Transcript:Welcome to Cognouza

List of Transcripts

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

ALL: (discordant yelling) We play Dungeons & Dragons!

MATT: Yep. Before we get into our session tonight, we do have some announcements to get through, beginning with the first of our fantastic sponsors tonight, Skillshare. Sam?

SAM: Back this week is Skillshare, an online learning community with thousands of inspiring classes designed for real life and all the circumstances that come along with it, including graphic design, creative writing, and music. With memberships starting as low as $10 a month with annual subscription, Skillshare is a great way to learn and unlock your creativity for social good. As a special offer, the first 1000 critters to join Skillshare by following the link, (breathes) skl.sh/criticalrole05211 skl.sh/criticalrole05211 (laughter) will get a free trial of our premium membership.

MARISHA: Why?

SAM: Why? (laughter)

LAURA: I feel like they're just trolling you. (laughter)

ASHLEY: Is that part of the...

SAM: No, that's real.

ASHLEY: Okay, good. (laughter)

SAM: We asked them to make it a bit.ly. They said no. One class that I got to check out this week was Intro to Photography. And after a few classes, I don't want to brag, but I'm pretty much a Pablo Picasso of photography now. I think that tracks. But why listen to me? My photographs speak for themselves. Show me that slide. Oh, look, look at this. Okay, so this might just look like a picture of a blurry hand to you, but it's really a subversive commentary about identity and education reform. Really proud of that one. Next slide, please. Okay. (groaning) I titled that one Regard Mon Visage. It was shot on 36 millimeter, which is one more than 35, which is better.

MARISHA: Is that a real booger?

LAURA: I can't. I can't.

SAM: No, it's not a booger. It's an exploration of artistry in a post-modern society.

LIAM: It's like Narrative Telephone all over again.

LAURA: Next slide.

SAM: Next slide, next slide.

TRAVIS: (high-pitched scream)

SAM: Oh, oh god, I thought I deleted this one.

TRAVIS: (continues screaming)

LIAM: Look at those pasty buns!

SAM: This is clearly an inspection of how social media has replaced human contact. Next, next slide, please, please, please. Please, next slide! Okay, see, this is just me experimenting with different tripod placements. (laughter) And it's a metaphor for, uh-- I don't know, DC statehood? I don't know, it's a metaphor for, uh-- I don't know what it says. It's a metaphor for me at night taking a bunch of pictures of myself. Okay, next. (laughter) Next slide, please. Yep, this one is me drowning my sorrows because my photos are bad. I eat my feelings. Next slide, please. I also drink my feelings.

TRAVIS: Oh, wow.

SAM: Next slide, please.

MARISHA: That's actually a pretty good photo.

SAM: Okay, yeah, great. You know what? You know what, let's go to the next slide, please.

TRAVIS: Look how far his face is-- (laughter) (laughter)

TRAVIS: Your butt goes in there! (laughter)

TRAVIS: College kids don't get that deep.

SAM: In retrospect, I didn't need to get that deep.

MATT: No, you really didn't.

TRAVIS: You were in the uranium. MATT Commit to the bit.

SAM: I could have just been hovering over it.

TRAVIS: Something made the leap man, it made the leap.

LIAM: So many roentgens.

SAM: Anyway, this is-- that's it, the bit's over. (laughter) Check out Skillshare everyone. Learn stuff. Okay, back to you, Matt. (laughter)

TRAVIS: You didn't have to get that-- (laughs)

MARISHA: Did you just quit out of the bit?

LIAM: Yeah.

MATT: He rip-corded out of the bit.

MARISHA: He just rip-corded.

LIAM: Doesn't matter.

MATT: I think it's a new one. That's a new one. (laughter)

ASHLEY: Oh my god.

TRAVIS: Oh god, that's so down, so far down. Your ears were almost underneath the seat.

SAM: I clean my toilets. Let's get that slide back up, nope.

MATT: Thank you, Sam. Thank you, Skillshare.

SAM: Look, I used my car key fob as the slide thing. Improvised prop.

MATT: Whoever finds your car unlocked right now, well done. Our second sponsor for the night, Ghostfire Gaming. Fantastic friends, they're sponsoring tonight's show, with their soon to be finished campaign Grim Hollow: The Monster Grimoire. This supplement provides over 400 new dark fantasy themed monsters for DMs to challenge their players and enhance their games at home. Each monster provides mechanics for DMs to give existing creatures a surprising twist, such as making them undead, a fiend, or even a legendary creature. Also details how characters was can harvest monster parts to turn into equipment or magical items to use in their campaign, which we've house-ruled before, but now you can do it from the book specifically. This campaign is coming to an end, so make sure you check out everything at bit.ly/GHMonsters now. I didn't have to put my head in the toilet for that one.

TRAVIS: Nope.

SAM: And what a lovely URL.

MATT: Indeed, and a big thank you to our friends and sponsors since the beginning of Campaign 2, D&D Beyond.

ALL: (discordant yelling) D&D Beyond!

MATT: The official tool set of our show. One of the things we like about the digital books on the D&D Beyond is that they're not PDF copies, they're indexes and links that are really easy to peruse beyond having to go and scroll through physical books in your hands. It's super awesome. Makes super quick reference when you're in the middle of a game, especially when you're streaming it live, which is very helpful. So check it out now at https://dndbeyond.link/critters https://dndbeyond.link/critters

MARISHA: Nice.

LIAM: Back splash, back splash.

MATT: Yeah, yeah.

LIAM: (babbling)

MATT: And thank you all so much for joining us live on Twitch and YouTube. And of course, reminding you that if you want join our live, moderated, official chat for our show, please head on over to our Twitch channel. Ashley, you have some announcements, I believe.

ASHLEY: It's me!

MATT: Yes, it is.

ASHLEY: I'm still a little queasy to be honest.

TRAVIS: Ashley Johnson!

ASHLEY: Just 'cause you had to be really close to the water with how deep you were in there. Anyway.

SAM: I might have gotten some nose tickle.

TRAVIS: I think that was under the rim.

ASHLEY: But hey, thank you so much for your support of our Critical Role Foundation fundraising campaign with our friends at 826LA. (cheering) So since we're prerecording the show, this one, the best way to catch-- (sighing) oh no. (laughter) I'm going to get better at this, you guys. Okay, we're pre-recording the show so the best way to catch real time fundraising updates is by following us @CriticalRoleFDN on Facebook and Twitter, and to learn more about our campaign, to build a writer's room for students at Venice High School here in Los Angeles, or to donate, head on over to criticalrolefoundation.org.

TRAVIS: Yeah.

LAURA: Amazing, Ashley. Good job.

TRAVIS: Well saved. Well saved.

MATT: Boom goes the dynamite. And Laura, you have something to talk about, too.

LAURA: Yes, okay, okay, okay. So first up we have stuff in all of our stores right now. Hold on, okay, so this is the first thing. I don't know if you can tell what it is. These are temporary tattoos.

TRAVIS: Tattoosies.

LAURA: Inspired by the Mighty Nein, I'm going to open it up so you guys can see some of these things. You can probably just go online and check it out that way, but-- oh wait, that was in the front. Ah!

MARISHA: So cute.

SAM: Those are big!

LAURA: They're big! Yeah, they take up a good amount of space. You can put them here. You can put it here, put it here, anywhere. Anyway, check it out they're in our stores. And the other thing that I'm excited-- oh, these, oh, I should say, I should say who designed them. These were designed by-- I just don't want Ashley to feel alone, you know?

ASHLEY: Yeah. I thank you for, you know, not making me feel alone.

ASHLEY: (disgusted sigh) (laughter)

LAURA: Savannah Mayer, @well_dipper.

LIAM: @well_dipper! This-- this artist's amazing. Okay, next thing. Next thing is this beanie!

SAM: Oh yes!

LAURA: I don't if I put it on good, I don't have a camera.

TRAVIS: It's on, it's centered.

MATT: You did good!

ASHLEY: Yeah, you've got it.

LAURA: Oh, this old slouchy beanie? So anyway, it's in the store right now.

MARISHA: They gave you the vanity.

LAURA: Hey, look at that. Go check it out. (laughter)

MATT: Thank you very much, Laura.

SAM: Everyone's bailing on everything.

ASHLEY: Yeah, we all just-- can we point out the amazing tie-dye?

MARISHA: Yeah, I wanted to announce that Marisha Ray is really good at tie-dye.

LAURA: She's so good at tie-dye!

LIAM: Thank you for these shirts.

MARISHA: You're welcome, you're welcome. It's been my little Sunday zen. You all get tie-dye shirts, just going to chip away. Don't look at me like that, Taliesin.

LAURA: I feel like we should do an online thing. The critters should show us the tie-dye that they've done.

MARISHA: (gasps) That's a good idea.

TALIESIN: I love doing tie-dye.

LIAM: How-to video?

LAURA: Ooh.

MARISHA: (sighs) I'll put that on my to-do list. (laughter)

LIAM: Right at the top, right at the top.

MARISHA: High priority that one, yep.

MATT: Indeed. All righty. Well, it seems like the well-oiled machine is-- (laughter)

TRAVIS: I have a headache now.

MATT: -- off and ready to go. Thank you so much for-- for hanging with us through those announcements, everybody. I believe with that, it is time to go ahead and jump into tonight's episode of... Critical Role.

TALIESIN: (bleating)

(water bubbling)

(thunder rumbling)

(explosion)

♪ Role, Critical Role ♪

♪ Role, Critical Role ♪

♪ Role, Critical Role ♪

♪ Role, Critical Role ♪

♪ Role, Critical Role ♪

♪ Role, Critical Role ♪

♪ Roll the dice ♪

♪ The adventure begins ♪

♪ They were always beside you ♪

♪ Your nerdy best friends ♪

♪ And the DM to guide you ♪

♪ And they rise from the flames for the battles ahead ♪

♪ Villains beware because you're about to be dead ♪

♪ They got magic and flair ♪

♪ They got falchions and cunning ♪

♪ They don't see over there ♪

♪ There's a monster incoming ♪

♪ Inspiration is waiting, rise up, don't think twice ♪

♪ Put your fate in your hands, take a chance, ♪

♪ roll the dice ♪

♪ Roll the dice ♪

♪ Critical Role (roll the dice) ♪

♪ Critical Role (roll the dice) ♪

♪ Ooh, ahh ♪

♪ Can you answer the call ♪

♪ Diggin' deep in your soul ♪

♪ As the legend unfolds ♪

♪ Now it's your turn (your turn, your turn) ♪

♪ to roll ♪

(flames whooshing)

Part I
MATT: And welcome back. So last we left off: The Mighty Nein, giving chase towards the two remaining members of the Tomb Takers. Lucien, piloting the body of a long dead friend that once belonged to him and his companion, Cree. They both delved into the Genesis Ward and you gave chase following down into the dark open pit that once was this portion of the city of Aeor. You traversed the subterranean tunnels below, hid stealthily from nearby stalking creatures. You found odd bits of forgotten technology, experimental bits of science and arcana combining, went through a commissary, managed to Cabin in the Woods a possible encounter and just watch them kill each other from across a transparent wall. As you began to disable a series of traps in front of you as somebody had ransacked a cache of intuit charges and laid means of keeping you at bay or worse, through a clever use of a few dispels, you made your way to the Immensus Gate where it seemed both Lucien and Cree were in the process of setting the device to allow them to continue onto the next step of their journey. You stopped and you realized that they had set two more intuit charges to detonate at Lucien's whim and requested a conversation. Carefully, you entered the chamber, spoke a bit and allowed them to open the portal just enough to let something through from a realm of water and then set it to the Astral Sea where they leaped through and away. The creature that was allowed to step through the sliver. This water-based elemental entity began to rise through the chamber and attack whatever was nearby, which was your troop. You fought, but focused instead on escape. And one by one managed to slither past it and through the portal, some a bit injured, some a bit sheepish, but with a final moment of success, as Jester leapt through ensnared by the tentacle of the beast and about to be pulled back to further complicate matters, a clever use of mage hand shut the portal. Severed the bond. And allowed the Mighty Nein to arrive in person in the Astral Sea, floating just over the view of the City of Cognouza. So as you all drift, looking at the massive island of rock before you, numerous long sinewy tethers, like jellyfish tentacles of red and purple that drift below, you can vaguely see the shadow of another smaller mass of something, whether it be land, ship or creature that is currently tangled within them and being pulled up and then above, with a bit of light that seems to be coming through the nearby gossamer strings of the surrounding starscape. You can see the beautiful, if ominous, city before you, and you're still a sheep.

LIAM: (bleats)

MATT: So, Mighty Nein, what would you like to do?

MARISHA: Can we see Lucien or the Tomb Takers?

MATT: Make a perception check.

TRAVIS: I'm just batting away the sheep pellets.

LIAM: They're just floating.

MARISHA: 11.

MATT: 11? With the immensity of the space around you, there's too much going on on all sides and even in a quick anxious glance, you cannot make out the direction or position of either, not with an 11, unfortunately.

TALIESIN: Party check, can we see everybody? And is everybody heading in the same direction?

LAURA: Oh yeah.

MATT: Nobody's moving.

SAM: Oh.

MATT: Everyone leapt through, and once the momentum came to a stop everyone's just staying in place.

LAURA: That's right, you have to think where you want to go.

SAM: Oh yeah.

TALIESIN: I'm going to try and flapping my wings.

MATT: They flap.

TALIESIN: Do I move or do I just flap in place?

MATT: The wings just flap in place.

LAURA: It looks really beautiful, Caduceus.

TALIESIN: It feels surprisingly good on the shoulders.

LIAM: Is there any other debris floating in this sea or is it just swirly colors, acid trip, and the city?

MATT: Looking around in this space, you can see off in the distance many, many small dark shapes. And because of the position you currently hold here and the lack of detail, it's extremely challenging to make out any sense of depth. They could be very small things that are close or massive things that are far, far away, but you can see broken bits of rock. What looks like chunks of other land masses that have been carved free, things that resemble lengths of chain or tendrils that are severed from something that just drift off, cast a little line of shadow. You can see puffs of cloud and gently, softly gyrating waves of silver and glitter amongst black void-like spaces all just slowly shifting and moving.

TRAVIS: We should link up. Keep a hand on each other.

LAURA: I think I want to go towards Fjord's hand and hold it. Did I do it?

SAM: Nope.

LAURA: I don't know. I said it at the wrong time. (laughter)

MATT: Do you will yourself to drift towards his hand?

LAURA: Okay, yes, I do.

MATT: Okay. You shift and move in his direction at the speed of-- what is your intelligence modifier?

LAURA: Oh no. How smart am I? Not very, plus one.

MATT: Okay. The speed you travel is three feet a round.

LAURA: Oh man.

TALIESIN: So I have an intelligence modifier of negative one.

MATT: The wings are not moving you.

TRAVIS: And neither is anything else.

MATT: You do have a minimum movement of one foot a round.

SAM: One foot?

TRAVIS: I'll try to reach Jester as well, with a plus two. Does that mean I'm four feet a round, six feet a round?

MATT: Six feet a round. It is times three, your intelligence modifier, so.

TRAVIS: I'll link up with Jester and try and grab the nearest person that went through just before us, which was Yasha, right?

ASHLEY: Yeah.

TRAVIS: So I'll pull Jester, and will towards her and try and grab a foot or a hand.

LIAM: (bleats)

ASHLEY: And I'll try to will myself towards them as well.

TALIESIN: I'm going to very slowly make my way towards the sheep, since it's the only thing moving at the speed I am.

LIAM: I have a negative four modifier intelligence at the moment.

MARISHA: You spin in space. (laughter)

LAURA: Beau is just like--

TALIESIN: ♪ la la la la la ♪

LAURA: How long are you going to be a sheep, sheep?

LIAM: (bleats)

LAURA: Caleb could be a sheep forever. We don't know how this stuff works.

TRAVIS: We should try and kill the sheep.

LIAM: Caleb, are going to be a sheep forever? You can actually understand me. The legs just go like this. (bleats)

TALIESIN: I think that's a no.

LAURA: How would he know?

TALIESIN: I don't know.

ASHLEY: Should I just grab him?

TRAVIS: Yes, grab the sheep.

LAURA: Yes, hold onto the sheep.

ASHLEY: Come here.

LIAM: (bleating)

ASHLEY: Let's go.

TRAVIS: You scratching his belly?

ASHLEY: Yeah. (laughter)

TRAVIS: Now that we're on this side of the portal how-- do we have any sense of distance to this city? Or is it impossible to tell 'cause space?

MATT: Make a perception check.

TRAVIS: Yeah, okay, 15.

MATT: 15. You are... roughly about two or so miles from the city.

SAM: Oh boy. Two to three miles from it.

SAM: One foot every six seconds.

MARISHA: It's going to take...

SAM: That's ten feet a minute?

LAURA: We're going to be here for a year. I don't know, I can't do the math, I'm not very intelligent.

SAM: If there's no friction, right? Couldn't the fastest person pull everybody else or no?

MATT: You could certainly try.

SAM: Okay. So I can go nine feet per round.

TRAVIS: Yeah, we're fucking talking now.

MARISHA: I can go 12. I think Caleb can end up going 15 when he is not a sheep.

LIAM: (small bleat)

LAURA: We have to make him not a sheep. Caleb!

LIAM: (bleats) Will yourself to not be a sheep. That's how things work here. Just think "I want to be Caleb."

LIAM: The ears go up.

LAURA: Yeah. Yeah, I can see you're trying, try harder.

ASHLEY: Almost got it.

MARISHA: Man, he's a cute sheep.

ASHLEY: He's a real cute sheep.

MARISHA: Maybe he should just stay a sheep. It's not a bad ending for him.

MATT: "It's not a bad ending for him"?

LIAM: Truth, truth. He's been trying. You watched him do it again and again. But it always wears off. I imagine some grass and hay, like it would be good to eat.

TALIESIN: Hay.

MATT: Nothing happens.

LIAM: I don't dream make it? Rats.

MARISHA: I'm going to will myself over.

MATT: Sorry, intelligence score, not intelligence modifier.

SAM: Oh!

MATT: That does help. I was like, I wrote that wrong on my sheets there.

LIAM: What's the rule?

MATT: Sorry.

MARISHA: Times three?

MATT: I was like, no that seems way too low. So it's three times your intelligence score.

MARISHA: Well, that's not too bad.

LAURA: Okay, that's better.

MATT: I was like, that doesn't make-

MARISHA: Yeah, yeah.

MATT: Yeah, so-- we'll say from a narrative standpoint it took a moment to adjust to the surroundings.

SAM: Yeah, yeah, yeah, to figure it out.

MATT: Now you start picking up some speed. Like, "Oh, I get it, I get it. It's like riding a bike."

TALIESIN: Don't doggy paddle, all right.

TRAVIS: 42 feet, cool.

MARISHA: Can I still test? I'm going to go over to Caduceus. And just be like, "Here, hold onto my belt."

TALIESIN: Okay.

MARISHA: And then can I tug him?

LIAM: Can you?

MATT: You can.

MARISHA: Can I tugboat him?

MATT: You can.

MARISHA: Except that sounds worse, doesn't it?

SAM: I don't even know what that is, but it seems worse.

MATT: You can.

TRAVIS: What's the matter with you?

MARISHA: What?

SAM: Just floating around, tugboating people.

TRAVIS: (lip raspberry)

MARISHA: That's motorboating.

ASHLEY: That's motorboat!

TRAVIS: Oh, yeah. (laughter)

TRAVIS: That's better.

SAM: Tugboat's from the other side. (laughter)

TALIESIN: Oh no.

