Transcript:The Fate-Touched

List of Transcripts

Pre-Show
MATT: Hello, and welcome to tonight’s episode of Critical Role, where a bunch of us nerdy-ass voice actors sit around and play Dungeons and Dragons. (heavy sigh) Every goddamn week. Anyway! Before we jump into the craziness of tonight’s episode, let’s get through some quick announcements, here! First and foremost, merch update. Laura, what do we got?

LAURA: Well, those amazing David Mack posters that are only on sale– well, okay, here’s the thing. The signed ones are only available for one more day; they’re going away tomorrow, forever and ever and ever, amen. After that, the not-signed version will be available for one more week, and then those are gone forever and ever, amen. So if you want them, you should get them. We also have a bunch of other shirts, like the Scanlan t-shirt, and the Vox Machina t-shirt, and every other t-shirt that are so soft and comfy and cozy. And the Slayer’s Cake apron!

MATT: They’re shipping soon, right?

LAURA: Those will be shipping soon. Those will be shipping– yeah, pretty soon. Pre-orders are still available right now. With the posters– I’m going completely out of order– with the signed ones, it’s going to take a few extra weeks to ship those because we all have to sign them. Just be patient. We love you, and you will get them! The ones that aren’t signed will get shipped out a little bit faster.

SAM: So one day for those.

LAURA: One more day! (singing) One!

MARISHA: Tell your friends! Tell your wives!

MATT: Perfect. Next update, we have Wednesday Club for next week.

TALIESIN: Wednesday Club! We’re in an interesting transition point for a lot of shows on Geek and Sundry, so we thought we’d have a card party. It’s not as sexy as it sounds.

MATT: I disagree, sir!

TALIESIN: Are you in? Are you down?

MATT: Yeah, I am!

TALIESIN: We’re opening card packs!

MATT: I’m going to be there for this!

TALIESIN: Matt Mercer is going to join us for the Wednesday Club. We may have a few other guests. You want to come?

LAURA: Can we all come and open card packs?

LIAM: Will you also someday have a Pog episode?

TALIESIN: We already did a Pog episode.

LIAM: Shut your mouth!

TALIESIN: We actually made it rain Pogs! It was great! You can come. We’re going to have another Pog party!

SAM: You’ll have lots of time after this, Liam!

TALIESIN: Since the show is moving to its new time, 7:00-9:00pm, so we’re going to be opening card packs. Talking about them, being really dumb and in our pajamas, and it’s going to be great. Definitely Matt, and there’s going to be a bunch of people showing up; it’s going to be great!

MATT: That’s so much of my childhood, you have no idea.

LIAM: What kind of cards?

TALIESIN: We’re confirmed with some Jim Lee X-Men Series One. We’re confirmed with some Superman vs. Doomsday cards.

MATT: Any Marvel Masterpiece?

TALIESIN: We’re working on Marvel Masterpiece. Unopened. We’ve got some Kirby cards, some classic Avengers cards. We’re doing a little bit of everything. We’ve got a couple we’re working on, though. Marvel Universe Series One of Three is what we’re really working on.

MATT: I’ll talk more about it on the show, but I have a long history with those cards. All righty! Thank you, Taliesin! Signal Boost, I believe we had our recent episode went up this week with our fantastic Ashley Johnson!

(cheering)

LAURA: It was so good!

MARISHA: Boosting Taliesin!

LIAM: Taliesin, you looked taller in that Signal Boost.

TALIESIN: I was wearing smaller people on my feet, so it helped.

MATT: He learned from the last episode, if you stack them in a trenchcoat.

LIAM: I just thought of four people that fit that bill and decided not to say any of their names.

ASHLEY: We had been planning for that episode, I remember talking to Marisha. I was like, I kind of want to boost Taliesin. We were like, everybody knows who Taliesin is. TALIESIN: Over half those facts at the beginning are actually true. Even if they’ve been goosed a bit.

MARISHA: They’re peppered in between. The beauty of that is you’re not sure which ones are true and which ones aren’t! They’re back and forth. The bees are true.

TALIESIN: The bees are true.

MATT: Two more people have to die before you eventually become the most interesting man in the world.

TALIESIN: One now.

MATT: One now? That’s right.

TALIESIN: That’s dark, but that’s where we are.

LIAM: The guy who’s running Canada is very young, so we’re going to have to wait a while.

MATT: Last but not least. Couple things. Talks Machina, every Tuesday, 7:00pm Pacific Time here on Twitch and Alpha with our fantastic Brian Foster, talk about this episode next– no, not next week, we’re off next week because it’s 4th of July. We’ll talk about this episode and next episode on Talks two weeks from now. We’ll see you then. Today, the Sagas of Sundry: Dread went up. Which we’re super excited about. For those who were here for International Tabletop day, Ivan van Norman ran me, Taliesin, Satine Phoenix, Amy Dallen, Amy Vorpahl through a very intense game of Dread, all being late 80s, early 90s high school kids going up to a cabin experience, and it was awesome. Well, we made a show! It was amazing.

TALIESIN and MARISHA: It’s so good!

MATT: It’s genuinely one of the coolest experiences I’ve ever had as a player in a game.

MARISHA: I feel like we invented a new form of theater; it’s weird.

MATT: If you have the opportunity, it’s on Alpha. If you have Alpha, go check it out. If you don’t have Alpha, there’s a 60-day free trial code. What’s the code?

MARISHA: SHIPMATES.

MATT: SHIPMATES.

TALIESIN: Only today, though. Today’s the last day.

MARISHA: Until tomorrow.

MATT: You have until tomorrow to try it out, so if you’re like, “I don’t want to pay for Alpha!” Well, you don’t have to for 60 days now! Just put SHIPMATES in, and you’ll be fine.

TALIESIN: This is the first time I’ve ever said this out loud: Seriously, go check out Alpha for this show. It’s worth it. It’s amazing. Oh my god!

MARISHA: Adam Lawson was the director. Sean and I were the producers.

TRAVIS: Is there any nudity?

TALIESIN: Yes, but probably not any you’re going to be happy with. To be fair. I may make a post later on Twitter tomorrow or something to really talk about it. I have a lot of feelings about this show.

LIAM: What’s on your mind, Sam?

SAM: Nothing. The power’s out at my house! Just distracted because I just came from my house, and the power was out, that’s all. I’m worried about my kids. Are they going to have their little fans on tonight to keep them cool? Are they going to light candles in their room? I don’t know!

TALIESIN: Are they watching Twitch by candlelight?

SAM: They are definitely watching Twitch.

LAURA: Can they have a pillow fort in the living room?

SAM: Maybe, if they can find the living room. It’s dark!

TALIESIN: Just hear the sound of a wine aerator in the background.

SAM: Oh yeah, they have their wine aerator. They each have their cell phones. They’re okay.

(laughter)

SAM: They aerate their milk.

MATT: That would be the worst sound. (bubbling milk sound) Anyway, that’s enough of that, guys. Anyway. That’s the end of our announcements. And as such, that brings us to tonight’s episode of Critical Role.

[music]

Part I
MATT: Hello everyone, and welcome back to Critical Role. Hope you liked our new intro, apparently. I guess they’re having some tech issues trying to get the regular intro showing tonight. Little change for the evening. No biggie, mix it up a little bit. Anyway, so last we left off. Vox Machina, after discovering that the various siphon orbs, the one that was beneath Whitestone was one of many, and apparently were funneling magical rnergies from various arcane ley lines that exist across Exandria into some plane other than the Prime Material. Through research and discovery, you found that this plane was the Shadowfell. Upon traversing this barrier and dealing with some cultists of the Whispered One, you discovered that Delilah Briarwood was still alive, and that there was a city in the Shadowfell beyond the boundary of these siphons known as Thar Amphala, an ancient city that had seen an ancient battle, but much had been rebuilt and constructed. There, in the center of the town, was the dark tower called Entropis. Where, apparently, the Whispered One, Vecna, or something involved in a ritual was being completed. You began to make your way through this city, averting any sort of attention from most of the denizens in the sky and below. You squashed heads of a few cultists on the way, masqueraded as cultists, masqueraded as undead! Found the city itself shift strangely, using technology of the threshold crests that Syngorn uses, it transported itself out of the Shadowfell and somewhere else, where it began to snow. You made your way to the central tower, and deciding not to ascend it, took it to the ground with some Earthquake spells. However, due to the magical defenses of the tower top, where the rituals were being completed, it seems the top of the tower was untouched by the spells, and lowered itself to the rubble of where it once stood. You then mustered your forces, rode up to the top of the lip of what remains of Entropis and joined in battle against Delilah Briarwood, a death knight, and the physical form of Vecna, the Whispered One himself. However, the battle did not turn in your favor, and in the process of the battle–

TRAVIS: That’s debatable.

LAURA: Is it?

MATT: In some degrees. Whether through bad luck or not fully understanding the scope of what you were up against, a number of you fell in battle, with one of them not being able to be restored, being Vax'ildan, who was reduced to dust by a Disintegration spell. Realizing that your fortunes were failing, with Grog banished to another dimension and only barely returning in time, you joined hands and Keyleth attempted to travel you out of the plane to safety, of which Vecna attempted to stop with a Counterspell, and Scanlan attempted to stop that Counterspell with his own Counterspell, like a bard is wont to do. So you successfully transported, grabbing the corpse of Delilah Briarwood, who Percival finished off with a shot to the head. You found yourselves, last we left off, emerging deep into a wooded forest in some unknown location within the Feywild. Upon arriving, and glancing about, to see that you’re still mostly intact, clutching the no-longer-living corpse of Delilah behind you. Vax, not with you, and Vex, realizing, asked the question:

LAURA: Where’s Vax?

SAM: I walk up to her and I set down his armor and don’t say anything.

LAURA: What’s this? Where is he?!

SAM: There’s nothing left. He was obliterated.

MARISHA: Disintegrated.

LAURA: What?!

MARISHA: I saw it happen, and then I saw it happen.

LAURA: And we just left him there?!

MARISHA: No, we brought–

TALIESIN: We brought everything we could.

LAURA: Oh god! No!

TALIESIN: I’m so sorry.

LAURA: I was brought back and his soul is just– where?

MARISHA: That’s the ultimate question, isn’t it?

LAURA: Can you bring him back?

ASHLEY: I don’t know if I can.

TALIESIN: Can you, Keyleth?

MARISHA: I’ve never done this before.

LAURA: I go over and gather up all of his armor and start hugging it to myself.

MARISHA: I recently learned a spell that I could attempt, but it’s nothing I’ve tried before, and it’s expensive, and I’m already terrified of the fate and the hell that I might have brought him in his final moments.

TRAVIS: Well, what is it?

MARISHA: I think he saw himself die. I think. I’m so sorry.

LAURA: What are you talking about?

MARISHA: I cast Foresight on him. And I think there was a thing for a second. I haven’t thought of those ramifications of something like that before. I think he was held and there was nothing he could do. What if that happened? What if he saw himself die?

TALIESIN: Then it doesn’t matter yet, until we bring him back.

TRAVIS: Only matters what we do next, right?

TALIESIN: Let’s bring him back.

TRAVIS: What’s this new spell you were talking about?

MARISHA: I need 25,000 gold pieces worth of diamonds.

TRAVIS: What?

MARISHA: I need 25–

LAURA: Not just gold, you need diamonds?

TALIESIN: Where are we?

LAURA: I don’t have– I don’t have that!

MARISHA: We’re in the Feywild.

TALIESIN: We can find it, then.

MATT: As you look around at this point, for the first time really taking in the surroundings around you, you find yourself deep in a shaded, thick wood, where most of the leaves here are wide and triangular in shape. Where you expect to see deep greens, instead you see blues and purples. You see the tips eventually coming to a midnight blue at the edge. There’s a very faint mist that has gathered across the ground that stands about knee-height. The ground beneath you seems to have a somewhat crunchy sponginess to it with each step, though you cannot see where your feet actually touch the ground.

SAM: Is it all diamonds?

MATT: It is not all diamonds. You do hear the ever-present echoing distant hooting of owls. (owl hooting)

TALIESIN: Well, now we know what to do. We were too late, and we have seen what we’re up against, and now we need to focus. We can’t let it be over yet. We need to focus. We’re going to find these diamonds.

LAURA: Was it her? Or was it Vecna?

SAM: It–

TALIESIN: Grog? Can you put her in the bag? And I toss him the body.

MATT: As the body of Delilah Briarwood, the head still scattered and divided right around the forehead, this giant cleft of her skull hemisphere is gone. Whatever matter was once there has loosely fallen out as she’s been dragged from one location. You do see the left eye, which is not human, it seems, in appearance. The white is instead a sickly greenish-yellow, and the pupil is a cat-like slit of black, surrounded by a thin, greenish-blue tint. As soon as you look down and see the face, the eye which just looks upward at nothing, the dead body still, the eye twitches and shifts to look at you.

TRAVIS: Oh! (unhappy humming) Her fucking eye is still moving.

ASHLEY: Should we take it out?

SAM: Yes. It could be Vecna, watching us.

TRAVIS: Does it look reptilian?

LAURA: Can you put it in a bag or something? Cover it up?

SAM: Wait, can I take a closer look at it and see if I can, I don’t know, identify it somehow?

MATT: Do you have an Identify spell?

SAM: No, but can I just see?

MATT: Make an arcana check.

SAM: Sure. Two! Plus five.

MATT: As you get down close to glance at the rather disturbingly bloodied face of Delilah Briarwood, the eye shifts back towards you. The closer you get, you watch as the thinning slit of the pupil seems to widen and focus on you. It’s an unsettling presence. As you try and concentrate to see if there’s any immediate signs of whether it be sigils or arcane marks that would mark it to be more of a magically enchanted object than an actual organic eye, nothing comes to mind other than the fact that it seems to be very intent on studying you back.

SAM: Can I try to remove it from the ocular cavity?

MATT: Using your fingers?

SAM: Yeah. My tiny, ocular hands.

MATT: Okay. Go ahead and make an athletics check.

SAM: Nine.

MATT: Okay, you (slurping).

SAM: I can inspire myself, I suppose.

MATT: If you want to. Up to you. How many more bardic inspirations do you have after the battle?

SAM: Two, right? I didn’t Cutting Words anyone. Those count as inspiration, right?

MATT: Yeah. Your fingers are now knuckle-deep in Delilah Briarwood’s socket.

SAM: I’ll inspire myself just to give it a serious try. That’s plus ten, so that’s a 19 plus, I guess, three for Jack of All Trades?

MATT: If you’re not trained in it, then yeah.

SAM: 22.

MATT: You begin humming your favorite eye-pulling song under your breath and with a horrible sucking sound, you pull the eye from her socket, leaving this trail of dark black and red viscera that dangles from it loosely. As you pull it free, whatever attached the eye to it seems to burn off and fall, leaving just the circular socket. I also need you to roll a wisdom saving throw.

SAM: Oh no! Insta-death.

TRAVIS: You’re fine.

SAM: No, I’m not. Oh, is this magic?

MATT: It’s not a magic spell, I’d say it’s a magic effect, yeah.

SAM: Do I get advantage?

MATT: I’ll say, as a gnome, for this, yes, you would.

SAM: Way better, but still terrible. 12!

LAURA: How bad was your first one?

SAM: A one!

MATT: So you watch as Scanlan pulls this eye out and looks at it for a second. For you, it’s less of an actual voice, but these images come to your mind of all the terrible things that have happened in your life: the loss of your mother, the near-loss of Kaylie, the loss of your friends, every person that’s ever mattered to you, you’ve seen slain before you or heard about. You could stop that from ever happening again. All the answers you could have. You would have the power to prevent any of that from ever happening again. And it’s so simple. It’s so simple!

LAURA: Could we smack the eye out of his hand?

MATT: As this is happening, you watch as he’s looking at it and this hand goes up and starts clawing into his own eye socket.

TALIESIN: I’m going to use every dex I have. I’m going to slap fucking hard.

MATT: Dex isn’t going to help you so much as it’s going to be a strength thing. Go ahead and make an athletics check. For you, for this, this would be an acrobatics to try and dodge out of the way.

TALIESIN: Strength check?

MATT: Athletics.

TALIESIN: Oh, athletics, that’s better.

MATT: You’re trying to slap it out of his grasp.

SAM: 13.

TALIESIN: 10.

MATT: You slap and the hand pulls back a little bit and he yanks it back. You can see a trail of blood beginning to pool out of the corner of the eye.

ASHLEY: Can I try to grab his hand and slap him across the face?

