Transcript:The Sun Tree (episode)

List of Transcripts

Pre-Show
MATT: Hello everyone, and welcome to Critical Role, the show where a bunch of us nerdy-ass voice actors get together, roll dice, and play Dungeons and Dragons. My name is Matthew Mercer, I’m the Dungeon Master of the game. Welcome, new folks who haven’t seen this before, hope you’re not too lost, and returning Team Hooman and Critter fans, welcome back, we love having you and let’s get this evening on the road. We have some announcements and things to talk about before the game actually kicks in, so we’ll first pass it over here to our fantastic overlord to get that kicked off.

ZAC: That’s right, you get to see my ugly face for a couple minutes while I get through a couple quick announcements, guys. A lot of you have been asking me on Twitter and in the chat room when you will get to see Critical Troll? That will be up on the website tomorrow night at 8PM Pacific Standard Time. So go over to the website at 8PM, you’ll be able to see that and I’m sure you guys will secretly pass around the youtube link and stuff.

MATT: Watch me go crazy.

ZAC: Currently you can find Laura’s article on GeekandSundry.com.

LAURA: What?!

ZAC: That came out today, so make sure to head over to the website and read that. And I know a lot of you are probably wondering about D&Diesel. Which is apparently the name, D&Diesel.

LAURA: Yeah, it is.

ZAC: Got a ring to it.

TALIESIN: Hashtag D&Diesel.

ZAC: Hashtag D&Diesel. That will be showing tonight during the midpoint of the show. Now, there’s a couple special things with this showing, you need to watch it live. If you think that you’re going to come back later, watch it on the rebroadcast, and you’re gonna go dip out for a pee break or pizza break, whatever, don’t! Stick around because after it shows tonight live, you will be unable to see it again until Monday on the website. So it will be cut from the rebroadcasts.

LAURA: Whoa.

ZAC: And I’m very sorry to our European audience. I’m really sorry about that, but that’s just unfortunately how PR deals work sometimes and that’s just the way it is. But, it’ll only be–

MATT: It’s only a few days!

ZAC: Yeah, it’ll only be a few days and you’ll get to see a lot more on Monday. A longer cut and that’s why it’s a website exclusive. It’s longer, it’ll have some tightening and all sorts of other stuff. But, you guys get a special treat tonight with a preview showing, and it’s still a long preview, it’s like 20-25 minutes or something like that.

LAURA: Whoa, it is?

MATT: Yeah.

ZAC: It’s pretty cool.

MATT: That’ll be exciting.

ZAC: So there’s that. Tomorrow we have a very special event happening for all of those that joined us for the Extra Life campaign, thank you so much, and a lot of you guys were here as well.

MATT: Yes indeed.

ZAC: And thank you for donating, getting us well past our goal, and as some of you may remember during Critical Troll, Felicia mentioned that if we reached a certain goal, she would come on, on a scheduled date and play Rock Band 4. So that’s happening, tomorrow.

MATT: Yup!

ZAC: We are having a battle of the bands from 5 to 7PM Pacific Standard Time, and Mr. Mercer here is going to be playing the drums.

MATT: Yeah, I’m drumming for them, which, first off, I haven’t played since probably 2011, and I’m a little rusty.

ZAC: Have you seen your competition?

MATT: No, but I assume they’re gonna destroy me.

ZAC: They’re really good.

MATT: That’s okay. I will narrate my failure.

ZAC: There we go!

MATT: In a way that will still be as engrossing. (laughs)

ZAC: And there’s been a Twitter battle happening between the two teams.

MATT: Oh really?

ZAC: You’re kinda walking into the fire, my friend.

MATT: That’s okay.

ZAC: Felicia’s put a lot on the line for you guy’s team.

MATT: That’s cool. I got fire resistance. That’s fine.

ZAC: Okay cool, cool. That’ll be happening tomorrow 5PM to 7PM Pacific Standard Time, you guys should tune in for that. We are still going to be donating to Extra Life, but we’re not really going to be pushing it, it’s more of a reward for you guys for helping us get past that $75k goal.

MATT: Yes.

ZAC: Our next giveaway is going to be at 9,500, we’re getting pretty close. The other real quick little announcement I have as far as subs go, is last week you guys were able to get our sub train up to 420 subs, now that counts resubs and new subs. So we have the sub train going right now, I believe it’s well over a hundred–

MATT: Woof.

ZAC: If we break last week’s record of 420 which I think they purposely stopped at 420–

MATT: (laughs) Of course they did.

ZAC: Hey guys, don’t go. We will do a giant giveaway of board games, D&D stuff signed by the cast, signed by the rest of the Twitch crew. We’ll throw in a couple video games, t-shirts, all sorts of stuff. Plus Ivan has said if we reach that goal for TPK, which those that watched last Monday, thank you so much.

MATT: Yeah!

ZAC: It’s a new show on Monday nights where our Twitch cast plays as themself in Outbreak Undead. Last week, some of you saw the Twitch cast leave me for dead outside of the studio. And a lot of people thought that I might come back if given the opportunity. Well, if we break that sub goal, Ivan has said that I will come back and probably wreak havoc in some way for our Twitch host that thought they could get away with leaving me for dead in the middle of the street.

MATT: (laughs) That’s awesome.

ZAC: So let’s break 420. The last announcement, guys, is just a real quick community announcement. We like to pride ourselves at Geek & Sundry for being a very open and loving and warm community, and that’s absolutely the most important thing to us and to Felicia and to a lot of our viewers, and I know last week things got a little heated in the chat room, and we just want to remind everyone that we don’t get the opportunity to talk to you much during the show, but we want to make sure you guys stay as positive as possible or I will have to throw the hammer down on you.

MATT: Shit. All right. There you–

ZAC: That’s pretty much it.

MATT: You know, just goes to say that this community is built on so many great, positive people and such a wonderful sense of community, and a big huge thanks and please share appreciation for our fantastic mods who work consistently and constantly throughout the day.

ZAC: (sings) For free.

MATT: For free.

ZAC: (laughs) You guys are crazy.

MATT: Through our chatroom, which if you’ve watched, as you’re now seeing and have seen previous episodes, is I can only assume readable by super mastermind computers at this point. So, you guys do an amazing job, it’s really appreciated and to all of you guys out there in the community, keep that positivity, keep that understanding, and enjoy our game for its ups, for its downs, for our good character choices, bad character choices. It’s all an experience in a story that we’re all having together at the same time. So, kick along, hold on, and keep smiling.

ZAC: Well said, Matt.

MATT: Yeah, thank you.

ZAC: We love you guys, kind of.

(all laugh)

MATT: I do. I love you. We do.

ZAC: I’m on the fence.

MATT: He’s a– you know.

LAURA: We love you so much!

MATT: It’s a thing. So yeah, so, couple other announcements for you guys. What’s our sub count right now? When’s our next one hundred?

CREW: 9.5k, 9,500.

MATT: At 9,500 we will be giving away our signed photo and signed art piece by Kit Buss to a random person who’s active in the chat. So next time we hit that goal, we’ll have that giveaway, which is awesome. Once again, Extra Life has been our big charity push right now. Everyone who’s given, thank you so much. So, so much, and if ever you want to be a part of helping that out we have the information there available for you, it goes to a really great cause. Let’s see, Sam will be here shortly. Unfortunately, we’re down a Tiberius tonight. However, yesterday was Orion’s birthday, so feel free to go ahead and wish him a happy birthday on Twitter.

LAURA: Aw.

LIAM: Happy birthday, Orion.

TRAVIS: Happy birthday, buddy.

MATT: Happy birthday, Orion. But yeah, Sam should be here shortly. And, let’s see, do we have any project announcements?

LIAM: Just a project announcement?

MATT: Or any other announcements you’ve got.

LIAM: Hey, yesterday I started directing for the World of Warcraft. So that’s pretty good.

LAURA: You did?

(all cheer)

MATT: Congratulations, buddy.

LAURA: That’s so great!

LIAM: I think it’s gonna be ongoing and it was really nice.

TRAVIS: Big deal.

MARISHA: I’m so excited for you!

LAURA: That’s super exciting.

MATT: That’s awesome.

LIAM: Then anything right now?

MARISHA: I’m so fangirly.

MATT: Anything you want.

LIAM: All right, I also want to thank Pupgames from Twitter for sending me this.

LAURA: Oh yeah.

LIAM: Look at this. It came in the mail separate and I have a hood and now I can just, you know, I can go like that and no one will see me so thank you, Pupgames.

MATT: That’s awesome!

LIAM: Let me set it here. I haven’t figured out how to wear it exactly, but I will.

LAURA and MATT: (laugh)

TRAVIS: Take all your clothes off and then figure it out.

MATT: It’s warm on the chesticles.

LIAM: And then, I just want to take a minute, I said thank you on Twitter, but I just want to thank everybody who for the last week has sent me well-wishes and today who has sent me well-wishes, and a lot of the Critter community got together and made a video just to, you know, just support, support me in– I am having a hard moment in my personal life, not gonna get into it, but you guys kind of took my breath away today for real. So, thank you very much.

TRAVIS: Yeah.

MARISHA: We have the best fans.

MATT: This whole community is brilliant, so you guys.

TALIESIN: So many of them in New York and in San Francisco this week, where we’ve been all over the place.

MARISHA: Yes. Shout out to our New York and San Fran.

MATT: Yeah, we hit both coasts.

MARISHA: San Francisco. Both coasts.

MATT: Yeah, in the same week. It’s crazy. Yeah, we all went to New York Comic Con. We had a panel that went really well. We had a bunch of great critters come out and Team Hooman folks come and sit in the audience, ask questions. We had some fun banter back and forth. We gave out ‘Critical Rolls,’ these cookies that were our little meal deal.

TALIESIN: That were neither critical nor rolls, really to be fair.

MATT: Right.

TALIESIN: But they were good.

MARISHA: But we’re into it.

TALIESIN: Yeah.

MATT and MARISHA: Imaginary rolls.

MATT: Much like our realm is imaginary.

TALIESIN: I may have hit a couple people in the face, for which I greatly apologize.

LAURA: I definitely hit somebody in the face with one of those rolls.

TALIESIN: Yeah, I like split someone’s lip.

MATT: Completely unintentional, I’m sure.

LAURA: I’m so sorry.

LIAM: Her aim is excellent. She never misses.

LAURA: Yes, I am an archer.

TRAVIS: She Hunter’s Marks that shit.

LAURA: I Hunter’s Marked your face.

TALIESIN: And we played golf. It was quite nice.

MATT: Also, thank you guys for coming out to that event. Also, for those who came to see us at Forbidden Planet in New York, we had a great turnout, and that comic shop wasn’t quite expecting what they were in for.

TRAVIS: We weren’t expecting that.

MATT: We weren’t expecting, but they especially were like halfway through like, “Who are you guys?! What is happening?!”

MARISHA: (laughs) Yeah.

TRAVIS: We are legion.

MARISHA: We freaked out our Uber driver.

MATT: Yeah we did.

TALIESIN: Yeah.

MATT: We pulled up and got out of the car and all of a sudden it was like hundreds of people cheering and we all went “What?!” and the Uber driver went “What?!?”

TALIESIN: I think his exact words is, “Is this for us?”

(all laugh)

MATT: And even we were like “I don’t know.”

LAURA: I don’t know!

MATT: You guys were amazing. Thank you for that.

MARISHA: I feel like we need to find and screen cap in the thread where we were like, 20, 30 people, guys. Let’s not get our hopes up.

LAURA: Yeah.

LIAM: Well, that’s who got back to me, was like, I don’t know, 40ish.

LAURA: Yeah, we thought it was gonna be like 40 people.

MATT: Yeah, that was a good turnout.

LAURA: That– pretty great. Was great. Pretty great.

LIAM: It was pretty metal.

TALIESIN: The internet went, nope.

MATT: Yeah. Other announcements: Coming up in I think the next couple weeks or so, the release of the Minecraft Story Mode.

MARISHA: (whispers) Yeah.

TRAVIS: (sings) Yeah.

MATT: Comes out on Xbox. Completely a fun show. We went to the Archlight Let’s Play of it they did, which was really a lot of fun. I play the characters Aiden and Otis in it.

MARISHA: Hundreds of screaming children. Screaming, yeah.

MATT: Yes, lots of screaming children. Yeah, so I play Aiden and Otis and a smattering of other characters throughout. I think Sam also worked on it. Anyone else?

ALL: Ashley.

MATT: That’s right, Ashley Johnson, our very own Pike!

LIAM: She’s one of the mains.

MATT: Yeah, she’s one of the main characters in that show. So if you’re a Minecraft fan and you like Telltale and you have an Xbox, check it out.

LAURA: Speaking of Telltale, the final episode of Tales from the Borderlands comes out next week.

TRAVIS: Oh snap!

LAURA: Episode five, what!

TALIESIN: Yeah!

MATT: Awesome!

LAURA: Exciting.

MATT: (sings) Yeah.

TALIESIN: Also in that role, if any Critters are in the Galveston area for Halloween, I will be at OniCon over Halloween weekend. So, you can come say hi in beautiful Galveston by the sea. Galveston, Texas.

MATT: There you go.

TALIESIN: I’ll be wearing a costume. It’ll be great.

MATT: Perfect.

LIAM: We have a gnome.

LAURA: We have a gnome.

TALIESIN: We have gnome? Oh god!

MARISHA: You’re in Minecraft, right? Story mode.

SAM: Yes I am.

MARISHA: Yeah.

SAM: In fact you and I–

MATT: I think we have a couple scenes together.

SAM: We do something together, I don’t know what. Or you’re playing a version of me or something, I don’t remember.

MATT: I can only assume that it’s tawdry.

SAM: (laughs) The director told me something about you and I just assume we’re probably having sex in the game.

MATT: Probably.

SAM: Yeah, okay.

MATT: It’s just like an extended, fully interactive too. Talk about choices you make that affect the storyline. (laughs)

TALIESIN: I blank out in the booth any time they mention his name.

MATT: But yeah, cool, guys. Any announcements anyone want to talk about, or shall we get things started?

LAURA: Let’s do it!

MATT: All right, let’s do it.

MARISHA: Do it!

LIAM: Wait, where did Grog go?

TALIESIN: Wait, wait, wait.

SAM: He’ll be here.

MATT: Grog, he’ll be here in a minute but in the meantime, let’s go ahead and dial in for the next episode of Critical Role.

TALIESIN: Dun dun dun dun.

[opening credits]

Part I
MATT: Welcome back. So. Sh. (laughs) So, to go over the current adventure in its current sequence, we have– the party recently had an encounter with the Briarwoods. Two individuals that were responsible for a lot of strife–

LIAM: Dicks!

MATT: – in the background of Percival’s history. Seemingly responsible for the destruction of his entire family, and have for the past five years been essentially ruling his home city and castle. They were out for a political banquet with Sovereign Uriel in Emon and the party members of Vox Machina, they were all invited to be part of this. Didn’t quite go as planned. There was a scuffle and the Briarwoods absconded back to Whitestone. They sent a couple assassins out to attempt to take out their driver, who was spilling information and essentially was going to be Vox Machina’s way of being free of any sort of political issues based on their actions that evening, and after much discussion and preparation and purchasing a lot of mirrors, the party took their transit over to the east-northeast towards Whitestone, where they began to traverse the Alabaster Sierras to the north, using the mountain range as opposed to going directly through the forest. There they managed to avoid encountering a bunch of harpies that were distracted by eating the horses they left behind.

TRAVIS: Damn.

MATT: They camped for the evening and began to make their way through some sort of a mountainous valley that led in towards the forest surrounding Whitestone. While they were traveling down this pass, there was a rumbling, and some sort of really fast, rapid-moving large blue creature that leaped down in front, catching them off-guard. And that is where we begin today.

TRAVIS: Probably should have fucking researched that creature.

TALIESIN: Did the creature look like that?

MATT: That blue creature.

LAURA: Yeah, right? That would have been smart.

TALIESIN: Okay, just checking.

TRAVIS: I never do that.

LAURA: I know. So dumb.

SAM: What’s dumb?

TRAVIS: I have a question.

LAURA: That we didn’t research that creature.

TRAVIS: What did you roll on your beard check?

MATT: What’d I roll on my beard check?

LAURA: I know, it’s growing!

MARISHA: It’s metagaming, you can’t. We’re not allowed.

MATT: Well, obviously.

(all laugh)

MATT: Well, No Shave ‘Til 10k.

TRAVIS: That’s true!

MATT: And my Halloween costume requires a decent amount of facial hair.

TALIESIN: Oh, that’s right.

TRAVIS: A sexy amount of facial hair, you beast! Be glad there’s a table between you and I.

(all laugh)

LIAM: I was a little worried about some performance capture coming up, but it got moved back–

LAURA: So you can shave–

LIAM: Off to the races.

MATT: Yeah!

LAURA: How far are we from 10K?

TRAVIS: I gotta shave tonight.

CREW: 509.

MATT: 509 away.

LAURA: All right.

SAM: So, like, tomorrow.

MARISHA: Yeah, no.

MATT: We’ll see.

MARISHA: Tonight.

MATT: All right, so, everyone. As this huge, blue-scaled reptilian-like creature with multiple arms and legs comes skittering down the side of the cliffs, blocking off the entirety of this passage, snarling at you with sharp teeth and this sparking-blue electrical energy jutting out of the corners of its mouth. I want you all to roll initiative.

MARISHA: So soon! Which one?

SAM: I add 20 to this, right, that’s how it works?

MARISHA: Not good.

LAURA: Oh no!

SAM: See you guys in–

MARISHA: Always cocked!

TRAVIS: I didn’t level up! What a dick.

MARISHA: Still not great.

LIAM: Wait, you did but you didn’t, is what you’re saying?

TRAVIS: I did, but I didn’t.

LIAM: Add some hit points!

LAURA: Yeah, add your points right now.

LIAM: Add some hit points!

TRAVIS: How many do I add?

MARISHA: It’s like–

MATT: 1d12 plus your constitution modifier!

LAURA: 1d12!

MARISHA: Barbarian, man!

LIAM: Hey, we play D&D!

LAURA: Hey, that’s good! Plus–

LIAM: Plus–

LAURA: Whoa! 16 extra health points!

MATT: Whoa, what’d you roll?!

LAURA: He rolled an 11 plus five!

LIAM: Dang!

MARISHA: That’s hot.

MATT: That’s pretty hot. So many hit points for the barbarian.

LIAM: And, if you want, you can just boost to, are you at 12 now?

TRAVIS: What?

LIAM: Level 12? Are you at level 12?

LAURA: Don’t complicate things.

LIAM: Just smash, smash, Hulk smash.

SAM: How many spells does he get?

MATT: All of them. All right, so initiatives we have– 25 to 20, anyone?

TALIESIN: 21.

MATT: All right. 20 to 15?

LAURA: 19.

TRAVIS: Me too. 16.

MATT: 16? 15 to ten?

MARISHA: Ten.

MATT: Ten, Keyleth. Ten to five?

LIAM: Eight! I consistently botch this roll.

SAM: See you guys in like an hour. I got a four.

MATT: Scanlan, you have consistently the best initiative rolls.

SAM: Oh, yeah. I save it for when it counts.

MATT: As you should, as you should. So, first up: Percy. Instinctively, with your drive towards Whitestone and this creature in your way, you are already ready for this encounter. What are you going to do?

TALIESIN: It’s bigger than sin, isn’t it?

MATT: It is considered a huge creature.

TALIESIN: Okay, so, I’m going to alert everybody, get down! And I’m going to take three shots–

SAM: You’re just going to start shooting.

TALIESIN: Hmm?

SAM: You’re just going to start shooting.

TALIESIN: I’m just going to– look at that thing!!

MARISHA: Hey, Percy gonna do what Percy gonna do.

SAM: What if you could reason with him?

LAURA: He is definitely–

TALIESIN: Why doesn’t it reason with me, is what I’m asking! It could reason with me!

LIAM: There’s a lot of heads in the way. Just aim true.

TALIESIN: I’m aiming, I’m going to use the Sharpshooter for extra damage.

MATT: All righty.

TALIESIN: Three pepperbox shots.

LIAM: I will be less handsome with one ear, I’m just saying.

MATT: With the minus five.

TALIESIN: Yeah, so that’s 17.

MATT: 17 hits. Just go ahead and roll the attacks in succession.

TALIESIN: Hmm?

MATT: Go ahead and roll the attacks in succession so we know how many hit.

TALIESIN: Okay.

MATT: Second shot.

TALIESIN: Second one, it hits, 18 plus seven.

MATT: It hits. Third one?

TALIESIN: For the third one, I’m going to go for a head shot instead of a Sharpshooter.

MATT: Okay.

TALIESIN: And that’s 21.

MATT: Okay, all three hit. Go ahead and roll damage.

TRAVIS: The dark cloud aids his rolls.

LAURA: (whispers) Vengeance!

TALIESIN: 17.

MATT: 17 damage.

LAURA: (whispers) Vengeance!

TALIESIN: Better!

TRAVIS: Vengeance!

TALIESIN: 25.

MATT: All righty!

TALIESIN: That went really well. The last one– do I do any damage when I hit the head? Normal damage. So, last one is seven points of damage plus he’s got–

MATT: Disadvantage on his attacks this round.

TALIESIN: Yeah, disadvantage on attacks.

MATT: Gotcha. Do you want to stay where you are, or are you going to move?

TALIESIN: Am I touching a wall?

MATT: You’re right close to one. You can–

LAURA: Stop touching me. Stop touching me.

TALIESIN: All right, I’m going to brace against a wall.

MATT: Okay. Brace against that wall, there. Gotcha.

TALIESIN: And I’m going to mark all this off.

MATT: All righty. Okay. Next up is the creature.

LAURA: Argh.

MATT: (Laughs) Because it rolled really high on its initiative. It’s going to go ahead. Let’s see, at a movement of 50 feet.

LIAM: Oh god.

LAURA: (gasps)

TRAVIS: (whispers) Are we in a valley? Or are we–

LAURA: We’re in a freaking–

MARISHA: We’re in a death trap.

LIAM: It crawled down the wall.

SAM: No, it’s going to be fine, guys. We’re like a–

TALIESIN: We’re outdoors.

SAM: The valley is like a taco shell.

LAURA: Is it a valley, or is it like those are cliff sides and we could fall?

MATT: It’s a valley. The cliff sides go up.

SAM: Yeah, it’s like a taco shell and we’re the meat.

TRAVIS: Okay.

LAURA: Okay.

MARISHA: And we’re– Yeah. Yeah.

(all laugh)

MATT: You could climb around it without a problem. But it’s pretty sheer. You’d have to make climb checks if you want to–

MARISHA: Yep, accurate.

LIAM: We’re in a tight spot.

LAURA: Okay. Got it.

LIAM: We’re in a tight spot.

MARISHA: Unless you’re in Japan.

MATT: So it scurries forward–

TALIESIN: Taco.

MATT: Lowers its jaw and rears its head back. As it does, you see its eyes flare with electrical energy and inside its mouth begins to glow with a brightish blue, white power.

LIAM: Get down.

MATT: A bolt of electrical energy comes forward, hitting Grog, Vax, Scanlan, and Percy.

TRAVIS: It’s electrifying!

LAURA: Electrified.

MATT: Well, let’s see. Actually, no, it would move out to– Hmm, that’s only 20 feet, so to get maximum– This, let’s see.

SAM: Maybe it doesn’t do math well.

LAURA: Don’t think about it, just go.

SAM: Maybe it doesn’t know math well. Maybe it doesn’t move right.

LAURA: Don’t calculate it, Matt. It’s fine.

MATT: No, actually for optimal–

LAURA: Fuck.

MATT: –optimal impact here, instead, it’s going to go there.

TRAVIS: I have to put my head in its mouth?

MATT: (laughs) Practically.

LIAM: (laughs) Eh.

MATT: It will then do it on– It would be Grog, Vex, and Trinket.

SAM: I approve of that.

MATT: I realized that its bolt is only 20 feet long. So, utilizing its optimal Lightning Bolt length, you guys were clustered together.

TRAVIS: Okay.

MATT: All right, so I need you guys, you three, to roll a dexterity saving throw.

TALIESIN: With advantage?

LAURA: With advantage because I’m in the mountains?

MATT: You do it with advantage. It only affects attacks, not for saving throws.

TALIESIN: Oh, that’s right. This is a magic save.

TRAVIS: 19.

MATT: Good to know.

TALIESIN: I probably should spend Grit.

LAURA: 21.

MATT: All right. And Trinket?

LAURA: Argh.

LIAM: (Chewbacca sounds)

LAURA: (growls) Eight. Yay.

MATT: He got an eight?

LAURA: He got a eight.

MATT: Oof, okay. 33 points of lightning damage to both of you.