LAURA: I'm sorry, Matt.

LIAM: Aww.

TRAVIS: Which is fitting, given the skit. Hey, Veth!

SAM: What is it?

TRAVIS: You can see invisible things how far away from you?

SAM: I can hear invisible things.

TRAVIS: Oh.

SAM: 10 feet from me.

TRAVIS: Shit. Right on you.

LAURA: But Beau and Caleb can see it better than the rest of us now.

MARISHA: Can Caleb see better? What?

LAURA: I thought you guys can see invisible things now.

MARISHA: Oh.

TALIESIN: Caleb, can you see invisible things?

LIAM: (bleats)

MARISHA: Yeah, that's true.

LIAM: It was seeing in the dark and seeing through illusion.

MARISHA: Seeing through illusions, okay.

TRAVIS: Turning back to the door, there's no portal, right?

TALIESIN: Gone, gone.

TRAVIS: Can I just make sure that the Tomb Takers are not behind us trying to follow us in?

MATT: Make a perception check.

TRAVIS: Natural 19 for 22.

MATT: 22? Looking back at where you came, it's just an endless expanse of odd textures and shifting bits of nonsensical matter. Glancing back towards the city and towards the rest of your friends, you do make out two shapes heading in the direction of the city.

TRAVIS: Eyes on, wa-a-ay out.

MATT: They're a ways off and you watch as they both divide.

TRAVIS: What?

LAURA: What? They're going to send the threshold crests into different places. That's how they bring the city back.

TALIESIN: Oh.

TRAVIS: Shit, are we--

SAM: How many threshold crests do we think that they have? Just two?

LAURA: They have two, divide and conquer.

MARISHA: Well-- they can't get it back if they only have one. So we could just all go after Cree.

TRAVIS: We don't know which one is which.

SAM: The shapes, which is which?

MARISHA: Oh, we don't know.

SAM: Does anyone have-- You can Dimension Door over to them.

LAURA: I have 500 feet, yeah.

TRAVIS: I do, too.

SAM: How far are they away? We don't know.

MATT: You don't know.

LIAM: We also don't know what that would mean, where we are. I mean-- (bleats)

MARISHA: You still have Find the Path, yeah, Cad?

LAURA: Doesn't it only last a minute?

TALIESIN: Find the path only works if we know where we're going. If we have something of where we--

MARISHA: You you can't track the threshold crests?

TALIESIN: I'd need something of, like, I'd need a chunk of threshold crest, or-- I don't actually know if it would work on an object.

LAURA: We need a chunk of...

TALIESIN: Do I have a...

TRAVIS: Left or right? Left or right?

TALIESIN: Left.

MARISHA: Right.

TRAVIS: I'm a right. (laughter)

LIAM: Boulder parchment shears, here we go.

TRAVIS: Anybody want to go left?

LAURA: I was thinking left as well.

TALIESIN: Left.

TRAVIS: Two lefts, two rights.

ASHLEY: I was thinking right, too.

TRAVIS: That's three rights, two lefts.

ASHLEY: I feel like Lucien is left.

SAM: I say right.

TRAVIS: That's four rights, two lefts.

LIAM: (bleats)

SAM: Left.

TRAVIS: That's a left. So four rights.

ASHLEY: Four and four.

MARISHA: And four lefts? Oh great.

LAURA: Artagan, which way do you want to go?

TRAVIS: Essek!

LAURA: Arty gets a count. Right or left?

MATT: Sprinkle curls out on the shoulder. And you watch as, in a similar way, now that the pretenses have dropped, there's a similar fey glow to the creature that you've seen in times around Frumpkin, actually. There is a similar type energy and just so ever so faint arcane aura to it. And you watch as the intelligence of a weasel is present. And then within a moment, it seems to adjust itself. Like the essence of Artagan is stepping into Sprinkle before it looks over towards you. "My, you certainly found yourself in a bit of a pickle."

LAURA: Yeah, we're in the Astral Sea. Look, there's a horrible city. We have to stop it from being delivered.

MATT: "My apologies, I've never been here. This is wild!"

LAURA: Right or left?

MATT: "Uh." (die thunks)

MATT: "Left."

TRAVIS: Fuck.

LAURA: Left, that's what I said.

TRAVIS: Essek, he's the tie break since sheep can't talk.

LAURA: Oh, that's true.

LIAM: I voted.

TRAVIS: Oh, you did.

LIAM: Yeah.

MARISHA: So that makes it left, right?

LAURA: So Essek gets a vote.

MATT: All right, so Essek gets to vote. "Let's try left."

LAURA: Left.

TRAVIS: Left it is.

SAM: Okay, we all think left, right?

TRAVIS: Yeah, Beau, think real fucking hard, let's go.

MARISHA: (grunts) (laughter)

TRAVIS: (fart noise) Well, not that hard.

LAURA: Does it smell do you think? Do things smell the Astral Sea? How does gas work?

MARISHA: Yeah, it's true, how does it work?

TALIESIN: Hey I've got a Divine... When was the last time you used your Channel Divinity? d100.

LAURA: Oh, but I want to save it. I don't want to use my Channel Divinity for choose left or right.

TALIESIN: I was hoping to just to find exactly--

LAURA: Where we should go?

TALIESIN: An idea of exactly where we should go to find Cree. Where they're going to drop Cree's--

TRAVIS: Yeah, because at this point, we're all here for the first time.

LAURA: Yeah.

MARISHA: Yeah.

LAURA: Give it a try.

TALIESIN: All right. Can you show me where--

LAURA: Wait, has it been seven days since you used it the last time?

TALIESIN: I think it has.

MATT: Wait, since you successfully used it?

TALIESIN: I think it's been seven.

LAURA: I don't think it's been seven days since we used it in the--

TRAVIS: Blooming Grove?

LAURA: No, because it worked when we were up in--

SAM: Blue Man Group?

TALIESIN: You're right, nevermind. Has not been seven days.

LAURA: I don't think it's been seven days since we did it.

TALIESIN: I think it's been seven real days. All right. We're good.

LAURA: Yeah.

TRAVIS: (laughs) Yeah.

MATT: I could double check into our friends at CritRoleStats, but it'll take a moment.

TALIESIN: No, I'll call it.

MATT: Okay.

TALIESIN: It's been less than a week.

LAURA: It seems like that, right? We've only slept a couple of times.

TALIESIN: You're still clear.

LAURA: I'm in the clear. Yeah, I could try it.

TALIESIN: Just got a little easier.

MATT: Well, you successfully did yours before you guys left Eiselcross the first time.

LAURA: Oh, that's right! It was when we were in Eiselcross the first time, because--

MATT: I feel like it's been a week.

LAURA: Yeah, yeah, yeah, because then we--

SAM: ♪ It's been a while ♪

LAURA: Has it been a week since then? Fuck, I don't know.

TALIESIN: I'll go for it, then. All right.

LAURA: Try it.

MATT: I was like-- I think it's been a week at least, because you guys have stayed out multiple times in multiple cities when you're gathering allies and information, when you made it to the Blooming Grove and then travel--

LIAM: When we left we said we have about 10 days.

LAURA: Yeah, okay, sorry.

MATT: Yeah, I feel like it's been a week.

LAURA: Sorry, Taliesin.

MATT: If you want to try.

LAURA: I thought it was--

TALIESIN: No, I thought you were right, too.

SAM: Do we want to wait?

TALIESIN: All right, let's--

MARISHA: ♪ It's been a week ♪

TALIESIN: ♪ Been a week ♪ Boy, it's been a week. All right, I would like to be guided to the location of where Cree needs to bring the threshold crest. My brain, boy, no. (laughter)

TALIESIN: That was a lot of unintelligible words for nothing.

MATT: You quietly pray and you can sense the Wild Mother is reaching out to you, but the connection you normally maintain seems to be slightly obscured and fuzzed by the current proximity of the Astral Sea.

TALIESIN: Very fair. Worth a shot.

TRAVIS: We're going left. We could gain a thousand feet, but it would burn spells, and I don't know how much closer that would actually get us. Well, we could all get a 500 feet closer.

TALIESIN: I think it'd be better to let them separate a bit more before we try anything.

LIAM: Caleb is chewing on Yasha's coat.

LAURA: They know we're following them. It seems weird that Lucien would just let Cree go off and not protect him.

TALIESIN: Faster to get it done.

MARISHA: He doesn't care.

LAURA: But he needs both of the crests delivered. Just doesn't seem--

MARISHA: Yeah. Anything could be a trap at this point, too.

SAM: Yeah, but we just got to pick a direction and go.

MARISHA: Left, I guess, it is.

SAM: Yeah, let's go.

MATT: All right, so for you, you would be the slowest member of the team, but you are--

TALIESIN: 27 feet.

MATT: Correct, so mostly your walking speed while flying and what's the sheep's?

TALIESIN: I'm actually walking.

LIAM: Oh, negative four.

MATT: So you probably have to drag the sheep along as well.

TALIESIN: I'm still holding him.

LIAM: Yasha's got it.

MATT: Cool, all right. So that being the case, as you all begin to will yourself in the direction of the city, noiselessly, frictionlessly, you all begin to drift with imagined flight and locomotion towards the city of Cognouza below. Slowly, it begins to come more into focus, and as you now have a sense of movement and its approach, you get a sense of the sincere mass of this location. It's larger than you expected for being just a portion, a ward of the city of Aeor and some of the other wards that you had experienced for your time in the ruins. Those of you of discerning eyes can see some repeated pattern in different neighborhood layouts, like certain street arrangements and structures that seemed very unique seem to be repeating elsewhere.

LIAM: Like Fibonacci spirals in the road?

MATT: Mm-hmm. Like as the city has slowly expanded over the time that it's brought its consciousness together and swallowed things in the Astral Sea, it's begun to replicate itself--

MARISHA: Carbon copy itself?

MATT: -- as it expands.

LIAM: And I know I'm just a sheep, but are the buildings that we're seeing larger than normal buildings or just there's many buildings that have multiplied out the same way that the roads have duplicated?

MATT: From what you can tell, now that you've traveled quite a bit, they appear to be sized for normal humanoid folk, just numerous, numerous neighborhoods and beautiful. You can't help but be struck by a bit of awe to see after how much of the ruined the city of Aeor you'd been trudging through in the dark beneath to now get a glimpse of what it would look like in its heyday, and it's gorgeous. You can see where there was a prominence and to a certain extent, the arrogance that would ensue from being responsible for a society that looks this erudite. Still further, you drift and drift and closer and closer still, following the left-hand path, you said.

LAURA: Can we tell if we're following Cree or Lucien at this point?

MATT: I will require whoever's taking point to maintain another perception check to see if they can keep a bead on the movement.

TALIESIN: I'm in the back.

TRAVIS: Shit.

LAURA: It was either Beau or Fjord.

MARISHA: I'm so bad at this. Can I assist Fjord?

MATT: If you'd like to.

MARISHA: I'll assist Fjord, just scanning on the horizon, seeing if I can spot movement?

MATT: All right, between the two of you, perception check with advantage.

TRAVIS: Natural 20.

SAM: Ooh.

LIAM: Yes.

ASHLEY: Yes.

MARISHA: Hell yeah.

TRAVIS: Oh, for a 23.

MATT: That's great. Keeping a bead on this figure, this one figure that's darting off and making their way towards a portion of the city--

LIAM: ♪ Making their way ♪

MATT: You stayed trained on, and the rest of you shift with Fjord, this slow moving flock of the Mighty Nein adjusting as he does, getting closer and closer, and eventually you begin to find yourselves above the first parts of the city, where you're now looking down upon the streets and neighborhoods. Impossibly intricate and beautiful white cobblestone streets, buildings and tall multistory structures and abodes, residential spaces that are entwined with bridges, and thin, tall towers that come to these intricate peaks. The streets are barren, empty, a frozen point in time without the people, just an expression of what's there minus the society.

SAM: Weird.

LAURA: Do the buildings have eyeballs like we've seen some of them going (squishing)?

MATT: You swear you saw that from a distance but none were that large, and that vision specifically, I should have specified, was to the two of you, but from this distance, you would not be able to tell. The detail is way too small.

TRAVIS: And the tendrils that hang underneath the city, they just continue to hang. They don't start to reach out and pull, do they?

MATT: You don't see anything like that, no.

TRAVIS: Fuck.

MATT: About this time, as you're keeping a train on this individual, a voice rings through all of your minds simultaneously, "Welcome, guests, minds, kin. So rare. (echoing) Rare, rare -- Welcome, welcome, welcome us home."

SAM: Nope.

LIAM: (bleats)

MARISHA: (laughs)

ASHLEY: Do we all hear this?

MATT: You all hear this.

LAURA: We have to destroy this city.

MATT: You glance down after you all look at each other and now there's people in the streets.

SAM: Oh, what?

MARISHA: Where they're-- like unnaturally, like there's no way this many people could have rushed into the street this quickly?

MATT: For a moment, you all looked at each other and began to move forward and glanced down, and now, it's a bustling cityscape. You see people just walking in pairs or solo groups and picking up things and pulling carts and just going about their business.

MARISHA: Do they look corrupt or--?

MATT: You're too far up to make any sort of perspective view of that. You'd have to get closer.

TRAVIS: Wow.

TALIESIN: Is there anything following us or coming in from any other side from the void?

MATT: Make a perception check.

TALIESIN: 25.

MATT: 25!

SAM: Jeez.

MATT: No.

TALIESIN: Okay.

MATT: No, nothing in your entire--

TALIESIN: I did a little twirl.

MATT: -- periphery catches your eye.

LAURA: And just to be clear, are a lot of us still pretty busted up from that fight?

TALIESIN and MARISHA: Yeah.

LAURA: We haven't healed or anything.

TALIESIN: Nope.

LAURA: I don't think we should set foot down in that city if we haven't.

SAM: Where's the individual going?

MATT: Slowly coasting down towards the city itself.

TALIESIN: We do have a mansion. We have the tower we can hit.

LAURA: Well, we have a sheep. Can I use a medicine check on him to see if I can see people skin coming through? Does he look like he's going to be a sheep forever?

MATT: Sure, make a medicine check.

SAM: We could just hit him real hard.

LIAM: Punch me in the nose.

LAURA: I don't know. Is it like a Polymorph sort of thing or is it True Polymorph?

TALIESIN: Only one way to find out.

SAM: Got to be.

TRAVIS: He did say if he changed--

LAURA: 26.

TRAVIS: (sword humming) (laughter)

SAM: He didn't mean this!

LIAM: Shanked!

TRAVIS: Lamb shanks!

LAURA: 26.

MATT: 26, physically seems like a sheep.

TALIESIN: You know, I'm just going to take initiative. May I?

ASHLEY: What?

LIAM: (bleats)

TALIESIN: You'll thank me later. I'm just going to bap the sheet.

TRAVIS: You punch the sheep!

TALIESIN: I'm going to hit the sheep with the stick.

TRAVIS: Yes you do!

MATT: Okay, roll an attack.

TALIESIN: All right.

TRAVIS: Crack that damn sheep.

TALIESIN: It's cracking.

LAURA: This feels like an Aesop's fable or something.

LIAM: You crack it open, and a wizard comes out. (laughter)

TALIESIN: That's a-- I don't do this very often.

TRAVIS: You better be able to hit a sheep.

TALIESIN: That's a 17 to--

SAM: Oh, pretty good, pretty good.

TALIESIN: Hold on.

TRAVIS: That hits me.

LIAM: I don't think you had to hit me that hard.

MATT: That definitely hits.

LAURA: FLames.

MATT: Go ahead and roll damage.

LAURA: Flames on the side of my face.

TALIESIN: Yeah, I was trying to figure out--

TRAVIS: Flames, side of my face.

TALIESIN: -- how my attacks work because I never use them anymore.

LIAM: (high-pitched) I hate him so much!

ASHLEY: I'm keeping him on my hip.

TALIESIN: You know, for some reason it doesn't say, but that's okay.

ASHLEY: Give him a little pat on the nose.

MATT: It's your staff. It should be a 1d8 plus your strength modifier.

TALIESIN: Okay, thank you.

LIAM: Yeah, three hit points was all you needed.

TALIESIN: That's 1d8 plus my strength modifier?

MATT: Or 1d6, your choice--

TALIESIN: Okay.

MATT: -- because one-handed or two-handed is how that would work.

TALIESIN: Six points.

MATT: Okay, so you have three hit points as a sheep. So Caleb takes three points of bludgeoning damage.

TRAVIS: Hey!

MATT: As the sheep form reverts--

TALIESIN: You take two points, because it was a five. I forgot to remove one.

MATT: You got it.

LIAM: Okay.

LAURA: Oh, hey, you're back. Good work, Caduceus!

LIAM: Thank you, I think.

TALIESIN: I'm learning from you guys. If it's a real problem, you just smack it.

MARISHA: Right?

ASHLEY: Do you want me to still hold onto you or should I let you go?

LIAM: Oh, no. Well, maybe just for a moment.

ASHLEY: I got you, big boy.

LIAM: I'm kind of beat up.

TRAVIS: I don't know how much you were tracking. We are following that individual if you can see. It seems the two of them split up.

SAM: Does anyone have a telescope or anything?

MARISHA: Oh my god, I do. I have Avantika's spyglass. I forgot about that.

ALL: Oh!

TRAVIS: Let's go!

SAM: Pop it open!

LAURA: Use it!

TRAVIS: I'm sure it's not cursed at all.

SAM: Come on, space pirate!

MARISHA: (clicking)

MATT: Go ahead and make a perception check with advantage.

MARISHA: Ooh, it's probably--

LAURA: Guidance, I'm guiding her.

MARISHA: -- still going to be bad.

LAURA: I'm patting her back.

MARISHA: Ooh, Guidance.

SAM: Ooh!

MARISHA: Ooh!

MATT: Ooh!

LAURA: In fact, I'm trying to pat her back, but Sprinkle runs up and pats he back as well. We're both patting her back.

MATT: Okay.

MARISHA: Okay, 20 total.

MATT: 20 total, okay. With the spyglass, now that you've followed behind, and you've come both hovered down closer to the top of the cityscape, the tower peaks and apexes beginning to get close to brushing where you're gliding down towards the over end portion of the left-hand (burps), pardon, side of the city.

LAURA: (laughs)

MATT: That's the problem with eating before we play. You see the figure dart down over some buildings and vanish into the city below. What you do catch as well with the spyglass is of the shape that drifts down, you see the hint of a tail behind.

MARISHA: What?

SAM: They both have tails.

MARISHA: I don't think Lucien did.

MATT: Lucien has a tail.

LAURA: Yeah, I have a tail. I swing my tail up.

TRAVIS: I though Cree was a tabaxi?

LAURA: We have tails.

MARISHA: Right, so does Cree also have a tail, though?

SAM: Yeah.

MARISHA: They both have tails?

LAURA: Was it a furry tail or a smooth-looking tail?

MARISHA: Was it a furry tail or did it have a little--?

MATT: It's hard to tell with a 20.

TRAVIS: Should've rolled higher.

LAURA: Did it seem like it was a thick tail or skinny tail?

MARISHA: Does it seem like it was the thick tail or a skinny tail?

LIAM: We could do this all day.

SAM: Hard to tell with a 20.

MATT: Yeah.

MARISHA: Someone with a tail, okay.

SAM: It was in the reddish-purplish tone. (laughter)

MARISHA: Cool, cool. Wish I would have been using this spyglass this entire campaign since I've had it. Kind of forgot I had it. So that's cool, great.

