Transcript:Blood and Shadow

Pre-show
BRENNAN: Hello! And welcome back to Exandria Unlimited: Calamity. I'm your humble GM, Brennan Lee Mulligan. It is so thrilling to invite you all back to Avalir, the City of Crowns. Why is everyone so nervous?

AABRIA: I have to poop now!

MARISHA: Yeah. (laughs)

TRAVIS: Yeah.

LUIS: I feel fine.

BRENNAN: Everyone feels fine! It's all good! If you're just joining us, we now tell you a tale of a long lost city in the ancient history of Exandria, a city that was long gone by the time of our modern adventures here at Critical Role, but... it flew once. How much longer it may fly is up to our wonderful heroes here. To do a quick little ol' recap, in our last episode that we left off, strings were brought together as a conspiracy was unlocked. The Ring of Brass, those members of the high society of Avalir who do all the moving and shaking, gathered together at the Feast of Imyr at the Palazzo Por'co and realized something was amiss. Artifacts of the Archmage Vespin Chloras had come aboard. Talking to a young Purvan Suul and putting together clues from a crime scene in a psychometric chamber, we realized something most foul had been attempted. And what's worse, it seems to have succeeded. We also now find ourselves on the eve of the Replenishment, the most significant-- To call it a holiday is almost... It's every seven years, you know. It's a incredibly significant, potent magical ritual that the city of Avalir conducts as it lands back on its terrestrial sister city, Cathmoíra. There are many important arcane elements of this that our Architect Arcane, Laerryn, has clued us into, but also on this eve of an Apogee Solstice in which the impossible has become possible and Avalir's crown jewel, the center of its arcane research, the Astral Leywright, an engine that would allow the city to travel not only across the face of Exandria, but to realms supernal, where a city of mortals might walk as equals with the gods themselves. We are returning after seeing the Astral Leywright, after attending the Hall of Records at the Herald's Tome, where we saw evidence that a younger Vespin Chloras while alive had spoken of these matters to none other than Lacrytia Hollow and Loras of the Weaver's Mask. Our Architect Arcane and our Keeper of Scrolls busted the door down and killed Magister Micah Cormorant in a single round. If you're planning on killing all your PCs, don't be extra unfair. Run that shit rules as written. That guy would be dead. He'd be dead so fast. You got to play it as it lays. (laughter)

TRAVIS: Play it as lies.

BRENNAN: (laughs) So. And our First Knight and Guildmaster of the Golden Scythe went to the Hall of Prophecy, where we discovered that perhaps fewer oracles had gone mad than we otherwise might have thought. Perhaps they were simply doing exactly as they should, and that the powers that be wished to call it something else. And we had one last interaction between our First Knight and the Lord of the Hells. What that could portend, I cannot say, because what I know is as our three groups of heroes spoke, they decided to all come back together because the Helmswoman of Avalir, the Guildmaster of the Navigator's Guild, Akami Rowe, in reporting no problems whatsoever to her direct report, the Architect Arcane, something terrible befell her. Rushing to the Dawnsledge, you arrived, and in the middle of the street found Lacrytia Hollow, member of the Ring of Silver, Dean of the Throne of Necromancy, who had earlier that evening left a vial of poison as a gift for Patia Por'co.

AABRIA and MARISHA: So dramatic.

BRENNAN: "All things end," she wrote. "Lives, stories, even ages." Without any further ado, I feel like we're going to have fun. I feel like there's a lot of fun.

TRAVIS: Is that the word?

LOU: I'm glad you do. I'm glad you feel that way.

AABRIA: My brain and my butt hole are in hell, right now. (laughter)

BRENNAN: Hey, well a lot's about to join them. Folks, get ready for tonight's episode of Critical Role.

(ominous music)

(dramatic music)

Part I
BRENNAN: Hello! They were making chicken noises. Welcome back to Critical Role. They were, and I'm letting them know. The people deserve to know.

TRAVIS: It's because we're nervous, okay? We're nervous.

AABRIA: Snitch energy, Brennan.

BRENNAN: Is it a snitch, or am I a reporter to the people?

TRAVIS: Oh, yeah! Ingratiated.

BRENNAN: So. We return to the neighborhood of Dawnsledge. The fireworks extravaganza is in a momentary lull overhead as it prepares for its grand finale. You see little pieces of illumination around you. This is the easternmost side of the city near the Helm itself, the headquarters of the Navigator's Guild. But why describe it more with my mouth when I could just show you where you are. (exclaiming)

BRENNAN: Now.

TRAVIS: We got banners and shit?

MARISHA: We got banners!

BRENNAN: We got banners and shit. Once again...

LUIS: I want to look--

AABRIA: It's so beautiful!

LUIS: -- at everything.

LOU: Oh, this is delightful.

SAM: Wait, what is that big telescopey thing?

BRENNAN: The big telescopey thing.

TRAVIS: I'm getting up, I'm moving around.

BRENNAN: Get up, move around.

See what you've got to see.

SAM: It's an observatory

of some sorts.

BRENNAN: It's an observatory.

AABRIA: Look at us. We love learning!

MARISHA: Look at this white horse looking like Artax over here.

BRENNAN: Beautiful.

TRAVIS: Don't invoke Artax.

LUIS: Poor Artax.

MARISHA: I'm doing it.

AABRIA: That vardo's huge.

TRAVIS: I'm doing it.

BRENNAN: One second. So. I'm going to go ahead and let you know that observatory right there, that's the Helm, okay?

AABRIA: Oh, okay, okay.

BRENNAN: That's the Helm of the Navigator's Guild. That's where, theoretically, Akami Rowe would be. However, I'm going to go ahead and ask you guys to place yourselves where you would've come from. So first thing I need to do is actually give all of you your miniatures.

LOU: What a gorgeous day!

BRENNAN: What a gorgeous day.

Nydas.

LOU: There he is!

BRENNAN: Would you pass this over to Loquatius?

SAM: Oh wow.

BRENNAN: Zerxus.

AABRIA: Oh, look how cute you are!

LUIS: Hell yeah!

BRENNAN: There you go.

LUIS: Thank you. Give me my griffon!

TRAVIS: (laughs)

BRENNAN: There's Cerrit.

TRAVIS: Oh, watch out!

BRENNAN: And of course, our archmages, who have already seen some use of their minis.

MARISHA: Mm-hmm.

BRENNAN: Here you go. Oh, and there is one more mini.

LUIS: Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes!

BRENNAN: This is Tempus! (exclaiming)

TRAVIS: He's made of star stuff!

AABRIA: We love kitty.

BRENNAN: What a beautiful baby. Let's pass Tempus on down to Sir Ilerez.

MARISHA: Whoa, dude. This paint job is sick!

BRENNAN: It's very, very sick.

MARISHA: Look, it's all spacey

and galaxy!

TRAVIS: Dude, you got cosmos in his wings.

LOU: He got cosmos in his wings!

SAM: You got wings in my cosmos.

BRENNAN: It is true.

AABRIA: Two great tastes that taste great together.

BRENNAN: Okay!

LUIS: Can they see this? Are they not--?

SAM: Someone can.

LUIS: Someone can?

LOU: They'll see it.

AABRIA: Zoom and enhance!

TRAVIS: We'll take pictures of it.

AABRIA: Is that a big old brumestone?

BRENNAN: That's a big old brumestone right there!

TRAVIS: Brennan, for us, which direction were we heading, and which direction is our felled person that works with Patia?

BRENNAN: Do you guys think you would've taken back roads to arrive here, or would you've just gone

by straightest route?

TRAVIS: Direct, right?

LOU: Direct.

AABRIA: Yeah, whatever's

the fastest way.

BRENNAN: You will all be

starting right here.

LUIS: From the skies.

TRAVIS: When somebody gets cut off going (choking),

you just go.

AABRIA: You run.

BRENNAN: So, everyone feel free to pass up your minis. They'll go right here. I will assume that you are traveling together for safety as you arrive, but let me know about the placement that you all want.

LOU: I mean, yeah, I don't think we expected to have to kill it, or I guess we knew something was going on.

SAM: Maybe in the back for me.

LOU: We knew something

was going on.

LUIS: So I'm in the front.

LOU: I'll take the front as well.

LUIS: But I'm riding Tempus.

BRENNAN: Then would you be overhead?

LUIS: Yeah.

BRENNAN: Hell yeah.

LUIS: I get to ride this dude.

BRENNAN: You got it.

LUIS: So yeah. How do I-- Should he, like--

TRAVIS: We got stands.

LOU: You got tack.

BRENNAN: Fuck yeah.

LOU: We've got it all.

LUIS: Then I'll just let him represent both of us, I suppose.

TRAVIS: Yeah.

BRENNAN: Well, you can do that.

LUIS: Or we could put him underneath, I guess.

BRENNAN: If you want to be extra cute, can I see your dude for a second?

LUIS: Yes, yes, yes.

BRENNAN: This is one of the first things that me and Matt bonded over, was this little pieces of Blu Tack, courtesy of Mr. Rick Perry, who showed it to me.

AABRIA: Yes.

BRENNAN: It's a wonderful trick. That's how we're going to get Zerxus where he belongs on the back of his celestial steed.

LUIS: I'm going to cry.

MARISHA: (laughs)

AABRIA: Cry for us.

TRAVIS: Save it for the Calamity.

AABRIA: It's content.

LUIS: It's like-- I can't express the... It's not adrenaline.

It's just childlike...

TRAVIS: He's going to have to stand on his butt.

BRENNAN: Yeah, there's a butt-standing thing that wants to happen here a little bit.

AABRIA: He's like a gondolier.

TRAVIS: He rides like a circus rider. (laughter)

LUIS: I think Matt made that joke 12 years ago probably.

Yes.

MARISHA: Every time Luis cries, a griffon gets its wings.

LUIS: Yes, there's so many griffons now.

MARISHA: Yeah. (laughs)

BRENNAN: Lacrytia Hollow.

TRAVIS: She doesn't need to go hard with all the electricity and stuff, though. She can just chill.

MARISHA: Wow.

BRENNAN: With some protectors. A skeletal guard surrounds her.

LUIS: Oh my god.

TRAVIS: So we're not even hiding. She's just being out with it.

AABRIA: Vibes.

BRENNAN: Fully out and about with it. She is surrounded by her skeletal guard.

TRAVIS: Damn!

BRENNAN: As a necromancer, I think in this age, in a place like Avalir, there's not a religious rule against animating the undead. It's just gauche.

TRAVIS: (laughs) Oh man.

AABRIA: Could you imagine?

SAM: There's undead creatures?

LUIS: There's undead creatures.

BRENNAN: She has some undead animated nearby her.

AABRIA: I'm just like a little Wikipedia article.

LUIS: I want to get real specific with my positioning. I want to be just right above the front line, just 10 feet, just barely above them. So they have griffon feet right above them.

BRENNAN: Amazing, so yeah, you are hovering over your allies here, extending any, you know...

LUIS: Oh yeah.

BRENNAN: Oh yes, oh yes.

LUIS: I got to paladin the paladin, so, yep.

BRENNAN: For all of you here. I'll say, Cerrit, you immediately notice that those figures you saw on the roof vanish from sight.

TRAVIS: Cool, cool, cool, cool, cool.

SAM: How many figures were there on the roof?

BRENNAN: Give me a perception check. We'll call it a DC 25.

SAM: DC 25? That's unfair.

TRAVIS: 28.

SAM: Whoa.

AABRIA: Let's go!

SAM: It's fair.

LOU: I mean, that beats a 25.

TRAVIS: Natural 15.

BRENNAN: It sure does. On that roll, there were four figures. I'll actually go ahead and place those, because you would recognize all of them. That have now been rendered--

SAM: Recognize them.

BRENNAN: They would now be rendered invisible. So unless you have a means of seeing invisibility, you can't see these, but Cerrit, you clock and on that telepathic bond.

LUIS: Oh no.

BRENNAN: Will be able to communicate to everybody here what is going on.

TRAVIS: (parrot squawk) We're fucked. (laughter)

BRENNAN: Another one here. And... another one

perched--

SAM: Boy, oh boy, oh boy.

AABRIA: Did they cast a spell?

TRAVIS: This is exciting. Look at this map! This is so cool!

AABRIA: That one guy in the back that's close to us that's within 60 feet?

TRAVIS: Dang.

BRENNAN: Yeah. Just need to go have him post up right here. So that is where you find yourself. As they cast spells... We can check the range, if you would like me to check the range.

AABRIA: No.

SAM: Don't waste your shit on these people.

AABRIA: Yeah. Okay. I'll let it go. I just yell: You get one.

BRENNAN: Lacrytia observes all of you walking towards the Helm. "Ah, the Ring of Brass. Happy eve of the Replenishment. What brings six such important functionaries all the way to this corner of Avalir?"

SAM: Why were are we coming over here?

AABRIA: We are coming to check on the Helmswoman.

SAM: Oh, yes, yes.

AABRIA: Just checking on the landing of the city, as is my job and right. What are you and your little skeletons doing here?

LUIS: As she's talking, I draw my sword, and it starts crackling with divine energy and starts to pulse.

BRENNAN: "I understand that you may have some questions. Perhaps it would be easier for some friends to answer. Magister Phren!"

TRAVIS: Oh! He's here!

LOU: Not him.

MARISHA: Not him.

LUIS: That guy.

AABRIA: We don't know him.

SAM: We don't know this guy.

AABRIA: Yeah!

LOU: No. This guy came to me earlier.

LUIS: Should've killed him when he was there!

LOU: Should've killed him.

TRAVIS: Meelus? Milus?

LUIS: Can you imagine I attack him? (laughter)

BRENNAN: You see walking out of the door of the Helm and approaching out to about here.

TRAVIS: Damn, middle of the street.

BRENNAN: Middle of the street. You see a reedy magister step out. "Thank you very much, Dean Hollow. I hope everything's all right. Helmswoman Rowe is indisposed at the moment, but she sends her regards to all of you herein collected." Give me a perception check again. Actually, and anyone can do this.

TRAVIS: Dude! Let's go! Natural 18 for a 31.

SAM: Jesus.

MARISHA: I'll let him do it.

BRENNAN: Cerrit, your training, it's all about spotting illusions, shape shifters, all sorts of magic before it can become a problem. Milus is a thin and reedy man. Very slight. The front door of the Helm is a broad door, about eight and a half feet up, and about three, maybe four or more feet wide. Hefty door. As Milus, this thin and reedy man steps through it, he goes...

SAM: Ooh. So he has back problems. (laughter)

BRENNAN: You watch him. The stoop is one thing. It's really that shifting of his shoulders. Four-foot door frame should be wide enough for anyone to just walk straight through.

TRAVIS: So he's got something up that's hiding the way he really looks.

BRENNAN: "I hope there's no trouble to have caused you to come racing here to Dawnsledge. From whence did you all arrive?"

SAM: Wait.

MARISHA: Oh my god.

TRAVIS: Come on.

SAM: (throat clear) We-- I'm here to conduct an interview! (laughter)

SAM: An interview. These fine friends of mine were helping with some of my equipment. We'd hoped to sit down and discuss your reactions to the Replenishment. And are you excited about it? I mean, what was your name again, sir?

BRENNAN: Go ahead and give me a deception. And I know you're very good at it, but this will be with disadvantage. (laughter)

SAM: Not great.

MARISHA: Oh, so far away.

SAM: Not great.

LUIS: Uh-oh.

SAM: Uh.

LUIS: Yeah, I know who they are.

SAM: Okay, that's 22.

BRENNAN: (sighs) You see-- I'll roll an insight. "Oh, I'm afraid. My constitution fails me. Perhaps tomorrow might be a more advantageous time to conduct such an interview. I'm sure you all have many responsibilities to attend to."

SAM: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

AABRIA: Why are they stalling us?

TRAVIS: I just kick up, (puffs) wings out, and I'm going to fly up to the top of this--

BRENNAN: You kick off, and you hear Lacrytia go-- (deeply) "K'nauthi! (speaks in Infernal)" And everyone roll initiative. (clamoring)

LUIS: What language was that?

BRENNAN: Infernal, who speaks Infernal?

LUIS: Damn.

TRAVIS: Raise your hand, raise your hand.

LOU: I do not speak Infernal.

TRAVIS: Guys, electives courses are important.

LUIS: I know.

AABRIA: Did we all hear her yell "K'nauth," basically,

but in like (tongue waggling).

TRAVIS: K'nauth.

SAM: Initiative.

MARISHA: I have Comprehend Languages, but you know.

AABRIA: Can I have advantage?

SAM: I rolled a 25 perception, I mean, deception, by the way.

MARISHA: The ring.

SAM: I forgot. I can't roll below a 25.

TRAVIS: Right.

AABRIA: Amazing.

LUIS: Which one do I want?

AABRIA: Mother--

I'm going to go never.

MARISHA: Yeah, I-- Can I throw up a... Well, she already did it, never mind.

If I do--

LOU: It's not, it wasn't-- I just needed to know for my own information.

TRAVIS: That's right, that's right.

MARISHA: Yeah, I mean, Comprehend Languages.

LOU: Oh, yes, oh, to understand.

AABRIA: Oh, Tongues, yeah, absolutely.

BRENNAN: Okay!

SAM: All right, here we go.

Here we go.

BRENNAN: Let's do it,

everyone.

MARISHA: I'm rolling initiative. Oh god.

LOU: All so much.

MARISHA: So much.

LOU: So much.

AABRIA: Oh, the music makes me stressed.

MARISHA: Okay.

TRAVIS: All right.

AABRIA: It's funny when you're the one doing it. It's not fun over here.

LUIS: Every time I look at someone else's rolls, it feels like I'm copying.

MARISHA: Hey.

LOU: What are you doing? What are you doing over there?

AABRIA: Can I see your homework?

BRENNAN: Everyone, so we'll go around the table, and let me know what you rolled. Nydas, what did you roll?

LOU: 21.

BRENNAN: 21. Patia.

MARISHA: Also rolled a 21.

BRENNAN: Amazing. Zerxus.

LUIS: 10.

BRENNAN: 10, all right. Loquatius.

SAM: 17.

BRENNAN: 17. Laerryn.

AABRIA: Four.

BRENNAN: Four. And Cerrit.

TRAVIS: 17.

AABRIA: Wizards.

MARISHA: Loquatius, Cerrit.

AABRIA: Oh, I like that you guys write that down.

SAM: That's good.

MARISHA: You.

SAM: Yeah.

TRAVIS: Patia.

MARISHA: Zerxus.

TRAVIS: Who has the higher dex between you two?

LOU: I think me.

MARISHA: Laerryn.

TRAVIS: Okay.

LOU: No, yes, me.

TRAVIS: Lacrytia. Cerrit, Loquatius, Zerxus, Laerryn.

MARISHA: Nydas, Patia, Loquatius, Cerrit, Zerxus,

Laerryn.

LUIS: That's not so bad.

MARISHA: Okay, okay, okay, okay, okay, okay. Oh, shit, fuck.

TRAVIS: We cool, we cool, we cool.

BRENNAN: Unbelievable, Nydas, you are-- Oh, sorry. Nydas and Patia, you have split initiative, and you act first.

LOU: Okay.

MARISHA: We have split initiative.

LOU: Over the telepathic bond, I think the Infernal kicked up. They seem to be in attack mode. What? Are we attempting to reach the helm? Or what exact are we?

LUIS: Subdue them!

LOU: Okay. (laughter)

BRENNAN: First Knight kicking into high gear. We love it, we love it.

LOU: Okay, how much space is between me and homie goth friend, the friend?

BRENNAN: Oh, Mr. Milus Phren?

LOU: Yes, my friend, my friend.

BRENNAN: Hell yeah. Let's do this, then. Ba-da-bam. Between you and Milus Phren, you're talking about 70 feet.

LOU: 70 feet, okay, coolio. Let's do it. All right, we're going full attack mode. No, we're not holding back. I'm going to drop two sorcery points for Quicken Spell Summoning Draconic Spirit.

AABRIA: Yes!

BRENNAN: Wait, talk about the dragon, I got to go get a dragon. (cheering)

LUIS: Get a dragon, get a dragon!

LOU: As is the role, as comes with the title of being the Dragon of Avalir, you're given a protective spirit that is the original dragon who guarded the hoard that is what the Golden Scythe, our entire holdings are based on the hoard of the dragon that used to guard the top of this mountain. So it comes with the role. You get a free dragon. (laughter)

BRENNAN: Who here speaks Draconic?

AABRIA: Drrah!

BRENNAN: Nydas, what does the spell look like as you pop this off?

LOU: I think it's fully a coin that I had, that I keep in my breast pocket that I pull out. What is the name of the dragon? The original dragon that, I don't know, had its hoard on Toramunda.

AABRIA: Jessica.

SAM: Brimscythe.

LUIS: The OG dragon.

BRENNAN: Hold on one second. Oh, this is in a different lore document. Why didn't I put this in the main one? (laughter)

SAM: Get it, get it.

LUIS: I want to know its name.

BRENNAN: The Dragon of Avalir-- The coin goes up, (snarls) and the spiritual form of Sha'korzhan--

SAM: Sha'korzhan?

BRENNAN: Sha'korzhan appears and says-- You see that its spirit appears as the gold piece leaves, the first gold piece that was taken from its hoard, and its spirit is summoned in its ghost grasping for its old hoard. (excited sounds)

BRENNAN: The coin disappears in midair, reappearing in your pocket.

LOU: Great.

BRENNAN: It turns to you and says what it has said every time you summoned it before, "Is my memory mocked anew?"

AABRIA: Wow.

LOU: It says that every time?

BRENNAN: Every time. (laughter)

AABRIA: I'm so excited, oh my god.

LUIS: It is, they're mocking it.

LOU: Yes, Sha'korzhan, enemies ahead! I'm going to gesture to Miles Phren.

BRENNAN: Hell yeah! So you're just going to let it just rip towards him?

LOU: So I would like to ride it.

BRENNAN: Oh yeah.

AABRIA: Yeah!

LOU: So I'm going to hop on its back, and we're together going to ride at Miles' friend. It has a fly speed of 60. I also take one of its resistances when it's summoned. So I will now have resistance to necrotic damage.

AABRIA: Yes.

LOU: And the two of us are going to just fly at Miles' friend. I'll hop off, and I'm going to take two attacks, and it will also take its attacks.

BRENNAN: Oh, you're hopping off when you get there?

LOU: Yes, I will.

BRENNAN: Copy that.

LOU: Or unless you'll let me attack from dragon back?

BRENNAN: I don't see any reason not to.

LOU: I'm swinging from the back of a dragon.

BRENNAN: Fuck yeah.

MARISHA: Do it, do it, amazing.

BRENNAN: Hell yes. Big opening move, big opening move.

TRAVIS: Uh-huh.

BRENNAN: (gasps) We've lost the Guildmaster.

LUIS: No!

BRENNAN: As you approach--

LOU: I can hang out at his feet, whatever you'd like.

BRENNAN: So the dragon has them because you can summon the dragon a little bit ahead of you.

LOU: Yes.

BRENNAN: Move--

LOU: It has 60 fly.

BRENNAN: It has a speed of 60 fly, cool. So you use half of your movement to jump up and then half to-- or actually, yeah, you use half your movement to mount up. The dragon descends on Milus Phren. Go ahead and take your attacks.

LOU: Great.

LUIS: Yes!

LOU: I'll go first.

TRAVIS: Come on, stop, stop, stop.

LOU: Okay.

TRAVIS: You can quit if you want.

LOU: 22.

BRENNAN: 22 hits.

LOU: Nat 20. (cheering)

MARISHA: (laughs)

LUIS: Double that, double that dice.

MARISHA: Double that dice.

LOU: So the first one, and on the second attack, I will flourish. So we'll make that a defensive flourish. So first attack is going to do just a cool

10 points of damage.

SAM: (sneezes)

MARISHA: Bless you.

LUIS: Salud.

LOU: Second attack will do nine, 18. 18 plus four is 22. So 32 points of damage total.

BRENNAN: Sorry, the second one was 22, correct?

LOU: The second one was 22, first one was 10, for a total of 32.

BRENNAN: Mm-hmm.

LOU: My AC-- which one of the d10s do you want me to make my bump to AC?

BRENNAN: Which? Oh. Go with your first one.

LOU: Okay, I was honestly too excited, and now, all the dice are moved. I think it was four or five. (laughter)

BRENNAN: Hell yeah, great.

LOU: So we'll say it's a four bump to AC.

LUIS: Yeah.

LOU: So we're at 22 AC, and then the dragon will go?

BRENNAN: Go for it.

LOU: Okay, okay, dragon goes. He'll take all of his attacks on Miles' friend. Let's see, okay.

BRENNAN: The name Milus Phren is slowly becoming "Miles' Friend." Who the fuck brought Miles' friend?

TRAVIS: My friend!

LOU: Half the spell's level--

AABRIA: Miles' friend sucks.

LOU: -- rounded down, two attacks.

TRAVIS: ♪ My friend, my friend ♪

LOU: Two attacks which is plus your spell attack. What's my spell attack?

That's plus five, okay.

MARISHA: Just everyone's making an appearance at this party.

I'm sorry.

LOU: That's going to be a 14 and a seven to hit on its attacks.

BRENNAN: Mm-hmm.

LOU: Either one of those hit?

BRENNAN: 14 and seven do not hit.

LOU: Great.

SAM: This is a dragon

we're talking about, right?

LOU: It is a dragon.

SAM: Okay.

LOU: And then Miles' friend needs to make a dexterity saving throw

against the DC.

MARISHA: Miles' friend.

LOU: Milus Phren needs to make a spell-- DC 18.

BRENNAN: He succeeds on that save.

SAM: Yo, Miles!

LOU: Great.

SAM: Miles, get over here and tell your friend.

LOU: He'll take three more points of damage.

BRENNAN: You see-- So first of all, Nydas, go ahead and give me an arcana check.

LOU: Oh, you got it. Also, made no perception checks. Truly just whaled on this man.

Arcana?

BRENNAN: Yeah.

LOU: 29.

BRENNAN: 29, so first of all, I don't think anyone here has seen the Guildmaster of the Golden Scythe pop off in a second. A former pirate captain leaps aboard a magical, translucent, glittering dragon and take to the sky. (grunts) You swing at Milus, hitting his neck twice, going in about 1/8 of an inch. You immediately can tell that something is wrong. Number one, you know that those blows were deadlier in general, and you can only assume-- You don't know what to assume at first. I'm going to roll some concentration checks.

TRAVIS: Grievous.

BRENNAN: That's a natural one on a concentration check.

TRAVIS: Yes!

AABRIA: No.

TRAVIS: Reveal your secrets.

AABRIA: Oh no!

BRENNAN: You begin to understand why your weapon attacks were not as effective as you would've otherwise wanted them to be as the true form--

LUIS: No!

TRAVIS: Oh no! You grabbed the wrong mini!

BRENNAN: No, no, I grabbed the right mini.

TRAVIS: Oh!

AABRIA: I don't think so.

BRENNAN: Milus goes, "Guildmaster, if we just (voice deepens) handled business earlier--

(growls)"

AABRIA: (laughs)

BRENNAN: Spreads out his wingspan wide. You look at a true devil beholding you here, beholding you here in the middle of the street. Nydas, any bonus actions from you?

LOU: That was everything. That was bonus action. Action, yeah.

BRENNAN: Patia, you watched the Guildmaster facing down a being of the Hells in front of you that has not walked Avalir in your lifetime.

SAM: Whoa.

MARISHA: I'm up, yeah?

BRENNAN: Mm-hmm.

TRAVIS: Is there heat radiating off of it as well? Is there a shimmer in the air or is he just there?

BRENNAN: The stark and clear mundanity with which this creature is here-- He's not wreathed in flames. Looks like some kind of devil. You smell a stink of matted fur. Blood drips off of him. It's the blood of a lather, like a horse that's being run to death.

LOU: Jesus Christ.

TRAVIS: Oh, good.

BRENNAN: There's a dull red to his eyes, like when you think of fire that's all the way gone out, and you kick a log and a couple of dull red glows come out, coming out of its eyes. It is a being of malevolent will rendered here in physical form.

TRAVIS: Oh man.

AABRIA: Cool, cool, cool.

TRAVIS: No big.

SAM: How tall is it?

AABRIA: Tight, tight, tight.

TRAVIS: We can still talk to it.

BRENNAN: About that tall. I would say he's a good 15 feet tall.

SAM: Got it.

MARISHA: All right, Patia thinks to herself: Well, dragon beats demon. I really don't like what What's-her-butt, Miss Lacrytia over here is sportin'. So I'm just going to take a few steps forward, and take my orb, and you see it bursts into flame, and it starts to levitate in the air for a little bit as (whoosh) a meteor comes striking down.

LUIS: Hell yeah.

MARISHA: I do Fireball on her and her little skeletal minions.

BRENNAN: Hell yes, what is the range on Fireball?

MARISHA: It's 150 feet. So hopefully-- I'll move up if I need it.

BRENNAN: Cool, cool, I think you should be good because that's 80 right there.

MARISHA: Okay.

BRENNAN: So you are good to fire it from right where you are, if you would like.

MARISHA: I will just fire it, and then I'm going to tuck-- Shit, there's people

on the roof.

AABRIA: Watch out for the mages.

MARISHA and

LOU: ♪ Mages on the roof ♪

TRAVIS: I'm up next, I'll get them.

MARISHA: Can I just even just peek in these little pillars in here? Can I take a little half-cover?

BRENNAN: Do you want to take some half-cover?

Yeah, hell yeah.

MARISHA: Yeah? Okay.

BRENNAN: Good instinct. You duck into the pillars there.

MARISHA: I'm in there.

BRENNAN: You are in there.

MARISHA: Use your imagination.

BRENNAN: Hell yeah, you ducked into that someplace there. Actually, I believe these are all moveable.

AABRIA: My god.

MARISHA: Oh, there you go.

AABRIA: Ooh.

BRENNAN: Go for it. Well, before you roll actually, I'm going to see one last thing here.

MARISHA: What is this? What is this?

LOU: I don't like that.

MARISHA: I don't like that at all! Counterspell?

BRENNAN: Patia, your instinct as a wizard gets you just out of the 60-foot range

of the Counterspell.

AABRIA: Yeah!

BRENNAN: The other mage who could hit you doesn't have line of sight. So you're good to go.

MARISHA: All right, 10d6, let's go. Six, 12, 14. 16 plus three, 19. 20, six, 30, four, 34.

TRAVIS: Come on, man.

BRENNAN: 34 fire damage, unbelievable. (laughs)

MARISHA: I just want to get rid of those

skellies.

TRAVIS: So good.

BRENNAN: So I have good news and bad news. We're going to talk about the bad news first.

MARISHA: Oh god.

BRENNAN: I'm going to, as this begins, the first thing we're going to do is talk about Lacrytia Hollow. I'm going to let you know that Lacrytia wants a roll of 11 or higher right here. I'll roll it in front of the board to be--

LOU: As a kindness?

BRENNAN: As a kindness. So that you know we're all on the straight and narrow.

17.

TRAVIS: Ooh.

AABRIA: Oofa.

BRENNAN: So you duck underneath those pillars in the tower on the corner of the street. Lacrytia looks at you and says, "Patia, we've worked together for so long." Your Fireball streaks from your hand, and because you're hiding under there, it can't arc up. So you just see a bead of flame zoom out, Nydas, right underneath your dragon. (fast whoosh) You see Lacrytia says, "(sighs) To the other side." (whoom) Her eyes are up in her head, and she vanishes, and she is gone.

As she disappear--

SAM: Gone?

BRENNAN: Gone. (whoom) It does not look like a teleportation, but she has nonetheless vanished. However, that was so much damage, we don't even have to roll saves for these guys. They are obliterated.

LUIS: Yes!

AABRIA: Ooh!

BRENNAN: All of the skeletons

are consumed.

TRAVIS: Blow up.

BRENNAN: Consumed in flame. Any bonus actions from Patia?

TRAVIS: Damn.

MARISHA: No. Just taking out the trash.

TRAVIS: Come on.

SAM: She's not gone.

BRENNAN: Mm-hmm.

MARISHA: She's not gone. No, she did something like--

SAM: She's somewhere.

BRENNAN: I'll actually say, because you were aiming right at her, give me an arcana check.

MARISHA: Okay. (sarcastic laugh) 12.

BRENNAN: (laughs) No idea what she did. Something bad, but you're--

MARISHA: The dragon! The dragon's in the way!

LOU: I'm sorry! It's somewhat translucent!

BRENNAN: Even on a 12, you were dealing with a readied action. She had something up the sleeve, ready for something to pop off.

MARISHA: As soon as something pops off, okay. She ready.

BRENNAN: Patia, that is your turn.

LUIS: Its turn.

BRENNAN: Okay.

MARISHA: Quay, Quay, Quay.

BRENNAN: Now--

SAM: It's on Cerrit.

MARISHA: Oh, it's Cerrit?