LAURA: (gasps)

SAM: Wait, that means–

MATT: Trinket takes 66.

SAM: 66?

LAURA: Trinket’s fucking dead, yo.

SAM: What?!

MATT: Unconscious.

LAURA: That fast?!

TRAVIS: Which one: dead or unconscious?

LAURA: He’s unconscious.

TALIESIN: Unconscious.

TRAVIS: Don’t throw around the “D” word, unless it’s the “D” word time.

MATT: So, as there was a crackling of energy forward, you two brace yourself, managing to get mostly out of the way. Unfortunately, both of you dodging out of the way leaves an open shot for bear, that just takes the brunt of it, throwing Trinket up against the side of the actual mountainous cavern. And slumps to the ground, smoking off the fur.

LAURA: Does Trinket have to make saving throws?

MATT: Yes.

LIAM: Death saving throws? Yes.

MARISHA: No one has any resistance, spell resistance?

MATT: Not yet. Until we get to his turn. That will end–

LAURA: Ooh, ooh, wait.

MARISHA: Forgetting– Your armor? I’ve got a spell you’re–

LAURA: He’s only got 42 hit points.

MATT: Yeah.

SAM: Whoa.

MATT: Technically, he should have more from leveling up. But, even more wouldn’t be that much higher, so– Okay, so that’s rough. That ends its turn. Vex, you’re up first.

(all laugh)

TRAVIS: She would like to rage.

MARISHA: (as Matt) So that sucks, but–

LAURA: Vengeance! Vengeance.

TALIESIN: Say your soul is forfeit.

LAURA: I’m going to Hunter’s Mark him.

MATT: All righty.

LAURA: And then I’m going to– Why is he closer now? Sorry, Grog. I’m going to Hail of Thorns him.

MATT: All righty.

SAM: Grog is always in the way.

LAURA: Yeah, well–

TRAVIS: I do need a good back tickle.

LIAM: (as Grog) Got an itch back there.

TRAVIS: Yeah. (laughs)

LAURA: 30.

MATT: 30 hits.

LAURA: No, wait, that’s wrong. No, 30.

MATT: 30 hits.

LAURA: (sighs) I’m so angry right now! Thorn’s d–

TRAVIS: It’s not at me for once.

LAURA: Ten. (sighs) 3d10.

TALIESIN: For once, you’re not the one doing damage to the bear.

TRAVIS: That’s good.

LAURA: 18 plus two is 20.

MARISHA: It’s a bonus action, so we can do other shit if Scanlan and I both do it.

LAURA: What is that?

TRAVIS: 22.

LAURA: 22.

MATT: 22 also hits.

LAURA: No, that’s the attack.

MATT: That’s the damage. Okay, gotcha. And Grog, also–

LAURA: Oh, yeah.

MATT: Because you’re right next to it.

TRAVIS: (posh accent) Would that be considered piercing, bludgeoning, or slashing damage?

MATT: (posh accent) It doesn’t matter, you have not taken your turn to rage yet.

TRAVIS: (posh accent) Oh fucking shit.

(all laugh)

MATT: That would be full damage upon you, Grog.

TRAVIS: Ow! (laughs)

LAURA: Oh shit, I’m sorry. The other one was 27.

MATT: To hit? Okay.

LAURA: Awoo. Ten plus–

SAM: Angry d10.

LAURA: Plus 15.

MATT: 15. That’s including the Hunter’s Mark, right?

LAURA: Yes.

MATT: All right, good.

LAURA: Oh wait, no, I wasn’t adding the seven. Wait no, that’s a lie. That’s a 15, 16, 17, plus five. 21.

MATT: 21, got it. So, as you look over and you see Trinket on the ground, smoldering spire of smoke pouring off of his body–

LAURA: Can I pull him? Can I pull him out of the way?

MARISHA: Smells like burnt fur.

SAM: Burnt fur.

LAURA: Just pull him into the little crevice, for my move.

MATT: This way, do you mean?

LAURA: For my move. Is that a move action, or would it be an action-action?

MATT: That would be more of an action-action, unfortunately.

LAURA: Ugh. Oh no.

MATT: But you angrily turn around, release your arrow, firing a completely furious Hail of Thorns into the creature. As it hits, it shatters across its hide, some of it scattering onto Grog. You don’t even care. You just focus the anger, pull out a second arrow, unleash this one. Actually jamming underneath one of the scales. You can see a little trickle of dark, deep purple blood beginning to pour from the wound.

LAURA: I get out of the line.

MATT: Okay, where do you want to go?

LAURA: Towards the little crevice.

MATT: Right there?

LAURA: Yeah.

MATT: Okay.

MARISHA: Did we lose–

LAURA: But I still want to be near Trinket.

MATT: Okay. That ends your turn. Grog, you’re up.

TRAVIS: Getting ass-lit up with the Hail of Thorns, I go into a rage.

LAURA: I’m so sorry.

MATT: (laughs) Okay.

TRAVIS: I go into a Frenzied Rage!

MATT: All righty.

TRAVIS: And I would like to attack three times with my flaming warhammer.

MATT: Certainly.

LIAM: No more shopping today.

TRAVIS: That is 24.

MATT: That hits.

TRAVIS: 21?

MATT: That hits.

TRAVIS: Eee! 26.

MATT: That also hits.

TRAVIS: Nice. Those were really good rolls. Okay. First one is 11.

LAURA: I think I missed a box.

TRAVIS: 13? First one.

MATT: 13 damage. Good to know.

TALIESIN: Brought another sign.

TRAVIS: 14 for the second one.

MARISHA: (laughs) Yeah.

MATT: Mm-hm.

TRAVIS: Yes. 17 and 18, 19, 20, 21 plus the fire damage.

MATT: Good to know.

TRAVIS: Including fire damage.

MATT: All right, so, going into the rage, you just see that same fury. You can smell the burnt hair in the air and you use that to fuel that moment of pain. You just (impact sounds) and just start bludgeoning the creature right up in its face. You can see it’s thrashing and snarling at you and snapping with each blow. You guys are locked in this titan-versus-human battle right now. Cool, and are you going to stay where you are?

TRAVIS: I’m going to move. Can I move towards you a little bit?

MATT: This way, there?

TRAVIS: Yes, staying next to him, but just out of the way of other projectiles that might be coming up my butthole.

MATT: Fair enough. (laughs) Okay, Grog. Ends your turn. Keyleth, you’re up.

MARISHA: Okay. I’m right next to Trinket, right?

MATT: Mm-hm.

MARISHA: Okay, right? Where is Trinket?

MATT: Trinket’s right there. You’re over here.

LIAM: Follow the smell.

MARISHA: I’m going to go ahead and go to Trinket.

LAURA: (laughs)

MATT: Oh, that’s right. Make a death saving throw, by the way.

SAM: Oh, snap.

MATT: Almost forgot.

LAURA: (whimpers) Oh no.

MATT: Roll a d20.

LIAM: (sings) Roll high.

MARISHA: He’ll be fine. He’ll be fine.

TALIESIN: Roll like your bear depends on it.

TRAVIS: You should pick a blood-colored one.

LAURA: Why would you do that? He rolled a 19.

SAM: Ooh.

MATT: Okay, so not creeping closer to death yet.

LAURA: Don’t say that.

MARISHA: Okay, I’m going to go ahead and do a Cure Wounds spell on him.

MATT: All right.

LAURA: Thank you, Keyleth.

MARISHA: I’ll just do first level.

SAM: Oh. Trinket’s not worth second level?

MARISHA: No no no no no. I’ll give him a– shut up, Scanlan.

(all laugh)

LIAM: Wake him up, wake him up, wake him up.

MARISHA: I instantly felt guilty, dick.

TALIESIN: You guilted her up to another level.

MARISHA: Yeah, you did. Okay.

TRAVIS: (laughs) That was the best.

SAM: I would’ve done a cantrip.

MARISHA: (laughs) That’s 2d8 plus ten.

TRAVIS: Dick.

LAURA: 2d8 plus ten? That’s great.

(all laugh)

TRAVIS: Guilted it for an imaginary bear.

MARISHA: All right, that’s pretty good.

TALIESIN: That’s not bad.

MARISHA: That’s an eight and a seven plus ten. So–

MATT and SAM: 25.

MARISHA: 25.

LAURA: 25!

MATT: So Trinket’s at 25 hit points, conscious.

LAURA: That’s great!

MATT: Prone, but conscious.

LAURA: He licks her.

MATT: You hear the– okay. (laughs)

MARISHA: And then, as a bonus action–

TALIESIN: Ack.

MATT: Mm-hm?

MARISHA: Can I, looking at whatever the shit this is, pull out my spark stone–

LAURA: (gasps)

MARISHA: –that I got from my Fire Ashari.

SAM: That’s a thing? Oooh.

MATT: Uh-huh.

MARISHA: And (shattering sound).

SAM: (gasps)

TALIESIN: Oh, wow! We’re going there.

MATT: Okay.

SAM: Is that, like, “Break glass in case of emergency”?

MARISHA: Yeah, I don’t know what it does.

SAM: (laughs) Oh, great!

TRAVIS: We’ll find out.

SAM: Hope I’m right next to you.

MATT: After you finish healing Trinket–

LAURA: Oh my god.

MATT: – you pull up, reach out, and pull this. And you’re going to hold it in your hands, you could feel it’s warm to the touch. Almost too hot to hold. And there’s this slight pulsing, almost like a heartbeat pulse to it. You hold it in your hands and just crush it, concentrating all your energy on it. As you do, what seemed to be hard and sturdy all of a sudden turns brittle in your fingers, and it cracks and breaks, almost like it was made of a very, very brittle earth. As it breaks and your hands come together, the “too hot to touch” becomes too hot to touch, and for a moment, your hands burst into flames–

SAM: Ah.

MATT: And you instinctively pull back like you want to go ahead and put out the fire–

MARISHA: Ow!

MATT: – but then it falls to a normal temperature again, but the flames remain.

LAURA: (gasps)

MATT: And you can now see your hands are now emitting flame from all the fingers.

SAM: Woo.

LAURA: Is that permanent?

SAM: What does it do?

MARISHA: We’ll find out. And I go Minxie.

MATT: All right.

TRAVIS: Yeah, Minxie!

(all cheer)

MARISHA: And I brought the hood.

(all laugh)

SAM: Too hot to handle, too cold to hold.

LIAM: That tiger’s on fire!

TRAVIS: They in control.

MATT: Keyleth transforms into Minxie! And as Minxie–

TRAVIS: Bobby Brown.

MATT: – appears, her form transitioning into this large, albino sabre-toothed tiger–

SAM and TALIESIN: (sing) Well, I guess we’re gonna have to take control.

MATT: You can see both of the tiger’s claws embedded into the ground of this rocky terrain are having licks of fire and flame curling off of the actual claws.

MARISHA: Hell, yeah. I look like an Ed Hardy tattoo.

(all laugh)

MATT: (laughs) I regret everything!

(all laugh)

MATT: All right. That’s your turn. Are you going to move, are you going to stay there?

MARISHA: Well, I moved to Trinket.

MATT: Right, but you can break your movement up.

MARISHA: Oh, yeah.

MATT: You’ve moved 20 feet, so you still have ten more feet to move if you want to.

MARISHA: I’ll start heading to try and flank him. To flank the blue beastie.

MATT: That should be there. Okay. All right, that ends Keyleth. Now would be Tiberius. Tiberius, who now takes the turn to cast Stoneskin on himself. Then backs up behind this side, there, preparing for the next round. Vax, you’re up.

LIAM: Okay, Vax drops low. I click the boots of haste together, and for everyone who keeps asking, if I click my boots of haste together, I then get to attack three times. I get that question about three times a week. So that’s how I do it. So, I click the boots of haste together, and then I’m going to crouch low and scoot. No, the other side of Minxie, and I should be able to go 60 feet without a problem all the way past the fucker.

MATT: Mm-hm?

LIAM: Yeah, keep going, as far as I can. That’s as far as I can go?

MATT: Yep.

LIAM: All right. And I guess I will just dagger him in the ass, then.

MATT: All right.

LIAM: So– First is a–

TALIESIN: I love that die.

LIAM: Two, three, 24?

MATT: 24 hits.

LIAM: Yes. And this would be Sneak Attack–

MATT: This is with Sneak Attack, yep.

LIAM: Because he’s with Grog.

MATT: Yep.

LAURA: Yeah!

LIAM: So, here’s the damage for the attack. Ooh. Two, seven, is nine, plus– Ooh.

LAURA: Ooh, oh no.

LIAM: This is 13, 17, 19, 20, 26, 31 for the first.

TRAVIS: Jesus.

LIAM: Second attack go. Oh, that’s not the right die at all. Second attack goes. Same. Eee, 23?

MATT: All right, that hits.

LIAM: Okay. And this is–

MATT: Regular damage now.

LIAM: Yeah yeah yeah. That’s seven?

MATT: Seven, all righty.

LIAM: And then the last dagger, the keen dagger, stabs him in the butt again, and that is–

LAURA: Ow.

LIAM: Ow, 16.

MATT: 16. That does not hit.

LIAM: Whiff!

MATT: You actually go with a third one. The first one stabs through, and you can see you’ve actually hit some sort of an internal organ as you pull back and starts gouting blood. You see that, you stab a second blade in the same area and tend to open the wound another inch, inch and a half. The third one, you pull back, but it slinks around over its shoulder, its long sinewy neck curling over and staring at you. And your blade catches the hide instead and streaks off of the scales.

LIAM: Oh, hi.

MATT: That’ll end your turn. Scanlan, you’re up.

SAM: Do I have to heal Trinket anymore?

LAURA: No, he’s okay.

SAM: Okay. Then I will– (laughs) Let’s see here. Do we want to get him away from us, or do we want to hurt him? Let’s do–

LAURA: We want to hurt him!

SAM: Well, I don’t hurt things very well. (laughs)

TRAVIS: Do what you’re going to do.

LAURA: Do what you do.

TALIESIN: You hurt feelings.

MARISHA: You do you, Scanlan.

SAM: Okay. I’ll do some Bigby Hand.

MATT: All righty.

SAM: I summon Bigby’s Hand. (sings) Bigby’s Hand!

(all laugh)

MATT: This giant spectral hand, sparkling arcane energy appears roughly in front of your space.

SAM: It’s in front of me. I can’t make it go in front of him?

MATT: You can.

SAM: Okay.

MATT: Like, I’m just saying, from a flavor standpoint.

SAM: Okay. Well then, I do one of these, the Sugar Ray Leonard. I do this–

(all laugh)

SAM: And then I throw my other hand forward.

(all laugh)

SAM: And I’ll just punch him in the face.

MATT: Go for it.

(all laugh)

MATT: I like that.

SAM: Right? Because I can do the– It says huge or smaller creature, at least with Grasping Hand. Is that only– does that count?

MATT: Right. Oh. You can just punch something with it, no matter its size, to do damage.

SAM: So the Clenched Fisht, Clenched Fist.

MATT: Correct. Correct.

LAURA: Clenched Fisht.

MATT: Clenched Fisht.

SAM: Clenched Fisht attack, Money Penny.

MATT: Thish ish the one you’re talking about. Yes. All right, so– For the Clenched Fist, make a melee spell attack. So roll a d20 and add your spell attack modifier.

SAM: (laughs) Nope.

(all laugh)

LAURA: Oh no.

SAM: 13.

MATT: 13. As the fist swings out, it ducks out of the way. Its serpentine body ducking as the fist arcs off into the middle of the air.

MARISHA: Oh.

MATT: Spinning around, preparing itself for a secondary round, hopefully.

LAURA: Good try, Scanlan.

SAM: Oh boy. (laughs)

MATT: That’s good.

LIAM: Vax sees it fly over his head, and watches it pass.

(all laugh)

SAM: I’ll take a step to my left, so I’m not in the same line of fire as Percy.

MATT: All right.

SAM: And I’ll also inspire Grog. (sings) He’s Grog, he’s Grog, he’s big, he’s strong, like wood. He’s better than bad, he’s good.

(all laugh)

LAURA: That’s awesome.

MATT: (sings) Everyone wants a Grog.

TRAVIS: That’s amazing. Is that a ten? That’s a ten?

MATT: d10, yeah.

TRAVIS: Amazing.

MATT: d10 Inspiration die from the bard.

TRAVIS: Thank you, Scanlan.

MATT: Top of the round again. Percy, you’re up.

TALIESIN: I’m going to scoot a little bit forward, just into that little crevice. I’m going to take three more shots, just to see what I can do.

MATT: Okay. You have the Sharpshooter feat, right?

TALIESIN: With the Sharpshooter feat.

MATT: Okay, so yeah. Because it would have partial cover right now, but you ignore that with the–

TALIESIN: I have Sharpshooter, so I can ignore cover.

MATT: Good to know.

TALIESIN: Yeah, so. But I’m going to be taking a negative for these hits. Still three attacks per–

MATT: Yeah.

TALIESIN: Okay. Just making sure I’m doing this right.

MATT: But you have to reload after this turn.

TALIESIN: Yeah.

MATT: Oh no.

TRAVIS: Misfire?

TALIESIN: Misfire.

(all groan)

MATT: First shot. As you pull up to the side, you pull your pepperbox out and go to fire. As you do, you pull the trigger and the actual barrel sticks out the side. Spins off, and (ping-ping-ping) on the ground.

TRAVIS: Fuck.

MATT: So that’s your attack.

MARISHA: Balls.

MATT: That’s your turn because it’ll take you the rest of the turn to collect the Bad News.

SAM: Just say, “Your soul is forfeit,” just for coolness.

(all laugh)

TALIESIN: This normally doesn’t happen to me. I don’t quite know what–

(all laugh)

TRAVIS: It happens to all guys sometimes.

(all laugh)

TALIESIN: So can I, at least, use my bonus to pick up the pieces and–

MATT: Yeah.

TALIESIN: Okay. I’m going to pick up the pieces and–

MATT: You collect Pepperbox and you pull your back up to it and mutter curses.

LAURA: Oh no.

LIAM: Make sure you grab your dignity as well.

TALIESIN: I’m just going to leave that as an open target for a little while.

MATT: Fair enough. Okay. Now, on its turn–

SAM: Oh shit.

LAURA: Oh no.

MATT: First off, let’s see here.

LIAM: Damn it, attack attack!

SAM: We did great. (laughs)

MATT: But that does not recharge its Lightning Breath. It’s going to move here. It’s going to go ahead and make two attacks. It’s going to turn around and its head that’s looking at you, now, after you stabbed it in the back.

LIAM: Yeah.

MATT: Reaches down, its giant jaws open. You can see, like, this thick saliva that’s coating its fangs, and it, with serpentine speed, bites at you.

LIAM: Hey, rogue’s Evasion.

MATT: That’s going to be a 23 to hit.

LIAM: So, Uncanny Dodge, I can dodge for half damage, so it was a what to hit?

MATT: 23.

LIAM: 23 hits, but I take half damage.

MATT: All right.

LAURA: (as Vax) Half damage.

MATT: So, let’s see. That would be–

LIAM: Yesh.

MARISHA: Does a bite attack–

LIAM: Half. Not whole.

LAURA: (as Vax) Half damage.

LIAM: 152 hit points.

TRAVIS: Stop rolling, Jesus.

MATT: (laughs) It would be 26 damage, so you take 13.

LIAM: Ah, nothing.

LAURA: Okay, okay.

TALIESIN: Ain’t nothing.

LAURA: Don’t say that’s nothing.

MATT: Points of piercing damage.

LAURA: Don’t say that’s nothing.

MATT: And then, as it bites, it turns around and its tail begins to snake around your body, Grog.

LAURA: (gasps)

MATT: And its whole body begins to try to reach around to constrict and crush you.

TRAVIS: Oh shit.

LAURA: What?

MATT: That is a 21 to hit.

TRAVIS: That hits.

MATT: All righty, so. You take 21 points in bludgeoning damage.

TRAVIS: Halved.

MATT: So that’d be 11 points of bludgeoning damage plus 21 points of slashing damage.

SAM: Whoa.

TRAVIS: Halved.

MATT: As well. So a total of 22 damage.

TRAVIS: Okay.

MATT: And you are considered grappled and restrained, currently, as the entire creature begins to wrap around you. And you’re currently (sound of struggle). You’re trying to hold onto your axe but your whole body’s being crushed by this large serpentine creature.

(all laugh)

TRAVIS: You piece of shit.

MATT: You feel every pulse of its muscles tensing. As the pain and ache, you can feel muscles and ligaments tearing and popping as it pulls in on you.

TRAVIS: Not cool.

MATT: And it’s going to, as part of its grapple, move you with it to there. And it’ll end its turn. Vex, you’re up.

LAURA: Okay. How does the Hide thing work? Do I hide at the beginning of the turn or at the end of the turn?

MATT: At the end of the turn.

LAURA: Okay. I’m going to move out.

MATT: Okay, it has a reach of ten. So you are technically within its melee range. So you can run but you’ll take attack of opportunity from it if you do. Just so you’re aware.

LAURA: Can I still arrow it from where I am?

MATT: You can, but you have disadvantage on all your ranged attacks because you are in melee range.

LAURA: Does it cancel out because I’m in the mountains?

MATT: Doesn’t affect your attacks.

LAURA: Damn it.

MATT: Sorry. It’s up to you, you can stay where you are and take disadvantage on all your attacks, or you could run past and it gets a free swipe on you. Your call.

LAURA: I’m going to try to back up.

MATT: Okay. Over to here? Like, how far?

LAURA: Oh no. Wait, I can’t see. I forgot my glasses.

MATT: Okay, you’re right here.

LAURA: Uh-huh.

MATT: You can try and back up this way if you wanted to get away.

LAURA: Yeah, I’ll try to back up towards, who is that?

MATT: That’s Scanlan there. Oh, here?

LAURA: Percy? I’ll try to back towards Percy.

MATT: Right there?

TALIESIN: Yeah.

MATT: Over here?

LAURA: Sure, yeah. Why not?

MATT: Okay, all right.

SAM: What’s Trinket doing?

LAURA: Well, Trinket’s healed, and he’s going to come with me.

MATT: Okay. So Trinket gets up and used half its 40 movement. It can move–

LAURA: Although he’s angry about it, because he wants to fight, but I just won’t let him right now.

MATT: Okay, so as you rush away, the creature takes– Ooh, that’s a 26 to hit.

LAURA: Aw, Jesus. Really?

SAM: Oh shit, does it hit Trinket, too?

LAURA: No, just me.

MARISHA: 26.

LAURA: Trinket was too far away.

MATT: So you take 18 points of piercing damage. Oh, it’s 3d10, sorry.

LAURA: Oh. (laughs)

MATT: 19. I rolled a one for damage.

LAURA: Oh, yay!

MATT: 19 points of piercing damage as its mouth lashes out, takes a chunk of your shoulder for a second, and you wrench yourself away and keep running.

LAURA: Ugh.

MATT: Take the rest of your turn.

LAURA: Ugh, okay. I’m going to shoot him.

MATT: Yes, you are.

LAURA: Okay. That is 22.

MATT: That hits.

LAURA: Okay. 14 for the first hit.

MATT: Okay.

LAURA: Second one is through the blazing bow, at 22.

MATT: Second one hits, first one misses, or did it hit?

LAURA: Oh no, 14 was the damage to it.

MATT: For damage? All right, second one, blazing bow?

LAURA: And then, (noises).

SAM: (noises)

LAURA: (noises) Ugh. 16.

MATT: 16 damage, all right. Okay.

LAURA: Oh, and I hide.

MATT: You currently are completely in its visual range. You have to be behind something to reasonably become hidden.

LAURA: I’m hiding behind–

TALIESIN: But you are behind me.

LAURA: Percy.

MATT: No, behind a person doesn’t work. It has to be, like, behind a pillar.

MARISHA: Human shield.

MATT: Or in deep shadow.

LAURA: (groans) Oh.

MATT: Something that would break your line of sight to it–

TRAVIS: Like me.

MATT: For a moment, to the point where it no longer knows quite where you are.

MARISHA: It works.

TALIESIN: It totally works.

LAURA: I hid in the wrong place.

SAM: Who said that? Who said that?

LAURA: I went to the wrong place.

MATT: But now you know.

LAURA: It’s okay. Next time I know.

MATT: All right.

TALIESIN: Putting glass for the dog–

MATT: That’s your turn. Grog, you’re up.

TRAVIS: I would like to try and break the grapple.

MATT: All right.

TRAVIS: 20.

MATT: 20, yes.

MARISHA: I can picture that. Why did you do that?

MATT: Because you are restrained–

TALIESIN: Kicking myself.

MATT: Need to check what effect the condition– Here. Just to be safe. Okay, yeah. Go ahead and you’re making an athletics check.

