Transcript:Dark Portents

Pre-show
ERIKA: We love you!

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.

ALL: (hollering) (random noises) (laughter)

MATT: What? Our first sponsor tonight is Quip. Sam, what do we have to endure tonight?

SAM: Oh, we have a big exciting plot point to get to on the show tonight. So I'm not going to waste anybody's time with complicated bits or characters.

TRAVIS: Oh my god.

SAM: Just the copy. I'd love to tell you guys about Quip, the good habits company, and their smart electric toothbrushes. Pardon me. These awesome brushes have all the guiding features of their original with-- Ugh, sorry. With new Bluetooth smart motor that connects to the free Quip apps. So-- ha. So you can track your brush--

ASHLEY: Please don't.

SAM: Your brushing.

MATT: Please. Please.

SAM: Sorry, guys. I just drank a pint of milk, a glass of OJ, (laughter) cauliflower vindaloo, a shot of Olestra, and a bucket of Voodoo chili, so.

LAURA: (groans)

SAM: You know what? I need to go. Bye. Bye.

LAURA: Why is he so--

MARISHA: Why is he like this?

LIAM: Why is he like this?

MATT: (laughs) Sorry about this.

TALIESIN: Okay.

MATT: I don't exactly know what we're supposed to do right now. Should we wait for Sam, or we just keep going?

TALIESIN: Yes, wait.

LIAM: He must've gone to one of the further bathrooms. I can't hear him.

LAURA: I don't know.

TRAVIS: Another shoe will drop.

MATT: Does anyone have the Quip copy? Should we just cut and--

MARISHA: No, he didn't take--

RYAN: Sorry about that, guys. Man, I really let something loose on that. I feel like I lost like a couple inches of height. What am I, like 5'8" now? 5'7"? (sighs) Sorry about that.

MARISHA: Sorry.

RYAN: All right, so yeah. Without further ado.

MARISHA: Wait, wait, wait. Who are you?

RYAN: Melissa, we've known each other for years. You're going to play that with me? Come on, let's stop joking around. Let's get to the this copy, all right? (laughter) So, as I was saying, with Quip, you can get tips and daily coaching and earn rewards for good habits, like brushing two minutes twice a day.

LIAM: No, seriously, dude. Are you like Sam's understudy or something? (laughter)

RYAN: Larry, come on. We've known each other for years. We used to breastfeed together. Are you going to act like you don't know me?

LAURA: Are you always here, or do you just come on when Sam gets the shits? (laughter)

RYAN: So I leave for a second, and everyone's just going to play this game like they don't know me? Okay (laughs). Wow. Anyway, Quip has a great anti-cavity toothpaste, in mint or watermelon that helps prevent cavities as well as two ways to floss. Floss string that expands to clean and a reusable floss pick.

TRAVIS: Sorry. Sorry, this is super distracting. (laughter) Who the hell are you?

RYAN: I'm Sam motherfucking Rai-gul. (laughter) Emmy award winner. (laughter) Voted most likely to live in his mom's basement 'til he's 50. Come on. We've known each other since before we had gray pubes. You're going to play like we-- (laughs) Come on now.

MARISHA: Oh my god.

RYAN: So let's get to the episode, guys.

TALIESIN: Okay, weirdo. Say something only the real Sam would say. Bring it.

RYAN: Okay, okay.

TALIESIN: Bring it.

RYAN: He would say-- (scoffs) What would I say? (laughter) He would say, save 25% off site wide with code Critical25.

MATT: Okay.

ASHLEY: Oh, there you are.

MATT: It is Sam.

RYAN: Thank you.

MATT: I'm sorry about that.

RYAN: Thank you.

ASHLEY: Man, yeah.

LAURA: Yeah.

RYAN: You guys scared me there for a second.

TRAVIS: Bring your Emmy next time, you weirdo.

MARISHA: Yeah, wow. Okay.

RYAN: I do every day in my backpack. I just don't tell you guys about it.

MATT: Perfect. Cool. Is that the last of the bits, then? I think we're good to move on. All right then.

RYAN: Let's move on.

MATT: Beautiful. This episode is also sponsored by our friends at Shopify. An easy to use all-in-one commercial platform for anyone. Shopify lets you sell online, in person, and on all major social platforms and empowers more entrepreneurs than anyone else in the world.

LAURA: What is happening?

MATT: Millions of businesses in 175 countries. The toolset is really simple to utilize. Regardless of your industry, Shopify is the ideal option to get your business moving. Right now, they're offering a special 14-day free trial when you head over to shopify.com/critical. So head over to check it out for yourself. And thank you so much for supporting the show. Marisha, over there by Sam Rai-gul. What do you got next on the list?

MARISHA: Yeah, just sitting next to my good friend. Just a friendly reminder that our next episode of 4-Sided Dive will air next Tuesday, August 9th at 7:00pm Pacific. Yes, that does deserve applause.

TRAVIS: (laughs) You're crying.

MARISHA: Moving forward, you can still-- It's not right yet. It's still not right yet. Moving forward, you can catch our monthly talk show on Tuesdays. But it might not always be the first Tuesday of the month because there's still a pandemic and stuff, so.

MATT: Fair enough.

MARISHA: There's that. Yep.

TRAVIS: We'll see.

MATT: Laura, I think you got some things to talk about.

LAURA: I have a Sprinkle neck pillow. (laughter)

MATT: That is adorable.

TRAVIS: Cute.

LIAM: Going to focus on that.

LAURA: Wait, wait.

ASHLEY: Look that this.

LAURA: Look at this.

TALIESIN: Dig deep.

LAURA: Number one, the packaging is super cute. But number two, he's a neck pillow. You can have it.

TRAVIS: Is he undying?

LAURA: It's in our store.

TRAVIS: Can he survive the Astral Sea?

MARISHA: (laughs)

LAURA: Apparently.

TRAVIS: Okay.

LAURA: He looks a little worse for the wear, though. Then, in addition to that, we also have this set of key chains. They're like little vintage hotel key chains.

LIAM: For all your rendezvous.

LAURA: Yeah, for all your sexy times. We've got a Spire by Fire. (laughter) For all your sexy times?

MARISHA: All your sexy times?

LIAM: Meet at the hotel.

MARISHA: I have so many questions.

LAURA: You know, at the hotel. (laughter)

ASHLEY: For all the different rooms?

LAURA: Spire by Fire. You know what it is? I said it because one of them is Scanlan's Motel of Love.

MATT: Ah.

TALIESIN: Okay.

ASHLEY: Oh.

LAURA: So that's why I thought of that.

MATT: The only reason.

ASHLEY: That's why.

LAURA: Then The Lavish Chateau as well. All the sexy times you need.

MATT: Perfect.

LIAM: Hold on a second, hold on a second. Is the mole on my left butt cheek or my right butt cheek, Sam Ree-jel?

LAURA: Ree-jel. (laughs)

RYAN: If I remember correctly, when we used to sword fight and you were Darth Vader and I was Lord Helmet, and we touched tips. Left.

LIAM: It's really Sam.

TALIESIN: Goddamn. (laughter)

ASHLEY: It's totally Sam.

MATT: That's wild.

ASHLEY: It's totally Sam.

MATT: That's wild. You can now purchase the Tal'Dorei Campaign Setting Reborn as a standalone PDF in our Critical Role shops. (laughter) As a reminder, purchasing a physical book from our store will also give you download access to the PDF. So grab what works best for your adventure. Also, super wild. The Tal'Dorei Reborn was nominated for an ENNIE Award for best setting.

MARISHA: That's right!

LIAM: Yes!

MATT: Completely blown away by that. So thankful to be alongside so many great designers and writers who worked on this book and so many other books as part of the ENNIE Awards. Just happy to be included and thought of in any regard. But anyway, I think that's really cool. All right. I think that concludes our announcements.

ERIKA: Let's play some D&D!

TRAVIS: There's nothing weird here. Let's just get into it.

LIAM: Let's play some Dungeons & Dragons.

TALIESIN: Yep.

RYAN: Let's do it!

ERIKA: Yeah!

MATT: Yeah, I love it.

MARISHA: It's a four. (laughter)

MATT: Doesn't bode well for the coming encounters. Let's go ahead and jump into tonight's episode of Critical Role.

Part I
MATT: And welcome back. So, last we left off: Bells Hells in the city of Bassuras in the Hellcatch Valley have been chasing down the individual known as Armand Treshi, who escaped from Jrusar after being tied into some very dark stuff. You managed to uncover the fact that he was currently held in the Seat of Disdain. I'm going D to despair. I shall give you despair. No, the Seat of Disdain. Under guard of the Paragon's Call. Upon confirming his location there and putting it into your plans, you also discovered that Birdie Calloway, the mother of Fearne, was also traveling to town, and has been doing so for some business for some time. Along this way, you encounter an individual named Dusk who had an amnesiac history that seemed to tie with the Calloway parents as well. This chance meeting meant some interesting bonding, some tension, some awkwardness. But nevertheless, briefly inviting this bright-eyed individual into your found family for the time. And upon growing close to uncovering the means of getting to Treshi by entering the Deathwish Run, an extremely dangerous, deadly, and really fun race through all manner of streets and terrain around the city of Bassuras. You succeeded in doing so and made your approval entry into the Paragon's Call to pursue this threat. The next day, upon traversing to Imahara Joe's place to turn in your loaner crawler, as well as possibly looking to get the other one repaired, you watched as skirmisher-crawler rode up with Birdie Calloway in tow. As she stepped into the shop, eventually Fearne and the rest of the group begin to approach, in which you had a sudden reunion with Birdie. Then also noticed that Dusk was unfamiliar to your mother. At which point, Dusk reached out and grab both of your arms and revealed the form that you know as Dusk to perhaps not have been the true form that you expected. Instead, seeing behind a somewhat opalescent, multicolored skin upon pale white hair and that dark, dark attire. And that was where we left off.

TRAVIS: Oh shit.

MATT: So we're here, picking up in the middle of Imahara Joe's shop with him in the back and a couple of the interns scattered amongst the shop, not really noticing what's happening at the moment. The rest of you look tensely at this reveal, as Birdie has a look of fear and anxiety in her face, and looks over to Fearne also. "You lead them right to us?"

ASHLEY: Wh-who? What? Wait, why do you look so different?

ERIKA: (smooth voice) I'm sorry I had to lie to you, Fearne. Do you want to tell her or shall I? What you really are.

MATT: "Go, go right now. Run, don't get mixed up in all this stuff."

ERIKA: Don't go, Fearne. I haven't done anything to harm you or your friends, have I? And I've had plenty of opportunities. This person's as much a stranger to you as I am. Possibly more. Isn't that right?

LIAM: Somebody's got to start talking, or we're going to start fighting. So, I urge that to start happening now.

MATT: "I can only surmise that this creature has been sent her by the Unseelie. Your father and I, we-- We went off to do some things to--"

ERIKA: To go save the world? Those were the lies that you told your little girl.

MATT: "That's not a lie. We're working on things that are important."

ERIKA: (amused hum) Very well.

ASHLEY: Just wait. I'm very, very confused. You don't know them?

MATT: "No, but I know where they came from."

ASHLEY: And you don't know--

ERIKA: I've never had the pleasure, no.

LIAM: Orym steps up behind Fearne's legs and watches between them. Directly behind her.

MARISHA: What does it mean when she asks what you are, Birdie? You've been getting these arcane batteries. These devices, right? What are you using them for?

MATT: "Important things that aren't privy in mixed company at the moment."

MARISHA: And what is the Unseelie Court?

LAURA: What is The Unseelie?

MARISHA: I'm so confused.

MATT: "Fearne. Run." She begins to release the fingers from your arm. Immediately begins casting a spell.

ASHLEY: No, wait, wait, wait!

MATT: As she snaps, she vanishes from sight, and is going to try to pull from your grasp.

ERIKA: All right.

MATT: So I'm going to need a contested--

ERIKA: Strength roll?

MATT: Strength roll.

TRAVIS: What grasp? Was there a--

MATT: Actually, it'd be athletics.

LAURA: She's holding each other's--

TRAVIS: Oh yeah.

MATT: Athletics from you.

ERIKA: (laughs)

TRAVIS: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

ERIKA: 23.

MARISHA: Oh, shit.

MATT: She does not pull free. So you watch as suddenly--

TRAVIS: Now I'm a jerk, what do we have?

MATT: After Birdie vanishes and is released from you grasp, you watch as the individual you knew as Dusk, the artist formerly known as Dusk. Her arm-- their arm gets jerked to the side. You see one of the tables get shifted and things tumble off onto the side and crash onto the ground. But you watch as their arm holds firm out in the middle of space.

MARISHA: And we can still see Birdie?

MATT: No, Birdie is invisible.

MARISHA: She's invisible.

LAURA: What is going on?

LIAM: Orym double rolls through Fearne's legs, Dusk's legs, and draws his blade and presses into the small of Dusk's back.

ERIKA: (laughs) We were just getting acquainted. I gave you the opportunity to tell them. Your parents are nothing but a couple of charlatans. They're grifters important at the Seelie Court. Everything they've ever told you was lies. They prey on the foolish and the weak minded. And they stole from the Unseelie Court. What did you think was going to happen?

LIAM: If you want to have a conversation, why don't you let go of my friend? I press it half inch into her back.

MATT: You hear from the space where you assume Birdie still stands, "What we took didn't belong to the court to begin with."

ERIKA: And it belonged to you, then?

MATT: "No, but better in our hands working towards a good goal than being stuck in a vault somewhere."

ERIKA: (laughs) I shapeshift into the hottest half-elf man that you have ever seen in your life. Orym, invitation still open?

LIAM: I stab her in the back. (ooh-ing)

MATT: Roll for an attack. (laughter) And then we're going to probably roll for initiative. (laughs) Based on what you do after this, this may or may not trigger initiative.

LIAM: 17.

ERIKA: Two-- just barely makes it.

MATT: All right, roll damage.

LIAM: Just six.

MATT: So six points of--

ERIKA: (laughs)

MATT: -- slashing damage to you.

LIAM: Yeah, I'm not swinging. I'm just pushing in.

MATT: Right. So you feel the pain as the blade carves through the outer layer of your armor, finds flesh and digs about an inch and a half to two inches in, missing anything vital but enough to cause your muscles to seize up. The reaction is yours.

ERIKA: (hisses and laughs) Orym, don't you want to hear what Mama Calloway has to say before you go further with this?

LIAM: Yeah, just let go of Fearne's hand, huh?

ERIKA: Absolutely. I let go of Fearne's, but I keep my grasp tight on the invisible hand in mine.

ASHLEY: I still have Birdie's other hand?

MATT: Birdie let go of you, trying to dart away and give you an out.

LIAM: So I'll draw the blade out of the small of her back and stand at the ready.

MATT: Okay.

ASHLEY: I don't understand why you're here. Why are you going after my parents?

ERIKA: Your parents are thieves. They have stolen what is ours.

ASHLEY: No, they haven't. No, they didn't steal anything.

ERIKA: Tell her.

MATT: "We did steal, but there are things larger at work here than any of this bullshit that this one's toddling after."

ERIKA: Yes, there are bigger things.

TRAVIS: Just for a level set, can we talk about what was stolen?

LAURA: What is the Unseelie Court?

ERIKA: There is a complex series of politics and alliances in the Feywild. You're familiar with Seelie Court where Fearne comes from. There's the Unseelie Court as well. I am a representative of the Unseelie Court, and they stole from us, threatening to throw all of it into disarray.

LAURA: All right.

SAM: Are these two courts mortal enemies or sometimes friends?

ERIKA: Sometimes friends. There's nothing quite so rigid and, you know, hard as there are here.

LIAM: Sometimes friends means sometimes enemies?

ERIKA: Mm-hmm.

LIAM: Mm-hmm.

MARISHA: And dear representative, what is your real name?

ERIKA: I am Yu, Yu is me. Yu Suffiad. It's a pleasure to make your acquaintance again.

MARISHA: Yu Suffiad?

ERIKA: Mm-hmm.

SAM: Yu Suffiad.

MARISHA: It's nice to meet you. Pleasure. Oh.

MATT: Birdie's going to attempt to pull away from your grasp once more. So roll another athletics check.

ERIKA: 15.

MATT: 22.

ERIKA: Mm.

MATT: With this now, at that moment that you are distracted clutching and giving a kiss to the hand of your creepy friend, you feel an immediate tug and a twist and your grasp on Birdie is lost. I'll say with this roll, there isn't much of a sign of any other clutter or impact. Just the sound of heavy hoofprints (steps pounding) a few steps against the wood. Once more you hear Birdie's voice go, "Don't get involved."

ASHLEY: Wha--

MARISHA: What do you want us to do, Fearne?

LAURA: I'm going to try to use my Mage Hand to hold the door shut.

MATT: Okay.

TALIESIN: I'm going to block the other door.

MATT: Okay. So there's a door at the front and there's a door at the back that leads to the...

TALIESIN: Mm-hmm.

MATT: There are the two, at this point now, the two interns that were here doing work are back to the wall just watching.

MARISHA: Where's Imahara Joe?

MATT: They both (shuffling) and filter out the back where Imahara Joe is.

ERIKA: I may have lied about who I was, Fearne, but I really couldn't trust any of you.

SAM: I'm sure this is something that we can just talk about and settle, you know, just calmly if everyone just sits down and talks through it and is honest with each other.

TALIESIN: I'm casting my vote for knocking both of them out.

SAM: Both of who?

MARISHA: Birdie?

SAM: Fearne's mom!?

TALIESIN: I mean--

ASHLEY: Well...

ERIKA: I'll come along quietly if you just want to talk.

ASHLEY: What are you trying to do with her?

ERIKA: Take back what belongs to the Court and enact punishment. You all understand that, don't you?

LIAM: We're going to need more than vagaries.

TRAVIS: Yeah, what was taken again?

ERIKA: A very powerful artifact.

TRAVIS: Oh.

MATT: The voice of Birdie, now distant in the room to try and remain as sourceless as possible, but still coming from what would be considered, if you're looking in from the front, the far right back corner. Her voice says, "She's only here to kill us. There's no other way out of here."

ERIKA: How can your daughter believe anything that you say to her? I may have lied about who I was, but I have told you the truth about my motives. I've told you the truth about who you are. I've told you the truth about your parents, and she doesn't deny it.

MATT: "I haven't had said a single lie to Fearne."

SAM: Well, you did say that she was only gone for six years or something--

MATT: "It's only been six years!"

SAM: She told us it was 90.

MATT: It gets quiet within the room. "We'll figure that out."

ERIKA: Have you been sending her postcards? Things to remind her how much you care about her?

TRAVIS: Ooh.

MATT: "No."

ASHLEY: I have-- I have them-- I have them all.

SAM: Who sent them then?

MATT: The invisibility remains, but the voice comes through again. "(sighs) Fearne, there's a lot of things we got to talk about and figure out, it seems. But I-- me and your father and I have never lied."

ERIKA: (scoffs)

ASHLEY: Huh?

MATT: "What we're doing is important."

ASHLEY: I know. I know.

ERIKA: You don't, though.

ASHLEY: Oh...

MARISHA: Does literally anyone want to tell us what it is you are doing?

ERIKA: Taking back my stuff. I told you the day that I met you, nobody touches my stuff nor the stuff of the Seelie Court.

TRAVIS: That makes sense. I mean, Dusk has told us at least what they want. Wait. Fuck! Is your name Dusk? ERIKA No.

MARISHA, SAM: No, it's Yu--

TRAVIS: I'm paying attention. I'm just making sure everybody else got that. Okay. But maybe we should have Birdie tell us what they--

ERIKA: Go on, Birdie.

TRAVIS: -- are doing with the thing they were taking.

ERIKA: What are you doing with the thing that you stole from an entire governing body?

MARISHA: Yeah, Birdie?

TRAVIS: Yeah, maybe it kills droves of people. Maybe we shouldn't let you have it back, but maybe it's...

MATT: Roll a perception check for me, if you don't mind.

ERIKA: 18.

SAM: Oh, that's good.

MATT: 18.

LIAM: Just 18.

MATT: Okay. As you're finishing this statement talking in the space where you last heard Birdie's voice, there's a rapid (thump) and heavy impact sound right in front of you as if something's feet had left the ground for quite an arc of a leap. Right as the impact hits the wood in front of you, you feel.. I think a 26 will hit. A sharp pain in your abdomen as the rest of you watch Birdie in her jacketed attire from before suddenly apparate in front of you, blade jammed in towards the waist and looks right over at you and says, "I said go."

ERIKA: (groans)

MATT: With that, you take...

LIAM: Orym repositions opposite Birdie.

MATT: 18 points of slashing damage.

MARISHA: Hoo, ouch! That includes the sneak attack damage. And is going to attempt--

LAURA: I know, I know, I just say, stop! I'm going to try to Command Birdie to stop.

MATT: You Command Birdie, okay.

SAM: Can I take half of that damage?

MATT: You can if you'd like to.

LAURA: I would like to cast it at 2nd-level and try to get both of them.

TRAVIS: Yu and Birdie?

MATT: So that's--

LAURA: Birdie and Yu. Yu-sif?

ERIKA: Yu. Yu.

MATT: All right. So wisdom saving throws?

ERIKA: Y-U, thank you.

LIAM: Y-U. Thank you.

TRAVIS: Can you say the last name?

ERIKA: Suffiad.

TRAVIS: Suffiad.

LIAM: Yu Suffiad.

SAM: So I'll absorb nine points of that damage.

MATT: Okay. So you absorb nine of that damage.

LAURA: So that would be a wisdom save of 15.

ERIKA: Do I just-- I roll for--

TRAVIS: Yeah.

MARISHA: Yeah, roll as a check.

ERIKA: Ooh, (laughs) I fail. (laughter)

ASHLEY: I was like, damn it.

LAURA: Just so like...

ERIKA: Yes!

MATT: Birdie succeeds. So as you slacken, Birdie grabs you from behind and takes the blade--

LAURA: Nope!

MATT: And just--

LAURA: Birdie!

MATT: -- holds back facing the rest of you--

ERIKA: (laughs)

MATT: -- with a pleading glance on her face. "You don't understand. They're here to kill me."

ASHLEY: Please make us understand!

MATT: "They're here to kill your father."

ASHLEY: I don't--

MATT: "They're going to kill everyone."

ASHLEY: How do we know?

LIAM: We just have one right now. Let's ease down. Ease down.

TRAVIS: Yeah, we'll promote a neutral environment, but right now you're the only one poking somebody with the sharp part. (laughter)

LIAM: Can Orym take the blade off of Dusk's hip?

