Transcript:Night at the Ligament Manor

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

ALL: (hollering) We play Dungeons & Dragons!

MATT: Hmm. (laughter)

MATT: That was a start. Before we jump into tonight's episode, we do have some announcements to get through, beginning with our first sponsor of tonight, Persona. Sam, go ahead.

SAM: Yes, Persona, the awesome RPG video game series we all know and love, and have also been voices in. With Persona 3 portable and Persona 4 Golden available on modern platforms, you're going to be in for a ton of JRPG action. So to get into that spirit, we're going to play the Persona advertisement RPG. And start. Okay. Enter my name. S-A-- I don't know how the games work.

MARISHA: You're also--

TRAVIS: They got letters.

MARISHA: You're just button mashing.

SAM: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm a button masher. Okay, first decision. Let's do let's talk about Persona.

LIAM: (like Akihiko Sanada) Good morning, Sat. Did you know that Persona, the award-winning franchise that all RPG fans can enjoy has returned with two iconic Persona titles remastered and ready to be rediscovered?

LAURA: (like Rise Kujikawa) That's right, Sat. Enjoy both titles now. Available digitally on Xbox Game Pass, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, and more!

SAM: Okay, this is a fun game. What's next? Ooh. Let's have a fight. LAURA (V.O.): My Persona 3 Portable has improved graphics, gameplay, difficulty selection, and quick save functionality. This guy will never see my special move coming.

LAURA: (grunts) The Dark Hour strikes twice! LIAM (V.O.): Whoa, this girl is good. She'll be expecting my Persona 4, but she doesn't know that my Persona 4 Golden Key has otherworldly dungeons, monstrous shadows, and a dark serial murder case.

LIAM: Don't touch that dial! It's time for the Midnight Channel! LAURA (V.O.): Impossible. My rainbow charisma shell is immune to this level of advertising attacks.

LAURA: Is that all you got?

LIAM: I told you not to underestimate my power. LIAM (V.O.): She's right to underestimate my power. The Persona games are way cooler than me.

SAM: Okay, well, this is getting sad, so let's wrap this up. And I'll select website.

LAURA: Check them out at persona.atlas.com.

SAM: And our last move.

ASHLEY: Ping!

LIAM: Thanks to Persona for supporting the show. Matt.

LAURA: (groans)

LIAM: (groans)

LAURA and LIAM: Back to you! (laughter)

MATT: The layers of meta.

ASHLEY: So good, so good.

MATT: Making my nose bleed. That was awesome.

LIAM: I'm spiraling, I'm spiraling. (laughter)

TRAVIS: Don't doubt yourself. It's going to be great.

MARISHA: That was great.

MATT: It's always good to remind yourself where you got started, you know?

ASHLEY: Those V.O.s, you guys.

LAURA: The VO is--

MATT: Where you began.

LAURA: The VO is really where it's at.

SAM: Thanks, guys. Thanks.

MATT: Thank you, Persona, for sponsoring us. This episode is also sponsored by our friends at Skillshare. You may know Skillshare for their classes in photography, film and video editing, and illustration, but did you know Skillshare has hundreds of career focused classes too? Did you? You do now. (laughter)

MATT: The new year is the perfect time to reinvent your goals and yourself. Traditional working jobs are not one size fit all. Think about your future, and it can be intimidating. So let's take the pressure off by starting small. Maybe you'd like to learn productivity tips to power more me time, or maybe the goal is to start building a Personal brand style. I should work on that eventually. Skillshare teachers will take you step-by-step through this process. Would you like to explore more creative career options, like launch Mercer-dise? Merchandise. That's how I merchandise. It's the Mercer-dise. On a new platform for passive income and all the way to your own boss.

ASHLEY: See? That's good. Already learned.

MATT: See, I've already learned stuff from Skillshare. (laughter)

MATT: Make sure to sign up and learn what it takes to break into these industries to find the right path. There's a special offer for our audience. The first 1,000 Critters to join Skillshare by following the link SKLSH. S-K-L-- (laughter)

MATT: SKL.SH/criticalrole12221. (laughter)

SAM: 1, 2, 2, 2, 1.

MATT: 1, 2, 2, 2, 1.

LIAM: He got it right, it was just quick.

ASHLEY: 2, 2--

MATT: Yeah, 1, 2, 2, 2, 1, will get a one-month free trial. Your day-to-day is filled tasks and endless to-do lists. Prioritize your self-care and wellness my using Skillshare as a way to invest in yourself--

SAM: Oh, it's still going.

MATT: -- unwind, and relax. Go check out Skillshare for yourself now. Thanks to them for continuing to support our show.

ASHLEY: Yay! (cheering)

SAM: Wow!

MARISHA: Skillshare!

SAM: That was good.

LAURA: That was really good.

MATT: Travis, you need to go!

TRAVIS: I got it! Guys. (laughter)

TRAVIS: The first three episodes of The Legend of Vox Machina Season 2 are available right now. (cheering)

SAM: Go watch them!

TRAVIS: And again and again and again and again. Plus, if you didn't catch it live, you can check out our watch party for episodes one through three available right now on our Twitch and YouTube channels.

MARISHA: Yep.

SAM: Real fun.

TRAVIS: Episodes four, five, and six of Season 2 will drop on Prime Video worldwide tomorrow, January 27th. Yeah, but got to watch one through three, because that's a thing.

SAM: You might as well watch them again if you've seen them.

TRAVIS: And we will host our next watch party for episodes four through six next Tuesday, January 31st at 7:00pm Pacific.

MARISHA: Yeah.

MATT: Yeah.

TRAVIS: Thanks, thanks.

LAURA: Oh shit.

MATT: So excited. Laura?

LAURA: Yes?

MATT: You're up.

LAURA: I'm up? Okay, we got stuff. All right, we got, the first thing--

ASHLEY: (as Laura) "We got stuff."

LAURA: I'm going to talk about-- Oh, you know our little vinyls. Well, now we got Bells Hells chibi vinyls.

ASHLEY: Look at them.

LAURA: Add to your sticker collection.

TRAVIS: Chet! Chetney!

LAURA: Aren't they so cute?

MATT: That's super great.

LAURA: Oh, here and take--

TALIESIN: Distribute, distribute.

LAURA: Ashton.

TALIESIN: Thank you.

LAURA: A little Orym.

TRAVIS: Look at these old fogies.

LAURA: A little Launda baby.

MARISHA: She's going to go on my water bottle!

LAURA: A little Fearne and a little Imogen.

ASHLEY: Oh my god, there's a--

SAM: Here you go, FCG.

TALIESIN: They're so pretty.

LAURA: Aren't they so cute? Okay, there's also-- Oh, and artist Jenny Park did these. She's amazing.

LIAM: Thank you.

LAURA: We also have just a Bells Hells black thing you can put on things. We also have this awesome Bells Hells awesome pin. Awesome.

TRAVIS: That's beautiful.

LAURA: And then, the other thing, the last thing, and I'm super excited about this, you can tell.

ASHLEY: So pretty.

TRAVIS: This is awesome.

LAURA: Why is-- Wait, hold on, I got to find the other one.

ASHLEY: Me too, me too, me too! I don't know what happened to the other one.

LIAM: Oh my god, I got it. It's right here.

LAURA: We have slippers!

MATT: What?!

SAM: Slippers?!

LAURA: We have Trinket slippers!

ASHLEY: Look at the bottom!

LAURA: They got little bear paws on the bottom.

ASHLEY: So you don't get slippies.

LAURA: They're so cute.

MATT: Oh my god, that's absurd.

LAURA: I already have some at home. I've been wearing them for a long time because they've been in production for forever.

MATT: (Trinket noise)

LIAM: (talking as Trinket)

LAURA: Check them out.

MARISHA: They remind me of--

LAURA: Artist Jordyn Torrence.

MARISHA: -- childhood so much.

LAURA: I know, they're so comfy and wonderful.

ASHLEY: I took off my shoes.

TALIESIN: Can I say it? I want to say it. It's so dumb.

LAURA: What?

TALIESIN: Why have bare feet when you can have--

TRAVIS: No! (groaning)

ASHLEY: Taliesin! (laughter)

SAM: He's good.

ASHLEY: There it is.

LAURA: They're so cute!

MARISHA: I can't believe we didn't think of that sooner.

TALIESIN: I can't believe you let me say it out loud.

LAURA: I know! And by the way, the bear paw on the bottom is grippy.

MATT: Ooh.

LAURA: So you don't slip.

ASHLEY: So you don't slippies.

TALIESIN: It's got traction. Actually, that's very paws-itive.

MATT: Grippy so you don't slippy.

ASHLEY: (laughs) They don't slippy.

TALIESIN: That's always the problem I have.

ASHLEY: Dang, look at all this.

MATT: That's awesome.

LAURA: Got lots of stuff.

MATT: Thank you, Laura. Liam, you're up.

LIAM: Gang, let's talk about comic books. Critical Role.

ASHLEY: Let's talk about it.

LIAM: The Mighty Nein Origins: Nott the Brave is available now! (cheering)

LIAM: This thing is beautiful. Created in partnership with Dark Horse Comics and written by Sam Maggs with our very own Sam Riegel and Matthew Mercer.

TRAVIS: Woo hoo!

LIAM: This fucking gorgeous book was made with artist William Kirkby joined by cover colorist Mildred Louis and interior colorist Eren Angiolini, and of course, letterer Ariana Maher. The color in this thing is gorgeous. The whole book is beautiful.

MATT: It's beautiful.

LIAM: Look for it in your friendly local comic shops and bookstores now. Sam, you have to take this baby home.

SAM: I am so excited I get to hold it and take it home! Ha ha! I'll learn to read.

MATT: I do believe that concludes our announcements. So I think now is the best time to go ahead and jump into tonight's episode of Critical Role.

SAM: ♪ (scatting) ♪

TRAVIS: (roars)

Part I
(laughter)

LIAM: What a visual:

MATT: So last we left off: Bells Hells, after making it to the city of Yios, the City of Flowing Light, gathering some information, losing Ashton for a bit, regaining Ashton, who had one of their own separate adventures that is continuing to reveal itself, interrogated member of the Ruby Vanguard that seems to be working alongside or under the strange Ruidus endeavor that Ludinus, Otohan, and Liliana all seemed to be tied up in. Going to the seminary finally, had some conversations with the professor about the origins of FCG, learning a little more about themself, while Fearne and Imogen went to find the professor that you've been searching for for quite some time, and one of the main reasons for coming here at the get-go. Upon speaking to the professor and learning a a bit of information about the Grim Verity and some of the work they're doing and have been doing as well as what seems to be happening underneath Ludinus' interests. Ludinus Da'leth arrived within that office, took the remaining elements of the Omen Archive that had been long hidden, and seemingly robbed the professor of the majority of their awareness and intellect for the time being after a brief conversation and being left to your devices as Ludinus just left with the pages he needed. You called in the rest of your troop. You gathered the professor, called Planerider Ryn, who you had befriended and allied your various plans with, and decided that your next order of business was to search one of these three machines, these keys you've heard them referred to as, one of which exists in the Fey Realm. As such, you were transported by Planerider Ryn to the Fey Realm. After wandering through the dark swamps of an area called the Harrowcall Fens, you eventually came to the exterior of the Ligament Manor, the home where Fearne spent most of her life under her Nana. This strange, alien, vine covered massive treehouse that you walked up within and were greeted by a somewhat nightmarish monstrous form of Nana, both faces and all, as she invited you to have a cocktail at her tiki bar. (laughter)

SAM: At her tiki bar.

MATT: Which is where we return. Here, within the central space of this bisected twisting tree, the numerous branches all filtering off, a whole bunch of vines, tethered and pulling in different directions, looking at the interior of a hard stretched and dark inked body that had been pulled apart and grown over. You can see these little lanterns lit up and hung everywhere, little baubles and trinkets and collections and constructions decorating this interior space. You hear the faint sound of music, and you watch as Nana, her extended head withdraws a little bit into the shoulders as she turns around with a grin, clasping her long spindly arms together and rocks over to the far right corner where you see a weirdly grown cluster of shaved wood that is knotted and planed off to form a bar top that sits in the far edge of that corner. There's some extremely out of place grass thatch that creates a canopy over it, where, upon looking over in this shaded little pocket, you can immediately see a half dozen sets of glowing green eyes that just blink from within the shadows underneath the thatch top. As Nana, as Morri approaches, they begin to blink off into the shadows, and she moves behind. Once she's within the tiki bar, it looks rather small. She encompasses and fills the entirety behind the actual bar. But as you approach and follow suit, it's a large bar. She's just a large woman. You get a better look. There are dozens of bat-like creatures that all just nest up inside the canopy of this bar. As soon as you begin to get closer, you can see a bunch of the eyes flicker on and just glare out. You can hear the little sounds of (squeaking) throughout as you approach. They seem excited at the presence of guests as well.

SAM: Hmm.

TRAVIS: Whoa.

MATT: You also see a number of snakes that slither through the woven branches that form the bar. They come up and wrap around these sets of jugs that sit on and to the side of the bar, these dark brown, terracotta looking jugs. She immediately puts some glasses, these big hefty glasses on top of the bar. Begins mixing some things into a large bowl, cups it, and just "(grunts)" shakes it while just looking over at all of you with her sunken dark sockets. Little golden glow of eyes from deep within them, smiling as she looks across. "So tell me about your friends, Fearne."

ASHLEY: All right, all right. Oh my goodness, wait 'til you have her cocktails. You have no idea how good they are. All right, so where do we start? Okay, this is Chetney. Master craftsman. Works with wood. So great. This is Laudna. The most beautiful. She died. We brought her back, and she's super powerful. Crazy good with fire. This is FCG.

SAM: Smiley day to you.

ASHLEY: Trust me, I want to get in there, too.

LAURA: (laughs)

ASHLEY: He opens up and-- He was like an assassin robot.

MATT: "Ooh."

ASHLEY: Yeah.

MATT: You look to Fearne and look back, and her head is right there, right in front of you. You're like, oh god.

SAM: Oh, okay.

MATT: And it recoils back.

TRAVIS: Oh gosh.

MATT: Adds a few spices that she chucks into the top of the bowl, closes it up and keep shaking as you continue.

ASHLEY: This is Imogen. She's a superhero.

LAURA: In her head she hears: Howdy.

MATT: As soon as you go into the head, you hear a response of seven or eight different voices go, (echoing whispers) "Hi."

TRAVIS: (deeply) Hi.

MARISHA: Yes.

LAURA: Okay.

ASHLEY: This is Orym--

LIAM: Hi, Nana Morri.

ASHLEY: -- who I've been traveling with for a very long time, and we've befriended each other. He's kind of one of my best friends. And this is Ashton.

TALIESIN: Hi Nana, it's a pleasure. May I call you Nana? It's a pleasure.

MATT: "You're allowed. Nana to all of your friends."

ASHLEY: Nana, look at his head. Look inside. Isn't it gorgeous?

MATT: She removes one hand from the bowl and is about to touch it and goes, "May I?"

TALIESIN: Oh yes, of course. For free.

MATT: As she runs this long, crooked nail along the glass, you see a dull blue glow follow from the inside, like when you place your hand against those plasma balls and it follows.

ASHLEY: Yes.

MATT: You feel this odd tingling sensation within your head and for a split second, you begin to remember flashes of things that you don't recall, and then they're gone again. She pulls away. "Ah, an interesting fracture."

ASHLEY: Sorry, I didn't--

TALIESIN: Could we talk later? Okay, yeah.

MATT: "Drinks first."

LIAM: Is Nana's whole second face out in the open?

MATT: No, it's closed inside.

LIAM: Closed, so it's hidden away, right?

MATT: Yeah. It's hidden away.

LIAM: Okay.

MATT: You just have the one head and the dress that's pulled closed with ropes and tethers.

LIAM: Okay.

SAM: What recipe are you mixing for us?

MATT: "Oh, this a Harrowcall special."

SAM: Harrowcall special? What's a Harrowcall?

MATT: "It's where we are, little metal friend."

SAM: Oh!

ASHLEY: That's where we are, yeah, Harrowcall.

SAM: The region, the name of the home, homestead?

ASHLEY: The Harrowcall Fens, yeah.

SAM: Oh, the Harrowcall Fens.

TALIESIN: I'm so excited for this drink. I am very excited for this drink.

MATT: After shaking it, she pulls up this odd bowl, and you can see there's a little spout on the far end that she pulls this cork off. (cork pop) And then turns it down.

LIAM: Jesus Christ.

MATT: (glugs) She's filling each of these glasses, and there's one for each of you.

LAURA: Yay!

MATT: It's a brackish liquid. It looks like it has some thicker elements floating towards the top. It definitely smells of a citrus swamp water. But she sets the bowl down and slides them all forward, towards all of you.

LIAM: Can you hand one down to me?

TALIESIN: Yep, yep, yep. Bottoms up.

MATT: "I call this the Moonlight Glycerin. Enjoy." She takes the rest of the bowl and just drinks from it. (gulps)

TRAVIS: Cheers! Minus eyes, minus eyes.

ALL: Cheers, minus eyes.

ASHLEY: Oh, I've missed your cocktails.

TRAVIS: (coughs)

ASHLEY: Strong. Oh.

TRAVIS: (gasps)

MARISHA: You missed a bit.

TALIESIN: It's got a vibe. (coughs)

MARISHA: You've got a little--

TALIESIN: Yeah.

LIAM: That's it. That's some quality miming, you guys.

TRAVIS: What's the sensation like as it hits our tongues?

MATT: It's very sweet, it's very sweet. The sugar hits you first, and then it begins to burn. But it's like a warm burn. It's like a toasty, an interior blanket of a burn.

LIAM: Does it say "alcohol," or does it say, "what is this?"?

MATT: Both.

LIAM: Okay.

TALIESIN: Awesome.

ASHLEY: Yes.

SAM: It's giving "What is this?"

MATT: The light in the room begins to brighten.

TRAVIS: Uh-oh.

MATT: Slowly and significantly.

TALIESIN: Fuck!

MATT: Just a hint.

SAM: Do I have any affect?

MATT: You would actually have an affect on this, yeah.

SAM: Oh, did I taste it or just have an affect?

MATT: I mean, you tasted it like you taste anything else.

SAM: Which is nothing.

MATT: Which is nothing.

SAM: Okay, cool.

MATT: But you all, for the next eight hours, have Darkvision.

ALL: Oh!

LAURA: Tight!

LIAM: And that hit relatively instantly?

MATT: Within about a minute or so it begins to fade into it.

LIAM: I want this stuff for me, Liam.

MARISHA: Our eyes dilate.

SAM: Uh-huh.

TALIESIN: Amazing.

SAM: Whoa, cool.

ASHLEY: Well, we have been on quite a journey, and I feel like you might have some answers to some questions that we have.

MATT: "I'm happy to answer them."

ASHLEY: I really missed you.

MATT: "I missed you, too, Fearne, my doll." You watch as her arm reaches out and caresses her, but her hand almost palms the head from the side. Just the length of the fingers and the wideness of the hand across the thin, elongated arm, it just wraps around her and then pulls away, under the chin.

ASHLEY: (happy sigh) Well, I don't really even know where to start.

MATT: "Well, let me get some proper music first."

ASHLEY: Oh yes, of course.

MATT: And she shuffles out from behind the bar. And that soft music you were hearing a little when you arrived, the jazzy sound, she goes over, and there is this crystal bowl. Or actually, more like a platter that sits on top of a shelf unit to the right of it. It's really intricately carved. You look at it, and it looks carved, but it looks grown at the same time. Either it was carved to look natural, or it grew to resemble a shelf. It's hard for, even with your experience, to understand which direction it came from. But on top of it, there is a matching light blue, almost like a sea glass top. It's about that tall. It's like a cone with a handle on it. And she picks it, she takes it and plucks, and the music stops. She hums a tune for a second and then spins the top again, and as she does, music begins to emanate from it. As opposed to the soft jazz, it becomes like a gentle swaying lute strum. And she bobs her head to it and then waddles back over to the now the outside of the tiki hut, she's joining the rest of you on the other side which dwarfs the sitting space around you as she leans onto the bar and grabs the bowl with the other hand and takes a sip. "Continue, please."

ASHLEY: All right, okay. I don't know where to start, because I feel like this is a lot.

LAURA: It's a lot. And it's a lot that we learned today, even.

ASHLEY: That's right.

LAURA: It's been a long day, Nana. Is it all right if I call you Nana?

MATT: "I told you, I'm Nana to anyone who's friends of hers."

LAURA: All right.

SAM: Your real name, though, is Morri, is that right?

MATT: "Morrigan. Morri for colloquial friendliness."

SAM: Is there a last name, or--?

MATT: "Just Morrigan."

SAM: Okay.

ASHLEY: Yeah, that's all she needs, is just one name.

SAM: Of course, yeah. Maybe I should get rid of two of mine.

LIAM: It's a lot.

TALIESIN: This is perfect. We should start at the beginning and then work towards the end.

ASHLEY: Okay.

LIAM: When you get to the end, stop.

TALIESIN: Yeah.

ASHLEY: So there was this animated furniture. (laughter)

TALIESIN: Oh, that beginning.

LAURA: We go game-by-game and tell Nana Morri every single thing that's happened.

MATT: The extent of pretty much the entire adventure.

TALIESIN: -- the puppets.

MARISHA: We just send her Crit Recap. (laughter)

TRAVIS: Just getting more and more smashed, our eyes just getting wider and wider.

SAM: And we mostly skip the last Thursday of every month, but sometimes we change that. (laughter)

ASHLEY: Yeah, every once in a while. Mix it up.

MATT: "Interesting, wow."

SAM: Scheduling, you know, it's hard.

MATT: "Wow, that's wild." As you're telling the story with the music playing, you hear these little pattering sounds as a creature (whooshes) leaps up from behind the bar to the top of it. You see this scrawny, somewhat shaky looking jackrabbit type creature, with these large, disproportionate ears that have markings on them that look like they're eyes, but they're just like markings on the fur. But then where you would see eyes, there are none. It's just a nose of a jackrabbit.

LIAM: Is that Floppers?

SAM: Or Bompers and Flompers?

ASHLEY: This is Peepers!

LIAM and SAM: Peepers?

ASHLEY: Peepers!

SAM: I haven't heard that one.

TALIESIN: I was going to ask if other people saw that.

MATT: (chittering)

ASHLEY: Oh, give some scritches.

MATT: As you scritch, the wings, the ears flop down a bit, but you watch, they blink themselves like they're eyes. And when somebody talks--

TRAVIS: What?

MATT: -- both the ears move in their direction. It's odd because it looks just like texture in the fur, but they also seem to be looking places.

MARISHA: Oh my goodness.

ASHLEY: Isn't he so cute?

MARISHA: I love him!

ASHLEY: All right.

MATT: Sits back on the bar. You can see the front legs are unnaturally long and thin and wispy, like tiny little twigs, and they just fold and sit as the ears (whooshes) up in the direction of Fearne as she keeps talking.

MARISHA: Wait, you've mentioned Floppers and Bompers.

ASHLEY: Oh my goodness, they're so-- You have so many of my friends to meet, and I am so excited.

LIAM: How many buns do you have here?

ASHLEY: Oh goodness, so many. (gasps) I have a child.

SAM: What?

TALIESIN: What?

ASHLEY: I'm going to bring out Mister.

TALIESIN: Oh!

TRAVIS: Jeez.

SAM: God.

LAURA: Second time she's done that.

TRAVIS: Weird phrasing.

ASHLEY: Look at my baby.

MATT: As Peepers looks at him-- First off, Morrigan goes, "Oh my goodness. Where did you pick that up?"

ASHLEY: I just pulled him right out of some fire.

MATT: "Wow."

ASHLEY: Just plucked him right out, and then he stayed with me.

MATT: "I already always knew you were gifted, isn't she?" (Morri 2) "Quite gifted." You hear a rumble from beneath the dress.

MARISHA: Uh-huh.

MATT: Peepers looks over and smiles. The jackrabbit mouth curls up into a grin, and you see these long teeth, and the teeth wiggle like fingers as it smiles.

MARISHA: What?

TALIESIN: I feel like we're in a Maxx comic book right now.

LIAM: Undulating teeth.

MARISHA: Did this shit come out of your brain?

SAM: You don't know.

ASHLEY: Little bit of both.

MATT: Little bit of column A, little bit of column B.

ASHLEY: Yeah, this is both.

MATT: This is a collaboration. (laughter)

TALIESIN: I don't know what I expected, but I'm really-- This is great. All of this is great. More to drink.

ASHLEY: So, we're kind of trying to figure out some things about Ruidus and Ruidusborn. Ruidus and Ruidusborn. And we've heard that there's-- Well, we've actually seen one because we saw the Nightmare King, the piece of glass that you had me take to him.

MATT: (Morri 1) "Yes, yes." How did that work out, by the way? I made that to the specifications he requested.

LAURA: It worked.

MATT: "Cool."

LAURA: It worked.

SAM: You made it?

MATT: "I did."

SAM: Oh, did we know that?

LAURA: Yeah.

SAM: Okay, okay.

LAURA: Was it very difficult to make?

MATT: "It took quite some time. It was a project kind of on the side, as I did my hobbies day to day. I figured you two would cross paths. I had a feeling. I could feel the quiver on the threads, so I'm glad that worked out."

SAM: It's definitely, it was well made. If I may ask or pry, is something like that very expensive? What did you charge for it?

MATT: "I owed him a favor anyway."

SAM: You owed him a favor?

MATT: "Don't really deal much in coins here, but--"

SAM: You sort of trade favors?

MATT: "Yes."

LIAM: You said that you did that as a hobby on the side. What do you fill most of your days and nights with?

MATT: "Watching."

LIAM: Watching what?

MATT: "Others."

TALIESIN: Anybody in particular? Or anybody particularly fun?

SAM: Like a theater?

MATT: "I'm what you would call an observer. While I am not a master of fates, necessarily. That resides with the Matron. When no one's looking, I can add a tangle or two to the skein, should I so choose. And I just like to see who's getting tangled. And keep an eye on my sweet Fearne."

SAM: Just random folks, or--?

MATT: Wherever they seem to be causing the biggest rustles.

SAM: Oh.

LAURA: Have you seen a group of people causing a tangle over the Apogee Solstice?

MATT: "Oh, there are so many. I wish I could show you just how tangled it is right now. It's exciting."

LAURA: Do you know about the machines? The three keys?

MATT: "I know of them, though, the details, I am not as engineering minded as perhaps Ira is, since I know that was his project for a while. But yeah."

LIAM: Fearne and the rest of us are hoping to get a look at the one that's in your neck of the woods. Would you be able to point us in the right direction?

MATT: "It shouldn't be too hard to find, but yes, yes, yes."

LIAM: I don't want to break up the family reunion.

ASHLEY: No, no, it's fine, it's definitely our goal, is to--

MATT: "Well, you all look rather tired and well traveled. You need to at least stay the night as guests in my house, yes?"

ASHLEY: Yes, let's stay the night. Let's have a sleepover.

MATT: "Yes, yes, yes."

SAM: Is there enough room for us here?

ASHLEY: Oh, yes!

MATT: "Yes, yes, yes."

SAM: We don't want to impose if there's a motel or something nearby, we could also...

LIAM: That was creepy as fuck.

ASHLEY: There's room.

LAURA: What happened?

MARISHA: What?

TALIESIN: No, you missed a thing. Ashley had a moment.

SAM: You'll have to watch it.

ASHLEY: I did?

TALIESIN: Yeah.

TRAVIS: You're not expecting Ira back any time soon? Are you close friends?

MATT: "Oh, I've not seen him in years."

TRAVIS: Oh.

MARISHA: We've seen him here recently a few times.

MATT: "Really?"

MARISHA: Yes.

MATT: "Did he ask anything, say anything?"

MARISHA: He mentioned that he knew you. I don't know what else. What are you asking? What do you want to know?

TRAVIS: He's fucking around a lot with the keys. Excuse my language, Miss. And you know, just generally causing trouble.

MARISHA: Yes, I knew he worked on the one here, and then he, you know, chaos agent, jumped over into the Material--

MATT: Takes a sip of the bowl, leans a little closer. "Did he say anything about me?"

MARISHA: Well, he...

ASHLEY: (gasps) I fucking knew it, Nana.

TRAVIS: Oh, is this the hot goss?

ASHLEY: I think this is the hot goss.

TRAVIS: Spill it, girl!

TALIESIN: The first round, really?

LAURA: He said he could smell that-- What did he say he could smell on you?

MARISHA: Calloway.

ASHLEY: Oh, yeah.

TRAVIS: Smell that.

ASHLEY: He said he could smell that Calloway.

TALIESIN: Oh, that I didn't pick up.

TRAVIS: Hooch?

MARISHA: (laughs) You had to say it.

TRAVIS: With an H, with an H! Hooch! This is good hooch!

ASHLEY: He smelled that hooch.

TRAVIS: Yeah, the hooch. I mean, it's coming out of jugs. It could be thumb hooch for all we know.

SAM: Jugs of hooch.

TRAVIS: Yeah, with a hard H.

LIAM: Good save.

TRAVIS: You perverts.

SAM: Smelly jugs of hooch. (laughter)

MATT: Oh my god. (laughter)

ASHLEY: I think we're just trying to figure out... Well, okay. I'm going to be very honest with Nana, all right?

TRAVIS and TALIESIN: Oh, really?

SAM: Insight check.

ASHLEY: I think, I know that she can help us. How much do you know about Ruidus?