TRAVIS: Natural 20.

(all cheer)

TRAVIS: Oh, that was good.

MATT: All right, so–

TRAVIS: I bite its tail.

MARISHA: Yeah.

(all laugh)

LAURA: You can.

TRAVIS: Son of a bitch! Ahhh!

MATT: As your teeth sink into one of its scales and you yank it out with the sheer force of your muscly neck.

LAURA: Throw it over my way. I’ll catch it.

MATT: It unfurls for a second, you manage to pull yourself out of its grasp.

TRAVIS: I’m so pissed that I broke free, that I would like to use Intimidating Presence on this creature.

MATT: Okay. All right. That is an action to do that, though, isn’t it?

TRAVIS: Is it?

MATT: Yeah.

TRAVIS: Yeah.

TRAVIS: I reserve Intimidating Presence–

MATT: For a later time.

TRAVIS: (laughs) – for a later time.

MATT: But you have a bonus action, still.

TRAVIS: I hit the shit out of it.

(all laugh)

MATT: You gain another attack, go for it.

TRAVIS: Okay, 21.

MATT: 21 does hit.

TRAVIS: All right, that’s 22. 22! Sorry, 22 hits?

MATT: Also hits. One more.

TRAVIS: Oh, I get one more.

LAURA: Ha ha! Also 22.

TRAVIS: Also 22.

MATT: “Hit” meaning–

SAM: You hit once.

MATT: It was one better than your previous–

TRAVIS: Oh, got you.

MATT: You hit once, yeah.

LAURA: Oh.

TRAVIS and MATT: Just one hit.

SAM: Just keep rolling 22s.

LAURA: Just keep rolling.

TRAVIS: Nine, ten, 11, 12. 15.

MATT: 15 points.

TRAVIS: With fire damage!

MATT: All right, so, as you pull away, you reach back with your hammer and slam it into its side, causing this giant burst of fire–

TRAVIS: Bitch.

MATT: To emanate from the impact. It shrinks back for a second and (growls).

TRAVIS: You grabbed me. You ask first.

TALIESIN: This is a repair die.

MATT: (laughs) All right, Keyleth, you’re up.

MARISHA: I’m going to do my Bite and Claw attacks.

MATT: All right.

MARISHA: Yeah, I’m going to move in that crux a little bit more, one more, if I can?

MATT: There? All righty.

MARISHA: Beautiful. I’m going to do my claw attacks first.

MATT: Go for it.

MARISHA: To see what they– what it does.

MATT: What was it?

MARISHA: It was cocked.

SAM: It was halfway between two.

MATT: Okay.

MARISHA: So that’s 12, plus, it’s always different. Okay, 20.

MATT: 20 hits.

TRAVIS: Yeah.

MARISHA: I haven’t been Minxie in battle for a while, 1d10 plus five.

LAURA: Plus your flaming claws.

TRAVIS: (laughs) I love Minxie.

LAURA: Don’t forget your flaming claws.

LIAM: She’s got the plan.

MARISHA: Yeah, six, so 11 damage for the claws.

MATT: An additional 1d6 fire damage.

MARISHA: Plus 1d6, oh wait that’s actually– What did I just say? I said ten, 11? And then an extra 1d6?

MATT: Yes.

MARISHA: Ooh, another four, so what did I say?

SAM: 15.

MATT: So, any of your claw attacks or any claw attacks you do in any of your forms now get an additional 1d6 fire damage.

SAM: Nice!

TRAVIS: Hell yeah!

SAM: Nice!

MARISHA: Then I’m going to do my bite attack.

MATT: All right, go for it. Your bite does not get the effect.

LAURA: I know, it was really loud!

TRAVIS: It was a good one.

MARISHA: 16, so plus– 20, plus my six, plus seven, so 24.

MATT: That hits. Go ahead and roll damage for the bite.

MARISHA: Which is 2d6. Eight plus five, so 12.

MATT: Eight plus five is 13.

MARISHA: 13, 14! Plus, I get an extra damage for my collar, so 14.

MATT: Right. Cool. So, your flaming claw strikes across its outer body, its legs pull away from the pain as you reach up and bite into the edge of its tail. As its tail tries to whip away, you catch it and it pulls you forward a few feet as you clench down on it. Eventually, it yanks its way out, taking a couple of scales with it, you can see a streak where teeth marks are on the back of its tail.

MARISHA: (growls)

MATT: Awesome. Does that end your turn?

MARISHA: Yeah.

TRAVIS: Nice, Minxie!

MARISHA: (growls)

MATT: Tiberius is going to go around the corner again and is going to cast Telekinesis and send his glaive up spinning.

LAURA: Glaive?

SAM: He has a glaive?

LAURA: The thing that he killed the old lady with.

SAM: Oh!

LIAM: It’s the granny grinder!

MARISHA and MATT: Granny grinder?!

TRAVIS: So bad.

MATT: Rolls a two, unfortunately, though. Just streaks off and spins back around and then, while it misses the creature and stops, hovering above his head with a slow spin. Sits there curling his fingers, grinning at the creature. And is going to the use of the rest of this movement to go back behind the rock because mama didn’t raise no fool. Vax, you’re up.

LIAM: It’s preoccupied, so I just leisurely walk backwards about 30 feet, looking at the same wound that I started before.

MATT: This way?

LIAM: No, back up the chasm here. Even further away. Yeah! And I’m just going to throw three daggers into the wound I already hit, so I’m going to do that again. I know that hits because it hit the last time. That’s a 23.

MATT: That hits!

LIAM: And that’s Sneak Attack because he’s occupied. That’s 11 plus–

LAURA: Ooh, those are good!

LIAM: 11 plus 17, 21, 26, 29, 34, 39 for the first dagger.

SAM: What, that’s just the first dagger?!

LAURA: Yeah!

MARISHA: Whoa!

MATT: Sneak Attack, man.

LIAM: Next one doesn’t hit, probably, that’s a 17.

MATT: 17 just barely hits.

LIAM: Just barely hits, yeah! That is an eight of damage. And just wait a second and go– and throw it. And because I was such a cock it misses, that’s a 16.

MATT: So, oh, perfect! Second dagger wedges in with the second dagger, opening the wound even more. You’re like, perfect opening! You go for the third one, and it’s grown wise to it, and turns around and rakes its claw out and deflects the dagger midair.

LIAM: Vex, look at me! Oh, shit.

LAURA: Nice one! Nice!

MATT: That brings us to Scanlan.

SAM: Oh! This is unusual.

MARISHA: A turn.

SAM: I still have my Bigby’s Hand up, so I do one of these where I say, oh, a wise guy, see? (taunting noises) and I just poke him in the eyes.

MATT: All right, as you say “Wise guy, eh?” as this giant hand’s floating in the air, and its head snarls at it and tries to bite at the hand. Go ahead and roll your spell attack.

SAM: 19.

MATT: So, you get to go ahead and–

SAM: 4d8.

MATT: Yeah, 4d8 points of force damage.

MARISHA: It’s the eyes!

LAURA: Into the eyeballs!

SAM: 19.

MATT: 19 points of force damage as you jam both its fingers into the sides of its head. Both of its eyes recoil on it, it reaches out and starts thrashing at the air around as the hand dodges around for a minute.

SAM: I hide behind Trinket, the smell of smoldering fur in my nose. As a bonus action, I will– who’s up next, who’s coming soon? Is Percy next?

TALIESIN: I’m up next.

SAM: I’ll inspire Percy. Just doing this move–

MARISHA: Sexy dance.

SAM: Going, pour some Scanlan on you! When you need a hand! That’s all I’ve got.

TALIESIN: Ugh!

SAM: And I get closer. Pour some Scanlan on you!

MATT: You begrudgingly take 1d10 inspiration dice from Scanlan.

TRAVIS: Is the creature blinded from the pokey-poke?

MATT: It is not. It is a resilient creature, and the impact was mainly absorbed by the ocular sockets, as opposed to the eyes themselves.

TRAVIS: Hey, I didn’t ask for science. Jesus.

(all laugh)

MATT: There’s bone around– never mind. All right. It ends Scanlan’s turn. Percy, you’re up.

TRAVIS: (laughs) Just a little pokey.

TALIESIN: All right. I’m going to try and fix this broken piece of gosa.

SAM: Do I lose another spell for that, or is that just the same–?

MATT: No, you can maintain concentration.

SAM: Okay.

TALIESIN: I hit a 12, which is just barely enough to fix it.

MATT: Okay. So you take your action to go ahead and repair the gun.

TALIESIN: And I’m going to burn an Action Surge, so I’m just– I finally get it, and it just starts going. And I’m just going to empty out the chamber.

MATT: All right, three shots.

MARISHA: (laughs) It just starts going.

TALIESIN: Ho, nelly.

MATT: Using your bonus action to reload.

TRAVIS: I got my finger on the trigger, I got my finger on the trigger, gun!

TALIESIN: I don’t have to reload, yet, I’ve got six shots, so we’re still three in the chamber.

MATT: That’s right. We– yeah, yeah.

TALIESIN: Unless you, actually–

MATT: As part of the misfire, you would lose one, so you have two in the chamber right now.

TALIESIN: I have two in the chamber?

MATT: Yes.

TALIESIN: Okay, so I’ll do two, and then use the third one to reload.

MATT: Okay.

MARISHA: Pew, pew.

LAURA: (high-pitched) Pew, pew.

TALIESIN: All right, so– Ooh, this’ll be fun.

SAM: Don’t shoot me.

TALIESIN: Sharpshooter shot. That’s 22.

MATT: 22 hits.

TRAVIS: Nice.

TALIESIN: I’ll just take the second shot right now. That’s– really? Really? Really, are we going there?

LAURA: Oh, no.

SAM: Did he misfire again?

MARISHA: No, you didn’t misfire, did you?

MATT: What’d you roll?

TALIESIN: Misfired again. I rolled a two.

LAURA: No.

TALIESIN: I got one shot off.

MATT: You got one shot off. Go ahead and roll damage. Sharpshooter damage, so it gets the plus ten damage.

TALIESIN: Yeah.

MARISHA: That’s fun.

LAURA: Could you have added inspiration dice to that?

TALIESIN: To a misfire? No.

MATT: No, misfire still hits. There is a lot of strengths to the gunslinger. This is the one penalty, is if you roll bad.

TALIESIN: So that’s, okay, at least this is a badass, as I at least did some damage. 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 24 damage, plus four points of fire damage.

MATT: Nice. Okay. So, as you go, and you fix it– It takes the first shot, with a burst of flame that shoots out the front of the barrel. The second shot, this time, the actual metal in the front arcs upward, and it looks like this is going to take a moment, to really seriously repair it. Pepperbox is coming through pretty rough in this fight.

LAURA: Oh, no. Oh no.

MATT: So that’s your turn.

TRAVIS: But not as rough as Stitch over there, huh?

MATT: Yeah.

LAURA: We’re in a group.

MATT: Yeah. (laughs) The creature does regain use of its Lightning Breath.

LIAM: Right.

MATT: All right.

TALIESIN: Oh, I was about to say, and–

MATT: So you wanna move anywhere?

TALIESIN: Yeah, I wanna get a little further back. I wanna roll to the other side of the cave again, if possible.

MATT: Which way? You mean over here?

TALIESIN: Yeah. Like, see that little outcropping of rock?

MATT: Right here?

TALIESIN: Further back. Like that over there.

MARISHA: That little chunky thing?

MATT: Okay.

LAURA: Smart move, Percy.

MATT: All righty.

TALIESIN: That thing scares me.

LAURA: Why are you abandoning me?

MATT: Okay. That ends Percy’s turn.

TALIESIN: The beast.

MARISHA: I don’t like the dice that I have.

TRAVIS: Don’t think too hard.

TALIESIN: That’s not good.

SAM: No.

LAURA: It just burps out lightning.

TRAVIS: Jesus, I don’t think we’ve ever seen anything this hard.

LAURA: I know.

LIAM: Guys, guys.

SAM: What is he doing?

LIAM: Guys.

MARISHA: Have you seen anything like it?

SAM: What is he doing?

LIAM: Guys.

LAURA: He’s thinking.

LIAM: Guys.

SAM: We broke the DM.

LAURA: I know.

TRAVIS: You know the silence before the storm?

MATT: Considering optimal–

LAURA: This is bad.

LIAM: He erupts.

TRAVIS: He hasn’t said anything.

MATT: All right. So.

(all groan)

MARISHA: You stared at that for a really long time.

SAM: Here comes the other three.

TRAVIS: Here comes the boom?

MATT: So, this behir is going to shift back here. You get an attack of opportunity on it, Keyleth. So go ahead and take a swing.

LIAM: Burn it.

SAM: Fire slap!

MARISHA: So. 16.

MATT: 16 just misses. It gets right out of your grasp. The flames just lick across the outside of its scales. As it pulls back, rears down right in your face, Godzilla-style, just unleashes a burst of electrical energy.

LAURA: Oh, God. Dodge it. Dodge it.

MATT: It hits you and Keyleth. I need you guys to both make dexterity saving throws.

SAM: With inspiration.

MARISHA: Who, me and Grog? Okay.

SAM: With inspiration.

TRAVIS: I don’t need it.

SAM: Okay.

MARISHA: Dexterity saves? That’s not good.

TRAVIS: 19.

MARISHA: Four.

MATT: 33 points of lightning damage to you, Grog. 66 to you.

TRAVIS: Can I use my Stone’s Endurance?

MATT: You can.

TRAVIS: Okay.

TALIESIN: What?!

MATT: What’s the maximum health of Minxie’s form?

MARISHA: Looking– I’m out.

MATT: Okay.

MARISHA: I’m now in Keyleth form.

MATT: And how much damage goes over?

MARISHA: Not that many, thank God. 12.

MATT: 12. Okay, so you– As Minxie all of a sudden gets blasted, you can see the form shrink down to Keyleth’s crumpled form on the ground, hands still flaming, little bit of singe to the back of her hair, and stands back up.

TALIESIN: I’ll take that. I’ll take that.

(all laugh)

LAURA: Oh no!

MATT: That’ll end its turn. Vex, you’re up.

MARISHA: That felt like Shockwave.

LAURA: Oh, God. Can I, as a bonus action, give Trinket a healing potion?

MATT: You can– that would be more of an action to feed it to something else.

LAURA: Okay, never mind. I am going to attack it.

MATT: Okay.

LAURA: Okay. He’s, oh, I missed. That’s a 14.

MATT: A 14 does not hit, unfortunately. The first arrow just ricochets and shatters across the part of its body.

LAURA: Great. Good times, good times. 16. Both miss. Fucking A. What a waste.

MATT: Both arrows just explode across its hide. It’s too thick.

LAURA: This dice is out for the rest of the game. I’m gonna run. Is there an outcropping where we are? I can’t see.

MATT: Right here, a little bit. If you pull fully in on this side from where it–

LAURA: I’m going to pull fully in on that side.

MATT: Okay. Don’t forget your laser pointers, by the way, guys. It’s good for letting me know exactly where you want to go.

LAURA: I can’t see.

MATT: I know. Just so you know. And Trinket’s going to stay there?

LAURA: He’s gonna rest. And he’s going to keep protecting Scanlan, because–

MATT: All right. Trinket’s gonna stay right there, guarding the giant gnome.

SAM: Oh, thank you. Giant gnome?

MATT: Giant hand, small gnome. Grog, you’re up.

TRAVIS: (yells) I try and match the Godzilla roar, it’s not really as good, and I swing three times with my fire hammer.

MATT: Go for it.

TRAVIS: That’s a 18.

MATT: 18. That hits.

TRAVIS: 21.

MATT: 21 hits.

TRAVIS: And 19.

MATT: 19 hits. Roll damage.

LAURA: Yeah, yeah.

TRAVIS: That anus! That’s 13.

LAURA: Eee, good.

TRAVIS: 23, and 22.

MATT: All righty. How do you want to do this?

(all yell)

TALIESIN: But you never said he looked a little rough! I kept waiting for you to say it’s looking a little rough.

MATT: It’s hard to tell with this entity.

TALIESIN: Damn it!

MATT: It’s moving so fast.

TRAVIS: I’d like to reach up with my firebrand warhammer.

SAM: Yes!

TRAVIS: And I would like to smash it on top of its skull, and when it hits the ground, I’d just like to keep turning it into jelly and paste and sweet jams that I can bottle it up and sell later!

MATT: You guys watch this continuous barrage, this horrible bludgeoning. Every impact almost quakes the inside of this valley. Rocks are beginning to tumble and fall around it. And you can see, as each horrible, sickening smack, its head just collapses more and more. The mush begins to spill out from under it, this giant pool of, like, dark violet liquid and gelatinous mush that was once the inside of its head, begin to just grow around it as Grog just keeps hitting and hitting and hitting and hitting and hitting and hitting–

MARISHA: Grog? Grog?

MATT: And hitting and hitting–

LAURA: Grog?

SAM: I use Bigby’s Hand to stop the hammer.

LAURA: Maybe you unrage. Lullaby, Hulk. Lullaby.

SAM: It’s over. It’s over.

MARISHA and TRAVIS: Lullaby?!

SAM: Think of the beard.

TRAVIS: What happened?

TALIESIN: Well.

LAURA: You killed it real good!

TRAVIS: Oh, look, we made jelly.

MARISHA: Speaking of jelly, I would like to go ahead and do a nature check to see if I can salvage some goods from whatever.

LAURA: I run, I walk up to it and kick it, and say, that’s for Trinket. Dick.

MATT: Okay.

TRAVIS: Can I roll a hit dice to recover some–

MATT: If you guys want to take a short rest, you can.

TRAVIS: Oh.

LAURA: That’d be great.

TALIESIN: Yes! I would like to fix my gun. Just a giant pile of tools.

LAURA: Do we need to hide? Do we need to climb up to its little cave that it was in, maybe? And hide.

SAM: Did it have a cave?

TRAVIS: Was it in a cave?

LAURA: It had a cave. Didn’t it come out of a cave, when we saw it?

MATT: You saw it was up on a higher platform, you didn’t see a cavern, or anything.

LAURA: Oh, I thought it was a cave.

MARISHA: I rolled a 21 to collect goods.

MATT: Okay, looking through the book that you have. You eventually take a while to look while you guys are having your short rest. You can use your hit dice to heal yourself. It is known as a behir.

SAM: A behir?

MATT: B-E-H-I-R.

MARISHA: B-E-H-I-R.

TALIESIN: Behir.

TRAVIS: Be here.

LAURA: Be here right now. Be present.

MATT: Behir. There are two things. Anything in the face and teeth are gone. They are just mush. The entire head is destroyed.

MARISHA: Sure.

MATT: The the two things in the book that are worthwhile, like, really worth money, are some of its hide can be repurposed for, you know, like, lightning resist-based armor, but currently it’s unknown who has the speciality to actually work with that material. These creatures are difficult to harvest and a lot of their locations are unknown. A lot of them were hunted down for that long ago and almost thought to have gone extinct.

(all groan)

MATT: However, yes, you don’t know anybody, possibly Karin in Emon. The hide can be harvested. There is also a gland in its throat that it uses to charge its Lightning Breath.

TALIESIN: I’d like that.

MARISHA: I’d like that.

MATT: Go ahead and roll for the hide first, if you guys want to go for that.

LAURA: Can I stealth and climb up and see if I can see a cavern?

MATT: Sure.

LAURA: A little cave.

MARISHA: Natural 20!

TRAVIS: Oh snap!

LAURA: Yeah!

TRAVIS: I’ll take it.

SAM: She gets advantage because mountains are her favorite terrain.

LAURA: What do I add to that?

MATT: This would be, add your–

LAURA: Acrobatics?

MATT: For climb, this would be athletics.

LAURA: Athletics. Oh, really? That’s not what it was; I moved it.

LIAM: It was 14, I saw it.

LAURA: Oh no, 12.

MATT: It takes you a little bit to get up there. It’s steep, you slide down a few times. But eventually, because there’s no immediate threat, you’re given time to get up onto this upper platform. You can see that there are these various parts of the rock that jut outward, that have some short term passageways that this creature uses.

LAURA: I’m so weak, but I’m holding to see if I see a cave.

MATT: (laughs) Roll a perception check.

LAURA: (groans)

MATT: Once you’re up there. You take time and with help from some other folks, you manage to harvest, I’d say about ten pounds worth of scales at most. It’s not a whole lot. A lot of it has been torn and destroyed from the impact and damage you guys did. Parts of it are not really armory functional, but you manage to get enough to maybe make one set if somebody manages to work really well with it.

MARISHA: Here, Grog, bag of holding.

LAURA: 23.

MATT: 23? Currently, you have no eye shot on any particular–

SAM: Don’t eat it, Grog.

MATT: – tunnels. Nothing that resembles an abode or a cavern from this position.

TALIESIN: Lick it.

LAURA: (groans)

LIAM: I see my sister’s struggling.

LAURA: Oh god it hurts.

LIAM: I climb up next to her.

LAURA: You’re almost as weak as I am, dude.

LIAM: Yeah.

LAURA: Here we go.

LIAM: Acrobatics? What is it?

MATT: Athletics.

LAURA: Athletics.

TRAVIS: Athletics.

LIAM: Athletics? Oh, shit. Acrobatics would have been much better.

TRAVIS: Oh yeah, c'mon.

LAURA: I know, I don’t think so.

LIAM: Can I flip up there?

MATT: Eh, it doesn’t work like that.

LIAM: No, no–

(all laugh)

TRAVIS: No, I can’t.

LIAM: Wait, I’ll use Luck. I’ll do it again to get–

MATT: Go for it.

TRAVIS: You’re going to use one of your Lucks?

LIAM: – to get past that one.

LAURA: No, we were about to rest. Wow.

LIAM: Oh, no, I didn’t.

LAURA: Oh, really, you rolled worse than me.

LIAM: Oh no, my fingernail, that really stings. Damn it.

MATT: The twins give a–

MARISHA: Just terrible.

MATT: – terrible display of rock climbing in the middle of this.

TRAVIS: I laugh heartily.

TALIESIN: Parkour! Parkour!

MATT: Go ahead and roll for the glands.

MARISHA: The glands?

LIAM: Stupid video game moment of like jump, jump, jump, jump.

LAURA: Like Skyrim trying to get–

MARISHA: Glands? 18 is not bad. I’ll take that 18 for a 28. Hey, Vax, can I see your dagger?

LIAM: Yeah, here you go.

SAM: He’s up a hill.

LAURA: Nice. We didn’t even get up a little bit.

MATT: It takes most of your short rest. You will not be able to use your hit dice for healing on this, because you spend your time harvesting instead. But you manage to– thankfully, the damage that Grog had inflicted upon its head destroyed most of its matter, right up to the throat gland which is mostly untouched. It’s salvageable. You don’t know how much it’s worth. Probably a decent amount, as the book says that they’re rare. Especially to find intact.

TRAVIS: That Grog, what a dick.

TALIESIN: We have jars. I’m going to put that into the jar and put it away.

TRAVIS: There’s not even like a tooth. Like one broken tooth? A piece?

MATT: You did a number on that one’s face.

TRAVIS: When Grog goes to work.

LIAM Boom. Kill the behir, take its glands, money.

TALIESIN: I may have something I can do with this actually.

TRAVIS: With what, the gland?

TALIESIN: Yes.

MARISHA: Maybe, yes. (electricity noises)

TALIESIN: You’re very clever, yes. We’ll work on that.

TRAVIS: Hello? I don’t speak your language.

MATT: You place it within a preservation jar.

TALIESIN: Yes.

MATT: Back in the bag of holding?

TALIESIN: Back in the bag of holding.

MATT: Okay.

TALIESIN: I’m going to try and fix this mess, for a minute.

MATT: Go ahead and make your check.

TALIESIN: 18.

MATT: 18. It does cost you half the–

TALIESIN: It wasn’t a dual fail.

MATT: Oh right, just a single fail. It was a dual fail, but it was separate.

TALIESIN: Yes.

MATT: You take some time with it during the short rest to tinker with it. You manage to bend the metal back in place. Test it for a bit. Make sure the aspects that move move smoothly as they should. Eventually, you get pretty confident that it is back to a functional piece of weaponry. All right, so, as you guys finish this rest–

TRAVIS: I’m rolling one more hit dice.

MATT: Go for it. The sky is starting to get a little bit into the orangish color. Though you can not see the sun from its current location, you gather you have about an hour and a half or so before full sundown.

SAM: Let’s get out of this little taco in case that was the daughter of something else.

MATT: Wait, you guys stayed the night– never mind, in the cavern. So actually, no, I take that back.

SAM: Oh?

MATT: I just realized you guys stayed the night last time over on the seaside cavern and walked here–

TRAVIS: That’s right.