MATT: Yeah. This is the last chance anybody has to try and do this or Scanlan loses an eye. We’re going into Event Horizon moment, here. Go ahead and make an athletics check.

ASHLEY: 27.

MATT: Roll an acrobatics check.

SAM: It’s the same thing, so it’s 13.

MATT: As his fingers are digging into the socket and the other eye’s just staring at this piercing circular gaze in his grasp in his right. You see the blood beginning to trail down his face in two different places. He’s gotten his fingers partway behind his own eye. You rush up and grab him by the wrist, put your other hand right at the front of his face, pushing his nose and cheek up. You pull it back and you watch as, from behind the eyelid, his fingers slip out. He’s fighting it with all his might. As you pull back, as soon as you get it free, with your other hand, you backhand. You knock the eye out of his other hand, and it goes (falling noise) and disappears beneath the mist.

LAURA: Can we see where it landed?

TALIESIN: Yeah, I’m going to follow the eye.

MARISHA: Do not touch it, Percy!

SAM: Can I see?

MATT: The throbbing pain, and you’re not able to focus in this eye at the time. You’re effectively unable to see out of this eye really well until your next long rest. It’s pretty damaged just from the brief grabbing. You could try to heal him, if you want. Your mind comes back to you for a minute. You’re like, “What the fuck is wrong with me?!”

TRAVIS: What were you doing?!

SAM: It was speaking to me.

ASHLEY: What did it say?

SAM: I don’t exactly remember, but it had some really strong arguments.

TRAVIS: Was it telling you to pull your own fucking eye out?

SAM: I guess, yeah. It was offering me things. It was telling me it could help. I’ve never felt that way before. It was amazing.

TRAVIS: Ew. Where did it go?

MATT: You said you were going to look in the mist for it?

LAURA: No, I’m not. Just holding onto–

MATT: The remains of Vax.

MARISHA: Keyleth goes over to Vex and curls up into her.

MATT: 14. As you dive over in the direction of where you think you saw it go, the mist is thick, and you start pushing it away, and there is very dense underbrush and foliage that is gathered here that created the crunchy floor. Glancing through and pushing around, there’s no sign of the eye.

TALIESIN: I need help finding it. I need help! Be very careful.

TRAVIS: I come over and start helping him look.

TALIESIN: I’ve got the flashlight box out, and I’m going to try and use this as a container if we find it.

MATT: Okay. You’re not using the actual light, you’re using the box? The thickness in the mist right now, the light would probably hinder your search than help it.

TALIESIN: Keyleth, can you thin this? We need to see. Make the mist go away.

MARISHA: What?

TALIESIN: (louder) Can you make the mist go away?

MARISHA: I don’t know.

SAM: Can you try?

MARISHA: I half-heartedly do a Gust cantrip while still sitting next to Vex.

MATT: You watch as some of the mist dissipates and very quickly begins to roll back. The mist here is almost aggressive in its need to fill the space. Like a lot of things in the Feywild, it almost has its own sense of nature and purpose. It’s not going to let someone push itself back if it wishes to exist on the forest floor. As you’re rushing in to help, because you’ve already made the investigation check and the mist is rolling in, and based on his inability to find it, you’re not even quite sure where it landed. Make your own investigation check, but you’re at disadvantage.

TRAVIS: Okay. Hey, that’s high! That’s not. Three.

MATT: Okay. Over the next three or four minutes, as you guys pat through and tear roots apart and sections of the forest floor, there is no sign of where the eye landed.

ASHLEY: If I were to cast Locate Object, would that work?

MATT: You can certainly try.

ASHLEY: Okay!

MATT: You go over and grab your holy symbol and kneel to the ground, focus on whatever this dark relic is that seems to have plagued you in two different ways in the past ten minutes. As you concentrate, you feel the divine light of Sarenrae come and restore warmth from the center of this cold forest. You feel the energy flow through you and the image of her face descending from above, her mouth opening and she exhales this breath over you, and as it does, you suddenly can clarify your visual perception on this object. You know exactly the direction it is. You start walking in that direction. You push past Grog and push past Percival. You find a portion of the ground and you look, and it’s not there, but you know it’s that direction.

ASHLEY: I think I’ve located it. I can’t see it, but I know what direction it’s in.

SAM: Is it beneath the ground? Is it invisible?

ASHLEY: I don’t know. So it seems like it’s in the ground or it’s been moved.

MATT: Trying to push aside the mist in the area, and it’s all closed in now. The Gust cantrip held back what it could while you cast the spell.

MARISHA: I seem them moving in that direction, and once again, poof for them.

MATT: The mist separates again. You look, and you can see the direction where it would be, and as you glance over and focus your attention, it looks like between two of the roots, there’s a portion of fresh dirt.

SAM: It burrowed!

ASHLEY: Okay, can I start digging?

MATT: You start scooping in.

TALIESIN: I have the box out, ready.

MATT: About three inches down, you scoop down and pull up a big handful of moist dirt and then there, you watch as some of it falls away. You see the wet exterior of the greenish-yellow eyeball. It began to burrow. You see it glancing about. The eye is flickering around like it’s rapidly trying to find a way out.

ASHLEY: I put it in the box.

MATT: You close the box.

SAM: I don’t trust that thing.

TALIESIN: The burrowing eyeball? Are you sure?!

(laughter)

TRAVIS: Holy shit!

SAM: I mean, I don’t trust it near us.

ASHLEY: That’s my favorite thing you’ve ever said.

SAM: Percy, I think you need to give it to me to hold.

TALIESIN: I think that’s a terrible idea.

SAM: No, I can take care of it better than you.

TALIESIN: What makes you think that?

SAM: Just give it to me. Trust me.

TALIESIN: You’re bleeding out your eye right now!

SAM: I want revenge on this eye. Give it to me so I can get revenge!

ASHLEY: Hold on. I cast Cure Wounds for his eye.

MATT: Yeah. The eye wasn’t removed from the socket, but the damage that was around it seems to have healed up from the mild Cure Wounds. There’s still the drying blood that has pooled down the cheek, but it appears that most of the initial damage has been sealed.

ASHLEY: Do you want me to hold it?

TALIESIN: I kind of want you to hold it.

SAM: I think I should hold it.

ASHLEY: I feel like I’m going to hold onto it in case it tries to attach itself to you again and you pull out your eyeball again.

TALIESIN: Yes, and that thing should be difficult to get out of. It it is a big case.

SAM: What if it can still hear us? Sense where we are?

TRAVIS: It’s an eyeball; it doesn’t have ears.

SAM: That is true. That is a very good point.

TALIESIN: Well, if we’re really amused by it, we just set off the light crystal that’s in there and let it blind itself in there for a while. That would be funny. We have bigger problems. Diamonds. And Delilah.

TRAVIS: Oh yeah, she still goes in the bag, right?

TALIESIN: Oh, yeah. We’re going to want to have a word with her later.

MARISHA: Even beyond the diamonds.

TALIESIN: Vex. Vex. He needs you here, now. I need you here. We’re not done. This is not over yet. We are in trouble. We need to find a city. The two of you, I need both of you here.

LAURA: Of course, darling.

MARISHA: This was supposed to be a weekend trip.

TALIESIN: Nothing is ever what it’s supposed to be.

MARISHA: Just a weekend trip.

TALIESIN: I know. Let’s get this done.

MARISHA: Even after we find 25,000 gold pieces worth of diamonds, I’ve never brought anyone back before, and this is versus the Raven Queen. How do we know if his soul is even available for return?

TALIESIN: How do we know that she is against us? This was Vecna. She may still be with us.

LAURA: I can’t believe I left his soul over there, alone.

ASHLEY: We didn’t.

LAURA: I did. I came back.

TALIESIN: We’re not done.

MARISHA: Maybe we should talk to the Raven Queen.

TRAVIS: How do you do that?

LAURA: There’s a temple in Vasselheim, and there’s a temple in Whitestone.

MARISHA: Same way that he did.

TALIESIN: We need to find diamonds. Can we find them while we’re here? Can we find them where we are?

LAURA: I don’t know how you find diamonds in the Feywild.

TRAVIS: Percy, don’t you know the Feywild?

TALIESIN: Where are we?

TRAVIS: Do we see any structures off in the distance, or is it all just overgrowth?

MATT: You are in the center, or at least completely surrounded by enclosed, dense, bluish-purple forest. You cannot see above the canopy. What little bit of light is visible seems to be from a bioluminescence beneath the fog. As you pushed below, you could see what appeared to be bits of fungus that grew out of the forest floor. The slowly dying off and decomposing leaves and fallen branches. It’s almost like this underlit glow, but you don’t see any structures, no signs of civilization. You have no idea where you are. You’ve not been to this part of the Feywild.

MARISHA: Maybe our werewolf friends are still around.

TRAVIS: Yeah, I was going to say I have a terrible idea. I think they wanted to leave, so what if they know of some hidden treasure trove around here? That could, you know, tit for tit.

LAURA: I might be able to buy diamonds, as well. If we go to a city.

SAM: If we rest, I may be able to make them.

LAURA: 25,000 gold worth of diamonds.

SAM: How big is that?

LAURA: It could be a lot of smaller diamonds.

SAM: But how big? How many?

LAURA: I’ll pull out one diamond that I have that’s worth 1,500 gold.

TALIESIN: I feel within a tinker theory is how figuring out how much diamonds–

LAURA: We would need 20 more of these.

MATT: It can range based on the purity of the diamond, how well it’s been cut. You can make an intelligence check, if you’d like.

TALIESIN: That’ll do. I feel like this would be in the wheelhouse.

LAURA: I have to blow my nose again.

TALIESIN: God, I am rolling just the worst. 13.

MATT: 13. I mean, that’s a lot of diamonds. That can range, depending on the purity and where in the world they’re found. There’s a standard amount when it comes to magic practices that aren’t tailored to the cultural variations of cost. You couldn’t ask somebody, “Sell me these diamonds, but for six times the cost,” you know. It wouldn’t help the spell occur. That’s the general equivalent to the amount of diamonds that are consumed required for his spell. You’ve never seen that many diamonds in one place.

MARISHA: We don’t have a body, so we’re basically making a diamond Vax.

TALIESIN: I know where there are diamonds.

LAURA: Where?

SAM: I can make them. We just need an animal.

ASHLEY: How much can you make?

SAM: As much as the animal.

TRAVIS: Ooh, the bigger the animal, the bigger the diamonds?

MARISHA: I can make animals.

SAM: I mean, I know you’re grieving, but we could give Trinket up for this.

MARISHA: I can make animals.

LAURA: Scanlan.

SAM: It was worth a try. LAURA: You’re such a shithead.

TALIESIN: There is a second thought, if this does not go well. Which was– there was one place where we saw that many diamonds in one place before: Thordak.

TRAVIS: Surely they’ve cleaned all that up by now, right?

TALIESIN: Yes, but not everything left the city. There’s enough there. It didn’t get randomly distributed. I’m sure that they have it, and I’m sure that we can make a deal.

TRAVIS: Take a loan?

TALIESIN: I have something worth money.

TRAVIS: Was it a bad idea?

SAM: Taking out a loan?

TRAVIS: Yeah!

SAM: To buy diamonds?

LAURA: We have gold. We have plenty of gold.

MARISHA: What did Kraghammer mine? What was their deal?

MATT: All sorts of things. Many precious metals, gems, stone that was used for crafting, hewing into various forms of masonry. Anything that could be reaped from beneath the Cliffkeep Mountains, that’s what Kraghammer specialized in.

MARISHA: What if we go to a mine? We could go straight to a source, buy direct?

LAURA: We could go to Kraghammer and buy, or we could try doing what Scanlan said.

SAM: We could try mine first, and if it doesn’t work– but I need to rest. I can’t do anything today.

LAURA: Should we get back to our world?

TALIESIN: We go to Kraghammer, rest there.

MARISHA: We can’t. We have to sleep before, unless there’s a portal nearby that we can get through.

LAURA: Did you send us to the pond? I thought you took us to the pond.

MARISHA: It has to be nearby. Plane Shift is general. I pick an area, and it gambles where it’s going to drop us.

MATT: And did you specify the location?

MARISHA: I did! I said the Shademirk Bog and the pond, the glade. I found the page in my notes and rambled all the names off very quickly in a panic.

MATT: What’s interesting, when last you were in the Shademirk, you recall this being a very oil-thickened forest.

LAURA: Oh, you took us to where Saundor was. You didn’t take us to the pond with the chick?

MATT: Correct, this is the Shademirk. This is where you battled with Saundor. However, the forest you’re in now, if this is indeed the same location, it seems to have vastly recovered from the corruption that Saundor’s presence gave, which is why it’s both unfamiliar to you and not as oppressive as the last time you visited.

MARISHA: Didn’t we– nope. I Plane Shifted us out.

LAURA: We have to spend the night here. Vecna’s in our world.

TALIESIN: Vecna’s in a box.

LAURA: How much power does he get from that eye?

TALIESIN: More than all of us combined, I’d imagine.

TRAVIS: If it burrows in the ground, it can’t break out of the box, right?

TALIESIN: I don’t know.

LAURA: Open the box and see what it’s doing.

TALIESIN: We can look in the box without.

SAM: Give it to me. I’ll take care of it. I’ll send it away to a place where only I can get it.

ASHLEY: Can I take a peek?

MATT: Yeah, you open it up. You hold it back and hold the door open.

TALIESIN: There’s a glass thing so we can look through the glass.

MATT: Immediately, glancing in, you see it staring right back at you.

MARISHA: (horrified wail)

LAURA: Don’t send it to another plane; that’s very fucking weird.

SAM: But it’s a personal plane. It’s my plane.

LAURA: Are you sure nobody else can ever get into it?

SAM: I am not.

LAURA: Then no.

SAM: I don’t know how this works. My daughter taught me this spell; I’ve never used it before.

LAURA: Then, fuck it, we’re not doing it.

SAM: It goes into a little pocket dimension! Is what she told me. I don’t even know what that means!

LAURA: That’s really weird.

TALIESIN: What if it’s the Vecna dimension?

SAM: Here, let’s try something. Just give me something, I’ll send it there now. I don’t know what that’ll do.

ASHLEY: How will we know it’s there?

SAM: Give me Trinket.

LAURA: No! Stop it!

SAM: I can’t do Trinket. It has to be less than five pounds.

TRAVIS: Less than five pounds?

SAM: Yes.

ASHLEY: It has to be something small?

SAM: Yeah.

MARISHA: No! No, don’t consider it Pike, no!

SAM: Give me anything.

TRAVIS: Do you want a pair of manacles?

SAM: Sure!

TRAVIS: Here’s a pair of manacles.

SAM: All right. I will use Wrist Pocket!

MATT: You watch as he holds the manacles and does a flourish with his hand and they vanish from sight.

ASHLEY: How do you know if they’re there?

SAM: I don’t know where they are! I literally have no idea, but watch this!

MATT: They seem to apparate immediately into his grasp.

SAM: I don’t know how I even do that!

LAURA: Cool. We’re not using a random-ass magic trick on an eyeball.

ASHLEY: Did you just point at me and tell me to come to you so you can make me disappear and come back?

SAM: No! The eye! I can get rid of the eye!

ASHLEY: No, it makes me nervous, Scanlan. I want to keep our… eyes on it.

(laughter)

ASHLEY: Fuck off!

SAM: Maybe we should vote on this. Should we give it to me? Who says aye?

TALIESIN: You can buy my vote.

SAM: I don’t have that much.

TALIESIN: Yes, you do. You can buy my vote.

SAM: I don’t have enough.

LAURA: Are there any animals around?

MATT: Make a nature check.

LAURA: Natural 20.

MATT: You’re familiar with forests, definitely, and you can see telltale signs of scurrying, telltale signs of track marks in the ground, feces left behind by living creatures. You do see signs of things that live throughout these forests everywhere.

LAURA: Anything that looks like it would be the size of an adult deer or something?

TRAVIS: Doe, a deer? A female deer?

LAURA: I’m thinking a male deer. Yes, a stag. A white stag. Any stag, really, just an animal that’s big.

MATT: You see a number of tracks that would resemble creatures of that size or larger. Some seem bear-like, some seem larger than that, though similar claws and heavy footprints. Some that are smaller and skittery. You see there was a small cluster of what might be deer-like creatures, but you’re not quite sure what the tracks are. There’s plenty of life that wanders through here. Apparently, since you’ve arrived, none that seem bold enough to approach you too closely in this clustered clearing you’re in. Can’t even call it a clearing, because you maybe have a total of ten feet you’re all crammed into at this time.