MARISHA: Oh, that's a good idea.

MATT: If you'd like to try.

LIAM: Of course.

MATT: You're doing this overtly?

LIAM: Yeah. Plain as day. Walking right up.

MATT: Okay, are you going to--

LIAM: While Birdie's got them--

ERIKA: She'll try to wriggle that out of the way.

MATT: Okay. So for this, this would be a contested athletics versus either athletics or acrobatics roll.

ERIKA: Athletics.

SAM: Is she held or what did you cast?

TRAVIS: DM, while they're doing this.

LAURA: I cast stop as the Command.

TRAVIS: Can I drag my chisel across my thigh and just do a little Crimson Rite?

MATT: Yes, you may.

TRAVIS: Thank you.

ERIKA: 17.

LIAM: 19.

MARISHA: Mm.

MATT: Okay. So the blade is knocked free from Yu's--

LIAM: I take it.

MATT: Okay.

LIAM: I back away and I chuck it into the back room where Imahara went.

ERIKA: Hey, watch it!

MATT: Well, that door is closed currently because he went and locked it up.

TALIESIN: Yeah, that door is closed.

LIAM: We'll do the front door.

MATT: Okay.

LAURA: That door is also closed, too--

MATT: Front door is also closed, but you could--

LAURA: -- I'm holding it.

MATT: (laughs)

MARISHA: Fearne.

TALIESIN: You can throw it to someone.

LIAM: I'll hold it. I'll hold onto it. (laughter) I couldn't see the invisible make-believe place.

MATT: No, that's fair enough. That's fair enough.

MARISHA: Fearne, what do you want us to do? We're following your lead here.

ASHLEY: I'm just, I'm very confused. I don't really know, I don't know. I don't really know either of these people very well.

TRAVIS: Well, one's related to you, so you better get her talking.

ASHLEY: Okay. What are you trying to do?

ERIKA: What are you trying to do?

MATT: You see this intense look in her eye, looking back at you and trying to figure out the right words.

ERIKA: Well...

MATT: "Look, you were born Exandrian before we took you back to the fey. You were born under a flash of that ruddy-ass moon, and since we brought you back that moon's been showing through in the Feywild where it wasn't supposed to be. No one believed us, and we've been looking into it for a while. So we had to take something to help us figure out what the hell is going on."

ASHLEY: Wait, what do you-- I was born under a--

MATT: "Choose. You believe me or you believe this person!"

ASHLEY: Okay. I produce my Flame Blade at 3rd-level and I stick it into your belly. (gasping) (screaming)

MATT: (surprised laughter)

TRAVIS: Wow, we just skipped a whole bunch of steps!

MATT: Okay, at this point, I think we're going to roll initiative.

TRAVIS: Oh no!

MATT: Holy shit! (laughter)

MARISHA: Ah! Ah! How did you know?

LAURA: Oh no! I got to put a penny in the scream jar!

SAM: How did I know? Erika is here. That's how I knew. (laughter) I got lots of money.

LIAM: Oh man. Guys, that was a sexy 20 minutes.

TRAVIS: Prop money.

LIAM: Holy cow.

TRAVIS: That's good.

SAM: It's not prop money. This is my own personal stash.

TRAVIS: Yeah sure. Sure it is. Crisp, crisp.

LIAM: Dang!

ASHLEY: These crisp $20 bills.

TRAVIS: Starched $20 bills.

LIAM: Dang!

TRAVIS: Yo, man.

LIAM: So much has happened.

ASHLEY: Whoa!

ERIKA: Just. Just.

SAM: Oh, credit cards?

LAURA: Just credit card! (laughter)

TRAVIS: Keep it open.

MARISHA: Yeah.

SAM: Keep the tab.

MARISHA: Keep the tab open.

MATT: Back door.

LIAM: Do you take Apple Pay? (laughter)

MATT: So.

SAM: Not unless they sponsor us.

MATT: We'll be doing combat rounds here because it has now hit a point of aggression. This can continue in combat unless something else happens, but that's a pretty fucking aggressive move. So first off, where's everyone placed?

MARISHA: Oh shit. Oh shit.

MATT: I'm going to say we have right here we have Yu placed there with Birdie. We have Ashton in the back.

SAM: Whoa, look at this place.

TALIESIN: Uh-huh.

MATT: Yu had just-- Sorry.

LIAM: Is that Yu there?

TRAVIS: That's Yu right there.

LIAM: Oh.

SAM: That's Yu!

LAURA: That's so cool.

TRAVIS: Is that a changeling mini?

SAM: What's your last name again?

ERIKA: Suffiad.

ASHLEY: Suffiad.

SAM: So I'll say Yu Suffiad.

LIAM: I'll back farther away.

MATT: As you're holding the thing.

MARISHA: Yu Suffiad.

MATT: Imogen, where would you be?

MARISHA: Yu Suffiad.

LAURA: I could be over this direction. Yeah, right there. That's good.

MATT: You got it.

MARISHA: Spelt like this.

MATT: Okay. Laudna.

LAURA: Oh, I was so close.

SAM: Laut-na.

MARISHA: Right?

ERIKA: Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah.

MARISHA: I've copied off your paper after you said it. Where's Laudna? I don't know, where am I?

MATT: Most of you guys had entered from this space.

MARISHA: Yeah, I'll be--

MATT: That's the front door.

MARISHA: -- catty-corner to Imogen.

MATT: Right there?

MARISHA: Yeah, yeah, yeah. yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

MATT: Okay. And with that--

LIAM: Oh my gosh.

MATT: You right there. Fearne, you're right there.

TRAVIS: I'm sitting up on the bar.

LAURA: Oh my god. You're just sitting there?

TRAVIS: Yeah.

MATT: Over here?

TRAVIS: Yeah. Just with my feet dangling over the side.

SAM: I was near Ashton.

TRAVIS: This is fucked.

MARISHA: Yeah. (laughs)

MATT: All right. So you're back here. Okay.

TRAVIS: Family are the worst. (laughter)

MATT: All right. So to that point...

MARISHA: ♪ There was a bitch ♪

MATT: Since you are technically taking the initiative, you get one strike with your Flame Blade.

ASHLEY: Okay.

MATT: Then we're going to go in the initiative order, but to kick off this, initiatives 25 to 20.

MARISHA: Oh wait, initiative. Oh wait, is this if we're in it, or--?

MATT: We are--

LIAM: Everyone's in it.

LAURA: Everybody's in it.

LIAM: Even if you try to make peace.

MARISHA: Okay. Sorry. Sorry.

MATT: Yeah, but at this point, this isn't playful pokes in a social tension moment.

LIAM: Yeah, I get the warning.

MATT: This is a full sweep with the Flame Blade at their abdomen.

SAM: Fearne, how could you?

MATT: 25 to 20.

LAURA: No.

ASHLEY: I had to.

LAURA: Commit.

ASHLEY: I had to.

MATT: No, respect. 25 to 20.

TRAVIS: Nothing.

LAURA: Oh, wow.

MATT: 20 to 15.

LIAM: 18.

TRAVIS: 17.

MATT: Okay.

ASHLEY: 15 for me. So Orym.

MARISHA: Chet.

LIAM: All right, so we have--

MARISHA: Fearne.

TRAVIS: Orym, Chet, Fearne.

LAURA: Yeah.

MATT: Chet, Birdie, then Fearne.

LAURA: Oh.

TALIESIN, TRAVIS: Ooh.

LIAM: Orym is also dual wielding right now so the shield's on his back and his AC is lower.

MATT: Okay.

LAURA: Oh right, because you have the sword.

LIAM: Yep.

TRAVIS: Oh.

MATT: 15 to 10.

MARISHA: 13.

MATT: All right. Laudna.

MARISHA: Loud-na.

ASHLEY: Laudna.

LIAM: I did it.

TRAVIS: 10 to five.

LIAM: I actually affected another player.

TALIESIN: Four.

MARISHA: You did.

LAURA: Five.

MATT: Okay.

MARISHA: Good. Aw.

SAM: Four. I made it.

LAURA: Rollies!

TRAVIS: What is FCG?

SAM: Rollies. Ashton, rollies.

MARISHA: Okay, so Laudna.

TALIESIN: Are we rolling?

MATT: Yep. To see who goes first. You got the same initiative.

LIAM: That's cocked.

MATT: It's fine.

TALIESIN: 11.

SAM: 19.

MATT: There we go. FCG then Ashton.

LAURA: Okay, so FCG. All right. And the bottom of the roll. Your?

ERIKA: Oh wait, I'm 12.

LAURA: Your beverage smells so good and I'm--

ERIKA: So wait--

SAM: Between Laudna and Imogen.

LAURA: Did you order from the place?

LIAM: Yeah.

MATT: Okay.

MARISHA: Yu.

MATT: So.

TALIESIN: Oh boy.

MATT: Fearne, first you create the Flame Blade and then rush up. (blade slashing) Go ahead and roll your attack to Flame Blade.

TRAVIS: We don't even know who the-- We don't know anything yet!

MARISHA: Nope.

LIAM: That's right.

LAURA: Oh no!

ASHLEY: Natural one.

MATT: So.

LAURA: Yeah.

MATT: I will say this.

LAURA: That's a one.

MATT: I will say, you watch as Fearne creates this massive Flame Blade and rushes towards you. How do you react to this to avoid being struck?

ERIKA: (scoffs) If you kill me, there'll be worse assassins coming after you. Everyone in the Fey Court is after you.

ASHLEY: Woo.

TRAVIS: Oh fuck.

MATT: And you--

SAM: Jesus.

MATT: -- hold the blade at bay in that moment, the phrase cutting through. Birdie's like, "Don't listen to her."

ASHLEY: Why is everyone after us?

MATT: Orym, you're up.

ASHLEY: After us, after me, what--

LIAM: Okay.

MATT: (chuckles)

LIAM: Orym ducks his head down low so he gets low and runs straight towards Dusk's feet, and I'm going to do a tripping attack and drop this motherfucker on their back. MATT Okay.

TRAVIS: Wait, which motherfucker? To be clear.

LIAM: Oh, Yu. Excuse me. Sorry, I'm getting used to it.

ERIKA: Yeah.

TRAVIS: Still a little undecided.

MATT: That's all good.

MARISHA: I know, exactly.

LIAM: 15 misses, I think. Right?

MARISHA: We're all kind of motherfuckers.

LIAM: Natural 20 on the second. (awed exclamations) With your blade, which I don't know the details of.

MATT: Well, you are not--

LIAM: Proficient in it?

MATT: Well, I believe it requires--

SAM: Attunement?

MATT: -- attunement.

ERIKA: Yes, attunement.

LIAM: Well, whatever magic I'm still using it to put them on the ground.

MATT: Correct. So for you it would be just a standard rapier. So it's a d8 damage.

LIAM: Okay. A d8.

MATT: Plus your dexterity modifier.

LIAM: Yeah. Okay, so that's a nine, and you have to make a strength save of 16.

ERIKA: 20.

LIAM: You stay up. Okay, so I just slash it across the back of your leg instead. So that is a four plus five is nine, plus the superiority die. 15 points of damage. No, I'll keep going.

MATT: Okay. Another strike.

LIAM: I'm going to put them down. Next one misses. Second one is a one, so I'll reroll it. 19. Another strength save.

ERIKA: 21.

LIAM: You stay up, but I slash you again. So I cut up the back of both of your calves. That is two plus five is seven.

ERIKA: (groans)

LIAM: 12 for the second.

SAM: Oh god.

LIAM: That was 15 and 12. I will stay right there with your own blade pressed, aimed at your chest. En garde. Done.

MATT: All right, finishing Orym's go. Chetney, you're up.

TRAVIS: Oh god. Okay. I've never done this before. But fuck it, because--

ERIKA: I told you, they're doing something that is severely fucking with both courts.

TRAVIS: I'm going to use my Blood Maledict.

TALIESIN: Hey!

MATT: Okay.

TRAVIS: I've never done this before. I would like to amplify it and cast on Birdie--

TALIESIN: Ooh.

TRAVIS: -- the Blood Curse of the Marked with my bonus action.

MATT: On Birdie?

TRAVIS: On Birdie.

MATT: Okay.

TALIESIN: Mm.

TRAVIS: So I know where she is if she goes invisible again.

LIAM: Cool.

TRAVIS: Do I have to hit her to make that take effect?

MATT: Well okay. So the Blood Curse of the Marked I believe just increases damage on the attacks that you deal against the target.

TRAVIS: Is that right?

MATT: Yeah.

TRAVIS: Okay. Okay.

MATT: Yeah. What you're thinking of is an ability you get in the next level.

TRAVIS: Oh, that's what it is.

SAM: Can we level up right now real quick?

TRAVIS: Can we just level up real fast?

MATT: No. (laughter)

TRAVIS: Oh, you're right. It doesn't say anything--

ASHLEY: Just real quick can we do it.

TRAVIS: -- about the thing that I'm thinking of.

MATT: The Brand of Castigation is what you're thinking about, and that's next level.

TRAVIS: Fair enough. Oh, that is what I'm thinking of. Okay, I'm going to--

MARISHA: Trying to brand castration?

SAM: Yeah. You should try to--

TRAVIS: I'm going to jump off the bar, I'm going to run across the room so I'm in front of those doors. I'm going to hold my melee attack action until Yu or Birdie comes this way.

MATT: Okay, you got it.

TRAVIS: You really should tell us what you want to do here, Birdie, because I'm fucking siding with you! That's it. MATT (laughs) All right. It's Birdie's turn. Birdie has let Yu go at this point from the strikes and the stabbing, and trying to pull back.

LAURA: I wish I had Hunter's Mark.

MATT: Birdie is going to go ahead and-- Okay. So as Birdie stands back, in a similar way that the Flame Blade extends from your hand, Birdie's left hand suddenly begins to apparate this pitch black blade of shadow that emerges, and she grasps it, and looks to you, Fearne, both of you taller than Yu, and glaring over. "They'll keep coming unless we finish it."

ASHLEY: Okay.

MATT: She's going to go ahead and take two strikes. Or is it the Shadow Blade?

TRAVIS: 90 years.

ASHLEY, SAM: They'll keep coming if we don't finish it.

TRAVIS: 90. What does that mean?

SAM: 90?

MATT: Okay, a single attack. That is going to be a 13. She goes for a swing, and how do you dodge it?

ERIKA: I, at that point, with my calves hamstrung, just crumple for a second and then pop back up.

TRAVIS: Nice.

MATT: Then, Birdie's going to go ahead and attempt to circle around up onto this table, and begin hopping from table to table over to this side. Blade still out, gauging the chamber. You do, technically, though unarmed, you do get an attack of opportunity if you'd like to take it, or you can save your reaction.

ERIKA: I'm going to save my reaction.

MATT: All righty. With that, Fearne, it's your turn.

ASHLEY: Okay. I'm going to try the Flame Blade again since it's out and ready to go.

MATT: Okay. Roll another strike.

ASHLEY: Okay.

SAM: Maybe we can just get along.

TRAVIS: We don't fucking know what's going on.

LIAM: No, that's delicious.

LAURA: I know.

ASHLEY: 19?

ERIKA: Yes.

ASHLEY: That hits?

ERIKA: Can I use my reaction to try and catch her arm?

MATT: To try and catch her arm? Are you trying to stop the attack and grab it? Or grab it while you're getting hit with it?

ERIKA: Grab it while I'm getting hit.

MATT: Okay. Then, yeah, I'll say go ahead.

ERIKA: So, I'll let her hit me.

MATT: Okay.

ERIKA: Then grab the arm.

MATT: Okay. Go ahead and make an athletics check after you roll damage.

ASHLEY: Okay.

MARISHA: A Flame Blade made of fire sinks into your shoulder. That's dope.

LAURA: Yeah, that's pretty dope.

LIAM: They're taking damage and fucking with you.

MARISHA: So fucking cool, yes.

TRAVIS: Yeah, but there's not a lot of aggression happening. It's really confusing.

ERIKA: 13.

ASHLEY: Okay, 12 points of damage.

ERIKA: Okay.

ASHLEY: 13, and then, yes, fire damage. Then, what am I rolling against?

MATT: You're making an athletics or acrobatics check.

ASHLEY: Okay.

MATT: I'll say with disadvantage because you were in the middle of an attack.

ASHLEY: Okay. Okay, 15.

ERIKA: Beats it.

SAM: That's a miss.

ERIKA: Yeah.

LAURA: Wait--

ERIKA: No, so that beats my--

ASHLEY: You're 13, right? Okay.

MATT: So you go and grab and you do hold on as the blade hits and stare forward, but you pull away after the sudden brief bit of encounter and she does manage to pull from your grasp.

ERIKA: Okay, so you strike at me and a flaming sword cuts into my shoulder. I grab your hand for a moment, and I stare into your face. I'm sorry I had to lie to you.

ASHLEY: Why didn't you just tell me the truth?

ERIKA: Would you have believed me?

ASHLEY: Probably.

ERIKA: It's a shame, then. My bad. (laughter)

LAURA: Oops. (laughter)

MATT: Fearne, you still have your bonus action and your movement, if you'd like.

ASHLEY: Yes, okay, so.

MATT: With Laudna on deck.

ASHLEY: Okay, I am going to-- Oh, that was a bonus action. Oh fuck. Okay, I am going to bamf out Mister.

MATT: Okay. Whereabouts?

ASHLEY: Over by Birdie.

MATT: Okay, on the table over there.

ASHLEY: Or actually, I'm sorry. Can I have him be right behind-- Bamf him behind Yu.

MATT: (monkey screeches) (laughter)

ASHLEY: Okay, and I'm just going to stay with my blade.

MATT: Okay. Laudna, you're up. With Yu on deck.

MARISHA: Laudna's very stressed out.

SAM: Me, too!

MARISHA: FCG! (gasps) You see shadows start to seep up from in between the cracks of the floor panels in the ground, and they circle up around Birdie, Yu, and Fearne, as I cast Bane on them.

TRAVIS: Ooh, interesting, interesting.

MARISHA: Please, please, I know emotions are high, but let's just stop hurting each other. They're saving throws. No, it is a charisma saving throw.

MATT: Charisma saving throw.

SAM: Ooh.

MARISHA: So, you know. 16 save.

MATT: That's a fail on Birdie.

MARISHA: I mean, your charisma is bonkers.

ERIKA: 17.

MARISHA: Yeah, that saves. Just saves.

ASHLEY: 25.

SAM: Ooh.

LAURA: Wow.

MATT: So just Birdie gets Baned.

MARISHA: Just Birdie. LIAM and MARISHA: Birdie got Baned.

MATT: The shadows wrap and begin to intertwine within bits of the fur that encases her lower half.

LAURA: And that drops a d4 for saving throws?

MARISHA: And attacks.

TRAVIS: Easy, Grand Ole Opry.

MARISHA: Dusk-- Yu, we don't want to kill you. But also, if we let you go, you can't just go killing Fearne's parents either. I'm so conflicted. (laughter)

ERIKA: I turn into Imogen.

SAM, TALIESIN: Ooh.

ERIKA: (like Imogen) Laudna, why would you want to hurt me?

MARISHA: Okay, I don't like that, though. I don't like that. (laughter) No.

LAURA: I was going to do something else, but then you go and pull that.

MATT: (laughs) So it's an action to create a spell, but you still have a bonus action, if anything. Or are you good?

MARISHA: I'll hold it for now.

MATT: Okay, Yu, it's your turn.

SAM: Yu, Yu.

MARISHA: Yu!

ERIKA: I use Channel Divinity.

MARISHA: That's paladin shit.

TRAVIS: Divinity?

ERIKA: Channel Divinity. Conquering Presence.

MATT: Hmm. On?

ERIKA: On everybody in a 30-foot radius. Make a wisdom save?

TRAVIS: I thought we were cool.

ERIKA: Of 16.

TRAVIS: What the fuck?

LIAM: Is that fear?

ERIKA: Fear.

LIAM: Okay.

ERIKA: You're probably okay.

MATT: That'll be everybody.

LIAM: I have advantage, because I'm--

TALIESIN: Wisdom save?

TRAVIS: Wisdom save.

ERIKA: Yes, wisdom.

MARISHA: Wow.

MATT: Birdie fails.

LAURA, SAM: What are we trying to beat?

ERIKA: 16.

SAM: Okay.

TRAVIS: Fail.

TALIESIN: Fail.

MARISHA: 13, but I'm immune against frightened.

LAURA: Success.

LIAM: Success.

SAM: Success.

ASHLEY: Fail.

SAM: Ooh.

ASHLEY: Wait, is this a magical effect?

MATT: It is a magical effect.

ASHLEY: So I have advantage.

TRAVIS: Oh, I have advantage on that, too.

MATT: From a fey, specifically.

TRAVIS: Oh yeah, so 20. I succeed.

MATT: Okay.

ASHLEY: 19.

SAM: Ooh!

MATT: Okay, so who failed then?

LIAM: Fearne's parents.

MATT: So it's you and Birdie.

TALIESIN: All right.

TRAVIS: Are you a fey?

MATT: Okay, so what's the effect on a failure?

ERIKA: Okay, so on a failure, you're frightened for a minute.

MATT: Okay.

TALIESIN: Okay.

LIAM: Must move away.

SAM: (robotically) Must move away.

TALIESIN: Can't get any closer. It's not going to help you anyway.

MATT: Okay, so that's your action.

ERIKA: I remember when you all found me in the alley being attacked by people trying to steal from me. You murdered them, you murdered them, and then, Ashton, you stole their shit.

TALIESIN: Just business.

ERIKA: Right. And so why am I the bad guy now? I could've killed any of you a million times over. On the bike, with Orym. I could've smashed you while you were in my pocket. I could've left you to die on that bike, but I didn't. And now what? Now what? I'm going to die here, and you're going to have no answers, not from your mother, not from any of the assassins that will come with much worse intentions than me.

ASHLEY: Then I guess we'll just have to keep killing every single one of them. (laughter)

TRAVIS: (laughs) That's a good point.

SAM: I didn't sign up for this.

TRAVIS: That's a good point! They've got answers.

ERIKA: You-- G-g-good luck. (laughs)

MATT: All right, so a bonus and a movement.

ERIKA: As a bonus, I would like to... Curse Birdie.

MATT: With which one?

ERIKA: Hexblade's Curse.

MATT: Hexblade's Curse?

TRAVIS: (gasps)

MARISHA: (laughs)

TRAVIS, MARISHA: (groaning)

MATT: Describe how the curse takes effect on Birdie you said.

ERIKA: Birdie.

