Transcript:The Temple Showdown

List of Transcripts

Pre-Show
MATT: Good evening, everyone! And welcome to our eleventh episode of Critical Role. I think our story is definitely brewing towards a coming conclusion, whether this week or some point soon. We’ll see how the story pans out. Nevertheless, the excitement’s definitely growing for Vox Machina. We’re currently waiting for a couple of the party members to arrive here. But they’ll be here very shortly. But in the meantime, let’s go ahead and jump to our intro, and we’ll come back and have a few announcements before we hop into this week’s episode and see where the story goes. See you in just a minute.

[dramatic music]

MATT: Hello everyone! Welcome back! (laughs) Today’s been a chaotic, end-of-the-week bit of insanity.

ZAC: They can’t see everyone running to get the donuts.

MATT: Yeah, they can’t see you guys running to get your donuts, so it’s fine. Our party was just scattering to the four winds.

MARISHA: Oh, is the visual still on Matt?

MATT: It’s on me. It’s fine, guys.

MARISHA: Aww, damn it!

MATT: That’s all right. So, anyway, guys. Welcome back. We have a few announcements. First off, thank you once again, chat, for giving me this awesome, awesome DM’s cloak. We’ll see at which point in the evening it becomes perfunctory. Also, apparently we had a load of other gifts that arrived.

ZAC: Yeah, yeah. Let’s come over to this, so– The chatroom knew you guys had a big battle today, possibly. So they wanted to help you guys out. So, Marisha.

(cheering)

MATT: That’s great!

MARISHA: Yes!

ZAC: And this is for you, Ashley.

ASHLEY: What? A mace? Yes!

ZAC: I’m not sure who the elf ears are for, that’s probably one of you guys. Actually, you know what? I think these are for– We have the bear, Trinket, and the ears.

LAURA: Oh, goodness gracious!

MARISHA: You got a Trinket?

ZAC: I’ll let you open that–

LAURA: Oh my god you guys, he’s a puppet!

MARISHA: Oh my god! Shut. Up.

ZAC: I’m not sure what that’s for–

MATT: This has to be for the dragonborn. I think, Orion, that this is a skull of a dragonborn. To put your material components in. Open it up.

ORION: Oh shit!

MARISHA: That’s so cool!

ZAC: I’m pretty sure we have a thing– a gun on the way, or something? Someone messaged us. I’m like–

MATT: (laughs) They just ship him a glock.

(laughter)

ASHLEY: Who provided these?

ZAC: I’ll have to look that up. We had so much stuff. I’ll look it up.

MATT: Please look it up. We want to thank you before the end of the show.

ZAC: This is for Scanlan, he’s on his way. And then we have– Oh, we have the little mouse here.

TALIESIN: Yeah, I gotta see that flute, though.

ZAC: I believe this is for Grog. If I’m getting any of these wrong, the chatroom will yell at me and we’ll figure it out.

MATT: Yeah, please figure it out.

ZAC: But obviously we know who this is for.

MATT: Yeah, we’ll pass that over to his side, there.

ZAC: The only other announcement I have, guys, thank you all so much for helping us reach the shirt goal.

MATT: Yes, thank you so much.

ASHLEY: Yes, thank you!

ZAC: You have a couple more hours to get the shirts if you don’t have them yet. But we’re not going to push it on you guys, we already reached the goal. So thank you all so much. But if you still want one, I think you have, like, four more hours and then they’re gone and that shirt is no longer available.

MATT: It’s done after this.

ZAC: Done!

ORION: It’s this, but gray.

ZAC: Ryan, can you hand me those pictures that I had sitting there? Where’d those go? Our giveaway tonight is when we get to 2,950 subs, we’re going to give away a 5th Edition Player’s Handbook, signed. As well as a signed photo of the Critical Role crew, here. So every 50 subs we’ll give away this with a 5th Edition signed Player’s Handbook. And that’s pretty much it. That’s all I got.

MATT: Yeah.

ZAC: Good luck! I hope you guys die.

ASHLEY: No! Get outta here!

MATT: Oh, there we go! And also, for Percy–

MARISHA: Yes!

MATT: (laughs) For Percy, you get your own. Plastic on there. Pass that on over.

TALIESIN: No one is safe.

MATT: Oh, that’s amazing.

ORION: Thank you so much. Who’s the name of the guy?

MATT: We’re finding out. We’ll definitely thank you before the end of today. Also, want to give a thanks out to John Dodson, who is the first to create and send off–

ORION: Our magic carpet?

MATT: Our magic carpet for the party to use.

(cheering)

LAURA: Oh, and it’s up on a thing!

MATT: Yep. I understand we’re going to have quite a few magic carpets coming in. So we’re probably going to be swapping out as it’s used, as the game progresses.

MARISHA: It’s going to be, “The Magic Carpet of A Different Color”.

MATT: Exactly! So it’s going to be “The Amazing Technicolor Magic Carpet.”

LAURA: Matt, who sent these to us for our birthday?

ORION: Matt Aberny, I believe?

MATT: That’s awesome.

ORION: Yes, Aberny. If we’re saying your name wrong, I will say it right next week. I’m sorry. But you’re awesome.

MATT: Matt Abernathy, I think it is.

LAURA and ORION: Abernathy?

MATT: I think. If we’re butchering it, I apologize, but we love you.

ORION: You know who you are. Thank you. They’re awesome.

MARISHA: Also, I had one of the first run of these Critical Role shirts returned to me. I’m not sure who, someone from Canada. So if you could e-mail me and give me your right address.

MATT: Yeah, we’ll research that and figure out who it was. We’ll get it to you.

MARISHA: I’m not sure who it was. But I had one returned.

MATT: Yeah, if you’re from Canada and you haven’t received your shirt yet, go ahead and email one of us and we’ll figure out if it’s you or not. So, we’ll get it to you one way or another. A couple other quick announcements for you folks. Let’s see. First off, I just want to remind everyone that our intro music, for our wonderful intro you just saw, written by the amazing Jason Charles Miller, is on iTunes. So if you want that as a ringtone, or just to have the music, you’re welcome to go ahead and find it on iTunes, download it. It all goes to him because he’s amazing and he did it for us for free.

ORION: Yeah, and it rocks.

MATT: It’s a great song. It gets me pumped. Also, other questions come up recently asking what our soundtracks are for the show, that I play for situations. The music that I run for the show for background and situations–

LAURA: Zac! Travis is outside.

MATT: Go let Travis in. We have a Grog arriving. And Scanlan shortly.

LIAM: Scanlan’s in traffic.

MATT: Yeah, but he’ll be here soon. The soundtracks used for the game generally stem from a website called Incompetech by Kevin MacLeod, who writes great, royalty-free music. He’s given us permission to use it. As well as Plate Mail Games, which does great soundtrack and atmospheric music for RPGs. And Midnight Syndicate, also amazing, amazing songs. They’ve all been amazing. So if you guys are looking for stuff for your own games, those are where I find mine. Also, I wanted to give a big thanks to our wonderful artist, Kit Buss, who’s done all the character art.

ORION: Kit, we love you.

MARISHA: Kit’s awesome.

ASHLEY: Love you.

ORION: She’s so good.

MATT: She’s been incredible and is progressing to do more work for us down the road of little moments throughout the game that we’ll be able to find ways to show you guys, and it’s just incredible stuff. So Kit, thank you so much. You’re amazing. And we’ll have more to come. Last, but not least, 826LA, our charity. Marisha, do you want to–

MARISHA: Yes. 826LA is an after-school tutoring program and they feature in creative writing, and storytelling, and they have a Young Authors’ program, which is super amazing. And they also tend to have really cool storefronts. There’s one here, locally, in Los Angeles, one in Echo Park, and one in Mar Vista. But there tend to be 826s in major cities all across the country. So you should check it out, and go to their storefronts and tutor the kids and get involved. They’re a really good program.

MATT: So, thank you so much, Marisha. Guys, check that out. Grog, the chatroom bought you another chalice to drink. You now have many things to drink your grog from.

LAURA: Ooh, that’s some fancy grog happening.

MATT: That’s a fancy cup!

TRAVIS: Woohoo!

MARISHA: We all got things.

LAURA: We all got presents, Grog!

TRAVIS: Oh my god.

ORION: Grog!

TRAVIS: You got a gun, you got a staff, You’ve got– Is that a skull of your, like, younger brother?

ORION: It’s of my ancestor.

ASHLEY: Oh, is that a dice holder?

TRAVIS: Oh, nice! That’s not dark, at all. (mutters) What the fuck?

(laughter)

TRAVIS: Dagger, bear, mace! I need to put something in this.

MATT: A couple other things before we start the game. Thank you for your patience, guys. We have one present here from a Joe Alfano. Whatever it is, I haven’t opened it up yet. We’ll see what this is here shortly.

MARISHA: Ooh! Seekwet pwesent!

MATT: We’ll find out. A present, a letter, or something really cool.

ZAC: We’re only six subs away from our first giveaway.

LAURA: Oh, wow!

MATT: Oh, snap! “Matt, a three-by-two flying carpet, sized for six medium-sized figures, depending on your bases. There may be some overhangs. This is one of two, the embroidery takes some time.”

LAURA: Another one?

MATT: “The first time, if not every time, Scanlan rides the carpet with someone else, especially with Pike, he has to sing ‘A Whole New World’ from Aladdin. Enjoy, Zombie Joe.” That’s amazing.

(cheering)

MATT: So we now have–

LAURA: A new carpet!

MATT: Two carpets. A layered, Amazing Technicolor Magic Carpet.

MARISHA: Woo!

MATT: Thank you so much, Zombie Joe. And then we have a great letter that is– I’ll probably read it at the end of the show today from Useless Rogue, or Scott Ropner. So we’re going to jump in the game and this is an amazing letter I’m going to go ahead and read later on when we have a little more time. So we’ll get to that shortly. All right, so I think that gets us up to speed on everything we’re trying to get you guys up to speed on before the show.

Part I
MATT: So, welcome to Critical Role. To give you guys a little backstory as to where we are, for those who are tuning in for the first time, oh, you are tuning in to an interesting time. This party of adventurers were tasked to locate an individual, a famed folk hero, a paladin of Bahamut named Lady Kima of Vord, who, on a vision quest, went to search out and destroy a great evil that was germinating beneath the dwarven city of Kraghammer in the Cliffkeep Mountains. The party, upon delving beneath the city, discovered it breached into the Underdark, and, following her trail, fought past duergar, ashy-skinned evil dwarves, past mind flayers and various other terrifying denizens of the Underdark, eventually saving Lady Kima after weeks of her own torture, and discovering that some great evil named K'Varn had unified these normal enemy races, the duergar and the mind flayers, the illithid. Also finding that apparently, this individual– Yes, sir?

ZAC: We should probably just go ahead and do the giveaway, ‘cause we already got to six.

MATT: Oh! Well, snap! Let me finish explaining this and we’ll do the giveaway. They discovered this entity called K'Varn, this great and powerful entity, which, apparently, had acquired an artifact known as the Horn of Orcus, that adorns its head that gives it some sort of power imbued by the dark god of undeath, Orcus himself. The party then managed to find its way into a cavern where the illithid city, Yug'Voril, exists. And after a Scry spell via Keyleth last episode, unveiled this entity K'Varn to be a dastardly beholder, an extremely dangerous aberration that currently holds, at the top of the temple in the city, a stranglehold on the mind flayer civilization. So, that was where we left off, the party slowly encroaching the edge of this island. And we’ll start in a moment once you give the giveaway.

ZAC: All you gotta do is let them know to be active in the chatroom, and that makes them a part of the giveaway.

MATT: All right, guys, so be active in the chatroom, that will enter you as part of the giveaway. We’ve already hit that, so the giveaway should be happening very soon. So, say “hello”, say your opinion, be around, and have fun.

LAURA: Say, “Vex is awesome.”

MATT: That’s right.

LAURA: Say you love Trinket.

MATT: Well, so, it’s a shame Scanlan is not here at the moment, since–

LIAM: He’s stuck, he’s really stuck.

MARISHA: He’s stuck on the 5.

TRAVIS: What’s the fleshy thing in front of you?

LAURA: That’s ears.

LIAM: These are dried apricots.

TRAVIS: Those are huge!

MATT: I’m just saying it’s a shame, because he’s right in the thick of this sequence here. So, as the party was making their way up the shore, they found bits of the ruins that coat the entirety of the subterranean city. They found what looked like some sort of a large stone, partially crumbled fighting pit. And what looked– As Vex, Vax, and Scanlan were stealthing over, Scanlan himself invisible, had stealthed over to scout ahead, managed to find what looked like an encampment of some kind. A series of rags and furs. A very large living space for some sort of creature. Scanlan, failing his stealth roll, seemed to draw the attention of whatever entity lived there, which was an extremely tall, large, giant-like creature, malformed, kind of pale purplish-gray skin, one squinty eye and one bulging, yellowish one, that was dragging something fleshy and bloody behind it. It turned towards the rest of the party, going to inspect what, seemingly, created the sound near its homestead. And that is where we left off.

LIAM: What’s the landscape, topography, everything?

MATT: Right now, you’re on the outskirts of the fungal forest that covers large portions of this island. Where you are right now is on the edge of this stony pit that’s dug into the ground. It’s about a 15-foot drop down into this pit, where the remnants of this encampment was, and the leftover large fire pit that’s just slowly burning ember coals.

LAURA: And Scanlan is still invisible?

MATT: Scanlan is still invisible next to you guys.

TALIESIN: Scanlan also just texted to say, “Don’t kill the giant, don’t kill the giant!”

LAURA: Right, okay.

TALIESIN: Texted while driving, I might add. Don’t do that.

MATT: Don’t do that.

TRAVIS: He wants a sex puppet.

LAURA: Maybe Scanlan can just stay perfectly still, and you and I can just hide so that Scanlan can–

LIAM: That’s true, were there– You said there were buildings around?

MATT: There are chunks of ruined buildings in the vicinity, probably a good 30, 40 feet from where you are. You guys are right along the edge.

LAURA: I think we should duck and hide under his covers. His big, nasty fur bed.

LIAM: All right.

MATT: (booming footsteps)

LAURA: I go!

LIAM: Okay, stealthing away.

MATT: Okay, so the two of you leap off the edge of this, down into his living, bedding area.

LAURA: Should I grab Scanlan and pull him in?

LIAM: No.

MATT: The two of you leap off, down. Both make an acrobatics check.

LAURA: Ugh.

TRAVIS: Come on, guys.

LAURA: Oh, god! Oh, it’s the Underdark! Ugh! I’m switching dice. Okay, that’s much better.

MATT: Favored terrain makes a ranger very happy.

LAURA: That was horrifying.

TRAVIS: She has so many dice now, it’s ridiculous

LAURA: That’s a 22.

MARISHA: Underdark.

MATT: 22?

LIAM: 20.

MATT: 20 and 22. All right. The two of you leap off– The 15-foot fall is easy to tumble through and both of you land right next to this large pile of rags and furs. You both quickly dive inside.

LAURA: This is stupid.

MATT: Which, the instinct of survival prevents you from immediately realizing the terrible, terrible scent of long-festering body odor, what smells like a combination of dried blood and some sort of excrement, as well as whatever entities once wore these furs or adorned them on their fleshy self. There are still chunks and pieces of them, dried and/or still rotting within this pile.

LIAM: (retches)

MATT: So, both of you sit there for a second, diving underneath, keeping as quiet as possible. Scanlan is going to attempt to make a stealth check.

TRAVIS: Come on, buddy.

MATT: All right.

LAURA: Oh no.

MATT AND ASHLEY: All right.

MATT: As this giant, humanoid beast starts lumbering forward, and you can just barely catch a glimpse at him because you guys are hiding from behind. You can see giant, saggy, fleshy ears, this kind of bulbous nose. It looks almost like tumors all across his shoulders and back. And his teeth are kind of broken and nasty, there’s this black in the gums. It just kind of steps and looks over the edge (sniffs and grunts). Licks his teeth for a moment. Looks over. Takes a couple steps around the edge. Glances over towards the edge of the forest. Both of you make a constitution saving throw.

TRAVIS: Constitution?

LAURA: Against his nasty-ass scent?

MATT: As the smell, itself, it is a terrifying, awful smell.

TRAVIS: Or amazing, depending on who you are.

MATT: A natural one. Top of the game.

LAURA: Oh no!

TALIESIN: Get it out now.

MATT: Natural one gets no bonus. That is an automatic fail.

LIAM: I should have rolled the one made out of meteorite, but I used the jade one.

LAURA: Why?

LIAM: And it all went wrong.

MATT: What kind of a choice is that?

TRAVIS: Fucked up, yeah. Meteorite wins everything.

ORION: Different energies, man!

MATT: True.

TALIESIN: If Scanlan were here, he’d say, “We need to capture the giant,” by the way.

ASHLEY: He would, he would.

LAURA: Okay, 18.

LIAM: And I’m saying (retches).

LAURA: Shh! Shh! Shut up!

MATT: So Vex, as you reach over, you notice you put your hand up to shut him up, but an unfamiliar, liquidy warm sensation hits your hand as you catch him mid-vomit stream.

(laughter)

ASHLEY: Oh, what?

MATT: You manage to muffle some of the sound.

TRAVIS: You chunked!

ASHLEY: That’s disgusting!

MATT: This is really disgusting. I’m sorry, guys.

LIAM: Good plan (vomiting noise).

MATT: All right. The creature suddenly whips its head over towards the pile of rags and goes (grunts and sniffs). “What’s that smell?” Grabs the edge and leaps off. The impact of its weight no more than ten feet from you. You feel, even through the softness, it is still soft through the nastiness, you feel the impact of both of its giant, thick, tree-like legs slam into the stone right around you.

LAURA: Make some noise!

ORION: What do you mean? What do you want me to do?

MATT: Scanlan sees this.

MARISHA: (Michael Jackson voice) That’s ignorant.

(laughter)

MATT: Hears this, and instinctively without much recourse, his invisibility fades as he begins to form an incantation.

LAURA: Oh god.

MATT: Thankfully, he’s distracted at the moment, but the large entity is going to attempt–

LIAM: So helpful if he was here.

LAURA: I know, I just wish–

LIAM: I know he’s got a great plan, on the 5.

MATT: I’m sure he does.

TALIESIN: Not texting it to us.

MATT: See if he sent something to me. Yeah, he texted me the same stuff, all right!

ORION: Guys, I’m just gonna sing a song right now.

MATT: So, no. What he’s actually going to do is, he’s going to cast Domination.

MARISHA: That’s cool!

LIAM: That is what he would want to do.

TALIESIN: That’s what he would want if he were here.

MATT: So, as he finishes the spell, the giant creature, as he starts reaching and pulling the sheets back, it pulls back right as you guys see its horrible, gnarled face right in front of you. Its nose, you can see, dripping with liquid from somewhere inside. As you pull back your blade, all of a sudden it stops, and looks up, turns around, looking over at Scanlan on the edge. And Scanlan goes, “Hey, go for a walk.” And the giant, “Okay.” Climbs up to where Scanlan is, and just starts walking towards the fungal forest at the edge of the area.

TRAVIS: What?!

LAURA: Maybe call him back here and we can tie him up. Is that dumb?

MATT: “I don’t know! Come back!” Scanlan says, “Come back.” The giant turns around.

LAURA: Make him sit down.

MATT: “Sit down!” It sits down. Still hasn’t made its saving throw.

LAURA: Oh, okay.

MATT: Even sitting, Scanlan is up to its knee.

LAURA: Wow.

MATT: You’ve seen giants, to an extent, at some point, or larger creatures. An ogre would be about waist-high to this.

LAURA: Can he talk?

MATT: For just reference, there. That’s about the size you’re looking at.

LAURA: Oh! So he’s really small.

MATT: He’s a tiny guy, tiny guy.

TRAVIS: Yeah, he’s like Rudy.

LAURA: Should we capture him, or should we just–

MATT: Scanlan goes, “You, wha–”

TALIESIN: Capture him, capture him!

MATT: “You told me to do something!” You guys aren’t there!

LAURA: I don’t think you know how big he is–

TALIESIN: Scanlan would say, “Capture him!”

MATT: I know, that’s what we’re working through.

LIAM: Vax just backs back into the shadows, hoping the giant forgets about him.

LAURA: Thanks, vomit-y brother.

MATT: Stealth check.

ASHLEY: But what if we have him help us fight?

LIAM: 27.

LAURA: Can I bust out my rope of infinite twine and start tying it around him? Just, a lot? A lot! Just a whole bunch. As much as possible. Because it’s infinite, this twine!

MATT: All right. You get about a third of the way through wrapping the rope around his body. He kind of just sits there looking confused at you. His jaw looks slack. You continue to wrap, and as you are pulling on the second round, all of a sudden his expression goes from dull slack, to angry.

TRAVIS AND LAURA: Oh shit.

MATT: He looks down at you, Scanlan goes, “Oops! I think it’s worn off.” At which point he makes a tense, physical action against the rope that you’ve bound him with, and before you have a moment to react, with a powerful surge of energy, breaks through all the rope that you had tied him on.

LAURA: Great.

MATT: You are now standing at the base of him. At which–

ASHLEY: Where– Go for it.

MATT: You guys are on the shore.

LIAM: Yeah, you guys are way far behind.

LAURA: Oh, should we just run?

TRAVIS: He’s outside!

LAURA: Scanlan is outside.

MATT: Go, go. Someone let Sam in! All right, so as this giant entity reaches over and is going to attempt to try and slam his fist down on top of you.

LAURA: Ah!

MATT: That is going to be a 21.

LAURA: Against my AC?

MATT: Against your armor class, yes.

LAURA: Oh no, that hits me!

MATT: All right.

LAURA: That doesn’t count.

MATT: You take 14 points of bludgeoning damage, as the hand just slams down onto your sister.

LIAM: I just run up the thing’s back. I rolled 27 for that stealth, so presumably I’m–

MATT: Presumably, he doesn’t seem to notice you there.

LIAM: – disappeared-ed-ed-ed. Yeah. So I’d like to stab him in the back.

MATT: Okay. Go ahead and make an attack roll on that.

LIAM: Okay.

ORION: Hey, you’re wearing a cool shirt.

TRAVIS: Hey, buddy!

LIAM: I miss, horribly.

MATT: What’d you roll?

LIAM: A one and a two.

TRAVIS: Did you roll the meteorite yet?

LIAM: No, not yet.

TRAVIS: You ding-a-ling!

ALL: Scanlan!

LAURA: We need you!

SAM: I hope you guys got my word that you did not try to capture him, did you?

TRAVIS: No, we didn’t. And everything’s gone horribly wrong because of that.

SAM: No, don’t try to– No, don’t capture him, that’s a terrible idea!

LAURA: Scanlan, you got me killed!

TRAVIS: That’s not what you said.

LAURA: Oh no, it’s starting.

LIAM: It’s too late.

LAURA: We’re already in the giant battle.

LIAM: If you had been here five minutes earlier, you might have helped shape what happened.

SAM: Sorry.

MATT: You do have one reaction to this, as you stabbed and missed, you have a reaction as well, after you’ve taken it. You pull yourself from under its fist, and it’s now starting to get up onto its feet proper. Oh! What you got?

SAM: He’s moving?

MATT: He’s getting up now, he was sitting down.

SAM: Bigby’s Hand. Grab him. Grapple him.

MATT: Okay, all right.

ASHLEY: Grapple him?

SAM: Yeah, I can grapple a massive beast.

MATT: How big?

SAM: It just says “Big.”

MATT: A Large?

SAM: No.

MATT: This creature constitutes as Huge.

TRAVIS: Yeah, an ogre comes up to his waist.

SAM: It can grapple a Huge or smaller creature.

MATT: That’ll do. Yeah.

ALL: Yes!

LAURA: Oh wow.

MATT: All right, so. So go ahead and make a roll, a contested roll for that, if you don’t mind.

(laughter)

SAM: I’m here!

MATT: You got this, you got this.

SAM: Plus what?

MATT: We’re going to find out here in a second, let me pull up the spell.

SAM: I got it right here. Concentration— No, AC. The hand has an AC of— No, here it is.

MATT: All right, so. I got it right here. Grasping Hand, all right. So use the hand’s strength score to resolve the grapple. So you roll that and add eight to it. What’d you roll on the d20?

SAM: 18.

MATT: 18? Plus eight, that’s 26! All right, versus its athletics. Okay. So as it’s getting up, suddenly you freak out, bring your hand up, and you summon that same sparkling wave of arcane energy that shoots out from your hands. Forms this giant version of your hand. Clings around both his arms, his torso, and tightens itself around its body. As it does, it stands up, and it’s currently grappled.

SAM: Yes!

TRAVIS: Good job! You Dominated it earlier.

SAM: I do that with people.

MATT: Yeah, so mark off your Domination.

SAM: Okay, got it.

MATT: Also, the target takes 2d6 plus five damage, crushing, as you’re now grabbing and forcing its body.

SAM: That’s not very much, nine points total.

MATT: Nine points of damage total to it. All right, gotcha. To this wondrous entity. Yay! All right. All right, great. So that ends your turn. It is currently grappled.

LAURA: Do I have a reaction?

MATT: It is now your turn.

LAURA: Can I jump away as a reaction?

MATT: You can. Go ahead, and we’ll say you’ve been down here, Scanlan is right here, and you are right here. Not with Trinket, because you went out to scout and stealth. So that’s you there.

LAURA: Can I hit my earring up, and go: Giant! Giant! Being attacked! Help!

ASHLEY: Can we go?

MATT: You guys hear that, those of you who have earrings. Shout that out? The rest of you are starting to run.

LIAM AND ASHLEY: (sing) Clang, clang, clang!

(laughter)

MATT: At full-round sprints, yeah. It’s not going to be a very quiet walk for Pike.

ASHLEY: Hey, I don’t need to be stealthy, now!

MATT: That’s okay. It’ll take you guys about two rounds to get there. At a full round. So–

LIAM: Appreciate it.

TRAVIS: I just run towards the pleasant smells.

LAURA: And I’m going to take out one of my– Hunter’s Mark! And one of my Sleep arrows. And I want to shoot it with my Sleep arrow.

TRAVIS: A what?

MATT: Okay.

LAURA: I have a Sleep arrow.

TRAVIS: Awesome. When did that happen?

LAURA: I bought them. But I want Tiberius to make me more.

ORION: You what?

LAURA: I’ve asked for more Sleep arrows, if you can make them.

ORION: It takes a while for me to do that.

LAURA: Oh shit.

TALIESIN: You also still have a Grapple arrow.

LAURA: And that, I know!

TRAVIS: So we’ve got two rounds to–

LAURA: But after the rope, I’m going to try to Sleep.

TALIESIN: Yeah, I know, I know.

ORION: It takes like at least a few hours to make Sleep arrows, right?

MATT: Oh, it takes a while to make a Sleep arrow, yeah. It takes like– Yeah, we’ll go into that later. All right so, you go ahead and pull out the single arrow first, or Sleep arrow first?

LAURA: Sleep arrow first.

MATT: Okay. You realize if you damage something that’s asleep, it wakes back up?

MARISHA: Yeah, put him to sleep.

LAURA: Yeah.

MATT: I’m saying if you do Sleep arrow first, you hit him, then you do a second, it’ll wake back up.

LAURA: Oh, okay. I’m going to do the first arrow and then I’ll try to put him to sleep. Okay, smart. Thank you.

MATT: Just letting you know.

LAURA: I know, right? 25 for the first hit.

MATT: Okay. 25 definitely hits.

LAURA: Oh, then eight, and–

SAM: (shaky flute music)

LAURA: 16 for the first hit.

MATT: 16 damage for the first hit.

LAURA: And then Sleep arrow.

LAURA and ASHLEY: Oh, natural 20!

(cheering)

MATT: Fantastic!

ASHLEY: Nighty night!

MATT: Go ahead and roll damage on that!

SAM: (shaky flute music)

LAURA: Eight!

SAM: Get used to that sound.

LAURA: Eight plus seven is 15, 16, 17. Plus Hunter’s Mark.

MATT: Did you multiply the dice?

LAURA: Oh, no!

MATT: That’s a critical hit.

LAURA: Oh sweet. Eight, 16, do I add the two for the bracers on that?

MATT: Not for the multiplication, no. It’s after the fact.

LAURA: Okay, 16, 20, what is that? 23, 24, 25.

MATT: 25.

LAURA: Plus Hunter’s Mark?

MATT: Yep.

LAURA: Five for Hunter’s Mark.

LIAM: Nice!

MATT: 30 damage.

ASHLEY: You put him in a coma.

LIAM: Nice!

ASHLEY: He’s not just sleeping.

MATT: All right, so as it’s still standing up and you see as he’s standing up now, he’s reaching off to the side and he’s pulling a giant club up that was kind of leaning against the side of the inner portion of this giant fighter’s ring.

TRAVIS: Good choice.

MATT: As he pulls the club up, you pierce him in the arm with the first arrow and he looks down at you angrily. With his one giant eye glaring, and the smaller one. The second arrow pierces the smaller eye and he pulls the arrow out with his fingers, like a little tweezers, angrily. I will say, because it was a critical hit on a Sleep arrow, normally, what you would roll is 5d8 to see how many hit points it can affect. Go ahead and roll 10d8.

ALL: Whoa!

MATT: It’s not damage. This is just to see whether or not you can put it to sleep.

LAURA: Oh, really?

MARISHA: Oh, he’s got to have a–

LAURA: That’s 12, okay. 16, 28. And then I get another–

TRAVIS: Four more.

MARISHA: I’ve got access to this thing. Let me show you.

LIAM: You’re at 39.

SAM: Math is happening here. Action Math!

LAURA: Wait, one more.

MATT AND ORION: Action Math.

LIAM: Aw. 47.

LAURA: 47?

MATT: 47.

ORION: Nice!

SAM: That’s some hot math.

MATT: So, the arrow pierces him and he pulls it out, and you can see for a second the eye gets a little–

LAURA: Oh, come on, come on.

MATT: He flicks the arrow off and it snaps as it leaves his fingers, and he glares down at you with his other eye, angrily. Shrugs off the effect.

ASHLEY: No!

LAURA: Man! That would have been– that’s impossible!

MATT: That would have been really cool. Unfortunately, he still has a lot of hit points left. Sleep arrow is something to glide into later in the battle.

TRAVIS: Oh, that makes sense.

LAURA: Oh, that does make sense.

TRAVIS: How many would’ve done it?

LAURA: He can’t tell us that.

MATT: You don’t know that. No fucking– You’re still on the beach!

LAURA: Did I still do 47 damage on that Sleep arrow? Or that was just–

MATT: Oh no, you still did the 30 damage from the Sleep arrow.

LAURA: Okay, okay.

MATT: That was just to see how much hit points it would affect if it was going to put him to sleep. But a nice try.

LAURA: All right.

MATT: All right, so that ends your turn. That brings us back to the top of the round between you guys. So we’ll wait for the rest to arrive before we do full initiative. We’re just running off of the sequence of events here. Did you want to move at all or are you going to stay right here?

LAURA: I want to run as far away as possible from him.

MATT: Okay. So, as you start running backward, we’ll say to about there, he has a very long reach with a club and he gets to swing at you as a reaction. So as you go bolting, he just takes the giant club around (whoosh).

LAURA: You’re not groggy at all, you little–

MATT: Streaks it across the ground.

SAM: You’re grappled.

MATT: Yep, which means he’s in a bad situation and he, because he is grappled, it means he can’t move from his current spot. He’s being held in place. His speed is zero.

LIAM: Checking the stats.

MATT: But he still manages to roll a 14 to hit.

LAURA: And he doesn’t hit me.

MATT: All right, so you jump over the club.

LAURA: Sweet.

MATT: Roll off the ground, turn around. Get your bow back in ready position, untouched. That’s the end of your turn. Now it’s his turn.

LAURA: Oh god!

MATT: He is going to– Did you throw the daggers or did you leap up to try and backstab him there?

LIAM: I tried to backstab him so I’m right behind.

MATT: Right, so you’re right there. He–

LIAM: He’s gonna shit on me, isn’t he?

MATT: – spins around. Bends down, just glares at you with his one giant yellowish eye with almost a slit pupil in it.

LIAM: Hello, handsome.

MATT: As it does, you feel this strange, oppressive force come from the eye into your mind, and I need you to go ahead and roll a charisma saving throw.

TRAVIS: Roll the meteorite.

LIAM: I’m going to use the meteorite.

LAURA: All right, come on, meteorite.

LIAM: That’s better. 17.

MATT: 17?

LIAM: Yes.

MATT: You manage to resist whatever effect this was. You shrug it off. It looks at you angrily even more and takes its club and slams it into the ground, like a giant pouty child.

LIAM: (retches) Sorry.

MATT: It looks like it’s– Yeah. The smell is still present in your face. Pulls its club up to prepare itself for its next round. That’s its turn. Oh, no, sorry. It also makes one attack, it gets to use the evil eye, and one attack. So, angrily, it’s gonna lift up its club and slam down towards you.

LIAM: Yes.

MATT: That is going to be a 15 versus AC?

LIAM: No, sorry.

MATT: Can’t roll worth crap today. Club comes down (impact sound). Actually breaks a good portion of the stone on the side of this that comes up, falling backward and tumbling into a pile inside this pit. As you dodge out of the way. That ends its turn. No, you’re up.

LIAM: I’m up?

MATT: Scanlan. No, Scanlan first, and then you, and then you. So Scanlan.

SAM: Oh, me?

MATT: Yes.

SAM: I get to do more?

MATT: Yes.

SAM: But he’s a giant, and I’m a little thing.

MATT: Yes, you are. Yes, he is.

SAM: I guess I should hit him. I’m going to hit him with a Lightning Bolt.

LIAM: You should come in close.

MATT: Okay.

SAM: I should come in close?

LIAM: Then I can fuck him up.

SAM: Oh. But he’s big, and I’m little!

LAURA: No, don’t come in close, seriously.

TRAVIS: You’re real little, like the size of a toe.

LAURA: Honestly, he can still get you from where you’re at. Unless you move further away.

LIAM: Yeah, so it’s the same: right up against him or five feet back. Same same! If you move away, he’s gonna take a swing. I’m not saying any of this, I’m just thinking it, furiously.

SAM: Yes, thinking it at me.

ORION: You yell it across.

SAM: I’ll just make– Does Lightning Bolt come from me, or can–

MATT: Yes, it comes from you. And it goes in a straight direction.

SAM: Well then, I have to move anyway, so that I don’t strike Vax or Vex.

MATT: You get the feeling he has about a 15 foot reach with this, so as long as you stay within that reach, you’re still gonna be okay.

SAM: Well, will I hit either of my fellows from where I’m–

MATT: Currently? Yes.

SAM: Yeah, then I need to move.

MATT: You do. Where are you going to move?

TRAVIS: What, they can’t take it?

SAM: That ring, is that high? Low?

MATT: It’s 15 feet up, so you can jump down into the ring if you wanted to go down there. Or you can move around this way.

SAM: Oh gosh. I don’t really jump well. All right, I’m going to jump into the ring, I guess. And then can I shoot from there or will the wall be in my way?