TRAVIS: If we howl, right?

ASHLEY: Are we down?

LAURA: Yeah, we haven’t healed since–

TALIESIN: We are wrecked.

ASHLEY: How’s everybody doing?

LAURA: I’m low.

SAM: Aren’t you low, Pike? Like 11 or something.

LAURA: I mean, we’re about to rest. You’re probably super low.

ASHLEY: I think am, let’s see if I wrote it down here. Oh, yeah! I forgot! I’m almost dead.

LAURA: Trinket’s unconscious still in my necklace.

ASHLEY: Okay.

LAURA: He’s unconscious. I pop him out, if you’re going to heal us.

MATT: (magic noise)

TRAVIS: Aw, buddy.

LAURA: I start crying again.

SAM: I turn him into diamonds.

LAURA: You dick! You’re such an asshole.

MATT: All right, so what are you guys doing?

LAURA: Pike’s going to heal us.

TALIESIN: Heal and sleep.

LAURA: I’m going to kill something.

TALIESIN: Let Keyleth make something big.

MATT: What are you casting, Pike?

ASHLEY: Mass Cure Wounds.

MATT: Mass Cure Wounds? All right, go for it.

LAURA: Will it work on a magical animal, or does it have to be a real animal?

SAM: No, it can work on anything, I think. I’ve never turned anything into diamonds.

TRAVIS: If I had that, I’d be doing that all the time.

SAM: You’re right. In retrospect, I should have been doing this literally every day. I just learned the spell a week ago.

TRAVIS: Why are you dealing drugs? Just be like boop!

SAM: Yeah, but look at this! It’s gone! It’s back! Cool, right?

TRAVIS: And think how useful that will come in the bedroom. Manacles! Nobody? Cool.

LAURA: I was like, pocket dimension?

ASHLEY: You all heal 31 points. It’s something.

MARISHA: 31? All of us?

MATT: Everyone healed 31. Trinket gets up, (bear grumbling).

LAURA: Yeah. Hey, Trink.

SAM: You guys need more healing? I could try to give us more.

LAURA: We’re going to rest. Are we safe to leave fucking– there’s nothing we can do, at this point– to leave Vecna in the world. We can’t do anything!

TALIESIN: We have one problem at a time. We have Delilah, and we will deal with–

MARISHA: What do you want to do with Delilah?

MATT: She’s been stuffed into the Bag of Holding.

TALIESIN: We’re going to talk to her. We’re going to see what we can learn. We’re going to be very thoughtful about what we talk to her about, and we’re going to find a way of making sure that this is the last time we put her in the ground. By hook or by crook.

LAURA: Don’t cry on camera and then have to blow your nose a bunch!

SAM: She says to a nearby tree.

ASHLEY: Should we try killing an animal and seeing how many diamonds you get out of it?

SAM: I can’t try anything today.

LAURA: Okay, we have to wait.

TALIESIN: Tomorrow, we go to Kraghammer, we make an animal.

LAURA: We don’t have the mansion tonight.

SAM: No.

ASHLEY: Do you want to Speak with Dead before bed, or do you want to sleep on it?

TRAVIS: We don’t need the mansion; I got all my hit points. I’m good.

TALIESIN: I don’t think I’m in the right mind to even think of anything to say to her that isn’t just rage, at the moment.

LAURA: We need to get up in a tree. I don’t know what’s in this area. I saw some tracks that didn’t look friendly.

TALIESIN: Let’s get up there.

TRAVIS: Aren’t these trees dangerous in their own right?

TALIESIN: They seem like they’ve quieted down.

LAURA: We healed this forest; it should thank us.

TRAVIS: Okay. Did the bow talk to the trees or anything? Fenthras.

MATT: Interesting. With the natural 20 nature check you made earlier: there is, I don’t want to say, not a kinship, but a sense of understanding between you and the surrounding forest. It’s hard to explain, and you haven’t really had this sense before; this is more a Keyleth territory of having this connection with nature. But it’s because you wield Fenthras and were responsible in a large way for cleansing this landscape, that as you begin to approach and look for trees for a place to sleep, you watch as one tree, the branches seem to bend down to form a small ladder. You watch as the boughs above separate and create an easy-to-lay-down cluster of branches and leaves.

TALIESIN: Small miracles.

MARISHA: They like us now.

LAURA: Thank you.

TRAVIS: You guys crash; I’ll take first watch.

LAURA: I’m going to pull the armor up so we can keep it. Did you want–

MARISHA: Yeah. We cuddle between the armor.

TALIESIN: That’s weird. I’m not getting into it.

MARISHA: That’s the saddest thing.

MATT: That’s pretty sad. All right. The rest of you find yourselves to a night’s rest, seemingly protected for the time being by the surrounding Shademirk Forest, no longer the Shademirk Bog. And unconsciousness takes you, Grog taking first watch. Now, I’m going to ask you guys, if you wouldn’t mind, to step into the kitchen.

TRAVIS: What, me?

SAM: Everybody but Grog?

MATT: Everybody but Liam.

LAURA: Oh fuck me running. We’re jacking off.

MARISHA: Jacking off. Oh man.

ASHLEY: No, I feel like you’re going to make plans.

LAURA: What are you going to do while we’re not in here?

TRAVIS: Go.

SAM: A whole new show.

LIAM: Spin-off.

MATT: All right, we’re getting Liam back in here. Shoo. No, we’ll probably have you back in. Getting tangled?

MARISHA: Don’t die forever.

MATT: We’ll wait for them to leave the room. Vax'ildan. As your eyes dart back and forth, glancing upward at the sky above, snow hitting and stinging your paralyzed eyes, you see the terrible lich above you, a flash of green, then darkness. Floating without weight, without temperature. You glance around in the surrounding shadow and cannot see anything; your hands before you, nothing. It is just void, darkness. You will yourself to see something, anything, and in an instant, you begin to glow. Your form becomes visible around you. You can now see your body, nude and held aloft in this dark space, emanating this soft, vibrant orangish-white light. As the light begins to emanate and cast away the darkness, you also see what appears to be a tangling of some sort of web: strands of silk that also begin to glow with a similar light as to your form that holds you tightly in your position. You struggle, but you’re held firm. You think you yell out, but as you glance upward to shout for help, you see the shadows now curl back to reveal the familiar sight of a massive white porcelain woman’s face. Eyeless, yet staring straight at, if not through you. Her presence, imposing as it may be, soothes you as her giant hand, larger than a house, a palace, it seems, almost, merges from below and gives you a ground to step on, your feet finding purchase in the center of her dark palm. As your feet touch her palm, the silk web seems to loosen. You cast off the threads and fall to your hands and knees. You take a moment, and you hear that soft voice once more. “My champion, you return to me and tear a swath through the tapestry. Please, be calm. My sight can pierce many veils, but you’ve been hidden from my sight in recent days, and I am worried what foulness has turned its intent upon us. Now, here you come to me, your very thread frayed and soul transitioning. An unexpected destiny for my beautiful fate-touched.” One of her fingers curls through your hair at the back of your head. “Tell me what you have seen.”

LIAM: Your enemy.

MATT: “I have many enemies.”

LIAM: Vecna.

MATT: “What does this Vecna intend?”

LIAM: He’s come… he’s come back to our world. My home. My family is in danger. The world is in danger.

MATT: “How so? How can one man be this dangerous? What does he intend? What have you learned?”

LIAM: I don’t know.

MATT: “I wonder why he guards my sight. Well.” She goes into quiet contemplation for a moment. You see the strands of hair that emanate from the sides of the mask slowly shifting like waves on an ocean. “This Vecna comes to your world to be a king?”

LIAM: That or grind us all into dust.

MATT: “This is historical. Mortals continuously intend to find others to grind into dust. If this being has the power to block my sight, he has power beyond a mortal realm. Did you see anything? Anything else?”

LIAM: We traveled to the Shadowfell. There was a tower, and he had servants. He had powerful servants. A woman that we’ve fought before, and another, a man, a creature. I don’t know. With a blade, a dark blade. And he was too powerful for us. He crushed us.

MATT: “And in your short spark with him, you learned nothing more of his plan? No hint of what he’s plotting?”

LIAM: He threw me to the ground the first second he laid his eye on me. He murdered my sister. I thought we had come to an arrangement.

MATT: “We have.”

LIAM: Where is my sister?

MATT: “She lives, still. She is beyond my influence. However, your body is ash, and your soul is steeped in the divine energies that uphold the paths between life and death. You’ve earned your eternal rest.” The mask begins to recede into the darkness.

LIAM: No. No! Come back. No! I will not leave them behind. I want to help them, still.

MATT: The faint gray of the mask that begins to fade into shadow stops and comes back even brighter, vibrant, almost. You sense the mystery of the Raven Queen shift from this entity that dodges and weaves to instead a pillar of power of life and death that is both awe-striking and awe-fearing. And for a moment, you realize how small you are in her presence. “You truly see, to seek this, to bring it to its end?”

LIAM: Whatever it takes.

MATT: “Your resolve is admirable. Your love of your chosen family is vibrant. What I offer you is the power to see this conflict through to its end. You will be briefly beyond the very grasp of death, and I will hold back any attempt for you to transition. You will be a bulwark of my power in cold flesh, walking between heartbeats, unstoppable. You will have the power to walk once more with Vox Machina, with your sister, with your Keyleth. And should you use this power wisely, perhaps save Exandria, save them, save her. But when it’s done and this foul, undying king lies dead or sealed, you will return to me, my champion, evermore.” The imposing image now shifts and changes. In an instant, the giant being is now the simple woman, the mask you once saw removed now missing. And there, the somewhat sad, beautiful pale face of the Raven Queen as she steps forward. The silence is broken by the sounds of her footsteps across nothing. (footsteps) Her hand comes up. Warm. You weren’t expecting, as it traces across your brow and curves across to your chin and pulls it up. “Do you accept my gift?”

LIAM: You have such loneliness in your eyes.

MATT: “Perhaps you will keep me company when you come back to me. Do you accept?”

LIAM: I do.

MATT: “Then so be it. You, whose nature bucks destiny, my beautiful thing. Go. Share what you have shared with me with others like me. Take what you can learn of this Vecna’s plans, for if he can block his intent from one, who knows what he plots against the other powers beyond the gate? Learn from them. Ask them. You have my blessing. They have theirs to give, as well, and they may be all that stands between the ruin of this world and you. Let their blessings turn the tides, Vax'ildan. But use your time wisely, for corruption like this waits for no one. Now.” She pulls your head down and kisses you on the forehead and brings your head close to hers, and you hear a voice whisper right into your ear, ever so faintly. “Wake up!” We need to go ahead and retrieve the rest of the cast now, if you wouldn’t mind stepping aside.

LIAM: Sure.

MATT: Thank you. (sighs, laughs) That’s interesting. I’m here in silence. How creepy is this? I never get to talk with you guys at the table by myself. I don’t even know what to do. Oh, they enter now. (laughs) Welcome back! Come, have a seat! Plug in!

TRAVIS: Why did you go so far away?

MATT: Jack in.

SAM: By the way, audience, Travis pointed out as we left, they might not know what we were talking about when we all said, “oh, we’re going to jack off now.” It means unplug our microphone cords.

MATT: Oh yeah, that’s actually a pretty good–

SAM: We’re not–

TRAVIS: Performing illicit acts.

TALIESIN: I am, but everyone else isn’t.

MATT: To each their own, I suppose.

TALIESIN: That’s the hard part.

SAM: Why was Liam crying in the hallway?

MATT: (laughs)

TALIESIN: Sam’s scamming you.

LAURA: Jacking in.

SAM: Jacking in.

ASHLEY: What happened?

MATT: All right.

SAM: I can verify that none of us listened or read anything about what just happened. We were jacking off the whole time.

(laughter)

TALIESIN: We had to hide at the other end of the building, man. That was nuts.

MATT: So as you make your watch. Who’s making second watch?

TRAVIS: I’ll take both.

TALIESIN and LAURA: No.

SAM: You need to rest.

TRAVIS: I don’t, boo.

LAURA: Yeah, you do. You need to sleep.

MARISHA: You don’t want to be exhausted.

SAM: You’ve got to get your spells back, man.

TRAVIS: Yeah.

MARISHA: How long does he have to rest so he’s not exhausted?

MATT: Long rest.

TALIESIN: These are all long rests. We’re all getting long rests. I’ll take second watch.

TRAVIS: I’m already exhausted. I frenzied last.

MATT: Yeah, so if you don’t rest, you don’t get rid of that point of exhaustion.

TRAVIS: We’ve all learned what happens when I get two points of exhaustion. Good things.

TALIESIN: Vecna comes back, and we all die.

LAURA: Vecna is back.

MATT: All right, so Percival, second watch? Perception check.

TALIESIN: That’ll do. That’s a 21.

MATT: Okay. Your watch continues without issue. Final watch is?

ASHLEY: I’ll take it.

MATT: Pike. Final watch. Perception check.

ASHLEY: 19.

MATT: 19, okay. While there is no real change from day to night in the Feywild, it’s in that perpetual nearly dusk, sunset, purple-orange skyline, which you can see elements of creeping through since you’re higher up in the brush of the forest. You do hear the shifting of sounds. The evening owl hooting has changed to more gentle bird chirps and sounds that would usually befit birds that lead to morning to you. Whether that be the forest itself, its natural cycle, or it altering to fit your cycle of sleep. At the end of your watch– you’ve had your full rest, but are still a little groggy, you hear what sounds like the crushing of leaves on the ground below you.

ASHLEY: I’m going to try to hop up and hide in the tree. I guess I’m looking awake in the tree.

MATT: Okay. You’re up in the tree, still. You glance down.

ASHLEY: I’m going to keep watching.

MATT: You see a humanoid figure emerge from one of the nearby trees. Pale, nude.

SAM: (whispering) Get on that.

(laughter)

MATT: Long, dark black hair. Groggily stepping into the glade where you just were.

MARISHA: Is this your nymph?

MATT: It’s a familiar figure.

TRAVIS: Long, dark black hair? Pale?

ASHLEY: I run down from the tree.

SAM: It’s Powder from the movie Powder.

LAURA: Wait! Vax? I don’t know. I’m asleep.

MARISHA: We’re asleep?

MATT: You crawl down.

LAURA: What the fuck?

ASHLEY: I don’t want him to see me.

MATT: Okay. Make a stealth check.

SAM: What has happened?

ASHLEY: Oh. 22.

MATT: 22. (laughs) Passive wisdom. As you carefully stay in the tree, you shake your head a bit, wandering into this opening here, not quite sure where you are as your senses are coming to, and you hear this slight scraping of something against bark. You immediately glance up and can see the small shine of a silver-and-brass set of armor as a tiny gnome is currently held up into the boughs of a tree.

LIAM: Pickle?

ASHLEY: Stringbean?

LIAM: Hi.

ASHLEY: Hi.

LIAM: Where are we?

ASHLEY: We’re in the Feywild. Where did you just come from?

LIAM: I’m not entirely sure. I died. Did you know that?

ASHLEY: I did know that. We’re trying to figure out how to save you.

LIAM: What are you going to do?

ASHLEY: I don’t know.

LIAM: Sorry, I’m a little confused.

ASHLEY: That’s okay.

MATT: The naturally sensitive ears, even in a sleeping state, that are Vex’s, being the wild hunter you are, you hear a suddenly loud voice below that catches your attention, and your eyes flicker open.

LIAM: Oh, fuck.

LAURA: I get up and run down.

MATT: Darting down the tree rapidly. You watch as your sister falls into the foliage. There you see before you, your brother. Clothes-less.

LIAM: I thought you died. I watched you die.

LAURA: It’s a trick! It’s a trick. It’s a trick of the Feywild.

LIAM: I’m sorry I’m naked. Come here. I’m all right.

MATT: He’s physical. He’s cold. But he’s there.

LAURA: How are you here?

LIAM: I don’t know. I died.

LAURA: I know. I didn’t see it. I died, too.

LIAM: But you’re back.

LAURA: So are you.

LIAM: I’m so glad you’re back. Don’t cry.

LAURA: I have your armor, and Keyleth– are you all right? Are you really here?

LIAM: Yeah, I’m really here.

LAURA: Can I roll an insight check to make sure it’s actually him?

MATT: Sure.

LAURA: 20.

MATT: 20? Right as you’ve known your brother, there doesn’t seem to be anything that tells you otherwise.