MATT: "Not much more than what is generally known. It's an odd little red thing in the Exandrian sky. I've heard many superstitions that revolve around it over in that space, and it's just mysteriously popped in and out of the Fey for the past number of years."

SAM: Right now, if you looked in the sky, could you see it?

MATT: "That's how you can find your way to this machine."

LAURA: Oh!

SAM: Oh, is it under it or something, or--?

MATT: "It's what keeps it here, I think. When Ira-- Well, Ira almost finished it. Then they more or less fired him."

ASHLEY: Who?

LAURA: He stole the crown, right?

MATT: "Well, the Calloways stole the crown."

LAURA: Oh, right, right, right.

MATT: "With a little... little help."

LIAM: Are you saying the machine somehow pulls Ruidus from our home to yours somehow?

MATT: "It seems to carry a chunk of its essence here, at the very least. It's what your mother was complaining about seeing."

TALIESIN: Like splitting a river.

MATT: "Not entirely... certain of the specifics, but it's a bit odd. It's caused some ruckus in the surrounding regions. The Unseelie have been building up their defenses. There's the Shiver Keep where they've hidden this device, and they've--"

SAM: Shiver Keep?

LAURA: The Shiver Keep?

SAM: The Shiver and Queef?

MATT: Oh my god. Never, ever, ever be free of it.

LIAM: Nope.

TRAVIS: Not as long as we love you.

LIAM: It has begin.

ASHLEY: It has begin.

SAM: Is that far away?

MATT: "It's a bit of travel, but you know, distances are relative."

SAM: Oh.

LAURA: So is time.

SAM: Oh, yeah.

LAURA: If what we heard from Fearne is correct. From our understanding, the Solstice is approaching very quickly, and it seems what their plan with these machines is fast approaching as well.

MATT: "Mm-hmm."

LAURA: We were hoping that, if we succeed in what we're aiming for here, that maybe we'd be able to get your help with our return.

LIAM: We're kind of pressed for time, and we're hoping not to stretch it out.

MATT: "It is quite stretchy around here, isn't it?"

LIAM: Shivers ran down Orym's spine.

TRAVIS: Shivers?

MARISHA: Shiver and Keep?

LIAM: Yeah.

SAM: Yeah, so if when we do go back to our realm, we were hoping that you could help us maybe avoid losing time. Maybe you could even send us back before we left. Is that a thing that you can do?

MATT: "I can't send you anywhere. But I can guide you to one of the doorways that can bring you back to your home."

TRAVIS: Oh!

SAM: Oh, okay.

ASHLEY: So you can send us any when?

MATT: "No. (chuckles)" "But I can help focus the transition, keep it less random."

LAURA: Okay.

ASHLEY: Okay, okay.

LAURA: That's helpful because it's possible for time to shift quite a bit.

MATT: "Oh, very. There are some that hundreds of years go by in the blink of an eye."

TRAVIS: Oh.

SAM: Oh.

MARISHA: That would be bad, right?

TRAVIS: I don't know, I mean, 400 to 500 like that. I'm kind of here for it.

LAURA: It would take a lot of stress off because whatever would have happened would have happened.

ASHLEY: Would be dead.

LIAM: One way to find out.

TRAVIS: Half a millennia.

ASHLEY: Do you know what these machines are for?

ASHLEY: Do you know what these machines are for?

MATT: "(sighs) They're a bit beyond my purview. I am not a mind for machines. They bore me. What I do know is that they've... Well, it keeps the strange specter of Ruidus over the Sun's Shadow realm."

MARISHA: Sun's Shadow.

TRAVIS: The Sun's Shadow realm?

MARISHA: Sun's Shadow realm?

MATT: The Sun-- Fearne, you know this. The Sun's Shadow is the overall region where the Unseelie essentially rule. It's the darker shaded area of the Fey Realm. So it's like you're on the cusp of the Sun's Shadow. You are within the Harrowcall Fens, which is just on the outskirts of it.

LIAM: (sneezes)

MATT: Gesundheit.

MARISHA: Bless you.

LIAM: Thank you.

MATT: There's the Sablecast Grounds, which is within the Sun's Shadow that's a smaller, localized region, and then the Shiver Keep is within that, so. "Honestly, if you have questions, you're best to ask Ira. He's, after all, one of their designers, so maybe you'll have to have him join us or something.

LAURA: (laughs)

MARISHA: Could you get in contact with him?

LIAM: Is that an easy ask?

TALIESIN: Hmm.

MATT: "He's tricky to reach at times.

MATT: "He's tricky to reach at times. See, we had a flirtation many, many years back, and it wouldn't have worked out. I'm far too much of a woman for a spindly thing like him. (laughs)"

ASHLEY: That is true.

MARISHA: I'd be lying if I said I didn't think about it immediately.

ASHLEY: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

MARISHA: Yes.

MATT: "So, feelings are a bit confusing."

ASHLEY: Sure, complicated. I get it.

MARISHA: Well, the last time we saw him, he sort of stole the crown that was stolen. He stole the stolen crown.

TRAVIS: (laughs)

MATT: "So he stole the crown that was stolen?"

MARISHA: Yes.

ASHLEY: Yeah.

MATT: "The Moontide Crown."

MARISHA: The Moontide Crown. Yes, that one.

ASHLEY: The Moontide Crown, that's right.

LAURA: And you know what? Never mind.

TRAVIS: What? No, tell us, what?

SAM: It was a good buildup for something.

ASHLEY: It was. It was something good.

TALIESIN: Well, he's been a bit rude, all things considered.

LAURA: I was going to tell her that he broke the lens you made.

SAM: Oh.

LAURA: It got broken.

SAM: It got broken.

LAURA: Because of him.

SAM: Passive voice.

LIAM: Yeah, it's true.

TRAVIS: (pigeon coos)

ASHLEY: But, if I may, when that lens was put in there, and Imogen looked through.

LAURA: Yeah, and Orym as well. Did you know there's a city on the moon? On Ruidus?

MATT: "No, I did not."

LAURA: Yep, there was a city and--

MATT: "Fascinating."

LAURA: A mesh, a divine mesh.

MATT: "Hmm."

ASHLEY: And there's someone called Predathos. Not someone, a something and...

LAURA: He eats gods.

ASHLEY: He eats gods.

MATT: "That's spooky."

LAURA: Mm-hmm.

ASHLEY: Yeah. So. And--

TRAVIS: "So and."

ASHLEY: Imogen gets power from the moon.

MATT: "Wow."

LAURA: I do.

ASHLEY: Well, so does Chetney, actually.

TRAVIS: No, no, no, that comes from within.

TALIESIN: The moon. It comes from within the moon.

MATT: "Mm, I smell the wolf on you."

TRAVIS: Yeah, you do, girl. (laughter)

TRAVIS: The vibe's strong in these places. Whew. Plus, this hooch. Do you have any more?

MATT: "Oh, there's plenty more where that came from, little wolf boy."

TALIESIN: Yep.

ASHLEY: Same.

TALIESIN: Yep, that one definitely.

ASHLEY: More please.

SAM: None of this Ruidus stuff seems to be your bag. What do you love to do besides just watch people?

MATT: She starts--

MARISHA: Hobbies, interests.

MATT: She starts mixing around. She's like, "I like to craft things." And she points around and you can see all the weird skeletons that are posed, all these odd taxidermied mixtures of creatures, all these weird paintings that are marked with different caustic-looking liquids like acid burned across leather and paper. There's just a bunch of weird crafts that are--

MARISHA: Oh my goodness.

MATT: -- all over the interior of this house.

LIAM: She's totally a burner.

MATT: You get the sense that she's an artist of some kind in her purview.

SAM: It's beautiful.

LAURA: This seems like it would have taken quite a while. Have you lived here a long time?

MATT: "Oh, I stopped keeping count." She finishes making the next batch, the next drink.

TALIESIN: I have my own cup, actually. I pull out a giant blue thimble to be filled up.

LAURA: Okay, wow. Okay, of course you do.

TALIESIN: A giant blue porcelain thimble.

ASHLEY: Reduce, reuse, recycle.

TALIESIN: Mm-hmm.

MARISHA: These little taxidermied pieces, oh my goodness, they're so well done. You see, Chetney and I, we're a bit crafty ourself. In fact, do you want to... (laughs nervously) Should I?

ASHLEY: Do it, do it.

MARISHA: Okay, do you want to meet one of my creations?

MATT: "By all means."

MARISHA: Okay, he's a little brash.

SAM: Is he going to be alive right now?

TRAVIS: We're going to find out.

MARISHA: That's a good point.

TALIESIN: Was he in the first place?

TRAVIS: Please whip out a dead-- (Pâté's body flopping) (laughter)

MATT: Kind of curled up in a ball. Opens with a--

MARISHA: Wake up!

MATT: (Pâté) "Oh, oh, hey. Sorry, I was having a little napsie. Oy."

MARISHA: Pâté.

MATT: "Yeah."

MARISHA: We're in a whole 'nother dimension.

MATT: "Whoa."

MARISHA: Yeah, I know. We're in the Fey Realm!

MATT: "Yeah."

MARISHA: I want you to meet someone very special.

MATT: "Yeah."

MARISHA: You have to be polite.

MATT: "Oh."

MARISHA: Keep it in your pants.

MATT: "Yeah."

MARISHA: All right?

MATT: "Yeah."

MARISHA: This is Morri. Morri, this is Pâté.

MATT: "Hi." (Morri) "Oh my goodness! Look at this little man."

MARISHA: Do you like him?

ASHLEY: Isn't he so cute?

MATT: (Pâté) "What's going on? Uh, this is a little weird. That's a big lady."

MARISHA: (laughs) She goes and reaches out and clasps him.

MARISHA: You can hold him, yes.

MATT: Her fingers immediately form into a cage around him.

MARISHA: Oh, oh my goodness.

MATT: You watch as her long fingers, almost like as she puts her hands together more fingers extend than she originally had on her hands, and there is this elongated cage around Pâté and she pulls it in and looks at it. He's like, "Oh, this is a little nerve-wracking. Oh boy. (laughs)"

MARISHA: You're fine.

MATT: "♪ Da, da, da ♪ Can I get out of this?" (laughter)

MATT: She goes, "Oh, you would be such a fine addition to the collection."

SAM: Oh.

MARISHA: (laughs)

MATT: "You asked me my hobbies. I'm kind of a collector."

MARISHA: Oh, hm.

MATT: "But alas, you're not mine." She puts her fingers back together and then releases her hands and it's just back to her hands normal and Pâté kind of-- "(laughs) That was a little-- Oh good." And actually looks genuinely kind of shaken and just scoots into your outfit.

MARISHA: Oh, good boy, good boy. Yes, yes.

MATT: (Morri) "Hm, well crafted. That is quite talented."

MARISHA: (laughs nervously) Thank you.

MATT: "And what do you make, little wolf boy?"

TRAVIS: Oh, anything that's made of wood, really the first source material of all great artisans. Sometimes they move on to other materials and lose their way but wood, that's where it all starts. I can't help but notice that the furniture around here is exquisite. Did you make it yourself?

MATT: "Oh, no. This is the trees' gift to me."

TRAVIS: The trees' gift?

MATT: "If you listen, they can hear requests. They can be your friends."

TRAVIS: Oh my god.

MATT: "They're all alive and beautiful and they feel and they think."

TRAVIS: That's incredible. Gifts? Do you think they take requests?

MARISHA: (uncertain noises) Maybe you should try it. Does that also mean--

MATT: "I wouldn't be so heartless as to carve the wood myself."

MARISHA: Oh, that was what I was about to ask.

TRAVIS: Yeah, no, no. It's, yeah, more like sheer will.

MATT: "More or less. With a little respect and a little bit of imagination, you'd be surprised what can pop up."

TRAVIS: Right.

MATT: "Are you a wood carver, small wolven boy?"

TRAVIS: Well, yeah. Yeah, I just cut right into that shit. I open my canopy, just wooden--

MATT: "Oh! (laughs)"

TRAVIS: There's sharp instruments everywhere.

MATT: "That's amazing!"

TRAVIS: Yeah, well, you got to-- Back where we're from, the wood isn't quite as receptive. It's actually quite still. I love it. Supple. They all have different characteristics, but you really got to put some work into it if you want to get artistry out.

MATT: "Oh, well, before you leave I'll have to give you some pliable materials to work with."

TRAVIS: That would be incredible. I'd be very open. I could do a custom run. Limited edition. (gasps) The Fey Realm one of five.

MATT: "Mm! That glint in your eye, that passion. That's one of the things I collect. (gulps drink)"

SAM: Oh.

LAURA: Oh.

TRAVIS: I feel a little weak when she does that.

MATT: "Ah."

LAURA: (laughs)

MATT: "Well, I'm getting a bit tired. It's time for her to finish the tour." The head recoils back into the shoulders as the dress opens and another face goes, (Morri 2) "(snarls) Hi."

TRAVIS: Oh, I can't!

LAURA: The other face?

MATT: Yeah.

LAURA: Hi.

LIAM: Hi, Nana.

MATT: "Hi."

TRAVIS: Chetney just nopes out in the back a little bit.

MATT: (laughs)

MARISHA: Just disassociates.

LAURA: Who-- Um...

ASHLEY: This is Nana, too.

LAURA: Okay.

ASHLEY: Ish. It's kind of a--

MATT: "We take shifts."

TRAVIS: (laughs)

LAURA: That's convenient.

MATT: "I'm more of a night person."

ASHLEY: When Nana gets tired, Nana takes over.

MATT: "She's more of a day person, yeah. We have an arrangement."

LAURA: I like it. That's really great.

MATT: The head just lulling up in the high collar just--

LAURA: (laughing) Wow. Wow.

LIAM: Nana, I have a question. You're a collector.

MATT: "Yeah."

LIAM: How long ago did you bring Fearne into the fold? What was she like as a little girl?

TALIESIN: Mm.

MATT: "Oh. She was precocious, and she was gifted for a time for safekeeping."

SAM: She was gifted for a time? Oh, to you. To you?

MATT: "To keep her safe."

SAM: Oh, yeah.

MATT: "From the... Those that sought her blood and kin."

ASHLEY: So, was I gift or was I a favor for something?

MATT: "It's been a while since I've thought about the specifics of it, but I think I was just keeping an eye on you. I watched over your mother for a while as well."

LAURA: Oh.

ASHLEY: Okay. I mean, you're a protector.

MATT: "For things that I have a fancy for."

SAM: So that wasn't in exchange for a favor or anything, right?

MATT: "Let me check."

SAM: Check?

MATT: Now with the head tucked in, the dress pulled open like a curtain on each side, you see the massive deep black and blue fish-like eyes, the wide mouth with rows of teeth, just grinning that creates half of the front torso and she begins to walk along and head up the stairs to one of the various branches. As she does so the voice goes, "I'll look around. Feel free to show them the manor."

ASHLEY: Okay, all right. Well, do you want to see my bedroom? We have the bedroom. We have the most beautiful garden. We also have a space where you guys can stay tonight.

SAM: I want to see your bedroom for sure.

ASHLEY: You want to see my bedroom?

SAM: Yes, of course.

ASHLEY: Okay.

LAURA: Yeah.

SAM: I want to know what Fearne's--

ASHLEY: Okay, let's go.

SAM: -- like.

MATT: Okay.

SAM: A bedroom is the window to the soul.

ASHLEY: I got to make sure I remember everything.

LAURA: As we begin to walk: Also, I'm realizing we haven't actually filled y'all in on everything that we learned at the seminary.

MARISHA: I definitely want to hear about this. I feel like we're all overdue for a chat.

ASHLEY: Yes.

TALIESIN: Mm.

SAM: But we already know from metagaming. (laughter)

ASHLEY: What's that? (laughter)

TRAVIS: It's Nana's third face. (laughter)

LIAM: Well, why don't you give us the tour, and then we'll say our good nights to Nana and then we can sort of gather around.

ASHLEY: Okay.

LIAM: And make some decisions.

ASHLEY: Yeah, okay. Well, come up these stairs. Come up this branch.

MATT: You follow Fearne as she leads you up one of the spiraling central two winding pillars of the split tree, and there are a number of branches that you see heading off in certain directions. One looks like it leads-- The direction where you saw Nana, where you saw Morri walk off to is one of the bigger branches, and it leads to this one branch that looks like its an arm holding a large three-story cylindrical hut, almost that itself has... It looks like a giant iron cage made of wood. I say iron cage because it has reinforced bars like you'd see on the outside of a, what do you call it? The Medieval cages where they put people in and hang them.

TALIESIN: Oh, crow's nest.

MATT: Crow's nest, thank you.

ASHLEY: Oh, a crow's nest.

TALIESIN: Or crow's cage or-- Yeah, yeah.

MATT: Something like that. Looks kind of like that except for--

LIAM: What Madmartigan was put in.

MATT: -- it is a thatch interior of it, and it's massive. You know this to be her collection room. This is where she keeps her trophies.

SAM: Mm-hmm.

MATT: So you point that out, but a little ways up, a little further up the tree there is a cute little cubbyhole door and you can show them what they see as you lead them into your room.

ASHLEY: Oh boy. Okay, so.

LIAM: Here we go.

MARISHA: Better be great.

ASHLEY: When we walk in-- I know I got to make sure I don't forget anything. Fearne's bedroom looks like swathes of beautiful fabric. It's like a Marie Antoinette-built bed and there's feathers everywhere. And if you look closely, the curtains are skin.

SAM: Uh!

ASHLEY: From creatures--

TRAVIS: Skin?!

ASHLEY: Yeah, but I painted on them so they look beautiful.

MARISHA: Cool.

ASHLEY: There's more creatures on the ceiling. When I'm sad, Nana can make them perform.

LAURA and SAM: Oh.

ASHLEY: And they sing songs.

LAURA: Wow!

ASHLEY: Yeah.

MARISHA: It's like the Tiki Room.

ASHLEY: And...

LAURA: Uh-oh.

TALIESIN: Except organic.

ASHLEY: There's a big, big round window where Fearne can look out onto the world, but it's also-- There's a cage of sorts around the outside of the window. A meshy situation.

TRAVIS: Like a metal cage or an arcane cage?

ASHLEY: Yeah.

SAM: Like a divine--

ASHLEY: No, I think it's just a safety situation.

SAM: Okay.

LAURA: Is that to keep you in or to keep other things out, Fearne?

ASHLEY: Probably both.

LAURA: Mm.

ASHLEY: But I imagine it's just to protect, you know?

LAURA: Okay.

LIAM: Either of you, what do we see when we look out this giant round window?

ASHLEY: Say again?

LIAM: What's the view? (laughter)

MATT: Hmm. (laughter)

LAURA: Mm-hmm.

MATT: So when you were approaching, the majority of the-- This is the interior of the tree, the large canopy of twisted vines that tangle and surround it like a domed blanket of green and dark brown. When you look through the window, it's like the vines are thinned out. Just visually, like it's erasing some level of the tree cover visually from the window and you can see instead over the constantly swirling and tangling and shifting tops of the surrounding swamp and forest. It's a beautiful aerial view of the wild expanse of the Harrowcall Fens that surround you. You can see the cloudy elements of the sky and the bright pink with an orange hue at places, almost a perpetual sunset light that pushes through. You can see where it grows shaded on the right hand side and it gets darker and darker. In that distance, from this height, you can actually see a heavy peak of these tall, thin, needle thin, teeth-type mountains that rise up on the horizon and a little glowing red orb--

SAM: Ooh.

LAURA: Mm.

MATT: -- that drifts at about the same height as the peaks of those mountains--

SAM: Wow.

MATT: -- but in front of them.

LIAM: Mm-hmm. In front of them?

MATT: Yeah.

LAURA: Weird.

LIAM: Oh, that is weird. Yeah. Our moon does not hover in front of the--

MARISHA: Like, it's low on the horizon.

LIAM: Yeah, like it's right there.

MARISHA: Okay.

TALIESIN: Someone set the background props in the theater in the wrong number.

MATT: (laughs)

SAM: If we had to guess, 10 miles, 30 miles, 300 miles?

LAURA: Hard to judge.

TALIESIN: Who the fuck knows?

MATT: Make a survival or perception check.

LAURA: Can I check as well?

MATT: If you like.

LAURA: Staring at it.

SAM: That's a natural one.

LAURA: 16.

LIAM: 16.

TRAVIS: Is that the direction of the Shiver Keep?

ASHLEY: I believe so.

SAM: Yeah, yeah, right?

ASHLEY: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

MATT: I mean, it looks like it's maybe 15, 20 miles off.

MATT: I mean, it looks like it's maybe 15, 20 miles off.

LIAM: Sheesh.

TRAVIS: Looks can be... everything.

SAM and LAURA: (laugh)

MATT: You do recall Morri in an earlier note as you were conversing--

LIAM: Wise words.

MATT: -- mentioning that distances are relative.

LAURA: Yeah, yeah.

MATT: Depending on the path you take.

TRAVIS: I'm like a coffee table book.

LAURA: All right.

TRAVIS: Chetney Says Shit.

ASHLEY: Well.

SAM: That's a good idea.

ASHLEY: This is--

LAURA: Your room is just so cute, Fearne.

ASHLEY: Isn't it so cute?

MARISHA: I love it. I love what you've done.

ASHLEY: Oh, thank you.

LAURA: What kind of skin is it? (laughter)

ASHLEY: I think it was something very large.

LAURA, LIAM, and TALIESIN: Mm-hmm.

ASHLEY: I can't remember what it was called, but I helped her skin it. And then, you know, we just-- did all the stuff where you you take the skin and you make it last for a long time.

ALL: Mm-hmm.

ASHLEY: And then I just started painting on it.

TALIESIN: Love it.

LAURA: Great.

ASHLEY: So it's just, you know.

SAM: Yeah.

LIAM: So all the art's yours, then?

LAURA: Yeah.

ASHLEY: Yeah, yeah.

LIAM: It's really beautiful, Fearne.

TALIESIN: Mm-hmm.

ASHLEY: Thank you.

SAM: Has it changed much since you left?

ASHLEY: No, she kept everything as-is.

SAM: Amazing. Amazing!

TRAVIS: Is it a soft mattress or super firm?

ASHLEY: (firmly) Get in the bed.

LAURA: (laughs)

TRAVIS: Ah!

TALIESIN: (poof)

SAM: Chetney, you're in Fearne's bed.

TRAVIS: I know.

ASHLEY: It's super soft. It's like a cloud.

LAURA: The cloud of dust that came up off of it.

MATT: (poof)

TRAVIS: (shouts) Spores!

LIAM: That came off of Chetney, though. (laughter)

ASHLEY: It's also a little damp. (laughter)

SAM: Damp?

TALIESIN: So that's what bedbugs look like in the Feywild. Crazy.

MARISHA: Being in the tropics, everything's a little wet.

TALIESIN: They've got little hats.

TRAVIS: ♪ Hello, my baby, hello, my darling ♪

ASHLEY: Well.

TALIESIN: Scrooge.

ASHLEY: Do you want... I can show you all where you can stay tonight?

SAM: Yeah, is there a separate outbuilding or is it just all in here?

ASHLEY: Yes, there is.

SAM: Okay.

LIAM: What was that cage-like structure or room that we passed on the way up here?

ASHLEY: That is where Nana keeps her collection.

TALIESIN: Can we see it?

LAURA: What kind of collections is it exactly?

LIAM: Are we allowed to look?

ASHLEY: It's just everything.

TALIESIN: I'd love to see it.

ASHLEY: We could ask her.

TALIESIN: Yeah.

LIAM: Okay.

ASHLEY: Yeah, we could ask her.

SAM: Oh, you finally get to-- Well, I mean, I'm just assuming that you can probably put some of the stuff that you've been collecting away so you don't have to carry it all, all the time.

ASHLEY: That's true.

LAURA: Oh, we could keep that bust here.

ASHLEY: (gasp) That's right!

LAURA: I bet it'd be really nice. We could give it Nana. Oh my gosh, she would love it.

TALIESIN: I kind of like having it in there, but okay.

ASHLEY: She would love it.

LAURA: Oh, well...

TALIESIN: Oh, well, that's a very fair point.

ASHLEY: Yeah, we should give that to her as a present.

LIAM: Great conversation piece right next to the bar.

TRAVIS: You have to ask for permission? You don't seem to be someone that normally asks for permission to look at things?

ASHLEY: That's true, but I respect my elders.

TRAVIS: Oh. (laughter)

LAURA: Insight check. (laughter)

TALIESIN: Wow.

ASHLEY: Well, it's her tower, it's, I don't know, it's her thing. But we could go in, we could go try.

LIAM: You ever get into trouble when you were a kid? Get into trouble here?

ASHLEY: Yeah, all the time.

LIAM: What did Nana do?

ASHLEY: Nothing terrible. She would just get upset and tell me, "Don't do that. You should have done this, but also be your own person." She was actually pretty great. I feel like--

SAM: All good advice.

ASHLEY: All very good advice.

TALIESIN: Was it from both Nanas or just one at a time?

ASHLEY: Both Nanas.

TALIESIN: Good Nana, bad Nana?

ASHLEY: Tummy Nana's a little more strict.

LAURA: Tummy Nana?

TALIESIN: I had a feeling.

ASHLEY: Tummy Nana's a little bit more strict. You know, it just depends on the day. Sometimes, if tummy Nana has had some bad food, you don't want to be near her.

LAURA: Mm.

ASHLEY: Yeah.

LAURA: Makes sense.

ASHLEY and TALIESIN: Yeah.

TALIESIN: Must be hard to digest, bad news.

SAM: (groans)

ASHLEY: Oh wow.

LAURA: Wow.

SAM: This guy tonight.

ASHLEY: He's full of them.

TALIESIN: This streak is really good. A couple.

TRAVIS: Cool.

SAM: Yeah, show us then if we can't go to the collection, maybe show us where we're going to be staying.

ASHLEY: We can knock on the door and see if she'll let us in.

SAM: Oh, sure.

TRAVIS: Yeah, let's do it.

ASHLEY: All right.

TALIESIN: I really want to.

MATT: So, where are you heading? There's the Undermuck, the collection. There's the garden. Where do you want to head?

ASHLEY: Let's go to the collection, if everybody wants to see it.

TRAVIS: Yeah.

TALIESIN: I want to see everything.

TRAVIS: This is your tour.

ASHLEY: Yeah, let's do it.

LIAM: Can't ignore a name like Undermuck.

TALIESIN: I could live here.

MATT: Okay. You head back down and find that one solitary branch where she had walked her way up to. Now you get closer to it, you can see there's tiny little portholes almost that are pushed through the thick wicker and thatch that make up the exterior of this large cylindrical structure with the fingers at the bottom of it that hold it from the branch curling up and rooting into it and holding it in place. There is the one door. It's a half circle top to it with its own porthole window in the front with curtains on the inside closed. There's a handle to hold it open.

LIAM: Are you saying there was an organic lattice work? Is that what you're describing it as?

MATT: Yeah, it's a structure that looks like it has a metal cage.

LIAM: Yeah.

MATT: But it's stretched, dark wooden planks that are holding the sides of it. The interior of it is solid wicker thatch.

TALIESIN: Hmm.

MATT: Building this almost three-story, cylindrical, pill-shaped structure that's being held from underneath at the end of the branch upward like a lantern.

TALIESIN: Dig.

MATT: You guys walk up the branch to the base of where it sits.

ASHLEY: Hey, Nana? (knocking)

MATT: Like, the first knock you get, the door opens and you can see now the head's wrestled in there with a little face mask on it. It's just the--

LIAM: Which one?

MATT: The material tucked in there while the face one's pulled open with these large goggles set onto there almost like a work face, but the goggle lenses are this big and there are gloves on. It's like, "Yes?"

ASHLEY: I just wanted to show them your collection. Please.

MATT: Everyone make a group persuasion check.

SAM: Group persuasion.

LIAM: Come on, you guys.

TRAVIS: I'll show you my wood!

LAURA: Natural 20.

MARISHA: Oh shit.

MATT: Nice.

LIAM: Dirty 20.

LAURA: 25 total.

MATT: Okay.

TALIESIN: 16, I think, double checking.

ASHLEY: 14.

SAM: 16.

TALIESIN: 16.

MARISHA: 16.

TRAVIS: 16.

ALL: Oh!

LIAM: I rolled a 16, as well, before the modifier.

TRAVIS: 16 times four is-- 64.

MARISHA: Yep.

TALIESIN: I got 18 minus two, so 16.

MARISHA: Actors.

MATT: Morri pulls the thick goggles off and sets them over one of the shoulders. "Quickly, not long. It's not for lingering eyes." (heavy footsteps)

SAM: Okay.

MATT: On the inside--

LIAM: Peel your peepers.

MATT: You step inside the chamber and it's shelves, and shelves, and shelves, rows and rows of shelves that completely line the interior of the cylinder with a large spiral staircase that winds up. It's almost dizzying when you walk in. As you look towards the peak, it almost feels like it's tilting and stretching in real time. The vertigo begins to kick in before you have to right yourself to look around. But there are, on all these shelves, hundreds, and hundreds, and hundreds of glass jars, tiny little orbs, wooden boxes and chests, little statuesques and figurines made from porcelain or clay. You can see fleshy faces that are stretched across dried petrified fruit. You glance up and see long dead and dried faeries that are pinned to a piece of corkboard. You can see manners of eyes and dried herbs. You can see whole flayed bodies that have been tanned, and colored, and painted on that dangle and flap with the breeze that's let in with the door opening. You can see hanging strips of some unknown organic material and at the end of each one, you can see a single face. As you look at the face that sits there loose, it smiles at you. (exclaiming)

MATT: This is a--

TRAVIS: Nope!