MATT: He’s big enough where you’d be able to see him.

SAM: Okay.

MATT: So you leap off the side. As you leap in the air, he glances over with his large eye and does a backswing with the club in mid-air, trying to basically baseball-swing you.

SAM: Oh, he’ll hit me.

MATT: We’ll find out. That is an 18?

SAM: Oh yeah.

MATT: Okay. You take 19 points of bludgeoning damage. As he (impact sound).

TRAVIS: Tee-balls you.

MATT: Really. Like, backhand swing hits you.

SAM: (high-pitched) Ah!

MATT: Go ahead and make an acrobatics check. Because your landing has now completely thrown you topsy-turvy, the impact throwing you off your balance.

(laughter)

SAM: Does a 20– Is that good?

MATT: 20 will do.

ASHLEY: 20 will do!

MATT: Like a cat, you correct your trajectory in mid-air and still three-point land.

(laughter)

MATT: Down below. You’re down in the pit, you’re looking up. This gargantuan humanoid is still standing above you, looking down hissing at you as you still manage to not be affected by its swing at you. You can now cast your spell if you’d like.

SAM: Okay, I will cast Lightning Bolt on his face and neck area.

MATT: All right.

TRAVIS: Good.

MATT: Go ahead and roll 8d6.

SAM: 8d6, give me those sixes.

ORION: Boom! How many do you need? I got much.

SAM: I need all of them.

MATT: Dexterity, he does not make his saving throw.

TRAVIS: Yes!

MATT: He is too slow at that size.

SAM: Ooh, a lot of sixes. Six, six, six.

ORION: What am I doing right now?

MATT: You guys are running up to–

SAM: 31.

MATT: 31 total?

LAURA: 31?! Nice.

TRAVIS: All right. Drop it.

MATT: So after you land on your foot, you turn around, and reactively just fire this bolt of bluish, arcane energy. It streaks up, slams into his face and shoulder area. You can see he rears back from the pain of it, reaching up in the air like he can somehow fight off the Lightning Bolt. As the bolt passes through him, it leaves this burn mark on his chest and the side of his face. Smoke is (sizzle) up off his torso. He looks very pissed.

SAM: Do I get my bonus?

MATT: You do.

SAM: Can I give Inspiration to mister Vax over there?

MATT: You may.

SAM: (bad flute playing)

TRAVIS: I don’t know, can you?

SAM: (slightly less bad flute playing)

TRAVIS: There you go.

MARISHA: Yeah, some Jethro Tull up in here.

LIAM: (sings) You got the touch! You got the power!

MATT: I will say the mild, echoing sound of mildly off-key whistle following a mighty Lightning Bolt, is inspiring enough. Go ahead and take a d10.

LIAM: Okay.

MATT: And now it is your turn.

LIAM: I’m going to use that. I want to make an acrobatics check. I want to jump up on this guy’s knee, and then dagger-dagger right into his strange eye that he tried to mess with me.

MATT: Okay, so are you going directly for the eye?

LIAM: The eye, yeah, so I want to jump up his body, off his knee.

LAURA: (sultry) Jump up his body.

LIAM: So what do I do? Acrobatics check first?

MATT: Acrobatics check.

LIAM: Okay, so four. I’m going to use Luck. 19 for the second, so that’s 19 plus 13, so I’m pretty sure I succeed.

MATT: So as he’s reeling back from the blast of the Lightning Bolt, you see that opportunity. You jump up onto his partially bent knee, use that as a platform and leap up in the air, daggers drawn. Slow motion towards its face. Go ahead and make your first attack, since you are going directly for the eye–

LIAM: Yes?

MATT: I will say that it is at a disadvantage on the attack, but if it hits, it will be considered as a Sneak Attack.

LIAM: Say that again.

MATT: I will say it’s a disadvantage on the attack, but if it hits him in his eye, you will do Sneak Attack damage.

TRAVIS: Roll well.

LIAM: All right, meteorite die. No good. First one’s no good, second dagger. That’s good, and that’s also good, identical, so that is a 26.

MATT: 26. All right, that one will hit.

LIAM: Thank you, meteorite die. Okay, so this is 1d– durdee durdeedoo?

ASHLEY: Hurkee durkee durkee.

LIAM: Okay, that’s a two, plus six is eight.

MATT: Eight, plus your 5d6.

LIAM: Oh, this is a Sneak Attack?

LAURA: Because you hit him in the eye.

MATT: Oh, this is the second attack that you did, right?

LIAM: Yeah.

MATT: Technically, you were both going for the eye. I’ll say, I’ll allow it.

LIAM: Hey, you’re a nice guy. Eight, is 12. And is 17. And 18. And 22. And is 26.

MATT: 26 points of damage.

LIAM: Eyeball.

MATT: So, the first dagger you attempt to swing down, he actually moves his face out of the way and it just scrapes across the side of his cheek, doing nothing more than a scratch. But the second blade strikes true, slamming into the side of the eye. As it pierces, for an eye, you expect, would pop. It’s still a hearty material. You actually have to push into it, it’s almost like it’s full of hot muscle on the inside of its eye. The dagger still drives in, and, using your weight, you drag down and cut it open on the bottom. It screams out in pain and pushes you off. You barely manage to catch yourself on the ground.

ASHLEY: Oh, come on!

MATT: You haven’t, seemingly, blinded him, but you’ve definitely left a serious mark on his eyeball.

LAURA: Ugh. He’s huge!

MATT: Do you want to use your movement at all, you can, or do you wanna stay where you are?

LIAM: I will Disengage and move back, which means that he can’t take a swing.

MATT: Right, you can use your bonus action. Oh, you used your bonus action to do your secondary attack.

LIAM: I’m pretty sure I get that on top of that, as a Rogue hoo-hah. But I’ll stay there if you want. I’m in no mood to argue with you tonight.

MATT: I know, I know.

TRAVIS: Yeah, right?

MATT: I’m pretty sure as a rogue you can use your bonus action to do Disengage, that’s one of the benefits. But you used it as a secondary attack to get Sneak Attack, so. You could move out of the way, but you’ll take a swing from him.

LIAM: Okay. Yeah, I’ll move back.

MATT: All right.

LIAM: Sure.

MATT: So you’d say you’d move back to about there?

LIAM: Yeah.

MATT: As you do, he reaches up and grabs his eye. With the other hand, picks up the club and backhand swings at you. That’ll be a 19.

LIAM: That hits. TRAVIS: Couldn’t just let him go in the trees.

MATT: You take 19 points of bludgeoning damage. But as the hit slams into your back, you manage to just catch your feet underneath you so you don’t topple off the top of this edge.

LIAM: Okay.

MATT: Ends your turn. What you got, Vex?

LAURA: Hi. I’m going to do Hail of Thorns on him.

MATT: All right, so you pull back.

LAURA: Yeah.

MATT: Same wooden shaft, all of a sudden, sprouts these nice, thorny, jagged spikes on the sides, as you release the arrow.

LAURA: 26?

MATT: Hits him.

LAURA: Okay, so that would be– I’m doing it at a level three, so that is 3d10.

MATT: 3d10 damage. Go ahead and roll that.

LAURA: 15, 16. That 16? Yeah, 16 damage for that, plus my Hunter’s Mark. 17.

MATT: 17?

LAURA: And then my second attack?

MATT: Second attack. Go ahead and roll it.

LAURA: All right. 17?

MATT: 17 does hit. He’s pretty big. He’s a big ol’ sack of hit points and no armor.

LAURA: 15, 16, 17.

MATT: 17.

LAURA: Oh, plus Hunter’s Mark!

MATT: Yep, don’t forget your Hunter’s Mark.

LAURA: Five for Hunter’s Mark.

MATT: Okay, so 22. Nice. All right, so, one arrow hits him in the elbow and it looks like it pierces the sinew that holds the arm. Almost goes slack for a second before he flexes and tenses. You hear the actual wood shaft snap as he brings his forearm up. Grabbing his club, turning around, you shoot the back of his elbow, causing him to drop the club on this hand. He looks extremely frustrated at the process. Now he’s got blood streaking down both arms.

TRAVIS: Yes!

MATT: He reaches down to grab the club, again, to try and prepare himself for another round of attacks.

MARISHA: Are we there yet?

MATT: You guys are just now arriving.

LAURA: Oh!

MATT: The Fomorian is going to finish its turn, and then the rest of you guys can go.

TALIESIN: Yeah!

MATT: He’s going to take two swings. First, he’s going go ahead and angrily leap forward to there. Small jump. Lands on the ground, takes one swing at each of you.

SAM: Can he move?

MARISHA: Is he still grappled?

MATT: Actually, no that’s a valid point. He is still grappled. Thank you for that.

LAURA: Yeah! Woo!

MATT: He’s going to try and break from the grapple for his move. That is going to be an athletics of 20. Go ahead and roll a d20 and add eight.

MARISHA: Come on!

SAM: 18 plus eight.

(cheering)

MATT: Attempts to break free of grapple, can’t do, so he’s stuck where he is. He currently has nothing in range to attack.

SAM: Except for me.

MATT: No, you’re 15 feet below, he doesn’t have range on you at the moment. He tries to take a swing at you, but partially because he’s so high up, he cannot move. And because you are so small, you literally just stand there as the swing– The wind blows your hair back a little bit.

SAM: Ooh!

(laughter)

MATT: But does not find purchase on your body.

SAM: I’m a little dainty gnome!

(laughter)

MATT: Completely wasted its turn, well done. All right, so that brings us to you, again. Actually, no. It now goes to everyone else because they have all arrived on the scene now.

SAM: Right, good, thank god.

MATT: You guys are all starting to appear. We’ll say–

SAM: Don’t kill the giant!

MATT: Over this area.

SAM: Don’t kill him.

ASHLEY: Don’t kill him, still?

SAM: Don’t kill him, we need him.

LAURA: For what?

ASHLEY: How are we going to use him?

SAM: We have a mind flayer, we have magicians, we have all sorts of things. He is our wrecking ball. He’s our way in.

MARISHA: Yeah, if we can keep him controlled. I can get him mind-controlled on our team for 30 days.

SAM: Yeah, yeah. He is our ticket into the palace.

LAURA: All right.

MARISHA: He’s going to be like that one scene in Lord of the Rings.

LAURA: Ooh, I like it.

TALIESIN: That one scene?

LIAM: Where he ate the Lembas bread?

TALIESIN: I love that one scene.

MATT: So, who’s going first?

TALIESIN: Should we roll initiative?

MATT: All right.

TALIESIN: Okay.

LAURA: Oh, we haven’t rolled!

LIAM: Everybody all together, now?

MATT: Everyone all together, now. All together, now!

TALIESIN: (sings) All together, now.

TRAVIS: Is he a giant? Like a giant?

MATT: He’s considered a giant.

TRAVIS: I speak Giant!

MARISHA: You speak Giant?!

LAURA: Say something, Grog!

TRAVIS: I speak Giant!

ORION: Oh, good.

TRAVIS: Oh, I can use my brain for something?

MATT: All right, so we have 25 to 20? 25 to 20. 20 to 15.

ORION: 18.

ASHLEY: 18.

LAURA: Yeah!

TRAVIS: 17.

LIAM: Cleric and the sorcerer.

ORION: That close, Ash.

ASHLEY: I don’t like going first.

ORION: That close to just spitting out all my coffee.

ASHLEY: I like picking up the pieces.

MATT: 15 to ten.

TALIESIN: 12.

LIAM: 13.

MATT: Okay.

MARISHA AND TALIESIN: 12.

MATT: All right, so Percy and Keyleth. All right, so, ten to five. Ten to five?

LIAM: Five.

LAURA: Oh! That’s me, I’m an eight.

MATT: You’re an eight, all right. We got Vex–

LAURA: That’s Trinket, too.

MARISHA: He’s so cuddly!

MATT: All right, that is almost everyone. Who–

SAM: One!

MATT: One! Yeah, Scanlan! All right, Tiberius and Pike, you’re up first. As you guys rush on the scene, seeing this creature being currently crushed by the semi-ethereal, giant arcane fist of Scanlan. Pike, Tiberius, what are you doing?

ASHLEY: Go first.

MARISHA: I don’t want to see the giant fist of Scanlan.

SAM: Many have before.

ORION: I’ll follow suit, and be like: Oh, is this what we’re doing? Scanlan! What are we doing?

SAM: We’re capturing the giant, and don’t remind him I’m here.

MARISHA: Capture!

ORION: Oh, uh, very well. I’ll Watery Sphere and help him maintain him.

MATT: Okay, so you’re going to use your Aqua Sphere?

ORION: Yeah.

MATT: All right, what is the effect on Huge creatures?

ORION: Like, it’s a dope-ass effect.

SAM: That’s what it says in the book.

MATT: What it officially says?

ORION: Yep. Wizards of the Coast, page 304.

SAM: What’s the spell name?

ORION AND MATT: Watery Sphere.

MATT: Here we go, got it right here. A Huge or larger creature automatically succeeds on the saving throw.

SAM: Oh.

MATT: So as you create the sphere around it, the water forms around its physical form. It doesn’t seem to be affecting it. It’s large and strong enough to the point where it’s thrashing, because he’s holding it in place, but the sphere is just having no effect.

LIAM: He smells slightly better than he did before.

MATT: He does. There are cleaner portions of his flesh. This creature’s a little larger than what you’re used to capturing with a sphere.

ORION: What are you talking about? How big is it?

ALL: He’s Huge!

ASHLEY: Look how big he is!

LAURA: Look at how big he is compared to us!

MATT: This is an ogre!

ORION: I can capture those, but not that guy.

LIAM: Yes, you were tickling his nipples with your water.

MATT: Essentially.

ASHLEY: He got a little bath.

ORION: So, hold on. I knew that! I do that to wash him off.

LAURA: Okay, yeah. Because he’s really stinky.

MATT: He’s much cleaner!

ORION: And I’m swirling around, I’m like, does this feel good, giant?

MATT: (laughs) All right. Pike, what you got?

ASHLEY: Okay. I’m going to make a Spiritual Weapon.

MATT: You what?

ASHLEY: I’m going to make a Spiritual Weapon.

MATT: Okay.

ASHLEY: I want to make a lasso again, of sorts. But with a grappling hook on the end. So it will spin around him real quick.

SAM: A Lariat of Truth?

ASHLEY: And keep him in place.

MATT: Okay, all right, so you’re creating a Spiritual Weapon. We’ll say this can be considered just an additional grapple.

ASHLEY: Okay.

MATT: All right. Good to know. So you create it. I’ll just use this as the Spiritual Weapon, in his space, currently. It begins to wrap around him rapidly. One, two, three, four. And finds purchase on its own self, holding it in place. So, there we go.

SAM: Double grapple! MATT: Do you want to move with your turn, or you want to stay there?

ASHLEY: Where am I at?

MATT: You’re right here.

ASHLEY: Okay. Yeah, I want to get a little closer.

LAURA: Whoa, whoa!

ASHLEY: Just hold on a minute, I want to– Yeah.

SAM: She’s getting closer to me.

LIAM: The gnomes are like tent spikes, holding him in place.

MATT: As a note, real fast, guys. Let’s see if we have the–

ORION: Currently washing his hump.

LIAM: Oh my god, is the beholder attacking? Is it now?

MATT: No, I want to make sure we have the laser pointers for you guys. Everyone forgets those.

MARISHA: Oh, do we have more? I’ve got one right here.

MATT: All right. I have one, here.

MARISHA: Throw it to that table.

MATT: All right, so we have two over there?

TALIESIN: We’ve got one over here. Two over here.

MARISHA AND ORION: Three over here.

MATT: All righty. Good to know. Thank you for your patience.

ASHLEY: Do I roll for damage or anything like that? Or, since it’s a grappling–

MATT: For the purpose of what you want to do with this grappling hook, it’s not going to do any damage to him. It’s just going to be an additional grapple to him, holding him in place.

ASHLEY: Okay.

MATT: All right. That brings us to Grog.

TRAVIS: I hold off on Raging. I can’t talk, right? If I’m freaking out?

SAM: You’re going to talk?

MATT: You can talk but it comes through in single words, and usually not in a diplomatic way.

TRAVIS: Right. So I call out in Giant, “Nipple Taint, Knuckle Broom!” which means, “Brother! We seek to fight a great evil! Perchance, would thou carest to join us in such a fight? I have ale.”

ASHLEY: Inspiration? Anybody can–

TRAVIS: Yeah, yeah. Would you like to join us?

MARISHA: Whose turn is next?

MATT: Grog. Next after this is Vax.

SAM: You’re just appealing to his reason?

MARISHA: Can I go next? And help him out?

MATT: It’s a little late for that, unfortunately. He’s ahead of you.

TRAVIS: We’re not worth the trouble. But we would love to pay you in ale to join us on a much better fight.

MATT: Go ahead and make a persuasion roll with disadvantage.

TRAVIS: That’s pretty bad. That’s the same number.

(laughter)

TRAVIS: I get a massive plus one. Five.

LAURA: Oh. It worked! I think it worked!

MATT: So, the bound, twisted, malformed, giant creature that’s currently held by ethereal rope and ethereal hand, glances over at you for a second. And you swear, you hear a chuckle. (chuckles) And spits a basketball-sized loogie onto the ground in front of you.

LAURA: So disgusting.

TRAVIS: Impressive. Fuck it. I rage!

(laughter)

TRAVIS: And I attack.

MATT: I would say that diplomatic attempt on him would be your action.

TRAVIS: Son of a bitch. Can I rage as a bonus action?

MATT: You would be raging as a bonus action.

TRAVIS: (incoherent rage shouting)

MATT: Okay, do you want to move as well?

LIAM: Look how little you look, next to him. You’re so small.

TRAVIS: I know, I’m right at testicle height.

LIAM: Yeah.

TRAVIS: Which is not good. No, I’ll stay right where I am.

MATT: All right. That gets us to Vax.

LIAM: I’m going to go stealth. And then, this ring. This is a wall, right?

MATT: It’s a big 15-foot wall that goes down into this pit.

LIAM: So, going stealth, is that a bonus action?

MATT: Going stealth, for this, I would say, would be considered part of your move. It’s a disadvantage if you’re stealthing while moving. LIAM: Okay. Well, I still want to do that. So I’m going to try to scurry over the wall there, and go stealth.

MATT: Actually, for you, isn’t Hide the stealth ability that you can use as a bonus action?

LIAM: Yeah, it’s part of the cunning actions.

MATT: So that would be it, yes.

LIAM: All right.

MATT: It would be your bonus action to attempt to stealth, yes.

LIAM: Okay, so roll to stealth, right?

MATT: Yeah, go for it.

LIAM: Come on, meteorite die. I’m using Luck, because that was terrible. That was still terrible!

MATT: That’s two Luck points.

LIAM: Okay, all right. I’m not stealthed, but I run over by–

MATT: What did you roll? You don’t know if you’re stealthed or not.

LIAM: Oh. Five and a– Oh, sorry. It was so pitiful. 16 and–

LAURA: That’s not pitiful!

LIAM: It is for me. 16 and 18.

MATT: All right. 16 and an 18. Gotcha. All right, cool. So we have an 18 stealth, technically. (sarcastically) So pitiful.

ASHLEY: Yeah, you want to talk pitiful for stealth?

MATT: As far as you know, you may or may not be hidden. What are you doing?

LIAM: All right, I want to roll over the side of the wall, and then just move along over by Scanlan. Between Scanlan and the giant, and just hold my attack.

MATT: Okay.

LIAM: I can trigger that down the road, right?

MATT: Yeah.

LIAM: Okay.

MATT: You wouldn’t be able to wait. You’d have to wait until next turn. You can’t hold part of your turn, you’ve already taken–

LIAM: Then I’m going to stab him in the knee

MATT: Okay, so are you shimmying along the side? He’s 15 feet above you. You’re down 15 feet. You would have to throw a dagger to hit him at this point.

LIAM: All right, I’ll throw it in his face.

MATT: Okay. Currently bound, kind of easy to see. He’s really ugly. You throw a dagger up towards him with your action.

LIAM: All right, that’s no good. And then the bonus action is also no good.

MATT: You’ve already used your bonus action to go stealth.

LIAM: Well, they’re gone.

MATT: What’d you roll?

LIAM: Four and a five.

MATT: Plus–

LIAM: Plus– I didn’t sleep at all last night.

MATT: Tell me what your final numbers are!

LIAM: 12 and ten.

MATT: Okay, yeah. Both of those, unfortunately miss. You fling both. Unfortunately, the process of jumping down and running, as you chuck it at the end of your movement next to Scanlan, even though he’s bound, you’re just a little off your game. It just cascades out of sight and then vanishes, appearing back on your belt. That brings us to Percy and Keyleth.

TALIESIN: I’ll go first. Okay, I’m going to– Where am I?

MATT: You’re over here.

TALIESIN: Okay, I’m going to scoot in over here and make my way. And as I’m running by, I’m going to take a shot at his kneecap and see if I can prone him.

MATT: Okay.

ASHLEY: Come on, Bad News.

MARISHA: Are we still trying to capture him?

TALIESIN: Yeah, I’m just going to knock him down.

LAURA: I think we’re trying.

ORION: You can do non-lethal damage to him.

TALIESIN: 20?

MATT: 20 hits.

TALIESIN: 20 hits.

ASHLEY: And he’s grappled?

SAM: Twice.

TALIESIN: He’s grappled and he’s now prone. But I’m going to do my 1d10 damage.

ASHLEY: He’s double grappled. Shit, I forgot that he was already grappled.

TRAVIS: Can I try to talk to him?

TALIESIN: That’s 15 damage.

MATT: Okay.

TALIESIN: He takes 15 damage and he’s prone.

LIAM: Sweet.

MATT: “Arrgh!” (heavy impact)

SAM: Don’t fall on me!

TALIESIN: And I’m going to finish scooting down there.

MATT: I will– (laughs) Okay, so, as you shoot off the kneecap, he tumbles forward.

LAURA: Oh no!

MATT: Over the edge. This way. Both of you guys make dexterity saving throws.

TALIESIN: We can’t win!

ASHLEY: Wait, that’s a cliff?

LAURA: That’s an edge, with a 15-foot drop.

MATT: It’s a 50-50 shot on which side he fell.

SAM: Where’s my dice?

TALIESIN: I spent a Grit point for that.

SAM: Where’s my 20?

TALIESIN: Here.

SAM: Oh, here it is.

ASHLEY: 15, or five-zero?

LAURA: 15.

LIAM: 19.

SAM: Plus what?

MATT: Your dexterity saving throw.

SAM: 17.

MATT: 17.

MATT: You both manage to just leap out of the way. Slamming onto his back on the ground.

SAM: Do we get free attacks on him?

(laughter)

MATT: No, but you’re nearly crushed by an extremely large person.

SAM: I’ll take it. That’s a plus, that’s a positive.

MATT: All right, Percy, does that end your turn?

TALIESIN: I’m not doing anything else for this turn. That went poorly.

MATT: Okay, Keyleth.

MARISHA: Okay, I’m going to– Can I move, can I get to him?

MATT: He’s 15 feet down. You can move up to the edge, here. Look down and see him on the ground, currently restrained and struggling on his back.

MARISHA: If I turn into a snake, can I get down there? Big snake?

(laughter)

MATT: I’d say you would be able to.

MARISHA: I want to turn into a giant constrictor.

MATT: Okay.

LAURA: You’re going to constrict him?

MARISHA: Real big snake! Yeah, I’m going to constrict him.

MATT: (sings) I’ll use this naga figure for that.

ALL: Ooh.

LAURA: That’s big.

MARISHA: I’m a naga!

SAM: We are grappling the hell out of him.

MARISHA: I’m so pretty.

MATT: Leap down? And you’re trying to grapple him?

MARISHA: And I’m going to start constricting.

SAM: Grog, you might have to talk to him again.

MATT: All right, so go ahead and roll a d20.

TRAVIS: I don’t know if I can.

MATT: What’s the strength bonus of the form?

MARISHA: I get a plus six. Oh wait.

MATT: What’s it say for the constricting? It should have the rule there for it.

MARISHA: It’s a strength–

MATT: All right, so you add six to that.

MARISHA: – bonus, I guess. So 14.

MATT: Okay. You start moving around and even though he’s still struggling in his form, he gets one hand up and is holding you at bay. You have not managed to grapple him yet, but you are in the process of trying to. Next round you can try again. He’s pretty strong. LIAM: When are you clever folk going to get in his head?

MATT: Vex.

LAURA: That’s me.

MATT: Yep.

LAURA: I am going to– Has he taken a lot of damage yet, or are we just keep grappling him?

MATT: He looks– There’s been a lot of grappling this past round. He took a lot of damage before everyone else showed up and it’s been just a lot of holding him.

LAURA: All right, I’m going to attack him, twice. The second time with a–

MATT: You can’t see him right now, because he’s fallen.

LAURA: I’m going to scootch up there so I can.

MATT: All right.

SAM: Just hold him.

MATT: And now you see him on the ground.

LAURA: And I’m going to take two shots at him.

MATT: All right. Both of these shots are at disadvantage, because there’s Keyleth currently trying to wrap around him as a giant snake.

LAURA: All right.

TRAVIS: She’ll be fine!

MARISHA: I thought we were trying to capture him.

ORION: We are. She can knock him out, though.

MATT: So just each attack with disadvantage.

TRAVIS: Just roll really high both times.

LIAM: Wow!

LAURA: 24, 26!

MATT: That hits. Second attack.

LAURA: Second attack is a Sleep arrow.

MATT: Secondary Sleep arrow.

LAURA: Yeah.

MATT: All right.

MARISHA: Go to sleep!

MATT: Go to sleep, go to sleep, go to sleep!

LAURA: 17.

MATT: 17 also hits. All right, so go ahead and roll damage on the first arrow, with your Hunter’s Mark damage.

LAURA: Yes. 15, 16, 17, 20?

MATT: All right.

LAURA: And then the second one–

TRAVIS: You’re putting the hurt on him.

LAURA: That’s ten, 11, 12. 16 on the second hit.

MATT: 16, okay. And then go ahead and roll 5d8 for the Sleep arrow.

LAURA: Oh, right, I only get 5d8.

MATT: Yeah, wasn’t a critical hit, sorry.

LAURA: Oh. Okay. Look at all these dice I have! 14, 20, 22?

MATT: 22? As the arrow sinks into him, you see him struggling against both the snake form and Bigby’s Grasping Hand. As it struggles and throws about, the grappling hook tightens on its form–

TRAVIS: Oh, oh!

LAURA: Yes!

TRAVIS and LAURA: Sleep!

(cheering)

SAM: How did you do it?

ASHLEY: She has a Sleep arrow.

SAM: You had another one?

LAURA: Yeah, I have three.

MATT: Now she has one.

LAURA: Now I have one!

SAM: (whispers) Okay, he’s asleep.

SAM: (whispers) Shh, everyone whisper.

TRAVIS: (normal volume) What?

LAURA: Shh.

LIAM: (whispers) Rock him, Keyleth. Rock him.

LAURA: No, don’t wake him up. Don’t rock him.

MATT: So, for the moment, combat is paused. You guys do what you need to, but be aware that every period of time, he’s going to be making saving throws.

SAM: Okay, we have a mind flayer.

LAURA: Oh, Clarota, can you Dominate him?

SAM: Yeah, Clarota is a mind flayer, it’s his bag.

MATT: Clarota steps forward and goes, “I can, for a short period of time, or I could just take its mind.”

LAURA: Okay, yeah.

(sounds of protest)

ORION: You mean for a snack, though, you’re saying.

MATT: “I would then have its memories and knowledge at my disposal.”

LAURA: But you can’t control its body?

ORION: We need more of his brutish, tank-ish strength.

TRAVIS: What was your thing?

ASHLEY: Wait, so short time means what?

MATT: “Until it resists the influence.”

SAM: Until it resists, that’s no good.

LIAM: That’s very temporary.

ORION: Could you perhaps put him to sleep for the evening?

MARISHA: Or can we figure out a way to restrain him?

SAM: We need to rest.

LAURA: Yeah, can we quickly tie him down while we’re talking?

MARISHA: Because here’s the thing, I have an ability where I can use Geas. And cast Geas on him, and I basically give him a command and he’ll essentially become our big–

SAM: And it lasts for 30 days.

MARISHA: He’ll be our big, beefy minion for 30 days.

LAURA: Oh, yeah!

MARISHA: And if he resists it, he takes psychic damage.

TRAVIS: We have have manacles, and we have chains.

SAM: Put him in the Bag of Holding!

LAURA: Let’s frickin’ tie him down. At least can we tie him up right now?

ORION: We’ll secure him, but Clarota, could you prolong the Sleep spell for eight hours so we can rest and you could do your spell? MATT: “For eight hours, no. Nothing in my repertoire lasts that long, which is why I say let me take his mind.”

MARISHA: No.

TRAVIS: I don’t wanna!

LAURA: It’s a big ol’ feast, I know, I know. It’s a lot of food for you.

MATT: “I’m hungry.”

MARISHA: You had a snack not that long ago.

ORION: I hand him some jerky. It’s really delicious.

LAURA: Clarota, what about the thing he was carrying? Can you eat that thing’s brain?

SAM: Don’t worry about his dinner right now.

TRAVIS: Oh yeah, what was he dragging? Wasn’t there a corpse?

SAM: Let’s figure out how we’re going to control it.

TRAVIS: I don’t think we can.

SAM: Okay, let’s manacle it. Let’s at least try to hold it.

LAURA: Chain it up.

SAM: Chain it up.

TRAVIS: Can you make the manacles big? Can you Engorge the–

MATT: The creature begins to flutter its eyes for a second. Clarota immediately looks down and puts his hand out and releases a force of arcane sparkles that cover its body, and it falls back asleep.

TRAVIS: Can you make the manacles bigger? Giant-sized?

SAM: No, they’re inorganic. I can’t do anything to those.

LAURA: Can we just use chain and tie him up?

TRAVIS: Like Harry Potter! Engorgio! No?

ORION: Engorgio?

TRAVIS: Fuck!

TALIESIN: Do we have chain?

LAURA: We have chain. Grog has chain.

TALIESIN: Let’s chain him up.

LAURA: We chain him up!

SAM: I have poison. I have drow poison from a previous adventure. That’s a knockout drug, isn’t it?

MATT: You don’t know much about drow poison.

SAM: Damn it!

MATT: Go ahead and make a nature roll.

LAURA: Percy and I chain him up. We use the chains that we have.

SAM: 20.

MATT: 20? You know that drow poison, for the most part, would not facilitate keeping something alive.

ORION: Right, it is poisonous.

LIAM: While everybody’s discussing, Vax is going to walk down to the center of the pit to take a peek at that hole.

MATT: Okay. You go ahead and glance over the top. It drops down about 20 feet in what looks to be a series of long rusted-over, metallic spikes. Whatever this pit was previously used for was almost like a gladiatorial experience. You can see what looks like some clusters of old, ancient bones at the bottom. Mostly seen disuse for hundreds of years.

TRAVIS: We should drag him over there, just in case he wakes up. Kick him in.

ORION: It’s fine. If he did something, we’d kill him.

MATT: So what are you guys doing?

SAM: You don’t have the spell, right?

MARISHA: Can I take time, if we grapple him and I take a rest, essentially, almost take a 20 to cast Geas on him?

MATT: How long does Geas take to cast?

ORION: It’s a minute to cast.

MARISHA: Generally takes a minute to cast.

MATT: Okay.

MARISHA: Can I do that?

MATT: You can certainly try. We’ll see how long you guys can keep him restrained.

TALIESIN: We have chained him.

LAURA: We have chained him.

MATT: Right.

SAM: With our puny chains.

MATT: As you guys are getting the chains around him, he maintains his slumber. You guys continue to bring the chains around. It’s a big body and there’s a lot to get around. How much chain do you guys have total, by the way, length-wise?

TRAVIS: It’s 150 feet.

MATT: 150 feet of chain.

SAM: We also have our never-ending rope, don’t we?

LAURA: I know, we do have some more never-ending rope. And we can keep using that. A lot of it.

TALIESIN: Never-ending rope doesn’t grow on trees, though.

MATT: Okay. You get the chain– full length of chain around his torso area. You start getting it around his legs, you start pulling the rope around. He begins to wake up once again. He begins to thrash about.

LAURA: No, no, no.

MATT: He rolls a two to break against the chain. He’s currently still grappled. Clarota releases another Sleep spell.

TRAVIS: Should we put a fancy robe over his nasty eye, so he can’t give you the–

LAURA: Yeah, let’s do it.

SAM: Sure, yeah, why not?

TRAVIS: We have eight fancy robes. I take one of them and I put it over his nasty pirate eye.

MATT: Okay. You take one of your eight fancy robes you had kicking in the Bag of Holding.

TRAVIS: They were in the closet, nobody wanted them! But now they’re coming to use, so suck it up.

ORION: Let me sleep, hold on.

MATT: It is probably the nicest thing this creature has ever worn. Just keep that in mind.

LIAM: There’s a pair of pants hanging off his eye.

MATT: You finish restraining him with the chains. Who’s doing what?

SAM: She’s just casting, right?

MARISHA: I guess you can help me out?

SAM: I’m going to inspire her, somehow.

ORION: I’m going to encourage success.

SAM: I’m going to inspire her with a song.

LIAM: I’m going to see if I see anything more than just spikes down in the hole.

MATT: Perception check.

LAURA: Keyleth– Oh, never mind. Can anybody make it look like there’s a big feast in front of him?

LIAM: 24.

MATT: 24? You do see what looks like some sort of mild glimmer of metal that amongst all the rest of the weapons and armor that have been destroyed down there, one seems to have resisted the age, that has stayed.

LIAM: I have a plain old 50-foot rope. I’m going to try to tie it to something on the edge.

MATT: There is nothing to find purchase for, here. It’s just a pit.

LAURA: Let’s do it!

TRAVIS: While they’re chaining him up and everything, I’d like to walk up and put my great axe just under his chin. Just as a reminder.

MATT: Okay. Keyleth, you’re casting?

MARISHA: I’m going for it.

MATT: All right, so we’ll say–

MARISHA: He has to succeed on a wisdom saving throw against me.

MATT: We’ll get there. It takes you a full minute to cast it.

MARISHA: Oh yeah.

MATT: Every round he gets to resist the Sleep spell.

LIAM: (whispers) Percy! Could you give me a hand over here?

TALIESIN: Sure, all right.

LAURA: (whispers) What are you doing?

LIAM: (whispers) There’s something down in this hole. Do you think you could hold on to this tightly while I climb down?

TALIESIN: Yeah, no, I’ve got it. I’ve got it.

TRAVIS: Classic line.

LIAM: All right.

MATT: Actually, no. This spell just puts them straight to sleep. So, this spell, he is asleep for the duration. You finish your Geas spell.

LIAM: It worked on you.

TRAVIS: They all work on me.

MATT: All righty.

TRAVIS: There’s nothing in there. I keep drinking out of it. There’s nothing in it!

LIAM: (whispers) Grog, there’s a diamond up my butt.