TRAVIS: Back him up.

ERIKA: I reach out. Prisms of rainbow light fly out. They encircle Birdie and I say: Even if I'm gone, you know damn well that they're never going to stop. What are you going to fight every single member of the Seelie and Unseelie Courts and the Keeper of the Moontides?

MATT: You see the fear in her eyes as you're staring at her. She takes a couple steps back. "I guess they just have to keep finding us then. It took you this long." Almost slips off the back of the table, instinctually trying to step away from the intense glare that you're giving her.

ERIKA: (growls)

MATT: "(whimpers)"

ERIKA: (laughs)

MATT: Are you going to stay put or are you going to move? Okay, finishing that, that brings us to Imogen's turn, with FCG on deck.

LAURA: I am going to cast Detect Thoughts on Birdie.

MARISHA: Ooh, yeah!

TRAVIS: Yeah! Let's open the fucking book up. Come on.

MARISHA: Let's see, let's see what's up.

MATT: Okay. Let me just double check here.

ASHLEY: Fuck.

MATT: All right, so you cast a spell. "As an action, you can focus on a creature--" Blah blah, yep, all right. You learn the surface thoughts of the creature. Let me whisper it to you. Well, actually I'll say, are you diving? Pushing past?

LAURA: Yes, immediately diving.

TRAVIS: Let's go.

MATT: Roll a save on that.

TALIESIN: Minus a d4.

MATT: That's true, yeah.

MARISHA: Yep, yep, yep. She's Baned.

ASHLEY: Let's go!

LAURA: That's why I went for it.

MATT: That's wisdom, right?

LAURA: Yes, it is.

MATT: Minus the d4 makes the difference. (cheering)

TALIESIN: Bane, Bane.

SAM: Guys, D&D Beyond. Unlock all four Spelljammer prequel adventures on D&D Beyond at https://dndbeyond.link/crspace. https://dndbeyond.link/crspace. (laughter)

LIAM: (Bane voice) Ah, yes. I played Spelljammer in sophomore year.

SAM: Oh, Bane. We should do a Bane children's series. (laughter)

LIAM: I don't want to hear--

TRAVIS: Hexblade.

LIAM: -- all the juice.

TRAVIS: With paladin shit.

TALIESIN: Mm-hmm.

ASHLEY: She's writing about something.

SAM: Wow, this is a long-ass whisper. I could do this again.

MATT: She's staring into her brain.

SAM: D&D Beyond, everybody.

MARISHA: Look at Laura's face!

ASHLEY: I know, I know.

MARISHA: She looks like she's--

SAM: This is a big dump for six seconds.

TRAVIS: Dude, this is the first time of going second-level deep.

TALIESIN: Yeah.

TRAVIS: For one of them.

MARISHA: She looks like she just went on Space Mountain for the first time.

MATT: Yeah, kind of. (laughter)

SAM: Your nose is bleeding, Laura. (laughter)

TRAVIS: Eleven, you need Eggo waffles.

LAURA: (screaming) (stammering)

TRAVIS: You know what you want to do.

MATT: So that was your action.

LAURA: (panicking) That was my action. (laughter)

MATT: Nice. (laughter)

LAURA: There's so many mixed feelings I'm having. (verbal nonsense)

SAM: (verbal nonsense)

LIAM: We're in suspended animation here.

LAURA: For my bonus action, I'm going to talk to Yu and I'm just going to say: We can make this stop. We just need to talk.

ERIKA: (as Dusk) I'm listening. I shift back to my form. Sorry.

TRAVIS: Oh shit.

LAURA: We can stop fighting.

ERIKA: All right.

LAURA: I'm just going to--

ERIKA: (as Yu) Who's fighting?

LAURA: I'm just going to call out: Let's talk. But I don't know if anyone's going to listen to me.

MATT: Okay, so that finishes Imogen's go with a shout echoing in the muffled wood and metal scrap filled room saying, "Let's talk." With that, it is now FCG's turn with a quick Ashton following on that.

SAM: Hearing that, I will-- Hi. (laughter) Hearing that, I will cast Aura of Vitality as my action, and I will restore 2d6 hit points to Yu.

MARISHA: Oh, wow.

SAM: Let's see how many that is. Five plus six! 11 points.

MARISHA: Oh, shit.

MATT: Okay.

SAM: And just say: Imogen's right. We should all just talk, and we can work this out, please?

LAURA: Buddy.

MATT: All right, that's your action. You have your bonus or movement left.

SAM: I think that's also my bonus.

MATT: Oh, right, because you have to trigger the aura.

SAM: Yeah.

MATT: Do you want to stay put or do you want to move?

LAURA: I want to tell everybody so bad.

SAM: Yeah, I'll roll right up and stand. I'll use my body to shield Dusk-Yu.

MATT: Okay. Ashton, it's your go. You are frightened, so you cannot actively move closer towards Yu.

TALIESIN: Can I scoot around the walls of the room at all?

MATT: You can, yeah.

TALIESIN: I'm going to make a run to Birdie if I can do it.

MARISHA: You're running to Birdie. You're running to Birdie.

TALIESIN: I run 40 feet.

MATT: I can get right up against Birdie.

TALIESIN: So I can get there?

MATT: You're against the wall and scooting as far away, which means it gets you up against the table where Birdie is. Birdie's still above the table and at a five-foot diagonal from you, but it's right there, yeah.

TALIESIN: Can I grapple?

MATT: If you'd like to, yeah.

TALIESIN: I'm going to rage and grapple. So I'm going to fucking rage.

MATT: Okay, that's a bonus action to rage. Go ahead. For that it would be an athletics check.

TALIESIN: All right.

MATT: With advantage because of your rage.

TALIESIN: I just want to see what I get, just so I have-- Oh, this is fun. Cool. This will help a lot. Athletics check?

MATT: Mm-hmm.

TALIESIN: 19.

MATT: 19.

TALIESIN: Minus a d4.

MATT: Minus a d4, indeed. That brings it to a 16. So you have Birdie grappled. As Birdie's about to leap off the table towards the entrance doorway, hoping to just push past the tiny angry gnomish man who is currently standing in front of it.

TRAVIS: Listen.

MATT: You go ahead and (muffled impact)

TALIESIN: (shouts) We're all sitting down and calming the fuck down! (laughter)

TRAVIS: Nice, nice!

MATT: Okay, with that, you now have Birdie grappled. Her speed is zero. She cannot move. Stuck on the walls. "You don't know what you're doing!"

TALIESIN: (shouts) Elaborate! (laughter)

MATT: All right. (laughter) All righty.

TALIESIN: Do I save against fear?

MATT: You do, yeah. Or you roll to see if you can save.

TALIESIN: Yeah, it's a wisdom?

MATT: I believe it's a wisdom save for your presence, right?

ERIKA: Yeah.

TALIESIN: 15?

MATT: No, still afraid.

TALIESIN: All right.

MATT: Still afraid. Okay, so finishing your go there, that brings us to the top. Orym, you're up. Birdie is grappled. Yu has been partially healed and has done no overtly aggressive action of sorts to anyone but Birdie.

LIAM: Orym circles around to get behind Yu, and slaps Yu in the small of the back, and you need to make a dex save, 15.

ERIKA: (grunts)

MARISHA: Ouch.

ERIKA: 20.

SAM: (groans)

ERIKA: Natural 20. (ooh-ing)

LIAM: The bead of imprisonment smashes on her back, on their back, and does nothing, nothing. (gasping)

TALIESIN: No.

MARISHA: But we haven't wasted it yet, right?

LIAM: That's it.

LAURA: That's it?

LIAM: It smashes.

ERIKA: (laughs)

LIAM: It smashes.

ERIKA: (laughs)

MARISHA: Dude!

ASHLEY: Oh my god.

TRAVIS: Wow.

MATT: (echos of shattering)

MARISHA: Well.

ASHLEY: Okay.

MARISHA: We'll move to plan B on that one. (laughter)

SAM: We had a plan A?

MARISHA: Nope.

LAURA: Yep. (laughter)

LIAM: And I went forward.

MATT: That's how it works. That's how it works.

LIAM: And I will just keep both. That's the end of my turn, so I'll keep both blades trained on the small of your back.

MATT: You got it. Okay, that brings us now to Chetney. Birdie after that.

TRAVIS: Oh, yeah. What Ashton said. Yeah, go ahead, Orym. What's up, buddy?

LIAM: Can I-- can I-- Never mind, never mind.

MARISHA, LAURA: (laugh)

MATT: Are you attempting to intimidate Birdie? Is that what you're doing?

TRAVIS: No, me?

MATT: What action-- are you shouting?

TRAVIS: No, I just said what Ashton said. We're all going to talk it out! Birdie, chill the fuck out! Oh, and I'll actually move closer to-- I'm going to get within melee of Fearne and Yu. I'm holding up the double doves. Peace.

SAM: (laughs)

MARISHA: Peace?

TRAVIS: In our lifetime, okay?

MARISHA: Double doves?

TRAVIS: Okay.

SAM: Nixon.

MARISHA, SAM: (laugh)

MATT: Okay.

MARISHA: I'm not a crook.

ERIKA: Four? What is he saying?

MATT: I'll say for the purposes of the intent, she is grappled. I would have both Ashton and Chetney go ahead and just roll a standard intimidation check as you are both trying to get her to stand down. as you are both trying to get her to stand down.

TRAVIS: Intimidation?

MATT: Intimidation.

TRAVIS: 18.

TALIESIN: Natural one.

MATT: Okay, so she doesn't even see your face, as you're just clutching her legs, and she's like, (impacts) down onto the table. The fear in her eyes, looks up and just sees you shouting that towards Yu. The blade is out, and then curl over, flanking between where Fearne and her on the table are. Everything situated. Birdie just slackens in your grasp. There's a brief moment, we'll say here, at what would be Birdie's turn in the initiative order is going to go ahead and pause.

TRAVIS: Whoa. Yeah. Okay.

MATT: Mark that there. There's just quiet in the shop, except for the sound of one small glass vial that's been rolling on the table after Ashton slammed Birdie on it. (glass rolling)

ERIKA: Somebody catch that!

MATT: (glass shatters)

ERIKA: (sighs)

MARISHA: Sorry.

TRAVIS: Okay, well, everybody just stay calm. No more stabby stabs. I think we need to have a little consideration that Yu didn't attack anybody, had all the opportunity before and after the reveal. Nice dramatics, by the way. Top marks. Birdie, I'm glad you've reunited with your daughter. But holy fuck, we need a little bit of context because she deserves it. We deserve it. We're not killing somebody we really have no idea who they are without it.

LIAM: Yu, you feel your own blade pressed into the small of your neck and you feel Orym's blade pressed into the small of your back.

SAM: You also heal four hit points. (laughter)

TRAVIS: Ouch. Ahh.

MATT: So how long does that last? How long does that Aura last?

SAM: I get to do it 10 times.

MATT: Nicely done.

SAM: So it's one minute.

LAURA: I say out loud to Birdie: I know you're trying to do the right thing. But from the looks of it, you're the bad guy.

ASHLEY: What?

MATT: Gives you a confused look.

LAURA: How do you know the Nightmare King?

TRAVIS: (gasps)

MARISHA: I knew it!

SAM: What? How?

MARISHA: I knew it!

TRAVIS: (gasps)

SAM: Wha...

MARISHA: Run on batteries.

MATT: "Look, some things are bigger than quabbles. "Look, some things are bigger than quabbles. Ira's done some bad stuff in the past, but he's the only person that could help us with this thing that's much bigger than all of us."

ASHLEY: He tried to kill us.

ERIKA: (as Yu) He said perhaps he had some good points.

MATT: "He mentioned he ran into you, but he didn't kill any of you."

TRAVIS: (incredulously) Ira?

ASHLEY: Well, he tried!

LAURA: That was Ira. Remember we talked?

SAM: What was his name?

TRAVIS: Yeah, of course I remember.

TALIESIN: That's a bad man doing a lot of bad things.

MATT: "And there's a bad person coming here to do more bad things. Me and your father maybe have not done some great things either. Look where we come from. We're beings based on whim. This is the first time in both of our lives we found something that's bigger than all of us. We've sacrificed a lot to do it, and we've worked with people we're not proud of. But there's something real strange going on."

ASHLEY: If you tell us, maybe we can help and do the right thing.

MATT: "I'll tell you, if you promise not to let this one go back and tell the rest of her kind what we're working on."

LIAM: I think you got to help us understand what's going on right now, man.

MATT: "We're still figuring it out. Look, we already knew there was some weird connection with you and that red Exandrian moon. But we only have the light of Catha in the Fey Realm."

LAURA: Wait, you don't have the red moon in the Feywild?

MATT: Ruidus is terrestrial to Exandria. Only Catha's light from the Moonweaver finds its way to the Feywild.

ERIKA: (as Yu) Except now.

MATT: "Except for about seven or so years ago. It began poking through. We've been figuring out that strange and odd. It's been offering some odd boons on that side that the Unseelie have been more than eager to try and utilize. But the more I began to look into it, because of its connection to our Fearne, the more we found a lot of... There's a lot of unhealthy history behind that moon. And your father had-- As part of his attempts to try and figure this out, he began to have visions. Nobody believed us. We beseeched the Seelie to help, but they didn't believe us, because we're untrustworthy folk."

ERIKA: (as Yu) Criminals, you're criminals.

ASHLEY: (sternly) Okay, okay!

TALIESIN: That word doesn't really hold as much weight as you think it does in this group.

MATT: "Especially not in this city."

TALIESIN: Shh, keep going.

ASHLEY: Well, what do you mean visions? What kind of visions would he have?

MATT: "He said he-- He saw something about this red moon tearing through in the Feywild and just leaving devastation in its path. In the center of it, he kept seeing you."

SAM: Yu?

MATT: "Her."

ASHLEY: Me?

MATT: "Yes, Fearne."

ASHLEY: Did I do something wrong?

MATT: "No, you've done nothing wrong. That's why we didn't take you with us, because we knew when we did what had to be done, we'd be-- well, we'd be considered fugitives. Paragon-- or... Paragon's-- whatever the word is."

ASHLEY: Paragon's Call?

MATT: "The P word. No, it means you've been cast out."

SAM: Pariahs.

MATT: "Pariahs, that's the thing. Sorry, I wasn't as well learned as some of you."

ASHLEY: That's a strange word, anyway.

MATT: "That's why we left you with Morri, because we knew you'd be safe there and they wouldn't connect you to us while you were there."

ASHLEY: Well, how old are you now?

MATT: "I mean, it's hard to keep on the years. But, you know, healthy early 50 maybe?"

ASHLEY: It looks like it.

SAM: Aren't you 112?

LAURA: How is that possible?

ASHLEY: I'm a lot older than you.

MATT: "He mentioned something strange about that. I get the feeling that maybe--"

ASHLEY: You've been gone for a very long time.

ERIKA: You never called or wrote.

MATT: "You shut up, Yu." (laughter)

LIAM: I give Yu a little jab in the neck. Not enough to cause damage.

TRAVIS: You heal for 40 points. (laughter)

LIAM: So the Unseelie Court.

ERIKA: Yes.

LIAM: Was taking advantage of Ruidus. What is she talking about?

MATT: "They were working with somebody. Some Exandrian folk to try and put something together. Something arcane that was going to help further their boons from the red moon. We tried to warn them against it, that it wasn't something to be bringing any good their way. They laughed at us, cast us off. So we took what was the center of what they were building."

ERIKA: Now think of this from our perspective. Where we have an entire complex political system, and these two charlatans come through the court with spouting nonsense about some dreams and then abscond with the very powerful relic that we are trying to use for the betterment of the entire Unseelie Court.

LIAM: We're bored of hearing relic. What are we talking about?

LAURA: What is it?

ERIKA: That's above my pay grade.

LAURA: Well, it's not above yours. You know what it is.

MATT: "It's the Moontide Crown. It's an artifact. We're still figuring out the depths of it, but it has strong ties to the Moonweaver and the connection of the perpetual moon glow we have in the Feywild. We're still trying to figure out why it was the center of what they were building. Let alone who they were working with."

LAURA: What were you building?

MATT: "Well, this is why we need Ira's help. Me and your father aren't really machine savvy. So we tried to recall what the basis of what they were constructing. He's not a good man, but he's clever."

ERIKA: If even both of the courts have cast out this mad scientist. All of you are trying to capture somebody just for working with him? Then what about her, hmm? Why is she different? Just because you're related by blood?

LIAM: Do you know much about Ira's hobbies?

MATT: "We know enough. Strange bedfellows."

ERIKA: I'm going to reach into my pocket. Don't poke me anymore, all right?

ASHLEY: Wait, wait, wait, wait. I will get what you need. (laughter)

ERIKA: Please, help yourself. Inside, there should be a little hand mirror.

SAM: Hand mirror?

ERIKA: Mm-hmm.

ASHLEY: Is there anything else in there?

ERIKA: Oh, there's plenty.

TRAVIS: Right now? Right fucking now?

ASHLEY: Yeah, I have to. I'm sorry. It's just the way I'm made.

MATT: What else is in your pocket?

LIAM: Dusk told Fearne to just go crazy and do anything, so. (laughter)

ASHLEY: Just pulling all the pockets. (laughter)

ERIKA: I have--

LAURA: (like Fearne) Which one of these things is it? (laughter)

ERIKA: I'm going to--

LIAM: (like Fearne) Straight edge razor, piano wire. (laughter)

ERIKA: Five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10, 11, 12. You get 50 feet of rope. (laughter and whooping)

SAM: Deep purse. (laughter)

ASHLEY: Okay, so I pull out the hand mirror.

ERIKA: You know what that is, don't you?

MATT: "Not particularly privy, no."

ERIKA: Oh. Well, it's something that your friend Ira created. Don't look in the mirror.

ASHLEY: What's in there?

ERIKA: Corrupted versions of my kind are trapped in that mirror.

LAURA: (gasps)

SAM: Like souls?

ERIKA: Like shadows that are sent out to assassinate whoever that mirror is activated and pointed at.

TRAVIS: Ooh.

LAURA: Don't look in the mirror.

TRAVIS: Did you look at it?

ERIKA: Well, you didn't know how to activate it, though.

TRAVIS: Oh, okay.

ERIKA: That's probably good, right?

LAURA: Wait, Ira did that?

ERIKA: Yes. It's one of the tools of my trade, which is why I'm telling you that any other assassins that come after me will not have any qualms about using such tools. I didn't.

TRAVIS: So if you get the crown back, you leave, return to the Unseelie Court, and Birdie gets to go free?

ERIKA: (scoffs) No.

TRAVIS: Oh.

ERIKA: No. No, even if I let Birdie go free, other assassins with other mirrors will come after you and your husband and your precious daughter.

MATT: "We'll just hide again. I mean--"

ERIKA: That worked very well for you for about six years.

MATT: "It did."

ERIKA: What happened to the others that came before me, hm? How did all my rivals disappear?

MATT: "Well, it's a dangerous world here, Exandria."

ERIKA: Mm.

MARISHA: Okay, we're talking about a lot of casualties.

ERIKA: Are all of you ready to take that on?

ASHLEY: Wait, why did you want me to pull this out?

MATT: "Look, if--" (laughter)

SAM: I think she just wanted to show you how it works or something.

MATT: "There's some overt manipulation going on here, and I just want you to know that whatever--"

ERIKA: Manipulation?

MATT: "You're built of it. It's your kind. Look, I'm trying--"

ERIKA: Racist!

MATT: "I understand there's those coming after us, but if what Hondir says is right, there's only a short amount of time before we have to finish things. Something big's coming."

ASHLEY: Could you maybe give us a little bit of a clue?

LIAM: We're in a real delicate position here, ma'am. We're trying to figure out what to do. The more forthcoming you can be, the better.

MARISHA: Ira's killing children. Do you know this? He was scooping up vagrants and youths.

MATT: "I'm certain he was doing it at somebody else's behest."

ERIKA: (laughs)

MATT: "Look, I didn't realize that was the case."

TALIESIN: I take a little knock to the head right there.

MATT: "(groans)"

ERIKA: (laughs)

SAM: Ooh.

MATT: "Look, I didn't know that's what he was doing."

LIAM: He might need you to assist.

MATT: "We were all trying to raise funds best we could to try and facilitate all this, this!" And points around to the room. "What we've been working on. Look, we came out here and we crossed the boundaries into Exandria with nothing. In order to try and continue this work, we had to raise funds. I know Ira's been doing some work around here. I didn't know it'd lead to that."

LAURA: What are you trying to make?

ERIKA: You don't even know, do you? You don't know anything about this. You just have your visions and your sense of righteousness.

LAURA: Yu. What are you trying to make?

MATT: "We're trying to build a device to discern the true nature of Ruidus and why everything's overlapping. We have about a month 'til Fessuran. Around the 21st to the 23rd, there's something that Hondir mentioned called an Apogee Solstice that's coming."

LIAM: We can try to get you out of this right now. But not if you're going to continue to work with that one.

MATT: "Look, I can take you to him. We have no blood attached to him. He's a necessary device to these ends, and to be fair, he sees in his own weird way the dangers of what might be coming."

ASHLEY: Who's paying for all this? You said you're getting funding.

MATT: "I've been doing odd jobs here and there. I've done, you know, between building, helping steal a few things for some folks down here. Ira was doing work up in Jrusar. It was paying well."

MARISHA: And when did you have intentions of returning to your daughter?

MATT: "Well, once this was done and we knew she was safe."

ERIKA: You had no idea where she was. How could you tell if she was--

MATT: "We left here with Morri."

TRAVIS: Yeah, the problem with ambition and exploration and science is when it starts hurting innocent people, it becomes something else. Do you even have a timeline for how close you are to achieving some kind of a breakthrough or knowledge or are you just figuring it out?

MATT: "We're close, it's just, it's missing a couple things. There was-- We only have a month 'til things get real hairy, so we were on a truncated timeline anyway. I mean, last we reached out, we had hoped that one of the things that Ira needed to finish the device was something that even was a bit outside of his purview, and we asked if Morri could help make it for us."

TRAVIS: What was that thing? It gets real hairy in a month because of the Apogee Solstice, right? What's the thing?

MATT: "I need to take you to talk to Hondir. He knows it better than I do. I'm not a science person."

MARISHA: Who's Hondir?

MATT: "Hondir's a friend that we made here in the city a while back who's also very concerned with all this going on."

ASHLEY: What were you having Grandma Morri help you with?

MATT: "He's a little goblin fellow. He's lived here for a while. He works for the... It's a group of grim folk."

SAM: Grim folk?