MATT: – and it only took you a few hours to get here. So, no, it’d be about mid-day noon.

TRAVIS: Okay.

MATT: So, I take that back. Never mind.

LIAM: Ah.

SAM: We should still go.

MATT: Can see the sun, it is straight above.

TALIESIN: We should still get out of the taco.

MATT: There is some cloud cover coming in.

TRAVIS: Definitely should still leave.

MATT: From the north side, it doesn’t look like anything too dense.

MARISHA: Percy?

TALIESIN: Yes?

MARISHA: Do you know how much longer we need to continue on this path?

TALIESIN: Honestly, I’ve never taken this road before. This is further east than I’ve ever come.

MARISHA: Can we see how far ahead– does it look like it goes on for a while, this chasm?

MATT: It moves around, so it’s hard to get to much of a visual of the–

TALIESIN: The geology starting to look familiar?

LAURA: Does my tracking tell me anything?

MATT: You can go ahead and make a nature check.

LIAM: For all of this, I’d like to–

MATT: With advantage.

LIAM: – walk about 40 feet in front of everyone and creep along.

MATT: Okay.

LAURA: 17.

LIAM: Cloak up.

MATT: Make a stealth check.

SAM: He’s a weird loner, that guy.

TRAVIS: He is.

LIAM: It’s my job.

MATT: Make a stealth check. The mountains here got its name for the white stone mountains. The rock–

TALIESIN: It’s starting to look like home, though?

MATT: Yeah. The mountain range here is a large part of the material that is mined, well, was mined beneath the– It’s very rare white quartz-like rock that is used for many purposes. And it’s generally only found in this mountain range. It’s what a lot of the Whitestone’s original economy was based on.

LIAM: 22.

MATT: 22, good to know. All right, so.

LAURA: 17 on nature.

MATT: Okay. I mean, you gather the same thing. The rock formations here match the same as the coastal mountains. The mountain here is all made of the same material, few deposits here and there of just normal bits of granite and other forms of simple stone.

LAURA: Granite.

SAM: Oh.

LAURA: Simple stone.

(all laugh)

TRAVIS: That was so much better than shopping.

(all laugh)

MATT: As you guys are pressing forward, at this point, you guys are taking your time waiting and Tiberius is getting impatient, and is crossing his arms. “I feel like I should have gotten more materials. I don’t think I’m quite prepared enough for this.”

LAURA: What? Tiberius, you prepared a lot.

LIAM: Tibs.

MATT: “Not enough. Never enough”.

LIAM: You brought along a sack of mirrors, I think you’ve got enough. What do you need?

MATT: “I have an idea. I’ll be back in a few days.”

ALL: What, no?

SAM: Don’t leave.

MATT: He sits down and starts making his teleportation circle.

LAURA: No, no, we need that!

LIAM: Tiberius.

LAURA: We need that.

LIAM: Tiberius.

LAURA: We need that. Tiberius.

LIAM: You are a heavy hitter, we don’t know where we’re going, what we’re doing. He’s strong. You’re strong, in a way, maybe hang out a little bit longer.

LAURA: He’s actually got a lot of hit points, really.

TRAVIS: Yeah, he’s got a lot.

MATT: (laughs)

LIAM: More than I do. You’re stronger in frame than I am. Sure you want to go?

MATT: Tiberius leans in and whispers to you in a strange tongue and it sparks in your ear somewhere. (whispers) “The player’s not here and the DM’s trying to not make it too complicated for him to keep track of an additional character for this session.”

(all laugh)

LAURA: I understand that.

LIAM: (whispers) I know, but I’m just trying to give you a hard time.

(all laugh)

MATT: I’ll remember that.

LAURA: Oh, no.

TALIESIN: I grab Lockheed and we hold him hostage.

(all laugh)

MARISHA: You can’t leave!

(all laugh)

LAURA: We need you.

MATT: “Don’t worry, I’ll be back soon and now I know how to find you.”

LIAM: (whispers) Send an iPad with Pike on it.

(all laugh)

MATT: He finishes his teleportation circle and with a whoosh, with a flash, vanishes.

LAURA: Shit. Really, Tiberius, really?

MARISHA: He does that a lot.

SAM: It’s very much in his character.

LAURA: (groans)

TRAVIS: Where’d Tiberius go?

LIAM: He went to get an army, I think.

LAURA: (groans)

TRAVIS: That’s fine.

TALIESIN: Or more mirrors.

MARISHA: It might be more mirrors.

TALIESIN: Or an army with mirrors.

MARISHA: An army with mirrors.

LIAM: I can do magic. I do this great coin trick thing where I flip it on my thumb and then it lands in my hand.

LAURA: And then, you pull it–

LIAM: That’s the end of it.

LAURA: – out of someone’s ear.

LIAM: It’s right here.

LAURA: Whoa!

TRAVIS: We start walking.

MARISHA: That’s fun.

TALIESIN: Yeah, no, I’m walking.

MATT: Progressing forward–

MARISHA: It’s a start.

MATT: – you begin to–

TRAVIS: Jauntily stealth ahead.

LIAM: 40 feet out, yeah.

TRAVIS: Like a beagle.

LAURA: I keep a perception out to see anything.

TALIESIN: I’m keeping an eye open for anything familiar.

SAM: Can I just bump into Vex and ask her to maybe scan ahead for dragons?

LAURA: What do you think I’m doing?

SAM: Dragons, though. Six miles.

LAURA: I’m scanning.

SAM: Don’t you have six miles of dragons or something? Thank you.

TALIESIN: Do you have to do the hands?

TRAVIS: Is that your scanning face?

MATT: It’s good to help out in the–

LAURA: I’m thinking.

SAM: Six miles of dragons.

LAURA: I’m wanting to see if I see any dragons. Do I see any dragons?

TRAVIS: I thought you did a different technique last time.

MATT: You take a moment and anticipate the circumstance, and there is, within– what’s the distance on it?

ALL: Six miles.

MATT: Six miles?

LIAM: Yeah, man.

MATT: You ascertain that there are quite a few sources of life in this vicinity, of some sort of dragon kin or dragon-like entity.

LAURA: Was the behir a dragony sort of thing?

MATT: No. Technically not, from what you can gather, but you do gather there are a few blips that are three miles off north, at the center of the mountain range. You don’t know how big or how dangerous, but you sense there are some dragon or dragon kin sources.

LAURA: There’s a dragony something.

SAM: Could be dragon eggs.

MARISHA: Dragonborn?

LAURA: I don’t know, Scanlan.

MARISHA: You’re not picking up Tiberius six miles away?

LAURA: There’s dragony things, though.

SAM: Listen. When I poo somewhere, I can see everything.

LAURA: I didn’t poo. I’m sensing with my mind.

TRAVIS: Listen, if we do run across a dragon, remember we have the dragon slayer longsword, which is a plus one to attack and damage rolls, and if you hit a dragon or a dragon creature, it gets an extra 3d6 of damage.

LAURA: What are you reading? How did you even know that?

TALIESIN: That’s the most complicated sentence I think I’ve ever heard you speak.

TRAVIS: Sorry, I blacked out for a little bit.

(all laugh)

TALIESIN: Nothing.

LAURA: Nothing. You’re good, Grog.

TRAVIS: What do you have to do to attunement?

MATT: Attunement, you take a short rest with the weapon, learning its properties.

TRAVIS: Caressing it?

MATT: Essentially. Stroking it, making sure it feels comfortable.

TALIESIN: Buying it dinner.

MATT: Nice spread so it feels welcome.

TRAVIS: That’s more than I usually do.

LAURA: Maybe a steak, some salad. Shrimp cocktail.

TRAVIS: Just in case you need a sword.

LIAM: As we progress, I say into my earring, Scanlan, I’ve seen some of the logs she’s left behind. They’re not small.

LAURA: (gasps) You are seriously. What?

TALIESIN: Wow.

LAURA: That’s disgusting.

TRAVIS: I missed it. It must be good, though.

SAM: She usually buries them quite well.

LAURA: Really gross, both of you. Enough.

LIAM: They don’t sense anything.

SAM: All right.

TALIESIN: Well, we’re not heading north.

SAM: We’re not?

MATT: You guys are heading eastish.

TALIESIN: Westish. We’re heading westish.

LAURA: Nothing that I can sense.

TRAVIS: Can we keep walking?

MATT: You guys came up on the eastern side– sorry, the western side of the mountains. You’re now heading eastward.

TALIESIN: Oh, we came up on the western side of the mountains?

LAURA: There’s nothing that we’re going to run across.

LIAM: Just flip that.

MARISHA: Western side of the mountains?

TALIESIN: Western side of the mountains? So Whitestone’s to the east?

MATT: Whitestone would be to the east of you guys.

TALIESIN: Oh, okay. I thought we went up the eastern side of the mountains. I’m so confused. You wouldn’t think I’d lived here before.

MATT: That would have brought you through the forest, and you were trying to avoid that. That’s what I thought you said last time.

TALIESIN: No, that’s very true. Oh, god.

TRAVIS: West side’s on the shore side, right? Ocean’s there?

MATT: There’s a giant peninsula to the north. Either side would have been coast.

LAURA: So we’re not going to run into any dragons?

SAM: At least we’re not going north.

MATT: You’re aware that they’re not anywhere close to you to currently be an issue, no.

LAURA: Okay, we’re fine.

TALIESIN: In two or three miles, we’ll take another check.

LAURA: Yeah.

TRAVIS: (laughs) He winked at me!

MATT: All right, so.

TRAVIS: It’s like being blessed.

SAM: We’re going to just keep going towards the town.

MATT: You guys press on, following this winding path that narrows at certain points and then widens for a bit. You come across, partway through, the twins at the front notice, around the edges as it begins to descend down into the beginning of the valley descent, you see an edge of the mountain that looks more angular than the usual natural formations of it. It almost looks like it comes to a point, like a very sharp edge, and a smooth side.

LIAM: I’m not sure I understand. We see a drop-off?

MATT: It begins to descend towards the valley, and on the side of one of the giant–

TRAVIS: Chasms?

MATT: Chasm you guys are at the bottom of. You see an outcropping ahead that’s angular and pointed.

SAM: Like, designed by man?

MATT: Like it was sculpted, constructed.

TRAVIS: That might have sentries.

LIAM: Some sort of outlook or something. Something that was not formed by nature here.

TALIESIN: Do I know what this is?

MATT: You–

TALIESIN: History check?

MATT: I’d say, make an intelligence check. Roll and add your intelligence modifier.

TRAVIS: I could do it with you, if you want.

MATT: You can make a history check. You know many things that exist here in the mountains, but at this distance, you don’t see enough of it to actually–

LAURA: (shocked noise)

TRAVIS: He’s not going to let me do it.

LAURA: He rolled a natural 20.

MATT: For?

TRAVIS: An intelligence check, because I’m an idiot.

SAM: He doesn’t know the–

TALIESIN: I kind of want Grog to speak truth right here.

LAURA: He’s an expert on mountains.

MATT: Actually, this works out interestingly. As you guys are walking forward and you’re seeing this, and you’re keeping back, Grog, you instinctively look over and go, oh. That’s a stone giant fortress.

ALL: Oh!

MARISHA: Shut up!

TRAVIS: (laughs) I did something smart!

(all laugh)

MATT: With your bloodline and knowing where you come from, and you’ve had a few close encounters in the Cliffkeep Mountains with a few of this kind, you’ve seen a few fortresses, and from the details of it, the way of the roof, and the scope of its design, and the way the mountain range lends itself to that type of topography, yeah. This is obviously a stone giant fortress.

TRAVIS: Oh, and I drank some of that nasty dank in the fight with the Hammer, round two.

SAM: Wait, should we– those are bad guys, right?

TRAVIS: Yeah, that’s bad.

SAM: We should not go that way.

LAURA: We should definitely stay away from that.

TRAVIS: Maybe go up on the other side of the chasm opposite of it?

MATT: Or you can move around the side, you’re welcome to.

LAURA: Maybe hide and make sure we’re hidey-hidey?

SAM: We could stealth through it, we could invisible through it.

MARISHA: Pass Without a Trace.

TRAVIS: Pass Without a Trace.

LAURA: I have Pass Without a Trace.

TRAVIS: And climb along the opposite side.

LAURA: And do we have invisibil–oh, no.

TALIESIN: No, we don’t, no.

LAURA: You have–

SAM: I have some invisibility. Not great, though.

TRAVIS: I have dust of tracelessness.

LAURA: Maybe we’ll stealth it.

LIAM: Can I hide Scanlan under my cloak? Can he use his invisibility on someone else?

MATT: If he was to cast Invisibility on you–

LIAM: No, on somebody else, so I’d just hide him.

TRAVIS: What about one of those things that always works on me–

MATT: You could–

TRAVIS: – a diversion?

MATT: You would move very slow and you would have disadvantage on your stealth checks because you guys don’t have a way to move quietly.

LIAM: All right, all right.

LAURA: No, I don’t want to bring any attention.

MARISHA: I could create a diversion.

SAM: What kind?

LAURA: Like what?

MARISHA: I mean, I could– What’s nearby? Is anything nearby? Any animals? Have we seen any wildlife?

MATT: There have been birds that fly through, an occasional harpy, in the distance you hear screeching and you guys keep quiet until it vanishes and disappears.

(screech in the background music)

TALIESIN: Wow.

TRAVIS: That was perfect timing!

LAURA: How’d that happen? How did that frickin’ happen?

TRAVIS: His ways are mysterious, my love.

LAURA: You are magic.

MATT: I am lucky.

TALIESIN: Holy cow.

MATT: What were some seafaring like seagulls and various coastal birds have slowly been disappearing and turning into more eagles and hawks, things that eat small rodents, more of a lush side of the hill. You see as you get closer to the valley itself that the actual forest that surrounds Whitestone is more and more of these birds of prey are beginning to show up. Other than that, you see very few small things other than occasional lizards about that big in your hand that live on hot rocks.

TALIESIN: Should we observe this encampment for a bit, just to see what’s happening as we slowly make our way around it?

LAURA: Can we see any kind of movement? It’s really far away, or–?

TRAVIS: Couldn’t hurt.

MATT: It’s still a ways away right now, you’re just catching the edge of it.

SAM: Are we a mile away? A thousand feet away?

MATT: I’d say you’re about a good 600, 700 feet from it.

LIAM: That’s not that far.

TRAVIS: You know, we could try to work our way up the opposite side of the chasm.

TALIESIN: That would also allow us a good view of it as well.

MARISHA: I happen to have Hallucinatory Terrain right now.

SAM: What does that even mean?

MARISHA: It means exactly what it sounds like.

SAM: I don’t speak your language.

MARISHA: I can make terrain that’s not real.

LIAM: Do you remember when we psyched out the duergar–

SAM: It would block their view of us maybe? Perhaps?

LAURA: Is it movable?

TRAVIS: Yeah, it can’t move with us.

MARISHA: It could block their view of us.

LIAM: Can you make some shrubs to come along with us?

MATT: You guys actually used it previously to camp for a night along a cliffside.

LAURA: Right.

MATT: And made the cliff extend further than it was.

LIAM: Yeah, we lured a bunch of duergar into a chasm that the ground extended over.

LAURA: Let’s try to climb up the other side and then see what we can see.

MARISHA: I mean, I can do a lot of things, I can make a thunderstorm, I can make a sleet storm.

SAM: That would keep them in their fortress.

TRAVIS: Could you make it fire?

MARISHA: I could.

TALIESIN: Or very cold if they came out.

LAURA: They like cold.

TALIESIN: Oh, yes.

MARISHA: I could, I could make a big storm.

TRAVIS: We’re also on a chasm, so if it gets wet and slippery and muddy we might all go down.

TALIESIN: That’s true.

LAURA: Maybe get up at the top of it and then do this.

TALIESIN: I like the plan of going up the other side of the chasm.

LAURA: Can we try to climb the other side?

MATT: Certainly.

LIAM: Giants like to throw fucking boulders.

LAURA: Yeah, I don’t wanna be down on the bottom.

LIAM: Yeah.

MATT: As you guys make your way up the other side, you’re helping each other, I want everyone to go ahead and make an athletics check.

SAM: I put on my climbing gear, which I definitely own.

MARISHA: An athletics check?

MATT: Okay, giving you advantage on your athletics check.

LAURA: I actually own climbing gear too, does that help?

MATT: That would help you, yes.

LAURA: Okay.

TRAVIS: I have mine too, so I’ll put that on as well.

MARISHA: I don’t know if I have climbing–

TALIESIN: I don’t know if I have climbing gear.

TRAVIS: Attached to a rope and a grappling hook that’s in my hand.

SAM: And it was the same. (laughs)

MATT: All right. So.

SAM: What am I doing? Adding what?

TRAVIS: Fuck yeah! Nipple tits.

MATT: You have advantage, you add your strength modifier. Or your athletics is what it would be.

SAM: Athletics.

LAURA: Do we add anything because of the climbing gear or is it?

MATT: You get advantage because of the climbing gear.

LAURA: Ah, that’s important.

TRAVIS: 26.

MATT: 26.

LIAM: We were all using climbing gear or just–

MATT: No, those who have it.

LAURA: I give you my climbing gear because I already get advantage. How about that? Does that count? No.

MATT: Because it is mountain? All right, I’ll let you do that.

LAURA: All right.

LIAM: All right, well, I got 19.

MATT: 19.

LAURA: Oh, so you don’t need that.

LIAM: Yes I do, I need it.

SAM: 11.

TRAVIS: 26.

MATT: 26. Vex, what did you get?

LAURA: I got 15.

MARISHA: 11.

TALIESIN: 19.

MATT: Okay. A couple of missteps and almost sliding, Keyleth, at one point, you grasp her by the hand and Grog pulls her back up onto the platform.

TRAVIS: No, no, up here.

MARISHA: Thanks, Grog.

MATT: Over time, you guys make your way along this very rocky and precarious, anywhere from five to three to two feet in width, sometimes even lesser than that and you guys are having to shimmy across. You make your way around and you can see this large fortress that is built out of extremely large and in-place stones and stonework. It looks ancient. For size-wise, it’s two stories for a giant, which means it’s probably close to six or seven stories of height.

LAURA: Whoa.

MATT: Built into the side of a mountain, and it goes down almost like two giant steps. It’s built on essentially where the giant bowl, the caldera if you will, of where this valley of this mountain range would be. It’s built on the inside of it, so it’s actually constructed, as you continue to descend into the valley. Looking at it, you can see openings, windows, there are areas up top where you see giant piles of rocks and boulders that are used for anti-siege, for throwing off the top, stockpiles of that. You do see boulders around the ground that may have been thrown and not picked up. Everyone make a perception check.

LAURA: I feel– (whispers) Should I say?

LIAM: (whispers) I’m not gonna tell you.

TALIESIN: That’s an intimidation check.

LAURA: How did Trinket get up the cavern?

MATT: Hm?

LAURA: Can Trinket climb?

MATT: Trinket–

TALIESIN: Bears climb!

MARISHA: Bears are good climbers.

LAURA: They’re good climbers?

TALIESIN: They can get up a tree.

MARISHA: Yeah.

MATT: Roll an athletics check with disadvantage.

SAM: Disadvantage.

LAURA: I’m sorry! But it felt wrong to lie.

MATT: Rangers.

SAM: Of course. It’s an honor system.

LIAM: Could I have given the climbing gear to Trinket?

LAURA: No.

TRAVIS: No.

(all laugh)

TALIESIN: You could’ve, it just would’ve been adorable.

LAURA: But we could tie the rope around Trinket’s waist.

MATT: Roll your dice.

LAURA: With an athletics check?

MATT: Yes.

LAURA: Does he get an advantage because of mountains?

MARISHA: I love that he says ‘roll your dice’ like it matters.

MATT: Nope. He gets disadvantage because he’s a big bear.

TRAVIS: I told her not to say it, why’d you say it?

LAURA: I’m just trying to be honest!

MATT: Which is appreciated.

LAURA: Strength modifier? He got a 15, too.

MATT: Okay. It’s been difficult, and it slowed your guys’ progression, but you’ve managed to keep Trinket along with you; this large bear is now like pushing against the side. He’s managed to keep up, but it’s been a harrowing experience.

LIAM: I’ve been behind him the whole time, pushing on his buttocks.

MATT: Yeah.

LAURA: You got this buddy, you got this.

MATT: So, once again, perception rolls.

LAURA: Sorry. Yes.

TALIESIN: 20.

MARISHA: 19.

SAM: 17.

LIAM: Can I use passive perception?

MATT: This is active actually looking for something; the passive is more–

LIAM: Well then, I get– 26.

TRAVIS: 15.

LAURA: 19.

MATT: All right. You got 26, you said?

LIAM: Yep.

MATT: Looking from this distance, and keeping the best visual you can see, there is no movement, at all, from the interior of the fortress. The two front doors, you see these two large stone doors that are the entrance to it. One of the doors is actually broken in half and left partially ajar and open.

TRAVIS: We gotta go in now.

LAURA: No, no, no.

SAM: They could be dead in there.

LAURA: If something could’ve taken out giant giants. What could it be that could’ve done that?

TRAVIS: Vampire giants.

TALIESIN: It could’ve been the Briarwoods. We should see everything that’s up here.

SAM: (sings) There are giants in the sky.

TRAVIS: How awesome would that be?

LAURA: (sings) There are big, tall, terrible giants in the sky.

TRAVIS: Can we please go see? Can someone please–

SAM: You want me to go in?

TRAVIS: Vax!?

MARISHA: I can bird it. I can bird it and go in.

TALIESIN: I can’t believe I’m about to say this.

MARISHA: Bird in and do a recon mission real quick?

SAM: You’re going to bird in? They’re going to see you fly in.

LAURA: No, but she’s a bird.

MARISHA: I’m a bird.

SAM: It doesn’t matter, they’re still gonna see you.

LAURA: Recon it.

MARISHA: I’ll go bat!

LAURA: Yeah!

TALIESIN: Now you’re not going to be able to see anything because they have terrible eyesight.

MARISHA: Not in a small–

TALIESIN: I’m kidding, they really don’t. That’s a myth! That’s actually a myth!

MARISHA: They have echo vision!

TALIESIN: They have actually very reasonable eyesight. That’s a myth. You can look it up on Wikipedia, it’s true.

MARISHA: (laughs) Very reasonable eyesight.

LIAM: You could also be a sparrow.

LAURA and MARISHA: Yeah.

MATT: So, at about the two in the afternoon day sun, ‘cause that’s what it is. But you’re fine. You become a bat–

MARISHA: Bats come out during the day!

MATT: I know. She makes her way, down through; you swoop up to one of the windows and you glance inside and look around. You can see most of the furniture inside is in tatters. There are large, giant-sized tables and chairs that have been broken in half and strewn across the room. Make a perception check.

LAURA: Ooh, come on, Keyleth!

SAM: Come on, oh yeah.

TALIESIN: Oh yeah!

MARISHA: Oh yeah! 28.

MATT: 28. Glancing inside you also see there are–

MARISHA: (squawks) That’s my echovision.

MATT: – splatters and puddles of blood. Large bits of blood across the ground that is dried, but from your current vision from this, there is no sign of any living or individuals or bodies. There was a battle that took place here, but there is nothing present to signify who or what.

MARISHA: How big is this room?

MATT: This room is about 25 feet tall

MARISHA: Does it look like it goes deeper?

MATT: It does look like it goes deeper, there is a slight– this is the upper floor, there is a grade, almost like a slow– the word escapes me for a second.

MARISHA: Like a downgrade.

MATT: Yes.

TALIESIN: Like a ramp.

MATT: A ramp!

SAM: A slope.

MATT: Thank you.

MATT: A ramp that disappears below and into the lower floor.

SAM: A siggle.

MARISHA: I’m gonna go into that–

(all laugh)

TRAVIS: Careful. Oh no no no no! Don’t roll! Don’t roll!

(all shout)

TALIESIN: We turn on him.

MARISHA: Fear of god.

LIAM: Grog sacrifices the gnome.

(all laugh)

MATT: So yeah, you do see the ramp, that’s downward.

MARISHA: I’m going to go into the room that I see is for sure empty, and go toward the threshold of the ramp.

MATT: Okay. Make your way down to the threshold of the ramp, looking down. Downstairs as well, it looks like there are some fur rugs set aside that have been kicked aside and bunched up on the edge of the room.

MARISHA: Like it’s been ransacked, or just a really nasty fight?

MATT: Like some sort of a major fight went down. No sign of any bodies or body parts. No sign of leftover weapons or armor from whatever giants lived in here. You just see large amounts of dried blood across the stone floors.

MARISHA: Like something came in and slaughtered and completely stripped the place.

MATT: Or the giants slaughtered something horribly here and are currently out and about, you don’t know. But–

MARISHA: Can I tell if the blood looks– how dusty is this shit?

