Critical Role - C2E65 Chases and Trees

Episode Date: June 6, 2019

The Mighty Nein continue their trudge through the Barbed Fields, and find beauty and shelter in an unlikely corner...Watch Critical Role live Thursdays at 7pm PT on https://www.twitch.tv/criticalrole

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

Yeah! The evolution of that still escapes me. Yes, welcome. Before we jump into tonight's game, we do have some announcements to get through. First and foremost, our fantastic returning sponsors, two of them for the evening. First, our friends since the beginning of the campaign,

two, D&D Beyond. Sam. Hi, everybody. I'm still a little bit adjusting in shock tonight. You're very. I had this whole thing planned for D&D Beyond. I was going to play a character named Timmy the Tiger, the copyright-conscious breakfast tiger. And I had this whole schtick planned

because available for the first time digitally on D&D Beyond starting July 4th is Hunt for the Thessalhydra. Hunt for the Thessalhydra, which is great, or as Timmy the tiger would say, it's groovy, because he's copyright-conscious. Timmy was also going to tell everyone to join their friends for this all new short D&D adventure created with the help of Mike Wheeler

from Stranger Things himself, because it's groundbreaking. Timmy the Tiger. You're so stupid. Timmy the Tiger was also going to mention that D&D Beyond is hiring again. A variety of open positions can be found on their website right now. Apply and you could earn yourself some greenbacks,

but I can't do that whole bit because of a political bombshell in the campaign for D&D Beyond president has dropped. For weeks, I have been wondering why the O'Brien Johnson campaign has been surging ahead in the polls. Was it because of Mr. O'Brien's, O'Brien Johnson campaign has been surging ahead in the polls. Was it because of Mr. O'Brien's... O'blien?

O'Brien! O'blien, that's a great nickname. Was it because of his slick, fascist campaign video? Was it because of Ms. Johnson's libelous, insulting roast? Or was it something else, someone else pulling the strings? I couldn't prove it, but I suspected some sort of conspiracy was afoot, so I turned to the one person I knew had access to all the information. Someone who knew all the players, the communications, the passwords, who could learn the secrets

of Critical Role Land. I turned to Marisha Ray. Tonight, for the first time ever on any RPG show, we deliver a scathing investigative report, a scandal that might upend this entire race and send the tabletop world into uncharted territory. Tonight, she delivers the Marishaller Report. Oh wow. What anime is this?

Thank you, Candidate Regal. As you said, I am Marisha-ler report. Oh wow. What anime is this? Thank you, Candidate Regal. As you said, I am Marisha Ray. Careful, careful. Creative director here, and also Critical Role's official special prosecutor. Now, when Candidate Regal approached me about investigating his rival,

I thought it was just still a desperate attempt to salvage his ego-driven candidacy. But when I started digging, I discovered lies, deception, illegal campaign donations. What? No. And coordination with foreign powers. Impossible.

That are at least troubling and at most impeachable offenses. If everyone will allow me. Yes, please. We don't do that here. Oh, and what does Kiasify do? I didn't write this. I have a lot of assistants that do things for me. I'm very high. Right, no, respect.

Oh, yeah, yeah, I love that. Let the farce continue. High on the chain of command. Keep going, keep going. Anyway, if it pleases the table, I submit as evidence, Exhibit One, the phone call. What? What happened? I think you have to settle these.

I submit as evidence, Exhibit One, the phone call. Days after the notorious Johnson roast, my subject, Mr. O'Brien, took a phone call on Critical Role Set. Now we don't normally record phone calls of cast members, of course, and we don't have access to the entire call,

but Critical Role set microphones did pick up Lee inside of it. We had just finished recording Crit Recap. Things were still going. Anyway, listen, just judge for yourself. Play the tape. Yes. Yes, I'm alone.

You saw our D&D Beyond spot? It was perfect. So mean. The script you wrote absolutely killed. Ashley was on fire. I kind of feel bad for Sam, actually. No, no, you're right, of course.

This is all business. No, Sherlock, I'm not getting cold feet. I won't let my friendship get in the way of our plan. Oh, shit. Shit, I smell cabbage. I think Brian just walked in the studio. I gotta go. Yeah. Wow. Yeah.

Wow. Yeah. A plan, Sherlock. But who was Liam talking to? I had to dig deeper. Me and my team, we pored over emails, texts, we sifted through the trash, took blood samples, probably illegal, spoke to witnesses,

and then we stumbled onto exhibit two, the photograph. While combing through Chris Lockheed's cast photos, I noticed something strange about one in particular. What the fuck is going on? You see, this photo was taken when everyone was chipping in for a food delivery service. According to our informants, Liam ordered a vegan bowl with a side of tofu and kale,

objectively a truly disgusting meal, but one designed to maintain his rugged handsomeness and oddly muscular physique. This photo snapped when Liam opened his wallet to pay. Yeah, it doesn't seem strange at first. Until you zoom closer and enhance. Oh! What?

Who is that? I mean, that's a witch. It could be a picture of anybody. That's, wow. Soak it in. Why is Liam's wallet filled with British pounds? What is this bit? Is there some sort of international connection here?

Exactly who is bankrolling the O'Brien Johnson campaign? I had to go deeper. So you see, as I continued to dig, What? I kept going. I dug deeper. I'm a woman on a mission. Stop, stop, stop, stop.

Nothing happens in the studio without me knowing about it, O'Brien. The fuck are you people doing to me right now? If you have nothing to hide, then you have nothing to fear, right? But I contend that you do have something to hide. I present Exhibit Three, the Hidden Cameras. Shortly after the Wall-In incident,

I set up a series of hidden cameras in the back of the studio. Cameras? Call it a hunch. We've got a lot of cameras. Hello? Super convenient. Sure enough, late one night, they recorded a conversation between one Liam O'Brien and a gentleman codenamed Sherlock.

Is this going to be available on the podcast, Sherlock? We've since identified this man to be none other than Mark Hulmes. Oh, that's ridiculous. That Mark Hulmes from the British D&D streaming show High Rollers. He was just here. Yep, yep. A man who is posed as a friend, but is he really?

Is he really? Roll the tape. Stinky Wizard, is it safe to talk? Yes, Sherlock. Everyone's practicing puppet voices for Yeehaw Game Ranch right now. Usually. Takes an hour or two if they think it's hilarious. My God, they're stupid.

So after you win the D&D Beyond election, you remember your mission? I know what I have to do, Sherlock. Convert the D&D Beyond app to the British system of weights and measurements. But, I mean, won't that be confusing? Nobody knows what a stone is and what it weighs. Don't question me, O'Brien. I'm paying for your entire campaign. I paid for your launch video.

I paid to rig the election polls. I paid for thousands of bots to post hashtag Liam for president on Twitter. Just remember, you're nothing without me. You could never beat Sam. He's clearly the most charismatic of the two of you. Do you really want me to cut you off? No, Sherlock. It's just... You really want D&D Beyond app to change all vests to waistcoats? All carts to lorries?

All uniforms to kits? You want me to change every time it says counterclockwise to anticlockwise? Yes. Yes, I do. I want to change it all. I want to change your stupid American Zs to Zeds. I want to put the U back in color and valor and parlor. I want it all. Yeah, but why? Because I'm mad. Mad with power. I won't stop until all of D&D Beyond is using proper, appropriate British phrasing.

Fine. But I'm running low on cash. Oh, you've been a jolly good chap. I'll send you a few farthings. What the hell is a farthing? No one knows. That's the beauty of it. Just remember, you work for me. Destroy Sam Riegel, win the presidency, and then do what I tell you. Yes, sir. Goodbye.

Uh, uh, uh. I think you mean... Oh, sorry. I meant to... Pip-Pip Cheerio. Bonne chasse. So there you have it. Okay. Bombshell. So there you have it. Cold hard evidence. I make no judgment, it's up to the people. But it was my duty to show the world the truth.

I rest my case. Well, that was impressive, thorough. Thank you. Legitimate. Yeah. I haven't worked for three weeks. All I can say is, that's our D&D Beyond ad for the night. Matt, over to you.

Thank you, Sam. And thank you, D&D Beyond, for being so tolerant of everything. I don't know what's going on here, but you all will hear from my lawyers. I don't know anything about this. You'll get a chance to respond next week, but let's let the people digest this bombshell. There needs to be some,

I have a lot to think about after that. Max, let's put this through the shredder. I don't know if I'm going to be wearing a wig or not. That's true. Our second sponsor tonight. Our fantastic friends at Eldritch Foundry. Eldritch Foundry! They're sponsoring this episode.

Once again, they are a crew of amazing critters. They have created a system for fully customizable 3D printed miniatures for your home games. Here's an example of one of their awesome prints. Cool! Right there. Oh shit! Yes! What?

It's pretty badass. We're not fighting that monster, are we? High quality miniatures are sleek. They look awesome, as you can see. Each race is distinct and different from one another. In success of this whole scenario with their Kickstarter campaign, they are planning to work with local gaming stores as well,

so it's not just an online opportunity for you to seize. Their ongoing Kickstarter campaign can be found at critrole.com slash eldritchfoundry, and has just one more week to go before it finishes, so check it out and be a part of it if you can. Thanks. Now we're going to perform all of Canter and be a part of it if you can. Thanks. Now we're going to perform all of Canterbury Tales as part of this hot championship promotion.

I think that is the plan, yeah. You guys made a 15 minute short film about it, didn't you? Yeah. Experimental short videos? They let us on the internet. Like, they'll, like, that, I'm just. Automatically disqualified from all award contention. I can't even make the joke that we have too much free time

because we don't. Which is why it's more surprising that that shit gets made. You're okay over yourselves. A few more announcements, bear with me. The Tales of Equestria one-shot. Oh, yes! My Little Pony one-shot being run by our Moriarty, Mark Humes, from the video, is airing tomorrow night,

May 31st, at 7 p.m. Pacific on our Twitch channel here. VOD will be made available immediately for our Twitch channel subscribers and will be on our YouTube channel Sunday morning. So if you miss it tomorrow night, it'll be there Sunday for you waiting. Next Monday, June 3rd, we have a very special one-off episode of Between the Sheets

with our own lovely Ashley Johnson. Ashley! I forgot about that! That's on this Monday? This Monday. Hey, how about it? Amen. 7 p.m. Pacific on Monday on our Twitch channel, where you are right now. We also, I guess, wow,

we launched our official Instagram account. Oh yeah! That happened. Finally! Finally! Finally! Go ahead and give us a follow at critical__ roll on Instagram. And we are preparing tomorrow morning to fly ourselves out to Denver, Colorado

for this weekend's Denver Pop Culture Con. We have a limited autograph and photo tickets available at denverpopculturecon.com if you're looking to come make it out there, see if you can grab what's left on there, and we look forward to seeing you guys there shortly. That took less than the first bit.

But here we are. All right, guys, unless we have anything else planned, let's go ahead and jump into tonight's episode of Critical Role. Roll the dice, roll the dice, roll the dice, roll the dice, roll the dice, roll the dice, roll the dice, roll the dice, roll the dice, roll the dice, roll the dice, roll the dice, roll the dice, roll the dice, roll the dice, roll the dice, roll the dice, roll the dice, roll the dice, roll the dice, roll the dice, roll the dice, roll the dice, roll the dice, roll the dice, roll the dice, roll the dice, roll the dice, roll the dice, roll the dice, roll the dice, roll the dice, roll the dice, roll the dice, roll the dice, roll the dice, roll the dice, roll the dice, roll the dice, roll the dice, roll the dice, roll the dice, roll the dice, roll the dice, roll the dice, roll the dice, roll the dice, roll the dice, roll the dice, roll the dice, roll the dice, roll the dice, roll the dice, roll the dice, roll the dice, roll the dice, roll the dice, roll the dice, roll the dice, roll the dice, roll the dice, roll the dice, roll the dice, roll the dice, roll the dice, roll the dice, roll the dice, roll the dice, roll the dice, roll the dice, roll the dice, roll the dice, roll the dice, roll the dice, roll the dice, roll the dice, roll the dice, roll the dice, roll the dice, roll the dice, roll the dice, roll the dice, roll the dice, roll the dice, roll the dice, roll the dice, roll the dice, roll the dice, roll the dice, roll the dice, roll the dice, roll the dice, roll the dice, roll the dice, roll the dice, roll the dice, roll the dice, roll the dice, roll the dice, roll the dice, roll the dice, roll the dice, roll the dice, roll the dice, roll the dice, roll the dice, roll the dice, roll the dice, roll the dice, roll the dice, roll the dice, I guide you and they rise from the flames for the battles ahead. Villains beware cause you're about to be dead. They got magic and flair. They got falchions and cunning. They don't see over there.

There's a monster incoming. Inspiration is waiting. Rise up, don't 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 Welcome back. We didn't say anything.

No, you did not. I forgot. You totally forgot. It was a beautiful moment of silence that I'll cherish forever. Ball sack! So, you're a little... Not the same. Doesn't work, Sam, I'm sorry.

So, last we left off, the Mighty Nein had uncovered what seemed to be some strange, growing conspiracy between these strange devices that were causing portals to tear open into the abyss across Xhorhas. You had scryed and discovered an individual who was involved with this to some degree and had set up a meeting in Rosohna

in the Overcrow Apothecary. Lying in wait, you managed to assault the people that were involved, killing two, but the one, seemingly the most important one, fled to the north. You, through scrying and speaking with dead, manage to gather the information you had at your disposal, grab your moorbounders, and make your way northward to pursue them towards what seems to be the city of Bazzozan, the location.

You made your way directly through the barbed fields and are currently there, as you've traversed your first day and a half of your three-day journey across the barbed fields, where you noticed a really unique, dangerous landscape, relics and signs of the great ancient wars, of the final moments of the Calamity marred the landscape before you

and came upon some strange creatures that seemed a little lonely and just wanted a hug. Go. That assaulted you in the middle of the field and some of the nearby fungus-growing trees. The battle completed. You've all went to bed down for the evening for some rest, if I recall. We ended there.

And are continuing the next leg of your journey across the barbed fields. So, fighting night. What would you like to do? Are we saying that it is the next morning now, or are we going through the night? We're going through the night at this point. Okay.

Oh boy. Dun, dun, dun, I got to pick some spells for the next day now. I know, doing my spell checks. Correct me if I'm wrong, but you clerics did all the clericking, the before-bed clericking that you do, right? Yeah. We did all that.

Yeah, we healed our stuff. So now we just sleep. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You haven't found a place, necessarily, to rest yet, if I recall. You were in the process. Or no, did you set up a dome? We're just going to do the dome, I don't remember. I don't think we got that far. I think that it was just the end of the fight.

And we were terrified. That's true, actually. All right, well, let's pick up from there, then. Oh, well, I smear batshit away off of my hands and look around and do we, are we going any further after that? We're bedding here. I think they got stronger in the dark, yeah? Yeah.

So we should definitely hide at night and travel during the day. Maybe get a little bit of extra travel with some daylight spells, but not. The globe is still going, it's an hour of that. We want to maybe get the last of that out, maybe? I think I was correct, I believe you guys did bed down in the dome to sleep that night.

Oh, we may have. All right. you guys did bed down in the dome to sleep that night. Oh, we may have. All right. Nip, nip, nip, nip, nip, nip. Exactly. Let's get in the dome. Good night, Cadence. Stop talking. Good night, Jester. Good night, Beau.

Good night, Ned. Good night, Fjord. Good night, Ned. Good night, Ned. Thank you. All right. So, evening's rest comes to you. Is anyone keeping watch,

or are you all sleeping for the night? I'll take the first watch. Yeah. All right. Okay, do you need some company? Are you okay? Well, I mean, I feel like I'm okay if everybody wants to get some sleep. I don't know what the best way for us all

to get a decent rest is. I think I already clicked that I got a long rest I don't know what the best way for us all to get a decent rest is. I think I already clicked that I got a long rest, but you know what, I'm going to take first watch with you. Okay. Yeah, it would be nice to have some company. I'll look at that later. All righty. Good sleep, everyone. It's okay, we'll keep watch.

We got it. Take care. Yasha. Yeah? Those. Take care. Yasha. Yeah? Those things were fucking scary as fuck. Yeah, I'm not scared of a lot of things, but those things freak me out. Have you ever seen them before here?

No. I've never seen anything like that before. And they seemed so sad. I know, they, he looked like if he could have cried, he would have been crying. Yeah, like it was a person once or something, I don't know. Like they didn't maybe want to fight us?

They were forced to, maybe? Yeah. Also, though, they were really scary, so I don't feel that sorry for them. I don't feel that bad, but I just, it was weird, the sounds that they were making and everything. Yeah.

I didn't like it. This is a weird place. You grew up here. Well, I did, but not quite in an area like this. Not in the barren fields. Yeah, no, this is, I've heard about them, but this is, I'm glad that this isn't,

that I didn't grow up here in this place. Are you nervous? Yeah. Yeah, I'm nervous. I just don't know what we're walking into, you know? Yeah. We've got your back, though. That guy isn't going to do anything bad to you.

Yeah. And I know that he seemed to respect you or know about you or like the things that you've done. You know? Yeah. Who knows, maybe when you lost your memory, you were like a rock star or something. Yeah, maybe I performed and I...

Yeah, maybe there was a bar or something and you performed every night and everybody came to see you and then you disappeared and no one's like, oh, where's that Yasha check? She's so good, the Orphan Maker. I wonder what instrument I played. Definitely a harp. Yeah.

I think I could probably do that. But a really hardcore harp. Yeah, like, yeah. But like a really hardcore harp. Yeah, like it's like, ah. Duh-duh. Yeah, yeah. I don't know. Yeah.

That would be pretty cool. I think I'm just mostly nervous, because I, I feel like he knows, it's weird when you feel like someone knows something about you that you don't know. Yeah. And I hope it's just that I was a rock star. Well, maybe we can learn from him. Maybe he's not the horrible guy,

and you can find out what he knows. Yeah, that's true. Okay, well, maybe I should be thinking about it more positively than I am. Yeah. I'll just pretend that I was a harp star. And if it was something bad, just let me know if you want to forget it again,

because I think I can make you forget. Really? Yeah. Okay. At least for a while. Okay. That's not a bad idea. Maybe not the best way to deal with it, but. Well, I've always heard that the best way to deal with your problems is to run away from them.

So, uh. Hey, we're doing a good job. Yes. Yeah. Okay. Both of you make perception checks for me, please. Baby. Natural 20! Oh, natural 19. There we go.

Very nice. We're like this. Bodes well. Yeah. Nothing bad will happen. So as you're having this conversation, you do notice a shape in the darkness moving on the peripheral out past it. It's large and lumbering, and you feel a light.