SAM: (laughs)

TRAVIS: If you forget to use it going forward, you suck.

MARISHA: Yeah, yes, thank you, yeah.

SAM: Well, we just keep going.

MARISHA: Okay, well, he went-- whatever, whoever it was went down there.

SAM: But we're saying we don't want to go down there while we're not healed, right? Should we just get far enough before we stop?

TALIESIN: Caleb, do you have enough for the tower?

LIAM: I do not, no.

TALIESIN: Oh boy.

TRAVIS: Yeah, the hard part is if we lose sight, we're just guessing.

LIAM: It's a city full of maybe people.

TRAVIS: Yeah.

SAM: We should keep following?

TRAVIS and LIAM: Yeah.

TALIESIN: We need to get somewhere where we won't lose it, but also, we need to rest really, really badly.

MARISHA: As long as we just follow.

LAURA: How are we going to rest? How will we rest? If we sleep for eight hours, he's going to bring the city back. We're going to wake up and we'll be back in Exandria.

TRAVIS: Yeah, we're just going to have to keep pushing unless there's a moment.

SAM: Yeah.

TALIESIN: Pushing for the moment--

SAM: I've got a health potion if anyone needs it in dire straights.

TALIESIN: I could burn a spell if you really need to get the--

LAURA: I know, I could, too, but I am real shit at curing people, but I could burn a spell.

TALIESIN: I'll burn a spell. How, how--

LIAM: Currently less than half.

TALIESIN: Less than half?

TRAVIS: Yasha's real fucked

TALIESIN: So a full heal spell might be--

TRAVIS: 16.

MARISHA: I'm a little over half.

LAURA: We could do a Mass Cure Wounds. That's a fifth, though.

TALIESIN: Yeah, actually what's the 10 minute one?

SAM: Yeah, we'd be back--

LAURA: That's a Prayer of Healing.

TALIESIN: Do a Prayer of Healing, but that's a--

LIAM: We're gliding as we hash this out.

TALIESIN: I mean, it's going to help a little, but--

LAURA: Prayer of Healing just gives--

TALIESIN: d8 plus five.

LAURA: Okay.

TRAVIS: DM, if we ever get within range, where we might be able to--

LAURA: And that's a what level?

TRAVIS: -- discern a figure on the streets,

TALIESIN: Second level is 2d8, plus--

TRAVIS: I want to cast See Invisibility.

TALIESIN: -- it goes up for every level.

LAURA: Maybe I'll do it at second at least.

MATT: You got it, okay.

TALIESIN: I'll do it at four.

TRAVIS: I just don't know our distance to target.

TALIESIN: Honestly, everyone's so beat up, it's not like we need-- the magic's going to matter anyway.

LIAM: Are we doing a choo-choo train to float through the--

TRAVIS: I like skydiving diamond, holding hands.

MARISHA: Healing is not a waste.

TALIESIN: It's not everybody.

MARISHA: Healing is never a waste.

LAURA: It's how many people?

MATT: All traveling at the speed of the slowest member.

LIAM: The slowest member, so not the sheep anymore at least.

MATT: Well, the sheep was being carried. I would say at that point, not so much, but unless you want to leave somebody behind. You can tether and tug, but it's still the speed of whoever that--

MARISHA: Oh yeah, we never asked. We never got that answer.

MATT: Yeah.

LAURA: Yeah.

TALIESIN: 27.

TRAVIS: Tether and tug.

LAURA: 27 healing to six people?

TALIESIN: My speed, no, no, no. We got to pick six people to heal.

MARISHA: I'm at about half.

LAURA: Who's at the lowest?

SAM: Yasha.

ASHLEY: I'm pretty bad.

TALIESIN: Yeah, you're pretty bad.

TRAVIS: I'll take it if nobody else's taking it.

TALIESIN: Three, four,

MARISHA: I'm at half.

TALIESIN: I could use one, so that's five. One, two, three, four, five, one more.

LAURA: I'll take it if you're not down at all. Are you down?

SAM: I'm down a little. I mean, I'm at two-thirds.

LAURA: I'm down, like, 60 points.

TALIESIN: Okay, then. Well, yeah.

MARISHA: Oof.

TALIESIN: Eh, eh.

TRAVIS: (chuckles)

TALIESIN: 11, 16, 21 points.

MARISHA: Oh, that's pretty good, actually.

LAURA and TRAVIS: Thank you, Caduceus.

MARISHA: Thank you, Caduceus.

LIAM: Thanks, Easter bunny. Bock bock!

TALIESIN: A little better.

ASHLEY: My current hit points went up when we rolled. So should I get rid of those, so I'm still at the same?

TRAVIS: Nope.

LAURA: No, Matt said we could take--

MATT: No, the hit point bump you can take, but any sort of spell slots and such would require a rest to regain.

ASHLEY: Copy.

LAURA: I mean, I could do a 5th-level. That's a Mass Cure Wounds. It's better to do the Prayer of Healing at a bump, though, isn't it?

TALIESIN: Yeah, the 10 minutes gives you the d8s.

LAURA: Yeah, yeah, yeah, that makes more sense.

TRAVIS: We might be there in 10 minutes if we can see people walking around.

LAURA: I don't have Prayer of Healing prepared, 'cause let's be honest. (laughter)

TALIESIN: Sorry, that's a lot of laugh at.

SAM: So because we're going as slow as the slowest member, should we split up so we can--

MARISHA: Well, I can tether Caduceus. I'll help yank Caduceus along.

MATT: Okay, I mean, you're pulling and it meets in the center of both of your speeds. So it does speed him up a bit, but it does slow you down.

MARISHA: It slows me down.

LIAM: What if I took his other hand, since I'm the fastest here?

MARISHA: Oh, that's a good idea. That's a good idea.

TRAVIS: Do you have Expeditious?

LIAM: No, not right now.

TRAVIS: I do.

TALIESIN: I don't think it'll change your intelligence modifier.

TRAVIS: It'll double your speed though, right?

LIAM: It's brain-powered here--

TRAVIS: Oh.

LIAM: Thought-powered.

MARISHA: Would it work-- yeah, that's a good point.

TALIESIN: Not my strong suit.

MARISHA: Okay, well, I'm not losing where I watched that person drop down.

MATT: No worries. So yeah, the good news is the individuals that you're chasing here isn't speeding at an incredible speed beyond you, but you are slowed by the general speed of the group.

TRAVIS: (coughs) Caduceus.

MATT: As you begin to get closer to the city, you begin to feel a unique tug, like gravity's beginning to kick in.

SAM: Someone tugboating us? (laughter)

MATT: Sure, whereas, the closer you get to the city, there is some sort of gravitational pull towards it, which doesn't adjust your movement. You still will yourself in the direction you're going, but you can feel that distinct pull. Whereas previously, it was just a free floating lack of gravity, which leads you to believe probably in proximity to this city, one could walk on the ground per normal--

SAM: Okay, okay.

MATT: -- and utilize speed as such.

LAURA: All right.

LIAM: But currently it doesn't feel like a fall. It just feels like--

LAURA: A tractor beam.

MATT: Exactly.

LIAM: -- a tractor beam.

MATT: You didn't realize the lack of gravity until you begin to feel gravity again, and you're like, right, that feels normal. That was weird.

LAURA: Okay.

MATT: Eventually, you begin to crest up to that one little area, that one building rooftop where the figure vanished over, and, Fjord, as you drift and look, there is an intersection thoroughfare, a small square with a fountain and a little park and a domed tower with a unique kind of astral device on top of it, and homesteads and people that are out in the street talking to each other and moving and going about their business.

TRAVIS: Because I can see these people I'll cast See Invisibility for the next hour with the Star Razor.

MATT: You've got it.

LIAM: What is their dress like? Were they a variety of peoples?

MATT: From what you can tell, they are a variety of peoples, mostly human, some elf, outfits that do resemble some of the outfits that you've found on various corpses throughout the ruins of Aeor. These appear to be Aeorian individuals.

TRAVIS: Does anything else appear in the spell--

MATT: Cast Invisibility? No.

TRAVIS: Okay.

LIAM: And are we drawing any attention by being here?

MATT: Nothing seems to be paying attention to you at the moment.

TALIESIN: Is there--

MATT: Not right now. You guys are just up in the air above a rooftop in the sky looking down over this intersection.

TRAVIS: That's awesome.

LAURA: Yeah.

LIAM: And our quarry has already gone down. Well, we couldn't tell because they went over a lip, right?

MATT: They went over a lip, and now you've caught up. You could attempt to see if they are anywhere within sight, if you want to make a perception check.

TALIESIN: Yeah, I'll take that.

LIAM: Of course.

MATT: Two individuals can go ahead and roll a perception.

LIAM: I'm going.

LAURA: I'll give Guidance.

TALIESIN: I had rolled a natural 20 anyway.

SAM and MARISHA: Ooh.

TALIESIN: 30.

TRAVIS: Yeah, you did.

MATT: 30, okay.

TRAVIS: It's that new hair.

LAURA: (laughs)

TRAVIS: Babe.

MATT: You give a confident glance around here and do not see an individual that resembles either Lucien or Cree.

TALIESIN: And there's nothing weird about the way people are moving or acting. There doesn't seem to be some sort of--

MATT: The total of, what was it?

TALIESIN: 30.

MATT: 30.

LAURA: Plus Guidance, if you want to take it.

TALIESIN: Oh, you know. 34. (impressed exclamations)

MATT: You're at a distance, so. (laughter)

TALIESIN: I'm looking for it.

MATT: This is practically a zoom and enhance moment for you here, like (zooming).

TALIESIN: Something must be wrong here and I know that.

TRAVIS: Perfect steady cam.

LIAM: Beau leans in front (spyglass opening sound).

MATT: You notice townsfolk are walking and they're stopping and facing each other and then going off in their own way, but there's no conversation. They're just almost going through the motions.

TALIESIN: Are they acknowledge-- Oh, we're too far away for me to--

MATT: Too far away, but they're just, some are picking up things and then moving, some look like they're interacting, but they're just looking at each other and then continue on their way.

LIAM: They're like background extras.

TRAVIS: Would you say we're 100 feet or farther away from them?

MATT: Right now where you're standing, or, sorry, where you're hovering, you'd be about 90 to 100 feet away from the nearest person and about 150 feet from the middle of this main area where you saw the figure vanish towards.

TALIESIN: Something is very not right.

TRAVIS: Yeah.

TALIESIN: This is, I don't know. I need to get closer.

LAURA: I wonder if all of their minds-- you know how when I tried to send a message to Yussa and all I got back was just that screaming? I bet that's what's in all of their brains.

MARISHA: I mean, Caleb and I can now talk to people through our minds. So maybe they just have no need for their voice anymore.

SAM: Oh, interesting.

TALIESIN: Or the other way around. They just don't need their bodies anymore.

MARISHA: Yeah.

TALIESIN: It's just--

LIAM: They're not illusory, are they, to Beau and Caleb's eyes?

MATT: No, they're physical.

LIAM: Okay.

MARISHA: Yeah, that actually tracks.

TALIESIN: This may just be going through the motions.

MARISHA: The motions and their minds are elsewhere.

TRAVIS: Caleb, I don't suppose you want to, with your speed--

TALIESIN: We need to get closer.

TRAVIS: -- fly down and slap the socks of one of their heads and fly back up again?

LIAM: Who knows how fast they might be.

TALIESIN: Or at least try and make eye contact.

TRAVIS: Or slap their heads.

MARISHA: You said there was a device in the center of this courtyard? Like a--

MATT: So you see there are a number of buildings, kind of surrounding it. There is a raised area with a fountain in the middle. Though, you would also note there is no water in the fountain.

TALIESIN: There is no water in the fountain.

TRAVIS: My god. (laughter)

MARISHA: What is this place?

SAM: It's the best fountain I've ever seen.

TRAVIS: It's all wrong. It's all gone wrong. (slap) Get a hold of yourself.

LIAM: You maniacs.

TRAVIS and SAM: What have you done?

MATT: There are a number of connected residential buildings. There is a beautiful dome structure with a metallic weather vane type device on top. There's a tree and a little garden, almost like a courtyard garden area.

TALIESIN: A healthy tree?

LAURA: Yeah, is the tree alive or is it one of those rotten trees?

MATT: It's vibrant and green.

TALIESIN: Are there any buildings with roof access that we can see with a door going down or anything like that? Like a way to get inside a building from the roof?

MATT: No, a lot of the roofs are textured and smooth and either like tower tops or just a shingled roof, but you do not see any signs of fireplaces or any chimneys, at least. You do not see any sort of hatches or openings that way.

TALIESIN: Any second floor or third floor windows that we could maybe Peter Pan our way into?

MATT: There are some windows, yeah.

TALIESIN: I think we need cover and I think we need to not fly down to the ground.

TRAVIS: Aren't we worried about losing who we're chasing?

TALIESIN: We've lost who we're chasing. We need to find out where they were going now.

LAURA: Okay, I'm going to try Divine Intervention to--

TRAVIS: I'm sorry, I thought they went into the ground.

MARISHA: Yeah, you said they went towards the center courtyard area, right?

MATT: You saw them vanish over the edge in the direction of this general intersection, and by the time you've caught up, they're not present.

LIAM: Yeah, they just did this, right? (vanishing whoosh)

MATT: Exactly.

TRAVIS: And then we came over the top and it's Time Square.

MATT: Yeah.

TRAVIS: Got it.

LIAM: Yeah, they could have switched back around the building.

MATT: Now, it's not super dense here. There are anywhere from like eight to 10 people in this courtyard just going about their business.

SAM: Kill them all. The one who screams is our person.

TALIESIN: I think going inside and just having a moment to walk down into this might be a smarter idea than flying into--

TRAVIS: It's only eight to 10. Should we experiment with one of these people? See if they even have eyes, look at us, anything?

TALIESIN: They might sound the alarm.

LAURA: You can try sending a Message to one of them and see if they can respond.

SAM: Very smart. All right, sure. I'll pick someone who's walking away from us. And I guess fly close enough to be within 120 feet.

MATT: Okay, easy enough to do.

SAM: And take out a wire and cast Message and say: Hey.

LAURA: (laughs) It's not that easy, is it?

SAM: No, it's not. I need someone counting me.

ASHLEY: I'll count.

TALIESIN: Five.

SAM: Hey there, you, nice day out today, isn't it? So nice, you should look up in the sky and see more.

TALIESIN: Wow, you're-- yeah.

MARISHA: Yeah.

SAM: You can reply to this message.

ASHLEY: Sounds about right.

MATT: You do not get any response, but the individual that you're targeting, which looks to be maybe a 17-year old girl, jet black hair in a light lavender day outfit with really nice, long, wide-robed sleeves, walking along just stops.

SAM: Ooh.

MATT: And looks up and then continues walking.

SAM: Okay, okay, they understand language.

TRAVIS: Interesting.

LAURA: They're susceptible to--

SAM: They're alive. To stimulus?

LAURA: Yeah.

TALIESIN: That's an assumption.

ASHLEY: She didn't do anything.

LIAM: I feel like anything we do right now--

LAURA: She looked up.

LIAM: --is poking the badger.

ASHLEY: They didn't try to-- hostile.

SAM: They're not in fear.

ASHLEY: Yeah.

SAM: Yeah, so maybe we can go down and get closer.

LIAM: I get a bead on another person and think: Excuse me, do you have the time?

MATT: The individual stops and looks up at you. (screams) And just screams fully loud--

LIAM: Wow.

MATT: -- towards you. This endless, echoing, terrifying, volumetric screech.

ASHLEY: That is so scary.

MATT: That just goes and goes and goes. Nobody else is paying attention at the moment and then suddenly it stops and you feel this buzzing in your head and a voice in the middle of just your mind that goes, "Ha, I see you, come, come. We must talk."

LIAM: What do you want to talk about?

MATT: "Many things, but quickly, before the others know." And the figure, still staring at you, walks over into one of the side, not an alleyway, but one of the streets and stands next to this archway.

TRAVIS: (laughs) I don't like any of it.

TALIESIN: That was about one of the most unsettling things I've ever seen in my life.

LIAM: I thought Matt was going to open his jaw and just keep going and going.

TALIESIN: And another Matt was going to be inside. (laughter)

ASHLEY: What's weird is I wouldn't have been surprised with everything else that he does. It's like how does he do that?

TRAVIS: I was going to attack it with fire.

SAM: Caleb, you're making friends, this is good for you.

TRAVIS: Jesus.

LIAM: You guys didn't hear anything either. You just saw me looking at a person.

SAM: It seemed like a nice scream.

MATT: You all heard the scream.

LIAM: The scream, yes. But I didn't say anything.

LAURA: What happened?

TALIESIN: Did he tell you the time?

LIAM: I reached out and they reached back and invited me down to talk.

TRAVIS: Do you want to talk?

LIAM: I don't know what else to do right now.

SAM: Yeah.

TALIESIN: I think we should.

SAM: We've got your back.

LAURA: Ask him where the threshold crests go.

TRAVIS: Oh boy.

SAM: Well.

LAURA: Well.

TALIESIN: Let's go down together.

TRAVIS: When it looked up at you, could you see eyes, like normal--

LIAM: It just looked--

TRAVIS: -- iris pupil?

LIAM: -- humanoid, right?

MATT: At the distance you're at, it looked humanoid, yeah.

LIAM: Okay, well, don't come all the way with me, but don't be too far behind.

TALIESIN: We'll be on the roof, maybe.

LIAM: Okay, seems like a good idea.

ASHLEY: No, I think this is a terrible idea.

TRAVIS: Within 60 feet.

LIAM: Yeah.

TRAVIS: 60 feet above them is fine.

LIAM: Okay, I will, with my at Intelligence 20, 60 feet in a round kind of speed, I will, for once, zap down.

MATT: Yeah, you travel faster than anybody in this troop. You have a speed of 60 while gliding around, just (whoosh). Okay.

TRAVIS: I'll trail him just as a guard and once I'm within 60 feet of those people, just Divine Sense just to cover it.

MATT: Okay. So of the square, there's this little archway where the individual is standing against. You (whoosh) glide down to it. The rest of you are staying near the rooftops? What are you doing?

TRAVIS: I'm staying closer. 60 feet above the population.

MATT: Above the population?

TRAVIS: Yeah.

MATT: Over the main thing?

TRAVIS: Mm-hmm.

MATT: Okay. So you're above in the center of the--

TRAVIS: Sword out, the whole thing. Not trying to hide anything.

MATT: You've got it, okay.

SAM: Is that weather vane thing close to us?

MATT: It's across the way from where Caleb's quarry currently is. About 60 or 70 feet across the other side of where the fountain is.

SAM: Great, me and Beau will go over and check that out.

MATT: Okay.

TALIESIN: I'm going to head towards where Caleb's going, but I'm also going to do the 60-foot thing and just do a Eyes of the Grave on a couple people.

ASHLEY: Yeah, I want to stay close to Caleb, so the same area.

LAURA: Sam, same.

SAM: Sam?

MATT: Okay.

LAURA: Sam.

LIAM: Sammy.

MATT: So we have Beau and Veth are making their way towards the domed tower--

MARISHA: ♪ (tune of "A Thousand Miles") ♪

MATT: -- on the other side. Everyone else is staying near Caleb, or Fjord is right over the middle of the whole intersection. Got it.

LAURA: I'm going to be right above the arch where the person went.

MATT: Okay. So Caleb, as you dart down, it's this arch that goes over the middle of the roadway and you drift and the individual is just standing there, arms to the side. Getting a closer look now, you can see it's a man in his 40s, looks like he hasn't shaved in a few days. A little salt and pepper hair on the sides. Hair is combed back and a little bit to the left. Back and to the left.

