Transcript:An Exit Most Fraught

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

ALL: (yelling, garbled) We play Dungeons & Dragons.

MATT: Before we jump into our episode for the night, we do have our first sponsor, Skillshare. Sam, who do we have with us tonight?

SAM: (grunts)

LAURA: Oh my god.

LIAM: Don't die.

SAM: (laughs) Rhodey Slater is back, brosefs and betties. But I swapped my waxed-up longboard for a gripped-down fresh deck! That's right, rad sacks. I've survived a shark attack and I'm changing careers from primo surfer dude to wicked skater bro, and I got all the thrashing moves. Check this out.

LAURA: No, don't kill yourself.

TALIESIN: No, don't hurt yourself. Wait, no!

SAM: (grunts) That was a crooked heelie Snoopy flip. (grunts) (grunts) A kick-rail Snork-grind.

TALIESIN: You're going to hurt yourself.

SAM: (groans) And that was a Goof Troop testie-bone.

TRAVIS: Oh, I thought it was a testie-bone.

SAM: I did it all on my board.

MATT: (laughs)

SAM: Chyahhh, my moves might be dialed on lock.

(laughter)

ASHLEY: "Chyahhh."

SAM: But changing careers can be gnarly, that's why I dropped into Skillshare.

TRAVIS: Yo.

SAM: It's got classes in phótography, film & video editing, and illustration. But not only that, but also hundreds of career-focused classes, too. Swiggity.

(laughter)

MATT: Oh my god.

SAM: I used Skillshare to explore my career options, learned freelance tips, took a class on redoing my resume, found out how to grow my audience with video marketing... all online! Which means I had mad minutes to do some new tricks. Like this one that I'm going to do on board. Whoa, oh! That was the O-Town Jodeci. This is (grunts) the 98 Degrees Dream Slip. Dream Street. And this is--

MATT: Nailed it.

SAM: (grunts) The Milli Boyzone Vanilli.

(laughter)

TRAVIS: Did you hurt yourself?

SAM: It's hard.

(laughter)

ASHLEY: You out of breath?

SAM: I've become the swaggy-waggest skater on the globe, and Skillshare is the speed cream on my metaphorical bearings.

TALIESIN: Whoa.

LAURA: Oh no.

SAM: Now, could I have used Skillshare to switch to a more honorable career, like becoming a registered nurse where I could help people in their time of need. Being there in the ER when a single mom brings in her daughter late at night, scared about little Jenny's fever, trying to stay strong for the little girl. And I'd be there getting the patient onto a gurney, taking vitals, rushing her through to radiology, and helping her with a diagnosis. "Don't worry," I'd say to the mom. It's a simple bacterial infection. We're going to push antibiotics, get an IV going for fluids, bring the temp down, hold her overnight for monitoring. And then the look on her face when I say, "Jenny's going to be okay in a day or two," it's a magical moment. She thanks me, and I say, "No need for thanks. I'm just doing my job, ma'am."

(laughter)

LIAM and ASHLEY: Ma'am.

SAM: I could have done that. But nah! I became a skater instead, because no goal is too small. Shred the gnar! The first thousand Critters to use the link, sk--

TRAVIS: He's all thick spit.

SAM: skl.sh/criticalrole02231

SAM: skl.sh/criticalrole02231

(laughter)

MATT: Rolls off the tongue.

(laughter)

SAM: Will get a one-month free trial of Skillshare. Matt, ollie to you!

LAURA: Oh god.

TALIESIN: Oh no.

MARISHA: Don't break the set. Do not use the set.

LIAM: The set is worth more than you.

ASHLEY: Cool shoelaces.

(laughter)

TALIESIN: Ah god.

TRAVIS: See you later, bro.

ASHLEY: Bye! Ma'am.

LAURA and LIAM: Ma'am.

MARISHA and TALIESIN: Ma'am.

MATT: Travis, you want to let them know about "Legend of Vox Machina," please?

TRAVIS: Hey, "Legend of Vox Machina" season two.

(cheering)

TRAVIS: You guys, episodes one through nine of the "Legend of Vox Machina" season two are available right now on Prime Video. The last three episodes, the last weekend of season two will drop on Prime Video worldwide tomorrow, February 10th, and our final watch party for episodes 10 through 12, bro, will air live next Tuesday, February 14th at 7:00pm Pacific. It's been an amazing season. We go out with a bang, so we'll see you there.

MARISHA: Yeah.

LAURA: Woo.

LIAM: Chyaaah.

MATT: It's fantastic.

ASHLEY: Chyeah!

MATT: Chyaaah, Laura, you got some stuff to talk about?

LAURA: What's up, y'all? I got this.

MATT: Yay.

MARISHA: Yay.

LAURA: ♪ Doo-di-doo doo-doo di ♪

ASHLEY: I love this.

LAURA: It's our new Critical Role pullover hoodie. It's so comfy. You should check it out in the store. ♪ Doo-doo-da-da ♪

TRAVIS: Will that be in my size, too? Because you've been wearing that around the house.

LAURA: It comes in sizes. You should check it out also.

TRAVIS: You've been wearing this too much at home and it makes me jelly.

LIAM: That's real cool.

MARISHA: That's so cool.

LAURA: We also have an Essek Thelyss T-shirt!

MATT and TALIESIN: What?!

TRAVIS and ASHLEY: Wow.

MATT: I didn't know this!

TRAVIS: Oh, it's got foil.

MATT: That's awesome.

LAURA: It's so pretty.

TALIESIN: Ooh!

LIAM: Look at all the gravitas.

MATT: Ooh.

ASHLEY: Hot boi.

LAURA: Hot boi.

ASHLEY: ♪ Hot boi ♪

LAURA: Hot boi. Artist, Lio Pressland. Thank you.

MATT: I really love that.

TALIESIN: I can fix him.

MARISHA: Look at that gold.

(laughter)

LAURA: I can fix him!

MATT: What size is that one?

LAURA: That's funny.

MATT: Medium? I can wear it.

LAURA: That's exactly what I--

MATT: That one's mine.

LAURA: -- said about Percy.

ASHLEY: You taking it?

TALIESIN: The shirts match.

MATT: I don't know, I just--

TRAVIS: That's beautiful.

MATT: Oh, that was mine.

ASHLEY: ♪ Hot boi ♪

LAURA: You want it?

LIAM: Yeah.

LAURA: You can have it, Matt. It's medium.

LIAM: Of course.

MATT: Well, unless you wanted it, Liam.

LIAM: You take it. There will be more.

MATT: I'll take it.

LIAM: You said it first.

TRAVIS: Lovers, lovers, please. There'll be more.

MARISHA: Aw.

MATT: We'll share.

LIAM: Not on camera.

MATT: But to that point-- (laughter)

(laughter)

MATT: To that point, I believe that brings us to the end of our announcements. So it's time, I believe, for us to jump into tonight's episode of--

LIAM: Chyaah!

MATT: -- Critical Role.

LAURA: Oh my god.

Part I
MATT: And welcome back.

LAURA: (laughs)

MATT: So last we left off: Bells Hells, after traversing across planes to the Fey Realm in transit to destroy one of the Malleus Keys that had been constructed and prepared by the Ruby Vanguard under Ludinus Da'leth in preparation for the coming Apogee Solstice, a climactic celestial event that promises to bring an apex of magical power and change to Exandria. You've come through after meeting the long spoken about Grandma Morri, Nana Morri, of Fearne, began to walk amongst the various unexpected dangers and odd encounters here on the darker side of the Fey Realm, infiltrated the Shiver Keep, where one of these Malleus Keys lie after spreading out amongst the interior of the courtyard and finding a means of destroying the Malleus Key, sending it exploding and left in a tangled mass of metal and flame. You also called the attention of the Sorrowlord Zathuda, riding atop his fey dragon, his Gloamglut. You begin to flee the courtyard of the keep into the forest outside, heading westward, more or less, from where you attacked this key, in search of the gate that you told would lead you back to Exandria. But in the process, sustain some blows. Fearne, you were knocked to unconsciousness. You hear the screeches above of the now angered Sorrowlord and his mount flying above the forest searching for you, his current prey. Indeed, you are currently hidden by one of your Harrowcall Veils that can keep you mostly stealthily hidden as long as you're not moving, but--

LIAM: We're using all of them, right?

LAURA: We have to. They cover three people?

SAM: Yeah.

MATT: Yeah, three people each, so for all of you.

LAURA: No, we used two because Orym's teeny and he can hide in people's legs.

LIAM: I sit on Chetney's shoulders.

LAURA: That's true. The size of one person.

ASHLEY: That makes one person.

LIAM: Or under one of the legs.

MATT: I'll allow it. I'll allow it.

LIAM: Because I can run under anybody's legs.

MATT: That's true.

LAURA: Yeah.

LIAM: Except for FCG.

MATT: That's true.

LIAM: This soundscape is freaking me out.

MARISHA: Yeah, I love it.

LAURA: (laughs)

TALIESIN: It's really, yeah.

MATT: You're back in the forest now, and--

LAURA: You're in the jungle, baby!

(laughter)

ASHLEY: (guitar squeal)

MATT: (dragon screeches)

(yelling)

MATT: Screeching above in the trees. (air whooshes) What are you doing?

LAURA: Hiding, we're hiding. We've got to hide. Oh, wait. Yeah, Fearne's got to be hidden. Let's bring her back, bring her back.

MATT: Fearne, make a death saving throw for me.

LAURA: Oh jeez.

TRAVIS: Matt, you don't got to start like that.

ASHLEY: Yeah, why?

TRAVIS: Jeez!

LAURA: She hasn't even opened her guides yet.

ASHLEY: My heart just went-- I haven't even opened it!

MATT: Well, this is a good reason to.

ASHLEY: What are my-- Okay.

LIAM: Use one of the turning invisible ones.

LAURA: "What do I roll?!"

LAURA and MATT: (laugh)

LIAM: So that none can see.

SAM: Do I roll a d8?

ASHLEY: I know. What do I-- It's a d6, right? What am I adding again?

LIAM: Nothing.

ASHLEY: Nothing. Ah, okay. I think that rolled that over.

LAURA: Yeah, it did.

ASHLEY: It's a five.

LAURA: Oh no!

MATT: That's one failed death save.

LAURA: That's okay.

ASHLEY: That's okay.

MATT: You guys have charged a little bit into the forest and you put the veil over. Correct?

LAURA: Yeah.

MATT: I need you all to roll a stealth check to see if you are seen that in this moment by the pursuing entities.

LIAM: All our bells and whistles were spent, right?

LAURA: Yeah, but we get one extra 10.

LIAM: Because of the hoo-ha.

LAURA and MATT: Yes.

LIAM: Hoo-ha!

MATT: Hoo-ha.

MARISHA: That was weird.

LAURA: Hoo-ha.

SAM: Terrible.

MARISHA: Terrible?

SAM: Like terrible.

TALIESIN: Eh, could have been worse.

MATT: All right, we'll start on this side. What you got?

TRAVIS: 20.

MATT: 20. Okay.

LAURA: That's not terrible.

TRAVIS: I rolled two 2s.

LAURA: Yeah, but we got a plus 10. 20 is still a good roll.

MATT: All right.

MARISHA: 27.

MATT: 20, 27.

SAM: Three.

LAURA: Wait, how?

MATT and LIAM: Plus 10.

SAM: Oh, 13.

MATT: (laughs)

SAM: Oh, thank god. Thank god.

MATT: Okay.

SAM: It's still real bad.

ASHLEY: Do I roll?

MATT: No, you're unconscious.

ASHLEY: Okay.

LAURA: 28.

ASHLEY: I don't know why I'm looking at you guys.

MARISHA and ASHLEY: (laugh)

LIAM: 26.

MATT: 26.

TALIESIN: 23.

MATT: 23. Oof, you stay there still, throwing the veils over you and bracing for any sort of emergent aggression from above. You hear the screech once more, the wings, (air whooshes) you hear other voices shouting in Sylvan, but one amongst you could understand them, unable to interpret at the moment. From atop of the parapets in the walls of the fort as they're beginning to gather their forces to search amongst the forest grounds as well, what are you doing? They do not seem to notice you at the moment.

LAURA: Okay, great, we got to bring her back and can start moving.

MATT: Gloamglut is just circling.

SAM: All right, maybe I should flip a coin to see if I should cast--

LAURA: You should just bring her back.

SAM: -- a spell. The Changebringer has been guiding me all my-- She says to do it. Okay. (chuckles) I'll cast Healing Word (whispers) at 1st-level.

MATT: All right.

LAURA: (laughs)

MATT: (whispers) Go ahead, roll your d8.

SAM: Okay, but quietly.

MATT: Very quietly.

SAM: Oh, d8. Sorry.

(dice clacking)

MATT: That's too loud.

SAM: Oh no. It's an eight plus three, 11.

LAURA: Oh! That's great!

MATT: There you go. (deeply) Turn this into the Critical Role ASMR hour here.

LAURA: What happened?

ASHLEY: You noticed that, too? Okay, okay.

MATT: She's going to heal 11 hit points.

SAM: (laughs) That's a golf game.

MATT: Yep. (laughs)

ASHLEY: 11 points. Wait, what did you say?

LAURA: 11.

ASHLEY: Okay.

TRAVIS: Does anyone have any ranged anything?

LAURA: I have ranged spells.

SAM: I can heal at ranged.

TRAVIS: That you can send and make a sound somewhere else?

LAURA: Yes, I do.

ASHLEY: I do.

LAURA: I have a spell that I could do that with.

TRAVIS: I have a question about the Horn of Silent Alarm that we haven't talked about in years.

MATT: Yes.

TRAVIS: If you blow, only one person can hear it and nobody else can. Do they know what direction it came from, or does it sound like a horn in their head like a signal, but they don't know, like omnidirectional.

MATT: I will say, if you-- If you're trying to draw attention with it, I would say it's a sphere and the sound emanates from the sphere. I'll interpret that as you can attempt to aim it in a way where you can try and make it sound like it's coming from a specific direction. But that'll be a roll to see if you can achieve it, being that it's an item that you really haven't used before, but you can certainly try.

TRAVIS: It's probably like a performance check, right?

SAM: Yeah, you're a great performer.

TRAVIS: No. (laughs) My sheet would say otherwise.

SAM: Yeah, but you'll have some Guidance with you.

LAURA: We got to get up and move, y'all. The dragon has flown away, right?

MATT: No, it's circling. It's not directly above you, but it's getting lower, and you hear it (air whooshes), scoot nearby.

LAURA: The minute we hear it fly past us, we need to get up and move.

TRAVIS: Yeah.

MARISHA: Your spell that you were talking about, you can't see where it came from, right? You can emanate it from afar?

LAURA: I can throw. I can use Catapult to launch something really far away from us.

SAM: Ooh, that's not bad.

LAURA: Send something in a different direction and I can pick it up from far away, too, so it's not like it's coming from us.

MARISHA: That's the way to go.

SAM: While we're just sitting here, I will give you four temporary hit points because we're still bonded, I believe.

TRAVIS: I'll pull out a very, let's call it a miniaturized pickaxe that I have, and I'll hand it to you if you want to use that to-- (air whooshes)

LAURA: Well-- It'd probably be better to grab something like 60 feet away from us so that it doesn't feel like it's emanating from us.

TRAVIS: Oh, good point.

MARISHA: Is there anything on the parapet that we can see?

TRAVIS: Or loose branches or fruit?

LAURA: Oh yeah. I mean, but I can see rocks or whatever, or just feel out and pick a rock that's like 60 feet away from us.

MATT: Yeah, I'd say you can see a number of loose stones and chunks of exposed shale and rock that you can throw.

LAURA: Okay, then I'm going to-- I'm going to pick something--

SAM: (sneezes)

MATT: Gesundheit.

ASHLEY: Stop it.

MARISHA: (laughs) It's funny every time.

(laughter)

LAURA: I'm going to use a sorcery point to double the distance of this.

MATT: Okay.

LIAM: Wow.

LAURA: I'm going to pick some- thing up that's 120 feet away.

SAM: Whoa.

MATT: Okay.

LAURA: I'm going to launch it up to 90 feet away from that.

MATT: Away from that.

LAURA: So I'm going to launch it into the woods, down the wall, away from us, the opposite direction that we need to run.

MARISHA: Try and head eastward because I think we've got to go west.

LAURA: We've got to go the other direction, so yeah, I'm going to send it that way.

MATT: Okay, so go ahead and roll d20, add your spellcasting modifier to gauge the precision of your toss.

LAURA: Okay. 13.

MATT: 13. That's not too bad. You concentrate and you see the one section of exposed gray rock with moss growing out of it shake a bit before it dislodges, floats in the air, before you send it off in that odd direction as it goes (rock soaring). No longer visible, just vanishing past the canopy, and you hear nothing for a moment beyond (screeching) (heavy wings flapping)

LAURA: Go, go, go, go, go.

TALIESIN: We go.

SAM: Okay. We're running.

TRAVIS: Stealth.

LAURA: Stealthy moving, but then--

SAM: Stealthily moving slowly.

LAURA: -- the minute we hear him come back, we got to drop again.

MARISHA: Stop again.

MATT: Indeed. So, as it goes off, I need everyone to make a moving stealth check which is a different-- No, you're no longer under the veil. No, you're moving.

LAURA: Oh god.

MARISHA: Just straight stealth.

MATT: It's a straight stealth roll and this is the first leg of your stealthy journey forward.

LAURA: This is awful.

SAM: Okay.

LAURA: Great.

SAM: Uh-huh. Uh-huh.

TALIESIN: Okay. Okay. Okay.

TRAVIS: 17.

MATT: 17.

MARISHA: Eight.

MATT: Eight. Okay.

SAM: Six.

LAURA: Oh god.

MATT: Six.

TALIESIN: Goddamn it.

ASHLEY: 11.

MATT: 11.

LAURA: 13.

MATT: 13.

LIAM: 18.

MATT: 18.

SAM: Pretty bad.

TALIESIN: 21.

MATT: 21. Okay. You all go into a run and continue on in what you think is the proper direction. Who is leading you which direction, by the way?

SAM: Who lead us here? Was it Fearnie?

LAURA: It was me and Fearne, I think, because we were--

ASHLEY: Yes, it was us.

SAM: Oh wait, I did for a part there.

LAURA: Yeah, you-- Us three did.

MARISHA: Then also Pâté did his aerial sweep.

ASHLEY: That's right.

LAURA: Right.

SAM: Okay. Heads, we go right.

LAURA: No, no. We know--

SAM: Tails, we go left.

LAURA: -- we're going this direction. We know which direction we're going, FCG.

SAM: We're going left.

LAURA: We're going--

(laughter)

LIAM: Orym is straining, appearing, and straining with his ears for anything ahead of us or to leap out of the bushes.

LAURA: I'm keeping an eye out for roots ahead of us that we're going to trip over and shit.

MATT: Okay. So who's guiding the path in the direction where you think the gate might be?

SAM: I think I know.

MATT: All right, roll survival or nature, your choice.

LAURA: Guide yourself.

SAM: Guidance.

MARISHA: You better not fuck us, Changebringer.

SAM: No way. The Changebringer would never.

TRAVIS: (as Sam) "Never."

TALIESIN: Literally--

TRAVIS: She'll raise interest rates, but she won't--

TALIESIN: -- 50% of the time.

SAM: Survival, you said?

MATT: Uh-huh.

LAURA: Yeah. That's good.

SAM: Yeah. Wait, what? Okay, that's 16 plus--

LAURA: Survival or nature, whatever's higher.

SAM: It's 19 survival. 19 survival.

MATT: 19 survival is not that bad.

SAM: Yeah.

MATT: You push through the dense portion of this forest, which is all directions of this forest. But you begin to gauge where the keep was, where you had come from, the directions that you had already discussed, and had heard to travel towards based on what Morri had told you. Now, without the Ruidus illusion in the sky which you've been using for bearings during this whole journey, it's a little bit more challenging to find where you are and where you're going from here. But--

MARISHA: They burned the man.

MATT: Kind of, yeah. But gauging where the keep was, looking where the gate was, you are able to quickly allocate where you should be going, and believe pretty confidently that at least you're heading mostly in the right direction. You all rush through the forest, dodging between the vines and trees and bramble thickets and hills that drop off, and one of you has to stumble for a second, and somebody else catches you, but you keep pushing forward and pushing forward. You hear more shouts getting distant, you hear other warbands beginning to shout in response in other parts of the forest. Looks like the Unseelie forces are gathering towards the escaping entities that attacked the keep.

MARISHA: Oh my god.

LAURA: Oh god.

MARISHA: We got to get out of here.

MATT: Just as you begin to hear (heavy wings flapping).

TRAVIS: Drop.

LAURA: Drop, drop.

ASHLEY: Drop, drop, drop.

MATT: Carving through the forest, this beam of black flame (flame roaring) tears through like a laser. You watch as tree branches fall, thick bunches of leaves and nasty-looking tangled vines and roots hit the ground around you. Everyone that rolled under a 10 stealth, I need you to make a dexterity saving throw for me.

LIAM: It's like "Apocalypse Now."

MARISHA: Yeah, it totally is. Oh no. Okay.

TRAVIS: Does Fearne roll?

MATT: Under 10 stealth?

LAURA: No, you rolled higher than a 10.

ASHLEY: That's right, that's right, that's right, I rolled 11.

SAM: 11. Yeah.

ASHLEY: Thank you.

MARISHA: Nine.

LAURA: (sighing) Oh.

ASHLEY: Fuck.

SAM: Nine.

MATT: Okay.

TRAVIS: Guys, it's not a race to the bottom, okay?

(laughter)

LAURA: Oh my god.

MATT: So that's 31 points of fire damage to each of you.

TRAVIS: Oh!

LAURA: (gasps)

LAURA: Are you guys up? Are you still up?

LAURA: No.

ASHLEY: No, no, no!

LAURA: Both of them? Both of them?

SAM: I'm okay.

MARISHA: I'm down.

MATT: As it tears through-- (flames roaring)

SAM: Ah!

MATT: You watch as FCG stumbles onto the ground, landing and then barely able to pull yourself back up, eyes a bit bleary. Laudna lays there, crackling.

TRAVIS: Oh shit. Okay. I start pat, pat, pat, pat.

MARISHA: Charisma saving throw. Charisma saving throw for Strength of the Grave.

MATT: Ah.

SAM: Strength of the Grave.

LAURA: But we're keeping the thing over us as--

MATT: Indeed.

SAM: Hope it didn't burn up.

MARISHA: Fuck! That was almost a 20! No.

TRAVIS: We're patting the flames out.

TALIESIN: I'm--

ASHLEY: Patting the flames out.

TALIESIN: -- patting the flames out. I'm going to curve over because I have a healing potion. I'm just--

MARISHA: Hang on, let me make sure--

SAM: I got her, I got her.

TRAVIS and TALIESIN: You got her?

SAM: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

TALIESIN: Do it now.

SAM: Okay.

MARISHA: Let me make sure. Hang on.

LIAM: FCG's got the reserve save thing.

TALIESIN: Do it now.

TRAVIS: That's good to have.

TALIESIN: Yep.

TRAVIS: Oh my god.

SAM: I'll pat her with Cure Wounds.

MATT: Okay.

SAM: Bloopie. You're up.

LAURA: You need to heal yourself, FCG.

SAM: Oh, eight. Sorry, d8. Shit.

LAURA: Jeez.

SAM: Oh, it's only a three. You get six points of healing.

LAURA: Yikes.

LIAM: You're up.

MARISHA: I get six points?

SAM: Yeah, and you are awake.

TALIESIN: That's up, though.

MARISHA: All right.

MATT: You come back to consciousness for a second and right as you notice now that not only did that tear through some of your friends, but it also created an opening in the trees above you and there's now a brief clearing--

SAM: Oh, that's not good.

MATT: -- where you now hear--

ASHLEY: It can see us.

MATT: -- (wings flapping) circling back around after the original strike. You all rush back into the forest to continue your journey. I need everyone to make another stealth check as a group.

LAURA: Is this with-- Is this moving or under the thing?

MATT: I guess it's up to you. Do you want to stay put and--

SAM: He knows where we are.

LAURA: Does he?

SAM: He just hit us and we screamed.

TRAVIS: While we're also making the-- Can I pull out the Horn of Silent Alarm? I'm going to give it a shot to try and direct it--

(phone chiming)

LIAM: Stop that.

TRAVIS: -- the other direction away from where we--

MATT: Horn sounds a little interesting than you were expecting.

TRAVIS: Yeah.

(laughter)

TRAVIS: Hey, man, I just like the positive chimes, you know?

MATT: Okay. So Gloamglut begins to pull up after that original airstrike and about to turn--

TRAVIS: Don't fail me now.

MARISHA: What are we rolling? Rolling for stealth?

TRAVIS: (horn alarm)

TRAVIS and MATT: (laugh)

SAM: But are we rolling--

MATT: That was awesome.

SAM: -- moving stealth or--

LAURA: Or hiding stealth.

SAM: -- stationary stealth?

MATT: That's for you guys to decide while--

LAURA: What are we doing?

MATT: We're going to finish this here and then we'll come back to what you guys decide.

LAURA: We probably need to--

MATT: All right, so as you blow on this horn, I'm going to say--

LIAM: I think we should stay put.

MATT: I think for this, either make a performance check or make an arcana check. This is going to be understanding of how the magic works or trying to just play the horn at a proper distance.

LAURA: Because he doesn't know. He might have just hit something--

TRAVIS: 17.

MATT: 17! All right. As you blow the horn, you watch Chetney takes a deep breath and just puts all of it into this horn, but it's silent. Absolutely silent.

SAM: Your horn sucks. It didn't do nothing!

TRAVIS: Shut your fucking mouth!

MATT: You also watch as Gloamglut, who's now like (wings flapping) suddenly, their head shoots to the left, "(screeching)" and goes into a dive in a very different direction than the one that you were heading.

SAM: Nice, nice, nice.

MATT: You have a brief moment here--

SAM: Let's run!

MATT: -- that absolves you of having to make a stationary stealth roll.

LAURA: Then we got to run.

ASHLEY: Go.

LAURA: We got to run.

ASHLEY: Go.

MARISHA: Run, run, run.

MATT: So you go into a bolt during this moment of distraction.

TRAVIS: Four charges. That's one.

LAURA: Okay.

MARISHA: Okay. That's great.

MATT: Continuing on, you all continue to run, run. You push through some of the heavier thicket pieces. You get to one element of this mid-forest where it drops off about 15 or 20 or so feet below. You can attempt to either climb down, slide, or just make the jump. What do you do?

TRAVIS: Just fucking throw ourselves. Well, no, we got people that are hurt, aren't we?

SAM: Real hurt. Does someone have Feather Fall?

MARISHA: I still have Feather Fall, though.

SAM: Feather Fall will take--

LAURA: For all of us or--

SAM: I think it's six, right?

MARISHA: I can Feather Fall.

LIAM: Orym doesn't need it.

SAM: Orym doesn't need it.

MARISHA: Orym doesn't need it. That's just fucking--

TALIESIN: How big of a drop is it?

MARISHA: He said 15 feet.

MATT: 15 or 20 feet.

TALIESIN: I'll take the fucking--

TRAVIS: Yeah, I can take it, too.

ASHLEY: Yeah, I'll just--

LAURA: Okay, let's go.

TALIESIN: I'm leaping.

LAURA: Oh, they're going.

MATT: Okay.

TALIESIN: I mean, I assume we're doing this, right?

TRAVIS: We're going. Expediency is the--

LAURA: Yeah.

MATT: Acrobatics check for anybody who's taking the leap.

TRAVIS: Okay.

MARISHA: I can do up to five.

TALIESIN: Can I do an athletics?

LIAM: I rolled a one, so I reroll.

LAURA: Oh, because you're a halfling?

TALIESIN: Athletics or no? It has to be acrobatics?

MATT: This is acrobatics.

