Transcript:Maritime Mysteries

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

TRAVIS: (hollering) We play Dungeons & Dragons!

LIAM: (triumphant trumpeting)

MATT: Before we jump into tonight's session, we do have some announcements to get through, including and first up, our two sponsors for tonight, beginning with our first sponsor, Ravensburger. Sam.

TALIESIN: Ravensburger.

SAM: Oh! Doc!

TRAVIS: What?

SAM: Doc! I'm back from the future with crazy news!

LIAM: I can barely see the script through these glasses. We've done this before, Marty, how bad could it be?

SAM: You don't get it, Doc, I went to the year 2020, and it was heavy.

LIAM: Heavy? What, did Biff stir up more trouble with his Sports Almanac?

(laughter)

SAM: I mean, yeah, sports isn't really a thing any more in 2020.

LIAM: Oh, is it your kids, Marty? Are they in trouble?

SAM: Kids, parents, pretty much everyone. It's kind of a global thing.

LIAM: No, no, no, don't tell me too much! It could affect reality as we know it. Oh.

(laughter)

SAM: Whoa, Doc, are you checking a photo to see if I'm disappearing?

LIAM: No, Marty, it's a picture of Matt Mercer. His face, it's so elastic; I love it!

SAM: Yeah, it is pretty funny. Listen, Doc, about 2020, it gets pretty rough.

LIAM: No matter what happens, I'm sure you solved it with some hilarious antics, like riding a hoverboard or wearing a Darth Vader mask to fool your dad.

SAM: I mean, I did wear a mask.

LIAM: Got a little There Will Be Blood there for a second. And did you punch Biff in the face?

SAM: No, I didn't get within six feet of Biff, or really anyone.

LIAM: Great Scott! Marty, was there anything good about 2020?

SAM: Actually, there was. The folks at Ravensburger released their new cooperative dice game, Back to the Future: Dice Through Time. In it, Biff steals the DeLorean and takes a joyride through time doing untold damage to the space-time continuum. It's up to you to restore the temporal order.

LIAM: Oh, great Scott, that sounds more like it!

SAM: So jump into your DeLorean, traverse the Back to the Future film trilogy, and return items to their... proper place in time. (laughter) The game includes four miniature-- Is this close to the voice? It's not, is it?

MARISHA: Well--

MATT: No.

MARISHA: A little Morty, it's fine.

ASHLEY: It sounds great.

(laughter)

SAM: The game includes four miniature DeLoreans, a letter from the future's Doc Brown, and colorful dice, Scoob! And you can enter-- (laughter) And, like, you can enter for your chance to win a copy of the game by heading over to @RavensburgerNA on Twitter to, like, see where they're giving away 10 copies of the game right now! It's available at Target and in the UK. It's at Target, which is a store, or the country-- (laughter) of the United Kingdom. So two places you can get it, guys: at Target, or the entire nation of the United Kingdom. So go check it out at bitly /CROUTATIME. That'll be spelled. And thanks to Ravensburger for, like, continuing to support our show. (laughter)

MATT: Whoa.

SAM: That was a disaster, Liam.

MATT: Yeah.

ASHLEY: Wait, what did that sound--

LIAM: Hold on, let me just get this tribble off my head.

LAURA: It sounds like Rick and Morty.

MARISHA: Yeah.

LAURA: You were Morty.

SAM: I don't do voices.

TALIESIN: Have you ever seen Back to the Future?

SAM: I have seen it!

LAURA: Question, Matthew Mercer.

MATT: Yes.

LAURA: Is it Rav-ensburger or Ravens-burger?

ASHLEY: Rahv-ensburger.

MATT: I--

LAURA: Rahv-ensburger?

MATT: I probably said it incorrectly because "raven" is written in the word and I said raven, but it's possibly, probably, Rahv-ensburger. My apologies to our friends Rahv-ensburger.

SAM: We'll find out, maybe, from the sponsor. (laughter) If it's not, here, I'll just record it. Ravens-burger, and they can take that.

TRAVIS: Give us a second one.

SAM: Raven-sburger.

ASHLEY: Rahv-ensburger.

SAM: They can take that and put it in in post, right, Marisha? Is that how that works?

MARISHA: I'm not going to make the team do that.

(laughter)

TRAVIS: You sleep with it.

ASHLEY: Listen, they make world-famous puzzles.

LIAM: Wonderful.

SAM: I've been playing so many of them over the lockdown period, oh my god.

ASHLEY: Yes. They've won awards, I think.

SAM: Yeah, they're great.

MATT: That's awesome.

ASHLEY: Pretty sure.

LIAM: Also, for the audience's benefit, Sam agonized over which part he should play for the 10 minutes leading up to the start of the show.

(laughter)

SAM: I think I chose wisely.

LIAM: He does them both badly.

MATT: Well, Sam, could you please give us an example of your Doc Brown, if you don't mind?

LAURA: Please.

SAM: (clears throat) We've done this before, Marty, how bad could it be? Heavy? Did Biff stir up more trouble with his Sports Almanac?

LIAM: And now, for the feats of strength.

(laughter)

ASHLEY: Yes.

MATT: I think you chose properly.

SAM: Thank you.

ASHLEY: Thank you, that was good.

MATT: Thank you, Rahvens-Ravens-burger. And thank you to our second sponsor who's been with us since the beginning of Campaign 2, D&D Beyond.

TRAVIS: D&D Beyond!

MATT: D&D Beyond, as you should know by now, is an online digital tool to help you out keeping track of your campaigns, your characters, and all sorts of stuff. They're awesome, and you can currently pre-order the Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frostmaiden now at D&D Beyond, and immediately unlock six character sheet backgrounds and a unique set of digital dice you can use within the tool. The release includes 50 brand new monsters, over 26 terrifying locations, and 320 pages of modern horror. You can check it out now at dndbeyond.link/icewind. We have a few more announcements to get through, beginning with Marisha.

MARISHA: Yes. Content alert. You can join us on Tuesday, July 28th at 7:00pm on Twitch for our next episode of All Work No Play: Unplugged featuring Laura Bailey!

(cheering)

SAM: We had such a great time.

LIAM: Best episode.

MARISHA: See how surprised even she looks?

LAURA and MARISHA: Yeah!

TRAVIS: I was like, a Laura Bailey.

MARISHA: If you missed--

LAURA: I know, a Laura Bailey.

TRAVIS: A Laura Bailey.

MARISHA and ASHLEY: A Laura Bailey.

LIAM: Allura Vysoren.

MARISHA: Of course, if you miss the stream, the VOD will be available on our Twitch channel immediately and on YouTube the following Thursday, like 36 hours, something like that.

TRAVIS: Dope.

LAURA: Tight.

MARISHA: Yeah.

ASHLEY: Tight, tight, tight.

MATT: Thank you, Marisha.

LIAM: It's the best episode we've done of the show.

LAURA: Definitely.

MARISHA: No doubt.

SAM: 100%.

LAURA: Definitely.

MARISHA: Yeah.

MATT: And speaking of Laura Bailey, a Laura Bailey, you have some things to talk about, too.

LAURA: I have a few things to talk about right now. Oh man, you guys.

TRAVIS: Oh, there she is!

LAURA: This Funko Pop. So this was released yesterday! It was our Comic-Con exclusive, and due to circumstances, it is now available... (laughter) ...at Best Buy! And at funko.com. And it's going to be available in our UK shop. It might be available right now in our UK shop, I don't know, go check it out.

(laughter)

TRAVIS: Wow.

LAURA: Our second thing that I want to talk about, Liam O'Brien, roll that beautiful. Look at this.

SAM: What is that?

MARISHA: It's so cute!

LAURA: Our very first button down, you guys.

SAM: Oh wow.

MATT: It finally happened.

LAURA: I know. So it features all the Mighty Nein weapons and was designed by Adriann Helton, and I'm in love with it. It's really--

SAM: Could you wear that to work?

LAURA: You could, I think.

SAM: If work happens ever.

LAURA: I feel like it's awesome. It feels nice.

LIAM: It's got Skingorger on it!

MATT: It's awesome.

LAURA: I mean, I'm biased, but I think it's pretty cool.

SAM: That's so--

TRAVIS: Hold it up higher.

LAURA: Yeah, hold it up higher so you can see. Yeah, there's a little red there on it.

MARISHA: With the little button!

TRAVIS: A little button at the bottom.

SAM: That's professional.

ASHLEY: Listen, you guys know I love a good button down. I'm very excited about this shirt. I will be wearing it under a suit.

TRAVIS: Orphan Maker approved.

LAURA: That's available in the U.S. and the UK shops. And last thing, we had a ton of requests, I got a lot of messages about it, asking if we would do some masks. So you may have seen me holding this a couple weeks ago but I can finally announce, these are available. So they come in a two pack. Like this, one of the Captain Tusktooth, designed by moi, and the other one is the Mighty Nein little, oh, I guess it's Vox Machina and Mighty Nein. It's the little doodles by Wendy, @WendyDoodles.

TRAVIS: That's amazing.

LAURA: So yeah, all of the purchases will benefit our friends at Red Nose Day, and they are providing vital aid to children who are below the poverty line and have been impacted negatively by COVID-19, and that's not how you wear it.

SAM: You could.

LAURA: You could, but you shouldn't.

ASHLEY: You could wear one on up and then one.

SAM: Yeah.

LAURA: And it's got a little pocket so you can put a filter in it. And a little metal in it so you can squish your nose.

LIAM: You have to protect your blowhole.

LAURA: Yeah. So yeah, you get two in each packet, and then we also have kids' sizes available.

SAM: Oh!

MARISHA: Yeah, kiddos.

ASHLEY: That is awesome.

LAURA: So yeah, those, we'll donate $10 to Red Nose Day for every purchase made. And our masks are available right now in the U.S. and the UK shops, and will be in our Australian store very soon as well.

SAM: Australian store.

LAURA: Yeah. If they're not already. Go check it out because I don't know, they may have shown up by now.

(laughter)

TRAVIS: Nice.

MATT: Thank you, Laura.

TRAVIS: Yay, Red Nose Day!

LAURA: Yeah, yay Red Nose Day.

MATT: (sighs) All righty. That is the last of our announcements.

MARISHA: Okay, okay, okay.

MATT: And as such, it's time to bring us into tonight's episode of Critical Role.

(random cast noises)

(water bubbling) (thunder rumbling) (explosion) ♪ Role ♪ ♪ Critical Role ♪ ♪ Critical Role ♪ ♪ Critical Role ♪ ♪ Critical Role ♪ ♪ Mighty Nein ♪ ♪ Mighty Nein ♪ ♪ Roll the dice ♪ ♪ 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 ♪ ♪ 'Cause you're 'bout to be dead ♪ ♪ They got magic and flare ♪ ♪ 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 ♪ ♪ Roll the dice ♪ ♪ Critical Role ♪ ♪ Roll the dice ♪ ♪ Critical Role ♪ ♪ Critical Role ♪ ♪ Roll the dice ♪ ♪ 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
TRAVIS: That's twice in two weeks that we're both super late.

MATT: Welcome back. (laughter) So last we left off: The Mighty Nein, you had made your way to the island of Rumblecusp to prepare the coming of Traveler Con, where all the various followers of The Traveler are to convene and celebrate him, and as the Traveler would want it, probably also convince them to stop following him in such a large number. He can't quite deal with the responsibility, it's driving him a little insane, and as an archfey, not his thing any more as much. Let me see if I can get a better sense of music here. Here we go. So upon arriving, you set your crew to watch the ship, you head into the village of Vo. You discover there are people who live on this island, an entire village of individuals from different walks of life, different age groups, different backgrounds, and all seem to have lost their memory. But they live as a positive community, they support each other, a very simple lifestyle bereft of trinkets and wealth, and you find it's because these are given to the god of the island, the fire god known as Vokodo, that lives within the volcano of Rumblecusp. You wanted to go speak to this god to get permission to bring The Traveler here and have this event, and as such, you had Viridian, the druidic spiritual guardian of the Vo guide you through dangerous territory to the exterior of the volcano itself, traveling through the tunnels and the various challenges that await. You met with Vokodo, this strange entity that existed in the breathable warm waters underneath the mountain itself, gave gifts that were accepted, eventually, for some of you, and were given permission to, yes, bring them here, bring everyone to be part of this event. You all then exited the mountain and decided to stay the night at the cusp of the tunnel's exit. As you all began to bed down, sneakily placed a Greater Restoration spell upon Viridian, cleansing her of the foggy memory that has kept her from understanding who she was and where she was from for well over two decades. And it was revealed that Viridian was not her name, her name is Vilya, and apparently is from Tal'Dorei. And that was where we left off. So as you all sit in your encampment at the edge of the cavern's mouth you can see Vilya is now currently in the process of processing this immediate influx of long lost information about herself. "Um."

LAURA: How long have you been here?

MATT: "Going on probably two and a half decades, longer."

LIAM: Oh. And how did you find yourself stranded here in the first place?

MATT: "To not go into it too extensively, the people that I belong to, the Ashari, are disparate druidic tribes, very much tied to the elements themselves and the plains beyond Exandria, and I had gone on a journey to prove myself as the next to come leader of my people. I nearly completed it, and one of the final tasks I was to attempt involved a dangerous journey and avoidance of a terrible beast in the Plane of Water, known as a kraken. I failed, as I was unable to complete the trial and nearly lost my life in the process, instead losing my leg," and she gestures to the tangle of vines that now forms a living prosthetic. "I almost lost my life. "I was cut off from the gateway that was my entrance, and I, in trying to flee, just followed the currents as best I could to keep at bay from this creature, transforming into whatever I could to keep myself alive. Going into the dark depths and using my final bit of conserved magics to find the right path. I managed to come upon a small entrance, or exit, a doorway, a tear between the realms, and was, I guess, jettisoned here. I was unconscious for the better part of a week and when I came to, the people of Vo had found me by the base of the mountain on the eastern side."

LAURA: What area is that in?

MATT: "That's near the Heaven Falls."

LAURA: Oh.

LIAM: I'm so sorry.

MATT: "By then my memory was already fading. Whatever magic takes this island, whatever this Vokodo is capable of enshrouding upon this island works quickly."

LAURA: Does that mean we're at risk right now?

MATT: "I can imagine. Those who've traveled here since, within but a matter of days began to forget quite a bit of who they once were."

TRAVIS: And you think this magic extends from Vokodo, not from the island itself?

MATT: "I don't know. "But it all seems to be serving Vokodo directly."

LIAM: And forgive us, but how has this community grown in these two decades, did you say, here?

MATT: "It depends on individuals that come and stay. "There are many ships that pass by and leave within a day, I guess before the ensnaring charms of this island erase who they once were. But those that have reasons to stay for a while-- we have those who've been shipwrecked, we have those who come here of their own accord to explore, some who wish to leave wealth here. Many... less than legal sailors of the seas of the Lucidian, and whatever wealth they had brought in hopes of keeping them here eventually found its way to Vokodo as well."

LIAM: Were there fewer when you arrived?

MATT: "There were."

SAM: So all these people are, in a sense, being kept here against their will.

MATT: "They wouldn't think so. Some of them would be. Some have been there their whole life, I believe."

LIAM: And what do you think now?

MATT: "Right now?"

LIAM: Yeah.

MATT: "I think this is a travesty. These people have been robbed of their will, their past, their families. I know I've probably been robbed of mine."

SAM: Did you have a family back there?

MATT: "I think I do. It's been some time."

LAURA: So wait, are you from another dimension? You said you came through a portal, or something. Does that mean you're not from this plane?

MATT: "I'm from here, but outside of Exandria there are-- how versed are you in the overall planar structure of the world and beyond?"

LAURA: Oh, very, very well versed. Yeah, we know all about-- There's a Feywild.

MATT: "Well, let's just say I traveled briefly through a Feywild-like place as part of the trial that I failed and wound up here. But I am from Exandria."

SAM: So you were on a different plane, and then you got (whooshes) sent here?

MATT: "I believe so. To be honest, those final moments are a bit foggy, not because of the magic, but because I was losing consciousness rapidly. Look, I have been interfacing with Vokodo myself personally since practically my arrival here. He is an extremely intelligent and an extremely greedy creature. He exhibits whatever power this is over the island, whether it's himself or he uses it to its will, but as individuals forget themselves, so comes the loyalty to Vokodo, so it would not be a stretch of logic to think that they two are related."

TRAVIS: The last two and a half decades-- you seem to have a clear recollection of your time before here. Do you remember the last two and a half decades in a different light?

MATT: "I remember them unclouded, yes."

TRAVIS: Do you know what this creature could be?

MATT: "I can't say I do. I've studied quite a bit about the magics of nature, and a number of the strange elements of the world around us, but as one who has been to Pyrah and has seen the Fire Plane, has immersed myself in the very nature of the flame, I have no idea what this Vokodo is."

LAURA: But you know he's not a god?

MATT: "I highly doubt it."

LAURA: He's not.

MARISHA: Is there someone on the island who would know, if we cleared their mind, too?

MATT: "I don't know."

SAM: Yes, I mean, you have to get off this island. Your mind could be turned again within days.

MATT: "We all have to get off this island."

SAM: But we can't just leave all these people here. The V.O. community is extremely important to us. (laughter) Sorry, the Vo community is extremely important.

LIAM: Wow.

TRAVIS: You've seen, I'm sure--

MARISHA: Such a stretch.

TRAVIS: -- challenges before against Vokodo.

MATT: "Not directly, no."

TRAVIS: No one has challenged this creature?

MATT: "By the time they've come to him most of any reason they would've had to challenge him had faded."

TRAVIS: So you wouldn't know of any weaknesses that he might have, things that they recoil from, or are sensitive to?

LAURA: Yeah, have you ever witnessed him go, "Eugh," about anything, or noticed that he has a butthole or anything on the underside?

TRAVIS: A butthole?

LAURA: Yeah. If you attack somebody in the butthole, it's instant. They have a reaction.

SAM: Instant death.

LAURA: Well, I wouldn't say it's instant death, but it weakens them pretty hard.

SAM: I'm going to remember that.

MATT: Through the immense weight of this conversation, a chuckle does break through on Vilya's smile. They kind of-- "There is wisdom in what you say. (laughter) Unfortunately--"

TRAVIS: Your butthole.

MATT: "-- I cannot say that I've "noticed such a--"

LAURA: Butthole.

MATT: "-- butthole on Vokodo. There is a--"

SAM: How does he go to the bathroom, then?

LAURA: He has to have one.

SAM: Yes, he must. Anyway, sorry, go on. Time is precious.

MATT: "Precious things are, if anything, what would be a fault to this creature. It's an obsession."

SAM: Oh, that's his greed.

MATT: "And even since I've been here, the island has been slowly changing."

MARISHA: In what way?

MATT: "And I've spoken with those who've been here long before me, but there are shards of other places embedded here, like where re walked through, where I took you, that darkened area, that swamp-like space was not like that once, and from my knowledge, it's almost like an element of the Shadowfell has bled through in just that space."

LAURA: The Shadowfell!

SAM: What's that? What's that?

LAURA: No, I heard The Traveler talk about that one time.

SAM: What is that? Is that a--

LAURA: I think it's scary or something.

MARISHA: I would know what the Shadowfell is, right?

MATT: You would know. The both of you would have experience in this. "There's something about the presence of Vokodo, whether it's Vokodo's arrival or just living in this space that is slowly--"

MARISHA: Breaking down the barriers between planes?

MATT: "Or at least is expanding the influence that these shards have had, as they've always been here. The Ruins, these spots have always been here, they've just been slowly expanding."

ASHLEY: What do you mean by--

LAURA: Do you think, sorry.

ASHLEY: -- expanding? Just the--

MATT: "Just the--"

ASHLEY: -- darkness of it?

MATT: "The range."

ASHLEY: The range of it.

MATT: "The Ruin was once just a singular section with a few buildings that were left in rubble and one spire-like construct, and since then the trees around it have slowly died and withered, and that land is expanding."

TALIESIN: The Heaven's Fall, have you been back since you--?

MATT: "Not directly. It's forbidden by Vokodo to traverse them."

LAURA: That's his weak spot. It's his weak spot.

MARISHA: We should go. Yeah, absolutely.

TALIESIN: I think it's a--

LIAM: Place to go.

TALIESIN: Sounds like maybe that's how you got here, maybe--

MARISHA: Don't look at the man behind the curtain.

TALIESIN: -- a little too--

TRAVIS: Ticket for seven.

LIAM: That's why you showed up.

TALIESIN: Is that a water, Water World?

MARISHA: Totally Water World.

TALIESIN: Or dimension.

MARISHA: Yeah.

ASHLEY: That actually could be the butthole.

LAURA: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

MARISHA: Yeah, but the butthole--

SAM: It's the watery butthole.

MARISHA: -- of Vo. Okay, so hang on then, because there's also--

SAM: Frothy.

TRAVIS: The north--

MARISHA: -- the Winding Core, the mining.

SAM: There's the Winding Core---

LIAM: The Ruin.

SAM: That's where there's mines and gems.

TRAVIS: They get all the jewels out, though.

MATT: "There is a chasm that carves through the island from the northwest to the southeast beneath the mountain. We, ourselves, only find safety in mining the southeast portion of it that's not terribly far from our village."

TRAVIS: What do you mean safely?

MATT: "Our village. That feels weird to say now. (sighs)"

LAURA: Do we have to free everyone else?

SAM: Of course we do. I mean, we have to try.

TALIESIN: There's only so much we can do a day. I'm tapped out.

TRAVIS: Well, and beyond that, I mean, if this creature's been able to keep minds like this tamed for two and a half decades we need more than just us. We should get as many as we can.

LIAM: How many are in Vo?

SAM: It's really hard to get into.

MATT: "We have somewhere in the neighborhood--" (laughter) "Close to 120 villages of Vo total."

LAURA: Oh my god, we could potentially have more people coming for Traveler Con than already are--

MATT: "How many?"

LAURA: Maybe like, 200, maybe.

LIAM: This is a bit of a pickle for what you have in mind, Jester.

SAM: Yes, we can--

MATT: "And what is to happen to them if they stay for a day, two days?"

LAURA: Well, I don't know! I didn't know that this could happen until just now!

MATT: "I know."

LAURA: What if, oh, oh, I have an idea! What if we free as many people as we can in the next couple days, we keep doing Greater Restorations, right, on everybody, and then when everybody comes for Traveler Con, we use all the people from the village that are free as well as all of the new people coming for Traveler Con, and we just attack Guacamole.

TALIESIN: What happens in two days when I forget who I am?

SAM: Also, how on earth would you-- would we convince the 200 Traveler fans--

LAURA: We wouldn't.

SAM and LAURA: The Traveler would.

SAM: Okay, and so they're going to arrive here for Traveler Con and Traveler's going to be like, "Welcome, first things first, let's go attack a lava god."

LAURA: Trial by fire!

SAM: Ooh, okay. Has a nice ring to it.

LIAM: We could also potentially magic away all the people here in Vo, but it is a trap for your friends who are coming.

MARISHA: Yeah.

LIAM: I don't know. It seems like the numbers are against us, so we either clear the island, fix the island, fix Vokodo, or your 200 or 300, however many it is, risk not following The Traveler, but Vokodo.

LAURA: Do you think it's possible to defeat... (whispers) Guacamole?