SAM: Unless they have higher--

TRAVIS: We don't know where they go.

BRENNAN: Milus, if that is his real name, is going to step up.

AABRIA: Ah, beans.

TRAVIS: It's backwards, so it's Sulam!

(laughter)

AABRIA: Salam?

LOU: Salam!

TRAVIS: That's not right.

BRENNAN: 22. That's one hit.

MARISHA: All right.

SAM: No.

TRAVIS: Salm.

LUIS: (speaking gibberish)

AABRIA: Salmon!

BRENNAN: Nydas. Milus lashes out with a claw, deals you 18 points of damage, and is going to come around with a tail attack as well.

TRAVIS: She's Salem.

LOU: I thank the lord for that

good speech from our friend.

TRAVIS: Uh-huh!

BRENNAN: Milus whips around with a barbed tail that you can see is dripping venom. You slide all the way out of the dragon saddle and it sails over your head.

LOU: Ooh, still got it!

BRENNAN: Still got it. (laughter)

LOU: I think Nydas does feel a vertebrae in his back. Like, "Oh no! Ooh!" (laughter)

BRENNAN: Unbelievable

TRAVIS: Talking.

LOU: Yeah.

TRAVIS: Talking!

LOU: "Ah, okay!"

TRAVIS: You have approximately one hour before you can't move. (laughter)

LOU: Chiropractor tomorrow, for sure.

TRAVIS: The war is spreading. (laughter)

BRENNAN: Incredible.

TRAVIS: Icy Hot.

BRENNAN: What you see next, racing out from the corner. Zerxus, you would recognize these guys. These are part of Findras' Spellguard. So these are eldritch knights of the city.

TRAVIS: Yeah.

BRENNAN: Both of them are going to rush out.

LOU: And help us? And be our friends?

BRENNAN: "And be our friends?"

MARISHA: Reinforcements!

LOU: After one round, look at that! We beat them so badly, Brennan's like, "Oh, this combat's not going to be worth it."

MARISHA: Yeah! (laughs)

BRENNAN: Let's see how fast these guys can make it.

TRAVIS: Boy, it sucks taking you hiding.

SAM: (laughs)

AABRIA: Oh my god.

TRAVIS: Mm-hmm.

BRENNAN: Okay. Crouching behind this building, you see, moving faster than human speed should allow, these armored spell knights come out. Lacrytia howls at them. The next thing that Lacrytia says as they start running, having vanished, her voice just echoes from all sides in this space.

TRAVIS: Nope. Nope.

BRENNAN: She calls up and says, "Kill them all. Keep the blood of the Master's chosen. He lives!"

SAM: Whoa.

BRENNAN: You see them both run the--

SAM: That was her voice?

BRENNAN: That was her voice from all--

TRAVIS: Omnidirectional.

BRENNAN: Omnidirectional.

AABRIA: Who's the Master's chosen?

MARISHA: I want to be the Master's chosen!

AABRIA: Yeah. What? I'm so sorry. One more time.

Can you be more specific?

MARISHA: Bring one

for everyone in class?

LUIS: It can't be me!

BRENNAN: Okay.

AABRIA: Can we just get a rough point at which one that would be?

TRAVIS: Real time updates. Real time updates. I got a software update on my armor.

MARISHA: Protection from Good and Evil, right?

You've got that?

LUIS: Yep. I do.

MARISHA: That little blessing.

AABRIA: Protection from Evil might be useful.

MARISHA: Uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh.

TRAVIS: We don't want to make any judgments.

AABRIA: Maybe. I'd like to go try to kiss this one.

TRAVIS: (laughs) That's a lot of dice.

AABRIA: ♪ I don't enjoy this ♪

BRENNAN: Okay. Sorry for this. That's 14 plus three. Cerrit. Two swings missed, the third swing connects for 17 points of slashing damage.

TRAVIS: Okay.

BRENNAN: Then 13--

LUIS: Where are you, Cerrit?

BRENNAN: 13, 23.

SAM: What is attacking him right now?

LOU: A spellguard.

BRENNAN: 32 psychic damage.

TRAVIS: Oof. Can I use my Uncanny Dodge to halve that 32 psychic?

BRENNAN: You can, actually, dodge the whole attack, if you'd like. However, I will also point out, am I incorrect? Do you have Armor of Psychic Damage Resistance?

TRAVIS: Oh, I do! I got a fucking cloak!

AABRIA: What?

BRENNAN: That's going to be--

TRAVIS: Armor of Psychic Resistance. I have resistance to psychic damage. I need to remember that shit!

Thank you, Brennan!

BRENNAN: You got it. Hey, I'm going to kill you guys, I'm going to be fair the whole time, you know?

TRAVIS: So that's actually 17 plus 16?

BRENNAN: Yes.

TRAVIS: Which is 32, okay.

BRENNAN: Or sorry, so yeah. You took 17 plus six-- Yes, 17 plus 16 is 32. So if you want to Uncanny Dodge to halve that.

TRAVIS: I will, half of that, yeah.

BRENNAN: You can tell that was on a nat 20. This guy runs up, gets one across the chest. You spring back with your wings out to make it a glancing blow instead of a truly mortal wound.

TRAVIS: Okay, I took 16 points of damage.

BRENNAN: You see these spellguard are totally-- How to put it. They don't appear to have any Infernal runes on them. They look like Lacrytia look. These look like your companions. One of them is Findras. You recognize one of the protectors of the city who is running up. No words of recognition, just attacking.

TRAVIS: Would you consider an eldritch knight, just for context, a spellcaster?

BRENNAN: Yes.

TRAVIS: Okay, great.

BRENNAN: The guy you are attacking, I'll say, no roll even necessary. You have seen enough people run with Haste on them before. Both of these guys are Hasted right now.

TRAVIS: Okay. Damn.

BRENNAN: The second one is going up for Loquatius.

SAM: Ah!

AABRIA: No!

BRENNAN: Going to take three attacks.

SAM: Three?!

BRENNAN: Yep.

SAM: I don't like that.

BRENNAN: Okay.

MARISHA: Can you use--

LUIS: I use the bags.

MARISHA: These little bags?

LUIS: Is Loquatius within 10 feet of me? Because I was hovering above the front line.

BRENNAN: Yeah, I would say if you want to have angled yourself to be there, you can be, yeah.

LUIS: Okay.

BRENNAN: We can position you closer

back over here.

LUIS: I was trying to be hovering above the front line, at least, the back line, maybe not.

BRENNAN: Yeah. You can get everybody. You guys were in a tight clump.

LOU: Tight clump.

BRENNAN: Eight, 12--

LOU: Ideal D&D formation. (laughter)

BRENNAN: Loquatius, you are hit twice for 20 damage on the first hit.

AABRIA: No.

BRENNAN: No? (laughs)

AABRIA: Arcane Ward.

BRENNAN: (gasps)

SAM: Ooh, what's that mean?

AABRIA: I'm going to use my reaction to push my Arcane Ward onto Loquatius. It takes all of the damage away.

BRENNAN: Does it take all 20?

AABRIA: All 20 is gone.

BRENNAN: Okay, another attack is incoming.

MARISHA: I love how they clearly

still love each other.

LOU: Yeah, exactly.

BRENNAN: Jesus, that's an impossibly good roll. It's going to be 39 damage incoming.

AABRIA: Shit.

LUIS: My turn. I'm going to use my reaction to use my Guardian's Aura. You see this bright burst of light jump out of Zerxus. In front of you, you see for a second this image of him with the shield up, absorbing the damage. I take it instead.

SAM: You take all that damage?

LUIS: I can take it.

TRAVIS: Ah, I love it! I love it!

AABRIA: I was trying to have a romantic moment and you're just going to upstage me?

BRENNAN: Well, there's two romantic moments.

They're beautiful.

SAM: Zerxus! Thank you, Zerxus! (laughter)

SAM: You saved me!

LUIS: I did!

TRAVIS: Oh no! (laughs)

AABRIA: I just lay down and cry in the street.

LUIS: You can thank me later.

SAM: I'll thank you publicly on television! (laughter)

BRENNAN: So Cerrit, you're going to be up to act. Both of these spellguard of the city have rushed out with some incredibly powerful blows. You see that their swords are ringing with a reverberating psychic energy. Just the touch of them is enough to burst capillaries in your nose and head as they strike you.

TRAVIS: Jesus.

BRENNAN: It is your turn.

TRAVIS: I'm still on the ground, so I haven't successfully kicked up

into the air yet, correct?

BRENNAN: That is correct. Yes.

TRAVIS: Okay, so is just one of these spell slingers, ringers on me or are two in melee with me?

BRENNAN: One is in melee with you, another is in melee with Loquatius, farther than five feet away.

TRAVIS: ♪ Do I want to fuck around? ♪ Yeah, I think I kind of do. He's all Hasted and shit, though. Yeah, I'm going to use my bonus action

to use Insightful Fighting.

BRENNAN: Mm-hmm.

TRAVIS: I'm going to take one attack. So it's my insight check against their deception check.

BRENNAN: Hell yeah.

TRAVIS: If I succeed, my next attack will get sneak attack.

LOU: I can't. I just can't. He just wants me to die.

TRAVIS: That is a 19.

BRENNAN: 19. The spellguard fighting you--

TRAVIS: Actually, no, I'm sorry.

That's a 23.

BRENNAN: 23?

TRAVIS: I can't roll lower than 10.

BRENNAN: Can't roll lower than a 10. The guy you are fighting has received lots of training in how to efficiently kill other warriors. Has received no training in how to fight the Eyes of Avalir. You've got this guy wherever you want him. You have the drop on him.

TRAVIS: Yep. Dope. I'll take one swipe with my hawk to hit.

LOU: Hawk swipe!

TRAVIS: That's a 25 to hit.

BRENNAN: That is definitely going to hit.

AABRIA: Let's go!

TRAVIS: This will have sneak attack, which is, how many? 7d6 I think? It sure is. Thanks! (whoosh) And this guy. All right. 12. 17. 23, 24. 24 points of slashing damage.

BRENNAN: 24 points of slashing damage?

TRAVIS: Yes, sir.

BRENNAN: Okay. You see the dude you're fighting takes 24 points like a champ. However, that is a big concentration check for him. He's got to beat a 12 on a constitution saving throw. You know what? Again, we'll keep it fair. I'll roll in front of the board.

AABRIA: Do we need a little tray?

BRENNAN: This guy needs-- I have a tray back-- You know what? I'll get my little tray out there. This guy needs a six or higher. Four! (cheering)

BRENNAN: Cerrit, as you pop up with your wings and you hit this guy on either side of his head, rattle him, drop an axe into his shoulder right in a nerve that you know nine times out of 10 will make a mage drop concentration. Haste, when you lose Haste, you lose your whole next round.

MARISHA: Oh!

LUIS: Yes!

TRAVIS: I also forgot to roll a d6 plus six, so-- Oh no, I'm sorry, it's a d6 plus seven. So that's-- Oh! Six plus seven. 13 extra points of damage.

BRENNAN: Wow! Okay!

LOU: This man slays mages!

TRAVIS: I got all my d6s lined up now, kids.

Sorry. Sorry about that.

BRENNAN: There we go. You watch, as he drops concentration, he collapses into a magical lethargy that you saw Laerryn have earlier at The Ivy Table, when she dropped her cut-through-the-party Haste.

LUIS: Nice.

BRENNAN: Incredible. Huge moves. Cerrit, any movement from you?

TRAVIS: Not right now. Not right now.

BRENNAN: I will say, because you have so effectively dropped this dude's concentration, he will not get attacks of opportunity on you if you move.

TRAVIS: Bye, I'm out! (whoosh)

Straight up.

AABRIA: Yeah!

TRAVIS: Gone, 60 feet straight up and--

LUIS: 60 feet straight up?

TRAVIS: Well, in having seen those four individuals that were visible turn invisible, I will clock the one that is danger closest to us and I will head in the direction of the corner of the building closest to Artax over there.

BRENNAN: Hell yeah. Cool, so you're headed for the corner with this this no-goodnik over here.

TRAVIS: Uh-huh.

BRENNAN: Copy that.

Yeah.

TRAVIS: Only 50 feet fly.

BRENNAN: Cool. Yeah. You drop your dude and 50 feet is definitely enough. You can be up on the corner if you want to be--

TRAVIS: I'll gargoyle it. Let's go.

BRENNAN: Let's go.

LOU: Gargoyle it!

AABRIA: Yes!

BRENNAN: Done deal. Incredible. Loquatius, you're up.

SAM: There's a guy right in front of me. Is this-- What did you say his name was?

Finnis or what?

BRENNAN: Findras.

SAM: This is him?

BRENNAN: This is him. The guy fighting you is the-- I'll let you know exactly who he is. Findras Lightbreaker, Spellsword of the Tribunal.

TRAVIS: What the fuck!

BRENNAN: This is a guy who's-- He's almost like a bailiff. His job is to apprehend magical criminals and things like that, but you know that's not what he's doing here right now.

TRAVIS: Are their eyes their own? (laughter)

TRAVIS: Are their eyes their own, or are they wearing colored contacts or anything? Have they been in a rave? What's what's going on with their faces?

SAM: Dead eyes, or?

AABRIA: Yeah, they got those red eyes that let you know it's the bad guy?

BRENNAN: I would say you're trained to look for that kind of stuff, like Domination. You think this guy is as rotten as Lacrytia.

AABRIA: Damn it!

TRAVIS: Wow.

BRENNAN: You think he's just as rotten as Lacrytia.

TRAVIS: Runs deep. Underneath my beak! (laughter)

BRENNAN: So Loquatius, you're looking at a fellow functionary of the city. You see Findras looks at you. This guy is very much in a different world than you are. This guy doesn't do public-facing things. But you see as he slashes at you, and all of that damage is saved, right? You see, looking at someone that he thought for sure he was about to drop, standing in front of them. He goes, "I hope you know, Mr. Seelie, it's not personal. I remain a huge fan." (laughter)

LOU: Way worse. Way worse.

TRAVIS: He just laughs, he's like (forced laugh).

(laughter)

LUIS: That's so icky.

SAM: I'll get out my quill to sign an autograph, but instead of signing an autograph I'll wave it in front of him, hypnotically. For a moment, maybe my face dances in appearance and changes into that of-- What's her name?

AABRIA: Lacrytia?

SAM: Hollow? Dean Hollow?

BRENNAN: Dean Hollow, yeah.

SAM: I'll just say to him-- I'll command him: Go take care of the devil, please. I'll cast Dominate Person on him.

BRENNAN: Ooh! Hell yes! Okay. Here we go, here we go. What is the saving throw on Dominate Person?

SAM: 18 wisdom.

BRENNAN: 18 wisdom. Here we go. 18 wisdom? He just rolled a 15.

SAM: Plus?

BRENNAN: Plus six.

SAM: (groans) This bastard!

BRENNAN: He powers through the spell, sneering at you, and he goes, "No, no, no. My mind is my own, Mr. Seelie."

TRAVIS: (chuckling)

BRENNAN: Bonus actions and movement.

LOU: I don't like your villains. (laughter)

LOU: They're kind of cool, but really awful.

TRAVIS: Fun to watch.

LOU: Fun to watch, but awful.

SAM: Am I allowed to use Misty Step as a bonus action because I've already cast a spell?

BRENNAN: You've already cast a spell, so unfortunately, no. If you have any cantrips that are bonus actions or a way to make them bonus actions, you can do that. You also, I think have some bonus actions,

like Bardic Inspiration.

SAM: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm just trying to get away from this guy.

BRENNAN: Yeah.

SAM: Yes, so seeing that that failed, I will rock around him to the other side without leaving his melee.

BRENNAN: Cool.

SAM: To his back. Then I will point up at Zerxus and say: Excuse me! I missed! Could you take care of this for me?

LUIS: (growl-yells)

SAM: I will inspire you with a d10.

LUIS: Oh, hell yeah!

AABRIA: Amazing!

MARISHA: ♪ Inspiration ♪

LUIS: Which one do I want to be

my inspiration color?

BRENNAN: Incredible. Okay. Reappearing.

LUIS: Oh no.

BRENNAN: She was here. Lacrytia appears slightly in front of where she was before

TRAVIS: She hit the disco ball and went back in.

AABRIA: What's the magical distance on that, Brennan?

BRENNAN: Magical distance on our friend Lacrytia on our old pal.

LOU: How far is she from me?

BRENNAN: From you, she is only about 40 feet.

LOU: Okay.

TRAVIS: This map is clean, you guys.

AABRIA: This is dope.

LOU: Super cool.

MARISHA: I want to go to here.

BRENNAN: I wish to go to here

AABRIA: But not right now.

MARISHA: Yes, exactly! You know, in its heyday.

TRAVIS: I bet the food in this area is delicious.

LOU: Oh, incredible.

I bet you get great bratwurst.

SAM: There's still hidden snipers.

MARISHA: Yeah, some good street meat.

LOU: But it's got that polish, you know? That gentrified polish of like, "Yeah, this is street meat, but organic." (laughter)

LOU: The vendors here sell Beyond Meat for sure, dude. (laughter)

TRAVIS: Beyond Bratwurst.

LOU: And they look down on Impossible. (laughter)

SAM: Are we fighting in Solvang right now? (laughter)

BRENNAN: You see, on the corner, Sear Steakhouse; they do a great tomahawk. You know, they really do.

AABRIA: You're paying for bone.

BRENNAN: (laughs)

TRAVIS: "You're paying for bone." (laughs) "That's where the flavor's from."

BRENNAN: Hell yeah.

LOU: You're paying for bone.

AABRIA: Important quotes from this.

LOU: Never forget. (laughter)

BRENNAN: You see that Lacrytia reappears and is trying to look for Patia and can't see you through the swarm of the devil and dragon fighting. Looks up at you, Nydas, and says, "Get out of my way." A pure hand of bone, a giant's hand erupts out of the ground.

LOU: Oh, what!

BRENNAN: Appears in front of you and is going to come right for you.

LOU: Is it a thing? It's its own thing?

BRENNAN: It's its own thing. It's hanging in space.

TRAVIS: There's a big red physical hand.

SAM: It's its own thing. (laughter)

BRENNAN: I'm going to need an athletics check. The DC you are trying to beat is a 24.

TRAVIS: With that fresh vertebrae that you just popped.

MARISHA: What?

LOU: It's not making an attack on me, correct?

BRENNAN: No, mm-mm.

LOU: Okay.

You want an athletics check?

TRAVIS: High five.

BRENNAN: Athletics, yes.

LOU: What do you want me to hit?

BRENNAN: 24, on an athletics.

LOU: That's near impossible.

TRAVIS: Nothing's imp--

LOU: I got as close as I ever could have come.

MARISHA: (exclaims) So close!

LOU: That's going to be a 21.

BRENNAN: Incredible.

SAM: But fail.

BRENNAN: All of you watch Nydas is taken off of the dragon's back (grunts) and the massive bony hand floating in space begins to crush you.

TRAVIS: Oh!

BRENNAN: So, after that, Lacrytia is going to move forward. Let's see here. Move forward to right about here.

SAM: Oh boy, getting in the range of something.

BRENNAN: Get right about there. I'm going to roll in front of the board for her again.

AABRIA: No.

BRENNAN: She wants an 11 or higher.

TRAVIS: Oh baby!

BRENNAN: She didn't get it.

TRAVIS: Oh baby.

BRENNAN: So Lacrytia just steps forward. However, as she steps forward, you see flickering around her, multiple versions of her--

TRAVIS: Shit.

BRENNAN: -- begin to step out. So.

TRAVIS: We're playing for keeps, you guys.

AABRIA: Yep, yep.

BRENNAN: I'm using all the rules. All right. That is Lacrytia's turn. Sir Zerxus Ilerez, that's you.

LUIS: Goddamn it! Okay, so Nydas is getting crushed.

LOU: I think I have a way out.

LUIS: Great.

TRAVIS: Death? (laughter)

LUIS: It is a way out, yes?

LOU: Hey, what's up guys? Peace!

TRAVIS: (laughs) Peace. (laughter)

LUIS: Everyone else is still down here. Of these two spellguard down here, Findras has not been hit yet, has he?

SAM and

BRENNAN: No.

LUIS: But the other one has?

BRENNAN: The other one has, and the other one is fully out of it. Like gone, gone, like, that one's going to lose his next turn because the Haste got dropped.

TRAVIS: Love it.

LUIS: Okay, so I'm going to swoop down even though I'm just-- Oh, well I'm right above, so, what happens is, Tempus just pivots and turns on his side a little bit just enough for me to swipe down at Findras. I'm going to attack him.

SAM: Do it.

BRENNAN: Hell, yes.

LUIS: I am a mounted combatant, so I get to attack at advantage on that motherfucker.

BRENNAN: Woo!

LUIS: Natty 20, baby. (laughing) (cheering)

TRAVIS: Come on, bro!

LUIS: Fuck, is he a fiend or is he undead, or is there--

BRENNAN: He's not a fiend or undead or anything like that.

LUIS: Okay.

LOU: He's just a guy.

LUIS: He's just a regular--

LOU: Just a shady guy.

TRAVIS: Not yet.

LUIS: So then I don't get that, but I do get my weapon and I double that, and I get my Improved Divine Smite and I double that. I'm going to burn a 2nd-level spell. Okay, I got to do math for a second. 2nd-level spell slot, so, that's two, three, one, two. I'm already running out of d8s.

AABRIA: You want d8s?

LUIS: I need a d8, baby.

BRENNAN: Because you can't go for it.

LUIS: Okay.

AABRIA: How many do you need?

LUIS: So yeah, I'm going to need all that. All right, so that's weapon. That's my automatic Divine Smite, and then that's a 2nd-level, so that's these, I'm rolling this twice.

BRENNAN: Wow, wow.

LOU: We love to see it.

AABRIA: Let's go.

TRAVIS: Natty 20?

AABRIA: I love when

the paladin crits.

LUIS: I can roll twice, plus, let me see what my plus is.

AABRIA: A million.

LUIS: Yeah, it's a lot. Okay, so--

TRAVIS: Take your time, savor it.

LUIS: That's 12, 15.

TRAVIS and

AABRIA: (laugh)

LUIS: 15 plus 16,

15 plus 16 is--

SAM: 31.

LUIS: 31, thanks. Oh, you're going to help me a lot. 31 so far.

LOU: That's only half.

LUIS: 41, 50, oh wait, I'll do that later.

51.

MARISHA: (chuckles)

LUIS: 51 plus 12, 13, 51 plus 13 is 64?

AABRIA: Mm-hmm.

LUIS: Plus 12. 64 plus 12 is 76?

SAM: Whoa!

MARISHA: Wow!

LUIS: 76 points of almost all radiant damage, but I don't think he's going to be bothered by that. So you see, you see one swipe, but then you start to see these after images of these ephemeral, cosmic dust and divine light, just do the same exact repetition of it, like echoes of that strike. (explosions)

TRAVIS: Sick.

LUIS: How much was that again,

76 points of damage.

BRENNAN: 76. All of you, everyone here is good at their job, right? But we don't have lots of-- As a Ring, you guys don't have all the opportunities to see Zerxus do his job. You're seeing the job get done right now. You descend your griffon, (slam)! This guy goes from one of the most fearsome warriors in the city, to bloodied and haggard and wild-eyed in a single hit. He is still up, but you have put him from at peak fighting form into real danger with a single strike of your sword.

TRAVIS: The Ring of Brass just turns around we're all like, (snapping) (laughter)

LOU: (muffled) What's happening?

LUIS: Before his eyes finish widening--

LOU: (muffled) Was there more to the goal?

LUIS: -- I hit him again.

BRENNAN: Incredible, go for it.

LUIS: Second attack. 29 versus AC.

BRENNAN: Yeah, 29's going to get the job done.

LUIS: Okay.

BRENNAN: I should point out, you also have a strength of 29. You are as strong as a storm giant.

AABRIA: Oh my god!

BRENNAN: This is the guy.

LOU: His strength is 29?

BRENNAN: 29.

MARISHA: How do you get--

LUIS: I have an item that gives me that.

LOU: Like that flat number?

The number is 29?

LUIS: It is a belt of--

BRENNAN: The number is 29, so plus--

LUIS: Plus my strength.

BRENNAN: I think it's a plus nine. It's a plus nine to strength.

LUIS: Yes, it is!

LOU: That's terrifying.

BRENNAN: Terrifying.

LUIS: So, one--

BRENNAN: Think about how good of a warrior you have to be to have any status in a city of wizards.

TRAVIS: Yeah, fair. Fair, fair, fair.

LUIS: Okay, oh, this is yours.

LOU: You have god-like strength.

BRENNAN: This guy can punch through a wall. It's kind of like a spell, you know?

MARISHA: Some Superman shit.

LOU: My spell is hitting.

MARISHA: Damn.

BRENNAN: It's a great spell.

LUIS: Weapon attack, my Improved Divine Smite, and then I'm doing one-- Yes, okay, so, here we go. This is 10 plus 14, 24. Plus 12, 36 points of damage.

TRAVIS: You did over a hundy on this turn?

MARISHA: Yeah.

AABRIA: Let's go!

LOU: One hundy.

LUIS: (growls)

MARISHA: One hundy.

BRENNAN: Fully at death's door, still standing. I will also say that this dude did shield and it truly doesn't matter, because both of your attacks-- You just see a little like, "No!" A little shield goes up and boom! On death's door. I know that you have more you can do.

LUIS: My griffon can attack, yes?

BRENNAN: Yes, absolutely.

LUIS: Okay, so Tempus is going to hopefully try to finish him off.

TRAVIS: Cerrit's clothes just fall off.

LUIS: Come here to hit.

AABRIA: That's a normal reaction.

TRAVIS: Yeah.

AABRIA: I start taking off.

TRAVIS: I was here first!

LUIS: 20 to hit.

BRENNAN: 20 does not hit.

LUIS: And the second attack.

TRAVIS: Dang.

LUIS: Nope, six.

SAM: Can he use the inspiration on Tempus? No, he can't.

BRENNAN: I will say no.

LUIS: Yeah, we're different creatures.

BRENNAN: I will say no.

SAM: But we're all the same on the inside.

LUIS: We're all the same.

TRAVIS: Wow, wow.

LUIS: So--

LOU: We're really saying something this season.

TRAVIS: The theme's running.

LUIS: I just turn and Tempus straightens himself and I'm hovering right above him and I just look down at him and I say: Kneel, traitor!

BRENNAN: (laughs)

TRAVIS: Yes.

BRENNAN: Incredible.

SAM: I kneel. (laughter)

TRAVIS: I knew it!

BRENNAN: He could be talking to any of us. Incredible. So, with that, you shout kneel at him, give me an intimidate check, you just did so much damage to this guy.

LUIS: All right! I can use this on that if I need to, right?

SAM: If you want to, you can also save it for later.

LUIS: For other, juicier things.

SAM: Like, important things.

LUIS: Ah, 16.

BRENNAN: This guy is as devout as they come, he's going to die here in front of you before he kneels.

LUIS: All right.

BRENNAN: He's made his choice.

LUIS: The only other thing I'll do is I'll just reposition myself to make sure that as many of my allies are within 10 feet of me.

BRENNAN: Amazing. You can do that pretty easily, but I will say, you probably have to-- You can only get about five feet up before you trigger an attack of opportunity

from this guy.

LUIS: Yeah.

BRENNAN: So do you want to be five feet in the air or do you--

LUIS: I just want to be right above, but before triggering the attack of opportunity. I'll--

BRENNAN: Cool, so you kick it there and extend your aura, at least-- the only people you can really get here it looks like, are Laerryn and Loquatius.

LUIS: That's good.

BRENNAN: Cool.

LUIS: Yeah.

BRENNAN: Who are the most exposed still on the street,

so it makes sense.

LUIS: Down on the ground.

BRENNAN: Incredible. We are going to go from Zerxus...

TRAVIS: Unless there's something else.

BRENNAN: We go from Zerxus-- You see Lacrytia, who is still standing here, although now mirrored. She calls up to the sky, and you see she yells out-- Who here speaks Infernal? No one here speaks Infernal, right?

LUIS: No.

AABRIA: No!

I don't.

BRENNAN: Give me a wisdom saving throw at disadvantage.

LUIS: Is this a spell or a magical effect?

BRENNAN: No, it's not.

LUIS: Okay.

AABRIA: He's trying to make you understand it because you bonded with a god.

MARISHA: Yeah.

LUIS: A wisdom saving throw at disadvantage.

BRENNAN: Yeah.

LUIS: Come here, come here, come here. Wisdom. I just rolled another 20. Oh, that's disadvantage, though!

Two, two, two.

BRENNAN: Two. (laughs)

LUIS: That's not advantage, that's disadvantage.

So, 12.

AABRIA: Heartbreaking.

BRENNAN: It is heartbreaking.

MARISHA: Oh, a 20 and a two! As you injure Findras, (slams) he looks up at you, and on the verge of death he's lost a 120 hit points this turn, or something like that. He looks up and goes, (speaks Infernal) and the word he says you understand to mean, "Brother, why?"

AABRIA: What?

BRENNAN: You realize the word you heard before that Lacrytia said, echoes in your mind again. "K'nauthi, Runes up." You don't understand what it means, you only understand the literal words. As that happens,

LOU: Runes up? Lacrytia calls out in Infernal again. Everyone hears the first word clearly, but doesn't understand the rest of what she says, except for Zerxus. She calls out and says, "Xartaza! The blood of the chosen." And points out.

LUIS: Goddamn it.

BRENNAN: And--

AABRIA: No!

BRENNAN: More stuff.

SAM: More now? There's more now?

BRENNAN: There's more. You guys are doing great, aren't you?

SAM: We are.

AABRIA: This is fine.

TRAVIS: Give us all the things, Brennan. Put them on the map!

LOU: The blood of the chosen?

SAM: Who's the chosen?

SAM and

LOU: Is he the chosen?

LUIS: They're going to eat me.

MARISHA: (laughs)

BRENNAN: An armored, a beautiful, armored woman with a porcelain face and ruby red lips, a horned helm and bright red wings, alights, having been crouched like a spider behind that tower, surges forward--

AABRIA: Whoa!

BRENNAN: And is coming right for you.

LUIS: Okay.

BRENNAN: Coming right for you.

TRAVIS: (nervous noises)

BRENNAN: She is going to make a bunch of attacks, and she's going to make all of them

with disadvantage--

LUIS: Right? Because I have Protection from Good and Evil.

MARISHA: I was thinking the same thing.

LOU: I was like, I'm going to burn a few 3rd-level spells. I'm like, we're going to have a good time.

MARISHA: (laughs)

LOU: Zerxus is going to do a shitton of damage, Loquatius is going to hide. We're going to have a great time.

MARISHA: Do I blow my load here?

LOU: Exactly! It's like, "Oh, okay, we're trying to steal people."

BRENNAN: You see, she rushes up and all of you watch her take three incredible swings. As she goes to hit, you see each one, before it even connects with Zerxus' armor sparks, as though from steel striking steel bright red erupt as she hits some kind of aura. You see goes (slams). The street is illuminated in red before it is illuminated, (rapid booming) in silver, green, blue. It's the finale of

the fireworks extravaganza!

AABRIA: Stop!

TRAVIS: Enough with the fucking fireworks!

AABRIA: No one's ever liked fireworks!

TRAVIS: Where is this inner siren?

LOU: You're crushing me! And you think this is the time to do bits? (laughter)

LOU: Let me out of the fucking hand! I can't even see it!

TRAVIS: "Let me out of the hand!"

BRENNAN: You see those sparks come from something else. You guys see that her sword hit something, and she looks at you as she fails three times in a row, and you see her face goes like this, and she speaks again in a language none of you can hear, as the battle rages on and goes, "It is beautiful." (exclaiming)

TRAVIS: You fucking--!

AABRIA: What? What? What?

LUIS: I made the wrong choices!

SAM: I think they were the right choices.

LOU: You massaged the right guys, and now--

TRAVIS: Who's got a force field?

I don't know if it was wrong.

LUIS: I mean, I do. Yeah, but, you know.

AABRIA: I'm going to die, I'm freaking out.

TRAVIS: And only you can understand it.

AABRIA and

LUIS: Yeah.

TRAVIS: Save Zerxus, she's angry.

LOU: Everyone was just flirting with Zerxus.

(laughter)

LOU: Everyone wants a piece.

BRENNAN: So--

TRAVIS: North of a hundy.

BRENNAN: The next thing that happens is going to be pretty complicated.

SAM: Even more?

BRENNAN: Even more. So, Lacrytia once again barks out and you see, she points up at you, Cerrit, and goes, "The inquisitor, now!" You see a couple things happen.

TRAVIS: She's scary.

BRENNAN: Now no one else can see this, you can see it just fine because you see those two grains of sand

in the night sky.

TRAVIS: Uh-huh.

AABRIA: Oh god.

MARISHA: Wow.

BRENNAN: That invisible mage alights to the rampart, flings himself off, begins to fall, and Misty Steps here. (exclaiming)

TRAVIS: Fucking clean.