TALIESIN: Acrobatics? Okay.

SAM: Imogen.

LAURA: What? Yeah.

MARISHA: I'll do Feather Fall. Me-- yeah. Me, you, Fearne, us four.

MATT: This is trying to stop the tumble.

MARISHA: I can do one more.

MATT: To use the tumble to stop the impact, so.

TALIESIN: 13.

MATT: 13. Okay.

LAURA: Feather Fall.

LIAM: I got an 11.

MATT: What?

LIAM: 11. I rolled real low.

MATT: 11?

TALIESIN: Wow.

LAURA: You're scared, Orym.

LIAM: I slipped.

MARISHA: I see Orym slip and I tag you as well.

MATT: Okay.

TRAVIS: I rolled a natural 19 for 21.

MATT: Okay, great. So both of you from the tumble, only take two points of bludgeoning damage.

TALIESIN: All right.

MATT: You both slam into the ground, but roll out of it and get back to your feet and just keep running. The rest of you jump.

TALIESIN: I'm holding on to help anybody isn't Feather Falling. Is everyone else Feather Falling? Okay, yeah. I'm good.

MATT: It's not an extremely slow decent, it's more of a leap and then a glide but you, almost tumbling down and feel yourself, you know, grab that momentum and continue to glide downward. So you all hit the bottom of this brief cliff side and continue bolting forward.

LIAM: Wire work.

TALIESIN: I think it did.

MATT: You hear the screech again in the distance.

LAURA: Drop.

MATT: "(screeching)"

MARISHA: How far in the distance?

MATT: You don't know. You can make a perception check if you want to try and gauge.

LIAM: I will.

MARISHA: Yeah. I aid Orym.

MATT: Okay.

LIAM: You ate me?

LAURA: So you get advantage.

(laughter)

MARISHA: I assist.

LIAM: I always have advantage.

MARISHA: You always have advantage? Then I'll just go.

LIAM: Yeah. So.

MARISHA: Ah, balls!

LIAM: I mean, that's very possible that Laudna might swallow me whole. 25.

LAURA: That would've been good.

LIAM: 25 for perception.

LAURA: I rolled a two.

MATT: 25.

LAURA: So you would have saved my--

MATT: About 600 feet away and closing quickly. At least in your direction. The ruse has bought you some time, but they're definitely back on the trail, as it is not just sound that it utilizes to hunt.

MARISHA: 600 feet? Do we see any type of anything that can be used as cover--

TRAVIS: Not just sound.

LAURA: Yeah.

MARISHA: -- in the distance?

MATT: I mean, there's plenty of cover around you but it's all natural tangled thicket.

TALIESIN: Not stone or anything?

LAURA: Not boulders, or--?

MATT: You, at your high perception roll do see a tower, a thin needle-like tower.

LIAM: Oh.

SAM: Oh, we're getting to the towers again.

MARISHA: Fuck. Oh shit.

SAM: Which is also going to make us glow.

LAURA: Are we already glowing? How far ahead of us is that tower?

MATT: I'd say it's probably about 400 feet or so.

LAURA: Okay, and within 200 feet is when you hit the glow of that tower.

MATT: Indeed.

LIAM: We need to curve around it, and that thing's closing in on us. So we need to veer to the side, veer to the right, and look out for another one so we don't accidentally stumble into its neighbor.

LAURA: We have to thread the needle.

LIAM: Thread the needle.

SAM: Thread the needle.

LIAM: We got to gleam the cube.

(laughter)

SAM: Oh boy. Oh boy.

MATT: Who's leading this next leg of the journey?

LIAM: I'm going to do it this time.

LAURA: Okay.

LIAM: Just to try to see any additional towers coming in and keep an ear out for what's his butt.

MATT: All right. Sablecast leader. Roll a survival or nature. Then a perception will be required as part of following that up.

LIAM: 16 survival.

MATT: 16 survival, very good. Then roll a perception as well.

LIAM: That one's cocked, but I rolled real high on the other one. That is 28.

MATT: Great. Orym impulsively begins to dart a little bit to the right and gives that sort of physicality of follow and the rest of you fall in line and begin to dart right behind you. At this point, elements of the forest floor are beginning to grow a bit muddy and you begin to hear the footfalls as quietly as you can make them amongst this mad sprint, that sucking noise. Which is a little challenging if you're not going for a stealthy, progressive direction. But you begin to try and use the higher ground as you find it, leaping from the base of a tree root system to the next rock or stone. Orym does this seamlessly, while the rest of you have a little bit of a challenging time keeping up, necessarily, but you're able to stop and make sure that everyone's still staying in line.

LIAM: How's our tail?

MATT: You see it. (wings flapping) You see the shadow pass and it goes over where you were heading and it's just circling around now. You watch as it passes over one of those towers. It alights and glows brightly purple as it enters the radius of one of its effects. But it doesn't mind being visible, it's not the one trying to hide. It begins to circle back around and it's making a wide berth and it's now in a secondary scanning phase, looking for where you all vanished.

LIAM: Yeah.

TALIESIN: Wait. Do you think that maybe it's reading the magic? It keeps finding us while we're hiding.

LAURA: I don't think it--

MARISHA: I don't think it's found us yet.

LAURA: They're Nana Morri's.

TALIESIN: Okay.

LAURA: No, I think they're--

MARISHA: I think it's just trying to clear the field.

TALIESIN: It keeps getting lucky, though, when we stop and hide.

TRAVIS: Yeah.

MATT: What are you guys doing?

SAM: Stealth.

MARISHA: It's still far enough away or it's starting to actually encroach?

MATT: It's just circling the area.

TRAVIS: Doing a loop.

MATT: It looks like it lost you and now it's just in a scanning mode now.

TALIESIN: What happens if we just really care-- We don't move fast, we just stealth? What if we just move very fucking-- I don't know.

MARISHA: I think we need to keep moving because it's just going to keep burning down this bramble.

TALIESIN: Yeah.

TRAVIS: Yeah, it can smell us.

LAURA: Yeah.

TRAVIS: It can do a number of things.

TALIESIN: Yeah.

LAURA: But I am going to reach down and start covering myself with the mud.

MATT: Okay, you're full-on Predator-ing this?

LAURA: Yeah.

MARISHA: That's not a bad idea.

ASHLEY: It's a good idea.

TRAVIS: Yeah, I'm fucking down for this, too. (moans)

MATT and LAURA: (laugh)

TRAVIS: (moans)

MATT: All right.

TRAVIS: That's how I've kept these looks for 400 years.

SAM: We'll all do that.

MARISHA: We'll all do that.

TALIESIN: Yeah, I'm into it.

ASHLEY: All right. That was a good idea. I'm going to copy.

TRAVIS: That's shit. That's poop, Fearne.

LAURA: Fey poop, though.

TRAVIS: You called the shit poop.

SAM: So wait, are we hiding or are we running?

LAURA: We're hiding. I think we should hide.

MATT: Just mud angel?

LAURA: We should bunker down for a second because he might sense movement.

TRAVIS: ♪ Mud angel ♪

LAURA: That's my guess.

MATT: So are you moving forward or are you staying stationary?

LIAM: No, we're squatting one more time.

MATT: All right, if you're squatting one more time, everyone roll a stealth check with a plus 10 bonus from the veils.

MARISHA: I swear to fuck. Come on.

TRAVIS: Oh, you bastards, give it to me. Okay.

ASHLEY: Cocked.

TALIESIN: This is going to be the thing where if we roll well--

TRAVIS: 37.

SAM and MARISHA: Oh!

MATT: 37.

LAURA: What, what?

MARISHA: 37. Nice!

ASHLEY: 37?

MARISHA: 28.

MATT: 28.

SAM: 15.

MATT: 15.

ASHLEY: 22.

LAURA: (as Ashley) "22."

MATT: 22.

ASHLEY: 22.

MARISHA: (as Ashley) "22."

LAURA: 20.

MATT: 20.

LIAM: 31.

LAURA: Nice.

MATT: 31. And?

TALIESIN: 27.

MATT: 27.

LAURA: Nice!

TALIESIN: This will be clearly whether or not this was--

MATT: Yeah, you guys rode that closely.

LAURA: We rode that closely?

MARISHA: We what?

LAURA: Jeez!

TRAVIS: Gets higher every time.

MATT: It's contested every time. I roll against you guys based on its perception and what you roll. So last time it was very, very low. This time it was pretty high. It begins to snarl and angrily give out these short bursts. "(vicious snarling)" sounds that echo over the air above you. But as it (wings flapping) flies around, it seems it's out of frustration because it cannot pinpoint where you are.

SAM: Mm.

LAURA: Nice, nice.

MATT: You watch as the loop begins to go wider and wider and it begins to double back after about five or so minutes to the point where you feel comfortable enough to begin pushing forward. That is five minutes without travel and it's five minutes more of the veils' effect being reduced.

SAM: How long does it last?

LAURA: An hour.

MATT: An hour.

SAM: Okay.

MATT: But you guys have been going here for, I'd say about 10 minutes before this, so you're at 15 minutes. You're about a quarter of its use complete.

LAURA: Okay, all right.

TALIESIN: That's pretty good.

LAURA: Don't say that. Don't say that out loud.

TRAVIS: (laughs)

MATT: But once you're feeling comfortable, you can continue moving once more.

LAURA: Yeah.

TRAVIS: Yeah. We go.

LAURA: Let's go!

MATT: All right. You all continue, with you following the path. You do manage to thread the needle between two of these towers. There is just enough space, about a 50-foot gap between two of these boundaries that allows you to slip past without triggering the effect. You do see, as you get closer, and what your keen eyes watch, as some of the flying insects that just hit the air. Occasionally, you see these little sparkles as smaller creatures and insects begin to trigger the magical effect and that's where you immediately gauge the boundaries and ensure to avoid them.

LIAM: Cool.

MATT: Pushing forward, you hear the wings-- (soft flapping wings)

LAURA: Oh no.

MATT: -- get quieter.

SAM: Oh!

MATT: And quieter, and quieter.

LAURA: If it's quieter and farther away, I think we should move faster.

LIAM: Go all out. Yeah.

LAURA: Yeah, go all out if it's farther away and then as soon as we start hearing him again--

LIAM: At least for right now.

LAURA: Yeah.

MATT: Okay. All right.

MARISHA: Let's pick it up.

MATT: So this is non-stealth, this is full run.

SAM and LIAM: Yeah.

MATT: Okay. You all just go into as heavy a sprint as you can being a cohesive unit forward. Who's leading this leg of the journey?

TRAVIS: There's an archway on the back of that thing.

LAURA: I know.

TRAVIS: I feel like he can communicate with these plants if they're like, "Somebody's running through us."

LAURA: That's true.

SAM: Who's leading?

TRAVIS: Not me. My stats are low.

LAURA: I'll lead. I'll lead.

MATT: All right, Imogen. Survival or nature, your call.

LIAM: It is your destiny. Oh jeez.

TALIESIN: Wow.

LAURA: That shouldn't count but it has to.

SAM: It landed.

MATT: Yep.

LAURA: 11. Did you Guide me?

SAM: No!

(laughter)

SAM: I also-- Did you turn to me and say: I'm about to lead us, help me? I mean, how would I know that you're going to--

ASHLEY: Guidance.

(laughter)

ASHLEY: Guidance? Is it too late?

MATT: It's a little late, unfortunately.

TRAVIS: (laughs)

MATT: (laughs)

LIAM: I'm going to climb this tree.

SAM: Am I supposed to guess--

LAURA: Yes.

SAM: -- that you're guiding us?

LAURA: If you see me stepping forward, just fucking Guide me.

ASHLEY: That's true.

LIAM: You should just never stop. Guidance, Guidance, Guidance, Guidance.

MARISHA: (laughs)

MATT: Running, there's a comfort and confidence that comes with the relative silence of the creature that had been previously stalking you through the middle of this thicket.

TALIESIN: Shit.

MATT: A welcome sight comes to your vision as you come over this one densely packed hill of low trees and thick fern bushes. As you glance over, you see a ruin of some kind, some deep cerulean and gray stone ruin. It looks like it was at one point some sort of a beautiful ritual site that has just fallen partially into the muddy surface of the ground and the forest has retaken a lot of it. You just take a moment to think--

LIAM: (sneeze)

LAURA: Bless you.

MATT: Gesundheit.

MATT: -- this is a good sign. This means that you are probably nearing other elements of intentional fey creation. You begin to trudge through this ruin just as your first leg (slurps) sinks into the ground and your second leg-- (slurps)

SAM: Oh no.

MATT: -- sinks in too, about up to your knee.

LAURA: The iron tithe.

SAM: Oh, we got to give it something metal.

LAURA: I give it--

SAM: I'll sacrifice myself.

LAURA: No, I have caltrops. I'm going to throw in some caltrops.

MATT: You throw in some caltrops. They all just sit into the mud.

LAURA: Sink! Sink you--

SAM: You got fake caltrops, they're not real metal! You got plastic ones!

MATT: You take--

LAURA: Ugh, goddamn it.

MATT: -- six points of piercing damage as you feel the ground itself beginning to bite into you and crush into your legs.

MARISHA: I have some ball bearings. I throw, like, spike ball bearings into it.

MATT: You throw some ball bearings into it. (pattering thuds)

LIAM: I'll drop a dagger.

LAURA: Yeah, no, that's what I was going to do.

LIAM: I'll drop a dagger in.

ASHLEY: I have a silver fork!

MATT: You drop a dagger in.

LIAM: Yeah. Dagger into the mud.

SAM: Do it!

ASHLEY: I'm going to throw in a fork.

SAM: She threw in a fork. It's silver.

MATT: You take another six points of piercing damage.

TRAVIS: We got to reach out to her, I don't think it's the same shit.

MARISHA: What the fuck?

MATT: The ground (thick slurp) releases you with a heavy sucking sound--

TALIESIN: Oh, thank god.

MATT: -- leaving your bloody legs--

SAM: Quick, get the fork back.

MATT: --behind as you pull yourself out on the floor.

ASHLEY: I'm going to try to grab my fork back.

MATT: Okay, make an investigation check.

TRAVIS: Leave the fork!

ASHLEY: Well, hang on, it was a really special one!

SAM: It's a good fork! Investigation?

SAM: It's part of a set.

MARISHA: It's one of those camp forks.

ASHLEY: 10!

MATT: 10. It's gone.

ASHLEY: Shit!

SAM: She got it at an estate sale!

LAURA: I'm sorry, Fearne, I'm sorry!

ASHLEY: No, no, no, it was totally worth it. It was totally worth it.

TRAVIS: (as Ashley) "Nah, nah, nah. Nah, nah, nah."

ASHLEY: Nah, nah, nah.

MATT: Make an intelligence check, Imogen.

LAURA: Me?

MATT: Yes.

LAURA: Oh no.

TALIESIN: Oh.

LAURA: I'm really dumb. (laughs sadly) Two.

MATT: Two, okay.

LIAM: What?! How did you get a two?!

LAURA: Because I have a plus zero to my intelligence.

LIAM: What?!

MATT: All right, well.

LIAM: That dog don't hunt.

MATT: You continue onward.

TRAVIS: I like turtles.

(laughter)

LAURA: Who else wants to guide us?

ASHLEY: I could try.

LAURA: Lead the way!

ASHLEY: My survival's high.

TRAVIS: Do it! You want to go for it, go for it.

MARISHA: Okay. You.

SAM: Yeah, this is your land.

TRAVIS: You got a good nature or survival?

LAURA: Nana Morri said thickest-- we're heading toward where the brambles--

LIAM: Yeah, we're looking for thickening brambles.

LAURA: -- are thickest.

LIAM: But this is ruins?

TRAVIS: Go, Fearnie.

LIAM: Fearnie, Fearnie, Fearnie.

TRAVIS: Come on, Nails.

LIAM: Fearnie, Fearnie, Fearnie.

ASHLEY: Okay, let me do this one.

SAM: I'll Guide you.

ASHLEY: Thanks, guys.

ASHLEY: You'll Guide me?

SAM: Yeah, I always do.

LAURA: That's so kind of you.

(laughter)

ASHLEY: (grunts)

SAM: Plus a d4.

ASHLEY: Okay.

MARISHA: Man, we're just sucking it up.

ASHLEY: Yeah, this is just shit.

MARISHA: (groans)

ASHLEY: Where'd the d4 go? There we go.

TRAVIS: Clickers.

SAM: Clickers everywhere.

ASHLEY: Fuck. 14.

LAURA: That's better than 11.

ASHLEY: It's okay, okay.

MATT: 14. You begin to push in a direction that, based on where you were going, based on what semblances of color and light, you can take on the darkened--

ASHLEY: I think it's this way. I think it's this way!

MATT: -- shadow of the sunned sky above you. You continue to lead--

MARISHA: Which way? You looked in different directions as you said that.

ASHLEY: I know, I was just hoping that it would click in my head if I did.

MATT: You travel for about another five, six minutes or so before you come back to a familiar looking ruin.

ASHLEY: Shit.

TRAVIS: Damn it.

ASHLEY: Oh, this is where we just were.

SAM: No, I think it's a different ruin.

TRAVIS: Wait, watch out for the stuff on the ground!

MATT: (wings flapping)

LAURA: Oh shit, drop!

SAM: Duck and cover!

MATT: Everyone roll a stealth check.

ASHLEY: Oh, jeez louise.

LIAM: We got things. We still got the things? We got minutes left, right?

MATT: Yep.

LAURA: We do, we do.

ASHLEY: Are we still under the thing?

MARISHA and ASHLEY: Okay.

ASHLEY: Do we have plus 10?

LAURA: Yes.

ASHLEY: Cocked.

LAURA: Oh shit, did I drop--

MATT: All right, we'll go over here.

MARISHA: Oh shit.

TALIESIN: 17, 27.

MARISHA: Oh, okay, okay.

TALIESIN: 33.

MATT: 33.

SAM: Dang!

LIAM: 24.

MATT: 24.

LAURA: 28.

MATT: 28.

ASHLEY: 24.

MATT: All right.

SAM: 14.

MATT: 14.

TRAVIS: With a plus 10?

MARISHA: 31.

SAM: That's with a plus 10.

MATT: 31.

TRAVIS: 36.

MATT: 36. See, that's what we're talking about here.

SAM: I'm noisy.

MATT: Okay. (wings flapping) As you all hunker down and throw the veils over you. It's interesting, you're all looking up. I'd say this is the first time you're looking at your friends as they throw the veil over. When you're underneath the veil, it just looks like a thin netting almost, like a textured bit of loosely threaded material where a lot of light travels through. Then looking at your friends as the veil goes over, immediately you watch it crystallize and turn into an extremely mossy stone, like a heavy rock that just--

LIAM: Oh, on the outside?

MATT: Yeah.

MARISHA: Cool.

MATT: You all just sit there and watch as it doesn't come right over the ruin where you are, it just coasts around. "(screeching)" (wings flapping) (roaring fire blast) Carves through a part of the forest, a little ways off from where you are. (flames roaring) Smoke pours up, you hear the crashing of trees and branches. Birds scatter. (flapping fades)

TRAVIS: Does it leave the trees aflame after it hits? Or is it mostly just like (steam hissing)?

MATT: I mean, the trees themselves burn for a bit.

TRAVIS: Yeah.

MATT: Make a perception check.

TRAVIS: 16.

MATT: 16. While you're not quite able to see it from here, I'll say previously, when you recall, you saw it at a glance and didn't think about it until now, but where the parts of the forest where you first were struck by this dark flame beam happened, the trees burned, but you watched as the vines on them actually grew over to try and put out their own flames.

TRAVIS: Whoa.

MATT: The forest was reacting and healing itself from the fire best it could.

LAURA: It was avoiding. Did it look like it avoided the ruins that were--

MATT: No, it just looked like it's still in a search mode and it hadn't zeroed in on where you currently were.

LAURA: Okay.

MATT: But you know that it's-- at least it's back in the swing of things. At least it seems to be following loosely the same trajectory you are.

LAURA: Oh shit!

MATT: But you wait for a bit. How long do you want to wait?

TRAVIS: That's a good question.

LAURA: Five minutes?

MATT: Five minutes. That'll put you at 30. That's about halfway through the veils' effectiveness.

LIAM: This thing knows about the exit that we're aiming for, too?

LAURA: I don't know.

TALIESIN: Who can tell?

MARISHA: Do you have one? How good are you?

SAM: I'm okay.

LAURA: Okay. Okay, forget it. I'm using my sorcery points. I'm going to gain back a 3rd-level spell and I'm going to Send a message to Nana.

MATT: Okay.

LAURA: I'm going to Send her a message and say: This is dire. We're at the ruins by the Unseelie Court. Help us find the way to the exit. Which way? I can't message you again!

MATT: Okay.

ASHLEY: I love you.

(laughter)

ASHLEY: There's three more-- Okay, okay.

SAM: She heard it.

(laughter)

TALIESIN: Yep.

(laughter)

TRAVIS: Jesus. (laughs)

MATT: There's no response.

SAM: Okay. If we're sitting here for several minutes, I'm going to start healing us, I guess.

MARISHA: There's no response.

ASHLEY: Did you hear--

LIAM: Last time there was no response, that person was dead.

LAURA: She didn't respond, Fearne.

MARISHA: Talking about Eshteross? Is that what you're talking about?

TRAVIS: No.

ASHLEY: No, no, no, no.

MARISHA: Oh my god! Hang on. I pull out the Treshi scry ball!

TRAVIS: (gasps)

MATT: Nothing.

MARISHA: Fuck! Okay. I guess that's good.

TRAVIS: You're right, though.

ASHLEY: What? What did he say?

LAURA: You think she's dead?

TRAVIS: The last time somebody didn't respond to a message--

LIAM: The last time--

ASHLEY: Don't you dare!

LIAM: -- no one replied, the recipient was dead.

ASHLEY: Don't you even!

TRAVIS: Maybe she's busy killing.

LIAM: She could be sleeping.

TRAVIS: Doing the killing.

ASHLEY: She's busy killing--

LAURA: Maybe she is. Maybe she is the archfey--

TRAVIS: She's adding to her garden.

LAURA: -- that's chasing after us!

SAM: Maybe she was never there.

ASHLEY: Maybe she is already getting down to business. She's like, "No time to talk. I'm going to get to it." That's what she's doing.

LAURA: We got to go.

LIAM: Is there-- Hmm.

ASHLEY: Yeah, let's go.

LIAM: Are there tall trees all around?

MATT: There are all manner of different sized trees.

LIAM: I'm going to climb and try to not expose myself so I can get a good look all around us.

MATT: Okay. Make an acrobatics check for me. Fairly simple. We'll consider this, fold us into the previous stealth roll as well.

LIAM: Oh! Fuck you, die!

SAM: Guidance. Too late.

LIAM: 12.

TRAVIS: Fuck you, die!

MATT: 12. It takes you a bit to get up there. I mean, thankfully these trees are fairly tangled so it is like climbing an oversized net. So there's a lot of places to find hand and footholds so you don't fall, but it takes you a moment to get up to a vantage point.

LIAM: Okay. I'm trying to stay hidden in foliage and look out over the landscape, Hobbit style, and see if I can locate brambles getting denser or if there's any discerning feature different from what we've come across.

MATT: Make a perception check.

ASHLEY: Let's go.

LIAM: That I can do.

ASHLEY: Guidance?

SAM: Guidance!

LIAM: I'm way up high. Can you reach me?

LAURA: Yeah.

LIAM: That's good. 24.

MATT: 24. That's great! That's great! Okay. Glancing around the space here, you can see a number of other structures that have been taken by the forest or built within the trees. You see small tree houses and sections of Unseelie villages that are built throughout the landscape that you've managed to not run into far off from the paths that you've come in and are now currently heading. You can see the spires that surround, that haphazard ring that wraps around the far distant exterior of the Shiver Keep. You do also see where the trees begin to grow thinner, and instead these massive, moving, unnatural looking, thick, bramble vines begin to wrap around each other and rise up through trees, overtaking trees, pushing them over. You can now see a heavy, heavy, dense thicket that is about mile and a half, two miles from where you are.

LIAM: Is it like a clot of that amongst the forest or does it give way entirely to brambles?

MATT: I mean, it's a clot of it, but the clot itself is a few miles across.

LIAM: Oh, okay.

MATT: So it's a larger area. It isn't a single point. But it is loosely in the direction you were traveling. If you would've kept going the direction you're going you would've been a little bit off. So you can right yourself at this point. You do also see-- (flapping wings)

LIAM: Gloamy Gluts.

MATT: -- carving another path through a part of forest before it seems like it's circling back around closer to where you currently are.

LIAM: It's on its way. All right. So I stumble down. Greasy, grimy, Gloamy Guts is coming back, but we have to go that way.

LAURA: Okay.

LIAM: Everybody point with me so I'm not the only one who has to remember. Okay.

ASHLEY: It's this way.

LAURA: (laughs)

TALIESIN: Let's go.

MARISHA: All right, let's move.

LAURA: Should we move or should we drop-- Is he coming? Where?

LIAM: How close was it when I was up top?

MATT: Was maybe about 1,000 or so feet at the time.

MARISHA: Okay. Let's move. Let's move while we can.

LIAM: Let's move for two minutes and then hunker.

MARISHA: Okay.

LAURA: Yeah. (skitters)

MATT: Okay. So you all go into a heavy sprint.

LAURA: No.

MATT: (laughs)

TRAVIS: Heavy sprint.

LIAM: We skip.

MATT: Okay. Heavy sprint, closing much further distance, rushing in that direction. This is a very challenging terrain. So even the distance you try and cover at a heavy sprint, it's difficult terrain, so it's not a full dash, but you're still making headway you're making ground. You continue to push forward until you hear the (wings flapping)

LIAM: Shields!

LAURA: Yeah. Yeah

MATT: You all get down. Roll a stealth check.

MARISHA: Why did he say it like that?

TRAVIS: We're still at the pocket, right?

MATT: Yep, we're at 35 minutes now.

ASHLEY: Plus 10?

TRAVIS: He rolled real high, I think.

ASHLEY: Because we're under the veils?

LAURA: Yes.

MARISHA: Roll good, y'all!

TALIESIN: That'll do.

TRAVIS: 29.

MATT: 29.

MARISHA: 27.

MATT: 27.

SAM: 14 again.

MATT: 14 again.

ASHLEY: 28.

MATT: 28.

LAURA: 15.

SAM: Ooh!

MATT: 15.

LIAM: 29.

MATT: 29.

TALIESIN: 25.

MATT: 25.

SAM: Okay, okay, okay.

MATT: Okay, okay.

LIAM: This is a quiet bunch.

MARISHA: (groans)

TALIESIN: (groans)

TRAVIS: I can feel my backbone.

MARISHA: Yeah.

MATT: You hear the wings (flapping wings) get louder, and you can see the wind as it passes overhead cause all the nearby branches and leaves to shake. It was in a low flying scan and just passes over. Then, you watch as it rapidly begins to curve around, like it picked up something. Right about that time, you hear this other noise-- "(avian screeching)"

SAM: What?

MATT: -- as a massive, dark, hawk-like creature (whoosh)--

ASHLEY: Nana!

MATT: -- and slams into the side of this.

ASHLEY: I knew it!

MATT: You watch as Gloam Glut gets hit in the side "(guttural squawks)" (crashing) You don't even watch the impact. You watch these two things crash and then vanish over the tops of the trees before you hear the breaking of probably a dozen trees at the impact. (crashing)

SAM: Go!

MARISHA: We should go.

ASHLEY: Go, go, go!

SAM: Go, go, go!

MATT: All right.

LIAM: Faerie Kaiju!

(laughter)

TALIESIN: Let them fight.

TRAVIS: It's a level four Faerie Kaiju--

SAM: I want to watch!

LAURA: I know. I want to see that shit!

