Critical Role - C2E82 The Beat of the Permaheart

Episode Date: October 31, 2019

The Mighty Nein continue their plunge into the Heirloom Sphere, seeking out a dangerous item whose destruction could change the tide in their fight against the Angel of Irons...Watch Critical Role live Thursdays at 7pm PT on https://www.twitch.tv/criticalrole

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

Hello everyone and welcome to tonight's episode of Critical Role, where a bunch of us nerdy-ass voice actors sit around and play Dungeons & Dragons. We play Dungeons & Dragons! Sometimes. Sometimes. There, you have it. So, hello and welcome. Before we jump into tonight's session,

we have a couple of announcements, beginning with our two fantastic sponsors for the evening. First up, our friends since the beginning of this campaign, D&D Beyond, Sam. was a chilly 91 outside. And you know who's already feeling that holiday spirit? D&D Beyond. To warm your spirits, they'll be at Gamehole Con next month hosting a series of games during the convention on their own Twitch channel, which is d, nope,

twitch.tv slash dndbeyond, including one with DM Chris Perkins and another one with DM Mike Merles. Both streams will raise money for Extra Life, a charity that unites thousands of gamers in support of local children's hospitals across North America. Yes, it's good. Tune into D&D Beyond's Twitch channel

during Gamehole Con. Watch twitch.tv slash dndbeyond and you can always find out more at dndbeyond.link slash Critical Role. And just to say thanks, me and Liam stepped out of the studio earlier today into the brave, we braved the winter cold of Los Angeles. Burbank is fucking cold.

Yeah, and we shot just a little quick little fun video to say thanks to D&D Beyond, so let's roll that clip of LA. Oh, wow. Happy winter from D&D Beyond. This is Sam R that clip of L.A. Oh, wow. Happy winter from D&D Beyond. This is Sam Riegel. I'm joined by Liam O'Brien, and we're talking about D&D Beyond,

a great app where you can manage your characters and stats and just focus on role-playing and focusing on having fun with your friends. D&D Beyond takes all the guesswork out of playing Dungeons & Dragons 5th fun with your friends. D&D Beyond takes all the guesswork out of playing Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition with your friends. Check it out right now on dndbeyond.com and remember,

that's it, I'm done! No! Happy winter, everybody. Stay warm in there. Love you, D&D Beyond. Over to you, everybody. Stay warm in there. Love you, D&D Beyond. Over to you, Max. Careful. That much is the bestest. The 405 is real slippery.

Careful out there, folks. Man. That is definitely more of my weather. So thank you, D&D Beyond. Also, our second sponsor tonight, our friends at Hit Point Press, actually. For those who aren't familiar with their current project, you may have seen it go up on Kickstarter last year,

but they have an exciting new campaign guide set for fifth edition called Humblewood. Wanna play it? Yep, you get to play as birdfolk and woodland creatures. It's awesome, it's thematic, the art is incredible. From Leisha, a friend of the show. I myself back at Kickstarter, and I'm super excited checking out the actual physical book.

So it has character creation, it has world-building elements, even has a full adventure for new characters at beginning level to save Humblewood from a great fire, which is very thematic for those of us in California right now. This launches at the end of November, just in time for the holidays, keep that in mind.

But you can check out the printable PDF available right now at thedeckofmany.com slash Critical Role. And as a heads up, too, fans of the show and the community get $5 off any order at that website if you enter the promo code Critical Role, one word, at checkout. So go check it out. Show me that little owl again.

There it is. Oh, it's adorable. The art is incredible. I'm going to show a couple little pieces of art here, because they're amazing. Here's the Strig, Rhys. It's amazing. Oh, he's wearing little little things.

Stupid adorable, so please check it out. Wicker cat. Wicker cat. All right, a couple other announcements. Marisha, you have a couple updates you want to give, don't you? Undeadwood Part Two premieres tomorrow, October 25th, 7 p.m. Same bad time, same dead channel.

Bad dead, our next. Yes, bad dead predictions. Yes, thank you all to everyone who tinned in and watched the first episode and watched it on YouTube. It was so good. It was so good, you and watched it on YouTube. It was so good. It was so good, you guys. It's great. It's pretty good.

Yeah. It's legit. Who dies in episode two? Does anyone die in episode two? You'll have to watch and find out. Don't, don't. No? Are you just asking?

Are we not? Oh. Because now either you've spoiled it or they think you're definitely not going to, which means you still don't know. So there you go. And we are releasing this as a podcast, so part one will actually be releasing

on our podcast network, wherever you can find our podcasts, tomorrow. And then also next Wednesday, coming up, mini primetime with Will Friedle, finally premiering on YouTube. Our first episode is Sam Riegel. Oh, really? Yeah. Oh, cool.

Yours was definitely the one to start with. You learned dry brushing technique. I remember, it was a really fun episode to shoot and totally normal in every way. Yeah. Totally normal show. It is a very normal show. The experience is absolutely average and as expected.

Yeah, I didn't really tell these guys much. Nope. Nope. We just walked in and... I'm just like, it'll be fine. Just, you'll be great. Just go for it. So yeah, that's next Wednesday, October 30th. Checking out for a little painting show.

Mm-hmm. Cool. Back to you. Thank you, Marisha. Now I'm turning it over to our friend Laura Bailey to get into the merch update. Laura? Oh, hi, guys. Yeah, we have, in case you haven't checked out our shop today, we have more of our chibi pins!

Oh, yay! So today we released the bow and the gaduses, which I think, I don't know which one's my favorite. I love them all so much, but the backs are even as cool as the pins. I'm just so excited about this whole series. I do! And if you look at the chibi bow,

you can see the perforation marks where you could cut them off because sleeves are bullshit! Oh, really? Yeah! I've got a little tea bag. That's so great! And those pins were designed by Jenny Park, and then the backs were designed by Aaron Muroi, and they're just so wonderful. And then we also have our sketchbook that is for sale

right now, and it's pretty cool. It's leather, and there may or may not be a Captain Tusktooth charm that I may or may not have had something to do with. Yay, merch. Back to you, Matt. Throw the double guns, throw the double guns. There we go. Yeah!

All right. Well-oold machine. Anyway, thank you guys very much. I think that all being said, it's time to go ahead and jump into tonight's episode of Critical Role. The adventure begins They were always beside you Your nerdy best friends and the DM to guide you And they rise from the flames for the battles ahead

Villains beware cause you're about to be dead They got magic and flair They got falchions and cunning They don't see over there There's a monster incoming Inspiration is waiting Rise up, don't 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 Roll the dice Critical

Can you answer the call? Digging deep in your soul As the legend unfolds Now it's your turn To roll! And welcome back. Deserved that. So, last we left off, the Mighty Nein, upon finding,

looking, I should say, for help in the coming challenges ahead as Obann seems to grow closer and closer to whatever his intended goal may be with the Angel of Irons, you went back to Nicodranas to Tidepeak Tower and found that Yussa, the archmage you had befriended earlier in the campaign, had vanished for now going on three weeks into the Happy Fun Ball,

otherwise known as the Folding Halls of Halas, or the Archmage Bane, the Heirloom Sphere. You called in an ally of his to help, which turned out to be Arcanist Allura Vysoren from Tal'Dorei, who has been acting as your point person as you journey into the sphere. You've made your way through a number of chambers using one of the map notes that was left behind by Yussa. You've battled through the sphere. You've made your way through a number of chambers using one of the map notes that was left behind by Yussa.

You've battled through the garden. You were chased by a mage hunter golem across the bent, physics-strange machine tower that encompasses these folding halls. You made your way into a golem workshop and assembled your own tiny golem companion, which you named Willy. Which I believe you still have the attributes for, perfect.

Then you stepped into the experiment chamber. Upon entering this room with a dull green light that suffused the vicinity, the somewhat wet floors about an inch of some sort of chemical liquid that seemed to permeate the entirety of the base floor line of the chamber. Chains hanging from the ceiling, some broken, some bowed, seemingly used to move around what looked to be

about 10 or so of these large glass cases that are now resting in the center of the chamber. A few of them jagged, broken, scattered across the floor, cracked, and upon inspecting one, you found what looked to be a very decomposed corpse inside, overtaken by some sort of fungus. As you all were slowly spreading out

into that opening area, Fjord went ahead to inspect the one of three doors to the chamber, the one closest to you on the left-hand side, upon which you heard a loud splash immediately to your left. You turn to see some terrifying sight. A large humanoid hulking beast of rippling muscles and multitudes

of various swollen or malformed and elongated humanoid arms. Multiple heads that all seem to bear the same kind of glowing amber eyes, tattered facial hair, and long black hair of Halas himself all mash together into this terrifying beast as it roared into your face.

Everyone, please roll initiative. Yeah! I'm so excited! I'm so excited! Hey, guys. Get your game ready for Halloween with Dwarven Forge's classic Raazin restock. The sets included are Catacombs,

Den of, shut up! Catacombs, Den of Evil, Woodlands, and more. See all the loot available at DwarvenForge.com. Oh my god, Matt! Holy shit. Oh my god. Are you fucking kidding right now? So. Oh my god. Oh boy.

Fjord, we had over on this side. What? No, no, no. Whereabouts were you guys on this side of the chamber? Oh no. Oh my god. I'm just kidding. We had just come in? Yeah. We had just come in.

Oh wait, no, some people had gone to explore, huh? Nott had gone to explore the first. I did, I did. This first piece here. Oh wait, no, some people had gone to explore, huh? Nott had gone to explore first. I did, I did. This first piece here. Oh. I don't remember either. I feel like I was tracing after Fjord. I mean, if Fjord had been in there long enough, I feel like I would've moved to about here.

Sure. I'll say no further than probably this level for the rest of you who've been waiting for everyone else to scout up there. Oh my god. There's a table full of stuff. Where's Willy? Do we have our Willy a table full of stuff. Where's Willy? Do we have our Willy? Oh, you do. Where's Willy?

Willy is right there. Oh, look at little Willy. And here is the terrifying creature. Oh my god! Oh my god! Oh my god! That was an unfortunate placement for me. Wait, can I pick him up?

Sure. Do I have to roll can I pick him up? Sure. Do I have to roll separately for William, yeah? Yes. Oh my god! Y'all, we're going to die. Did I put him right in the back? Did I put him back in the right place? I know, I know. Is that okay? He landed right next to me.

We're good, we're good, we're good, we're good. All righty, so. What's the plan? Everyone rolled initiative? Yes. 25 to 20. 25. Whoa! 25. Ooh!

Yes! A natural 20. Same here! Nice! Nice. That's fucking teamwork! 20 to 15? 16. 17. Oh, nice. Nice, nice. Oh no.

Caleb Ford. All righty. 15 to 10? 13. Oh, wow. Clerics. Let's have a good battle out. Those guys just teaming up over here.

All righty, we have. That's pretty good for clerics. Yeah, that's not bad. Yeah, that's good. Clerics always go at the bottom of initiative anyway. I think you meant unlucky number 15. Oh, and what was Willy's? Oh, it was 11. Good luck on that one. Willy?

Guys, there are other figurines inside those little. Yeah, dude. Like, they could come out and kill us. They could be dead. They're probably destroyed. Let's try really hard not to hit them. All righty. Probably. Top of the combat round, it is Beau and Nott. They could be dead. They're probably destroyed. Let's try really hard not to hit them. All righty. Probably. Top of the combat round, it is Beau and Nott.

Oh my goodness. Ladies first. Oh wait, I'm a lady. I'm a lady! Do you want to try some sneak attack round shit? Yes! You can get that anywhere. You go, go, you go. I got this, girl. All right. Girl, pout.

I'm going to dart into that area, into the in-between space. Okay. And as I run through, I'm going to turn and shoot at least once at this creature. Maybe just once. All right. Go for it. All right. Natural 20 again. Oh!

Wow, wow. Okay, that hits, I assume. You go for it. It does hit. And six. Oh! Come on, come on. 16, 18, 20. 23 plus six is 29. We've got this crit. You double it. Double your dice. Oh shit. So 23 times two. So that's 46, plus six is 52.

52 points of damage out of the gate. Plus it's a Tinker Top Bullet Blaster, so on a natural 20, it just shoots again. Oh! For a 20 to hit. That hits. Another 11 points of damage. Rogues, man. Should I keep going? Yes!

All right, I will use my bonus action to attack again. Go for it. Oh, 27 to hit. That hits. Damn. Another 10 points of damage, plus I'll do Fury of the Small, another 20 points of damage.

So 10th-level rogue, opening round, just throwing it out there, just did 82 points of damage. Yes! First round of combat. That's hot. That's awesome. 10th level? Shit. Yeah. Oh my god, what are you going to do? I'm unstoppable!

Don't die, you're going to be so cool when you level up. Uh-huh. All right, that finish your turn? Yep, that's it. Beau. Okay, I'm energized now from Nott. I want to go boop, boop, boop. Dope monk shit, parkour, come down. Monk shit.

Forward flip. You're doing it. Landing where? Heel to the fucking face. You're doing it, Peter. Which face? There are three of them. There are four of them. Four, technically. There's four of them! I didn't see that one hiding behind the big one! I'll go in the epicenter of the faces.

Okay, which as you rush in the air, you can see two of them look up at you. You can see the faces are in different stages of deformity. One of them has barely human features, its skull exaggerated and torn almost through the flesh in the front, its teeth broken and jagged out in your direction,

its eyes peering from sunken sockets. Another one looks mostly human and is just moaning as it turns in your direction. Go eyes peering from sunken sockets. Another one looks mostly human and is just moaning as it turns in your direction. Go ahead and roll your attacks. Okay. Okay, two attacks, I'm going to do both of them. Pop pop! That's a 25 and 28.

That was it? That's why it's rolling awesomely out of the gate here. Oh yeah. I hope to back that up. Oh. Yeah, okay. That is our 11 damage and then 10 damage, so 21 damage. 21 damage, awesome. A stunning strike.

Stunning strike. Let's see this guy's constitution. That is a 16. Goddamn it. Are we alone in here? That's the important question. Why is it always 16s? With the light from the sword that's up,

can we see it too? I'm rolling different numbers, but they have different constitution bonuses. The heads? No, no, meaning the different things I've rolled very similar. Oh, yeah. But they all seem to be hitting that 16. I know, but it's always right above my, why aren't you working?

There we go. You still have your bonus action. Bonus action, I'm right in front of it, yeah? You and Fjord are both hitting it from the right and left angles of its body. It would be super awesome if I could stun him out of the gate. So. Caleb, it is your turn now, next.

Flurry of Blows. I'm going to duck down and go for ribcage shots. Go for it. Roll for attack on the third one. to duck down and go for ribcage shots. Roll for attack on the third one. Natural 20. Oh! It's been going on for so long.

Shit! Garbage dice roll. It'd be real funny if I spent so much time on this battlefield and you guys finish it in three rounds. 10 damage. A stunning strike. How much damage on that crit?

10, 15. I rolled a two. 15 is my save. Sorry. Ugh. Okay. Second hit? No. 12. 12 misses. What controls that save? Is it dexterity?

Wisdom. Wisdom. Okay. Two close calls for the creature on that one. But does that finish your turn? Uh-huh. Caleb, you're up. Caleb is walking in this direction to try to get close to maybe this green door to get away from this big, disgusting man.

This way? Yeah, and as he's doing it, iron powder between his hands spreads out and he yanks his hands apart and Beauregard shunks up to twice her size and removes Beauregard. Ooh! It took a second to catch what you were saying. Oh, me. Maybe we should talk to her. Holy!

Which one? Which head? Am I able to look around quickly to make sure that there's nothing over in this corner to eat me? Make a passing perception check. Oh! Extract Aspects. Oh, yes.

17 on perception. Before we get too far away, sorry. That's fair enough, I'm going with that. It is immune to lightning and poison, as well as bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing from non-magical weapons that aren't adamant in time. Okay, address shout out. It also is immune to being charmed, exhausted,

frightened, paralyzed, petrified, or poisoned. Oh! Wow, you learned a lot from that. I'm glad he's not in charge. What was the first half of that shit? Lightning and poison. Okay. Right? Yeah. Lightning and poison, non-magical weapons,

and basically anything mind-related. So I shout out. Physical paralyze. Okay, so I shout out, avoid. They're not stunned. Huh? I said they're not stunned. Huh? It is not immune to stun? It is not immune to stun. It is not immune to stun. That's great.

So shout out, avoid lighting and poison and like, body shit. Okay. Body shit? Yeah. Avoid body shit. Yeah. Fair. Try and get it out in six seconds.

Is that the end of your turn, Caleb? That is the end of my turn. Okay, all right. I will use my bonus action to cast Hexblade's Curse on this piece of shit. You got it. Hexblade's Curse. And I will take two swings with the Star Razor.

Do it. That's a curse one. Someone's been messing with my stuff. It's all right, well, we'll use that as the curse so you know it's there. A 19 and a 20. 19 and a 20, both hit. Beautiful.

First one. So that is a 14 plus four for for the Hexblade's Curse, so 18 on the first. All righty. Nice. And 12, four, 16 on the second. 16, oof. He's already looking hurt. Oh, what?

As you're carving through, it hasn't even gone yet. And you guys, you guys are now carving into its flesh. You can see as the parts of flesh open up from underneath, you can see bone exposed that doesn't make sense for an internal skeleton. Elements of bone that are just floating or are attached in ways that don't make sense. The physicality of this creature is wild

and horrifying, to be honest. But you're exposing elements of its interior body and you can see elements of its flesh are starting to mend a little bit. You can almost see semblances of teeth at the corner of some of these wounds. Oh no. Teeth? Does that finish your turn?

Oh no. It's totally a baby laughing hand, right? Or something like that? Related. Yeah. If I move and he tries to hit me with an attack of opportunity, can you use Sentinel against him? She can. Yes. What? Sorry?

If I move and it provokes an attack of opportunity, can you use Sentinel against him? Yes, I can. It won't prohibit the attack of opportunity, though, right? He'll still take it. Yeah, if he. He'll still take it, but she gets to hit him. But I get to hit him.

And potentially keep him from moving. Yeah, fuck it. I'm going to back up. I'm just going to literally see Beau huge behind me and be like, right behind you. I'm going to let him duck under and let this guy follow him and then close like. As you swing underneath, you can see the large bulky arms,

one that's pressed up against the slick wall and the other one that's hulking towards a gorilla arm. One of the tiny, longer, thin ones shoots out towards Fjord. That is going to be a 23 to hit. That definitely hits. It does no damage, but you are considered grappled. Oh!

So you do not move. Okay. He takes three points of damage from the Star Razor. Radiant. While you are grappled, you are also considered restrained. Okay. Which means you have to make an action to make a strength check to try and break free.

Got it, before my turn? Yep. You're taking your attack? Yep. Natural 20. What the fuck? About time. Yeah, no, sure.

Wow. About, okay. So we're good. Let's go, beast mode. I'm just closed on the pocket. Fucking open it up, Vickir. Ooh, yes. That is it.

18 plus six, 20, or 18 plus six? 24. 24! A damage. Crack! A little bait and switch, a little juke for you. You got it. Now, as opposed to hitting for the heads, you're its size, it's not a little bit larger,

and as you club across the front, one of the heads snaps, the neck breaking. Ooh! And that finishes your attack? Yes, and he can't move now. Well, technically, no. It's only when you hit him as an attack of opportunity as he's moving that you reduce his speed to zero.

The attack that you just took as a Sentinel one is just a free attack, so he still has his movement. Sorry, that's what I think. It's okay. No, it's mine. It's mine. free attack, so he still has his movement. Sorry, that's what I think. It's okay. No, it's mine. It's mine. Devon learned. Natural attack. It is now the creature's turn.

Oh god. You watch that broken neck snap back into place with this horrible, sickening sound. It's going to go ahead and... It's going to do some work. It's going to spider-cl climb up into the chains above. Wait, why is Fjord going with him? Because Fjord's attacking on Grandpa!

And his baby hand, his baby arm. His little baby arm? Lands here, knocks one of the glass canisters off the side, which shatters onto the ground after taking the hit from you earlier. It seems to be a little wary of you. So on its turn, it's going to make its six melee attacks. On me? I'm so sorry.

I thought you said six. Yeah. Has a lot of things to attack with. So first, it's going to attempt to grab attack against you, Nott. Four arms. That's going to be a 15. To hit? To hit. Does not hit. That's going to be a 15. To hit? To hit.

Does not hit. It's going to second grab attack on you. That is going to be a 27. Wow! Okay. You are grappled and considered restrained. Okay. So now two of the arms are now grabbing and holding on Nott and Fjord,

and you guys are being held to it. So that's two of its attacks. It's now going to make a bite attack against you, Fjord. Actually, no, it's going to make it against you, since it just pulled you in. It's actually going to pull you towards one of the large swollen heads.

The jaws open up wide. Is that restrained? Does it have an advantage on this? Okay. You can eat me. Which is good, that brings us to 21. Hits. All righty. You suffer...

24s here. I don't know, yeah. Sorry. This is fucking awesome now. This is awesome! No, you did good. Yeah, I agree. You take 20 points of piercing damage as it just bites into your body and you're hanging from the jaw now as part of your being held and restrained. You can 20 points of piercing damage as it bites into your body

and you're hanging from the jaw now as part of your being held and restrained. You can see Tiny Nott now being chewed in this awful, mutated, halas face. I'll do Uncanny Dodge and reduce it to 10. Okay, go for it. Because you're dodging out of its maneuver, it's going to do the rest of the attacks on you.

Great. Cool. That's going to be three more attacks against you. They're all slam attacks. As you're of its maneuver, it's going to go ahead and do the rest of the attacks on you. Great. Cool. So that's going to be three more attacks against you. They're all slam attacks. As you're in its mouth, it starts pummeling you in the jaw and clawing across you. With advantage, that is 22 to hit. Yes. 18 to hit.

Armor class is 18. That hits. Yeah. And 23 to hit. Hits. So all three hit you. Oof, ow, oof! All right. Because we're grounded. Oh boy. Well, I'm excited.

Take 39 points of bludgeoning damage. Okay, cool. Cool. And then it's going to use... It's got more? Yeah, it's got a lot more. Legendary actions. No, no, no, it was two capital attempts, a bite,

and then three bludgeoning attacks. That's all of its attacks. Okay. All right, five. It's going to stay where it is, actually, hiding amongst the rest of these glass vials. It's giving itself a little bit of cover from ranged attacks.

Did anything happen from the tube that got knocked over? Nothing that you see. Oh! Other than more liquid spilling out of the ground. It was already cracked open before it got pushed over, and you don't have a view of what's inside of it. That's going to end its turn, actually.

That brings us to Caduceus and Jester. You want to go first? Sure, I'll go first. I'm going to try and get a clear shot on this thing. How much do I have to move? I'm going to... Sorry, you did watch its wound slightly mend a little bit.

Goddamn it! Yep. I'm going to find a clear shot on this thing, and then I'm going to back up into one of the corners as far away from all this shit as possible. But to start with, I'm going to hit it with a Ray of Enfeeblement a Ray of Enfeeblement. Ray of Enfeeblement, is that a saving throw

or an attack roll? That's a save. A save, what is the save on that one? Constitution 17. Constitution 17. That is going to be a 15. So all of its attacks that are strength-based, the damage is halved. Ugh.

For Gaea. Oh! Fucking Caduceus! That noise, I like that noise. And now I'm going to back up into that corner as far away from this as humanly possible. Okay. That's the way. Yep.

And that's my turn. Hey, that was great! Wow! That was really good, Caduceus! While he was doing that, I was going to run over here. One, two, where I can get a good view. Can I see him from here? Yeah. You can see him.

I can see him. Yeah. Okay, I'm going to Guiding Bolt him. Okay. At third level. Go for it. Third level! Don't hit me! He does have three-quarters cover, just so you're aware.