ASHLEY: Vax? Can I put my hand on his chest and see if I feel a heartbeat?

MATT: Now as you notice, now that you’ve lost focus from the fact that he’s there, you can see where previously, there was a small, darkened spot on his chest that looked like a bruise of some kind that never quite went away, it has expanded a bit to be almost in the shape of wings across the front of the chest.

ASHLEY: Do I feel a heartbeat?

MATT: You listen closely. Make a medicine check.

LIAM: What’s the matter, Pike?

ASHLEY: That’s a natural 20.

MATT: Oh shit. You get close, and to get close to where his heart is, you have to pull him down a bit.

LAURA: There’s a dick, and he’s naked.

LIAM: And she’s really short.

MATT: With gnomish size right now, this is getting all sorts of weird.

SAM: Just come down.

LIAM: Listen, I’m a cleric. It’s nothing I haven’t seen before.

ASHLEY: I see them all the time.

SAM: She’s a doctor. It’s fine.

LIAM: You clear diseases.

MATT: You hear a very faint, slow heartbeat. It’s there. (slow heartbeat)

TRAVIS: Oh, it’s that slow? That’s like Lance Armstrong sleeping slow.

SAM: It’s three BPM.

ASHLEY: Okay.

LAURA: Does he sound weird?

ASHLEY: I can’t figure it out. Sometimes when people are very athletic, they have very slow heart rates. You’re very in shape. I’m going to climb up the tree and wake up Keyleth.

LAURA: Tell her to bring the armor down.

TALIESIN: Is anybody else waking up at this point?

MATT: Percival, you’ve got a pretty decent perception. At this point, with the sound and the shifting up and down the tree, and you guys are pretty alert by nature, you all start coming to.

TRAVIS: I’m not perceptive at all.

MATT: Except for Grog. You’re snoring.

SAM: I’ve got one perception. Oh, it’s passive.

MATT: You’re both asleep.

ASHLEY: Come down from the tree real quick.

MARISHA: What’s going on, Pike?

ASHLEY: Everything’s okay.

MARISHA: Pike, I need you to tell me before I come around this corner and see.

ASHLEY: I grab her hand. It’s okay. Come with me.

MARISHA: I am not coming with you until you tell me, Pike.

ASHLEY: Vax is at the bottom of the tree.

TALIESIN: I grab my stuff, and I immediately run down the tree.

MARISHA: I clutch onto Vax’s armor.

LIAM: I don’t know.

LAURA: She sent you back.

LIAM: Yeah.

LAURA: She’s my new favorite.

TALIESIN: Vex, I need you to step away from him. Vax, if it is you, I hope you understand, and please, just for a second, thank you.

LIAM: Fred, it’s fine.

TALIESIN: We’re fighting the perversion of death itself. This is what I would do to torture us. Let’s figure this out before we hand him back anything that’s older than we are.

LIAM: I hand the armor over to my sister.

MATT: The armor’s still being clutched by Keyleth.

LIAM: Oh, I didn’t get it yet? I thought she put it in my hands. All right.

TALIESIN: I’m keeping some distance.

LIAM: You created a temple for me. You know who I serve.

TALIESIN: Oh, I believe you’re you. I just have to make sure what brought you back. I don’t even know if you would know yet. Pike, does he have a heartbeat? Is he undead?

ASHLEY: He has a heartbeat.

TALIESIN: Have you tried Turn Undead?

LIAM: You would know if there’s evil in my heart.

TALIESIN: It’s not your heart I’m worried about.

LIAM: You would know if there’s evil in my heart.

LAURA: He’s fine.

LIAM: You would.

TALIESIN: If he’s not, you will not survive this.

MATT: You actually haven’t seen Keyleth yet. She’s still up in the tree.

LIAM: I’m very confused.

MATT: It’s okay.

LAURA: They were talking up in the tree.

TALIESIN: I’m sure it’s going to be fine. Let’s just take a minute and reflect on every terrible thing that’s happened over the last 24 hours and be careful for once. I’m so sorry.

LIAM: No. He’s absolutely right. This is insane.

TALIESIN: This is madness.

ASHLEY: Vax, what do you like to do with my hair?

LIAM: (weak laughter)

TALIESIN: It’s him in there. Let’s just make sure that it’s him that is the rest of him.

LAURA: What do you mean, he’s a lich or something?

TALIESIN: Could Vecna put Vax into something designed to hurt us? I believe it’s Vax. It’s the rest of it.

ASHLEY: Do you remember anything from when you woke up?

LIAM: I remember hitting the ground, and I remember watching you die, and then it was her face again.

LAURA: The Raven Queen?

LIAM: Yeah.

TALIESIN: What would happen to him if you tried to Turn Undead?

LIAM: Go ahead.

LAURA: What if he is, though?

TALIESIN: If anything awful happens, he should survive it.

LIAM: Go ahead. Get it out of the way. I’m not worried about it.

ASHLEY: I know, but what if it does something–

LIAM: If I’m undead, then I shouldn’t be here with you, all of you.

TALIESIN: If you’re dead, we’ll just have to be extra careful, and we’ll have a little more understanding of what’s happening.

LIAM: Where is Keyleth?

TALIESIN: When has a random miracle ever just happened? If we work for a miracle, that’s one thing, but this sort of thing doesn’t end up on your doorstep. You know that.

ASHLEY: Vax?

LAURA: Will he survive it? I don’t think he is undead.

ASHLEY: I don’t, either.

LAURA: But I don’t want him to be able to be turned against us. He looks normal.

TALIESIN: Does he?

LIAM: You used to give me wet willies in Abyssal class. It’s me.

LAURA: I know it’s you.

ASHLEY: You have something new on your chest.

LIAM: What? Oh shit. Well, that’s extra.

ASHLEY: Keyleth?

MARISHA: Will you come here for a second? Okay.

ASHLEY: I climb back up the tree.

MARISHA: I could hear everything that’s going on because it’s down the tree.

ASHLEY: Are you okay?

MARISHA: No, I’m super not okay. What’s going on? What the fuck is going on?!

LAURA: Keyleth, we can hear you.

MARISHA: Fuck all of you! For a fucking second, just tell me.

ASHLEY: I was watching, and then I saw him walk out of the tree of sorts, and I think it’s him, and he’s obviously naked.

MARISHA: I have his armor.

ASHLEY: Okay. Maybe you would be able to tell, to see what’s going on. I think you should come down. It will be okay.

MARISHA: Okay. You go first. I’ll follow you.

ASHLEY: Okay.

MARISHA: I follow her down.

MATT: Okay. You come down, and there, next to Vex and Percival, at a distance of a few feet, you see the pale body standing before you of Vax'ildan, breathing.

LIAM: Hi.

TALIESIN: I’m so sorry.

MATT: You guys wake up, slowly, from all of this.

TALIESIN: I cannot wait for you both to be angry with me later.

ASHLEY: Okay.

MARISHA: Does he feel cold?

MATT: Colder than you remember, yeah.

LAURA: Oh god, he’s undead.

MARISHA: Is it you? I thought I killed you.

LIAM: You?

MARISHA: I could have done more.

LIAM: No. Nobody could have done more for me. No.

MARISHA: You’re cold.

LIAM: Am I? I probably should put some clothes on, then.

MARISHA: I put my ear up to his chest.

MATT: Make a medicine check.

MARISHA: Natural 18. 24.

MATT: You hear the faint, slow heartbeat.

MARISHA: Okay. I give him back the armor.

TALIESIN: No!

MARISHA: Percy.

TALIESIN: Not yet.

LIAM: I’m not taking it.

TALIESIN: Thank you. Not yet.

MARISHA: How long do we have you? What do you remember? Anything?

LIAM: Well, you can guess some of it.

MARISHA: No, we fucking can’t!

LAURA: We have no fucking idea what’s going on.

MARISHA: As far as I’m concerned, you can drop dead in front of our faces right now, and it wouldn’t be much different than the past 24 hours.

LIAM: You all have seen her, the same as I have.

LAURA: We haven’t talked to her like you have.

MARISHA: We saw her face.

LAURA: What did she say? Did she send you back? Did she say, “oh, you’re going to be undead.”

LIAM: She did not say I’m a fucking ghoul.

ASHLEY: Vax, you’re going to be okay. Take my hand. This is going to be okay. We’re going to figure this out.

LIAM: Yeah.

TRAVIS: Where did everybody go?

SAM: Good morning!

ASHLEY: Grog.

MARISHA: Surprise.

TRAVIS: What? I go down.

LIAM: Hey. What’s up, Poobah?

TRAVIS: Is this real?

TALIESIN: We’re not sure.

LAURA: We’re figuring it out.

LIAM: Ooh.

TRAVIS: I need to pee.

SAM: I come down and join everybody.

LIAM: Hi.

SAM: I look in my pocket to where I was keeping the dust that was Vax. Is there anything there?

MATT: Still filled with dust.

LIAM: What is that?

SAM: This is you.

LAURA: Oh fuck.

LIAM: What?

TALIESIN: Let’s not even begin to have this discussion if we don’t have to.

SAM: I feel like I should still keep this.

ASHLEY: Keep it just in case. I’m going to cast Turn Undead.

MATT: You Channel Divinity: Turn Undead.

MARISHA: Wait. What?

MATT: As you say that, she takes her holy symbol and clutches it, and you watch as there’s this divine flash and this emanating force, this low hum. As it billows out, and you’ve seen her use it before. Clutching Vax in your hand, you feel the warmth pass over you. No seeming effect.

ASHLEY: Vax, I don’t know how you did it, or how she did it, but something’s happened.

LIAM: She’s like Sarenrae.

TALIESIN: I think that we can be physically optimistic. Go.

LIAM: Pike, she’s a god.

ASHLEY: I’ve never seen anything like this before in my life.

TALIESIN: We have to figure out where you came from, ‘cause you’re in a pouch.

ASHLEY: You’re there, and you’re here.

SAM: Wait, have we tried– hey. Can you cut your hand? Do you bleed?

LIAM: Can someone lend me a knife?

MARISHA: I gave you back your armor and shit.

LIAM: I didn’t take it.

LAURA: I’m going to take Whisper and cut him.

MARISHA: He’s got a cloak over him.

LAURA: I’m going to cut you right here.

MATT: You cut him. It’s a sharp pain, and you watch as it bleeds.

LAURA: Red?

MATT: Yeah.

LAURA: Sorry. I cast Cure Wounds.

TALIESIN: This is looking better, all things considered.

LIAM: I don’t know.

LAURA: I’d already laid claim on your boots. I’d come to grips with everything, and I’d decided I was going to wear them.

LIAM: I was about to tell you everything she told me, but I’ve changed my mind.

(laughter)

TALIESIN: I’m going to fall down on the ground.

SAM: How did this happen?

TRAVIS: I was asleep, and now you’re here.

SAM: You made a deal with your god, or something?

LIAM: Years ago.

LAURA: Years ago?

LIAM: Year and a half ago.

ASHLEY: What did you say? What was your deal?

MARISHA: You’re here until the job’s complete, right? Or she feels that you’ve paid your service, I feel like I remember you telling me in bedside chat at some point in time over the 15 months?

TALIESIN: TMI.

TRAVIS: You need to work on your intimacy.

(laughs)

LIAM: She was a bit more specific. She doesn’t like our new play pal.

LAURA: Vecna?

LIAM: Yeah.

LAURA: I know. She hates him.

TALIESIN: Problem. We were not effective.

LAURA: Was Keyleth right? If we defeat him, do you go away?

ASHLEY: Or maybe you’re free from that deal?

SAM: If we defeat him, do you go away?

MARISHA: Or is your soul yours again?

LAURA: Just answer the question!

LIAM: It was death or come back and help you.

TRAVIS: Oh fuck. Oh shit.

SAM: So if we win, you lose.

LIAM: That’s one way of looking at it.

SAM: Well, that’s a brave choice.

TRAVIS: Yeah.

MARISHA: Are her deals final?

LIAM: I don’t have a lot of experience with other gods making deals, darling. But I want you to live a long time. And I want you two to live a long time and be happy. And I want you to get a halfway decent relationship with your daughter. I want you to lead many people. I want you to change the world. I want you to do all the things I know you can do. Forget it. Grog, I just want you to be free.

TRAVIS: Thank you, New Vax.

LIAM: So much better than the old Vax. Look, any one of us could die at any time! We have died. Some of us more than once. It’s a miracle that I’m here now.

LAURA: Put your armor on.

SAM: I don’t mind it. It’s fine.

MARISHA: So that’s it? Your purpose is to make sure that the rest of us find long, happy lives at the cost of your own?

LIAM: I’ve lived a very good life.

LAURA: She’s not my favorite anymore.

LIAM: And it’s not just us. The dragons were a test. This fucking lunatic, this dead thing. He’s not setting up a theme park, guys.

LAURA: We need to get back.

MARISHA: We need to talk to the Raven Queen.

TALIESIN: We need a plan.

MARISHA: We need help.

TALIESIN: We do need help.

SAM: We have Vax now. No matter what happens later, this was a brave choice. I’m not sure I would have made the same, but we’re stronger together, and thank you for coming back. It’s a harder choice to come back. It’s easier to walk away. I know this. Thank you for coming back.

TRAVIS: Yeah, it’s not like we have no agency, right? We’ve been hit with bigger problems. We’ll work this one until we can’t, anymore.

TALIESIN: We’ll all try and keep each other alive.

LIAM: Yeah.

MARISHA: I don’t accept this as a closed contract.

TRAVIS: Yeah, me neither.

SAM: Maybe this will make you more fun to be around, too. You used to have this death wish, but now it’s done. Now you pop a beer.

LIAM: Don’t set your expectations too high.

TALIESIN: I was about to say, we can give him that pouch, and then he could have perfect proof.

TRAVIS: If you wear clothes, is the deal null and void?

LIAM: No, I have to be naked all the time.

MATT: It’s interesting, Vax. As Scanlan says those words, you realize–

TRAVIS: I have to be naked.

(laughter)

MATT: It’s part of your new multi-class.

MARISHA: Does he get a bonus to AC?

MATT: Level five paladin, level 12 rogue, level one nudist.

(laughter)

MATT: Unarmored defense. You had it, and now he has it, too.

MARISHA: Streaker’s sprint.

MATT: The words he said about always having a death wish, and now the death wish is over. There’s a strength in you, a confidence, an assurance that wasn’t there before. That fear of death is gone. As he says that, for the first time, while you raced towards death previously, it was out of fear, and out of martyr-like purpose. It’s just confidence now. And that’s where we’re going to take a break.

TRAVIS: Oh damn! Free Willy.

MATT: We’ll be back here in just a minute. We’ll continue from here so we can get a drink and a restroom break. We have our giveaway. Fantastic zebrawood deck box from our friends at Wyrmwood. It’s got a little card to tell you it’s zebrawood. One lucky winner’s going to get this when we come back from the break, so if you want to be part of this giveaway, go over to the Twitch chat and enter when it’s requested by the chat, enter the word “raven.” We’ll have a winner for you when we get back.

SAM and TRAVIS: That’s so raven.

MATT: That’s so raven, guys. All righty. Cool. We’ll see you guys here in a few minutes.

Break
[break]

Part II
MATT: That’s so late. You were so late on that.

LIAM: Change the rules of the game. Wait until the countdown’s done, then you say something foul.

MATT: Welcome, guys, back to Critical Role. The chat room winner of our fantastic Wyrmwood deck box is NightMist1. NightMist1, congratulations. Denobo will contact you for your information, and we’ll get that to you asap. Well done. All righty, everyone. So there, figuring out the scenario revolving the return of Vax'ildan to Vox Machina, and slowly learning some of the scenario around it and the discussions that took place. (burps) Pardon.

(laughter)

TRAVIS: Battling it the last two seconds.

SAM: It’s his birthday. He can do whatever he wants.

MATT: Goddamn right.

LAURA: That’s going to be a t-shirt.

LIAM: I got this, I got this, (fake belch).

MATT: I have no ego anymore. I learned early to stomp that out. All righty, so as you put your equipment and armor back on, minus your haste boots.

TRAVIS: And your other equipment away.

LIAM: God, the grass is really cold.

LAURA: Here, you can have these old boots of mine.

LIAM: Thank you.

SAM: Wow. Ice cold.

MARISHA: I admire how you’re really sticking to that. I’m in awe. I’m impressed.

SAM: It’s super greedy.

(laughter)

LAURA: I thought we knew this about me already.

LIAM: These are better. They’re Velcro.