MATT: You all go into a run, following the direction that you were pointing in now and you're guiding the best you can. It is treacherous land, but you continue going. A handful of signal wards are still there, but at this point, you can blow past them if you want to or do you want to brave it past other creatures that might be amongst the forest?

LIAM: I think we book it.

MATT: Okay.

ASHLEY: Book it.

SAM: Were there other creatures that were on patrol out here?

LAURA: Yeah, but they might not have gotten as far as us.

TRAVIS: Don't look a gift horse in the mouth, man.

LAURA: Just run! Just run!

LIAM: It's right there! Go!

ASHLEY: We're just going. We're just going. Go, go, go!

MATT: You all go into a sprint and just run. (panting) The dryness is in your mouth. You continue focusing in the direction, following behind where Orym is pointing you. As you go, you can hear in the sky-- (violent crashing and squawking) (laughter) (violent squawks) (crashing) Other trees crashing to the left of you. You watch us Gloamglut picks up in the air above and then (carving) beams carving in different directions and then suddenly from below, (bodies slamming) get slammed by that same creature again. (bodies slamming) Both of them then spiral down, crashing into the forest about six or 700 feet from where you are.

LAURA: Nana Morri!

ASHLEY: Nana Morri! Let's go!

TRAVIS: That's so metal.

MATT: You continue to run, and as you do, the thicket gets denser--

LAURA: Gets thickety?

MATT: -- and denser. Indeed. You get to a point where you're having to crawl through once more and, in some points, cut your way past certain paths that are a little too tight for some of your larger team members to get through. You can still hear the scuffle and fight behind you.

LAURA: Can I-- Well, is this done?

TALIESIN: Whatever the fuck you got because I ain't got shit.

LAURA: I'm going to Lightning Bolt straight ahead of us. I'm going to try to create a tunnel--

ASHLEY: Cool, cool.

LAURA: -- of thicket that's burned so that we can get through it.

MATT: Go ahead and roll damage on that.

SAM: Nice.

TALIESIN: No!

MATT: If you can breach 30 damage on this, it'll clear a clean path.

LAURA: Uh-huh.

MATT: Any less than that, you might have to cut a little bit of your way through, but it will help either way.

TALIESIN: I'm ready to cut when it comes down to it.

LAURA: Five, five, six.

TRAVIS: Yeah.

SAM: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

LAURA: No. 9d6.

SAM: What?

ASHLEY: Whoa!

SAM: How so?

LAURA: Seven, eight, nine.

SAM: But how for so?

LIAM: Lightning

TRAVIS: Forsooth.

SAM: Is it always 9d6?

ASHLEY: How come?

LAURA: Yeah.

TRAVIS: Five bucks says it rolls off the notebook.

LIAM: Ah!

TALIESIN: Ah!

ASHLEY: Ooh!

LAURA: Okay. 20.

TALIESIN: Wow!

LAURA: Yeah, I beat it.

SAM: We're over 30?

LAURA: We're over 30.

LIAM: 30 and flirty.

SAM: We're all over 30, everybody.

LAURA: Yeah.

TRAVIS: Her hands! Her hand's shaking!

TALIESIN: Too real. Too real. Bring it back.

LAURA: 32 points of damage.

MATT: So you're casting it as 4th-level?

LAURA: Yeah.

MATT: Hell yeah! Okay.

ASHLEY: 32! Just made it?

MATT: Just made it.

LAURA: Yeah.

TRAVIS: Whoa!

LAURA: That's what I got left. So 4th-level.

MATT: Describe how this looks.

LAURA: I step forward and my hair flashes back and my eyes flash white as a giant purple lightning bolt--

TRAVIS: Barracuda.

LAURA: Yeah.

(laughter)

MATT: This column of deep purple energy carves through and this heavy, continuous series of walls of overgrown, unnatural fey thicket begins to wither away and curl and blacken. As it does, you watch. It's not just burning through the vines and roots before you, but the first few burn and the others immediately reactively pull away, like a living creature that's withdrawing its limbs. It seems to react from the impact and pain of this and a path begins to slowly open ahead of you, as it does not want to further impede and present itself with further damage.

ASHLEY: That was cool!

TRAVIS: Oh! That's killer!

SAM: You scared the woods!

TALIESIN: It was really loud and really cool! We really need to run!

ASHLEY: We got to run. We got to run!

ASHLEY: We've got to go. Here, I'll give the trees some pats. Thank you, thank you, thank you!

SAM: Sorry, green friends!

TALIESIN: Got to keep up the raid.

MATT: You're push through and climb through, continue to follow this path, occasionally seeing up in the sky. You do see this massive black bird that flies up. You catch a quick glance, large black and crow-like wings with these long talons at the end, the limbs, the talons so long and extended that they fold up to an unnatural length of folding within it. At the top, you see the long neck and the head of Morri at the end--

(surprised laughter)

MARISHA: Oh my god.

MATT: -- as it flies over, scanning, before (electricity crackling) a darkened beam strikes it on the side. (crashing) You see the flames erupt on the side as she tumbles into the nearby forest and you see Gloamglut (squawks) go into a pursuing strike over the edge.

SAM: Is she going to be okay?

ASHLEY: Yeah. Yeah. She'll be fine. She'll be fine. She'll be fine!

SAM: Okay.

ASHLEY: She's killed bigger things than this. I've seen it.

TRAVIS and SAM: Okay.

SAM: We don't need to go help?

MARISHA: No, we've got to go!

ASHLEY: I think she's going to be okay. I think she's going to be okay.

TRAVIS: We should help her.

TALIESIN: Unless somebody's got something, we have no way to help. We've got keep going.

LAURA: Keep going! Keep going!

MATT: You continue to push through and you hear the shrieks of Gloamglut more, and you're starting to recognize timbre in it. You're been begin to recognize things that are actively energetic, excited, honed in. Like the sound a cat makes when it sees something move, versus the sound of something that is frustrated and lost.

LAURA: Shit, shit.

MATT: The sound you're hearing is a little more of the latter. (squawks)

LAURA: Okay, that's good.

(wings whooshing)

MATT: You see it now scanning above. No sign of Morri, necessarily, at this point.

SAM: Oh, okay.

MATT: But Gloamglut, apparently, is now back in searching mode.

LAURA: Okay.

MATT: Though, definitely not directly or terribly near the current position of your troop. You begin to carve further into this thicket, passing by small pools of clear water, like a recent rain has been gathered in small alcoves and what would be muddy areas, but the landscape here is mostly moss covered and soft. There's no mud anymore. It's a sponge mossy material and the pools are this beautiful, clean water. You can see elements of bone gray fungus that occasionally protrude from areas, like little toadstool rings that sit around some of these puddles. Then eventually, you come upon something that is very, very unique to this space, an oddly nightmarish vision of dark bark, like a twisting tree that was split down the middle and then spreads out to two different trunks that embed themselves in the ground to create this 12-foot tall arch. There you can see dense vines and leaves and all numbers of purple and black flowers and roses wrap around it on each side. You can see there's, amongst this arch, a 12-foot door of rolling fog that continuously spills off and stumbles and fills the ground around it. You can see above that in the actual tree top that sits there, there is a mass of ropes and tattered materials, looks like a constructed nest that sits right above where this is. It's about 25 feet from where you just emerged.

SAM: We didn't pass this on the way in?

MATT: No, you came from another direction.

SAM: Oh, okay.

LAURA: Yeah.

TRAVIS: Using Hunter's Bane-- Sorry. Can I smell and do I pick up any creatures that I haven't been smelling as we've been running through the largely--

MATT: Yeah, make a perception check with advantage.

TRAVIS: Okay. That's absolute dog shit. 10.

MATT: 10. (sniffs) Everything here smells fey. It's a little hard to distinguish, and it's a little odd, a little weird. But you, with your high passive perception, immediately you see something crawl out from that nest of ropes above. (skitters)

MARISHA: Oh shit.

LAURA: Fuck!

LIAM: Eyes up!

ASHLEY: Maybe it's a friend.

MATT: You see, as you hear Orym say this and glance up, a monstrous, cyclops-like creature.

SAM: Oh god!

MATT: With a singular, cloudy eye that sits above a nose-less mouth of jagged teeth with missing gaps between them.

LAURA: Oh!

MATT: The neck is nonexistent, practically. Its head sitting within a bulbous torso that wears patchwork clothing of a ruined mockery of prestige, a tall harlequin collar that seems to frame the back of its shoulders. It doesn't have feet. Instead, it has four long, muscular arms that emerge from the torso.

LAURA: What!?

MATT: It almost scurries like a spider before it climbs down the side of the tree before this fog gate. Then, the two bottom arms stand straight like legs and the two other ones fold behind it and it seems to put on this air of regality before it glances down at the rest of you.

SAM: This is gross!

TRAVIS: Awesome!

ASHLEY: I love it!

LAURA: Ew!

MARISHA: Is it going to ask us for a toll or something?

LAURA: Yeah.

SAM: Riddles! Riddles!

MARISHA: Like a toll bridge?

MATT: "So it seems we've got visitors, do we? Tell me, who comes and visits me, Terrosh the Lidless Slumber?"

MARISHA and SAM: Terrosh the Lidless--

MATT: The Lidless Slumber.

LAURA: Ew!

ASHLEY: Terrosh.

MATT: As that one giant milky eye in the center of the face looks at you, unblinkingly.

LIAM: Have a very slimy eye.

ASHLEY: Hello, Terrosh. Right? Is that what you said?

MATT: "That is my name. I'm glad you heard, my dear. I wish to know your friends and why you've all been coming here."

ASHLEY: We have to go through, I believe, this gate that's right by you.

SAM: Is there a fee or a toll to pay?

MATT: "Of course there is, for all you say, my friends, you've made your way, but each of you have curious look. What will you bring this day?"

(laughter)

MARISHA: He talks in rhymes!

LAURA: I knew! Fucking talk in rhyme! Are you kidding me right now?

(laughter)

SAM: Oh god!

MARISHA: We were rhyming so much last episode! Where are our Eremad?

SAM: So use words that can't be rhymed, like orange or turkey.

ASHLEY: Door hinge.

LAURA: No, you're right. Oh my gosh! Door hinge!

MARISHA: Turkey.

LAURA: That's really good.

ASHLEY: Can it? I don't know.

LAURA: Close enough.

MARISHA: Murky.

(laughter)

SAM: Murky, I guess, is--

MARISHA: Murky rhymes with turkey.

SAM: I was thinking glurky.

(laughter)

ASHLEY: What stuff do you like or what do you want? What's considered a toll?

MATT: You see this look of disappointment already.

SAM: Wait. What?

MARISHA: We do a rhyme. You can rhyme! You can rhyme!

ASHLEY: Oh.

MATT: You can see, through the disappointment, through the disappointment the mouth is growing slightly more salivating.

LAURA: No, no, no!

TALIESIN: I don't have much of value. In my journey, I have not been nimble, but I have something of value to me. So I can offer you this thimble.

(gasps)

SAM: Okay, okay, okay!

LAURA: Nice! Nice!

TALIESIN: I pick out the porcelain thimble that I stole from you.

LAURA: Yes!

ASHLEY: Wait a minute!

MATT: Putting a hand forward like this, and the bottom arm leg is like (scraping) skitter over.

SAM: Arm leg?

TALIESIN: I do not move.

MATT: Takes it, looks at it.

ASHLEY: Wait. Hang on a minute.

MATT: "All day affair here, my little friend. I love the gift you bring."

(laughter)

MATT: "I say to you, my little friend. Go forth and may you sing."

SAM: Oh.

MATT: Puts the thimble within its breast, weird jacket that it has tattered off to the side and steps along the way. The minute any of you begin to step forward, immediately the physicality is guarded against the rest of you, leaving a path for you to walk.

MARISHA: Wait, wait, wait! Don't go through yet! Have you?

TALIESIN: No.

MARISHA: The wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey timey is a weird soup!

LAURA: We have to say that?

MARISHA: No, no, no, no. No, sorry, this is me.

LIAM: We have to rub the--

MARISHA: The rub, the stuff--

LIAM: The stuff on our face.

MARISHA: The stuff, because Fey Realm, Fey Realm time.

LAURA: We have to rub stuff on us?

LIAM: Yes, Nana gave us a paste--

LAURA: She gave stuff to rub on?

LIAM: To rub on our foreheads and our cheeks so that we don't come out 1000 years later.

LAURA: We do that. Let's all rub that on our fucking-- I don't remember that at all.

SAM: I'm going to first take off--

TALIESIN: ♪ Oh, thank you ♪

SAM: -- the mud that's all over me.

TALIESIN: ♪ for your generosity ♪

ASHLEY: We really need to go to a spa.

TALIESIN: ♪ I'm very very grateful ♪

LAURA: Prestidigitation, prestidigitation, prestidigitation.

TALIESIN: ♪ Or is it bored ♪ ♪ I'm not sure ♪

SAM: Now you're singing? What's happening?

MATT: "(laughs)"

TALIESIN: I'm trying to pay attention.

TRAVIS: (laughs)

TALIESIN: (sighs)

LAURA: Ah-- I need to get through the gate.

MATT: Right about this time, reaches over and touches your shoulder. And (whooshes) pushes you through the door.

LAURA: Before we get any older.

TALIESIN: No, I got it.

MATT: No, he got it.

TALIESIN: Yeah.

LAURA: Here, I offer you this gift. A Taste of Tal'Dorei pot holder.

(laughter)

MATT: Make a persuasion check.

(laughter)

TRAVIS: That's a instant win! Come on, bro!

TALIESIN: Live with a musician for half a fucking-- for five years, people.

LAURA: 13?

MATT: 13. "To offend you here, I do not mean to look upon this... trifle." He glances over at his fingers. "Maybe, I think, could be taken instead, that monkey's rifle."

LAURA and SAM: (gasps)

ASHLEY: You wouldn't dare.

TRAVIS: Fearne?

LAURA: We got to get--

ASHLEY: I have something better. I have something better. You do not want that.

LAURA: Got to talk in rhyme, Fearne.

TRAVIS: Fucking--

ASHLEY: (sighs) I'm not good at it! I have for you--

MATT: You start noticing with each failed rhyme, his body is growing slightly larger. The shadows around the gate grow slightly darker and longer. His breathing (heavy breathing) Gets louder.

LIAM: Our day was long and too much filled with toil. It isn't much, but have this dram of burning oil. I have a little flask of burning oil. Hand it off.

MATT: Takes it. Soaks the pot holder in it, and just eats it.

SAM: Ew!

LAURA: See? He liked the gift.

LIAM: Oh!

MATT: Grabs your head like a basketball and flings you into the gate.

LIAM: Yoink!

MATT: The rest of you begin to hear (flapping wings)

MARISHA: It's a pleasure to come upon you on this fine day. We come from a realm far away. My name is Laudna, so don't call me Doris. But here I have this journal from a one Vespin Chloras.

ALL: Oh!

ASHLEY: Come on! What? So good!

LAURA: That's really good.

MATT: The pale moonlight-like color of the realm begins to peek once through past the surrounding brambles and you see the grin that already sat filled with gnarled teeth begin to grow even wider as the book is accepted and thumbed through. "The history of other realms have always kept me happy. I'll tell you, Miss, I like your look. The rest of you are crappy." Takes you and (whooshes) throws you into the gate.

MARISHA: Ooh!

LIAM: This motherfucker right here.

SAM: Chetney! Chetney!

MATT: Talking about Matt.

TALIESIN: Yeah.

SAM: Drop a beat.

(laughter)

TRAVIS: (beatboxing)

LIAM: No!

SAM: ♪ Yo yo yo, I'm FCG, and I'm here to say ♪ ♪ I love baked goods ♪ in a major way ♪

TRAVIS: (beatboxes)

SAM: ♪ I'm not too good at rhyming ♪ ♪ I don't do raps ♪ ♪ But I made you a box ♪ of ginger snaps ♪

(laughter)

TALIESIN: What?!

(laughter)

ASHLEY: Oh my god!

LIAM: He's even got the Lasso box!

MATT: That's incredible.

MARISHA: Amazing.

TALIESIN: How long have they been sitting there?

MATT: I'm not going to eat them, just in case. I'll wait 'til the break.

(laughter)

MATT: Accepts them, gives you a curious look over in general before sniffing them and then eating the box whole with them in there.

SAM: Oh!

MATT: "(chewing) Mm. I'll have to say, my metal friend, I rather like the flavor. I wish there's more, but that's all right. The memory, I'll savor."

(groaning)

MATT: Grabs you and then chucks you back into the gate.

SAM: Wiggy wiggy scratch!

MATT: (flapping wings)

(laughter)

TALIESIN: Guys, guys, guys!

MATT: Now you hear "(screeching)" As Gloamglut is now circling around the top of the thicket. It's mostly tangled over, but you can see the shadow moving and you feel you haven't too much time before it begins to find you and tear through.

TRAVIS: Over Imogen's bunk-ass gift, we feel great remorse. But I hope you'll accept this sweet-ass rocking horse! It's a little rocking horse that has a little figurine that has a big eye carved in the little guy that's on the back of it.

(laughter)

MARISHA: Yes! It looks like him? Yeah.

MATT: "I like this horse you offer me. Better handled with a tweezer. I think it's time you went ahead, you little stupid geezer."

(laughter)

MATT: Grabs you and chucks you into the gate.

TALIESIN: I love the Fey Realm.

MATT: Admires the horse a little bit and looks it over.

(laughter)

TALIESIN: Who's left?

MATT: Bites it for a second.

SAM: (groans) Doesn't he? He just bites on it. Puts it in its pocket.

ASHLEY: Can we see Morri or anything? Can I look back and see if-- See anything?

MATT: You don't see anything. It's too dense around here.

ASHLEY: Shit.

MATT: You can make a perception check if you'd like, in case.

LAURA: Oh god. Okay, I'm going to take the cloth that Morri gave us.

MATT: Mm-hmm.

ASHLEY: Fuck. No.

TRAVIS: Yeah.

LAURA: Through this land we've ridden, of that I have not lied. I give you this gift to keep you hidden. Go on, now. Make yourself hide.

(laughter)

ASHLEY: Good. So good, so good. So good.

TRAVIS: Oh boy. That was close.

TALIESIN: That walked it.

LIAM: Have we found Bailey's Achilles heel?

(laughter)

TRAVIS: That was close.

MATT: Imogen--

LAURA: In my brain I had a better rhyme, but then I started talking.

MATT: Imogen, make another persuasion check.

LAURA: Jesus Christ.

(laughter)

MARISHA: Another persuasion check.

TALIESIN: Oh, no.

MATT: This is on the line. It's on the line.

TRAVIS: Ronin's watching.

LAURA: Oh, okay, okay, okay, okay, okay. 20.

MATT: (laughs)

MATT: "Appreciate your second chance. Maybe this will hide. But here upon this second chance, how 'bout I let it slide." Grabs you, brings you close and looks you over for a second before, "Eh," (whoosh) throws you into the gate over its shoulder.

MARISHA: So who's--

ASHLEY: Oh, it's me!

MARISHA: Just you.

ASHLEY: Okay.

MATT: You made a perception check, you said, glancing around?

ASHLEY: It was shit.

MATT: Okay.

ASHLEY: Yeah. Well, hold on.

TRAVIS: Nope, still shit.

ASHLEY: 13.

MATT: 13, yeah.

ASHLEY: Okay.

MATT: You can see the shadow of something flying overhead and you can hear the sound of it. They're growing closer and beginning to zero in. Plus you're all having loud conversations in this space, too. It's about this time that-- (roaring flame)

SAM: Oh no!

MATT: You see the beam begin to carve a section of the overall bramble dome that's grown over it as it begins to fall. At this point you see that Terrosh is like--

ASHLEY: This is a... What am I giving you? (laughter) Here, I have a-- What is this?

TRAVIS: Not a good start.

LAURA: Why are you checking your phone?

ASHLEY: No, because it was buzzing, it was bothering me.

(laughter)

ASHLEY: I couldn't think straight.

(laughter continues)

TRAVIS: That's the fey dragon.

LAURA: She's like, "What's going on?

ASHLEY: Because it was like (phone vibrating).

LAURA: "Oh, everything's fine."

LIAM: Help, help, help, help, help, help.

ASHLEY: Okay, here--

TRAVIS: It's just your life. It's just your life.

ASHLEY: Here, I have a simple golden skeleton key. But I must tell you, it's not as good of a present as me.

SAM: What?

(laughter)

SAM: Are you giving him your body?

ASHLEY: No, no, no!

(laughter)

LIAM: Kind of seemed that way.

MATT: Clatters up to you, looking down upon you, this oddly shaped entity, its long spindly arm-legs beneath it, its arms out to the side as it grabs the key. Glances it. "Hmm." You hear the impact sound of Gloamglut up in the trees, starting to grab onto the--

ASHLEY: Pure gold, it's pure gold.

MATT: (laughs)

MATT: "I think you're right. I see this key. Its gold has really shone. But don't forget, whenever you want, you're always welcome home."

ALL: Aw.

MATT: Grabs you. Then turns around and throws you into the gate. The last thing you hear is, "You weren't invited!" Before you go through the gate. At that point you all gather up, clattering on the opposite side.

LAURA: Shut up!

(laughter)

LAURA: In my brain, I had switched them! Shut up! It still rhymed, all right?

ASHLEY: It did.

LAURA: Fuck all y'all.

TRAVIS: You got to the edge of the cliff and you were like, I have a parachute, right? (laughter)

(laughter)

MATT: Now, as the rest of you have stepped through this gate, one after another, after another, after another through this odd and intense circumstance, a welcome serenity meets you on the opposite side. As you're now in another jungle forest, unfamiliar to you but less ominous, less immediately dangerous. There's something about the air that already feels Exandrian and welcoming.

MARISHA: I check the scry ball.

MATT: Clear.

TRAVIS: Just because we're on the other side of the portal--

TALIESIN: Hey!

TRAVIS: Hunter's Bane, fey, fiend, undead, any smells, anything?

MATT: Go ahead and roll.

TRAVIS: Natural one. We're fine.

MATT: Okay, you're fine. You're doing great.

ASHLEY: Okay. We're okay, we're okay.

LIAM: It's a jungle specifically?

MATT: Mm-hmm.

LIAM: Not woods.

SAM: Wait, when went in--

LAURA: We don't know--

SAM: -- we were in--

LAURA: -- at all where we are?

MATT: You have no idea.

TALIESIN: There's nothing about this that's familiar?

TRAVIS: Sky blue?

LAURA: Planerider Ryn.

MATT: Sky's blue. Sky's blue.

MARISHA: Yeah.

SAM: From the city?

LAURA: Yeah, but--

LIAM: We could be--

TRAVIS: We could be anywhere.

LAURA: This could put us out on Tal'Dorei for all we know. This is just a--

LIAM: The last place we'd be is where we started.

ASHLEY: Does this jungle happen to look any bit familiar to Orym and I?

SAM: Oh, yeah, because you've come through, maybe? No?

MATT: No.

LIAM: We did travel the jungle.

MATT: Not necessarily. Actually--

TALIESIN: Does this is jungle have Wi-Fi?

MATT: If I can have--

TRAVIS and SAM: (laugh)

MATT: -- Imogen and Laudna make perception checks for me, please.

TRAVIS: Don't fuck this up.

MARISHA: Oh my god.

LAURA: Yeah, I've been fucking up.

ASHLEY: Do it, do it, do it.

LAURA: That's all I've been doing.

LIAM: ♪ It's been ♪

MARISHA: ♪ It's been ♪

TALIESIN: ♪ One week ♪

LAURA: Oh, oh! 19?

MARISHA: Also 19.

TRAVIS: These bitches be witches.

SAM: Rollies, rollies.

ASHLEY: Bitches be witches!

MARISHA: ♪ Witches, witches ♪

MATT: Okay.

(laughter)

MATT: The trees that are around here--

TALIESIN: I'm amazed we didn't die.

MARISHA: Let's let it go.

MATT: There's one of them you see, it looks to be a--

MARISHA: (laughs)

MATT: A lot of them are bluff oaks. They had some of those nearby at home. Not directly in Gelvaan, but they're definitely indigenous to the areas around the Taloned Highlands as well as areas around the western side near the ocean of the Hellcatch Valley and the southern sides of the Oderan Wilds. You also can pick up some familiar foliage, so at least you know it's not completely alien from what you're familiar with. You could try and climb somewhere to get a better view or travel in a specific direction until you can have a better vantage point. Because right now, you're surrounded by--

TRAVIS: Foliage.

MATT: -- foliage.

TALIESIN: Or sit down and take a short rest.

MARISHA: I'll do a--

TRAVIS: Yes.

MARISHA: -- quick Spider Climb.

LAURA: Oh.

MARISHA: Climb up a tree.

TALIESIN: I'm going to lie here.

TRAVIS: Can you climb a tree with a single digit of health?

MARISHA: Yes.

TRAVIS: Cool. Just checking.

LAURA: Laudna.

TALIESIN: Oh, never mind. I'm going to get up and wait to catch Laudna.

TRAVIS: I could just stab you before you climb up there, if you want.

MARISHA: You would do that. Remember when Nott shot Beau in the ass trying to climb a tree?

TRAVIS: Yes.

MATT: Mm-hmm.

TALIESIN: Yeah.

SAM: Just precious.

LIAM: Classic.

(laughter)

LAURA: Classic Nott.

MARISHA: Classic.

MATT: Now the other side, by the way, as you take a moment to gauge where you are, you look back from where you came from and there is a river that is tumbling off the side of a mountain, like a hillside that's climbing down. You're at the base of it. There's a waterfall that is falling from this river, about 10 or so feet into the next river, but it makes no sound. You look back and that's directly where you came from.

MARISHA: Oh.

TRAVIS: We came through the waterfall--

LAURA: Illusions.

TRAVIS: -- on this side.

MATT: But you're all dry as well. But nevertheless, Spider Climb? You clamber up, get to the highest point you can. What was your perception check?

MARISHA: From earlier?

MATT: Yeah.

MARISHA: 19.

MATT: 19, okay. From here, indeed, you can see the beautiful landscape of the Highland Bluffs around you. This is the north northeastern region of the Taloned Highlands. From this point, you are beyond-- You are further west beyond Aeshanadoor and its Gloomed Jungles. You're beyond the borders of the Taloned Highlands, where the mountains divide the two regions where much of the conflict of the previous Apex War happened. You can already see beyond here to the further west and south of the Bluffs, the beautiful stretches of massive, terraced farmland. You can see this majestic mountain range to the south that is where much of the highlands is built on and there are these leveled plateaus like steps of gods that are flattened and built up alongside these mountain ranges that are covered in beautiful green expanses. Farmlands and all manner of well-cultivated growing fields for the people of the Highlands. You can see maybe about 35 or 40 miles to the west of here what you think might be Gelvaan, the town where you originally came from.

SAM: Oh.

MARISHA: Oh shit.

MATT: You can also see the Coven Peaks, which are the highest points in the southern mountain range here in the Taloned Highlands. There, you can see they're already sparkling with fresh white snow, or white snow they've kept year round.

SAM: Where's our map?

MATT: You see them rising into the gray clouds, where they vanish. The peaks of these mountains, through most of the year, are not seen from much of the rest of the Highlands themselves. There, you do know, sits the capital city, the apex city of Sruwargas. That's where the Stratos Throne--

SAM: Oh.

MATT: -- is stationed. So you've not been here, where you are now, and you're still out in the middle of nowhere. You're equidistant from the border to Aeshanadoor and any other semblance of civilization and it's a long journey to get there.

MARISHA: All right. I climb back down. What were the-- What peaks?

MATT: You are in the Highland Bluffs.

SAM: Where's our map, Chetney?

MATT: You don't have a map of this.

SAM: Oh.

TALIESIN: Yeah, it's at the bottom left of the Bassuras map.

MATT: Yeah, you can see the direction of it where it goes off the map to-- Yeah, to your point, the southwest of the Hellcatch Valley.