Oh, well, can I get up somewhere to where I can get out of the three-quarters cover? Where do you want to move? If I ran up the stairs, would I be able to? To there? Yeah, I can see. He'd have half cover then. Okay. He went there specifically to defend himself.

Okay, okay, okay. Don't hit me! Hit me, is that what I heard? That's a 17. 17 misses. Cool, cool, cool, cool, cool. The bolt strikes by. You can see it lighting up the various glass tubes

as it streaks out. The creature ducks out of the way and you see it just pass between the tangled mass of arms and limbs. Is it saying, I mean, is it speaking any language or emitting any sound? In your proximity, it's making all sorts of sounds. Every head is making its own different,

weirdly pitched voice. One of them's like a chattering. One of them is just slow, sucking. The almost completely formed human head is going and they're all just this awful mixture of different voices and sounds and you're held up right against it. The flesh is slick and dripping.

Yeah. I'm going to, for the rest of my turn, just jump down here and hide. Okay, you got it. It is now Willy's go. Hey! Telepathically, I summon Willy willie to me to protect me. You should put him at, you should.

What's the room it? 30, so I'd like him to go right in front of me here and hold his action to pummel anything that gets up on me and tries to hurt me. You got it. Dances up on me. Cool, that finishes your turn, or willie's turn. Beau and Nott, you guys are up.

What? Kill him since none, I didn't do anything. How do I get out of this? You have to spend an action to try and escape. Yeah, to disengage. Or I could attack while I'm, no, while I'm restrained. You can attack. You just have disadvantage on your attacks.

And I probably can't move my crossbow around. You probably could, since you have the crossbow expert feat, you can do it in point blank and it's not a problem. Use your toes. That's the one we try to go first. What's the crossbow expert or it's the other one? Try farting. Try farting.

As far as it's a nostril, it would be super sensitive. I will try a strength, I will try to get out of this. Try to get out of it. Are you grappled or are you just right next to it? Grappled and restrained. Oh fuck. He has disadvantage on strength checks right now. Oh, that's true. Yeah, but it's your check,

not his, right? That's true. Or is it contested? I think it's contested. Is it contested? For this one, it is contested, yes. I will try to scurry out. All right. Using the strength of my conviction. And my 19 that I rolled, plus my strength, which is zero.

You rolled a 15 plus five, a 20. Oh! So I really enjoyed the 20. Disadvantage. That's a disadvantage? Hmm? That's a disadvantage? Wait, his disadvantage on strength checks?

No, he does half damage when he strength-based attacks. It doesn't change his actual checks. Yeah. Okay, okay. That's different. Doesn't have disadvantage on strength checks? Yeah. No, he does half damage when he strength-based attacks. Doesn't change his actual checks. Yeah. Okay, okay. That's different. Doesn't have disadvantage on strength checks. Can I bonus action hide? Within the muscles of its weird, perverted form,

you can try. No, but can I, is there, do I get to do a bonus action dot? I mean, like defend? Is there a defend action?? I mean, like defend? Is there a defend action? Is there a like a? You can take an action to defend.

Is that a thing? Monks basically get to do it as a bonus action, but anyone can take the dodge as their action. You can dash, disengage, or hide as a bonus action. That's all you have to do. I can't block. Yeah, anyone can dodge, but you have to take your action to do it. Right.

Then I will not do anything, and I will just, I'll fart on it. Fair enough, that finishes your turn. Girl power! Beat the shit out of him, Beauregard! This is precarious, right? With me being a large, a large Beau. All right. I can run past theseious, right? With me being a large bow? Yeah. All right.

I can run past these guys, right? Yeah, you can run past allies. 50 foot movement speed, so five, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 35, 40, 40, huh? Yeah, you'd be able to get to about there. There? Be in melee with him, yes.

All right. With my big, hulking form, I'm just going to do some big, like, Iron Man-style haymakers, just going full, like. Just straight in, go for it. Yeah. Pop pop! Another 20. Well, there's the balance.

Yep. Was that double ones? One and a three. Up, up! Another 20. Well, there's the balance. Yep. Was that double ones? One and a three. Yeah? Yeah. Yeah. That's your action. You rush around, and as you go to swing, the liquid that actually hits the lower part of the floor

actually gets slick at this point at the stairs, and as you reach forward with the swing, your foot goes out from under you, and you have to actually catch yourself on the stairs. Oh, my back! Yep. Twits a little bit. You still have your bonus action. Monk masters and their bad backs, man.

I will... Fuck it. Flurry of Blows. I wouldn't fuck that thing. That seems like a bad idea. Flurry of blows, doing two more. I'm in king shape. Well. Don't get her, Yums.

Well. Oh no. There's teeth where there shouldn't be any. Oh no. What's this? A pendulum that's swung? I won't say it for you. It's a three and a four. The four is a total of? 14.

14, no, I'm missing this, yeah, I'm sorry. You get up once more, as you go up to swing, you swing twice more, but the large hand on its left side actually grabs your forehead and holds you at bay like a bully. Gross. That's embarrassing. I know.

That was really big, so we all saw it prominently. I am up already? Yep. Oh jeez. Not gone well. That went quickly to me. Yeah, okay, I'm just going to throw a fire bolt at his head. Go for it. Yeah, okay.

Which head? The human one, because that's how I roll, make a ranged spell attack, here it comes. They're all, the human one? The one that's making human moans, sounds like that misses. Misses, definitely misses. Oh no, what are we doing, what happened?

Oh no, we felt too good! We're too close to the sun! No! I will just move a little bit further this way and stay put. All right. You should go, Fjord, you're up. Okay. Both Nott and I are still

held, yeah. Getting palmed by this summa bitch. Nott is hanging in the mouth of one of the heads. You are currently a giant hand. The hand itself is about maybe the size of your mid chest, and the fingers are wrapped around you and holding you in place. Fuck!

Is Nott five feet away from me? Approximately, I'd say, oof. You're both all sharing the... No, that would be 10 feet from you. Shit. It's okay, you do you. You sure? I'll be fine. All right. I'm going to reach out my hand and say,

Nott, take my hand! She can't reach it. I use my reaction to reach it with my tiny little... I got a six inch reach. It comes up short? Comes up short, yeah. All right, then fuck it. I will, I'm not going to do that. I will use my action to try and break out of the,

to break out of the grapple. Go forth. You can go if you need to. Contestant strength. It'll serve you two. Okay. He's not always an asshole. 11. 13. So yeah, it beats you.

Fucking goddamn! You're not able to break for yourself, your bonus action and your movement. Well, not actually your movement. Yeah, I don't have any movement, and I think bonus action, I don't have any, I'm not going to cast Hex. Yeah, no, that ends my turn.

Okay, it's now the creature's turn. It heals up a little more. Wounds begin to seal up slightly. It now seeing a large bow running around the side and slipping and falling, holding you at bay, clutching both of them. It's still feeling ill, and you can see the green energy seeping into its body from the ray of enfeeblement.

It sees in the distance, in the shadow, Caduceus' silhouette back up in towards one of the light sources of green and one of the heads. It's going to attempt to climb up into the chains and head that direction, but Beau, you do get your reaction. And this time I can make him stop. Correct. Make it stop. Make it stop. Please make it stop.

You were doing good, you were doing good to me. Okay, okay, okay, 25. It was almost a one. 25 definitely works. Yes. 25 hits, so yeah, he can't fucking move. Big Beau. Don't forget your size. I'm just going to, as he crawls away,

grab him and try and hold him by one of his shitty feet. His shitty feet. 11. 11? Yeah. Okay. You grab his foot and yank it back down and it slams onto the stonework. Both of you get jostled around from the impact.

You can see one of the heads turn towards you, its face half bent to one side, and the eye slips in your direction. So. So. So he's going to take us around. He is... How's it go?

Actually, now I get to roll. Okay. Sorry. He now goes into a Fearful Rage. Fearful Rage. The damage it's taken is starting to impact it enough and it can't get away. You can see the eyes now darting around

and now it's starting to have that fight or flight maneuver in it. In doing so, it gets advantage on all of its attacks. Ooh! It's going to unload entirely on you, Beauregard, since you're the one who kept it down. That's fine. So that's six attacks on you. That's fine!

All damage is halved. That's good. Before it even gets to you. If it's strength-based attack. If it's strength-based. Strength. All right, that is a 25 to hit. Hits. For the first one.

The second one is a 22 to hit. Yep, so together that's 47. No, no, no, no, no. Oh, to hits, hits, hits, sorry. Yes, hits. Tits, tits, tits. 23 to hit. Hits. 17 to hit. Miss.

Right. 25 to hit? Hits. 17 to hit. Miss. Right. 25 to hit? Yeah. And 24 to hit. The last one's going to be a bite attack. No, that was six hits. No, it was five. One of them hits. So five hits, four of which are regular,

and one of them is a bite attack. So the slams, that is... Thanks, Caduceus. 10 reduced to five. Okay. That's good. 11 reduced to five. Okay. 17 reduced to eight.

16 reduced to eight. And then a bite attack. I was really thinking about this. I was trying to pick what spell to cast. Good job. Thank you. Six attacks, I was like, oh no. Clerics, hell yes. 21 points of piercing damage reduced to 10.

Okay. And that's his turn, because he can't fucking move. Cool. All right. Caduceus, Jester, you're up. Do you want to go first? No, no, I'll tell you. Okay, I'm going to kind of try and cross the room again, just towards me, just to get a little,

and while I cross, I'm going to try and find an open shot and take a Sacred Flame attack. Okay, Sacred Flame is dexterity saving throw? Yep. All righty. That is going to be a 10. No, that is a fail. Let's go ahead and roll damage on that. All right, that's a fail. Let's go ahead and roll damage on that. All right, that's a Sacred Flame.

That's 13 points of radiant damage. 13 points, nice. And let's see, anything else? And just because I saw it eyeing me, nope, nope, I'm good, I'm going to hold there. Okay, that's the end of your turn, Caduceus. Jester, you're up. Okay, I'm going to

come over here, and just come up the steps a little bit so I can see him. And then I'm going to try to cast Polymorph on him. Okay, so as you gather the spell, what form do you want to choose? I want to turn him into a turtle, but with lots of heads. Fair enough.

As you focus the spell for the Traveler's Gift and release the power, unfortunately, one of its things is it can't be polymorphed. It has an immutable form. Immutable. But it was wonderful imagery. That was a wonderful description. I'm sorry. Immutable form?

I didn't get that in my thing. That wasn't in the thing. You don't learn all of its abilities. You learn its condition immunities and its damage immunities. This is one of it. This is actually, yes. This is something that pretty much all golems have is in the golem pool. When made so perfectly.

Why would you change it? Yeah. Why would we want to fight with it? Yeah, yeah, yeah. That finish your turn, Jynx? You got the high gear golem. I don't think I've got, I don't think I've got a healing orb.

You already cast this spell anyway, so. Oh yeah, you're right, so fuck it. Okay, Willy's go. Same command, stay put, protect me. Stay put, protect me, you got it. All right, top of the round, bow and knot. Ah! You're still being chewed on, Nott.

I don't like that. I've also got new, do you want me to try and yank you out? You do what you do. I mean, I'm in a mouth, so there's not much deciding I'm going to do. I guess I'll try to stab it. Okay, so you pull out your dagger?

Dagger of Denial and just jab at it. Go for it, roll for attack with disadvantage. Disadvantage. Because you're restrained. Oh, they were both with disadvantage. Disadvantage. Because you're restrained. They were both real good. 26. 26? Yeah.

Okay, that hits. All right. Even though you have disadvantage on the attack roll, because one of your friends is in melee, it is considered a sneak attack. So you actually reach back and jam into its eye with the blade. Tight.

And I get all the sneak attack damage. Yes, you do. It's still holding me! You see Nott fling the arm a few times. 22 points of damage. And I will also activate the dagger, closing the door to its mouth so it can't open the mouth anymore.

One, doesn't work that way. It should work that way. Two, you're in its mouth, she wouldn't want that to happen either. Okay. Damn it! A curious thought. All right.

You still have your bonus action, right? I can't do anything on my bonus action, so I will just yell and scream. Ah! Okay. Ah! You got it. Beauregard, you're up. anything on my bonus action, so I will just yell and scream, ah! Okay. Ah! You got it. Beauregard, you're up. Okay, I've got him by his leg still. Yep.

I want to just drag him forward. Okay. Punch him in the face! Which one? All of them! I want to go. One punch for each face. Can I try and go for the temple of the one that's holding that?

Sure, yeah, go for it. Kind of like a, spit it out. Yeah, just drop it. Drop it. Drop it. Okay, natural 20. Yeah, yeah. And 16 plus 10, so 26. I'll do this snap 20 first.

Fuckin' moe! Crit that shit. A big moe in the house! 12 plus 18 damage. Yeah. And then, I'm not going to try and stun him. That's dumb. I'm overstunning him.

Okay, 10 points. 10? Nice. I'm not going to try and stun him, that's dumb. I'm overstunning him. Okay, 10 points. 10? Nice. And then bonus action. Then you say how you want to do it. I forgot his line. So I ran out of time to read the bullet points before I got here.

Mr. Mercer, you are lying. Bonus action? Bonus action. Nosh is screaming in its jaws. Fjord, you can barely see, being held in place and being thrashed. Can I try and yank Nott out of its mouth? That's a bonus action, it would be an action to do that.

Okay. You hurt him real good. I'll just attack for my bonus action. Okay. Just regular old attack. Go for it. Just keep her on those 20s. Come on. She has 20s.

I don't know what's going to happen, so no, no, that's not a 20, that's a two. Yeah, that's a fail, sorry. Swings wide, this time trying to find a place. As you're holding its leg, you pull it back and try to pummel it, you get two good hits in. It withdraws, slippery arm slipping out of your grip. You go for a third strike and it just moves

out of your space, unfortunately. Finishing your gurt, Caleb, you're up. Gurt, gurt, gurt. So Caleb sees our good start. One stroke on straight. Start to go sideways and everything's going tits up, so he yanks a cocoon out of his pouch, waves his hand in the air, mutters some words,

and Beauregard shrinks and Nott expands into a massive, gigantic green ape. Fuck. What? Me? Oh my god. Me? Yeah. Nott becomes a giant ape. Giant green ape. That definitely breaks you free. That's awesome.

Oh no! It breaks. Dave! Oh no. Onto the ground there, and as it does, it shatters and you see a torn corpse that has been long floating and a murky liquid sprawl onto the ground. What I think's to me. Wait, no, sorry. Did that other body ever do anything?

Maddy? I have to. Nothing at the moment? Okay. That is horrifying to me, stuck between these two things. I'm a giant, mate? I just texted two. All right, does that finish your turn? Yeah, that's it. All right, Fjord, you're up.

Oh, fuck this! And I'll use my Relentless Hex as a bonus action to magically teleport up to 30 feet to an unoccupied space. You can see within five feet of the target, cursed by my Hexblast Curse, so I'm going to out of his grasp and just appear right on the other side of him,

still in his melee range. No, I have to be within five feet of him. Yeah, maybe on his backside. Is there any edge? Right over here? Yeah, that'd be great. Yeah, I can do that. Perfect. You land precariously, like almost landing onto the jagged glass

of one of the destroyed tubes behind you and you stop yourself. As I reach back, I'll summon the sword and do two strikes against his back with the Star Riser. Go for it. That is a 23 to hit and a 27. Both hit. Beautiful. First one does 16 plus four, so 20.

Woo! With Hexblade's Curse being the extra four, and oh, same exact thing. So 16, wait, yeah, 16 plus four, you got 20. So 40 total. Oh, as you disappear behind it and slice twice, you're carving large bits of its body off. You can see elements of its back,

like trapezius muscle slapping onto the background. The bone exposed. Like I said, the bone is a tangled mess behind, and you can see where some of the ligaments are tangled and knotted. It's looking really, really, really bad. Should really see a chiropractor, my friend. That finish your turn? Yes.

All right, so now its turn. It's going to heal a little bit. No! Let's see if it is in its Fearful Rage again. It is not in its Fearful Rage. You do you, man. That's not once per day, that's awesome. You do you.

Getting better every day. All right, it is going to attempt to flee this current scenario. It's going to attempt to leap back up into the chains. Both, actually Fjord, the ape, and Beauregard all get tax opportunity on it. Oh, it's going down. Beau tax opportunity on it. Oh, let's go on that one. Beau, you go first.

Okay, okay, okay. 15. 15 misses. 22. 22 hits. Great. Terrible, 12. 12 misses. 17 plus four, 21. 21 points of damage. Ooh! 10 plus seven plus four.

Go, go, go, go. No, but it's close. Stage manager. It's going to leap up into the chains and swing over. No! It bounces more, landing right next to you. No! It's like that magical energy that's seeping into its body.

One of the heads has been tracing you the whole time. It's feeling swarmed up top there, so it escaped and got up into the chains. The first thing it saw was you moving to that corner and just leap down towards you. It's going to unleash all of its attacks on you. Oh no, good use of that. Start talking to him.

There's going to be a 20 to hit. 20 hits. He's got several heads, maybe one of them will listen. A natural 20. Oh fuck. Actually, got several heads, maybe one of them will listen. Natural 20. Oh fuck. Actually, I'll do these attacks each time for you. Actually, let's do, yeah. So the first one is going to be

11 points of bludgeoning damage. Reduced by half. Reduced by half. So that's five points. Correct. Now I have to make a, hold on, all right, so. Constitution saving throw. Five damage.

Constitution saving throw. Yep, because he is the Constitution saving throw, though, I have advantage on. Are you Warcaster? Yeah. Yes. That's cool, that's the greatest speed. Natural 20. Yes. All right. Second attack, which is a natural 20.

Wait, second attack is a natural 20. It's what it rolled on your face, and that's going to be... 17 points of bludgeoning damage. Reduced to half. Reduced to half, so that's eight. So go ahead and roll another constitution saving throw. Nine? Fail. Okay, so no more of that.

He's strong again. Cool. Third attack. Mm-hmm. 25 to hit. That attack. Mm-hmm. 25 to hit. That hits. You suffer 14 points of bludgeoning damage. Okay, hold on. Fourth attack is a 27 to hit.

That hits, goddammit. That is going to be an 11 points of bludgeoning damage. Fifth attack, 23 to hit. That hits, goddammit. That's going to be 13 points of bludgeoning damage. And last strike, which is a bite attack to the heads, because it leans forward, start gnawing onto the side of your face.

That's going to be a 20 to hit. Goddammit, that hits. All righty. This is a three fours. It's rolling really good, which is nice. It's rolling really good, which is nice. Ah, ah, ah! It's rolling really good, which is nice. For me, finally, for all the shit you guys did in the first round.

Peace! I'm, ah, yeah, but I'm a nut, I'm a nut! But I'm not! I'm a goblin! 23 points of piercing damage. Jesus! Ow! Okay. Ow! And it's going to use the rest of its movement

to just shift around onto this side of you. Which, by the way, as it moves, it does bring Fjord with it. No. That's right, it teleported out of its grip. Yeah. That's right. Sorry, I forgot about that. Ow.

Understood, understood. Can't take another one of those right now. Caduceus, Jester, you're up. Okay. You've been going first, so. You please, okay, I was about to say, hold on. I'm actually tempted to have you go first because I don't know what I'm doing yet.

Because that changed all my plans. Well, I'm just going to try to, I feel like it's lame, but I'm going to try to Guiding Bolt him. Go for it. Go for an attack. He does not have any additional cover because he's out in the open. Right, that's why I'm doing it again.

Right up his butt, or what? Up the butt! 25. That hits, go to all damage. Okay. 66. Whoa. Okay.

That's pretty solid. 10, 21, 26 points of radiant damage. How do you want to do that? Oh! Yeah! You're not useless. Dugging ball, come on. I'm going to just yell out, Caduceus Duck!

And I'm going to hold my Traveler symbol and out shoots sparkly pink, guiding radiant energy. What? Oh! Just barely missing you by a couple inches. You can feel the warmth from the radiant blast as it strikes the body of the creature. One teeny unicorn with double heads smiles and escapes and flies forward as well.

Me! Yeah. As the beam burns into its body, you see it as it strikes, the energy sparkles, you hear almost like the sound of a harp, and as the energy eventually dissipates, you can see the large hole in its torso where the blast ones and the body

collapses to the ground. You're cute. Is that corpse that spilled out over there from the crash tube, is it moving, lying still? You go ahead and check it out. Yeah, I'd like to. Okay. You head on over to this one over here. Yep.

All right, move over and look at the corpse. Sword forward. Sword forward. No, it's not moving. Poke. It's been long dead. Poke this thing really quickly with my stick just to see if it's doing anything or trying to heal or anything.

The creature in the ground next to you? Yeah. Okay, you poke it with the stick. One of the hands grabs it. Nobody's done anything in the end term. It's healed a little bit. It's now back to its turn. Wait, no! That was, was that really six entire seconds?

I feel like I would have done that instantly, to be fair. Right, I was waiting for anyone to do anything. No, no one thought to do anything. And no one thought to do anything in this standpoint. Okay. It gets back up. Like a poke with a stick doesn't stop it from healing. Well, I mean, okay, so it did grab the stick and it's back up.

It's back up. Who's, where in the round are we right now? We're technically at its, finished with Jester's turn. The round went by without anything happening. It healed on top of its turn, so it's top of its turn. Well, I'm fucking out. So it's going to go ahead and make

first attack against you, Caduceus. Yeah, I'm all ready. Let's see if it goes into its Fearful Rage. It does go into its Fearful Rage, so it has advantage on its attack roll. You're going to go down. That's 28. Oh yeah, that hits. All right, Caduceus.

That is 10 points of bludgeoning damage. Okay. Second attack against you, 22. That also hits. You take 15 points of bludgeoning damage. You watch as it tears into Caduceus, peeling back some of the armor, and one of the hands stabs into the torso.

He yelps out and then falls unconscious on the ground. That arm just grabs onto his body. He's going to turn towards the two of you and then leap through the rest of the way. Holding Caduceus? Holding Caduceus's unconscious body. Oh god. Oh god. With him.

With that, it's going to make, that was three attacks, right? Was that two? Two attacks. So it has four more. It's going to do all attacks on Jester, since you're the one that took it out last round. Cool. Cool, cool, cool. Cool, cool, cool, cool, cool, cool, cool.

22 to hit. Hits. 25 to hit. Hits. 25 to hit. Hits. 22 to hit. Uh-huh. So he has an advantage on all these, so those are just the bludgeoning attacks, which would be 11 points of bludgeoning damage. Okay, on this first one, I'm going to use Hellish Rebuke. Go for it.

I don't know. It might, so it's 3d10 damage. Constitution of Taking Care of for him or dexterity? Dex. It might. This might solve everything. That's 3d10 damage. Constitution taking care of for him or dexterity? Dex. Dex. Dex. That is a six. Oh, good! Where'd it go? Oh, it's on me.

Smoke this fucking thing. Oh, good! 16, 20 points of cold damage. How do you want to do this? Yeah! No! I'm going to see Caduceus flopping around. I'm going to look over at Fjord and be like,

Oh my god! Oh my god! I'm just going to scream out cold energy from my mouth. As you scream, the symbol sparks blue. Your interior tiefling energy comes through and a blast of jagged ice just fires outward into the creature's face. It gets pushed back a bit, it's armed up against the door

and tries to move and then flops back up onto the ground. Chop-a-chop! Chop-a-chop! Chop-a-chop! Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Star Razor just starts whacking at limbs and heads. Avoid good uses! Okay, what's everybody else doing? Can I grab the dagger from Nott's?

I don't have any equipment on me. He is a giant ape. You need to rip him apart. I'm going to go over and just stomp on him. Okay, you're all just bludgeoning it? 2001. Okay. And I smash into the bone. Anybody else?