ASHLEY: Back, to the left.

MATT: Dressed in nice clothing, though of a unique design that you've only seen in other places of the Aeor ruin. Something out of the corner of your eye twitches and you glance over and the base of the stone archway, the stone seems to gradually turn a reddish tint and towards the base of it, it seems to almost fan out like a skin where it meets the ground. You can see this smoother, fleshy texture.

SAM: Fleshy.

MATT: Where veins seem to almost undulate and bulge beneath the surface and you can see a couple of errant teeth just poking out in place.

TRAVIS: Get the fuck out, dude.

MATT: And it just becomes the archway and is stone.

TRAVIS: Damn this place.

ASHLEY: I hate it.

TRAVIS: I want out.

LAURA: I'm not a fan. Not a fan of this place.

TRAVIS: Let's go. Let's get out of here.

MARISHA: Teeth and flesh. Teeth and flesh.

TRAVIS: Survival of the--

LAURA: (groans)

MATT: How close do you get to this individual?

SAM: Close enough to tugboat. (laughter)

LIAM: Yeah, six-inch range.

MARISHA: Oh my god.

LIAM: Let's say 10 feet for now.

MATT: 10 feet?

LIAM: Yeah.

MATT: You drift down before them.

TRAVIS: In the butt cheeks.

MATT: And they look up and you can see the face is just blank before it goes.

SAM: Oh god.

MATT: And just starts sobbing, before the sobbing stops, their head twitches a bit to one side and one eye turns red and swells. (slurps) Their head seems to just balloon up as this massive red eye is now peering towards you.

SAM: Please don't pop.

MATT: With a (impact sound) and you feel your brain begin to get that fuzz a bit.

ASHLEY: I want to get closer to be in Caleb's range.

MATT: Okay.

LIAM: If I'm able, I'll pull back another five feet, if not--

MATT: You come back about five feet and you recognize this eye. It's been in a dream or two before or at least something like this and it says, "You know the terror of the end, mortal ones. The nothing, the acceptance of fate or even oblivion. We-- We cannot end. No, at all costs, oblivion must be destroyed. We will endure." You're hearing this in your mind. Everyone else, you're just watching them stare at each other. Beauregard, you are catching the faint conversation.

TRAVIS: Eyes of the Grave, Divine Sense, anything trigger within 60 feet? Nothing?

MATT: Nothing. But the closer you get, you begin to hear the conversation in your minds, too.

LAURA: I'm like right above it.

MATT: Yes.

LAURA: Ugh.

MATT: "Driven by fear, you are powerful. Yes. The need to survive, yes, yes, we can protect one another. I am Timorei, one of the Somnovem."

SAM: Oh.

MATT: "And I beseech to you, I need your aid, your aid, aid, aid, aid."

LIAM: Explain.

MATT: "Elatis and Luctus pathed to end our march, to bring darkness and nothing to all that we have made. They embrace-ace-ace the unknown. Their reasons are madness. They must be stopped. If you would find them, find them within the Aether Crux. End them so that we others may survive. Please!"

LIAM: You are not all one?

MATT: "The others around here, they cannot hear me. Just you."

LIAM: And if we were to help you, how would we?

MATT: "Find the Aether Crux. Find Elatis and Luctus where their essence resides and end them."

SAM: Oh god.

LAURA: Can I insight check to see if it feels like a trap?

MATT: Sure.

MARISHA: Is there Insight in the madness?

LAURA: Yeah, right?

SAM: We walked into WandaVision.

LAURA: No, I can't be here.

MARISHA: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

LAURA: N-n-nine. Maybe a nine is extra special here.

MATT: It's not even trying to read--

TRAVIS: Uh, no. (laughter)

MATT: -- the vocal pattern because there's no voice, these are just thoughts and emotions and just a shotgun of fear and communication through a veil of scattered insanity and madness. It is impossible to make out any intent behind it, beyond just what's being said, but what you do take from it, all of you do is a profound sense of terror. Not yours, though you may have your own in this instance but terror from this entity, this Timorei.

TRAVIS: And the names he said were Elactus and Luctus?

MATT: Elatis and Luctus.

LIAM: Elatis and Luctus.

MARISHA: Elatis and Luctus.

LAURA: Luctus.

TRAVIS: I wrote it three times trying to remember what you said because the sounds were so similar.

MARISHA: And the Aether Crux?

LIAM: Aether Crux. And what did this individual say that, I don't know if it's talking about itself, but it said a name beginning with a T?

MATT: Timorei.

LIAM: Timorei.

MARISHA: And he said he's one of the Somnovem?

TRAVIS: Yes.

SAM: And we met one just walking around the park or no? They're part of a hivemind?

LAURA: No, they're a hivemind.

MARISHA: Yeah, and he said but the others aren't here?

TRAVIS: It also doesn't mean he's telling the truth.

LIAM: Right.

MARISHA: Or he's going rogue against the other Somnovem.

LAURA: Yeah, that could be what it is.

MARISHA: I think that's what's happening.

LIAM: Or there's--

MATT: "Where is he?" The eye looks around and there's no expression, it's just this giant swollen fearful face and this gargantuan red eye that is just burning towards you. "Where is he? Where is the Nonagon?"

SAM: What?

MATT: "His second walks, but he is beyond our sight. He was to come, but we can't see him. Maybe he'll help, help."

LIAM: What'll he do when he arrives?

MATT: "He's going to help us through. Help us home. Welcome us home."

LIAM: How many of there are you?

MATT: "We are nine and another nine and within us many." And as you hear "many," everyone in the street around you at once says, "many" in unison.

TRAVIS: Ooh (chuckles). No.

SAM: Maybe they just need us to help them.

TRAVIS: I cast Meteor Swarm.

LAURA: They want to come through?

SAM: Yeah, so they can be better again.

TRAVIS: I don't have it, but I'm just--

TALIESIN: Go to sleep.

LIAM: This place is strange to us. What do we need to be wary of?

MATT: "The rest. I must go. I can sense them coming. They are curious, too. (terrified) "They're curious, too." And the eye (whoosh) reverts and the person just liquefies into the ground. (sloshing) (screaming) And where they were, cobblestone.

TRAVIS: Shut the f--

LAURA: These people aren't real. At least the people aren't real.

LIAM: Yeah.

LAURA: Get out of there, Caleb.

LIAM: This is like bio-organic dream material and the consciousness can slide around to anywhere it wants to go.

TALIESIN: I don't like any of this.

MARISHA: And he said there's nine and then nine within and then nine within, it is a fractal. This whole city is a fractal.

TRAVIS: I go down the 60 feet. I land on the cobblestone. I don't approach Caleb, but I just feet down.

LAURA: You touch-- you're touching the city?

TRAVIS: Yeah.

MATT: (impact sound)

MATT: You can feel the gravity. It walks normally.

TRAVIS: I take the tip of the sword and I just poke the cobblestone. Make a sound like stone?

MATT: Yep. (clink, clink)

LIAM: And there are still others walking about?

MATT: There's somebody else now who's turned towards you. You can see this older woman, her gray and white hair is braided up into this top-backed beautiful bow-like bun and she's wearing these deep green and turquoise robes. She's carrying a small bag, looks like it's containing some fruit and she looks over towards you and takes a step.

TRAVIS: I take a step back.

MATT: And you all begin to notice, the people that are walking, as they walk and you get a look, the clothing, the sleeves, there's no sleeve that goes over an arm. The sleeve becomes a hand.

ASHLEY: Oh my god.

MATT: The robe becomes a neck.

MARISHA: Like a Barbie or like a doll?

MATT: Meaning it's all one thing.

MARISHA: Like when you have a doll and you're like--

SAM: It's painted on.

MARISHA: Yeah and there's not really sleeves.

MATT: With each step, a portion of the ground reaches up for the foot and something from the foot reaches out and tethers and pulls it down.

TRAVIS: Oh my god.

LAURA: Ugh.

MATT: This old woman never fully leaves contact.

LIAM: Yeah.

MATT: And as she approaches, (growls) her throat bubbles outward and the mouth opens wide and a giant red eye (whoosh)--

LAURA: Fuck.

MATT: -- appears, and a voice goes (guttural) "Who? Who was here?" In your mind.

TRAVIS: "Who was here?" We don't know, we followed someone here.

MATT: (snarls) You all can begin to hear this growl come through in your various minds. (growls) "I can sense the brethren. Welcome."

TRAVIS: Thank you?

MARISHA and LAURA: (laugh)

MATT: "I am Ira."

SAM: Ira?

ASHLEY: Imira?

MATT: Ira.

ASHLEY: Ira. I apologize.

MATT: (chuckles)

TRAVIS: Roth Ira. (laughter)

SAM: Brother of Sep.

TALIESIN: Every name. There's no name that you can make that we can't break.

MATT: I know, and there's no way that I can't make you pay for it. "You march here with vengeance in your souls. Yes. Inferno in your bellies pushed by pain and the need to make it-- (snarls) make the planes bleed as you have suffered for their lack of respect. They all shall feel our wrath. Creation is born from destruction and if all that is worthy of us is destroyed, then so much more can be created or forgotten. Fates that threw us to torment and death, they all will pay. Who were you talking to?"

LIAM: We are new here. It is hard to get our bearings. I'm not sure.

MATT: Make a deception check.

SAM: You're going to get somebody in trouble.

MATT: With disadvantage because you are marked by them.

LIAM: 14.

MATT: 14. The eye that's looking at you (whooshes) shifts over towards you and the grandma's legs seem to break and fold on them as her body begins to fall forward and then slithers across the stone around you towards Caleb before righting itself, the mouth still wide and swollen, the eye peering at you.

LIAM: This time I don't back up.

MATT: "You lie." And every other civilian around at once goes, "Lie" in unison.

LIAM: It had the ring of truth, though. How do you feel about visitors in this, your fine city?

MATT: (low snarling) "Was it Mirumus?"

MARISHA: Mirumus?

MATT: "Was it Gaudius? Tell me." The eye burns brighter and redder and you can feel this white-hot pain in the back of your mind that begins to burgeon.

LIAM: Yeah, it was Gaudius.

MATT: Make a deception check.

LIAM: At disadvantage?

MATT: At disadvantage, yeah.

LIAM: 21.

MATT: 21. (snarls) "Gaudius, do not trust them. They push forward without call for truth in the evils of existence (snarls). They wash us all towards oblivion with arms open and naive. To strike first is to survive and to punish before you yourself can be hurt. All will eventually hurt you. Find their essences and destroy. Then maybe we can talk. Show me that you can do what I need you to do! (growls)" The mouth seems to distend and break as the eye pops into red ether energy. The now swollen and pulled back woman's head seems to snap backwards. Her body begins to shake and quiver as with about six of the other civilians around you begin to just (crackling). Before (gurgles) their flesh all simultaneously tears open in a whirlwind of teeth and eyes and muscle and tethering tentacles. (snarling) I need you all to roll initiative. (cheering)

TRAVIS: We're fighting in space!

ASHLEY: Matt, you're so good!

MARISHA: So wait, Ira?

LAURA: I don't like Ira.

TRAVIS: Timorei, Ira. Mirumus, Gaudius.

MARISHA: Gaudius.

TRAVIS: Elatis.

SAM: This creepy combat--

ASHLEY: What a cool map!

TRAVIS: Gaudius.

MATT: G-A-U-D-I-U-S.

SAM: -- was brought to you by Dwarven Forge.

LIAM: Who I just threw under the bus.

SAM: Makers of premium handcrafted gaming terrain.

LAURA: Gaudius, Mirumus, Ira, Timorei.

ASHLEY: Mirumus, Gaudius.

LIAM: Elatis and Luctus.

SAM: If you'd like to become a master of battle maps like Matt Mercer--

LAURA: There's so many. One, two, three, four, five, six.

SAM: -- cut your teeth on Dwarven Forge's starter sets.

ASHLEY: Name them again.

LAURA: Gaudius, Mirumus, Ira, Timorei, Elatis, Luctus.

SAM: Check it all out at bit.ly/CritRoleDF.

MATT: You had come down here near the fountain you said, in the center?

TRAVIS: Sure.

LIAM: I'm Ira Glass. Welcome back to This Aeorian Life.

MARISHA: I know, that's what I think of--

TRAVIS: Within a movement's distance of Caleb.

MATT: Yes, Caleb.

ASHLEY: This is Ira Glass.

LIAM: Love that dude.

MARISHA: Yeah (laughs).

MATT: Caleb, you had been approximately-- some of these individuals--

LIAM: I was nose-to-nose with her at the end there.

LAURA: Okay, all right.

LIAM: Which is great.

MATT: Right, she would have, let's say about right there.

LAURA: You can't say shake and quiver.

MATT: Withering around.

LAURA: You can't.

MATT: I know, every time. All right, Jester, you said you were?

LAURA: Above the arch.

MATT: Correct.

LAURA: So I was basically as close to the arch as I could get without landing on it, so yeah.

MATT: About there, we'll say.

LAURA: Yeah.

MATT: Okay.

LIAM: That only lasts an hour.

MATT: Caduceus, where would you be?

TALIESIN: I would have been in that little corner of the house, floating right between those two-- yeah, towards you.

MATT: Over here?

TALIESIN: Right there.

LAURA: This is so cool looking, Matt.

TALIESIN: I'm terrible at this, hold on.

MATT: That's what we have the pointers for.

TALIESIN: Like flying over here.

MATT: Over in this area?

TALIESIN: Yeah.

MATT: Okay, you got it.

TALIESIN: Just watch-- a little more closer to Caleb right there.

MATT: Right there?

TALIESIN: Yeah.

MATT: Okay, you got it.

TRAVIS: Woo hoo!

LIAM: Hey, my initiative is seven, I'll be back in flash.

MATT: Essek would have been likely ready the defensive point up on the rooftop of that building there.

TALIESIN: I should've healed Essek.

SAM: You healed us.

TALIESIN: Not everybody.

LAURA: He didn't heal Essek.

MATT: Not everybody. He's just taken a little bit of hurt, but he's not-- Actually, he's taken some hits. He's taken some hits. Yasha?

ASHLEY: Yeah, okay.

MATT: You said you were staying--

ASHLEY: I wanted to be pretty close to Caleb.

MATT: Correct.

ASHLEY: I hadn't touched the ground yet, but I feel like I'm pretty close, hovering above the ground.

MATT: Okay, we'll say you're about--

ASHLEY: Perfect, yeah.

MATT: -- here-ish?

ASHLEY: Yeah.

MATT: Okay.

ASHLEY: Oh boy, okay, let me roll.

LAURA: Do you think they'll all be immune, everything here will be immune to radiant and necrotic like the creatures in Aeor?

MARISHA: Well, I think the creatures in Aeor--

MATT: Beau and Veth, you said you were heading over towards the--

SAM: Yeah, we're near the--

LAURA: Were different?

SAM: -- weather vane.

MATT: You got it.

TALIESIN: This is a whole other ball park.

MARISHA: Yeah, I think they were basically cloning god-fighting creatures. They were basically test tube creating an army to be resistant against gods.

LAURA: Right.

MARISHA: Is what I'm pretty sure was going on.

TALIESIN: It's entirely possible that even a little psychic damage may go a long way, we don't know.

MATT: And you know what? Since we are about to go into battle, let's go ahead and do initiative order and then we'll probably jump to a break so we can go ahead and use the restrooms and stuff before we jump into this.

LAURA: Okay.

MATT: But to do that.

TALIESIN: This is going to be ugly.

LAURA: Yeah, that was the warning.

MATT: All righty.

MARISHA: This could be a long night.

ASHLEY: This is going to be rough.

MATT: So 25 to 20?

MARISHA: 21.

MATT: 21, all righty.

ASHLEY: 21, too. Woo!

MARISHA: My bae.

MATT: Beau, then Yasha.

ASHLEY: Baby!

MATT: Hell yeah. Then we have 20 to 15?

TRAVIS: 16.

SAM: My initiative is brought to you by Dwarven Forge and it's 17.

MATT: 17.

SAM: bit.ly/CritRoleDF.

TRAVIS: We were kind of talking over.

MATT: Veth, then Fjord. 15 to 10?

LAURA: 11.

MATT: All right, 10 to five?

SAM: (German accent) Caleb rolled a seven.

LIAM: Ja.

SAM: A soomphfs.

TRAVIS: Caduceus?

MARISHA: That was pretty good.

LIAM: Sieben.

LAURA: Oh no.

SAM: Nope, it's a soomphfs.

LIAM: Yeah, you're right.

TALIESIN: Oh yeah.

SAM: Ich bin ein, right? That's one, two, three?

TALIESIN: It's good. I can pick up anybody who dies.

LAURA: That's true.

SAM: Berliner is four.

LIAM: That is eins. I am a doughnut.

ASHLEY: Oh goodness.

LAURA: What did Essek roll?

MARISHA: Oh yeah.

MATT: He actually is the same as you.

LAURA: Okay.

MATT: But his dexterity is 16. What's yours?

LAURA: My dex is 18.

TRAVIS: So Jester, Essek, Caleb, Caduceus.

SAM: So the ones with the charcoal bases are the baddies? Is that right?

TALIESIN: They're kind of meat-colored.

SAM: Gross.

LIAM: Yeah.

LIAM: And there's a little--

MATT: For those individuals.

LIAM: -- meat lady with a diaper.

LAURA: I can't wait 'til we can be up close and personal with the map again.

MARISHA: I know.

LIAM: Oh my gosh.

ASHLEY: I know.

MATT: I know.

SAM: I don't. I like my table.

LAURA: I love having all the space.

ASHLEY: Maybe we can wiggle in closer.

LAURA: Yeah. I want be able to like--

TRAVIS: ♪ Wiggle and quiff? ♪ (laughter)

ASHLEY: Yeah.

MARISHA: Wiggle and quiff?

MATT: All righty. With initiative set. All of the entities now burst into terrifying fleshy abominations.

LAURA: Oh cool, cool.

SAM: Just like Barbie dolls.

MATT: Exactly (laughs).

TRAVIS: What an analogy. Whatever happened in Kentucky, man, just keep it in Kentucky, I don't know.

MARISHA: They're like dolls, you know?

SAM: Tentacles with big eye faces.

MARISHA: Yeah, and blue eyeshadow and pink lipstick.

TRAVIS: Like Barbies.

MATT: We'll go ahead and take a break.

TRAVIS: Hey!

MATT: So be back here in a few minutes to pick up for this combat and see where things go from here.

LIAM: Yeet.

Break
NARRATOR: So, you're the adventurer, as they'd been talking about. And you've come to seek my guidance. I've battled the most unspeakable horrors to crawl upon the face of this tainted land. Even faced evils that claw and nash from twisted forms, bent on destruction and slaughter. Though, it is the monsters inside us that take the greatest toll. Your tools will be your life. Every elixir, potion, and concoction, a powerful weapon on your hands. Each victory will bring you closer to your next, equipping you to face the darkness of this land. Failing is not an option, lest a fate, far worse than death greet you. So tell me, strangers, do you tremble at night? Haunted by visions of the dead? Does the sound of the Inferno, rattling their demonic chains chill your blood? Do you cower at the thought of losing all you love to the corruption of the beast? No? Well, perhaps you have what it takes. With this tome of knowledge, your training begins. Let's see how far you get.