SAM and LAURA, SAM and LAURA, Nothing can get through here. No, you see the shape lumbering and shifting with its odd, multi-impacting gait. You watch it move up towards one of the strange, curving spires of stone that seem to be hooking up about 60 or 70 feet into the air. This entity goes up towards it and butts against it

and begins scratching the shoulders and back. How high did it go on it? About 25 feet. Whoa! Oh shit, that thing is huge. You, looking at its shape, and the more you focus with the perception rolls that you guys took, you can see little hints

of the four red orbs that are affixed as eyes in the center of its neckless face, large tusks that protrude from the front of its mouth. This is an udac, which you had seen on the outside of Vesarius. When you first entered Jorahas in the distance, you've been aware of these beasts that you're encountering in the fields.

Extremely dangerous, territorial. They are generally scavengers for the most part, unless hungry. If they're going hungry, they've been prone to hunt and get angry. But they are massive. And very, very intimidating. You can see the two sets of arms,

it has four arms, gorilla-like moving, and it's scraping its shoulder and back against the spire, like a large bear trying to scratch an itch. Oh, he just needs a bit. Yeah, he's a little scratchy. He could go all the way and scratch his little back. He's just leaning against the base of it,

scraping against it. We hear this low, guttural Get it good. It comes off of the spire. Then begins to scan over in your direction. Looks past. Can he see us in here? No, but he can hear us. He just slowly moves a little further,

and further away until the darkness takes it entirely and it's no longer visible. Oh my god. What if we run into one of those while we're traveling through here? Well, I've seen them before and we've fought them in my tribe, but not without losing some members.

They're very, very, very dangerous. But maybe we can, maybe we won't see him again. And if we do, maybe we can just offer some scritches. Just climb up and come offer some scritches. Just climb up and come up to the scritches. I would say, in your time with the Dalarov tribe, two Udaaks fell to the tribe. Neither were being intentionally hunted.

It was a hunting party came across one and were forced to fight it. Like, they're considered too dangerous to hunt. And while they were both killed, they were usually hunting parties of between 15 and 20 people, and anywhere from five to 10 died in the process of taking it down.

So it's no trifle creature. Whose idea was it to come this way? You finish your watch. Uneventful beyond this unique encounter. Next watch, anybody? I'll do. Me too. All righty.

Two of you go ahead and take second watch. You're welcome to make a perception check if you'd like. I would love to. 17! 10. 10, okay. Fucking 10. Did you know you're dressed like a tiger?

Hadn't occurred to me. Technically not a tiger. Probably a lyre. Mm. Uneventful, other than the sounds of distant screeching of what seemed to be flying evening birds birds of prey, far enough away to where you're keeping an eye out, but no one seems to come close or take notice.

The opaque, dark-colored domes seem to be enough to keep the eyes of such creatures at bay. I'm going to be chirping when it's screeching. Whose idea was this? Your watch completes without issue. Third and final watch, anybody? I'll take it. All right. Who's this?

By himself, go ahead and roll a perception check. Happily. I'll start making breakfast for everyone, too. 15. Yay! 15, okay. You catch, towards the beginning stages of dawn, the blues beginning to creep into the sky, but through the night, the stars begin to slowly vanish

as a storm front begin to come in. Low gray clouds with darkened patches in the distance, and as the sky begin to lighten up slightly more and more, you can see there's no rainfall at the moment, but there is another medium intensity storm on the way. Beyond that, no other major issues. You guys come to consciousness. Breakfast is waiting you at the hands of Caduceus Clay.

Going to burn a spell for that. Caduceus, why didn't you wake me up? I would have done the last watch with you. Oh, I had no idea, and I figured everyone needed some sleep. Everything hurts. I wanted to see the sun come up. It had been a while.

How was it? Brief before this, but it was worthwhile. Thanks for making food. Oh, no problem. Sorry, it's a little basic, but. We should get moving as quickly as we can. Use up all the daylight. Caduceus, does it look like that storm front's

heading our way? Does it look like that storm front is heading our way? It is heading across the entire field at an angle, so it is making its way towards, not you specifically, but it is going to be taking most of the sky above you, shortly. Are we going to be fighting against it, or is it traveling in the same direction that we are?

Looks like it's going to be against you, so it'll pass quicker, it seems. Nice. Just a little rain. Are we still, is the landscape still almost like a salt flat type of thing? Similar, yeah. It's a dried and cracked Badlands.

You had a faint bit of rain the day before. It cost some of it to mud and muck up. But it was very, very minor. Still scattered with these giant... Spires, these rock formations that are made of stone that is not natural to the rest of the planes around you. It's flat as the eye can see, right?

We're not in any sort of a slow ravine? The terrain does shift and move, and there are craters. There are large chasms and holes in here that appear, too. Some of them through blasted force that eventually just fell back in. Some, the earth just is torn open in places. It's like Beetlejuice Limbo without the red filters,

is the vibe I'm in. Sure. Cool. All right. Make it turn out like Flash Blood. It might get muddy. It's probably going to get muddy. It's going to get muddy. I wonder if it's going to be like the playa where it gets like cakey muddy. Yeah. It's probably going to get muddy. It's going to get muddy. I wonder if it's going to be like the playa where it gets like cakey muddy.

Yeah. It's going to suck! Oh no. Yeah. Let's mount up! Difficult frame. Yeah. Look around you, more bounders haven't returned yet

from their evening hunt. Oh no. Oh, right. Yarnball! Yuck! I throw Frumpkin up into the air in vulture form to have a look around. About a quarter mile up and away from you guys,

Frumpkin sees them first, but your three more bounders had found shelter for the evening for their rest since they went out hunting and I guess didn't make their way back to the dome. What your bird sees, your vulture, is what looks to be some sort of strange dome about 50 feet across end to end. It looks like a large round smooth stone

with some strange holes in the sides. Where they are? Where the moorbounders are? Where they are. You see one of the moorbounders creep out into the morning light diffused by the cloud cover, curling, blinking its two bulbous, fish-like eyes in the sides of its face. It looks like it's coming to consciousness and curling out.

The other two eventually emerge from the inside of this rock. You take a moment to recognize this is, the shape of it is very bone-like. It's a shell. Mm, from the big turtle! This appears to be the long, dried, hollowed corpse shell of one of the Horizon Back Tortoises

that has partially fallen and taken back by the planes and was used as a temporary shelter for the evening. That's so cool! So cool. I could take that with us. Will it fit in the Bag of Holding? 50 by 50 feet? Yeah, I think so. Cool, cool, cool. 50 by 50.

Should we go check out how I relate that to the party? Do you want to go to them? Yeah, let's go to them. It's on the way, right? Yeah, a little off to the right, but you can curve over. Oh yeah. Okay, you guys manage to catch up towards your moorbounders.

As soon as they see you in the distance catching up, they run up and start getting rambunctious and excited to see you, conscious and moving. What do you do? Going to just calm Clarabelle down and I think I'm going to head over and take a look at this shell, get a better look at this thing.

Curious old guy, I think it's probably safe if they were in there. I'm going to jump around with Yarnball for a while. Get him more rambunct all, let's all stay in, let's all stay in the side of each other. I'll alter and I'm going in. Okay. I'm going to go to the roof.

Are there any holes in the roof? Make a perception check. Can you climb it like the jungle gym? Have to. 12. 12. You don't see large holes, but the nature of the structure of the shell itself, the hard exoskeleton aspect of it is ridged and easy to climb.

Okay, I'll climb it. All right, so you get on top of it, and you can now, if you want to, climb towards the apex of the shell, which stands about, I'd say, 30, 25 to 30 feet off of the ground, although it's sunken in by about five feet, so it'd probably be about 20 to 25 feet at its apex.

Be careful, Nott. Yeah, yeah, yeah! They had this installation last year. Okay, gives you a cool view from up there. Are there any cracks to see down into the, any cracks in the shell, or is it all? No, the shell is solid. It is a hardy creature.

Okay. But you do have any, make a perception check from on top of the creature. Okay. But you do have a unique makeup perception check from on top of the shell. Okay. 19. 19? All right. All right.

Because the rain hasn't come yet, you do have a decent view on the horizon. Though you get the sense the storm isn't that far off. You do see a unique shape that catches your attention in the direction of where you guys are traveling. A towering shape, a shadowed plume atop a wide spire. It resembles a tree, though the size and the distance is hard to gauge through the dust and wind

that's currently blowing in with the coming storm. A tree on top of a spire? A shape of a tree. It looks almost like a tree, because it's just this large shape and a spire. But you can barely make it out, it's quite a ways away. Probably another day's journey to even get there.

Okay. But you rolled a 90 on your perception check, so you sort of caught your vision. You're like, you're not sure quite how far it is, but it looks pretty big. Is that in the general direction we are heading? Yes, it's Catalina. When we go in, I would tell Frumpkin

to circle like a police helicopter and to cry out if anything, if he sees anything. You got it. Go ahead and roll a perception check for Femkin, please. Shit. Extra vulture. That'd be 11. 11, good enough.

All right, the rest of you make your way towards the empty interior of the shell. Light it up a little bit, yeah. All right, and as Caduceus lights up the inside, you can see it is a large domed cavern. You can see where the spinal cord itself is fused in sections along the upper ridge, creating this unique, beautiful, macabre arch

from end to end. You can see the multiple holes where the arms and legs and head and tail of this thing would have emerged, though they're about half-crescent as the bottom half has been retaken by the land around it. This has been here for a while. You catch out from the inside that pockets of it seem to be growing bits of fuzzy plant matter.

Some of it could be fungus, some of it could be moss, you're not sure, but there seems to be a small ecosystem that's developed within the inside of this shell. You also find a corpse of two orcs torn asunder and half eaten. Freshly. Do they got anything good?

Fresh. Fresh. Fresh enough from the past few hours. Good boy. Is there any clothing left to root through? There is destroyed hide armor, not functional. With some repair, it could be done. But fair hides, thick hides. Looks to be two hand axes on one of them,

and the other one had a long sword and a leather shield. I don't know what they were doing out here. They both have longbows on them and a total of, say, 22 arrows between the two of them. They look to be, they don't have a lot of equipment. Looks like they're mainly carrying enough things

to keep themselves alive and to move. So, make a survival check, anybody who would like to try to. Oh yeah, I'm comfortable with that. Seven. 21. 22. Nice. 18.

18, still pretty good. All right, so you three, looking at the equipment they have, where you are, you gather these two are probably scouts. They're not dressed in attire that seem congruent with Rosohna or orcs you've met and seen in the Dynasty, and they are full-blooded orcs. And they are a mess. But it seems at least your moorbounders went

and found some food for the night. Are there any other signs of any other people who've maybe camped underneath this thing before? Any disturbed earth? Make an investigation check. Oh, my favorites. That's a natural one minus one. So I think I'm just going to collect some samples and I'm going to stare at the moss, I suppose.

Yeah, yeah, it's really soft. Goddamn. Anything else? Any, like, if this has been there for a while, any carvings, any graffiti on the shell, anything? Make a perception check. Stand up. Not an investigation. There's a difference between looking about the interior for signs.

Oh, that's good, though. 21. 21, that's actually really good. You see a few sections that have carvings on them. Rudimentary, one of them looks like it's a series of dug-in dots and lines and locations, and you gather it looks almost like a simple map of the valley. Oh.

But there's no language, there's just markings. It's like seeing a carved constellation. My criminal background clue me in a little bit more that that's what it is? You've seen things like this, yeah, and it's usually designed to be a code for people that pass through.

What does it look, is there something that looks like, could be marked as, Rez, Rez, Rez, Rez, Rez, Rez, Rez, Rez, Rez, Rez. Bazazan? Bazazan. You can see a carving that looks to be an oblong, strange perimeter. There's a marking, a carving that looks like almost like a T, like a thick-topped T.

You can see a marking that seems to be like a circle with a couple of lines through it. You can see a number of other dots that you're uncertain what their element means. The circle seems to be the shell that you're in. What is this? What are you looking at? Hey, Jester. Come in. What is this? What are you looking at? Hey, Jester. Come here.

What is that? I think it's a map of the area. I think this circle thing is like a, you are here. Oh, yeah. I think these are just landmarks. People trying to communicate to each other, smugglers, maybe? I take out my sketchbook and I draw it.

Yeah, you're not certain what these mean necessarily, but you're just, you gather the essence of what it was used for. Cool. I'm going to spend the next minute to take out my pearl and give myself a dose of Fortune's Favor. And when that is up, I'm going to send Frumpkin very high in the sky

and plant my hand on Beauregard's shoulder and try to look for more of these orcs anywhere on the plains around this place. Right, okay. Frumpkin is doing so. Oh no, but does it change when I look? Because currently I told Frumpkin he's to look and just squawk if he sees anything. It's a continuation of searching for things in the area.

All right, well, I'll still keep the very least, maybe covering our tracks on the way out might not be a bad idea. Ooh, good call. Don't let the rain do that. But not in here. You do see a couple of dark spots on the floor in different areas

where it looks like some of the dust and the dirt is blackened and charcoaled where fires may have been built. Because of the protected interior of the shell, the erosion and the wind that only sweeps through hasn't entirely covered and erased that presence. So this shell definitely seems to see traffic every now and then.

We should get to moving if we want to keep ahead of. That's a good idea. All right. While you're on top of your head. I'm going to slide down the turtle shell. You hear. Weeeee! Roll. I slide down the turtle shell. You hear. Whee! Roll.

Are we going? Yeah. Let's go! Oh, also about a day ahead of us, there's this crazy big thing. What? What kind of big thing? I don't know, it's a big thing. Like the creature? Like what? No, like a big tower or a tree.

Did you see any of those big things that were gray and had four eyes and big arms, you know, like we saw on the other plane? No, no. Because me and Yasha saw one of those last night. Oh, really? Really? No.

Which direction is this tree or tower? The way we're going. That way. That's good. We'll find out soon enough then, yeah. Are you heading towards this? Let's go, yeah, let's do it. Is it the same direction we're headed?

Loosely, you don't have a specific idea of a pinpointed radar, but you know you're heading north. We're going that way now. Like north, northwest. You have the map. Yes. That's for you guys, whoever wants to. Do we have any sense of where we are on the map?

Within the yellows. One day's traveling from the bar. Trying to go up to. Yeah. So three days. You're at this point, you're almost at the halfway point. You're roughly at the halfway point. I've got that bloodstain right there.

Give or take. I feel like with Caleb's weird sense of direction on the map, it'd have a decent idea. You have a decent idea. It's not perfect, though. Sure. Are you seeing any towers on the map, I'd have a decent idea. You have a decent idea. It's not perfect, though. Sure. Are you seeing any towers on the map? Weird question, do I recognize the weird language

that's written on the map? Caleb, we have to say. Yeah, it was the other comment. Yeah, that's the other comment, never mind. It's all good. Yeah, that's right. So fancy. Oh my god!

You gather your moorbounders, you pick back on the trail, and you continue heading northward to the barbed fields. Who's making point on this? I just want to know what the marching order is. We'll take front. Front? All right, so you have Caduceus in the front with your moorbounder.

Yeah. Yeah, you're right. Yeah, I'm with Caduceus. Me and Fjord will be in the middle. Regulators. Man, hold up. It was a clear black night. Man up! A clear white moon, deep as all the streets. Try and let me have

Beau. Caleb and Nott. Caleb and Nott right there. You got it. Okay. As you guys continue riding forward for the next couple hours, Caduceus, since you are at point with you and Yasha,

you would both like to make perception checks as you continue forward? Oh, yeah, sure. Yeah, yeah, because I do that as a thing. Ah, 15. Ooh, that's a natural one. Ooh. Okay. Ooh.

Ooh. You. Ooh. You continue moving forward, passing by clusters of these spires. It seems the further towards the center you get of this area, those large stone shapes can get more and more dense, where you'd see one every mile to every half mile. The further in you've gotten, you'll see two or three within visible distance

to seeing two within a few hundred feet of each other. Occasionally, they seem to get more dense the further into the fields you get. You don't seem to be becoming a forest of them necessarily, but just less sparse. Keeping an eye out for any of those wily guys we saw. Okay.

I will say, Caduceus, you, at the front, and based on your passive perception, about three and a half to four hours, getting closer to the midday, a little past noon. You look forward and see what looks to be another round shape. Is it the same approximate size and color

of what we were used to with the turtle? It looks a little darker, but at this point, you can also see, rain hasn't hit you yet, but you can see that gray blanket of distant rain that's now starting to blur the horizon and is making its way your direction. It's still so shut down. Yeah, there may be another turtle up ahead, too.

And maybe a live one, too, I can't quite tell. I reference the map that Jester copied. Does it look based on, like there's something related on the map that Jester copied? Does it look based on, like there's something related on the map? The shell? No. Yeah. This thing's garbage.

Is the shell moving? Is the thing moving or is it not moving? Doesn't seem to be moving. It's the original. Bounding towards it, you get a little bit of a better look. It's about 20 or so feet high now, about 150 feet from you as you glance over and get a little bit of a better look. It's about 20 or so feet high now, about 150 feet from you as you glance over

and get a better view. Slow everyone down a little bit. Okay, you guys slow down a little bit. You can now see the details of the matted fur, the muscular back legs, the four burly arms, and you recognize this is the same creature, the Udak, that you had seen before, though it is laying on its side and is not moving.

Not moving or not breathing? Sleeping? Not moving. We are going to go around this thing. I think a wide berth might be a good idea. What if it can help us? Give us directions. I don't think it can. Yeah, no. I think that's a bad idea.

If it's asleep, we can kill it quite easily. I don't think we can. Yeah, no, I think that's a bad idea. If it's asleep, we can kill it quite easily. I don't think we could. I think if we tried to kill it while it was sleeping, it might wake up and then it would kill us. I think we can just walk around it. It seems to be the smartest thing to do. I say we walk around. I've been drinking most of the morning.

Come on, guys. Really? Yeah, baby! Okay. All right. Moving around, keeping a wide berth on it. Slow. Both of you make Perception check in the front.

That's better. 17. Nine. All right, 17. Nine. You begin, 17. Nine. You begin to notice that parts of its body seem to be showing gaping wounds. Open, exposed flesh. Detect on day.

How's the gray? The range on that is? Not far enough away. You can get closer. I can. It's up get closer. I can. It's up to you. I'll go with you. I'm doing fucking instigator. I'm going to burn one anyway,

just to take a look, and do I get anything? Nothing immediately around you. You're about, let's say, 130 feet from them right now. I could always send in the vulture, although the last time I did that, it keyed those things into a position. I got this. No, not, no. Let's just maybe get a little,

quietly get a little closer and see what's happening. You don't sneak so well. I'm also keeping an eye out for whatever could have done damage to this thing. Right, with the same perception. Yeah. I'm definitely keeping eyes open. Everybody keep their eyes open. I'm going to try and get just close enough

to see if it's alive, dead, or otherwise. Within 60 feet of it, I suppose. Okay. So on the moorbounders, slowly, you and Yasha are going to moorbounders. As he's doing that, we're scanning around, just in case. All right.