Can I walk? Little Lily is doing the same thing as just punching chunks. Try to remove his heart or something. Remove the part that's like, we'll bring him back. Okay. I'm fine, I'm just out. So Beau.

I'm going to go over and take my staff and just start pummeling his head in your face. I'm trying to cut his heart out, cut his heart out! All right. Is this chest exposed? Yeah, it's bludgeoned. Can I do what I did before, reach in? Make a medicine check.

You have no idea where any of this biology is. Yeah, I'll make a medicine check. Go for it. Why not? Caleb, what are you doing? I'm summoning Frumpkin and having Frumpkin bat one at a time at each of these tubes with things in them. I'm going to run over to Caduceus. One by one to see if anything.

If I haven't prepared, holy shit, I don't know if I'd. Okay, and I'm going to Cure Wounds him. Okay, go for it. Okay. So you move over to poor Caduceus around the backside. You got it, all right. The creature heals up again. Wait, wait, 15.

You can see where there is a heart, but that was your action to go and look into there. It healed up again? Yeah. Even though we're killing it? Even though we're damaging it? His mighty hand and his chest is like. As you're hitting and carving into it,

parts of it are still healing up and pulling together. You guys aren't stopping it from healing. Okay. So it gets back up with half of its movement. Is he, but he would have let go of Caduceus in the amount of time. Yeah, Caduceus is no longer held. Getting up and having Fjord, it's going to go ahead and unleash entirely on Fjord.

Cool. Actually, you know what? Roll a... Roll a d6 for me, Caduceus. Standing in water, by the way. Yeah, partial water, yeah. Roll a d6. Four. Four, okay. It's going after Willy.

No! All attacks on Willy. As it gets up and just starts smashing into him. I love that Willy. Is it Sentinel Strike? Yep, you do. So first attack. Oh, let's see if it gets into its rage. Nope, it does not, so it's just a single attack.

So that's 18 against? Hits. Hits. Willy takes... Eight plus five. 13 points of bludgeoning damage. Sentinel, right? Yep. Willie takes... Eight plus five. 13 points of bludgeoning damage. Sentinel, right? Yep. It was almost a natural 20 again.

18? 18 just hits. 12 damage? 12 damage. You slam into him. He's still standing. Second attack against Willie. 21. It's... Takes 14 points of bludgeoning damage. Third attack against Willy is going to be 14.

No. Misses. Fourth attack, 26. No. That's a joke. 15 points of bludgeoning damage. Yeah, okay. That's going to be 15 to hit? No. Misses.

And the final attack is going to be its bite attack. 26. Yeah. That. For six seconds. 13 points of piercing damage. Okay, Willy is very mangled, but is teetering around on his legs. For six seconds. 13 points of piercing damage. Okay, Willy is very mangled, but is teetering around on his legs.

All righty. That brings us to Caduceus and Jester up next, in the combat order. I'm awake, but badly damaged. Mm-hmm. Okay. Johnny Five, who's the boss? Do you want to go first while I figure this shit out? I'm so sorry.

Sure. I'm going to... Get another? Do you want to go first while I figure this out? I'm so sorry, I'm not going to put you together. I'm going to... Get another how do you want to do this. I'm just going to Guiding Boldom at first level this time. At this point, the body's torn apart and the legs aren't even there, it's not even moving. It's just the arms and the torso

that are trying to bludgeon and tear whatever's in the vicinity. 23. It's like a feral creature. That hits. 23, okay. Free Willy. That's 4d6. Okay, 12, 14, 16 points of... How do you want to do this?

First, just the torso now, yanking, parts of it just dangling. I'm like, I could just die already! I'm going to hit him again, and then the minute he starts to fall, I'm going to run forward with my axe and try to cut into his chest to get his heart out. Okay, got you.

As you burn into it, two of the heads smolder into ash, the skull's left behind, now dangling loose across its mostly mangled body. You rush forward and start hacking into it. What's everybody else doing? Willy's up next, I think. No, Caduceus. Not just head.

I'm going to take your head off. I want to leave, and I want to go over to this table over here and investigate if I can find any notes, anything about what will stop him. I will say... Everyone make an intelligence check. Do I even bother? I know, right?

Do you want to? Me and you, buddy. Natural 20. Woo-hoo! 16. 17. 11. 17. 11. 17. 19.

23 total. Fjord, you recall from a previous encounter you guys had in a swamp long ago with a troll-type creature that seemed to regenerate repeatedly from death, that fire and acid were the two things that seemed to keep it from restoring its body. My man, I got no fire, I got no nothing!

I got fire! Do I see any jars of acid over there? You make an investigation check. I'm still trying to pull off a head. I'm still cutting into his chest. Because, well, I mean, that's you. Yeah, I have the Glove of Blasting still. 16. I mean, Caleb can fire it. Yeah, we both do. You of Blasting still. 16.

I mean, Caleb can fire it. Yeah, we both do. You look around and you do see there are a couple of jars of chemicals and most of its table's been overturned and it's been shattered in the ground. There's two jars in the ground. You pick up one, pick it up, it just smells like some sort of formaldehyde.

The other one you pick up and it does have a very caustic, like it immediately burns your nose in a way that's probably going to linger for a while. So with that intelligence check, can I look at the glove of blasting and send two of the Scorching Ray towards it? Sure, if you want to. Okay, great, one charge.

It's just automatic, or do I roll to hit? You roll to hit with advantage on each of these because it is technically prone and unconscious, so. Okay. Totally automatic. Plus nine. So this is a 20 to hit? Yeah, it hits.

Do I roll three times? Three times, three blasts. So 20 to hit. Ugh, that's not as good, 14. 14 misses. Oh, no, it's not. And a 27. 27, all right. So two of them hit, right?

Yep, so that's full. It's 4d6 fire damage. 4d6, great. Awesome. Four, nine, 11. 11 points of fire damage. 11 points of fire damage. All right, go ahead and roll damage for your hand, or roll to hit with your handaxe. And that's a total of 15 because of the Hexblade's Curse,

I'm assuming is still on it. Technically, yeah. So it would be 15 total. That's what you want. Would I roll at advantage because he's... Yep. So 16. 16 misses, unfortunately. I miss him when it's on the fucking ground

and he's dead, I miss him. Well, it's a melee attack and he's unconscious. It hits you? He has a bag of guts. Yeah. I just go, ah, hit my leg. You're hitting some places that just aren't. I did that when I was a kid.

I hit with a hammer in a sandbox, and I missed the sand, and I slammed the hammer into my own. You missed the sand? I missed the sand and hit my own leg. In a sandbox. Yeah. How do you do this? I just reach out the hand, and I'm like, and the third one just hits.

As the two that do strike blast, the body ignites and you hear this high-pitched screeching. Eventually, you see its body trying to get the torso, trying to claw its way across the ground, but the flames eventually burn it. You guys are hacking into it. It stops moving, collapses, and is now a ruined smolder, no longer regenerating, and is dead.

Hey! Hey guys, I found acid! I still tried to cut his heart down, though. I regain 14 hit points from Hexblade's Curse. Yes. Thank you. That was fun. That actually was amazing. You're still an eight.

I'm still an eight. Beau, do you see anything over there by the fucking table? I'm going to go look again now. I'm not under, I found this acid. I was a little late to the party, but we have acid now. I think my rib is broken.

Yeah. Should we check the rest of the canisters? I'm going to go smash all the canisters. I'll hold the glowing sword up against the chains and look out of the way. He's trying to rip his ribs out to try to get to the heart. Oh god.

You tear open and you do find what looks to be a cluster of four hearts. Whoa! That are slightly merged. Slurtly. Slurtly. D-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d. Oh, it's a heart. Well, they're not beating.

D-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d. It's like a jazz heart. They're just like. Can I go back over and investigate this table with more time now? Sure. Notes, research? There are papers around the floor area.

Most of everything's been overturned. Most of these tables are empty or knocked over. Everything that's been sitting in whatever solution covers the bottom end has been destroyed. You spend a little short time looking around and there is nothing notable or legible that remains. You grab a sheet of paper or one of the notes and it just deteriorates in your hand

as you lift it out of the water. Oh shit. Hey, look, paper. Is there anything up in the chains above us? Can we hold the glowing sword? Yeah, make a perception check. People are messed up right now out of curiosity. One, two.

Should we rest? Two. Short rest? Three. I'm going to object. 20. Perception in the chains. Nice. Looking up in the chains, you don't see anything else other than these, there are racks

where some of the chains hang, like chains can be shifted amongst that were probably used to rotate and or change location of the various tubes that were once there. You can see on top of the tubes, there are hooks that are arranged to help maneuver them around.

You don't see anything else up there other than what looks to be a little awkward slime, not a cocoon, but a space where this creature spent a lot of its time. God knows what kind of madness took it, not able to escape this chamber and not being able to die. Yeah. He made a home here.

Can I break all the canisters? You. Whoa. Oh boy. Shatter all the canisters. You can see they're all variations of a Halas-cloned body. A number of them that were cracked or left open and exposed have been left to decay and are mostly just sloughing skin and bone

with bits of fungus that have grown in the humid interior of this chamber, whatever spores were available to create these bases, but they didn't expand much. Other ones appear to be ones that were still held in fluid that you've now left onto the ground as they fall. They are also deceased. Their body horribly mutated with a large jaw

across the center of its torso with a big thick tongue hanging out. A lot of them, you can see teeth just growing out of parts of the body. There's just like a, each one has some sort of weird cancerous mutation to its form. And they look Laughing Hand-ish?

They all look like, I mean, there are elements of the teeth everywhere that remind you of that a little bit. This place is terrible, but horribly exciting. Is everyone all right? Is anyone hurt still? I mean, I could use a second. Jester, are you hurt?

No, but I feel bad for Caduceus. I mean, I could use a second. Jester, are you hurt? No, but I feel bad for Caduceus. I'm a little rough. Anybody else a little rough? I place a hand on Caduceus and I give him one hit point. Lay on hands. First time, bitches. There you go. Do you always remember?

You give me one hit point? I used that for EMT action. Oh, he's all good now. I guess we were fine. I think I feel a little better. That was nice, but like, I'm still gone. Jester, do you need healing? Can you do it anymore?

Yeah. Sure, heal me. Wait, I mean, do you hurt? Yeah, I mean, I'm down a little bit. Wait, do you have, how many times can you do that? Well, I mean, I'm down a little bit. I've got this cut on my arm. How many times can you do that? Well, I mean, that's a good way. I would keep that, just because if someone passes out or something,

you can just pop them back up in an emergency. That's a very good point, yeah. Once we're both inevitably unconscious in front of you. Our golem is looking pretty rough. I don't know how to repair him, do I? There is no repairing him, probably. You could attempt to spend more time

back in the previous chambers to try and repair him. But other than that, I have no idea. Other than that, this is the first time you've had a golem, and you've not studied much in the way of repairing them. My little man. You've only just learned how to make one. I could try to mend him. I'm going to use my cantrip and try to mend the golem

in little tiny sections. Try to get his armor back together a little bit. On a superficial level, you do seem to mend some of the elements of the damage, how it appears, but because of the nature of being a magical construct, it is still a creature and not technically just an inanimate object. The men's spell does not work on it.

Well, it looks pretty. Yeah. Paste. I'm going to do an investigation check looking specifically for bananas. Okay. You stupid. Oh, you're still a bit as cruel.

I think, let's see, what is that? Intelligence? Yeah. Okay, 12. 12. Wandering through, wading through the garbage, glass shards, getting stuck in the knuckles and angrily sticking out. No bananas.

This is frustrating as shit. They have no bananas. Ooh, ooh, ooh. Nott, is that you? No bananas? This is frustrating as shit. They have no bananas. Nott, is that you? No bananas today. Nott, it is your friend Fjord. Andy Serkis better be watching this. Oh man, I can't remember what they were. MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and MATT and Action figures. Can I investigate that far door just for imagery, cover, the silver one? There are two doors. Yeah, this one at the far end.

I don't want to open it just to see what it looks like. You approach and you see a dark wooden door, a basic metal slightly polished iron frame. In the center of the door, there is a purple gem that is embedded in it, maybe about an inch across. Any sort of defining features of the gem or just a rough gem inlaying the door? It's a cut gem.

It's not raw, no symbols, nothing like that. There's a purple gem in this door. I know according to the map, one way leads to the, one step closer to the heart and the other leads to something probably bad. Well, what does the other door look like? Caleb will go inspect this gem and try to understand the nature of it.

The other one you see is a plain brass door. It's just a solid brass door, it is featureless. It has a, as opposed to a knob, it just has a handle. Boy. Feels like a toss-up, right? I think the one, I mean, if we were going, I mean, if we're looking at the map. Is there anything on the desk that would indicate? What about that chest over in the corner there?

Anything in that chest? That one, yeah. Right there. Make an investigation check. Will we do this? Can I take a short rest? Do you guys want to take an hour for a short rest? I feel like we should. I'm pretty fucked up.

Yeah, so is Caduceus. Okay, let's take a short rest. Once you turn back, you're going to be pretty messed up, too. Which that lasts for an hour. Yeah, I can do. Go ahead. Right. So I'm saying, so if you take a short rest, it would just vanish by the end of your short rest.

I'm sorry, say that again? Your polymorph just vanish by the end of your short rest. I'm sorry, say that again? Your polymorph would vanish before the end of the short rest. Sure. If you were to keep it the whole time. Caleb is inspecting the gem on that door to understand the nature of it. Okay, make an arcana check.

As far as taking the chest, Jester, looking inside, there isn't a whole lot in it, it's only about maybe a third full, and in there are these large glass jars of a similar color of liquid as what was inside these large containers, as well as a few tools that were used to gather and unhook hooks,

as well as a few other things that look like implements that were used in manipulation or dissection. I'll take the liquid. You said it was a large glass jar? There's three of these large jars about that big with the liquid inside of it, yeah. Okay, I'm going to take them. Okay, and fit them all into the haversack?

Will they fit? You're starting to get pretty jammed in there. As long as you're keeping track of your space in there. I'm going to try to stick the heart cluster in one of the jars, if it fits. Okay. So you remove the horrible mut the heart cluster in one of the jars if it fits. Okay. So you remove the horrible mutated heart cluster

and set it inside the jar and close it. It slips in, a lot of liquid spills out just from displacement as you push it in there. It takes up most of the jar size. The jar is about this tall and about this big around, and that heart cluster takes up that entire space in the inside. Look at this nastiness!

This fit in the bigger bag? The jar size, technically, at that width would not fit into the haversack's pouches. It would have to go into the bag of holes. Yeah, I can put it in. Do you want to regroup? It's on the edges, you didn't even wipe it down. We'll do some healing if you need it, but I'm just doing hit dice right now.

Did you have acid somewhere, Beau? Oh, and also, I would have done a quick detect magic. Inspect that? As well, just to see if there's anything in this room that's pinging. Okay. Oh! Focus your surroundings. Nothing specifically magical catches your attention

in the surroundings beyond the doors. 27 on the door, by the way. 27 on the door. The gem, looking at it, the gem itself is not magical, there's no magical essence to it, but you can see around the base of the gem, there's very, very faint runes that just say,

The Sea, in an older Draconic. The Sea. That's the Dreadnought. Yeah. What'd you say. That's the Dreadnought. Yeah. What'd you say? That is the Dreadnought. That door is? How do you know? I read a lot. We don't want to go there, right? Not, at least not yet.

Not now. All right, Brass Door. Should we? I mean, look, this place is a fucking madhouse. Should we tie a restraint around someone before whoever wants to open the brass door does? Just in case it, you know. Does it work like that?

I don't know, I'm just trying to think I have. We could try it. Probably just drag anybody who's tied to it together. That's a fair point. We could try it, though. Okay. I check out this acid to see if I can discern its nature or how potent it is.

Is it just basic acid? Make an intelligence check. Is this before the rest or after? 12. You burn through all of your healed gears. It's fairly potent. We would rest long enough that it would wear off or you would dispel it at some point.

Right, I just didn't know if we were doing all this business, because you can't do anything when you're resting, so I was wondering if we were doing our business, then resting, resting. I'm definitely doing my business in here, because it's been a while. You mentioned my outside note time. That's like a long time.

I'm going to hide behind the table. After reverting to your normal form, you go ahead and check the acid. It is very potent. It is as potent, if not a little more, than the table. After reverting to your normal form, you go ahead and check the acid. It is very potent. It is as potent, if not a little more, than the stuff that you're used to using with any of your acid vials previously. It would do the same as an acid vial,

but this particular jar could fill 20 acid vials. Whoa! You know what we haven't done in this room is look for hidden floor compartments or hidden doors and walls. We should. We should look for hidden doorways to see if they lead anywhere else. Mm-hmm. Okay.

Yeah, let's check around the room. We stand out and search areas of the wall and pull out bricks. Okay, so who's helming the search and who's helping? I'll try. In Beau, not in Beau. All right. Yeah. So who's helming?

Are you guys rolling separately? Go for it. Both of you guys roll for investigation check. I should do that, right? Yeah. We'll add some guidance. Fucking get it. Natural 20. Damn, this has been a session, man.

Where has this been? Let's go. They've been on this little blue die, too, my little co-op buddy. I got six or 28, if you allow her late guidance. Okay. Wow. You guys take about 15 or so minutes scanning the entirety of the chamber, looking up against the ceiling, looking around the nearby walls. You feel pretty certain by the entirety of the chamber, looking up against the ceiling,

looking around nearby walls. You feel pretty certain by the end of your search there are no other exits. So at the very least, you've eliminated that possibility. The mystery is not there. You just rolled one higher. Not in this chamber. Okay. Oh, but other chambers.

But other chambers, that would have really helped us. It would have really helped us, yeah. Okay. Let's, I tied the rope around my waist, if you want, so I can go through. I'll be right behind you. Try it, open the door. To which one? The brass door. Brass door, okay.

Is this the one that the... You go to pull it? The study. Thready, oh, the study. Oh, it's locked. It's locked. Hey, this door is actually locked. Is there a keyhole? Yes. There is no keyhole. Is it locked?

Caduceus was sleeping at that door before. It's magically locked? It is, the door has a magical aura to it, and it is not opening. Ah, you were pulling. Try pushing. Walks over to it and touches his hand to it, and there is a very loud knocking sound.

Door opens. Wow! That's all fucking handy shit. That was crazy. You just have to knock. That's fair. So you pull the door open. You can see a staircase that descends slightly downward into shadow. It's a staircase. It's descending.

Should we go? I mean, I know, we think we know where the Dreadnought is. We could send down Frumpkin. We could. Yeah, let's do that. Just in case, what if it's the Dreadnought waiting at the bottom of the stairs? Okay, so I send Frumpkin down.

Okay, Frumpkin passes through the doorway. The minute the Frumpkin steps onto the stairs. Okay, so I send Frumpkin down. Okay, Frumpkin passes through the doorway. The minute the Frumpkin steps onto the stairs, and you see the stairs slightly begin to curve at a slight corkscrew angle before they vanish into the darkness. Then a moment later, you lose your connection with Frumpkin. Oh, that's not just a stairwell. It's a doorway. It's one of these things

that we've been through before. Yeah, that is squishy in there. That's wobbly inside. Should we all do it together? I step forward. I go Vassar right after her. Both Jester and Fjord vanish into the open hall. We count to five and then we go.

One, two. They seem cool with whatever's over there. Oh, there you go. Three. I'm bored, I go. All right, let's go. Everybody else move through? Yes. When you all step through. Caleb hangs back for a second and stares at one of the mangled corpses,

the one with the most complete face of Halas that he can find, and just stares at it for 10 seconds. Okay. 10 seconds, that's a long time. And then he goes, you're not here. We're in combat. He heads in. The stairway rotates,

and you start finding yourself instinctually having to readjust because you're waiting for the gravity to slide off, but it doesn't, it's this odd sensation where you have to trust the spiral and you feel yourself drawn downward towards it as if it was a natural staircase. It seems to spiral three, four, almost ten times

before you hit something dark. There's no light in here, but there's just now, there's a hard edge of some sort of door right in front of you. It would be Jester, you'd be the first one, no, it was before the wind first. Yeah, before it came right up. Yeah, before it came after, so Jester would be the first one

to get to it, and you feel down, and you feel another handle. There's a door. Should I open it? But even with darkvision, you cannot see anything. Like, you can just feel something there, that is just, It is magical darkness. Yeah, so even if I tried to galasvar with the sword.

Don't do it, I'm right in front of you! You try to galasvar. You feel it invoke, but there's no light. This is a zone of magical darkness. We've got nothing, go for it, Jester. I don't know, it's pretty dark in here, and we're just here to look. Okay. What was that move? I think we're alone now.

There doesn't seem to be anyone. Oh, Fjord, fuck. You push the doorway open. Oh no. Stepping into these chambers, you find a somewhat cramped room with central hardwood floor, a handful of shelves filled with jars

of nondescript organic matter placed against the distant wall and the two edges of it, and a massive central roller desk that houses all manner of scattered notes, sketches, small tools of curious utility. There's a hanging iron chandelier in the center of the chamber above you,

outfitted with ever-burning candles, while the bare gray walls of stone loom about 20 feet high over this otherwise simple space. The chamber's arranged in almost like a battering scenario. You step into it, and it bends to two points to the right and left side of you, and then comes to the center before bowing onto what was almost like a trapezoid-type shape.

Are we all in? You guys all eventually saunter in and see the same scenario. What you see as you're approaching in the staircase, the doorway open, and the silhouettes of Jester and Fjord pass through what was previously just endless darkness. You now have something to work towards, and you all enter the chamber.

The shelves have just jars on them, or is it books and stuff, too? You all step in. There's a very faint vibrational pattern that just slowly seems to be beating sourcelessly around you. Caleb is consciously approaching that desk. Okay. And wants to devour it.

You're going to eat the desk? Yeah. Okay. I know what devour it. You're going to eat the desk? Yeah. Okay. I know what you mean. All right. Okay. Which part did we enter on? Like, which wall did we enter on? You entered on the southern wall.

If you're looking at the shape here, you entered from the southern wall, and across from you immediately is the desk and the three shelves there. I feel like we should be really careful in here. One desk? One desk. And three what?

Three shelves. Three shelves. And no windows, no compartments, no... Not just a chandelier. Is it like the three shelves in a desk, are they arranged in a certain way? That it seems like significance? I'll show you a layout. Ooh!

Yes, I'll help you guys a little bit. I'll be right back. So this was good that we healed up, because I'll show you a layout means you can mess up battles. It's not like I'm not fighting anything. Matt's layout is brought to you by Dwarven Forge. I think I'm doing this wrong.

Is it? Break the horns. It's a little involved. Is there something in there? What's happening there? My head grew. I'll put you down while you're doing it. There are two candelabras.

Dwarven Forge, back up. And a red you down while you're doing it. There are two candelabras. I didn't think it was possible. And a red carpet in the center of the chamber. So that is the layout of the room you're in. Right. Nott the Brave, will you join me, please? At the desk? Yes, I will. I would check for traps on everything.

This feels real dangerous. The whole floor is hardwood? The rug is the enemy. It has a hardwood element there and some stone on the outer edges. Oh, I'm not stuck on that. I think Caleb just walked across the rug to get to the desk. You did.

Did we die? So as Caleb, you walk across the center of the chamber, across the red rug towards the desk there. I know better than this. I approach cautiously. And nothing happens. Shut up! You approach the desk and. You know better than this. I approach cautiously. And nothing happens. Shut up! You approach the desk and you can see

there are papers and notes. You glance down, they're all in Zemnian. Ooh! Start to read quickly. I'm going to join him and start looking at the drawers, see if any are locked. Okay, make an investigation check. 20, nope, 18. Okay, make an investigation check. 20, no, 18.

