Critical Role - C2E54 Well Beneath

Episode Date: March 14, 2019

The Mighty Nein reunite with an old ally, and investigate the growing mystery of the fiendish rifts in Asarius...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 Twitch subscribers gain instant access to VODs of our shows like Critical Role, Talks Machina, Between the Sheets, and All Work No Play. But don't worry: Twitch broadcasts will be uploaded to YouTube about 36 hours after airing live, with audio-only podcast versions of select shows on iTunes, Google Play & Podbean following a week after the initial air date. Twitch subscribers also gain access to our official custom emote set and subscriber badges (designed by our beloved Critter Arsequeef) and the ability to post links in Twitch chat!

Hello, spellcasters, sages, and spectators. I'm Ashley Johnson, and you're listening to the Critical Role Podcast Network. Tap into our magical narrative by watching Critical Role as it airs on Thursdays at 7 p.m. Pacific on twitch.tv slash criticalrole or youtube.com slash criticalrole. Twitch subscribers can watch the video on demand right away, or you can catch it the following Monday on YouTube. As always, Critical Role will be available right here in podcast form on Thursdays, a week after the initial broadcast. And now, let's scry into the story and see what mysteries it holds for us, shall we?

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 and Dragons. We play Dungeons and Dragons! And deal with this week. Hi, guys. Hi. Hi. Hi, everybody. Hi, hi, hi.

Hi, everybody. Hi. Hi. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. I don't even. However, so before we get into all that, first we have our fantastic friend and sponsor of the show

since the beginning of this campaign, our friends at D&D Beyond. Sam. D&D Beyond, guys. There's only one campaign we're talking about this week, and that's the campaign for president of D&D Beyond. D&D Beyond is so behind this race between me and Liam that they've added a new feature.

You can show your campaign support for the D&D Beyond presidential candidates by using the code of your choice, either ISupportSam, all one word, or ISupportLiam. Both codes provide a 25% discount off any full digital books in your cart. I feel like ISupportSam should be 25 and a half percent,

but whatever. If you apply one at checkout. The codes do not apply to the legendary bundle. It can only be used one at a time. Link is dndbeyond.com slash marketplace. Slash marketplace. No. Anyway, I'm so appreciative of this new feature

that they added. I went skiing this weekend with my family. It was a lovely, wonderful getaway vacation, purely for pleasure. But in order to make it tax deductible, I shot... I shot a video for D&D Beyond while I was skiing. Let's roll. You did that.

You really did that. And I will definitely deduct the entire cost of my vacation. Are you about to ask your kids to shill D&D Beyond? This is a great thing to do on video. The IRS isn't watching, right? I know, man. They're just going to show up everywhere.

Oh boy, if you work for the IRS, I'm just joking. But if you don't, I'm not. So let's roll the new awesome ad shot on location in Park City, Utah. Hey, guys. D&D Beyond is one of the best apps I've ever encountered. You can manage your characters and treasure for your favorite tabletop role-playing game, Dungeons & Dragons. I use it. You should too. And if you go right now and subscribe at dndbeyond.com

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And literature. And... Get it, guys. I'm not a great skier! That was a green slope. Wow. And right after that happened, these wonderful three women came over to me, so concerned.

They were like, oh my god, are you okay? Are you hurt? I was like, no, no, no, it's a bit. It's a bit. And they got so pissed off. They were like, what? I mean, rightfully so, to be fair. So.

There you go, that's all you need to know. Sam Riegel abusing emergency help on the slopes. That's true. Yes, but for your entertainment, which is really what D&D is about. Not about rules, about entertainment. So thank you, D&D Beyond, and we will check in with you next week.

Thank you, Sam, for showing me what skiing's like. I've never been and I don't ever intend to. We got to remedy that. No, I have no interest! You're going to. No! We'll be on the Katie slopes together. No! Yes.

No, I stay indoors. We'll buy you snow clothes. I build snowmen out of snow. I throw snowballs and that's the extent of my relationship. You will do hot pepper gaming 17 times, but you won't go skiing? Yeah, people die when they ski. They die when they eat ghost peppers

and you've done it twice. Touche. Anyway, thank you, D&D Beyond. Thank you, Sam. Everybody's got a thing. Everybody's got a thing. I'm in, I don't know. Green girl, you have skiing.

Yeah, exactly. Why? Leave it on him, man. And apparently, Madame Musk's. So, Travis, you want to talk about the other craziness this week? Let's bring Madame Musk's right. In case you missed the news this week, we are creating a Vox Machina animated series.

Because of the incredible response to the Kickstarter, which we are just continuously blown away by, it's hard to breathe that sometimes we find ourselves staring quite a bit. Is this real life? I don't know. I don't know. I'm not sure. So far, we are up to six 22-minute episodes.

For a little bit of clarity, the first two episodes of our series will contain a brand new, original Vox Machina story adventure that has never been seen before, never been heard, and the rest of the four episodes that you guys have helped us get to already will start the story of the Briarwood. Obviously, the more we raise, the more episodes we'll be able to deliver.

We did have a special Q&A with the community on Monday, and it is available at youtube.com slash Critical Role. If you would like to learn more about the campaign, you can join it now, if you haven't, until April 18th at 1159 PM Pacific at critrole.com slash animated. Critrole! You said that so calm. Critters are amazing! Critters are amazing! I'm trying to keep it down.

And here's the thing, none of us expected this. People say you should have, but this isn't a scale we never expected. We're super excited about this series. This community has come out in full force and really shown, not just the Critters, but the tabletop gaming community here and beyond. And it's overwhelming, it's humbling.

And there is so much more out there to support. Beyond this, and wherever this goes, people who haven't had the opportunity to get engaged, please do, help make it go on. But also, there are so many great creators out there. There are game designers and artists and people out there, part of this community, that have Kickstarters and Patreons out there.

You can go ahead and also help support them. Go to the hashtag FunDiverseGames on Twitter to see a vast number of incredible creators out there that do not get anywhere near the attention and support that we do. And this is an opportunity, and as this grows, and we grow, and this community grows, there are more and more opportunities for us to make sure that we can lift up everyone else around us.

And we're committed to that, and we'll continue to be committed to that, and you guys should, too. So thank you for all this fantastic support. And we are but one in a sea of many amazing people out there to be committed to that, and you guys should, too. So thank you for all this fantastic support, and we are but one in a sea of many amazing people out there. Just pay it forward and spread it around as much as you can, because as much as you can.

Don't get too rough on this, of course. But thank you for everything, and I'm proud of all the stuff that we can do for each other going forward, too. Yes. Yeah, yeah! Yeah, yeah! Yeah, yeah! There's possibly never been a better time to be a self-starter.

Yeah. There's possibly never been a better time to be a nerd. Yeah. Truth, truth. We did inherit the Earth. Yay! Yeah, people that have never heard about D&D before, RPG gaming, all this stuff, man, they are paying attention.

Yeah. So thank you guys so much. Without further ado, I think now is the time to jump into tonight's episode of Critical Role. Killbigger! Killbigger! 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 Beware, cause you're about to be dead. They got magic and flair. They got fountains and cunning.

They don't see over there. There's a monster incoming. Inspiration is waiting. Rise up, don't think twice. Put your fate in your hands. Take a chance, roll the dice Roll the dice Critical Roll the dice

Critical Roll the dice Critical Roll the dice Critical Can you answer the call? Digging deep in your soul As the legend unfolds

Now it's your turn To roll Good times to roll Welcome back, everyone. You got to keep us all humble, Matt. The thing is, I don't know if the cameras are on me yet, tonight everyone's so happy that I felt like I could get away with this. Because everyone's happy, it's all a celebration, right? So he can't do anything to me. I'm untouchable. Yeah!

He's going to not going down tonight. Good to know. I'm excited for your new hair. Also, before you start, Matt, I'm sorry, I forgot to do this in the intro. New stretch goals, guys. So we got this flask, normal, normal. Yeah.

If we hit 7.5, we go up to this one. And if we get to 8.8. What the fuck? It's this one. What the fuck? It's this one. Those are the stretch guards. Where are you hiding them?

This is a four gallon flask. Oh no. Holds 28 bottles of wine or something like that. You won't even be able to see my face! Well, in that case, it's definitely trying to do for that. Oh my god. These were sent in by some wonderful critters

whose names I don't have in front of me, but thank you for these amazing flasks. I don't know why people would even make a flask this big. If someone can find a bigger one, I'll put it on this show. Oh my god. All right. So last we left off,

Oh boy. The Mighty Nein making their way across the eastern wastes of Xhorhas in search of the kidnapped husband of Nott, Yeza. Discarded in a past life with the death and reincarnation of Nott not too long before. Hearing that him getting caught up in the conflict between the Dwendalian Empire and Xhorhas,

you've gone to hunt down his location and seem to have pinpointed it somewhere near or in Gordranas, the capital city of the Kryn Dynasty. You made your way under the mountains of the Ashkeeper Peaks, battled through the wastes, and interacted with a number of the denizens of Asarius, the City of Beasts.

Here under the Kryn Dynasty, you have come to discover a society that is not held by humans, dwarves, elves, but by gnolls, bugbears, goblins, kobolds, and of course, the ruling drow, it seems, the dark elves of the Kryn Dynasty. You made some friends, you made a trade, and paid for three morebounder beasts to aid you in your travel eastward towards the capital. You trained with them successfully, for the most part, three more Bounder beasts to aid you in your travel eastward towards the capital.

You trained with them successfully for the most part. You begin to discover what seemed to be strange rifts that began to spring up and lurk beneath the city that were allowing various entities from the Abyss to begin to harass and encroach upon Asarius itself. You spoke with one of these Kryn representatives here in this city, and she notified you that there were two goals here you could achieve.

One is to search for a perceived spy from the Denali Empire that existed in the Four Corners or involved somewhat with the Four Corners Tavern, and to find the source of this demonic incursion and snuff it out. Pay for both, but for the incursion, perhaps pay or a favor with the Dynasty itself and the capital.

So you begin your first search, going to the Four Corners bar under the guise of the various unique and eclectic individuals that seem to exist and permeate the society. You found one of these drow figures that caught your attention and attempted to communicate and try and gather some information from them. You also threw down the gauntlet, both Beau and Jester,

into the Four Corners gravel pit, which was a four-person battle royale, weapons allowed possibly to the death, based on what antis were placed in the center of this battlefield. In this fight, in which you were also joined by a large ogre, still somewhat damaged from his previous fight, but arrogantly accepting

that he could probably still take you down, and this dark elf you had previously harassed upon your entry. In this fight, Jester fell unconscious. The ogre fell unconscious, and in the showdown between this drow with a somewhat familiar fight style, Beau also, too, fell. However, this figure also invited you to meet them

in an alleyway not far from the city. Half the party followed, the other half got completely lost. And are still lost, wandering a space they are unfamiliar with amongst creatures that may or may not be amiable to your presence. No problem. But those of you that made it,

you followed this drow into a nearby small storage shed upon which it was revealed that this was some sort of illusion or physical transmutation. There before you, you saw Dairon, the beautiful, dark-skinned, shaved head, long-eared elf monk of the Cobalt Soul, and for lack of a better term, the expositor caseworker of Beauregard.

Social worker? Kind of. Kind of. Yeah. That's where we left off. So if I recall, the ones that made it to this were Beau, Jester, and Caleb, while the rest of you, along with Yasha, are wandering aimlessly in this enclosed space, pressed up against the dark wooden walls, the smell of musty rice and grain and what may also have been a previously kept

amount of tobacco that has left this pungent stench that is slowly fading as time goes on. Dairon looks to you. So what the hell are you doing here? We can trust her, right? Yeah, of course. Who is her, Who is this? This is my mentor.

Who are these people? Who are these individuals? Hi. This is the group. Young Jester. That's Jester. And that's Caleb. Widow Guest. Widow Guest.

This is the group that I've been working with. We've been doing good things. Good things like traveling into enemy territory? Yeah, well, we're looking for someone who was abducted by the Korean army. Friend of ours, who's also... Where's Nott? Where is everybody else? I thought they were right behind us.

I don't know, they disappeared after we left the bar. They have a fray at the end there. The other ones, they're coming. If you have the rest of your friends with you, I am very hopeful they have not disappeared. What are you doing here? Caleb, send a message. Yeah. Yeah.

I pull out the wire and hold it up to my mouth and I aim towards the door and say, not make your way back to the bar, the same bar and wait for us there, okay? I will come find you. Reply to this message, please. Do I hear it? He has to point in my direction.

Yeah. At first, there's no response. You gather the base direction of where the bar was, and in the second attempt, you do manage to get through. Okay, okay. So I'll repeat something like that the second time. Oh, wait, where are you again? Sorry, we're behind the bar.

What? Just Beauregard and I are with a friend of Beauregard's not too far away, but I don't know. You're at the bar now? Replies his message bitter. No, no, we left the bar. We went in the back alley. There's some barrels. I'm trying to see if there's a street sign. There's no, you can reply to this message. Is that Caleb? Yeah, of course, who else would it be? I don't know, I know you know, yeah.

Reply to that message, or can he, was that just the reply to another replied message? I don't remember anymore, but I'm just going to keep casting message over and over again. I apologize one moment. We are not too far from the bar. I apologize, one moment. We are not too far from the bar. In fact, we are only a few blocks away, but.

It was just a little down and then it was a left. Tell him you take a left and then you take a right. It's like the second alley. I think there was a store that had like. I can't see the sun, so I don't know which way's north, but what if you, can you clap? Clap real loud or something so we know where you are. I'm not going to do that.

Caleb, talk quieter, we have to be quiet. Go to the bar and wait. I'll be standing in front of the bar. Go in the bar. Go to the front of the bar and I am going to meet you there. This is nice. Front of the bar, meet you there. We're going to meet them at the front of the bar.

At the front door of the bar? Are you leaving right now, Caleb? We got to go through the bar again. We got to go through the bar. Yeah. Why don't we just go around? Walk around. Just, we could do that. We could do that, let's go around We got to go through the bar. Why don't we just go around? Walk around. We could do that. We could do that, let's go around.

We'll walk around the bar. We're going to go around the bar! And meet you at the front door. Ask him, is it just him? Just you, you can reply to the question. I'm coming just, I'm with a group of people, including people you know, but I'm coming by myself. Stay there.

Well, wait, god. This is people, including people you know, but I'm coming by myself. Stay there. Yeah, well, wait, got it. This is such, everybody's had this text conversation. Oh yeah. But you stay there, we're going to move, all right. We're going somewhere else? We're going to go around the bar. Oh, to the front. Okay.

They got seats for the movie. We'll hold off on the important bits, go. I'll be right back. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Dairon is staring right through you. What? But regarding going, Where are you looking at me like that? These are your companions for a mission to infiltrate?

Yeah, they're fucking great. We were pirates for like three months. Yeah, we were really good pirates. That's a great description of us. Super duper good. All right. You should have seen what we did. Fucking great.

Anyway, I am going to go outside now. Chus and Leif and Head towards their barn. You do notice also this shed can maybe contain the four of you. Do you have somewhere bigger we can meet? How safe is this? Is this where you've been staying? No, but it was the closest place I can think of

that would be most private. Okay. And just because the Four Corners Tavern exterior huts are very open. But anyway. So you're searching for someone, this person who was taken, you say? Yeah, a friend of ours.

Where are they? Husband. In Goithranas. They were taken by a few wizardly-looking type of people, mages. I don't know, were they taken by the mages, or were they taken by the Kryn because the mages were interested in them? Feels like they could be potentially one and the same.

Which mages took them? I wrote notes. There was an old guy, and there was also this lady who looked a little intimidating. Is this on the Dynasty side, or is this in the Empire? See, I think that was the Empire side. I'm not actually from either place, so it's hard for me to know exactly, but.

Very interesting. Yeah, they're from the Empire. I think the Kryn took him away from them. Yep. All right. But the Empire people seem to have interest. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. He was studying, what's that word about the time stuff? Dunamncy.

Yes, that one. That is a special, the cream. This, do you know which individuals this was? Do you have names? Yeah, Lady Vestrigana and Archmage Ludinos Dineth. Of course it would be. All right. What does that mean?

I have my own business here, and it seems maybe parts of our paths are not entirely disparate. Do you work for them? Tell me you don't work for them. No, I do not work for them. Okay, good. The Cobalt Reserve and the Cerberus Assembly

kind of disagree on many things. Oh. I believe I spoke with you last, correct? Ah, yes. Yeah. From the spell you sent words to me? Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. I apologize for the ruse.

