Critical Role - C2E53 Cornered

Episode Date: March 7, 2019

The Mighty Nein explore the markets of Assarius and tangle with the locals in a no-holds-barred prize fight...Watch Critical Role live Thursdays at 7pm PT on https://www.twitch.tv/criticalroleSupport the stream by using the official digital companion for the world's greatest roleplaying game at http://dndbeyond.com

Hello, bees! This is Laura Bailey, here to welcome you to the Critical Role podcast. If you'd like to tune into the show as it airs, you can watch Critical Role Thursdays at 7 p.m. Pacific on twitch.tv slash criticalrole and youtube.com slash criticalrole. Our lovely Twitch subscribers can view the episode on demand right away. Or you can find it on YouTube Mondays at 12pm Pacific. And of course, for all you fantastic podcast listeners, Critical Role episodes hit feeds on Thursday mornings, a week after the episode first airs. With all that said, let's get into another episode of Critical Role. Hello, everyone, and welcome to tonight's episode of Critical Role,

where a bunch of us nerdy-ass voice actors sit around and play Dungeons & Dragons. Oh no. Anyway, before we get into tonight's session, we do have a few announcements, beginning with our fantastic sponsors of Campaign Two, and hopefully into infinity, D&D Beyond. Sam. D&D Beyond, everybody, as you know, as all of you already know, before I became an actor, I was a professional ventriloquist. What?

So today, I thought I'd use the skills developed in my former life to do a little bit of an act that I wrote for D&D Beyond. I'd like you to meet Yandhi, the D&D Beyond alpaca. I tried to rehearse this bit, but Liam walked in on me, so I stopped, so I've never rehearsed this bit before. Okay. Oh, Yandhi, D&D Beyond is a great company, isn't it?

They're very charitable. Shit. This is going to not be good. They're very charitable. They're nice to the dregs of society. Oh, why do you say that? They're nice to you, aren't they? Oh.

Come on, Yandhi, people think I'm very funny. I think you're a douchebag. You apologize right now. Okay, I'm sorry you're a douchebag. Where's the rubber band? This gag is already making me sick to my stomach. Oh yeah, imagine if you had a hand up your ass. I got pages of this stuff, guys.

Page of this stuff. Did you look up Bantoilequist jokes? Nope. Maybe, maybe. Let's just talk about D&D Beyond, okay, Yandhi? Okay. People say using D&D Beyond makes you a smarter flier. Oh yeah, I use it. Oh, then people must be wrong.

Okay, here, a couple more, a couple more. A smarter flier. Our good best of shell flashes. Yandhi, Yandhi, Yandhi, Yandhi. D&D Beyond helps you do math. Check it out, what's six plus two damage? 77. No, that's way too much it out. What's six plus two damage? 77. No, that's way too much.

One. That's way too little. Your heart, please. Yandhi, please. You're not making Travis laugh at all. He doesn't find this amusing at all. Figures. Fuck you.

I can't get it. I can't do it. Get it out. Get it out! You know how to make Travis laugh on a Thursday night? How? Tell him a joke on Monday! Because he's dumb! What?

All right, I've had enough. I really just need to tell people where to sign up for D&D Beyond. No, what you really need is a breath mint. Oh boy. Are you sweating? I think I have to go poop. All right, guys, sign up today at D&D Beyond. And report Sam Riegel to puppetabuse.org. Thank you, Yandhi, thank you.

Wow. Yandhi, never come back. Yandhi, never come back. There's a lot to un-alpaca there. Oh, Taliesin, no. Tune in next week when Sam Riegel will stick his dick into a wood chipper. Oh, man.

This escalation's getting dangerous. Oh, I just lost so many votes. You did, you really did. Presidency is in jeopardy. You got a week to make it up. Thank you, Sam, and I'm sorry, D&D Beyond. Man. In the Holy Quest humor, we went there.

Liam O'Brien, for change you can believe in. Oh yeah. All right. Man, I don't know how to follow that. I think you do. I think we just come back next week. I think that's it, yeah. That was so bad.

That was a lot. I skipped several jokes. Thank you, you merciful, merciful man. And you just gained several votes, well done. There you go. We are excited to announce that Critical Role will now be using the official D&D Beyond Twitch extension starting this week.

It is now available to view while watching Critical Role live in a browser only, however. All you have to do is mouse over the screen to see the information from each character. To get a detailed look at how the extension works, please go to critrole.com for information on how to get that all set up. It has live updates from their devices

throughout the show, so don't mess it up, guys. Don't yell at us if we get stuff wrong. Cheers. Yeah, keep, yeah. Guys, the inside of that alpaca stinks. Why did you smell the inside of the alpaca? I can smell my hand, man! Don't touch your hand! Oh god! What does it taste like?

What does it taste like? Get your tongue out, get your tongue out, taste the tip of your finger. Do it now! Yeah! Maybe you can drink out of its ass at the next live show. So Travis, I believe you have an announcement.

I'm going to be quitting the show. Wow. All right. Guys, we are mere days away from our Kickstarter launch of our very first animated special! My god, three days away. We thought it'd be cool to share some information about the special with you right now.

A little sneak peek. First, the title. We are calling it The Legend of Vox Machina. It is in canon and it takes place before our streaming game started, so all of our characters will be right around level seven. And alive. It'll be original. Original storyline and everybody's going to die. Wait, no, original storyline, and everybody's gonna die.

Wait, no, I wasn't supposed to say that part. Our big lunch is this Monday, March 4th. We are so incredibly humbled by all of the love that you've shown us so far. Everything we've seen on social media is amazing, and you're echoing everything that we've been wanting for the past two and a half years, and we can't bring this animated adventure,

The Legend of Vox Machina, to life without you, so please stay tuned to our social media accounts and our website for more information on the big launch! It's coming on Monday! It's Monday, Monday! I'm a little excited. I have trouble containing myself when it comes to animation.

That's awesome. That's it. Thank you, Travis. Thank you. Do you need an alpaca to finish up? I might, I might. Do you have any other puppet farm animals that you haven't abused yet? I don't! Okay, on that note, I think we are thankfully done

with our announcements tonight. And with that, I think it's time for us to jump into tonight's episode of Critical Role. Critical Raw Critical Critical Critical Raw Critical Critical Critical Raw Critical Critical Critical Raw Critical

Critical Critical Critical Raw Critical Critical Critical Raw

Critical Critical Critical Raw Critical 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 falchions and cunning They don't see over there There's a monster incoming Inspiration is waiting Rise up, 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 Can you answer the call? Digging deep in your soul as the legend unfolds. Now it's your turn to roll! And welcome back. So last we left off, Mighty Nein had been heading east,

absconding from the Empire to pursue the threads that seemed to lead towards the kidnapped husband of Nott in her former life. Gathering your materials, following the signs that this burrowing incursion into Theldarwin by the Kryn Dynasty had headed beneath the ground and due east, you went through these tunnels, encountered a few challenges, and then emerged

in the eastern wastes of Xhorhas. A few conflicts later, almost being hunted down by a rock, you made a friend who was a bugbear and he led you to the City of Beasts, Caesarius. There, you took on a few more monstrous forms, visually, and began to note the brewing battlements and army that seems to be preparing itself for future and coming conflict

with the Empire against the Ashkeeper Peaks and beyond. You saw what looked to be a possible means of traversing quicker to the east in the way of the moorbounders. You decided to work out a transaction with Xorth, the goblin purveyor of these, and got a discount by aiding him with what seemed to be some sort of unhappy scenario happening in the caves,

the breeding caves beneath his establishment. There, you did battle with a number of fiendish entities and completed your quest. Upon inquiring about what more information there could be, or at least making a small name for yourself as Taskmasters, you were given towards Lady Zethrys Oleos, one of the Kryn, apparently more official Kryn within Isarius.

The investigators extraordinaire over here, official queen within Isarius. The investigators extraordinaire over here, Nott and Jester, were given two possible tasks of which they could pursue with monetary compensation and or possibly favor with some of the powerful entities, including the Bright Queen that exists in the capital of Gordranas. And we left off with you leaving the city of Vissarius to go ahead and take a break in the wilds

and the outskirts of the city. That's where we go ahead and begin tonight. So as you guys prepare to rest for the night, is there anything you want to do or prepare or anything in particular, or are we just going to go ahead and take a night's sleep and then pick up in the morning? I don't like the way you said that.

It was far too casual. What's on the other side of this, Matt? Tell us now. So as you're sleeping. MATT and LAURA and SAM and SAM and MATT! So we need somebody to keep watch, right? Yeah, I'll take first watch. I will put up the dome and the silver wire

and leave my cat on top of the dome. All righty. So most of you get a rest. Fjord, you have first watch. Yep. Go ahead and roll a perception check for me. Not a problem. A 13.

All right. This is better than it's been. Wow, why are you bringing up old shit? All right. First watch. As you begin paying attention to the surrounding darkness of the Sunless wastes, nothing occurs. You're wrapped nice and safe.

You do see the shifting firelight of the dozens of torches being carried through the front lines of this army, and you do see some now moving eastward, sections of that massive crew of soldiers and war beasts. Elements of that seem to be moving westward from this position. Okay. But no other issues during your rest. So you complete your evening sleep.

I'll relay it to whoever takes my spot. Whoever's taking next lunch? I'll take next. All right. Go to my roll a perception check for me. All right. 11. Okay. As you keep an eye over the surrounding shadows

and the faint elements of softened moonlight that seems to punch through elements of the clouds passing overhead and gently highlight the shapes in the distant horizon across these wastes. Nothing seems to catch your attention, though the rain has somewhat stopped for the evening and there's a bit of calm and silence, which is comfortable and preferable for you

at this juncture. Yeah. Fjord. Oh shit. Yeah. Fjord. Oh shit. Yeah. It's been some time, it's been some time. Wet dreams. Dry, empty plains.

Flat, open, featureless. An endless horizon of empty earth. Beneath you, something shifts. an endless horizon of empty earth. Beneath you, something shifts. You look down, your feet standing above a spring, small and trickling, burbling up from the ground below. The waters spew forth and begin to spread rapidly, drowning this endless expanse around you in shifting waves.

The level of the water comes beyond your nose, and you struggle to try and swim with it, but find your feet anchored to the ground beneath you. The surface escapes you upward, leaving you in freezing depths, fathoms below. Watching the shadowed shape of an ever-twisting serpent form rides and cages around you in all directions.

Return. A single, massive yellow serpent eye appears before you. Then another. Big and small, your entire periphery becomes dozens and dozens of different-sized yellow eyes, single-slitted, staring directly at you. Reward. The shaded tendrils of Vukutoa begin to close in around you, binding you in a cocoon of cold, scaled flesh. Wander.

The tendrils knot and flex, crushing your body slowly. The pain is immeasurable. Your vision darkens and your body begins bleeding as you feel everything compress the life from you. Punish. Oh no. A final squeeze sends the last breath from your lungs in a muffled scream.

You shoot awake, vomiting onto the ground next to you. Caduceus, you see this as suddenly shoots up. You look down, eyes blinking to see foam and briny seawater now slowly soaking into the hard-packed ground. So Fjord, are you all right? Yeah. Yeah, just another dream.

Would you characterize this as positive encouragement or perhaps more negative reinforcement? I think more of the latter. I don't feel like my favor with old Uk'otoa's as choice as it once was. Why do you think it's angry with you?

You remember I told you there were words that were repeated through these visions? No, but sure. Right, so I tell him about the old four words. Given that. There were two new words, three maybe. I don't know, I'll have to go whack and watch it on VOD. I think the gods and goddesses of Twitter

will remind you of all those words within minutes. If only someone would draw it. But it was laced with a threat. A threat? Yeah, I mean, I'm supposed to be helping it to be released, right, freed upon the world, and I have decided that that's not the best course of action, and

in my dream, it's off it to crush me. Well, how do you feel now that you're not dreaming anymore? Better. Well, that's good. You ever feel like you're not going to wake up from a dream when you're in it? Yeah.

I'm worried about that. Here you are, and I'm sure it could probably, it would put greater strain and stress against you for not following its wishes if it could, but it didn't. What if it can? Why hasn't it? I don't know.

One thing I am sure of, though, it feels stronger. It feels more present, closer. Well. I'm proud of you for maintaining your sense of self through all this. It's difficult sometimes when one is pulled by things greater than ourselves.

You said you commune with the Mother, the all. I do. Yeah. Do you, is it a two-way thing, or are you just putting yourself out there and seeing what comes back? Oh. Very much a two-way thing. There's no way nature isn't separate.

We're part of it. We communicate with the world every day with every breath. Everything we do is our declaration of our love, adoration, or our denial of it. Do you think she, do you think she cares about the affairs of something like this? Very much so.

Without a doubt. I mean, I'm here. I'm getting the feeling that maybe if I do nothing, like any kind of disease, it might just get... worse. Maybe I should start thinking about a counter... agent. Is that what you want? Maybe.

I mean, my dreams are one thing, right? But, and I kind of like kick some dirt on the vomit and spittle. That shit is... It looks uncomfortable. It's real. So... Well.

I don't know. I think it's worth thinking about. And I think there will come a day where you really will have to make that choice. We'll help you with that choice, whatever it ends up being. I do think you're on a path, and I don't necessarily think it's the path of just being a servant to some creature. I'm very impressed, though. the path of just being a servant to some creature.

I'm very impressed, though. Thanks. I'll cook something if you need to put that in. That's a lot came out of you. Yeah, I'll be fine. I'm just going to crash back out, if you don't mind. No, no problem. Oh, gosh. May have to tell the others in the morning,

just for safety's sake. Okay. Everybody's going to take care of you. It's going to be all right. I turn over and try to go back to sleep. Okay. The rest of the evening is relatively uneventful. Full night's rest is achieved by the party.

As restless as you may have been through most of it for it. You all come to consciousness in a colder morning than the ones you had previously endured out here. It seems in the wake of the recent rains, you can see now the gentle frost that's beginning to coat the nearby horizon and a sprinkle of white shards of ice. As soon as the dome fades, you can see your breath emanate and dissipate into the atmosphere around you

with each exhale. You find yourselves bundling up a bit. Can I ask, as the morning comes, am I sore? Is there any bruising or? Checking yourself, there's no physical bruising. There is a bit of soreness, but it seems to be relegated directly

to the central abdomen where the heaving would have come from, but nothing that correlates with the end of your dream. That's good. You can see your breath. It's nice to have something familiar. It's funny. Everyone said that Jor-Hos was very ugly,

but looking out, it looks like a field of diamonds right now. It's glistening, just like in that smut book you gave me. Yeah! It all comes back to this smut. So romantic. Thank you, Caleb. I know that you have an interest in seafaring, so? Mm-hmm. Did you learn a lot?

So much. Mm. Name three parts of a boat. Oh, the port side, the poop deck, and the mast. You are a silly goose. Are you okay for it? You look weird.

Yeah, yeah, I didn't sleep very good. Wow, everyone's so attentive this morning. Nobody needs to get ready or, I don't know, put on their. We were in a bubble. There's Rue. The bubble has faded. I had, as I've told Ducey here, another dream.

A wet dream? Not wet. I was very wet, actually. Okay. There was a lot of, it was an extremely wet dream. There's a big puddle right over there from it. I don't, I mean, why wouldn't you? Yes, I had another wet dream.

That's fair. Yeah, more of the same, or what? Kind of. The previous dreams were more encouraging, like telling me to go forward and help. This one felt a little more upset. encouraging, like telling me to go forward and help it. This one felt a little more upset. Because you're not in the water? I think because we're not trying to let it out.

Right. Yeah. Are you at all nervous what will happen as we proceed towards the Green Dynasty? Well, it's been a while since my last dream. They're not super fun, so if that's the regularity in which I have to experience them, I guess I'll just deal with it. Do you mean he seemed unhappy?

Well, it was the first time that old demi-snake god killed me at the inn. I mean, you don't know that that's necessary. That could be something else in your life that is troubling you that you manifested in a dream. Your stress. Are you stressed about anything else?

Leaving itself together with this connection you have. Usually, work stress can make bad dreams. Are you having any stress at work? This is our work, right? Yeah. Not particularly. I mean, other than giant rocks and bugbears. Sometimes when you get a new supervisor or something

that can affect it, now that Caleb's in charge, is that affecting your general mood at all? Hold on a second, hold on a second, a different topic. Why do you keep doing this? What? I'm not in charge of this group. I don't want to be.

You should be, you're the clearly, no offense, you're clearly the smartest and possibly the only smart one of us. I'm really smart, okay? Sure, sure, sure. Super duper smart. Oh, it's right here, okay. Just saying.

Why do you call me smart-a-dom? What do you think? You're hard to meet sometimes. I keep eating this pebble. Oh, no, it does, no! He spits a couple chunks of tooth out. I am good with numbers and with puzzles, yeah. Oh, no, it does! Yeah! Spits a couple chunks of tooth out. I am good with numbers and with puzzles, yeah. Directions, memories?

Decision-making is a little questionable. I have seen some excellent, excellent decision-making. The wall of fire on the boat was brilliant, a stroke of tactical genius. Yes, not to answer your question, I think Caleb is a fantastic leader. Also Beau, Orr, Jester, Yasha, Caduceus, almost anyone in the group except you.