MATT: "Yeah."

SAM: What does that mean?

LAURA: All Minds?

MATT: "Grim..."

LAURA: No.

TALIESIN: No.

MATT: "I can't remember what the rest of it's called."

LAURA: You know grim?

TALIESIN: It's not ringing a bell off the top of my head, but I'll look deep a little bit.

TRAVIS: The grim.

LIAM: Hey, Matt. Side question.

MATT: Mm-hmm?

LIAM: Have I attuned to this blade yet?

MATT: It takes a short rest to attune.

LIAM: Short rest?

MATT: Yes.

ERIKA: All these names and organizations and things that you don't know and suppositions and dreams. Well, I have something concrete for all of you. Do you remember how I introduced myself as Dusk and spoke of a beautiful glen, a beautiful place, and how the Feywild was so enchanting and magical?

TRAVIS: Yeah.

ASHLEY: Yeah.

ERIKA: I believe that. It is. It's the most beautiful place. Lights, song, dancing, anything that your heart desires, even the darker parts.

LIAM: You also lied straight to our faces and told us you were friends with this one.

ERIKA: I'm an agent of the Unseelie Court and I will do whatever it takes. How was I to trust you? You shouldn't have trusted me. But you did.

MATT: "If you think," and see her try to wrestle an arm free from your grasp.

ERIKA: Quiet! You had your chance.

MATT: "I wasn't finished. If you think it's so beautiful and you want to keep it safe, then you do your best to try and see this through, because if you let the people that sent you continue to fuck with the things that they're trying to do, it's all going to burn."

ERIKA: It's your dreams and suppositions against all of our court.

MATT: "It's not just ours, there's a bunch of people out there that had the same sort of feelings. Hondir, these grim folk."

ERIKA: The same sort of feelings.

MATT: "There are many people all throughout Exandria and beyond who are starting to put the pieces together, and we're finding each other, and we're trying to do this. We're on a short timeline, and it's ticking real thin here, and people like you getting fucked up in our business is going to make everything fall apart! Your ignorance is going to be the end of it all."

ERIKA: Oh. Oh, I see. So we're the big bad bureaucracy that won't listen to the intelligent scientists that are, I'm sorry, kidnapping children.

MATT: "Yes. And we didn't kidnap the children, that was Ira, and we have a really intense conversation to have about that."

MARISHA: Well, he's-- I don't know if you know, but his lab experiment exploded and took down a tower. Probably a lot of innocent lives there, too. It was real messy.

LAURA: No innocent lives there.

MARISHA: No?

LAURA: No, that was cleared out.

TRAVIS: They were not affiliated with that in any way.

MARISHA: Okay. Okay.

TRAVIS: I have a proposition, and a question. All of this red moon stuff she's been talking about, have you seen any of this with your own eyes or in your own experience?

ERIKA: It's true.

TRAVIS: Here's my proposition. Short timeline. It gets hairy (howls) in a month, right? So here's the thing. I'm real old, but I like a little risk. I would wager that we could stave off other incursions for a month, if that's what it takes to figure out if there's anything to be done to prevent future bad moon flappy stuff. I know that might not be your assignment, but it might keep you alive long enough to go back to the Unseelie Court with more information than you left with. If in a month you can't produce results, you get the item back.

MATT: "Honestly, if we don't succeed in a month, there's no reason for us keeping it, and if we do succeed, there's no sense in us keeping it. Either way, you can get it back. One way, there's not much to bring it back to, probably."

TRAVIS: And maybe you help save lives. If in a month, you come, you bring the heat, you take her and the item and we'll see.

ERIKA: You-- I cannot stress how dire this situation is to have the entirety of the Feywild against one family.

MATT: "Well, it's just one court. There's a lot of folks there that aren't involved in this bureaucracy that you're speaking of.

MARISHA: It sounds like a lot of people are in this court, though.

TRAVIS: Yeah.

MARISHA: Yeah.

ERIKA: It's a whole court.

ASHLEY: I think that sounds reasonable.

TRAVIS: Yu literally hasn't thrown a punch. It's speaking quite loudly in this scenario.

SAM: What would prevent other assassins from coming?

ERIKA: The return of the crown and the death of the Calloways.

TRAVIS: Ooh!

MARISHA: Calloways?

TRAVIS: Just the two, or also--

MARISHA: Just those two, or yeah, because, I mean, she thinks she's 150 and was--

ASHLEY: They didn't know about me.

MATT: "I will say. They don't know about Fearne, so at the very least, when all this is said and done--"

ERIKA: Oh, they know.

SAM: You told them?

ERIKA: I was just doing my job.

LIAM: You feel the blade dig a little deeper in your knee.

TALIESIN: There's a lot of that going around.

MATT: You see Birdie's face just go pale.

ERIKA: Fearne.

TRAVIS: Ooh.

ERIKA: What did you think was going to happen? Fearne?

ASHLEY: Okay. Here. I--

ERIKA: I would not turn you over to them.

LAURA: You already did.

ASHLEY: But you told them I was-- You told them who I was. But how about this? If we give my parents a month, and if they don't succeed, I can go with you.

SAM: You'll go with her?

LIAM: Fearne.

SAM: Them?

ASHLEY: I love it there.

SAM: But they'll kill you.

ASHLEY: Well, probably not. They want to kill my parents and not me.

TRAVIS: It's called leverage. You would be it.

ASHLEY: What's leverage?

TRAVIS: They would use you against them, yeah.

LAURA: They'd kill you.

ASHLEY: Okay. Well, maybe that's not a good idea.

ERIKA: That's the thing about the Unseelie.

SAM: They might not kill you. They might just sort of hold you as ransom.

ERIKA: Here's the thing about the Unseelie Court. They understand that we all have our own very specific desires and needs and wants, and what I want, Fearne, is for you to discover your true potential. Look at you, you've almost killed me. You've just decided to do what you want and not be in the little boxes that this world puts you in anymore. Come with me to the Feywild.

ASHLEY: Right now?

ERIKA: If you'd like to.

MARISHA: No. No, she's trying to get in your head, Fearne.

ASHLEY: She is, she is. I can feel it, I can feel it. (laughter) It's like Play-Doh up there.

LAURA: You just want to squeeze it.

ERIKA: Your parents have done nothing but lie to you for 90 years. Is it 90 years or is it six years?

MATT: "We haven't lied."

ASHLEY: It seems like for good reason.

ERIKA: Come with me and I will teach you. I will protect you from the courts.

MARISHA: Dusk!

ASHLEY: But I feel-- I'm protected with all of them.

ERIKA: I waltzed in here and you almost killed yourselves multiple times before all of this went down. Am I wrong, Chetney?

TRAVIS: No, this is how it usually is.

TRAVIS, SAM: (laugh)

ASHLEY: It's kind of just how we do stuff.

MATT: Birdie's glancing over towards you, Fearne.

ERIKA: How long do you suppose that you will last, with all the courts turned against you?

MARISHA: All right, all right!

TALIESIN: 30 days, at least.

MARISHA: Enough mind games, you fucked with our head for the past several days. You've infiltrated our very comfortable family and--

ERIKA: Was it really comfortable? Was it?

MARISHA: Yes! Yes, we may be a weird group of oddballs, but we can all at least trust each other, and we can't say that for you anymore.

ERIKA: Don't you have a lady talking to you in your head, and nobody's really asked about it?

MARISHA: I do have a lady talking in my head, and you know what? She sounds a lot like you do right now.

ERIKA: Why, because we have the same sort of accent or what?

MARISHA: No.

TRAVIS, LAURA: (laugh)

MARISHA: Because she knows exactly what to say to get me to do her bidding.

MATT: "Fearne. How have I lied to you? We told you we had to go and do something important. We left you with Morri. We've done everything that we've been trying to do to keep you safe. At no point have I lied to you. At no point has your father lied to you. I know we've been away, and it was what we thought would--"

ASHLEY: It was the right thing to do?

MATT: "-- would keep you out of this business that you didn't have any reason to be dragged into. That's changed now. I mean, ultimately, you've got to believe what you've got to believe, but just think on it."

ASHLEY: Yeah. You guys were just gone for so long. But, you know, that's how time just works. What did you have Morri do? What did you have her-- You said you needed her to do something?

MATT: "I didn't know how to communicate with her. Neither did your father, so Ira said he needed something to finish the device, and so he managed to reach out to her, and said that she'd be sending something along. I don't know when it'll show up, but hopefully in time."

LAURA: The Nightmare King is friends with your grandma?

MATT: "I mean, all the folks that live outside of the courts know each other. They're not really--"

ASHLEY: Maybe they did date! Maybe they did date. Remember, we were talking about that.

LAURA: Yeah, he was like, "You smell like a Calloway."

TRAVIS: Stay on target.

ASHLEY: Did they date?

MATT: "I don't know. I don't know Ira's history that well. That would be horrifying."

ASHLEY: Yeah.

LAURA: Oh my gosh, what if you're the Nightmare King's daughter?

MATT: "Oh, I'm not... We're not blood related to Morri. She's just more of an honorary family friend."

LAURA: Oh. I understand.

ERIKA: She wasn't even her real grandmother? Fearne, you have no tie to these people.

TRAVIS: (laughs) (tongue waggles)

SAM: Fearne.

ERIKA: You can all come with me. Have you heard about the Gnarlrock?

SAM: The what?

TRAVIS: Oh yeah, we've heard about the Gnarlrock.

LAURA: I'm going to Command you to stop talking.

MATT: Make a wisdom saving throw.

ERIKA: (laughs)

MARISHA: That's pretty good.

ERIKA: 25.

LAURA: Oh yeah, you succeed.

MATT: You can keep talking.

MARISHA: Wait, wait. Wait. What do you you know about the Gnarlrock?

ERIKA: It's from the Feywild.

MARISHA: Yes, we know that.

ERIKA: That piece that you have is only a small bit of it, and everybody always ends up returning to it, for better or worse.

MARISHA: What's it do?

ERIKA: I don't know, it's just a powerful artifact.

LAURA: In your head, you hear: You know Delilah's listening right now.

TALIESIN: You know, sometimes it's important to remember that everybody can be an asshole and this is not necessarily an either/or, and I'm kind of feeling that right now, and while we're on the subject, what did Ira want to do with some fucking werewolves?

MATT: "I don't know, he was hired by some rich folk up in Jrusar."

TALIESIN: Hit you with some moon shit and you don't know what the werewolves were about, really? Really, is that a thing?

MATT: "I don't know, I didn't ask what its business was. We were all just trying to earn coin and bring back materials to keep going on the machine. We're working on such a tight timeline here."

TALIESIN: Fucking useless. I hit the head again.

ASHLEY: Okay--

LAURA: Your machine, are you trying to, what, destroy the connection to the Feywild from Ruidus, or are you trying to (laughs) destroy Ruidus?

ERIKA: Are you trying to blow up the moon?

MATT: "No, we don't have that kind of capability, but we're just trying to..."

ERIKA: But if you did, you would.

MATT: "I mean, of course."

LIAM: Excuse me?

ERIKA: (laughs)

MATT: "If it's going to hurt our girl, we'll blow up both moons. But that's not what we're trying to do here."

MARISHA: That would throw the entire ecosystem off of Exandria!

SAM: I don't think it would actually have any effect.

TRAVIS: That's not true. (laughter)

TALIESIN: That's right.

TRAVIS: It's flat, after all.

SAM: Yeah, there's nothing, there's no relation.

MARISHA: How the fuck have you gotten to Chetney?

SAM: There's no relation to those things in the sky to us.

TRAVIS: There's no curvature, so.

ASHLEY: Well...

LAURA: No!

ASHLEY: Nana did send-- well. Morri sent me with something to give to you in case I saw you, and--

SAM: What is it?

ASHLEY: It's just a--

SAM: A rock or something?

ASHLEY: Yeah, it's just a little green gem.

SAM: Gem? Can I see it for a second?

ASHLEY: Well, yeah.

SAM: Okay, I just want to see it.

LAURA: Oh, yeah.

MATT: You look at it. It looks like a green disc of glass. It's rough on the edges, but it has a smooth curvature to it, like a lens, but it's a deep emerald coloration, and as the light hits it, it has a slight rainbow flash across it, like an oil slick on a puddle.

SAM: I'm using Identify. Does it have any other--?

MATT: You're using Identify, okay.

SAM: Yeah. Magical. Magica.

TRAVIS: The fucking plot thickens!

SAM: I still don't--

LAURA: The plot is just so thick.

SAM: I don't know who to trust.

TRAVIS: Too thick, it needs more milk.

LAURA: It's stuck to my spoon. Milk and stir.

MARISHA: The problem is none of them are trustworthy! That's the problem!

LAURA: Nobody's trustworthy.

SAM: I feel like we should flip a three-sided coin and just kill one of the three of them. Maybe Fearne.

ASHLEY: Well, that would solve all of our problems, actually.

TALIESIN: They'd both end up unconscious by the end of this conversation.

TRAVIS: FCG, heads or tails?

SAM: Heads.

TRAVIS: Tails. You die. (laughter)

SAM: I mean, I agreed to it, so.

TALIESIN: Fair.

MATT: Sorry, I'm having to look it up real fast.

SAM: No, sure.

MATT: Give me just a second.

SAM: Feel free to look it up using D&D Beyond.

MARISHA: Oh god, she's going to tell us more about ourselves. Everybody, listen!

ERIKA: Is that sarcasm or not?

MARISHA: It's a little bit of both.

ERIKA: Well, I'm going to keep talking anyway. (laughter) Is that you need me, you really do.

SAM: If you're with us, will other assassins stop coming?

ERIKA: Yes, as long as I keep giving reports.

SAM: Well, then why don't you just stay with us?

ERIKA: I suppose I could.

SAM: All tied up.

LIAM: Why don't you give your first report now?

ERIKA: (laughs) Mm.

LIAM: Jab.

TRAVIS: Heal. (laughter)

SAM: I healed myself at the end.

LAURA: How do you give those reports?

ERIKA: Just in my head, you know.

TRAVIS: (whispers) Damn, that's awesome.

SAM: You said you're Unseelie Court?

ERIKA: Mm-hmm.

SAM: Which is still a court?

ERIKA: Yes.

SAM: Then there's a Seelie Court, which they're in.

ERIKA: Well...

SAM: They said they were not in a court.

ERIKA: Because they're more outside of the courts and trying to steal from both of them.

SAM: The, well, he's very much--

MARISHA: You were hot on the trail, or--

MATT: Sorry.

SAM: Maybe we should sort of stop down for a while.

MARISHA: (laughs)

ERIKA: Cold.

SAM: I've never seen him look up this long.

MATT: Okay, there we go. Okay. It is, the best you can ascertain, it's not a known magical item.

SAM: Okay.

MATT: But the best sort of term you can come to is what's called a Weave Lens.

SAM: A Weave Lens?

MARISHA: Weave Lens?

MATT: You pull it up, and as you glance through it and you move, looking through it at everyone around you, every piece of magical equipment at everyone around you, every piece of magical equipment that your friends are wearing seems to be giving off a glow, and then if you focus on the glow for a second, you can't really-- You're not sure of the nature of it, but there's patterns and letters and symbols across each of them.

LAURA: (gasps)

LIAM: Who's got the Weave Lens right now?

LAURA: You can see the magic.

MARISHA: Yeah.

SAM: They look like runic or language?

MATT: Both.

MARISHA: It's like Google Glass.

TRAVIS: ♪ We've got binary ♪ ♪ code abilities! ♪

LIAM: FCG's got this right now?

ERIKA: AR specs.

MARISHA: Yeah.

LIAM: Letters?

SAM: Spoken language.

MARISHA: Spoken language.

LIAM: We don't know yet.

SAM: Yeah, I... Yeah, I've explained what I'm seeing.

LAURA: Okay.

LIAM: You've got a lens and you're moving around the room.

SAM: I can look through the lens?

MATT: Yeah.

SAM: Everything has just a little Ikea catalog pointing to it saying "Malm, $14.99."

MATT: (laughs) Kind of. When you look through it and you activate it, let's say you see, for instance, his hammer, right? You look over at their hammer, and you see the hammer itself is glowing and then in a brief look, where all that glow is, you can see patterns shifting around it, almost like the magnetic field of magical energies that swirl around it. Looking even closer still where those bands of energy are, there's very, very faint patterns across it, and you look closer at the patterns for a second, and it looks like there's script or some sort of a runic language that is creating these patterns.

LIAM: Fresh Cut, what do you see on Yu and Birdie?

TRAVIS: And the sword!

SAM: I look at my hand. I can't really see me. Do I see magic on my hand or anything?

MATT: Nothing on your hand, no.

TALIESIN: Not you. Yu.

SAM: Oh, that's what you meant?

LIAM: Yu. Yu.

SAM: Oh, sorry!

MATT: I mean, I guess you can see a very, very faint glow. Just the general nature of your existence seems to have a very subtle layer of magic.

SAM: Okay, I'll look at Yu. Any distinct colors or patterns?

MATT: No, there's nothing of a magical enchantment based on the physicality of Yu. You do see a number of items on them that are emanating magic.

LIAM: What items do you see?

ERIKA: Do you like what you see?

SAM: I'm sorry. I should've asked before I--

MATT: You see two rings on opposite hands. You see the pair of dark gauntlets that are on their hands. What else does Fresh Cut Grass see?

ERIKA: My robes, a faint sheen, shimmery, nothing... wild or dangerous about it, just that it's very nice.

SAM: Okay.

ERIKA: And my boots give off a faint glow.

MATT: Mm-hmm.

SAM: Okay, and I'll look at Fearne's mom, I suppose, as well, see if she's packing heat.

MATT: You see, in a small sheath to the side, there's a shortsword that gives a faint emanating glow, and that's it, not carrying a lot on her.

SAM: So you were supposed to give this to whom again?

ASHLEY: Grandma Morri gave this to me, that if I ever saw my parents, I would give it to them.

SAM: Oh.

ASHLEY: So...

SAM: Well, doesn't seem harmful.

ASHLEY: No. What is this?

MATT: "I don't know the specifics of it, but it's supposed to go into the thing that Ira's been working on, both Ira and your father."

ERIKA: You're going to give it to the Nightmare King.

MATT: "We are going to utilize it to assemble something that'll hopefully help us ascertain exactly what's coming."

TRAVIS: Is that the missing piece you were talking about before, this little green lens?

MATT: "It might be, if that's what Morri gave you. That was why Ira reached out to her."

LAURA: We should go with you.

ERIKA: Did he name himself the Nightmare King?

LAURA: We should go with Yu.

ASHLEY: Maybe we should go with--

SAM: Maybe it's just an unfortunate name. Maybe he's a nice guy.

MARISHA: I asked the same question.

LAURA: No, he's a terrible guy.

MATT: "He's really not a nice guy."

SAM: Okay, well, it was just a theory.

ASHLEY: Just seemed a little weird.

TRAVIS: This is fortuitous. We don't even have to wait a month. We could hightail it over there, we'll get some results, maybe you come out looking like a champ, hm?

ASHLEY: Yeah.

SAM: Imogen, this is something you've been wondering about, too.

LAURA: No, I know. I really want to see what they're building.

ERIKA: They just said they would blow up the moon if they had the capability.

SAM: They can't blow up the moon!

ERIKA: If they could, they said they'd blow up the moon.

TRAVIS: They did, they did.

MATT: "I'll do whatever it takes."

LAURA: I'm not opposed to them blowing up the moon.

MATT: "Whatever it takes to protect my daughter. Now, I'll tell you what. You want this back? Sure, we'll give it to you when all this is done. If you can hold off, if you can disappear and be just on the tip of our tail for the next month or so, let us finish this out, we'll give it back to you, and you can return, and if you need some blood on your hands to prove it, me and my husband, I'll have to talk to him first to make sure he's okay with it, but I'm sure he'll understand, we'll come back with you, but you do not touch Fearne."

ERIKA: I'd never dream of harming your daughter.

LIAM: You won't be able to harm their daughter.

TRAVIS: Sounds like we got a deal.

ERIKA: Here's the thing, though.

TRAVIS: Shit. (laughter)

ERIKA: Number one, what are you going to do when other assassins come after you? And number two, I don't mean that you just need me in order to make reports, I mean you need me. You all couldn't decide on breakfast if it was all laid out in front of you on a buffet.

MARISHA: Okay, that's getting a little personal.

ASHLEY: There's just so many options, that's why.

TRAVIS: (laughs)

LAURA: Maybe we like to peruse.

MARISHA: Exactly.

LAURA: And you know what? This is for your benefit right now, because if we were more decisive, you'd be dead.

MARISHA: She's got a point.

ASHLEY: Yes, that is very true.

ERIKA: And you would have no answers.

MARISHA: We would've figured them out.

LAURA: We have plenty of answers, because guess what? I can find them.

LIAM: You know what would help with answers? Jab. You let Imogen in.

TALIESIN: I don't like this plan.

ERIKA: Now, here's the fun thing, is that when you force somebody to let somebody else into your mind, that's still not really asking for permission, is it?

TALIESIN: It's a way of solving this really quickly.

LIAM: I'm not really interested in your semantics.

TRAVIS: Sure, but just devil's advocate here, because you've been pretty fucking chill, I got to say, if we're going to ask for trust on her behalf, maybe we should exercise some of our own?

TALIESIN: What are you proposing?

TRAVIS: Well, we don't dig around in their head, and in turn, she gives us a month, maybe a little less, and you get time to figure out what you need to figure out, you get to put your little green bottle cap on, we get to blow up the moon, and everybody goes away the wiser.

ASHLEY: I like this idea.

MARISHA: Yu, is there any option in leaving this with some sort of agreement for you? Because Chetney has a nice little plan, but it feels like this lies on you to be receptive to it.

LAURA: You get to be the hero. At the end of the month, you bring home the crown and the Calloways.

ASHLEY: Wow.

MARISHA: And maybe your little Ruidus in the Feywild problem is also fixed, and you get to say you helped aid in that endeavor.

ERIKA: You have a month. You have a month, but I will be checking in, because I don't trust you or your husband, and I don't necessarily trust that all of you will be able to get this job finished in the same efficient way that I would be able to.

TRAVIS: That's fair. I mean, let's call a spade a spade.

ASHLEY: Totally, absolutely fair.

MARISHA: This wasn't necessarily personal, I just--

TRAVIS: Look, we've come a long way in this negotiation, okay.

MARISHA: We have.

ERIKA: It's just business.

SAM: Where will you go for a month?

ERIKA: I'll be following you.

ASHLEY: How do we know, though, that you're not going to go there and just...