MATT: "If he's not a god, then anything is possible. As far as the idea of gathering individuals to help from within the village, there are able-bodied hunters, but the majority, the vast majority of our society are families, builders. They're not warriors. There's a reason only I have been the one interfacing to make the various offerings, because as you've seen, the journey to get there is fraught with much peril, and very few have the constitution and capability of surviving that journey."

TRAVIS: The other of your triumvirate, Terra, the hunting leader, a fearsome warrior I would imagine, yes?

MATT: "Quite."

LIAM: And your bear friends?

TRAVIS: So if we were to be picky with our restorations, perhaps they might be who we go after next?

MATT: "I think Terra would be quite the asset if this is something you wish to pursue."

LAURA: You are quite powerful yourself, yes?

MATT: "I have capabilities, but I have my limits as well. My training was not complete."

TRAVIS: I worry about time.

LAURA: Traveler?

TRAVIS: Oh, are you going to make a collect call?

MARISHA: Yeah, well... Before you talk to The Traveler, could we talk to you? You, Jester. Yeah, you.

LAURA: Me?

MARISHA: Yeah, yeah.

LAURA: About what?

MARISHA: How did you get the vision for a volcano island? How did you find out about Rumblecusp?

LAURA: Oh.

MARISHA: The Traveler pointed you in this direction, right?

LAURA: Yeah. I think so. I can't remember exactly.

SAM: Did you pitch the idea of a volcano?

LAURA: I did pitch the idea of a volcan-- of a vo-- Yes. I did.

TRAVIS: Oh vo vo.

LAURA: (laughs nervously) I was thinking that volcano that we were at with your family--

TALIESIN: Yeah.

LAURA: -- and then it was like, well, maybe instead we should do something tropical because that would be a nice vacay, and then there was a tropical volcano.

TALIESIN: I regret not putting up more of a fight about that.

SAM: I get what you're saying. If The Traveler somehow--

MARISHA: Knows what's going on.

SAM: -- pushed us here, perhaps he knows--

MARISHA: If he influenced this entire decision. Didn't you say he wanted to be less busy?

TRAVIS: Oh, shit. He's trying to offload followers.

MARISHA: What if he's trying to legitimately offload followers? We joked about that yesterday or something, I don't know, but what if this is all part of his plan? He's The Traveler. He has to know something weird is going on in this place, right?

LAURA: Well yeah, I mean, I told him that it's weird. He knows.

SAM: Did he seem surprised?

LAURA: He was like, "Oh, seems weird." I don't know.

TRAVIS: Do you think there's any chance that he would, I don't know, materialize again and help us in a (clicks) assault against--

LAURA: I--

TRAVIS: -- Vovo.

LAURA: -- could ask him to do that.

SAM: Time is tight. We've been here one night already, correct?

MATT: You have.

SAM: This is day two, and now it's turning into evening.

LAURA: Yeah.

MATT: It is.

SAM: Woof.

MATT: And Vilya at this point pipes up and goes, "From the experiences I've had, usually the first night is not terribly eventful, but it begins to quickly take hold after that."

MARISHA: Well, you know--

SAM: And you two Caduceus and Jester, you both have the ability to undo this?

LAURA: Well, I will have the ability tomorrow.

SAM: If you remember.

TALIESIN: Twice.

LAURA: Yeah, I just have to, you know, talk to The Traveler and pick what I want to do for the day.

TRAVIS: How many total, between you two? Three or two?

TALIESIN: Good question.

LAURA: It's a 5th-level.

MARISHA: It's an expensive spell.

LAURA: So I can do two.

TALIESIN: Wait, hold on.

SAM: And you, Viridi, Vilya--

LAURA: Three, technically.

TALIESIN: Three.

SAM: Do you have this magical ability that they used?

MATT: "I believe I do have access to it, yes."

SAM: Okay, okay, so if we wake up tomorrow and one of us is--

TRAVIS: If we wake up tomorrow.

LAURA: What if it's all of us?

TALIESIN: What if it's the two of us?

TRAVIS: ? Just the two of us. ?

MARISHA: Well, you know, Vilya, we've been doing this--

SAM: Would you prefer we kill you and leave you here, or just leave you alive?

TRAVIS: No, we're not doing that.

ASHLEY: Well, we could sleep in shifts, maybe, and each of you could take a shift--

LIAM: Also, for the record, if we want to leave tomorrow we can leave.

SAM: That's true.

LIAM: But you have a lot of work to do. I suppose it depends largely on what it is you want here, Jester. We have come here for you.

LAURA: Well, The Traveler's depending on me.

LIAM: Do you think there is any validity to Beauregard's theory?

TALIESIN: What happens if we sleep on the ship?

LAURA: Well, I mean, you know, we talked about it, me and The Traveler talked about him wanting to have less followers. You know. I don't know if he knows. I don't know if he knew.

LIAM: What do you want? You've always said you want The Traveler to be a god.

LAURA: Well, not if he doesn't want that.

LIAM: Difficult.

MARISHA: Can we all still name our parents and where we came from?

TALIESIN: Yeah, we'd know if we did that.

MARISHA: Can we still do that?

TALIESIN: We did that--

SAM: Yeah, we are.

MARISHA: We did it earlier, but can we do it now?

TRAVIS: Caleb, how long did it take us to get here from the village?

LIAM: Precisely-- I don't know. Was it like, a day?

MATT: It was about... Let me look at my paper again, it was roughly six to eight hours to get from Vo to where you are here.

TRAVIS: The problem is, the idea of going back and getting reinforcements, whether it's Terra, Lukash, or the were-bear people, it's going to take time.

SAM: It's going to take a day.

TRAVIS: Might be worse.

MATT: "Anybody have any means of traversing over? "I've seen some of you--"

LAURA: Flying?

SAM: Yes, yes.

LAURA: I can fly.

LIAM: Yeah.

TRAVIS: A few of us. Not me.

MATT: "'Cause if we--"

TRAVIS: Keep watch.

MATT: "If we can bypass having to go through the jungle, that will significantly decrease the time we require to get there."

SAM: And we would be going there to get an ally or two to do what?

TRAVIS: To come help us fight this--

SAM: We're just going to go in there and like, (punches) fight? Or should we go to this Falls first?

MARISHA: I agree with Veth. I think we need more information on what's going on here.

LIAM: I think we want to go where Vokodo wants us not to go.

MARISHA: I agree.

SAM: The butthole.

MARISHA: Yeah.

TRAVIS: The chain--

MARISHA: If someone says "Don't go to the butthole," that's the first place to go.

LAURA: Well, not necessarily, no. You should respect it if they don't want to.

LIAM: Are we still talking about the same thing?

MARISHA: I don't know anymore. Oh god, it's starting.

ASHLEY: You're forgetting. (laughter)

MARISHA: Oh no. What are buttholes for?

MATT: Vilya does say, "The places that are forbidden, from Vokodo's standpoint at least, are the Heaven's Falls and the Ruin for protective reasoning. I think those are the only primary places "that are considered limited."

ASHLEY: That's where we have to go.

TALIESIN: Which of those two has decent beach access? (laughter)

TRAVIS: What?

MARISHA: Yeah, so we can sleep on the ship.

TALIESIN: I've got an idea.

SAM: Beachfront property.

MARISHA: We go. We-- I know where you're going. We go, we investigate, we finish our investigation, we have Orly pick us up on the beach, we sail out by a few hundred meters, and we sleep on the ship tonight.

TALIESIN: Or we sleep on the ship tonight and then sail it over there.

LAURA: Or, we cast Breathe Underwater on all of us and then we go sleep in the water, and we don't need a ship.

TALIESIN: Unless we get attacked by a giant--

TRAVIS: Also, the Heaven's stair, yeah, Heaven's Falls, isn't it quite a journey?

MATT: "From here, if by wing, not quite as far, but on foot from where we stand now, if we go along the mountain we could probably get there in about six hours, but it's a perilous journey to hike along the--"

TRAVIS: By foot it's six hours?

MATT: "By foot alongside the mountain, yes. If we're going through the jungle we're looking at the better part of a day, 10 to 12."

TALIESIN: And I'm pretty tapped.

TRAVIS: Clock is ticking on the thing that--

MATT: "By flight, maybe three."

TRAVIS: -- our memory not being affected, so.

MARISHA: Yeah, can we-- How are we feeling? Are we feeling?

TRAVIS: Little unsettled, a little poopy happening.

MARISHA: Marisha's asking the DM how are we feeling? Are we starting to feel foggy on things, are we like--

MATT: No.

MARISHA: No? Okay.

TRAVIS: How are the colors right now? (laughter)

TALIESIN: Are you there, DM? It's me, Marisha.

MARISHA: Is it?

LIAM: Sound.

TRAVIS: Yeah.

MATT: This might help you actually get a little bit of a visual.

LAURA: Hey!

SAM: Can you touch it?

TRAVIS: Throw.

SAM: Can you touch it?

LIAM: Oh.

MATT: That kind of worked.

TRAVIS: Yeah.

MATT: Kind of worked.

TALIESIN: I like the idea of going as far away from this place as possible tonight, sleeping and then coming back in the morning.

SAM: It's pretty cool.

LAURA: Yeah, text us a picture. Take a picture of it and text it.

MATT: Thank you, Deven.

SAM: Oh, that's a Deven Rue?

MATT: Yeah.

TRAVIS: Ooh, that's very cool.

MARISHA: I agree, though. I don't think we can fight this thing yet until we have more information on what it does.

MATT: I could put it right over here, in front of the table, if you want to.

SAM: Travvy.

TRAVIS: Huh?

MATT: If you want to hand me that, I can-- throw it back, I can put it right in the middle of the table.

SAM: We'll see it on these little--

MATT: Look at that.

LAURA: Hey!

TALIESIN: Well, that's convenient. LAURA and

LIAM: Ooh.

MATT: There we go. So this is the main mountain. You guys are currently about there, on the western side, a little ways up the mountain base. The village of Vo is about here.

LAURA: Oh, that makes sense.

MATT: The Falls are in the shadow on this side of the island, right there. So you can go along the mountain this way, which is the shorter route on foot, but it's perilous to go along the rocky mountainside down to the falls, or you can go all the way through the jungle, which takes a lot longer, or if you can find a way to get everyone to do it, you can fly there, but that's... Depends on what you guys have at your disposal.

TALIESIN: Or we can fly to the ship.

SAM: A few of us can fly, and you can, too. Right, Vilya?

MATT: "I can. I can carry one person at most. We could probably carry more than one, but that's going to be challenging, and failure there could have some grave consequences."

LAURA: I can carry two people.

LIAM: Same.

SAM: That's everybody.

LAURA: Maybe two plus, like Veth, you could be on my back, maybe.

LIAM: Where are we saying the butthole is? In the shadow of those two rocky crags on that side?

MATT: Right here.

SAM: It's in that dark place there.

LAURA: Where are the Ruins at?

LIAM: Where the sun don't shine.

MATT: The Ruins are up in the center of this open space here.

LAURA: Ooh, the complete other direction. I want to see the Ruins too, though.

LIAM: I want to see the Ruins.

TALIESIN: What's that seemingly separated island off the corner?

TRAVIS: The upper right hand corner?

MATT: "I do not know."

ASHLEY: Looks like a little face.

LIAM: And DM, Liam asking, Vilya said that Vokodo doesn't like people visiting the Ruins, or--

LAURA: Both.

SAM: And Heaven Falls.

LIAM: Heaven Falls.

MATT: Both, yes.

LIAM: Okay. And where was the Ruins again? Not in the shadow. There.

TALIESIN: Okay. I think I-

MARISHA: But Vilya came in through the Heavens, the Falls. That's where Vilya came in?

MATT: That's where she believes. She was found near there, yes.

SAM: So we need to message Orly to get the ship around to the other side, we need to sleep with some sort of plan in case all of us are mind melted overnight.

LAURA: Why can't we Breathe Underwater, swim to the bottom, you use your thingy so nothing can get in, and then we sleep underwater beneath the ship?

SAM: Isn't it night time now?

MATT: Yes, at this point in time it's pushing close to like, nine, 10 o'clock.

SAM: We would have to hike or fly for hours in the dark to get to water.

TALIESIN: Or maybe it's safer on that other island, I don't know.

MARISHA: I don't know if I trust another uncharted island right now.

TALIESIN: Or back on the boat. My vote's for back on the boat.

MARISHA: We've got a perfectly comfortable boat.

SAM: You can't teleport us today, can you?

LIAM: I cannot teleport us to the boat. I could teleport us to a city we know.

MARISHA: But we could fly to the boat.

LIAM: Yeah.

MARISHA: Let's fly to the boat.

LAURA: Okay.

MARISHA: And then we can sail around to Heaven's Falls and check it out in the morning.

SAM: That would take hours and hours.

MARISHA: We can rest.

MATT: "So you have the capability "of carrying the entirety of your party through flight?"

SAM: I think so.

LAURA: You can fly right now? I thought you couldn't fly earlier, Caleb?

TALIESIN: Yeah.

SAM: Minus one, we need--

LIAM: I can fly.

SAM: -- you to carry someone.

LAURA: But that's why we didn't fly earlier.

LIAM: I was an owl earlier, wasn't I?

LAURA: Oh.

LIAM: I don't have the Fly spell.

LAURA: Oh, but you could turn into something that could carry one person. I could turn into--

LIAM: Two.

LAURA: Okay, yeah, then we should be able to do it, yeah.

MATT: "All right, that's that then. I can carry one at most."

LAURA: Okay, good. Yeah, we should be good.

MATT: "Oh, well that'll make it far easier to get to these destinations then. That would've been helpful before we made the trek."

TALIESIN: I say we fly tonight to the boat. I don't want to sleep here.

MARISHA: What time is it, Caleb?

LIAM: It's getting close to--

TRAVIS: Nine-ish.

MATT: Let's say 9:30, 10:00pm. You know exactly. 9:53.

LIAM: Thanks.

TALIESIN: It's going to be a late night. We'll sleep in. If we can collect the crew they can sail their way to the other side maybe while we sleep.

LAURA: Oh my gosh, yeah, the crew.

LIAM: I chose Keen Mind and Identify so we'd always know what's up.

MATT: Yeah, it's great.

LAURA: All right.

TRAVIS: We're going back to the boat?

SAM: How long would it take-- Captain?

TRAVIS: Yes.

SAM: How long, in your esteemed nautical mind, would it take us to sail 'round the island.

TRAVIS: Such knowledge can only be gained after years upon the sea, the wind in your face, the brine in your gums. I have no clue, no idea.

SAM: Two hours? Three? Five? A day?

TRAVIS: Well, I mean, if I had to guess it based off of the other big ole map--

LIAM: Do you have your binder?

LAURA: Matt knows.

TRAVIS: Maybe like, three hours?

MATT: What are you asking?

TRAVIS: To go around the island at 35 miles per hour.

SAM: 35? That's how fast we can go?

TALIESIN: Yeah.

SAM: Damn!

TRAVIS: Sorry.

LAURA: No.

TRAVIS: No. Is it 35 feet per second?

MATT: No, on the ship you mean?

TRAVIS: Yeah.

MATT: No, you're looking at, pace would be about three-- Sailing ship should be about two to three miles an hour.

TRAVIS: 35 miles an hour.

LAURA: So it's probably three to five miles an hour, maybe.

TALIESIN: And how big is the, I'm not--

TRAVIS: Four miles per hour.

TALIESIN: How big is the island across? How many miles across is it approximately?

MATT: You don't know.

TALIESIN: Oh, okay.

LIAM: What if there was another boat going in the opposite direction.

ASHLEY: That is a fast fantasy boat. (laughter)

TALIESIN: A speedboat.

TRAVIS: Magic, you guys.

LAURA: So yeah, let's fly.

SAM: So we're going to fly at night to the boat?

LAURA: What else are we--

TALIESIN: No, that's fine.

TALIESIN: And let the crew know to get ready.

LAURA: Yeah. Oh, I'll send a message to Orly right now. Hey, Orly! We're going to come back to the boat and sleep tonight. Get the crew on there, it's important to do that. (laughter) Also, we're kind of hungry.

SAM: (laughs) Oh, nice, you ordered in.

LAURA: Yeah.

MATT: Okay. Orly responds, "Understood. "Slight issue. "We don't have a boat."

ASHLEY and MARISHA: (gasps)

SAM: Ooh, this would be a commercial break.

MARISHA: Fuck! (laughter) Oh no.

TALIESIN: We have a ship.

MATT: "Myself and the crew are in the village."

LAURA: Oh.

MARISHA: Was it the dragon turtle?

MATT: That's all he responded with.

MARISHA: Fuck.

TRAVIS: Ask him what the fuck happened.

LIAM: Yeah, you got one more in you, Jester.

LAURA: Okay. What the fuck happened?! Was it the dragon turtle? Was it Vo...kodo?

MARISHA: Does he remember where he parked it? Maybe he just forgot.

LAURA: Did it sail away without you?

MARISHA: Yeah.

LAURA: Oh my god. (laughter)

LAURA: Orly! Okay, well. (laughter)

MATT: "We set up camp like you requested, but nope, it was the dragon turtle. (laughter) Heard a terrifying crunch sound, and watched her sink."

ASHLEY: Oh no.

LAURA: Shit.

TALIESIN: Okay, so.

LAURA: We have to kill him now because if we don't we're going to be stuck here forever.

SAM: Well, we won't.

LAURA: Well, they will. We can't get everybody out.

ASHLEY: We told them to stay, to get off of the boat and sleep on the beach.

TRAVIS: The beach. (laughter)

LAURA: Yeah, that's true.

SAM: Whatcha got there, Yasha?

ASHLEY: I have a cookie.

TALIESIN: Maybe underwater. (laughter)

ASHLEY: I think that's what this is.

TALIESIN: Underwater or that other island?

LAURA: Huh?

TALIESIN: Underwater or that other island.

LAURA: Underwater, we should sleep underwater.

SAM: Whoa, what? How does that even work? We'll float away, there's currents.

LIAM: Our main escape route is gone, and we're not going to just have me help us abandon everyone who's on the island that is like Vilya was, so we need to commit to whatever we're doing here. And we're not going to be able to save all those people. We don't have any backup now, there is no boat. So I think we need to--

TRAVIS: Go forward.

LIAM: Go to the butthole.

LAURA: Tonight?

TRAVIS: Go to the dark place in between.

LIAM: We should--

LAURA: Go try to sleep tonight?

LIAM: We should, yeah. But your ideas--

MARISHA: In between. (laughs)

LIAM: Both are good. Well, there is no boat, so your idea, it's a good one, we sleep underwater.

LAURA: Caleb agrees with me! Caleb agrees with me! He said I was smart!

SAM: How would that work? We have to tether ourselves together to an anchor, and how, I mean, what?

MARISHA: Yeah, will we float to the top of the dome and just kind of like sleep in the dome?

TRAVIS: The dome doesn't really keep you from leaving.

LAURA: So we tie ourselves in.

TRAVIS: Hmm, this seems unnecessarily complicated.

SAM: We could just sleep in shifts.

TALIESIN: I just thought of a-- What are we going to breathe in the dome?

LIAM: Water.

MARISHA: Well, he was saying we cast Water Breathing.

TALIESIN: How long does it last for?

MARISHA: Eight hours.

SAM: A day.

LAURA: 24 hours.

MARISHA: Oh, 24 hours.

LAURA: Does it keep concentration when you're sleeping? Yes, it does!

TALIESIN: Wow. That work for everybody?

TRAVIS: Does it?

LAURA: Does it?

TRAVIS: Yeah.

MATT: It is not concentration.

MARISHA: My concern, is we don't--

LAURA: Oh good.

MARISHA: Just because we're underwater doesn't mean we're out of the range of the island's influence of whatever it is. We've got to be far enough away from this. Underwater isn't going to stop us from the vibe.

LAURA: Well, then our only option is Caleb, you teleport us out and then tomorrow morning we teleport back in.

LIAM: That's--

SAM: You can't teleport back.

LIAM: That's difficult.

LAURA: Teleport us to Essek and he can teleport us back in.

SAM: Oh my god, we're going to travel 5,000 miles just to sleep? (laughter)

LAURA: Or we forget who we are and we stay here forever.

TALIESIN: If there was a way to counteract it, maybe. Do we know how it works, or is it just--

SAM: Odds are not all three of you will forget your memory tonight. Is there something that we can do to ensure that you'll be strong of will, constitution overnight?

TRAVIS: Have you seen Caduceus' dexterity checks lately? He's going to forget who he is.

LIAM: Vilya.

TALIESIN: I'm going to forget how to walk at the rate of this.

LIAM: Do you know, does this phenomenon come with sleep specifically?

LAURA: Were there signs that it was happening?

MATT: "Commonly it would be upon waking that memories would fade."

LAURA: And it would happen completely overnight, or it would be like, you'd wake up and be like, "Oh no, I'm starting to forget some stuff," and then the next day--

MATT: "It would be somewhat gradual. "Within a few days it would all be gone. "But large sections would leave with each morning "that one was not prepared."

TALIESIN: Do you remember how to do things? Or do you just forget why you would do them? Do you feel like you lost--

MATT: "More that. No, I could still use my capabilities, the skills, the things that were not inherent to my personal experiences, to my relationships, to my sense of identity, those stayed, everything else just went away."

LIAM: Well, this is very much the same as common amnesia. You do not lose your total sense of self.

MATT: "It's engineered to keep you from leaving."

MARISHA: Yeah, exactly.

MATT: "You're still useful."

MARISHA: You're still a tool.

TALIESIN: Oh boy.

TRAVIS: So are we going to the Heaven's Falls, or are we going to get Terra first and then the Heaven's Falls?

LAURA: I think the village.

SAM: I vote Heaven Falls.

TRAVIS: There's always a chance that if we try to get Terra the other villagers might not let them go.

SAM: There's a chance that Terra won't want to go.

LAURA: Oh god.

LIAM: I'm more of the inclination that we stick to ourselves.

MARISHA: Do we want to try and investigate this other island that's fairly uncharted, or do we think that that's--

TRAVIS: It's pretty far, pretty far.

MARISHA: Well, if we're flying.

SAM: But also, we know the places that we need to investigate: the Ruins, the Heaven Falls. We don't need to add a third place that's--

MARISHA: If it's just far enough away from Vokodo--

TALIESIN: I feel like he would send people there if it were still under his influence. Maybe it's just too far so he doesn't bother mining it.

MARISHA: Right, it's out of his radius, maybe it's far enough.

LAURA: Why don't we land near Heaven Falls? Because we won't be able to fly for that long without landing. My ability to fly will only last an hour at a time.

MARISHA: Get to Heaven Falls and then go from there?

LAURA: Yeah. Maybe Caleb can send Frumpkin and scout out the other island.

MATT: "If we're carrying as many figures as we're discussing in these forms, we're not going to be able to travel at full speed either, so if you can only keep this for an hour, be mindful of the time you have."

LAURA: Yeah. I'll be reliant on you, Caleb. As soon as you start to land I will, too, okay?

LIAM: Yeah.

TALIESIN: I'll fly with you as well so we split up the healers.

TRAVIS: Let's do it.

MARISHA: Let's go.

TRAVIS: I feel the need.

MARISHA: Yeah.

TRAVIS: The need for speed.

SAM: Did you just make that up?

TRAVIS: How'd you like it?

SAM: It was good.

