Critical Role - C2E51 Xhorhas

Episode Date: February 15, 2019

The Mighty Nein safely make it to Xhorhas, but find more danger than they could have imagined in this new country...Watch Critical Role live Thursdays at 7pm PT on https://www.twitch.tv/criticalrole

Once upon a time, a group of curious storytellers breathed life into epic tales set in the wide fantasy world of Exandria. This is Liam O'Brien, here to welcome you to Critical Role. We'll dive into the story in just a moment, but first, a few notes. This is the audio-only version of our broadcast that streams Thursdays at 7pm Pacificm. Pacific over on twitch.tv slash criticalrole and youtube.com slash criticalrole. If you subscribe to our Twitch channel, you can watch the video on demand immediately after the broadcast.

And it's also available Mondays at 12 p.m. Pacific on YouTube. And of course, for all you wonderful podcast listeners, freshly minted episodes release right here on the Critical Role Podcast Network one week after our broadcast on Thursdays. With all that said, let's get into the story. Hello, everyone, and welcome to tonight's special Valentine's Day episode of Critical Role where a bunch of us nerdy-ass voice actors sit around and play Dungeons and Dragons and invite you to spend it with us. So thank you for joining us on this Thursday.

For those of you that are watching it with your loved one, thank you here for spending it with our loved ones. And those of you who are spending it with us as your date, well, we'll see how the night continues. We're about to romance the shit out of you. Damn right. Hopefully we're on TVs at Chili's and Applebee's all across the country. I mean, that's the goal in general, I think, yeah.

Anyway, before we get started with tonight's episode, we have some quick announcements to get through. First and foremost, our fantastic returning sponsor and friend of the show since the beginning of this campaign, D&D Beyond. D&D Beyond. Guys, it's Valentine's Day, and romance is in the air. For me, there's no one I love more than myself.

But a close second is our good friends at D&D Beyond. They're the real target of Cupid's arrow, and so I've written them a Valentine's Day poem that I hope will set the mood for all of you young lovebirds out there. Guys, hit the music. Oh no! Mi amor, your fiery interface makes a player weep. It's why I advertise my love for you every week. You know me deep down, your perception isn't passive.

When you're near, my heart is throbbing and massive. Your stats are maxed out, Chica, you have it all. Everything on you is a 20 and it's always natural. Tonight let's roll a six and nine near the stars above. I know one skill you're proficient at, making love. Before I go, before I go. Your burning hands, your shocking grasp foreplay. I must hold my action or I might color spray.

But do not worry. I'll expeditiously retreat to the bathroom. Pop a little blue goodberry. Regenerate for round two. No need to be stealthy. You always get me screaming. Your finger of death makes me cry out. Nope, can't say that while we're streaming.

I will click open your app or a glass of Zinfandel because there's no save that can block your spell. Tonight, you're Renee Zellweger and I'm Cullen Firth. You control my tiny servant. Did we just move Earth? Ours is a passion that can never be unzipped. It's as eternal as your sweet, sweet sponsorship. You make my soul feel lawful good, it's true,

and tonight I want to roll my dice all over you. One more. We ran out of music. Oh, okay. One more, Stemza. We ran out of music. One more stanza. On your iPad, please keep my heart, stats, and treasure, and D&D beyond, I promise. I'll subscribe to you forever. Oh!

Yes! So pregnant right now. Wow. Wow. Wow, wow. Yeah, ow. But also, they wanted me to say that they have a new Discord server

where the community can gather to talk about things, all things Dungeons & Dragons. Check it out at dndbeyond.com slash Discord. Discord. Discord. Thank you very much, Samuel. Wow, there are a number of spells I will never be able to think of the right way again. Yeah.

I cast Cut. Culler's Spray. Yeah. So, thank you, Sam, and thank you, D&D Beyond. As a heads up, our next episode between the sheets featuring our friend, artist, Sam, and thank you, D&D Beyond. As a heads up, our next episode between the sheets featuring our friend, artist, producer, and guest in the last campaign of Critical Role, Noelle Stevenson.

She's incredible just as a person and as a talent, and we're super excited to have her. Her episode is next Monday at 7 p.m. Pacific here at twitch.tv slash Critical Role, so look for that on Monday. Your interview is so good. It's so good. She's so wonderful.

Yeah. Heart music, other heart music. Yeah, competing heart music. Also, as a reminder, we'll be heading out to Seattle next month for Emerald City Comic Con. Super stoked for that. Tickets for autographs and photo ops are still available. You can go to our website at critrole.com slash events for all the details on how to get that rolling.

Also, Sam's going to be on pub draw. Apparently there's a show on our channel called Pub Draw. You are going to draw? I'm going to be taught how to draw, and simultaneously I me work before. And simultaneously, I'll watch the show for the first time. I don't know if it's smart. I feel like Vab's going to need to work with that. Do we test her with someone like Sam already? We don't want to warm her up with someone a little better?

Well, she managed Laura in avoiding drawing penises. I only drew two penises. It was pretty good. Okay. I remember Sam's campaign one contributions, and boy, there's something. Yeah. Simple. Simple geometry. Perfect.

Well, I'm looking forward to that. Laura, do you have some merch updates you want to talk about? Yes! Oh, well, you know, our amazing art prints and stuff that are in the store, like right now, they're pre-order, they're still there for pre-order. And they're going to be there until next week. I think at, yes, 1159 PM on February 21st.

Pacific time. So ominous. So you've got a whole other week to put that order in, and you can get to them on our shop. These are unsigned posters, these are signed posters. Yes, yes, we have both versions available. They're beautiful. They really are amazing. Shop.critroll.com or shopcritroll.co.uk

if you are across the pond. And also, you know, there's also like t-shirts and stuff. They were kind of restocked, so some other stuff might be in the store right now. Yay! Brilliant. Thank you, Laura. God, I am so bad at announcing. I disagree.

I really, really enjoy it. It is adorable. It's real pretty. Thanks, guys. No worries. Hot. Before we jump into... I've gotten a little crafty on my free time recently. My little bursts, I've shown a few of you, but because keeping track of potions

is always a pain in the ass. I thought about this, yeah. And I've seen some people have tweeted out different variations they've done for physically healing potions. So I went and got some red resin. I love it. And I made some healing potions.

I got some red D20s with d4s in there. So when we're doing the intro, I'll go ahead and pass these out to you guys. I made in here, I got some greater healing potions and just regular healing potions. It doesn't have any greater, right? Not yet. I have a potion of healing. I'm not sure, I might have a greater.

I'm not sure. We'll figure it out and I'll distribute these. I want them all. But yeah, I figure that's all we have to say at the moment. That being the case, let's go ahead and jump in to tonight's episode of Critical Role. How do you play the animal? Roll! Critical! Critical! Roll! Critical! Critical! The adventure begins They were always beside you

Your nerdy best friends and the DM to guide you And they rise from the flames for the battles ahead Villains beware cause you're about to be dead They got magic and flair They got fountains and cunning They don't see over there There's a monster incoming Inspiration is waiting Rise up, don't think twice

Put your fate in your hands Take a chance, roll the dice Roll the dice Roll the dice Roll the dice Roll the dice Can you answer the call? Roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, Welcome back. So, last we left off, the Mighty Nein had discovered that an important individual

in the past history of Not the Brave, the husband from a previous life, it seems, An important individual in the past history of Not the Brave, the husband from a previous life, it seems, had gotten wrapped up in some of the chaos and the conflict between the Empire and the Kryn Dynasty. There was an attack on Felderwin in the tillage, and it seems that this individual was taken eastward towards Xhorhas.

You manage to find the collapsed tunnel that they had used to surprise Felderwin, tunneled your way through that barrier, and then continued to follow this pathway back eastward to pursue where they may have taken him. While you've gone through skirting the top of the Underdark of Wildemount, you manage to come in contact and save yourself

from a battle with a couple of ropers amongst the caverns below. You found yourself suddenly in the center of a network of kobold tunnels, and in doing so, talked your way out of a possible conflict, made a new friend and an ally named Spurt, who was a nice and excitable inventor who wanted to show you the way through the tunnels, here towards the end of his life, it seemed.

11 days! Adopted me. And found that the tunnels seemed to intersect with some sort of an underground fire giant citadel beneath the Ashkeeper Peaks, of which Spurt rushed out, attacked one of the bees, telling it, you die, and then got smashed immediately by a hammer. No longer having to worry about Spurt's well-being,

you then focused on yours in seeing that this open courtyard on the outside, the outskirts of this citadel, an open chamber with a river of magma running through it and a bridge where two giant fire giants were watching, you all hatched a plan to get past without being noticed, which almost worked out perfectly, except for one fateful, terrible stealth roll. In the chaos, the bridge was destroyed,

Nott was knocked out of invisibility, had fallen into the lava, caught fire, and was dying. Beauregard reaching into the flames and pulling Nott's body from the fire. You manage to rush out of the chamber, you closing the door behind and sealing it with stone, and in this one moment, as you begin to rush down this small hallway, hearing the slamming of the hammer

behind you, trying to break its way into the tunnel where you've all escaped. You continue charging into the darkness ahead. So happy Valentine's Day, I guess? Happy Valentine's Day, yeah. Yay! That's a four. It's a mighty nine.

I will, I'm off. As you, Beauregard, are clutching the now-conscious, though very burned knot in your arms. You guys are starting to hear the aggressive slams of the fire giants dissipate behind you. Eventually, you hear the stone break, but based on the size of the chamber, there's little chance to be able to come after you

at the speed that you're traveling. So about an hour of travel, you take a moment to catch your breath or so. What would you like to do? Well, it's time to you. Ah! Start to pat, pat, pat ya. Pat me. Burns.

Pat my burns. What do we do? You two, this doesn't do anything. No, no, no, he's right. Whenever there's a severe burn, you pat the wound. You smack it. You smack it. You take your bare hand and place it on the wound. I do, I have here. I'm going to.

I would save that potion. Your filthy hand, place it on my exposed skin. Why are you going to use it right away? I know it's really cool looking, but seriously, I have spells. What, you mean this thing? Yeah, don't use that. It's so cool!

Don't use that just yet. I'm going to cast it. You know nobody's doing anything, so maybe. I'm casting Good Will. Oh my god. I'm going to see if I have it at second level. I do, I'm going to cast it at second level. You're doing okay, though, right?

I'm alive. What are you at? Point of order, DM. In the last game, because I forget things, I thought I had three level four spells, but I only had two, and I cast three times, so what I'd like to do is just burn my third level slots entirely

for whatever happens. Sure, there you go. What time is it right now? When is it time to sleep? Self-flagellation. Whenever we want to, we're underground. Well, I mean. 13 points of chaos. What I'm saying is, are we starting to get tired or not?

I think we would all appreciate rest of any variety after those. Oh, I shouldn't have used my healing then if we're just going to rest. That's stupid, I'm so dumb. Well, it helped me. You never know what you're going to find. Thank you. We haven't put up a dome or nothing.

I would have thought we would have kept going. Yeah. We should keep going. For a little while. Yeah, let's pull one more healing. All right. Anybody else hurting? How are you, Fjord?

You got hit, too, didn't you? Yeah, I think I got bit by a cow, actually. Oh, that's right. Yep. I could use a little loving. Was it a bad bite? Fucking teeth, man, yeah, cows are shitty. All they do is chew all day. But that's flat teeth for grinding.

Yeah, but the pressure, right? That is a big skull, if you think about it, per square inch, it's a motherfucker, I mean, yeah. If we've got a second, I can cast Prayer of Healing and do a little bit of... I don't know if I have that one up yet. No, it's cool, yeah, just heal. I'll do Prayer of, if we have ten minutes,

if we're going to take a quick breather, I'll cast Prayer of Healing. Okay, just go ahead and roll up your Prayer of Healing. Yeah, where am I? Here we are. That's a... Just cow bit, no big deal. Just a little cow bite. I mean, we've all been bitten by cows before, haven't we?

You have a really cool stage bruise. That's 16 hip points to whoever wants it. Hey! 16. 16 to anybody. I'll take it. 16. All right.

Almost there, almost. Up to full. Thank you. Good, Daisy. Good job, Caduceus. No problem. So we're pushing on, we're not going back to explore the Black Citadel of Mystery and Darkness? I don't know how we would get over there

with all the giants and stuff. That seemed pretty far, but it was interesting. Hey, Caleb. Do you have any extra arm wraps? Seems mine evaporated in the lava. Not the braces, though, are good yet? No, braces are good yet. No, braces are good.

They're a little janky on my wrists now, though. I do, actually. Brad, perhaps you're kind of padding them out. I have enough for three sets of arms. Are they clean? Yeah. Yeah, okay. Okay. He should smell them first.

How long have we known each other for? They smell all right. Yeah, a while. Do I still smell? No, no, no, but you know, things that are on your hands for a while, if they're real tight and stuff, they can smell. Yeah, they smell like vinegar after a bit.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, it has like a weird. Those were in my bag. Balsamic. Oh, well that's good then. Balsamic. Mm-hmm. I just go and smell Caleb's hand. Make a constitution saving throw. You're just a tunnel. No. 19 plus whatever.

You're fine. That's great. It means you're on fire on a regular basis. Yeah, right. It should be fucking tearing it free. It's like a hint of mesquite. Yeah, like a campfire. I like it. Does the tunnel that we're in now, now that like a campfire, I like it. Oh, you. Does the tunnel that we're in now, now that we're on the other side of this shit show,

appear the same as it did the previous version? It does. Which at this moment, it's still really warm. From the running, the activity, and just the general heat of the surrounding rock, now knowing the volcanic activity that runs parallel, or at least in the vicinity of these chambers,

you're all sweating pretty profusely, and it's uncomfortable. But the tunnel itself still continues onward, the same 10-foot diameter cylindrical tube. You can see there are still occasional bits of broken obsidian and

other types of porous volcanic rock that are broken and were torn through as part of the burrowing of this worm entity. You can see still some of the tracks of the various Kryn soldiers falling behind it, so you're on the right track still. Good to push on until our wizard tells us what time it is asleep. Sure. What time is it? Did you already sleep. Sure. What time is it? Did you already check, think? What time is it?

I don't remember. Reality was two weeks ago. I would say at this moment, mid-afternoon. Hey, she asked, man. I know, oh, I know. It's been two weeks for me, too. Would you say it's 420-ish?

Sure. Great. Nice. weeks for me, too. Would you say it's 420-ish? Sure. Great. Nice. Nice. Do the tracks on the ground, do they look fresh? Do they look like they've been there for a while? Is it hard to say? Make an investigation check. Natural 19 for a 24. Nice.

That was the nerdiest I've ever heard you say out loud saying it never hurts. Natural 19. They seem to be a little over a week or so. There isn't a lot of weather that transpires. There's not a lot of wind or things that can brush aside or eventually cast away these tracks. So it's hard to really tell the specifics,

but based on the travel, the speed that they seem to be going and how long ago this transpired together, they're probably a little over a week old. Okay. Nice. No flash floods down here. We push on. No! floods down here. We push on. No.

I start here. Yes. All right. Continuing on for the next few hours, who's holding front watch? Are we keeping with the same order as last time? I'll watch. I will, too!

Yeah, me and you not. All right. Our keen eyes will see everything. I'll keep towards the back, keep an eye on what's behind us. Okay, I'd like you both to make perception checks, please. 16.

21. Very nice, okay. Traversing for the next few hours, the tunnel begins to slowly come to an incline. For as much as it's been steadily delving, it's slowly beginning to curve in an upward fashion. The temperature begins to subside a bit. The warmth begins to become a little more comfortable

by comparison. A few more hours of travel and eventually you find yourselves getting a bit tired. The exhaustion of the day's activities and the perpetual travel through this tunnel beginning to catch up to you. You can continue to press on if you'd like, or you could attempt to bed down for the night.

I think we should bed down. Okay. Another healing spell before we go to sleep, just to top everybody as close off as possible. I can send another message to Yez if you want me to. Didn't you do that once today already? I can do it again. Okay.

But last time, didn't he say that he was in a place where he couldn't talk? Yeah, but maybe he's moved. You know, we've been traveling for like eight or 10 hours or something, Caleb would know, but something wrong. Also, you could ask, wouldn't you, yes or no questions and have him cough or sneeze? Cough once or yes. Yeah, but that's real, okay.

What should I ask? I'll say cough once for yes, cough twice for no. That's already so many words, though. Are you moving, I guess say cough once for, yes, cough twice for no. That's already so many words, though. Are you moving, I guess, would be a, are you still in the same place? Any landmarks, maybe? No, that's not a cough question. I don't think there's a yes or a.

Yes, there are landmarks. Shit. Describe them in coughs. Are they moving you? Cough once for, yeah. Twice for now. Okay. Okay.

Okay, I'm going to try that. This is weird. Okay. I'm undercast standing. Or just speak, if you can speak. Right. Well, I figure he'll do that. He'll do that, he'll probably do that.

25 hit points to anyone who wants it. All the way up. Sweet. That's beautiful, okay. Okay, I'm going to cast Sending. All right, and you're sending it to Yeza, okay. Hi. Kav, once for yes, twice for a no. Are they moving you?

Are you safe? Two questions? No! No! No! If he coughs twice, is that two yeses? No! If he coughs three times? What if he coughs five times? Is two yeses? No! Like if he coughs three times.

What if he coughs five times? Is the first one a yes or the last one a yes? I love the panic, so you fixed it with a second question. Should've just said it. Well, I mean, you have to use the whole message, I guess. Yeah, you have to use all the words. Otherwise, it's like,

oh, I don't know. So there's a long pause. The other one now starts like, Oh no! So there's a long pause. You can almost hear Yissa going, Oh god. Oh. Was it one yes or two yes? Jesus, it's only her husband. One, two, three.

Is two yes or two? They're not moving him. Okay, okay. And I asked, what was the second question? Are you safe? And he said yes! That's right. They're not moving him, and he's safe!

That's good, this is the best it could have possibly gone. Totally. Was that once for yes or twice? Yeah that once for yes or twice for no? Yeah, once for yes, twice for no. Two times he said he's not moving, one time he said that he's safe. Was it are they moving you, or did you move?

I said are they moving you. Okay, I don't remember. Okay, I can do it one more time. I can send him another message. What should I ask him? I don't know. Well, because he doesn't know where he is. Right.

Maybe if he's surrounded by a bunch of people. Like, are we walking into an ambush? I'm always watching you. Oh. Always watching you? That's really good. Okay, okay, okay, okay, okay. Or like, cough for how many people are watching you, maybe. that's really good. Okay, okay, okay, okay, okay. Or cough for how many people are watching you, maybe. That's really smart.

Okay, I'm going to send it again. I'll basically carry it out. Oh, wow. That's going to be so good. Just remember, you can cut it short. You don't have to fill all 25 words. I think you have to say it all or else the spell doesn't work. She is a magic user. I know these things. I'm the have to say it all or else the spell doesn't work.

She is a magic user. I know these things. I'm not the only one, it's okay. Do you cast Sending? Did you want to send a message to Yeza? Yeah, I'll do it. Can you do it? Yeah, you want me to do it?

Yeah. All right. Yeza, cough for the number of people that are around you. You can't reply to this message. Nobody's there? You're a dick. What? I don't believe him. Really? I'm going to cast Sending.

Okay. Just ask if Fjord was bullshitting or not. Okay. Okay, I'm going to say, Don't tell anyone else about it. Don't say that? Okay. Hi again. Hey, can you call for how many people are watching you? That's all?

This is Jester signing off. You know, Fjord's got a good point. Anyone who has any... Three people, three people are watching him. Three people? We can kill three people, that's fine. Sure, sure, yes. What? Depends on how the three people are, but yeah. Oh, that's fine. Sure, sure. Yes. What? Depends on how the three people are, but yeah. Oh, that's true.

Yeah, it's like three more fire giants. Uh, Queen Trouble. Or like three wizards. Let's think optimistically, since it's the love of my life, and think that it's someone that we can defeat. It's probably like three lazy guards. Thank you. Watching prisoners that they think

are not going to be able to escape. Underfed, underpaid, lazy, irresponsible, right? I mean, they get the shit duty, right? I mean, don't trust them with protecting or any of that. No, well, my husband's actually pretty important, so I wouldn't, I mean. Didn't you say he's not a fighter, though?

So probably not a very violent. I think they would put someone on him who's pretty capable. I mean, he's a very smart man, and even though he's not a fighter, let's say they're mid-level, all right? Yeah. Mid to high. Sure.

But we can definitely, definitely. Takeable. Yeah, we're waste- But not so low that it's an insult. Talk for a while, I'm going to put up the dome. Okay. Are we bribing these people? Is that the take? Yeah. Sure.