MATT: All right, so we have Geas. So it has to make a wisdom saving throw. So what is the DC? Spell DC.

ORION: Yeah, stop posing for just a second.

SAM: Spellcasting DC.

MARISHA: What, it’s wisdom. Oh, against my spell save?

MATT: Yes.

SAM: What’s your DC?

MARISHA: 18.

MATT: 18, all right. As the Sleep spell wears off, his eyes begin to flicker and you see the strength flexing in his muscle form. As you hold the axe there, his one slashed but, you know, not bleeding in this moment, eye. It seems that a lot of the fancy robe has absorbed whatever was oozing from it.

TRAVIS: Right.

TALIESIN: Very absorbent fancy robe.

MATT: He glances down at you. In this horrible, guttural series of phrases and consonants (speaks Undercommon).

SAM: What’s he saying?

MATT: Anyone speak Undercommon?

LAURA: I do.

ASHLEY: I do.

SAM: Oh, it’s not Giant.

MATT: The two of you–

TRAVIS: I speak two languages!

MATT: You do.

ASHLEY: You speak Undercommon?

TRAVIS: No, but not, no.

MATT: He says, essentially, “What have you done? What do you need?”

LAURA: I speak back to him. And say, “K'Varn. For him, or against him?”

TRAVIS: No, good, yeah.

MARISHA: It’s like a political rally?

MATT: Its eye, slowly, tweaks over back towards Keyleth.

SAM: She’s the one.

MATT: “What do you ask of me?”

LAURA: Oh, got it.

MARISHA: Follow our orders. Help us fight K'Varn. Vex, how do you say, “Follow our orders,” in Underdark?

LAURA: Oh, it’s, (gibberish).

SAM: The accent is on the ‘kh’.

LAURA: Be all like, 'kh’.

TRAVIS: Yeah, you got it. Back of the throat.

MARISHA: (gibberish)

LAURA: Yes, yes. Very good.

MATT: The giant takes a moment, and his head nods slowly, like–

SAM: Is it like a French person?

MATT: Kind of, yeah.

(laughter)

MATT: Manages to get the gist across.

SAM: (French accent) I don’t know what you’re saying. Oh, 'unh’! Oh, I understand now.

MARISHA: How do I say 'kill’?

LAURA: (retching noise)

MARISHA: I look at him and I go (retching noise) K'Varn!

TALIESIN: That accent was terrible.

MARISHA: Shut up, Percy. I’m not from here, clearly.

TALIESIN: Everyone knows that, now.

MATT: All right.

MARISHA: (retching noise) K'Varn.

MATT: He looks down at the chains and looks expectantly at you.

MARISHA: Follow our orders.

LAURA: Hmm? Oh.

ORION: Take the chains off.

LAURA: Should we take the chains off?

ORION: I believe we should take the chains off.

LAURA: Make him agree, first.

MATT: He seems to be in agreement.

LAURA: Okay, cool.

MATT: Best you can tell.

MARISHA: You roll with us.

LAURA: I start taking the chains off.

MARISHA: You our posse now.

LAURA: Very carefully, taking the chains off.

MATT: You get the chains off and as each hand is free, he (grunts) shakes it free.

LAURA: Oh, okay.

MATT: All you kind of jump back for a second and places it on the ground and stands up to his full height around you. I’ll assume that you’re no longer a naga as you cast a spell. Eventually, he gets to his full height and stands there looking down at all of you. Kind of glancing around, grabs the large, hardened piece of wood and stone that he’s fashioned this club out of and glances and says to you. You translate for her. “Where?”

SAM: Where.

TRAVIS: A man of few words.

LAURA: He wants to know where.

ORION: I saunter up. Hello.

TRAVIS: Christ.

ORION: I’m really impressed. Are you our friend, now?

LAURA: Tiberius, do you speak Underdark?

MARISHA: I don’t think he can understand you. There’s a translation barrier going on.

ORION: Oh, well, wonderful! Tell him to follow our orders. That’s all he needs to know for now.

MARISHA: I already told him that.

ORION: Oh, good!

MARISHA: He’s in our posse.

SAM: He’s asking where. We should tell him.

TRAVIS: Temple.

LAURA: But tell him to stay for now.

MARISHA: Well, you, here, for now.

SAM: She’s going to translate.

MARISHA: You. We roll together.

TRAVIS: (laughs) Jesus!

(laughter)

SAM: Go ahead and translate that.

ORION: Vex, you got that? Could you translate that?

TRAVIS: I didn’t even understand what– (laughs)

LAURA: Pike, do you want to tell him what she said?

MARISHA: I’m trying to say we roll deep.

SAM: I speak Keyleth.

(laughter)

SAM: She’s saying that he should wait here until our instructions to attack.

LAURA: Okay. Go ahead and translate that.

ASHLEY: Oh, oh, uh. (speaks Undercommon)

MATT: Slings the club onto his shoulder with a hefty (impact sound). You all feel the actual impact on his body, just the nearby presence, the air around him being pushed. Looks at you for a second. Looks back to Keyleth and gives a solid nod and just stands there.

MARISHA: I take that as a good nod.

LAURA: Will this keep up while you’re sleeping? Just curious.

MARISHA: It keeps up for 30 days.

ORION: 30 days.

LAURA: Oh we’re set.

TRAVIS: Awesome!

ORION: I walk up to the giant and I take out my jerky.

LAURA: Can we heal him? If we heal him, will it cancel it?

LIAM: Vex'ahlia.

LAURA: What?

LIAM: Ask him what his name is.

MATT: His hand reaches down and completely envelops your fist. And just pulls away. Jerky is gone from your hand and you feel, probably, a few scales went with.

LAURA: I grunt at him. And ask what his name is. “Vex-'ah-lia.”

ORION: Do we all have to say it that way, Vex'ahlia?

MATT: Just glares at you.

LAURA: Oh, come on.

ASHLEY: I’m going to tell him he’s handsome. (speaks Undercommon)

(laughter)

MATT: The big eye squints in confusion at the tiny thing. And just keeps licking the remnants of beef jerky off his fingers that it just robbed Tiberius of.

ORION: He likes the jerky.

ASHLEY: I thought I’d try.

MARISHA: What should we call him?

LAURA: I think we should name him–

ORION: We should ask his name and be polite.

SAM: We did, he didn’t give it.

LAURA: We should name him Tiny.

MARISHA: Tiny!

SAM: Tiny, that’s clever.

TALIESIN: Vax and I are still getting something out of there.

MATT: All right, so the two of you guys move towards the pit. You’re what, now? You are–

TALIESIN: I’m lowering him down on a rope.

MATT: Okay. You hold on, you get down. The spikes, now that you are up close, you can see, are about five and a half feet in length.

LIAM: Yes.

MATT: At the base, about that wide. And pretty nasty, jagged, covered in whatever rust, soot, ash found its way there.

LIAM: Tetanus, yeah.

MATT: It’s nasty times. It’s going to be a little careful to get in there without hurting yourself.

LIAM: All right.

MATT: Go ahead and make just a straight dexterity check.

LIAM: That’s a 25.

MATT: 25. You manage to, Mission Impossible-style, swing underneath, grab the rope. You manage to keep yourself at a lithe, side angle where you reach between two of the jagged spikes. Reach down and grab this metal pole that was shining. Pull it out and it’s an intricate gold and bronze javelin.

SAM: You found booty?

LIAM: Pull me up. Well, I can’t use this.

LAURA: What is it?

LIAM: It’s a javelin. It’s beautiful.

TRAVIS: Will you inspect it?

SAM: Beautiful things should go to Pike, I think.

ASHLEY: Oh, Scanlan, but she has really good aim.

LIAM: She doesn’t really throw sharp, pointy things. This would be good for you, big guy.

SAM: I just feel that the gold of the javelin would match the gold of your heart.

ASHLEY: Oh, Scanlan!

ORION: I’m going to inspect it. Arcana check. 23.

MATT: 23. Okay.

LIAM: I’m still holding it. Tell me about it.

ORION: Oh, this is, of course, the Javelin of Lightning. This javelin is a magic weapon. When you hurl it, and speak its command word, it transforms into a bolt of lightning.

SAM: Sounds a little “read”-y.

ORION: Yeah.

(laughter)

ORION: You know what? I’m not on the clock. You read it.

(laughter)

SAM: Bolt of lightning, five feet wide. Basically, it’s just lightning. But in a javelin.

MATT: Pass it on to Grog.

LIAM: I spin it, rotate it in my hand, handle towards Grog.

TRAVIS: (singsong) I have something that’s magic.

MATT: All right, so.

TALIESIN: Oh boy.

ASHLEY: What are you going to name it?

TRAVIS: Penelope.

MATT: You guys now stand on the outskirts of Yug'voril. We’re a little ways from Yug'voril and the fungal forests. In the distance, you can barely see the dull, greenish glow of what encompasses the top of the temple. What is your plan of action, as you’ve now bound a Fomorian to your will?

LAURA: I feel like we should hop down into the pit.

SAM: Fomorian?

LIAM: Of spikes?

LAURA: No no no, not that pit. In the big pit. And rest. And that way we’re blocked from view.

TALIESIN: Heal our, what are we calling him?

LAURA: Tiny.

TALIESIN: Tiny. Heal Tiny.

MARISHA: He’s a Fomorian?

SAM: Just before we rest, does anyone have knowledge of his race and his species? Any of his weaknesses or strengths? Can I do a history check?

ORION: I’ll do a history check.

MATT: Well, this will be more of a–

SAM: That’s a one.

ORION: Nature check? What kind of check?

MATT: Yeah, this would be a– This will be just a nature check.

MARISHA: What are we checking?

SAM: Nature check. Just to see, what are his strengths and weakness? What about his race?

MARISHA: Ooh! The Fromorians. Well, the Fromorians–

MATT: Foh-morians.

MARISHA: For-morians.

MATT: Foh-morians.

MARISHA: Foh-morians.

SAM: FOH-MOH-ree-ans.

MARISHA: Foh-MOH-ree-ans.

TALIESIN: Accent is just terrible.

MATT: What’d you roll?

MARISHA: An 18 plus ten, so 28. Fomo.

MATT: All right. Between you and your understanding of the Underdark, as well, you manage to suss out a Fomorian is a long-cursed species of giant that lives in the Underdark, specifically. That’s why its form is so malformed and physically messed up. They are inherently very evil, very selfish creatures and the fact that you even have it in your presence says well of your magic, but also means it’s probably very, very, very minimal in its control or ability to really help you unless it absolutely has to.

ORION: The giant guy?

MATT: So.

MARISHA: Yeah. Well, I mean, it sort of has to.

LAURA: Right?

SAM: It doesn’t have to do it with all its heart.

MARISHA: It starts to fry his brain if he doesn’t.

MATT: Sometimes things might want to take damage, depending on what you tell it to do.

LAURA: Oh.

ORION: It depends on what we say.

LAURA: Well, can we ask him?

MATT: Just saying you’re riding a very fine line keeping this thing not thrashing and smashing your head right now.

LAURA: Can we ask him, I mean, if K'Varn is annoying to him, or if he likes him?

MATT: You ask in Undercommon?

LAURA: Yeah.

MATT: The best you can get out of his response is the equivalent of, “I don’t really know or care. I hunt. I find things that wander too far from this city. And occasionally squash a dwarf or two.”

SAM: Do we know what sorts of things he either hates or likes?

TALIESIN: We’ve got a distraction!

TRAVIS AND LAURA: Yeah!

TALIESIN: Forget the fight. We can just send him off into the city and that should be enough for us to sneak in.

SAM: That’s pretty good, too.

LAURA: Yeah, that’s true.

ORION: I am not setting foot in that temple quite yet.

LAURA: No no no. We’ll come up with an idea, but, I mean, it’s something. Keyleth, is it safe to sleep next to him? Or is he going to attack us when we sleep?

MARISHA: We might be able to box him up, or maybe we should chain him up while we sleep or something. I don’t know. I mean, he should be okay.

LIAM: Take the watch, like we normally do.

MATT: Kima, looking at him, says, “I’m not sleeping next to him.”

SAM: I’ll sleep near you, Kima.

MATT: Her eyes, for a moment, seem to dart to your shoulder where you had previously shown her your awkward, purple, third nipple. “I’m fine, Scanlan, but I– I appreciate the offer?”

SAM: Suit yourself.

TALIESIN: That’s just a sentence you don’t hear very often.

ASHLEY: I have a question. You said he’s a cursed giant?

MATT: Meaning, not him, individually. His actual species long ago. It was a line of giants that was cursed by the Fae to be this horrible form.

SAM: Well, let’s rest.

LAURA: Yeah.

SAM: In shifts.

LAURA: Maybe we can chain him up to something while we sleep.

SAM: No. We don’t want to seem aggressive towards him.

LAURA: Oh, fine.

ORION: He’s fine for 30 days.

LAURA: Who’s taking the first watch? All right.

TALIESIN: I’ll take the first watch.

LAURA: I gotta heal up.

LIAM: I’ll sit up with Percy.

MARISHA: Well, hang on. What are we doing from here? Because it’s going to dictate what I pick.

SAM: That’s a good question. We’re not going to mount our full attack, are we?

LAURA: Are we?

TALIESIN: Why not?

ORION: No, we are not.

TALIESIN AND LAURA: Why not?

SAM: We could.

ORION: I am telling you right now, I am not setting foot in that thing’s lair.

LAURA: Okay, tell us why.

SAM: Until when?

ORION: Until we figure out a damn way to get it out of that lair.

SAM: You want it out of the temple.

ORION: Absolutely.

TALIESIN: We’re not going to be able to do that.

ORION: Percy! I’m saying this right now, I’m not stepping foot in that lair!

TALIESIN: That’s fine. We’re not going to be able to get him out, I don’t think.

ORION: I think we can, actually.

TALIESIN: Well?

ORION: My idea is this–

LAURA: Okay, yes. Please, tell us.

ORION: With the new addition of our giant friend, we do have a great advantage. We can definitely make the distraction, as you say. I propose, Keyleth and another stealth member somehow see a way if there is some kind of ventilation that leads into the Major Butthole’s chamber.

LAURA: The temple that you won’t set foot in.

ORION: Yes.

LAURA: You want somebody else to go into.

ORION: Absolutely.

LAURA: All right.

ORION: And, when finding this, craft some type of piping system where we could smoke him out. If he has to breathe, which I believe aberrations need to breathe and eat.

LAURA: Do I know that? Do aberrations need to breathe?

MATT: Best that you understand, not a lot of study has gone into the breathing apparatuses of certain aberrations and the few that have been close enough to a beholder haven’t really tested that theory.

LAURA: All right.

ORION: If we smoke him out and he cannot breathe, he must leave the facility. And if we go in there we would be at an extreme disadvantage in many ways than we realize.

TALIESIN: How are we going to smoke him out?

ORION: I just proposed the idea. I don’t know, but that’s what we all need to figure out.

LAURA: Okay, I’ve also got an idea. I mean, what about that whole plan to break apart the apparatus that was holding the Elder Brain together?

TALIESIN: That’s my thought.

LAURA: I think we need to go over the top, once the distraction is in the city, blah blah blah. Go over the top, acid that metal, break it apart.

SAM: Or giant that metal.

LAURA: I think it’d be hard to get the giant up to the top of the temple.

MARISHA: But we can send the giant beating on the front temple door.

LAURA: But this is a brainstorming session, everything’s positive.

SAM: Well, not everything.

LAURA: Acid, whatever, break it apart. Release the illithids from his control and then we’ll have them on our side. At least, not our side, but against him.

ORION: That’s what I’m talking about.

TALIESIN: Absolutely.

ORION: Oh, so there are prisoners, right?

LAURA: All of the illithid in the city are his prisoners. He’s controlling everyone.

ORION: Oh, so, I’m sorry, I was misled earlier. So this is the good part of the plan. We do exactly what you’re saying, first.

LAURA: Oh, okay. That’s good. I like your plan so far.

ORION: Clarota, here, will rally the illithid to fight for us. That’s when we smoke out the beholder.

TALIESIN: Except, of course, by doing that, we’ve destroyed the roof of the chamber, so there will actually just be nothing but ventilation.

LAURA: Yes.

MARISHA: No, it was already open, remember?

ORION: We do it a different way. We don’t go near him.

ASHLEY: Do we know that it’s enclosed?

MARISHA: No, it’s open.

TALIESIN: It’s open.

SAM: I can get the giant inside the temple.

MATT: The top has the brass crossbar.

LAURA: Ooh, I like that.

TRAVIS: But what if he just controls the giant?

LAURA: You know what, though? The beholder will just take control of the giant.

TALIESIN: That we’re talking about destroying?

MARISHA: Some sort of glass.

MATT: Some sort of translucent material that fills in the parts that aren’t the brass.

TALIESIN: That we’re talking about destroying.

ORION: The room that he’s in is sealed up?

MATT: It appears to be.

LAURA: I think we should keep the giant as a distraction.

TRAVIS: I also have an idea.

LAURA: Yes, Grog.

TRAVIS: Ice cream and peanut butter mixed on a cold stone.

SAM: It will never work. It’ll never work!

ORION: Oh my god!

ASHLEY: Oh, yum!

ORION: That is incredible.

TRAVIS: I’ve been thinking about it for days.

SAM: How would you get the stone cold enough? You would need all sorts of sides to add to it, to fold into it. It’s a terrible idea.

TRAVIS: I told you, I don’t like thinking.

LAURA: And then also another idea. What if you used your Pillars, right, against the Beholder and trapped him in? Can you do that?

ORION: I am not going anywhere near that temple.

SAM: All right.

LAURA: All right, all right. What if you’re outside the temple and you cast Pillars and then we go in? And you stand outside, Tiberius.

ORION: I mean, I suppose that could work, possibly.

LAURA: What if you’re on top?

ORION: Just has to be line of sight, right?

MATT: To where you want the pillar to come out of, yeah.

ORION: Mm-hm, right, yeah. Actually that could work. I could do it from afar, maybe on the carpet.

LAURA: That gives us something to hide behind, right? At least, with his eyeballs.

ORION: Yes.

ASHLEY: We still have to go through the fungal forest, right?

LAURA: Yes.

SAM: How far is the forest, before the city?

MATT: All right, so, to bring the map on top, here. Where you guys currently reside, which is this portion here. You imagine, based on the distance you traveled, you have about a mile or so before you get to the city.

LAURA: A mile.

MATT: Maybe a little over a mile.

ASHLEY: Man, I wish we had some Cold Stone right now.

MATT: Actually probably a mile and half before you get into the city, which is about two miles from the temple.

TRAVIS: Right? Doesn’t that sound amazing?

LIAM: We need to find a frost giant, first.

TRAVIS: I’m just saying, we could leave this fucker here, go mix some peanut butter and ice cream, everybody’s happy!

SAM: That plan is growing on me.

ASHLEY: We’ll sleep. Should we nap?

SAM: Let’s take a rest.

LAURA: What are we going to do? We’re just going to go in without a plan? What are we going to do?

ASHLEY: How’s Vax’s foot?

SAM: Tomorrow we can stealth in and get some intel.

MATT: It’s already been attempted to be healed this day.

LAURA: Oh, we can do it in the morning?

MATT: Yeah, it’s like a once a day kind of thing.

TRAVIS: Liam, we need you to stealth in and get some awesome recon, but that means you’ll be at risk.

TALIESIN: We’re going to need to destroy the mechanism.

SAM: A suicide mission? He was born for this.

LAURA: The big one is releasing the Elder Brain. We need to do that before we teleport.

MARISHA: Yeah. Okay, here’s my thing. Why do we need to do reconnaissance? We already know what we need to do.

TALIESIN: We’ve already done reconnaissance.

LIAM: Well, we saw through Keyleth’s Scrying.

LAURA: Right, so we know what’s going on.

LIAM: Somewhat.

TALIESIN: We know that there’s a mechanism inside that room. We know that that’s probably what’s keeping the brain.

ASHLEY: We should just go knock on the door.

(laughter)

ASHLEY: Hello?

TRAVIS: I think Pike’s onto something.

SAM: We should do some recon. There might be beings or creatures around there that we can distract, use to our advantage, something.

LAURA: I feel like we should get up close, release the giant, fly up over, do our shit, and then take him.

SAM: All right, but we don’t know how we’re going to break that thing.

LAURA: Acid.

SAM: We don’t have acid.

LAURA: We have acid.

SAM: How much?

ORION: I bring out the yellow vial.

LAURA: And we’ve got a bunch of acid in Grog’s bag.

SAM: We do have that yellow vial.

TRAVIS: We have four acid vials, plus that.

ORION: This is the thing that’s going to hurt the most.

SAM: We don’t know. It could make it stronger.

MARISHA: Well, I mean, I could do some Heat Metal and weaken it.

ASHLEY: I feel like we should save that acid for the beholder.

TRAVIS: Remember, the argument was also that it will be magically treated to withstand simple acid.

MARISHA: The Elder Brain casing was, not necessarily the cross.

TALIESIN: I want to experiment on the– I want to do a couple things. I want to first take, using my little kit, I want to just beaker off a tiny bit of it and expose it to some organic matter to see how it reacts.

MATT: Okay.

TALIESIN: And expose it to a little bit of inorganic matter to see how it reacts.

MATT: So you take a bit of the swirling, yellow, orange-ish viscous fluid out of– You place it against some organic matter, which, you find somewhere in the vicinity, partially rotted chunks of–

TALIESIN: Flesh.

MATT: – flesh from the pile the Fomorian was sleeping on. As you place it on, it blackens the flesh around it. There is a sizzling sound.

TALIESIN: Interesting. Now I want to try it on some inorganic matter.

MATT: Which organic matter? Which inorganic matter?

LAURA: Do we have any metal?

SAM: I have a dagger that I never use.

ASHLEY: I have some rusty instruments.

SAM: Great. Rusty instruments?

ASHLEY: From the torture room.

ORION: Do you have a rusty trombone?

(groaning and laughter)

ORION: Sorry. What? I don’t understand.

SAM: I use my Minor Illusion to create a (failure horn sound).

(laughter)

TALIESIN: I would like a couple things. I would like one of the rusty instruments and I would like one of the diamonds, please.

TRAVIS: Yeah, here. You can have it. Here.

LAURA: No! Oh, Percy, why?

TALIESIN: So that we find out if it’s going to be useful. If it’s just acid, it won’t do a thing to the diamond.

TRAVIS: How about a sapphire?

TALIESIN: Or a sapphire, fine.

TRAVIS: My fine blue sapphire that’s been in here for a year and a half. You can have it.

LIAM: Care for some Cold Stone?

TALIESIN: And some Cold Stone. I want to try it on some ice cream with peanut butter.

(laughter)

TALIESIN: I want to mix the acid in. Add some raspberries.

MATT: So you’re putting it on?

TALIESIN: On one of the rusty instruments, and on a sapphire.

ASHLEY: What’s a rusty trombone?

(laughter)

SAM: Oh, Pike.

TALIESIN: Shutting it down.

MATT: (shouts) Google will answer that at the break!

MARISHA: Don’t Google it.

SAM: Chatroom, please help out Ashley.

LAURA: No no no. Don’t.

MATT: So, as you take a dab of it and you place it on the rusty instrument, which actually looks like some weird hooked crowbar-type implement. The rust immediately cleans off and the metal underneath begins to slowly warp and bend and then dissolve at the place where you dripped it.

SAM: Good, that’s good.

MATT: Placing it on the sapphire, it kind of coats it, slips off and begins to burn the ground around the sapphire.

TALIESIN: Interesting, all right.

SAM: Good on metal.

TALIESIN: Good on metal, not so good, necessarily on–

LAURA: On jewels. That’s okay.

TALIESIN: If the glass is glass, the glass will break. If the glass is something else, we may have to burrow through it.

LAURA: Sapphire’s okay, then? Is it clean? Does it have any acid still on it?

TRAVIS: It’s coming back to me, don’t reach for it.

TALIESIN: I’m going to clean off the sapphire.

MATT: Clean it off. It looks like there are very, very minor pockmarks across the surface, but yeah.

TALIESIN: We’re good. We’re very, very good.

TRAVIS: I’ll take the sapphire back.

MARISHA: I can possibly– I’ll make sure I learn Heat Metal and I can heat the edges of the crossbeam. And then if we can have Grog bring something heavy after we’ve weakened it.

LAURA: I know! I think a big weight, once it’s been acid-ed.

SAM: How about a giant?

TRAVIS: I could just jump on it.

LAURA: Well, it’s on the top of the temple, that’s what I mean. If you can jump on it, then we’ll be going down with it.

TRAVIS: (high-pitched) Yeah, that’s all right.

ORION: It will simply just heat it.

MARISHA: Hot metal bends.

LIAM: We’ve had a lot of success flying around, right? What if, and I don’t know who does what, but what if one small group flew in with Tiny in the form of a mouse. And then–

SAM: Dropped him.

LIAM: With instructions and drop him, and in mid-fall, a cursed giant lands at the front door. And if you’re on the flying carpet dropping him, you get out of there.

LAURA: What if cursed giant lands on the metal beam after we’ve already weakened it?

TRAVIS: Yeah, I like that more.

LIAM: That’s good too.

LAURA: Yeah, that is good.

LIAM: But he could go apeshit on us.

LAURA: No no no. Not if he’s alone up there. What if we do it, do it, do it–

SAM: I think what Vax is proposing is to create a diversion down there while we work on the metal. Try to weaken it.

LIAM: Half the team gets into position on the top of that thing. The other half splits off, drops the giant, the giant goes apeshit for like a minute. Right? Drawing help away from the beholder, drawing attention down there. We wait for a minute, then start pouring acid and Grog smashes it with his fucking forehead.

LAURA AND TRAVIS: Yes.

MARISHA: Can you levitate or do something to move a giant boulder that we can drop on top of it?

ORION: Of course I can.

LIAM: Can we recap on your– You looked in using your magics, and you saw– Tell us what she told us.

LAURA: Can we remember? I have advantage to recall information.

MATT: Essentially what you had seen in the vision was, within this room, there is that giant brass, gold, bronze-looking structure that, almost like an upside-down Christmas tree, it comes to a spiraling point above the Elder Brain pool, which is in a raised platform in the center of the room. To one side, there are two large cages that contain what look like some sort of skinless creatures that are currently being experimented on. On the far end of that room, there is a table that was set up with implements. This is probably in the process of what K'Varn has been, just having fun toying with flesh. On the opposite side of the room, it was shrouded in darkness and that was where you saw K'Varn reveal itself out of the shadow.

TRAVIS: One question. If we break the thing at the top and the upside-down Christmas tree falls into the Elder Brain pool thing, are we going to kill all of the illithids in the city in one fell swoop?

MARISHA: Well, according to Clarota, it was pretty heavily–

MATT: Which, at this point as you say that, Clarota goes, “That is not an option.”

ORION: Not saying it is, Clarota.

ASHLEY: No, we’re just trying to see if, maybe, we could–

LAURA: We didn’t want it to happen, we just were making sure it wouldn’t.

MARISHA: You mentioned that the Elder Brain was pretty protected from physical damage. That there was lots of magical enchantments and stuff?

ORION: Ooh, that’s right.

MATT: “It is a powerful entity, but it has its limits in its currently weakened form.”

LAURA: Okay. What if you cast Featherfall on it as, right when we did it, and then we can move it out of the way?

ORION: Doesn’t quite work that way. It works on creatures. I’m not sure I could do this.

TALIESIN: I have a terrible idea.

SAM: Great, let’s hear it.

TRAVIS: I’m full of those, but let’s hear yours.

TALIESIN: What if we break the fall of the device with Clarota?

LAURA: Clarota? What about– Why Clarota?

TALIESIN: Oh, so sorry.

LAURA: The giant Tiny?

LIAM: Kima. He means Kima

TALIESIN: No, I’m saying, what if we lure it into the center of the room and then drop the ceiling on top of it?

MARISHA: Oh, you mean–

LAURA: K'Varn?

ALL: K'Varn.

MATT: Clarota is currently stepping back with a look of confusion.

TALIESIN: I’m a bit tired. I’m so sorry.

SAM: Your name is confusing to us. This is why we wanted to call you Clarence. Sorry, sorry.

MATT: At the term 'Clarence’, you see the tentacles go.

LAURA: Oh, he’s warming up to it. I think he’s liking it.

ORION: Clarota, how much does the crystal weigh?

MATT: “I do not know. I was not around when it was created. I didn’t know it existed until you saw it. I have not been in the city in months. Nearly a year.”

TALIESIN: I think it is definitely an option, though. If we can lure it out of hiding and get it into the center of the room.

LAURA: I thought the Elder Brain was directly below it, so it would have to step on the Elder Brain in order to–

TALIESIN: Is the Elder Brain directly below it?

SAM: Seems too complicated.

LIAM: It’s not one large mind, right?

MATT: It’s a series of– The way you saw it, it is a cluster of brains that are kind of merged together into one large, hivemind mound.

LIAM AND LAURA: Okay.

TRAVIS: Who wants to go up on top?

LAURA: Me!

TRAVIS: Who would want to go down?

MATT: Yeah, less a crystal and more a metallic structure.

MARISHA: What if, instead of letting it fall before we fully break it, we take the rope and rope it.

LAURA: Or chain.

MARISHA: And chain, and then lift it and then take it away.

TALIESIN AND LAURA: Or just swing it.

LAURA: So it doesn’t fall all the way and it goes at a pendulum.

SAM: Complicated engineering.

ORION: Keyleth, what did the structure look like again?

MARISHA: It looks like a beehive.

TRAVIS: Like Phantom of the Opera.

SAM: And it’s made of metal and glass?

MATT: It’s a slowly, like a spiraling mass of metallic pipes, tubes, metal bands that just slowly twists and comes to a gradual point, like an upside-down Christmas tree.

SAM: So if it falls, it would be bad on the brain.

LAURA: Right, yes. We can swing it.

ORION: Many structures like this– We won’t have to, maybe, do any of that. If we could just, merely bend the structure, I believe that would compromise the magical integrity. Usually structures like this are designed for a particular arcane reason. If we were to merely damage it, Grog you could just as you do to most things.

TRAVIS: Are you looking to me to bend it. I was like, can you metalbend? This is awesome. But you want me to get my sweet hands on it?

ORION: I mean, I could probably help as well, along with Clarota, but that’s an option.

TRAVIS: How do I get to it, though? I mean, if we break–

LAURA: Flying carpet.

TRAVIS: No, I can’t. It doesn’t carry me.

ORION: It would only carry you.

MATT: It could carry a Grog and that’s about it.

ORION: Right.

TRAVIS: I could be like that pilot at the end of Independence Day that’s just flying up into the–

(laughter)

TRAVIS: “I’m back!”

LIAM: So you are Randy Quaid.

TRAVIS: Randy Quaid, which I’ve always aspired to be. I’m in, I’ll do it.

LIAM: Are we 100% certain there’s no nooks or crannies, or holes, or anything? We don’t want to go have a look?

SAM: Yeah, we should go have a look tomorrow morning.

MARISHA: Go have a look, why? You’re just going to get caught.

SAM: Why? Because– No, we’re not going to get caught.

LIAM: You’re assuming we know everything there is to know about this structure. About the city around it.

TRAVIS: We’re talking about a chance to gamble with his life. Let’s let him do it.

SAM: Yeah, we should go. We should know all we can know.

MARISHA: I’m just wondering what more you’re going to find out from a flyby that I couldn’t find out from my vision.

LIAM: Well, I don’t know how to tell you the things that you don’t know yet, because you don’t know them. ORION: Hold on. Vax, are you planning on going alone? That’s silly.

LIAM: Take this guy.

ORION: That’s even more silly.

LAURA: Because all his stealth checks lately have been perfect.

LIAM: He can go invisible. We’ll just take a peek.

ASHLEY: Should we do it? Should we nap and then you guys go?

LAURA: Let’s do it. Let’s nap.

TRAVIS: Let’s do it. Nap! We nap and rest.

MATT: All right, so you guys take an evening of rest. We’ll take this as our break. Our little quick ten-minute break, guys. We’ll make it quick so we can get back to this, because we have a lot to try and cram into this evening.

LIAM: United as one!

MATT: So we’ll see you guys shortly.

Break
MATT: Wait, do we have a–

ZAC: I have a quick announcement.

MATT: Yes.

ZAC: So Malcadale– Malhadale was the one that sent you guys–

(cheering)

MATT: Thank you so much!

ASHLEY: Huzzah!

LAURA: I love him.

ORION: He sent me this?

TRAVIS: Grand merci.

MATT: Yeah.

ZAC: That was actually for Matt, and I wasn’t going to call it out on screen.

ORION: Well, I’m keeping it.

MATT: I think you should keep it. It has a dragon.

ZAC: I got in trouble for saying it was yours.

ORION: Yeah. That’s fine.

MATT: I think the mouse is actually– Keyleth, so the staff–

ZAC: I’m not sure. Those were sent from– The mouse and the bear were sent by somebody else, so just yell at me in the chatroom and tell me whose that is. Ben Funkinator won the first giveaway.

TALIESIN: Yay!

ZAC: And we are only like 23 away from another giveaway. And here’s the thing, guys, since that next giveaway is at 3,000, which is a huge, huge goal of ours, I’ll give away three signed photos and three signed books. Instead of one giveaway, we’ll do three giveaways to celebrate 3k. And I have notified some of the troops that we could possibly hit 3k subs, so they are on their way back to dance with us tonight. Some of our people. You guys don’t have to stay, but you’re more than welcome to, except I was told by Erika that if we hit 3k subs you have to dance Careless Whisper with her. That’s what Erika told me, she was like–

TRAVIS: Without your shirt on.

ZAC: That has to happen if we hit 3k.

ORION: All right, how many are we away from that?

ZAC: We’re only, like, 23 away.

ASHLEY: That’s fair.

MATT: I will say if we’re pushing to go to a dance party after this, since this is maybe a climatic, slightly overtime game, then we got to take a very short break.

TRAVIS: Yeah yeah. Like five minutes max.

MATT AND ZAC: Five-minute break.

MATT: See you guys here in a second.

ORION: Let’s go.

[dramatic music]

Part II
MATT: Welcome back!

ZAC: Cool. Good game. Good game, bro.

MATT: Yeah, we hit 3,000 on the break!

(cheering)

ZAC: Yeah, that’s impressive! You guys are awesome! So to enter in the giveaway you just have to be active in the chatroom. It could be as simple as just posting: 'I love Zac, he’s great!’ That’s all you have to write.

LAURA: Or Vex. Whoever.

ZAC: Or other people in the show, it’s fine, whatever. So just be active in the chat room. I’m going to go! I’m going to let these guys do their thing. I don’t want to give you guys any more interruptions until the show is over, so enjoy. Just watch the chat room for giveaways! Thank you!

MATT: So, back to the game at hand. You all, after an evening of taking turns resting the best you can, nothing catches your eye, although occasionally you see a little bit of movement, very slow movement just outside of your main light radius along the edge of the top of the pit you guys slept in. Just kind of fade in and out, something just drifted away. Eventually you all come to. Your Fomorian friend is just sitting there in a very unfriendly, aggressively passive manner, just staring at the rest of the group. Expectantly.

