out into this little plaza in front of this massive city gate. The two of them are conferring between themselves, and you can only see their eyes, both very pale blue, almost gray, and they've got--

AIMEE: Hi, my brother and I were just cha-- Ugh. We're not from here.

ROBBIE: Adopted brother, adopted brother.

AIMEE: We're not from here. Anyway, we're lost.

ROBBIE: Mm-hmm.

AIMEE: Where do we find the nearest tavern?

AABRIA: "You know we know who you are, right?"

AIMEE and ROBBIE: Who?

ROBBIE: Who?

AABRIA: And you see them open up their cloak, and they are loaded out, several daggers and a big rapier.

AIMEE: (gasps) Oh my god! You know what? We were looking-- we didn't know you were dagger salesmen.

ROBBIE: Oh my gosh.

AIMEE: Okay.

ROBBIE: I have been dying for a new dagger!

AIMEE: So here's the thing. We have been dying for a new dagger from Emon.

ASHLEY: Oh, wow!

ROBBIE: Those look very high end.

AIMEE: This is perfect!

ROBBIE: We've got platinum to burn!

AIMEE: Woo!

AABRIA: You are now within 30 feet, if you both would like to cast Charm Person.

AIMEE: Oh, now?

ROBBIE: Yeah, let's do it.

AIMEE: I thought I fucking put it on. (laughter)

ROBBIE: That's a wisdom save, 12.

LIAM: You were just being charming.

AIMEE: I was just being charming.

ASHLEY: You're just a charmer.

AABRIA: The one on the left makes their save. What's your save DC?

AIMEE: Save DC, save DC, save DC. Where's that?

AABRIA: It's on the top, it should on the top.

LIAM: Spells.

MATT: Up with the spells there.

AIMEE: Oh. Oh, here it is. It's a 13.

AABRIA: The one on the right just fails.

AIMEE: Hi, Right.

AABRIA: And the one on the right drops the cloak, folds his arms, nudges the other one. The other one doesn't look at all convinced by whatever this is. And you're aware that your spell didn't hit.

ROBBIE: Failed, yeah.

AABRIA: You know, yeah.

AIMEE: Hi, Right. Is that your name? Is that what your friends call you?

AABRIA: "Yeah, my friends call me Arthur, but--"

AIMEE: Oh my god, Arthur, that's, like, my favorite. Is that not my favorite name?

ROBBIE: Oh, you've always said it's your favorite name.

AIMEE: That's my favorite name. Okay, Arthur, what do you think about going to get us some beers? Like, you go get them with Left. And we'll watch, we'll stay by the gate, and we'll just watch for whatever.

ROBBIE: How far are they from us? Like, face to face?

AABRIA: You know what, if you continue to close the distance, I'll say you guys are about 10 feet away from each other.

ROBBIE: And my guy's not buying it at all.

AABRIA: Yeah, your guy is just watching all of this happen strangely, but hasn't made a move yet.

ROBBIE: I'm going to rush up to him, pull my scimitar, and take a swing.

AABRIA: Okay!

AIMEE: Whoa!

AABRIA: Yeah.

ASHLEY: (laughs)

AABRIA: I love it, go ahead and make an attack roll.

ROBBIE: Okay!

ASHLEY: I'm going to stay a little bit off to the side, but within range, within 30 feet, but just a little bit off to the side.

AABRIA: So you would have had to walk up them to get there.

ASHLEY: Oh yeah, you're totally right, because we were a hundred feet. Okay, no, I'm going to stay back, I'm going to stay back.

AABRIA: Okay.

AIMEE: I'm just watching.

LIAM: I was back, too, I thought that they had it in the bag. Are there lots of people around?

AABRIA: Not that many, it's raining pretty, pretty severely. And anyone that was coming into the city has already done so.

LIAM: But some.

AABRIA: There's a couple, yeah, there's probably maybe a dozen people scattered in a hundred-foot.

LIAM: Got it.

ROBBIE: But we're still real close to the gate, right?

AABRIA: You're still, yeah, you're about 50 feet away from the gate.

LIAM: I guess if I see this.

AABRIA: Yeah.

LIAM: I'm starting to walk.

AABRIA: Okay.

MATT: Yeah, yeah.

MATT: Same.

AABRIA: All right.

MATT: Actually, a question, the-- well, no, I guess, I'll have a question later. (laughter)

AABRIA: Okay, so you're going to rush up and swing for Left.

ROBBIE: Yeah.

AABRIA: Yeah.

ROBBIE: Ooh, 12.

AABRIA: With a 12, you dart up, and he just growls, "I knew it!" And lunges at you, and tries to-- He, like-- You didn't make purchase with your scimitar, but rather than dodging the blow, he meets the distance, and tries to get into a grappling contest with you. And Arthur, the named one on the right, just looks over like, "What?"

AIMEE: Arthur, Arthur, give me your daggers.

AABRIA: "What, no."

AIMEE: All of them, give me them, give me them.

AABRIA: "No, you're going to fight."

AIMEE: No, I'm not going to fight!

AABRIA: "No, you're nice."

AIMEE: Arthur, you know me.

AABRIA: "You have diggers!"

AIMEE: You know me.

AABRIA: "I have to help my friend."

AIMEE: No, you don't, come here, come here. I'm going to tell you something.

LIAM: While you two are doing this on the side.

ROBBIE: Just getting wrestled around.

AABRIA: "I got to help my friend really quick."

AIMEE: Your friend?

AABRIA: "Can you--"

AIMEE: He's not.

AABRIA: "How about this? Look at me, look at me, we're going to murder your whole squad."

AIMEE: No, you're not.

AABRIA: "How about this? You're the only survivor. And I just, I didn't see you, and you just--"

AIMEE: No, how about this? Why don't we go get beers together?

ROBBIE: Opal, get him! (laughter)

AIMEE: And then--

ROBBIE: Get him, Opal!

AIMEE: Okay, so then Opal fucking pull out her daggers, too! (laughter) And then she's like: But here, come here, look, look at these, look at these.

AABRIA: All right, let's get a group initiative going now. (cheering)

ROBBIE: Sorry.

AABRIA: No, that was great.

ASHLEY: Oh no, that's not good.

LIAM: Just imagine Dorian getting smashed into carts and stuff like Indiana Jones in Marion's bar.

ROBBIE: I got a Indiana Jones image in my head!

LIAM: Whiskey, whiskey! (laughter)

AABRIA: Anyone between 20 and 25?

ROBBIE: 22 for me.

AABRIA: Shut up!

ROBBIE: Yep.

ASHLEY: Dang!

AABRIA: Okay, Dorian! Sweet. All right, who here is between 15 and 19? Oh, snap! We're all going to roll good on this. Okay, okay, what'd you get?

AIMEE: 16.

MATT: 16 as well.

LIAM: 17.

ASHLEY: Ooh.

AIMEE: God, did I just fucking--?

AABRIA: Who's got the higher dex between the two of you?

MATT: Mine is 14.

AIMEE: Oh, mine's 15.

MATT: Oh, so you go before me.

AABRIA: Okay.

AIMEE: I'm like, that can't be right. Yes, it is!

MATT: (laughs) Look at you! So proud.

AIMEE: Look at me, wasting my Charm Person.

ASHLEY: 10.

AABRIA: 10?

ASHLEY: Yes.

AABRIA: Sweet, you're not last. Oh, poor Arthur.

MATT: Only if you attack the charmed person.

AIMEE: What?

MATT: Only if you attack the charmed person.

AABRIA: Okay, Dorian. You're up first.

ROBBIE: Oh, am I grappled? Has he successfully grappled me?

AABRIA: Yeah, but he hasn't successfully grappled you. He's just locked up in close quarters with you, but hasn't actually, like.

ROBBIE: So technical question then, since I took a swing already, would that be considered my action, or does it all reset--

AABRIA: Oh, no, no, no, no, this is all reset.

ROBBIE: Okay, cool.

AABRIA: You're good.

ROBBIE: All right, well then, close combat. So I've already got my scimitar out. I'm going to draw my handaxe, click it off my side, and since he's in close, I'm going to try to take the butt of it, and just get him right in the gut. I'm not sure I want to kill him yet.

AABRIA: Okay.

ROBBIE: I want to just hurt him.

AIMEE: Up the butt?

ROBBIE: (laughs) Yeah, turn around--

ASHLEY: Up the butt.

ROBBIE: Come here!

AIMEE: Butt of the scimitar. I was like, man.

ASHLEY: It's going to be hard to maneuver that butt, I mean.

AIMEE: The wheels are off.

AABRIA: Amazing. I'm into it.

ROBBIE: 12.

AABRIA: 12, once again, does not hit. You go in with that sort of the butt of your axe, and you punch what you thought was leather, and behind it, you can feel heavy chain mail.

ROBBIE: Oh shit. All right, I'll use my bonus action. I'll take my scimitar, and then give it another whack.

AABRIA: Yeah, go for it.

ROBBIE: Cool. Mm, please. Ah, 14.

AABRIA: 14 doesn't hit.

ROBBIE: Shit, what have I done?! I'm going to take a sort of overhead swing with it, and as I do, I'm going to feel like it's a good hit down on his shoulder, and it's going to be sort of the same sensation. Like, it just (pops), the scimitar's light, and it just springs back, and almost gives my hand a stinger like you had a bad baseball swing.

AABRIA: Ooh, yep, ugh.

ROBBIE: And I am going to just look at my group and say, "I'm sorry" with my eyes. (laughter)

AABRIA: Left swings around, and gets your focus back. "Focus on me."

ASHLEY: Oh, his eyes look so sad.

AABRIA: He's going to lean in, and try to headbutt you.

ROBBIE: (groans)

AABRIA: Does 16 hit?

ROBBIE: Yes!

AABRIA: All right, that's an unarmed strike, but it's cool. You're going to take two points of bludgeoning damage as he catches you right in the nose. And then I need you to make a strength saving throw as he attempts to grapple you.

ROBBIE: No!

AABRIA: You need to beat a 14.

ROBBIE: Oh, on the bottom, not great.

AABRIA: If it's cocked, you can roll again.

ROBBIE: Oh, I can?

AABRIA: Yeah, if it lands weirdly on the front.

ROBBIE: Oh, no, no, it's good, it's bad. It's a bad roll, that'd be a eight.

AABRIA: So he headbutts you, and while you're dazed, he actually grabs your upper arm that swung in the overhead scimitar strike, and locks up with the lower one, and just pulls you incredibly closely. Now you're in this very awkward, it's kind of a hug, weird hug-grapple hug.

ROBBIE: Bad hug, bad hug!

AABRIA: Just a bad hug.

ROBBIE: Okay.

AABRIA: All right, Orym, you're up, and Opal's on deck.

LIAM: How far on out are we? Have we already closed enough distance to get in here?

AABRIA: You said you were moving up, so I'm going to say it will be your full movement to get into the fray.

LIAM: Just to get here? I will, at the very last bit of it, if I use my action to also move, I will use those boots to leap the last 20 feet, and land just behind the guy's butt.

AABRIA: Okay.

LIAM: And be poised to do something.

AABRIA: Oh, no, no, no, no, I want you to be able to act on this turn, you're able to close with your movement.

LIAM: Oh, then instead, I will leap, and land just behind the guy, step off of his calf and leap up behind him, and my sword is out, but it will spin in my hand, and I whack in the back of his skull with the grip of the sword.

ASHLEY: Cool!

AABRIA: Amazing! Make an attack roll.

LIAM: Ooh, it hits, that is 24.

AABRIA: Absolutely hits.

ASHLEY: Yes.

LIAM: So not trying to cut, I'm trying to clunk him out.

AABRIA: Yep, go ahead and roll your normal damage. We'll just assume it's non-lethal and bludgeoning.

LIAM: Great, five, nine points of bludgeoning from the hilt.

AABRIA: (whistles) Yeah, is bell is rung, but he's still up.

LIAM: Okay, that's it for me.

AABRIA: Beautiful. Opal.

AIMEE: Okay, I'm still working on Arthur here. Arthur, Arthur, what are you doing? What are you doing? We're supposed to go get beers, so I think what we should do is get out of here, and then let your friend do what he's going to do, he wants to fight, he'll fight. You and I'll go get beers, it'll be great. Come on, yes, yes? Arthur.

AABRIA: "I, I guess?"

AIMEE: Okay.

AABRIA: "This feels wrong, this doesn't feel."

AIMEE: What?

AABRIA: And he looks over at the other guy, like, "I'm going to-- I got to shoot my shot."

AIMEE: Yeah, just go, just go.

AABRIA: He just turns and starts walking off with you.

AIMEE: Okay, great, so I'm going to just take Arthur away to the nearest tavern, which is where?

AABRIA: You don't know, because you've never been on this street.

AIMEE: Great, so we're just going to be right around the corner.

AABRIA: Yeah, so you start heading down at a leisurely pace.

AIMEE: At a leisurely pace.

LIAM: Wham! Where's Opal going? (laughter)

AIMEE: I just took one of the guys down! (laughter)

AABRIA: On a date, amazing. All right, Dariax, you're up.

MATT: Oh, it's me. Oh boy, well, you-- all right. So you're taking one guy off to go get a drink. You're currently held by one of them. Be like: Give me an opening! As I run forward with my spear out in front of me. I didn't get the memo to not go for lethal, so I'm going to go ahead and just ramming speed with my spear towards you, but a little bit to the side. So it looks like I'm coming right-- Don't worry, I got you, buddy!

ROBBIE: (shrieks)

AABRIA: I am now going to count him as cover. So go ahead, he has partial cover, how'd you do?

MATT: Good news is I didn't roll a one, but it's an eight.

MATT and AABRIA: (laugh)

ROBBIE: Oh no.

AABRIA: He actually ends up using you as a shield to knock the spear off of its intended course.

MATT: Whoa!

AABRIA: And you go a little wide.

ROBBIE: Oh, okay.

MATT: (sighs) Sorry!

ROBBIE: It's all right!

MATT: While I'm here, I'm going to go ahead, and I have a bonus action still, so I'll go ahead and burn my sorcery points to get a spell slot back.

AABRIA: Nice.

MATT: And that's my turn. So I just like, (exhales) That's it.

AABRIA: Fearne, you're up.

ASHLEY: Okay, so, walking a little bit forward, getting closer into the fray, I'm going to cast Entangle, and try to, vines and weeds sprout from the ground to try to entangle one of the whoever's attacking.

AABRIA: Left.

ASHLEY: Yes, Left. Wait, and there's a third as well, right?

AABRIA: No, it's just the two.

ASHLEY: No, there's just the two, okay, trying to entangle him.

AABRIA: Yep, okay, do you roll or do I?

ASHLEY: Let's see.

AABRIA: I'm going to roll anyway, just in case.

ASHLEY: Okay, it's a strength save for 13.

AABRIA: Just makes it.

ASHLEY: (exhale) Okay, okay, that's okay. Then what we're going to do is, I am going to get a little closer, but as a-- Where did it go? Come here, ooh.

AABRIA: As you're doing it, you actually see like the pavement splits as these vines come up out of deep earth, and he goes, "Whoa, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no!" And he just starts backing up with you, Dorian, and just scootches back like 10 feet.

MATT: Is it just that one square? How big is the space for it?

ASHLEY: The space is 20 feet.

AABRIA: Uh-oh.

ASHLEY: So.

MATT: Hmm.

ASHLEY: Sorry, my--

AABRIA: Are you in there?

ASHLEY: -- my iPad is on the fritz.

AABRIA: Is it anyone in there or a specific target?

ASHLEY: This is what I'm finding, okay, okay. "A creature in the area, when you cast the spell, must succeed on a strength saving throw."

AABRIA: All right, so both of you also need to make strength saving throws.

ASHLEY: Shit!

MATT: Awesome! (laughter)

ASHLEY: Sorry, guys!

AABRIA: This is the best spell ever.

ASHLEY: Entangle.

LIAM: Oh, Entangle. I'm there, too.

AABRIA: Oh yeah, it's everyone except for Opal and Arthur, who are just dipping!

MATT: No, that's perfect!

ROBBIE: 16 for me.

AABRIA: Okay.

ASHLEY: Okay, you're good.

AABRIA: You were also, you know, like, Jesus footprints, being carried.

ROBBIE: He took me away.

AABRIA: Out of it, you're good.

MATT: 18, actually, I did well on that one.

LIAM: Strength save?

AABRIA and ASHLEY: Yeah.

LIAM: Five.

AABRIA: (gasps)

LIAM: I'm a little guy.

AABRIA: Buddy!

AABRIA: When you clocked him, the two of them bump into you and knock you off your game, so you start to get wrapped up by vines.

LIAM: (throat clear) Um.

ASHLEY: Oh, sorry. I'm going to, and as a bonus action, as I'm still walking forward, I'm going to whisper into my staff, to one of the little snake heads, as I'm moving forward and it starts to animate.

AABRIA: Nice.

ASHLEY: That's my turn.

AABRIA: Amazing. It's now Arthur's turn. He's just like, "I don't really know--"

AIMEE: Hey honey.

AABRIA: "-- anywhere around here. Do you like ale?"

AIMEE: Ale, oh my god.

AABRIA: "Like a little Biergarten? It's raining."

AIMEE: Oh my god. You know what, actually, something light, something fresh, nothing too heavy, nothing too hoppy.

AABRIA: "Okay, okay, well, this isn't really my side of town. We can head up to the--"

AIMEE: Your side of town? Where's your side of town?

AABRIA: "Oh, the docks, you know."

AIMEE: Oh, the docks?

AABRIA: "Nameless One stuff, like, whatever."

AIMEE: Oh my god, how fun. Wait. Oh, stop, so your name's Arthur, but (whispers) Nameless?

AABRIA: "Yeah, that's our whole, it's the whole thing for this squad."

AIMEE: Gotcha, yeah, no, it's great, it's great. You know what? It's also like I'm enjoying the rain a little bit. So why don't we just hold hands.

AABRIA: "Oh my god, yeah."

AIMEE: And let's just smell the rain and, like, how nice.

AABRIA: "This is really nice."

AIMEE: Right?

AABRIA: "I'm sorry that your friends are all going to die and stuff, but why did you have to do that to Poska? It's weird."

AIMEE: Yeah, no, it's fine.

AABRIA: "Okay." Is there anything you want to do?

AIMEE: Yes. Can I use my silk rope?

AABRIA: As what? I think this is turning a corner in a very interesting way. And I'm a little upset it took to episode two for this to happen, let's go.

MATT: Is Shibari an action? (laughter)

AIMEE: Can I use my silk rope to just tie him up?

AIMEE: Can I use my silk rope to just tie him up?

AABRIA: I mean, that's going to have to be an attack.

AIMEE: Yeah, is it my turn?

AABRIA: Yeah. Oh no, it's not, it's his turn.

AIMEE: It's his turn, okay, so you didn't hear that. But that's what I'm planning to do.

AABRIA: Yeah, that's fair. (laughter) Okay, sorry, I got lost in the sauce as Arthur and I forgot what we were doing.

AIMEE: Because you were charmed by me!

AABRIA: Sweet, yeah, he's just walking, all right. We're moving on. Back to the top. Dorian, you're up.

ROBBIE: The strong man has me in some sort of half-half-nelson and--

AABRIA: Like a third of a nelson.

ROBBIE: A third-nelson.

MATT: Craig Nelson.

ROBBIE: Quarter nelson. And I'm going to like-- Wait, spell slots, I didn't use any, I'm going to, he's right here. He's got me like this, I'm going to use Dissonant Whispers. But I'm literally going to get real close and whisper in his ear. And that's, yeah, 12.

AABRIA: Sorry, my dice are doing very well today. It's a natural 20.

ROBBIE: Oh, whoa.

MATT: She must be stopped.

ROBBIE: I'm going to try and whisper something in his ear and then he just chokes me and I can't quite get the words out.

AABRIA: Yeah, you just actually feel his arm, come across and go like, "No, no, no, no, no." No one told us there was going to be casters, this sucks.

ROBBIE: But I guess I get a few squeaky words out because if you succeed, I still get half the damage, right?

AABRIA: Yeah, go for it, sweet. Praise Taliesin, this is a good die.

ROBBIE: Oh! 11, 12 in half, six.

AABRIA: Woo, okay.

MATT: Nice.

AABRIA: What do you say? Break me off a piece of that.

ROBBIE: Joke's on you, I love hugs. (laughter)

AIMEE: Help me, I'm blue. (laughter)

ASHLEY: Yes!

AABRIA: With that, you feel everything slacken a little bit and you think it's because he's uncomfortable, but you get a sneak peek and his eyes have gone unfocused and he looks like he's about to swoon and drop.

ROBBIE: I don't have anything I can do on my bonus action, not really. My turn is over.

AABRIA: Okay. (laughter)

ROBBIE: You were trying to give me a hint and I didn't get it.

AABRIA: You know, I'll let you attempt to break this grapple as your bonus action, if you want to use that for that.

ROBBIE: Yeah, yeah, if he's letting, if he's--

AABRIA: I'll let it happen, I want you to feel successful, since I keep rolling well.

ROBBIE: I'm going to disengage from his--

AABRIA: No, you have to try to break the grapple. So you got to roll for it.

ASHLEY: Roll it.

AABRIA: So make an athletics check.

ROBBIE: Ah! 20. (cheering)

AIMEE: Yeah, baby.

ROBBIE: Whatever, it doesn't matter, I guess.

AABRIA: Oh, no, it doesn't matter, you're good. Sweet, so how do you slip out?

ROBBIE: Ooh, as I whisper that and I feel him slack, I'm just going to, I'm going to like-- (laughter)

AABRIA: That why it was worth it.

ROBBIE: Duck in and out, yeah.

AABRIA: Perfect. All right, yeah, he's weaving on his feet and as you slip out and away, he goes and he goes to try to pull his rapier and he can't quite get it loose, so he just gets a little dagger out and just tries to flick it at you. Oh god, and he misses and it just goes scattering into where all the weeds and stuff, are coming out of the pavement. And he just sort of staggers back, grabs his head and looks around. "Where is the other one? (yelling) "What are you doing?" He just yells down the street after Arthur and Opal. And that's his turn. Orym, you're up; Opal on deck.

LIAM: Am I still technically engaged with him?

AABRIA: You know what, yeah.

LIAM: Like square to square? Okay, so I'm so much shorter than him, and his head that I want to conk it so far away. So for two seconds of my six, I go, (grunting and groaning). Ah jeez. And I just take the hilt and I smash it into his goolies from behind.

ASHLEY and AIMEE: Goolies.

ROBBIE: Go for first goolies.

ASHLEY: Goolie stab!

AABRIA: All right, I love it, okay, so make--

LIAM: I'm going to hit the punching bag from behind. (laughter)

AABRIA: Make your attack with disadvantage because you are restrained.

LIAM: Oh, okay. It's terrible, probably not going to do it. 12.

AABRIA: (laughs) 12 misses.

LIAM: It just stops 1/2 inch shy and I'm like (grunting).

AABRIA: There's just one plant that's like, "Low blow, man." Just blocks you a little bit.

LIAM: Then I just let the vines wrap me around in a circle and that's the end of my turn. (laughter)

AABRIA: Oh no! Okay, Opal, you're up.