SAM: Okay.

MARISHA: I skitter back down. Imogen. We're actually not too far from Gelvaan.

LAURA: Really?

LIAM: To what?

TALIESIN: To what now?

LAURA: The town I'm from, actually.

TALIESIN: Oh shit.

MARISHA: Where we first met.

LAURA: Yeah.

LIAM: How far is-- How far? Couple of days?

MARISHA: Yes. 35, 40 miles.

TALIESIN: Are we about to find out--

MATT: That's straight. Through this dense jungle and the topography, which rises and falls in many places before you get to the actual cleared bluffs, you're looking at about a two day journey on foot.

MARISHA: We're basically that far from the Highland Peaks. Just a little bit east.

LIAM: What time of day does it feel like?

MATT: It is later afternoon, pushing probably into sunset within the next hour.

LIAM: Okay.

TALIESIN: We don't know what day, what month, what year.

LAURA: No, we don't even know.

TALIESIN: Also, I suppose someone should ask this now. Are we going to run into friends, enemies, or otherwise if we walk into this town with the two of you?

LAURA: I don't think we need to go to Gelvaan.

TRAVIS: No?

TALIESIN: We need--

LAURA: What are we going to do there?

TRAVIS: Regroup? Get a meal?

TALIESIN: Get food?

TRAVIS: What the--

MARISHA: Would I have any idea of how much-- What did you just do with Pâté?

TALIESIN: Just don't. Don't ask.

MARISHA: What would I need to-- Would I have any idea how much further away Sruwargas is from Gelvaan?

MATT: Sruwargas is a lot further away. That's a few hundred miles, probably.

LIAM: We're still racing a ticking clock, right?

LAURA: Yeah, we don't need to go two days out of the way to get to my hometown. What? To talk to a bunch of people that we ran away from?

TALIESIN: Well, what's the plan, then?

LIAM: Yeah, regardless, we're in the middle of the wilderness. We have no ship.

LAURA: If we can rest a little bit--

LIAM: We can phone a friend.

LAURA: I can maybe call Planerider Ryn.

MARISHA: Yeah.

LAURA: But--

SAM: Is there anything in your hometown? I mean, your mom's messed up in all this, right? Is there anything that she would need there or you could contact someone else that she might have emotional ties to?

LAURA: She left. She left.

SAM: What about your other family?

LAURA: My father?

SAM: Yeah. Did she-- Were they-- Did they love each other?

LAURA: I don't know. As far as I know.

SAM: Maybe he could tell you something about her that would help.

TRAVIS: Wait, is he still alive?

LAURA: Yeah.

TRAVIS: Does he know that she's alive?

LAURA: If he does, he never let me know.

MARISHA: It's been quite a while since you even talked to your dad, no?

LAURA: Just a couple years.

MARISHA: Well.

SAM: You could visit your horse.

LAURA: Flora deserves it, but I don't--

SAM: You could see Sam.

LAURA: FCG, what? What? Why are you trying to make me go there?

SAM: I'm not trying to make you--

LAURA: I don't think there's anything we need there. I think what we need to do is locate the other keys and destroy them. I don't think the key is going to be in Gelvaan.

SAM: Sometimes the key to a lot of things is with our family, is all I'm saying.

TRAVIS: Plus, if we're going to just start walking, I mean, we could give them an exact location of where we are and if we're in a city that you know, whether it's Planerider or our air ship, I mean, better than the wilderness.

TALIESIN: That was mostly my thought. I wasn't trying to drudge up old shit.

LAURA: No, it's fine.

SAM: I am trying.

LAURA: I know.

TALIESIN: Oh, we know.

ASHLEY: Just not to, you know. Agree, we don't have to force anything, but maybe now that-- of course, we don't have to do this, but if maybe your dad does know more than he has told you and there's a possibility that maybe he would open up more now if, I don't know, I'm just throwing that idea out there. I know, I understand. Parent shit is the fucking worst.

LAURA: (laughs)

MARISHA: And to Imogen's point, it wasn't-- It wasn't a peaceful parting of ways when we left.

TALIESIN: I can hit him; I love hitting dads. I'm just putting that out there.

TRAVIS: Yeah, you're a bad motherfucker now, too. I mean, you should float in with crackles coming off you and shit and be like, "Pops, it's time for a reckoning!"

LAURA: (spell casting)

TRAVIS: Yeah. Give it.

LAURA: Yeah, yeah. Drag him over to me, and open up his mind without even his--

TALIESIN: Turn him 180 degrees--

TRAVIS: Yaas queen, keep going.

TALIESIN: -- so his hair is just-- Yeah, that would be really cool.

SAM: Sounds like a catharsis, yeah.

MARISHA: I defer to Imogen on this one. I think we need to--

LAURA: Here's the thing. It is a two-day journey, and we are, as far as we know, less than two weeks out from the solstice. Do we want to waste two days traveling to a town, or do we need to contact Ryn now and go somewhere useful?

MARISHA: I think we need to contact somebody right now, just to even see what day of the fucking week it is.

LAURA: I just need an hour, and I can contact somebody. I can't--

LIAM: I think we should stay here for the night.

TALIESIN: Oh, we need the hour, regardless.

TRAVIS: Yeah, take a-- Just take a-- yes. I agree with Orym.

MARISHA: All right, well, how about this as well. Why don't we maybe relocate a little bit? Away from the gate.

TRAVIS: Yeah!

TALIESIN: Such a good idea.

MARISHA: And then--

TRAVIS: Just in case Falkor come through? Yeah.

MARISHA: Yes.

(laughter)

TALIESIN: I get the feeling that that gate guard is hard to get through.

TRAVIS: Yeah.

MARISHA: He also seemed a little dubious himself.

TALIESIN: He seemed fine to me. I really like that place, by the way. Your home is great.

ASHLEY: It's great, right?

TALIESIN: I love your nan, by the way.

ASHLEY: Yeah, it's a pretty magical place.

MARISHA: Nana saved our lives.

LAURA: Nana saved us.

ASHLEY: I know.

LAURA: We need to make sure she's all right.

ASHLEY: We do, we do when you feel better, but I knew the second you were like, "She didn't respond," I was like, "She's coming. She's going to be coming any minute." I just knew it.

TALIESIN: The drama was appreciated.

ASHLEY: Yes, and I think she's fine. I've seen her take down things much bigger than that.

TRAVIS: (sniffs) Hunter's Bane one more time just because we've been out of the gate for a minute.

MATT: All right, roll perception with advantage.

TRAVIS: Oh, with advantage. Oh, 21.

MATT: 21.

TRAVIS: Natural 19.

MATT: Feels fairly clear at the minute. Nothing catches your eyes, your scents, your ears as being unnatural.

TRAVIS: Follow through.

MATT: You hear the number of natural creatures and beasts that call this pocket home, you hear the calls, the distant growls. Nothing that threatens, just comfortably away from civilization.

TALIESIN: Which direction would we go?

LIAM: Well--

TALIESIN: If we were-- If we were being tracked, where would they assume we would be heading towards?

LIAM: Who?

TALIESIN: Oh, anybody who came through the gate.

LIAM: Chasing from the other side? If they even came out the same time.

TALIESIN: That's true.

LIAM: We're still all covered in Oil of Ofey. Do we want to follow this stream for a bit and--?

(laughter)

LIAM: What? That's what it's called.

LAURA: Yeah.

ASHLEY: Yeah.

LIAM: Wash up, and bed down, figure out what we're going to do, contact Ryn.

TRAVIS: Bed down, all oiled up. Oh my.

(laughter)

LIAM: It's starting to flake on me.

TALIESIN: I'm just absorbing this shit like nobody's business.

MARISHA: Yeah, you look very lustrous.

TALIESIN: Thank you. I feel shiny, and it's very hard to grip.

LAURA: It's a good look on you, yes.

TALIESIN: I'm having a very hard time gripping the hammer. It just keeps wanting to-- Like, if I take a swing, I think it's just going to go off into the woods.

(laughter)

TRAVIS: Whoof! Jeez! I spit everywhere.

TALIESIN: It's hard-- yeah.

TRAVIS: Oh my god.

TALIESIN: Fists--

TRAVIS: Sounds like a film squib.

(laughter)

LIAM: Let's do that, though. We're a mess, right? We're half muddy and oiled up on the face or whatever it is.

LAURA: Laudna's on death's door, again.

LIAM: Yeah.

MARISHA: Yes.

LIAM: Why don't we find--

TALIESIN: Lie down somewhere.

LIAM: -- somewhere reasonably out of the way-- within, at least,

TALIESIN: Defendable.

LIAM: -- walking distance to this stream, right? You said waterfall illusion and then a real actual river or stream nearby?

TALIESIN: Let's head downstream a little bit then 'til we can't see the waterfall. Stop. I just--

TRAVIS: What?

TALIESIN: Jesus.

ASHLEY: There's going to be some there for all of us.

SAM: I got a portable hole.

LAURA: (laughs) Stupid.

TALIESIN: Yeah, let's go downstream here--

SAM: This fucking Werther.

TALIESIN: -- half an hour and then sit down.

TRAVIS: Had to spit it out.

TRAVIS: Ashton and I will take the lead.

TALIESIN: Yeah, please, thank you.

LIAM: Yes, your butt does go everywhere, we know.

MATT: Okay.

TALIESIN: So wholesome.

MATT: Continuing onward for about a half an hour or so, eventually, the sky, through the broken clouds, the blue begins to go to the sunset colors, the welcoming oranges and pinks and you find a place where you think you might be comfortable enough to take a short rest, if you'd like.

TALIESIN: Yep.

TRAVIS: Yes.

MARISHA: Yes.

TALIESIN: Yes, please.

MARISHA: In this time, I would like to--

TRAVIS: Got to make it rhyme.

SAM: (laughs) Oh man, we've already taken a short rest.

MARISHA: In this time, I would like to Find Familiar to get back what's mine.

MATT: Okay, you got it.

LIAM: I'm taking my short rest on the water.

TALIESIN: I may actually-- Well, yeah, I'm going to bathe, too. This is bullshit.

ASHLEY: Yeah, I'm going to--

LIAM: Is what I'm saying.

ASHLEY: -- do a little bathe as well.

LAURA: Sweet.

TRAVIS: Not me. Let it accumulate. That's how you get the ladies.

LIAM: Building up that musk.

TALIESIN: Okay.

TRAVIS: Yeah.

MATT: All righty.

TALIESIN: I'll take it. I ain't going to argue.

MATT: So you recall Pâté from the ether.

MATT: So you recall Pâté from the ether.

TALIESIN: Eyy!

MATT: Which is wild, because to do this particular ritual, you have to find, and easy enough to find, a corpse that is already somewhat decayed in this space and you find a nearby half-eaten critter.

MARISHA: Oh, yes, okay, so, yeah, I found the bloated remains of a ground squirrel and peel off some of its flesh, to expose its rib cage a little bit. I don't really want a squirrel head, so I rip the squirrel head off, throw it away and use that.

MATT: You cast the spell. It's very similar to those extremely fast time lapse photography of watching animal corpses decay. As it bloats and pulls open, you watch as Pâté's form begins to emerge, magically summoned from within the body, it's like "(Pâté retching)."

LAURA: (laughs)

MATT: "Hello again! Sorry, that was really intense."

MARISHA: You did such a good job.

MATT: "Oh, thank you."

MARISHA: What was it like getting eaten by that thing?

MATT: "I'm not going to lie, it's a new one."

MARISHA: Yes! Oh!

MATT: "That's a new feeling. I think it's awakened something in me."

MARISHA: (intrigued) Oh! (disturbed) Oh.

MATT: "Anyway." (Pâté scuttling) He crawls up onto your shoulder.

MARISHA: Good boy, you did good.

MATT: "Thank you."

MARISHA: Hang on, let me actually read this spell.

SAM: During this short rest, I'm going to be working on my sourdough starter.

(laughter)

MATT: Okay.

SAM: Just feeding the starter, doing an autolyse. Just getting it nice and ready for a next batch of stuff.

MATT: Okay.

TALIESIN: Letters, I got you something, by the way.

SAM: Well, what'd you get?

TALIESIN: Well, I had a bit of a rough time, as I'm sure you heard. And I open up the portable hole. Check this out. I go in and there's a couple boxes of whatever the version of a crate fruit basket of raw Italian ingredients, like canned tomatoes, dough, spices, all of this stuff that I stole from the kitchen that I got raided.

SAM: Oh, the kitchen!

LIAM: Are there also two dead fey warriors in there?

TALIESIN: Yep.

SAM: Oh god.

TALIESIN: Oh, they're starting to go.

SAM: They're naked.

TALIESIN: Well.

LAURA: No, they wouldn't be going yet; it's only been a couple hours.

TALIESIN: It's only been a couple hours and there's no insects--

LIAM: Or 10,000 years.

ASHLEY: Should we leave? Should we take them out?

TALIESIN: So, yeah, all this.

SAM: Thank you, that's so great! I can make some savory treats as well as baked.

TALIESIN: I'm excited for you to be experimenting with this new hobby. I think it's going to be a wonderful, wonderful thing for everybody involved.

SAM: I still can't taste anything, but I figure if I keep trying, maybe it'll just come.

TALIESIN: I think that we're going to figure out how to fix that and I think that it's going to be important that you can cook your own first meal.

SAM: That would be nice.

LIAM: I call out from the river: I can't remember, can you smell?

SAM: (sniffs) Nope.

TALIESIN: Terrible. That was too easy.

LAURA: (laughs)

LIAM: (splashes)

MATT: So while you're all taking the short rest, need a couple of rolls here. Liam, roll a d20 for me.

LIAM: Yes. It's a three.

MATT: A three. All righty.

LAURA: What for?

LIAM: He didn't say.

MATT: Roll another d20.

SAM: Oh boy.

TALIESIN: Oh no.

LIAM: It's a 13.

TRAVIS: This is my favorite shit that you do.

TALIESIN: Yeah, is this bullshit.

LIAM: Just psychological warfare.

MATT: Then roll two d20s for me.

LAURA and SAM: What?!

TRAVIS: Listen, if I'm going to die of old age, I should be rolling the dice.

LIAM: 18 and 13.

MATT: Gotcha, okay.

TALIESIN: Oh boy.

MATT: Let see.

TALIESIN: That was very complicated.

MATT: Marisha, I'll need you to roll a d20.

MARISHA: Is this some Fey shit? Is this because of the Fey Realm?

TALIESIN: I hope so.

LAURA: This is definitely some Fey shit.

MARISHA: This has got to be. Don't fuck me, Ruidus. I don't trust the Ruidus die.

LAURA: No, don't trust that die.

TRAVIS: But we put Oil of Ofey on our faces.

LIAM: (laughs)

MARISHA: Just straight rolls?

MATT: Yeah.

MARISHA: Three.

MATT: Three, both start with a three, okay. Roll another d20.

TRAVIS: (laughs)

MARISHA: 13.

LAURA and MATT: That's exactly what you got!

TALIESIN: What?

MATT: All right, and then roll one more d20 for me.

LAURA: One more, not two more?

MARISHA: Wait, what was the last one you rolled?

LIAM: I rolled two dice and got an 18 and a 13 on the final couple rolls.

MATT: Actually, no, for this, roll two d20s.

LAURA: What if you roll the exact same roll as him?

ASHLEY: That would be--

TRAVIS: (sneezes)

MATT: Gesundheit.

MARISHA: 15 and a four.

MATT: Okay, almost.

LIAM: The spell's broken. You have no power over me.

LAURA: (echoes) Power over me.

TRAVIS: Don't act casual.

TALIESIN: Stop it.

ASHLEY: Yeah, look at him!

TRAVIS: What? What?!

ASHLEY: He's-- right?

MATT: I don't know.

MARISHA: It's got to be something.

ASHLEY: His "trying to be casual" face.

SAM: Did everyone heal up to full?

ASHLEY: I-- Yeah, yeah, yeah.

TALIESIN: As close as you can get to it.

LAURA: I regained some sorcery points.

MATT: Okay.

TALIESIN: I can kind of do some things, but I'm out of rage.

MATT: Blood vial.

LIAM: I got all my fighty stuff back.

MARISHA: Oh, yeah, my spells should be.

TALIESIN: I've got a thing I can do still.

MATT: All righty.

LIAM: Is it the worm?

TALIESIN: It is the worm. As long as it doesn't have rhythm.

MATT: You have your spell back.

LAURA: Yes.

MATT: Everyone else good with their rest?

TRAVIS: Yes.

MATT: What would you like to do?

LAURA: I'm going to to use a 3rd-level that I just got back and I'm going to send a message to Planerider Ryn, right? That's who I should be messaging.

SAM: Unless your heart says that you want to message your father.

LAURA: I can do that later.

ASHLEY: Anytime.

SAM: Just know that that's an option in your life.

LAURA: Thank you, Letters.

ASHLEY: Wait, did we-- What happened? It was bad. It was a bad ending? Last time you left, you saw them?

SAM: She hasn't talked about it, which means that maybe she's not ready to.

ASHLEY: Yeah, that's true.

LAURA: We talked about--

ASHLEY: A little bit.

SAM: Not to us.

ASHLEY: I feel like we did.

MARISHA: I rolled into town, and the town tried to roll me out of it in a very unceremonious way.

LAURA: In a very violent way.

MARISHA: Yes, as they tend to do, and Imogen saved me, also in a very violent way. It was very powerful and impressive. She's very capable.

LAURA: It's the first time I'd ever done anything like that. I didn't even know I could.

MARISHA: But of course, needless to say, a couple of crazy ladies casting magic and maybe murdering a few townsfolk, we quickly had to go on the run, and been together ever since.

ASHLEY: Sometimes people don't like that.

MARISHA: No, no.

ASHLEY: Strong, bitchy, witchy powerful women.

MARISHA: Yes.

LAURA: (laughs)

SAM: But it was-- I mean, did your-- Did your dad do anything to help?

LAURA: No. But he'd been distancing himself from me for years.

SAM: It must have been hard for you.

MARISHA: Do you think it's because he was afraid that you would follow a similar path as your mother?

LAURA: I'm sure he had reasons that I was unaware of. At the time, it felt like it bettered his reputation if I wasn't a part of his life as much anymore. I doubt that's everything, you know, he-- He didn't want to talk about her, and as he realized that I could read thoughts-- A lot of times, before you, I didn't have control over whose thoughts I was reading, it came in like a storm. I would get bits of information that I know he didn't want me to have, so he just kept his distance.

SAM: Sounds like he should talk to someone, too.

LAURA: (laughs)

SAM: Well, you know, if he's all closed off.

LAURA: Yeah.

ASHLEY: His reputation. Was he known for things, or just--

LAURA: Oh, no, we worked for a very, really one of the most powerful men in the town. Master Faramore, he has a lot of businesses around Marquet, and he lives there, and that's where he works out of, so he takes over the town, honestly.

ASHLEY: Master Faramore.

SAM: You worked for him on his farm or something?

LAURA: Yeah, we ran his stables.

SAM: Oh.

ASHLEY: That's right. Ran the stables.

LAURA: Yeah. Anyway, I can message Ryn and let her know.

SAM: That we'll meet her in your dad's house?

LAURA: They were on a path from-- I don't even know.

TRAVIS: Yeah, headed towards--

LAURA: But maybe, you know what? Maybe Ryn does know where the portal is. That's quite possible.

MARISHA: This is true.

LAURA: Because I feel like she mentioned something about it.

SAM: Also, how are we going to know if what we did there in the Fey Realm has had any effect on their plans?

LAURA: We won't. It could be months after that happened. We don't even know what time it is.

TRAVIS: Can we see Ruidus in the sky?

TALIESIN: Felt pretty spectacular. Oh, that's a good question.

MATT: Make a perception check, if you'd like.

LAURA: It's dusk right now, right?

TRAVIS: Hold onto your butts.

SAM: Guidance.

(laughter)

LIAM: Wow!

MARISHA: It bounced off the chair.

TRAVIS: Hold onto your butts.

(laughter)

TALIESIN: That's two cheeks down. I'm out of cheeks, man.

MARISHA: Oh no.

TRAVIS: Four.

(laughter)

SAM: Hazy day.

ASHLEY: Just a lot of clouds.

TRAVIS: Chetney's like this.

MATT: You don't even see a sky.

TRAVIS: My eyelids, they go a little wonky sometimes. Give it a minute.

MATT: (laughs) Make a nature check for me.

LAURA: Who?

MATT: Anybody.

LAURA: I don't know.

ASHLEY: What's nature?

TRAVIS: Oh!

MARISHA: (laughs)

TRAVIS: Natural 20.

(laughter)

TALIESIN: That's something like nurture.

MATT: So you do not see Ruidus in the sky, but you also understand that for a large part of the day, it's not--

TRAVIS: Usually not there.

MATT: -- there. (laughs) At least half of it, if not less, based on the rotation of Exandria as a sphere.

SAM: Like it spins like a vinyl disc?

(laughter)

TALIESIN: Yes, but a sphere.

TRAVIS: (record scratching)

SAM: ♪ Yo! ♪

TRAVIS: That's all the Fey Realm does.

TALIESIN: Fucking--

TRAVIS: (record playing backwards)

MARISHA: (laughs)

MATT: So, what are we doing?

ASHLEY: ♪ Yo! ♪ ♪ I'll tell you what I want, ♪ what I really, really want ♪

SAM: ♪ I'll tell you what I want ♪

LAURA: So yeah, I can send Ryn a message.

LIAM: Also, as far as knowing if we did anything back there, haven't you had a little success poking around in the dreamscape? Could you run a scouting mission? Is that silly? I don't know how it works.

SAM: No, it's not silly.

LAURA: No, we could try that tonight for sure. Certainly, yeah.

MARISHA: Just know that if it goes bad--

LAURA: Maybe this, if we do it again, I won't get as close as I did the last time.

SAM: You might need to to find out if it worked. We got out of it before, we'll be okay.

LAURA: Maybe.

TALIESIN: How many could you drag into that?

SAM: Let me think about that for a second.

(laughter)

TALIESIN: In the meantime.

LAURA: In the meantime.

TALIESIN: Let's get out of here.

LAURA: Okay. Should I send her a message?

TALIESIN: I think so.

ASHLEY: Yeah.

LAURA: Okay, I'll send her a message.

LIAM: Sure, before we change locations, yeah.

TALIESIN: Yeah.

LAURA: We're back from the Fey Realm. Mission accomplished. We're at the portal near the Taloned Highlands. Can you come get us? What day is it?

MATT: Ryn responds.

SAM: How does the calendar work?

MATT: "That is good to know. The other Verity allies are currently vying for the Shadow side as we speak."

LAURA: Oh great.

SAM: What does that mean?

MARISHA: Other people going for the Shadowfell.

SAM: Oh.

MATT: "I'm currently checking out the Tishtan excavation site myself."

MARISHA and SAM: Tishtan.

MARISHA: Is that the first time we've got a name for it?

MATT: Tishtan, you heard in conversation previously about the ancient society that had--

TRAVIS: Ziggurat buildings.

MATT: Yes. Built these strange devices to channel the power of--

TRAVIS: Notes!

MATT: Look at that!

MARISHA: Let's go! Fuck yes! (laughter)

(laughter)

LAURA: (laughs)

MARISHA: So proud.

MATT: You get a spell from Ryn to continue the conversation.

SAM: Oh, nice.

MATT: "There's many Vanguard here. Guardians, golems. They're adjusting, reinforcing things. Bit of a last minute scramble. You must have left an impact."

LAURA: Oh, it's destroyed. (laughs) Yeah. I don't know how to make our way to you.

TRAVIS and SAM: ♪ Making our way to you ♪

(laughter)

LAURA: We don't have means of fast travel.

TRAVIS: Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum over here.

MARISHA: (laughs)

LAURA: But we'd like to be of help.

MATT: Roll a d20 for me.

ASHLEY: We got to figure out how to learn that.

SAM: How to learn that song?

LAURA: Just without anything added?

SAM: ♪ Making my way downtown ♪

MATT: Yeah, just tell me what the number is.

LAURA: A six?

MATT: A six. Okay.

ASHLEY: Bamfing somewhere.

SAM: Can you do that?

MATT: Ryn reaches out with another message connection to you. "(sighs) I understand. Let me finish up at least my scouting mission here. If all goes well on the other side, I should meet some friends of the Verity soon, help set the stage for-- Shit!"

SAM: Oh!

MARISHA: Aw!

MATT: That's all you hear.

MARISHA: No!

LAURA: Oh no. I'm sure she's fine, but something went wrong on their end.

LIAM: How do you know?

MARISHA: Oh my god.

LAURA: Well, she said, "Shit!" And then the message cut off.

ASHLEY: Well, maybe she had to--

LAURA: Shit?

ASHLEY: Shit.

LAURA: Yeah, maybe.

TALIESIN: But you don't say it like that if you're--

ASHLEY: No, you don't.

TALIESIN: No.

LIAM: No, not even when you step in it.

TALIESIN: Nope.

ASHLEY: Yeah.

LAURA: Fuck.

SAM: So we're probably not getting a ride today.

LAURA: Probably not.

TALIESIN: Well.

LIAM: So run that down again.

LAURA: Okay.

LIAM: They're outside of, you said the Tishtan Excavation?

LAURA: Yeah. And apparently there's another group that's taking care of the, they're trying to take care of the key in the Shadow Realm. They're amassing their forces, their group, to go for the one here, but it sounds like-- It sounds like--

LIAM: Well, we're still up shit's creek without Ryn.

LAURA: They're gathering their defenses there, too.

TALIESIN: Well, we've got the excavation site. In theory, we have a ship if we call them and see how many days it would take for us to meet up with them if we headed straight towards them.

LAURA: That's true.

LIAM: Yeah.

MARISHA: Just knowing, even from going to Jrusar, to Bassuras for example, would I have a vague notion, or any of us have a vague notion, of how long that would take to travel via airship from where they are to here?

MATT: From where--

LIAM: It's not quite the same distance.

MATT: No, no, no. Because they're currently moored in Yios.

LAURA: The city of--

MARISHA: Yios, right. No, I'm just saying, just knowing the amount of time that it took for us to travel, can I deduce where--

LIAM: I'm looking at the map.

MATT: Sure.

MARISHA: -- how long it would take--

LIAM: From where we are.

MARISHA: -- to get from Yios to where we are?

MATT: Make an intelligence check for me. I'll say with advantage because you've made the journey from the Highlands northward to Jrusar, so you at least can loosely triangulate your current position and where you've traveled. That might help you to at least--

MARISHA: Straight int check.

MATT: Yeah.

MARISHA: (laughs) Both of them are eights for a nine.

MATT: For a nine, okay.

SAM: Nice.

MATT: It's tough to--

MARISHA: Imogen and Laudna dice.

(laughter)

LAURA: Mm, mm, mm.

(laughter)

MATT: It's tough to make any details. From the journey and what you saw, watching the skyship path to Yios, it's probably no more than a few days to get to where you are now via skyship.

MARISHA: Okay.

MATT: Then if it took you about-- Safely from Jrusar to Yios, they said it was about 11 days.

MARISHA: Mm-hmm. But if you cut right through the Hellcatch to get there, it would've taken seven to eight, with the possibilities of dangers involved. You're going into the Hellcatch, which has its own challenges. Yeah, a few days to get to here, and then a week or more to get there.

MARISHA: (flaps lips)

LAURA: We could miss it.

MARISHA: Ryn didn't say what day it was.

MATT: You have 13 days 'til the Solstice.

LAURA: So it is, we do have 13 days still. We didn't miss any time? The paste helped?

MATT: As far as you can tell right now, and with the promise of Morri, nothing too much has changed. It takes you a short time to figure out that society hasn't crumbled, nothing's gone terribly.

LAURA: (laughs)

MATT: So yeah, 13 days 'til the Solstice. Don't give me that look, Travis Willingham.

TRAVIS: What were those rolls for?