TRAVIS: I offer him a sip from the cask of ale.

MATT: He takes it in his hand. Which to him looks like a small mug.

TRAVIS: Right, just a sip.

LAURA: Oh, he’s going to drink the whole cask down?

ASHLEY: He’s going to drink the whole cask.

MATT: He peels the top of it off, breaking the wood.

TRAVIS: Don’t do this to me. Don’t do it.

MATT: (gulps)

TRAVIS: I will fucking kill you!

MATT: (shattering noise)

LAURA: Oh!

TRAVIS: I would like–

ALL: Grog! No no no!

ASHLEY: Grog, we’ll give you a whole thing of it!

LAURA: He’s so happy!

ORION: Look, Grog! And I cast Prestidigitation and I make fart noises. (fart noises)

LAURA: Oh look! He’s farting!

ORION: Oh look, I’m farting!

LIAM: Scanlan, start tap dancing!

MARISHA: Oh no!

MATT: Make a wisdom saving throw.

ASHLEY: Grog, are you crying?

TRAVIS: (grunts) 12!

MATT: Should you choose to, you manage to resist the urge to fly into a rage and smash your axe into the face of this entity.

ORION: (makes fart noises)

MATT: You bite your lips, you can taste the blood in your mouth.

LAURA: Oh Tiberius! Some farts! Look at those farts!

ORION: I figured he’d like that.

TRAVIS: I run up his fat chest and I headbutt him in the face!

SAM: Oh shit!

MATT: Okay!

TRAVIS: It’s my cask of ale!

MATT: As Grog rushes up in a blur of angry motion, you see a trail of froth in the corners of his mouth as his head comes colliding into the giant. I’m going to say for this, go ahead and make an athletics check.

LIAM: Tune in for the beholder fight three weeks from today!

TRAVIS: Natural 20!

ASHLEY: Oh shit.

MATT: Can you check for me?

ASHLEY: That is a natural 20.

TRAVIS: You don’t fuck with Grog’s cask of ale!

ASHLEY: Clerics don’t lie.

SAM: Oh God, that’s our giant.

LIAM: He’s being true to himself.

ASHLEY: And he’s dead.

TRAVIS: Hey, it might be like a Fomorian thing! He might like it!

MARISHA: Oh God. Can I do something?

MATT: So, as Grog runs up, full-force angrily slams his goliath-skull into this large Fomorian Underdark giant, you hear what sounds like a clap of thunder nearby, and you swear for a second, one of the two heads are about to crack or explode from the sheer force of the impact. You see Grog, whose head is approximately a fifth the size of this entity, has hit it with force so strong that in that breathless moment you’re waiting for Grog to scream out in pain with blood pouring down his face. However, it is the Fomorian who reels back from the force of the blow, his giant eye closing in severe pain before he falls onto his back. Stunned. (groans)

TRAVIS: You owe me a cask of ale.

MATT: As Grog stands over staring down at it, it’s only partially reminiscent– and in your fury you didn’t realize that you shouted at it in Giant. It looks up at you and gives you a nod of momentary submission, as you step off of its body onto the ground walking away extremely furious.

TRAVIS: I’m grieving now. Leave me be.

LAURA: Oh my God.

MATT: Well, that happened.

ASHLEY: Amazing.

LIAM: Crisis averted.

ASHLEY: I go over and pat him on the shoulder.

TRAVIS: (tearfully) My cask of ale!

ASHLEY: It’s okay, Grog! I’ll get you ten casks of ale!

TRAVIS: All right.

ASHLEY: Once we– If we live.

TRAVIS I have allergies down here.

ORION: I pick up a piece of the cask, I take my wheel out (whizzing noises).

LAURA: What are you doing?

LIAM: He’s mending the cask.

MATT: The Mending Wheel continues its process.

TRAVIS: I’ve had that cask for two years, man!

MATT: The Mending Wheel completely forms it into a pure, untouched, perfect, empty cask.

TRAVIS: Thank you, Tiberius.

SAM: We will fill that cask with ale.

LIAM: There’s your woobie. You can sleep again.

SAM: This is a promise cask.

TRAVIS: Thank you. Woobie it is. Henceforth it shall be called Woobie.

LAURA: Good Job, Tiberius.

ORION: I was trying to tell you that before you hit the creature, but it worked out.

SAM: All right, shall some of us stealth ahead to the temple to see what we can see or should we set out on foot as well?

LAURA: Wait! Do you want to do his foot first?

LIAM: I was just about to say, does this look normal to you?

LAURA: (groans) Oh, come on!

(laughter)

LIAM: You know, I’ve got a lot of flexibility back and it feels stronger, but it doesn’t look quite right.

LAURA: It looks disgusting!

ASHLEY: All right! All right! Let’s do it! So I have to roll medicine?

MATT: You roll medicine and what level healing you want to use.

ASHLEY: We’re going to rest?

MATT: You guys just rested. Everyone’s spells are back at full.

ASHLEY: Oh, we just rested. Shit.

MATT: Just keep in mind what spells you want to have prepared, and keep in mind what may be ahead of you. So be sparing, I recommend.

LAURA: Ugh, get it out of my face!

SAM: Yeah, it’s just a foot. Don’t go crazy with it, Pike.

LIAM: I just want to be able to sneak better.

ASHLEY: How do we know how much is left on– We don’t?

MATT: It looks like it’s had advancement.

LIAM: This is like the fourth time we’ve done this.

ASHLEY: So, 20 for medicine.

MATT: Rolled 20 for medicine?

ASHLEY: Yeah.

MATT: All right, and what level healing spell are you going to use? Just keep in mind the battle you may have ahead of you.

ASHLEY: I know. Shit, I don’t know what level to do it at. Since we’re going to the whole thing.

LAURA: Do it level one.

ASHLEY: Level one?

LAURA: Sorry, brother.

MATT: So 1d8 plus five.

ASHLEY: All right.

MATT: Mark off a level one spell casting.

LAURA: It’s almost healed.

ASHLEY: I’m sorry.

LAURA: We got a big battle, brother. Shouldn’t have fallen asleep in that–

ASHLEY: Ten.

MATT: Okay. So, that, and the medicine check, part of the scarring from the lava burns that still remains, begin to heal over. Most of the scars are gone. You’re on the cusp of getting past your disadvantage, but not quite yet.

LIAM: It’s not nothing.

LAURA: Sorry, your nubbin lives.

MATT: All right. What’s the plan?

SAM: Yes, what is the plan? Are some of us setting out on foot or are we just sending–

TRAVIS: Yes. The stealthiest of the stealthy go.

SAM: On foot.

LAURA: No no no. On the carpet.

SAM: On the carpet, okay.

TRAVIS: Yeah. A little recon and then we–

SAM: Just recon.

TRAVIS: Yeah.

SAM: All right, I’m with you.

MARISHA: I go ahead and cast Enhance Ability for dexterity on Scanlan over here.

SAM: What does it do?

MATT: Gives you advantage on your dexterity checks.

TRAVIS: Is it just dexterity you can enhance, or anything?

MATT: No, and skills that are dexterity-based. So stealth would have an advantage, which is nice. All right, so, we have Scanlan. There we go. Look at these guys here on the new carpet.

LAURA: That’s adorable.

MARISHA: New carpet!

ASHLEY: That’s awesome.

MARISHA: It’s advantage. You get to roll twice.

MATT: So, as you guys hold place. The two of you drift into the air.

LAURA: Be careful!

SAM: It’s just us two?

MATT: Just the two of you.

SAM: Farewell, Pike. I’ll miss you.

ASHLEY: (sings) Goodbye my love!

SAM: What? My love?

ASHLEY: No, no. I– Well, it’s from a movie that I saw.

ORION: Pike, what is a movie?

LIAM: Like a puppet show?

ASHLEY: Oh, it’s just like flashing pictures that all move together.

ORION: Oh, like light! Like that?

TRAVIS: It flashes?

ASHLEY: It flashes.

SAM: All right, off we go.

MATT: The two of you hop onto the carpet and begin to slowly ride up past the treetops of the nearby fungal forest. As you curve upward into the air–

SAM: (sings) I can show you the world.

MATT: – you get a very fine view of the city proper. You can see a lot of these buildings in the outskirts of the city are rubble. They have fallen in on themselves. They have collapsed. You can see pieces of foundation and ceilings and rooftops that have caved in. And right in the center of the city is a very easy-to-see temple. Which, in itself, is essentially a pyramid with a flattened top. There is that dull, greenish glow that seems to just slowly trickle around the very top of the temple. As you are just starting to crest over the top of the outskirts of the city proper, I’d say about here. Are you guys going over the city? Are you following the outskirts? What’s your plan of recon? You guys are currently now moving this way.

LAURA: Plan? What’s that?

SAM: I leave it to you.

LIAM: Well, we’re moving pretty fast. I say we go all around the rim of the city.

MATT: All right. Both of you roll stealth. With advantage.

LIAM: Advantage, you said?

MATT: He has advantage.

LIAM: I got a 14.

SAM: 18.

MATT: 14, 18. Okay. So, you guys begin to crest around, and you look down and it’s very, very dark. There are what looks like these greenish spores that found pockets in the city that give off light. This very, very faint luminescence within the city, and they get thicker and thicker and cluster and make the center of the city more bright and easier to make out the details of. You don’t know if these were placed there or if they naturally grew there and just add the ambiance to it. But what you see in that little bit of light as you glance down are many figures walking and moving through the city.

LIAM: What figures?

MATT AND SAM: Many figures.

MATT: You can see humanoid-sized individuals gliding through the city. 20, 30, 50 illithid visible in one section of the city. Each carrying two to three slaves each. Some trolls, ogres, other dwarves, other creatures of the Underdark that at this distance you cannot make out their form, but there is, essentially, a thriving community down here of mind flayers. Some of them, it’s hard to tell where they’re going but there are some going to and from the temple carrying small satchels or boxes. As they glide– Or, actually, they wouldn’t be carrying it. Their slaves would be carrying for them and they’re keeping alongside them. As you continue around the side here, you start getting more into the ruined area and this part of the town itself, on this side, is mostly nonfunctional. It’s abandoned and you can see the repurposed city construction by his colony has started in the center and over the past few hundred years or as long as it’s been here, it’s slowly building and repairing outward. As you crest around this side, you can see a far ruin about another half mile to a mile off from where you are, too far away to catch any details of it. You cruise around this side, and you hear this squeaking sound, this (squeaks), and you glance up, and you see what looks like a cluster of bats moving to the top of the cavern. They’re almost buzzing you guys in the head, up above, ten, 20 feet ahead of you, they’re just coming back and forth over you.

TRAVIS: Sentries?

ASHLEY: Yeah, sentry bats.

MATT: You guys take it a little lower to kind of get away from that. Eventually the bats stop harrowing you. You find your way back around. Come to rest back at the camp.

LAURA: Well?

LIAM: And just to clarify, the part where we saw all the illithid figures was on the opposite side, right?

MATT: It was around this section, here. You saw, in this portion of the city, which is the only one example. The best you can see around this, this whole intersection right around the temple is pretty fairly populated with mind flayers and their slaves.

LIAM: (voice breaks) So the–

TRAVIS: Puberty’s a bitch.

LIAM: (voice breaks) Yes. Well, I’m only 62.

SAM: We need that big brain on our side?

LIAM: Yeah, the city is crawling with illithid. But more on the northern edge, not so much here on the side. And it’s a lot. It’s not a few, it’s a lot.

LAURA: It’s a city. We need the Elder Brain.

LIAM: We need a distraction, though. That’s the only thing I took away from what we saw.

SAM: Unless we all go in from the top.

TRAVIS: Tiny and I had a meeting of the minds. We could provide a distraction.

LAURA: You wanna go against illithid?

TRAVIS: I don’t give a shit.

TALIESIN: He does not want to go against illithid.

TRAVIS: Chaotic Neutral, baby!

LIAM: Yeah, but they’re going to take you over, big guy.

LAURA: They’ll take you over and then we’ll fight you.

LIAM: Here’s what I think is better. We take Tiny, transform him into a mouse. We fly over, just when we’re over the right part of the city, flick him in the mouse nuts, and toss him off. And then let him turn him back into Tiny, as he falls into a pile of illithid and keeps them busy. We need to draw as much attention away from the beholder as possible.

LAURA: I like it.

TALIESIN AND MARISHA: I like it.

SAM: What will we be doing in the meantime?

LAURA: We’ll be going in over the top, trying to get rid of the thing controlling the Elder Brain.

ORION: We do not want that.

TRAVIS: Yeah, there’s going to be collateral damage.

ORION: No, I like the first half of that idea, Vax.

LIAM: The nut-flicking part?

ORION: No. That idea will work as well, too. I think what we should do is do the mouse thing. Whoever– I guess we make the effort to go in, however we can manage, to get into the top of wherever we are going to attack those beams, as it were, to do damage to the thing controlling whatever.

LAURA: Yes?

ORION: That’s when we should lightly drop him in as a mouse. Because when this takes enough damage, which he should, as a mouse, the spell will wear off. And he would poof back into whatever. We should do it right on the beholder.

LAURA: Actually, I agree with that.

ORION: Because that, I think, would be more a distraction for the creature. A beast against a nasty beast is always a good fight.

LAURA: If he’s being controlled by you, can he not be controlled by another being?

MARISHA: It probably would be a contest of wills.

LIAM: And he could turn the thing on us pretty easily, I’m willing to believe.

MARISHA: Well, what if we– How about this, why don’t we turn him into a mouse and we can just keep him as our, you know, emergency pocket mouse, and whenever, if we need a quick distraction, then we flick him in his mouse nuts and drop him over and–

TALIESIN: His poor mouse nuts.

LAURA: I like it.

ORION: We need all the people in the town alive. Clarota will be upset if we hurt anybody and we need their aid. I suggest, because I have a feeling that because this is his lair, he will have, and I’m talking about K'Varn, he will have advantages that we do not understand. If we go in. And we will have disadvantages.

TRAVIS: We don’t want to go in.

ORION: Exactly.

LIAM: We’re all open to an idea to get him out. Have you got one?

ORION: I’m saying, that is why. So if we threw our rather large friend here in, and do the thing, that will get us control and Clarota can help us manage everyone in the town. Even the slaves will rally.

LAURA: They don’t like Clarota. They aren’t going to listen to Clarota, especially if they’re controlled by another being.

TRAVIS: Yeah, they did exile him.

MATT: Clarota puts the thought in your mind immediately, basically, this very strong realization that, “Without the town freed, I have no leverage with my people.”

ORION: That’s what I’m saying. After we’ve destroyed the mechanism.

TALIESIN: Yes, that’s the plan.

MARISHA: After we’ve destroyed the mechanism, yeah.

ORION: Right. That’s why we cannot attack the town.

TRAVIS: So are we saying we want to go up to the top, we want to try and weaken the cross with the yellow and the acid, we want to drop Titmouse, the giant, on the thing, hopefully, if it breaks. If it doesn’t break, then what do we do?

SAM: We Rage.

(laughter)

LIAM: And also, I don’t understand, we’re talking about crashing the thing. But aren’t we risking, at least, risking dropping the upside-down pyramid onto the Elder Brain?

MARISHA: That’s why I was saying if we can–

LAURA: We’re going to tie a chain to it.

MARISHA: I think if we tie a chain to it, I think we break the beams and then air-evac it out, personally.

TALIESIN: I think it might be too heavy.

SAM: Evacuate it via air.

LAURA: I feel like that uses way more time because what’s going to happen is once it happens, it’s all going to go to shit. So once we drop it, we should probably just fucking go.

MARISHA: Well then, how about this? Why don’t we concentrate, instead of– Because okay, it’s a middle cross beam thing, right? Why don’t, instead of focusing on the middle section, we focus just on two sides, so it goes.

TALIESIN: That’s a good idea.

SAM: May I throw a wrinkle into things? Those bats didn’t look good. Those are eyes that he’s using to watch things above. So we gotta get through the bats first. Or distract the bats, or get rid of the bats.

ORION: Bats will be a problem. Bats catch fire rather quickly, if I recall.

LAURA: Maybe, Keyleth, you could turn into a bat and tell them all to go a different direction.

MARISHA: I can talk to the bats or I can Dominate a bat. I could talk to the bats.

TALIESIN: This is assuming the bats are going to be a problem.

LAURA: If it comes up, we’ll deal with it. How about that?

MARISHA: I’ll make sure I can talk to the bats.

TALIESIN: I’m not afraid of bats.

SAM: No no no. The bats will ruin our element of surprise.

LAURA: None of this is a surprise.

TALIESIN: Do we have, really, an element of surprise at this point?

LAURA: None of it’s a surprise. He knows we’re here.

ASHLEY: Onward, ho?

TALIESIN: Onward, ho.

TRAVIS: Let’s do it.

SAM: We don’t even know what we’re doing.

TRAVIS: Quit tip-toeing into the ocean, let’s run into this.

MATT: Kima has finished wrapping the leather on the handle of the great maul that she’s holding. Grasps it in her hands, her armor freshly polished after waking up this morning. Looks at the rest of you and says, “Are you ready to walk into the great halls of the warrior minds before us?”

ORION AND MARISHA: No.

ASHLEY: Do you have any ideas, real quick. Or were you hearing anything we were saying? Kima? I just mean there’s a lot of ideas thrown out, but do you have any idea, specifically?

TALIESIN: Do you have anything to contribute?

MATT: Kima looks at you for a second, and pulls her own holy symbol out and says, “The guidance of Bahamut has not steered me astray, as of yet. And your deity also has brought you down here for a great cause. I think, as long as they’re both looking over us, and we are straight and true with our intent, we shall be fine. As far as the tactics, they seem sound, as long as we can maintain the element of surprise. I feel that if that is given up, we may have to improvise. Improvisation scares me.”

LAURA: Okay, okay.

MATT: “So everything we can possibly do to maintain a very quiet arrival is going to be the key to success in this.”

SAM: So that’s either a distraction or taking care of bats.

MARISHA: I mean, I could Fog Cloud us. We could look like a big, floating cloud.

SAM: Yeah, but if we float, then we’re going to float right through the fog.

LAURA: What if we use a giant net and two of us get up on the carpet and we use a big net and catch as many bats as we can.

MATT: “Does anyone have a net?”

LAURA: Do we have a net?

TALIESIN: We do have a giant piece of leather that makes us look like rock.

SAM: Grog had Annette, back in Emon. She was great.

LIAM: I still think we should drop Tiny on top of the– or at least, near the main illithid encampment to keep them busy. K'Varn’s eye will turn there for a moment.

TALIESIN: We can– And we can attach the camouflage back onto the flying carpet.

SAM: We have camouflage?

TALIESIN: We do.

MATT: Clarota motions for a second and says, “We also have to consider this temple has doorways in and out. This chamber that K'Varn has taken has ways to be opened and outside forces in. Do we have a way to seal these entrances if we are to do this fight, so we don’t have any additional visitors?”

LAURA: Oh, good call. Great. Do you know where those entrances are?

MATT: K'Varn thinks for a second and says–

LAURA: Your name’s Clarota. I’m sorry.

MATT: “There are, if I recall, two doors to the room. Not large.”

TRAVIS: He doesn’t need doors, right? He can make portals and shit?

SAM: No no. He’ll need a door to let in other people.

MARISHA: Well, here’s the thing are we trying to actually– We’re not trying to get inside the temple.

SAM: Yeah, we are.

TRAVIS: No, we’re trying to keep him from calling in a fucking dragon or something. He can’t Dimension Door in a dragon and be like, “Just kidding.”

TALIESIN: He can call every single creature in the city to come to his aid.

TRAVIS: But he can’t–

TALIESIN: More than enough to deal with us.

MATT: “Not if you damage the device.”

LAURA: We can just drop things in from above on the temple and stay out of the temple.

MATT: “If the device is damaged, he no longer has sway over the illithid.”

TALIESIN: So then we want people to come into the temple at that point.

MATT: “Perhaps.”

ORION: No, that’s when we get out and smoke him out.

TALIESIN: We’re not going to set him on fire.

LAURA: Maybe just give up on the smoking out?

TRAVIS: I think hotboxing is now– No?

LIAM: Yeah.

ASHLEY: If I were to use Divination soon, how long does that last?

MATT: Divination.

LAURA: Is that the one where you call your deity?

MATT: Oh, you mean Divine Inspiration?

ASHLEY: Divine Inspiration, I’m sorry.

MATT: That happens the moment you use it.

ASHLEY: It happens the moment you use it.

MATT: Yes.

ASHLEY: Okay.

LAURA: So we would know if she’s going to help us? Or would she help us that moment?

MATT: It’s not so much, “Hey god, come with me.” It’s more like, “Please help me right now.” Something may happen that turns the tide.

ASHLEY: So is that something, just a question, that I would do now or maybe in the battle?

MATT: Maybe in the battle.

ASHLEY: Okay.

MATT: Like, the moment you need the help is the moment it will happen, most likely.

ASHLEY: Let’s do that. All right. Just was having a moment with god, for a minute, guys. Sorry, I’m back.

SAM: Can we– Before we make this journey, can we sound off who’s on what duty?

LAURA: Right.

SAM: Who’s on damaging-the-device duty, who’s on–

TRAVIS: I could give the four acid vials to whoever has the yellow liquid who wants that responsibility.

TALIESIN: I’ll take–

ASHLEY: I feel like we should use some of that, though, for the beholder.

TALIESIN: I want to save as much of it for the beholder as possible.

ASHLEY: Okay.

TRAVIS: The yellow liquid?

TALIESIN: Yes.

TRAVIS: So who wants to pour the acid on the cross? I could do that, but it’s–

LAURA: Percy– Well, are you going up top?

TRAVIS: I’m at everybody’s disposal.

TALIESIN: I’m going to head up top. Also, in the fight, I’ll be more use from a distance anyway.

SAM: Who’s on the shutting-off-those-doors duty? Is that a thing that we need to assign to someone?

MARISHA: Could you fashion–

LAURA: That could be Keyleth.

MARISHA: – like a paintball?

SAM: That could be you, but you’re not going to be there. You’ll still stay behind?

LAURA: Yeah, you guys, could you guys be in charge of closing up the entrances?

TALIESIN: Do we have any spare glass vials?

TRAVIS: We do.

TALIESIN: Can I have one?

TRAVIS: Yeah. I give him a glass vial.

MARISHA: Well, I’m flying people overtop, I’m assuming.

TALIESIN: Can I have a spare arrow? Vex?

MARISHA: I think we should all be on top together. I don’t think we should try and separate.

TALIESIN: Can I borrow a spare arrow?

LAURA: Sure.

MARISHA: A sparrow.

TALIESIN: A sparrow.

LAURA: Here you are.

TALIESIN: I have a second, I want to see if I can make a crude acid arrow out of a glass vial.

LAURA: Take it, give it to me after it’s done.

TALIESIN: It’s a Shatter, a straight up Shatter arrow.

MATT: Because of the rushed nature of this, go ahead and make a roll.

TALIESIN: It’s a Proficiency bonus, plus–

SAM: I will inspire him.

TALIESIN: Thank you, please.

SAM: (sings) Everything is awesome!

SAM AND TALIESIN: (sings) Everything is cool when you’re making an arrow!

MATT: Roll a d10, add it to the roll.

TALIESIN: Ah, thank you. Oh my god.

MARISHA: Aw.

TALIESIN: Yeah, nine.

MATT: Nine? As you’re attempting to fashion it to the arrow, unfortunately, the vial shatters in your hand. You take three points of acid damage.

TALIESIN: Ow. I wasn’t– Aw, I wouldn’t have put the acid in yet. Okay, fine.

MATT: It happens at the process of you setting it up.

TALIESIN: Damn it. All right.

MATT: Based on the roll you made.

TALIESIN: I’m having bad rolls for this stuff, man.

MATT: Better to get them out of the way now, then.

TALIESIN: So that didn’t work.

LAURA: Damn it. Good try. Good try, Percy.

MARISHA: I’m trying to figure out a way we could just conserve the acid, like if I could–

TALIESIN: I’m just going to pour very gingerly.

MARISHA: Okay, yeah.

TALIESIN: I’m going to just pay attention.

MARISHA: Okay, try it gingerly.

SAM: And when he attacks us, what do we do?

LAURA: Okay, yes. Good– Good thinking.

MARISHA: Are we going to fight him now or are we going to try and run? Are we going to try and lure our way–

LAURA: Stay up top as long as possible?

ORION: If you’re talking about fighting K'Varn in his lair, when he attacks you–

LAURA: We’re not going into– What if we can just attack from the roof? From the opening in the roof.

LIAM: Your plan is to lead the charge into K'Varn’s lair. That’s what you’re saying. Do I have that correctly?

(laughter)

ORION: Absolutely not, Vax.

LAURA: Is that possible? Can we attack from the roof, from the opening in the ceiling? Can we attack him from up there? We don’t have to go in.

ORION: Possibly, yes.

MATT: Kima gives a nod to that and is like, “I’m useless at that range, but we have a few members of the party that excel at that.”

LAURA: Maybe we drop the thing, attack from above as long as possible, and hope the illithid attack him.

TRAVIS: Sorry. One last question. So his eye cancels out magic, right?

TALIESIN: Yeah.

TRAVIS: So the more places we make him look, the more of a chance we have to get it away from the magic users, right?

LAURA AND TALIESIN: Yes.

TRAVIS: So instead of just two people, why don’t we do all three? If there are two doors, and the skylight, why don’t we have three teams so he has to pick which one he looks at?

LAURA: Nobody go in the temple, everybody attack from outside.

TRAVIS: I mean, I can take one of the doors at the bottom and try and keep people from coming in.

TALIESIN: That’s a really– That’s a really good idea, actually.

MATT: Clarota pipes up and says, “The two other doors are accessible from only within the temple. If you had two parties to enter the two other doors, they would have to go through the entire subfloor, find a way up, which you’re welcome to try, but who knows.”

LAURA: Oh, I was thinking it was just like a giant pyramid, with one roof.

(laughter)

ORION: That would be the best-case scenario.

LAURA: That makes so much sense, though, that it’s not.

(laughter)

TALIESIN: To be fair, traditionally, that’s very similar to how pyramids are built.

TRAVIS: Okay, what else were you going to say?

MATT: That was all Clarota had to add to that.

TALIESIN: It was a good thought.

MARISHA: We could still take a similar approach and just have– We’ve already decided we’re going to have two teams to be on two separate ends to do the slidey– The hingey maneuver. And then have a third team that’s K'Varn distraction duty.

LAURA: Yeah. Oh god.

ASHLEY: Do we do distraction duty? Maybe people who have really high–

LAURA: So this is the beam. And we’re going to attack this one and this one, yeah?

MARISHA: Right, so if–

SAM: We’re effed.

MARISHA: So we’ve got this pyramid. And there’s this cross beam, you said, right Matt?

MATT: Yep.

LAURA: Oh, is it like that? Oh god, I’m picturing it so fucking different.

MARISHA: And there’s this top of it, which is open.

LAURA: Okay.

MARISHA: So this is the pyramid.

LAURA: Yeah yeah yeah.

MARISHA: You can see. And then the thing is, if you can see through it, the thing is hanging down.

LAURA: Like that.

MARISHA: And it looks, it’s all spirally.

LAURA: Okay.

MARISHA: And then here is–

LAURA: The Elder Brain.

MARISHA: The Elder Brain.

ORION: And where’s beholder-face?

MARISHA: Somewhere in here!

LAURA: So we’re going for one side of it.

MARISHA: So if we go for–

LAURA: And it hopefully goes–

TALIESIN: I’m just going to keep breaking– I’m just going to keep breaking hinges until it swings.

LAURA: Okay.

TRAVIS: Is anybody interested in going underneath the pyramid with me?

TALIESIN: You? Technically, you could really go underneath it.

LAURA: I feel like you’ll be fighting a lot more things. I think it’s better to just go from the top, and drop in if we have to.

TRAVIS: Okay.

MARISHA: Drop in if we have to and, yeah.

TRAVIS: And just scatter to different areas so he has to look around.

TALIESIN: Keep him looking around.

TRAVIS: We can’t stay together.

TALIESIN: And remember that, if you don’t use magic, and especially you have one magic attack, don’t try and use magic when the main eye is on you.

TRAVIS: No no. Yeah. Butthole only.

ASHLEY: All right. Are we going up?

TALIESIN: Let’s. I think we should try this.

MARISHA: So, okay okay, hang on. What happens if this starts going poorly?

LAURA: Then we run.

TRAVIS: Which it’s bound to do.

LAURA: We run away.

ORION: Actually, if everything starts going amiss, I will make the call. Follow me and I will get out of here as soon as possible.

LAURA: How will we follow you if you’re on a carpet and we’re standing on a thing, and–

MARISHA: Or if you’re dead?

TRAVIS: Yeah, we’re all in different places.

ORION: If I’m dead, then I’m afraid none of you will survive.

TRAVIS: But if we’re all around the room, let’s say we’ve got in there and it’s fallen off and we’re all around the thing. You can’t all whip us out of there. We have to be in one area, right?

ORION: What?

LAURA: Yeah, okay.

ASHLEY: We all have to be in one area.

ORION: We have to be on the carpet? Is that a carpet joke?

TRAVIS: No no no. I was asking, you can’t teleport a room out, we have to be together, right?

ORION: I can make a portal that we can all step in and bamf to–

TRAVIS: But we have to be near you, right?

ORION: We have to be where I cast it, yes. Yeah.

TALIESIN: So if he makes the portal, you have to get to the portal.

ORION: Yes.

TRAVIS: We might not have that luxury.

TALIESIN: We might not.

MARISHA: Should we have a safe location?

TRAVIS: Should we have a run-away word, a safety word, like Oklahoma, or something?

TALIESIN: How about “Oh god, we’re all going to die. Run away, run away right now. My god, my god, we’re all going to die”?

ORION: Oh, Percy, yes. I believe it’s this.

TALIESIN: Yes, we’ll do this.

ORION: I’ll do the signal.

SAM: Just to clarify.

TRAVIS: Yeah.

SAM: Before we go. I am dropping a giant mouse in there, right?

LAURA AND TALIESIN: Yes.

TRAVIS: You are.

SAM: Okay.

ASHLEY: Going up on a Thursday!

LAURA: Oh god. Okay, so, are we doing it?

SAM: Come on, let’s go have some fun!

TALIESIN: He’s just sitting here, laughing.

MATT: Kima lobs her maul on her shoulder and gives you a look and says, “Yes, this day we save Kraghammer, Cliffkeep Mountains, and quite possibly, the future of Tal'Dorei. But if we fall, others will come to try and finish our journey.”

SAM: Good pep talk.

MATT: “Either way, we do this as heroes, we do this together, for Vox Machina.”

SAM: Ooh.

MATT: She puts her hand out in the center.

SAM: Oh, Kima. Clarota, are you going to put your–

MATT: Clarota slowly hovers towards the center.

LAURA: Yeah, Clarota.

ASHLEY: And Trinket?

MATT: These terrible, long, lanky fingers almost wrap around the cluster of hands at the top. Cold and nasty. Trinket comes up and nuzzles in the center.

LAURA: Oh, good.

MATT: Kima, once more, says, “For Vox Machina!”

ALL: Vox Machina!

SAM: We’re a well-oiled machine.

LIAM: Let’s go do the stupidest thing we’ve ever done.

MARISHA: Grog, what are you thinking over there?

SAM: How are we getting there?

TRAVIS: So, one problem is– We’re still coming in–

SAM: (groans)

TRAVIS: I know, I know. We’re all still coming in through one area, though. It’s like the fatal funnel. It’s like a doorway. If you all come in through the doorway, you’re all in one spot.

SAM: It’s also an easy way out.

MARISHA: It worked for the Spartans in that awesome 300 comic.

TRAVIS: This guy has, like, 12 dick-finger eyes. It’s all bad. It’s all bad.

ASHLEY: Dick-finger eyes?

TRAVIS: All right.

MARISHA: Shut up. It was awesome in the comic.

MATT: So, what is the process, here?

ASHLEY: What is the plan?

LAURA: Question. When you guys were flying overhead, the top of the temple is wide enough for us to stand on, yeah?

MARISHA: It’s got a massive cross beam supporting a giant arch structure.

MATT: It’s about, I’d say, 20 foot by 20 foot.

ORION: So yes.

MATT: So it’s a pretty wide square. Enough for all you guys.

LAURA: Can we stand on the wall of the temple?

MATT: Oh yeah, there’s like a five-foot wall on the edge.

LAURA: Okay, okay.

SAM: I have one more plan, just to throw it out there.

TRAVIS: I’m all ears.

SAM: Just occurred to me. It just occurred to me.

LAURA: Okay.

SAM: It could get us into the temple a different way, but not into the chamber.

TRAVIS: Okay.

SAM: I could make us all look like illithids.

TALIESIN: They’re psychic.

TRAVIS: He’ll read our minds. He’s already in our heads.

SAM: He could read our minds but we’ll be outside.

MATT: Clarota turns to you slowly and says, piercing in your mind with a force of honesty and almost condescending essence, “You will make it ten feet before the brain is pulled from your skull.”

ORION: So that’s a no.

SAM: Typically, it’s “Yes, and,” Clarota, but all right.

(laughter)

SAM: All right, all right. Good, then let’s just go divebomb with a big mouse.

TRAVIS: No, I– All right.

ASHLEY: This. Is. Vox Machina!

MARISHA: Yeah!

TALIESIN: We do have a thousand-foot Teleport.

MARISHA: I mean, Grog.

MATT: The Fomorian stands up.

TALIESIN: Grog, for ground forces we do have a thousand-foot Teleport. So we could actually bring you into the room.

MARISHA: If it gets to a point where we want to go in, I will go in underneath with you. I’ll do my earth elemental thing.

TRAVIS: Yeah, anything that’ll just split up where he looks. That’s all I wanna do.

MARISHA: I’ll go with you if it gets to that point.

TRAVIS: Okay.

MATT: The Fomorian stands up with his club and looks to you and says, in Undercommon, “What do you need?”

SAM: What are we telling the– Hey, hey! What are we telling the giant to do? Knock the cross or attack K'Varn?

LAURA: Attack the beholder when it’s dropped there.

MARISHA: Well, right now, you are going to be mouse.

TRAVIS: Good, good.

MARISHA: And then– Wait for me to finish my thought. Stay with me. And then, you fight K'Varn. You kill beholder.

LAURA: Eat. Food. Big eyeball.

MARISHA: Eat food. Yes, delicacy.

MATT: Licks the side of his giant club, which you can see is covered in this horrible mixture of moss and rotting entrails from whatever he smashed the other evening. Licks it off, and goes, “Eat. All right.” (grunts) Like slams his chest.

SAM: I make him a mouse.

(laughter)

ORION: There he is!

LAURA: Oh my gosh, Tiny, you’re tiny!

MATT: Most confused-looking mouse you’ve ever seen. If there could be an expression of, “What the fuck?” on a mouse, it’s on that one.

LAURA: He still smells really, really bad.

LIAM: Who’s throwing– Who’s throwing him?