Yeah, what the hell? I'm doing very specific, secretive work here, and I was not to be followed. Not supposed to be. Well, Lady Olios is looking for you. Yeah. So it's not that secretive. She's aware that you're here. Unless there's another spy from the Empire around,

but I don't think so. She said to look for you at the four corners, and as soon as I saw you looking through me, it felt really familiar, as you're doing right now. Well, to be perfectly honest, you are most likely the least likely person I would have seen walk into that door, especially with this little bit of a disguise,

and she rubs some of the mud off your cheek. Yeah, well, you know, can't fucking help that I'm the only simple fucking human who can't change into shit here. Maybe next time come up. Not now. Can you help with that? I have my own preparations. She catches a ring on her middle finger and goes like,

I need this but get more prepared next time. At this point, Caleb, you retrieved the rest of the party? Yeah, I go to the bar and I wait in front of the building. You guys arrive at the same time. My son, though, no one would know anything was wrong. Speaking of bars. Sure.

Thanks, Alex, and Tyler, and Henry. But yeah, you guys are gathered by Caleb. Where did you go? Where did you go? Where were you? Literally nowhere. We were in the back looking for you. Come on, come on, save it. I was waving everywhere. Save it, save it, we're going a couple blocks away.

Are you guys safe? I mean, are we going into a fight? No, no, no, no, it is someone that Beauregard knows from her past, I'm a little fuzzy on the details. It's like a broom closet, though, I don't know if we're going to fit. Okay. Does this count as a rest?

No. Fuck. All right, yeah, we are super fucked up. Can we keep an eye out to see if anyone's watching us go towards this room? Yes, you may, make a perception check. Yep. That's a 15. I'll join in for a 15. That's not a word.

15. 15? Yeah. That is a word, actually. Thank you very much. Yeah, 14. 14? Okay. Yeah. That is a word, actually. Thank you very much. Yeah, 14. 14, okay. You... Caduceus' color scheme draws a little bit of attention. Yeah.

You're fine, Nott. You blend in well. You get the sense that people are noticing your presence, but they don't seem to be followed or drawing enough attention to where you're going to have to dodge anybody. If you wish to be more careful, you could attempt to stealth your way towards this alley. That is your choice.

I just cast Cure Wounds on you at first level, so you got 10 healing points. Oh, thank you, Jus. I cast it on myself, too, for 13 healing points. All righty. Caduceus. Yeah? Look a little grumpier. Yeah, now give me a real sour puss.

Yeah, yeah, now chew on the back of your teeth. Let me see your jaw move. There you go. Now keep that face while we're walking, all right? Yeah, also bend your head down. Come to me, bend your head down. I pull a little bit of mud out of my pocket and I slap it down on top of his pink hair.

Ah, that's cold, that's cold. That's really cold. You're a mess, it's good, let's go. Okay. All right. At this point, you guys, while this conversation's happening, you've managed to gather everyone over there.

You guys see Dairon standing there, wearing the dark leathers and what looks to and cobbled elements of outfit pieces to look as inconspicuous as possible in the space. But you do see an elven woman, dark brown skin, piercing eyes, very, very short cut hair with a single earring piercing on this side.

And she's scowling expression mid-conversation with your other compatriots before she looks around at the rest of you and goes, I'm going to be honest, I am very impressed you have come this far without being noticed with such a cluster. Did they tell you to make that face, too? I don't like most of them.

But you like me. I was... And as you guys approach, Dairon, you quickly gather, is a very direct individual. Their time is measured and their attention is specifically focused towards Beauregard. You can see this very much, you guys are here, but talking to you.

So I am trying to figure out a connection between the Kryn and the Assembly. I've been following the local leadership as they travel, seeking patterns and details of their plots, sending off what I can back towards Blade Garden. My next step is Gautran, as if I can make it as well. I have a hunch that the Assembly may be aiding the Kryn in some way.

What? I need to get closer to their political center if I'm to peel back some of these inner layers of intrigue and confirm my suspicions. Weed out this traitor, whoever they may be, and see just how deep this rabbit hole goes. If I can use it to tear down the entire Assembly from within upon my return,

then I would have lived a very just life. But on top of this, I've been seeing whispers and mutterings that the war effort of the Kryn is growing. What they lack in comparable numbers to the Empire they make up for in ze's drive and mysterious magics. This Dunamancy you speak of is- Super powerful. And mostly not understood,

which makes it extremely dangerous. What we cannot expect, that is a huge boon on their end. I keep hearing whispers of new, terrible war machines that are in transit from Gordronas towards the borders of the Empire. Now, I've been staying here at the Four Corners Pens. They keep a series of small shacks behind it they rent out. It's a kind of a person stable, if you will.

I'm over it, personally. But if they have any availability there, there maybe is a place to stay nearby. I don't know how long you intend to stay. Neither do we. Well, we have the weird portal deal. What is your name? Caduceus Clay. It's a pleasure to meet you.

Oh, it's a pleasure to meet you. Hey, Caduceus, you can not inhere. Oh, that was really hard, okay. Right, you're going in one. Nott? Nott. And you? I'm Fjord, pleasure to make your acquaintance.

Right. Well. You're the bird person. Oh, you're sending birds. You're the person who was sending birds. I think I figured out one of the things. Birds. What birds? Like?

That was indeed me. Ah. Now that I'm aware that they've seen this, no more messages. Oh, the siren. The rest of my mission is directly gathering of information and returning myself. Yeah, Dairon, I don't think we should stay here anymore. They're on to you in your track,

and if we don't come back with you, somebody else will. I think we need to. Oh, I'm not traveling with you. What? I operate alone. That's how I've survived need to. Oh, I'm not traveling with you. What? I operate alone. That's how I've survived this long. Like I said, I'm surprised you've made it this far

with the seven of you. Well, it's not. An eight is not going to aid this. I am a danger to you by proximity, as you are a danger to me. Maybe we could reconvene if you are indeed heading that far into the east. But it is folly to combine efforts and travel.

We've done pretty well for ourselves, and if I may, I think it might be wise to perhaps throw Her Holiness off your scent by maybe framing someone else as this traitor, if she's indeed looking for you. Might be worth a little extra effort in the day. I would. If you're able to pull off such a deceit, then that would be a great boon to me and my movements, but.

I defer to you, I don't know this person. At the very least, I'm moving soon. This is. What you've told me is very grave for my interests here, but nevertheless, I was moving further east. What if we just say we didn't find the spy, you know, and we just look for those portals and stuff? Seems safer.

Or there's a middle way here. We give your bird friend enough time to leave town, and then we simply lead them to whatever's left of the operation once you've skedaddled. Prove that the operation's over and that we've found the mechanisms by which it was operating. Yeah. Orchestrating.

Orchestrating. Do you have some sort of headquarters with a pile of birds somewhere? A bunch of notes scribbled and stuff that don't mean anything. This is Dairon. She's a monk with a cobalt't mean anything. This is Dairon. She's a monk of the Cobalt Soul. She is my mentor.

She's an expositor. Oh. Yeah, I think you mentioned her before. Yeah. Yeah. That is information I would prefer to not be spreading around in the future, if you don't mind. Which we did not hear.

Not a problem. I'm a frog a bit. Question for you. I apologize. You say in the midst of this war between the Empire and the Kryn Dynasty, you feel that there are people from the Soberest Assembly who are in league with someone? I have a hunch.

There have been signs of meetings, whispers of something involving them. I'm still trying to discover the route, but I do not trust. Their interests lie with the route, but I do not trust. Their interests lie with the Empire, and something about this Dunamantic magics, as you mentioned, seems to be intrinsically tied to their movements as well.

So suspicions, but no inkling as to motivation from the Empire side? I have spent enough time working in the Empire to know that they are not to be trusted. And if anyone is to try and find a means to gain by pitting one side against the other, well, they are far more intelligent and clever than I am. And that is extremely scary to me.

You have intentions of pulling him down, you say? With every fiber of my being. That seems like a very tall order to me. I'm not alone. We are widely distributed, the Cobalt Soul. You carry one amongst your mists, which, before I leave, let's have a conversation. Some of your techniques are a bit unfocused.

Let me see if I can give you some guidance before I exit. Right here. Fight, fight, fight, fight! Leans out of the alleyway. No! We also wouldn't say no if you happen to have any leads on mysterious creatures appearing in town. We do actually have our own issues to deal with. I mean, I've heard that there being some murders recently,

but that was the extent of anything extremely strange. Everyone else seems to be focused on the conflict and worried about losing their foothold over in the various encampments they've taken. Murders in any, localized on any one area of town or just all over? I think one family. Old Potus's family.

Yes, but others? That would be their one. Oh, just that one that you've heard? All that I've heard recently, but I haven't seen any strange creatures. I mean, of the infernal, and looks to Caleb and goes, other than you and your background. Oh, because you're a demon person. What? No, aren't you?

Of what? Are you referring to this? Yes. Oh. Sorry, it's a sore spot for me. It's all right. I would also say, if you're going to walk through this town, do your best to not reveal such a thick Zemnian dialect.

That would be an immediate giveaway. This is the front. It's not my real accent. What's your real accent? All right. One more question on a more personal level. You said you're headed towards Gordranas? I am.

Do you have any intelligence about where you're headed? Like, for instance, if there was a political prisoner being held, you know, maybe where they would be? I have no idea, I've not been there before. Oh. Do you have a contact you are meeting there? No. But? I am my own agent in this, but I'm sent in this

because I am very good at working alone. Yeah, we got it. On the other hand, you now have friends. So when you get to this town, if you could actually maybe do a little digging and we could message you at some point, maybe? I mean, we know what direction you're going to be. If you tell us what it looks like and where to enter.

Or if you've heard anything about the person that we're looking for. Like where soldiers are less concentrated and stuff, so we could get in and stuff, that'd be great. Obviously, you'd still be alone. Oh yeah. We're constantly talking to you. Shut up, everyone shut up for a minute.

Dairon turns to you and goes, do you trust these people? Do your instincts tell you that they can be trusted? All right, close talk. Let's everybody step out and give them a minute, just a second. Thank you. Fjord. We step outside. Yes, everyone leave, okay?

It's just us girls. Jester, would you mind? Yeah, kind of. But look, that's beyond the point. I have a lot of good information, a lot of things that I can inform you of, but you keep writing me off pretty fucking easily right now. I'm not writing you off, I'm writing them off.

We have to be careful what information is disseminated. What was I supposed to do? Just go out alone and just piss into the wind? No. I mean... How was I supposed to get better? You fucking left! You told me you were going to Bladegarden for a month.

That was to prevent you from being foolish enough to follow me east. But that happened anyway. And not because of you. Well, regardless, I'm just concerned for your well-being. And I'm concerned for yours. Good.

We could do great. Maybe we team up a little bit, you know? And maybe we can. If you trust these people, and I know you, even the time we've had, the brief bits, to be a very insightful individual, if you trust these people, and I know you, even the time we've had, the brief bits, to be a very insightful individual, if you trust them, then I trust you.

But I specialize in moving unseen alone. If you can survive moving to Goldranas as you intend to go, then reach out to me. We can reconvene there. But you have to find your own way, and I will find mine. All right. So inform your friends. Look, they're doing experiments on people.

The Cerberus Assembly. This does not surprise me. Weird crystals and magic trying to enhance their beings, I don't know, whatever. The biggest mistake the Bloodline ever made was letting them have any sort of seat of power in the government. Well. The only road I ever made was letting them have any sort of seat of power in the government.

Well. Where do you stand with the green on this? Stand with the green? Are they... I don't know. Do you have any idea of their motivation? I don't trust any political figure. And if you'd been paying attention in your historical studies,

you know that Drow cannot be trusted. That seems like a generalization, considering from- I've lost people important to me. So even more reason for biasness. I would think you taught me that. I appreciate your interest in my well-being, but you are young, you are unfocused, and you have much to learn.

Now, I see great possibility in you. You have potential, but you need to listen and think before you act. Your rash, intense behavior will be your downfall, and then you'll achieve nothing. You've grown, I can see it. I'm very impressed by what you displayed there in the gravel pit.

Had good conversations, too. Just fucking, no one's been there to fucking see it. That means you're doing it well. No one has to see what you're doing if it's good, as long as it's doing good. Do you think anyone cares about the things I've done? I've done many things, not many I'm proud of, but they have served the goodness of others.

They have enabled many people who could not defend themselves in the Empire to survive and improve. I do not do this for accolades. I do this because this for accolades. I do this because I serve a purpose of a better world for those who cannot defend themselves. Can you serve that purpose?

I can try. Then do not wait for them to see what you do that is good. Just know that you've done good, and hope you live long enough to see the impact it has. Could be dead tomorrow. You could, but you're not yet. Not yet. So listen, be patient.

Protect these friends you've made, but don't get too close. I haven't. Good. Now, I need to go and collect my things, my birds, my materials for travel. Did you name your birds? No, do not get too close.

You should have justester name your birds. I've named a bird once and it never came back. Hmm, yeah. So I do not name my birds. She has a ferret named Sprinkle that has survived against all fucking odds to die right now. I'm just saying maybe you can mix it up or something, maybe. I knock on the door and say,

It's a weasel. Weasel. I appreciate your concern. I will say that weasels are not known for their ability to travel long distances with messages safely. No, but they can hold their breath for a real long fucking time, apparently. Noted.

Just throwing it out there. No, I said it will be important to add to the archives of the Hobo Exile. Nevertheless, before I leave, I think it is important to teach you a few things. After the sun is down, look for me on the outskirts behind the four corners. Okay.

I think I have a place where we can safely train. How will I? I'll find you. You'll find me. If you are capable of doing the things you wish to do, you should be able to find me. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. She goes ahead and grabs the ring

and twists it a bit and you watch as her form turns back into that of a dark elf. Dope! I want that! Walks past you and takes a moment, puts her hand on her shoulder and says, Please. Live.

And walks past and walks to the door to the rest of you. Thank you for your patience and good luck. You too. She turns around and just leaves down the alleyway and vanishes around the corner. Intrigue. That end on good terms? Yeah, I'm going to meet up with her later.

To? Train. Ah. This evening? Are we still leaving tomorrow? Is that the plan? Um, I guess it depends on if you guys want to search for, you know... The rifts?

Yeah, portals into a whole other dimension and stuff. What time is it? At this point in the day, I'd say it's maybe two o'clock in the afternoon. We can at least spend the rest of the day snooping around. Yeah. Right. I feel like that favor would be worth something. I agree.

My spells got kind of depleted in that, you know, Fisticuffs, so. Yeah, I'm pretty tapped, so. I won't be very good at healing you guys, if anything happens. Well, if we find something, then we can save it for tomorrow. Yeah, we always do that.

Yeah! Do you need a short or a long? I would need a long rest. Go eat at the inn and not have a fist fight and take it easy. Let's do that. A short rest would be nice. Let's get some food and take a long rest.

Or a long rest. A short rest. I meant a short rest. A long short rest. Yep. My short rests go on the longer side. Caleb, before we go. What the fuck did you mean?

Were you just BSing? Is this your real accent? This is my real accent. So you're lying. I was lying. So clever. You should seriously listen to her then, because that is a really noticeable accent. Can you try a different accent? I am terrible at accents.

Try one. Try to sound like me. Try to sound like you. Wow like me. Try to sound like you. Wow. I am a little goblin. Oh boy. I like button. Do an easier one. Do a gesture, yeah, a good gesture.

Do a gesture. Oh, hi. Yes! I am loving pastries, and also my gut is, what? No, it's better, it's better! My gut is so cool, you guys. What about Fjord?

What if he did a little Fjord, little Fjord? Eltritch blair. Nope! I think you put extra consonants that aren't even there. Eltritch, Efwitch, please. Please? There are no E's in that word. I hope I don't sound like that.

That is a ding to your self-confidence. I like to swallow swords. No, I never said that. That's not what I, I don't say that, ever. You know, maybe it's just that you stick with what works. Oh man, I, Liam, who am very good at accents, am finding it so hard to be Zimney and really bad at accents.

It's so good, though. Just don't talk, just don't talk, maybe, in places where people can hear you. That's nice. Okay, well. Maybe. Honestly, that sounded a lot like. Say technically, say technically. Technically.

Technically. Technically. This counts as a long rest right now, I feel like. By the end of this conversation, probably. Yeah. Thank you. I bet we could grab a meal, and then, I mean, where else are we going to look for these rifts? I mean, the only other thing I can think of

is maybe checking where the guy who murdered his wife, where did he work every day? Was there somewhere he frequented? But you know, we also have one other lead. Maybe, maybe someone mentioned, was it the bunch of kobolds in a bag or whatever, who said? They needed materials, right? From a very strange, the Tumormoss plant in this grove near the thing that was uncorrupted. Maybe

it's uncorrupted because it's the source of the rifts or something like that. Tumormoss. Tubermoss. Tubermoss? I thought it was Tumormoss. Tumormoss. Tumormoss? Tumormoss.

Tumormoss. Is it moss that grows on a tumor? Or is it? I thought it would It was tumor moss. Tumor moss. Tumor moss? Tumor moss. Is it moss that grows on a tumor? Or is it? I thought it would be a tumor. Just makes more sense. Or is it like moss that grows really fast, and it, you know, because don't tumors do that? I've legitimately been thinking about a tumor this entire time.

Well, if we're actually certain for a plant, and then just trying to figure out where Gaea worked, that doesn't seem super dangerous. It seems like we could divide and conquer, yeah? I don't think we should divide anything. Well, let's go ask around at maybe the pub nearest to his house. Maybe he went there to eat dinner.