LAURA: It was good.

SAM: It was.

ASHLEY: It really kind of rhymes.

TALIESIN: You should write that down.

MARISHA: Canon!

LIAM: If I'm carrying Caduceus, one of you will need to carry Yasha. I can't take that much weight.

LAURA: I can carry Yasha.

ASHLEY: You can? Okay.

LAURA: And you should carry Fjord.

MATT: "All right."

LAURA: And then Beau and Veth.

LIAM: They're both pretty-- LAURA and

LIAM: Light.

LAURA: So we'll, yeah.

SAM: Who are we going? We're going with Caleb?

LIAM: I'll take you and Caduceus.

LAURA: I'll take you and Yasha.

MARISHA: Okay.

TALIESIN: That's the plan.

TRAVIS: Just like you do.

MATT: "All right."

MARISHA: Rock.

TRAVIS: Who's leading? Who's in the--? Okay.

LAURA: Well.

MATT: "I'll lead."

TRAVIS: I'm ready when you are.

MATT: You watch as Vilya stands up for a second, and you guys are about 15 feet in from the mouth of the cave, and you watch as she stands up and (sighs) takes a breath and looks out wistfully into the dark, the pitch black, lightless night, the void that exists beyond the barely-lit mouth of the cavern you guys sit within. She takes a couple of steps, speeds up, and as she runs and looks like she's about to leap out of the hole, you watch, (whooshes) she transforms once again, wings extending out and loops out into the shadow.

MARISHA: Catch her Fjord, that's a run and jump. Go, go.

TRAVIS: Yeah, I think she forgot.

MATT: Before looping back around. (laughter)

LIAM: Wow, she really just left without all of us. Wasn't expecting that.

TALIESIN: And she's gone.

MATT: In a giant owl form, you see the familiar dark brown, textured, massive owl form now waiting at the exterior of the cavern.

TRAVIS: Ooh. I don't know how to best do this. Do I just offer an arm, or--?

LAURA: Both arms out.

TRAVIS: Like this?

LAURA: Yeah, so she can grab you.

TALIESIN: Yeah, that looks--

LAURA: That looks uncomfortable. That's got to suck.

TRAVIS: (hooting)

MATT: You walk out towards her?

TRAVIS: Yeah.

MATT: As you approach, the owl (whooshes) disappears into the shadow.

TRAVIS: What?

MATT: (whooshes) Suddenly from above these two large talons just grasp both sides of your arms and your feet are just kicking off into air.

TRAVIS: No, no! Slower! Slower!

MATT: There's a rush of wind and darkness. You now can look up and you can see a little bit of the moon, or specifically Catha, and Ruidus is barely visible behind you that way, and there are stars and bits of sparse clouds, and it is just wind rushing past, and it is a wild sensation. Your stomach drops.

TRAVIS: Got to talk about your nails.

MATT: Immediate sweat. It's intense.

TRAVIS: (hyperventilating)

LAURA: We should go.

LIAM: Well, when in Vo, hmm?

TALIESIN: Doing the airplane.

TRAVIS: Yovo.

ASHLEY: "Yovo."

LIAM: I grab my two and follow.

MATT: All right.

LAURA: Same. Giant owl with navy, inky feathers.

MATT: Okay, okay.

LIAM: I am my typical dirty brown. (laughter)

MATT: Grasping onto your group, it is a heavy load to bear, even with the size of these creatures it is a lot of weight to carry. You continue now following Vilya's lead. You guys begin to crest up and around the edge of the southern side of the mountain heading towards the eastern edge of the island. As you all are making your way around, and because of the weight--

LAURA: ? Making our way ?

MATT: -- and the speed you're traveling-- yes?

LAURA: No, nothing.

MATT: Okay. It is a bit of a challenge to maintain height, maintain the people you're carrying--

TRAVIS: Oh shit, a challenge.

MATT: I do need Caleb and Jester and I'll have Vilya here to go ahead and just roll a standard strength check as the giant owl.

LAURA: Oh.

LIAM: Which is plus one.

LAURA: That's it?

TALIESIN: I'm going to do the-- god, my god, my brain has made of Swiss cheese.

LIAM: Would you know to Bless me, though?

TALIESIN: I'm going to, yeah, I'm going to give you a Guidance.

ASHLEY: Guidance.

MATT: I will say Guidance does not apply to this because it's not a very short term--

TALIESIN: Oh, fair point.

MATT: -- attempt. Yeah, this is a prolonged exertion.

LIAM: Nine.

MATT: All right.

SAM: Oh boy.

MARISHA: (laughs)

LAURA: 15.

MATT: Okay.

LIAM: Tracks.

MATT: You guys, as a group, watch as Caleb begins to falter a little bit with strength. But between the three of you, you did manage to maintain composure. You end up flying a little lower than you anticipated and coast right above where the trees and rocks on the outside of the mountain--

LAURA: I get in front of him and give him my tailwind so it's easier for him.

MATT: Okay, okay. And with that.

LAURA: Farted on you.

MATT: See, there you go. And with that you find it a bit easier, but those of you who are dangling, yourself as well, Fjord, from beneath these birds, at times you are no more than four or five feet above the jagged pinnacle of a broken volcanic spire, or a broken tree trunk that is now jagging out in four or five different bladed tops as the moonlight just barely frames it to where you don't even notice it until it's right beneath you and you just barely miss it off the top.

SAM: Is this like a wing suit?

MATT: Kind of, that kind of a feel.

LIAM: Terrible, that's terrible.

LAURA: I picture Beau doing a kickoff on one of them.

MATT: (laughs)

MARISHA: Lift, lift.

TRAVIS: Smash my shin.

MATT: You have not quite reached your destination yet when you are aware that the spell is about to fade.

LIAM: (concerned hooting)

LAURA: (affirmative hooting) (laughter)

LIAM: Five more minutes of this, please.

MATT: Continue.

LAURA: I just follow his lead, if he starts to land, I go down.

MATT: All right. So you guys have now made your way mostly around the mountain, and you have to stop. You're on the eastern side, a little bit higher up from where the entrance to Vokodo's tunnel was on the other side of the mountain. You're not to the Falls yet. Right as the spells finish and as you land it's a little rockslide-y. It's not the most solid terrain, but you do manage to safely stop and revert to your forms. You guys are on this slight outcropping on the mountain, safe, but in still near pitch darkness beyond what little bit of Catha moonlight is catching you guys.

LIAM: That was a workout.

LAURA: Maybe try to stay a little bit higher next time, Caleb.

LIAM: I forgot that-- it's starting!

MARISHA: Why did you shapeshift into such a scrawny owl? You can like-- It doesn't have to be like you, right? When you shapeshift, you can beef 'em up?

LIAM: Yeah, well, I'm proud of my smarts, so.

MARISHA: Well. (laughter)

MATT: Now, Vilya says, "Are you able to do that again?"

LAURA: Sure.

LIAM: Yeah, easily.

MATT: "Then let's take the rest of the journey."

SAM: Oh.

MATT: And she turns right back into her giant owl form, and--

TRAVIS: Just let me--

MATT: (whooshes)

TRAVIS: (shrieks) (laughter)

MATT: Immediately lifts off once more with Fjord.

TRAVIS: Communication!

LIAM: Caleb changes and his whole head rotates 180 degrees around and looks at Veth, grabs her, grabs Caduceus. Hoo!

TALIESIN: Oh boy. (laughter)

LAURA: Did one of you guys want to ride on my back, or are you good dangling?

MARISHA: It's kind of fun dangling.

ASHLEY: I kind of like dangling.

MARISHA: It's kind of nice.

LAURA: Tight. All right.

ASHLEY: Feels a little dangerous.

MARISHA: Yeah.

MATT: It's like both of you guys in those hanging rollercoasters.

MARISHA: Yeah, totally.

LAURA: Ah!

MARISHA: (sneezes)

LAURA: Bless you.

SAM: Gesundheit.

MARISHA: Sorry.

MATT: Careful, don't pop another rib.

MARISHA: I know, right?

LAURA: Oh god.

TALIESIN: Oh man.

MATT: As you guys begin to make your way down the side of the mountain, and from this perspective, too, the moonlight is hitting the eastern side of the mountain, so you can see the shape of it against the blackened silhouette of the night sky above it, and you can see the plume of smoke that is rising up and then vanishing into the dark abyss of the night sky. Following Vilya further down, eventually, you can see now there are pools of water that are up above, gathering in small areas, recesses atop this volcanic edge where the mountain begins to level out a bit. The decline is not quite as steep, and there are small waterfalls, and there's a gentle spray sensation that hits you, like nearby waves are crashing. And as you follow Vilya towards the edge, you can see where the cliff ends, but there is a spray, there is a perpetual splash of water, similar to a brook hitting a rough bit of rocks, and the white rapids are beginning to gather, but it's at the edge of the cliff and spilling into these pools and creating this small series of tangled rivers that are all gathering in this base area of the mountain. It is, in its own way, it's strange, and you hear the sound of rushing water getting louder and louder until eventually you, Fjord, being the first one to see it, it looks like a spraying crashing wave. Like the moment where the wave is coming towards the shore and begins to crest and break the shore, but it's coming upward and splashing into the top part of this cliff. And it's maybe 10 feet beneath your feet. And then as you pass over that edge it is a sheer drop, about 150 feet--

MARISHA: Oh!

MATT: -- into a lagoon below. And as you glance underneath and look you can see it looks like your standard waterfall. You can see the sheet of water, but it is all coming upward and then splashing and breaking upon that cliff face where it's breaking down into the various little pools and streams above. It is quite a surreal sight.

TRAVIS: Breaks my brain a little bit.

MARISHA: That is so cool.

TRAVIS: Yeah.

MATT: All of you guys follow suit, and as you follow the lead of Vilya, eventually, there isn't much of a beach in this immediate lagoon vicinity. A lot of it is sheer cliff and broken rocks that are piercing through the shoreline, just barely visible through the moonlight at this point, and there is one area on the southern end of this lagoon where it breaks and turns into the beach where Vilya ends up stopping and letting Fjord off. It's about maybe, I'd say 200 or so feet from where this waterfall is. And eventually after landing Vilya reverts back to her half-elven form and all of you gather and land in the same little patch. And it is maybe a five-foot patch of white beach sand before it turns into the rocky shore and the inlet.

TRAVIS: And completely dark, yes?

MATT: There are no light sources here beyond the moonlight that you have.

TRAVIS: I'll summon the sword and make it glow.

MATT: Okay. So you guys have that bit of a beacon of glowing light.

LAURA: Wait, did your sword show up?

MATT: Yeah.

LAURA: (laughs) Tight. (

TRAVIS: snaps)

SAM: Nice.

TRAVIS: He'll be pissed.

MATT: So.

TRAVIS: Do we see or hear anything around us? Noises, movement?

MATT: Make a perception check.

TRAVIS: Oh, me?

LIAM: I'm going to do the same but as an owl, I have not changed out yet.

LAURA: Yeah, should we change back?

LIAM: I have not yet.

LAURA: I'm going to go off your example.

TRAVIS: 16.

MATT: 16, okay. And you're both going to check as well?

LIAM: Yeah, at advantage as a giant owl.

MATT: Okay.

LAURA: Perception?

MATT: Yep.

TALIESIN: Also, yeah.

MATT: You do not have darkvision, so at disadvantage.

TALIESIN: Oh, I don't have darkvision. I am going to do Eyes of the Grave, though.

MATT: Okay.

TALIESIN: And Detect Magic, just because why the fuck not?

MATT: Okay.

MARISHA: Good idea.

MATT: What's the range on Detect Magic again? Is it 60 feet?

TALIESIN: It's-- that's a good question. It's 30 feet.

MATT: 30 feet? Neither one of those vision quests, localized vision quests seem to present you with anything unique or different from the nature that surrounds you.

TALIESIN: Gotcha.

MATT: What'd you get?

LIAM: 19.

MATT: 19, cool. Jester?

LAURA: 14.

MATT: 14. The three of you taking in the surroundings, beyond some movement by the shoreline and some of the nearby rocks that begin the walk towards the inlet, you can see crabs that are gathered on the edges of the rock, and as the waters smash over some get pulled off and some crawl back on. Nothing out of the ordinary of what would be expected in the natural habitat that you stand at catches your attention.

ASHLEY: Do we feel like a-- Do we still feel like we're being watched, or does that feel a little heavier here?

MATT: That feeling has not subsided. It has been present since the moment you came here and has never left. And you'll forget about it at times, and you'll forget that it's there, and then the moment you're not in the middle of a conversation, not engaged in a challenge or a problem-solving thought, the minute you have a moment to pull out of the moment and think and breathe, you remember it's there, and it never left.

LIAM: I do the head twist around to you and then (whooshes) back into myself.

TRAVIS: Is your head still backwards? (laughter)

SAM: (yelling)

TRAVIS: Oh god.

LAURA: How much longer do we have until the spell breaks?

MATT: You probably have about 30 minutes or so.

TRAVIS: You going to go scout?

MATT: Little over 30 minutes.

MARISHA: I'll go with you if you want to try and--

SAM: "Owl" go with you?

TRAVIS: Boy. New bar.

LAURA: Well, I can't-- (hooting).

MARISHA: (hooting) If you still wanted to go scout.

LAURA: (hooting)

MARISHA: I could, yeah.

LIAM: She's saying she's sleepy is what she said.

MARISHA: Oh, if you're tired, yeah, we could sleep, too.

LAURA: I just grab her and go.

MARISHA: Okay-- (yells) (laughter)

TRAVIS: (yelling)

MATT: You watch as Jester-owl grasps Beau and the two take off. Where are you guys--

MARISHA: Put on my--

MATT: Night vision goggles?

MARISHA: My night vision goggles.

MATT: Okay, where are you guys headed?

LAURA: Away from the volcano. I want to get 15 minutes out as far as I can go towards the island.

MATT: Towards the one to the northeast?

LAURA: Yeah. And then as far as we can go out, I want to see if that feeling ever subsides as we get more distant.

MARISHA: Totally.

MATT: Okay.

MARISHA: Samesies.

MATT: 15 minutes of flying. It won't get you close to the island, you'll travel a little ways offshore, but since you're carrying somebody you can't move at the full speed, necessarily.

LAURA: Right.

MATT: Make a perception check, both of you.

MARISHA: Okay. All right, don't fuck this up.

LAURA: Oh, advantage.

LIAM: The owl has advantage for perception, for hearing.

MATT: This is less about sight, this is more about just sensing something within yourself, so the owl sight would not--

LAURA: Internal perception.

LIAM: Advantage wouldn't drop--

MATT: Yes.

TRAVIS: Is it a thought or a hoot?

MARISHA: Uh-oh. (laughter)

MARISHA: I have a 21.

LAURA: Oh, that's better.

MATT: Okay.

LAURA: I don't sense much.

MATT: You don't. (laughter) You sense a grumbling stomach and visions of small voles and other rats fill your head as you hunger. You sense no change.

MARISHA: Fuck. We're about 15 minutes offshore?

MATT: Yeah. You can see the vaguest dark shape on the horizon of that additional island, but in the time that you traveled, there's been no noticeable increase or decrease in that presence. But what you do notice with your perception as you're looking back over is the cap atop the volcano itself is glowing a little redder and the smoke is a little bit thicker than it was when you guys first traversed it.

SAM and LAURA: Uh-oh.

MATT: At this point you guys can feel a slight, like, (rumbling) just a brief burst of an angry rumble.

LAURA: Uh-oh.

MARISHA: Sword.

TRAVIS: I should have left the sword.

LAURA: (gasps)

TRAVIS: No! No, don't give me the DM's eyebrow! Come on, man. There's a bunch of treasure up there and shit!

LAURA: We got to go--

MARISHA: Oh shit.

LAURA: We got to go back.

MARISHA: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Do-- yeah, yeah, yeah.

MATT: All right, so you guys head back.

TRAVIS: Oh no.

MATT: Go ahead and make an intelligence check for me.

LAURA: As an owl?

MATT: As an owl.

MARISHA: (laughs)

LAURA: Jesus Christ. (mumbles)

TALIESIN: Could've waited.

LAURA: -- roll well.

TRAVIS: Could've.

TALIESIN: Coulda.

TALIESIN: Really coulda.

SAM and MATT: Five?

MATT: You like mice. So. You stop at what you think is about the 15 minute mark and start heading back.

LAURA: Uh-oh.

SAM: Oh no.

MATT: Hard to count precise time when you're an owl.

MARISHA: Oh, well I wouldn't really know, though, I guess, either.

MATT: No, but what you do notice is you guys can see in the distance Jester, giant owl form, clutching Beauregard from beneath, approaching, coasting in maybe about 100 or so feet out before-- And both just going to continue to coast, dropping about 150 feet up in the air towards the water below. Both of you guys are just plummeting towards the ocean right now.

LAURA: I cast Dimension Door.

MATT: Okay.

LAURA: Grab Beau and cast Dimension Door, 500 feet to the ground.

MATT: Okay. All right. I'll say, since you revert, you're no longer grasping her, since it's just your feet. This is going to be an attempt for you guys to grab each other before you cast it because you are currently now falling with no anchoring on each other.

LAURA: Beau Beau Beau Beau!

MARISHA: (yelling)

MATT: So both of you guys go ahead and roll a strength check for me. Or athletics, athletics.

ASHLEY: Come on.

MARISHA: Athletics?

MATT: Athletics.

MARISHA: Okay, okay, okay, okay, okay.

SAM: I really want this to fail.

MARISHA: Okay, okay.

LAURA: 22.

MARISHA: 13 plus eight is totally 21 again.

MATT: Yeah, you guys Beastmaster grasp in the middle of the air and just Nightcrawler bamf out of the air and both appear right in the middle of the sand. There's just enough residual momentum to impact the sand, and all of you guys watch suddenly as they both vanish and then (whooshes) there is a splash of sand into all of your faces, gritting into your mouth and teeth for a second as both Beauregard and Jester sit there and stand up from the base of sand on the beach.

LAURA: How cool did that look, everyone?

MARISHA: Was it awesome? I've-- knocked the air out of me.

LAURA: Are you okay? I'm sorry. Are you okay?

TRAVIS: Looked more panicked than cool.

MARISHA: No, I'm good. Huh?

SAM: It was cool. It was really cool. You guys did great.

LAURA: It felt pretty cool.

TRAVIS: Your teeth are so messed up right now.

MARISHA: Are they--? No, is that true?

LAURA: Oh, I think some bugs might've been hitting your face. At least you had the goggles on, though.

MARISHA: Yeah, I can't see through them, there's a lot of bugs.

TRAVIS: She removes the goggles and it's just like, carnage everywhere else. (laughter)

MATT: Yeah.

MARISHA: Jungle, yeah.

LIAM: Gnats.

MATT: Yeah, yeah. The heavy gnat clouds that sit around the edge of the shoreline with all the dead crabs that are out there, yeah.

TRAVIS: Ugh.

TALIESIN: Oh boy.

MARISHA: Good news is... I don't know if it's good news. Yeah, I can still feel the presence about 15 or so minutes off the shore, so.

TRAVIS: That's not good.

LAURA: Bad news--

SAM: That's good to know, though.

MARISHA: It's bad news, right.

LAURA: Bad news is the volcano looks maybe--

MARISHA: A little madder.

LAURA: Yeah, like it's red and on the top, and it's smoky.

TRAVIS: That just sounds like a volcano to me, no cause for concern.

LAURA: Has it ever been red and smoky before like that?

MATT: "Generally only when something has angered Vokodo."

TRAVIS: Seems fine.

LAURA: What would've made him angry, do you think?

MATT: "If a particular delivery of offerings was not quite up to expected--"

TRAVIS: That seems awful specific. (laughter)

LAURA: What does he usually do if he gets super mad like that?

MATT: "I mean, it's generally an intimidation tactic."

LIAM: You know, it's funny, Fjord, you just threw out your sword thing, but you also just gave that to him, so there could be some correlation.

TRAVIS: There-- there-- there might be, mm-hmm.

LAURA: You think he would notice that something like that went missing off his back?

TRAVIS: I thought he had an awful lot of treasure, that seems really--

SAM: And if he did notice--

TRAVIS: -- paying attention.

SAM: It's a power move. I applaud it, that's a good move.

TRAVIS: Thank you.

SAM: Yeah. Showing him who's boss.

TRAVIS: Yes.

SAM: Or them? Is it a him? I'm sorry.

SAM: Is Vokodo a person?

MATT: "Vokodo's presented as a male deity, but I do not know for certain."

MATT: "However," and Vilya looks back and you can see now at the top of the Rumblecusp volcano there is a definitive orange glow that is, in small ways, beginning to spider down the peak of the mountain.

TRAVIS: That just seems seasonal, really.

LIAM: Does it look like it could reach here?

TALIESIN: Anything heading our way, or?

MATT: Nothing your way. It doesn't look like a major eruption, but there definitely is volcanic activity at the tip and some element of molten rock currently making its way from the peak.

LIAM: This is just Sauron going like--

SAM: ? Making its way ?

TALIESIN: That's all I want.

MATT: (laughs)

SAM: So do we sleep here?

LIAM: Yeah, do we want to set up camp right here?

SAM: I assume that you magic-y folks are nearing the end of your magics.

LAURA: Yeah.

TALIESIN: Got a little, but not a lot.

LAURA: That last flight wiped me out.

TALIESIN: Is there a place that looks safe? Could we walk a little bit to find something safe?

MARISHA: I don't know if anything is safe.

LAURA: Has Vokodo ever left his lair?

MATT: "I've not seen him leave his lair, no."

TRAVIS: 25 years. It's hard to know what safe is when waterfalls are moving up. Are there caves, recesses in the walls? Are there any--

LIAM: We should be fine with the dome.

TRAVIS: Anything to just help us camouflage if he does leave and looks while we sleep.

LAURA: He can see us anyway.

LIAM: He sees us everywhere we go.

TRAVIS: Do we see any caves or any sort of--

MARISHA: (laughs)

MATT: Make a perception check.

TRAVIS: Natural 20.

MARISHA: Oh!

MATT: With a total of--?

TRAVIS: Oh, 22.

MATT: 22. From this distance, and with the faint bit of moonlight there, it's hard to see anything specific, but the edges-- I mean, the whole mountain itself being volcanic rock has a number of alcoves and natural nooks and crannies that form around the exterior. You imagine you could probably find an alcove or a cavern or a recess that could maybe fit all of you, but you'd have to climb alongside the cliff face to get to it.

TRAVIS: You know, with all that ooze coming out of the tip maybe not the best idea to be alongside the mountain on second thought.

SAM: Smart.

ASHLEY: That's a good idea.

SAM: How 'bout right here on the beach?

TRAVIS: Sounds good.

MARISHA: Yeah. I still want to check this place out a bit, anyway, before I go to bed.

LIAM: Okay, well I will go about creating the dome.

MARISHA: You need any help or you good?

LIAM: Just make sure nobody punches me in the back of the head while I--

TRAVIS: Yeah, Yasha, will you stay here with me and we'll guard the--

ASHLEY: Yeah, of course.

TRAVIS: You going to check out the area?

MARISHA: Yeah, just want to-- Just going to-- Yeah, just figure out some shit.

MATT: Okay. Who all's going to figure out some shit then?

SAM: (laughs)

LAURA: I'm going to sit down a little bit away from everyone and figure out some shit.