LOU: That's cool.

MARISHA: That is so cool.

AABRIA: That's dope!

BRENNAN: You see--

MARISHA: I feel like that's so cool.

BRENNAN: -- the other invisible mage right in front of you. I am going to need--

TRAVIS: I have Blindsense. I can sense anything within 10 feet I can see. Anything that I can hear.

BRENNAN: Oh, you see both of them plain as day, you know exactly where these guys are.

I'm going to need from you--

AABRIA: Greater invisibility?

TRAVIS: Woo hoo, doggy! Woo hoo, doggy!

BRENNAN: What's that?

SAM: You don't know.

AABRIA: Is this Greater Invisibility? I'm trying to rules lawyer my way into being better at this. I'm nervous.

BRENNAN: You actually, it is Greater Invisibility, but--

TRAVIS: Oh, that indicates what you were going to do.

AABRIA: Not at all.

BRENNAN: They both drop out of invisibility

right in front of you.

SAM: Because they're making attacks.

BRENNAN: They are doing some crazy stuff.

AABRIA: But I've already--

TRAVIS: Okay.

BRENNAN: I am going to need from--

LOU: Mm.

TRAVIS: This is the same round, still.

BRENNAN: This is the same round. I'm going to need from you--

MARISHA: Wait, you haven't gone yet.

AABRIA: I know, it's so bad, and I haven't done anything yet.

TRAVIS: One to give.

BRENNAN: I'm going to need a wisdom saving throw from you.

LUIS: And you're not--

TRAVIS: Okay.

BRENNAN: I'm going to need it with disadvantage.

TRAVIS: Whoa!

AABRIA: Buddy!

TRAVIS: I got so many other pretty things, not wisdom! Wa-pow!

MARISHA: Do I cast Blur on me?

TRAVIS: 13.

SAM: Ugh.

TRAVIS: 13.

BRENNAN: Cool. You see this mage right here, you recognize as a Working Guilds craft mage, this mage could hit you with probably some 3rd-level spells, really make your life challenging.

TRAVIS: Is the one casting the spell, I think they're both casting, are either of them within five feet of me? I would get advantage.

BRENNAN: Yes. So one of them is casting a spell right in front of you.

TRAVIS: Okay.

BRENNAN: Which means that with Mage Slayer, you could use your reaction if you--

TRAVIS: But I've already used my reaction for Uncanny Dodge.

BRENNAN: Yep. Good call. So.

TRAVIS: They're both crap rolls, even the higher one was only 14, so it would've been 17.

BRENNAN: You see one of these mages do something that seems truly strange to you. This powerful mage right here on the rampart, all he's doing is funneling ether to his friend to give you disadvantage on the spell that comes next. The one right in front of you looks up, these guys don't look as bad as that puppet did before, but you see their eyes are sunken and sleepless. These guys have been tampering with some bad magic.

TRAVIS: Dark shit.

BRENNAN: He looks at you, reaches forward as he comes out of invisibility, grabs your face, puts his forehead to your forehead and goes, "The tools of Vespin Chloras! Gah!" You feel a Detect Thoughts shoot into your head.

TRAVIS: Oh!

BRENNAN: You immediately unbidden, think of Orwyn, the Chamber, the report, what you told him to do. (exclaiming)

TRAVIS: Shit.

AABRIA: Oh, fuck.

TRAVIS: Damn.

BRENNAN: Detect Thoughts, 2nd-level spell, but he goes through

and you can see him grabbing onto that.

TRAVIS: That was a sick description.

MARISHA: Yeah, dude.

LUIS: Oh no.

SAM: So he just mind--

MARISHA: Wow.

SAM: -- fucked you.

AABRIA: Yeah.

TRAVIS: And macaroni and cheese, because that's what I had for lunch that day.

AABRIA: What's the word? Fuck.

TRAVIS: What's the significance of the mac 'n cheese? (laughter)

BRENNAN: Okay. An you see--

TRAVIS: Shit.

BRENNAN: -- this dude do that, turn, rush, and fling himself off the wall.

SAM: Oh god.

LUIS: Damn.

BRENNAN: You hear a thud as he hits the ground on the other side. (thud) And a grunt of pain.

SAM: Then the Hamburglar laughed.

LOU: I think he broke his leg, guys. We'll go around the corner, he'll just still be there, nursing a swollen ankle. (groans)

LOU: Ah, I should have climbed down. (laughs)

BRENNAN: Incredible.

LOU: Got too excited.

BRENNAN: Amazing.

LOU: A Family Guy moment.

(pained breathing)

AABRIA: Yeah, he starts singing "Du hast."

TRAVIS: Oh, yeah.

AABRIA: (laughs)

TRAVIS: It's either OshKosh B'Gosh or Du hast.

AABRIA: I love Infernal.

It's a bop.

BRENNAN: Hell yeah.

TRAVIS: In the Deep Speech.

LOU: That was a little upsetting.

AABRIA: Holy crap.

BRENNAN: Okay.

AABRIA: ♪ I want to throw up so much right now ♪

TRAVIS: ♪ I want to throw up ♪ (laughter)

BRENNAN: Okay. I am going to need-- I'm going to need two dexterity saving throws from Zerxus, Tempus, Laerryn, and Loquatius.

SAM and

AABRIA: We all make two?

BRENNAN: You all are going to make two.

LUIS: Is this a spell or a magical effect?

BRENNAN: This is a spell.

LUIS: Then everybody in my aura has advantage on this saving throw.

BRENNAN: Okay.

AABRIA: Thank you.

LUIS: Everyone within, so yeah, 10 feet.

MARISHA: Dope auras.

LUIS: You also get a plus five to your saving throw.

SAM: What? Okay.

AABRIA: Amazing.

SAM: Were we rolling at disadvantage? No,

we were just rolling twice.

LOU: We're just twice.

BRENNAN: You were just rolling twice. So you're going to roll them both with advantage.

LUIS: Both of them with advantage, and both of them with a plus five. I have to go make sure.

AABRIA: 25 and 18.

LOU: Ooh.

BRENNAN: 25 and 18. Those are quite good rolls, Architect Arcane.

AABRIA: Uh-huh.

BRENNAN: Hell yeah.

AABRIA: Thanks, Zerxus.

LUIS: Yes.

SAM: Where'd it go?

AABRIA: I don't know what to do.

MARISHA: I know!

LOU: There's just too many.

AABRIA: There's so many bad things.

MARISHA: There's so much shit.

SAM: I got 22 and 24.

AABRIA: Let's go!

BRENNAN: 22 and 24, all right. How we doing, Zerxus?

LUIS: I'm going to do mine, and then I'm going to do Tempus.

BRENNAN: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

LUIS: (groans)

MARISHA: Ooh!

LUIS: Damn, dex. My first one is, damn,

a 13 for the first one.

BRENNAN: 13 for the first one, okay.

LUIS: For the second one, better.

22.

TRAVIS: You do have--

LUIS: Oh yes! I'm going to use my Bardic Inspiration on that first one.

BRENNAN: Go for it.

LUIS: That was a 13, right?

MARISHA: Yeah.

LUIS: It is now a 17.

SAM: Okay, better, slightly.

LUIS: Yes.

BRENNAN: 17?

LUIS: 17 and 22. And for Tempus, fuck. Tempus, where are you, dex save? Mm, a nine and a-- that's kind of cocked. Is that 14? Or is that cocked?

MARISHA: I'd say it's a 14.

LUIS: All right then. (laughs) And a-- Oh, no, no, no. The nine is a 14 because Tempus is in my aura. Then this is a 21. 14 and 21 for Tempus.

BRENNAN: 14 and 21 for Tempus. All of you make all of these saving throws.

LUIS: What! AABRIA and

SAM: Ooh!

BRENNAN: Which means from the mages over here you see streaking Fireballs (whooshes).

SAM: Oh!

BRENNAN: That race towards you.

SAM: So still going to get some points.

LOU: Collection of Fireballs.

BRENNAN: 34 halved to 17, and 35 halved to 17. You see, they kill Findras. He's dead right in front of you.

LUIS: Wow, he just hit the ground.

BRENNAN: They look at how injured he is and have no compunction, and don't seem to have any-- How they are fighting is not how soldiers fight. It's how fanatics fight. There is no compunction about ending Findras' life

there in front of you.

LUIS: Wow, wow.

LOU: Damn.

BRENNAN: So everyone took-- So you took 17 fire and 17 fire from those attacks. How's Tempus looking, having taken that damage?

LUIS: Tempus, so because I have the Mounted Combatant feat, if he makes a dexterity saving throw, he doesn't take any damage.

BRENNAN: Ooh!

SAM: Oh, nice.

BRENNAN: Tempus spreads his starry wings and is unharmed.

AABRIA: Amazing.

TRAVIS: Yes!

LUIS: So 34 total for us.

SAM: Mm-hmm, yeah.

LOU: Uh-oh.

AABRIA: I lose the rest of my Arcane Ward.

(groaning)

BRENNAN: Copy that.

AABRIA: That's okay.

MARISHA: Hate to see it.

LOU: ♪ That's okay ♪

SAM: Laerryn, what are you doing in this fight?

Do something!

AABRIA: Really!? (laughter)

LOU: It's only been 11

seconds, okay?

TRAVIS: No, no, no!

LOU: We're at the last of the 11 seconds. Laerryn's still got a chance.

SAM: Late as always.

AABRIA: Oh my god.

MARISHA: Wow.

TRAVIS: We all take fire damage.

AABRIA: You know what?

TRAVIS: Ten seconds.

BRENNAN: Incredible.

SAM: That's like reverse Inspiration. (laughter)

TRAVIS: Jesus, classic.

LUIS: This is still the first round, isn't it?

BRENNAN: This is still-- we're still in round one. And I--

MARISHA: A lot has happened.

BRENNAN: We're about to go back to the-- We're about to get to the bottom of the round.

But of course, we got them--

LOU: Why you pulling minis?

BRENNAN: We got them called out. So the K'nauthi arrive.

TRAVIS: Oh, the K'nauthi.

AABRIA: What?

SAM: The who?

AABRIA: The whomst?

SAM: What?

LOU: The who?

TRAVIS: Oh my god.

AABRIA: Brennan.

LOU: Who are these people?

TRAVIS: Look at those

fucking minis, dude.

MARISHA: Jeez.

SAM: When he sent us the flow chart of all the different factions of the city, I thought he was just trying to confuse us.

TRAVIS: Do they walk?

SAM: It was a menu! (laughter)

TRAVIS: Do they walk out of hiding, or are they like? (thuds)

LUIS: Of all these people I want to kill--

BRENNAN: All of them emerge--

LOU: In the back.

AABRIA: Wait, hold on.

BRENNAN: Yes?

AABRIA: Sorry, I have resistance to spell damage. Do I get to halve that again?

BRENNAN: You get to halve it again.

AABRIA: Let's fucking go!

TRAVIS: Come on!

BRENNAN: You get to halve it again.

TRAVIS: Come on!

BRENNAN: Honestly, with those fire--

AABRIA: Yeah, Abjuration.

BRENNAN: -- with both those fireballs-- Wait, is your Abjuration Ward still up, or no?

LUIS: Come on, come on.

AABRIA: Wait, so it dropped to 34, and it would be 17 total. No, Ward is down.

BRENNAN: It would actually not be 17 total. It would be 17, halved to eight, twice. So it would be 16 total.

AABRIA: Okay, 16 total. It still takes the last 13 off of it.

BRENNAN: Got it.

AABRIA: But okay, that's fine. But I don't take any damage. I get my 10 HP back.

LOU: He put one back here, by the way. He put one-- there's one back here.

TRAVIS: No, he didn't.

LOU: Yeah, he did. He put one

all the way back over here.

TRAVIS: We can't see, Brennan, why would you put it over there?

BRENNAN: Now this is narc energy. (laughter)

LOU: Take half of these minis off the board. This entire battle set is narc energy. (laughter)

BRENNAN: Here we go, okay.

TRAVIS: Why are you hiding people over in the corner?

There's a bunch over here!

LOU: Exactly.

BRENNAN: Let's go!

LOU: People can't see this one. Can you see this, people?

BRENNAN: Yeah.

Okay.

LUIS: My heart. (laughter)

BRENNAN: So.

MARISHA: There's so much to do.

BRENNAN: We see--

LOU: What is this shit?

MARISHA: There's so much to do.

LOU: What is this shit?

BRENNAN: There's a lot going on. These are Spiritual Weapons. You see the K'nauthi come out.

LUIS: No!

AABRIA: Why?

LUIS: Evil clerics!

BRENNAN: Evil clerics.

AABRIA: Tight, tight, tight.

TRAVIS: Okay, all right, okay, okay.

Cool, cool, cool.

TRAVIS: Hold on one second.

MARISHA: Just all the AoEs.

AABRIA: Yeah.

MARISHA: All the--

AABRIA: Yeah.

MARISHA: All the lightning.

TRAVIS: This is happening up in the middle of the street, surrounded by, oh!

BRENNAN: If we had an Age of Arcanum fight that was any less goofy than this?

LOU: I truly thought they were all going to move forward. Now it's just a full division.

AABRIA: What's that?

BRENNAN: Another Spiritual Weapon.

TRAVIS: It's you against a platoon of evil, like.

LOU: And I'm inside of a hand.

SAM: We got this.

LOU: We don't even know how bad it is yet. (laughter)

BRENNAN: Hell yeah, hell yeah.

LOU: Hell no!

TRAVIS: "I'm being crushed!"

SAM: Did those Fireballs also kill the other eldritch knight guy who was recovering from Haste?

BRENNAN: Give me that one more time.

SAM: Did those Fireballs also kill the guy who was recovering from Haste? No, he's miraculously still on his feet, but he's still going to lose his turn.

SAM: Oh, okay.

BRENNAN: Looking incredibly injured. Okay. One, two, three. The K'nauthi rush forward again.

SAM: He says that like I'm supposed to know

who that is.

TRAVIS: This is real, real.

AABRIA: We learned that word last time.

TRAVIS: I mean, you are in a

burrito of trouble.

AABRIA: It's bad to be on the ground.

LOU: I'm in a true burrito of trouble.

TRAVIS: I mean, I want to come and help you, but that's a breakfast bowl of pain.

BRENNAN: Your dragon's armor class,

if you would be so kind.

LOU: 19.

TRAVIS: I mean.

LUIS: Uh-oh.

BRENNAN: They are going to--

TRAVIS: I mean, it's so surrounded.

SAM: Mock his memory.

BRENNAN: Mock his memory.

TRAVIS: Should we just take a picture? I don't know if I've ever, I don't think I've ever played in a game where somebody's been

more fucked.

LOU: Yeah, you've got me surrounded.

TRAVIS: Like more surrounded. Everything in that picture is an enemy, except for one.

MARISHA: It's true.

BRENNAN: Your dragon is going to take-- is going to take 12 points of damage from one of the spiritual weapons.

LOU: Okay.

BRENNAN: Your armor class is still 22, currently?

LOU: 22, but if people are swinging on me, I might Shield.

AABRIA: Can I help you?

BRENNAN: People are swinging on you.

LUIS: Definitely swinging on you.

LUIS: Then a brother's going to shield.

BRENNAN: (laughs) Muffled under this thing, you, whoom, surround yourself with golden energy. The scales of the dragon protect you.

These guys--

LOU: My AC's 27.

BRENNAN: 27! Goddamn!

They are--

LOU: Now, I'm still not as strong as, (laughs) still not even Zerxus' strength, but.

BRENNAN: Okay, you take--

MARISHA: But no one is.

BRENNAN: 11 points of damage from one of these knives, only due to a natural 20.

LOU: And I save concentration.

BRENNAN: All of you watch, rushing from the shadows, as the K'nauthi emerge. Much like the person you saw dead earlier, you see their lips have been carved off their face. They've carved their eyelids off their face so that they cannot blink. (groaning)

BRENNAN: They rush forward (screeches) and rush and attempt to-- You watch as their shadows leave behind them and rise up into fangs and claws. Their spiritual weapons are like the barbs of the devil himself.

MARISHA: I mean, it's cool.

SAM: (laughs)

BRENNAN: And.

LOU: I'll give them that. That's kind of tight.

MARISHA: (laughs) It's kind of dope.

AABRIA: So much bad stuff there!

LOU: (sighs)

BRENNAN: That does not hit. The K'nauthi rush forward, chittering and screaming. You also see, as they rush, all of them, up near their elbow, like right here on the outside of their forearm, all of them have a large, Infernal rune and a very fresh wound, as if a dagger was dragged over it. (groaning)

TRAVIS: When the K'nauthi came out, did they emerge from hiding? Did they apparate?

BRENNAN: They did not apparate. They emerged from hiding. These guys were told to fan out prior to your advance, but all of them, you could hear doors and stuff open. These guys were hiding in buildings, waiting for the noise of battle to emerge.

TRAVIS: We don't want that bratwurst.

AABRIA: (laughs)

BRENNAN: Laerryn Coramar-Seelie, it is your turn.

MARISHA: Come on!

AABRIA: Okay, so.

MARISHA: Come on, girl.

AABRIA: It's bad. It's bad to see, and I don't enjoy it.

TRAVIS: (laughs) "It's bad to see."

AABRIA: I need to get away from mages that can see me, because I'm trying to hide to cast a spell. Can I get into that little room?

BRENNAN: Do you want to join Patia underneath that?

AABRIA: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I would love to join Patia.

BRENNAN: No one's in melee with you. You may absolutely rush in to join Patia. Architect Arcane, you rush into one of the buildings of Avalir, side by side with the Keeper of Scrolls. It's bad out here.

TRAVIS: It's bad, we're running. (laughter)

MARISHA: This feels personal, right?

AABRIA: Yeah. Well, anyone that can fly is going to need to. I'm going to Reverse Gravity in the center. There's too much bullshit there, and I need it up.

BRENNAN: Okay, amazing.

SAM: There's no ceiling.

AABRIA: Yeah! 100 feet up.

TRAVIS: I'm here for it.

TRAVIS: We're in a floating city.

AABRIA: 100-foot diameter.

BRENNAN: Okay, give me the exact area of it.

AABRIA: Spell reverses gravity in a 50-foot radius, so 100 feet across, 100-foot high cylinder, centered on a point within range. I'm centering it on homegirl.

BRENNAN: Hoo hoo hoo!

AABRIA: I hope she can fly. All creatures and objects that aren't somehow anchored to the ground have to make a dex save, DC is 20, or go, or go,

like that's ground now.

MARISHA: Whee!

TRAVIS: That's called changing the game.

Game changer.

AABRIA: Yeah! We got enough people in the air, and if it catches a couple of the homies, we've got flyers to grab them.

LOU: Truly people are just stabbing knives into a big, red hand, and now, (laughs) and I'm feeling us lose gravity.

BRENNAN: Incredible.

AABRIA: Your dragon flies, right? He's got wings.

LOU: My dragon can fly, we'll be okay.

BRENNAN: First off, I'm going to need to see if anybody can do anything about this, which I don't think anyone can. Hold on. No. That is, you are just out of range there.

SAM: I Counterspell it. (laughter)

SAM: I've been working with them all along!

TRAVIS: I knew it!

LOU: I don't think anything would actually hurt me more. Like, I think I'd

actually be upset.

AABRIA: Yeah, I would cry.

LOU: It wouldn't be funny.

AABRIA: Sam Riegel hurt my feelings.

LOU: This is not the time to reveal you're the enemy.

BRENNAN: Let's get dexterity checks from the dragon, and actually from Nydas.

LOU: Me inside that hand?

BRENNAN: You inside that hand.

LOU: DC dex 20.

MARISHA: Come on, Nydas.

BRENNAN: Dex 20, or what's the DC?

AABRIA: Yeah, it's 20.

BRENNAN: Dex 20.

LOU: Nydas.

BRENNAN: How is that DC so high?

AABRIA: I've got good stuff. I'm good at being a wizard, Brennan.

LOU: Only 17.

BRENNAN: Incredible, 20 is quite prodigious.

LUIS: It is.

BRENNAN: Incredible. Okay.

LOU: Then the dragon.

BRENNAN: Go ahead and roll for the dragon.

LOU: The dragon, I think only gets a 19.

I think we both fail.

SAM: Jeez, your dragon sucks.

LOU: Yeah.

AABRIA: Dex save is to grab something to stay on the ground.

MARISHA: Otherwise, they're no longer in Exandria.

SAM: Yeah.

TRAVIS: There's a reason.

LUIS: Overrated.

AABRIA: There's going to be a spa about you someday, Chaka Khan.

LOU: I was going to say, it's pretty close to Chaka Khan. I think I might just call him Chak from now on.

BRENNAN: Okay.

AABRIA: Brennan, you know I want the ones over there, too.

BRENNAN: Which ones?

AABRIA: It's 100 feet across.

SAM: Get them--

AABRIA: I want to catch--

SAM: -- you're going to get me.

BRENNAN: It's a 50-foot radius. Is it centered on Lacrytia?

ABBRIA: Yeah, so if it's centered on her, then it probably wouldn't hit them.

BRENNAN: Cool.

ABBRIA: Dang it!

BRENNAN: All good, all good.

MARISHA: Oh man. Right on the edge, right on the edge.

AABRIA: I could have been cuter.

It's fine. No, it's fine.

TRAVIS: "I could've been cuter."

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

LUIS: I think you're doing okay, though.

AABRIA: We're good, we're good.

BRENNAN: Yeah, you're about to get pretty much everybody.

LUIS: Except for two people, maybe? The ones on the other side.

AABRIA: That's it.

TRAVIS: Thank you.

BRENNAN: Oh my Lord.

LOU: What does Reverse Gravity do? Are we just--

TRAVIS: Exactly what you think it does.

AABRIA: It makes ground that way, and then if someone knocks this off of me, they're coming back down.

TRAVIS: It's pure fuckery.

MARISHA: It's great.

LOU: Oh, so people are just going to start flying into the sky?

AABRIA: Yes.

MARISHA: Uh-huh.

LOU: Wow!

BRENNAN: Okay.

MARISHA: It's a fun one.

TRAVIS: It's as awful as it sounds.

LUIS: Is it a reaction to dismiss it?

AABRIA: It is, but it's also one of those fun things I'm like, I hope you hit me and I drop concentration. It makes the spell good.

MARISHA: Yeah.

AABRIA: (laughs)

TRAVIS: Uh-huh, or they just keep going that way.

AABRIA: Yeah.

BRENNAN: So Laerryn, you--

AABRIA: Sorry, quick last cheeky question.

BRENNAN: Yes, go for it.

AABRIA: Does a reaction reset at the top of the round, or--?

BRENNAN: Top of your turn.

AABRIA: Top of my turn.

BRENNAN: Top of your turn.

AABRIA: Okay. How did Dean Hollow do?

BRENNAN: You look forward, and this is your city. You are the Architect Arcane. Lacrytia looks at you and Patia underneath that tower and says, "Running away? I wouldn't (yelping) do that!" And goes straight up, (laughter) straight up. All of the K'nauthi, (yells) ass over tea kettle, just leaving-- we keep calling him Milus Phren. Definitely not his name. Milus is just so heavy that he's like, nope,

and squats down.

AABRIA: (laughs)

BRENNAN: But you see that all five of the K'nauthi and Lacrytia go up 50 feet in the air. (whooshes)

MARISHA: Fantastic.

BRENNAN: And are just oscillating up there, seemingly without an ability to move.

AABRIA: Okay, okay.

BRENNAN: Huh?

AABRIA: It's 100 feet.

BRENNAN: 100 feet?

BRENNAN: So they're like here.

TRAVIS: Goodbye.

AABRIA: Cool, fantastic.

LOU: Am I there as well?

BRENNAN: Oh, yes, you are there as well.

LOU: Did the hand go? Am I still in the hand?

BRENNAN: You're still in the hand. The hand fell with you, so you all, shoom,

pop up, fell.

TRAVIS: Fell, fell.

SAM: The dragon too, right?

BRENNAN: And the dragon. So literally everyone leaves Milus Phren. Milus is all alone on the ground. I'm going to need the audience at home to just-- I'm not getting risers for all these. So (voom) up 100 feet.

Unbelievable.

SAM: Wow.

AABRIA: Just holding my hand up and looking over at Patia. It's bad here. This is fucked.

MARISHA: (sighs)

AABRIA: Hey, when I have to drop this, do you want to slap me?

MARISHA: Hmm. Talk to me in 60 seconds.

AABRIA: Okay. (laughter)

BRENNAN: Nydas, that is going to be your turn.

LOU: Okay.

TRAVIS: It'll be over in 60 seconds.

LOU: So I'm trapped in the hand.

BRENNAN: Mm-hmm.

LOU: And floating in the air. This is insane. Okay. Quicken Spell, I think Freedom of Movement. Will that free me? That will free me from this restraint, correct?

BRENNAN: Absolutely, Freedom of Movement will free you from this restraint.

LOU: Great. Ugh! I am going to fucking cast Freedom of Movement, fucking slide out-- (laughter)

LOU: -- just straight out of this fucking thing. (laughter)

LOU: Grab on to Shak.

AABRIA: (laughs)

TRAVIS: Yes!

LOU: Then I am wondering if you will allow me to use one of, or both of Shak's attacks to grapple Lacrytia.

BRENNAN: I will-- hey, that is absolutely rules as written. You can replace a melee weapon attack, or replace a melee attack with an athletics check.

LOU: I'm intending to bring her down and with us over here.

AABRIA: Do whatever you want.

LUIS: Oh, that's great.

LOU: Great, we're going to do that. So first, I guess I'll just-- what is this? What's this man's stats? What is this man's stats? First one's a nat one.

BRENNAN: Okay, she overcomes that.

LOU: Second one is going to be-- Add proficiency bonus or not?

BRENNAN: Yes, definitely add the proficiency bonus to this.

LOU: Oh, okay.

BRENNAN: But what I would say too here, that's important.

LOU: Tell me what's important.

BRENNAN: I'll tell you what's important.

LOU: Tell me what's important.

BRENNAN: I will tell you what's important. You are making grapple checks, but you are still contending with a Mirror Image spell.

LOU: Okay.

BRENNAN: So I need you to roll a d20.

LOU: Okay.

BRENNAN: I think here, hold on one second. Yeah, you-- Or actually she's going to roll, but I'll roll in front of the board to keep it safe. You want a one through a five on this die right here.

LOU: Give it to me. Give me the one through five.

TRAVIS: One through five is what you want?

LOU: No! (laughter)

BRENNAN: So unbelievably-- And what did you roll on that athletics check?

LOU: 25!

AABRIA: Let's go!

MARISHA: Yes!

BRENNAN: You, bubbling on the-- You see literally all of the stones. I think when you cast that spell, you guys see Laerryn's arcane mark appear on every cobblestone as the city is summoned to your command. All of them just go (magical whoosh) with little veins of brumestone and push everyone up 100 feet. As you tumble out with your old, again, piratical dexterity, out of the hand, you grab your summoned dragon. Your dragon looks at four blinking images of Lacrytia, who says, "You fool, you are no wizard!" Your dragon (snorts) and grabs the exact right one.

AABRIA: Woo!

TRAVIS: Yes!

BRENNAN: Your dragon has grappled Lacrytia Hollow.

AABRIA: Let's go!

LOU: Is bringing her close to people bad? Because she can Counterspell, I don't-- We're just going to fuck her up.

TRAVIS: Uh-huh, we will.

LOU: I'd like to use-- So he has 60 feet of fly.

BRENNAN: Mm-hmm.

LOU: So I'd like to start to bring her down and toward-- I'd like to get as close to Zerxus--

BRENNAN: To the ground as possible?

LOU: Exactly.

BRENNAN: Cool.

LOU: Moving diagonally.

MARISHA: So you're bringing her

towards--

LOU: Towards all of us.

BRENNAN: Hell yes, amazing.

LUIS: They start 100 feet up.

LOU: Yeah.

LUIS: Okay, cool.

BRENNAN: So you're about 40 feet off the ground

when all is said and done.

LOU: Can we use my movement for us because I'm mounted? Will you allow that or do we stop?

BRENNAN: No, I will make you stick to the dragon's movement. You could dismount if you wanted to bust a move, but that is--

LOU: Oh, and as we fly away, I think I'll use the dragon's breath weapon on the floating--

BRENNAN: K'nauthi?

LOU: On the floating K'nauthi.

BRENNAN: Yeah, go for it, baby. What do they need to roll?

LOU: DC 18. Dexterity saving throw.

BRENNAN: DC 18 dexterity saving throw.

LOU: Jesus.

TRAVIS: Uh-huh.

MARISHA: I know.

TRAVIS: Uh-huh.

MARISHA: I know.

LOU: If they fail, they take two damage. If they succeed, they take one damage.

SAM: Woo!

LOU: The dragon was focused on other things.

TRAVIS: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

BRENNAN: Here you are. The dragon pulled off something pretty fucking cool, okay? Here we go. So we're going to get you and your dragon here. Bada-boom. I've never used this much Blu Tack in my life.

TRAVIS: Isn't it the best?

SAM: You've been heard.

TRAVIS: It just takes everything

to a whole new level.

LUIS: I can really fuck around.

BRENNAN: Okay, so-- Bada-boom. So quick breath weapon goes out. Here's the thing, though, they are going to have to make concentrate-- They take damage, so they have to make concentration. We'll take it.

BRENNAN: Let's do it, let's do it. Any below? Okay, you see that one of the spiritual weapons vanishes as one loses concentration and let's get Lacrytia out here as well.

MARISHA: There's so much going on.

SAM: I know, but I don't

know who to focus on.

BRENNAN: It's complicated combat.

TRAVIS: It's almost like the final one.

BRENNAN: So Nydas, that is your turn.

LOU: Oh wait, I still have stuff, that's all dragon.

BRENNAN: That's all the dragon?

AABRIA: Yeah, dragon!

LOU: I mean, I guess I--

TRAVIS: Yay, dragon!

AABRIA: Well done, dragon!

TRAVIS: Well done, dragon!

LOU: Lacrytia is still able to do semantic-- She can still do stuff, right? I guess I'll just stab her a bunch while she's grappled.

BRENNAN: Yeah, go for it.

LOU: Let's just get nasty. I'm going to stab. I've grappled this woman and now I'm going to stab her a bunch.

BRENNAN: I love it.

LOU: Okay.

TRAVIS: Lacrytia didn't. Any time she tries to cast a spell, we can hit her but--

LOU: That's a nat 20.

BRENNAN: Oh my god!

LUIS: Yes!

BRENNAN: Incredible. Go ahead and roll. A Nat 20 absolutely hits.

Go ahead and--

LOU: Great, do I have advantage on these?

BRENNAN: Hold on one second. The grapple [inaudible]. No, you do not have advantage.

LOU: Great.

BRENNAN: Go ahead and roll damage for me.

LOU: Great. Oh, damage first?

BRENNAN: Yeah, or you can roll your second attack, if you want to.

LOU: I'll roll just for-- I'll roll the second attack just in case we double crit.

AABRIA: We love a crit.

LOU: We didn't double crit, but 24 hits?

BRENNAN: 24 hits.

LOU: Great.

BRENNAN: You roll both your attacks.

LOU: Great.

BRENNAN: I'm going to-- So this is a very interesting thing. I'm going to have to make a little home rule here. I'm going to have to make a little bit of a home rule here. Mirror Image, you normally have to chew through but you know exactly where this lady is, she's the one in the claw. So what I'm going to do is this. I'm going to roll for Mirror Image but I'm going to roll with disadvantage.

LOU: Okay.

BRENNAN: Cool? So that's how we're going to adjudicate that.

LOU: Still one through five?

BRENNAN: Still one through five means you hit the actual person.

LOU: Okay.

BRENNAN: But you got a better chance to do it. So there's two, that's a five,

that's two fives.

MARISHA: Oh my god, two fives!

BRENNAN: So the nat 20 hits, remember you're not chewing through mirror images because you're hitting the real person. So she's still got the spell up at full effect and the next one is a four. You get her both times!

AABRIA: Oh my god. Let's go!

BRENNAN: What was that second attack by the way?

LOU: 24.

BRENNAN: 24. Yeah, she throws up a Shield and it doesn't matter.

You hit both times.

LOU: Great. I just imagine I'm holding onto the claws at the leg and just jamming in between his claws.

AABRIA: Let's go!

LOU: First one is going to be--

LUIS: Bye, dice.

LOU: Where'd it go? Where'd they all go. I completely forgot which dice I rolled, I'm going to do that again.

BRENNAN: Mm-hmm. Incredible.

LOU: Okay, first one is going to be a, let's see, a four, 10, 11 plus nine, so 20 points of damage on the first attack.

MARISHA: Dang.

AABRIA: Amazing.

LOU: And my AC is now 24. Second attack is going to be just another 10. So 30 points of damage total.

BRENNAN: All of you watch as the gravity reverses. Nydas swings down, grabs the dragon, taking her down. You see there's a swirl of her mirror images and both times just your eyes gleam golden (yells).

