Critical Role - C2E92 Home Is Where the Heart Is

Episode Date: January 30, 2020

The Mighty Nein chase a lead on Nott's curse, but that lead brings Beau face to face with a past she would rather leave behind.Watch Critical Role live Thursdays at 7pm PT on https://www.twitch.tv/criticalrole

Hi there, this is Matthew Mercer, resident Game Master here at Critical Role, to welcome you to this podcast version of the show. If you'd like to watch the stream as it airs, you can catch it Thursdays at 7pm Pacific on twitch.tv slash criticalrole or youtube.com slash criticalrole. Twitch subscribers can access the video on demand immediately after the broadcast, and it also becomes available on YouTube Mondays at 12pm Pacific. Podcast episodes land right here on the Critical Role Podcast Network on Thursdays, a week after the initial broadcast. Okay, with that info dump out of the way, let's dive into the story. Hello everybody, and welcome to tonight's episode of Critical Role, where a bunch of us nerdy-ass voice actors sit around and play Dungeons & Dragons. Ooh!

Ooh! So yes, before we jump into tonight's session, we have some announcements to get through, so hang tight for just a second while we go into our first of two sponsorships for the night. Our first, our friends at Hero Forge. Say hi. Hero Forge! Hero Forge, tonight's episode brought to you by our friends at HeroForge, makers of on-demand miniatures of all types. I've used it and it is sweet.

But now, it's even sweeter, because of their newly updated online platform, HeroForge 2.0, where you can still customize and print your 3D minis, but for the first time, you can also do it in color. Yes, you can now design and color your personal minis with a variety of colors and techniques, including dry brushing, washing, and more. They just launched the update this week, so be one of the first to get a 3D custom colored mini at heroforge.com

slash Kickstarter. Now, as I said, this new update makes their platform even sweeter. And it got me thinking, everything is better when it's sweeter, right? Well, thanks to Hero Forge, come bring it out, boys. I'm going to put that theory to the test. I've taken common food items that we all know and love. No! This is going to be gross. No! I'm going to test if making them sweeter makes them better.

So we'll start with the common chili dog. What? No. Where did you get that chili dog? You can start adding a little whipped cream to it. It's already on it. Yep, and let's see. Nope, nope, nope. It makes it better.

May I use this as a shield? No, wait, hold on. It is better. No, it is not. It is better. You're such a foodie, how are you even doing this? It's better. No, it is not. It's better. You're such a foodie, how are you even doing this right now? Yeah, get that, you cannot put that near me. Don't, just swallow it.

Let's try a salad. No, come on, man. This is your standard Caesar. That was better than the salad. Let's see what a salad tastes like with whipped cream. That's what might not be as bad. That was not bad, yeah, that one's not. I would eat that. If there's vinegar in there, tastes like with whipped cream. That's not my nephew's bad. That one's not bad. Yeah, that one's not.

I would eat that. If there's vinegar in there, it's going to curdle. It's going to curdle. That's better. Oh, there's a sound effect. We'll miss you, Hero Forge, we'll miss you. Flamin' Hot Cheetos. What the hell?

What the hell? Hold on, give me some before you ruin them. Sure. I love Flamin' Hot Cheetos. Are they hell? What the hell? Hold on, hold on, give me some before you ruin them. Sure. Because I love flaming hot Cheetos. Are they better, sweeter? Let's find out. This is actually exciting.

Okay, I'm all right with this. I'm all right with this. It's like a, you know, like a jalapeno pop. Why are you going to make such a mess about it, Sam? A lot of shit to the back of your chair. How is it? It's going to be a river of magma. It's better.

No! Better. There's better. No! Better. How is it? Not bad. Just two more. That one I thought might be working. Just two more, two more. No. A pepperoni pizza?

Nope. That one's been sitting out for a while. You've got to fold that shit. Oh no, no, be careful with the table. Mm. Oh. No, it's all over your face. Yeah, now it's on the, no.

Oh, it's everywhere. Not as good. Okay. Worse. And last but not least, you're not. Oh no. You're not good. No!