MATT: -- a curiosity's collection of nightmares. It is an endless array of things that each has a story and you're not sure you want to know any of them.

TRAVIS: Oh! (laughs)

TALIESIN: This is what that shitty museum should've been.

LIAM: Where does it all come from?

ASHLEY: Look at this stuff. Isn't it neat?

LAURA: Uh-huh.

MARISHA: It's magnificent.

TALIESIN: It's amazing.

ASHLEY: I know. Now you know where I got it from.

ASHLEY: Wow.

LAURA: Yeah.

LIAM: Where does it all--

LAURA: Maybe someday, Fearne, your collection will be as vast as this.

ASHLEY: God, I hope so.

TALIESIN: Is there something you're particularly proud of, Nana?

MATT: "Oh, I'm proud of quite a few things. (chuckles)"

LIAM: How do you come by it all?

MATT: "Oh, they all come to me."

MARISHA: Wow.

MATT: "I don't like to travel too much. This is my thing. I'm at my most confident and capable right here. Individuals come to me asking for things, favors, boons, gifts, grants, and I take my price and place it here."

LAURA: Wow! You know, the time thing, it's really up to you, the time thing.

LIAM: Well.

TALIESIN: We actually, I mean, we're not even talking about. We had a thing, a gift. I mean, we were going to give a gift, actually. We had something for you, if you like.

MATT: The smaller asleep head immediately goes, (Morri 1) "(snorts) What, a gift?" And lifts up the things. (Morri 2) "Oh, hmm, you've awakened her," and settles back into the torso as the other head is now conscious and goes, (Morri 1) "I'm sorry, I heard something about a gift."

TALIESIN: I wanted both of them be awake for this, but that's okay.

LAURA: I do hope you like it.

ASHLEY: I think you're going to love it.

TALIESIN: I'm going to need a little bit of space to get--

ASHLEY: Yes.

TALIESIN: All right, hold on.

ASHLEY: You've got some room.

TALIESIN: It's going to be a thing.

SAM: Should we add anything to it, some skin or something?

ASHLEY: Oh, she'll do it.

TALIESIN: Clearly, she's got enough skin.

TRAVIS: We could donate a tongue. (vocalizing)

TALIESIN: Going to pull out the portable hole.

LAURA: So Ashton did have the hole the whole time?

TALIESIN: Yeah, why? (laughs) Sorry, I know. I'm going to bring out the statue and set it down right in front.

MATT: She glances at it from behind, and facing you, and taking your face as you set it down. If you want to turn it around towards her.

TALIESIN: Ready?

MATT: As you turn it from you, the face eventually filters to a neutral, smooth, lack of any sort of detail. She stumbles forward, her head craning down. "Interesting." As her head gets close to it, you watch the terrifying flattened nostril slit, sunken eye face of the upper head of Morrigan begin to form out of the statue. She looks it over and looks it over. And it's like the magic of the statue's straining. It's trying to make the form and then it picks up again, and then picks up again, and it's like something about her presence that the magic's having a hard time grasping. She, "(laughs) Oh, cute. I wonder." She opens the front of the dress again and begins to stand up to her fuller height to show the secondary face, and the statue (cracking), the crack begins to run through it, and she pulls away and goes, "(laughs) Oh, I know this magic. It's always a pleasure to see its limits. This'll be fun. I'll fix it right up. It'll be a good, a good little addition to the entryway and parlor (laughs)."

SAM: She likes it.

TALIESIN: I was so curious to see what was going to happen from that.

MATT: "Thank you." She grabs it and puts it over to the side. "Proud, I'm proud of a lot of things here. Ooh, maybe the heart of the Lion Guard." She turns around, sets up one of the steps to an upper shelf about 15 up.

LAURA: But... Kion!

TALIESIN: Please tell me it's a real--

TRAVIS and LAURA: Hevi kabisa.

MATT: What?

SAM: It's a Disney show.

MATT: Oh, I don't know. (laughter)

TRAVIS: Ronin's somewhere in the future's going, "Kion?"

MATT: Oh, that's right. I remember auditioning for that years ago. She goes up and retrieves something and pulls it off of an intricately presentational shelf up there, comes down, and there is a beautiful, metallic, locked jewelry box with a little pointed top with a gem-embedded handle. She pulls out a jingling key ring with hundreds of keys on it and immediately plucks one like she knows exactly where it is and opens the lid. There inside, there is a massive, purple and black heart, just a wet, disembodied, fleshy heart going (beating)

LAURA: Wow!

TALIESIN: Oh wow.

LAURA: Now, what did this--

MATT: It's about this big.

LAURA: -- belong to?

MATT: "This belonged to the central champion of the Lion Guard. Here in the Fey Realm, there is a long famed, legendary group of protectors of some of the midlands between the various influences of the fey. The courts themselves leave the wild lands in between as a neutral place for meetings, competition, and all sorts of revelry and dangers. The Lion Guards were assigned as a flowing guardianship over these middle ends. The champion, I helped out many years ago, and to this day, he asked me to keep this as payment for the favor.

LAURA: Wow.

MARISHA: Like he's still up and moving about?

MATT: "As long as I have this, yes."

TALIESIN: I was about to say, it is still beating, which means there's probably someone still walking around. That's so cool.

MARISHA: That's incredible.

LAURA: Wow.

MATT: "And wherever he is right now," and she pokes it a little bit.

SAM: Oh god.

MATT: "He just got some heartburn."

ASHLEY: (laughs)

MATT: (clicks)

TRAVIS: Aah!

TALIESIN: I wasn't going to ask.

LAURA: Wow.

SAM: Wow.

MATT: Puts the key rings back and brings it back up to the shelf. Comes back down. "I'm going to peruse my collection while you rest. I think there might be a few things that could be helpful if you are indeed planning to go delve into Unseelie territory for one of these keys."

SAM: Sure.

MATT: "I have some ideas."

SAM: You're so nice, thank you.

TALIESIN: Actually, Nana, if you do have a second. So I don't normally have any feeling, this bit. This bit is not really me. It's just glass. I got kind of a thing happen when you were poking round up there. You wouldn't happen to know why that is, or if this reminds you of anything, or--?

MATT: "Not in particular. That is a very..."

TALIESIN: It's just never happened before. It wasn't bad. It was actually really interesting, but it'd never happened before.

MATT: And she reaches out again and takes her finger and traces it along the side again. There's another weird blue flicker on the inside and then there's a burst, like a split second, just about an inch outside of Ashton's head. You see this miniature disc of dark black and purple clouds with speckles of light, like this tiny little galaxy that just apparates just inside of his head and then shuts and she pulls her finger back. "Oh, no, no, no, no, I'm not touching that. I don't know what that is. I don't like it."

TALIESIN: Did you touch the? What?

ASHLEY: Did she touch the what?

TALIESIN: I don't know. That was weird. That was like a little, I don't know.

SAM: That scared you?

TALIESIN: Kind of what?

MATT: It's odd. You look at her, and she has this expression like a mistrust and surprise. Not fear, but like she just burned herself on a stove. She's like, "Mm."

TALIESIN: Apologize, I don't know. This is it's own thing. I don't know.

LAURA: FCG and I have gotten burned in there as well.

TALIESIN: Yeah, I didn't think you'd be going in.

MATT: "That's intriguing. What is it, what is it? I don't know that sensation."

TALIESIN: It is weird in there. I wouldn't recommend going. I could actually show you... Do you want to see something weird?

LAURA: (laughs)

MATT: "(laughs) Always."

TALIESIN: Let's maybe not do this in here. I'm going to step outside. And I'm going to rage. I'm going to just try and make a nice surge happen.

MATT: Okay.

LIAM: Pop Rocks.

TALIESIN: Pop Rocks, let's see what happens.

TRAVIS: Pop Rocks!

TALIESIN: That is a...

TRAVIS: Parkour!

LAURA: Parkour!

TALIESIN: Oh, that'll be fun. Yeah, it's the time shift, the red and blue phase--

MATT: Got you.

TALIESIN: -- just sort of pop off and now I'm trying to get one direction in the other, and it's all just popping back and forth.

MATT: Right. She watches, and the other face, the center of it pushes out of the dress to watch. Now both faces are watching Ashton give this brief display.

ASHLEY: Let me see, let me see.

TALIESIN: Want to see something really, really cool? And I hit Hyper Rage and I'm just going to--

SAM and LAURA: Hyper Rage?

TALIESIN: -- fucking--

LAURA: What's Hyper Rage?

TALIESIN: -- in one place, I'm just going to move, around four squares.

MATT: Like Flash, like (chitters)

ASHLEY: Whoa.

TALIESIN: 160 feet in one round, just yeah.

SAM: I'm going to do mega Healing Word.

TALIESIN: And then I'm out.

LAURA: Yeah.

LIAM: This barbarian goes to 11. (laughter)

TALIESIN: So yeah, in a small four square, I just move 180 feet in six seconds and then drop.

SAM: Whoa, Ashton!

ASHLEY: What--

SAM: What in the world?

TALIESIN: Okay, I'm good.

LIAM: Did you even see the flash?

LAURA: How long you even able to do that?

TALIESIN: I don't know

SAM: What? Also...

LAURA: Why aren't your...

TALIESIN: It happened when I did it a little while ago, actually. I don't, I guess we were all busy punching things and yeah, that was the thing I just figured out how to do a while ago.

TRAVIS: We should all go work--

TALIESIN: I'm tired.

TRAVIS: -- in a kitchen more often.

MATT and MARISHA: (laugh)

ASHLEY: Yeah, like Imogen said--

MATT: "Fascinating."

ASHLEY: -- they got stuck in there.

TALIESIN: Yeah.

LAURA: We got stuck in his brain. (laughs) This is stupid.

ASHLEY: Oh my god.

TALIESIN: I love you.

ASHLEY: (laughs) (laughter)

TALIESIN: It's recently occurred to me that I should probably ask people about this. I don't want people to get hurt in there, so I'm...

MATT: "It's strange."

TALIESIN: You seem smart.

MATT: "Of course. The best I can describe is whatever magic resides in that crystal feels very new yet very old."

TALIESIN: That's a start. If you ever think of anything, I'd appreciate it. You're the first of a collection of clever people I'm figuring I should...

MATT: "I'll think on it tonight. Okay."

TRAVIS: Very old magic?

ASHLEY: And new?

LAURA: Mm-hmm.

TALIESIN: Uh-uh.

TRAVIS: Oh, wait, before we put the hole up, can I reach in there? Could you get grab the...

LAURA: Oh, the bloody apron.

TRAVIS: Yeah!

TALIESIN: Where did I put that?

SAM: Oh, the butcher's thing.

TALIESIN: Oh yeah, hold on. I know where that is.

SAM: She'd love that! She'd love it.

TALIESIN: I may have reorganized everything. I'm sorry. It was just a mess. I throw it over to the side of it.

MARISHA: Wait. You had time to do organizing?

TRAVIS: Ah! I got it. This is a particularly strange item. Tie it on.

TALIESIN: I'm crawling out.

TRAVIS: (sensually) It always bleeds. (laughter)

MATT: She cranes in and looks. "Interesting."

TRAVIS: Right? I feel like this is my aesthetic for the Fey Realm.

MARISHA: I mean, it's pretty crazy.

MATT: "I like it. It's a good look on you."

MARISHA: I agree. Yes, good. (laughter)

MATT: Hand is just coated in fresh blood.

ASHLEY: It's very cool.

TALIESIN: I come out with a little fancy pipe and I'm going to start lighting it up.

LAURA: Prestidigitation.

MARISHA and TRAVIS: (laugh)

TALIESIN: Folding up the stuff.

MATT: "Please, continue showing them around, I'll get back to my nap," and she puts the sleeping mask back on as the other face emerges from beneath. (Morri 2) "I'll keep looking for something that could be helpful, yes, okay."

TALIESIN: I really appreciate it.

LAURA: We should probably go to bed as well.

ASHLEY: Yes, let me take you to the Undermuck.

MARISHA: Yay.

MATT: Okay.

MARISHA: I want to see that.

SAM: Sounds comfortable.

LAURA: Yeah.

ASHLEY: It is.

TALIESIN: I'm super excited.

LIAM: Is that the last part of the tour or is that where we're sleeping tonight?

SAM: That's where we're sleeping, I think.

ASHLEY: Yeah, it's the last part of the tour.

LIAM: Cool.

ASHLEY: I think.

MATT: The Undermuck was... Technically, the last part would be the garden.

ASHLEY: The garden.

MATT: The gardens at the top, Undermuck's in the bottom. So, up to you.

LAURA: That sounds appropriate.

MARISHA and SAM: Where are we sleeping?

ASHLEY: Okay.

MATT: Sleeping would be the garden, probably.

ASHLEY: It would be the garden. Let's go to the garden.

MARISHA: All right.

TALIESIN: Yeah.

MATT: Okay.

MARISHA: Morning, breakfast.

TALIESIN: Morning muck. Brunch in the Undermuck.

MATT: You follow Fearne up the spiral of the central tree passing more and more branch extensions. The vine canopy cover begins to thin further and further the higher you get. Well over 120, 130 feet, 150 feet towards the top. Eventually, you come to the apex of the last twisting branch before they splinter off into almost like a platform comprised of the heavily tangled branches. As you step out onto it, you are above the woven network of long, thin trees that create the entirety of the fens around you. And you're now with an even better view than what you saw the illusionary image from the inside of Fearne's room displaying. Here, you look around you, this hidden heart of the treetop, a majestic garden that is a menagerie of beautiful and alien plants and hedges and flowers that have been carefully cultivated to create a glowing display of strange fey magic around you. There are dozens of floating arcane candles that just drift through the air, bearing orange and blue flickering lights. They just slowly move and wave like patterns in this ever so faint circle around the entirety of this wide garden. You can see hundreds and hundreds of pale glowing fireflies that just move and weave around this space. Through the bushes, through the air. You can see arches that just stand between different walkways that wind through the hedges with these large fen flowers that tangle through. Not terribly unlike the ones that greeted you when you arrived here in the space, but these have more variety in their colors and look spotted. And as you watch and approach them, you watch as they follow you and you hear... (faint gawking) They're gasping and oohing as you...

ALL: Ooh.

TRAVIS: Aah.

LAURA: (laughs)

MATT: More or less. You begin to walk by them to see a series of contorted topiaries that resemble warped people comprised of thorny shrubs.

TRAVIS: Now they're people.

MATT: Like they've been shaved and manipulated to look like people in mid pain, various tortured poses.

MARISHA and SAM: Those are people.

LAURA: They're really people, aren't they?

SAM: Yeah, for sure.

MARISHA: If they look like they're in pain.

TRAVIS: Can we get a little closer to those and just make sure they're just shrubs?

MATT: Sure, make a nature or investigation check, your choice.

TRAVIS: ♪ Brr be brr ♪

MARISHA: Fireflies.

TRAVIS: 17.

MATT: Thanks for reminding me. 17. I mean, you look at them, and they're definitely plants. Definitely little plants with bushes and leaves and little berries. They're plants. They're very dense.

TRAVIS: No semblance of--

LAURA: They're very dense?

MATT: They're very dense. They're very dense plants.

LAURA: They're definitely people that were turned into plants.

TRAVIS: There's no shoes at the bottom of the roots or fragments of clothes? Any jewelry on the--

MATT: No jewelry, no shoes. They're extremely detailed. It's incredible that somebody could sculpt such detail out of a topiary bush.

MARISHA: Yeah, they're people.

TRAVIS: Incredible.

MARISHA: Do they look like they're heading in a direction? Are they all like-- Was this a security device?

MATT: No, they're all scattered to be their own beautiful, terrifying little art pieces in the middle of this garden.

TRAVIS: (laughs)

LIAM: Fearne, what can you tell us about these?

TALIESIN: Mm.

ASHLEY: Oh yes.

TRAVIS: Is this your Homecoming date?

ASHLEY: This actually-- Hang on one second, I just wanted to make sure I didn't forget something.

SAM: She's looking it up real quick in her mind.

ASHLEY: There was something I wanted to remember.

TALIESIN: Mind palaces can be a trip.

SAM: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

LIAM: A lot of hallways.

ASHLEY: I'm sorry, what did you ask?

SAM: What are these dead things?

LIAM: They're plant people.

LAURA: Are these really people that were turned into plants?

ASHLEY: No, I made these.

SAM: Oh!

ASHLEY: Yeah. These are my design.

MARISHA: And they're not people?

LAURA: Oh.

TALIESIN: I feel like Hannibal Lecter says that.

SAM: I don't even think you're proficient in nature.

ASHLEY: Well, I'm not. But if I have some scissors.

SAM: Oh, okay.

TRAVIS: You do these by hand, not by magic?

ASHLEY: No, just snip away. You just snip it and you just make it in a beautiful pose.

LAURA: Fearne, did you turn people into--

MARISHA, LIAM, and TALIESIN: Insight check. (laughter)

MATT: Make a persuasion or perception based on the truth of your answer.

LAURA: Or deception.

MARISHA: Natural 20.

TALIESIN: Yeah, thank you.

MATT: For a total of?

ASHLEY: Ooh.

MARISHA: Wait, insight, right?

MATT: Mm-hmm.

MARISHA: 22.

ASHLEY: 29.

MARISHA: Aw, you bitch! (laughter)

LAURA: But you rolled a natural 20.

MARISHA: I got natural 20.

SAM: She got natural 19 and she's fucking awesome.

MATT: I think crit successes on ability checks technically--

LAURA: Oh, don't count the same way?

MATT: It's not an automatic success, but it often gives you a little boost on it. But the difference between a 29 and a 22 is still pretty extensive.

TALIESIN: Yeah.

LAURA: Wow.

LIAM: It's a gut check.

MATT: Yeah.

ASHLEY: They're definitely strange, they definitely give you the willies. (laughter)

MARISHA: Right.

ASHLEY: Sometimes you may hear a little bit of a thumping noise.

MARISHA: Oh my god.

LAURA: Oh my god.

TALIESIN: What do they smell like?

TRAVIS and LAURA: Thumping noise? I'm going to put my face next to one and take a big wiff.

LAURA: From fucking plants?

LIAM: Where's the thumping coming from?

LAURA: Are we sleeping amongst these?

ASHLEY: Well, yes, but here. There's a back house. I have an amazing place for you guys to rest.

MATT: It's about this time you begin to hear a (large animal footsteps)

SAM: Oh no.

TRAVIS: (yells)

MATT: You see a shadow suddenly come around from one of the hedges and start rushing towards all of you. Before it stops. (animal breathing heavily)

ASHLEY: (gasps)

ASHLEY: Sweet Pea?

MATT: (Sweet Pea) "Fearne?"

TRAVIS: What?

ASHLEY: Hey!

MATT: You see a massive, rotund sun bear

MATT: You see a massive, rotund sun bear--

LAURA: (gasps)

SAM: Sun bear?

MATT: -- with a wide underbite and--

TRAVIS: What's a sun bear?

MARISHA: An actual sun bear?

MATT: An actual, just weird looking sun bear with an underbite and this long, fluffy poof of a beard at the bottom of his chin, who is just holding onto one of the arches and like, "(heavy breathing) I just got to get my breath a second. All right, all right, bring it in, bring it in, bring it in. Oh, Fearne."

ASHLEY: Hey, big boy.

LAURA: Wait, what is his name?

SAM: Sweat Pea?

ASHLEY: This is Sweet Pea?

TALIESIN and LAURA: Sweet Pea?

ASHLEY: Yeah.

TRAVIS: Of course it is.

MATT: "Hi, I'm Sweet Pea."

ASHLEY: This is one of my really good friends.

TALIESIN: Nice to meet you.

MATT: "Nice to meet y'all."

LAURA: Hi, Sweet Pea.

ASHLEY: Yeah.

MATT: "Haven't had a lot of new guests around here."

SAM: Oh okay. Oh, that's a nice tongue.

TALIESIN: We're getting a tour.

ASHLEY: They look like people in a costume.

MATT: "Fantastic."

LAURA: Let me see. What is a sun bear? Show me.

SAM: It's a bear with a big old tongue.

LIAM: They're a very unique bear.

ASHLEY: They look like...

LAURA: Ooh, that's a big tongue.

MATT: They're terrifying.

MARISHA: And they've got--

ASHLEY: And they walk like people.

MARISHA: -- weird claws.

LAURA: Oh yes, yes, yes, yes.

LIAM: Very distinct faces. And this one is very roly-poly?

MATT: Yeah.

ASHLEY: Very, very fat.

MATT: "It's nice to have some new blood here in the manor. Nice to meet you. We got plenty of room in the garden for a few more topiaries. (laughs)"

LAURA: Oh.

TALIESIN: I knew it!

MATT: "I'm kidding."

ASHLEY: He's just joking.

MATT: "I'm messing with you. I saw you looking at 'em from a distance up close. I figured it was kind of a joke."

LAURA: Uh-huh.

MATT: (goofy laugh)

ASHLEY: We would make these together.

TALIESIN: That explains a little bit more.

MATT: "Yeah."

ASHLEY: Yeah.

LAURA: Oh, wow.

TALIESIN: They're great.

ASHLEY: Yeah, yeah.

LIAM: What's the thumping sound we're hearing?

MATT: "Oh, that's a secret."

LAURA: Okay.

SAM and MARISHA: (laugh)

SAM: Detect Thoughts. (laughter)

MATT: Are you?

SAM: No, no.

LIAM: Yes! Yes!

SAM: All right, all right, I'll Detect Thoughts. I only have a 4th-level left.

LIAM: We're going to bed.

TALIESIN: Go ahead.

SAM: So 4th-level Detect Thoughts.

TALIESIN: You only roll once.

MATT: Okay, the surface thought you get is, "I want to get back to that bowl of oats. They interrupted me, but I don't want the flies to get to it." Those are his current surface thoughts.

SAM: Sure.

ASHLEY: Yeah, yeah.

LAURA: So the thumping is just a secret?

LAURA: So the thumping is just a secret?

MATT: "Oh, I keep to the garden. I don't really know what the thumping is. When it happens, I'm supposed to water them more."

LAURA: Interesting.

TRAVIS: Huh.

LIAM: Is it in unison? It's one thumping sound for the entire garden area we're in or are we hearing it out of sync in different places?

MATT: You're not really hearing it at the moment.

LIAM: Okay.

MATT: If you get close to one of the bushes, you can kind of hear it.

LIAM: Sure, I'll do that.

MATT: Okay.

LIAM: I'll sidle up.

TALIESIN: Does each bush have its own thump, I suppose--

LIAM: Trying to use my--

TALIESIN: -- or is there just one unified--

LIAM: -- stupid passive perception.

MATT: Which is really ridiculous. (thumps)

LIAM: (whispers) What is that?

LAURA: (laughs)

MATT: (thumps)

LIAM: Does it sound like it's coming right from?

MATT: (thumps) It does.

LIAM: From a topiary person or just?

MATT: Yeah.

MARISHA: That's a person.

LIAM: (timidly) Hi.

LAURA: (laughs)

SAM: Sometimes with art, you shouldn't really analyze the process too much, it's just more about taking it in and makes you feel something.

ASHLEY: They're not people.

MATT: "Interpretation of the master."

LAURA: Yeah, I'm going to just put my hand on Orym's shoulder and in his head he's going to hear: I mean, what do you think is worse? Ending up as a flayed person in a collection room or a living topiary stuck in a certain spot forever?

LIAM: You hear: I'm not questioning it. We got shit to do.

TALIESIN: It's got to be rough to supply the raw material for art.

MATT: As this conversation's happening, since you are reading surface thoughts, you also get from Sweet Pea about the thumping sound. "I never quite really figured out why. I may ask her what thumping is, too. Now I'm curious!"

SAM: Okay! Not an inquisitive sort.

MATT: You get the sense that Sweet Pea is just happy to be here.

SAM: Great.

LIAM: Fearne, you've mentioned Sweet Pea before, but did you guys grow up together? Did Sweet Pea look after you or were you more like?

ASHLEY: Oh yeah, yeah, just best of friends. I mean you're meeting all the hits.

MATT: "She was real rambunctious, hard to keep up with, always running around, causing trouble and then I'd get in trouble, and then we both get in trouble."

LAURA: (laughs)

ASHLEY: Yeah.

TALIESIN: Hasn't changed much.

ASHLEY: Yeah, hasn't changed much.

MATT: "Not going to lie, I kind of miss it."

ASHLEY: Me too.

MATT: "But it's good to see you, Fearne."

ASHLEY: It's really good to see you, too. Big, old boy.

MATT: He hugs her and looks back at you all with his weird eyes. (laughter)

LAURA: Uh-huh.

MATT: "So are they moving in, too?"

ASHLEY: Well, just for the night, just for a little bit, however long we're going to be here.

MATT: "Are you staying?"

ASHLEY: Yeah.

MATT: "Okay. As long as we have you back."

ASHLEY: Okay.

LAURA: I think he's asking if you're staying forever.

SAM: Like forever.

ASHLEY: Oh, well, I'm not staying forever, I don't think.

MATT: (morosely) "Oh."

ASHLEY: I know. Well, we'll see.

MATT: "(lip buzz)"

LAURA: Aw.

ASHLEY: I know.

TRAVIS: Oh boy, look at his face.

LAURA: You can't say no to that, Fearne.

ASHLEY: You can't. Well, we'll see. You might change my mind.

MATT: Kind of saunters back over to the edge of one of the nearby... He's visually, physically pouting with his whole body as he walks over to one of the branches and goes and plucks a leaf from it. Starts chewing on it.

MARISHA: You know, I hear sun bears have tongues almost as long as yours.

SAM: I know. We should compare at some point, but he's a little sad right now.

LIAM: I've never heard of them talking, though.

MARISHA: No, no, me neither, no. I've never heard flowers scream, either, though.

LAURA: I've never seen a person with a head on their stomach before, but you know, lots of things happen here.

MARISHA: So many new discoveries.

LAURA: In the Fey Realm.

ASHLEY: Yeah, it's a little different.

LAURA: Yeah.

ASHLEY: Yeah.

MARISHA: Mm-hmm!

ASHLEY: But I mean, also, where we've been is very different for me, you know?

LAURA: Yeah, yeah.

ASHLEY: It's not the same.

LIAM: So are we.

TALIESIN: Every day has been a new horizon. Just saying.

MARISHA: So deep, Ashton. Wow.

TALIESIN: Oh, I've been thinking. Oh, I can kind of see how the skin could be really, really disturbing if you had somebody seeing it somewhere else. That makes sense now. I was wondering why everyone was weird. It's basically leather, but all right.

ASHLEY: It's leather. It's leather.

TALIESIN: Yeah, I can see how that would be weird.

ASHLEY: Yeah.

TALIESIN: No, that is weird.

TRAVIS: Right.

MATT: Sweet Pea has now returned from his pout session, goes, "I'm over it." (laughter)

ASHLEY: Good boy. Move on.

MATT: "Welcome, friends, for the night. If you need anything, just let me know. I'll be up here in the garden."

LAURA: Thank you.

TALIESIN: Thank you.

ASHLEY: Thank you, Sweet Pea. We're just going to go to the... Our little--

MATT: "Vardo?"

ASHLEY: Our little backyard. Yeah.

MATT: "Okay."

ASHLEY: Yeah, okay. Right this way.

SAM: Oh, is this where we're sleeping?

ASHLEY: This is where you're going to sleep.

MATT: "Oh, my oats!"

LAURA: This is where you get turned into topiaries.

MATT: And then wanders off, deeper--

TRAVIS: "Oh, my oats!"

MATT: -- back into the garden.

TRAVIS: Must be some hell of damn good oats.

TALIESIN: Your family's great, by the way, this is really amazing. They're so nice.

LAURA: Yeah, this would be a wonderful place to grow up.

ASHLEY: It was. I had such a wonderful time here.

LAURA: Yeah.

ASHLEY: Yeah.

LIAM: I wish we could visit under more relaxed circumstances.

LAURA: Yeah.

ASHLEY: Yeah.

MARISHA: Well, maybe once all this business is done, we can have a little vacation.

LIAM: A Feycation?

ASHLEY and MARISHA: Feycation!

MARISHA: Shit, I should have thought about that first.

TALIESIN: I feel better about the stomach pun.

ASHLEY: That would be amazing.

LAURA: Really?

MARISHA: Well, where would you want a vacation?

TRAVIS: Not here.

MARISHA: All right, that's fair.

ASHLEY: Well, you haven't seen all the really amazing parts of this place.

TALIESIN: I haven't?

TRAVIS: Are you sure?

ASHLEY: This is just, I mean, of the Fey.

LIAM and TALIESIN: Oh.

ASHLEY: Of this realm.

LIAM: Outside the home area.

TALIESIN: This house is still--

TRAVIS: You got some more people furniture hanging around?

ASHLEY: Uh-huh.

MATT: Following Fearne through this elaborate garden, like a hedge maze built at the top of a tree tower that overlooks the entirety of the surrounding landscape, it's a very unique plucked out of one space into another, with just one crossing of a threshold. As you sift through the clouds of fireflies and the various singing flowers, the very, like that sweet smell of rot that seems to emanate from some of these flowers as you pass, as they sing and hum, like "(hums)." Some of them harmonize, some of them create discord and sew it together, and it just shifts left and right. It's very odd. But eventually, following Fearne, who knows directly how to get there, you come to one back section of this garden where there is this beautiful little purple wood vardo, with some brass trim and a couple lanterns on it that just flicker behind the frosted glass. It's got a little double door on the side with wooden steps that lead up to it. It looks like it's about maybe 10 feet by eight feet. It's cute, you know, it's not massive, but it looks well made and sits in the middle of this garden like a centerpiece.