LUIS: Yes.

BRENNAN: She looks badly injured as you descend to the ground.

MARISHA: Okay.

BRENNAN: Screaming out, her eyes go jet black, black ichor. (screams) She screams in necromantic rage. I believe that's your full turn, correct?

LOU: That is my full turn.

SAM: They're coming back down to earth?

BRENNAN: Yeah, the dragon grabbed her and is bringing her back down to the ground.

AABRIA: Are you staying

in the column or are you--

SAM: Where are they now?

BRENNAN: 40 feet up, they're exactly that high.

LOU: I would say with his 60 feet of movement, we are out of the gravity well?

BRENNAN: Cool, yes, you were out of the gravity well, correct.

TRAVIS: Only the fiend is on the ground, everybody else is 100 feet up in the air?

BRENNAN: Correct.

LUIS: Well, yeah,

in that cluster.

TRAVIS: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

LUIS: We got some people over here.

BRENNAN: So if you're out of the gravity well, then that actually makes sense. You had to move, so you're actually 50 feet up because you had to go a little bit more horizontal to get

out of the gravity well.

LOU: Great.

BRENNAN: Cool?

AABRIA: It's like a riptide,

you have to swim.

LOU: Yes.

BRENNAN: Yeah, don't swim against it, swim to the side.

LOU: Shock, shock.

BRENNAN: Patia, that's you.

AABRIA: I think there's a weird, golden glow.

MARISHA: Okay, a lot has changed very quickly. I'm just going to look at Laerryn and be like-- I think I prefer the knight to break a sweat. And snap, and I'm going to cast Haste-- (cheering)

MARISHA: -- on Zerxus.

BRENNAN: Hell yeah.

LOU: Now we're having fun.

LUIS: He likes sweating.

MARISHA: Big concentration spell, so I'm just going to camp in the tower.

AABRIA: We're going to hold on here.

LOU: Yeah, you two have just found shade.

MARISHA: Yeah, we are.

AABRIA: Oh boy.

MARISHA: Get a little mai tai.

LOU: Yes, exactly.

AABRIA: Now I understand why wizards have a tower. It's safe here

and we can do our magics.

MARISHA: It's so safe.

It feels so comforting.

AABRIA: This is nice.

BRENNAN: Incredible. I believe you are both holding concentration spells right now, right?

MARISHA: Yes, we are.

BRENNAN: Unbelievable. So Haste on you. Patia, you extend your hand and once again you see a stream of runes of the library, which is your domain, reach out from your hand to the First Knight of Avalir. Again, the entire street is lit up all around you with runes and light. A battle of the flying city of Avalir in the Age of Arcanum.

MARISHA: (laughs)

BRENNAN: Zerxus, as you feel that Haste come to you--

LUIS: Yeah.

BRENNAN: So this is now our second round. Zerxus and Laerryn, each of you for different reasons, something on your belt gleams. (magical pulsing) You hear a voice on a sending stone. This is coming from Sashara Drake, who's the Captain of the Chancellor's Guard. She calls out and says, (static) "First Knight, we have an issue!" Around you, you hear boom, boom, boom, boom, boom of the fireworks finale. You hear a firework go off and at a little bit of a delay, the ground underneath you, boom! Something deep underground, something happening at the same time as this finale.

AABRIA: No!

BRENNAN: You, also, Laerryn see on your bracelet, Calum Staffwright's mask start to (beeps). Sashara Drake over the sending stone says, "First Knight, there's an attack in the Labyrinth! They're attacking the Eldritch--" (static).

LUIS: No.

MARISHA: It was a distraction.

LUIS: This was.

AABRIA: Fuck!

SAM: Should we get out of here?

MARISHA: Yes!

SAM: Should we kill these people or just go?

BRENNAN: But Calum is calling to you right now. You open it up, you see Calum, his face appears. The lighting on his face is strange as it moves in the illusion. It's like some lights have gone out somewhere. You see he looks at you and says, "Architect, I beg your apologies, but there is-- Something is wrong. We're losing power from some of the outer Eldritch Batteries or at least it's being disrupted. The Calix, the Arboreal Calix, it's asking to requisition 30% of the--"

AABRIA: No!

BRENNAN: "There are stopgaps when an engine requests that much energy. Do you want me to kill that?"

AABRIA: Kill it.

BRENNAN: "All right." (buzzing) His transmission ends as he kills that. The Calix does not receive 30% of the city's energy. That is--

SAM: What did we just do?

What's happening?

LOU: We're making big game time decisions.

BRENNAN: Big game time decisions. As you say that, and he kills that and his transmission ends, you see Milus Phren and the erinyes next to you. The one that just looked at you and called you beautiful. She looks and goes-- (coughs) And vomits blood. You've seen something just like that before.

LUIS: What the fuck?

AABRIA: What is happening? I thought we were doing good and now it feels bad again.

BRENNAN: You're doing great.

LOU: Wait, I think that's good. I think it's good that they vomited blood. I think they're slushing power off of the Calix. So I think if we give it a 30%--

TRAVIS: Is the bow in the Calix?

AABRIA: No, the bow is in the Leywright.

TRAVIS: The Leywright.

BRENNAN: We are going to-- as you watch that and you see Milus Phren down below, take a moment. (grunts) And clutch his stomach.

LUIS: No. Fuck.

BRENNAN: You watch as-- Patia, you cast Haste.

LUIS: Oh fuck, oh fuck.

BRENNAN: Milus is going to fly up and as he does so-- Yeah, he's going--

SAM: What's our play? What are we doing? We're trying to kill these guys?

BRENNAN: What's your dragon's armor class?

LOU: 19.

AABRIA: We have to go.

SAM: Where, go where?

TRAVIS: I mean, it's either the engine or the Septarion, right? If the city's under attack--

BRENNAN: That's a nat 20.

LUIS: A nat 20.

SAM: Wait, is someone getting attacked right now?

LUIS: Yes.

LOU: My dragon.

TRAVIS: We are rolling tonight.

BRENNAN: That's going to be 16 damage on the first attack to the dragon. That's going to be--

LOU: What kind of damage?

SAM: Dragon damage.

BRENNAN: Piercing.

LOU: He has resistance to that.

BRENNAN: Incredible.

LUIS: Wow.

BRENNAN: What did I say, 16? So that's halved to eight. That's going to be 20 halved to 10.

LOU: Oh, I got to make sure we got that resistance. We may not have that resistance.

BRENNAN: To piercing?

SAM: I have no idea what to do. Because I don't know who's the threat, and I don't know what our objective is. (laughter)

AABRIA: Damn, welcome to the Calamity. (laughter)

TRAVIS: I'm going to try and see if that dude that headbutted--

LOU: Okay, never mind, I don't think it has resistance. It doesn't have resistance to that. So 16 then 20?

BRENNAN: 16 and then 20.

LOU: Okay.

BRENNAN: Then the final attack comes in, which is going to be 14 points of piercing. I'm going to need a constitution saving throw from your dragon.

LOU: The dragon is dead.

LUIS: Oh!

BRENNAN: On that last one, Milus-- (impact) The dragon vanishes. As it does so, you see that Lacrytia is released from the grapple and Milus grabs her with his offhand. I will allow you a dexterity saving throw if you would like. If you want to grab onto Milus Phren--

LOU: I'd love to grab onto Milus Phren. Dexterity saving throw?

BRENNAN: Dexterity saving throw. We'll call it DC 14.

LOU: That is a 19.

BRENNAN: Hell yes. So as your dragon vanishes back into the coin, you grab Milus Phren and you see Milus looks down and says, "Now you wish to entreat with me?"

LOU: I do! (laughter)

BRENNAN: Incredible. Let's get all these dudes up here in this flying fight. What the fuck is going on? Okay, however, that's three mighty blows taken towards a summon rather than any of you or your companions.

LOU: My heart is pounding.

BRENNAN: The spell knight loses-- that's still amazingly up. The spellguard that's still up loses his action due to Haste. Feels like a lifetime ago. Cerrit, that is your turn.

TRAVIS: Oh, it's my turn. I'm going to try and get eyes on the guy that headbutted my earlier today out of my brain. I'm going to try-- is the gentleman up on the balcony with me, is he within melee or 10 feet away?

BRENNAN: He's 10 feet. You can close with him if you want to.

TRAVIS: I'm going to try and go over him because I wan to try and get eyes on the guy that went (splat) on the--

BRENNAN: You have enough movement to absolutely get up and over to get eyes on him for sure.

TRAVIS: Yeah, I'd like to do that. I don't know if I'll use all of the 50 feet, but just to see if he's there or if he's just gone.

BRENNAN: He's not gone. You look over and see that that Avalirian mage landed, did break his leg. He did not have anything that was protecting him from doing that. But there are two K'nauthi at the bottom that have grabbed him and you see that they are ministering some kind of magical aid to him.

LOU: The ones he put behind.

TRAVIS: There's three more down there. Oh god.

BRENNAN: So that's where you are. So you've used about-- let's see. You've used about 30 feet of your movement. About 20 feet left.

TRAVIS: God, there's three people over there. I'm not a tank! Okay, boy, this is tough.

MARISHA: ♪ It's a good day to learn ♪

TRAVIS: I know, this is tough. He's got really valuable information. I can't let him get away, right?

SAM: I don't think so, but I don't know what else to do, at this point.

LOU: It feels like they already have-- They're already headed for the Labyrinth, which means they know something.

BRENNAN: I will say this. You are the champions of this city, but you are not its only defenders. You guys are not fools, the Meridian Labyrinth's under attack, but the person that contacted you, Sashara Drake is the Captain of the Chancellor's Guard. There are warriors, there are spells, there are glyphs. There are all kinds of defenses around the city. So the question is, will they hold? That's the question, right? Will the defenses that are not you hold in your absence?

TRAVIS: I have to assume-- This is fucking orchestrated. So I have to assume that the second he got down there, he either told the other two the information or spread it. It's gone, it's not with him.

MARISHA: He communicated it. So they have that information.

TRAVIS: Yeah, so there's no point in going down there. I'll just come back and bang on this guy.

BRENNAN: Hell yeah, go for it.

TRAVIS: I'll use my-- Yeah, I'll use my bonus action again to do Insightful Fighting.

BRENNAN: Hell yeah, go for it.

TRAVIS: He makes a deception check against a 23.

BRENNAN: He rolled an 18 on the die, and that's why you want to invest in charisma instead of spending your whole life in a library. He has no ability to deceive you. You get the drop on him.

TRAVIS: Amazing, okay. One swipe with the hawk.

LUIS: I think we had to subdue them enough.

AABRIA: Just throw them into the

goddamn column and it'll--

TRAVIS: That's a dirty 20.

AABRIA: -- take care of itself.

BRENNAN: With the Shield he throws up-- Oh sorry! So he throws up a shield, which you have the ability to react to

as he throws it up.

AABRIA: Oh my god, yeah!

BRENNAN: And the dirty 20 exactly hits.

TRAVIS: Ooh! Right on the AC?

BRENNAN: Yes, right on the AC.

TRAVIS: G-g-god damn, okay.

LOU: G-g-god damn.

TRAVIS: So I'm going to continue to shake them up.

MARISHA: How many do you think you can you take on your griffon?

LUIS: I could try adding one more person on there--

TRAVIS: You distracted me.

BRENNAN and

TRAVIS: (laugh)

TRAVIS: (counting) That's 21... 26 plus seven... 33 points of slashing damage.

BRENNAN: On that first attack?

TRAVIS: It's on the only attack.

BRENNAN: On the only attack.

TRAVIS: That one swing.

BRENNAN: So 33. He goes from uninjured to death's door.

He's got a handful of hit points left.

AABRIA: Let's go!

BRENNAN: You (impacts) and when he cast Shield, he is within five feet of you, so he would trigger a reaction for you to Mage Slayer hit him.

TRAVIS: Oh, amazing, amazing. So it's an extra swing.

BRENNAN: That's an extra swing, yeah.

TRAVIS: But I have to roll to attack, which is... That's a dirty 20 again.

BRENNAN: Wow! You exactly hit his armor class two times.

TRAVIS: So it's going to be six plus seven. It's 12 points of slashing damage!

BRENNAN: You also get your sneak attack on this hit.

TRAVIS: Oh, I do?!

BRENNAN: Yes.

TRAVIS: Well, I mean, if you insist.

(laughter)

BRENNAN: I'm saying you're very good at killing wizards, is what I'm trying to say.

LUIS: Killer wizard!

AABRIA: Upsetting. That's one of those things where you're like, I'm proud of my friend, but also a little disgusted.

MARISHA: (laughs) Yeah.

TRAVIS: 26.

MARISHA: Don't piss off Cerrit.

AABRIA: Yeah.

TRAVIS: 35... 35 points of slashing damage.

BRENNAN: Incredible. You take off, look down, see it, and go, "The information's already out." The mage that thought for a moment he was going to be able to whip around and hit you with something, looks up, and the last thing he sees is a pair of gleaming slitted eyes, (impacts).

Everyone--

TRAVIS: Bowels, across the midsection,

one (impacts)

AABRIA: Ooh! Splat!

BRENNAN: All of you hear a dull wet thud behind the corner of the building over here. Bam! As this mage hits the--

TRAVIS: It was his guts hitting the pavement and then he fell.

BRENNAN and

AABRIA: (laugh)

LUIS: So it's like--

Splat, thud.

AABRIA: Amazing.

BRENNAN: Unbelievable.

TRAVIS: I'll use that 20 feet to close on him and just come back to the corner, as much as I can come back to where I was--

BRENNAN: Hell yeah.

TRAVIS: -- toward danger. Danger!

BRENNAN: Okay, you rush back to the corner. That's your movement and turn.

Amazing.

TRAVIS: That's it.

BRENNAN: We move from--

AABRIA: I'm freaking out.

BRENNAN: Loquatius, that's going to be you.

SAM: I still don't know what I'm doing. How is the devil looking? Is he--

LUIS: I don't think the devil's been hit.

BRENNAN: There are two devils that you can see here. There's Milus Phren up here who looks relatively uninjured--

LUIS: Who was just vomiting, retching.

BRENNAN: I mean, he's a little bit hurt.

Then--

LOU: Thank you.

AABRIA: (laughs)

BRENNAN: A little bit hurt. Then there is the erinyes here, but who is fully uninjured.

AABRIA: If this was a distraction, we have to go.

SAM: They've got lots of hit points.

LUIS: Yeah.

MARISHA: But, we can let the soldiers do their thing.

And we run.

AABRIA: We have to go.

MARISHA: We get to the core.

SAM: I can't--

I don't have Dimension Door.

AABRIA: Come here!

MARISHA: You can come with me.

AABRIA: Yeah.

MARISHA: Do you have Dimension Door?

AABRIA: Yes.

SAM: But I'm abandoning

all of my friends.

TRAVIS: Go! Get the fuck--

LUIS: Go! We'll be right behind you.

TRAVIS: I got wings, bitch! (laughter)

MARISHA: He's got a griffon and he's a dragon man!

AABRIA: Yeah.

SAM: (laughs)

LUIS: He's got a griffon too, in a couple seconds.

LOU: Yeah.

BRENNAN: Now, I will ask here. You were told that the Eldritch Batteries were being attacked. That's what Calum confirmed with you.

AABRIA: Yeah.

BRENNAN: So there's 12 of those all throughout the city. Those are

the ancillary--

TRAVIS: Power stations?

BRENNAN: -- different power stations around the city. So it's not the Heart of Avalir. So the question is this, if they are under attack, which of them are you going to?

SAM: Oh, Jesus.

SAM and

LUIS: There's 12 places?

TRAVIS: How is the city configured? Like around the edges or period--

BRENNAN: There is one, honestly, a Dimension Door would get you to the nearest one. Right?

SAM: But that's just one of 12.

BRENNAN: There's one in Dawnsledge. Effectively... Here's the thing, and I'll say, Laerryn, no roll necessary. Any of these going down is very bad, but that doesn't mean it's a wash and they should just all go down. So, any one you can save is great but-- to put it another way leaving this battle is absolutely a choice. You may be able to save one, maybe you'll be able to save two of them if they're under attack, right? But it is a matter of preventing something... It's preventing something from being marginally worse than it otherwise would've been. Right? There's a certain amount of this which is like... Even if you save two of them, the other 10 it's got to be up to the people who are there.

AABRIA: Yeah. I communicate that via the telepathic bond.

MARISHA: Just quickly as we're trying to quickly brainstorm. Laerryn, is there some sort of override? Is there something that we can do, think a little bit above.

TRAVIS: We haven't even gone in the helm yet, right?

MARISHA: No.

SAM: We need to get--

TRAVIS: They are heavy here, though. I'm just saying like-- I know they're attacking it everywhere else but they were heavy here.

MARISHA: I'm trying to predict where they're going next. I don't care where they're attacking now. They're clearly... This is an orchestrated plan that has been going on under our noses for god knows how long. So, what's their next move?

TRAVIS: There's nothing in the helm that we can fix at this point. No steer, no nothing, we haven't even gone in there.

AABRIA: Yeah.

BRENNAN: You haven't even gone in there yet. You don't know.

TRAVIS: I mean, is there anything in there that matters?

MARISHA: Where did we hear your girl die?

AABRIA and

TRAVIS: In here.

LUIS: Right in there, yeah.

TRAVIS: We just haven't gotten there, yet.

AABRIA: We never got to her.

MARISHA: We've never gotten to her.

AABRIA: A big beefy boy came out? She's done.

LUIS: Yeah, no, she's--

AABRIA: I'm happy to say that she's probably dead.

LUIS: She's very dead. The... The information that we both got was basically telling us that the same place was being under attack, right? You weren't given a different location than I was given.

It was the same--

BRENNAN: No, it was basically the two reports. It's like, "Hey, they're breaking our shit. Let's tell the person who stops bad things from happening. Let's tell the person whose shit it is."

AABRIA: Yeah.

LUIS: Got it.

AABRIA: Do we know it's simultaneous attacks on all 12 batteries?

BRENNAN: You not only know it's simultaneous attacks on all 12 batteries, you also know that it had to have been timed with the end of the fireworks.

TRAVIS: Because we're with the Architect Arcane, if that has been sabotaged, do we know would she be able to do anything? If it's just wrecked--

BRENNAN: You would know what to do with the Ley-Rudder. You're a mechanic. You know engines and that's the steering wheel, and the navigators are really proprietary about that stuff.

TRAVIS: (exhales)

BRENNAN: You could do something about it--

AABRIA: Yeah.

BRENNAN: But it's like, they specifically are like, "Okay yes, you take care of the engine, but, ha, ha, ha."

TRAVIS: This is our jam.

LUIS: Fuck.

BRENNAN: This is our jam.

TRAVIS: If I tell you about it,

we're out of a job.

BRENNAN: Yes, exactly.

TRAVIS: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Share, people!

AABRIA: Do I have an understanding of what that 30% draw would correspond to specifically with the batteries?

BRENNAN: No idea. It's the Calix.

No idea.

AABRIA: Stupid fucking Calix. Asking stupid fucking--

BRENNAN: But what I will say here too, is this, because as you're asking-- because it's Loquatius' turn right now. So what I will say here is this, looking at the state of play in front of you, you have a lot of questions.

LUIS: Yes.

BRENNAN: Of people here with answers, it's a small list. It's not the i, right? But people with answers, it's a small list. On top of that, anyone who wants to, give me an insight check.

TRAVIS: Yeah, I'll take you--

BRENNAN: Go for it.

LOU: I also might-- I'm going to have to--

TRAVIS: I'm going to use advantage.

MARISHA: Mm!

LUIS: Come on. Come on.

SAM: 23 over here.

LOU: 18. On two people I'm stabbing.

TRAVIS: 32.

BRENNAN: 32. Over the telepathic bond, Cerrit, the fear that this is a distraction, I think you would rule that out on a 32. It's not a distraction. It's just other shit they want to do.

It's part of the play.

TRAVIS: Yeah. Not a distraction. I communicate.

SAM: All that said, I guess I'm just going to pick a target and shoot.

MARISHA: Okay! SAM and

MARISHA: (laugh)

SAM: So I will look up at Miles' friend and I will--

(laughter)

SAM: In fact, no, I won't even look at him. I will look away from him dramatically and just say: Milus Phren. Because the spell works even if I just utter their name.

(laughs)

TRAVIS: Yo.

SAM: But I'll also do it while looking at them because that's not his real name. It's Psychic Lance, and I will throw an invisible lance of brain pain up at them.

TRAVIS: Brain pain.

SAM: Intelligence 18 to save.

BRENNAN: Oh my god. Intelligence 18?

SAM: Mm-hmm.

BRENNAN: I'll be friendly. This devil has advantage against magical effects. However, intelligence is one of the only saves he's not proficient in.

TRAVIS: (laughs)

AABRIA: Amazing.

BRENNAN: So the DC is 18? He needs a 17 or higher

on one of these two dice.

LUIS: No way, come on, baby.

BRENNAN: 16 and 11!

(cheering)

BRENNAN: Go for it. Full damage, roll it out.

MARISHA: Oh my god.

BRENNAN: Here we go.

TRAVIS: (laughs) On the edge!

BRENNAN: On the edge.

LOU: Do you need more sixes?

AABRIA: Yeah, how many do you need?

SAM: It's not crazy. I'm just a--

LOU: Seven?

SAM: Seven is good. Yeah, this is six. Roll one twice. Very good. 10, 20. (laughter)

TRAVIS: Way to go!

LOU: Those are my boys!

SAM: 28.

28 points.

LOU: Those are my boys.

SAM: Of psychic damage and--

BRENNAN: 28?

SAM: 28 points of psychic damage.

TRAVIS: And you rolled an extra one?

SAM: I did. And it becomes incapacitated--

LUIS: Oh my goodness.

SAM: -- until the start of my next turn.

AABRIA: Let's go.

LUIS: Nice.

BRENNAN: Oh my god. Yeah, he falls. He absolutely falls.

SAM: Is gravity off? Is gravity on?

BRENNAN: No, they flew out of the well. So, I'm going to say, not only does he take that titanic amount of damage. Loquatius, you look up, hold up your hand in your mind. It's a psychic spell. All of you watch Loquatius' face momentarily become the front of a ring of faces all around a halo of faces, (revving) and you send a spiraling ring of faces, (whoom). This fiend up in the air goes, "(yells)" and you see his face twist to the side and you hear a crack as his neck, like a muscle spasm in his neck. He is fully incapacitated. His eyes roll back into his head. He falls. Go ahead and roll me 5d6 falling damage.

SAM: Oh!

AABRIA: Let's go!

LOU: Are we coming all the way down?

BRENNAN: You're coming all the way down, baby. Let's go!

LUIS: Okay.

TRAVIS: He's like--

AABRIA: Ride him down!

BRENNAN: Give me a dex save.

LOU: Oh my god.

So many dex saves.

SAM: Oh wow. Four sixes and a three.

BRENNAN: Oh wow!

AABRIA: Oh my god!

SAM: That's 27 points.

BRENNAN: (incredulously) 27?

MARISHA: You're falling?

LOU: I'm falling, yes.

SAM: Right? Four sixes--

MARISHA: Feather Fall.

TRAVIS: Yeah.

LOU: Ah, thank god.

SAM: Four times six is 24--

LOU: Because I rolled a four.

BRENNAN: Feather Fall, incredible. Patia, you (whips air). Nydas, you begin... Lacrytia makes her save, but you watch as this massive devil (crashes) falls. Now normally it would take only half damage, but Avalir is incredibly enchanted, bypasses the resistance, the streets themselves are magic in the Age of Arcanum and this devil takes a walloping amount of damage.

Hell, yes, Herald of Avalir.

TRAVIS: Literally.

BRENNAN: Okay. Any bonus actions?

SAM: I'm running low on inspiration, but we're we're doing stuff.

LUIS: Yeah. We're doing okay. We're good.

SAM: I'll save inspiration. Just bonus action, I'll just say: This is Loquatius Seelie saying: Seelie you later! (laughter) (clapping)

BRENNAN: Unbelievable.

SAM: I don't have disengage because I'm not a rogue, and I can't bonus action Misty Step because I've already done a spell. So... I've still got two dudes in front of me, right?

BRENNAN: Yes, one guy is coming out of the Haste lethargy, so you've got a very injured guy right in front of you.

MARISHA: Then who's this purple guy?

SAM: Is the purple guy--

BRENNAN: Oh, that's a K'nauthi who's charging at you.

SAM: Has he reached melee range yet, or can I run away?

BRENNAN: He has not reached melee range. You can run away.

SAM: Okay. I will run away towards the girls.

MARISHA: Woo hoo! (laughs)

LUIS: Aah!

TRAVIS: (laughs)

BRENNAN: Incredible. What have I done?

LUIS: What have I done?

BRENNAN: Amazing. Okay, Nydas is feather falling.

MARISHA: She's next.

BRENNAN: Actually, I think you just probably land safely on the ground.

LOU: Yeah, I would like to land on him.

BRENNAN: Cool, hell yeah.

Amazing.

SAM: Oh, wait!

LUIS: You have something?

SAM: Nope, nothing.

AABRIA: (laughs)

BRENNAN: Incredible act of magic from the Herald of Avalir.

AABRIA: Let's go!

BRENNAN: Next, it's going to be Lacrytia Hollow.

MARISHA: (whispers) Extra action.

SAM: Hey, can you move me 30 feet towards the girls?

LOU: (whispers) I don't know how much 30 feet is.

SAM: You've played D&D before.

LOU: But you don't have boxes.

SAM: You can guess!

BRENNAN: Loquatius, you rush 30 feet towards the girls. And... Patia.

MARISHA: What?

BRENNAN: I'm going to need a constitution saving throw from you.

MARISHA: No!

AABRIA: What's happening?

MARISHA: I just used my reaction to save Nydas!

AABRIA: What's happening, Brennan?

BRENNAN: Our friend-- hold on one second. Oh yes, yes, yes.

AABRIA: Yeah.

BRENNAN: She's got to get within 60 feet, which she is. She's firing off a powerful necromantic spell.

AABRIA: No, she's not. Counterspell.

MARISHA: (yells)

TRAVIS: What?

BRENNAN: You got to give me the level.

AABRIA: Level three. I'll roll for it.

BRENNAN: Okay.

AABRIA: Counterspell's abjuration. I get to add my proficiency back on top of the ability check when I roll for this.

BRENNAN: Copy that.

LOU: We love

to see it.

AABRIA: This is my city.

BRENNAN: Now, she's going for your Counterspell. Give me the level you're casting it at again,

one more time?

AABRIA: Three.

BRENNAN: 3rd-level Counterspell. So, she's coming for you. DC is 13, it's a 3rd-level spell, and she is adding plus four. So a nine or higher, your Counterspell gets Counterspelled by her.

AABRIA: Okay. Counterspell is a counter--

SAM: Wait, so we want a nine or higher, or we don't want--

BRENNAN: You want an eight or lower.

SAM: Okay.

TRAVIS: That's big odds.

AABRIA: Die, roll low, please!

LUIS: Can you Counterspell a Counterspell?

SAM: Yes.

AAABRIA: Yeah.

BRENNAN: Four! (cheering)

(cheering)

BRENNAN: Four, baby!

LOU: Oh, baby! That's what we like to see! (laughter)

LOU: That's the juice! Put that in the damn engine!

BRENNAN: Lacrytia Hollow... Lacrytia Hollow throws a 7th-level Finger of Death your way.

TRAVIS: Holy shit.

MARISHA: Necromancers.

TRAVIS: Them was curtains.

BRENNAN: Which would have... Yeah, that would've been quite bad. Laerryn, what does it look like when instead of that spell happening something else happens instead?

AABRIA: I think another one of her sigils just appears under her feet as she's just marking this place. It's her city, and she just reaches up and grabs, and a little dome of gold that's her magic lights up as her eyes flare and she just grabs the Finger of Death. I think it feels like a squeeze and goes: Not in my city!

BRENNAN: The Finger of Death, in the palm of your mighty hand, (energy flare) turns into raw ether and goes into a little battery on your belt. (exclaiming)

(laughter)

AABRIA: (sniffs) (yells)

TRAVIS: Low number?

AABRIA: Yeah!

TRAVIS: Need warm up?

BRENNAN: Okay.

TRAVIS: Need some of that heat.

MARISHA: Patia's just sweating because she's like, she's dual fisting it, speeding up Zerxus and slowing down Nydas at the same time. So I'd just say: You are my best fucking friend. (laughter)

AABRIA: I love you, bitch, I got to save my engine. (laughter)

BRENNAN: Once again, she wants an 11 or higher here.

AABRIA: Please no, please no, please no.

BRENNAN: 11, she vanishes.

SAM: Wait,

what was that?

LUIS: A spell.

SAM: Can I Silvery Barbs that?

MARISHA: ♪ Silvery Barbs ♪

BRENNAN: Can you?

AABRIA: Yeah, you can, when you see her succeed. That is the triggering effect--

SAM: The attack roll, ability check, or saving throw.

BRENNAN and

SAM: It is not none of those. It is none of those things.

LUIS: Okay. Can that be Counterspelled?

BRENNAN: Unfortunately not, because it is an effect of a spell that has already been cast.

LUIS: A-ha.

TRAVIS: Yeah. Something that's going off at the end of each returns.

MARISHA: Yes.

TRAVIS: Blink or, what's another one?

MARISHA: The one where--

BRENNAN: Zerxus, that's you.

LUIS: Okay. Damn. All right, all right, all right. Okay, so, I got this guy here, I got that guy there, and I got that guy prone over there, and he is big and bad next to my friend. So--

TRAVIS: I'm also prone, smash his face, thank you.

LUIS: Yep, yep, yep.

AABRIA: Do a hurt, please!

LUIS: So from what I recall, this flying fiend that's right in front of me tried to attack me, but then they said something to me, the one that's right next to me?

BRENNAN: Yeah, the erinyes.

LUIS: What did she say?

BRENNAN: Beautiful. She said it's beautiful.

SAM: Oh.

BRENNAN: Watching--

AABRIA: (laughs)

MARISHA: He's like, "Oh well."

AABRIA: Oh my god.

SAM: Say it again? MARISHA and

AABRIA: (laugh)

LUIS: I'm sorry. I didn't hear. What's that? Can you say it slower with a deeper-- (laughter)

LUIS: So I turn to her. I'm Hasted. I turn to her. She didn't do shit. So I turned to her, and I look her in the eyes and I say: This is not the deal. You tell your lord to stand down. The people here were not to be harmed. I zip right past her. I'll take an opportunity attack if she wants to try.

BRENNAN: Give me a persuasion check. We'll have it be a straight roll.

TRAVIS: "This was not the deal" out loud, friends.

LOU: The deal?

MARISHA: Over our head pieces we're like,

"What the fuck did you just say?"

LUIS: 14... Oh, wait, no I-- Oh, I did use it. I did use it. 14.

BRENNAN: 14. You tell--

LUIS: Oh. No, no, I'm sorry.

19.

BRENNAN: 19? On a 19, she responds to you, again, in Infernal, which you somehow can understand, and you see, she looks at you and says, "Bring him and we will honor this agreement."

LUIS: He's not asking you to do this. He's not-- Hmm. I'm coming back for you in a second.

I just, fly away.

BRENNAN: (laughs)

AABRIA: Are they flirting?

LUIS: I'm flying down.

AABRIA: What's happening?

LUIS: And striking him.

TRAVIS: Is she saying that in Common or is she saying that in Infernal?

BRENNAN: Infernal.

LUIS: That was Infernal.

TRAVIS: Was he speaking Infernal?

BRENNAN: I think if you did not pick a language, you were also speaking Infernal. I think everyone here saw Zerxus speak a language that you have never

heard him speak before.

TRAVIS: That changed.

BRENNAN: But it's still...

TRAVIS: I mean, if he's going (deeply) "OshKosh B'Gosh."

SAM, AABRIA, and

BRENNAN: (laugh)

TRAVIS: It's not the same as going like, "This was not the deal!"

BRENNAN: Yeah. Yeah. Luis, I'll leave it up to you. Do you think you were speaking Common or do you think you would've been responding in the language that they had been speaking to you?

LUIS: I think I would've... I think I would've thought I was speaking in Common, but then would been completely unaware of the fact that I spoke in Infernal.

BRENNAN: Yeah. Absolutely.

TRAVIS: Ugh. Also not good.

BRENNAN: (laughs)

MARISHA: Yeah, yeah.

TRAVIS: But less revealing.

MARISHA: Still like: Did you know he took Latin?

TRAVIS: Also not great.

MARISHA: Like that.

LUIS: He just does he mumbled, what is he mumbling about.

TRAVIS: Did he just call himself Legion?

MARISHA: Yeah, yeah.

LUIS: All right, so I'm attacking Miles' friend?

BRENNAN: Yes, attacking Miles' friend.

LUIS: With advantage? Did she take attack of opportunities on me?