A fine wine. Let's see how good that is. No! It's still the curl! I can't look, I can't look. Don't, don't, don't, don't. Oh. It's dessert. Come on, go for it, go for it! Dude, did you see that? Yeah, I did, I look! I can't not look! Don't, don't, don't, don't! Oh! It's dessert!

Come on, go for it, go for it! Dude, did you see that? Yeah, I did, I did, I did. Worse. Worse. Wait, I'm trying to get it. No, no, no, no, no! Worse.

Worse. Oh, that was good. Maybe I should brush my teeth a little. No, no, no! No. You know, just clean off the old little. No, no, no! No, no, no. You know, just clean off the old teeth. No, no, no! I'm pretty sure all this is against TOS.

Worse. Worse. Oh wait, better? Better. Well, I think I've proven my point, guys. Making things sweeter makes them better. So go check out the sweet new update at heroforge.com slash Kickstarter.

And thanks to Hero Forge for supporting the show. Go! No! Stop it! Oh. You look like you walked under a street lamp. Back to you, Matt. Oh no.

What? No, I don't know why. Oh no! Oh no! Oh no! Oh no! Oh no! Do you have antacids on the standby?

Just brush my teeth again. I'm so glad that I moved further away. Thank you, Sam. Got me a little on the back of my throat. Thank you so much. It's starting to do some interesting stuff. And thank you, Hero. Got me a little on the back of my throat. Thank you so much. It's starting to do some interesting stuff. And thank you, Hero Forge, for sponsoring the show. My sneak attack.

I'm sure you did. None of us could have expected. Actually, don't. No, it's good, it's good. That is actually really good. Yeah, that makes the most sense. That makes the most sense to me. Yeah, I'm all in on it.

The wine one did, but it's pretty. All right, move on. Okay, okay, okay. sense to me. Yeah, I'm all for it. The one I wanted to do, but, I mean. Get out of this freedom label. All right, move on! Okay, okay, okay. Too hard. I feel like I'm wine slushing. Much more clean. Oh god.

And tabletop appropriate sponsor, D&D Beyond. D&D Beyond! Returning sponsors since the beginning of this campaign. If you haven't checked them out, they're an amazing online digital tool for keeping track of your D&D campaigns, your characters, and all formats of content for D&D 5th edition.

It's amazing. Check it out if you haven't. And thank you guys once again for supporting the show. Other announcements we have, the next issue of Vox Machina Origins, our comic book series created with our friends at Dark Horse Comics, what is even, I don't,

will be available on Wednesday, February 19th. Be sure to pick up your copy at your favorite local comic book shop or digitally at Comixology or Dark Horse Digital and anywhere else where fine comic books can be located. And in other Vox Machina Origins news, I want to take a moment to share the cover art for our free comic book day special comic

that's coming out. The cover art was created by Amazing Critter Hunter Bunyan and colors by Steven McGowan. You can pick up your own issue for free comic book day at your local comic book shop on free comic book day. It's May 2nd, so keep an eye on your calendars now for it. It's exciting because it's a fun little standalone piece. Even if you haven't read any of Vox Machina Origins,

it kind of sits a little bit kind of outside of their of the first campaign, and it's got some cool perspective. And we get to share a cover with the name Neil Gaiman, who has content in there as well, and that's kind of cool. Sure. What is Neil? Has content in there as well. Yeah, I know. Well, it's weird, because it's us and then also Neil Gaiman. I'm like, this should be the other way around, but okay. But yeah, check it out. I think it's Iferim. But yeah, check it out.

I think it's it for me. Marisha, you have announcements. I do. Speaking of Sam's ridiculous antics, and also Liam, all work and a play is coming back. What? No, surely not, no. I know.

Just, you know, we had to keep up with the tradition of the podcast and make it take forever for season two. We recorded a minute a week. Did you drink the entire time? Oh yes, everyone continues to have its signature cocktail attached to it, but it is premiering not this next Tuesday, but the Tuesday after February 4th.

Ooh! At 4 p.m. on our Twitch channel for our season two premiere. We're airing the show a little bit differently. Instead of a Friday night show, we're going to put it in the Yeehaw Game Ranch time slot. And it's going to air biweekly for the entire season. We're very excited about it.

No. It's great. We did some fun stuff. It's hilarious. There are some references to times of the year. When we shot it? We shot it. You will be shocked at how long ago we started this. It took a bit, but yes.