I guess make a communal perception check, the rest of you. Communal perception. 16. 19. Done! Natural 20. Solid. 21. Okay, so you keep a pretty solid look around. You guys get closer and closer. You begin to see beyond the gaping wounds,

there are two large black spots affixed to its body. But the spots are shifting and moving. You see black, leathery wings that cling to the corpse. Sorry. These large, dark, lizard-like bodies feasting on the flesh of this dead creature. Their forms leaking shadow-like mist off the body, just slowly drifting off of it.

Two of them glance over in your direction. You can see the yellow-like bead glowing eyes on each of their weird dragon-esque face. I'm not getting any closer, but I'm not backing out either. They both look at each other, and the other one goes like, going, You cursed me. They both look at each other, and the other one goes like. Going.

It occurs to me, they can understand me. We'll keep moving. They can understand you. We can talk to owls. Start to keep moving, see what happens. Okay. You guys following suit with Kyd?

Yeah. All right. We're following with our lead, you know. You both continue to move past the north and get about 50, 100 feet further. Looking back over your shoulder, you can see both of them are now

taking it up, and as their wings flap, you can see both of them are now taking up, and as their wings flap, you can see tendrils of shadow drifting off and then fading a few feet from each blast of its wings. You cast Bless on who? Fjord, Caduceus, and Yasha. Fjord, Caduceus, Yasha, you guys have Bless, all right. Holding Daylight. Holding Daylight, Holding Daylight.

Okay. Gift of Alacrity on Yasha. All right, Gift of Alacrity on Yasha. As you guys are riding on your moorbounders, Caleb and Beauregard come up nearby and Caleb reaches out and touches your shoulder and you're infused with the Gift of Alacrity, which means for the next eight hours,

you get to add a 1d8 to your initiative. Yes. 1d4 to saving throws and attack rolls. Is this a moving fight? Is this a car chase? I don't think we're moving yet. We're moving. We're moving, but we're not running yet, I think, until they start diving them.

We don't want them to know. They begin to arc around, both making a wide shift. Now they're supposed to be behind you. They're now behind and starting to catch up on the left, but they're definitely circling around you. Is there, they're coming up our left? They're coming up on, yeah, on the western side

as you guys are traveling northward. Is there anything coming up on our right? You glance over in that direction, based on the perception you made earlier. You don't see anything else. What kind of radius are they keeping outside of us? Not rolled a 20. I know.

Don't worry, I know. What kind of distance are they keeping from us in this circle they're making? They're about 100 feet from you right now. All right. I'm going to rub a bit of fleece and cast Silent Image and make the image of a fourth moorbounder next to us, running with us. Okay.

And with some very nondescript person riding it. Okay, so. Apparating out of the air, a fourth rider, who's a nondescript person, very plain features, beige clothing. Yeah. A haircut. Yeah. And just riding around. A haircut. Riding the moorbounder.

I'm wearing a polo shirt, khakis, some loafers. You think we should make this an annoying meal? I think if they move towards us, they've made that decision for us. Yeah, I feel like we should pick up speed. Everything here is weird. We might be able to outrun them if we go now. They're fine, we're not going to outrun them.

I'm going to charge up an Eldritch Blast and just follow them, just in case they start to break towards us. To the right side, Nott. You can see a third one. I knew it! All right. I knew it! Seemingly hearing the screech from the one on the left

that was heading the circle. It looks like there are now three of them slowly bearing down on you as you're moving northward. Clever girl. All right. Let's pick up the pace. Yeah. Yeah. I smack the back of Yannick's beard. So now Yannick lunges forward at a much faster speed,

going fast pace at this time. Everyone else catching up as well? Mm-hmm. Keep pace, Yon'Ball! Come on. The very vague, generalized rider is weirdly falling behind by about 40 feet to not being able to catch up with us. Four, four. This is, I'm terribly out of shape.

60. My range is only 60 feet. Oh, okay! So yeah, 58 feet. What's your spell DC? The spell DC, oh boy, I cast spells sometimes, don't I? You do. Is 15.

Oh wow, that's pretty high. That is. Okay. All right. The one that's trailing the screeching leader on the left-hand side is. They're both keeping pace with your moorbounders. They're not gaining at the moment,

but they're keeping pace to the left. The one behind it. The one behind it splinters off and begins to make its way towards the one that's not keeping up. Okay, good. And lunges down. Watch out, Chas, watch out!

You watch as it dives, and then about 40 feet from the illusion, vanishes. Nightcrawler teleports next to where this illusion is, and wings open. It looks like a black, leather-skinned wyvern. It arcs down with its claws, and they pass through the body. It's confused, arcs up again,

and is going to go for a second pass as well. Now you have two that are pincering you from left and right, slightly behind. Is it time for daylight? Just say the word. Daylight? Hell, how far does it reach? It's daytime right now. Yeah, but this is a daylight spell.

Yeah, it couldn't hurt. This gives us 60 feet. Crank that fucking platter. Yeah, let's crank it up. Okay, it is stationary, right? No, it's not, it can be on an object. Okay, what are you casting it on? I'm going to cast it on...

My dick. Sam's, no. I'm going to cast it on the Warbounder that I'm currently riding. Okay. From the shaded, dark, clouded sky above you and the rain that's slowly making it your direction, from the very front of the line,

now this bright burning beacon of daylight emerges from the front part of the saddle that Caduceus is holding onto, giving this large, bright radius of sunlight. You watch the two creatures that are flying swoop in that direction, and as soon as the light flashes, they both arc back a little bit and maintain their separate pace to each side.

They're still keeping up with you guys, but this seems to have shaken them a bit to be interested in peeking any closer. They're still keeping up with you guys, but this seems to have shaken them a bit to be interested in peeking any closer. The one to the back is now on his third strike on your companion before it seems to realize and not give a shit, but it's fallen behind and because of the pace you guys are going

and it's six feet behind you, because on the moorbounders, I believe, what's the speed on them? Fast. Oh, hold on, let me look. Yeah. I believe it's 80 feet. 40? La la la la la la la la la. 40 feet.

40. 40 feet. Standard speed. Yeah. Right, okay. So they're probably rushing. Yeah. Yeah, but they can jump 30 feet. Mm-hmm.

The moorbounder was worth it. Well, that's what it's... We have the funny notes, though. Well, that's what it is. Oh yeah, look notes, though. What is that? That's what? Oh yeah, look in the notes section right here. What does that say? Oh, I'm done, I'm done. I have a piece of work.

How do I look in the notes section? Just look right there. There it is, moorbounder. No, that is incorrect, they have a speed of 80 feet. Oh! Really? Yeah, they're fast creatures. How do we fix that in here? That's okay.

But these creatures can fly 80 feet, so literally you guys are going in tandem. But at the speed you're traveling, the one to the back that went after the illusion is not able to get closer to you at this pace. I took out a whole one by myself! Pretty good. But you are essentially left, right, and behind now,

surrounded by these creatures as they're keeping a pace. How long does the daylight spell last? That's a good question. About an hour, I believe. Okay. Double checking. All right an hour, I believe. Okay. Double checking. All right. Yeah, one hour. They are keeping about a hundred foot distance from you.

And the daylight seems to be keeping them at bay. Oh, smart, Caddy. Maybe they'll lose interest. So you keep riding. Should we attack them at a distance while they're away from us? Yeah, we could make it even more annoying. You got about a 100 and something.

I do. You going to shoot? Yeah. I would say give it 20 or 30 and see if they keep up, and if they still are after us, then we can hurry them. 20 or 30 seconds? Minutes, it's an hour he's got that going. Maybe they will lose interest if it takes too long.

Can the moorbounders go at a full speed for hours and hours, I guess? I guess they can. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Like, you'd take breaks every now and then for time, but a total of eight hours of intense travel for a day is considered possible. I don't know, I'm of the opinion

that maybe just spooking them a little bit might be a great idea. Let's do it. Mm. Choo choo. I'll just blast. All right, roll two attacks. I don't like the way he said that.

You remember. This is against what, the one to the left, behind, or the right? You get a plus four to your attack roll. I'll be like, Hunchabye! You just gun Kana, then? Yeah.

Where did those dubs come from? Plus d4, plus a d4 to each attack roll, because you're blessed. Oh, thank you. Natural one, and the other one is a 23. 23 to the one on the right that hits. Go ahead and roll damage. D4 damage, or? Roll to your attack roll.

Doesn't matter, it hit. Yeah, it hit. Okay, whatever. That's a 12, that's not the right text. Six. 11 points of Eldritch Blast damage. 11 points of Eldritch Blast damage. So one goes wide and you watch that one shadow-like flying wyvern dodge out of the way

and goes wide and vanishes into the clouds above. The one to your right shrieks as it spins towards you, and you can see now it's starting to lean its way closer to try and meet the direction. Right when he turns to look, I shoot a Guiding Bolt at him. What's the range of a Guiding Bolt?

120 feet. Go ahead and roll damage, or roll for attack, sorry. 17 plus nine. That hits, go ahead and roll damage. Okay, okay, okay, okay. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh! What am I doing? 46.

Ooh! Oh, 11. 17, thank you. 17, oh. Radiant damage. Radiant damage. Radiant damage. So as you released it, arcs up in, this is the same one

that Fjord had hit before? Yes. As the Guiding Bolt blasts into its chest, you watch the bright, sacred energy of this spell burn and sear into its body with an intensity that you've not struck a creature with a Guiding Bolt before. It shrieks out horribly in pain. You watch as the shadow

almost seems to bleed out of it. That hurt it very badly. Wow. What did you do to it? Do it again! That was awesome! It arcs off to go to about 150 feet away and keep tandem, but it is hurt. It's like.

150-ish? 150 feet away. The one that's on the left side, though, however, while you're focusing on this, is now leaning in. Yeah, I'll throw a Firebolt at it. A Firebolt at it? Go for it. So the one on the left is now arcing forward. Oh, natural one. Oh, goes wide.

It scoots up. Sacred Flame. Sacred Flame, what's the roll on that one? Dexterity 17. Dexterity, natural 17 plus... Yeah, that's a 25, sorry. Yasha, bro, why aren't you fighting? Is it close enough to a two?

I'll take a Sacred Flame shot at that thing, too. Go for it. All right, Beau, why aren't you fighting? Is it close enough to a two? I'll take a second shot at that thing, too. Go for it. All right, so. Two flames. That is going to be a 22. Oh man. They're quick, and it's like. They're spiraling now through the sky. I'll strike a new boondock pose.

Crisscross. Two more of them flash outside. To the ones coming nearby? Go for it, roll both attacks. I don't want to live by a natural 20. Oh shit! And a 13. All right, 13 misses.

Add a four, add a four! All right, roll a d4. See if you can move that 13 up because it's missing currently. I can't grab it. His fingers are too bad to grab it. It misses. It misses.

14, you mean, right? 13 plus one? Yes, 14, sorry. So it misses. Oh, that is a balls roll for nine points of Eldritch Blast damage on a crit. Nice! That's okay. It is now pushed, and you can see the daylight.

It comes within the 60-foot radius of the daylight and pushes into it, and as the daylight hits it, you see the daylight, it comes within the 60-foot radius of the daylight and pushes into it. As the daylight hits it, you see the skin gray a bit. The shadow that's pouring off of it begins to wither and dissipate. It's still physical, but it seems to not be enjoying being that close to the light, but it's forcing itself into that area.

It begins to move within 40 feet of your cluster, riding forward before it lets out this piercing screech. I need all of you to make a constitution saving throw. Ooh. Constitution saving throw. 18. 11. 22.

All right. No, no, no, no, 19. Eight. Ooh. 17. All right. Ooh, good. That Bless was helpful. Oh yeah, Bless is added to this.

Nice. All right, so Beau and Jester, the screech hits your ears, you clasp the side of your head, and you find your body just locked up in absolute fear. You're both paralyzed for the next round. I also need somebody to roll constitution saving throws for the three more bounders.

One roll for all? No, one roll for each. I'll roll for Yannick. I forgot I have a savage attack. Should we roll it? Roll one of the dice, an additional time to add to the extra damage. That is a 10. Okay, 18, nice.

One down, all right. Watch and battle. If Jester is driving our moorbounder and she can't drive anymore, what happens? The moorbounder keeps running, he can take over. What happens? Well, Fjord would take over. He's running, he can take over. Doesn't matter because? Three. All right.

Eight. And four. Roll the board. All three morebounders suddenly roll to one shoulder. Sending all of you flying from their back. Flung in touch. At full morebounder speed, this is like being flung from a driving car. Oh yeah.

I need everyone to go ahead and make, let's say, dexterity saving throws. But we can't make them if we're paralyzed, right? Oh no, you guys fail automatically. Oh my god. This is going to suck. This is going to suck a lot. 25, three guys fail automatically. Oh my god. This is going to suck. This is going to suck a lot. 25.

Three-point landing. You do. You skid anime-style. Can I still use bludgeoning for him to use it once? 14. You haven't? 14, okay, you managed to take. Oh, I do?

You didn't take a damage to catch yourself. Jester, Beau, you both take seven points of bludgeoning damage from impacting and skidding across the ground. 15. 15, all right, you managed to catch yourself. Jester, Beau, you both take seven points of bludgeoning damage from impacting and skidding across the ground. 15. 15, all right, you managed to catch yourself. Everyone else who succeeds takes three. So Fjord, you take three points of bludgeoning damage. What do we need to succeed?

Because I asked because of the Ring of Evasion. Right, 12. 12, oh yeah. Three points of damage then. So three points, three points, three points. Three points. Three points. I'll do Uncanny Dun, points, three points. Three points. Three points. I'll do, I can't even tell, no, you can't do that to an effect. It's not an attack, yeah. No.

All right, let's go ahead and. Oh, oh, we're doing something! Because you guys aren't running anymore. Oh boy, guys. Oh shit! I think we're switching to the Dwarven Forge, the famous Dwarven Forge combat camp. Get out of my camera, Travis! This combat is powered by Dwarven Forge, the famous Dwarven Forge combat camp. Get out of my camera, Travis! This combat is powered by Dwarven Forge.

They just launched a new Construct-a-Castle line, a variety of pre-configured castle segments that combine to build the stronghold of your dreams or nightmares. Find it now at dwarvenforge.com. Ooh, nice spike! All righty. Ooh, nice spike. All righty. Sorry, Sal.

Mm. Here, Craig. More of Vavra's lung there. Fuck. Daylight spell's still on him, right? Wait, this is the same place we fought before! Just don't let it succeed. You get an accurate spread.

Leave me the comments, sir! Let chaos throw it where it will. More battle troll. Ah! How far away are you from that fucking turtle show? Oh, you've been traveling for about 15 or so minutes from it, at full speed. You're quite a ways.

All right. Boom, boom, boom, boom. Oh. Leader of the pack. It's about right. Yeah. It's about how good a singer she was. Yeah.

No, not Marisha. No, yeah. It's all the way. I like that you lost it. Both are accurate, it's fine. You lost the commitment at pack. Leader of the pack. Yeah.

We'll talk about it. We'll talk about it. Oh no, the third one's going to come get us, too, No, they're accurate, it's fine. You kind of lost the commitment at pack. Leader of the pack. Yeah. We'll talk about it. Oh no, the third one's going to come get us, too, because we're stuck. What are those fucking things? Yeah, you guys fought in the last campaign. They're from Tharmfalla, right? Yes!

Yeah. Oh boy. We fought these at Tharmfalla. Boomstalkers. Don't worry, we fought these last campaign! Boomstalkers! They're bad, and we fought them at a much higher level at the last campaign. Yeah, wasn't it normally like 18?

Yeah, I was all in trouble. That's right, you were one. You were one. Stop spoilers. Yeah. He was Archon. Yeah, he was around that time. All right. That's when Vecna

killed us all, right? Yeah. Cool. So, let's go ahead and roll initiative, folks. Are Jester and I still paralyzed? You are until this first round you're paralyzed. Do we still roll for initiative? You do, because you're still in initiative order. Did you roll your d8?

I rolled a natural 20. You still at it. I do? Yeah. Did you roll your d8? I rolled a natural 20. You still at it. I do. Yeah. Does Bless count to our initiative? Fuck yeah. So, it's 25 to 20? 20.

21. All righty, so. No, just. Well, Yasha's probably first. Yasha, what'd you get for your initiative? 26. Jeez. That's the highest initiative I've ever rolled! That's the highest initiative I've ever rolled.

That's the highest initiative I think possibly, like, 20 to 15. That's a lot. 15. 15. 15. Insane. What'd you get here? Both 15.

Empire of the Crades. We already still have daylight. 10 to five, is daylight concentration or not? Nope. Yeah, last round, that's awesome. 13 for me. 12. All right, four. And then Caduceus.

You got it. All right, so. Top of the round. Yasha, you are on the ground, prone, you manage to prevent yourself from taking too much damage, but you are over on the ground, prone. You manage to prevent yourself from taking too much damage, but you are over on the far end there. They are all three up in the air. What are you doing?

Okay. I am going to, uh... SAM and LAURA, SAM and LAURA, Okay, I'm going to stand up. Where am I at? There. Oh shit. Okay.

I guess that one's closest, so I'm just going to stand up and start making my way over to that one. It says 20 feet to get up. Okay. Damn. Five, 10, 15, 20. That's your movement. You still have your action,

which you can dash as well if you want to. I'll dash the rest of the way. All right, so you move. I have my, you know. Under. All right, so you move. I have my, you know. Under there. My, I'm going to... I have the skin gorger out,

so I'm going to stand there and just look at him. Okay, bonus action, nothing? You're holding on? I would like to rage. Oh god! All right, you are raging. That's my bonus action! I would like to rage. Yeah! Oh my god! All right, you are raging. That was my bonus action!

So with the Magician's Judge sheathing over your shoulder, you have the skin gorger out. Giant, rusted, angry blade. You can just stand beneath it and just growl. The Haas Orphan Maker. The Gloomstalker floating above you. Come on down here, buddy. All right, that finishes your turn.

Next up is Nott, followed by Jester on deck. So Nott, what are you doing? Boy, standing up. All right, so that's half your movement there. So we'll say I have 20 more feet. I'll run to the tree, towards the tree, if I can get. All right, five jump, leap over a paralyzed bow. Oh boy.

You get behind the tree there. Okay. Ew. Oh, damn. Boy, oh boy, okay. I will, I don't know what I'm going to do. I'm going to cast Phantasmal Force on the one that's closest to us.

All righty. Dope, dope, dope. Play no nudes. Intelligent saving throw. Yes, a 15. Rolled a natural 17. Ooh! Minus three. Yay! 14, so that's a success.

Oh, wow! Not intelligent creatures. These creatures are very much monstrosities without a classic intelligence. But what do I make it think? This is the problem. Make it see daylight. Yeah, I was going to make a fire,

but I guess I will make it, let's see here. We are in daylight right now. I know, but intense daylight. I'm going to make it see, I can only make it see a 10-foot cube of something. Shit! What are you doing? Shit, I don't know what would help it.

I'm going to Whoa! Pigs who eat me! Whoa! Pigs who weep! I'm going to make it think that there is a giant flyswatter that's trying to hit it. A magical flyswatter. Okay.