ASHLEY: You ready?

LIAM: That's cute.

TALIESIN: Taliesin's super excited, too. (light laughter)

ASHLEY: (creepily) Step inside.

LAURA: (laughs)

TALIESIN: I'll shoot straight up that, yep.

MATT: (laughs) Roll initiative.

LAURA: Yeah! (laughs)

ASHLEY: What?

MATT: You step inside, and the interior feels oddly larger than the exterior. While from the outside it looked like it's that small space, the inside is about a 28- by 30-foot chamber.

LAURA: Whoa.

MATT: It has three large beds with silk and black linens covered in patches of just heavy furs that are thrown over them like blankets of different colors, of bright reds with little dots, spots of white in them. Some brown and black, almost wolf-looking furs that are laid out in other sections, and they're all just these three massive guest beds, more or less, within here. There's this deep, deep blood red paint across the inside walls on the wood that's used to form the interior here. There are these long golden cables from end to end that have small, little lanterns that hang from them that have these little candles and that flicker and glow, giving this soft ambient light to the inside. It smells like a burning rose incense on the inside of this vardo. And there are tapestries across many of these walls. They all have a very, very similar art style. It's a lot of stark black and white art that are just like long stripes, almost like tiger stripe patterns that form long tunnels and shifting tunnel work. Then as you look at it closely, you pull back, and the overall design of each tapestry looks almost like a screaming face when you take a moment to focus on it.

LAURA: Oh...

MATT: You're like, "Oh, that's upsetting." And each one's unique and different with different orientations, and there's about seven of them across all these walls. And once you take it in, you look around, "Oh, oh, okay."

LAURA: Such a tranquil environment for sleeping.

LIAM: This is the guest house?

ASHLEY: Yes.

SAM: Did you do these?

ASHLEY: No.

MARISHA: There seems to be a theme of pain and agony and torture.

SAM: Sometimes when I do, you know, sessions with people, I have them draw things as sort of a window into their inner thoughts.

ASHLEY: Oh, really?

SAM: And sometimes fears, and sometimes desires. I hope it's not desires.

ASHLEY: Well, who knows? Yeah, no, I didn't do these.

SAM: Okay.

ASHLEY: Nana already had these here.

SAM: Oh, okay.

ASHLEY: I think.

LIAM: Did Nana collect these or did Nana make them?

ASHLEY: We should ask her. I think she collected them. I don't think she made these.

SAM: I hope not.

ASHLEY: We should check, yeah.

LAURA: Great, well...

ASHLEY: The beds are comfy.

LAURA: I'll go sit down on one of the beds.

TALIESIN: Pick one and flop. (sighs)

MARISHA: Should we make some tea?

SAM: Tea? What?

MARISHA: Or something, I don't know. Just a little late night night sleepy time tea.

LIAM: Yeah, are we in for the night? Is there night here? Twilight?

SAM: We've been to three different dimensions today. We should probably just--

LAURA: Yeah, it's a big day.

MARISHA: Oh my god, we have.

TALIESIN: Do we want to have a meal or something?

LAURA: I mean, fuck.

SAM: I don't.

TALIESIN: Okay.

SAM: I don't consume food, so I'm fine to just shut down for the night.

MARISHA: Have we told them? So much has happened today. About your new--

SAM: It's a secret. It's a secret.

MARISHA: Oh! Oh shit.

TALIESIN: What's the secret?

SAM: I'll surprise them.

TALIESIN: You're doing really bad about the secret. We can hear you whispering.

LIAM: We can hear the secret right in front of us.

SAM: It's fine, it's fine.

MARISHA: I don't want to speak for FCG.

SAM: I'll just, maybe I'll have a little gift for y'all in the morning.

LIAM: How are you feeling, by the way?

SAM: Not good! (laughter)

LAURA: You need to sleep.

SAM: Truly terrible.

LAURA: All right.

LIAM: Well, all right, so we're in for the night.

LAURA: Cool, well, I guess if everyone's tired, I'll just tell you about the red alien beings in the morning.

SAM: Cool.

LIAM: I--

TRAVIS: What?

MARISHA: I want to hear about this.

LIAM: I want to hear about... What are you talking about?

LAURA: There's people called Reilora who live on the moon or something.

MARISHA: Is that the shadow people you think you've seen in your dreams?

LAURA: No, I don't think it's the shadow people, because those, I think, were Otohan's armies that she's accumulating.

LIAM: You read this, or--?

LAURA: No, this was information from Professor Sumal before her brain was turned to mush. Yeah, apparently, people who have the ability to see Predathos or whatever in their dreams, there's been multiple people who have seen the red storm in their dreams, like they're walking on the moon or something. And they started getting visited by Reilora.

ASHLEY: Yeah, the Exaltants.

LAURA: Right. That's what--

ASHLEY: Which is the Exaltants.

TRAVIS: Reilora.

SAM: The Exaltants, oh.

LAURA: Yeah.

ASHLEY: And there's only 12 of them.

SAM: They've been visited in visions or in physical life?

LAURA: In dreams.

SAM: In dreams.

LAURA: But the way Sumal described them is like creatures made of red energy who sometimes are friendly, sometimes are very much not, and I can't help but think that sounds like that thing that just--

LIAM: That you brought out on the airship?

LAURA: Yeah, that I didn't know where it exactly came from.

MARISHA: Right.

LAURA: Yeah.

TALIESIN: Huh.

LAURA: So anyway, I don't know what any of that means, but--

LIAM: Oh, I'm sure it's a coincidence.

TALIESIN: Absolutely a coincidence.

LAURA: Yeah.

MARISHA: And your dreams of walking on the moon, you think in your dreams that you have been on Ruidus?

LAURA: I mean, that's what seemed to be the--

ASHLEY: Yeah, it seems like it.

LAURA: The thought. Also, my mother and Otohan, so they both can do that, right? They both can go into dreams.

TALIESIN: Phase out or something.

LAURA: But they have a way to push themselves into other people's dreams, something that I cannot do.

TRAVIS: Yet!

TALIESIN: Wait. Oh, oh, but... Okay, this is going to be a little stoned, because, I admit, that drink hit hard.

LIAM: You're always a little stoned.

ASHLEY: Yeah.

LAURA: (laughs)

TRAVIS: Oh, that's the stuff.

TALIESIN: Now you're one up.

TRAVIS: Top shelf stuff.

TALIESIN: Now you're one up, you'll never see it coming. You'll never see it coming.

TRAVIS: Whoa, yes. Careful there.

TALIESIN: Maybe you can. I know you think you have a body when you go to the moon, but do you have a body when you go to the moon? Clearly you don't, because your body's here. So what's going... Are you in somebody else's head up there? Are you entering their dreams? How are you up there?

LAURA: Or they are in my dreams?

TRAVIS: Are you a big, red energy person up on the moon?

LAURA: Am I?

SAM: I was in a dream with you.

LAURA: You were.

SAM: You looked like you.

LAURA: All right.

MARISHA: There are plenty of people who have--

TALIESIN: That just might have been like a dream in itself. Maybe there's something connecting to you. I don't know.

MARISHA: Well, Ashton, astral projection is also a very known thing.

TRAVIS: It is.

TALIESIN: Yeah, like the out of body thing.

LAURA: Right, I mean, that's what we did for you.

TALIESIN: Yeah. I mean, maybe.

LAURA: Yeah. They said that... With my mother, before she would go to sleep, they started playing violin music for her before she went to bed, because that's what calmed her, and there were certain smells--

ASHLEY: Lavender.

LAURA: Right. That she loved.

ASHLEY: Yeah.

LAURA: So maybe if I can just figure out what sort of things are like that for me, maybe...

SAM: Oh.

LAURA: I don't know. It might be something.

SAM: So if you're soothed, you might be able to control it more?

LAURA: Maybe?

TRAVIS: Oh, do you need a massage before bed or anything?

LAURA: From you, Chet?

TRAVIS: Well, I mean, I would happily volunteer for anyone that needed a little stress relief.

TALIESIN: My feet could use a little bit of work.

SAM: You know what might soothe you or calm you in a dream--

TRAVIS: Listen.

TALIESIN: Have you been down there?

TRAVIS: I'd be happy to.

SAM: -- would be Laudna.

TALIESIN: Chisel for the toes.

LAURA: Yeah.

SAM: But I mean, I could bring her into your dream.

MARISHA: We have talked about trying to do this.

LAURA: Right, and we have not done it.

SAM: We could try.

MARISHA: Maybe if we... I know you love your tea, and maybe like the smell of things that remind you, reminiscent from home. Maybe that would be calming.

LAURA: That's true.

MARISHA: Maybe Orym could help, you know, make some herbs or flowers.

LIAM: Do you have a favorite flower?

LAURA: Yeah. There were these flowers that grew in our fields. They were really pale pink. Very, very full. Similar to a peony, if you know what that is.

LIAM: I think so.

LAURA: Yeah. And I haven't seen them anywhere else in our travels, actually.

LIAM: Okay. He just holds his hand up by your hair and pulls a small bloom out of his own hand, and it is not exactly as you remember it, it is skewed, the color is skewed slightly towards the color of your hair, but very similar. I've never made that one. Is that close?

LAURA: It's very...

MATT: Make a nature check for me, if you don't mind, Orym.

LIAM: Okay. It's a 13 with Druidcraft.

MATT: 13's not bad, not bad. Yeah, it's not exact, but it seems to replicate a lot of what you remember.

LAURA: It smells very similar. Thank you, Orym.

LIAM: Okay, and as the conversation goes on, he just starts absentmindedly making another one and another one.

LAURA: I used to keep these in my room.

MARISHA: They're very beautiful.

ASHLEY: I'm going to go get some herbs. I have some ideas.

TALIESIN: Well, I have cooking herbs, I don't really have--

ASHLEY: You do?

TALIESIN: I've got some stuff.

ASHLEY: Okay. I think we should get some lavender.

TALIESIN: I don't have lavender.

ASHLEY: I think we should get some blue lotus because that helps with sleep.

LAURA: Oh.

ASHLEY: And maybe some skullcap, because that's how you do lucid dreaming.

TALIESIN: I also don't know what that is.

LAURA: Oh.

ASHLEY: So, make a little tea.

LAURA: Yeah. I mean, who knows, maybe, but maybe Ruidus can't reach here in the Fey Realm, though. Maybe I wouldn't even have those kind of dreams here.

TALIESIN: It's literally right there.

LAURA: Yeah, but it's different here, right? Maybe it doesn't have the same power. Maybe I wouldn't have dreams here at all.

TALIESIN: Maybe you'll have more intense ones.

MARISHA: Or maybe you'll be able to control them more.

LIAM: Can I ask, before we go full Flatliners-- (laughter)

LIAM: -- these red beings, what did the professor say? Did they know who they, where they're--

LAURA: No, they said that--

LIAM: -- anything?

LAURA: -- once the Exaltants started pushing into their dreams more, the more the Reilora would start to show up. And it was not something that was comforting. It was a very scary development, and they backed away from it when the Reilora started making more and more of their presence known.

LIAM: Okay.

ASHLEY: I might be wrong, but they also call them dust walkers. Was that right? The crimson beings and their dream state beings. And I think Professor Sumal said that there are kind ones.

LAURA: Yeah.

ASHLEY: And mean ones. So hopefully, your pal is a kind one.

LAURA: Yeah.

LIAM: He looked a little grouchy, didn't he?

MARISHA: A little testy.

ASHLEY: Well, yeah, he's a protector.

LAURA: Yeah, he's a protector. He was protecting us.

MARISHA: Speaking of someone making their presence known, ah, when did Mr. Da'leth come into this whole thing?

LAURA: Oh gosh, gosh, yeah, you guys--

MARISHA: That was a little alarming.

ASHLEY: Intense.

LAURA: No, yeah, it was.

ASHLEY: It was.

LAURA: He's very intimidating.

ASHLEY: Yes. There were about seven locks on the door. We locked every single one. And when he came in, he just, booped, unlocked them.

LAURA: Open.

ASHLEY: Open, inside with us.

LAURA: The worst part was is that the Omen Archive was right there on the table.

ASHLEY: Right there.

LAURA: And then as soon as they were unlocked, you know, Professor Sumal was pushing him off the table. But it was almost like he was so intimidating that I didn't... It was like he would know if we tried to grab it. I wanted to grab it.

ASHLEY: I felt like we were stuck.

LAURA: Yeah.

ASHLEY: We just watched and we didn't do anything because we didn't know what to do.

MARISHA: After seeing what he did to Sumal, I think it was the wise decision not to intervene.

SAM: Mm-hmm.

ASHLEY: Okay.

MARISHA: I would have been incredibly distraught if he would have scrambled your brains.

LAURA: Yeah.

ASHLEY: That would suck.

LIAM: Well, knowing what the Cerberus Assembly wants to do and knowing who he is, he's top of the food chain.

LAURA: He's very old. Very old.

ASHLEY: Oh, and Sumal had a theory that-- This we kind of know. Or maybe it's a running theory. I don't know if it was hers but-- That the flares are the ways for these beings to reach a person and hold on to the tether.

LAURA: Oh yeah, that's right.

TALIESIN: Huh.

ASHLEY: So maybe that's why it gets intense.

LAURA: Maybe so you have a tether. You could have a tether as well.

ASHLEY: Well--

LAURA: You were born under a flare.

ASHLEY: Yeah, but I think it's just not as strong. I don't think I have a friend that comes out and is like--

LAURA: Well, that's what Mister is. That's what-- (laughs)

MARISHA: Mister has a gun.

LIAM: Molly Shannon? (laughter)

MATT: Mister hangs off your shoulder, just holding it in the air. "(chittering)"

LAURA: Yeah.

ASHLEY: I know, I know, I know. (Mister cocking gun)

LAURA: (laughs)

ASHLEY: Oh, and another thing.

TRAVIS: Pfft.

ASHLEY: Sorry. This is a big download.

LIAM: No, please. We missed everything.

LAURA: Sort of. (laughs)

ASHLEY: Ludinus-- I know. Even though you heard it all.

SAM: That sounds very familiar to me.

TALIESIN: I'm still in shock.

ASHLEY: Ludinus is not Ruidusborn.

LAURA: Oh, that's right.

ASHLEY: He was very jealous.

LAURA: Yeah, you could tell.

ASHLEY: Yeah, you could tell. Anyway, I'm done.

LIAM: Probably mad because his name rhymes with Ruidus, and just nothing.

MARISHA: Oh my gosh. Such a missed opportunity with that one, I'm sure.

LIAM: How do you feel about all this, Imogen? Everything we've seen and everything you've shared with us, these people that we're fucking with, they are trying to get ahold of you, and we're running into it.

LAURA: Yeah. It's weird. They make some good points, right? I mean... Are the gods that great?

LIAM: Some of them.

SAM: We don't know. We haven't met a god.

TALIESIN: I'm not going to say I'm a fan.

MARISHA: It was fascinating, talking to Tuldus. Did Ludinus reveal anything? Share the same-- his--

LAURA: Just, you could tell he was... He was very opposed to the divine. Didn't believe that people who had received their powers from the gods should... He didn't think they were worthy.

SAM: Hm. In a weird way, that makes me want to find out more about the gods. I don't know much. All I got is a coin and some advice. But maybe if we find out more about the gods, we'll know why these folks are so anti.

LAURA: Maybe. I certainly don't like the idea that a lot of people could be wiped out with this one event. I don't like... I don't think he should have control over it. Just one person deciding the fate of so many?

TALIESIN: Certainly not that person.

LIAM: What guarantee do we have that what he believes is what will happen?

MARISHA: Even your Nana mentioned dipping her fingers and meddling a little bit with fate. We know the Raven Queen ascended into godhood. It does make you question a lot of the entire structure and system of it all. What would happen if they were all gone? Would new people rise to their stations, or--

TALIESIN: Would anything change?

MARISHA: -- would we actually be free? Would anything change?

LAURA: If Predathos devoured the gods, would he stop at the gods, or would he devour the entire world?

SAM: All I know is the folks who are doing these keys seem like real bad folks.

TALIESIN: Mm-hmm.

SAM: And so we should-- Your mom is messed up with them. Seems like the only way to get to her is to at least make ourselves known.

LAURA: She's working with Ludinus, directly underneath him. He works with her a lot, he said. Who knows if he's telling the truth?

SAM: You've talked to her, and she wasn't like, it's great, come on down!

LAURA: No. She's telling me to stay away.

SAM: Yeah, something's going on.

TALIESIN: Besides, clever argument is not what makes a good or bad person. Everybody can make a fucking clever argument, whether or not they believe it or not. You see someone being a cruel piece of shit, that's a bad person no matter what they fucking believe. And I've seen some cruel pieces of shit around this thing. That's all I'm going to fucking say.

LIAM: I don't really need to debate it. I lost my father and my husband to these people. I'm not on board. Some of the gods are terrifying, and some of them have put their thumbs on the scales for people for centuries, even in the last few decades. Who are they, who are we to decide who lives or dies, god or mortal or otherwise? I don't think they have any good points.

TALIESIN: God, that poor person in the library. That was just mean.

MARISHA: But to that, Orym--

TALIESIN: That was today. That was just fucking mean.

LAURA: Yeah.

SAM: What a day!

LAURA: It was a long day.

SAM: It's been a long day, yeah.

MARISHA: Probably going to--

LAURA: We should sleep.

MARISHA: -- kill many more people ourselves in this process, though.

SAM: Us?

MARISHA: Yeah, well, it feels like we're going into battle, right? So in a way, we are also about to be arbiters, deciding who lives or dies.

TALIESIN: I'd like to say there's a difference, but I don't know if that's true. I've done a lot of bad things, and I'm not-- I don't feel bad about a lot of them. A few, I do.

ASHLEY: You said that the Matron of Ravens, she was just a normal person before and then became a god?

LIAM: That's the story, yeah.

TALIESIN: Mm-hmm.

MARISHA: From things I've read.

TALIESIN: One of the few I know.

ASHLEY: So anybody can do it. I guess if you try hard enough to-- I don't know.

SAM: Are you thinking about that for yourself? Is that something you want to do?

ASHLEY: Absolutely.

SAM: Oh, okay.

MARISHA: Professor--

TALIESIN: I think you'd get very bored.

MARISHA: Professor leads to god.

ASHLEY: Professor god.

ASHLEY: I'm Professor God.

MARISHA: Professor God. (laughs)

ASHLEY: Yes, Professor God.

SAM: That's interesting.

LIAM: That's major tenure.

ASHLEY: No, I don't want-- (laughter)

ASHLEY: Yeah, major, yeah, that's after some time.

MATT: Just below god king. Professor god.

LAURA: (laughs)

ASHLEY: I don't like making decisions, so--

LIAM: I had to go to god school for 10 years.

SAM: You'd be the god--

MARISHA: Chetney?

TRAVIS: Yeah.

SAM: -- of no decisions.

MARISHA: You've been very--

LAURA: The god of eh.

MARISHA: -- quiet.

SAM: That's my god a little bit.

LAURA: Oh, that's true.

SAM: My god doesn't really--

ASHLEY: No, he makes decisions. I don't like it.

MARISHA: What do you make of all this?

TRAVIS: Ascending to godhood is cakewalk. Simple. You eat your Wheaties, take your vitamins, don't swear, stave off masturbation, boom! You're right up there.

ASHLEY: You don't do any of those things.

TRAVIS: I do all of those.

ASHLEY: I mean, you do all of--

TRAVIS: I ain't getting rid of all that shit. I don't want to be a god. But I also like how it's been the last 400 years, so people trying to fuck all that up, not a fan. Brought me to y'all.

LAURA: 400 years? Damn, you're so old, Chetney.

TRAVIS: Yeah, you should take advantage of that wisdom. I'm an open book. I know half this shit already. I'm just letting you guys figure it out for the first time.

MARISHA: I mean, he does have a fair point. How old is Ludinus compared to him? You're probably the closest in--

TRAVIS: You mean Ludi?

MARISHA: Oh, you know him by name, by nickname?

TRAVIS: Old school pals, yep.

MARISHA: Oh, were you guys in a fraternity together?

TALIESIN: I want to see this ride.

TRAVIS: No, he didn't like it when I kept taking his girlfriends.

MARISHA and MATT: (laugh)

LAURA: Ludinus was talking about the Calamity like he saw it with his own eyes.

ASHLEY: Oh, that's right.

TRAVIS: He likes to say that. (laughter)

MARISHA: Chetney, do you remember much about post-Calamity times, when you were a young, spry man?

TRAVIS: Oh yeah. Sadie Hawkins 375.

MARISHA: Yeah? (laughs)

LIAM: You're mad fit, though. You should write a book.

TRAVIS: I am mad fit.

LAURA: (laughs)

MARISHA: Do you remember the people having resentments?

LIAM: We are tired.

TRAVIS: No.

LAURA: (laughs)

TRAVIS: No, in fact, I remember being quite taken with all of it a long time ago. From everything I've heard, it sucked. Everything after the Calamity was awful. They had to start over from scratch. Just wiped the slate clean. It was something like a third of the world just, pfft. That doesn't sound good. I'm not up for that.

ASHLEY: Why?

SAM: They all died.

TRAVIS: All the gods were fighting on the face of the earth. They're huge, and we're-- I mean, I'm already pretty tiny, but.

MARISHA: I guess if anyone lived through that, they might have a chip on their shoulder.

SAM: Yeah, you're looking at one.

LAURA: Oh god, you were there, too.

LAURA: Why do we have so many old people in our group?

SAM: I am a killing machine.

MARISHA: But you don't remember it. Oh, oh, that's right. Oh my gosh. Wait, once again, I don't want to speak for you.

SAM: I want to go to sleep! (laughter)

LAURA: Okay, okay, okay. I'm sorry. I'm sorry, Letters.

TRAVIS: We definitely want to go to sleep.

LAURA: Yes.

TRAVIS: I also think it's just a little bit--

SAM: I'm going to kill you!

TRAVIS: I think it's a little stupid to think that they're trying to just release Predathos. That seems so simple. That's some basic bitch shit. People like Ludinus, people that have been around for that long, they want to use something like that, bring it under heel.

LIAM: Yeah, and he's not telling us his whole game plan.

LAURA: No.

TALIESIN: Absolutely not.

TRAVIS: He's going to tame that thing.

ASHLEY: I think you're right.

LIAM: He's gaslighting us.

TRAVIS: Of course I am, baby.

TALIESIN: I don't trust a-- (laughter)

ASHLEY: I think people who want power, why would they let someone else take it? (laughs)

MARISHA: But does he want power?

LAURA: Yeah.

TRAVIS: Shut up and go to sleep. (laughter)

LAURA: I feel like, if we're roleplaying that we're going to go to sleep, we feel like we really--

TALIESIN: Yes.

LAURA: -- get to go to sleep in real life.

ASHLEY: I know. Yeah.

SAM: One more question before we definitely go to sleep.

LIAM: We could take a two-hour break.

SAM: Do you want to dream tonight or not?

TRAVIS: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Definitely do it here. Come on, this is prime.

LAURA: I don't even know if it'll work. But I mean, sure, I can try.

TALIESIN: If it doesn't work--

LAURA: I've never gotten to control when I dream before.

TRAVIS: No, this is important. Imogen. Dream. Dream.

TALIESIN: See, the worst part is if it works, he's now going to take credit.

LAURA: Yeah.

TALIESIN: If it doesn't work, it's not going to matter.

TRAVIS: It's kind of like the hiccups, right? If you tell somebody to hiccup, then they don't do it.

TALIESIN: Wait, can I have a-- Do you mind? I'm just going to do a thing really quickly. Are you ready?

LAURA: Uh-huh.

TALIESIN: Dream.

LAURA: Okay, all right.

TALIESIN: So if it works, it's mine. It's me now.

TRAVIS: That's my shtick.

TALIESIN: It's my thing.

TRAVIS: Listen, you fucked up your foot rub, okay?

TALIESIN: If it happens, it's not you. I got it to fucking work.

MATT: Fucked up a good foot rub! (laughter)

TALIESIN: I'm going to steal your chisel, and I'm going to fix this thing that's happening with my middle toe.

TRAVIS: (gasps) I'll work on your feet. Just don't fuck up my chisel.

TALIESIN: It needs carving.

LIAM: Imogen is surrounded by 80 to 100 flowers now.

LAURA: Oh, there's so many.

SAM: Let's do this. Let's do this.

LAURA: (groans)

ASHLEY: I'm going to grab some lavender.

TALIESIN: I could really actually use a nap. I'm fucked up.

ASHLEY: -- from outside.

MATT: Okay, yeah. There is a handful of clusters in the garden.

LAURA: Oh god, I'm so tired.

MATT: There's a wide array of different plants.

LAURA: What if I bamf myself into Otohan's head? What am I going to do?

SAM: We'll be there. We'll be with you.

LIAM: Perish.

ASHLEY: Crush them up and put him in the incense.

MATT: Okay.

MARISHA: I snuggle up next to Imogen. I give her a little scalp massage.

LIAM: She's flaying the skin off your head.

LAURA: Mm-hmm. (laughs)

SAM: I'm going to hit the pearl of power, restore a spell, cast Shared Dream.

LAURA: All right.

LIAM: Bing, bang, boom.

LAURA: Bing, bang, boom.

TALIESIN: I'm going to crash with you just in case anything gets weird. I can knock you unconscious like a proper friend.

SAM: Oh yeah, I might--

TALIESIN: Always here for it.

SAM: I might just kill you in your dream. But we'll figure it out.

LAURA: Oh god.

TALIESIN: I'd like to see you try.

MATT: Okay.

LAURA: (buzzing lips)

MARISHA: Happy traveling.

MATT: You're casting Shared Dream.

LAURA: Here, hold my hand. Hold my hand.

SAM: Mm-hmm.

LAURA: I'm going to wrap our arms. I'm going to twist our hands so that our red threads are touching each other.

MATT: Okay. So you're bringing Laudna in with you?

SAM: Yes, I can do that.

MATT: Okay. As you all gather your materials and your bedding and prepare for a comfortable slash uncomfortable night of sleep, depending on how you gauge the atmosphere, you, Imogen, begin to close your eyes and concentrate on whatever imagery you wish to guide you into a night of dreamful sleep. As you feel Laudna's arm tethered to yours and you lay next to her, you gather the energies within this particular incantation, FCG, and let the energy flow from you into both of them and complete the circuit with yourself. As the familiar sense, the comfort, the warmth in the vardo, and your friends' proximity, you begin to give in to that comfort, that warmth, and find yourself drifting, drifting into the darkness until the single, tiny speck of glowing red pierces the shadow and beckons. That's where we're going to take a break. (groaning)

LIAM: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

TRAVIS: It's a nose bleed.

SAM: Hoo, hoo, hoo!

ASHLEY: Ooh, it's happening.

MATT: We'll see what happens next here when we come back from our break. Hang tight. We'll see you in a few minutes.

LAURA: Oh shit!

ASHLEY: Oh, oh, oh!

Part II
MATT: And welcome back.

SAM: (laughs)

MATT: So, as we left off--

LIAM: Tried and true.

ASHLEY: (laughs)

MATT: In this dark, shattered expanse--

ASHLEY: (whispers) Oh my god, that's right.

MATT: -- the early, gentle wanderings of this shadowed dream, you see that distant red glow. And you get closer to it, and closer--

SAM: Oh, that's right, we're in the dream.

LAURA and MARISHA: Yeah.

SAM: Shit, shit, shit.

MATT: You glance to your right and to your left, and you see these two gentle flanking orbs, just emanating warm, familiar energy.

MARISHA: Is that us?

SAM: Is that me?

LAURA: That's both of you.

SAM: Oh, okay.

TRAVIS: Just shut up--

LIAM: Patience.

MARISHA: We're two little orbs.

LIAM: Goddamn it, patience.

MATT: You drift closer and closer, and at first, it looks like it's the red moon, but as you get nearer and nearer, it looks more like an opening, like a circular gateway that leads to red light beyond it. Like a little window.

LAURA: Okay.

MATT: Then eventually as you get close enough, it looks like it's about big enough for you to go through.

LAURA: I look back at my two little buddy orbs.

LIAM and TALIESIN: (laugh)

SAM: I think we can talk.

LAURA: All right, so--

MARISHA: Can we talk? Oh, I didn't try.

SAM: I think so.

LAURA: I don't know.

MARISHA: All right. Wait, we try talking.

MATT: You hear them talking, though it is in this (breathily fades in and out) distant echoing feel to it. And they're not quite as close and present, but it's there.

SAM: If I can move or do things, I'm going to just push this one forward, closer to you just so you can figure out who's who.

LAURA: Okay.

MARISHA: Imogen!

LAURA: (laughs) Hi. Hi.

MARISHA: This is awesome. (laughter)

LAURA: You're a cute little orb.

MARISHA: Oh my god. I've always wanted to be an orb.

LAURA: (phone chimes) Oh, what? My phone? What happened? Oh, I just got--

LIAM: Got your circles.

LAURA: I got a red circle on my watch!

ALL: Whoa.

SAM: Oh, you just did?

ASHLEY: What's happening?

SAM: Red circle.

TRAVIS: Fuck off, Predathos.

MATT: (laugh)

LAURA: Ah!

ASHLEY: There's a flare.

LAURA: I look through the hole, (laughs) and do I see... What can I see?

LIAM: She did it to herself.