It's worth the wait. Oh, President Obama. Yeah. Sporcial Pickens is coming up. That's more accurate. Yeah, there's shit like that, and you're like, oh, wait, what? Okay. Yeah, it's great.

It's worth the wait. Tune in. There we go. Content. Finger guns. Pew pew. Pew pew pew. There we go. Content. Finger guns. Pew pew, pew pew. Thank you, Marisha. Laura, you have some announcements as well. Oh, me? You guys.

Well, you guys may have noticed I'm wearing this fantabulous Traveler card. Oh my god. I love that art. It's so cute. That's available in our stores right now. You two can join the cult. Were they handmade by Jester?

Possibly. What's on the cuff there? Oh, is that a secret? Why are you going to call it out like that? I just saw it, I don't know. Don't show them. I don't know what you're talking about. Oh, that's cool.

It's cute. Yeah. Ooh, there's an Easter egg. I don't know what you're talking about. Oh, that's cool. It's cute! Yeah! Ooh, there's an Easter egg. So anyway. You're supposed to wear it this way, right? So, yeah. Isn't that right? All the cultists wear gray. Check them out.

They're in both our U.S. and U.K. shops. Then other thing that I wanted to mention is on Saturday, I will be joining the Pull Your Finger Out, what finger, where it was, I don't know, but I'll be joining the Pull Your Finger Out, what finger, where it was, I don't know, but I'll be joining the Pull Your Finger Out charity stream. That's a long name for a charity stream. Is it better if it's sweeter, is really my question. Oh no, no!

It's a charity stream put together by my very good friend Liam McIntyre to benefit those affected by the Australian bushfires. So that's going on from 11 to five on Saturday. Our good friends at Retro Replay are hosting it. So check it out on youtube.com slash C slash Retro Replay. I'll be joining around 3 p.m. If you want to come show the Critter love,

I would appreciate it. Oh, that's nice. Give it a Critter hug! That's right. Critter hug! Thank you, Laura. All right then, I believe that concludes our announcements for the evening. So let's 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 critical Can you answer the call? Digging deep in your soul As the legend unfolds Now it's your turn

To roll Oh! And welcome back. So, oh. Happy to have you join us, Sam. Just brushed my teeth again. Gross. Is that how you keep them so large? Woo! Wow! Do you? Oh, shit!

We're in trouble! Should've been two beholders and a fucking Tarrasque. I'm going to go tea on that man. That is evil twin Matthew. I get one every century. Oh no! That's the most I've ever seen in my life. Oh!

Holy shit! You should be nervous. He's stunned, ladies and gentlemen. He sees all the ropes. He's like, ladies and gentlemen. He sees all the ropes. He's like, I'm going to kill you all. So. Last we left off, the Mighty Nein had brokered a coming negotiation

between the warring nations of the Dwendalian Empire and the Kryn Dynasty, set to occur somewhere in the Lucidian Ocean between Nicodranas and Whitetown Lagoon. About four, roughly four weeks out, I think was when they had confirmed it. You also heard that they had acquired and arrested Vence, the fugitive who was part of the Angel of Iron's cult.

And in the interim, you made your way back to Xhorhas. You made it to your home, the Xhorhaus. And had an evening to rest after an extended period of extreme duress and stress, the recovery of your friend Yasha, some underground pit fighting, and a dinner with Essek after an invitation. Oh boy! Wow.

In which you got a chance to know each other a little better. You then, in discussing your plans moving forward, some possibilities and pursuing some of the various goals that still remain looming for a few of you. You were greeted by Essek and he offered at one point to help you with this strange problem you were having with this equation for the spell that you had been

developing since discovering its early sketches, essentially, or the first half of its development by Halas within his happy fun ball, as you put it. With the aid of Essek, both Nott and Caleb up in his tower finished the development of this spell. You all rushed to gather your materials that were required for its casting and watched as Caleb prepared the ritual

to bring Nott back to her original form, the body she is meant to have. The ritual progressed seemingly without issue until the moment in which the transition of the body was meant to happen. Reaching towards it, however, the magic was balked by some sort of dark power, a curse that remained laid upon Nott,

preventing it from succeeding, locking herself still to the current goblin body that she's grown to love. Well, maybe grown a little more comfortable with it since then, but. She sure doesn't like her teeth anymore. Aw. As the ritual comes to a unexpected end,

you look as the clay element of the tub that Nott had been placed upon has shattered and scattered across the room, the magic itself suddenly flaring out the sigil that marked the ritual going cold. All of you look down to see Nott there, sitting atop the broken sections of hardened clay. A goblin, as she's always been since you met her.