LAURA: What were those rolls for?

MATT: I don't know.

LAURA: Was it-- (sighs)

TRAVIS: Hey, Orym, make sure you don't have a third nipple or something all of a sudden.

LIAM: I've always had a third nipple.

TRAVIS: Huh!

LIAM: Get better perception, bro.

TRAVIS: It's on your forearm?

MARISHA: Yeah, that's why he was scratching it.

TRAVIS: (groaning)

(laughter)

ASHLEY: What time is it? It's afternoon?

LAURA: It's dusk, right?

MATT: At this point, it's past sunset. You're starting to push into the evening.

MARISHA: Well, I don't want to be Miss Doom and Gloom over here--

TRAVIS: Too late.

MARISHA: Yeah. But hopefully Ryn is okay. But if they're not, we can't waste any time. Should we just make the call to--

LIAM: We could always--

MARISHA: Tell them to--

LIAM: -- call them off if Ryn's coming to get us.

LAURA: Sure. I've got one 4th-level spell left that I can Send a message to-- Do you have it prepared today?

SAM: No, I do not.

LAURA: But I could send a message to the captain.

MARISHA: Might as well.

TALIESIN: I think it's the right call.

TRAVIS: Just to be sure, not to beat a dead horse, I'm sure Fauna's fine, but you really don't want to visit home, or your dad, or-- What?

LAURA: What the fuck?

SAM: There's lots of stuff in here.

MARISHA: Condoms?

TRAVIS: These aren't big enough.

(laughter)

TRAVIS: You sure you don't want to visit your dad just in case he has, I don't know, a tchotchke that could sway your mom in a moment of conflict?

TALIESIN: Take a point of stress.

LAURA: We can head towards Gelvaan. At least it'll give us a point of contact for the ship, all right?

ASHLEY: You just relax.

LAURA: But if they intercept us on the way, then that's even better.

TRAVIS: I agree.

ASHLEY: Great.

TRAVIS: Time is of the essence.

LAURA: All right. I'm going to Send a message to Captain...

MATT: Xandis.

LIAM: Xandis.

LAURA: Xandis. With a 4th-level--

LIAM and SAM: Captain Xandis.

MATT: (laughs)

LAURA: Then we're going to go to sleep, right? We're going to go to sleep?

TALIESIN and TRAVIS: Yes.

SAM and LIAM: Yeah.

LAURA: All right.

TALIESIN: Oh, yes.

LAURA: All right. So we're not in Yios anymore. We need you to head towards Gelvaan in the Taloned Highlands to pick us up. As fast as possible.

MATT: (Xandis) "Oh, well then, that is-- Wow, you're just going all over the place. Okay. Let me sober up about an hour and we'll start going."

MARISHA: (laughs)

LAURA: Great.

SAM: Did he say how long it would take?

LAURA: Nope.

SAM: Great. Well, we'll check in tomorrow.

LAURA: Yeah. I can't imagine it would be faster than a day.

SAM: Yeah. Yeah.

TRAVIS: About what time is it now?

MATT: Actually, at about this point in time, the sun has set and evening has come to the dense jungles of the Taloned Highlands. The place where you took a short rest is as safe as any place you could probably find here amongst the non-being hunted by a fey dragon arena of your day. If there's anything you'd wish to attend to before the night's done, you can make camp here, if you'd like.

LAURA: Yeah, we should make camp.

TALIESIN: We should probably do something with these bodies in the hole.

LAURA and MATT: (laugh)

TRAVIS: Oh shit.

MARISHA: Oh.

TRAVIS: You're right.

LAURA: It'll stink up that--

LIAM: Yeah.

TALIESIN: Yeah, it's just going to fuck up all the food.

ASHLEY: Should we throw them back through the gate?

LAURA: In the stream? Oh.

TALIESIN: Well, I mean--

ASHLEY: Oh, the stream.

LAURA: That's true. No, maybe we should just throw them through the gate.

ASHLEY: So then they're home?

TRAVIS: I don't know if he would appreciate that very much.

LAURA: Well, what is he going to do?

TALIESIN: You don't know.

TRAVIS: I don't know. I don't want to tempt it, though.

LAURA: What if he likes it? We could be giving him a present. He could eat it, right?

TALIESIN: I'm having a hard time denying that logic.

ASHLEY: Tasty snack.

LAURA: Yeah, I'm going to write a little note and tie it on the ankle of one of those soldiers that says--

TALIESIN: Wait, there's something we should do. We have to make sure we go through all of their shit just in case they have something.

LAURA: Yes, of course.

ASHLEY: Yes, yes, of course.

LAURA: Go through their shit.

TALIESIN: I'll start that.

LAURA: But I'm going to write a little note that says, "A tasty snack." Oh shit, I should rhyme this, shouldn't I?

ASHLEY: Yeah. You should rhyme it.

SAM: Yeah, of course you should.

LAURA: Goddamn it.

LIAM: We're going to toss their corpses through a waterfall?

TRAVIS: They're just going to-- (limp bodies splash)

LIAM: We could bury them.

TRAVIS: Yep.

TALIESIN: Thank you back there--

LAURA: Yeah.

TALIESIN: Okay, if you want to go for it, that's fine. I'm not going to--

LAURA: Thanks for your help, and out of the blue, a tasty little snack just for you.

ASHLEY: That's great. That's great.

LAURA: That's what I'll put on there.

LIAM: He's in another dimension.

TALIESIN: Yeah.

MATT: You tag the ankle of the corpses and you backtrack to the portal where you had come through, and you throw the corpses through the waterfall?

LAURA: Yeah. (laughs)

MATT: Okay.

SAM: Thank you for your service.

TALIESIN: We've clearly gone through and taken all--

TRAVIS: And a-one, and a-two, and a-three.

MATT: You inspected the corpses previously--

TALIESIN: Yeah, what did they have?

MATT: -- and discovered that they didn't have much beyond their armor and weapons. Like many soldiers that are maintaining sentry of a keep, most of their belongings they keep in a footlocker or a personal space.

TALIESIN: Sometimes they have cigarettes or a little flask or something.

MATT: That's true. These didn't.

TALIESIN: I don't know. A letter from home.

MATT: Yeah, as you ragdoll them through the waterfall--

TALIESIN: Oh memories.

MATT: Like so many wonderful "Half-Life 2" playthroughs.

(laughter)

MATT: They (splashing) through the water, and that's when it makes the sound. The running water makes nothing, but the impact of the bodies (limp bodies splashing). And they're gone.

LAURA and SAM: Oh.

TALIESIN: Well, let's head back now before something weird happens.

LAURA: Yeah.

TALIESIN: Yeah.

LIAM: Creepy, creepy, creepy.

LAURA: Go, go, go, go.

MATT: Rediscover the place where you decided to set up camp. Prepare for an evening's rest.

TALIESIN: Oh, thank god.

MATT: Is there anything else you want to prepare for the night?

TRAVIS: I'll take first watch because I'd actually like to go on patrol, if that's okay, and stretch my legs.

SAM: Sure.

TRAVIS: Go find a bunny or a deer or something.

SAM: Get the taste of blood in your mouth.

TRAVIS: Yeah, this is actually pretty familiar. Before we all met, this was my shit.

SAM: Okay.

LAURA: All right.

LIAM: I'll stay up at camp while you run about in the woods.

TRAVIS: Yeah.

MATT: Okay.

TRAVIS: Deep circle. Don't worry. I won't, you know, won't bring it home with me or anything.

LIAM: You don't actually sleep, right?

SAM: I power down for a while.

LIAM: You power down. When everyone's asleep and Chet's off running around I'm going to go, dink, dink, dink on your head. You awake?

SAM: Do you want me to be awake?

LIAM: Yeah, is that okay?

SAM: Yes, I'm awake.

LIAM: You okay?

SAM: Well, I've been a little on edge lately, if that's what you mean.

LIAM: Well, I've always done a thing where, I mean, it feels great to help people and serve other people. That just feels good in and of itself, but I do this thing where sometimes I'm always trying to help other people because it's easier to not focus on my own stuff.

SAM: Mm-hmm.

LIAM: Do you follow?

SAM: Yeah.

LIAM: Are you okay?

SAM: I mean, I have a new clarity. I feel like there's someone out there who's helping me. It seemed silly at first, but it seems to be working a little bit. I know that I'm not going to learn anything more about myself from the past, and so I just got to make a new future for myself, and the only thing that I got to go on is, I got this coin and I got possibilities and that's it. I'm just going to follow that and see where it takes me.

LIAM: You might learn more about yourself someday if all of this blows over.

SAM: It seems like everybody who knew anything about me has been dead for 998 years.

LIAM: There's libraries, there's historians, there's-- We've heard stories about other beings like you.

SAM: Yeah, yeah. I mean, maybe, but it seems like I was one of a large group of instruments of death. Maybe I was different somehow, but maybe I was just the same. But it doesn't matter. I think the Changebringer's trying to tell me to just keep looking ahead, looking forward, and don't worry about getting bogged down with whatever I was then. Sort of reinvent what I can be now.

LIAM: Are you hearing them?

SAM: The Changebringer?

LIAM: Yeah.

SAM: She's talking to me in this coin.

LIAM: Okay. Well, I like you having a direction you like.

SAM: So far so good. I mean, I want to give it a go and see if this is the way. Maybe it is.

LIAM: Okay. Well, I don't want to pry, I just notice you, I mean, you always have, but really making an effort with everyone else, and I know that you've been a little edgy yourself and I just--

SAM: I sure have. I didn't want to tell anybody, but today I was-- I got the urge a couple times to like, really kill Chetney.

LAURA: (laughs)

SAM: But like, really, though.

LIAM: I think that's natural.

SAM: No, I mean, I started to spin the old blade. I was close.

LIAM: Well, please don't do that.

SAM: I'll try not to.

LIAM: Okay. Well, good talk.

SAM: Sorry.

LIAM: No.

SAM: I feel like I should--

LIAM: I'm just trying to--

SAM: -- tell you more, but there's nothing to tell. I feel like I'm a big question mark, you know? And no one's going to answer the question, so.

LIAM: Yeah, but Letters, here's the thing, that's what we all feel like.

SAM: Hmm.

LIAM: Someone's got to help the helpers.

SAM: You feel that way even though you know where you've been and what your purpose is?

LIAM: I mean, I don't know what my place is in the world. I don't know why the things that have happened, happened. I don't understand what the gods are doing. I don't understand why someone wants to destroy the gods. It's all a big wash.

SAM: But you know you want to protect your Voice, your Voice of the Tempest. You have that mission.

LIAM: Yes.

SAM: You want to do right by the name of your husband and his father.

LIAM: That is my prime directive, yeah.

SAM: Is that all? Is that enough for you?

LIAM: For right now it is.

SAM: What happens if you succeed?

LIAM: Well, that's the question mark. I don't know what comes next. But you know, we're probably getting ahead of ourselves because everything is maybe going to turn inside out in 13 days.

SAM: I think it'll be fine.

LIAM: I like that. I like that optimism.

SAM: Optimism is the bet -ism.

(laughter)

LIAM: Smiley night.

SAM: You too. (powers down)

MATT: (laughs)

TRAVIS: (snarls) (howls)

(laughter)

MARISHA: We're going to die.

TRAVIS: (belches)

MATT: While Chetney is off on a--

SAM: One less chipmunk.

MATT: -- hunting spree--

TRAVIS: Yeah.

MATT: -- Orym keeping his watchful gaze upon the rest of you in this chilly blanket of safety around this dull campfire you've maintained, a night of long-needed rest after an extensively exhausting day comes to you. That's where we'll take a break.

TRAVIS: Oh.

MATT: Back here in a few minutes.

MARISHA: Long rest?

MATT: Pick up for the--

TALIESIN: Can I hit that long rest button?

MATT: Yep, you get a long rest. You can hit that button.

ASHLEY: Boy oh boy.

LAURA: All right!

MATT: (laughs)

TALIESIN: Oh!

MATT: We'll come back here in a little bit and pick up with the morning sunrise.

LIAM: Hit that button.

MATT: See you guys in a minute.

SAM: Whoo-hoo!

TRAVIS: (howls)

Part II
MATT: And welcome back. (laughter) So--

SAM: Beef dick.

MATT: Way too late on the draw there, Sam.

(laughter)

MATT: Y'all are getting sloppy.

LIAM: (groans)

MATT: After a night's rest, a much-needed rest for all of you--

MARISHA: Yes.

ASHLEY: I feel better.

MATT: The morning light and the warmth calls you to consciousness as you are now 12 days from the Solstice.

LAURA: Aw, jeez.

MARISHA: Oh, he's got a little ticker. Did you see that?

TRAVIS: Uh-huh.

MARISHA: He made a note.

LIAM: Do any of us need to roll any random d20s for no reason?

MARISHA: Yeah, what--

MATT: Sure, go for it.

LIAM: It's three.

LAURA: Oh god.

SAM: Oh no.

LAURA: Started with a three again.

SAM: Roll four more d20s, followed by 17 more.

TRAVIS: It's a new day, so I'll roll for Chetney.

MATT: You roll 2d6 and 1d8, please.

TRAVIS: He's alive.

(laughter)

ASHLEY: He's okay.

LIAM: 2d6 and 1d8. Is this just Rollies?

MATT: Yeah.

(laughter)

TALIESIN: Make you feel every morning--

LIAM: I got eight on the eight and a one and a three on the sixes.

MATT: Congratulations.

TALIESIN: And somehow a seven on the d6.

LIAM: Yay.

MATT and LAURA: (laugh)

SAM: It's important for a man of his age.

ASHLEY: Oh my god.

MATT: All right. So, the day is yours. What would you like to do?

LAURA: I guess--

TALIESIN: Shopping episode.

LIAM: Well.

SAM: No sign of Ryn? Oh! We can talk to people, though.

LIAM: Yes.

TALIESIN and LAURA: Yeah.

LAURA: Did you take the spell today, too?

SAM: I haven't chosen my spells, but that's certainly one that I will choose today, yes. To answer your question from yesterday, I can take me plus two other people into a dreamland if we ever wanted to do that.

LAURA: All right.

TALIESIN: That might be fun because I think I'm probably like, I might be like a wonderful psychic time bomb if you want to just have some way of--

SAM: Of getting us out?

TALIESIN: Or at the very least, I don't know, I think if anyone tried to get in my head, it would probably go especially poorly in there.

LAURA: Well, speaking from experience, yes.

SAM: Oh yeah.

TALIESIN: There's no sense not--

ASHLEY: Yeah, you guys got stuck in there.

TALIESIN: I'd hate to have anything we're not taking advantage of.

SAM: Anyone else, by the way, I don't want anyone to feel left out. If anyone else wants me to go into your dreams and poke around...

ASHLEY: Really?

SAM: Just to sort of-- You know, feel free to--

LAURA: Yeah.

SAM: I'm open. I don't know, yours might be rated NC-17.

TRAVIS: Mine?

SAM: Uh-huh.

LAURA: Nah, it'd just be dreams of him chasing--

LIAM: Cars.

LAURA: Carriages, yeah.

SAM and TRAVIS: (laugh)

ASHLEY: Would it be possible to, we can do it later, but to just check in with Nana?

LAURA: Oh, sure, yeah.

TALIESIN: That's a good idea.

ASHLEY: Maybe?

LAURA: Yeah.

ASHLEY: No rush. I bet she's fine.

SAM: Still choosing spells, but I can do it.

ASHLEY: You know.

LAURA: Sure. I'm going to--

ASHLEY: Just to make sure.

LAURA: -- Send a message to-- Well, you can probably Send a message to Xandis and see where they are.

SAM: Whatever you need.

MATT: Mm-hmm.

LAURA: Nana Morri, are you all right? I can't thank you enough for what you did. We made it out safely. Fearne's very concerned and making sure that you're healthy and not injured in any way.

ASHLEY: Yeah.

MATT: A moment later you get a response from Morri. "Oh."

TRAVIS: (laughs)

MATT: "Least I could do. Maybe have to make amends in a bit. If they're bold enough to visit."

TRAVIS: (whispers) Oh my god.

LAURA: She's fine.

ASHLEY: She's fine. I thought so. Okay, great. Great, great.

LAURA: Yeah.

ASHLEY: She's so tough.

LAURA: Yeah.

MARISHA: Old enough--

ASHLEY: So tough, so strong.

TALIESIN: We should go back there soon.

TRAVIS: Oh my god.

LIAM: She's the Babadook.

TRAVIS: No thanks, dude.

ASHLEY: She's really cool. That's my Nana.

TALIESIN: Mamadook. Marmaduke?

MARISHA: Yeah.

ASHLEY: All right.

MARISHA: Weird comic.

LAURA: Keep heading towards Gelvaan, I assume.

TRAVIS: Yeah.

LAURA: Because that's where I told 'em to pick us up.

MARISHA: Do we want to check in with, you mentioned Xandis, which is good, and also probably Ryn.

LAURA: Yeah.

LIAM: I might want to check in back home, too. I know we got a lot on our plate.

MARISHA: Home meaning?

LIAM: My home.

MARISHA: Your home.

LAURA: With the Tempest?

LIAM: Yes.

LAURA: All right.

LIAM: I don't know what I want to say yet, though, so don't start with me.

LAURA: All right, maybe would you want to wait until the end of the day to check in?

LIAM: Yeah.

LAURA: All right. Do you want to send a message to Xandis?

SAM: Sure. That's our skyship person, right?

MATT: Yep, that's your captain.

LAURA: That's right.

LIAM: Captain Xandis.

SAM: Sure. I will send a Sending.

MATT: Okay. So Send a message to them--

SAM: Wait--

MATT: What are you saying?

SAM: -- what am I asking?

LAURA: How much closer they are, how long it'll be until they get here.

SAM: Okay, okay, okay. (shouts) Captain Xandis. (normal volume) Bells Hells here.

TRAVIS: ♪ Captain Xandis, Captain Xandis ♪

SAM: What is your ETA?

LAURA: Is that three words, or one?

TRAVIS: No.

LAURA: Estimated time of arrival. Anyway.

SAM: (laughs) And... (whispers) What else? That's all we need, right?

TRAVIS: That's all we need.

LAURA and MATT: (laugh)

SAM: (laughs)

TRAVIS: This is a collect call, so.

MATT: Yeah.

SAM: (shouts) That's it!

MATT and SAM: (laugh)

MARISHA: (beeping)

TRAVIS: You got six more.

SAM: ♪ Captain Xandis, Captain Xandis. ♪

(laughter)

MATT: "Bells Hells, this is Captain Xandis back to you."

(laughter)

MATT: "Yeah, man, going through the night, got about a day and a half before we arrive. So be ready."

LAURA: Oh shit, you should've asked how long it would take to get here.

MATT: "♪ I'm the captain ♪ ♪ I'm the captain ♪" That's it.

(laughter)

TRAVIS: Just a happy cappy guy.

LAURA: That's okay, all right.

MARISHA and ASHLEY: All right.

LAURA: And we keep walking? I assume-- Oh god, should I check in with Ryn? I imagine she would check in with us, with having been cut off so abruptly, but--

MARISHA: I hope she's alive.

TALIESIN: My feeling is--

SAM: We should probably check in with her, because if we start walking toward Gelvaan, that's the name of the town?

LAURA: Yeah.

SAM: Gelvaan? Jovan?

LAURA: Gelvaan.

SAM: Gelvaan?

LAURA: Yeah.

SAM: And she pops up here to find us, then we won't be here.

TALIESIN: Yeah, but one would assume that she would contact us, and if she's not contacting us, there's probably a good reason. So maybe it's best to let that... I don't know, my immediate thought--

SAM: What if she's in trouble, though?

TALIESIN: -- is to lie. Well, if she's in trouble--

LAURA: If she's in trouble, there's nothing we can do.

TRAVIS: Should I use my Planerider link with her?

SAM: (laughs)

ASHLEY and LAURA: Mm-hmm.

LAURA: Would you, Chet? That would be great.

TRAVIS: Sure. Ryn, come in. C-POP here. Let us know you're okay. Oh?

SAM and LAURA: (laugh)

TRAVIS: Oh good. Yes, I understand. It's okay to be jelly. Very well, I'll let them know. Thank you. She's fine.

LAURA: That's great.

ASHLEY: That's good.

MARISHA: I don't know how to respond to that.

LAURA: Why does he keep rolling things without... Why?

TALIESIN: One would assume we're walking right now, right? We are--

LAURA: Yeah, we're walking.

TALIESIN: Okay.

MATT: Okay. So who's leading the journey back to Gelvaan? You're the most learned person here.

LAURA: Yeah, we've been through these woods a lot.

MATT: Yeah. Probably not quite this far in the jungle.

LAURA: Not these woods, but similar.

MATT: You can make a survival check with advantage because this is more or less close to your home turf and you have a strong lead, especially between that and Laudna's guidance direction on where you have to get going.

LAURA: Did you say you Guided me? Was that you what you said?

ASHLEY: Yeah.

LAURA: You Guided?

ASHLEY: Yeah.

LAURA: Is that what you said?

ASHLEY: I said, "You got it," but I'm Guiding you.

(laughter)

MARISHA: You got it.

ASHLEY: You Guided it. (laughter)

(laughter)

TRAVIS: Splitting the line now.

SAM and TRAVIS: (slurred) You guide it.

(laughter)

TRAVIS: You got it.

LAURA: You guide it.

ASHLEY: I was going to Guide you for sure.

(laughter)

MATT: That's amazing.

TRAVIS: You guide it.

LAURA: I feel wishy-washy taking that Guidance.

ASHLEY: Okay.

LAURA: 15.

MATT: 15. 15's not too bad.

ASHLEY and LAURA: (laugh)

ASHLEY: You guide it.

MATT: It's a, I would say, somewhat treacherous up and down. The landscape here tends to drop and then climb higher. As you go further south in the Taloned Highlands, it just begins to climb. Most of this region is varying degrees of mountain terrain. Many levels, or various places have been leveled off to create farm-ready landscapes, bits of civilization, journeys and steps and all means of transportation through and throughout this portion of Marquet. But where you are now, where it begins to really settle towards the center of the region, it definitely becomes a hike, a perpetual hike at a upward angle. Switch back, climbing, the whole deal. It's a bit of a physical workout for all of you.

LAURA: Would I know where the main road is that leads up into?

MATT: You would, but you're so off the path from where you started--

LAURA: We're trying to make our way to that.

MATT: Yeah, you're trying to get to that.

LAURA: ♪ Makin' our way ♪

MATT: Trying to ♪ make your way, ♪ while also getting over in the direction of the city. So the day is-- It's not a fast climb, I'll say. I'd like everyone to make a constitution saving throw for me, if you don't mind.

MARISHA and SAM: Oh.

TALIESIN: That's always fun.

LIAM: I'll use the Keyleth die.

TRAVIS: Is this the magic effect?

(laughs)

MATT: No.

LIAM: Oh, I shouldn't have used the Keyleth. Thanks, Keyleth.

MATT: (laughs)

TALIESIN: Ah, thanks, Keyleth. No, don't do that. That was a terrible, terrible roll.

MATT: Ashton?

TALIESIN: 10.

MATT: 10, okay.

LIAM: Seven.

MATT: Seven.

LAURA: 11.

SAM: Oof. What are these rolls?

ASHLEY: 10.

MATT: 10.

SAM: Constitution save?

MATT: Yes.

SAM: 21.

LAURA: Whoa.

MATT: All right.

LIAM: Well, you're a robot.

MARISHA: 16.

MATT: 16.

SAM: Oh yeah.

TRAVIS: 13.

MATT: 13, okay. Anyone under 10, which I believe is you two--

LAURA: Well, you were 10.

ASHLEY: I got a 10.

MATT: Sorry, you're 10. Under 10 was--

MARISHA: Someone got a seven.

LIAM: I got an eight.

LAURA: Oh, you were under 10.

LIAM: Yeah, eight.

LAURA: Oh.

MATT: Yeah, so you get a point of exhaustion.

LIAM: (groans) Consarn it.

MATT: Just from the challenge of the journey and trying to keep up, whether it be you overextended yourself the day before, or just the perpetual ask of physical endurance and strength, as opposed to the litheness and precision that you use as your specialty. The exhaustion begins to kick in as the day progresses.

LIAM: I also stayed up all night.

SAM: Did you not stretch? You got to do your stretches.

LAURA: I know. Actually, when we woke up you weren't doing your workout.

LIAM: I did them before you got up and I think I pulled a hammy.

ASHLEY: Do you want a piggyback?

LIAM: Yeah.

ASHLEY: Okay.

SAM: She turns into a pig.

LIAM: That affects skill checks, and then I can't remember. Those are at disadvantage and attacks are at disadvantage?

MATT: I think it's at three, I think.

LIAM: Three.

SAM: I think it's just ability checks.

MATT: Yeah, just ability checks for the first one.

LIAM: Okay.

TALIESIN: Should save you, kicking on the--

LIAM: I'm sure I can google it.

TALIESIN: Well, I mean, it should--

MARISHA: If you put it on conditions.

TALIESIN: If you hit conditions.

MARISHA: It's at the very bottom.

LIAM: I could do that.

ASHLEY: ♪ Conditions ♪

LIAM: I'm such a good player.

ASHLEY and LAURA: ♪ Conditions ♪

LIAM: I never hit conditions.

SAM: ♪ Yiddle diddle diddle ♪

MATT: Are you moving at a progressively stealthy, like a half-speed stealthy rate or are you just powering through for the day?

SAM: Power, we're power.

LAURA: Yeah, we're powering. I don't think we're probably stealthy.

SAM: ♪ Condition ♪

ASHLEY: ♪ Pedal to the metal ♪

MARISHA: Occasionally maybe send Pâté out to do a little drone scout.

SAM: (deeply) Uh-oh.

MATT: "Don't worry, I got you."

MARISHA: Yes.

MATT: (blows raspberry)

TRAVIS: Yeah.

(laughter)

TRAVIS: Loudest drone ever.

SAM: Da da dat.

TRAVIS: (as Pâté) "Look out, coming through."

(laughter)

MATT: Just him going "(shouts)" Just screaming the whole time. (laughter)

(laughter)

SAM: (as Pâté) "Ooh!"

MATT: Terrifying. Thankfully, this first day's journey is relatively uneventful. It seems that there are no dangerous or threatening wildlife that caught notice of you, in spite of you traveling without a stealthy interest in mind. But eventually, the day does begin to draw to a close.

LAURA: Oh shit.

MATT: You're about a half a day to a day's journey to Gelvaan before you begin to see the sky color begin to shift and change. You can push through the night if you want to get there closer and threaten possible future exhaustion, or you could camp out for the night.

TRAVIS: ♪ Makin' our way ♪

LAURA: I think we camp, right? Because--

TRAVIS: Nah, keep pushing on. Yeah, we camp.

LAURA: Because the ship won't even be there by--

TRAVIS: Yeah.

LAURA: What do you guys think?

SAM: I think--

TRAVIS: Well, let me ask--

SAM: Of course, time is starting to tick.

LAURA: So we push on?

SAM: I'm getting worried, but that's just me.

TRAVIS: What is this area like? I mean, is it pretty chill, or is it like, "Oh, so and so went out into the woods and was never heard from again"?

MATT: Little bit of column A, little bit of column B. I mean, any place beyond civilization in Exandria comes with its own dangers.

ASHLEY: (laughs)

MARISHA: We could always split the difference.

TRAVIS: It's very noncommittal. I'm a little disappointed in you. I thought you were on your horse and you would ride a bit more, get a more detailed report.

LAURA: Well, when I'm on my horse, I'm riding fast, you know?

TRAVIS: Fast?

TALIESIN: What do you mean, split the difference?

MARISHA: Just trying to walk for a few more hours in the dark, that way we can maybe-- Or get to bed early so we can get up early.

LAURA: Have we made it... Are we anywhere near the main road?