Okay. The drawers are not locked, and as you open them, on the inside, you can see there's ink wells, various other bits of chalk, you can see little glass beads, all sorts of things that are simple components, like spell components and elements meant for note keeping. You would imagine this would be almost like a smaller... Not smaller, a smaller...

Imagine if a powerful mage were to have a temporary study. You know, loosely outfitted. Is the Zemnian contemporary or in more archaic form? A more archaic form of Zemnian. Yeah. It'll take you a little bit to read through Is the Xem'nian contemporary or in more archaic form? A more archaic form of Xem'nian. Yeah. It'll take you a little bit to read through what you find, glancing through what looks important. You do find out,

one, some of the notes outline the discovery of a curious, simple extraplanar chamber set adrift across the plains, then talks about shackling it to the tower for study, and goes into the process and the design of what across the plains, then talks about shackling it to the tower for study and goes into the process and the design of what elements of the tower he planned to manipulate to shackle and bring it to the tower,

and a lot of that escapes your understanding. Make an arcana check for me. Who draws off the tower? 16. 16. Your mind cannot grasp the intricacies of these various designs, but then those notes fade a bit into other pages that speak of the strange horror within this chamber.

Horror? Horror. A swollen, beating heart without a body locked within a field of magical energy. Oh, he found it? Floating around and then combined it onto his body. Alas, his curiosity got the best of him, and he dispelled the field, only to find the heart emitting a corrosive aura

as it summoned fleshy tendrils to defend itself. Fighting the defenses of the heart over time from the safety of his tower, he managed to seal it within a case of runic imprisonment. Then delving into his tomes, Halas found the Heart to have probably belonged to a nightmarish entity called the Laughing Hand, cursed to never die by the Crawling King himself.

Side notes speak of Halas's joy in the warring gods keeping themselves distracted and a lack of interest in the fate of this Laughing Hand one way or the other. He cares not about the strange battles of these divine and let them stay focused on their middling interests and efforts. You continue to, would you roll on your investigation check? 18. 18, okay.

Nothing else really catches your attention in the drawers or anything on the desk. The next batch of notes you go through talk of Halas' experimentation with stolen samples of the heart's flesh and the regenerative properties of it. Yeah, he guards cooties. His theories involve siphoning the cursed flesh

from the heart and instituting the undying nature of it into a human body. Developing a series of magical clones of himself, Halas hoped to eventually perfect one such clone so that he might claim it and become an eternal master of the arcane without having to resort to the imperfect and troubling process of leechdom. Another batch of notes includes frantically written

complaints about failed experiments and the need to jettison failed experiments in the Astral Sea to make room for another batch. Eventually, Halas writes on a successfully developed possible vessel and his need to prepare. His theories then descend into methods of soul transference via customization of a magical jar and take note of one of his ritual chambers

within the Dreadnought. The writings and dates abruptly stop there. So I do my best to impart all of that. He has maybe made a perfect version of what we saw back there, and it is past the other door. In the dreadnought, he said? It could be a thing, like a room or a vessel?

Could be. A place, it's a place. Wait, what? What? The Dreadnaught is, I think, an entity or a creature, but we are traveling into different pockets of reality, and I think beyond the door with the purple crystal is the Astral Sea.

Mm-hmm. Oh, that's not true. We have the heart. Can I use Divine Sense and look around the room? Okay. You don't sense anything that catches your attention via the particular attunement of your consciousness towards these undead or fiendish creatures.

I walk up and just put the point of my sword into the rug just in case that'll trust shit. Okay. It splinters some of the threads. Caleb, what was that last part about the jars? What was the last part about the jars? The soul jar? His theories descended into methods

of soul transference via magical jar. So he went to perfect. He took note of a ritual chamber. In regards to this research, it says within the Dreadnought. It's within the Dreadnought. But in our map. The translation may be imperfect. It is Old Zemnian, but that's the gist of what you get.

Look around for another door in here. I will, I remember back to Avantika's chambers. I think to myself, rich people always have secret shit. And I start looking for loose bricks, hidden floorboards. Sure, make an investigation check. False bags. Wait, I'm giving you, I'm going to. Oh, blood. Guidance.

Guidance. Okay. That's a plus d for me? Yeah. I will take that Guidance, because that was yet. Okay. 16. 16.

Looking through, you do notice that the wood flooring underneath the desk, if you move the chair out of the way and the floor that's beneath it, most of the wood pattern goes from the door to the desk. If you move the chair out of the way and the floor that's beneath it, most of the wood pattern goes from the door to the desk, but the square of it underneath the desk is perpendicular to the rest of the wood. Nott. What's up?

Lazy. Give me that dagger. Give me a banana. I don't... Do you have a banana? Are you still having that craving? I am. It's been like 30 minutes. I know, but I was just,

it felt so weird to be that big. I was- I'm going to paint a banana with my paint. Okay. You don't know when it's, oh, thank you. You're welcome. Wow. Tastes strangely accurate,

though it looks a little funny and Saturday morning cartoonish. It was just so weird. Is it like that fake banana accurate, though. It looks a little funny and Saturday morning cartoonish. It was just so weird. Is it like that fake banana flavor, though? Is it like artificial banana flavor? Yeah, it's more like Runt's banana than an actual, legitimate banana. Scratches the banana markers?

Wow. I'm going to keep the peel for comedy. Put that in your inventory, don't forget that. You never know. It won't rot. It won't rot because it is magically developed. I'll move away from the desk. I'm going to back up. Okay. Are you going to check for traps?

Yeah, now that you've had your snack, you want to check for traps here? Yes. Make way for the King of the Jungle. All right. Investigation check. Jungle VIP. I don't think the King of the Jungle. All right. Investigation check. Jungle VIP. I don't think Gorillas of the Queen. I don't know how it works.

I don't know, I've reached the top. All right. I'm going to investigate the floorboards, and that's 19. 19, okay. They are not trapped, from what best you can tell. You also don't see the mechanism of which to lift it. There is no handle. Can I see that dagger?

Sure. There's not enough space to wedge it. No, we look for a button. Look for a button, everyone. I'm going to search the chest. Search for a book. Yeah, search for a mechanism. Make an investigation check.

I'm going to do a quick Detect Magic in here. Can I search for a mechanism, too, or a button? Yeah, make an investigation. Let me Detect Magic, do it again. Natural 20! Hey! Nice. Detect Magic, you don't detect anything specifically magical within this chamber,

anymore, at least? But nothing's giving off a glow other than the candles? Other than maybe the candles and the doorway behind you where you entered. No books. And a faint aura below the floor. There's a weird bit of magic underneath the floor.

The desk, you go through and end up following the same paths and searching the same things that Nott did, but nothing additionally is found. Jester, as you're going along the shelves and you see all the various jars of flesh, you can see a lot of these are bits and slivers of whatever this heart that was referred to in the notes

are in different sizes and shapes, and as you approach and flick one, it quivers. And as you listen to that heartbeat sound, you can see faintly each piece pulse with the same rhythm of the heartbeat. Coming across, on the far shelf behind it, you can see there's a lantern that's very vaguely lit. You go and start moving across, but the lantern won't move.

It's solid in place. You go ahead and grab the top of it and pull. As it pulls, it hinges. The wood beneath the desk opens into a staircase that descends down into shadow. Tight, tight, tight, tight. Should we take these pieces of hot tissue with us? Maybe we can see what hurts it,

and then if we can burn a little piece of it, or cold a little piece of it. Fleshy tendrils, right? It seems like it offended something. Hmm? Oh yeah, extract aspects of the... Didn't Caleb read that it's sealed? It's sealed in something.

The heart is now sealed in something. We're going to have to open a jar. Or maybe we can just pick it up and take it with us. I could try and extract aspects from it, I don't know. But from one of the little pieces, I think. The heart was in the jar. The heart was in a magical plane, but he dispelled the plane, the magical bonds.

The jar was sealed in some sort of a magical containment and he dispelled it to study it. The heart was. The heart was, but then realized that it had defense mechanisms, so he resealed it. In runes. Yeah, I mean, like its own containment arcane. It's in a jar or its own thing.

It's in a thing, it's in an arc. Full slivers of heart. Can't take one of these tissue pieces and be like, boop. Yeah, see what the tissue, like what will hurt the tissues, and then we'll know what will hurt the heart, right? As a glass vial, if you want to put some in it. Well, there's all these little things that are down.

I will say you would know from Extract Aspects, it's not just finding a sliver of something. It's about being able to connect your key with whatever entity you're striking, and a small sliver wouldn't be enough to draw information about the entire being. Never mind. We need a snack later. There is that.

Well, regardless, I'm going in the hole. What's in this hole? Okay, marching order. Oh, you can go down the hole. Yeah, no, it's a staircase to Descendants. This is down to the heart. We're going to the heart. Question about his writing. Was it so old that it seemed pre-calamity?

His conversation initially about the gods busying themselves and the Crawling King, leads you to know that there was conversation about deities, but there's nothing about specifically the Calamity. The only thing you'd know is the study that you guys went to the first time, and it had the large stained glass interpretation

of all of the inner and outer planes, did not have a divine gate, whereas all modern, similar maps does have a divine gate. However, that is more of an indicator of when it was constructed. You don't know, you have no sense, really, of what time has passed here.

Yeah, because we know that that stained glass window was a post-calamity, or pre-calamity map. Correct. I will light up the sword and I will go into the hole. So Beau, then Fjord? Mm-hmm. Okay. Beau, Fjord. In the hole!

Who's after? I'll go next. I will go after Nott with William. I'll take a big swig and go down there. Take a big swig and go in that hole. We should maybe. Could you do some gesture at the back? Okay, sure.

Go and buy some alcohol. I'll give it ingester at the back? Okay, sure. Go and buy some alpaca. I'll hang you the 500 diamonds. Okay. Okay. Yeah. Tonight's episode barks you by. So you have a 500? Oh, come on. Okay, I'll put that in here.

All righty. Just in case you need it. Just in case, best to split them up. It seems silly having. Both the diamonds be with you? Mm-hmm. Okay. Oh, it's louder.

Oh, that's disconcerting. You enter a low-lit, triangular room of dark red stone. The surface is glistening with moisture, the humid air of the room smelling strongly of iron. As your eyes focus into the low-lit interior, the corners of your vision almost catch elements of the walls and floors slowly moving, like you've eaten something toxic

that now alters your mind. A deep, heavy thrum reverberates rhythmically throughout the chamber, the source of the sound sitting central to the chamber. Under a shimmering case of arcane, reinforced glass lies the swollen, beating heart of the Laughing Hand, dangling from its aorta. Numerous glyphs line the containment glass, while much of it is smeared with gore from the inside, elements of flesh collected at its

bottom, which appear to have somewhat breached the containment as tendrils of wet red flesh spiral outward from beneath the perma-heart to encompass the majority of the room. Ooh! Like pulsing tree roots. No. I mean, it's been in here for a long time. The heartbeat intensifies in your presence and a wave of sickening pain sparks into your body. Oh my god.

And that's where we're going to take a break. Oh shit! I'm so happy that we're here! We're in a crazy heart room and the hearts killing us. Yeah, and I'll show you the battlefield as it is when we return. However. Don't touch. We're going to talk. Love is a battlefield.

We can still talk our way through this. Totally. Yeah, yeah. Totally. Rolls, persuasion. I mean, who knows? So, let's do our one more giveaway tonight. Just in time for Halloween, if you guys haven't checked it out yet, we are giving away this awesome coffin dice vault.

Ooh! This is the nice, like, wing-ay, wench, all the different things. I keep mispronouncing it. Wing. Wing. Whatever, I'm so sorry. I know mispronouncing it. Wenge? Wenge? Whatever, I'm so sorry. I know I've heard it a million times, but I've also messed it up a million times,

so I don't know what's right and what's wrong. But it's cool, it's Darkwood, it's awesome. It's Turquoise Inlay. It's now currently available through Wyrmwood's Kickstarter campaign, its most recent one, which is now live, but ends on Halloween, so check it out while you still can. The winner will go to one person in the chat

who puts in the keyword. The keyword tonight is heart. H-E-A-R-T. Only once, more than once, you'll be disqualified. And once again, U.S. and Canada only, including Quebec. We'll be back here in a few minutes to find out who won.

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

And welcome back. So before we jump into the latter half of the session, we have our giveaway winner, which is Spurlman19. Spurlman19, congratulations. We'll go ahead and get this sent to you ASAP and enjoy the special edition Wyrmwood, a coffin case. Awesome. Travis, over the break,

I got a text from Andy Serkis. I'm in. Sweet, good job. I'm Planet of the Apes, part four. I don't think. Congratulations. I'm so proud of you. It's about me. Ape Harder?

It's just me. Ape Harder? Just you. Yeah, it's just me. Sweet, we all want it. It's me and Andy Serkis in a video, like a camcorder for two hours. It isn't just the remake of Smoking the Bandit

that will inevitably be coming? Yes. I agree with you, I'd leave it loose, but you'd play the orangutan. Anyway. So as you guys step into this dark red flesh-lorded chamber with the permaheart itself sitting in the center.

Runic symbols placed around the containment glass that seems to have held most of it until it's begun to spill out and take the chamber for itself. Chains that were once affixed to the glass now broken and now lie loose across the ground. I'm going to go ahead and get the battle. Oh my god, okay.

This cardiac arrest brought to you by Dwarvenforge.com. Get ready for Halloween with Dwarvenforge's classic resin restock. I already said this earlier today. Check it out at Dwarvenforge's classic resin restock. I already said this earlier today. Check it out at dwarvenforge.com. Oh god. Jeez. Ew.

Oh! That's a floor of blood. That is a floor of blood. Oh jeez. Look at the symbols on it. Ooh, what do we do with the symbols? What are we supposed to do about it all? What symbols? Where? On the jar. All over the jar.

It is on a surface, it's not floating. Those were just on the jar that he found in his house. That means raspberry, boysenberry. What do these things? Says the Avengers. What is that? Some of the chains that were holding it, right? Oh, right, there's chains.

But there's weird little stones. Yeah, there's symbols on the cards. Do you see them? Are those real chains, or are those supposed to be gross tendrils? Those are real chains. Those are real chains. I think the tendrils are all over the floor. Caleb is eyeballing every symbol in here.

You just see elements of heavy veins and flesh that have rooted themselves into the stone, just in the center of the chamber around. You do see some faint glowing glyphs at each corner of the chamber. However, I need you guys all to roll initiative. Oh man. What? Already?

Oh god, oh god, oh no. Hey! I'm going to use my boots. It's boot time. Terrible. Terrible. I've got my boots of haste. You got boots of haste?

To her initiative. No, I add to her initiative. My initiative shit. Terrible. I've got my boost. You got boost and haste? My initiative shit. So bad. So, 25 to 20? Oh, 24. 24? Nice. Like, what am I going to do first? What am I going to do here?

20 to 15? 18. 16. Wait. 17. Jester and Cat the Clerics are first. The year before Beau? Wait.

She had a 22 or something. 22, 18. Oh, 22, yes. 17. Because this is not Beau. Oh. Yeah, not Beau. Not Beau.

10 to five. 14, sorry, I was somewhere else. Apologies. Two. Ooh. Apologies. Two. Ooh. Hold on. So, where are they? Wait, what?

So Caleb is still after Beau? Is your initiative zero? Yep. Oh. All right. I just rolled a fat two. Jester, you're up first. We're in combat?

We're in initiative room. We're in initiative order. Okay. Do we feel painful? Does anything? There's like, as soon as you enter the chamber, What? We're in an initiative room. We're in initiative order. Okay. Do we feel painful? Does anything? There's like, as soon as you enter the chamber, almost like walking into a room

where the temperature is 40 degrees more than it is, there's immediately like a, kind of like a nauseous pulse that hits you with each beat of the heart, like a. It's like the brown note. Yeah. It's hard to explain, but whatever. Pum. Pum.

Pum. Pum. Are we not supposed to kill this thing? We are supposed to kill this thing. If we kill it, does the Laughing Hand die? It becomes killable. Oh. Yeah.

Much like the troll, right? If we can kill this heart, then he won't regenerate, I think, like the other troll did. The perma heart. How far out do the tendrils go from the heart? Is it all over the floor in the room, or is it? They're thicker on the edge, but some of them spill out into the edges.

It's almost rooted itself in the entire chamber to some degree. There's three weird glowing things in each corner. Correct. Okay. There's a glowing thing in each corner. Okay, there's a glowing thing in each corner. Okay, there's a glowing thing in each corner. So Jester, what are you doing? Caduceus, you're in there.

I'm going to use my action to cast, I'm going to try to cast Divine Intervention. Okay. Wow. I'm going to try to ask the Traveler to help us figure out what to do with this heart. Okay, go ahead and roll a percentile dice for me, please. Come on. Do the impossible.

I know. It's a good call, coming out the gate. Okay. Good dice draw. Good dice night. No, 32. 32. You reach out, but unfortunately, as you speak towards the Traveler to look upon you, the folded element of this chamber is so deeply embedded

into the private network of the towers, various chained chambers, that the Traveler cannot hear your call. Okay, ooh, no, that makes me feel really uncomfortable that they cannot hear me right now. You still have your movement. I'm going to move over to my left and avoid stepping on any of the tendrils.

I'm going to gingerly step over them and get about there. That's your movement there. Okay, that's what I'm going to do. on any of the tendrils. I'm going to gingerly step over them and get about there. Get your movement there. Okay, that's what I'm going to do. Bonus action? You good? My bonus action, I'm just going to bring up my spiritual weapon. Okay, what level?

At a fourth level. Fourth level, you got it. Where do you want to place it? Just in front of the big group of everyone. Right here? Yeah. Okay. Do the pillars go all the way to the ceiling? They do.

More like floating. The ceiling itself is about 15 feet tall. It's not extremely high. Like where Beau is floating above her head, so that she doesn't, yeah. Okay, stick around there. You got it. All right, that finishes Jester's turn.

Caduceus, you're up. I'm going to... I'm going to quickly cast Bless on Fjord, Beau, and Nott. Fjord, Beau, and Nott. Bless you, sir. What does that mean again? You get a plus four to everything.

Do your attack rolls and... Fjord attacks and saves. Yeah. Cool. And I'm just going to stay right where I am for now. You got it. Finish this, produce this, go. Nott, you're up. I will clock to my right.

Okay. Maybe over by that pillar, if I can get that far. 30, yeah, 30 feet, it's still five feet of movement, I believe, from the back. I can't hide from this thing. It's got senses, it can feel everything, right? It's got like tremor sense or something. Certainly seems like it.

So I'm not going to bother hiding. I'll cast Mage Hand. Okay. Just to have it up in case. Just to have it floating around. Let me find it. Mage Hand is right there. Where do you want to cast it?

30 feet towards the thing. All righty. They have it right there. Where do you want to cast it? 30 feet towards the thing. All righty. They had it right there. Great. There's your mage hand. Nott's turns over Beauregard. Look at Caleb. It's terrible. Yeah, something terrible's going to happen. It's that part in the horror movie. You're going to look at these runes?

That was a good call. I was debating on not doing that, too. You can shout some out to me, I'll look at these, see if any of them match. Can I put it 15 feet away from me? I don't know. Sure. There's these slabs over here. Mm-hmm.

I don't know, okay. I'm going to come over here and I'm going to look at this tablet. 35, 40, 45. You're not quite close enough to get a full pass on it. Oh, is your 50? Oh, because it went up. Right, so yes, you can get right up to it. Now you come up with the glyph, and this is a... Smart. The glyph itself

is very intricate. You can see it's symbols upon symbols, and there is some sort of an equation and pattern to its construction. If you'd like to make an investigation check as your action to attempt to discern it. Guidance. Oh wait, she's not close enough.

I can't touch her. You're pretty close. You're close to me. No, you can't touch her. But you are blessed, but a blessed is only attacked in saving throws, that's right, so go for it. Okay, you've been doing me good. 25.

25? Yeah. Smartest, smartest kid in the room. 17. As you look at this glyph, with your new headband you've acquired now woven into your hair. Looking real prudent, eh? Your intellect begins to,

while you do not have a deep knowledge of the arcane, your pattern recognition is extremely intense. You begin to see where all these different equations begin to match up. While you do not understand the nature of the magic specifically, you begin to take out your staff and find one little spot where it looks like

the equation is weakest. You take your staff and then whack, whack, and then crack the stone where it is, just chip it a little bit, and as it does, it goes dark. You watch as the center glass chamber around the heart cracks slightly. We all saw that. Is that good or bad?

It's going to be good. We have to be able to hit it, right? Yeah, we can't do damage until it's out. It's on once it's out, so. It's probably going to be on before it's out, it's just we can't hurt it until it's out. Bonus action, anything? Ah!

Gloat. The glyphs! Ah, thank you. We break the glyphs, we break the jar. Save the cheerleader. Save the cheerleader. Save the world. Okay. Queen of prom.

You just monked this, but the other monk who used the TV monk to monk this. End of season one. You can do both monks now. All right, that finish your turn? Yes. All right. Now it your turn? Yes. All right. Now it is Caleb's turn. Caleb. I look over at the one on the other side

and hold my hand out and cast a spell magic on it. Cast a spell magic on the glyph across the way. That corner. Over there? Okay, go ahead and make an intelligence check. 16. 16? The spell releases, but the glyph holds strong. Well, that's it.

Just hit it, Caleb, that's what Beau did, just hit it a lot. I don't think I should just hit anything in this room. That's it, my turn. Okay, that finishes your go. Are you going to send your guy anywhere? Okay. Defend me if anything comes close.

Okay, it is now the Permahart's turn. Oh, you remember. The aura gets more intense as the rhythmic beat suddenly pulses and you can feel this wave of necrotic energy slam into your body. Everybody in the room takes... Where's the?

We just take. You just take. We don't roll. Nope. Oh, see, this is a big hit. Seven points of necrotic damage. Oh fuck. It's now going to go ahead and use Summon Tendrils. Of course it is. Summon Tend. It doesn't have to.

Well, at the start of its turn, one of its protective tendrils appears anywhere within 30 feet of it. Ooh. Oh, it's like that. Ew. Then Summon Tendrils is going to summon two more. On this side that I can't see.

There is one more glyph. Oh no. Yeah. There's a spaghetti next to me. No. Now you watch as these fleshy tendrils that were rooted into the ground suddenly tear loose, rise up, and begin to swirl and writhe in the air, almost like they have a mind of their own,

but they all seem to move in unison almost before breaking away into different actions. One of them is going to attempt to lash at you, Fjord. Okay. That's going to be a 20 to hit. I definitely hit. All right, you take 15 points of bludgeoning damage,

and you have to make a strength saving throw. With a d4. With a d4, thank you. That's not great. 15. 15, that's just what you needed. No! As it lashes and begins to wrap around you,

you actually reach and yank it and throw it off of your body. It does not manage to grab it. Oh god. Bad touch. One of them attempts to lash you not. That's going to be a 26 to hit. It hits. You take 13 points of bludgeoning damage

and I need you to make a strength saving throw. Can he dodge that? Sure. That's six. We got to get it out of the jar so we can burn it. This is a dex save. This is a strength saving throw. Strength save, that's not as good.

With a d4. Yeah, that's not going to work. 12. 12, you are grappled. Oh no! You've still got everything else. You can use an action to break free, but currently your movement is zero.

And against you, Jester, that is going to be a 20 to hit. Does that hit you? Jesus. Okay. You take seven points of blushing damage and you need to make a 20 to hit. Does that hit you? Jesus. Okay. You take seven points of blushing damage and you make a strength saving throw. Come on, beefcake. Okay, that does 17.

17. It slashes towards you, it hits you across the shoulder and the chin, and as it tries to wrap around you, take your shield and bash it away. It withdraws, unable to grapple you. That finishes its turn. Fjord, you're up. Right, it's right next to me.