MATT: Okay.

LAURA: But with my sketchbook and I'm going to try to talk to the Traveler.

MATT: Okay, no worries.

TALIESIN: I'm also going to have a moment with my shit while--

MATT: Okay.

TRAVIS: Buttholes and shit.

TALIESIN: Buttholes and shit.

MATT: All right.

TRAVIS: Episode title.

MATT: So as you're creating-- (laughter)

TALIESIN: Yeah.

MATT: It's not-- it's not going to be the episode title. (laughter) Not to say that it's not tempting. (laughter)

SAM: Hey dude, what was your favorite episode of Critical Role?

TRAVIS: and

SAM: "Buttholes and Shit." (laughter)

SAM: Always tell people to start on that one. (laughter)

MATT: All right, so you're creating the dome, you're watching, Yasha you're watching as well.

ASHLEY: Yes.

MATT: The three of you are having your own experiences that you're looking for. Veth, are you doing anything in particular or are you just watching?

SAM: Who's going to look out at stuff? You two?

MARISHA: I am.

SAM: Just you?

MARISHA: Mm-hmm.

SAM: No Fjord?

MARISHA: Fjord is standing guard with Caleb and Yasha.

SAM: I'll come with you.

MARISHA: Okay, dope.

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

LAURA: Yes. I'm going to try to... (sighs) I'll spend 10 minutes casting Commune.

MATT: Okay.

MARISHA: (laughs)

TRAVIS: Begrudging.

MARISHA: Most inconvenienced cleric. (laughter)

TRAVIS: "Ugh, talk to a god."

LIAM: Caleb's drawing on the ground and just watching her huff. Kick the sand.

MARISHA: Yeah.

MATT: (laughs) All right. So you sit with your sketchbook and you concentrate and focus, and how do you call the Traveler to you?

LAURA: Come on, man, I really need to talk to you right now. And I know that you're busy and stuff, but this is dire stuff right here, you know? Because... this could fuck up everything.

MATT: There's a soft impact as you stop and hear it out in front of you, and as you look up from your sketchbook sitting in the sand maybe two feet from you is the Traveler, full cloak, hood back, and cross-legged, just sitting right in front of you eye to eye. "Hello, Jester."

LAURA: Hi.

MARISHA: Oh no.

MATT: "What's wrong? You look so..."

LAURA: This guy here. He's a real-- He's a dick, man, like not in a good way.

MATT: "There's a lot of them out there, you're not wrong."

LAURA: But this guy, like, this whole island is weird, it's like opening-- look at this waterfall. Have you ever seen anything like that? This doesn't count as a question. Like, come on. (laughter)

MATT: He looks back and says, "That is quite impressive, I mean, from a mortal standpoint. There are some places in the Fey that are just mind-boggling."

LAURA: We need to go there.

MATT: "One of these days. You are welcome to."

LAURA: Can you take everyone there? Can we sleep in the Feywild?

MATT: "I would prefer not to go back, but you're welcome to go any time you like. I'll just keep my time here as well. But I'm sorry, you brought me here for a purpose. Did you have any questions?"

LAURA: People lose their memory here. They could be here for two or three days and then they get stuck here forever. Did you know that could happen?

MATT: "I... I was aware."

SAM: What a dick. (laughs)

LAURA: Like, I understand if you want to get rid of some of your followers, we talked about it, it's okay, you know? A few of them could stay, but I don't want to stay.

MATT: "You're not going to stay. (sighs) Jester, Jester, Jester, Jester," and he reaches out and takes your hands and says, "Please don't ever think I'm not looking out for your best interest. And I wasn't planning to leave them all here, it was more of a backup plan if things didn't work out well with the Traveler Con thing. You have to have a series of layers for something like this. Oh, dear thing," and he reaches out and puts his thumb on the cheek and says, "I-- I don't mean to put you through this. I was never going to abandon you or leave you to this. If things went sideways when we arrived I would've just plucked you and everyone else of import, and--"

LAURA: Everyone else, too?

MATT: "Everyone else of import."

LAURA: My friends?

MATT: "Oh, your friends, yes, of course. But let's be honest, there are a few individuals on their way here that are a royal pain in my ass. Let me tell you, trying to charter this many ships from the middle of the Menagerie Coast--"

LAURA: It's a lot.

MATT: "A lot of paperwork."

LAURA: Yeah.

MATT: "I've been busy. I hate it. I hate all of this. I'm excited to be done. But no, I wasn't going to abandon you and your friends."

LAURA: So do you think we should get rid of this weird... Vo greedy guy?

MATT: "Perhaps. If you don't think there's much of a purpose or a way to make him useful, then... I mean-- what other choice is there?"

LAURA: Do you want to fight him?

MATT: "Me? (laughs) I don't fight. I hedge my bets on those who fight for me."

LAURA: Yeah. Okay. You promise? You promise?

MATT: "I am of a... a kind of entity that promises are binding. Makes them dangerous, makes them easy to regret, but binding. And I promise."

LAURA: (whispered) Okay.

MATT: "And I'm sorry if you felt abandoned. I... There's no excuse I can put, other than the fact that things are a little crazy right now, and I-- (laughs ruefully) Oh, mortals are... a special breed."

LAURA: Hey man, maybe a dragon turtle will take out a couple of the boats on the way here.

MATT: "Well, I don't want them dead necessarily."

LAURA: No, I mean, that would be terrible. That'd be terrible.

MATT: "The plan was if things went wrong at the very least they'd be left here to live a nice life in a village with some people, you know? They weren't going to be hurt, they just would've forgotten some things."

LAURA: Yeah, that's true. I mean, they're living a nice life and nobody seems to hate it when their memory's gone, but I don't want to do it.

MATT: "And you won't be, it was never even part of this. I should've clarified it. And you're right, I should've been a little more forthright with some of the information."

LAURA: I'm here extra days, you know? Like extra time, that's extra risk. (sighs) I'm sorry, I don't mean to yell at you.

MATT: "It's all right. I would've come back!"

LAURA: Okay.

MATT: "Hey. You want to see something very pretty?"

LAURA: Yeah.

MATT: Points up to the moon, and right there on the mostly full surface of Catha you see the shadows shift slightly and they form these two round googly eyes and a little smile, and these two little pointed teeth. (laughter)

LAURA: That's pretty cool.

MATT: And you turn your head back and he's gone.

LAURA: Oh, man. Okay. (sighs) Okay.

LIAM: You okay over there?

LAURA: Yeah, I'm fine. Just-- I'm just drawing.

LIAM: Maybe didn't go as well as you were hoping?

LAURA: In some ways it went better. But no. (sighs)

LIAM: I can't speak for him, but you do have us.

LAURA: I know.

LIAM: So whatever you land on, Jester, we'll make it happen.

LAURA: I have to figure out what I want to land on.

LIAM: That is the sticky wicket, isn't it?

LAURA: Yeah. Everything's confusing.

LIAM: Maybe we sleep on it, it'll make more sense in the morning.

LAURA: Yeah. Yeah. Thank you, Caleb.

LIAM: I didn't do anything.

MATT: Caduceus.

TALIESIN: Going to take my minute. (sighs) Calm down, listen carefully.

MATT: You can hear the sound of the waves crashing rhythmically against the shore, soft, comforting. And with each crash, the waves get fainter and fainter. The cold beach air of night getting warmer and warmer. And with your eyes closed, you can feel just this warm formless embrace around you as the presence, the consciousness, the will of the Wild Mother you sense surround you.

TALIESIN: This... this force that is eating our memories and will, does its influence extend to the island on the horizon?

MATT: You open your eyes, and before you, your vision is not where you were sitting, but you can see before you the island that is beyond the horizon, and for a moment you see the wind blow, and this strange translucent maroon coloration that encircles the island and then spreads across the rest of Rumblecusp, and you sense that the influence of whatever's affecting this region is all-encompassing.

MARISHA: Okay.

TALIESIN: I know that there's a way to undo the effects. Is there any way to block them that I might know?

MATT: The Wild Mother's presence seems tenuous. The question seems difficult to answer. It's--

TALIESIN: Is there any place of safety on this island from it?

MATT: From that you sense the air get cold, and a mournful apology comes from the sound of the wind around your ears, like a faint whisper saying, "I'm sorry," without language. And there is not.

TALIESIN: Do I have one more, or was that the roll?

MATT: I'll allow one more. We'll say she didn't give an answer, she just-- there wasn't a way to answer it.

TALIESIN: Does he know where we are?

MATT: As you close your eyes once more, the sound of the wind and the waves entirely fades, and instead you can hear the burning of flame, the bubbling of heated water and a low growl, like a... churning bit of earth, and you sense that he is paying attention.

TALIESIN: Darn. Darn, darn, darn. (sighs)

MATT: And with that, as you exhale and sigh that warmth surrounds you once more, giving a comforting blanketing embrace before it slips back into the night air, your eyes still closed, and as you take one deep breath and open them once more, you're there back on the beach where you last were left.

TALIESIN: Hmm. Well, (sighs) there's no safety anywhere. And he does know where we are. There's no hiding from this.

TRAVIS: This is strange. I don't know what this area would offer us that he wouldn't want us to see.

TRAVIS: I'm sure it'll be obvious in the morning, I just don't know what it is now.

ASHLEY: But what if we forget in the morning?

TALIESIN: You can cast breathe water and it lasts for 24 hours?

TRAVIS: Every day at 2:30, yeah.

TALIESIN: Every day at 2:30?

LAURA: So we still have it on right now?

TRAVIS: Mm-hmm.

MARISHA: Mmm!

TALIESIN: So if something happens in the night. I don't know. That's good.

LAURA: Maybe the doorway to his lair is just through the waterfall, or something.

TRAVIS: I wouldn't look to the water as a refuge though. Remember, he was depicted in fire and we had to be in the water where he was. That doesn't seem right.

TALIESIN: No, I don't think there's any refuge.

LAURA: I wonder if we could draw him out. I wonder if he'd be weaker out of the water.

TRAVIS: Hmm.

TALIESIN: If we could draw him out.

TRAVIS: That would make sense. Didn't Vilya say she was escaping from a water plane?

TALIESIN: Yeah.

TRAVIS: Hmm.

MATT: As Vilya was saying, there are, as she put it, shards or things on this island from different planes. There's a weird amalgamation aspect to the island that she can't really grasp.

LAURA: Do you know if those shards were here before him, or if he's from another dimension? Maybe he was pulled here and just decided to... you know, bank on it.

MATT: Vilya goes, "That's possible. I mean, as far as what bare bones lore has been passed to the generations of those that live here on the island, since we've been here, he's been here, and since he's been here, those have been here. I don't think there's any information about a time before."

TALIESIN: How would anyone know who came first?

TRAVIS: Sure.

MARISHA: They wouldn't.

MATT: "That's an interesting point."

TALIESIN: Yeah.

TRAVIS: Should we sleep?

LAURA: Maybe we could send him back to his own plane.

TALIESIN: Maybe.

LIAM: Do any of you have any jade?

TRAVIS: Jade, like the stone?

LIAM: The stone.

SAM: I do, but I'm not there. I think me and Beau are scouting.

MARISHA: Yeah.

LAURA: Yeah, right.

MARISHA: Yeah, (laughs) I don't know if we're there or not.

MATT: So as you guys have this conversation to discuss about jade, "Who has jade?" We transition over to Veth and Beauregard. What are you guys doing?

SAM: Anyway, Beau, like I was saying, I got this jade bracelet and this jade rabbit statue.

MARISHA: Yeah, well, I got this jade earring from my dad.

SAM: I love it on you.

MARISHA: I kind of really like green.

SAM: You look great.

MARISHA: Yeah, I really dig jade. Well, I mean, that's also why I used all of that jade--

SAM: Tons of it. We got so much of it, I might just throw some in the jungle here.

MARISHA: Yeah, I mean, it's kind of great.

SAM: Yeah. (laughter) Anyway.

MARISHA: Anyway. All right, there's got to be something about this area that can offer us something that Vokodo wouldn't-- or sorry, Guacamole wouldn't want us to know about, right?

SAM: Good call, good cover.

MARISHA: Yeah, okay, yeah. (laughter)

TRAVIS: Not Voldemort.

MARISHA: So here's the experiment I want to do. We know that that waterfall is going up and in, and there seems to be an inward motion to this island, right?

SAM: Yes.

MARISHA: Kind of?

SAM: Yes?

MARISHA: So is it like--

SAM: You want to throw something in?

MARISHA: Well, yeah, yeah. So I'm going to walk over to the edge, the mouth of the waterfall before it goes up.

MATT: Okay, it is a sheer cliff for about 60 or so feet before you get to the edge of the water itself, so you can either swim towards it in the water, or you can attempt to climb across the cliff itself.

MARISHA: I don't want to go to the waterfall, I want to go to the entrance of the... Is it being fed from the ocean, this waterfall?

MATT: Make a perception check.

MARISHA: Okay. Natural 20. (cheering)

MATT: Which brings us to a total of?

MARISHA: 14.

MATT: 14.

MARISHA: (to herself) Oh, I need to up my perception on my sheet.

TRAVIS: Wait what?

MARISHA: Or sorry, sorry.

MATT: I was like--

MARISHA: Sorry.

MARISHA: 24.

MATT: 24.

MARISHA: 24, plus four, plus four.

MATT: I was like-- (laughter)

MARISHA: Sorry.

TRAVIS: What happened? This island's fucked you up.

MATT: You get--

MARISHA: I don't remember numbers.

MATT: You guys have walked close enough to where the rocky pebble edge gives way to the cliff where you can get as close as you can without actually entering the water or having to climb the cliff. And you look over. You notice, interesting point of order, the water around it is not being pulled in. There's a faint bit of the water's being disturbed, but only by a force from beneath. It is not pulling the water--

SAM: There's a still body of water and then from it is shooting up--

MATT: Is shooting up, and there's a little bit of disturbance just from water breaking the surface, and there's a little bit of a slight bubbling with it, but the water itself is not pulling the water from the surrounding ocean to create this. And it's arcing upward in a steady stream and then it's just spreading a bit, and then crashing upon, at a slight angle, upon the edge of that cliff and the side of that mountain where it's creating that network of smaller waterfalls.

LIAM: It's a giant bidet.

MATT: Kind of, yeah.

SAM: (Grog voice) Bidet.

LIAM: Bring it back.

MARISHA: Okay, is there a stick on the ground or something like that? A stick, or--

MATT: There's plenty of rocks.

MARISHA: Nothing wooden? Nothing that floats?

MATT: Not directly where you are, but you could find a section of driftwood within a short search, I'd say maybe about that long.

MARISHA: Okay, I toss it into the pool.

MATT: Okay, it floats. It's not being drawn towards the waterfall. It's just staying there.

MARISHA: Okay. Okay.

MATT: It's moving just as the natural shifting of the waters, but there is no steady funneling of water current towards where the waterfall's emerging.

MARISHA: Should I jump in?

SAM: No.

LAURA: No, no, what?

SAM: Absolutely not.

LAURA: Oh, sorry.

SAM: I mean, I'm all for doing crazy stupid shit, but from what Vilya said to us, whatever this waterfall is, she was fighting a kraken at the bottom of the ocean and then she was pulled here through a portal, probably that spout, right?

MARISHA: Yeah, probably.

SAM: So if you swim through that you'll wind up where the kraken was.

MARISHA: I wasn't going to swim through the thing, I just wanted to see, I just want to look. I just want to look.

SAM: Well, that's fine.

MARISHA: Yeah. (laughter) I'm going to jump in.

TRAVIS: It always turns out to just be a look.

MATT: So it's like, "Fine," "Fine," and then Beauregard just dives into the water.

MARISHA: Just if anything bad happens--

SAM: Should I come in after you or get help?

MATT: She's already in the water. You can get back if you want to.

TRAVIS: Don't you love the water? Get in there.

SAM: (casual humming) (laughter)

MATT: All right, so you're now within this little lagoon inlet there, and you start swimming in the direction of the waterfall, and you can hear the sound of it breaking the surface and the spray of it up above, and the mist is hitting your face.

MARISHA: Okay, I let out some air and start to sink.

MATT: You can breathe underwater, so you're fine.

MARISHA: Oh, right. (laughter) I sink.

MATT: You instinctually let out air, though you don't necessarily need to. Okay. You dive beneath. And I mean, it's hard to see. There's very little light down here, even though you have night vision. You can see what looks like some rippling of visuals to-- at least what you can expect to be a very, very heavy stream, or jet of water, that is emerging upward to create it.

MARISHA: How deep is it?

MATT: You can swim deeper, if you want.

MARISHA: Just a little.

TRAVIS: Oh.

MARISHA: Just a little.

MATT: Okay.

TRAVIS: This is how it happens.

MATT: Okay.

MARISHA: Every time.

MATT: 20 feet.

MARISHA: I push the red button.

MATT: 30 feet.

TRAVIS: Somebody has to.

LIAM: Go kill that green dragon.

MATT: 40 feet.

SAM: Oh, "How's it going down there?" I'm going to say with my Message spell that can go 120 feet.

MARISHA: (bubbling) It's pretty good.

SAM: You can reply to this message.

MARISHA: Sorry, I cut off your last message.

SAM: Okay. I'll call you again in 30 seconds.

MARISHA: No, yeah, yeah, hold on.

MATT: Oh god, we've turned Message into Zoom. Oh no. (laughter)

LIAM: Perfect.

SAM: You're glitching.

MATT: About 50 feet down you begin to be able to see a shape that would be the bottom of where the island rock begins to hit a floor. You don't see any light or anything, but you see there is a crack or some sort of an opening in the rock where the water jet is streaming out at a very intense pressure. You can feel the pressure from 20 feet away from it. The water is giving a slight bit of pushback against you.

MARISHA: Okay. Do I see anything else that looks interesting at the bottom of the pool? Anything of interest at all?

MATT: Make a perception check.

SAM: Kraken tentacles, an extra leg.

MARISHA: Not that great. 12.

TRAVIS: (laughing) An extra leg.

MARISHA: Yeah, kind of, yeah. Not great.

MATT: Not in particular, unfortunately, no. There's so little light, and there's quite a lot of underwater ground to check here, but nothing catches your eye in this particular place.

ASHLEY: Dammit.

MARISHA: Okay, I go back up.

MATT: Okay.

MARISHA: It's deep.

SAM: You made it!

MARISHA: Yeah, it's really--

SAM: Was it glowing? Did it try to pull you in?

MARISHA: No, it's just a big fissure in the bottom of the pool, it's just a jet stream, just--

SAM: Perfectly circular, like it was designed by a god? Or like a crack?

MARISHA: (unsure) Like a crack? Like a crack?

MATT: Kind of.

MARISHA: Yeah, like a crack.

MATT: About 20 feet across. 15, 20 feet from--

MARISHA: Pretty big crack. 20 feet, 20-foot crack.

SAM: Okay. Okay, that's good intel.

MARISHA: Yeah. Okay, so, if Vilya came up, if she got spat out of this thing, where did she land? We should ask. Did she just plop on one of these rocks?

SAM: I mean, it could be that more than just Vilya came through this.

MARISHA: Yeah.

SAM: Those serpent creatures could've come through. Or other things, other kinds of monsters. We've seen all kinds of crazy monsters on this island that aren't native, I can imagine.

MARISHA: So the big question is, did Vokodo cause all of these cracks in all of these different dimensions, or was that the island and he's just feeding off of it? It kind of feels like the mystery.

SAM: It's cool. We'll have to ask him that, right before we kill him. (laughter)

MARISHA: Okay. I don't know if there's-- I don't know, is there anything else we should look at?

SAM: No, this is good, this is good.

MARISHA: Okay, let's go back.

SAM: Yeah.

MATT: All right. You guys return and join the rest of the group. Is there anyone else who wish to do anything before the night comes to a close?

TRAVIS: Yasha and I are just sparring swords. (groaning) (slashing) Jesus, this thing's huge. (laughter)

TALIESIN: I feel like she looks bored, I don't know.

ASHLEY: Yeah, I'm just one-handing. (laughter) (groaning)

TRAVIS: (breathing heavily)

ASHLEY: You're getting better, it's good.

TRAVIS: (out of breath) Thank you.

ASHLEY: (deadpan) Oh, very strong, very scary.

TRAVIS: I'm going to vomit. (laughter)

ASHLEY: Yeah.

LIAM: When they get back: Do either of you two have any jade?

SAM: So much. So much jade.

MARISHA: Oh yeah. What do you need 'em for?

LIAM: I want to do something for us this evening. May I trouble you?

SAM: Sure, sure. Would you like a jade rabbit statue or a jade bracelet, or--

LIAM: The statue would be good.

SAM: The statue? Hop hop hop. (pops)

LIAM: Here, come with me.

SAM: Oh, sure.

LIAM: And I will lead Veth into the dome.

MATT: Okay.

LIAM: I've been working on a few different things. And I lay out a cloth on the floor between us. This is not going to last.

LAURA: (laughs)

LIAM: And I put the statue down on the ground. I don't know what was the innuendo in any of those sentences.

MATT: I don't either.

LAURA: No, it wasn't, I just look at Sam. (laughs)

LIAM: Oh, okay. (laughter)

SAM: Yeah, for a second I was trying to think, "Cloth. "How in Laura's mind could that be dirty?"

LAURA: I was just, like, focused and then I looked up.

LIAM: If I hear you snort I just assume I said something that reminded you of vag.

MATT: We all do.

LAURA: I'm sorry, guys.

ASHLEY: I deserve this this week.

MATT: So continue.

LIAM: Yeah. So a cloth out on the ground and I take the jade statue and I place it onto that, and move my hand a bit through the air and then drive my palm across the statue, and the statue just sort of crumbles into a fine powder as I cast Fabricate and change it from a jade statue to jade powder. And then I scoop a little bit of that out and set it on a different cloth, and then I tie that up. I will be borrowing this.

SAM: Sure.

LIAM: Put that in my satchel.

MATT: All righty.

LIAM: And then I pull out a piece of fleece, and I wrap that around my hand, and start casting with that. And I throw the jade into an arc and start weaving my hand through the green that floats up, and I start to create as I cast Programmed Image.

SAM: Hmm.

LIAM: And the entire dome becomes filled with pale, mostly translucent, pale, amber-colored scenes of The Mighty Nein in all of their time together, just floating like little specters through the dome. And as Veth and I watch, we see the Nein approaching Caduceus' family home in the yard, and we see all of them gathered in the hot tub together in the Xhorhaus, and we see them meeting for the first time, and Jester pointing at stinky Caleb on day one, and Jester pointing at stinky Caleb on day one, and just moments, all of them. And then sprinkled amongst that is also Caleb's approximation of things that he doesn't know about. So there is a vaguer image of Yasha with the silhouette of a woman in an open field, and Fjord with a crew of people, not a captain, but amongst a crew at sea, and a little blue girl with horns dancing around a bedroom, and a younger Beauregard training and getting her ass whooped by people that are vague and you can't make them out, and Veth with her child, and Caleb's schoolmates, and Caleb's schoolmates, and his parents, and a real cat, who's not made of fairy stuff. And that is just going to last, and while everyone is in here maybe it will remind us.

SAM: This is amazing. Wow. With just a little bit of jade.

LIAM: We have learned a lot. You have learned a lot.