LAURA: Oh, I’ll just keep him with me.

ASHLEY: I scratch him behind his ears.

SAM: All right, let’s go.

MATT: Who’s on the carpet?

LIAM: The way we always do it, don’t we? Don’t the gnomes fly–

LAURA: Yeah.

LIAM: Bird-style.

SAM: How does Grog get anywhere? I forget.

LAURA: Are we going to Polymorph Grog?

TRAVIS: No no. You Levitate me, right?

ORION: No, I cast Fly on him and I hop on his back.

MATT: All right.

(laughter)

MATT: I’ll allow it.

ORION: This time you can see.

TRAVIS: That’s true!

ORION: This should be a lot smoother.

LIAM: Okay, so Percy, Vex, Vax on the flying carpet.

LAURA: And Trinket.

MARISHA: I’ll be on the carpet.

SAM: Us too.

MATT: Trinket can’t be on the carpet. Trinket’s too heavy for the carpet.

LAURA: Can anybody shrink Trinket, too?

SAM: Is Trinket worth it?

(laughter)

LAURA: Scanlan. Scanlan.

SAM: There’s just a limited number of spells.

ORION: Oh no he didn’t.

TALIESIN: Wow.

SAM: Of course Trinket is worth it. I was saying– I was being Bizarro Scanlan.

LAURA: Yeah. Who can shrink my bear?

MATT: Keyleth, are you hawk, carrying the gnomes?

MARISHA: No, we’re all magic carpeting.

LIAM: No, we can’t all fit.

MATT: You can fit six people on the carpet.

LIAM: This is what we always do. You carry the gnomes–

LAURA: Can you cast Fly on Trinket and ride him? I’ll ride him, if somebody casts Fly on him.

MARISHA: Can we– Here’s the thing. If I turn into a hawk, I won’t be able to turn into an earth elemental.

TRAVIS: We don’t want to sacrifice that.

LAURA: No.

TALIESIN: Why don’t we– Is it possible to drop off a group and then go back and get the rest? A taxi?

TRAVIS: Yeah, why not? Can we make two trips?

ASHLEY: We have two carpets, now. Matt?

(laughter)

ASHLEY: We have two carpets, now.

MATT: No.

(laughter)

MATT: It doesn’t work that way.

ASHLEY: I tried.

TALIESIN: It was such a good try.

TRAVIS: We have– We have two carpets. Two carpets.

ASHLEY: We have two carpets.

MATT: Boulder falls, smashes party.

(laughter)

MATT: All right, so.

TRAVIS: We’re going to make two trips and come back for seconds. Okay.

ORION: Two trips, wait what? Why?

MATT: So, first shift is–

MARISHA: The stealthiest.

SAM: Don’t take offense, but we can leave Kima. She can’t do anything for us up here. She has no ranged attacks, she’s useless. In a sexy way.

LAURA: That’s not a compliment, Scanlan.

MATT: Kima looks you dead in the face and says, “Regardless of what your plans are, I’m bringing this hammer onto the head of that foul abomination.”

TRAVIS: Yeah, she means it.

ORION: Yes, of course, but outside, here with me.

MATT: “I know I will not survive this. But I will be damned if I don’t dent its face before I go.”

TALIESIN: Which is why we’re picking you up in the second group.

ORION: And, Lady Kima, you must survive. Because you must tell Allura of my deeds. For no particular reason.

TRAVIS: Yeah, it’s not like you’ll be there to collect.

MATT: “Noted.”

TRAVIS: On the, you know, props. If you die.

MATT: “Second trip. First, be quiet.”

TALIESIN: Yes. Stealth, stealth.

MARISHA: Stealth people first.

ASHLEY: Stealthy should go first, and that’s not me.

TRAVIS: And we’ll fly the carpet back.

LAURA: You promise you’ll take care of Trinket if I go–

TRAVIS: Right. So we’ll fly. And then we’ll fly the carpet back.

LAURA: Can Trinket go in a smaller group? He’ll fit on the carpet if there’s a smaller group?

MATT: Too heavy, unfortunately. It’s a big bear.

LIAM: How’s he going to get from the top of the pyramid down in? Maybe he should hide here and live to tell our story.

TRAVIS: He’s going to drop me off on the first trip, take Fly off of me, he’ll get on the carpet, come back for the second group, and Fly Trinket.

ORION: No, you’ll keep Fly up. Because I can just hop on the carpet.

TRAVIS: That’s what I mean, once I’m up on the temple, you take it off of me. And then you can put it on Trinket, because I’ll be chilling on the top.

LAURA: But that’s casting it twice.

ORION: I’m casting it twice.

TRAVIS: Which you can’t do?

ORION: But Trinket can get on the carpet.

LAURA: No, he can’t ride the carpet, we just said that.

TALIESIN: Trinket should stay with the boat as opposed to fighting the beholder.

ORION: He needs a diet.

TALIESIN: Those are your options, is Trinket fights a beholder, or Trinket stays.

MATT: As you’re having this discussion, Trinket comes over.

LAURA: Trinket.

MATT: Rubs his nose along you, and gives you a look of, like a very stern stance of, essentially, the feeling is Trinket wants to be by your side for this.

LAURA: Yeah, Trinket wants to be by my side, you guys.

TRAVIS: How the fuck do we get him up there?

ASHLEY: All right, who’s on the first carpet?

MARISHA: Someone’s burning a spell, or we’re going in shifts. One of the two.

TRAVIS: We are doing shifts, right?

TALIESIN: Yeah.

LAURA: We don’t need to if we burn a spell, because Trinket’s the one that can’t fit on the carpet in the first place. Everybody else can fit on, right?

MATT: Mm-hm.

MARISHA: So we’re picking one, rather. Polymorphing Trinket–

ORION: Wait a minute, hold on.

MARISHA: Or we’re casting Fly on him.

ORION: Hold on a tick. How much can you lift, Grog?

TRAVIS: I mean, I weight 645 pounds, so a lot.

ORION: So a shit-ton.

MATT: Grog is not strong enough to carry a bear and you on a Fly spell.

MARISHA: What if we cast Fly on the bear?

ORION: No no no. I mean one at a time.

ASHLEY: It’s a good idea, though.

SAM: We’re still doing shifts then.

MATT: You can try. There’s a good chance he might drop Trinket on the way over. From that height, which would be a splatter bear.

MARISHA: Can you cast Fly on Trinket and then have Grog ride Trinket?

SAM: It’s the same issue.

MARISHA: Is that the same problem?

ASHLEY: What if one of us ride Trinket?

LAURA: Well, but Grog won’t fit on the flying carpet. This is a really– This is like a mind puzzle.

MATT: Kind of, yeah.

ASHLEY: How long does it take to make the trip?

MATT: From flying over there on the carpet, at its full speed–

LIAM: Scanlan and I flew over there.

MATT: I’d say it’d take about 20 minutes or so.

LAURA: 20 minutes?

SAM: To fly a mile?

MATT: 15 minutes.

ORION: I cast Fly on Trinket.

MATT: The carpet isn’t extremely fast.

ORION: Oh, wait. And I’ll do that. I’ll wait, because I can only do it one at a time. So I’ll burn it for him.

TRAVIS: Okay.

ORION: Let’s go.

TRAVIS: Let’s do it.

SAM: Wait, what did you do?

ORION: I’ll burn it for Trinket. The Fly.

LAURA: So we can both Fly?

MARISHA: So we can all Fly?

ORION: Not right now. No.

MATT: All right. So.

ORION: We’ll go up first, then I’ll come back down with the carpet, I’ll cast Fly on him and whoever is–

MATT: So, first batch. Vex, Vax, Percy, Scanlan, Grog is flying. All right. Grog’s there.

SAM: You’re staying?

ORION: I’ll stay down with Trinket.

MARISHA: Who else can go, is there room for one more?

ORION: Because I don’t need to go up.

SAM: Oh, what are Kima and Clarota–

ASHLEY: They’re hanging out with Pike.

MATT: And, we’ll say Clarota will go with you guys because Clarota can stealth. Kima will stay back.

LAURA: I cast Pass Without a Trace on the entire party, before we all take off.

MATT: Good. All right. As you guys all continue forward. Let’s see. Keyleth, are you going with them?

MARISHA: No. I stay behind.

MATT: All right.

SAM: I’m going to, in front of us, using Minor Illusion, I’m just going to create a floating bald eagle thing to distract the bats with.

MATT: Okay.

SAM: It’s just flying around.

MATT: Everyone on the carpet make a stealth check. Clarota goes invisible.

TALIESIN: What’s the bonus for Pass Without a Trace?

ORION: Plus ten.

TRAVIS: 21.

SAM: Stealth isn’t dexterity, is it?

MATT: Hmm? Yes it is.

ORION: 23.

LAURA: And you add ten.

SAM: 23.

MATT: You add ten to it.

LIAM: 36.

TRAVIS: Oh, plus ten?

ORION: Yeah.

TRAVIS: 31.

MATT: There you go.

TALIESIN: 30.

LAURA: 18.

MATT: 18 total? All right.

TRAVIS: Still alive.

MATT: Okay. You guys make your way–

TRAVIS: He rolled three times.

MATT: – over to the temple.

SAM: The bats.

MATT: The bats don’t seem to take any notice of your passage. You find your way slowly coming towards the temple. That dull, eerie green glow towards the top. The carpet finds its way just along the edge to the point where you can safely step off on that little five-foot-wide section of walkway that surrounds the glass top. And you do see it. It is a relatively large, see-through, almost glass-like substance. It’s hard to say. It looks like glass. It’s about a good three inches thick, and the metal beams themselves are bolted into the stone itself.

TALIESIN: They’re bolted into the stone itself?

MATT: Yep.

TALIESIN: I would love to, while we’re here, very quietly examine–

SAM: Wait, when we’ve arrived, is anyone going back? No.

MARISHA: Yeah, people were dropping people off.

TALIESIN: Someone’s going back.

SAM: Who’s going back?

ORION: I’m staying on the carpet.

TALIESIN: So he’s going back.

SAM: And you’re going back to pick up the others?

MATT: And Grog slowly flies over and meets up with you guys.

LIAM: I thought you stayed back.

ORION: No, I had to go with you so I could take the carpet back.

ASHLEY: There’s enough room now, for the carpet to go back and take all of us?

ORION: So I can come back with the carpet.

MATT: Yeah.

ORION: Because they’re dropped off.

LAURA: Okay, so you dropped us off.

MATT: Did you roll a stealth check?

ORION: Shit.

LAURA: Oh no.

ORION: That’s 19.

LAURA: Plus ten?

ORION: Yeah.

MATT: Yeah. Okay.

ORION: Thank you.

MATT: So, you guys are left at that point, now.

TALIESIN: I want to examine the structure to see if I could find the optimal place and the weaknesses in the structure. Whether or not it’s more appropriate to pour the acid on the stone, whether it’s better to pour the acid on the metal. Just to see where it would be weakest, mathematically.

MATT: Go ahead and make a perception check. Actually no, this would be investigate.

TALIESIN: Investigate?

MATT: Yeah.

ORION: Before I leave to go back down, Vex?

LAURA: Yes.

ORION: When you see it, be sure to mark the beast.

TALIESIN: 19.

MATT: All right. You gather, best that you can, that the metal itself is essentially bolted overtop onto the stone. If you were to run the acid along where the metal is overlapping and bolted down on the top, that would weaken it significantly. The stone itself is not going to help much, but where that boundary is, where it’s essentially clamped, that area right there is going to be where you want it to put a bleed through and coat.

MARISHA: Awesome.

MATT: All right, are you going back for the others? All right. Are you guys just standing carefully on the edge?

LAURA: Are we waiting?

TRAVIS: We are definitely staying out of any kind of visible sight of the giant meatball.

MATT: Okay. All right. Tiberius, you head back?

ORION: Yep.

MATT: All right. Eventually grabbing the rest of the group here.

MARISHA: Can I go ahead and cast Pass Without a Trace on the rest of us?

MATT: All righty. Pass without a Trace, second time. Thank god.

(laughter)

MATT: You cast Fly on Trinket. Which is a hilarious sight. As this large, brown, armored bear, all of a sudden is like (confused bear noise). It takes a good–

ORION: Trinket, Trinket! Think of Vex. Go to Vex. Go to Vex. She’s up there.

MATT: As you say that, Trinket, suddenly, straightens trajectory a little bit and starts finding this awkward zig-zag.

LAURA: That’s so cute.

MATT: But nevertheless is finding some sort of purchase in this strange, flying environment. You can see, if a bear could have an expression, it’d be bewilderment, confusion, and slowly trickling into joy.

ORION: It’s very cool.

MARISHA: It’s so cute.

SAM: I’m flying!

MATT: As you all begin to drift back over towards the center of the city, if I can get a stealth check from everybody, including Trinket.

ASHLEY: And we get a plus ten?

MATT: Plus ten. Everybody on the second trip.

ORION: 23.

MATT: All right.

MARISHA: 34.

MATT: All right.

ASHLEY: 39.

MATT: All right. And for Trinket?

LAURA: Oh, um, yeah, that’s–

ASHLEY: Plus ten? 16.

LAURA: No, plus ten would be 11 because he rolled a one.

LIAM: I saw it.

SAM: “I’m flying!”

ORION: It’s your first time. It’s going to be a little rough.

MATT: As Trinket continues floating behind the carpet, you hear this familiar (bat squeaks)–

SAM: Bats.

MATT: – sound as a cluster of bats begin to descend from a darkened portion over the cavern. They’re about 60 feet back.

ORION: How far away is it from me?

MATT: About 60 feet.

TRAVIS: Don’t do it.

MARISHA: I turn, and I, seeing the bats come in, in bat language, in like, you know, echo (bat noises).

TALIESIN: The bats say, “What are you clicking at us?”

MARISHA: Echolocation. I tell the bats, don’t worry about it. Go home.

ASHLEY: Nothing to see here.

ORION: Forget about it.

LAURA: Forget about it.

MARISHA: We’re running an errand for K'Varn. Don’t worry about it.

MATT: Go make a persuasion check.

SAM: Persuade those bats.

LAURA: Inspiration, Inspiration!

SAM: I’m not with her. I don’t even know this is going on.

MATT: It doesn’t matter what you roll, you can’t persuade bats. They’re bats.

MARISHA: Oh, but I had a good roll.

MATT: I know, but you can’t persuade bats.

MARISHA: But I had a good roll.

MATT: But you can’t persuade bats.

ORION: I thought you said roll.

MATT: I was just fucking with her.

ORION: Oh.

MARISHA: I cast Speak with Animals. That’s what I cast. It was a spell.

MATT: Oh! I did not hear that. I thought you were just trying to do that.

(laughter)

MARISHA: No, I said I do this. I cast Speak with Animals.

MATT: I somehow missed that phrase or that never came up in the conversation. Anybody else hear Speak with Animals as a spell?

LAURA: I heard her say, “I cast–”

TALIESIN: I was looking at the page.

MATT: Okay, I missed that. Okay, so.

ORION: I think you said, “I cast Talk to Bats.”

MATT: So, what was your persuasion roll, then?

MARISHA: 18.

MATT: 18, okay. Okay, now this comes into play. Good. I somehow missed the spell. This was a really funny moment of Keyleth in my head, I was like, “What is– Okay.”

LIAM: Go home, bats!

(laughter)

LIAM: Go home.

TRAVIS: We all start going, “Go home, bats.”

MATT: Okay, the cluster of bats, you can see, there is this odd, green glow around them that is slightly reminiscent of the top of the temple. They seem to shudder in place as you’re giving off this strange series of squeaks and echo-based sounds. And they seem briefly rattled. As opposed to going away, they just stay in place as you guys drift further and further away.

ORION: Hmm, good.

MATT: You don’t know what that means, but–

SAM: It could be anything.

TRAVIS: Let’s do this.

MATT: You’re not getting chased. Eventually you guys come down. You’re now landing around the outskirts of this.

LIAM: He could be watching us, for all we know.

ORION: I stay on the carpet.

MATT: You stay on the carpet, all right. So.

TRAVIS: Oh, we’re so finished.

MATT: What are you doing? While they were off, what were you doing, there, Percy?

TALIESIN: I was examining and I’ve got four vials of acid.

MATT: Okay.

TALIESIN: I’ve got the three that we had, and then I’ve got the fourth, super– That’s a–

MARISHA: It’s really distracting.

TALIESIN: That’s an omen of things to come.

MARISHA: I hope so.

MATT: Who has the mouse, by the way?

LAURA: I have the mouse.

MATT: Okay.

TALIESIN: So, I’m going to start by taking our normal vials of acid and I’m going to pour very gingerly right at the sections I want to crack and start letting it burn.

LAURA: While we’re standing there, I pull out an arrow and I’m tying the little tiny mouse onto an arrow.

TRAVIS: And I also pull out my climbing equipment and my 200 feet of rope out of the Bag of Holding.

MATT: All right.

TRAVIS: And start putting the climbing gear on.

MATT: All right. Make a stealth check.

LAURA: Pass without a Trace.

TRAVIS: 23.

MATT: 23. Okay.

MARISHA: Does he get double Pass without a Trace?

MATT: You take– No.

ORION: Are there any jutting stone things, anywhere around? It’s just flat?

MATT: No, it’s smooth, stone surface surrounding this glass top. Percy, as you’ve placed the acid around the two sides, you kind of slowly move around and trickled along where the metal beams reach the stone. The acid is having an effect, but it’s a very slow–

TALIESIN: Okay, I’m going to take the major bottle of acid, and I’m just going to–

SAM: Before he does, can I– I’m going to just see if there’s any magic protecting these– the metal or the joints.

MATT: Arcana check.

ORION: I should do it, too.

SAM: 23.

MATT: I mean, there is a magical aura to the metal itself. It does not seem to be protective in nature. It is more of a, best you can tell, a transmutation-based magic. Probably something that is directly affiliated with how– The effect it’s having on the Elder Brain.

MARISHA: Well, do you want to work on one beam and I can maybe do a focused soldering on the other?

LAURA: Can anybody cast Dispel Magic?

SAM: Yeah, of course. But it doesn’t seem like the magic is protecting the metal.

TALIESIN: I’m going to just, I’m going to get the more intense acid. I’m going to just– I’m just going to use the tiniest bit. I want to maintain as much as I can. I want to start working on it.

MATT: You use a tiny bit and it does hit the metal with a (sizzle) and begins to dissolve the metal. But the actual metal material also balances the acid with a little bit. So essentially, you begin carving into it, but the little bit you use doesn’t keep burning through it. Burns to a certain point, and then just loses its acidity.

TALIESIN: Okay, I’m going to keep gingerly slicing it through, until it’s just being held. The minute it starts to give, I’m going to shift to the next one.

MATT: You make your way about halfway through the vial before that one platform you feel is about halfway or more dissolved through.

TALIESIN: All right, I’m going to take the other half and I’m going to work on the other–

MATT: Stealth check.

SAM: Is there any purchase? Like, can a hand grip the metal pole?

MATT: It’s built in a way that’s almost smooth entirely of the top. Like, the construction–

TALIESIN: 29.

MATT: 29? Okay. So you empty the rest of the yellow vial on the other side. You can see the actual metal– The area where you dip it, the kind of yellowish liquid hits this, kind of, smooth shiny bronze color and the leftover material is this, like, thick, horrible dark green color the way the two mix and dissolve. You empty the last of the vial and the other beam gets about halfway dissolved through before eventually the last of it’s used up.

ORION: As I do this, I go to the Bag of Holding, and I go to the Endless Rope–

TRAVIS: She has that, actually.

LAURA: I have that.

ORION: Oh.

SAM: You’re not with us. You stayed on the carpet.

ORION: Yeah, I know.

LAURA: He’s right there, though. Flying next to us.

ORION: And, the Endless Rope? As I’m asking for that, I take out my Immovable Rod and I’m going to place it, kind of, in an exit position and (clicks)! Make it stay right above there.

MATT: All right. As he releases it, this rod is now stuck in mid-air, anchored permanently until removed by a click in that position.

ORION: And I start flipping through the rope so it goes– The whole time, I’m just doing that so it goes all the way down.

MATT: Okay, make a stealth check.

TALIESIN: (whispers) Grog, Grog! We’re going to need a lever. We’re going to need– Wrench. Get a blade into the metal, into the iron.

ORION: 25.

TALIESIN: And wrench. And you’re going to get the second one.

MARISHA: Okay, okay.

TALIESIN: But it should give.

MATT: All right, so. You’ve dissolved a portion of the two metal beams on each side. You guys have a mouse, kind of tied to an arrow.

LAURA: He’s secure.

MATT: What’s the plan?

TRAVIS: Okay.

MARISHA: I’ll take one side. And Grog’s going to take the other beam.

SAM: And do what?

MARISHA: I’m going to start– I’m going to take my staff and I do a concentrated Heat Metal spell, and I’m just going to kind of solder right along the inside where it’s already weakened.

MATT: Okay. You understand the spell Heat Metal is less of a localized damaging the metal. What it does is just causes a metal structure to, in itself, become hot.

MARISHA: Right.

MATT: You would not be able to necessarily damage the metal with it. What you would do is you’d be able to weaken it universally, possibly, with enough heat. It’s not like a blowtorch or anything.

MARISHA: Well then, why don’t I’ll heat the metal while Grog is prying it to help?

LAURA: It could also hurt Grog if he’s touching it if it’s that hot.

TRAVIS: I’ve got a wooden handle.

LAURA: Okay.

MARISHA: He’s using like a crowbar. Right?

TALIESIN: Using an axe, I’d imagine.

TRAVIS: Yeah.

MARISHA: Well we’ll tag team it, then.

MATT: So you’re attempting to pop?

TALIESIN: Yeah, we’re going to stick down, and just pull.

SAM: Loud.

LAURA: What if we just give old mousey here– Turn him into a giant again and drop him right on it?

TRAVIS: It’s not weakened enough yet, is it?

TALIESIN: It’s not weakened. We’re going to - We have to crack it.

MATT: Kima looks there and says, “At a certain height, I imagine it would work.”

MARISHA: Yeah, but we want to save him. Let’s see if we can do this, first.

TALIESIN: Well, yeah. Let’s– This is not going to be loud. Well, it will be loud once it breaks.

TRAVIS: We get him in place and then try it, and if it makes a noise, we just drop him?

LAURA: I’ve got him notched on the arrow.

TRAVIS: Shoot him up, and have him come down.

MARISHA: Well, we can have Tiberius hit him with, like, a quick damaging spell and make him–

SAM: We can fly up and just drop him down like a big, giant bomb.

TRAVIS: We need him to fall, like King Kong from the Empire State building.

SAM: We can take him up up up, and just drop him.

TALIESIN: Yeah, we do have a flying carpet.

SAM: How much does he weigh?

MATT: The Fomorian, you imagine, probably weighs, oof.

SAM: A ton?

MATT: I’d say three to five tons.

SAM: That’ll break it. (laughs).

MARISHA: Well, why don’t we weaken the beams first?

MATT: I’d say about three tons.

TRAVIS: What if we– If we give ourselves away, what do we lose? A lot? I don’t think it’s worth it.

SAM: Let’s drop a– Let’s drop a giant bomb on him.

MARISHA: What do you mean?

TRAVIS: Well, we’ll give away– So if, like, we try and weaken and the metal makes any noise, anything, right? Jig’s up.

MARISHA: Well it’s good– jig’s going to be up as soon as a giant–

TRAVIS: Yeah, at least it’s going through. Like, we won’t have even gotten through–

MARISHA: But what if it doesn’t bust all the way through until we start popping some of the beams?

SAM: I don’t– I think dropping three tons on him is going have much more–

TRAVIS: And even if it doesn’t, it might be better than trying to crank it.

MARISHA: It’s a three-inch-thick piece of pane and steel.

TALIESIN: I’m going to do– Would I have gotten enough engineering information about it to actually have a good sense on whether or not three to five tons would actually do anything at this point?

MATT: Investigation check.

TALIESIN: Another investigation? 15.

MATT: Looking at the sections of the beams that you’ve damaged, the thickness of the plane and the metal bars, the part where they attached– You’re not getting a full view, 'cause you’re not actually looking in the room yet. Everyone’s avoided looking in the room at this point. But you gather, with enough speed and enough weight, this thing would break and hinge pretty easily.

TALIESIN: All right, let’s go for it. I’m going to– I’m just going to show where I want him to drop.

LAURA: Okay, we bring him up.

TALIESIN: This is the point. Take him all the way up.

MARISHA: Should I go ahead and heat the metal, just in case, for added stuff? I mean, that’s quiet.

TRAVIS: Yeah, why not? Wouldn’t hurt.

LIAM: Can I just say, I have no idea what’s about to happen, but it’s been a great pleasure to walk beside each and every one of you.

TRAVIS: Are you doing the, “It’s been an honor to serve with you, sir”?

MARISHA: Why would you say that?

TALIESIN: Screw you. I want my final words with you to be indignant and irritated.

ORION: I agree. I think that’s poppycock. We’ll be fine.

TALIESIN: We’ll apologize later.

SAM: All right, who’s flying the mouse up?

LAURA: Tiberius, me and you?

ORION: Yes. Come up.

LAURA: But we’re going to drop him as a full three-ton weight.

SAM: I’m Polymorphing him. I’ll make him drop.

MARISHA: We weakened only one side, so hopefully it’ll only smash one side.

TRAVIS: It’ll just fall in? It won’t go straight down.

MARISHA: Maybe we can even try and aim him leaning towards our side more.

LAURA: We’ll aim him towards the part that will break.

ORION: Just shoot him wherever we need him to drop, and (pfft).

LIAM: No, we want him to be weight.

LAURA: And the three tons, so we want him to be a giant when he falls.

ORION: Oh, 'cause he’s fat?

LAURA: Exactly.

TRAVIS: Shall we execute Manhattan Project?

SAM: Come on, let’s do this.

LAURA: Fly it up.

LIAM: (high-pitched) It’s been an honor.

SAM: On the carpet. Go. Do. We die with honor.

MATT: So Tiberius on the carpet?

ASHLEY: I feel like I’m already just going to start crying.

ORION: Yes, I’ll take the mouse.

MATT: Tiberius, you take the mouse in your hand. And for a second, it’s adorable until the smell hits you. You all sit around the edge, like, keeping out of view. You can see a little bit of faint light coming through the glass.

ORION: Throw me the mouse.

MATT: As the general green glow that permeates the circumstance. Tiberius slowly lifts up–

MARISHA: I start heating the metal beams, concentrating from both sides.

MATT: Okay. As you get overhead, Tiberius, you get the first look into this room.

SAM: Cages of bad guys.

TRAVIS: No, experimentees.

LIAM: This is the suck.

TRAVIS: I think I just caked my pants a little bit.

SAM: I think Matt had things printed in a 3D printer for this, so it’s pretty, pretty cool.

ASHLEY: We gotta get the prisoners to try and help us.

TALIESIN: They’re the things we’ve been fighting.

ASHLEY: They’re stitch monsters, okay.

LIAM: Well, they’re a question mark.

LAURA: They might be controlled-by-K'Varn stitch monsters.

MATT: As you glance down inside, you see immediately in the center of the room, the giant brass structure coming to a point above the Elder Brain in the center of the room on the elevated platforms. You see there are two caged sections of the room that contain two, kind of, flesh, skinless, altered creatures that have been subjected to serious tortures by K'Varn. K'Varn floats off in the distance by what looks like some sort of experimentation table containing glass vials and strange, metallic structures.

ORION: DM, which side has the crew worked on relative to where I am looking at?

MATT: Right here, but first we are gonna go ahead and find–

ORION: Did they damage this side or this side?

LAURA: (laughs) We are so high up.

ASHLEY: I don’t– I don’t want to. I just don’t want to do it, I am so scared.

MATT: All right, so everyone.

ASHLEY: I have already died. I know how it feels.

TRAVIS: You’re good.

ORION: Use the boots.

SAM: I won’t let you die, Pike.

ASHLEY: And I won’t let you guys die. I am on it, I am on it.

LIAM: I am going to try very hard not to die.

TALIESIN: Die with hilarity or die not at all.

MATT: We’ll say the group is for the most part up here.

ORION: Not me, I am chilling.

MATT: There is a flying bear up here.

SAM: That’s a crazy roof party.

ORION: So then they’ve been working on this side, right?

MATT: They are working on this side. It would essentially hinge this way.

ORION: This way, wonderful.

SAM: Okay, drop it, drop it like it’s hot.

MATT: As you glide up, Tiberius, far above, looking down into this.

TRAVIS: Before it falls, I would like to rage.

MATT: All right, is there any other preparatory spells that want to be cast at this moment? You wanna give Inspiration to people? Do you wanna cast any spells?

LAURA: Can I see him? Can I go ahead and cast Hunter’s Mark on him right now?

MATT: You are welcome to look over into the glass if you’d like.

SAM: I’ll cast Inspiration on this gentleman for his throw.

MATT: All right, so that’s a d10. You can do that up to four people.

SAM: Oh. Pike.

MATT: d10 inspiration die for you.

TRAVIS: Me? Oh, for Pike.

SAM: Grog.

ASHLEY: Wait, d10 for me?

MATT: Either an attack, a saving throw– I’d recommend saving throw.

SAM: Percy.

TALIESIN: Yes?

SAM: You get Inspiration.

TALIESIN: Thank you!

MATT: That’s an inspiration dice to you and–

SAM: And Vax.

MATT: A d10. And Vax, Vax, a d10 inspiration to you as well. Keep track of those guys. These are the only ones you get from the bard this game, because he used them up front. Buff spells that want to be cast at this point in time?

LIAM: I am clicking my Boots of Haste.

SAM: (sings) And so I come to you with Inspiration.

MATT: Pike, any buff spells you wanna put on?

ASHLEY: I am gonna cast Death Ward on Grog.

MATT: Okay, is Grog the only one you want to cast it on?

ASHLEY: I can cast it on more?

MATT: Yeah, it’s not concentration. As many fourth-level spell as you have, you can cast it on different people. It lasts for eight hours.

ASHLEY: So how many people can I cast it on if I cast it?

MATT: As many 4th-level spells as you have. It’s one person per cast.

MARISHA: I am gonna go ahead and cast Stoneskin on myself.

TRAVIS: So Death Ward, if you go down to zero, it will put you at a one, it won’t take you under?

ORION: Right before things happen, I’ll cast Blur.

MATT: Okay. You cast Blur on yourself.

MARISHA: I cast Stoneskin on myself

TRAVIS: Does anybody else want Death Ward?

ASHLEY: I am gonna cast Death Ward on Grog and on Vax.

MATT: Vax?

SAM: Vex or Vax?

ASHLEY: Vax.

MATT: Vax, okay, so Death Ward. Mark that Death Ward on both you guys. Keep that in mind. I am not gonna keep track of that for you. It means next time you go to zero hit points it brings you to one, then it’s gone. All right, guys. You cast Blur on yourself, hold out the mouse, aim.

ORION: I going to aim and–

LAURA: Un-Polymorph him.

SAM: When he falls.

TRAVIS: Right as he lets him go. We need the mass.

SAM: (yelps) Un-Polymorph!

MATT: Okay, as the mouse descends out of the middle of the air, the Fomorian goes tumbling down, angrily cascading towards it.

SAM: It’s a falling giant.

ASHLEY: Do we have anything that is gonna stop us from falling towards our death?

ALL: We’re on the side.

MATT: With a deafening crash sound, the Fomorian goes slamming into the glass. You hear the cracking and crashing sound of the planes as they shatter. The metal structure– this horrible breaking, bending sound as they bend inward and slam the inside of the temple. The Fomorian, who’s streaking down, slams into the ground from that height, taking–

SAM: The German judge doesn’t like it.

ASHLEY: 4.2.

MATT: At that height, he is dead, even at his hit point level, he is right there on the ground.

SAM: But because he is enchanted he can still attack, right?

LAURA: Well, we splattered a giant, you guys.

MARISHA: Oh, is he dead?

TALIESIN: Oh, yeah. He’s meat.

MATT: So as that happens, the entire structure tilts to the side. Part of it bends and kinda hits the side of the temple, and whatever strange green glow was at the top of the temple dissipates.

TALIESIN: Yeah!

MARISHA: Maybe we should just go?

ORION: I swoop down and pick everybody up.

LAURA: Pick who up?

SAM: Not me, you don’t pick me up. (laughs)

MATT: All right. You’re way up here right now.

ORION: I know, I’m going to start to–

MATT: Start making your way down. All right, everyone roll initiative, because K'Varn turns around immediately, and you hear this very familiar, deep voice echoing from within the chamber: “Naughty, naughty. I left the door open for you!” Everyone roll initiative.

MARISHA: What’d he say? I left the door open for you?

TRAVIS: He wanted us to come in through the bottom, probably.

LAURA: But we can hide over the edge so he can’t see us, right?

TRAVIS: Fuck, balls, tits, ass.

MATT: All right, so. Go ahead and– We have 25 to 20, guys?

TRAVIS: 20.

MARISHA: Are we leaving?

MATT: 20 to 15?

ORION: 19.

MATT: 19?

LIAM: 17.

LAURA: 16.

MATT: All right. 15 to ten?

TALIESIN: Ten.

MATT: Ten to five?

ASHLEY: Seven. (laughs)

MARISHA: Nine.

MATT: What’d you roll?

TALIESIN: Ten.

SAM: Two.

MATT: Pike, what’d you get?

ASHLEY: Seven.

MATT: Pike, seven.

ASHLEY: That’s okay.

MATT: Oh man.

ASHLEY: Why are you “oh man”-ing? Is that a good “oh man” or a bad “oh man”?

TALIESIN: That’s a “he attacks first.”

MATT: That was– No no, that was a “Kima going last.”

ORION: Everyone use the rope. It’s time to leave.

MATT: All right. Grog, you’re up first.

TRAVIS: Who’s behind– Can I see who’s behind me in initiative?

MATT: You don’t know. It’s your turn. Most everyone’s behind you, technically.

TRAVIS: So, with the climbing harness and the rope, I speed-rope into the room and take cover behind the pool. Can I hide behind the pool on the opposite side of– Yeah.

MATT: So you land there.

TRAVIS: Opposite of him so I can, like, hide behind the pool.

MATT: All right. Kind of swing around, you end up in that area there.

TRAVIS: Yeah. Like, even going prone if I have to.

MATT: You’re– Ugh, it’s hard to hide you.

LAURA: What about the giant? Can you hide behind the giant splatter?

MATT: Yeah, he’s already landed. So that’s your movement.

TRAVIS: Yep.

MATT: You’ve landed.

TRAVIS: That’s it.

MATT: You can see, now, the giant beholder standing with his metal plates kind of haphazardly bolted onto its body and a giant horn curving upward in front. The eye focuses on you, its pale blue color looking at you with a menacing anger. The strange sense of joy and playfulness. It’s awful to behold. That’s all you’re doing your turn?

TRAVIS: Yeah, can I bury my face in my arms like this, on the ground? Like this? It’s like, face down.

MATT: Certainly try. Certainly try that. Tiberius. You are coming down as fast as you can on the carpet?