Also, maybe to Dairon's point, all of us roaming together might be a little suspicious in these daytime hours. I don't know. Then we should separate Nott and Caleb so we can keep our messages with each other. Yeah, but maybe we could just give ourselves distance, you know, like 50 feet in between.

You enter the pub first, we come in a little later, sit at different tables, keep an eye on each other. That's a good point. We could probably do that. Yep. But if one of us goes out the back door, we fucking plan ahead of time where we're meeting. I thought you were going to come right around the front, man.

That's where we, I did. We turn the corner, no one to be seen. You're fucking gone. Oh, sorry, she was moving fast. I didn't want to lose her. Yeah, you know, probably my fault in hindsight, sorry. No, it wasn't. Front door of the bar is our designated meeting place

if we get split up, all right? Front door of the four corners our designated meeting place if we get split up, all right? Front door of the Four Corners. Front of the Four Corners. What, if we ask around, are we in the area where the crazy man who killed his family? Old Pote's. Make an investigation check if you want to spend the next period of time asking around

and inquiring about it. Big money, big money. We can be asking in the bar while we sit. 24. 24, nice. All right, so a few things, actually. You, in asking around some of the strange individuals that make their space and time here

in this rowdy Four Corners Tavern, you hear the sound of fisticuffs and angry grunts as a new bout of four contenders have thrown their ante into the ring and are beating the shit out of each other. You hear someone scream out as they're shanked and everyone goes like, oh, in the background. There's a blood splatter in the gravel

and you wait for the fight to finish and then one of them appears to be bleeding out. They drag him outside and somebody goes and turns the gravel over like a cat box to just prevent it from being seen. He can spare the dying on everybody who drops quietly in the back. You're really sweet, Caduceus. It's a bonus action.

Yeah, go for it. You hear one kind of intense-looking gnoll, huge scarred face, one eye is just ruined and healed over and unusable, begins talking about how, I've been hearing about strange dreams. People keep saying they hear creepy sounds

and howls at night near the northern center of town. Northern center of town? Spoken folks, it's been strange. I haven't been there, but a few guys I know in the region haven't been sleeping well here, and these noise is waking up in the middle of the night. Is that an area of town called anything, or is it just northern center?

It's the northern center. All right, and is there a pub or a tavern near there that we could... No, man, he's just people falling. Just came up. He's just like, yeah, it's not very, you know. No, no's just people-fine. Just cable. He's just like, yeah. It's very strange. No, no, just around there.

All right. Know anything about this, about a grove near the Eiffelon River? I think that's outside of town. Oh, okay. No, I haven't heard of it. Leaves the space. Eventually, you come around to another goblin who's sitting there.

It seems to be one of the workers of the bugbear that runs the Four Corners, who is in the process of washing the glasses poorly. Younger goblin you see with these bright, vibrant yellow eyes that never seem to blink, lidless almost, big, wide, flapping ears and a jaw that seems to be protruding and hooking up to the point where it has this heavy underbite.

And Kena overhears the conversation and goes like, I hear about the screaming, the howls. The what? People been saying they've been seeing eyes in the shadows. Also, probably the creatures that come out of the house. The what? People been saying they been seeing eyes in the shadows. Also, probably the creatures that come out of the house. Where have you heard this, fellow goblin friend? Yeah! Where has this been?

People saying it's a part of neighborhood around the well. Around the well? Yeah. Northern Sinktown, like he said. Haunted well. I've always been a fan of a haunted well. Does it sing back to you? Well. You sing into it? I mean, wells are great.

Okay. We're talking about old parties, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Did you know him? I seen him around, but they killed him. He's been in front of the pigs outside the butchery. Did he seem sound of mind before he went, or no? Is he?

Sound of mind as someone can be if they went and killed the whole family. That's a fair point. Do you know where he worked, what he did for a living? No, I didn't give a shit. Wait, is his's still there? At the butchery? Where the rotten meat was?

All of the navy. If the pigs haven't eaten it, we can go check it out. We should go look. If the pigs are eating it and the meat is getting rotten, that's why. Maybe it's a corrupt body or something. We can come to think of it. We can talk to him. I think El Potus lived up there in the North Center.

That's where we were. We were there. We were there already. We can talk to him. I think old Totis lived up there in the north center. That's where we were. We were there. We were there already. We should go check the well there. All right, we can just look around up there. So what's your name? Oh! She already has. I'm with her.

That's right. Ah! So what's your name? Oh god. I'm with her. That's right. What's your name? Oh god. No, I'm not going to tell you that, okay, bye. So you guys make up the tavern, where are you going? Well, I got a crazy idea. I think we should go find Spuddy. I think, well, we could even.

Is your crazy idea to go to the northern center of the town? Well. Because if it's not, it's a crazy idea. That's half my crazy idea. I think we should. This whole conversation's going south. If we go do a quick bit of investigation,

come back, take a long nap, and go to the northern square of town at night. Uh-huh. Late at night. Sweet, yeah, and then listen for howls. Well, we can't do that with Beau. Beau has an appointment tonight. Well, maybe her training will only be a little bit of time.

I'll meet up with you guys afterwards. Well, you want to do it alone anyway, right? Yeah, she'll be fine. We'll be fine. If you guys camp out at old Potus's house, Portus's? Potus. Potus, if you camp out at his house,

just, I mean, you know it'll be empty. We'll find that well. Maybe find the body. We should take a long rest. Yeah. He was executed somewhere around there, right? We don't know where he was executed,

but his body's near the butcher. Somebody already told us where he was executed. He lived up there. Caleb, you remember everything. No, I don't, but Caleb does. Was the party told where he was executed? Yeah. No, no one told me. I think he lived up there. No, he don't, but Caleb does. Was the party told where he was executed? Yeah. No, they lived up there.

No, he lived up there. As far as you know, he was executed somewhere in the vicinity of the Skal Square. Yeah, as far as we know. How long would it take to get to the well and just check out that neighborhood and come back here? Probably 30 minutes, 30 minute walk? At most.

Let's examine the well and the territory, so to speak. Let's get a good idea of what this place looks like during daylight and then get a good nap and come back at night. Which group leaves first? I'll go first. So who's doing what? We're all going there together, but we're leaving at separate times, so it don't look like we're together.

So you're going to the well only, right? Yes, around there. Okay. Left side of table, right side of table. All right, let's go. Sounds good. Kind of trail apart from each other as we go. Okay.

I go full crazy human. Okay, so show go full crazy human. Okay, so you're just, show me full crazy human. It's just Marisha and the post. Get in there. Oh, uh-huh, uh-huh. That's good? All right, yeah.

I was expecting more Tinkerbell, but. Yeah, that's good, that's good. You're so cute. Probably a joke, probably a joke. You're so cute. Perfect, perfect. Okay, so you guys make your way to that general region, and you guys make your way to that general region.

You guys follow suit behind us roughly a half an hour after you said? Like 15 minutes. 15 minutes, okay. We're impatient. Also, I think at this point, probably my spell has faded and I've seen people getting by, so I'm just going to go hood up and muddy face for the time being.

Okay, I will say, go ahead and make, just make a straight intelligence check. Oh, that's not that great. That's a nine. Okay. It's going to be fine. And a follow-up deception check for me, if you don't mind.

Oh boy, multiple. That's better. That is a 18. 18, okay. All right. So as you guys progress northward, you get partway towards this neighborhood asking around and keeping an eye out

for what this north center region may be. You can see there are a continuation of the neighborhoods here. Buildings that are decently constructed with the materials that are available. You can see a smattering of wood that has either been scavenged

from other parts of the wastes, from some of the drier graywood trees that you've seen occasionally clustered across these long ashen fields. You see elements of the purple wood that you saw taken and utilized on most of the exterior wall that surrounds the outside of Viserys. But everything here has this very unique,

clustered patchwork feel in its construction. The buildings have roofs, some of them are thatched, some of them are almost like a terracotta, but haphazardly placed. Some of them appear to be just additional boards placed over it, and it has a unique character to it. You get about partway to what you assume to be the center of town, based on the conversations

you've had before two orcish figures that are brutish and a little intoxicated, wandering through the streets, begin to, saddling up towards your group. One of them goes like, Hey, what's this one here? You can see these heavy tusks curling up from underneath the lower jaw.

The dull, dark green-gray skin tone. One of them, the eyes are very, very narrow and sunken back into the skull. The hair itself, heavily braided in two strong braids that toss over the front of the shoulders, wearing leather armor, very muscular, especially since you're no longer going in swole. Fjord, illusion.

By comparison, you've been around Fjord for a while, the visual perspective of what a full-blood orc who lives in a more physically taxing lifestyle as Xhorhas sometimes requires here in the Wastes, Fjord looks tiny. They both walk up to you, to talk to you, and look over to Fjord, and the second one goes to you to talk to you and look over to Fjord, and the second one goes and directs attention towards you.

So while the first one's like, Hey, hey, I wish you, huh? What do you need? Fuck. You just, I don't know, you look clean. I look clean? Yeah. Wow.

You need your vision checked. There is literally mud caked in my hair. You know enough, and he pushes you into the ground. Are you going to resist? Yeah. All right, go ahead and make a strength check. Boy, bullies at the lunch table. Yeah. All right, go ahead and make a strength check. Boy, bullies at the lunch table. Yeah.

11. Palm, giant orc palm just grabs the front of your chest and shoves you down into a mud puddle. It splashes and cakes the outside of your coat. The other one that's turned to you, Fjord, goes like, Oh, hey there, you. You're a scrawny little lad, aren't you? Yeah, I was never fed much.

Yeah. Good stuff out here, huh? Indeed. Is that your friend? My friend? Yeah. No, that's my employee. Your employee? Yeah, what, you never seen a servant before?

Make a deception check. How far behind are we? 18. 15 minutes? Fuck. 18. All right. He goes, You have a human servant? Yeah, well, as you said, I'm not the most imposing figure.

Might as well have this scum do what I need to have done. Wouldn't you agree? The other one at this point, while he's pushed you down and is- Is he still holding? No, he's pushed you onto your back and you've landed and is stepping forward to loom over you a bit. Beau, are you doing anything?

I'm just looking crazy and freaked out, and I'm not looking them in the eye. I'm just scowling behind the two of them. I am dragging some iron shavings across myself and drag my hands apart and double in size and stand back up. Okay. Nice.

So as Caleb's form swells in the walkway of the city, you can hear a couple of people look over. Do you need me to do anything, sir? Well, you done made him do his trick. He gets that when he gets a little agitated. The orc that had pushed you takes a step back and his head cocks curiously,

looks over to the other orc, and they both look back at Caleb for a second and both nod. The one that was talking to you goes, Hey, how much? For him? Yeah. How much you got? How much does he go for?

The Slender Man. It's pretty valuable. I don't know, I'd put it around 2,500 gold pieces. We both look at each other and just walk off. Two rich ferrates, and they bound off down the main thoroughfare. Change of mind, come back. What the fuck?

Eldritch Blair. Nope. I look around, how many people watched that? As I was like, as that was happening. Who's paying attention? You see what looks to be a family of gnolls. Family in the sense that you have one parental figure, uncertain of gender, and three smaller gnolls

that are like. They're these little kids that, like, have you ever seen? Well, baby gnolls are not the most attractive looking creatures, necessarily. They have very much like a very scared pocket chihuahua, kind of like Ren Hoag style, like with eyes bulging.

I like it. But they seem to be intrigued by the mysterious growth and shrink of this humanoid figure. Other individuals go about their day. No other seem, no issue. That was, you all right? I don't know what I'm doing. I think we should leave this town soon.

Yeah. I think I had better change my shape again. I got a little confident. Did well, though. I mean, you could have picked him up and thrown him across the square. It was restraint. I could not have done that,

but he thought I could have done that. I thought you could have done that. I could have done that. No one should do that, though, or anything like that. We are being watched here. Right, maybe we should. If they find out that we are from the Empire in any way, shape, or form, we will be fucking executed on sight.

Agreed, Oligar, but I need my teeth to be able to enunciate incantations, so I was just improvising. No, you did fine, we did fine. Shall we continue moving? Yeah. Yeah. All right, you guys eventually find your way to what looks to be, you know,

the roads here are rough in their construction. They tend to weave, and there isn't a very hardened grid pattern to the construct of Viserious. You get to a point where the roads seem to shift and curve a bit to almost have this, I want to say almost a spiral feel to it, where the building's a slight curve to it, and at elements you begin to see a few wells, actually.

There are a number of them throughout the city. You come across two of them. The first one catches your eye. In this area, what would you like to do? So I just stumbled upon a well in the general vicinity of where we were looking to get, right? And no indication. Have we seen a lot of wells as we walked to this area?

I mean, are they commonplace? Not really. You haven't seen any that are close to the main streets. You mainly stuck to the main streets. You haven't wandered too far into the deeper aspects of the city. Is it that easy? What, the well? Yeah.

Is that what we're looking for? I don't know, Fjord, maybe could you ask someone if it is in working water, and if the water is clean and potable, and if it is cursed, you know? They will say so, or something. Yeah, I'll take a gander around. Who might I see in my near vicinity?

Make a perception check. While he does that, I want to investigate the well, look for any markings or signs of... Make an investigation check. 17 plus one, 18. 18. Further up the street, amongst these gathered tents, huts and shacks,

the individuals in this neighborhood seem to live in, you can see what looks to be a very burly-looking bugbear. Heavy muscles, big thick fur that seems to curl at the elbows and the knees. The ears themselves flop out into these tufts. Big thick brow and is in the process of loading up a cart with heavy, heavy sacks of some material

that you cannot quite make out at this time. Hasn't seemed to notice your presence at all. What'd you roll for investigation? An eight. An eight? It was almost a 17, though. No. It was a 20 in my mind. It was almost a 23.

You go up to this well and look down inside. This one has a slight tapered roof onto it and looks to be a wench with a chain attached to it. A classic well. A classic well. But it's built into the heavy mud of this area. Looking down, you can see, probably from the recent rain and the water level as it stands here, it's about maybe 10 feet down before it hits water.

The water looks a little bit murky, but it is a functional well. It seems to be usable. Okay, crank it up a little bit. Yep. She pulled it up and there is an iron bucket affixed to the bottom of this chain that is now filled with somewhat murky, muddy water.

I fill up my canteen a little bit with water. You got it. I'll make my way over to the bugbear. Okay. Can I help you? Yeah, this well over here, is it functional drinking water? People use this?

Yeah. Right. Anything funny about this area? I mean, you seen any funny thing the past week or so? Not really. Well, I got to go. Yeah, you do. What you got there?

Making a delivery. Making a delivery? Yeah. What you delivering? Why are you asking? I don't know, I'm real curious. You see his eyes go a little bit panicked. I don't know who you are. He goes and puts it into the cart.

Yeah, okay. I think we should look around, see if there's any other wells. We've got to be catching up to them soon, right? Not yet. Okay, I'm into it. If you guys want to wait, you can wait for them to catch up to you at this point.

We've got message for when they get the area. Maybe we should settle up our tab and start going soon. Yeah. Two hours later. We'll save it for the sake of brevity. If you guys, at this point in time, you guys, you leave a little early and you catch up to them. I'm going to yell at other wells in the neighborhood,

see if they have any low rating well there. Welp. Welp. I'm so sorry. That was amazing, don't apologize. Thank you. That was a player-style joke. I know, I get them every now and then.

So you guys catch up with the rest of them as you're inspecting this region on the outskirts of the spiral. What do you guys do? I think we should research other wells besides this one. What's wrong with this one? I just think it's one well sample. They didn't say that it was coming from the well.

They said that it was around the area of the well. Yeah, but I think there are other wells. This might not be the only one. I'm going to try and cast Light down there, see if I see anything. That's a good look. Okay. You go ahead and glance and you cast light on? The stones beneath the water, see if I can light it up to look inside.

Best you can tell, it is murky water, so you don't get a clear view of where it might bottom out, but it does appear to be a well that continues down. It's got some dirt and sediment that have been somewhat recently raised from. Why don't you draw down that? Looks healthy.

Make a nature check. In the middle of the day? Sure. That's a one. Super healthy. Cool. What's the, how wide across is this well? Skinny or pretty wide? This one's pretty skinny.

It's about maybe three feet wide. It's not a massive well. You know, I can't fit down there, not you. I'm just joking, I wouldn't ask you to do that. Caleb, come make you smaller. Smaller? Smaller. I drop my cat in the well. You hear as Frumpkin hits

the cold, and as you look through, Frumpkin is not happy. But as Frumpkin is down there, just cat paddling through the water, surrounded by dark, cold stone and a very, very chilly. What the fuck it? Does it go anywhere? Make a perception check.

Yeah. Oh, not good. That's an eight. No, it is cold water and Frumpkin is not happy with you. Okay. While you're doing that, I'm going to sit down on the ground and close my eyes and cast Detect Good and Evil.