That's right in front of it, and the flyswatter swings and hits it. Okay. And it receives four points of damage. Four points of radiant damage, all righty. Well, not radiant, this is psychic. It's interposing between it and us. Okay. It's waiting to, if it comes any closer,

it'll get whacked with a 10-foot-high fly swatter. All right, you got it. Can I ask what creature I hit before with the? Yeah, which one was the one that was getting beat? This is the one that got wrecked by. So you still have advantage on the next hit against it? Correct. Okay. Nice.

Actually, I'll go ahead and mark it like this, just as a reminder. That's a hex? No, that's just an advantage from the Guiding Bolt. Is it for the next turn, or is it, how long does the Guiding Bolt benefit last? Ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch. The next attack will mate against this target

before the end of my next turn. Okay, yeah, so it's okay by then. But this guy's looking rough. Like, that bolt wrecked his world. All right, so Nott is at the end of your turn? Oh, and then bonus action to hide. All right, go ahead and roll a stealth check, please. Do I get advantage because I'm wearing my cloak?

You do. Better. Okay, 19. 19, got it. You believe you may have found it. 21, I think. Okay, 21. Jester, what are you doing? I'm paralyzed. You believe you may have found it. 21. Okay, 21. Jester, what are you doing? I'm paralyzed. That's right, you're paralyzed, so that's your turn. Sorry.

I feel like you got to work on your delivery of that news, Matt. I know, I don't mean to, but you are no longer paralyzed now. Yay! It's the end of your turn. So you're like, just get the use of yourself back. It's now their turn. Can I at least roll over at the end of my turn so I'm facing up and seeing them kill me?

Nope, you're still facing down. Balls. This one here, it's seeing the swatter, which it was originally going to go for the paralyzed target, which was Beau, instead it's going to go ahead and go for Yasha. So it's going to try and swoop underneath it. Let's see here.

Get it, Yasha. Ah. So it swoops down. It's going to attempt to make a snatch attack against you. That is a 15 to hit. Yeah. That hits you, all right. You suffer 12 points of slashing damage

reduced to six, and I need you to make a strength saving throw. Easy. You have advantage because you're raging. And a d4 still. Yeah. She's going to be fine, guys. Shut up. Stop worrying.

Ugh. Oh no. All rightrel, stop worrying. Ugh. Oh no. Take that, Travis. Take that d4, too. Do I need to make a concentration check? Because I took bludgeoning or I landed on the ground. What were you counting?

Bless. Bless? Yes, you would. 16. 16? Ooh, if you're lucky, yeah, you are not grappled. Travis, come on. That d4, man. That d4, fuck that Bless.

And it succeeded. Okay, cool, you're fine, yeah. So it tends to, it's claws, it has just a pair of wings and these large talon claws underneath, and they both try and grab and slice at you and lift you off the ground. You get a couple inches off before you just shrug it off and land back on the ground. With that, couple inches off before you shrug it off and land back on the ground.

With that, it's going to attempt to swoop back up even higher out of range. You did get an attack opportunity as it's moving out of space. Okay, Sentinel! That's not very good. Plus your d4. That's right, okay, okay, okay, hold on. I have lots of things to, okay, okay, okay, hold on. Yeah, I know that.

All attacks. Two, okay, so that was a three. Plus, plus, plus. I'm so sorry. Did not get its shriek back. Did not get its shriek back. Correct. Nice, 15.

Losing justice. Yeah! So it does not make it back up. It's still locked there. Yes! Just roll your attack. Okay. Where's the little dice?

I know, I do, I know. You do notice that while they're in the sunlight, they're having a harder time attacking. Even though it attacked you, it was like having to veer its head from the sunlight. This is just a regular attack, right? Correct. Okay.

I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry. Hmm? Are they undead? Yeah. Are they blue-sour? We don't know. 11 points of damage. 11 points of damage? Do they undead? Yeah. Are they blue towers? We don't know. 11 points of damage. 11 points of damage, do they not? All right.

This one here is going to swoop overhead. 40. It's going to stay about 20 feet up. Let's say that... What? What's going on? Save that. Ooh! It's going to shriek again. Goddamn it. Screaming in the area.

I need everyone to make another constitution saving throw. If you're already paralyzed, can it reparalyze you? Yeah. Double paralyzed. Double paralyzed? Yeah. Double paralyzed. Double paralyzed, yeah. Double paralyzed. So if you beat it, it doesn't matter, it's just every time.

23. Natural 20. But you're already paralyzed. Doesn't matter, I succeeded against it. She's no longer paralyzed. Oh, hey! 21 for me, or 20 for me. All righty.

I'm going to roll again using my fortune's favor. Nine, but I thought you can't stack. It just means you're paralyzed until the end of your next round again. And you haven't taken your turn yet. But your round hasn't happened yet. So you're fine. But my round hasn't happened. Correct, so it doesn't do much before you at the moment.

It would've fucked me, it won't fuck you. I just failed blue fortune's favor and failed again. Ooh! Okay. Hard times, good times. 18 hero lives, buddy. Fjerk. Fj fast. You are 18. Paralyzed, buddy. Fjörk. Fjörk. All righty. You got fjörked. You got fjörked.

Oh, shit. Mokshu got scattered back there. All right, there we go. Paralyzed there. Good stuff. That's really good. It is so good. This is like chocolate.

These gluten-free, sugar-free donuts are so good, guys. 19. Look, that's all that's left of the unicorn. Is that an ear? No, it's just you two right there. Yeah. All righty. This one's going to use the last.

I'm still paralyzed, but also, but yeah. The last 20 feet of its movement, it's going to swoop down and attempt to make multi-attack against Yubo. Oh my god, but she's paralyzed. Correct. It's not a critical. Which gives it advantage to hit, but it has disadvantage because it's so close

to the sunlight, and it's just a regular attack roll. So one with its bite, one with its claws. Ooh. The first attack is bite, one with its claws. Ooh. The first attack is going to be 20 to hit. Yeah, it hits. We're not... Dead. Paralyzed is not a crit if it's a melee attack.

Right. Wait, paralyzed is? It is. Oh. Oh. It is? Yeah. But the light's disadvantage. Yeah. But damage is still crit. Correct. Yeah. But the light's disadvantage. But damage is still crit. Correct.

Yeah. 20 points of piercing damage. Weird question. Can I negate any of this with my stuff? Does that technically, can I cancel a crit? Because she's. With my stuff. Yeah.

If I use a, if I use a. Yeah, you could. Oh, okay. Yeah. If I use a... Yeah, you could. Oh, okay. What's the range on it? 60 feet? I believe it's, where is it? Sorry, I'm trying to find it. Yeah, it's 30 feet.

30 feet? She's just within 30 feet? Yeah, I'm going to cancel that one. I know I can't do all of them, but I'll cut that one down. All right, so what did I just say? It was 20. 20, so you take instead. 10? I'm going to cancel that one. I know I can't do all of them, but I'll cut that one down. All right, so what did I just say? It was 20. 20, so you take, instead.

10? No, no, no, no. It would be 12 points of slashing damage. Hopefully that was the one to cancel. Every little bit helps. Along with eight points of necrotic damage as the bite begins to infuse you with this terrible cold shadow energy.

Now it's going to attack you with its claw. Yep. That's going to be 21. We need that radiant shit. Yeah. That's going to be 24 points of flushing damage. No, you're great.

Long call. Nope. Nope. Okay. Let's put some product, Casper. And let's throw up one here. One, two, three, four, five, 30, 40, 45, 50. Yeah. Swoop down here as part of it

and make itself into melee with Jester. That's not allowed. Since you are prone, it has advantage on its attacks against you, but it is within the sunlight, so it has disadvantage, so it cancels out to a straight attack. They are assuming you guys are easy prey now that you've been knocked off your mounts

and possibly paralyzed. But I'm not paralyzed because it wore off at the end of my turn. Correct. So these won't be a crit to you. That first attack is going to be a 25 to hit. Okay, yeah, mm-hmm. So you take 11 points of piercing damage

plus nine points of necrotic damage. You okay there, Margie? Yeah, I'm fine, I'm just going to barf. Is 18 a hit? 18 is my armor class. That hits. So the claw attack slashes into you, it's just tearing into you now with its claws and its bite. You take 11 points of slashing damage.

Great. No problem. That's its turn. You take 11 points of slashing damage. Great. No problem. That's its turn. All right, that brings us to Beau and Caleb. Beau, you're no longer paralyzed. Hey! Woo!

Sweet. Caleb, you are no longer paralyzed. Sweet! All right. Oh! Fjord and Caduceus on deck. What are you doing, Fjord? You see this scratching and biting into both sides of you, both Beauregard and Jester just being descended upon by these shadow beasts.

Yeah, I'll stand up. All right, that's not your movement, eh? And I will cast Charm Monster on both of them. Ooh! On both of them. All right, what's the save? It is a wisdom 17. 17, all righty. Since we've been fighting them,

they have advantage on the wisdom saving throw. That's right, good enough, all right. First one. First one is good enough, all right. First one. First one is a 10, it fails. Which one, the one over by Jester? The one by Jester there is Charmed. It's a six and a one. The one on Beauregard, natural one.

That is an 18. Fair enough. So the one on Beauregard manages to resist it, but the one to your right is charmed. Beautiful. It pulls back from Jester. Yeah, and I'll just tell it to back off. Okay. And with my bonus action, I will cast nothing.

I'll stay there. Okay, that finishes your go. Caduceus, what do you do? Did I see any of that just happen? No, you're getting up off the ground. Okay. Like you just impacted, barely turned your head around and you now see them descending on the group.

Okay, I'm going to. You see Fjord casting something, that's what you see. Okay, I'm going to try and get, can group. Okay, I'm going to. You see Fjord casting something, that's what you see. Okay, I'm going to try and get, can I get within, I'm going to get as close to that group as possible. I want to get in the center of this whole mess. I'm sure. 15, so you can move one, two, three,

as close as you can get to it. Okay, I'm going to cast Spirit Guardians. Okay. Spirit Guardians, what's the range on that? 15 feet. 15 feet, okay. So that gets those two right there. Yeah, that's, yeah. 15 feet, okay. So that gets those two right there. Yeah, that's 15 feet in every direction.

So that's wisdom. What do the others look like? They're little bugs and little fireflies and little beetles and dragonflies that flip around. All righty. Yeah, that's a wisdom save. Wisdom save, right there. Seven, failure on the Charmed one.

Okay. And a 17 on the one by Beauregard. What's your DC? 17. So yeah, it succeeds on that one. Okay, well that's fine, because that's a, all right. Wisdom saving, Thrawn fails, so the creature takes 3d8 radiant damage.

He takes 15 points of radiant damage, and the other one takes that halved. Okay. Yeah, let's see. How do you want to do this? Yeah! To this one over here. It's just going to get eaten alive by little glowing, radiant, celestial beetles and bugs.

They're just ladybugs and they're just going. Swarm of glowing radiant beetles begin to just bro into its shattered body. You can see as they tear and vanish on the inside. It's looking like someone placed a candle on the inside of a piece of Swiss cheese with those dull glows from the inside of the holes around it. It shrieks and tries to fly off,

and it gets about 20 feet in the air, arching before it just spins and hits the ground like one of Daenerys's dragons. I'm just going to make eye contact with the other one now. Low blow. Oh, and when he starts his turn in the range, it's also another attack.

You got it. Mm-hmm. The other one gets blasted by it, and they're burning and burrowing into its skin. The daylight's blasting in its eye. It's starting to look frantic. That finishes Caduceus' go. It's now the moorbounder's turn. They're no longer paralyzed.

Hey! Top of the round, Yasha, you're up. Okay. Yeah, Yasha. I'm going to attack. Ooh, nice, okay. 23. That hits, go ahead and roll damage. So first strike. Yeah.

Okay, 10. Love the tension. 19 points of damage. Woo! That first attack. So now that you've slashed it, it caused it to fall down, you follow it up with your first large swipe. The skin gorge are cutting across its chest.

It pulls back, almost stumbling onto its back from the sheer force of it. Both the blade and just the weight of the metal behind it causing it to almost topple. Second attack? Yeah. You can still add a four. Oh, that was so...

The die is so pretty, but it keeps getting cocked on its own because of the inner dice. It's weird. Okay, so 18. Or no, 10. Ugh, 18. Or no, 10. Ugh, 11. 11 misses, unfortunately. Still getting used to this weapon,

the first impact, you get so cocky that you pull back with a second swing, and as you do, the creature leaps back by a foot and it smashes into the ground, sending shards of rock and dirt up into the air around it, and leaving this large groove in the floor in front of you. Ugh! Okay. Is it your turn? That's my turn. of rock and dirt up into the air around it and leaving this large groove in the floor in front of you. Damn. Okay.

Is it your turn? That's my turn. All righty. Finishing Yasha's go, Nott and Jester are on deck. The Flass Water will strike again for six points of damage. Yeah! Get it! And I will stick out and shoot the same one

that's engaged with Yasha. All right, so you go back this side. And I'll miss. What'd you roll? 13. 13. Goes wide. Reload, shoot again.

That's a 21. That does hit. And I think I still get sneak attack damage. You do because it is engaged with Yasha's stuff. Very good. Oh, jeez. I know, right attack damage. You do because it is engaged with Yasha's step. Very good. Oh, jeez. I know, right? Wow.

That's gross. 24 plus six is 30. Oh! How do you want it to be? Yay! I will just say to the creature, you're grounded! Nope. All of a sudden, it's back alive.

As you release it, shouting that, it glances your direction. One of its two yellow eyes blinks out, and it just falls to the ground, no longer moving. The glass water hits it a few more times. The shadow that emanates from it begins to dissipate and slowly fade, leaving the leathery carcass behind. All righty.

Action bonus, and then movement, I'll just clock around to the other side of the tree. All right. That's that. And Jester, you're up. I sit up on the ground, so I'm just sitting there and I see the other one attacking Beau, and I go, and I Guiding Bolt it again at second level.

Roll for an attack. The butt! Up the butt. Oh yeah, that's 16 plus nine. Oh yeah! That hits, go ahead and roll damage. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. 11, 12, 14 points of radiant damage.

14 points of radiant damage. Here we go now. Here we go now. Here we go now. As it's finished slashing through Beauregard, it watches its allies getting destroyed left and right. There's the large number of divine insects that are burning under its body,

and it spins towards you as you blast it with a Guiding Bolt, causing part of its wing to burn its shoulder is now in radiant flame. It's looking really hurt. Is that your turn? You're still on the ground, by the way. I'll stand up. Okay. From your chest.

Yeah, that's what I'm going to do. All righty. Finishing your turn, it's now I wanted to do. All righty. Finishing your turn, it's now the creature's turn. And it immediately has to roll a save. It does. Natural 17 plus three. Okay, so it saves. It only takes, yeah, that's really mean.

Ooh. Yeah. 17 and a half, 17 points of radiant damage halved. Okay. So it takes 17 total. Eight points? No, well then, but then it's, but it's, so it takes 17 points of radiant damage halved.

Yeah, it takes 17 actually, radiant points of damage just at the top of this turn. Correct, 17 halved. Halved, right, so it makes it 17. Okay, how do you want to do this? Hooray! I just, I want to slowly walk over to it and just pet it on the head.

It's okay, it's okay. As you're petting it, it's freaking out and it tries to fly away and it kicks off of you. No, no, no, no. It gets about 10 feet before it spirals and slams into the ground. You watch the light beetles begin to burn and burrow in and out of its body

like a rapid-fire video of a creature being decomposed by a series of insects. The bones are eating my heart. I have to go back here. Quick, tend to the war boundaries. I'm going to loot the bodies. Don't actually think about it. All right.

I can see how much gold they carry in their pouches and pockets. Roll an investigation check. That fucking face paint's bleeding into his bloodstream. 30. All right, you watch as Nott is plunging her arms into the wounds of these creatures and just pulling organs out.

You do find a cold node in the chest. Node? With a 30 investigation check, you find the heart of the beast. Ooh! It's freezing to the touch. Do you pull it out? You're feeling it on the inside of the body.

Do I have the strength to pull it out? We can find out. Do you want to try? Yeah, let's do this. All right, go ahead and make a strength check. Yeah! Natural 20. Yeah! That's how Skeletors happen. Goddamn it. This is how you do it. I check. Natural 20. Yeah!

That's how Skeletors happen. Goddamn it. This is how you pull it out. You want a Skeletor? This is how we get a Skeletor. I'm not going to pull it out. I'm going to push it through. So the creature's body is here, and there's one wound on one side of its chest,

and suddenly it. This black charcoal-looking heart just slaps onto the ground next to it. Don't touch it, Mom, it's evil. I'll go pick it up and see what it feels like. Okay, it's freezing to the touch. You actually do take two points of cold damage in the process of grabbing and pushing it through.

Ooh. Do we have something to put that in? I always have rags. If we have anything, glass, maybe? Wrap it in this. The heart of a gloomstalker, for whatever that may be. You can keep tabs that you have a heart of a gloomstalker. Heart of a gloomstalker.

The eyes of a fizzlebug. I help Yarnball stand up and pat her and say, I'm sorry that you're there. Yarnball looks at it, shaking. You're okay, you're okay, it's okay. You can eat some of the gloomstalkers if you're, whatever those things are, and say, I'm sorry that you're feeling it. Your armor looks a bit shaken. You're okay, you're okay, it's okay. You can eat some of the gloomstalkers if you're, whatever those things are, and okay, yeah. And just digs into it immediately.

I just stay laying on my back and just sigh in disappointment and embarrassment. What's up with you? It's fucking useless. What do you mean? That was a group effort. Wasn't so bad. No, that was not. You totally distracted one with your paralyzed buddy.

You did good. Roll. Here. Yasha reaches out to help you out. Come on. Shit! Yasha, fuck! I mean, come on, ratchet it down. The sky above.

Now go get her. I was just paralyzed, why? Oh, fuck. I thought. I'm going to run a prayer of healing really quickly, just for anybody who needs it. I need it. So that's a 14 healing points

of healing to anybody who needs it. Anybody? Everybody? Yeah, I can do up to six people, and I don't think we have six people. Two? Actually, let's see, one, two, three, four. Are you including yourself? No, I'll sit it out, I'm fine.

Can I take seconds? Is that allowed? I can work on seconds if you need them. Well, you are. I'm fine, I only took three points of damage. Me too, very generous. Did it take seconds? Is that allowed? I can work on seconds if you need them. I'm fine, I only took three points of damage. Me too, very generous. All right, easy peasy. Where are we in relation to that tower that Nott pointed out?

Make a perception check. Yeah, okay. Can we get our moorbounders up? Moorbounders are back up. And they're feasted, so they're happy. Oh! Oh yeah, they can eat the body. Oh, tell them not to eat the hearts. Don't eat the heart.