ORION: Yes.

MATT: You get about halfway to the top of the temple with your turn.

ORION: Yes.

MATT: Vax.

ORION: Wait, that’s all I can do?

MATT: Yeah. That’s using your whole round to just fly down with the carpet.

LIAM: All right, I’m going to– I’m hasted, I’m going to throw three daggers down at him from here.

MATT: Okay. At this distance, you are at disadvantage on the attacks, 'cause it’s too far away.

LIAM: Okay.

MATT: So go ahead and–

LIAM: Okay, so for each attack, too. So where’s my– Okay, that misses– Well, five. That’s a 16?

MATT: 16 misses.

LIAM: 21.

MATT: 21 hits.

LIAM: Okay. And the last one, I’m just going to roll it now, is a 17.

MATT: 17 misses.

LIAM: Okay. So the– I’m hitting him with poison dagger.

MATT: All right. You do attack before he does this turn. Does that do something with an Assassin?

LIAM: Yeah, advantage, well, advantage on attack rolls on enemies who haven’t taken a turn yet. Any hit on– is a crit. Any hit on a surprise is a crit.

MATT: Right, yeah, it’s not a surprise. You kind of blew the surprise with the giant Fomorian crashing through the top. So you have one dagger that hit?

LIAM: Yep, a poison dagger, which gets three– is nine, plus poison with a DC of 15?

MATT: Okay. All right. He is currently poisoned.

LIAM: Yes, he takes eight plus ten points of poison damage. On top of the dagger damage.

TRAVIS: I love how nobody’s saying shit, 'cause we’re all terrified.

MATT: All right, that ends your turn?

LIAM: Every roll counts. Yes?

MATT: All right. That brings us to Vex.

LAURA: Hunter’s Mark.

MATT: All right, Hunter’s Mark is on K'Varn.

LAURA: Okay, good. So, his eye would cancel out my Hail of Thorns attack? Is that considered, like, one–

TRAVIS: He’s looking at me, he’s looking at me.

LAURA: Okay. Oh, that’s true. Okay, then I’m going to cast Hail of Thorns on him.

MATT: Okay, so you pull your arrow, your hands shaking slightly as you see this creature now focusing its attention on Grog below. You pull out the arrow, you focus your magical energy. The shaft of the arrow, you know, juts out all these different thorns and you release it below. Go ahead and roll your attack.

LAURA: Oh. Okay, that’s 29.

MATT: 29 hits.

LAURA: Okay.

MATT: Are you doing a secondary attack?

LAURA: Yes, I am.

MATT: Go ahead and roll your secondary attack now, just to get it out of the way.

LAURA: Okay. The secondary attack I wanted to shoot through my Bloodseeking Bow, though.

MATT: All right.

LAURA: That’s probably not going to hit. That’s a 13.

ASHLEY: Can I give a plus ten? War God’s Blessing?

MATT: You can.

LAURA: 23.

MATT: 23 hits. So as you release the first arrow, you fire the second one. You pull back and the shaking in the hand is too intense, and as you’re about to release it, Pike reaches up and touches your shoulder with her hand and you can feel the surge of Sarenrae guide your arrow. Your hand straightens and your arrow strikes true to K'Varn. Go ahead and roll damage for both.

LAURA: Okay, so I’m casting– it’s a 3rd-level spell on Hail of Thorns. Ah! Where’s my d10s? Okay, I’m so nervous. I don’t– I can’t find anything.

LIAM: There’s a d10.

LAURA: Okay. There’s a d10, there’s a d10. Okay, so ten on that, plus Hunter’s Mark. Six, so 16.

MATT: All righty.

LAURA: That’s the first attack. And the second one– 14.

LIAM: It’s so quiet in here.

LAURA: Oh, I know. 14. Oh wait, I get plus two on that other attack, whatever it was, it was–

MATT: The damage, right. 18. Okay. Yeah, your bracers give you plus two to all those damage rolls.

LAURA: 16 plus Hunter’s Mark. I’m sorry, my brain. Huh?

ASHLEY: You were 16? 19.

LAURA: Yeah. 19.

MATT: 19?

LAURA: And then the Bloodseeking Bow bleeds him.

MATT: He is currently bleeding.

LAURA: For ten damage each round.

MATT: Gotcha. Keep that in mind.

TRAVIS: He’s hurting.

SAM: Question, sorry. What happened to the big mind-control device? Is that disabled?

MATT: It’s currently hanging right now. Seemingly disabled.

SAM: So the mind flayers, as far as we know, might not even be under–

LAURA: Might not be, right. Potentially.

SAM: Okay.

MATT: All right, that ends your turn, Vex.

LAURA: Oh, and I duck back as much as I can so I’m out of his sightline. Can I back up on the wall?

MATT: You step back. It’s a five-foot space. You’re having to like, lean, and as you look back, like, it’s a long slope.

LAURA: I crouch down.

MATT: Okay. All right, so, K'Varn starts K'Varn’s turn. K'Varn, now, with like the poison coursing through its body, kind of just looks about and kind of shakes for a second, the eye stalks kind of looking in different directions, and just goes, (laughs) “I want to play.” And begins to drift up into the air.

LAURA: Oh, good. He can fly.

ASHLEY: I didn’t know that. That’s cool. Maybe we can get him out?

MATT: K'Varn moves up. At which point, you guys who were ducking down off to the side, K'Varn comes into sight as he drifts up towards the top.

TRAVIS: (sings) Shit, shit, shit.

LAURA: Where’s, like the thing that fell? Is it blocking any sort of–

MATT: No, it’s at this angle right here. It’s basically, kind of, following the temple ceiling there.

SAM: We might have to get Grog out of there somehow.

MATT: So, first things first. It’s going to fire its first ray.

TRAVIS: And it gets three eyes every turn.

SAM: We need to run.

MATT: All right, so. One of the eyes whips around. It aims at– Let’s see. This would be at Percy. Percy, go ahead and make a wisdom– No, this would be a dexterity saving throw.

TALIESIN: 24.

MATT: 24. You manage to just duck out of the way as this kind of whitish-gray beam of energy goes (tsch)! And shoots out from the top of the temple. A secondary ray– All right. Secondary ray is going to go ahead and fire at– (sighs) Pike.

ASHLEY: Me already? I was at seven.

LAURA: It’s aiming at you.

ASHLEY: You’re aiming at– Sorry, I just got so scared, I heard my name.

MATT: Another beam of– Another beam shoots out. Go ahead and make a strength saving throw.

ASHLEY: A strength saving throw. Okay. What would that– What is that? Oh no, okay, I see. 12?

MATT: 12.

SAM: You have Inspiration. Should you need it.

ASHLEY: Oh. Okay.

MATT: Yeah, you can add your Inspiration dice to a saving throw if you’d like.

ASHLEY: You can?

MATT: Up to you.

ASHLEY: Yeah, I’ll do it.

MATT: All right, so it’s a 12, plus a d10. Go ahead and roll a d10.

ASHLEY: A d10. That’s a ten?

LAURA: That’s a d10.

ASHLEY: Two.

MATT: A 14.

ASHLEY: That’s a 14?

MATT: So, as you bring your shield up to defend, this strange kind of grayish-green ray slams into you and you feel weightless for a moment, as, all of a sudden, you’re lifted off your feet and carried down into the chamber, floating, restrained. Unable to move. And you’re just kind of floating in midair right there, right now.

ASHLEY: Okay.

MATT: And then the beam releases you. Go ahead and make an athletics check.

MARISHA: Come on, Pike.

MATT: With disadvantage, 'cause you’re in heavy mail.

ASHLEY: Okay. (nervous laugh) What was it, athletics? A five.

MATT: Acrobatics, technically. Sorry, my fault.

ASHLEY: Oh, four. (laughs)

MATT: Four. All right.

SAM: Thanks for the clarification.

MATT: All right, you take 23 points of damage as you plummet, slamming on your back on the ground and you’re currently prone.

ASHLEY: Okay. Things are going well.

MATT: The third ray– All right. The third ray streaks up and is going to slam into you, Vax. Go ahead and roll a dexterity saving throw.

LIAM: Okay. 24.

MATT: 24. You see this deep bluish ray come shooting up towards you. You pull out of the way and it slams into a part of the broken metal that’s left over. As it hits the metal, you see the metal turn to stone.

LIAM: Fuck!

MATT: You manage to just pull out of the way of the blast. That’s going to end K'Varn’s turn. That brings us to Clarota.

LAURA: Come on, Clarota.

ORION: No, Clarota!

MATT: Lifts off– to hover down into the other– gets to about–

LIAM: What you’ve been waiting for, Clarota.

MATT: We’ll say, for the purposes of this, just for– 'cause I don’t have enough things to put up here. We’ll say Clarota eventually– At his turn– Float from the bottom. We’ll say, we’ll say nearby over here. The face– he’s going to go into the Mind Blast. Okay. As Clarota lands next to it, grabs the side of its head and attempts to Mind Blast as a cone in front. K'Varn just turns and laughs in Clarota’s face. (laughs) “Your kind has tried so many times.” Big old toothy grin pulls across the front of the beholder. That ends Clarota’s turn. Percy, you’re up.

TALIESIN: Okay. There’s still a– Two questions. There’s still a stick floating in midair with a rope tied to it, correct?

MATT: Correct.

TALIESIN: That’s fantastic. I have a plan. Also, I’ve been curious about Targeting Shot– If I use a Drop Targeting shot, that won’t work on him, will it?

MATT: Oh, the one that knocks him prone?

TALIESIN: The one that knocks flying targets down to the ground and then they fall.

MATT: The Wing Shot, I would say that would cause him to plummet a little bit.

TALIESIN: But it wouldn’t do what it says I can do here, where he’s going to hit the ground.

MATT: Not necessarily. Due to the nature, you could lower his current position in the room, but his floating nature wouldn’t allow him to necessarily take a lot of damage from that.

TALIESIN: I will hold off on that– Okay so, I will, just– I’m going to do a Targeted head shot. I’m going to grab the rope with my bonus action–

MATT: All right.

TALIESIN: I’m pulling out–

ORION: Shoot the damn eye!

TALIESIN: Oh yes. I’m pulling out the Bad News.

MATT: Okay.

TALIESIN: I’m going to take a shot– Basically take a Targeted head shot at him.

MATT: Okay.

TALIESIN: In the eye.

MATT: Okay.

TALIESIN: 29. I think that hits.

MATT: Will hit.

TALIESIN: All right. So, this does a couple things. Where’s my– I know. Where the hell are my–

SAM: Guys, come on. This is like, piece of cake, there’s one guy. There’s like eight of us.

MATT: The poison has worn off. K'Varn is still bleeding, currently. So, how many damage for that?

TALIESIN: It’s only ten points of damage, but the nice thing that that does, which is that, for the rest of his turn, up until the end of his turn, he has disadvantage on all attacks.

MATT: Since the rays automatically hit, I’ll consider that those who get hit by the rays will have advantage on their saving throw.

TALIESIN: Excellent. I’m then going to take the rope, holding on, and I’m basically going to do a swing so that I’m out of range for any of his attacks until my next attack.

MATT: Okay.

TALIESIN: I’m not swinging down into the temple, I’m swinging around the outside of it so that it’s–

MATT: The outside over here? Okay. We’ll say you’re over there.

TALIESIN: Yeah.

MATT: All right, that ends your turn, Percy. Keyleth, you’re up.

MARISHA: Oh, it’s me. This may– Okay. How big of a jump is it from me to K'Varn?

MATT: I’d say, at this distance, it’s about a good 50 feet at an angle.

MARISHA: (laughs) I’m gonna do it. Fuck it.

MATT: What are you doing?

TALIESIN: YOLO.

MARISHA: YOLO! I’m going to run off the carpet and I’m going to do a swan dive and–

ORION: She’s not on the carpet.

MATT: You’re not on the carpet with Tiberius, you’re on the edge of the platform. Tiberius is up here.

MARISHA: I’m on the edge of the platform–

MATT: There you go.

MARISHA: Running, and I’m going to swan dive, and as I swan dive–

MATT: Athletics check, first.

MARISHA: Okay.

SAM: Yeah, don’t fall.

MARISHA: 15.

MATT: Okay, all right. So you leap off and swan dive–

MARISHA: And as I get closer, mid-swan dive, I’m gonna turn into my earth elemental, and grab him, and take him down with me.

MATT: All right, go ahead and make a grapple check. Roll athletics again, with the earth elemental’s strength.

TRAVIS: Form tackle this bitch.

MARISHA: With the earth elemental’s strength?

MATT: Yes.

MARISHA: Oh, I don’t have this book, it’s in the Monster Manual.

ORION: I’m going to say it’s– The strength is 50.

SAM: Yeah, I think that’s fair.

TRAVIS: At least five.

MARISHA: We didn’t print this out yet.

MATT: All right. That would be a strength of 20. So it’s a plus five to the roll for the athletics check. What is that?

MARISHA: I rolled a 19.

MATT: Okay. All right, so. You grapple onto K'Varn, holding onto his form. K'Varn is dragged, not entirely to the ground, but is reduced to about that height.

MARISHA: And right before I swan dive, I go– I yelled– Or, before I transformed, I yell to the party, go! Get away!

LAURA: Oh, Keyleth. We’re not leaving.

MARISHA: Let me be heroic!

MATT: So you drag K'Varn, now down to just about like a ten-foot height. And is currently grappled on as K'Varn is like (grunts).

MARISHA: I’ve got– Holding onto his eye stalks and I’m riding him.

SAM: Okay, let’s leave Keyleth here and just go.

TRAVIS: Yeah, do you mean, Oklahoma? Time to go?

SAM: Yeah, just go.

TRAVIS: Okay. Safety word.

MARISHA: I’ve got him!

TALIESIN: Everyone scratch Keyleth off their T-shirt, now.

(laughter)

MATT: Pike, it’s your turn.

ASHLEY: Oh, it’s me? Okay, I’m going to– Oh, she’s grappling him?

SAM: She’s grappling.

MATT: Yeah. You’re prone on the ground, so you might want to get up.

ASHLEY: Okay, so I’m going to get up, and then, I think, probably, it’s time to do–

MARISHA: No, you can– Don’t feel like you shouldn’t hit things because of me. I’ve got 126 hit points as an earth elemental and they don’t affect my hit points.

ASHLEY: They don’t?

MARISHA: Once I hit zero, I go back to whatever hit points I had. I can act like a tank. Which is what I’m doing.

ASHLEY: Shit. Okay, so if I use the Divine– Sorry, I just have another question about that, where I have the percentage?

MATT: Yeah.

ASHLEY: Is it only for that turn?

MATT: You use it once and you can’t use it again for the rest of the day. That’s your action.

ASHLEY: Then, and then, Sarenrae just intervenes whenever.

MATT: You ask what kind of intervention you want, what kind of aid you want and then I decide how that functions.

TALIESIN: It’s a little early, maybe.

ASHLEY: It’s a little early. All right, so you know what? I’m going to do Flame Strike– Or, sorry, I’m so shaky. What’s that? Sacred Flame, Sacred Flame. I’m so sorry. Sacred Flame?

MATT: All right.

ASHLEY: And then I’m going to send it on over to the beholder.

MATT: Okay, what’s Sacred Flame do?

LAURA: It’s a cantrip.

ASHLEY: Nope, that’s not what I was going to do. Fuck, I’m so sorry you guys. Where’s my–

SAM: You’re the worst.

ASHLEY: I’m sorry, I know I’m the worst. I had something else– Flame Strike, Flame Strike. That’s just– What I just said.

MATT: Flame Strike, that’s a horse of a different color.

ASHLEY: Yes, Flame Strike.

MATT: All right, so. 5th-level Flame Strike, coming out.

ASHLEY: Yes. I’m so stressed.

MATT: A ten-foot radius and a 40-foot high platform. Where are you creating it?

ASHLEY: Just right by the beholder. Just right, right– Yeah.

LAURA: Away from Clarota.

ASHLEY: Clarota’s there. God damn it.

TRAVIS: Fuck Clarota. Smoke that dude.

LAURA: Maybe up against the wall or something?

ASHLEY: Nah, I’m going to– Can I change it? I’m so sorry. Can I do–

TRAVIS: Fuck Clarota.

ASHLEY: Fuck Clarota? No, we can’t!

MATT: What are you doing? Pike, what are you doing?

ASHLEY: Guiding Bolt.

MATT: Guiding Bolt?

ASHLEY: Sorry guys, sorry guys. (sighs)

MATT: All right.

TALIESIN: It’s tense. It’s cool.

MATT: Guiding Bolt? Level one Guiding Bolt. All right, make a ranged spell attack against K'Varn.

ASHLEY: Okay.

MATT: It is at a disadvantage because K'Varn is currently grappled.

ASHLEY: Okay. So it’s a 15.

MATT: You rolled twice?

ASHLEY: Oh, I roll twice.

MATT: Take the lower one.

ASHLEY: 15.

MATT: It’s a 15, still? Total of 15?

LAURA: Second one was a 20.

LIAM: 20 and a 15.

MATT: So you rolled a 15, and what’s your spell attack? Your spell page?

ASHLEY: Oh, it’s eight.

MATT: That does hit. All right, so on a hit the target takes 4d6 radiant damage and the next attack roll made against it has advantage, so go ahead and roll 4d6.

ASHLEY: 16.

MATT: 16 damage. All right. So the next attack on him is at advantage. As a reaction, he’s going to use one of his legendary actions on its turn to– as it gets hit and dazed– one of its eyestalks bends over again, the same one that hit you last time is going to attempt hit you again. Go ahead and make a strength saving throw again.

ASHLEY: He hit me again because I took a long time. But my strength is really low. 14.

MATT: 14. The ray slams into you again and you feel yourself lift off your feet as the beam throws you across the room, slamming into the bars on the side. As you hit them, the impact doesn’t do enough damage, but suddenly these two giant, fleshy arms reach through the bars and grab you and pull you against them. You take–

SAM: Oh boy. Our healer is about to die.

MATT: Nine points of crushing damage.

ASHLEY: Nine?

MATT: Yes, and you are currently grappled and held against the bars.

ASHLEY: Okay.

MATT: That ends the legendary action. And I think you’ve used your movement to get up. That’s your turn. That gets us to Scanlan.

SAM: Boy oh boy. You say you can take a hit?

MARISHA: Go for it! I’m also immune to a lot of shit.

SAM: Okay. Chain Lightning scroll. It’s the biggest thing I have.

TRAVIS: Yeah! Do it! Whatever that is!

SAM: It’s a scroll of Chain Lightning. I can’t cast it at my level so it’s gonna be just a 50-50 shot whether it even works.

MATT: So, Scanlan, as you hold over the edge, you look down and you pull out the scroll and begin reading it, hopefully the arcane language will come to you. Bits of it seem familiar. I need you to go ahead and roll a d20 and add your ability modifier, which is five.

SAM: Ability modifier. Ten plus five.

MATT: Ten plus five? The difficulty is 15. As you finish muttering the spell, the actual scroll disappears in your hand and bursts into this strange array of purple color that then coalesces and releases with such force that you’re nearly blown off the top of the temple. A bolt of energy shoots out, slams into K'Varn– I’m gonna look up Chain Lightning here. 10d8 lightning damage. K'Varn does make saving throw, so it’s half damage.

SAM: Seven, eight, nine– I need one more.

TALIESIN: Oh, here.

SAM: Okay (nervous laugh) someone do math. 15, 20, 21, 25, 30, (clears throat), 44.

MATT: 24?

SAM AND TRAVIS: 44.

MATT: 44! Okay, half that is 22 damage to K'Varn. I will say you choose the targets. Oh, not targets. It’s as many as three other targets.

LAURA: Get those monsters!

MATT: You can choose not to affect your allies on this.

MARISHA: I would appreciate that.

MATT: But you must be within 30 feet of the target. Which, yeah, both of those would be.

SAM: I can choose the other, the other guys in the cage?

MATT: Yeah, if you want.

SAM: In the cages? Yeah! Then yeah, yeah, that!

MATT: All right. Okay, 22 damage to that guy.

TALIESIN: He gets it halved as well?

MATT: And 44 to him. He does not make his saving throw. He’s looking pretty rough. All right, this brings it– that the end of your turn?

SAM: I have a bonus action.

MATT: And a move.

SAM: There’s nothing– Oh, and a move. I think I’ll stick, but as a bonus– shoot, I’ve used all my Inspiration already, right? I can’t do cantrips as a bonus, right?

MATT: No, unless it says it’s a bonus action.

SAM: Okay. Then never mind.

MATT: All right. Kima runs around to where you’re on the side. Grabs the rope from you and says, “I need to do what my destiny tells me to.” Takes the rope, and rappels down. Lands there. She is going to go ahead and use her action– If I get into combat– She’s going to cast Aura of Vitality on herself, which allows her as a bonus action to heal allies within 30 feet of her. And Pike’s within– over there. She casts the spell. Grabbing her holy symbol, this white light consumes her body for a second and creates this kind of gentle 30-foot radial area of divine energy. And she looks over at you. Go ahead and– You heal eight points of damage.

ASHLEY: All right, all right. Nice, Kima.

TRAVIS: Me too, right?

MATT: No, just– She can choose one person per turn. All right, that finishes Kima’s turn. At the top, Grog, you’re up.

SAM: (Grog voice) I would like to run.

TRAVIS: Is she– Is Pike still being grappled?

MATT: Pike is still being grappled, yes.

ASHLEY: It’s okay, just rage. Just rage, it’s fine.

TRAVIS: I’m already raging. Can I reach him? Is he high enough for me to reach? Is he out of my grasp, or I won’t know until I get there?

MATT: You won’t know until you get there. It’s kind of hard to tell.

TRAVIS: Fuck it. I run over in a Frenzied Rage. Whites of the eyes only. And try and just swing over my head.

MATT: He’s ten feet up. You’re 8'7. With a great axe, you can reach.

TRAVIS: Thank you! Thank god. 19 plus, Jesus. 27?

MATT: 27 hits.

TRAVIS: Should I roll all the attacks, or– The attacks right now, and then roll damage afterwards?

MATT: Yeah, roll the attacks now.

TRAVIS: 22?

MATT: 22 hits.

TRAVIS: And 23.

MATT: Hits.

TRAVIS: Fuck yeah.

MATT: To the ground.

TRAVIS: I know. Yeah, okay. Jesus, what’s 14 plus seven?

LAURA AND TRAVIS: 21.

MATT: 21.

TRAVIS: 29, no, it’s– Yeah, yeah, plus four, 11. And then 18. So 29 plus– Oh, sorry, 21 plus 18. Somebody keep track of this shit.

LAURA: 40. No, 39.

MATT: Each of those attacks is reduced by one because your axe is currently not magical in the front of his anti-magic cone.

TRAVIS: Right, okay. Two plus–

MATT: I got those numbers for you.

TRAVIS: There’s one more 'cause it’s three strikes for Frenzied, right?

MATT: You already– Those were three strikes.

TRAVIS: I thought I only did two. Yeah, I only did two. The third one’s not great, so–

MATT: Oh, it’s 20– Sorry, I heard twenty– 21, 29, 17, sorry. So that was– The first attack was 20–

TRAVIS: 21. The second one was–

LAURA: 39 was the second one.

MATT: 39?

TRAVIS: No, no. It added up to 39.

LAURA: Oh, the two together added up to 39.

TRAVIS: Yeah, I’m sorry. And then, six– 13 is the last one. 13.

MATT: 13. Okay, gotcha.

ASHLEY: Grog smash!

MATT: Okay, cool. All right. That brings us to the end of your turn. Tiberius, you just now get, using your full turn, you can get to where everyone else is.

ORION: Yeah, but I can, like, dash and double my movement speed as well. Which I should’ve done last turn. 'Cause I don’t want to go there.

MATT: It’s not your speed, it’s the speed of the carpet.

ORION: Oh, shit. Okay, well, can I still dash with that and double that speed of the carpet?

MATT: The carpet moves at a consistent speed.

ORION: Okay, well I don’t wanna get anywhere near that.

MATT: Okay.

ORION: I actually want to hover around to the city side. And I want to look and see what’s going on with the crowd downstairs.

MATT: Okay, so you’ll be hanging over there?

ORION: Yes.

MATT: All right. That brings us to Vax.

LIAM: Are there ropes still going down?

MATT: There is one rope, currently, that is attached to the Immovable Rod, yes.

LIAM: Okay, I’m going to do something stupid. I’m going to grab the rope. I’m not going to rappel, I’m going to grab about– How high are we up?

MATT: You are about 50 feet up right now.

LIAM: 50 feet, all right. I’m going to use my bonus action to get down to 25 feet and I’m going to jump– But I’m going to jump out in the hopes of swinging this way, and swinging back towards K'Varn.

LAURA: (laughs) Pendulum.

LIAM: That’s what I want to– Pendulum at him, yeah. I want to jump out and go, woo, woo!

MATT: Okay, so you grab the rope, leap out in that direction. Catching yourself at 25 feet. That’s going to be your movement for this whole thing. So you reach up, you grab it. Go ahead and make an athletics check.

TRAVIS: Come on, man.

LIAM: Natural 20!

(cheering)

MATT: As you leap off the platform, one of the ropes in your hand, your fingers clutch the rope, and you can feel the pain as the rope-burn burns through your gloves. But you still hit that point in time where you latch on at the perfect moment. For a second, you look right into the face of K'Varn. Swing back, and then come forward again. Straight towards–

LIAM: Straight towards him. Three knives, because I have friends right up against him, this is a Sneak Attack.

LAURA: Nice!

ASHLEY: Yeah!

TRAVIS: Drop some pain.

LIAM: Okay. Okay.

MATT: Remember, your daggers right now are not magical. Your daggers are not magical.

LIAM: Fine, that’s fine.

LAURA: (gasps) They won’t pop back in your belt.

LIAM: It’s fine. It’s fine. Okay, great. That’s great. That’s 17, plus– That’s a 28.

MATT: That hits.

LIAM: Let’s just go ahead and roll– That’s the to-hit. So let’s just go ahead and roll damage now.

MATT: All right.

LIAM: So there’s no plus– I forget what’s added for, like, my dexterity and what’s the magic– The keen– Oh, it’s two for the keen dagger, so one plus five is six. Now here comes the Sneak Attack damage. Six plus– There’s nine, 12, 13, 18, 22 for the first. Oh, and Natural 20 is a crit.

MATT: That wasn’t your hit, that was your attack. That was your–

SAM: That was your stealth.

LAURA: Yeah that was your stealth.

LIAM: Sorry, I’m vibrating right now. Okay, so the second attack is a 19 plus– 29.

MATT: All right.

LIAM: So that is a measly four plus five is nine. And the last one we use jade, and I shouldn’t use the jade 'cause that didn’t hit, I don’t think. 14?

MATT: 14 does not hit, no.

LIAM: Okay. All right, I’m sitting on the beholder.

MATT: All right. You are, like, now on the rope on the end of a front swing, holding onto it. As its final lair– Final legendary action this turn, as you slam into it with the Sneak Attack, your dagger pulls out as the rope begins pulling you backward. One of the rays turns to you. I need you to go ahead and– Let me roll here.

LIAM: Worth it.

TRAVIS: Yeah, totally worth it.

MATT: All right. Go ahead and make a wisdom saving throw.

LIAM: Okay.

SAM: With advantage.

LIAM: With advantage? 20.

MATT: Total 20?

LIAM: Yeah.

MATT: All right. You– The kind of pinkish ray slams into your side and you feel for a second the entire room’s color shift as if all of your allies turn red for a second, and anger fills your body, and you shrug it off. You feel the color fade as your backswing pulls you back.

LIAM: I love you guys too much.

MATT: Kind of floating right in the middle there. Put you there for the time being. All right, that brings us to Vex.

LAURA: Right, well, I’m gonna just do the Hail of Thorns again.

MATT: All right.

LAURA: From above. Yes, as the first attack.

MATT: You have disadvantage on this attack 'cause you have an earth elemental currently clutching–

LAURA: Oh, right. It’s a 19?

MATT: 19 just hits.

LAURA: Yes! Okay. So that’s 3d10. Ugh, what? 28.

LIAM: Those zeroes look so good.

LAURA: Yeah, they do. 28, plus I get my two from my bracers, right? So that’s 30, plus my Hunter’s Mark– 32 for the first hit.

MATT: All righty, nice.

LAURA: And the second– I wanna do it with the fire string.

MATT: Okay.

LAURA: Okay. Oh, disadvantage. That’s– Oh, that doesn’t hit. Damn it.

MATT: What was that?

LAURA: It was a 16.

MATT: That’s gonna miss.

LAURA: Yeah. So the second attack doesn’t hit.

MATT: So as the first arrow slams into it, sprays off, and manages to pierce the side that doesn’t impact Clarota or your druid, second arrow splinters off the inside of the temple room. All right?

LAURA: Okay. I want to kind of duck down. Do I still get to move Trinket at all?

MATT: Yeah, if you want.

LAURA: He’s still got Fly on him?

MATT: Technically, if you’re still maintaining concentration on that. No no, you cast Blur. So he’s no longer flying.

LAURA: He’s just hanging out next to me on top of a roof?

MATT: Yep.

LAURA: I just pet Trinket and tell him to duck down. (laughs)

MATT: Okay. Trinket’s already ducking.

LAURA: Oh, we’re both ducking now.

MATT: All right, that brings us to K'Varn’s turn. K'Varn takes ten damage from the bleed.

LIAM: (high-pitched) What about the poison?

MATT: Poison wore off. All right, so. So let me see, what was– What effect is giving him disadvantage?

TALIESIN: That was me.

MATT: Right, from your head shot. Awesome. All right, so.

MARISHA: Also, Pike too, right? Didn’t she have an advantage thing?

LIAM: It was one-time.

ASHLEY: Yeah.

MATT: The first thing he’s going– All right, so, one beam turns around and sprays this pitch-black ray that careens across the room. This one is going to slam into– Let’s see where it goes. All right, that’s going to hit Percy. It arcs up. I need you to go ahead and make a—

TALIESIN: Do I have cover? I thought I had cover, but okay.

MATT: Cover, unfortunately, for these doesn’t make a difference. Rays are magical instant. Need you to make a dexterity saving throw with advantage.

TALIESIN: 20, 15.

MATT: Yeah, you manage to pull out of the way. A secondary ray that’s black as well but seems to be just pinned with shadow that is pulled out of the air around it, actually gives off this strange buzzing sound as it (vrrrrr) across the room. It’s going to go for Grog.

MARISHA: No, Grog!

MATT: Grog, I need you to go ahead and make a dexterity saving throw.

TALIESIN: With advantage.

MATT: With advantage.

TRAVIS: What is that plus?

MATT: Saving throw at the top of your–

LAURA: Dexterity.

TRAVIS: 15.

MATT: 15? You try and move out of the way but the beam hits you on the side of your torso. You feel a familiar sensation, back when that proto-lich was drawing the life force from you from the phylactery that was sewn in your chest. I need you– Nope. You take 55 points of damage.

ASHLEY: What?

ORION: Are you surprised? I’m not.

TALIESIN: You’re not in the room.

ORION: I don’t care.

MARISHA: Oh, stop being so pouty, you knew this was coming.

ORION: I’m doing it through here.

MATT: All right. And this time, a pale greenish ray comes streaking across. This one’s going to be aimed at Scanlan. Go ahead and make a dexterity save with advantage.

LAURA: Tiberius. Can you rally the illithid?

ORION: What the hell do you think I’m doing?

LAURA: Stop being a dick.

ORION: I’m angry at all of you right now.

SAM: 18.

MATT: 18.

SAM: Because she cast enhance dexterity.

MATT: That’s true. Yeah. So you duck out of the way and the beam just (shhh) past you.

SAM: Thank you, Keyleth.

MARISHA: You’re– Yeah, totally. I don’t know what I did, but you’re welcome.

MATT: As it hits part of the stone nearby you, wherever the beam hits the stone, the stone is just no longer there. It’s like it just carved through it.

MARISHA: What was this one?

MATT: Very similar to what Queen Ulara did to the top of the throne room.

LIAM: Disintegrate. You could’ve been dead.

MATT: As movement, K'Varn’s going to try and break your grapple. Go ahead and make another athletics check. Keyleth, athletics check.

MARISHA: Sorry, I was shell-shocked.

MATT: Roll, plus five. Roll, plus five. d20 plus five.

MARISHA: Okay. 15.

MATT: 15? K'Varn pushes you off, you lose your grip and fall, onto your feet, but onto the ground there.

MARISHA: Damn it.

MATT: K'Varn then goes–

MARISHA: Wait, do I have advantage for that? Still? Do I still have advantage for that?

MATT: No, no. That’s only for your saving throws.

MARISHA: Okay.

MATT: K'Varn is then going to go ahead and glide back up. No, actually it’s going to be like that.

SAM: Whew! Grog, you okay?

TRAVIS: Yeah. (scoffs) But a tickle.

MATT: That is going to end K'Varn’s turn.

TRAVIS: No one told me he had a lightsaber.

MATT: K'Varn saves against the bleed, is no longer bleeding, and he just starts laughing. (laughs) As you see, like, black energy seeping in around. And you can see visible wounds that Grog has left are slowly stitching. That brings us to Clarota, who is still kind of hovering in levitation. Clarota comes to the ground and lands, looks up, the tentacles pull back, brings one hand down and the arcane sigils you’ve seen appear on the hands both light up. And then releases a bolt of lightning energy up into the air towards K'Varn. Okay, K'Varn does make his dexterity saving throw. Takes half-damage on that. That is 18 points of lightning damage. And he’s going to move back to there. At the end of Clarota’s turn, legendary action. He’s going to use the secondary ray. The ray is going to be– All right. Streaming up towards the top again. Scanlan, I need you to go ahead and make a strength saving throw.

SAM: Strength?

MATT: Three rays on its turn and then it gets to make three individual ray attacks on other people’s turns.

TALIESIN: It’s still, technically speaking though, we would still have advantage.

MATT: Advantage, until your next turn.

SAM: May I use my Cutting Words?

MATT: Unfortunately, it isn’t an attack roll.

SAM: It’s not an attack, okay. Then a strength saving throw.

MATT: With advantage.

SAM: Oh, With advantage. Oh good. Ee. Not good. Ten.

MATT: So a familiar beam streaks up, kind of a deep green color slams into you. And you feel yourself chucked off the top, restrained, and then pulled down with severe force into the center of the temple.

SAM: Oh, into the room? But I don’t want to be in there.

MATT: And then the beam releases you. You go slamming into the ground. Go ahead and make an acrobatics roll. You have advantage because of your dexterity.

SAM: 17, no 19.

MATT: 19, okay, you manage to reduce the damage from the fall somewhat. You suffer 11 points of damage. Managing to land harshly on one knee and foot. You feel that’s going to suck in the morning.

SAM: No problem. Easy, easy

MATT: That ends Clarota’s turn. Percy, you’re up.

TALIESIN: All right, I’m taking– I’m taking another aimed shot at the– I’m taking another head shot. Straight into the face.

MATT: Okay.

TALIESIN: Yeah, that’s 29 to hit.