MATT: Did you want to land and make an investigation check?

SAM: Call us in.

TRAVIS: Do it.

LIAM: Do it, Batwoman.

TALIESIN: You are the night.

MARISHA: How much dust goes pff?

TRAVIS: (laughs) You are the night.

MATT: Quite a bit; a little puff.

LAURA: Oh.

MATT: Not a huge amount, but enough where it’s not fresh, and a closer look, the blood’s been dry for a while. Make an investigation check.

TALIESIN: What is the sound of a bat coughing?

MARISHA: (squawking and coughing noise)

TALIESIN: Thank you. It’s the simple things.

TRAVIS: What did you get?

MARISHA: Investigation. What about a 12?

MATT: 12. You can’t really make it out, unfortunately. You know it’s dried, it’s been a little bit, but you can’t quite gauge how long it’s been.

MARISHA: All right, I’m gonna go ahead and– are there any other rooms, or is this it?

MATT: There’s the upper floor, the lower floor. They’re two large rooms on their own. It looks like– You haven’t actually gone down the grade yet, so.

MARISHA: You said seven stories, so it’s like room, downgrade, room, downgrade, room?

MATT: Seven stories for your size, it’s two stories for a giant size. It’s a large top room, and a large bottom room.

LAURA: Ooh.

MARISHA: Is there another room going off the bottom room?

MATT: There are just two rooms: top floor, bottom floor. You’re currently on the top floor, looking down.

SAM: Split level condo.

MARISHA: I’m gonna go out to the front door.

MATT: Okay.

MARISHA: Nice flat, upper east side. Land, and I’m gonna bamf out of my bat form, and say, all right, it looks like the coast is clear if you guys want to check this place out.

SAM: Yeah, let’s go check in.

TALIESIN: Let’s check it out.

MATT: All right, the rest of you make you way back down towards the front of the fortress and enter the inside. As you go through the front door, you see that the impact that destroyed it was from the inside out.

SAM: Oh!

LAURA: Ooh.

TRAVIS: Really?

MATT: So it’s not like it was beaten in, it was beaten from the inside out.

LAURA: Oh.

MATT: And there is a streak of dried blood against that portion of the door. Looking inside too, you see there are a large cluster of matted hides and furs, like it made for bedding for close to four or five giants put in the corner, and there is a musty smell of whatever they were using to make it comfortable and ripe for their own personal needs.

LIAM: Stealth!

LAURA: Yeah, yeah, let’s stealth.

TRAVIS: Can giants become vampires?

LAURA: I don’t know, I hope not. You should use the dust of tracelessness, Grog, just so our footsteps aren’t seen.

LIAM: 17.

MATT: 17, okay. So what do you guys want to do in here?

LAURA: Stealth.

SAM: I’m going to go downstairs.

MARISHA: How dark is it?

MATT: You are downstairs at the entrance

SAM: Oh. Down the grade, I mean.

TRAVIS: I want to look for any weapons that are lying about.

MATT: All right, make a perception check.

LIAM: I want to ransack the joint.

MATT: Actually, it’d be more of an investigation check.

TRAVIS: Me, investigate? That’s funny. Eight.

MATT: Okay.

LIAM: Investigate or perception for me?

TRAVIS: I find dirt.

MATT: You find a giant’s fortress.

LIAM: Investigate or perception?

MATT: For this? Perception is just seeing things at first glance. Investigation is going through and rummaging through to find things.

LIAM: I’ll investigate.

MATT: Okay.

SAM: Shall I for downstairs?

MATT: Yeah, go for it.

LIAM: 17.

SAM: 23.

MATT: Okay. As you guys are going through, looking at the blood and the way the splashes are, the blood that was spilled here was very thick, and large amounts of it, and it’s probably been anywhere from two to three months since this entire fortress was ransacked.

TRAVIS: Wow.

MATT You do notice that some of the blood is dragged through, like something was dragged out of the puddle. But not for a long distance. Whatever was there was cleaned off at some point, or lifted up and carried out from whatever was originally pulled through those puddles of blood. You also do notice that in the pile of furs and refuse and there are bones of things that were left there to rot in the corner. You find roughly 120 gold pieces.

SAM: I give it to Vex.

MATT: Over time you find a number of shattered glass vials that look like they once contained various elixirs, there is one that is unshattered.

SAM: I take it.

MATT: All right. And underneath all, covered in quite a bit of filth, but a little bit of metallic sheen streaks through, you see what looks to be a very, very well-crafted longbow.

LAURA: (gasps) What is that?! What is it? What did you find?

SAM: Nothing, nothing.

LAURA: What is it? What is that?

LIAM: Here you go

LAURA: Ah, what is this?

LIAM: What are you going to do with it?

LAURA: What is this?

SAM: I’ll use it as a hammock.

LIAM: Shoot yourself?

MARISHA: Does it look like it’s magic-y?

LAURA: Can I tell what it is?

MATT: Taking it, it appears to have some sort of magical radiance to it. It looks like it’s very well crafted. You recognize the construction is elvish in nature.

LAURA: Hey, look at this.

MATT: And there are bits of mithril scrolling all throughout the bow itself, with platinum caps on the edge of the longbow.

TRAVIS: Is it evil?

LAURA: I don’t know. Keyleth, do you know anything about magic-y stuff? Tiberius bamfed out.

MARISHA: I can try, I’m not as good as he is, but I’ll try.

LAURA: What about you, Scanlan? Do you know anything about arcana?

MARISHA: Ooh, 20!

MATT: Natural 20?

MARISHA: No, 18; 20 total.

MATT: Yes, this is definitively a magical item, it is enchanted.

MARISHA: It’s definitely magical.

MATT: If you want to take a short time to work with it and attune yourself to it, you could get a better idea of what its effect is.

LAURA: Okay. Thank you. Can we do that?

TALIESIN: I’m going to look around a bit more, anyway.

LAURA: I’m going to think about it real hard.

LIAM: Probably shoot a couple dummy arrows out of it.

TRAVIS: Can I walk out the front door?

LAURA: I’m going to buy it a steak and I’m going to–

TRAVIS: Can I walk out the front door and keep post on the porch?

LIAM: I’m following Grog and I’m doing the same.

MATT: All right.

TRAVIS: And I want to look in the direction we want to be walking.

TALIESIN: I’m looking around, I’m trying to find out what happened to the bodies.

MATT: Investigation check for that. Here are the potion and the bow you guys managed to–

LAURA: What is it, what is it?

SAM: I took the potion, I took the potion!

MATT: (laughs) Give that to Scanlan.

TALIESIN: I know, apparently, from this roll that I’m in the mountains.

LAURA: What is it?

TALIESIN: I got a six.

MATT: A six. It’s hard to tell. It’s a very strange scene, and you have no inclination as to what may have transpired here. Who is the winner, who is the loser, and what has been done with the bodies.

LIAM: Sorry.

MARISHA: What did you find, what did you find?

TALIESIN: Vex is making happy noises.

LIAM: She’s taking the bow for a spin.

TRAVIS: She’s attuning.

LIAM: Seeing what it can do.

TRAVIS: Do we see anything outside on the porch?

MATT: Over time the only thing you catch is occasionally you see flocks of birds moving through and swooping through the area. You watch one flock come up and begin circling a little bit.

LAURA: Should we get out? Should we leave?

MATT: And then make its way down toward the valley.

TRAVIS: Stealth.

LAURA: Just leave. Let’s leave. Stealth it out? Stealthy out-ie?

MATT: This is for Grog who is outside, roll a stealth check.

LIAM: I’m out there too, and I rolled a natural 20.

MATT: Yes you did.

TRAVIS: I might use your inspiration on this.

SAM: It’s probably not in effect anymore.

LAURA: (groans) No, you’re in the mountains!

TRAVIS: I am in the mountains.

MATT: Which means you have knowledge of mountains.

LAURA: You don’t get advantage?

TRAVIS: I don’t have advantage on–

MATT: Let me double-check on this, actually, what the specifics of the goliath’s– You don’t take issues with cold climates, because you’re at high elevation. You don’t actually get advantage on anything mountain-wise; that is a ranger ability.

TRAVIS: So can I add an inspiration on this?

SAM: I inspired him quite a while ago. How long does that–

MATT: It’s been a while, how long does that last?

SAM: 20 minutes?

MATT: Yeah, that would’ve faded by now.

TRAVIS: That’s a one.

MATT: Oh, well, if it’s a natural one it wouldn’t have mattered.

LIAM: Yeah, it doesn’t matter, you can’t add shit to one.

MATT: So while you sneak off to the side, you see these birds. There’s a lot of birds there! You start yelling out to everyone, there’s a lot of birds out here! Shouting it loudly back into the fortress.

LAURA: Aw, shit.

MARISHA: Grog, Grog, those might be centurion birds!

TRAVIS: (loudly) That’s what I said, birds!

MARISHA: They might be spies! They might be spies.

TRAVIS: (loudly) Yeah, I spy birds, they’re flying everywhere. (yells) Go away!

LAURA: Grog, Grog, inside.

MARISHA: Inside!

MATT: The birds immediately start circling the fortress very close. You can hear the screeching. You can see the birds now, they’re crows. A very, very thick murder of crows, probably close to a hundred of them, cawing.

LAURA: I cast Pass Without a Trace.

MARISHA: Wait, wait, wait.

SAM: I’m still down there, investigating.

MATT: Mm-hm.

SAM: I pull a David Caruso and say, It looks like these giants had… big trouble.

(all laugh)

MATT: You hear an echoing sound, yeahhhh! Formless, sourceless. You all stand there confused for a moment, then continue to try and stealth.

TRAVIS: I run back inside.

MATT: Back inside. Eventually the crows take back to their original path.

MARISHA: Oh, oh, but before the crows leave, before the crows leave–

LIAM: Yeah?

LAURA: Yeah?

MARISHA: Can I do something?

MATT: Yep. What are you doing?

LAURA: Do it!

TRAVIS: Do it!

SAM: Kill them all.

MARISHA: I’m gonna go like Storm and I’m gonna Sleet Storm them. I’m gonna start conjuring a Sleet Storm over the top of this mountain, right where the crows are.

TALIESIN: It’s been so long since you’ve killed something innocent! Let’s bring it!

LAURA: Do it, do it, Keyleth!

MATT: As Keyleth concentrates for a second, you see her eyes, the actual color of her irises, begin to fade to this cloudy white and then the entire eye itself becomes this icy blue. A slight cold mist beginning to drift off the corners of her face.

LAURA: Badass.

MATT: You start hearing this pounding sound on the top of the fortress as sleet and hail begins to rain down. Go ahead and roll damage for the spell.

MARISHA: Oh, jeez.

MATT: Sleet Storm? Oh, it’s just a dexterity saving throw. It says heavily obscured, but doesn’t actually do any damage.

LAURA: But it knocks them all down.

MARISHA: I know, they’re like frozen though, right? Don’t they get frozen with Sleet Storm?

MATT: Sleet Storm knocks things prone, makes the area hard to see.

MARISHA: Knocks them prone

MATT: Douses flames.

MARISHA: They’re in the sky, I wanna hear birds hit the floor.

MATT: And a few do. There are a few birds that get pelted and knocked to the ground, encased in sleet, but most of it immediately takes note to get away from the storm and vanish and disappear back to–

TRAVIS: Do they fall to the porch?

MATT: I’ll say one does.

TRAVIS: I run out there and I grab it.

LAURA: No, no, no!

TRAVIS: I rip its head off with my teeth.

(all laugh)

MATT: Grog, you run out there and grab the one on the ground, it’s struggling, and (squawks), there’s ice gathered everywhere.

TRAVIS: Yeah, shut up!

MATT: You grab it and you pick it up, you hear Vex go “Grog!” and you go (chomp) as she’s staring at you. Silencing the crow. You hear the cawing of the crows dissipate in the distance and silence eventually takes the fortress once again, and you’re left amongst the smell of death.

LAURA: We should get the eff out of here.

MARISHA: I think so.

TALIESIN: We should probably leave.

LAURA: Now. Stealth and out.

LAURA: Dust of tracelessness. Hide ourselves.

TRAVIS: Dust of tracelessness.

MATT: You make your way out of the fortress and begin to follow the path down into the outside of the forest and just as you make towards the base of the mountains where the forest canopy begins to take your vision, you can see just over the edge, a couple of small castle towers and what looks to be a single central spire of the castle of Whitestone.

LAURA: They know we’re here now. They know we’re here.

LIAM: Yeah.

TALIESIN: I think they might.

LAURA: That was a sentry.

TRAVIS: Why? They were just birds.

MARISHA: Yeah, but we don’t know–

SAM: Don’t worry, we still have the element of surprise. Oh wait, no, we don’t.

MATT: And with that, we’re going to go ahead and take a break. All right, guys, we’ll be back here in about 20-25 minutes.

LAURA: Oh yeah!

Part II
MATT: Let us begin where we left off.

LAURA: Oh, we’re looking at the city.

SAM: There’s the city! Shall we storm it?

TALIESIN: It’s a chalkboard.

LAURA: I was pointing at you!

TALIESIN: Well yes, so I can now recognize where we are.

MATT: Yes, you know this area very well. This entire forested area, the Parchwood Forest that encompases the entirety of this valley, toward the center of it, center north, is where Whitestone sits and for your reference as well, since you’ve been here before, you would know the city relatively well.

SAM: Maps!

TALIESIN: This is the most exciting map I’ve ever been handed. Whoa!

LAURA: What the what?!

MATT: Hold that over by your seat there for people to take a look at.

SAM: Don’t. Just don’t.

TALIESIN: It won’t fit in my folder.

MATT: That is a basic rundown of the size, design and shape of Whitestone, with Castle Whitestone toward the top, built on top of a leveled off mountain that marks the southernmost point.

SAM: This is the castle, this is the town?

TRAVIS: And we’re at the southern part of that?

MATT: You guys are actually coming in from what would be the northwestern side of the city

MARISHA: So over here?

MATT: A little bit further down. About that angle there. That’s the direction you’re coming in from.

TRAVIS: That’s a detailed map, man.

MATT: I don’t have any free time anymore.

(all laugh)

TRAVIS: They sell those stock, right?

MATT: Oh yeah, totally.

TALIESIN: What’s this little outcropping?

MAT: The little outcropping to the east of it was the graveyard to Whitestone. It’s where most of the regular denizens were interred. It’s been expanded over the years as the city itself has been around for quite a few generations.

MARISHA: Does this graveyard have catacombs? Tombs? Underground passages?

MATT: Do you ask this of Percy?

MARISHA: Yes.

TALIESIN: Does it?

MATT: That graveyard does not–

TALIESIN: That graveyard does not–

MATT: – it is a surface graveyard.

TALIESIN: – it is a surface graveyard.

MATT: There is a mausoleum–

TALIESIN: There is a mausoleum–

MATT: – but that–

TALIESIN: – but that–

MATT: – is actually contained beneath the castle.

TALIESIN: – is actually contained beneath the castle.

(all laugh)

TRAVIS: Riveting.

SAM: So knowledgeable, Percy.

LAURA: So Percy, do you know of any secret passages to get actually into the castle?

TALIESIN: I was wondering that myself.

MATT: There is one, one that you took to escape.

TALIESIN: Yes, there is one!

MARISHA: (laughs) Stop.

MATT: He has an aneurysm. Yeah, it is to the very western edge of the mountain precipice the castle was built on. It was built to be specifically an escape in case the place was under siege. Unfortunately, the circumstances that the evening happened so rapidly, and with creatures that seemingly were unnatural, the family didn’t have time to make it out. And even you weren’t fully aware of it. Cassandra, however, had overheard discussions about the passage and took that as your escape route. It’s a hidden tunnel at the very base of the mountain.

TALIESIN: I say we scope out the hidden entrance, see if it’s guarded, see if they’ve discovered it.

SAM: To the town, or to the castle?

TALIESIN: The hidden entrance to the castle. Instead of using it, I think we should possibly spend the night and get a view of the town, see if there’s anything unusual.

LAURA: I agree, can we camp out and hide?

SAM: Watch from afar? What’s that going to tell us?

TRAVIS: We could send one in.

TALIESIN: We could send a bird in. Or an invisible gnome.

SAM: Or both.

TALIESIN: Or both. An invisible bird-gnome.

TRAVIS: Just to see if the town is normal or not.

SAM: It could be all vampires. Or it could be a totally normal town.

TALIESIN: If it’s all vampires, it’ll be empty right now.

SAM and LAURA: Because it’s daytime.

MARISHA: We should do a fly-by.

LAURA: We should definitely attack during the day.

TALIESIN: Yes.

TRAVIS: We should send one by air and one by land.

LAURA: What?

MARISHA: Do you want to do that?

SAM: How far away are we?

MATT: You guys have been travelling through the forest, and it is a very dense forest, but it is mostly cold-weather trees, pines. And there is, you can see once you get inside the forest, the ground itself is very thick and there are elements of melting snow on the top of the trees, there was recently a snowfall in this area but it seems like it’s been a while and most of it has turned to slush and water. You have about two hours of travel into the forest, and you all immediately catch the sound of distant howling.

SAM: Is it nighttime?

MATT: No.

SAM: Oh. That’s scary.

MARISHA: Distant howling? Does it sound like wolves? Can I make a nature check?

MATT: Yeah, make a nature check.

LAURA: Stealth?

MATT: If you want to make a stealth check

MARISHA: 26.

MATT: 26. Those are wolves. It sounds like a pack of wolves, probably close to anywhere from five or six.

MARISHA: Would I think it’s weird that they’re howling during the daytime?

MATT: You gather that it is strange that they’re out. Though it is getting later in the day, you are pushing four or five in the afternoon, the sun is starting to get closer to the horizon. It is strange that they’re out this early, you’re not sure what the reasoning would be for that.

MARISHA: Odd.

TALIESIN: I say we hide in the trees.

LAURA: Up high.

TRAVIS: Like up in the trees?

LAURA: I like it.

TRAVIS: We’re gonna climb some trees.

MATT: Okay.

LIAM: We’re gonna Hobbit this shit.

SAM: We’re just hiding in the trees, we’re not going in to investigate?

TALIESIN: Well, it’s about to be nighttime, so we’ll send a scout.

SAM: How long would it take to get into the town from where we are?

MATT: About two more hours of travel.

SAM: Ew. We’ll get there at night. That’s all right though, it’s early evening.

MARISHA: How long would it take me to fly over if I was a bird?

MATT: About an hour.

SAM: Vax.

LIAM: Yes?

SAM: Can I ride you into town?

LIAM: You want me to jog into town?

MARISHA: You could ride me into town.

SAM: Well hello lady.

MARISHA: Man, every time, Scanlan, every time.

TALIESIN: Now that just got weird.

LAURA: Could you turn yourself and fly?

SAM: Yeah, I guess I could fly.

MARISHA: You wanna go invisible and jump on my back and I can eagle up?

SAM: Whatever you’re into, baby. (laughs) I’ve become Austin Powers.

LAURA: Ridiculous.

MARISHA: Let’s do it.

LIAM: If the coach driver was any indication, there are going to be people–

LAURA: Normal people.

LIAM: – in town.

SAM: What about this: I’ll make us both invisible and you fly us in.

LAURA: I like it.

TRAVIS: Yeah, get on the ground, not just above.

MATT: All right. Now, Invisibility: how long does it last at full duration?

SAM: Looking. Up to an hour. Ooh, and it takes two hours just to get there?

MATT: Well, flying takes an hour. So, it’s one of those things you could do once you approach it. It’ll last you awhile, as opposed to doing it now.

SAM: How long can you be Polymorphed for? Forever? Concentration?

MARISHA: For half of my druid level, we discovered.

MATT: So somewhere around six hours, five hours.

SAM: Okay, so you fly us in, and I’ll Invisibility us right as we get to the gates.

TRAVIS: And as they’re going out, we get in the trees.

TALIESIN: Make sure you bring an earpiece.

MARISHA: He’s got an earpiece.

TRAVIS: Do we, the four of us, all go up in the trees?

LIAM: Everyone get your own tree.

LAURA: Everyone get your own tree?

MATT: Everyone who’s in a tree, please roll a stealth check.

SAM: Except for Trinket, who can’t climb up.

LAURA: Trinket can climb trees! Bears climb trees!

MATT: Roll an athletics check.

LAURA: I’m casting Pass Without a Trace. How long does it last?

SAM: You have to roll for Trinket.

LAURA: Okay, fine! I guess I’ll cast it tonight, never mind.

TRAVIS: Plus ten to stealth?

LAURA: Why are you being a dick, Scanlan?

MATT: Well, she did not cast it.

LAURA: I’m not casting it yet.

TRAVIS: 14.

LAURA: What are we rolling?

TRAVIS: Stealth.

LIAM: I already did. Those are good rolls!

LAURA: 21 for me, and what do I– just nothing. 19 for Trinket.

MATT: Okay. We’ll say you guys all manage to slowly get yourself up into the tree the best you can, as you guys take off. While you guys are away, making your way towards Whitestone, the rest of you look down, and just from a passive perception standpoint, you pick up the most detail: you can see there is indeed a pack of about five wolves and/or dogs a little ways away, but they’re being followed by one humanoid. They’re being guided, there is a pack out here for some reason, whether it be a hunting party or whatever other reasons there may be. It isn’t a wild pack.

LAURA: And they’re close to us now?

TRAVIS: I’ve been doing the dust of tracelessness.

LAURA: So, I’ll cast it on us now that they’re closer.

MARISHA: I wonder if that’s the ground search party.

LAURA: Maybe.

TRAVIS: We’ll see.

LAURA: So, should we add ten to all of our stealth rolls that had been, or do we have to roll again?

MATT: You’d have to roll again.

LAURA: Shit balls.

LIAM: So we’re stealthing again in the tree?

MATT: Because she’s casting Pass, or you won’t get the benefit.

LIAM: I’m already at a 32, man!

TRAVIS: I’ll take it.

LAURA: You don’t have to.

LIAM: Let’s do it, let’s roll again.

TALIESIN: Let’s roll again.

LIAM: What do we add?

LAURA: Ten to whatever we roll.

MATT: Go ahead and just add ten to the previous roll.

(all cheer)

LIAM: Good.

MARISHA: We want to keep our good rolls.

MATT: So, about five breathless moments pass as the dogs, wolves all get relatively close. One of them comes up and returns back to the pack. You don’t get a good view of the individual that is currently guiding the pack, and you see them disappear between the thick trees in the distance. Make an active perception check for you, Vex, if you don’t mind.

LAURA: Not advantage. Mountains?

MATT: Is forest? No, you’re in forest, now.

LAURA: Oh wait! That’s another!

MATT: You’re sure that’s a favored terrain? Then go ahead and roll again.

LAURA: That was worse than the first one, that’s great.

MATT: So your total is?

LIAM: I rolled 20.

LAURA: Okay, well, you didn’t say you were doing it. 18.

MATT: 18, okay. It’s hard to make out the details at this distance. You check out, it does appear to be a female form.

LAURA: Oh, it’s a chick!

MATT: Best you can tell, you can’t tell specific race or details. Then, another minute passes before the barking and the howls fade and the hunting party seems to have been eluded.

TALIESIN: There was no way to get a good look at who it was.

MATT: No. Do you want to make an active perception check?

TALIESIN: Actually, I would love to.

MATT: Normally, if they’d passed by now–

TALIESIN: Natural 20.

TRAVIS: What?! Really?

MATT: A natural 20?!

MARISHA: I’m looking at it!

TALIESIN: This is an 'I love you’ for those awful rolls earlier.

TRAVIS: The golden snitch wins again.

TALIESIN: That may be its name now.

MATT: You see the female form, it’s not someone you particularly recognize. But the woman does appear to be older, probably in her late 40s, early 50s. She has some hunting gear over her shoulder. She has a short bow that’s strapped over her, she has a quiver of arrows. She looks like she’s hunting for food.

SAM: If she was a little older, Tiberius would kill her.

(all laugh)

SAM: Give her ten years.

MATT: Give her ten years.

TALIESIN: I don’t recognize her, though?

MATT: No, you don’t have an immediate lead of visual recognition. In the meantime, you guys make your way. Swooping down, you can see that cluster, that murder of crows circling out. It’s making a large pass over this entire valley. You take this cue as you get to within visual range of the city to cast Invisibility on both of you. Is that a 3rd-level spell?

SAM: Yes.

MATT: Okay. Both of you vanish from view, which is a strange feeling for you because you cannot see Keyleth, you’re grasping onto something you can’t see.

SAM: Oh, shit.

MATT: And you just look like you’re gliding through the air.

SAM: Can I do one of these?

MATT: Yeah, you grab on very tightly.