MATT: You're probably a few hours away from the main road before you start heading directly in the direction of Gelvaan on the primary climb up the mountain to the first major plateau, which is where Gelvaan resides.

ASHLEY: I mean, tomorrow it'll be 11 days until the Solstice.

LAURA: Yeah.

ASHLEY: I kind of feel like we should hustle.

LAURA: The ship won't be there, so we can hustle there and sit around, or we can--

TRAVIS: We could get there and have time for conversation.

TALIESIN: Or shopping.

SAM: You could see your... See your horse.

TRAVIS: Give a couple extra sugar cubes. (smacks)

SAM: Do that thing where you comb its hair. I think that's what people do.

(laughter)

LAURA: Something like that.

SAM: Smell its breath and--

LAURA: Yeah. Nothing better than horse breath.

SAM: Well, I don't know.

LAURA: Similar to Chet's, actually.

ASHLEY and LAURA: (laugh)

SAM: Do that rub noses thing.

LAURA: Uh-huh.

TRAVIS: Make sure you look it right in the eye. Mm-hmm.

LAURA: Uh-huh. Walk behind it.

TRAVIS: Let's keep going.

MATT: Yeah, what's the plan?

TRAVIS: We keep going a couple more hours. Split the diff.

TALIESIN: I'm okay with a couple more hours.

MATT: Okay. Couple more hours. You all continue to push on forward. It is still a climb for the next couple hours as you--

LAURA: In the dark.

MATT: In the dark.

LAURA: Climb... in the dark.

MATT: Are you still--

MARISHA: It's a challenge!

MATT: -- helming this journey? At this point?

LAURA: I assume so. Okay. Make another survival check for me.

TRAVIS: Do we need somebody with darkvision?

LAURA: Goddamn it.

SAM: You got this.

MARISHA: I do have darkvision.

SAM: You guide this. I'll Guide you.

MATT: (laughs)

MARISHA: You guide this.

LAURA: (laughs) Goddamn it. Y'all, I just don't want to go, so I'm sorry to tell you, but my rolls are dogshit. 11.

MATT: 11, okay, okay.

TALIESIN: Can't win all the time.

MATT: You do gain some ground before you begin to feel the surroundings are a little unfamiliar and you feel uncomfortable pushing any further, which does stop you from getting as much progress as you could, but it also stops you before hitting a point in time where extended exhaustion may become a threat. So, eventually you camp down for the night and set up.

MARISHA: Before we sleep, do we want to now try and check in with Ryn?

LAURA: Yeah.

SAM: Sure.

TALIESIN and LAURA: Yeah.

LAURA: Sure, I'll Send a message.

SAM: I'll Send a message at the same time.

(laughter)

TRAVIS: (beeping) We're sorry.

MARISHA: (laughs) It's busy.

LAURA: Are you all right?

SAM: Ryn, it's the Bells Hells.

LAURA: Goddamn it. (laughter)

(laughter)

TRAVIS: Oh. (laughs)

MATT: (laughs)

TALIESIN: Oh.

MARISHA: (laughs)

LAURA: (laughs) Keep going.

SAM: We are close to Gelvaan.

MARISHA: (laughs)

SAM: (whispers) Are you okay? That's all.

MATT: Do you continue your spell? You've already used the slot.

TRAVIS: You've got 22 words left.

LAURA: Oh my god. My compatriots--

SAM: I forgot one thing.

LAURA: -- are assholes!

SAM: I miss you.

(laughter)

LAURA: Is there anything we can do?

SAM: Bye.

(laughter)

LAURA: If you just want to transport me, I understand.

MATT and MARISHA: (laugh)

MATT: Okay. (laughs)

SAM: (laughs)

MATT: No response.

SAM and LAURA: (groan)

LAURA: God, that's not good.

SAM: You messed up my spell.

LIAM: (laughs)

ASHLEY: It could've been because you were doing it at the same time.

SAM: It could've been confusing.

ASHLEY: Maybe you should try it again.

SAM: Nah, I think she's busy.

MARISHA: Or dead!

SAM: Don't say that!

TALIESIN and MARISHA: Well--

TALIESIN: Doesn't make it any more likely.

MARISHA: I'm not the first to say it.

SAM: Changebringer, is she dead? She's not. This does not lie yet. Yet.

LAURA: (laughs)

SAM: That's how faith works.

LAURA: I think she's been taken.

TALIESIN: I think it just did.

ASHLEY: I think she's been taken.

SAM: She's alive.

TRAVIS: Any other messages before we sleep?

ASHLEY: Or is that 1,000 feet?

LAURA: I think we should dream.

MARISHA: Yes.

TRAVIS: We should dream? Oh, you're going to do the--

LAURA: I think I should try the--

TRAVIS: Yeah.

LAURA: Try to see where she is, what's going on.

TRAVIS: Operation Dreamweaver.

SAM: Oh, oh, oh, oh, yeah.

MARISHA: Oh, that's true.

ASHLEY: I pull out my lavender. I pull out all my little things.

LAURA: All the things?

ASHLEY: Yes.

LAURA: The tea?

ASHLEY: The tea.

TALIESIN: Who's going to go in?

SAM: Oh, I can-- I mean, I can go.

LAURA: Yeah.

SAM: I can bring Laudna.

ASHLEY: I think Laudna has to go.

LIAM: Are you able to do all the things that you can do?

LAURA: There? No.

MARISHA: No. You're just an incorporeal floating orby thingy.

TALIESIN: Did you--

MARISHA: Kind of just--

TALIESIN: How did you-- could you interact? Could you move around? Could you do anything?

MARISHA: No.

LAURA: How was it for you? I felt like I was pulling y'all along with me.

SAM: Well, I mean, you know the way more than us.

LAURA: It was nice having you there.

MARISHA: Little autonomous, but yes, it feels more like we're more of a support system.

SAM: Remind me, when it was time to sort of snap out of it, what did we have to roll?

MARISHA: I was going to say, I think it's someone who has a very strong mind. Right?

SAM: Intelligence, wisdom?

LAURA: Was it a wisdom?

SAM: I can't remember.

MARISHA: I feel like it was a wisdom.

LAURA: Or charisma, it might have been charisma.

SAM: We'll find out.

TRAVIS: It could have been one of these three stats.

(laughter)

TALIESIN: These are all things I should not be involved in.

TRAVIS: I believe it's six. (laughs)

LIAM: I mean, we're trying to...

ASHLEY: If it's wisdom and charisma, you have me.

LIAM: Get a peek in.

SAM: You're very perceptive.

LIAM: I'm also wiped out.

LAURA: That's true.

LIAM: But I'd be asleep, there's a lot of variables.

MARISHA: To be fair, you're exhausted.

SAM: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

LAURA: Yeah, but he'd be sleeping. Would it transfer?

MARISHA: But when I got a little stuck in there, and then trying to get out, it--

LAURA: Made it worse.

MARISHA: -- made me exhausted.

TRAVIS: Were you just along for the ride? You didn't try and make out with anybody? You got to change the landscape to fit your desires. Take control.

MARISHA: You're more just visiting another landscape.

MARISHA: It's not--

TRAVIS: That's a weak-ass perspective.

MARISHA: But do you want to try, Chetney? See if you have any better luck?

TRAVIS: I don't mind. I'll run through everybody. I'll just leave stamps.

SAM: Do you have vivid dreams? Are you a vivid dreamer?

TRAVIS: Oh baby, vivid.

LAURA: (laughs)

TRAVIS: Yeah.

SAM: All right.

TRAVIS: We should dispense with all the things that get in the way, like clothes, inhibitions...

SAM: Laws.

TRAVIS: Different languages. We all speak the same.

ASHLEY: Orym, Ash, and--

MARISHA: I don't think Orym should go.

ASHLEY: -- I will watch the area.

TRAVIS: Okay.

ASHLEY: We'll be sure--

TRAVIS: Oh, I'm going?

ASHLEY: I think you should

LAURA: Yeah, you should go.

TRAVIS: Amazing, I should totally go.

LAURA: And you're going.

SAM: Sure.

LAURA: It's up to you, Laudna. I know it was uncomfortable the last time. I don't want it to happen again.

MARISHA: I'm more than happy to be there if you want me there. If you want to be-- if you need that support.

LAURA: Um...

SAM: We're doing it. You're coming.

MARISHA: All right.

SAM: She needs you.

MARISHA: Let's do it.

SAM: She feels better when you're around.

TRAVIS: Yeah, we're going to wreck this shit. It'll be great.

LIAM: Question, though, since we're all about to go to bed, I guess, are you able to reach out to Zephrah beforehand?

LAURA: Yeah. Yes, I can.

LIAM: I wrote it out for you on a piece of paper.

LAURA: All right.

TALIESIN: Oh boy.

LIAM: Here it is.

LAURA: All right, I will send a message to Keyleth. Assassins are north of Yios. An excavation, planning something terrible on the solstice. Some sort of god killer. Tracking it, but it's bad.

MATT: There's a slight pause before Keyleth's voice comes through your mind on the other end. "I understand. The Ashari are beneath Terrah at the moment, something rooted beneath, and the rift is in danger. It might be connected."

LAURA: I relay all that.

LIAM: Yeah. Okay.

LAURA: All right.

LIAM: All right, well, I guess we're holding it down for Zephrah here. Cool, cool, cool, cool, cool, cool. Thank you.

LAURA: Yeah Who all did I contact today? It was just--

ASHLEY: Nana.

LAURA: Nana, Ryn, and-- okay, yeah.

ASHLEY: Sleepy.

LAURA: Grumpy.

ASHLEY: Sneezy.

TALIESIN: Sleepy, Happy, Grumpy, Dopey, Sneezy, Bashful, Doc.

LIAM: That's not surprising that you can do that.

LAURA: Yeah, of course you can.

MATT: Yeah, druids do not have Sending, so she could have--

(laughter)

LAURA: Were you checking?

MATT: Yeah, I was like-- Yeah, she can't quite respond at the moment.

TRAVIS: I have an Orym and DM question. Would Orym know where the Terrah plane goes to?

SAM: The rift.

TRAVIS: The rift?

LIAM: I would, but I don't-- Liam doesn't.

TRAVIS: Is it a realm of just earth?

TALIESIN: It's not--

SAM: Earth is earth. Exandria.

MATT: Well, no, in the world of Exandria, "earth" is a term for dirt and rock.

TRAVIS: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

MATT: It's a unique derivative of a world that is not known. But no, the earth elemental realm is a realm of dense rock, stone, gems.

TRAVIS: Got it.

LAURA: That's Terrah?

MATT: With tunneled regions behind it. Terrah is the Ashari city that is built around the rift to the earth elemental plane.

TRAVIS: Right.

LAURA: Got it.

LIAM: And is that reached--

SAM: Earth elemental plane?

LIAM: -- by going down?

MATT: No, the rift exists near the surface. I mean, it's a little subterranean. The city itself is built around and above.

LIAM: Is it in Tal'Dorei?

MATT: It's in Tal'Dorei. It's in the Stormcrest Mountains

LIAM: Which is north, south, east, west, help me?

MATT: It's north. It's where Kraghammer and others are around. Terrah's not too far from Kraghammer.

SAM: It all comes back to Kraghammer.

LAURA: My notes, by the way, as you were talking, "Beneath Terrah, rooted beneath."

SAM: Nice.

MATT: It's great. That's great.

LAURA: I take very good notes.

TRAVIS: Good notes, much detail.

LAURA: (laughs)

ASHLEY: All right.

SAM: Sleepy time?

ASHLEY: Sleepy time.

SAM: Got your tea?

TRAVIS: I start to disrobe.

SAM: Of course.

MATT: (laughs)

TALIESIN: Nothing bad will happen to you while you're asleep if you disrobe.

LAURA: I take sleepy time tea.

ASHLEY: Yeah, we'll make sure-- I'll watch over all of you.

LAURA: Who was playing music before? We had music.

ASHLEY: Oh yeah, we had music.

SAM: You play music. Don't you?

LAURA: Who was it that was playing?

ASHLEY: I can do it.

SAM: Was Ashton playing music?

ASHLEY: I can pull out my pan flute.

LAURA: No.

ASHLEY: No, I remember that.

LAURA: Was it you that was playing?

TALIESIN: Should we play some music?

ASHLEY: It might have just been in the surround, the ambience that was at home. I can do it. I can do it. I can play music. I pull out my pan flute.

MARISHA: Fearne, do you have anything that might help any of us with our mental...

LIAM: Magic mushrooms?

ASHLEY: Mental health.

MARISHA: With the health, yes.

ASHLEY: Let me see.

MATT: Sorry, the Cliffkeep Mountains, not the Stormcrest. The Stormcrest are south of-- I got that wrong. The Cliffkeep is the north side.

LIAM: It's a big world. It's a big flat world.

MATT: Look, I've been sitting on a lot of this for a while. The Storm Front, lower right.

TALIESIN: Oh shit, I know what I'm doing tonight.

MATT: Keeping it all in my brain.

ASHLEY: I think I do.

MATT: It's been a bit since we've been there, so.

ASHLEY: Unless, does someone want to take my, well, I don't know if that would work.

LAURA: What?

ASHLEY: The ring, my telekinesis ring.

LIAM: And do what?

ASHLEY: I don't know what that would do.

LAURA: I don't know, yeah.

ASHLEY: I mean, you can do stuff, anyway.

SAM: I'm going to give you-- I'm going to Enhance your Ability and give you advantage on-- yes, you, Imogen, on, I think, intelligence or wisdom?

LAURA: Probably wisdom.

SAM: Wisdom, Owl's Wisdom.

LAURA: All right.

TRAVIS: (hoots)

LIAM: She's not going to solve math problems in there.

LAURA: Okay, yeah, that's good, because then I'll get advantage on perception checks.

SAM: If it carries over.

LIAM: Yeah.

LAURA: Yeah, all right.

MARISHA: So last time, we got a little bit too close and familiar with your mother. So I think we need to maybe maintain a healthy distance.

LAURA: Who should I search out? Should I search out Thull or Ryn?

SAM: Oh shit.

LIAM: That is a great question.

SAM: We do need to see-- Oh man. They're both in the same-ish place.

LAURA: Potentially, I don't know where Thull went after they left.

TRAVIS: Well, Thull will move because they're in their spot. It's not like they're going to be restrained, imprisoned. If we can get an eye on Ryn, that'll help.

LAURA: All right, that's true.

MARISHA: We also don't want to tangle with Thull.

TRAVIS: Well, Ryn too.

LAURA: It feels like Thull would Thull would know. I'll hone in on Thull. I think she'd be able to spot me.

MARISHA: I think so as well.

ASHLEY: She's going to be mad, too.

LAURA: Yeah, yeah--

MARISHA: We also know that--

LAURA: -- she's going to be mad.

MARISHA: -- Ryn was last there at the Tishtan excavation site.

LAURA: All right.

SAM: All right.

MARISHA: All right.

SAM: Night, night.

ASHLEY: You got this.

MARISHA: So it's us three.

ASHLEY: Guidance.

LAURA: Thank you. (laughs)

MATT: Indeed, left table.

ASHLEY and LAURA: Guidance.

MARISHA: Left table!

TALIESIN: Left lobe, here we go.

LAURA and MATT: (laugh)

TRAVIS: Should we hold hands as we sleep?

LAURA: Maybe you want Guidance before I go to sleep?

TRAVIS: Hold hands.

ASHLEY: Guidance.

SAM: Casting Shared Dream at level four.

MATT: That just lasts for a minute.

MARISHA: Oh god, he twitches in his sleep. Oh god, no.

ASHLEY: Well, dreams are like 30 seconds.

LAURA and MATT: That's true.

ASHLEY: In your head.

MATT: Yeah, no, that's valid. It's cool.

MARISHA: I've heard these stories.

MATT: You can go cast Guidance all you want.

ASHLEY: Guidance.

(laughter)

MATT: I'm not stopping you.

ASHLEY: It's definitely going to help.

MATT: I love it. It's perfect.

(laughter)

LIAM: Head massage and just Guidance her for an hour. While the three of you keep watch.

ASHLEY: Just sprinkling lavender all over.

MATT: Perfect. (laughs) Here on the climbing mountain side of the Highland Bluffs as they reach towards the Southern Apexes.

LAURA: Can we see Ruidus from where we are?

MATT: Actually, yeah, since it's not quite at its full zenith, but it is maybe a third of the way through its rotation for the evening.

LAURA: All right.

ASHLEY: Playing a relaxing pan flute.

MATT: Delightful. I love it. You concentrate on your spell.

SAM: I do, level four.

MATT: Making the connection. Then you begin to drift off to a somewhat anxious rest, but a focused one. What are you focusing on specifically for this? What is it that you are hoping to turn your Exaltant capabilities towards?

LAURA: I'm going to focus on Ryn and the excavation.

MATT: Eventually, you fall into a soft slumber. As the back of your mind begins to concentrate on that single glowing red sphere in the sky, the storm consumes you, the wind battering around. Here, you glance about and can see the soft motes of energy that represent the three friends that you sense their presence, feel them tethered to you in some way. You-- for those who this is your first time journeying alongside the psyche, I believe it's just you for the first time. It takes you a moment to even consider direction before you realize that at the moment there is none. You just exist. The wind blows one direction then it seems to shift to the next for no particular reason or purpose. It's very disorienting. You focus on Ryn. I need you to roll a d20 and add your charisma modifier.

LAURA: Do I get a Guidance? Do I get that Guidance?

MATT: No, unfortunately, it took you quite a bit to go to sleep. But it feels nice to know that you were being thought of.

TRAVIS: Should've taken that magnesium.

MARISHA: (laughs)

LAURA: Charisma modifier or charisma save?

MATT and LAURA: Charisma modifier.

LAURA: 16.

MATT: 16, okay. You watch as the three motes of energy-- you see the spiritual form of Imogen drifting there amongst the storm, glancing about, and it begins to dive in a direction. As she does, you feel pulled from the sternum along with it, like there's a thread or a rope that seems to be pulling you from within and dragged at her speed through the storm, a downward arch, like you're cresting the top of a rollercoaster and you feel what would be your stomach begin to drift upward. Those butterflies fill your person and you begin to dive into the storm, following her as you do. The clouds move past. You instinctually try and close your eyes, waiting for the dust to sting your eyes, but it doesn't make contact because you have no physicality here. But you can't help but reflexively do so. Eventually, shapes begin to go past in the storm rapidly, shadows of what look like gnarled trees and bits of cliff side rock (whooshes), before eventually you come upon a gargantuan pit, a dropoff in the surrounding broken landscape, a chasm, a massive hole in the ground before you. You can see pieces of equipment along the outside, excavation cranes and wooden platforms built out over it, staircases that descend along the inside of this since dug or expanded upon sinkhole.

LAURA: I'm going to turn towards the three of them and think: Stay close. I don't want to lose any of y'all.

MARISHA: I just bobble up and down.

TRAVIS: I look down and I'm in a tux, black tie.

MARISHA: Just a floating tux.

TRAVIS: I'll be asserting my authority.

LAURA: You're a teeny dot of light. (laughs)

MATT: You see a tux. The rest of you just see a little ball of light.

TRAVIS: Looking sharp.

(laughter)

MATT: I'll have all of you roll a perception check.

LAURA: Ah, oh god, Jester, stand up.

SAM: You have advantage. I think.

MARISHA: Yes.

SAM: Well, I don't know if that works, Enhance Ability works.

LAURA: Oh right, does Enhance Ability work here?

MATT: Because this is not technically a dream, this is a conscious, I mean, it is a dream, but it's one of your own direction and construction. You are in control of this, and as such, any mental attributes would carry over. So I will say the spell does affect this.

LAURA: Okay.

LAURA and SAM: Tight, tight, tight.

TRAVIS: 16 over here.

MATT: 16.

MARISHA: Seven.

MATT: Seven.

SAM: 19.

MATT: 19.

LAURA: 15.

MATT: 15, okay. The three of you, you got a seven, so it was three of you, as you come to the edge of this massive pit, sorry.

LAURA: Just a little ball of light.

MATT: Just drifting around.

MARISHA: It's like when you get a little stuck in those rides and you're flipping upside down. Can't control myself in the harness.

MATT: Yeah, the gyroscope.

MARISHA: The gy-- yeah.

MATT: You do see shapes, shadows moving along the edge of this. Half a dozen figures near one of the lips that are shifting equipment and some that walk around like patrols on the outer edge. You can see there are some cliff faces that rise up. There are uneven elements to the land that surround it. But a number of these locations of the excavation that is very prominently visible to you at the edges. There are a number of figures, though not quite detailed, that walk around them. It is busy, busier than you even recall the last time that you visited. You also see large, hulking figures. You see two of them walking (booms).

SAM: Humanoid?

LAURA: Uh-oh.

SAM: Like golem-y?

MATT: You see what looks to be humanoid, standing about 12 to 15 feet tall. It catches your attention because the shapes are armor-like.

LAURA: Uh-oh.

MATT: They walk bipedal, swinging arms with thin upper arms and massive fists and forearms. The shape you can see, you see less of the details of it, but you feel the arcane crackle within. These are automatons. They are large guardian automatons that patrol the exterior of the site.

SAM: Does it look like the kind that we might have seen before?

MATT: You have not seen one like this before.

SAM: Okay.

LIAM: Officer Murphy.

SAM: Okay.

TRAVIS: Do they walk in a pair, or--?

MATT: No, you see two of them currently, one of which is patrolling the outer edge of the actual site, and as you begin to glance over from your higher-up position, you can see another one that's a little ways down on one of the mid-tier platforms as it begins to descend within, that is stationary, standing there with a few other shadowed figures that are mucking about their business. You continue to think of Ryn, and there is something pulling you towards this.

LAURA: I'm going to try to head towards it. I don't want to get too close to any person, any thing. I'm going to try to keep my distance from living.

MATT: Okay, which you can do, being able to drift through this space. You drift over towards the center of this open chasm and glance downward. You three find yourselves pulled along as well, that same sensation.

LAURA: Hold up really fast and turn. I don't know where Thull is, but if you see her, wake up.

SAM: Okay.

MARISHA: All right.

TRAVIS: No promises.

SAM: Adjust your cummerbund, come on.

(laughter)

LIAM: Little orb just goes, "Dee, dee, dee."

TRAVIS: Oh, my cufflinks. Oh shit.

LIAM: (as Chetney) Bond. James Bond.

MATT: (laughs)

TRAVIS: Pock O'Pea!

LAURA: (laughs)

ASHLEY: Chetney!

LAURA: Pock O'Pea. ♪ Pock O'Pea ♪

MATT: Indeed.

(laughter)

MATT: Do you follow this urge, this draw?

LAURA: Yeah, yeah.

MATT: Okay. (whooshing) You continue to slowly descend, corkscrewing downward into this, the three of you pulled behind. As you do, you can see these numerous sets of stairs that curve down deeper, deeper within, as well as chunks of structure. Ancient stone, buildings or spires or hallways ruined, broken, left, destroyed by time or something long before it was buried. But they emerge at certain angles from the sides of this excavation. You can see elements of an exposed glimmer of society from long ago. It is not a city per se, but signs of intentional building. You see more of these figures going across long bridges that have been pulled across and built to access other deeper tunnels. You can see there are multiple tunnel structures that weave through in and out these walls. People are, and have been for some time, slowly expanding what they've uncovered within the sinkhole. And it does look like a sinkhole. You can see where the natural crumbling and falling is and you can also see the distinction where it's been manually expanded, whether it be through magic or tools. You're uncertain how much of this was at the hands of the Ruby Vanguard, Ludinus, or the other interests, like the Allegiance of Allsight or the seminary and other figures that have been, for some time, helming this excavation. As you descend further, you begin to see what you once saw, which is the massive tower, the singular, fork-like structure that sits center to this excavation pit. This towering piece of ancient intent that has been, I want to say retrofitted, has been built upon. You can see around the other structures and the ruins that exist, there is a bustle around its base. You see a handful of other massive automatons. You see--

LAURA: Oh jeez.

MATT: -- dozens of other dark shadows of humanoid figures moving around, doing their work. Roll a perception--

SAM: Smaller automatons at all?

MATT: No. You see down here three more of the large ones that are running about and they're doing work. They're lifting things and carrying them over.

LIAM: Damn it. (gasps)

LAURA: Natural 20.

ASHLEY: Yes!

MATT: Natural 20, for a total of?

LAURA: 21.

MATT: 21. That's great. The details become clearer to you even still. They're moving equipment and they're building, they're moving the things. You can focus and see glimmers of energy.

ASHLEY and LAURA: (laugh)

LAURA: Excuse you.

LIAM: Huh?

LAURA: Huh?

LIAM: Yeah, I've haven't stopped farting all night.

MATT: I'm sorry, Laura.

LAURA: (laughs)

MATT: They're moving energy sources. Cores are shifting. They're being pulled even further beneath the ground. Separated.

ASHLEY: Sepa-what?

SAM: Separated.

MATT: You get the sense that they're reflexively enhancing their build based on recent circumstances.

SAM and LAURA: Ah.

MARISHA: They need more power.

TRAVIS: Redundancy.

LAURA: Uh-huh, uh-huh.

TRAVIS: Back ups.

MATT: But they're bringing them beneath the ground. Whereas once you saw them affixed to the exterior of the one Malleus Key you encountered, here there's much more of them and they're being brought to multitude tunnels.

TRAVIS: Yeah.

MATT: As you look at this central spire that seems to be the centerpiece, you also get a glimpse of a Malleus Key-like structure, far larger than the one you encountered in the Fey, built against, onto, and around this spire. You get the ominous sense that this, this may be the centerpiece of what is to come.

LAURA: Okay.

MATT: You also see a figure, standing, at the base of this tower. Do you approach?

LAURA: Well, what does the figure look like?

MATT: It's what's pulling you towards it.

SAM: That might be Ryn.

LAURA and MARISHA: It might be Thull.

LAURA: Or Ludinus.

LIAM: Could be Thull. Might be your mother.

SAM: Could be your dad! Could be your horse.

MARISHA: It's a family reunion.

LIAM: (horse-like) Hi there, Imogen.

LAURA: Can I do an insight check? Does this feel like the same pull I had when I was searching out my mother? Does it feel more directed? Does it feel...

MATT: Make an insight check.

TRAVIS: Familiarity.

LAURA: Yeah, malicious. I don't know.

MATT: It's just grasping the essence of the energy.

SAM: Insight is also--

LAURA: 20.

SAM: -- wisdom, by the way.

LAURA: Oh!

MATT: Yeah.

LAURA: Why, yes it is. 20.

MATT: 20. This is different from that. This feels like a continuation of your intent.

LAURA: So it feels good.

MATT: It feels like a continuation of your intent.

LAURA: But it feels--

TRAVIS: Something You were looking for.

LAURA: Does it feel the same as when I was looking for my mother?

MATT: It does not feel like your mother's energy.

LAURA: (sighs)

TRAVIS: So it's one of the two, Thull or Ryn.

SAM: Yeah, but your intent is Ryn, so that's what-- That's good.

LIAM: Yeah.

MARISHA: I just don't trust Thull to not intercept that.

LAURA: I don't either.

MARISHA: She knows what your intent is.

TRAVIS: How fast can you get out?

LAURA: I don't know. I've never tried. My mom sent me away last time.

SAM: We're here.

TRAVIS: Yeah.

MARISHA: You've got this.

LIAM: Take a chance.

SAM: You've got this.

MARISHA: You've got this.

LIAM: Roll the dice.

LAURA: Take a chance, suck a dick.

(laughter)

MARISHA: Yes. Yes!

(laughter)

MATT: Do you continue?

MARISHA: Still want it?

MATT: You drift down with the three of you being pulled in tow.

TALIESIN: I've said that on the...

MATT: There you see, at the base of this spire, standing, hand out in front, frozen, stone.

LAURA: (gasps)

TRAVIS: Oh!

TALIESIN: Oh shit.