AIMEE: Okay, so now we're still holding hands and maybe I do, like-- Opal does a little twisty move, turns into Arthur and says: I want to tie you up. And then-- (laughter) and gets her--

AABRIA: Please make a persuasion check because maybe he doesn't think this is an attack.

AIMEE: I don't think so, right? Because--

AABRIA: Depends on your roll.

AIMEE: It's an 18.

MATT: (laughs)

AABRIA: You see a quirked eyebrows as he's like, "I mean, okay. I'm, like, into new stuff. This is-- Sure, yeah."

AIMEE: Okay, so they're in one of these tango embraces and then she unfurls herself and then takes her silk rope out. I don't know, you know, I'm assuming she could just whip it out and ties him up, like a hogtie situation, where the hands are tied and the feet are tied. And then--

AABRIA: "Why is this in public, like, I mean, are you into that, too? Because I haven't tried that, but I am very open to suggestions."

AIMEE: It's a tradition where I'm from. And then as a bonus action, can I-- Can I do an unarmed strike as a bonus action?

AABRIA: That would be a full action.

AIMEE: That would be a full action. If it's two-weapons fighting because I-- Could I use--

AABRIA: You didn't attack with a weapon for the other.

AIMEE: Goddamn it! Okay, so I'm going to be like: I'm going to be right back.

AABRIA: What, are you leaving?

AIMEE: Just one second. And then, can I use the rest of my movement to join the crew and just leave him there? Is that a bad idea?

AABRIA: You've been walking away for a hot second, so you're not going to make it all the way back to the squad. Are you just going to leave him in the street?

AIMEE: Does that count?

AABRIA: I mean, you can. He will probably know that something is up after.

AIMEE: Okay, so then I'm just going to stay right here and be like: Okay guys, whenever you're ready, Arthur and I are ready.

AABRIA: "Wait, is it a group thing now? Okay, hold on. You know what? I think I'm pretty adventurous, like, I joined the thieves' guild and stuff, but I'm--"

AIMEE: They're just going to watch. It's not, they're not going to be in it. There's just a watching thing. Okay guys, whenever you're ready Arthur's all tied up, okay?

AABRIA: With a natural 20 like, "All right. Okay, I'm game."

AIMEE: So tell me about yourself.

AABRIA: "I like the faun--"

AIMEE: Oh she's coming, she's coming.

AABRIA: "Yeah? Like, okay."

AIMEE: Mm-hmm.

AABRIA: "I'm kind of into this now. Sorry, what, what was your question?"

AIMEE: So that's the end of my turn, but I can just keep talking.

AABRIA: Yeah. (laughter) You're good, I have no idea what's happening over here, but I'm very into it.

AIMEE: I don't know either. I'm hoping that I'm just disarming him.

AABRIA: Yeah, he's disarmed. You tied him, you hogtied him. He's just sitting in the street, like checking out your squad, like, "Oh, okay. I think I'm into all of this, I think this is fine."

AIMEE: We're just chatting, it's perfect.

AABRIA: Yeah, it's fine. All good vibes. Dariax, you're up.

MATT: In the middle of the scuffle, first off, my first reaction is to go like: Poska has the grass with her. (laughter) Looking around quickly, we're fighting in broad daylight in the middle of the Emon streets.

AABRIA: It's not broad daylight, it's raining, but yes.

MATT: Broad rain light.

AABRIA: Yes.

MATT: Is anybody of note, like city guard or...

AABRIA: You don't see any city guard. They are noticeably absent.

AIMEE: Ooh.

MATT: Hmm. Well, I ain't got to worry about that then.

LIAM: (whispering) Corruption.

AABRIA: We love it.

MATT: I'm going to watch my little friend over there go for the speed bag and fail. (laughter) And be like: I got you, buddy. I'm going to go ahead and after the failed spear experiment, last time, and pulling back, I'm going to spin it around and go and try and go from the front this time.

AIMEE: Nice!

AABRIA: Oh god, this poor boy. Make an attack roll.

MATT: Ooh, natural 19. 23.

AABRIA: Hits!

MATT: Two-handed. Oh no, this is a spear. Let me check this. No, two-handed, yeah. That will be-- (gasps) Nine points.

AABRIA: Oh yeah. You clock him and you see the light leave his eyes, as he just slumps forward. And the the vines and plants catch him, as he sags to the ground, unconscious.

MATT: Team effort.

AIMEE: Nice.

LIAM: (unhappy closed-mouthed scream)

MATT: Oh! Just go ahead and...

ASHLEY: Sorry.

MATT: Help him out of there.

ROBBIE: No, no, I'm sorry. I was feeling confident after the whole warehouse thing. I thought there was only two of them, we could take them.

AIMEE: Hey guys, Arthur's all tied up.

AABRIA: Fearne, you're still up. I don't know if we're in an initiative. I'm very confused about what's happening here, so.

AIMEE: I'm so confused.

AABRIA: Whatever you want to do, baby girl.

ASHLEY: Should we bring him over?

AIMEE: Sure, or can we just run?

AABRIA: "Wait, what do you mean run?"

AIMEE: Away. Oh no! Well, you'd come, too. You'd come too, but we'd get a head start, it's part of the game.

AABRIA: "It's a--"

AIMEE: It's a game!

AABRIA: Persuasion check with disadvantage. He's a little confused.

AIMEE: Oh, disadvantage. Oh, fuck. (laughter) 15.

AABRIA: Yo, with a 15--

AIMEE: Would've been a 20.

AABRIA: His face sort of clouds over and you see him feeling it, like how tightly he's bound, then bites his lip. "Okay, I'm in for games. How long do I wait?"

AIMEE: Oh, it could be forever. I'm just kidding, it could be like an hour.

AABRIA: "Like an hour?"

AIMEE: Yeah, like an hour. You get food at the end.

AABRIA: "Feels like a long time. I don't, how about like two minutes?" And you see, you haven't seen his hands disappear, anywhere and he just sort of rolls his fingers and a knife pops up. "Okay, two minutes and then I'll cut myself free and come find you."

AIMEE: Okay. (yelling) Two minutes!

ASHLEY: Two minutes, two minutes, two minutes. Do we want to keep running?

LIAM: As I peel vines off of myself, I see someone 30 feet away go: It's just a-- magical vines-- It's just a misunderstanding. Bar tab, yeah, let's go, come on. And I start darting towards the gate.

ASHLEY: Let's go.

AIMEE: Oh, should I go, or should I do Eldritch Blast on him? (laughter)

AABRIA: That is really the Sophie's Choice of all warlocks. (laughter)

ASHLEY: Do I let him go or do I kill him?

ROBBIE: This encounter.

AIMEE: Because he might follow us.

ROBBIE: I know.

AIMEE: Okay, are we still doing the fighting or is this free time?

AABRIA: You know what? We're out of initiatives, so if you have a decision, you could just make a choice.

AIMEE: Okay, I would love to cast Eldritch Blast on him. (laughter)

MATT: Just as we're all walking away.

AIMEE: Just a parting gift. I'll be right back.

LIAM: Orym's already at the gate!

ROBBIE: We're at the gate!

AABRIA: You get out to the gate, you lean out. Go ahead. Roll with advantage because he is restrained.

AIMEE: Oh, that's a 25. (laughter)

LIAM: Jeez!

AIMEE: But can we just do it so that he doesn't die, just passes out?

AABRIA: Yeah, you can always specify non-lethal.

AIMEE: Yeah, non-lethal, we love him, we like him, we don't love him.

AABRIA: All right, wait, did you roll a natural 20?

AIMEE: Yeah.

AABRIA: You got to say natural 20.

AIMEE: Oh sorry, (yelling) natural 20!

AABRIA: Okay, you didn't have to scream, that fine, yeah. I'm very proud of you.

AIMEE: Okay.

AABRIA: So go ahead and roll your damage, but you double the dice.

AIMEE: Oh, I double the dice.

AABRIA: That's why we say natural 20 out loud.

AIMEE: Oh, so I double the d10, you mean?

AABRIA: Yep, so you're going to roll 2d10 and then add your three on at the end.

AIMEE: Okay, okay, so that's a-- That's a four and a five. That's a nine?

AABRIA: That feels low, but I'll accept it. Yeah, no, you're fine.

AIMEE: Okay.

AABRIA: Yeah, you kind of--

AIMEE: Oh, I did, fuck, I did, sorry, I did a d10 and a d4. That's bad, this is why you do it with a real dice.

AABRIA: Roll your real dice then, coward.

AIMEE: That's going to be a 15, plus, okay, 15. (laughter) Hey, it's my first time playing D&D.

ALL: Yay!

ASHLEY: It's okay, I still--

AIMEE: Yeah, 15.

ASHLEY: -- do that all the time. (laughter)

AABRIA: Yeah, so you like-- You know what? You describe what your Eldritch Blast looks like.

AIMEE: Okay, so the Eldritch Blast in this case, I guess, as I'm running away, I'm just going to be like: Arthur, psst! And then I'm going to blow a kiss and it's going to be all sparkly and opalescent and then he'll just not so gently be knocked out.

AABRIA: Sweet, yeah. Just, and he just sort of slumps over awkwardly.

AIMEE: Yeah.

AABRIA: He's just getting rained on, poor boy.

AIMEE: Bye. And then I run back and meet my peeps.

AABRIA: I don't know what just happened, but you have successfully evaded two more of the Nameless Ones.

AIMEE: Great.

ASHLEY: Excuse me, you are so good at tying people up.

AIMEE: Thanks.

ASHLEY: Where did you learn how to do that?

AIMEE: Well, I picked it up in a small town called Byroden, where I'm from. And it was the only thing I was good at.

LIAM: That's cool, that seems like a walk and talk. Let's--

ASHLEY: Sure, sure, sure, sure. I just had to give appreciation where it was due.

AIMEE: All the girls learned it where I'm from.

ASHLEY: Yeah, okay, that's probably. It's a very good skill to learn.

AIMEE: Yeah, I'll teach you some time.

AABRIA: Need to write that down for later. (laughter)

AIMEE: Just adding that, Matt, to the Byroden...

AABRIA: Don't look at him, you look at me.

AIMEE: I'm sorry, I'm just adding that, Aabria, to the Byroden.

AABRIA: Oh, I know.

AIMEE: All the girls get rope training. (laughter)

AABRIA: Wild. All right, so you guys successfully make it out of the gates and you skirt around the edge of the city and heading north and then eventually east. And you see, maybe about a half a mile, as you circumnavigate the city walls then the city guard that's posted up on the walls, start to reappear, but they were very specifically and intentionally not at the lower gate, while you guys were trying to get out.

LIAM: Okay.

ASHLEY: That's interesting.

LIAM: We're going to have a real tricky time, if we have to come back here.

AIMEE: Who thinks that the guards and the Nameless Ones are in cahoots?

LIAM: All of us.

AIMEE: Okay. Just making sure.

ROBBIE: Pretty strange that there were two Nameless Ones as guards at the gate.

AIMEE: True.

MATT: Oh!

ASHLEY: Oh, I didn't get that either.

MATT: Yeah.

ASHLEY: You're very smart.

MATT: We really got to go then.

ASHLEY: Yeah, we should go.

AIMEE: We should go.

LIAM: So am I able to, or any of us, are we able to navigate towards the Scar?

AABRIA: Yeah, it's pretty easy. You can just follow, the main road out of town and get to the south. You were given information, generally speaking, about where it was when you were first told to go check Emon and say hi to the Pyrah contingent that were there and in the area. So you know how to get there, it's going to be about half a day walk.

LIAM: Okay.

AABRIA: It is getting towards evening, so do you guys want to walk through the night to arrive first thing in the morning or camp in the rain on the outside of town with none of your stuff?

AIMEE: Hmm.

LIAM: Can we look for-- Can we go off the road and look for an overhang or a thick tree or--

AIMEE: Cave?

LIAM: A cave.

MATT: Some sort of a possible campsite.

LIAM: Or an old shack.

ASHLEY: Just a left over tent somewhere. (laughter)

ROBBIE: A tauntaun we could cut open and crawl in there.

AABRIA: Yes, get on in there. Give me survival check.

LIAM: Can we sleep in a baby ankheg? That's cocked. And that's worse, I should have taken the cocked one. Eight.

AABRIA: With an eight, because this is a well-traveled area, you have to get pretty far off the road to reach enough deep thicketed woods that will provide sufficient overhang, but you're able to. You have to walk about half an hour off the road. It's dry enough. It looks like it's a campsite for some people at some time and it's as good as you're going to get.

LIAM: Okay, well, it's not an inn, it's not the townhouse, but--

ASHLEY: I can help build us a little something. I used to do this at home.

AIMEE: Thanks.

ASHLEY: Yeah. I'll just look for large leaves and anything that I can build us just a little something.

AABRIA: Yeah, give me a survival check.

ASHLEY: Okay.

AABRIA: If anyone helps you, they can give you advantage.

AIMEE: I want to help.

ASHLEY: Okay. That's pretty good. Okay, 19.

AABRIA: Yeah, with a 19, you're able to see there's lots of big, heavy branches. You're able to build a little, what do you build? What does it look like?

ASHLEY: Okay, so. Just looking for very large sort of palm leaves and I just want to make a little-- what are those called? A pagoda? Is that, am I making that up? I feel like that's something, a pergola.

AABRIA: Pergola, yeah. I was like, "Pagoda is a lot of architecture, but okay."

LIAM: Yeah, pagoda is a beautiful building.

AABRIA: I don't know how you, yeah. That's a pretty good roll, I don't know.

ASHLEY: Just make us a, nothing crazy, but just something that looks really nice and, you know, wrap little vines around it. So there's just something magical, enchanted about it. And yeah, that's about it. Nothing crazy.

AABRIA: With a good overhang, you're able to effectively block all of the rain coming down that was still getting in a bit through the trees and build a fire, so you're able to have a nice, warm, little central area, even though it's open on the sides.

MATT: Is this is for you or can we share it?

ASHLEY: Oh, this is for all of us.

MATT: Thank you kindly.

ASHLEY: Come on in.

ROBBIE: It's no gentrified townhouse in the South Slums, but it'll do, good job.

ASHLEY: It's true. I like this better.

LIAM: It's a little more of what I'm used to.

ASHLEY: Me too.

AIMEE: I love it.

ASHLEY: Thanks.

AIMEE: Cozy.

LIAM: Oh, only took us about a week to completely offend and ruin ourselves with an emerging guild of thieves in the largest city in the continent and we don't remember most of the days we were there.

MATT: Checks out, yeah.

LIAM: Yeah.

ROBBIE: To be fair, I think we did most of the damage within the last 24 hours or so.

LIAM: Yes.

MATT: Which, by my account, says we're pretty efficient.

AIMEE: Do you think we'll make, like, the local news? Like, will people be talking about us?

MATT: Based on who we're dealing with, probably not publicly--

AIMEE: Oh.

MATT: -- but privately, probably a lot. We should avoid the city forever.

ROBBIE: Speaking of which, are we far enough away from the city? Do we feel safe?

MATT: No, but you know, we're here, we're tired.

ROBBIE: Okay. How did they know?

MATT: I don't know, man, I just did small bits of work here and there for some of the low lifes and they do some pretty spooky shit.

ROBBIE: It was instant. As soon as we robbed them, as soon as we killed them, there was someone outside.

ASHLEY: Is that normal with criminal things?

MATT: I don't know, I haven't stolen a lot of residuum from, but I mean, they move pretty quick. Networks of conversation go fast, that way people don't double cross, you know. This is kind of going to ruin my resume, but you know, it's fine.

LIAM: You know a lot.

MATT: I know a few things.

LIAM: That's what I said, I'm trying to compliment you.

MATT: You did! Right. Thank you, thank you. I do, I know a lot.

AIMEE: Do you think they could smell the vibranium? (laughter)

MATT: Sorry, I'm not caught up on that show, what's that? (laughter)

AIMEE: As soon as it came out of my mouth. (laughter)

AABRIA: No, I do like Black Panther enough that I would have done that.

ROBBIE: Yes, what was that mysterious substance you stole again?

LIAM: Unobtainium, actually. (laughter)

ROBBIE: You sure it's not adamantium?

AIMEE: Wait, before I lose my job, do you think they could smell the residuum?

LIAM: So we've got the flubber. (laughter)

ROBBIE: You know, I know someone who sells slime. (laughter) (laughter)

ASHLEY: Oh my god.

LIAM: First giggle fit of the show. I don't know. I don't know how potent the smell of this stuff is.

AIMEE: Should we bury it?

LIAM: No, we shouldn't bury it. We should, I mean, I'm open to anything, but I think we--

ASHLEY: She has all the best ideas, though.

LIAM: At least bring most of it to my, uh, cousins, so to speak.

ASHLEY: But should we also maybe use it? I don't know, I don't know anything about this stuff.

LIAM: I don't know how to use it. Do you know how to use it?

MATT: I didn't know this existed until you brought it up.

ROBBIE: Same.

ASHLEY: How do you-- You don't know how to use it. Should we try?

LIAM: I know how to use this. And he just holds up his sword and its scabbard.

ASHLEY: Can I--

LIAM: I've only heard a little bit about it.

AABRIA: You know what, no.

LIAM: And I know where it comes from.

AABRIA: I want-- Dorian, Dariax, and Opal, can you make a history check for me?

MATT: Yeah, yeah.

MATT: Hell yeah, four.

AABRIA: Buddy.

AIMEE: 12.

ROBBIE: 10.

AABRIA: Damn.

ROBBIE: We don't know nothing.

AABRIA: No, Opal, the more you're talking about residuum, you have heard this phrase, only in connection with a drug that exists a little bit in Byroden. You've heard tell more of it in your time in Emon, before meeting up with the rest of the group called suude.

AIMEE: Okay. So I haven't done it myself, but I have seen it at a lot of parties. It's called suude.

MATT: Oh, I know about suude.

AIMEE: Okay, it has residuum in it.

MATT: Really?

AIMEE: Yeah.

MATT: That's worth lot of money, what you got right there.

ASHLEY: That's a lot of suude.

AIMEE: Now I've never tried it, but it seems like a lot of fun.

ASHLEY: It's really fun to just take a little bit every day.

AIMEE: Yeah. (laughter)

ROBBIE: So you're carrying a dangerous drug precursor?

LIAM: I heard really different stories about this stuff.

AIMEE: Well, they just make it with it. So I just think it's very powerful and people can consume it safely.

LIAM: Well.

ASHLEY: So we're all taking some tonight?

MATT: I'm already rubbing some on my teeth. (laughter)

LIAM: How did you get in my bag? All right.

MATT: You catch me going--

LIAM: I don't think should, okay, right on your teeth, okay.

MATT: It's really gritty.

AABRIA: Give me a constitution save.

LIAM: Yeah, let's watch him and see how it goes.

MATT: That's 11.

AABRIA: It's not drugs yet, so I think just the front teeth, is just the best, like tooth polish you've ever gotten. And you can feel, your teeth begin to feel a little bit, like they feel cleaner, but they also feel like they're becoming a liquid. It just, there's a little bit of a mouth high, if you will.

MATT: That's weird. I don't think we should be able to do it.

ASHLEY: Oh!

LIAM: They should put that on billboards around Whitestone. Just: Whitestone: Is it drugs yet? (laughter)

MATT: Like I've tried them before. It's [inaudible] great, but it feels different this time, I don't know why.

AIMEE: Maybe uncut, it's not great for the human body.

MATT: I don't know, I...

ASHLEY: Maybe not.

ROBBIE: Fearne, do you feel anything magical resonating off of it, or?

LIAM: Wait, did you take some, too?

ASHLEY: No, I didn't.

LIAM: Okay.

AABRIA: You checked it earlier. It is not magical in and of itself. You can leverage it to either turn it into a drug with slightly magical effects or use it to help build magic items.

LIAM: Yeah, it's mineral, they mine it.

AABRIA: Yeah.

ASHLEY: I'm still curious about this circlet that we found. Can any of us identify what it is?

ROBBIE: It makes me barf.

ASHLEY: It does. Nothing happened to you?

MATT: No, I'm good.

ASHLEY: I want to touch the box or the whatever we put it in.

AABRIA: It's in a fruit crate, in a-- There's a two-box situation, yes.

ASHLEY: Okay.

AABRIA: You move the fantasy bananas.

LIAM: Layer of fruit, layer of wood.

AABRIA: Yeah, there you go.

ASHLEY: I'll eat some of the fruit to get rid of it.

AABRIA: It's good.

ASHLEY: Do I feel anything?

AABRIA: What's your alignment?

ASHLEY: Chaotic neutral.

AABRIA: Nothing, feels like a box.

ASHLEY: Hmm. I don't feel queasy.

LIAM: Maybe it expended its whatever.

ROBBIE: Bring it over to me for just a second. (closed-mouth gagging noises) Mm-mm! It's still gross.

AABRIA: Con save.

ROBBIE: Ah, come on. Oh yay. 17.

AABRIA: You feel that sense of filling of your stomach, that oily slickness, and then what feels skittering on the inside of your stomach, moving around through that liquid ichor, but you hold it down. Good job. Guess that's better.

ROBBIE: Mm-hmm, yeah. Feels like tiny spiders in my stomach.

MATT: That's horrible.

ROBBIE: It is.

ASHLEY: Do you feel, did you feel it, Opal?

AIMEE: No, not yet.

AABRIA: What's your alignment?

AIMEE: Chaotic neutral.

AABRIA: Nah, you good.

MATT: Damn, we are a chaotic group. (laughter)

AABRIA: Thanks, y'all. It's my first time here and you're like, "Fuck you." (laughter) "We're all nonsense!" Cool, go ahead.

AIMEE: Have she taken the lid off yet, or we're just looking right at it?

ASHLEY: Just the box, yeah.

AIMEE: Just the box.

AABRIA: You're just holding the box, do you want to open it?

AIMEE: Can I shake it?

AABRIA: It rattles.

AIMEE: Hmm, still in there. (laughter)

ASHLEY: That could be good.

AIMEE: I don't know. Part of me wants to look, another part of me is, like, maybe we've had enough good luck for the day, let's not test it.

ROBBIE: Just to clarify--

LIAM: I like that voice.

ROBBIE: It doesn't make anyone else throw up?

ASHLEY: Did you get--

LIAM: Yeah, it made me nauseous as hell.

AIMEE: Oh.

ASHLEY: I mean, just looking at it shouldn't do anything. Is that wrong?

AIMEE: Well, maybe we'll just put it on our side.

ASHLEY: Yeah, we'll keep it on our side.

LIAM: I think we should leave it in the box.

AIMEE: Oh, yeah, no, we'll leave it in the box.

LIAM: Okay.

MATT: Maybe it just likes magic people.

AIMEE: Hmm!

ASHLEY: Oh, that's an interesting point.

ROBBIE: I've got some magic. I know I'm a musician, I've got a little magic.

MATT: You know, you're right, you're right. My apologies.

ROBBIE: Thank you.

MATT: You're a little more subtle.

ROBBIE: Yeah!

AABRIA: (gasps)

ROBBIE: It's-- Subtle?

MATT: Well, yeah, but-- Don't worry about it. We have no idea what this is. We just know that it's probably bad, right? We know that it was--

ASHLEY: Well, why are we assuming it's bad?