Okay. Clever. Clever girl. I lift Frumpkin out of the well with the bucket. As the bucket comes up, you see Frumpkin. It's super cute. It's like a calendar. And shakes off. It's okay, he's gone.

Vanishes. You cast Take a Good and Evil. What's the range on that? 30 feet. 30 feet. You focus for a moment and concentrate, waiting to find a way to focus on the variations between universal morality and universal evil intent.

Moments pass and nothing catches your attention in a 30-foot radius. I'm going to get up and start wandering around the area, looking for little blips. Let's head to the other well while we're doing it. Is there a butcher shop over here we're supposed to be looking for? Do you remember? There's another well, though.

Yeah, the butcher shop was back in the Skala Square. You can make a perception check if you want to look for something like that around. Yeah, I will shop was back in the... At the forest. At the Scala Square. You can make a perception check if you want to look for something like that around. Yeah, I will, why not? Oh, 12. 12? Mm-hmm. We are so perceptive today. Okay, you don't see a butcher shop in the vicinity.

You do notice that bugbear you were talking to earlier has moved the cart one block over and is now peeking around the corner and watching you all at the well. I'm going to wander over towards him. You're going to wander over towards him? Yeah, just like. Bleep bleep bleep bleep bleep.

Just last for 10 minutes as I wander around. Okay. Nothing seems to catch your attention in his vicinity. Bleep bleep bleep bleep bleep. I say we try the other well. Yeah, I'm going to walk over to Orym. What other well? Have you seen other wells? We know that there was another well in the area.

Oh, all right, well, let's go find one. Yeah. Also, Nott, I collected a little bit of water from this well, do you have some empty vials? I have two empty vials. I don't know, I just might want to test the water between each well, maybe it's different. Okay.

You're in Brockovich shit. Sure, yeah, I'm a chemist, sure, fill me up. I'll walk over towards the bugbear again, direct line, straight for him. Okay, as soon as you start walking towards him, he ducks behind the alley. I run after him. Okay, he runs, turns the corner,

and he's just pushing the cart away. Hey, where are you? Hello? So jumpy. I saw you looking at me, why? What are you hiding? I don't know what you're talking about. I'm not going to ask you a second time.

You don't want to know who I work for. Tell me what you're carrying and what you're up to. Make an intimidation check. Here, come on. 20. 20! 12 plus eight. I'm very sorry.

I've just been having these dreams, and you seem to be asking questions. You keep talking, I'll keep asking. You don't want the other thing. Tell me about your dreams. I don't mean that. Calm down, calm down. I live alone and it's very lonely.

And I've been having these dreams where these two beautiful bugbears come to me in the dreams. One is a very voluptuous bugbear. Uh-huh. The other is a very strong. And they come and they take care of me. Wow, that sounds fascinating. But they tell me to do bad things,

and I've done a bad thing. You did a bad thing? Yes, my neighbors had some wolves, and they told me to kill them. Some wolves? I'm sorry. You killed the wolves. You killed your neighbor? Listen, listen. I didn't mean to kill the wolves. I understand.

They told me to do it. You're doing the right thing by telling me. I am somebody that can make this go away, but I need more details, all right? You can walk away from here scot-free without another worry. Where were your neighbors? Where do you live?

I live a little farther in the spiral. How long ago were these dreams? When did you kill their wolves? It started to happen about two weeks ago, and I killed the wolves two days ago. They don't know it was me. Please don't tell them. No, no, they don't have to know. Now, have you had any more of these dreams,

or just the one time? No, they've come by a few times. Okay, all right. They're very nice dreams. Sometimes. They're're very nice dreams. Sometimes. They're always very nice dreams. Okay, fair enough. You ain't drinking from this well, is you?

No, no, I live by one. Uh-huh. Oh. That's not as important to me. Tell you what, we will wrap this up. If you will just take me where you live, and I'll make sure that your neighbors know that someone else killed their wolves,

and you can go about your business, you understand? Who are you? You don't want to know that. Okay. All right. I live this way. He grabs the two sides of the cart and pushes it forward and through the mud. Are you going along with him?

I'll turn around and look over. Is anybody looking at me? No, you guys jumped in the alley. You guys just watched Fjord sprint and vanish behind the corner. How do you even slowly make your way there? You guys make your way to follow and you see Fjord now glancing over his shoulder

as this big, burly-looking bugbear is wheeling a cart out of the alley on the opposite end and further in towards this slow, chaotic spiral. I'll very slyly put my hand down to my side and just motion like, stay back, stay back, and just keep walking. I'm following, though, because I want to sense good and evil.

How long does it last? Ten minutes. You got it, all right. I'll stealth, I'll stealth follow. Okay, make a stealth check. We're all following now, right? Yeah, we're definitely following. We'll all stealth follow. We will, okay.

Okay. Well, I rolled a four. 10. 11. Did you make yourself look different, or still just mad? 22. 26. Did you make yourself look different or still just not? 22. 26. All right.

All right, so. Continuing forward, you're led through a series of other roughshod roadways and walkways between these shacks and huts and hovels. Eventually, about three streets up, about eight, ten minutes later, spell fades, unfortunately, but he leads you to what looks to be

one of these haphazard neighborhoods. Pushes the cart up to the side and leaves it there and turns back to you and goes, This is where I live. Mm-hmm. Those your neighbors? They're all this vicinity, yes. They mostly leave me alone.

You killed all of their wolves, or just one of them? Oh no, they're the ones who had the, and he points over and you can see there's a house that has a small tent out front and it's a simple, maybe 80-foot wide cluster of driftwood and other elements of scavenged wood that is pushed up into the semblance of a home. Then twine and rope has been used to wrap around it.

Imagine a series of rafts that have been pressed together to form a house. That's where it was. You can see what looks to be a large post out front where chains were once affixed, but now they're empty collars lying on the mud. I see. And the-

I didn't mind the wolves. They just told me to kill them. Keep your voice down. They told me to kill them. Keep your voice down. Yeah, they told me to kill them. All right. Now, where is this fountain? Fountain? Yeah, you said you live by a fountain. Live by a fountain. I mean, a well, sorry.

Outside over this way. He points over and around the edge and by about three other buildings on a further right-hand corner, there is a stone well similar to the one you saw before, a little bit wider, like four foot wide. Same setup with the crank, the chain dangling below. Let's take a look,

walk over and look down into the well. Make a perception check. A 13. 13, you glance in. I mean, daylight here is not prominent, as it is sometimes, especially on the Menagerie Coast where you grew up. The near-perpetual cloud cover itself is

making it difficult to get anything but a soft, diffused daylight. Glancing down, your eyesight, although you do have darkvision, which does help, you catch the surface of the water about 30 feet down. This is a deep well. Murky as the other one was? You can't make out too much beyond the surface of it

at this distance, just because of the nature of darkvision. You don't see shapes moving in it. You just see the surface of the water and movement. You don't know how deep it goes. I reach in, I take out a silver, and I turn it in my hand. I look around, is anybody looking at this bugbear and I conversing by this well?

Nothing beyond half of your not-very-stealthy party. Mm. For fear. If you happen to be asked about what you did today, what are you going to say? I'm going to say nothing. I'm very embarrassed that I've been doing things for these very pretty bugbears.

That's right. Did you speak to anyone today during your deliveries? I spoke to you. Nope. Now we got to rehearse this. That is the wrong answer. Oh, I'm sorry. I give you this silver, and this never happened, and we never spoke.

Okay. Take it. Now, what's your name? I'm going to look down, as I look at my notes. I actually consider this. I am Umadon. Umadon. Umadon, you look pretty tired. What happened when you were out delivering today?

I was just doing my usual errands, getting my supplies and my food, and he points towards the cart. Your food? Yes. Well, if you don't mind my asking before my food, and he points towards the cart. Your food? Yes. Well, if you don't mind my asking before you go, what do you eat? Why are you so nosy?

Because it's my job. Okay. He leads you back over towards the house where the cart is, and he opens up a part of them, and you can see inside there is dried meats. You can look at potatoes and some of the hearty foods that are generally farmed here. You remember recalling that most of the commerce here is,

some of it is coin, some of it is barter and trade, some of it is just trade for work and hired elements. So all this carton appears to be just things to sustain himself. Groceries. Where do you do most of your shopping, last question. The Skowul Square.

Yeah, maybe just from there. This is where they come at night when I'm having my dreams. He points in through this small oval-shaped window in this stone structure. His place where he lives is nicer than some of the surrounding buildings. He's probably been here for a while, but it's small.

It's an L-shaped structure and maybe two room stops. I'm done, I'm going to make sure, you know what? I'm going to make sure you don't say nothing. I'm going to come back this evening and visit you, and we're going to make sure that you haven't said anything to anybody, you understand? No, but okay. You take your stuff and you take it inside now, you hear?

Okay. All right. You're not going to tell anyone about the dreams, are you? What dreams, Umadon? The ones I told you. No. I'm waiting for it. You asked me about them a couple times. We, we never spoke.

Never happened. Okay? Never happened. You're blowing his mind right now. You can see, like, but we are, we are calm. Inside. Okay. Talk to no one. Okay. Go.

Okay. Turns around and walks, which, just to give perspective here, this is probably a good seven inches of pure muscle and fur over Fjord this entire conversation, but just this demure demeanor of this bugbear in the face of this surprisingly intimidating half-orc, turns around and grabs the sacks

and looks over the shoulder once more and then heads back into the front door on the other side of the structure. It's the stubby tusks. Okay. We're all looking at the well at this point, right? I'm staring at Fjord and the bugbear. What's going on?

What is that? You guys really suck at following a decent distance behind. I understand what your expositor was talking about. I tried, I actually felt like I did pretty good, but I was... So, Umadon here apparently has been having some dreams and killed some of his neighbor's wolves because of him a couple weeks back.

What kind of dreams? What kind of wolves? What kind of wolves? I think normal wolves. Like the dreams that you have, like, Wetherian? Probably the kind of dreams that everyone in the area has been having. Yeah. More of the homicidal variety.

Did he say anything about them? Well, he said this here well might be something, and I noticed he had groceries from the Skowlan Market Square or whatever. I did the same type of investigation on the well. Is there a bucket? There is, similar setup to the one in the PVC Bounty. I'm going to cast Slime to the bucket

and drop it down in there to get a good look. Okay, make a perception check for me. Come on, proceed high. 20. Yeah. That's 27. 27, nice. So as you pull the bucket up and check the water, it's similar level of murkiness, but the water level is much lower.

The water is 30 feet or so down to the depths of this well. As you begin to return it, Caduceus, you cast Light on it and the bucket becomes a light and you lower it down below and you watch as it slowly recedes in, lighting up the rough earth and carved and stone-setting. Vial. I get a little water from the vial.

I'm going to throw a Detect Undead. This is number two. I rolled a 20 on my investigation check. Okay. Looking for markings. So you look through, no markings. But you and Caduceus both make the same observation as you're lowering the light and the chain.

You notice that roughly 20 foot to 25 foot distance down below before it meets the water level, there is a section where the haphazard stone and masonry that's been placed to contain the interior of this groundwater well seems to have crumbled and fallen, and there is about a three foot gap where the stone has crumbled and looks to be some sort of interior cavern or dark, shaded tunnel beyond. Can I look around and see if anybody is watching us right now?

Make perception check. I'm going to investigate these two vials of water to see if I can discern any difference. Sure. Ooh! 22. 22. I mean, you are a bunch of people standing around a well

and doing a bunch of experimental magic casting and checking water levels and looking deep inside. So yeah, some of the folks around you are staring and curious as to what the fuck you're doing in the middle of broad daylight here at the well. Putting fluoride in the water, folks, nothing to see. Just a little public works. They look to be denizens of the region.

Nothing that tips you off to think that they're concerned, they're just confused, and at least are aware of your presence and find it weird. Okay. Have you found something? Do I see anything with the water? What'd you roll for? Well, what kind of check is this?

It's investigation. Oh, investigation, that's better. I'll say because you're an alchemist, I'll let you add your proficiency modifier. Yeah, that's 15. 15, okay. Plus your proficiency? That's including. Yep.

They are slightly different, but you assess it's because the ground water that you're pulling from here is actually deeper than the previous well. The water still seems as pure as groundwater pulled from a well can be, but because it's deeper and seems to be probably closer to the sediment and the base of the surface.

The aquifer? The aquifer, if you will. It is a little murkier, but it mostly seems to be natural. I take out the smallest amount of money? Copper? Yeah. I take out the copper and I go, oh, I wish I could detect good and evil,

and I knock it down the well and I cast Good and Evil. Okay. You cast it and close your eyes and focus. Nothing catches your attention. Walk, maybe walk in that direction for a little bit and see if you feel anything. I'm sending her in the direction of the opening, like the opening that I saw.

Okay, so following that path and you focus, you travel around in a few loops, a few figure eights. Basic vicinity as Caduceus is guiding you that direction. I get down and crawl a little bit to get my face as close to the ground as possible. It's muddy. So you get down low and foxhole your way across the ground.

Not just mud. So the individuals who've been paying attention to you, oddly, are now very curious as to this display. You can look over and see one of them begins to walk towards what looks to be an armored Kryn soldier that is in the process of walking from the north to southern side of the main street closest to where you are.

Is that obvious to all of us? Can I intercept? Caduceus, you notice this, and Beau, you notice this. Am I able to intercept before she meets the soldier? You can certainly try. Oh boy. Just, I'll Power Walk casually. You're quick, you're fast.

I will say make a- I don't want to be alarming, though. Lifeguard rules, don't freak people out. Make a persuasion check. This is an attempt to change your body language to not seem aggressive and inviting. Roll a disadvantage. High DCs. Eight.

Eight, all right. So you see. We're going to war. You see what looks to be a bugbear woman, the hair going from a deep brown to a sun-bleached blonde towards the tips, maybe because of age or they're from another region,

you don't know. But she's been watching this for a while, and as soon as this starts happening, looks over and sees the Kryn soldier and begins to walk in that direction. You start, from your perspective, very quietly and very openly walking that direction. She turns back and looks and sees this crazed human

stepping over towards her and starts picking up the pace. The soldier glances over and sees her and sees you and gives a curious look specifically to you and walks up. You can see this is a female dark elf soldier and gives a curious look specifically to you, and walks up. You can see this is a female dark elf soldier, not wearing full Kryn armor, that's what you battled before,

but elements of it, no helmet, but the somewhat chitinous dark metallic armor and mantle across the shoulder, similar to the mage that you had fought previously, but wearing plain dark leather armor beneath. Begins to watch and meets up with the bugbear woman who immediately goes like, There's a woman!

Turns and sees you approaching. You're already right there. I'm going to slowly jot my way over as well. Oh god. Okay. The soldier looks and goes, What appears to be the problem? The monkey-bearer goes,

I don't know. He's looking at you, deer in headlights, trying to respond, but didn't expect you to arrive quite so quickly, because your monkey speed is pretty fast. He goes, Hello. Hi. Can I help you? There.

And points over at Jester on the ground, crawling in the mud, and everyone's gathering around. I take my earring out and I hold it up and go, I found it, I found it. Your contact? No, my earring I dropped. I thought it was in the mud over here. Oh, that happens.

Make a deception check. Derp-a-derp. 14. The Kryn warrior glances over towards you, glances back at the bugbear, glances back towards you and goes, So where in Xhorhas are you from? Mystery solved, she found her earring.

We were drunk last night and she made a wish in the wishing well and we thought maybe she threw it down there, but it looks like it just fell off, so thank you for your service. And I walk away. I think it just fell off, so thank you for your service. And I walk away. As you walk away, a hand goes on your shoulder. You did not answer my question.

Please tell me, where are you from in Jorahs? Human? I'm from a little bit south of here, where that woman is from, and I point to Yasha. Okay, make a deception check. Oh boy. So many checks, so many fails. Super cocked.

Fuck. Super cocked. Innocent. Split right in the middle. The Ansembeade roll. The Ansembeade, what was it, deception? Deception, yes. Uh-huh, uh-huh, 22. Okay.

The soldier gingerly removes a hand and goes, looks to the bugbear, expecting it, like, what were you going to approach by the way? Goes, it looks like she found her earring. And moseys off, looking at you intensely, and keeps a wide berth around you and the rest of the group, and heads off into whatever business she was handling.

The Kryn soldier goes, Maybe it is not so safe to be this close to the conflict, looking as you do. You should perhaps go south for a while. Oh. Thanks for the advice. And I walk away. Light be with you.

And also with you. Mm-hmm. All right. Tense moment averted with a very good deception roll. You come back to where you are, there in this small section between homes and foot pathways. You didn't affect it any evil, you guys. Yeah, but it's far down.

Your detection is only good for the guests. Yeah, no good on that, unfortunately. Yeah, no, it's fine. We got to go down there. The world started to beat, I thought maybe it was that 15 feet down. It would have been a thing. Yeah, no problem, I'll just hop over to the edge

and I'll start lowering myself. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Go down, go down! Jester and Beauregard are wiped out from the movie. We're going to fucking rest, that's what we said we were going to do. No, we're not going to rest, we have to go down there. No, no, no, no.