BRENNAN: No, she didn't.

AABRIA: Oh my god, she

likes you like you!

SAM: She loves you.

LUIS: 29 to hit.

BRENNAN: Yeah, 29 will do it.

Yeah, for sure.

LUIS: Okay, so weapon, Smite.

This is a fiend?

BRENNAN: Yes, this is a fiend.

LUIS: So I get extra that. Oh! My Holy Avenger just crackles with divine energy.

TRAVIS: Yo, you've got a Holy Avenger?

LUIS: Yes, I do. As I swing it and it makes contact with him, the sword automatically bursts into three times its size.

So that is...

LOU: Full Buster.

(laughter)

LUIS: So that's just that.

TRAVIS: Oh my.

SAM: Oh my.

TRAVIS: Again, the rest of our clothes fall off. Whatever was hanging on before.

LUIS: I'm burning a level one spell slot, so that's one, two, three, four. It's a fiend. Wait, so if it's a fiend, does it automatically take double damage of mine? No, no. It's just my Improved Divine Smite.

BRENNAN: Mm-hmm.

LUIS: Okay, this is what he gets. So that's my weapon damage. My weapon damage, just the regular, so not radiant, is going to be 18. So that is just the normal weapon.

BRENNAN: Hell yeah.

LUIS: Slashing. What is radiant is 15...

MARISHA: Jeez.

LUIS: 19, 21...

MARISHA: Jeez Luis!

LUIS: 25.

LOU: Jeez Luis.

AABRIA: This is why we always say that the monster's in us.

LUIS: 30 radiant.

BRENNAN: 30 radiant. Incredible. Badly injured as you-- Again, on this incapacitated foe, bam! That's your first attack.

LUIS: That's my first attack. I'm going to do it again.

BRENNAN: Go for it.

SAM: He's Hasted.

AABRIA: Don't forget you're Hasted!

LUIS: I'm Hasted, yeah. So I'm going to get four attacks.

MARISHA: You get two attacks.

BRENNAN: Well, I think, no. Haste is just one additional. So it's two from extra attack, and then a third.

LUIS: Is it an action?

BRENNAN: It is a normal action, but it specifies a single weapon attack.

LUIS: Gotcha. Perfect.

Okay.

TRAVIS: You're rolling with advantage on these hits right?

LUIS: All of them.

TRAVIS: Okay.

LUIS: Yeah. That's another hit. I'm going to do... I'm not going to burn another spell slot. So this is going to be weapon, Improved Divine Smite, and Holy Weapon. So this is going to be 19 slashing damage.

BRENNAN: Okay.

LUIS: Then nine, 10, 18 radiant.

AABRIA: Let's go!

TRAVIS: ♪ Stay away from the paladin ♪

BRENNAN: He's still up.

AABRIA: Oh my god!

SAM: You have one more attack.

LUIS: I got one more attack.

BRENNAN: You have more attack. Let's see it.

AABRIA: Finish him!

MARISHA: Come on! Come on! Howdy doo-dee doo-dees.

LUIS: Hits.

AABRIA: (laughs)

LUIS: I'm going to burn one level one.

AABRIA: Let's go.

LUIS: So... (breathes heavily) So much stuff. All right. So this is weapon, Improved, and okay.

SAM: That's a lot of dice there, friend.

LUIS: So for the weapon-- I know. Mm-hmm. For the weapon, it's 14 slashing.

BRENNAN: Mm-hmm.

LUIS: For the radiant damage it is 15, 20. 28. 34 radiant damage.

BRENNAN: You know, I've always wanted to do this.

AABRIA: (laughs)

BRENNAN: Hey, Luis.

LUIS: Yes.

BRENNAN: How do you want to do this? (cheering)

AABRIA: Let's go.

LUIS: Tempus is just swooping, like a bird that's just swooping down and down, up and around. Wow, this is so much adrenaline. (laughter)

AABRIA: That's honest. That's fair.

LUIS: I swing once and you see this burst of this sword just cut through him, and then again, cutting through him again. Then the last one, I just swing it around and you see Zerxus twirl that sword, and then bring it right down, right into his chest as this divine energy just pulses into him and then just (explosions) surging out of his body into a blast out into the ground.

TRAVIS: Yeah!

AABRIA: Amazing!

LUIS: Eyes light up and turn into stars as he just screams in pain.

BRENNAN: All of you watch Zerxus. The edge, the corona of this aura around him, these red, hellish sparks, but in the center of it, it is exactly as Luis described. Stars. It's something deep from beyond. Some powerful divinity. Zerxus, you feel a part of you go out farther than you've ever felt before. You, for a moment feel a breath, (whispers) "Zerxus." And it fades.

LUIS: Can I do an insight check on that breath?

BRENNAN: Do an insight check.

LUIS: I want to know if it was--

SAM: Breath check.

LUIS: -- disappointed or relieved or--

MARISHA: Proud.

LUIS: -- proud. Yes. Any of that. Come on, baby, roll good. No. I mean, I'm so shocked at that. It's just a 12.

BRENNAN: It's a voice. The noise, everything around, you could swear... You were so deep in that moment, in that rage, in smiting this thing, it's ringing in your head, but it's the horrifying feeling of something on the tip of your tongue. Before you can-- It's like trying to remember a dream upon waking if you don't have a journal next to your bed. For a moment, you have it, and it's gone, but it sounded proud.

AABRIA: Oh!

LUIS: I still have movement.

BRENNAN: Yeah. Go for it.

LUIS: So with that, not even taking a moment to relish in what I just did, I immediately go right back up to her and stare her down.

BRENNAN: Amazing. You rise back up to face the erinyes above you. Following your turn, it is going to be the erinyes and she's going to go for it again. Here we go.

TRAVIS: Are her clothes on as well still?

AABRIA: (laughs) Nah.

TRAVIS: I feel like we all just (blasts)

AABRIA: Oh my god.

MARISHA: (laughs)

AABRIA: Beautiful.

TRAVIS and

MARISHA: (laugh)

BRENNAN: I'm going to need a constitution saving throw from you.

LUIS: Okay, and this is not a spell or a magical effect?

BRENNAN: Nope.

LUIS: Con save. That is a 24.

BRENNAN: 24 succeeds--

LUIS: Ooh, wait. I'm sorry.

TRAVIS: You get advantage on that?

LUIS: I don't get advantage on that. Oh no. Oh yeah, no, I don't. Fuck, let me roll that again.

BRENNAN: For sure.

LUIS: Sorry.

BRENNAN: All good.

LUIS: Advantage against it.

TRAVIS: I mean, everything was advantage that last turn. I don't blame him. I get two of these.

LUIS: Well.

SAM: Even better.

LUIS: Even better. Yeah. So 26.

MARISHA: Damn.

BRENNAN: Incredible. 16, 20... You take 28 points of damage.

LUIS: Okay!

BRENNAN: Even with that disadvantage, you see her going (yells) and finally she hunkers down. Again, all of you are watching him on this starlight griffon. I think at this point, Zerxus, your eyes are full void, reflecting starlight. Your eyes are the pool you saw in your dream this morning. The pool that your son was fishing in.

LUIS: Fuck. That was this morning.

BRENNAN: (laughs)

SAM: What a day! (laughter)

BRENNAN: She looks down and says, "We must deliver to have our agreements honored." For, again, 28 points of damage, she comes through and just goes under the pauldron of your armor. Pulls back out and looks at the blood here on it.

TRAVIS: Oh, all the guys had cuts!

BRENNAN: She flies straight up. She goes 60 feet and you get an opportunity attack.

MARISHA: Come on! Come on!

LUIS: Oh, and she is not large, right?

BRENNAN: Nope. Medium.

LUIS: Okay. So I still get advantage on her.

MARISHA: Damn it.

LUIS: That hopefully is it.

SAM: That's cocked.

LUIS: This is cocked. If the jury says it's cocked, I get to reroll?

BRENNAN: Yeah, reroll. Yeah, you're good.

LUIS: I do what Sam says. (laughter) This is a 20... It's a 34 to hit.

BRENNAN: That's going to hit for sure. Woo!

MARISHA: You wouldn't happen to have the Sentinel feat or anything?

LUIS: I'm a defense.

MARISHA: Keep her here?

SAM: Chop off one of her wings.

LUIS: Fuck.

MARISHA: Yeah!

LUIS: ♪ I don't want ♪

♪ You leaving with blood ♪

MARISHA: She just spins in circles.

SAM: "I'm fine!"

LUIS: Okay. (laughter)

Oh man.

SAM: Uh-oh!

LUIS: I don't have any spell slots! I'm going to burn a-- You know what, I'm not, because she's getting away. I'm not going to be able to keep her here.

So I'm just taking a swipe.

TRAVIS: Not with that attitude.

LUIS: I know, right? So here's my normal. She's a fiend. So I get this, weapon, Improved Divine Smite.

SAM: You want to just drop it by accident?

LUIS: Dang! I've been rolling real good until this. So the weapon attack is 13 slashing.

BRENNAN: Okay.

LUIS: Then four, 10, 11 radiant damage.

BRENNAN: 11 radiant. You slash. She screams out in pain and exaltation, feeling honored by the strike.

TRAVIS: Ooh.

AABRIA: Ooh!

BRENNAN: She turns to look at you and says, "Remember my name. Xartaza."

SAM and

LUIS: Xartaza.

BRENNAN: She says, "It will be an honor to serve you."

TRAVIS: Oh!

BRENNAN: And she flies away.

TRAVIS: In Infernal, right?

BRENNAN: In Infernal!

AABRIA: Beans! (laughter)

BRENNAN: I believe that's your turn, right?

LUIS: Yes.

BRENNAN: Yep.

LUIS: Yeah, because that was her turn.

BRENNAN: That was her turn, yeah. You got the swing on her and she left and now she's 60 feet up, straight up into the air. Okay. Avalirian mages, you hear the noise behind you, a Dimension Door opening and closing.

TRAVIS: Yep, they out.

BRENNAN: And of those K'nauthi behind you, you can hear them running away. From there, you... Boom. These two are in down--

AABRIA: Aren't they up in the air?

BRENNAN: Hmm?

These guys?

AABRIA: Yeah.

BRENNAN: Oh yes! They are up in the air! So you see, this guy's actually going to Misty Step out of the way. Yeah, he's 100 feet up, though. Let me see what these guys can--

AABRIA: How far can he move?

BRENNAN: Actually, both of those guys up there are going to drop their Greater Invisibility and are going to go fly.

AABRIA: Ah, yeah. Well.

BRENNAN: So, some more mages are going to rock up.

Fly.

SAM: Are we still in this fight? Are they running or are they flying?

LUIS: This is still the first round.

BRENNAN: This is still the first round, and are going to rush down right-- Yeah, I'm going to have them come down right here. Boom, boom. Okay. The K'nauthi are up in the air and can't do shit. This guy's going to rush forward for Loquatius.

LOU: Thirsty.

BRENNAN: Thirsty? And misses with an attack roll. His Spiritual Weapon hits on a nat 20.

SAM: I'll have him reroll that.

BRENNAN: Oh shit, okay!

SAM: Silvery Barbs.

MARISHA: ♪ Silvery Barbs ♪

BRENNAN: And he misses! There you go.

AABRIA: Who do you give advantage to?

SAM: Oh. I get to send advantage

to somebody else?

AABRIA: It's one of each, yeah.

SAM: I turn to my ex-wife and send it to--

AABRIA: Yeah. (laughter)

AABRIA: Correct.

BRENNAN: Laerryn, that is your turn.

AABRIA: Yeah, perfect.

SAM: Patia.

MARISHA: Advantage on the next

roll essentially, right?

AABRIA: Perfect. Amazing.

SAM: On the next attack roll, ability check, or saving throw

within the next minute.

BRENNAN: Yeah, Laerryn,

that is your turn.

LUIS: Nice.

AABRIA: But you're running in our direction, yeah?

SAM: I am.

AABRIA: Laerryn looks up. Is it a free action to drop my concentration?

BRENNAN: Absolutely.

AABRIA: Cool. Down. I drop the Gravity Well so they can start to go into free fall, and I'm going to close the distance to you.

SAM: Oh, hi!

AABRIA: You going with me?

SAM: Where are we going? Yes!

AABRIA: We have to protect my life's work.

SAM: Oh, okay.

AABRIA: Please. I would grab his hand and cast Dimension Door.

LUIS: Oh my god.

BRENNAN: You vanish. Laerryn and Loquatius are gone. Could you roll 10d6 damage for me?

TRAVIS: Wait, I still have a question for you!

SAM: As the Dimension Door is fading, just in case, I put a sock on the doorknob. (laughter)

AABRIA: You have utterly misread the moment!

My goodness!

LOU: Just inky blackness. (laughter)

AABRIA: Oh, this could have been better.

SAM: That's a lot of ones.

AABRIA: It's a lot of ones.

♪ It's a lot of ones ♪

SAM: But not terrible.

AABRIA: 20, oh, it's 20. We know that. We understand that. 30. 40 points.

BRENNAN: Five K'nauthi hit the ground, dead.

SAM: Oh!

BRENNAN: Boom. Gone. The Architect Arcane, with that, is out. Nydas, it is your turn once more.

LOU: Okay, we are on our way out of here.

SAM: To the Heart?

AABRIA: I send it across the bond. I'm headed towards a battery.

LOU: Great. As we leave then, can I make an insight check? Who do I feel like is the most involved looking person left here?

BRENNAN: You're proficient in arcana?

LOU: Yes.

BRENNAN: It's Lacrytia, and she's not gone. She's blinking. You know exactly what she's doing.

LOU: But could I cast a spell on her? But she's not planar here. I know it's Lacrytia. Who's-- that I can see currently?

BRENNAN: You can see-- I mean, there's these two mage lieutenants here. This spellguard is at very low hit points, but has yet to act. There is one K'nauthi left, and the fiend is destroyed. There's a K'nauthi over there, one spellguard. and these two mages that have just flown down here from the top of the--

LOU: Can I make an insight check for who I think would've known the most?

BRENNAN: Probably one of the mages.

LOU: Okay, great. I think I'm going to Quicken Spell. My hope is to Quicken Spell Detect Thoughts, use my action to probe deeper to understand what is currently happening as far as this person understands

their plans.

BRENNAN: Their mission?

LOU and

BRENNAN: Yes.

BRENNAN: Give me a--

LOU: DC 18 wisdom saving throw.

BRENNAN: That is a failure.

LOU: I think Nydas sees that we are leaving here and is desperate, somewhat scared, but desperate to feel like we have any idea what we are up against.

BRENNAN: Yeah. I'm going to say that you just probe into his mind, download as much as you can, and then come back to battle consciousness with basically a gleaming thread of memories in your mind for you to visit, not when you are in the middle

of a life or death situation.

LOU: Great, then I just reach my hand up and ready movement to join. (laughs) I'm going to assume that Tempus

is going to come and get me.

BRENNAN: Amazing. You reach your hand up. That is Nydas' turn. Patia, that's you.

MARISHA: Oh, shit! Oh, shit, it's me. Oh god, okay. Where is Lacrytia?

BRENNAN: Huh?

MARISHA: Where's Lacrytia?

BRENNAN: Lacrytia blinked out again.

MARISHA: Okay, so I still can't see this bitch.

TRAVIS: Winged demon chick's out, right?

LUIS: Well, she's 60 feet above me.

TRAVIS: Oh, oh, she's high, high up. But she took off, she's exiting, okay.

LUIS: But I can catch her.

AABRIA: Okay.

MARISHA: (groans) I want Lacrytia.

TRAVIS: I mean, yeah.

MARISHA: I'll hold a spell, how about that?

AABRIA: I'm just yelling, battery.

BRENNAN: Yeah, a readied action is fine. What spell do you want to ready?

MARISHA: Otiluke's Resilient Sphere.

BRENNAN: Hell yeah, yes, love it. Love it.

MARISHA: I'm going to, because I'm not sure where she is, where she's going to be, so I'm going to very calmly, still-looking fabulous, just walk to the center of the battlefield, completely vulnerable, and I just wait. You see my orb around me pulsing as I'm holding this spell.

BRENNAN: Incredible. Okay. You ready your action. That is Patia's turn. This spellguard is going to rush towards Nydas.

SAM: No!

BRENNAN: He's going to--

SAM: How are you doing, Nydas?

LOU: Great. I've never been hit, or I've never lost more than--

AABRIA: Your temp HP?

LOU: Exactly.

AABRIA: Beautiful.

TRAVIS: Where is Lacrytia? Where is she?

MARISHA: She just blinked out.

TRAVIS: That fuck!

BRENNAN: He is going to cast Haste again on himself and somehow still make two attacks. You see, he leaps forward, is going to make two attacks against you. What's your current armor class? 24, right?

LOU: No, we were back down to 18. No, I'm not going to Shield. We're good, 18.

BRENNAN: He rushes towards you, and you guys see Nydas has been fighting dragons and demons. A guy with a fucking sword, clink, clink, clink, clink! You bat the sword out of his hand, drop him on his shield. He gets nowhere close to hitting you.

LUIS: Nice.

TRAVIS: Oh wow.

BRENNAN: That is going to be-- Cerrit, that's you.

TRAVIS: So enemies that are on the board, the spell--

BRENNAN: Your situation has rapidly improved, right? A lot of big threats went down in the last round. One K'nauthi, two mages, one spellguard, and a blinked out Lacrytia Hollow. That's five combatants left in this fight. The erinyes is flying away up above you.

TRAVIS: God, I want to know what's going on in the helm. (breathes heavily) We got to take care of these guys, though, right? I'm not 100 feet from the helm entrance, am I?

BRENNAN: 100 from the helm entrance?

TRAVIS: Yeah.

BRENNAN: You are.

TRAVIS: I am?

BRENNAN: Yeah.

SAM: Ca-kaw! (laughs)

TRAVIS: I'm just going to wings out and double dash straight towards the helm. I want to get inside and see what the fuck happened.

BRENNAN: Faster than the wind. Boom, you look in the helm. You immediately see, no perception necessary.

SAM: Is he able to see glass, or does he just knock? (laughter)

AABRIA: He can see the grains of sand that are a mage's eyes,

but windows are fucking nuts.

BRENNAN: You see a pile of seeds in the middle of the room. (laughter)

TRAVIS: Oh no.

BRENNAN: Akami Rowe, the Helmswoman of Avalir, is on the ground, her throat slit in a pool of blood. You see above her, the apparatus of the helm itself where the city is flown from, the stone is sundered. The helm is shattered. The magical apparatus of the helm is shattered.

TRAVIS: Got it, I relay that.

BRENNAN: That is your movement and bonus action. You still have an action left, if you want it.

TRAVIS: Yeah, I'm all the way over here. You know what, though, I have a crossbow, and I'm going to take a shot at one of the remaining spell--

BRENNAN: This spellguard that's tangling with Nydas right now?

TRAVIS: Yeah, let's do that.

BRENNAN: Go for it, give me an attack roll.

TRAVIS: Oh, that's not a sneak attack because he's in league or he's in melee with Nydas, right?

BRENNAN: I think that's a 30-foot range on that.

TRAVIS: That's right, yeah.

AABRIA: Yeah.

TRAVIS: That'll be a 21 to hit.

BRENNAN: 21 hits. Go ahead and roll damage.

AABRIA: Brrah!

TRAVIS: Yeah, you take nine points of damage.

LOU: Got them.

TRAVIS: No way.

Got him.

TRAVIS: No.

BRENNAN: Hey, Travis, how do you want to do this? (cheering)

AABRIA: Let's go!

MARISHA: Age of Arcanum.

BRENNAN: Age of Arcanum.

TRAVIS: Cerrit's so disappointed at the destruction of this helm. He looks over and says: Sometimes they just line up for ya. (whooshes air and slurps) Right in through the helm.

AABRIA: Oh!

BRENNAN: Yeah.

LOU: Oh.

AABRIA: Amazing. (laughs)

LOU: Oh! (laughs)

TRAVIS: I've got my... eye on you.

LOU: What?

TRAVIS: I got my eye,

my eye on you.

BRENNAN: (booming) (booming)

TRAVIS: It was really cool! (laughter)

BRENNAN: Incredible.

MARISHA: It's too loud for noir!

LOU: There are explosions!

TRAVIS: (raspy) Ay ay, I can't project in this voice. (laughter)

BRENNAN: We will come to Loquatius' turn where you have traveled to resolve this first.

LUIS: Your genre is hard to hear.

MARISHA: (laughs)

BRENNAN: Lacrytia reappears.

SAM: (gasps)

BRENNAN: She reappears, Patia, right in front of you.

TRAVIS: Boom, kicks her in the head.

BRENNAN: Kicks her in the head.

MARISHA: Right in front of me?

BRENNAN: Right in front of you. 10 feet with Blink.

"I've always hated you."

MARISHA: (puff of air) (clamoring) Incredible Resilient Sphere. "Sphere of shimmering force encloses a creature, an unwilling creature must make a dexterity saving throw. On a failed save--"

LUIS: I love you so much.

MARISHA: My heart is pounding. My heart is pounding.

TRAVIS: Yeah, when she comes right up in your face. (laughs)

BRENNAN: Okay.

MARISHA: My god.

BRENNAN: She wants to kill you so bad. She is going to drop a Counterspell in this moment. I'm not going to tell you the level she's dropping it at, but she is dropping it nonetheless. So she's attempting to counter this Resilient Sphere.

MARISHA: Can I counter her Counterspell?

BRENNAN: Unfortunately--

MARISHA: -- be holding an action.

BRENNAN: Unfortunately, you were holding an action, right? So you're using your reaction to come in and hit her here.

LUIS: How far away is she from me?

AABRIA: I'm so sorry.

BRENNAN: What's that?

SAM: No, it's fine.

It's all good.

AABRIA: Nothing.

BRENNAN: So she's going to upcast this Counterspell. Boom, the Resilient Sphere is knocked out of your hand. (grunts)

as she does so.

LUIS: If she's within 60 feet. She's not 60 feet within me, right, Brennan?

SAM: She is.

BRENNAN: Is she within 60 feet of you?

LUIS: Of me.

BRENNAN: She is within 60 feet of you, yes.

LUIS: Would I be aware of what's happening? My focus is completely up.

BRENNAN: You have eyes on everything. You are a battle aware, yeah. First Knight.

AABRIA: You better have your head on a fucking

swivel, my guy.

BENNAN: You're within 60 feet, yeah.

TRAVIS: Thank you.

LUIS: My eyes are straight up.

BRENNAN: Yeah.

LUIS: I just sense what's happening below, and I look down and I Counterspell that Counterspell.

MARISHA: Come on, come on.

BRENNAN: Ooh, baby, okay.

AABRIA: Yeah.

BRENNAN: Go ahead. You burn the spell slot. You cast Counterspell. This is going to come down to a roll. I can let you know right now. What's your charisma?

LUIS: My charisma?

BRENNAN: What's your spell casting ability modifier?

LUIS: Oh, where'd you go? Get back here! My spell attack is plus two. My modifier is plus five.

Charisma is plus five.

BRENNAN: So Counterspell is just the ability, right?

LUIS: My modifier is five.

BRENNAN: Okay.

MARISHA: 20 charisma.

BRENNAN: So your modifier to charisma is plus five. You need to roll in 11 or higher than d20.

It's a total coin flip.

LOU: You got this.

AABRIA: Oh my goodness.

BRENNAN: It's a total coin flip, and it's going to be bad.

AABRIA: You got this, you got this.

LUIS: I don't know.

BRENNAN: There you go.

MARISHA: I don't need this stress in my life.

LUIS: 15!

BRENNAN: 15! (cheering)

BRENNAN: So she threw a 6th-level Counterspell. She did not want this to work, and instead (whooshes air), boom, from up above.

LUIS: Again, you just see this radiant image of Zerxus just pop up in a shield (whooshes air) and bust that out of her hand.

MARISHA: Patia, as she tries to dispel it, Patia quickly, reactionary yanks back her arms and almost catches the force bubble and pushes it back. (clamoring)

BRENNAN: Patia, you encircle her in this sphere. I'm going to ask, actually, for some homebrew stuff here. As you're capturing her in this sphere, this is so cool.

MARISHA: Is not Otiluke's Resilient Sphere. It's Por'co's Impenetrable Bubble.

LUIS: Yes.

AABRIA: Yeah. Proprietary. (laughter)

MARISHA: Trying to think of another 'P' and I failed.

BRENNAN: I am going to--

AABRIA: We have to rephrase it.

MARISHA: Pot. Pop.

BRENNAN: I am going to--

TRAVIS: Pooble.

BRENNAN: Hold on one second. "You mean to say bubble?"

"No, it's pooble."

AABRIA: It's a pooble.

MARISHA: P-balloon.

TRAVIS: Portia's Impenetrable Pooble.

MARISHA: We were still working out the lexicon.

BRENNAN: So I will also say this, both of the mages to either side throw Counterspells that both fail.

LUIS: Wow!

BRENNAN: They only had 3rd-level. This is a 4th-level spell. So they needed to beat it and they could not.

MARISHA: (manic laugh)

TRAVIS: Resilient Sphere!

SAM: So much wizard shit.

BRENNAN: I'm going to ask--

TRAVIS: I know.

AABRIA: It's all wizard shit, baby.

BRENNAN: The spell that Lacrytia was casting is, I think, in my mind, works so insane that you've perfectly chosen the spell to counter it. So I want an opposed arcana roll here to see how well you can oppose her with this spell.

TRAVIS: Horse shit, horse power.

BRENNAN: So she's adding a plus seven to this roll for her arcana, and I'm going to roll in front of the board and see what she gets.

SAM: Whoa, whoa, whoa.

BRENNAN: It's a 17. So if you can beat a 17 arcana, something is going to happen.

MARISHA: Okay, my arcana is a plus 10, and I have an advantage

thanks to Silvery Barbs.

SAM: Silvery Barbs.

LOU: It was all meant to be.

MARISHA: So I need, realistically, an eight plus on one of these. A Natural 19!

AABRIA: Woo!

TRAVIS: Let's go!

AABRIA: Yes!

BRENNAN: The spell--

MARISHA: Was it a Disintegrate or something?

BRENNAN: No, this is why Resilient Sphere is such a perfect choice. The spell that was coming your way and Nydas' way and Zerxus' way was Circle of Death.

AABRIA: Oh my god.

TRAVIS: What is it?

BRENNAN: A 60-foot radius sphere of necromantic energy, 8d6 necrotic damage to everybody within that. She was about to-- Even her own. It would've killed both of her mages. It would've killed all of her followers here. Now, in my mind, something that deals 8d6 necrotic damage, if it goes out for 60 feet, how much damage would it deal? (collapsed sound)

So she goes--

MARISHA: A black cloud enwrapped in the bubble. So she goes, "I've always hated you." (whooshes) You (whooshes air) scintillating blue energy. The blue of brumestone.

MARISHA: Yes.

BRENNAN: (energy whoosh) (screams and growls) Withering her own skin, (screams). The spell escapes and recurses and recurses and recurses, and she drops to the floor. I will say this, Patia, I leave it up to you because on a 19 plus 10 is a 29 arcana check. Do you want her dead or incapacitated?

AABRIA: Let's go. We just dutch ovened-- Dutch ovened her with her own necromancy.

LUIS: (laughs)

MARISHA: My original intent was to keep her alive so we could get information from her, but this is pretty fabulous.

LOU: I've got some stuff.

MARISHA: You've got some stuff.

LOU: I've got some stuff.

LUIS: Download complete.

LOU: I pulled some mems.

LUIS: Some mems.

AABRIA: (laughs)

MARISHA: Okay. That's right, you did your Detect Thoughts shit. Then you know what? She did it to her own damn self.

BRENNAN: (laughs)

MARISHA: Patia, as she like crushes in, and you see the runic glow of the brumestone that mirrors and the brumestone around her necklace flashes as she crushes in. She just goes: Oh. I didn't get a chance to tell her that I've always hated her, too. That's it.

BRENNAN: (growls) A withered skeleton collapses into dust on the ground.

MARISHA: I just bounce the ball a little bit, letting her skeleton rattle around inside.

BRENNAN: The last of the K'nauth, or this final K'nauth begins to flee. It is trivial for you to prevent him from doing that. Both of the mages to either side kneel in surrender.

LOU: I walk up and stab them both in the heart. (laughter)

BRENNAN: (grunts) Traitors to Avalir.

MARISHA: Uh-huh!

BRENNAN: Hey, mutiny has only one punishment.

SAM: Oh god.

BRENNAN: With that, we're going to take our break. (laughter)

TRAVIS: What kind of a prank is this?

SAM: So much magic!

Part II
BRENNAN: If you think that anything other than Dutch oven and Wesley Snipes got said moments before rolling, then you're not correct.

LOU: Who said it?

TRAVIS: You'll never know. You'll never know.

BRENNAN: We return to the Heart of Avalir the center, the Meridian labyrinth, massive crystal engine (electrical humming). The center of the Levitational Corona, equidistant from all of the major spell engines, Laerryn and Loquatius, you appear here having teleported from combat, and correct me if I'm wrong, you were going straight to the Heart, correct? Or were you going to one of the Eldritch Batteries?

AABRIA: Battery.

BRENNAN: Okay. Both of you arrive at this nearby Eldritch Battery. I will say that your mere presence here, having just come from pitched combat, you arrive, each of you may feel free to mark down a spell slot somewhere in the middle of your spell slot range and absolutely take care of the pack of k'nauthi viciously attacking the Eldritch Battery here.

SAM: Oh! Oh okay. Okay.

BRENNAN: You arrive and are able to fully defend this Eldritch Battery here. We do not need to run it. These attacks, you can see, do not pack the same power as the one you were just facing above in Dawnsledge. Your mere presence here and the spending of a spell slot.

SAM: I just beat them with Faerie Fire guys. (laughter)

AABRIA: Incredible.

SAM: Faerie Fired them and their heads exploded. (laughter)

MARISHA: What's in that glitter? (laughter)

AABRIA: Got that good glitter.

BRENNAN: That-- you have-- You have permanently saved this one here with that time. We are going to roll for the other Eldritch Batteries.

MARISHA: See how many we get?

BRENNAN: See how many you get.

MARISHA: I like it.

AABRIA: Oh my. Don't you kill my batteries.

BRENNAN: The city has 12. You've just protected one. So one of yours is going to be an automatic success.

AABRIA: Okay.

BRENNAN: I wanted to go around and have everybody roll. The difficulty of the roll is 20, but you are adding your highest-- You are adding basically a plus 14 to the roll. So on a six or higher, you successfully save the battery. The bad thing is if we have two batteries go in a row. That's the bad situation.

LOU: So you're putting this on us. Like we each are rolling for a battery and if two of us mess up, then they're the bad people.

TRAVIS: But it's always-- you know, it's got to be a six

or lower, which should be easy.

LOU: It's got to be a six. We should all be able to roll a six.

AABRIA: Let me be very clear. If you break one of my batteries, I, Aabria, will slap you. We're at a table. I can reach you.

BRENNAN: I'm just farming out some dice rolling, otherwise I'm going to roll 12 times in a row

behind the screen.

TRAVIS: That's all.

BRENNAN: Or 11 times in a row, I should say.

MARISHA: Let's do that.

SAM: So we each roll twice?

BRENNAN: Everybody rolls. We'll go around and

announce them.

TRAVIS: Oh boy.

BRENNAN: Lou, do you want to roll twice for me? You just need a six or higher on both.

LOU: Okay.

TRAVIS: Thanks. I'm scared. Come on.

(laughter)

LOU: I'll roll. Don't you dare fuck this up for me.

AABRIA: I want to throw up.

LOU: Two 15s.

AABRIA: Woo.

LUIS: Wow.

BRENNAN: Great.

MARISHA: Both of mine at the same time with my red dice. A 17 and a five.

BRENNAN: Five is one below. One Eldritch Battery is taken down.

TRAVIS: Marisha, did you understand the assignment?

SAM: Marisha Ray ruined a battery.

AABRIA: You said you were my friend.

LOU: Hey, it's okay. It's okay.

It's not you.

LUIS: It's my turn?

BRENNAN: It is your turn.

MARISHA: Let's just scooch a little bit for--

LUIS: 11 and 14.

BRENNAN: Okay.

LOU: Maybe you're broken,

I don't know.

SAM: I would say that's cocked, but I won't.

AABRIA and

TRAVIS: (laugh)

LUIS: It's not! It's not!

TRAVIS: Better hope that it works for you.

MARISHA: That's what my dice said.

LOU: Yeah.

BRENNAN: Sam, if you'd be kind enough to roll two for me.

SAM: Natural 20.

AABRIA: Yes.

SAM: Natural 20. (exclaiming)

LOU: You've have to give us something.

You have to give us something.

MARISHA: Does that make up for my five? (chaotic screaming)

LOU: Fix Marisha for that.

MARISHA: Yeah,

fix me.

LOU: Let that fix Marisha.

AABRIA: (laughs) Fix Marisha.