Ooh. Shots fired. I think you would make a great leader, Nott. Thank you, Jester. I appreciate that, but you're wrong, it's Caleb. I don't think we have a leader, really. No, there's no, we all have our strengths here. We're all good at certain things.

So, you know, we don't need to keep on that tack, you know? We're working together now. I understand, and I will leave it alone for now. Aye aye, commander. Commander? It feels worse. It feels...

Do we have to call you commander now? Do not call me commander. You can call me Caleb Widogast is my name. That's actually not your name. It's a made-up name, made it up on the spot. The way that I'm smiling and blushing right now is what Caleb does, and he just walks away from the group to take a breath and not look at anyone in the eye.

To be fair, some of the smartest people that I know, also terrible leaders. Holla. Is that me? It's a cultural thing, we understand. We got to do that. Might be the maneuveroeuvre day. All right, we have a decision to make,

and seeing as how our leader has walked away temporarily, let's put this to a more democratic vote. We have two options in front of us, sort of two and a half. We can either charge across the plains towards finding my kidnapped husband in Gordranas, find him, rescue him, have a happy reunion, all is good. Lots of unknowns in that scenario. Or we have a job offer. Mm-hmm, multiple. From Lady Zethris to do some work for her in the city, which would give us maybe the financial means that would help us in our journeys ahead.

Or a favor. Or a favor, which, fingers crossed, maybe she could just organize the release of my husband and we don't have to do the second part. But how would we tell her that he needs to be released and not make it like, oh, that's my husband from the Empire? What? Okay, we're not in the city.

No. But what would it matter? If we earn a favor, I take her word, she would have to give us a favor, regardless of why we're asking for it. Yeah, does she seem to place any conditions on this favor? Well, no, but she also, you know,

she's in charge, and we're not. She could do whatever she wants. That's true. It's not a very good favor, though, for endangering our lives for her. Well, no, but I mean, if you were like, I'll give you a favor, and then somebody cashes in and they're like, oh, in order to cash in,

you have to cut open your hand and put it on this thing and maybe do some really horrible blood oath. Would you do that as a favor? I mean, no, right? Turn around and walk back to my spot. Who are you dealing with? That's a lot. That was a lot. You would bleed into...

A very specific hypothetical. I'm just saying, you know, some people, they do weird things. Also, you know, the more time we spend here, the more we kind of assimilate a bit. Maybe we'll get some allies. I mean, if we rush across, right, it could be a bit hasty.

We might jeopardize the whole thing. It's true. We'll probably stick out less if we make a few friends and figure out how this place works. In stopping here, we've already got some steeds waiting for us, if we're successful. We need to do practice, right? Yeah. Bound to practice.

Then maybe we could ask about Lady Zethris's reliability, her trustworthiness, and if people vouch for her, like, oh, she always does her favors or whatever. Does she have a lot of business in Gordranas? Yeah, is she connected with the, I don't know. Also, as that I have not made food this morning, because we're close enough to a town,

we should probably grab some food and otherwise, because I'm trying to stock up for keeping people healthy. Okay. Yeah. This sounds like a decent course of action to me, my one concern, not a deal breaker, but I feel like we should continue to check in with Nott's husband, but I don't know how far exactly we are from him, and I think it is a good idea

to try to curry favor and not rush headlong into we don't know what, yeah? But what happens if you check in with him and they're going to take him to the chopping block? I don't know, I mean, what happens then? We are a very long way away. Then we let our favor be known before we finish the job. But, okay, well, she probably has something

like sending to, or like somebody that could send a message, like I can send a message, I could send a message. Maybe she's just so powerful she can like, boom, teleport us there or something. Oh right, some people can do that, I forgot. I don't know. Regardless, I feel like we have to gain her trust a little bit first.

I don't think we should say anything about your husband until we at least do, well, it seemed like there was a job and then a harder job, kind of easier job. Yeah, we should come up with something other than he's your husband. Okay, okay, pitch me, pitch me. He's, I'm a goblin and he was my- Your servant.

Murdered your whole family. You own him, you have a blood debt. Oh, he's your goblin husband that was reincarnated as this stupid halfling, and you hate halflings. Oh boy. This is a stretch. Maybe you could get him back

and turn him back into a goblin. I mean, that is a compelling storyline. I mean, if I had met a character like that, I would fall in love with that character and want to protect it with my life. What if we are a group of mercenaries who have been sent here to collect this gentleman and bring him back?

Well, that's simpler. That's much simpler. I like that. I mean, it's also not that far from the truth. I mean, we know that the Kryn have been pulling a lot of people for experiments. We could just say, not today, Kryn. We're only invested in saving one man.

We're only invested in looking for this one thing. It's not like we're not foreign agents or anything like that. We're not invested in this fight. And if I know anything, wars are muddy, they're hazy. People have their credos they stick to, but things go against the grain often enough. People have to live their life in the middle of this.

For the right amount of coin or for the right amount of favor, anything can happen, despite a war. And if we prove to be helpful in this small instance, then perhaps she'll understand that we just have our own needs. We haven't used the dodecahedron and the stand together, right, we're assuming that those two things make it even more powerful? Wow. What if we just gave them the stand together, right? We're assuming that those two things make it even more powerful.

Wow. What if we just gave them the stand in exchange for him? Ooh. Wait, what? Maybe that's a- Talking about giving up the tripod for old Yeza. Right, you need them both to be what we are assuming is incredibly world-changing. That's a plan C or D, right?

We're just going to ask for a favor first. I think so, yeah. That's a backup plan, perhaps. I'm just fording it out. Did you just say I'm just fording it out? Fording it out. Please don't use your name as a verb. No, that's okay. I'll ford you later for that.

You will not. In the meantime, I think that we should acquire these beasts, get the training we need in case we need to bug out of town as fastly, as quickly as possible. Yeah. And then, do we know what this woman has in mind, or do we need to return?

Yes, the two missions were as follows. For 5,000 gold pieces, we must root out an Empire spy in the quadroads, no, four corners. Wrong campaign. In the four corners, and find this Empire spy and throw him to the wolves! Or for 10,000 gold or one favor, we must find the source of those rifts that we saw, the rift to the Fiendish Plane, the Abyss. The Abyss? The Abyssal Plane? And we must find the source of these rifts

and shut it down. Option number two. Go big or go home? Wait, we're talking about the favor, which is not an option for the lower amount? It was not an option for the lower amount. It was not an option for the lower amount. Do they have any leads or anything to help her, or are we just on our own for that?

The only lead was for the lower amount, the spy. She gave us a location. For the rifts, no leads given. She said that's a good thing that we are such good detectives. She's right. Yeah. I wouldn't mind doing both jobs. I'm kind of curious as to who the spy is,

just kind of in general. I wouldn't either, but what if it tugs on certain party members' heartstrings, right? Like, what if that spy is actually somebody that we're like, oh, that's a good person, and we're going to hand you over for your death. Well, we've been presented with two opportunities, and I'm sure that leads will manifest

and we'll follow whatever leads manifest. That will be what we're supposed to move towards. We don't have to declare which one it is, we just show up with results, right? Yeah. That's right. Booking A. And if we find the person that they are looking for, and it is someone that we do not want to hand over,

we do not have to. Yeah. I mean, who does multiple missions at the same time? Only jackasses would go and take both job options at the same time in one outing, right? Yep. Subcontractor life, I don't, it makes sense to me. Yeah.

The gentleman, we did that before. Yeah. Oh yeah, that's true. Well yeah, let's go get some breakfast. When is the last time you checked in with Yeza? Remember last night, just before bed? Oh yeah, that's right. I'll allow it.

Yeah! I'll allow it. I mean, general update, any sort of markings, or have you been, where are you, where the fuck are you? Oh no, what if, okay. I didn't mark my long rest, so that's good. So I see how many spells I have.

I just finished putting my spells together, so that's okay. So if there is any chance one of these times, even if it is not today, he is alone and feels that he can speak, maybe ask if he knows what they intend for him. Right, yes, I'm going to do that for sure. Okay, do that first. Okay, yes.

So what do I do, just go, hey, are you alone? Can you speak, because I need to ask you some questions. Just assume that he's alone and can speak. Okay, cool. Hi. That was the kickoff. Okay. Um.

I'm going to say. Oh my face. Please say so next. Or like. Say it anyway! Hey, guys. I mean. I mean.

Oh, Jesus. Favorite husbands. Hey, internet. Are there any prominent markings around you? Do you think you'll be alone any time? Do you know what they have planned for you? Holla! Holla!

Holla at you! Yeza's voice comes through quietly and whispered, They're keeping me in a dark cell. They're keeping him in a dark cell. They're keeping him in a dark cell. Underground somewhere. Underground somewhere. No interrogations yet. No interrogations yet. This is good. But I don't know what they have planned. But he doesn't know what they have planned.

Hollaback. That's what we said, Hollaback. I said Hollaback! Did you hear his masculine voice? He's so manly. Oh, he is. He has the deepest voice in town. Yeah. I could tell.

Okay, okay. Well, that's good. He's alive. He's then, no, they, that's good, he's alive. He's, no, they haven't roughed him up or anything. They literally just have him there and they haven't asked him anything. Maybe they're, oh. Oh, I should ask if he knows why they took him. Tomorrow morning, I suppose.

I can send it again, I can call him again. Well, I did want to turn in soon, but sure, yeah, go ahead. Okay, okay, one more time. Hey, Yeza. Do you know why they took you? Nott misses you so much. Keep those spirits up. Have you heard of the Traveler?

Hey! Oh boy. SAM and LAURA laugh. I assume it has to do with me helping the Assembly. Working with that weird box thing. I don't know who Nott is, but hi. Oh shit. Are you still coming? Oh no. What'd he say? What'd he say? Number one, he said he thinks it's because

he was working with the Assembly, that's why they took him. He's been working with the weird box thing. He was before, yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Wait, box thing. He was before, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Wait, box thing? We only saw the tripod where he was. Well, yeah, I'm assuming they took, there's probably more than one of what we have.

Yeah, yeah, okay, okay. We should really see what that thing does, like hooked up to the tripod. I wish that we could do it in a pocket dimension or something. Dang, I wish we had the magic fun ball. He said he misses you so much. Okay.

And he said the Traveler sounds super duper cool. Hmm. Yeah. Good night! As they relay this information the following morning. Good night! As they relay this information the following morning. Yeah, so last night when I talked to him, we should probably get going, yeah. Okay. All right, so you gather your things.

Are you guys taking on the same guises as you did the day before? We should disguise ourselves again. No, I'm going in like myself. Yeah, they didn't. You're going in straightforward? Yeah. Straightforward. Normal Fjord. It's Fjordnit. All righty.

All righty. I think I'm going to go crazy deranged human this time. Better. I don't want to have to keep burning people's spells just to walk around. See if it works. Yeah.

I flip my cloak on the inside out on the boring side, hide the coat, roll around in the dirt, mess up my hair. All right. I put some makeup on to actually look goth. Okay. But my clothes are still boring me. I take some eyeliner and black out a couple teeth. Beau looks significantly crazed.

What about Caleb, what do you think? I just repeat yesterday, so I look like a male version of Jester, not very goth, and I take a bit of tallow and powdered iron and rub it together and I smear it on the side of Beauregard's face. You did what? What is that? What is that? What'd you just do?

You look good. You look good. What did he do? What did you do? I just put some shit on her face. That's bat droppings. That's not bat droppings, it's just iron and wax. Would you like some bat droppings? No, actually, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Okay, so I go to the right pocket. Yeah, it smells a little bit, but okay. All right, you can mark in your inventory, bat droppings, go for it. Not all of my bat droppings, just a significant amount. Not all of my bat droppings. Saving that for later. Yeah, guano hoarder up in here.

All righty. Preparing your things, you begin your hike back towards Asarius. You do notice that it looks like maybe a third of the force that was gathering on the western side of the city has moved on. But it looks like the rest are preparing to move some point in the near future.

It looks like a lot more supplies are being put upon their various beasts of burden, the war tortoises. The soldiers are beginning to bring all their arms together, sharpening their weapons, preparing their caches of bolts. There's a general air and energy of preparing to leave. You don't know how many of them are leaving and how many are staying. You imagine they're probably going to want to have some

for defense. You approach the outer wooden walls, in through the gates once more, the same ogres giving a nod. They give a brief stink eye to both Yasha and Beau as they do. Hello, friend! No, no, no, no, don't talk.

They look at each other, look back at her. Stupid human. It's true, it's like her. Go ahead and make a deception check. Oh god. I'm okay, I'm okay. This is okay. Yeah, that was almost bad.

17. 17. They feel more pity for you than wanting to challenge. That instinct slowly escapes them, and their attention gets drawn elsewhere. But you enter the city streets, bustling as you recall, the smell itself strong, especially against the clean morning cold air, that heavy waft of just wet animal fur

from multiple sources, and that long-standing layer of recently-returned-to-mud dung that lines the sides of the mud streets here. You come upon the familiar parts of the city, passing the goblin district, passing by the various other buildings and huts and hovels. Are you heading straight to Xorth's first? I think we should do that.

I think we should get that knocked out of the way in case we need to leave in a hurry, yeah. All right. You approach, you can see from the outside the familiar pin, or pen that is built around it. You hear growling, and two of the goblins are currently holding down the sides of one of the moorbounders, and you can see

a third one is coming up and gently trying to feed it. As it brings its hands up, it just throws a bunch of chunks of meat on the ground that slam into it and tumble over themselves before they release the creature and it goes in and starts drastically eating and throwing chunks everywhere. The goblins immediately scatter to the edge

and close and lock the door behind them on the inside. As you guys enter, the slight little bell ding-ding-ding-ding-ding as you push open the door and you see the familiar older goblin face of Zorth there in the process of gathering what looks to be harnesses and a few somewhat rough-looking but functional saddles and turns around and goes, Oh, hello, it's good to see you all.

Did you sleep well? We did, we did so well. Some of us might have, might appear different to you, but it's all of us again. That's a confusing statement, but sure, it's fine. I'll come on in here and go ahead and learn how to ride. Are you? Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.

Yeah, are these lessons taught by you, or is it? Yeah! All right. Yeah, we're ready taught by you, or is it? Yeah! All right. Yeah, we're ready. I want to feel the thunder between my legs, let's do it. Do you not need, when riding these creatures, do you, never mind, let's just see this lesson.

Yes, yes. Yeah. Leads you over towards the interior of the pin, and you can see they have, there are now five of them inside this pin. Four of them are currently tethered to these heavy, heavy metal stakes that are jammed who knows how deep in the ground, but by their thickness,

you can only imagine probably 10 feet or more. As soon as you begin to approach the edge, you can see them all tense against the chains and. Good deal, good deal. What, we bought these? There's the one that was previously being fed that now has the two leather leash tethers dangling behind it as it's finishing off, digging into the mud and lifting up remnants of the

meal that was tossed towards it still remain before it turns around and the rest of the meal goes. You can see now it's snubbed snout with the exposed nostrils flaring and expanding. It's taking in the scent of all of you approaching its space. You watch as Zorth approaches and goes, I don't take it down, it's all right, they're friends. Brings his toe up to the front of his mouth.

Shhh! It comes up and actually, in a strange display, it seems comparably demure. It doesn't seem to like the other goblins, but Zorth it seems to come to a trusted position with and sit right next to me. Hands down! It plops down and you can use it.

The first moment you're like, okay, there is something to this goblin's training. He looks around at you. So, we've got three of you. Three of you is going to be learning how to ride these things. Could you please tell me who it's going to be? Yeah, I want to be the first.

All right, that's one. Me and me. Two and three. All right, so we're going to go ahead and bind you to your respective creatures, so be ready. Bind you? Who's up first? I am the cat person in this group.

All right, so for the three of you, they're going to be learning. It's going to be a few hours. This is going to be a series. This is essentially an individual for each of you skill challenge. It's going to require a series of animal handling checks. If there are any spell preparation you would like, you're free to, but. Into the Dodeca. Bless does not affect skill checks.

Shit. That's the Dodeca. I will take the Dodeca. Who has a low animal handling modifier? I have got a good one. Skill check. Yeah. Shit. That's the Dodeca. I will take the Dodeca. Who has a low animal handling modifier? I have got a good one. I got a good one, too. Okay. It's okay.

It's okay. I mean, I am comfortable with cats. All right. Is there nothing we can do? I mean, the Enhance-ability, right? That would be a way to do it. But I don't have that prepared. Then it's not going to help you.

Yeah. All right, so Caleb, you first. So the first aspect of the training is trust exercises, getting the creature comfortable with you, with your scent, and beginning to see you as an equal or a leader or a master of whatever your pact with it is. Zorth explains this and cavalcade of various somewhat obtuse descriptors, but you get the gist of it.

While he's doing that, Frumpkin, I bring him to my shoulder and I have him start to pee subtly on my shoulders. Okay. Yeah. And hang out there. All right. Is that familiar urine? Familiar urine? Yeah, familiar urine.

Slowly soaks into the shoulder. Zorth gets, oh, but not you, um... He, uh... Anyway, continues on. Go ahead and make your first animal handling check as you begin to first approach, and Zorth begins to help you with communion with this creature.