SAM: Where are we going?

ASHLEY: Send out a whole army?

ERIKA: I suppose you don't. I suppose you don't know that I haven't done it already.

MARISHA: I have an idea. It would take a little field trip. But I know a ring that will work perfectly with your aesthetic.

TRAVIS: (laughs)

MARISHA: It would just give us a little bit of peace of mind to know that you're not going to literally jump out of the bushes and stab us in the back.

ERIKA: To track me?

MARISHA, SAM: Mm-hmm.

ERIKA: (laughs) What good would that do?

TALIESIN: Keep us from having to throw her in the hole for 20 minutes and seeing what happens.

TRAVIS: Aren't we talking about trust, though?

MARISHA: Well, it's tenuous trust, let's be honest. Let's just call it what it is.

LIAM: I don't trust you.

ERIKA: That's fair.

LAURA: I don't trust you.

MATT: "That's fair."

ERIKA: Nobody trusts anybody.

SAM: I trust everybody.

ERIKA: Oh, I know you do.

LIAM: You're very trustworthy.

TALIESIN: That's true.

MATT: "Can I stand up?"

TALIESIN: Yeah, all right, whatever.

MATT: "(grunts)" Wipes the blood from her nose.

TRAVIS: Can we keep your sword?

ERIKA: (scoffs) No.

TRAVIS: Oh. It's a cool sword.

ERIKA: Thank you. It was given to me by the Court.

TRAVIS: Oh, the Unseelie Court?

ERIKA: Mm-hmm.

TRAVIS: Wow.

SAM: Who is the head of your Court?

LIAM: Wapner.

ERIKA: Delano.

MATT: (laughs)

TRAVIS: Who is it?

TALIESIN, LIAM: Wapner.

MATT: The great Wapner.

SAM: (laughs)

TALIESIN: Dude's got it, thank you.

ERIKA: I'm not going to give away secrets of the court.

TRAVIS: Yeah, nice. (laughter)

SAM: You don't know their name, do you?

MATT: No, just, if you want to, you can tell them, but it's your call.

LIAM: Judy.

ERIKA: No. What kind of agent just give us away information like that?

MATT: That makes sense.

MARISHA: FCG.

SAM: Huh?

MARISHA: Can I see that little green gem real quick?

SAM: Sure.

MARISHA: I'm going to take it. I'm going to look at Yu/Dusk's sword through it because I don't think, you didn't look at that, right?

SAM: I just did a big scan on the whole body.

MARISHA: Okay, so I'm going to do a zoned-in look at it.

MATT: Okay.

LAURA: Enhance!

MARISHA: Enhance!

MATT: I will say it's at the cusp of the end of its enchantment because it just lasts for a short time when activated.

MARISHA, LAURA: Oh.

SAM: Oh, I see.

MATT: In this form, it still feels a little raw. I'm not going to say unfinished, but a little rough. So as you glance over, you get a moment of it and it appears to be fairly magical. You see the same entwining, spiral of strange textured threads of energy that carve up the crystalline blade and they just fade as the gem loses its connection.

MARISHA: Any script, or--?

MATT: Yeah, similar to all other magics, but all the script's a little different to each one.

MARISHA: Can I read it? Is it readable?

MATT: What languages do you know?

MARISHA: I have Eyes of the Rune Keeper.

LAURA: Ooh.

MATT: You do. So what this does, looking at it, the language itself is an ancient Sylvan basis, but a runic inscription version of the Sylvan language that is used for pressing ideas and philosophies and truths onto weapons as part of an enchantment. You don't understand the process of enchanting, so you're not quite entirely certain as to how this pertains to it. But from what you can tell, it tends to be about banishing shadow and then creating shadow in the same stroke.

LAURA: Cool.

MARISHA: Hmm.

SAM: Cool.

MARISHA: Cool. All right, that's it. Here, you can have a back. Don't trust me with rocks.

SAM: Oh yeah.

MATT: So as Birdie stretches--

SAM: I'll give it back to Birdie.

MATT: -- a bit. "A month, do we have ourselves a deal?"

ERIKA: What guarantee do I have that you'll even give it back?

MATT: "What guarantee do I have that you're not going to come back with four more assassins and kill us?"

ERIKA: I work alone, but I suppose you only have my word about that, don't you? Well, I've been very forthright about most things, but Birdie Calloway on the other hand, her whole life has been a liar and a thief.

MATT: "A thief, yes, I'll take that gladly. A liar, I am not."

TALIESIN: I suppose that's our problem now.

ERIKA: All right.

MATT: You shake hands and she pulls you in and in your ear, says, "If you touch a hair on Fearne's head, I will rip you asunder."

ERIKA: Even if she asks me to?

MATT: No response. What's your passive perception, by the way?

ERIKA: 13.

MATT: Got it, cool. "(sighs) Well... that was a good hit. That was a good hit."

TALIESIN: That was a love tap.

MATT: "I assume. (nervously laughs)"

LAURA: So what happens now? We need to go see whatever it is you're building.

MATT: "Okay, I can take you there. Not you."

ERIKA: Why not?

MATT: "Because our paths diverge at this point. We've made our deal."

ERIKA: Oh well.

MATT: "If you're as good a hunter as you say you are, you'll find us, right?"

ERIKA: I will. I will always find you and you won't even know it's me sometimes.

MARISHA: (gasps) Have we met you before? (laughter)

LAURA: Don't trust anybody!

MARISHA: Are you the Nightmare King?

SAM: Are you Dorian? (laughter)

ASHLEY: Interesting.

MATT: You watch as Birdie walks around Yu, maintaining eye contact and goes to the front door and just pushes it open.

ERIKA: We'll be in touch.

LIAM: Yu?

ERIKA: Hmm?

LIAM: Your sword dips for a second and Orym lighting fast slashes both of her sleeves. Doesn't cut her at all but rips open both the sleeves at the shoulder, spins it around.

ERIKA: If you wanted to get my coat off, all you had to do was ask.

TRAVIS: (laughs)

ERIKA: The face morphs again to a very attractive half-elf man.

LIAM: Hard pass.

ERIKA: Oh, what a pity.

MARISHA: Kind of thought I was special, but I--

ERIKA: Oh, you are.

MARISHA: It's fine. Don't try to make it better.

ERIKA: Oh, I meant it.

MATT: "Ahem." (laughter)

ERIKA: Who knows?

TALIESIN: Take your basic-ass looks and get the fuck out. (laughter)

ERIKA: I change into Ashton and I'm like: So long, motherfuckers. (laughter) (claps) "I'm angry."

MATT: (thud) Birdie slams the door. (laughter) Takes a deep breath.

TALIESIN: That was pretty funny. (laughter)

MARISHA: It was actually pretty good. That was--

TALIESIN: Oh, fuck off.

MARISHA: They kind of got you there.

SAM: You don't sound like that.

MATT: "I'm so sorry."

MARISHA: Eh, kind of.

MATT: "I'm so sorry. (pants)"

ASHLEY: Where's Papa right now?

MATT: "He's back at our hideout, base, lab, I don't know. We haven't discussed a name for it. It's about 45 miles east of the city."

SAM: The Calloway Layaway. I just came up with that, sorry.

ASHLEY: Oh wow.

MATT: "That's pretty good, actually."

ASHLEY: Same letters.

MATT: "Well, I got to-- I got to try and smooth this over with Imahara Joe and apologize for causing a ruckus in the shop here. I got to pick up a couple things."

LAURA: I start using my Telekinesis and--

LIAM: I start using my hands.

LAURA: -- picking up things.

MARISHA: Yeah.

ASHLEY: Me too.

MATT: "I got to go talk to a friend here and then I'm heading on back."

LAURA: What friend? You'll understand if we don't fully trust you?

MATT: "Of course, no, come, please. He can help talk about some of the things that I don't quite fully understand."

TRAVIS: Hondir?

MARISHA: Oh, Handy.

TRAVIS, MARISHA: Hondir?

MATT: "Hondir, yeah."

ASHLEY: That's who we have to--

MARISHA: All right.

MATT: "Here."

ASHLEY: Where do we meet you?

MARISHA: No, no, no, no.

MATT: "No, we're going together. I'm not leaving you alone."

ASHLEY: No, no, no. We're not leaving you alone either.

MATT: "Not with that. I'm real sorry."

TALIESIN: There's a diminishing return on apologies. You are aware of that, right?

MATT: "Yeah, that's valid. Well here, I'm Birdie, Fearne's mom, I take it you're her friends."

TRAVIS: I'm Chetney Pock O'Pea, master craftsman.

MARISHA: Laudna.

MATT: "Laudna, all right."

SAM: Fresh Cut Grass. Nice to meet you.

MATT: "Nice to meet you, too. Unique one, I like you. I can see why you're hanging around with Imahara."

ASHLEY: Fearne.

MATT: "I know who you are, girl."

ASHLEY: Your daughter, it's been a very long time. I feel like I don't know you. (laughter)

MATT: "We got a lot to talk about. This time thing sounds strange."

ASHLEY: Yeah.

MATT: "And?"

LAURA: You hear in your head: Imogen.

SAM: Creepy.

MATT: "Pleasure."

LIAM: Orym, ma'am.

MATT: "Orym."

TALIESIN: Ashton. I definitely feel like I know you.

MATT: "Okay, well, let's finish up here. I'll go talk to Imahara Joe, and then we'll just walk and talk as I'll take it from there. Thank you for not killing me."

ASHLEY: Yeah, no.

SAM: You're Fearne's mom, of course we're happy to have you with us.

LAURA: And you seem to be doing good. At least you think you're doing good.

MATT: "Trying."

MARISHA: I think we're all excited to continue to learn.

SAM: Yeah.

ASHLEY: I say in, or wait, no, I can't talk in your head. I just look at you.

SAM: You can try.

LAURA: I make eye contact with you. What? In your head, you hear: What? Are you trying to say something?

ASHLEY: Yes. Shit, what was I going to say? (laughter)

TRAVIS: Come on. Come the fuck on.

LAURA: In my head, I just hear: ("The Girl from Ipanema") ♪ Doo doo doo, doo doo ♪

ASHLEY: Oh, I remember. I remember what I was going to say, I'm so sorry. I just was so overwhelmed.

TRAVIS: It's just hold music. (laughter)

MARISHA: Please hold.

ASHLEY: Would you be comfortable if I told her that you were Ruidusborn as well, or should we keep that a secret?

LAURA: I mean, I don't know if I am Ruidusborn, Fearne.

ASHLEY: I think you are.

LAURA: We'll talk about it.

ASHLEY: Okay, we'll talk about it. I'll take your lead.

LAURA: I don't have a problem with that.

ASHLEY: Okay, okay. Okay.

LAURA: Hey.

ASHLEY: Yeah?

LAURA: In your head, you hear: We might have something in common.

ASHLEY: That'd be crazy.

LAURA: It's pretty exciting.

ASHLEY: That'd be cool.

MATT: At this point, Birdie has a conversation, deep apologies to Imahara Joe. Passes some hefty bag of coin that you can see, was tucked away in a backpack that she had. He acknowledges, "Well, we'll take care of, thankfully not too much damage was done around here, but next time, please take it outside, that's all I ask." She's like "Of course, of course. Trust me, I wasn't expecting any of this and it's a rough and tumble town, stuff happens. Do you have the most recent order?" He's like, "Yeah, we got most of it. There's only so much we can collect around here that isn't being taken quickly by all the different Crawler gangs, but I managed to hold aside what I could for you," and pulls out a satchel, hands it over to you and you hear the heavy sound of either thick glass or crystal clinking within the inside and for your perception, you do notice from the side of one of the flaps, a dull blue glow emanating from the inside of it. She takes it and puts it over her shoulder. "Well, thank you kindly, Imahara. You don't know the good you're doing. This is my daughter, by the way. I think you two have met."

ASHLEY: We did, he told me I look like you.

MATT: (Imahara) "I did, I picked it up because you don't see a lot of satyrs out this way, but happy to meet family. Anyway, am I repairing your skirmisher?

SAM: Oh, yeah. I mean, in case we need need it.

LAURA: It's a lot of money, I'm assuming.

SAM: Is it?

TALIESIN: Yeah, what's the repair? We never actually discussed cost.

MATT: "This'll take me a few hours to do, but I can probably get it done for, based on the damage it's taken here, about 110 gold."

LIAM: I got about that left.

MATT: At this point, Birdie reaches into her pouch and goes like, "I got this. This is partially my fault for all this business here. Let me at least try and do some good on that end and get that fixed up right quick. Plus, if you guys got a vehicle and I got one, too, we can ride a lot faster to where we're going which means we could leave some people in our dust."

LAURA: Oh.

MATT: "Oh, by the way, she's going to have a harder time following us." She pulls out a ring on her hand. It's this dark metallic ring. "I got the sense that she was following us somehow and it wouldn't be the first time that I've encountered someone from her kind who've used this to track us down."

SAM: Wait, you got that from her?

MATT: "What, do you think that handshake was trying to seal the deal?"

TRAVIS: Nice! Like mother, like daughter.

SAM: A pickpocket?

MATT: "I told you I'm a thief unabashed, I'm not a liar."

ASHLEY: Well, it's so funny. I happen to be very good at just borrowing things from people.

LAURA: Oh, and you got to keep that mirror, too.

MATT: "I'm just so proud of you!"

ASHLEY: Oh, I didn't give it back.

MATT: "My goodness! Okay."

SAM: Wow.

ASHLEY: Oh, I forgot about that.

MARISHA: Don't look at the mirror. Don't look at it, though.

LAURA: Don't look at the mirror.

TRAVIS: Did we give her the mirror back along with the sword?

LIAM: No way. I gave the sword back.

MATT: I don't know. Did you give the mirror back?

TALIESIN: Sword, but the mirror?

ASHLEY: We didn't talk about it.

LIAM: Didn't say it.

MATT: You tell me.

ASHLEY: I had mimed that I put it in my pocket.

MATT: Then you have the mirror.

SAM: You also mimed that you have pockets everywhere. (laughter)

ASHLEY: By pocket, I mean--

TALIESIN: You are all pocket, to be fair.

ASHLEY: The flap.

MATT: Rob Liefeld designed you, it's great.

LIAM: One of your satyr gills?

ASHLEY: Yeah, one of my satyr gills.

MATT: "Okay." (laughter)

ASHLEY: I have gills now.

MATT: "Well then, onto Hondir's, then.

SAM: Yeah.

MATT: "Come on." She opens the door and peeks out carefully, looks both ways. "If you see her, whoever they are, following, you let me know."

LAURA: I don't think we'd know if it was them.

MATT: "Shit. We'll try." You guys all follow Birdie?

ALL: Yes.

TRAVIS: Just for a clarification, Birdie and Yu, they're both fey. Would they have distinct scents to my nose?

MATT: Correct, different lineages. One is definitively a changeling. One is definitively a satyr.

TRAVIS: Great.

MATT: Both of fey ancestry.

LAURA: Nice.

LIAM: Also, say from this moment on, you can assume that Orym is using his 26 passive perception to look for someone following them, even if he doesn't recognize.

MATT: Good to know, I will keep that in mind. As you follow Birdie out into the now hot late morning sun over Bassuras, we're going to go ahead and take a break.

TRAVIS, SAM: Hey!

MATT: Bring back to the table Erika Ishii. (cheering)

ASHLEY: Hey, get back in here!

TRAVIS: She already left.

LIAM: She left.

LAURA: Erika's like "Bye." (laughter) That would be amazing.

MATT: She might be in the restroom, actually.

ASHLEY: She's got her little trinkets and things.

LAURA: Maybe she's just using--

LIAM: (hollers) Erika!

TRAVIS: We do have to go pass craft--

ASHLEY: Erika!

ERIKA: (offscreen) What?

TRAVIS: And popcorn.

MATT: There she is. (cheering) Come back to the table as we go to break.

ERIKA: I was ready to go home. (laughter)

MARISHA: I got you, I got you.

ERIKA: I got a bit unbuttoned here, get me.

MATT: There we go. Erika.

LIAM: So many crosshairs.

LAURA: Erika!

ASHLEY: Oh my god.

MATT: Thank you so much for joining us.

ERIKA: It was so great. I need to know, what was your plan?

MARISHA: Well, now, it's to take a nap. (laughter)

ERIKA: You deserve it.

LIAM: That's doable.

TALIESIN: This has been a day, even before the game of deep treachery and duplicitousness.

LAURA: Oh my god.

MATT: Oh, yes.

TRAVIS: Save it for 4-Sided Dive, save it.

LAURA: Oh, that's right.

ASHLEY: True, true, true.

MARISHA: Oh my god. Oh my god.

LAURA: The treachery knows no bounds, I'm so impressed.

LIAM: And your character, too.

LAURA: Seriously. (laughter)

ERIKA: I'm sure I don't know what you're talking about.

ASHLEY: "Well, what if she asks me to?" Woo!

MATT: Erika, thank you so much for joining us.

ERIKA: Thank you so much. (cheering) (clapping)

MATT: Mwah.

ASHLEY: Yes.

MATT: It was so much fun.

ERIKA: Yeah, well, Yu may be back.

LAURA: Yeah.

MATT: Yeah. We'll see where the story threads go from here.

MARISHA: Holy fuck.

MATT: We'll see how it goes.

ASHLEY: Holy moly.

LIAM: When we really kill you.

MATT: Before we head off to break and jump off from there, where can everybody find you on, Erika?

SAM: Oh!

ERIKA: Oh!

MARISHA: Yeah.

ERIKA: Well, I'm at @erikaishii on Twitter, @theerikaishii on Instagram. I just finished a run on "Dimension 20."

MATT: "Coffin Run," specifically.

MARISHA: "Coffin Run."

MATT: Yeah. (clapping)

ERIKA: And follow me for some very interesting announcements a little later this year. (cheering)

LIAM: Repping the Unseelie Court.

MARISHA: Exactly. (laughter)

ERIKA: Yes.

MATT: Awesome, thank you so much, Erika.

ERIKA: Thank you guys so much, it's been a blast.

ASHLEY: Oh man, oh man, oh man.

MATT: All righty, so we'll take a break here. We're back in a few minutes; we'll see you guys then.

MARISHA: You shifty bitch.

Part II
MATT: And welcome back.

ASHLEY: (giggles)

MATT: So, in the immediate aftermath of the conflict within Imahara Joe's shop, following but sticking close to Birdie Calloway and the path that she leads you towards her next meeting of the day here in Bassuras, making quick work, and you can assume based on the conversation you had previously, brief stops into town for reasons like the individual that just tried to kill her. But along the way, she's just keeping an eye out. Occasionally, she's looking back at you, Fearne, and smiling. Along the way, you are welcome to ask any questions that you would like to as you're all pushing through. Where you are in the shop, it'd be heading eastward in a direction, not entirely certain where. But she's guiding you through some of the alleys.

SAM: We're staying in town, right? We're going to a place in--

MATT: "Oh yeah, no, we're staying in town. Hondir is laying low. He had a place, but I think last I heard, he was moving towards more of a safe house because he thinks he might... He's also running from some people, different people."

ASHLEY: How big of a group is everybody working on all of this?

MATT: "Well, primarily for what we're doing at our hideout, or sorry, the Calloway Getaway, it's just the three of us."

ASHLEY: It's Calloway Layaway.

MATT: "Layaway?"

SAM: It's Calloway Layaway

MATT: "Calloway Layaway."

SAM: Getaway's good.

MARISHA: Getaway is nice, yes.

SAM: It's pretty nice, too.

MATT: "I can go either."

TRAVIS: The CG.

MATT: "But yeah, it's just me, and your father, and Ira primarily working out of there. Then we come occasionally and speak to Hondir here, who is in a similar line of research, and we share information. He has a much larger network of individuals. But for safety reasons, we keep it as stretched thin as possible so people can't be traced and found of each other. We're not the only ones, apparently, who are figuring out some weird shit's going on up there. So we've found a network of some folks that seem to be on the right and up-and-up. They've helped fund some of the things that we're working on, and we've been sharing information a bit. But Hondir, he stepped in something recently, or at least some folks close to him. So he's been laying real low. So we've shifted to..." You see her lick her finger and start looking at the skyline. "I think it's that one." You notice she's pointing to the storm cistern. It's the large, metallic towers that wind up throughout the city, looming over the various buildings and neighborhoods, these massive, multi-textured iron and metal constructs that collect the monsoon waters and keep it for the townsfolk and the various farmland that they can barely manage to maintain within the city.

MARISHA: Laudna, real quick, looks at Imogen and sends her a message. Should we tell them? (demonic whispers and growls) About Otohan? (demonic whispers and growls) What if that's who they're referring to? (demonic whispers and growls)

SAM: It's getting worse.

LAURA: You mean as far as Hondir goes?

MARISHA: Well, the people who also know. (demonic whispers and growls)

LAURA: We should probably tell them.

MARISHA: Okay. (demonic whispers and growls) (laughter) Okay. (demonic growls) (laughter)

LAURA: Laudna, it's getting worse.

MARISHA: Is it?

LIAM: You've got to match the volume.

MARISHA: Probably. Yeah. (laughter) That tracks, honestly.

SAM: (caws) (laughter)

ASHLEY: Ugh!

TRAVIS: Ugh! (laughter)

LIAM: I just said, pass the salt. (laughter)

MARISHA: They're quite friendly.

MATT: (laughs)

TRAVIS: (laughs)

ASHLEY: Okay.

MATT: Following Birdie along to the base of one of the large cisterns, she looks under it and looks around the outside. Inside one of the doorways that marks one of the entrances to the exterior pattern of the cistern, she finds one cross mark on the metal, feels for it and goes, "All right, this is the right one. So we're going to that maintenance shed right there." You can see it maybe about 15 feet from this entrance to the cistern, not the cistern itself, but across the street, there is a small, ramshackle wooden shed that is closed and buttressed against either a warehouse or some sort of a nondescript building. You're not certain what the interior of it holds. But she looks around quickly. Ushers you all over to it, and there's a little pocket alley on a side where it's shaded. She dips into it and invites you all to come join there.

LAURA: I'm just going to look at the marking before I head across. I just want to look at what she was looking at to get an idea of it.

MATT: Okay. From what you can see, it looks to be two metallic scrape marks, like someone took sharp metal and dug grooves into the metal that form an arrow that loosely points in the direction of where that shed was.

LAURA: All right.

TRAVIS: I know Orym's got his eyes open, but I can use my keen nose to smell for any fey in the area? And multiple number to denote what we might be walking into.

MATT: Certainly. You can make a perception check with advantage.