Okay, cool, cool, cool, cool, cool, cool, cool. I am going to, can I see the glyph on the far wall on the other side of the jar, or is it? You cannot see it from where you're standing, but you heard Beau yell about glyphs, and you can see the ones to the right and left of you. I am going to... Actually, make a perception check for me.

Nah, five. Yeah, you don't specifically see it. All right, I don't like these tendrils and I'm not sure if an Eldritch Blast would shatter that glyph. I don't think it's focused enough, so I'm going to take two attacks with the Star Razor at this tendril.

Go for it. Two strikes. A natural 20 and a 26. Yes! Both hit. Which is dope, so that's great. So we'll do the crit first. That's not great. Two, four, five, nine. It's 13 points of slashing damage.

Okay. The second one is, man, not great either. 12 points of slashing damage. 12 points of slashing damage? Yeah. No, that's enough. You carve through it and the tendril falls into pieces in the ground.

Hey! Nice. All right. Just going to keep coming. Yeah, I think they all have three tendrils. That's how hearts work. With my, boy, do I really want to waste a spell. Stop your movement and your bonus. Right, I will move, can I try and move

over on this side of the jar as far as my 35, my 30 feet will take me? 10, 15, 20, 25, 30 will get you there. Can I get maybe like right here? No, you can get there if you want. Okay, and now you do see the third glyph. Okay, that'll be my turn. You've got it, that finishes Fjord's go.

Now, top of the round, Jester, you're up. Okay, I'm going to bring my spiritual weapon over to start attacking the tendril in front of me. Okay, it can move 20 feet. Five, 10, 15, 20. It does get within range to make it strike. Go ahead and roll an attack with your spiritual weapon. 16.

16 hits. Oh, sweet! These things don't have a super high armor class, necessarily. The tendrils? The tendrils, yeah. Let me make sure it is. Oh, sweet! These things don't have a super high armor class, necessarily. The tendrils? The tendrils, yeah. Let me make sure it is. They're there to keep us busy. Yeah, I think it's 2d8, because I cast it at a fourth level. Yeah.

Ooh! 15 plus five? 20? 20 points of damage, nice! Slams in the tendril, recoils, spatters a bit of crimson across the ground, but it's still holding its position. Mm-hmm. Okay. Then for my action, I'm going to cast.

That's pretty hurt, though. Oh. I'm going to cast Bless. Well, maybe I should, fuck me, running. I'm going to cast Bless on myself, on Caleb, and on Caduceus. Okay. So like, everybody Bless?

Everybody's Bless. Awesome. And Bless is on attacks and saves? Correct. Anything with an attack roll, anything with a save roll. Also, sorry, Caduceus, I need you to make a constitution saving throw for that Bless for when you need to take damage at the top of its round.

Oh, that's fair, that's fair. All right. You hit something to unlock it? Yeah, you're fine. I love it, yeah, I love him. Okay. With Flurry of Blows. Are you going to move or stay put?

Oh, um. She also was able to see an inconsistency or a break in. I'm going to stay where I am to try to keep this tendril occupied. Okay, so you stay put. Caduceus, you're up, not your own deck. Let's see.

I'm going to stay where I am, and just because I'm curious what will happen, I'm going to try a sacred flame against the symbol I can see behind Nott. Symbol behind Nott? Okay. No effect. Oh wait, of course, because it's not a roll.

Okay. God, would I have done that? Yeah, I would have done that anyway. So you see the flame burn across the stone, no effect on the glyph. Okay, as my, that was a dumb thing to do. That's okay, you wouldn't have moved a seed. Wouldn't it be amazing if we were trying

to kill these glyphs first, and then that's the thing that actually let us fight it? Yes. Yeah. Nah. You got to break the thing holding it. Yeah, I don't really have anything else I can do, do I? I mean, it's keeping it trapped, right? Encased. The glyphs?

These plaques on the side, right? Yeah, they're also keeping us from being able to damage it. We have to try to hit the case. I'm going to stay where I am, then. Okay, finishes your go, Caduceus. Nott, you're up. I'm going to stay where I am, then. Okay, finishes your go, Caduceus. Nott, you're up. I'm currently grappled by it. I am not going to attempt to,

I'm going to use my action to investigate that glyph. Unfortunately, it's too far for you to get good view on it. You'd have to get right up on it. Damn it! Go ahead and give it a proper once-over. Oh. All right. Well, then I'll break free. Oh, your grapples.

Or attempt to. Contested strength. Oh, shit. Hey, that're right. All right, well then I'll break free. Oh, your grapples. Or attempt to. Contested strength. Oh, shit. Hey, that's good. 19 plus a four or something. 14, you managed to free yourself. Yeah! Slip out of its grasp.

I'll move over to the glyph, ignoring the attack it will get on me, I'm sure. It does swing at you as its lash as it attempts to attack you once more. That is a 12. The attack it will get on me, I'm sure. It does swing at you as its lashes attempt to attack you once more. That is a 12. It misses. You duck underneath it.

Just swings past your head. You make it to the cliff. And I would need an action to investigate. You would need an action to attempt to investigate. No bonus. Shit. There's not much else I can do. Yeah, I guess I'll just sort of,

I don't know what to do. I'll bring the Mage Hand over to me. Okay, how far can it move? Oh, actually, you know what I'll do? I'll drink a health potion. Go for it. Five plus four? Yeah. Okay, nine points.

Pass that on over. Ooh! I got it. All righty. That finishes Nott's go. Beauregard, you're up. Caleb, you're on deck. Can you get to the other place? There's one over here. Yep.

Five, ten. Step of the capillary. Yeah, I want to try and make it over there. I'll step of the wind if I have to. Just follow the Brick Gale. 30, 35, 40, 45, 50, gets you there. Step of the wind will get you up against the glyph. Yep, and same thing.

Okay, go ahead and make another investigation check. They're not the same glyphs? They are separate, they are very different glyphs. I don't trust you, I don't trust you. You've been doing too good, I want to mix it up. Okay, okay, okay, okay, okay. 23. 23. Damn.

You look at it, the pattern is different from this time. You look at some space that you think might be similar to the previous glyph, you take the staff and chip away at the stone. The connection between them stays the same, no effect. This one's a little too intricate for you. Oh, it's too intricate, it's too intricate. I wonder if it's a higher DC.

Yeah, it's like a 25. Oh my god. Maybe. That's your turn, Beauregard. Caleb, you're up. How are we going to do this? Does Caleb know the symbols? I see Beauregard run over there, and I will use my movement and my action just to get over. Over to her? To where she went.

I hear her cursing on the other side of this giant jar. 10, 20, 25, 30, 35. Constantly curses everywhere she goes. 60, it takes you all of your movement to dash and get up there and that's your turn. You have a bonus action, but fuck you. Whoa! Nice.

That was explosive. That would be a full action, though. No, no, I'm saying you have a bonus action, but. Fuck yeah. Whoa! Nice. That was explosive. That would be a full action of investigation. No, no, I'm saying you have a bonus action left. If you'll allow me to investigate it, I will. No, it's an action to investigate. Okay. No, I don't have anything. Okay, cool. That finishes your turn.

It is now. Oh, I never roll for Willy. That's right. Natural 20. What's he doing for Willy? That's where he has an initiative. He's following me. Okay, I'd say put him at your initiative order

just to keep it easy for this particular scenario. He does take the seven necrotic damage everyone else took as well. He's a star. Hey! Okay. So he would be. Actually, no, because he's not technically a living creature, he does not take it, so.

Yay! I rescind that. He's standing behind Beauregard and Caleb at this point. Okay. Movement and action to follow. Let's move it to there. You got it. Oh. All right, top of the permahart's turn.

The heart swells once again with a heavy beat, the energy wave emanating out to the entire chamber. Everyone takes four points of necrotic damage. And it's just, it's not, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. We'll see if it gets its... You said eight points. Four. Four. Summon Tendrils recharges.

Oh, we have to roll the concentration checks. It goes ahead and... Maintain Bless. Yeah, summons a tendril there, and then as part of the Summon Tendril ability, only one, it's going to go ahead and summon a secondary tendril. Ooh. Conduces some space there.

Damn, these are gross. They're all different, these tendrils. All of them are going to make a strike. Stuff like this. This one's going to move over to here. That earthworm. Oh, they move. Yeah. Oh, they move.

They slide? They slither. That's cool. Do they pop up from the ground? Yeah. It's like, imagine roots of a fleshy tree dislodging from the ground and then moving around. Like a tree ghost.

Go to Fleshtree.com. Oh! Don't go to Fleshtree.com. Nothing good. I don't have the aura. But congratulations to whoever does, possibly now, if nobody had it before. All right, so attacking against you, Jester. Ooh, that's going to be a 27 to hit.

You take 11 points of bludgeoning damage and make a strength saving throw. Come on, VFK. With a d4. Yeah, strength saving throw. Correct. Correct. Whoa. Wow. Not looking great. Single digits. Nine.

Nine, you are grappled by it. I used up. Oh, 12, 12. It was 12? Yeah, because you have plus three for strength, right? No, I think it was nine, I think it was nine. It's okay. You are grappled by it, it's wrapped around you and you can feel it pulsing around you.

It's disgusting. Caduceus, one against you. That is going to be a 11. That, no. And will the Shield of Retribution work here? Look at the wording of it. Is it hit or attacked? Wait, man.

The creature misses you with a melee attack. So yeah, so you could. Okay, I'm going to blast him with Arcane Force. That's a... Arcane Force. Yeah, stop rolling, there we go. Eight, nine, 15 points of force damage. Nice.

And it also has to succeed a strength throw. That's a 12. That's not a successful saving throw, is it? So it gets pushed 20 feet away from me. Oh, cool! Oh, tight! It gets... I like to think it's really, really tall in the hair. It gets slammed back and hits the pillar

and spatters some dripping liquor off of Viroga's costal pillar. Thank you. Hey. This one's going to attempt to strike you, Nott. Me? That's going to be a 16 to hit. Hey, it misses! You duck and it strikes across the wall.

Then the one's going to be attacking you, Caleb. Oh good. Jester, I do need a constitution saving throw to see if you can maintain less. I didn't do one. Against Caleb, that is going to be 26 to hit. It's Halicin. Halicin is just floating over.

You take 10 points of bludgeoning damage and make a strength saving throw. 10? 10, you're fine. Okay. So the Bless is out of the board. Bare minimum saves. Bless is a d4 on saves, yeah? Yep, yep. It's a natural one. Natural Bless the D for unsaved, yeah? Yep.

It's a natural one. Natural one, you are grappled, my friend. Oh. You are now. Caleb is grappled. Pilled by one of these. It's wrapped around your chest and it's lifting you slightly off the ground. Your feet are scraping across the bit of stone

and errant flesh below you, and you're trying to look at the thing in front of you. You're still close up to it. That finishes its turn. Fjord, you're up. I'm going to see the tendril attack gesture across the way and I'll send one blast of Eldritch Blast towards the tendril and the second one to the case. So which one? So it's the tendril there?

That one. Okay. And then I'm going to shoot the heart case. Got it. I'm going to save everyone. The first one is a natural 20 against Jester, and the second one is just a flat 20. A flat 20? Okay. The flat 20 misses. What is that?

What? Against the case? The case itself is pretty tough. It impacts, and you can see it impact. You get the sense it probably can be damaged. It's just pretty tough. Copy that. However, roll damage for the one against Jester. Did you add the d4 to both those attacks? No.

Because you are blessed. 22? 22, still does not. Okay, great. That is a seven plus 12. No, there's no hex points. 13 points of. It's really hard to think. No, there's no hex points. 13 points of. It's really hard to think. I hate it.

I love it. It's anxiety. 13 points of a force damage. 13 points of force damage. Sorry, 15. You splatter it, it's wrapped around Jester, it explodes across its base element as Jester falls to her feet.

The rest of it goes lax onto the ground. Woo! Does it look like, when I hit the case with the damage, does it look like it absorbs or just bounces off? It looked like it just glanced. You didn't quite hit it at the right angle for the brunt of it to actually impact. I will move 10 feet towards you

just to get away from that tendril. Okay. Give me a move. That's fine, that's fine, that's fine. Finishing Fjord's turn, Jester, you're up. Caduceus, you're on deck. Okay. I don't know what kind of... Can I come up against the ridge, actually,

closer to the heart? Sure, yeah, right there. This thing stays up. You can move one more if you wanted to get. Just right up on me, as close as I can get. It does lock in a bunch of concentration. I'll wait on this, I'll wait on this. I'm going to, it's a bonus action.

Will my spiritual weapon get up to the tendril right there? Right there? Yeah. Yeah, I'm going to have it attack that. Go for it. Great. That's 23 to hit. That definitely hits, go ahead and roll damage. 12 plus five, 17.

Yeah, 17. That tendril slams into the ground, you see it try and recoil, and the weapon follows up with a second strike. It goes limp, no longer moving. And having seen Fjord, I don't know. I'm going for, that's a bonus action, I can't do that. Oh my god.

I'm going to Guiding Bolt the tendril over by Nott. Okay. Actually, the one, can I see the one that's got Caleb? Because he's actually grappled, huh? You can. Let me move, I'll scooch over so that I can get a better visual on it. Can I see the one that's got Caleb? Because he's actually grappled, huh? You can. I'll scooch over so that I can get a better visual on it.

That would give you a visual where it doesn't have any cover. Yeah, okay, I'll do that. Guiding bolt on that one. Go for it. Thank you for saving me! Sorry, Caleb's grappled. Wait, oh!

22. That hits, go ahead and roll damage. Okay. It's 4d6 radiant. Eight, nine, 11 points of radiant damage. 11 points of radiant damage. It gets blasted in the side, it burns up the edge of the thicker part of the tendril.

You can see the blackened spot where it's burned and the radiant energy spirals up before the magic dissipates. Looks wounded, but it's still standing. Next one has advantage. That's true. Does the radiant feel like it really did anything? No more than it usually does. Next one has advantage. That's true. Does the radiant feel like it really did anything? No more than it usually does.

I don't have a view anyway. I do have a view, actually. You do. But no more than it usually does. That brings us to Caduceus' go. Great. Now you're on deck. I'll do...

Let's see. I'll do... Let's see. I know. I will try a Sacred Flame against the one that's got Caleb over there. Okay, so dexterity save you three, you said? Yep. Natural 20. Fuck me. Sorry. All right, I'm biding my time.

Staying put? I'm going to take a few steps forward and to the left. And to the left, so like here? Yeah, just so I can stay within some range of some people. So healing, I can start doing that. That'll work. That finishes Caduceus' turn. Nott, you're up. Beau, you're on deck.

I'm going to investigate the glyph! Go for it, roll an investigation check. Come on! Come on! Natural 20. 22. Oh wait, I get things check. Come on! Come on! Natural 20. 22. Oh wait, I get things, right? Not for ability checks. Yeah. Yeah. 22. 22.

You look at it and look over it, and you're like, you've looked over at Caleb's notes occasionally, he knows stuff like this, you should be able to figure something out, and you can see some connections, but it's too confusing, your brain's starting to hurt even trying to figure it out. I don't have enhance abilities.

I'll drink some alcohol. Okay. Also, I'll give you a bonus action swing. Sure. Sure. Does that make you smarter? Maybe. You stay put? Maybe. I mean, I can't keep trying that, can I?

It's an action to try, but you can keep possibly trying next round. I will stay put. All right, finishing your turn. Beauregard, you're up, Caleb, you're on deck. Okay, I see Caleb run over my shoulder, and I go, ah. I started feeling like I was getting a lead,

and then I feel like I'm missing it. I was trying to hit this one, but it's not right, and can I use the help action to help him on his next roll? Can you use your action to help him? Yes, you can, because you guys are right by each other. And try and Sudoku the fuck out of this. Yeah, yeah, you guys can do exactly that.

Me too! So you spend your action, and you'd have to stay put at the end of your turn, but when it comes to his round, he will get advantage on his check. Yeah. Okay. Do I have a bonus action? You have a bonus action? You have a bonus action. LAURA and SAM and LAURA and SAM and SAM and SAM

I was going to pay attention. No, I'll just wait. That's it. All right. Caleb, you're up. Come on. Willy Hilfmeyer, the golem starts beating the shit out of the tentacle that's holding me. Go for it.

Jump on, Fili. Okay. Where there's a Fili, there's a Fili. The golem starts beating the shit out of the tentacle that's holding me. Go for it. Okay. Where there's a villi. There's a vey. That is a 25 to hit. That hits. For the first and the second is higher, so. That is a 26 plus three. First does five and the second does 10, so 15 total.

10, that'll do it. Yeah! Your golem turns around and just punches it once. It recoils and you feel yourself thrashed around. It grabs with the other hand and then just splits it in half and you release it back onto the ground. That's great!

Somehow I don't slip and fall on my ass and I just start examining and looking where Beauregard's hand is tracing on the wall. You can make an arcana check with advantage because she is helping you. Or investigation, your choice. Wait, with the same. With advantage, right?

Investigation. Are we getting splattered with gore every time we get one of these textiles? Yeah, it's pretty. We look like the Blood Dance in Blade, the first Blade movie. You guys look like you're hitting the second to third act of the descent.

24, 24. 24. 24. 24. You can see it. You can see where it connects, and you can see that where all these, you now see the overall equation where all these come together to help define,

and you can discern that all these are attached to hold this protective element. It can be, you get the sense, it can be physically destroyed through brute force. Oh, the glyphs. Not the glyphs, the containment unit, but the glyphs are another way of disabling it, but you're uncertain how to disable this one.

That finishes your turn. Roll a 14. It's now the Permahart's turn. Oh god, no! Everybody suffers six points of necrotic damage throughout the chamber. I don't like it. It re-summons one tendril.

This tendril's going to go ahead and appear here. That's the melee range on those tentacles. 10 or 15. Let's see if it... You don't. Yeah. It gets to summon tendrils back. That's doing well. And it summons back.

You grin. Don't you be happy. Only one. Don't you be happy. Only one. Only one. And this one's going to go ahead and... But this tendril has five points. Right there. It's an attack against, they do have a range of 10 feet,

you've noticed now. So even though they're far away, they whoosh. That's one against you, Nott. Natural 20. No! Hit! I'm not within 30 feet of that. You are not. Okay, never mind. That is 15 points of bludgeoning damage.

I will half that. Okay, so you take seven. There is an attack against you, Caduceus. Is it grappling me now, or? Yes, you are grappled. Damn it! Wait, did you make strength saving throw? Sorry, yes, you have to make strength saving throw.

Plus four. Plus a d4. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, that helped. 16. 16's enough. Hey! You are not grappled. Caduceus, that is a 28 to hit.

Oh yeah, that hits. You suffer nine points of bludgeoning damage. Need to make a constitution saving throw with advantage. Balls and balls and balls. So many balls. All of the balls. 18. Yeah, you're fine. However, do make a strength saving throw for me. Strength saving throw. As it attempts to

grapple you within its tentacled grip. Nine. Nope. You are grappled by the tentacle now or you within its tentacled grip. Nine. Nope, you are grappled by the tentacle now that's wrapped around you and holding you there. The other one's going to make a strike against you, Caleb. That is going to be a 21 to hit. Hits. All right. You suffer 12 points of bludgeoning damage

and make a strength saving throw for me. This is all just to's just the heart. Just to get the heart open. Yep. Well, maybe once we get it open, we can just like, pfft, and kill the heart. One shot, two points. You are also grappled.

So both Caduceus and Caleb are both grappled by tendrils in space. Ending their turn, Fjord, you're up. Tendrils in space. There you go. Tendrils in space. Tendrils in space. Great porn. So good. I am going to move to... No, I'm going to do an Eldritch Blast against...

Uh-uh. I mean, not great. He's got a potion or something, he'll be fine. I'm going to do an. You next to him, he'll be fine. He's great again. All right, how are you doing? He's got lay on the head, he'll be fine. He's great again. How are you doing? He's got lay on hand, he'll be fine. I'm not great.

Four more hit points. I'm going to send both Eldritch Blasts at the, I'll send the first Eldritch Blast to the tentacle nearest Caleb. Okay, go ahead and roll for an attack on that one. That's an, oh, thank you. 20. That hits. Okay.

That's 14 points of force damage. 14 points of force damage, nice. It gets slammed, it's still holding its current form and clutching Caleb within its wrapped tentacle. I will send the second blast towards the one at Caduceus. Okay, go ahead and roll an attack on that one.

25. That hits, goes to all damage. I get to hit more than that. 16 points of force damage. Blast into that one, that one also. Both looking fairly wounded, but still holding on to their current targets. Yeah, yeah. They know, I know.

It's not, they have more than 50. They have more than 50, yeah. Shit, we should have done both, okay. Stay porn or? Did you say stay porn? Stay porn. Yeah, I'm going to stay put. Stay porno, guys.

www.fleshtree.com. Oh! Oh, yes. No. Is it porn state? I'll.com. Oh god. What the fuck is it? Fjord, stay up. I'll stay put. All right, all right. Finish Caleb's turn.

Sorry, Fjord's turn. Jester, you're up. Caduceus, you're on deck. Oh god. Happy Arbor Day. Okay. Go fuck a tree. Can my lollipop get up to the cage? The cage? Yeah.

Yeah, it can get there. Yeah, it's going to try to attack it. Go for it. Roll for an attack. Dink! 23. Plus four. Plus four. Plus 54. Yes. 26.

That does hit. Go ahead and roll damage. What are you attacking? With my serrated lollipop, I'm attacking the thing holding the art. Nine plus five is 14 points. 14 points? Of lollipop damage. It slams into the outside of the glass arcane containment.

You watch as it hits, all the gloves flash for a second and a tiny crack builds at the point of impact. Okay. It's taking damage. Okay. Got to wait on this thing. Okay. I'm also going to cast Jesus. You're going to cast Jesus?

I'm going to cast Jesus. I'm going to use Sacred Flame at the one attacking Caleb again. Okay. That's a dexterity saving throw? 13. It misses, so I mean, I hit it. It doesn't save.

You do damage. Ah, fuck you! Three points of radiant damage. Three points of radiant damage. Three points of radiant damage. It burns up its side, it hurts more, but it's still standing. Fuck. Sorry, I didn't know which ones that you got, Fjord. I thought that was one of the ones you got.

Got Caleb's and Caduceus's. Oh, still? It was just not a... Fuck. That finishes your go, Jester. I mean, oh, I'm going to move. Yeah, you're going to move. I'm going to get closer to Beau and Caleb. 10, 15, 20, 25, 30.

You can get up to there. Okay. Okay, that finishes your go. Caduceus, you're up, Nott, you're on deck. Okay. So I'm going to try to use my Staff of Withering to hit the one that's holding me. Can I do that? You can, if you want to, yeah.

I'm not going to do necrotic damage, though, because I don't trust that it's going to actually hurt this guy. Sorry. It's driving me into a trance state. I know, it's really hard to pay attention. Sometimes you know heart. Yeah. That's 17. It really is making me feel like I've got to poop. It's a little hard.

It really is making me feel like I've got to poop. 17 to hit? It's making me uncomfortable. I'm sorry. Couldn't get up. Do you want me to turn it off? Does it sound like your colon is pulsing? Yeah. Do you want me to turn it off?

It's making you uncomfortable? No way, you've got to leave it on. You've got to leave it on. It's supposed to make us uncomfortable. 17 to hit? 17 to hit to, yeah got to leave now. You got to leave now. It's supposed to make us uncomfortable. 17 to hit? 17 to hit, to, yeah, that hits something. Actually, wait, is this with your staff, your melee staff? Yeah.