Caleb just starts checking his notes and everything that they worked on together to see what went wrong. It didn't work, did it? I mean, I think you're a little less green than you were before. Just look at my hands and stuff, looks the same. Unchanged.

Yeah, well, yes, look all around, see if it's all the same. I'll check the ears and I'll check the back of the head to see if it's the same. Flecks of dry brown clay that had gotten wedged in elements of the hair, but beyond that, no noticeable change. They're still not.

Huh. I, I mean, did you do it right? Did he do it right? Vessi goes, From what I could observe of this ritual, everything was done to the required specifications. I'm meticulous. Yes, you are.

Did you all hear that? The... Hear what? The woman laughing. We did. Did we? No, I think you said that I heard it. Both of you heard it. I don't know what you're talking about.

No. None of us were laughing. I hope not. I heard it. What did it sound like? It sounded distant and evil, and it sounded like, I mean, the only person I can think of

is the person who did this to me, this woman, this mage woman. It sounded like her, maybe. Maybe. Did it sound like when I sent you a message? I don't know that you've ever sent me a message. I'm going to send Nott a message right now. Okay, what are you going to send?

I'm going to say, this is weird being right next to you. Is it going to be like feedback on itself? I can hear a delay. Can you, what are you going to send? I'm going to say, this is weird, being right next to you. Is it going to be feedback on the cell phone? I can hear a delay. Can you, what does it sound like? Oh, I have to leave the room. Go downstairs. I leave the room. Okay, go.

Does it sound like this? Did it sound like the laughing? That's it. Did it sound like that? A different kind of sense. This is a series of words being placed into your mind, into your very aware consciousness. The laughter felt deep-seated within you. Not the same.

No. Well, I mean, it's got to be exactly that. What does that mean? She's watching me? She's haunting me? She still has some sort of grasp on you, yeah? Oh my gosh. Do you think she can hear everything you do? Has she been with us this whole time?

Who is she? Do you remember anything about her or not? Go over it again in your mind. Tell us the story again. Oh, well. I'll skip some of it. The pertinent parts are they took me to a river, they drowned me,

and that's all I remembered for a long time, except then when I woke up, it was to the sound of that laughter. It was to the sound of that woman just enjoying whatever she had done to me. I was in a state of shock, just enjoying whatever she had done to me. I was in a state of shock and I... I didn't feel like myself. I wasn't sure what was going on.

Things sounded louder and felt different and my body was colder and I wasn't paying much attention, but she was there. She was robed and she was older. You were at the river still? No, they had taken me somewhere. To her home? Did she seem taller?

Did she seem short? Do you remember? Taller than me. Surrounding landscape. Okay, well, it wasn't Felderwin. It wasn't terribly far, but it was a wooded area at the base or in some mountains, a wooded mountainous area. How did you get out?

They took me. The goblins were still there. And you saw yourself leave from this lair, this house at the base of the mountains? Well, yes, they put me in the back of just some sort of a cart and tied me up and brought me with them. Get the map out. Which one? Which? I have so many. The Empire.

Well, not near, but not terribly far. Could you take us back to this river? Where's our Empire map? The river was close to Felderwin. No, that's your house. Well, if they did not take you that far, there cannot be many mountains. Hang on, let's look at the map.

Let's look at the map. Where's the map? Oh, there it is, there it is. I've been sharing them with Yasha, okay? It's not always me. It was days in travel, once you had been, once you had reawoken and they pulled you away. But you never left, once you left the mountains,

you know you were in the Marrow Valley. Okay. In the Marrow Valley. This is all Marrow Valley? Yeah, the whole Marrow Valley is kind of the southern area of the Empire. How long did it take you to get back to your goblin? I wasn't counting, I was mostly crying and trying to tear at my bindings and...