Or we're killing them. We're probably going to kill them. All options are on the table. Wow. Kill them. All right, so you guys are setting up a campsite here, utilizing your dome as well? What does the surrounding passage look like where we are? Is it rough, Huon?

It's the same burrowed pathway you've been following most of this journey. Yeah, at this point, you've been following almost exclusively the burrowed trail of this worm creature as it's tore through the subsidian, subterranean portion of the Ashkeeper Peaks. But where you are right now, the amounts of volcanic rock seems to have dwindled

as the tunnel begins to curve itself in an upward incline. Do we want to do the same little trick, you and I? Yeah, we can. Let me take a look at that. I have that somewhere. Yeah, I can do that. So you dig a little bit to the side and I will throw up the dome.

I'll make a little bit of room, use it to cover us. Okay. You guys all curl up for the evening's rest, exhausted, sweaty, and looking forward to a number of hours where you don't have your mind bent on whatever dark space you've thrust yourself into this past week. Yes?

I will also spend an hour bringing my cat back. Okay. You go ahead and bring Frumpkin back. Does anyone want to keep watch, or are you all feeling pretty comfy to sleep within the dome? I will take first watch. All righty.

So while the rest of you are resting, Fjord, go ahead and make a perception check for me, please. 12. Okay. As the evening progresses, whether it be the proximity to the subterranean region of this mountain, or the fact that you are rising up from the portions of the tunnel

that seem to skirt the Underdark, nothing seems to find its way to you that's a bother. Uneventful evening for the watch that you take. Anybody take a second to watch? I'll take a second to watch. I will stay up as well. All right. The two of you go make perception checks

while Fjord goes ahead and finishes out the evening's rest. 22. Ooh, 10. Very nice. As the evening progresses, you're confident in the lull of activity this tunnel seems to bring. You do catch a shift of movement

or a shift in texture along the roof of this tunnel. As you look up, you can see there's some sort of a creature, larger than most of you, that takes up the upper half of this tunnel. Heavy, dark shell, almost turtle-like, but you see these extended arms that end in these hooks. As it crawls its way across the ceiling, its shell almost scrapes the top of the dome.

Oh my gosh. I'm drawing, I'm drawing in the sketchbook. Okay. It doesn't seem to pay any mind to the dome and just continues scrambling past further down the tunnel. You saw something that looked like that? Yeah, yeah, yeah, it was crossed right overhead of us.

I don't like that. Have you ever seen anything like that before? I draw googly eyes on it. That makes it a little more palatable. Yeah, it's not as scary anymore, huh? It's kind of cute now. Are you awake? Oh, awake, no.

I thought this was morning. Oh, yeah. Both thought this was morning. Yeah, a little bit. Both talking in her sleep. I used Thaumaturgy to make it sound like the nice sound of rainfall, so that Beau will be able to go back to sleep. Oh, a generator. Now that's a good use of a cantrip.

Other than that, the evening's an eventful, but you did watch this hooked-arm, beaked creature crawl its way past you and make its way deeper in towards the mountain base. Caleb, I don't really think that you're stinky, just so you know. I mean, I did, but I don't anymore. You don't smell bad.

You should know. You can keep the running gag going, if you like. Only if it, you know, doesn't make you uncomfortable. No, it made me uncomfortable at first, but now I know you pretty well, so it's fine. Okay, good. Plus, it was hot back there, so now these do kind of, I was sweating.

Yeah, I can't smell your armpits. I'm going to, there's nothing to hide now, so I will put those away. All right, the rest of your watch goes without issue. The rest of you come to consciousness and long rest completed, so you can mark that for your characters.

Healed and recovered. Continuing your journey. I think, I'm sorry, I think, because I didn't think we would go right to sleep, so instead of taking out third levels, I'm just going to cross off one fourth level for the next chunk of time. Okay.

Why are you doing this? I used too many powerful spells last game. Liam likes to punish himself. We all know this by now. How did you know he did that? He brings balance to the thing. Well, there's this thing called the internet. Oh, you know.

They point out things that you can't call. Sometimes. Sometimes. Sometimes. Just ignore that thing. It's way more fun. Does anybody want one of these chocolates? They're very good. Yes, I do.

Happy Valentine's Day. Good catch. Wow. I bet that looked really good on the split screen. Okay. You caught that manly. She threw it right to my face. I know, but it just looked so studly, the way you caught it.

Yeah. You okay, Sam? Need a moment? I have a little bit of a boner. Happy Valentine's Day. Happy Valentine's Day! So, coming to consciousness, gathering yourselves. Yes. The journey continues. Where's the candy?

I don't know where the candy is. What the fuck? All right, we lost Laura. Yeah, let's go. Keep going, Matt, keep going. Oh, and it's all back! That's dangerous. Do you want some? No, I'm good.

I'm just a dragon. He's been stuck. Okay, yeah. Snacks! Snacks! Pushing onward. Just as slick as your husband. A few more hours pass as the tunnel begins to curve to more and more of a steep incline

until you begin to notice the stonework becomes looser. The solid earth that most of this tunnel previously was begins to be broken up with looser rock and elements of the tunnel that were not as stable as they previously were. Eventually, you get to a point where you're no longer hiking and walking. and elements of the tunnel that were not as stable as they previously were. And eventually you get to a point where you're no longer hiking and walking.

You're having to hand over foot climb up. It's almost becoming a vertical tunnel. Oh, that's not good. That sucks. So to continue, I would like the entire party, Yasha included, to make an athletics check, please. Can Nugget just blink? Blink, blink, blink as he climbs?

He's probably pretty agile, huh? He's agile, but at a certain point, he's going to have to hold onto somebody because it's going to become vertical and dogs don't really have a good climbing grip. I wonder if Yasha can climb super well if, like... Let's also maybe tie rope, if we're going to be doing...

From one to the other? Yeah. So if one person falls, everybody falls. I like it. Thank you. We're a team. Is that what happens? I don't like that idea. Yeah, you kind of need to have an anchor point for that to work.

Yasha! You don't want her idea. Yeah, you need to have an anchor point for that to work. Yasha! You don't want her to be the anchor point. I'm going to hook Nugget. I'm going to take my cloak off. I'm going to tuck, sprinkle into my shirt. Then I'm going to bring my cloak around Nugget and hook it around my shoulder so that he's like a messenger bag on me.

Okay, yeah, a bling thug messenger bag. Yeah, and then I'm going to cut. I'll analyze the dog's confused. He likes it. He seems confused, and he likes it. All right, so going across, we have? Yasha got a 14. All right. Fjord got an eight.

All right. 10. 11, 10. Zex for Valentine's. 16. All right. Fjord got an eight. All right. 10. Zex for Valentine's. 16. Oh no. An eight. An 18. Okay.

I mean, it doesn't go completely vertical, but it goes at a very steep incline. This is like End of the Descent-type incline. And rocks are pulling out with your grasp and you have to catch yourself and they tumble down and you hear them clatter down behind you into the dark. You begin to look up and you can see light. A little point of light in the direction

you're beginning to climb suddenly begin to come into view from underneath the curving roof. It's tiny? Please don't be a privy. It's a pooper. Little people. You're not quite sure the distance of it, so you're not sure the size of it, but you just see a point of light.

Are we going to come out and we're going to be amongst all of the bad guys? I don't know, yeah. Maybe, or maybe it's just a forest. We don't know. Oh my gosh! Oh my god! Are you leading the charge? No, I'm just making efforts, because it's hard.

I'm probably, I'll take the front with somebody. Yeah, Yasha and Caduceus will do it. Okay, cool, who's after them? I will go right behind them. Okay, so everyone behind Caleb. Caleb, making your way up. You know, the wraps, have you re-wrapped yourself? No. Yeah.

Nothing to hide anymore. Which is unfortunate, because the texture does add to a bit of the grip that you're used to having in some circumstances, combined with just the general sweat and the exertion, being not the most athletic member of the group, you reach forward and grab a stone that just dislodges, and you drop it and reach out for another one.

That one dislodges, too, and you reach out and grab the side, and your fingers just hit loose gravel. You scrape back, and the rest of you behind look up and watch Caleb go, and begin to fall in your direction. Free fall? Should I try to catch him? Unfortunately, you're a little bit too further away. You and Caduceus are up ahead of him.

Oh no, I was not ahead, I was behind Caleb. It was Yasha and Caduceus. Oh, that's right, Yasha, sorry. And you know what, yes, I'll let you try that. Okay. Go ahead and make a strength check to try and grab and hold on. But can I ask, oh, to catch me

from not even falling at all? Like, catch you from falling, Folly? Mm-hmm. What the hell is that? It's a cocked twinning. It's a cocked twinning. It's a cocked twinning. It's cocked. Roll again.

Cocked twinning. 12. 12. You manage to catch Caleb by the scruff of the coat and pull back. Your hand begins to come loose. Nugget-like stamina. Reach out and grab on another piece of stone You get a rough of the coat and pull back. Your hand begins to come loose. Nugget-like standpoint.

You reach out and grab on another piece of stone and you feel your fingernails grind and snap, but you just barely manage to hold on. Somebody's going to have to support, or they're both going to go down here. No! So below them, who's going to go ahead and help? Yeah, I'll reach out and try and help.

I'll make an arm brace with Fjord on the other side. Yeah, yeah, hold on. Yeah, I'll rage out and try and help. I'll make an arm brace with Fjord on the other side. Yeah, yeah, close one. Yeah, close one. Stupid! Okay. You take a moment to right yourselves and get back into a steady position, eventually getting Caleb back on the trail.

Right next to me. You continue, but the DC is jumping with each pass now, especially as the exhaustion kicks in. So continuing the path, I'd like everyone to make another athletics check, please. Oh god. Crit the knight. Nope.

Better. Yasha rolled a 20. Fjord rolled a 17. Okay. 19. Okay. 10. 13?

Eight. 13. Okay. 19. Okay. 10. Okay. 13? Eight. 13. Okay. You. Everyone. Yeah, no, no. The DC went up to a 12.

Oh, so just me and you? So two failures that stole most successes. So you continue up, and the light gets brighter and closer. The color is, it's hard to make out a color most successes. So you continue up and the light gets brighter and closer. Okay. The color is, it's hard to make out a color because it looks just like white, but it's not super bright. But it would be like a dull daylight.

And you get the sense that this may indeed be an approaching exit. I would like one third and final group athletics check, please. I have a question. Yes. If, on the wall, if we were to look down, about how far down would we fall if we were to fall at this point?

If we had to guess. How far does your darkvision go? 60 feet. Okay. Well, it just goes past your 60 feet. Tumbling down, it's not a complete fall. It's not, it would be a Homer Simpson down the side of the cliff. Yeah, yeah, basically.

With stone and obsidian. Yeah, it would be a few hundred feet. Okay. Ooh! Yeah. Good, good, good, good. Let's roll this shit. So let's go ahead and roll your final group of athletics.

Oh! Danced on 19 and I went to three. Oh no. All right, so. Yasha rolled a 25. Great. Fjord rolled a five. Okay. 22. Okay.

Fear. All right. 20. Okay. 20. Okay. Fear. All right. 20. Okay. 20. Okay. 10. You guys just pulled off more successes than failures on that. Okay.

There were some shaky moments where a few of the party begin to bow back from the wall and you hear the beginnings of the from different people and the rest of you who are sure in this climb reach out to support and push them. So it's a slow climb. It takes a while, and once again,

the temperature is colder now, more so than just the general underground feel, and there's a bit of air starting to catch to you as the opening gets to approach you, 100 feet, 50 feet, 30 feet. It's causing the sweat on your brow to feel really cold and freezing against your skin until eventually, as you're near the front, as is Yasha,

what would you guys like to do as you approach the exit? I cast Pass Without a Trace as we get close. Okay. I'm very carefully going to scan the surroundings, listen for any noise. I'm going to just slowly make my way up. Okay. I will also look for any marks of climbing devices,

ropes, anything man-made or not man-made, but just not natural near the top of this opening. All right. Yasha will. Okay. You do see what looks to be two semi-rusted, I'm going to say not terribly rusted, but just the very beginning stages of rust, iron pitons that are driven into the tops of this.

You can see what looks to be a portion of rope that was tied to it that has since been severed. There's just some dangling threads at the edge of that. We can use that. I'm not going to do that. No. I thought you said that. It's from what? I don't know. We can use that. I'm sorry going to do that. No. I don't know.

I'm sorry, if you're being rude, then yeah. Caduceus is listening intently. He is just barely hearing Caleb mouth the words to the Feather Fall spell like an actor running lines, which he's been doing for the last 30 minutes. Sure. Are you just listening? I'm slowly creeping up and listening and just taking in everything.

Okay. As your eyes adjust and you listen out, you can hear wind hitting bits of sand and dust occasionally. The temperature is chilled. It is a cloudy sky, a familiar sky. It is the same sky that is in proximity to the Empire. Gray, might rain in the next day or two. As you glance over the edge, you can see you're on this subtle grade. To your left as you look up, you can see the ominous rising peaks of the Ashkeeper Mountains,

the Ashkeeper Peaks themselves. You can see that you are at the base of where the mountains begin to slowly grade into the wastes, which you see to your right. There are dead trees, whether it be they themselves are the rift of life or they've lost their leaves to the season, you're not familiar with this territory to know yet.

You can see clusters of rock and stone and areas where whatever force created these mountains has caused bits of it to jut outward, causing small cliff faces and stone protrusions that mar the base of the mountain scape here before you. You can see where strange types of roots and small bushes have tried to affix themselves to the edges of these stones and then have dried up

as the wastes themselves go through the dark and ashen seasons. Looking beyond that, you can see the open valley below and before you, a dry, cracked Badlands with hints of scrub brush and other types of hardy vegetation that has managed to find a life here. Would you roll perception again? I didn't roll perception. Oh, sorry, it's just you're taking into scene.

Now roll perception. All right. Is Cat up there solo with this one? Have you seen something like that? With Yasha. 18. 18, okay. You do see in the distance in the valley

a few shapes far away, far past the mountain range. It looks to be very, very large creatures of some kind just stalking slowly across, far away, like miles away. Does Yasha recognize them? Yasha doesn't see this yet. Okay. Yasha is just picking up. Go ahead and roll a away. Does Yasha recognize them? Yasha doesn't see this yet. Okay. Yasha is just peeking up.

Go ahead and roll a perception check for Yasha. Yeah, I was going to say, any other signs of beast nor man, life or technology? A natural, a 20. Really? Mm-hmm. 60 CR dice.

Ooh, him too. Yasha does look up and see that as well. It's probably best to avoid those. They can bear quite a bit of meat, but they're a bit of a tussle. I don't know if you think so. I think, are we safe? Can we bring everybody up? I mean, it's either that or stay inside.

I've missed this guy. I think we can come up, everybody. Just be careful. Is there any cover nearby once we poke our head out up there that you can see? This doesn't seem to be much of a coverage territory. Okay. Anything in the skies? Clouds.

You can see what looks to be a few hawks, maybe birds of prey, but nothing at the moment that catches your attention. This never stopped being the Worm's Path, yeah? No. Are there any signs of where the worm went across this open land? Did you climb out?

I thought we all were. All right, so you all climb out. Scott and I'll be here. Sure. All right. Go ahead and make a survival check to see if you can locate the tracks here. Been rolling real well tonight.

Unfortunately, as opposed to soft dirt, most of the mountainscape here is hard rock and dust, and it doesn't look like there's any sign of tracks or pressure or shifting that would give you an idea of where it went. However, it does look like it gradually rounds out as it exits, and this seems to be pretty easy to gather. This is the exit point. Whatever troop it is that had made this incursion

on Felderwin, this was their exit point. You look around you. This is Xhorhas. Welcome to the eastern side and eastern Wynandir. Welcome to Xhorhasek Park. Oh fuck. What was that Discordian mess? Jeez.

We all jumped into different parts of the score. Bah bah bah bah bah bah bah bah bah bah bah bah. SAM and LAURA, SAM and LAURA, SAM and LAURA, Ah, thought we had that one. Talking to Yasha, is this what you're accustomed to from home? I mean, yes. I'm not from this area, specifically. But this is, these are the Wastes.

I think you are our guide, all the same. Well, I will do my best. She just keeps her weapon at the ready. You can see there are some five, ten-foot pieces of stone, stacks worth pieces of the mountain have either come free and come to rest here at the base that offer a little bit of cover from immediate views of anything in the distance.

Since you are keeping such close eye out there, you do notice that to the north of you, as you emerge, looking over the valley, to the west of where you're looking would be the north, or to your left would be north. So where you guys seem to have emerged here, somewhere in this area, you've come out this side of the mountains

and looking northward, you can make out shapes of other broken mountainous-like structures. You gather, through conversation, in the map that you have at your disposal, for them to be the Brokenvale Bluffs that surround and encompass the Brokenvale Marsh. There's a valley or gorge between the teeth-like bluffs,

and the Ashkeeper range is a strange thing visible to you. Amongst the open daylight gray sky, right there in that valley, is pitch night. What? That's where Bordrana is. there in that valley is pitch night. What? That's where Boredrowness is. Do we know that it's enveloped in darkness?

Yeah. From natural darkness? Mm-hmm. Yes. Go ahead and make a nature check. Why this is an intelligence-based thing is beyond me, but here we go. No, that's a one. I rolled a two, which means it's a one.

Okay. That's weird. So you have no idea where you are? It's fair. Or what that might be and what direction it could be. That's crazy. What is that thing? Didn't we hear that the darkness was expanding?

The darkness was always dark. I feel like we mentioned, we heard that the darkness was expanding. We heard that the darkness was always dark. I feel like we mentioned, we heard that the darkness was expanding somewhere. Like it kept. Yasha pipes in and goes, the Gordronis is further east. Oh really? That's not it?

No, this is right on the border of the Empire. That's promising. So No, this is right on the border of the Empire. That's promising. So whatever darkness is creeping farther than the capital? I suppose. Oh shit. Does it look localized, or does it look like it starts and then it's ever expanding? It looks localized.

It's like there's a strange sphere of shadow that is encompassing that entire valley in the center of the mountains. So a dome from our perspective, yeah? Well, how far away is it? You don't see necessarily a dome. What you see is the mountain and the cliffs and the ground around just goes into shadow.

It's a very strange. Like somebody erased this. Yeah, went over it with a marker. That's crazy. How many days walk is it from here, you think? From there, you'd probably guess it's somewhere, let me see here, from where you emerged, probably about two days.

Two days? To the darkness? Looking at the map and gather, the path of the Ashkeeper Peaks and where the Broken Veil Bluffs are, that gorge, that valley where you see that dark spot. Right here? Yep. It's the Ashguard Garrison.

As you begin to focus and look out there, you can see the texture within there that looked like a forest is not, because there are points of light in it. There are, you can just barely see at the very edge of the horizon before you get to that mountain range, what you can gather to be

tents, structures of some kind. Does it look like a military front? It's too far to see, but the last word you had. The last word you had was the Ashgard Garrison had fallen to the Kryn Dynasty and was currently held by them. And the Shohasian agent that we tussled within the sewers was able to make darkness on the spot,

so it is a tactic they're able to use. A whole bunch of them together could make a lot of darkness. We should get closer. As you guys are having this conversation. I love this. Oh, secrets! What, how are they secrets already? He didn't do anything.

He doesn't deserve this. D&D Beyond has a Discord. It does, D&D Beyond is great, I love them. But Laura, what are the artists' names who did those beautiful art prints? They are, if you can move your mouth, I'll say it. Okay.

Antonio Scalera. I'm going to really quickly, just for fun, I'm going to cast Blindness. What? Okay. On whom? A guy. A guy? What guy? Constitution save, 16. Natural 20.

He didn't. He what? The save? Natural 20 on the save, yeah. Who? Yeah, exactly. Did we see what Caduceus was doing? No. I was just casting a spell at somebody. You guys turn and look over,

and a little ways up, maybe 30, 40 feet from where you are, from what looks to be some sort of a cliff-like outcropping, maybe a small 10, 15-foot cliff, what looks to be a gray cloaked and hooded figure that's standing there with one hand up. One hand up like this, palm out? Palm out. Yasha, in your culture, does that mean

I'm going to kill you or please don't kill me? Yasha goes, in my culture, we just kill if need be. There's no pleasantries. I'm going to use Misty Step to bam, right to him. All right. That's cool. You peer right in front, and the figure flinches as you do,

and the hand instinctually goes for what looks to be probably going for a blade inside the cloak and holds it there. Who are you and what do you want? The figure reaches up and pulls the hood back a bit. You see what looks to see a bald human, big, bushy, black and gray beard. The face just covered with streaks of mud.

Looks to be a well-armored, studded leather figure. Looks to you with these very piercing blue-gray eyes, as taking your check and doesn't crumble under it, holds the line, and looks back at you and says, Hey, what's he doing out here? He don't look like soldiers. Why not? A rescue party.