BRENNAN: I will give you guys, with those two natural 20s, I will give one person remaining

a reroll on one of their dice.

SAM: Okay.

AABRIA: Thanks.

LOU: If they don't use it, can it go back?

MARISHA: (laughs)

AABRIA: I just roll once.

BRENNAN: You just roll once.

TRAVIS: Once it's been rolled, it cannot be--

AABRIA: 19.

BRENNAN: Incredible.

Travis, would you go ahead--

SAM: Are we going to do this?

BRENNAN: -- and roll two dice.

LUIS: Well we only--

SAM: Yeah.

TRAVIS: That's an eight.

AABRIA: Okay.

TRAVIS: And a 16.

AABRIA: Woo.

LUIS: (claps)

BRENNAN: Amazing.

SAM: Wow.

AABRIA: Marisha,

you're the only one that fucked it up.

SAM: Statistically

unlikely.

MARISHA: I'll just--

BRENNAN: Quite unlikely.

LOU: Yes, if you want to.

MARISHA: I'll excuse myself.

AABRIA: Yeah. Thank you so much for your...

LUIS: Wow.

AABRIA: See yourself out.

TRAVIS: It's because you only have jewelry on the one hand,

not the other one.

MARISHA: (shouts) Fuck.

TRAVIS: Symmetrical.

LUIS: You got to roll with this one.

AABRIA: Symmetry is important.

MARISHA: Yeah, that's true.

AABRIA: It's magic.

BRENNAN: So, one of the Eldritch Batteries has been attacked and successfully overtaken, but later repelled. So, as you are looking at your gear, your equipment, you can see that one of the 12 has gone offline.

AABRIA: Okay. Not as bad as it could be. There's still... We're still at 11 of 12.

SAM: So we can still land? Is that what we're worried about here? Or are you worried about your thing?

AABRIA: I'm worried about the whole thing. The whole, this, this is my life's work.

SAM: Again, your life's work is landing the city, or this other thing that you've done?

AABRIA: This battery? Do you have questions about the Leywright? Just--

SAM: What is the plan here? You've been working on this thing for years?

AABRIA: Yeah.

SAM: To do what? To send the whole city elsewhere?

AABRIA: To be able to travel interplanar with the same ease that we were able to move across Exandria.

SAM: But who will-- You would have to have everyone in the city agree to this.

AABRIA: I wouldn't do it without letting people know. I just want it to be an option. I thought you would be excited. You could go back to the Fey Realm. We could go anywhere.

SAM: I like it here. We have everything we need here. It's prosperous and safe, and well, it was, 'til today. It just seems so single minded and I don't know. They'll know that you've been working on this for years in secret. How will you maintain your reputation? You'll be vilified and pilloried for this. You've been using city resources for this for years.

AABRIA: To improve the city, to do something that no other flying city will even be able to approach doing in 120 years.

SAM: I think it's amazing, but I don't think the 300-year-old people who run this city will be very kind to someone who went behind their back.

AABRIA: They'll understand.

SAM: I don't think they will. I've covered stories and stories about wizards who took one step in the wrong direction and were ostracized or worse. I've done everything I can to make sure that none of us ever get caught in that sort of crossfire. This is a big exposure for you. Although, now who knows, if it even matters.

AABRIA: It matters. We can-- we can fix this. We can still land and replenish and we have hours left before the Apogee is over. We can fix this. It's going to be okay. And I know... I don't sleep. I meditate for a couple hours a day. So when I say this is all I've thought about for a decade of my life--

SAM: I know that that is true. It's all that you ever thought about. It's why you missed events. It's why you missed the Maggies. The Avalir Mage Awards that I was given one for my work on exposing--

AABRIA: And I'm proud of you for that.

SAM: Yeah, well you didn't show up to watch me to give my speech, did you? You were just hard at work. And then when you eventually did come home you were like, "What is this thing in the kitchen?" And I was like, (sadly) "That's my award, okay." It just didn't...

AABRIA: I don't do this for acclaim. You like the attention. I sit under the ground, never seeing daylight for days at a time, keeping the city afloat. And you're really going to blame me for not caring about the dumb things we do to appease the idiots that walk across the city that can't think about what could be. Just what is. I'm sorry for the ways in which I failed you, specifically. I have never wanted to hurt you in any of this but I don't regret what I've done. But if you think I'm a bad person...

SAM: I don't think you're a bad person. I just-- I don't want you to get hurt. And I feel like you've put yourself in a position where even I can't protect you.

AABRIA: I don't need your protecting. I am the protector of the Heart of Avalir and of the city. It's going to be fine. We just have to get through a couple more hours. Thank you for coming with me.

SAM: Thanks for bringing me. I guess we won't probably be alone for a while, so. You look really nice today.

AABRIA: Thanks.

BRENNAN: I'd like an arcana check from you, if I can get it.

AABRIA: 29.

BRENNAN: As you say,

TRAVIS: Jesus. What was that?

AABRIA: (laughs) You see reports coming in from Calum. He's at the downed Eldritch Battery. The one battery that was-- it was in a neighborhood called Okún which has like a little bit less protection in it because it's an older neighborhood of-- There were a lot of temples and stuff there. The Lost Cathedral's there, places like that. It just got overwhelmed and taken down. He reports that in addition to-- You know, actually, I'll just say, Calum's mask lights up at this moment. And he says, "Oh, Architect Arcane, I am sorry if I'm--"

AABRIA: It's fine. Go ahead.

BRENNAN: "The city's defenses, the Chancellor's Guard, the various automaton spell glyphs were able to repel most of this assault. Chancellor's Guard has been alerted right now. We know that there are malcontents within the city's perimeter, but we've lost one of 12. The rest are defended. That accounts for a little over 8% of the city's energy that we've lost. The battery was also defaced. The people who attacked, these horrifying, mutilated men, there's some writing here that I'm unable to read."

AABRIA: Can you show me? What does it look like?

BRENNAN: He gives you something. What languages do you speak?

AABRIA: Let's look, because I don't know. Draconic, Elvish, and Marquesian.

BRENNAN: You know, it's not any of those.

AABRIA: Yeah.

BRENNAN: There are some names, but I think on this high arcana check, you recognize the script as Primordial, which is, you know, these are Infernal rune-covered people, so. That's a bit of a confusing thing. You see, Calum says, "If you wish, I have ritually prepared a deciphering of scripts. I can try to--"

AABRIA: Please do. Thank you.

BRENNAN: "I'll send you the message as soon as I have the chance to decipher it."

BRENNAN: You do the math in your head real quick. You lost 8% of the city's energy earlier tonight with the test for the Leywright.

AABRIA: Yeah.

BRENNAN: You've lost another 8% right now.

AABRIA: Yeah.

BRENNAN: 25% of the city's energy is necessary for the Drashari Tithe.

AABRIA: Yeah.

BRENNAN: 50% is necessary for you-know-what, for what you wanted to accomplish.

AABRIA: Okay.

BRENNAN: Another 20% is spoken for, which was going to, at the beginning of this morning leave 5% of the city's energy behind for the Replenishment.

AABRIA: Shit. (sighs) I--

SAM: What does that mean?

AABRIA: Short the Tithe. We need to make up the energy.

BRENNAN: Calum look at you and says, "My lady, I will do as I am ordered, does the Septarion, or...?"

AABRIA: If this goes badly, you were just following my orders.

BRENNAN: "No Chief Artificer has ever under-delivered on the-- Very well, we've lost 16% and that can be made up by shorting the Tithe. Thank you, my lady."

SAM: You're shorting the Tithe?

AABRIA: You know how I feel about the Drashari.

SAM: But they'll certainly find out about this.

AABRIA: And what will they do?

SAM: I don't know!

AABRIA: A bunch of leaf-addled mystics on the ground don't understand. It will be fine.

SAM: How? How will it be fine? What are you hoping to accomplish with this?

AABRIA: I'm-- You won't live to see this happen again so I'm going to get it right this Apogee. I need 50% of the energy that we've stored in the last seven years.

SAM: At least do this smartly. Say that it was someone else. Find someone to blame. I can put out a report that your underling went rogue and did this on his own.

AABRIA: It can't be them.

SAM: Why not?

AABRIA: This is my choice. History will remember me.

SAM: History is-- (scoffs) History is not true, all right? History is whatever people decide to put out into the public. They might never know that you exist, unless someone like me tells them. And I can't, if you're going against everything that the city stands for.

AABRIA: They don't know it yet, but this is what the city stands for. We took the top of a mountain into the clouds. It was always about reaching. And we're just reaching a little further and it's scary and we have to break rules to do it. But if it works, it will be worth it. It has to be worth it.

AABRIA: I'm sorry. I've come too far.

SAM: I thought I knew you. You've always wanted this?

AABRIA: I've always wanted to do as much as I can, and to leave my mark on the world.

SAM: Even if it's a... mark of shame?

AABRIA: It won't be. If it works, it won't be. I promise.

SAM: All right. When will others find out about this? When we land. Everything that goes into the Replenishment fires-- We just need to land, and all will be well. It's going to work.

SAM: All right. I'll make sure no one reports on anything until we land.

AABRIA: Thank you.

BRENNAN: You're going to need to start talking to people right away. These batteries were attacked all over the city, and if this needs to be quiet for 12 hours, you have people to speak to.

SAM: Sure. I'll just go about starting to reach out and sending little pneumatic tubes with messages all over the place.

BRENNAN: I want you give me an insight check and a deception check.

SAM: Insight 19. Deception, a million. (laughter)

BRENNAN: So, I was asking you to roll an insight and a deception into yourself.

LOU: Mm.

AABRIA: Oof.

MARISHA: Oh shit. (groaning)

MARISHA: Oh, the poetry.

LOU: Oh fuck, man.

BRENNAN: (laughs)

AABRIA: That's bad.

LUIS: I want to unravel that.

SAM: I do, too. (laughter)

BRENNAN: You are much better at-- You are a man of many faces, and I'd love to know how Loquatius hides from how deep his love is for this person, as these messages make their way across the city. Because you and I both know it's not the first time that you have protected the person for whom you care.

AABRIA: Do I--

MARISHA: I feel like you should.

AABRIA: What?

SAM: In everyone that I speak to, I don't mention Laerryn's name. And... I... (sighs) Who do we know? Who's a good scapegoat?

AABRIA: (laughs)

SAM: I'll say that Dean Hollow has caused a disturbance, but we can't report on it yet, because we have to run it up through proper channels, which have been disrupted by various closures of prophecy, and various vacancies of positions. We just need time to formulate things, but I don't mention the Architect Arcane at all. I also instruct any of my underlings who know where I am, or who I am with, to keep it hush hush, or they will be immediately terminated.

BRENNAN: The language of command, of bending powerful institutions to your will. Many masks cover the inner truth of what you are trying to do in this moment. There are a lot of stories in Exandria of mortals who stumbled their way into Feywild and fell in love with an enchanting fairy that they met there. But there's one story of a fairy who stumbled into this world and fell in love.

LOU: This man.

MARISHA: Oh my god.

LOU: This man.

MARISHA: Oh my god.

AABRIA: Why are you like this? (laughter)

SAM: I'm also going to, if I can, if there's time, or if I have the equipment needed, or if I can get somewhere, I'd like to record a message.

LOU: Oh.

BRENNAN: Yeah.

SAM: A message to be played upon my disappearance or death or something, where I talk about a great evil that reared its head on the day of our landing, and the powerful forces that tried to keep it quiet. But one voice, one voice was strong enough to see through and tell the truth and expose the lies, and that was Laerryn. I stood in her way and wouldn't let the truth come out because I was afraid that it would worry the citizens too much. And submit my resignation as the Herald of Avalir. But I don't release that. It's just, it's on a crystal somewhere.

BRENNAN: Avalir's greatest reporter, who dedicated his life in the service of the truth, knows the importance of a good lie. You preserve this story that is very dear to you in crystal. We are going to move back to Dawnsledge.

AABRIA: (whispers) I'm actively dying. (laughter)

LUIS: Ah, it feels good, doesn't it? (laughter) (sighing and laughter)

TRAVIS: Mylanta.

LUIS: Okay.

BRENNAN: We return. In the moments following that combat, the mages lie dead. Zerxus, as you turn your attention back to the ground to counter that spell, by the time you look back, the erinyes who had wounded you, Xartaza, she is a shadow upon the wind.

She's gone.

LUIS: Yeah.

BRENNAN: You are here, and the fireworks subside. In a few moments after that, as you stand, you survey the perimeter. Once again on your sending stone, Captain Shashara Drake comes over and says, "First Knight, we have secured all but one of the batteries. First Knight, we have secured all but one of the batteries. I'm getting reports in that everything appears to be safe for the moment. We do not know these individuals. There were some fiends with them, but the guard was able to repel them. We had stores of silver weaponry in case. Do you know who these men were? Who th-th-the mutilated th-th-the--"

LUIS: We're still gathering evidence. I need you to do your part to make sure that you have your people on those sites gathering any evidence that they can. Any notes, I want them to be able to recall anything that any of these individuals have said. Most likely, it's going to be in a language they may not understand, so we need to really rely on their, anything that they can to recall this.

BRENNAN: "We'll copy it script perfect, and get whatever we can to you. If it's in a language you don't recognize. They did come with artificer's tools."

LUIS: Perfect. Just keep me posted on the status.

BRENNAN: "Will do, First Knight."

LUIS: Swooping back down with Tempus back to the party that's still here.

BRENNAN: You arrive. Nydas, you are sitting on a scrolling vortex of memories that you lanced out of the mind of this mage before killing him. Let me ask-- also, this is your first time upon reconvening from the trip to the Herald's Tome, to the Hall of Prophecy, and to the Magisterium. So you are all gathered, at least one of you, who is on each of those missions, is here. You land. You have these memories you are holding onto. You were able to glean a tremendous amount but you're holding it in your mind,

right?

LOU: Yeah.

BRENNAN: What do you do as you gather here on the street?

MARISHA: (sigh)

LUIS: Telepathic bond is still on?

BRENNAN: Yes.

LUIS: I'm going to immediately check-in with the two that have left just to make sure that they're okay. I just need to hear your voice to make sure you're fine.

AABRIA: (whispers) We're fine.

SAM: Yes, we are. Did you die when we left or, everyone okay?

LUIS: Everyone's okay on this end. We'll come back together. We're trying to sort out the aftermath. We'll keep you in the loop.

LOU: Real quick, can I see the stars?

BRENNAN: You look up, and can see the stars

as the fireworks fade.

LOU: Ah, great. Nydas is just going to be-- I've extracted memories from one of the assailants. There is a lot. I think it will take me a minute once I start to process them. Is there anything we need to discuss?

MARISHA: Do you mind if I store these and record your memories?

LOU: Of course.

MARISHA: All right. I pull around my orb, and it expands. Almost looking a little bit like a silver screen, like a projector.

BRENNAN: This is, this is--

MARISHA: Just trying to pull his memories, and hold it on the screen.

BRENNAN: I'm going to say, Patia and Nydas, you pull a reel of memories into this orb. This is your entire specialization. The minds of the people of Avalir. You pull all those memories in there. It's the memories of a very troubled sleep-- like insomnia-addled mage, but your orb is powerful enough that you may be able to spot things in this person's memory that even he was not. But it will be up to the dice, essentially.

MARISHA: Just do a little bit of some cantrip shit.

(laughter)

MARISHA: I don't want to-- I don't want to spend a slot. (laughter)

AABRIA: We out of cantrips.

MARISHA: But using almost a Calm Emotions type of thing to just try and get him to just think purely and calmly.

BRENNAN: You are re-- Much like the psychometric chamber earlier, you're essentially recreating the mind of a now dead man in your orb. Powerful magics to the Age of Arcanum. It's going to take you guys a minute to go through all this. You, I think, as the orb begins to glow, you begin to see much. You begin to see much. While that's happening, Cerrit and Zerxus, is there anything you guys are doing that you'd be able to do immediately? Because this is going to take a minute.

TRAVIS: Those were fiends.

SAM: They were.

TRAVIS: A demon. You spoke their language.

AABRIA: (whispers) Get him.

LUIS: What do you mean?

AABRIA: (laughs)

TRAVIS: You, when they were gathering on you, you spoke the same guttural, incomprehensible language.

LUIS: I don't recall that all. I told them to stand down.

TRAVIS: How is that possible? How could you speak a language you don't know?

BRENNAN: Insight.

AABRIA: Let's go.

MARISHA and

AABRIA: Come on.

TRAVIS: 24.

SAM: Okay.

BRENNAN: Your ring is not glowing.

MARISHA: Oh shit.

TRAVIS: Yeah, seems pretty honest.

LOU: Were we there? Did we hear it as well?

BRENNAN: Yeah. You all heard it.

LOU: Whatever you may say, Zerxus, we heard you speak their language.

MARISHA: Would I know that-- even if I don't speak infernal after having the runes, and kind of-- would I know that that's Infernal that you were speaking?

BRENNAN: The language? Yeah, you'd recognize it by sound.

TRAVIS: The Hall of Prophecy, did you learn anything?

LOU: Yes.

MARISHA: Yes, what happened?

LOU: The Oracles there, who, of course, aim to touch the divine, have been going mad. Their heads filled with false prophesy and lies.

MARISHA: False prophesies?

Determined by who?

LOU: Ramblings. By, well the chief diviner.

TRAVIS: False, as in?

LOU: Babble. Nonsense.

MARISHA: So they think.

LOU: Things that cannot be true. (laughter)

TRAVIS: Insight check.

AABRIA: (laughs)

MARISHA: Thank you.

TRAVIS: Insight check on Nydas.

AABRIA: Ooh.

BRENNAN: Deception versus insight.

AABRIA: You're not trusting people anymore?

SAM: What is happening here?

TRAVIS: I don't know.

SAM: We can't turn against

each other, guys!

TRAVIS: I'll get to why in a second. (laughter)

TRAVIS: 22.

LOU: 20.

BRENNAN: 22 and 20.

TRAVIS: Because he saw, he saw what the prophet saw, right?

BRENNAN: You are-

TRAVIS: Or what the Oracle saw.

BRENNAN: You're a man who studies the delineation between when someone is being honest, and when someone is telling a lie, and you've been doing this for a long time. There are areas off of that scale, that are always the most alarming to you. Because sometimes people say something that they know is not true, and sometimes they something that they believe is. But there are things that people say, that they don't relate to as being true or false.

TRAVIS: Right.

BRENNAN: They relate to as being something deeper. On a 22, you seeing Nydas saying it's gibberish, and it's not a statement. It's a plea.

TRAVIS: Got it. False prophecy, Loquatius and I went to the Herald's Tome. We found files on Vespin Chloras. Many of these people were involved in speaking about the tree having-- what was it? "The City of Crows bears the name of trees." They knew about the battery.

LOU: The Arboreal Calix?

TRAVIS: Yes. Very same.

BRENNAN: I want you to give me an insight check, and I want you to give me a deception.

LOU: (laughs) What?

TRAVIS: 19.

LOU: 20.

TRAVIS: Oof.

BRENNAN: Nydas, however you are holding on to what you heard in the Hall of Prophecy, I think you see Cerrit see into you, and however that leaves you feeling, you are seen in this moment by him.

LOU: I think the fact that he doesn't press me on it, and that he allows me to continue to hold onto my plea, makes me want to-- honestly emboldens me to hold onto it tighter.

BRENNAN: The stars are still in the sky. The stars are still in the sky.

TRAVIS: (sighs) There's a respect between these stations.

LOU: They have not left us yet.

TRAVIS: There is one other thing. When Loquatius was in the Herald's Tome, and pulling these files, these crystals, there was a section, forgive me, on Evandrin, that was entirely empty.

AABRIA: What a snitch!

LUIS: What does that mean?

TRAVIS: I don't know.

LUIS: Did somebody try to erase-- is trying to erase.

TRAVIS: There's so much that we don't understand, and pieces that are not fitting together.

LUIS: There is.

TRAVIS: You said you saw him in your dream.

LUIS: I did. I saw him in my dream. He approached the tree that was growing out of the hand of the Betrayer God. The tree's blossoms blew on a breeze towards him, and that caused him to vomit and wrench in a way that I think I just saw these fiends do in the middle of our confrontation just now, and I, we know everything is related, but we just do not have all the missing pieces yet.

TRAVIS: I would ask Laerryn if she was here, but she's not.

LUIS: But she's here.

TRAVIS: I'll ask it anyway.

MARISHA: Laerryn won't now.

TRAVIS: Do you know if Evandrin ever had access to the Battery? To the tree?

LUIS: Do I know that?

TRAVIS: Do you know?

LUIS: I don't.

TRAVIS: He never spoke about it? Never mused about it?

LUIS: No!

TRAVIS: Never wondered? Said anything? Anything you would recall?

LUIS: I didn't know that that tree was there. I know that he had business to take care of. As the First Knight, he had tasks and missions that I was not always aware of, but I don't know anything about an encounter that he may have had with that tree.

TRAVIS: I believe you.

MARISHA: You said there-- his name was stricken? Like it was stolen or erased?

TRAVIS: His name was stricken?

BRENNAN: The name of the reporter was Elena Tuvaris.

TRAVIS: That's right.

BRENNAN: The woman that Loquatius said he fired. Elena Tuvaris was her name, and she had a name in her file of crystals, Evandrin Alterra. Now lots of reporters would have a file for Evandrin Alterra, he was the First Knight for two

and a half years.

TRAVIS: Sure.

BRENNAN: Having something in a file with a name on it, in Cerrit's mind, the thing that's unusual about it is it would be like seeing a grocery list that said milk, eggs, bread, nothing else.

TRAVIS: Yeah.

LUIS: Somebody's hiding something. Clearly. We have so little time to figure out what is happening.

MARISHA: Zerxus. What if he's not dead? What if he's something else?

LUIS: What would that possibly be?

MARISHA: You asked to not remember, and I obliged.

LUIS: What are you talking about?

TRAVIS: What?

AABRIA: (laughs)

MARISHA: We've been friends for decades. I've been around for a long time, and I don't know if I've ever seen a desperation quite like yours when you came to me. You remember coming to me?

LUIS: I do. I remember coming to you. But I remember that we agreed not to talk about that.

MARISHA: Do you want to talk about it? Is it relevant now?

LUIS: I was desperate for help. Evandrin was dying so I came to ask for help to see if there was a cure. I was convinced that

this place had a cure!

MARISHA: I'm only bringing it up because it seems relevant.

LUIS: I didn't know who else to go to. He was slipping away from me and I knew that somewhere in the scrolls, in the information that you had there had to have been something that you had access to that could have helped him. But we found nothing.

MARISHA: No, we found something. But it's old. It was old magic. Ancient, druidic, primordial. The barriers between life and death with the old god. We knew it was a gamble with the ascension of the Matron of Ravens. I gave no guarantee it would work. I told you it didn't work, that we found nothing, that it was impossible.

LOU: I apologize. But I must ask. What exactly did you attempt?

MARISHA: It is my duty and my purview to keep what knowledge is exposed and spread throughout into Exandria and what knowledge is not. I hold that title very dear and sacred. But I hold that title. I am the one who holds the key. So, I found a ritual that is considered forbidden by those who make rules. But, death has a new owner over the past century or so. It was a risk. But, it didn't fail in a way that was anticipated. It didn't fail in a way that felt like the snuff of arcanum when you're blowing out a candle. It was as if the candle suddenly... It never existed.

TRAVIS: Oh shit.

AABRIA: Is this in the group chat?

LUIS: What? I came to you and I asked you for help and then we decided to do this. You're saying it...

MARISHA: I've never done anything like that before. I didn't know what to expect and I still don't know what exactly happened.

LUIS: But it worked?

MARISHA: I don't know.

BRENNAN: Patia?

MARISHA: Yes.

BRENNAN: You've never locked anything away without keeping a hold of the key in case you needed it again. If you wish to return Zerxus' memory to him, you may.

TRAVIS: Oh my god.

AABRIA: Oh my god! Is this in the group chat?!

MARISHA: I don't know. Is this in the group chat? Are our microphones on? Did we mute our Zoom?

SAM: We're off. Just hanging out.

LOU: Yeah. Yeah.

AABRIA: Okay. Cool.

LOU: Aren't you guys having a cute divorce moment?

AABRIA: Shut up! (laughs)

SAM: What are you doing Friday night?

AABRIA: Oh my god. (laughs)

LUIS: There's a lot of truths that need to be revealed and a lot of people holding secrets. I think that we all need to be together and just put everything on the table. We have to do it quickly.

MARISHA: The illumination is your choice, but--

LUIS: I want to know why I don't know. Was it your decision?

MARISHA: It was yours.

TRAVIS: Oh shit.

AABRIA: Oof.

TRAVIS: Oh shit. Now is the time. The city is under attack.

LUIS: The city is under attack we need to--

MARISHA: This whole time I'm also still holding my globe, siphoning. (laughter) Now, we're at 98%. (laughter)

TRAVIS: Multi-task! Do it!

MARISHA: Yeah, multi-tasking. (laughter)

MARISHA: If you wish to be together, Laerryn has just as much of a right to this knowledge as you guys do too.

LUIS: I'm going to get into the group chat. Laerryn? We need to come together immediately. There's some information about Evandrin that is about to be shared that I wasn't aware of. That I think you should probably hear. It's all going to help us understand what our next move is. It's another part of the connective tissue about all of this. We all have to come together immediately.

AABRIA: Can I make an insight check? Does he know?

TRAVIS: No.

BRENNAN: Give me an insight check.

AABRIA: Does he know?

LOU: No, they're out here--

AABRIA and

MARISHA: (laugh)

LOU: Does he know?

Clearly he does not.

LUIS: That's news to me.

AABRIA: Dirty 20.

BRENNAN: He doesn't know.

AABRIA: Okay. I want to go and grab.

BRENNAN: Mm-hmm. I'm going to say you guys reconvene. Do you want to reconvene back on the street corner? Do you go back to Gallamor?

MARISHA: Should we go down toward the core?

AABRIA: Yeah, you can come down here.

That's fine.

LUIS: Okay. We'll go there.

MARISHA: Head underground.

BRENNAN: You head underground into the Meridian Labyrinth.

You go down.

LUIS: Does Tempus fit there?

BRENNAN: Captain Drake has taken all of her guards. She's fanning out over the city.

LUIS: Okay.

BRENNAN: Right now it's being kept quiet. There's still revelers. You can still hear the music coming from Excelsior Plaza. But some people know that battery went down. That neighborhood is losing power. It's in the bottle for a second, but maybe the time is coming fast. You gather in the Meridian Labyrinth. You're in a long hallway. It is a triangular hallway, a flat floor and then sides that come in, runes all along, coursing electricity, ether going through cables of copper and glass. You convene.

AABRIA: Can I pick you on something very cheeky and stupid?

BRENNAN: Yeah. Do it.

AABRIA: You mentioned the little battery on my hip that grabbed that ether when I successfully Counterspelled. Can I try to give that to Quay when he's not looking and give him a spell slot back?

BRENNAN: Yeah, you can do that. That spell slot, I will say, you could also put into the Etheric Net itself if every drop counts. Unless you want Quay to have it.

TRAVIS: (laughs) Fuck that.

AABRIA: None of this matters if he doesn't make it.

BRENNAN: You slip it into his pocket. Before they arrive, Calum gets back to you. "My lady, we had a difficulty deciphering the words until we realized that they were not words. (chuckles) The writing in Primordial are names. I don't know of what, but they're proper nouns. Rau'shan and Ka'Mort."

AABRIA: Rau'shan and Ka'Mort.

TRAVIS: I've heard that first name before.

AABRIA: Okay, those don't mean anything to me. But thank you.

MARISHA: Rau'shan and Ka'Mort. Why does that sound familiar?

BRENNAN: You all convene. As you convene together, the orb is ready but there is this to contend with as well. You have the ability, as you reconvene in this hall, this antechamber--

AABRIA: Oh my gosh.

BRENNAN: Fly. Patia, you may return this memory whenever you wish.

MARISHA: Are you ready?

LUIS: I'm not ready. Because it isn't just about this memory, it's about a number of things that we need to all put on the table. I want us all to speak the truth. Plainly. We are the Ring of Brass and they use that name to mock us. But we know what that really means. I believe some of them actually do as well. The time is not for secrets anymore. I cast Zone of Truth.

SAM: Oh!

BRENNAN: Anyone who wishes may resist, or you may--

LUIS: I choose to fail. Please, friends.

SAM: Oh, you choose to fail.

LUIS: I choose to fail my own Zone of Truth.

It's not the time.

AABRIA: I rolled a natural 20.

BRENNAN: You resist.

LOU: Will people know if you fail? Or if you attempt to fight it?

LUIS: I'll know if they fail.

BRENNAN: You will know if they fail.

TRAVIS: (laughs)

LOU: What's the DC?

BRENNAN: What's that?

LOU: What's the DC?

LUIS: The DC is--

BRENNAN: I believe 18?

LUIS: It's 18. Charisma 18.

TRAVIS: Why does it matter? Why does it matter?

AABRIA: (laughs)

MARISHA: Charisma?

LUIS: Yes.

MARISHA: I just want to see.

SAM: Saving throw?

MARISHA: That's poetic. Natural one.

BRENNAN: Natural one.

MARISHA: A little shook.

BRENNAN: Patia fails. Zone of Truth. Zone of Truth. You've failed. Success. What did Nydas get?

LOU: Nydas will fail.

BRENNAN: Nydas will fail.

SAM: I rolled a 30. (laughter)

LUIS: Do I know who resisted and who chose to fail?

BRENNAN: Well, if you know who failed, it seems like you would know who didn't.

LUIS: Yes, I would know who didn't.

BRENNAN: So let me just double check here.

LUIS: I'm just curious if I know

who resisted--

BRENNAN: Yeah, you know whether each creature succeeds or fails. So you know that they have succeeded, which is information in and of itself because you know people can submit to the spell.

LUIS: I know.

BRENNAN: Yeah.

LUIS: The Zone persists. What are you hiding?

AABRIA: I do not like being compelled.

LUIS: You're not being compelled. You're being--

AABRIA: That's what the spell is.

LOU: Zerxus! The city is under attack! I understand your desire for clarity, but we need to be working together. If people would like to withhold certain personal information, that should be all right. I apologize that this is not a moment in which we can all be forthright, but there is business that needs to be done. I apologize that it cannot be handled in a matter that you enjoy.

LUIS: Zerxus stops and looks at Nydas. You're my oldest friend.

LOU: And you are mine.

LUIS: I owe you a great deal and I don't think I ever recall you speaking to me in this tone.

LOU: No.

LUIS: If it means that much to you for me to let this go, than I will. Let's move forward then together.

AABRIA: We are here.

LUIS: We are here.

AABRIA: Do whatever you need to do.

BRENNAN: You move forward, the Zone standing. Your friend's words cut, but, I think, carry more value than gold. Because you know that your friend speaks, and I will say without having to roll, that you know that your friend's failure was intentional and he wished you to know that he spoke the truth. Patia--

LUIS: That's enough for me. Okay.

MARISHA: Another experiment was happening. All of these years. One of my own. If the Matron of Ravens can do it, so can't we all. And I snap and you see a little string of white wisp come from my orb. It wraps around Patia's finger. She delivers it back and you can see it go into Zerxus' temple.

BRENNAN: Reflected in Patia's orb, such that all can see, but for Zerxus, you see in your mind where this memory first came. A night of desperation. You didn't go to Patia when the time was there only to save Evandrin. When he finally vanished, when his body disappeared, would you have stopped at death?

LUIS: No. I wouldn't have ever stopped.

BRENNAN: And you didn't. You didn't stop after death. You went to Patia and asked for magic that could bring someone back. That night you offered everything you had. You offered whatever it would take to bring him back. You know that Patia did every step of that ritual perfectly. Candles in a dark sanctum. A spell of True Resurrection. Powerful enough that not even a fraction of the body would be needed. The name alone would carry from death to life. The candles did not even flutter. The words were spoken and nothing happened. You had to admit that you had done everything you could and that was too much for you to bear.

LUIS: Because I failed.

MARISHA: You didn't fail. It was one of the few moments that the Ring of Brass could not determine our own fate, and I do not accept that.

BRENNAN: Patia. Normally, I would ask for some kind of roll, an arcana check, something of that nature. I don't ask for it when players stone-cold guess. What's the simplest explanation for why a resurrection would fail?

MARISHA: They're somewhere else.

LUIS: Because they're not dead?

BRENNAN: The voice you heard speaking to you with pride, it was Evandrin.

MARISHA: Just as the Matron's name has been stricken throughout all of recorded history, if you're saying the same holds true for Evandrin, perhaps we didn't fail. It worked!

LUIS: Where is he then?

MARISHA: I don't know, but we might be able to find him! Can't you see?

AABRIA: When I tried, I did everything right.

SAM: Don't tell, don't say--

AABRIA: I did everything right.

SAM: Don't tell them.