NARRATOR: (dragon breathing fire) This is everything you need to know about our terrain in 60 seconds. We hand sculpt our pieces for maximum detail and artistry, infusing passion into every millimeter of our work. Everything is available, beautifully hand painted so you can start playing right away. Or you can choose unpainted to paint everything yourself. Our pieces are completely modular, so you can use the same sets to create a new adventure, every time. we create everything out of Dwarvenite, our top secret PVC formula that's nearly indestructible. We pack our pieces with as many features as possible, such as swappable LED's to quickly change the look of your scene. We offer magnetic accessories to add flavor or increase the danger. A one inch tactical grid is sculpted into our floors. We offer a range of environments including dungeons, caverns, cities, castles, sewers, forest mountains, streets, burrows, ice, and hellscape. And that's just the beginning. That's everything you need to know about Dwarven Forge in 60 seconds.

(fantasy music) (keyboard typing)

LAURA: Hey critters, Laura Bailey here. Let's see what's up in the Critical Role Shop. I mean, a traveler always says impulse purchases are a good decision. Roll an investigation, if you want. It's basically perfect. Go ahead, darling. Treat yourself. This is, this is a lot of stuff you guys. We have like, so many cool things right now. (tea bag dipping into tea) I mean, seriously, look, I have this thing. (clicking) So click on over to the Critical Role Shop. (laughing) Don't worry, there's a few more minutes in the break, you still got time.

MARISHA: (upbeat jazz music) Hello everyone. It's me. Marisha Ray, creative director for Critical Role content. And I want to take a moment to speak from the heart about how much we appreciate your support. No frills, no crazy gags. Just honesty. Over the past five years we've made a lot of ridiculous promos in an attempt to earn your subscription here on Twitch. We've leaned on juvenile prop humor, cheap costumes, and putting our loyal employees in slightly embarrassing situations, eagerly hoping that we've captured your attention. Today, I am not resorting to edge lord jokes, written by Brian W. Foster, Or dressing Sam as a celebrity to recreate an obscure commercial most people haven't seen, to remind you that subscribing with a Twitch prime account requires you to resubscribe each month. We don't always need an elaborate green screen gag, or have to put Matt in cosplay to tell you that you can easily give subscriptions to fellow Critters. If you're feeling generous. I mean, hell, I've consumed entire production days shooting complicated parody promos featuring Taliesin Jaffe as a vintage spooky boy and full monochromatic glory. All in the hope that your smile may turn into a sub, but not today. No weird graphics, no puppet murder. No Sam Riegel. It's just me here to say, thank you. Love you all, good night.

Part II
MATT: And welcome back. We're going to jump into this initiative order in combat.

LIAM: Oh!

MARISHA: Oh shit!

LAURA: Oh god!

MATT: Right now.

SAM: Oh, we didn't strategize!

MARISHA: We didn't strategize at all.

LIAM: We don't know anything about them.

TRAVIS: Talking about tugboating.

MATT: But that's fine. Beau, you're up first.

MARISHA and LAURA: (screaming)

MARISHA: So all these fleshy things are mad at us is essentially it? All these fleshy things are fair game?

MATT: I mean, you don't know.

TRAVIS: It seems like a pretty primal display.

LAURA: They seem pretty terrible, yeah.

MARISHA: Where's the grandma that split in half?

LIAM: In front of Caleb.

TRAVIS: Colors and actions in nature that seem aggressive.

MARISHA: Okay, well. Do I get any weird feelings or thoughts from the eyeballs that are on my body?

MATT: At the moment? Not anything different than you've been sensing since you got here.

MARISHA: Okay, please don't barf. Oh god.

LIAM: (growling)

MARISHA: I'm going to--

LAURA: Ooh.

TRAVIS: (lip trill)

MARISHA: I'm going to jump in and head towards the one that was getting up in Caleb's face.

MATT: Okay, are you using your base movement onto the ground or are you going to use your intellect to will yourself to move?

MARISHA: Well, in all honesty, they're pretty close to the same.

MATT: Fair enough.

MARISHA: One is speed of 55, and the other is the speed of, like, 57 because it's 19 times three.

MATT: Fair enough.

MARISHA: So I will use my brain.

LIAM: Check out the brain on Beau. (laughter)

SAM: So wait, we're still unaffected by gravity up here, Matty?

MATT: No, you can feel the tug of it. You can choose whether or not to go by gravity.

TRAVIS: Laura, come on.

TALIESIN: I thought we finally got past that.

LIAM: Hey, come on.

TRAVIS: Come on.

LIAM: After the last two hours, what'd you expect? (laughter)

TRAVIS: This started like an hour and a half ago.

LAURA: I'm sorry, I'm sorry. (laughter)

SAM: You can choose to go by intelligence speed or tugboat.

MATT: As you will yourself off of the top of this and glide downward

MARISHA: I guess, let me get to the ground. Because that'll be my move, I guess.

MATT: Correct.

MARISHA: So let me move as far as I can to the ground.

MATT: That would be about to there.

MARISHA: Which has me how far away? Like 15-ish feet?

MATT: Yeah, 10 feet away.

MARISHA: 10 feet away. Okay, yeah. I might as well Step of the Wind to get there.

MATT: Okay, let's do it.

TRAVIS: As she moves, do we see her literally move in a diagonal?

MATT: Yeah, you see her glide down, touch on the ground, and go into an immediate run towards it. As you approach.

TRAVIS: What does the ground do as her feet leave the pavement? Is it that same (sucking) thing?

MARISHA: Good question.

MATT: Right now, it's just stone. Nothing different.

SAM: Right now.

MARISHA: Okay, I'm going to take out my staff and give it a nice little twirl behind my back and just start laying into this thing and see what I can do.

MATT: (coughs) Oh yeah, one-two.

MARISHA: I don't know what going to happen. You all right, baby?

MATT: I'm good. (coughs) Go ahead.

MARISHA: Inhaled some spit?

MATT: Inhaled some drink.

MARISHA: A-pop pop!

MATT: Pardon me.

MARISHA: The first one is a natural 19 for a 31 to hit. And then the second one is 21.

MATT: Oh great, both those hit.

MARISHA: Both of those hit, okay. (gibberish) Okay. The first one is 10 damage.

MATT: 10 damage, all right.

MARISHA: 10 damage! Stunning Strike. Let's see if I can even stun these things.

LIAM: Stunning once, stunning twice.

MARISHA: Sold to the monk in the corner.

MATT: It is not stunned.

MARISHA: It is not stunned, but you rolled? I thought I heard a clanky clank. Did I hear a clanky clank?

TRAVIS: He did.

MARISHA: All right, cool.

TRAVIS: Couldn't tell you that he looked at what he rolled, though.

MARISHA: Yeah, mm-hmm.

LAURA: Hmm.

MARISHA: Hmm. The second is 11 points of damage

MATT: 11, all righty.

MARISHA: And I'm going to Flurry of Blows from here.

MATT: You've already used your bonus action to Step into the Wind.

MARISHA: Fuck. You are right. That's it, that's my turn.

LIAM: Did it look like Beauregard hit the thing and it reacted and recoiled?

MATT: It took hits and was like (impacts, grunting). But it's like punching a waterbed, almost.

MARISHA: Okay.

MATT: And as soon as you recoil, teeth begin to emerge where the impacts were and drift along the outside and you see eyes open and then whip and then appear elsewhere within the body and undulates and changes shape.

MARISHA: Does it look familiar to our eyes or?

MATT: No, like actual like humanoid, whites and irises eyes.

MARISHA: Okay, great.

MATT: All right.

ASHLEY: I don't like it, I don't like it.

MATT: That finishes Beauregard's turn. Yasha, you're up, with Veth on deck.

ASHLEY: Okay, is that a bird on top of the fountain?

MATT: It is a sculpture of a bird, not an actual bird.

LIAM: Kill it.

ASHLEY: I'm going to go over the bird.

MATT: At the start of your turn--

ASHLEY: No, no.

TRAVIS: What's that doing here? (laughter)

MATT: -- you begin to hear, for those who are in the proximity, all of the mouths that are undulating and shaping and reverting are now beginning to scream together.

LAURA: Oh no.

MATT: And the screams are filling the air and those that are nearby them right now. Yasha, you are feeling the screams piercing into your ears and your mind. I need you to go ahead and make a wisdom saving throw.

ASHLEY: My sword? Do I--?

MATT: You get the bonus from your sword. Yeah.

ASHLEY: Just seeing if I needed to take it out or anything like that. Okay, okay.

TRAVIS: It should be out, yes.

ASHLEY: I mean, I wanted it out. I didn't know if he was going to let me do it. Okay, come on, you got to roll well.

MATT: You can draw a weapon as part of your action, so.

ASHLEY: Okay, come on, come on. Oh, natural 20.

TRAVIS: Yes!

MARISHA: Yeah!

MATT: Okay. So you manage to shrug them off no issue. What would you like to do on your turn?

ASHLEY: Kiss the sword, okay.

TRAVIS: Yeah. (kissing)

ASHLEY: I am going to rage, rage, I'm going to rage.

MATT: There you go. There you go. (laughs)

MARISHA: You got this.

ASHLEY: Okay, so I'm going to attack.

MATT: So you're going to drift towards it?

ASHLEY: Yeah. I'm going to drift towards it.

MATT: Staying floating, sword out, ready to go? You got it. All right, make your attacks.

SAM: You're attacking grandma?

ASHLEY: 18.

MATT: 18 hits.

ASHLEY: Yeah. Okay. Ooh, woo! Okay. Squeeze by. Go to my notes. Okay. (sighs) That would be... Okay. 36 points of damage.

MATT: Woo!

ASHLEY: I rolled really, really well.

TRAVIS: Oh Holy Avenger!

ASHLEY: Second hit.

MATT: Second hit, go for it.

ASHLEY: Ugh! It's a natural one. (groaning)

MATT: First strike, you carve through it and you watch as a large part of its body sloughs off onto the ground and then begins to disperse a reddish-purple liquid, and then slowly begin to seep into the ground and become cobblestone once more. Much of it still remains, but it is heavily, heavily wounded. That finishes your turn?

ASHLEY: Yeah.

MATT: All right, finishing your go. That brings us to Veth. Fjord, you're on deck. Veth.

SAM: On top of that tower--

MATT: Mm-hmm?

SAM: Can I use partial flying motion to get around the back and inside the clock tower there or whatever that tower is?

MATT: You could. How far can you fly with your intelligence?

SAM: 46 feet.

MATT: Easy enough to do, yeah. If you'd like to.

SAM: But around the back, so they don't see me going in.

MATT: Correct, so.

SAM: Ugh.

TRAVIS: Weird. I saw it separate and then didn't separate.

MATT: Yeah, it's being a little wonky there. It's okay.

SAM: Oh boy.

MATT: So with that, you drift through and then fly through the space and you can definitely make it within the inside of this.

SAM: Okay, and then I'll sort of bonus action hide, if I can.

MATT: Easy enough to do from there.

SAM: I'll just roll a stealth check. 27.

MATT: Feel pretty well hidden.

SAM: Okay, now do I want to kill or do I want to disable? Are we resting ever?

MARISHA and TALIESIN: I hope so.

LIAM: We don't know.

LIAM: We need to, but it doesn't feel like we are able to.

TRAVIS: Sure would be nice.

SAM: Sure would be nice. I'll try to disable one. I'll point to the one close by down there. And I will--

MATT: Right there?

SAM: Yeah, I will tell it a joke. I will point at it and say: What do you get when you cross Beauregard and two bowls of bran cereal? Monk shit! (laughter)

LAURA: Wow.

ASHLEY: That was good.

LAURA: Wow.

TRAVIS: Wow.

LAURA: Oh no.

TRAVIS: You have to roll for that?

SAM: And I get advantage on my thing because--

MARISHA: Do you?

SAM: Because I'm hidden.

MATT: That's right, the ambush.

SAM: I'm a spell sniper or something like that.

MATT: Yeah, you do. It's a wisdom save, right?

SAM: It's a wisdom save.

MATT: Okay.

SAM: Oh yeah, maybe the whole city will laugh.

LIAM: Just cuts through the Astral Sea.

TRAVIS: Cacophonous.

TALIESIN: ♪ I started a joke ♪

MATT: You see part of it spirals upward and turns towards you. And about six eyes (fluttering) appear in that space.

SAM: Oh god.

MATT: A mouth opens up beneath and teeth gnash. (deep chuckling) All these mouths begin to appear and laugh on its surface as it spills into the ground. And begins turning into nothing but a pile of swirling flesh with dozens of mouths that are all laughing. You begin to have horrible flashbacks to the Laughing Hand, but nevertheless, it is effective and is prone.

SAM: I'm slaying him! (laughter)

LAURA: The laughter doesn't hurt our ears like the screaming does?

LIAM: I killed them in Aeoria.

MATT: Not at the moment. No one's-- You can hear the laughter in the distance, but it's also you're hearing the screaming of everything nearby you right now.

LAURA: Okay.

MATT: All right, so does that finish your turn, Veth?

SAM: Yes, it does.

MATT: Fjord, you're up.

TRAVIS: I'm going to use my mind to push myself 42 feet straight up into the air off of the ground.

MATT: All right. Up into the sky. Now we're all flying around.

SAM: Wait, I can go 48 feet. That's an extra two feet.

TRAVIS: Veth doesn't need to be quite.

MATT: (laughs) Pardon me, while I quickly get some super glue.

SAM: Oh no.

TRAVIS: (lisping) Get the super glue on Fjord's feet. It broke.

MATT: Live gaming right here.

SAM: Wait, did you just break Fjord?

MATT: He came off his base.

TRAVIS: Look, I work out as often as I can, okay?

LIAM: The base came off?

ASHLEY: These aren't fiends, are they? No.

MATT: They are not fiends.

ASHLEY: Okay, just making sure.

MATT: ♪ The magic of super glue ♪

SAM: Are you literally gluing things right now?

MATT: I am.

SAM: Holy crap, live?!

MATT: So you want to go on top of there, 42 feet up, you said?

TRAVIS: Yeah, just 42 feet straight up

LAURA: 42 feet?

TRAVIS: Yeah, that's exactly what my--

LAURA: That's the meaning of life.

TRAVIS: What?

LAURA: People that know will know.

MATT: There you go.

SAM: Douglas Adams.

MATT: Douglas Adams, yeah.

SAM: Not Scott.

TRAVIS: This guy right here, down by the door. I'll send three Eldritch-- or was that getting warped by -

MATT: This one right there?

TRAVIS: Yeah. I'll send three Eldritch Blasts in his direction.

MATT: You got it.

TRAVIS: That is 28 to hit.

MATT: That hits.

TRAVIS: Second one is-- Ugh, that's a 15.

MATT: 15 hits.

TRAVIS: 15 hits! And 28 again.

MATT: Three hits.

TRAVIS: Okay. No, this is a 10.

SAM: ♪ (sings with background music) ♪

TRAVIS: Nine. 13. 21. 21-- 34 points of force damage.

MATT: You got it.

TRAVIS: And with my bonus action, I'll make my face turn into a big red eye.

MATT: (laughs) Okay.

TRAVIS: I don't know! When in Aeor.

MATT: Yeah. (laughter)

MATT: All right, that finishes Fjord's go. It is now the Cognouza flesh horrors' go.

LIAM: Flesh horrors.

LAURA: The what?

LIAM: The Cognouza flesh horrors.

MATT and TALIESIN: Flesh horrors.

LAURA: Cool.

TRAVIS: Hoarders.

MATT: This one's going to go ahead and move.

SAM: Flesh Hoarders?

LIAM: Horrors.

SAM: Hurrur.

LIAM: Hurror. Hahrah.

MATT: This one is going to move 20 feet up to Caleb there.

LIAM: Oh good.

MATT: Oh god.

LAURA: Oh god.

TALIESIN: Oh no.

MATT: This one's going to go ahead and move 20 feet up to there. That's as far as it can get on its movement. This one's going to move 20 feet up to there. This one can't do anything right now. Go ahead and to move 20 feet up to here. You get the immediate sense that they can't travel quickly. As they (slurping), some of them slide like that one grandmother corpse did earlier, but she was being puppeted by something else and had alacrity that these lack in the moment.

TRAVIS: Oh, interesting.

MATT: So those three, four can't do anything, but those two, one's going to go after Caleb, and one's going to go after Beauregard. Caleb, attacking you.

TRAVIS: (high-pitched) Caleb!

MATT: 26?

LIAM: Hits.

MATT: And 12.

MARISHA: Miss.

MATT: Well, that was against--

LIAM: Damage.

MARISHA: Oh, thought that was one and two.

MATT: No, that wasn't damage, that was to hit.

LIAM: To hit me?

MATT: Yeah.

LIAM: Oh, a 12 against me?

MATT: Yes. So that misses.

LIAM: Oh, so I didn't get-- no.

MATT: So the Torrent of Teeth does get to you.

MARISHA and SAM: The Torrent of Teeth.

TRAVIS: These are all friendly names.

TALIESIN: I stopped using Torrents years ago.

MARISHA: (laughs)

TALIESIN: This is exactly why.

MATT: It's for the best, yeah. All right, so you take... 32 points of piercing damage.

LIAM: Oh my.

TRAVIS: 32 points of piercing damage.

MATT: Correct. And I need you to make a strength saving throw.

LIAM: I'm good at that.

ASHLEY: Is he within 10 feet of me?

MATT: He is.

ASHLEY: You have advantage.

LIAM: Thank you. Ooh, I rolled an 18 and a 19. So 19.

MATT: You watch as a tendril goes out and wraps around your body and you feel like you're being buzz sawed from multiple positions in your torso and you manage to tear yourself away as it tries to wrestle you to the ground. You're fine. Other than the damage you took. As it pulls back, these tentacles whip back towards you and you just back down and the staff gives an immediate shield and they reflect off, no impact. Beauregard.

TRAVIS: Interesting.

MATT: That is a 23 to hit.

MARISHA: That hits.

MATT: And 19 to hit.

MARISHA: Miss.

MATT: All right, so Torrent of Teeth against you. Okay.

LIAM: Are they rangy? Are they slorping out over 10 feet?

TRAVIS: Slorping out.

MATT: They're right next to you, so you don't know.

LIAM: Can't tell.

MATT: That would be 34 points of piercing damage as the teeth grind into your body. And you manage to force yourself out of the way, hopefully, if you make a strength saving throw, please.

ASHLEY: Within 10 feet?

MATT: Yes.

MARISHA: Strength saving throw. Not good, 15 total.

ASHLEY: You get to roll again. Because I have Holy Avenger, so hopefully you get better.

MARISHA: That is better, 18 total.

TRAVIS: Checking the Avenger, I think.

MATT: Yeah, just double check.

TRAVIS: Is it anybody, or once per turn?

ASHLEY: "Creates an aura in a 10-foot radius around you. You and all creatures friendly to you in the aura have advantage on saving throws against... spells another magical effects."

MATT: That's what I was going to check.

MARISHA: Oh.

ASHLEY: Yeah, sorry. My bad.

MATT: It's okay.

MATT: You rolled well last time, so you're fine. That first one, what was the first one you were rolled?

MARISHA: A 15.

MATT: 15 is just what you needed, anyway.

MARISHA: (relieved sigh)

TRAVIS: Ooh, Beau.

MATT: So you take the damage, but it does not wrestle you to the ground.

TRAVIS: Don't go in the wood shop.

MATT: And the second attack, as tentacles try and whip out towards you.

MARISHA: Okay.

MATT: You manage to just knock it away with the staff.

MARISHA: Yeah, ah!

MATT: That finishes their turn. So they're not terribly hardy, but they definitely pack a punch.