Would you come in to rescue? A friend. What about you? Lonely place to be up on the side of a mountain all by yourself. I'll come, let's get out of the open at least. We're going to talk. You have others with you?

I do. How many? Sea whistles a little bit. And you see in the surrounding rocks above about ten other figures with similar gray cloaks all kind of just emerge. You can see many of them with short bows and long bows, arrows knocked, but not drawn yet. Oh, that's pretty cool.

I motion to the rest. Let's go. This way. Okay. Are they nice? Is it nice people? Is it the sand people? Is it the sand people?

Is it the sand people? He leads you off to an alcove, maybe 15, 20 feet off from where you guys emerged. There's a stone structure that curls around and gives this slight little pocket where you're, say, 60, 70% of you are covered by rock and not immediately visible, except for what's immediately in front of you

and further down the mountainside. It's a little wide space. He pulls you in as the rest of the other figures slowly duck back into their hiding spaces. All right, so I'm Colden. Is that with a C or with a K? It's with a K. Got it.

Colden. I'm the captain of the Muckmen, It's with a K. Got it. Ah. Called it. I'm the captain of the Muckmen, the small band of scouts and rangers you see here. We're out from Blade Garden. Oh. That means something to you? Blade Garden is right here. That means they're not from Xhorhas.

Ah, wow. They're on the other side of the peak. We scout along the Ash Keepers, one of many troops keeping an eye on enemy movements. You ship me wandering out here in a war zone, you know that, right? Indeed. You don't have a choice. We are far, far from home.

As I said, we're a rescue party. It's a matter of necessity, I'm afraid. As when you're Iskren, whereabouts are they? That we don't know. We think they're in Gordranas. Or maybe in that dark city over there, maybe? Ooh, you probably have a better time in Gordranas right now.

We're not looking for a Xhorhasian party. Did you happen to see any higher echelon-looking mage folk come through maybe a week or two ago? Maybe with a big worm. Purple worm, real big. We've seen a worm move through about a week and a half ago. Went far east, straight across the plain.

Towards that dark place? No, no, that's northward. This one eastward. So probably Cordramas, yeah. Is that towards Cordramas? As far as I know, that's... probably where it was headed. That would be the direction we're supposed to go.

What can you tell us of the war? Well, since the Ashguard was taken about a month, over a month ago, they've been holding it. We've had a few scuffles holding the line. There's been one attempted incursion at the rock guard garrison, and it's been kind of quiet, to an uncomfortable degree. After all this moss of violence and death, to just be holding the line makes me uncomfortable. It makes you wonder what they're waiting for. So that's what we've been doing,

and a few other troops just keeping an eye, taking a tally on what's being planned. You know what happened at the other end of this tunnel, or is word not traveled yet? I have an idea. Was this made by that word? Well, yeah. They dug into a town called Felduin and they raided it and took prisoners.

Hmm. I'll see if I can request a few more parties out here looking for this, if this is going to be their way of going past the boundaries of the Empire. that's a bad, bad thing. All right, well, I'm going to go ahead and gather the rest of them up, then. I'll see what we can do, maybe escort you back into the Empire.

Oh no. Oh, we're not going back. We're going to pursue the one that we're trying to rescue across the... Just the seven of you? You're welcome to join us. I'm not stupid, but thanks. What do you know about the area of darkness over there? Have you gone near-nit? Near-nit.

Near-nit. Far as I know, the Kryn have some sort of a spell that brings a consistent twilight. They tend to move best under the shadow. Sun doesn't really behoove them well, but it's a bit difficult if they're bringing the night with them wherever they go. Does it move with them, or does that area of darkness stay in one place?

As far as I know, since that darkness went up when they took the garrison, it's been there ever since. Embarrassing. Right, so we just go into the darkness, rid them of, you know, that spell, and we'll be lickety-split out of there, no problem. We're not going to the garrison, we're going to rescue Yeza.

I'm being sarcastic, Jester. But we will have to deal with this problem further into Xhorhas. Do you have any tips for a bunch of crazy assholes going into the enemy's country? Stay out of sight. In there's the Beastmen. There's all sorts of strange creatures that scour these wastes, looking for things that move,

things that feed. Don't wander too close into the marsh. Sneak points down and you can see now, and you caught this a little bit, but we're on the north side along this range, to the left of where you are, there's the bluffs in the Ashgard Garrison. To the right, the mountain range curves

around miles and miles down and meets what you can now see to be a large lake. There's this darkened bit of land around it that looks to be, could be a forest, but he points it out to be a marshland. It's as if, looking across the river, it's heading up that way, just be careful. Gets wide at some points,

gets a little thinner at others, but it's still crossing a river. What if there's anywhere to buy some horses or some such? I mean, unless you want to go and wander into one of the various Johassian towns and buy off a horse or three. Good luck. Everybody got to eat.

Anyway. The darkened area that we're not going to, what is it called? Is that Ashkar? That's the Ashkar. Okay. Well, if you're going to go off and be fools, that say to this land, do you need any supplies? Yes, of course, yes!

Just give us anything you have. Give us for free anything that you have. I would love that. That would be so nice of you. All right, I'll do it in a second. He walks off in the alcove and heads out into the space the rest of his muckmen are and steps up onto this one piece of stone and gives a little whistle to the rest of the troop.

They all stand up and he looks back to you and beckons for you to start to head over to where they are, at which point you see something go through the air, something shift real fast, and you watch him double over onto one knee, and you can see the edge of an arrow protruding from his chest. Who, our guy?

Oh shit. Get down! You see other numerous arrows begin to suddenly pelt the area where they've been congregating, and he immediately looks up in that direction. You don't quite see where they're coming from yet. He looks back to you and goes, God's curse them, stay out of sight!

I cast Cure Wounds on Golden. Oh, he's a ways away from you guys. He left the alcove and went up on a rock. Okay, okay, shit. Can we hide? Can we, are we still by the hole? You guys are still in the alcove right now, yes. Okay. And you hear

hitting rocks and smashing against them. You hear bolts and other things. Can we see where they're coming from? Make a perception check if you want to go look. Oh boy. Fuck. Oh, come on! That was so good, but it's nine.

All right. So. You don't see anything at the moment, partially because you're trying to also keep out of sight. You hear it, Caduceus, at first. This familiar growling, gibbering. SAM and LAURA laugh. Nose.

More nose? Oh, I hate them. Maybe you can't see the nose. At which point, those of you who are glancing around, you can see beyond them, there are a number of other groups of large stones where occasionally you see jumping up from behind these large humanoid furred knolls with long bows that are releasing

volley after volley towards them. You cannot really see the rest of the mukmen or the state that things are in right now, but they're returning fire left and right. Are you guys staying put guys staying out of sight? You don't seem to have caught their attention. No, we're fucking engaging these fucking things. We don't even know which direction they're coming from.

Or how many there are. Can we see where they're coming from? Do we have any sense of where these, how far away they are? You've seen a few of them around what looks to be maybe 50 or 60 feet away from around one section of stone. What are Calden's men doing?

Are they breaking to move and take off, or are they hunkering down and trying to? Right now, you cannot see from this alcove. If you want to try and look out and make a perception check to keep an eye, you can. All right. Because we were alone with Calden in here, didn't his troops sink back into their hiding spots?

They did, and then he whistled to call them up from their places when you guys were about to engage for trade. Right. A natural one. Fuck! I say we try and help. Yeah. Yeah. Sure, we need to get out of here.

How far away is the rock towards where Caldan's people are? Make sure. Hey! We haven't engaged yet. Yeah. is the rock towards where Cullen's people are. Bye! We haven't engaged yet. Yeah. I'm just happy that there's a map. We're getting a map, and D&D Beyond

does have a Discord channel that you can check out at dndbeyond.com slash Discord. Discord. I hope everyone watching the show right now is making out with each other. No matter if you're just friends, casual acquaintances at a bar, family members.

No! You know, it's Valentine's Day. Let the love flow. Whoa. Is it green or is the light green? The light is green. It looks so green. Not that we know this. This is actually on a mountain.

So there's light. Oh, you're going to do a thing. Break stage. Ooh. Oh, it is. We hit our light. Yeah. You guys are all pressed into this alcove over here. Oh no.

We have to get off stage. Stop it. We have to. Look at that. Pressed into this alcove over here. Oh no. We have to. We have to. Oh my god. Anybody want some candy? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Sorry. Wow. He threw me off. Yeah.

Stop it. Stop. Damn. All righty. Those are really bad threats. From this perspective, you can see Calden over here. You begin to hear some other voices shout out. You hear what sounds like some sort of energy streak. Oh my god.

Not gnoll-like. Something else. Something else. I'm going to cast Invisibility on myself and I'm going to run out there and look. Okay, yeah. So Nott, you cast Invisibility and you go out and look. What do I see?

As you come around the corner and glance, you can see across the way the group of gnolls that are currently behind that way, and you can see two of them that are blade out in a shield, and they're both rushing from around the corner towards where the rest of Calden's men are. Suddenly, they all reach around the side of the rock and release a volley.

You see both gnolls take a bunch of the chest and keep running, but begin to slow. A second volley, one of them shouts out, Fire! They release a secondary volley. Both of them fall and crumple to their knees. Nice. They're both killed as they rush by.

However, what you do see is around the way, this one member of his team suddenly crumple to the ground, weapon clatter out of their hand, and you watch as, curling around the way, the familiar insect-like Kryn armor of what looks to be some sort of a Kryn warrior come around the rock.

You watch as it darts forward and leaps upward and strikes downward, hitting another one of them, and as it does, suddenly two copies of itself, made of somewhat immaterial shadow-like energy, also apparate and strike down in rapid succession, all three strikes cleaving down into one of the other members of the group, who immediately is just cut and falls to the ground.

Oh man. Oh god. Caleb casts tongues as soon as he hears the foreign language out. He's got that small clay model of the ziggurat. Okay, so you begin casting tongues on yourself? Yeah, one action. You also watch around this corner what looks to be another Kryn figure

with less more decorative armor, not the heavy carapace-type blackened armor, but just shoulder pieces and a helmet, and what looks to be dark gray robes that billow as the wind blows by, stepping up with a large staff, as the figure seems to draw this gray-like energy from the air around you, a familiar gray energy,

that as it pulls through, it strikes the ground and you watch as this thin black line of energy just streaks across the ground. Suddenly, all the rocks within 10 feet of it shoot to the center, being pulled out of heavy gravitational energy to the center as these figures right here are also pulled in, the rocks crushing and pelting them,

this line of gravitational tug jamming them for 100 feet out this way. Oh my god. Time. Time. Yeah. Oh. I think it was the sewers, and there was a dash, right? Is that where we saw the gray energy?

The dark orb, remember? We kept thinking it was an orb of death. Oh god, yeah, that's right. Oh my god. Are they all going to die if we don't have? Both of these figures get crushed into themselves. Their body is suddenly folded into a sphere of bone and skin before they're just lumped to the ground

where bits of the stone and rock that were jammed into their bodies slowly come loose and tumble to the ground as the gravitational pull vanishes. One is still surviving from behind and ducks behind. You can see blood running from this brass dragonborn. This dark blood's running from the nose and the ear and under the eyes

and it's trying to pull another arrow. Are you guys doing anything? I'm going to call back, Mighty Nein, follow my voice! I'll go over near that cactus-looking thing over there. There's no way they don't eventually find us, right? Yeah, they're going to find us. Yeah, that seems like cover over there, right?

Do I see any bad guys right there? No, actually. What you see is, this is where Calden is, and this is where another one of the cloaked figures is. Should we pop out and do something? Bad news! Everyone out! I'm going to cast Bless, by the way, just because we have a moment on you, Yasha, and Beau.

Fuck yeah, thank you. I'm going to grab the leather thong and cast Mage Armor. I'm going to cast Bless on who didn't get it. Anybody that didn't get it, Fjord. No, Fjord got it. It was Fjord, Yasha, and Beau. Oh, okay. Nott and Caleb.

Do I have to use it? No, just of my choice within range. It's either you or me. It's a prayer. You have to. It's within range. Okay. Does it say a target you can see?

No, it just says a target within range. God knows where you are, Mother Harker. Wherever you are, Nott, you're blessed. So you're getting blessed instead of who? Oh, from? I'm blessing Caduceus. Okay, I'll take that. All right.

You were the only one without Bless. Yeah. 1d4, right? Yep, 1d4 to saves and attacks. Awesome. Saves. And there we go. Basically, everybody but me is blessed. Everybody but you? Yes.

Hashtag, everybody but me is blessed. That's amazing. All right. So there we go. From our position, can we see, I can't see on the other side of that rock, the person up at the top, is that friend or foe? That's Calden. Calden, okay.

He's currently against the rock with the arrow in his chest going. Yeah, I'll run out of the cave and run in his direction. Okay, are you doing this not to be seen, or? Are we doing anything? Should we just jump out and attack? Because we would get a surprise attack if somebody just jumps out and does something.

We don't know where any of them are. If you came out, you would see it, though. Okay. I'm down for a big attack. It's up to you guys. I'm just saying, if you jump out and attack, we'd get a surprise. I would think so.

Right? They're in combat. Oh, they're in combat, so they wouldn't be surprised. It's not an ambush. It's a condition. It's not something that we do to them. I learned after 115 episodes. Okay, well then never mind, do whatever you want.

So what are you guys doing? Attacking. You're attacking, all right, then roll initiative if you guys are going to jump in this way, all right. These are going to be really powerful, you guys. They look really powerful. Okay. Here we go.

This is not going to go terribly. Yeah. They're super powerful. They're super powerful. Stretch your legs, here we go. Oh my god. Perfect. If things go poorly, head for the hole. Okay. If things go poorly, head for the hole.

Okay. All right. Head for the hole! So. It's Valentine's Day. 25 to 20. Ouch. 20 to 15. 19. 19. 15.

So it's in 1919? Yeah. Sorry, dumb guy. Sorry, Chris. Guys, Critical Role, am I right? 1510? Fjord at a 14. I'm plugging our own show during the show. Jester.

11 for me, I've whored down that far. Yasha got one? Four, five. Aw. One grand. That's like one dog out. Wait, where are you at now? 11.

It's still attached to my hip. All righty. With the other animal. So first, you watch as this one Kareem warrior figure moves up at the top, and suddenly their form seems to shimmer and split off, and another shadow energy version of them appears not too far from where they stand.

The figure then rushes towards this one, leaps off towards it, and as it strikes down towards the air with its blade, the shadow figure tends to reach out and grab its arm to hold it in place. As the figure is trying to run away with its bow in hand, it gets held there in the moment by the shadow, it looks like, as it looks up just in time for the large armored figure to come down with what looks to be a greatsword. Two other shadow versions appear with similar greatswords and all come down towards it.

Whoa. Should we just back off? We should like. That's a hit. That's a hit. Whoa. Oh shit. No, this might be a really bad idea. Where are we going to go?

I don't know, they would find us? They would, oh god damn. He watches both arms just cut off. Where the torso is, the greatsword jams itself down about 12 inches towards past the clavicle and the chest, and the warrior kicks the body off of the blade and just splats onto the rocky ground behind. Oh man.

Yeah, that's your fucking... Oh, should we talk to them? Should we talk to them? Beau, you're up next. Oh no! Have no fear. I feel a lot of fear. Can I jump over the wall,

that I'm kind of the whole wall? Yeah, you'll lose about 10 feet of movement to get up at the top, but you can do that. I mean, it'd be pretty much the same to run around. I'm going to do that. We've got all those archers that we need to deal with. Wait, what? All those gnoll archers. 10 feet of movement to get up onto it. That's five arch need to deal with. Wait, what? All those gnoll archers.

So 10 feet of movement to get up onto it. That's five archers, Jesus. As you step up onto the edge, you watch the warrior, after it kicks its blade off, and the two shadow clones of it just blink out of existence, and the helmet just looks right up at you. You definitely made yourself known.

What are you doing? That's dope. I'm going for the main motherfucker. Oh god. Over here? Yeah. Power guard? Okay. Uh-oh, how much movement do I have? You have 35 feet still.

I can make it, right? That's 35 feet, it looks like. Jump. Jump. That's five, so you have 30 left. Go ahead and make an acrobatics check to try and land properly. It's a low DC. I have 10, 15, 20 you have 30 left. Go ahead and make an acrobatics check to try and land properly. Let me make sure I write down.

It's a low DC. I have 10, 15, 20, 25, 30. I could do it. Thank you. Look at Zoa. Um. What was it, acrobatics? Calling out his name for good luck, huh? I got you. 22.

Yeah, you're fine. You barely even hit the ground and then keep rushing from that point. Oh boy. 25, 30, you have just enough movement to get right adjacent to it. As you rush up, you can see within the helmet, but a little bit of the metal is not covering the eyes.

You can see the drow skin tone from beneath, the very angry and intense eyes staring back at you, and you can see the cheeks and the eyes curl up into a smile. What do you do? Oh no. Smiling? this is bad. I smile back, give him a little wink,

and I'm going to do an upper elbow to his jawline and then go for the ribs. Yeah, like the combo. Oh boy. Natural 20. Not good. It's okay, it's okay. Bless?

16. Bless, what's Bless? it's okay. Bless? 16. What's Bless? What's Bless? That was an eight. No. It is an 18 now, though. 18. It hits the helmet. Oh no. No damage.

It just misses. It just misses, it just misses. It's all right. Got another one coming. Okay. It just misses. You are learning Got another one coming. Okay. It just misses. You are learning. That was your first attack. It was my first attack.

That hits, that hits. It's a natural 15 plus eight, so it's 23. This does hit. Okay. So as you pull back the elbow, you go for the chest hit after that, and it does hit armor, but you find a piece where the plates themselves meet, and you push past and you feel the impact

catch him in the lower clavicle. But it's been a key point to do Stunning Strike. Okay. The DC on that is? It is 14. 18, unfortunately. Oh, yeah. Oh, wait, no, no.

Not abilities, right? No, no, it doesn't take DC, unfortunately. Oh wait, no, no. Not abilities, right? No, no. It doesn't take DC, unfortunately. That's nine points of damage. Nine points of damage, all righty. I'm going to do Flurry of Blows. All righty. Another ki point.

Two more unarmed attacks, go for it. Go down one, there we go. Ah! Shh, calm down, calm down. No, 18. 18 just down, calm down. I'm going to give her a mention. No, 18. 18 just misses. You go. Bless, bless, bless! On every attack, is that how you do it?

On every attack, yeah. That's amazing. Yes, 19! That's just enough, that's just enough. So you pull back and Caduceus' guidance, the Wild Mother's energy propels you forward for that strike. He's going to use his reaction to do Shadow Martyr. I can also, I've hit twice now, right?

Well, this will be your second hit. It does not. The clone that was in the space that you rushed into darts in between and you end up actually striking it in the chest instead. So roll damage on that strike. He doesn't take it, but the clone does. Nine again.

That's pretty good. Hey! It dissipates. How many attacks do I need for my extract? Extract aspects? Yeah. You just need to hit him with one of your Floria Blow strikes, which you haven't yet. Because it hit the clone instead.

Okay, so one more. You get one more attack. One, 13. Yeah, that hits. 21. Okay, yeah, he does not have his Reaction, so it definitely hits. Six points of damage, but

Extract Aspects. Yes. Yes. What would youhtrayk's. Yes, what would you like to know? Have a bad time today. I want to know what his constitution saving throw is. Plus four. Woo, okay.

Then I get to know one more thing, right? Do I get to know one thing or two things? We adjusted it so every time you hit, you get to learn one more thing, right? Do I get to know one thing or two things? We adjusted it so every time you hit, you get to learn one thing. Okay. Stunning Shrek. I'm on that last one again. So he rolls.

I'm just going to need another ki point, though. Stunning Shrek. Right, stunning Shrek. No, he stunned. Come on, come on. Who's up next? Hit that motherfucker. I hate that ability so much.

All right. I've burned three ki points, but I stunned. Oh my god, you're so clutch. All right, that finishes your turn. Caleb. Yes, Caleb, you're up. So I cannot see anything, so I'm going to move around the edge to get a look at the battlefield. All right, you scoot by.

Tree is with you. I know. Tree just really wants to be there. Let go, Groot. Okay, so I can probably see some gnoll archers from there, and the men with the staff. Yes. So I will take some pinch of phosphorus and slap it into my hand and squelch the other hand

through it and cast Wall of Fire, a straight line, splitting the field in half. All right. Woo! Where is this wall going? Damage going this way. Across which way? Downstage. So from Caleb, a straight line blocking Beauregard

and her opponent. Well, it won't go that far. I'll probably start it when you put the second one, Matthew. Oh, right. Yeah. At least. 60 feet, I believe. He's going to attempt to Counterspell. Oh, wow!