SAM: Yeah.

LIAM: I noticed what you did with those bolts the other day. That was impressive. You had no help from me on that.

SAM: Well, I wanted to show you that I could make a spell, too.

LIAM: You barely need me at all.

SAM: Well, I mean, it was just a simple, you know? Not like this. This is amazing.

LIAM: A little illusion of a goblin and a dirty beggar in a jail cell floats by.

SAM: Yeah.

LIAM: Long time ago, it feels like.

SAM: It feels like it, yeah. And you've got Mollymauk in there. We've seen and done so much, and it hardly seems real. I hope it was-- You know, of course it was, it was all worth it, everything that we've done, all the risks we've taken has been worth it so far, even if we-- even if this is the end, or we forget who we are or something, it's been worth it.

LIAM: Look at what two small town kids have accomplished, to date. Much more to do.

SAM: Sure, but it's nice to look back every once in a while.

LIAM: Impossible not to.

SAM: No, it's good, it's good to look back, even back on the painful stuff. That's how you know that you've moved forward, and you're different and better. It's good to look back. This is wonderful, we should show the others.

LIAM: Yeah. And I just stand up and the head pops out. Oh, come, we made something for you. Come in.

TALIESIN: All right.

MATT: As you all step in one by one you are greeted by this incredible amber animated menagerie of memories swirling between each other from every stage of your adventures and those individually before, and it's beautiful.

LAURA: (laughs)

LIAM: So if we keep watch, we don't have to ordinarily, but if two of us up at a time we're always being reminded of where we came from.

LAURA: Wow.

LIAM: Hopefully that's enough.

TRAVIS: It's pretty crazy seeing it all played out in front of you all over again.

MARISHA: It's weird that it can all fit on the inside of this dome, in a way.

ASHLEY: This is beautiful.

MARISHA: (laughs) Look at Fjord getting attacked by turtles. That was good. (laughter)

TRAVIS: Can we modify some of these?

MARISHA: No, you got to leave it.

SAM: He's got that in three places, actually.

MARISHA: Yeah. Oh, tile view, whoa!

LIAM: Those specific illusions double in size just for a moment and then (whooshes).

TRAVIS: Om ma ma ma.

LAURA: Wow, this is amazing, Caleb.

LIAM: Yeah.

MATT: Vilya now steps in and looks, and, "I can't say I recognize any of this, "but there is a strong sense "of companionship here. "I take it you've been traveling quite some time."

MARISHA: Are you able to hear one of her stories, and see if you can get a memory for her?

LIAM: I give my best approximation of a younger version of Vilya with two legs just walking out and hovering in front of her for a moment before (whooshes).

MATT: She watches it for a second and goes, "Could you do me a favor?"

LIAM: Yeah.

MATT: "Could you add a man standing next to her, "walking next to her? "Light hair, half-elf. "And a little girl, about 14. "Red hair."

LIAM: I can do that.

MATT: "Thank you."

LIAM: They're a little bit silhouetted compared to most things in the dome.

MATT: "Well. "Rest well. "We've angered a fire god," and she steps out of the dome.

TRAVIS: That's really negative of her. We might have angered a fire god, no way to know.

LAURA: I poke my head back out of it. Are you not going to sleep in the dome?

MATT: "I will, I'm just taking a moment to myself."

LAURA: Okay, okay.

LIAM: Would you like me to seal her out? (laughter)

MATT: (slamming)

LIAM: (knocking)

TRAVIS: I will actually wait to make sure that she comes back in before falling asleep, so she doesn't just stay up.

MATT: All right.

ASHLEY: Caleb. I'm going to go a little bit to the side. Could you put that one memory sort of over here so I can fall asleep to it? The one of me and Zuala.

LIAM: I would be happy to.

ASHLEY: Thank you. I just turn to the side and then just look at it, fall asleep.

MATT: Okay. One by one you all find a night of restful and safe sleep to the best of your approximation, taking watches as you do, until eventually the bright oranges and reds and golds of dawn break across the ocean horizon, bringing with it a new day. And that's where we're going to take a break.

SAM: I need to know if we're--

TRAVIS: So beautiful.

MATT: When we come back.

LAURA: That's gorgeous.

MATT: That was awesome.

TRAVIS: You 50 First Dated us.

MARISHA: I know. Oh my god, you totally 50 First Dated us.

ASHLEY: Wow.

TRAVIS: Smart. Super smart.

MARISHA: That was emotional.

MATT: That was awesome. All right, we will take a break here. We'll be back in a few minutes. Stick around, and we'll see what lies for us on the next half of our adventure tonight. So see you in a little bit.

Break
♪ You've got the perfect warlock ♪ ♪ Her weapons and supplies ♪ ♪ But you need a place to track your stuff ♪ ♪ 'Cause you're so disorganized ♪ ♪ You click open a webpage ♪ ♪ You heard about a Critical Role ♪ ♪ And now you're ready to kick some butt ♪ ♪ In a mine shaft full of gnolls ♪ ♪ It's D&D ♪ ♪ D&D ♪ ♪ Yeah ♪ ♪ D&D Beyond ♪ ♪ Yeah, D&D ♪ ♪ D&D ♪ ♪ Yeah ♪ ♪ D&D Beyond ♪ ♪ You got your staffs ♪ ♪ You got your swords ♪ ♪ And you got your invisible wand ♪ ♪ It's D&D ♪ ♪ D&D ♪ ♪ D&D ♪ ♪ D&D ♪ ♪ D&D Beyond ♪

LAURA: (VO) Hey critters, Laura Bailey here. Let's see what's up in the Critical Role's shop. Ooh, look at this! Look at the details. Ooh! Darling, I recommend buying two, one for you and another for you. Let's be honest. (thunder cracks) It's so cute. I can't handle it. This is a lot of stuff, you guys, we have like so many cool things right now. All this and more! Now available in the Critical Role shop.

(jazzy music)

TALIESIN: Like a symphony playing to an empty theater, Critical Role dines alone without its audience. Yes. That validating and most enthusiastic congregation on the other side of the fourth wall. And what is this fourth wall separating the viewer from the creator, a portal to an often sought point of connection or the Twitch subscriptions zone. On the rare occasion that you miss the live bacchanal boasted by the ragtag group of thespians on Thursday night, you may always view the show on demand in the shadowland known as the Twitch subscription zone. Picture if you will, the necessary pieces to complete a jigsaw puzzle, but it's up to you to choose how it will be solved. You could of course subscribe with your debt rectangle, but many more divergent paths lie before you. Perhaps you found yourself in possession of an Amazon Prime account, you would then wake up to discover a free Twitch subscription each month for a channel of your choosing. But this artifact demands renewal, for you must resubscribe each month to quench it's unyielding thirst. One need not walk alone. Those who have already found their way can illuminate the path for others via the gift of sub button on Twitch. Critical Role is humbled by your subscription and wishes to thank you from behind the thin veil of this fourth wall. We hope you enjoy our content as much as we enjoy making it. And so ends another meandering digression, a complicated parody promo down an indistinct highway to the region we call the Twitch subscriptions zone. (dramatic music) You will subscribe. Twitch Prime subscribe. Gift subscribe. Subscribe.

(dramatic music)

Part II
MATT: And welcome back. So as everyone comes to in the morning--

LAURA: Oh no.

MATT: -- first I need you all to make a wisdom saving throw.

ALL: Oh!

LAURA: Should've done it last night, we should've done it last night!

MARISHA: Yeah, did we--

ASHLEY: We didn't do our thing.

LAURA: Yeah.

SAM: Wisdom save.

MARISHA: Wisdom save.

SAM: Oh, great.

TRAVIS: 12.

MATT: All righty.

SAM: Ooh. Not good.

MATT: Jester?

LAURA: 13.

MATT: 13.

LIAM: 24.

SAM: 12 plus five, 17.

MATT: 17.

ASHLEY: Five.

SAM: Oh!

TALIESIN: 14.

MARISHA: 16.

MATT: Okay.

LAURA: Balls. Do we get advantage because of all the illusions on the--

MARISHA: Yeah, or did it decrease the DC?

MATT: No.

TRAVIS: It's real pretty, though.

MATT: It is very pretty.

ASHLEY: It gave advantage because I fell asleep remembering my life?

TRAVIS: For the last time.

SAM: What about Vilya? What did she roll? Did she have to roll?

MATT: She does have to roll.

LAURA: But she just got cured. Doesn't it start over for her? Wouldn't it be like the first night for her?

MARISHA: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

TRAVIS: I love how you try and sell the DM.

ASHLEY: I know, we're like, "We could, we could maybe have--"

TRAVIS: Haggle, haggle.

LAURA: Don't know what you guys are talking about.

MATT: As consciousness comes to you... Caduceus.

TALIESIN: Goddamn it.

MATT: Yasha. You got a 17, you said?

SAM: 17.

MATT: Jester and Fjord.

ALL: Oh!

MARISHA: Oh!

TRAVIS: Oh no, that's the two.

MARISHA: The two clerics.

TRAVIS: Oh no.

MATT: As you come to consciousness, there's a bit of a pounding headache and a brief moment where you have to rub your eyes, and the bright morning sun is starting to hit the edge of the beach. The dome, thankfully, although the dome would be fading about this time, since it lasts for eight hours, right? And so it goes from the comfortable interior to the growing warmth of the sand beneath you, and you all shake yourselves awake as everyone starts gathering your things. You wake up, and Fjord, you stretch for a moment.

MARISHA: Okay, we should go through the little ritual that Caduceus makes us do.

SAM: Don't we do that at night?

MARISHA: I thought we did it in the morning.

TALIESIN and SAM: The morning and the night.

SAM: Okay, sure.

MARISHA: I guess I'll go first?

TALIESIN: I mean, we do the round.

MARISHA: I'm Beauregard Lionett from Clara and Thoreau Lionett. From Kamordah.

MATT: It takes you a second. F-f-f-- It's an F name. Fjord, it's Fjord.

TRAVIS: Uh-huh.

MATT: You're... here with your friends. The M-- Mighty... You guys just see this blank look on Fjord's face as suddenly you're struggling to recall details. Not all of them, but some important ones.

TALIESIN: Huh.

TRAVIS: I... That's about it.

MARISHA: What's your mentor's name? Vuh-?

SAM: (muffled) Vandran.

TRAVIS: Kranner? (laughter)

SAM: (through gritted teeth) Vandran.

TRAVIS: Kandin?

MARISHA: Vey?

LIAM: Ralph Kramden?

TRAVIS: What is the matter with the both of them?

MARISHA: Vi? (laughs)

TRAVIS: I think I'm not the only one that's been affected here tonight. Vey Kamden. I don't know.

MATT: Jester. In seeing this, there's a fear that strikes over you as Fjord having this challenge. And in the moment you think back to yourself also, elements, there are gaps. Caduceus.

LAURA: Is it disconcerting? Is it okay? Does it feel okay that you're forgetting?

MATT: It's disconcerting at first. And it's not like, everything. You remember coming to this island, you remember most of the events that happened recently, you remember the ship. Where did that ship come from? What was the ship called?

TRAVIS: Do we remember that people sometimes forget things once they're here?

MATT: Yes. There's enough self-awareness where it's not a blank slate, but a lot of recent events you can recall. You remember you had a boat, and you remember it got destroyed. You don't remember what the boat was called or where you got it. You vaguely remember-- you have to have parents.

TRAVIS: (stunned gasp)

SAM: Oof.

TALIESIN: There was a turtle involved somehow. Were there turtles?

TRAVIS: Why are you talking about turtles? TALIESIN: I'm trying to-- there was a-- Huh.

MARISHA: It was a dragon turtle.

LAURA: What?

SAM: Do you guys know how to cast spells still?

TALIESIN: I mean, yeah.

LAURA: Yeah, I use Thaumaturgy to blow everybody's hair.

SAM: Oh, my hair looks so good now.

TALIESIN: Is that a trick? I don't know.

SAM: Okay, that's good, that's good, they can cast spells, that's good. Vilya, how are you doing?

MATT: "So far so good. I do not believe I've been affected in the same way."

TALIESIN: Anybody else having a-- Whatever?

MATT: She rubs her hands together and, "I get to return the favor," and she reaches out and touches your shoulder, casting Greater Restoration, and all your memories rush back to you. Let me mark off her casting there.

TALIESIN: Oh wow.

LAURA: How do you feel?

TALIESIN: Much better. Oh, I didn't like that. Mm, wow.

TRAVIS: Is it only you and I?

SAM: Yashie?

ASHLEY: I--

SAM: Can you-- Can you still juggle?

ASHLEY: I think so.

SAM: You should try.

ASHLEY: Did I know how to juggle?

SAM: Yes.

TRAVIS: That seems familiar.

LAURA: Yeah, I remember you juggling.

ASHLEY: You remember? I feel like I have a vague memory--

LAURA: Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's one of my strongest memories, actually.

SAM: Two balls, or two rocks.

TRAVIS: Here's a couple of stones. Here.

SAM: Just two for at first.

MATT: Make a--

SAM: What check is this? Go to the manual. Go to the Player's Handbook.

TRAVIS: Performance?

LAURA: Would that be a dexterity?

MATT: I'm trying to-- No, for this it would be dexterity. Make a dexterity check.

ASHLEY: With advantage?

MATT: Not a saving throw, just a check.

ASHLEY: Just a check?

MATT: Yeah, so add the modifier for your dexterity.

ASHLEY: Oh, well. (laughter)

ASHLEY: Seven.

MATT: Okay.

MATT: So--

ASHLEY: I forgot how to juggle!

MATT: As one hits her in the eye.

ASHLEY: I've forgotten.

SAM: Oh no, Yasha.

LIAM: That is vaguely amusing, but this is a little frightening.

MARISHA: What about you, Caleb?

LIAM: I'm fine. My parents are Una and Leofric, and my name is Caleb Widogast, sometimes.

SAM: I'm Veth Brenatto. My parents are Travis and Ashley.

(laughter)

TALIESIN: I can't. All right.

ASHLEY: I am Yasha. I don't know my parents, but I don't know if I did.

MARISHA: Yeah, no, that tracks.

TALIESIN: Yeah.

MARISHA: Yeah, you didn't really. Do you remember the name of your wife?

LIAM: What about your old purple friend?

MATT: You remember a coat. Did you wear that coat? You don't think you'd wear a colorful coat, but you must've worn it. There was a coat.

ASHLEY: I'm--

SAM: Can you help her?

ASHLEY: I don't like this feeling.

SAM: Can you help her, Caduceus?

TALIESIN: Who do you want to take and who should I take?

LAURA: What are you talking about?

TALIESIN: Oh, sorry, I'm going to Greater Restoration.

MATT: Okay. Mark off a slot there. And you have your memories returned to you.

LAURA: Ay! My name's Jester, my mom's the Ruby of the Sea. My dad is Babenon Dosaal, also known as The Gentleman.

TRAVIS: These are incredible names. Did you make them up?

LAURA: No. They existed before I was ever born. I'm going to--

TRAVIS: Feel like that's important.

LAURA: I'm going to pat Fjord on the top of his head and Greater Restoration him.

TRAVIS: (whooshing)

LAURA: Be blessed, my child.

TRAVIS: (southern drawl) It's nice to see you-- (British accent) Nope, no, nope.

(laughter)

TRAVIS: Thank you.

MATT: Vilya approaches you and says, "One should not forget someone so important," and uses her other 5th-level slot to cast Greater Restoration and cleanse you as well.

TALIESIN: Beat me to it, all right.

SAM: How many more times can any of you do that today? Two more for you, one more for you.

LAURA: Well, technically two.

TALIESIN: Technically two for me, too.

TRAVIS: Those are the big boys for them.

TALIESIN: That wipes all the big stuff.

SAM: Okay.

TRAVIS: You know what happens when you wipe the big stuff around the b-- (laughs)

TALIESIN: Especially while we're going right into the butthole.

MATT: I also need everyone to make an investigation check.

TRAVIS: Oh, shit.

LAURA: Oh, we're going to--

TRAVIS: We just woke up.

LAURA: Missing our stuff.

LIAM: Oh man.

MARISHA: Okay, okay, okay.

LIAM: Oh man.

LAURA: Ah man, come on, man.

TRAVIS: Eight.

TALIESIN: Boo.

MARISHA: Shit.

TALIESIN: I'm putting this die away. It's awful.

TRAVIS: Roll it fast.

LAURA: Investigation.

MARISHA: Do I get advantage or something because I'm cool?

MATT: No.

ASHLEY: "Because I'm cool."

(laughter)

LAURA: 16.

MATT: 16, okay.

LIAM: I rolled balls. 14.

MATT: 14, okay.

MARISHA: Oh, shit.

SAM: I rolled a four, but rogues, 21.

MARISHA: Rolled a nine, that wasn't great.

TRAVIS: Fuck.

ASHLEY: Oh my god.

TRAVIS: How.

ASHLEY: 18.

MATT: Okay.

TALIESIN: Three.

MATT: Okay.

MARISHA: 17.

MATT: 17. Okay. While you have your memories back, Caduceus and Fjord. And what'd you roll, Jester you said?

LAURA: 16.

MATT: A 16. Ah yes, so Caduceus and Fjord, I need you both to choose an object within your equipment--

MARISHA: Oh, this shit.

TALIESIN: Mm-hmm.

TRAVIS: The what?

MATT: Choose something in your equipment. An object, an item, something that you have that you carry on yourself.

SAM: Damn, this island sucks.

MARISHA: Yeah, it does.

LIAM: I don't like it here.

SAM: I love it.

TRAVIS: I have a hammer.

SAM: ♪ If I had a-- ♪

MATT: Not anymore you don't.

TALIESIN: My fucking hat.

MATT: Make a note that you lost a hammer.

TRAVIS: Okay.

TALIESIN: There goes my damn hat.

LAURA: Oh, your hat?

MATT: Caduceus lost his hat.

SAM: Oh, your awesome hat? Your straw hat?

TALIESIN: My straw hat.

MATT: Make a note that you lost your hat.

TALIESIN: I already deleted it.

LAURA: Did I lose my hair oil or my beard oil?

SAM: (gasps) You can't remember.

MATT: Hair oil.

ASHLEY: I think your hair oil.

LAURA: Okay.

TRAVIS: Hair oil.

SAM: (laughs)

LAURA: Ah, man, my hair oil's gone.

TRAVIS: The prickle.

MATT: Just missing. Like they were pilfered in your sleep.

LAURA: I swear--

LIAM: Did you misplace it?

LAURA: Well--

LIAM: Did you check in the haversack?

LAURA: Well, I had it next to my beard oil.

LIAM: Do you have your beard oil?

LAURA: Well, yeah.

SAM: Why do you have beard oil?

LAURA: Well, because it was a present that I never gave to Fjord. Or maybe I did give it to him. Did I ever give you a present, Fjord?

SAM: Why don't you give it to him now?

MARISHA: I definitely feel like it was just an impulse purchase. I don't know if you had a point to buying it when you got it.

LAURA: I did get it for you.

ASHLEY: What's the difference between hair oil and beard oil?

SAM: Good question.

LIAM: Very different.

TRAVIS: They both smell terrible.

LIAM: There's a very different consistency with the hair on your head to the hair on your face, which is--

LAURA: I don't--

LIAM: Growing in.

LAURA: Yeah, I don't know. It's to make your beard grow better.

TRAVIS: Oh! (sniffs)

LAURA: It might make your face smell really bad.

TRAVIS: I'll use it so much.

MARISHA: (laughs)

LAURA: You were having trouble when I bought it. I just forgot that I got it for you.

TRAVIS: Trouble with what?

LAURA: Growing your beard.

TRAVIS: It's not. (laughs) Ah. Ha.

TALIESIN: Oh, he doesn't remember.

TRAVIS: I'm not having trouble.

TALIESIN: Oh, we got to do it again.

TRAVIS: It's just slower than most. I'm not having trouble.

LAURA: It looks good now. It was back then, you know, it was kind of dinky. But now it's nice and full, Fjord. Looks good.

TRAVIS: I want to forget.

(laughter)

MARISHA: Take it back.

TRAVIS: Thank you.

LAURA: You're welcome.

MATT: So you've gathered most of your things, those of you who have all your things still. The day is yours, what would you like to do?

SAM: What would we like to do? We came here to piss off Vokodo--

LAURA: You better put that in your equipment.

SAM: I'm sorry, the Guacamole.

LAURA: Beard oil.

SAM: And we've discovered, Beau and I discovered that the rift is under the water.

TRAVIS: I don't know how to do that.

SAM: And that it is spewing forth water.

MARISHA: Yeah, I found the tear, found the planal tear.

SAM: Doesn't seem like that's an actionable item on our list. We're not going to go through the rift.

MATT: You said "planal tear," right?

MARISHA: Yeah, I did.

MATT: Okay.

(laughter)

MARISHA: I know we're in the butthole, but I did say "planal tear."

MATT: Just. (laughter)

LAURA: Vilya! That's where you came out of!

MATT: "That certainly makes sense. You're not wrong."

TALIESIN: I think we should take a look around it, see if--

SAM: We, I mean, Beau, did last night and--

MARISHA: Yeah.

SAM: -- didn't see much.

MARISHA: It's about 50, 60 feet down, about 20 feet apart, or wide.

SAM: It's not glowing.

TALIESIN: Does it disappear at the top? Does it turn into--

MARISHA: It's just like a-- It's just like a spout, like a funnel. Although, it is pretty interesting that it has such a narrow, consistent flow to it.

TALIESIN: Does it turn into a river at the top, or?

MARISHA: Yeah, it goes into the mountain and then kind of, right?

TRAVIS: It's like a geyser.

SAM: It's a geyser.

MARISHA: It's a geyser.

MATT: There's the fountain jets that you see that stream up and then crash onto the top part, it's like that at a little more of a steeper angle, but then breaks.

TALIESIN: But then goes into a river that goes--

LAURA: It's like the Happy Fun Ball! Don't you remember when we were in the Happy Fun Ball? At one point we went through a door and it felt like we were falling, and then all of a sudden we weren't falling, we were--

MARISHA: I thought about that.

SAM: Yeah, we twisted and went into another place.

MARISHA: I thought if it was, like, a Reverse Gravity thing.

LAURA: Yeah, what if it's falling down in the other plane?

SAM and MARISHA: Yeah.

MARISHA: I think it could be.

SAM: But there's nothing that we can do with this knowledge, or access to this item, so--

TALIESIN: Do you think it's-- That's where the water in his cave?

MARISHA: When I was over there, does it go into the lava?

TRAVIS: We also flew in at night, right? Should one of us just go straight up and see in the daylight if there's anything else--

MATT: It's flush with the cliff face, like, shooting up and eventually crashing up on top of where the lip of the cliff is, and it cascades down into the--

LAURA: There's nobody behind the waterfall, I'll bet you.

LIAM: I will, while this debate is happening in front of Caleb, he summons Frumpkin and sends him up and slaps his hand on Beauregard's shoulder, and I'm going to send him, fly all around the top of the bidet geyser and look for entrances, caves, anything. Thank you.

MATT: Perception check.

LIAM: That's the other way. (laughter)

SAM: There it is.

MARISHA: I think that would work.

TRAVIS: A long stick.

SAM: Maybe.

LIAM: Curse you, Frumpkin, curse you! Two.

MARISHA: Two?