Beric's on standby. Come on, Caleb. Beric's on standby. Come on, Caleb. You got this, Caleb. Good boys all around. Hey, kitty, kitty, kitty, kitty. Show that pussy who's boss.

That is an 11. 11, all right. It takes a bit of time, and there are a few withdrawing of your hands, but then eventually, there is a moment where it seems to enable your touch. It begins to smell you, and Zorth begins to take the tether with one foot and pull it over and down so its head is below yours, and telling you to rub the top of its head, make eye contact. There's a whole ritual to this that seems to deal with a dominant position over the creature

and a point of trust. In a weird way, you gain, for as crazy as the instruction of Zorth is, there's a new level of respect for the process that this goblin seems to have mastered, whether trained or on its own. That's a good boy. But you do feel that a bond does come with the creature.

Good boy. Tenuous as it may be. Now, for the other two, I need you to also go through the same process. Can I ask, as Caleb is standing next to these moorbounders, where do they come up to us? Like height-wise from their backs? Height-wise, their shoulders,

which is the highest point of it, like the whole sloped front all the way to the rear of the creature. The height, which is the shoulder, would be maybe almost a foot taller than you. Go. Wait, how tall are you? Well, like six and change.

Whoa. These are big. What the shit? I was picturing little. I had battle cabs from He-Man in my head. I had the whole. Yeah, no, these are big creatures. These are huge. I'm pretty tall, though.

They can vary the ages. Some of the other ones are a little. They're better pictures for me. Yeah, some of them are a little smaller, some of them bigger. You get a sense that there are variations in their age and from what little information you got from Zorath before, the ones

that survive, survive because they weren't eaten by the others. But yeah, they're big creatures. That's also why they're expensive and utilized as war beasts. Ooh, that's pretty cool you got war beasts. I was trying to, Skeletor's was the panther one? Yeah. Oh! It was fuzzy. That's the first thing that popped into my head

last week was panther. Beau, Beau, Beau. Yeah? Will you watch here, watch Nugget. Okay. Nugget stay in here. As soon as Nugget is passed over towards Beau, you see the four tethered moorbounders.

Hey, hey, hey, that's not food. There's more. They can understand me, by the way. They can. Thank you. They can? Go ahead and make your animal handling check. I'm Dr. Dolittle, motherfucker. I'm Dr. Dolittle, motherfucker.

Wow. That's so bad, but it was 11, like Caleb. 11, okay. Similar process, the bonding takes a little while, but eventually the morbound of it's brought to you. A little bit smaller than the one that Caleb had, but still probably about six foot at full shoulder height. It's a thing you have to climb onto, really.

Seems to come to a point of tenuous trust. He loves me! That's him. I know, so, hi. Tenuous trust. He loves me! That's him! I know, so, aye. Strangely, you get the smallest of the three. Yeah. I think we're going to be friends. Like a clown on a tricycle.

13. 13, it comes up and headbutts your palm. Aw. Hey. The second portion of this is going to involve being able to give commands and being able to have it, beyond just being a beast that essentially, is what I'm looking for, endures your presence, it will actually actively, possibly take some commands.

So beginning with you, Caleb, again, Zorth begins to show you, you're still working with beasts here, shows you that, all right, so for some of these creatures, you're supposed to make sure that it not only trusts you and respects you, but possibly, given the situation, could also do things for you.

Come on, try it out! So go ahead and make another animal handling check. Okay. My turn. I like chicken, I like liver. Meow mix, meow mix, please deliver. Yeah. 19.

19, all right. Over the next period of time, as the other people start getting ready as well, there gets to be a modicum of your voice causing, it doesn't even have ears that perk up more than it has these skin flaps that cover the side ear holes behind its bulging eyes, and you can see where they twitch and turn,

and whenever you begin to make very, very, like just the simple commands of jump, that's about as far as you get. Maybe down the road there could be other ones, but it begins to perk up at the sound of your voice. Then you watch as it sits. Good boy. So you can offer the commands halt and jump.

Jump? Yep. Halt. Those are the two that you have capable of. Mind you, you still have to make an animal handling check to get them to follow it, but you have the opportunity to do that. You two as well, same process. You got this, Jessie?

Yeah, of course, he loves me, so. You're great with animals and people. 19. 19. 19. Following Caleb's lead, quickly enough, you get yours to also sit next to Caleb's moorbounder. Caduceus? I'm going to use Thaumaturgy.

I'm going to look him in the eye. I'm going to alter my eyes to mirror his. Just give him a good look over. All right. And... 11. 11? You see it look at you over.

What do you command it to do? Sit. It licks it beside your cheek. It is a thick saliva that seems to almost tingle the outside of your skin, but it is not listening to you. He's so cute. I don't know. Hard to be mad at.

I know. For the third and final round, it's just going to refine that process. Caleb, go ahead and make your final animal handling check. 19. 19. 19, all right. I'm a cat person. Indeed, and as part of that,

whenever you make those commands to it, you get to make the roll with advantage. Yeah. So just keep that in mind. What are they? Halt and jump. Yep, halt and jump. Okay.

Just like Red Dead. Hey! Okay, 16. Ah, hey! Okay, 16. 16. You as well manage to go ahead and succeed in this process. While the two of you are with Flying Color, all of a sudden, there's a very faint beginnings of a bond with these more bounders. You look over at Caduceus, who's having a little bit of a rough time. I'm having fun. Of the other two that seem to be a little more hunter-predatory ones, Caduceus got paired with one

that seems a little more playful kitten-like. It's the youngest of all of them, which also makes it a little hard for it to pay attention. Go ahead and make your final hand. Come on, Caduceus, you got this! 15. 15, that succeeds. So you've earned the ability now

to at least give these commands, but you do not gain the advantage as well. If we hadn't gained the commands, would they have just taken off fucking running? Never come back? It would have meant that you don't know how they act. You could have got them going, but getting them to stop is going to be

a very interesting experience. I do, to be fair, have the spell Command. So worst case scenario, you have that at your disposal. I can actually give a one-word command to mine and it will be forced to obey me at least. Boy. You would never do that to us, right? So if we would've rolled really well

on the first roll, would we have to even do the checks? A cast command. Yeah, it was a growing DC with each check to see how well you bonded in this first three-hour session with the creature. Completing it, Zorth looks around at all of you. I'm not going to lie, I'm really impressed. That was amazing.

I've been doing this for a very long time and I haven't seen anyone pull a cord that quick. That was incredible. Really caught a blow to the weight. That was incredible. Well, I'll go and get my boards. I'll go ahead and get these all suited up and ready to go. Zorth, what are they called?

What are these called? Do they have names, these creatures? That's not my prongative, they're more boundaries. You get to name your beasts, you just bought them. Which, by the way, where's your coin? Oh, yes. Oh, yeah. How much was it, 500? I think it was 400, 400, 400, 300.

It was 600. It was 600? It was 600 plus a dick. Oh, I thought it was 500. That's a good deal. All right. Was it, or was it? 600. It was? 600 plus a dick. 600 and a dick statue. Okay. Which he has, I'm sure.

Yes, you've already given the dick statue. Which is like sitting on the edge of the table at the front, where you saw him handling things. He's very proud of its display. It's central to the arrival process. I do want an insight check. Did we actually do better than most people, or is he just being very pregnant?

Make an insight check. That's an 18. Okay, okay, I'm into it. At D&D Beyond, we have a new overlay, guys. Yeah. I haven't seen it. Because I can't watch this show because I'm on it. We built our overlay so it doesn't interact

with their overlay. One and two. How'd we do? All right. You did great. I have 270, so I don't mind tossing in 100 gold. I could toss in 100. I can toss.

I have these two jade stones. They're worth 100 each. I will contribute them. Coinlight. I am coinlight, too. I can put in 100. What's the total, six? 200 if we need to.

So we're at 500 now. How's Yasha? How's Yasha look on coin? How does she look on coin? I may have been forgetting to put money in her shit. Nope, no, she's got stuff. Yeah, she can go for 50, and we'll both put in 50. Maybe Yasha should just pay for the whole thing.

Yasha's good to put down 100 gold. Yasha grips the handle of Magician's Judge and looks at you. Yep, all right. So what's the tally here? Two from me. If we each put in, well, are you okay to part with these jade baubles?

Look at this cat. Yeah, but will he take, he might only take coin. These are worth at least 150 each, but I will give them to you as part of this deal. Reaches the foot out. There's one. Oh, here, both of them for you. Hops over to the front desk

and pulls out a small eyepiece and looks through and is like, Hmm. Hmm. Don't forget it's his foot. Yeah. Yeah, I'll take it! Good.

So that's 200 right there. Was that 300? 300 or 200, Zorth? You said it was? 150 each. 150 each, okay. That's what I said. I thought you said 100 originally.

I know that, I'm lying, Matthew. Oh, and it is 200, yeah. Or are you going for it? I'm lying to this armorless goblin. Gotcha, that makes sense. Not to you, because you know everything. Go ahead and make a deception check. Okay. That is a 17.

17? Yeah. This is some pretty nice gems, not going to lie. Pretty nice, pretty shiny, nice and pretty little baubles. 100 gold. Deal, deal. So that's 200. I'll put in 100. I'll put in 100.

I'll put in 100. 100. Okay. So that's everything? That's everything. Fantastic! I want them now! Go and get them ready to go. What do these beasts eat?

I mean, pretty much whatever you put in front of them, that was once a living. Okay. Meats, leathers, jerky, critters. Okay. Okay, great. You have to keep them away from the animals, or at least. What about more intelligent fare, you know?

Like someone like me. Yeah, like people. People, elves. Like those of us that didn't go through your seminar. Is he going to eat our faces in the middle of the night? I don't know, as long as you keep him fed. If you're not feeding him, maybe not be sleeping near him, if you know what I mean.

I see you made saddles for him. You got any, like, you know, muzzles? Why? Yeah, why? What a dumb question. I don't know what I was thinking. I take my ribbon off of my horn and go and tie it on the collar of mine,

or the saddle so it's pretty. Okay. So you have your three prepared saddles with the ready. You can take them now, if you want to. No, no. Bring them through the city, or they can be held onto until you wish to take them. That's better. Yeah, we'll do that. I walk forward, I place my hand

on the neck of my largest beast and say, I will be back for you later, Yannick. Yannick? Good boy. Yannick? All right. Halt. What will you say to yours? I will be back for you later, Yarnball. Yarnball!

Yannick, Yarnball. Hmm. Yandhi's already been taken. What's the theme? I don't know. Well, we've got Yannick and Yarnball, but you be you. And Yandhi's already been taken. What's the theme? I don't know. We've got Yannick and Yarnball, but you be you. And Yandhi. Yandhi's an opaca in another dimension. Yudu is a good name. I'm so confused about the theme.

Yep. Yeah, you're a Clarabelle. Yannick, Yarnball, and Clarabelle have been decreed. That's my sister. She's weird, too. You named your moorbounder after your sister? Wait, does the moorbounder remind you of your sister, or does your sister remind you of the moorbounder? I'm not entirely sure what the difference is. That's a good point.

Yeah, that's good. Yeah. All right. So pick him up when you're ready. We'll keep him until then, but you know, a couple days later, if you don't show up, I'm going to have to go ahead and assume you're not picking him up in the back of the market.

Is there a place around here that, free trade of information, like a pub or a central hub of... Breakfast. Breakfast. I'll bet your best bet's probably going to the Scowl Square. That's where you've got a lot of purveyors of food. You've got the...

There's one big old pub there called the Four Corners. That's where Madame Musk is, that's where Timok and you make things. That's where Beren's Meats is, big old butchery. Madame what? Uh, it's not, you also wanted to inquire at some point about the character of our employer? Yes, I don't know if...

Hey! Hey! Xorthi, what's the word on the street about this Lady Zathras Oleos? Oh, she's spooky, that one. Spooky like you can't trust her? Or spooky like you can trust her and that's a bad thing? No, no, she's very...

She's a bad thing. No, no, she's very... She's a lot, she's very pretty. And she's surrounded by a lot of people, very powerful, and it's just, you know, don't really go mingle with them political folk so much for me. So. Does she come down from her tower much? I don't see it too often, mingle with them political folk so much for me. So, um. Does she come down from her tower much? I don't see it too often, but then again,

I'm usually pretty busy with all these jackasses. You see the other goblins are on the corner playing card game and they go back and scramble to go ahead and start feeding the rest of the moorbounders in the pen. Are a lot of people scared of her? What, maybe? I don't know. Okay. Hey, man, I have a question. What is it? It's a question.

Have you seen a lot of other places that have the rifts like you had in your store? Have you heard of anything, any other goblins talking about, oh man, you should have seen these things that came out of this slit? Strange going on. Wow. No! Great. Cool. Talking about, oh man, you should have seen these things that came out of this slit. Strange going-ons. Wow. No!

Great. Cool. We'll be back to collect our beasts. And Dusty, I'll be here. Thank you so much for your patronage. Find beasts you've acquired. You'd be really happy. We are. Thanks. Yeah. That could have gone much worse.

Good job. Proud of you all gone much worse. Ooh, good job. Proud of you all. Good job. Now, Yannick is number two cat. You are number one. You are in charge. You're just dressed to impress, okay? You think Yannick has more, you know,

constitution than number one cat? Do you think he pops into glitter when he's punted? He does not have half the heart as my cat, thank you very much. No, but half the constitution for sure. So general notes for moorbounders, just so you have them, this is their stat sheet. Yeah, pass it down. Ooh.

Ooh. Ooh. Want to take a picture? I'm going to put it in my little creature notebook. I hate to insist, but can we please get some food? I'm fucking starving. I am hungry. Can we make our way over to the Scowl Square? Certainly.

So continuing on into the center of the town, you pass by the Aurora Hold Tower, where you guys had previously ventured. The guard, well-placed. You can see there's a lot of in and out of the facility as different Kryn soldiers or generals are in the process of whatever transition is happening to the western side of the city.

Moving on and asking a few questions, you eventually find yourself at the Skala Square. It's this large cross point where two of the major roads seem to meet and a series of small alleys all come to an asterisk-looking center point a little ways north beyond where the Aurora Hold was. Here in this space, there's a center patch of grass, like a dull, dark gray, green grass, a center patch of grass.

A dull, dark gray, green grass, and a singular tree. Around this, you can see there are a number of small tents and tables set up with people that appear to have gathered a number of roots or other of the hardier plant life that you would seen being harvested outside, are in baskets and bags to be sold to whoever's passing by or traded for. Farmer's market?

Kind of, yeah. Kind of a farmer's market feel, but on a smaller scale and a very unique variety of people making these sales, you see a black-scaled dragonborn You see a black-scaled dragonborn with very broad shoulders and tiny, almost chicken-thin legs that is in the process of cutting up some very large but strange-looking fish, apparently laying them on a shelf.

You can look past that, you can see what looks to be a long piece of laundry string that's wrapped between two poles and hanging from it are a number of small squirrel-like creatures that appear to have been hunted and stripped and jerky made of their flesh, as well as bits of fur being put together into a large pelt by a small goblin creature. Looks comparable in age to Zorth, but female. With this giant needle knitting all these pelts together and occasionally piercing a finger and not really paying attention and getting caught halfway through and having to undo it and unstitch her own finger. You do see what looks like a barn, like this large L-shaped barn

on the northern west side of the square, but it has a sign hanging out front that says Four Corners. You can see there's a smokestack, a space for a kitchen on the outside left side of the structure, a little bit of smoke coming up, and the door's partway open, and you can see there's a bustling tavern of some kind in the interior. You can, looking around, you probably go ahead

and make a perception check for me, if you don't mind. You as well. 16. 16, all right. Fucking piece of shit. Fuck. Bitch. Fucking piece of shit. Eight? Okay. Fucking piece of shit. Son of a bitch. Fucking piece of shit. Eight.

Okay. Eight. And actually, Jester, you as well. Yee! No! I think that's like a 10. Okay. It's real busy here.

Yeah, this is just a wide variety of different salespeople around here, but a lot of it just seems to be general goods scattered around. You do see there are a few places that have at least names attached to them. Some of the huts or some of the nearby buildings seem to be trying to build or create a semblance of that same type of civilization, but has a unique roughness to it that is both charmingly rustic and laced with a perpetual sense of danger. You do see there is a craft store that you heard mentioned before called Tymok and Yud Make Things is what it's called. Yeah. Tymok and Yud? called Timok and Yud Make Things is what it's called. Yeah. Timok and Yud?

Timok and Yud Make Things. So it's an Etsy store? There is this. Can Eric make a movie? There is a heavy thatched hut that sits on the far eastern side just beyond where the road stops, tucked between a few buildings in this tiny grove where elements of dry reed seem to be gathering and weaving up into a weird alien ivy that coasts over the outside of this hut. You glance over in that direction, you can see a small banner of cloth

that is haphazardly painted that says Madame Musk's. You're an interesting ivy. You local? Are you hitting on the ivy, Caduceus? Well, I mean, it's just, this is a surprising plant to find out in the middle here, it's the middle of nowhere. Still sounds like he's hitting on it.