MATT: I don't see a lot of good things that look like they're-- that.

LIAM: Just aesthetically, you know.

MATT: It's garish, it doesn't match anything I have, it's pretty bad.

AABRIA: Black matches everything, I reject this.

MATT: Not in my wardrobe it doesn't.

LIAM: It was dripping goo.

ROBBIE: We also found it in a room full of murdered men.

AIMEE: So why are I keeping it, exactly?

LIAM: We're going to--

AIMEE: Oh, we're taking this, too.

LIAM: We're going to hand it over to people who are more capable.

AIMEE: Oh, well.

LIAM: That I trust.

MATT: For a reward.

AIMEE: Reward?

LIAM: Yes, doing good is its own reward, but we can talk to them about a reward.

AIMEE: Reward. Yeah, let's talk about a reward.

ROBBIE: Orym, is your entire plan just to give everything to the Ashari that we found?

LIAM: Like what besides the crown? No, just the--

ROBBIE: The circlet?

LIAM: I guess that is my plan.

ROBBIE: And the residuum.

LIAM: I have to give them the residuum or talk to them about the residuum because they need to know. The crown, that's up to you guys. I'm not capable of coping with whatever that is. It scares the crap out of me.

AIMEE: Wish we knew more about it.

AABRIA: Want to make another arcana check while it's close to you?

AIMEE: Yeah.

AABRIA: Please do.

AIMEE: Where the hell are you? 20. Unnatural 20, but 20.

AABRIA: Okay. You look back down at it again. You reach out. You don't open the box, but you put your hand on it and around you the sky gets darker. your vision sort of tightens in on this and you can see it clearly, that barbed onyx circlet on a black pillow, inside a case. And then you hear the skittering of spiders all around you.

AIMEE: (shudders)

AABRIA: And the last thing you see before your vision comes back to yourself is one massive spider leg stepping forward.

AIMEE: (gasp) Okay, so I'm not really scared of spiders usually, but I did see the thing and then a giant spider leg.

LIAM: Saw?

AIMEE: You know, like in a vision.

LIAM: When?

AIMEE: Just now when I touched it. No, no, no, in a vision. In a vision. I see visions.

ROBBIE: Did you say spider?

AIMEE: Spider, big spider leg.

MATT: Did you say vision?

AIMEE: Big spider leg. Just going (blows raspberry) (loud thump)

ASHLEY: Oh.

ROBBIE: That's what it felt like inside when I'm near it, like insects or spiders, or--

AIMEE: Do you think it belongs to the king spider? Or queen spider?

AABRIA: Let's get a religion check for the table. (laughter)

AIMEE: That wasn't meant to be a serious question.

AABRIA: No, you're good. (laughter)

AIMEE: Oh what, religion?

AABRIA: Religion.

AIMEE: Oh no.

MATT: Weirdly enough, a 16.

ROBBIE: 16 here as well.

ASHLEY: 16 here as well.

AIMEE and AABRIA: She got three! (laughter)

AIMEE: She did not get religion studies at the Byroden Academy of Tying People Up.

AABRIA: Amazing. So you said the goofiest thing and you see everyone else's eyes alight that one of the Betrayer Gods, one of the dark deities in Exandria is known as the Spider Queen.

AIMEE: You're fucking kidding me.

AABRIA: I mean, whatever. You nailed it, but you don't know that. Because you rolled like dirt. (laughter)

AIMEE: Wait, I was making that up. There's a real...

AABRIA: No one's said anything yet. Shush. (laughter)

LIAM: I mean, kind of there is, yeah.

AIMEE: No.

ROBBIE: Oh yes.

LIAM: Sure. I mean, I'm not horribly religious, but my mom used to tell me stories to spook me when I was a kid.

AIMEE: Oh god.

LIAM: Of some of the nastier Betrayer Gods and there is a Spider Queen.

AIMEE: Is she nice?

LIAM: Not in the stories.

ROBBIE: Ancient stories. Before my people fell.

AIMEE: Well. For real?

ASHLEY: Wow. So this was her crown?

AIMEE: I mean, that was just a g-- I was just guessing. I don't know if that's true.

ASHLEY: Well, it makes sense.

MATT: Well, if this belongs either to the Spider Queen or a friend of the Spider Queen or it's a present she was making for a friend and never got to her because, thieves got it, like--

AIMEE: Oh yeah.

MATT: Do we give it back? Like, is she going to be happy that we returned it? Maybe there's a reward there?

AIMEE: Also, where does the Spider Queen live?

MATT: Probably some place dark?

ASHLEY: That's a very good question. I don't know. (sighs)

AABRIA: Dorian, the more you think about it and you turn over the lore in your head, everything you've ever heard about items directly attached and assigned to deities. A phrase pops into your memory. Vestiges of Divergence.

ROBBIE: Vestiges of Divergence.

AABRIA: Extremely powerful items, from the time of the calamity.

ROBBIE: It just popped into my head. Vestiges of Divergence.

MATT: What are those?

ROBBIE: Can't recall. Something from when I was a child.

LIAM: Those are creations of the gods.

MATT: (scoffs)

LIAM: Yeah. I mean, I've seen one.

ASHLEY: What have you seen?

LIAM: Well, the woman who rules the Air Ashari has one that was hard-- hard come by.

AIMEE: Who?

LIAM: Keyleth of the Air Ashari, our-- our leader

AABRIA: Opal, that name does ring a bell. You've heard stories about all of the members of Vox Machina and all of the things they did especially when it comes to your hometown of Byroden.

AIMEE: Right.

LIAM: I mean, everything that happened in Emon, in Vasselheim is-- years ago is tied up with the Vestiges of Divergence. That's-- we couldn't have a vestige in a box right now. That makes no sense.

AIMEE: You mean like it's disrespectful or it wouldn't have been-- like should we take it out?

LIAM: No.

ROBBIE: It would be like finding the most ancient, rarest, sought after item by chance.

ASHLEY: Well, okay. So if this woman that you're talking about. Keyleth, did you say? If she was able to use a vestige, then maybe we should just keep this for ourselves.

MATT: Wha-- (sighs)

ASHLEY: Am I interpreting this wrong?

LIAM: I mean, there were many of them, made by all manner of gods. Some made for good, some not. So--

ASHLEY: Oh, so some of them are bad.

LIAM: This could be-- you know, we could be off the mark here, but if this is something connected to the Spider Queen, it is very dangerous. It is way beyond us.

ROBBIE: So we give it to the Ashari.

LIAM: Yeah.

MATT: I mean--

AIMEE: You seem like you hate that idea.

ROBBIE: I don't hate the idea. It's just, everything can't be connected to the Ashari.

LIAM: It's not. If you want to try to figure out another responsible way of dealing with this thing, I'm open to it. I just know that we shouldn't be running around with it in our back pocket. And it is a massive target on our backs right now, on top of the murders.

ROBBIE: On top of the murders.

ASHLEY: Well, my grandmother is a very, very, very, very very smart woman. And I feel like she would know what to do with this. If there was anything else-- you know, if we didn't want to take it to the Ashari.

LIAM: Where's your grandmother?

ASHLEY: She's in the Feywild.

LIAM: This is quite a conversation.

AIMEE: I feel like the Ashari's closer.

AABRIA: (giggles)

ASHLEY: Maybe.

LIAM: Are you able to--

MATT: You're talking Zephrah, right? That's south of where I grew up. That's not terribly far. It's a few weeks' travel. It's farther away from the city, if we're doing that.

LIAM: Right. Well, the Fire Ashari are closer, so that could be a starting point.

ROBBIE: We could show them and not give it to them right away. We could ask for their guidance.

AIMEE: Will they take it from us?

LIAM: They probably would have very-- I'm guessing have strong opinions about--

ASHLEY: What to do with it.

LIAM: If we made a stink about holding onto it, they would probably want to escort us. I would guess. (clearing throats)

AIMEE: Is there a place where some of these things are housed?

AIMEE: Is there a place where some of these things are housed? Like a temple? We could just give it back.

ROBBIE: We did steal it.

ASHLEY: Well, I have-- I think we-- I don't think we stole it. We just are holding it.

ROBBIE: No, we stole it.

ASHLEY: Well, tomato tomahto.

MATT: Well, if you steal something that may have originally been stolen, does that unsteal it?

AIMEE: And we don't have bad intentions with it.

ASHLEY: Two very good points.

LIAM: I don't think there are many people who would keep this thing and have good intentions. So I don't feel too bad about stealing it, but I also don't feel too good about keeping it.

MATT: So we find somebody who's interested and will pay good money for it. And it's no longer our problem. And then if we do run into any of the folks from Emon that we double crossed, we tell them that we were working for them and we don't want anything to do with this. Right? And we just move on from there?

ROBBIE: It's certainly not doing us any good covered in bananas.

AIMEE: I mean, we could eat the banana.

MATT: How are the bananas holding up, by the way? Are they affected at all by the proximity?

AABRIA: What is the alignment of a banana?

LIAM: They're all brown.

ASHLEY: Did you just roll for bananas? (laughter)

AABRIA: I did. I think bananas are inherently chaotic fruit, so they're chillin'. They're fine.

MATT: All right, all right. Checks out.

LIAM: This shit is bananas.

AIMEE: That's true. They can give you diarrhea or constipation.

AABRIA: Bananas is never said as a good thing, only as a wild thing. They're fine. The grapes are fucked.

MATT: (laughs)

ASHLEY: Well--

AIMEE: "Grapes are fucked."

LIAM: Are you able to get to your grandmother? As a sidebar.

ASHLEY: Yeah, if I think real hard about it. (laughter) I actually don't know. DM?

AABRIA: Okay. We'll find out together. (laughter)

ASHLEY: Sometimes if I just sit--

AIMEE: Click your heels.

ASHLEY: And I click my heels.

LIAM: Your hooves?

AABRIA: Your little hooves are like--

ASHLEY: My little hooves. Sometimes I just get home, but I don't think I can go home just yet anyway, but it is an option. So because she's just an incredible-- an incredible woman. And I know that she would probably know how to handle this, but...

MATT: Well, I mean, if we're going, where is the Feywild? Is it north? Is it a big side journey we could do? Like, if we plot this out, like, if we're sticking in the same direction we can just hit up a bunch of places along the way.

ASHLEY: Well, it's-- the Feywild is where the Feywild is. I don't know.

MATT: Gotcha.

LIAM: I've heard of this secondhand. I mean, quietly, standing in a room full of people way more important than me, but it's very hard to get there. How did you get here?

ASHLEY: Well, my grandmother sent me here and I just came to see the world.

AABRIA: Wisdom saving throw.

ASHLEY: Natural 20.

AABRIA: Oh, snap. You drift back and think and you have that very bland memory of: Well, my Nana sent me and then I was just here and you can reach to the edges of that and peel back that memory slapped on, and you peer behind it at the truth, and you remember a much longer memory of walking for weeks, escorted by your Nana, to a large, beautiful, ornate gate of stone wrapped in vines and covered in little mushrooms and pushing through the gate and walking for what felt like a second and forever and gently falling green light and appearing on the other side of it, looking over your shoulder and watching as that planar magic fade, and you were close to another large city here on Tal'Dorei called Syngorn. From there, you made your way north and eventually got to Emon. Then just as you think that, you feel that roll of the old memory go on top of it, but you can flip back and forth between the two.

ASHLEY: I remember now. I walked here. Yeah. I walked here. That's all.

LIAM: Was it a long walk?

ASHLEY: Yes. It was a very long walk, but time is a weird soup. (laughter)

AIMEE: And her hooves are made for walking.

ASHLEY: They are very much made for walking.

LIAM: How do you like it so far, on this side?

ASHLEY: It's very interesting. Everybody seems very nice so far. Everybody seems very nice so far. And there's not a lot of greenery here And there's not a lot of greenery here and flowers like back home, but I do like it a lot.

ROBBIE: We like you a lot.

ASHLEY: Thank you.

AIMEE: Mm-hmm.

LIAM: It's like traveling with a fairytale.

ASHLEY: What does that mean?

LIAM: I mean, by you--

ASHLEY: I'm just kidding, I know what that means. (laughter) We have lots of those at home.

AABRIA: You guys look out past the pergola and night has well and truly fallen. It's getting late. Is there anything else you want to do?

LIAM: I'll take first watch.

MATT: I'm just going to do a little patrol around just to keep an eye out. I'm feeling a little nervous.

AABRIA: All right. Give me an investigation check.

MATT: Hell yeah. That would be 15.

AABRIA: With a 15. You do little laps around your camp site, and you don't notice any other people that are staying within hundreds of yards of you. And you get out close enough that you can see the road and you see after waiting for about 20 minutes, a single horse charging down the lane, a single horse charging down the lane, wearing a black cloak to shield from the rain. But below it, you see a little flash of red leather. Takes off in the distance.

MATT: But not in our direction.

AABRIA: No.

MATT: All righty. With a little more pep in my step, I head on back to the rest of the troop. She's going the wrong way. We're clear.

ROBBIE: She?

MATT: Poska. I think I just saw her on the road. Went by on a horse. But that way, so we're good.

LIAM: You got a good look at her?

MATT: Nah, I just saw some leather and I just assumed.

LIAM: Oh.

ASHLEY: It was probably her.

MATT: Probably, I mean, chances are. A lot of coincidences otherwise. And you know, let's be honest. Red leather is a little garish, and so you remember the people you meet who wear it. Pretty sure that was her most likely. And if I'm wrong, not my fault.

LIAM: We should be good. Probably still stay up, though.

ASHLEY: You can wake me up when you're done with-- I can take the second watch.

LIAM: Okay.

AIMEE: I'll take the third.

ASHLEY: Okay.

ROBBIE: I'm an early riser. I'll take the last watch.

MATT: (snoring)

AABRIA: (laughs) Perception check for the first watch.

LIAM: Okay, and I'm going to sit close to the box and I'm going to put my blade on the ground and just, all throughout my time looking out and around, I'll just keep coming back to the box and also spending some time looking at the blade on the ground. That is a 19.

AABRIA: Your campsite is completely safe and secure and it's only 'til, maybe half an hour left in your watch, as your mind sort of begins to move towards sleep that you imagine that you hear skittering within the box itself.

LIAM: Scoot on my butt a foot back from it. The rest of my watch, I'm just going to watch the box.

AABRIA: Yep. Doesn't move. It feels heavy. Second watch. Make a perception check.

ASHLEY: Ooh, natural 19. Ooh, 22.

AABRIA: Again, you, you know what, you got super good--

ASHLEY: Big ol' ears.

AABRIA: You got big ol' ears!

ASHLEY: Just big ol' floofers. (laughter)

AABRIA: As it gets incredibly late into the night you can hear from, at quite a distance, the road as hooves, at a gallop, charge up and down the road. But they never seem to turn off of it. You don't hear anything in bushes or shrubs around you, but the road sounds active for the middle of the night. That's all.

ASHLEY: Okay. Psst, Opal?

AIMEE: Hmm?

ASHLEY: I'm going to go back to sleep.

AIMEE: Okay.

ASHLEY: Okay. (kisses)

AABRIA: While you were asleep, make a-- Make a charisma saving throw for me.

AIMEE: Hmm. (squeaking)

AABRIA: Upper left.

AIMEE: Yep, 13.

AABRIA: With a 13, you fall asleep almost immediately, When you finally lay down.

AIMEE: Mm-hmm.

AABRIA: And then, have you ever had night terrors?

AIMEE: Yeah.

AABRIA: Yeah. Right away, you feel like you-- You feel like you're awake still, but you can't quite open your eyes and you can hear the sound of skittering and that big step and another one. And you feel something lean very close to your face, even though you can't look up and address it. But you hear the voice of your sister Ted, and says, "What are you doing?" You can respond.

AIMEE: I'm having fun.

AABRIA: "What?"

AIMEE: I'm having fun with my friends. What are you doing?

AABRIA: "Trying to keep you alive!"

AIMEE: Well, what is this thing? Tell me what it is.

AABRIA: "Get rid of it!"

AIMEE: Get rid of it? Well, why?

AABRIA: "Because it's evil! Oh my god!"

AIMEE: Okay, but who do I give it to? I don't want to give it to an evil person, Ted. Ever think of that?

AABRIA: "What, no, I don't care what--"

AIMEE: Drop it in the ocean?

AABRIA: "It was nice seeing the ocean."

AIMEE: It was nice seeing the ocean.

AABRIA: "Yeah. But yeah, you should've dropped it in the ocean!"

AIMEE: No, I'm not going to drop it in the ocean. What if an evil critter gets it in the ocean and then it has all this power over us?

AABRIA: "Did you consider, that maybe with your incredibly weak moral fiber, that it would make you evil?"

AIMEE: Okay, that's insulting, first of all--

AABRIA: "But not inaccurate."

AIMEE: Second of all, what would you have done with it?

AABRIA: "Dropped it in the ocean!"

AIMEE: (mockingly) Drop it in the ocean and then an evil lobster gets it? And then it's like the return of the lobsters.

AABRIA: You feel a slap on your shoulder really hard.

AIMEE: That's so fucking rude. Wait until I tell Dad about that.

AABRIA: "I'm rude? You're not going to tell Dad--"

AIMEE: Oh, I might tell Dad about that.

AABRIA: "(frustrated screech)"

AIMEE: Okay. If you're not going to tell me what it is, then I'm just going to put you on-- I'm going to just dream about something else.

AABRIA: "You-- No, I am in control of this dream. You don't get to choose to dream of something else."

AIMEE: I'm going to change the channel chapter. I'm going to turn the page.

AABRIA: "Don't, I'm trying to tell you important things!"

AIMEE: I'm going to turn the papyrus, Ted!

AABRIA: Make a charisma saving throw.

AIMEE: 13 again.

AABRIA: You know what?

LIAM: Roll for lucid dreaming.

AABRIA and ASHLEY: Yeah. (laughter)

AABRIA: The DC, well no, the DC was 12.

AIMEE: Oh great.

AABRIA: You're able to wrest control away.

AIMEE: Yeah, yeah, Ted, don't ruin this for me.

AABRIA: "What?"

AIMEE: Do not shit on my adventure.

AABRIA: "I'm not trying to ruin this for you!"

AIMEE: Don't shit on my adventure!

AABRIA: "I'm not shitting on your adventure, I'm trying to keep you alive!"

AIMEE: Bye! (loudly exhales) Thanks for waking me up.

AABRIA: "You're not awake, you're in a dream."

AIMEE: No, I am not awake. Goddamn it! Can you please go if you're not going to tell me what this thing is or what it does--

AABRIA: "Literally, I made this bitch magic and she's asking me to leave. Cool. Cool."

AIMEE: I'm asking you to--

AABRIA: "Good luck! Good luck with your little daggers!"

AIMEE: (gasps)

AABRIA: And you feel yourself jolt awake and right next to you, you hear the sound of Fearne.

AIMEE: Thank you, Fearne. I just had a terrible dream.

ASHLEY: I'm so sorry.

AIMEE: Pull out my daggers. (laughter) It's okay, you can go to sleep.

ASHLEY: Okay. I'm like a dog. I'm like trying to, I'm circling. Trying to find the right way to lay down. There we go. Sorry, it just takes me a minute to get comfy.

AABRIA: Once you finally get curled up, Mister just climbs across you and does like the sprawl across your head and face.

ASHLEY: That's a good boy.

AABRIA: Falls asleep with one thumb in his mouth, the other's grabbing your ear.

AIMEE: Oh, that's cute!

AABRIA: Just passes out immediately.

ASHLEY: Scritchy bellies. (laughter)

AABRIA: All right. Third watch, perception check.

AIMEE: 11, jesus.

AABRIA: You're good. It's sort of the last bits of night, And you can watch the sunrise. You hear the road far away. There's carts moving. You're not really sure what's going on, but the area immediately around you, this little safe spot with the last embers of the fire dying down, is safe and secure.

AIMEE: So then, she puts one of her daggers down and in the reflection starts braiding her hair. Dorian.

ROBBIE: Hmm.

AIMEE: It's your fucking turn.

ROBBIE: (clears throat) All right, all right.

AABRIA: Yeah, give me a perception check.

ROBBIE: Yeah, right away?

AABRIA: Yep.

ASHLEY: (fart sound)

ROBBIE: 12.

AABRIA: Okay. What are you-- What are you thinking about right now?

ROBBIE: Hmm, Thinking about that circlet. It's kind of stuck in my head. It's affecting me. making me feel sort of just, we don't jive. (laughter) It makes me physically ill. Yeah.

AABRIA: With a 12, the perimeter stays secure. There's no one coming, but you hear, just beyond your awareness, skittering and scratching and a voice. You don't speak Undercommon, do you?

ROBBIE: Uh-uh.

AABRIA: But you would recognize it if you heard it.

ROBBIE: Hmm.

AABRIA: You hear a soft lilting, almost like a lullaby in Undercommon on the breeze coming just to you.

ROBBIE: And has Opal gone back to sleep? Am I up by myself?

AIMEE: Yeah. I think she's in and out because it's a weird time. She may not be a hundred percent asleep because the sun is coming up.

ROBBIE: I'll (clicks tongue) I'll click my flute out and take seat on the rock there in front of everyone. And I'm just going to really quietly play along with that that lullaby here on the breeze, just matching the tone of it and harmonizing when I can. And it feels sort of familiar, but not in a settling way. It feels wrong, but I know it, yeah.

AABRIA: By the time you finish, you no longer hear that skittering or that creeping sense of being watched by a million tiny eyes, just a pair of them. And though you don't feel any particular affinity towards the box and the vestige within, something is well-pleased by your playing, and you know that. And as the sun fully crests over the horizon, you all wake back up and head ostensibly to find the Fire Ashari, yeah?

LIAM: Yes. If everyone's willing.

AABRIA: Then with that, let's take our break right here. And we'll pick up with the Fire Ashari. (cheering) Yay! All right, we'll be right back. Don't turn the channel. I don't know.

AIMEE: Papyrus!

Break
LAURA: Hey Critters, Laura Bailey here. Let's see what's up in the Critical Role shop. (lively music) Ooh, look at this. Look at the details, ooh. I mean the Traveler always says impulse purchases are a good decision. You're only, like, five clicks away from owning this, maybe more if you have a lot of windows open on your browser; I don't know your life. The cuteness, it's overpowering. I mean, seriously, look at this thing. So click on over to the Critical Role shop. (chuckles) Don't worry, there's a few more minutes in the break, you've still got time.

Hello, everybody! Hey. Hey! We're all here sitting around a table playing a board game. Yeah! What? How amazing is that? Ooh! Into the microphone for me, Uk'otoa. (shouting) (laughs) Oh, come on! No, I ain't falling for this shit! Unleash a tentacle. Wait, that's my dude. Yes it is! (grunting) Oh, no! Matthew! I mean, it's pure chaos. Yeah. Have you ever been kicked by a horse? I can say I haven't in a long time. No. Well, it's not great. (laughs) It's not. As somebody who has a lot of bruises on her right now, getting thrown off a horse isn't great either. (laughs pitifully) Nature, she's a fickle beast. (Matthew laughs) Truly, and horses, even fickler-er. (both laughing) They're even fickler-er. (snappy music)

Part II
AABRIA: And after a few hours of walking, you all have made your way up to the Flamereach Outpost, a small, stony fortress at the edge of a burnt and petrified grove. And you see people moving back and forth in the distance, and you are hailed. You very specifically, Orym, even at this great distance, you're about 500 yards away. You see a green-skinned person, wave very specifically at you.