MARISHA: (choking noises)

MATT: – without choking. The eagle does not have–

SAM: Damn it!

MATT: – human physiology. You get two fistfuls of feathers. And you really don’t want an eagle to buck you angrily at this height. I don’t think you have Featherfall so that wouldn’t go well. Looking over Whitestone, you can see outside of the city there are some areas where the trees are carved out, and there is farmland set up specifically to grow food and to till to maintain sustenance for the people that live there. You can see that there’s a small area that’s also being cut for timber. Not a perpetual thing, but the wood here is, you’ve heard previously, one of the major exports here is very high-quality timber from this type of tree that is used for very exquisite woodcraft and furniture. So that’s one of the major exports of Whitestone as well as the quartz from the mines itself. There are people in the city, but sparse. Make a perception check.

MARISHA: Can I also make a perception check?

MATT: You may.

MARISHA: With my eagle vision?

MATT: (singsong) You may.

MARISHA: 14, so that’s 24. And I have Keen Sight, which means I have advantage on all perception checks.

MATT: Yes, you do.

MARISHA: I’ll take that 14.

TALIESIN: She’ll take that 14.

MARISHA: As opposed to that one.

MATT: Total of 14?

MARISHA: 24.

MATT: 24. Okay. As you get close enough to start scanning over details, you can see that a lot of the buildings appear to be closed or empty. There are people working in the fields. As you make your way to the center of the town, there is a town square. There is a tree there, a very large, old tree that is twisted, with all these various gnarled branches that reach out. You recall Desmond mentioning something called the Sun Tree that is the centerpiece of this area. And you get a view enough of the tree to see that there are eight humanoid bodies of varying ages swinging from it.

SAM: Ooh.

LAURA: Oh no.

MATT: You also notice that, patrolling through the city at very slow paces, there are a few larger than normal humanoids.

LAURA: (gasps)

MATT: You see what appear to be approximately six giants patrolling through the town, but you can see some of them are like wrecked and broken. One of them is missing an arm and is dragging a foot behind it.

LAURA: They’re zombie giants?!

MATT: Apparently, whenever one of them is moving through, most of the denizens of the town keep a very wide berth, and generally avoid them entirely and go about their business, at a distance.

LAURA: Oh my god.

LIAM: I miss Pike.

TRAVIS: Six?

SAM: No problem.

MATT: Like over all of the entire city. They’re pretty well scattered about. After you do a full pass over the city, those are most of the details you can make out at this height. Anything further, any specifics, you want to go for before heading back?

SAM: You want to set me down so I can go talk to people?

MARISHA: You want to talk to people?

SAM: Well, or at least eavesdrop. We don’t know if they’re all vampires or not.

MARISHA: Does it look like there’s a central part where there’s a lot of people gathered?

MATT: Farmlands look likely to be the largest cluster of people. You can see, since it’s getting to the end of the day, there are folks finishing up gathering the crops that were available to them or sort of planting as they go through. And you can see there’s about five or six people that are all in one group. Most everyone else seems to be relatively solitary and trying to go about their business as fast as possible.

MARISHA: The town square’s emptying out?

MATT: The town square? Nobody is in the town square. People are avoiding it like the plague. There’s eight bodies hanging from the tree, and nobody wants to be there.

MARISHA: All right. I’m going to swoop down and find a tree, where the five or six farmers are, and perch, see if Scanlan can get a good–

MATT: There actually are no trees by the farm, all the trees have been cleared out to make the farmland. So there’s actually a bit of the forest that’s been cleared for that purpose.

MARISHA: It’s just open and empty.

MATT: Yeah. You can go to a tree that’s nearby, but that’s like 300 feet away.

MARISHA: A rooftop? A wall? Anything I can perch on?

MATT: There is a wall. There is a wall on the outskirts of Whitestone.

MARISHA: I perch on the wall.

MATT: Okay. You swoop down and you perch on the edge of the wall there. It’s about 25 feet up.

SAM: I’m just going to walk down there. I won’t be able to see you, so I’m going to leave a little–

MARISHA: I’ll keep an– Oh, wait, I can’t see you.

MATT: And you can’t talk right now, you’re an eagle.

SAM: I leave a little, like a canteen or something, right where she’s perched, just so I know where to find her.

MATT: Okay.

TRAVIS: Smart.

TALIESIN: Leave the mug.

SAM: Yeah, my stein. And then I’m going to walk down and see if I can stealthily eavesdrop on some conversations.

MATT: Okay. You make your way down the 25-foot wall she’s perched on.

SAM: Oh, shit. Am I going to fall?

MATT: Go ahead and make an athletics check to climb.

TALIESIN: You say that out loud?

SAM: Athletics?

MATT: Yes.

SAM: 17.

MATT: 17. The stonework here is old and you manage to not lose your footing entirely as you bring your way down. Thankfully, you’re light enough, and the stones are not too large, so you can get some good handholds. You do, over the next 12 minutes or so, make your way to the base of the wall.

SAM: It took me 12 minutes to climb 25 feet?

MATT: Yep.

SAM: Nice. I suck.

MARISHA: Maybe whistle for me when you come back.

MATT: A lot of moments of (gasps) 'whoa, okay’. But, you catch yourself. I mean, you can just jump if you wanted to make it less. But, the duration of your invisibility– you have about 20 more minutes before it dissipates.

SAM: Oh shit, I have to do this quick.

MATT: You look over the edge, and you can see that they have carts up and that they have what vegetables they have, and a lot of vegetables, even at a close look, a lot of them look withered. It looks like there is a general sense of frustration that the land itself is not producing quality crops. And even the people look unhealthy and gaunt by nature. Whether it be the cold winter recently or just their general spirit is broken, but there is a feeling about these people that life here is not what it used to be. There isn’t a whole lot of conversation, there’s mutterings here and there. “We have to make sure we get these back in time. Fill the cart, we have two carts we have "to get in.” And the other one’s, “I know, I know, I’m trying,” And they’re putting it over there and there’s a little bit of frustration among them.

SAM: He’s doing walla.

(all laugh)

MATT: One of them ends up counting the last bit of crop. “That’s it, that’s all we have. That is the "entire pull for the day.” And the older gentleman, who is overseeing it, grinds his hands and goes, “Sir Kerrion is going to have my hide.”

SAM: Wait, wasn’t that one of the people–

MATT: “At the very least, let’s gather it together and hopefully Pelor will protect us.” And the people take the carts and begin making their way towards the outer gate on the southeast side of Whitestone, where you guys are currently at.

SAM: Okay. I’m going to hustle back to the roof.

MATT: All right. Make an athletics check.

SAM: Jesus.

MARISHA: I can come get you.

TALIESIN: You’ll hear a thump.

SAM: Eight.

(all laugh)

LIAM: Hopefully he lands on his lute.

SAM: No, it’s nine.

MATT: Okay. 15 minutes. After five minutes of eavesdropping you realize that you are not going to make it up that wall, and you feel the magic of your Invisibility illusion about to fade. At this point, by the way, the sun has just hit the edge of the mountains, the sky itself is a vibrant, reddish orange slowly turning to purple and sunset is upon you.

SAM: I want to spend the night here. No.

MARISHA: Can I see him?

MATT: He’s invisible, no.

SAM: I will sneak around the corner a little bit, wait for an opening, and I lose Invisibility, which will drop it on her as well, and I will Dimension Door back up to the roof.

MATT: Okay. As you pass to the side, the illusion fades, you step into a small opening of dark, purplish energy and then reemerge on the top of the wall–

MATT and SAM: Grab the canteen.

MATT: –and hop back on the back of her.

SAM: Oh, shit. Invisibility again.

MATT: Okay. Okay. You guys vanish, and Keyleth, you take off back in the direction you guys traveled from. In the meantime, guys, what do you want to have been doing? Are you just waiting, are you traveling further in, are you staying where you are?

TRAVIS: (snores)

TALIESIN: We have to wait.

LAURA: Yeah, keeping an ear out for the wolves and just chilling in a tree.

TRAVIS: (yells) I fall out of the tree.

LAURA: And also, I’m restringing my new, awesome bow.

MATT: With the–?

LAURA: With the blazing bowstring.

MATT: Okay.

LAURA: Which, by the way, is a longbow of sky sentinel.

SAM: Sky sentinel, what does that mean?

LAURA: Once per long rest, I can use a Storm Arrow, which means that the next arrow I fire splits into three arrows. Roll an attack for each of them, they all get 1d6 extra for each one that hits. It’s amazing!

SAM: Every time you use it, or is at a one-time–

LAURA: It’s one time per long rest.

MARISHA: That’s awesome!

MATT: Once per day, she fires an arrow and the arrow splits into three, and each one bursts into thunder damage, bursts of them.

LAURA: Say what?! So, is it lightning damage or is it–

MATT: Thunder damage. It should say on there.

LAURA: It says lightning damage.

MATT: Oh, then it would be lightning damage.

MARISHA: It’s a taser arrow.

TALIESIN: It’s basically a taser.

MATT: So yeah, it’s pretty fun.

SAM: Thunder!

LAURA: Thunder!

MATT: What’s that from?

SAM: I don’t know.

MATT: So, the night falls and the crickets begin to emerge, the slow mist begins to form.

LAURA: Wait, our friends aren’t back yet. It’s already night and they’re not back?

LIAM: I just want to say that I pulled my hood down, and put on my calamari hat, and pulled the hood back over it.

MATT: Okay. So you take the partially rusted over, but functional, metallic skull cap that Clarota was wearing when you guys met in the Underdark, that Clarota no longer needs.

TRAVIS: Because he’s dead.

MATT: You place it on your head and it’s a little loose. As you place it on, it rattles for a moment, and then it form-fits to your skull. Your hair being pinched beneath it and just emerging from underneath, almost Loki-helmet-style.

LAURA: Looking snazzy, Vax.

TRAVIS: Nice bonnet.

SAM: (imitating Clarota) I’m on your head.

MATT: There’s a weird buzzing vibrational feel as its magic attunes to you over the next hour or so as you’re waiting, but you get the sensation that it will offer some decent protection from impeding charm effects.

LIAM: It tingles.

LAURA: It looks like you have a mullet.

LIAM: Yeah, dude.

MATT: A Loki mullet. You start to get really nervous about the arrival of your friends, until eventually you hear the flapping of wings. You look up and you can see, since it has taken an hour to get there, the illusion just fades, both a giant eagle and Scanlan appear in the moonlight, right above the canopy of the forest you guys are close to, and return to the place you were.

LAURA: Keyleth, question. Can you make it look like we’re not here with your foliage shit?

MARISHA: I drop my Beast Shape, holding onto a branch.

LAURA: You know, the illusions.

MARISHA: Yeah.

TALIESIN: Good, good.

LAURA: Can we camp up in the tree? So nobody can come towards us.

MARISHA: Yeah.

SAM: What if we fall out?

MARISHA: I Druidcraft some spiderweb hammocks.

LAURA: Ooh.

TALIESIN: Sticky.

MARISHA: And, as usual, light some sage.

MATT: Takes about an hour or so, but you manage to pull from the surroundings these really nice, thick spider silk hammocks, that should be able to support your respective weights. Grog is the only one that might be questionable with the sheer amount of weight that is his form.

TRAVIS: I like it.

MARISHA: Maybe take a rope and tie it.

TRAVIS: Nope, this is a trust exercise.

LAURA: I’m using Hide in Plain Sight to make me and Trinket extra, extra hidey.

LIAM: I have a question. The only reason I have this question is because I posted that video from a couple of years ago. Do I still have the unending rope?

LAURA: I have the unending rope, motherfucker.

LIAM: Why don’t we reinforce with the rope?

LAURA: Sure, why not.

TRAVIS: You don’t like the trust exercise?

LAURA: That’s where all the rope comes from that we ever use.

LIAM: I’m sorry I brought it up. I’d love you to fall on your head.

LAURA: Let’s reinforce the spiderwebs.

TRAVIS: No, I’m good, thank you.

MARISHA: Whoa, Vax. Nice helmet. Don Quixote called.

LIAM: Aerodynamic, isn’t it?

MARISHA: He wants his bowl back.

SAM: Before we slumber, we did a little intel, a little recon.

LAURA: Oh, yeah. What’s up?

SAM: Turns out the town is full of humans, except for these six vampire giants– zombie giants.

MARISHA: They all appear to be fairly miserable people.

SAM: However, this could be useful. Everyone in the town, the farmers anyway, seem to be gathering produce to deliver to the Briarwoods. We could pose as some sort of farmer troupe with a basket of goodies, and maybe get through the front gate.

LAURA: Don’t you think they would know all the farmers around at this point? They’ve been there for a long time.

MARISHA: They did reference Sir Kerrion by name. Oh, they referenced Sir Kerrion, Percy.

TALIESIN: Thank you.

SAM: We could make ourselves look like some of them. One of us has a hat of disguise.

MARISHA: Also, there was something other really important.

SAM: What?

MARISHA: The town was pretty much empty.

SAM: Oh, yes, this.

MARISHA: And that Sun Tree, that what’s-his-name– Who said that? Jarett?

MATT: Desmond.

MARISHA: Desmond. Looks like there were some executions that took place. There were about eight bodies hanging from that tree.

LAURA: Why is it called the Sun Tree?

SAM: It’s really lovely. I don’t know, maybe it gets sun.

MARISHA: I don’t know. Why do they call it the Sun Tree?

TALIESIN: Can I go with this? Unless you have a particular reason to–

MATT: I mean, you can go with– There are maybe many reasons it’s called the Sun Tree.

LAURA: There’s reasons. Maybe we need to battle them at the Sun Tree.

TALIESIN: Legends say that before the castle was built, that the journey into the valley was treacherous and stormy, and the original builders of Whitecastle feared they would die. And this one, great tree stood in the valley, and it was underneath it that they took shelter. And as they began to take shelter, the storm broke. And the storm did not return until the castle was completed.

SAM: That’s a lovely story.

TALIESIN: We hold our festivals there every year.

SAM: And now it’s being used as a–

TALIESIN: As a gallow, yes.

LAURA: Does it get a lot of sun?

MATT: You do know, and this ties into your story as well, because the guidance in forging the city of Whitestone, that tree was representative to them as a guardian of Pelor, the god of the sun. The protector of light, holiness–

SAM: Who that?

TALIESIN: A very serious god.

TRAVIS: That could help.

LAURA: That could help us, because vampires hate the sun.

SAM: Why would they make camp in the place where the god of the sun–

LAURA: Maybe that’s why they’re hanging bodies from it, to taint it.

LIAM: Maybe that’s why it’s protected. Maybe–

SAM: Are any of us religious with that god, or–?

MARISHA: Can we call Pike through your magic poo?

LAURA: Would she be able to hear us?

TALIESIN: Tablet of Apple?

SAM: I can at least see what she is up to.

LIAM: Keyleth, would you be able to revive the tree?

LAURA: (gasps) Bring it back.

SAM: What would that do?

MARISHA: Yeah, I can, actually.

LAURA: I don’t know. Bring up the god of the sun again, I don’t know.

SAM: We’re not religious people. We can’t summon the gods willy-nilly.

LIAM: We can please Pelor.

LAURA: Don’t tell us what we can and can’t do, Scanlan.

SAM: I’m sorry. We can do all of those things. Yes, let’s go in the middle of the vampire-infested town and do some arbory to try to heal the tree, and then we’ll just say, oh, sun god, please rain down sun here.

LAURA: I like it. Let’s do it.

SAM: That’s a great plan.

TRAVIS: Can we at least try cutting down the bodies and running, and seeing what happens?

SAM: We could.

TALIESIN: I say, in the morning we take a look at the passage, see how well-guarded it is. And if it looks dangerous, sneak our way into the town. If people are not enthralled, if they are being forced to work, then maybe we can find some allies.

MARISHA: Find allies in the town?

TALIESIN: I don’t think they’re happy.

LAURA: I think they’re terrified. And I don’t want to let them know we’re here, for fear they’ll turn us in, in hopes of saving their own necks.

MARISHA: That’s what I’m thinking. Yes, they’re terrified, but this whole town’s being ruled by fear.

LIAM: I have a feeling we can revive that tree somehow. It may weaken the Briarwoods’ hold on the psyche of the villagers here.

LAURA: This is true! It could help out. Let them know the god of the sun is on their side.

TRAVIS: I heard you’re supposed to pee on a lemon tree, so.

LAURA: Probably you and Scanlan are on that, I have a feeling.

TRAVIS: Can I make a nature check to see if that’s true?

TALIESIN: I really wanted to ask. What does peeing on a lemon tree have to do with anything?

MATT: Sure.

TRAVIS: 19! That’s 17.

MATT: In your experience with the roving band of barbarians, you guys enjoyed very much peeing on very colorful trees, of all sorts of plant life. All of them, generally, didn’t seem to, over time, react well to the process, whether it be the fact that you all drank a lot of the time, so the content of your urine was probably not very hospitable.

LIAM: It’s known as a lemon party.

(all laugh)

MATT: That’s a whole different kind of festival.

MARISHA: You killed Percy.

LAURA: You killed Percy.

TALIESIN: Thank you for bringing the text chat all the way back around.

TRAVIS: Operation tree rescue.

MATT: The lemon party is held on the far, far southern continent of Tubgirl, the region of Goatse.

TRAVIS: I have an idea. Should we wait until the sun comes up, create a distraction, so all the undead giants come looking, and then we have someone go cut the bodies off the tree, and–

LAURA: And bring it back to life!

TRAVIS: – let Keyleth give it a little love.

MARISHA: And then what happens after that?

TRAVIS: I don’t know. It’s an experiment, all right?

LAURA: Then we get the fuck out.

SAM: Won’t they know we’re here? Won’t the people see us doing things?

MARISHA: I know. I feel that’s the equivalent of putting dish soap in the fountain on prom night.

LAURA: No! Didn’t you say that all around the Sun Tree nobody’s there?

MARISHA: Yeah, we did that. What?

LAURA: Didn’t you say nobody’s around the Sun Tree?

SAM: That’s true. But we still have to get in.

LAURA: We’ll fly up and over. You just did the same thing.

SAM: I know, I know.

LAURA: Fly up and over, land, bring the tree back to life, get out.

SAM: Are you sure you don’t want me to be a carriage driver, and you’ll hide in the hay of my carriage and I’ll go straight up to the Briarwoods.

LAURA: I feel like they know all the townspeople.

SAM: I will put on my hat of disguise, I will be someone completely different.

TRAVIS: They can see through that.

LIAM: I’m telling you, they looked right through me.

LAURA: When he was invisible!

LIAM: Invisible. They saw me.

LAURA: They probably saw you!

SAM: So while he was transparent, they saw through him?

LIAM: No, but I was heavily stealthed.

LAURA: No, you were invisible.

MARISHA: Oh, wow!

MATT: No, the invisibility faded when he attacked the guard.

LIAM: When I beaned the guard. They should not have been able to see me.

SAM: I’m not talking about getting past the Briarwoods. I’m talking about getting past the guards that guard their castle.

MARISHA: Here’s another issue. It’s going to take me a minute to do the tree.

LAURA: How long?

MARISHA: It might take a bit.

LAURA: How long’s a bit?

MARISHA: Well, I mean, it’s one of those things where the longer I do it the better it’ll be. I can do it for up to eight hours.

TRAVIS: Oh, shit.

MARISHA: If I do it for up to eight hours, I enrich the land over half a mile radius, centered on a single point, and the land becomes enriched for a solid year.

LAURA: I don’t want to enrich all of the–

LIAM: Question. What time was it when they were doing their little scouting thing they’ve just told us about? The sun was going down?

MATT: Yeah, they probably would’ve gotten to Whitestone around seven o'clock, and leaving right as the sun had fully set.

LAURA: If we go right when the sun goes up–

LIAM: Yes, we get there at sunrise, take those fucking beasts out, and you start at eight AM.

SAM: But then what?

LAURA: We just sneak in. Here’s the thing. I don’t know if you want to get all the crops all fancy, because it’ll just feed the Briarwoods. Maybe just do the tree area, which will be like two hours, maybe.

MARISHA: Yeah? I think if I have a solid hour or two hours with it.

SAM: Once the tree is healed, we have no one of religious power to summon any god. We don’t know anything about this god, none of us do!

TALIESIN: I do, in theory, if I’m from–

MATT: Go ahead and roll a religion check.

TALIESIN: A which?

MATT: A religion check.

LAURA: A witch?

MATT: A witch.

TALIESIN: 16.

MATT: 16? Okay. Pelor is the god of the sun and agriculture. It’s a good deity and is generally worshipped by farmers and simple folk and people that live off the land, and generally it’s the most nature-based deity of the main spectrum, outside of Melora, which is the deity of nature.

MARISHA: Oh. Well, dope! Would I know stuff like that too, then?

MATT: You know of Pelor, yeah. There are elements of Pelor’s following that bleeds into your druidic nature, though you don’t necessarily follow a deity.

MARISHA: Right. We’re free.

MATT: You believe that the essence of nature in itself is your patron.

MARISHA: Totally.

MATT: You are not a religious man by nature, and you know that there is a strong following of Pelor in the town. The entire graveyard that you talked about earlier, that one is largely built around the imagery of Pelor. And of all the gods that are worshipped here, Pelor’s probably 75% of the population of Whitestone where, in some shape or form, if not devout worshippers, at least were like, yeah, Pelor’s cool.

MARISHA: Here’s my question. I feel Pike’s energy tonight. Maybe, while I’m meditating, I can somehow reach out to her, and maybe ask her to get in touch with Sarenrae, and maybe Sarenrae can call up her homeboy Pelor.

LAURA: Do you think that works?

MARISHA: I don’t know.

TRAVIS: This is like phone a friend?

MARISHA: We’re not organized religion people, we Ashari.

LIAM: The tree is called the Sun Tree. It’s Pelor’s tree. I’m not a cleric of Sarenrae, but these shitbags could not have set up camp in a temple of Sarenrae because there is too much goodness there, as there was around this tree in this town, and it’s why it is dead. It’s why it’s being surrounded by a bunch of giant undead things, as you described. You need faith, Scanlan Shorthalt.

SAM: Me? I am the antithesis of faith.

LIAM: Then you need to shut up and let us fix that tree.

SAM: And then what?

TRAVIS: Who knows?

SAM: We’re going to fight off a million monsters to heal a tree, and then we’re going to say, “Okay. Bring out the sun,” or something.

MARISHA: Hang on! What did you just say?

TALIESIN: What?

MARISHA: That thing you just said that no one heard because we were all shouting and arguing? Rally the townsfolk?

TALIESIN: Rally the townsfolk. This is something I think– I don’t think that sneaking in is necessarily the answer. I’m not saying go in, guns blazing, but I say we let them know–

MARISHA: You want to build a militia?

TALIESIN: I want to build a rebellion.

LAURA: I like it. They would recognize you, wouldn’t they, Percy?

TALIESIN: I have a plan.

TRAVIS: You have a plan?

SAM: Does it involve healing the tree?

TALIESIN: It does.

LIAM: I don’t think there is any sneaking in, thanks to those birds, so we make a stand out here.

TRAVIS: Tell us your plan.

TALIESIN: My plan is, we do our best to sneak in, we find cover. Obviously, you said there’s abandoned buildings. We find cover. We heal the tree. I have some other ideas. We take those zombie giants out one by one, quietly.

SAM: We’re going to be insurgents?

TRAVIS: Shh! Let him finish the plan!

SAM: I kind of love this.

TALIESIN: Okay.

MARISHA: It’s like Attack on Titan. That’s cool!

TALIESIN: Let’s start finding our friends, and we start making friends. We let them know we’re back.

LAURA: I like it.

MARISHA: I like having the people. It feels less like we’re the United States.

TRAVIS: Okay, where do we start?

TALIESIN: I have some parchment. I have the thing I want to build, while I’m in the tree. It’s very simple, and I want to show you what it is.

MATT: What is it?

TALIESIN: I want to take some gunpowder and basically–

SAM: Make a pipe bomb.

TALIESIN: Basically attach it to a piece of parchment. I want to wet it into a piece of parchment and let it dry so that when I set fire to that piece of parchment, I get a burn scar. I’d like to create a burn scar.

LAURA: (gasps)

MATT: Yeah, that’s totally doable.

TALIESIN: Thank you.

MATT: Go ahead and roll a tinkering check, just for the sake of a possible epic failure.

MARISHA: A burn on yourself?

TALIESIN: No, it’ll scar anything. It just creates a very high heat.

SAM: Like a mark?

MARISHA: Like a brand.

SAM: Like our mark.

TALIESIN: Like a mark.

SAM: Like our mark.

TALIESIN: Not our mark.

SAM: The resistance.

TALIESIN: The resistance.

SAM: I need a beret.

(all laugh)

TALIESIN: I rolled a 23.