Yeah, it does. Are you local? Surprised to find out in the middle here, in the middle of nowhere. Still sounds like he's hitting on it. Yeah, it does. Are you local? Surprising to find you here. What brought you here? Been here long? Fancy crossing paths. Come with anybody? Like ships in the night.

There is also the last thing. As you're trying to understand what they're saying to you, you look past and come into focus. You can also see on the western side of the square one building that is a very busy butchery. You can see a number of other nondescript creatures. You're uncertain of the origins,

because they're all mainly been torn of skin and are just hanging sacks of meat carcasses that are up on hooks, hanging in what looks to be a window display. There is what appears to be an ogre in a nice silk shirt with a ruffle across the neck and shoulder area that is in the process of carving through and preparing large slabs of meat. Do any of the hanging carcasses look like the things that we killed in the basement recently? You probably have to get a closer look to it.

I'm going to head in that direction. I'm going to veer right off that comet to the butcher. Okay. You approach, right in front of you at this space, you can see there is one large gnoll that is in the process of holding a list and looks like it's running errands for possibly other individuals

and is growling as they're trying to make out the handwriting. Speaking in Null to the ogre who's like, I just wait your turn. Finishes up cutting a series of slabs for a group of three goblins that have a small cart and they go and pay off the remainder of the slabs and pull them down and put them on the cart and two of them grab

the front parts of the cart and one jumps in the back and slaps the right one in the shoulder and then the cart begins to wheel off on the southern side of the square out of sight. The gnoll goes up and makes its order. As you're keeping an eye out, go ahead and make a medicine check. 28, natural 20.

Whoa! That'll happen eventually. Looking at the structure of the various corpses that hang from the front of this establishment, none of them match the creature that you had fought the day before. Most of them seem to be either natural, like Orycs that you had seen

kept as beasts of burdens in the area, deer. Nothing unusual. Nothing unusual. A couple of slabs that look to be almost a young moorbounder. The meat itself is a little darker and looks a lot tougher. Makes sense. Too early. The gnolls packages are completed and sent off. The ogre sits back and takes his hands

and puts it in a basin of water and wipes it and looks over at you. He's in a pocket and pulls out a monocle. and looks over at you. He's in her pocket and pulls out a monocle. Ha ha! I want to see someone like you around. What's this about? Oh, my apologies. I'm not local, and I'm just very impressed

by your operation, and honestly, I was just curious what kind of animals that you butcher here. We were kind of on the lookout for some unusual creatures that might have been popping up lately, things that don't necessarily belong here or should be around here. I mean, it's meat. SAM and LAURA, SAM and LAURA, and fabulous meat it is.

Where are my manners, by the way? I'm so sorry. What was your name again? My name is Baron Visco. Baron Visco. Oh, we heard. It's Baron's meats. Yeah. The fine establishment you've got here.

Because of the natural 20 you rolled, you also notice that while the meats up front look very fresh, there's a smell that catches your nose of rotting meat. I know the smell of rotting meat. Yeah, and you look past beyond it and you can see there's a pile of spoiling meat just thrown in the far corner.

What's that pile for back there? I don't know. There's been issues. What kind of issues, if you don't mind me asking? Well, in recent weeks, all the meat's been spoiling real fast. That doesn't seem right. Yeah. Well, that's odd.

Having the raise price is enough. If you know anyone who's a hunter, we're paying for meat, one gold piece bought a pound. Don't mind me asking, you don't happen to know where that spoiled meat came from, do you? I mean, maybe there's a problem with the water source or something. I've got some talents of my own,

maybe I can help out a bit. If you want to buy it, it's half price. But they're all from different sources. Really? Yeah. Are they all the same kind of animal, or? No, different kinds of animal. Usually they last us a good two weeks, the way we prep them and salt them up,

preservatives and all that. Oh, sorry. Puts the monocle back in. But this is weird. Don't like it, not at all. Well. If I hear anything, I'll let you know. Please do. You buying something?

Sadly not for myself, but I will be back to buy something. Oh, come on, put some meat on your bones. You're looking right skinny. He reaches over and grabs your arm and tugs it a bit. You retarded one. Yeah, I'm sadly of a monastic tradition that does not allow me to consume the flesh of animals.

Where? I eat plants. Fair, not the first. Hey, you funny. Well. Here, and he cuts off a little bit and tosses it to you. That's why I spray in troubles. Thank you, kind sir.

Very quick. See you soon. Always. I turn around and just going to give it to Nott. Yeah. How is it? It's meat. That's what he said. That was a good idea, though.

Well, I was hoping for a bit more, but the meat's going bad faster than it should, especially if they're salting it. That shouldn't go that quickly. No, it shouldn't. Do you think it's worth checking in with the fish guy? See if fish have the same problem? Yeah. Is that a thing?

Let's go over to that black dragonborn over there. Okay. Moes up to his table. All right. So many puns I'm not making, carry on. How do? You walk up to the dragonborn, massive shoulders, but skip leg day every time.

It's sitting there throwing another fish over the line and putting it up there. You can see there's fishing supplies to the side, sweating through the scales, the eyes themselves, like a very piercing sky blue-white iris. Glances over. I can help you. You thought you were getting fish? over. Yeah, can I help you? You're getting fish?

Yeah, yeah, just curious what you had and the catch of the day was. We got blue fish, we got red fish, we got gray fish. Gray fish is a bigger fish. Are the fish red, blue, and gray? Yeah. There are elements of the hue in there where you can see that being the distinction he uses. You gather that this person probably isn't a fishmonger or master of the fish themselves and has just probably started a couple months ago catching fish and trying to sell them and isn't doing a very good job.

While Fjord is keeping him entertained, can I do a scan to see if there's a similar pile of rotted fish back there that he's having to discard? Maybe pick me up like one, two fish, the red, the blue fish. 12. Got it on my system. He was hurting him holding it in. That was painful.

Not in the vicinity, no. No. Good dog, good. The tree that's behind them, does it look unusual? Medium-sized tree, small tree? It looks unusual in the sense that in about a mile surrounding the city,

there are no trees. You do see them occasionally throughout the clusters of them across the fields, but they're pretty sparse. The ones that you see are, at least for this time of year, leafless, or are very hardy, swamp-type trees that endure very, very rough terrain.

Is the same true of grass? Is it more of a dead landscape around here, or have we seen grasses here? You've seen grasses, but they're usually very thick, hardy brown, gray grasses, scrub, a lot of scrubland-type plant here, elements of what you would imagine in... Scottish moors.

I'd say Scottish moors meets Joshua Tree. Okay. Is the tree uncharacteristically healthy for the climate? No, it looks healthier than the others, but it's also in the middle of a place where people probably take care of it more than just having to live on its own out in the middle of space.

It doesn't catch you as strange. The tree's not giving off any bad vibes. Make a nature check. The tree is the new chair. No. Yeah, yeah, yeah. What about the tree? That was a one minus one. That tree, though.

I don't have a tree. You're like, a tree. You smell the meat in your fingers, and it completely distracts you, and you lose sight of it. Stop talking to him. Salt. Yeah, fish. Want to go to?

I'm so fucking hungry. I want to try out this Timurgan Yud place, but excuse me, do you know, where do these fish come in from? Are they a river? Yeah, yeah, I go ahead and headed the Ithalon, that way to the west and. You crossed that river.

Ithalon. Ithalon River. Thank you. Yeah, yeah. Have any problem with rotting fish? I give him a little crazy eye and I go with my look. He looks down at you. He's a good foot taller than you. Yeah.

The snout puckers up a bit.'s going bad. A little too quick. Maybe. I don't know. I'll sell a lot of them really quick. I wouldn't know. Yeah, no, no, no. Yeah, let's get the fuck out of here. Sorry. Yeah, let's go. All right, good luck with your haul. Going to buy anything? Nope.

Oh, fuck you, too! You get the sense this guy's not a good salesman. No. Probably not doing too well. That guy worked at Brookstone. Oh, yes, Brookstone. Madam Musks. Make it hard. Madam Musks?

Okay, what does she do? She makes musks. Okay. Okay, you head to the hut. Trying it all. All right then, all right, so. Massage, man, 60 minutes. You build it, we're going.

We're not going to buy anything. Lesson I should learn. I'm just going to go insult you and leave. That's why I show up every Thursday. So as you approach the outside of the hut, you can see that interesting ivy that's climbing over and creating this unique net-like lattice of a very jagged-looking ivy.

It's almost like miniature brambles that twist and knot over each other. It's weirdly beautiful, but also a very no-touch scenario. But as you approach the front of it, you can see there's a cord hanging across the entryway and a curtain that is split in the center of a what would have been a bright purple at one time, but the colors faded over how long it's been here,

and now it's just this purplish gray, tattered at the bottom, soaked in this dark brown mud that's set within the base of it. Already, the smell hits you, and it's very strong medicinal herbs, ground roots and powders. As soon as you step to the cloth, the interior is, and this is actually, for you, a welcome sight.

There's a lot of things here that can be treated like teas. Should I put down number five? But there are all sorts of bulbs and roots and dried vegetable matter that seems to have been pulled out in strings then woven together into long braids that are dangling. You can see cages that hang in areas with moss-covered, shelled creatures

that are slowly shifting in their spaces. In the center, there is a wicker chair. In that wicker chair, you see a cloaked figure with a big hood that completely obscures the face. You see two tiny clawed hands that have a red-brown scale across the top of them that just sits in there with two tiny legs. It's weird. There's a giant head and torso. He has tiny little hands and tiny little legs. It's very creepy. It's almost like an old woman with baby proportions. It's upsetting when you approach. Do you see her face?

No, the hood is covering the face. Hello, hello, hello. Hello, hello, hello. Yeah, hello, Grandmother. You've come to talk to Maddy Mask. Oh fuck this, let's go. Yes, yes, yes, we have, yes we have. Definitely have. Whatcha looking for?

Well, we're. Begins rocking in this wicker chair. I'm fucking out. I turn around. Somebody else take over! You, Grandmother, do you know much of this city? I don't wonder it, but I do know the land.

I don't like it. Oh boy. Do you have potions? No. But I make potions. Oh, what kind of potions do you make? Soaps, bowls. I like that. Whatever ails you.

Ooh. Whatever ails you. Nothing ails us currently, but that changes frequently. I love her so much. Well, we are very interested in this, of course. What have you, what are your wares? Yeah, I'm standing in the corner with my head and my arm going, ask for a healing potion! We have healing potions. You're in the corner with my head in my arm going, Ask for a non-healing potion! We have healing potions. You're in the corner in Blair Witch. I want more!

Raise your hand if you want off the ride. We have the ability to heal wounds, but is there any other condition that your potions can restore? I have prepared a few antivenoms. Antivenom? That might be useful. Is that important around these parts? A few antivenoms. Antivenom? Oh, that must be useful. Is that important around these parts?

Might be. I don't know, I don't travel too far. How long have you been here, Madam Usk? This is terrible. What's your question? How long have you been here? Ah, as long as the elements have had me. You said you've recently made

you've recently made anti-venom potions? One of the hands comes up and points over and you see there's a small shelf to the side with doors locked. In there. I'll keep them. Okay. Did you recently make them due to a influx of venomous things coming towards you that you could do that? Is that why they're... I'm so nervous, she's freaking me out, Fjord. She's freaking me out. Your point blank.

I took a few steps back and I just, you know. Gesture wildly to accommodate. That's my name. I just like to be prepared. That's all. Yeah, I'm sure you do. I'm ducking down, I really want to try to get a look at it. What do you accept as payment?

Gold's a treat. Not souls or faces? No, I offer it. Don't. First off, she's lying. Sadly, he has neither. 22. 22.

It's going to be an actual baby. Oh man. Stay tuned for Monday's Kickstarter launch. Everything I wanted. The Legend of Vox Machina animated special. It's going to be amazing. I'm just going to point out, it's another chair. I feel they're connected.

100%. This woman's chair, the wicker chair? We've had wooden chair. This is now the order of the wicker chair. What's one step? No fucking way. That would be the Society of the Stool. Legends of Vox Machina, not a single character

with tiny hands. What, what, what? We cannot guarantee that, Liam. What? Are you looking to behave? Well, is it just the antivenom, or do you have any other wares for sale? I do have another healing potion,

but I can't make more, because I'm out of Tumamoss. Tumamoss? Tumamoss. He needs Tumamosses. Tumamosses. Little orange juice, little champagne. That's the biggest throwback yet. Two mamas.

Two mamas. Two mamas, yeah. Two mamas. I usually have to send a boy out to get it for me, but the local patches have dried up, I usually have to send a boy out to get it for me. But the local patches have dried up, so. This is the farmlands have been, the farmlands and the livestock have been

affected by something. I know a place where there is some, if you want to get it for me, like a nice goblin. This is the weirdest production of The Secret Garden ever. I definitely think we should get some for you. What? Where do you know that there's Tumamoss that still grows? The hand picks up and points over

behind the right shoulder and says, There's a small cove along the eastern bank of the Eiffelon River surrounded by seven trees this grove is this small bank there, there you'll

find the strongest batch of tumour must decide to leave or sure has I want sheet music of that longest batch of tumor must decide what she has. I want sheet music of that. Ooh, what do you want? Sing along, sing along.

If I had a fine white horse, I'd take it for rides and plays. Oh shit. Oh my god, oh my god. How much for the anti-venom stuff that you have made? I have four prepared. 50 gold apiece. Yes. All?

Yeah, I'll buy all four of them. How do you have that much money after we just spent money on that? I'll take it, I'll just throw 200 gold at it. Two hundred and a quarter! Oh no! Give me the money! I'll go and I'll help make it up, yeah.

I'll pick it up and put it in a tiny doll pen. I got it! Oh! But thank you. Grandmother, we have heard rumors about, can it shift some new direction? We have heard rumors about. The hood shifts in your direction. My parents told me stories about things like this. Grandmother, we have heard rumors in this city

of a strange presence. I understand you are in this home much of the time, but have you heard any rumors about anything otherworldly in a way you are not familiar with here? Go ahead and make a persuasion check. You have the dodecahedron if you need it. How old is that? Didn't you need it. Yeah, there's that. It didn't help. 14.

14? Okay. I've heard rumors of folks dealing with bad dreams. Round the square here, sleepless nights. Old Portis, apparently when Creasy had murdered his family. Old Portis. Portis?

Where did old Portis used to live? Used to live far down that side of the square. He points out directly behind you on what would be the western road that leads away from the square. But he's not there anymore. He was executed but two days ago. Did they board up his house or anything? I don't know. I don't leave this hut. How did they kill him?

I don't leave this hut. We should go check out his house. How do you sustain yourself? We should go check out his house. How do you sustain yourself? I have my ways. Uh-huh. Hey. Thank you. You seem uncomfortable, would you like to wait outside?

I'd just like to ask, what the name, if I were to look up under equipment, are these four vials of poison resistance called? I'll show you the break. Okay. If you bring me to Mermosa, can make you more healing potions. At a massive discounties?

The head slowly nods in your direction, twitches a bit. Just for fun, I'm going to Detect Undead just to see what's up. Okay. Can I do an insight check? Kill this bitch. I want to do an insight check? Kill this bitch. I want to do an insight check when she

said she'll trade in fate or whatever, if she was joking. Trade in? He was like, would you trade in fate or fortunes? And she was like, are you offering? Go ahead and make an insight check. You, I have 60 feet. Right, You concentrate and focus to sense that negative void aura that seems to emanate from creatures that are held together through necromancy. Nothing.

19 total. So many whispers tonight. Each whisper is an opportunity, a whisper-tunity. A whisper-tunity. To tell you about the awesome merch that's in the Critical Role shop, I don't know. Hey, we got some shirts, like the one that Travis Willingham's wearing. Oh, it's such a good shirt. Oh my goodness.

Hey, guess what? That's a Lady Small. Actually, I don't know if it's true. I think it's true. That's the winner. There's a Traveler bumper sticker. It might be in the resort. Hey, that is maybe a good plug. Did you find anything?

Yeah, no? Did you get the vibe? No, no, no vibe. Everything's copesetic. Let's go check out that house. Yes. I think that's a good lead. Fair enough. It's a pretty good lead. Be safe out there. Fuck, let's just kill her.

Nobody's going to come in here. We will be safe, thank you so much. Thank you. As we're all leaving. Can we see her face? As we're leaving, I'm going to kneel down and, you're doing such a good job, like so, so creepy. I'm so impressed with you guys.

And I've... Natural 18 for a 19. Okay. You notice, I'll put this out since this, you don't get too much detail, but there's something odd about the physicality of this woman. The body seems to move in sections,

like it's a person poorly made and about to fall apart. It's off-putting and strange. You get a glance underneath when Jester's talking to her, like the head shoots up towards her in a second, and you see what looks to be a snout of some kind, but it's a small, long snout. For the size of the hood, you see this tiny little snout

poke through and then pull back in, and the whole body seems to recoil into the chair a bit and get still. What? Don't worry, I won't tell anyone. Shh! All right, go now, please. We should go.