LIAM: I'll lead us up.

AABRIA: Yeah. This person jogs their way out and you see an extremely tall half-orc woman in her middle years. She's got her hair up in two ponytails that are coming down. They're starting to go a little gray, and her skin is covered with these beautiful, ornate, yellow tattoos. She goes, "Orym of the Air Ashari."

LIAM: Oh, ah, yes? I wasn't sure, I think I'm late.

AABRIA: "(laughs) Better late than never. I'm Lorkathar," she gives you.

LIAM: Lorkathar?

AABRIA: Yeah.

LIAM: It's a pleasure to meet you.

AABRIA: "And your friends?"

LIAM: Yeah, new friends, we've been traveling about a week. You have Dorian, Fearne, Dariax, and Opal. Oh, and I'm sorry, this guy here is Mister, Little Mister.

AABRIA: "Oh, he's very cute."

ASHLEY: Thank you! I think he's just so darling.

AABRIA: She gets a little low and then waves at him and he opens his mouth and she goes, "Oh, not a monkey. Got it, noted. Well, welcome to the Flamereach Outpost. What can I--? You all seem a little pressed. Why don't you come in I can bring you some water?"

LIAM: Thank you, we actually have much to discuss.

AABRIA: "Okay, didn't expect a-- That's fine. Come with me," and she sweeps you all off the road and you head into a comfortably appointed small office. There's tufted chairs, clearly beat up. This is a place that looks like it was very important years ago and it has just sort of been rundown and anything any of you have ever picked up about the Flamereach Outpost and the Scar of the Cinder King is that this was another one of those elementally-touched places, from back in the, like, decades ago. But has mostly been resolved, and there's just sort of a token force that's been kept up in both locations. "So what can I do for you all?" She starts handing out cups of water and a little loaf of bread and some fruit.

ASHLEY: Oh, thank you.

AABRIA: "Hmm."

LIAM: Well, originally it was, I know it was supposed to be just me.

AABRIA: "Yeah, you were-- I heard."

LIAM: And I do want to be of any kind of service that I can be, but I'm actually bringing a problem, I believe.

AABRIA: "Go on."

LIAM: I met my friends in Emon, and we've been traveling together for a bit. Found ourselves in a bit of trouble. It's two kinds of trouble. We have brought something to discuss with you. Two things, actually. One of which is an amount of residuum.

AABRIA: "Okay? Thank you? Where did you--?"

LIAM: We sort of fell into some trouble with maybe a new thread of criminal syndicate in Emon.

AABRIA: "(sighs)"

AIMEE: We think they were trying to smuggle it.

AABRIA: "The Myriad?"

AIMEE: Oh I don't know, the Myriad?

LIAM: No.

AIMEE: No-names.

ASHLEY: Nameless Ones?

AIMEE: Nameless?

ASHLEY: Nameless Something?

MATT: Yeah, they didn't figured it out yet.

AIMEE: Maybe it's a working name.

MATT: Yeah, yeah.

AIMEE: Non-working name.

ROBBIE: I think that was it though, the Nameless.

AIMEE: Nameless, no-names.

LIAM: Yeah, I think they're new to the territory and trying to make a name for themselves while not having a name.

AABRIA: "Clever, I don't know anything about them, but I will keep an eye out?"

ROBBIE: We were hoping for some information or--

AABRIA: "I live here outside of town, I don't."

LIAM: Do you have the ability to contact Zephrah at all?

AABRIA: "Yes, it depends. I mean, we can send off birds, I can use a Sending spell if you need to communicate. What message do you need to get back there?"

LIAM: Well, I think that you should pass word onto the Voice of the Tempest that this stuff is being sold in the black market in Emon. I don't know how they're getting their hands on it, but I'm sure she would be interested.

AABRIA: And she gives you a very pointed look, before regaining control of her face again. "What would that have to do with the Voice of the Tempest, though?"

LIAM: Well it's, her friends. Really, I don't know much. I'm not--

AABRIA: "I understand."

LIAM: I'm a guard, or was.

AABRIA: "Well."

LIAM: But I heard scattered talk throughout the years, and I heard this referenced a few times.

AABRIA: "I am happy to send word, and see if and what she and her friends know about this?"

ASHLEY: They also have a baby that they have it in a prison. So if--

AABRIA: "What?"

ASHLEY: Well, I'm sorry I should rephrase.

AABRIA: "You guys left a baby in a prison?"

AIMEE: No, it was an insect baby.

ASHLEY: It was an insect baby that they have caged up and I think he should be let go. So I think that would be something that would be very important to tell this Voice of the Tempest to take care of it.

LIAM: But not an insect, like an insect.

AIMEE: Large, but a baby large.

AABRIA: "All right, well, I'm going to probably leave that off the list. You could've just told, like, I don't know, the city guard about that? Seems a little bit below her pay grade."

LIAM: We left in the bit of hurry.

MATT: Yeah, killed a couple people.

AABRIA: "What?!"

AIMEE: Shhh.

ASHLEY: They were trying to kill us.

AIMEE: We killed their vibe, we killed their vibe.

ROBBIE: By killing them.

MATT: The vibe ends pretty abruptly at that point. I've found, so I've heard.

AABRIA: "You have found yourself in very interesting company, Orym."

MATT: Well, thank you very much.

AABRIA: "(laughs sarcastically)"

LIAM: This is probably the point to segue to item number two. Considerably more worrying than the first.

ROBBIE: You know, Orym, I don't think--

AIMEE: -- we should bore her with your athlete's foot.

ROBBIE: Seems to be not a lot of information we're getting here.

AIMEE: Maybe just too much fungus, not interesting.

MATT: If your foot's having problems, I can handle that for you, like, that happens to me every few weeks.

AIMEE: Yeah, we just have to keep it dry.

AABRIA: "Do you require a healer?"

AIMEE: Ah?

LIAM: No, I can manage.

MATT: Yeah, we can manage.

LIAM: Why do you have a better plan for my... athlete's foot?

ROBBIE: No, I just don't think that we're getting the information that we need about one thing. Why would we think we'd be getting the information we need about the other?

MATT: Yeah.

AIMEE: Especially when we know what cures athlete's foot and it's just dry socks.

AABRIA: "I apologize, if I've seemed too terse or withholding. We're dealing with some things on our end. You've kept clear of the Cloudtop District lately, have you? There's been a recurrence."

MATT: They gentrifying you, too?

AABRIA: "Gentrifying."

AIMEE: Recurrence of what?

AABRIA: "(laughs) No, not yet." And she looks out of the curtain, "Nope, still a petrified forest, but--"

MATT: Okay.

AABRIA: "I'll keep an eye out."

AIMEE: What's been the recurrence, resurgence, recurrence?

AABRIA: "I don't know if you've been to the Cloudtop. There's an area known as Thordak's Crater."

AIMEE: Uh-huh.

AABRIA: "And there was a flare about a week ago."

AIMEE: Hmm, was there?

ROBBIE: Crater?

AABRIA: Deception checks. The worst.

AIMEE: Shit.

LIAM: Four.

AIMEE: Eight.

AABRIA: (gasps) Natural one.

MATT: I'm legitimately not following any of this, so. (laughter)

ROBBIE: 14.

AABRIA: I rolled a natural one, so you're good.

AIMEE: Yeah no, god. You know, who lives here? Is there a representative or something? Someone? That's you.

AABRIA: "Yes."

AIMEE: Oh cool, cool, cool.

AABRIA: "This is an outpost specifically for the Fire Ashari."

AIMEE: I'm not from here.

AABRIA: "No."

AIMEE: I'm a tourist!

AABRIA: "It's fine, no noticeable accent. I had no idea."

AIMEE: Oh thanks, I worked really hard.

AABRIA: "Well, if you are back in Emon, which I'm not sure if you should be, based on previous conversation about the no-names? Ah yes, there's elementals. It's a tear. We've been controlling it very well. And it seems as though something's happened recently. It's gotten worse. It actually wiped out several of the Firetamers. Only Jhessho and Reyan made it back."

AIMEE: Are they here?

AABRIA: "Oh, ah, yes, why?"

AIMEE: Who made it back?

AABRIA: "Jhessho and Reyan Lister. Do you know them? Do you?"

AIMEE: Oh, I feel like, you know, do you know them?

LIAM: No, I haven't met them. I haven't met them, have I? Am I forgetting?

AABRIA: No.

LIAM: Okay.

AIMEE: Could we meet them?

AABRIA: "I can't imagine why not. That's fine."

AIMEE: I just like meeting different people from different places.

AABRIA: "Sure."

AIMEE: Part of my travels.

AABRIA: "Very strange. Ah, I trust you. I'll go get them, if you want to hang out here."

LIAM: Yeah, we'll wait here.

AABRIA: "Yeah, no problem."

LIAM: Until you come back.

AABRIA: "Sure, can I bring you anything else? Are you okay?"

MATT: More fruit if you could.

AABRIA: "Oh yeah, not a problem." And she gets up, and just takes off out of the room. You can hear a little commotion.

LIAM: Athlete's foot, athlete's foot?

ROBBIE: I'm sorry, why are we here?

AIMEE: I don't know, I don't know. Listen, I just.

MATT: I can help you with that.

AIMEE: I just feel like maybe she was going to take the thing from us. So?

LIAM: What are you going to do with it?

AIMEE: I don't know, but maybe the fire people who made it out. Weren't you looking them?

ROBBIE: Yes, because you're looking for answers, and we're getting more problems.

LIAM: Okay, but you were looking for the two, but there was footsteps. Right? Footsteps--

LIAM: The Fire Ashari are trying to help manage that crater in the middle of town.

AIMEE: That's it?

LIAM: Yes, there's a wound in the middle of the city. I mean, I don't know, I just got here, but they're good people. And that thing in the box is beyond us.

ROBBIE: Orym, I don't doubt that they're good people, but we have a guild of murderers, assassins, and thieves after us, we're in possession of an incredibly powerful dangerous item that I don't just want to give away. We found illegal drug precursors. And now, what, we're going to go fix that crater problem, too? What are we doing here?!

AIMEE: And also, they dipped as soon as the crater problem got bad.

LIAM: They can get in touch with people who can deal with this.

AIMEE: Okay.

ROBBIE: You gave them the residuum, and they said nothing. They said they'd send a bird. That's not particularly helpful for our situation.

LIAM: She said more than a bird. She said they could do some sort of a spell to contact them.

AIMEE: Okay.

LIAM: That's what I came here hoping for!

AIMEE: Okay, well, by mistake, I contacted these two dudes and I'm sorry. So what are we going to do about getting the message over?

LIAM: What dudes?

AIMEE: The two dudes that escaped craters.

ASHLEY: We could ask them, you know, what they-- See if they have any information from the crater. What they saw, what they think happened there? And, I don't know what we should do with this circlet yet. I don't know your people yet, so I just want to make sure that they're okay, and that they'll do the right thing with this circlet. I trust you, Orym.

ROBBIE: I trust him too.

AIMEE: I trust you, too, It's other people I don't trust.

AABRIA: (knocking)

ROBBIE: Can we just focus on one problem at a time?

ASHLEY: Okay, okay.

ROBBIE: One at a time.

ASHLEY: They're here, they're here.

ROBBIE: Take the lead, one at a time.

AABRIA: "Hello, can we come in? Hi."

LIAM: Of course, it's your place.

AABRIA: And the door opens and you see a short, pale-skinned halfling with a little jet black bowl cut, and standing beside them is a taller, dark-skinned, elven male. They go, "Hi, you wanted to speak to us?" They both enter in, and they look you can see gauzed up bandage, very anime bandaging. (laughter) Though they're not walking with any noticeable limp and seem pretty hale.

LIAM: So, male halfling, male elf you said?

AABRIA: Ah, non-binary halfling, male elf.

LIAM: Thank you, okay. Ah, yes, strange circumstances, I feel like we have been walking in your footsteps for a while. I'm Orym from the Air Ashari, finally here.

AABRIA: "Pleased to meet you."

LIAM: Your name?

AABRIA: "Oh, ah," and the halfling points to themselves and says, "I'm Jhessho." and decides to introduce the other person and points up at the elf and says, "That's Reyan Lister."

LIAM: Reyan?

AABRIA: Yeah.

LIAM: Okay.

AABRIA: Reyan gives a little bow, "Nice to meet you. (coughing)"

LIAM: Right, we, I went to Emon first to try to find you guys. And we found, I found the crater, I found some friends.

ASHLEY: I found a monkey.

AIMEE: And then there were footsteps.

AABRIA: "Wait, did you go in the crater?"

ROBBIE: Oh, we went in the crater.

AIMEE: Oh, yeah.

LIAM: A little bit.

AABRIA: "Was it-- Are you? What happened when you were--?"

AIMEE: Well, I mean, there's five of us.

ROBBIE: Monkey.

AIMEE: Six plus Mister. So there was only two of you. So we just, we did what we had to do.

AABRIA: "There were seven of us. And 10 cinderslag elementals."

AIMEE: Copy. Is that--

AABRIA: "It was a coordinated attack. Some planar being had organized them. We were decimated. And the two of us got out. we didn't want to leave everyone else but we had to let Lorkathar know."

AIMEE: Mm-hmm.

MATT: Yeah, you got to do what you got to do. That's rough, buddy.

ASHLEY: Insight check.

AABRIA: Go ahead.

ASHLEY: Seven. Seven.

AABRIA: It's okay. Even though Jhessho is the one that's talking, you look up at Reyan, and he looks like he is at the verge of tears. Like, just absolutely gutted to be recounting this and has that mingled, he doesn't speak really. He's leaving that to Jhessho, but you can just see the guilt and regret and horror on his face plainly.

LIAM: We did get into a bit of trouble there as well.

MATT: "But you made it out."

LIAM: "We did with a--

ASHLEY: With a new friend.

LIAM: Souvenir.

ASHLEY: Yeah.

AABRIA: "What do you mean?"

ASHLEY: Oh, this is Mister.

AABRIA: "May I?"

ASHLEY: Go say hello.

AABRIA: And Mister like, you have to shove him forward.

ASHLEY: Go on.

AABRIA: And-- (laughs) And Jhessho takes a knee to be of a height with Mister and just looks. And Mister pulls down his jaw and opens his mouth and gives a little burp and fire comes out and he goes, "Is that a fire element--? Is that an elemental that looks like a little monkey and he's not murdering every--? What? Who are you people? Good monkey."

ASHLEY: He's is a very good boy, I'm not quite sure what he is but if that's what he is, I just love him. He's my Little Mister.

MATT: "Are you from the elemental plane of fire? How are--? I'm sorry, you had questions for us."

LIAM: Well, we're very sorry for your loss.

AABRIA: "It happens. We know what we signed up for."

LIAM: What's the plan now?

AABRIA: "Honestly, it's strange. Everything has been healing for years now it's been going away. We thought we were doing enough that we wouldn't have to put another gate up, that we wouldn't have to stay here forever. And then in the last couple months, it's gotten worse. There've been tremors in the city. And then that flare up, it took five of the seven of us to keep it from going very badly for the rest of the Cloudtop District. I know people have been a loath to move back there, and if I had it my way, they wouldn't at all. But you know, the moneyed. They insisted on coming back to their homes. And we thought we could make it safe for them, but it's not safe. And it's getting a little weirder out here, too. This is a place known as the Scar of the Cinder King. And it's been mostly a dormant petrified forest, but the tremors are here, too, fissures in the ground. Don't know how to explain any of it."

LIAM: What's the history of this location?

AABRIA: "(sighs) It was worse here, everywhere Thordak the Cinder King touched. He was corrupted. He was trapped on the elemental plane of fire. So with him, where he was, where he set up his lair, where he touched the earth, it is different now. Tal'Dorei is, in many ways, a sponge, and his rot has seeped into the ground, and it's taken decades to reverse the damage. But something, something is pushing it, pushing back. Don't know what it is, and Lorkathar has been running herself ragged trying to make sure what happens at the crater doesn't happen here. It's really all I know, I'm sorry."

LIAM: Okay. So do you guys think that something else is trying to use the holes he punched through?

AABRIA: "That's our best guess, something coming through?"

LIAM: Well, I'd like to be of help, if I can.

AABRIA: "Thank you, brother."

LIAM: I don't know about sealing it, but if you need, you know, an extra hand.

ASHLEY: So you went in this crater to try to close the tear.

AABRIA: "Yes."

ASHLEY: Hmm. Were are you at all successful?

AABRIA: "Every bit of progress that we made closing and sealing and warding off, it was never really permanent. And now it feels like a war of attrition. For every bit, every tightens up, it feels like there's just so much energy just under the surface you could reach through and grab it. If that makes any sense."

ASHLEY: That absolutely makes sense. I've felt that same thing.

AIMEE: We watched her do it.

AABRIA: "I'm sorry, what?"

AIMEE: We watched her do it.

AABRIA: "You did what and the what now? Wait."

ASHLEY: Yeah.

AABRIA: "Please describe exactly what happened."

ASHLEY: Well, I-- We were all in the crater, and we were trying to protect ourselves, and I felt like I should reach in and I felt like my Little Mister was already there. So I just reached in him and I grabbed him.

AABRIA: "You made something out of the energy. That's--" And Jhessho turns to look at Reyan, and Reyan shakes his head and you see the tears that were threatening to spill over crash down his cheeks. And he turns and he storms out of the room.

ASHLEY: Oh no, what? Wait, I'm sorry, what did I--?

AABRIA: "I'm sorry, don't-- It's okay, that's very interesting. I don't want to say-- The creature, the being did the same thing with those elementals. They reached into the stone that's superheated lava and rock, and pulled out massive elemental creatures, commanded them and they attacked us. I think he's not taking the loss as well. So please, I apologize."

ASHLEY: No, I understand.

ROBBIE: This being, did they take the form of a woman with wings, burning lava?

AABRIA: And you see, for just a moment, their hand flicks towards their hip and where a sword holster would be, and catches themselves. "You know a lot about what we saw that day."

MATT: He's got a great imagination. A wonderful worldly traveler who-- Great stories?

AABRIA: "We've been through--"

AIMEE: Hmm?

AABRIA: "We've been through a lot up there, and-- If you know something, please, I don't know who you are or what you're doing."

AIMEE: We actually know very little, we're actually trying to get more information, but it seems like nobody can help.

ROBBIE: We've-- Let's be honest, we met at a party, half of us were drunk, and we stumbled our way into something we do not understand. But what you're describing is the same as what we are describing. We've seen the same things at the crater, and it affected our friend here very deeply. It seems as though he wants to help you. And if Orym wants to help you, I want to help you.

MATT: And if he wants to help you, I want to help you.

AIMEE: Me too.

ASHLEY: Yes, of course.

AABRIA: Fearne, I need you to make a nature check for me. Call it a nature check.

ASHLEY: Okay. 18.

AABRIA: You feel a tremor low, low in the ground. Doesn't shake anything in the room, but you feel it as everyone speaks, "Well, I appreciate that. (sighs) It's kind of above my pay grade, but if you tell Lorkathar everything that you told us then I think we're just trying to figure it out. We appreciate you making your way out here so much."

LIAM: I came here to find you, so anything.

AABRIA: "Okay." And they turn, they say, "I'm going to go. I'm going to find Reyan. We're going to be eating lunch in just a little bit. If you want to stay, I don't--"

AIMEE: We love lunch.

AABRIA: And they turn and go out the door and before the door shuts entirely. I need everyone to make a dexterity saving throw.

MATT: Ooh.

AIMEE: Eight.

ROBBIE: 13.

LIAM: 15.

ASHLEY: 20 total.

MATT: 21.

ROBBIE: Woo!

MATT: Rolled a 19.

ROBBIE: Nimbly.

AABRIA: Opal, you are knocked off your feet as a massive earthquake rips through the Flamereach Outpost. The glass of the windows shatters, the door swings back open again. And all of your cups and glasses anything that you had set down gets knocked over and you hear shouts and startled cries everywhere, as it seems to have hit the entire camp.

AIMEE: Oh, it's because I'm wearing heels.

AABRIA: (laughs)

AIMEE: That's why. It's scary.

ASHLEY: I imagine those are tough to wear.

LIAM: Had they already left or are they still in the room with us?

AABRIA: They got out the door and as that happened, you can actually see through the now broken window they're taking off in the direction that you see a lot of the Ashari are running.

LIAM: Okay, yes, yes.

ASHLEY: Should we?

AIMEE: Okay, follow?

ASHLEY: I think we should.

LIAM: Orym starts running.

AABRIA: You run outside and you look up and the sky is that sort of overcast gray. It's not raining anymore, but there's a strange purple and a reddish orange light like an Aurora Borealis, but jagged streaking across the sky. And a new land feature that you know wasn't there because you've been walking in this direction for half a day now, a massive mesa dominates your field of view just past the petrified forest. And you see that groups of Ashari are meeting up and pointing in the direction. And Lorkathar is standing in the midst, yelling at people and coordinating and bringing them in and sending them off in the direction of this mesa.

LIAM: I'm going to run up to Lorkathar. Do you know anything, you know what this is?

AABRIA: "Absolutely not, are you kidding me?!"

LIAM: Can we help?

AABRIA: "What? Are any of you hurt?"

AIMEE: My ankle hurts a little bit, but I'm fine. No, no, no, I'm fine. I just shouldn't have worn heels.

LIAM: Just some bad athlete's foot in the group, but we are muscling through.

AABRIA: "Question for later. If you are able to go. We don't know what-- That's new! I don't--"

LIAM: Okay.

AABRIA: "Are you comfortable going and checking it?" And in the middle of her half-minded while scanning and looking everywhere, explanation, she reaches down and looks up and you guys see a gentle dusting. It looks like snowfall, but when you touch it, it's not cold at all. It's powdery, gray--

LIAM: Ash.

AABRIA: -- ash. "Please, I've sent others. If you all want to go, I just need to find out what that is and what it means."

ASHLEY: Well, I'm curious.

AABRIA: "We are understaffed."

AIMEE: Let's go.

ASHLEY: Yeah.

ROBBIE: Congratulations, Orym, we volunteered for five minutes, and on the sky's on fire.

MATT: So Feywild?

LIAM: Heh heh.

AIMEE: He's kidding.

LIAM: Hold on to that box.

AABRIA: "What box?"

LIAM: Orym starts walking towards the mesa.

MATT: I grabbed the box and follow him. (laughter)

ROBBIE: You're not leaving that box.

AIMEE: You're not leaving that box, honey.

ROBBIE: Nice try.

AABRIA: Lorkathar's just yelling. "What box, what box?"

AIMEE: What's in the box?!

AABRIA: What's in the box?!

ROBBIE: I am so sick of this box. As we're all running out, I'm going to look around the camp and I'm going to grab an empty satchel and throw it to Dariax and motion for him to put it in the satchel.

MATT: I'm going to subtly open the box, like overtly take some of the fruit that, I, by the way, pocketed as we were rushing out, post-earthquake. The fruit's still a priority.

AABRIA: Respect.