MATT: While the rest of you end up taking your evening’s rest, Grog, you immediately snap your hammock and fall 15 feet to the ground.

TRAVIS: (pained groan)

MATT: But you manage to make your way up there and just bear hug the tree trunk for rest. You’re used to sleeping in uncomfortable situations.

LIAM: I throw five or six pine cones at his head.

MATT: Over time, or at once?

LIAM: At once.

TRAVIS: Fucking gravity.

MATT: You manage to complete three pieces of parchment, roughly page-sized, with your black powder treatment, successfully. The mist rolls in and gets thicker and thicker, to the point where you cannot see the floor of the forest. The little bit of moonlight that manages to make its way through the boughs of the trees trickles through and then vanishes into these slowly-shifting bits of fog. Your breath, every time you exhale, is visible, as the cold night air begins to take. You find yourselves instinctively shivering, as you cannot grow close to each other for heat, nor build a fire. The night, while uncomfortable, you do manage to get an evening’s bit of mostly uncomfortable rest, but rest nonetheless. Eventually coming to as the morning sun comes up and heats it up, the fog begins to fade away and burn away. You’re at about an hour past sunrise as you all unrestfully come to consciousness as the temperature shift hits. You manage to relieve yourselves of your spider silk-based hammocks and/or tree grasping. Both you and Trinket have found this way of clutching onto the tree. Trinket’s used to the wild.

TRAVIS: This is, like, sunup, right?

MATT: It’s about seven, 7:30 in the morning.

SAM: Can I do a quick scry back to the poo jar that I left back in our kitchen?

MATT: Certainly.

SAM: Just to make sure that our home base is okay.

MATT: You take a moment and concentrate on the kitchen. At this point in time, you can see early morning. Laina is currently in there, yawning, and is cleaning about and starting to make a small breakfast for all the guards. You can hear in the distance, some conversation in the distant room. It appears to be a couple of your various employed mercenaries having a conversation as she’s making breakfast.

SAM: So they’re fine.

MATT: They seem fine.

SAM: So I knock that one off, and I’ll try for Pike.

MATT: Okay. Concentrating on Pike– about two minutes of hard concentration. There’s no connection.

SAM: They wiped my poo away.

MATT: You gather, due to the relatively fresh and unstable nature of this potion you had concocted, you can only have one source connection up at a time, so when you left it in your keep, it seems that the one you had at the temple of Sarenrae was alleviated of its magical presence. What was once a magical scry poo is literally just Scan-scat at the temple.

SAM: Which some could argue is magical in its own right.

MATT: Sure enough. With a high enough persuasion roll.

LAURA: Teacher. Teacher.

TALIESIN: Does it change color when it loses its power?

MATT: You don’t know.

TALIESIN: Damn it! I want to know.

SAM: Only one way to find out.

TALIESIN: God damn it.

MATT: Ask Pike when you see her again. (laughs)

TALIESIN: Your poo power may come in very handy. This is good to know.

TRAVIS: Let’s go find an abandoned building and set up.

LIAM: Could we throw in a Scanlan grenade and be able to see through it?

SAM: Sure.

TALIESIN: A scat grenade.

LIAM: A scat grenade.

SAM: Sure.

LIAM: Scatlan.

MARISHA and TALIESIN: Scatlan!

SAM: I could get in, shit in their bedroom, and leave.

LIAM: You shit in your hand, and you toss it.

SAM: Oh, yeah. That, too! Pull the pin.

(all laugh)

LAURA: Yeah. Remember that. That’s awesome.

TRAVIS: This is what happens.

LAURA: You could fly overhead with Keyleth.

SAM: Yes?

LAURA: Drop it like a bomb!

SAM: And then we’d have eyes in there.

LAURA: I like it.

SAM: I like this a lot. Give me something to eat.

MARISHA: What?

SAM: I need some fuel.

TRAVIS: Holy crap.

LAURA: I have a sweet potato right here, Scanlan.

SAM: Sweet potato? That’s good, yes. Some prunes?

MARISHA: Yeah, something hearty.

LIAM: All right. We’re off the rails.

TRAVIS: Step one of this.

MATT: So, you make your way down into the forest. About another hour and a half of travel before you start getting to where the trees begin to clear up a little bit, and you can see the base of the cleared-off mountain that Whitestone Castle is built upon, and the pathway that descends into the outer wall of the city of Whitestone.

LAURA: How far of a travel is it down into the city?

MATT: It’s maybe a quarter mile.

LAURA: So we can do that a little amount of time.

MATT: Space-relation-wise, you guys are just getting to this side of the forest right there. Right there, and this is the mountain.

LAURA: So if we’re going to try stealth this shit in–

TRAVIS: Do we take the stealthy one or the invisible one?

SAM: Wait.

MARISHA: Wait. Wait. Which plan are we doing first?

TRAVIS: First part is getting an abandoned building.

LAURA: So that we can be near the tree to protect you.

SAM: So that we can be townspeople.

MARISHA: Okay.

SAM: Right?

TALIESIN: So you can get a beret.

TRAVIS: Abandoned building, part one.

SAM: We’re setting up shop.

LAURA: Get into the town.

TRAVIS: So who goes and finds the abandoned building?

SAM: Percy is known here.

TALIESIN: Which is why I’m going to be wearing– I haven’t been seen in years, and when I was seen, I was much younger, and honestly–

MARISHA: Yes, but the Briarwoods knew who you were.

TALIESIN: I had different hair. Yes, they do.

MARISHA: The Briarwoods recognized you instantly.

TALIESIN: They did, which was disorienting.

SAM: But they’re not on sentry duty.

TRAVIS: We need a forward operating base, so who wants to be stealthy or invisible and find an empty building?

LIAM: Question: for the Assassin path of rogue, at 9th level, if I have seven days, which is way too much time, I can impersonate anyone I want. In half a day, could I just be a dirty nobody?

MATT: Yeah. You’d be able to disguise yourself.

SAM: We also have the hat.

MATT: The disguise kit?

SAM: His hat of disguise. Percy knows this town. Perhaps Percy should wear the hat.

TRAVIS: Does it require attunement?

SAM: Just a few minutes, I think.

TALIESIN: I already have the hat.

SAM: Yes, you had it from the dinner party.

TALIESIN: I’ve been trying to think of what sorts of buildings would be the most defensible and the least likely to arouse suspicion. Things with basements?

MATT: A lot of the houses have basements. There are varying degrees of it. There are larger homesteads that were reserved for the actual nobles that ran the day-to-day life of Whitestone when your family was in power. As you heard from Desmond, probably the places where the new nobles live. Those are the ones that have the gates surrounding them: the larger homesteads scattered throughout the town.

TALIESIN: That’s too obvious.

MATT: It’s far too obvious. There are many small abodes and even some farm-based hovels. The poor end of town is the farming side, which is the southwest, which is the closest area to where you guys made your stop earlier.

TALIESIN: I would almost say a shopping district. If there’s an abandoned storefront.

MATT: The shopping district is the center of town around the town square.

LAURA: Around the Sun Tree?

MATT: Yeah. Right there.

TALIESIN: Might be too close.

SAM: Before we go marching in there, finding an abode to live in is not going to be too difficult. We’ll need food.

LAURA: Are we living in there?!

SAM: Yes.

TALIESIN: We’re not going to be there for long.

TRAVIS: We have dried food rations.

TALIESIN: We have food rations. We have options.

LAURA: We’ve got food for days.

SAM: We might be there for days and days.

LAURA: We’ve got food for days.

TRAVIS: We’ve got dried food rations.

SAM: We also have to go around town and, forgive me if I’m going too far with your plan here, but aren’t we trying to win allies among the people?

TALIESIN: I have a plan.

SAM: But we’ll need to communicate with them. How?

LAURA: He has a plan.

TRAVIS: He has a plan.

SAM: (sighs) All right.

TRAVIS: Come on. Drop your pants and get with the plan.

MARISHA: What time is it? Have we gone to sleep, or are we waking up?

MATT: You guys are awake. After this discussion, I’d say it’s about 8:00 in the morning. 8:30.

TALIESIN: Let’s make our way in.

LIAM: This is the time.

LAURA: We should stealth in.

MARISHA: Are we doing the tree thing right now?

MATT: Actually, your travel to the city and you’re on the outskirts of it now. It would be closer to 9:30.

MARISHA: Okay.

LAURA: Yeah. We try to get in.

TALIESIN: We find a place to at least set up our operation.

MARISHA: Well, that’s what I was going to say. Do we want to find operations, try and recoup–

LIAM: We don’t really know what we’re going to find this morning. Those big guys could still be there; we don’t know.

TALIESIN: We don’t.

LIAM: We don’t know if there are people in the pocket of the Briarwoods here.

TRAVIS: It’s like 12% of a plan.

MARISHA: If we take a day to get in and get settled, I can do a Heroes’ Feast and then I start crack of dawn in the morning?

LIAM: I think that’s a good idea.

TALIESIN: Let’s get in and set up.

LIAM: Hole up. Let’s find a place.

MARISHA: All right.

SAM: Wait, we’re just going to walk into the city?

TALIESIN: No, we’re going to stealth into the city.

SAM: Okay.

LAURA: We’re going to cast Pass Without a Trace on everybody.

MATT: Okay.

SAM: Beard check?

TRAVIS: That was an eight.

MATT: Stealth?

TRAVIS: Beard check.

MATT: Oh. (laughs) Your beard is pretty much at the fullest it’ll ever be. You gather you can probably get a little more thickness to it, but your beard is at maximum, Grog. The fact that you even have a goliath with a beard is a feat of magic in its own right.

TRAVIS: Amazing.

LIAM: You would be a freak.

TRAVIS: Is it like that Vidal Sassoon commercial? Whip it.

MARISHA: That’s dope.

TALIESIN: Isn’t that dope?

SAM: Grog, I’ve heard that no one in this town wears a beard.

LAURA: Oh, natural 20 on stealth!

TRAVIS: You can forget it. I won’t go in.

MATT: So you guys are traveling as a group. I need stealth checks from everybody.

TALIESIN: Do we have Pass Without a Trace?

LAURA: Yeah.

MARISHA: Can we each take a little bit of time to look more like commoners?

TALIESIN: I’m wearing my hat, too.

TRAVIS: Look like commoners?

SAM: I rub dirt all over my face.

TRAVIS: Shit, I’m a goliath.

LAURA: Plus, we have a bear.

SAM: You should try to look less handsome.

MARISHA: Yeah, we do look like quite the motley crew.

LIAM: I’m wearing a natural 20.

SAM: Okay.

MATT: Did you roll a natural 20, as well?

LIAM: I did.

MATT: Both of you guys rolled natural 20s in stealth?

LIAM: Had a little help with Luck, but I got it.

MATT: There you go.

TALIESIN: That’s really good, because I rolled a one.

LAURA: Oh no.

SAM: We’ve got Pass Without a Trace, so 28.

TALIESIN: 11.

MARISHA: Still a failure.

TRAVIS: Are we all going together? Are we not sending one person in to go find an empty building?

SAM: We’re all going together.

MATT: You guys are all going together. You dirty yourselves up a bit. You’re still a large goliath. You’re still a few half-elves, a gnome.

LAURA: There’s still a bear.

MATT: Outside of illusion magic, you’re still going to stick out like a sore thumb.

LAURA: Could we cast illusion magic? Do we have it?

SAM: What’s illusion magic?

LIAM: I’m walking 50 feet in front of everybody else.

LAURA: Seeming! To make Grog and Trinket look like commoners.

LIAM: I’m 50 feet in front of everyone else.

LAURA: Yeah, do that!

MARISHA: Oh, yeah! Seeming us?

SAM: Sure. All right. I will cast Seeming on us.

MATT: This is a legit use of Seeming, too. Okay.

SAM: We’ll all look like dirty–

MARISHA: As opposed to the cows? Come on.

SAM: – dirty, ragged peasants.

MATT: Trinket, as well?

LAURA: Yes.

TALIESIN: Trinket looks like a donkey.

LAURA: No, he’ll just be a really drunk peasant.

MARISHA: A donkey. A mule.

SAM: Can I just say this? Can we just leave Trinket behind–

LAURA: No!

SAM: I don’t want to walk in there with a bear!

LAURA: He’ll look like a fucking donkey, or he’ll look like another commoner.

SAM: I think I can only make us all look the same.

LAURA: Then he’ll look like a fucking commoner.

MATT: Of similar size. I believe, as far as Seeming is concerned– If not, then I’ll allow it for the purposes of this.

LAURA: He’ll look like a commoner–

MARISHA: A Clydesdale!

LAURA: – a weird commoner.

TRAVIS: Leave the bear.

TALIESIN: A milk cow!

LAURA: I’m not leaving a fucking bear on the outside of town where there’s hounds around, and there’s fucking vampires and birds flying around, fuck you!

SAM: Oh, wait, no! You can give each target a new appearance.

MATT: Yep!

SAM: So I can make everyone look a little different.

MATT: Each creature can seem a foot shorter or taller, or appear thin, fat, or in between.

MARISHA: Make him look like a milk cow.

MATT: You can’t change their body type. So, Trinket will still be a four-legged creature, but you can make him look like a different four-legged creature.

LAURA: There you go!

SAM: Okay. He’s a milk cow.

LIAM: Real talk, real talk, Scanlan. My sister will cut you.

TRAVIS: Or do you want him to be a donkey, something we can move. Milk cows are slow.

LIAM: Bring the bear.

TALIESIN: Donkeys can move more quickly. This is true.

SAM: All right. Donkey.

LAURA: All right.

SAM: He’s an ass.

MATT: All right, so Trinket takes on the form of a donkey.

LAURA: (laughs) So are you darling, so are you.

TRAVIS: Just like her owner.

MATT: The rest of you are a smattering of various humanoids, you–

LAURA: (fake coughing)

SAM: I make myself look like a weird hunchback, sort of, not all there.

MATT: Okay, so you guys look like pretty rough peasants, dirty faces. You know, hair a little razzled. It looks like you’ve been living the harsh life on the outskirts of the slums of Whitestone for quite some time–

TRAVIS: I wanted to be a model.

MATT: – with a donkey.

TALIESIN: (goat bleat)

MATT: So. You guys, utilizing your stealth checks and the Seeming, you make your way up to the– which side of Whitestone are you coming in from?

TALIESIN: Thank you for the double 20.

MATT: Percy?

LAURA: Where are we coming up?

TALIESIN: Coming in from the west.

MATT: Okay, so you come into this entrance here. You make your way into the center of town, blending in best you can. There are a few folks who see you enter, just give you a strange look. You all are unfamiliar to the denizens of Whitestone–

TRAVIS: Oh shit.

MATT: – but you don’t look like a threat, per se. So you are noticed, and some people seem to just stop and watch you pass, but no one seems to make any active mention, note, or change in behavior towards it.

TRAVIS: Are we checking buildings while we’re walking through?

LAURA: I have passive perception of 21; I’m always looking.

LIAM: I walk over to just one random person on the street and say, anyone hiring hands? On farms?

LAURA: Our farm burned down!

MATT: (laughs) Make a deception roll. I’ll give you advantage on it because the Seeming does give you the visual perspective of being close to their type.

LIAM: That is a four– No, hold on–

LAURA: No, no, no.

LIAM: I’m gonna use Luck, that’s the Luck.

TRAVIS: Was the first number gonna be a 40?

LIAM: No, it’s not 40. So it’s 14.

MATT: Okay. That’s two Luck rolls, by the way, that you’ve spent.

LIAM: Yeah, I know.

MATT: The woman you approach who’s probably in her early 30s, pale blonde hair, looks like she actually might be losing it in some places, gives you a look and goes, “You poor people shouldn’t be here.”

LIAM: We just need some work.

MATT: “You’ll find it, but you’re not going anywhere else. Welcome to Whitestone.” She turns around and walks back, joining arms with apparently a man that she’s paired with, and the two of them just walk away, a bit dumbfounded that people walked into Whitestone. As this happens, you glance over your shoulder and you see coming from the northern edge from this side wall–

(sounds of booming footsteps)

LAURA: Oh, we should avoid that shit!

MATT: A very tall, noticeably undead giant with its jaw broken off and hanging from the hinge, dried, caked blood across its chest, it’s just dragging this large club behind it.

LIAM: Where are we? What are our surroundings right now?

MATT: You right now, you’re in a T. To the right and left are roads that go along the inside of the wall that surrounds Whitestone, to the front of you is the path that leads further into the city.

LAURA: Let’s go into the city!

TRAVIS: We casually begin–

TALIESIN: I wanna head through the city, possibly in the direction of the cemetery.

MATT: Cemetery’s over here.

TALIESIN: Yeah, I wanna head in that direction.

MATT: All right. So you guys make your way through–

LAURA: Keeping an eye out for, you know, buildings that look clustered and abandoned that we can hide in.

TALIESIN: What’s changed?

MATT: What you’ve noticed has changed is, one: largely, the population is far more sparse than you recall. What was once a bustling city, you’re now seeing about half as many people as you would would see this time of day. Going through, everyone seems to be in relatively poor health. There are a few buildings that look long-term abandoned, immediately in this area here, in the outskirts, catches your guys’ eye. You do notice that the corner lamps that you had set up at the different corners of the streets appear to be shattered.

TRAVIS: Interesting.

MATT: There would be like, you know, glass oil lanterns that at night someone would go around and light them after the sunset. The posts that hold them now are all either broken, or the glass itself has been shattered.

MARISHA: They want it to be really dark.

TALIESIN: They want it to be really dark. I’m also thinking about that cemetery.

SAM: We’re not gonna live in a cemetery, that’s super creepy.

MARISHA: As opposed to all of the other things we’ve done?

TALIESIN: Everything here is super creepy.

LAURA: Is there any other abandoned buildings around?

MARISHA: As opposed to sleeping in the Underdark?

MATT: There are plenty of buildings that look dark and mostly untouched in this section here, as you begin to move closer and closer inward.

TALIESIN: Let’s get east of the center square and set up camp.

LAURA: Okay. Where’s the castle? Is it on the top of the–

TRAVIS: It’s north.

LAURA: Oh, it’s that thingy? Okay.

SAM: We’re trying to shoot for here?

MATT: Okay. You guys move this way, as you push towards the center of this here. You–

SAM: You speak Giant, Grog?

TRAVIS: Yeah.

MATT: You move past the center here and to the left of you, you can see the town square and there it is, the Sun Tree. Very, very large, you imagine beautiful tree at one time, full height was probably about 40 feet tall. The branches twist out, and almost look like they’re hanging loosely, the ends, everything looks droopy and desolate; there’s not a leaf on it.

MARISHA: Can I do some sort of a check from a distance to see if I can recognize what kind of tree it is?

MATT: Make a nature check.

MARISHA: 18.

MATT: Okay. It’s hard to tell from this distance, there are a number of types of trees it could be. It’s not indigenous to this land. The fact that it grew here means that either it was transplanted, or it was some sort of–

MARISHA: Magical grower.

LAURA: (sings) Divine Intervention!

MATT: – magical creation for its presence.

MARISHA: Okay.

MATT: And you do see the silhouette of the eight figures slowly swaying from beneath the branches.

TRAVIS: We continue on. Don’t pay too much attention to it. Find a place to post up.

MARISHA: Right. Don’t get emotional.

LAURA: If you, if you do your nature-y spell from inside a building, does it still do the same thing or do you have to be next to the tree while you’re doing it?

TRAVIS: That’s a large radius, right?

MARISHA: So the way the spell works, I can do it one of two ways. I can do it instantaneously, essentially grow up a whole bunch of plants and brush and shrubbery around me, or I can wait and I can concentrate for a while and instill a plant with vibrant–

LAURA: Okay.

MARISHA: – life energy and heal the farmlands and it would stretch out for a really far radius.

LAURA: Let’s keep moving.

MARISHA: I’m gonna probably wanna do more the second one.

LAURA: Okay.

TRAVIS: Do it from inside a house.

MATT: Did you guys want keep moving down this path, to go through the square, closer to the tree, do you want to go southward?

MARISHA: I don’t know, it’s a central point.

LAURA: We avoid the tree a little bit and just keep going straight.

MATT: Okay, so you’re going this way.

LAURA: Yeah?

LIAM: There’s a larger building, isn’t there? I can’t see–

TALIESIN: Actually, I would say let’s get a good look at the tree, let’s walk by it.

SAM: Oh, we’re gonna walk by the tree?

MARISHA: Look like it’s no big deal.

TRAVIS: I know.

MATT: You guys turn left, and you make your way towards the town square. And as you enter the square, looking around, you can see there are what would have been carts and small booths set up for selling of meats and other goods, what was a small, you know, barter-and-sale based hub of this town– nowhere near on the scale of Emon’s bazaar, but you know, enough to support this town– desolate. All look to be closed down and untouched for quite some time. As you get a closer look to the– actually I’m gonna have you guys all roll perception checks. You’re not getting too close to the tree.

TRAVIS: Five.

SAM: Nine.

LIAM: 26.

LAURA: 19. No, that’s a– yeah, 19.

MARISHA: 14.

TALIESIN: 23.

MATT: As you guys are keeping on the outskirts of the square, it’s hard to make out the details, and the weathering has muddled the figures that are hanging there. Percy and Vax, you guys notice the figure on the far left–

LIAM: The body.

MATT: The body on the far left has red paint smattered across its face and its arms. It’s wearing a dirtied, green, vest-like robe that dangles below it as it hangs there, loosely. Immediately to the left of it you see what looks to be the body of a child. The child is dressed up in a purplish, billowing shirt, very fine silk shirt and pantaloons, and is dangling there next to it. To the left of that you see what appears to be a female, adorned in greens and browns, looks like red paint has been driven through the hair, and dangles to the left of that figure. Next to that, you see what appears to be–

TALIESIN: I am walking the fuck away.

MATT: – you see what appears to be another woman, dressed in dark blacks and browns, leathers, some furs across the top, dark hair, dangling. To the left of that you see another man dressed similarly, dark greys and blacks, long dark hair, dangling. To the left of that you see a rather large man, older, rotund, probably in his forties, clothing padded but mostly open chest, hair completely shaven bald, it looks like there are dark scars placed across the face, hanging. To the left of that you see, this figure is actually not humanoid, you see what appears to have been–

MARISHA: Oh my god.

MATT: – a recently hunted bear, who is dangling.

MARISHA: No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

SAM: Wait, what? Is that us?

MARISHA: It looks like us.

TRAVIS: What?

MARISHA: It’s us!

SAM: They killed people they thought were us, or they killed–

LIAM: Or it’s a message.

SAM: Or it’s a message to us.

MARISHA: Do they look like us or were they just dressed like us? Are they made to look like us?

MATT: Do you want to get closer and look?

MARISHA: Yeah.

TALIESIN: I’m a little curious–

TRAVIS: Do you want to get closer and look? Are you sure–

TALIESIN: Is there anything around the tree other than us?

TRAVIS: They’re probably watching the tree.

TALIESIN: Is there something at the base of the tree, is there anything?

MATT: From what you can see now, nothing but just rocks and stones and piles of loose cloth rotting below it. Approaching, it looks like each one of these bodies has been dressed up. It looks like the color in the redhead’s hair has been smeared through with paint. It looks like the person who has been painted red has been slapdash. You gather with a moment of looking at it that these were not individuals that were caught this way. This was set up as a message.

LAURA: (whispers) My god.

SAM: Oh shit.

LAURA: Keep walking, keep your head down and keep walking.

MARISHA: Oh, my god.

TRAVIS: I don’t think they’re here.

MARISHA: Oh, my god.

TRAVIS: I don’t think they’re here.

SAM: You mean in town? Of course they are!

TRAVIS: No, remember they have to, like, be where the soil they came from is?

LAURA: No, they have, like hideouts, they don’t have to be where the soil they came from is.

TRAVIS: I don’t think they’re here.

SAM: Holy shit.

LIAM: They’re in their keep, buried deep.

TRAVIS: Okay.

MATT: You guys continue past, down this pathway. There’s other buildings you see in the vicinity that, you know, look abandoned or for the most part unoccupied. I’d say about one in every three buildings looks like it’s in disuse.

LIAM: Did we see this big building right here as we walked by? Yeah, that big one.

MATT: You guys came– made this path– you can see a little bit, you can see is a–

TALIESIN: I should know what it is, anyway.

MATT: – iron fence, it used to belong to one of the noble families of Whitestone. Each one of these large buildings here, these three, and you remember this, were the three families that ran the town.

TALIESIN: We can’t go anywhere near those buildings. We have to stay as far away as humanly possible.

MARISHA: Question. You said there were eight bodies?

MATT: Eight bodies.

MARISHA: Is there one that looks like a gnome cleric and one that looks like a dragonborn sorcerer?

LAURA: That was the first one.