You're not within melee range. I'm not within, oh, so never mind. It's holding you at a ten-foot distance. All right, so that's fine, I will do something else. Sorry. Oh, so you can't hit the part that's holding onto him? Right now, it's holding out of the way and he can't quite spin.

I'm going to try Sacred Flame, then. Okay, dexterity check. I'm glad to follow. That is going to be a 12. Misses, go ahead and roll the damage. Okay, where did my DAs go? There they go. 20 points of radiant damage.

The tentacle burns away, drawing to the ground, 20 points of radiant damage. The tentacle burns away, drawing to the ground, darkening its form as it is left a cindering extension of the permahart. So, and then can I still cast the spell as a bonus action? Since that was technically a cantrip? Yeah, you can. So I'm going to do a mass healing.

Should I do a mass healing word or should I? Wash those arms, wash those arms! Come on! Well, I can do it. The thing is, if I hit everyone with a mass cure wounds. Oh, but. I can't get everybody out there, so I'll just get. I would do mass cure wounds, honestly.

No, Bill. I'll do a mass healing word is what I'll do. Okay. Mass healing word. You can't quite see Caleb. You'd have to do a Mass Healing Word is what I'll do. Okay. Mass Healing Word. You can't quite see Caleb. You'd have to move a bit to probably get a view of everybody. I don't think, I think it's just a,

it's 60 feet in any direction, right? Any direction, does it say people you have to see them? I'll get there in a second. I'm looking. Yeah, see within range, so. Just so you can shimmy and see Caleb, too. Okay, I'll shimmy. Just a slight movement,

move there and you can see him. Okay. Okay. I'm actually to go to Jimmy and see Caleb, too. Okay, I'll shoot me. You can do a slight movement and move there, and you can see him. Okay. Okay. I'm actually, I mean, yeah, I'll do it there. Where's my mass healing? I'm so sorry. It's okay, it's right here. It's okay. And not your first healing.

Third level? Thank you. So that's going to be... And that's not a lot of healing, but everyone gets nine points of healing to everybody. Everyone heals nine points. Including me? Including you. There's not a range of something? 60 feet.

Knocks just out of the area. Okay, because I moved that. I could say if you wanted to, you could have moved over here to your full movement. I'll allow that. You said nine points? Nine points. Oh, that's glorious. That's something.

That's glorious. Okay. That way you can see. That's a whole round of pulse damage. I'm up to half of it. Yeah. There, that'll do. Also, we should take into account that with all the glyphs on the cover, if we break the cover, that necrotic pulse might be,

I don't know, worse. Real bad. Regardless, Caduceus turns over, Nott, you're up. You can do this. Beau, you're on deck. Your investigation is so high. I'm going to take out my magnifying glass and look again. Go ahead and make an investigation, or an arcana check. I'm trying to get over there.

25. Yeah! 25. Last though, but. As you're staring at this, you can see the parts you were missing of the pattern last round, and you pull out your Dagger of Denial and get in there and begin to carve through and deface the glyph in the one spot

where you see it's weakest. As you do, you watch the energy cycle of it break. The glyph goes dark. The glass container of the glyphs flash and then darken even further. Not the one of the glyph goes dark. The glass container of the glyphs flash and then darken even further. Not the one of the glyphs! I did it, I'm smarter than Beau and Caleb put together! I got the first one, you dipshit.

Wait, is Caleb the dumbest one now? Girl power! Bonus action, disengage, run all the dumbest one now? Girl power! Bonus action disengage, run all the way towards Caleb. Clustering. 15, 20. Yes. You have 30. 30, you should. You should cluster right now. You have your movement, too, if you want to get closer.

If we get in there, we need everybody, I mean. No, I bonus action disengaged. Oh, got you right, right. So yeah, you're good. Does that end your turn? Beau, you're up, Caleb, you're on deck. Okay. Can I help him again?

Yeah. I'm going to hold, okay. Here's actually what I want to do. Can I be like, sorry, excuse me, sorry, sorry, and move here? Sure. You'd have to be right up against it to help him. So you can move back and use your action if you want to.

But in order for you to help him, you both have to be right up against the glyph. Can I not run up against him? I can't see from this angle, so bear with me. The glyph is in the middle. The only way you can reach it is by having any of the spaces that Caleb and you previously had. That's the only way to be able to help him with this.

Nevermind. I will hold my action to help Caleb. Or use your action to help him. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, you got it. Caleb, you're up. I believe in you, Caleb. Investigation or arcana if you're going to do this. Jester, I need you.

I'm going to hold my action and wait and hope that she I think Caduceus was actually doing that, too. I'm going to get there. It's going to touch me. Jester's next. Anyway, I just said what I said. Okay. Okay. I'm holding. So you're holding your action to investigate

with Beau's help once Jester gets to you. All right, ending your turn is now the permaheart's turn. Everybody in the chamber suffers six points necrotic damage as the wave arcs out once more with the beat of the heart. The poop gets closer. It does summon one tendril, which is going to be right there.

Just there. Then it's going to see if it fails to recharge. It summoned tendril's ability, so that's when the tendril gets out this turn. This one's going to go ahead and move. It can get there and then be within range of both Caduceus and... Stupid little mage hand is just sitting there.

Yeah, it wasn't very useful in this fight, but it's there. Wait, am I holding the tentacle right now? Yeah, you're still grappled. So you're holding hands up against it. Just waiting. Just looking at it. I'm just like, come on, focus! Come on, we got to solve this puzzle!

That's an attack, it's going to attack you. As it currently has you held, one's going to be attacking you, come on, focus! Come on, we got to solve this puzzle. That's an attack, it's going to attack you. As it currently has you held, one's going to be attacking you, Jester, and one's going to be attacking Caduceus again. The Mage Hand's gone, by the way. I got hit so many times. I'm going to tell Willy to do something, too. Sure. Sorry.

Yeah. Light them up. Pretty. And Ellie is going to walk around to that side of that tentacle. All right. And straight line here to here is going to belch lightning through these two tentacles.

Okay. So you watch Willy walk around the other side, grab and open the central part of the chest. This bright blue light begins to crackle and then a beam of lightning is firing out of Willy's chest. What? What's the save on that? It's a 14 dex.

A 14 dex. Okay. So I'll say, okay. Since the order got a little weird here, I'll say, because you moved Willy over there, had him hold his action due to lightning with the other tendril, but I'm sure. Because it was a little out of my hand.

We can just do one. That's fine. I don't want to. So go ahead and roll damage and it's dexterity saving throw. his action due to lightning with the other tendril, but I'm sure. Because it was a little out of my hand. We can just do one. That's fine. I don't want to. So go ahead and roll damage and it's dexterity saving throw. Oof. Eight and 17. 31.

Eight, 31, so eight and 17. What's the DC on it? 14. 14. So this is a failure. That one is incinerated by the bolt of lightning. You have no longer grappled Caleb. Nice. Yay! This one does take half damage.

15. Just 15 points of damage, but it's still standing. All right, so that finishes his go. So that's only an attack against Caduceus and Jester against Caduceus. That is going to be a 14 to hit. Nope. Misses. Against Jester, that is going to be a 23 to hit.

Yep, yep, yep. You take 13 points of bludgeoning damage. I need you to make a strength saving throw. With the d, forward. Come on, strong girl. Be mighty. With a d. Be might. No.

Mm-hmm. 10. More grapple. Sorry, Caleb. Does that ruin his action completely, or does he get to take it, even though I don't get to him? Yeah, I guess in seeing that you can't get there, I'd allow him to use it at that point.

So investigation or arcana? Your choice. Investigation. Okay. It's an equal. With advantage. That one's cocked. What is it, a six or a nine? It's cocked. Can you put a die on it?

No. Exactly equal, there's a razor edge facing up. Okay, you can go ahead and roll it again. 24. 24. 24. It's still eluding you. It's right on the cusp.

You're like, you can see it all. It's that final little moment, that final little element of it you can't quite discern. I'm holding my magnifying glass. All right. I need a chest arm. Fjord, your turn. Yeah. I'm going to wail away with a glowing star razor

at the cage holding the heart. Go for it. Okay. One of those is a 13. Misses. Oh, well, yeah, doesn't matter. The d4. The 14.

And the second one is monstrous. That is a, that's a 30. Plus. 33. 33, that definitely hits. Go ahead and roll damage. Eight, 15. 17 points of slashing damage. 17 points of slashing damage.

The first one spins across it, a bit of the glass streaking a bit, but noashing damage. What slashing damage? The first one spins across it, a bit of the glass streaking a bit, but no actual damage. You strike across a second time, and as you cut, you see the glass break in a little bit, a little crack, spider around the side. It's taking some hits. I'm within the melee range of that tentacle, right?

You are. I will stay put. All right, finishing Fjord's go. Jester, you're up, Caduceus, you're on deck. Okay. I'm going to use... Jeez. I'm running out of spells here. There's no breaks in the cage surrounding the heart, right? There's no open sections. I know, I know.

That might kill your assault. It's all going through the ground and then come up. I know. It's just if I want to keep attacking the thingy. Okay, yeah, I'm going to use my spiritual weapon against the tender holding onto me. Go for it. To me.

23. Plus a d4, because you are blessed. Four, so 27. 27 hits. Oh, and do make a constitution saving throw for me, by the way, just to make sure you maintain. Do make a constitution saving throw for me. Yeah, you're fine. Bless is maintained.

That was close. So you do hit with it. 12 plus five, 17. 17 points of damage, nice. Someone already took lightning damage, too. Oh, that's true. Well, no, this is against the... Oh no, I said it was against the tendril.

Oh, the tendril, never mind. I know, sorry. No worries. So it's against that one there, it moves over, strikes it. That one is splattered on the ground. Free to move. It's a raided lollipop. Was that a bonus action?

That was a bonus action. Yep. We're in business. Yeah, for my, for my, oof. For my action, I'm going to run over and cast Bless on. Bless? No, Guidance. I'm going to cast Guidance.

Guidance on Caleb. Okay, Guidance is? And I'm going to drop, you know, it's a concentration, so I'll drop Bless on everybody that I had cast it on, which was me, Caduceus, and Caleb, actually. I'm afraid it doesn't help with this, so. No, yeah. All right, Bless fails. All right. I mean, that's the best thing we can do.

Caduceus, you're up, Nott, you're on deck. I'm going to attack the tendril behind me. Got this. With a... It probably would've. It probably would've fucking. I'm going to attack the tendril behind me with a Sacred Flame. All righty.

Natural 20 on that saving throw. Ooh. I don't like you. Sorry. And, uh... You didn't get it. I can see everybody right now, can't I? Yeah.

So I'm just going to heal everybody again. Another Mass Healing Word? I'm going to do another Mass Healing Word. Go for it. Getting anxiety attacks and heartbeats. That's nine more points of healing to everybody. Nine points to everybody. That's good.

Ooh, that's great, this is good, this is good. Feels like if we stay in this fight long enough, we're going to be back to full health. Caduceus, does that finish your turn? Yeah, I'm just going to keep an eye on that bloody thing. All right, Nott, you're up, Beau, you're on deck. I'm up? Yeah. I'll run over to Caleb.

I need buffs. I need buffs. Take out my Magnifying Glass and I will investigate the glyph. Unfortunately, you are not close enough. You're both, they are both taking up the space that is directly adjacent to it. They're up against it, you cannot do it yourself.

And that's one of the moves. Can you hand it to him? I will hand you the magnifying glass. And I will. I'll say that's just an object use, it's for free. I can't also help him. It doesn't give him double advantage. He's already. Triple advantage.

You can shoot the magnifying glass, too, though. What's magnifying glass do? Nothing. It looks cool,lair. Shoot the glass. It's a good luck charm. I'll spin around and I'll, should I shoot the tendril or the glass? Shoot the fucking glass, I think it's up. Either way.

Is the tendril engaged? Technically. The tendril right now, it doesn't grapple anybody, but it is in combat with both Caduceus. I will attack the tendril. Go for it. Not great, 18. 18 hits. Sneak attack damage! Does not get attack the tendril. Go for it. Not great, 18. 18 hits.

Sneak attack damage! Does not get sneak attack because nobody's adjacent to it. Crazy roll. That was such a good roll. I know. Then it's just eight points of damage.

All right, it takes the bolt. Still standing, a little wounded. Bonus action, attack it again. 28 to hit. That hits, roll damage a second time. Another eight points of damage. a little wounded. Bonus action, attack it again. 28 to hit. That hits, roll damage a second time. Another eight points of damage. Looking more wounded. Even after the damage.

Oh yeah, no, that's right, I didn't hurt it. Yeah, no, you didn't hurt it. All right, does that finish your turn, Nott? Yes! All right. Beauregard, you're up, Caleb, you're on deck. Goddamn it, we are so fucking close. We've gone this wrong three times. Okay, it's not that glyph, it's not that glyph,

and it's not that glyph, it's got to be that. I'm going to try it again. We're just in Vegas, pulling that slouching lever. Is that your turn? I'm helping Caleb. I see that Jester is giving him a guidance. Those books are sloppy. All right, Caleb. Use the magnifying glass!

Caleb, your turn. I look through the magnifying glass and inspect the glyph. Okay. That's cocked, but it's more of a two. I'll take the two. I'll take the two. It's more of a two. And that's a three.

No, that's a five. Plus three. That's seven. Holy shit! You were holding it backwards! It's the other side! This is the wrong way. The dice are telling us, let's just fucking hit the glass. They can do that and the rest of us can. So that's your action, Caleb, you have movement,

or if you want to stay there. I'm going to stay, but I tell Willie to beat the shit out of the glass. How long does Guidance last? One round. Just one round? Yeah, that's a one-timer. That's a 21 and a 22 to hit.

Both miss. Next turn. Both miss. Well, it impacts. Oh, okay. But they're not actually doing any damage to it. Okay. All right, that finishes your go. Verma Hart's turn.

Everyone takes six points of necrotic damage. Swap in, swap in. It's a lot of sixes. Almost triple sixes. Six points. All right. Was there something you were missing? No, no, no.

No, we were just brainstorming. Having a brainstorm. Strategizing. All right, so everyone takes damage from that. It does summon one additional tentacle. This one's going to go ahead and appear there. Let's see if it restores its summon tendrils. It does not.

And both those, one of them's going to make an, actually no, both of them are going to make attacks against Caduceus. Why? Why? He's so nice. Because he's the one who's healing everybody. He's secretly a dick. 14.

And 18. 18 is my AC. So it just hits you. That is 12 points of bludgeoning damage. Gross. And I need you to go ahead and make a strength saving throw. No, and I dropped my Bless, I'm so sorry. Caleb made me do it and it was absolutely worthless.

Well, it could have been really good. Okay. Strength saving throw? Mm-hmm. Anything could happen, but it doesn't. You are grappled Caduceus. Oh, not again. It wraps in as the one down here is the one that got you.

So you're totally held back that way. It's the one that's actually hurt enough that I can grab or someone will thank you. Finishing its go, Fjord, you're up. With Jester on deck. I will turn to face the tentacle that has ensnared Caduceus, and I will take the first strike with the Star Razor at it. All right, so you move in here.

I do. Stupid fucking puzzle. Puzzles are stupid. Stupid, it's mad, stupid. 21 to hit. That hits, go to roll damage. Our mad, stupid, brain is stupid. Sorry, guys.

17 points of slashing damage. You cut Caduceus free, right? As it wraps and pulls him up into the air, you immediately turn around and the first hit carves through it. Amazing. Can I use the rest of my distance? Sorry, speed to go to the other tentacle. Yes, you can.

And a choppy tip-head. You may. That is a 23. That hits. can. And a chapter to bed. You may. That is a 23. That hits. Okay. Roll damage. Paladin, warlock, paladin, warlock. 12 plus two is 15 points of slashing damage. 15 points of slashing damage, nice.

You carve through it, it's already looking very hurt. It's going to cruise off. It turns around to look in your direction. That finishes your turn. Jester, you're up, Caduceus, you're on deck. Spiritual serrated lollipop hitting the glass case around the heart. Okay. That's a crazy sentence.

If you want to. Actually, no, currently it's considered flanked by a four. Though it won't do much because it's just a case. So anyway, it's just a roll. Okay, well, it's a 29. 29 hits. You can go ahead and roll damage. 10 points. 10 points of damage.

It cracks even further. You can see it's looking pretty damaged. Pretty damaged, and did it seem like when Fjord used his Eldritch Blast on it, did it seem like it did anything to it? It looked like his attack on it was just a glancing blow. Like it wasn't a full-on impact.

Okay, then I'm going to cast... I'm going to cast... Dawn. What? Dawn? Dawn? Dawn. Dawn? D-A-W-N-G. I'm going to cast Dawn.

Dawn. Okay. It? Dong? D-A-W-N-G. I'm going to cast Dong. Dawn. Okay. It is a 30-foot radius flesh cylinder. Okay. So, I would say it is actually quite larger than this. Okay, yeah, I'm going to get the heart in there. Yeah. Like right there, yeah. Okay, so this entire side of the room

is just suddenly engulfed with? Radiant sunlight. This column of bright, like the brightest light you've ever seen suddenly fills the right side of the chamber. What does it do? It does 4d10 radiant damage on anything inside of it. Okay, what's the saving throw?

Constitution of 17. For half? Yes. Okay. It automatically succeeds on its saving throw, as is the effect of this dome, this protective point. So it does take half damage, I believe. Is that what the spell says for successful save? 10. It says half, yeah. for successful save? 4G to hit. 10, 20.

So 10 points of radiant damage. 10 points of radiant damage, all righty. As it blasts into it, you can see where it leaves behind, some of the glyphs start sparking a bit. It's looking damaged. Does that finish your turn? Yes.

Caduceus, you're up. Nott, you're on deck. Break the glass. So nobody go inside it. I'm going to take a Sacred Flame to the Bloody Tentacle. Okay. The Bloody Tentacle. That is going to be a 14.

Ah, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. Hey! 18. Burn. For the first time since the battle began, there are no tendrils on the battlefield. That cylinder stays up for a minute, by the way. Oh, it stays up? Does it just continue to damage, or it's just bright?

It continues to damage anything that's inside of it. Round after round after round. For a full minute. And you can move it, apparently, I think. What level is that? It's fifth. Fifth level. Yeah, it's an F you. Oh yeah. Damn. Okay, does that hurt us if we walk in it?

Yes. Yeah. Good, good. Any creature within it. You should try it. A creature must also make the save whenever it ends its turn in the cylinder. Wow, yeah. So we're just going to say, for the purposes of this. Oh, when it ends its turn, oh yeah. We'll split this up here as, for the purposes of this, Owen ends its turn. Oh yeah. We'll put this up here as a reminder,

but it's really just this whole area here. And let's do one more Mass Healing Word. Hey! One more of Mass Healing Word. Let's get one more crazy healing word, and that's, oh my god, again, nine more points of healing to everybody. I rolled another four out of the four.

That's amazing, man. I don't know. Good on you. It's going. It's the golden snitch all over again. All righty. Heal. Heal for nine. Does that finish Caduceus' go? Yeah, I'm going to also head a little bit closer to my,

I'm going to head a little bit closer to the group to the right. Like 10 feet, 15 feet? Yeah, about there. Okay, that finishes your go. Nott, you're up. Beau, you're on deck. I snatch the magnifying glass back. I say, I'll show you how to do it, and I'll hold my turn.

What? I will hold until I'm helped. Okay, you're not close enough for the glyph to act. I will move to it. Can I, can I, I, okay, okay. I'm going toph to act. I will move to it. Can I, can I? Okay, okay. I'm going to go next, so I'm going to go. I don't know if we can, I don't know if we can like. Do a movement shift.

Do a movie shift here? A little tradesies, you know, Three Stoogian kind of. If you hold your action, you spend your action and move out of the way to let him in, I'll allow it. Otherwise, you guys have to work out the, or because right now you're both blocking the view.

Just go and hit the glass, that's what I'm trying to do. I'm trying to get out, but I can't get out of the way, and it's Nott's turn and I'm next, but I want to go hit the glass. She's just trying to get out of the way. Right, but for Nott's turn, currently, there's no. You can't switch. Yeah, you can't switch with him.

Because the order of operations here. So just hit the glass. Fucked by initiative. Fucked by initiative. Okay. I will, I can't help Caleb until she moves. So hit the glass. And I can't move after she moves.

Put him on the glass now. You can't move if your turn's already done, unless you hold your action to move. Hit the glass. But then you, oh. There's a circumstance. Okay you hold your action to move. Hit the glass. But then you, oh. There's just circumstances. Okay, then I'll just turn the magnifying glass around

and I'll shoot the thing. Go for it. With my crossbow. Oof, 12. 12. Ricochet is off. Bonus action, shoot again. Go for it. 23.

23. I'm not blessed. Wait, I am blessed. You are blessed, yeah. 24. 24 just hits. Good to know, good to know. 24 and 25 are the glyphs. Fuck, dude. Okay.

So general damage. Do you get sneak attack on the glass? No, probably not. 11 points of damage. All right. The actual bolt sticks into it, and you see the glass around it crack and spiderweb outward a bit.

Finishing your go, Beau, you're up. Beau, you're up. Either way. Either way. Get it, yeah, go. Do it, just do it. Ugh, I'm going to move out of the way and go over and start smashing on the thing. Go for it.

Not in the reed. Not in the reed. Farts, yeah. That's not a reed. I wish I had a reed. Fuck. That'd be pretty awesome. Pop pop. With a d4?

With a, nope. What is it? Okay, well, one can maybe make it. If I roll a four, 24. Wait, 24! 24 hits. Yes. Just exactly. I want you to do it. I'm going to use my,

no, I'm going to use my fist. Okay. Nine damage. Nine damage? Nine damage. All right, so one fist glances off the second one, the glass chamber cracks in a little bit. Does that do lightning damage because it's your lightning gloves?

No. I'm not going to activate them. You stop your bonus action. You can see it's cracking on all sides a little bit now. It's looking pretty damaged. Pretty now. It's looking pretty damaged. Pretty damaged. Okay, all right. Flurry of Blows.

Yeah! Go for it. Oh wait, that should have gone. Okay, wait, wait, wait. So two more strikes. Yes, yes, okay. Dos mon strikes. Pop up!

Okay, one is 26. 26 hits. Nine damage, and then the other one I can't make. Even with a four? Nope. Nope, and roll. All right. No, miss. You.

It's cracking inward now, as you get started, you're pushing a bit. That finishes your go-bow. Caleb, you're up. Gobo. My gobo! Caleb scratches at his arms and just continues to stare out and runs his hand on it. Tries again. What? Nope.

Halas, these designs are too intricate for your mind. It's distracted as you are in the moment, the sweat dripping down your head, the humid atmosphere, it's just toying with you. But I look over my shoulder and see what's going on, and I'm going to move. Make room for Nott. 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, I'm going right there,

and I tell Willie to swing away. I would say you probably have to move a little here just to stay out of the radius, because it is bigger than that. Oh, okay, okay. Okay. Willie's going to take a couple of punch-outs. No. All right.

That is a 26. Hits. And a 16, which doesn't, so. Damage on one of them. Yeah. Come on, Willy. Nine points of damage. It's now crack spidering all around it. It's looking real hurt. That finishes your go. It's now the Perming all around it. It's looking real hurt. That finishes your go. It's now the permahart's turn.

Everyone suffers eight points of necrotic damage across the entire chamber. Also, one tentacle arrives, which is going to... Right there. That's going to attack Beauregard. Well, first let's see if it can. It can resummon its tentacles now.

Does it have a tank that's damaged from the top of its turn? It's at the end of its turn. And I rolled a con save and I kept it up. Great, all right. So one's going to be attacking Beauregard. That is going to be an 18. Miss. Misses. You just slap it away.