AIMEE: Bananas.

MATT: Take it and like, look like I'm just pocketing the fruit and then just slip the crown in. The circlet.

AABRIA: Wait, did you touch the crown?

MATT: Yeah, I would've.

LIAM: (gasps)

AIMEE: God--

MATT: He's told me to put it in the box, yeah!

AABRIA: He did say it! I need you to make a wisdom saving throw for me.

ASHLEY: Oh boy.

AABRIA: You did this, you did this!

AIMEE: ♪ It's a crown in a box! ♪

MATT: It's okay, though, it's okay. Dirty one. (laughter)

AIMEE: Dang it!

ASHLEY: Did you really roll a one?

MATT: I rolled a two, I have a minus one wisdom saving throw.

AIMEE: No!

AABRIA: Thank you.

ROBBIE: Here we go.

LIAM: PvP, here we go.

AABRIA: The moment you touch it, you don't feel any noticeable difference, but your eyes go jet black.

MATT: Don't worry, buddy. I got you covered.

AIMEE: Do we notice the eyes?

AABRIA: His eyes that are jet black now? Yeah.

ROBBIE: How do you--?

AABRIA: Yeah, that didn't stop.

ROBBIE: How do you feel, Dariax?

MATT: I'm a little confused by all this, but I mean, you know, what else am I doing today?

LIAM: Athlete's foot is spreading.

AIMEE: (laughs) All right. Just don't touch it anymore. The ground! Don't touch it!

MATT: What, the ground?

ROBBIE: So he's not behaving any differently at all? He just has jet black shark eyes?

AABRIA: As far as you know, yeah!

ROBBIE: You're sure you're okay? You see everything okay?

MATT: Well, I mean, there's a lot of this dirty snow in the sky. But other than that, feeling all right.

ROBBIE: Okay.

AIMEE: You just stick close.

MATT: I didn't eat that much fruit! Don't worry about me! I got an iron-clad stomach! This is dwarf built, baby! Come on!

ROBBIE: So we're really doing this? We're running to the Oh No Plateau, and we're going to what? (laughter)

AABRIA: Inspiration.

ROBBIE: Hey!

AIMEE: Oh No Plateau!

ROBBIE: We're going to help?

LIAM: Absolutely.

AIMEE: Oh hell yeah.

ROBBIE: Okay, let's go help.

LIAM: Orym is running on his very short legs. Yes.

AABRIA: Yeah. Dead sprint? Cool.

AIMEE and ASHLEY: We're going.

AABRIA: All right. You guys make it-- as you take off through this petrified forest, you quickly lose sight of the other parties of Ashari that see you and spread out in a big, wide flank. So everyone's trying to get-- like, cover as much ground as possible. And they leave you this center lane. And you take off, but as the ash blow gets thicker and thicker, your visibility out at a greater distance begins to diminish. And then you're there. You're at the edge of a 40 foot tall cliff side, that results and resolves into the Oh No Plateau. I had a whole different--

AIMEE: I hear it as The--

AABRIA: That's funnier.

AIMEE: -- Heartbreak Hotel, like.

AABRIA: Yeah. Yup! Yup! (laughter)

LIAM: And we didn't see any-- we lost sight of anyone who ran ahead of us.

AABRIA: Yeah.

LIAM: Disappeared into the ash. Does it seem climbable?

AABRIA: Absolutely.

LIAM: All right.

AABRIA: Okay. Everyone that's climbing, you get to either use athletics or acrobatics, your choice.

AIMEE: Is there another way to make it up? Or just climb? There are no stairs?

AABRIA: You want to check for stairs? Give me an investigation check for magical stairs.

AIMEE: Are there natural stairs?

AABRIA: Just a natural staircase.

AIMEE: Investigation. That's a 13.

LIAM and ASHLEY: (like Owen Wilson) Oh wow.

LIAM: (like Owen Wilson) Wow, it's a mesa, oh wow!

AABRIA: There is not a natural staircase. But if you break away from the group a little bit, you see a much easier climbing path.

AABRIA: That kind of looks like--

LIAM: Just rolled a one.

AABRIA: -- a staircase for a giant.

AIMEE: Oh, okay.

AABRIA: But it doesn't look man made--

AIMEE: Gotcha

AABRIA: -- or hand-carved. Just a slightly easier route if you want.

AIMEE: I'ma try that route.

AABRIA: Okay.

AIMEE: You said athletics or acrobatics?

AABRIA: Yep. Athletics or acrobatics. You can do it with advantage.

AIMEE: Ooh!

AABRIA: As Opal leaves your sight.

AIMEE: Who's doing it with advantage?

AABRIA: No, you.

AIMEE: Someone else? Oh, me.

AABRIA: You roll with advantage because you walked away from the group to go do this.

AIMEE: 19.

AABRIA: Cool. Yeah. You get up no problem. You do not see your friends. How you doing?

ROBBIE: Ooh, 22.

AABRIA: Yeah. Yeah. You just-- you begin to climb. And it's pretty easy.

ROBBIE: Easy breezy.

AABRIA: Yeah. It's because the ash isn't-- it's actually helping in that chalk way.

MATT: There you go.

AABRIA: Helps, doesn't hurt.

ROBBIE: Cool.

LIAM: Acrobatics, 21.

AABRIA: (exhales) Beautiful

ASHLEY: Natural one.

AABRIA: (gasps) Baby!

AIMEE: No! Not Fearne!

ROBBIE: But you got hoof legs! I feel like--

ASHLEY: I mean, you know it seems like it would make sense.

LIAM: The hooves aren't getting traction?

ASHLEY: I'm a little billy goat.

AABRIA: I thought you were part mountain goat. I guess probably not. You get about a good halfway up before you slip and lose your grip. You're going to drop 20 feet all the way back down to the bottom. And I'm going to give you a little bit of damage for that. So you take 6 points of bludgeoning damage.

MATT: Ooh!

ASHLEY: Damn.

AIMEE: Can I yell out about the stairs?

AABRIA: I mean, yeah, absolutely.

AIMEE: Fearne! There's natural, kind of, stairs!

AABRIA: Oh, you didn't know she fell, but you could just--

AIMEE: Anybody! There's natural, kind of, stairs if you just walk a little to the-- right or left?

AABRIA: To the left.

AIMEE: To the left!

AABRIA: And you are just slow going. You were probably only a quarter of the way up when most people were two thirds.

MATT: I don't see them ahead of me. I assume they're behind me at this point. I'm like: See this is the thing about being a mountain dwarf. My family comes from these things. So it's-- just follow, stay locked step. Just see where the hands go. There's hand holdings and you just go like--"

AABRIA: Fearne just drops past you. Hits the ground.

AIMEE: Oh no!

MATT: Fearne! Hand holding!

ASHLEY: Well, I'm already at the bottom. I'm going to look for the stairs.

LIAM: Meanwhile, Dorian and Orym are like: Parkour! Parkour! Parkour! Parkour! Parkour! Parkour! Where is everybody?

AABRIA: You guys are great, just bouldering back in the corner.

ROBBIE: High fiving. Yeah yeah yeah.

AABRIA: You get up to the top. Look lovely. Yeah, go ahead and make another acrobatics or athletics check with advantage. As you eventually make your way to this weird natural staircase on the side.

ASHLEY: Ugh, come on. Oh, come on! Okay. That would be a nine. Yeah.

AABRIA: It's going to take you a hot second.

ASHLEY: Going to take me a little bit.

AABRIA: So our two bouldering buddies make it up first. You get up to the top next, though you can't see the rest of the group.

AIMEE: Okay.

AABRIA: Eventually, Dariax makes it up to the top. And probably 10 minutes after that, you make your way up and meet the group. I'm sorry, Fearne.

ASHLEY: This is very-- it's very difficult to climb an Oh No Plateau.

AIMEE: Yeah.

AABRIA: Opal, did you go to look for the group or did you stay to wait for Fearne? Who you can--

AIMEE: I stayed to wait.

AABRIA: Cool. So the two of you are together, and our three guys are together.

AIMEE: Great.

ASHLEY: Okay.

LIAM: Okay, we're all here. Can we see anything?

AABRIA: You don't see Fearne or Opal.

AIMEE: Hello! Fearne and Opal here!

AABRIA: Once you get up to the top, you get a better view of everything that's happening. The ash blow that was down at the bottom closer to the fortress was so incredibly light compared to this. It is a gray wall in front of you. There are six inches of ash on the ground. And every time you take a step, it makes this really loud clump stomping sound. But you can hear now, as your foot interacts with it, what you expected from a crunch. But you don't hear any of the bright, high sounds. It's dulling sound in this very strange way. So when you do hear, eventually, Opal yelling, it's not just muffled. It's muffled and much lower. Sound is a little weird up here.

AIMEE: Lower, like volume is low?

AABRIA: Like the tone of it is just very bassy.

AIMEE: Oh.

AABRIA: Like (low-pitched) "Opal!"

AIMEE: (low-pitched) Hello!

AABRIA: (low-pitched) Hello!

AIMEE: (low-pitched) It's Opal and Fearne here!

ASHLEY: (low-pitched) Hello.

AIMEE: (low-pitched) Hey, we sound kind of sexy up here.

ASHLEY: (low-pitched voice) This is kind of cool. (laughter)

ASHLEY: Do we see any of the Fire Ashari? Anybody?

AABRIA: Make a survival check for me with disadvantage.

ASHLEY: Okay.

LIAM: And are we in total whiteout?

AABRIA: Grayout. Yeah.

ASHLEY: Natural one.

AABRIA: Girl!

ASHLEY: I know. I know. I know!

LIAM: (low-pitched) I know.

ROBBIE: Are we talking hand in front of face?

AABRIA: I'm going to give you maybe five meters.

ROBBIE: Okay.

ASHLEY: I can't see anything.

AIMEE: Should we crawl? I don't know why I think that's safer

ASHLEY: To just get lower?

AIMEE: Yeah.

ASHLEY: Okay. Let's get low.

AIMEE: And then?

ASHLEY: And then just try to-- Can you guys yell out or anything? So we could try to make our way to you?

LIAM: Do we hear? The guys hear that?

AABRIA: You hear a low, murmury rumble.

LIAM: Can you guys hear me? Can you both hear me still?

AABRIA: You yelling?

LIAM: No. I'm trying to get to Dorian and Dariax.

AABRIA: Oh.

LIAM: Curse you for your names. (laughter)

AABRIA: I know! I do hate you deeply for this. I have to look over my--

MATT: We developed them independently in vacuums. It came together. It was fate and destiny.

LIAM: I, every time, I'm like, "Which one's which?"

MATT: Just call us the "Double Ds."

AABRIA: No! (laughter)

ASHLEY: "No!"

AABRIA: But yes, you can hear each other. Once again, it's weirdly muffled and garbled. Sound is very strange up here.

LIAM: Okay. So keep making some sound. So we know we're near each other.

MATT and AIMEE: (wailing)

MATT: This is weird! Hello?

LIAM: Hello!

ROBBIE: Hello!

AIMEE: Hooty hoo!

MATT: I'm going to cast Thaumaturgy to make my voice extremely loud, and just go, (low-pitched scream) "Hello!" (laughter)

AABRIA: Well, that came through bright and clear.

AIMEE: Who's that?

ASHLEY: Okay. Let's make our way to that sound. But what if it was something bad?

AIMEE: I don't know!

ASHLEY: Okay. If it is, we'll just kill it.

AIMEE: Okay. Great.

ASHLEY: Okay. Moving towards the sound.

AIMEE: Do it again!

MATT: Do we hear the low rumble?

AABRIA: You hear (low, unintelligible sounds).

MATT: Oh god. Whatever it is is coming closer. I use Thaumaturgy to cast, I say: (low-pitched scream) Don't come any closer!

LIAM: Swords out.

MATT: Swords ready.

ROBBIE: I'm going to creep toward where that sound was and look out and see if I could see what's coming.

AABRIA: Yeah. Give me a perception check with disadvantage.

ROBBIE: Oh. With disadvantage?!

AABRIA: It's a grayout!

ROBBIE: That's probably not going to get worse than that.

LIAM: Whatever it is. We have to kill it.

ROBBIE: Perception. Perception. A five!

AIMEE: Whatever it is, we have to kill it!

ASHLEY: Whatever it is, yes! We have to kill it! (laughter)

MATT: For Fearne! For Opal!

AIMEE: For the guys.

AABRIA: You see a dark gray mound coming. And when they get within about 10 meters of you, and you guys are all ready to do a murder, you see it resolves into two individuals.

ASHLEY: I just go screaming with the staff. (screams)

ROBBIE: It's on the ground! It's crawling toward us! It's crawling toward us!

MATT: Oh god!

AIMEE: Wait! Wait! Wait! Hold on!

LIAM: Oh jeez. Oh, Opal!

ASHLEY: Oh, oh, oh. Oh! Okay.

AIMEE: I realize I've never been this dirty. I don't usually smell like this. But don't kill us!

ROBBIE: Why are you on the ground?

AIMEE: Because I couldn't see! And it's safer!

ROBBIE: That's not going to help you!

AABRIA: I need everyone to make a constitution saving throw. Please and thank you. You've been out here enough.

MATT: Mmm.

ROBBIE: Hmm, hmm, hmm.

ASHLEY: Oh, nice!

AIMEE: 10.

AABRIA: Just made it.

MATT: Eight.

LIAM: Just missed it.

ASHLEY: 20 total.

ROBBIE: Six.

LIAM: 14.

AABRIA: Oh, my three boys who are yelling into the dark. Take a point of exhaustion.

LIAM: I got 14!

AABRIA: Oh you got a 14? Nevermind. You're fine. Just Dorian and Dariax. My "Double Ds"!

AIMEE: "Double Ds"!

AABRIA: Damn it!

MATT: Yes, there it is!

ROBBIE: "Double Ds"! Let's go!

AABRIA: No! I quit! I hate it!

MATT: That's the worst.

AABRIA: My "Double Ds" take a point of exhaustion. As the yelling through this ash, you all notice that the more you breathe and talk in this, it's filling your lungs. And it starts off itchy. And then you realize your breaths are coming shorter and shorter.

MATT: Is it because it's toxic?

AABRIA: No.

MATT: It's magic.

AABRIA: It's just-- it's just ashy.

MATT: I hate it. Hate it.

ASHLEY: This is very hard to breathe in.

AIMEE: Okay, well. Whoever it is, what do you want?!

AABRIA: What? It's each other. You're there. You're all together again.

AIMEE: Oh. Go away, ash!

LIAM: Sorry I almost stabbed you.

AIMEE: That's fine. It's happened before.

LIAM: All right. Where did the others go, though?

ASHLEY: You don't see any--?

LIAM: They didn't hear you. And you were loud as hell.

AIMEE: Okay, well, we can't just stay up here.

ASHLEY: Did they just make us go take care of the problem? I don't know where they are.

LIAM: Is it all flat where we are?

AABRIA: Yeah. It's super flat.

LIAM: Perfectly flat.

ROBBIE: Regardless of why, I think we're alone. No matter which way you slice it. (coughs)

AIMEE: Well, if there's nothing up here, we should just leave.

LIAM: Ah, I'm going to search for the other Ashari.

AABRIA: Okay.

ASHLEY: I will help.

LIAM: I'm going to start. I grab Faun's hand. Fearne's hand. Damn you all!

ASHLEY: I know, that's a tricky one.

AABRIA: I do it every time!

LIAM: Just you and me, Opal. Just you and me!

AIMEE: Yeah!

AABRIA: You're both also bad! They're four-letter "O" names.

AIMEE: We're getting our own show!

LIAM: I know that I'm Orym. And you can't be Orym, because I'm Orym.

AIMEE: You! It's like that meme.

MATT: The two Spider-Men?

AIMEE: The Spider-Mans.

LIAM: Yeah, you two are a pair. We're a pair. And you're your own pair with your name!

ASHLEY: I'm just nice.

AABRIA: Do you understand that I practiced? I was in the mirror like, "Don't confuse Dariax, Dorian, Opal, Orym, and Fearne." I hate it.

ROBBIE: Chaos! Chaos is what we're made of!

ASHLEY: Yes!

AABRIA: All right. Give me a survival check with disadvantage.

LIAM: Survival, I'm going to--

AABRIA: Do you want it to be-- You know what? Investigation?

LIAM: Yes.

AABRIA: Sure.

LIAM: And I'm going to be saying hello. Which will change nothing.

AABRIA: You're going to be shouting a lot?

LIAM: A little bit, yeah.

AABRIA: Okay. Noted.

LIAM: Oh! I rolled a 17 and a 20! (cheering)

LIAM: 18, if that's at disadvantage.

AABRIA: No, you're good. Yeah. So with an 18, you're able to-- How far are you willing to wander away from the main pocket of the group?

LIAM: I'll go 50 feet. Because that was my guesstimate for how far the ladies were from us when we were split.

AABRIA: Yeah. You get about 50 feet out and you can't see.

LIAM: Can I be holding your hand?

ASHLEY: Yes.

AABRIA: You are together. Mister is reaching up to where your hands are held and is holding in the middle. He could have picked a side. Didn't pick a side.

LIAM: Yep.

ASHLEY: Good boy.

AABRIA: Ah!

ASHLEY: We're just swinging him.

AABRIA: He's just hanging with one hand like, "This isn't great for me either." And you look farther to the left and you don't see other people because that gray is pervasive. But you turn and listen. And you can hear that crunching sound. It's incredibly low, but it's regular. Sounds like other people walking. There are other people up here, too.

LIAM: And I have a beat on the direction?

AABRIA: Yeah. Sounds like they are probably a hundred yards farther to the left.

LIAM: Okay.

AABRIA: You're all at the edge of this mesa. And it looks like they came around in different ways.

LIAM: So I'm going to call over our shoulders and yell out, "Opal! D and D!"

AIMEE: Do I hear them? Do we hear them? Or is it the same booming, kind of weird?

AABRIA: No, it's it's that still low rumble. Unless you're using Thaumaturgy to be heard better. But I do need another constitution saving throw from you. The more you yell, the more you roll.

LIAM: Okay. That is a 10.

ASHLEY: Good to know.

AABRIA: Take one point of exhaustion.

LIAM: Oh no! Okay.

AIMEE: I feel like we should stick together.

ROBBIE: Do we notice that, when we have these exhaustion, do we notice that we all start to look more and more shitty?

AABRIA: It's not super apparent right now. The thing you would probably notice is, as you're standing there, everyone's breathing very shallowly.

ROBBIE: And it's very clear that it's coming from--

AABRIA: Yeah.

ROBBIE: -- the air?

AABRIA: Breathing a bunch of really bad ash.

MATT: I'm sure it's fine.

ROBBIE: I'm going to see-- sort of get the vibe, and put two and two together, and I'm going to throw my cape over my head to shield myself from the ash. And I am going to use my racial trait of unending breath where I can hold my breath indefinitely.

LIAM: Oh, badass.

AIMEE: Whoa!

AABRIA: You no longer need to make constitution saving throws.

AIMEE: Oh yeah, baby!

ASHLEY: That is cool.

ROBBIE: I read my sheet!

AIMEE: That's under what? Features and Traits? (laughter)

AABRIA: Are you a genasi?

AIMEE: I don't have it.

ROBBIE: You're not a windy boy.

AIMEE: I don't have it!

ROBBIE: It's for windy boys only!

AABRIA: It's for windy boys only!

AIMEE: ♪ I don't have it. ♪

LIAM: ♪ Features and Traits! ♪

ROBBIE: Since I didn't figure it out quick enough, I'm going to keep my one level of exhaustion that I have? Okay.

AABRIA: Yep. But it doesn't get any worse. And yeah, you hear the low murmur. You now know that that's not a monster. It is your friends, just a little off to the side. And you're able to do whatever you want. Reconvene, keep going, continue.

MATT: I'll follow Dorian's lead. I take the cloak that I still have from Lothar and put that in front of me. And trudge thereafter, keeping him in as close proximity that I can see where he's going.

AABRIA: So you're keeping something tight over your mouth?

MATT: Yeah, I'm putting the cloak up in front like that.

AABRIA: All right, your con saves will be made with advantage.

MATT: Yay!

AIMEE: Well, I can't be alone. (laughter)

AIMEE: So I guess I'll take off my satine jacket and wrap it over my nose and mouth.

AABRIA: With advantage. And you are met by two people that look like-- well, one looks like a comic book villain.

LIAM: Right, three strange shinobi.

AABRIA: Yeah. Well, he just looks normal. He's just not breathing.

ROBBIE: I'm good.

LIAM: Yeah.

ROBBIE: Hold my breath.

LIAM: But there, that's a good idea. I'm going to take the sash that I wear around my waist and wrap, wrap, wrap.

ROBBIE: I thought you were going to say pants for sure.

LIAM: For sure. (laughter)

AABRIA: Full pants off.

LIAM: They're pretty lightweight as it is. I don't know if would--

MATT: What happens in the ash cloud--

ROBBIE: Hmm.

AABRIA: There you go.

ASHLEY: I'll take a ribbon from somewhere on my person.

AABRIA: Be specific!

ASHLEY: I'll take it from one of my-- What are these things? My ram horns. So I'll take it and start wrapping a little bit of a ribbon.

AABRIA: All of you will now be making your con saves with advantage.

ASHLEY: Okay. That was a good idea.

AABRIA: So which way do you want to head?

LIAM: In the direction that I heard other footsteps crunching.

AABRIA: Okay. So you guys are skirting the edge of this big, flat mesa, and eventually you see footsteps. A group of three humanoid figures that are making their way into the center of the mesa.

LIAM: (muffled) Wait up?

AABRIA: And you don't hear any response or reply but if you keep walking for another two minutes, you see three Ashari-- completely covered up head, just their eyes showing, full outfits-- wave.

MATT: Dorian! Do we attack them?

LIAM: Dune suits.

ROBBIE: That didn't work out so well last time.

MATT: Okay.

ROBBIE: Okay. Orym?

LIAM: We're going to push forward.

ROBBIE: All right.

ASHLEY: Let's go.

AABRIA: You see them signing between the three of them and then they do some hand signs towards you. I would like to think that the Ashari definitely in their Druidic learnings have also learned a bunch of hand signs. Do you think you learned them?

LIAM: Sure. Say again?

AABRIA: Yeah. Did you think you learned, like--

LIAM: That makes sense to me.

AABRIA: Yeah. All right.

LIAM: They might be slightly different from between the different regions, but familiar enough.

AABRIA: Make a general intelligence check for me.

LIAM: What could go wrong?

AABRIA: Nothing.

LIAM: Eight.

AABRIA: You know that you're missing a lot of the fine meaning, but broad strokes, they're saying, "We're all moving towards the center."

LIAM: Okay. (laughter)

AIMEE: Ah! The universal "time is a soup" sign! (laughter) (laughter)

AIMEE: They're like, "We don't get it!"

AABRIA: Someone tosses you a little packet.

LIAM: What is it?

AABRIA: It's got dried beans in it.

ASHLEY: Oh, he'd you were hungry

AIMEE: For the soup!

LIAM: Yeah. We got beans. Cool.

AABRIA: And they give you a--

LIAM: Beans.