MARISHA: Yeah.

MATT: That brings us to Jester, with Essek on deck. Jester, what would you like to do?

LAURA: I'm going to--

TRAVIS: Rage?

LAURA: I would like to rage! I'm going to... cast Guiding Bolt, but I'm going to use my ring of spell splitting. So I'm going to aim at one of them in the midst of the group.

MATT: All right, which one? There's two of them that have been hit. This one's been hit.

LAURA: Okay.

MATT: Or sorry, both of the ones that are right there up in the middle of the fray have been hit.

LAURA: Okay. I'll do the one closest to the wall.

MATT: Okay.

LAURA: And then I'll also do the one down on the other side in between the circular tower and me.

MATT: Over this way?

LAURA: Yeah, that one that you were just pointing at.

MATT: Gotcha. So those two.

LAURA: And this is a 3rd-level spell.

MATT: You got it. So go ahead and roll for attacks on each. You're noticing with this, the weird, wild, strange magic of Aeor that was based in the crash of the ruins does not reach to this space. So you don't have to worry about that.

LAURA: Oh great. Woo, both of those are really good. A 25 and a 28.

MATT: Both hit. Let's go ahead and roll damage once and they both take it.

LAURA: Okay. So that's 6d6.

ASHLEY: Wow.

LAURA: That's great. 11, 16, 22, 24, radiant damage to both of them. And they're both-- The next hit has advantage.

MATT: Indeed.

SAM: Nice.

MATT: The next hit on this one gets advantage. This one, as you slam it with the Guiding Bolt, it impacts and it screeches. The screams suddenly becoming a dozen to a hundred and then it just burns away into ash. (swishing) And is gone. In the middle of the screams, you briefly hear a sigh of relief.

LIAM: Free from hell.

MARISHA: Mm-hmm.

LAURA: Oh god.

MARISHA: Let go.

MATT: You want to move? Stay put?

LAURA: I'm going to rise up. I'm going to rise up!

TRAVIS: Rage rise up!

MARISHA: Raise, rise up!

LAURA: Raise, rise up! Like 20-- oh god, actually-- oh god, maybe I don't want to rise up. I'm going to rise up and stand up on the rooftop. Not the same one that Yasha is on, but the other one. This one.

TRAVIS: Why did you just spray laser on my table?

LAURA: Did I?

SAM: I think it was a reflection.

TRAVIS: (buzzing)

LAURA: Yeah.

MATT: All right, definitely got that.

SAM: ♪ Bee bop a doo ♪

ASHLEY and MATT: ♪ Bee bop a doo ♪

ALL: ♪ Die die! ♪

MATT: Okay. Does that finish your turn Jester?

LAURA: Yes.

MATT: All right, Essek's go.

LIAM: (as George W. Bush) Could we see the whole square?

SAM: (broad Texan accent) Could we see the whole square? Good.

LAURA: Cool.

MATT: All righty.

TRAVIS: Overwatch, can we see the whole square?

MARISHA: Hitting it-- I can hear-- (cheering) (laughter)

MARISHA: "Yeah, yeah, blah blah blah blah"

TALIESIN: So they're slow.

LAURA: Yeah.

MATT: They don't seem to move very far.

TRAVIS: Thank you.

MATT: In comparison to some other things.

LAURA: So we could run away.

TALIESIN: If we're in the mood for that.

LAURA: But we just freed one and it felt happy. We must free every citizen of this city.

MATT: (laughs) Yeah, by all means. Essek is going to go ahead and--

TRAVIS: Is that what we're doing?

MATT: -- drift down and glide above the ground here. As he drifts there, he brings his hands together into like gathering energy perspective. Full-on hadouken motion, like crackling energy. And then he one handed flings it forward and a bolt of black electricity arcs forward through to that one through that one and off about another 30 or 40 feet in that direction. Before you hear the crackle and slight boom of thunder in the space doing a Lightning Bolt against both of them. That's a great roll. Whew! 36 points of damage. If they make their save or not. That guy fails. And that guy fails even lower. Okay. So that is 36 points of lightning damage there. And 36 points of lightning damage to him. That one's looking pretty torn up. All right. Essek withdraws and stays floating in that position and is going to go ahead and back up a bit Because he still has a little bit of movement left. Just also super high intelligence. Finishing Essek's go. It is now Caleb's.

LIAM: Okay, I don't think that the oogity boogity that's right there is right on top of me. It looks like it's a bit of a distance. Hopefully it is.

MATT: Nope, it's within five feet of you.

LIAM: Within five feet of me?

MATT: Yeah.

LIAM: All right, then I'm just going to pull out my cat's cradle and slam it into the stone and send streaks of fire with Widogast's Web of Fire towards the three that are closest to me.

MATT: There, there, and there.

LIAM: And one-- oh I can go underneath the thing that Yasha's miniature is on to get the one that's just laughing on the ground.

MATT: Correct.

LIAM: And one to streak diagonally past the one closest to me to get to the one on the far fountain.

MATT: So you're going to hit all five.

LIAM: Yeah.

MATT: Okay.

SAM: That's crazy.

MATT: Dex save for each.

LIAM: Dex save.

MATT: All right. The one that is on the ground, I believe auto fails because it is incapacitated.

SAM: Okay.

MATT: The other four do make it, so roll the damage first.

LIAM: Okay. ♪ (sings with background music) ♪

MARISHA and MATT: (laughs)

LIAM: 33 total.

MATT: 33. All righty, so he takes 33.

LAURA: How do you do that?

MATT: The one over there succeeds. That guy over on that side.

LAURA: What is it?

SAM: Doesn't that hurt your finger?

TRAVIS: It does.

MATT: That guy.

LAURA: Oh, that's so simple. I was think it was so much harder than it was.

MATT: He's taken enough damage that he just incinerates. Burns into ash as well.

LAURA: Eat it, flesh horror.

MATT: That one right there. Fails, and also ignites.

SAM: Nice!

LIAM: Oh my goodness.

MATT: Screeches and screams before it is left into dust.

LAURA: Do we hear little sighs of relief on those as well?

MATT: For each death, the screams turned into like a-- (relieved sigh) as the ashes fade off. And the last one, naw, I rolled low.

LIAM: "Fuck you mortgage. (sigh)"

TRAVIS: Yeah.

LIAM: And since there's nothing now on top of me, I will use my mind to fly 60 feet straight up.

SAM: With mind bullets.

LIAM: Maybe I'll go to 50.

ALL: ♪ With mind bullets ♪

MARISHA: (air guitar)

TRAVIS: That's telekinesis, Kyle. How about the power--

TRAVIS, LIAM, MARISHA, and TALIESIN: -- to move you? (singing)

MARISHA: There it is.

MATT: ♪ Mystery of Wonder-- ♪ Okay, that brings us to Caduceus, you're up.

LIAM: ♪ Fliggy goo goo! ♪

TALIESIN: I'm going to-- (laughter)

TALIESIN: I'm just going to send a Sacred Flame towards that one that's right below me.

MATT: You got it.

TALIESIN: And that's a dex save.

MATT: That is a dex save. Fail.

LIAM: Gotta love 'em.

TALIESIN: All right, that's-- should just keep these out, I keep using them. Well, that's pretty good. 20 points of radiant damage.

MATT: 20 points radiant, nice!

TALIESIN: Wow, it's still up.

MATT: Yes, that one right there, yeah.

TALIESIN: And I'm going to fly a little towards Caleb and get a little higher into the-- I'm going just get a little bit higher into the sky.

MATT: Okay. You're higher in the sky, we'll go with that.

TALIESIN: Yeah, we'll go with that.

MATT: Use your imagination.

TALIESIN: As long as I am within 60 feet of these guys.

MATT: You're fine. All righty, that finishes Caduceus' go. Top of the round. It is Beau, then Yasha. Beau, the proximity of the screams around you-- actually-- Just to go back on this, Caleb, go ahead and roll wisdom saving throw for me, please. But you do have the bonus of-- oh no, There is no advantage of that, so.

LIAM: For me, there's a total of 16.

MATT: 16, you're fine. Okay, Beauregard, roll a wisdom saving throw for me, please.

MARISHA: Okay.

TRAVIS: Say it.

MARISHA: Ah, it's kind of bad, 14.

MATT: 14.

TRAVIS: Yes!

MATT: Okay.

LAURA: Ooh, it's happening.

MARISHA: Here we go.

MATT: The screams pierce into your mind and you feel the spaces in your body where the eyes are set begin to vibrate with them. I need you to go ahead and roll a d8 for me.

LAURA: Oh no.

TRAVIS: Yeah, I love it when you affect the choice.

SAM: Confusion?

TALIESIN: No, no.

LAURA: Maybe.

MARISHA: Seven.

MATT: Seven. Okay. You-- Suddenly, the vision around you begins to become a mess of colors and shapes and you strike out towards the creature as it rumbles towards you. Go ahead and roll two attacks.

TRAVIS: (laughs) That's not the creature.

LIAM: Look out, Yasha.

ASHLEY: Hi baby.

MARISHA: Whack whack! (laughter)

MARISHA: Flesh monster!

LIAM: Yep.

MARISHA: Okay, 29.

MATT: Does that hit your armor class?

SAM: Jesus.

ASHLEY: Yes. (laughter)

MARISHA: And 21.

ASHLEY: Yeah.

MATT: All right, so go ahead and roll damage against Yasha.

SAM: No!

MARISHA: Why are they good?

SAM: Their first lovers' fight.

MARISHA: Why is it good?

LAURA: Why do you always attack each other?

MARISHA: I don't know, why do we keep fighting?!

ASHLEY: Because we have so much passion!

MARISHA: There's so much pent up rage.

ASHLEY: (growl-yells)

LIAM: ♪ Let the bodies hit the floor! ♪

MARISHA: They're both 13, so 26 total.

MATT: But you take half that because you are raging and they are bludgeoning, so you take 13.

MARISHA: That's true.

TRAVIS: Unless you take it all because of love.

MATT: Indeed.

LAURA: Mm-mm. (laughter)

ASHLEY: I love you, but no.

MARISHA: No.

TRAVIS: Also, fuck you.

MATT: So your turn ends as you pull back and the screams subside a bit and you shake it out and you look forward and you can see Yasha recoiling from the impacts of your blows.

MARISHA: I didn't--

ASHLEY: I think--

MARISHA: Oh no.

ASHLEY: This was long overdue, I practically killed you, this is not that bad.

MARISHA: Well, I guess it's fair play, yeah.

MATT: (laughs) All right, finishing Beau's turn.

SAM: Kill her, Yasha!

MATT: Yasha, you're you're up.

ASHLEY: Okay, so--

LIAM: (like Veth) She turned on us!

TRAVIS: Way to go, Dark Beau! (laughter)

ASHLEY: Also, because I rolled twice, because I thought my sword with the wisdom, but the-- the first roll that I rolled was a 14 plus one so it brought me to 15. And then I also rolled a natural 20.

MATT: Right, but you rolled with advantage when you weren't supposed to, right?

ASHLEY: I know, the 20 was the advantage.

MATT: To a total of 15?

ASHLEY: Yeah.

MATT: 15 is just what you needed.

ASHLEY: Oh, okay. I just thought I had to be honest in case something happened.

MATT: Yeah, because you rolled a 14 last time?

MARISHA: I rolled a 14.

MATT: Yeah, you were just beneath.

ASHLEY: Okay, okay. All right, so what I'm going to do is, I'm going to push Beau with my finger on her forehead. (laughter) And then I'm going to walk to--

LIAM: Her 10 strength.

ASHLEY: I'm going to walk to-- or float over to--

LIAM: That was awesome.

MARISHA: Yeah.

ASHLEY: In front of me, yeah.

MATT: Okay.

TRAVIS: "Move."

MATT: So as you glide through the air towards this creature--

TALIESIN: Hey, we all float down here.

SAM: That's true.

ASHLEY: Take a swing.

MATT: Go for it.

ASHLEY: Okay.

MATT: Sword out.

ASHLEY: (groans)

TRAVIS: Say it!

ASHLEY: Natural one.

MATT: Fuck!

TRAVIS: That's the second one today.

MARISHA: It is.

ASHLEY: I'm going to put you--

TRAVIS: Get him out.

LAURA: Oh yeah!

ASHLEY: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. Okay.

TRAVIS: Ain't got time for that shit.

SAM: Come on, Orphan Maker!

ASHLEY: 22.

MATT: 22 hits. The first strike you go and swing wide and it seems like it's cutting in, but instead, it's actually swallowing it. It's going into the mouth, the teeth are scraping on the blade and you pull out quickly and angrily do a second swipe and it does hit true. Go ahead and roll damage.

ASHLEY: Okay.

MATT: But since this is your first hit, you still do full damage.

ASHLEY: Okay. I'm going to try Savage Attacker. Oh yeah, that's way better.

LIAM: Were those dice that she had?

SAM: Yeah, they--

LAURA: They're teeny teeny!

LIAM: Like the size of teeth.

ASHLEY: I know, they're really small. I just like them because they're cute.

LAURA: They are so cute though.

SAM: They're baby teeth!

TRAVIS: They're real teeth.

ASHLEY: I feel like you got me those way back in the day. Anyway. Okay.

SAM: Are they Ronin's?

LIAM: First teeth to fall out.

LAURA: I did give her teeth dice, so that makes sense.

ASHLEY: Oh, 36 again.

MATT: That's great.

ASHLEY: 36 points of damage.

SAM: 36?

LAURA: Wow!

TRAVIS: In one hit? Fuck!

MATT: You-- angrily your second swipe cleaves it in half and both sides-- (squelches) and slowly dissolve into the ground. It is destroyed.

ASHLEY: I'm going to turn behind me just over my shoulder, (kiss) give her a kiss, blow her a kiss.

SAM: The tentacle monster?

ASHLEY: Yes.

MATT: (laughs)

MARISHA: Wait!

ASHLEY: Super into tentacles.

MARISHA: Wait.

ASHLEY: Er, that probably-- (laughter) Leave it, leave it. Move on.

MATT: Anyway!

TRAVIS: You're in trouble now.

LIAM: Yeah.

ASHLEY: No, no, no, no.

TRAVIS: (rewind talking)

ASHLEY: Who's next? I'm done.

MARISHA: We'll explore later. (laughter)

MATT: It is now Veth's go, with Fjord on deck.

SAM: Is there only one creature left?

MATT: There's two of them. One is no longer laughing. It did save at the end of its last turn.

SAM: Oh. But it's prone?

MATT: But it's prone still currently.

TRAVIS and MARISHA: ♪ Ooh, it's that Laffy Taffy! ♪

SAM: Okay, I will float. By the way, just checking around this clock tower, there's nothing interesting in there?

MATT: Inside? No. And it's not as much a clock tower-

SAM: No silly imp holding a glowing thing or anything? No.

MATT: Not on this floor, no, it's all pretty open.

TRAVIS: A silly imp!

SAM: I will then float out into the bough of the tree, the leaves of the tree.

TRAVIS and LIAM: Bow of a ship!

SAM: And sort of, you know... make my way through the--

ASHLEY: ♪ Makin' my way! ♪

SAM: -- tree leaves, hiding as I go with my bonus action.

MATT: All righty.

SAM: With another-- it's 27.

MATT: You feel pretty well hidden within the leaves.

SAM: I peek out of the leaves and I fire my crossbow at the one that I told the joke to.

MATT: Go for it.

SAM: Hoping that they didn't see.

MATT: Okay, you are hidden, so it's advantage on the strike. However, it is prone and ranged attacks against a prone creature are at disadvantage. So it's just a single hit.

SAM: So it's not a sneak attack?

MATT: No.

SAM: Damn! I blew it, you guys. I blew it. And it was a bad roll, 17?

MATT: 17 still hits, though.

SAM: Ah, poopy doopies!

MATT: (laughs)

SAM: That is-- it's too late to do that, so, eight points of damage!

MARISHA: That was so cute!

MATT: Eight points of damage to it.

MARISHA: "Poopy doopies!"

MATT: (whistles) It vanishes into it. You assume it hurt it, but now it's just like-- (squelches) getting itself prepared to rejoin the fray since it was distracted by the incredible cleverness of your previous jest. That finish your turn?

SAM: That does.

MATT: All right, finishing your go, Veth, Fjord, you're up.

TRAVIS: I will send three Eldritch Blasts. I'll gravitate so I'm right above the fountain, just up in the center. And I will send the three right by the one that's near the bottom of your hand.

MATT: Got it. Oh god, oh god!

TRAVIS: 27 for the first, 27 for the second, and 28 for the third. Those were all stupid high rolls.

MATT: Dang!

LAURA: Why can't you roll like him? (laughter)

TRAVIS: 14, wow.

TALIESIN: Burn!

TRAVIS: 14, 28.

SAM: I don't have those slender wrists. (laughter)

TRAVIS: 31 points of force damage.

MATT: Nice!

TRAVIS: (three impacts)

MATT: Well done. That finishes your go. As you blast them with each of these, you see splatters of flesh and bone and other elements scattering off. It's keeping itself together, but it's looking pretty hurt.

TRAVIS: Nice.

MATT: That finish your go?

TRAVIS: It does.

MATT: All righty, it is now their turn. (squelching) Right to there, going to get into-- uses its movement and action to get there, but that's all it does.

MARISHA: I want our campaign to just be all Ashley sound effects. (laughter)

SAM: You should release a library.

MATT: You could do an animated series audio pass where it's just Ashley doing all the M&E. (laughter)

ASHLEY: Is she eating soup or is it a wet creature? You don't know!

MATT: The creature actually begins climbing up the tree.

SAM: (screams)

MARISHA: Uh-oh.

SAM: No!

MATT: And joins you up into the branches.

TRAVIS: (screams)

SAM: Want to do some apple picking?

MATT: (gibbering snarl) It takes its movement and action to get there so it can't do anything, but it is right next to you in the middle of the tree. All right, finishing their turns. Jester, you're up.

LAURA: I'm going to float forward through the sky to get closer to Veth.

MATT: Over this way?

LAURA: Ja.

MATT: Okay.

LAURA: Probably halfway in between, I've got to get within 60 feet.

MATT: Okay. We'll say about there-ish?

LAURA: Yeah. I'm going to cast--

MATT: What's your movement speed with flight?

LAURA: Oh, 36.

MATT: 36.

MATT: Yeah, that's about as far as you can get there.

LAURA: I'm going to assume their dexterity is low since they're so slow. And I'm going to try for Sacred Flame on it.

MATT: Okay. Rolls a nine.

LAURA: Sweet!

SAM: Yeah!

LAURA: (bro voice) Yes! (laughs) That was stupid. What a dumb movement.

LIAM: I'm amazing!

LAURA: (bro voice) Yeah! Sweet! 12 points of radiant damage.

SAM: 12 points?!

LAURA: (high-pitched) Woo!

MATT: (whooshes) It flares in the trees and you see some of the branches actually get blasted off from the radiant power. You hear it screech. (screeches)

LAURA: You know, I thought that one was more damaged than it was, forgot. Sorry about that, Veth.

SAM: (screams)

LAURA: I was trying to help you. (laughter) That one was just laughing on the ground.

MATT: (laughs)

LAURA: Whoops!

MATT: That's all right. Is that your turn?

LAURA: Yep.

MATT: All right. Essek's go. Essek glides up, figures that they've got that one over there, is going to go ahead and join Jester over in this space.

LIAM: Glaze glide up!

LAURA: Essek, do better, do better than me!

MATT: He's going to go ahead and Fire Bolt that one. Wow, natural 19, yeah, that'll do it. So that's 3d10.