They can understand common, I suppose. Caduceus, tell them not to eat the hearts. Oh, can you leave the hearts for us? It's the cold bit in the middle that doesn't. Much like in the movie Beauty and the Beast when he's eating the bowl of porridge, there's just gloomstalker guts around its face. We're not going to be mad or anything.

We're talking about brain freeze? It might be hurting you or something, yeah. It begins to rain. The rain of the storm has hit you as a wave comes past. It's freezing cold. Immediately, it's starting to run the black blood of these creatures

to slowly spill across the floor of the Badlands here. I use it to wipe the blood off. I'm going to give you another cure wound. Thank you. I'm going to cast Cure Wounds on myself, too. Have another eight points. Thank you. We're going to be miserable in this rain

in about five minutes. Yeah, let's get going. 18 on that perception. 18. With the rain in about five minutes. Yeah, let's get going. 18 on my perception. 18. With the rain, it takes you a moment and you can make out the vague bit of a dark shape, but you're unable to really know more than just, Caduceus mentioned something in this direction

and that's probably it, but you can't really tell what it is. I pull out the copied map again. Anything look relevant? Based on the design, the large T that was on the map looks like it could be representative of that shape that you're pointing at. Okay. Also, earlier you described the frequency of these

spires, closer together, not uniform, but a little more. Like every thousand or so feet, you'll probably come across one. Maybe over 2,000, so they're starting to become more and more common. Is there still daylight, should we keep going? Still daylight, you still have another four hours or so. Let's keep going.

I wonder how much further until we're out of this place. I don't know, I'm going to let whatever's left of the Daylight Spell run for a minute anyway before canceling that anyway. Do you guys take some time to, taking a short rest or are you moving forward? Short rest. I think we're all healed.

Okay. We're moving forward. Okay. We warlocks. Love those short rests. Love those short rests, man. Do we need to do a good as well? Yeah, if you want to take a short rest, we can. We've only got a certain amount of, okay, yeah.

Sure, we'll just wait here while you. I mean, we've already been healing and stuff for a little bit. So you continue your rest for an additional 30 or so minutes, which is the length of the Daylight spell anyway, that gives you a short rest. Anybody who wishes to, you can use some hit dice for yourself if you'd like.

That does impact your travel time slightly. So you do lose an hour of daylight in your journey. But completing the short rest, you mount back up to your moorbounders. I'd say with your Parallel of Healing, you healed what was it before, right? With the Parallel of Healing. How much did you heal with that?

14 or something? Yeah, about 14. Okay, so the moorbounders are back up to full again, because they also took damage from falling and impacting onto the ground. To get back on my stats. You got it. Gathering your things, back up onto your mounts, you continue on forward through the rain.

What pace are you taking? Slow pace, normal pace, fast pace? Fast pace? Are we checking out this thing? What thing? The thing that I saw? Yeah. It's where we're heading. Yeah.

So I don't know if we want to race up on it. We want to get to it before nightfall. Yeah. Let's go. It's still pretty far away. Because we'll get closer. Oh, the notion was we sleep and then maybe see it first thing in the morning

so we get as close as we possibly can before bedding down. So we'll get. So you go, all right, fast pace? Yes. Apparently. Okay. Continuing on another hour, a second hour, the rain itself, now heavy sheets, soaking you all to the bone,

seeping into every piece of armor and clothing you have. The rain is thick. It's water, but it also has almost like a weird, very faint, oily residue to it. Like whatever, not just water was carried up with this precipitation. You've known this slick rain comes through occasionally in this area, pulling up some of the various

nasty chemicals and oily remnants of the battlefields of Xhorhas. Doesn't have an odor, does it? Make a medicine check. Are we walking through terraces? Is this Chernobyl? Probably, yeah. Seven.

It has an odor, but you're unable to really recognize what it is. It's very, very faint, very, very faint. You're not worried, but just different than the rain you've experienced so far in Xhorhas. You continue forward for a second hour. In keeping a view, you can definitely now start making the shape of this looming object

that was on the horizon when you first spotted it by the tortoise shell. See, I told you, it's like a big, square dick. Mm, yeah. I think you said that before. I'm pretty sure this is the first time you've mentioned any. Just like I said. I feel like you said it.

So the size is hard to gauge through the storm, but you're now certain that it is indeed a tree. Oh. Oh. It is a tree. Okay. Though the scale is staggering. Probably stands somewhere between 400 to 500 feet tall. Whoa!

With a lush lush leafed canopy that defies the nature of these Desolate Barrens. It's just one single tree? One single massive tree in the middle of nowhere. Whoa. It's the Wild Mother. What?

Of course. What do you mean? What does what mean? That is the Wild Mother? The Wild Mother's a tree? Wild Mother's a lot of things. If anyone here is religion, proficient with religion, go ahead and make a check for me.

You once told me that the people in my village might like the Wild Mother. Seven. That's proficient. You've never heard of this. How far away are we? I'm not proficient. You're not proficient. Wild Mother, you know of the Wild Mother,

but you haven't done any extensive study, unfortunately, mainly due to the fact that she's not really allowed in the Empire. How far away are we from it? Make a survival check. That was almost cool, nine. Nine, you're not sure. It's not doing that.

It's hard to gauge, it's so big at this distance that you're like, either that's really close or it's bigger than you think and it's much further. And either way, your brain breaks a bit at the prospect. Probably the weather. The distance is a little odd with the storm blowing through. And now you're starting to see

arcs of lightning in the distance as the storm is coming through. You're getting any kind of feeling from this? I mean, yeah. Look at that. A good one, though, or a bad one? It's nothing but a good feeling. Look at that. What about you, Yasha? Lightning hits you, bursts into flames.

No! Fuck! You got your chocolate in my peanut butter! Demand sacrifice. It's nothing but good feelings. Whoa! Have you seen a fucking discussion? Would I have heard about this massive tree? No.

You've not traveled this far north? I've never heard of this. I mean, I've obviously never traveled this far north, but I've never seen anything like this before. What time of day is it? At this point, it's maybe 3 o'clock in the afternoon. We'll be looking at dusks beginning in the next couple hours.

We could make it. Should we keep moving toward the tree? Yeah, I want to see it. Trees can last. That's grand. Oh, they certainly can. I bet a lot of things are attracted to the tree, though. Or maybe things are scared of the tree. Like they're scared of the sunlight.

Oh yeah. I mean, there's got to be people there. This feels like something slightly civilized, right? I think this looks like the exact opposite of civilized. Let's go find out. Yeah, yeah. All right, so moving fast-paced towards it. Fast-paced. All righty. You guys rushing through the rain,

pelting your face, stinging due to the speed you're traveling and the wind and arc of it. Your face is starting to go numb from both the temperature and the continuous impact. Can we keep a crap eye out for any tortoiseshells or anything else that's behind us? Yeah, go ahead and make a perception check with disadvantage.

What about any? I will join you in that. Any scouts, any people? That's what the general watches, they go ahead and make a perception check with disadvantage. What about any? I will join you in that. Any scouts, any people? That's what the general watches as they go ahead. Hey! I'm going to put up a mask. 18 with disadvantage. 17 to 16. 11 with disadvantage.

You rolled a natural 20. 20, I know. Oh, I'm sorry, buddy. Oops, the rain. Nine. All right, so you keep an eye out. It's really hard to see with the rain and the movement and being distracted by the continuous stinging

of the storm in your face. Nott, you go ahead and cover the front of your face best you can to help keep that at bay. You keep an eye out there. You guys travel for an hour, a second hour, and the shape's getting larger and larger and closer. Eventually, you can see the light source behind the trees an hour, a second hour, and the shape's getting larger and larger and closer. Eventually, you can see the light source behind the trees

begin to dim further and further, signifying that sunset is coming in. It's definitely set up the bubble before it gets dark. Those things come out. Fjord. Looking back, glancing on your area, you don't notice any Tordrash shells. You pass by one of the spires and glance up at the top, and you see it's dark and shadowed towards the peak.

Right as you guys ride by at a fast pace, which is not a stealthy pace, you watch as the shadows unfold as a cluster of two, three, four, five gloomstalkers have taken notice of your pace, and they all begin to all detach from the spire and begin to swarm behind you

as you're traveling forward. How far away from the tree? How far away are they from us? They're about 150 feet behind you, so at a full fast pace, you guys will be keeping pace. I look at the map again. Are there any dots marked that feel like they could be nearby?

No, on the scaled map, it was a very, very simple map, and it seemed to be the entirety of the barbed fields. So right now, the only thing is the tea. As long as we don't stop, they won't catch us. Okay. Can we cast the dome while we're moving? Nope. No. No.

Well, we'll hold. Time and quiet for that. How about this? How about me and Caleb jump off, you guys keep riding, we'll cast, you lead them all around for 10 minutes. That's just not- Terrible idea.

They will see us. They will see us. They will yell at us over the way and we're like, shut up, Nott, just ride. We're going to jump off and stay here. Just keep riding. All right. You can actually hear both between the rain

and the recent realization of these creatures in the conversation, Yarnball's like, Oh no. And seeming to be a little bit freaked out from what had transpired in the previous battle. I don't think they've ever been thrown at full speed from paralyzation.

Make an animal handling check for me. Oh no! With advantage? No. Whoa. Oh god, it was, it went anywhere! It went everywhere! That was so much to watch. That was so much.

It was like the wheel of Christ is right. Seven. Yeah. All right, so as you guys are moving forward, Yarnball's starting to split off a bit and trying to, is now overtaken by the primal instinct to preserve himself, and so the group is moving forward. Yarnball's starting to peel off.

Yarnball, Yarnball, come on, we need you. We need you, buddy, come on. Just moving, moving. What is your fucking animal doing? Hold on, hold on, hold on, I'm going to cast, let's see if I can do this. Hellish Rebellion. I'm going to cast Command on Yarnball.

Okay, what's the will save on that? Is it Wisdom? Yeah, it's Wisdom, 17. 17. No, that is a straight 12. What do you command Yarnball? Stay with the group, Yarnball. Corrects and begins to move back towards the group. Oh, slick. Good boy.

Merging with the group and everyone back together again, Yarnball seems to shake off the momentary fear and you guys are still moving. Looking back behind you, you can see now all five of them swarming between each other and occasionally. You can see the yellow trails from where their eyes are moving against the darker, ever-growing darkened shadow of the clouds above you

in the coming evening sky. Another flash of blue lightning a little closer nearby. The thunder is getting closer to the flash. Any shelter, any shelter. You continue to move. Yeah. Another 30 minutes or so. Pushing close, the tree is now becoming

this massive, massive shape with no light source. The tree is now just becoming this large, slowly converting into this giant shadow that you're approaching. Occasionally, with other flashes of light, you can see the bright blue and white outline of it and the immediate flash reflection of the lightning before it goes dark once more.

What was once a welcoming tree is now starting to look more and more ominous the closer you get to it. You can now see more boundaries starting to get a little tired. Their pace is starting to not slacken yet, but you can hear the breathing. Yasha, you think that god of yours could give us a hand? You know?

I can try. I have an idea. I'll, no, never mind. I got to save it. Two spell slots! You don't want to save nothing. I'm going to hold my... Why am I thinking of the word? Symbol? My symbol.

I'm going to hold my symbol and I'm going to just, hey, Stormlord, we could use a little help right now. I don't know if this is how this works, but if you want to show up and, you know, use your lightning to kill these things, we would just greatly appreciate it. But you know, if not, we can kill them,

but you know, either way, please. Okay, so you keep writing. Either way, please. Okay. You keep writing. As we're trucking, I'll let my eyes roll back and I'll say, and I'll summon a greater demon right behind us as we're hauling ass and just tell him to fucking make a big fucking racket.

Yes. Okay. What? Yes. You hear the horrible, curling voice of some demonic language spill forth from Fjord's mouth. His eyes go dark momentarily, and then behind you, there's a flash of purple as this series of arcane lines draw across this open gate, and from the billowing black-purple smoke, you watch the massive,

demonic, gorilla-like shape of a bulgur slamming into the ground and scream up to the sky. You now watch as... Oh, that's cocked. Cocked. That's a cock. That's cocked. Four of the five of them notice it

and swoop down towards it with one more that's still barreling towards the rest of you. Yes. As that happens, you guys continue your pace and you hear behind you shrieking, tearing, roaring, screaming this absolute fray to the point where you can no longer see the creatures, you can no longer see the Balgora.

The fights begin to dissipate and sound and now there's just the one. How far away is it from us now? I'd say it's still about 175 to 200 feet away. I'm giving Nott the Gift of Alacrity and readying the Driftglobe in my hand. Okay. I'm readying Guiding Bolt for if it gets close.

And Sacred Flame. Okay. I ready my middle finger. Yeah, the worst of them all! The shape of the tree is getting closer and closer and closer. You can start to get a sense of scope and size. You now have a definitive idea from where,

like, you can see detail on the massive roots that pour out from its base and dig deeply into the broken Badlands that surrounds it. You can hear the heavy bleeding of the wings, the rain smashing all around you, and the morgowners are now getting tired and they're starting to slow. Pace begins to draw back slower.

I'm going to just try and cast, just to help them out a little bit, I'm just going to do a healing, where is it, healing word? Mass healing word? Mass healing word, yeah. It's a fourth level. Okay, go for it. On who? On the moorbounders. Okay.

You heal whatever wounds they may have had, but it does not get rid of any exhaustion, unfortunately. So they're still slowing. The single gloomstalker's starting to catch up. As soon as it's within 120 feet. Which is not very long. Go for it. Roll an attack. I'm doing this at third level.

Correct. You also are at a disadvantage on this attack because of the heavy rain have given it, actually, no, sorry, it just has a bonus to its armor class plus two, so regular attack. We're in the dark now. It's almost pitch black now. Like, there's a little bit of fading light. 17. 17.

Its AC is 15 plus two, because of that, so 17 it hits exactly. Oh! Do I hit it or I don two. Because of that, so 17, it hits exactly. Oh! Do I hit it or I don't hit it? No, you just hit it. Yeah! All right, so that's... Radiant the fuck up! 66.

66 damage. 66! Oh wow. 12, 16, 18, holy shit, 22, 20. Oh yeah, you're right, is it 26? 26 points of radiant damage. All right. As it's swooping towards you, you watch,

as you're all riding, the warbenders are slowing, getting sluggish, there's a general sense of like, all right, what's happening next? As soon as you have that thought, this bright, vibrant bolt of divine energy just blasts forth. It is a pink radiant bolt of energy that flies straight backwards and you watch it

burst into this small blast wave, this echoing sphere of energy that explodes out from the impact on this gloomstalker. Its body is now completely surrounded in burning pink divine energy, and it's flapping and freaking out, and it is horribly hurt in one hit. It immediately spins around

and begins to make its way back. Nice. Don't want another bite of that. Bugging out, bugging out. Hank! That's great. With that, the moorbounders' pace has slowed, but they're still moving at half speed. About 30 minutes past dusk, the night has come.

You approach probably about 100 feet from where the tree begins. Oh shit. 100 feet? We're that close? Let's go check it out. In the dark? We have light spells. I have this, I can't see anything. Cast the Gloom. I'm pretty thin, but I do. Don't waste it, Caduceus, I have this, I can't see anything. I cast the Glove. Pretty thin, but I do. Don't waste it, Caduceus, I have this.

All right. I have a feeling there's going to be people here, man. Or, yeah, if we're lucky. Or bad guys, yeah. You don't have a landmark this big in the middle of nowhere and it doesn't attract everyone else in the vicinity. Is it about five or six in the afternoon, seven, later? At this point, I'd say it's closer to eight o'clock. Like me. It may be time to,

might be good to have a place to rest regardless. What do you think? I don't know. Yeah, but I can't see, and I'm worried to light this up and draw other things to us. Does anyone have a... Put on my goggles. I can make it real dark around you. What do you, you want light? I need to be able to read.

Oh yeah, I have a torch, we have torches. What do you do? What do you, you want light? I need to be able to read. Oh yeah, I have a torch, we have torches. I can just, I'm going to do a very basic light spell. Do you want to borrow my goggles before you do that? You want to just borrow my goggles? It's been so long. I put under a rag a little globule of light and let that float just above my book on the ground

and start spending the next 10 minutes to the hut. The rag is immediately soaked from the rain. You pull open the book. Your book has been treated. It's fine spell page. It's meant to resist water. That's good. Wow.

So you begin to go through and recite, and then what are you casting? Oh, Leomund's Tiny Hut. All right. You wait about 10 minutes or so. Should I go scout while we're waiting? Should I go scout ahead? No. It's not tiny hut. All right. You wait about 10 minutes or so. Should I go scout while we're waiting? Should I go scout ahead? No. It's not 100 feet, I could just turn invisible,

look around for a while. She said no, Jesus. But I'm masking again. Invisible. Without getting the response not wanted, she vanishes from sight and disappears. Oh man. If she doesn't meet you, just start screaming or something. Okay.

So while you're in the process of casting your spell, Nott, you, gone from sight, begin to slowly, quietly make your way towards this ominous, solitary tree in the center of the barbed fields. You said the ominous. That's when you go ahead and take a break. Ooh!

Do you think I should go invisible? No. Yep, that's par for the course there. All right, we have our giveaway for the Wyrmwood. This is the Bolivian Rosewood tabletop dice tray here. That is from our friends at Wyrmwood. This will be going to one lucky winner. To enter this during the break,

enter into the chat today's code, which is DANGER. Put the word DANGER into the chat once, more than once, and you will be disqualified, unfortunately. Once again, U.S. and Canada only, excluding Quebec, because of stupid laws. Don't forget, also coming up in the second half of the show, part two of the D&D Beyond ad, which is about 25 minutes of introvertive dance.

It's based on Aeschylus. So look forward to that. But yeah, we'll see you guys back here in a few minutes. Bye. See you soon. Why, hello there. This is Critical Role's resident art dad, also known as Liam O'Brien. We are continuously amazed at the artwork this community creates.

That's why each Thursday at 8 a.m. Pacific, we share a curated gallery of submitted fan art over on critroll.com. If you'd like to submit your art for consideration, visit critroll.com slash submit. And thank you to all of the incredible artists who share their talents with us week after week. And welcome back. Slow on the draw, Liam O'Brien. Always on purpose. So before we get into the game, we have our winner for tonight's giveaway. The winner is Linali.

L-I-H-N-A-L-I, Linali. Congratulations. We'll go ahead and get your Wyrmwood dice box to you, Aosha. Also, Matt, before we start the second half of the show, in honor of Liam and Laura's birthday, I brought you all presents. Oh. Certainly not something that we want to use during the show tonight,

but I brought everybody a can of Silly String, just to have, just to have. Even you, Matt. Oh. Come closer, come closer. Just in case. We should not use this tonight. You are such an agent of chaos. It's like the worst to clean up.

It's the worst. Oh, that's a bottle of tea. I'm going to prepare it. We won't use it, though. Great. I'm going to prepare it. Prepare for the environment, though. We won't use it, though. But it's to honor Liam and Laura. My gosh. Matt just scowled from around the curtain.