Wow. You guys exit Madam Musk's tent. Oh my god. This is so weird. As soon as we exit, I turn around. Is it still there? No. As you turn around, it's still there. Can we please eat or go check out

the boarded up house one or the other, just whatever direction is further away from this fucking place? Oh my god. So many mysteries. I know we're starving. All right, the house. The house. Yeah, so it felt like that was several people, right? I don't know what you're talking about. Mademoiselle was super creepy and stuff.

You said you guys are doing a great job. No, I didn't, I'm sure of it. Um, you guys? They were really cute, though. Who? The kobolds. They were kobolds? Yeah!

Wait, there was kobolds under there? She wants to be creepy, okay? Let her be creepy. I don't know what's happening. You're saying there was just a bunch of kobolds? And it was an act? Those type of creepy people, they're always acts. They're scammers, that's how they make their living.

Amazing! Very eloquent compared to our past experience with, okay. Didn't fool me. I was totally comfortable in there. You're scared out of your beegeebies. Yeah, by just a couple of kobolds and a little cloak. I'm not even going to digify that with an insight check.

Big man! She's making the whole business off of it, don't say anything. Can't even take three kobolds and a trench coat. Keep pushing me, Nott, keep pushing me. See what happens. I know how to get you! Go put a blanket over my head and get some sticks, ooh! All right.

So we are going to go check out this murder house. Orders down on the left. Crazy potus. Potus. Yeah, we look for the house on the left. The house at the end of the road. Murder house. Okay, so you head west back through the square,

passing the four corners on the right and the Baron Visco's butchery to the left. Going four houses down to the left, you can see it's a small home, maybe three rooms total. Some of it's the woods warped and the building itself leans a little bit to the right, but it's closed up. Does it look like there's locks or barricades or police lines do not cross? There's not a police line, but it does appear to be locked. Does it look lived in still, or does it look closed? Make an investigation check.

Chimneys, holes, gaps big enough for a cat. Yeah, that's a four. You look at the house and... Four walls, roof. I'm just going to pick the lock. Always pick the door down, windows. I'm going to pick the lock. All right, go ahead and make a d20 check.

Is anybody watching? I want to look and make sure nobody's watching when Nott does that. Yasha will provide a meat shield barrier. Okay. I mean, there's a lot of people walking through this street and you're going to the front door to pick it. Is there a back door?

I want to do a little scout around. It's too late. While Nott's working on it, I want to scout the perimeter. There is no back door. It's small enough to the point where there's really only one entrance and exit. It does. There is one window in the back, but it's boarded shut.

Kind of pull on the boards a little bit until they seem like they're in there? I mean, they're recently nailed, so they're not weathered and losing their strength. But they're boards, they can be broken or pushed in with enough force. Okay. How are you doing, Nott? Almost done, 26.

26? Door opens up. I do a scan, 26. 26? Door opens up. I do a scan, anyone watching us? Make a motion check. I was trying to do a turn. You did as well? Yeah, I'm joining. Yeah, well, that's a natural one.

So I'm distracted. 24. 18, 19, 20, 23, 25. Holy cow, these are good. There's a couple of folks that are looking over, strangely, as Nott picks and opens the door. They're like, I created a version of something. It's our house that we left stuff in there. See, there's this rough and tumble-looking hobgoblin, red skin, pointed nose, dark hair that tumbles past, the ears that point backwards, and this big square jaw approaches, goes,

What's your business? You want to buy some medicine? But Portis owed us some money. We were just going to go collect some of his furniture to repay the debt. Make a deception check. Come on, come on, come on. That's a deception?

Oh, negative three. 15. With a 15? Ooh. Oh boy, megasteins. Just turns around and walks around, which was more just like, what are you doing? It didn't seem to be too inquisitive. Once you said that, it was like, oh, I get it,

and just walked away. That was very impressive. What is wrong with people here? We'll go outside the sentry, and we'll all go in the house real fast. Take a look. Okay. All right. Okay. I'll pop in the house. Yeah, I pop in as well. You walk inside.

It's very lightly furnished, and sets a theme for probably how a lot of this city is. There is a simple table with a couple of chairs. You can see another table that's used for dining mostly, and smaller chairs. This looks like maybe a family lived here. But what you do notice is the floor around the dining table to the left and near the entranceway that goes into what might have been a bedroom is just puddles of dried blood. Ooh.

Mm. Any rifts to the abyss? Make a perception check. Perception? One story, right? Not two stories? One story, yeah. 12. Don't see anything of that kind whatsoever.

I'm going to head towards the bedroom where the bloodstain seems to be coming from, take a look around. I'm also looking to see if there's a basement of any kind. Okay. Looking for a basement, you said? Two. Investigation check.

Oh god, I haven't been in an investigation. Just someone who has left blood before. I want to Willgram this room and see if I can ascertain how this happened. Investigation check as well. Can I look for any loose floorboards, papers, places that people might hide scrawlings? Hidden investigation check.

Hidden compartments? Sure, make an investigation check. Can we see, what does it look like where the blood came from? Like, where were the bodies? That's what an investigation check would allow. So you rolled a what? A six.

You're escaping the orb's peripheral. 13. 13, not too bad. So looking around the bedroom, you can see where it looks like there was probably one death on the bed itself. It looks like the splatter patterns across the ground was there was some sort of a struggle.

There are two other smaller puddles where you can see what looks to be three bodies eventually laid to rest and bled out. So there were three deaths here. One large on the bed, and then two smaller ones in the dining area. Anything in the closet? Just going to check all the rooms.

There's no closet. There are drawers and stuff, but the place has already been stripped clean. Does it look like they were killed and put in a place, or does it look like they were killed and dispelled? It's hard to tell, really. I'm going to sit on the floor and pull out my spell book and slap it down

and take the time to cast Detect Magic as a ritual. Okay, and what were you doing? 23 to look for loose floorboards, places that. Space brands, shelves, whatever. Yeah, hidden shelves. Okay, you look around. Filling under desks. Yeah, most of the ground in here

is not wooden boards, more than it's just stones that have been placed in the mud and then gone over with a bit of masonry to go ahead and seal it. So there's no loose boards, but you do feel around. It was a very good check, but you feel certain that there is no hidden compartment or a basement or anything beyond this. It is a simple abode.

Simple abode. So at least you confirm for yourself that there isn't something you're missing as far as the structure itself. Yeah, right. Don't who? Detecting magic? Caleb's still here, takes a little bit.

You take a little bit, you cast Detect Magic. 10 minutes later. Nothing. The house seems pretty abandoned, cleaned out, and whatever remnants of these murders took place, this individual, this old POTUS you heard about, apparently did this and was executed a couple days ago. Well, can we go eat? I burn another spell slot to return myself

to looking like Jester as a boy. Okay. All right, let's go eat. Maybe we can ask around at the pub or whatever, the tavern. Who cares? We don't know where Potis worked or something. Maybe he was exposed to something there. It seems like a lot of people have been exposed

to this crazy-making miasma. Maybe he woke up from a bad dream and killed everyone. Maybe he ate some bad meat. Maybe Fjord, oh my gosh, what if in your bad dream sometime you're going to wake up and murder all of us when we're in our bubble hut? You know when I am going to murder all of you is in five minutes if we don't fucking eat something.

You're going there right now, we're walking there, Fjord. Walk faster. Yeah, he was publicly executed, so we should just gossip with the locals to find out why. We'll go gossip. Yeah. Okay. To the barn. To the Four Corners.

All right, you guys head back out into the main thoroughfare over to the Four Corners Tavern. As you approach, you can already see their, oh, sorry, you were at something? Is Tymoc and Yud on their way out? No, they would be on the southeastern side. Maybe later. But as you approach, you can see there are two figures.

One is a large, burly orc, and another that appears to be a bugbear are dragging a body out from the front. What? From the front of where? Of the four corners? From inside of the four corners, and they're dragging it out into the street. Like a dead body, or?

It's a limp body, and in just a second, you can see it's another orc. Too much to drink, that one. They hear a chuckle, and they throw it to the ground, and one of them just slaps it in the face, and you can see the orc in the ground's face is just hamburger meat. It is bloodied, and the lip is split,

and one of the eyes is swollen shut, and there's spatters of its own blood across the chest. They both sit there and look at him and it's like, where poor bastard. Kick him in the side. Wake up! He goes and takes a tanker that the bugbear was holding out of their hand and pours it over his face

and the orc in the ground goes. Did I win? You're like, Piss off, we lost some money on you. They just walk back inside and leave the orc there on the ground, dazed. You hear there's chatter and discussion and conversation and chuckles and guttural voices and high-pitched voices

and whiny laughter and faint discordant music all emanating from the open doorway to the four corners as you step within. We're going to go ahead and take a break. All right, so we'll return here in a few minutes, guys. We do have our fantastic Wyrmwood giveaway from our friends at Wyrmwood. Wyrmwood! Which, if you haven't seen it yet, there's a video on social media of them, how they made this DM screen.

Holy moly. It's what? You see the stuff they make and you're like, that's really cool. You see the quality of impersonation, like, that's really well done. You see the actual process, and I'm still blown away by it.

So check it out if you can. It's so relaxing to watch. Tonight is the Purple Heart Dice Tour. Made famous by our fantastic Scanlan Shorthalt from the last campaign. Keep that colored. Yes. One lucky winner gets this when we return.

To enter, go ahead and in the Critical Role chat, enter the term Minotaur. M-I-N-O-T-A-U-R, Minotaur. Once, more than once, and you'll be disqualified. Once again, this is for us canada except for quebec um if you want to have a winner let me return here in a few minutes so we'll see you guys in a second why hello there this is critical roles resident art dad also known as liam o'brien we are continuously amazed at the artwork this community creates.

That's why each Thursday at 8 a.m. Pacific, we share a curated gallery of submitted fan art over on CritRoll.com. If you'd like to submit your art for consideration, visit CritRoll.com slash submit. And thank you to all of the incredible artists who share their talents with us week after week. And welcome back, everybody. Before we jump back in, we do have a winner tonight. The winner is 3ind720. 3ind, like, remember? 3ind720.

Congratulations. Could be. They've chatted twice in our chatroom. Thank you for the wormwood. And I guess second time's the charm, so congratulations. You guys, we'll get this sent out to you ASAP. All right, so bringing us back in to Asarius, you begin to step into the interior of the Four Corners.

Immediately, you can see the arched barn roof-type interior, a good 20 or so feet off the ground at its apex. It is a central apex that runs from the front to the back with a somewhat curved barn-like top. There are raptors pointed across, and you can see there are different boxes and barrels placed up in the edges for storage reasons. To your right, there is a bar being run by

a somewhat jovial, grinning bugbear that has mashed some sort of wax into very heavily grown fur around the face and pulled it into a tri-type pointed mustache goatee appearance, but it's just a continuation of the fur. It is a mid-conversation. You can see there are a good seven or eight tables scattered amongst the room with candles on them

that burn halfway down and wax splatters across the center. The room is filled with all kinds of unique people. You can see gnolls, one in the far corner and one to the far left, sitting there with large tankards drinking, conversing. Probably a half dozen goblins or so scattered around the interior. Some orcs, you can see what looks to be a few Kryn drow in here as well.

As you all step into the interior chamber, the energy comes to a slight standstill as everyone looks over to the brightly colored and different individuals. Beau. Yeah? Punch me. Okay. It was such an invitation, I couldn't.

No, it was. I'm not going to make you roll martial arts damage, but your dex modifier is? Just my dex mod? Yep. Plus five. You take six points of damage. Okay. Oh, it clocks you.

Sorry, I could have done a little less fervor. Yeah, it's all right. Sorry. As you stop for a second, the whole crowd raises an eyebrow or grumbles to themselves and chuckle, and they all go back to their business. Give them all a little bit of the crazy eye. What you do notice also is to the front left

of your entryway, a large portion of the central chamber on the far left corner is a gravel pit. Like 35 foot by 35 foot gravel pit. That encompasses the center and You can see there is a chair set at each corner of this pit. I'm sure it's for doing foley work or something. Yes. Deep joke.

You do see sections of the gravel seem to be darkly stained. Sitting in one of the chairs, you see a really thick, muscular ogre. Most ogres you see are very muscular in general, but also carry a rather hefty amount of thick ogre skin and fat that also makes them a walking powerhouse or sledgehammer. This is a pretty cut ogre. You can see a lot of muscle definition and is currently removing wraps from his hands

where you can see there are bloodstains across it. You can see two other individuals, two gnolls, that are currently having fresh drinks poured into their glasses and mugs as they themselves are beat as shit. For sure. In the other chairs? What's that? Are they in the other chairs?

They are no longer in the chairs on the other side of the ring. They're over at nearby tables, and they're currently being consoled by their friends and such. The ogre that's there, you can see there's a pile in the center of the gravel pit that is a combination of gold coins, jerky,

looks to be some sort of a locket, as well as a raw piece of ore. It's just a small pile of loose pocket treasures. As soon as the ogre finishes unwrapping its gloves, a small pile of loose pocket treasures. As soon as the ogre finishes unwrapping its wrappings on its hands, it walks over and begins to scoop it up, as well as a nice helping of gravel into a pouch and goes off and orders a drink.

Did you see that guy? Yeah, yeah, he's a fighter. I want to be his friend. His friend? I want to be his friend. His friend? I want to go to the bar. Okay. Sit down. I'll buy you that drink.

You'll do this to the ogre? Yeah. Okay, the ogre is leaning forward, and you come up to about the waist of this ogre. Yeah. The guy's almost bending at a 45-degree angle to rest his shoulders on the edge of the bar. As soon as you say this, the head twitches a little bit to hear you and then just continues to ignore you, and staring ahead at the bartender, who's in the process of getting a pretty hefty cask underneath the bar, and brings it up on top. You can see the bartender, the bug

bear, glances over at you and gives you a look, a little wink, and continues to prepare to pop it while the ogre shoves this large, ding to shit tankard that was previously attached to the side of his belt forward toward the bartender and continues to not acknowledge your existence. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Not a bad night of work, huh?

It's pretty good. Sad I missed the fight. Stick around. There's always more. Doesn't even look at you, just keeps looking forward. Stick around, there's always more. How do you throw your hat in the ring? Or something like that.

Now the head turns towards you, and you can see one of the eyes is destroyed. The right eye in the head, it looks like it's taken some heavy damage and is healed back enough to at least not become a necrotic problem. But you can see where the iris is split and it's not a functional eye, it's ruined. It doesn't move within the socket, but the other eye shifts over towards you. You can see the jaw on this ogre is a series

of heavy scars where you can see it's been split in three different places and healed back over. A broken, jagged row of teeth and curved tusks tend to tangle outside of the lower jaw. You can see sprigs of attempted chin hair that ends up being a tuft of seven or eight longer hairs that tangle into this awkward thin braid or lock that drifts and taps the edge of the top of the clavicle into this awkward thin braid or lock that drifts and taps the edge of the top of the clavicle as the head shifts and looks towards you and says, If you're looking to enter, just drop your ante.

And points back to the gravel pit. Be happy to take it from here. You're going to be fighting next? Is it like a reigning champion type of thing? No. Whoever wants the ante can enter. Oh. Sure, if I don't like what you drop,

I leave it to the riffraff. And everyone else is the riffraff, not you, though. You smell like human. Wow, you're very astute. It's accurate. It's a terrible smell. Yeah, I've heard that before. Jesus, okay, come on, man.

Makes me hungry. Okay. I'm going to ignore that and have one more question for you. No more questions. He turns back and takes the tankard from the bar, now filled, tosses a couple of silver pieces over the bar towards the bartender from the winnings

that he pulled up from the center of the gravel pit and just stops. I'll fight you for a question. Just sits down and keeps drinking. Fuck. Fucking get a drink and then go back over. What were you going to ask him? Want to hear if he's been having nightmares.

She's a good detective. I thought she was going to ask him out or something. Yeah. It was weird. You did, really? I wasn't aware that was an option. He did say I smelled very nice. He said you made him hungry, I heard it. Yeah, yeah, having that effect on people sometime.

Mm, nicely done, ooh. The bartender sits there waiting, the bugbear goes, Hi, hi, I want something. Yeah, yeah, I'll just get an ale. All right. What's your name? What's yours? Risk, Risk the Mad.

What's your name? Risk the Mad. Risk. Risk. Yeah, that's the Mad. Risk! Risk. Yeah, that's the one. Okay, Risk. I'm Beau. Beau the Sane, currently.

For now. One ale, come on. He turns around and goes and starts pouring. What made you mad? Ah, lots of things. What's the most recent? She's just asking a lot of questions. Lots of questions.

Makes me real mad. Oh, questions make you mad. Ooh, okay. Why is everyone here, like, feels like they're hitting on me, but also insulting me at the same time? It is so blatantly obvious that Beauregard is going to start a bar brawl in here,

I am pulling my cloak over to hide my person. I think people here don't like answering questions, Beau. Yeah, city of beasts thing. Maybe asking why people don't like answering questions, that might shed some illumination on the problem. Still a question, though. Oh. Is there anyone sitting in this whole place

that's at a table by themselves, maybe like? You can make a perception check. Yeah. 20. Oh. 21. Okay. Most of the tables are fairly busy. There is one table on the far right side back end.