SAM and ASHLEY: ♪ (sing with background music) ♪

TALIESIN: Fire in the disco.

LAURA: Should I have these? Or this?

LIAM: Uh... Da nuts.

LAURA: (laughs)

TRAVIS: "Da nuts"!

SAM: Doze nuts?

LAURA: I should have deez nuts. (laughter)

MATT: So as you're screaming, Veth, the creature is reaching out. It's beginning to wrap around you and you can feel the teeth beginning to push, to burrow into your exposed arms. And as you pull back suddenly-- (roars) it catches fire and begins to screech this high-pitched screech, with multiple mouths around its body. It pulls away from you as you shove it off, and you watch as it begins to burn against the branch. And as it hits the branch and burns, instead of the branch blackening, the branch begins to move away from it. And you begin to see the bark on the tree itself, turn into flesh as that part of the branch begins to retract and form into the tree. Elements around you of the branches you can now see, elements of eyes peering through for a second. The tree itself also appears to be partially made of flesh.

TRAVIS: Sure.

SAM: Gross! Fleshy trees!

MATT: But it is gone.

SAM: Okay, okay.

MATT: Essek looks up at you and goes, "There we go, teamwork!"

LAURA: Good job!

SAM: Thank you, Essek!

MATT: With that, it brings us to Caleb's go.

LAURA: I'm eating trail mix in the middle of the battle.

LIAM: -- any baddies on the map from-- Oh, there, okay.

MATT: There's one right there.

SAM: It's in-game.

MATT: So Caleb watches Essek huck some fire and he just sort of smirks to himself and does the same and throws a Fire Bolt at the thing right below, messing with Beau.

MATT: Go ahead and roll for an attack.

LIAM: Natural 20.

TRAVIS: Yo!

SAM: Woo!

LIAM: Fire Bolt.

LIAM: 14, 21, so a total of 42 points of fire damage. Because of crit.

MATT: How do you want to do this?

SAM: Yeah!

ASHLEY: Yes!

LIAM: I would let the Fire Bolt hit it down at the bottom and it would just wreathe around and burn all the way to the top and it would just char and bubble, until it looked like fondue at Beau's feet.

MATT: You watch as the flames consume it and it squeals and begins to liquefy. And as it begins to slowly expand and melt into the ground you see briefly a face left behind that just goes, "Thank you." And then sifts away and left behind is just, untouched, unscuffed, unmarked cobblestone.

LIAM: Wow. That had this energy. ♪ [horn wail] ♪

TRAVIS and ASHLEY: ♪ (imitate horn wail) ♪

MATT: There it is.

LAURA: Yeah, it did.

ASHLEY: Yeah.

SAM: Do you have to still do your thing where you can go catatonic?

LIAM: Was that a person?

SAM: Oh, I don't know.

TRAVIS: We probably can't stay here very long.

TALIESIN: I think we should go.

LAURA: We should go.

TALIESIN: I don't think it matters on a certain level where we go, but I think we need to not be here.

LIAM: And it's just streets off in different directions, or are we--?

MATT: From what you can see there's streets this way, this way, this way, this opening goes to two other streets that direction, what you have right now in the middle of this intersection that catches any eye is what you see on this battlefield.

LIAM: We have no idea where.

MATT: You saw them disappear into this space, but you're not sure where.

MARISHA: Also, keep in mind that the city has been repeating itself, at least from what we've noticed. So there's probably a true center to the city and then faker recreations of it, if that makes sense.

TRAVIS: Copy of a copy of a copy of a copy.

LAURA: That makes sense.

SAM: I'm going to run over to just quickly inspect some of the crates or boxes, or barrels around to see if, are they props? Are they facades? Are they full of actual items?

LAURA: Are they flesh?

MARISHA: Mm-hmm. If you cut into it, is it cake?

TALIESIN: I want to look inside a building.

TRAVIS: Cake would be okay.

MATT: You glance inside the building and you see what at first glance is furniture. But a lot of it seems halfway apparated. The table seems like it's sagging. And elements of it are corporating partially. The door itself is folded over, like the Doldrums. Everything is slightly drifting and you can see the coloration changing into different skin tones.

TALIESIN: The interiors apparently are lazy. I'm going to back off.

MATT: Roll an investigation check, if you'd like.

SAM: Oh! 29.

MATT: 29. As you go over towards the crates, you open them up and you see there are items and supplies and tools and things in the crates.

SAM: Can I pick something up?

MATT: You grab it and it retracts.

SAM: Oh!

LAURA: Gross.

MARISHA: That's terrifying.

SAM: It's all fingers--

MARISHA: Oof, oh! Could you imagine if you tried to grab a fork?

LAURA: Try petting it. See what happens if you pet it.

SAM: Okay, I'll find a pair of pliers and pet them.

MATT: (laughs) I'll stroke the pliers.

LAURA: You should ask first.

TRAVIS: It's like that textbook in Harry Potter, you've got to stroke the spine.

LAURA: Always ask first.

SAM: May I stroke you, pliers?

MATT: You do not get a response from the pliers.

SAM: I take that as a yes. (laughter) No?

TRAVIS: I don't know if Henry Crabgrass would agree with that.

MARISHA: Henry Crabgrass would say that's a no, but--

SAM: Okay. All right, well then, I'll leave it alone. (laughter)

TRAVIS: The living city in the Astral Sea applies to the Henry Crabgrass paradigm.

SAM: That was best, I don't want to--

MATT: Universal rule.

SAM: -- overstep.

TALIESIN: I legitimately think there's nothing here for us.

LAURA: Yeah.

MARISHA: I do want to go over and do what we were originally doing which is investigating this fountain and this bird and I just want to see if there's a lever, or a device, or some sort of something because it feels so central.

MATT: Okay. So you're inspecting which?

MARISHA: The fountain area.

MATT: Okay, roll an investigation check.

MARISHA: And I want to see if there's a lever, button, et cetera. It's sort of cocked. It's half-cocked.

MATT: Can you read it? Can you read a primary number?

MARISHA: Yeah.

MATT: Then it's not cocked.

MARISHA: Then it's not cocked? It's an okay roll, though. Wait, what was it, investigation?

MATT: Yes.

MARISHA: I'm very good at this! 30 total.

MATT: All righty. Inspecting the fountain, there is no water present in it. And looking beneath, the somewhat marble texture of the outside begins to darken a bit to a purple-ish red on the base of where the water basin would be. And looking down, you can see portions of it are slightly undulating.

MARISHA: But I can't see the bottom?

MATT: You can see the bottom.

MARISHA: I can see the bottom, okay.

MATT: But you do not find any sort of switches or buttons, this appears to be--

MARISHA: But it's moving because it's probably also flesh, right? It's because it's flesh.

TALIESIN: Everything is flesh.

LIAM: It's trying to give its approximation of water.

MARISHA: Water.

LAURA: So I have a question.

TALIESIN: It's a memory.

LIAM: Yeah.

LAURA: If--

LAURA: Well, I have two questions.

MATT: Mm-hmm.

LAURA: One for DM Matt.

LAURA: Residuum, can that replace any component you need for a spell, or just monetary value?

MATT: It's generally used to replace a component that is consumed.

LAURA: Okay.

MATT: Because you can use an arcane focus which would be like a holy symbol that you carry, to replace any non-monetary based components.

LAURA: Right. With Find the Path.

MATT: Correct.

LAURA: It needs a component that isn't monetary, but it's not a focus.

MATT: I see. No, it does not replace things that require specific locational things. It wouldn't replace a rod that you need to cast Planar Travel or anything.

LAURA: My second question is, this whole city is made of flesh. So technically everything is the same thing, right?

TALIESIN: More or less, I think.

LAURA: So if we need something from a certain location.

MARISHA: Mm.

LAURA: How does that work?

MARISHA: I don't know.

SAM: You're saying you have an item from a place?

LAURA: Well, if we're trying to find the place with the threshold crests, we're trying to find the-- what was it called?

LIAM: The Aether Crux.

LAURA: The Aether Crux?

SAM: We don't have an item though, we just have a body.

LAURA: I mean, I could cut off a branch from the tree, it's all the same thing, it's all the same creature.

TALIESIN: Earth is the same earth. It doesn't matter. It's just where it has to come from. It's spatial, not chemical.

LAURA: Okay.

TALIESIN: We need allies. We need to find--

SAM: Well, we might be able to turn some of these Somnovem against each other, right? We know some of their names.

LAURA: Seems like already against each other.

MARISHA: I'm wondering if we can just find a couple that have interests that align with us.

TRAVIS: It seems like Ira, Mirumus, Gaudius, all seem to be--

SAM: Excellent note taking.

TRAVIS: Thank you.

TALIESIN: Laxtus, was that--?

LAURA: Ira was the aggressive one.

MARISHA: Yeah, Ira's--

LAURA: Timorei was the one that was sneaky.

MARISHA: And super terrified.

LIAM: Scared.

TALIESIN: I wrote him as fear. I had wrath and fear.

LIAM: Same.

LAURA: Oh!

MARISHA: Yeah, it's starting to very much be their personality traits.

TALIESIN: I mean, you put a city of people together and put them into one mind, of course they're not going to agree. We have nine-- We have nine interests.

TRAVIS: Emotions?

TALIESIN: Nine fiefdoms.

LIAM: Distorted beyond all recognition.

TALIESIN: Fighting.

MARISHA: So if they are approximations, or divided emotions.

TALIESIN: Conflicting.

MARISHA: Maybe we just need to find the right emotion.

TALIESIN: Clearly they want out. Clearly somebody wants out of this.

MARISHA: Well, yeah.

TRAVIS: Some do, some don't.

TALIESIN: We've got to just find--

LIAM: Well, the one that I spoke to said that Gaudius wanted oblivion. That seems different than returning home. Maybe that's our ally.

TALIESIN: That's a gift I would happily give.

MARISHA: And then--

LIAM: One of them wants all of this destroyed and wants release instead of a return to power or a return to our home. Oh boy.

TRAVIS: We should walk and talk. At least change our position.

LAURA: I don't even know where we're walking to.

SAM: What direction?

LAURA: We can float up, I mean we could get off the surface and float above it.

MARISHA: I think that's a good idea.

SAM: We could also go in one of these buildings and rest.

LAURA: All the while Lucien is finding his way to--

SAM: How do we find Lucien, though?

LAURA: They said he was invisible, they couldn't see him. They saw Cree, but they couldn't see Lucien.

TALIESIN: I bet they can't see us.

SAM: They said they could see Cree?

LAURA: Yeah, they said they could see his second.

MARISHA: But that they couldn't see the Nonagon.

TRAVIS: That's because Cree came this way and Lucien went the other.

LAURA: Maybe. I imagine they'd be able to see everything in the city.

MARISHA: That's what I would think too, but--

LIAM: I don't know, if it's one big hive mind.

MARISHA: Well, if it's a hive mind, it still might depend on where there are eyes.

TRAVIS: Yeah, why would they ask us who we talked to?

TALIESIN: It's nine big hive minds.

MARISHA: Yeah, that's a point, they didn't know who we were talking to.

TRAVIS: We should move. At least up.

TALIESIN: We are moving, yeah.

LAURA: We're floating.

TRAVIS: We all drift up off the ground.

MATT: Okay. You drift up and peer over the space and you can see where the streets go out and beneath you is the center where you have been glancing about and had this encounter with a few entities.

MARISHA: And--

MATT: From where you stand, looking around, any streets that they may have ducked through, you would've had visibility.

LAURA: Hmm. Maybe it's that building. What's that one? Did we go in the house?

MARISHA: Do we want to do a quick scan of these houses?

TALIESIN: Let's just check them all.

MARISHA: Okay. Yeah.

LIAM: Do you want to fan out in pairs?

MARISHA: Sure.

TALIESIN: What do we do if we find something?

TRAVIS: Scream like a bitch.

MARISHA: Yep. Yasha and I will take this-- Whoops, wrong end. That was almost my eye!

TALIESIN: Caleb, I'll stick with you just in case.

MARISHA: Thank god I have three other eyes. We'll take this.

MATT: Okay, so Yasha and Beau.

MARISHA: This one, yes.

MATT: All right.

TRAVIS: Which one do you want?

MATT: Who's taking what structures?

TRAVIS: Do you want to take the little one on the corner over there?

LAURA: Yeah, let's go look at the little one in the corner.

TRAVIS: Jester and Fjord over here.

MATT: All right.

LIAM: Somebody guard our exchange student wizard. Essek.

LAURA: Oh yeah.

SAM: Is anyone searching the middle building?

MATT: "I can go with you, if you prefer."

SAM: Sure, come.

MATT: All right, so Essek and Veth will go into the middle building.

ASHLEY: You already looked at the dome?

SAM: I didn't really-- I mean, I saw the second floor, but not the bottom floor or the thing on top, really. I mean, I was up there, did it look like a weather vane?

MATT: At the very top? It looked like it was a bronzed statue of various planes. Like a-- what's the word?

TALIESIN: The rocket ride at--

LIAM: Astrolabe?

TALIESIN: Astrolabe.

MATT: Astrolabe, yeah, that kind of a vibe. And the secondary floor, you just dropped down real fast and looked in and darted out and there's the stairs that go down to the bottom floor, but you haven't really inspected the space.

SAM: You can go check it out.

LIAM: Fjord tough, you have See Invisibility up right now still, yeah?

TRAVIS: Mm-hmm.

ASHLEY: Yeah, yeah.

TRAVIS: And nothing weird was--?

MATT: Make a perception check.

TRAVIS: Okay. 15.

MATT: 15? You comfortably feel like there's nothing... untoward directly around you.

TRAVIS: Untoward.

MATT: All right, so.

LIAM: All right, who's going where?

MATT: Yasha and Beau are going in that one. Both of you make investigation checks, if you'd like.

MARISHA: Awesome. 23.

SAM: Ooh!

ASHLEY: 19.

MATT: Nice. Glancing through, you enter and go for the stairs and as you begin to step up the stairs, they're doughy beneath your feet. And you glance up and the second floor looks unfinished and mostly like pale, un-sun-touched skin. You can see almost translucent veins beyond the skin's surface and you go, maybe this probably isn't the way to go. The house does not appear to unveil anything of particular interest to your path.

ASHLEY: I want to go back out. I don't like this house.

MATT: And it was Fjord and Jester going to this one?

TRAVIS: We were going to the other one.

MATT: Oh, this one over here, go ahead and roll investigation checks for me, please.

LAURA: Can I give Fjord advantage?

MATT: Sure, if you'd like to.

LAURA: I'm going to-- The Traveler is with you, literally.

TRAVIS: Oh, thank you, Sprinkle.

SAM: "Kill me!"

MATT: (squeaks)

TRAVIS: That's great, it's a 24.

LAURA: Did you add a d4? Because I gave you Guidance, that's the whole point of me patting you.

TRAVIS: Oh yeah, sorry, I rolled with advantage, 24 plus--

MATT: Well, you can't give him Guidance and advantage.

LAURA: I can't?

MATT: Pick one or the other.

TRAVIS: 24 is pretty good.

MATT: Because you're actively helping him with the thing, it's like stacking a thing onto a thing you're doing simultaneously.

LAURA: I see. That makes sense.

SAM: (chuckles) You took the advantage.

TRAVIS: Don't look at me with the stink eye.

MATT: So what was your first roll?

TRAVIS: 24.

MATT: 24, pretty decent.

SAM: She seems mad, but she really just has peanut crumbs all over her mouth.

LAURA: Yeah, I'm literally just trying to take food out my--

TRAVIS: Picking her teeth with her tongue.

MATT: You step into this building and it is a two story building from the outside. When you step into the building, it is empty. There is no second floor above. It's almost like a facade.

TRAVIS: A shell.

MATT: A shell of a house. And on the floor where it would be carpet or hardwood or whatever the interior you'd expect, it's just this tongue material.

LAURA: (heaves)

MATT: You can see the texture of the little flesh, cilia-like buds all across it.

TRAVIS: I have to-- I have to--

LAURA: Me, too. I really want to touch it.

MATT: It's pretty bouncy.

LAURA: Yeah. I'm going to just reach down and pet it, and see what it feels like.

TRAVIS: Hey, you're going to get spit on your hand.

MATT: It is faintly damp.

LAURA: Ugh, it's literally like a tongue!

TRAVIS: (whooshing)

LAURA: No, Fjord, don't do that. It's going to call them here.

MATT: Apologies for folks: The final arc of this story is very body horror heavy, if you haven't noticed already. (laughter)

TRAVIS: Yeah, nothing on the ceiling, nothing that attracts the eye, anything like that besides this tongue shell of a house.

MATT: No, but when you do see is a similar pale texture to the interior and (splort, splort splort) the dampness you felt was a saliva-like liquid the dampness you felt was a saliva-like liquid that is just slowly dripping from the ceiling in places.

TRAVIS: Do we want to get a vial of this and give it to Veth or anything?

LAURA: Oh yeah, good call. I'll take out one of my random vials and scoop up some of the spit.

TRAVIS: What's it smell like?

LAURA: Ew, I can't smell spit, that's so fucking gross.

TRAVIS: Do it for science, do it for Veth!

LAURA: No, no, no.

TRAVIS: I'll smell it. (sniffs)

MATT: There's no scent.

LAURA: Oh okay. Well, that's good, no scent.

TRAVIS: Brush their teeth, okay.

LAURA: The spit coming from the ceiling, is there a hole in the ceiling?

MATT: You don't see where it's coming from.

TRAVIS: Is there a little speed bag up there?

MATT: There is no abode uvula, no. (laughs)

MARISHA: Abode uvula.

TRAVIS: I think we're good to leave.

MATT: All right, who's investigating which? So you and Essek are investigating--

SAM: The middle--

MATT: Right there?

SAM: The one with the bridge, yeah.

MATT: Okay, each roll investigation separately.

SAM: 28.

MATT: Higher than him. This building has a little more structure to it. As you begin to peer in, you see what Caduceus had glanced in before and seen some of the furniture that is partially present, but Dali-esque melting at certain corners and where it is you can see the coloration begins to fade from the hardwoods and polished surfaces, to a general ruddy skin tone with occasional bits of teeth poking through, like an exposed gum. You can see stairs that progress upward. And as you make your way up, they are similarly soft under the feet. And getting into the second floor, there is a singular person sitting on a stool in the center.

LAURA: (gasps) Oh no.

SAM: Like looking at the corner like in Blair Witch?

MATT: No, currently just looking down at the knees.

LIAM: Josh, tell us where you are!

SAM: Um, hello, uh, sorry. Is this your, is this your domicile?

MATT: (high-pitched screaming) Starts the same high-pitched scream in your direction and just holds. You all hear the scream.

LAURA: We go running.

TRAVIS: Screams like a bitch. I'm going to float my way up.

LAURA: Oh yeah.

MATT: It's just staring at you screaming, and screaming, and screaming, and screaming, and screaming, and screaming, and screaming, and screaming. And Essek's like--

SAM: I-- Yeah. I--

MATT: (whooshes) He flings a finger forward and you watch as a bolt of flame hits and it ignites and the screaming slowly withers as it burns away-- And it's gone and the screaming stops.

TRAVIS: (relieved sigh) Still arrive in the window, hah! Was that you? Essek?

SAM: Essek was protecting me.

TRAVIS: From what?

MATT: "Another one of the strange denizens here."

TRAVIS: The ones with the flapping tendrils and teeth?

MATT: "Not yet, we beat it to the punch. Best not to be leaving alarms here and there as we go, yes?"