We didn't see it, we felt it. Yeah. On our backs. Should we put money on who uses it first? Travis. That is so unfair. Whoever uses it first loses the death save on the road. Don't get in the panels.

And smart money. Or in the cams, or in the rafters, or in the grid. Ceiling! So. I remember when you were fun. This is what responsibility has done to me. Nott. Oh, that's right, I'm me. Oh! Nott. Oh, that's right, I'm invisible. Yes, you are.

Oh shit. So you approach slowly, quietly. Roll a stealth check for me, please, with advantage. I'll take that one. 26. 26, okay. Just over here jerking it, it's fine. Yeah, that's cool.

This is going to be so gif-able. That's how it sounds. Yeah, with the right piercing, I guess. Anyway. That might be true. The first of fire loses a character. As you quietly approach the base of this tree, you look out at the peripheral of your darkvision,

begin to see these massive roots that are dug and intertwined within the broken, red clay earth around it. But where the roots break in, you can see grass, green, unnaturally healthy, seems to exist in a proximity about five or 10 feet around the base of these roots.

The roots themselves curl and pile over each other and knot and eventually pull up towards this massive, looming natural structure. Maybe people moving or creatures? Make a perception check. Really good at both. Hey, 15. 15. You glance up and

immediately you see what looks to be a dozen or so tiny creatures that just are climbing up the sides of the tree, maybe about a foot across, and just clung to the side of it. Is there a hollowed out center? Is there a way to get into the tree, through the tree? From where you're standing right now,

it looks like it's a pretty solid mass of tree. How about I'm going to go over to the grass and just inspect around some of the roots to see if there's some holes that burrow down under. Make an investigation check. 17. 17. Taking some time, looking and peeking through, most of it seems pretty solid and clutched.

You get a little ways around the southeastern side of it, and you can see a portion of the roots fold inward to a small alcove, maybe about five feet on one side and 10 on the other. It's just a little inlet to the trees' roots themselves, but there's no knot hole that you can climb into or anything. So that's like an indentation

or a hole down under the ground? It's a portion where the roots leave an opening, like a shallow cave on the inside of it. But that's the extent of what you can find. I'll go over and just look in there. Okay. You glance and look inside. It appears that there is a cluster of stones set there

in a circle, like a fire circle, but it's been long burned out. Okay. Has it been 10 minutes yet? I'd say at this point it'd be about 10 minutes. All right, I'll head back stealthily. Okay. You complete your spell, the dome

apparates around you, and you feel protected. Still opaque in what color? Are we, where did we stop? 100 feet away from the tree? Approximately. So the same color as the earth beneath it. Okay, so like a ruddy brown-red color. Yes, that.

Okay. The rest of you, are you doing anything now that the hut has apparated? Keeping a general look, how far away are we from the tree at this point? You're about 100 feet. Yeah, no sign of people or scouts. No scouts, nothing.

Darkening the rain. Darkening the rain. It's darkening the rain. It's hard to see much beyond maybe about 60 or so feet detail-wise. You can make out the tree and where it is, and especially with the flashes of lightning far off, giving a little bit of a framing to it. Just get inside the dome and hunker down.

Okay. It's nice, because the rain's hitting the top. Like being in a car wash. Yeah. Okay. I'll take First Watch, then I'm going to run Commute, I think, before I go to sleep. Okay. I come back to sleep. Okay.

I come back and report. Okay. Oh, you lived? I'm here. There was little creatures like squirrel-y sort of things in the tree and then roots, and then there's this one little cave sort of space that someone has been in. But I didn't venture in too much.

Should I go back? Yes. Just check it out? Yes? Yep. Why don't we wait for morning? I'm trying to use our first psychology. I'm going to put in the middle of the room the rod that I found in,

that we found in the magic ball in that little alcove, right? That was for warming. It was like a little warming rod. Right, yes. I'm going to put that in the middle just so it keeps it a little warmer. Just heats up the Dumb and the Inside?

Like a space heater. Yeah. You got it? You got it. Okay. Oh man. Not now, I've been watching Chernobyl. No. All right.

As you're setting up the space, you do notice the floor here. It is the same brown-red, but you look amongst it and there's crumpled dry grass. Grass that has died. In the dome. In the dome, on the floor, and around you as well, as you've taken time to take in your area around you,

now that you have it lit within the dome, you notice that there's just a bed of crumpled dry grass. We're not seeing it in action dying. It's been dead. It's been dead. And it's wet somewhat from the rain that has fallen. Correct. Okay. Can we see how far it stretches, this patch of dead grass? It fills the floor of the dome you're falling. Correct. Okay. Can we see how far it stretches, this patch of dead grass?

It fills the floor of the dome you're in. Just the dome? You look past it, and it's everywhere in the vicinity. The dome is lit up on the inside, so we're seeing it at night for the first time. Dead grass further. Beyond the tree. All right. It's like the tree is sucking up everything

within the region and using it for itself. Or it's hanging on and trying to beat back whatever it is. It's a vampire tree! Does this look familiar to what your garden was going through? I mean, it kind of does. I mean, I don't know.

I have to think. Can you heal some of this grass? It's dead. Well, no, I mean, you're like a Clara. Can't you make it grow again? Are we healing grass right now? Oh, heal, grass. You can do it. That was good.

It doesn't work that way, but... We spit on it. It just needs a little water. It's already been pretty damp from the rain. It just needs a little water. It's already been pretty damp from the rain. Oh, it was already damp. Now extra damp. Can I scoop into the ground a little bit and just see what's underneath the topsoil?

Yeah, sure, you dig into it, and you can see there are dried roots for the grass having set there. Yep. But it is damp. As you pull up the roots, the roots look healthy. Recently, Deadgrass? Looks recent.

What's that about? May sit and take my questions at some point. Okay, so you're going ahead and cast Commune? All righty. I'll go ahead and bring this up here. Anyone we need to send messages to? Three yes or no's. We still haven't contacted the Bright Queen

to tell her where we are, what we're doing. Yeah, but everybody said not to do that. Yeah, maybe if you ask the same question again, they'll give you a different answer. Yeah, that'd be a good one. So it only takes a minute for you to cast it. So we're having this conversation. You sit down within the dome, close your eyes, focus, and as your consciousness expands

beyond your physical body, you feel the warmth of the land around you. The heat of the day, the winds, and the cold of the storm all at once, experiencing the fields and beyond in one condensed, rapid instant. Then you feel the comfortable embrace of a familiar presence, warm,

encompassing. What would you like to ask? It's Avantika. Is this place yours? The images and emotions come to you. It's less when you communicate, it's less words directly, and it's more a series of emotions

and images that you interpret as words and phrases. And it comes to an agreement, an acknowledgment of a yes. It is mine. My last and final seat. How new is the threat? I suppose I would say, is this one season? What's the thing that's beaten you back?

The land remains scarred. It has since we all stepped away. Am I here to fix this? It's too big to fix. Your path is your own. I don't like that answer one bit. All right. I will quietly come out of my trance

and yeah, I've got nothing to say to that. Okay. I'm going to send a message to Essek. All right. Quick question. Do you know anything about the big tree growing in the barbed fields? It's really big.

Have you heard about it? What's it do? Why is it here? You have made it to the Arbor Exemplar. That is impressive. It is also very deep in dangerous terrain. You're doing me proud. And that's it.

Ooh! Have any of you heard about the Arbor Exemplar? Of course, Caleb probably has an extensive reading, right, Caleb? Unfortunately, through the religion checks you guys made previously, none of you have any idea. I didn't make one earlier. But it was for people with proficiency.

I am proficient. Well, I asked about that earlier. But I didn't do it earlier, because I wasn't really part of it. Then go ahead and roll it. Oh. Ooh. ahead and roll it. Oh. High five. 24.

Oh, jeez. Yes! Yeah. So Beauregard hears this and goes, oh yeah, you totally recall, yeah. Yeah, I read about that shit. That's where we are, we're at the Arbor Exemplar. So following the final confrontation and the banishing of the Betrayer Gods

towards the end of the Calamity and the following divergence before all of the Prime Deities left Exandria to go beyond and construct the Divine Gate, the Wild Mother buried this seed within the most desolate land at the time to leave behind a beacon of life and hope and a place in which absolute destruction

at that time reigned. This is what the Barbed Fields looks like now. Imagine what it would have looked like at the end of those battles. And so this is considered the sister tree to the Seat of Rebirth, which is the tree that resides in the center of those battles. This is considered the Sister Tree to the Seat of Rebirth, which is the tree that resides in the center of the birth heart of Vasselheim. Oh shit, Sister Tree?

Sister Tree. Sister, sister. That's growing a monster underneath it in a box of ashes. You read my fucking notes. So I say all of that. Wow, this is a special tree. What's a Vasselheim?

Oh, it's another city, kind of in another continent. What's a continent? Um, so... Go in a minute. It's fine. Sam. Take the hood down so you don't die of a heat stroke, please. I mean, you're sweating. You're sweating them off. Just take the hood down so you don't die of heat stroke. Please.

I mean, you're sweating, you're sweating them off. Just take the hood down. No, don't. No, take the hood down. You look like you're in a sauna. Johnny, put the cup down. Take it down. Take the hood down.

Don't you spray me. Take it down. Don't you spray me. Take that hood down. Don't spray me, too. All right, I'll take the hood down. Don't you spray me. Take it down. Don't you spray me. Take that hood down. Don't spray me, too. All right, I'll take the hood down. Okay. Compromise. I can restart it.

All right. That's cool. So. You can still hear the rain pouring on the outside of the dome, smacking against the arcane force field that keeps you protected for the evening. What would you guys like to do before bedding down?

Should we scry on the guy we're chasing? Oh, yeah, yeah. He's been gone a while. He saved against it before, right? Yeah. Try it again. Okay, yeah, yeah. If they saved a while? He saved against it before, right? Yeah. Try it again. Okay, yeah, yeah. If they saved, do they know what we were scrying? No.

Okay, I can try. Okay, you're going to scry on the dark elf that you were attempting to follow. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Obann, is that his name? Obann was what you heard from the corpse of the Humpback. I'm going to scry on him. You want to use his name just to freak him out?

His natural six. Yes! Oh, you're not talking to him, you're scrying. All right. So. Here in the rainy night, you concentrate. For a moment, you're having a hard time grasping onto the thread of this individual.

Something seems unfocused, and then you have the familiar billowing of green robes, and hands reach out and clasp your fingers together and show you, like a teacher correcting your posture. As the hood looms to your left side, you see the smile on the Traveler's face and he says, Just like I talked to you. With that, you're off and thrust through the rain

and the storm at an impossible speed before you readjust once more. The rain all around you, you can sense the cold and the wetness. It's strange because you're not wet, you're not present, but you feel like you should and instinctually, your body is going through the physical motions, but you're dry and you can feel it where you're sitting.

What you do see, however, is a very darkened rock surface of the base of a mountain. You occasionally see flashes of light from nearby bolts over this 10-minute period that help make out shapes, but you see this figure wrapped in the same clothing as when they escaped Rosohna. They're no longer on horseback. Instead, he walks among strong,

the strong buffeting winds that are tossing mud and muck past him, the rain blasting down on the shoulders and head. He's feeling across the surface of the mountain, like fingers and hands just pouring across it, feeling the nooks and crannies. Slowly inspecting and carefully scanning with his hands along the rock. You can see what you assume to be,

based on the dark stone here and the north direction you're passing, to be, based on the dark stone here in the north direction you're passing, to be the base of the Penumbra Range, mountains that curve across the top of the barbed fields and encompass most of the eastern side of Xhorhas. He's searching. He's searching, and then he stops. Can I see what his fingers are doing?

Make a perception check. Come on, come on, Jesse. Come on, Jesse. Ellie. 13. 13. It's hard to make out the details, but it seems like his body shifts

like he's found something. Something has changed. The body tenses, and he stops his slow, gradual drifting across the mountain base. He takes a step back and reaches into the pack and pulls out something. It's a small stone crest of some kind. A crest that he bought.

He puts it back in his pouch and they continue searching. Apparently, Nott didn't quite discover what he thought. Can I see any noticeable features in the landscape? Anything that sticks out that would make me know? Unfortunately, the scrying is centered around the figure and what you can see is just what's directly around, plus the lack of true light

in the middle of the rainstorm. It's a tough space to make out any sort of details of the vicinity, but what you do make out is, based on the fact that he's not directly on a cliff or mountainside, there is a gradual curve and there is the familiar mud and dirt of the barbed fields around his feet as he moves. This is near the base of the mountain.

Okay. That's as much as you can discern. But it's raining where he is, too? Yeah. Same story. About 10 minutes of watching this transpire. And he looks the same as he did before? As best as you can tell him.

Aw. That's the song I sing to Ronin every night when he goes to sleep. Oh! The whole thing? Yeah. Oh! Ten minutes transpire. Same moments, occasionally stopping and feeling, and continuing, and you're pulled back

into yourself within the dome. What song do you see, Travis? He was looking for a secret passage or something in the base of the mountains. The rain was still on him, so he's not that far ahead of us, or maybe the storm is that big, I'm not sure. But he was searching around, and then he pulled out what looked like a crest, so I'm thinking

that's probably what he bought from that guy. And then, I didn't see him open a door or anything. But he's close enough that we might be wishing on the same bright star? Yeah. Wow. If we were to get closer, are you able to track him by that crest as well?

I mean, I saw it. Did I see it enough to be able to locate the object on that crest that I saw him pull out? Possibly, yeah. I mean, you didn't get all the details of it, but you saw what it looked like. So you have a strong enough idea of the area where they're going to look at the object.

You could probably find that crest. What was he doing with the crest? I feel like, I don't know if it was like a key maybe or something, like it would have gone in a knot in the woods, in the mountain, or if maybe it had like a code on it or something. I don't know. Pass me the map.

Pass me the map. Pass me the map. But I could see, you know, what looked like the barbed fields right behind him. He was searching for something just in random rocks. It wasn't in boxes or anything. No, no, no, he was walking along the mountain range and feeling along the rocks. Do you think it was an entrance he was looking for?

Yeah, that's what they mean. He was looking for a door or something. All right, that's good. Yeah. Was he alone? No troops within? I didn't see anyone. Okay. So he's going to be around here.

Well, that's not really how it works. You don't really see what's around, you just see what's happening. If that's the case, he headed east. He didn't head, unless it's that kind of cluster. North is the water, so. I mean, there's endless mountains. It would be hard to know if he disappears into them

where he went in. Mm-hmm. We know that he, how do we know that he went to Bozazan? Bozazan? Bozazan. Barbizon College. Barbizon. Modeling school.

Bazzozan was mentioned in the conversation with the Dragonborn, when it was acquired, and the Dragonborn was like, nope, I don't want anything to do with Bazzozan. Got it. You overheard them saying that. That's right, I knew that. But okay, but we're not sure

if that's their base of operations or that's where. Your makeup is so shiny. It's like. Do I need some powder? It's like this fat thing. You need to take that hood off. It's the rain. It's going to haunt me tonight. Take that off.

It looks like your skin is gasping for air. No, I'm wearing the same makeup that the original Tin Man wore in Wizard of Oz. Uh-huh. Exactly what it reminds me of. Blood-based? Good. Slightly deadly, yeah. Give me a fart.

Hospitalize you for six months. Um, cool. All right. Well. Well, we don't know if that's where he was going or if that's where his base of operations is, so we should keep heading that way until we learn more. Good night.

Good night. All right, you guys are bedding down for the evening, or taking watches, or are you all just going full straight sleep? I'll take the first watch. I'll do one with Kay. All right, you guys take first watch, the rest of you go to sleep.

Go ahead and roll perception checks, please. 13. 16. 16, okay. Keeping an eye out, nothing draws too close to the vicinity. You do notice over the period of your guys' watch, though, tiny little beads of green begin to push up from the ground within the dome.

You glance in and look, and there's, by the end of your watch, about an inch or so of fresh grass growing. So what is this dome shielding the grass from? Doesn't it shield from magic effects? Nothing can get in or out, yeah, just us, but. So there's some magic effect that's emanating from this place.

Well, no, maybe just from the, this was a battlefield, right? Maybe from the battlefield. Yeah, but this dome protects from what's above, not from what's below, so something around, you know, it's not the ground itself, I don't think. If the dome is having an effect. Could be those big spikies?

Maybe. I have a lot of questions about those. I don't know if you noticed, but they're getting closer together. It reminds me, you know, when I throw a ball of fire and it hits the ground and the scorch marks left get fainter and fainter out from the center. I'm wondering if we are heading toward the heart

of some sort of ancient explosion or eruption. Yeah. Could be a coincidence. Don't know. Oof. How are you feeling about all this? I'm feeling okay. It's nice to be out on a real mission with you guys again.

Have you thought any more about your boy? Of course, but we haven't, maybe I should tell Jester to check in with Shakasta. I think we still have a couple days before he's meant to arrive. I don't want to just, I can't really send a message to him because he won't much understand. Jester, I love her,

but she's really bad at sending messages. I don't know, she's really bad at sending messages. I don't know, she might say something awful that just scars my son for life. So I'm reluctant to have her send him a message. You know what I mean? She could say just something like, ah, everything's fine, your mother was eaten by a goblin,

or something, I don't know, I don't know what she'll say, she's crazy. For your son, Shakasta, you could try to work out some talking points in advance. That's a good idea. Write them down for both of you to look at, you know? I'll think about that. Like a script. A script.

Good thinking. How are you doing? How are you feeling? Good. I don't feel too strong about how things went back in the city, but actually, I'm losing faith here. I mean, we're heading, how are we going to find this person?

Well, I mean, Jester can see him. Yeah. Jester can talk to him. Yeah. We seem to talk to him. Yeah. We seem to have the favor of a couple of gods. Maybe Yasha's god will come through in a pinch. That seems a little nebulous to me. Maybe. I don't know.

Maybe it'll come to us while we're sleeping. Maybe. Do you want my vulture? Tonight? Yes, please. Okay. Oh god. Oh, Jesus. Head going.

That thing is scary. Oh shit. Flaps for the roosts, Nott's shoulder. And then. It hurts. It's as big as me. Does that thing that cats do. Just does biscuits.

. With razor talons. Eventually eases out and just leans against Nott. Teach my bird tonight. Caduceus. In your comfortable night's sleep, sometimes you dream, sometimes you don't. Tonight begins as a dreamless night.