AABRIA: And the three of them turn and take the vanguard and start walking in towards the center. Okay. I need, as you guys walk in for another half hour or so, I need another constitution saving throw from everyone with advantage. You don't have to do it!

ROBBIE: That's right!

LIAM: Ugh! Terrible.

AABRIA: But you know if you talk a bunch...

MATT: 14.

AABRIA: Make it.

AIMEE: 12.

AABRIA: Just made it.

ASHLEY: 16.

LIAM: 13.

AABRIA: Made it. You guys are adjusting to this, taking shallower breaths and making sure that some of the finest ash that gets through, stops at your mouth, breathing through gritted teeth. Anything to put a layer between that ash and your lungs.

ASHLEY: Is Mister--? Do I have to do a roll for him?

AABRIA: Mister doesn't breathe because Mister's not actually a monkey. So he's just like (gargling) Just belching fire.

AIMEE: Mister's just living his best life.

ROBBIE: Yeah, he's into it.

AABRIA: So actually, as you look down at Mister and you see him exhale, make an arcana check for me.

ASHLEY: I knew this was going to roll bad. I knew it when I picked it up.

AABRIA: Use something in your bag!

ASHLEY: No. You know when you just know? You're like, "You shouldn't roll that one." Five.

LIAM: That's every time.

ASHLEY: I know.

AIMEE: I have a good one and I have a bad one.

ASHLEY: Yeah.

AABRIA: Every day. That's why you need to have 400,000 dice. You look down, and Mister is actively shoveling ash into his mouth and consuming it. And the furnace inside of his face is glowing less of that orange-yellow, and more of a purple-ish red.

AIMEE: Hmm.

LIAM: Weird.

ASHLEY: Interesting. Okay.

AABRIA: You continue to move forward, and eventually, out in the distance, you see there's a couple trees, barren, just like the ones down at the grove, and scattered rock. And the air in that grayed out area, it's a little purple. And a little red. And you have no sense of how far away it is. But it is there. There is something in this unending gray.

MATT: Out of curiosity, is there any adjusting or change in temperature?

AABRIA: No.

MATT: Good. (laughter)

AABRIA: It's a very good question. Not yet.

AIMEE: Not yet!

AABRIA: You guys have been dealing with all of this for max an hour.

MATT: Yeah.

LIAM: Is Jhessho one of the figures here? Is one of them my size?

AABRIA: No. Everyone is medium-sized. And one person's a little bit larger.

LIAM: Okay. I'll tap somebody on the hip and then point in the direction of it.

AABRIA: Yeah, the middle person turns and you can see horns in and around their thing. Tiefling. And they look and nod. And just keep going forward.

LIAM: Okay, yeah.

AIMEE: Can we come up with a more nuanced sign? Like "danger"? "Close"?

AABRIA: The Tiefling turns back and comes back. "Okay. If we get really close, we can talk. What's up?"

AIMEE and ASHLEY: Oh!

AIMEE: What are we looking for?

AABRIA: "Just whatever the fuck this is."

AIMEE: Do we just yell? "Have you been on a giant mesa that's never been before?"

AIMEE: No, but we've been here an hour.

MATT: We have now.

AIMEE: Like, if something was going to attack us--

LIAM: So we have a level playing field here. You know as little as we do.

AABRIA: "Yeah. This is pretty confusing. You know what? It didn't happen until you guys showed-- What have you done?"

AIMEE: Okay. I think we're good luck.

AABRIA: "Nah, I'm kidding. I don't believe you chucklefucks did any of this."

ASHLEY: I summoned this mesa. I'm just kidding.

AIMEE: (tongue roll)

ASHLEY: Or am I?

MATT: If she's not kidding, whatever we find is ours.

AABRIA: "No-- no. No."

MATT: Oh, come on.

AABRIA: "Maybe. I don't know. No. Don't die."

MATT: See. All right, there is doubt.

LIAM: Do you want to maybe, I don't know, split and flank, whatever that is?

AIMEE: Do we see the tree? What are we looking at?

AABRIA: "Good idea."

AIMEE: Sorry.

AABRIA: What?

AIMEE: What are we looking at? We see a tree, you said? Like a--?

AABRIA: You see a couple of barren trees, and then a center purple-y red glow.

AIMEE: And then nothing in that center.

AABRIA: Yeah. It's just grayed out. You're going to have to get closer.

AIMEE: Gotcha, okay.

AABRIA: And this tiefling makes a shrill whistling sound that I will not do for the sake of everyone's ears. And just gives you a nod. "If anything pops up, signal and we'll make our way to you." We'll go to the left."

LIAM: Okay.

AABRIA: "Good luck." Puts his hand on your shoulder and gives it a squeeze.

LIAM: Good luck. Hand up on the wrist.

AABRIA: "Yep." And the three of them take off in one direction.

LIAM: All right.

AABRIA: What's your plan?

ASHLEY: Should we go around?

AIMEE: What if I just shoot at it?

ROBBIE: How far away is it?

AABRIA: You have no idea. Go ahead and make a survival check for me. See if you can gauge distance.

LIAM: Keep that at the ready.

ROBBIE: Oh, that's pretty good.

LIAM: Try and suss it out a little bit.

AIMEE: Okay.

ROBBIE: 18.

AABRIA: You're staring really hard. And eventually you see, in the blow and the glow, you get a sense of what you think the scale is. And it's probably 200 yards away.

ROBBIE: Orym. About 200 yards from whatever that is. You said split and flank. How do we know if we're the flank, or they're the flank? It's just a light. It doesn't have a front or a back.

LIAM: They split off towards the left side of it. We're just going to go out at a V. No?

ROBBIE: Yes. I think it's time.

LIAM: I don't know what that is. We could be marching into certain death, but I mean, it's going to be fine.

ROBBIE: Okay.

AABRIA: Constitution saving throw.

ROBBIE: Aw, I'm talking.

AABRIA: Yeah! You have to breathe to talk.

ROBBIE: I know!

LIAM: It was inward singing.

AIMEE: What's that?

AABRIA: You still have to--

LIAM: (inhaling) ♪ Hey now I'm fucking talking ♪ (laughter)

AIMEE: I was like, "Where is that on the spell list?"

AABRIA: Inspiration!

AIMEE: "Inward singing!" I have inward singing"

AABRIA: You committed and I respect that.

ROBBIE: Eight.

AABRIA: Take one point of exhaustion.

LIAM: One press of your D&D Beyond.

ASHLEY: Did you get a point of exhaustion?

ROBBIE: I did. I'm going to hold my breath again. (inhales)

AABRIA: (laughs) All right. You make your way forward. All right. Okay, let's see if I can do this neatly at all.

ASHLEY: We get a map?!

AABRIA: God, oh god. I'm going to ruin it!

AIMEE: Ayo!

ASHLEY: Whoa!

ROBBIE: Hey now! That looks bad.

AIMEE: Wow, that looks gorgeous!

ASHLEY: Look at the ash!

AIMEE: It's a sparkly!

AABRIA: It made such a mess--

LIAM: Oh, wow.

AABRIA: -- and it's not my problem to clean up.

ASHLEY: Whoa! Whoa, did you just light it up?

AABRIA: Yeah!

ROBBIE: Yeah! Special effects!

AIMEE: Whoa! Gorge.

LIAM: Crunch.

AABRIA: I'm going to put y'all way over here.

AIMEE: Be careful with us.

LIAM: Oh, the above doesn't do it justice. On the sides we can see it.

ASHLEY: Wow, yes!

LIAM: Wow.

AIMEE: Do you know, for a while, all that dust around it, I was like, "Did she spill Cheeto dust on it?"

AABRIA: I did. I'm over here just pounding Flaming Hot Cheetos.

ROBBIE: If we don't fight a Cheeto monster at some point--

AIMEE: Listen.

MATT: Cheeto elemental!

AABRIA: And I will say, once you get within--

ROBBIE: Spicy!

AABRIA: -- visual range of this, you look down and Mister is no longer a monkey. He's been forcibly pushed out of his holding form. And he is a fire elemental next to you.

AIMEE: Wow.

ASHLEY: Whoa.

AABRIA: You approach, and you see the source of this glow is a massive, burning, roiling, purple-red sigil burned into the ground. You can see there. It's fine.

LIAM: We don't see the Ashari, the other Ashari, from here?

AABRIA: You can't see them.

LIAM: Yeah.

ROBBIE: Is it clear that it's language or is it just a symbol?

AABRIA: It looks like a single symbol, like a rune. You can make a history check if you want to see if you recognize it.

ROBBIE: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Let's do that. (laughs) Yeah. Four.

AABRIA: Nah.

ROBBIE: Yeah. That's weird.

AABRIA: Doesn't look like anything to you. And let me be clear, the ash blow is still kicking. You're just close enough to this that you're able to make it out.

ASHLEY: And does it seem like the ash is coming from the sigil?

AABRIA: It's not emanating it's just coming from the sky. But there's no sense of a singular origin point, or even where it's blowing from. It's not like ash coming from the direction of a single wind. There is ash carried on the wind, and ash behind, and falling from above, and coming up from below The deep piles that you've been walking through, there's no way that it was six inches deep within the moments it took you to get up to the top.

ROBBIE: Right.

LIAM: I wonder if we're not in Kansas anymore.

AIMEE: Where's Kansas?

LIAM: You know what I mean? It's in midwestern Tal'Dorei.

AABRIA: Noted. I'll add it to the map.

MATT: No. (laughter)

ROBBIE: No. No, please!

MATT: Please, please no.

AIMEE: All these fanciful names.

AABRIA: I'm sorry. I think I'm in the captain's chair, and I say the Kansas is now in Tal'Dorei.

AIMEE: Kansas, Tal'Dorei. Miami, Ohio can exist. Kansas, Tal'Dorei can exist.

AABRIA: Thank you! Inspiration for also knowing about Miami, Ohio.

ROBBIE: Is the rune fully exposed? Or is it covered at all?

AABRIA: It's glowing through and under the ash, and occasionally a big gust of wind will blow a bunch of the ash away, and consume it. It gets covered and uncovered over and over.

AIMEE: Did we give-- sorry, did we give the residuum to Lorkathar, or do we still have it?

LIAM: I mean, we could go either way. I'd say we still have it. We just managed to tell them about it.

AABRIA: Yeah.

LIAM: Unless anyone feels differently.

AABRIA: She didn't make a move to take it from you.

AIMEE: Gotcha.

AABRIA: She was actually pretty confused about what you wanted her to do with it. Like, "Oh, residuum. Okay."

LIAM: Right.

AIMEE: And who has it? Or do we all have-- Because didn't we pocket some?

LIAM: We could say I have the residuum.

ASHLEY: Yeah.

AIMEE: I thought we had pocketed some.

AABRIA: If you think you would have taken some also.

AIMEE: Remember when we--

LIAM: There was a ton of it.

AABRIA: Yeah.

AIMEE: Yeah, okay.

ASHLEY: There was a ton of it.

ROBBIE: There was so much of it.

AIMEE: I think I'd have some in my pouch.

AABRIA: Yeah, for sure. For sure.

AIMEE: Take some of this shit.

LIAM: Some of that suude.

AABRIA: Get some of that suude.

ASHLEY: I'd like to attempt to go a little closer to see if I could read the sigil.

AABRIA: Yes. I'm not going to force you to-- We're not going to move on here unless it's important to do so. We'll stay theater of the mind. I just wanted to show you my horrible science projects.

AIMEE: I feel like I'd go with Fearne. I want to know what's up.

LIAM: Same. I'm not going to let her walk towards that alone.

ASHLEY: Let's see if we can--

AABRIA: Okay. Dariax, Dorian, do you guys stay behind, while the three of them walk forward?

MATT: I just look at Dorian, W-w-what do we do?

ROBBIE: We have to go with them, don't we?

MATT: Yeah, sure. Yeah. Okay.

LIAM: Well, maybe-- I don't know what that is. Maybe some of us should hang back and some shouldn't. If you guys are going to go, I'll hang back. I dunno. Three and two, I think.

ASHLEY: Okay. I could go check it out. Would you mind holding little Mister's hand?

LIAM: Yeah, sure.

ASHLEY: I just, I'm--

LIAM: Oh, he looks like a ball of fire right now.

ASHLEY: Oh

AABRIA: Mister, even though it's just a rough humanoid shape just reaches out, to hold your hand.

LIAM: How's that feel?

AABRIA: As you get closer, it's very hot.

LIAM: Okay. Well, he can hang with me.

ROBBIE: All right, then. Ladies first.

AIMEE: Great. Let's go.

ASHLEY: Yeah, let's go.

AABRIA: Okay. So the two of you walk forward. I need you to make a check as you approach. But I want you to decide what it is. What do you care about in this moment? Are you trying to keep yourself physically safe and bolstered against these weird elements? Are you trying to understand what you're looking at? And if so, on what level? So you can tell me what you're rolling.

AIMEE: I feel like-- I think Opal is just, because of her naivete and the experiences she's had thus far which have been successful, she's just like, let's get this fucking shit on the road. Like, what am I dealing with here? Who do I got to fight?

AABRIA: Okay, so what are you rolling?

AIMEE: Might be stupid, but what's that? Was-- is that?

AABRIA: What your ability-- You're telling me what ability check you're making right now.

AIMEE: Oh, oh god.

AABRIA: Sorry, skill check.

AIMEE: Investigation?

AABRIA: Okay.

AIMEE: Okay. That is a 16.

AABRIA: Yeah. With a 16, you see that it is a clear path to it, and you don't have any sense of immediate danger.

AIMEE: Okay.

AABRIA: Like, the thing in front of you feels dense. There's a sense of pressure coming from it, but you don't have any sense of anything around you that's going to, you know, start shit.

AIMEE: So we're close enough to see that little form, and then it's just light coming out of it, and then it's-- but we see through it. And we just know that it's dense because of the way that the light is?

AABRIA: Yeah, what you're actually looking down at is just this massive fissure in the ground.

AIMEE: Oh, we're looking down into it?

AABRIA: Yeah.

AIMEE: Okay.

AABRIA: It's a crack in the ground that's just sort of burning.

AIMEE: Cool cool cool cool, okay.

AABRIA: A burning sigil in the ash.

AIMEE: Okay. I mean--

ASHLEY: Anything?

AIMEE: It looks clear, but it's something.

AABRIA: It is powerful. It's not necessarily dangerous.

AIMEE: It feels like a lot, but I don't feel like we should run from it.

ASHLEY: Yeah, you don't feel scared.

AIMEE: No.

ASHLEY: I don't either. Could I try to maybe see? I'm trying to figure out what this is.

AABRIA: Yeah.

ASHLEY: Like if I can somehow read the sigil? I'm trying to get a better idea of what it is.

AABRIA: Sweet. I will offer for free that you have never seen this sigil before. It doesn't look like anything you've seen before, but go ahead and make an arcana check for me.

ASHLEY: Okay. Oh, that's so bad.

AABRIA: Can you use a different--

ASHLEY: Five. I did use a different one.

AABRIA: You got it.

AIMEE: Oh no.

ROBBIE: Betrayal.

ASHLEY: I tried a new one, and it betrayed me.

AABRIA: No! (laughter)

ASHLEY: Five.

AABRIA: Yeah. What you feel coming off of this feels extraplanar, and it is-- Your mind begins to go back to that pasted over memory of coming through your gate. to that pasted over memory of coming through your gate. That signs and symbols are important for passage, but this-- The most you can get is that this is big and heavy and powerful and incomplete. That's all you know.

ASHLEY: Okay. I think we have some idea here of maybe what's happening. I think we should go tell the others.

AIMEE: She wants-- you want to tell the others?

ASHLEY: I think so.

AABRIA: Do you want to interact with it?

AIMEE: I wish I had something to throw down in it.

AABRIA: Oh, like the residuum you just asked for?

AIMEE: I was saving that!

AABRIA: Okay. (laughter)

LIAM: You're the devil!

AIMEE: I was saving it for later!

AABRIA: Nah, it's fine! It will be fine! It's fine.

AIMEE: Okay, I have an idea.

ASHLEY: Okay.

AIMEE: A terrible idea. What if I, from my little pouch, pull out my perfume?

AABRIA: Okay.

AIMEE: And I'm going to say: Fearne.

AIMEE: Yes?

AIMEE: Step back. We don't know what's going to happen.

ASHLEY: Okay, I got your back, though, if it's something bad.

AIMEE: Okay. And then I'm going to close my eyes, and I'm going to spritz it into the hole.

AABRIA: Wait, how close do you think you are to this right now?

AIMEE: How close am I to them?

AABRIA: You tell me!

AIMEE: You told me-- wait, so we're looking into it. (laughter)

AABRIA: You're just looking at a big-ass crack in the ground.

AIMEE: Well, we're looking, okay. But you keep, look--

AABRIA: You tell me, like, don't worry about this for a scale. Where do you think you're standing? You are at least--

AIMEE: I thought we were looking down at it!

AIMEE: Okay, if you're right up on it.

ASHLEY: Yeah.

AIMEE: I think we're right up on it.

ASHLEY: We'll be pretty close on it.

AABRIA: Oh, gucci, cool! Do you back up?

ASHLEY: I back up, but I'm going to put my hand on her belt.

AABRIA: Okay, so you're still in melee range, then.

ASHLEY: I'm still in melee range, but--

AIMEE: Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. I keep rethinking this shit. Can I preemptively cast Shield on us?

AABRIA: You go to summon your magic and you feel nothing.

AIMEE: What?

AABRIA: What?

AIMEE: She feels nothing?

AABRIA: I'm sorry, did I fucking stutter?

AIMEE: But!

ROBBIE: (laughs)

AIMEE: Okay.

ASHLEY: Did anything happen?

AIMEE: No. So--

ASHLEY: Maybe this cancels out--

AIMEE: Magic?

ASHLEY: -- magic.

AIMEE: That's bad! Okay.

ASHLEY: Do you want to spray your perfume on it?

AIMEE: No! Let's back--

ASHLEY: I think you should spray your-- do you have magic perfume?

AIMEE: Well, it's just regular perfume. How about this? Let's just step way back.

ASHLEY: I'm very curious what your perfume would do, though.

AIMEE: Let's step way back.

ASHLEY: Okay.

AIMEE: Like 30 feet back.

ASHLEY: Will your perfume make it that far?

AIMEE: Maybe not, but we're going to try.

ASHLEY: Okay, 30 feet back. I'm still going to hold onto you, and I'm going to get behind you.

AIMEE: Okay.

ASHLEY: Okay, my hand on her belt and my hooves are in the ground.

MATT: Are they backed up to where we are now?

AABRIA: Yeah, I think so.

LIAM: Yeah.

MATT: So what happened? What'd you find out?

ASHLEY: We're doing something!

AIMEE: We were doing something, but now they're here. Goddamn it, maybe I should just throw a rock at it.

LIAM: Orym is watching all this.

AABRIA: Yep.

LIAM: And we're all together now, and he's just thinking how much all these four casters know about the arcane. It's just so beyond him, but it's fascinating.

AIMEE: Wait, should I--

MATT: I got you. I throw a rock at it.

AIMEE: Orym.

AABRIA: Yeah!

ROBBIE: Yes!

AABRIA: Attack roll!

MATT: Ooh, 12.

AIMEE: Perfume interrupted.

LIAM: I don't know what--

MATT: You said throw a rock at it.

AABRIA: Yeah.

AIMEE: I'm glad I didn't have to do the perfume.

AABRIA: You toss the rock. Are you trying to-- describe for me what your goal is. Are you trying to skip a stone? Are you trying to swoosh?

MATT: I'm trying to lob it in the direction that, if it doesn't directly hit, to at least roll into the proximity of it.

LIAM: Brick.

AABRIA: Yeah, it falls probably four or five feet short and then just rolls up. And as it gets to the very edge, you see it catch fire. And begins to melt down, and it melts down into a little pool that falls into the sigil.

AIMEE: Okay.

MATT: All right, so general note, don't touch it. Glad you didn't.

AIMEE: We didn't do the perfume.

AABRIA: Important to note that you guys were within melee range. Like, you were within five feet of this thing and it wasn't hot enough to immolate you. Just a little bit of continuity that was incredibly--

LIAM: Right, right. You guys walked up to it and back, so we know that it won't ignite us if we get a little closer.

ASHLEY: It won't ignite us. And another thing, when we looked at it and got close, it seems to be, I don't know how else to say this, but incomplete.

AIMEE: Maybe-- now follow me here. We can ask nicely what it wants.

AABRIA: You all feel a small tremor under your feet.

AIMEE: Because when we threw a rock at it, it totally fucked it up. But we were close when we were just checking it out. It didn't burn us.

MATT: What if it wants a monkey?

AIMEE: We're not sacrificing Mister.

ASHLEY: No.

MATT: I'm not saying sacrificing it, but I'm saying, you know, fire, fire, hungry, hungry.

AABRIA: And for the first time in your week-long relationship, Mister isn't paying any attention to you.

AIMEE: Oh no, Mister.

AABRIA: What you imagine its-- his little head and his little eyes would be, are just fixed on the sigil. Unmoving. Just burning.

MATT: General curiosity as well, are my eyes still black?

AABRIA: Yeah, it hasn't changed.

MATT: Okay, I don't notice.

AABRIA: Yeah.

MATT: Just for my own mental image.

AABRIA: Yeah, yep, that's just been that way.

ROBBIE: Yeah.

LIAM: And does he have the same shitty vision as all of us?

AABRIA: Yep.

LIAM: Okay.

AABRIA: As far as you know.

MATT: So that's an option.

ROBBIE: Talk to it. Talk to it?

AIMEE: Talk to it.

LIAM: That's a quick experiment.

AIMEE: Yeah.

MATT: Hey!

AIMEE: Maybe don't yell at it.

ROBBIE: We have to--

MATT: Oh wow, from you!

AIMEE: I know! (laughter)

AIMEE: I know.

MATT: Then I happily step back.

AIMEE: I have grown so much. Here's the thing. Maybe it just doesn't want to be bothered. But if we ask nicely, I don't know. I'm just going off the rock throwing situation.

MATT: No, no, no. It's a valid thread.

AIMEE: Let's ask.

MATT: Okay, go for it.

AABRIA: Do you walk all the way back up to it?

AIMEE: Yes.

AABRIA: Okay.

ASHLEY: I'll go beside her.

MATT: I think that we'll also carry up the rear there.

AABRIA: Yep, all right. You're all within five feet of the sigil.

AIMEE: Hey, hole.

MATT: 10 feet, 10 feet.

AABRIA: Respect.

AIMEE: Hey, hole. Look, we're just here to help, so what do you need?

AABRIA: You hear at the very back of your mind, "(snickering) Ridiculous."

AIMEE: I know it's-- I hear you. I hear you, but also I don't want you to burn us. So, so, so just-- so just what do you want?

AABRIA: "What? I'm not. Oh my god, it's Ted, not-- ew."

AIMEE: Oh my god, Ted, what the fuck?

AABRIA: "It's-- what? What are you-- You're just yelling at a fissure?"

AIMEE: Yeah.

AABRIA: "What is wrong with you?"

AIMEE: Okay, if you were here, you would've been dead a week ago.

AABRIA: "Because I'm here, you're not dead. And when you apologize, I will give you your magic back."

AIMEE: (gasps) You took my magic?