Damn your emotional state. I know, a day, two, three maybe? Also, we were stopping frequently. They were doing raids on the way. I don't know how long it would have taken if we had driven straight through. Wait, why did they take you to the river to drown you anyway?

Why do you think they chose you to do this? Well, I had killed one of them, and they didn't like that very much. I had killed their leader, and in my frantic escape, I had killed their leader, and his wife was not very happy about that, and she wanted to make an example of me

or punish me in a way that was much more cruel than death. Hmm. Well, you want to restore yourself, don't you? Of course. Then we have to go there. Why? What are you talking about? We have to find this woman and kill her. Find this woman. We have to approach

this village of goblins you're talking about to find some sort of lead or go to the place of your drowning. Yeah, the goblins could essentially, hopefully, take us back to her, point us in that direction. And then what? What was it you were just saying?

I was distracted by looking at the map about some woman wanting to punish you? What did you do, what? The goblins, they didn't just kill me because I had killed one of their own, their chief or whatever, and his wife was not very pleased, and so she... The goblin wife.

And so that Beau can be reminded of things that we've already heard, and you killed their chief because why? I was escaping, I was trying to escape. He was trying to escape. Yeah. Why were you captured in the first place? They had captured many of us from the village,

including my husband and my baby, and we escaped one night. I had them. We split off because I was faster, and I drew, well, faster than Yeza. I mean, he's a bit of a nerd, you know? So nerds can be fast? No, they can't. I bet you're like super.

They cannot be. So we split up. They got away, but I was captured, and in my struggle, I got in a good shot. Sounds like it. Caleb's right, we should try and find these goblins again. I know how terrible that must be,

but that would be the fastest way to find them. To do what, though? I mean, find this woman and what, tell her to undo what she has done? Yeah. Otherwise. What if we kill her and it doesn't wear off? What if it's permanent?

What if it's? We will coerce her. We will, yeah. Wait, maybe we can try a greater restoration sort of thing and break a curse. Does that work? Yeah. What would we know about this being a curse?

Does it sound like a curse? You can go ahead and make a religion check. Anything that has a residual laugh on it sure sounds like it. 17. 17. 17. The nature of what prevented you from breaking through this spell

wasn't any sort of abjuration-based defense. It wasn't any sort of arcane deflection. This was something outside of the spectrum of general arcane development. This was something older and something with a little more of a divine or outside magical force than what you're used to dealing with. The best thing you can attribute it to

with your experience is a curse or something that is laid deeply within that could resist a spell such as what you're attempting. It's going to have its own rules. Yeah, which we have encountered curses to an extent before. Lesser ones. Yeah, lesser ones.

And there's no, the only way to break it is to find the caster, is that right? We don't know, but what is the other? The spell magic. What is the alternative? Whoa. Did it work? I don't know. What level did you cast it at? Yeah, we're throwing us a wall. Six.

Okay. Jesus. You cast the spell magic on Nott. Yeah, at sixth level. Okay. Well, maybe it worked. Do you feel any different? You don't look any different. Do you have chills?

Are they multiplying? Are you losing control? Want to remember that? Okay. Voked grace. I feel the same. I hate grace. Fjord would. Fjord would. So the woman that you can remember turning you into this form wasn't a goblin.

It was someone else. No, no. Was she, she was a human? She was a humanoid. From was someone else. No, no. Was she, she was a human? She was a humanoid. From what you can remember, humanoid. Older, robed. You were looking up at her, so it's hard to remember the details, and you only caught a glimpse of her in the surroundings,

but she definitely seemed to be an older humanoid, human-type face, but definitely deep-set lines. You can hear the brief instance of the laughter, and then the only words you recall her saying dealt with, a debt has been paid. Okay, I convey that. A debt has been paid, like, I can pay that.

A debt has been paid, like the goblins owed her a debt? Or no, she owed the goblins a debt. She must have owed them a debt. That's what it sounds like. This goblin wife settled up with whoever this woman was and an exchange was made, and she must be close to that place, and otherwise, you will just have to throw up your hands

and accept it's the only option. Of course, but I mean, we would have to go and find the goblins who did this first, and there's many of them, and they move a lot. I've got Cottonmouth. Does anybody want anything to drink? Where, are we still in the, where are we?