But then colors begin to come through your mind. That warm presence returns, and you can sense the gaze of the Wild Mother Melora turned bent towards you, hoping to bring some clarity to those blurred colors before you. As the vision slowly comes into focus and crystallizes, you see an image of snow and ice-capped mountains

bordering an endless desert of white glass beads glistening against the sun of an open blue sky. You see within those mountains a monstrous peak where no snow lives, and a black cloud drifting lazily out from its apex. And then you look towards the belly of this mountain, out from its apex. Then you look towards the belly of this mountain, bubbling, roiling molten rock, settled within an iron pool,

atop of which sits a black iron anvil. Your vision clarifies further on the surface of this molten rock, just ever so slightly shifting. You can see the orange and yellow and red glows against darkened black, cooled crust on the top. You watch as grains of greenish glass-like sand tumble under the surface and steam and hiss and merge and grow

into shards of newly formed, purple-like crystal. Your vision blurs again, and you start to lose focus and drift away, and her presence comes back and guides you. Like a warm breeze at your back, it prevents you from being buffeted off course and back towards a specific direction. Your vision begins to slowly crystallize back into focus,

and as it does, the colors are different. You have visions of a mammoth ravine of gray and dark rock carved into the earth. It's steeped in shadow and along its southernmost base, you see a rudimentary city rising. Below and beyond that, you see a shore, a beautiful untouched shore with beaches and tumultuous surf.

Your vision focuses even further, and you can see the nearby jungles along this coast. Within this dense jungle, there is an oasis, a lake sitting solitary amongst the tangled trees and vines. You see beasts called to drink at it. And along its edge, where the red earth and rock forms a cavern, the cavern twists and winds where you can see thick, heavy veins of gold

spiraling down like frozen bolts of lightning built into the rock before it reveals a temple. Natural water drifting down from the lake above, fitting into a pool. You see these purple crystals fall into the waters of this pool. And these crystals begin to grow roots,

like crystal fingers along their base. Your vision loses focus, and you drift back into the darkness of your dreamless night. And sleep, probably the best sleep you've had in quite a while. Fjord. Oh shit!

So many visions! Probably chill, just like Caduceus. Yo. Your sleep slowly fades, your body cold with the biting wind that cuts through you. Not wind, a chilling current. You open your eyes and see nothing but shadow, and your arms move sluggishly against the familiar icy waters that portent the prying will of your patron.

Your heart rate begins to race and jump, knowing what this brings, and as that fear wells up into your throat, you hear the familiar voice call from the darkness, Return. A yellow glow pulses in your chest. The orb that remains embedded within your body shining through the skin like a dull lantern.

You look up from your chest to see the gargantuan lid of the familiar spotlight-like yellow eye fill your entire periphery. You try and look to the right or left, but you are locked in on this singular slitted pupil, your body seemingly frozen in place. You're unable to turn away. The panic begins to build, and the voice says,

Release. This heavy resonant tearing sound begins to fill the space around you as tendrils begin to emerge from the pupil of the giant eye. Snaking vines pushing through it, pulling the eye apart from the center, an emerald light pouring through the gaping hole, warming the waters around you.

A slew of emotions fill your mind, hole warming the waters around you. A slew of emotions fill your mind, warm, amorphous, but comforting, and evoking ideas that become words. Come with me, child. The hole within the eye glows with the verdant light, like an open doorway. What? The hole within the eye glows with verdant light like an open doorway. Do I recognize the voice? You've never heard this voice.

Why? I have moved towards it. You take a moment to push past and try and swim forward, and the current is pushing against you. Go ahead and make a strength check for me. Strength check? Yeah, or athletics, I'll say.

Oh, athletics is way better. 17. 17. The current begins to build and try and force you away from it. The eye, you can see the veins at the corner of it tensing. It's trying to resist this shifting doorway, and you push forward, grabbing onto the vines, and thrust your whole body through this open wound.

As you push through, the cold fades. The vines begin to tug at your arms and carry you the rest of the way through as it closes behind you. Without force or pain, warm, cradling sensations as you're removed from the nightmare of Uk'otoa,

settled in a small chamber of tangled leaves and roots. Within this mass of vines and green, you swear you can see a face, a female, motherly, her eyes closed. The thoughts and emotions enter your mind once more. The words come to you, interpretive. The womb I grant, but withers without faith. His will shall find you again soon.

The eyes open, and light like an orange sunset pour over you, through you, lulling you slowly back to sleep. His will shall find you again, but until it does, rest. And the darkness takes you for the remainder of your sleep. Okay, that's cool. What happened? What was that?

Who's taking second watch? I'll take second watch. All right, Jester's up. All right, Jester's sitting there quietly amongst yourself. It's not too cold, the dome is temperature controlled. But you sit alone for a bit and notice now the grass slowly growing up through the ground. It's a bit strange. Oh, it worked.

I brought you back, buddies. All it takes is a little oba grease and some Jester's Fiddle, apparently. Yes, yes. Some love, that's all you need. All right. Make a perception check for me while you're on your watch. Ooh.

23. 23. Nice. Looking up at the sky, you see something moving through the clouds. Some shape drift through, and it's gone. You see it again a little further away. Then, pouring out of the storm atop, you see a bird,

more massive, well, as massive as one you've seen before, go into a full dive. For a moment, you're about to yell to wake up your friends, but the dive is quite a ways away and it's arcing in a different direction. You watch it scrape across the ground and lift up. You see no real definite shape of the movement and shift,

but something is now grasped in its claws, something large that is now being held and lifted off as the giant bird disappears into the mist and rain. Like it snagged something from up the top. Did it seem like it was anything close to us that it snatched up? Maybe about 150 feet from you. Ooh.

That's close. Ooh. That's close. Ooh. Wow. This is creepy. I don't think we are. Is there anything else you'd like to do during your walk? Yeah, I'm going to send a message. Oh. All right.

To... Kiri. Kiri! Oh my god. To Kiri? Mm-hmm. Hi, Kiri. I'm just thinking about you

in front of this really big tree, and it's pretty cool, and I wish you could see it. I miss you. I hope. Chester. I miss you. Come eat your food. I miss you. Come eat your food. Where were you?

I miss you. I miss you. And she finishes it out, repeating that phrase. I'm so upset. Ah, Kira. Okay, I go to sleep. Okay. Third and final watch, who's taking that? Yasha. Yeah.

What'd you do? You want to show Caduceus? Oh, okay. Caduceus takes a 12-hour super nap. Oh yeah, no, I'm in. I'm waiting for more. As is Fjord, I guess. All right, so you guys are on final watch.

Wow. There's grass. That's weird. Maybe Jester did heal the grass. She does have a radiating glow wherever she goes, so maybe it was healed by her presence. And fuck Caduceus, right? He had nothing to do with it.

Yeah, probably had nothing to do with it at all. Hey, we haven't really talked much since I heard all that fucked up shit that happened to you. I'm sorry. That's okay, thank you, Beau. You know, it's no real point of comparison. But, I was forced to leave behind the first

real person I loved as well. So. You did? Yeah. Her name was Tori. She was a little bit older than me, you know? So it was like. Oh, you like the older ones, yeah? She kind of showed me the ropes.

She was great. She was my literal partner in crime for a little bit. She was my literal partner in crime for a little bit. And also who I got busted with. So we were both arrested together, and the next morning my dad was there and busted me out of jail, paid bail,

and I think made some sort of arrangements with the guards. I don't know, who knows what happened to her. I don't think she's dead. She was one tough bitch, so. But I'm sure she hates me for forever. Wherever she is. But anyway, it's not anywhere close

to what you experienced, but got some little shred of understanding, I guess. Yeah. You know, leaving a loved one behind is still a shitty feeling across the board. Yeah. Did you ever think about looking her up again? No.

No. Like I said, I'm pretty sure she would punch me on the face, upon sight. I'm sure she doesn't hate you, Beau. What about you? You ever feel like looking up old blasts from the past? I guess you don't really remember too many of them. I mean,

Zawala was the only person that I'd ever been with. So I could go look for her and dig her up somewhere, I guess. That would be weird. Don't tell Caduceus that. He'll take you up on it. I sometimes think about that. Well. But I, it. I sometimes think about that. Well.

But I, it's... It's in the past, so. Yeah, I feel you. I know, as they say, you have to move on or whatever. But that doesn't make it any easier. No. There's something about you. Kind of excited to see what it is, because

first there was that Trent guy, now this Obann guy, even Molly. Seems like you have gravitational force around you, for better or for worse. Jester thinks that maybe I was a really super good harp player. Oh! So. Wow.

I'm sticking to the hope that maybe I was just traveling around, just like, playing like a rock harp or something. Rock harp? Yeah. No, that's metal. Yeah, like a metal harp, you know? I doubt that's the case, but we'll see. But thank you for not judging me, Beau.

Oh, have you seen me? Who am I to fucking judge? I've seen you. I've seen you a lot. All right, let's get some sleep. Yeah, I'm pretty tired. Yeah, me too. Good night. Good night. As the morning light over Xhorhas

begins to bring the dawn through the storm, the rains continue, but the day is yours as you all collectively come back to consciousness at your own times. The ground around you is green, in and outside the dome. How far? About 30 or so feet past the dome,

around the tree entirely. Maybe it's just been a bit since it's rained. Could just need a little bit of rain to get it up and running. Yeah, but would that happen overnight? That seems so fine. So maybe the tree is not a vampire tree. Maybe it's a healing tree. Maybe it's a giving tree.

Yeah. You guys, I had the craziest, most intense, visceral dream. About what? It was so crazy. I love it. Ah! I can't clean it off because of makeup. You have to keep it on.

No. There, there. Ah! Point blank. No, we knew. Continue now. I don't remember what it was, but it seemed important. Uh-huh.

Anyone else have any dreams? Oh yeah. All right, let's go. Great dreams. Anybody see anything during the night? Oh yeah, I saw one of those giant bird things again. What was it called? Like a rock or something, right? Yeah, I think that's right. Yeah, huge wingspan.

It came down and oh, and it grabbed something. I hope it wasn't Yarnball. Should we go check? Oh yes, go check. Yeah. See how many steeds we got left. As we go check? Yes, go check. Yeah. Yeah. See how many steeds we got left. As I peek my head out,

I keep an eye out for the giant bird. This smells great. Oh man, I think I got the shits stuck. The dome is faded, by the way. It's an eight-hour dome. Oh. It's a giant bird. God, this is gross.

It's a giant bird. What about it? It's a giant tree. Yeah, they could be living in the giant bird. It's a giant bird. What about it? It's a giant tree. Yeah, they could be living in the giant tree. With a nest. Yeah. 500 feet up. Let's tread carefully.

Okay. No. Should we go do a once around the tree to see if there's anything we might have missed? We're going to check in on our moorbounders first. Yeah, moorbounders to make sure they didn't get eaten. Going to keep an eye on the sky now that I'm thinking about that.

Okay. Can you quietly call for them? I'm going to send my vulture on a lazy circle up and around and check up the upper reaches of the tree. Okay. Make a perception check for Frumpkin. Yeah. Come on, Frumpkin. Yeah. Come on, Frumpkin.

Nine. Nine? Nine? Frumpkin takes a while to do a full pass while you guys are gathering your things and looking out for your moorbounders. There are a number of vultures and other creatures that live in the high up boughs of the Arbor Exemplar. But hard to see past the exterior of the canopy,

especially with the rain. Maybe once we get the Warbounders and get some cover from the rain, perhaps that might help out as well. Okay. But do you look for your more boundaries? Oh yeah. Yeah, yeah. Make a perception check for me.

Okay. This is probably going to be... They're fine, they're fine, they're fine. It wasn't unintentional, it was an unintentional 20. Oh no, it was? Yeah. You still did good. 11.

Investigation or perception? Perception. 10. 10. 10? You don't see her more boundaries. None of them? You're a bop. Can you talk to them?

Uh, I mean, if they can hear, they can hear. Don't think they can, I don't think they can. Yeah, climb up the tree and see if I can get a look. Well, let me see, it has to be a humanoid, I think. A creature you are familiar with! Okay, I'm going to send a message to Yarnball. Okay. Yarnball, we're out of the dome, come back to mama.

We're waiting on you. You're super cute, I've got food for you. That was a lie, I told him. You should, can you tell if the person that you're trying to send a message to is unavailable? Yeah, but just. Doot, doot. Can respond. You think he heard me. Okay. He's alive?

Yeah, he didn't sound hurt. He's probably off-travel. In his mental message. Didn't seem to be. A few moments pass and you can see the three moorbounders had hold up at the tree's base. All right. Oh. Just go over it. Buddy.

I'm going to do a What's Around the Tree. Does anyone want to jump in? I'll go with you, yeah. What's Around the Tree? We all go together. Okay, so you all get up on your moorbounders and do an arc around the tree. Carefully, stealthily, or just a...

Stealthily. All right, so slow pace. Everyone make a stealth check, please. I guess that's without the trace on us. All righty. Plus 10. Yeah. Ooh.

Hey, now that's pretty good. Moorbounders didn't roll all that great, but the Pass Without a Trace definitely helped. Okay, so. 28. 38. Yeah, 23. 42. Whoa!

21. 26. 15. You guys all certainly made it for the moorbounders. Yeah, all right. So you carefully make your way through. The little bit of green grass that you saw, not around about the 10 or so feet

outside of the tree's edge, is now a very tall green grass. As you're making your arc around it, as the grass gets higher, the moorbounders are pushing through and you can just see past the shoulders. The landscape around the tree has changed overnight in a very weird, unique way. As you move.

Not just under the dome, right? No, the grass has expanded out for about an additional 200 feet from the base of the tree in all directions. Near the base of the tree, the grass gets higher and more dense. Yeah, it's all about that base. I'm going to let the tree and the grass know

that we're just taking a look around. Well, that's not going to be a trouble. Let us know if there's anything we should be worried about or otherwise. Okay. I'm going to lean to the side of the moorbounder and I'm going to pick a blade of grass. Okay.

You pick it. It's healthy. It's fresh, it's clean. I'm going to fold it and put it in my book with the feel-good. All right. You guys are around, looking up. There are all manner of paths of thick bark and winding elements of the tree as it's grown,

where heavy vines dangle down and tangle into parts of it. I mean, it might be climbable, but a fall from there would be real bad. I'll do it. I'll do it. I'll do it. You going to climb it? All right. Climb the tree?

If you want. Yasha, meet me at the low, try to catch something, Did you say there was a cave? I am good at this with unurbed move and parkouring applause. Did you say there was a little alcove or cave? There's a little indentation, I'll show it to them.

That somebody lives in? Yeah, let's go look at it. Okay. Before we attempt that. But it didn't seem like it was very from the outside. Yeah, if there's anything else, I'm just trying to look for maybe someone carved something into the tree, or if there's any interesting

social chatter. Social chatter. Come on, let's do better than last time, shall we? Yeah, that's okay, okay, that's 22. 22, okay. All right, so you guys are scanning around. Who's attempting to climb it? We're not checking out that alcove? We're going to check out the little alcove first,

and then I will climb with whoever wants to climb. Okay, you head to the alcove. You go ahead and inspect it, and it looks like this is probably where the moorbounders had found a place to sleep through the night. You can see there is that ring of stones, like someone had built a small fire pit here at some point, but it's been left a long time,

and the stone's been turned a bit, and the grass has grown up through, and a lot of the ash has dissembled. So it looks like a fire pit that hasn't been used in a long time, and the nature is reclaimed. But it looks like it's probably seen some use here or there. Look for any hidden doors in there?

Yeah, go ahead and make a perception check. It was an investigation, sorry, investigation. Okay, not great. 16. 16. Go ahead and maneuver yourself through, feeling for any panels or doorways or anything. Nothing catches your attention.

Well, let's climb. I'm going to run Detect Magic just for fun for a minute, too. Okay. Detect Magic, the entire tree gives off a very strong magical divine essence. Who's climbing? I'm climbing.

All right. Okay. So that was three. Team round of climbers. Let's take a big drink and let's go. So yeah, at ninth level, I can move up vertical surfaces without falling. Whoa. That's true.

Let's see here. Climbing is good for strong people. Right? Strong people climb well. American Ninja Warrior. For people that if they fall, have a good safety net. Which one is this? This is called which ability? Unarmored movement.

You get it at third level, but then at ninth level, you can move across vertical surfaces in water. Without falling during the move. Correct. Right. So you can run up for your movement. As long as you get to a thing with purchase, like a branch. Right. So you can run up for your movement. As long as you get to a thing with purchase, like a branch. Yeah.

Yeah, well, all right. All right, we'll see how this works. Okay. Some broken ass monk shit. Do I see a bow, a low-hanging bow that's roughly 40 to 45 feet up? No. There's vines, though.

But there's vines. There are vines. There are things that you might be able to catch yourself with. That's what I'm going to try and do. All right, so the three of you are attempting this up. I need both of you to make athletics checks for me, please. For the first 50 feet of climbing.

Eight. Let's just stand underneath. Me and Yasha are standing underneath them, trying to catch them if they fall. Okay. Nott gets 10 feet up and then immediately loses her grip and tumbles. Five!

That wasn't, good job, good effort. 16. 16. Fjord is actually, you're finding knots and pulling yourself up and using some vines to get along the way. As you guys, as you're getting partway up, you're like, I'm doing good, I'm doing good.

Do-do-do-do-do-do. You're just Beau sprinting up the side of the tree. Jesus. And once I start running out, I'm going to try and park her off and grab some vines. Grab some vines and you catch yourself there. D'oh. I'm going to tap a resistance into you

before you start heading up. Good luck up there. Oh, I wasn't planning on going. Go on, Jessie! Oh, never mind. But I can go now. Go on. Yeah, I got this. Sure, I'll try to climb then.

I thought you were, okay. Why not? Make an athletics check for me, Jessie. Ooh. 20. Yeah, you catch up to about where Fjord is. Make another athletics check, both of you guys, for... Next chunk. Next one.

Whoa! 19. 21. You both are neck and neck climbing up the side here, getting almost competitive as you're heading up this tree. You're now at 100 feet up, and you're still 200 feet from where the lowest part of the canopy is. You look at each other and then look down and,

oh, you can see the tiny shapes of your friends at the bottom. You glance up and you see Beau continuing up, grabbing vines and leaping and parkouring off. Body system, goddammit! I need momentum for this! I will say, as part of that, go make an acrobatics check for me

to try and utilize the vines to maintain your momentum so you don't all of a sudden start plummeting. Fuck this up. Okay, that could have been bad. 18. 18, yeah. With that, you're able to find the elements of it that you can leap off of and grab and spin and grab the vine and swing past

and then use that momentum of the swing to lift you up even further and keep sprinting up the side. You're actually up at a, you've hit 100 feet while they were both at 50. I thought we were at 100 now. I thought, yeah. Oh, no, no, sorry, you guys, sorry. So you're at 150, sorry.

Ooh, damn. This is scary. This is scary, this is high. This is exactly, things can go horribly wrong now. Athletics checks for both of you, please. I feel like a cat that gets really high. You know the squirrels that climb our palm tree and it's like. Just keep an eye on them.

They get caught. I rolled a one! Nothing bad could happen. Oh no! Whatever. So you manage to get to about 150 feet. You're starting to get tired, the sweat's on the brow, but you're halfway up the tree.

You just hear this little in advance of your side and you watch as Jester reaches up and grabs a part of the tree bark itself that pulls off and breaks. You reach up and grab another piece that breaks off and she's now just going into feet. I push off the tree and I go into a straight dive after. What?