TRAVIS: 17.

MATT: Okay. You both feel fairly confident that at the moment, you are not being followed. So there's that.

SAM: Okay.

TRAVIS: Any additional fey smell in the wind as we approach wherever Birdie is taking us? (high-pitched noise)

MATT: Okay. Nothing catches your attention at the moment.

LAURA: I thought that was just me.

MATT: Now.

MARISHA: Roast veggies. (laughter)

MATT: You approach the shed, and it's... As you come across, you can see there's a second floor above it with a middle platform that's ragged. The wood has fallen and rotted in, and you can see it looks almost like hands, the way that the balcony edge has crumbled into itself. Stepping below into the side of the alley from beneath it into the shed, Birdie goes ahead and opens the door, looks around, and then dips inside the shed and invites you all. As you all begin to step in, you realize the shed is maybe 10-foot by 10-foot.

SAM: Oh wow.

MATT: So she's like, "I usually just come here myself. So just hold on a second."

LAURA: Everybody hold their breath.

MATT: "If you just get out of the sun at the very least, or hang off the side until..." She pushes one of the chairs and scrapes it over and pulls some of the dust back from the ground, and you can see there's a trap door in the bottom of this.

TRAVIS: Dope.

MATT: She kind of... (knocks)

LIAM: Big room.

LAURA: (laughs)

MATT: Knocks. "Hello? Hondir? It's Birdie. Hondir?" (Hondir) "Why do I hear more voices? There are more foots. I think you're being followed." (Birdie) "No, they're with me." (Hondir) "Who's with you?"

TRAVIS: (laughs)

MATT: "Are you fucking me?"

TRAVIS: (laughs)

MATT: (Birdie) "No, just--"

TRAVIS: (laughs) So low key.

LAURA: (laughs)

MATT: "Look, we need--"

TRAVIS: Real subversive.

MATT: "Look, we... We've got into a situation here. You know the time that we're running on. I think I have some folks who were at least curious about our work." (Hondir) "Let me see them." You hear (trapdoor unlatches). The trapdoor pushes over. Dust clouds out in the space around it. You immediately see there standing beneath, this hunched, crotchety-looking goblin who has this massive monocle in one eye, and a chain that dangles down and is attached to a lapel pin. It looks like he's wearing a nice jacket, but it's just covered in dust, and it's tattered at the edges, like a semblance of high dress that has been worn and enduring the elements of some time in Bassuras. You immediately get the sense that this individual either wishes to dress above their station or is definitely not from the city. Kind of glances up with the monocle. "So this is... You trust these people?" (Birdie) "Well, I mean, I kind of have to. It's my daughter. Fearne."

ASHLEY: Yes.

MATT: "This is Hondir."

ASHLEY: Hello, Hondir.

MATT: "Hi."

ASHLEY: We're very trustworthy. You can trust all of us very, very much.

MATT: Make a persuasion check. (laughs)

ASHLEY: Hm, okay.

SAM: Mm-hmm.

LAURA: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

ASHLEY: Oh wow, that's-- Okay, that's--

SAM: (laughs)

ASHLEY: Hold on. It seems like that's too high. I'm really sorry.

SAM: Two numbers.

ASHLEY: Perception, you said?

SAM: Put them together.

MATT: Persuasion, persuasion.

ASHLEY: 23.

MATT: 23.

TALIESIN: Wow.

LAURA: Persuasion or--

MATT: Persuasion.

MARISHA: You son of a bitch.

ASHLEY: Okay, two, 22.

MATT: 22. Skits up a little further in the light. Now that you can see more light on his face, you see this jet black Van Dyke that goes into a gray point at the bottom, that fizzles out a little bit like a (pop). He adjusts the monocle and glances in, and squints the other eye and goes, "Yeah, it does look like your daughter, I guess. The rest of you look as rough-and-tumble as anyone from the city. Just so you all are aware, I'm happy to bring you within. But also I have everything rigged to explode. So if you do anything, I take you all with me. Good? We good?"

ASHLEY: Understood.

TRAVIS: Seems fair.

LAURA: That's about usual.

MATT: "All right, come inside. Come inside." He turns around and hobbles back down this advanced wooden ladder that creaks with each step. You all look down. From the bright light that's outside, it just looks like a dark pit from where you are. Do you all enter after Birdie?

TRAVIS: Oh yeah.

MATT: Okay. As you enter below, it takes a moment for your vision to adjust to the lower interior light because the only light source you have in here are two lanterns, and now a ball of light that fills the space within. Here, within this little basement area, it looks like it was once a storage region of this shed. But it's now been-- It's a little hidden sanctuary in the way that a prepper that thinks the world has ended has holed himself away. There are just bags and satchels of different types of dried food and goods to keep him going the whole time he's down here. You see some books scattered around. You also see there are a number of crossbows that are bolted into the ceiling with ropes attached to them that all swing back to one large chair that's facing the entryway door.

TRAVIS: Awesome.

LIAM: Oh, nice.

MATT: He has it tied off to the side. He's like, "Oh, just be careful not to trip on this. It would be very bad for somebody standing over there." "Also..." He begins pointing out, and you can see there's, you know the dynamite sticks that you purchased? There's at least 12 or so that are embedded at different areas within here.

TRAVIS: He wasn't lying. Ah! I smack Imogen.

SAM: Why?

TRAVIS: Watch out for your fireball! There's dynamite everywhere!

LAURA: What--

LIAM: Fireball?

TRAVIS: Yeah, the little light made of fire?

LAURA: -- the fuck. It's made of electricity.

TRAVIS: Oh. Sorry about that. Is your face okay?

LIAM: Why did you just slap Imogen?

TRAVIS: Well, I didn't want her to kill all of us.

ASHLEY: Why would she do such a thing?

MARISHA: That's just so aggressive.

LIAM: Use your words, Chet.

TRAVIS: Carry on.

LAURA: First, you don't even make me a toy like you make for everybody else. Then you slap me across the face.

TRAVIS: Well, yours is quite intricate. It's got more to it than the others.

LAURA: I haven't seen you working on it at all. (laughter)

LIAM: It's a slap guard.

TRAVIS: That's part of it. It's the mystery.

LAURA: (laughs)

MATT: "Anyway, please somebody, close--"

LIAM: Sorry. Carry on. (laughter)

MATT: "Somebody close the hatch behind you please, if you do not mind."

TALIESIN: Fine. Fine.

LAURA: Hondir, I have an important question.

MATT: "Yeah?"

LAURA: What's your take on kidnapping children and using them in experiments?

MATT: "That's terrible."

MARISHA: Cutting right to the chase.

LAURA: Terrible, right? Terrible? I look over at Birdie--

MATT: "You're not doing it, are you?"

LAURA: It's terrible, Birdie. Do you hear that?

MATT: "Are they kidnappers?" Birdie's like, "No, they're not kidnappers. And yeah, look, I didn't know he was doing anything like that. I didn't!"

TRAVIS: Insight check.

LIAM: Insight check.

MATT: Make an insight check.

LAURA: Come on.

TALIESIN: I'm in on that.

LIAM: Balls.

TRAVIS: Yeah. I read right through you with an 11.

MATT: (laughs)

MARISHA: Oh.

TALIESIN: Natural 20 for 21.

LIAM: Yeah!

MARISHA: Oh!

SAM: Some whispers.

LAURA: ♪ Whispers ♪

SAM: But I threw away the piece of paper that has the thing I'm supposed to say on it.

ASHLEY: Whispers!

SAM: It's way back there. Something about D&D Beyond and Spelljammer. Check it out.

TRAVIS: Check it out. (laughter) Check it out!

SAM: D&D Beyond slash Critical Role?

LAURA: Where's Sam Rai-gul? We need to get him back. (laughter)

TRAVIS: Wow.

MARISHA: God, that's how this night started.

TRAVIS: Uh-huh.

SAM: Yeah, it did. He could be anywhere right now.

LIAM: Speaking of shape changers...

TRAVIS: He's probably at home like, "Hey, honey." (laughter)

MATT: Hondir comes to rest in the chair and reaches over and grabs a small stone that he's fidgeting with in his hands as he glances over at each of you with the thick monocle.

MARISHA: What's the stone look like? Is it just a worry stone?

MATT: Make a perception check.

MARISHA: Or does it look like some more of this Gnarlrock? Perception?

LAURA: Every stone is--

MARISHA: Every stone is.

LIAM: Everything's from the Fey Realm.

MARISHA: Yeah, that's good. So 19 for 23.

MATT: I'm doing my job if I'm making you all paranoid about everything.

LAURA: Yeah. Yeah.

LIAM: Sure.

SAM: Are you withholding something?

MARISHA: 23.

MATT: 23. You glance at--

LAURA: Doors, chairs, rocks.

MATT: It looks like a smooth river stone. But it has some sort of a groove run into it. It's not dissimilar to what you guys had commissioned for the large bomb. It's some sort of, what you gather, a similar detonation device.

LAURA: Ah.

TALIESIN: Oh.

SAM: Did we use that bomb?

LAURA: I don't think we did but our car kind of...

MATT: You didn't use it.

LAURA: I don't know if the bomb went off when our car just got slammed.

MATT: It did not.

TALIESIN: It didn't.

MATT: Thankfully.

LAURA: All right, great.

SAM: Did we retrieve it?

LAURA: Yeah, then we have it.

MATT: Yeah, you have your car. It's being repaired.

SAM: No, the bomb.

MATT: No, the bomb is still in the vehicle.

LAURA: Oh, we left the bomb in the trunk.

MATT: You didn't say you took it.

TRAVIS: Do you want to send Imahara Joe just a note to diffuse the explosive device?

LAURA: It's not set.

TALIESIN: It's not set.

LAURA: He's used to that stuff.

SAM: He's mechanical.

MATT: You hear this bassy-- No.

LAURA: No. (laughter)

MATT: The Ends is no longer in Bassuras. No, no. So as he's holding the stone he goes, "Now, which one of you are faithful?"

SAM, TRAVIS: Faithful?

MARISHA: Faithful?

LIAM: Faithful?

TALIESIN: Wait, what?

SAM: To a spiritual god of some sort?

MATT: "Yes, what do you pray to?"

TRAVIS: Ooh.

MARISHA: Ooh. Actually, do any of us pray?

TRAVIS: I'm a little beholden to the moon, but that's about it.

SAM: I believe in people.

LIAM: Same.

MARISHA: Yes, we are--

MATT: "Okay."

MARISHA: -- zealots of humanity. (laughs)

MATT: "That's a good answer. I like this answer." He takes the stone and rests it a little gently into his pocket.

MARISHA: Wait, wait, wait. We need to unpack that. What was the wrong answer?

MATT: "Don't worry about it."

MARISHA: Oh.

MATT: "So while you are all here with Birdie, I am not used to having guests, let alone new faces. So please, I ask for your understanding in my anxiety." "So please, I ask for your understanding in my anxiety."

TRAVIS: What does he smell like?

MATT: Okay. Smells like some heavy goblin body odor.

TRAVIS: Got it. What it looks like.

MATT: Right. You do pick up in the room scents of black tea, as well as the familiar smell of the explosive material. Old books, and a fresh smell of old charred paper and wood.

TRAVIS: Cool.

MATT: That's what you pick up. "So Birdie, we're okay to talk in front of them?" She goes, "Yes, it's okay to talk. As you can see, I think I have almost enough. Hopefully enough, I don't know. I'll have to talk to Ira about it. But we're trying to get as much of this device done. Just so you folks are aware, what Ira's working on now that we're..." She glances back towards the hatch. "We're in a less public space here. So from what I understand, and take over please if I start meandering off this. But there's a lot of these things that run across Exandria. It's called leylines. They're this net of magical energy. At various points, that are referred to as nexuses, fantastical things can happen. Sometimes this is where doorways can open to different realms. This is where certain rituals can be extremely potent, and specifically in certain times of the year, right?" (Hondir) "This is correct, so. There is a unique network of leylines across Marquet, specifically within the Hellcatch Valley, or at least recently there is. Things are shifting. We believe this to be the sign of an upcoming Apogee Solstice. So there is a thing called Celestial Solstice. Every few decades, there is specific alignments of astral bodies. Specific energies tend to overlap and create a synchronization or harmonization of powerful entities. What it does is, it then makes these nexuses even more potent. This is used for great and terrible effect, depending on how history wishes to look at it. But the Apogee Solstice is a rare thing indeed. Historically, these solstices are so powerful as to often rewrite the face of these lines across Exandria, which is why the study is continuous. Looking through history, the makeup of Exandria's lines has changed many times, usually surrounding one of these events. We begin to notice some of them shifting. The timing is not perfect. The mathematics are vague. It seems there are many reasons we don't fully understand as to when or how it happens. But because these shifting of lines, some of my compatriots and I have come to believe that one of these is imminent. The math that is clear puts us about a month away."

LAURA: Are we close to one of those nexus points?

MATT: "See, that is what we're trying to figure out, partially for what Birdie is helping with. This device that they are working on-- How do I put this? Our research has required some of my compatriots and I to acquire bits of information that put us at risk, and in doing so, we have to do a lot of our work in private. I am not the person who likes to work from the shadows but there are political powers across the lands that would like to be both the forefront of this information and eager to misuse it for personal gain."

LAURA: So there are other people that know about it?

MATT: "There are others who have inklings, perhaps. I, myself, uh--" Looks back to Birdie. "Are you--?" (as Birdie) "Tell them. It's my daughter. They could have killed me earlier. They've actually staved off one of them Unseelie types." (as Hondir) "Okay. I'm a graduate of the Yios Sanctuary."

SAM: The what?

MARISHA: The EU?

MATT: "Yios Sanctuary."

SAM: Yios Sanctuary.

MATT: "Or Seminary, my apologies. When we began to discover this theoretical pattern of this coming solstice and the places of unity began to work in a way where our theories were pushing it towards the Hellcatch, meaning at the time of the solstice, we believe that one of these nexuses will be relocated somewhere here in the valley. As part of this information, we began to discover other political interests that were also trying to shut down our research that were speaking with some of the higher ups at the Seminary and getting our departments closed down, having our funding pulled, being told to walk away."

LAURA: Are they really trying to stop it, or are they trying to control it?

MATT: "I have reason to believe that the interests lie more in the latter. So a number of my compatriots have been continuing our research on our own, through private funding, investors, allies that we had, but even they've begun to dry up or worse. Anybody who's been tied to our work has either gone missing or befallen tragedy."

LIAM: Does the name Grim Verity mean anything to you?

MATT: You look and see an immediate sense of acknowledgement and briefly worry and then an exhale. "Yes, so you indeed know more than you let on. I am one of many members at the Verity. I say many, but there is a handful still around. We've lost members as of late. How do you know about the Verity?"

LIAM: We don't know much.

TRAVIS: ♪ Don't know much. ♪

SAM: ♪ But I know I love you ♪ (laughter)

MATT: That changed the context of the scene a little. ASHLEY and TRAVIS: ♪ And that may be ♪ "Yes, go on, please." (laughter)

LAURA: Please stop them.

MATT: "You're looking at me strangely."

SAM: ♪ The look ♪ ♪ The feel of cotton ♪

LIAM: To be honest, it feels like we're chasing--

SAM: ♪ The fabric of our lives ♪

LIAM: Go to the end. (laughter)

MARISHA: "Go to the end." (laughter)

MATT: Skip to the end.

SAM: I'm ready.

LIAM: We're trying to follow a trail. You didn't by any chance know the Lumas twins, did you?

LAURA: You knew them?

MATT: "Aye. They were more recent members of our band They were more recent members of our band who, unfortunately, their excitement got them in places that they should not have been. We tried to protect them. They were very, very bright and had the right mind for truth and to expose the truths that many wish to keep hidden. But I think their search for knowledge, unfortunately, their lack of experience left a trail."

LIAM: I'm trying to find the people who slew them. They got in too deep, as you say. Do you know anything about...

MATT: "The Gray Assassins?"

LIAM: Yes.

MATT: "They've-- They've removed at least half of our members in just the past couple of years. We were once a comparably sprawling network of a good 40 or so academics from all over Exandria. We were trading notes. We were sharing reports and theories. It was an exciting thing. We were looking to be published. We were seeking elements, threads, that connected beyond just the study of those astronomical. But then doors began to close and some of us got frustrated and began to push back. That's when, that's when we started losing them."

LAURA: Orym? What... You saw the Gray Assassins in person, right?

LIAM: Some of them, across the ocean.

LAURA: What did their armor look like?

LIAM: I mean, the Gray Assassins is apt. They were wrapped in really dark, dark colored leathers and ragged cloth, dark colored leathers and ragged cloth, nondescript faces covered. You could barely see their eyes. When they died, they left no trace. They melted away in front of us.

SAM: Those same assassins have been picking off people who are talking about this solstice or the leylines?

MATT: "They've been picking off members of our community. And I don't know who else."

LIAM: Do you know who they--

SAM: They tried to get your wind queen, right?

LIAM: Took a shot at it, yeah.

SAM: What does she have to do with leylines, and--?

MATT: "Who are you speaking of?"

LIAM: The ruler of the Air Ashari in Tal'Dorei.

MATT: "I'm not familiar with this person, but I don't recall anyone of this type within our membership."

LIAM: Right, if she were a member, I don't know.

MATT: "Maybe." He takes off the eyeglasses and it's like-- You can see it's fogging up a little bit and is sweating and he wipes it a bit.

LIAM: Do you know anything about them? Do you know who they are?

MATT: "I do not. I have not seen them, thankfully, though I had a close call recently, the whole reason I'm down here. I was living elsewhere, but I was out, actually meeting with somebody from Yios at the boundary of the jungles. When I returned, my house had been destroyed turned, burned and so I remain here."

LIAM: So, you all, the Grim Verity, are prying into Ruidus?

MATT: "Yes, among other things."

LIAM: Someone doesn't want you to do that and then you are doing-- I look to Birdie. Start over from the top when blades are not drawn. Walk us through what it is that you guys are doing here.

MATT: (as Birdie) "Oh, that's fair enough. So, we're not the kind of folks who are usually interested in this sort of, strange oracle visions or you know, sciencey, bad stuff. strange oracle visions or you know, sciencey, bad stuff. We just kind of, you know, got by. We enjoyed the occasional revelry. We enjoyed the occasional prank. We took what we needed, but never left anyone in a bad spot that didn't deserve it. You know, made a reputation that sometimes we were proud, sometimes we weren't. But you know, that was how life worked on the outskirts, from where we're from. It was on one of our excursions out here that we... Well, we... I decided that-- had some frustrated conversations with a few folks that we didn't like so much back home. We wanted to bring you into this world. This world. So we took a little vacation out here and we held up in the Verdant Expanse, Tal'Dorei, and just watched the stars. The night that I gave birth to you, something weird happened. A weird red moon that I didn't really know much about, it just lit up suddenly, glowed brightly. The entire forest was given this crimson hue I'd never seen before, and it was ominous, but weirdly beautiful. You came into the world screaming and we thought it was a... We thought it was a beautiful moment. Then we began to ask about it and heard maybe that wasn't the case, and began looking into it a little bit. There was a tumultuous history about this Ruidus. But, you know, thought maybe it was a fun prank someone was playing on us. Then Ollie got into a bad patch, just some root and herbs, as we like to gather, imbibing and and went down a bit of a mental rabbit hole for a couple days."

ASHLEY: I understand.

MATT: "But when he came back, he had this terrible... dream, we thought it was. This idea that that same red moon, that same red moon that brought you into this world was following us. When it was going to find us or find you, it was going to... well, he saw that red just eat away at the Fey Realm. well, he saw that red just eat away at the Fey Realm. That light just, just, just burn it into dust. We thought it was a dream, but then within the next year it showed up briefly in the sky. Some folks around that we were familiar with and lived in the outskirts like us saw it, too, but then it went away. But we still felt it was there. So we started asking questions, we got laughed out of the Seelie Court. We got laughed around and then we went... We went to the darker side of the Feywild and there, once we passed a certain threshold, there it was, like that moon was being obscured."

ASHLEY: What do you mean?

MATT: "Meaning some sort of Unseelie magic was keeping others from paying attention to it. We got real curious as to why. That's when we found this... Me and your father are real good at getting around unnoticed. So we started poking around, started looking for why they were doing this, because we thought it pertained to you and your safety. We saw this... We saw this meeting, this clandestine sort of gathering of some of the higher court members. They were meeting with some folk not from the Feywild, dressed too nice and terrestrial, lack of flair. They were all building, in the process of designing this machine that was focused towards the red moon. We just got a bad feeling about it. We didn't know what it did, necessarily, but it couldn't have been good, right? Not with what Ollie had seen. So we began to inquire with the Unseelie and tried to warn them, not let them know what we saw, but we don't normally deal with the folk over there. We've had a few dealings, you know, things are a bit fluid over there when it comes to interests and alignments and... No, they just laughed it off, but got real aggressive and pushing us beyond borders. So, we got enough gumption, had a couple drinks, and broke in and stole what looked like the shiniest piece of that machine and ran. By the time we figured out what we had, the Moontide Crown, we realized this was a little, a little more intense than even we were expecting. But if something that powerful was sitting in the middle of the machine, maybe it slowed them down a bit."

LIAM: This is the Moontide's Crown.

MATT: "Mm-hmm." "It's what we have in our machine back home right now."

SAM: You're going to make the same machine that you thought was so evil and--

MATT: "No, this one's more on a discovery mission, from what I understand, using the same power. Best I know, thinking back--"

LAURA: Ira's building it?

MATT: "Ira and Ollie are. He's picked up a lot from Ira and they've been working--"

LAURA: How can you trust that he's not just doing something awful with it, too?

MATT: "See, the thing is, even someone of dark inclinations of him, he gets his joy out of his work and he's come to see that he can't really work if there's nothing left, if we're right. He's been a little listless since the Apex War, and locked out here in Exandria for a while. He just-- He's the only person we knew that we could have any sort of communication with that had the knowledge and experience that we need, so. I mean, believe me when I say it wasn't the best moral arrangement."

TRAVIS: Sorry to distract, the Apex War?

SAM: We've heard about that a couple times.

TRAVIS: I was just making sure everybody was caught up.

MATT: "Yes."

LIAM: Stratos Throne.

SAM: Something that happened around here, like a couple decades ago?

MATT: "Couple decades ago, yeah. It was a big, big scuffle between some of the kingdoms or whatever. I don't know much about terrestrial politics, but I know that Ira was hired by one of the sides there and..."

MARISHA: Was hired.

MATT: "Yeah. He gets hired by a lot of folk."