LUIS: Please, please.

AABRIA: I don't know what happened.

LUIS: Laerryn!

Laerryn, give me a chance.

AABRIA: I know.

LUIS: Please.

AABRIA: Sorry. He agreed to it. He's a friend and the First Knight, he agreed to go. When we were trying to jump, I did everything perfectly. I was perfect and it worked. And then he came back. But something went wrong. I don't know what happened.

LOU: You sent Evandrin?

AABRIA: I had to try.

LUIS: Where did you send him? You sent him to where you want us to go?

AABRIA: I wanted us to able to go anywhere. It started with the Celestial Plane.

LUIS: That's where he is?

AABRIA: No, he came back. He came back and he was fine until he wasn't!

MARISHA: You had anchored his soul.

AABRIA: I don't know. There are very few things in this world I don't know.

LUIS: Cerrit.

MARISHA: This sickness on the mortal form, it doesn't matter anymore.

SAM: It wasn't your fault. It was an accident, right?

AABRIA: Yeah.

LUIS: What are you talking about? What do you mean it doesn't matter? He's not mortal? I'm not su-- I'm not--

MARISHA: We separated his consciousness, his pure essence, his being.

LUIS: You did that?

MARISHA: I didn't do that.

LUIS: You did that and you now recognize that that's why what we tried didn't work?

MARISHA: That's exactly what I think.

AABRIA: It's the Tree. The Tree of Names, if-- If that vision you saw was true...

LUIS: I think it is.

AABRIA: Then the Calix is the reason it didn't work, and the Calix is the reason it's pulling power. Those druids are keeping this magic from happening, from being perfected. It was perfect! It was supposed to work! They're interfering, and they're trying to draw magic away.

LUIS: To keep us.

AABRIA: To stop us.

MARISHA: You think he's in the Tree?

LUIS: I want to go to this tree. I want to go to that Calix.

MARISHA: Well, perhaps we'll have a choice. At this point, I once again throw my sphere and it pops up an even bigger little projector screen in front of all of us. I start playing back Nydas' memories that he still has.

BRENNAN: All of you watch the orb alight, and a stream comes from Nydas' mind as Patia holds it aloft.

LOU: Memory shit. This is dope.

BRENNAN: You begin to go into the memories of this mage. You are in a maze of this man's mind, recreated from Nydas' memory of it in this orb. I will ask you to command what knowledge you seek to wrest from this. It will not simply play out. You must investigate. You must look for what you need to find.

LOU: I will say I think the memories I was hoping to pull were specifically ones in which this mage was hearing information from Loras.

Is it Loras?

BRENNAN: Mm-hmm.

LOU: Loras or Dean Hollow.

BRENNAN: Lacrytia, yeah.

LOU: Lacrytia. Any information where they were speaking to them or being told things by them. Any reference to Vespin Chloras in any... In any location that they were-- I think those three. That's enough off the top of-- Vespin Chloras, and then... Oh, and anything about the Replenishment or what orders being given. But I think those would come from Dean Hollow and Loras. So those are the two big ones.

BRENNAN: Amazing. Give me, you can do arcana or investigation, and we'll do it one question at a time. Give me the first thing you want to look for.

MARISHA: Can I assist him?

BRENNAN: You can absolutely get

the help action here.

MARISHA: Okay. As I'm scrubbing through the timeline.

LOU: Discussions they had with Dean Hollow, Lacrytia Hollow.

BRENNAN: Give me a roll.

LOU: Arcana. Natural 17 for 28.

BRENNAN: You begin to go through bits and pieces. It's mostly Lacrytia talking. You don't see much of Loras in here, but perhaps this guy is so far down the chain that... You see Lacrytia interacting with Micah Cormorant, the deceased magister. You see that having defeated him, that appears to be the way that all the K'nauthi were brought into the city. So that means that despite how much danger you are all in, at least one thing has been accom-- The means of bringing more K'nauthi into the city has been eradicated. Magister Cormorant is dead.

MARISHA: Okay.

BRENNAN: You see that he exposed the old Porter's Guildmaster to ensure that there wouldn't be an active guildmaster of the Porter's Guild during this time period.

MARISHA: Oh my god.

BRENNAN: And that he's been ferrying K'nauthi into the city for more than a week.

MARISHA: Wow. Wow!

BRENNAN: You see him speaking. You see Lacrytia speaking about Purvan Suul and saying something along the lines of inviting him to this thing and saying, "He must be prevented from aiding in what is to come in Vasselheim."

LOU: In Vasselheim?

BRENNAN: In Vasselheim.

TRAVIS: That's Vespin.

BRENNAN: You see him speaking, there's another thing. She's in another room. All of this is fragments. Some of it's not even conversations he's having with Lacrytia, it's just things he's present in the room for. The cultist that was disguised as one Lacrytia's hodmedods was supposed to get the blood that the erinyes got. That was supposed to happen earlier, and they had to improvise and figure something else out. You see both the erinyes and the horned devil, both of the devils that you fought, vomiting bile. The K'nauthi summon them, and vomiting bile again. You see blossoms floating past them. You see them arriving. This guy went searching in the Meridian Labyrinth for artifacts headed to the arcane furnace to be melted down and got there too late, after they'd already been pulled by the Eyes of Avalir. You see that this guy was one of the people that was sent to go try to find them before that happened, which is why they needed to get that. There's something about needing those tools of Vespin's. You see--

This is just lots of...

LUIS: Damn.

LOU: Sorry.

BRENNAN: No, it's great! (laughter)

LOU: I feel like I'm making you do the third act moment where they're like, wait, it was him all along! He was there! Keyser Söze! (laughter)

BRENNAN: You see that there's a short conversation that he has that Lacrytia's not even talking, it's one of the K'nauthi talking about that their brethren are also supposed to attack the Giants' Slumber, which is the headquarters of the Gau Drashari. So there's also an attack that's supposed to happen tonight

down in Cathmoíra.

LUIS: Down in Cathmoíra.

BRENNAN: Yeah.

TRAVIS: That was my question.

BRENNAN: Yeah.

TRAVIS: Can't just be us.

MARISHA: Well, and Vasselheim.

BRENNAN: Well yeah, and that's another thing, too. I think, Cerrit, as you're watching this play out, it's like, "Lord of Hells, Lord of Hells, Lord of Hells, Lord of Hells," and you see every once in a while, Lacrytia mention something happening somewhere else in Exandria. You don't think the Lord of the Hells is the only Betrayer God working somewhere on the world right now.

LUIS: So there's an attack going on right now?

BRENNAN: In Cathmoíra, presumably. There are two big things left. Give me an insight check with advantage.

LOU: I won't lie, my iPad has died so... This is a 12.

SAM: We got chargers!

LOU: This is +12.

BRENNAN: +12, yeah.

LOU: We got chargers.

MARISHA: Can we fly in a charger?

LOU: Fly in a charger! 27.

LUIS: Here's another iPad.

It's not been used.

LOU: Thanks. ♪ iPads on iPads on iPads ♪

SAM: They are generic tablet devices.

LOU: Oh, excuse me. (laughter)

LOU: Apologies.

Great, glad to have it.

LUIS: It's just another generic tablet device.

BRENNAN: You see a conversation from longer ago, earlier this year. This guy doesn't look as haggard in this memory. He doesn't feel as haggard. His memory is of him having more energy and more life force. He's watching the end of a conversation between Patia and Lacrytia Hollow. Lacrytia a is member of the Ring of Silver, and the Keeper of Scrolls works within the umbrella of the Octothurge, within the umbrella of

the academic structure.

MARISHA: What did this bitch see?

BRENNAN: A short, very polite conversation concludes between Patia and Lacrytia Hollow. In the memory of this mage, you hear him say, "My Lady, I can't help but notice your rather obvious disdain for the Keeper of Scrolls." You hear Lacrytia Hollow say, "Oh, am I that obvious in my disdain? I must say, she's more of a merchant than the Guildmaster of the Golden Scythe is. I mean, she doesn't trade in gold, but rather her grandfather's name."

SAM: Oh! Oh, double shade.

LUIS: Ooh.

SAM: Double shade.

BRENNAN: You see that the mage speaking says.

MARISHA: I'm glad I killed you.

LUIS: Yep.

TRAVIS: Orb will shatter.

MARISHA: Bitch. Yeah.

BRENNAN: The mage speaking says, "Well, certainly, I think the Guildmaster would rather take offense at that comparison. There's nothing wrong with trade after all, My Lady. He is, as I understand it, rather close with the Lady Por'co." You see she turns to him and says, "If he knew what I knew about the Archmage Por'co--" (tablet smacks on table) (laughter)

BRENNAN: Patia, you are watching

Nydas watch this memory.

MARISHA: Uh-huh.

BRENNAN: You are all watching this in the room together.

MARISHA: I'm not hiding it.

BRENNAN: You see this mage says, "I beg your pardon?" Lacrytia says, "The Orrery, the Sorcerer's University. She's got him wrapped around her finger." You see that the mage shrugs. He says, "How do you mean?" She says, "Let's just say that the Septarion gets what it wants." That memory concludes.

LOU: Your Eminence. Patia failed the Zone of Truth?

BRENNAN: Mm-hmm.

LOU: Your Eminence, what is it that the Septariot wants?

MARISHA: Nydas, I have always been transparent with Avalir's quest for knowledge, talent, prodigies. I went to the Septarion. I begged them to fund the sorcerer's school and tried to convince them to place locations in various cities across Exandria. I could not get that approval, but... When I framed it in a way to convince them that it would only benefit Avalir and our future to bring these talented minds, the most gifted from across all of Exandria to Avalir, it would only enhance and benefit our society, that's what got them to approve the project.

LOU: That I understand. Of course, in our conversations, I understood it could not simply be charity, but...

MARISHA: Yes. I did genuinely try to speak from an honorable position, and this was the compromise. I apologize if it comes across as deceitful or... arrogant. But...

LOU: The problem-- Oh, sorry.

MARISHA: Frame anything for the good of Avalir and you might be able to get it.

BRENNAN: Patia, there's a memory you could share in this moment as we are diving deep into this, if you wished, of a conversation where you were as valiant as you could be speaking to Loras of the Weaver's Mask, if you wish to share it, you could.

MARISHA: I'll ask Nydas. If you wish to see it not through my perspective, but as it was, without any skewed mistaken memory, I can show it for you, but I also do not feel as if I have to defend myself to one of my closest friends, unless you wish to see it.

LOU: Given all that is happening, that you offer is enough for me. Are there any other questions? Thank you. Are there any other questions we might seek to decipher from these memories?

BRENNAN: There's one final one, and I'm going to need either perception or investigation checks from everybody here. The DC is going to be 25.

LOU: Come through, everyone.

MARISHA: 25.

LOU: I can't give any of that without nat 20, so I'm looking at you.

LUIS: Perception or investigation?

BRENNAN: Perception or investigation.

AABRIA: Ooh, a natural one.

TRAVIS: 30. (cheering)

AABRIA: Okay!

BRENNAN: You start moving through the last memory. As you move through, you see Lacrytia speaking to this archmage, saying, "Remember, we go to the helm. We must destroy the Helmswoman Akami Rowe. We must destroy her because by the time they reach the Wildmother's embrace, it will have been too late. We must prevent them at all costs from reaching the embrace of the Wildmother." You remember Vespin saying that, on a 30 investigation. Timing, timing, timing. It always comes back to that for you. Why? Why did Akami Rowe die moments after she started the protocol to descend the city? Why was it that close, that quick? If they wanted the city to stay in the air, if they didn't want you guys to reach the ground, then, why wouldn't they kill Akami Rowe earlier? Days ago? Why wouldn't they kill her... You think about the fact that Vespin Chloras, when he launched himself from the mirror, what did he say to you? He said you, "You will never reach the Wildmother's embrace in time." You took it as he said it, but... Who's that stupid? Why would he tell you exactly what you were supposed to try and do to thwart him? Why would he give you your finish line? You look up at that memory, something's wrong. Something's wrong with that memory and the recording.

TRAVIS: The one that we just saw?

BRENNAN: The one you just saw.

AABRIA: Holy shit.

BRENNAN: Lacrytia Hollow never said that, and you've never been more certain of anything in your life.

AABRIA: Oh my god.

SAM: What?

MARISHA: Would I, with my abilities, be able to tell if someone's memory has been altered?

BRENNAN: On a 30 investigation, when Cerrit points that out, give me an arcana check with advantage.

MARISHA: (clears throat)

LOU: What.

MARISHA: 24.

BRENNAN: The memory's been altered, and Lacrytia Hollow did it. Lacrytia changed one of this mage's memories. Changed it to her saying something about the Wildmother's embrace, but she said something else originally. It wasn't that.

SAM: Can I modify the memory of a dead person? (chuckles)

LOU: Yeah, can we scrape off the--

BRENNAN: Scrape? Try to get deep?

LUIS: Yeah, can we--

BRENNAN: Do some fucking shit. Yeah, make it happen.

How is it--

TRAVIS: It's so weird, too, like why would she die? If they're not supposed to get there in time, why would you kill them when you got just close enough?

MARISHA: Yeah.

BRENNAN: Right. (chuckling)

LOU: They must need us to engage, or the Replenishment must need to happen. The timing, if what you say is true, it would suggest that these processes need to happen, and then, once they've initiated, then they act. So it would seem, possibly, that they want us to land. Then why would they make such a point of the opposite?

TRAVIS: Arcane Architect, if the city is disabled above Cathmoíra, what happens?

BRENNAN: If the city is disabled above Cathmoíra such that it stops descending... From the Helm, the Helm's been sundered, and it's a protocol, the city is on its way to landing.

SAM: It's moving, right?

BRENNAN: It's moving.

BRENNAN: You're slowly descend--

AABRIA: We are going to land.

TRAVIS: Slowly, right?

BRENNAN: Slowly. There is a way, theoretically, to stop this. What Cerrit is driving at is this: if you killed, if you burned through all the energy you've got, or something like 40% of it, 60, some huge percent, you'd have to try it, you could kill the descent. You could. You could stop the city from touching down. What this would mean is that, for the first time in 292 years, Avalir would not touch down for the Replenishment. And there are enormous amount of contracts you would immediately default on. There is no guarantee that the Septarion would even allow it, and if they discovered that it was happening, it could constitute treason. If you acted on your own and just (snaps) killed the engines, it could be construed as treason. And you'd miss your shot.

AABRIA: It has to land.

LOU: Can we un-modify the memory? Patia, is that at all possible?

SAM: No one has Greater Restoration.

MARISHA: Yes, it would be a combination of Restoration, and almost like a--

SAM: We don't have the body here, right? We just have the memory.

MARISHA: We only have the memory, but... (sighs)

SAM: It might not even matter. We know--

MARISHA: Memories are tangible figments. They exist.

SAM: But it might not even matter. If we know that this memory was modified, we can pretty much guess as to what it was modified from.

AABRIA: We know they want us to land.

SAM: Yes.

AABRIA: They killed the helmswoman, so it's on autopilot, it will do that.

MARISHA: What if they don't want, if they want to drain the batteries.

SAM: They attacked the batteries, but maybe they didn't succeed.

LOU: Is it all just a feint, so that we--

LUIS: Speed us along.

LOU: Yes, to make us go faster?

SAM: Or to make us continue on the path that we're supposed to be on,

the status quo.

TRAVIS: They need something.

MARISHA: They want us to think that landing the city is the most important thing.

LOU: It's the safest and quickest thing to do.

LUIS: They want to bring back the Betrayers, and that's a way to do it, whatever it is.

LOU: It's through the Replenishment, through that--

MARISHA: We already know that there are attacks happening globally.

SAM: If we don't land, I mean, we're all finished. But also, shouldn't we warn the rest of the world that this is happening?

LUIS: Yes.

SAM: Cathmoíra, if there are going to be attacks, we could save lives

if we broadcast it.

LUIS: We need to warn them.

LOU: I was considering scrying on my brother to see.

LUIS: Yes?

LOU: He's the Alcald, and would be a person of influence.

TRAVIS: Yes.

LOU: We're going to do it. I'll burn a 5th-level spell slot. I'm going to Scry on my brother.

BRENNAN: You scry on your brother, and you see that he is at a dinner table enjoying,

or, sorry, no, it's like 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning now. You see he's still up, writing by candlelight. It's the eve of the Replenishment, he's probably going to stay up all night just 'cause. You don't see anything. You don't see chaos or anything like that. You know that the site of the druid's grove's on the other side of the ring from the Alcald's home,

so he's miles away.

LOU: Mm-hmm. Oh, the Giants' thing--

BRENNAN: The Giants' Slumber is a sacred site

within Cathmoíra.

LOU: Mm-hmm.

BRENNAN: But it doesn't look like anyone's alerted him. You don't see anything else happening like that.

LOU: Ah. Can anyone send a Sending spell to my-- Can we watch him go check on the Giants' grove? It would take him too long to get there?

BRENNAN: (sighs) Honestly, you guys are progressing your descent enough, it'd be faster for you guys to get there flying.

TRAVIS: Just from a position--

BRENNAN: Yeah?

TRAVIS: -- perspective, are we still traveling down and to meet?

BRENNAN: No, no,

you moved all the way.

TRAVIS: Are we directly above?

BRENNAN: Are now descending, going straight down.

TRAVIS: I ask my question again, is there anything that would cause the city to fall from the sky?

LUIS: As it was doing--

TRAVIS: Are there defaults? Are there redundancies? We are now directly above the Wildmother's embrace.

AABRIA: We only lost one battery. We have enough to land. I need 50% of the power that we've gathered to attempt to finish the Astral Leywright.

SAM: And that would transport the entire city elsewhere?

Maybe?

AABRIA: It would allow us to have a new leyline to other planes.

SAM: But it wouldn't immediately take us somewhere?

AABRIA: No, we have things to do on the ground. That's not a lie. (chuckles) I just don't care about being on the ground.

BRENNAN: Give me an arcana check.

AABRIA: 20. Dirty.

BRENNAN: So here's what you know. What Cerrit said, "Can we stop the city?" Can we stop the city in the air?" Yeah. That's doable. That's doable. But you know the cost that comes at.

AABRIA: Yeah.

BRENNAN: You have time. It's in between 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning right now. This thing's not going to land until 10 minutes before sunrise. You've learned more about the Arboreal Calix in the past day than you've known in your entire career as the Architect Arcane. Maybe there's a solution. There might be something clever. There might be something you could do that would answer the energy problem. You think it might be worth figuring out or finding out. It might be worth uncovering that memory more if there's more information in there, if you can scrape that top layer off somehow. But, on a dirty 20 arcana check, you know there's something that these entities still need. They're still grasping for something. Why did they grab those thoughts from Cerrit in the fight? Why did they get this blood from Zerxus? They're still scrambling, too.

TRAVIS: I'm trying--

AABRIA: How does your ring work?

TRAVIS: My ring lights up in the presence of deception or a lie.

AABRIA: I'm lying to you. I know how to stop it.

TRAVIS: Oh.

AABRIA: I just don't want to yet.

TRAVIS: Jumping, this Leywright, I'm going to ask questions because I'm not an arcane user, so I'm trying to play big league with you guys now. Do we have to be docked to do it, with Cathmoíra?

AABRIA: Yes. None of this works if we don't dock, whatever Replenishment needs to happen.

TRAVIS: "Yes" was all I needed. Evandrin, he went to this other place, came back, and was never the same again. Yes or no?

AABRIA: Yes.

TRAVIS: And you want to send this entire city, with our families, to that place at that risk?

AABRIA: Yes.

TRAVIS: I leave.

BRENNAN: Cerrit leaves. Cerrit, give me a perception check, and I'm going to let you know something as you're leaving.

TRAVIS: Ooh, that's a 31.

BRENNAN: 31.

AABRIA: (yelps)

TRAVIS: Nat 18, it's a 31.

BRENNAN: In Laerryn's effects, you see a scroll of birch bark. You see a birch bark scroll that you recognize as being Druidic in nature.

TRAVIS: Oh my-- shit.

MARISHA: (coughs) I inhaled some spit gasping.

TRAVIS: (laughs)

BRENNAN: You don't know, necessarily,

what it is.

MARISHA: Where'd you get that fucking scroll?

BRENNAN: Wait, I forget, did you communicate that in the group chat, what that was, or back in the Magisterium?

Maybe not?

AABRIA: Would I have said it? No, we were running around. I don't think I had time.

You know about it.

MARISHA: Oh, that's right!

AABRIA: It's the thing we saw.

MARISHA: This was on the way to--

okay, okay.

AABRIA: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

MARISHA: Right, right, right. I copied it.

AABRIA: Yeah, you copied it. You have that, too. We're in this together.

MARISHA: We're in this together.

AABRIA: If I go down, you go down with me.

TRAVIS: As I'm getting ready to leave, I'll just call out what I see. You might want to check what's in her pocket. There have been some incredibly selfish actions amongst this group. I don't know if we'll survive the night, but I'm going to go take care of mine now. And I leave.

BRENNAN: (whooshes) Off of the Meridian Labyrinth. Cerrit, you take off. We'll come to you in a moment. (inhales sharply) You guys are very good at playing D&D!

(laughter)

BRENNAN: Very good at this game. Very good at this game. For the rest of you gathered herein, what comes next?

SAM: (sighs)

BRENNAN: There's the question of this memory. There's things that you are thinking about the Arboreal Calix.

AABRIA: We can still fix this. We just have to get to the Calix.

MARISHA: And there's no way to teleport without touching down, we can't do it in the sky?

SAM: Do we want to try to scrape this memory a little bit more? Do you have a Restoration?

MARISHA: What's that?

What did you say?

SAM: Do you have Greater Restoration or anything?

MARISHA: I don't have Greater Restoration.

AABRIA: I don't have either because I'm dumb.

TRAVIS: Oh, it's a move curse.

LUIS: (sighs)

MARISHA: I've got Detect Thoughts,

so I can't.

SAM: I have Modify Memory.

AAABRIA: I have Dispel Magic.

BRENNAN: If you want to throw a Modify Memory on there, and you want to do another Detect Thoughts, we can scrape through this.

MARISHA: Okay.

SAM: What do you have there, Zerxus?

LUIS: Because this is a spell that did this, but the person that it was done to isn't here, but I have Cleansing Touch, which I can use to end a spell.

SAM: Hmm.

LUIS: But this is very far removed.

BRENNAN: Yeah. I actually think, yeah, you can use your Cleansing Touch here, and that will help because this was some infernal magic that happened here. I think you can, with those three things combined, you go back through the memory, and you see the thing that Lacrytia Hollow actually told her lackey. "The city must land. It must land before sunrise. The Apogee Solstice, perfect time. The Betrayers are coming. They are coming here. And when the city lands, glorious day." You see that the mage speaks back to Lacrytia saying, "Mistress, what if, what if the problem that we've discussed," you see she looks and says, "That's for Vespin to handle." You see he says, "The Archmage?" You see she says, "Of course. Oh, you didn't think he was gone forever, now, did you?" And that's where that memory fades.

AABRIA: No.

SAM: Yeah. So the choice is, we stop the city and ruin your plans, or we let it go.

AABRIA: There's another way. There's always another way.

SAM: I don't see one.

AABRIA: No. No!

LUIS: We have time to try to find one.

AABRIA: Yeah!

SAM: If we ruin her plans, we don't get Evandrin back.

AABRIA: He can't be gone for nothing.

LOU: Let's take a look at the Arboreal Calix.

AABRIA: Yes.

LOU: And move from that place.

AABRIA: Yes.

MARISHA: Yes. As Zerxus says, we have time to tree. (chuckles)

LUIS: We have time to tree.

LOU: We have to time

to tree.

TRAVIS: Tree. (laughter)

SAM: I don't know if that quote is going to make it in the final recap. (laughter)

LUIS: I think with that, I'm ready to-- I'm just going to head to whatever that--

BRENNAN: You head to the Calix.

LUIS: I'm heading to the Calix.

LOU: I'd like to pull up alongside Zerxus as we walk to the Calix.

BRENNAN: Mm-hmm.

LOU: Oh. I wanted to apologize for--

LUIS: There's no need. You're right. What good is the truth if you force it out of somebody?

LOU: But your... Your forthrightness is important. What we saw in the Hall of the Prophecy did not... You often interact with the divine, but I do not. What we saw there was deeply troubling.

LUIS: It was. Hmm. I'm not. The others need to know. We need to know everything. (sighs) But let's see what this Calix reveals, and then we'll go from there. I think people have had enough of that sort of talk for now. We're all a little on edge.

LOU: Yeah, literally. We'll have to reach out to Cerrit and give him time to cool off.

BRENNAN: Speaking. You all move to the Calix.

AABRIA: Can I send a quick sending to Quay specifically--

BRENNAN: Yeah.

AABRIA: -- as we're going?

SAM: To me? Aren't we together?

AABRIA: Yeah, but I want it to be private. Just turn the mask and just say: My ambition is perhaps a flaw, but the biggest mistake I ever made was not trusting you with the whole truth. I'm sorry, and I love you, and I will fix this. That's all.

SAM: Can I reply?

AABRIA: Mm.

SAM: I'll just say: Yeah, you've already saved me once. Maybe I can return the favor.

AABRIA: I sprint for the Calix.

MARISHA: Patia is the last one remaining as everyone goes ahead. Will follow in a moment. She pulls the orb in front of her face, and she just starts playing back the memory of the things that just happened, and she gets to Cerrit saying: "There have been some incredibly selfish choices." She plays it back, "Incredibly selfish choices," and plays it back, "Incredibly selfish choices," and plays it back. After about half a dozen times, steels herself and follows forward.

BRENNAN: You enter the Calix. A massive stone chamber encompasses, glowing with runes, two mighty arcane engines, (energy crackle) large-bladed fins circling around glowing blue amethyst orbs crackling with light. You see stained glass windows showing light not from this plane of existence, but the stained glass shows the flying city of Avalir, runes protecting it. You've never opened the door to the Calix before, but you know how. No corner of this city is beyond your reach. A massive wheel turns as you opened the chamber. Hovering in the center of the room, not translucent, but real, is a tree. The tree is beautiful. Dark wood, dark leaves and blossoms. Sometimes, Evandrin's sweat, when he was at his worst, would smell like these blossoms. The tree hovers. You see the engine surrounding it, placed here 119 years ago.

AABRIA: (whispers) Disgusting.

BRENNAN: As you enter this chamber, everyone here give me perception checks.

AABRIA: Don't you wish you were here now?

TRAVIS: Mm-hmm. I do actually.

SAM: I got a natural 20.

BRENNAN: Natural 20?

AABRIA: (laughs)

Yes!

TRAVIS: A natural 20?

SAM: Plus seven.

AABRIA and

MARISHA: (laugh)

SAM: Loquatius, you smell blossoms. The Feywild. It's not far from here.

SAM: Oh.

BRENNAN: Suddenly, you feel like maybe nothing's very far from here.

SAM: Whoa.

BRENNAN: Blossoms move. You look up into the tree. None of your human and elven friends can see it, but your fairy eyes look up and you see, (drips) almost translucent, but there's a little blinking light up in the branches of the tree. (boop boop) (higher pitched boop boop boop) It's partially invisible. It's possible, with some simple magic, you could illuminate it or draw attention to it, but it is there in the tree.

SAM: Sure. I'll point it out and use Prestidigitation to just put some electric blossoms around it.

MARISHA: Nope. Nope, nope.

BRENNAN: Laerryn. Your toy.

MARISHA: Nope.

TRAVIS: Oh.

MARISHA: (gasps)

BRENNAN: It's stuck in the branches of the tree, and it can't come back.

AABRIA: I'm going to try to use Mage Hand to grab it.

TRAVIS: It's flickering?

BRENNAN: It's flickering. It's partially translucent. Quay was able to see it, and it's there. But you see it starts to become translucent, (whoosh) vanish, (fwoop) come in and out. (boop boop) You realized you sent it, but it can't come back. You sent this in the room with the Leywright. You didn't send it in this room. Somehow the tree grabbed it. It's caught in the branches here.

AABRIA: The fucking tree is ruining my cool magic.

BRENNAN and

MARISHA: (laugh)

AABRIA: I really want to cast Blight on the tree, but that's probably a bad idea.

SAM: The tree is catching things that are going through a planar portal?

AABRIA: It's been grabbing magic.

LUIS: I'm going to step forward,

BRENNAN: Mm-hmm.

LUIS: And I'm going to speak to the tree--

BRENNAN: Okay.

LUIS: -- in Primordial.

AABRIA: You speak Primordial?

MARISHA: (gasps)

LUIS: I do.

MARISHA: I also speak Primordial, ♪ so I know what ♪ he's saying. ♪

SAM: ♪ I chose Dwarvish ♪ (laughter)

MARISHA: What? Did you really?

SAM: Yeah.

MARISHA: Why? Age of Arcanum!

SAM: I don't know. I thought dwarves were old.

TRAVIS: It's a big market for the Herald's Tome.

(laughter)

BRENNAN: It's a big market.

MARISHA: Yes! (laughs)

AABRIA: That's amazing.

TRAVIS: (laughs)

MARISHA: (laughs)

TRAVIS: Oh my god.

MARISHA: (laughs)

LUIS: Oh my god.

BRENNAN: You go up and speak to the tree. What is it that you say?

LUIS: I say... (sighs) Fuck. I say the word in Primordial that is: My sibling.

BRENNAN: (whispered whooshes)

LUIS: Do you understand what I'm saying? Speak, if you may.

BRENNAN: No response comes to you. You cannot be certain if the tree cannot speak or if it simply does not deign to respond.

LUIS: Let's take another step.

BRENNAN: Mm-hmm.

SAM: I can try to assist.

LUIS: Damn. Oh.

MARISHA: What do you wish to do?

SAM: It's not a creature. I have something called Universal Speech.

AABRIA: Oh, good.

SAM: If it can understand language, it would understand us. I don't know if it can talk back, though.

LUIS: I believe this understands us. What do you want?

BRENNAN: Petals fall, move through the air, twisting and fluttering, and vanish. There is no response.

LUIS: I'm trying to think of what-- What was Evandrin doing here? What did he seek here?

AABRIA: He didn't seek anything here. When we made... When I made a first attempt... This thing siphons magic. He was taken to this the same way my toy was stuck in the branches.

BRENNAN: You look up and still see it there. It can't quite make it back. Even with Mage Hand it still (whooshes). The attempt to get it with Mage Hand, it pulls for a moment, and then, (whooshes) translucent, ephemeral, ethereal.

LOU: The memory... When the fiends were summoned, there were blossoms, yes? It's something... This tree and passing through spaces, planes, they are connected in some way.

LUIS: Right, right.

LOU: Even, it seems, things not from the Celestial Plane still interact with this tree in some way.

LUIS: Some sort of a gate.

MARISHA: It's growing through the leylines.

AABRIA: (whispers) We need to get rid of it.

LOU: Oh...

AABRIA: I'm going to begin to cast Blight.

MARISHA: Ooh.

SAM: Cast what?

TRAVIS: Did you say

Blight?

AABRIA: Blight.

SAM: This is dangerous.

LUIS: What?

MARISHA: Oh my god!

TRAVIS: This is what we came for, fam. Let's go.

AABRIA: Was this called "ExU: A Chill Day in the Park?"

LOU: I want to put my hand on Laerryn's wrist.

TRAVIS: Oh boy.

LOU: You cannot. You cannot.

AABRIA: He was my friend, too, and he's gone because of this.

LUIS: But he may not be gone. He might be stuck in there. Just like your toy.

AABRIA: Then if we get rid of it, whatever's stuck in it will fall down.

LOU: You cannot! The limbs of the tree, they cannot-- they must remain.

AABRIA: What?

SAM: Do you know of this tree?

AABRIA: Why?

LOU: The false prophecies... What I pray were lies that we heard. They spoke of the limbs of a tree that can no longer scribe the name of our deliverance will soon be broken, will soon be as broken as our promises. If this is that tree, we cannot be the ones who break it.

SAM: Because why?

LOU: I-I-I don't know. I-I-It's prophecy. I-I don't want to believe it. I-I do not believe it to be true. But if there's even a chance that it could be, w-w-we cannot. You cannot.

LUIS: You shared the prophecy with us?

LOU: No. This is the first you are hearing it.

TRAVIS: You just said it was false, or wanted it to be.

LUIS: What did the prophecy say about the tree?

LOU: (sighs) I'll recite the prophecy.

BRENNAN: Go ahead and recite it for us.

LOU: "The stars are leaving us. Our hands cannot reach. The limbs of the tree can no longer scribe the name of our deliverance. We will soon be as broken as our promises. Avalir shall fall. All shall fall. And from our folly, will the hand that forged the world, banish themselves from the broken thing that we have made."

BRENNAN: Laerryn, you don't hear any of that.

SAM: Whoa.

BRENNAN: In the branches of the tree, you see the frightened face of the friend you sent away.

LUIS: (gasps)

BRENNAN: "(gasps) Ah!" And gone.