My husband is dying because of you! Because of me. Well, because you're scared. I'm scared that if you fall down, I won't be able to heal you because I don't have any fucking spells left. We got Mr. Clay for that. I'm not going down there.

Well, neither am I, Fjord is. I'm going down into the well. It is not the time to do it. Okay, make an athletics check for me. What the fuck? We said we were coming back at night. We can always say that! 20. What time is it? 22. Broad daylight.

22, all right, decent. So the well itself is about four, four and a half feet wide. You place both of your arms at full length to each side and you have just enough to move through and grab onto elements and use your feet. It takes you a while to get down there, carefully, without plummeting.

But you do so deftly, actually. About 10 minutes of slow climbing, you reach the point where that break is. The bucket dangles from the overbar, the smell of wet iron hits you as you begin to approach it, as well as the still water that seems to be sitting there at the base of the well. There's about a two, three foot gap that you see here,

where the stone has fallen either inward or outward, and it's not terribly big. It's maybe three feet across and about that wide. At times, it splinters out and then closes in. Make an investigation check for me. 23. 23. It does appear to have been pushed towards the well.

What does? Where the stone seems to have crumbled, it seems to have been pushed from the opposite side. It's probably whatever stones were there are probably sitting at the bottom of this well water. The other thing you notice is the smell here. It is stale with dust and earth and rain and a hint of a pungent sulfurous smell.

Does it smell similar to the smell we experienced down under the moorbounders? Comparably pretty close. Yeah, that's about all I need. I'll use the feature of the falchion to Misty Step back up just underneath the ridge of the well. My finger's on the side. Okay. There's a sudden of wind and you watch as Fjord's fingers appear and grasp onto the edge

of the well, pulls himself back up out of it. I climb up. That's what we want. It had the same smell as down beneath the moorbounders. Okay, maybe not so much crawling around the well or circus tricks. Jester and Beauregard are barely on their feet. Let's get out of here, have something to eat, rest, and come back in the night. I want to sleep for eight hours. Not the brave, it was your idea

to try to curry favor here in town. We are not going to run off, this was your idea. I'm totally fine with that. Let's go rest, now that we know what we're doing. We're going to go rent a room at the Four Room. Four Corners. Four Corners Pens? Four Seasons. All right, you head to the Four Corners Pens. Is it like one of those Japanese,

you know, those capsule hotels? Nap hotels. It looks like a stable for people. It's an open space. Imagine a series of cubbies. It's a hostel. It's a hostel, if you will. But the floor is stone, pebbles,

molded hay, and whatever bits of bedding and leather could be thrown over to try and give a semblance of a softer floor. The good news, it's cheap. There's only two of these sections that are available, and they cost you, I'd ask, five copper a night. There's no tables or chairs or beds or anything, it's just cow pens for humanites.

Yes. Excellent. Right. I'm into it. We'll take them both. The two that are available, at least. You can't look into the others. Are they next to each other, or are they in separate areas? They're separate. Damn it. We'll take them both. The two that are available, at least. You can't look into the others. Are they next to each other, or are they in separate areas?

They're separate. Damn it. Okay. There's one that's in the far back corner, and the other one appears to be maybe four of those separate sections down and to the right. Okay. We'll take both, yeah? Yeah, you can take both if you want.

Who's staying in which one? Well, we don't have three rooms, which we normally have, so I feel like the ladies and the gentlemen should split up. I mean, are y'all going to be all right by yourselves? Jester, are you going to be safe? She could punch you through a wall. Do you have a third room here?

We might need a man to take care of us, Fjord. The bugbear that runs the Four Corners, if you go and ask them, he's like, No, we're fooled, sorry. Oh. Fair play, fair play. Unless, do you want to room with the ladies for any other particular reason?

Did you want to room with Jester for any particular reason? I'll room with Caleb and Cad. I mean, if you think about it, normally Yasha's the biggest one of us. You've got the two of us here. I just head into one of the rooms. Who joins Fjord? Are you going to go with him? No, I go to the other one.

Don't you think he was subtly? That isn't what he was doing, Nott. I go in with Jester. I go in with Jester. Okay, so he's one. Yasha comes and joins you. And? I stand super indecisively for about eight minutes. All right.

So who's taking a full rest on this, I guess? How long will a full rest put me? Am I meeting Daira at sunset or she said after dark? She said after dark, you don't have a specific time. By the time you guys have this space, you've returned and you begin this rest, it's close to four or five in the afternoon. So a full rest will put you conscious

at about three, four in the morning. I'm going to do a power nap and blow some hit dice. Okay, so you're going to do a short rest. I'll head out early. Okay. You're going to leave everybody behind? Yeah. Just one-on-one?

Oh, because you've got to go to your meeting. I've got class. Since it's invisible and I can't see it, did anyone go into the cow stall with Fjord yet? Yeah, no, I did. You did? I'm going to join them. Okay. After I get this. So you guys go in there. Yeah, no, I did. You did? I'm going to join them. Okay. After he gets.

So you guys go in there. Take your preparations for an early short rest. As you spend your hit dice. Mm-hmm. But is the rest of the party doing long rest? Everyone's taking the long rest, apparently. Yeah. But you'll be coming out

at about three or four in the morning. Yeah. So pushing dawn, depending on when you arrive at your destination. Yeah, klar. Okay. It would take two hours. What, dawn is usually around five or six in the morning. You don't even finish your ass.

You wake up between three and four, and you gather yourselves and walk over to the part of town, it's going to be like 3.30, 4.30 in the morning. That's not, the sun's not going to hit, but you'll begin to see a change of light. Ooh, keeping that. That's nuts. I've prepared my spells for the next day.

Every spell's always prepared. They're always the same spells. Yeah, so we're good on you. I'm ready. You are prepared. I'm ready. Well done, sir. Anybody else good? Yeah, I'm just picking spells, so we can start without that.

If I have any extra time, Matt, I'm going to attempt to make a tracer arrow. Unfortunately, you don't really have a good space to do that here. Right. You're in a person stable. I can't do explosive chemistry in a stall with three other people right around me?

Unfortunately, I'm going to say no to that one. Cool, cool, cool. But keep an eye out. Put a fair amount of natural manure around as well. Yeah, that sounds like a great combination. And dry hay. What'd you roll, one? Well, that's the fastest TPK we've ever had.

An unceremonious end to the Mighty Nein story detonated by ignited feces. Okay, I'm at full hit points. Okay, Beau. I'll take a little power nap, a couple hours, and I'll head out like 45 minutes after sunset, I guess, once it's been dark for a little bit. I'll say, because everyone else is also taking a long rest, your power nap sends you to a point of consciousness

where you wake and it's dark and you're not sure what time it is, and there's a brief bit of. Fuck, fuck, fuck. Caleb, what time is it? He's not in your room. I'm in the other stall. Shit! The other ladies are deep in their rests. Lights snoring.

Lights snoring. Question. Yes. Where's Nott's glamor armor? Where's your glamor armor? On Nott, I think. Are you wearing it? I don't know. Do I sleep in armor? Do you sleep in your armor?

Probably not. Are you wearing that? In the middle of Death Town? Is it made of leather? It's made of leather, yeah. Oh, then I'll sleep in it, yeah. So yeah, Nott's currently. You can wake me up. Do we have a hat? Do we have a disguise hat? No. We don't have that? Was that old campaign? So yeah, that's currently. You can wake me up. Do we have a hat? Do we have a disguise hat?

No. We don't have that. Was that old campaign? That was old campaign. New campaign, it is. Yeah, I wake up now. No! Shh, shh, shh. Sorry. Can I borrow your glamor armor?

You want to wear my clothes? Yeah. What will I wear? That's fine, yes, of course you can. Really? You're one of my closest allies and friends. That is deeply kind of you. Don't look at me while I change.

I want to try and blend in a little bit better. Get the fuck out of here! You do not need to attune to this. You don't have to take an hour to attune, which is nice. Fuck yes. Although she does hand you armor the size of Teddy Rock's. Yeah, and you take it and wonder what's going to happen. As you take a moment to try and squeeze into one shoulder, you're like, this is not going to work.

You feel it expand a bit and loosen itself, and the plates shift to meet your frame. How's it look? I mean, it just looks the same. You have to think what you want it to look like. And I copy that armor that the... Crean? The Crean armor. With the guard, the guard that I was just talking to.

Is it a bear guard? No, it's a Crean guard. All right, so you watch as the... And it's got a hood and shit, right? The leather armor does not have a hood. Okay. So you're still visually. I'll put my cloak hood up. Okay, but you give yourself the visual perspective

of the chitinous armor of the Kryn soldiers. All right. You're the best. I know. Good luck out there. Have fun training. I'll meet you guys at the well. Cool.

All right. You step out and you get a few feet from the back entrance to the pens here, outside of the four corners, before a voice goes, Tss. You glance over and you can see Dairon in her drow visage, arms crossed,

that took you some time, didn't it? I wanted to make sure it was super dark. Follow me. All right. I trail behind her a little bit. Okay. One by one, she leads you for about 15 minutes away from where you guys were sleeping until eventually you come to what looks to be some large storage bin of some kind,

or a storage facility. It has one sliding door that is partially ajar. As soon as you approach the slight crack, you can already smell this heavy, heavy scent of tobacco. As you come and enter, you can see what looks to be a lot of thick tar-like tobacco plants that are currently being stored here. This black tar material that seems to have been long dried

against a lot of the wood of the inside of this facility. It's maybe 20 foot by 30 feet, this space here, and half of it is filled with crates and other things seem to contain this. As you enter and look around, you hear as it closes behind you, it is dark inside there. No light. Goggles. You put the goggles on. As soon as you put the goggles on, in the darkness, you can see Dairon's form behind you as you turn around to look and she goes,

That is good. That helps take care of one weakness. Okay. Good comeback, good. She approaches and says, So, I've taught you some techniques and I see there is still some teaching to be done. You have jumped ahead in some ways when you were not ready, and there are some things you skipped along the process.

For one, show me what you can learn from me. Flurry of Blows. Go for it, attack rolls. Come on, girl. First one, second one. First one's a four, second one's a natural 19. Okay, first one she slaps away, the second attack catches her in the chin.

So that's her two attacks, and then you have your two bonus action attacks. Oh, I thought I was starting with Floria blows. Well, you have to do attack action, then then Flurry of Blows is how it works. So you open up with two strikes and then go into the Flurry of Blows as the bonus action. Okay. So you can roll damage for that first one.

Ch-ch-ch-ch-ch. You're good. Why, why? Six damage. Pulling my punches. Yeah, those were the right ones. Go for it, and then go ahead and follow up with your bonus action. Do your two were the right ones. Go for it, and then go ahead and follow up with your bonus action.

Do your two more unarmed strikes. Go for it. Damn it, Gil. 18 for the first one and 17 for the other one. 17 misses, 18 does hit. Ooh! Tom's. And I extract Aspects. What are you choosing to learn?

Her constitution. Okay. With that, you learn Dairon has a constitution modifier plus two. Stunning Strike. Stunning Strike. That last one. Okay. Crack, crack, roundhouse to the face.

Psh! She just stands there, unable to move in the moment. Yeah, good pop, good pop! I tell her, looks like the diet out here's been messing with your system a little bit. Not feeling as hearty as you normally do back in the Empire?

She shrugs off the stun after a moment and looks back and goes, your attacks are still unfocused. You try and reach too broadly. Instead, try and learn the important things all at once. Like this, and she goes in for a series of strikes against you. That is 24 to hit.

Hits. That is 11 to hit. Hits. 11 hits. Oh, sorry, misses? Sorry. I was just saying that, I was just, yeah. I just hit all the hits.

I'm terrified, everything hits. It hurts, it feels so good. All right, so the first strike is, ooh, that's going to be 12 points of bludgeoning damage. As you take one hit to the sternum, and you hear the bones crack inward from the impact, the wind temporarily knocked out of you. You're blown back, and her next swing,

with her other fist, goes towards your face, and the momentum that forced you backwards, you lean into it, and like a reed in the wind, you bend out of the way and the fist arcs past the front of your face, just guiding past the front of your nose. Goes into a flurry of blows as well. That's going to be a 23 to hit.

And a 25 to hit. You take five points of bludgeoning damage. And 10 points of bludgeoning damage. With these two strikes, one goes and strikes, not the sternum, but just below it where the ribcage ends and seems to hook underneath where the bone is. So it's actually grabbing you up in the ribcage and pulls you forward.

The pain is sharp and immense and you as you come forward, the other fingers hit you up underneath the chin and grasp inward as a hook as well. In a second, in a moment after that, The other fingers hit you up underneath the chin and grasp inward as a hook as well. In a second, a moment after that, you can feel your heartbeat, like the blood from your jugular hitting her fingers.

You watch as she focuses, but there's an interesting expression. As opposed to visualizing the anatomy, her eyes are somewhat half closed and unfocused, and you know when you use Ki, when you focus on your spiritual energy to harness your combat prowess, there is a communion between your Ki and hers. It's invasive, and you feel this force come into you

from the impact of the chin, and then extrude back into her fingers, and she pulls away. No, that was my personal space, personal space. So that is one thing I would like to show you to do. What did you do? Well, I learned the bulk of the important things. Over the next few minutes, she begins to show you

the proper points to apply this pressure. Oh shit. This alters your extracting aspects of it. This goes into a series of sparring matches as well, where she shows you that being reactive is important, but perhaps not as important in your current training, as far as being prepared for immediately, dealing with a scenario,

and for your current purpose of your mission is instead to find that moment of weakness in an opponent and retaliate as quickly as possible. So, as part of this training, you get to, we have new updates to the Way of the Cobalt Soul for you. Class updates! It is a homebrew of mine that I've been toying with as the game here and community feedback for a while,

and now we have an opportunity for you to adjust a few things. So as part of this, you extract Aspects. As opposed to choosing, whenever you hit a creature with one of your Flurry of Blows, you learn what conditions they're immune to, what damage they're immune to, what damage is they're resistant to,

and what damage is they're vulnerable to at once. You don't have to pick. All of it at once? You learn those. You lose some of the broader choices, but those you just learn automatically, as they are generally important, so as opposed to having to pick and choose, either you learn immediately

that none of these are important, or at least you learn some information that might help you tactically in the battlefield. You still have to convey that to your party once learned, but that can be useful at times. Okay. Testing out this variation of that. Also.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was a good one. Also swapping the arrival of two of the abilities. The Pretty Natural Counter and the Might of Mercury are swapped. So you currently do not have the ability to gain additional reactions by spending key points. That's changed a bit now.

You can't spend multiple in a turn. Once per turn, eventually when you get this ability, once per turn you can spend a key point to get an additional reaction. But this allows me... But what you have now is Peter Natural Counter, which is whenever an enemy misses you with an attack in melee, you can use your reaction

to make an unarmed strike back at them. Every time? For, I mean, one reaction per turn. Yeah. So. As part of this training, you do suffer an additional 12 points of bludgeoning damage. Ouchies. When all is said and done.

You die. But when this training is complete, both you and Dairon are sweating in the dark here in the warehouse. You're exhausted and sore, but also happy to know that you feel a little more confident in your abilities to defend yourself and both learn the important aspects

of some of your enemies in the battlefield, as well as utilize their failures to your advantage, being able to read their movements, and in that instant, be able to avoid that burst of conflict and then reciprocate with your own act of aggression. When Dairon looks up to you after a few rounds of this, about a good hour or so of this conflict, he goes,

I am very impressed at how fast you were able to pick this up. I knew that my R on you was not wasted. Your what? Your RL? My eye on you. Oh, your RL. Sorry. Sorry. You hit me in the head. I told you to listen specifically.

I'm sorry. I owe you another martial arts lesson. Okay, well, I'm going to take a few minutes, and then I'm going to go climb down a well with my friends. What? We bought these moorbounders from this harmless goblin guy, and there was a rift, and... Don't die.

Listen, be patient. Be careful. And if we're lucky, I'll see you on the other side. She walks past, pats you on the shoulder, and then steps out of the way. How did I find you in Gordranas? You told me your friends can contact me. They already have before.

Just keep that friend alive. I want to give you something. And I pull out a written copy. Laura Bailey! We were all there. We were all there. Of the cipher. Mm. I know how to write in this.

There's instructions on how to write in it and how to read in it. If there's ever information we need to communicate, under the radar, you can right me with that. Impressive. I will look over this with my travelers. I'm certain to have time in the weeks to come. Thank you.

Now, what did I say? Stay alive. And? Listen. And? Listen. And? Trust no one. I kind of gambled on that last one. You've said a lot of things.

Be patient. Oh, patient, right, be patient. Be patient, listen, stay alive. Patient, listen, stay alive, got it. Don't disappoint me. Okay. Then with that final push, exits out and vanishes into the night air of Asarius. And I spend more, no wait,

you have to rest to spend a hit dice. Yeah. Mm-hmm. You can go back and do that. Because you got, do I know if they'd still be asleep? I mean, you can make a nature check to try and, or not, just survival, make a survival check to gauge the point of the evening it may be.