MATT: You glance past the opening, and as you peer through, you feel like an extension of the forest that surrounds the tree, but it's bathed in a deep red light, like there's just this ever-present underglow of fiery light but no flames.

LAURA: And this feels like I'm in the same forest that we've been in, or is this a different place?

MATT: It feels similar, but you don't know the landscape enough to say it's directly familiar.

LAURA: I want to push through. And I'm going to go through the opening.

MATT: Okay. Do you follow suit?

MARISHA: Mm-hmm.

SAM: Yes.

MATT: You push through, and you drift, and you look down and beneath you is just this endless rolling landscape of munches... Munches.

SAM: Munchkins?

MATT: Mountains.

LAURA: Munches.

MATT: Mountains punching up. That's why it's-- Mountain, punches, merging.

LAURA: Munches!

MATT: Munches! Scene. (laughter) (laughter)

MATT: Mountains punching up through this ever dangerous- looking cluster of brambles and threatening-looking, overgrown landscape. And you just float above it all, that same red glow, just glowing from underneath.

LAURA: Can I reach out my hand and touch the orb next to me?

MATT: You turn around to touch them, and you look back from that window you came from and you just see Ruidus, right there in the sky, like you had just stepped out of it.

LAURA: What?

MATT: But it seems small. It seems about that size.

LAURA: It's like a portal. Can I look for the machine? Is the key around here?

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

LAURA: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm, four.

SAM: Mm-hmm.

LAURA: I'm just going to get rid of some of these dice in here, because you know what? I think they're bouncing on each other, and--

ASHLEY: Yeah, you need more room.

LAURA: It's just, yeah.

MATT: You don't see any key, you don't see anything else beyond just the sprawling, twisted forest region beneath you. Just that odd, glowing, semi-ethereal Ruidus before you. But you're certainly within a dream.

LAURA: Is this... They are still next to me?

MATT: The orbs are, yeah.

LAURA: This isn't quite what I imagined it would be. Do y'all see the key anywhere? I think we're still in the Fey Realm.

SAM: Are we?

MARISHA: I think so, too. Can we look? Yeah, can we look?

MATT: Both of you can make perception checks with disadvantage.

MARISHA: With disadvantage.

MATT: After all, this isn't your dream.

MARISHA: Ruidus. Oh, it's not our dream.

ASHLEY: (whispers) Guidance.

MARISHA: Whoa. I rolled, both are 13s.

ASHLEY: Ooh.

LIAM: Thank you.

MARISHA: Yeah, weird.

SAM: I got a 15.

TRAVIS: Ominous portent.

MATT: Hmm.

MARISHA: 18.

ASHLEY: Yes!

MATT: Okay.

SAM: 15.

MATT: Okay. No details. It feels kind of blurry, like the forest floor is just beyond your clear periphery. The details wash a bit within the light and the texture. But looking back at Ruidus, it's a weird optical illusion where it looks like a solid object, but then almost at some angles it looks like a hollow opening, like it's an inverse gateway as opposed to a spherical object.

LAURA: Can I go back to the opening?

MATT: Mm-hmm.

LAURA: And I'm going to think as I get close to it, I'm going to think of my mother.

MATT: Okay.

LAURA: Of Liliana.

MATT: You step towards it. It looks like a spherical object you can touch, and once you think of your mother and put your hands to it, your hands go through, like an optical illusion, and then your perspective shifts. Like the statues in the Haunted Mansion that are actually--

SAM: Reverse?

ASHLEY: Inverted?

MATT: Yeah. The inverse faces where you're like, oh, this is an opening. And you pull through again, and now instead of a black expanse where you started, you are now within a rapidly dust-filled, red, familiar environment. Do you both follow?

SAM: Yeah, of course.

LAURA: (whispers) Oh shit. Mother? Mother?

MATT: As you focus on her, I want you to make a d20 roll, adding your spell modifier.

SAM: Is there a way I can get close enough to Guide her, to give her a boost?

MATT: Yeah, you're present, I'll allow it.

SAM: Okay. Guidance! (echos) Guidance, Guidance.

LAURA: Okay, okay.

TRAVIS: Jesus.

SAM: That's gigantic.

LAURA: (large impact)

SAM: (tiny impact)

LAURA: 23.

MATT: 23. You concentrate. You... remember, best you can, those old memories of her before she left that you hadn't thought of in so long that you saw in your dreams recently. You remember the sound of her voice when you contacted her. And as you concentrate, you feel a direction of the storm pull towards you, like those nights that you look up to the red moon and you feel this tug, this instinctual yearning. Do you follow?

LAURA: Yeah.

MATT: And you follow?

SAM: Yeah, of course.

LAURA: I think back at Laudna: I wish I could hold your hand right now. I'm glad you're here, though.

MARISHA: We'll be right near you.

MATT: You push through this ever-growing dust storm, the wind getting louder and louder, until eventually, you come to the precipice of a pit, a wide, deep pit. There's sections of scaffolding. There's elements of platforms and cranes and structures built on the outskirts of this deep pit. What do you do?

LAURA: I head down into it.

MATT: Okay. You drift in over the edge, and you feel the gravity of the pit. Though you've been floating weightlessly, there's a draw downward, like some sort of an energetic flow, like the course of a river, but without water around you. You feel yourself being picked up by some sort of a driving energy. And it carries you down into it at a speed that makes you briefly uncomfortable. The two of you get swept up with it as well, (whooshes) carrying you forward. You pass, as you go down into the pit, other platforms and rope and chain-based elevators, and this long, spiraling lattice work of structures and ladders. You see shadows, shades quickly (whooshes). Like the imprint of people burned into space, but they're not material. Shades across these platforms. You plunge deeper and deeper, and that's where you see structures, old structures.

LAURA: We're in the city. This is the city.

SAM: On the moon?

LAURA: Uh-huh.

MATT: It's not large enough to be a city. As you get down there, it's a ruin. It's a ruin of something. You see towers that are being excavated. You see clusters of these shades around, mucking in the space around it. You see signs of... massive constructions moving through and carrying things and pulling them up and out.

MARISHA: Imogen, this might be pulling you towards where your mother is.

LAURA: Yeah.

MARISHA: North of Yios.

LAURA: Maybe.

MATT: In the center of these ruins, you can see these curved, pointed structures that all eventually seem to be intentionally built towards a point in a central location. There are buildings and domes, and broken arches and stone decorations, things that look like what was once a robust small townscape of detailed and beautiful construction that fell and was buried to time here lays partially bare as the earthen dust around it has been pulled away. In the middle of it, you see one mighty tower that drives upward, like a massive, three-pronged fork that curls into itself at its apex. Here, along the base of it, you see the glimmer of a familiar structure. A telescope-looking device. Many more shades around, dozens and dozens of them, wandering in and out of these ruins.

LAURA: Do they seem to notice us at all?

MATT: No. Some are brighter than others. Most are just dark, but some of them have a faint red glow to them.

SAM: Those are the Exalted.

LAURA: Maybe.

MATT: One of them you see very clearly. A woman with... deep lavender hair, braided in the back, long coat. She just walks through, inspecting things.

LAURA: She's awake. Can I go up next to her?

MATT: You can, yeah. It's odd. She looks older.

LAURA: Can I reach out and touch her head?

MATT: Yeah. The minute you do, she stops.

LAURA: (whispers) Mother.

MATT: "You shouldn't be here."

LAURA: I can help you.

MATT: "You have to go." Make a wisdom saving throw.

LAURA: Oh shit. Oh no! Oh no, five.

MATT: Five. She raises her hand like this and looks towards you, and suddenly you feel like everything around you stretches and pulls away, like you're being dragged down an extended tunnel. Miles and miles away, your mother's face becomes this pinpoint at the end of a long hallway. And you're gone. The two of you, I need you both to make wisdom saving throws.

SAM: Oh boy.

LAURA: Oh!

TRAVIS: Roll low.

SAM: ♪ Low low ♪

MARISHA: Ooh.

SAM: 19.

MARISHA: Natural one.

LAURA: (gasps)

SAM: Ooh.

MATT: You feel that, (inhales sharply) that pull as she begins to get yanked through the space--

LAURA: Uh-oh.

MATT: And knowing the matter of this spell and the connecting tissue that you are to it, you reach out and grab a-- Feel yourself too, (whooshes) being pulled back through it.

SAM: Connected to her?

MATT: Yeah.

SAM: Okay. But we lost Laudna.

MATT: They're both gone.

LAURA: (gasps)

MARISHA: Do I still see a lavender-haired woman?

MATT: You see a faint lavender coloration to one of these shades. You saw the one that Imogen was going towards and interacting with before you watched both her and FCG's energy just (whooshes) flicker out.

MARISHA: What do I do? I'm going to attempt to telepathically--

SAM: Seduce.

MARISHA: To telepathically talk with Imogen.

SAM: Imogen, okay.

MARISHA: I'm still holding your hand. In the Fey. Never stopped. Can you hear me?

MATT: You are unmoored somewhere in a dream-like space.

MARISHA: Fuck. Fuck.

MATT: What do you do?

MARISHA: Fuck, what do I do? Can I just try and wake up?

MATT: You can certainly try.

SAM: (laughs)

MATT: Make a constitution saving throw for me.

MARISHA: Imogen die.

SAM: Aw, cute.

MARISHA: 20 total.

MATT: 20 total. In trying to recall the physicality of your body, the sensation of being a whole being beyond just your consciousness and your flesh, but as one, you feel the cold power that's within your body, the power that was granted to you and the power that's inherently yours. You grasp that cold and you shake yourself back to consciousness. As do, you feel yourself torn from this space and it is harrowing, but you do wake up and come to consciousness.

MARISHA: (exhales) They're still asleep?

MATT: As both of you are pulled out of the dream by your mother, you both come to consciousness as well.

SAM: Oh. So you all wake up relatively at the same time. For the purposes of this, when you do sleep for the evening you achieve a long rest, but you wake up with a point of exhaustion.

SAM: Just her?

MATT: Just her.

SAM: Oh no!

LAURA: Fuck.

MARISHA: All right. Shit.

SAM: Why can't you dream better?

LAURA: I'm sorry.

MARISHA: I didn't want to get lost in another dream-like space.

SAM: I've been there. It's scary in there when you get lost there. But we saw some crazy stuff. Are you okay?

LAURA: No, I'm fine.

MARISHA: Was that your mother?

SAM: She looked really nice.

LAURA: Yeah.

MARISHA: And beautiful.

SAM: A really sweet woman, handsome woman.

LAURA: Yeah. That was the, um...

SAM: It's got to be the key.

LAURA: I can go to someone when they're not asleep?

SAM: Mm-hmm. And talk to them?

MARISHA: I can only imagine what that's like when they're asleep.

LAURA: Yeah.

MARISHA: If you're that powerful when they're awake--

LAURA: That means that, wait. That means that they're able to spy on us. They're able to see what we're doing.

SAM: Yeah, but she was aware you were there and--

LAURA: It wasn't until I got up close to her.

SAM: But there wasn't a lot of detail. It's not like we were overhearing conversations or anything. We just sensed their presence.

LAURA: That's true.

SAM: But it is useful. I mean, you can reach out to somebody. Anyone.

MARISHA: And we know where that key is.

LAURA: Yeah.

SAM: Well, we saw it.

LAURA: In a pit.

SAM: Yeah.

MARISHA: That matches the description that we heard of the excavation site.

SAM: I wonder if the key here is similar.

LIAM: Is this the next morning?

MATT: This is the middle of the evening.

LIAM: Middle of the night? Okay.

MATT: The rest of you are probably resting still.

SAM: All right, well, I--

MARISHA: I get up and I do my usual routine. Get a glass of cool water and bring it over to Imogen.

LAURA: You need to have some of that, too. You were--

MARISHA: It was very exhilarating, though.

SAM: Mm-hmm.

LAURA: It's so different when y'all are there.

SAM: Yeah?

LAURA: I mean, yeah, it's not, you know, terrifying.

MARISHA: That's not what your other dreams have looked like?

LAURA: No. No. They may be different now.

MARISHA: Do you think that has anything to do with the Fey Realm or just because you're more powerful?

LAURA: I don't know.

SAM: I wonder if you could go visit Ludinus like that. Or go visit, I don't know, Thull.

LAURA: Probably.

SAM: Mess with them. Or convince them, or distract them.

LAURA: Do something. Hurt them?

SAM: Maybe.

LAURA: I wonder if you could hurt them.

SAM: Influence them. Plant an idea in their head that they get. They wake up the next morning and they're like, "Oh, I think I want to turn over a new leaf."

LAURA: "Oh, I think I want some bagels."

SAM: "Yeah, maybe I'll be an accountant."

LAURA: Yeah, or that. We should sleep.

SAM: Yes, we should.

MARISHA: All right. All right. How many people can you pull into the dream like that?

SAM: At least you two. Maybe one more. But I don't know.

LAURA: You and two other people?

SAM: Yes. I think, I don't know if you would want Chetney in your dreams, ever.

MATT: (laughs)

LAURA: Why would I want Chetney in my dreams?

SAM: I'm just saying. I'm just going down the list. Ashton could be good but unpredictable. Orym would be nice to bring along just because he can see a lot.

LAURA: Yeah, Orym would be really good.

TRAVIS: Through the wall they hear: Listen to your heart. (running away) (laughter)

LAURA: Orym would be really smart to bring.

SAM: Fearne would just be fun. You'd have a fun dream. Probably like bounce on clouds like its a trampoline or something.

LAURA: That'd be great. Just ignore Ruidus there and just go bounce on some clouds.

SAM: Why not? You should use these dreams for something other than just being terrified.

LAURA: (laughs)

SAM: Take control of them.

LAURA: Yeah.

SAM: All right, let's go to sleep.

MARISHA: All right.

MATT: Okay. You all eventually return to a less focused, much needed evening's rest--

SAM: Oh my god.

MATT: -- given the days previous events.

LAURA: Oh my god. That is a beautiful thing.

MATT: But you all get a long rest.

SAM: I'm going to wake up a little early.

LAURA: Look at all those empty boxes!

TALIESIN: Oh, that's better.

MATT: You wake up within the empty, somewhat chilly vardo here at the top of the tree, at the Ligament Manor.

SAM: I'm going to wake up slightly earlier than everybody else because I think I only need six hours of rest versus their eight. Is that right?

LAURA: Huh?

MATT: Possibly, yeah, for your rest mode.

SAM: Yeah, and I will-- I'm going to do some baking.

MATT: Okay!

LAURA: Aw! Do you have ingredients stored inside of you as well?

SAM: I raided a kitchen when we were--

MATT: You did.

LAURA: Oh, that's right.

SAM: And I got a recipe and I got an oven. So I'm going to be cooking.

MATT: Okay. The rest of you wake up to the wonderful scent of something cooking. Fresh and localized. What do they smell?

SAM: They smell-- My best attempt at an Eshteross... An Eshteross-- what do you? The recipe was cookies, right?

LAURA: Ginger maple cookies.

SAM: Yeah, I'm going to make them biscuits, though.

TALIESIN: Ginger biscuits.

LAURA: Like little scones?

SAM: Yeah, I'm going to have them in a little pink box.

LAURA: (gasps)

MATT: (laughs)

LAURA: Did you get some?

SAM: Little biscuits.

ASHLEY: Oh my god.

SAM: Little biscuits for people.

TRAVIS: Oh, it's just like the pink box on Ted Lasso!

SAM: Uh-huh. (laughter)

LIAM: He's brought it full circle.

LAURA: Did you really bring anything in there?

LIAM: Ted Grasso.

MARISHA: Oh my god.

MATT: Ted Grasso.

SAM: I put some cookies in here, but that was when we played last game. So they might be a little stale. (laughter)

SAM: They've been sitting in there for quite some time.

TRAVIS: Hand 'em over.

LAURA: Yeah, I want to try it. (laughter)

LIAM: Do you have a boxing mechanism as well?

SAM: Yeah, we're just going to say that, yeah, I also installed a boxing mechanism.

LAURA: Are those the cookies that I made or the cookies that got bought?

TRAVIS: These aren't yours. (laughter)

TALIESIN: Is it real gold? Is that what we're checking for?

TRAVIS: Delightful. (laughter)

SAM: So I'll give one to Chetney, one to you, because you need-- Oh boy, you look like shit.

LAURA: You just look a little tired.

MARISHA: I have dark circles under my everything.

LIAM: Are these healy cookies?

SAM: And I'll give one to you, too, Imogen. Yeah, with these cookies you get, you get four temporary hit points.

LAURA: Aw!

SAM: Wait, is that right? "If you prepare enough of this food... (mumbles under breath) ...eats the food and spends one or more hit dice." Jesus, I can't read all this shit.

LIAM: Did you give the exhausted dead lady a temporary hit point cookie?

SAM: I think so, I'll read it later. But you get a boon.

LAURA: Okay.

MATT: (laughs) All righty.

LAURA: A boon cookie is what I'm going to put it. Or a boon biscuit.

MATT: Boon biscuit, there it is! Boon biscuit, I like it. All righty. What are you up to now, Bells Hells?

LAURA: Um.

SAM: We've got to go find that key.

LAURA: Yeah, we've got to go. We've got to do this shit.

ASHLEY: Good morning.

SAM: Oh!

LAURA: Oh, hi, Fearne.

ASHLEY: How did everybody sleep?

TRAVIS: Naked.

TALIESIN: Surprisingly good. Well, not now.

LAURA: Put some clothes on, Chet.

TRAVIS: This is the Fey Realm, though. There are no rules here. I don't want to offend the tree.

LAURA: Mm-hmm.

ASHLEY: Yeah.

MARISHA: With your wood?

TALIESIN: (laughs)

TRAVIS: Well, one's bigger than the other.

ASHLEY: A little morning wood.

LIAM: You can't really see anything through the shock of white hair.

ASHLEY: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

TALIESIN: It's just kind of--

TRAVIS: (poof) (laughter)

TRAVIS: I've had a lot of jobs in my time.

LAURA: Just a shock of white hair and then a couple of really low hanging balls.

TALIESIN: Like a little storm cloud.

MATT: Yeah, a little mushroom forest.

LIAM: Speaking of biscuits. (laughter)

TRAVIS: You can always hear me running.

TALIESIN: (groans) (laughter)

TALIESIN: I get it.

LAURA: Diggity. Diggity. (clapping)

TRAVIS: Listen, I wanted to ask Morri if there were like any natural enemies or things that we should look out for. Since you've been gone.

TRAVIS and LAURA: ♪ Since you've been gone ♪

TRAVIS: Just in case there was anything that might try and attack us on the way over to the key.

LAURA: She could probably find a path for us that might be a little faster than that.

ASHLEY: Yeah.

TALIESIN: I seem to recall Nana having, was going to go do some research and stuff for us last night, if I...

LAURA: That's right and she might have--

TALIESIN: That's... Drinkable! Wow.

LAURA: -- some stuff that can help us.

ASHLEY: Yeah. Yeah, maybe we can ask her.

TALIESIN: Maybe some drink in the road.

ASHLEY: Let's do it.

TALIESIN: This stuff is great!

TRAVIS: Get some dark vision? Dark vision for the road.

SAM: You get three temporary hit points after you eat them.

LAURA: And how long does that last?

SAM: I don't know. I don't know how temporary--

MATT: Temporary hit points last until your next long rest, essentially.

SAM: Okay.

LAURA: Okay.

TRAVIS: Whoa.

MATT: If I recall.

TALIESIN: And they don't stack?

MATT: They do not stack, no.

TALIESIN: Yeah, so if you have other temporary hit points they replace the ones you currently have.

LAURA: Got it.

TALIESIN: Yep. You don't-- You can't add them.

LIAM: Orym has been doing a plank one inch off the floor for the last two minutes. And says: Imogen, did it work? Did you three sync up?

LAURA: We did. We did and I went and saw my mother working on the key. And she saw me and she bamfed me back to my body and Laudna got stuck for a second.

MARISHA: Mm-hmm.

SAM: Good dream.

ASHLEY: Whoa.

TRAVIS: All in the same dream?

LIAM: You saw one of the keys? The one here?

LAURA: Oh, I think it was the one...

SAM: In the desert.

LAURA: Yeah.

SAM: But we know what they look like and maybe how to mess 'em up, sabotage 'em.

LAURA: Yeah.

MARISHA: It also seemed like your mom was like, had some boss energy. Like she was walking around being like, mm! Mm!

LAURA: Yeah, she knows what she's doing.

MARISHA: Yes!

LAURA: She looked brighter than everyone else. But that might have just been because that's what I was aiming for.

LIAM: You dreamed your way back to Marquet?

SAM: Yeah.

LAURA: Yeah.

TALIESIN: That's pretty far.

TRAVIS: That's awesome, so you know, like, if we see the area in a clearing, you'll be able to pick it out, right?

LAURA: Yeah, we'll look for a big pit.

TRAVIS: A what?

LAURA: A big, giant pit.

TALIESIN: Pit.

TRAVIS: A pit, like it's in the ground?

LAURA and SAM: Yeah.

TRAVIS: So the telescope that's a key to the moon in the sky is at the bottom of a pit?

LAURA: Mm-hmm. In some ruins.

TALIESIN: That you saw in a dream where your consciousness went to another dimension?

LAURA: That.

TALIESIN: Yeah, okay. I'm in. I'm on.

ASHLEY: That makes sense.

SAM: We've also seen it and we have a good description of it. So maybe like Planerider Ryn could--

LAURA: Could just bamf us straight to it.

SAM: -- get us right there.

ASHLEY: Boof!

LAURA: Yeah.

SAM: Anyway, did Morri find out anything for us? Do we know a location?

ASHLEY: Let me go ask her, yeah.

TALIESIN: Yeah.

SAM: Okay.

MATT: All right, you gather your things and head out of the vardo into a pretty much pitch similar day here in the garden at the top of the forest. Being unfamiliar with the landscape, there isn't much of a day-night cycle here, just a transition, shifting of colors across the sky and atmosphere above. You trek down the tree, passing the delightful sun bear, Sweet Pea, who waves as y'all head down the stairs.

ASHLEY: Hi, Sweet Pea.

MATT: "You leavin' already?"

ASHLEY: Yes.

MATT: "Well, you're going to come back, right?"

ASHLEY: Of course, always.

MATT: "Okay."

ASHLEY: All right.

MATT: "Come here."

ASHLEY: Okay.

LAURA: (laughs)

MATT: Gives you a big hug.

ASHLEY: It is a big, big, big hug.

LIAM: I love the Bear Jamboree.

MARISHA: Why do you get a (high-pitched nonsense)

MATT: "Well, travel safe."

ASHLEY: Okay.

TRAVIS: Do you feel it?

LAURA: How did a bear get here and how can he talk?

ASHLEY: I don't know.

LAURA: Do you think he used to be a person, too, just like the plants?

TALIESIN: He's still a person. I think that's a little rude.

ASHLEY: I mean...

LAURA: That is a good point and I apologize.

TRAVIS: You don't know what's going on inside his head.

TALIESIN: No, I'm completely just fucking with you.

LAURA: What?

TRAVIS: If only we could hear what was going on inside his head.

TALIESIN: If we had some way of peering into the unknown.

ASHLEY: Yeah. Who knows.

LAURA: Sure, yeah.

TRAVIS: Give him another hug, Fearne.

ASHLEY: Okay.

MATT: And he's like, "Okay. I'll take another."

ASHLEY: Hug, hug, hug.

MARISHA: (laughs)

TALIESIN: Maybe they can--

TRAVIS: Now, now, now!

TALIESIN: -- always talk and they just decide-- The face!

SAM: Oh god.

LAURA: I don't need to read his mind to--

TRAVIS: (shouts) What!

LAURA: To know he's thinking he'll kill us all if we hurt her.

MATT: "Travel safe."

ASHLEY: Okay. Bye, Sweet Pea.

TRAVIS: What if he's like: Fearne made me like this. Free me.

MATT and MARISHA: (laugh)

LAURA: That's not what he's saying.

TRAVIS: Oh, you want to bet? Or as the kids say, "Bet?" (laughter)

SAM: Travis, the last couple of days, has been--

LAURA: Why do you keep--

TRAVIS: Is that right? Did I use it right?

LAURA: No!

SAM: You have just been spouting some awesome, some slang, some hip slang.

TRAVIS: I fired my MySpace up recently.

ASHLEY: Hip slang.

SAM: Yeah.

TRAVIS: I've been out of date.

ASHLEY: On fleek.

MATT: (laughs)

SAM: You are on fleek, no cap.

MATT: (groans)

SAM and MARISHA: (laugh)

TALIESIN: Whoa, that don't feel good.

TRAVIS: I don't even know what "no cap" means.

MARISHA: We've been on the air for too long.

MATT: Mm-hmm.

LAURA: (laughs)

TRAVIS: Working in a bomb bunker down here.

MATT: Yep.

MARISHA: (laughs)

TRAVIS: Is the sun still there?

TALIESIN: MySpace and LiveJournal. That's where you'll find my slang.

LAURA: Morri? (laughs)

MATT: As you descend the tree to prepare yourselves for the next leg of your journey, it's still, it was a unique experience coming up the tree and eventually flowering out into the garden amongst the flowers. Now traveling back into it, the subterranean darkness of this-- or the sense of subterranean darkness within the canopies of this cloak of vines and branches around it. It almost feels like you're walking down this welcoming, warm, natural basement expanse. It doesn't feel like a tree. It feels like you're going deeper into the ground. If not for the large trunk that swirled as you continue to climb further and further. Passing the various branches, passing the collection, passing your tree, you eventually come back to the main entryway where the tiki bar and the art decor and a number of sitting spaces sits here before the rest of the branch tangles upward. And here you see Morri is having her morning cocktail. And is currently wrapping a few things up with rope and twine and looks over to the rest of you as you approach down the smaller top head, I should say, curling outward and arching to all of you. "Oh, good morning, everyone! Ah, I hope you slept well?"

ASHLEY: Like a baby.

SAM: So good.

TRAVIS: Pretty good.

ASHLEY: Yeah.

LIAM: You have such a charming home.

MATT: "Mm, I try."

LIAM: Especially the garden.

SAM: Oh, I should pick spells.

ASHLEY: Yeah.

MATT: "I have some gifts for you and your coming journeys. Found a few tidbits in my collection." She reaches down and grabs these bundles. There's three of them wrapped in a nondescript, kind of peach, ruddy leather wrapped in ribbons and hands them over to you, Fearne.

ASHLEY: Oh, thank you.

MATT: They're kind of heavy. "These are Harrowcall Veils. These were made long ago for a particular friend for a particular job. They ended up not needing them, as they were a fool and got themselves killed, but they'll be useful for you. They'll help you be unseen in certain shaded spaces of the Fey Realm when not moving. You place them over yourself and hold very still, and it's likely you won't be seen."

LAURA: That's wonderful.

ASHLEY: Cool.

MATT: "But should they shift, its magic begins to stretch. So just be mindful."

ASHLEY: Cool.

MATT: "Oh, and for you, Fearne, I think you're quite old enough." She turns around and pulls up this--

TRAVIS: Porn.

MATT: Oh my god.

LIAM: Yep.

LAURA and ASHLEY: (laugh)

ASHLEY: Finally.

MATT: Goddamn it. (laughter)

TALIESIN: Low-hanging fruit.

MATT: This incredibly well made breastplate that looks almost like a bodice with dark carvings in it and these leather pauldrons of these little leather frills that lap over each other on the shoulders.

LIAM: Yes, Gaga.

ASHLEY: Oh!

MATT: It looks very functional, but also very, very pretty. "This is a Gloomscale breastplate that I just had in my collection from a long time ago. It belonged to a princess once. She fell in battle and, well, she wasn't going to be using it anymore. (laughs)"

ASHLEY: For sure, no. We can't just leave it there.

MATT: "No. So I figure it'll do you quite the goodness." She hands it over to you.

ASHLEY: Oh, it's just beautiful.

SAM: Cool.

ASHLEY: I'll do some spins. (laughter)

ASHLEY: (sighs)

MATT: "Anybody else care for a goodbye cocktail?"

TALIESIN: Yes, yes, please. I will definitely have a cocktail.

ASHLEY: Yes, yes, for sure.

TALIESIN: That was amazing. I will have another.

ASHLEY: For sure.

MATT: She completes another round for everybody. You gather your things and she begins to turn to you, Fearne. "So I take it you're off again, then?"

ASHLEY: I think so.

MATT: "Very well."

LAURA: But we'll definitely come see you again, right?

ASHLEY: Yeah. Yeah. We'll come back. Is there anything we should know about where we're going?

MATT: "Well, you should know that past the Sablecast Grounds, likely, if you're oriented towards the red moon in the sky that you chase, left of your destination, there should be a gateway where the brambles are thickest, like an egg that grows around, or a scar tissue that covers a wound. So follow where the brambles knot, and there should be a gate to your world there. That's the closest way home. Also, beware the Festertree Blights. They have a rusted sense of humor. If the ground grows wanting, be sure to pay it the iron tithe. And follow the moon you seek. The machine, the grounds that keep it likely reside under its unnatural visage."

TRAVIS: The iron tithe, do you mean blood or coin?

MARISHA: Blood.

LAURA: Or weapons. The iron tithe?

SAM: Or me.

MARISHA: Rusty sense of humor? Is that what you said?

TRAVIS: I knew there was a reason we kept you around.

LAURA: Iron tithe.

MATT: "Rust."

LIAM: You seem lighter than iron.

MARISHA: Rust.

ASHLEY: A rusty sense of humor.

MARISHA: Beware the what trees?

ASHLEY: The tree blights.