This is so sexy. Yay! Natural 16 plus five, 21. Yeah. A fire wall. Can I Counter Counterspell? Yes, you can. The fourth level. No, third level. So go ahead and roll. Okay. Well, no, it, the fire wall. Can I counter-counter spell? Yes, you can. The fourth level, no, third level. So go ahead and roll.

Well, no, it's the third level, so it does cancel third level. Okay, I'll roll. Whoa. So you want to start it a little further from here, right? Yes. So yeah, he's starting it from here. Yeah.

You got it. Like this here? Yeah. Okay. And if I have any movement left, I will... You have, I'll say, 15 feet of movement left. Go back where I came from. Okay. Classic Caleb.

There you go. You're welcome. Nice. All right, that finishes your turn. All righty. Caduceus of Jester. Well, next it's the other figure that attempted to Counterspell and failed.

Angrily, seeing you mid-spell, Counterspell it while releasing this wall of flame that shoots up into space. Who was Counterspelling, this individual over here? Yeah. All right. Is going to go ahead and... Oh, I'm afraid of a fireball or some shit.

We have cover right now, though. What are we sure about saying out loud? I'm sure, it's like Macbeth. Let's talk about the DMVs. This is tense. All right. Matt, you look very dashing tonight. You look really handsome.

You're going off on a trip. Isn't his beard so nice? It really is. It really is. That way there? Yeah, what happened, Taliesin? They're not a beard but me, so I jumped in and now yours is gone.

I had to break the chain. Otherwise, if there's too many beards in it, then it's free and allowed a creature that's beneath the table. We could have had it. Katoa. Katoa needs to be used as a rock. Yeah. That was tutorial.

Yeah. You've got a lot of movement speed, man. Actually, it can actually hang back here, I think. Oh, damn. Goddamn it. You watch as it angrily, watch the fire burn up, the light scatters across the stone and base of the mountain here. The side of its armor now shining from the flickering light source, angrily goes and hops

up to the top. After watching you dart behind that area, it raises its staff, focuses, and you watch as in the center of the area, out in front of Fjord, as you're getting ready for it, all of a sudden, this green, thick fume fills the area. Oh boy. As it casts Cloud Kill. Woo! Cloud Kill? Never heard of that. What even is that? How high of a level is that?

So that hits all of you guys right there. So everybody but Beau. Oh my god, are we all going to die? Me too. I hope so. Yeah, because I had to hit at the edge of the firewall to try and get inside the alcove where it saw you vanish, and it actually does overlap where you are.

Okay, sure. Yeah, it does. Okay. So I need everyone to make a constitution saving throw. With a d4. We're blessed. Oh hey. Except you.

Sorry, I suppose. Oh boy, not good. With the blast? Oh, hey. With the d4. Except for you, sorry. Yes, of course. Oh boy, not good. With the d4? Oh! No more two. Oh boy. Oh, not good. Oh boy.

Excellent. No, that's not good. These are bad things. These are very bad things. These are bad things to be saying out loud. You're fine, you've got a book on your head, you're fine. That's really bad. Is that numbers or is that a wave?

It's numbers. All right. I just wrote it so I was able to. So. Fjord rolled a 24. All right. Yasha rolled a 19. All right, so you both take 16 points of poison damage. Gotta do that. A war caster feat at advantage, proficiency bonus,

plus the Bless, I got to do 16. 16. A war caster to? That's just my feat. Oh, that's concentration. Yeah, concentration. Oh, so not at advantage at all, but the first roll was the highest, so it's the same.

Okay, so you also take 16 points of poison damage. This is going to save you. Fail, nine. Take 32 points of poison damage. Cool. 21. I can't. You take 16 points of poison damage. Seven. You take 32 points of poison damage,

and the cloud remains there. Did you say, how many points did I just take? 30, you took 16. 16. Can I? Uncanny dodge doesn't work against area of effect sort of thing. It's not an attack, unfortunately. Ow.

Cool. Yeah, it's not a dexterity save, so. But the cloud remains there. All of you all of a sudden feel the poisonous fume burning against your skin and the inside of your lungs, and you find yourself instinctually coughing in horrible pain. It's burning the inside of your body

like an acidic rock that's expanding in your chest. What level of spell is that? Do we know? Ass level. And it's also going to use its gravity well ability, which whenever it affects a creature with a spell, it can push it 10 feet in a direction of its choice. It's going to go ahead and, you guys feel as you're coughing,

the sudden force of gravity is going to drag you out into the open. Cool. 10 feet for each of you. Matt, also, do I need to make a constitution? You do. Yeah, all right. Anyone with a brush and a knife has to make one, too. Oh.

All right. So this is a fresh one. Anyone with Bless has to make one, too. Oh, all right. Oh. Do you roll a 20? Yeah. Good. Do I get to use, that's on the save, is it? It's a constitution saving throw. Oh, so the Bless does add to the?

16. Make it wood. Okay. 16? Yeah, you need to roll, for most of you guys, you took 32 damage, you need to get 16 or higher. I only took 16 damage. Yes, you're fine.

That's a constitution save? Yes. 21. To maintain a spell? Roll a 21? Yeah. Yeah, so you maintain it. 17 plus others.

Yeah, so you maintain your invisibility. All right, natural 20, that got me up to 26. Yeah, you're fine. All right, cool. That finishes its go, and it's going to go ahead and step back around there. Actually, it's going to use its last move and step down in that space.

That ends its turn. That now brings us to Caduceus. Do I take damage to the top of the round? With the gas of the round? With the gas or no? That would really suck, but... Wow. I thought I'd ask, because I'm an idiot. If you start your turn there.

Actually, yeah, this damage happens at the start of your turn. Okay, thank you. I misheard that. So it didn't hit you yet. As your turns come around, you will take this damage and be pulled out. Okay, so I just took that damage. Correct.

I'm going to cast, first thing I'm going to do is, motherfucker, sorry, I'm a little thrown. I'm going to step out of this cloud, up around that way. Is that my full movement? I'm going to step out of this cloud up around that way. Is that my full movement? Yeah, five feet in the back. I'm going to... Shit, son. I'm going to...

Holy shit. I'm going to see if I can get a little, oh fuck, now I'm going to be on the range of the archers. I'm going to pull around the corner there, and I'm going to burn my action to get, can I get within 30 feet of Beau's opponent? If you're using your action to run, maybe. You don't know, you can try it. I'll try it.

25, 30. Gets you about there. You are... It is 35 feet from you. I'm going to cast the, I'm going to, 35's fine, I'm going to use the Blightstaff Yes. It is 35 feet from you. I'm going to cast the, I'm going to, 35's fine, I'm going to use the Blightstaff and summon the swarm five feet away from him.

All right. Next turn, they can attack. That's everything I can do. All right, and he conduces his turn. I'm just going to keep my cover there. All right, it is now the rest of the rangers out here's turn. This one's going to dart around and go ahead and take a longbow shot at the one with the staff.

Nope, natural four. This one here is going to go ahead and, one, two, three, four, five, six. Oh shit. It's going to go ahead and take two attacks with advantage on the stunned. Technically I can attack adjacent creatures, so technically I could have taken a bite attack.

Okay, then go for it. All right, I'll add that to the. Advantage, that is, oh, that's 16 plus six, that hits. That's, where is that attack? Oh, that's four damage it takes. It's a melee attack. Second attack. Oh, it's a natural 20. That's a crit attack. Second attack. That was a natural 20. That's a crit. Natural 20, by the way, to hit.

Two natural 20s back to back, nice. All right, so that's 11 points of damage. We can get all of that. You see the dragonborn bleeding, and cloak pulled over on its shoulder to come by and with its long sword, hack twice into the entity and give you a look of like, let's do this. Yeah.

Hit is 10, 44 piercing damage, so is that 10 plus 44, if I recall, or is it just 44 damage? No, it's just 44 damage. Why does it have that 10 there? Well, the plus 10 is to hit. Okay. Wait, no, what's it say? Well, sorry, what you're saying is the 10,

10 is the average damage. Okay. I misheard you. So that's four, five, six, eight, 10, 11, 22 points of damage. 22 points of damage, ooh, nice. Sam is reminding me that I need to roll constitution saves for Nugget. No, I did that already, for Nugget and Sprinkle.

You're a bad man. I feel like Sprinkle is. I just hate animals so much. Apparently. I feel like Sprinkle is. I just hate animals so much. Apparently. I feel like Sprinkle's in my clothes, so he's got a filter. I'll say for the purposes of fun. You have to roll save. Thank you.

I'm not going to immediately murder Purweazle because of one errant spell. Piece of shit. That's not how I would have ruled. But you'll all pass you should be able to throw for Nugget. Be mine or I'll kill you. 18? 18? Yeah.

Nice, and just for the hell of it. Terrible. Weasels up. Terrible. All right, mark down that Nugget has eight hit points left. Yes. Great. I have the thing, yeah, so he took 16 points. Yep.

All right. He technically has six hit points left. He's great, see? According to the thing that Sam gave me. Everyone's got to be able to fire at the stun guy with advantage. Unfortunately, still misses. It's the armor. They're hitting, but the arrows are splintering across.

Armor, second attack. Four and a natural 20, nice. They're actually doing decent, thanks to the stun. That's another 12 points of damage against him. Slick. All righty, that finishes them. Calder's going to go ahead and turn and take, he's going to pull out his shortbow

and take a shot at that gnoll over there. Fucking five. Misses and hits with the second one. Come on, Calder. Six. All right, so it damages that gnoll over there. Yeah, Calder. Calden.

Off-field. Off-field. That's good. He's going to go ahead and step back this way, staying out of the cloud area. This guy's going to go ahead and move up from underneath the cloud, coughing. Actually, at the start of his turn, he does not make a save.

He dies. He is coughing. He dies? Coughing. Vomits onto the ground and then collapses. Yeah. You can see the skin on the face begin to bubble and boil from this strangely poisonous cloud. All of us losing all of us people.

Yeah, he only has four left aside from him. They seemed so badass. They did! I thought they were going to kill us! I felt like they had their shit together. I know! They just had nice cloaks. They were the good guys.

I mean, you just made some assumptions because you're like, oh, those cloaks are great. They whistled, They had group whistling. Whistling. Is that the secret to a forward-facing group? Fashion doth make the man. Yeah. So.

These NPCs are pretty strong for just a general ranger. Unfortunately, a lot of them got lined up with a certain spell that did a lot of damage. All right, so after the turn, it is now just Fjord's turn. Yes, I will dart out of the green cloud of killing. Take your damage, top of the turn, which you already did.

Uh-huh. Oh. And I will move 30 feet towards Calden's direction, not up on the platform with him, though. Fjord, he's not up on the platform, he's ducked down below, so you're actually right up next to him. Is that only as far as 30 feet carries me? That's five, 10, 15, 20, 25. Five, 10, 15, 20, you have 10 more feet if you want to go.

Yeah, I will go, could I get behind that spire or that little upcropping? Over here? Yeah. Yeah. You can get over there. Perfect. And I will use my action to point up towards the sky. My eyes will roll back and I will summon the and I will drop.

Oh shit. Yes! Yes! Thank god. 60 feet, as far as I can get it in the direction of all these jackasses over here. 60 feet? Yeah. Right there. Just down the line, man.

And I'll tell him to kill everything, but get me the caster. Okay. He's not going to kill us, is he? Does the ball guard take its turn? Oh, he rolls initiative. Right, so go ahead and roll for him. Which is initiative. Whoa, whoa, so that he gets to go.

Well, it's 15. 15? He should've rolled shittier. So he's right before you guys next round. Yeah, he's right before me. It's a mirror. All righty, you guys finish your turn. Taking their attention.

Unless you have a BA. BA. A BA, man. Yeah, that's it. All right, Jester, you're up. Okay. Okay, okay, okay, okay, okay, okay, okay, okay, okay. I'm going to look at how this works. Probably, I mean, I can try this. Yeah, try whatever.

But I don't know how long that lasts. Okay, I'm going to... Okay, I'm going to run out from under the cloud. All right. I'm going to, can I climb up and over and hop down right here? Sure, go ahead and make an athletic move. It'll cost you 10 feet of movement, it's not too terribly high.

Okay. Five, 10, 15. Then I just want to hop down behind that rock. On the other side. Five, 30, that's your movement getting you there. You can jump down this way, or you can jump down, you can't quite get far enough to jump over that way. I guess I'll jump down on that side, then. Okay.

What do you see in the cloud, by the way? It's, I would say you can barely make out shapes and stuff. It's, I'll say, partial cover, half cover while inside. Okay. You can still see shapes and things at a certain distance, I'll say. Okay, certain distance. But I'm out of the cloud?

You're out of the cloud, yes. Okay, then I'm going to use my action to Invoke Duplicity! All right. Nice. She's going to appear on the backside of the mean guy that stunned. Right there? Yes, that guy. All righty.

Then for my bonus action, I'm going to... I guess I can't cast another thing. No, I'm going to, I guess I can't cast another thing. No, I'm going to. Mm-hmm. Do you have a bonus action heal that you can hit, or? I don't think so. Mm-mm.

There's a. Because I already, mm. Mm, mm-mm. Mm, mm-hmm. Healing word's a BA. Yeah, but I don't. Why am I saying BA all the time? I know the words already? I don't know.

I don't know. Oh, fuck! I don't think I have healing word. I'm just going to crouch down. Okay, so you get low and put your back against the wall. Yeah. Got it. All right, the finish gesture turn.

It's now the gnolls go. These gnolls here immediately rush forward, drawing their weapons to go ahead and strike at whatever this terrible thing that rose up is. Both of them are going to make a spear attack against it. Natural 20, first one against it. I think it hits. Yeah, I think so.

An eight, so that's 17 points of damage from one gnoll spear. The other one against it, natural two. So the other one, the bulgur grabs the spear and is now wrestling for it. Just spittle coming out of it. The gnolls are taken aback by it. They still feel their power in numbers, so they're not quite certain of the danger they're in.

We'll work on that. This guy is going to move up a bit and come to this point. He's going to go ahead and fire the longbow at you, Travis. Okay, Fjord or the bulgarian? Fjord. Or Yasha. Travis. At you, Travis. At you.

That is a 25 to hit, actually. That hits. All righty. You take, that is nine points of piercing damage. Okay. As the longbow arrow sinks into your chest, go ahead and make a constitution saving throw for me to try and maintain.

Oh yeah. You get to add the maintain. Oh yeah. You get to add the d4 to that. Okay, great. Hashtag blessed. I attack. 18, 21. Yeah, you're fine, you maintain that.

This one's going to go ahead and move forward. That's a regular gnoll? Regular gnoll, yeah. Then it's going to take a shot at this guy over here. Natural 20 again! Jesus. That is... I'm talented. Archers, oh, I get it now.

It doesn't kill that ranger, but that ranger is now looking around and seeing a lot of its friends dead, and it's starting to gauge its worth staying. That finishes that gnoll there. This one here, let me see if it's going to mess with the bulgur.

Yeah, it's going to go ahead and rush up and join its friends to try and jump on and group up on the bulgur. That's going to be a 15 to hit. What's its armor class? Just 15. 15, okay. It takes 10 points of piercing damage. Okay.

It goes with both hands, it jams the spear into its abdomen. Wow, they're really going on him. All right, that ends the gnolls, go. That brings us to Nott. If I run out of the cloud, do I take more damage? Or is that? No, at the top of your turn is when you take the damage. Okay.

Which I'm just retroactively considering that. But if you stay in the cloud. I'm going to run out of the cloud. All right. And I think I'll go on, I'll go downstage, so I'll run towards this mess over here. Okay. Can I get as far as like this?

Or is it 15, 20, 25, 30 is where you can get. 35 feet of movement. Okay. Take that. Of course, dude. Bye, F is where you can get it. 35 feet of movement. That's right. Take that. Bye, Fjord. Sorry, bud. You died like you lived. That's as far as you can get there. On weird terrain.

Well, then I will... Balls. Balls, balls, balls, balls, balls, balls, balls, balls, balls, balls, balls. You got a gnoll there. We do have lots of gnolls that I don't want to waste my effort on. I will bonus action just get behind that tree stump thing there. In case you're going to dash behind it?

Yeah. All righty. And then, so I'm poking out, and I will hold my action until I see the caster. I will hold a crossbow bolt. You got it. All right. That ends Natsuko, Yasha's up. Yasha would like to rager.

All righty. She has effectively raged. Okay, and she will, yeah, make her way towards Beau. All right. 40 feet. 10, 15, 20, 30, 35, 40. Yeah, yep, yep, and yeah. Does the Kreen have any illusions

or duplicates or copies up or anything? Currently, no. Nothing. Then she will, she's going to throw the Magician's Judge at the Crean. Okay. Okay. Yeah. Is that a thing? It's an improvised weapon, technically, because I'm throwing it, so go ahead and roll.

Roll an attack roll. Okay. Plus a d4. She will make it reckless. Go for it. Sorry, I'm rolling a what plus a what? So you're rolling 2d20 plus 1d4. Okay, so 19 plus 1d4.

Natural 19 plus two, 21. 21 plus your strength modifier. Which is... Three. You're fine. Okay, 22. So go ahead and roll a d4 plus her strength modifier. Which is... You hit, you're fine. Okay, 20. So go ahead and roll a d4 plus her strength plus rage bonus. It's not full sword damage. D4 plus, sorry again, Seig.

D4 plus? Plus strength plus rage damage. Three, six, three, nine, nine points. Nine points of damage. So while the creature's shaking its head, trying to right itself. The magician's judge scrapes off the armor and carves in for a minute. You watch as it sticks for a second

before it falls out, leaving this open wound where some of the armor's opening against the plates. Nice. That ends Yasha's go? I believe so, and the Divine Fury, would that apply to that weapon attack? When you're raging the first creature you hit on one of your turns with a weapon attack?

1d6 plus three? Yeah, I'll allow it. Okay. I'll allow it. Go ahead and action. 1d6 plus three. Six plus three, so nine radiant damage. Nice, not too bad. Nine! I'll take that. Okay, that ends your go. It's now the Crean's turn.

It's done, can't turn. It's stun. Can't do anything. Beau, you're up. Go for it. Same thing. Bunder that helmet. Do you have advantage because it's stun? Fuck you and your helmet.

Yes, I do. Fuck you and your helmet. And your d4. The power. Fuck, wait, no. You're kidding, which ones? No, I rolled an eight and a three and then I rolled a one with my, no, a 17.

You get excited and punch right square into the chest part of the armor and you feel your knuckles and it stings and it didn't quite get through. Thanks for the wraps. I'm going to knee him in the balls. Go for it. Go ahead and roll for a second attack. That feels right.

Mm-hmm. Valentine's Day. Son of a fuck bitch! You have advantage still, you're still stunned. I did, a three and a four. Oh shit. Plus the d4, even? Yeah, not much matter. Doesn't matter.

You go for the balls. You've learned a little bit about the K4, even? Yeah, it doesn't matter. You go for the balls. You've learned a little bit about the Kryn Dynasty's main armored warriors. They wear a metal cup. Carapace Puppies. Bing! Ah! Smart. I mean, it's smart.

Yeah, you got to protect that. Yeah, you got to protect that. All right, two more strikes. Two more strikes. He wants a hit. I can't believe he's fucking stunned. He's fucking stunned. Yes, yes, yes, this one does, this one does.

Plus four. 14, takes a lot of damage. 18 plus four, 22. 22 hits. That's the first one. Bing, boom! Okay, 10 damage, Stunning Strike. Stunning Strike again.

Play it again. I'm bringing all my key points. That is a 17 with a plus four bonus. 13 plus four. Is that good, is that bad? He resisted. He resisted? He resisted.

One more time. One more time. Ding dong ding dong dong. Two threes. Why don't you roll it? Do you need to borrow dice? Yeah, get rid of those dice, maybe? Don't use them.

Maybe it doesn't matter, because that's your superstition. It matters. I'm so sorry. You got to clean your palate. However, you did hit, so you get to learn something else about it if you want. I did hit. I hit going to low on ki. However, you did hit, so you get to learn something else about it if you want. I did hit.

I hit with a one-time. Does anyone have any spells that you do? Yeah, find out what his wisdom saving throw is. Wisdom, what is his wisdom saving throw? Plus one. No, his. Plus one. Plus one. His constitution was plus four. Ah-ha, that's what it was. His wisdom's plus one. Plus one. No, his plus one. His constitution was plus four. Ah-ha, that's what it was.

There you go. His wisdom is plus one. All right. Well, he's not very wise. Tight, tight. So Beau, are you going to stay put? Vav, vav, vav, vav, vav, vav, vav. My mistake. No, he's about to be unstunned. He is.