MATT and TRAVIS: The one’s painted all red–

LAURA: There wasn’t a gnome cleric one there.

MATT: No. There was a bear.

LIAM: There was no cleric when we faced them before. All of us who stood against them in Emon.

TRAVIS: We’re all there.

SAM: Body of my guy. Is he sort of handsome?

MARISHA: But, it does mean that it was because of when they saw us in Emon–

MATT: Think of an eight-year-old child.

LAURA: It was a kid, yo.

SAM: Oh, it was a child? Oh, god.

MARISHA: – because Tiberius wasn’t here with the crows.

TRAVIS: No, it was because of Emon.

MARISHA: It was because of Emon.

LAURA: Yeah.

MARISHA: So, can we get like a vague idea of how long these people look like they might have been here?

MATT: Make an investigation check.

MARISHA: (whispers) Fuck, I’m not good at this shit.

TALIESIN: Can I help?

MATT: Sure. It would be advantage on that check for you.

MARISHA: Oh, that, you know, that wasn’t bad. Woo!

TALIESIN: Oh! Never mind.

MARISHA: I’ll take that 19, 21?

MATT: 21? You gather these bodies have probably been here for the better part of a week, week and a half? There is some mild decomposition starting to settle in, there is a bit of bloating to some of them. Couldn’t have been much longer than that.

SAM: A week? That’s before we set out.

MARISHA: Why would they put a warning for us here in the city?

SAM: They assumed we would come, but they don’t know that we’re here.

TALIESIN: They invited us.

LIAM: Those birds might have told them we were here.

SAM: This was a week ago, this was before we were even close.

TRAVIS: Let’s stick with the plan.

TALIESIN: Sticking with the plan.

SAM: Let’s go find a building.

TALIESIN: Going to go find something that’s a decent distance away from the three noble households, that has a reasonable view of the tree.

TRAVIS: Yeah, 150 feet from the tree.

MATT: That would probably be somewhere in this vicinity here, as the three main houses are right there.

TALIESIN: Something with a second-floor view, but with some distance.

TRAVIS: Preferably three bedroom, three bath.

MATT: (laughs) I’d say make an investigation check.

TALIESIN: Meh. Six.

LAURA: Can I look out too, I’ve been on the lookout for a building the whole time!

MATT: Yeah. I’ll say, I’ll say it takes the better part of the next hour or so, and you do a little bit of meandering to find it, you guys are being stealthy best you can through alleys and such, but even so you are out in the open, midday, but you are also, you know, under Seeming.

MARISHA: Does it look like there’s a covering nearby, roughly, 30 feet or so from the tree?

LAURA: 30 feet?!

SAM: 30 feet?

MATT: No.

SAM: What about 150?

MATT: No, the tree is out in the center, and essentially the nearest building is probably anywhere from 100, 200 feet away from it. It’s the tree out in the middle of the square, and the square, which used to have probably more things towards the center, more temporary establishments, have all been put to the sides and put to disuse.

SAM: Maybe underground stuff.

MATT: You do manage to see what appear to be what was once a tavern or an inn of some kind that is silent, closed, the doors locked and chained. The windows look dusty.

LAURA: Can we sneak in the windows, so it keeps chained?

MATT: Okay. You go around the side of it, to the alley.

TALIESIN: Dust of tracelessness.

LAURA: Yeah, Dust of tracelessness.

SAM: Are you guys going in?

LIAM: Yeah.

TALIESIN: Yeah.

LAURA: Yeah.

TALIESIN: This is where we’re going to hole up.

MATT: Okay.

MARISHA: I kind of want to talk to the tree.

LAURA: Then go talk to the tree, Keyleth.

MATT: The window is locked.

SAM: Wait, not now. Not now.

TRAVIS: No, no, no, no, no, not yet.

SAM: Let’s find a place first.

TRAVIS: Let’s post up first.

LIAM: What am I, stealthing right now, or checking for–

MATT: Continuing your guys’ stealth as your going, this would be your attempting to unlock the window.

LIAM: Oh, unlock, okay. So that’s a 22.

MATT: 22, okay. It takes a bit to jostle it in a way, because the lock is on the inside, but there are ways that you could shimmy the glass and get something underneath to push it aside. You manage to get the window open, and as you pull it up the dust billows up around you, you set it aside. You step in and the place smells stale, musty. Dark. There are, you can see, candlesticks set around that have not been lit for a while, and the oil lanterns that normally light the interior of the main tavern social area have been long in disuse.

LAURA: Is there a cellar here?

MATT: If you guys want to look around. Are you all going in?

TALIESIN: Yeah, we’re all going in.

TRAVIS: Yeah, we’re all going in.

MATT: You as well? Or are you talking to the tree?

SAM: Yes.

TRAVIS: Come inside.

MARISHA: Does anyone want to come talk to a tree with me?

TALIESIN: Not yet.

LAURA: Not yet, not just yet.

TRAVIS: Don’t bring that– don’t mess with that thing.

LIAM: Yeah, come with us. Keyleth, come with us.

MARISHA: All right, all right.

TRAVIS: Once we do it, it’s like ringing a dinner bell.

MARISHA: All right, all right, all right, I’m coming, I’m coming.

SAM: I’m gonna look for a brothel!

(all laugh)

TALIESIN: That’s going to be the saddest brothel.

MARISHA: The saddest brothel!

MATT: You find your way inside the abandoned tavern. And it is what was this giant L-shaped building, right here in the corner of the town square. There is a second floor, approximately runs 20 rooms. They are all currently unlocked, some of them left open, the bedding covered in dust, some of it looks like it was left in a hurry.

TRAVIS: Yeah, we’ll take it.

MATT: There is a cellar.

LAURA: Yeah.

MATT: You find the cellar, and down there, there are a number of empty barrels, and a couple of ones that are still full.

SAM: Ooh!

MATT: One that appears to be a heavy whiskey barrel, probably about twenty untouched wine bottles. A little bit of ale, but it looks like a lot of ale was either completely used, or taken with whoever left and abandoned the premises.

LAURA: I think we can definitely use these for explosions, if we need them.

MARISHA: Ooh!

SAM: Or to drink.

TALIESIN: Muscle relaxers. Is there a view of the tree?

MATT: Going from a number of the rooms up top, not every room has a window, but it’s like every third room on that side of the building does have a view of the entire square.

MARISHA: Can I get an eye as to how far away it is?

MATT: I’d say probably about 200 feet? 250 feet?

LAURA: Can you go invisible and still talk to the tree?

MARISHA: Hmm?

SAM: I can make her invisible if she can talk to the tree.

LAURA: Can you talk to the tree if you’re invisible?

MATT: If you cast a spell while invisible, unless it’s Greater Invisibility, then it will drop the illusion.

SAM: I can make her invisible.

MARISHA: I got an idea.

SAM: We can burrow under, we can–

LAURA: Yeah.

SAM: – find something closer.

MARISHA: Actually, what are we up to right now? Are we doing anything? Are we busy?

SAM: Well, there are windows on the first floor, right?

MATT: There are some windows in the tavern; there was one on the second floor.

LAURA: We’re in the cellar, that’s why I went to the cellar.

MARISHA: Oh, there’s a cellar?

SAM: I’m gonna just find some old rags, or anything I can find, tablecloths, and just cover the windows.

LAURA: But make it not obvious, because it doesn’t want to look like we covered the windows.

SAM: True.

LIAM: I’ve watched you pass through solid stone and earth. How long can you do that for?

MARISHA: I mean, I can burrow us a tunnel right now.

LAURA: Do it!

LIAM: Can you get us close to underneath the tree?

LAURA: That’s what she’s going to do.

MARISHA: I’m going to do it right now. I’m going to cast Move Earth.

LAURA: From the cellar.

MATT: You’re going to start carving a tunnel–

MARISHA: To the direction of the tree. And I want to be careful, I don’t want to damage the roots of the tree at all. So, as I start getting closer, I want to start looking for the roots of the tree.

MATT: Okay. Easy enough to find old rags; all of them have that stale, musty towel scent to them. You get them a little wet. There’s no water here; all the water here has dried out.

SAM: We use the wine.

MATT: You’ll have to use the wine; it’ll probably kill some of the bacteria. There are wells throughout the towns you see, ground wells that are set in the city. There is no nearby river. The closest river, the one you know about, is about a 30 minute walk south.

TALIESIN: It’s a bit of a ways.

MATT: Yeah. You use that to coax them out a bit. It’s easy enough for you to go around and put cloth over the windows. It’s a dark interior, so it’s not like an immediate–

TALIESIN: Just so light doesn’t leak out.

LIAM: But, just in case, I think I’ll hang back. I’m not going down to the pre-made tunnel, I’ll just keep an eye above ground.

TRAVIS: I am, too, I’m staying up in the tavern.

LAURA: I’m going with you to the tunnel.

TALIESIN: I’m going to tinker a little thing. Can I borrow an arrow?

LAURA: Yes.

TALIESIN: Thank you. I’m going to tinker a very little, easy thing.

TRAVIS: You want the top floor, I’ll take the bottom floor.

TALIESIN: I want to be able to fire and ignite one of the parchments on an arrow. So that I can–

LAURA: Do you want me to shoot the arrow for you?

TALIESIN: – set a burn mark at a distance.

MATT: Interesting. Okay.

TALIESIN: It would be a spark, as opposed to actual flame. It would just be concussive force.

MATT: Right, it’s more getting the parchment there without it tearing or the arrow leaving it behind, because it is a thin, flimsy piece.

TALIESIN: It would be coiled.

MATT: Coiled and then–

TALIESIN: Hit, release.

MATT: That’s going to be a really intricate– go ahead and roll a tinkerer’s check.

LIAM: 20, 20, 20.

TALIESIN: 16.

MATT: Okay. You toy with it for a while; you think you have something that may work. You’re uncertain as to on its release if it’ll function or not. So, write down 'Parchment Delivery Arrow’ with a question mark next to it.

SAM: Maybe there’s a simpler way.

TALIESIN: There might be, but just in case there’s not, I want to make sure this works.

MARISHA: You could always slap it up there and shoot it with a flame arrow.

TALIESIN: I’ve got three of them, so I’ve got options. But I just want to make sure–

MARISHA: How’s my burrowing going? 200 feet.

MATT: All right. You continue to burrow through the ground, moving the earth aside and the tunnel opens before you like the clay slowly melting away. And it is wet earth. Eventually, you start getting to a few thick roots under the tree.

LAURA: Can you talk to it from here, Keyleth?

MATT: The roots that you see, they continue past the tunnel. They go very, very deep into the ground.

MARISHA: Awesome. I’m going to clear out a little more area, and I’m going to touch the roots and cast Speak with Plants.

TRAVIS: Holy shit.

SAM: Speak with Plants?

LIAM: Haroom haroom.

TALIESIN: The only superpower more pathetic than Aquaman’s.

LAURA: Yeah.

MARISHA: Shut up.

TALIESIN: Sorry, had to.

LAURA: (kid’s voice) Gee wiz, I wish I had some water.

MARISHA: (kid’s voice) The sun is so bright today!

LAURA: Too bad we don’t have Tiberius with us with his endless water fucking pitcher.

LIAM: It’s Ent voice. Haroom haroom!

TALIESIN: Hi, Aquaman.

LAURA: Sure, sure, sure.

TALIESIN: Hi, Aquaman.

SAM: I can go to one of the wells and get some water.

TALIESIN: Hi, Aquaman.

MARISHA: Hey, he’s cool sometimes.

TALIESIN: Hi, Aquaman.

MARISHA: Sometimes.

TALIESIN: It’s what fish say. Hi, Aquaman.

MARISHA: That’s what fish say.

LIAM: That’s all they say.

TALIESIN: Hi, Aquaman.

MATT: You finish the spell and you reach out and you touch the root and you instill the force of your nature-based divine energies into the root. Silence.

SAM: Oh no.

MATT: This tree is dead.

TRAVIS: No!

SAM: Dead?!

LAURA: You can bring it back!

MARISHA: I can bring it back. Should I?

SAM: You can do that?

MARISHA: I’m a druid, that’s my– yeah man!

SAM: You can bring dead things back?

MARISHA: Yeah, it’s called Plant Growth!

SAM: What?!

MARISHA: Yeah!

SAM: This I gotta see.

MARISHA: Should I? Okay. But it’s dead. What time is it now?

MATT: Right now, with all the traveling you guys have done, I’d say it’s past noon, probably. Including the time you’ve spent inside the tavern, searching it through and preparing it as your base of operations.

LAURA: Try it.

MARISHA: Should I start it up now?

SAM: Yeah!

LIAM, LAURA, and TRAVIS: Go for it!

MARISHA: I’m going to start my Plant Growth. I’m going to drop. Can I try to clear out an area where I can– I should be fine.

LAURA: Reach up in its junk.

TALIESIN: Put your hand in it.

MARISHA: I’m going to strap on my gloves.

TRAVIS: Okay.

LIAM: Turn and cough.

MARISHA: Hope you guys are ready for this.

SAM: Is it going to be loud?

MARISHA: No, it’s just going to take a long time.

TRAVIS: Vax and I are guarding the tavern, so if anything comes–

SAM: I’m going to get provisions ready to spoon-feed her.

MARISHA: Actually, before I do that, can we all have one last meal together and eat a Heroes’ Feast?

LAURA: I like it.

TALIESIN: Yes.

MATT: Certainly.

TALIESIN: Let’s eat.

MATT: So, you’ve made the purchase within Emon for how many of the requisite chalice for the Heroes’ Feast?

MARISHA: How many did I buy?

TALIESIN: You have at least one.

MARISHA: It gets used. It’s expensive.

LAURA: It’s $1000.

MARISHA: It’s $1000.

MATT: It’s a gem-encrusted bowl worth 1000 gold pieces, which the spell consumes. So, we’ll say how many of those did you purchase in Emon, knowing you’d be casting this in the future?

MARISHA: How much gold do we have?

SAM: Not a lot.

LAURA: Is that for each person, or 1000 gold for the whole party?

MATT: For the whole feast.

LAURA: How about you did three bowls?

MARISHA: Three bowls.

MATT: Mark 3000 gold from the group’s queue. And you have three gem bowls, using one now. So you have two bowls left at your disposal. And you prepare a Heroes’ Feast for the group to consume.

MARISHA: I take some of that leftover wine, use that to make it fancy wine.

SAM: This is great. This is awesome.

LAURA: Are we eating in the cellar?

MARISHA: So you get, I believe, 2d12 additional hit points on top of your maximum hit points.

SAM: Wait, forever?

LAURA: No, no, for how long?

MARISHA: For 24 hours.

MATT: It lasts for 24 hours.

SAM: 2d12?

MATT: So, until about–

SAM: What the fuck is a d12? I’ve never rolled a d12.

MATT: – 2PM tomorrow. So mark that down, somebody note that it lasts until 2PM.

LAURA: An additional 2d12?

MATT: 2d10?

MARISHA: Oh, I’m sorry, 2d10.

TALIESIN: Damn it.

LAURA: Overall hit points.

MARISHA: And, you should have- Ooh! I got two tens!

LAURA: Ah, badass!

MATT: Trinket can also benefit from this, by the way, too.

LAURA: Yay! Nice.

TALIESIN: You also get other bonuses.

MATT: Yep. You are immune to poison, and diseases, and being frightened, and all wisdom saving throws are made with advantage. Feast is awesome.

SAM: Why don’t we do that right before we go see the Briarwoods, also?

LAURA: We have another bowl.

MARISHA: We have two more bowls.

SAM: Because that is fucking awesome.

MARISHA: Doing that right now, just in case the Briarwoods decide to come say hello.

TALIESIN: Or any of the other terrible people who live in this town because there are terrible people in this town.

TRAVIS: That was a delicious feast.

SAM: The tikka masala was tangy!

MARISHA: So, we’re immune to poison–

MATT: And disease and frightened. So, feast consumed, you now take your next eight hours–

MARISHA: I’m going to go meditate. I’ll be back in eight hours.

MATT: –to work on this. As she sits down to begin the ritual of cleansing, or bringing plant vitality enhancement to the vicinity of Whitestone. We’re going to go ahead and end today’s session there. Pick up at the end of that spell at the beginning of next week.

TALIESIN: I love you all so much. I love you so much.

MATT: This is getting real interesting.

MARISHA: What time is it?

LIAM: It was like eight in the morning-ish when we found that building, yeah?

MATT: What?

LIAM: Was it around eight in the morning when we got to that house?

MATT: You guys got to town around nine, 9:30.

LAURA: So the spell probably started around 11.

MATT: Walking around, seeing things, finding the tavern. And then getting in there and cleaning it out. I’d say you’re getting close to one, two o'clock now. You’ve also taken it slow, you’re also being stealthy and not trying to be conspicuous as you move through.

LAURA: Right, so we’ll start the fight in the morning the next day.

MARISHA: Well, I’m meditating now. I dropped into my meditation–

SAM: We’re not starting any fight, we’re forming an insurgency.

MARISHA: Hopefully nothing happens and y'all don’t have to defend me while I’m doing this shit. That’s what I’m hoping for.

TALIESIN: I have stuff to give you, too, 'cause, yeah.

SAM: Wow.

LAURA: Man.

TALIESIN: Thank you for letting me roll with that, by the way.

MATT: Of course. It fit right into my–

TALIESIN: I had a funny feeling it would.

MATT: All right, guys. So we’ll pick up from there next week, right in the center of the–

MARISHA: A tree full of dead us? That’s fucked up.

LAURA: That’s mean, Matt.

TALIESIN: That was some mean shit, man.

LIAM: That’s what you call a giving tree.

MATT: It’s a friendly place, Whitestone.

SAM: And the tree was happy. But not really.

TALIESIN: Yeah, no, so that was it.

MATT: All righty. Well, I guess we have the announcements.

ZAC: We have some donations.

MATT: Yeah, you guys are awesome.

ZAC: And I wanna thank the chatroom for being on their best behavior tonight.

LAURA: Thanks, guys.

ZAC: Avoided the banhammer.

SAM: The what?

ZAC: They avoided the banhammer.

TALIESIN: There was no banhammer?

ZAC: Not by me, anyway. There’s always a couple trolls that find their way.

MATT: Yeah, it’s the internet. Trolls happen. But yeah, guys, thank you for being respectful.

TALIESIN: Guys, thank you, oh my god, I’m so happy to be sharing this.

ZAC: You know what makes you guys so awesome? Donations for charity!

(all cheer)

MATT: All right, so we have Maxine Palaquin donated leet, $13.37. That’s fantastic, thank you so much, Maxine. Matthew Robinson donated $25, Matthew, brilliance. Elizabeth Lee’s donated $100. Thank you so much, Elizabeth, that’s incredible. Arthur Still donated $50, thank you so much, Arthur, well-played. Two anonymous people donated $15 and $25. Thank you guys. You’re awesome, whoever you are. Sam Falco donated $25. Sam, you’re rad. Kristen Wilhelmy donated $20. Way to go, Kristen. John Reed donated $15 and Sarah Hannah donated $100, John, you’re awesome, Sarah, you’re $100-awesome. Killer Penguin, another $20. Killer Penguin, always a good one. LoveMyMom donated $22.

TALIESIN: Yeah we do.

MATT: Thelosthikers donated $25. Hikers, hope you find your way. Brian Wheedler, I think it is, donated $3, thank you so much, Brian. And any amount helps, by the way. Seriously guys that’s great. Thank you so much. Patrick Toro donated $1,337. To Extra Life charity. That is fully a leet donation. Wow, Patrick.

SAM: Wait, maybe the decimal place was wrong?

ZAC: Well, that would… sorry?

TALIESIN: Thank you, we’re very sorry!

MATT: I mean, that’s incredible, Patrick, seriously. Malachi Olden donated $25. Thank you, Malachi. Emma Angfwist donated $50, sorry for ruining that, but thank you so much, Emma, that’s wonderful. Ryan Kerr donated $25, Ryan, you’re great. Emma came back with another $25 donation again.

MARISHA: Double-dipping.

MATT: Thank you so much, Emma, I really, really appreciate that. And love to you this week. Anonymous donated $35.10, anonymous, whoever you are, love you too.

ZAC: We’ll go back to the beginning.

MATT: Got you, no worries. Richard Redmond donated $35. Richard, well-played, well done. Jordan Goland donated $15, thank you, Jordan, you’re awesome. Another anonymous person donated $25. Whoever you are, hearts. Tim Pearson returns with a $25 donation. Thank you so much, Tim, you’re rad. Steven Sudeban Davis donated $100. Steven, thank you, that’s incredible. Onna Nelson also donated $100. Onna, you’re awesome, that’s incredible. Anna Law donated $25, thank you Anna. Well-played. Louis Lovelan donated $560. Louis. This community has so much people, so awesome.

ZAC: An interesting note, they said they wanted to donate $20 per episode, 'cause they just caught up.

ALL: Oh!

LAURA: That’s a lot! Lot of episodes.

MATT: Chris Black donated $35. Chris, you’re fantastic, thank you so much, buddy. Kash Brown donated $50. Kash, yeah. Steven Duggan donated $5. Is that the Dugganator?

MARISHA: Yeah, that’s Dugganator. Steven Duggan? Yeah.

MATT: Well, $5, thank you so much. James Ramsey donated $25. James, you do encourage goodwill. Tim Nicholson donated $25. Thank you so much, Tim Nicholson. Another anonymous, #pumpkinspicethisbitch donated $25. Thank you so much. Sidney, oh, Rokushepard, Sidney, who we met in New York actually, donated $15. Thank you so much, Sidney. Great to meet you. Arthur Gibbs donated $50. Arthur, you’re fantastic, buddy. Joseph Allen donated $25 to Extra Life. Joseph, thank you so much. Another anonymous donated– Oh, it’s Megan! Donated $5. Thank you so much, Megan, really appreciate that. Joseph Ulbricky donated $25. Thank you again, Joseph, that’s amazing. Descentfromgrace returns with a $50 donation, Descentfromgrace, yay! Thank you so much. Vin Call donated $10, Vin, thank you so much. GhostKaidan donated $15. Thank you so much, GhostKaidan. And one more that just came in, I believe. Tyson Poirier. I’m sorry if I ruined that. But Tyson, you’re awesome, you donated $40, really appreciate that. Donated based on critical fails and natural 20s.

LAURA: That’s kind of awesome.

MATT: That’s kind of a cool way to do it. Guys, you’re all continuously fantastic in your support for this community, for the charity causes that we put this out for, ever-humbled.

ZAC: Another big charity cause tomorrow. Where you’re on drums. So tomorrow the Battle of the Bands from 5-7PM. Your team, in case you don’t know, is you, Felicia Day, Tom Lenk, and Josephine, one of our mods. See, Felicia was doing this thing where she was like, what team could I put together that will immediately win fan-favorite without doing any actual work? So we saw your plan, Felicia, and we came back with our team of Lucas, Mr. Spoopy in the back, running the tech board.

MATT: Heck yeah.

ZAC: Augie, who is a professional drummer, Hector, and Amy Dallen, and we know, between Amy and Josephine, our chat room is definitely going to be split on who’s the chat room favorite, so.

MATT: So is the professional drummer on bass?

ZAC: No. Definitely not. He is not on bass.

TALIESIN: You dropped Whitestone.

ZAC: He is not on bass. Lucas is able to play all songs on Expert on guitar, I think you guys are gonna have your work cut out for you. For sure.

MATT: It’s all good.

ZAC: For sure. They also work here almost all week, and practice after all the shows. (laughs)

MATT: That’s cool.

TALESIN: Is that what you do?

MATT: I prefer to light my opponents on fire while they’re drumming, 'cause I find that’s a good challenge for their skillset.

ZAC: Oh, that would make sure a good show. I’m very okay with it. Like, let’s go for it. It’s for charity, let’s just do it.

MATT: All righty.

TALIESIN: I wanna say, we had a studio audience for this show as well, which we’re very thankful for.

MATT: Yes we did, actually.

MARISHA: Fellow critter! Alec!

ZAC: Come on up real fast. Yeah.

MARISHA: Go next to the DM!

MATT: Come here real fast!

TRAVIS: Duck down low!

MATT: Come on down here and say hello.

ALEC: What’s up, Twitch chat? How you doing? These guys are exactly as awesome as you imagine them to be. I have to say, completely blown away. Absolutely blown away.

LAURA: Oh, you.

TALIESIN: Thanks for just stopping by. That was cool.

MARISHA: Yeah. Yeah.

MATT: Seriously, man. Thank you so much.

ALEC: Thanks for having me.

MATT: Of course, buddy. And guys, thank you all so much for tuning in. Hope you enjoyed it. We’ll be back next week, Thursday. I guess we’ll end here with a is it Thursday yet? Have a good night, guys.