SAM: Oh, good.

TRAVIS: I think we should call out to the werewolves.

SAM: You think we should call out to the werewolves for what purpose?

TRAVIS: We need diamonds.

LAURA: We don’t need diamonds anymore.

TRAVIS: All last night, “we need diamonds.” Huge discussion. Took forever.

LAURA: We don’t need them anymore.

TALIESIN: Then you suggested we sleep, and suddenly we don’t need diamonds anymore.

LIAM: Why did we need diamonds?

SAM: We were going to buy your soul back for a lot of diamonds.

LIAM: That makes no sense.

LAURA: It was a high-cost spell.

MARISHA: Attempt to resurrect you. Don’t worry about it.

LAURA: Good to know in the future, though. I’m going to save every diamond we find.

TALIESIN: We should probably– I get the distinct impression this is–

TRAVIS: We should still call the werewolves.

SAM: Just because?

TRAVIS: How often are you in the Feywild? It’s like going to Philadelphia and not eating a cheesesteak.

TALIESIN: We technically go to the Feywild about once a year, at this point. At least, some of us. But since we are here… I’m not going to pretend I have a plan. I don’t know what we’re going to do. We are frighteningly outmatched.

MARISHA: We should probably get back very quickly, before too much time passes. We’ve already slept here.

SAM: If we go back, where are we going? Where were we?

LAURA: I feel like we were in Wildemount, but I have no idea. Where are the places that are winter?

MARISHA: Vasselheim?

LIAM: We can’t do this alone.

LAURA: What about Artagan? That’s his name, right?

LIAM: That’s a start.

SAM: Who?

LAURA: Artagan.

MARISHA: The guy who messed with us for three days?

LAURA: Yeah, but he was really powerful.

TRAVIS: Oh, yeah. He was. I bet if we call the werewolves, he will show up, as well. I’ll just howl for them real quick.

TALIESIN: It’s not like we can stop you.

TRAVIS: True. (howls)

MATT: Make a performance check.

(laughter)

TRAVIS: Damn it! 13.

MATT: There isn’t much space for it to really echo, as the trees absorb a lot of the sound, but you howl. It’s cathartic. You wait. You don’t hear any response.

TRAVIS: I love Teen Wolf. I know every line in that fucking movie. Michael J. Fox.

LIAM: Artagan is a good start. We need…

LAURA: The help of the gods.

LIAM: Higher powers here, yes.

LAURA: Sarenrae.

LIAM: That’s a start.

ASHLEY: I can ask. That doesn’t mean we’re going to get it.

LIAM: Pickle, I actually mean a little more than that.

ASHLEY: What do you mean?

LIAM: Well, we have one god heavily in our corner, but we need to go and beseech the help of others. We are not enough, in this instance. We need to fucking go and talk to Sarenrae.

SAM: Go?

LAURA: How do we go and talk to Sarenrae? Vasselheim?

MARISHA: Is it possible?

LAURA: Where is Sarenrae?

ASHLEY: You have a very different connection with your god.

LIAM: You can take us anywhere.

LAURA: What, a plane? A heaven plane? A god plane?

TALIESIN: Oh my god.

TRAVIS: That doesn’t exist, right?

LIAM: The gods? You don’t think the gods exist, after all you’ve seen, Grog?

TRAVIS: That’s a very long discussion, but I meant actual location for them.

MARISHA: I thought gods were supposed to be all omnipresent and whatnot.

ASHLEY: 19.

MATT: 19. The creator gods, the prime gods, the creators of Exandria, when they left the Prime Material Plane and left the realm of the elemental planes and the divine gate was crafted to separate their powers from the Prime Material for fear of causing another calamity and wiping out mortal existence on this realm, many of them withdrew and crafted realms where they reside, where they, themselves, harness their energies of creation and where the souls that fall under their spheres of influence come to upon being passed. The Raven Queen is responsible for ushering that transition. You do know that Sarenrae exists on a plane like this, and she’s not the only god that exists on this one particular plane.

LAURA: So how do we go there? Would they kill us?

MARISHA: Knock, knock, hello? I bamfed into your universe. I don’t know.

TALIESIN: We wouldn’t come by if it weren’t an emergency.

LIAM: What else have we been doing for the last year and a half but knocking on different dimensional doors?

MARISHA: I do like New Vax’s tenacity.

SAM: Would we be accepted there? I’ve done some things in my life that are less than heavenly.

LIAM: Where could you not talk your way into, Scanlan Shorthalt?

SAM: That’s true.

MARISHA: It does immediately become the concern that I can’t get us anywhere unless I have some sort of item, generally a tuning fork or some sort of attuned item to that plane to get us there.

LIAM: We start in Vasselheim.

MARISHA: You said your god, the Raven Queen, she’s the one who transitions people. Maybe she can help.

LAURA: Does Pike have anything attuned to Sarenrae, though?

LIAM: Oh, to Sarenrae? I don’t think they’re in the same place.

MATT: Ashley, were you about to ask a question?

ASHLEY: Shit, what was I going to say?

SAM: Is her symbol attuned?

MATT: Being attuned to a deity isn’t being attuned to a plane of existence, and those things can be– the attunement process. You don’t know much about what that would entail, but you imagine that would have something to do with a place of very strong holy worship of that particular deity.

LIAM: I’m going to assume that sometime in the last year and a half, these two have told you that I dipped into a bathtub full of blood.

SAM: I was gone.

LAURA: No, you weren’t.

LIAM: You just weren’t paying attention, buddy. The temples in Vasselheim are old. The oldest, including the temple that you helped pull out of the dirt. If anywhere is attuned to the gods, it is Vasselheim.

TRAVIS: Ooh! What about Kord? I’m wearing his oven mitts.

LIAM: There you go.

TRAVIS: Oh shit.

MARISHA: Does that mean I should go talk to Melora?

TRAVIS: Are we straight-up god recruiting? Is that what you mean? Do gods talk to each other?

LAURA: Yeah, the Raven Queen and Sarenrae are best buds, aren’t they?

MARISHA: I feel like when you’re in the same clique, when you’re on the same level, everyone talks, right?

LAURA: It’s a small group of people. They have to.

TALIESIN: I think what Vax is trying to say is we need patrons.

LAURA: Patrons.

TALIESIN: We need patronage.

TRAVIS: What do you mean?

TALIESIN: We’re not enough. We are not enough for this. We are going to all die horribly if we try anything like that again.

TRAVIS: We need them with us, or they’re going to imbue us–

TALIESIN: I don’t know.

LIAM: Pelor lives here.

LAURA: Lives here in the Feywild?

LIAM: Pelor.

TALIESIN: Oh god.

LIAM: All of us, your family.

TALIESIN: We have to deal with this.

MARISHA: So we have a short list, is what we’re saying.

TALIESIN: We need to get a slightly longer list, and we have to start begging. We are going to owe favors. We are going to owe our lives. We are going to lose.

LAURA: Are we really going to pledge allegiance to a bunch of different gods? That’s what we’re going to do?

TRAVIS: That could be cool.

TALIESIN: We’ll see.

MARISHA: Do we each get different suits, matching suits, but in different colors? God powers?

TRAVIS: No, you’re taking it too– relax a little. Do you want some ale?

LAURA: Like Captain Planet?

TRAVIS: Who’s your god going to be? Is there a god of mischief or song or cubes?

MATT: Make a religion check.

SAM: A religion check? 14. Do I add my jack-of-all?

MATT: Yeah, you do.

SAM: 17.

MATT: 17. There is the Moon Weaver.

SAM: The Moon Weaver?

TRAVIS: (singing) Oh, moon weaver!

MATT: She is the god of moonlight and the autumn season, as well as the patron of illusions and misdirection.

LAURA: Who is that?

SAM: The Moon Weaver. A god that I’ve heard of once, and therefore will pledge my eternal allegiance to.

LAURA: You did?

SAM: No, we’re god-spitballing here.

LAURA: The Moon Weaver? They have a temple to her in Syngorn.

SAM: I have an Ioun Stone.

MATT: Ioun.

LAURA: Ioun is the goddess of knowledge.

MARISHA: Put her on our to-call list.

SAM: But I’ve been praying to Sarenrae lately.

ASHLEY: What if I were to channel divinity and try to make a prayer and be like, hey, can we come up there right quick?

MARISHA: Is it better to do that here or on the Prime Material Plane? Or does it really matter?

ASHLEY: I don’t know.

SAM: They don’t care, right?

LIAM: Let’s go back to your temple.

TALIESIN: We also probably want to alert the mortal coil that everything has gone to shit.

MARISHA: Also, the longer we’re here, potentially, the more time gets wonky.

LIAM: We’re on a ticking clock, here.

LAURA: Let’s go to Vasselheim.

ASHLEY: I like this idea. It’s a little crazy, but I like it.

SAM: We should start with one god and see how it goes.

LAURA: Start with one that really likes you. So Sarenrae’s a good call there.

ASHLEY: We’ll work our way through in a montage.

LIAM: Worked for me.

ASHLEY: A god-tage.

TRAVIS: Do we hold hands?

SAM: Do we all get tattoos? (singing) We need a god-tage!

ASHLEY and LAURA: Vasselheim.

MATT: To Vasselheim.

SAM: Wait, we’re just going to go?

LAURA: Wait, we didn’t talk to Artagan. Artagan, are you here?

LIAM: Is that how it works?

LAURA: Can you hear us? Do you want to help us?

TALIESIN: Maybe if we do something even stupider than holding hands in a circle.

TRAVIS: Did any werewolves show up?

MATT: No.

MARISHA: Okay, let’s go.

LAURA: Right as we go, I start howling.

(howling)

MATT: And with a singular howl, you all shift out of the Feywild and then rapidly appear right on the outskirts of the outer wall of Vasselheim. You see the large, almost Sumerian-looking structures and walls that surround the outside. The ancient architecture of the place definitely has the oldest look, and you remember seeing it from the top when you flew in through your first skyship arrival into Vasselheim. The snow-covered ground and snow-covered trees as part of the Vesper Timberland.

MARISHA: I immediately look around in a 360, very quickly. Does there look like any big cities that should not be here?

MATT: You can make a perception check.

LIAM: Is there a city on top of the city?

MARISHA: 19.

MATT: As you arrive, there’s a weird fuzziness in your mind in regards to–

LAURA: Oh shit. Oh god, what if it’s been years?

MATT: I would like all of you guys to make a wisdom saving throw, please.

MARISHA: What?

LAURA: We could lose our memories!

MARISHA: Wisdom saving throws?

MATT: Yes.

TRAVIS: Not a problem.

LAURA: We’re immune to that, right? People with fey ancestry?

LIAM: No, it’s charm or sleep.

MATT: Creatures who have fey ancestry are immune to it, yeah.

LIAM: Damn it! I used luck and I rolled the same thing on both.

MATT: You’re immune.

LIAM: For charm and sleep?

MATT: If you have the fey ancestry trait, you’re immune.

TALIESIN: I had to burn a resolve.

MARISHA: Am I?

LAURA: Yeah, you have it, too. You’re a half-elf.

MATT: Saving throw, yes.

ASHLEY: I have advantage because of gnome cunning?

MATT: It’s not a spell or magical effect. It’s a planar effect, so I’d say no. What did you get?

ASHLEY: 14.

MATT: 14.

TRAVIS: Eight.

SAM: Can I inspire myself?

MATT: Yeah. No, can you do it on a saving throw?

SAM: I don’t know. It’s ability checks, only.

MATT: I think it’s just ability checks. Let me check, just to be safe.

TALIESIN: I burned a resolve. I’ve got to make sure that I can use the resolve.

MATT: Yeah, ability checks.

SAM: Nine.

MATT: Nine?

TALIESIN: Can I use resolve on this? Okay, in that case, 20.

MATT: Okay, so as you guys all arrive on the outside of Vasselheim, the cold air hits you. Grog, Scanlan: Vax is there alive in front of you.

SAM: Holy shit.

MATT: The last thing you saw was him turn to dust, and you guys left the Shadowfell, and then from the Shadowfell and this battle, you’ve just now returned, not as wounded as you were before.

SAM: What happened? What’s going on? Where are we? Who am I? What happened? What’s going on?

TRAVIS: I have to pee.

MARISHA: (laughs) Yeah, bringing it back.

LAURA: Didn’t you lose your memory last time? Did we ever realize that you lost your memory the last time?

TRAVIS: I don’t know.

(laughter)

TRAVIS: Are you real?

TALIESIN: He is abundantly real.

ASHLEY: Can I Greater Restoration them?

LAURA: Is that how we did it before?

ASHLEY: I don’t know how you did it before because I don’t think I was here.

TRAVIS: This is weird for you, right?

SAM: Totally. He was dead a second ago. Now he’s alive.

TRAVIS: Is there still dust in your pocket?

MATT: Anything that can end a curse works for it.

SAM: I draw my whip. I whip him in the face. I’m whipping Vax.

LAURA: What are you doing? Scanlan, stop it! Stop it!

SAM: He’s not real. He’s an illusion. He’s an illusion!

MATT: Roll an attack roll.

SAM: Two!

(laughter)

SAM: Oh, my eye! Why does my eye hurt so much?

(laughter)

TRAVIS: What’s with your eye?

SAM: I don’t know! It shouldn’t have hurt that much.

LIAM: We’ll call this a victory for you. You have won this day. Scanlan Shorthalt is your name. We’re in Vasselheim.

SAM: We are?

LIAM: We’re in Vasselheim.

SAM: We were just fighting a god.

ASHLEY: We were in the Feywild for a little while, and then took a nap there, and then we came here.

MARISHA: In the long run, I think this is going to be better for you.

MATT: Scanlan, as this is happening, Pike walks up and touches her hand on you, and there’s a flash of warm energy through your body, and suddenly the memories rush back to you from the Feywild.

SAM: Oh god.

LAURA: That’s why your eye hurts.

SAM: His testicles hung so low!

TRAVIS: What?

LIAM: Mine, or Vecna’s?

SAM: Yours.

LAURA: Vecna was wearing a big dress, so we probably could have seen his balls.

MATT: Magical muumuu? Flying above the whole time.

ASHLEY: I’ll go over and touch Grog, too.

MATT: Okay. That’s two Greater Restorations. The memory returns to you of the Feywild.

TRAVIS: (gasps) Oh, I don’t have to pee.

(laughter)

TALIESIN: This makes me wonder if you’ve been doing it wrong this whole time.

LIAM: It’s whenever he remembers.

MATT: Vax. You feel this small, pounding headache in your head. It’s a very faint burn.

LIAM: I actually have this.

MATT: Yeah. You shake your head, and it changes in your head, based on where you’re facing.

TRAVIS and LAURA: What?

LIAM: Duskmeadow?

MATT: No. It’s… make a survival check to try and figure out where you are around the city of Vasselheim.

LIAM: 19.

MATT: Okay. Based on looking at the placement of the sun in the sky, looking at the mountain range that this is built on the northern side of the city, you get the sense that you guys are close to the perfectly south side of Vasselheim, the entrance that leads toward the Quad Roads in the center. That burning sensation, it seems to be localized. No matter where you turn your head, it’s pointing that direction, to the northwest of your current location, and the more you concentrate on it, the more you feel that hatred and loathing curl and push in that direction. You know what lies in that direction.

LIAM: Do I have a sense of distance, or just direction?

MATT: Let me double-check.

LAURA: He knows where Vecna is?

SAM: Or something.

LAURA: Cool.

MATT: Let me double-check here, real fast.

LIAM: Vec-dar.

TALIESIN: Vecna-dar.

LIAM: What’s your Vecna, Victor?

MATT: You know the distance, yeah.

SAM: You know the distance?

MATT: You roughly know, about 350 miles from where you stand, to the northwest. 350 to 400 miles northwest.

ASHLEY: She gave you a Vecna compass.

LAURA: That’s badass. 350 miles. How far is that from us right now? Where is that in distance?

SAM: Sonoma.

LAURA: Really? It’s that close? Okay.

TRAVIS: It ain’t close. It’s eight hours.

LAURA: Eight-hour drive? Okay.

SAM: Wait, are we taking the hybrid?

ASHLEY: Stop off, go to wine country.

MATT: It’ll be fun.

LIAM: The burn that I feel. There’s no question what it is for him.

MATT: This is part of your charge. This was part of the deal that you struck.

TRAVIS: What deal? You wanna tell us what deal it was?

LIAM: You don’t hear any of that shit. It’s in my head.

TRAVIS: Okay.