TRAVIS: Very well. Carry on.

SAM: Is there more to investigate in here?

MATT: No, it's pretty blank beyond that individual.

SAM: All right, meet everybody else back outside.

MATT: Right, who else is--

LIAM: So that's the bridge to the buildings.

TALIESIN: It's just us in that last little cabin.

LIAM: And the red roof has been taken care of. So the last cabin. Well, there's also the bottom of the gazebo. And then there's two strange statues on this side, but let's try the house.

MATT: Okay, investigation checks from both of you.

TALIESIN: You can have my advantage.

LIAM: Thank you.

LAURA: And you looked at the bottom of the fountain, Beau?

LAURA: And you looked at the bottom of the fountain, Beau?

MARISHA: Yeah.

LIAM: 26.

MARISHA: I got like a 23 and just water, I don't know.

MATT: This chamber in particular, the room is half-- half there. You expect, with the walls, to be an open space but you go inside and it's only about half the size of the room. And for the wall, it seems like one of the walls has swollen outward a bit, and you can see textures of stone, but it's bowing in places and bulging in others. It's a very nightmare-esque experience of seeing something flat begin to push against its own normal flatness. As you walk past it, you see a hand push through the skin and move before pulling back in. You go and begin to make your way up the steps and the steps just continue upward. There's no second floor, until they hit a ceiling and there's no door above. It's a nonsensical, non-Euclidean stairway.

LIAM: It's like a body horror, Warner Brothers lot.

TALIESIN: Just for fun, I'm going to tap where the second floor would be.

MATT: You tap it? The flesh opens up and there's teeth around it, about a six-foot wide hole, like an open mouth rimmed around with jagged teeth. And it opens to the roof. The stairs continue to like (squishing) appear and lead upward.

TALIESIN: I thought so. All right, I'm heading up.

MATT: You head up and you are now on the roof of that building there.

LAURA: Floating in the air. Did you find anything?

TALIESIN: I'm learning a lot. I'm going to-- are you behind me?

LIAM: Yeah.

TALIESIN: I'm going to float out the window and brush against the window stone as we're going.

MATT: Okay, you touch it and it's weirdly warm to the touch, and it does give a bit with a bit of pressure.

TALIESIN: I cast Decompose as I pass by.

MATT: You watch as, in that space, the flesh begins to like quiver and twitch, and where does elements of it begin to gray. I know, I got it right. (laughs) It's always a bit dicey for a moment, but I pushed through.

MARISHA: Watch as I twitch!

MATT: But the skin begins to gray and behind you can see fungus beginning to build, and lichen and other elements of decomposition begin to take hold.

TALIESIN: Oh, I bet you don't like that, all right.

TRAVIS: And it takes root, right? It doesn't, like, start and then fight it off?

MATT: You see no signs of it pulling back.

LIAM: I'm going to Superman spiral over to the statue figure that I see by the gazebo tower and take a closer look at it.

LAURA: Yeah, what's that doing--

LIAM: There's two of them. One's off camera right now.

MARISHA: This here and that? Okay.

MATT: You go towards--

MARISHA: Sorry, did I? I did not. Did I? I would feel real bad. I'm so sorry!

TRAVIS: That's okay, ready? One, two, three.

MARISHA: (yelps) (laughter)

TALIESIN: No lasers in this theater!

MATT: You head to it and you see what is represented as a massive statue of a human. And as you get close to it, the details are fuzzy or gone. Like the memory of whoever the statue once represented has begun to drift and as such-- It is built and presented in a very memorial type of way. This is meant to be in memory of a great figure of the Aeorian history. But as time has gone on, they're just a blank face on a relatively featureless body.

LIAM: Well, then I will just push past and walk into the bottom of the tower.

MATT: Okay.

TALIESIN: Have we explored every building now?

LAURA: Yeah, except for the gazebo.

LIAM: You would have said if there was text on it, yeah?

MATT: Correct, there's no text on this one. But you can make an investigation check if you want to look.

LIAM: Sure. Uh, 16.

MATT: 16. Glancing around, this space is-- it's fairly empty. It looks like this is part of the-- part of the small park aesthetic here, like it was a hangout space. Where the stairs come down, you see a very faint fold or line in what would normally be solid stone ground. Like at a certain point it creates this weird, lip-like line in the floor.

LIAM: And does the eyesight tell me that this is a magically hidden exit?

MATT: Not magically, this is a physical line in the ground.

LIAM: I'm going to finger it open.

MATT: As you touch the exterior, and it does give a little bit on your finger, it opens up into a similar port hole filled with teeth and the stairs continue downward.

SAM: Hey.

MARISHA: That's it?

SAM: Basement at the Alamo.

LIAM: Yeah. I think to everybody: winner winner chicken dinner.

MARISHA: I come back out.

ASHLEY: Can I check out the other statue in the other corner?

LAURA: All at once?

LIAM: It's one way.

SAM: Amazing.

MATT: You go over and inspect it and it's an exact duplicate of the other statute.

ASHLEY: Okay.

MATT: Like, it's an exact copy of a faded rendition of something. So it's an odd focus to detail for not having much detail.

TALIESIN: Look at that. It's the idea of a memory.

MARISHA: Mm-hmm, when you just start forgetting. Things become fuzzy.

TALIESIN: A lot of what here and not a lot of why.

LAURA: I float quickly past everyone and head into the gazebo.

SAM: Yeah, I'm going with.

TALIESIN: Yeah, let's go.

MARISHA: We all follow.

TALIESIN: Into the bowels.

LAURA: Ew, literally!

TALIESIN: You're welcome.

LIAM: Everyone into the puckering butt.

MATT: Following the stairs down, and the stairs that continue downward have no give, they're pretty sturdy. And it's an awful sensation, because the temperature does get warmer the further you descend down the spiral, and gradually the stairs begin to be a little softer. You descend about 60, 70, 80 feet before the stairs become this interpretation of stairs, like natural, rough rock stairs you would find in a cavern space, but spongier. And then you reach a bottom. Here you see a semblance of a corridor that goes in three different directions. It has the same brass-like coloration of some of the subterranean Aeorian tunnels that you've encountered at various ruins and Aeor proper previously. You see the same paneling, you see the same overhead tiling of metallic plates. you see the same overhead tiling of metallic plates. But not in disarray, not scattered, not hanging tubes, and broken pipes and beams. All intact going in three different directions. But those of you who are very perceptive, as you look forward it seems to just faintly corkscrew before it reaches the outside of your periphery.

SAM: And the surfaces here are still spongy or no, we're in metal now?

MATT: You want to touch it?

SAM: Yeah!

MATT: You hit it and it gives a bit of a bounce back, like in an aluminum kind of way. It feels more metallic than flesh.

MARISHA: Huh.

TALIESIN: One easy way to tell. Decompose.

MATT: It takes a moment, but it begins to change color.

SAM: Oh.

MARISHA: Intre-- Okay.

TALIESIN: It's a stronger memory.

MARISHA: Stronger, yeah, yeah. Okay.

TALIESIN: This stuff knows what it's supposed to be.

MARISHA: So.

SAM: I love it, by the way, when Matt says to me, "Do you want to touch it?" It's just nice. It's a nice, familiar face.

TALIESIN: God, how did it turn into that night?

TRAVIS: The invisibility is still up. Anything in this hallway?

MATT: Nothing invisible.

TRAVIS: Okay.

MATT: But there is writing on these three tunnels.

SAM: Ooh!

LIAM: Okay. Yeah, I will take care of that.

LAURA: While he's doing it, I'll hand a vial of--

SAM: Oh, what's this?

LAURA: Clear liquid. I've labeled it: Unstinky House Drool. (laughter)

SAM: Oh!

TALIESIN: That implies that there's a top shelf, expensive drool.

SAM: Thank you.

TALIESIN: Instead of just the house drool.

LAURA: I don't know what it does, but it was falling from the ceiling. You might want to give it a test.

TRAVIS: Big mouth where we were. Yeah.

SAM: Okay.

LAURA: Fjord smelled it.

SAM: I will definitely run some tests.

TRAVIS: Figured the the pH could be of interest to you.

SAM: I will sneakily drop it on the floor.

MATT: Okay. (laughter)

LIAM: Just sort of slide it into the flesh.

MATT: Roll sleight of hand.

SAM: 33.

MATT: He accepted it without issue.

LIAM: Just goes into the wall like a meat baster.

MATT: (laughs) Just Homer Simpsons it.

LIAM: Yeah.

LAURA: I think she liked it.

LIAM: I sprinkle soot and salt in front of my vision and can read the writing on the walls.

MATT: Okay. The tunnel to the right where you're standing says, "Praesidis Junction, Junction, Junction, Junction, Junction, Junction," and the words get weird. The opposite side, it just says, "Help, help, help, help, help, help, help, help, help, help, help, help, help." The one across from you says-- Oh, what does it say there? It was specifically here-- "Crest Vault."

LAURA: Crest-- (gasps)

MARISHA: That's it.

LIAM: Yeah, baby.

SAM: Is it?

TRAVIS: I don't think that's where we want to go. I think "help" is more immediate.

SAM: What?! You're crazy!

TRAVIS: It says help!

TALIESIN: I think that any confrontation right now ends with us becoming a small tavern, so. (laughter)

TRAVIS: Well said.

LAURA: Can I try to roll for Divine Intervention?

MATT: But of course.

SAM: Have we ever heard "Crest Vault" before?

MARISHA: Well, the threshold crests.

SAM: Threshold crests, yes, that makes sense.

TALIESIN: And a toothpaste.

LAURA: Nah.

MATT: You look towards Sprinkle who looks back. (chittering) Arty's not in at the moment.

TALIESIN: Maybe we need to call for help.

LAURA: I just give him a little scritch.

MARISHA: That poor weasel.

TRAVIS: "Put me in space!"

MARISHA: Yes! It adds to his psychosis.

TRAVIS: "Let me fly!"

MARISHA: Yeah!

TRAVIS: "Die among the stars!" (laughter) (laughter)

MATT: Could we make it Sprinkle shirt that says that? "Please, I want to die among the stars." (laughter)

LIAM: It's hard to know how to interpret that help, though. I mean, those things up top were relieved to be killed and maybe--

TALIESIN: I think that direction's probably a fight.

MARISHA: Yeah, 100%.

TALIESIN: I think that we can find-- Maybe it's just a matter of calling who we want to talk to.

MARISHA: You said the tunnel corkscrews, the one ahead of us?

MATT: It seems to shift a little bit to one-- It begins to turn slightly one way before the--

MARISHA: This way, like very fun house-style?

MATT: A little bit, yeah.

MARISHA: And that's towards the Crest Vault?

MATT: Correct.

LIAM: We might be able to talk to her, too.

LAURA: That's true.

LAURA: Yeah, it's true, I don't need to do shit.

MARISHA: Talk to some of these people.

LIAM: Or Cree, if we are linked.

MARISHA: The only problem with Cree is that I'm assuming Lucien can listen.

LAURA: Lucien can listen to anything you're doing, anyway. Lucien could be listening to you right now.

MARISHA: That's true.

LIAM: Well, is everyone still wearing their medallion?

SAM: Mm-hmm.

TALIESIN: Yes.

LAURA: It doesn't matter; he talked to you when we were in Aeor.

TRAVIS: True. Doesn't mean he--

LIAM: Doesn't mean he knows where we are.

LAURA: No.

TALIESIN: I think--

TRAVIS: It could be that one way thing.

MARISHA: Well, this--

TALIESIN: I still think we might have allies in the city, and I think that a friend here would be very helpful. We are exhausted.

LIAM: How much time do we have?

SAM: Yeah, we have to get to the crests before they activate.

TRAVIS: Are we coming Tamora a friend?

LAURA: Timorei?

TRAVIS: Tamora, Timorei.

TALIESIN: I think it couldn't hurt to find out, and if something terrible happens, it's not like, what are we going to do? If it's not Cree, we're--

LAURA: We can try reaching out. We can try speaking to Timorei directly.

LIAM: I'm not sure why we trust any of them. I don't believe anything.

MARISHA: Just need more information.

TALIESIN: Well, let's talk, I mean, we've talked to--

MARISHA: Well, we're on the precipice of the Crests--

LAURA: We just need to go, we need to follow.

MARISHA: I'm not saying we shouldn't reach out, I'm just-- We're literally at the edge of this tunnel and feels like we need to make a choice. Do we keep going and check out the Crest Vault?

LIAM: Perhaps if we can cut off Cree and stop this on one of the two crests, then Lucien's--

MARISHA: Yes, and we have more time.

LIAM: Yes, we buy ourselves time.

MARISHA: Exactly, if this is Cree. We can assume it's Cree because--

LIAM: Because of the way they spoke of her.

LAURA: Then let's move.

MARISHA: Let's do it.

TRAVIS: Go.

LIAM: Straight ahead.

MATT: All right. Continuing onward, on foot for those who wish.

LIAM: I'll float.

MATT: You float.

SAM: Can we all still float?

MATT: You can still float. Some people move faster on foot than--

TALIESIN: Then I'm going to hop every now and then.

LAURA: I move a little bit faster, so I'm going to float.

TRAVIS: I do too if I float, so I'm going to float.

MATT: Okay.

TRAVIS: What up, Essek?

MATT: Yep, Essek is the fastest of all of you.

TRAVIS: Well, whatever. Even faster than you--

TALIESIN: I'm going to do that wall run occasionally.

MATT: Just barely.

MARISHA: Yeah, yeah, yeah, upside down wall, yeah.

TRAVIS: Not a contest.

LIAM: He's got me beat by 150 years.

TALIESIN: It's only not a contest if you're winning.

TRAVIS: Yeah, yeah.

MATT: You all begin coasting forward quickly. The tunnel, as it continues onward, the metallic sides, the brass interior, dark and shadow ahead, but as the light you carry hits across it reflects in places. You watch it begin to corkscrew a bit. And then continue to corkscrew until it is completely upside down, or are you? Up and down, left and right is hard to tell when you're not letting gravity be the one pulling you. When you are flying or floating, the only guide you have are those that stay on foot. And it does have that vertigo sensation as it begins to shift. And the texture begins to change as well as it dips downward. The metal begins to corrode and give way to darker flesh. Purple, textured striations and flexing, skinless muscle. You can see bits that look like stone and rock, like natural cavern spaces, but with a purplish tinge. And at the edges where it's cracked, you swear you can see veins occasionally pulsing. You can see portions of it from underneath where the rock gives way entirely, and there's like a film. Some sort of a smooth, shiny sack of skin Some sort of a smooth, shiny sack of skin across a subdermal surface. And as you're heading forward you hear footsteps getting louder.

MARISHA: Coming towards us or from behind us?

MATT: Coming towards from the direction that you're traveling.

LAURA: Oh god.

TRAVIS: Keep going.

LIAM: Probably's already affixed it. We need to undo it.

LAURA: Yeah.

MARISHA: Are we going to kill her?

LAURA and LIAM: Yes.

MARISHA: Let's do it.

MATT: What do you do?

LAURA: Should we hide?

TRAVIS: In a tunnel?

MATT: (footsteps)

MARISHA: Is there a way to hide?

MATT: It is-- There are minor pockets. As you look around-- For lack of a better way of explaining it, mild folds in the walls that you might attempt to utilize at your disposal.

TRAVIS: I'm going to make myself look like the old woman with the bun on her hair that we saw in the town square.

MARISHA: I'll squeeze into a flesh fold.

MATT: Okay.

TALIESIN: I'll become one of the strange blank people as well.

MATT: Okay.

LIAM: I'll choose an adjacent fold.

LAURA: I'm going to choose a fold, as well.

SAM: I will snuggle into a fold and cast Mage Hand just to have out.

MATT: Okay.

ASHLEY: Yeah, I'll go into a fold.

MATT: Very well.

ASHLEY: Wonderful, moist.

MARISHA: Mm-hmm.

MATT: Everyone who's attempting to... step into a fold, go ahead and roll a stealth check for me, please.

SAM: Yeah. Gross.

LAURA: Thanks for blowing that towards me.

TRAVIS: It's actually down, but.

LAURA: No! (laughs)

TRAVIS: Burned my mouth, so, be ready.

LAURA: 22.

LIAM: Seven.

LAURA: (groans)

SAM: 25.

MATT: Okay.

ASHLEY: 17.

MATT: Okay.

MARISHA: 24.

LAURA: Can I give you Blessing of the Trickster?

MATT: As you all sit there and wait, the two of you out in the open with your shapes changed and everyone else--

TRAVIS: Not looking at anyone, walking.

MATT: -- finding pockets.

MATT: The footsteps (heavy footsteps) come to a stop about 40 feet out. You can see just, no swords out, so there's no light. You're just looking in pitch darkness.

TRAVIS: Darkvision, 60 feet.

MATT: Exactly, which everyone by Caduceus can see at this point, if the sword has been extinguished at this point.

TALIESIN: Two games without darkvision, just saying. (laughter)

MATT: You had it briefly. (laughter)

MATT: You just hear breathing. (panting)

LAURA: Does it sound like Cree breathing?

MATT: It sounds like breathing.

TALIESIN: Sounds like a cat purr.

TRAVIS: Which is something.

MATT: Can make an insight check.

LAURA: Insight?

MATT: Insight.

LAURA: Oh, ooh! 23!

MATT: You don't know who this is, but they are definitely physically winded. but they are definitely physically winded. And there is a faint, curious upturn to a growl, like a (growls).

LAURA: (whispers) Cree.

MATT: At that point, faint bits of red light begin to fill the hall from two different spaces as the eyes on Caleb and Beau's body suddenly glow like red beacons, exposing their locations. And in that moment, two red eyes glow on Cree's body. "Ah, I was wondering when you would catch up." And we're going to end there for today.

TRAVIS: Oh no, you motherfucker!

ASHLEY: (groans)

MARISHA: Okie doke.

MATT: We'll go into this hallway showdown that I have to build next week. See how this goes.

TRAVIS: One on six?

TALIESIN: He could-- We are--

LAURA: I have-- I have some thoughts.

TALIESIN: We are not six, we are like, we are--

SAM: We're eight. We got Essek, we got Sprinkle.

TALIESIN: We're kind of broken at the moment.

LIAM: You might lose Beau and Caleb.

LAURA: We're a little broken. We're not super broken, we're a little broken.

TRAVIS: It's not just Cree.

LIAM: Jack Nicholson nod.

MATT: (laughs) But nevertheless, we'll pick up from there next week. As you are now traversing the subterranean depths--

MARISHA: Subdermal.

MATT: -- of the Cognouza Ward. The subdermal depths, you're right. (groaning)

TRAVIS: Put some sleeves on, Beau!

MATT: Ugh. You ever, like--

TRAVIS: Cover your shit up, Caleb.

MARISHA: That's true, we got on sleeves, right? Or is it really, like, humid?

MATT: It's whatever you wore into Aeor.

SAM: Sleeves are bullshit.

MARISHA: They're bullshit.

MATT: You probably have sleeves.

MARISHA: Yeah, but it glows the sleeves.

LAURA: Yeah, we would've been shedding our coats here because it's getting warmer.

LIAM: We each have one on our hands, so.

MATT: Yeah.

MARISHA: I got one right here now.

TRAVIS: They're like E.T. (humming)

MARISHA: Yeah, yeah.

TRAVIS: (shushing)

MATT: I'm excited to see what's going to come soon. All right, well, thank you so much for joining us this week. We'll see you next week. We love you very much, and is it Thursday yet? Good night.

TRAVIS: I don't want to wait a week.