I'm going to back. Sorry. Oh. Get her out. Just shaking it off. I'm going to back. Oh. Just shaking it off. I'm going to back up towards, in between Yasha and Caduceus, upstage. Okay. There? Upstage. Oh, just just.

Yeah. There? Okay. That finishes your go. Caleb, you're up. I'm going to run out of this cloud directly downstage, which I think will put us next to our new friend. Keep reminding him about the last night

you put out the light. Right there? Yeah, and from there, I can see Fjord's pet, and I can see this gnoll picking up, so I will slap the guano and the sulfur together, and throw a fireball to ignite right here to get these guys. All righty. The bonus to this episode guys. All righty. The bonus is that. And this.

I can't see. Let's just all pop down. Okay. So go ahead and roll damage for that. Nice. All rocks on fire resist. 25 resist. So still make a saving throw.

He's not in it. 25. All rocks not in it. Oh. He was just outside of it. Sure, I'll allow it, I'll allow it. If he's in it, he's in it. I thought he was in it. There is a way that you can

roll a standard intelligence check for me. Okay. I mean, I'm really good with math. Not me. Right, it's not a huge deal. Yeah. That is just straight intelligence, you said, right? I'm really good with math. Not me. Right, it's not a huge deal. That is just straight intelligence, you said, right? 15. Yeah, you're fine.

Keep the ball going. No worries. So damage on that was? 25. 25. For the gnolls here, the dexane, the spell. That's a dexane. 15, what's the spell DC? Uh, for fireball?

For any of your spells. Oh. 16. All right, that's a fail. Yes. Yes. Yes. Fail. Fail. What?

Success. Oh yes! All those gnolls just are immediately burned to a crisp and fall back smoking for the Queen mage there, natural 19. Dick. So he only takes half the damage with that.

Bless you, Caleb, you sweet son of a bitch. I hope he's like a glass cannon as well. Maybe he's also really low on hail. All right, that ends your go? I'm out. You got it. Okay, he's going to make a concentration check. It's cocked. And fails, the cloud killer finishes.

Fucking amazing. Now that we're all out of here. Yep. I mean, yeah. I wanted to go back. You fleshed us out. I didn't check for it. Don't let it flesh us out.

All right, it is now that figure's turn. All right, a couple of fun things. Couple of fun things. Yay. I hate that phrase. This is not a lair, man. Unless we're saying it, it's not a good phrase. Anybody want some chocolate? Oh god. You'll feel better.

So, from behind this area here, a shadow version of that same mage comes out of hiding. They both act on the same turn. He moves forward to here. Comes out of hiding? he's been there? Yeah, the whole time. Fire. Didn't go in the last turn? It's like they have a best friend with them all the time.

They're like. The mage took damage on the firebolt that Caleb did, though, right? Correct. Okay. I am firing at him. You are. Fuck. Plus four. Yeah, I got it. Not great. Well, well. 18. 18 hits. Okay, good. Yeah, I got it. Not great. Well, well.

18. 18 hits. Okay, good. I don't know all these. These are a road. You are no longer invisible, either. That's right. Fury of the Small.

That's my secret. I'm always small. 22. Okay, 22. Points of damage. Nice. Whoa. Okay, actually, this guy.

No, he's going to stay there. You were firing at the shadow or the guy? The real one. The real guy. The guy on the hill. Correct. The real Shake. Guy on the hill. Correct. The real Shake. All right. Super old, but I'm going with it.

Great. So you finish that strike. This one moves out of the way here and is going to go ahead and cast Compress Gravity at third level. The little shadow guy can cast spells? Can cast one spell. Is it Converse Gravity? Compressed Gravity.

I need Caleb and Fjord to both make a constitution saving throw, please. You can do it! Plus the d4. Plus the Bless, thank you. 19, 20, 21. Okay. That's really good on those saving throws. Jesus.

Constitution saving throw, right? Yes. Yes. What'd you roll? 25. 25, all right. So you each take 14 points of force damage. Okay. And make your respective saving throws, Constitution saving throws.

Your speed is halved until its next turn. You find gravity, you're all of a sudden yanked to the ground and your head goes numb for a second from the shifting of the space and the weight of your body and then you find yourself pulled down for the next round. 16, so that's? Yeah, you're fine. What's the blast? 26. All Yeah, you're fine. Okay. What's the last? 26.

All right, you're fine. Oh, yeah. Forecaster! Yeah, me too. Me too. Oh! Okay. 28 points of damage, not 22.

Oh, got you, all right. Oh. How do you, everyone? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. If you go down, you're go down and knock them all. And then forward for us. Caduceus and then. I can move 60 feet and then cast Healing Wonders

of Bones from 60 feet. So I've got 120 feet worth of healing. He's going to cast Vacuum Blast in the same area. Oh, it's Creepers, y'all. 20-foot radius. Who did that? The guy on top. Vacuum Blast, the same as Conqueror's Scrabble.

Shadow cast a spell, and now he gets to guess. So I need you guys also to make a constitution saving throw, please. Okay. Plus a d4. Thank you. And you're making a natural 20. Natural nine. 22. Yes! 22.

27, sorry. Are you making, is it a concentration? No, the Wall of Fire is just there. The Wall of Fire, he's making 24. 24, all right, so both you guys take half damage. Fuck. Those rockets. Yeah, these are really powerful guys.

Get us fucked up. I don't know what those spells are. 17 points of force damage, each of you. I'm fighting. Make another constitution saving throw. Are you alive? Sure. Plus d4. Man.

That vacuum blast sucked. Fuck you, Dyson. 13. Yeah. 13? 14. 14, that's okay, because it's half the damage you took. So you're fine.

28. Yeah, you're fine. You guys are rolling really fucking high tonight. Transmuter stone. 13's not great. Warcaster feat, glass. Yeah, don't worry. Definitely missed almost every punch with advantage.

I mean, I do have two points left. I know, so they'll send some of your luck her way. Yeah, it all passes out. That's the better. There you go. I was like, protect the melee fighter, and now I'm getting fucked up. Calden is gone.

Oh! You watch as Calden gets pulled back. The vacuum blast pulls you off, and because. I was seeing it piercing blue-gray eyes. You guys made your saves, so you are not pulled, but you watch as Kaldin gets pulled 20 feet this way. The gravity shifts. It's like this giant vacuum hole opens up on this side

and yanks in that direction. You watch his body get pulled into this dark space for a second and then just shredded in the middle of the air. The arms, legs, pieces start falling and it's scattered in the ground. Yeah. Close! Does it stay open or does it close?

It closes. Oh, fucking. It's going to step back here for push and cover. All right, that's going to end its turn. Is its ghost image guy gone? Gone, yeah. Okay. It seemed to disappear when it finished casting the spell. That brings us to Caduceus.

Ooh! I'm going to... Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy, oh boy. I still have beetles, and beetles are going to attack. That's a bonus action for the beetles to attack, if I recall right, or? I can have a button for that. I was going to say I can have a button for that. I was going to say I can have a button for that.

What a mess we're in. Make people take my attack. The beetles are going to take another attack for my bonus action. Actually, how are you guys right now? No, no? Roll a half. You can't see them, actually. No, you have no idea.

That's fine. So the beetles are going to be in my bonus action. Yeah, totally bloody good. Sure. Ears, eyes, nose. Oh, and I have a d4 to that, not that it matters. 17, 18, 19, 23 to hit. 23 hits? Yeah.

They don't have advantage, do they? No, he's no longer stunned. That's a... one, two, three, four. Yeah, fuck that one, I didn't need it anyway. Sorry, I'm shaking so much, I'm really nervous. Six, seven, eight, nine points of damage. That's it. Nine points of damage.

Nine points of damage, you got it. The beetles are crawling into the armor plates and biting the inside and trying to knock it away. I'm going to curl, I'm going to try and... I'm going to get a little closer, I'm going to go up against, just a little further up against the wall, just to the edge so I have some cover.

Over? A little closer. Yeah, like there. There is a person there. Oh, who is that? I didn't see that. That right there, that's one of the remaining rangers that still survives. Oh, well, I'm going to wave.

I'm now 30 feet, I should be about 30 feet now from that creature that we're fighting, right? Yeah, about there, there you're 30 feet. I'm going to hold my action until Yasha's attack, and I'm going to hold my domain, my, where's my brain? Channel Divinity. Okay, no worries.

Oh, actually, and because you guys did both get affected by the creature earlier, it does still get its gravity well abilities, but you guys get pushed 10 feet this way. Okay. As suddenly you get tugged by this sudden shift in gravitational forces in your area. All right, Caduceus, that finishes your go?

Yep. I'm just holding my... What was your initiative? It's the bulgur's turn now. Oh, it is? Yes. Okay, great. Path to the Grave. Path to the Gra initiative? It's the bulgur's turn now. Oh, it is? Yes. Okay, great. Path to the Grave. Path to the Grave? That's what you're holding, yeah.

Okay. The Barl, the big demon monkey is going to use Running Leap, which is just part of his movement. He can run 40 feet and jump 20 in the same movement. Okay. He's going to break melee with the gnoll and head towards the caster.

Yeah, get it, Donkey Kong. He's going to jump up using that 20 feet. Yeah, so he gets in with melee of that shit ass. Okay. The gnoll does strike against it. Natural 17, that says 20. That'll hit? Yeah. Regular gnoll. Takes eight points of piercing damage.

Eight points, copy that. He is going to make all three of these multi-attacks with Reckless against the mage at the start of its turn. Good, yes! And that is one bite attack and two fists, so we'll do the bite first. Okay. Plus seven, that's a 20 to hit.

20 to hit, cast Shield as a reaction. So that misses. Okay, it misses, and so the second one is a fist, and that is a 22 to hit. That does hit. Okay, that's a 1d10 plus four, six. That's 10 points of bludgeoning damage. You got it.

The next fist is a 21 to hit. 21 just hits. Nice. Oh, with the shield. Eight plus four, another 12 points of bludgeoning damage. You got it. As it jumps up, you see the mage, Korean figure, looking over at the wall,

trying to start making calculations in its head. Suddenly, it reflects one of the attacks from it, but the other two batter it from side to side and it catches itself from falling to its knees and stumbles back up with the staff, trying to figure out what its next move is going to be. Best of all, grow up. It's now these guys' turn.

This is going to come this way and fire at the other gnoll. Misses. God, you guys. God, these muckmen suck. They've done a fair amount of damage to that guy over there. I can't see any of that. There you go.

That guy over there is going to go ahead and fire. Does hit, actually. Though it only does five points piercing damage, but still, it all helps. This one over here is going to go ahead and is going to go ahead and fire longbow as well. Natural 20. They're rolling, they're gotten a lot of crits this.

Yeah, they have. I think that's the fifth or sixth natural 20 you've had in this. So 10 points piercing damage. All righty. They're mad because their leader's dead. And, well, they don't know that. That finishes their go. Fjord, you're up.

I will use my 30 feet of speed to come towards this knoll down here at the far end of the map, this direction. Okay, you only have 15 feet of speed. Because you're slowed from the gravity. What? You compressed gravity from last round. Yep, yep, so I'll just come that way. 15 feet.

And I will send two Eldritch Blasts at that gnoll. Go for it. Yep. Raise your boy, yep. 20 to hit. 20 to hit. That's 11 points of Eldritch Blast.

Yeah! That's nice. One is 19 to hit. Hits as well. That is three for that. Eight points of Eldritch Blast, Demo. Eight points. Both impacts blast into the gnoll.

The gnoll's breathing hard and heavy, you can see. Now, its jaw is just covered in its own gore, but it's starting to get the feral, cornered look in its eyes. Nice. That finishes your turn? It does. All righty.

We need the Jester. Come on, Jessie. Okay. I am going to, oh god, this is so dumb. Do it for love. I'm doing it. You would do anything.

I'm going to run up to the bad guy in front of me. All righty. And I'm going to attack him with my handaxe. Go for it. Okay. Swing with your handaxe.

Yeah. Do I get advantage because my? You do because you are technically flanking. Swing with your handaxe. Yeah. Do I get advantage because my? You do, because you are technically flanking. So that's an 18. 18 just misses. Your handaxe scrapes your process. Oh wait, no, no, no, no, no, that was a 12.

That was an advantage, and that's a 19. 19 just barely hits. Okay. There you go. Good roll damage. Oh my god, okay. But don't I get poison damage now? From your last level, an additional d8, I think. Yeah. Yeah, you would. Okay, good.

Oh, level, yeah. La la la la la. Oh, that's balls. 10 points. Oh. Okay. So that's 13. Yeah. Okay, so that's 13 points of damage.

Then I'm going to use my bonus action to cast Spiritual Weapon. Yeah. I'm going to cast it at, should I do that? Fuck it, I'm going to cast it at 4th-level. Whoa! Okay. Boop, boop, boop! So we'll go ahead and bring,

whereabouts are you placing it? Oh wait, when you cast a spell using spells at a third level or higher. Yeah, so at fourth, I would get an extra d8. So yes, I'm going to do it next to him and hit him again. All right. Oh, are we going to put him there?

Yeah. Where are you placing the spiritual? Next to the guy. All right, that works fine. Yeah, so I can hit. So go ahead Yeah. Where are you placing the spiritual weapon? Next to the guy. Oh, all right. That works fine. Yeah, so I can hit. So go ahead and roll the attack for him. That is not cocked. Nope. Seven plus my thing, so probably doesn't hit.

That's like 15. 15, unfortunately, no. It actually takes the Greatsword and parries the blow from the giant, energy-crackling lollipop that's currently resting over its head. That's okay. Marks it off to the side. Vax, can you text me Ashley's iPad code? That finishes your turn? Mm-hmm.

All right, the gnolls turn. This gnoll's going to leap up. Actually, no, it just got blasted by it. Five, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30. It's going to charge up towards you, Fjord. Thank you. That is 18 to hit. That hits. All right.

You take six points of piercing damage. Okay. Two-handed spear. Go ahead and make another constitution saving throw. With a d4. Thank you. That's a 21. You're fine. Yep. Okay. This gnoll here, so I'm going to go ahead and drop the arrows and rush up to this guy here. At a speed of 30 feet. She'll stay back there and do an arrow. Can't quite get full movement there.

Cocked. Misses. Goes wide. Finally. All righty. Nott, you're up. I'm running that way, full sprint. Dig-a-dig-a-dig-a-dig-a-dig-a-dig-a-dig-a-dig.

Ah! 35, 30, 35. Do I see the mage? You do, they have three quarters cover, so. You have sharpshooter, right? No, I have crossbow monster. Crossbow expert, which ignores three quarters cover? I don't think so. Let me double check.

I don't think so. Maybe. Maybe, though? Nope, it doesn't. Oh, never mind. Three quarters cover means that I roll at disadvantage? No, it means it gets plus five to its armor class. Oh, damn. So you have to roll really high to hit him.

Like basically a natural 20. Well then, can I bonus action dash and keep running so I can see his full body? You can. 25 still. Can I bonus action dash and keep running so I can see his full body? You can. 25 to 30. 35. That works. Good one. Okay, let's try that. Added a d4. Oh yeah, thank you.

Okay, 14 plus nine. Yeah! That hits. That hits. Go ahead and roll damage. He's engaged. So I'm going to take that sneak attack. That's good. Yeah, it is.

27 points. Ooh. Nice. And that's all I got. I used action bonus, run. That's it, that's all I got. Okay. Nope. Just once for the rest.

Oh boy. All right, that finishes your go, Nott. Yasha's turn. Yasha will rush up on the Kreen. All right. And will grab the Magician's Judge. To where it's here? Yeah, anywhere that's within melee is great.

That works there. And take two swipes. Go for it. Reckless. All righty. That is a 23 to hit. 23 hits. And the first one has the Divine Fury, which is three of these, are you fucking kidding me? That's bad. That's three.

Nope, only one of those. I'm just rolling. Damn it. On four, seven. All right, so 10 points of slashing damage. Okay. Double. Why?

Because I'm doubling this first attack. With his ability to add to the grave. So 14? 14? I'm sorry, it was 10, so 20. Double the dice is what it is, plus bonus. Is it double the dice? I thought it was just, they have... Oh no, they're vulnerable, so it is double damage.

Oh great, so 20 on the first one. It's not a crit. That's amazing. That's cool, that's cool. And reckless for the second attack, which is 22 to hit. 22 hits. Awesome. Great. That is 10, 13,

and what's 16? 16. 16 points of damage. Is he still stunned? No, no, but there's an entire round of combat where he just, everyone got the fuck out of it. 19, sorry, I forgot the right chain. 19? Yeah. All right, cool.

Good for you. That's it, yeah. All right, awesome. That finishes your go for Yasha. Top of the round. Now it's the Kreehan's turn. Is going to bonus action. Going to go ahead and manifest its echo. Right, we'll say there.

It's then going to go ahead and, let's see, make, yeah, it's going to go ahead and take all three attacks against you, Jester. Oh no. Oh, that makes sense. Slicey blade dude? Yep. Sentinel? Ooh. Yeah. Yasha gets a Sentinel attack, yeah.

Because I'm not there. I'm not there. She can do it, she can do it. Yep. So first attack against you. That is 21 to hit. All right. Yasha can make her attack. You take 18 points of slashing damage. Okay, okay, that's fine.

Strug that off. 20 to hit. That hits. Okay. Nine, three, 12, 15. Actually, he's going to go ahead and use his reaction to use Shadow Martyr. Nope, it didn't roll high enough.

So yeah, still takes the damage. 15 points of slashing damage. You can see now, he's starting to breathe heavy. He's looking really, really rough. That's good, that's good. Second strike against you. Cool. That's going to be 20 to hit. Yes.

That is 16 points of slashing damage. No problem. Cool, yeah, I'm fine. The first strike hits you with the blade, and all of a sudden, around the corner of your eye, you watch as a shadow version of it appears and cuts through you and then vanishes. From right at you, you're like, reacting from that.

Above you, you watch a spark of dark energy in the shape of the warrior come streaking down from above for a third strike. That is going to be 18 to hit. 18. Still hits you. That is... I wish I had the Bless. You didn't Bless?

This wouldn't be helping you. This wouldn't help for this, unfortunately. 15 points of slashing damage. Easy, no problem. He's going to go ahead and action surge. Oh no! Why you do this to me? I said you looked nice tonight.

I know you did. This isn't me. That was Matt. He's smiling under that helm. I'm just going to go ahead and... Oh yeah, I'm going to use my reaction of Hellish Rebuke. Go for it. All right. So roll damage on that.

Might be a little kill. Do I have to roll to attack on Hellish Rebuke? No, it's his saving throw against your Hellish Rebuke. What's the save on that? Is it dexterity? No, Hellish Rebuke I think is based on charisma? Well, the DC of the ability is based on your charisma. Okay, yeah, so it's, I'm sorry. It's okay.

Yeah, Hellish Rebuke, 12. 12, okay. That is, what's the ability, what the hell should it be? Dex. Dex, yeah, that puts him at 12, actually, exactly. Rolled a nine, plus three. Oh! So he doesn't take anything, or does he take half?

He takes half damage. Oh, okay, okay, okay. 14, 16, so eight points of cold damage. Eight points of cold damage. As I just go, ow! As you see, the ice can shard through the armor. Bits of it filling the gaps in its plate where it's been taking wounds.

Oh, oh! Oh, this is probably too late to say. What? Yeah? I have my duplicate within five feet. And so if my duplicate's up, it's like a thing. Oh, it's a 50-50 chance which one they attack, right? Or something, hold on. I'll double check.

They have to roll to see which one's the right one, right? New stuff, we have new stuff. Well, this is just a thing. No, this is old, I just am never attacking. I have advantage on attack balls. Correct, that's what it does. Oh, so I should have taken, okay, that's fine. Now you're good. So, that's okay. Motherfuck.

So, action surge, next attack on you. 21, 10 minus 11. Cool. Yeah, your damage is down. You take 17 points of slashing damage. I'm done. Unconscious? Yeah. Jester's unconscious.

It's my fault I went up there, you know? I was being brave. And the figure goes away. It's going to go ahead and after cutting through Jester, you watch as another one of its shadow forms appear and it's going to cut through the guy behind him. Misses. Natural five. Of course. Plus 11. No, that still hits.

Plus 11. Plus 11. You watch as the shadow version steps up behind the wounded dragonborn and then just carves across his throat, falls off, and the shadow clone echo dissipates. The third and final one's going to go ahead and strike down towards, oh my gosh, it looks pretty beefy.