MATT: You are the Raven Queen’s homing missile.

TRAVIS: Fucking A.

LIAM: So I’m going to need those boots back.

LAURA: Why?

LIAM: Because I’m a missile.

LAURA: I don’t know what you’re talking about.

LIAM: Well, you think about it. You think about what you’ve done. I know you’ll do the right thing, eventually.

TRAVIS: I have a random thought. While y'all are trying to go get Sarenrae, this is where the story of the Lord of the Quad Roads is. If you’re not familiar with the Lord of the Quad Roads, he was a gentleman that just very quickly came into fame and fortune, and he’s a personal friend of mine, and I thought I might try and go find him for a favor. You know, one of those people if you pop in town, they get real pissed if you don’t stop by.

LIAM: Is he a god?

TRAVIS: Maybe? Could be. Not sure.

LIAM: We don’t have a lot of time, so do you think you could split off with somebody?

TRAVIS: Yeah. I’ll meet you up where we were.

SAM: Where are we going?

LAURA: To the temple of Sarenrae.

LIAM: To your temple.

TALIESIN: You may not want me in company for Sarenrae.

LIAM: I’m pretty sure we want your brain around, Percy. I know you’re uncomfortable around all this shit, but I want you to fucking suck it up.

TALIESIN: I just don’t want to say the wrong thing.

LAURA: I walk up to him and put my hands on the sides of his face. I can’t have you away from me right now.

TALIESIN: This is a deeply-inappropriate convincing mena-men-mechanism. It is working. All right.

SAM: She’s beautiful.

TALIESIN: You’re a terrible person!

LIAM: I mean, she’s okay.

MARISHA: Do we need to stop by the temple of the Raven Queen?

LIAM: I don’t think we do.

LAURA: You just had a really long conversation with her.

LIAM: I don’t think we do.

MARISHA: Okay.

ASHLEY: To Sarenrae?

LIAM: Grog, are you splitting off?

TRAVIS: Yeah. It’s real important.

LIAM: You can stay on task, though, right?

TRAVIS: Yeah. I could just pop in, give him a little fist bump, and I’ll meet you at Sarenrae’s hovel.

MARISHA: Do you want a teammate to go with you?

LIAM: Yeah, I think you need a minder.

MARISHA: Do you want to pick someone?

TRAVIS: Fancy a trip?

SAM: With you, Grog?

TRAVIS: Yeah!

SAM: Just the two of us, wandering through a city together?

TRAVIS: Yep. You know, totally behaving ourselves.

LIAM: Do you see this?

SAM: Do I see what?

LIAM: He’s relaxed.

SAM: You’re right. I should go with him. All right, let’s go. We’ll see you at the temple. Don’t go to heaven without us.

LAURA: Of course not.

SAM: All right.

LAURA: Sarenrae’s a big fan of the cube.

MARISHA: Where was the Melora grove thing?

MATT: Oh, you’re talking about the–

MARISHA: That we buried Senokir’s wife’s ashes.

MATT: You’re referring to the Abundant Terrace, within the Birth Heart.

MARISHA: Where is that?

MATT: The Birth Heart would be on the northeastern side of the city.

MARISHA: But it’s here?

MATT: Yeah.

MARISHA: Should I go talk to Melora? Should I go try and recruit Melora? Team Sarenrae and Team Melora?

LIAM: Maybe.

TALIESIN: Let’s do one at a time.

LIAM: Yeah.

MARISHA: I’m just trying to save time.

TALIESIN: I think we’re a bit beyond that, at this point.

TRAVIS: Besides, we’d know if Old Shit Nuts is moving closer because of–

LIAM: I just know what my patron charged me with. That doesn’t mean I understand what it means, so I think we should start with one.

TALIESIN: We’re eventually going to have to tell somebody in charge what’s happening. But to

Sarenrae! Let’s get this ball rolling.

LAURA: Let’s do it!

MATT: All right, so you two are splitting off and the rest of you are going to Sarenrae? All right. The five of you make your way through the Quad Roads, towards the northern side of the Quad Roads before it splits off at the base of the mountain and before it divides off towards the Abundant Terrace and the Trial Forge. The Braving Grounds. That is where you spent a lot of time raising the temple of the Everlight, Sarenrae. Traversing there on the cold day, the city seems to be as vibrant as ever, and as dour as ever, as is the nature of those who live in these northern lands, but you know, smiles and existence come together occasionally. You come to the temple. It looks well-kept. The various clerics and acolytes that you had assigned to watch over it in your absence over this past year and a half before you ventured out to defeat the Conclave seem to have taken good care, and it’s warming to your heart to see what appears to be children stepping out, laughing with their parents in what seems to have been a small service of some kind. And as you begin to watch and approach, you can see the acolytes that are saying goodbye to those at the front door glance over and see your face, and they brighten immediately. There you go, clear your nose. Acolyte Sheila, who is one of the older women who first helped you raise it and became one of your first acolytes here at the temple. The temple which is being known now as the Temple of Renewal. It is the official title of the location, which is taken from the realm of Sarenrae, known as the Island of Renewal. As she sees your face, Acolyte Sheila goes, “Pike! Mistress Pike!” And runs up and takes you in her arms. She tries to lift you, but you’re far too heavy with the armor. (grunts)

ASHLEY: That’s okay. I’m heavier than I look.

MATT: “Yes, of course.”

ASHLEY: Pure muscle.

MATT: You guys see this woman in probably her late-forties or early-fifties, mostly gray-silver hair with streaks and bits of a dark brown. It’s put back in some sort of a bun with a large stick through the center to hold it in place. She’s wearing robes of light blue and gold, very much in the way that you’ve seen Pike wear most of her equipment and earlier armor to her deity. She looks around. “Well, my apologies. I am Sheila, and I know who you are. We’ve heard much. You are welcome. You are welcome here at the Temple of Renewal. Please come in.”

ASHLEY: It looks lovely in here. You guys have really kept it up quite nice.

MATT: “The hard part was already done. Come into her light, please.” And leads you all into this tower. The excavation site here. What was once a large pit, below which the original temple was, the edges have been ground down to be this slow decline, and a tower was risen up. The actual stonework was ascended about 15 feet up, so it’s not quite street level; it’s a little below, but it’s this small bowl that leads to the tower itself, and then it rises up a good 30 feet.

LAURA: You did this?

MARISHA: This is great, Pike.

LAURA: Holy shit!

ASHLEY: Not all by myself.

MARISHA: Is this how you learned all of your stoneworking stuff?

ASHLEY: Yeah!

MARISHA: It’s good, like a druid could do it. It’s very impressive.

ASHLEY: That’s a compliment.

(laughter)

MARISHA: Good craftsmanship.

ASHLEY: Sheila. (sighs) We’re trying to figure out the best way to… what am I trying to say, here? We’re trying to go to Sarenrae, but actually go to her. Not in the sense of the mind, actually walking up and saying hello.

MARISHA: I didn’t realize how crazy it sounds until you say it out loud.

ASHLEY: When I started, I realized this is so weird.

MATT: “That’s a bit beyond my realm. Perhaps we should speak to Acolyte Vincent Clore. He’s the keeper of knowledge and scripture. He’d probably be more help than I.”

ASHLEY: Okay.

LAURA: Can you try just talking to Sarenrae?

ASHLEY: I could try. Of course, but maybe he will know which plane she’s on and we can head there. Sometimes she doesn’t talk to me. I can always try, since we’re in here.

MATT: What do you want to do?

ASHLEY: I’ll go ahead and try. You know what? Let me say a prayer real quick, Sheila.

LIAM: Want to take a knee, everybody?

ASHLEY: Percy, it’s fine. You don’t need to.

TALIESIN: No. In for a penny.

ASHLEY: Let’s all take a knee.

MATT: The tower itself is a fairly wide tower. 30 feet high at street level. It’s about 45 feet full height from where the baseline rising it was and the rest of the tower that’s been assembled beyond that. On the inside, there are four floors, all of which have a hollow center about ten feet across, for in the center of the entire tower is one long, thin, ascending tower of what looks to be a sculpture of stone and gold and platinum-colored angels and clouds that all turn and twist. It rises up like this thin spire of sculpture, and there at the very top, you see the phoenix-like wings clutching the ruby stone at the top, the symbol of Sarenrae. As you step to the base of this structure, which you haven’t even seen finished; you left before this was completed. It’s awe-inspiring to see this thing that you saw the very early stages of come into creation, and now it’s strangely comforting to know that for all the effort that you put in, for all the strange responsibility you put on yourself, that none of this would get done if you weren’t there, it’s comforting to know that even without your presence, it can carry on to completion. And that as it is with worship, you don’t need to helm it. Once you give it a shove, it carries itself forward. You close your eyes and you kneel below at the base of this amazing statue, one of the few only standing to her direct worship of its size, of any note to the world at this time. What do you say as your prayer?

ASHLEY: Well, I’m back here, and this is so beautiful. I’m sure you’ve seen and have… seen what’s happened where we were, and I know the last time we talked, you warned me and told me that you wouldn’t be there, but I think we’re past the point of being able to do this on our own, just our mortal selves, and we need bigger help. Might I ask for (sighs) your– please help us. I don’t know what else to say. This is beyond us now.

MATT: As the words leave your mouth, yourself prostrate before the temple you helped build with your own hands, you open your eyes, but you see not the temple before you. You see, instead, around you essences of a vision that have been blurred at the edges, but now come clear. You see around you sandy shores, pearlescent almost. White sand that glitters in your presence, just at the peripheral, glass gems, diamonds, you can’t tell, but the light that hits it seems to just sparkle and give off this light. You hear water around you rushing up and pulling back from the shore. You see statues, so many statues before you, and one that appears to be a glass fortress, a spire that rises up crystalline, translucent, but seeming to glow with the flicker of an internal flame’s heartbeat. As you look up at the top of the temple, you see the wings unfurl, drift towards you, and you see coming towards you the physical form of the Everlight herself. Her darkened skin, her beautiful smile, her light hair leaving a trail of flame and gold and sunlight behind. She comes forth and drifts right before you and says, “Then the time is right for us to meet. Come. Come and join me on the Island of Renewal, within the blessed fields of Elysium. Here, we can speak.”

ASHLEY: I immediately take a knee. Thank you for letting me come here. Just to see you, and– we will come to you.

MATT: Her hands reach out and clasp yours, and the warmth of her touch is hot. You feel like it’s borderline burning, but it doesn’t hurt. You instinctually, that animalistic essence of primal life tells you to pull back, but you don’t. It’s a comforting heat, like holding a cup of fresh, hot tea. She seems to almost lift you off the feet, up to her. And her size, which was so vast and immense seems to come to meet yours one-on-one. She goes, “Then come. You have the tools. You have the means. I await.” And as she lets go, you look down in your hand and you see what appears to be a small little piece of curved metal made of a bright, polished platinum, like a U. As you look up to her again, you’re just staring at the statue. You’re staring around the temple. You look down at your hand, but the item remains.

MARISHA: She just gave us a key!

LAURA: What happened?

ASHLEY: Did you guys see anything?

LAURA: We saw you praying and you had this crazy look in your eyes.

LIAM: You looked blissful.

LAURA: So happy.

ASHLEY: Wow! Well, I went there. I went to the Island of Renewal; that’s where she is. And she gave this to me.

LAURA: What is it?

MARISHA: Do I recognize what it is?

SAM: It’s an IUD.

(laughter)

LAURA: You’re not here!

LIAM: We all hear Scanlan Shorthalt’s voice in our minds.

ASHLEY: Over the earring. Shut up, Scanlan.

MATT: Structurally similar, I suppose.

ASHLEY: No, it’s not.

SAM: Of course not.

MATT: I can give, and I can take away. (laughs) It’s different in the designs that have been crafted, that have been a little more crude. This has, once you reach out and touch it, it has that vibration to it, that hint of attuned activity to the metal, the pure metal, that definitely gives you some semblance of direction in your subtle understanding of the inner and outer planes and the general cosmology that surrounds Exandria.

LAURA: She gave us a key to find her.

MARISHA: She gave us a key to Plane Shift there. This is the tuning fork that I needed.

LAURA: What the– wow!

TALIESIN: Let’s let people know.

ASHLEY: That was cool. Vax, you have a very different relationship with your god, but– awesome! That was cool!

LAURA: What was she like?

ASHLEY: She was so beautiful! And just glowed. No! And I just can’t even describe it, she just glowed and it felt like– do you remember the movie Contact?

(laughter)

LAURA: Yeah!

SAM: You mean the old scroll?

ASHLEY: Yes, the old scroll Contact, where she gets to the beach and her dad is there? That’s what it felt like!

LAURA: Wow!

ASHLEY: I need to go back there! Let’s all go!

MARISHA: Hang on. Do other gods live there?

MATT: Make a religion check.

LIAM: And we’re waiting on a guy, too, aren’t we? The lady, Sheila, ran off–

ASHLEY: 23.

MATT: 23. She mentioned the blessed fields of Elysium. Sarenrae, as you know, the general understanding of her existence in the pantheon had been faded for a while. There was a betrayal to her in the Calamity and most of her following was annihilated. As gods, as they currently exist, their worship is what sustains their importance and viability in the various planes. She diminished, so her location, her home, has been kept from most existing scripture and worship both for her protection and those of her followers. So the existence of the Island of Renewal and where it may be have only recently come to your attention. The blessed fields of Elysium, though, they are a fairly well-known location in religious circles, and is also home to the Fortress of the Sun, the home of Pelor, the Dawnfather.

TRAVIS: Holy shit.

LAURA: That’s convenient.

MATT: Different area on the plane. The Fortress of the Sun.

LAURA: (singing) Fortress of the Sun.

MATT: The blessed fields of Elysium are an idyllic plane of good.

LIAM: Are these things Pike knows because of her expertise, or does everyone in the world know a certain amount about?

MATT: They know the gods, and they know the realms, but the name of the plane? This is known to her because of her study of religion. This is more of an academic understanding of the real essence of the gods, where they come from.

ASHLEY: I didn’t think it was going to work! Sheila, I think–

MATT: Sheila begins to return two minutes later with acolyte Vincent Clor, who’s this mousy-looking guy. His eyes are smaller than they should be it seems for the size of his round face, he comes up with a big toothy grin. “I was told that you were seeking my presence, wonderful Mistress Pike.”

ASHLEY: It’s wonderful to see you, Vincent. I’m so sorry she went to go get you. I think we might be okay, and we got some answers.

TALIESIN: We should probably tell them what’s going on. People should start to prepare themselves for what’s coming. We can’t just keep this to ourselves.

LAURA: This could affect everyone.

TALIESIN: This is going to affect everyone.

TRAVIS: (whispering) Tell no one

TALIESIN: You’re not here! You went shopping.

SAM: We’re in the House of Lady Favors of Renewal right now.

MATT: I’ll get to you guys in a moment.

ASHLEY: You, obviously, have heard of Vecna.

MATT: “No, I don’t.”

LAURA: So there’s this guy. He’s a shithead. Okay, there’s this guy.

MATT: “Right, okay.”

LAURA: He wanted to be a god, but he wasn’t a god.

MARISHA: Three mimosas later, and three hours later…

LAURA: We explain the story of Vecna and tell him he’s back.

MARISHA: (slurring) And he totally didn’t call us back! And I told him I’m not getting back together again.

MATT: “Sounds like a really, really bad man.”

LAURA: He’s here.

MATT: “He’s here?”

LAURA: He’s here on this plane, and he’s trying to become a god, and who knows, maybe he succeeded. How long were we in the Feywild? Do we even know that for sure?

MARISHA: Did I figure that out with my check, or no?

LAURA: What’s the date?

MARISHA: Yeah, how much time has it been?

MATT: The date would be–

SAM: Is there a calendar system?

MATT: Yes, there is.

LAURA: But we don’t know it.

TALIESIN: So he’s going to tell us a date that will mean nothing to us because we don’t actually know the date we left because we don’t know how dates work.

LIAM: I think it’s Bidetsday. Yeah, Bidetsday.

TALIESIN: Bidusday, Bidetsday.

LIAM: Let’s see. Bidetsday.

TALIESIN: Bidusday, Biwhatsday. Biheyhay.

MATT: Hold on, I’m having to look it up because you did this to me.

TALIESIN: This is like watching the DND icon crash.

MARISHA: It’s frozen!

MATT: “It is the 12th day of Misuthar of 812 PD?”

LAURA: Oh, of course it is! Does that sound normal to us?