MATT: "You'll figure it out."

MARISHA: Beware the tree blights, they have a rusty sense of humor, and pay the iron tithe.

MATT: She begins-- (laughs)

LAURA: If the ground grows wanting--

MARISHA: If the ground--

LAURA: -- pay the iron tithe.

TRAVIS: Fearne.

MARISHA: Tree blights.

ASHLEY: Yes?

TRAVIS: Weren't you going to ask about your parents?

ASHLEY: Oh. Oh, I forgot. Wait. I feel like there's so much I forgot to tell you.

MATT: "What did you not tell me, dear?"

ASHLEY: Well, I saw... I saw my parents.

MATT: "Oh, wonderful."

ASHLEY: Yeah. Which is weird because I don't feel like I know them at all. Are they my parents?

MATT: "They are your parents, dear."

ASHLEY: Okay.

MATT: "It is just, they've been busy for a very long time, Fearne."

ASHLEY: Yeah. Am I forgetting something?

TRAVIS: Favor.

ASHLEY: What?

TRAVIS: (softly) What was the favor?

SAM: What?

LAURA: Rosa fever is what it sounded like he said.

ASHLEY: Yes, yes, yes, yes. Yes.

SAM: Rosa fever? Who's that?

ASHLEY: I don't understand what favor I was, or what gift. Mom told you to watch me, or--? Why?

MATT: "The Unseelie are cruel, unrelenting, and have memories as long as time. They knew that they would go after the one thing they prized most. So they left it in my safekeeping. They know better than to come to my manor. A few have tried, and now they adorn my garden."

LAURA: (gasps)

ASHLEY: Oh wow, I always thought so. I feel confused a little bit. Why did I have to be hidden?

MATT: "When they took the crown, they knew they would be chased wherever they walked. For a time, they stayed here with you as well. But they had answers they sought out elsewhere. They sought out Ira eventually. And so they left you in my safekeeping, knowing that if, at the very least, they failed or were found, you'd be safe here. So I kept you. I can still keep you, if you'd like."

ASHLEY: I do like it here.

MATT: "You don't have to go."

ASHLEY: I don't?

MATT: "No. Your friends are extremely capable."

ASHLEY: But it's kind of fun. I feel like there's so much to explore. I've only been under this dome. I've gotten into some shit. I think I'm going to go with them, but I'll come back because this is where I'd like to retire.

MATT: "Well, apparently now you know how to find your way back to me. You know you're always welcome. Whenever you're ready, your room will always be here."

ASHLEY: I just love you a lot. Thank you for protecting me and taking care of me all those hundreds of years, however much it was.

MATT: She pulls you in.

ASHLEY: Yeah, get in there. I give both faces a kiss.

MARISHA: (laughs)

ASHLEY: Okay. Make sure, hopefully you're still feeding Bompers, and tell Dr. Nesbitt hello, and give Cathy a big hug for me, okay?

MATT: "I shall."

ASHLEY: Okay.

MATT: "I'll keep an eye from afar when I can watch the threats."

ASHLEY: If you ever need anything, you can talk to her. Right?

LAURA: Mm-hmm.

MATT: "Very well. If you see Ira again, tell him he's an ass."

ASHLEY: Oh, I will. I'll beat his ass.

MATT: "The rest of you, is there anything else you need?"

SAM: No, no. I mean, I think we have enough skin and we've got plenty of--

TRAVIS: (laughs)

LAURA: Veils, we're solid.

SAM: Veils.

TRAVIS: Very generous.

LAURA: If we do, are able to find the gateway back, will your guidance be granted to us when we leave?

MATT: "Mm, right, right. Just one second." She darts off across the room and begins digging through a cabinet, eventually pulling out this dark glass jar. It looks like there's some sort of a paste, like a dark green-yellow paste. Then she walks over.

MARISHA: Wasabi.

MATT: "Before you pass through the gate, just smear a bit on your forehead and cheeks."

SAM: Jizz?

MATT: Cheeks.

LAURA: Wow. (laughter) Wow.

TRAVIS: FCG--

ASHLEY: Like this area.

SAM: I hear what I want to hear.

TRAVIS: I think in addition to hearing--

MATT: Where are your minds tonight?

TRAVIS: We've got to get you laid.

ASHLEY: Do not hit on my grandmother.

SAM: Everybody's whispering, I can't hear shit. (laughter)

SAM: Talk in a full voice! (laughter)

TRAVIS: We've got to start working on your ports. I just start caressing FCG's body since he's so horny. (laughter)

SAM: (squeaking)

LIAM: Now, Morri, we haven't really had the best experience with the Unseelie, what little we've had. Do you have any advice as we run off to--

MATT: "It depends on what you run into. There are wild nomads within the perimeters of the court that just hunt and tangle and deal. There are the soldiers of the court, regimented, cruel, dangerous. There are the politicians and generals of the court. They are ominous. They are continuous. They are eternal. So, just be mindful. If they seem like they might be worth addressing, then address them with respect. If they seem like they could use a gentle word, lift them a moment. Just like many other fey, they are driven by whim, though the darker wiles of the heart. Sometimes it's safer to dance than it is to fight. Sometimes it's easier to talk and flee--"

SAM: You cold?

MATT: "-- than it is to bite and chew."

MARISHA: (inaudible whispering)

SAM: (inaudible whispering)

MATT: "I hope that clears it up."

TRAVIS: (laughs) Jeez. The lean-in is fucking awful.

LIAM: Sounds like we should expect the unexpected.

TALIESIN: Go with the flow. When in--

LAURA: We should get moving.

TALIESIN: -- Fey Realm.

SAM: To the moon!

TALIESIN: Ah!

MATT: Ugh. (laughter)

ASHLEY: All right.

TALIESIN: Yep.

LAURA: Thank you, Nana.

TALIESIN: I'll just grab these cups.

MATT: "Of course."

ASHLEY: Thank you.

MATT: "We'll be watching."

SAM: Mm-hmm.

MARISHA: Right.

MATT: "And if anything goes wrong and you have nowhere to go, you can always come back. You'll be safe here, all of you. You could stay with Fearne as long as you like."

MARISHA: But not in the garden.

MATT: "You can stay in the garden, if you like."

MARISHA: Nah, never mind.

TRAVIS: No, it was rhetorical. Thank you.

MARISHA: Yep.

TRAVIS: Your hospitality is legendary, as is that ass. Thank you. (laughter)

SAM: We go.

LAURA: We go.

TALIESIN: We go.

MATT: All right.

TRAVIS: Yeah.

MATT: You exit back out the front of the tree where you had arrived. The vines pull back. Step out once more into the fens. Knowing the direction that you saw from the garden of where the glowing orb of Ruidus seemed to have apparated, you choose a direction and continue to push that way, now deep into the swamps of the fens once more. Who's leading this charge?

SAM: You're the expert here.

ASHLEY: Yeah, I definitely know where to go.

LAURA: I'm going to go with her and try to sense where the moon is, since I'm assuming we can't see it from under the canopy, right?

MATT: It's going to be hard to try to. It's too thick from here.

LAURA: Yeah. Can I sense the moon? Can I feel the pull?

MATT: I'll say you could-- You can make either a survival check, with advantage, to lead this through, and then you could make a singular roll and then add your charisma modifier.

LAURA: Okay.

ASHLEY: Cocked. With advantage.

LAURA: 27.

SAM: Ooh.

ASHLEY: Cocked. Sorry, it's this dice. Yes. Okay.

SAM: How do I do this without--

ASHLEY: 25.

MATT: 25, 27. Those are both incredible rolls. Okay. Growing up in this space, you know the central region, especially around the manor itself quite well. And you know some of the dangers and interesting challenges that can be existing out there beyond just the twisting swamp itself. You very much, after the dream that you had and traversing through this odd Ruidian gateway in this liminal space, you feel very faintly within you that little nugget of a pull, that same tug. You just let that guide you, like a chain on your sternum, just gently pulling you ever so carefully. The two of you begin to guide the group through the dangers of the fen.

MARISHA: I catch up behind the witches. I just stick close and eat my boon biscuit.

LAURA: (laughs)

MARISHA: What was that, three?

LAURA: Yeah, that's true.

SAM: How do they taste?

LAURA: I am going to eat a boon biscuit as well.

SAM: How do they taste? I can't taste them, so any suggestions for next time.

MARISHA: You know, for a first batch, not bad.

LAURA: Yeah.

MARISHA: Notable.

SAM: More sugar? More maple syrup?

LAURA: Mm-hmm.

SAM: More--

LAURA: Maybe a little more cinnamon and a little less ginger.

SAM: Okay, there was no ginger in it, so that's an interesting--

MARISHA: Hmm.

LAURA: Oh, maybe it's the turmeric?

MARISHA: Turmeric? Maybe that's the turmeric.

SAM: Maybe I should've used ginger instead.

LAURA: Ginger, he wrote it in the recipe.

SAM: I know. I don't know what ginger is, though. So I was just kind of grasping at stuff. But I'll try again.

LAURA: I wonder what it is you-- What did you you put in it instead of--?

SAM: It was little beads or seeds.

LAURA: Oh. Whatever those little beads or seeds was, maybe don't put those in.

SAM: Okay, all right.

LAURA: Yeah, but I mean--

LIAM: While they're talking--

LAURA: -- it was really good.

LIAM: -- Orym is looking, listening, so that none of the sights or sounds of the Fey--

ASHLEY: Was it garlic?

SAM: It was garlic, yeah.

LIAM: -- can get the jump on them. Hopefully.

MATT: Perception check, please.

LAURA: Yep. Yep yep yep yep.

LIAM: Natural 20 plus--

SAM: Ooh!

MARISHA: What are you doing?

SAM: I don't know what he's doing.

LIAM: -- nine. So 29 to match my passive perception.

LAURA: Three.

MATT: So.

MARISHA: Oh, are you feeling better?

MATT: As you follow behind--

SAM: Hmm? I'm great.

MATT: -- these two that are leading the joint hike through this landscape, you hear (wings fluttering)

SAM: (gasps)

ASHLEY: Relax.

SAM: I don't hear it.

MATT: You don't.

SAM: I'm fine.

MATT: This tiny little voice goes, "Fearne! Fearne!" (laughter)

LIAM: Is it coming from the direction of where we came?

MATT: It is. All of you begin to hear the sound of wings flapping, before-- (wings fluttering)

SAM: (screams)

MATT: -- landing on a nearby branch. "(screams)"

SAM: (screams)

LAURA: Shh! No!

ASHLEY: No, no, no!

TALIESIN: No, no, no! Okay, okay!

ASHLEY: I get in the middle.

TALIESIN: No. No, guy! No.

ASHLEY: Dr. Nesbitt!

MATT: "Oh, Fearne, it's been so long!"

ASHLEY: It's been so long.

MATT: "It's so wondrous to see you. My goodness! Look at you, you're so grown!" The rest of you see a weirdly proportioned, owl-like bird, about that big--

LIAM: Owl-like bird.

MATT: -- with gray dappled white feathers--

LIAM: Not now.

MATT: -- two small, jet black, beady eyes, and a thin, wide beak that stretches from end to end of their face, a potoo bird-like creature that is on the edge of the branch, looking at her and putting its wing out and holding onto her cheeks.

ASHLEY: Oh, look at you!

MATT: "It's so wondrous! I heard you were passing by, and I missed the opportunity to speak with you, and I'm so sorry."

ASHLEY: Thank you so much for just coming to say hello. We're on a very important mission.

MATT: "Where are you going?"

ASHLEY: We are going to the Unseelie Court.

MATT: "Why?"

ASHLEY: Because we're going to take something apart.

MATT: "Ooh! That sounds dangerous."

ASHLEY: It is. Very, very dangerous.

MATT: "You're probably going to die."

SAM: (laughs)

ASHLEY: We might.

LAURA and ASHLEY: (laugh)

MATT: "Ooh hoo hoo! It's exciting!"

ASHLEY: It's so exciting, and then see what comes next.

MATT: "Right?"

ASHLEY: Yeah.

MATT: "Can I help?"

ASHLEY: Absolutely, you can help.

MATT: "How?"

LAURA: Do you know the way to the Unseelie Court?

MATT: "No."

LAURA: No? All right.

ASHLEY: Okay.

LIAM: Okay.

ASHLEY: Well, you can... You can... We could use your eyes, maybe, if you flew over, to find things?

MATT: "Sure. I can try it."

ASHLEY: Okay.

MARISHA: Is there something that you have a strong skillset that you can offer, instead of us guessing?

MATT: "Companionship, conversation."

ASHLEY: Yeah.

TALIESIN: Huh.

LAURA: (laughs)

MATT: "I can tear apart a mean taffy mouse."

LAURA: Mm.

MARISHA: (gasps)

LAURA: Yeah.

MARISHA: Sure.

LAURA: Maybe the Unseelie Court is just a bunch of mice, in which case--

MATT: "Oh, are they?"

LAURA: I don't know. I've never seen them.

MATT: "Tasty!"

ASHLEY: Could be!

TRAVIS: (laughs)

MATT: At this point, Mister crawls across your shoulder and goes... (hooting aggressively)

ASHLEY: It's all right.

MATT: Mr. Nesbitt's like, "What is this foul creature on your shoulder?"

ASHLEY: This is my son.

SAM: (laughs)

MATT: "What?"

TRAVIS: Shit.

TALIESIN: Here we go again.

ASHLEY: It's okay, it's okay. No no no! Hush, hush, hush, hush.

MATT: (aggressive hoots)

SAM: He's got a gun! He's got a gun!

TRAVIS: I got two gold on the monkey! Two gold, who wants it?

TALIESIN: I'll match that. I'll match that.

TRAVIS: You got that action. Who else? Two gold, I give one.

LAURA: Well...

MARISHA: I mean, I don't know, the owl's on his home turf, so I'll take that bet.

TRAVIS: Okay.

MATT: "I'm sorry, I didn't--"

LIAM: You don't have good luck with owls.

MATT: "-- realize this was-- this seat was already occupied."

LAURA: Oh.

ASHLEY: There's two seats. So you come here, and I'll put Mister here, and maybe you can help us. If not, fly home.

MATT: (flutters) Goes to land on your shoulder. Mister goes (screeches) and goes to deck Mr. Nesbitt.

ASHLEY and LAURA: No!

ASHLEY: Relax, relax, relax!

MATT: Takes off and lands back on the branch and goes... (scoffs) "Well, guess we got off on the wrong foot."

ASHLEY: Okay, well, just fly behind us. I did not replace you, so don't even think about it.

TRAVIS: That's not what I heard.

ASHLEY: No, no, there's room for many to love. I can love a lot. All right.

MATT: "I'll help you out."

ASHLEY: Okay.

MATT: "Because it's fun."

ASHLEY: Okay.

MATT: "All right."

LAURA: Does Mr. Nesbitt, Dr. Nesbitt, do they talk a lot?

ASHLEY: Yeah.

LAURA: So if we're trying to be sneaky, is Dr. Nesbitt...

TALIESIN: Are we trying to be sneaky? I wasn't aware that we were trying to be sneaky.

SAM: When we get there.

LAURA: Only when we get there.

TALIESIN: Well, that's fair. All right.

ASHLEY: I could probably tell him to be quiet.

LIAM: What is your specialty, Doctor?

TALIESIN: Yeah.

MATT: "Conversation, companionship."

LIAM: Oh, doctor of conversation.

ASHLEY: Doctor of conversation.

LAURA: Yes, yes.

LIAM: And companionship.

ASHLEY: The best companion.

TALIESIN: Where do you get educated in such a particular field?

LAURA: Let's keep moving as we talk.

SAM: Yes, please.

MATT: "I read a lot of books on it while staying around with Nana."

TALIESIN: Homeschooled, okay.

ASHLEY: Yeah, yeah. Homeschooled.

MATT: "Ooh, worm! Ha!" (laughter)

SAM: That's my hair!

MATT: "Sorry! Misunderstood."

SAM: Get off, get off!

TRAVIS: Shoo!

ASHLEY: It's a nice bird, FCG.

LAURA: Dr. Nesbitt, do you know anything about undead, giant bird... What kind of a creature is that thing?

SAM: A bird.

LAURA: Have you ever heard of an undead bird that keeps coming back to life, and has lived for a really long time?

TALIESIN: I have officially lost this conversation.

ASHLEY: Oh, that's right, you were--

LAURA: You weren't around.

SAM: Yeah, you weren't there.

ASHLEY: You missed out on Shithead.

MARISHA: Weren't you there right before--

TALIESIN: Right before what?

MARISHA: Shit hit the head.

TALIESIN: What shit? What head?

MARISHA: His head.

TALIESIN: When?

ASHLEY: That's when you took off.

MARISHA: From the bird.

TALIESIN: What bird?

SAM: Dr. N?

MATT: "No, I'm uncertain. There are a number of dead-like birds through history."

MARISHA: You know, I'm dead.

MATT: "I've read a lot of books in Nana's library about all sorts of strange things. Don't know if I know of an undead bird."

MARISHA: I haven't.

TALIESIN: Read about this Seelie Court?

MATT: "I'm sure I've read about it, but it wasn't very interesting of a read. I kind of forgot it."

TALIESIN: That's fair.

MARISHA: Maybe he's controlled by something.

SAM: Could be.

TALIESIN: Actually, we're trying to avoid, a little bit, we're trying to make this walk as easy as possible, so if you actually know anything we should be avoiding while we're going this direction, I don't know how--

MATT: "I don't go this far. This is all new- for me as well. Which is exciting."

LAURA: What's your favorite book you've ever read, Dr. Nesbitt?

MATT: "I tend to forget them."

MARISHA: We're still walking, by the way.

LAURA: Yes, definitely.

MATT and ASHLEY: Yes.

SAM: Please just walk.

MATT and MARISHA: (laugh)

MATT: Stopped here for three hours. (laughter)

LIAM: 50 feet from the trailhead.

MATT: Continues to talk as you go on. "I read a lot of books. I don't remember them. I tend to put them back. It's more of a way to pass the time. I recall some things, I imagine. Maybe I don't. Maybe I do, I don't know."

TALIESIN: Out of curiosity, if you just kept telling yourself that you do read all the time, you wouldn't actually have to do it, would you?

MATT: "That's true, but reading books makes you smarter, you see. You tell people how many books you've read, and it makes you a smart person."

TALIESIN: Do you remember how many books you've read?

MATT: "No, but I know it's many."

TALIESIN: That's what I thought.

LIAM: A-one, a-two.

TALIESIN and LAURA: A-three!

MATT: (laughs)

ASHLEY: (trills) Three!

MATT: Comes back around.

ASHLEY: All right.

LAURA: How close are we?

LIAM: I never stop listening for impending death.

TALIESIN: I'm fascinated--

MATT: The fens grow thicker and swampier this direction. What was just the spongy ground with elements of soft moisture becomes difficult to trudge, muddy pits with elevated little islands of drier ground. The trees here do have beautiful variations of blue and purple and bright green and yellow leaves shimmering. You do see other plants that give off pulsing glows. Every now and then, you swear you see one of them shift a few feet before stopping. Nesbitt continues whistling to himself. "(whistling cheerfully) Ooh, what's this? It's another tree. I've not seen this tree before. This is a new tree. That tree's new, too."

TRAVIS: He's in trouble.

MARISHA: I don't know about this.

TRAVIS: He's endangered on my list.

ASHLEY: He's in danger. Okay.

MATT: "So many new things."

ASHLEY: Dr. Nesbitt.

MATT: "Yes?"

ASHLEY: Here's the deal.

MATT: "What is the deal?"

ASHLEY: I think I would like to keep you alive, so I think you should fly home.

MATT: "But what about adventure?"

MARISHA: Aw.

ASHLEY: I feel like we're going into the danger zone.

TRAVIS: On the highway, you could say.

ASHLEY: Yeah.

MATT: "Right." Make a persuasion check.

ASHLEY: Okay.

MARISHA: Persuasion check.

ASHLEY: Yeah. 28.

MATT: 28!

SAM: Woo!

TALIESIN: Monster.

MATT: "That's a valid point. Well, I'll wait for you at home. (laughs)"

ASHLEY: Okay.

MATT: "Good luck! Don't die!"

LAURA: Bye, Doctor.

LIAM: Did he go in the right direction?

MATT: Mostly.

LIAM: Okay.

MATT: He'll find his way, probably.

TRAVIS: How long did you have him?

TALIESIN: I'm excited to meet him again for the first time once we come back.

ASHLEY: Long time. I don't remember. He just showed up one day. He showed up one day.

LIAM: Were you still little?

ASHLEY: Yeah.

LAURA: Aw!

ASHLEY: Yeah, yeah. They all showed up every once in a while, you know?

TALIESIN: Mm.

LAURA: Sweet Pea just showed up one day?

ASHLEY: Mm-hmm.

LAURA: Or did Nana Morri make him like that?

ASHLEY: No, they all just showed up one day.

LAURA: Wow.

MARISHA: How's the ground looking? Does it look mad, like it wants a...

TRAVIS: Iron tithe?

MARISHA: A tithe? Yes.

MATT: Make a nature check.

LAURA: How's the ground looking? Should we fight it?

TRAVIS: I'll assist her.

LIAM: I start kicking the ground.

MATT: Fight the ground.

TRAVIS: I'll assist you. Go.

MARISHA: My skill checks are at disadvantage, right?

TRAVIS: I'm not rolling for real.

SAM: Correct.

MATT: For first level of exhaustion--

MARISHA: I think that's what it is.

SAM: I think so.

MATT: I'll find this here.

MARISHA: Disadvantage on ability checks.

MATT and SAM: Yes.

MARISHA: So I'll straight roll. Natural 20.

ASHLEY and LAURA: Woo!

MATT: On a disadvantage?

TRAVIS: I assisted.

MARISHA: Because he gave me advantage.

MATT: I see, I see. So a single roll. Yeah, you're right. The ground definitely seems soft and shifting. Every now and then when you step across, and you had this when you were deeper in the fens, but now you feel the ground rise in some places and fall in others. As you stop and listen, you can hear this... (queasy croaking) (queasy croaking) Every now and then, you see some bubbles (bubbles popping) out of one of the wetter sections of the swamp.

SAM: Normal?

TRAVIS: This is the Indigestion Grove. (croaks) (laughter)

TALIESIN: Thank god I brought my Sword of Pepto.

LAURA: Smack!

TALIESIN: (hisses)

MATT: That's the commercial.

LIAM: Okay.

MARISHA: Nana Morri said to pay attention and talk to the environment.

LIAM: Looks pretty ground-y at the moment.

LAURA: Thanks for being so ground-y for us.

ASHLEY: You're letting us pass through. This is so nice.

LAURA: Yep.

MATT: (croaking)

ASHLEY: Thank you, thank you.

TALIESIN: Thank you.

TRAVIS: Now that's it been the second day, can I try Hunter's Bane if it picks up larger specific signatures versus blanket bane?

MATT: Hunter's Bane, generally you get advantage on the perception checks to gather what's in the vicinity.

TRAVIS: 19.

MATT: 19. In the immediate vicinity, no, but we'll say as a going check of you keeping your nose out for anything specifically fey oriented.

TRAVIS: Larger signatures against the backdrop of fey everywhere.

MATT: As you continue for the next couple hours, the heavy canopy of the remainder of the fens begins to fall away. You do begin to see more of the sky peek, and you find yourself descending. This swamp is on a decline down into a valley, and from the crest to the decline, the water doesn't seem to be running, either. It's staying at the angle, not terribly steep, but a notably steep incline. Right as you break past that canopy, you can begin to see that red orb.

LAURA: Closer?

MATT: It's hard to say. This is your first time really seeing it in person, other than at the top of the tower. It feels like it's a little closer. As you begin to move side to side, you get the sense that it is smaller. It is lower on the horizon. It's sitting above, at the far end of the valley. Yes, yes. You have a super high perception. You can see that throughout the forest that leads beyond this swamp, the thick, massive bramble twists that weave through and rise and fall, just this textured, dangerous landscape of darkened forest and taken wilds. You can see little dots of light through it, the sky itself here more clouded and shadowed, while the pinks and purples of the other sky falls to almost a continuous twilight here. There is that red orb, the faintest little bit of a thread of light that drifts from beneath it.

LAURA: Ooh.

MATT: Acts as a compass point to the direction you're intentioned to travel.

LAURA: We've got to get there.

ASHLEY: Yeah.

LAURA: Let's move.

ASHLEY: Let's move.

MATT: Are you all moving slowly and stealthily, or are you moving with pace?

SAM: Pace.

TRAVIS: Pace.

LIAM: Speedily or careful?

TRAVIS: Until we find something.

MARISHA: Until we need to.

LAURA: Do we have anything to make us more stealthy?

TALIESIN: I can do that.

SAM: We have Veils.

TRAVIS: We have three of those Veils.

LAURA: Those are for when we hold still.

TALIESIN: I can run one Pass Without a Trace, if we need to.

LAURA: So we can move faster, maybe, while we're still being stealthy?

SAM: That's only 10 minutes, right?

TALIESIN and LAURA: No.

MARISHA: No, it's an hour.

SAM: Okay.

TALIESIN: So if you want to move fast and stealthy, I can--

MARISHA: Let's do it.

TALIESIN: -- make us super, super quiet.

ASHLEY: Good idea.

TALIESIN: All right. I'm doing Merge With Stone. I'm just giving everyone, making the terrain a little more agreeable to us.

SAM: ♪ Makin' the terrain ♪

MARISHA, TRAVIS, and LAURA: (laugh)

MATT: Just so you're aware, Pass Without a Trace gives you benefits to stealth, but you still have to travel--

TALIESIN: Still have to travel slower. Never mind. I knew that.

MATT: There's a ranger ability that does let you travel faster while still stealthing.

LAURA: That's what I was thinking of, sorry.

MARISHA: Then maybe hold onto it, if we need it.

TRAVIS: Save it for when we need it.

MARISHA: Exactly.

LIAM: Sucks that you're aasimar.

MARISHA: We move forward.

TALIESIN: I don't know if that's helpful.

TRAVIS: With pace.

MARISHA: With pace.

MATT: Okay.

TRAVIS: Lee Pace.

MARISHA: Yeah.

MATT: So you keep up a fair pace, trained on this light in the distance. The splashing and sloshing of your footfalls is far from quiet in this landscape.

LIAM: (fart sounds)

MATT: You do come, as the hill begins to rise down,

LAURA: (laughs)

LIAM: Yep. All right.

MATT: -- you do come to the base of the...

LIAM: (laughs) Two in a row!

LAURA: (laughs) I'm sorry.

TALIESIN: You arrive at--

SAM: I know, he said "come on the base." (laughter)

MATT: Okay.

LIAM: Hard to think.

LAURA: Uh-oh.

TALIESIN: We deserve it. I'm not going to pretend we don't.

MATT: You hear the clopping of hooves. Numerous hooves. Splashing in the surrounding swamp-scape, getting louder and louder, like galloping horses. (clomping hooves)

LAURA: Should we put our Veils on?

ASHLEY: Yes.

LIAM: There's only three, right?

MARISHA: We have to huddle up, I guess.

TRAVIS: They cover three medium-sized creatures each.

LAURA and LIAM: Oh!

ASHLEY: Oh.

SAM: Oh.

LAURA: Oh! Then yeah, let's drop 'em.

TRAVIS: I'm sorry, 400 years old, you pick up some shit.

SAM: All right, let's huddle and Veil.

LAURA: Can we put the Veils over us?

MATT: You can. Once activated they only last a short time. You can only activate them once per day.

TRAVIS: I don't think that's correct.

MARISHA: You can only activate them once a day?

LAURA: Once a day? Oh, never mind, never mind. I don't know. This seems like--

LAURA: Once a day!

LIAM: -- a good time to use them.

TRAVIS: Am I the only one that paid attention when we got them?

SAM: -- actually breaking into this place, right?

LIAM: But you have to hold still. So there's things riding on our position right now.

TRAVIS: Yes.

SAM: All right, do it.

LIAM: So it's a sensible time to use them.

LAURA: No, no.

SAM: Someone's got to decide.

LAURA: I don't want to use them.

TRAVIS: We don't even know what the clip-clop is is.

LAURA: Yeah, it might be good people.

LIAM: What are you talking about? I'm Liam, I want to get in a fight.

TRAVIS: Yeah.

LIAM: Bring it on. (laughter)

ASHLEY: Okay, okay, okay.

TALIESIN: I could hit something, it'd be nice.

MATT: (hooves clomping) You see shapes surrounding in the nearby treeline running past. Indeed, they look like horses. Just charging, two, three--

MARISHA: I'll still maybe hide.

LAURA: Yeah, we'll duck behind trees at least.

MARISHA: Duck down.

MATT: Okay.

MATT: Make stealth checks.

TRAVIS: Bullshit. Really?

MARISHA: Mm.

TALIESIN: Eh.

TRAVIS: Wait. Don't I get advantage on stealth checks?

MARISHA: Oh, shit I get disadvantage.

TRAVIS: Yeah, attempt to conceal myself.

MATT: All right.

MARISHA: Okay.

MATT: Ashton?

TALIESIN: 13.

MATT: 13. Orym?

LIAM: 15.

MATT: 15.

LAURA: 11.

MATT: 11.

ASHLEY: Nine.

MATT: Nine.

SAM: One.

LAURA: Oh god.

MARISHA: 15.

LIAM: My.

TRAVIS: 21.

MARISHA: Very average.

LAURA: Good job, Chet.

MATT: You all charge out--

SAM: Very average.