It's going to attack you. It's technically, it's with advantage because you're on the ground. I mean, I'm unconscious. Yeah, so I mean, I still roll. Well, no, it's not a hit. Can I discount the auto crit? You've already used your reaction to improve

Yasha's attack. Fuck I have, motherfucker. So that's two death saving throws on you, Jester. Ooh, bully. And that's two death saving throws on you, Jester. Ooh, boy. And? Who's near her? I'm fine, I got it. Yasha. It's going to go five, 10, 15, 20, 25.

Yasha already took a reaction. Third. Piece of fucking shit. Wait, when he moved away, does anyone get an attack? Nope, Yasha already used her reaction. Oh my god. When I came over there, because Yasha already used her reaction. Oh my god. I thought, when I came over there, I thought Beau was next to me.

But she hit him, but it wasn't in an escape, so does he get to move? Sentinel drops them to zero, right? But I think it's when they're fleeing. I don't know if it counts. Wait, so, because she hit him with the thing, it might have done that. She hit him with Sentinel. That's right, hold on, it might prevent him from moving? She hit him with Sentinel. Sentinel stops him. That's right, hold on.

It might prevent him from moving. Which drops him to zero, but let me. You're right, it might do it based on. And both your helper. I'm also, oh, is an action surge a bonus, or can you just take an action surge? You are a fighter, you should know this. I should know this, but I'm so panicked.

You just take it, it's not a bonus action. Motherfucker. When you hit a creature in an opportunity attack, your creature speed becomes zero for the rest of the turn. With an opportunity attack. It wasn't an opportunity attack, though. Because it says here with... Creatures within 550 of you provoke opportunity attacks

from you, even if they take the disengage action. When a creature within 550 of you makes an attack against a target other than you, the target doesn't have, you can use your reaction to make a melee weapon attack. A melee weapon attack is not an opportunity attack, so it did not reduce its speed. Sorry.

It only reduces their speed if they're moving away that triggers it. It does not reduce their speed if they're getting somebody else. If they're planted in an attack. Correct. Got it. All right, that finishes its turn. Beau, you're up.

Order of changes. Boof. Wait, Yasha didn't go? Oh wait, no, because that's. Jester just went. Well, no, we're at the top of the round. He's at the top of the round. Oh, oh, fuck me. Is someone else getting Jess? I got Jett.

Oh, damn. Yasha could also. Assuming nothing else awful is going to happen. He's 45 feet away from me, right? Yeah. That guy? You don't know, maybe. No, I don't know shit. I think he is. I'm going to make the run. Yasha can also help me, right? Yeah. That guy? You don't know, maybe.

I fucking know, I don't know shit. I think he is, I'm going to make the run. Okay. I'm going to check and also I'll be able to, cool, cool, cool, five, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 35, 40, 45. Mother. You're running right past the giant flames. It's not hurting you, but it's super hot,

and you hear him right next to you, and he's just out of reach. That sucks. I'm going to do it, I'm going to spend a ki point to close the five feet. It seems really wasteful of a ki point, but. All right, you move in? I'm doing it.

Pop pop. Go for it, make your attacks. Try and find just right under his helmet, that nerve. I've been using my fists because they're magical. Has anyone hit this guy with a non-magical attack? You have, right? Who, the Kreen? The Kreen?

I assume the fighters have been. You didn't win non-magical attacks? I'm going to hit my staff. Go for it. Plus d4. One of them is cocked. Uh. That's what was cocked.

Yeah, you roll that. We discounted it, it was before you moved it. We throw out a 20 that was that cocked. It is now, it's 12, it's Yeah, you roll that. We discounted it was before you moved it. We throw out a 20 that was that cock before. It is now, it's 12, it's fine. She chose it. Should still be good. Yes, hits. That hits, go ahead and roll damage.

Ugh. Six damage. Six damage, all right. Stunning strike. Stunning strike. Right, just going for that jawline, going for that nerve. Natural 20. He's stunned. Natural seven.

Awesome. Punching him again. Go for it. You have advantage on the strike because he's stunned. No, that's what's so funny. Yeah. It hits, I'm sorry, 23. 23, that hits, good roll damage.

Still using the staff, still using my staff. Oh, that's good, that's good, 13. 13, nice. And. Yeah, that's your turn, right? He's looking bad. We'll have a bonus, no. I used Just Step the Wind. Yep, that's my turn.

All right. It's my turn. Caleb, you're up. I used Stun Ziggy's. I checked Line of Sight over Travis's shoulder, so I can see the magic user's head. I'm going to toss a firebolt his way, three-quarter coverage. Go for it.

The enemy. Nugget is very concerned right now. It's a disadvantage, right? No, he gets plus five. Oh, he gets plus five. Yes. That's 17. Plus four to your attack if you're doing an attack.

Yes, I am. Oh boy. That's pretty good. Hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on. Plus shit, shitballs. Where's my bubble? Plus, goddammit. Can't remember my shit coming up just yet. Plus, I think it's plus six, so 26.

26 hits, score roll damage. Okay, and that is two to 10. Oh my god. 10. 10 points of fire damage. Off the side of the shoulder, kind of pats it out. And I'm going to use my movement, which is halved because of the gravitational effect,

I think, to go over behind that tall outcropping of rock upstage, and I'm going to, no, right up against the one this way, nope. Sorry, behind this, hiding from the magic user. Gotcha. And for my bonus action, I'm going to pull out a healing potion and not drink it and just hold it.

Okay, you got it. That finishes your turn, Caleb? Yeah. All right, so now the mage's turn. The mage is going to go ahead and take attack on opportunity from the bulgur. Okay. Just going to roll for a strike. I'm going to pull that back up. Bite attack.

That's a 13. 13 misses. Okay. Wide swing just as the mage ducks down beneath. 15, 20, 25. No! And reaches over, grabs him, and you watch as they both vanish. Dimension Dooring out of sight.

I can't do anything with them. Does that provoke an attack of opportunity? Nope, it's a teleport. I can't do anything with them? Does that provoke an attack of opportunity? Nope, it's a teleport. The flames flickering, you angrily stomp around the space where it was. You glance about, make a perception check. 15. 15.

It's hard to tell on the horizon where they went amongst the rocks and other bits of terrain. They're out of sight. The flame's still burning from the firewall. You look about and can see the various scattered dead bodies of the various rangers who you had just met. That's where we're going to take a break. Oh!

That was a satisfying fight. A lot of cool shit happened. We're not technically take a break. That was a satisfying fight. A lot of cool shit happened. A lot of cool shit happened. We're not technically out of initiative yet. No. There's a gnoll. I know, we're going to come back to that here in a second. Oh shit. Jester's almost dead.

Jester's fine. I got that. How many points does the Bulgura have? 33. I'll say for the purposes, because otherwise we're here running through the motions here, the gnolls not going to last very long and the Bulgura neither, when all of you guys focused on it.

So we'll say you quickly dispatch the Bulgura and the gnoll, take a moment to breathe. You're at 30 hit points. I'm at 30 hit points, I'm not dead. There you go. You're at 30 hit points. And then we're going to take a break. Okay. So tonight, as our Wyrmwood giveaway.

Vyrmwood giveaway. We have this delightful cherry wood dice box. Our friends there at Leather Interior. Yeah. It's a giveaway. I get it. So to go ahead and possibly win this, head on over to the Twitch chat on the Critical Role

Twitch stream, that's twitch.tv slash Critical Role. Enter the keyword date, D-A-T- chat on the Critical Role Twitch stream. That's twitch.tv slash criticalrole. Enter the keyword date, D-A-T-E, because it's Valentine's Day, and you're having a date with us. But enter it once, only once, and once again, only U.S. and Canada, excluding Quebec, are there because of stupid laws.

But we'll have a winner for you when we come back here in just a little bit. See you in a sec. Hey, hey, we didn't die. Hello, Critters. This is Ashley Johnson, president of the Critical Role Foundation, our 501c3 nonprofit organization with a mission that might sound familiar. To leave the world better than we found it. We partner with other nonprofits to raise funds supporting causes that mean a lot to us. And we allocate 10% of all donations to an emergency relief fund that allows us to provide immediate assistance in the

case of natural disasters or other unexpected emergencies that require quick action. To learn more about the Critical Role Foundation and to donate, visit criticalrolefoundation.org. Welcome back, everyone. So before we get into it, we'll have Laura and Travis running in just a second. They're dealing with Mommy and Daddy stuff.

Valentine's Day. Just a quickie. We do have a winner for our giveaway, which is Procrastinator. Procrastinate underscore OR. Congratulations. You won tonight, we'll have that sent to your ASAP.

Well done. So, bringing us back in. There, standing amongst the base of the Ashkeeper Peaks, overlooking the Wastes of Jorahas before you and the path you've chosen to take, you can see the various slaughtered gnolls scattered amongst the nearby rock and stone, as well as the bodies of the individuals

you had even just previously met, this scouting regiment out of Bladegarden. Only three survivors remain, and they, not even acknowledging your presence, just start gathering the corpses of their friends and laying them side by side, checking them for any goods that they won't be needing. I don't say anything,

but I just slowly start helping them. Okay. I am taking care. Hold the ladder. Wow. Sorry. Did you ever heal Jester? Ah, shit. Jester's dead now, I assume. Yeah, I heal Jester.

I'm taking care of Jester for this. How many of them are left? There are three. Three. Three survivors of what was originally 11. Three of 11. Three. Three survivors of what was originally 11. Three of 11, wow. Anything on any of the gnolls' bodies? Make an investigation check. 22. 22, all right.

So amongst the gnolls, you manage to pull together what comes to about 26 gold pieces, 16 silver pieces, and 31 copper. Oh man, imagine what kind of loot we would have gotten off the other guys. I know. Yeah. There are only three of the muckmen left. Did we loot them? They're alive. They're alive.

Three living muckmen that are currently. They're dead brethren. Caduceus has that are currently. They're dead brethren. Caduceus has brought you from the brink of death. Mm-hmm. You're feeling okay, though. I feel pretty good. Minus the fact that I almost died. I'm going to start limping over to the closest muckman. Okay, you walk over and you see

a stern-faced woman with ratty brown mousy hair that's pulled into a tight braid that disappears into the back of the hood. The hood is currently slipped back. She looks, blood pulling down one side of the forehead that has now begun to dry and mingle with the sweat. She doesn't pay any attention as you approach and just is in the process of folding arms over and checking pockets.

Smear away the blood coming out of my eyes and nose from that gravitational bullshit, and we'll crouch down next to her and attempt to help in any way I can, and ask how, oh, my head,quent a thing is this? This is not very frequent. We usually do not have to reveal ourselves for others.

It was careless of Calden. But a lesson he paid for. How far off are you from the nearest group of your brethren? As far as I know, there are maybe three other scouting regiments out amongst the ash keepers, but we all keep to ourselves. We have to return to Bladegarden within the week.

Looks like we'll do our best to bring back what we can, effects for the week. Looks like we'll do our best to bring back what we can, effects for the families. Unfortunately, we're not enough to carry the bodies back. Do we need to bury them or burn them or? What do you want to do with them? You can see her eyes flitter amongst the corpses and go, I'm not superstitious, but I do know of the whispers of various necromantic

terrors to the Far East. I'd say probably best we burn them. She continues to rummage through and pulls out some coin, pulls out some arrows, takes off a section of the armor and inspects it. It's too damaged and sets it back down. To the east. If we head east, we are going to have problems

with the undead. I don't know, I have not been that far east. But you hear this. I've heard that there are, this is old history of Xhorhas. There were betrayers that were dabbling with various means of creating more powerful armies.

I've seen many different shadow-based creatures that wander the Waste, but I have not crossed undead myself. So I said I'm not superstitious, but better safe than sorry. Okay, thank you. Excuse me. And Caleb lies flat on his back and just stares at the sky

and starts into arcane recovery. Okay. You said you're heading straight back to Bladegarden? Well, I'm not going to do very much good with a small party like this. Are there more of you back at base camp? Are you going to switch out the party? I think so.

Or at least replace those we've lost and head back out. This is a time of war. We cannot stop until there is some end to this insanity. I'm sorry. Did your fallen friends have any horses or carts or any way of traveling? We travel by foot across the mountain range.

It's the safest to stay out of sight. And if you're heading east, it's the safest for you as well. Oh, okay. It's very hard to stay out of sight when you're on horseback or carrying a cart. Do those cloaks keep you hidden very well? They blend in with the environment? It's the intended color.

Do you have any extras you would be willing to part with? She opens her hands amongst the various bodies on the ground. I think we should take them. Yeah, I agree. Of course. There's enough for all of you, though a few of them are bloodstained. I can cast Mending on them.

Try to clean them up a little bit. Mending fixes, it doesn't clean. Cool. They're going to get bloodstained. That's a prestidigitation thing. Prestidigitation. If you like, you can build a pyre and wait till you've had some time to move on

before we set it, and we'll set it when it's time for us to leave, if that helps. I appreciate that. Of course. Give us a few more minutes. Take your time. Just talk to me before you leave. All right. A few more minutes. And take your time. Just talk to me before you leave. All right.

The three of them gather, whatever things seem to be important, they throw the bodies in a pile, quietly bow their heads for a moment of silence, and then turn back around, throwing their cloaks over their shoulders, their hoods up, bows at the side, and the woman approaches you.

In that time, I've scribbled a note to Dairon. Okay. If you're heading anywhere, if you happen to run into a soldier by the name of Dairon with a Cobalt Soul, could you give this to her? I'll do my best. She was injured.

Pretty sure here in Ashgarden, where Ash grew fish. Bladegarden. That, please. Jensen. Bladegarden. Garden garden. Ashgarden is where I flee gardens. Last I heard, she was recovering in Blake Garden.

Ask around. Thank you. I hate to ask this, but since you guys are heading back, would you have any supplies that would help us on our way out? Colden was going to give us something, I think. It's a terrible ask, I know.

Well, we only need enough food for the three of us to get back, so any sort of rations you would need for your journey. They're in that pile there. You can see there's a small cluster of, it looks like satchels that were taken from the bodies that probably contain trail rations and other bits of edible materials for the journey.

Cool, cool. We'll take just a half. Okay. Make an investigation check. Ten? Ten, okay. Mm. You find some food. 10. 10? Okay. Mm.

You find some food. Awesome. Good job. Thanks. The three of them gather, give you a nod. Stoic, motionless, they've probably seen some shit, and this is not an occurrence that is new to them. They turn around and begin hiking their way back up the side of the mountain.

Well, this place is not great, but we knew that coming in, and we survived our first encounter with baddies here, so we should, I feel, look on the bright side. What if the whole city is filled with people that are as strong as they were? I think if that were true, the war would be over by now.

That's true. That's true. I think there's, probably, they're just mostly people. We just came across a couple very serious people. And we're all standing. Very serious. If you'll give me a minute to help put this pyre together, Mm-mm. If you'll give me a minute to help put this pyre together, I can also give everybody a little bit of a,

help heal a little bit. How about you focus on that, and we'll get the bodies together. I'm going to cast Prayer of Healing. Two, three, four, five, six, on everybody but me. You can take a short roast. You can do that, too. Most appreciate it, on everybody but me. Short rest. You can do that, too.

Most appreciative. I'll do both. So I'm going to cast Prayer of Healing and we'll take a short rest. There you go. So that's a... I'm going to lay down for a minute. 28 plus five, everybody gains

13 hit points. Thank you, Caduceus. Just take a little bit of the edge off before you go into a short rest. Yeah. Short rest time. So as you take the time to regather your wits about you, to tend to your wounds, to have Caduceus help you recover a bit

from the strain and pain of the battle that just transpired. You complete your short rest. The sky is still relatively dark and cloudy. The smell in the air lets you know that rain is probable before nightfall. And in the moment, you're thankful that these heavier, thicker gray cloaks might help you not soak to the entire bone,

what would you like to do? Well, since we're in Xhorhas, maybe one of us should take a cue from these guys and look at the dodecafuckinghedron, right? Moving forward? Yeah. Or should we wait until we need it? Well, we use it once a day, so one of us should look at it regardless.

24 hours, right? Mm-hmm. So I might have missed something. Why are we looking at it once a day? Just so someone has the edge. Are we not afraid that that is a beacon to us? Well, we can just keep it in the bag and look at it in there.

We don't have to take it out or anything. Okay. You want to take a look? I don't know if I'll need it, but sure. To your husband. That's true. I will trip balls and look at it. Yeah.

Okay. So you go ahead and take your fragment of possibility. Placing it back into your satchel. It's in the bag the whole time. We don't take it out. Stick your face in there bag the whole time. We don't take it out. Stick your face in the other dimension. Yeah, basically. So do we just keep, just walk on, then? Say we head east, the way that they said.

All right. Is there any cover out there in the fields and plains below us? I mean, there are low, like, yeah, batches of scrub, scrub brush here and there. There are areas where sometimes clusters of rocks and natural boulders that have just either rolled down the mountains

or were jettisoned by long, dormant volcanic activity. Volcanic activity can be seen, yeah. That's not doing that crossover. No. But yeah, there are occasional things that you could camp against, but it is an open battle in the plains. Like the Wastes of Xhorhas,

because it is just an open valley of gray and brown and dust and muck. Occasional dotted trees that are the hardier types that survive but aren't vibrant and pretty. They exist. Sorry, if any of you take a minute, can you figure out which way this worm traveled? Oh, I guess we can look around and see.

Yeah, I'll look for tracks. He said it headed east. That way. It'll be a survival check to look for tracks. The best way through? Okay. 25, natural 20. Ooh!

21. 13. Okay. We'll say, through you guys, you manage to find where the slithered aspects of the worm push, and it is definitively going east. It makes its way beyond the rocks and heads into the fields. We'll say for the remainder of the day,

you could follow the tracks. You have to make an additional attempt each day of travel to try and keep an eye on it. Sure. But yeah, you have an idea of where it went. We're out in the open, we're sitting ducks. I feel like we should put these cloaks to good use and try to be careful, and it will slow us, but...

Move cautiously. Move cautiously. I agree. Follow the path of this worm as long as possible, because they are from here, they know this place, presumably they know the path of least resistance. There will still be resistance, but at least... Let's go. I mean, I think as long as it still follows that track,

that the Muckman. You're sure you want to save him? I'm pretty sure. I don't want to feel guilty about this, but I'm 100% sure that I would like to save my husband's life. Just checking him out. I'm going to, as soon as we're ready. Okay, yeah, let me know. When we're ready to go, I'm going to use a tinderbox

to start the pyre, but. When we're ready to go, I'm going to use a tinderbox to start the pyre, but not until we're ready to go, and I'm not going to wait for it to fully catch him. Okay. Because it's going to call attention. As you guys gather the rest of your supplies, pick yourselves up, apply the cloaks of those that fell in combat. I'll cast the Vast Without a Trace on us as we move.

I was just going to ask you. All right. So are you guys moving at a stealth pace, or are you moving, trying to be stealthy at a standard pace? I feel like on the mountain side, at least, we should go stealthily. Very slow. At least today.

Stealthily. Tomorrow, we may move quickly. It's like half speed? It's 18 miles per day of travel at a slow pace. So you don't cover as much ground. Yeah, yeah. Let's do it. Okay. For now, yeah. So. That's really slow, you guys.

Yeah. But you can all make stealth checks. At 10. Nice job, y' checks. At 10. Nice job, Yasha. Thank god. 31 for Yasha. 21 for Fjord. Caleb, you're blessed. Doesn't matter.

19. 19? 24? Oh. No, you're blessed, you get advantage. That's what they say. Oh, blessed is the thing? Yeah, it gave me the blessing of the trickster.

I thought it was plus stuff. Oh, that's better. That is 11. That's plus 10, really? No, I rolled a trace. Oh, 21, thank you. Okay. 30.

14. Okay. So, moving on, you eventually, within the next couple hours, find yourselves at the base of the mountain. The standard slate gray rock and stone that has accompanied you across the Ash Keeper begins to give way to the somewhat ruddy

and brown of the valley floor. The bushes and brush you come across here is gray to light brown. Some of it is bristled with thorns. It is a very unwelcoming landscape. There are areas where you can see bits of the ground seems to be blasted with glass. And you would recognize this as the remnants

of lightning strikes that have hit the ground or other objects in the vicinity. Powerful lightning strikes. That's a little scary. vicinity. Powerful lightning strikes. That's a little scary. Yeah. Storm said we may need to take cover. Just as it begins to rain gently. Oh, hey, it sounds like rain.

It's cold rain. Go ahead and make a nature check for me. There's some of them brussels. Five. Five. It's raining. My nature's really low. I know. Yeah.

Aren't you a nature guy? I mean, I spent most of my time in one place. I don't really, yeah. There's a difference between loving nature and being able to empathize with nature and having the specific knowledge to ascertain patterns. It's raining.