MATT: It sounds like the exact same day that you left, actually.

TALIESIN: Well, that’s convenient.

MARISHA: It’s the same day we left? Oh, cool! We lucked out! Yay!

MATT: You did luck out! I was like, oh man! There’s a chance they could show up and have missed the whole thing. I would have had to change a lot, but that would have been fun. That would have been fun.

LAURA: For one roll.

MATT: From one roll, yeah. Hey, Feywild’s a dangerous thing when timetables–

LIAM: Hey, buddy, you missed your window!

ASHLEY: So basically, we’re going to need a lot of help, and please stay in prayer.

LAURA: Get ready to fight, Vincent. Get ready to fucking fight.

MATT: You look at Sheila and Vincent, who look like anyone’s in-laws, and go, “Very well, Mistress, right?” "Yes, we’ll do our best.”

LAURA: PS, do you know anything about the fields of Elysium?

TALIESIN: Did you just say PS to someone? Did you say that out loud?

MATT: “Yes, they are a home to souls who champion the cause of good outside the forces of law and chaos. It’s a beautiful place, from what the tales say. Many who go never leave. It’s so beautiful.”

LAURA: What gods live there?

MATT: “As far as I know, only the Dawnfather himself.” The Dawnfather is Pelor. “That’s all I know. My research is limited.”

LAURA: Right. Should you tell him?

ASHLEY: I don’t feel like I want to.

TALIESIN: Let’s gather the boys and alert whatever government we can.

LAURA: You guys, thank you for your help today.

ASHLEY: It was wonderful to see you guys again.

MATT: “Of course, my pleasure, Mistress Pike. Good luck. Hopefully, you’ll stop this thing.”

ASHLEY: Hopefully we will. Please pray for us.

MARISHA: Amazing work. If you need any landscaping done, don’t be afraid to ask. Pike can get you in touch with me.

LAURA: Melora is really good at it, too. We should talk to Melora.

MARISHA: Yeah, it’s fine. We know people.

ASHLEY: Thank you. Keep up the good work. You’re doing, just, all the great stuff.

MATT: “Thank you!”

LAURA: I like the idea that anywhere we go, we embarrass the one person that knows anybody else.

MATT: Yep. You’re those friends. They smile and walk away, but Vincent Clor definitely seems a bit shaken by the knowledge that you just brought to him. But you make your way out of the temple. Where are you off to? What’s your next direction?

LIAM: I will note that Vax feels a slight sense of bittersweet pride at the amount of bliss that Pike just went through. Just a little bit.

MATT: You two. Where you going?

TRAVIS: All right, so I know this guy named the Lord of the Quad Roads. Back up. While you were gone– were you gone? I’m not sure. Did you know that I have this little magical thing?

SAM: No?

TRAVIS: No. Okay.

(laughter)

TRAVIS: So because you kept my secret about Craven Edge, and you never told anybody about that, right? Not one time. Never told anyone. I’m going to confide in you about this thing. I found this little deck of cards, and I was like, oh, I’m going to pull a card out! And I did, and I got a magic weapon! I could throw it and it would start fighting and stuff. But that turned to rust. And so I was like, I wanted to pull more out. But Vex was like, no, it’s so dangerous!

SAM: That’s a good impression. She can be that way.

TRAVIS: So I went to Vasselheim. Actually, I was looking for you, you little shitstack. And I was like, hey, I’ve got an idea! (explosion) Boom! In my head!

SAM: I got it the first time.

(laughter)

TALIESIN: This is the best retelling of this ever.

TRAVIS: I was like, I’m going to find a guy to pull out cards for me, see what happens!

SAM: Because you were afraid or because she said you can’t?

TRAVIS: Well, I heard her nagging me in my head.

SAM: Conscience.

TRAVIS: Yeah.

(laughter)

TRAVIS: Sure. So I got this drunk guy on the street and I was like, hey, pull out a card. And guess what? He pulled a card, and he got wishes!

SAM: Did you get wishes?

TRAVIS: No! Because fucking I made him pick it. So he goes, ooh! And all of a sudden, he was in fancy clothes and he had a servant that appeared in the alley!

SAM: Did he thank you?

TRAVIS: He was like, thanks! I guess I have two more of these! And he fucking ran off!

SAM: Wait! He took your cards and he left?

TRAVIS: No, he pulled the one card and it disappeared in his hand. Right? And then he walked off. But the point is: he’s got two more wishes!

SAM: On him.

TRAVIS: Yeah! And I told him, Grog! Grog gave you those! Remember me!

SAM: Just so I’m clear. We’re going to go, grab him, steal his wishes, leave him in a ditch somewhere. Is that the plan? What’s our game here?

TRAVIS: I’m not opposed to it.

SAM: What’s our game? What are we trying to get?

TRAVIS: I thought, maybe, if we walked in and I had a title like Grog the Wish Giver, and we were calling to check in on him, that maybe it’s time to pay his tithe to the Wish Giver, and maybe he would give us one of the two.

SAM: Okay, so our game is to intimidate him into having him give you one of the wishes back.

TRAVIS: Yeah! Or pressure him. Lay it on thick. We could say like, “Your fucking face is going to fall off if you don’t give me one of your remaining wishes.”

SAM: What happened to the deck of cards?

TRAVIS: Oh, I’ve still got them.

SAM: Why are we going back to get– oh! He has more wishes. Not more cards, he has more wishes!

TRAVIS: Yes!

SAM: And he should give one to us. What would you wish for?

TRAVIS: Well. (haltingly) For peace on Exandria, right?

SAM: You don’t seem enthusiastic about that wish.

TRAVIS: I want to live forever! Just never die! I just want to him to go, you will never die. I’m happy.

SAM: That’s a better wish for you, for sure. And we have two of them.

TRAVIS: Aren’t you really old, though? You get company.

SAM: That’s true. It’d be nice having you around for a bit.

TRAVIS: What would you wish for?

SAM: Peace on–

TRAVIS: I mean, enough of the bullshit.

SAM: Yeah, well, probably. Do you just get one wish? Because I could be a littler taller, a little buffer.

TRAVIS: Yeah, I think maybe you can get real descriptive with it, too, so you can make it real complicated.

SAM: What would I wish for?

TRAVIS: Maybe think about it while we’re on our way. Yeah! How about we go and we pressure him and then if he doesn’t bite, then we kill him.

SAM: Take this hat, it’s the Hat of Disguise. Put it on, and you can look however you want to look.

TRAVIS: I want to look like me. He’s going to remember me.

SAM: Well, then never mind that.

TRAVIS: You’re the idea man.

SAM: I’m sorry! You’re throwing a lot at me!

TRAVIS: Warm it up, son. Let’s get the bad ones out of the way right now. Shake it off.

SAM: All right. What do we need to intimidate him? Do you need me to be your enforcer?

TRAVIS: Yeah! Or maybe my manservant. Can you make me look really amazing?

SAM: You already look amazing.

TRAVIS: But rich and Wish Giver-y.

SAM: Yeah. Take this hat and put it on.

(laughter)

SAM: And now you can look however you think you should look!

(laughter)

LIAM: Everybody at the table is broken!

(laughter)

TRAVIS: I want to look like a sultan.

MATT: It doesn’t do anything. You have to attune to it. At this point in time, by the way, you watch as four armed guards start approaching.

TRAVIS: I have a great record with these guys.

LAURA: Oh no! Oh no!

SAM: Are they approaching us?

MATT: They’re approaching you, and two on the sides are spreading out, and two are walking up with purpose towards you guys.

SAM: The popo. We haven’t done anything wrong, we’re just talking on the street! We’re just two guys! Yeah! We haven’t done any magic!

MATT: As the two come to the flank and stop, hands on the sides of their spears, the two that walked up the middle, there’s one that looks to be a captain of some kind and this one to his right who’s dressed in standard guard gear looks like he’s got a few long-healed scars and he goes, “That looks just like him.”

SAM: Oh no. What did you do?

LAURA: What did you do?

MARISHA: You were with him as Tary!

SAM: I wasn’t there!

(laughter)

MATT: The one in adorned armor. “Sir, might I have your name and purpose here in Vasselheim?”

TRAVIS: (high-pitched) Peter Frostbucket! I seek Lord of the Quad Roads!

MATT: (giggling) Make a deception check with disadvantage.

TRAVIS: I don’t need it! Negative one!

(laughter)

SAM: Oh my god. We’re going to have to kill some guards, aren’t we?

(laughter)

TRAVIS: Two and a one.

MARISHA: They did that, not us!

LIAM: Sarenrae comes down and says, never mind!

TALIESIN: Your picture is going to be up in a small office by the gates.

MATT: The captain-looking individual goes, “Right, Mr. Frostbucket. We would like the both of you to please come with us.” The two guards rush into your flank a bit and place their hands on your shoulder and your shoulder.

SAM: Me? I just met this man. I’ve never seen him before in my life.

MATT: “You’ve been walking with him for 20 minutes.”

SAM: Thank you for coming over here. He was holding me hostage. He wouldn’t let me leave. I’m a small man. I’m defenseless, and he was holding me captive.

MATT: You make a deception check.

SAM: Deception. Okay, 24.

LAURA: Ooh, what is that eyebrow?

MATT: It’s a natural 20! He goes, “Really. And what’s your name?”

SAM: Gerald Butler.

(laughter)

MATT: “Uh-huh. Well, Gerald Butler, the two of you should come with us.” He turns around and starts walking away. The other guard with him, the one who spotted you earlier, walks with him, but keeps looking over his shoulder at you. He looks genuinely terrified of you. At this point, you realize, oh yeah, you’ve seen this guy before. The two other guards shove you forward, and as they push you a couple of steps in that direction, they lower their spears towards your back, “Keep moving!”

TRAVIS: Oh, yeah, sorry. Aside from the four around us, is anyone around?

MATT: Yeah, there’s probably roughly 20 to 25 different townsfolk.

SAM: We just were walking down the street! What happened?

TRAVIS: This is profiling.

SAM: This is racial profiling.

MATT: You carve a figure.

TRAVIS: Thank you.

SAM: You or me? All right.

TRAVIS: I mean, mine’s do one thing. You’ve got options.

SAM: All right. I will, I guess– Jesus. It all seems so stupid.

TRAVIS: I just want to go talk to the Lord of the Crossroads!

TALIESIN: Critical Role: It all seems so stupid.

MATT: Yep! That’s our catchphrase now.

SAM: All right, I will use some gigantic spell for no reason.

MARISHA: Fighting gods one day, getting arrested in the street the other day.

SAM: I can help me fine, it’s you I need to deal with.

TRAVIS: Manipulate that guy that recognized us.

SAM: Sure, but I don’t know what he knows! I don’t know anything! All I know is he came over and fingered you.

TRAVIS: He said, it looks like it’s him.

SAM: All right. I will– Jesus. Okay. Fuck! I don’t know what to do without causing everyone around us to die or be scared! All right! Is there a leader?

MATT: Yeah, there’s the captain. The one that looks scared looks over and says, “Is your other friend around? The other big one?”

TRAVIS: Kind of blanched complexion, orange hair?

MATT: “Yeah with the–”

TRAVIS: Hits people in the face?

MATT: “That one.”

TRAVIS: Somewhere around here.

MATT: Turns to the guard captain and goes, “There’s another one around here. Possibly two.”

TRAVIS: You know, the thing about that one, though, he doesn’t like to leave loose ends.

MATT: Make an intimidation check.

TRAVIS: Goddamn it! 13!

LAURA: Stop rolling that one!

TRAVIS: No. I stay with my dice.

SAM: What did this other one look like?

TRAVIS: This other one?

SAM: Yes, the other one, what did he look like?

TRAVIS: Very tall and metallic-looking.

SAM: Metallic-looking?

TRAVIS: Yep.

SAM: You mean, the one we just saw around the corner?

TRAVIS: We did! I was not really aware at the time.

SAM: The super scary one?

TRAVIS: Yeah! Well, now that you mention it, I felt a chill!

SAM: Please believe us. There is an even bigger danger coming, and I think– oh yes, it’s right there. And I will Major Image what I think he’s describing, which is a tall Iron Man.

MATT: All right. (laughs) First, make a deception check to see if they look.

SAM: 20– lots. 27.

MATT: You urging them on is just enough to get them to glance over and look, which gives you enough time to cast the spell and release this image, and from around the corner, with heavy footfalls, you watch as what appears to be some horrific-looking iron golem-type entity that’s covered in spikes and darkness and giant fists. (heavy impacts) People start screaming and scattering, and the guards are all of a sudden. (gasping)

TRAVIS: Oh no, his final change is complete!

SAM: Oh, he didn’t look like this before?

TRAVIS: No, it’s much worse!

SAM: It’s much worse? Yes, it’s much worse!

MATT: At which point, suddenly you watch as its size expands even further. It has metal tusks that now protrude from the front of its face, and it’s breathing steam and smoke, its eyes red and glowing. (huffing)

TRAVIS: I trip and fall. Please, save yourselves! Run!

MATT: The guard captain there, immediately seeing this, reaches back and pulls a horn off his belt. (horn blows)

TRAVIS: I’m going to kill him.

SAM: Don’t kill him. We’ll all die!

TRAVIS: I reach up and snap the horn.

MATT: (horn blows, cracking)

SAM: Horns make him angrier! And I’ll make the image go crazy with rage.

MATT: Angrily starts stomping around, not affecting anything directly.

SAM: The only way to calm it down is if we slowly walk away in different directions.

(laughter)

MATT: Make a deception check with disadvantage.

SAM: Okay. 24.

TALIESIN: (laughs) It’s a 20.

SAM: It’s a 20.

LAURA: I bet it’s a 20.

TRAVIS: It’s a 20.

(laughter)

TALIESIN: Oh god, this is everything I ever wanted!

MATT: He glances back at you, reaches back, and starts pulling a set of manacles from the side of his belt and glances over at this image, and you see the face of recognition, of somebody who now knows exactly what you were up to. This guy is not your petty wandering guard in the center of the street, and while two other guards have rushed up to try to push townsfolk out of the way, and they have their spears drawn at this thrashing entity, the captain goes, “Stop, it’s not real.” You now see a bunch of other guards that are now, after hearing the horn call, rushing around the sides of the street.

TRAVIS: Well, you got us. Yep.

SAM: Should we turn ourselves in?

TRAVIS: Yeah. Sure, yeah. Lock me up first.

MATT: He comes over.

TRAVIS: (whack)

(laughter)

LAURA: No!

MATT: Roll an attack.

LAURA: You’re starting a war with all of the guards in Vasselheim?

TRAVIS: I don’t think that far ahead.

SAM: They started this war. We’re finishing it.

TRAVIS: 26.

MATT: Okay. Roll 1d4 damage with the Titanstone Gauntlets and add your strength modifier.

LAURA: What are we going to do?

TALIESIN: Let’s hire new guards.

TRAVIS: Ten.

MATT: Okay. The helmet he was wearing, which is carved around the face and eyes and nose, as you slam it with your fist, it caves in a bit, and he immediately hits the ground and is dazed.

TRAVIS: Got to go.

MATT: The other guards, who were looking at him when he shouted that, saw you deck him in the side of the head, and they immediately start rushing to his aid as the other guards are coming in on the side of the street. What are you guys doing?

SAM: Are there any buildings around here?

MATT: There are plenty of buildings around here. You guys are still walking through the Quad Roads, and the Quad Roads is the most populated portion of the city. The worship here of Erathis is generally about civilization. There’s a lot of people and a lot of buildings around. What are you going to do?

SAM: (sighs) You’re bigger. All right, I will do the old classic. I’m going to Polymorph Grog into a giant eagle. The old standby. The giant eagle trick, if you’ll accept it.

TRAVIS: I’ll get smarter. Sure.

MATT: All right. Grog, once again, you feel the wings extend. You’re free to fly, and huh! That’s how numbers work. You leap onto his back as the guards are coming up, and you (wing beats) take up. As you guys begin to fly up, the illusion vanishes immediately, and all of the guards that are rushing up stop, see this happening, and start switching over to their various crossbows and ranged implements.

SAM: Sure. Yeah. I’ve got nothing.

MATT: Literally, that escalated quickly. All right, so a bunch of shots trying to be taken at both of you. I’m going to say six to each from the crossbows. What’s the giant eagle’s AC, Marisha?

TALIESIN: Oh gosh, you are keeper of the giant eagle AC.

LAURA: Is the giant eagle small enough to Dimension Door?

SAM: Nope.