MATT: Planerider Ryn.

LIAM: No.

LAURA: Stone?

MARISHA: She got stoned!

TRAVIS: Petrified.

TRAVIS: Petrified at the very least.

MATT: Locked in place and left for all to see. Whether it be a trophy or warning, you do not know.

LIAM: Fuck.

SAM: Not dead, though.

TRAVIS: Yo.

MARISHA: Not dead.

SAM: Petrified.

LAURA: Something pulled her.

LIAM: Fuck.

TRAVIS: Yo.

LAURA: Something pulled me here, though. That means she has to have some essence still inside.

MARISHA: Well, if she's petrified, she's not dead. We can fix her.

TRAVIS: Time to go.

LAURA: Time to go.

MARISHA: I agree.

LAURA: Time to go.

MARISHA: Oh god, he's rolling the dice. Let's wake up, wake up.

LAURA: We're going to try to get out.

MARISHA: Wake, wake, wake, wake, wake up.

MATT: Okay.

SAM: In the fleeting moments, I'm going to see if I can scoot by and look at closer at one of those automatons. Just see if there's any cores that are showing or any eyes or any features at all that I can discern.

MATT: Okay. Roll a perception check for me.

TRAVIS: Dad?

MATT: (laughs)

SAM: 16.

MATT: 16. You drift over to the extent that you're tether to Imogen allows you and you look upon it. The body is almost egg-like in its mass. The arms--

SAM: Baymax? (laughs)

MATT: It has large clockwork legs and arms that swing like battering rams at the sides as it walks. The head's small and shielded. It is armored and it is intended to be a guardian, a mechanical sentry designed through arcana. That's what you can ascertain from it.

SAM: Okay.

MATT: I will say, there's something about the machinery that is assembled around this tower and it didn't quite hit you before because you didn't quite get close enough to view it. But now that you have a moment, there's an odd familiarity--

LAURA: (gasps)

LIAM: Oh god, yeah.

LAURA: Oh shit.

MATT: -- to the way this design has been built and implemented around this spire

TRAVIS: Fucking Ludinus Da'leth.

LIAM: This is an old tech.

SAM: Okay.

LIAM: Might be fucking hodmedods.

MARISHA: Hodmedods.

MATT: You also notice--

SAM: Oh!

TRAVIS: That would be a trip.

MARISHA: They were like little scarecrow dudes.

MATT: A flash of glowing eyes not far from where you stand.

MARISHA: (gasps)

SAM: What does that mean?

MATT: As you glance over in that direction and you see a female figure.

MARISHA: No, no, no, no.

LIAM: You tripped the security systems.

MATT: Right around the side of this tower that is--

MARISHA: Waking up, waking up.

MATT: Looked in your direction.

MARISHA: Waking up.

SAM: My direction?

LAURA: Wake up.

LIAM: ♪ Wakin' my way ♪

MARISHA: I'm waking up.

SAM: Everyone?

LAURA: Wake up.

SAM: Okay, if I wake up, I think everyone...

LAURA: Wake up.

SAM: Okay, I'll try to wake up.

MATT: Make a wisdom saving throw for me.

MARISHA: Wake up.

SAM: Wisdom save.

LIAM: ♪ Wakin' my way ♪

SAM: You're good at these.

TRAVIS: I died during one of these once.

LAURA: What are you talking about?

SAM: 11.

MATT: 11.

LAURA: Oh no.

MATT: Okay.

MARISHA: You-- Wait, what?

MATT: As soon as you hear this from Imogen and sense the chaos, a voice enters your mind. "How interesting. I know you."

MARISHA: Fucking Thull.

MATT: As you try and pull away for a moment, you feel this cold sensation come over your mind and you can't move.

MARISHA: Did the rest of us wake up? I want to get the fuck out.

MATT: You're attempting to wake up?

MARISHA: Yes.

MATT: Make a wisdom saving throw. Make a wisdom saving throw. Make a wisdom saving throw.

TALIESIN: I'll just make one for fun, too.

LAURA: I want to help FCG, though.

MATT: The rest of the people continue to move around. They're busy and bustling.

MARISHA: Natural 20.

ASHLEY: Yes! Let's do it.

TRAVIS: Would you consider this a magical--

LAURA: Natural 20.

ASHLEY: Whoa!

SAM: Ooh!

ASHLEY: Let's go, ladies.

MARISHA: We've been in sync all night.

LAURA: I know. You're really hot.

MARISHA: Oh my god.

TRAVIS: Would you consider this a magical effect--

LIAM: Guys, the robot's fucking dying.

TRAVIS: -- we're saving against?

LAURA: No, I know, I kind of don't want to wake up, though.

MATT: I would say yes. I would say it's pretty close.

LAURA: That's true.

TRAVIS: Six.

LIAM: Oof.

MATT: Six.

MATT: Imogen and Laudna (whoosh) vanish from this. In some strange liminal state without the tether that holds you in this dream, both of you feel this cold sensation over your bodies and the reddish coloration--

SAM: Ride or die.

TRAVIS: Yeah, baby.

MATT: The reddish coloration instead becomes a black and white colorless scape. You watch as the dark shadows moving around continue to move, but they blur and get darker as you now see the feminine shape of Otohan Thull begin to walk towards you, FCG. Eyes glowing like two spotlights focused on you. Like you caught a glimpse of a nighttime creature and nothing but glowing orbs peering back that get brighter and more focused as it walks towards you.

LAURA: Fuck.

SAM: All right.

MATT: The last thing you hear in your mind--

MARISHA: Oh my god.

LAURA: The last thing?

MATT: "Well then, punishment it is."

(gasping)

SAM: What? In a dream?

MATT: A screaming pain shears into both of your minds and you both immediately wake up screaming.

SAM: Oh.

LAURA: Oh no. Oh no.

TRAVIS: (screams)

MARISHA: What if she uploaded some new software--

SAM: We'll find out.

LAURA: A virus?

MARISHA: -- in your brain.

MATT: You both take 36 points of psychic damage.

LAURA: Whoa.

SAM: Okay. Okay. Okay.

TRAVIS: Whoa.

LAURA: 36 points.

SAM: Ow. Anything else?

LAURA: As far as you know?

TRAVIS: (panting)

SAM: Ah! Ah!

LAURA: Are you all right? What happened?

SAM: Yeah, yeah, we're... Ah! It's not good.

TRAVIS: She punished us.

MARISHA: Your nose is bleeding a bit.

LIAM: How much time has gone by for the people in the waking world?

MATT: It's been, I'd say about an hour.

LIAM: An hour.

SAM: How does she-- How does she see us? How does she do that?

LIAM: Did it go well?

SAM: I mean, no. I mean, yeah, it went well. We saw things, but she saw us.

LAURA: Yeah.

LIAM: She who?

LAURA: Thull.

MARISHA: Thull.

TALIESIN: Fuck. Check the orb.

TRAVIS: She's in the Shadowfell.

MARISHA: Oh, yes. I check the scry ball.

SAM: She's in the Shadowfell?

LAURA: I know.

TRAVIS: The vision changed to a gray scale. I thought we were on this plane, but at the end when the red went away, when you left, it turned...

MATT: It turned gray scale but I will say that--

SAM: It seemed that was more--

TRAVIS: More like nighttime itself.

MATT: It was more of a representative of you both beginning to lose your connection to this space.

TRAVIS: Not a Shadowfell color representation, okay.

MATT: If anything, you both were about to fade out before you were basically hit on the way out the door.

SAM: Oof. That sucked. Are you okay?

TRAVIS: Yeah, I kind of liked it.

MARISHA and MATT: (laugh)

TRAVIS: That was powerful.

ASHLEY: I switched all your clothes.

LAURA: (laughs)

SAM: What do you mean? With each other?

ASHLEY: Yeah.

LAURA: Oh.

TRAVIS: FCG doesn't have a ton of clothes. What are you talking about?

LIAM: Who's wearing what?

SAM: Why am I wearing a brassiere?

LIAM: Who's wearing what, Fearne? Who's wearing what?

ASHLEY: I just mixed it all up. I thought it was fun.

(laughter)

SAM: Whose brassiere is this?

ASHLEY: You were gone for so long. Yeah, you've got a brassiere. I'm pretty sure that's Chet's.

LAURA and MARISHA: (laugh)

TRAVIS: That's a harness, it's not a brassiere.

ASHLEY: Well, I don't know. It's like a strippy brassiere.

TRAVIS: It's got stretchy joints.

LIAM: I asked her a couple times to stop.

ASHLEY: Anyway, what happened?

SAM: Why is it lace?

LIAM: I'm super tired.

ASHLEY: What happened? What happened?

TRAVIS: I like being comfortable.

MARISHA: Well, we found Ryn.

SAM: Ryn.

LAURA: She's been turned into a statue.

MARISHA: She's been petrified.

LIAM: Bad.

TALIESIN: Yeah.

LAURA: Super bad.

SAM: That means she can't find us. She can't help us transport anywhere.

LAURA: She can't do anything.

SAM: I'm glad we called the skyship.

ASHLEY: But if you talk to her, even if she's in there, can she still hear you?

SAM: No.

TALIESIN: Can she be psychically interrogated, is another very important question.

LAURA: Probably.

ASHLEY: Fuck.

TRAVIS: Also there are tons of mechanical sentries, these huge automatons, at least five that we saw.

LAURA: Probably more. They were like 15 feet tall.

TALIESIN: Did you get a vibe?

SAM: It looks familiar, but I don't know why. Maybe they were created by the same method that I was? Or at the same time?

LAURA: In the same time?

SAM: Or by the same person or...

MARISHA: The structures around it definitely are ancient. It's been around for some time.

LAURA: The Amalgous Key there is huge. It is Amalgous Key, right?

MATT: Malleus Key.

LAURA: Malleus Key.

SAM: Among Us.

LIAM: They were upgrading their PC you said?

LAURA: Among Us Key.

TRAVIS: Upgrading, but also I think diversifying the power source, like making a backup for redundancy. They must have heard about the attack and the second one was underground, right?

MARISHA: Moving a lot of those cores underground. Would I have some sort of arcane vibe about the spire that it was being built on?

MATT: Sure, roll arcana.

MARISHA: Good for me. That's... Nope, you didn't roll good for me that time. 14.

MATT: 14. Best you can tell, I mean, you understand, especially the natural essence of magic in this world and being periphery to large rituals.

MARISHA: Yeah.

MATT: Things need a focus. This looked akin to--

MARISHA: That's true.

MATT: -- a lightning rod, if you will.

LAURA: Mm.

MARISHA: Would I, having known what Delilah, having a nice front row seat with Delilah, if this felt like a similar ziggurat that she was using.

MATT: I mean, it didn't have any sort of ziggurat structure to it necessarily, but you know.

MARISHA: Some sort of--

MATT: The intent of its construction gives you the sense that it's either meant to receive or direct or both.

LIAM: So we're shooting the moon.

TRAVIS: That's the part that's been tickling my brain. We destroyed the first Key and the moon disappeared.

LAURA: Yeah, but that was the tether to the Fey Realm.

ASHLEY: So we cut the tether.

LAURA: We cut the tie from this plane to the Fey Realm.

MATT: If you recall, just to remind you, Ruidus does not appear in other planes. It is terrestrial. It was what essentially tipped off the Calloways when they were wandering towards that darker side of the Fey that they saw the first tests of this Key and Ruidus' appearance, and caused them to begin to investigate. So, you seem to have stopped whatever purpose they had for a Key--

MARISHA: In the Fey.

MATT: -- in the Fey.

TALIESIN: Weird.

TRAVIS: That's it, though.

TALIESIN: Well, weird pitch here, and this is from living with a crazy-ass engineer for a very, very long time. What if they're sending from here... These things are here to send aspects of the moon to other planes so that we've got-- Basically we're sending signals of stuff from here and they're receiving it other weird places. So there's probably two other places that have moons that shouldn't have moons.

LAURA: There were. I think there's only--

TALIESIN: Two left.

LAURA: There's one left now, the Shadow Realm. I don't think there's another Key outside of that.

TALIESIN: That we know of.

LIAM: What do the two other realms--

LAURA: That anybody knows of.

LIAM: -- have to do with it, though?

TRAVIS: Yeah. Yep.

MATT: You do recall in the conversation with some of the members of the Grim Verity that the Fey and the Shadow Realms are the closest in cosmology. The planes that are the most borderline to Exandria.

TALIESIN: Sandwich.

MATT: As such, the power that run through those various realms are parallel and easiest to access.

MARISHA: Power.

TALIESIN: Access.

LAURA: So it would've made this key stronger to have those ones. It's all just an effort to get more strength here.

LIAM: It's a multiverse multiplier on their power source.

TALIESIN: Could be.

LIAM: To shoot the moon. That sounds so weird.

LAURA: So regardless, we have to take out the one here.

MARISHA: I think that's correct. Then to your point, if it's there to either send or receive, we've already seen that there's a lattice or a gate on the moon. Is that just like you said, like a big arcane beam to break the gate?

LAURA and LIAM: Yeah.

TALIESIN: Or a key to open it.

LAURA: Yeah, open the gate.

ASHLEY: To get in.

MARISHA: It is called a Malleus Key.

TALIESIN: Maybe they're just opening the gate.

LAURA: Oh my god.

TALIESIN: I mean, why not call it what it is?

LIAM: So what's the play here? We're running out of time. Our one strong ally in the vicinity is tabled.

LAURA: Gone.

LIAM: We've got the skyship, but that's still not that fast. We don't have a lot of time. Do we go on a direct run towards the main spot, or do we attempt to weaken their--

LAURA: There's already a team in the Shadow Realm.

LIAM: Are they doing as well as Ryn?

TRAVIS: Yeah.

MARISHA: Well, we could maybe check in with what's his butt? What's the guy that was also there with Ryn, that we were talking to that's with the--

LIAM: Oh, right.

SAM: With the Verity?

LIAM: Ebenold Kai.

MARISHA: Oh, yes. We could check in with Ebenold Kai.

SAM: But he can't plane walk.

MARISHA: No, but he might be in contact with the team that's in the Shadowfell.

TALIESIN: Find out how that's going.

MARISHA: To at least figure out how bad it's going.

SAM: Well, we can get in touch with him, though, as we're skyshipping straight to... It feels like--

MARISHA: Oh, 100%.

SAM: -- we got another day to get to Gelvaan, and then what did we say, seven days to get to the--

LAURA: Potentially, it will be. That's it.

SAM: That's the day of, the day before.

LIAM: Our options are limited because how the hells are we going to get to the Shadow Realm?

MARISHA: We're not going to the Shadow Realm.

LIAM: But we have no ride.

LAURA: No.

TRAVIS: Not currently.

SAM: We'll have time on the skyship to call everyone we know and see.

LAURA: We've got 11 days to raise an army.

MARISHA: All right, hang on.

TRAVIS: As souped up as it was, especially with the automatons, the diversified power source, we'd have to hit both in tandem, or try to disable the key. I don't think, as awesome as we are, we're pretty awesome, that an assault is going to work.

LAURA and LIAM: No.

TRAVIS: We have to get clever and sneaky.

MARISHA: Yes.

TRAVIS: Which means, you have to go home.

LAURA: I've got to find a way to get in with my mom.

TRAVIS: Yeah.

LAURA: She's got to work it from the inside.

TRAVIS: Yeah.

LAURA: She doesn't want to be there. At least... At least, that's what she keeps telling me.

TALIESIN: Well, it's hardly an option anymore.

TRAVIS: Yeah, you got to work that.

MARISHA: I'm afraid Chetney might be right. It feels like our only option.

LIAM: I'm really fond of you guys, but the idea that all this falls to us.

LAURA: No, we're slap dicks. This is not going to happen.

LIAM: Is ludicrous.

ASHLEY: It's hilarious, actually.

TALIESIN: Stupid.

MARISHA: Who was the woman who helped get you all to Whitestone when I was super dead? Do you think maybe she would be able to help bamf us?

LAURA: She can--

LIAM: She just said she was busy.

LAURA: -- travel through plants.

TALIESIN: Look, nobody's fucking busy right now.

LIAM: No, she can do it, but she--

MARISHA: Are you talking about your master?

LIAM: Yeah, who are you talking about?

SAM: No, there was a person in Bassuras?

MARISHA: Jrusar.

SAM: Jrusar.

LAURA: Yeah.

SAM: Who Eshteross knew.

LIAM: That was an Eshteross contact.

ASHLEY: Oh!

MARISHA: No. No, no, no, no, no. Hang on.

LAURA: Shania Twain!

SAM: Yes!

MARISHA: Yes!

SAM: It was Shania Twain.

MARISHA: Right? What was her name?

SAM: Yep.

MATT: I'm going to go look it up.

LAURA: Manaia Tain, Wayne thing.

LIAM: ♪ ("Man! I Feel Like a Woman") ♪

SAM: Jamedi Cosko.

LIAM: Jamedi Cosko?

MATT: You're mixing it up! You're mixing it up!

ASHLEY: Let's go, girls.

TRAVIS: Jamedi Cosko.

ASHLEY and LAURA: ♪ ("Man! I Feel Like a Woman") ♪

LIAM: Come on, witches. ♪ ("Man! I Feel ♪ Like a Woman") ♪

TALIESIN: Yeah, we've got to turn over every fucking stone.

MATT: Manaia Turei.

ALL: Manaia Turei.

(laughter)

TALIESIN: Shit.

MARISHA: Oh, there it is.

MATT: Yeah.

MARISHA: Manaia Turei.

SAM: That's in Jrusar?

MATT: That's in Jrusar.

LAURA: Yeah.

MARISHA: So there's Manaia Turei, and then Keyleth.

SAM: What did she have access to?

LAURA: She had Plant Stride.

SAM: She had Plant Stride.

LAURA: We traveled through plants with her.

SAM: Manaia Turei. There she is.

TALIESIN: Since you can send pictures into people's heads--

LAURA: Can I?

TALIESIN: Can you?

LAURA: I can send words into peoples heads.

MARISHA: Oh, did she use plants, Turei?

LAURA: Yeah.

MARISHA: Manaia Turei?

MATT: Yes.

LIAM: Yeah.

MARISHA: Then was Keyleth--

TALIESIN: I don't know. I thought it was you.

TRAVIS: Was there a shitload of fauna around?

SAM: No, that doesn't help us.

LAURA: Nothing that we saw. It's like a desert.

SAM: It's a desert.

SAM: I think Jrusar is farther than where we're trying to go, right?

LAURA: Yeah.

TRAVIS: Home.

LAURA: No, of course. We got to get to Gelvaan. Yeah, that's where the ship is picking us up.

TRAVIS: Yeah.

LIAM: Maybe there's something there that will give us a key to your mom.

LAURA: Some sort of insight.

ASHLEY: This is a crazy trail that I'm going to go on.

TRAVIS: This is?

ASHLEY: Mister-- (laughs)

ASHLEY: Yeah, because I'm always a real straight shooter. Wait, Mr. Faramore was your-- So your dad worked for him?

LAURA: Yeah.

ASHLEY: Who is he? He's just--

LAURA: Master Faramore, he's basically a merchant, a very successful merchant.

ASHLEY: Okay.

LAURA: Very successful.

ASHLEY: Did he know your mom and stuff, or just your dad?

LAURA: I don't know. I assume so. I mean... I mean, my father was working for him before I was born, so.

MARISHA: You know what else keeps bothering me? We still haven't fully cracked how Otohan is bamfing all over the place. She tends to do her own little shadow walkie shit.

TRAVIS: Yeah, she's real strong.

MARISHA: But I wonder if you have some sort of access to that.

LAURA: There is a way--

SAM: Oh, because you're a Ruidusborn.

LAURA: -- to dream into a place and--

MARISHA: Right! Then we can manifest ourself.

LAURA: -- shift in there.

MARISHA: Yes! Yes, that's what I'm trying to get at, yes!

LAURA: I thought of that as I was looking at Ryn.

LIAM: I thought maybe you'd turned--

LAURA: Could I force myself?

LIAM: -- into a nightmare.

LAURA: But I don't--

MATT: One of you did see Otohan in the Fey Realm vanish. She vanished after reading a piece of paper.

LAURA: Oh. Okay, okay.

MARISHA: Oh.

MATT: After piece of rolled vellum.

TRAVIS: Yeah, come on.

SAM: But that's a dimension hop.

ASHLEY: No, but that was a--

MARISHA: That was a dimension shift. Not necessarily on this plane of existence.

ASHLEY: Yeah, what if you tried meditating or something? I'm just trying to like...

SAM: When you went all bananas and had your power surge or whatever, it was when you were super irritated. You got really picked at for a long time, and then that happened. I wonder if you get to an agitated state, if more power will come out or something.

LAURA: Hmm. You want to try hitting me a few times? Is it kind of like you, FCG?

TRAVIS: FCG, how are you feeling right now?

SAM: I've been better, but--

TRAVIS: Really?

SAM: Yeah.

TRAVIS: Where are you on the wheel?

SAM: If this is bad, I'm like here-ish. I haven't been really feeling good the last couple days.

TRAVIS: To be clear, that one's not bad.

LAURA: How do we make you feel better?

SAM: I think just time. And you know what? If we don't do stressful things, I think I'll probably be okay.

LAURA: But our whole world is stressful right now.

SAM: That's probably a problem. Yeah.

MATT: (laughs)

ASHLEY: What if you could communicate with-- If you bring your red person out. What are they called again? Reilis?

LAURA: Oh.

MATT: Reilora.

LAURA: What were those called?

TALIESIN: Big, weird alien.

LAURA: What were they called?

MATT: Reilora.

LAURA: Reilora.

ASHLEY: Reilora.

LAURA: That's right. Okay.

SAM: Reilora Bailey.

LAURA: Yeah, Reilora Bailey.

ASHLEY: If you can try to communicate with it--

LAURA: Reilora.

ASHLEY: -- and be like, what is this? What are we doing?

LIAM: Ah!

ASHLEY: Who are you?

LAURA: Uh-huh.

TALIESIN: Theramin.

ASHLEY: What's going on?

LAURA: Yeah.

ASHLEY: I don't know.

TALIESIN: Can we, I don't want to say interrogate, but can we have a conversation with your weird alien?

LAURA: Jeez. It could go real, real south, but I can give it a try.

TALIESIN: I mean, what won't go real south right now?

TRAVIS: Yeah. This is it.

LAURA: But it's going to hurt us if we're around it. Just remember that.

TALIESIN: Can we hold it?

MARISHA: Why would you put Werther's in there if you don't like them?

TALIESIN: Do we have any way of keeping it at bay? Do we have any way of locking it down?

LAURA: I mean, it's a friend. It's an ally. It's not going to intentionally hurt us. It's got, I don't know, strong mental capabilities. Why are you flipping them off?

TALIESIN: It's because he's out of Werther's.

LAURA: I love them.

LIAM: Really?

LAURA: Give me one.

LIAM: They're pretty good.

MARISHA: There's so many Werther's.

LAURA: Why you have so many Werther's in the hole?

MARISHA: Is this like a Pog of you? Your face is on this.

LIAM: Did the Reilora--

TALIESIN and MATT: (laugh)

LIAM: Did the Reilora, when we saw it on the sky ship, did it have any kind of language that we didn't understand?

MATT: It didn't have a mouth.

LIAM: It didn't have a mouth.

MATT: It didn't have any features other than the shape of its body.

LIAM: Just a red form.

TALIESIN: If it's a friend--

MATT: It was semi ethereal in its presence.

TALIESIN: Maybe if it's a friend, it'll talk to you.

SAM: Which one's your favorite?

LAURA: Or think to me.

MARISHA: Did you--

TALIESIN: Or think to you.

MARISHA: That one.

TALIESIN: Same.

TRAVIS: If you summon it, how do you get rid of it?

SAM: Maybe this should be my new coin.

LIAM: Letters.

LAURA: I think I send it away or it stays with us for an hour. Maybe it can watch over us while we sleep, because it's still night time.

SAM: To sleep?

LIAM: You could get in its head too, right?

SAM: Get in its head?

TALIESIN: Whoa!

LIAM: The Reilora?

ASHLEY: Dust walkers--

SAM: I could listen to their thoughts, yeah.

LIAM: Can't you do that thing where you're able to understand all languages?

SAM: Sure.

TALIESIN: Wow!

TRAVIS: Let's do it! Why not? It's night time. We got to do this and then go to bed.

TALIESIN: This is insane.

MARISHA: Why are we trying to talk to this thing again?

TALIESIN: Not tonight maybe, but--

LIAM: It's not my idea. I'm just trying--

SAM: We're trying to summon your special friends and then communicate with them and ask them something, or tell them something?

LAURA: I don't know.

ASHLEY: I don't know.

SAM: What if they're just you?

LAURA: What you talking about?

MARISHA: Like echoes.

SAM: Or facets of your personality.

TALIESIN: Then we'll know.

SAM: Everybody has demons or good passions and bad passions. Maybe these are a bad passion, or a good passion.

LAURA: They're helpful.

SAM: Yeah.

TALIESIN: Or maybe they're exactly what they appear to be.

SAM: Which is?

TALIESIN: Some weird alien shit that's come down that is involved somehow in the red moon debacle.

SAM: I mean, I can try to talk to them, if that's what you want.

LAURA: Do y'all want to do this now or do you want to do it--

MARISHA: What are we trying to find out? Just where they came from?

LIAM: It's the middle of the night.

MARISHA: What's their deal?

LIAM: I think we're grasping at straws right now is what we're doing. We need to travel to Yios.

TALIESIN: Well, we're doing that, too, right now.

SAM: We need to move. We can do this on the sky ship while we're in motion.

LIAM: It's like one in the morning right now.

MARISHA: FCG.

TALIESIN: Oh, that's right.

LAURA: Get up early and get to Gelvaan.

MARISHA: Did you tell us about you recognizing something?

SAM: I did. I said I recognized it. Yeah.

MARISHA: I mean, we know that all those structures were ancient. I don't know. Do you think--

SAM: That those robots were my father and mother?

MARISHA: Yes, you know.

SAM: Maybe.

MARISHA: Using similar tech from that time.

SAM: Yeah. I mean, maybe I was.. Maybe I'm built of the same stuff and when we get there, I will revert to my old self.

MARISHA: That's what I mean.

SAM: I don't know.

MARISHA: Yes.

TALIESIN: Or just learn something.

MARISHA: Or learn something, but you are already stressed out, so I don't want you to, like (mouth click)

SAM: Yeah.

TRAVIS: The wheels go (squeaks).

LAURA: Did y'all get an impression that those automatons we saw were free thinking, or did they seem to be--?

SAM: I don't know. I didn't really get a sense.

TRAVIS: They looked like they were on patrol to me.

MARISHA: Mm-hmm. They didn't really seem like Letters.

TRAVIS: All right, young kids, have a good time. I'm going to sleep.

TALIESIN: That's a good idea.

MATT: All right. You all resting for the evening?

SAM: Yeah.

MARISHA: Yes.

TALIESIN: Yeah.

MATT: Okay. You complete your long rest.

SAM: Do we get a long rest? Is there anything adverse?

MATT: You do get a long rest.

SAM: Okay.

MATT: But you do wake up exhausted.

SAM: Ah.

TRAVIS: One point. For FCG and I?

MATT: You clear yours.

LIAM: Yeah, one point.

SAM: Okay.

MARISHA: That shit sucks.

LAURA: Mm-hmm.

TALIESIN: Yep.

TRAVIS: I ain't worried about it.

SAM: ♪ Condition ♪

ASHLEY: ♪ Condition ♪

LAURA: ♪ Condition ♪

TALIESIN: Condition.

SAM: ♪ Condition ♪

LIAM: Man. Tip your wizards, ladies and gentlemen. Tip your wizards.

MATT: Mm-hmm.