It's a smaller table, and there's only one individual sitting there, and it is a drow. It is a female drow, dark black hair across that light blue-gray skin tone. Hair is pulled back into a very tight ponytail that is then multiple times bound, so it's almost like a series of periodic bindings to where it drags to the lower back. It looks to be flowing clothes, no Kryn armor necessarily, so you don't get the sense that this is a soldier of the military, and is currently clutching hands around a drink

and just staring right at Beau. Your actions have garnered some attention. 10 o'clock, back of the room. I turn around and look at him. Her? Her? It's a lady. It's a lady. Sorry. Should we go talk to her?

No. What do you mean, yes, we're here for information. Maybe your smell is making her hungry. I'm telling you, everyone is horny over me. It occurs to me that I'm hungry. I'm going to order some food. I'm going to go to the bar and order some food. We're here for information.

People are responding. Nice to meet you. Nice to meet you. You're just an interesting one, aren't you? Oh, you're the first person to say that. You're very bright. Thank you. I try. All right, okay. You hungry? Yeah, whatever you've got in the kitchen, I think I'd love to feed my friends

and have a fine meal, especially if you have any, if we can get assortments of meats and vegetables, would be really great. Like a breakfast spread. Like a breakfast spread. All right, all right. I'll finish in a second. Get the breakfast spread! Going right on it. Get the breakfast spread. You notice as he talks, he shouts an order to himself

and then responds from the other side and goes off and starts making food out of this small little kitchen shack that's attached to the outside of the barn. Can he just talk to himself, you were saying? I think there's two people and one right there. He's the mad, never mind. I thought he was just angry at you.

I mean, people seem to be on occasion. Okay, everyone's in a mood. I'm going to go over to the drow. I'm going to tag along a little behind. I'm going to wait for breakfast. Captain Heat and we are the one who is in the mood. All right. I'll take that one. You step up to the table.

I sit down. Oh god. Is he taken? It is not. Oh god. The seat taken? It is now. Correct answer. It's been cold. Not used to this. Where are you from? Where are you from?

She starts drinking. A little bit further south. Traveling, touring. What is your destination? Currently, it was this barn. Well, congratulations, you made it. I did. I feel pretty good about that, too.

You should. Looking for someone, though. Well, I hope you find them. Seems like a lot of people are missing these days. Dangerous places, these fields. Mm-hmm. SAM and LAURA SAM and LAURA Grabs the drink and stands up and walks away. Oh!

Fuck. As they go past, can I just try to brush up against them and just see if, Nimble. See if I can, are they holding anything in their pouches? They have some pouches, yeah. I'm just going to try to pick a pocket.

Okay, go for it. That's how I do it. Go for it. That's the beginning of the end. Two X. Fuck. Sleight of hand, 29. Whoa. This is a random pocket. I'm not of hand, 29. Whoa.

This is a random pocket. I'm not going for anything particular. Okay. All right. You reach up and, not even looking, reach. It takes a second for your fingers to find a pouch, but something cylindrical and cold finds your grasp, and you pull it on its side and dart off,

and no one seems to make any note of your... When I touched its form, it seemed all there, no illusions or anything? Make a perception check. Okay. Five. Five? Seemed all there. Seemed all there.

Okay. Did I get any type of feeling on what she was looking for when she was staring through my soul? Make an insight check. All right, all right, all right, all right. 18. 18.

Hard to read the true length and breadth of the intent, but seemed to be genuinely taken aback that you were here. Like a human of, like you, you can't tell if it was an offense or something more sinister, you don't know. Did she leave Beau with the whole establishment? Left Beau, just moved over to the back wall and is now, after passing by Nott, is just leaning on the back wall

with the tankard and is still keeping a side eye towards Beau. Uh-huh. I go back to the group. Did you make her so horny that she had to go relieve herself? Pretty sure she wants to kill me. Not near the group.

I will just look at what I got. It's Greater Healing Potion. Oh, okay. Nice. Greater? I'll take that. Now it has mine. That's legit. I'm going to pass it over to you. Sick.

Do you think, should we go talk to her again? First of all, what are we doing here? I make my way over to where she's moving to. Wait, you're going to go talk to her? Wait, wait, don't! We're going to corner this one, okay. I'm going to go near and just watch. Okay.

As I start making my way over, I have a little bit of a sway in my swagger, and I get near a table, and I'll trip and fall into the chair. a little bit of a sway in my swagger, and I get near your table, and I'll trip and fall into the chair. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Hey. Hello?

What's your name? You want to know my name? I'm sorry. I probably shouldn't ask. Seems like it's more trouble than it's worth. It always is. If you want to know, throw something in the ring. Are you a fighter?

I have been known to throw a fist every now and then. I don't need any more of that. Did you see that filthy fucking human punch me right in my goddamn kisser? I did. Did you deserve it? I can't remember. What is one of them doing in a place like this?

Can you believe it? Stipsipen walks away from you and you're on the side. So proud. You guys suck. I'll sit down in her chair, look at the group and be like. All right.

It sounds like if we want to talk to this lady, you're going to have to beat her up. I have a thought. Okay. I think to get any amount of fucking respect in here, we're going to have to beat some fucking ass. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm willing to do it. I think it's a fisticuffs thing,

I think it's a no armor thing. I think it's four people against each other. So you join me. But we don't really tell, you know, we don't project that we're necessarily fighting each other. Okay, okay, okay, okay, okay, okay. Yasha just quietly goes.

Actually, Yasha, honestly, right now is looking uncomfortable. and just quietly goes. Yeah. Actually. Yasha, honestly, right now is looking uncomfortable. Oh fuck. I genuinely, it's just like, normally I'd be into this kind of thing, but maybe not here. She's looking around the room nervously. Is everything okay, Yasha?

Yeah, just, you know, I... This is where I'm from, and maybe don't want to make a scene. Oh fuck, are we embarrassing you? Are we those people? We are those people. Obviously. But it's fine, your plan was fine.

You and Jester fight. Do it. We'll win. It'll just be down to you and you. One of you throws the fight, I assume. Maybe you should work that out ahead of time. Then we'll get tons of respect and we'll ask all our questions.

At least you're about to have an embolism, throw something in there instead of fighting. Best to not think about these things too much. Show me what you've got! Fuck. I take. Here, I pull one of those jade stones and I slap it into Beauregard's hand, use this.

How many jade stones do you have? Four. I had four. Yeah, you have two now. I have two, and I give her one. All right. And then I'll take one of my several pouches that I bought, fill it with like, what seems right? What seems good? Jade stone worth 100 gold pieces.

That's so much. That's way too much. You want some bloody manacles? Then look, somebody just put the locket in there and he like. There's a crossbow. I'll throw another 10 gold and I take the bloody manacles because that seems hardcore. Okay.

Bloody manacles, gold, jade piece. So you step out into the open gravel pit. Fuck, oh fuck. Oh, wait, okay. We should team up and then, when it's just us, then we, you know. Yeah, yeah, yeah, who wants to throw? Should we go based on how it's going?

I'll throw it to you. Okay, well, she opens it, okay. So you walk out on your own, and drop the contents of your hands into the center. I'm so scared. In the middle of the gravel. At which point, you see about seven different characters in the interior of the four corners sit up and look over in the direction.

I go take a seat. You go take a seat. In the thing. In the chair? In one of the gravel pit. In one of the chairs. Okay. You go ahead and sit in one of the chairs. You watch as the ogre,

the ogre that you had approached the bar, pushes past two of the orcs and makes his way to the gravel pit, reaches and grabs the bag of recent winnings, and looking at you, throws it on top, you're anteing the center, and walks over to where you're sitting and goes, move out of my chair.

I stand up and I pull out the sequined glove. I put it in the middle. And then I go sit in another chair. What is the sequined glove? A single white sequined glove was one of my stupid artifact that I started the another chair. What is the sequined glove? A single white sequined glove was one of my stupid artifacts that I started the campaign with. Like Michael Jackson.

I would say like a Michael Jackson glove. Okay, all right. So as you drop your sequined glove, you can see a few faces of nearby onlookers, like three goblins on the edge, look in and go,. That's some actual money. It's magic. It's magic? It's magical. It's a monkey. Oh, it's some actual money. It's magic. It's magic?

It's magical. It's a mug. Oh, it's magical, everyone, it's magical. But in just a decorative sense. You see a greenscale dragonborn in a breastplate of armor that looks to himself a little bit drunk, but is well-armed, sits up and begins walking towards the gravel pit.

Right before his foot touches the gravel, there's this blur of motion, and you see the drow female earlier is now in the pit, cutting him off. Oh shit. Oh god. Everybody wants Beau! Tell him to leave now. Walks over and.

I'm still waiting for breakfast. I have no idea any of this is happening. Food begins to arrive for you. Hey guys, I got the, oh. You're going to get your asses kicked, you didn't eat. As everyone's preparing. Bring it back to the table. As everyone's preparing, I'm just going to cast Mage Hand. Just have it invisible nearby, just in case.

Sure. I'll throw a, well, I'll, yeah. You're eating breakfast. I'm eating breakfast. You're already eating breakfast. They're already at the chairs. If you're going to cast anything, you have to walk up to them and do it visibly.

I don't think that's fair, though, is it? You can certainly try. No, that doesn't seem fair. Take it from me, I've gotten thrown in jail for that before. Yeah, no, that sounds like cheating. All right, so it is Beauregard the Drow. Jester still stands at the center, or no,

your ogre sits on a chair, and the ogre sits, and you can see the Drow and the ogre are now looking at Jester expectantly. Oh, come on, I put a glove in and stuff. Hold on. I only have one thing that's worth anything. Come on, Valk. You need some money?

I pull out my diamond that I bought with Caduceus. That's a lot. It's worth 300. That's my diamond that I bought with Caduceus. That's a lot. It's worth 300. That's a lot. I don't have anything else. Do you put the diamond in the center? Is that too much? Yeah.

It's only a little late now. What are you doing, Jester? I'll win it back, just like they say in Vegas. Take my glove back and put it on. All right, they have a glove for the battle. When the diamond hits, you can see everyone in the room goes like, and the ogre looks at you with this big grin and goes,

He then reaches back and pulls what looks to be a short sword in his hand. And, yeah, well, you notice at this point that the people that have been fighting, since you haven't actually seen a fight yet, it isn't necessarily fisticuffs. Oh! And at this point, you realize that the wounds

the others that's been stained involved puncture wounds slash wounds. This is a whatever weapons goes type brawl. Like, whatever goes, huh? Well whatever weapons goes type brawl. Right. Whatever goes, huh? Well, whatever goes from their perspective. Yeah. So if Jester summons some unicorns, people might get pissy.

Who knows? We're going to find out. We're going to find out! We're going to find out! Give me the ring! Bring me the ring! Woo! I want Matt to bring out a kitty litter box full of sand right now.

Oh no. What should we do? Oh no. I am so out of my league in this ring! D&D Beyond, everybody. Fine preparation. Maybe I should go for the orchid. Look at that odor! Oh my god!

Yes! All right. The pit is most of the bar. It's true! Look at that over, oh my god! Yes! All right. The pit is most of the ball. I am going to throw up. You got the houses so fast. Jester! Jester!

I don't have anything! You got those houses so quick. Could have thrown in 50 silver would have done it. We saw these together at Colville's Joint. Were you guys just watching from the side here? Found a separate table? I was getting breakfast, man. I'm sitting at the drow's table.

I understand why they call it the Four Corners. Oh, cool. Fjord? Yeah. I'm probably going to get a little, I want to make sure that I have 30 feet of clearance for the whole thing in case I have to start keeping people from getting beat to death. Okay.

Caleb, where would you like to be? I think I'll stand by the door here, right near where Beauregard is. All right. Yasha creeps over to this side, across to the side of the door. Are none of us over here? Yeah, I'm going to be over there.

It's crowded over on that corner. It is. Caduceus, you're here or you want to be with us? As long as the whole thing's within 30 feet of me. You have to be closer to that, but right now everyone's crowding up to the outside. I'll go rejoin Caleb over there with whatever breakfast I can manage.

I don't think I've ever done one of these. I don't think I've done a bar fight. Teamwork. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Teamwork makes the dream work here. Until it's just you two and then blood. I don't think I'm Donna Barf. Teamwork. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Teamwork makes the dream work here. Until it's just you two and then blood. I don't think it's going to get to that point. Kill her.

Take out face. No mercy. Weapons, arms, legs, eyes. Goblin is all going to move up. Another actual Kryn soldier comes up to the edge and starts watching. Hobgoblin steps up onto a table over here. They are all now moving in to form this space around.

I think if... So, that being the case. Nope. I am going to need everyone to roll initiative, please. By everyone, that would be Beauregard and Jester. Oh my god, Jessie. Come on, Laura. Yeah, Tara.

Okay, okay, I'm going to use my boots. I should, oh, we don't have the, we already used the dodecahedron today. We went like 18 or something. Well, Ike. It's all right, it's only whoever goes first probably survives. If I used the concentration, I would.

Yeah, I'm not interfering with this fight. I am making no such promise. Keep him alive. All righty. So, 25 to 20? 21. Ooh, nice. Very nice. 20 to 20? 21. Ooh, nice. Very nice. 20 to 15?

What'd I just, I'll just tell you it's a nine. Okay, good to know. Nine represents! Lucky number nine. So, as everyone gathers around the edges, and the faint music begins to turn into a boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. You can see one of the gnolls in the far back has begun to beat a small drum that kept on the side, and the bartender, looking over in the back, pulls up a small drum that he keeps behind the edge and is like,

cutting the top of it in this tiny little thing. Before we get going, I take the back guano that Caleb gave me and just smoosh it in my hands and I just smear it across my face. That's disgusting. That is gross. It's pretty fucking awesome. I do some special sequence glove flourishes. All righty, and as you're doing that,

you watch as the drow and the ogre, as everyone decides to cheer their rep, there is a moment of a flinch, and you go first, Beau, what are you doing? I go to the drow, in between the drow and the ogre, but in, yep, and while running, pull my sphere out

and spin with a flourish and come around your... My staff. Staff, gotcha. Okay, go for it, towards the drop. Oh my gosh. Natural 19, so that is a... That does hit. Okay, that's a, what is that, 20? 26? 27. 27. Go ahead and hit the image. That hits. Oh my god, I'm Yeah, okay, that's, what is that, 20? 27.

27. That hits. Oh my god, I'm shaking. Okay, eight damage. Eight points of damage. Stunning strike. Crack! Going right for the temple. Just going for a quick knockout.

That is going to be 14. What's the DC? 14. 14, crack! The drow looks back at you with an angry expression. Pop, doing it again. Go for the DC? 14. 14, crack! The drow looks back at you with an angry expression. Pop, doing it again. Go for it. Another attack? Going around the other side. Come on, bish, that's not great.

15. 15. You go ahead and make a second strike with the staff. This time, the drow seems to notice and ducks out of the way and then uses a reaction to whack, slam you right in the face with its fist. Ooh. With its fist. Natural 20.

Oh shit. Okay. Does she want to? Right there. Yes, yes. She's got no armor on at all. Oh shit. That is going to be 12 points of bludgeoning damage. Okay. Nice.

And I need you to make a constitution saving throw. Oh my god. Holy fucking monk. Oh my god. Oh my god, this could be so bad. Constitution saving throw? Weird question. Weird question, does Sentinel at Death's Door,

actually, is it visible, or is it just something I can do? Like there's nothing here that says verbal, somatic, or otherwise. Is it just my presence within 30 feet that makes something not happen? Is this pheromones? I would say maybe if you want to keep it low-key, because it's just like a, there is an action,

it's not a high DC sleight of hand check to try and hide it if you want to. What are you trying to do? Cancel the natural 20. No, it's too soon. Okay. It just feels like a cheat. So what'd you roll? Six. Oh no.

Oh no, you're stunned. Feel the fist strike into your head and, oh no, sorry, other one. Other one. You can keep that one. That's fine, that's fine. No, no, sorry. No take backs? No, too, other one. Other one. That's okay, that's fine. No, no, sorry. No take backs? No, too bad.

Okay. God, he's depending on the enemy. I can't believe she's up there. All of a sudden, your entire world freezes in a flash of white and you just hear ringing and what little bit of vision you can see of the outline of the interior of this tavern is just trails and a blur.

You are stunned until the end of its next turn. It's all right, you're good. I believe that's the end of your turn, then. And that was just her turn, right? Now they're both, but she did use her reaction. Now it's her turn, so she gets her reaction back. Oh shit. And is going to spin around this way?

I have a theory about all of this. And is going to go ahead and make three attacks against you. Three attacks! Against Beau? With advantage. With advantage because you were stunned. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

That's a waste of a turn. Go after the ogre first. Totally. You're talking to the drop, right? She's stunned. Yeah. So she'll come out of it. That is, yeah. Mutualized. Oh my god, right? She's stunned. Yeah. That is neutralized.

27 to hit. Shit. You take 10 points of bludgeoning damage. I got you, I got you. Fucker, fucker. That's going to be 18 to hit. Misses. Misses. Even in your stunned state, you manage to just barely budge

out of another fist throw. Knowing it's not much of an issue, he's going to go ahead and move over towards Jester. He's going to go ahead and bonus action, trim to strike you. That's going to be 15 to hit. I don't believe that hits.