You're still in Essex Tower. We should go, why don't we go? Why don't we go back home? Go back to the Xhorhaus. God, I'm itchy. What is wrong with you? Are you okay? I'm just sweaty all of a sudden.

Let's go back to the, um. You're feeling sick? A little. Yeah, we should get you back then. Yeah. We can pick this up there. She does this, it's an extreme case of syphilis. It surfaces once in a while, so, you know, she takes some sleep. It's in remission.

Yeah. All right. Try to keep it under wraps, but thanks, Caleb. Oh, we are friends. We are. We're good friends, aren't we, Essek? Apparently. My apologies that this did not work in your favor. No, thank you for helping us get this far. Thank you for everything.

Yeah. I hope the cheese was all right. It was delicious. Your pastries could use some work, but the cheese was delicious. I accept the criticism. It's all right if I take a little of the cheese to go. Punish the bakery.

Don't punish Essek. Just order better things next time. I was attempting a joke. Oh. Sorry for digging up your garden back there, too. Ah, it is fine. Easy to fix. Um. Anyway. back there, too. It is fine, easy to fix. Um... Anyway, I've...

Sorry to dash like this. Of course. We could also have you one day put together your guardian again. I can have some servants take care of that. Okay. We will see you soon. She snaps back like that, she's like that.

Wonderful. He gestures for you to make your exit. As you're about to leave, Caleb grabs your shoulder from any of us, like, if it's at all possible, because I helped author the completion of this, would I be able to make a copy of this spell for my own records? Of course.

I would not have been able to do it without you. Wonderful. This is your spell as well as mine. Thank you. And the Archmage's. All right. You all talk so closely when you speak to one another. The Archmages. All right. You all talk so closely when you speak to one another. We didn't want to upset you.

I know how you get when it flares like that, so let's get you home. I start to walk the whole time. Okay, here we go. We're out. All right. Once in the street. Do you really have syphilis? I'm going to check it out. All right. Once in the street. Do you really have syphilis?

No. Because everyone was sharing a hot tub with you. What's going on? Yeah, seriously. I feel splotchy. Are you okay? You look splotchy, what's going on, Beau? Were you just trying to leave?

No, I just, well, I was also just trying to leave. Oh my god, what if there was some shit in the clay or something? Nott, how do you feel? Maybe there were parasites or something. What the fuck are you talking about? She wasn't in the clay. Are you actually itchy?

No, I just, it's all freakishly familiar. It's reminding me of stuff that my father babbled about all the fucking time. What is, my story? Let's take this back to the Shaw House. Okay. Caleb starts just walking towards the home. I'm pretty sure I broke the curse or not.

We should just try this spell again. I'm pretty sure I broke it. I should try it. Is there an actual rash happening here? Is Beau? Your perception of 19. Yeah, my passive perception is

like a cartoon eagle. Yeah. Beyond just the red marks for her scratching, doesn't appear to be any sort of actual rash or rage. He's, itchy. Yeah. Itchy check. Beyond just the red marks for her scratching, doesn't appear to be any sort of actual rash or rashes. He's mentally itchy. Can I come over and just, may I look at whatever? Yeah, whatever.

Can I, do you mind if I take, is that what itches over there? What? Are you actually having a rash? Is that? No, I think I just. These are just scratch marks, they rub those on. These are just scratch marks. She's scratching herself.

We're focusing on the wrong part of the role play, everybody. Do you think you're allergic to a fabric, or? Is it? She started wearing a hat. Do you have a hot tub with you? Does she have an EpiPen? She has a hot tub. Of course I carry an EpiPen? She has a pen in her heart.

Of course I carry an EpiPen. You're going to touch that chair. So are we back at the Xhorhaus yet? Yes, we're back at the Xhorhaus. Oh, here we are at the Xhorhaus. Beau! Let's make sure that you don't come into contact with any synthetic fabrics.

Did you mention this to me? No. Sit down. Mom, sit down. Both of you sit down. I think in this instance, we should definitely focus on Beau, because she's in way worse shape than I am. Maybe an oatmeal bath or something. Here, wait.