Mm-hmm. How cold is it here or not? Just out of curiosity. Comparison, the weather is as chilly as the Empire is, but you are out in the middle of the open. is as chilly as the Empire is, but you are out in the middle of the open. There's no looming hearth or home. But thankfully, these cloaks that you did take from the troop, they are treated

with some sort of a material, which makes them a little water resistant. So you don't soak entirely through. Your boots get soaked and muddy, elements do get damp, but as long as you stay bundled within the cloak, you manage to stay somewhat warm and not thoroughly waterlogged.

Okay. So continuing on across the Badlands, the rain bearing down, no signs of lightning or thunder. Eventually, the sun begins to set, begins to grow dark. Yasha points out across the way, you can see another one of those large beasts

that you had seen. At this distance, it's about maybe three quarters of a mile off. How big? Make an intelligence check. Just a straight intelligence. Mm-hmm. 14. 14.

Gaging the distance from here and the way it's interacting with the scenery around it, you watch as it reaches over and puts its hand up against the tree. You have a better view of it now, even through the rain, where you can see it has what looks to be four arms, walks like a gorilla, looks to be furred

with these squat little legs. It walks its way across the landscape slowly. You watch as it reaches out and grabs a tree, one of those dried trees, and bends and snaps as it moves past, grabs it, begins scratching its shoulder with it. You guess it's probably somewhere in the neighborhood of 20 feet to the shoulder.

Oh. So bipedal, four arms. It could probably be bipedal, but it tends to use all four arms to walk along, so you're not entirely certain where it sits between that space. You don't see a face, you can't see the detail, you can just see its outline and the basic shape of its body.

I think he's probably nice. Do we want to bed down now and start up early? Yeah. Sure. No objection. I mean, I think any time traveling during the sun is probably best. I would agree. I don't know if we want to risk traveling at night right now.

We just have a little bubble then and protects us from everything, right, Caleb? Mm-hmm. Okay. Probably as dark as you can make it. I can make it dark as pitch. Okay. I'm going to do the nighttime routine. I'm going to do the nighttime routine.

I'm going to cast the dome. I'm going to use my silver thread to put an alarm around it, and I'm going to ask Frumpkin to sit about 80 feet, 70 feet away from the dome in the direction of that hulking creature and just keep extra watch in addition to any watch we do. While he's doing that,

I'm going to cast Glyph of Warding. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Really? Mm-hmm. And I'm going to cast it, let's see. I'm going to cast it with Hold Person Prepared in it. Okay, fair enough. Where are you placing it?

Just next to our bubble. Okay, you got it. That lasts for how long? It takes an hour, but I think it, let's see. Duration, until dispelled or triggered. Yeah. Yeah. I would recommend letting the rest of the party know where the glyph is placed. Yes, yes, yespelled or triggered. Yeah. Yeah. I would recommend letting the rest of the party know

where the glyph is placed. Yes, yes, yes. The glyph is right there. I think it only activates under a certain- Worst breakfast wake up ever. It's according to physical characteristics, creature kind. All righty. So I can say specifically if it's like-

A type of creature. Yeah, like a Kryn or something like that. You got it? Kryn? Kryn. Kryn. Kryn. Kryn. No. Terrible.

Okay. I'm a fictional racist. Terrible. I can cast them, and I can cast Ending on him. Any light-based magic that you have, too, we should probably set up for tomorrow. I'll take Fresh Watch, too, because I don't think everybody passing out

is a good idea no more. I agree. Okay. So as you guys bed down amongst the darkened sphere, or this darkened dome for the evening, go make a perception check for me. Natural 20. Ooh! 20 water. Doggy.

All right. And before passing out, I take one of those rags that I keep and I put it over the drift globe and say, Tawaj, and leave it floating in the middle of the globe so that you have some dim light. Okay. That does not protrude beyond the dome, correct?

Because it's opaque on the outside, yeah. Cool, all right, so you have a little nightlight. I'll use Dormitory to make it sound like nice, pleasant sounds of a running stream, so it sounds like we're in a peaceful place. Sure, there you go. Birds, crickets chirping. It's a little spa day.

Yeah. The dome does not hold in sound. Oh, it doesn't? FYI, just wipe it. Oh, never mind, they don't do that, because Caleb, thanks for the... Borrow my't? FYI. Just wipe it. And borrow your goggles. Oh, never mind, they don't do that, because Caleb, thanks for the... Borrow my what? Your goggles.

Oh, yes. Thank you. All righty. What'd you roll, Fjord? Natural 20. Natural 20. That's right. 21 total. Great. That big-ass perception bonus.

Yeah. So as you guys rest through the evening, Fjord, you do keep an eye out. It's hard to see much beyond a certain radius because when it's night here, it's night. The clouds are thick enough and it rains throughout the night. You do not see the moon, either of them, no light.

You do not see any movement. It feels strangely reminiscent of some of the dreams you've had where you've just found yourself in the middle of darkness. That cold, looming, creeping thought in the back of your head of how far away you are from your promised goal to a specific entity.

Yeah. But nothing seems to catch your attention. Nothing draws too close to the exterior of this dome to warrant waking the rest of your group. Eventually, you can find yourself to rest. Who would like to take a second to watch? Caduceus, go ahead and roll perception. 27.

27, nice. Natural 19. Okay. With the goggles. With the goggles, same scenario. You can see pretty well within a short radius, but the rest of it is this beautiful pitch black nothing. It's kind of...

That's nice. A different interpretation of the same space. Oh, that's nice. Morning comes to you, the low gray light. The rain itself does seem to be getting a bit heavier. You're preparing yourselves for exiting as the dome itself eventually gives away. That was creepy.

That was weird. That was really weird. That was my iPad giving me notifications. The spookiness of Valentine's Day. Any new creatures or intrusions in our immediate space with the coming light? Did the glyph fire or anything? Glyphs did not fire off.

Is your cat still alive? The bad news is you're out in the middle of an open field. The good news is you're out in the middle of an open field. I can see it coming. Yeah, for the most part, it's going to be hard for things to surprise you if you're being slow and stealthy. For the most part.

So, with the day ahead of you, who's keeping watch? I'm keeping an eye out. Yes, you are. All right, so you're keeping an eye out? Both of you? I'll help him. Sure, never mind, you can help him. Okay, you guys roll individually? Go ahead and roll two.

I'll take advantage. Now that we're on the open plan, should we move at the slightly more, the slightly quicker pace, but still stealthy? At a medium pace? Yeah. At a medium pace. That's awful. That's an 11.

Okay, good to know. That was terrible. Those were two terrible rolls. Somebody should have looked at our moat while we were still in the thingy. Someone take a look. I looked at it yesterday. We're out in the middle of a field.

Let's give it to Deucey. All right, so you go ahead and take your Mode of Possibility. I'll say I'm high skill. Inviting a very miffed and wet cat who has been out all night and is crawling up inside of my cloak and hood and doing the scarf thing. It's wet on my neck, but okay.

Thanks. All right, you all bundle up your cloaks a little heavier and trudge forward. You're going at a normal pace, so everyone makes a stealth check again. Are we doing a plus 10? Are you still casting Pass Without a Trace in this? Jester? You got it a juice?

Yeah, sure, it's dead. Sorry, I'm healing my blink dog. Awesome. Natural 20 for Fjord. Great. 20, 30, 31, and 27 for Yasha. Great. 20, 30, 31, and 27 for Yasha. Great. 25.

28. 14. Yeah, yeah. There it is. 28. 23. Okay. 22.

Moving at a normal pace. You feel pretty stealthy. Still, it's easier for things to see you at a normal pace, but you all rolled pretty high. Pushing on for the secondary day, you begin to see eventually a river on the horizon, heading from south to north. Yasha. This is the river that we south to north. Yasha.

This is the river that we have to cross. Yeah. Yasha points out and says, this is known as the Eiffelon River. The Eiffelon? Eiffelon. Eiffelon. Stems from the Sorrow Weep waters the lake to the south.

Or it can still be. Sorrow Seep. Sorrow Weep waters the lake to the south. Or it can still go south. Sorrow Seep. Sorrow Seep. Oh, that's the lake? In addition to this? Mm-hmm. Oh shit. You're at the edge of the map.

Edge of the map! This is scary, guys. I'm going to get a fucking horse. Is that Ifolon with an I, or like? With an I, I-F-O-L-O-N. I fell on the river and all I got was this lousy t-shirt. Ehh! Shoot him.

No matter what name. How's the water smell? Does it smell? You're too far away from it. Oh, we're not there yet. It shifts on the horizon. You probably, you could get to it probably at your current pace by the end of the day. If you were moving slower, you wouldn't get there yet,

but because you're going at a normal pace. Normal pace. All right. Normal day. If you were moving slower, you wouldn't get there yet, but because you're going at a normal pace. Normal pace. All right. Normal punch. And you rolled? 11. 11, right, okay. So you move on for the first half of the day, keeping quiet, muttering to each other for your own sanity, discussing what may be awaiting you

further and further east in this landscape still heavily marred by the wars of the gods before the Diversions. There's a moment where you're all moving forward and you hear what sounds like gravelly voices, muffled and soft, like a little ways out that way. The rest of you pick up on it. Actually, it would be Jester and Beauregard pick up on it.

No, you hear that? Was that you? No, there's people or something. That's not your thaumaturgy thing? No. Fuck. What was that? Everybody dropaturgy thing? No. Fuck. Everybody drop down. What do you mean drop down?

Like slaps? We hear voices. You hear one go, and another voice begins to yell. You cast Tongues on yourself? All right. You hear it transition from guttural barks and a goblinoid language into a,

and actually, wait, you, let me double check one thing here. Speak goblin? Yeah, you may. I'm halfling for some reason. Yeah, you would understand it, actually. What does he say? The voice you hear says, Quick, grab your things and run!

It's coming! Everyone, the bad guys are saying that it's scary and they need to run, so we should probably do the same. What? As this is happening, you now begin to see lower near one of the plain areas where there's a cluster of rocks, you can see a gray, heavy-shouldered deer

you can see a gray, heavy-shouldered deer that you've seen keep at a distance from you has been killed. You see a group of about four or five humanoid figures, though tall and covered in fur. You recognize them as Bugbear. You see as they're grabbing their things off the ground and looking back in the direction you came from.

Which is back where we saw the thing. Something's behind us. Something's behind us. A worm or something? Turning around, looking back. No, the big, blooping where we saw the big thing. Something's behind us. Like a worm or something? I don't know. No, the big, bloating creatures we saw at a distance maybe. All of you look around and you don't see anything on the horizon directly behind you. Caduceus, you look out for a second and look up.

You see a hawk or a bird of prey, it seems, almost with the wingspan. Oh my god. And it gets bigger. That's a problem. And bigger. You guys all glance up and from what you can see, it appears to be some sort of a bird. Not in good health. A lot of the feathers have been pulled

or plucked from its body and other elements of it are discolored and dark. But as it begins to swoop into a dive, you get a sense of the immensity of it. That wingspan, you're like, oh, that's like a 20 foot, 30, that's like a 40 foot wingspan. Or bigger. And at which point, you see the bugbears pick up and bolt. As they begin running,

heading eastward in the same direction you were, they're about 120 feet north of where you are. They begin charging in that direction. The rain's still battering down. You can still make out where the ship is. It swoops down, parallel to where you guys are, giant talons reach out, grasp into one of the bodies and pulls it up. You hear the bugbear screaming, as the talons tear it in half and its grasp. As it picks up in the air, you watch as it brings one half of its body up into its beak and

begin to slurp it down into its large, sharpened maw. It picks up the other piece of its body, tends to draw and pull out. You see some of its innards still tangled in the claw, yanked out, the rest of its legs fall and plummet to the ground. They keep shouting,

Run! Run! They're just charging. What are you guys doing? Where are they running? To the river? They're running towards the river. Let them be the bait. Yeah, does the creature see us at all? You don't know.

I don't know. There's no grass, it's just an open plain? Yeah, is there any rock coverage? There's a ways from you right now where you can see maybe 200 feet ahead of you, what looks to be a little bit of rock. A bit. 200, 200. Yes.

Right now, there are bits of dried, I want to say, grass that go about a foot off the ground. How far away is the river? The river's probably another three hours of travel. Oh, oh. Okay. We could just lay down and try to hide in the grass. Sure. I'm not against that. try to hide in the grass. Sure.

I'm not against that. Sure, let's do it. With our cloaks over us? We can certainly try. Ooh. I'm going to cast Major Image and create a large, hairy mastodon and send it in the direction of the bugbears away from us.

Okay. So what's the DC on that one? Major image. It just has. Oh no, it's not in a saving throw. It just has the, see if it can discern it. Yeah. Right, okay. Against your spell save DC, which is 16. 16? Mm-hmm.

You got it, all right. As it picks up and they're screaming, it gets up about maybe another 80 or 90 feet off the ground. After picking it up and just coasting above, it climbs another 150 or so feet up in the air, glances down. Its head turns towards the direction of the mastodon that you've created. Goes into another dive towards claws open. You hear the bird-like shriek as it swoops in and passes through this

mastodon. Angry, it pulls back up, its feet skidding into the mud, carving these giant grooves into the ground ahead of it. It rights itself and picks back up and begins to turn around to make a second turn towards it. Are you guys staying put? Are you moving? We're hauling ass, right? No, we're laying flat. We're laying flat. We're going to lay flat.

Sure. Okay. So you guys all lay flat. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm picturing the hobbits in one. Okay. You have to roll a new stealth check because you did cast a spell. 18. Last time. Oh, so 28.

Well, how long does Pass Without a Trace last? Oh, yeah. I didn't say I recast it, so. It lasts for an hour. Lasts for an hour? Oh wait, let me check. It might only be 10 minutes. No, I think it's an hour.

I think it's an hour, too. Go check. Yeah, it's an hour. It's been a few hours. Have you been casting it along the way? Yes. How many spell slots do you have to cast it? Maybe 17?

I've got three. Three? You wouldn't have enough to keep it at this point, unfortunately. Okay. So this is a straight stealth roll for you. 18. 18? Okay.

I'll also cast a spell. I'll cast Silent Image and make another mastodon running the opposite direction. Okay, okay. For the rest of you who are stealthing, because the spell did wear off, I do need to do a new stealth check from everybody to try and keep away from its sight

and see if its distraction maintains itself. 18. All right. 15. 30. Ooh. 18. All right. 15. 30. 14. 20. Okay. So it swoops up, the rest of you jump down and get low

as far as you can to the ground, and getting the rest of the cloak bundled over, the bugbears keep running. It curves around, sees the other mastodon. Does not seem tempted by that one. It curves around, sees the other mastodon. Does not seem tempted by that one. That was a natural 20. As it spins back, however, still focused on the one, swoops down, and this time it's going to go

into a full assault, not trying to pick up and leave with it. It's going to come down, claws ready, and it passes through. Its talons slipping into the mud now. The rain that's been barreling down has caused this to come like a minor quagmire, and it skids for a second. Its massive bird form scooting and through,

driving this huge wedge in the ground as it stumbles for a minute and stops and spins around angrily, looking at it, and it steps forward and brings its talon up and bites towards it, and it's just passing through the mastodon. It's not even interested in your ears. But it does give time for the bugbears to continue to escape.

You guys are just held in place there. It does turn and look in your direction a little bit. I'm going to hold the spell. It just kind of. It definitely knows the mastodon's not real now. Uh-huh, sure, sure, that's what it says. Takes back off up in the air. Seeing it now amongst the ground,

its wingspan probably fits more in the 60-foot tip-to-tip range. Amazing. 2747. If it comes close to us, if it looks like it has spotted us, I'm going to hold a spell. Yeah.

Happy to hold it. Okay. I'm going to do the same. It scoots around, looks. I'm going to hold Guiding Bolt just in case. Okay. I'm going to pray. To?

Iune, of course. Okay. He watches, it takes a moment to pass through the field, and looks back towards the bugbears, and just takes off in their direction. Hey, it's good news. Why are they from us? the bugbears and just takes off in their direction. It's good news, why are they from us? Can one of you control it and tell it to fly us to the town?

I could politely ask it. I have Charm Monster. Oh, you do? You could. Yeah, but if I fail, I get ripped into pieces. A hundred and something. We would definitely protect you, Fjord. Huh? We would protect you. But if I fail, I get ripped into pieces. A hundred and something feet in the air. We would definitely protect you, Fjord. Huh? We would protect you.

Against Rodan? I'm not so sure. What is that, anyway? It's a rock. It's a rock. Man, man. From season one? Correct. It's not a healthy rock, it's a Rohasian rock. It's a different, a different.

It's a different kind, it's a Rohasian rock. It's a different. It's a different kind of rock. Alt rock. Sorry. That was so good. That was so good. It's a good kind of dumb. You get points for that. You watch as it takes off in the distance and you can vaguely hear the muffled screams

as this hunting party of bugbears are probably torn asunder. You see it, and it's hard to miss, it's shaped, dives down a few times before it eventually, you watch as it takes off back in the direction it came. It glides overhead, this massive airplane-like shadow across the clouded sky above you. You all stay still. It glides overhead, this massive airplane-like shadow

across the clouded sky above you. You all stay still. It continues heading back towards the Ashkeeper Peaks. You can barely make it, and its claws below what looks to be one bugbear per claw. Double fisting. Those are my people. What? No, I'm just kidding. Fuck those guys.

What were those? What are those guys? Yeah. Do we know what those are? A bugbear? Didn't we fight them in the first encounter? No. No, those were gnolls. Yeah. You've never really encountered bugbears, per se.

Not since you've all been together, but you've heard of them. They're cousins to Goblinkin. They're generally more of a bully-like in between the ogre and goblin spectrum. Okay. Yeah, they're physical. They like brutality and combat,

but they're also lazy and like to put as little effort as possible if they can make other goblins do it for them and other entities. They're interesting. Probably not terribly well stocked, not worth going to where they were picked up from. You don't know? How many of the bugbears were there?

Four. You saw four in the party. Two we know were killed. Taken away. I think all four are dead. I think you said they were all eviscerated. I'm sure they're going to. How far away was the first slaughter spot of them from us?

From where you guys are right now, it's about a little over 100 feet. Maybe we don't need to do that. Maybe we don't. It covers. It's going to do nothing but attract other scavengers anyway. Watching the rock until it moves on.

And it has, so let's go. Yeah, let's keep going. How often do you see anything like that? That was pretty amazing. I really could. Yeah, never. Yeah. You continue on forward

about 30 minutes of travel, carefully, slowly. You come upon the remnants of the bugbears that were picked up in the claws. You can see the areas where they were scattered a bit and what was gathered for the creature to rush off with. Oh, that is gruesome. Ugh. that was gathered for the creature to rush off with. Oh, that is gruesome.

Ugh. There is one bugbear that is untouched, it seems, but still on the ground. Dead? Or just laying there? It's laying there. But playing dead? Let's throw something at it. You get the sense that it is still alive. You can just, looking over in the direction,

you see the breathing a bit. It looks like it's been playing dead for a half an hour. Yeah, no, I think he's fine. We can keep moving. We'll just keep an eye on him as we keep walking by. I'll use Thaumaturgy and make it sound like that bird is coming back. Okay. Wow, that's great. If we want, I can talk to him.

If we want any information? I mean, maybe. Do we? Do we? I don't know, what can Do we? Do we? I don't know, what can we learn from this thing? I think he's a threat to us, so it couldn't hurt. I mean, you might, mm. Are there more of them nearby?

Where did you come from? Have you seen a giant purple worm? How do you cross this river? Sure. Where do you cross? Okay. Yeah, let's go chat up the bugbear. Okay. Hello, sleepy bear. We won't hurt you if you wake up.

No response. Yeah. We've got a pot of honey. Huggy bear, we can see you. Let's talk. I still have tongues up. It's an hour. You guys are speaking in goblin? Yeah.

You see one of the eyes open. Naphtal. Yeah, peek-a-boo, we see you. No more hibernate-y. You see the hand go for the side of his belt. No, no, no, no, no, we mean you no harm. No fight. We could, but we don't mean to.

Make a persuasion check. That's cocked? Yeah, it's cocked. Because you've got so many fucking dice in your tray. You've got to sort them out. What the fuck are you talking about? You've got to sort them out so you have room to roll. It's true. It's the top of the game.

Persuasion, that is 20. That's true, you have two by three inches of rolling space there. That's all you need. 20, okay. The hand that was brushing towards the belt instead reaches out and plants itself in the mud. Then gets a push up into a sitting position with the mud all caked into the fur

on one side of the face. The rest of the fur is matted from the rain. Sits up. You mean no harm? No fighting. Sorry about your friends or family. Well, that is life in the wastes. We're just passing through. We're not trying to start anything. We just need some directions. If you could help us, maybe we can give you some food. Ask him. Ask him if he wants a tattoo. I won't lead with that.