I keep my shield up and my sequence love comes up behind it. Her drow eyes look up and narrow for Flurryblows. Fourth attack. No, that's 13 to hit, rolled really bad. Goes another punch and you just go ahead and deflect with the shield. Rest in movement is going to go ahead

and just shift over this direction. That finishes her turn. The ogre is now going to charge up towards both of you. He's going to make a strike against each, making the first attack against the monk. That hits, yeah, that's a 23. That is 11 points of slashing damage with one short sword, and is going to go ahead

and attempt to make another strike against you, Jester. Okay. That is 21 to hit. Yeah, that hits. All right, you take 13 points of slashing damage from the short sword that slashes past from the other hand. I'm going to use Hellish Rebuke. Go for it.

Is it a constitution saving throw? It's a dex saving throw. Fail! Okay, that's 3d10. 15, 17. 17? Yeah. Woo! So as the ogre slashes both of you, chuckling, goes for a second attack,

and then suddenly this burst of ice shards go blasting into his face. You see bits of it sticking in the neck and under the jaw and. All right, that's going to go ahead and end the ogre's turn. That brings us to you, Jester. It's me!

Okay, oh, I'm surrounded. You're currently pushed in the corner and surrounded while Beau on the other end is like This is terrible! Hand against the wall, trying to regain her state of mind. Okay. Jester.

I'm going to cast. End of next turn, you are technically no longer stunned, actually, because it's the end of the monk's turn. If I recall, the stun only lasts until the end of their next turn, and she did stun you out of four. I'm going to cast Command at second level. Ooh, okay. Nice. Let's see here, just double checking.

End of their next turn? Yeah, so you are no longer stunned. Oh, wow. Okay. It's actually good to remember, don't stun people on your reaction. If you're up next. But it did halt the rest of your turn.

Yeah, no, it sucks. Yeah, sorry. Empathy, it grows. Yeah, sorry. I'm, empathy, it grows. So Jester, what is it? I'm going to. Wisdom saving throws? Yes, wisdom saving throws. All right. Both of them, I'm pressing it second.

The monk rolled a natural 17 plus four, so. Okay, so it succeeds. The ogre, no, that's a 10. Yes, I say grovel at my feet, scum! The ogre goes, and it's the next turn they get this happens? They spend their next action doing this? Sorry, the target must succeed or follow the command on its next turn.

Correct, so as soon as you shout that, everyone laughs and Ha ha ha! And the ogre goes. You can see this confusion, this wave of, what the fuck, enter the ogre's face. So that's your action? That's my action, and then, yeah, that's a spell, so I can't do my other bonus action.

I'm just going to look over at the drow and be like, ha ha ha ha, good times, huh? As you look back and laugh and do that, all you see is the monk going. Oh no! All right, top of the round, Beau, you're up. Okay, shake it off really quick. I wink at the guy in front of me,

and then turn around, and I'm going to use my staff to vault off of the floor, and then I'm going to use my staff to vault off of the floor and then come down for an elbow to the ogre's throat. Okay, are you going on this side or? Yeah, behind him, coming up from behind. You could pincer with Jester from there. Yeah, does that mean I get advantage? You do, yeah.

Okay, attacks at one. Leap in the air and come down. Wow! Wow, 16. 16 hits. Okay. Okay. Okay, he's semi-makeup little now.

Okay, and my staffy staff. Six damage. All righty. Stun extract. Stun extract. This guy's constitution is probably something stupid. That is... 16. He's going to do stuff on his next turn, because I told him to.

As the staff slams into it, this ogre has solid muscle, and even though you hit right between where you can see a portion of the exposed nerve clusters would cause a like-sized figure to buckle, no effect. This is a tough son of a bitch. Is that your first attack? I saw movement, yeah. You do, you have five, 10, 15, 20.

You have 20 more feet of movement. Yeah, you can do that. And get in melee with the girl? Yep. And then I have a second attack, so I'm going to go whack, try and hit her in the face. Do I have advantage? Is she flanking? No, you're not directly flanking.

That's good, that's good. Duh, 27. That hits, all damage. No, 25, 25. All righty. Okay, okay, okay, okay, nine. Nine points of damage, all right. Flurry Blows.

Go for it. Fuck. No, wait. Patient defense, patient defense. Okay. Nice. You go into a defensive stance, you now take the dodge action. Nice. Thank you. All right, that finishes your go-bow?

That's my go-bow. Go-bow. That's your go-bow? Nice. All right, that finishes your go, Beau? That's my go, Beau. Go, Beau. That's your go, Beau? All right, it is the drow's turn. The drow now preparing for, gets hit in the back of the shoulders from Beau, but is currently still focused on Jester, seeing suddenly magic attempting to affect its mind.

She knows that's a dangerous scenario, and then goes ahead and is going to attempt to strike towards you. Sentinel. Yes, you may. It's a natural one, so she misses. Goes to swing towards you and as the fist comes towards you, put the shield up and Beau, what'd you roll for attack? 19. That hits. Go ahead and roll damage. Beau actually clocks her in the base of the skull and watches she completely prevents her attack from the air.

It hurts the knuckles in that hand. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, 11 damage. Nice. All righty. She can't move. Well, no, because that wasn't a movement-based one, so movement is still in play. Second attack against you. That is a 24 to hit.

Okay. All right. That is eight 24 to hit. Okay. All right. That is eight points of bludgeoning damage. As the fist comes up and clocks you underneath the shield, and using one hand, try and pry the shield away, just uppercuts you right in the lower chin. Make a constitution saving throw for me. Oh, it was going to be so good and then it screwed me! Oh no!

What'd you roll? Five! The uppercut causes your head to reel from the impact. For a split second, all you see are clouds and unicorns the size of hamsters. It's beautiful. Oh wow. It's going to spin around.

He's going to go ahead and, pushing off of Jester's shoulder, jump up and do a kick towards the ogre's head and then come down with a second kick onto you as the bonus action. Oh, hot. That's dope. Super hot. That's really cool. Sploosh. It's morphin' time.

Even with a five, naturally, still hits the ogre with all the bonuses intact. Disadvantage. Bow. Disadvantage on bow. On bow, yeah. The ogre takes an additional ten points of bludgeoning damage, and then it gets to you with disadvantage. 17 to hit. I believe misses you. So the other kick, you actually manage to block it with your arm and cause it to slide and hit the gravel next to you, causing bits of stone

and rock to spray up in the vicinity. Kind of give her a nod in the middle of it. It's awesome. There's a moment where she lands on the step at you and goes like... Oh. She's awesome. There's a moment where she lands on the step at you and goes like. Respect. She's not quite sure where this is going. That's going to go ahead and finish the monk's turn. That brings us to the ogre's go.

The ogre, who just got kicked in the face, goes, slams the knee onto the ground, like crosses the blades in front. It falls prone if he's groveling. Yes! Yes, queen! I'll put it this way, because he's groveling. I don't know if I'm groveling. Spence is actually doing that, right?

Oh yeah. Then he goes, and uses half his movement to get up from prone. Okay. Wait, what? He can do that that fast? That seems lame. Yeah, I mean, but you spent his action, he couldn't do anything.

That's true, that's true. It's a level one spell, it's fine. He did kill himself. That's true. Oh no, the target falls prone and then ends its turn. Okay, that's for clarification. So yeah. On the ground, facing the Graal angrily.

Bits of stone get lodged in the back of the mouth. That finishes the ogre's turn. It's your turn, Jester. You are stunned. So you're just like, Huh, hey, we love you, Jester. We love you, Jester. Dancing around you, the colors are beautiful.

You hear harp music, it's amazing. Tiefling penis. That brings us to the top, Beau, you're up. Go on for the monk. All right. Just me and her, so after I give her the nod, I'm going to go and try and knee to the kidney. Go for it.

Is it now, she moved, is she now in between the two of them? Oh yeah, you can move and. Can I fling with Jester if I go to the other side? Can I move around? Can you shift here? Yeah, and then be. Technically, no, because you're not threatening. Oh, never mind.

Okay, first attack. 16. 16 misses. You go to swing, and the monk, ready for this maneuver, actually grabs your wrist, pulls you in, and uses a reaction to pop you right in the face. Do I sell Patient Defense?

No. That is going to be a 25 to hit. Probably hits. That is going to be 12 points of bludgeoning damage. Jesus Christ. And he's going to go ahead and make another constitution saving throw. Oh shit. That's totally wrong.

14. 14. No, you're stunned. Fuck! But only. Your save is higher than yours. With the wrist pulled forward and right in the jaw, your vision tunnels to darkness,

and all you can see is gravel before you, and in your head, you're like, I'm punching away, but all you see is Beau going in his own little world fighting nothing. The monk just watching that happen because it closes the rest of your turn, that finishes your go. It is now the monk's turn.

You're no longer stunned, but she still managed to shut down your turn. And Jester's no longer stunned. And I'm not stunned. Because that was the end of her turn? Correct. Okay. Yay, reactions. Yay. You got it. There you go. That's how it goes.

Oh man. Okay. The monk looking at the scenario is going to go ahead and do... He's going to spend a ki point to take the, as a bonus action, the disengage maneuver, and then vault over the ogre that's on the ground. Flipping in the air, grabs onto one of the ceiling boards

and swings over, lands down the opposite side of the ogre. Fuck, she's so cool. Right there, and is going to go ahead and, coming down, slam with advantage on two strikes against the ogre. That is advantage, right? Yeah, with advantage on it. Yeah, that hits. Seven points of damage. Strike. That hits. Seven points of damage. And is just going to do one additional attack. That misses, okay.

We went with advantage, it was like three and a four. The ogre is just in the process of getting back up off the ground and rolls out just as the final attack comes down and blasts into the nearby gravel and stone. Pulls her fist back and you see their stones pressed into the skin, a little bit of blood is starting to pour down. The ogre angrily gets up for its turn

and is going to go ahead and take two strikes at you, Jester. Then action surge and take two strikes on the monk. Hey, little old me, but why? The first attack against you. That's a 22 to hit. I guess that hits. You take nine points of slashing damage from the short sword striking right across your shield, pushes it into you, and the blade catches you across the forehead and gashes you from one eyebrow up to the edge of your hairline.

No! I think I've got bangs now, you guys. 25 to hit? Yeah. That's going to be 16 points of slashing damage. As you pull back, looking at the blood in your hand from recoiling, look up just in time as the other shortsword pierces underneath the shield and catches you in the abdomen.

You push away with the shield, preventing it from going as deep as it could have gone. That's like two inches of blade that just caught you right between where the leather armor protects you. Oh my god. Accent, sir, spin around towards the other monk. That is a hit and a miss. So the monk takes...

I want to get one round. 12 points of damage there, and misses with the other strike. That finishes the ogre's go. Jester, you're up. That's me. Okay. I'm going to, oh jeez. This all sucks. I'm going to. And I'm going to say, oh, my standee hamster unicorns need to protect me now!

And I'm going to cast Spirit Guardians. Okay, does Spirit Guardians say creatures that you choose? Well, it says if you're evil, they appear fiendish. Right, but who's affected by it is what I'm asking. What do you mean? Meaning you are in a room that is dense with a lot of people not involved in this fight. If the spell doesn't have a way of not differentiating between who you choose to be affected and not, you're about to hit a lot of creatures in this tavern,

so just double checking on this. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That would've been so cool. Protect you, they flit around you. When you guys are still looking, designate. Designate any number of creatures you can see. Okay. Yes, yes, yes. There you go. Okay.

So who do you define to be unaffected by it? Everybody but the ogre and the drow. Got it, cool. So as you come to again and focus, you say your little prayer and everyone watches as all these tiny little bubbles pop in the air around you and emerging from it these tiny cute little hamster-sized unicorns that float dancing through the air. All right, that's your action. Uh-huh. You want to move? I'm scared he's going to hit me if I do it.

Do I have Healing Word? Let me check, see. Couldn't cast Healing Word this turn because you already used the regular spell. Yes, okay. Then yeah, I'm going to go right here then. All right, you're going to stay right there? Mm-hmm. You got it, okay.

If and should just go? Just in the corner. At that moment, Frumpkin, seemingly terrified by the unicorns flying in the air, runs screeching out towards the drow and starts dancing around her legs, running circles under her feet and using the help action. Like for who?

To the drow. Going to help the drow? No, not help, distract. What is it? You can aid a friendly creature in attacking a creature within five feet of No, not help, distract. What is it? You can aid a friendly creature in attacking a creature within five feet of you, the cat. Okay. You faint, distract the target.

So the next attack is going to be with advantage, got it. All right. So it's dancing around the drow's feet. Did I see the cat? What the? Yeah, the drow is still focused, but looks down at the cat and is like, I get down on a knee and I jam the end of my staff

right into her ribs. So you move over to engage? Yeah, I come over, I slide and then jam. Make the attack with advantage. Yeah, okay, okay, okay. 21. 21 hits. Yes, 21.

21 hits. Savvy poo. Nine. Uh-oh. Nine Savvy poo. Nine. Nine points of damage. Nine! Ready? Crack! Stunning strike.

Okay. Fuck. I hope this works. Natural 13 plus two, 15. Plus two. Plus two. It's Vane. Neat, Vane! She keeps fucking up.

15's the number? 15, no, five. 14's the number. 14's the DC. So the impact of the stab hits in the stomach. She had to roll like this. And impact in the belly and in the eyes, maybe they shoot up to you angrily, piercing red anger out of the drow's eyes.

That's your first attack. Bitch! You have your second attack. Second attack! I try and bring up the staff from my kneeling position and come up for under her jaw. Go for it. Oh my god, that's crazy. Just roll another one. I hate everything.

No, just no. 11. 11, no. As you, after slamming the staff in the stomach, swing upwards and she catches it. With the momentum, pulls you in and then is going to kick you in the face as you're moving forward. Pop! That is going to be a 22 to hit. Yeah. Yeah. All right, that is going to be seven points of bludgeoning damage.

As her foot cracks you in the jaw, your neck almost snaps, not breaks, but almost whiplashes you from the impact. It's not going to attempt to stun you with that. You still have the rest of your turn, you have your bonus action. Patient defense. Okay, patient defense.

You're under a dodge mode. Ever so slowly. Don't fuck it up. In the mage hand. What are you doing? Just be slightly dragging the diamond. Make a slight head check. Just really close. Make a slightight of hand check. Make a sleight of hand check.

27. Like the mystery of the stones moving during a desert rain, the diamond begins to slowly carve this path through the gravel, but people are too focused on the fight going on on the opposite side of the chamber that, for the time being, it's slowly moving without seeing it. I don't feel like a dollar on a string. Yep. I definitely did not see that, okay.

Was hoping. Perfect, all righty. That brings us to the monk's turn, this is the end of Beau's go. The monk angrily is going to unload on you at first. Beau, with disadvantage, because you took the dodge action. These are okay, right? That's going to be 20 to hit.

What's your armacolus? 20! 20 hits. Wow. Doocy! That is 11 points of bludgeoning damage. Crack! One fist coming up with a second blow.

Natural 20 and 19. Fuck me. Well, no, this is dodge action, so it was disadvantage, the natural 20 does nothing. I know. Yeah. But a 19 definitely hits. I thought your armor class was 20.

Oh, oh, I thought you were saying you rolled a 19 and a 20. So no, miss. No, sorry. No, it was a 19 total. Oh, sorry, I thought you were saying a natural 19. No, it was a natural nine. Or sorry, a natural 10, so it misses you. She's got a nine.

So the second swing just whiffs as you dodge out of the way prepared for it. Bonus action, Flurry of Blows. Barren Blitz. He's up there. Barren Blitz. 15 misses. You're now Ibn Maning that's just slapping the blows away.

Dialed in, I can see the matrix. Disadvantage, that brings it to a 13. Yes! So that first crack hits you, and then all of a sudden you go into focus mode. Deflecting, and with each strike, you just parry it off to the side, not even making eye contact, just looking straight ahead,

remembering your training. I'm so low-day, so I'm just There you go. Wait, did she start within 15 feet of me? Did she start her turn? She would have, yeah. Oh, so she got the extra thing. She's got to make a wisdom saving throw.

Wisdom save. That is a nine. Yeah! What's that do? That's 3d8 damage. Yeah! Oh! Oh, 17.

17. Oof. Oh, that wasn't a seven? No, it looked like a seven, but it was a one. Oh, it was a one. Speed is halved, also. Yes. As this series of blows that Beau is deflecting with each strike, these tiny

unicorns are jabbing and piercing the side of the neck, trying to bat them away, but she's just currently being ransacked by, to her, a nightmare. I don't know what radiant damage, it is radiant damage, so I don't know if that's a reaction. Yeah, if anybody starts. Within 15 feet. Ogre's turn. Natural one on the save. Go ahead't know. That's just reactions. Yeah, if anybody starts. Within 15 feet. Ogre's turn. Ogre starts the turn. Natural one on the save.

Go ahead and roll damage for the ogre. That's cocked. 10, 13 points. 13 points. The ogre begins and is spitting at them. No effect and just turns around towards you as both of them are locked in as the source of the

unicorns and does a double strike to try and carve through your torso with both blades. That is a natural 17. Yeah, that's a 25 to hit. Okay. That's going to be nine points of slashing damage. Okay. The next one's going to be 20 to hit. What's your armor class? 18.