MATT: You can see the spray, you can see the network of pools and dribbling water that is making its way down, but hard to make out details at this distance, especially with the early morning, the light is hitting the sea spray, and the mist that surrounds a lot of the island just obfuscates a lot of the detail.

LAURA: Is Vokodo-- is the volcano still red and smoky and stuff? Does it still look angry this morning?

MATT: You can look up and you can see the smoke itself is still thick, thicker than it's been since you've arrived, so the anger hasn't subsided, but it isn't erupting vehemently. There is a slow trickle of molten rock still. You can see elements of the glowing streams that have zigzagged down the side of the mountain, but because it's not as extreme it cools about halfway down. But it looks like there is still a-- If this were connected somehow to Vokodo's emotional state, probably a still bit of frustration lingering.

LIAM: What time in the morning is it?

MATT: At this point, if you guys have gotten up and gone through all this, I'd say it's close to 7:00, 7:30. 7:30.

LIAM: So Fjord, we have five hours until we can not breathe underwater.

TRAVIS: Yes.

LIAM: So my question would be, is it worth our time to collectively have a real search around the base of this portal, this jet of water?

TALIESIN: I think while we're here.

LIAM: Or do we--

MARISHA: Might as well.

LIAM: Take what we've gotten and walk? Fold 'em and go to the other location.

MARISHA: It's always good to do a daylight check.

LIAM: Could spend a couple hours.

TALIESIN: Couple hours.

MARISHA: And then we can always hop over to the Ruins from here. Yeah. Is that a plan?

TALIESIN and ASHLEY: Yeah.

TALIESIN: I like that plan.

MARISHA: Okay.

MATT and TALIESIN: All right.

MATT: So what are you guys all doing? You're all heading through the water below, or through the cliff up top? What are you doing?

TALIESIN: I'd say we start at the water below and then we do the cliff up top.

LIAM: Yeah, let's try to fan out and see if there's anything amiss underneath.

MATT: Okay.

TALIESIN: Including behind it.

LIAM: Decide after that.

MARISHA: I went in and I went pretty deep down into the pool. I don't know if I would recommend going into the stream, although it is very tempting, I almost did it, but didn't want to die.

TRAVIS: I'm a pretty good swimmer, I'll try it. I'll summon the sword and cast See Invisibility also for the next hour.

MATT: Okay, fair enough. Summon the sword. Nothing distinctly catches your attention at the moment, but you are now seeing invisible.

LIAM: I'm going to take a little time to put my books and anything that I don't want water damaged into Widogast's Vault of Amber.

MATT: Okay.

LIAM: And strip off some of the heavier clothes and go looking in the water. And I also want to look for pearls at the same time as I'm searching.

MATT: Okay. All right, so you guys are all now just swimming into the inlet that heads to the interior of where the waterfall meets the edge of the cliff, okay. As you guys all begin swimming out into that--

SAM: I'm walking.

MATT: You're walking on the top, of course.

SAM: Yeah, yeah.

MATT: But you make your way to the edge. Caleb, if you want to go ahead and make a-- If you're looking for pearls, this is less about just looking and seeing, this is about combing the floor of the water beneath, and that'll be consuming a bit of your time, as they're probably going to be able to get to do other things--

LIAM: I'm going to trust in my friends to find what we're actually looking for--

MATT: Okay, make an investigation check for me.

LIAM: -- and I'll look for spell components. Good, 27.

MATT: 27, okay. So you'll spend some time doing this, but you get the sense that this is probably an area rife with the necessary situation to find pearls and clams and such that would create them, oysters, things like that.

LIAM: Yeah.

LAURA: (laughs) Pearl oysters.

MATT: Pearl oysters.

LAURA: Yeah.

TALIESIN: Ploysters.

TRAVIS: I want to see the stream, you want to go?

MARISHA: Yeah, that sword can light up under water, right?

TRAVIS: Yeah.

ASHLEY: I want to look, too.

MARISHA: It's dark. All right.

ASHLEY: Yeah.

TALIESIN: I cast a Light on your hand so you have a flashlight.

MARISHA: (whooshing)

MATT: The gloves emanate and--

MARISHA: Yeah. (laughs)

MATT: Vibrating glow. The two of you are helming this first? The rest of you are staying behind?

TALIESIN: I'm just taking a general look around--

ASHLEY: You want to go?

MARISHA: Yasha.

TALIESIN: -- to see if there's anything weird.

MATT: Okay.

MARISHA: Yasha's joining, too.

ASHLEY: I'm going to go.

MATT: Okay. So the three of you are heading down below, Caleb is searching for pearls, Veth is staying above on top of the surface, and Caduceus is watching from above. Jester, what are you doing?

LAURA: I'm going to look for pearls.

MATT: Okay, make an investigation check as well.

SAM: How high is the cliff face that the water is shooting up on top?

MATT: You'd guess probably between 120 to 150 feet.

TRAVIS: Jesus Christ, that is a powerful fucking geyser.

MATT: Yeah, it is.

TRAVIS: Might change this.

SAM: Were we going to check on top, too?

TALIESIN: Yeah.

SAM: I'll check on top.

LAURA: Oh, is that what I should do?

SAM: No, no, I mean sure, or I can. It's up to you.

LAURA: I rolled a three on pearls.

MATT: Okay, so you're searching for a while. And it's beautiful. There's actually hints of coral underneath here, and now that light is coming through from the sun rising in the sky. You can start seeing all the fish that live down here.

LAURA: Whoa!

MATT: It's a vibrant ecosystem. And you forget pearls entirely. You're just now looking at all the beautiful creatures.

LAURA: So beautiful!

TRAVIS: Om nom nom nom nom.

ASHLEY: Om nom nom nom nom.

MATT: And as you're watching, you watch Caleb just come by and go (grasping).

LAURA: Oh, pearls, I forgot.

(laughter)

SAM: I'm going to cast Levitate and start rising up the side.

TALIESIN: I can't go up, I'm going to look behind the waterfall.

MATT: Okay.

SAM: It'll take a while.

MATT: It will.

MARISHA: Behind that waterfall.

MATT: Slowly making your way.

TALIESIN: I'm going to look behind the waterfall because I can't float.

MATT: Okay. So you're going to attempt to peer beyond the water.

TALIESIN: I'm going to go, like the Jungle Cruise, I'm going to go on the back side of the water.

MATT: Okay. As you head towards the edge, the water itself is pretty much right up against the cliff and splashing alongside and up. Make a perception check.

SAM: Come on, buddy.

TALIESIN: Let's have one good roll today.

MARISHA: Big, big big roll.

TALIESIN: Ah, 21.

SAM: Hey.

MATT: 21. The way the light's hitting the water, you can see-- It looks like there is just rock behind it, like it is just a rock flat surface that the water is flush against, almost, but there is maybe a slight gap as it's just jettisoning up in the same shape and trajectory as the stone, as if it's either sheered itself, or it's just mimicking the incline of the cliff, but you don't see anything behind it beyond just stone.

SAM: Well, better trust your eyes.

TALIESIN: Is it within touchy radius, or would I have to get up to it?

ASHLEY: Leave it be.

MATT: I mean, there's rock, but when you get to where the water is, there's about 20 or so feet of the jet of water there. You couldn't reach through it. You could try. It's a very, very strong jet.

TALIESIN: Yeah, even if I just tap it with my finger it probably wouldn't--

MATT: Tap the water?

TALIESIN: Yeah.

MATT: Do you want to try?

LAURA: Oh, your finger's going to come off.

TALIESIN: No, I'm okay.

LIAM: Those things they wash the sidewalk with.

TALIESIN: No, okay, I thought I was like, maybe I could walk up onto the cliff or something, but no, I will not swim close to this thing.

MATT: The cliff is pretty sheer. You could try and climb up it if you want to, but you're going to be meeting the water itself.

TALIESIN: But that does look a little weird.

MATT: A little bit.

TALIESIN: All right.

MATT: It's up to you. Do you want to try and climb the cliff?

TALIESIN: No, I'm going to wait for a friend.

MATT: Okay. You guys, who have dived down below into the water with your various light sources, you now see what it is that Beauregard saw the night before, though much easier at this point. You see that there is some silt and deep, dark dirt that is being kicked up right around where this little crack in the floor of this inlet is. And where it is, there's just massive pressure pushing the water up, and you can see it, it is causing the visuals in that space to stretch and shift, and it's a very unique and unexpected sight. And then once it hits the surface the water does bubble up a little bit around it from just the pressure, and it emerges and just goes straight up with sheer force beyond the surface. But from down below, you can just see that faint refracting of the vision beyond that fast-moving jet of water.

TRAVIS: And it does look like a fissure in the rocks and not like some sort of plane tear, or something like that?

MATT: From what you can see right now? Yeah, you can get closer if you want to.

TRAVIS: I'll go closer.

MATT: Okay.

MARISHA: I want to get to the bottom of the pool, feet on the ground.

TRAVIS: I want to touch it so bad.

MATT: You guys get down to the bottom. It's about 50 feet down. You can find your feet scraping the bottom of the floor. You get in close to the rift, and as you're getting close you can sense the nearby water is starting to pull in because the water nearby is being carried with the thrust of this jet. I need you guys to each make a strength check-- (laughter) to try and resist it.

SAM: To get pulled in?

MATT: To avoid.

SAM: Jesus Christ.

TRAVIS: Strength check?

LIAM: To not get shot--

MATT: Yes, please.

LIAM: -- 300 feet in the air.

MARISHA: Just a straight check or a saving throw?

MATT: We'll say it's a strength saving throw.

MARISHA: Okay.

LIAM: Man.

ASHLEY: It's a strength saving throw?

MATT: Correct.

LIAM: Beau does not have high strength.

TRAVIS: 20.

MARISHA: I don't.

MATT: 20, nice.

LIAM: High roll?

MARISHA: 13 plus four, so 17.

MATT: 17.

LIAM: Okay.

MARISHA: Yeah.

ASHLEY: Just making sure.

SAM: Don't worry, Yasha's super strong.

LIAM: Come on, beefcake.

ASHLEY: 12. (laughter)

MARISHA: Shit.

MATT: Both Beauregard and Fjord swim back, and you break against the force that is pulling you inward, and as you both like, (breathing heavily) you look at each other and then watch Yasha just go. (whooshes)

(surprised laughter)

TRAVIS: Oh, fuck! Oh! (bubbling)

MARISHA: (bubbling) Yasha!

MATT: So Veth, as you're slowly lifting up and levitating, it's beautiful, you hear the nearby birds are chirping on the edge of the jungles nearby--

ASHLEY: This is how we're supposed to get to where we're supposed to go.

MATT: And you just hear--

ASHLEY: I'll take on for the team.

MATT: -- (yells) And you just watch Yasha tumbling ass over tea kettle in the middle of this extremely powerful upward waterfall as she is flung about 180 feet in the air. The force throws her beyond the force of the water, the momentum and carrying you further, and you are now arcing beyond the water and are midair about to begin plummeting back towards the rocky cliff face.

LAURA: Oh no.

ASHLEY: Oh!

LIAM: Oh man.

ASHLEY: Okay.

SAM: By her trajectory, will she be passing me again on the way down, or--

MATT: Nope!

TRAVIS: She's going to hit the lip.

SAM: And how far? You said that she's 180 feet up.

TRAVIS: But if the lip's 150 that's really only a 30-foot fall.

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

MATT: Yeah, yeah.

TRAVIS: It's not great.

MATT: She's about 70 feet from you right now.

LIAM: Somewhere under the water--

SAM: Just out of range.

LIAM: -- Caleb turns to Jester and says: Look, I found a black one.

(laughter)

SAM: If she should get within 60 feet either on the way up or down--

MARISHA: In the background, you don't even know.

SAM: -- I could cast something, but--

MATT: She is--

SAM: Not.

MATT: Not. She has passed you, at the rate at which she's going she is beyond--

SAM: Oh well. (laughter)

MATT: Yasha, anything?

LIAM: Ah, she died for comedy.

(laughter)

ASHLEY: I turn into a goldfish.

(laughter, clapping)

MARISHA: Yeah!

TRAVIS: Yep.

SAM: It's the opposite.

TRAVIS: Barbarian, huh?

ASHLEY: I just don't know. I mean, oh dear.

LIAM: You got them spectral wings.

LAURA: Yeah, try 'em!

ASHLEY: Yeah, I was going to try, but I don't know if I think they'll do anything, but I'm going to try it.

SAM: They'll look cool.

ASHLEY: Yeah. I'll bamf out my spectral wings.

MATT: Okay.

ASHLEY: I'll Necrotic Shroud, because--

MATT: That's once a day, right?

ASHLEY: Yeah.

MATT: All right. So as you're in the air you, (groans) the air around you darkens immediately and the wings shoot out. They're like, you know, black, bony--

ASHLEY: These aren't going to do it.

MATT: Emerge with the tattered elements of what looks like black gossamer cloth on the edge that definitely correlates with the reveal of your fallen aasimar wings. Around the tips of the edges, though, you can see there are soft white plumes, a gradual transition.

ASHLEY: They're actually there. It's not just in the dream!

MATT: There's a faint bit of white feather beginning to emerge from the tips.

MARISHA: You're getting your pinfeathers.

TRAVIS: They're all ripped off now, though.

(laughter)

TRAVIS: [inaudible] umbrella of fall.

LAURA: No, no, no!

MARISHA: Yeah!

MATT: You flap them frantically.

LIAM: ♪ Sail. ♪

MATT: And what it does do, is it adds to the comedic effect of you impacting into the side of the cliff.

ASHLEY: Perfect. Okay, okay, okay.

TRAVIS: I love how you're trying to do something else.

ASHLEY: Like I have anything. (laughter)

MATT: I'll say at this rate--

TRAVIS: Go into a rage.

MATT: -- as you're thinking about this--

ASHLEY: Yeah. I was going to see, can I go into a rage even though I just did something?

MATT: No, I'd say your action was the Necrotic Shroud.

MATT: You're falling pretty fast.

ASHLEY: I'm falling, it's fine. I'll take it.

MATT: So the wings come out, (whooshing) tumble over, and then crack! That blinding white flash in the back of your eyes as the pain sets in, as you, on your back and shoulders, impact with the wet cresting bit of volcanic rock that is pressing up from one of the pools, and it just hurts. You do take 12 points of bludgeoning damage, not terrible. I did roll pretty high for that. And it hurts. You're going to be stiff, but you're fine. You're soaking wet as the water's now just spraying on you, and you're like, (spitting) as you slowly sit up, and you are at the top of the cliff. As you sit up, you see Veth slowly rise up to meet your eyes.

SAM: Whoa, that was crazy!

(laughter)

ASHLEY: I guess that's a way to--

SAM: Whoa! You okay?

ASHLEY: Sure. (laughter)

ASHLEY: It hurts, everything hurts, but it's going to be fine. I'm going to be fine. That was quite a ride.

SAM: It was amazing; your wings looked magnificent.

MATT: The wings are still out, too, at this moment, by the way.

SAM: Wow.

MATT: And this is the moment you really get a moment to look and inspect the new shift.

ASHLEY: Are you scared of me?

SAM: Would you-- should I--?

ASHLEY: How close to me are you?

SAM: I'm probably 20 or 30 feet away. I can't move--

MATT: No, Veth was far away. The moment when the wings come out is when that effect takes place.

ASHLEY: Got it. Okay, good.

SAM: I mean, yes, you're very, ah! You're very scary!

ASHLEY: No, I didn't know. It's a good thing if you're not.

SAM: Oh, oh, it's a good thing.

ASHLEY: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SAM: No, I wasn't at all.

(laughter)

ASHLEY: I'm going to grab-- just touch one of the feathers.

MATT: It's very soft.

ASHLEY: This is so weird. I had a dream about this, but I didn't think that it was actually real.

SAM: Is this not something that happens with your people, or your--?

ASHLEY: I don't know. I never thought that it would happen.

SAM: Is it something that you...earn? Did you earn those?

ASHLEY: Maybe. I don't know. I didn't know this could happen.

SAM: I mean, it looks amazing.

ASHLEY: I mean, there's just a couple, but I'll take it.

SAM: Yeah.

ASHLEY: It didn't help me fly, but--

SAM: But maybe it will eventually, if you keep at it.

ASHLEY: That's pretty cool.

SAM: Yeah.

ASHLEY: Even though it hurts, I have a little bit of happy butterflies in my stomach. Okay. Well.

SAM: I can't move.

ASHLEY: You're just floating.

SAM: Yeah, no, I can't move forward or backward, I'm just floating here, so.

ASHLEY: Well. I'm all the way up at the top now?

MATT: You're at the very top of the cliff and about 20 feet away from the cliff edge based on the arc that you traveled.

SAM: Do we see anything up there out of the ordinary?

MATT: A lot of algae-covered pools. It would be algae-like, but this is not freshwater, this is saltwater, so it's a different saltwater plant life. Yeah, it's a lot of green-covered rocks and wet surfaces. Algae is saltwater, my brain isn't working.

LAURA: It sounds pretty.

MATT: Yeah, it did, yeah. But there are all these different smaller elements where the water is captured into these pools and they're constantly being filled by this jet of water, so it's just pouring down into smaller waterfalls and cascading into tiny rivers that then spread down the side of the mountain in both ways. That's what you can look at right now. You do see a couple of stacks of stones in some places, deliberately placed. Some elements it looks like probably left here by the villagers of Vo, or other people who've come through here at some point in time. That does bring an element of intended construct to this space.

ASHLEY: How am I supposed to get down?

SAM: I've got a plan for that.

ASHLEY: You do? Okay.

SAM: In fact, if you want you can jump and if we time it right, you can put out your wings and I can just have a sort of descend majestically.

ASHLEY: I can't put them out again. It only is a once a day type of a thing, and I-

SAM: Are they back in? Is that it?

MATT: They are now folding and then vanishing.

SAM: Oh wait, don't! No!

ASHLEY: Yeah, they don't-- And usually, I don't even know why I did it, because they're usually just floofy things, you know?

SAM: I'm glad you did, you found the change.

ASHLEY: I didn't know that was a possibility.

SAM: You must be doing the right things.

ASHLEY: I guess so. I hope so. Well--

SAM: But anyway--

ASHLEY: Should we look?

SAM: I can float us down when we want to.

ASHLEY: Okay. But maybe I should just do a look around.

SAM: Yeah, do a look-see. I'm just going to float here.

ASHLEY: Going to look.

MATT: Okay, so you guys are just inspecting the space around the area?

TRAVIS: How long can you float?

MATT: Is there anything in particular you're looking for?

SAM: 10 minutes.

LAURA: Oh, that's not very long.

TRAVIS: You can't move forward or backward, though?

SAM: Nope, up or down.

ASHLEY: Am I on a side of a little pool, or am I--?

MATT: So you're on the edge of the base of the mountain and it is a very wide area. Imagine you're on an incline of a heavy rock slide trail that goes up the side of a mountain. So there's a lot to go on either end. A lot of it just slowly descends to the beaches around, but right in front of where you are it becomes a cliff face in that inlet right there where it drops off entirely.

ASHLEY: There's a lot of--

MATT: But around you there are dozens and dozens of smaller pools and areas where the porous volcanic rock itself has smaller and larger pockets where the water from the spray gathers and creates these different pools that lead and fill each other. It's beautiful.

ASHLEY: I'll just look around at some of the pools to see if there's--

MATT: Okay. Make an investigation check for me.

SAM: Be careful of snea snakes.

ASHLEY: Okay. I hate this dice. (laughter)

ASHLEY: Seven.

MATT: Seven.

ASHLEY: I'm going to put that one over there.

MATT: Hard to make any specific details that catch your attention as abnormal in this area. It's pretty, though.

ASHLEY: Okay. Well, I'll just keep looking around until I can figure out how to get down.

MATT: Okay. While you guys are doing that, you guys are beneath the water.

TRAVIS: (bubbling) Where do you think she went?

MARISHA: (bubbling) I don't know. She's fine.

TRAVIS: Do I see anything with my See Invisibility around the rift, since we were temporarily closer?

MATT: Now that you have light, and this time, you see the same thing you saw last night. You do notice, I'll say, as part of the See Invisibility, there is a faint aura, a flickering around the outside of this open rift where the rock itself is protruding a bit, and the dirt's being pulled up. There is a faint flickering of energy. It's invisible to most eyes. It's not like a spell incantation, but by nature of this rift, the lip of it is not visible, except for the spell that you have. TRAVIS: I can see something. It's definitely not normal.

MARISHA: No shit.

TRAVIS: Well, no need to be rude about it.

(laughter)

TRAVIS: Maybe we should check on Yasha.

MARISHA: Two seconds. I want to check the floor to see if there's any, like, legs, armor bits, anything scattered on the floor.

MATT: Okay, make an investigation check.

LIAM: 20-year-old leg.

MARISHA: 20-year-old, yeah, just skelly. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, okay. That's an 18 plus my investigation?

MATT: Mm-hmm.

MARISHA: 26.

MATT: 26. You don't find any legs. Any corpses, anything, armor or objects necessarily. You do see what looks to be a piece of well-carved wood that is broken and long-soaked and left stuck under a rock there. It looks like a 2x4 that has been long broken and left to darken, and it's wedged.

MARISHA: It's wedged?

MATT: Yeah.

SAM: Oh.

MARISHA: Can I try to yank it out?

MATT: Yeah, it takes you a moment, but you manage to put a foot there and pull it free.

MARISHA: Dope.

TRAVIS: (bubbling) What'd you find?

MARISHA: (bubbling) Wood.

(laughter)

MATT: Dope wood.

MARISHA: (bubbling) I don't know.

TALIESIN: It would be so much easier to talk underwater if you guys weren't doing that.

MARISHA: (bubbling) Let's go.

TRAVIS: (bubbling) Okay. (laughter)

MARISHA: (bubbling) Are we okay?

MATT: Caduceus.

TALIESIN: Yeah.

MATT: You were checking what thing?

TALIESIN: I was just looking at that thing and then looking through at the bottom of the water to see if anything's clear. I also want to taste the water. Not the big spigot, but the water that's sitting--

MATT: Okay, it is sea.

TALIESIN: It is saltwater.

MATT: Saltwater briny, yeah.

TALIESIN: Was the water in the cave briny as well?

MATT: The water in the cave that you were in, in the mountain, you mean?

TALIESIN: Yeah.

MATT: With Vokodo?

TALIESIN: Yeah.

MATT: No, that was fresh.

TALIESIN: Okay.

MATT: You make an investigation check for me.

TALIESIN: Oh, that's funny.

TALIESIN: 11.

MATT: 11.

TALIESIN: 12.

MATT: Okay. Yeah, it's--

MARISHA: You rolled a 12?

TALIESIN: Other than that weird little thing that I don't even really know if it's really a thing.

MATT: Yeah.

TALIESIN: Damn.

TALIESIN: Yeah, I'm just waiting for them to come up at this point.

MATT: Okay, you guys both again (splashing) break the surface, and you can see Caduceus looking up at the rock cliff face and the water spray.

TRAVIS: Did you see Yasha go by?

TALIESIN: What?

TRAVIS: Yasha just went straight-- Did she land? Did you see her?

TALIESIN: Can she fly?

TRAVIS: Oh, no. Start looking for Yasha.

MARISHA: Yeah, Yasha!

MATT: At this point you guys are, as you're looking around the space, you hear your voice being called.