SAM: ♪ Condition ♪

MATT: You wake up the following morning, most of you refreshed, some of you a bit bruised in a place you've never been bruised before. Your mind throbs with a pain, a dull ache, a headache, but deeper than the forehead centric pain that you've encountered before, and you maybe have never had before.

SAM: This is so cool!

LAURA: What is?

SAM: It hurts inside my... Is it localized to my head also, or somewhere else?

MATT: For you, actually, it's all throughout.

LAURA: Interesting.

SAM: Yeah, comes in waves, need to sit down. Wow!

LIAM: It feel bad for you--

TRAVIS: Isn't it nice?

SAM: I feel alive.

LIAM: -- or just--

TRAVIS: Yeah.

LIAM: -- just new?

TALIESIN: Nothing like a little pain.

LAURA: Is it a different time--

TRAVIS: Nothing like a little pain.

LAURA: -- or were they working through the night--

TALIESIN: I live by it.

LAURA: -- on that excavation site? There's not a time difference.

LIAM: Yeah, we would be the same.

MATT: No, you're in practically the same region. Maybe a little bit further westward and southward. But yeah, they were working into the night.

TALIESIN: Is this day 11?

MATT: This is day 11.

TALIESIN: Day 11. Thank you.

LAURA: Can I-- Shit, I should have done this last night. Would it be opening up my thoughts and seeing if I can sense anyone that's not us?

MATT: Around you right now?

LAURA: In the same way that Thull discovered us. Just to make sure she's not spying on us.

MATT: If you'd like to. Okay. You have to make a perception check.

LAURA: I don't know if that does anything.

ASHLEY: Guidance.

TRAVIS: Nice.

LAURA: That's not good. No, it's shit. Seven and 10.

MATT: Okay. No. Seems to be clear around you. But the day is getting warmer and they journey's before you.

SAM: Let's go, let's go, let's go!

TRAVIS: Let's go!

ASHLEY: Let's go.

LIAM: Any talking we do is walking to your hometown.

LAURA: Yeah.

MATT: Mm-hmm.

TALIESIN: Walk and talk.

MATT: Okay. You progress up the path a bit before you do encounter the main road. It is an oddly comforting sight to see this main pathway that carves through the central eastern side of the Highland Bluffs. Settling up alongside that and continuing onward, you pass a couple of horseback, could be runners, could be note carriers. It could be all sorts of individuals that dart by on their daily business, not paying you any mind. A cart goes by with a cluster of goods being brought towards the Hellcatch, or other regions throughout. We'll say it's probably mid-afternoon, where you come up the last length of the first major bluff mesa top here. As you come into the beautiful green fields, the farmland that spreads around, partitioned by family, or business, or collective that runs this portion of the surrounding fields of the City of Gelvaan. This is very familiar to you. You've seen this region all your life and only since leaving it in your dreams. But it's humble. Though the town itself is not small by any means, its sprawl is modest. This is definitely a town of worker folk, people that till the land, people that see to the wellbeing of other members of the society under the Stratos Throne. You can see all number of paddocks held to maintain beasts of burden, livestock. You see trees and orchards scattered throughout, planted and intentionally maintained. This is a beautiful place, and it is your home, at least it has been up until late. You also notice as you're taking in the sights, a shadow in the sky from the east.

SAM: Oh! It's our ship.

MATT: As you see the approaching skyship that you had summoned.

LAURA: Oh shit.

MATT: Coming within the next few hours, maybe in the next hour or so, it should arrive. You being the first to gather it with your periphery vision and the speed that it normally travels. You gather it'll probably be here in the next hour, hour or two.

LAURA: We should get to my father quickly, then.

MARISHA: Think he's home? It's still nice and early.

LAURA: If not, he's at the stables.

MARISHA: All right.

TRAVIS: It's mid-afternoon now, right?

LIAM: How long since you've been here?

TRAVIS: I think it's mid-afternoon, right?

LAURA: What do you mean? What?

LIAM: How long since you've been home?

LAURA: Oh, a few years.

TALIESIN: Okay.

LIAM: Wow.

MATT: Okay. So are you heading into the city, are you heading to the stables, are you heading to your homestead?

LAURA: Probably heading to Master Faramore because I know he starts work early in the morning there.

MATT: Okay. All right. So you cut through the, well, from your perspective heading into the town what would be the left hand side of the city. You dodge past the Windstep Marketplace and there's all manner of small shops, general stores. You see Garrod's Wears and Trade, which is one of the larger equipment warehouses that has been here through the Garrod family or the Tildamere family for, god, six generations at this point. So you grew up around the older kids from the Tildamere family. Kind of dicks to you when you're younger, but when they got a little older, they seemed apologetic and you just kept to your own. Everyone here is going about their lives. They're coming to or returning from gathering supplies. You all stand out a little bit, (laughs), but you see a number of individuals glancing over in the direction. Do you make any notions of hiding your presence here?

LAURA: Just make eye contact with people and nod as I make my way.

MARISHA: I throw my hood up--

LIAM: ♪ Makin' my way ♪

MARISHA: -- and just keep my head down.

MATT: Okay. Well, the energy shifts upon a few moments of recognition and you begin to notice the town folk making wide berths between the arrival of you and the inability of the hood to hide too much of your presence. Nobody is outright aggressive. Some folks don't seem to make a moment of recognition. But a handful of the mainstays of Gelvaan definitely catch a glance. Old Lass Jemma gives you a sidelong glance with her wide, bulbous, red nose and gives you a sidelong stare before she backs into her homestead and closes the door. You know, horses being drawn through the town towards the stables where you're headed. The young stable hand there glances over and sees you and has a moment of recognition, and then a moment of remembrance, and he hurries the horses along and goes into a jog as they follow suit. The homecoming is a little more mixed than maybe the rest of you were expecting.

TALIESIN: I stick with Laudna and I make eye contact with every person I come across.

MATT: They give a much wider berth. (laughs)

TALIESIN: Thank you.

LAURA: I don't know how badly I hurt anyone when we left. They might not like us too much right now.

ASHLEY: Well, you've picked up a couple more strays since the last time you were here.

MATT: Eventually, you walk your companions to the large gated archway that leads to the open rolling fields and beautifully manicured estate, the Faramore Estate, as it is labeled in the exterior. A number of grounds hands and other caretakers of the estate are going about their own daily chores and work out in the field. You can see there's a number of hogs that are currently being rounded up for feeding time and you can see the stables off to the left hand side of this massive, sprawling mansion that marks this particular Faramore homestead.

MARISHA: Imogen, how are you feeling?

LAURA: Fine.

MARISHA: I don't know.

LIAM: Insight check.

LAURA: (laughs)

MARISHA: I mean, do you need--

LIAM: It's terrible.

LAURA: She's lying!

(laughter)

LAURA: No, yeah. I'll peer in and see if I spot--

MATT: Okay. As you approach the exterior of the stables, it's a bit quiet. You hear the occasion (horse sigh) on the inside and some rustling of some of the horses that are being kept off to the side to get their feeding time taken care of or having their saddles changed or restful and not currently in use. You step inside and look about and there is one young, bright-eyed, 14-year-old girl with a mousey face and a teenager's complexion, half-elven point to her ears and dark brown hair. It's braided in the back. She looks like she's been sweating a bit and is in the process and cleaning out one of the horse's horseshoes before she glances up and looks to you. "Oh, hey. Can I help you?"

LAURA: Is Relvin in?

MATT: "Yeah. Yeah, I can get Mr. Relvin."

LAURA: Thank you.

MATT: Gives you a look and there's that moment of recognition that you recognize this to be Cynthia. She didn't work here when you left, was a few years younger, but seems to have taken up a job here, and she looks contested, internally, at your arrival before she walks off a bit. A moment later, you hear a voice go, "What?" The door slams. Like (door slamming) You see from around the corner a man in his mid to late 40s, dirty blond hair pushed to one side. He has a scraggly beard across his chin, just a thick chinstrap beard.

MARISHA: Ooh.

MATT: Handsome in a rugged sort of way, wearing a simple button up shirt, sleeves rolled up past the elbows, and he's wiping off some dirt from his hands. He steps out and looks over at your troop before he immediately locks eyes with you.

LAURA: Hi, Dad.

MATT: "Imogen. What brings you around here today?"

LAURA: We need to talk.

MATT: "A lot of folks know you're around here?"

LAURA: Only the ones that saw me come in.

MATT: "All right. Cynthia, take your afternoon." She nods and gives you a little smile in acknowledgement and then walks off and begins taking her jacket on and heading off to her day. He looks at the rest of you. "These are your-- These are your--"

LAURA: My friends? Yeah.

MATT: "Friends? Friends? All right."

ASHLEY: Best friends.

MATT: "Motley crew you got these days."

TRAVIS: Thank you.

TALIESIN: We try.

MATT: "What do you want? What do you want to talk about?"

LAURA: I want to talk about Mom.

TRAVIS: I'll fan out and give a little bit of space, move to the edges of the barn.

ASHLEY: Start petting the horses.

TALIESIN: I really quickly go over, walk by, and tap FCG on the shoulder. Whatever happens, one way or the other, I don't want you to feel responsible. And keep going and keep an eye out on everything, anything.

LAURA: (laughs)

SAM: If this doesn't go well, I'm going to kill all of you.

(laughter)

MATT: And that's a promise!

LIAM: Equus.

MATT: As you say that, he sighs a bit, and he steps over and grabs two stools nearby and tosses one your direction, sits one under himself and--

LAURA: (laughs) I catch it with telekinesis and set it on the ground.

MATT: He nods.

TRAVIS: Nice.

LAURA: (laughs)

MARISHA: Cool.

SAM: Do you want us to leave? Okay.

LAURA: I got nothing to hide.

MATT: "So what do you want to know about your mother?"

LAURA: Wow! Actually going to talk?

MATT: "I always knew this was going to come around someday or other, especially after the way you left."

LAURA: Why didn't you tell me she was alive?

MATT: "Thought it was easier than you knowing the truth."

LAURA: When did her powers start showing up?

MATT: "I don't know. Part of me thinks she always had them by the time we met and she kept it from me this whole time. She didn't tell me about it. I think she was, I don't know, ashamed, scared."

LAURA: What happened? Why'd she leave?

MATT: "Hmm. I guess the mystery of her gift was stronger than the life we began to build."

LAURA: That's it? There was no catalyst? There was no moment? She just wanted to know?

MATT: Reaches back and pulls a scarf out of his pocket and wipes his forehead and face a little bit before ringing it a bit in his hands. "Shortly after we had you, about a year or two, said she kept having dreams and was afraid that you were going to follow in her footsteps. I asked her what that meant. It's a lot to take in at once. You think you know someone. There's a whole part of their life that they just been keeping a secret from you. I was angry. I'm still angry. But you know, a little part of me wants to believe she was just doing it to protect you. Maybe trying to either not hurt you, or find out what this is so she can stop it or get rid of it. That's what I hoped. But after about 10 years, you just stop hoping, move on with your life. Besides, I had you at that point to take care of."

LAURA: Daddy, you could've given me some warning.

MATT: "You know, I kind of hoped if I didn't say anything, it wouldn't--"

LAURA: She's tied up in some really bad stuff. I think the people she was most afraid of have kind of pulled her in. From everything I can gather, she wants to fight it, but she knows she's not strong enough, you know? What we're trying to do, we're trying to help her fight it. It could get real bad. I don't know what I'm searching for. I guess I'm looking for something. I don't even know her. I have no way to to pull her back. Does that make sense?

MATT: "More than you know."

LAURA: I know I left in a very troublesome way, but I haven't asked anything of you, Daddy, not in a long time.

MATT: "Mm-hmm."

LAURA: Is there anything you can give us, anything that would help break her or bring her back, or any information, like a scent that she loved or a song that she loved or--

MATT: Make a persuasion check.

MARISHA: Persuasion check.

ASHLEY: Guidance.

LAURA: (laughs)

SAM: You guys!

LAURA: I don't think it works! I don't think it works in that way.

MATT: I'm going to say casting a Guidance spell in the middle of this conversation is probably a little--

LAURA: But I appreciate that. It almost was awesome, but it dropped to a--

LIAM: It has to be unannounced.

LAURA: -- 12.

MATT: 12. "Haven't seen her in near 20 years. I couldn't even begin to tell you what she's like, only how she was."

LAURA: What was she like?

MATT: "She was sweet. She was smart. She was strong-willed. That's why I liked her. There was always a part of me that felt like maybe she knew she didn't belong here, as much as she tried. Maybe there's a part of me that always thought that when she eventually figured that out, we'd both go together, but-- Different worlds."

LAURA: Hmm.

MATT: "(sighs) I don't know what to tell you."

ASHLEY: Do you happen to have any of her things? Did you keep anything of hers, by chance? A little box?

MATT: "Why would that be your business?"

ASHLEY: It's definitely not. I totally understand. But we're dealing with an end of the world situation. So I think, whether it's my business or not is... Do you have anything?

MATT: "Y'all just roll in here, pulling my leg and trying to bring up such delightfully painful scars."

LAURA: You think I would come in here for no reason? These aren't tall tales!

LIAM: We wish it were.

LAURA: Something's happening, and Mama's involved.

MATT: "You going to help her?"

LAURA: I'm trying to help her find a path back. I think she's lost. She's struggling.

MATT: He looks past you a little bit and looks out towards the city streets beyond the estate grounds, bites his lower lip for a second. "(sighs)" And he gets up, kicks his boot a bit on the side of one of the stable doors and walks out of the stable.

LAURA: I get up and I start walking after him. But as I do, I look around. Do I see Flora in her stable?

MATT: You do.

LAURA: (sighs) I'm going to walk up and nuzzle her.

MATT: Mm-hmm.

LAURA: Then keep going.

TRAVIS: As they go upstairs, did he originally come from an area that was downstairs? Because as I moved to the edge, I was going to go wherever he originally was and peep around.

MATT: Okay. Well, no. He exited the stable, out back towards the grounds.

TRAVIS: Okay.

MATT: So he arrived from one of the other, like further in the stables, he was doing work, not like an office or a building or anything.

TRAVIS: Not an office.

MATT: No.

TRAVIS: Okay.

MATT: The rest of you follow suit?

SAM: I mean--

TALIESIN: Well, we're taking our cues.

MARISHA: Do you want us to follow? Is he going home?

SAM: We can stay.

LAURA: Yeah, I'll just go.

SAM: We'll just stay here.

MARISHA: All right.

MATT: Okay.

MARISHA: We'll pet Flora.

SAM: Hay fight!

(laughter)

ASHLEY: I'm going to braid Flora's mane--

MARISHA: Here comes a carrot.

ASHLEY: -- and put ribbons in it.

SAM: Ah!

ASHLEY: Make her look real fun.

MARISHA: Oh shit!

MATT: Okay.

TRAVIS: I don't go near the horse. We don't get along.

LAURA: No.

TALIESIN: I'm just going to keep an eye.

MATT: Okay.

LIAM: Orym's going to lean on the door and actually watch them.

MATT: Okay.

LIAM: Imogen and her dad.

MATT: All right. Well, he leaves the estate grounds.

SAM: Oh.

LAURA: He's going home.

MATT: He's heading home.

MARISHA: Maybe he's trying to go find something.

TRAVIS: We'll come with. We'll come with you.

LAURA: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I'll send that message--

TALIESIN: All right.

LAURA: -- on to Laudna as we're walking away.

MATT: Okay.

LAURA: You might want to follow.

MARISHA: Do you think he's like, "Oh, I'm going to go get our wedding bands," or something like that?

SAM: Oh, maybe!

LAURA: I don't know where he's-- I mean, I hope he's helping. (laughs) It seems like he is.

SAM: He must've had some good memories with her and some special moments that--

LAURA: Oh yeah.

MATT: Eventually, he leads you to the grass fields here in the Dureni fields that surround your homestead. Almost just like you left it, just like you've stood there through all those dreams.

LAURA: This is fucked.

MATT: The grass swaying in the breeze, the nearby trees gently taking the wind through them. (breeze blowing gently)

LAURA: I look up at the sky, almost like I'm going to wake up from a dream, it's going to turn anytime.

MATT: It's mostly blue. Bits of broken gray clouds as they gather further southward toward the Stratos Throne center in the capital. But no storm.

LAURA: I say out loud: Run. I'm going to turn.

MATT: There's the farmhouse where you expect it, your father just stepping into the front door. The rest of you approaching from a distance, if you wish to. You come back to your home. It's as you remember, if a little more bare. Looks like he hasn't needed as much furniture as of late, gotten rid of a couple chairs. But it's welcoming, comfortable. You hear some rummaging in a back room.

LAURA: (clears throat)

MATT: He comes around the corner with a small, square box. He opens it up, pulls out this little chain, this little silver chain, with an oval-shaped locket at the end. Tosses it to you.

LAURA: I open it up.

MATT: Open it up, and it has a fingerprint pressed into metal. A very, very tiny fingerprint. It says, written in it in handwriting, like someone else had written into this soft metal, "The better halves become a better whole."

LAURA: Buh.

MATT: He looks at you as you look at it. "Look, whatever trouble she's gotten into, don't get yourself too far into this trouble, either."

LAURA: Thank you.

MATT: "You and your friends probably shouldn't stay too long. Some folks around here that don't have the fondest memories of your exit."

LAURA: Are they okay?

MATT: "They got better, but--"

LAURA: Good.

MATT: "The tales have certainly grown with time. At a certain point, they just stopped listening to me." He approaches and stands there before you, looking a little awkward. You knew him, he was never the master of parental affection.

LAURA: In his head he's going to hear: I never want you to be afraid of me, Daddy.

MATT: "Me neither. (sighs) Good luck."

LAURA: Yeah.

MATT: He pats you on the shoulder. That gulf still sits between you.

LAURA: Yeah. Thank you.

MATT: "Tell her..." He turns goes back into the room and closes the door.

LAURA: Bye. I'll head back to the group.

MARISHA: I nuzzle up to Imogen. I'm sorry.

LAURA: No, he helped. He helped us.

MARISHA: What is that?

LAURA: It's a locket. I think my mama, I think she wore it. Or it was made when I was born, maybe.

ASHLEY: Is that your fingerprint?

LAURA: I think it is.

ASHLEY: That's so little.

LAURA: (laughs)

MARISHA: Oh my goodness.

LAURA: Can you imagine?

MARISHA: I bet you were the cutest little baby.

ASHLEY: Are you okay?

LAURA: I'm fine. I'm fine. I'm glad we came. Thank you. I'm glad we came. We should get to the ship.

SAM: I'll send a message to tell them where we are.

LAURA: Yeah.

MARISHA: Should we steal Flora while we're here?

MATT and LAURA: (laugh)

SAM: We can probably fit Flora on the ship.

LAURA: No, no. Flora will take--

TRAVIS: Chetney comes out of the barn.

LAURA: They'll take better care of her here than we would on a ship.

SAM: Yeah, but you could ride Flora into the battle!

(laughter)

LAURA: I don't want Flora dying in that battle.

MARISHA: Damn it.

TRAVIS: I told you I don't do well with horses.

(laughter)

ASHLEY: This is what a horse looks like!

(laughter)

TRAVIS: Chetney walks out of the barn, his chin's red, his arms are red and he's like--

ASHLEY: I was way off.

TRAVIS: I'm sorry.

(laughter)

SAM: You killed Flora!

TRAVIS: You shouldn't have left me alone.

(laughter)

MATT: As you go to turn and look, the skyship is descending on the southern outskirts of town.

LIAM: By your dad's house.

MATT: This is--

LAURA: Amazing.

TALIESIN: We should probably head that way.

MATT: There is not a skyport in this farm village.

LAURA: It's kind of Bassuras.

MATT: And it is gathering attention.

TALIESIN: I think this may go well.

LAURA: Yeah.

TALIESIN: Let's go-- There's nothing--

LAURA: Go get on that ship.

TALIESIN: Let's go make a scene.

MARISHA: Oh, yes.

TRAVIS: Councilwoman Temult, after you.

MARISHA: ♪ ("Battle Without Honor or Humanity") (humming)

TALIESIN: You going to be cool?

MARISHA: Yes.

TALIESIN: Keep the hood down, maybe?

LAURA: Put your head up high.

ASHLEY: Yeah, you fucking show them what's up.

TRAVIS: Not too high, that shit'll pop off.

(laughter)

MARISHA: (groans)

TRAVIS: (cracks)

ASHLEY: Ah, shit.

MARISHA: I'm good, I'm good.

TRAVIS: Now?!

TALIESIN: We got you. If they twitch, they will be on the ground so fast.

LAURA: I don't think they'll mess with us.

ASHLEY: Look at you. Walk this place like a runway. These are your streets.

MATT: So do you wind around the town, or step through the main thoroughfare?

LAURA: We'll just fucking go straight to the ship.

MATT: Okay. Going through the main street, through the Windstep Marketplace. Most folks are whispering and bantering about, and gathering and pointing towards the skyship as it's approaching. Having grown up here, you've heard stories, and in the very far distance can see the shapes moving through from the various trade routes, but the occasional one heading towards the top of the mountains to the south where Sruwargas sits. But nary one ever stopped near this village, so everyone is definitely gathered and focused on this, which at first means you wade into this town without much anyone paying attention. But once a few do, the whispers begin to change, and the energy begins to grow. Some of it fear and surprise, some of it just general excitement, but all eyes are now on you as you begin to step towards this massive arcane beauty. The Silver Sun eventually (whooshes) lowering, the brumestone still humming with energy 'til it comes to rest (heavy impact) in the center of the exterior field just beyond the main gates of the village. There, you see all manner of members of this town, some you don't recognize, but many, many you do, many you grew up with. All faces seem to be a mixture of awe and surprise, the occasional glance of disdain, but this combination of appearance back to back seems to have most people stunned and unable to emote beyond just taking it in.

MARISHA: I shoot an Unsettling Presence to that first person that gives us the stinkeye.

(laughter)

ASHLEY: Let's go.

TRAVIS: Cool.

SAM: Shits himself.

MATT: Number one, but yes.

(laughter)

MATT: A slight dark trickle down the inside of their pant leg as this older crotchety man, who you haven't seen before--

SAM: Scare that old man.

MATT: Just like "(breathes heavily)." All the campaigns: still against the elderly.

(laughter)

MATT: But there you see, rushing to the front of the ship, Captain Xandis, their horns outright, their arms up with their coat billowing behind as the breeze push through. They go, "Hello there, all you great people. Know you don't get the bumpkins to see such a great display like this, but this is the Silver Sun, one of the great esteemed skyships to wander all of Exandria, here to bestow upon you a majestic entrance to Bells Hells, right here, these fine people--"

SAM: Thank you, Captain.

MATT: "That we got to go, right? We're going to places?"

SAM: Yeah, we got to go.

LAURA: We got to go.

MATT: "All right."

MARISHA: We've got to get back to the Hellcatch.

TRAVIS: This way, Councilwoman. After you.

LAURA: Oh, I'm going to wait 'til everybody else gets up on the--

TRAVIS: I brush off the steps to make sure they're clear.

ASHLEY: Yes.

LAURA: I'm going to wait 'til everybody gets up the steps before I-- Is the ship landed, or is it--

MATT: It's landed currently in the dirt. You see the ladders and step ways have been placed down onto the ground.

MARISHA: Levitate.

TRAVIS: You heard the Councilwoman, you riff-raff, on board.

SAM: Okay, yes, yeah. Right away.

ASHLEY: Yes, yes.

TRAVIS: Magistrate.

SAM: Majordomo.

TRAVIS: Yes.

(laughter)

ASHLEY: I get on board and I bow, waiting for her to come up.

MATT: Captain Xandis goes, "I'm also a king."

(laughter)

MATT: "We're all very important."

SAM: We're all royalty.

ASHLEY: VIPs.

TRAVIS: Captain, come on. It's distracting.

MATT: "I'm just trying to play along. Besides, you know--"

TRAVIS: That's a little extra.

TALIESIN: Have fun. All right, I'm going up the stairs.

MARISHA: Mm-hmm.

LAURA: All right, as soon as everybody's up, I'm going to turn back to the crowd. I'm not going to say a word, I'm just going to (whooshes).

MARISHA: Yes.

LAURA: And fly.

MARISHA: Yes.

LAURA: So I'm going to raise up and levitate up, and then back onto the ship while staring at everybody.

TRAVIS: Oh. (laughs)

MATT: You can hear the audible (gasping), the gasps pouring through the crowd.

LAURA: That's so stupid.

ASHLEY: The Exalted.

LAURA: What a waste of a spell.

MATT: Not at all. That's what this is about!

ASHLEY: Worth it.

MATT: Are you kidding me?

TRAVIS: That's what it's there for.

MARISHA: Go home and you flex.

ASHLEY: Yeah.

LIAM: Are you saying you used a fake thing for the wrong fake thing?

(laughter)

TRAVIS: Oh, that's perfect.

ASHLEY: Yep.

MATT: "So, we ready to go?"

LAURA: Yeah, let's fucking get out of here.

TALIESIN: Fuck this town.

MARISHA: We might need to double time it.

MATT: "I'll do my best. There's sort of--"

MARISHA: I know.

MATT: "Boundaries to what we can do, but we'll push the guns, eh? All right. Goodbye, bumpkins! Have a good day!"

(laughter)

MATT: "Bring up the ladders." The crew pulls up the exits. (buzzing) All the brumestones begin to fill with energy, begin to glow brightly, and (low thud) the skyship picks up (whooshes) off of the field, does one big circular pass over the town at a low angle to harry the townsfolk one more time before shifting back in a northward direction.

TALIESIN: DS9 spin.

MATT: Towards-- "Where? Where are we going?"

SAM and MARISHA: Hellcatch.

MATT: "Oh, great. Perfect."

LAURA: I'm going to put the locket on as we're taking off.

MATT: All right. As you clip the locket around your neck, the wind blowing through your hair, the dappled clouds visible in the distance with the growing gray storm that awaits you over the distant Hellcatch, past the mountain ranges on the outside of the southern regions of Marquet. You gather and steel your minds and selves for whatever lay ahead. You swear, as you look towards the sky in front of you, this faint visual aurora is just barely visible in the sky.

LAURA: Oh shit.

MARISHA: The Solstice.

MATT: And that's where we're going to finish this episode right there.

ASHLEY: Oh no.

TRAVIS: Attack of the ozone!

LAURA: Oh my god.

TALIESIN: Oh, I enjoyed that.

TRAVIS: Oh, I'm getting goosebumps. (shivering)

ASHLEY: Me, too.

LAURA: That's so sweet. I want that locket. For real for real.

MATT: Well, when your birthday comes, we'll see what we can do.

LAURA: Birthday.

MATT: (laughs)

TALIESIN: Nothing like a D&D prop for your birthday.

TRAVIS: Very cool, man, very cool.

TALIESIN: Not kidding.

TRAVIS: Hey, he wasn't a total dickfuck.

TALIESIN: He was--

MARISHA: He was a bit of a--

MATT: He wasn't great.

TRAVIS: I said a total dickfuck.

MATT: That's true.

TALIESIN: He wasn't a mustache-twirling Disney villain.

TRAVIS: He's half a dickfuck.

LIAM: He was human.

MATT: Yeah, he was human. He was literally human.

LAURA and TALIESIN: Yeah.

(laughter)

LIAM: What I was aiming for.

TRAVIS: Literally human, yeah.

MATT: All right, well, we'll pick up from there next week as you head towards the Hellcatch with 11 days before the Solstice.

LAURA: 11 days!

LIAM: 11 days.

MATT: 11 days!

TRAVIS: No problem. We got it.

MATT: Yeah. Still questions to answer, people to contact. You have quite a few days of travel to figure out what you want to do, what you want to find, who you want to call, who you want to gather. And see whatever lies before you.

MARISHA: At dawn, we plan!

(cheering)

MATT: At dawn, we plan. Hell yeah. Well, thank you all so much for joining us. (laughs) We'll see you soon enough. We love you very much, and is it Thursday yet? Good night.