No, no, wait, that's not, no. What do you have? You said you had cottonmouths. Yeah. Is that oatmeal? Oh yeah. We just passed the dramatic scenario. It's water. Sorry, she didn't say, now it's trumpet. Where did you find all these instruments, Yasha?

I have learned that a trumpet helps with cotton mouth. Oh. I'll show you the kids. It's just a line of going. Nope. Mm, mm. Rewind, rewind, rewind. Wow.

It's out. Yep, off the rails. You said that it reminded you of something. What? My dad said he made a deal with a woman in the woods, like an old fortune teller woman. Okay. For what? Did he say she had a weird laugh,

or that she was in robes, and she did something with goblins? What was the deal for? He wanted to be successful, and to be wealthy, and to have the ability to marry my mother. He was just a poor asshole street urchin who is in love with this lady of the town. And it worked?

In a way, it's... He built his entire fucking life around this fortune teller, around a fucking tarot deck, basically. But did it work? Is he rich? Is he married to your mom? Yeah.

Yeah, but she said that he would just... He would be successful, and that she told him that he would just he would be successful and that she told him that he should start, he should buy a plot of land and just try farming and he ended up buying this shitty piece of land that

no one wanted because they couldn't grow anything and he was able to get grapes to grow and then he turned it into this really successful winery but he busted his ass doing grapes to grow. Then he turned it into this really successful winery, but he busted his ass doing it. It wasn't that he had fortune, or the future told, he just... But what about the woman?

What did she... Did he say how he found her? Did she talk about debts or something? Also, you two live very far away from each other. Do you? Many fairy tales with an old crone in the woods. Well, here's the thing. You're up here, right?

Where are you, Beau? Yeah, Pratt's Ball. Beau is here. Felduin is over here. Yeah, but if she lives in the mountains or something, maybe Beau's, maybe she's here. They're only four inches from each other. Should we ask your dad? Is Mount Materi?

What is Mount Materi? Ring a bell? What is that? What does that mean? Mount Materi actually is right in this region. See, that's days, that's a couple days traveling from Fderwind. I mean, we're really. Is that where he met this woman?

He said he walked on foot. He heard about some woman who could trade. She had a home in the woods, in the mountains? He had a home in the woods, and he just walked barefoot until he eventually found her. I'm setting up a little circle. And he asked how he could find his own wealth, and she told him that he would be successful,

and that he would have a successful winery, and then he would marry the woman he loved, and that he would birth a young Beau to inherit the family business. And he took it so literally that he named me Beau. Oh. Well, your dad is super, super suspicious.

Yeah. This piece of jade that he gave me, it's the only thing that I keep on me. It was the only real gift he ever gave me because he thought it would protect me. He always gave me good luck trinkets. It's just a piece of trinket. Are you sure it's just a good luck trinket?

Just a piece, just a jade necklace. Holy shit, you never checked. Ooh, Caleb, check it out. Is it fancy? I feel like, okay, you know, this has been a rough day, but in the last six hours, we've learned that Caduceus and Fjord are brothers. We've not learned that.

And that we've learned everything about you and me. Maybe we should all just say everything that's ever happened to us in our lives. I've told this story before. Well, I've told my story before. Why didn't you hear it before? Because a woman dousing you in a river could be any old woman.

I don't know. It's hard to hear on this side of the table. woman dousing you in a river could be any old woman. I don't know. It's hard to hear on this side of the table. I have a gun, cast, and commune. I thought it was a coincidence. I didn't think it had any merit to connect our pasts. It sounded vague enough. I don't know.

How can, can you ask your father what this woman looked like? What was her name? Or where she was found, or? Can you send him a message? You've connected with his father or her father? Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, you freaked him out. Okay, okay, okay, okay.

What if I send him a message, I pretend to be the old woman. Of course, that's a no-brainer. Yeah. Didn't you do that once already? Well, I didn't know who I was pretending to be. I just spit a little bit. I didn't know who I was pretending to be,

but this time I will pretend to be the old woman. So you're going to say, hi, I'm the old woman who... What's my name? What's my name? And where do I live? Where do I live? Tell me that! If you can tell me that, then you're free from all your curses. Do you want to do that? About that moment, you see Caduceus,

who has prepared a small circle of trinkets and pliments around the ground, fall into a momentary trance. Caduceus, all the sounds of chatting and bickering and confused raised voices here in the house begin to fade as you feel the familiar warm breeze blow over you. You can sense the clouds above traveling at a far greater speed.