MARISHA: Do you?

SAM: So was that it--

LAURA: Those Exandrian people--

LIAM: She worked for the Stratos Throne.

LAURA: -- that you said you saw. What did they look like? Did you see a woman with gray hair over to the side? Did you see a woman with gray hair over to the side? Intense armor?

MATT: "Yeah, yeah, like a red cloak."

LAURA: Yeah.

MATT: "Yeah. No, she-- You know this woman?"

LAURA: I know this woman.

MATT: "Yeah, it was her and another."

MARISHA: I mean, she's--

SAM: Another what?

MATT: "Another person."

MARISHA: She's here.

SAM: And what did they do?

MATT: "I mean, Ollie got a better look on that one than I did. I know he was elven, but older. I don't..."

LAURA: She's here.

MATT: "I don't... Who?"

LAURA: That woman, she's here.

MATT: You see the goblin like, "Is she here?" She goes and grabs a stone.

MARISHA: Not right now, but she's in Bassuras. She's running the Paragon's Call.

LAURA: I see her in my dreams.

MARISHA: Otohan.

LIAM: Thull.

MATT: "I don't know this person, but if they are nearby, then maybe I need to relocate again."

MARISHA: You're-- The army.

LAURA: I think so.

MARISHA: That you see.

LAURA: What if they're the Gray Assassins?

MARISHA: I think that's exactly what they are.

SAM: Because they have gray hair?

LAURA: No.

MARISHA: No, they were all dressed in gray.

LAURA: I've told you about what I see, right?

SAM: You said she had a red robe. Wait, what?

MATT: She had a red cloak.

SAM: Oh.

LAURA: I see a woman and behind her, there's so many people, and they step out from behind her, more and more and more. What if they're all connected?

MARISHA: There's no way this is a coincidence.

LIAM: It's getting harder to deny.

MARISHA: Absolutely. And if she has the ability to greet you in your dreams, And if she has the ability to greet you in your dreams, that's obviously an ability that spreads far beyond just you, right?

LAURA: Yeah.

MATT: Hondir turns to Birdie and and he says, "Do you think these assassins are from Vasselheim?" "I don't know."

MARISHA: Vasselheim?

MATT: Wait, what did you say?

LIAM: You stole it from people who are trying to do you don't know what exactly. You've taken the same to do what, exactly?

MATT: "Well, initially it was just to slow them down to keep them from doing what they were doing. But then as we held this crown and knew that it held some strong power and connection to the moon or moons, maybe it could be utilized. We got turned around and a lot of folks didn't really want to deal with us or were looking to just steal it from us to be honest, once we started asking around. The only person we knew here in Exandria that had some sort of fey connection that would see reason in the interests of uncovering mysteries was Ira."

LIAM: So you're just trying to find out as much about it as possible?

MATT: "Hopefully find a way to stop it, because right now, we're just going off what Hondir and them are gathering." Hondir just glares out at all of you.

SAM: Hondir, you must know someone named Ebenold Kai?

MATT: "Aye, I know Ebenold, yes."

SAM: We've never met that person, but--

LIAM: Through Roe Estani.

SAM: Yeah, Estani told us.

MATT: "I know of Estani. He retired some time ago."

SAM: He retired?

MATT: "He retired some time ago, yes. Is he still alive?"

LIAM: Yes.

LAURA: Yes.

MATT: "Good. That's a good man, Estani."

MARISHA: These leylines, you know that there is a strong connection in the Hellcatch Valley. Do you happen to know if there are other pathways across Marquet or even the rest of Exandria?

MATT: "There are many leylines everywhere. What's worrying me is, and I have to check with my compatriots, but we've done a few calculations and it seems like the Apogee Solstice is going to be largely focused over Marquet when it hits in a month. And by the shifting of these leylines, there are three possible locations where these nexuses might be, and we won't know until we're closer. What Birdie has been working on hopefully might be able to shed some light on that."

SAM: What are the three options?

MATT: "The other two we're looking is one might be in the Panagrip Sands, and one might be in the ocean northward of the Oderan Wilds."

LIAM: Or Marquet is the third?

MATT: "All of these places are in Marquet. There is north of the Oderan Wilds--"

LIAM: So Panagrip Sands, the ocean north of the Oderan Wilds.

MATT: "And here in the Hellcatch." "The interesting thing is for those of us that utilize instruments to research things about Ruidus beyond just visual presentation, magical instruments, there is an obfuscation. It seems to evade any sort of probing device to look on any sort of magical understanding of it."

MARISHA: What does?

TRAVIS, MATT: Ruidus.

MARISHA: Ruidus?

TRAVIS: You mean like it actively evades or something about its nature?

MATT: "Something about its nature or something in the skies above Exandria obfuscates any intent to do so. This has been recorded in many books for many years, though not openly discussed because the populace tends to be very superstitious and there is hope to not bring anxiety to the populace with such things."

LIAM: Someone who understands these things more than me, how is the moon appearing in a different world than ours? Do they share the same sky somehow?

MATT: "Well you see, Exandria, this Prime Material Plane, and there is other realms that are different, very far. Elemental planes, and positive, negative energy planes and such. There is the Fey Realm where you and you are from and there is also a Shadow Realm that are both very close and almost overlap. They are the most immediate realms of transference if you were to travel beyond the realms of Exandria. But they share a different cosmology, or at least are removed from Exandria's cosmology. The only reason that there is a Catha moonlight within the Feywild is because the Moonweaver's essence is tethered to that land and so there is essentially an image of Catha that exists in this world."

LAURA: But Ruidus is finding a way in.

MATT: "Indeed."

LAURA: So maybe there's some divine entity allowing it?

MATT: "Divine, maybe. Divine's a touchy thing. (chuckles)"

SAM: For you?

MATT: "Eh..." He looks back towards the hatch. "(sighs) You already-- Look. My life is in danger. Many of my compatriots at the Verity's lives are in danger. The more you know, the less safe you are."

SAM: Well, then we're very safe.

TRAVIS: Yep, actually most of us are one foot in the grave anyway. Right, Laudna? (wet tearing)

MATT: "Oh my goodness! Ah!"

TRAVIS: If there was anybody you should feel comfortable confiding in, it's us.

MARISHA: Chet's not wrong. To be honest with you, we sort of are really entrenched in whatever--

TRAVIS: Compromised.

MARISHA: Yes, we're compromised.

TRAVIS: Yep.

MARISHA: We're already in the shit.

MATT: Make a persuasion check with advantage because you did help.

TRAVIS: Yeah, I assisted you I pulled her hair out.

MATT: Yep.

MARISHA: Yeah, you did.

MATT: Yep, yep. (laughter)

TALIESIN: "I helped. I pulled the hair."

MARISHA: It's persuasion?

TRAVIS: Woo-oo.

MARISHA: With advantage. Well-- Oh, no, that's a 19! Oh, that's great. 23.

MATT: 23.

LAURA: Eyy.

MATT: That's pretty dang good.

TRAVIS: Eyy-oh!

MATT: He looks at you. "(sighs)" You can see his hands shaking a little bit. "Are you sure you want to know this?"

LAURA: Yeah.

TRAVIS: Well, fucking now I do.

MARISHA: Yeah, absolutely. You can't lead with that.

ASHLEY: I don't know. I think I'm ready to just leave.

MARISHA: (laughs)

ASHLEY: Yes.

MATT: He looks to Birdie and Birdie goes-- (as Hondir) "There's been another recent finding that has focused and redoubled the Grim Verity's efforts and interests as of late. A member of ours who is a researcher in Vasselheim discovered ancient texts from as far back as the Founding. Some of the earliest written records of Exandrian history kept deep under lock and key in the temple vaults of the Dawn City. And because of this information, the ire of the highest temples are upon the Verity. Upon myself. But this truth is important, both pertaining to this scenario and for the world to know. While the study needs to continue, the Verity believes it references, in the highest temples that there is a time before Ruidus. There are texts where Catha was the only moon above. A period of time in the Founding in which Ruidus did not exist."

LAURA: Wait.

SAM: When was the Founding again? Is that post-Calamity, pre-Calamity?

TRAVIS: Pre.

MATT: "The Founding was when the gods came to Exandria and created us, everything."

SAM: And there was no moon then, or no second moon?

MATT: "It was just Catha then."

SAM: So who put the moon there?

MATT: "(chuckles) That is the question. This is one of the things that began the heavier studies into the Omen Archive. The other thing is apparently some of these texts refer to two gods that don't exist in the Pantheon."

MARISHA: What?

MATT: "And haven't since."

LAURA: (gasps) Are they--

MATT: "Forgotten deities."

LAURA: -- imprisoned?

MATT: "So."

SAM: Do you know if they're good gods or bad gods?

MATT: "I don't have them. They are in Yios with trusted folk, I hope. I have not heard back any word the past month."

LIAM: The texts?

MATT: "Yes."

TALIESIN: Oh fuck.

ASHLEY: Wait, the two forgotten deities--

MARISHA: Oh shit, is that okay?

ASHLEY: Oh. Are in the texts?

MARISHA: Shit.

MATT: "The texts refer to them."

ASHLEY: The texts refer to them.

SAM: They're not in the book?

TALIESIN: Do they have names?

MATT: "I have not seen them."

LAURA: So Ruidus appeared when those deities disappeared.

MATT: "We don't have a specific timeline, but the texts seem to refer to a similar era in the Founding and we very much theorize they are connected somehow. But you see why the knowledge of this information is very much guarded secrecy in the Dawn City."

SAM: Who has the texts?

MATT: "We do."

MARISHA: You do?

SAM: Your people, or?

MATT: "The Verity does in Yios. I don't know specifically who."

MARISHA: Okay.

MATT: "Part of the reason that we don't know is if they were to find me, they could not extract that from me."

SAM: Ah.

LAURA: Right.

TRAVIS: Oof.

SAM: Do you think folks other than the Gray Assassins are trying to find these things?

MATT: "Probably."

SAM: Who would want to stop the spread of knowledge like that, though?

MATT: "People who wish to keep the historical records of the Prime Deities controlled to the populace."

TRAVIS: That's just about everybody.

MATT: "It is very challenging to keep people engaged in complete faith to the most ancient of temples if they have kept such information from their followers."

TRAVIS: If I can ask, so Birdie stole some shit from the Unseelie Court. That's in the Fey Realm, and they're all coming, okay. These texts from the Dawn City, Vasselheim, oldest of them all.

SAM: You've been there, right?

TRAVIS: Yeah, many times. I vacationed there in my 200s. The bathing pits were amazing. Did these texts, were they taken with permission or without permission, and was there any loss of life in said removal of texts?

MATT: "They were very much not taken with permission and there was no loss of life at the time because the individuals that escaped with them did so safely. It did catch up to them, and they are no longer with us, but the records were passed on to other hands since then and their sacrifice is remembered, and hopefully, in time, when this can be revealed to the world at large and if it is tied to these portents that Birdie is speaking of and we can stop it, then they will be remembered as a hero by many more people beyond just us."

TRAVIS: Yeah, it was very heroic. I just want to track it. So we got people from the Feywild trying to come after us and people from Vasselheim coming after the texts?

MATT: "Yes."

TRAVIS: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

LIAM: Are the--

MATT: "I told you this was dangerous information."

TRAVIS: I just wanted to know what league we were playing in.

LIAM: Are the Gray Assassins an entirely separate threat or are they out of Vasselheim?

MATT: "I don't know."

LIAM: Or don't you know?

MATT: "They could very well be out of Vasselheim."

TRAVIS: That would be everything everybody wants.

TALIESIN: Is there anybody else involved in this at this point? Like the Shadow Realm people, are they having Ruidus issues, too?

MATT: "I don't know. You'd have to talk to Ryn. There's a member of the Verity who their specialization is in traversing various realms."

LAURA: What's their name?

MATT: "Ryn."

MARISHA: Oh.

SAM: What? Who?

LAURA: Ryn?

MARISHA: That's right, Planewalker Ryn. Wait, who the fuck? Hang on. I wrote that down. I wrote that down.

LAURA: Who is that?

MARISHA: DM recap, DM recap?

MATT: Planewalker Ryn.

LAURA: Planewalker Ryn, oh right.

MARISHA: Hang on. Wait.

LAURA: How do we know him? How do we know him!

MARISHA: Hang on. Hang on.

SAM: Is that from another campaign?

TALIESIN: I don't know.

TRAVIS: Well, it's from a few things.

MATT: Yeah. Well, you briefly went into a laboratory in the Fire Plane in Campaign 2.

LAURA: (gasps) That was theirs?

MATT: That was theirs, yeah.

MARISHA: That's right. That's right! That's right and they were stowed away. They were in hiding.

LAURA: Oh my god.

LIAM: Yeah, they walked between planes.

LAURA: That's a fucking cool thing.

TRAVIS: We never quite get a finger on them.

ASHLEY: So these ancient texts, they were stolen from-- where were they taken from again?

LAURA: The temple vaults under Vasselheim.

ASHLEY: The temple vaults, okay.

MATT: "Specifically the temple of Erathis in the Quadroads."

MARISHA: The Temple of Erathis.

MATT: "But I'm certain that there is a unity amongst the temples there and so it's very likely that they are all searching for us and to an extent if you're not careful, now you."

LAURA: What does Otohan have to do with this, and why is she at the Paragon's Call right now?

MATT: "I do not know, but I would be very careful."

LAURA: Is she a soldier?

LIAM: She was a famous warrior for the Stratos Throne in the Apex War. Then went missing.

MATT: "Right, I remember hearing about this."

MARISHA: The Lumas twins had texts stolen from them. Granted, not from Vasselheim, but from the Academy.

ASHLEY: You said pages were taken from, is that what you're talking about?

LAURA: Yeah, the Lumas twins had texts that had information about my mother that was stolen by the Gray Assassins. My mother was also Ruidusborn.

MATT: "Huh. Also Ruidusborn? Like you."

ASHLEY: And she has dreams, wild dreams about a large storm and a red storm.

MATT: They both look at each other, then look back.

LAURA: They're connected.

MATT: "What is your mother's name?"

LAURA: Liliana.

MATT: "Liliana Temult?"

LAURA: Yeah. Do you know her?

MATT: "We have met, though it was a while ago."

MARISHA: Not a while?

TRAVIS: No, it was a while ago.

MARISHA: A while ago. Okay.

MATT: "She was a number of our, how do I put it? Our volunteers for part of the Omen Archive study."

LAURA: Yeah.

MATT: "See, there are Ruidusborn all across Exandria and have been for as long as the moon's been out there. But the rate of Ruidusborn births has been slowly accelerating in recent times. This was part of the study in the archive. Not my specific study. I was more in leyline patterns, and all of us comparing aligning notes for this. But I do recall that there are occasionally rare Ruidusborn that exemplify a stronger connection. They read the ruddy moon."

LIAM: How long ago did you last see Liliana?

MATT: "Gosh, it must have been 12 years, maybe."

LAURA: 12 years?

MATT: "I've been away from most civilization for--"

LAURA: Where was she when you saw her?

MATT: "She was in Yios. She came to the seminary to be a part of the research. She was gifted with incredible capabilities. She was able to see beyond her eyes. She was able to affect the world around her in incredible ways. She was one of a few that had come to us exhibiting these powers."

LAURA: I look down. Is there a bottle or anything on the ground? I'm just going to pick it up and drift it over to him.

MATT: "And it seems that line of fortune seems to follow on your path. I am so sorry."

TALIESIN: (coughs) Excuse me.

MARISHA: Why would you have to apologize? I mean, these are gifts.

MATT: "They are, but it horribly connects you to all the things that are coming."

LIAM: This is so fucking much.

MATT: Birdie jumps in. "I know. Like I said, a lot of this I couldn't say in front of that, Yu. Hopefully you understand for what reasons why. There's a lot going on here, and a lot of it, even I can't understand. It's a little bit beyond me, so I just have to focus on one task, and the task we have is trying to get this strange telescope thing all figured out, and hopefully that'll help answer some questions for us. Maybe you as well."

TRAVIS: This is good.

SAM: Where is the device you're trying to make? Do we, I'm sorry, do you have that crown thing with you or is it with the device?

MATT: "The crown's in the device."

SAM: Where is that?

MATT: "It's in our layaway. (chuckles)"

ASHLEY: You said it's a telescope?

MATT: "It looks sort of like a telescope, yeah."

TRAVIS: You said like 40-ish miles away?

MATT: "Yeah, to the east."

TRAVIS: Okay.

MARISHA: Towards the Hellcatch.

TRAVIS: Just remind me because I want to make sure everybody's on the same page. The Yios Seminary is where?

SAM: In Yios.

MARISHA: Which is--

LAURA: It's pretty far.

MARISHA: -- two to three days.

LAURA: It's farther than that.

MATT: It's southeast into Aeshanadoor. It's through the Gloomed Jungles.

TRAVIS: You guys got that?

LAURA: It's like a week's travel, isn't it?

LIAM: Southeast.

MATT: Approximately, yeah. It's through the Gloomed Jungles.

SAM: We have a map somewhere.

LAURA: The Gloomed Jungles which is--

TALIESIN: I have a map.

LAURA: Isn't that where people you know is?

LIAM: Yeah, the Gorgynei.

TRAVIS: The people I'm going to know is.

LIAM: Gorgynei.

TALIESIN: Gorgynei.

LAURA: (howls)

MARISHA: All right.

LAURA: This is a lot.

MARISHA: This is so much.

ASHLEY: This is a lot.

TRAVIS: This is great. This is great. We're totally not bringing additional danger towards you and your project on your rushed timeline.

MATT: "Not at all. I'm certainly not bringing any more danger into your continuous lives and the life of my daughter by telling you all this extremely dangerous information. God, what have I done?"

SAM: But wait.

ASHLEY: No, it's really not your fault. We've been looking for you.

SAM: It sounds like what you're trying to do is worthy and noble, and why wouldn't Fearne want to help?

ASHLEY: Absolutely.

MARISHA: It's honestly still a bit confusing because obviously there are people who do not want the boons and the gifts that Ruidus can bring and then obviously those who do and perhaps a subsect that just wants it all secret?

TALIESIN: Aren't we all forgetting the mad fucking scientist that they're trusting with this bullshit?

LIAM: No.

MARISHA: Honestly, why Ira? Like, no one else on the face of Exandria, you had to--

TALIESIN: Speaking of people who would kill us if they found out that we were involved.

MARISHA: Was Ira really the only one, the best candidate?

MATT: "In the timeframe that we had, it was the only person we knew. What, we're just going to walk up and keep asking around for some extreme scientist to go ahead and trust a couple of fey folk to help them build a machine with a crazy--? No, it doesn't work that easy and the only person we knew that had a connection with some distant history and knowledge of their capabilities was Ira. We knew he was here like us. It took some talking to to convince him of the stakes that were here, but he managed to see that we all benefit from not letting this get out of hand."

LIAM: Are you prepared for the day he flips on you?

MATT: "We've been keeping our eye best we can. The trust isn't 100%. But we all have an aligned goal.

TRAVIS: You don't have to tell us, but do you have a code you're working with with your most trusted? I mean only because Dusk, Yu, could just look like anybody and it feels like the closer that we get to this, it feels like they'll do the same.

SAM: You mean like a word to prove?

TRAVIS: Like a code, yeah. Just before you check in and put all the pieces together and push Go, just make sure everybody in the room's who they say they are, that's all I'm saying.

MATT: "Do you have a recommendation?"

TRAVIS: Yeah, bring me along.

MARISHA: (laughs)

SAM: That's the code, is just have you there?

TRAVIS: Yeah, and Orym. Yeah, you need eyes and a nose to make sure everybody's legit, bona fide.

MARISHA: You can't be everywhere at once.

TRAVIS: Everywhere at once? You don't know that. I'm hundreds of years old.

MATT: "Well, with this-- With you bringing this lens from Morri, hopefully this'll get us a lot closer to that a lot sooner. I hope, I don't know if we even have enough energy to run it, but we're getting close from what Ira and Ollie have been saying."

MARISHA: I'm guessing that's what all of these little baubles and things--

MATT: "Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah." She pulls it over and opens it up a little bit and you can see it glow, under-lighting her as she opens it up. "Yeah, the machine, as it's been designed, takes a lot of power for a short burst of time and so we've been having to squeeze Imahara Joe for as much as he could bring in that wasn't being pulled off into side projects and just--"

MARISHA: Some things never change.

MATT: "-- through both process of experimentation that's been draining him at times and such. That's what I've been having to do these runs for for the past year or so."

TALIESIN: Do we recognize any of this tech?

MATT: You recognize this specifically, these are the blue crystalline spheres that you saw powering on different sizes and scales many of the various automatons throughout the city, the various crawlers that you actually rode, as well as running some of the devices that Ira was running back in Jrusar.

SAM: What do you need to make this thing happen? What can we do to help?

MATT: "Well, maybe bring that along."

TRAVIS: The lens?

SAM: Bring Fearne?

MATT: "Yeah, but also--"

MARISHA: The lens.

MATT: "-- the little green thing."

MARISHA: The Weave Lens.

SAM: Oh, I mean that's easy enough, but--

MARISHA: I'm assuming you want to--

SAM: Is that the only piece that you need?

MATT: "I'm bringing this right on my back and we'll check in. It's a lot of trial and error and trying things out. If it doesn't work or I don't have enough, bring it back."

MARISHA: Are you hoping that the Weave Lens tells you information when you look at Ruidus? Is that the goal?

MATT: "I guess. Well, this is not my prerogative. This is what Morri was supposed to build for. That's what Ira reached out to her for.

ASHLEY: Okay.

MATT: "I just wasn't expecting her to send you along with it, but I'm just happy to see you."

TRAVIS: Does it have a cost when you use it? Do you just turn it on and look or is there something expended, or--?

MATT: "I don't know."

TRAVIS: Okay.

TALIESIN: Does anyone other than Ira know how this thing works and what it does?

MATT: "Other than Ira and Ollie? I don't think so."

LAURA: Great.

MARISHA: And why would your grandmother send you?

TALIESIN: Shit.

TRAVIS: Because it's got to be Fearne.

ASHLEY: I guess she's not my grandmother.

LAURA: Maybe she knew you needed to see.

ASHLEY: Maybe.

MATT: "Let me at least express that Morri is as close to a grandmother as I had. She helped watch over me when I was younger and didn't really have much guidance. Kept me on enough of a leash as I needed, but let me loose enough to figure out what I was good at." She twiddles her fingers a little bit. "But she's an odd duck in her own right. I had a little worry that she'd take a shine to you since I left and I'm still trying to figure out this weird time thing, but her fane is her domain and she can tweak and stretch things out as she wills."