Survival. 19. 19? Yeah. You gather it's a little bit past midnight at this time. Okay. There are a few more hours before your friends will probably be waking. However, you are losing a long rest in doing this,

and it might come to the point of possibly gaining a point of exhaustion, so just be aware. Okay, okay. Well, I'm going to go back and I'm going Okay, okay. Well, I'm going to go back and I'm going to take another short rest. I'm going to crawl back in. Make a stealth check for me. I keep my eye open on the way.

Not great, but could be worse. 13. 13, okay. With the armor that you have, no one seems to bother you with that roll. You make your way back towards the pens outside of the Four Corners, stealthily glide into one of the two chambers

where the ladies were previously sleeping, and allow yourself to take a short rest in silent peace. And I meditate. Okay. So you're in there, and you're awake, so you could wake us up, make sure we wake up on the earlier side of it than the later side. Yeah. As the rest of you complete your short rest,

you slowly begin to rouse to consciousness to the dark, early, early morning. It is freezing, there is frost on the edges of the wood that surround you, and as you come to gather your bearings for whatever the rest of this cold, frozen, due morning brings, we're going to go ahead and take a break.

Aw, man! We interrupt this Critical Role Podcast Network broadcast to bring you news of dangerous treasures that lie sealed within the Critical Role shops. Only the heartiest of adventurers should dare seek them out. In all seriousness, though, I'm Matthew Mercer, and we've made some very cool things that we really like and hope you will, too. If you'd like to support the show, please consider visiting any of our Critical Role online shops through the shop tab at critrole.com and see if anything catches your eye. Okay, back to the show.

Hello, everyone, and welcome back. Sorry, we were having discussions about who's better, Joel or Mike. Those of you who know, I'm a Joel guy. We're mostly Joel guys. Brittany's a Mike guy. Joel. Joel. Mike's great. So, we have our winner.

The fantastic Wyrmwood giveaway goes to our friend Wicked Resolution. Ooh. Wow. Wicked Resolution, who couldn't be bothered to put an E in there. You're that cool. So Wicked Resolution, you are the winner of the, one more box, we'll give that to you ASAP.

Congratulations. Maybe it's just like wicked, like a candle. Like Wicked Resolution. Sure. Yeah. Could have a candle towel. You got puzzles with me? Sure.

Yay! Phantom Tea. Thank you. So, last we left off, you guys have all come to consciousness shortly after midnight, an hour, two, three hours after that, after you had come to rest for the evening around dusk.

What would you like to do? Mild calisthenics. No, we're not doing that fucking cold out. It's the worst way to hurt your joints without warming up first. I learn something new every day. Let's assemble the troops and head to the haunted well. Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, shit, we do this right, we'll be down that well, close the portal, back in our beds before something comes up, it'd be great. We need to hurry, because the sun is going to come up soon, I think. Yeah, we got a couple hours. Did you ever haunt a well where you grew up? No, but I've always really enjoyed

ghost stories and haunted stories. I mean, they're really fascinating. I mean, you live in a place like that, you're bound to hear a few. Thank you for the armor back. Thanks for letting me borrow. Nope, nope. Nope. Nope. Nope.

Nope. No chance. Ready to go. Nope. Did you learn a lot? I did, I did. Look, we should lay low, and I think we really need to figure out some better disguises.

We're going to stick around for a little bit. I don't know. I don't. Maybe when the sun is up, I think we're all right for the time being. Your nose is bleeding. We should go, yeah? How's your health?

All right. I've rested up a little bit. You anything? You all right? I'm at 61 out of 68. That's not bad. Yeah, you're fine, let's do it. It's more than I can ever dream of. We make our way towards the well stealthily.

North center of town. I would like the entire party to make stealth checks. Yasha included. You got it. Does anyone want the, the, come on. Oh, pass the other trays. I want you to. Okay. That's super average.

I just miss Vax, guys. I miss the stealth rolls. I miss the stealth rolls. I never want any guys. Pass the other trays. Anyone want the dodeca? Somebody should look at it. Whose rolls might end up being?

Tired Beauregard. I was going to say Jester to close portals. Do it. Mm-hmm. All right, so you go ahead and take your mode of possibility. Five minute possibility upon yourself, that is taken. 25 and 26. 25 and 26, Beauregard.

27. 23. Wait, do we have a plus something? Must have plus 10. Oh, yeah. 24. 34. 34. 21. 21. 26. 26?

You guys, after a fresh evening's rest, apparently that was enough of a reset button for you to be deft and silent on your feet as you dodge and quickly delve through the various curving pathways and alleys of Asarius to the northern region you had previously scoped the day before. By the hints of barely escaping moonlight

that purge and tear through elements of the moving clouds ahead and above you, you guide yourself across and to the region of the bugbear you had met earlier. You see his abode there before you and where all the streets merge and the well around the corner. What would you wish to do?

Want to follow me? Anyone out? Make a perception check. Shit, five. I mean, there are a few figures patrolling. You get the sense here that, as it is the City of Beasts, there's a fair balance between nocturnal denizens and those that are not.

So as you're making your way through the city, you do notice that it doesn't seem to have really diminished the presence of various civilians in the region. Is there a gathering of carts or boxes or some sort of cargo anywhere near us? I don't know, man, with that perception roll, you can't tell. I will set, I'll use Minor Illusion

and cast a little fire just on the ground about 30 feet away from us. I'd like to put it either on a card or some parcels or something, just so it looks like some start of a fire. Sure. Hobo Barrel? Hobo Barrel would work.

Okay. Was the... Great juggalo song. Was the entry to the cavern, or the pathway or whatever, below the waterline or above it? Seemed like it was above. Above it, yeah. Seems a bit of rain has begun to touch the ground around you.

You can hear the soft hiss as a small storm begins to blow its way over the city of Asarius. What are you guys doing? I'm casting Minor Illusion to create that little fire. A little flame begins to emanate from the region with a faint bit of crackling firelight. I'll hop into the well. I'll take the rope and the bucket and make my way down as well. So you guys move up into the well. I'll take the rope and the bucket

and make my way down as well. You guys move up around the way. I'm glancing around to see if anybody's watching us go into the well. Caduceus, actually. Because of, they look at that more because of your perception. You do notice, as you guys are walking by

the structure to your right, you glance through one of those small oval-like portholes, and you see some strange, drifting faint blue energy. Eyes of the Grave. Eyes of the Grave. No undead presence, but as you look up inside and you see this faint shimmer,

you hear and listen in and hear a faint, creepy chuckle from the inside. I'm going to cast Detect Good and Evil. Okay. There are two very strong presences across the wall here that emanate a very defined source of evil. There's really bad things in there. These are not in the well, in a building that we're As you're moving towards the well to the right of you,

the building as you're passing across from it. What kind of a building is it? A tavern shop? It's a small L-shaped abode, better made than the rest or the others you've seen in the vicinity. It's where Imando lives. Umadon. Yep.

Is it Umadon's residence? As he points it out, it is apparently where Fjord had sent him towards. Oh my gosh, oh my gosh. Yeah, it's his place. Yeah, he told me that he had a dream where a male and a female bugbear came together and did fantastic things and then made him kill wolves.

Do we want to take care of this right now? I mean, yeah. We should definitely do that. Can we go inside? We still have Pass Without a Trace, right? I do. Does there appear to be any type of chimney or roof? Other entrances? Yeah, other entrances.

From what you've, when you were just moving on the side, there doesn't appear to be a chimney. There are the little oval-type openings and the stones that are stacked to create this building, but you can squeeze through carefully, human of you or Fjord's size. Not going to get through easily. It does not appear to be painted with glass,

but it is a bit precarious, and it isn't an easy leap-through-type circumstance. There is a front door around the corner. I say we just go in the front door. Why don't we attack from different vantage points? I'm sorry, did we say that there are denizens wandering around this area? There are, but no one seems to be

paying immediate attention to you. Okay. They'll just go about their business in the night. It's not a big house, right? You guys have been pretty stealthy, so no one's really noticed that you've even given anyone's eye or attention this late at night. I mean, it's not a very big house, right?

No, it's not at all. Not a lot of other ways in, right? I say we go in and take care. There was a window, right? Oh. There appear to be two oval-shaped windows that are small to the point where, other than that, anyone else would have to climb up

and push through the space, but there is a front door. Go in the front. I'm going in the window. I'm going to take a big swig of liquor and creep up to the window. You need to unlock the door. Okay, the rest of you are going in the front, or are you waiting on Nott?

What are you doing? No, we're going to go to the front. Yeah, we're going in the front. You guys head into the front door. And the portals were from like a nine hells, like a hellish plane? It seemed to be abyssal in nature. Abyssal, right.

Yeah, there was the variation between devils and demons. They're both fiends, but they are two different sides of the evil outer plane conflict. Yasha will walk up to the front door and kick that fucking shit in. Oh, Jesus. Okay. Go ahead and make a strength check for Yasha.

That is a 23. Okay, well, this has definitely drawn some attention. So as you're carefully coming up and peeking over the side, you can see a very simple bedchamber. It looks to be a small brazier or torch on the wall that is mostly burned down to embers. It looks to be a small unit with a couple of shelves, some roughshod boxes and containers on the opposite end,

and a wide bed made from what looks to be leftover crates that have had bits of furs and leathers and whatever bits of softish material been placed on it to form a bed exists there. On the bed, you see that same bugbear that you had come across earlier that Fjord was interrogating is currently lying on their back

with a wide grin on its face. Is it fucking ghosts right now? No. Okay. But in two different corners of the chamber, you see two somewhat ethereal entities. One of them appears to be a bugbear, but is somewhat ghostly, translucent, light blue,

and is dressed in a very provocative manner. The bugbear ghost. The bugbear ghost is. Hot bugbear. It seems to be on one side. The other side, you see another male bugbear, slender, wide shoulders, dressed in elements looks to be elements of leather straps from one shoulder to the other across. They're both in the process of hands extended

towards this sleeping individual. You watch as this faint tether of that faint blue energy, that sparkling type of incantation that had caught Caduceus' eyes as you had passed, drifting towards him as he sleeps and causing him to writhe. As you make this observation. I will start to cast Message.

Ooh, fuck. You hear a wooden door crack open as Yasha kicks in the front door, it splinters open, comes partially off the main top hinge. You guys enter the building immediately and can see across the way another low-burning torch, a relatively simple chamber with a somewhat curved countertop of some kind

and a table that has a few tools and defense weapons on them. To the left, you see what looks to be almost like a simple dining room table that is not well kept. One of the legs is partially broken and you see these long stools or benches across from it. Immediately, you see another door

that leads to a secondary chamber that leads in the direction of the bedroom that you had seen as you passed by. Do the ghosts react? Oh yeah, they immediately glance over in that direction and you watch as their ghostly forms become less ghostly. Make a perception check for me, if you don't mind. I'm great at these. Natural 20.

Oh boy, you'm great at these. Natural 20. Oh boy! You're great at these. They both drift into the far corners of the chamber, and as they do, you watch as their body changes shape. Instead of the bugbear figures you see, the fur gives way to soft flesh, human-like. You see what appears to be leathery wings emerge from the shoulders

of each of them right as they back into the far shaded corners of the chamber. Let's have a roll initiative, if you don't mind. Oh, shite. You didn't hear any conversation. Okay. Oh shit. Guys, D&D Beyond has a promo code going now. You can either use ISupportSam, I think that was what it was.

No, that's not a code, it's just ISupportLiam. They only have one code. They have two codes. One code. It's ISupportSam or ISupportLiam. Both codes provide a 25% discount off any digital books, full digital books in your cart. Ooh. The Sam one is better.

I think the ISupportSam is actually one point less of a discount. This has been kicked open. It's cooler. You know, no. Who is where at the front of this building? As far as the order goes, if you don't mind. I'm thinking about it.

Caleb is at the rear, just going over spells in his head nervously. Are you in the building, towards the back? The back, wherever, I'm back of everybody. So if Caduceus is outside and behind. Caduceus, where are you? I am right, I'm probably right, and I'm going to push into the corner up there.

Can I see them, where are they? Okay. No, you don't see anything. The door just closed. Okay. I'll be behind Yasha. Beau, you're behind Yasha? I guess I'll just be peeking in the door from outside. I'll be next to Beau. From there? Yeah, that's good.

Okay. Thank you. Jester, where were you? In the room. In relation to the rest of the party. Hey! Anywhere I fit. Anywhere you fit? On a table. Are we next to Yasha over there? Yeah, that's correct. All right.

So there is the sleeping bugbear on the bed there. Very teeny space to fight in. There are the two figures in the chamber, but only Nott sees those. Let's go ahead and get any shit pulled on you guys here. I feel like this place is empty because the bats are still in the woods. Really?

Little M&Ms. That was a lot of dice. Everything else was dice. Everything else. Just a single die. Really? That had like a, that had reverb. Reverb. Turn off the reverb on the Casio if you want. So at that point, I would say initiative wise, 25 to 20, anybody?

I got 20. 20. Nott. All right. 20 to 15. 17. 19. 19 for Jester. 18. All right. 20 to 15. 17. 19. 19 for Jester.

18. All right. Meh. 16. 17 for Ket. Beau, sorry, 16 for Caduceus. You were so stoked about that, didn't you roll well? This was a really good roll for me.

I got plans, man, plans! 15 to 10. Yasha rolled a 14. That's just like your opinion, man. All right. Fjord rolled a four. Got some good spells that really do. Nott, what'd you get? Oh, you got the ear as a pain,

you got the ear as a pain. That's right. All right, and Fjord is holding at the rear. Great, so, Nott, the minute that impact hits and you see the figures on the side, you're the only one who can really see them. You watch as they both curl up and fly into the far corners of shadow,

just waiting around that door. So they're hiding. They're hiding in these upper corners right there. What? You want to do your turn, buddy. Oh boy. Come on. Oh boy.

I could just attack, or I could. Miss is not good. Miss is not. Do you want to attack him? Nope. I'll continue casting Message. It's not. Do you want to attack him? Nope. I'll continue casting Message. Okay. And I will just send a message to Caleb and say,

two in the room, hiding in the ceiling, upper corners when you come through the door. Make an additional stealth check. You are outside of the radius of Jester's spell, so you do not get the plus 10 bonus. This is to see if you can quietly convey that without them noticing. On the next turn? Natural 20.

Oh shit! Wow. Wow. As deftly as you could expect, and practice with message, you sit there and both carefully place the emission of your breath through your lips message, you sit there and both carefully place the emission of your breath through your lips

and keep it below the stone to where none of that sound seems to even barely creep into the chamber through that porthole. They don't take notice. So you finish casting Message to notify Caleb. That's your action. Any movement? No, no movement in. I mean, I'll just stay there, stay there.

Then can I activate, with bonus action, can I activate Mage Hand, just have it? You cast it as a Mage Hand, right? I mean, sorry, as a bonus action? I can. Cast it as action. Yeah, but then I have some other ability. I'll look later. If I can, I will. Okay, well, think about it when I'm on somebody else's turn.

I'm looking at it now, yeah. That's fine. I'll keep later. If I can, I will. Okay, well, think about it when I'm on Zabiel's turn. I'm looking at it now, yeah. That's fine, I'll keep it at bay. All right, so that ends your go, Nott and Jester, you are up next. Okay. I'm going to run forward and open the door. Okay. So low hit points.

And step back. Good. Step back. As much as I can. This way? Yeah. You have five more feet to go there. Okay. I'm going to Invoke Duplicity. All righty. And where are you invoking it?

In front of me, but I'm having her run into the room. Well done. All right. And I'm going to make it look like she's casting a spiritual weapon right in front of her. Sorry about that. Okay. Let me just do a quick reminder glance and if publicity is an interesting, unique,

and strange cleric capability. So bonus action for 50 feet. Use bonus action to control the hand, but I think I need to do an action to use it, to activate it, so forget it. Okay. So you cannot create spell effects around it. Your duplicate begins to look like it's casting a spell, but there are no additional flaring effects

of a spell appearing. I cast spells through the duplicate. I can do that, so I'm casting Spiritual Weapon through the duplicate is all that I meant. So you are casting Spiritual Weapon? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, say you create invocability in here. It's a bonus action to cause it to move.

You can either cast the spell or cause it to move, but you can create it within 30 feet of you, so you'll create it in the room, then. So it will appear. Okay. Okay. I saw flea market, Laura Bailey. So you're choosing to have it appear in the chamber.

Yeah. You watch in the center of the room as suddenly a duplicate gesture illusion just apparates in the center of the chamber. She's looking like, she like bamfed in and she's ready to fight. All right, and then your bonus action is casting Spiritual Weapon where?

She's casting Spiritual Weapon right over the bed, like she's protecting the bed. All right. We'll set it right in that area there. Okay. You do not see any targets, so you have no one to attack with it, but it has been cast.