MATT: I rolled a perception check for that one guard, and he rolled really high and saw you walking down the street and was like, “Oh fuck.” And went and got the captain.

TRAVIS: I should have killed him back at the shop.

TALIESIN: Is that the takeaway from this? You should have killed the guard? I’m just checking.

TRAVIS: I’m pretty sure this problem wouldn’t have existed.

MATT: All right, so two shots hit the eagle for seven and six. 13 points of piercing damage.

MARISHA: You are at 27.

TALIESIN: Oh wait, is that the–

MARISHA: Wait. Nope, I lied. How many points?

LIAM: 13.

MARISHA: You’re at half. You’re at 13 hit points.

TRAVIS: I have 13 left?

LAURA: It’s going to break your concentration.

TALIESIN: This is the most hilarious thing I’ve ever seen.

LIAM: Next week, a prison break.

MARISHA: Normally, I’m the one who’s arrested. Mixing it up.

MATT: 23 points of piercing damage. I need you to go ahead and make four concentration checks, with advantage.

SAM: What do I add? Nothing, right?

MATT: It’s your constitution saving throw.

SAM: Saving throw. Okay. 19.

MATT: You’re okay.

SAM: More for that one. 17. More.

MATT: Okay, you’re fine. You maintain concentration. The eagle form flies up. You guys are now beginning to rise up over the city, and you’re getting further out of the range of any sort of ranged weaponry to be immediately effective, but you don’t know how long before other, bigger guns are brought into the fray. What are you going to do? You look down over the whole Quad Roads and you can now see, the whole city of Vasselheim almost looks like a top-heavy X with the mountain range at the top. The Quad Roads is where that X meets at the base. What are you doing?

SAM: Oh, you can’t talk. Shit. Land us in an alley somewhere, and we’ll change our appearance, I suppose.

TRAVIS: (squawks)

MATT: Make an investigation check. What’s the eagle’s intelligence modifier? This would be perception, actually.

MARISHA: Is this wisdom? Well, they have keen sight, so they have advantage on wisdom checks, and the wisdom is plus two. Although, don’t you maintain–

MATT: No, you do in wild shape. Polymorph, you do not.

MARISHA: So plus two, and you have advantage.

MATT: What’s the bonus to perception?

MARISHA: They just have advantage on perception checks.

TRAVIS: 16.

MATT: 16. Easy enough, you glance around with your eagle eyes, and you see what appears to be a darkened alleyway that is in a cluster of heavily residential buildings. You dive down. You hold on, (screams) going down into this free fall, the wind rushing past you. You have to grab your hat to make sure it doesn’t fly off your head, and then you dive down into the alleyway. Come and land, and you watch as two children that were playing with sticks glance over and go, “Oh!”

SAM: Run along, now.

MATT: (screams) And they run out of the alleyway, screaming around the corner.

SAM: I release Polymorph.

TRAVIS: Thank you.

SAM: You didn’t tell me that the guards all hated you.

TRAVIS: Only one, apparently. That is what happens when you leave things alive.

SAM: You’re right. We’ve learned a lesson today.

TRAVIS: Look, should we still look for the Lord of the Quad Roads?

SAM: I feel like that ship has sailed.

TRAVIS: Which ship?

SAM: Maybe not. (sighs) Maybe we should go find the others.

TRAVIS: All right. Temple of Sarenrae? Where is that?

SAM: I know where it is. I’ve shat there before.

(laughter)

TRAVIS: Should I wear the hat, since I am apparently a wanted person now?

SAM: Why don’t I just make us both invisible?

TRAVIS: Can you do that?

SAM: Sure.

TRAVIS: Aces.

SAM: All right. 3rd-level Invisibility, right? I can do me and another person?

MATT: I believe so, yeah. All right, so you both turn invisible and you make your way towards the temple of Sarenrae.

TRAVIS: Damn it.

MATT: As you guys are leaving the temple, this wonderful appearance, you see commotion in the distance, and you see guards rushing from street to street.

LAURA: What’s happening here?

MARISHA: Do you think that guy went and alerted everyone about Vecna?

TALIESIN: Either that, or that guard we left alive that one time ran into Grog and sounded the alarm. It was probably Vecna.

MARISHA: Probably Vecna. Vecna’s a much bigger problem, right?

TALIESIN: What would be the odds of that one guard seeing him? This is a very big city.

SAM: (clears throat) It was the guard.

MATT: You guys hear this voice out of nowhere.

SAM: It’s us. We’re here. We’re next to you, but we’re invisible.

MARISHA: Did you get allegiance from the Lord of the Crossroads? Right?

SAM: Not exactly.

LAURA: I’m reaching down for a head.

MATT: You don’t find a head, but you find Grog.

TRAVIS: Thanks, Vex. You know, he was “indiposed." We should go.

TALIESIN: Are you sure? We could spend some time here.

TRAVIS: Nope!

LAURA: Don’t you want to talk to Kord?

TALIESIN: Have a drink, see the local color?

TRAVIS: I can’t really look like me in this city right now. I punched a captain of the guard.

LAURA: You punched–

MARISHA: You were gone for what, 45 minutes?

TRAVIS: Was it that long?

LIAM: It was like 30.

ASHLEY: It happened so fast.

SAM: There was an incident, in which we scared many innocent people and assaulted several guards, and they shot us with crossbows, and we are bleeding.

LIAM: We just said goodbye to you.

SAM: I’m over here, actually.

(laughter)

LAURA: Let’s fucking get out of here. Are we just going to try to bamf to the fucking fields, or are we going to talk to Melora, or are we going to bamf to the fields and then go talk to Melora?

MARISHA: Melora doesn’t exist on that plane.

LAURA: I know, but we’ll have to come back here.

TALIESIN: I think the priests of the temple are going to alert– give them the basic story of Vecna.

LIAM: And also, dear. The communication system that you and Percival and Tary set up. Is it here?

MARISHA: No.

LIAM: Where’s the closest?

MARISHA: The Fire Ashari. Why?

LIAM: Well, we’ve got two things on our plate, right? We need to start–

MARISHA: Alerting the cities.

LIAM: Yes.

LAURA: Maybe you can send a message. Do you have that ability?

MARISHA: No.

TALIESIN: To the Fire Ashari, and then to the fields of Elysium?

LIAM: Yes.

TALIESIN: To the Fire Ashari, then to the fields of Elysium.

MARISHA: All right, let’s mist there.

LAURA: Is it fast to mist to the Fire Ashari?

TALIESIN: Just I Dream of Jeannie us there.

SAM: Wait, we’re going to the Ashari? What happened with Sarenrae?

TALIESIN: That’s next.

LIAM: We’re going to do that, we’re just getting the word out.

MARISHA: Misting to the Fire Ashari is not that long, right?

MATT: In mist form, it won’t take you but a few hours.

MARISHA: That’s what I thought. A couple of hours.

MATT: More than that. Like four hours or so.

SAM: We’re just getting a message to them?

TALIESIN: We’re going to alert all of the major cities of the continents that things have gone pear-shaped.

MARISHA: Maybe we should Tree Stride there.

LIAM: While you were selling stuff on the black market, Keyleth and Freddie here have been building this system. They built it. In all the major cities, they can get out an alarm.

SAM: Pretty cool.

MARISHA: I take that back. We Tree Stride.

MATT: Okay, then.

MARISHA: Transport Via Plants. I always say that wrong. Tree Stride’s a 5th-level spell.

MATT: Tree Stride rolls off the tongue.

TALIESIN: Tree Stride.

MARISHA: Tree Stride.

TALIESIN: Stride like a tree. Seriously, that text is really tiny. I’ve never taken it into account. It makes me feel old.

MARISHA: I have a lot of stuff going on.

LAURA: Let’s go!

MATT: Okay. So as you guys step through the rapidly created doorway from one of the nearby trees here in the Quad Roads, as you’re heading southward into that space, you pull through the portal and end up falling outside of the Cindergrove, in the cauldron that contains the city of Pyrah, of the Fire Ashari. Within a short time, you find yourself to the actual city of Pyrah and make your way towards the home of Cerkonos.

MARISHA: I immediately look for Cerkonos, tell him what happened, light the fire orbs. The chaos orbs. Crisis orbs.

MATT: Crisis orbs. No worries. Speaking with him and letting him know the circumstance, he nods. “I do not know the extent in which this danger will present itself, but we will light these orbs with what information we can. We rely upon you, soon, to fill in the gaps of information.”

MARISHA: The city–

TALIESIN: Thar Amphala.

MARISHA: Thar Amphala.

LAURA and MARISHA: Thar Amphala.

MARISHA: I believe it teleported somewhere in the northern hemisphere. Somewhere in a cold region. We think Wildemount.

LAURA: It was snowing.

TALIESIN: We barely escaped.

MARISHA: You might want to check in with our contacts there. They might have the best knowledge.

MATT: “In Wildemount, you say? It is a far way away.”

MARISHA: Well, that’s why we’re alerting you first.

MATT: “We will put up the orbs and try and gather what information we have.”

LIAM: Let people know. Do you remember how bad the Conclave was? That’s what we’re talking about here.

MARISHA: Possibly worse.

MATT: “Very well.”

MARISHA: After this, I’m retiring.

LIAM: I’m getting too old for this shit.

MARISHA: We are going to be going to the blessed fields of Elysium from here.

MATT: “I don’t know where that is, but good luck.”

MARISHA: Thank you.

SAM: Dungeon Master, where’s Vasselheim on this map?

MATT: Vasselheim is in Issylra, which is the upper left.

SAM: All the way up here? And didn’t his internal compass say 350 miles northwest?

MATT: Yep.

SAM: So we kind of know where he is, right? Northwest?

MATT: Vasselheim is– I’ll have to show you where it is. Vasselheim resides on this side.

SAM: Oh, so it’s up at the peak?

MATT: Possibly.

SAM: Maybe up here.

LAURA: Whoa.

MARISHA: Okay, he might not be in Wildemount. I don’t know.

TALIESIN: He’s in the north.

MARISHA: 350 miles northwest.

SAM: There’s a real map here.

MATT: “I will light this beacon. Stay safe, and good luck.”

MARISHA: If you speak to the other Ashari and my father, let him know.

MATT: “Immediately.”

MARISHA: Thank you, Cerkonos. Kaitiaki.

MATT: “Kaitiaki.”

LAURA and ASHLEY: Kaitiaki.

MARISHA: Let’s go.

LAURA: Plane Shift?

SAM: We’re still invisible.

MARISHA: Do we need anything else?

LAURA: No, this is not going to be dangerous, right? We’re just going to talk to some friendly people.

MARISHA: It’s a good plane of existence.

MATT: You Plane Shift? All right, as you all put your hands in each other’s, you feel the familiar sense of your physical form being drawn through the barrier of the Prime Material Plane, and much like when you transitioned to the Nine Hells, you feel yourselves pulled into this temporary space, this darkness, this sea of endless void with a distant blinking of stars that shimmer. You understand this as being the Astral Sea.

ASHLEY: (whispering) This is the Astral Sea.

MATT: They don’t hear you say it because this is so fast. You have no reason to have a conversation. There before you, you see the glimmering, almost burning lattice of the Divine Gate come streaking towards you at immense speed, and you know you’ve passed through comfortably once before, so you hope and brace for impact and pass through again, that warmth almost coming to a similar state of burning, but then leaving you behind. And just as fast, as it passes by you, you land, your feet hitting ground, ground that gives.

LAURA: Three-point landing.

MATT: Okay. (impact) The ground gives a bit with the impact, and as your eyes focus a bit on the brightness around you, you can see above you a clear blue sky, not a cloud in sight. Your hands and feet a few inches deep into the sand-like beach of some sort of an island, it seems. But it is not sand. They’re granules, pebbles, of what appear to be shining pearls. An entire beach of pearls.

LAURA: It really is heaven.

ASHLEY: This is so beautiful.

MATT: The water laps the edge of the shore not but five feet behind you, an ocean that is clear and lagoon-like. It’s paradise. Looking ahead, you can see the once-crumbling island, now finding renewed strength with the renewed faith. You can see, while there are no trees on this island, the hills themselves seem to carry what seem to be old, statuesque structures. Small temple-like oddities that have been swallowed by time and the ravages of the Calamity, slowly emerging like jagged bits of earth that have been plunged up by seismic activity. Beyond these hills, you see what looks to you, familiar: a gargantuan crystal cathedral that resembles the torso of a woman, but where the head is, it spires into a singular point, and from the inside, you see the flickering glow of what seems to be a raging inferno that flickers like a heartbeat from the inside of this crystal citadel. Here you stand on the shores of the Island of Renewal, and that’s where we’re going to end tonight’s session.

(impressed noises)

LAURA: How pretty! Last episode was so ugly, and this episode’s so pretty.

LIAM: You used to be a 4th or 5th-level cleric, and now we’re here!

LAURA: You talked to Sarenrae!

ASHLEY: I know. That is crazy!

LAURA: That’s crazy.

LIAM: Started in Stillben, now we’re here!

MARISHA and LAURA: Wow.

SAM: How far we’ve come.

TRAVIS: Look how far I’ve come!

MARISHA: Let’s just give Vecna the Prime Material Plane. Let’s stay here! New plan. New plan: stay here.

TALIESIN: New plan: mimosas.

MATT: Scanlan and Grog. Sam and Travis, left alone to their devices.

TALIESIN: Wow.

SAM: We couldn’t even walk across town!

TRAVIS: I was just trying to go see a man about a wish. The trouble just comes to us.

MATT: As you were having this conversation, I’m like, oh, it would be so funny if– yeah, they’re not being careful. They’re walking through the street.

TRAVIS: I forgot that Doty knocked out the guards, so I should have been like, oh, we rescued you from this horror.

MATT: Doty knocked out the guards originally, it was just that they followed you as you were following them, and you’re an accomplice.

TRAVIS: I didn’t actually do anything because they were unconscious.

MATT: Except for the shopkeeper that saw you.

TRAVIS: Again, got to kill them all.

SAM: For sure. Now we know.

TRAVIS: I think we’ve all learned a valuable lesson.

MATT: No, we haven’t.

TALIESIN: No one’s learned anything of value.

SAM: How are we going to get you those wishes?

TRAVIS: He might have already used them.

TALIESIN: Probably used them. Probably really wanted some ice cream.

MATT: I look forward for the viable possibility for you returning for that conversation, because that’s going to be extremely funny. Anyway, guys. Well done. So much fun. Thank you so much.

LAURA: Not a single dice in the dice jail.

MATT: Nope!

SAM: Yeah, and only one of us is an undead ghost now.

LIAM: I’m not undead!

LAURA: (singing) Oh my god, my brother’s a lich. He’s such a lich.

TALIESIN: Tell it to the necromancer, pal.

LIAM: I have a heartbeat, a slow heartbeat, and meat.

MATT: He’s Vax, but on a lot of Quaaludes.

(laughter)

MATT: Anyway, guys. Thank you so much for watching. We’ll see you soon. Have a wonderful weekend and a wonderful 4th of July.

MARISHA: You’re going to be at AX!

MATT: Yeah, I’ll be at AX for the Persona panel on Saturday.

MARISHA: Also, Meg and Wendy are going to have a booth there, so you can go to Artists’ Alley. I think they said 11am? Go onto their Twitter. But anyway, they’re going to be there.

LAURA: David Mack posters.

SAM: One more day.

LAURA: One more day! Not even a full day!

LIAM and TRAVIS: (singing) One day more.

MARISHA: I’ve lost my druid die!

MATT: You guys, good job, tonight. It was great.

SAM: Happy birthday, Matthew.

ALL: Happy birthday!

MARISHA: Actually, Max! Is this still a thing?

SAM: He quit.

TALIESIN: At the break, he said “I quit” and he walked out.

LAURA: Is Max still here?

MARISHA: Apparently the Critters got you ice cream.

MATT: What?!

MARISHA: Someone got you ice cream.

LAURA: What kind of ice cream?

MARISHA: Ben and Jerry’s.

MATT: I want ice cream.

RYAN: He’s gone!

LAURA: Ice cream’s gone.

MARISHA: Our producer is gone.

MATT: He just ran with my ice cream. You know, I respect that. Well, thank you. Thank you to whoever sent ice cream. And thank you for all the amazing messages. Today has been an absolute flood of positivity.

LAURA: You’re so old.

MATT: I know. I’m so old. For a very busy day, it was good to see that. So thank you guys so much; you’re all amazing. And have a wonderful week, and is it Thursday yet? Good night.

[music]