The other one is going to be attacking you, Jester. That's going to be a 19. You suffer 13 points of bludgeoning damage and you make a strength saving throw. 12. 12? Fails, you are grappled. However, make a constitution saving throw for me as well to see if you can maintain the spell. No.

The spell dissipates. The dawn light fades. Ah! This shit is smart. That finishes the end of the Permahart's turn. Fjord, you're up. Is this tentacle in melee range of Nott? Right now, it is Nott.

Okay. But it can move, but not before Nott's turn. So I'll send two Eldritch Blasts at the tentacle that's a grappling jester. Go for it. Sorry, wrong one. That is a 14 and a 24. Both hit. Great.

That is 12 points of force damage and 14 points of force damage. You shatter the one that had just grabbed Jester. Thanks, Fjord. No problem. And I will move. It's his real accent. I will move, just, I'll stay right here on the ridge, but come around on the solid right. Right here on the edge.

Finishing force to Jester, you're up. Caduceus, you're on deck. He's on the cusp of breaking. I use my spiritual weapon to attack it. Go for it. Follow your heart heart. LAURA and LAURA and LAURA and LAURA and LAURA and LAURA. Hoopla! I had an awesome damage point.

10 plus 15. 15. Points of. Doubled it? Yeah. He watches it. The glass shatters and breaks away, the glyphs sparking to darkness, and now as it all falls,

the heart just falls there and it's still beating. But it's now exposed. The air around you also, that horrible, sickening feeling, now intensifies. Oh no! Yeah. I thought it was going to be that. We all shit our pants.

Yeah, I'm going to Dining Bolt it at level four. Oh shit, go for it. No. Exhausts of diarrhea. Okay, does it roll? Ew! Oh yeah, that's 27 to hit. That definitely hits. Without its arcane shell, its AC is much lower.

It is literally a giant heart on the ground. So that's 7d6. 7d6? Yeah. Oh, fuck. Oh, that's a good resettlement. A lot of sixes. 10, 22,

20, seven, 30 points. 30. As you blast into it, the energy burns across it, sparkling pinkish hue turns to green around it, and you see the heart stop beating for a second and then continue its thrum.

It's, you know, took a hit. The next attack has advantage. Exactly. That finishes your turn, Jester. Caduceus, you're up. I'm going to hop. Unless you want to move, Jester. That thing would hit me, right? Yeah, probably. Yeah, I'll stay.

Is it possible to get next to Beau without getting in range of that tentacle? Nope. Actually, no, it wouldn't. Okay, well, you know what? Things happen, so I'm going to go stand next to, between Beau and Jester. Okay, right there.

And I'm going to cast a holy weapon on Beau. Okay. That gives me like 2d8 hit. Adds 2d8 radiant damage. This means everyone's Bless is faded now. Yes, no more Bless, sorry guys. No more Bless. 2d8 radiance.

2d8 radiant. And then... Oh my god. It's beautiful. It's beautiful. 2d8 radiant, and then... Oh my god. It's beautiful. It's beautiful. I'm going to turn invisible as well. Okay. All righty.

Finishing Caduceus' turn. Nott, you're up. Beau, you're on deck. We're just killing this thing now, right? Yeah. All righty. Finishing Caduceus' turn. Nott, you're up. Beau, you're on deck. We're just killing this thing now, right? Yeah. All right. I will rock this way. I bet it needs fire. Can we lose the jar, or is the jar permanent? The jar is part of the concept, unfortunately.

We need fire to kill it. To kill the heart? Yeah, just like everything else, I bet it needs fire because it will heal itself or something. I could shoot an explosive arrow, but you're all around it. Yeah, maybe don't do that. Yeah, don't do that.

So I'll just shoot a regular bolt. Go for it. Regular bolt! Is it, wait, do I get sneak attack damage? You do not. Well then, I will go behind that pillar and hide. Actually, you know what, no, for this I would allow, because it is exposed,

but it does not have the chamber around it. It does have a discernible anatomy. It is a heart. It is essentially a weak point. I will allow snack attack damage, yeah. Snack attack. Snack attack. Snack attack damage. Oh. 13 to hit. 13 is exactly what you needed.

What? Oh, it's really stank. Is that a burp? Yeah. Somebody. Yep. It's not somebody, it's right here. It's a snack guy. You got to do this, you got to do this. Go ahead and roll damage, Nott. Yep. It's not somebody, it's right here. It's not you. You guys did it. You guys did it.

Go ahead and roll damage, Nott. Roll damage. Oh, sorry, sorry! This heart is just real, it smells like sausage. Chicken, chicken. Well, it smells like sausage. Oh, that's even worse. Oh. Yeah, it's what we get for this is why we don't order

a chicken. 27! Woohoo! Nice. It sinks into it and you see it pulse around and shift in its space from the impact of the bolt, but it's still beating. And you're to blame! 18 to hit. 18 hits, go roll the image again.

10. 10 more. 10 more damage. Second bolt, you can see it now, there's two bolts. It rolls a little bit from the damage. Second bolt. You can see now there's two bolts that rolls a little bit from the impact. All right, that finishes your go. Mighty Nein versus the bow. Beau, you're up. I crack my knuckles and as I do,

little radiant sparks just off of my knuckles and I'm just, wham, and I start to burn. Tenderizes me. Pow, pow. Wham! I'm going to start it up first. Tenderize this meat! Five five! Okay. 17 and 18. Both hit. So d6 plus... Go on, fuck you, go roll. 2d8.

He just got 4d8. I was going to say, okay, okay, okay. Cock. Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck! Roll yourself! That one up there! That's crazy, roll that again. Fuck.

Okay, it was not great. Most of it has landed in other counties. Wait, that wasn't, wait, what was? I don't know. Just add them all. That's one. Okay, okay, okay. Hang on, hang on, let me do math here. So that's eight. 16.

Eight, 18. 20. Yeah. One plus another 12. You give love! 31. 31. No, no, 30 plus another 12. Oh, 32. 32. 32 points of damage.

Bad life! As you come down, fist sailing into it, the burst of holy energy burns around you, you pull back and it's like. The heartbeat sound is falling into a horrible sucking sound, it's horribly hurt. Flurry of Blows. Go for it.

Okay, okay, let me get all this shit out of the way. You're of Blows. Go for it. Okay, okay, let me get all this shit out of the way. You're not looking at all of this. Pop out. Clear! Oh goddammit. 13 hits and then 18 again. Both hit.

These two. Don't even roll damage. How do you want to do this? Yay! That one hit point left. Oh, it has one hit point left. Diddle-nime. You can't have one hit point left. How do you want to do this? Yay! That one hit point left. One hit point left. One hit point left. Diddle-a-dum. Can't be wrong.

How do you want to do this? I'm just going to Put cholesterol in it! reach over to Caduceus and get one little high five. And I'm going to take that Ballora energy and into the heart. He's invisible.

Well. High five. Whoa! Oh my god. Go on, there you go. I break his nose as I try to high five him. As you bring it down, it's almost like that rubber band impact, and then it releases.

You slam it, and then it bursts across the ground and stops beating. Quick, burn it! I slap the cat's cradle on the ground, dead face like Dwight from The Office, and cast a Web of Fire at its level. Okay. All of them scatter around, almost spiraling around it,

impacting it, and the burn bursts into flames, crackling a high cinder at first. This is almost bonfire, and as it slowly trickles down, you can see the ashen remains of the perma-heart before you. We did it. More like it. If it bleeds, we can kill it. We should get this stuff off of us.

The tendril falls dead, and within a few moments, you can see all of these stretching bits of flesh and vein throughout the floor begin to turn black. I wonder if the Laughing Hand was like, Oh, oh, it hurts. He's got a nosebleed. Do you want to check any of the runes on the surface? Is any of this of use to you for protection?

Is the heart doing anything? No, it is ash. I don't want to waste it. What's happening in the room? Anything weird? I'm just paying attention for a grumbling. Make a perception check. Okay, I will do that. I'm going to loot the heart.

Make an investigation check. All right. Natural 20. Natural 20, so perception like 29, 33. Yeah. Jesus. So you quietly focus, letting the Wild Mother speak through you and sense the space. No heartbeat.

The room is still. The heart is dead. The chamber now cold, its purpose fulfilled. Wow. I think we're good. Wow. You're kidding, okay, kidding. I rolled a 13 to look and see if the heart has any gold. Okay.

You find a lot of ashes. Okay. And a hint of very, very dark, blackened flesh. Nothing. a hint of very, very dark, blackened flesh. Nothing. Again, Caleb, do these runes, are they of any use to you? These pieces, these shards, this material? Where's Yussa? I mean, I will,

at Fjord's suggestion, I'm, I want to get out of here, but I will inspect this. I cast Detect Magic, is I will inspect this. I cast Detect Magic, is there anything in this room? No. The chamber is bereft of magic. All things within that were living and or magical outside of what you carry amongst yourselves, now dormant. And the door?

Ah, if you get close enough here, the door itself still emanates a magical aura. Wow. Let's check for other passages, see if maybe, question. Just in case. Yes. Can I go over to these plaques, these tablets? I did a rubbing of the glyphs

that were when we were following Obann. Yes. Do I pull that out in my notes, in Beau's notes? Do they compare? They are different. Okay. Yeah, you don't see any sort of patterns that overlap enough to catch your worry. Okay.

Anything underneath where the case was? Any sort of, anything we can move, push, shove, symbology to take note of? I mean, it's just, it's a lot of dead flesh. That was you. Shall we return to the study? Where's Yussa? Somewhere else.

Probably in the Dreadnought. Jesus. Let's get out of here. We should probably retreat to the previous chamber, which is not much better than this. We head to the door. Okay. You guys all head back to the door where you entered.

Step back out into the familiar spiraling staircase into darkness, only you can still see the entrance and the distance where you entered from underneath the desk. Eventually, the spiral turns into an ascending staircase and you all, one by one, emerge once more into the Permahart study. The distant thrum now quiet. What about the little pieces?

Are they quivering still or are they? Oh, you're going to inspect the jars? All the pieces are black and unmoving. That's good, that's really good. Anything else of different? Beyond that, no, but every other sliver of contained permahart flesh that was seemingly being studied or contained within these jars has turned black

and is now beginning to just liquefy within its jar. We should take his notes. I was about to say, I gather up and take his notes. Okay. Not much further to the Golem Workshop, we could hole up there for a bit and I could fix William. Okay, with that.

Like from the night? We're going to lose another week outside. Should we check in with Allura? We came in here to find Yussa, and we don't have Yussa. We could do it again. Yeah, let's do it in their workshop. Okay, let's go.

Well. This place is just as creepy as the chamber down below. The study is a bit more cramped than the workshop is. Or, I'm sorry, the experiment chamber, because that's the only in-between point. Workshop is dry and warm. And I can fix this automaton. Sure. Okay.

That's a good plan. Let's do it, I guess. We'll go back to the workshop. Okay. Heading back through the doorway from the Permaheart Study, you enter the experiment chamber, left as you left it.

The difference being all the bodies that had some semblance of experimentation, both within were now shattered on the ground that were partially decomposed or were still in a stasis position have all also blackened and begun to liquefy. Looks like all things that are tethered to the Permaheart within here

have lost their connection and maintenance. We move through there to the Golem Workshop. Okay. And then? The door opens up and you enter the warm interior of the Golem Workshop just as you left it. Should I call Allura? Are we going to rest here? Yeah, it's a short rest.

Call Allura, I'm going to start looking through the instructions that are here and see if I can figure out how to fix my robot. I call Allura. Okay. Allura answers. Hello. How goes everything?

Holy shit, Allura, we just killed the heart. Oh, so you managed to find what you were seeking? Well, sort of. We haven't found Yussa yet. Does anything look different out there? Not that we've killed the Hards, has the whole world changed? Let me look.

Can you see from the back of the mirror, she goes to the edge of a window that overlooks, kind of looks to be a cityscape around. It's just fire. A cityscape? From the, looks like a tower position. A tower position? No, looks about the same from my perspective,

but I am quite a ways away from the place you call home. All right. Is it warm where you are? It's relatively temperate. The coast, of course. Well, have you heard anything else? How long has it been since we talked to you? Since we last spoke, I believe it's been

maybe a day and a half. Okay, that's not so bad. Yeah, it's actually pretty good. Well. Very appropriately. Good news. So if you feel like scrying on the Laughing Hand or anything to see if he's just lying in pain,

let us know. Would you like me to scry, then? Yes. Can you scry on something you've never seen? Yeah. I can certainly try, it's not easy. I describe exactly what he looks like. Oh, I'm going to hold up my journal to the mirror

so she can see my drawing of the Laughing Hand. See him? Do you see? He's got all these mouths and stuff. I'll use Disguise Self to turn into Like a tiny version? A tiny laughing hand. That is very disgusting. That is very disgusting.

It's a lot to deal with. All right. It'll take me a moment, and she begins to Can you put us on hold while you do that? This lasts for 10 minutes, so we could be looking at her while she scrys, if we want to. The scry ritual takes how long to prepare?

Just to remind myself. 10 minutes. Well. You'll have to come get back to me, if you don't mind, afterward. Oh, okay. All right, well. We'll hang up and call back immediately. By then, you will have done it.

Most likely. We're going to keep looking for. Okay. All right. And the connection dissipates. Call back. One, two, three. Okay, call back. I'm like, okay. Yeah. This entity is doing very poorly.

Extremely poorly. Extremely poorly. When I was checking in, he was in the midst of being berated by an individual. Possibly. The flesh was sagging, and it was extremely lethargic, breathing heavy. Whoa! Yeah, so whatever you did seems to have

quite an impact on this creature. There was talk a bit of an event soon as part of this frustration, shouting at this beast, this Laughing Hand, about how it falls apart near the finish line. That's all I can ascertain. The finish line. I guess they're going to miss Travala Con.

Any distinct timeline or due date or something? Not that I can take from the conversation. Did you see a woman there? Not immediately, no. Okay. How about a, wasn't there another skull creature thing? Yeah, was it just the Obann guy and the Laughing Hand? Was there anyone else?

That's all that I saw for the time that I could. Okay, okay, okay, okay, okay. Thank you. Thank you, Allura. We're going to, I guess, try to find Yussa now. I'm not sure where he is. We may have to sleep, I don't even know. Any more ideas where he might be

or where he might have been interested in? What parts have you not explored yet? We haven't seen the Dreadnought yet. We haven't seen the Dreadnought. The bedroom, we haven't been to the Crystal Mines, we haven't been to the Circlebound Chamber, haven't been to the circle-bound chamber, the prison's hut, the carving farm. What happened?

Dining hole. This could be in any of those or otherwise. There is something called the bedroom. Is there, would a locate creature spell work here? It depends, that usually requires proximity, but the way you're describing the interior. They're different dimensions. So it might just stop at the door.

It might. Yeah. Weird. We're just going to have to room to room this thing. Yep. There's a bunch of rooms. Maybe we all take a different room? Yeah, I like it. Allura, I think we'll be heading to the Dreadnaught next.

We're not entirely sure what we'll find there, but it seems some clues have led us in that direction. Well, take care, that sounds terrifying. All right, well, I'm going to go, because having to continue a conversation at this extremely slow pace is giving me a headache. Yes, of course. Goodbye!

Don't make it worse, please. Goodbye. The mirror goes to a reflective self. Shall we construct a dome, or would you like to fix your robot? Spent the last 10 minutes futzing with instructions and looking at ice. Okay. Got him.

So you're taking a long rest here. I'm going to try to fix the golem if I'm able to. Fix the golem first, all right. I'll help you. The materials are fairly scarce, because you used a lot of them to finish this construction. Go ahead and make an arcana check for me. Stupid dice. 17.

17? You cannot find sufficient materials to repair him here, unfortunately. There's not enough to do significant repairs. At most, you'll be able to repair him, let's say, go ahead and roll 2d6. Nine. Okay. So he heals nine hit points.

That's the extent of what you're capable of doing. The materials you use here are expended. That's the extent of what the workshop currently has available. Okay. That's great, that's something. Dome? Are we taking a long rest? Dome it!

Oh gosh. It's going to be eight more days, just so you're aware. More short rest. Do we think we can afford it? I'm okay for a short rest. I'm fine with a short rest, too, but I'm not sure if it's me.

I'm a little set of spells, but that's my own fault, I guess. No, we should, we're going into the room, the area, whatever it is, called the Dreadnought. Let's rest. It's your call. Let's do it, rest.

I say we rest. All right, so. Eight hour rest. Eight hour rest. Long rest. So you all, shacking up in here, dome present, have a long rest. We're just looking back at the rules,

like with the eight hour long rest, there can be someone who takes two hours rest, so my apologies on that last session. So you can do two hour watches for an eight hour rest. Oh, okay. So you can do that for the extent before the dome vanishes. But I will say for the sake of brevity here,

you're pretty safe within this chamber. There aren't any incursions throughout the night. You come eight hours later to the end of your rest, restored, hit points, spells, rejuvenated. What would you like to do? Let's go to the fucking dreadnought. We'll make our way back into the experiment chamber. Okay.

I'm starting to become familiar with this place. Hold on. I got an idea, I just need to, where's my, prep those spells, prep those spells. Yeah. Prep those spells. I. Prep those spells. I'm prepping Divination. Okay. Which could be useful.

So before we go into the Dreadnought, we could get some information really quickly. Oh, great. Okay, that's cool. I'm pretty good with everything else I've got. Okay. You all step back into the waterlogged experimental chamber and you make your way towards the other door, correct?

Purple gem, yes. Right before we do, I'm going to ask for just 10 minutes to have a conversation. Well, it's an action to cast Divination, so. Is it? Yeah. Oh yeah. All right, so as you expend the incense

and sacrificial offering, so you mark 25 gold off of yourself there, you get to ask a specific question. What would you like to ask? As you feel, through the planes, the warmth of the Wild Mother's presence come and calm the back of your mind at the precipice. Oh, what's his name again? Because I keep saying Obann incorrectly.

We're looking for the... Yussa? Yussa. Yussa. Yussa. Hmm. Yussa. Yussa, no Yussa. Um. Okay.

Is, oh no. Yussa. Is Yussa in the Dreadnought? That's the question you asked? That's the first question. They have to be yes or no. Divination is a single answer. Oh. Oh, it's different than what you were doing.

That's not Commune or whatever. That's not Commune. Commune's different. Oh, I think I meant to do Commune then, I'm so sorry. Commute what you meant? I'll allow you to do that. I'm a little copious at the moment. And divination, it doesn't have to be a yes or no? Divination, the difference is, divination,

you ask a question and the DM gives, concerning a specific event, goal, or activity to occur within seven days, and the DM offers a truthful reply. It can be a short phrase, cryptic rhyme, or an omen. Commune is what allows you to ask three questions of your deity. Seems like a good usage, I take it,

and I'll take that map. Okay, so yes, Commune. Commune, okay, so in the same sense, it takes you a minute to do this. You build out the much larger ritual, feel the presence of the Wild Mother, and the questions are? Is Yussa in the Dreadnought?

In this still chamber, the unhappy, acrid smell of acid and chemicals, a warm breeze hits, but it blows away from the Dreadnought Door. Oh. Interesting. Is Yussa alive? You get one question.

Is Yussa alive? Is Yussa alive? The get one question. Is Yussa alive? The warm breeze now picks up from underneath and you feel butterflies in the stomach, a positive response. Oh, okay. Good, good, good. It's picking up the room. Is Yussa in the Crystal Mines? The breeze grows cold and still.

Damn it. God damn it. Not in the Dreadnought. Not in the Crystal Mines. Devil circle room. It's all three of my questions. Oh, you did all three? It's the one that gives you five. You can cast it again if you want to.

I can, that'll be, that's dangerous to cast it. Oh, it is? Just for fun, I'm going to try Divine Intervention to see if I can just get it to give me a specific location for it. Percentile dice! 73. I'm going to try two.

Okay. Percentile dice! Oh, your god didn't help? Well, I'm going to take a mine. Yeah, yeah, see if that happens. It's a god-off. Yours can do, mine can do better. Oh, 23.

One day. One day we'll see it worse. One day, it will, it parked it, it won 23. No. One day. One day. We'll see it work. One day. Well, Pike did it once. So. You did what? We had you sent once, yeah, that's right. No, Pike did it twice.

It felt like a definitive no on both of those, didn't it? So what's left? What are the other? There's the bedroom. This is Satan. I bet he's in the bedroom. The Fleshman facility. Maybe he's in the Fleshman. What's that on the goat head? That's a promising name.

Carving farm? Jesus. No, it's not. Circlebound. Is that what it's called? Circlebound chamber. Circlebound chamber. Maybe he's trapped in some sort of a- We've omitted crystal mines, garden bed. We haven't omitted the bedroom.

He's not in the Dreadnought. Not Dreadnought, not experiment, not Parma, not heart, not golem workshop. There are a number of notes that point to the Dreadnought, not Yussa specifically. But yeah, but Halas. Halas, yeah. Something to the Dreadnought.

But if Halas is still alive. The divinity just said Yussa is not there. Yussa does not appear to be. But Halas might be in the Dreadnought. Could Halas, Halas? Or his notes seem to point towards it. Still be alive? Yeah.

Yes. Fully. Be like 10 years or something. Probably really not happy. Have we been to the nest? He might not know, might be like Jumanji. It's also with Halas' experience with extra planar pockets, he could have shunted Yussa somewhere else, not in one of these chambers.

Well, there is a prison. If Halas had captured Yussa, he could have brought Yussa to the Prison of Soot. We could either get there by going straight to the prison, or we could go there by going to Halas and having him bring us there. Halas may be just a soul trapped in a jar right now. Halas could also be on the mainland.

He's also a... He could be anywhere. How long would it take to get to the Prison of Soot? How many stops that we haven't gone through yet? We're in the Golem Workshop right now? One. Oof, oof, many. Oh jeez, how would we do it? One, two, how would we get there?

We should go through the Dreadnought. It would be one, two, three, four, five to get to the prison. I feel like there might be other passages in the dreadnought. We should just check the dreadnought. We should go to the dreadnought? Yeah. Okay.

But Halas isn't there. Yeah, but Halas might be there, but Yussa's not. I mean, Yussa won't be there. But Halas might be able to take us to Yussa. You know something. Halas was thinking about becoming a lich. Yeah. Halas is not a good guy. Halas was trying to avoid being a lich.

Because it was complicated, not because he didn't think it was good. No, I don't think he's going to help us. What good is finding Halas going to potentially do? Can you tell us where he is? Why would he do that? What can we give him? He is a 3,000-year-old wizard dude,

and we're the Mighty Nein. Think about all the technical advances we've made since then. We're the people who just broke his immortality machine. He's probably wearing just underwear, because he doesn't even know what clothes are. Yeah, we could show him buttons. The technology of buttons.

Zippers? Are there zippers in this world? I don't think so. Velcro? Yes, there is Velcro. I agree with Caduceus. We just broke his Eternity Machine, his Fountain of Youth. I don't think.

Maybe he doesn't know that. I'm pretty sure he knows that. Is it as difficult to get to the- Everything that he built with it just rotted. Is it as difficult to get to the Prison of Soot going backwards as it is going through the Dreadnought? We would have to go to the tower machine where we've been. Yeah.

It's longer to go through the Dreadnought to get to the Prison of Soot. Then to the garden again. Find another door that we haven't found yet. Go to the study and go to the circle-bound chamber in which there is a pentagram and a goat's head. The Prison of Soot is just a guess. Then to the Prison of Soot. Yeah, that's just a guess.

We don't know where he's at. And we might accidentally go to the carving farm instead, which sounds very... Yeah, we should go to the Dreadnought. We don't have anything pointing us to the Prison of Soot. It's just a guess. Dreadnought may have doors that haven't been discovered yet. I think it's in the Fleshman facility. Do you just like saying that?