Okay, can I swing it wildly just to see if it hits anything? Sure, roll an attack. I think there's ghosts in there, so. Okay, go for it, roll an attack. I think there's ghosts in there, so. Okay, go for it, roll an attack. No. No. 11, no. 12.

It swings wildly. Doesn't seem to impact anything, but you know, give it a shot, why not? Might as well try. Yeah, all right, that finishes your go, Jester. Next up is Beau with Caduceus on deck. Beau, what you got? I peek into the room,

peek around the corner with my goggles on. 25. Still stealthily, and I just want to check the room. I'll say perception check, since you're looking specifically for something, go ahead and this will be your bonus action. Ooh, yeah, that's good. 20. perception check since you're looking specifically for something, go ahead and this will be your bonus action. Ooh, yeah, that's good.

20. 20? Nope, sorry, sorry, sorry, 22. 22? Yeah. Okay. You do not see anything but the sleeping bugbear. You glance in, oh no, I'm sorry, you see the sleeping bugbear. You see Jester's spiritual weapon

just swinging wildly over it like some weird Willy Wonka nightmare. And you see the duplicate of Jester in the chamber looking around and making hand motions like it's controlling the spiritual weapon, but that's all you see. And you said that was my action? That was your bonus action.

My bonus action. I will hold my action till I see something in case it comes running out the door. Okay. Attack. You got it. In case you see anything come by, you're going to go ahead and hit it.

You got it. Finishes your go, Beau. Caduceus, you're up. All right. You're still going with the initiative, Caleb. I'm going to, because these things are weird, I'm going to try and position myself so I can get a good look at everybody. I know I can't see Nott, but I'm going to.

You can't see any of these things. You have no idea what happened. No, I want to be able to see our whole party. I know that Beau just moved. Somewhere where I can see Beau. You can see Beau where you are currently. Who's in the room, then? You're right there.

I mean, who's in the other room? In the other room? Nobody. Nobody that you can see has left your side. Okay, so I'm going to just sort of back up a little. I just want to make sure everyone's within 30 feet of me. I'll take a, maybe. Everyone's within 30 feet.

All right, then I'm casting, not that one, that's the wrong thing, where'd it go? Where is my beacon of hope? Beacon of hope! I'm casting beacon of hope. So everybody has advantage on wisdom saving throws. Okay. Except for Nott, sorry. And death saving throws.

And whenever you heal, you heal maximum number of points. Tire. Yeah, no rolling for healing, you heal maximum number of points. Tire. Yeah, no rolling for healing. You got it. All right. Yeah, that's, yeah, other than that, I'm just going to just stay ready. All right, Caleb, you're up. I move along the wall, and as I move,

I whisper harshly, Nott says that there are two things hiding in the ceiling, and I jam a licorice root in my mouth, chew it a bit, weave my hands together, and cast Haste on Beauregard. Yes. Okay. So Beau has hasted, and you are concentrating. You got it.

Beauregard ain't no slow-regard. Okay. Oh wow. No. Suddenly, I thought, don't miss Gettlin'. That's weird. Out of this fuse, let me see. Does not seem to be, at the moment,

taken in by the illusion of Jester's arrival, shifts out of the corner to see who's making this ruckus, flying over to this corner of the chamber, and glancing through, Caleb, I need you to make a wisdom saving throw for me. At advantage. At advantage? Mm-hmm. Good.

Oh, great. That is a 26. 26. Had a feeling. Out of the corner of your eye, you notice... Close to metagaming, but sure. He knew what we were getting into.

Sure. So as you finish casting Haste on Beauregard and watch her muscles begin to pulse with the adrenaline rushing through her system, you glance up and out of the corner of your eye, you see, appear out of the shadows, this beautiful red, almost pinkish skinned male humanoid figure that

drifts through the distant backside of the bedroom area. These leathery red wings that as it pulls back and as it looks at you, it just goes and curls a finger towards it. You feel this presence try and push into your brain and for a minute your eyes lock onto it and there's this drawn sense towards it and you just shake it off with your mind for a second.

No effect. It seems to be frustrated with that reveal and growl and move over to this side of the chamber. Drifting, we'll say stay up here in this corner. There's some gravy. Oh. All right, ending its turn, it moves to Yasha's go. Yeah, Yasha will walk up to the doorway, seeing everyone hesitate, and will post up

just on the side of the doorway, and she will listen. Is there any sort of language being spoken in the room? I'll say, just hearing over, there's no sound. There's like an angry growl as something seems frustrated on the other side of that chamber's door. And did not communicate with just Caleb what he said? No, Caleb just told everybody. Caleb said it very quickly, but.

Said two things on the ceiling. Okay. That's her turn. Okay. End of Yasha's turn as Yasha's glancing up. Over the doorway that's been pushed open, these clawed fingers curl over. These glowing yellow eyes peer over these clawed fingers curl over.

These glowing yellow eyes peer over from this bright red, voluminous lips of some female, almost tiefling-esque from the experiences you've had, definitely a demonic twist, but beautiful, glances over towards Yasha and gives a wink. Yasha, can make a wisdom saving throw for me, please. As the advantage. As the advantage.

Whoa, you suck for her. Mm, that was good. 16. Fuck, man. Okay. 18 and a 17, minus one. Go on ghost hunting, man! Yeah, it's cool, it's cool. That's what Caduceus is good at.

These aren't ghosts. Stupid. Characters with their skills. Yeah, no, they'll it's cool, it's cool. That's what Caduceus is good at. These aren't good with stupid characters with skills. Yeah, no, they'll smash you later, it's fine. I know. All right, so she glances back in an angry, frustrated stare, and the creature, the female entity that's staring out the doorway assesses the moment, looks at the rest of you and goes,

I am not fun. Pushes off and drifts over around this corner in a wide arc and disappears to the other side. You don't even see her. Is she within my range? Nope, she's avoiding the door. So that ends their go. Fjord, you're up.

Yeah, yep. Cool, who's going to be the first one to go in the room, huh? Who's going to be the first? I say we send a cleric in there, that's always funny. I'll cast... Is that an action or a bonus action? It triched blist. Yeah, fuck it, why not?

Let's have some fun. I'll go into the room. Yeah. Don't worry, Fjord, I will protect you. You're in that chamber right there. It's 20 foot there. Thank you, and I will cast a Shadow of Moil on myself.

What is that? Shadow of Moil? I summon the falchion, and you see these black flames ignite at my feet and spiral up around Fjord. That's dope. When I hear moil, my penis shrivels up. All right.

So as Fjord steps through, pushing past the hasted Beau, you watch as the already low-lit chamber darkens around his torso, and where the shadow seems to gather and press itself around the edges of the armor, you see these tendrils drift off, like the shadow itself is leaving these dripping tentacles that then dissipate into a dark dust and then reform across his body

as he steps into the chamber. So that's your action. That's my action. And with my bonus action, can I see either of the two entities in the room? That one had not had an opportunity to stealth, so now that you glance in, you can see now that one is curled up in the corner,

perched up, arms and legs there, and the wings themselves are open and curved around the interior. It's looking straight at you as you enter the chamber. This one right here? This one right here. The one across the way, eyes are on you. The bugbear is still asleep in the bed.

The one across the way itself is similarly perched up, though less aggressive and more gargoyle-esque, just watching you enter. Interesting. I will... Yeah, I'm going to save it. That's it, that's my turn. Okay. That brings us to Nott.

You're up first. Oh, my go. Okay. I will fire my... Is Fjord in melee range? Well, I'm still hidden, so I will take a sneak attack, I think. Possibly, against which one? On the one next to Fjord.

Sure, go for it. Pretty good, pretty good. Let's say that that's a 28 to hit. 28 to hit, that'll definitely hit. And that deals, is it sneak attack? It is sneak attack, it was not aware of your presence. Great. 26 points of damage.

Woo, nervous. And then, does it see me now, I guess? It is very aware of your presence. As you leap up behind and fire the bolt, as she hisses at you, you watch as the very beautiful, slender, smooth features of the face momentarily stretch into this awful

demonic visage before retracting once more. Should I help the bugbear or should I just, I don't care about the bugbear. I will bonus action hide. I'm just going to duck back down under the window. Go for it. Stealth 22. 22, all righty.

So you believe that you are stealth? I do believe that. That finishes Nott's go. Jester, you're up. Okay, I'm going to send my duplicate forward to the guy hiding in the corner. Over there? Uh-huh. Okay, the duplicate's going to have, he's up in the corner of the room about 10 feet up.

It can try and attempt to leap and cast a spell if it wants to. Okay. What do you want to do? It's going to, isn't it, I mean, does the duplicate walk on the ground or if I want to move it up? It doesn't have a fly speed, so it does. Okay.

Is the girl on the ground? Next to Fjord. No, she's up in the corner. To be a little more specific, I mean, it's adjacent to Fjord technically, but she's more up. She's up. They're both up in the corner perched. Okay, okay specific, I mean, it's adjacent to Fjord, technically, but she's more up, they're both up in the corner. Okay, okay, okay. Then yeah, the duplicate's going to jump up and try to tap the guy on the cast Inflict Wounds

at third level. Go for it. Wow. Toenail's coming off. Look at that roll. That was indecisive. 15 plus eight. 15 plus eight, nice, that definitely hits. Woo!

That's five d10. Five d10? What? That's not legal. 17, 19, 25. That's four. Wait, there's more. 26.

26 points of necrotic damage. Oof. That's fun. So as the duplicate reaches up and grasps at the toe, the entity is focused currently on this shadowy form that is gathering around Fjord's body. It glances down just in time to see the illusion move and looks angrily down before it taps the toe

and withdraws even further up, almost exorcist crawling up into the corner even further, hitting the ceiling itself, which slightly shifts upward, causing Dest to settle. Right as he does that, I use my bonus action to swing the spiritual weapon up and smack him up into the corner. Spiritual weapon shifts up and now,

Pinsir attacking both Illusionary Jester and the spiritual weapon going towards the center. That probably is as it hits the leaven. Leaven does not hit. As it swings towards it, it actually ducks out of the way, the wings lifting with a cushion of air, sending dust and loose hair that has been shed by the bugbear

to drift up from the floor of the chamber. In doing so, the spiritual weapon swings out ahead and slams into one of the top boards that supports the ceiling. You watch as the wood cracks from the impact. I'm going to scooch back. Huh? Scooch back here? Yeah.

The one next to the floor. And into the corner, so I can like, yeah. All right, step up onto the table to do that. Okay. All right, so you clamber up onto the dining room table and step off in the corner, holding yourself there. Kind of like them. There you go. That's Jester's turn.

Next up is Beau, what are you doing? Okay, I'm going to do a little roll past Fjord very epically to get into the room. Baraka. Then I'm going to pop up and I'm going to hit the one next to Fjord first. All right, so you turn a roll past into the chamber. You've seen it peek out and then dash into the corner

as you rush and you have enough movement to glance up, see it adjust, and then leap to try and grasp or attack it, what are you going to do? Vault off the wall a little bit and I'm going to go for a kidney shout. Kidney shout. Kidney shout. That extra action, does that mean I get two additional attacks with these, or just one?

No, it's one weapon attack. One weapon attack, okay. First two attacks. That's a natural 19 for the first one, and a nine for the other, making it a 17. Yeah, both hit. Okay. I said my elbow, I'll do these with,

probably need magical anyway, I'm going to do these with my fists. Okay, 10 damage, and then another six for 16. All right, 16 points of damage. One more attack with hasted, that's 18. 18 hits. Rolls. And eight damage. Eight damage, nice.

Flurry of Blows. All right. It's a natural 17 for the first one and a two for the other one. The two misses, but the 17 does. 10 damage and Extract Aspects. I kind of... Extract Aspects. Extract Aspects. I grab her wrist Extract Aspects. Extract Aspects.

I grab her wrist and I get her in a wrist lock and try and concentrate on her pulse and see what I can determine. Okay, as you do that, you feel your ki press into this creature, and as your life essence merges with it, there's a slight burning sensation from the impact, and you instinctually withdraw, but as you do,

you also get a sense of its physicality. It has no vulnerabilities or condition immunities or damage immunities, but it is resistant to cold, fire, lightning, poison? Resistant. Yes. To cold, fire, lightning, poison. And bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing

from non-magical weapons, which you notice as your unarmed strikes are not quite doing as much damage as you hoped. No, my punches are magical. Oh, that's right, they are. Yeah, that's why I decided to not attack with the staff. You're right. You're fine. So that was all full damage.

Yeah, you're good. So, okay. Remember that now before you switch. I just turn to the room and I say, they're resistant to a lot of shit. There you go. Cool. Thanks. Good conveyance. Helps a lot. High fantasy.

Yeah. Yeah, that, for, Ghost Puncher. Based on, oh yeah, the quickness of the statement, the vagueness of the statement, probably didn't learn much yet, but we'll move on from that. All right, that finishes your go, Beau?

Yeah. Caduceus, you're up. I'm going to also come around so I can see into the room. I'll probably, if I can get in front of Jester, not quite that close, but like there. Can I see anything that's going on, or can I not really? You glance in and you can see Fjord

and some weird curling shadows and a little bit of Jester's illusion, and that's it. All right, I'm going to send my beetles in there because I don't think that's a good room for me. Okay. That's a bonus action. I'm going to send my beetles. So I'm going to activate the Blightstaff.

You put the beetles up here and there. Visually, you have nowhere to send them. I'm just shooting them all the way into the farthest reaches of the room that I can. That you can see? Yeah, that I can see. All right, so the beetles fly down and begin to envelop the nightstand structure next to the sleeping bugbear.

The bugbear, you can see, is like, and looks over and sees this cloud of beetles and land next to it. And then for fun, if I can, if I can take a copper piece and cast Light spell on that and throw that in there, is it dark in there? There's very, very faint ember burning on the wall. I'll light this room up.

Okay. I'm going to take a copper piece and cast Light Island. Throw it in there? Can you? This single coin comes lobbing into the room, end over end, and then suddenly releases this bright torchlight as it lands and in the corner, definitely wakes up the bugbear,

Umadon, and the room is now well lit. Now you can see, other than Fjord, which the shadows still seem to cling to him, this weird void of light in the space where he's standing, but now between the two creatures that are up in the corners of the wall, you can see the long shadows, their wings, and their bodies are casting across the ceiling

and the area of the wall around them. They both hiss over in the direction of this coin. I'll back up as much as I can with what's remaining of my arm. You've only got about five feet. Yeah, I've only got like five feet. All right. That finishes your go, Caduceus?

Yep, yep, yep. Caleb, you're up. Okay, so walking towards the door, I pull an adder's stomach out of my pocket and draw it back and a shimmering green arrow appears next to me and I let it go towards the fuckboy in the upper corner on that side. Go ahead and roll an attack. Adder's stomach?

14 plus, that is shite. Shite, shite, shite, shite, shite. 14 plus five, 19 to hit. 19 does hit, yeah. Okay, and the damage. Ah, what did I do? D&D Beyond is 44. Okay, so it takes 44 acid damage immediately

and then some more at the end of its turn. So it gets two, four, six, ten points of acid damage. Nice. So as you release it, it's hissing at the gold coin and the light that's emerging from it. It doesn't have a chance to see you as you enter the doorway, and as you release this arcane arrow of condensed greenish energy,

it flies forward and bursts across its shoulders and chest. You watch as acid begins to burn and scar across its demonic flesh. It tries to rub it off with its hands, but then it burns its hands, and its wings are now keeping it aloft as it's focused on the pain of this now burning into its body. And I will use the last five to ten of my movement

to just swing like a door and press myself out of its view in this room next to Yasha against the wall, out of its view in this room, next to Yasha, against the wall, out of its sight. Done. All right. So that finishes your go. Both of these creatures now, one burning, the male figure up in the corner, like, looks over at the other one, and there's a moment where they both go,

and look and nod to each other. You watch as the male figure, his body suddenly returns that somewhat ghostly, ethereal blue tint to it. The acid just falls off of its body and plummets, hitting the boxes and the ground of this chamber. The wood begins to slowly burn and wither away from beneath it.

It begins to move and shift out of this door. Step out this way. Do I get an attack of opportunity on it? Yeah, go for it. Roll an attack. Sentinel attack. Fuck. 12. 12.

You swing and your fist passes through its body. No effect. Because of the new form, I assume invulnerable to acid now. The acid seemed to pass through its body. No effect. And because of the new form, I assume invulnerable to acid now. The acid seemed to pass through its body and is no longer taking the ongoing effect. So with that, it moves out of sight. You are uncertain.

Did Nott get an attack of opportunity on that? Or did she pass? No, I mean across the room. Oh, you're on the other one, okay, never mind. With that, it's Yasha's go. Oh, the other one doesn't go as well? Just that one? Yasha's in between the two. They have separate initiatives.

Yasha will come inside the room and unleash the Magician's Judge at the other one that's up in the corner. Currently, Yasha can't get to it. Beau and you are blocking the spaces to get within melee. Oh, that's unfortunate. It is. She tries to enter the chamber and it's too crowded.