MATT: -- and scatter to the sides as best you can. You got a one?

SAM: Natural.

MATT: A natural one. As you all scatter out to find the best areas to hide in this space, you rush off and find this one cluster of plant matter and brush and you hide up amongst it.

SAM: I am grass.

MATT: As these large bulbs open, unseen by you, and (spores release) Begin to release this kind of of mist-like steam that begins to rain down from above onto you.

TALIESIN: Oh no.

MATT: Make a constitution saving throw for me.

TALIESIN: Oh no.

SAM: Constitution saving throw!

LIAM: Robot stuff.

SAM: Natural 20.

LAURA: Ha, ha! Way to go.

MATT: Nice. You take only four points of fire damage.

SAM: How much?

MATT: Four points of fire damage.

LAURA: Oh shit!

MATT: This extremely hot, scalding steam touches the surface of your metallic body and immediately (searing) begins to burn into it.

SAM: Ah!

MATT: You yelp out and the things, the galloping creatures circle back.

SAM: Uh-oh.

LAURA: Mm.

MATT: Three of them begin to approach. As they break out of the shadow of the nearby branches you can see the horse creatures, they are just these massive stallion-like beings, but at the front you see the upper torso of a humanoid creature.

TRAVIS and ASHLEY: Yes!

TALIESIN: It has begun.

SAM: Oh wow.

TRAVIS: Sorry.

MATT: Their skin, a pale gray coloration. with tattooed marks up along their body and their shoulders--

SAM: They're a biker gang.

MATT: -- in unique swirls and designs. You see strips of hide armor on their bodies and their hair is just this wild mass of tangled natural waves. All shades of black and dark brown. Their eyes are pupil-less. Just all black sclera eyes.

TRAVIS: Whoa.

MATT: They all have these longbows in hand as well as other weapons attached around their waists as they all ride out from different sides.

LAURA: Are these the Unseelie?

MATT: One of them (whistles).

MARISHA: Maybe.

MATT: "(speaking Elven)"

SAM: Oh.

LAURA: Oh, is it speaking--

MATT: "(speaking Elven)"

MATT: Does anybody here speak Elven?

LAURA: Elven? Uh-uh.

SAM: I have Tongues.

TALIESIN: We know.

LIAM: It's just one long tongue, we get it. (laughter)

SAM: Or Tongue.

TALIESIN: But does anyone speak Elven?

LIAM: I don't know.

TALIESIN: No.

SAM: Would I be able to--

TRAVIS: D&D group, no Elven.

MATT: I love it. It's great.

SAM: Can I activate Tongues on myself?

MATT: If you'd like to cast the spell.

SAM: I would like to.

MATT: Does it have verbal and somatic components?

SAM: It's verbal and M. What's that?

MATT: Yeah, material.

LIAM: Material.

MATT: So you have to speak and cast the spell. They're looking at you, by the way. You're the one who made the noise and they're all looking at you with their bows half-cocked at the ready.

SAM: Mm-hmm.

MATT: The one that's stepped forward is saying this towards you. "(speaking Elven)"

SAM: I'll Tongue myself.

MATT: Okay. You begin to cast the spell--

SAM: Yes.

MATT: -- speak the phrase.

MATT: Immediately-- (arrow flies)

SAM: Oh!

MATT: -- launches a shot with a longbow at you for, that's going to be a 14 to hit?

SAM: Miss.

MATT: Sinks into the ground to your right hand side. Locks another arrow. "(speaking Elven)" You just finished casting the spell.

SAM: Uh-huh. I hold up my hands.

MATT: "(speaking Elven)" slowly shifts into "Do not move."

LAURA: Oh.

SAM: I won't. Mm-mm. I'm okay. Nope. Don't shoot.

LAURA: Are you speaking Elven?

SAM: I don't think I can talk back. Let's see here. I can understand any spoken language it hears. When I speak, any creature that knows any language can understand me, too! I can talk back.

MATT: Mm-hmm.

SAM: Yeah, I'm C-3PO right now.

MATT: Yeah, more or less.

ASHLEY: Cool.

LIAM: I'm built for three million different languages.

SAM: I'm sorry. We mean no harm.

MATT: "We?"

SAM: Oh. Oops.

MATT: "How many is in your group? Search the perimeter."

TRAVIS: Fucking-- (laughter)

ASHLEY: Damn it, FCG! (laughter)

ASHLEY: Amateur mistake!

SAM: I meant the royal we, the royal we. It's just me. I'm just--

MATT: They found a few of the others. You guys did not roll good stealth checks.

LAURA: No.

ASHLEY: No, I rolled a nine.

MATT: At this point they start-- The three of them all, big old longbows arrows nocked in them. How many of you stand forward?

ASHLEY: I'll stand forward.

TALIESIN: Yeah, I have--

LIAM: I will with hands up.

TALIESIN: Sure.

MATT: (spores releasing) The steam protrudes once more from the creature behind you and (sizzling) sets onto you. Make another constitution save.

SAM: Oh my god!

ASHLEY: Roll away from there.

SAM: This is not a good day.

LIAM: Nobody touch Letters.

SAM: 16.

MATT: 16. Only one point of fire damage.

SAM: Okay.

LAURA: Okay, that's fine.

SAM: Ah! Can I-- I know you don't want me to move, but can I move? This thing hurts!

MATT: "Tie it up."

LAURA: Oh.

MATT: One of the others, as you're all standing up, one of them rides over. (hooves clomping) Reaches into a little pouch on its side and pulls out this piece of this long, gray cording.

SAM: Shit. Shit.

MATT: This very tightly braided cord. "Tie them all up."

ASHLEY: Wait. Wait. Whoa, whoa. What for?

TALIESIN: We can't understand what's happening.

ASHLEY: You can't understand.

TALIESIN: Never mind.

ASHLEY: He doesn't know what I'm saying. What are we doing?

TALIESIN: Goddamn it.

SAM: They're going to tie you up. They're tying me up.

MATT: You see him pull out a rope and go towards him.

ASHLEY: Whoa. Whoa, whoa!

TALIESIN: No, no, no, no.

ASHLEY: What-- We can't talk to them.

SAM: Please don't do this. We mean you no harm. Are we on your turf or something? Is this, have we crossed into an area we shouldn't be?

MATT: "Yes, you shouldn't be here at all. None of you should be."

SAM: W-w-why?

MATT: "Because this is the land where the sun does not fall."

MARISHA: Okay.

MATT: "These are our lands. And you're ours now."

SAM: Can we-- Can you--

MATT: "We're taking you."

SAM: Oh. Well, can you just let us go back home or pass through or go elsewhere? We didn't know.

MATT: "That's not how it works here."

SAM: Oh no.

LAURA: Maybe throw out Nana, Morrigan's name.

SAM: Do you know Morrigan?

MATT: "What of Morrigan?"

SAM: She's our friend.

MATT: "(laughs)"

SAM: She is!

MATT: All three of them, you all start to hear them laughing.

SAM: She'll be very upset if you catch us.

MATT: "(laughs)"

SAM: She doesn't like folks messing with us.

TRAVIS: We have her granddaughter.

ASHLEY: Tell them she's our Nana.

SAM: What?

ASHLEY: Tell them she's our Nana.

SAM: She's our Nana.

MATT: Make an intimidation check.

MARISHA: Oh.

LAURA: (laughs)

MARISHA: Come on!

SAM: Intimidation?

MATT: Mm-hmm.

SAM: 13.

MATT: 13. All of them look at each other. "(cackling)"

SAM: All right. Well, it's on.

MATT: (cackling continues)

MARISHA: Are we fighting these fucks or are we going peacefully?

LAURA: I mean, we're not going to go with them, right?

MATT: "Ah, there's too many of them for the three of us to carry. Waken the tree."

SAM: Oh my gosh.

MATT: One of them rides over.

SAM: They're waking up a tree.

LIAM: Waking a tree?

MATT: Pulls into a pouch and throws this scattering of light dust.

MARISHA: Do we run?

LAURA: Can I use Mage Hand to try to catch whatever they're scattering and stop it from reaching? As they throw it, I want to catch it in mid-air.

ASHLEY: Yes.

MATT: I will say, roll a d20 and add your dexterity saving throw.

LAURA: Dexterity saving throw.

MATT: This is going to be essentially your initiative versus theirs in a non-initiative order to see if you can make the addi--

LAURA: 14.

MATT: 14. Mage Hand darts forward. (whoosh) Right as they open the pouch. And you notice they're not throwing the pouch, they're just scattering it open. And the Mage Hand reaches out into a cloud of dust that continues to fall along one of the large-- pardon me. Swamp trees. As it filters into it.

TALIESIN: We don't know what the fuck's happening.

MATT: The tree then (rumble) uproots itself. (cracking rumble)

MARISHA: Do we run?

SAM: Yes, they don't like us. This is not going to go well. We've got to get out of here.

MARISHA: Run!

LAURA: Oh god. All right.

SAM: They're horses.

MARISHA: They are horses. They're faster than us. (laughter)

SAM: Wait, you're a horse girl!

LAURA: What am I going to do?

SAM: Ride them?

ASHLEY: Is there a way you could ask them where we're going? Where are they taking us?

LAURA: I'm going to say-- I'm going to fucking cast. What can I cast?

LIAM: Orym's going to step in front of Laudna right now.

LAURA: I'm going to cast... This is for three people. I'm going to cast at 3rd-level, Command.

MATT: Okay.

SAM: Oh, we are on now.

MATT: So you're casting it for three.

LAURA: For three people.

MATT: 60-foot range, you can just reach all three. Especially the one that stepped away. The tree is still in the process of pulling itself forth and as you do, you watch the wood split in places. In six or seven places the wood splits with little yellow eyes that peer through.

ASHLEY: Awesome.

MATT: What do you Command them? As I go ahead make their-- what's their-- Is that a wisdom save? Yes.

LAURA: Yes, one word?

MATT: That's an eight. That's a six. And a seven, wow, they rolled like shit.

LAURA: Great.

LAURA: Don't. (laughter)

SAM: Just don't.

ASHLEY and MARISHA: Just don't!

MATT: For one round, you want them to "don't."

LAURA: Yeah.

MATT: Okay.

LAURA: Don't.

MATT: Okay. They all, some of them, arrows--

LAURA: Whatever they were going to do, they don't do it.

MATT: For the next round, they won't do it.

ASHLEY: Really great.

SAM: One was going to let us go. (laughter)

TRAVIS: FCG, translate. I'll hold out my hand and I'm going to cast Minor Illusion. In my hand, you see a small little version of Morrigan's tree. It was really nice staying here. I'm sure her hospitality extends to this place. Translate.

SAM: It was nice staying here? Are you talking for her--

TRAVIS: Just fucking say what I said!

SAM: It was nice staying here. I hope her hospitality pertains to this place, extends to this place.

TRAVIS: But when she comes looking for us, either of her heads, she's going to really love having some new statues for her garden.

SAM: Oh, that's good. The little one says, that she'll love adding statues to her creepy garden.

MATT: Well, they're currently not--

SAM: Oh yeah, they're not.

MATT: -- doing anything right now.

LAURA: Yeah.

MATT: As they all just stare, blinking, processing why they're listening.

SAM: Wait, they're just standing there. Let's get the fuck out of here. Why are we talking to them?

LAURA: Well, they--

LIAM: Six seconds.

ASHLEY: Let's go.

LIAM: Even if we run they're still horses.

MATT: You do get, through you translating, an additional intimidation check, but it is a much higher DC based on the previous failure and the current circumstances that are not in your favor. But if somehow--

TRAVIS: Just exercising all diplomacy.

MATT: If you get above a 22--

TRAVIS: Don't worry about it.

MATT: Okay. (laughter)

SAM: I didn't translate well enough, I'm sorry.

ASHLEY: Run. Run? Run?

LAURA: Run.

SAM: Run!

TRAVIS: Run?

MARISHA: I guess. If we got six seconds.

ASHLEY: I don't know.

LIAM: Towards our goal? Run away towards our goal?

MATT: Well, you got three seconds, because he was intimidating them through the process.

MARISHA: Well, we've got to do something.

MATT: What are you doing?

LIAM: I mean, I think we're standing here twisting in the wind while they attack us. That's what it feels like.

LAURA: Should we attack them?

MARISHA: Run!

ASHLEY: I don't know!

MATT: It's your call. Do you run?

TRAVIS: Sure, let's run so we don't attack the centaurs for another half round.

MARISHA: Yeah. (laughs)

SAM: They'll never catch us!

LAURA: I mean, they're frozen, so you can attack them. Do something.

SAM: Do we get a round on them? Go!

TRAVIS: How many total--

MATT: If you wanted to attack them right now, you would have a round on them.

LIAM: All right.

SAM: Do it!

LIAM: I'm going to use Seedling and I'm going to Grasping Vine and try to yank a bow out of the one that shot at Letters.

MATT: Okay. Well, let me-- I guess I'll set out an arrangement to show you where it is.

SAM: Ooh!

LAURA: Good.

ASHLEY: Oh boy.

SAM: Oh, is this-- Are we getting a map? This map brought to you by WizKids Mini. The Vox Machina box set is available for pre-order. Find these and many more Critical Role miniatures at WizKids.io/CRMinis and your local game store. Usually he's back by now.

LAURA: Yeah.

SAM: I read that really fast.

TALIESIN: I think there's a mild amount of bullshit coming together for this one.

SAM: Is he building one on the fly?

ASHLEY: (laughs)

MATT: I'm rearranging it.

SAM: Holy shit.

LAURA: This is Matt going, "Why the fuck are they fighting these centaurs?"

MARISHA: I know, I know!

SAM: Well, we can't run, they're horses!

LAURA: Well, maybe we go to their home turf and we tell them. Maybe they don't like the Unseelie!

ASHLEY: Yeah, maybe they'll help us. Oh.

SAM: Oh wow. This is great!

TALIESIN: What?!

ASHLEY: Oh!

SAM: Wow, he just put that together?

ASHLEY: Oh wow! Look at that plant!

TALIESIN: What?

ASHLEY: With the--

SAM: The one that's got fiber optics on it.

ASHLEY: Yes, fiber optics!

MARISHA: That's sick!

LAURA: Wow.

LIAM: That's probably the steam plant.

MARISHA: Are they Unseelie? We don't know.

SAM: They might exist in the space in between, right?

LAURA: Maybe you should ask them if they're Unseelie.

SAM: Wait, no. Not--

MATT: This tree is now--

LIAM: I think they said they were.

LAURA: He said they were Unseelie?

MATT: -- becoming this tree.

ASHLEY: Whoa!

MARISHA: Did he? I didn't hear that.

LAURA: No, he didn't.

LIAM: Well, DM, clarify. Did he say that we were in their lands? Did they mention the Unseelie?

MATT: No. They just said--

LIAM: No.

MATT: -- the lands where the sun doesn't fall.

SAM: Maybe they're the Lion Guard.

LIAM: But isn't that-- That's what it was. Wasn't that the name of the Unseelie area?

SAM: Except they're not lions, so probably not.

MARISHA: No, it was--

LAURA: No, no no no, they--

MARISHA: Yeah, sun, the sun--

LIAM: Sun's Shadow.

MARISHA: The Sun's Shadow.

LIAM: Where the sun doesn't fall.

MARISHA: "The Sun's Shadow Realm where the Unseelie rule," is all we heard.

LAURA: Oh.

MARISHA: They didn't say where the sun-- But we can--

LIAM: Educated guess.

MARISHA: Yes, exactly.

LAURA: Oh, then they could be bringing us straight to where we want to go.

LIAM: And Morri described, I can't remember all of them. Politicians, knights, I think. What were the--?

MARISHA: I'm assuming, yeah.

SAM: Oh boy.

LAURA: Can you ask them if they're Unseelie?

SAM: Sure. But right now they're don't-ing.

LAURA: Yeah.

MATT: You have one round while they are don't-ing.

LAURA: (laughs)

MARISHA: We've got to figure something out.

LIAM: Well, Orym's in front of Laudna because I said he was. And then who fired the arrow at Letters? The closest one?

MATT: This one here, yeah.

LIAM: Okay, so the last thing I said was I was trying to use Seedling to grab at--

TRAVIS: Three of them.

LIAM: -- his bow and yank it out of his hand. It's a dex.

MATT: Okay.

TRAVIS: Are there more than three?

LAURA: No, there's three.

SAM: That we can see.

MATT: Dex 18.

LIAM: Oh, that beats it, okay.

TRAVIS: Oh, and that giant tree.

LAURA: Uh-huh.

MARISHA: Yeah.

MATT: I got a natural 16 on that one.

LIAM: Yeah, that beats it. Okay.

LAURA: What is that big thing back there?

MATT: This is the plant that had been poofing out onto--

SAM: Oh, the poof plant.

MATT: Yeah. The steam that it created in a radius around it.

LIAM: Okay.

MATT: All right.

LIAM: All right.

MATT: Staying put?

LIAM: Yeah. Yes, I'm staying in front of the exhausted dead lady.

MATT: Okay, that finishes your go.

LIAM: Yep.

MATT: Since this before you're actually rolling formal initiative here, you guys are just getting a round in whatever order you want to because you guys are figuring out what you want to do. So.

ASHLEY: Are we doing this? Are we doing this?

LAURA: I know! I think we're just so confused.

MARISHA: Talk to them first. Ask them if they're Unseelie.

ASHLEY: Yeah, what if they--

LAURA: Yeah.

MARISHA: Or if they can help us.

SAM: All right.

MARISHA: I don't know.

LAURA: Just ask them if they're Unseelie.

SAM: All right. Are you Unseelie? They can't talk back they're don't-ing.

LAURA: They can still do something.

TRAVIS: We can even let them capture us and walk for a little bit and talk to them and then we kill them.

MARISHA: Yeah, walk and talk?

SAM: Are you Unseelie? If so, neigh twice.

TRAVIS: Reply to this message. (laughter)

LAURA: Oh no.

MATT: They stand there for a second. The one that dodged out of the way from you is looking a bit confused and looks back at you. "You'll fetch them a pretty coin."

MARISHA: You'll fetch them a pretty coin?

TRAVIS: Fetch a pretty coin for them?

MATT: That's what you gather is probably what they meant.

TRAVIS: Got it.

SAM: I explain. I think they're at least working with the Unseelie.

TRAVIS: Yep.

MARISHA: Bounty hunters.

LAURA: Okay.

TRAVIS: Want to surrender and go with?

LAURA: I don't know! I don't know!

SAM: We're surrendering?

TALIESIN: We're being wonderful.

LAURA: Heading straight into the Unseelie Court?

TRAVIS: Well then we'll know--

ASHLEY: That's one way to get in.

TRAVIS: -- exactly which way we're going.

SAM: We don't know that the Unseelie Court is located where we're going.

TRAVIS: Nope.

LAURA: This is so dumb.

SAM: Let's just kill them.

MARISHA: Well no, we do know that the Seelie Court is located where we're going.

LAURA: Yeah. We are heading towards the Unseelie Court. Yes.

MATT: At least their domain.

MARISHA: Their domain.

SAM: Their domain, it could be the state of Delaware.

MARISHA: That is true.

LAURA: Maybe these guys are nice.

SAM: They don't seem nice.

LAURA: I don't want to fight them.

SAM: Because they're horses, is that why?

LAURA: Maybe! (laughter)

TRAVIS: Analysis paralysis, somebody do something.

LAURA: (groans)

SAM: I'm a born killing machine.

LIAM: I mean, at this point, throw initiative on us and let us figure it out.

SAM: I'm just going to attack--

TRAVIS: No, we got a round.

SAM: -- the one that shot at me.

TRAVIS: Do it.

MATT: Go for it. What are you attacking them with?

SAM: Spiritual Weapon.

MATT: All righty.

LAURA: Okay, okay, okay, okay, okay.

TALIESIN: Fuck it, here we go. This is happening.

MARISHA: I'm going to Bane them, if we still have that one round, that free round.

TRAVIS: Everybody does.

MATT: Yep, I'm giving everyone that one round.

TALIESIN: I cannot believe this is happening.

LAURA: Can I do something else? Or I used my one round to do the Command and so I'm out on this?

MATT: They all get wisdom saving throws for Bane?

MARISHA: Charisma.

MATT: Charisma.

LIAM: (Bane groan)

MATT: That's a failure. Lower. And that one's going to be a 16.

MARISHA: Just makes it.

MATT: Okay, so this one does not get Baned. But it does fall over, apparently. Okay. No, you do-- the Command is for the next turn, so we'll say you go at the very end of this.

LAURA: Okay.

MATT: All right.

ASHLEY: I'm going to cast Entangle around their feets.

MATT: Entangle on their feet?

ASHLEY: Yeah.

MATT: 20-foot radius? What's the radius on that?

ASHLEY: It is 90 feet.

MATT: Natural 20. Natural one, and a 10. So only the one in the front succeeds. The other two are currently restrained or grappled.

TALIESIN: Was it a save against that?

MATT: Correct.

TALIESIN: There would've been a d4 against it if he was Baned.

MATT: Correct, it was a natural 20.

TALIESIN: Okay, never mind.

SAM: I'm Spiritual Weaponing him.

MATT: Correct, so roll to hit on him.

SAM: 18 to hit.

MATT: 18 definitely hits.

ASHLEY: Restrained.

MATT: Restrained, you got it.

SAM: Nice. Nice.

MATT: Both of them, the middle of the swamp, a burst of intense vines and roots just come out of the ground in that vicinity and start wrapping up around them. One of them pulls away while two of them are now pulled into it and are being held in place and they're restrained. That one is still free. What you roll for damage?

SAM: Damage? Oh, terrible.

MARISHA: They're all three restrained?

SAM: Four points of damage.

LAURA: Yeah.

MATT: Four points of damage.

SAM: No, two of them are restrained. Well, we could run.

LAURA: Yeah.

MARISHA: Is the one who's-- Which one's not restrained?

SAM: The one closest to us.

MARISHA: And he is Baned.

SAM: He's Baned and he just got hit with four huge points of damage.

MATT: Okay.

SAM: My Spiritual Weapon, by the way, it appears like a giant stirrup.

MATT: Oh my god, that's ridiculous. Not a spur, a stirrup.

MARISHA: A stirrup? Yeah.

SAM: Oh, I meant a spur, but let's go with stirrup.

MATT: Let's go with stirrup. (laughter)

MATT: Whack! Put your feet in this! (laughter)

TRAVIS: That's fucking hilarious. (laughter)

MATT: All right.

SAM: Then it changes to a saddle bag, and then reins. (laughter)

SAM: Just random horse tackle. (laughter)

LIAM: He's hitting me with a feedbag. I don't understand.

ASHLEY: It is, let me double check.

SAM: Blinders!

ASHLEY: Yes, 20-foot square.

MATT: Okay. 20-foot, 20-foot. It wouldn't have been able to reach all three of them then.

ASHLEY: 90 feet, 20-foot square.

MATT: 90-foot range.

ASHLEY: 90-foot range, yeah, 20-foot square.

MATT: Correct. On the square there, five, 10, 15, 20. So these two you could have gotten, so this one in not restrained at the moment. So only one of them is restrained. But this area here remains.

SAM: Oh, so that's bad for us, too.

MATT: True, you guys are traveling this direction.

ASHLEY: Oops.

SAM: Oh, we're going that way, great.

LAURA: Okay, okay, okay, okay.

TRAVIS: This direction on the map, 35 feet.

MATT: Okay.

TRAVIS: Keep coming through.

MATT: This swamp is difficult terrain by the way.

TALIESIN: So we can get right up to--

MATT: Five, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30 gets you about there.

TRAVIS: Cool.

LIAM: Against centaurs.

TALIESIN: We can get right up against that centaur that's not in.

TRAVIS: I'm going to take out my scythe. I'm going to take out Turmoil, and utter the word, "Done" and it unleashes and I'm going to swing it in the air and cast Shatter right in between the centaur and the walking tree fuck.

MATT: What's the radius on that one?

TRAVIS: 60 feet, 10-foot sphere.

MATT: 10-foot sphere, you got it.

TALIESIN: So is that first one just five feet out of the radius? He's not quite there.

MATT: So right there?

TRAVIS: Mm-hmm. And anyone in that sphere.

MATT: You'll get all three of them.

TRAVIS: That would be lovely. That would be great. And I don't think, oh, a constitution saving throw.

MATT: All right, the tree... fails. That's a 12, right, against your?

TRAVIS: It's a 14 save.

MATT: Yeah, so tree fails. 11 fails. All three fail.

TRAVIS: Amazing.

LAURA: Wow.

TRAVIS: 16. 21 points of thunder damage to all three of them.

LIAM: Kicking it off!

MATT: So as he pulls out the blade You swipe into the air and in the middle of that space, this weird swirl of electrical and storm energy just detonates outward like a localized explosion. All three of this, the tree and those two centaurs there all get rained upon by a bunch of just impacting shards of force in the vicinity. And they all hold their ears in the process. At least those that have ears. They all already look pretty hurt.

LAURA: Okay, okay.

MATT: All right.

TRAVIS: That's my turn.

TALIESIN: All right, I'm going to fire up a rage and see what happens.

MATT: All righty.

TALIESIN: Oh yeah!

LAURA and LIAM: (laugh)

TRAVIS: I am a big rainbow of probability.

MATT: You got it.

TALIESIN: It's just going off like 4th of July in there.

MATT: Okay.

TALIESIN: Fun. Amazing. I'm going to walk up. I assume I can get right up to that guy in the front, he's still five feet outside of the spell?

MATT: (counting) 40 can get you there.

TALIESIN: I have Earth Walk, so technically I might be able--

MATT: Oh, Earth Walk means you ignore difficult terrain?

TALIESIN: I'll say exactly what it is. It's a little weird, hold on. It says, "Earth or stone..." I don't know if this would count as earth or stone?

MATT: No, this is the swamp, so. But you can still get to the guy up front.

TALIESIN: Yeah. He's like five feet out from the-- He's right outside the Entangle spell?

MATT: Correct, the Entangle spell's right on that guy.

TALIESIN: Okay so, okay, let's see what happens.

MATT: You're just outside of the writhing vines, you're like, shit!

TALIESIN: All right, I'm going to just walk up, just take one nice swing.

MATT: Go for it.

TALIESIN: And see what happens.

ASHLEY: ♪ Pock O'Pea ♪

LAURA: ♪ Pock O'Pea ♪

MATT: Weirdly, that--

TALIESIN: Natural 20, this is going to go really poorly.

MATT: That Command opened you up for a round.

ASHLEY: Let's do it.

MATT: (laughs) A non-surprise surprise round, essentially.

TALIESIN: This is going to be real bad. Oh boy, what am I going to do here? This poor guy's not going to do okay. I'm going to pump some terrible stuff into this. So I'm going to put a chaos burst in here as well, since we're going this way. It's going to hurt so bad. So this is also going to have psychic damage.

MATT: Great.

TALIESIN: Yeah, sorry that got in the way. It's currently 2d4, so pull that aside.

LIAM: Lots of numbers.

TALIESIN: Yeah, I'm doing a lot. So this is 2d6 plus 2d4. Okay. It's been a while. That's--

LIAM: ♪ Been a while ♪

TALIESIN: -- eight points of bludgeoning damage, doubled to 16 plus eight for the base, so 24. Plus-- Oh, this is so mean. Oh, 12 points of psychic damage, and just to make the point, I also, as I'm taking the hammer, I'm going to hit it right in the torso and I'm going to throw this motherfucker five feet back into the bramble.

MATT: You actually throw them about 15 feet, as you wham and hit them and they are lights out.

SAM: Oh!

LAURA: Oh.

MATT: Arcing in the air as their heavy half-horse form immediately just takes the brunt of it.

TALIESIN: Just going for a knockout by the way, so yeah.

MATT: I figured. Unless you're using lethal weapons and saying otherwise, I mean a hammer can be lethal, but you're saying knocking back, so--

TALIESIN: I didn't even use my crazy-ass shit.

LAURA: Tangle vines.

MATT: Correct, the vines wrap around the unconscious centaur on the ground. The other two are like, and now they're getting their bows at the ready, now that the spell's starting to wear off. You still have another attack.

TALIESIN: There's nowhere I can get anywhere.

MATT: Anybody who hasn't gone.

TALIESIN: We can chill this.

MATT: You did the vine.

TRAVIS: There's no chill.

MATT: That's your spell.

TRAVIS: We'll chill their dead bodies.

TALIESIN: They can run away.

MARISHA: I Baned them.

MATT: You Baned them.

ASHLEY: Entangle.

MATT: Entangled and--

LAURA: I will, if I go at the end, I'm going to Twinned Spell the two centaurs that are still standing. And they're going to hear just (creepy whispering) in their heads and just, I'm going to cast Dissonant Whispers.

MATT: Got it. What's the save on that?

LAURA: That is a 17 wisdom.

MATT: Wisdom. That is a natural one, and two natural ones in a row!

ALL: Whoa!

MARISHA: Oh shit.

MATT: My Gilmore dice. He's looking out for you.

LAURA: Yeah, thanks, Gilmore.

ASHLEY: Thanks, Gilmore.

LAURA: So that is 10 points of psychic damage to each of them and they have to use their full speed to run away from me.

MATT: Okay.

LIAM: That's cool.

SAM: But they're restrained.

LAURA: One of them is not.

MATT: Correct.

LAURA: "Must immediately use its reaction if available, to move as far as it speed allows away from you."

MATT: Okay. All righty, so finishing that, now we come to the top of the round. Now everybody roll initiative.

SAM: Oh!

MATT: Oh, there we go, see, now they're finally rolling decent.