ASHLEY: Well, listen, if you just jump into it it'll take you to the top.

TRAVIS: Oh.

ASHLEY: So that's what happened to me.

TRAVIS: That makes total sense.

ASHLEY: Yeah, it just did-- Beau could probably land well, but I didn't. I'm fine.

TALIESIN: I was trying to check the back of this, but there is no back of it, so I don't really--

TRAVIS: What do you mean?

TALIESIN: I mean, look at it, it's just sort of against the wall. I was like, maybe it's covering a picture, or a cave, but I can't really, I don't want to get into that.

TRAVIS: I'll go back and look back as well. Anything with invisible eyes?

MATT: Make an investigation check.

LAURA: Have I surfaced yet?

MARISHA: Invisible eyes, invisible eyes.

TRAVIS: 19. Ooh.

MATT: 19. As you go over and look at the edge, the light as it's hitting the water and refracting the nearby rock, there's still that early morning light. There's something about the way the light hits this stone once it gets within 10 feet of the edge of the water that feels a little flat. There's something about it that's just off.

TRAVIS: I see something.

TALIESIN: I don't know. I've been trying to, like, there's something weird, but I don't know.

SAM: I trust Caduceus.

TRAVIS: We should check it out. Are you going to drag that thing with you the whole time?

MARISHA: Caduceus, can you take this for me?

TALIESIN: Hey, wood.

MARISHA: What is that?

TALIESIN: That's wood.

MARISHA: Yeah, I know.

TALIESIN: Well, why'd you ask?

TRAVIS: What kind of wood?

TALIESIN: Wet wood.

TRAVIS: What?

MARISHA: What wood?

LAURA: You guys, what? What about wood?

TALIESIN: It's wet, it's wet wood.

TRAVIS: Why did you grab the wood?

MARISHA: We found this wet wood.

TALIESIN: Where? (laughter)

TALIESIN: Sorry, I promised I wouldn't do that anymore.

MATT: The wet wood is well-worked.

(laughter)

TALIESIN: Shit. So there's actually carving in this thing?

MATT: It is. It has flat edges, it looks like it was part of a structure or something of some kind. It has four sides to it that are smooth, though it has over time grown bits of underwater vegetation and rotten places where the wood's darkened in a lot of different sections.

TALIESIN: Does it look like a piece of a boat?

MATT: Could be a boat, could be furniture. It's about that long, and it's jagged on each end.

SAM: Oh my god, it's the chair.

(laughter)

TALIESIN: Clean it off a bit. It looks pretty--

LAURA: You're going to clean the wood?

LIAM: Would you?

TALIESIN: I'm going to clean the wood. I'm going to polish the wood, at least. I'm going to try and scrape it off a bit to see if it's possible to-- Do you mind if I break the wood?

MARISHA: It's not my wood.

TALIESIN: I'm going to try and break the wood.

MATT: Okay. It's going to be hard to do while swimming in the middle of the water.

TALIESIN: Oh, we're swimming. I wasn't, okay. Thought I was--

MARISHA: Oh, I handed it off to him.

MATT: Right, right. Are you guys leaving?

TALIESIN: Oh no, we're still there. I keep forgetting what the train is.

TRAVIS: You guys keep playing with your wood, I'm going to go check out this rock surface over here that looked good.

LAURA: Can I swim up next to Fjord?

MATT: Sure, you've had no luck getting any pearls.

TRAVIS: They're playing with their wood.

MATT: You found two.

TALIESIN: I'm going to give you Guidance before you go up.

MATT: One worth 50 gold. One worth 150 gold.

SAM: Whoa!

LIAM: That's the black one.

ASHLEY: My goodness.

LAURA: What's going on?

TRAVIS: Caduceus was looking behind the waterfall, but I still have See Invisibility up, and there's an area of the rock that looks strange. You want to look at it with me?

LAURA: Sure. I'm going to cast Control Water. Where was it?

TALIESIN: What?

TRAVIS: Right behind the waterfall?

MATT: Yeah.

TRAVIS: Right at the edge of the--

MATT: Right at the edge and about 10 feet to each, or the side that you're on, 10 feet beyond that, the stone just felt weird.

TRAVIS: There.

LAURA: I'm going to cast Control Water right below it and part the waterfall where it happens to where it goes around it.

MATT: Okay. You part the waterfall. As it sprays and goes up, it reveals the rock wall behind it.

TRAVIS: I swim over and I'll reach out and touch it.

MATT: Okay. Make a strength saving throw for me.

MARISHA: Oh, to get by the--

LAURA: But I went-- I'm pushing the--

MATT: You're pushing underneath, but it's still pulling the water up around it. The DC is much lower because you're doing this, but make it for me.

MARISHA: Come on.

TRAVIS: Natural 20. (cheering)

ASHLEY: Nice.

MATT: You guys watch as Fjord starts swimming through hearkening back to your entire upbringing of swimming in shores and just being a general water baby. Piercing through the center of this divided upward waterfall, he collides with the stone and just goes right through it.

TRAVIS: (yells) I don't know.

MATT: I'm going to wait and see what you guys do.

LAURA: Oh, god.

MARISHA: Well, we got to go, right? We got to follow him. Fjord! Can you still hear us?

MATT: You can still hear them, yeah. It's pitch black in there, there's no light.

LAURA: Fjord!

SAM: Fjord's gone.

LAURA: He went through. Fjord went through the mountain!

MARISHA: How long can you hold this?

MATT: You can hear them. Just no.

SAM: I can't hear what they're saying.

ASHLEY: I can't hear what they're saying either.

MARISHA: What? Fjord got sucked into the wall.

LIAM: Look at this black pearl I found.

LAURA: I can hold this for 10 minutes. You guys, Fjord is in the mountain.

MARISHA: All right, I'm going to go, I'm going to go.

SAM: I'm floating!

MARISHA: I go in.

TRAVIS: (deep voice) This is the mountain.

MARISHA: Fuck you!

TRAVIS: It's really dark in here.

TALIESIN: Light up, I mean--

TRAVIS: Oh, I have a sword. (pulses)

MATT: Okay. As the sword lights up, the interior of a cavern is revealed. It's about 45, 50 feet from side to side, and you can see that the cliff behind you, obviously a heavy portion of this is illusory. The waterfall itself is there for whatever reason, but it's utilized this part of the obfuscation process for this. But you are in a large cavern that widens up about 80 to 100 feet up, the cliff face that is above this is almost entirely hollow on the inside. And within here you can see water dripping in small streams of water. It looks like some of those pools above themselves, not all the water trails off, some of it actually falls inside, and there are about two dozen small little thin trails of waterfalls that are dripping from the ceiling. The water in front of you opens up into this gargantuan cavern hundreds of feet across, and with what little bit of light carries beyond the immediate vicinity, you can, from this moment, see about a dozen ships. SAM: (gasps) It's Goonies.

ASHLEY: Oh my god.

MARISHA: It's totally Goonies.

ASHLEY: That is so cool.

MARISHA: "Down here is our time."

TRAVIS: You all should get in here as quickly as you can.

TALIESIN: Ah, all right.

ASHLEY: What's happening down there?

TALIESIN: We're going into a cave.

MARISHA: There's a secret behind the waterfall.

LIAM: DM. Where's this entrance that Jester made that Fjord went through? Where is it height-wise?

MATT: Right where the water surface meets the jet has been now split, so there's an area where now there's two upward waterfalls, and there is an area that is just smooth water.

LIAM: So basically-- okay.

LAURA: But you have to make a strength check in order to--

LIAM: I know I do.

LAURA: Wait, Fjord, do you have any rope?

TRAVIS: I do.

LAURA: Throw it out so in case, you know, Caleb gets sucked into the waterfall.

TRAVIS: Okay.

LIAM: Caleb dives in and turns into a giant shark.

MATT: Nice.

TALIESIN: We could all use some help.

TRAVIS: I have 50 feet of hempen rope.

LAURA: Yeah, chuck it out. I'll catch it. Hold onto an end.

MATT: The rope comes through, you catch it. You, as a great white shark, make a strength saving throw as a great white shark with advantage because you are big.

TRAVIS: And a dope-ass shark.

MATT: And a dope-ass shark.

LIAM: 21.

MATT: Yeah, you push through. You are about as wide as the division is, so it's a little bit of a push, but you manage to come through on the side. As you're throwing the rope out there, you watch as a great white shark suddenly comes through.

TRAVIS: No, no, no! Eldritch Blast.

MATT: Okay. Roll attack on it. (laughter)

LAURA: Did you really?

MATT: He doesn't know! Suddenly a great white shark comes through the cavern at him.

TRAVIS: 13.

MATT: Okay, 13 for the first hit.

TRAVIS: 13 to hit, yeah.

MATT: What's the AC for the great white?

LIAM: 13.

MATT: So yeah, the first one hits.

TRAVIS: Oh, and a 19.

MATT: Okay, and the third one?

TRAVIS: Oh, I do have three, don't I?

MATT: Yeah.

TRAVIS: Natural one.

MATT: Okay. So roll damage for two Eldritch Blasts against a great white shark.

TALIESIN: This is literally a sharknado.

LIAM: The white shark does have tiger shark stripes on it.

TRAVIS: Oh, that's way worse.

LIAM: FYI.

TRAVIS: 18 points of damage.

MATT: 18 points of force damage.

LAURA: Oh my gosh.

LIAM: He seems okay.

LAURA: That's, like, all of Caleb's health.

LIAM: Yeah, but not the shark.

TRAVIS: Tiger shark.

MATT: The shark shrugs it off.

TRAVIS: Great tiger shark. Yeah.

MATT: But does not seem to be coming right for you.

TRAVIS: The water around me starts to warm.

LIAM: I come right before. (laughter)

MATT: You pick that up immediately with your shark sense. Who else is going through?

MARISHA: I'm right there, so I'll try and grab on to that rope and start power swimming through.

MATT: Okay.

TALIESIN: Tap you for Resistance.

MATT: Go ahead and make a strength saving throw.

TRAVIS: Going to need a bigger boat.

MARISHA: Is that Bless, or Guidance?

TALIESIN: That's saving.

LIAM: (chomps)

TRAVIS: Like a doll's eye.

SAM: We don't have a boat.

MARISHA: Okay.

LAURA: Hold on to the rope, Beau.

MARISHA: Holding on to the rope, I'm holding on-- Uh-oh.

TALIESIN: Plus a d4.

MATT: Is Resistance a saving throw or it's an ability check?

TALIESIN: 1d4 and add that number to roll, one saving throw of its--

LIAM: Are we repeating history?

MARISHA: Well, I-- probably. I rolled a four on my d4 and a two on my d20. So that's 12.

SAM: Hey, that's--

MARISHA: No, 10.

SAM: Aww.

MATT: Okay! So Beauregard starts pulling in on the rope.

LIAM: Slow fall, girl.

MARISHA: Uh-huh.

MATT: And gets side-pulled into it.

MARISHA: That's exactly what I'm going to do.

MATT: Your rope goes extremely taut extremely fast, right after pissing yourself, what are you going to do?

SAM: Rope burn.

TRAVIS: I mean, I'm going to hold on to it, right?

LAURA: I thought I was holding on to the other side, too? Me and Fjord were holding on to the ends and then--

MARISHA: I was trying to rappel across.

MATT: All right. Both of you guys make a strength saving throw for me, please.

TRAVIS: Saving throw?

MATT: Yeah.

TRAVIS: 14.

LAURA: Oh, that was evil.

TRAVIS: Come on, come on, guns.

LAURA: Eight.

MATT: Eight, okay. So the rope-- (laughter)

TRAVIS: Come on.

MARISHA: No, no, come on.

MATT: The rope, Fjord, suddenly goes, (whooshes) and then goes slack on your side back to your direction as it glides out of your fingers, and Beauregard, you-- As you guys are getting ready off the edge of the cliff you watch Beauregard just, (screaming) up and through directly.

(laughter)

ASHLEY: Can I try to, as she comes up--

TRAVIS: I got her, I got her.

MATT: Yeah, go for it. Go ahead and--

SAM: Going to try to grab her? She's coming like a bullet.

ASHLEY: Well, what else could we do right now?

MATT: Make an athletics check.

ASHLEY: Make an athletics check?

MATT: Yeah.

LIAM: Catch yo' girl.

ASHLEY: Okay.

TRAVIS: Fair catch.

LIAM: It's the biggest trust exercise ever.

ASHLEY: 19.

MATT: 19. You reach out and grab her arm. The weight of it-- you pull her out, but the momentum still carries you back and you both, holding to this arm, do a flip. You do not take as much damage from the fall, but you both do take--

MARISHA: My shoulder.

MATT: Two points of bludgeoning damage as you both smack on top of each other onto the rock right next to there, the wind knocked out of you from the impact.

ASHLEY: (groaning)

TALIESIN: I hate all of this.

ASHLEY: That one wasn't as bad.

MARISHA: Thank you.

SAM: This is amazing.

(laughter)

LAURA: Hey, hurry up and get down here. I can only hold this for another eight minutes.

MARISHA: Okay, hang on.

LAURA: Are you okay?

MARISHA: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Different approach, different approach, I'm going to go to the edge of the cliff.

MATT: Okay.

MARISHA: Can I see, how far down am I?

TRAVIS: There might be a way up from up there.

MATT: 150 feet.

MARISHA: 150 feet?

MATT: Yeah.

TRAVIS: Check the roof.

MATT: Veth is still just-- How long can you hold Levitation for?

SAM: 10 minutes.

MATT: You're about to run out on Levitation.

SAM: Hey guys, why don't we go down? Just jump, I'll float us down.

MARISHA: I got this.

SAM: Okay.

MARISHA: Can you, like--

TRAVIS: Famous last words.

MARISHA: Ah, shit.

SAM: No, no, do what you're going to do.

(laughter)

TALIESIN: Literally famous last words.

TRAVIS: Only had years to learn. (laughter) Go on, girl.

MARISHA: Okay, okay, okay, come on.

TRAVIS: Let the spirit move you.

MARISHA: Okay, can I see the door? If I look down, can I see the door?

LAURA: It's invisible. It looks like a cliff.

MATT: From this perspective? No. The arc, the water is spraying up past your guys' direction. You have to go around the side to look and it'll take you a bit, and you'll lose your Levitation by then.

MARISHA: I'm going to jump. I'm going to jump.

SAM: Do you want me to slow you down or not?

MARISHA: Nah. I got slow fall.

MATT: Beau's just "Nah," and then just jumps off the edge of the cliff.

SAM: Oh fuck.

MARISHA: Okay, I want to, like--

TRAVIS: This is how it happens.

MARISHA: -- do some dope monk shit, and I want to run and leap to get some momentum, but then do one of those gymnastics front flip, but 180 rotations?

TRAVIS: Pike, yeah.

MARISHA: And yes, try and see if I can jettison myself through the door with my slow fall, kind of like--

TRAVIS: Oh my god.

MARISHA: You know, go into the hole.

TRAVIS: Are you shitting me?

SAM: She's going to try it.

MATT: Okay. Actually, from your perspective, you would be able to look down because the water doesn't reform into the thing, it would be two different jets that are going up from where you're dividing it. So you can look down and see that space in between.

LAURA: (laughs) Looking up. Don't do it.

MARISHA: Uh-huh.

LAURA: Don't do it.

MATT: You say that just as you watch her. (whooshing) And so you leap, flip, turn, and then using your hand--

MARISHA: I'm going to try and rappel down.

MATT: Yeah, you're rappelling down using the hand to grab and slow things. You leap off a bit, you catch the edge of the water, and use your finger and that to thrust a bit, it burns your fingers for a second from the impact, but you do slow and rappel off, and you duck down the side, and you reach a point where you go for the wall and your hand just goes through. You hit the illusory portion of the cliff face, which means you would fall an additional 70 feet.

LAURA: Oh!

MARISHA: Okay. I'm just going to try and start grasping through the wall at anything that might get me through this door.

MATT: Yeah.

TRAVIS: Not 1,000 feet, so--

MARISHA: No! No.

MATT: So slow fall specifically--

TRAVIS: That tone, "No."

MARISHA: No. It's not that high. It's like 800 less feet this time.

MATT: Yeah. That makes a difference.

LAURA: I love that you could've just taken Feather Fall, but no.

MARISHA: I don't want to waste it. That's for him, right?

LAURA: She's still going to use it on Yasha.

LIAM: She can do it with multiple people.

LAURA: It would've been the same spell slot.

MARISHA: I thought you could only do it on one.

MATT: Five times, okay, good.

ASHLEY: But this is pretty cool if it works.

TRAVIS: It's like the highest belly flop competition ever.

MATT: So the damage you would take--

TRAVIS: Oh boy.

LIAM: Can't wait to see the campaign three version of this.

LAURA: Oh god. Don't dash upon the rocks and be dead, please.

LIAM: Slow Fall.

TRAVIS: How many hit points you got? Oh.

MARISHA: I'm good, Slow Fall. Slow Falling this whole time.

MATT: 36 points of bludgeoning damage from impacting the surface.

MARISHA: I negate all of it.

MATT: Yep.

SAM: Oh!

LAURA: Whoa.

MARISHA: I negate up to 60 points of fall damage.

MATT: Yep.

MATT: So you just (soft splash). We're talking diver, Olympic-level perfect, almost no splash.

LAURA: That's so cool.

MATT: Goes from flipping to landing, and then just straight down into the water.

LIAM: Abe Sapien dive.

MATT: Yeah. Yeah.

TRAVIS: How deep is the pool?

MATT: You don't know.

SAM: ♪ How deep is the pool now ♪

MARISHA: Am I on the inside?

TRAVIS: We went down to the bottom.

MARISHA: I'm through it?

MATT: Yeah.

MARISHA: Through the door?

MATT: Well, on the outside it was 50. On the inside of this I'd say it's about... You don't hit the floor.

MARISHA: I don't hit the floor.

TRAVIS: Yeah, they're, like (crashing) on the bottom.

MATT: Ten foot deep. Just whack.

SAM: Want to go down, Yashies?

ASHLEY: Yeah, you ready?

SAM: Yep, you jump.

ASHLEY: You sure you can--

SAM: I got this.

ASHLEY: Okay. Run, take a leap.

SAM: Oh wait, I don't--! I throw a feather and cast Feather Fall on both of us.

MATT: All right. Both of you guys gently drift down. You both look down and can see where Jester's currently spreading the waterfall, and you both can, if you want to, make your way trajectory towards that, pushing off and using that to get around. Eventually, you all can make your way into the interior cavern to meet up with Fjord. And with your Light spell as well and still be swimming inside, there are a dozen ships visible, parked and cluttered on the interior. And as you push in further and the light extends more there are more ships. There's probably in the neighborhood of about 20 or so ships in here.

TRAVIS: Shut the fuck up.

MATT: Different sizes. Some are small speedy sailing vessels, some are trade vessels, there's one massive longship in there.

TRAVIS: Do they look like they've been pushed together or docked in an organized fashion?

LAURA: Or like they crashed in there?

MATT: No, not crashed. They're all in very good, relative states of good condition from what you can see from this distance point. They're not organized meticulously, they're all just pushed in here.

TRAVIS: And grounded up on areas of--

MATT: From what you can see right now, they're just pushing against the edges of the water, and you can see some beyond that that are pushed up on a little bit of a surface.

TALIESIN: Like a squirrel hoarding nuts, kind of?

MATT: Kind of.

TALIESIN: Oh boy.

LIAM: Point of order.

ASHLEY: I wonder if our ship is in here. Or no, kraken.

LIAM: Giant sharks are dumb as rocks.

MATT: Yeah.

LIAM: So it's a very good chance that Caleb is aggressive territorial with all of the Nein coming in here, and if not that, he certainly doesn't know to turn himself back into a human before the end of the duration of the spell.

LAURA: Oh my god, really?

LIAM: So you're going to have to deal with a shark.

SAM: That how this works?

LAURA: You would know to turn--

MATT: I would say you're still Caleb, you still have the intent of what you're trying to accomplish and know to end a spell.

LIAM: I remember a moth with an intelligence of one who could not finish her mission.

MATT: Right--

LAURA: Well--

LIAM: Shark's got the same intelligence.

LAURA: I at least knew I was Jester.

MARISHA: (laughs)

LAURA: I was Jester moth.

MATT: Right. There's a difference between not knowing, or saying you choose not to. So if you would like to--

LIAM: I'd like to eat Fjord, but I'll just let the moment play out.

(laughter)

MATT: Okay. Yeah, there is a line there. I'll say with a shark intelligence of one, it's challenging for you to do anything complicated, of course, but you still recognize your friends as allies. Probably don't eat them.

TALIESIN: Are you going to turn back, or what?

LIAM: (chomps) Huh?

TALIESIN: Are you going to turn back, or what? You can actually understand me; I can talk to animals.

MARISHA: (laughs)

MATT: You actually can understand him.

LIAM: (grunts)

TALIESIN: Just, just--

ASHLEY: Was that a growl?

TALIESIN: Come on. Get some legs. We need you with legs, the rest I don't care about, but we need legs.

LIAM: Two early dinosaur legs go--

MARISHA: Sharks sound like Bullock.

LIAM: And then I finish out the whole thing.

TALIESIN: That'll do. (laughter)

TRAVIS: Evolution. (laughter)

MATT: Perfect. All right.

TALIESIN: One leg, 100 legs, just, you know?

MATT: It looks like there are two smaller sandbank areas where some of the ships are pressed up upon, but most of this is just a deep subterranean lagoon where it's mostly open water.

LAURA: We should be careful. Vokodo probably put all these ships here, which means he has access to this cavern.

MATT: And with your passive investigation being insane, and looking at the different types of ships here and glancing at some of them being in not as good care, or at least a little more rotted, similar to the wood you found before, you gather that these were probably ships of the different people that came to this island and never left.

SAM: Hmm.

MARISHA: Hiding the evidence so they can't remember, or leave.

TRAVIS: But that would mean someone would have to come out and get the ships, and if not him--

MARISHA: Who?

LAURA: Maybe he does. Maybe he comes out and gets them.

SAM: Maybe dinosaurs bring them in here.

TRAVIS: Well, we should certainly search some of these.

SAM: Yeah, do they look like warships?

LAURA: Or fancy ships?

MATT: I mean, there's a multitude of kinds. A lot of them look like standard sailing ships, trade vessels. There are a couple of ships that are outfitted with cannonry and weapons.

SAM: Ooh, guns and ships.

MATT: Yeah, there is one very, very large, long ship that is, I'd say, roughly a third of the size larger than the Balleater was. That is--

TRAVIS: (like Lafayette in Hamilton) And so the balance shifts.

MATT: But they're all just pressed in here and left.

TRAVIS: I mean, assuming this is some sort of different passage within the mountain, we could always use this as a bit of an ambush if we wanted to find the remaining cannons, any gunpowder that worked, and draw him out this way.

TRAVIS: I have a... Do these ships look like they've been picked over?

MATT: Vilya currently emerges from the water beneath behind you guys.

TRAVIS: Oh, right.

MATT: "(gasping)"

TALIESIN: Wondering.

MATT: "What is this place?"

TRAVIS: Did you ride the geyser out front, too?

LAURA: No, she came through when I was holding.

TRAVIS: Oh.

MARISHA: It's real fun.