Yeah, she'll hold her attack. And that's her turn. She would like to, nah, she's not going to rage. Yeah, fuck it, she would like to rage. All right, so she comes corner angrily. Ugh! Bursts into a rage and having the weapon at the ready, She's not going to rage. Yeah, fuck it, she would like to rage. All right, so she comes to the corner angrily. Bursts into a rage, and having the weapon at the ready, is preparing for it to come in close enough

for a big old swing away strike. All right, now comes the other creature's turn. Watching that one vanish in the nod of the head, that other one sees Yasha at the ready, you below, just rolling shadows around your body, you right below, just ready to go ahead and open up another can of whoop-ass on it. Flash.

The body shifts back into that same semi-translucent blue form and darts out of the doorway. That's a natural ability they have, not a spell or anything? Seems to be, maybe. You can attack opportunity, Beau does not, because you've already used your reaction.

Oh, nice, cool. You've learned a new set of techniques. 19 to hit. 19. That would hit, and as you swing with your blade, passes through no effect. Wow. Did you roll a 19?

As it darts out the window and then vanishes out of sight beyond that window frame. So Fjord, your turn. Yeah, okay. With my bonus action, because I can see out the window, I will Misty Step in the direction that they seem to have disapparated. All righty.

And Harry Potter, it is. 30, you appear there. All right, 10. And Harry Potter, really, isn't it? Okay, 30. You appear there. All right, so what you do notice, there we go. And this one is in the process of flying and diving down into the well. Are they ethereal still, or are they? They are. Okay.

Not that you would know. No, no, no, I was just saying. But yeah, they are. Fjord, what are you doing? I will advance on them 30 feet. You there? Yeah, that's not so bad. I will take two swipes at,

my Inmele of Both or just the one? Are they still translucent? Yes, they are. Your Inmele of Both, the one that's in the well technically does have half cover because it is in the process of leaping down inside, so the well is partially obscuring its body. I don't know what the point is. They're fucking, they're vapor.

Yeah, I'll take one swipe at the one that's next to me that's not in the well. Go for it. 23. 23. No effect. Oh man. You get the sense with each strike that you can see them, they're there, but it's like they're not there. It's this weird in between.

Cool. Yep, I'll say fuck you! All right, that finishes Fjord's go. Nott? I'll run around the corner. You glance around after watching them vanish through the doorway, and then Fjord giving chase, you turn around and you can see them all clustered right around the well

in the far corner of this area. I will dash over there. The rest of the movement here would be five, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 35, and then you can bonus action dash. Bonus action dash. 10, 15, 20, 25. Hey!

Hey! Next to Fjord. I don't know what they can do. I'll try to cast a spell on one of them. Mm-hmm. Okay. I guess. I cast a spell on one of them. Mm-hmm. Okay. I guess. I cast a spell on you. Um. Woo-hoo!

I will cast Tasha's Hideous Laughter on one of them. Yeah! Which one? The one that is not in the well, no, the one that's in the well already. Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. All right. Cork the bottle. You rush up, your hands forming the incantation.

You watch as these faint little lines of arcane runes emanate from your fingertips as you draw in the air and release it towards the one that's diving down the well. I'm going to say, what happens when a moorbounder enters a feline beauty contest? It's a cat-tastrophe! Oh my god.

Do we all take psychic damage? I think all the viewers, us at the table, we all take psychic damage. It's a point of exhaustion. Most powerful spell. The energy the spell's released, however, the area where the spell takes effect does not seem to share the same space as the creature is released, however, the area where the spell takes effect does not seem to share the same space

as the creature you intended, and the arcane net of its effect has none. Well, then I'll just use the rest of my little bit of movement and just jump up on the side of the well, ready to pounce. Got it, you're right up there. All right, Jester, you're up.

Okay, I'm going to turn around. I'm going to run out the door and try to chase after them. Okay. Five, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30. That's your 30 feet of movement. I'm going to, I guess my spiritual weapon will follow me. 10, 10, 10, 15, 20, that's as far as I can get.

Can it go out the window? If you can see where it's going, but you have to have visual perspective on where to send it. If you wanted to. I could leave it in the room until I see around the corner and then I'll bring it out with me? You can do that. Okay, I'll do that.

Okay, so instead you have it here, right? So it's your action to get there. Yeah. And then? As you're moving to get there, you have your action and your bonus action. Oh, right. I don't think, I'll use my action to double. Dash? Yeah.

Okay. Five, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30. We'll say you put your eye on the corner there, and then you can use your bonus action to five, 10, 15, 20. Yeah, to chase it. There you go. That's your turn. That brings us to Beauregard.

Can I jump through the window? You can jump through. Squeeze, squeeze. Double speed. Double speed. Trinity. 10, I'm not going to make you roll for it. As a hasted action, squeeze. Double speed. Double speed. Trinity. 10. I'm not going to make you roll for it. As a hasted action, and you're a slender figure anyway,

you just dive through, come to a roll, and back to your feet. Old school Superman serious-talk move. She ain't no slow regard. 45. Oh! Look at her go regard. Oh no, Sam, no! No.

No, please, please! No more! Sam, double speed, that's your movement. You still have your action and bonus action. Ugh. Oh my god. What am I going to do with these people? I can't punch them.

Try talking to them. You hear Jester shout behind you. Try talking to them! People are trying to stop me. I say in deep speech. Deep speech. What I can remember from Latin class. I say, what do I say? Um.

What'd you say? I say, I don't think you want to run from us. Okay. Sel, you want to do that. Okay. Halt. Make a persuasion check, or this would be intimidation. Make it some intimidation.

17. Okay. As you see, the one that's diving down is now just heading out of view. The secondary one that's looking off the side looks towards you with a grin and doesn't move its lips, but a voice in your head says, I'm sorry, I don't know what you're saying.

Fargo. But please, come play and follow. No. Beauregard? Yes? I'll say that whole exchange will be at your action, your bonus action. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Okay, your turn? All right, your bonus action. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, your turn? All right, Caduceus. Full runaround with both action and movement as far as I can get. 30. 30, you're right in the corner right next to Beau's. I will also, for my bonus, I will tell my swarm to head out the window and find those people.

They're 30. They're 20, I believe, actually. Oh, 20? They are in the window right there. As they move, you hear as the now somewhat lucid bugbear denizen of this chamber is wondering what the fuck is happening and is now watching a cloud of beetles

just scatter across his visual range and completely engulf the ceiling and window area of his bedroom. Oh my god. My duplicate is just smiling at him really creepily. He's like, Don't let the bed bugbears bite. No. Every, just one after the other. Don't let the bed bugbears bite.

Every, just one after the other. What's happening? You got to leave and come back in. Yeah. You need a short rest to like. I do. Apparently. All right, that finishes Caduceus' go.

Caleb, you're up. Yeah, I grab the leather strip tied around my thigh and mutter a few arcane words and bring up mage armor and enter the room and look out that window, because I don't know what's going on yet fully, and stick my head out and see what's going on and say, what is the plan, what are we doing? And that's the end of my turn.

Okay, you look out there and there is nobody there and you hear them for a second, you just hear crickets? Or are you looking out this window? I'm at the bug window. Okay. Sorry, enter this room, look out there. I was interested. So you go out there and it is just like

a cloud of insects and you slowly push your head through and you feel it across your face. You open your mouth to talk and one of them, you're like, why does this one get to spit one out? It finds its way into my hand. Wait! And that's the end of my spell.

The advantage of the Caleb's go. The male fiendish creature finishes the descent down into the well and vanishes from view. Do we get an attack of uproar? It doesn't matter. From there, that brings us to Yasha's turn. Yeah, Yasha will... Jesus.

Yeah, she can't push past the beetles and Caleb and get out the window, can she? She can, she wants to. She shoved the wizard through. Yeah, fuck it, she's going American gladiators through the window. Laura Bailey traps his face. What's the plan?

All of a sudden you just get pushed down and Yasha just muscles through the window. Laura Bailey traps his face. What's the plan? All of a sudden, you just get pushed down and Yasha just muscles through the window. Some of the beetles get crushed against the sides of the porthole, and Yasha's bigger than Beau. So as Beau can dive through, Yasha's like, has to squeeze through and lands on the opposite side. That's her movement. She still has, she actually has 10 more feet of movement. She still has, oh, she actually has

10 more feet of movement. She's a barbarian. Yeah, she'll dash and catch up to the rest. All right, and so you guys have all found the Outskirts. At the end of Yasha's turn, the other fiendish creature dives into the well and as she goes, gives a wink and blows a kiss

and disappears into the shaded well below. So they are no longer visible. Fjord, your turn. Well, this feels like a trap. I'm going to wait for our group to catch up. Okay. 12 seconds later, everyone managed to gather. Circling around, staring down the hole.

As you all gather around the outside, the beetles overhead, you hear this voice behind go, What is going on? You look through the window and you see this half-dazed, very confused, scared-looking bugbear, a familiar one to you, peeking through going, Get your head back in that window! Of course, sorry!

And slowly backs into the bedchamber. Well. Okay. Come on! I'll bring my duplicate over while we're... Let's go! Well, I mean, where are we going? Down in there to the rift and the portal? Yes! We're just going to seal it up.

I don't know. She said she wanted proof. How are we going to show proof that we sealed a portal? Let me take a picture. You got a cell phone? What? You can draw. I don't know.

We can't just sit here. This is what we came for. Yeah, all right. Are you a coward suddenly? Yeah, I'll climb down and do it. I'm going down. Okay. Just try to be patient as fuck. Okay, you're climbing down together?

Yeah. You want to jump? I can make us jump. Sure. Just try to be patient, fuck. Okay, you're climbing down together? Yeah. You want to jump? I can make us jump. Sure. 30 feet. Jump with me. Okay. Feather fall. Okay, you both leap, one after the other,

and then drift down. That's nice. Gently, you can see the surface of the water below. You begin to approach and approach, and that last second, you push off the back of the well and make your way towards that opening. It's not very big, and while you go ahead and squeeze through, Fjord, you wedge yourself halfway in.

Your head and one arm and part of a knee in there, and the other half of your body's like, Try to pull you through. It's a tight fit. I'll wiggle it. Make an acrobatics check. and half your body's like, trying to pull you through. It's a tight fit. I'll wiggle it. Make an acrobatics check. Nope. You are wedged, you are Winnie the Pooh

trying to exit Rabbit's house right now. Do you need some help? Well, the hole is plugged. You can go home. I'm going to crawl down the well and try to push him through. I'm going to pull. Okay.

Ow! You can go ahead and make a strength check with advantage because Nott is helping you. That one's cocked. Not that it, wow. Yeah, it doesn't matter. 10. 10? You push and push and push.

You do manage to eventually force Fjord through. Your torso is caught up on a jagged piece of exposed earth. And you do take two points of piercing damage as you are forced through the opening and then find yourself on the opposite side. As you land all hands and knees onto the ground, a bit of the kicked up dust also has remnants of that strong sulfurous smell

to accompany the long forgotten dust and a bit of that musty, wet earth. The rest of you guys? I'm going to wait for Yasha to see if she can open up the hole a little bit. Yeah, I'm going to wait and look down and I'm going to see what happens. We've taken a few moments here, right?

Yes. So a wave of exhaustion hits you just for five seconds and then passes. Your Beacon of Hope lasts for? One minute's probably gone now. Yeah, all my stuff is gone. I'll say that the Beals probably have returned to their. They have.

All right. Can I start kicking at the holeles probably have returned to their. I'll encourage that. All right. Can I start kicking at the hole to try to open it up? Sure. So you go down before Yasha, or you're already right there after pushing Fjord in. I was bracing my back and pushing through with my legs on him, so I'm just going to keep kicking with my feet to try to open the hole up.

Make an additional strength check for me, please. Whoa, jeez. Wow. That was aggressive. Is there a bucket on this one, or is it just an open hole? This one has a bucket, yes. Got a rope? Yeah. Well, it has a chain.

14. Which is what everyone's using to lower themselves down. 14, you push off and kick once. A second time, and a third time, as you put all of your weight and your armored feet into it, the stone crumbles in a bit

and you end up widening it by another foot and a half or so. Hey! From that impact, you get caught up and you kick off and then come back and you find yourself in the well again, but it's in big enough space where it's not an issue. You're a little smaller than, although actually, no, your frames are fairly similar, though you're shorter. But without issue, you manage to push your way through.

I'm going to look around. Anybody watching us? Make a perception check. What's it look down there, too? What do we see? Well, I'll get to that in just a minute. 12. 12, looking around you this time of night, it's hard to tell.

You don't see anyone paying major attention other than the Umadon, the bugbear that is currently peeking through the window and looks extremely frightened by what's going down. Put your face back in that window! Yeah. Go to bed! Back to bed. Pokes back in the interior.

Back to bed, bugbear. I can see you looking. All right, and then you. I'm looking around, just what do we see in front of us? You can make a perception check as well. You don't want to. 16. 16, okay.

Behind this gap, you see a narrow tunnel that seems to snake forward in a downward motion, roughly 10 to 15 feet wide at maximum, and it curves out of sight about 25 feet ahead of you. It turns and then curves downward and out of the way. You can see this chamber is natural, it seems, that this well was buttressed against it in its construction, and the texture of the ground is very moist.

Whatever source of this groundwater is nearby seems to either at one point may have created part of this cavern and carved it through, or was sealed as part of the construction of this well. You do see pieces of rock and stone and natural mineral that long ago did form into hanging stalactites. You can see elements of white and gray

and yellowish minerals that have gathered in rings across the base to the tip of these at different stages. Looking at it, because you have darkvision, it doesn't help too much, but a little bit of light seems to poke in from upstairs. You get a point of reference to see that they are all, there's moisture on these stones. There's a bit of glistening reflection to them.

I'll convey some of that to the rest of the people. Okay. Heading down as well. Look at Jester up in the way. It's the hardest for you to get in, just from a sheer volume standpoint. But with your friends, you do like a one, two, three, pull, and they hoist Caduceus into the interior.

And I figure they know we're coming, so light's not a terrible idea. Go for it. The light fills the interior of the chamber, and you all can see this probably long-forgotten, condensed, but strangely beautiful cavernous chamber in the tunnel ahead that curves. I'll turn invisible and run down the hall.

Okay, so you cast Invisibility on yourself, perfect. Stealthily run. You guys just watch Nott just vanish from sight. The shadow fades a while ago. Okay. Probably heading that direction, unless anybody's got anything they want to say. When I could feel their essence, I don't know,

it was like their blood was made of all of the chemicals or the elements ever. I think that's where they get their resistances from. Ghosts. They're just resistant to everything? Like elemental and magic and poison. They felt cold but hot at the same time. I don't know.

Still trying to work this out. No, yeah, I mean, you just learned stuff. Nott just ran up that tunnel, so we should head that direction as well. All right, you guys take this information in. Communally, form a deep breath, and begin to make your chase after the invisible knot as the tunnel curves to a downward left motion

into the further darkness to wherever this leads below the city of Viserys. That's where we're going to pick up the sword. Yeah! Bastards. Damn it, nothing hits them when they're like that? What the fuck? How can we kill them?

Try some ghost stuff. Or the power of music. The power of... It's the power of love! We could Rick Roll them. That's true. It always happens. Always dangerous.

It's so weird. Oh boy, guys. Oh man. What a week. What an amazing week. This week is crazy. Yeah. Yeah. This is crazy. So. Yeah. This is crazy.

So much. Thank you guys. Thank you all for your amazing support for this. We're super excited to put this together and bring it to you. Thank you for just being part of this incredible community, for coming and being a part of this game, for making your own games.

Once again, please take this positive energy that you've used to support us and going forward, do your best to pay it forward to all the wonderful people in this community that don't have the platform that we do. We'll continue to do the same on our end, best we can, but keep an eye out for all these fantastic people with great ideas, great designs, great art,

and great things to bring to this space and help lift them up as well. So we love you guys very much. We will be at Emerald City Comic Con next week. I forgot to mention this earlier. That's right, that's yeah. 16th and the 17th, that is next week, we'll be there. Our panels will be livestreamed,

so keep an eye on curable.com for all the information, as well as the Twitter account for more info on when and how you can see those. And a reminder, Daylight Savings Time starts this Sunday. For those of us that deal with that, because some countries are still behind the times. Meaning us. If you don't know what that is,

you should Google it and laugh. And laugh that we still do this in places. On a weekend. Oh. Oh no. It's going to be hilarious. It's always fine, isn't it? Aren't you, we're already exhausted.

What's the difference? It's true. This week has been a perpetual out-of-body experience, and we're still figuring out how to be corporeal. Kind of like the creatures that you just encountered. Look at that timing. That was unintentional, but here we are. I feel that.

Anyway, we love you guys very much. Have a wonderful week and weekend, and is it Thursday yet? Good night. And this concludes the current chapter of Critical Role. Your essays on the history and impact of the various ages and epochs of Exandria are eagerly

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