MATT: 29 to hit. Okay.

MARISHA: Do you crit on 18?

TALIESIN: I can’t remember. Did we–

MATT: No, you do not.

TALIESIN: God damn it. No I don’t. So that’s 15 points of damage. And he has– he maintains that thing where everyone still has saving throws.

MATT: All right. Good

TALIESIN: I’m then, I’m actually going to–

MATT: I should have done this last round by the way, as a point. I need you to go ahead and make a constitution saving throw. You are firing a Bad News on a small five-foot platform on top of a temple. There is kickback on this. I’m just keeping tabs on this.

TALIESIN: Okay, so you are going to need a constitution saving throw.

MATT: Constitution save to hold your footing because that is a big, loud, powerful kickback blast.

TALIESIN: Okay. 17.

MATT: 17. It blows you back, but you manage to keep your foot from going over the edge. Keep your footing at the top. And reload with your second attack. All right. Percy, you going to stay where you are or going to move?

TALIESIN: I’m going to duck. I’m going to step back from from the edge, just so that I’m not in its eyeline for a little bit. I’m going to catch a breather.

MATT: All right.

MARISHA: Grog, fastball special? Want me to toss your ass up there? See if you can grapple on to him?

TRAVIS: Yeah, can you throw me at his side away from his eyeball?

MARISHA: I can try, yeah.

TRAVIS: If not, it doesn’t matter.

MARISHA: All right, I’m going to cheerleader-toss Grog.

MATT: Okay.

MARISHA: So I want to take Grog and push him up to see if he can essentially do what I did to K'Varn.

MATT: Okay, Grog’s turn doesn’t come for a while, for the next round of combat. So you would throw Grog and then Grog would come back down. Grog is just now coming off this series of frenzied attacks. So you would–

TALIESIN: So you would hold your turn until Grog’s turn.

MARISHA: I would have to hold my turn. 'Cause I can’t reach him, right?

MATT: No, unfortunately it’s just out of reach.

MARISHA: I probably can’t jump to reach him either. I’ll hold my turn, then. I’ll hold my turn.

MATT: Hold your turn, all right. 'Til Grog’s?

MARISHA: 'Til Grog’s

MATT: All right. Keyleth out of the line. Back to the top of the next round. Pike, you’re up. You’re currently (grunts).

ASHLEY: Can I heal if I’m still grappled?

MATT: You can, yeah, you just can’t move.

LAURA: You can break the grapple though, right?

MATT: As a movement, you can break the grapple if you want to.

ASHLEY: I’m going try to break the grapple first, 'cause then I can–

MATT: Make an athletics check, with disadvantage because you’re in plate mail.

ASHLEY: Eight.

MATT: Holds on to you and you take three points of crushing damage as the arms are still pulling you against the top. It rolled really poorly.

ASHLEY: Three points? Okay, so–

MATT: You still have one action and a bonus action should you choose to use them.

ASHLEY: Okay, so, I’m going to do a Mass Cure Word– Healing Word.

MATT: All right.

ASHLEY: So where’s my– and I’ll do it at– Cure Wounds, I’m sorry. I am so flummoxed at the moment. So nervous for all things. Okay. I’ll do it at– let’s see. 13.

TALIESIN: I’ve heard worse ideas.

MATT: 3d8 plus five.

ASHLEY: 20.

MATT: 20. 20 hit points to six creatures in a 30-foot radius. So you can get Grog, Scanlan, Keyleth.

TRAVIS: How many hit points?

ASHLEY: 20. Is that also including myself?

MATT: Centered on that point, to each target– I’d say you can do it on yourself, yeah.

ASHLEY: All right.

SAM: Thank you, Pike.

MATT: So 20 hit points to Grog, to Scanlan, to Keyleth.

MARISHA: Is that temporary hit points?

MATT: No, she heals you.

MARISHA: Okay.

MATT: If you’re full, you’re fine.

MARISHA: Yeah.

MATT: All right. I think that’s your turn, Pike.

ASHLEY: All right.

MATT: Scanlan, you’re up. You’re currently face-down on the ground. Or no, sorry, you’re on, like, your hurt knee. You’re not prone, you manage to catch yourself up.

SAM: I stand, I look at the creature. No, I don’t look at the creature. (laughs) I just sort of look near the creature, and I will punch it in its face with Bigby’s Hand.

MATT: All righty, let’s go ahead and pull this up real fast. How does the– What’s the effect on that one?

SAM: Hand is an object that has an AC of 20. Strength of 26. Blah blah blah.

MATT: This is the Forceful Hand?

SAM: It’s the Clenched Fist.

MATT: Clenched Fist.

SAM: It’s a melee attack, it’s like–

MATT: All right, so go ahead and make a melee attack with your game statistics. So go ahead and roll d20.

SAM: d20.

MATT: Add your strength modifier and your proficiency modifier.

SAM: Ten. (laughs)

MATT: Ten.

SAM: Right?

MATT: Total of ten?

SAM: Yeah.

MATT: All right.

SAM: I’m not very strong.

ASHLEY: Hey, you know, it’s chipping away. Chipping away.

MATT: A fist swings down. What you notice is the fist swings, or swings upward, sorry, at K'Varn, who’s kind of loosely facing your direction. The fist crosses the front of his cone and dissipates. The spell is nullified.

TRAVIS: His eye cancelled out magic.

LAURA: You’ve gotta go from the side.

SAM: Damn! All right. Are you still hurting, Grog? As my bonus action, I’m going to give Grog some more healing.

TRAVIS: All right.

SAM: Yeah. (sings) So I come to you, with Healing Words. Now you know what to grow. I don’t know. Healing Words! All right, so that’s 1d4 plus five. It’s not very much. Do I roll for that or does he?

MATT: You roll for it.

TRAVIS: 1d4 + five.

SAM: Ugh, six.

TRAVIS: Eight. I’ll take it. That’s eight. That’s great. Oh, you rolled for it.

SAM: I rolled. You get six.

TRAVIS: I’ll take it.

MATT: All right.

TRAVIS: Thank you, Scanlan.

SAM: Sure.

MATT: Great. That comes to Kima’s turn. Kima, who’s now landed and cast that spell on her is going to go ahead and use an ability called Sacred Weapon. She pulls out the hammer and as she brings her hand across it, this divine flame begins to burn around the base of where she’s holding it and the giant head of the maul.

LIAM: Badass.

MATT: She steps forward to there. Actually, going to move to the side a little bit, there. That’s going to be her turn. She shouts out, “Someone bring it down!” Brings to the top of the round. Grog and Keyleth.

MARISHA: Oh, I’m getting a donut. Hang on. Okay.

TALIESIN AND ORION: Fastball Special.

MARISHA: Fastball Special. So, “Gymnast, hyup!”

MATT: All right, athletics check. Actually, no. This is a strength check. So just roll and add five to it.

MARISHA: Adds strength. Check. 15.

MATT: 15. 600 pounds–

MARISHA: But I’m also a giant earth elemental.

TRAVIS: You’re pretty freaking huge.

MATT: Right.

MARISHA: Pretty freaking huge.

MATT: I know.

TRAVIS: Not that high up.

MATT: I would say, you go ahead and roll a strength check as well, as you’re also pushing off of her.

TRAVIS: Fuck yes. 22.

MATT: 22. Between him pushing off the force of your hands, you manage to move over, leap in the air approximately at his height. Before you plummet, what are you going to do?

MARISHA: Horn. Horn. Horn!

TRAVIS: Yeah, I’m going to grab the black horn.

MATT: All right. You reach out. Go ahead and make an athletics check.

TRAVIS: Natural 20.

(cheering)

MATT: You grab onto the horn and you’re dangling from it right now. Ugh! You can feel, just to the touch of your hand, there’s this freezing cold sensation. As you look up, you can see frost beginning to build around the outside of your fingers. It’s immediate frostburn on your fingers, but you’re holding tight. And you have this giant eye moving in front of you, rapidly looking around angrily. This giant, toothy maw, just behind you, with a tongue lashing about. And this voice, right in your face, going, “Oh, you don’t wanna do that, boy.”

TRAVIS: Well, I have an Intelligence of six. Watch this.

MATT: That’s your action. What’s your bonus action?

TRAVIS: Can I grab and kick off and try and rip it off his head? Or is that all the same thing?

MATT: You can certainly try.

TRAVIS: I’ll try that. At least trying to kick my feet into his eye. Maybe it works, maybe it doesn’t.

MATT: Strength check.

LIAM: Natural 20. That’s all you gotta do.

SAM: You have Inspiration.

TRAVIS: Do I have to do the Inspiration before I–

MATT: No, you can do it now, before you know what the answer would be.

TRAVIS: And it’s ten?

MATT: Add 1d10 to the roll.

TRAVIS: It’s 16.

MATT: 16. You grab, you take your feet and you kick off the front. That thing is wedged in there. Your body comes back flat against the Beholder. You see the eyelid has been closed from the impact of your feet, and this horrible snarling sound, “What are you doing?” So that’s your turn. At the end of your turn, it’s going to go ahead and do another lair–

LAURA: You’re not in a good spot!

MATT: Lair action on you. Because you’re in its face, I’m going to say it would give him advantage. However, that’s negated by him so you just have a straight roll on this.

TRAVIS: Okay.

MATT: I want you to go ahead and make a wisdom saving throw.

TRAVIS: All right. Oh shit. 19.

MATT: 19.

TRAVIS: Yeah.

MATT: Damn. For a second, you feel like the force of K'Varn’s mind begins to creep over yours, and you feel the urge to suddenly turn to his side. You shrug it off out of just the general fury and anger, realizing that you, wouldn’t matter, being raging, are immune to charm effects. All right, that ends your turn. Tiberius? Still over here.

ORION: As far as, down, as I could have been to begin with, so even-Steven with those guys.

MATT: Yeah.

ORION: What do I see in the town? Do I see a mass anywhere?

MATT: Go ahead and make a perception check.

ORION: Natural 20!

(cheering)

TRAVIS: Nice, Tiberius.

MATT: 20, all right. Looking down, you look about the city streets and what you can see is immediately a swarm of illithids and mind flayers heading towards the temple.

ORION: Great, I jump off the carpet. I cast Fly on myself.

MATT: All right.

ORION: I go to where I can just, right, hover– I want to hover above them, about 20 feet away. And as I come to it, I’m going to flip out the carpet, get on it, cast Alter Self, turn into Clarota. I’m going to keep my original lungs.

MATT: Okay, hold on. One turn.

ORION: Yeah. I’m going to– Yeah, I’ll spend whatever I gotta spend. I’m doing all of it.

MATT: All right, so, to get to the bottom of the– You get 20 feet away, you said, which is, you get about that far at the end of this turn with the magic carpet. So you’re about there, I’d say, on the outside. So you then– You jump off the carpet. You turn, you cast Fly on yourself.

ORION: Can they see me? The crowd that’s coming?

MATT: You don’t know that yet. You imagine you’re out in the open, but you don’t know if anyone’s noticed you yet.

ORION: That’s what I– I’m going to go towards the crowd. I wanna–

MATT: Right. But you can only move so fast on the carpet. You come down to the bottom of–

ORION: No, I dispelled the carpet so I can do double my speed so I can get there, and then I redo the carpet as I–

MATT: No, you can’t just like grab the carpet and go down. You have to jump off the carpet, leaving the carpet behind.

ORION: No, I grabbed it. As I’m going with me. I can’t do that?

MATT: It’s a really, really– It’s not like a boop! It’s a six, it’s a 15-foot-by-10-foot carpet. It’s very thick.

ORION: Well, that’s not going to be as cool. Well, then I’ll just stay on the stupid carpet, then.

MATT: Okay. Just letting you know. You’re pretty much going to have to let the carpet go, or take it down slower. So as you coast down, you get to about this point. You said you cast Fly on yourself, or are you just going to go for the Alter Self?

ORION: If I’m, like, down at that level then I don’t really have to do that. I’ll cast Alter Self though.

MATT: Okay.

ORION: Turn into Clarota.

MATT: All right, you’re now in the form of a mind flayer. Covered in rags, with a big old metallic head piece.

ORION: Do I– actually, sans head piece. Clarota without the head piece. And what do I see when I get down there?

MATT: As you coast down you can see a group of what looks like three mind flayers with about seven slaves swarming in towards the front of the temple. They haven’t quite noticed you yet.

ORION: How far away are they?

MATT: About 30 feet from you.

ORION: Great. You, over there! Quickly! And I get their attention.

MATT: They all stop and look up at you. A look of confusion, as mind flayers both do not speak through language, let alone speak Common out loud.

ORION: Look, I took the form of one of your own. Pretty much to get your attention. We need your help. We want to defeat the one who’s taken control over your mind. We are the ones who disabled the crystal to begin with. Please come on this– With me. We can go much faster. Up here, please!

MATT: You make a persuasion roll.

ORION: Damn right. Six plus ten. That’s 16, plus nine is– My persuasion’s nine. Plus 16.

MATT: Wait, what’d you say? 20?

ORION: Six.

MATT: Plus ten?

ORION: Plus nine.

MATT: Plus nine.

ORION: That’s 25.

MATT: Okay.

SAM: You stumped him.

MATT: There’s– No, there’s a really, really, really fine line here.

ORION: Oh yes.

LAURA: They could suck your brain out.

ORION: Not if they’re allies.

ASHLEY: How many of them are there?

LIAM AND TALIESIN: Hundreds.

MATT: Two of them kind of look at each other confused, and look back. Third one looks up at you. And just continues inside the temple.

ORION: Well, I guess that was something.

TRAVIS: Yeah, it might’ve been. You might’ve started it.

MATT: You didn’t get Mind Blasted three times.

ORION: Noticing that, then, I will go to– I don’t have another movement, right? Or was–

MATT: No, that’s your turn, yo.

TRAVIS: That’s good, though.

SAM: That was great.

ORION: That’s what I do.

MATT: All right. Vax, you’re up.

LIAM: All right, I’m going to run– I’m still Hasted directly underneath the mind flayer. And throw the daggers up.

MATT: You mean K'Varn?

LIAM: Yeah. Oh, sorry. Thank you. Yes, and here we go. Ten. First attack is a 21.

MATT: All right, with disadvantage on both those attacks because you currently have Grog dangling from the creature.

LIAM: All right, so, okay. So that one misses. Second one. That’s a 15. Misses, right? And the second one, come on, man, is a 20.

MATT: That does hit.

LIAM: Okay. That’s a dagger into its butt. Three. And there’s no non-magical effect on me at the moment, right? 'Cause I’m out of his vision? So that’s a nine?

MATT: Correct, yep.

LIAM: Just for damage? Okay.

MATT: Dagger slams into the bottom. Because you’re out of the eye range, returns to your side. End of your turn, it’s going to use legendary action. Final ray.

LIAM: Come sit on me, dude. Come on down.

MATT: All right. This stalk now gives off this weird yellowish– Like a very faint yellowish see-through color, kind of scoops across the ground, right past you, after you throw the dagger. Go ahead and roll a constitution saving throw.

LIAM: It’s able to– I just don’t know, I’m not challenging it.

MATT: It has stalks everywhere.

LIAM: Even under– On its tushie?

MATT: These stalks aim down.

LIAM: Oh. I was going off that, okay. All right, so what am I making at the–

MATT: Constitution saving throw. You have advantage, because Percy–

LIAM: Advantage, 18.

MATT: 18? All right. You manage to just dodge out of the way. It crests your arm, and for a second you feel the muscles tense up and then you just shake off the effect. All right, that brings us to Vex.

LAURA: That’s me. Okay. I’m going– Grog is dangling from him, but I’m still going to try to shoot him. I’m going to try to shoot him with the Ensnare arrow that I have from Percy.

MATT: Okay.

LAURA: Try to maybe see if I can tie some of those stalks down to his head with it. Yeah?

LIAM: Like a hairnet?

LAURA: Yeah, like a little hairnet.

MATT: Make an attack with disadvantage.

LAURA: The disadvantage was a– What was that, 20?

MATT: Total 20? Okay. That hits.

LAURA: Yes!

TALIESIN: Science!

LAURA: Okay, so what do I– How do I do that? With the Ensnare arrow?

MATT: Essentially how it works is it works like a Tanglefoot bag. It slams into it. You roll damage for the arrow, and it bursts over him like a giant package of globby, thick glue. Just (pfft).

LAURA: 15, 16, 17. 19.

MATT: 19 damage. All right. It looks a little goopy. The purpose of the Tanglefoot bag usually is to stick something to something, like a creature on the ground.

LAURA: Oh, okay. I didn’t know that.

MATT: So he’s got goop on him. Doesn’t seem to be affecting him much. You wanna fire another arrow?

LAURA: Oh, I thought it was like a sort of wrap-around-y arrow. It wasn’t like a– I thought it was like a–

MARISHA: Like a bolo?

LAURA: Yeah.

TALIESIN: It was a bolo-y thing.

MATT: Oh, I thought this was the Tanglefoot arrow.

TALIESIN: The Tanglefoot was basically like a wire thing. Yeah, it was a bolo arrow. That’s how it– That was how I originally pitched it, was a bolo arrow.

LAURA: That’s what he told me it was a long time ago.

MATT: Okay. Then, given that circumstance, the bolo wraps around him. Bolos–

LAURA: Hopefully taking some of the stalks, pinning it to his body?

MATT: Bolos are used to trap creature’s legs when they’re running. Wrap around it. They kind of fall over.

LAURA: Right.

MATT: It wraps around some of the eyestalks or parts and doesn’t seem to have an additional effect than the damage. Unfortunately, it’s just– bolo against beholder it’s kind of a square peg in a hole.

LAURA: I know, I was just hoping I could pin a stalk or two. All right, the second one, with the burning bow.

MATT: All right.

LAURA: Wasn’t that the same thing as the first one? Oh no.

LIAM: I didn’t see the second one. 17?

LAURA: 15, 24? Okay, so. Ten, 11, 12. 16 plus ten for the burning.

MATT: Okay.

LAURA: 19.

MATT: All right, gotcha. Cool. As the arrow streaks and then slams into his side you see the burst of flame begin to burn up its side. And you can see now, the armored plates on the side of K'Varn, some are starting to, like, creak off and kind of peel off at the side. The damage is starting to have a visual impact on K'Varn. You can see there’s bits of beholder blood beginning to pour down the side of its meatball-like torso. Is that the end of your turn?

LAURA: And I duck down again and try to drop out of his view.

MATT: That brings it to K'Varn’s turn. K'Varn is going to attempt to shrug you off the horn, Grog.

MARISHA: Hold on!

MATT: First it’s going to fly up.

TRAVIS: Oh, great, yeah. That’s good.

MARISHA: It’s going to fly up?

TRAVIS: I had to grab that thing.

MARISHA: Can I move underneath so I can maybe catch Grog from where I cheerleader–

MATT: Unfortunately, right now, no.

ORION: Why are you cheerleading somebody?

MARISHA: Prep. Prep for the basket? Because I imagine it was like a cheerleader.

MATT: Make an athletics check.

TRAVIS: 15.

MATT: 15? K'Varn nudges you. A sheer bit of force. Your hand lets go and you plummet backward again, slamming into the ground. Make an acrobatics check to try and reduce the damage if you like.

TRAVIS: 17?

MATT: All right. You go ahead and slam into the ground. You manage to reduce the damage somewhat, but your back cracks into the part of stone that raises up over the platform. You, unfortunately, you reduce the damage somewhat, but you still end up taking 14 points of damage from the impact.

TALIESIN: Okay.

MATT: And you are prone. That was K'Varn’s movement. Now, K'Varn is going to go ahead and fire three additional rays. All right. The kind of pinkish-red ray streaks across and is going to slam into you. Go ahead and make your saving throw.

ASHLEY: She’s all the way up there.

MATT: It’s going to be a wisdom saving throw with advantage.

LAURA: 21.

MATT: 21. The beam comes across, hits you in the shoulder, kind of goes across the front of your chest. For a moment, you feel this kind of bloodthirsty urge fill you and you just wince and feel it wash over your body.

TRAVIS: Oh, thank god.

MATT: All right. The second ray. Reroll that. All right. The second one is going to go ahead and streak down towards Grog. Grog, I need you to go ahead and make a dexterity check. With, I’ll say disadvantage 'cause you’re on the ground.

TALIESIN: But the advantage cancels– advantage?

MATT: Sure, so it’d be just a regular roll.

TRAVIS: Five?

MATT: Five? All right.

TALIESIN: Regular roll?

MATT: That was his first roll. Regular roll, yeah. All right.

SAM: That’s a strong five.

TRAVIS: That’s a pissed-off goliath five. (laughs) I am Kerri Strug.

MATT: All right. Grog, you take 61 points of damage.

ASHLEY: 61 points of damage?

MATT: As the black ray that is carrying that heavy aura of shadow, just beams into the ground, slamming into your torso.

LAURA: What are you at?

TRAVIS: 13.

ASHLEY: Oh no!

TRAVIS: Thanks for the Death Ward. (laughs)

MATT: Second ray into Grog. He touched the horn and really pissed it off. All right. Go ahead and make a constitution saving throw, Grog.

ASHLEY: Come on, buddy.

TRAVIS: 13.

MATT: 13? A secondary beam, this one like a deep reddish-brown color, slams into your torso. You take 36 points of necrotic damage.

SAM: Death Ward.

TRAVIS: Death Ward is activated?

MATT: All right, so as the beam is about to blast your body into severe shock, you feel that surge of Sarenrae’s energy guide over you and pull back with one hit point left. K'Varn, frustrated, looks down at you with your eyes still open and goes, “No!”

ASHLEY: Yes!

TRAVIS: Fucking done.

MATT: 22, all right.

MARISHA: Can someone handle the fucking meatball?

TRAVIS: One, one.

MATT: Go ahead and make a strength saving throw, Grog.

LAURA: Ugh. Again? He’s getting it again?

ASHLEY AND TRAVIS: Natural 20!

(cheering)

MATT: The ray slams into your body. You can see the telekinesis beam trying to move you. But for the moment you’re just too heavy.

(laughter)

MATT: That’s going to end K'Varn’s turn. That brings us to Clarota. Clarota’s going to go ahead and pull back further, here. Actually, no. Clarota’s going to– Hold on, let’s see if he gets his Mind Blast back. Nope. He’s going to go ahead and attempt another Lightning Bolt.

ASHLEY: I’m so stressed out.

LIAM: I’ve never looked so intensely at a little plastic toy.

LAURA: (laughs) I know.

TALIESIN: Fuck you, little plastic toy. You’re not the boss of me.

TRAVIS: I can’t even look at it. I’ve been looking down.

MATT: 14 points of lightning damage against K'Varn.

LIAM: Full view of the eyeball, like, “Fuck you”.

MATT: At the end of Clarota’s turn, K'Varn’s going to use a legendary action to fire another beam at Grog.

SAM: Oh my god.

LAURA: He hates you, Grog.

SAM: Is this an automatic hit?

MATT: Yeah, all the beams automatically hit. Go ahead and make another dexterity saving throw.

SAM: Dexterity. That’s your good die.

TRAVIS: 18.

MATT: 18. That same, fuzzing black ray comes back again for a second streak, slamming into you. As it hits you, you feel this sucking cold sensation as the soul is pulled from your body, lifeless on the ground. The light left Grog’s eyes, laying slain on the floor of the temple. As that necrotic energy kind of drifts off of Grog, it pulls into the horn, and K'Varn, you notice, the wounds begin to seal up a little bit, and a chuckle comes out. “Who’s next?” Percy, you’re up.

TALIESIN: Okay, weird question. (laughs) All right, we’ve got a giant spiral machine hanging by two chains right now.

MATT: Yes.

TALIESIN: I’m going to peek over the edge. And is there a way that if I happen to snap one of those chains that that thing would go slamming into him?

MATT: Very possible.

TALIESIN: I’m going to pull over and make that shot. I’m going to steady myself, sit down, and I’m going to make that shot.

MATT: Okay. Bad News aimed up. You’re aiming– You’re probably going to have to move around to this side.

TALIESIN: Fine.

MATT: Which is very careful, around the two of them– Oh, actually, you’d probably go around this side.

TALIESIN: I go around the other way.

MATT: Yeah, so you make your way to here. You kneel down with the Bad News. You aim for one of the weak points of the metal, bent and ruined from the swinging of the platform. You grabbed that horn, Grog.

TALIESIN: 17.

MATT: 17? Does not hit.

TALIESIN: Does not hit a not-moving target?

MATT: Oh, no no. I was thinking of his AC. That hits the platform, I’m so dumb.

TALIESIN: So– Thank you.

MATT: Yes, that does hit. Go ahead and roll damage.

TALIESIN: Seven, eight, nine, ten. 15 points of damage.

MATT: 15 points of damage? Go ahead and make a constitution save as the blast of the Bad News threatens to push you back.

TALIESIN: 20.

MATT: Keeping your low stance, you keep yourself, with strain, on the top. The blast hits the side of the metal. The metal streaks and breaks and snaps. The single bit of the contraption swings widely, slamming into the side of K'Varn. K'Varn does not make his dexterity saving throw.

TALIESIN: Yes!

ORION: Very good.

MATT: K'Varn takes 36 points of damage. The blast of the arcane nature of the contraption and the impact from– It slams into him, pushing him all the way to the side over here. So, leaving you right where you were, there. And you can see now, part of the metal armor has completely been destroyed by the impact. So the AC actually lowers for K'Varn, and he’s looking pretty rough.

TALIESIN: Cool. Bonus action. I’m shooting him again.

MATT: Oh, you mean the Action Surge?

TALIESIN: Action Surge.

MATT: Okay, 'cause you used your second attack to reload.

TALIESIN: Yeah. Well, I used my second attack to reload. Now I’m on my– Yeah.

MATT: You– Unfortunately, from your position, since it slammed in this direction, you don’t have eyesight on him, unless he’s considered having cover right now.

TALIESIN: Have I actually moved all six of my– All six of my spaces for movement?

MATT: To move around the whole platform? Yeah, you would have had to. You can still fire, but he’ll have three-quarters cover.

TALIESIN: I ignore three-quarters cover!

MATT: Then fucking fire.

TALIESIN: Thank you. All right. I’m spending the last of my Grit to do yet another head shot.

MATT: Okay.

MARISHA: Come on, Percy.

LAURA: Isn’t he just a giant head?

TALIESIN: Technically, it’s a head shot. It has an effect.

LAURA: Okay.

TALIESIN: I’m shooting him in the eyeball, basically. That’s a 29 to hit.

MATT: That hits.

TALIESIN: That’s 18 points of damage.

MATT: 18 points of damage? All right.

TALIESIN: 18 points of damage, plus the same thing. Everyone gets this– So everyone gets advantage.

MATT: That’s so obnoxious! All right. That’s Percy’s turn. Pike, you’re up.

ASHLEY: Okay, I’m going to– Can I run over to Grog?

MATT: You can try to go ahead and– You have to try and break the–

ASHLEY: The grapple was off.

MATT: That’s right, 'cause the grapple guy got hit. All right, yeah, so you can go do that. Move over to Grog?

SAM: Come on, Matt, can’t you remember where ten people are at once?

MATT: 11, technically.

ASHLEY: I’m going to try this. I’m going to put my hands on him. Try to cast Revivify.

MATT: Okay. So as you reach over, you grab your holy symbol, which, looking down at it, you can see that crack is still ominously in the symbol. But you reach down, you pray to Sarenrae to aid you.

ASHLEY: But he put it in the Mending Wheel!

MATT: Huh?

ASHLEY: He put it in the Mending Wheel.

LAURA: No, remember it didn’t work.

ASHLEY: It didn’t work? Okay, never mind.

MATT: You reach down and touch Grog, and his cold, still body– You feel the divine energy begin to instill his form. I need you to go ahead and make a wisdom check.

ASHLEY: And I have Gnome Cunning, so I get to– I get advantage on wisdom checks.

MATT: Yes you do. From which one? From Gnome’s Cunning?

ASHLEY: Yeah. So what do I add?

LAURA: Wisdom, I think.

MATT: For her racial background, she chooses– she’s a deep gnome.

SAM: She’s such a racist. (laughs)

ASHLEY: 16.

MATT: 16? Look that up really fast.

SAM: It’s something.

MATT: Deep gnome, rock gnome? Okay, Gnome Cunning is you have advantage on all saving throws against magic. This was a check.

ASHLEY: Okay, so that’s not a thing.

LAURA: Oh, well, it’s okay. The high– The first one was– It would still be–

ASHLEY: The first one was 16.

MATT: 16? Okay. As you put your hands in, you feel this surge of warmth, and some of the coldness in the air is pulled back in as Grog’s chest rises up with breath, once again. Grog, the darkness fades and your eyes come clear. You’re looking up, on your back, into the room. You’re at one hit point, I’m pretty sure.

TRAVIS: Okay.

MATT: For Revivify. But you’re alive.

ASHLEY: He needs– He’s one hit point now, so he needs a potion. Do you have potions?

LIAM: Do you have a potion for a bonus action?

TRAVIS: I do, but it’s not my turn. Or can I take a hit dice at any time?

ASHLEY: Can I give him a potion?

LIAM: Shove it in his mouth.

TRAVIS: I have to wait for my turn.

MATT: He’s right there. I’d say, yeah, you can do that.

ASHLEY: Okay. I’m going to give him a potion. I’m going to– I have a big one.

LAURA: Yeah, we have a superior.

ASHLEY: Yeah, I have a superior.

LAURA: And what does a superior do?

MATT: Superior is–

LAURA: It’s like 100 hit points, I think?

MATT: Is 8d4 plus eight.

TRAVIS: Oh shit.

MATT: That’ll do.

TRAVIS: Why didn’t I buy one of those?

SAM: Now you have 3 hit points. Come on, Grog. Don’t die. Again.

TRAVIS: (laughs) I’m trying not to.

MATT: What’s the amount? What you got?

TRAVIS: I thought the horn was like a party hat. Like you could just yank it off.

SAM: (high-pitched) Yeah, yeah. It seemed totally reasonable.

TALIESIN: We were with you. We were totally with you.

TRAVIS: Wasn’t he– It wasn’t even his. He’s like– I thought he was wearing it. The fucker’s on there.

ASHLEY: 25.

MATT: 25. All right.

TRAVIS: Way better than one.

ASHLEY: Okay. It’s something.

MATT: Go. All right. At the end of your turn, Pike, K'Varn is angrily going to use a legendary action to go ahead and fire another beam at you, since you went ahead and healed him up. All right, go ahead and make a dexterity saving throw.

TALIESIN AND MATT: With advantage.

ASHLEY: Okay. 19.

MATT: 19. You manage to dodge out of the way before it hits the stone around you, carving just past Grog. No effect. However, where it hits the stone, you can see the stone is carved in this giant groove, like the beam itself is like a giant welding torch.

ASHLEY: Thank god.

MATT: That ends your turn. Scanlan.

SAM: Ah! Hey! Oh, hi guys. Do I blind it or do I attack it?

LAURA: Blind it. No, I don’t know.

SAM: Is he looking at me?

TRAVIS: Where are you?

MATT: You are down here. He’s not currently really looking at– Actually, no. He was looking down at them. So it’s that– So yeah, you’d be in the current cone.

TRAVIS: Or get out of his eyesight. Remember, your magic–

SAM: I’m going to blind his big eye.

LIAM: With what?

SAM: With Blindness.

MATT: You would have to move. You’re currently in his eyesight.

SAM: Oh, he can see me? I’m in his field of vision?

MATT: Yeah.

SAM: Oh, then never mind.

LAURA: You can move.

LIAM: Move out of the way.

TRAVIS: Just move to the right.

LAURA: Yeah.

LIAM: Move out of the cone.

SAM: Okay, I’ll move out of the cone.

LIAM: Past Clarota. Maybe out–

SAM: And now I try to blind him.

MATT: All right.

SAM: Wait, I– Through the Hand Cone of Clarity, of course.

MATT: All right. That is a 20. What is your DC?

SAM: (sings) Blinded by the light.

ALL: (sings) Wrapped up like a douche, another roller in the night.

MATT: What’s the DC of your spell?

SAM: 19.

MATT: He rolled a 20.

SAM: Fuck you.

MATT: “Yes.”

ASHLEY: Shit.

MATT: As you release the spell, the eyestalks turn and you can see the darkness that normally fades over the eyes just gloss over and dissipate.

SAM: Great. Well then, as my bonus action, I’ll give Grog just a little bit more healing.

TRAVIS: Yeah, thanks.

SAM: Six more.

TRAVIS: Take it. Thank you, sir.

MATT: All right. It’s now Kima’s turn. Kima’s going to hold off, looks over at Keyleth and says, “If you can give me another one of those tosses like you gave Grog?”

MARISHA: (grunting affirmatively)

MATT: Kima holds. Back at the top of the round.

SAM: She’s in human form, by the way. (laughs) It’s just how she talks.

MARISHA: My turn? Is it my turn? Sure. I’ll go ahead– Since she’s a tiny dwarf, I’ll–

MATT: All right, go ahead make an athletics check.

MARISHA: What’s that, just a strength check as an elemental, I guess?

MATT: Yeah, add five to the d20 roll.

MARISHA: 23.

MATT: 23. All right. You send Kima flying in the air, maul arcing through the sky. As she arcs the mark above her, a giant flash of divine energy, just kind of sparks in– Is left behind her like a giant trail through the sky. She brings the hammer down towards K'Varn. That is a 21, that hits. As she slams into it, Kima– Go ahead and throw– Is going to go ahead and throw a 3rd-level spell into Divine Smite, doing an additional 3d8 damage on top of that. That’ll be 38 points of divine damage.

SAM: That’s great.

MATT: Slamming into the side, knocking teeth out. You can see, now, portions of the eye starting to swell. K'Varn’s looking pretty rough. Kima, however, just continues to go and attempts to land– Does not make the athletics check and takes– Okay, that’ll be 22 points of damage from the fall. And is prone.

SAM: From the fall?

MATT: But is happy with the damage that she dealt. Grog.

TRAVIS: Yes?

MATT: It’s your turn.

SAM: Run. Away.

TRAVIS: Am I still prone?

MATT: You are, yes.

TRAVIS: Can I stand up?

MATT: You can. That’s your movement to get up.

TRAVIS: That’s my movement to get up?

MATT: Yeah.

TRAVIS: God, son of a bitch. He’s looking at me, right?

MATT: He’s kind of looking in that direction. Not directly down at you.

TRAVIS: But I’m in the cone of shit?

MATT: You’re just on the cusp of it, yeah.

TRAVIS: Can I use the Chain of Returning to throw my axe at him?

MATT: You can.

TRAVIS: Yeah, 'cause I can’t move anywhere, right?

MATT: Technically, no.

SAM: You can heal yourself.

TRAVIS: I think– Can I use it– Can I heal myself after I throw it? Can I? Or is it one or the other?

MATT: Put it this way. Since you stood up, you’re now like cusping in the cone– The anti-magic cone. Any potions drank in that area will have no effect. Magic, the actual potions, are dispelled.

TRAVIS: I had to stand up. Let’s throw an axe.

MATT: All right. Go ahead and roll to attack.