AABRIA: "I am your magic, bitch."

AIMEE: Okay, wait. This is really-- this is bad.

AABRIA: "You're having this conversation out loud. Bye!

LIAM: I was about to ask.

ASHLEY: Yeah, I was just going to ask.

LIAM: We just see her talk to the air?

AABRIA: Yeah, you just see her talking-- well, she's actually yelling down into the sigil-like thing.

LIAM: Are you talking to the ash hole?

MATT: Who won the argument?

AIMEE: Listen, maybe you don't know this about me, but I do have a twin sister.

MATT: It's a mountain?

AIMEE: A what?

MATT: Sorry, continue.

AIMEE: This is not important, but we're having a fight, and she took my magic, so I don't know what to do.

ROBBIE: Maybe ask for it back, and focus on the hole in the middle of the ground.

ASHLEY: But also you can talk to your sister just out in the--

LIAM: Yeah, yeah, what?

ASHLEY: -- ether?

AIMEE: That's a good point. (yelling) Ted!

AABRIA: Nothing. You hear a stubborn silence.

AIMEE: I think she wants me to apologize, but I'm not going to.

LIAM: Where is she?

AIMEE: I don't know. I don't know where she is. Probably at home, sitting around, doing nothing.

ASHLEY: Wow.

MATT: All right. Yeah.

LIAM: Let's put a pin in that.

ASHLEY: Yes.

AIMEE: Talk to the hole, someone with magic. To the ash hole. Matt said that, not me. But I'm just repeating it.

AABRIA: That is very good, both of you can have inspiration.

ROBBIE: The ash hole.

ASHLEY: If I try to hold Mister's hand, is he hot to the touch when I get close?

AABRIA: Not to you. You are aware that he is incredibly hot. It didn't bother you when you pulled him from the earth, and it doesn't bother you now.

ASHLEY: Can I get a read on him? Does he seem scared or nervous? Anything?

AABRIA: No, he's excited. And it is only by virtue of your relationship-- his relationship with you that he hasn't just cut, continued moving forward into the sigil.

ROBBIE: Well, the ash hole isn't answering. Do you remember when the Ashari said something about the earth being like a sponge? Fearne, you were able to pull Mister out of the ground. You don't get burned when you touch him. Do you think you could put your hands in the ash hole? (laughter)

LIAM: You couldn't keep a straight face for one second.

AIMEE: That was a whole setup, too. (laughter) "Do you think you can put your finger--"

ASHLEY: I had a feeling it was coming, too. And I was like: I'm going to keep a straight face. And I couldn't. (laughter)

AIMEE: Can you stick a fist in the ash hole?

MATT: I'm just saying, we don't know how dangerous that might be, so maybe just take it gently.

ASHLEY: I can just see if I could just get a fist in.

LIAM: Easy.

MATT: Start with a couple fingers.

ASHLEY: Okay.

LIAM: Easy.

ASHLEY: Oh boy.

AIMEE: Wait, spit in your hand first.

LIAM: Oh wow. Yeah, that'll put the fire out for sure.

ASHLEY: Okay.

LIAM: Holy shit. (laughter)

AIMEE: I'm really banking on the fact that my parents will not be watching.

ASHLEY: I was thinking the same thing. Oh god. Okay.

AABRIA: My parents, who are definitely watching this, are very proud of you. (laughter)

MATT: Oh boy!

ASHLEY: I love it. Okay. Wait. Oh boy.

MATT: Fearne.

ASHLEY: Yes?

MATT: We believe in you.

ASHLEY: Okay.

MATT: Go.

ASHLEY: Well.

MATT: (laughing) Fist the ash hole. (laughter)

ASHLEY: I'm going to walk up to the ash hole.

ROBBIE: Yeah, describe it.

ASHLEY: And I'm just going to, just-- (laughter) This is so stupid.

LIAM: Yeah, that's Dungeons & Dragons. What's your point? (laughter)

ASHLEY: Okay, I'm going to walk towards the edge.

AABRIA: Uh-huh.

ASHLEY: And I'm going to just put my hand forward and just

ASHLEY: And I'm going to just put my hand forward and just try to put a little three fingers forward, just see what happens.

AABRIA: What kind of druid are you? You don't have to check. This is a dramatic question.

ASHLEY: What kind of druid am I?

AABRIA: Yeah.

ASHLEY: I'm a fire druid.

AABRIA: Yeah.

ASHLEY: I'm a-- yes.

AABRIA: And you are aware, as you get very close to the edge of this burning rune in the ground, you can feel the heat intensify as you get closer. This thing was, you didn't feel anything before. And even now, you are aware of intense heat, though it doesn't burn you. And you extend your hand out, and you have a sense of, if you weren't paying attention, if you weren't extremely focused on this moment, your fur would burn away. Your skin, your flesh, your bones would be turned into ash and sent into the air around you. But you're a wildfire druid, and some part of you is part of this. You're able to reach through and out. No effect.

ASHLEY: I fingered it and nothing happened.

AIMEE: Can you pull something out?

LIAM: Foom. (laughter)

AABRIA: Are you reaching into the air or reaching into the ground? Just clarify it for your girl?

ASHLEY: I don't know what the fuck I'm doing. Okay.

AABRIA: Yeah, big same.

ROBBIE: I think you do.

AABRIA: But we're all happy to be here.

ASHLEY: I know, but what's the goal here?

AABRIA: Couldn't tell you.

ASHLEY: Because if I just try to reach into the ground, what's the purpose of that? What do we want, what do we want? What are we trying to take away here?

AABRIA: You are talking at a whisper, and they are not that close to you.

ASHLEY: This is true. I'm just trying to talk to myself. I'm talking to myself.

AABRIA: You know what? Give me a constitution saving throw, everyone.

ASHLEY: Sure.

AABRIA: The difficulty has increased.

ASHLEY: This is-- I'm not rolling you anymore. You're getting out of here.

AABRIA: You don't have to because you're not breathing.

AIMEE: 17.

AABRIA: You're fine.

LIAM: All of us?

MATT: 18.

AABRIA: Fine.

ASHLEY: Five.

AABRIA: Pick up a point of exhaustion.

LIAM: Ooh, fail.

AABRIA: Point of exhaustion.

ASHLEY: What is this, actually? I have advantage against spells and other magical effects?

AABRIA: This isn't a magical effect.

ASHLEY: This isn't a magical effect.

AABRIA: It's just ash in the air.

ASHLEY: Okay, so I take a point of exhaustion.

LIAM: Oh boy.

AABRIA: How y'all doing?

LIAM: Our speed is halved.

AABRIA: Yep.

LIAM: If you're at two points of exhaustion.

ROBBIE: I have a tricky question to ask.

AABRIA: Ye?

ROBBIE: If things get worse and it says we have disadvantage on our saving throws, does that include our constitution?

AABRIA: It does!

ROBBIE: Fuck me.

AABRIA: Yeah!

MATT: It becomes a death spiral.

ROBBIE: Yeah, yeah.

AABRIA: Yep!

ROBBIE: That's B-A-D.

AABRIA: I will kill you in two episodes because you turned my cool sigil into a butthole. So sad. I was like, "This is going to be great. (grunts)"

LIAM: It was always a butthole. You just didn't know.

AABRIA: That's fair.

MATT: Michelangelo sees the block of marble, he can visualize the shape beneath.

AIMEE: The butthole was already there.

MATT: He just needs to carve away.

AABRIA: L'anus.

AIMEE: It was really just the buttholes we met along the way.

LIAM: (deep sigh) Oh boy.

AABRIA: All right, all of you get a round of inspiration because that is hilarious. And it has absolutely broken my brain. So what are you doing?

ASHLEY: Okay, I'm going to walk a little closer to them so I can say some stuff without having to--

AABRIA: Do you leave? Okay.

ASHLEY: Yeah.

LIAM: What did you figure out?

ASHLEY: Okay, so I can put my hand through. I can be in the vicinity, and I won't get burned. Should I go down there? I--

ROBBIE: Go down where?

ASHLEY: Into the ash hole. (laughter) Just my full body. Just dive right in.

AIMEE: What if you send Mister down there?

ASHLEY: It's not a bad idea.

ROBBIE: He might not ever come back.

ASHLEY: I'm going to put my hand out and take a knee.

AABRIA: Mm-hmm.

ASHLEY: Little Mister, I feel like you're very excited about this right now. And as much as I love you, do you feel like you want to go home?

AABRIA: And he turns his head, looks down, and then looks back at you. Doesn't seem to really understand the question.

ASHLEY: I'm going to walk closer to the edge with him.

AABRIA: And you can feel, as you get right to the edge, he wants to keep walking forward.

ASHLEY: Oh, I don't know if I want to let him in there.

AABRIA: He's continuing to pull. What do you do?

ASHLEY: I'll go in there with him.

AABRIA: Go together?

ASHLEY: Do I?

AABRIA: Make your choice, Ashley Johnson.

ASHLEY: I'm going to do it.

AABRIA: So together you walk. And the moment his little, it's not quite feet, sort of humanoid-shaped fire elemental leg crosses the threshold just before yours, it flashes up with flame, and you are pushed back.

ASHLEY: (gasps) Oh no!

AABRIA: And as everything explodes out and comes back down, there's a brief gap in the ash. And where he once stood, you now see a massive, ashy, hot vapor elemental. And I'm going to need all of you to roll initiative. (groaning)

ASHLEY: Ooh!

AIMEE: Oh boy!

MATT: That dirty.

AABRIA: Yay!

ASHLEY: Nope, nope. We had to do it, we had to do it.

AABRIA: Yay!

ROBBIE: Come on, big boy.

LIAM: You never know what's going to fall out of an ash hole.

ASHLEY: You never know.

MATT: Which, initiative is an ability check. So all of us who have a point of exhaustion gets disadvantage.

LIAM: Initiative is an ability check?

AABRIA: It is!

LIAM: What a fun factoid.

AABRIA: Thank you, Matthew Mercer.

ASHLEY: (groans) Okay.

MATT: Yeah! Four, baby.

AABRIA: Oh no! All right, Dariax has got a four. We can just go.

ROBBIE: Seven.

AABRIA: Oh my god.

ROBBIE: Yeah.

ASHLEY: Eight.

LIAM: 10.

AIMEE: 13.

AABRIA: Okay.

ASHLEY: Okay, okay, okay.

AABRIA: Sorry.

MATT: ♪ Holdin' up the rear ♪

AABRIA: You're eight?

LIAM: Who all's made it to--

ROBBIE: I am.

LIAM: -- exhaustion two?

AIMEE: I haven't, I just want to double check. I don't think I've sustained any exhaustion, have I?

ASHLEY: I don't think you have.

AIMEE: I don't think I have. Okay.

AABRIA: I think you're good. Yeah.

LIAM: Cool.

AABRIA: Sweet.

MATT: Bet that's nice.

AIMEE: Just wait. All my magic's gone.

ASHLEY: Oh, that's right.

AABRIA: All right.

LIAM: This is going to be bad.

AABRIA: Opal, you're up.

AIMEE: Well! Okay, I, Aimee Carrero knows her magic is gone. Opal also knows this, but I feel like Opal is--

AABRIA: I'm going to say you got pushed back to where you-- essentially there.

AIMEE: She's-- She thinks that Ted's just going to do her a solid here.

AABRIA: Yeah, respect.

AIMEE: So I think that she is going to-- How far am I from this elemental?

AABRIA: Oh, I knocked out the grid lines, so we're going to say, like, 40 feet.

AIMEE: 40 feet, okay. I'm going to try to cast (blows raspberry) Poison Spray. Nope, I'm going to try to cast Eldritch Blast.

AABRIA: Yeah, you're aware. We all know who you are. Don't feel bad about casting Eldritch Blast.

MATT: Nah, it's the bread and butter.

AABRIA: Yep.

AIMEE: Okay. 14.

AABRIA: You put your hands up, and you hear, "(throat clear) Apologize." Nothing comes out.

MATT and ROBBIE: (incredulous laugh)

LIAM: Oh!

AIMEE: I'm not going to apologize.

AABRIA: "Okay, good luck with your knives."

AIMEE: (frustrated groan) (quick exhale)

AABRIA: I will say that didn't use your action, though.

AIMEE: It didn't?

AABRIA: No.

AIMEE: Okay.

AABRIA: You notice it right away, like--

AIMEE: So I-- She's not-- She's fucking annoying. So I'm going to pull one of my daggers out. I'm going to throw it.

AABRIA: Okay.

AIMEE: Into the thing.

AABRIA: Into a massive--

AIMEE: Yep, that's right.

AABRIA: -- hot vapor--

AIMEE: That's right, baby! Because that's Opal!

AABRIA: -- non-corporeal elemental.

AIMEE: That's Opal.

MATT: That's some hot vapor right there.

AIMEE: That is Opal, honey.

AABRIA: Mister give you a little wink.

AIMEE: Okay. That is a 15.

AABRIA: Okay. I mean, a 15 does hit. And as you're--

AIMEE: I didn't say she was smart.

AABRIA: No, you're good! As your dagger goes in, you hear this loud, like, hissing screech. And you watch as your beautiful iridescent dagger, swirls around its body and gets thrown back out. We'll see who it's going to aim for.

AIMEE: I'm sorry.

ASHLEY: Did it hit?

AABRIA: It did hit, so go ahead and roll your damage.

AIMEE: Oh.

AABRIA: And, Dorian, I need you to roll a dexterity saving throw.

ROBBIE: Slippery biscuit. Why would you do that?

AIMEE: Seven damage.

AABRIA: Good to know.

AIMEE: Goddamn it.

ROBBIE: Did you say dex?

AABRIA: Yeah.

ROBBIE: 12.

AABRIA: Okay, with a--

ROBBIE: I'm sorry, I'm so sorry. 14. I was looking at the wrong number. Yeah, I'm sure now.

AABRIA: You're good. With a 14, you're able to leap out of the way as her dagger comes back out and just shoots over your shoulder.

ROBBIE: How Honest Abe do I be? Oh no.

AABRIA: I've moved on spiritually from this moment, if you want to not have to worry about correcting your--

ROBBIE: I don't know. I thought I had a saving throw, but I don't. I thought I had disadvantage. Okay, I'm out, I'm out. I run away.

AABRIA: Orym, you're up. Dorian, you're on deck.

AIMEE: Can I use the rest, sorry, can I use my movement to go behind that tree?

AABRIA: Yeah.

AIMEE: Great.

AABRIA: That's a great idea.

AIMEE: Thank you.

MATT: I always knew this monkey was trouble!

ASHLEY: Monkey trouble.

MATT: Vindicated!

AABRIA: He is, in fact, trouble.

LIAM: Shoot. I'm going to run and get myself onto that tree stump.

AABRIA: Yeah.

LIAM: And hold. Just attack if it gets within range.

AABRIA: Noted.

LIAM: That's it.

AABRIA: Okay. Dorian, you're up.

LIAM: Because that's, we're all, I'm at half speed.

ROBBIE: (blows raspberry) I'll-- So I've only got 15 feet. But where am I? To the left there? I'm going to take up position. I'm going to go to the left and take up position behind that big stump.

AABRIA: Cool.

ROBBIE: And I'll also, I'll also hold my action for--

AABRIA: What do you want the trigger to be? And what action are you holding?

ROBBIE: I'm going to hold a melee attack.

AABRIA: Okay.

ROBBIE: Should I be attacked, within range.

AABRIA: All right, love it. Okay. You hear another hissing screech. And beside-- beside you, Orym--

LIAM: Oh!

AIMEE: Ah, fuck.

AABRIA: -- and in front of this other bush, Dorian, two little fissures open in the ground and massive vents and a big tentacle of hot vapor comes up and it's going to do a lash at you. Misses you, Orym. And I miss you, Dorian.

LIAM: Are these new beings, or an attack from the initial being?

AABRIA: This looks like an attack from the initial being.

LIAM: Got it.

AABRIA: The fissure just geysered up.

LIAM: Okay.

AABRIA: And they hold their form even as they lash at you and miss. They are still there. Fearne, you're up. Dariax, you're on deck.

ASHLEY: Okay. I am going to use my Wild Shape, and I am going to turn into a dire wolf.

AABRIA and AIMEE: Ooh!

AABRIA: Okay, I'm going to keep this big baby right here. All right.

ASHLEY: Don't know if I can do that. Okay, I will take a bite attack on this in front of me.

AABRIA: Yeah.

AIMEE: Yes.

ASHLEY: Okay.

AABRIA: Do an ouch.

ASHLEY: 14?

AABRIA: Hits.

ASHLEY: Yes. Okay, so. That is 2d6 plus three. Woo! 14 points of damage.

AABRIA: Oh my gosh. You bite, and you expect, you know, like a dog biting a water hose. You expect to go through it, but you catch something ethereal but grabbable. And you get it, and you get your jaws around it. And with one big crunch, you hit it. And it scatters and disappears.

AIMEE: Yeah, baby!

MATT: Nice.

ASHLEY: Yeah!

AIMEE: Did it!

ASHLEY: Okay! Ah! Let me see here. Okay, that's-- I'm going to start moving over towards-- Hold on. Let me see how far I can move with this guy. Sweet, 50 feet. Okay, so I'll try to make my--

AABRIA: You can get all the way to him. We're doing some approximate things--

ASHLEY: Great, let's do it!

AABRIA: -- because I can't count squares.

ASHLEY: Great, let's do it. All right. You get all the way up to the edge of the sigil that a big, hot Mister is standing on. Sort of hovering over.

ASHLEY: Oh, Mister is there?

AIMEE: That's Mister?

AABRIA: Oops.

ASHLEY: (gasps) (laughs)

AIMEE: No, we can't kill Mister!

ASHLEY: Okay, okay.

MATT: Yes. We. Can!

ASHLEY: That's my-- I think that's all I can do. Because I took my action, I moved.

AABRIA: And yeah.

ASHLEY: With bonus action, I can't.

AABRIA: Well, your bonus action, I'm assuming was to Wild Shape, yeah?

ASHLEY: Yeah. Yes, yes.

AABRIA: You attacked and did a bite. Yeah, you're good. And you're just standing there snarling as the big thing, this big elemental, like looks at you and cocks its head in that same sort of quizzical look that Mister gave you.

AIMEE: Aw!

ASHLEY: That's my turn.

AABRIA: All right, Dariax, you're up. It's my gift to you.

MATT: Friends, we have no choice-- (laughter) But to bring the traitor down! I'm going to go ahead and move approximately my 25 feet at an angle in front of where the tree is.

AABRIA: Yeah, okay.

MATT: And from there, I'm going to be like: Don't let me down! I'm going to go ahead and put my hands out and just concentrate on that that burning, whatever power sits in me, that fire in my chest, and I'm going to go ahead and divide it in three ways and then send it out into the ashy breeze outward onto Dorian, Orym, and Opal as a Bless.

AABRIA: Aw, yeah!

ASHLEY: Hey!

AABRIA: Be blessed, baby.

MATT: So y'all get to roll a d4 on attack rolls and saving throws while it's on you, and that's going to be my turn.

AABRIA: And if you didn't know this was Mister before, the way this giant elemental looks at you, and its eyes begin to burn white hot. It opens its mouth and, first, it's that hiss, and then it's an oh-so-familiar scream as it looks at you and goes, (monkey screech).

MATT: I knew it the whole time.

AABRIA: (yells) We're back up to the top. Opal, you're up. Orym, you're on deck.

AIMEE: Dari-- I mean, Dorian! Fuck.

AABRIA: Yeah, they did that!

AIMEE: Pass me-- Throw me my other dagger which I think is near you. Close, right?

ROBBIE: Oh yeah, yeah, because it would've missed and clinked around. Okay, yeah.

AIMEE: Thanks.

ROBBIE: Yeah, sure. Hyah!

AIMEE: Thanks.

ROBBIE: I hope you caught it.

AIMEE: I caught it! I'm just decided on that.

AABRIA: That's exactly how that works. You're good, you're good. That's fine.

AIMEE: Okay, so what I'm going to do is that I'm going to get into some sort of melee range of that guy.

AABRIA: This one?

AIMEE: Yes.

AABRIA: Cool.

AIMEE: And I would like to-- How much taller is it than I am?

AABRIA: It's probably a foot and a half taller than you.

AIMEE: Oh, okay. Well, I would just like to go for where its throat would be, I guess? Just one slash.

AABRIA: I mean, it is just a big sort of tentacle situation.

AIMEE: Yeah, okay, then I want to cut the tip off, if you will.

AABRIA: It's worse than I explained it.

AIMEE: It's worse, worse, worse. Okay, so.

AABRIA: Make an attack roll and I'll think about my choices.

AIMEE: And then I can roll this d4 and add it?

AABRIA: Yes.

AIMEE: Okay. Well, 17. Wait, wait, no, no, no, no! Sorry, that's not it. It's a-- sorry. 22.

AABRIA: Oh my god, yeah. It hit with plenty to spare.

AIMEE: Great.

AIMEE: And then as a bonus action, I would like to--

AABRIA: You should roll your damage.

AIMEE: Oh shit.

AABRIA: For the first hit.

AIMEE: That's right, thanks.

AABRIA: The gentle, "Oh, shit."

AIMEE: Oh shit, six.

AABRIA: Nice.

AIMEE: Damage.

AABRIA: Still up.

AIMEE: And then, I guess, I would like to use my other-- As a bonus action, use my other dagger to slice it where the middle part would be.

AABRIA: Yeah. Go for it.

AIMEE: 18.

AABRIA: Hits.

AIMEE: Okay. And then that's a seven. Six and seven? 15. Is that a 15?

AABRIA: Six and seven is 13, but that's okay.

AIMEE: 13.

ROBBIE: (laughs)

AIMEE: Math, ever heard of it?

AABRIA: Super haven't.

AIMEE: No!

AABRIA: You slash and then slash again and you obliterate the tendril. It disappears.

AIMEE: Yeah! I feel like Opal would be like: Ha ha, Ted, no magic.

AABRIA: "You're going to die up here."

AIMEE: Shut up.

AABRIA: And Orym, you just heard her tell you to shut up and now it's your turn.

LIAM: I'm going to use my action and my movement, because I've got half movement right now, to run all the way up to the side of Fearne wolf.

AABRIA: Nice.

LIAM: And when I get there, I'm going to use my single battle maneuver, Bait and Switch. I'm going to reach under and grab her by the fur and pull myself from underneath her and plop down next to her. So we would switch positions.

AABRIA: Okay.

LIAM: The little bit of a pull would pull her a little more central and I'm going to use my superiority die to beef up my own AC by three. And that's the end of my turn.

AABRIA: Perfect. Okay. Dorian, you're up.

ROBBIE: Has this main elemental moved at all?

AABRIA: No.

ROBBIE: Have they made any attempt to move?

AABRIA: No.

ROBBIE: And as I survey the scene, do I have the sensation that they're not just not moving, but bound to this spot?

AABRIA: Ooh, I like this a lot. Just give me a general-- Oh god, what do I want to call this?

ASHLEY: Oh, that's good.

AABRIA: Intelligence struck? Let's call it that.

ROBBIE: Sure.

ROBBIE: A natural, natural 20, 20, 20, 20.

AABRIA: Shut up.

ASHLEY: Ooh!