TALIESIN: Have you ever seen a squirrel hide nuts?

MATT: "I'm quite familiar with the behavior, yes."

TALIESIN: I think these are just very big nuts.

MATT: "Yeah, that's a way of putting it."

TRAVIS: Do you recognize any of these vessels?

MATT: "I mean, some of these vessels definitely I have seen bring individuals to the island before."

TRAVIS: Any idea who, or what would move these back here besides Vokodo who never seems to leave?

MATT: "If I recall correctly, the individuals, once they had no reason to leave they were told to bring their ships back here."

LAURA: Oh.

SAM: Is the entrance to the cave at water level? Could the ships be sailed into this?

MATT: They could if the--

LAURA: Waterfall.

MATT: -- if the waterfall was moved aside, or braved. That's as much as you can imagine.

TALIESIN: Or stopped.

TRAVIS: We should see how deep this goes.

LIAM: Did you say if any of them looked seaworthy? MATT: You'd have to get-- At first glance you're like, some of these would probably be seaworthy, but you'd have to give it a full once over, yeah.

TRAVIS: The most expensive looking ship, the grandest, we can spot it, yeah?

MATT: Yeah.

TRAVIS: Anyone want to take a look inside? Or at least see how deep the cavern is before we just go fucking around?

SAM: We should probably search that first, make sure that he's not going to pop out and surprise us, right?

MARISHA: There's got to be another entrance into the mountain from here, right?

SAM: Unless this is just a garage of some sort.

LIAM: Why don't we just try to get the lay of the place first, and then if we feel like poking about that ship.

TRAVIS: Yeah.

MARISHA: Yeah, I'll start doing a perimeter walk on one side. I'll take the left.

MATT: This is a very, very large cavern to fit all these ships once you get to that point. And it goes further and further back than you'd expect to fit all these vessels, hundreds of feet. And you can see the sandbanks and such that are on the side, they have a heavy drop off into the center of the water there.

TRAVIS: If you're going around on the surface of the water, I'll go under just to make sure there's nothing underneath as we're fanning out.

MATT: Okay, yeah. As you dive below, and you guys are watching, you're moving between the different vessels, and you hear the creaks as some of the waves that are coming in from the exterior ocean hit, you can hear the gentle (creaking) and occasionally (banging) as they bang into each other from the shifting of the water. All the sails are tied up like they're-- they've been put away by people who know how to anchor, or moor ships in the middle of a harbor, and just left. But you, make a perception check for me.

TRAVIS: Balls, ass.

ASHLEY: He had them bring them in here.

TRAVIS: 18.

MARISHA: And they just forgot.

MATT: 19? 18?

TRAVIS: 18.

MATT: 18? Looking beneath the water, you see a faint orange glow on the opposite end of the deep, deep edge of the cavern on the furthest portion of it.

TRAVIS: Distance, estimated?

MATT: From where you are right now as you're getting ahead of everyone since you have a swimming speed that is much faster than everybody else here, I'd say it's about 120 feet from you. You can see just the faintest element of an orange glow.

TRAVIS: I'll pop up and just tell everyone what I see. Something down there, in case anyone wants to come along.

TALIESIN: I'll feel better once I'm standing on even--

LAURA: I wonder if that's--

TALIESIN: -- dry dock land.

LAURA: -- that's the entrance?

LIAM: It's a back door for him. Yeah.

LAURA: (giggles)

ASHLEY: Are there any of the names visible on any of the ships?

MATT: You'd have to probably go around and check if you want to start picking them vessel by vessel.

ASHLEY: Okay, well, maybe we'll do that in a bit.

MARISHA: Does there seem to be any other tunnels or entrances on this above water level?

MATT: Make a perception check.

MARISHA: Oh, I'm turning in [inaudible] now. Okay, okay, 20 total. Rolled a 16.

MATT: Okay. I mean, a lot of your vision is obfuscated by the vessels themselves, but from the areas that you're checking as you're swimming along and pushing between them, you don't make out any other tunnels that are visible above the water's surface or along the very edges where the sandbanks rise very temporarily above the surface of the water.

MARISHA: And are there any, as we're walking along the walls, are there any tool marks? Does this cave look like he just found it and got lucky, or is this carved out?

MATT: From what you can gather, make an investigation check as you go along and swim to the edge of one of the walls on the side.

MARISHA: Yikes, natural one.

MATT: Hard to tell. You haven't had a lot of experience with the ins and outs of volcanic rock, both as a tooled material or as natural forming. It appears natural porous volcanic rock, best to your ability, but the cavern is very large and you're uncertain as to what process naturally would create such a large space.

MARISHA: Okay.

LAURA: Hey, Vilya. Is there a certain time of day you usually visit with Guacamole?

MATT: "Not in particular. Just about once every week or two we'll bring what we've gathered or made and I'll make a delivery."

LAURA: Any time of day? Any time of day?

MATT: "I mean, I generally keep it about early afternoon to give me time to get back to the village before it gets too dark."

LAURA: Makes sense.

MATT: "I can fly quickly to and from when I'm by myself, but even at night I wouldn't trust the airs to just a solo creature like me."

LAURA: Okay.

SAM: Well, should we go further in to the orange glow and check it out?

LAURA: I'm afraid that's going to take us into his--

SAM: Oh.

TALIESIN: The water that was in the cave was freshwater.

TRAVIS: Let me go closer and see. I'll dive down and get closer to see what it is, if it's magma, doorway.

TALIESIN: It's not fed from here.

MATT: Okay. You swim close, the murky depths of the water. And you can see now the bottom of the interior of the cavern, which is about 40 feet deep. So a little bit more shallow compared to the exterior, and it rises and falls in places, but as you get to the edge you look. The glow resembles the torch bloom, the faintly orange glowing plant-like seaweed flowers and such that currently, or last time you saw, guided you towards the lair of Vokodo.

TRAVIS: I'll come back up. Caleb, where's Caleb? Do you have Frumpkin as a cat right now?

LIAM: He's a bird, and if you want him to be able to swim I'd need over an hour.

TRAVIS: It seems to be, I'll say it's the same sort of growth that led toward his lair.

LAURA: If we're going to go in and actually for real think about fighting today, yeah? Then--

TALIESIN: I don't think this is... I think this is something else. I don't think this is a path to him.

TRAVIS: You don't think so?

LAURA: But those are the torch blooms. That's what leads to him.

MARISHA: But--

TALIESIN: I'm going to do something. I'm going to--

MARISHA: Maybe he just resides, maybe the volcano is just a little slice of the Fire Plane. And maybe this is spillage from the Fire Plane.

TALIESIN: I'm going to dive, not dive, I'm going to do that thing where you exhale and allow yourself to sink down a little bit. I'm going to head to about 30 feet away, 25 feet away from--

MATT: Okay.

TRAVIS: You can breathe underwater.

TALIESIN: Hmm?

TRAVIS: You can breathe underwater.

TALIESIN: Oh, I know, I'm just--

TRAVIS: Oh.

TALIESIN: -- gently paying attention to where I'm at. I'm going to cast Detect Magic.

MATT: Okay. You go ahead and cast Detect Magic. You don't sense the plants themselves are magic, but there's a faint magical aura in the water around you, and just in general. If you don't mind, Caduceus--

SAM: Uh-oh.

TALIESIN: Never.

MATT: Could you go ahead and--

TRAVIS: Swim up and rejoin his friends?

SAM: Roll a death save.

(laughter)

MATT: I need you to make a wisdom saving throw for me, if you don't mind.

ASHLEY: Uh-oh.

LAURA: This is why we should've done the--

TALIESIN: 13.

MATT: 13. You sense this, and you look at the torch bloom, and this urge overtakes you.

LAURA: Oh no.

SAM: Oh no.

MATT: This leads somewhere. This leads somewhere, and will answer all your questions. You have to know where this goes. You have to know. You have to know right now. So you swim towards it and you watch as the torch bloom opens up.

TRAVIS: Where the fuck is he going? I go after him.

MATT: You were watching him?

TRAVIS: No, I go after him.

MATT: Right.

LAURA: You were watching him?

MATT: All right.

TRAVIS: Yeah.

MATT: You go after him.

TRAVIS: Mm-hmm.

MATT: You watch as Caduceus just swims into a tunnel.

TRAVIS: I can catch him, can't I?

MATT: He's far enough away from you, I'll say that you can get there right about the time. Also make a wisdom saving throw for me.

TRAVIS: Okay.

LAURA: Oh, god.

SAM: Oh boy.

ASHLEY: Uh ohs.

ASHLEY: This was like that--

TRAVIS: 20. 17 plus three.

MATT: Okay. You resist the urge, but since you come up, he went off and did his own thing. You're probably keeping a little back to watch. You get to the entrance of this tunnel where he is partially in there. You can probably catch up to him if you want to.

LIAM: Super fast.

TRAVIS: Yeah, I am faster.

MATT: Yeah, you are faster with your armor.

TALIESIN: Way fast.

TRAVIS: I'm going to try. I'm calling out to him through the water, but yeah, I'll try.

MATT: You hear it, but you'll get to that. You'll get to that. This is important. This is more important. He's not stopping.

TRAVIS: Okay. I'm going to cast... (humming) Command.

MATT: Okay.

SAM: Command!

TRAVIS: At Caduceus and I'll say "Stop."

MATT: And that's a wisdom saving throw?

TRAVIS: Yes.

MATT: Go ahead and make a wisdom saving throw.

TALIESIN: This'll be the first one I make, isn't it?

MARISHA: I know, that's what I was just thinking.

TALIESIN: Oh, thank god. 13?

TRAVIS: 17.

MATT: 17.

TALIESIN: I'm rolling real bad today.

(laughter)

MATT: You stop. And so, you used your action to do so, so you can catch up to him, but Caduceus has listened to you and stops and looks back for a second towards you.

TRAVIS: What the fuck are you doing?

TALIESIN: I got to go that way. It's very important.

TRAVIS: I-- I--

MATT: He starts going again.

TRAVIS: Stop. I just grab onto him, I hold him. Stop, wait, wait. Will someone come fucking help me?

MATT: They can't hear you. You're far under water, and they're currently looking at the ships and inspecting the walls.

TRAVIS: Oh, good.

SAM: This one's got two cannons.

MATT: I need you guys-- (laughter) I need you guys to make contested strength checks to see if you can grapple and keep him at bay.

TRAVIS: You big-ass firbolg. 12.

TALIESIN: Seven.

(cheering)

TALIESIN: I'm not very strong.

TRAVIS: Oh, me neither.

MATT: So you have him-- (laughter) (groaning) You have him currently held, and thankfully the torch bloom is not close enough to the point– like, the water is warm here, and right now you can sense something, while you're holding him, while you can breathe underwater, you can breathe the water, the water itself seems to shift from salty to fresh as you guys are struggling.

MARISHA: It is a pathway, then.

TRAVIS: Do I--

LAURA: Yeah.

LIAM: Yeah, man.

ASHLEY: Magic.

LAURA: Yeah, it was going to lead him straight to the--

TRAVIS: Can I take an action?

MATT: Yes, you can.

MARISHA: Fuck.

TRAVIS: Okay. I'm going to cast, fuck it, we've got to get the fuck out of here.

MATT: Well, actually before you may take an action, Caduceus, he's holding you back. He doesn't understand. You know he means well, he means well.

SAM: Kill him. (laughter)

MATT: But you're going to probably try and break free.

TALIESIN: Yeah, what have I got?

SAM: Blindness!

TRAVIS: I remember this. I remember this urge from before.

TALIESIN: Yeah, this is a rough one.

ASHLEY: Wait, who are the--

TALIESIN: That might work.

ASHLEY: In the last tunnels, who was the one? Me and--

LAURA: Me.

ASHLEY: You and me. We swam.

TRAVIS: Yeah, we were--

ASHLEY: There were a bunch of different tunnels.

LAURA: No, but not you. We swam past you.

ASHLEY: So this is one of them.

TRAVIS: I was going to.

LAURA: Uh-uh. You succeeded.

TALIESIN: What do I got? Yeah.

LAURA: It was Nott.

TALIESIN: I'm not going to hurt him or anything, but let's--

ASHLEY: Three of us.

LIAM: Not too bad.

TALIESIN: Do I need a... I can do everything, I've got verbal, I've got everything I need, right? For casting a spell?

MATT: Yeah.

TALIESIN: I'm going to cast Blindness.

SAM: Oh.

TALIESIN: And then try to break free.

MATT: What's the saving throw on that?

SAM: That's a good one.

TALIESIN: That's a constitution 17.

MATT: Go make a constitution saving throw for me.

TRAVIS: I'll Counterspell it. (laughter)

SAM: We're wasting all of our spells.

ASHLEY: All the spells.

MATT: Here's my question. Counterspell, does it have somatic components? Because you are currently holding Caduceus.

TRAVIS: It does say S.

MATT: Yeah, so you would not be able to Counterspell while you're grappling him.

TRAVIS: Okay.

MATT: If you want to let go and counter the spell, or keep holding and go blind, or attempt to make the save at least. Your call.

LIAM: In five, four, three--

TRAVIS: What are the components?

MATT: Verbal, somatic, and material.

TRAVIS: Right, and somatic means?

SAM: Moving.

MATT: Means you need to be able to move your hands and fingers to cast a spell.

TALIESIN: It's a hand thing.

LIAM: That's all it is for a Counterspell.

TRAVIS: I'll let go of him.

MATT: Okay, so you let go and counter the spell.

TRAVIS: Yeah.

MATT: So the spell does nothing, but you are free of Fjord--

TALIESIN: Oh, I'm going to head my way.

MATT: And so, you continue swimming. So he's still trying to get away from you.

TRAVIS: I'm going to catch his bitch-ass again.

MATT: Okay, make another contesting strength check. You can keep up with him. Yeah, you can--

LAURA: And none of us know of any of this.

MATT: At the moment, no.

ASHLEY: Do we notice at some point that they're missing? Or we think--

MATT: You will eventually.

ASHLEY: Okay.

MATT: But this is all happening very quickly.

LIAM: All right, Frumpkin, we are going to make you into an octopus.

TRAVIS: 14?

TALIESIN: Seven.

(laughter)

MATT: You grab him again.

TRAVIS: Why are you doing this? This is ridiculous!

TALIESIN: I've got to go there.

TRAVIS: Nothing but danger lies ahead. Stop fighting me!

TALIESIN: I've got to go there.

SAM: Burn a couple more spells.

TRAVIS: I'm going to.

ASHLEY: Don't.

TRAVIS: I'm going to.

LAURA: Can you pull him back? Can you just try to pull him back?

TRAVIS: I think I'm just able to stop him, right?

ASHLEY: Tie him up, or something.

MATT: I mean, you can use half your movement and drag him back, I'd say, which for you is a full movement because of the water, so--

TRAVIS: How far into this tunnel are we?

MATT: You're probably no more than 15 feet, maybe.

TRAVIS: Oh, yeah, I'd love to do that. I'll try and--

MATT: Yeah-- or you'd be about 30 feet at this point because you went in after him and you moved your double speed to get there, which would've been 15 and 15.

TALIESIN: Well, I had to use the action to cast the spell.

MATT: Correct, that was the round after that, so you'd be 30 feet. So you can pull him back to the entrance with a double move. And then you now take your turn to try and...

TALIESIN: Let's try some little more... Okay, I can't do that. No, that's not good.

MATT: It's not so much to hurt him. He just-- he doesn't understand, and this is very important.

TALIESIN: I know, I'm trying not to hurt him, I'm trying to be nice.

MARISHA: (breathy laughter)

TALIESIN: Let's... Fuck it, it worked last time. (snaps) Blindness again.

(laughter)

TALIESIN: Fuck off.

(laughter)

LIAM: No Contagion?

TRAVIS: That's--

TALIESIN: I mean--

MATT: Make a constitution saving throw.

TALIESIN: Christmas constitution saving throw.

MARISHA: Come on.

LAURA: You can do it, Fjord.

TRAVIS: 12.

TALIESIN: Constitution save of 17.

MATT: Yeah. So you go blind, your eyes just go completely dark and you can see nothing.

TRAVIS: Well, this sucks.

MATT: You're still holding him. So you have him at the entrance, you lose sight. He took his action, which mean he hasn't broken from your grasp, and next turn he can try, and he'll put you at disadvantage to try and continue to hold him, grapple him.

MARISHA: Use your swimmer's instinct.

MATT: So what are you going to do?

TRAVIS: I'm going to try and... I will cast my last thing. I'll cast Command again.

MATT: Does Command have a somatic?

TRAVIS: Wisdom save. Oh, yeah, I'll let go of him. No, it's verbal.

MATT: Okay, so yeah, you can do it. What do you Command him to do?

TRAVIS: Swim back to our group.

MATT: It's a single word.

TRAVIS: Oh. Retreat?

MATT: Okay.

TALIESIN: Yeah, that would--

MATT: Sure. Go ahead and make a wisdom saving throw.

TALIESIN: Keep rolling bad. Nope, that's– Fine, I rolled a-- finally rolled a 26.

SAM: Geez.

MATT: So the Command's not breaking through. You still have your movement and you can move him 15 feet in what you think is the backward direction.

TRAVIS: Uh-huh.

TALIESIN: 30 because it's half his movement, right?

MATT: Well, half his movement to do it, but he can move 30 feet in water.

TALIESIN: Okay.

MATT: So for him it's half speed to pull you back.

TALIESIN: Yeah.

MATT: So you now pull him a little bit away from the entrance. You're gaining on him, unless he was able to break away from you, you gather you can probably drag him back, you just don't really know which direction's back and you're hoping.

TRAVIS: Yeah, I also don't want to touch those fire bloom shit, right?

MATT: Correct. You aren't certain where you are.

TRAVIS: Yep, it's a bitch.

MATT: Caduceus, what are you doing?

TRAVIS: How long does Blindness last?

TALIESIN: As long as-- you don't know.

MATT: It's a minute, right?

TALIESIN: Yeah, it's a minute.

TRAVIS: I'm going to start Divine Smiting you.

TALIESIN: I'm going to try and break free, finally break free.

MATT: All right, and go ahead and make contested--

TALIESIN: Like a nice boy.

MATT: -- contested strength checks.

TALIESIN: And I have advantage?

MATT: Hmm?

TRAVIS: That's cocked.

MATT: You do because he's blind.

TALIESIN: Contested strength check. One of them was a natural one, but the other one was 15. TRAVIS: Five.

MATT: Five.

SAM: Oh!

MATT: Caduceus kicks out of your grip and you are blinded. You're not sure where he is, and you use the rest of your movement to go back into the entrance of the tunnel.

SAM: Oh, shit.

MATT: Fjord, it's your turn. You have no vision, you know that Caduceus is somewhere probably in front of you. What are you doing?

TRAVIS: Going backwards.

MATT: You're going backwards.

ASHLEY: Oh my god.

MATT: Okay.

LIAM: Tried.

TRAVIS: Can't see what's in front of me.

LIAM: You tried real hard.

MATT: All right.

TRAVIS: I'm right near the entrance to the thing, right?

MATT: Yeah, you're about 15 feet away--

TRAVIS: Yeah, I'm just going to do three big reverse breast strokes and then just go straight up and start screaming.

MATT: Okay. You guys--

TALIESIN: Do I ever get a wisdom saving throw, or no?

MATT: No.

TALIESIN: Okay.

MATT: So you guys, you hear the breaking of the water surface, and Fjord, what do you?

TRAVIS: Caduceus is going forward! He's being pulled! Get in here!

SAM: What?

LAURA: What?

SAM: What?

LAURA: What?

LIAM: Everybody in the pool.

MARISHA: Okay.

SAM: Oh, okay.

TRAVIS: Now!

SAM: Okay, okay okay.

MARISHA: Sploosh.

SAM: We're going!

LIAM: I dive off whatever boat we're on.

MATT: All right, you guys all immediately (splashing) start diving in the water. You are--

TRAVIS: Blind!

MATT: Yep. (laughter) So you guys, as you all begin to gather towards where Fjord is, you can see Fjord is treading water but is just--

TRAVIS: I can't see. He went down through the tunnel. Someone go get him. I'm useless.

LAURA: Oh god.

MARISHA: All right, I'm going to go for it.

MATT: Vilya's going to go ahead and use--

TRAVIS: He blinded me!

MATT: -- a slot to cast Lesser Restoration.

SAM: Oh.

LAURA: Oh, that's good, because I don't have that one prepared.

TALIESIN: Yeah, I think that does it.

MATT: Yeah, I'm pretty sure Lesser Restoration is--

LAURA: Yeah, that does Blindness.

MATT: Blinded, yeah.

TALIESIN: Yeah.

MATT: So you have your vision back.

TRAVIS: Oh, good. Can you give me my spell slots back?

MATT: "I'm afraid I cannot."

TRAVIS: Okay.

(laughter)

MARISHA: I'm going to go for it.

LAURA: Yeah, same.

MARISHA: Yeah.

MATT: All right.

MARISHA: I dive in with the girls.

MATT: You all dive in beneath the surface.

MARISHA: We're going to go for it, I guess.

ASHLEY: We're going to go for it.

MATT: Head towards the orange glow where the torch bloom plants ring the interior of this tunnel sequence, where Caduceus is, from your current position, nowhere to be seen.

MARISHA: He's winding down.

MATT: While Caduceus--

ASHLEY: He's winding down.

MATT: -- you have to get there.

TALIESIN: Fuck me.

MATT: There's something... Something important.

ASHLEY: Don't you do it.

MATT: And nothing will stop you. And as you thrash your way, somehow knowing the path through these now continuously branching odd tunnels--

TALIESIN: Oh no.

MATT: We're going to go ahead and pick up next week.

ASHLEY: No! (groaning) Dang it.

SAM: What a terrible end.

TRAVIS: I'm fucking totally empty.

TALIESIN: I'm not cool with this. I'm not cool with this at all.

LIAM: It was like a nice happy, sleepy, content mid-point, and now just--

LAURA: I was seriously like, we should all sit down and have a Heroes' Feast before we do anything, and then we just got sucked in.

MARISHA: Yeah. Just really sucked in.

MATT: Well, the good news is, he's swimming at half speed, all of you are swimming at half speed unless you take other forms. Fjord swims at full speed, and while you are behind, there is an opportunity to possibly catch up.

TALIESIN: Yeah.

MATT: But we'll see what that looks like next week because now it's a chase for your own party member who is being compelled, and to see if you can follow him through a network of tunnels that he knows the way.

SAM: Ooh.

LAURA: Ah, jeez.

LIAM: And no prep time for possibly going to knock on Avocado's door.

SAM: Oh man.

LAURA: And no spells left.

SAM: It's D&D!

MATT: Yeah.

MARISHA: Woo!

SAM: ? D&D Beyond ?

(laughter)

MATT: So.

LAURA: Oh my god.

TRAVIS: Boy.

TALIESIN: I love you guys.

LIAM: Love it.

MATT: I love you guys.

SAM: It's so great.

MATT: I wasn't expecting that to happen.

ASHLEY: No way.

SAM: So great.

MATT: That was exciting. All right, cool. We're going to pick up there next week to see where this goes. In the meantime, everyone, take time to tell anyone you care about that you love them, every chance you get. And on that same note, we love you all very much. Have a wonderful week, we'll see you soon, and is it Thursday yet? Good night.

TRAVIS: No!