Yeah. It's 100 feet. Yeah, you see this. You see Jester just fall and then Fjord fall. They're both just. 80 feet, 70 feet, 60 feet, 50 feet. As they approach me and Caleb, both do the exact same movement. And if he does it first, I bail.

Okay, so you both focusing on who? Well, I imagine we both just went. Yeah. Both, because it affects multiple people. So it's overkill. It's up to six people. Oh, that's right, okay. So then there you go.

So you're diving down towards Jester's trying to get back. You're plummeting back. You just see Fjord rocketing in your direction. And right as you reach out and grab her hand, you both go into a low, gradual, kind of Mary Poppins glide down to the base. Are we touching? You're grabbing her hand, yeah.

Great, I cast Thunder Step and we go straight up to the top. How far is it to you? 90 feet. 90 feet. Yeah, back up to where we were. Oh my god. Okay, is the tenu? 90 feet. 90 feet. Yeah, back up to where we were. Oh my god. Okay, so. You further fall for a second.

Thanks for the feather fall. Oh my god. As it bursts out, part of the tree where you were is indented a little bit from the blast of energy around you, and you both catch up. Sorry, sorry. You're about 100 and, we'll say, what was the distance that you said? 90 feet. 90 feet?

Yeah, you guys got back up to about, we'll say 100 feet. Yeah. How long does that Feather Fall thing last, I wonder? A minute. Sweet. But it only affects a falling creature, so you're not falling anymore.

Oh, whatever, they're floating for 40, 50 or 40 seconds. If the creature lands before the spell ends, it's over. Yeah. But they haven't landed yet. Oh, they've landed now. Oh, they've landed on the tree, yeah. So you're both now at 100 feet back up. Yeah. Beau runs up to the 200-foot area.

Beau. Make an afternoon back-foot area. Beau. Make an afternoon backstreet check for me. Reckon Ninja Warrior All-Star Week. It says natural 17, so 26. You are just leaping off. You're this blue blur. 27. There's this blue and brown blur of tarzan up the side of the tree,

going up, zigzagging as you climb. Both of you guys make athletics checks because you need to climb. 17. 13. 13. It's getting, you're getting a little sore, Jester. You're starting to slow. Well, I'm a little freaked out from falling.

I know. My hands are kind of sweaty. You both make it up to 150, but the DC's starting to climb now because you're starting to get tired. Do I have to do more of those? Go ahead and try again, guys. Another athletics check.

Beau's up to the 250 mark now. Oh my gosh. Oh no. 21. Nine. That's a great roll. mark now. Oh my gosh. Oh no. 21. Nine. That's a great roll. Nine. You don't move. You try and climb it. You're just freezing in place.

She doesn't advance at all, but you manage to get another 50 feet or so, so you're up to the 200 mark. I just put my forehead against the trunk. And the bottom of the canopy's 300? Yeah. She's at 150. I'm just going to stay here, Vord.

You just keep going, it's okay. You know, if you get up to me, I can help us get a little boost. I can't move, it's okay, you just keep going. Make a acrobatics check. Like the Dawn Wall. Nine plus eight is? 17. 17.

Okay. With that, you make it to the bottom of the first branches out of the side of the tree. You leap up and you actually watch this blue blur just making its way up and then vanish into the green above. That's just really cool. Athletics check.

Oh no. You'll be fine. A little bit of that Caduceus breakfast kind of curves up for a bit. Coming up in my throat. Remember, Renfrew. It's mostly tofu. Hey, 19. 19.

You find a second wind, Fjord's words ring true, and you and start power through, the montage music starts kicking in as you just one hand over the other climb your way up to the tree, reaching Fjord. Fjord, are you waiting or are you going to continue to climb? You want a boost? Uh-uh.

Okay, grab my hand. And I'll cast Thunder Step again. The tree splinters once more, another impact to the side of it, a slight indentation for about 10 feet where the force is blasting the side of the tree. The last thing I'd do. You both now go from the 150-foot mark

to the 240-foot mark. Then catch up on the other side of the tree again. You're now 240 feet up in the air and you look down. That was not smart! Make one more athletics check for me, if you don't mind. Tying a rope to several people would have been a clever idea as well. That doesn't count.

That escapes my hand. That's true, I could've dropped a roll. Really? 17. 17. Oh. Natural 20. Woo!

Oh shit. I'll say with a natural 20, the 17 gets you to the 290-foot mark, but as you're getting up to that point, Fjord just grabs you from the back, grabs a rock, and throws you up the last 10 feet, and you catch onto the edge at the bottom of the first branch and hold yourself there.

Fjord, you climb the rest of the way up, and both of you guys catch up. I reach and grab Fjord. The three of you now make it up on the branch. I have a question. Just ran up the side of the fucking thing? Yeah! Fuck!

That was really fast, though. That was awesome. Polymorph works on self, right? Yeah. So after watching all of that, Caleb suddenly morphs into a giant eagle, grabs Nott, and hoists her into the air and flies off. Okay.

That's a... Yeah, I should can do this, or just set it in the bottom. Giant eagles are smart. Suppose we should actually look around and see if anything's. It's good. I've been looking up intelligences for the last five minutes. Like, nope, nope, nope.

Watching Nott make your way up and catch up to the inside of it. So you're standing there now on the first branch. It is just this clustered net of extending branches that all fold into each other, giant leaves, leaves that are about four and a half feet long end to end. It feels like you're tiny people in a regular tree from a perspective.

Goat dog, go to the end where they're all dancing in a giant tree. Honey, I shot the kids. Good. Do we see anything up there? Make a perception check. I am going to look around, too. Go for it.

17. 17 as well. 17. Both looking up, it's going to be a little easier to climb through here because of the branches and such. You do see what looks to be a little easier to climb through here because of the branches and such. You do see a darker shape, maybe about 20 feet above you on a cluster of branches that are matching over each other, almost like two hands holding.

Oh boy, it could be a nest. Yeah. Looks very much like the edges of a very large nest. Oh boy. Why are we coming here? Why was this about? Because it seemed fun. Can I walk to the edge of one of the boughs

and peek out and can I get a nice aerial view? Sure. All right, so you climb out carefully, get to the very edge, peek out from it. It's an incredible view. You can see the barb. Now it's interesting, you can see a pattern. There is a circular pattern on the barbed, and now it's interesting. You can see a pattern. There is a circular pattern on the barbed fields

of these various jutting rock formations that is more dense towards the center. Not around where the tree is. The tree isn't perfectly in the center. It's placed in the vicinity, but there does appear to be a shape, and in the center of it, there is one large dipping chasm that just pierces into the center.

How far away is it from where we are, from the tree? You guys must have passed it. Passed it? It was to the, it would have been to the right or to the east of where you were. You guys have been traveling in a northwestern direction, so you've been skirting along the edge, or not quite towards the center, but it's more towards the center of the barbed field, so you've been skirting along the edge, or not quite towards the center,

but it's more towards the center of the barbed field, so you can see this large chasm that's just dug into the base, and the rocks emanate from that. Amongst all these rocks, are there any enemies, orcs, anything traveling that we can see with my eagle eyes? Make a perception check. I got advantage.

Go! Two 17s in a row. 19. 19. It's hard to make out a lot of details from this high up, specifically, but there are a number of creatures in sight all over the place that live here. Some scavenging, some hunting,

some just walking and moving, some herds, some solitary. You can see just at this first glance, maybe somewhere in the neighborhood of a dozen or so Udaks, the large beasts, scattered across the fields, both in front of you and to the right. From where you're peeking out and looking at the side now, this would be the eastern side that you're looking out towards the barbed fields.

You can see what look to be roving bands of smaller humanoid creatures. You're not sure if they're orcs or anything, but you can see there are folk that live here or folk that wander through, possibly hunting or moving through the fields. I'm going to draw all of this in my book for, like, we see below us with the chasm and everything.

Did you already say how far away that chasm looks from our point of view? The chasm is miles away. Miles away. Yeah. It's probably another four hours of travel from where you are. What about the Penumbra Range? Can we see that?

Oh yeah, from this point of where you're looking, the Penumbra Range completely encompasses the horizon. What you're looking at is the eastern side. If you look at the map there, you can see you guys are probably about here. The Penumbra Range, from your vision out this way, the mountains just completely fill the horizon. You can see that they taper a little bit

to the northern side from what you can view. We're talking about on the horizon, right? Yeah. Okay. And any sign of Bazzozan, or are we? You'd have to move around on the northern side of the tree probably to get a view, because right now you're peering out the eastern side. So Bazzozan would be visible

probably from the northern side. Yeah, that's around to the other side. Okay. Still. Right. Ah! Out of the tree. Yes! visible probably from the northern side. Yeah, that's around to the other side. Still. Right. Ah! Out of the tree. And I'll swing around and do a perimeter swing.

All right. Perimeter swing. You do take a view of the space and you can see thinly on the edge this little line that is probably the hallowed path that curves around the perimeter. The other path you could have taken. You can see where the Penumbra Range

tends to lessen and thin. There's a small dark pebbled beach here that goes to the cold waters. It looks like ocean that goes up this way. Then that range picks up once more, and along where it begins to build up again, you can see along the cliff face what looks to be some sort of structure built into it,

like at the base of the mountain. It's too far away to make out much of the detail, but you can see what looks to be a small settlement of some kind, and it is small. Settlement. Okay. Well, what are we doing in this fucking tree? Let's get down and go.

You're in the air. Ah! Put me down! Put me down! I still wanted to see if I can get to the other side of the tree and see if we can get eyes on Bazzozan, because we didn't really see it.

Did they see it just now? That's what they just said. They just did, but you don't know that. We just saw Bazzozan! A fucking goblin dangling. Oh my god! You want to walk over there? You think it's safe navigating around this thing?

This giant bird's nest? Follow your lead. Yeah, all right. Okay. That's me stealthing. We're bunny hopping. Both. Okay, you can make athletics or acrobatics checks, your choice to make your way through these bows.

Acrobatics. Acrobatics. 16. Athletics. Natural 19 19 plus nine, so. Natural 20. All right, excellent. 28. I can also get stealth checks from you guys.

You succeeded in your pass, but I want to see how quietly you do so. Do we still have Pass Without a Trace on us? Yeah. Nine. Beau's just hopping up the tree like Chow Yun Fat. 21. 20. Yeah. Yeah. 20, 21, what? Nine. Beau's just hopping up the tree like Chow Yun Fat. 21. 20. Yeah.

Yeah. 20, 21, what? Nine. Nine. 40. Okay, yeah, that's better two out of three. You carefully make your way around. At one point, you grab a branch, Fjord,

that breaks loudly, and you wait, and you hear some heavy shifting, cracking and moving of wood and stick. You can see now dust and leaf clusters and broken bits of branch begin to tumble down from where the nest is and you see some shape shift and move and you can see these wide, long feathers coast around the outer edge of the nest as a big, dark head begins to peer off the side,

a pointed, hooked bill at the edge. You all stop and pull up quietly, finding a leaf. I use Disguise Self to turn entirely brown, like the branch. Yeah! Full stick bug. She works in Hagrid? Yeah.

Yeah, kill me! Go ahead. You didn't see me. But overall, you guys rolled high enough stealth to avoid its passive perception. I like that you're already green and brown. And you painted yourself. All brown now.

Yeah. Not just in my pants. Brown and two. It peers forward and looks around. Then withdraws back to the nest, and then goes to rest. Maybe you go on ahead without me. No, Fjord, you're coming.

I'll just stay here. Come on, Fjord, let's go. You make it the rest of the way carefully. It takes you a while. This is a dangerous, difficult thing to do quietly. I'd say it takes the better part of an hour and a half to make it through all these branches quietly around what is the perimeter of travel

you guys move from each side of that. You're moving, I'd say, about 200 to 250 feet through very careful, deliberate, quiet movements. Yeah. So it's like sloth climbing. Is there any flower up here, or fruit, or barrier? Make a perception check.

You hungry? Big-ass ancient tree, I don't know, 10. 10. Looking around here, you don't see any fruit or flowers around it, unfortunately. Any rock feathers, that have molted off? None that are in the vicinity, but you should probably have a few in the nest

if you wanted to go give it a shot. No. No. I bet there's a magic sword in there, just sitting there. Make a perception check. We got to get in the nest. Did I just ruin, did I just kill you?

16. Did I actually just murder Travis's character? I will say, a little bit past where you guys got to the northern side, you do see what looks to be one feather that's just left entangled in some of the vines. How big is it? I've ruined you, haven't I? The feather itself is probably about

three feet from tip to tip. If not four feet, it's hard to see if this is a big feather. Can I get to it fairly easily? You can certainly try. From tip to tip? Yeah, I'll try. It's a big-ass feather. It's a big-ass bird.

That's a real big bird. Oh, shit. You try. Yeah. It might be a sword. Are there any vestiges of divergence in the Neth? Make an athletics check. That was almost great. Athletics.

15. Athletics or acrobatics, so there, that's for you. Then 16. 16, all righty. No, 15, 15. You carefully make your way over there. Make another stealth check. Oh fuck.

Wow! Magic. That was some acrobatic shit. I'm going to keep it. 22. 22. Yeah. You make your way over there, and you reach forward, and you're about to grab one branch, but you notice at its base that it is cracked,

and grabbing it might have lost your footing, or doing so to keep yourself would have been a very loud noise. So you pull back a bit, curve around, eventually finding your way to the edge, and within grasp, you take the feather and carefully dislodge it without making a noise. You now have, it's a little, you know,

tussled on one side, but you have a four-foot rock feather. Jeez. I don't know what I just wanted! Bag of holding right here. Burlesque act, burlesque act. What is in here? Soomp. One rock feather.

From this point, looking across the vista, making your way to the edge of the room, you two can see what appears to be the settlement of Bazazen. Right there it is. As you watch an eagle go by, holding a grabble. Bazazen is over there! What are you guys doing?

Being attacked by 12 fucking woolly mammoths. Nothing on the tree. This is, like, can you feel her. Nothing on the tree. This is, this is... Like, can you feel her when you touch the tree or something? I was entirely not paying attention. I was starting to weave some, just make a brand new hat out of little bits. I've just been basket weaving, basically.

Just point out of the tall grass. I know, it hadn't even occurred to me to, this is really not going to go with what you're wearing at all. Is this for me? Well, I mean, I figure we're here, and you know. There's a... This is, I'll try it on. It's only half a hat right now, but sure.

Oh, well, you can see if it fits, you know. Is it okay? I like it. Okay. It's a little jumpy. Here. All right, let's keep going. Okay. It's a little jumpy. All right, let's keep going. Perfect.

There you go. As you guys are taking this moment, it is a beautiful vista, even against the light rain. It's not a lightning storm at this point, it's just a light rain. It is a beautiful sight of this normally not beautiful location, but this height puts everything into perspective.

From where you all started together as finding yourselves in a tavern, it's wild to think for a second you're amongst the boughs of this massive divine tree looking upon the land of Xhorhas. Interesting thought that comes to you, Fjord. Usually when you cast your spells, there's a shot of cold sensation

that shoots through you with the casting, an element of cold water or a deep ocean type flash of temperature that just courses through you that you're just used to whenever you've utilized your magic. In the times that you saved Jester and the moment you didn't think about it, and then now thinking back, that wasn't there.

It was a little warmer. The magic was still there, but there wasn't, each time you felt like there was a small-scale siphoning of your body temperature, some sort of a shift to that cold ocean. Okay. It's interesting. Should we float down and continue on?

Yeah. I'm going to draw a picture of Beau and Fjord sitting on the branch with the Grand Vista behind them up in the tree. Yeah. No, it's candid, you guys. Pretend like you don't know I'm drawing you. Yeah, that's better. That's good. Perfect.

At some point, you said that they crawled like an hour and a half through the tree? About an hour, yeah. Okay, well then, I'm going to say that Caleb would have known to land in the branches, undo and redo. So still, just so we don't plummet to our death. Yeah. How are we getting down?

We're getting a float down! Who's doing that? I'll do it. Oh, you're going to do it on everybody? I can do it on us. That's amazing. Yay, do it, they went to float. Huffing and flapping his wings.

We could also ride on Caleb. Ride on Caleb. There is a shifting sound. Fuck out of the tree now. In the upper nest region. Uh, not do the thing, not do the thing, poof. Do the thing nest region. Uh, Nott, do the thing. Nott, do the thing, poof! Do the thing, Nott!

Come on! Foot and bow leap from it, and a moment later, Jester and Nott. Nott just says, did you hear something? Cut that shit! It's two campaigns, that shit! That's two campaigns, Marisha! I'm with you. This is only like 300 feet.

Yeah. This is fun. All right, so they're all just falling out of the tree rapidly. The eagle swooping underneath you guys look up and watch. Just around the way, they've curved around the tree now, quite further than you recall, the rest of your party just plummeting.

Like swimming in the air? And then they. Your whole hands will make like shapes. Ooh, yet start! And they begin to slowly drift. Yeah, we get star shape. Make a triangle and I'll go in the middle and spin around. As they're slowly drifting,

you watch the canopy of the tree shift and something shake and dust and bits of branch and leaves begin to fall and you hear and this darkened, massive shape of a rock come piercing out of the canopy above all of you and begins to curve back around towards the tree. Oh no. That's where we're going to pick up next week.

Oh! Oh no! Oh Oh! Oh no! Oh no! Oh no! Oh no. There's no end to the things in this area! So many birds. I'm so excited to see the maps you guys just drew,

because I want to see if it looks anything like I saw. It's going to be nice. I'll tell it. It's going to be so nice. All righty, we'll pick up from this very unique excursion. And we're going to get home and finish packing and head out to Denver for a signifier. We'll go in Denver soon enough.

Oh! No, don't do it! Oh, you're right, oh my god, this is a drag. No, you can't. Ah! Not on the equipment! Goddamn it. End the show!

Look, you're going to make him pop blood vessel. Shut it down, shut it down! All right, guys, we'll see you next week! Shut it down! Oh. Oh no. Still so handsome, though. Is that it, we're out? That smells so bad. So bad.

What is cancer death? I get the one liquid shot from Laura. Oh! Oh! You bitch. Oh, it smells terrible. You can tag me. Go for it, Matt. We still are out, right?

All right, guys. We're not out. I didn't send off you, you assholes! Oh god, it's in my tea. All right, guys. See you next week. We love you very much, and is it Thursday yet? Bye.

Oh hey, Ashley Johnson here, Thank you very much, and is it Thursday yet? Bye. Oh, hey. Ashley Johnson here, and I sure do hope you're enjoying the adventure. Remember when you first found out about Critical Role? Was it through a friend or a family member or maybe even through the words of a stranger in the review section of our podcast? Many listeners find our show through word of mouth and recommendations. So please consider rating and reviewing our podcast because each review makes an impression that may just inspire someone new to give our show a try. And that, more than anything, helps to support us. Thank you for joining us on this adventure.

And until next time, let us try to leave the world a little better than we found it.