AABRIA: He's stuck.

BRENNAN: He's stuck, just like your toy.

AABRIA: I can get him.

LUIS: I don't see that.

AABRIA: I do not care about prophecy. If you do not want me to do this, you will have to stop me. I try to pull away from his grasp.

LOU: I'm going to hold on.

BRENNAN: I'm going to need the people in this room to roll initiative.

MARISHA: (gasps)

AABRIA: Please die. It's always bad. (groans)

TRAVIS: I've seen better.

AABRIA: Yeah. It's a mediocre ten.

BRENNAN: Did anyone roll above a 20?

SAM: 22.

BRENNAN: Quay, you go first. You see Nydas holding hard onto Laerryn's wrist.

SAM: Nydas will see my eyes flash red and my face turn devilish and my voice drop an octave, and I say: (deeply) Unhand her! I will cast Fey Presence. Wisdom saving throw of 18, or else be frightened of me.

LOU: That one goes fully off the table. That is a 21.

SAM: Woo!

BRENNAN: You hold on. That's above 21. Anyone roll initiative between a 15 and 20?

MARISHA: 19.

AABRIA: I cast Silvery Barbs.

BRENNAN: Silvery Barbs to change that?

SAM: She can reroll?

AABRIA: Roll again.

BRENNAN: You can reroll.

MARISHA: (gasps)

BRENNAN: Roll again.

AABRIA: I give myself advantage for the other half.

LUIS: Holy shit.

AABRIA: I just turn and say at the same time: Let me go!

TRAVIS: Do we have popcorn?

LOU: That is only going to be six.

TRAVIS: (groans)

SAM: He will be frightened of me.

LUIS: Was he within 10 feet of me?

BRENNAN: Yes.

LUIS: You can't be frightened. (yelling)

TRAVIS: I'm sorry. The BDE is real strong right now.

AABRIA: It's so strong!

BRENNAN: Incredible. Whoosh, whoosh! Okay, Patia, you're next to go. You watch these two sides quickly, Loquatius & Laerryn and Zerxus & Nydas. It is your turn next.

MARISHA: (laughs)

TRAVIS: Choose wisely. (laughter)

TRAVIS: But choose.

MARISHA: I'm currently not interested in these timely squabbles that will not matter in 10 years, five years, maybe even a day's time. What I am interested in is what information this tree holds. And if it is the Tree of Names, I want to know what names it holds, and if there is some way to determine that if it-- the erase-- the purging of Evandrin's name, of the Raven Queen's name, any other name, what information has been lost and is in this tree. So I'm going to approach it. Touch it? I'm going to touch it.

AABRIA: Oh, she gets to touch the tree, but I don't?

LOU: You're casting spells. You're not trying to touch the tree.

LUIS: You're looking at the tree in a

really lovely way.

MARISHA: This is a long-ass casting time. This is a long-ass casting time, but it's the Age of Arcanum.

BRENNAN: Oh yeah.

MARISHA: Some sort of whatever would be an appropriate way to do Legend Lore here. I want to extract any type of legend or story that I have, any knowledge from this tree, while they're distracted.

BRENNAN: In the chaos?

MARISHA: In the chaos. I don't care about this shit.

BRENNAN: Give me a wisdom saving throw at disadvantage.

MARISHA: (gasps)

AABRIA: (laughs)

BRENNAN: No, sorry, charisma.

Charisma saving throw at disadvantage.

LUIS: Are you within 10 feet of me?

BRENNAN: No. She walks up to the tree.

LUIS: She walks up to the tree.

BRENNAN: Walks up to the tree.

LUIS: I had just taken two steps forward, but I don't think I'm close enough.

MARISHA: (groans) It's bad with the disadvantage.

TRAVIS: Wanted it.

BRENNAN: Yeah.

MARISHA: 12.

TRAVIS: It's only a 10 DC.

BRENNAN: You walk up, touch the tree, ask it for names. (gasps) "Imyr Por'co." (sucking) The last person who touched this tree was your grandfather and you see him reach out to touch it and you hear a voice saying, "Unhand it!" as a towering ursine form, the great leader of the Gau Drashari when this tree was first placed. (whooshes) You see the Tree of Names. Names (rapid whooshing). "What has it been doing?" "The tree is a wall." "The tree is a gate." "The tree is a pen, scribing, blossoms, leylines, writing, writing the names, the names." (whooshes) Petals falling all over Exandria. "This was our bargain, Imyr." (whoosh) You move back out. All of you watch her touch the tree and (energy buzzing). You see Patia's hair stretch out behind her, her eyes consumed with fire. She is rooted to the tree as though it is trying to draw her in and falls back out. That is your turn. We move down in the initiative order. Who got in between a 10 and a 15, anyone?

AABRIA: 10.

LOU: 12.

LUIS: I got a 10.

BRENNAN: 12. You are going to go next, Nydas.

LOU: (laughs) Okay. So Patia, hand still on Laerryn.

All of this.

BRENNAN: Mm-hmm.

AABRIA: (laughs)

LOU: Then Patia shoots-- Is Patia still attached to the tree, or is Patia--?

BRENNAN: Patia is attached to the tree. Patia has asked for knowledge from-- Patia has put her mouth to seek from the fountain of knowledge, and what has come forward from that is beyond oceans, vaster than anything. You see her mind is reeling as she taps into a vein of something grander and older and more profound than time.

TRAVIS: Went the way, way back.

LOU: Okay. Wild.

Can I make an insight?

MARISHA: (laughs)

LOU: Okay.

BRENNAN: Sure.

TRAVIS: We went back to zero.

LOU: I'm fighting. I'm fighting, I'm watching-- I'm trying to fight two of my best friends right now in front of a tree that's-- (laughter)

LOU: -- teaching my other friend-- (laughter)

LOU: -- information we don't understand. Can I make an insight check to see if Laerryn is still on her bullshit, even seeing what Patia has done?

BRENNAN: I mean, this tree you already hate appears to be eating your friend alive. I think no.

AABRIA: You hear the spell slot click up, like, click.

BRENNAN: (laughs)

MARISHA: Yeah.

LUIS: Wow.

MARISHA: Chambers, chambers in a shotgun.

LOU: I am keeping my hand on Laerryn. I keep my sword sheathed. I do not understand what this is. We cannot meddle with these sorts of things. And I'm going to cast Hold Person at the 3rd-level.

SAM: On?

LOU: Both of you.

MARISHA: Ooh!

AABRIA: Yeah!

TRAVIS: At the 3rd-level.

AABRIA: Love to see it.

LOU: And...

(sighs)

TRAVIS: Of course.

AABRIA: I have advantage when I am targeted by a spell attack.

BRENNAN: This is not a spell attack. It's a saving throw. Do you still have advantage?

AABRIA: Yes.

BRENNAN: Yes, absolutely.

AABRIA: Whenever I'm targeted by a thing, yeah.

LOU: I am going to spend three sorcery points to cast a Heightened Spell.

BRENNAN: Okay.

LOU: So you guys have?

BRENNAN: Disadvantage?

LOU: Disadvantage on this, or?

BRENNAN: Advantage and disadvantage cancels out.

TRAVIS: Straight roll.

BRENNAN: Straight roll.

SAM: You have advantage also because of your Silvery Barbs.

BRENNAN: But unfortunately, no matter how much advantage you pile up, one disadvantage, they--

SAM: So I have disadvantage, she just has a straight roll.

BRENNAN: You have disadvantage; she has a straight roll.

SAM: This is a what save?

LOU: Wisdom 18.

BRENNAN: I also point out, Laerryn, that you have line of sight on him as he's casting a spell, too.

MARISHA: Oh!

SAM: She already used her reaction.

AABRIA: Would my reaction-- No, wait. Yeah.

Used my reaction.

BRENNAN: Silvery Barbs, That's right. Used your reaction,

so it's a straight roll.

AABRIA: That's it.

LUIS: Wait, ooh. Are they within 10 feet of me? (laughter)

BRENNAN: Yes, they are, and you're broadcasting your aura, so this is plus five on saves.

AABRIA: Oh, that's fully cocked.

TRAVIS: His cologne's real strong.

AABRIA: Shit, oh!

LUIS: You're my ally right now.

TRAVIS: Come on, Sam, you got this.

TRAVIS: Both of you?

LUIS: I don't want--

MARISHA: Oh, shit.

SAM: Yeah, I got one and a five.

LUIS: Then they'll hurt the tree.

MARISHA: Oh! Sorry, what happened, Luis?

SAM: Doesn't matter.

LUIS: It doesn't matter?

SAM: We failed.

LUIS: Okay.

AABRIA: Wait, do I get the plus?

What's the plus?

LUIS: It's a plus five.

AABRIA: Still just short with a 16.

TRAVIS: Bro, bro. (laughter) (muffled mumbling)

BRENNAN: Nydas, it's a Hold Person on both of them. Boom, you watch them both freeze. You reach deep into something, something powerful inside of you. Boom, they are both held. (whoosh)

TRAVIS: Yo.

BRENNAN: Any bonus action from you?

TRAVIS: You flex.

LOU: I flex. No, I'm going to--

AABRIA: Yeah.

LOU: (exhales sharply)

LUIS: Shit.

LOU: I don't want to do offensive shit. It feels wrong.

BRENNAN: I mean, both of them are taken care of right now.

TRAVIS: Which part feels wrong? You mean the tree that's trying to suck the other person in, talking about the beginning of time?

LOU: It's all too much. (laughter)

TRAVIS: Which part feels wrong?!

MARISHA: This is so good.

LOU: Nydas is in attack mode, so I'm going to use my bonus action to sack a 2nd-level spell slot and get three sorcery points back.

BRENNAN: Cool.

MARISHA: Ooh!

BRENNAN: Hell yeah.

LOU: I'm not taking my eyes off the two of you.

AABRIA: Yeah.

LOU: I know better, but yeah.

AABRIA: Respect.

BRENNAN: You got a 10, you got a 12?

AABRIA: I got a 10.

BRENNAN: You got 10.

You got?

LUIS: I got a 10.

BRENNAN: 10, okay. Who has the higher dexterity here?

LUIS: Definitely not me.

AABRIA: Got a plus two.

LUIS: Yeah, you got it.

BRENNAN: Plus two? Laerryn, at the end of your turn, You may make another wisdom saving throw.

AABRIA: How in the fuck?

TRAVIS: What in the mother? Goodbye! (laughter)

LUIS: Never again, it's gone forever.

BRENNAN: I love it, I truly love it. Okay, Zerxus, it's you.

LUIS: I'm getting a flash of what Cerrit said about what was-- right, didn't you tell us that something was in somebody's pocket?

TRAVIS: The birch bark's in her pocket.

LUIS: Yep.

TRAVIS: I let you guys do with that what you want.

LUIS: I'm grabbing it.

MARISHA: (laughs)

BRENNAN: Grab it. You grab it. I'm going to say give me a flat investigation, to read it as quickly as you can.

LUIS: Oh, shit.

BRENNAN: It's all good.

LUIS: 10.

BRENNAN: 10. You begin to read. You see something wrong is happening with Patia in the tension of the moment. You look at it and there's something, the Drashari, they're saying something. They're saying something about like, "We cannot tell you what it does. We do not trust what she would do. We cannot trust you." That's all, you just see the word trust. You just see the word trust. They're talking about the Calix. They're talking about the tree. That's your turn. It takes a while. You're in the middle of pitched combat. You're trying to read the scroll. We go back to the top. Loquatius, give me another wisdom saving throw.

LOU: (laughs) Yes. (laughter)

TRAVIS: Don't fear your power.

LOU: I fully thought I would be you in this campaign. (laughter)

BRENNAN: I love it.

LOU: But you give me one fucking prophecy. (laughter)

BRENNAN: I fucking love it, I love it.

SAM: 17 unless I get to add his extra.

BRENNAN: I'm going to say in this moment, yes. I'm going to say you do. I'm going to say you do.

LUIS: But wait, wait, wait, can I gather that their intentions are to harm the tree? I mean, because I know that you are defending her and do I gather that her intention is to harm the tree?

BRENNAN: Your magic, and people can yell at me on the internet if they want to.

I'm going to ask you.

SAM: Never, never.

BRENNAN: Your abilities do not stem from intellect. You're not an intelligence-based caster.

LUIS: Yeah.

BRENNAN: This is extended--

LUIS: From my inherent relationship

to the individual.

BRENNAN: The wording, the rules as written are it extends to your allies. That's what it says. It extends to your allies. Do you consider them to be your allies?

LUIS: I do.

BRENNAN: Yes, so there you go. So Loquatius, that 17 becomes a 22, correct? (laughter)

BRENNAN: At the end of your turn, you are no longer held.

SAM: (pants) Good move.

LOU: Loquatius--

BRENNAN: (laughs)

LOU: Oh, thank you.

SAM: But I will fucking end you. (laughter)

BRENNAN: Patia, on a 19, you are looking to the tree.

SAM: Shit.

LUIS: Wow.

BRENNAN: You're looking in deeper and deeper, right? You see Imyr. You see this thing at the end. You see your grandfather take his hand off and say, "What, I'm not allowed to touch this most important engine of my city?" You see that this ursine form changes back into an earth genasi man, who just looks and says, "Imyr, I beg of you. We have given as much as we can. This will be a boon, a boon to the world. Just..." You see Imyr says, "Then tell me, then tell me." You see this druid look. Patia, what are you looking at in this moment?

MARISHA: (sighs) What am I looking at this moment? I already know my grandfather's intentions because his blood runs through my veins, and I know mine. What does the druid know that we do not?

BRENNAN: (low whoosh) We move from there. As we move from that moment, we go down the initiative order. Patia, you push in farther. We get down, I believe it is Nydas again, yes? Nydas, you go again.

LOU: I am focused on holding Laerryn.

BRENNAN: Okay.

LOU: I look to Loquatius, and I say: Loquatius, please. I live not for prophecy, but I live for Avalir. And if Avalir is in danger, if this tree, if its death, its damage could forsake our city, we cannot, we cannot touch it! Please!

SAM: I don't know what to do.

LOU: My full focus-- I'm not interested in harming Loquatius. I'm only interested in maintaining the Hold Person on Laerryn. I've got as many sorcery points as I need to do the stuff I want to do. I guess I will ready-- (laughter)

TRAVIS: Wow.

MARISHA: (groans)

LOU: You know.

LUIS: More crazy.

LOU: You ever been four hours and 45 minutes into an episode and then started doing PvP, and then you were like-- (laughter)

LOU: I don't know. No, I'm not going to ready an action.

TRAVIS: No rest.

LOU: My goal-- My one goal is to continue to Hold Person on Laerryn. Loquatius can live his life, whatever he needs to do. I am just making eye contact, pleading eye contact with Laerryn's paralyzed body.

BRENNAN: Your full focus is on speaking to Loquatius and holding on Hold Person, right? (sighs) So as you are concentrating fully on that, give me perception with disadvantage.

TRAVIS: You heard Cerrit's voice going, "How's it going, guys?" (laughter)

MARISHA: Guys, I've been

thinking about--

TRAVIS: I really left in anger.

MARISHA: Yeah.

SAM: I want to apologize.

MARISHA: Yes. (laughs)

TRAVIS: I really feel bad about it.

MARISHA: Yeah. (laughter)

TRAVIS: Guys? (groans)

LOU: 10.

BRENNAN: 10. On a 10, as you hold this with all your might, trying as hard as you can, this is exactly why you do not hear, "Within the confines of the Meridian Labyrinth, no harmful spells will be cast upon the Architect Arcane."

Dweomer walking into the room.

AABRIA: My girl!

BRENNAN: Extends a hand.

TRAVIS: Bitch got lair actions. (laughter)

BRENNAN: And is going to cast Disintegrate on you. (yelling)

MARISHA: Wait, turn off your robit!

BRENNAN: And, as a clockwork soul sorcerer, she is going to Heighten Spell. (yelling)

BRENNAN: She walked in and saw a Hold Person and she's got Detect Magic active.

LOU: Oh no, no, no, wait, wait, wait.

MARISHA: Run for cover. Put your hands behind your head.

LOU: Can I have advantage on this if I roll from down here? (laughter)

TRAVIS: The boatman waits, my friend.

LOU: We doing this?

BRENNAN: You're rolling me a con save with disadvantage.

LOU: Okay.

MARISHA: With disadvantage?!

BRENNAN: Con save disadvantage, yep.

LUIS: This is a spell? Is he within 10 feet of me? (laughter)

BRENNAN: He'd be within 10 feet of you, yeah, for sure. He's got the plus five.

LOU: Can we get Luis a t-shirt that says, "Are you within 10 feet?"

LUIS: You have a plus five.

TRAVIS: Pants are just down. Everybody's always like, oh yeah, yeah. (laughter) I feel good.

LUIS: Brennan, I need you to rule. I need you to make this decision because I can't because I'll cheat.

BRENNAN: Yeah, go for it.

LUIS: Is my sword drawn?

BRENNAN: I don't think so, no.

LUIS: I don't think so either.

Damn it!

MARISHA: (laughs)

LOU: Okay, so what's happening?

BRENNAN: You're rolling me a con save with disadvantage.

LOU: Okay.

LUIS: You have disadvantage and you still get a plus five.

LOU: So I have a plus five. I have a plus five from you.

LUIS: Yes.

LOU: I have a plus eight to con saves.

BRENNAN: Yep.

LOU: Plus 13.

BRENNAN: Yep.

TRAVIS: No problem.

AABRIA: She would say something.

MARISHA: Ooh.

LOU: A 23.

MARISHA: Ooh!

LOU: Or excuse me, 22.

BRENNAN: 22, okay, amazing. (many dice rattling)

SAM: It's a lot of dice.

LUIS: I'll do it.

AABRIA: You know what's happening. Call that shot.

LUIS: I'm going to Counterspell it. Yeah, you said heighten all kinds of stuff,

and now I only have--

SAM: It's a roll.

LUIS: -- one little itty bitty Counterspell, but I'm not going to-- I can't.

BRENNAN: Hell yes.

AABRIA: I want my girl to succeed.

BRENNAN: I hear ya.

AABRIA: Go find my die.

Thank you!

BRENNAN: Travis is out! All right, we are going to find a way to resolve this. (laughter) I'm going to say right now that--

LUIS: We're going to burn all of our stuff on each other.

BRENNAN: First of all, I want to make sure that you are-- because she's casting this at the outside of her range. She cast it as soon as she could, which means that if you're on the wrong side of Nydas--

LUIS: Yeah.

BRENNAN: -- she's out of your range. So we're just going to make it an even coin flip.

LUIS: Okay.

BRENNAN: You want an 11 or higher. Just roll a d20.

LUIS: 19.

BRENNAN: Okay. So she's in range. Go ahead and roll. You're just adding plus five to this check.

LUIS: Okay. You're not going to tell me what I need to get? You're not going to tell me?

BRENNAN: I'll let you know what you need to get.

LUIS: 20.

BRENNAN: Counterspelled. (whooshes) You watch the Disintegrate go off, headed right for you. Nydas, we move from your turn. I'm sorry, that was Dweomer's turn. Now it's going to go back to Laerryn, I believe, yes, mm-hmm.

AABRIA: I hear her come in. I hear the beginning of the cast, and I'm a little grateful as I scream no in my own head you can all hear it across the bond because I can't move or speak, but we're still telepathically connected, and I would never have wanted that for you. But I am going to roll again to try to break out of this. Do I get advantage on my saving throw now? Or are you burning stuff to negate that?

LOU: No, you're flat.

These are all flat.

BRENNAN: These are all flat.

AABRIA: Am I still your ally?

LUIS: Yes, you are.

AABRIA: Hold Person is gone.

BRENNAN: (energy noise) Hold Person leaves. We're just going to keep moving through because we have to. Zerxus, that's you.

What are you going to do?

LUIS: I'm reading this thing. I know there's a secret in here. I know there's something to the tree.

AABRIA: Can I yell?

BRENNAN: Yeah.

AABRIA: I saw him. He's in there.

BRENNAN: Zerxus, do you look to the tree, or do you look to the scroll?

LUIS: Oh my god.

AABRIA: Sophie's choice.

TRAVIS: She just said that, too.

LUIS: I'm going to roll to decide.

BRENNAN: Yeah, do it.

Do it.

LUIS: One through 10. I stay at the scroll, 11 and above-- I rolled a 20. This fucking die knows what matters to me.

I look up.

MARISHA: Rolled a natural 20.

BRENNAN: We'll come back to you, but you look into the tree, and I'll describe what you see in a moment. We move from Zerxus back to the top of the order. Loquatius, that's you.

SAM: What are we even doing now?

BRENNAN: You don't know. It's all become too much.

MARISHA: Never trust a motherfucker with a cause. (laughter, clapping)

AABRIA: Yes!

SAM: So I'm seeing-- so Patia's arm is in the tree? Does she look like she's in pain?

BRENNAN: Well, she looks like something otherworldly, unbelievable is happening to her for sure.

SAM: But she doesn't look--

BRENNAN: She's not taking on injuries. She's not taking on injuries, but the tree is growing around her hand. It's like (slurps)

SAM: Oh, it seems like we should get her out of there. Right?

AABRIA: No one liked the blight idea when I said it. (laughter)

TRAVIS: I was a fan over here.

AABRIA: I'm just bitching to you on the group chat.

SAM: Boy, I have not too many big spells left, so I will-- ay-ay-ay, I will just run over and grab her hand and try to pull her back out.

BRENNAN: Cool?

MARISHA: Okay.

BRENNAN: You grab her hand, try to pull her back out.

SAM: Her other hand, not the one that's in the tree.

BRENNAN: So you grab the hand that's not in the tree.

SAM: Yeah.

BRENNAN: As you pull, you begin to see what she is seeing.

TRAVIS: You're getting lightning, motherfucker.

SAM: I know.

AABRIA: My god!

BRENNAN: You look back and you see (blowing and banging) a gate opens. You see the Feywild. You look up and see the burning eyes, tall golden hair flaming, you see the leader of your court look up, Elmenore of The Burning Vale. (intense blowing) "Child, what have you done? Why are you looking beyond this realm? Something moves upon the face of your world. Do not let her find the names."

SAM: Don't let her find the names? Okay, I think maybe it's you!

MARISHA: Oh no!

AABRIA: There's other hers!

BRENNAN: You move from there. Loquatius. We go down the order again. Patia, that's you!

AABRIA: It's probably her.

MARISHA: Okay, okay, okay, okay, okay, okay.

BRENNAN: You look for the druid.

MARISHA: I want to go like a primordial deep, how fucking deep does this shit go, center of the universe, Big Bang, let's go!

BRENNAN: Big Bang, center of the universe. You see, towering, the Emperor of Fire, Rau'shan of the Primordials, the Empress of the Earth, Ka'Mort. The Dawnfather, the Wildmother, Mount Ygora where they were sealed forever. We will come back to you in a moment!

We move forward!

LUIS: What the fuck?

BRENNAN: We move forward in initiative. Nydas, it is you once more.

LOU: I can tell that Laerryn's out of the--

BRENNAN: You can tell that Laerryn's out of it.

LOU: Grapple.

BRENNAN: Okay.

MARISHA: Ooh.

LUIS: Oh no.

AABRIA: It's a contested roll, right? It might still be good. I'm a little baby.

I rolled an 18 on the die.

SAM: You're a big baby.

TRAVIS: (inaudible)

That's the die.

AABRIA: Yeah, right?

LOU: Only a seven, my heart's not in it.

BRENNAN: You leap at Laerryn, this automaton has come into the room. You've said everything you said. You see Loquatius now, his eyes are aflame as well. Zerxus with the scroll, who has been helping you by your side, suddenly looks up. We'll get to what you see in a moment, but you look to the tree. Laerryn, you dodge the grapple. That is your action. Laerryn-- Dweomer goes again. Seeing you no longer under the spell, Dweomer looks at you and wherever your eyes look, that's where Dweomer will look.

AABRIA: I'm not looking at her, I'm looking at Quay. What does Quay look like in this moment?

BRENNAN: What does Quay look like in this moment?

SAM: I am eyes wide and I'm trying to look back at you with just a look of fear. But not fear at what I'm seeing, fear at what you're doing.

AABRIA: Stop. I let him grapple me.

BRENNAN: You are grappled in this moment. You go. Your husband looks afraid. As you go deep, you see the tree lance out, two branches, sharp as swords lance into Patia and Loquatius at the same moment. It is still your turn.

AABRIA: I cast Blight.

BRENNAN: Blight hits the tree. We are going to resolve all this in a moment. I know that this is a chunky episode.

AABRIA: So? It's great. Keep going.

BRENNAN: But we are going to move very quickly into...

TRAVIS: The tree speared you two?

MARISHA: Yes.

BRENNAN: We are going to come back in a moment.

SAM: The two most honest people.

AABRIA: (laughs)

MARISHA: Mm-hmm.

BRENNAN: You see the tree just in defense as you attempt to plumb into its secrets. Cerrit.

TRAVIS: Me?

BRENNAN: We go to you outside. I need to know what you're doing. What are you doing? I need to know what you're doing.

TRAVIS: Yeah, no, I left. I'm in immediate bee-line for the Cloudstone. I'm heading to the Hawk's Nest and I'm heading to my office. I'm going back to that room. I just want to see, has there been attack? Has there been attack, is anyone alive?

BRENNAN: The Hawk's Nest is mostly empty. It's the middle of the night. People are either out on watch or doing whatever. You go. You fly to your room. There are no documents on your desk.

TRAVIS: Yeah, figures. I take the sending stone out of my pocket.

BRENNAN: Okay, you take it out.

TRAVIS: I say: Talon 2,

Talon 2 come in.

SAM: Oh god.

BRENNAN: "Wingspan, Talon reporting in."

LOU: Fuck no!

TRAVIS: Talon 2, I need you to listen here. Listen to me very carefully. I need you to find your sister and meet me at home. Can you do that?

BRENNAN: "Wingspan, who do you think you're even talking to? I followed Egghead, and Dad, remember, code names, code names."

TRAVIS: Sorry.

BRENNAN: "I followed Egghead. She doesn't have any idea I'm here. She's talking to a girl at a party. I think she's a Triton because she's got blue hair and they're--"

TRAVIS: Talon 2, listen, this is very--

BRENNAN: "And they're drinking stuff!

They're drinking stuff."

TRAVIS: That's very exciting.

BRENNAN: "There's a big party, it's at the Sorcerer's University. There's a bunch of kids. Everyone's talking about a fireworks extravaganza. I'm not sure if it was even permitted."

TRAVIS: Kir, listen to me. Get Egghead and tell her it's an emergency. You know what we talked about before. This is important. Please get her and come home as fast as you can. Do you copy?

BRENNAN: "I copy, Dad. Is everything okay?"

TRAVIS: Everything's fine. Remember, code names.

BRENNAN: "Sorry, Wingspan. Roger that, mission objective set. Gather Egghead and rendezvous at home base. Over and out."

TRAVIS: Out.

BRENNAN: "I love you, Dad."

TRAVIS: I love you, too.

BRENNAN: Where does Cerrit go now?

TRAVIS: I'm going to make my way to the Cloudstone and I'm going to gather... First of all, I approach the Cloudstone cautiously. I expect an ambush at every corner. I'm gathering things for Kir, things for Maya. I'm putting them in a small bundle and I'm waiting for them to get back. When I'm in the house and there's nothing to do but to wait for them to come back, I'm going to check in.

BRENNAN: Sorry, so you go to Cloudstone, you look at everything you can and then you're going to go back to your house. That's the plan, right?

TRAVIS: Yeah, I want to get them out.

BRENNAN: While you are at the Hawk's Nest, you search your office, nothing there. You go to find-- it's right down the hall from you. You go into Orwyn's office.

TRAVIS: Oh yeah.

BRENNAN: It's quiet in here, door's locked. You open it and you see two feet sticking out from behind the desk, prone.

TRAVIS: I unholster the hawks. I look around the room, 10 feet blindsight, anyone in here but me and him or the feet?

BRENNAN: The blood's had time to sink into the carpet. There's no one in here.

TRAVIS: He's my old partner. I'll walk around the side of the desk.

BRENNAN: You walk. You see as he was bleeding out, the artifacts are gone. The things from the crime scene are gone. But you look-- Orwyn was a good Eye of Avalir. He looks up in death and you can see from some of the drag marks here that he took a couple out with him. In his hands, you see that there are two magical items. They are a simple thing, you know what they are. The Eyes need to use magical items like these because you guys aren't wizards and you have to make it make sense in this world of magic and insanity and try to find reason a nd logic in a place that seems ruled by the belief that there are never going to be prices or consequences for any of this. They're simple magic items. There's two of them. They're like potions. You break them, and they do the spell that they're supposed to do. They're called Runes of Recall. You see scrawled in the script of a dying man to his old friend. He says, "I don't know how much time we got. They're for your kids. They're keyed to the mom. Wishing you all the..." And that's all that he had strength to write.

TRAVIS: Thank you, my old friend. I'm sorry I missed all this. I'll take them.

BRENNAN: Two Runes of Recall. Two tickets out. Your wings spread, you leave the Hawk's Nest for what rapidly feels like it may be the last time. And you fly home. You fly as fast as your wings will carry you. We return underground, and as we do, I will describe what we all see in time. Patia, the Schism. You look deep into the past. The Dawnfather, the Wildmother, Emperor Rau'shan, Empress Ka'Mort. Two of the Primordials, two of the only that were never killed, sealed under Mount Ygora. You see deep underneath the mountain, the druids tending to the seals. The Gau Drashari. The Gau Drashari built their temples here to tend to the work of the Wildmother and the Dawnfather to seal these Primordials away. Over time, centuries, mortals are so bad at remembering. It waxed on and on and eventually the wizards came and they saw the brumestone in the mountain and they wish to lift it up. You see the Gau Drashari meeting. You see your grandfather. (Imyr) "Our aim is to bring magic to the world. How could that be wrong? I know that your mountain is precious--" (Gau Drashari leader) "It is more than precious. There are things within this mountain." (Imyr) "Oh, what things are there within this mountain? Here you see that the Druids, though they did not have hubris, perhaps have flaws of their own. For they would not say, for they did not trust. (Leader) "Our business is our own, but we will not see the mountain tampered with." (Imyr) "Surely we would not be having this discussion if something were not possible. What if there was a way for us to reinforce? What if there was a way for us to gather magic from all over Exandria and bring it here? We would gladly tithe you some portion of the magic we collected." (Leader) "Is that possible?" Your grandfather, a beautiful man, "Kind mystics. Anything is possible." You see them look and say, "The land could thrive. Domunas could thrive." You see here they look and say, "Would you grant us some boons if we allowed you to take the peak and the peak alone?" (Imyr) "We can work with the peak." (whoosh) Move forward. You see the Gau Drashari. One of them summoning a tree into being. "A Tree of Names. If the wizards intend to fly along the leylines, then perhaps this could be a good thing. A tree, a tree to protect Exandria. To scribe the names of those things beyond which should not come." You see a floating globe, Exandria, beautiful. All throughout it, leylines. The tree is not a wall, it's a pen. It is scribing runes of protection. As you travel the leylines, the blossoms fall and protect your world. Protect your world from all the things outside it. (small whooshing noises) For 292 years, Avalir has been writing a spell on the surface of the world to keep it safe. The Gau Drashari believed in keeping things safe and protecting Exandria. Centuries from now, when their order is shattered, only the last three syllables of their name will remain. The Ashari. "The Tree of Names. To keep this world, our world safe from all those things beyond it." You see one of the druids speaks. "The wizards, do they not have a right to know?" To the druid, turns and says, "Would you trust them? Do you think they would let the tree stand, or do you think they would bend it to their will? Do you think that a day would come when a war, or a coronation, a betrayal, or a contract, some temporary problem. They would not see advantage in using what they should not meddle with. No, we will bind them to their word and we will not tell them what we have done." (whoosh) Zerxus, you look in the tree. You see, translucent, a face you have longed to see for many years. Before his voice was proud and now his face looks afraid. He looks at you in a ghostly moment and says, "Not like this!" Blight hits the heart of the tree. (thud, whoosh) (eruption) Rot, and the tree sunders. (explosion, exhale) The seam opens along the trunk. As it opens, there is only fire. Two arms push the tree apart and the skinned face of Vespin Chloras gazes out. Behind him, you hear the true voice that has been speaking to you for quite some time. "Very good, my little puppet." Vespin (squeals) crawls through. The tree sunders and the Lord of Hells gazes. (inhale, boom) "Ah, to be home again!" As the Betrayer steps foot into Exandria. That's all for this episode.

SAM: Oh, jesus.

TRAVIS: "My puppet." Vespin has--

SAM: It had everything! We all betrayed each other. We betrayed the world, the world betrayed the world.

AABRIA: Oh my god.

BRENNAN: And I'm going to remember to say at this time. Is it Thursday yet? (yelling)

TRAVIS: Oh my god.

BRENNAN: (laughs)