MARISHA: It’s like Ren Faire.

TRAVIS: A one.

MATT: As you reach back, you lob the axe. The Chain of Returning, now also in the cone of anti-magic, just snaps off the axe. The axe goes flying across the room, clattering to the ground underneath the corner over here.

ASHLEY: We’re going to die.

LAURA: He’s almost dead, he’s almost dead.

TRAVIS: The Chain of Returning’s magic?

SAM: He’s almost dead until he kills.

MARISHA: Anything that has a name, like Chain of Something.

MATT: Tiberius.

TRAVIS: I was like, just, Chain of Cool. Awesome.

SAM: Are you still running for Congress out there?

MARISHA: Chain of Dope.

ORION: I’m not– That’s probably not going to work. I head back up to the top. Actually, no, I don’t. I go to the side of the temple where the rope that I was throwing earlier goes and meets down to the floor. So I–

MATT: Okay, so you head down towards the base of the temple.

ORION: Yeah. I will– No, I– Fuck, no. Hold on a second, I don’t do that. I redact that.

MATT: Okay.

ORION: I have the fucking carpet, okay. I go back to the top. I can get up there, right, like where they are?

LIAM: You should lob a Fireball.

LAURA: Yeah, just throw a Fireball from the outside, just throw one.

ORION: Does he see me?

MATT: I mean, you’re visible up here. You can see him, he can see you.

LAURA: But you’re not in the cone. He’s looking down.

ORION: That’s what I mean, like is he looking at me, right now?

MATT: He’s kind of looking in this direction right now.

ORION: Okay.

LAURA: You’re going to get the fucking killing blow, man.

ORION: I’m going to cast Telekinesis and rip his horn off his head.

MATT: Okay. Go ahead and make the check for Telekinesis.

ORION: Well, that doesn’t happen. Oh, actually– I used that. Yeah, no. That doesn’t hit. So I’ll have to spend another–

MATT: Okay, so, as you release the Telekinesis, you pull and pull, but that horn is definitively locked in place.

ORION: Okay. Then I’ll spend five more and I’ll attempt to rip off one of his tentacles.

MATT: Stalks? Okay. Go ahead, make another check.

ORION: I’m going to check that last one off. Check this off. I’m blast– I’m using all these from my Ioun stones!

MATT: Okay.

ORION: I, yeah. That hits. What is that? My, 20– Oh no– Fuck what I said, it’s 29.

MATT: 29?

ORION: Yeah.

MATT: All right. So as you pull, one of the eye stalks gets flung off the body, and you can see this, like, spurt of brackish blood that spills across the area nearby.

MARISHA: Oh, I hope it was a Disintegration ray one.

MATT: Go ahead and roll 3d6.

ORION: Oh, it does damage?

MATT: Yep.

ORION: Four.

MATT: Four damage. All right, Tiberius. Ends your turn.

ORION: And I hop off the carpet and I leave it there.

MATT: Okay.

ORION: Or, I hand it to– Who’s next to me? Uh, you.

LAURA: Just, yeah, just let– The carpet there.

MATT: Vex, you’re up.

LAURA: I thought Vax was up before me.

LIAM: Vax is up?

MATT: Oh yeah, Vax is first, sorry. Go ahead.

LIAM: I am? And Keyleth has already done her fastball special, that couldn’t happen again at the moment?

MATT: Correct.

LIAM: All right, so dagger-dagger-dagger. Okay. That’s 26 to hit for the dagger?

MATT: (mouths) Thank you for your patience. Boss battle.

LIAM: Hmm?

MATT: I was thanking them for their patience.

LIAM: Oh, sure sure. 26.

MATT: 26 hits.

LIAM: I don’t know if I’m in his cone or not.

MATT: You are not.

LIAM: If I’m not in his cone then that’s a ten of damage.

MATT: All right.

LIAM: The next is– I’m going to use a Luck point, because I have one more. And I get 20–

MATT: That’s your last Luck point, by the way. That was three.

LIAM: Yes, 25. Okay.

MATT: All right.

LIAM: Which is ten of damage, and the last dagger is a one, so it just flies away.

MATT: All right. All right, so you chuck the daggers up, they kind of cascade off, one of them manages to slam into the side. You pull them back to your belt and get ready for the next round. Vex, you’re up.

LAURA: Okay. I’m going to shoot an arrow at him. Hail of Thorns as a level three. That is, doesn’t hit. That’s a 14.

MATT: 14, unfortunately, no. It hits the side of the wall. Explodes, sending a series of wooden spikes into the stone on the side of the temple.

LAURA: Okay, cool. I can’t do that again, can I? All right, then I’m just gonna shoot him through the flaming bow.

MATT: You used flaming bow twice already, so you no longer can use it.

LAURA: I’m not going to use it. I’m just going to shoot him. This is fun, guys. 23.

MATT: 23 hits. Go and roll damage with your Hunter’s Mark.

LAURA: Okay. 13. And 15. 20 points of damage.

MATT: 20 points of damage. All right. How do you want to do this?

(cheering)

LAURA: I wanna– Oh god. How do I want to do this?

TALIESIN: You want to do it crying, I know that much.

LAURA: I do, I’m crying. I want to shoot him– Is it possible to shoot him right where the horn meets his head and knock it off of him?

MATT: No.

(laughter)

LAURA: All right, then I shoot him straight in the eyeball.

MATT: All right, so as K'Varn’s looking around, kind of frantic at this point, realizing that this whole swarm of individuals are pouring into the temple. That, looking around, you can sense that the– It’s lost control of the Elder Brain. It starts just getting extremely manic and–

LAURA: Vox Machina!

MARISHA: Vox Machina!

MATT: Another ray of energy, it glances up at you, just in time for you to release that final arrow. It strikes down, going right into the pupil. The light blue color immediately bursts into an angry red as the eye closes over, trying to contain the impact. The blood begins to pour out of the front of the eye, as the arrow, you can see pierce out the back side and is jutting about six inches out the back of the Beholder. And K'Varn slowly sinks a few feet and just slams onto the ground.

TRAVIS: Fuck you, meatball!

(cheering)

TRAVIS: Vex!

TALIESIN: That is how it’s done.

MATT: That ends your turn, Vex.

LAURA: And I hug Trinket so tight.

MATT: Okay. So on K'Varn’s turn, black energy begins to pull into the horn, and the beholder opens the eye again. Now, the light blue color is just a pale white and you can see the jaw’s a little slack. But the horn is now glowing this intense black color. And the beholder gets back up from his position.

LAURA: Ugh. He’s zombie beholder now.

MATT: At which, Kima’s on the ground, says, “Shit! Orcus! God of undeath, of course!” And she’s going to start getting ready on her end.

LIAM: Evil god!

LAURA: Oh my god, is this like another boss?

MARISHA: The horn was from Orcus. He’s not a demigod.

LIAM: Just two more hours. We got this.

MATT: K'Varn’s going to take another ray attack at– Let’s see. So a dexterity save against– This would be Kima on the ground. Kima fails. Kima’s form begins to slowly turn to stone.

SAM: (gasps) Oh no, Kima’s stoned.

TRAVIS: She turned to stone?

SAM: Kima’s stoned.

LAURA: Kima’s turning to stone.

MATT: Her body’s like– Secondary one is– I rolled that one. All right, can I get a wisdom saving throw from you, Vax?

LIAM: Sure. Sure, I’m not worried.

MATT: With advantage.

LIAM: Yes. Natural 20.

ALL: Oh!

MATT: A wave of fear hits your mind for a second, watching it rise up, but you’ve seen many horrible things and it’s not enough to shake your will and resolve. Third one. All right. Can I get a dexterity saving throw? This will be from you, Pike.

ASHLEY: Okay.

LIAM: Jump.

LAURA: No, with advantage.

LIAM: (sings) With advantage!

ASHLEY: Ten.

TRAVIS: Plus your dex, right?

ASHLEY: I don’t add anything.

MATT: As a dull green ray fires out from the currently undead K'Varn, you take 45 points of damage.

SAM: That’s a lot.

ASHLEY: Sweet. All right, all right.

LIAM: Still alive, still alive.

MATT: You’re still conscious?

LAURA: Yep, she is.

MATT: Good. (laughs)

ASHLEY: How many? How many did you say?

MATT, LIAM, AND LAURA: 45.

ASHLEY: 45. Okay. Just to be clear.

TRAVIS: Fuck this!

TALIESIN: No, this is the end of, like, Iron Man 3 right now. I’m kind of, I’m a little irritated.

ORION: And that was a terrible movie.

TALIESIN: I loved it.

MATT: Clarota is going to run forward and attempt to to use his tentacles on K'Varn. That’s an 18. That hits.

TRAVIS: Come on, Clarota, do it for your fellow squid.

MATT: That’s 15 points of psychic damage and is now trying to grapple the tentacles around the front of K'Varn– The side of K'Varn’s head. That brings us to Percy.

TALIESIN: I’m going to hop on the magic carpet.

MATT: All right.

TALIESIN: And start heading in, and I’m going to get– I’m going to get myself down and I’m taking a shot at the horn.

MATT: At the horn? All right. This is going to be at disadvantage.

TALIESIN: Because I’m so close?

MATT: Because you’re– Because you’re on the carpet flying down, making a specific shot at a very, very tiny object.

TALIESIN: Okay.

SAM: Oh look, there’s a man with a gun on a flying carpet, coming in.

TALIESIN: 18.

MATT: 18 against the horn, unfortunately, will not hit.

TALIESIN: It hadn’t been for disadvantage–

MATT: I know. You– the carpet kind of juts back for a second. The shot just ricochets off a few walls. You can see a bit of stone getting knocked off the side. End of your turn?

TALIESIN: That’s the end of my turn.

MATT: All right. Pike.

ASHLEY: Okay, it’s Divine Intervention time.

SAM: Whoa.

LAURA: Yeah.

ASHLEY: I think it’s time.

MATT: All right, so you’re using your action to call on Divine Intervention. How do you want to call your deity? It doesn’t need to be anything too specific, it’d be just, “To aid me.” Whatever you feel like.

ASHLEY: Just, sort of, aid every–

MATT: You grab your holy symbol. What do you shout out to Sarenrae?

ASHLEY: Help us kill this thing.

MATT: Go ahead and roll 2d10. Go ahead and– So roll the first one. The second one?

LIAM: 74.

MATT: So, at this depth, Sarenrae’s influence is a little too far away to come into this moment. And you feel the intervention isn’t quite strong enough to really make her presence known at this point. But you feel a sense of warmth and comfort knowing that, at least, she’s looking over you, but thinks, “You don’t need my aid at this moment.”

LAURA: Yes we do!

MATT: So that’s your action.

ASHLEY: That’s my action, okay. So, now all I can do is move?

MATT: Move, bonus action.

ASHLEY: Can I– Actually, can I Divine Strike, also?

MATT: I believe that’s– I think that’s an action, unfortunately

ASHLEY: I think that’s a– Okay. All right, well, I’ll just–

LIAM: Potion? Potion potion potion potion.

ASHLEY: Oh yeah, I’ll take a potion.

MATT: Okay, go for it. Heal yourself on that. That brings us to Scanlan.

SAM: Oh! Lightning Bolt on the thing with the bad guy. Lightning.

MATT: Okay.

SAM: Lightning.

MATT: All right.

SAM: That’s all I know.

MATT: All right, Lightning.

SAM: And hell, I’ll do it at a higher level.

MARISHA: Yes.

MATT: At what level?

SAM: Level three.

MATT: It is level three normally.

SAM: No, it’s level two for me.

MATT: I think Lightning Bolt is level three.

SAM: No, I’m sorry, level four. Level four.

MATT: Okay. So that’ll be 9d6.

SAM: One, two, three, four, five, six, seven.

MATT: Does make his saving throw.

SAM: Okay, so it’s half this?

TRAVIS: Yeah, come on, buddy.

SAM: Ah! Lost one.

LIAM: That’s by your feet.

SAM: Six, seven, eight, nine, ten, 11, 12. 18. 19, 20, 21, 22, 23– 25, so 12.

MATT: 25, so 13 points of lightning damage. The side of K'Varn’s undead form. You can see part of the flesh is now blown off the side, hanging limply. Part of the teeth on the inside of the mouth are now visible. It’s still standing, held together by the power of the horn.

SAM: I give some healing to Pike, as well.

MATT: All right.

SAM: (sings) Hey! Hey baby, hey baby, hey.

LAURA: (sings) It’s late. It’s late.

SAM: (sings) Hey baby, hey baby, hey.

ASHLEY: What are you–

SAM: It’s not much. Oh, it’s eight.

ASHLEY: Oh, that’s great.

MATT: Kima and Keyleth. Kima is going to stand up.

ASHLEY: Nine? Okay, great.

SAM: I counted wrong.

MATT: Unfortunately, because she was prone, that kind of takes her turn.

MARISHA: What is the situation?

MATT: Yes?

MARISHA: I’m sorry. What was that? What was that?

MATT: What are you doing?

MARISHA: What was that situation with the– The hanging, you know, Metropolitan Museum of Art piece?

MATT: It’s currently dangling right here. Right above you, precariously.

LAURA: Oh, good to know.

LIAM: Oh yeah.

MARISHA: Can I as a rock monster go up to it and grab it?

MATT: You can certainly try. It looks very heavy.

MARISHA: It’s very heavy?

LIAM: Yeah, so beat it in the face.

MARISHA: I was going to try and bring it down on top of K'Varn.

TALIESIN: Kind of in the middle of a bunch of stuff.

MATT: Yeah. The process of doing that will probably take out a few other people.

LIAM: Punch the eyeball.

MARISHA: I’m then just going to run and just do a double strike. Well, you know what? I’m going to run in and just grapple him. I’m going to grapple him again.

MATT: All right, go for it. Go ahead and make an athletics check.

MARISHA: Nine.

MATT: Nine? Yeah, no. You just go to reach and the Beholder just pushes you off. That ends your turn. Kima turns to solid stone locked in place.

LAURA: Oh, Kima!

MATT: Grog. You have no axe.

TRAVIS: No, but I got shit in the Bag of Holding. 'Cause I’m a hoarder. Can I get around behind it by going to its left– Between it and the cage? Can I fit through there?

MATT: Here?

TRAVIS: Yeah. Or just to its side, at least?

MATT: You can get to its side over here, maybe.

TRAVIS: I’ll take the side.

MATT: All right. You rush over. As you pass by, this creature steps forward and is going to attempt to grapple you. Through the bars, that’s going to be a 14. Go ahead and roll athletics.

SAM: Come on, you’ve been working out.

TRAVIS: Ten.

MATT: You take seven points of crushing damage, and are currently grappled.

TRAVIS: Crushing damage does– nope. How many was it? 14?

MATT: No, you take seven.

TRAVIS: Seven.

MATT: You’re grappled. You’re still next to K'Varn, you just can’t move any further.

LAURA: So you could still attack him?

MATT: If you want to.

TRAVIS: Oh, really?

MATT: Yeah.

TRAVIS: Okay, I’d like to take the Greatsword of Frenzy out of the Bag of Holding.

MATT: Okay. You can do that with your bonus action.

TRAVIS: Shit, I wanted the bonus action to drink a potion, but fuck it, I’d like to swing at the giant little shit.

MATT: All right. Go for it.

TRAVIS: 17.

MATT: 17 does not hit.

TRAVIS: Oh, 26.

MATT: That does hit. Then roll 2d6 for the damage, plus your strength modifier.

SAM: Hey, that’s good.

TRAVIS: 11, 15.

MATT: 15 damage, all right. You slice through part of its body. You can see, now, three stalks slide off, and you can see some of the brain tissue underneath, but yet its still-necrotic form is holding it in place.

MARISHA: Oh.

MATT: That ends your turn. Who’s next? Tiberius.

ORION: How many stalks does it have left?

MATT: It has probably nine.

ORION: Left?

MATT: Yeah. Covered in stalks, dude. Looking really rough, though.

ORION: Okay.

LAURA: My magic attacks have been using– Working from above, Tiberius.

ORION: Where is it, actually?

MATT: He’s right here.

ORION: From where– Oh.

LAURA: Shoot him.

LIAM: Zip, zap, zop.

LAURA: Get 'im.

ORION: Okay, I’ll do a– I’ll shoot a Glacial Blast at him.

MATT: All right.

ORION: Just a concentrated– I’ll spike it right before it hits him and jam it in his fucking eye.

MATT: All right. That’s a dexterity save, right?

ORION: Yes.

MATT: Okay. That’s 19. Makes the dexterity save. Go ahead and roll damage, takes half damage.

ORION: 6d8. Oh shit, I need d8 for this. Do you have d8s?

TALIESIN: Here, d8s.

MARISHA: I do, Mr. Pack Away Your Dice.

ORION: I got it. That is 40.

MATT: 40. So half that is 20 damage? How do you want to do this?

(cheering)

LAURA: What? What just happened?

SAM: We’re killing him again. But then–

ORION: What, really?

LIAM: Three more forms to go.

ASHLEY: Get it.

SAM: Two of ten times.

ORION: Two of ten times. Okay.

MATT: What are you going to do with your Glacial Blast?

ORION: I’ll just– I mean, like I said. Right before I do it, I’ll shape it into an ice spike and right through the eye.

MATT: Okay. So, you take your arcane form, and you can see, where the impact of the arrow left behind from Vex is already still there and the eye’s kind of slightly concave as the wound’s open. You take the Glacial Blast into one giant jagged piece of ice and you thrust it forward with all your arcane might. It hits and sinks into the eye and as it streaks to the inside, it bursts from the interior. You see ice shards piercing it from the inside out. As the form kind of lands on the ground there, as ice begins to slowly form and crackle around its outside, you can still see dark energy pulling into the horn.

ORION: Wonderful, while I– No! I spend five Sorcerer points and I do Telekinesis and rip the horn off his fucking–

MATT: How many Sorcery points do you have?

ORION: That’s it after that.

MARISHA: Why not– I can just rip it off. I’m a rock dude.

ORION: It’s my turn.

MATT: All right. Go ahead and make your roll.

ORION: What is that? Oh, that’s 26.

MATT: 26. With a sickening tearing sound, you notice the shaking of the horn begin to slowly pull from the slightly dilapidated and decomposing form of K'Varn. As the horn begins to tug and tear, the flesh stretches before, eventually, it’s torn from the body. The moment the horn rises up, all that black energy dissipates, the horn held aloft in mid-air. The rest of K'Varn’s form slumps to the ground and slowly begins to melt away.

LAURA: Ew.

ORION: I’ll hold it in place for now and kind of–

LAURA: What is that?

MATT: Just slam over its head?

ORION: Yeah.

MATT: Okay.

SAM: Don’t touch it to him.

TRAVIS: No he’s– Telekinesis, is he’s–

SAM: I know. But don’t touch it to the thing.

TRAVIS: Oh. Oh, right. Yes.

TALIESIN: It’s like the thing at the end of Time Bandits. We should just–

ORION: Yeah, I just killed it. Don’t tell me what to do, dawg.

TRAVIS: (laughs) Don’t tell me what to do.

LAURA: I know, you’re so ornery. We fucking brought you back in here. We told you to hit it.

ORION: Wait 'til we’re not fighting.

LAURA: Crazy.

MATT: So as K'Varn’s horn is now currently held aloft via your Telekinesis–

ORION: I hold it here. I don’t want to–

MATT: That ends your turn. It looks like, currently, the battle, for the moment–

SAM: For the moment?

MATT: Is held as you guys sit here in the center of the temple.

LAURA: We got a bunch of illithid coming in here soon.

MARISHA: Yes, we do.

MATT: Look about you. The contraption destroyed. The loose, pale, pulsing glow of the Elder Brain slowly glowing brighter and brighter.

ORION: Oh. As I see that, I’m going to float this more towards me.

MATT: Okay.

ORION: And I take it– Now, it’s hovering above. I’m going to hold it about 25 feet away from me in the air.

MATT: All right.

MATT: And from that point, we’ll conclude this evening’s epic boss encounter.

LAURA: Fuck.

SAM: Wow.

TALIESIN: Oh god.

LAURA: Oh my god.

MATT: Holy shit, guys.

LAURA: We didn’t die!

TRAVIS: Well, speak for yourself.

MATT: You did have a death. But you had a spell to bring him back.

TRAVIS: Death Ward for the win.

ORION: Irresponsible–

MARISHA: Oh, please. Pooper face. You were so poopy the entire end of that game.

ORION: You have no idea. You have no idea what you guys are in for after this.

MARISHA: Why? What are you– What are we in for?

ORION: I’m not going to–

LAURA: He knows everything.

ORION: That’s not– That’s the next episode.

MARISHA: I’m with Vex.

MATT: That was a marathon session. Thank you all for your patience. Thanks for staying.

ASHLEY: Thank you guys for sticking out.

TRAVIS: Yeah, that was a long one.

LIAM: How many of you are going to have a hard day at work in the morning?

ZAC: Guys, I’m just totalling up all the donations that we had.

MATT: Fantastic.

TALIESIN: Yay!

ORION: Sweet!

TRAVIS: Good job, Matt. Good. Job.

LAURA: He was evil.

MATT: You guys– Between your head shots–

MARISHA: Yeah, your head shots fucking MVP, man.

MATT: – were MVP on that battle.

TALIESIN: Thank you. Thank you, thank you.

MATT: The setup of both slamming it with the device and getting the device out of the way, the surprise entry of this. Because you guys weren’t all ground level, that kept him floating, which meant he couldn’t keep using the cone of– there was a lot of good things you guys used tactically for this battle.

ASHLEY: Vex had a lot of hit points, too.

LAURA: Oh, Pike, thanks.

ASHLEY: You did.

TRAVIS: First kill.

LAURA: I know, it was my first–

SAM: Is that true?

TRAVIS: It, well, here. Since we’ve started here.

MATT: That’s right, that was your first on the stream, yeah.

LAURA: Yeah.

MATT: Was that your first?

ORION: Yeah, that was my first.

MATT: Well, shit.

ASHLEY: Bunch of firsts, guys.

MATT: Aww, saved that for the boss fight, too.

LAURA: So sleepy.

TRAVIS: Can– I’m still being grappled by whatever’s in that cage.

ASHLEY: So we still have a lot to fight.

LAURA: We still got a lot to do.

MARISHA: Well, we’ve got to get the hell out of here, now.

TRAVIS: Did you even tell us what’s in the cage, since we never even looked?

MARISHA: Would you stop that?

TRAVIS: No, he won’t tell me!

LAURA: Wait, I have a question– Is the game going to continue next week, or are you guys taking a week–

MATT: I’m thinking what we’re going to do, guys, for next week, those who are watching, too, because we have a few members that are going to be gone next week on vacation, we’re going to– I’m just basically going to be doing a brief discussion, I’d say a few hours, talking with you guys about how to learn the game, how to DM and build a game, and to answer your questions about the system at all, and just do, generally, a Dungeons & Dragons-specific kind of workshop for you guys. And then, the week after that, we’ll pick up where this left off. Oh, I’m exhausted.

TRAVIS: My ears are like, 102 degrees.

MARISHA: You’re kind of pinky, yeah.

MATT: All righty.

ZAC: All right. By the way, do you guys want to know how many shirts we sold?

SAM: Sure.

ZAC: Everything is over.

MATT: That’s right!

MARISHA: Over.

ZAC: Yeah, you guys went through it, man. Right through it.

MARISHA: I’m sweating.

MATT: I know, we’re all so jittery.

ZAC: You guys sold 1,304 shirts.

(cheering)

TRAVIS: That’s amazing.

ASHLEY: Oh my gosh.

TRAVIS: I need a drink.

MARISHA: We didn’t TPK.

TRAVIS: This is where you need a neighborhood bar. Where we can go and, like– Go, just, what the fuck just happened?

TALIESIN: I just gained the ability to do those head shots, like, two games ago, too. I’m just so excited.

ASHLEY: That was amazing.

MARISHA: That was great.

MATT: We have Schmoozer, donated $25. “Another 25 to you guys to correct myself for last week. I’m slowly falling more and more in love with you guys. Since the Overlord says my original message implied I wasn’t in love at the start, but I surely was.”

(laughter)

ZAC: I was trolling you, dog.

MATT: Yeah. Tristan Denman donated $40. “Hey y'all, plan on donating every week from now on. Also got my own Critical Role shirt and hopefully can snag the How Do You Want To Do This? design I made if it makes it to the store.”

(cheering)

MATT: Awesome. Thank you, Tristan. McBrian donated $25 to 826LA. “First time I’ve been able to watch live, and I would like to Rage. Love you all.” Anarchy, hey! Donated $10. “Just wanted to say thank you to Matt, Taliesin, Orion, and Marisha for coming to visit our tower in the Minecraft Server. We added a shooting range for Percy.”

TALIESIN: I can’t wait.

MATT: “I’m working on Shorthalt’s Hall of Lady Favors.”

TRAVIS: I will have a frequent member pass there.

MATT: All right. ScottyDon'tKnow85 donated $20 saying, “Fuck Morgan Freeman. I want Grog to narrate my life.” InFact donated $5. “There’s a lot of love for this ragtag band of adventurers and it’s easy to see why. Here’s $5 to the cause. This week, I did Clarota and Pike song parodies. The twins are on deck.”

MARISHA: Those song parodies.

TRAVIS: Those parodies are pretty funny.

MATT: OZack66 donated 100 bucks. “A shoutout to my lovely elven ladies Keyleth and Vex. (speaking in Elven)” He wrote in Elven. (speaking in Elven)

ZAC: I don’t know what that is.

MARISHA: Wait, say that again?

MATT: I butchered that horribly. Want me to say that again?

MARISHA: Well, Zac was talking over you.

MATT: (speaking in Elven) I am so sorry if I butchered that. I haven’t spoken Sindarin or Quenya since high school.

ORION: Oh, Elven.

MATT: It’s Elven, guys. What'sAMeadow donated 25 bucks. “I’ll keep this short and sweet. Thank you guys both in front of the camera and behind. I found you guys through Matt’s game on Pewdiepie’s channel and I love everything you do. Keep going guys, LessThanThree.”

ZAC: Sweet.

MATT: G1BigDaddyHeff donated 50 bucks. Awesome. “Best day of the week has arrived and Critical Role is back in action. I had a bit extra this week so I’m happy to give to this amazing charity.” Aww. Thank you so much. CloudyWolf donated $10. “I always love Thursdays and Critical Role validates that. Happy to give what I can to an amazing charity that supports making the future a lot brighter. Thank you all for all you do and bringing back my joy of playing D&D with old friends.” Aww. Mage61968 donated $20. “Wanted to donate for my favorite show on Twitch. Bought my Critical Role shirt today, looking forward to new ones. Also do you have any plans to attend AnimeExpo in July? Would like to say hi to those who do.”

SAM: We should.

MATT: A few of us are going.

MARISHA: We’ll probably be there.

MATT: Look for us. Topher donated 30 bucks. “You give so much time and energy to Critical Role, glad I can give back by donating. Thank you for another awesome show.” Thank you Topher. HuffGirl77 donated 20 bucks. “Tonight is the first time I was able to catch the live stream. It’s been a hard week and this is my lovely bright point. Thank you so much, you guys are amazing.” Thank you.

TRAVIS: Glad we didn’t die during your hard week.

MATT: Yeah. Anyway.

TRAVIS: Well. I died.

MATT: Nyphelion donated 50 bucks. “I bear gifts from MathSquad. If your viewers are interested in GM things, they should look into Being Everything Else. A show by GMs for GMs mostly with new ones in mind.” Very cool.

LAURA: Cool.

MATT: WheelyFactoids, 5 bucks. “A perfect game. Best game yet. Ashley, I have a surprise for you in the Minecraft server. I’ll finish as quick as I can. Travis, I started smelting the metal from a meteorite we found in the desert for my cosplay axe.”

MARISHA: Wait. Is she serious?

MATT: This guy’s smelting the metal from a meteorite to forge his axe of Grog for his cosplay.

LAURA: That’s amazing.

SAM: You’re going to have an alien axe?

TRAVIS: It’s going to be his.

MATT: He’s making his axe to cosplay as Grog out of meteorite.

ASHLEY: What?

MATT: That’s crazy-go-nuts.

TRAVIS: Find me on Twitter. Let’s talk about that.

MATT: NorseAris donated 5 bucks. “I love Critical Role so much. It’s the one thing I look forward to all week. It absolutely ruined my sleep schedule and I’m completely okay with that.” It’s okay, it’s ruining our sleep schedule, too. “Sleep is totally fixable with ale.” True. “Thanks for being so awesome, don’t forget to Vaxxinate your kids.” BurtCole donated 100 bucks! “#Overlord.” SickWizard donated three bucks. “Kids plus books equals awesome. Spending my birthday with Critical Role. Matt, go for a party member kill.”

ALL: Happy birthday!

MATT: “The monsters are heroes, the characters are invaders murdering those poor creatures. You guys all rock.” GoodLordHerc donated $10. “Playing D&D since 2001. Love the show, keep on rolling.” LeonicSaber donated $10. “Hope this donation helps and gives you guys a–”

ZAC: Dope-ass effect.

MATT: “Dope-ass effect.” There we go. My brain and eyes. Ugh. GrimProspect, ten bucks. “Absolutely love you guys. Had a pretty awful day but hearing Travis do his amazing Roy Mustang voice could make it all better.”

MARISHA: Aww.

MATT: Karkaroff donated 25 bucks.

(laughter)

MARISHA: Best response ever.

SAM: Hey. Hey I’m Roy Mustang.

TRAVIS: I’m Roy Mustang.

(laughter)

MATT: Five bucks. “Ashley, as an actual rocket scientist that will never get into space. I just wanted to say that your dream is my dream.”

ASHLEY: Hey, man.

MATT: “Inspire us all and never stop reaching for the stars.”

ASHLEY: Oh, man.

MATT: SalazarJack donated 100 bucks. “Thanks everyone for your time and all the effort you put into Critical Role.” Very appreciated. Thank you. Sepherie, 100 bucks. “I introduced my college roommate and best friend to play D&D. 15 years later, we’ve lost touch. Found out we both watch this show. We watch most Thursdays now. Thanks for being so–”

(cheering)

SAM: They’re getting married next week.

MARISHA: Misplaced connections.

MATT: JoshPotato66 donated five bucks. “I love this show. It’s like great theatre. Can’t wait to see how far this thing goes and can’t wait to see some D&D at some point in the near future. P.S. I have to admit I have a little crush on Pike, Vex, and Keyleth.”

TRAVIS: So the girls.

LIAM: That seems a little one-sided.

(laughter)

TALIESIN: We’re offended. I’m offended.

MATT: ZandorInvictus donated 25 bucks. “Had a blast tonight as usual and also had a blast at my first game in seven years. I thank you. My copper dragonborn fighter Restule Othor thanks you and my half-elf bard Cedric Riverbend thanks you. LessThanThree.” AbowFard donated 25 bucks. “Happy to donate to a good cause. Thanks for the great entertainment each week. I look forward to many of your adventures and also playing 5e D&D with my kids.” Arandis donated 25 bucks. “Awesome job with the show as always. Donating in the hopes it inspires you in your upcoming battles as you help others battle lack of education and illiteracy in the real world.” That’s awesome. Thank you.

TRAVIS: Word.

TALIESIN: Read book good.

MATT: Gin2343 donated 50 bucks. “Love your game and enjoy it every week. All my brothers and sisters in the military branches, I wish you a very happy Memorial Day. To all others, take a moment in your day off to toast those who served and those who still serve.”

TRAVIS: Yes, hear hear.

MATT: Hear hear to that. Marco2 donated 25 bucks. “Watching all of you has inspired me. Tons of inspiration made my campaign so much better. Thank you all for the high end of my week.” Thank you for watching.

ORION: Thank you.

MATT: XDragonRiderX donated 20 bucks. “Hey guys, got a chance to talk to Matt and Marisha at Philly the other week. And we talked to most of you via Twitter.”

TRAVIS: Oh, it’s Becca.

MATT: Yep, “And I wanted to not only thank you but donate as well. Hopefully I’ll get a chance to meet the rest of you soon.” Dractheon donated $10. “Here’s to Critical Role, my now-favorite part of the week. Hearing all these amazing characters has finally moved toward my dream of being a voice actor. On a side note, Liam, can you do a few lines of Illidan for me? I’m prepared for it.”

LIAM: (Illidan voice) You are not prepared! You stay up and watch livestream into the middle of the night.

(laughter)

MATT: Illidan’s been drinking. Baccicio, I think. Sorry. Baccicio, there you go. $5. “I love watching your show. You guys are awesome. Can’t wait to start my own D&D group. I’m already working on my own half-elf druid. Hope this helps 826LA.”

(cheering)

MATT: Ameliar, 20 bucks. “You guys provide an awesome show each week. Since week one, thanks for keep staying awesome for us Critters.” CritterJody, ten bucks. “I struggle with depression and anxiety and the past few days have been extremely bad for me. This show brought me out of it. Thank you.” Dright'sFury donated 20 bucks. “Awesome job, kick-starting my imagination. Love love love this stream.” Thank you, bud. HighlyAmusing donated 25 bucks. “Thanks for putting such an awesome show on and making the middle of my work week a little more bearable. Love you guys. Also, made a matching donation to 826 here in Chicago, too.” Aww.

MARISHA: 826 Chicago.

MATT: LoneWolfAvesty, 50 bucks. “Thank you all for making the best 3+ hours of each week for me. I’m either sitting on the edge of my seat or laughing out loud for reals. Love you all.”

ORION: Thank you, man.

MATT: Kieris, 10 bucks. “We wanted to play D&D for years and due to Critical Role I started to DM for my online friends who had never played. We used Tabletop Simulator. Played for the past few days and having a blast. Thank you so much for your inspiration, humor and awesomeness.”

MARISHA: That’s so cool.

ZAC: That’s it.

MATT: Guys, thank you so much.

(cheering)

MATT: During the chaos. Thank the party for handling that boss battle really well.

ZAC: Yeah.

MARISHA: Yeah.

ORION: That’s debatable.

TRAVIS: I don’t know if we handled it well.

MARISHA: The DM says we’re doing it well.

TALIESIN: We kicked its ass.

TRAVIS: We came, we saw, we didn’t die permanently.

SAM: You’re just a Negative Nancy.

TRAVIS: No, I don’t want it. It’s gone.

ASHLEY: We tried, at least.

TRAVIS: I don’t even have my fucking axe, man.

ZAC: You guys, we made 3000 subs and I have a promise to keep. I don’t expect any of you to, but Erika and Hector have come back from home.

TRAVIS: Erika and Hector!

ERIKA: Dancing time!

(laughter)

ZAC: Erika is unfazed by the late night and is ready to dance. I cannot say the same for myself.

ERIKA: Any time, any place.

TALIESIN: Yeah, we also have a couple people in the studio that should at least say hello before they leave, too.

ZAC: Oh sure, well then they can hop on camera. We’re going to start getting ready for dancing.

TALIESIN: You gotta say hello.

MATT: Guess you’re still stuck with us. We’ll see you shortly. Thank you for watching.

[end of captions]