ROBBIE: Two zero.

AABRIA: Yes! You look, and from your perspective, yeah, he is stuck in that spot. He is the amalgamation of the heat and vapor coming out of that sigil and cannot move from that spot.

ROBBIE: If that's the case, then-- How far am I now, like 40 feet still?

AABRIA: Sure, that's fine.

ROBBIE: At half speed. I would like to cast Dissonant Whispers.

AABRIA: Beautiful. All right.

ROBBIE: And that is, yeah, you've got it.

AABRIA: It's a 10.

ROBBIE: 12.

AABRIA: All right, go for it.

ROBBIE: So that's-- oh, 3d6. Ah! Ooh, the wrong dice!

AABRIA: Hurray! Roll good.

ROBBIE: Seven, eight for the attack. But then I guess also with that, it says that on a failed save you take eight in psychic damage and must immediately use its reaction, if available, to move as far away at its speed away from me. So that would mean that--

AIMEE: Ooh.

ROBBIE: -- that they would move their max distance off that area.

AABRIA: Oh my god.

ASHLEY: Interesting.

AIMEE: That's an interesting plot twist.

ROBBIE: Got to try something.

MATT: Yeah, yeah.

AABRIA: I think that does it. What do you whisper to Mister?

ROBBIE: Come back to us. Come back to Fearne.

AIMEE: Cute.

ROBBIE: But get away from me. (laughter)

AABRIA: And he looks up at you specifically and you see the beginning of a scream as it pushes back and moves away from the sigil and begins to lose a sense of its own shape and form as it leaves this area where it had to be to survive, and it unmakes itself. And what was just this roiling mass of vapor and air that was untouched by the ash, the ash begins to flow into it and arms begin to just lose themselves into the breeze. And it unmakes itself trying to move away from you. And what is left, what steps back forward is the mini that I've already misplaced. Where is he? There he is. As Mister takes one step forward off of the sigil and stands and looks up at dire wolf Fearne.

AIMEE: Aww.

AABRIA: And waits. Yeah, that's it.

AIMEE: Mister's back.

AABRIA: He's back.

MATT: (shouting) Now, while he's distracted! (laughter)

MATT: Dariax goes running, spear forward.

AABRIA: Do you attack?

MATT: He's going to try to, yeah!

AABRIA: Oh my god. Okay, we're technically out of initiative. Fearne, you're right there. You see Dariax charging up. Go ahead and make an attack roll.

ASHLEY: (gasps)

AABRIA: Fearne, what do you do?

ASHLEY: Okay, if I-- I see that he's running and I see Little Mister.

AABRIA: Not looking at all at Dariax, just staring up at you. Go ahead and make your attack roll.

MATT: Oh, I get up there, okay.

AABRIA: Yeah, you get there.

ASHLEY: Okay. Did you roll a natural 20?

MATT: No.

ASHLEY: Did you roll a natural one?

AABRIA: No! (laughs)

AIMEE: Yeah, its not meant to be!

MATT: I had one shot! (laughter)

AIMEE: One shot!

ROBBIE: Trip over your own spear?

LIAM: Pole vault into the sigil.

AIMEE: Oh no! That's a bummer.

AABRIA: This isn't for me. This is a gift for you.

ASHLEY: Okay.

AABRIA: What happens?

ASHLEY: I am going to, since I'm still a dire wolf, and I'm not going to change that just yet. because I don't want to, I am going to look down at little Mister and I'm going to open my mouth and I'm going to try to grab him by what I think is the scruff.

AABRIA: Uh-huh?

AIMEE: Aww.

ASHLEY: And take him out of the hole and put him down outside of it.

AABRIA: And like a perfect olay, you lift Mister up and away as you see Dariax's ready form sail past you, headed into the sigil. I got to give Orym a chance to do something about this. It's going to go so badly if he lands in there, please do something.

LIAM: I make an attack roll on his leg. That's a 16 to hit.

AABRIA: Does that hit?

MATT: My AC's 15, yeah, that hits.

LIAM: And I just (blade whooshing) stick the blade up through his calf muscle to catch him and drag and push him away from it.

AABRIA: Roll your damage.

AIMEE: Ouchies!

ROBBIE: Wow!

LIAM: That is seven points of piercing damage.

ASHLEY: I'm standing in front of little Mister and I'm just growling at him.

MATT: He's like, (yelling) (panicked yelling) (laughter)

MATT: On the ground. (pained yelling) (frightened yelling)

LIAM: Okay, okay, okay. (blade whooshing) Blood splatters on the ash. Okay, we're okay. You're okay. You're going to be okay.

ASHLEY: Did you splatter blood on the sigil?

LIAM: No, on the ash next to it. Not directly.

ASHLEY: I'm going to drop.

AABRIA: Your spear doesn't exist about two feet out. You were charging with it. And that part that crossed over was immediately burnt up.

MATT: Oh, spear's gone.

AABRIA: So you have a little stick. You have a very nice stick, though.

AIMEE: Oh no!

AABRIA: You saved him from being the spear.

LIAM: Okay, cool. Now I feel good.

MATT: Remove spear. I'm going to (pained shouting) Just (groaning) cast Cure Wounds. (laughter)

AIMEE: Thank god. Oh god, that's terrible.

MATT: Was saving that for other folks, but hey!

ROBBIE: That's such a funny image.

AIMEE: Oh jeez.

MATT: Back up to full. All right.

ASHLEY: I'm going to drop my Wild Shape.

AIMEE: And I feel like Opal wants to clear her throat. And say: Ahem! I owe someone an apology. Ted, are you listening?

AABRIA: "Always."

AIMEE: Mister, I'm very sorry for throwing a dagger at you.

AABRIA: "I hate you."

AIMEE: Bye. (laughter)

ASHLEY: Yes.

ROBBIE: And I'll slowly creep from behind my stump. (laughter)

ROBBIE: Bewildered that that worked, and join the rest of the group and say: So no more going into the sigil. We all agreed?

AIMEE: Yeah.

LIAM: Yeah, agreed.

ASHLEY: Agreed.

LIAM: Still got an issue here, though.

AABRIA: You hear a low rumble (rumbling) out in the distance, away, past you, yards in front of the sigil on the other side.

AIMEE: Oh god.

AABRIA: Sounds like the yelling.

LIAM: Yeah.

AIMEE: Oh, oh, I thought it was another earthquake.

AABRIA: Yeah, no.

LIAM: Yeah, we're here!

AIMEE: A little late, boys! (laughter)

AABRIA: And you see coming out of the shadows and that gray ash a dozen other Ashari get closer. "Why-- what are you doing? Why did you go in it?! What is wrong-- Are you alive?"

AIMEE: Yeah.

LIAM: Mostly.

ASHLEY: Yeah, for the most part.

ROBBIE: What is it?

AABRIA: "No idea."

ASHLEY: Do you know what this is?

AABRIA: "The big fissure? No, no idea. Never seen that before."

AIMEE: I mean, it sounds like we're doing all the work here, and you guys just show up when it's too late.

AABRIA: "We were observing it."

AIMEE: Just saying.

AABRIA: "And then you walked up and threw a fire--"

AIMEE: And saved the day.

AABRIA: "-- person into it."

AIMEE: And saved the day.

ASHLEY: Well, it was just kind of--

AABRIA: "It feels like you made the problem and then solved it, if I'm being super honest." And then the tiefling backs up again.

AIMEE: Who solved it? Who solved it?

AABRIA: "You solved your own problem, yes."

AIMEE: We solved it, we solved the problem.

AABRIA: (coughing) "I can't yell."

ROBBIE: I mean, I kind of solved it.

AIMEE: Dorian solved it.

MATT: Exactly.

ASHLEY: Yeah.

MATT: He's the best, I say with my jet black eyes. (laughter)

MATT: But we're fine. We're totally good.

LIAM: But you learned something.

AABRIA: "Yeah, this is the heart of whatever is happening and it feels like it's part of whatever's going on at the crater, and now here. We need to get in touch with the other Ashari and see if the other elemental planes are reacting this way. Come on. You need to get out of here. Please, stop-- don't. Don't spray-- What were you going to--? Come back, fall back."

AIMEE: Perfume.

AABRIA: "It's dangerous to stay up here."

AIMEE: And it would've smelled good.

AABRIA: "Ridiculous."

AIMEE: She pulls out and, away from that, and spritzes a little perfume.

AABRIA: Yeah. (laughter)

AABRIA: Smells good.

LIAM: Going to head back out?

AABRIA: Yeah.

LIAM: Okay.

AABRIA: Anyone else want to do anything before leaving?

ASHLEY: I'm going to let go of Mister's hand and start walking out. You can come and stay with me, if you would like.

AABRIA: He immediately runs up to you.

ASHLEY and AIMEE: Aww!

AABRIA: And keeps looking back. Once again, he's still in that not-quite-humanoid shape where you're losing a lot of like fine stuff, but he's pulling on the side of your skirt.

ASHLEY: I just grab him, which might be a weird sight, and give him hugs and loves and scritches, even though he's just-- (flames whooshing).

AABRIA: You all notice-- there's no check required-- that watching this interaction, the other Ashari are leaning in and murmuring amongst themselves. And you see lots of hand signs going back and forth. That's a very strange thing. They're not saying anything to you, but they seem quite shocked by it.

ASHLEY: (sighs)

LIAM: I'm going to sidle up to Dorian. Not Darian. Not Doriax. Dorian.

AIMEE: Darian is how they say it in New Jersey. Tal'Dorei.

MATT: How does that feel, Vax'ildan?

AIMEE and ASHLEY: Darian!

LIAM: That's what I said earlier! I know, it's my punishment, it's fine.

AABRIA: Only I am punished. Hurtful. (laughs)

ROBBIE: (whispering) Yes?

LIAM: (whispering) I don't know what we do in the long-term, but maybe we hold onto that box.

ROBBIE: Glad you could see things my way.

LIAM: Sure.

ROBBIE: You're a trusting soul. Thank you for trusting me as well.

LIAM: For now.

AIMEE: I also thought it was a good idea to hide the box and not tell people about the box, so.

ROBBIE: We were having a private conversation.

AIMEE: I know, I have good ears.

LIAM: You all did. This is me, giving. This is an Ashari sign. Now you know it.

AIMEE: I'll keep it forever.

LIAM: Don't flash that at just anywhere.

ASHLEY: It's so weird. It's just a thumb.

ROBBIE: I like it, though.

AIMEE: Should we stick our thumbs in the ash hole?

MATT: What are we talking about? (laughter)

MATT: As we're walking away, I sidle up alongside Fearne, swinging around my melted spear.

AIMEE: Stick? Like a kid swinging his stick, you know, while he walks home from school.

AIMEE: Sucks.

MATT: Still have, you know, the cloak up over him. I'm just like: Look, I didn't mean to offend you or anything. I know you like your monkey.

ASHLEY: It's okay. I know he's a little bit strange, but I think we all are.

MATT: Well, yeah, not disagreeing with that.

ASHLEY: I don't think he's trying to hurt you in any way. And I think he could be a friend to you if you would let him.

MATT: (uncertain noises)

ASHLEY: If you want to be his friend.

MATT: I get that. Those circumstances were a little trying.

ASHLEY: It was interesting.

MATT: And it was dangerous. It was deadly. He was definitely the bad guy

ASHLEY: But, but--

MATT: Who knows when that threshold shifts?

ASHLEY: I think he just got confused and scared.

MATT: Fair enough. I just-- I wanted to say I'm sorry to you.

ASHLEY: Thank you, Dariax.

MATT: And I look over towards Mister and just go: And I think, via our mutual friendships, that I respect your presence until further notice.

AABRIA: Make a persuasion check for me.

AIMEE: (monkey chittering)

AABRIA: Do you have disadvantage on a check?

MATT: I do not quite have enough, but I do have an inspiration.

AABRIA: Ah.

MATT: Because that was not a great roll. That puts me at 18.

AABRIA: With an 18, Mister uncocks his head and you're swinging the end of your spear and it's still smoldering at the end. And he reaches his little fiery arm out and pats the end of it and actually puts out the fire.

AIMEE: Aw.

AABRIA: And it gives you a little nod and then just goes back to hugging his mom's skirts.

MATT: See, we solve our own problems we make.

ASHLEY: We do.

MATT: As we continue to walk, I like: A monkey bit me when I was 12, so it's just kind of a thing.

ASHLEY: I get it. I totally get it, just when things happen to us when we're young, they just can scar us forever.

MATT: I hadn't really seen a monkey since then, so it's just, you know, it's a lot, suddenly, a lot of things unearthing at once, and I'm working through it, you know and he's on fire, which is, like, twice as scary!

ASHLEY: I understand! Well, I had so many run-ins with creatures when I was a child and probably died many times.

MATT: We're going to talk about that and unpack that later.

ASHLEY: Okay.

AABRIA: Give me one more con save, you know, for good old times.

LIAM: I'd like to think as you guys are walking through the through the dust, that on the crate, like in Raiders, just a black burn mark is slowly spreading on the box with the circlet in it.

MATT: It would be on the bag that I have it in now.

LIAM: Oh, that's where it is?

MATT: The box is gone, and it's in a bag.

ROBBIE: Yeah, fuck that box, it is in a bag.

LIAM: Burns, and then falls out.

MATT: It's burning into the back of it. With advantage for those covering their mouth.

LIAM: Oh, advantage?

MATT: For those who were covered.

AABRIA: Yeah, if you're covered up.

AIMEE: Oh, right, right, right.

MATT: If we're still doing that, right?

AABRIA: Yeah.

AIMEE: 18.

LIAM: Natural 20.

AABRIA: (gasping) Beautiful.

MATT: Nice. 15.

ASHLEY: I rolled a natural 19.

AABRIA: Ooh, love it.

MATT: 15.

AABRIA: Gucci.

AIMEE: 18.

AABRIA: Love it, perfect.

MATT: (fart sound)

AABRIA: (laughs) You're good. You make it back without any other like deleterious effect and make your way down off the side of the mesa. And you see that a couple of the Ashari that didn't go all the way to the center of the mesa have actually hammered into the stone. And so you have ropes to repel down the side and you can make your way down. I'm not going to make you roll for it. You get back down. And the ash is still blowing down at the surface level of the world again. But it's easier to breathe. You no longer have to cover your mouths up. And you're able to... I mean, where do you want to head?

ASHLEY: Did I--

AABRIA: You see all the Ashari are heading immediately back into the outpost.

ASHLEY: I don't know how Dissonant Whispers work-s.

AIMEE: (laughing) Works.

ASHLEY: Did I-- Would I have heard what he said to him?

AABRIA: I think that's a question for you.

ROBBIE: Mm.

AABRIA: You can respond.

ROBBIE: We're-- Yeah, I sort of en-- I don't know. It's like I envisioned words coming out of-- I feel like, if you're a magical being, you could reach out and grab the magic of what I said. So I'll say yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

ASHLEY: Okay. Okay. Good to know.

MATT: So glad we did that because we learned--

AIMEE: Nothing?

LIAM: Not much.

MATT: Nothing. But we got really sick and we got to rest a while. But we know we're going to keep the circlet thing.

LIAM: For the time being, yeah.

MATT: Because this was obviously going to be going to to the Nameless people. We're probably even further hunted, which means further away from Emon is definitely, you know, sooner is great. And I did see Poska get out and about so this is definitely is drawing attention to this space. Where do you want to go?

AABRIA: You guys see Lorkathar has now exited the building as Ashari are going in, and they're all pointing towards you all. And she's making her way over.

AIMEE: Look before she gets here. I'm so sorry. I know that, you know, these-- I just feel like they have no answers and they expect us to do all the work. Like, I appreciate that we can repel down the mesa, but like, are they helping? Did they even get the message out?

LIAM: I don't know, we need to ask.

AABRIA: "Are you all alive? What happened? What did you do? What is the, ah!" And looks down and you see as she points at Mister, he goes from a flame elemental and looks around and goes, (screeching) and then it turns back into a monkey.

ASHLEY: Oh!

LIAM: Yeah, we did. Your Ashari helped us through. Not much was learned though, I'm afraid.

AABRIA: "They said there was a symbol."

LIAM: Yeah.

AABRIA: "Can you describe it? You were the closest to it."

ROBBIE: We threw our monkey in there.

MATT: Yeah. It's kind of an ash hole. It's the best way I can really describe it.

AABRIA: "Why did you throw the fire elemental into a burning sigil and it made another thing?"

ASHLEY: Well, I think it was one of those things where when you don't know how something works and you just throw a bunch of stuff at it to see what sticks.

MATT: The scientific method.

ASHLEY: And I think it was just a-- I will say this: When we got up close, it seemed as though that the, whatever it was, isn't finished, but it feels like, not that this is new information, but it feels like it's a gate of some sort.

AABRIA: "No, that is fairly new information, if a new breach is being made. Did you recognize the rune?"

ASHLEY: I think that's what it is.

AABRIA: "Could you read it? Do you-- No one else got close enough. We'll send more people in the morning when we have better cover and reinforcements to deal with anything else that may come out. But I'm so sorry. I have to ask a favor of you all."

AIMEE: I'm sorry, but we came here for help, and it seems like all we're doing is helping you. No offense, no offense.

LIAM: That's what I came here to do. That's what you ca-- Did you get the message out to Zephyr?

AABRIA: "To Zephrah?"

AIMEE: Yeah, to Zephrah. Zephyr Hills, you know. (laughs) We didn't have books where I'm from. (laughter) It was all pictures and binding classes.

AABRIA: "I was able to send a brief message--"

AIMEE: Okay.

AABRIA: "-- to my friends there, but I think it requires further explanation."

ROBBIE: Speaking of pictures, Opal.

AIMEE: Hmm?

ROBBIE: You're good with aesthetics?

AIMEE: Thanks.

ROBBIE: Do you think-- Do you you could draw the symbol for our friend here, show them what we saw?

AIMEE: I guess, anyone got a pencil, writing utensil?

AABRIA: Lorkathar just clears her throat and then points at the ground and starts just tracing in the ash with her toe and it reveals it.

AIMEE: Okay, we get it. And then Opal traces the sign, but then adds a little heart on the side. (laughter) I added the heart that wasn't there, but I just...

ASHLEY: It's beautiful.

AABRIA: And Lorkathar gives you the "What the fuck?" look, and she gets really close and you see her eyes flash green with energy. And she shakes her head and they flash again with yellow energy. And after a long minute she looks up. "I don't recognize that at all. I'm sor-- I feel like I'm letting her down specifically and it's kind of fucking me up."

AIMEE: (disappointed sigh)

MATT: It's a low bar.

AABRIA: "(laughs) Thanks. "Where'd the rest of your spear go?"

MATT: Oh, a monkey ate it.

ASHLEY: That's not totally true, but a little bit.

AABRIA: Mister pats you on the head really hard and starts nodding.

ASHLEY: Yeah, that's a good boy. We'll get you a new one.

AABRIA: "Please, I, Orym."

LIAM: Yes.

AABRIA: "I need you to head back into the city and try to find someone that could explain what this is. This feels big and important and beyond my abilities."

LIAM: And there's no one back in Pyrah? Or-- I mean, yes we can.

AABRIA: "It's so long."

AIMEE: We can't go back there. We just came from there.

AABRIA: "This is something different. I understand that I am not-- I am not the leader of the Ashari, but I know that this is something beyond normal ken. And I can only think of one person with a depth of knowledge about these kinds of runes. He calls himself a Runechild, so maybe he can be of some help."

LIAM: Okay.

AABRIA: "You'll find him in Abdar's Promenade. His name is Shaun Gilmore. Get to him as fast as you can. Tell him everything you've seen."

LIAM: All right.

AABRIA: "He'll help."

LIAM: Abdar's Promenade, Shaun Gilmore.

AABRIA: "Yes."

LIAM: Okay.

MATT: Do you--

AIMEE: Do you want some lunch with that, or--

AABRIA: "Look, you're a lot right now. What do you need?"

AIMEE: Yeah. I just feel like I do a lot.

AABRIA: "What is your deal?"

ROBBIE: Anyway, thank you very much for the info.

AIMEE: Like, I do a lot for people, and then I just get, like, non-gratitude back, and my powers taken away.

AABRIA: "I am extremely grateful that you went up there! I don't know if I didn't--" And you see, she's breathing through and calming herself down, like, (exhaling) "Nope. Not going to, my rage is my own. And I choose when... (purposeful breath) Thank you very much for risking your life and I didn't take your magic away because that's not a thing I can do. So what do you want for us to be cool again?"

AIMEE: I need you--

AABRIA: "Yeah?"

AIMEE: -- to send a more urgent message about our question.

AABRIA: "About the residuum."

AIMEE: Yes. I would like an answer!

AABRIA: "All right. Not a problem. It's really not the biggest fucking deal right now."

AIMEE: Well, to me it's a big deal.

AABRIA: "There's a whole half of a mountain behind you, but, like, for sure I'll ask about the weird rocks.

AIMEE: Thanks.

MATT: (whispering) Opal, I think you're projecting.

AIMEE: What is that?

MATT: We'll talk. I actually, not sure. I've heard it used before, but I think I can figure it out now.

AIMEE: Okay.

AABRIA: "Do you need to rest here before you leave?"

MATT: (coughs)

AABRIA: "Yeah. Okay."

ASHLEY: Did you guys have lunch yet?

AABRIA: "No. There was a big mountain that popped up. So we all put off the lunch. So why don't you come in and eat?"

ASHLEY: It interrupted the food, okay.

AABRIA: "Get some rest and then head back to Emon as soon as you're able. Gilmore's Glorious Goods is his shop. You'll find them there."

LIAM: Oh, that's catchy. That's easy to remember.

AABRIA: "Yeah."

ASHLEY: Yeah.

MATT: Do you have any disguises?

AABRIA: "I'm sure I can find someone to help."

MATT: Okay, cool. That'd be great. No reason.

AABRIA: And she give a very earnest nod of thanks to all of you. And as a couple other Ashari come out of the outpost and come back down from the mesa, she gets swept up in a way by them, and they head in the direction of like whatever food tent is. And you all are sort of swept up, able to get some food. You're given a place to rest for as long as you want and need to, to shake off everything that happened on the mesa. And that is where are we going to end it tonight. (cheering)

LIAM: Back with Shaun!

ASHLEY: Oh boy!

AABRIA: Ay!

ASHLEY: Oh man, I want to keep going.

AIMEE: Oh man, I could keep going!

ASHLEY: I don't want to stop!

AIMEE: I could keep going.

ASHLEY: I like D&D!

AABRIA: So good! You guys crushed it! None of you died! I'm so proud of y'all.

AIMEE: None of us died.

ROBBIE: We lived!

AABRIA: Tight. Well, there's always next week!

MATT: Yep!

LIAM: We survived the ash hole.

ASHLEY: We survived the ash hole!

AABRIA: You solved my ash hole puzzle. (laughter) All right. Well, that's where we're going to end tonight. And until we meet again next week: Is it Thursday yet? Ooh! (cheering)

AABRIA: Ted watches from her low, dark place. She seethes with a frustration that she's known her entire life. It's mingled with love, yes, and duty, but frustration nonetheless. She will cave eventually. She knows that she will always protect her sister protect her from the world, from herself. Always.