Are we going to shave him first? Sure. Yasha's good at that. He scoots back in the mud and starts trying to stand up a little bit. No, no, we're not going to hurt you. We could really just destroy you, but we have no desire to do that.

We just want some information, because you live here and we want to pass, you see that river over there? We are hoping to get to the other side of it. I don't live here. Where do you live? There, in points in the direction past the river, but a little bit northeast.

How do you get to the, do you live on the other side of the river? Yeah. How do you get to the, do you live on the other side of the river? Yeah. How do you get to the other side of the river? Swim. Is it a hard swim? Yeah. This guy's there.

Do you think we could do it or no? Valuable. Maybe. He's there. Maybe. I see that look in your eye. Is there a best place to cross the river that you use? A place where it, I guess, widens out,

so it would be less... No, no. Shallow, more shallow. More shallow. Shallow? I don't know how water works. That's true. There are a few places where the river's not quite as

wide, yes. Well, where are those places? We have food. I was going to say, if you can show us where that is and we can get across. He can't understand you. Well, yeah, but I can say this. That's what I translate to him, yes.

Actually, it turns to you and responds in broken common. Oh shit. Well, that's convenient. If you can help us get across, I can give you some food, and if you need any healing after what just happened. And the tattoo! The tattoo's optional.

It's pretty cool. They are pretty cool, but it's optional. I can show you across the river. But. Can I ride you across the river? Are we making this weird? Do you float? Can I ride like a raft?

I can float, yes. Have you ever ridden a person across the river? Have you? Not since I was a tiny bird. What, you have a bad back? No, he said not since he was a tiny bug. What, you have a bad back? No, he said not since he was a tiny bug bear. This feels like a scorpion and the tortoise sort of thing.

But are you the scorpion? Yes, always the scorpion. You're not from around here, are you? No. Do we look like tourists? Very much. Is it our family facts? Is it our matching clothes? Is it our matching cloaks?

The bright pink one you wear around your waist? We do have Xhorhasr bust on the back of our cloaks. That might give it away. What is your name? My name is Gloozle. Gloozle? Gloozle. Gloozle.

So this big bird that has killed your friends, your family, are there a lot of those? Not usually this far out from the mountains. There's some that are to the eastern range by the Penumbra Range. And there's some at the Ash Keepers. So they become less of an issue in your neck of the woods, yeah?

Yeah, they don't go too far into the valley, but we were trying to go further in. Why? Yeah. They're paying us to, well, they were paying us to bring food back for the armies. You've been hired by a... The Empire?

No. The bad guys. The Kree. No. The Kirin. Dynasty guys. Yeah. Dynasty. Babe.

Yeah, the Kirin Dynasty. He catches himself. There's a look of mistrust across his face. May not be the most intelligent creature, but suddenly is like, Give him some food. Do we have something? Give him something. Yeah, here's some of the food I took from the guys. Here.

You can trust us. Do you like this rations? I mean, the bugbear is probably close to Caduceus' size, though it's sitting. It doesn't look as big at this point, but as it reaches out and grabs it, its big, furred, clawed hand completely envelops yours and pulls the food out

and almost scratches the palm a little bit. Ow, like one of those kangaroos when you beat them and they're like. Yep. Big-ass problem. Yeah. So are you going to kill me, or are you going to let me go, or are you going to my city? What do you want from me?

We just want you to help us get across the river. And to your city, if your city is eastward. I'm really curious of how buoyant you are. I live in the... No, no, no, no. He's not from, are you from Gordranas? No, no, I'm from Esarius. Esarius.

How far up from Gordranas is that, do you know? It's on the way, sort of. I have not been to Gordranas. This, Asarius is the city of beasts. Whoa. Of beasts. Yeah. The guy that hired us isn't the nicest, but he pays well. What did he hire you to do?

Get some food. Get some food. It's a meat and feed company. It's run by a super smart ogre man, Baron Visco, kind of a douche. Baron Visco? As I don't take notes. Well, glozle, can you lead us, you think? We have more food we can share with you. Can you lead us to a safest place across your river?

I'll show you. I'm going to get up in stands and, you know, now sitting close up, it's interesting, wide shoulders, but rail-thin, fur-gaunt body. You can't tell because of the fur if it's malnourished or it's just designed to be a runner, and it's just a very thin, muscular frame. Gathered by the fact that it was a hunting party

that wasn't expecting a rock, they're probably used to running and hunting out in these open fields fairly often. So, you can't tell one way or the other. But, Gluza continues to walk forward and keeps checking over his shoulder towards you, just the look of waiting for the moment that someone shoots him in the base of the skull. But keeps walking and keeps walking. He keeps walking.

You guys following? Yeah. Okay. But keeping an eye out in case we get ambushed. Mm-hmm. He seems all right, though? He seems to be in a position where he doesn't have a choice.

Sure. And just watched his hunting party get demolished. All right, he's not thinking about anything funny, though. Make an insight check. 24. 24? At the moment, seems less interested in trying to cross you and just survive and get back home.

Smart. When we find a place, we can all help each other cross the river, go our separate ways. Fill your belly at least before you go. Continues on quietly. A few hours of travel in the heavy rain, you begin to come upon the river itself. Now, the banks are extremely muddy,

but a black, deep brown, bits of red mud to it. Even 100 feet out from the bank, the typical muddy walk you've had here through the Waste becomes very. You find your boots being tugged at and almost pulled off at times. As you get right up towards the river, and it's not a rushing river,

but it is moving with expediency, especially with the recent rains, the mud almost sinks up to about mid-calf with each step. You can see as Guzo begins to walk along the sides and trying to remember which point is probably the best for entry. At times, the river is between anywhere from 30 to 50 feet wide.

So it's a fairly wide river. At some points, it pushes into the 20-25, and that's where Gloozle leads you to that section and goes, This is probably the best place in the region. You can go further south if you want, but this could work. Will you go first, or should we go first? I can go first if you, I'm going there anyway.

Should we? You, Vassa, you can. I'll be fine, but do you'm going there anyway. Should we? You also, you can. I'll be fine, but do you guys want to tie a rope around this fellow? We could tie a rope around you, and then you could secure it at the other side of the river. Oh, oh, yeah, yeah, I'll do that. There's also several of us that can mess with water.

Ah. Fjord, that's your very special power that only you have. Honestly, I don't have it prepared for, so it's just you are very special right now. I hate her. I hate her. We can make a rope tether, though, if we have to. Would you like to use your very special power, or should I just carry a rope across?

I kill Nott. As you guys are having this conversation, Guzo seems to have dropped to his knees and bowed his head quietly for a moment and is holding something in his hand. What's going on? Are you praying? He stays quiet for a moment and is holding something in his hand. What's going on? Are you praying? He stays quiet for a minute. He opens his eyes again and places what you can see

glimmers of a chain that's lost in the fur and tucks something under the fur. Is he naked? You can see what looks to be a breastplate. Okay. And some bracers and some boots. Actually, no boots on him, just his large fur feet. Lower half naked, but it's mostly fur in the area. Shirt cocking?

Armor cocking. And he just hid the medallion in his own Robert Guccione massive chest hair? Yes. Okay. Who are you praying to? To the light. Who?

The light? The light. The light? The light? The light. Stands up and begins to wade out into the water. He's swimming and fighting the stream. Go, Nott. Oh, okay, I'm going to tag along.

Fjord, you want to do anything? Not me. I've got the rope. I'm holding one end of the rope if you're going to hold the other. Okay, I'll take the rope across. Okay. Gluzo, surprisingly strong, and fights the current.

Even though it moves along, he manages to still make his way across, big armfuls of water, breaststroke style, begins to make it across at an angle, and then eventually begin to stand up amongst the muck on the opposite end. Let's tack him down if we can. Yeah, is there anything to tie off the? Don't we have some, what are they, spikes?

What are they, climbing spikes? In the mud? I think it would come undone. In the immediate vicinity, there's nothing to really tie it to. A few rocks are there are small enough to the point where they'll just be pulled out. Well, at the very least, we can have strong people

hold the ropes on either side for now. Maybe Luzo can hold the rope on the other side. I don't know how this works, but I'm going to try to walk across the super fast moving current of water. Okay, and you do. You run across, and as you do, it's like running sideways on a,

the moving pathways in an airport. So like, moving forward, but you're watching your entire perspective shift down that way. It gets a bit bumpy at times as your feet hit where parts of the water is cresting and hitting stones, or white water starting to splash, so it's a little uneven, but it's an interesting sensation,

but eventually you run across. Hey, maybe. Luzo's on the other side, like. Luzo, do you mind holding this end of the rope so that my friends can join us? He grabs the end of the rope and wraps it around the forearm and holds it there. All right, everyone, come across!

Good job, Nott, and I'll use control water to part the river for a hundred feet in a similar direction and just create a nice line of dry land at the other side. You can still do that. All right. You watch as the river parts and halts itself there, the flow of the river suspended for the time being,

and you can now see the muddy walkway that is the base of the river. Dozens and dozens of smooth river stones clustered in the bottom, and you can see protruding roots of other leaves and bushes that were washed in and just sunk down and stuck in the muck, but it is traversable. Are there any particularly attractive

river stones down there? There's a few, yeah. I'm going to pick a couple up when I walk across. Okay, so you gather a couple of pretty river stones. 10 minutes. Okay, that's good. I'm going to stop walking. Long minutes.

Keep going, everyone! I'm here in case this magic fails! You guys all make your way across, and Luzo's sister, staring at you, Nott looks at the rope and goes, do I have to keep holding on to this? No, no, it was just a backup, but our leader, Caleb, made sure that Fjord controlled the water, so we're okay.

Caleb, to humor Nott, has used the rope the whole way walking. Thank you. Thank you so much. Very helpful. Thank you. Good, good. I also think I just want to poke my head in the river on one of the walls just to see what's happening on the other side of it.

Roll it, no, I'm kidding. Yeah. And then. Really? It's very, very cold water. It is murky, but not unpleasant. Oh, wow. You glance in and you think you catch a glimmer

of what might have been some sort of fish swimming along with it, but there's so little light here amongst the darkened clouds and the storm above that you see it and it's gone, and you're not even sure if your brain made it up. That's great. All right, fair enough. Okay. You make your fair enough. Okay. You make your way across the river.

Gluzo tosses the rope back to you and turns around and starts making the walk continuously. There's this unique balance between wanting to help to survive and not be killed by you and also seemingly really put out by anything you ask him to do. This is a common refrain from anyone we've ever met. Yeah, but usually you've earned it. This was right off the bat.

That's true. I feel like we owe him a bag of food at least. Yeah, yeah. We'll give him some more. We'll give him a taste. We'll give him one of the ration kits. This is how you know that we are not going to kill you because we would not be just dumping our food into you before we, you know, we're not fattening you up for,

you know. I feel like you really let that trail on. Is he going to, we're going to just let him go, then? Yeah, yeah. Okay. Well, I mean, how much further is Gordranas? How many days walk? Gordranas from here, from Nisarius is maybe...

At a pretty fast speed, about two weeks. Yeah. Are there any beasts of burden that we could rent? Maybe in the Sargis. Maybe we should make a stop. Do you think if we go there, people are going to kill us right away? That's a fair bet.

You said a city of beasts, didn't you? Yes, well, are you with the Empire? No. Mostly unaffiliated. No, we're just hanging out. We like it here. I mean, you'll probably be okay. You'll probably be okay.

You'll probably be okay. What about the tall woman? You might be okay. Looks to Y tall woman? You might be okay, looks to Yasha, Beau, and Caduceus. Okay. We do have humans that do come through, but they're usually, well, they're pretty well connected with the Dynasty.

We are totally going to the city now. Pretty well connected with the Dynasty. We are totally going to the city now. We could do some crafty disguises. Uh-huh. You can do the crafty disguise on yourself, right? I can, yes, but I won't need to. Can I borrow your armor? Your glamour? It'll change what you're wearing.

That's a start. You could make some of that insect-like armor. Hmm? The glamour armor? It can change what it looks like. It looks like. It looks like. Just the clothes. Have you used it to put a hat on yourself?

Could you make one of those insect-like helmets? I have not tried that. Or just any helmet, really. We could, we could, nope. Caleb can disguise himself. So can literally everybody else in our party. No, no, no, I pulled out that ugly mask that I bought. You could put this on.

What's that, what is that? The mask that I bought, remember? It's like a war mask. Yeah, it's like a metallic, angry, monster scowl mask. Hey! Oh, this feels weird. Will that look like it fits in better? I mean, maybe a little bit.

I mean, I'm going to be honest. We're in a wartime, so if they're not familiar with you and you don't convince them, well, So if they're not familiar with you and you don't convince them, well, they're probably going to kill you. You'll vouch for us, right? Also, we don't all need to go into the city if we're just acquiring transport, right?

That's fair. That's true. We could just send in a party. How far off is your city, the City of Beasts? Uh... We could go partway into the night and maybe get there a little after halfway through the night. Otherwise, tomorrow morning.

That's not too long. I don't know if I like the idea of diverting just to get some creatures to ride, but that is not long at all. I don't think it's too bad. We should do it. So some of us go into town and try to get a wagon and some horses. The rest of us stay just outside.

Okay, but I'm just going to point out the fact that those other people that we talked to that were definitely also not with the Empire totally said that the best way to travel was on foot, that were definitely also not with the Empire, totally said that the best way to travel was on foot, because if you were on any kind of animal, you would attract more attention. That's fair. Is that true?

Is riding something bad news around here? I mean, it'll just be easier to see us. If you can go faster than what you're trying to avoid, you might be okay, but otherwise, you know, it points back towards the direction of where the rock was. Rocks pretty fast. But the rocks don't usually come this close

to the center of the valley. That's true. That's true. Talking about two weeks on foot, though. We're going to be walking forever. Let's get some horses. At least we'll get into the city. If there aren't any horses or anything that makes sense, then we'll skip it.

No carts, none of that shit. Yeah, lead on. We'll stop, sure. You don't need to walk us into your own city. Just get us close to the outskirts. That'll be good enough. Do you have any money? Yeah, I was about to ask that.

What currency? It's somewhat bartering, but gold is always useful. There is trade that is done outside of Xhorhas. We have lots of things. We have gold. Gold, I think, is useful to the cream, so. Could you help me with some gold?

Yeah, yeah, sure, sure. I'll flick him a gold. Bing! A gold. Yep. A gold. You get us there, might be more of that. Okay. I'll give him a gold as well.

If you want a tattoo, I'll give you another. Okay. I'm going to shave, you know. Oh, yasha. Yasha, yasha. Let's do this when we camp. You can, yeah, once we set the camp, you can. All right. Getting some serious Skyrim Jarl vibes

from this bugbear. Don't get this dialect too off for that side of Skyrim these days. Oh man. All right, so you guys, are you pressing through the night or are you bedding down for the evening in the field? We'll bed in the evening, but it depends on the terrain outside of the city.

If it's more flat plains, then. It's all flat plains here, man. Yeah, we'll stop well shy of the city, then. Okay. As soon as it's just barely visible, we'll stop well shy of the city then. Okay. As soon as it's just barely visible, we'll stop out there. Okay. So as nightfall hits and a few more hours pushing on

the weather, the exhaustion, it all starts to get to you and you feel the need to bed down pretty soon without pushing yourself beyond a comfortable boundary. You begin to set up your space, and you can see Gloozo just rakes a bit of the ground open and creates a small little sleeping convex hole to curl into.

So cute. But nevertheless, you've been down for the evening. I feel like I should pop the dome around him so that when we stay up to watch, he's not going to run off in the middle of the night. We are so trusting. Look at us. We meet friends wherever we go.

We met a monster and made him our friend. We're good people. Are you trying to convince us? No, I'm just saying, we should just take a moment to realize people like us. I'm proud of you, that helps. I'm proud of everybody. We might have been partially responsible

for getting all the muckmen killed, but... Just, you know. We kept more of them from getting killed, I think is also important. Yeah. Jester, what do you need to complete this tattoo? Just him shaved, that is it. Where would you like a tattoo, sir?

Kind of looks around his body. Go for the neck. Remember, you will be bald there for some time. Somewhere that the hair doesn't grow very thick would be good. Just right under the ear. And points to the side of the chest. Oh, yeah.

That's good, that's a trendy spot. It's good. Can you first use your window opener to make a bit of leather? My window opener? Your spell, you open all the windows. Dormiturgy? Yeah. I don't think I can shave him with dormiturgy.

No, no, no. Leather. Shaving cream. Oh, lather. Oh, lather. Oh, and then Yasha will... I don't think dormiturgy will create lather, either. No? No, it will just make the sound of lather coming out of a canister.

But nothing actually will come out. You cannot make a little bit of water with it? No. You are the transmuter. I don't know everything in the world. I can make water. Just work up like a foam. just a little bit of a... Yasha just walks over and points the giant sword at the bugbear and is like, arm up.

Okay. Performance. Yeah. It's like a scalp removed. Apache job, but enough to maybe get a semi-decent, simple version of it. It's a simple tattoo, so. It is a pretty simple tattoo.

What are you going to tattoo? Captain Tusktooth. Nice. She's got a thing. I got to make a trail wherever we go. But googly-eyed Captain Tusk, too? Obviously. Okay. As you all prepare for the evening's rest,

by the light of, I assume, probably a light spell or that same globe within the dome, you begin to slowly affix the next marker of Captain Tusk's tooth against the torso of this lone bugbear as he sits there and rubs on whatever it is he has around his neck. I'm pretty close. Can I see what the symbol is as I'm tattooing? Make a perception check.

18. 19? You get glimmers of it. Whispers? Shit! 18. 19? You get glimmers of it. Whispers? Shit! Late in the night whispers? Happy Valentine's Day, everybody. May all your whispers be romantic and not about bugbears. I'm going to kill you.

She gasped! Yeah. Oh shit. We're going to die. We're all dying. We're going to die. We're all dying. This is a devil bear. We're all going to die.

Whoa. Okay. What? I'm not going to say it out loud. I'm tattooing you. So, go ahead and make a, I'll say, given the circumstances, a general dexterity check. Oh, it's for the tattoo.

13. 13. Just for that again. It's not a very detailed tattoo. It is not the greatest canvas under the greatest circumstances, but you figure for tattooing a bugbear in the middle of the Xhorhasian fields in a rainstorm, it's not too bad.

I think it looks good. Yeah. The rest of you look at it, it's, eh. It's passable. Getting better. Thank you. Matted hair and stuff still left. It's hard to work Getting better. Thank you. All that matted hair and stuff still left. It's hard to work around it. Yeah.

It looks gritty, basically, with all the brown hair around it. Before I finish the tusks, can I go over and, Fjord, can I look at your tusks? What? Can I look at your mouth? No. Just pull his lip down.

Are they pointy or are they still filed? No, they're doing their thing. Are they pointy or are they still filed? They're doing their thing. Are they like this? They're starting to grow, yeah. I'm going to do one of them a normal tusk and then the other tusk is like a little blunted tusk on this guy.

Okay. Nice. Yeah. All right. You guys have been down from the night in the middle of the cold fields here across the river, just at the cusp of visual sight of this city of beasts here in the Fields of the Wastes. Even from this distance, you can see it's not a small city.

What glimmers of torchlight are combating the rainfall through the evening, it looks to be lively. Oh. And looks to be well-lit. That's where we'll leave tonight's episode. Maybe we can spend a little time here, just a little, I don't know, faster than maybe,

say, Darktoe. Do you want to piss off the whole city and leave the same guy? 12 hours. In and exile. Two hours later, and stay out. Amazing island of pirates, never come back. Never see anything. I know.

You don't want to have to clean over again? They're on the fire! Are we talking allies? Always do. Guys, indeed. Awesome, awesome stuff. That was a thing. Wow. You guys are in.

Who knew that we would be friends with a bugbear in the middle of Xhorhas today? Aw, that's so cute. Remember the last time that we offended an evil creature and everything went really well? Are bugbears evil? What's around his neck? I'm not going to tell you right now.

She's not going to tell us right now. She's going to be worried. Ha ha ha ha. Anyway. Good game, Matt. Good game, guys. We'll pick this up next week with whatever this chaos is going to be, depending on what you do. But until then, thank you guys,

for those of you who are here with us tonight, spending your Valentine's Day with us. Yeah. It's another place we'd rather spend it than with you guys. for those of you who are here with us tonight, spending your Valentine's Day with us. Yeah. Some other place we'd rather spend it than with you guys. Sorry, microphone. I keep doing that. Something. Yeah, we love you very much.

We're excited to see you next week. And is it Thursday yet? Yeah! Good night. Thank you so much for joining us on this adventure. To help new listeners discover the show, please give us a rating and review on whatever podcasting app you're listening on. Until next time, Is It Thursday Yet?