LAURA: She did it? She kept her there for 100 years?

MATT: "It may seem like it. I don't know. I'm going to have a stern talking to her about it because she was just supposed to keep you safe."

TRAVIS: Who can do that?

MARISHA: The Traveler could do that.

TRAVIS: What a fucking witch.

MARISHA: Artagan. Yeah.

ASHLEY: I love her very much. She is my grandmother. She raised me for all these years. So... I guess she just told me it was a very important piece and she told me to find my parents and if I did, I'd give it to them. But. So I found you.

MATT: "(laughs) That you did."

TRAVIS: Did your grandmother ever make you any toys?

ASHLEY: Kind of.

TRAVIS: Anything that was special and just for you?

ASHLEY: I think probably the postcards. I don't think you sent any postcards.

MATT: "No, we specifically didn't want anything to lead back to you while you were over there and we were here, for obvious reasons." Gesturing out to the recent encounter at Imahara's.

ASHLEY: So these are probably not from you?

MATT: "(sighs) I'm sorry Fearne, they're not. But I can guarantee you they would've been if we could have, if it was safe. It alleviates some of my frustration with Morri, knowing that she cared enough to make those, I guess."

ASHLEY: Yeah. We've had a really fun life.

MATT: "She can be a little selfish."

MARISHA: She can be selfish?

MATT: "She fixates things on she likes."

LAURA: Then I guess we should be glad that she let you go.

MARISHA: Yeah.

ASHLEY: Yeah.

MARISHA: You've said yourself that the time is a weird soup.

ASHLEY: Yeah.

MARISHA: In the Fey Realm and whatnot.

ASHLEY: Yeah, I don't think it was her fault that so many years have gone by.

MATT: "Maybe not. I don't know. I just know that the reason we knew you were safe there is because people know better than to go into her domain.

ASHLEY: Yeah, she is pretty powerful. Well, these are still special.

SAM: Sure.

MARISHA: They're very well done.

ASHLEY: Yeah, they're very beautiful. She's an incredible painter, very artistic.

SAM: So you have what you need for your experiments or whatever and it's dangerous to be around you, I suppose. So do you need protection or should we just leave you alone to do your experiments?

MATT: (as Hondir) "Oh, I have to pack up, obviously, if these assassins have come so close. And to be honest, how safe is your domain? You've got room for a small goblin maybe?"

SAM: Domain?

ASHLEY: I think it's pretty safe.

MARISHA: We have a black hole we could put you in for only about 10 minutes at a time, though.

LAURA: It might kill you.

MATT: "I'll just ride sidesaddle, if you have room for a goblin. I just need to grab a few things."

ASHLEY: Of course.

MARISHA: Also, one last question. We stumbled (chuckles) upon Ira's laboratory We stumbled (chuckles) upon Ira's laboratory a little bit ago and--

TALIESIN: Thank you.

MARISHA: He was packing it up and then it exploded and--

MATT: (as Birdie) "Okay."

MARISHA: Where did he go? Where is he now? Because we last saw him in Jrusar.

MATT: "Right. No, that job folded after a while. He was working for coin over there and came back with what he was partially paid to help fund, well, this." She pulls up the change purse she started bringing the gold out of earlier and is like, "He's been helping us work the machine. So he's back there I think, at least he was when I left."

MARISHA: Oh.

LAURA: Yeah, he's 45 miles away from here.

MARISHA: He's 45 miles away. Okay, right, right, right.

MATT: "Well, you can ask him yourself."

MARISHA: Right. Okay.

LAURA: So we're heading over there is where we're going.

MATT: "If you want to."

LAURA: I would very much like to see this contraption.

MATT: "Well, it only takes a few hours. We can be there and back by sundown, if you need to."

SAM: A few hours, how?

TRAVIS: We got skirmishers.

LAURA: Yeah.

SAM: Oh, well they're still being fixed, I think.

LAURA: They might be done by now. He said it would be about an hour and a half.

TRAVIS: About what time of day is it-ish?

MATT: I'd say, by now, it's about noon. Since you guys woke up early, all this happened first thing in the morning after waking up.

TRAVIS: Besides, we could go wait for them to be finished. I'm sure Fearne and Birdie have lots of catching up to do.

LAURA: Yeah.

ASHLEY: Yeah.

TRAVIS: We could rally back here when we got it fixed up and ready to go.

LAURA: Or meet over at Joe's.

TRAVIS: That too.

MATT: "It won't be moving full speed if we're putting on this large a crowd on each one of them, but we can get there. It'll be faster than walking definitely."

SAM: Should we have Joe make us some sort of flatbed cart to drag behind one of them or something?

MARISHA: That's not a bad idea, a little trailer hitch.

SAM: Yeah.

LAURA: You can hold onto one and somebody can--

SAM: I'll be fine.

LAURA: -- step onto your back and ride on top of you.

SAM: As long as I don't have to be glued to something.

LAURA: Yeah, no, never again.

MATT: "That can probably work, just pull you behind."

SAM: Yeah, I'm okay. But it only sits two people and we got more than that.

MATT: "Well, it sits two people comfortably and then you could probably fit three or four on there, but it's going to drag a little bit. But it's still better than walking. And then if you're strong, you can carry a person."

SAM: Sure, but you're somebody's mother, you've got to get a nice seat.

MATT: "I can cuddle up with my daughter."

SAM: She's very large.

MATT: "So am I."

ASHLEY: Whoa.

LIAM: How tall is Birdie?

SAM: Well, I'm very small, that's all.

MATT: Birdie's about--

ASHLEY: Well, and you're heavy.

MATT: -- a little over six foot.

LIAM: Easy.

MATT: Not quite as tall as Fearne.

SAM: That's more weight.

ASHLEY: I'm a chonkers.

MATT: But still taller than a lot of you in this troop, at least.

LIAM: Yeah. Yeah.

MATT: "Well here, grab the stuff you need. I guess we're waiting on your repairs. So we can meet up maybe not outside of Imahara Joe's, since-- What would be a good place to meet up?"

SAM: Where are we staying again?

TALIESIN: We can meet up at the dumbest place possible.

MARISHA: At Taste of Tal'Dorei.

TALIESIN: We'll meet you at A Taste of Tal'Dorei.

ASHLEY: Oh, that's right.

MATT: "Oh my goodness. We're not eating there, we're just meeting up, right? Okay, no, that makes sense, that's safer. That's safer."

TRAVIS: We're not eating there.

MATT: "Okay, yeah. I'll go ahead and I'll--"

MARISHA: Casa Bonita rules.

MATT: "I'll carefully and quickly grab my bike around the time. Lay low until then just in case someone's watching, and then I'll meet you up there and we can tear off eastward. Sounds good to me. Gather your shit." He's like, "Of course I will. I just need a couple of things." He grabs a bag and starts throwing some books into it. Reaches over and grabs a big map and rolls it up and puts it inside and grabs a couple other pieces of goods and a small hand jewelry box and puts it inside there. Grabs some coin. (grunts) "Shall we?"

SAM: Sure.

ASHLEY: Yeah.

SAM: Don't we have-- Aren't we supposed to go meet Paragon's Call?

LAURA: Yeah.

SAM: To capture a guy for Eshteross, and--

LAURA: Yeah. But this isn't a--

TALIESIN: Not today.

LAURA: We're not going to be gone for--

SAM: Not today? I thought it was today.

LAURA: We're supposed to meet them today.

TALIESIN: Are we supposed to meet them today?

ASHLEY: Today is the morning after the--

LAURA: Yeah.

ASHLEY: Okay.

MARISHA: But also, we're meeting up with the person who was sort of working with the guy we're supposed to capture.

LAURA: Yeah.

MARISHA: And take back.

SAM: Do we split up or anything? Or is that-- that's stupid.

TALIESIN: We just do order of operations.

MARISHA: You said he's only a few hours out. It could be a day trip.

TRAVIS: Back and forth before sundown?

LAURA: Yeah, go head over to Paragon's Call by evening.

LIAM: Show up and move in, right? Wasn't that the idea?

TALIESIN: That was the idea.

LAURA: Right under the nose of Otohan, who is most definitely behind all of this--

MARISHA: Absolutely.

LAURA: -- Ruidus shit.

TRAVIS: But so what? We don't have to be nervous about that, right? There's one of her, and there's how many of us.

MARISHA: It sounds like she's got thousands of oogie boogie shadow soldiers.

TALIESIN: There was one Shadow King and a bunch of us, and it didn't go that well. Nightmare King. Jesus.

TRAVIS: Early days.

LIAM: Whoever that is.

LAURA: All right. Let's head out.

MATT: "All right. So Taste of Tal'Dorei in a few hours, I guess. I'll hang here and help him finish up packing."

LAURA: All right.

SAM: Just out of curiosity, this thing that we're going to go see out there, it's a telescope-ish thing?

MATT: "Well, the device is all underground."

SAM: But, I mean, doesn't it have to work at night?

MATT: "Not the way this is built."

ASHLEY: Not necessarily.

SAM: Oh!

LIAM: We're meeting in a couple of hours. Are we just trying to get situated with the Paragon's Call?

TRAVIS: No, I don't think beforehand, right?

SAM: We're going to go look at the telescope, come back, and then Paragon's Call? But what are we going to do with the telescope? Just look at it, see what it is? See if it works?

LAURA: I mean, yeah.

SAM: Okay.

ASHLEY: Maybe Papa Ollie will have some insight for you about dreams.

TRAVIS: Assassinate the Nightmare King. Going to be a busy trip.

SAM: Well, he's the guy building the thing. We can't assassinate him.

TRAVIS: They'll come too, motherfucker.

SAM: Maybe he's a nice guy. Maybe it's not Nightmare King. Maybe we're just saying it wrong. Maybe he loves horses, so he's the Mare King. But he works at night, so he's a Night Mare King. He loves horses, just like Imogen.

TRAVIS: Boy.

LAURA: We have so much in common.

SAM: Yeah!

LAURA: Why didn't we ever--

TALIESIN: He makes them by--

LAURA: -- just talk before?

TALIESIN: -- sewing children together.

SAM: Yeah.

MARISHA: (laughs)

ASHLEY: That makes sense. I'm sure that's what it is. Can I give you a hug?

MATT: "I'd love that."

ASHLEY: Okay.

MATT: Pulls you in and lifts you up a little bit. And whispers a little bit in your ear. Be like, "I missed you."

ASHLEY: I missed you, too.

SAM: I'm going to see if either are picking each other's pockets.

LAURA: Oh my god, that would be so much fun. They're both picking each other.

MARISHA: It's mutual.

ASHLEY: I'm going to try to give a pick.

MATT: Go ahead and roll.

TALIESIN: Go for the ring, go for the ring.

ASHLEY: Okay. That would be a 24.

MATT: That definitely succeeds. What's your passive perception?

ASHLEY: Where'd it go? Oh, it's right here.

LAURA: 17.

ASHLEY: 17.

MATT: 17, that also succeeds. (laughter) Okay, so within her pocket, you pull a handful of coin. She didn't come with a lot of materials, necessarily, but you get a handful of coin that feels pretty dense. Specifically, 15 platinum.

LAURA, SAM: Ooh!

LAURA: That is dense.

ASHLEY: I feel it in my hand, and then I drop it back in the pocket.

LAURA: Aww, that's cute.

MATT: What do you have in your inventory? (laughs)

ASHLEY: Let's see, let's see what we got.

LIAM: Don't take our hole!

ASHLEY: In my trinkets (sighs).

MATT: Just pick one at random.

ASHLEY: I will, I'll pick at random. Okay, let's do--

LAURA: Close your eyes. You have to close your eyes so you--

ASHLEY: Okay, a golden skeleton key.

MATT: She pulls it out and goes, "I'll have to ask about what this goes to one day."

ASHLEY: I have no idea.

MATT: "Perfect, a mystery for the ages."

ASHLEY: We'll find out some day.

MATT: Gives it back to you.

ASHLEY: Thank you.

MATT: All right, so with that, begin to gather their things. You all take some time to check up eventually on the repairs. About two o'clock in the afternoon or so, Imahara Joe finishes up. He's like, "Well, not the best job I've done, but functional through and through. Here you go. Your crawler should be ready for travel whenever you need."

LAURA: Thank you.

SAM: That's amazing.

TALIESIN: Appreciate it.

MATT: "No, of course, of course."

LAURA: The bomb that was on the back of it?

MATT: "I wasn't going to ask about that. We get all sorts of weird shit that people leave on their crawlers for repairs. We just do our job and move on. You know, plausible deniability. It's really helped our business flourish over the years."

ASHLEY: Did we need to add a little cart or anything to it?

SAM: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. If we wanted to pull a couple of extra folks behind us, is there a flatbed with wheels and a tow line you could rig up?

MATT: "I can probably attach a two-person little hanging trolley in the back. I will ask probably not to go too fast or over any sort of large inclines. You know, the crawlers can go pretty quick and do some pretty decent maneuvers, but you'll kill everybody in the back if you try them. Also, those feet are clawed, so."

TRAVIS: (laughs) Oh, yeah.

SAM: Should we push it in front instead?

MATT: "That's worse. So yeah, I can fashion something. Let me see what I got." He goes in the back, there's a number of disassembled wagons and stuff, and there's one that's a small wagon. He goes ahead and quickly shears off the front few feet. It has a... almost a-- what's the word I'm thinking of?

LAURA: Like a chariot?

MATT: Like a chariot, or the--

ASHLEY: Wheelbarrow?

MATT: What's it called when the person in the front is biking and you have the seats in the back with the wheels? Rickshaw!

TRAVIS: Rickshaw.

MATT: It's like a rickshaw attachment, but it's all made of jagged metal. A little wonky. The tires look like they've been patched six or seven times.

LAURA: Great, great, great.

MATT: Brings it to the front and says, "You know, no charge." "It hooks into... here," and then he goes and makes something it hooks into. Just spot welded essentially into the back. Hooks it up. "This is kind of sturdy. Once again, no crazy tricks. Don't kill the people in the back. But this will last you a month, maybe."

LAURA: Oh wow.

TALIESIN: That'll do it.

LAURA: Thank you.

MATT: "Of course, no worries. Please, don't fight any more in my shop, if you don't mind."

SAM: I'm so sorry about that.

LAURA: We'll really try not to.

ASHLEY: That was just an accident.

TALIESIN: Unfortunate.

TRAVIS: Drama.

MATT: "It's okay. Just, you know. It could've gone worse, could've gone worse."

ASHLEY: We just didn't know the person that we were with was not the person that we thought we were with, so.

MATT: "That happens all the time here. Just know that there are a lot of things that are volatile and unstable around the shop and that could've been a lot worse. Anyway, good luck. Travel safe. Need any other repairs, anything else, any other interesting questions. If you just want to come by for a cup of whatever you prefer to imbibe, and talk more about your history. Let me know."

LAURA: You drink liquid metal? Do you think that would be yummy like tea for you?

SAM: That's an interesting-- I don't know. Let's try it sometime.

ASHLEY: A hot cup of metal.

SAM: Okay.

MATT: You shove off of Imahara Joe's place. Gathering up the bike. The bike where Birdie had originally parked and left it there set to the side is now missing. It's gone. For a second, you're a little worried. But as you begin to walk your crawler through the streets. As you go through, a few folks cheer as they recognize the vehicle that you had won the previous Deathwish Run. Some folks are like, "Hey, yeah! That was awesome!" "Well done. That was crazy." (laughter) Giving some shouts. A little bit of fan yells to you.

TRAVIS: Yeah, the Fuck Bucket!

MARISHA: That's right!

SAM: Yeah, Fuck Bucket!

LAURA: Wait, no, that's not the one we have. We have the Red Moon with us.

LIAM: ♪ Buck Fucket ♪

TRAVIS: Not anymore.

LAURA: Because the Buck Fucket--

TRAVIS: We only go by winner's names. (laughter)

ASHLEY: Wow.

LAURA: That's true.

MATT: A tall lanky male tiefling with red skin walks by with the dark sun tattoos in the elbows, getting ready to growl as he slinks back and looks over and sees. This is the same one that stink-eyed you when you first came to the city, as you were entering Bassuras. He walks by, look at y'all and goes, "That was incredible!" (laughter) "That was so awesome. Well done. I look forward to maybe seeing you out there next time at Deathwish Run, eh? (laughs)" (laughter) Walks by, keeps going. "(laughs) That was so cool." He keeps going down the street.

TRAVIS: He's metal.

MATT: Eventually, you steer your vehicle over to the exterior of the familiar Tudor-style ridiculousness that is The Taste of Tal'Dorei. There in the shade, among the alley towards where the back is, you see the front wheel of a skirmish-crawler there settled and parked inside. Sitting on top of it as you approach, you can see Birdie, helmet on, goggles on, jacket at the ready, heavy scarf thrown over the back. She looks up. "All right, y'all ready?"

SAM: Let's roll.

TALIESIN: Let's do it.

LAURA: Yeah.

MATT: "Fearne and who else feels like they can make room for, hop on."

LAURA: People who are the small-- Well, we got a lot of people on either one.

MATT: "Who's coming with me? Got me and Fearne. Room for maybe two more, depending on the size?"

LAURA: I'll go hop on.

MATT: "All right, and who else?"

TRAVIS: I'll got if Orym's not going.

LIAM: I was going to hop on FCG.

TRAVIS: Okay, I'll go.

SAM: Hop on FCG?

LAURA: You have your little pedals.

LIAM: Segway style.

SAM: Sure, sure. All right.

TRAVIS: I just got you that new tire. You're going to fuck it all up.

LAURA: So FCG's riding behind Birdie, right? Because the wagon is behind the Buck Fucket.

SAM: We don't need the wagon anymore, it looks like.

MATT: It's up to you guys.

MARISHA: Well, do I have the wagon all to myself?

SAM: Yes.

TALIESIN: You can. (laughter)

MATT: All right, so on one, it's Birdie and Fearne, and then in the back, it's who?

LAURA: Well, I'll go hop on the wagon.

SAM: Okay.

MATT: Okay, so it's the two of you in the wagon.

LAURA: Yeah.

MATT: It is janky while it's not moving. (laughter)

TALIESIN: I'm driving that one.

MATT: Okay, so you're driving that one. Then it's Birdie, Fearne, and then who?

TRAVIS: Chetney.

MATT: Then Chetney on that one. (laughter)

SAM: With me and Orym doing--

LAURA: Segway.

MATT: You got it.

SAM: -- water ski behind it.

TRAVIS: Two Calloways all to myself.

MATT: As the controls click in, the blue glow--

ASHLEY: Two handfuls.

MATT: -- of the power crystals beneath (power humming) begin to hum loudly. The shaded interior of the alley where her skirmisher-crawler is parked suddenly lights blue around from underneath for a second as the hum turns into a growl. You watch as the two legs prep behind. The wheel begins to spin, as dust begins to kick up and the legs kick off. (impacts, engine revving) As the crawler skirts around the outside and the hum turns from a purr to a heavy, loud, guttural growl. Takes off down the street, as you follow up behind it. The two crawlers then begin coasting down the streets. Past buildings, rounding the side, heading down the straight eastern thoroughfare in the center cross streets of Bassuras. Then coasting out in the eastward direction, following Birdie's run. You can feel the familiar comfortable flashback of clutching your mother at a young age, childhood flashbacks. But now she's here in front of you, and it's an odd flash memory. At one point, you see her look back through the goggles and smile before (engine revs) kicking it up even more so, and the front tire picks up a little bit before slamming down and pushing forward. The back cart (laughs) of your guys', as you're going around-- Yeah, you're dragging behind this one. You're like, "Whoa!" (laughter) Thrown around a bit. The rest of you, Imogen and Laudna, you're holding onto the back and going, (juddering)

MARISHA: Oh, my back. Christ, oh god.

TALIESIN: Sorry!

MATT: Some folks, of course, watch you guys as you go by. Passing through a number of streets and winding alleyways, eventually you pass to the exterior gates of the Carmine Curtain. The large red walls that mark the exterior of the central part of Bassuras. From there, you careen through The Skids, evading any sort of ruffians that are standing in the middle of the street as folks like, "Ah!" Dart of out the way as you scream on by. Then, as The Skids begin to eventually dissipate, there before you, the open, cracked dusty expense of the Hellcatch Valley. You push forward, leaving but a trail of dust in your wake towards the horizon. And that's where we're going to finish tonight's episode.

ASHLEY: Dang it.

LAURA: Nice, nice.

MATT: ♪ We'll pick up there next time ♪

TRAVIS: We are ♪ on the road again ♪

ASHLEY: We're on the road again. Holy shit.

LAURA: There's so much left to do in town.

MARISHA: I know, right?

TALIESIN: Not for a minute.

SAM: There's a lot.

TRAVIS: We'll be back before--

MATT: We got a couple things going on.

TRAVIS: We'll be back before the streetlights go off.

MARISHA: Vibrating.

LIAM: I don't know what to focus on.

LAURA: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Unless we all die because the Nightmare King kills us.

MARISHA: I'm going to have to organize my notes.

MATT: (laughs)

ASHLEY: I say I bring this home with me after the end of every game, and that I'm going to better organize it, and I don't.

TRAVIS: My lifeline!

MARISHA: Exactly. My lifeline!

LIAM: Not my horcrux! (laughter)

ASHLEY: (groans)

LAURA: So much information.

ASHLEY: We got a lot of information.

MATT: Quick addendum.

LAURA: What?

SAM: Quick addendum?

MARISHA: Quick addendum?

MATT: You pull off for a second, and then Birdie goes, "Oh, fucking wait."

MARISHA: Is this some Aabria--

MATT: "Hondir." (engine revs) (laughter)

TRAVIS: Oh, yeah, she didn't grab his ass.

MATT: Smash cut to you all exiting the city a second time with Hondir on the back going like, "I can't believe you left me behind. This is stupid bullshit!" As it just cruises off into the distance.

LIAM: Very "Home Alone." Kevin! (laughter)

LAURA: "Hondir!"

MATT: And there we'll end it.

ASHLEY: Oh man.

LIAM: Oh boy, oh boy.

TRAVIS: You're such a disease.

MATT: I'm excited for the next session. See where it goes.

ASHLEY: Holy moly.

MATT: You guys are amazing.

TRAVIS: What a fucking session. Erika, we love you.

MATT: Erika, we love you. It was so awesome. Thank you for joining us. But until next time: We love you very much, and is it Thursday yet? Good night.

TRAVIS: We ridin'!