I think it's better to go places we haven't been, even if we, yeah. The Fleshtrees facility? Caleb, would you like to take a look at that purple gem and see if you can activate it? Oh god. I examined it before, did I? It doesn't appear to be an activation

more than a marker. No one's tried the door. Nott, do you see anything hinky with this doorway? I just burnt it to full. Sure, it's in the room we're in. Yeah, it's in the opposite end of where you entered originally. I will inspect.

All right, give me Guidance! Nice catch. 26. 26 to? I'm looking for something that's locked. The door's not locked, it is not trapped, from what you can tell. Clear!

Should I open it? I can. You open it? I can. You open it, a cold wind blows through and you can see a faint, fuzzy purple color ahead of you, but your vision can't really focus on it. It's like something continuously blurs what's beyond whatever threshold there is. It looks to be about 15 feet from the entrance of this door.

It's another one of these things. If we fight something else, we're going to have to take another long rest. That's another week. Yeah, I feel like we really can't take another week. We're just inspecting. We have nowhere else to go that we know. I know, but we know.

We know for a fact Yussa's not in the Dreadnought. We also know for a fact that there's 75% of this place that's unmapped. That is very true. This is a definitive direction. I could cast Commune. I mean. Jester, you're worried about something with the passage of time.

Do you want to cast Commune? I could cast Commune with the Traveler. We could ask if you'd like to. Three more rooms. It's up to you. Are you worried about missing Traveler Con? Obviously! It was coming up for it.

How soon? I have not. I don't know how much time is passing in here. I don't understand it completely, but you know, it was like a couple, probably like eight weeks away when we got in here, so. It was a little longer than that, like 10 weeks away. It was like 10 weeks away or something,

I don't know, I'm bad with time. Allura had said that we'd been gone for about four. Two already, over. You've been gone, since now, knowing the hours you've spent out there. Three weeks? You've been gone for roughly, I have to look at the full count,

but like 20 to 22 days around there. Most three weeks. We're doing all right. Well, I can pesky me in if you guys want me to. I'd say burn a fifth level, maybe, yeah. All right, I'm going to sit down and, Let's pick three. Okay.

Prison of Soot seems interesting. Let's ask about the Okay. That seems interesting. Let's ask about the prison. Bedroom. We're just asking for the location of Yussa, right? You can ask all sorts of questions, too. Yeah. Any other ideas? I have the answer now.

Suspicion he is nowhere on that map. We could ask that question. Is he on this, maybe start with that. Is he anywhere on this map that's already been mapped out? Okay, so you take a minute to set up the ritual, whereas Caduceus set up all these beautiful little natural little trinkets and incense burned around there. It goes all around me on the ground.

Yeah, you just draw all sorts of little creatures and leave little stone penises in the circle around you. As you cast the spell. Little mouse flipping everybody off on the ground. A smell of vanilla fills the space, which all of you recognize. You sense two hands on your shoulder, and you see the hood come into your peripheral and say,

How can I help you? Well, okay, here's the thing. We're looking for this guy Yussa. We don't know where the fuck he is. This place is crazy. Is he anywhere on this map that we have? The hood of the Traveler leans forward and glances across the paper.

I think he's somewhere on this map, yeah. Yes, I believe so. Okay, that's good, that's good to know. Do we want to ask if Halas is on the map? If Halas is in this map, yeah. I mean, do we want to waste this question? Oh, I'm not going to ask him that. I almost asked him a question.

That's what I'm going to do with that. It's either that or two locations, right? I think we should get a couple more locations, honestly. If we can't hold us, then we might know if we're dealing with, like, wannabe dimlelich. Come on, don't you guys want to go to the Dreadnought? Oh, I totally do, yeah. Ask your locations, it's your community.

Yeah, I know he's not in the Dreadnought. Is he in the bedroom? The Traveler's image flickers a bit. I don't sense him there. Fuck! Okay, I'm going to ask about that one. Which one? The prison of sorts. Is he in the prison of sorts?

The hood comes into focus a bit and goes, I mean, if I were to capture errant mages that wandered your halls in trespassing, where would you put them? Traveler, you're so smart, thank you so much! You see a little eye wink from under the hood as the image vanishes. You guys, my god is the coolest god.

You chose wrong when you were picking your new one. He's in the Prison of Soot. You did all right. All right. Well, we should check out the Dreadnought. You stand at the open precipice of the purple doorway on the other side. I say, there's a couple rooms we haven't been to,

so we can make our way. We can at least stick a, one of us could go through and just pop right back in. I'm just saying, we could just look and see what it is. We still get to go through the circle-bound chamber, that's exciting. We could just pop in, pop out. And then the door auto-locks behind you.

Do whatever you want. What are you doing? Oh boy. Oh, the dreadnought's so far away. So one, two, three, four, five. It's a long one. Holy shit, now we can't even fucking get there. But we have So one, two, three, four, five. It's a long one. Holy shit, now we can't fucking get there. But we have to anyway, though, because. No, we don't.

We have to go one, two, three, four. We can do here, here. No, wait. Oh my god. No, no, no, you go through the study. We need ways. Down, down. We do. Yeah, so you go Dreadnought, Crystal Mines, Garden.

I wish I could cast Communion again. Garden Study. Study. He was so present, you know? He's always here, but this one felt like, I can't feel his hands on my shoulders. Are you in love with him? That one doesn't go.

Oh, well, I'm a four, five. Really? I mean, he's really wonderful. I mean, who wouldn't be in love with him, you know? No, it's exactly the same. You think he loves you? Of course he loves me. Except two extra unknowns.

But not in the right room. Five, six. The Dreadnought Path is the exact same distance as if we went backwards. Two more unknown rooms, as opposed to less than two unknown rooms. Six, seven. No, you's technically shorter.

It's a little faster, but. What is? The Dreadnought path is one way. It's actually one more faster, but he's right. We go through more unknowns. What's the plan? Half of us go through the Dreadnought and half of us go through the Dreadnought.

We'll race. We'll see who gets the. Perfect. Let's roll a d20. And for what? Anything above 10, Dreadnought. Anything below 10, we'll see who gets the. Perfect. Let's roll a d20. And for what? Anything above 10, Dreadnought. Anything below 10, we go the other way. I don't want to put it up to chance.

I want to agree, I think we should go through the Dreadnought. Why? Yeah, that's a good question, why? Because we'll know more. I want to understand this place. I think that's dangerous in that there is no understand this place. I think that's dangerous in that there is no understanding this place, but if that's what you want to do, well, come on.

The Dreadnought Path has three unknown rooms. The Going Backwards has... one. One? Well, not including the prison, yeah. I'll admit I do want to see the Crystal Cave a little bit. The Crystal Mines, the Dreadnought, and the Circlebound Chamber.

If you really want to go, I'll do this. I would like to remind everyone that this Happy Fun Ball also has the nickname of the Mage's Bane, and we are searching for a mage who's been locked up for being super overly curious. So yeah, you know, we could go through the Dreadnought. Good, we are agreed. I'm very curious.

Well, you guys are both arcane users, so that would make sense that, you know, the two of you would be the ones that would have to get around. I was being a little sarcastic. Oh, I got that. I'm kidding. I'm getting that. My power comes from a different place. Yes, my mistake.

So what's the plan? I'm curious as well, but we have Traveler Con on the horizon. What a weird sentence. Are we having a meeting or are we playing D&D? D&D is nothing but a bunch of meetings. Maybe. Partially.

I don't know. The video gamer in me wants to see the levels. Well, obviously. I'm having an amazing time in this fucking ball. You know, I feel like you get overridden a lot, Caleb. I'm with you. I feel like we tell you no a lot, so yeah. I'll tell you yes on this one.

I'm in it. Just be careful and be careful with us. I feel like the power of this place is sucking you in, but. I get a little nervous like Jester. I think as long as you promise to not go off by yourself. You have to promise, Caleb. You're not going to do that. Pay attention to us and make sure

that you don't trigger anything. Just be very careful. We just watched him a few hours ago stare into a door for a while. I know, he keeps staring at things really creepily in here. Then you sent your cat forward and down a door when the rule that Captain Tusktooth

put forth was to call out your actions like a lifeguard? I didn't follow it. I missed some of it. I do not understand that. But I would rather you put your faith in me for something more important than my curiosity. Let's go the other way. Not Dreadnought?

What are you saying? Your name is not. Dreadnought or Dreadyes? What are you guys doing? What's your plan? We're talking about it. We're talking about it. All right. What could it hurt to pop in and just see what it's like? Right, we could just pop right back. Check out the view.

Okay, okay, okay, okay, okay. Let's pop in, check out the view. Yep. If shit looks real bad real fast, we're out. Yeah, it's you, it's the thing you always say, pop pop. Pop pop? Jester, are you worried about the time and missing Traveler Con?

You've been waiting years, right? Well, I only knew about it recently, so no. But you don't want to miss this. Retroactively waiting years. It's fine, you guys. We'd have to be in here a long time. This place worries me, is all. But we can go in.

I'm confident we can handle anything as long as we're together. Counter-argument. Let's just go. Counter-argument. We do not go through the Dreadnought. We go the other way. We do not go through the Dreadnought. We go the other way. We get you, sir. We go to Traveler Con, and we come back.

Agreed. I want to see that crystal cave. Sounds nice. I suppose. Do we have to do we do? What do we, okay, okay. All right, so what are you guys doing? We are going. Are you having a look?

Are you turning the other way? Are you going through? Very realistic. Do you want to just take a peek? This is very realistic. Let's just take a peek. Everything sucks in every direction. This is how this group makes decisions. We'll take a peek, and then we'll go backwards

to the one unknown room. Okay, here's the rules, though. Here's the fucking rules. Peek D&D right now. You're not going to get weird, you're not going to stare down weird corridors. You're not going to cast spells. We're all going to hold hands, we're going to buddy system.

Yeah. We're going to peek. Okay. Hop right back out. Okay, this is the Astral Sea we're fucking with. I don't even know what that is, but it sounds scary. We're doing elementary hand-holding chain. Yeah, because she gets sucked into the Astral Sea

and is never seen again. Grab that fucking wizard's hand. We're walking through that magic door. I have a feeling the minute we go through, he's going to go, I let go of everyone's hands. She's got a higher strength than he does. Ready? One, two, three! All right, and you all leap through.

As you step through, you drift forward. The purple... Rainbow bridge. The purple door comes your way, and as it passes by, you all find yourself not touching the ground, but just drifting there. Is there a door? Nope, nope. Is there a door? We're drifting?

Oh god, we're drifting for a turn, aren't we? My cue crashed. I have an audio cue this whole time. It's all good. We're potentially falling for the rest of our lives. No, you're fine. We can take a long rest to set some new spells while we're falling.

For my health, I am new spells while we're following. Ah, you're fine. Let's play the heartbeat again. Let's play the heartbeat again? Yeah. Nah, nah. Scoop, scoop. I'm so happy.

Nah, you managed to push past that, you're fine. All right, let me try. I feel like maybe destroying that heart possibly made stuff easier up ahead, or made stuff angrier? I don't know. All right, there we go. So, as you come through, you find yourself just stationary, drifting. Is our hair going floaty?

Yeah, your feet touch no ground, your hair floats a bit, and your body gently glides without direction away from the open portal behind you, which doesn't close. Drifting to a slow stop and you're all holding hands, just drifting. Gravity holds no sway here, not in the way you know it. Surrounding you in every direction

is a sea of swirling silvery mists and curling winds and expanse of soft gray and white dots with distant points of light like the stars of a night sky. The door behind you is built into a massive, rough island of dull cerulean rock that sits adrift in this strange place. But what really catches your eye are the numerous platinum chains, maybe a dozen or so thick platinum chains

that are bolted tightly to and wrapped around this dark blue rock before pulling to the creature that they restrain. Just below the door, about 30 or so feet from the island, and about 25 or so feet from you, rests a terrifying behemoth that challenges the darkest of your nightmares. This is way worse than I thought.

A hulking beast covered in spiky armored plates resembling a bulbous swollen serpent with a silvery tail that seems to curl and drift infinitely towards the distance. Skies tethered to an impossible distance on the horizon. The hardened, pale flesh plates that surround it are veiny and smooth, almost slick, while its muscles tense against the numerous chains

that surround it. At its front, where it faces you, a trunk-like torso carries two thick, muscular arms that end in terrifying pincers. Also held by the same thick, silvery bands and chains to the rock, it is bound and unable to move to this rock. Between the fleshy shoulders sits a gargantuan face crested with horned ridges along the brow

and the corners of the immense jaw where hundreds of two-foot teeth layer and tangle around the edges of a 12-foot wide mouth, ever dripping a thick, clear saliva that drips from its chin and then floats into the space around, as well as the two heavy chains that connect to the sides of its mouth. Two of these are just built into the sides of its jaw.

Noseless, singular, I would sit above the mouth, where I'm not covered by a platinum plate bolted to its brow. And there you sit floating as it just sits there, bound, blinded, chains attached to it, with the door behind you. You spin around and look, and you see two large levers framing each side of the door. And maybe we should go back.

Nope, nope, nope! We are looking at the face of an elder god. This is insane! And any other structures, or is it just infinity around all this? Make a perception check. I was expecting some boxes. Awesome, man. I will. Just do another perception check.

Shelves, maybe? These two expect. I cannot, all right. First was cocked. 15. 15. 15? Yeah, can't really. Yeah, just those two levers

and the rocky island there. The door's still open, right? Yeah, still open. What happens? I'm on the end, yeah. I'm on the end of the human chain. Should I try some NASA astronaut propulsion to send us back towards the door? As you begin to will yourself that direction, you float that direction.

Oh! And all of you begin to, as you see Fjord do that, you begin to will yourself that direction, you float that direction. Oh! And all of you begin to, as you see Fjord do that, you begin to just will yourself to move and your body drifts. The speed you move is three times your intelligence score. Oh! So Caleb and Beauregard in the space

can travel quicker than anybody and Caduceus is holding up the caboose. The cabooses. 30 feet. Okay.ose, the cabooses. 30 feet. Okay, back, right? Back. We know now, back. Did the monster notice us? It hasn't moved.

No, that's just nothing. Is this that serpent creature that we saw in those drawings? Oh. Do you guys remember? Doesn't look like that. Big arms with pincers. No. No. No.

You can make an arcana check. Mm-hmm. Do we know this? Guidance. 24. Guidance? And he gave it to me. Absolutely.

You had your suspicions. He was. But this is an astral dreadnought. Yeah. It really is an astral dreadnought. Yeah. It really is an astral dreadnought? A dreadnought that is bound and chained to this island. It is unmoving at the moment. It doesn't notice your presence.

It seems like it is dormant. Let's take it. This poor dreadnought needs water. I don't know where to find it. The only things you notice are the numerous chains that bind it to this island, and then the chains seem to cluster around two of these levers.

You know when you go to the zoo and you want to see the- Is it taut tight, the way it's held? Or is it just like loosey-goosey? No, there's a couple that are pretty loose, but most of them are pretty taut, and it's bound in different directions to where it's held, suspended. What do you say, we let it go?

As soon as someone tries. As we go through the door, I can just shoot it. You guys are between this giant rock island, and you float it out of the doorway that's on this island where the two levers are, and all the chains are coming around you and bound around this creature. Through the door, through the door.

You really want to pull one of those levers. 42 feet. There might be a dick in here the door. You really want to pull one of those levers? 42 feet. Do you want to leave a dick in here or something? You can make an investigation check to see what the levers do. Yeah, I'm going to roll an investigation check. Nothing good. I'll do the other one. Nothing good.

Oh, terrible. Terrible. Guidance. Three. 13. 25. You both have no idea what these levers do. One of them you pull. Oh, I think you pull them what these levers do. One of them, you pull. Oh, I think you pull them. Through the door. Okay, okay.

Through the door. We've seen it, right? We've seen it? We've seen it? We're ascertaining at the levers. We're taking an investigation. It's not a ship, it's not a plane, it is a giant. 22, okay. It's a monster-related death panther.

The left lever seems to be, you now see as you get close, Fucking Death Panther. The left lever seems to be, you now see as you get close, it's connected to many, many of these chains around. You can see there's actually within this island, what initially you didn't notice, intricate little bits of clockwork that weave behind and the lever on the left, if pulled,

would probably release all of the chains. Okay. The lever on the right seems to be affixed to a network that connects directly to the two chains that attach to its sides of its jaw. You gather if they were pulled, it might force the jaw open. Oh, so he can feed things to the dreadnought.

So he keeps it alive or something? Feed his enemies to it. Or it breathes some sort of... Well, we read in the notes, right, that this is how he discarded of the failed experiments. So if all of these experiments, bonus, you generate. He said the bodies were jettisoned into the Astral Sea. Right, that's what I'm saying.

In the last bit of the notes that you read regarding this, dealt with one of his ritual chambers within the Dreadnought. Within the Dreadnought, he can go inside the Dreadnought. You can pull it open and go inside the Dreadnought. He was inside Moby Dick. Oh my god. That's probably where the wind opened its mouth and go inside the Dreadnought. He was inside Moby Dick. Oh my god. That's probably where the portal is.

And go inside of it? That's probably where the portal is to the Crystal Mines. That's really fucking cool. Do you want to go in? Make a perception check if you want. Can I? Jester, do you want to go in?

I'll help with that. I never knew we could go inside of a big... Perception? Thingy like this. 15. 15. As you look towards the dreadnought and look around back at the island, there is actually another door

about 30 or so feet below the one that you're at. It's closed. That's the way the crystal marks. That'll actually save us some time. Will it? Well, no, actually, it won't. You said a sacrifice chamber inside the dreadnought? Ritual chamber.

I'm interested in what Jester said. Do you want to go in the astral dreadnought? Why would we go inside the dreadnought? What did he say? With a keen mind, was it that the jar was within here? I'm trying to remember. It seemed to be his experimentation with this magic jar, part of his soul transference,

that particular part of his research ended him heading toward the ritual chamber within the Dreadnought. Oh. Jester, do you want to go inside? What, that room down? Well, maybe. I mean, maybe. Maybe going from inside the Dreadnought

would take us to the Circlebound Chamber? Or maybe we end up in his butthole. Within the Dreadnought. We might be meeting Halas within here. Although we might be meeting him in any of these chambers. But it seems like he has a bachelor pad inside this. I would go in the behemoth thing. I think it's really cool.

I'm not even willing to come in here to begin with. Yeah, but you could be inside of it. I would leave. Okay, hands for going in the giant astral dreadnought. Caduceus has a good suggestion. I have a thought. Frumpkin is floating between my hands. Frumpkin's going in the giant astral dreadnought. Caduceus has a good suggestion. I have a thought. Frumpkin is floating between my hands. Frumpkin's going in.

We should open them out, though. Yes. Well, I send Frumpkin up and just float him right in front of the space. We will ourselves right near that fucking door, though. All right, you guys all drift by the door. Will you hold on to me, please? Yes. Hold him, Beau.

Okay, so. Send your dumb cat. Blind and deaf, and Frumpkin is just floating in the Astral Sea in front of this thing's closed mouth. Okay. Do you guys remember which one of the levers let it go and which one opened the mouth? You're blind and deaf. No, I'm not listening to anything.

I'm just talking out loud. All right. I don't like being blind and deaf. No, I'm not listening to anything. I'm just talking out loud. All right. I don't like being blind and deaf, so please do something soon. Fjord, pull the right lever. I roll myself up to the right lever. You pull the lever and you hear and you just beyond, out of the sight on the top of the island, something sparks

and the sparks head down to the two chains and then arc over to the side of the creature's mouth, shocking the sides of its body, sides of its head. You watch it pull and restrain against the chains and as it does, the jaw opens up, the teeth lining it, bit of spittle spattering out, and as it's open, you just see the dark interior of its throat. The poor baby.

Little tiny pumpkin floating in space before, looking back at Caleb going, Oh! Send that fucking cosmonaut into that goddamn church! He just starts paddling through the astral plane inside. As Frumpkin heads into the gargantuan maw of this terrifying astral beast, you see the cat disappear into the shadow,

and then you lose contact with Frumpkin. It is, it's another doorway, holy shit. This thing has another plane inside of it. Well, if it don't go to the circle chamber, then that actually shaves off a lot of talk. You know? We don't know where it goes! It's not innards, it's not the inside of a beast.

Yeah, it's another door. We don't know, it's too much. We're level 10, it's too much. Do it. Do you want to go in? No! Where would we go? How would we get back? Okay, okay, okay. Counting clockwise. Now I'm flipping. Now I'm flipping. Counting clockwise. Caduceus, going in or leaving?

I think going in. Speak your truth. Laura, going in? Going in. Sam, speak your truth. No! Liam, speak your truth. Caleb starts floating towards the wall. No, I'm holding on to him. That's three of one.

I am holding on to him. I can't, I can't, I can't, I can't. What are we doing? Not the brave. Live up to your name. And you all are doing this. Oh, yes! Okay, so.

Nott, you watch as the entirety of your friend party, one by one, drift into the open, gaping, toothy jaws of an astral dreadnought. We're holding hands. Until they're all disappeared into the shadow. We're holding hands! You're holding Nott's hand? You going with him?

The rule before we came in here was everybody holds hands. So Nott, you're being dragged into its mouth. Or you can stay out. Whoa. I've already died once, it's okay, let's go. Uh-huh, uh-huh. One by one, you feel yourself going into

its warm, cavernous throat. The smell itself is strange. It's peppery, but also metallic. It's nondescript. Thank you. Just at the moment that you look behind and you can see the silhouetted shadow of the dozens of teeth and the jaw closing. No!

You feel your body suddenly get drawn quickly down a space similar to stepping through these doorways before. To the taint. You stop. Where is it? Where is it? Standing in a cavernous, dark chamber. You have no idea where the walls are.

It is too open with a little bit of light you have. I look down. What's on the floor? Stone, your gravity has taken you now. I'm holding, I'm taking my hands back. We're standing on fire. Right. You light the space around. You can see distant sconces of burning torches and candelabras set in the center.

Markings. You don't see markings. All you do see is a small, arranged set of tables in the middle of this wide open cavern. Let's roll pick up next. Oh! What is it? Why?

What kind of tables? We're off the map! You guys are off the map now? We're off the map! You guys are off the map now. We're off the map! Whoa! Why did we do this? I'm sick. I'm sick, my arm hurts.

This is all you're doing. It's five minutes. This is all you're doing. Let's go to the store. No, I'm into it. I'm really into it. The one thing you do note, there is no doorway behind you.

Oh my god. What have we done? You don't, there's not enough light to see the perimeters of this chamber. It's just this open space with a little bit of fire. It was an educated plan. Yes. We're going to pick up there next week, which will be our Halloween episode.

How interesting. That'll be fun. Right now, Caleb turns and looks at the audience like that little girl in front of the burning house. Mm-hmm. Oh my god. Yeah. Woo! We're off the map! Okay, we'll see where this goes next week.

Do you know where this goes? Oh, I know. Well, I know elements. I love how conflicted everyone is. Internally? Oh, I know. Well, I know elements. I love how conflicted everyone is. Internally and externally. I know. Pink D&D, I love it. All right, guys. I just wanted to look over the cliff.

I didn't think we were going to take our clothes off and jump. Of course we were going to. Have you met us? Genuinely a little surprised. I thought you guys were going to go the other way. Of course we should have gone the other way. But hey, here you are. We'll see where it takes us. All right, guys.

What if we never learn? Why do we keep doing this? We will. That will be our tombstone. We never learned. I know. Thank you for joining us for tonight's adventure. We'll pick this up next week. We love you very much, and is it Thursday yet? Good night.

And this concludes the current chapter of Critical Role. Your essays on the history and impact of the various ages and epochs of Exandria are eagerly anticipated. Just kidding. No homework for you, but if you are inspired to do some writing, please leave us a review.

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