18, hits you. Ooh, double sixes. That's going to be 17 points of slashing damage. I'm unconscious. Oh! The unicorns fade as Jester plummets back. The shield she brought up in time to protect a blow from vitally cutting through her torso.

However, it still manages to cleave into the shoulder and she falls to the ground. You aren't. Spare the dying before she even hits the ground. Okay, so you're no longer bleeding. You are stabilized, but you are unconscious. Yep. Okay. All righty, that bleeding. You are stabilized, but you are unconscious. Yep. Okay.

All righty, that ends the ogre's two strikes there. Beau. Would that have been Jester's turn? It would have been. Had she knocked on down? Yes. Then the cat continues to jig and dance unless she does something about it. Okay. Okay.

Beau, you're go. Does that mean I get another advantage? On your first strike against the drow? Yeah. Okay, all right, all right. Trying to use that. Dialed and focus, dialed and focus. That one's cocks.

Everyone witness that? 18 plus four, sorry, four plus 18, 22. Four plus eight, one of my words? Yeah. Good thing you did that, because the other roll is a natural one. It's a natural one. 10 damage.

10 damage. She's looking rough. All right. She's looking rough. She's looking rough. She's looking all bruised. Yeah, but the ogre is still like. The ogre is still up. Ogre's hurt, but hanging in.

Yeah, one target at a time. Second attack hits her. 19, which I think hits. Yeah. Nine. Nine points of damage. All righty, so whack, crack with the staff each time the drow's not each side. You can see blood turn across the gravel pit around her, comes back up. One eye is

a little bit half-closed. You can see that focus coming in, not giving in to the urge to slip into the darkness. It's just focused on you. Flurry of Blows? Go for it. That's a natural eight, nope, it's a 15, but that I think still hits with 23. Yeah, that hits, roll damage. Sweets a leg! Better than, I just realized I've been rolling

damage dice smaller than what I should have been. Well, there you go. I should have been. Boop, there you go. I should have been rolling d8s for the staffs. That much more epic now. 10 damage. 10 damage. Fuck, that pisses me off. All right.

That happens. Yep. 17. 17 misses. Reaction. You can see after that series of attacks, breathing heavy, like on a thread of consciousness. For real? In that moment, that final blow, the eyes go

immediately, just the shine, the animated spark in the eyes, and as you go for that final strike, grabs and then right to your abdomen. Is it a hit? Natural 19. Oh no. That is nine points of bludgeoning damage. She's rolling the right dice.

She's totally rolling the fucking dice. Yeah. Our girl's on the ropes. Oh, she would've been dead, yo. I'm going to move around behind her. Okay. And kind of... Blank, blank, blank, blank, blank. Yeah, she's next, right? She's next, yeah.

She just used her reaction to hit me. Correct. I'm going to bounce. I'm going to get right to the corner. I'm going to let her deal with the ogre. Okay, this far? Further if I can. Yeah. Okay. I'm going to catch my breath in the corner, I'm going to let her deal with the ogre. Okay. Further if I can. Okay. I'm going to catch my breath in the corner,

try not to puke. All right. Her turn. She sees you rush away, sees her scenario and how rough it's going, looking at both sides. She's going to make two attacks on this ogre. Yeah! Bring them both down.

Natural 20. Nice. Be glad you moved away. Yeah, didn't want that for me. That's going to be 14 points of damage to the ogre. Next attack, natural 18. Wow. Wow. So after doing this, glancing at both of you, reaches forward, the ogre has both blades out and is

chuckling, licking the blood from under its lip where you can see it split from one of the previous attacks in the battle for a fourth time now. This jaw is just wrecked. Getting both blades at the side, is leaning forward, and the drow still looking at you, just goes, hits him right square in the junk. Right as the ogre leans forward angrily, grabs him over the head and brings his jaw down onto her shoulder. Tombstone! Tombstone. You watch the og ogre both blades onto the stonework and then shrugs him off and he rolls onto the ground unconscious to her side.

Oh! At which point she uses a ki point, Patient Defense. As a bonus action. Make it interesting! And then runs along the side, parkours off the side of the tavern, and lands right in front of you. Maybe just make out with her.

It's your turn. Disarm it. Persuasion check. Disarming tongue. Disarming tongue. Now or later, now or later. I'm going to cast Spare the Dying on the ogre. Okay. That would be terrible. I shouldn't do that.

I sent Frumpkin running out that window past the ogre. She's on her own. Okay. Diamond still making slow progress. Roll another sleight of hand check for me. Not as good, not as good. Ooh, 17. Okay, it continues to move, and everyone else is invested in this fight,

and one of the goblins to your right goes, Huh? Oh no. Okay, good to know, good to know. Beau, what are you doing? I don't have any type of advantage around anything, right? Oh my god. Leave it to the dice, man.

Leave it to the dice! Come on! Take a chance. I roll the dice. Exhale. Roll the dice. And I look for an opening in her armor, or in her defense.

I'm just dialing into her pupils and I'm looking for every little twitch of her finger or twitch of her head and pop pop. I'm going to go for it. Fucking fuck disadvantage. With a natural 20, but 16? 16 misses. I need a-

It goes by, reaction. She goes ahead immediately, knocks it out of the side and goes for a knuckle punch right in the center of your face. That's a natural 20. No! Come look at it. It's right there.

It's right there. I'm the worst DM. The CR symbol. Oh my god! Oh! You got another hit, You got another hit. You got another hit. No, that's going to be a toast.

She's fucking hitting me first. That is. That's it. Do you get an action to that? I'm going to just cancel the effect of the 20, but the hit still happens. Okay. Wait, what'd you do?

Make a sleight of hand check for me. Oh, should I not? Do it! Do whatever you want. Whatever you do, do it! What'd you do? No, I thought about it. No, let's let this happen. Such an invaluable lesson to be learned here, actually. The more I thought about it now. Let's let this happen.

Such an invaluable lesson to be learned here, actually. The more I think about it. Caleb's the one that cheated the whole time. Okay, it's 10 points of bludgeoning damage to you. Ooh, she's down. I'm out. And with that. She's dying.

The final knuckle punch. There's this. The room gets quiet as you hear the breath suddenly fill the lungs of every creature watching in the room, and Beau stumbles back. Grin curls up in the face as one eye closes and then. I know you're scared right now. Face first into the gravel.

The room erupts into cheers and laughter and drinks whatever. The drow looks over and walks over, wobbles for a second. Two hit points. No! No! That is exactly what happened.

It's current 2.0. Oh my god. I'm going to wake the two of them up, really. As people are cheering, I'm going to wake the two of them up really quick. As people are cheering, I'm going to pull the diamond. Nine points for you, nine points for you, you're both right. Roll a sleight of hand check. This is against the monk's perception. At advantage with everybody going crazy?

No, not this monk. It's 23, and I'm going to fling the diamond towards that goblin who saw it, but try to aim into the pocket of the guy standing next to him. Interesting. Okay. It darts past the monk's perception. It goes and starts collecting the winnings and putting them into the pouches. The diamond zooms past the goblin's face and sees where it went in the guy's pocket and goes, Hey! Hey! What are you doing? and reaches into the pocket. Right next to it is this big orc, you can see wearing hide armor

across the chest, a series of scars across each arm with some rickety-looking tattoos on each forearm. The goblin is like, What? What is she what? Goblin's like, Give it back! Goes and pulls open the belt pouch, and you can see a few chunks of dried meat tumble out and the diamond on the ground.

The orc goes, What? Reaches down for it, and the goblin's like, no, he's mine! The orc just grabs the goblin's arm, lifts him up off the ground, pries it from his fingers. The goblin's like,

throws it down, turns around, and you can see one of the Kryn warriors that's watching in the corner in full armor and helmet just looks right at the orc and goes, and the orc goes, and sheepishly walks over towards the monkey. She's collecting her winnings and hands it to her. She didn't even see it. Damn guards.

As the insanity dies down, Caduceus helps you up, the ogre gets up and is like, rubbing his crotch area. Seems to be pressing the flesh to try and find out where one of the testicles may have been lodged upward in the body. It's somewhere. Yeah. It's on a vision quest. Yeah.

Yeah, it's already to Gwydronis, it beat you there. Yeah. Everything calms down a bit, and you see, whereas when you enter the room, there is that glares of, what the fuck is this human doing here, and your activities as you enter didn't seem to improve that. When the fight is over, these same creatures, in most everyone in the room, gives you this nod of respect.

Even though you didn't win the bout, there seems to be at least an appreciation of what you managed to accomplish. God fucking, that's all I wanted. What the rest of you guys are doing is, as Beau and Jester, as you walk by to even. Help Jester up. Yeah.

Aw. The ogre doesn't even approach either of you. He's extremely embarrassed by the display. It's got a bat guano in my eye. Oh. I am blood. You guys did really good. I fell first, you guys.

Well, I mean, we all knew that that was going to happen. Sort of a little bit, yeah. Oh, you almost won? Mm-hmm. Did you learn anything? Yeah, I need to get better at beating people's asses. Nuanced, I like it. Yeah.

There's the squeak of wood on the stone floor of the establishment as a chair gets pushed up to the table and the drow monk that you had just fought sits down at the table with you. Sure. Yeah, yeah, this is where this is all leading. This is where this is all leading. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. I get the feeling that perhaps there is more than meets the eye amongst you all. You don't smell of this land. Yeah, Frizz. Sorry, you go ahead. I'm embraced. What do you want? I can see we're cut from the same cloth.

Where'd you train? Perhaps this is not the best place to talk. Come walk with me. The monk stands up and leaves the Four Corners. Wait a minute. Did that talk count as a short rest? No. Is there one entrance and exit

out of the Four Corners? One door? There is a back exit, but you watch as the monk leaves through the front. I'll head up for the back. Okay. Hey, wait a minute. I'll head up further back. Okay. Hey, wait a minute. I'm going to cast Cure Wounds on myself.

Okay. Wait for Jester. I'll cast Cure Wounds on you, too. Oh, thank you. Hold on, that's at second level. Where are they leaving? Over there? They're exiting through the front door this way. Fjord, you're going through this exit, you said?

14 points. And I'll wrap around. Thank you. Yasha goes ahead and joins you as well. That's at the back. Where is he? Hey, hey. We're leaving, come on. What? I'm going to follow

wherever you're going. Out the back door. What? Yeah, okay. I'll go out the back door, too. I'll go out the back. That's nice. All right, as both Jester and Beau leave, a few of the patrons raise a glass and Very good, very good. Thank you.

The most polite Four Corners combatant ever. As you follow out the front, you can see the monk is passing on the north road around the corner, and make a perception check, Fjord. Ugh. Eight. You back around the back side of the building, and you lose everyone.

You're like, where did they go? Yeah, I just pick a direction and start talking. Never again. Roll a new character. Most aired on ceremonial's end. Guys? Roll perception so low, he left the campaign. Holy shit.

I'm going to wait just half a second and follow at the front door. Okay. I see her go around the corner to the east, you said? You do, actually. As you leave and look out, you can see that she is about two blocks up the way and is just leaning against the wall,

looking over the shoulder to see you exit. As soon as you step out into the road, ducks into an alley. Okay. Do I get the sense if the alley spills out the other side and they can't go up a block and then block around behind? It might. You haven't walked over in that area.

Let's try that. I'm sure. What if she just wants to make out with you or something? Do you think, am I intruding? No, I mean, you can watch. Would that make her uncomfortable? No, anyway, that's kind of a joke. Okay. Yeah.

What if she's the spy? I think she might be. Thinks she might be. What if she thinks you are? Oh shit. I thought about that, too. And she's actually planning on killing you. Collecting the bounty. It's possible. We don't have a lot of health right now. What if she thinks you are? Oh shit. I thought about that, too. And she's actually planning on killing you.

Collecting the bounty. It's possible. We don't have a lot of health right now. We kind of took a beating. We didn't. You should definitely go by yourselves. She's probably waiting in an alleyway right now. Literally waiting to murder me. She also took a beating.

She did. And now it's two against one, and we sort of healed up a little bit, so fuck her and we can do it. Yeah, I thought about that, too. I'm sure other people are looking for this. She looks hurt enough to have been when she exited at two hit points.

Let's go. All right, so who all's going with Beau? Yasha and you are at the back trying to just lost. I'm watching them just like, I don't know what's happening. This is great. Caduceus and Fjord and Yasha are tourists. I went back with them, too. All right, and Nott catches up.

Here we go. We're going to catch up with, with, uh... We're going to... Hey! Yeah? I can send a message if I know which direction they are, so I'm going to pick a direction.

Caleb, can you hear me? No. Shit. I will head towards the center of the, yeah. The aurora hold? The tower. The bar? Shit, we need a leader!

I think the ladies probably have it, but I'm going to do a little choo-choo train. I snap Frumpkin here, Frumpkin will follow them by 15 feet, and I will follow Frumpkin 15 back. Okay. The scowl's square. Sorry, that's what I was looking for in my note. And if we get to the corner and they go in, I'm just going to wait at the corner,

and Frumpkin will go around a little bit. Okay. So both of you follow into the alleyway, and about two buildings down to the left, there appears to be a storage shack of some kind, and you see the monk is standing with the door ajar, and just gives a nod to you, and then enters and closes the door behind. I turn around and make sure no one's following. Perception check.

Fuck me. Okay, okay, okay, okay, okay. 22. 22. Looking around, you see Caleb, you see Frumpkin, but no one seems to be specifically following you, meaning you don't even know where the rest of your party is. Okay. I just felt. Give a nod to Caleb and then go with Jester to the door.

This is a, this weighs a circle line, so we have to, we may have to. I feel like we were supposed to be on the red. There's no beginning or end to it. It's the red checkered line. To sprint Frumpkin then up, and he will climb up Jester's back. Okay.

Frumpkin comes up and perches around the back of your neck. Sprinkle seems very uncomfortable with this. Puffs up. Nugget also is not too fond of it. I'm more of a menagerie right now. Just walking, petting zoo. Where were they doing that?

Standing off to the side with Fjord, obviously. All right, you guys enter. It looks like a slightly larger outhouse. As the door opens, thankfully it's not an outhouse. The smell that gets to you is musty grains. But since there aren't a lot of grain fields in the area, you're not sure what the smell's coming from. But there are a few dried sacks,

and one looks like the bottom is somewhat mildewing from maybe some moisture that may have gotten in from a nearby rain through the roof. The chamber is about 10 foot by eight foot, and it's a very, very tight space, but in the back corner, you see the drow, arms crossed, looking at you expectantly. Did you call us here to give us back

the diamond that we gave you? Because that's very kind of you. You close the door. It is dark, you can't see anything, Beau. Put the goggles on. You see the monk reaches into the pouch and tosses the diamond back to you. Say what?

Best fight ever. You watch as the image of the monk shifts and fades. What you see is a female elf, dark skin, no hair, pointed ears, in the familiar blue and gray outfit of the Monks of the Cobalt Soul. What? It's Dairon!

What? It's Dairon! Shit! She looks at you and goes, I fucking knew it. The fact that you're this far, it does not bode well. I am extremely curious how you happened to-

I just go up and give her a big hug. It does not bode well. I am extremely curious how you happened to- I just go up and give her a big hug. Just a hug? Thought you were dead. She's been looking for you. We're injured in Blade Garden. Haven't heard from you. Yeah, that was the story.

I sent you a message! Do you remember? I do remember. The point was to not have you follow me east. But here we are. So at the very least, let us go ahead and compare notes. Oh my goodness. And that's where we're going to head to.

Yeah! Oh, nice. That's where we're going. Yeah! Nice. That is so cool, y'all. Oh man. You guys, we didn't lose a diamond. That's the most important. I mean, you're not wrong. And once again, years later, damage dice makes all the difference.

Yeah, that's what happened in the clock fight. Yep. Same thing happened. This was current 2.0, straight up. I was rolling d8s, and then at some point I looked down and I had d6s in my hands. I watched you roll d6s that whole time. Like a decent amount of time,

and then I realized, wait how long have I been rolling d6s? Like, I think, wait. Subconsciously, something in the back of Beau's mind was causing her to draw, pull the punches a little bit. Oh! Trying to narratively make it work. Fists are magical.

But we'll pick up on this reunion next week and see the scenarios working around it. But until then, we're going to go ahead and get some rest. Don't forget, guys, we just also announced we're going to be at Denver Comic Con. Oh, Denver Comic Con! So folks in the Denver area or are looking to travel there for that convention,

we'll be there, so come say hi. We've got panels and signings and all kinds of cool stuff. So hopefully see you there. Other than that, Monday, the Kickstarter drops for Legends of Vox Machina. You cannot be prepared. We have a Q&A happening on our channel that night at 7 p.m. with you three to just

talk about the project and everything about it. So yeah, some fun stuff, guys, some fun stuff. Thank you so much for watching, guys. We love you very much, and is it Thursday yet? Yeah! Oh, hey. Ashley Johnson here, and I sure do hope you're enjoying the adventure. Remember when you first found out about Critical Role?

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