TRAVIS: Roll with two dice.

LAURA: ♪ I'm at the bottom ♪

MARISHA: This sucks.

MATT: Okay, so 25 to 20?

TRAVIS: 22.

MATT: Chet. 20 to 15?

LIAM: 19.

SAM: 19.

MATT: Nice.

TALIESIN: 17.

LAURA: Who got 19?

SAM: Me and Orym.

LIAM: Letters and Orym. Orym's dex is higher.

MATT: 15 to 10?

ASHLEY: 12!

MATT: 12.

LAURA: Okay, so Orym.

SAM: (scats with music)

MATT: 10 to five?

MARISHA: Six.

MATT: All righty. And--

LAURA: Four.

MATT: All right, Chetney, you're up first.

TRAVIS: I race up towards the tree.

MATT: All righty.

TRAVIS: Get within five feet and I'm going to use my bonus action to reach around my back and (yells). And you see flames dance up the blade of the scythe.

MATT: Hell yeah.

TRAVIS: And I whip it around and I'm going to take my first strike against the legs of this thing with some fire. Crimson Rite.

MATT: You got it.

TRAVIS: Oh, I should roll that d6. Two, okay, I'll take that damage. It's 16 plus eight, 24 to hit?

MATT: 24 definitely hits.

TRAVIS: Okay, and the second one. Oh, it's only 18 to hit.

MATT: 18 also hits.

TRAVIS: 18 also hits, great. 2d6 plus four. Oh, that's 10, 14 plus two is 16 points of damage. Plus it does, I think a 1d8 for thunder. Yeah, so 16 plus five is 21 points total.

MATT: Okay.

TRAVIS: And the second one is eight plus four. 12, 14. 14 and six, 20 points of damage.

MATT: You got it.

TRAVIS: 41 points.

MATT: Carving through it with the scythe, between the Shatter spell and those two strikes, you can already see the tree is preparing itself. It's about to slam its arms in the ground and then one of its legs splinters out. And what you imagine a tree's knee would be, is now wrecked and it's barely holding itself on the second leg.

TRAVIS: And he looks like some pretty healthy green wood. But is he on fire at all?

MATT: No, the moisture here or something about this tree or the enchantment. The flames are not having the effect that you imagine and have seen other trees have.

TRAVIS: Good for you, lad, good for you.

MATT and MARISHA: (laugh)

TRAVIS: That's my turn.

MATT: All right, finishing his go, it's now the centaurs' go. One of them is restrained. Okay, they're both going to take two strikes with their longbow. This guy's actually going to charge attack you. It is difficult terrain through the entangle area, but he does have--

MARISHA: Doesn't he need to run away from Imogen?

MATT: Oh right, no, you're totally right.

ASHLEY: Nice.

MATT: So he just--

TALIESIN: I was just about to make him so sad.

MATT: And that's off the board this way. This guy's restrained and can't, but he will try and break free of it at the end of his turn.

TRAVIS: Oh god.

MATT: And that's a-- That's a 17? Does that beat your DC, 17?

ASHLEY: It does.

MATT: Okay, so he is no longer restrained at the end of his turn.

SAM: You like my cookies?

ASHLEY: Shit.

MATT: But they can still take actions? They just have to move away from you?

LAURA: Yes, they just have to move away from me. They have to use their reaction to move away from me.

MATT: Got you, okay, cool. So they still get their attacks. They're both taking longbow shots. That's going to be two on you, Ashton. It's going to be a 12 to hit.

TALIESIN: No.

MATT: Aw, that was almost a 20, and an eight to hit.

TALIESIN: The one that did, let's pick one. The one that's furthest away. I'm going to use my reaction to trigger Dreadful Misfortune.

MATT: Okay.

TALIESIN: So... you have to make the attack roll against their own AC.

LAURA: Oh, that's cool.

MATT: That's cocked.

MARISHA: That's amazing.

MATT: (laughs) Yep.

TRAVIS: Hey!

SAM: What does that mean?

MATT: First shot fires and it misses you, the second shot they fire, you focus and concentrate and as they go to release it, the string snaps the wrong direction and the arrow sticks into their hand and like, "(yells). Fuck!" So they have to take their own damage.

TALIESIN: Yeah, they take half damage.

MATT: Half damage of their strike.

SAM: Oh my god.

LAURA and ASHLEY: That's cool.

MATT: They take four points of piercing damage.

TALIESIN: No.

MATT: The other one is going to take two shots at you because it's a longbow shot and you're the one who ended up causing them to halt. Natural one, Jesus Christ. And natural 18, okay. So you do take one shot from the longbow for nine points of piercing damage. One arrow managed to strike you in the hip area.

SAM: Imogen, no!

LAURA: Thanks for the biscuit!

MATT: And then now he breaks free of the entangle, but that's the end of his turn. And now that brings us to Orym and FCG.

LIAM: Okay, if I can do it from where I'm standing, I'm going to use a bonus action, or if I need to get closer, I will to use Seedling to send a second grasping vine up at the head of the tree and then zip myself up onto the the top of it.

MATT: You got it. That's a fail on his dexterity save, so yeah, you can totally do that.

LIAM: Okay, I'll just stand on that little plateau and then I'm just going to start slashing away.

LAURA: At the tree?

LIAM: At the tree, yeah.

MATT: Go for it.

LIAM: First one will be a Goading Attack. That is probably going to hit.

LAURA: Has the tree gone yet?

LIAM: That's a 23?

MATT: The tree hasn't gone yet, no.

TALIESIN: We're going to get that thing on the ground before it even has time to think.

LIAM: So that's a 23 to hit, it's a Goading Attack, it has to beat a wisdom save of 16.

TALIESIN: These guys are kind of--

MATT: No, it was like 19, three.

LIAM: Three, okay, so it's goaded. What's going on? So that is, from Seedling is three plus six is nine, and just 10 for that hit. And I will take a second attack. That is a 13?

MATT: 13 does not hit.

LIAM: Okay, I'll action surge. Next one is a 19 to hit.

MATT: Okay, that hits.

LIAM: Okay. That is, one plus six is seven. And the last slash is a 19 again, and that is an eight of slashing damage.

MATT: What was the first hit again? It was--

LIAM: The very first one?

MATT: Yeah, the damage on it.

LIAM: I don't recall.

MATT: Sorry, I'm--

TALIESIN: Yeah, no, we're--

LIAM: I could just roll it again.

MATT: Sure, let's roll it again.

LIAM: Let's roll it again.

MATT: That's on me.

LIAM: So it's two plus six is eight, plus the superiority die. It is nine. Oh, it was 10. It was 10.

MATT: It was 10?

LIAM: But we can go with nine. That's fine.

MATT: No, I'll take 10. Let's do that.

LIAM: It just jogged my memory.

MATT: As long as we get there eventually.

LIAM: And it's disadvantage against anybody but me.

MATT: Else in the area. Okay.

LIAM: Done.

MATT: FCG, you're up. Ashton, you're on deck.

SAM: I'm up. With my bonus--

LAURA: Orym's like, "Bye!"

SAM: -- action, I'm going to move my Spiritual Weapon.

MATT: (sneezes)

LAURA: Bless you.

SAM: Are we trying to get this tree thing?

MARISHA: I think so, yeah.

TRAVIS: No, all of them.

MARISHA: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SAM: Go to the tree, if I can make it over there. 20 feet, I think.

MATT: Can move 20 feet easily over to the tree. Roll attack for it.

SAM: And it's going to just spur the shit out of its shin. (laughter)

TRAVIS: Not the mortal enemy of trees, the spur.

MARISHA: Spur. (laughs)

MATT: You mean the--

SAM: Stirrups.

MATT: The stirrups

TRAVIS: Yeah, it's the stirrups.

MATT: Whack.

SAM: Going to stirrup the shin.

MATT: Go for it. Roll an attack for it.

MARISHA: That sounds like it'd fucking hurt.

MATT: Yeah.

TALIESIN: It actually does.

TRAVIS: Maybe they're bedazzled spurs.

SAM: 24.

MATT: 24 definitely hits. Go ahead and roll damage.

ASHLEY: Oh my god, he went up to it.

SAM: Nine points of damage.

TRAVIS: Yeah!

MATT: Oof, that tree is looking bludgeoned to fuck in just this round.

SAM: And then I will also shoot a Sacred Flame at it, a little thing will open up in my chest and spout a gout of flame at it.

MATT: 16.

SAM: That saves, so he gets half damage or no damage?

MATT: No damage on the Sacred Flame. It's all or nothing.

SAM: Got it.

MATT: So it does manage to-- It gets hit by the stirrup and is like (growls). Pulls its leg up right as the Sacred Flame bursts beneath it ineffectually and it steps back down. (crash) But its knee's already so messed up, it splinters and (deep groan).

SAM: And I will roll forward, up to where Ashton is at least. Maybe even further, if I can.

MATT: Unfortunately, you'll only get 15 feet because of the difficult terrain.

TALIESIN: And I'm about to move anyway, though.

MATT: All right. Finishing FCG's go, Ashton, you're up.

TALIESIN: I'm going to run on over to the kids and I'm going to take a nice swipe at whatever leg is holding up that tree. So right there.

MATT: Okay.

TALIESIN: And just a nice running gallop, and I'm going to do this. As I know how things work, I'm going to go reckless. So let's go for a shot. I also got--

TRAVIS: Yeah, reckless!

TALIESIN: Yeah.

TRAVIS: Whoo!

TALIESIN: Oh wait, and I also get a d4 on this, too. That's right.

ASHLEY: Whoo!

TALIESIN: Not that I'm ever going to take a big swing. That's 21, so it hits.

TRAVIS: It's a very calm Reckless. Kids, have enthusiasm about your Reckless.

TALIESIN: Bloody hell, that hits. That's six, eight. 14 points of damage right there.

MATT: Okay. Ashton, how do you want to do this? (cheering)

TRAVIS: Take that bitch down!

TALIESIN: So as I'm running up to this tree, I'm bringing the hammer back, and I'm going to try and just get it and split the wood like a piece of timber all the way up the leg.

MATT: (crashing thud) The tree's leg splinters and shatters from the impact, and where the leg met the center of its trunk, the trunk splits. And the middle of it just (crackles) divides halfway up before it (rumbles) tumbles.

TRAVIS: Timber!

MATT: Make an acrobatics check for me, if you don't mind.

LIAM: Yeppers, yeppers, natural 20.

SAM: Ooh!

MATT: Natural 20. As it falls back. (thundering crash)

TALIESIN: Actually, how close to--

MATT: Land onto the ground. (thud) Onto the spongy swamp top.

LIAM: Sinking a foot into the ground. (squelches) (laughter)

MARISHA: All the witches--

TALIESIN: I'm going to tap you on the shoulder, point at the next guy, and I'm going to take the next of my run and see if I can get right up to that asshole.

MARISHA: Yeah, I'm down.

ASHLEY: Let's do it.

MARISHA: Okay.

MATT: 10, 15, 20.

LAURA: What's a move we can do together?

MATT: 25, 30, yeah, you can get up to that guy.

TALIESIN: Yep. Meet me there. And I'm going to--

MATT: Second strike. Whack.

TALIESIN: Second strike, I'm literally going to bludgeon straight on into the head.

MATT: You got it.

TALIESIN: That's going to fucking ruin him.

ASHLEY: Let's go Scorching Ray.

TALIESIN: That's 20 to hit.

MATT: That hits. Roll damage.

MARISHA: You do scorch and I'm blast.

TALIESIN: Oh yeah, there we go.

LAURA: -- Shocking Grasp, so we can do three--

TALIESIN: That's 17 points of damage, bludgeoning damage.

LAURA: All at once. Yeah.

MARISHA: Scorching.

MATT: 17 points of damage.

ASHLEY: Like a scorcher.

MATT: Whack! You hit it right in the face. (clanging) As you pull it back, its eyes immediately crossed from the impact, its nose flattened and immediately bleeding as it (thud) falls unconscious onto the ground.

TALIESIN: (laughs) And I'm just going to turn and look at the next guy.

TRAVIS: Fucking four people at the table talking.

TALIESIN: That's my show. That's my whole thing.

MATT: That finishes your turn. All right, that brings us to Fearne.

ASHLEY: All right. (laughter) Witches.

LAURA and MARISHA: Witches.

MATT: So two of them are unconscious in the ground, beat to shit, the tree is on the ground no longer moving, and there's the one guy, who is running away. (laughter)

LAURA: Oh, well.

SAM: Do it.

MARISHA: Let's just do it.

SAM: No witnesses.

ASHLEY: No witnesses, but they're so cool.

TRAVIS: Oh god, just do it!

TALIESIN: Yeah, we can kill it.

ASHLEY: I am going to hold--

LIAM: All dark Galadriel.

TRAVIS: Feigned mercy.

MATT: Feigned mercy.

SAM: They're like horses. (laughter)

TALIESIN: They tried to fuck with us, man.

TRAVIS: They got arms. They're not horses.

LAURA: Should we do the tree, or should we do it--

TRAVIS: They would probably be offended by--

LAURA: He's fallen.

MARISHA: I can split my Eldritch Blasts.

TALIESIN: Once you have thumbs, it's fair game.

MARISHA: I can do one each.

ASHLEY: I can split my Scorching Rays.

TRAVIS: Raccoons, cats.

TALIESIN: Yeah, once there's thumbs--

ASHLEY: We want to do--

SAM: They're going to do a combo move, Matt.

ASHLEY: We want to do a combo move.

MATT: Okay, yeah.

ASHLEY: The three of us linked up, back to back.

MATT: You do have straight initiative, so there's nobody else, there's not anything in between. So whatever the three of you want to do.

TRAVIS: Four full charge for this one dude that's running away.

LAURA: This one dude.

LIAM: One HP, red shirt. Yep.

ASHLEY: Okay. Scorching Ray.

MATT: Okay.

MARISHA: Eldritch Blast.

LAURA: Witch Bolt.

MATT: Okay, so the three of you go full-on Ghostbusters, crossing the streams?

MARISHA, LAURA, and ASHLEY: Yes!

MATT: Okay.

LAURA: Are we splitting them? All three of us splitting them?

TRAVIS: Wait, is there an anime spirit--

SAM: What do you mean splitting? There's only one guy.

TALIESIN: This is going to be like one of those--

MARISHA and LAURA: Just the one guy left?

LIAM: 60 feet away and then just his head goes (pops).

MARISHA: I guess we'll just combine. Cross the streams.

LAURA: He's 60 feet away? Then I'll have to use a sorcery point to double my distance to get him, but I'm fucking doing it.

SAM: Scorching Witch Bolt Eldritch.

TALIESIN: Worth it.

MATT: Okay.

MARISHA: My Eldritch Blast is 240 feet.

TALIESIN: I burned two fucking chaos points for this fight. YOLO.

MATT: Yep, Scorching Ray's 120 feet? Yeah. So with the sorcery point spent, the three of you go ahead and-- Everyone roll your attacks with advantage because you're doing this together.

SAM: Ooh.

ASHLEY and LAURA: Ooh.

MARISHA: With advantage. Sick. I get two, technically.

ASHLEY: Ooh. That's a dud. That's a dud.

LAURA: Nice.

MARISHA: First one.

MATT: No additional damage on this one, but you all have advantage on this--

MARISHA: Oh my god. That's a natural one and an 18.

MATT: -- because you're all focusing into one shot.

LAURA: 26.

ASHLEY: 17.

MATT: Okay.

MARISHA: 18, so that's 25. I got a natural 19 and a natural 18--

MATT: Okay. This is good.

MARISHA: -- on my two Eldritch Blasts. If any of them had missed, they would've all missed.

LAURA and MARISHA: Oh.

TALIESIN: Ooh.

MATT: But you all had advantage to hit, and now they all hit.

LAURA: Shit.

TRAVIS: That's a lot. That's cool.

MARISHA: Fuck yes.

MATT: So now we can do additional damage on top of that. So, go ahead and--

MARISHA: This is going to be such overkill.

ASHLEY: This is such overkill.

MATT: So roll damage.

ASHLEY: This poor man is done.

MARISHA: Pink mist!

TALIESIN: What you're done, someone's just going to think that someone decapitated a horse and cut off the feet of a man.

ASHLEY: Eight.

SAM: Whoa.

ASHLEY: Eight points for the first--

MATT: Eight fire damage. For the first one.

ASHLEY: -- Scorching Ray.

MATT: Okay. Roll for the other ones, too, unless you're shooting more things.

ASHLEY: But I don't want to kill him.

MATT: You don't have you. You can pull back if you want to.

LIAM: Yeah, pull back with that electricity and Eldritch--

ASHLEY: But are the other ones dead?

LAURA: No, they're just unconscious.

ASHLEY: Shuck. Advantage again?

SAM: What? On what?

LAURA: No, you're not.

MARISHA: Just damage.

LAURA: Rolling to hit again or just damage?

ASHLEY: Well, because I have three Scorching Rays.

MATT: Scorching Ray is three Scorching Rays. She has to roll for all three.

LAURA: Oh, I see.

ASHLEY: But I can hold those?

MATT: If you want to just not shoot them, you can. Up to you.

SAM: Let's see what the damage would be.

LAURA: Yeah.

ASHLEY: Oh, that's really good. Okay. (laughter)

ASHLEY: So it's 27 to hit.

MATT: Yeah.

TALIESIN: Lord.

ASHLEY: And that's another eight.

MATT: So 16.

ASHLEY: Yeah. Shit, I have another one. Keep running!

MATT: (laughs)

TALIESIN: We just fucked up a bunch of--

ASHLEY: Okay, with advantage.

MARISHA: Don't miss.

ASHLEY: Okay.

MARISHA: Don't miss.

ASHLEY: 21.

MATT: Okay, 21 points of fire damage from Fearne.

ASHLEY: No, no, no, 21 to hit.

MATT: Oh, sorry.

ASHLEY: Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry.

MATT: So 16 plus whatever you roll here.

ASHLEY: Oh wow, okay. 11.

LAURA: Jesus.

MATT: You rolled an 11 on that one?

ASHLEY: Yeah.

LAURA: 25?

ASHLEY: So 16 plus--

LAURA: 27?

MATT: 26 points of fire damage.

TALIESIN: Oh boy.

LAURA: Wow.

MATT: All right, so that's you.

MARISHA: 20 points of Eldritch Blast damage.

MATT: Okay, so 46 points of damage.

LAURA: Nine.

SAM: (laughs)

LAURA: Why do I suck so bad? Nine.

MATT: No, well, you--

LAURA: Oh, because Witch Bolt hits over and over.

MATT: Yeah.

TRAVIS: 55.

LAURA: Okay.

MATT: All right, so 55 points of damage plus an additional d12, if someone wants to roll that on top of the whole thing.

MARISHA: Go, Imogen.

ASHLEY: Do it. Oh, is that a--

LAURA: 10. That's 10 additional points.

ASHLEY: Okay.

MATT: Okay.

TRAVIS: 65.

TALIESIN: Wow.

MATT: How do you want to do this? (exclaiming) (laughter)

MATT: Describe the merging of these spells between the three of you and how it impacts your target.

LIAM: Each of you one word at a time. (laughter)

MARISHA: Oh my god, yes. Improv game. (laughter)

ASHLEY: Hey, bitches. Should we take this one out? (laughter)

TRAVIS: Oh my god, I got to go!

TALIESIN: I keep forgetting we're bad people.

LAURA: Wait, wait. Can each of us, as it blasts from our hands--

SAM: So badass.

LAURA: -- it shoots down and (magical energy) and intertwines so it--

ASHLEY: Yeah, so it braids.

LAURA: Yeah, so it braids.

SAM: Ooh, it's braiding.

ASHLEY: It's braiding! It's braiding!

SAM: Like a ponytail!

LAURA: Oh, yeah. Intertwining.

TALIESIN: Oh!

ASHLEY: Yes!

LAURA: What if your fire ones are circling around the lightning and the--

ASHLEY: One goes in the--

MARISHA: And my Eldritch Blast is all necrotic--

ASHLEY: Yours is in the middle.

MARISHA: -- so I imagine it's taking your fire and making it black.

ASHLEY: Ooh!

LAURA: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

MARISHA: And dark and purpley.

TALIESIN: Smoke and terrible things.

LAURA: Mine's purple lightning, like (crackling) flaring out in between all three.

MARISHA: Yes.

MATT: You know the scene in "Pee-wee's Big Adventure" when he rides the motorcycle?

LAURA and ASHLEY: Yeah.

TALIESIN: Yep.

MATT: You see this guy just-- (galloping) (distant explosion) (laughter)

MATT: And just squibs about 100 feet off that way.

LAURA: Will he squib?

MATT: (blast sound) There's just a detonation of three different forms of energy that just remove the top half of this centaur.

TALIESIN: That may have been overkill.

SAM: Oh, he's a horse.

ASHLEY: That might've been a bit much, but--

LAURA: Let's go.

ASHLEY: Let's run.

TALIESIN: Wait, real quick.

LAURA: Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.

TALIESIN: Before we go anywhere, I've always wanted to see if centaurs have pockets. One second. And I'm going to run over and at least--

ASHLEY: Oh god.

TALIESIN: The one guy in the front, I'm going to really quickly try and--

MATT: Yeah, okay.

TALIESIN: Yeah.

ASHLEY: They have pouches.

TALIESIN: Do they have a pouch?

MATT: They do, they have--

ASHLEY and MARISHA: Marsupial pouches.

SAM: Everything in the Fey Realm has a marsupial pouch. It's true.

MATT: They have a number of--

TALIESIN: How are we?

ASHLEY: I have a bunch.

LIAM: We? How are we?

TALIESIN: Are we clear? What's going on up there?

LAURA: What do they have? What do they have? He's telling you what you have.

TALIESIN: Oh yeah, just making sure we're not being followed. (laughter)

LAURA: Jeez.

TALIESIN: Check shit.

MATT: This has been a scattered game.

LAURA: We are chaos.

TALIESIN: A little scattered.

MATT: This has been chaos. They each have quivers with arrows in there for the long bows. It was long bows.

ASHLEY: Quivers and queefs.

MARISHA: Quiver and sheaths.

MATT: Roughly anywhere between 25 to 20 arrows each. Some have been spent.

TRAVIS: Shut it down.

MATT: They're also carrying snacks for the road, almost like a--

LAURA: Snacks?

ASHLEY: Aww.

LAURA: Oh no, they got snacks?

MATT: Fungus and mushrooms. They're hunters.

SAM: Like little sugar cubes?

TALIESIN: Nothing to identify where they come from or anything like that?

MATT: No. Make a--

TALIESIN: Really?

MATT: Make an arcana check.

SAM: Little hay and sugar cubes?

TALIESIN: Sure. I'll do an arcana check. (laughter)

LAURA: Hey, Matt, when I did my... Jesus christ.

TRAVIS: Okay.

LAURA: Sorcery point.

MATT: Yeah?

LAURA: My shard went off.

LIAM: You sharded?

MATT: That's right.

TALIESIN: You sharded.

MATT: You used the shard for that? Okay, let's do it.

SAM: What's that mean?

TALIESIN: That means it's time for some chaos.

LAURA: 63.

SAM: Wild magic!?

TALIESIN: Wild magic!

MATT: Okay, well--

TALIESIN: Yeehaw.

MATT: For one thing, you rolled a natural 20 for a total of?

TALIESIN: I did. 21.

MATT: 21 on the arcana.

TALIESIN: Mm-hmm.

MATT: Best that you can tell, with what base knowledge you're just absorbing being in the presence of the Fey Realm here, the look of their skin, the look of their equipment, they're definitely hunters of this realm, the Sun's Shadow. You get the sense they're probably loosely affiliated with the court, while not directly. They probably are one of those outer nomadic communities that off and on works for contracted work, or gathers and finds things that they can then make profit off of or trade with the Unseelie directly, if it's useful to them. Like strangers from another realm that don't look like they're from here.

TALIESIN: All right.

MATT: As for your wild magic, is it 63?

SAM: You're always rolling the 50s and 60s. It's crazy.

ASHLEY: She wants to.

MATT: After you watch the guy explode, you go, "Yes!" And you turn to Imogen and go you, "Yeah," and just fog (whooshes) out of your mouth and fills the space 20 feet around you. (hissing)

ASHLEY: Whoa.

SAM: Can she talk?

LAURA: Does it keep doing this as I open my mouth?

MATT: It does, but it lasts for an hour-- (clamoring)

MATT: -- as long as you concentrate on it.

LAURA: We have fog!

MARISHA: Do we have fog?

SAM: Hey, we can sneak around.

LAURA: We can sneak around!

MARISHA: This is going to be great.

MATT: You literally create a fog cloud, a spell centered on yourself, which means you can move with it.

LAURA: Yes!

SAM: This is great.

LAURA: They can't find us. Great. Fog cloud for an hour.

SAM: Hey!

TRAVIS: Sneaky with pace.

LIAM: Is she able to speak as well, or is it just fog, that's all she got?

MARISHA: Sneaky with pace.

MATT: Try and speak.

LAURA: Can you hear me?

MATT: It's (muffled whooshing). You can talk, but it's definitely a lot of fog billowing out of it. It just keeps billowing out, by the way.

LAURA: Well, it's a good thing I can communicate with my brain.

SAM: Uh-huh.

MATT: Like if you close your mouth, one, the fog begins to dissipate, but also (muted humming).

SAM: Oh, it's just coming?

MATT: It's uncontrollable. It just keeps coming out.

LAURA: Wow.

MARISHA: It's got a hint of turmeric to it as well.

LAURA: Yeah.

MARISHA: Yes.

SAM: Wow.

TALIESIN: If they have nothing I want, then I'm just going to go through and I'm just going to break all their arrows really quickly, so just in case they wake up, they're not a problem.

LIAM: Because we're saying they were all knocked out.

TALIESIN: Yeah, the ones that are knocked out.

MATT: Well, two are knocked out.

TALIESIN: One's gone.

LIAM: The one that ran was--

SAM: Glue.

LIAM: Yeah. (laughter)

TALIESIN: If they don't have anything... They can keep their snacks and an arrow each.

MATT: Okay, you got it.

TALIESIN: Done.

MATT: (cracking) You break all but one arrow each and then gather your wits about yourselves and then quickly follow your newly-found blanket of diffusion around you, obfuscation, as you begin to--

SAM: She's vaping.

MATT: -- continue to head now further out of the swamp. And now what you can see ahead, maybe about five or 600 feet before you, where the true exterior of the bramble forest that connotates the beginning of this valley, and the Sable Grounds unfolds ahead. And that's where we'll end tonight's episode. (groaning)

ASHLEY: Ooh!

MATT: We'll pick up upon the--

SAM: We got there at the end.

MARISHA: We did, we did. We made it.

TALIESIN: We pulled it together. I finally got to use that little probability shift. That was fun.

MATT: You did.

ASHLEY: That was cool.

TALIESIN: I've been looking forward to that forever.

MATT: That one's a fun one. So yeah, we'll pick up there next time as you guys are actually now entering the Sablecast Grounds, which contains one of the keys--

TRAVIS: Oh shit.

MATT: -- and whatever's around it.

ASHLEY: Oh my god.

LAURA: Okay, okay, okay.

TRAVIS: We have no idea how it's guarded or what to expect.

MATT: Nope!

LAURA: Sorry for the chaos, Matt.

MARISHA: Whoo!

MATT: Don't be sorry, we're all a little loopy.

TALIESIN: We're a little loopy.

TRAVIS: Sit down while we sign off the show, Ashley Johnson.

ASHLEY: Say again?

TRAVIS: Sit down!

SAM: We're still broadcasting.

ASHLEY: Sorry! I'm here. (laughter)

TRAVIS: We're going to have a talk.

MATT: There's big chaos energy tonight.

SAM: Are you going to show that?

LAURA: Oh, were you going to show it?

ASHLEY: I was thinking about it.

LAURA: Oh, let her show it.

MATT: Show it, go get it.

LAURA: That's why she got up.

SAM: Show and tell to end the night.

TALIESIN: Wait, actually, should we put it there maybe?

ASHLEY: Wait, my mom built this.

TALIESIN: Oh, can they... Yeah.

ASHLEY: As Fearne's house-- This was the inspo for Nana's.

MATT: Yeah, Ashley's mom made this.

ASHLEY: Isn't it so great?

MATT: It's so cute.

LAURA: The window.

ASHLEY: It's a birdhouse.

LAURA: ♪ In your soul ♪

MATT: I love it.

TALIESIN: Covered in hands.

ASHLEY: I'll bring it--

TRAVIS: It's so beautiful.

ASHLEY: I'll bring it if you do a--

TALIESIN: Creepy hands.

MARISHA: Do a photoshoot with it.

LAURA: Yeah.

TALIESIN: Yeah, we'll take a photo.

ASHLEY: "4-Sided Dive."

MATT: Super, super cute.

LAURA: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

MARISHA: Oh, that's a good idea. Put it on the--

TALIESIN: I love that jug, Sam, by the way, that makes me really happy. Just saying.

SAM: Hell's Kitchen?

TALIESIN: I almost need a print of that.

SAM: You can have that one.

TALIESIN: Thank you, it's all I want.

MATT: Okay.

SAM: I'll sign it for you.

MATT: Well, with that wild ride of--

SAM: Wild.

ASHLEY: Oof.

MATT: (laughs) Of a final bit there. We'll pick up there into this next batch of chaos next episode. Thank you for joining us and dealing with our chaos for the evening. Have a wonderful night, we love you very much, and is it Thursday yet? (cheering)

MATT: Good night.