Time begins to accelerate, but slow to a crawl simultaneously, and you feel the warm, familiar presence of your protector. Does the woman who cursed Nott live? The breeze comes cold and biting, not in a way to deny it, but in a way that shivers the truth through you. Has this creature ever had a conversation

with Beau's father? The cold breeze rescinds and then blows with equal strength. Oh. Is that a yes or a no? Can't you read him? That's a yes from me. MATT and LAURA MATT and LAURA sigh.

Does my family wait for me at the Menagerie? The cold breeze comes once more, but this time it turns warm to confirm as well, but this answer with less intensity. But all confirmations, nonetheless. Good. I regret my weakness.

What did you learn, Caduceus? What does that mean? We need to go see your father. What do you mean you regret your weakness? Oh, that wasn't for you. We need to talk to your father. I don't want to. Oh yeah, but if to talk to your father. I don't want to. Oh yeah, but if we talk to your dad,

we don't have to go see the goblins. More to the point, we don't know where the goblins are, but we do know where your father is. If you don't want to talk to your father, I could do it. Ha, I'm Beau, I don't give a fuck. Fuck you, Dad. That's pretty good, actually. When was the last time that you saw your dad?

The night he slapped me across the face as I was getting drug out by the monks. Ooh. He slapped you as you were leaving? Yeah. I really don't like your dad. Yeah, I'm starting to like him even less than I did before. He's a complicated man.

I don't know, that didn't sound too complicated. Yeah, but for our friend, would you? Would you? Yeah. Our friend, would you? Would you? Yeah. Thank you, Beauregard. Yes, thank you. But do we need to go there in person? It's very far away.

It's kind of close to Rexxentrum. Oh, would we not go there in person? Closest to Zadash. Can we just send a message, or? If we're going to go find her, we got to go there anyway. It's true. Yeah, we need to go to that region.

We could warn your father that we are coming. I could take us to Zadash, we could travel on foot. I don't know if this is a conversation I want to have in 25 words. We should go in person. You want to just show up at the doorstep? Wait, wait, wait. He threw me off the doorstep, so

why can't I just fucking show up? That's right. I'll also point out that probably he'd have a hard time throwing you off the doorstep again at this point. That's true. We could throw him off the doorstep and slap him across the face right as we do it. But also be nice enough

so that he'll tell us the information that we have. We can make him talk if we're mean. Jesus. In all seriousness, I do have it on pretty good authority that there is something to be gained by seeing one's parents once we've matured enough to see how fragile they are. I appreciate all of you,

you know, committing to go and do these things on my behalf, but we had a plan. We have a plan. We're going to Caduceus' family, and we are going to meet, we have to. I think we've, have we sent the boat to meet us already, or no? It's weeks away. Weeks.

We still have time. But this is the other direction by thousands of miles. Not really. It is, though. The Menagerie is where? South. Straight down. I can just tell Orly, it's been, like, what, an hour? He hasn't left yet?

I can tell Orly, hey, don't meet us there, meet us in Nicodranas. It's not just about that. I mean, there's no immediacy. We don't have to find this woman today. Caduceus, you were on a path. I don't know if I'm quite ready yet. You seemed to be.

Hmm. I don't know. I mean, it's not just you either. You've got a brother now. I mean, he wants to meet his family, too. No, it's not, no, nope. I see the resemblance. Listen, you can't deny the immense coincidence involved.

Of course, yes. That has to mean something. I don't think it does. I think it does mean something, I just don't necessarily think that we know what it means. And... I've... I mean, it's pretty obvious.

No, it really isn't. You have the same nose. We really don't. No, he is a totally different. Literally, it couldn't be more different. His hair is far better than mine. Accents are the same. I mean, I like your hair.

You share a calling. Yeah. Well, that. Just that. That's a lot. Yeah, that's a lot. And sometimes coincidences are just coincidences. Exactly. Sometimes, though, it means that, you know, your dad interacted with the person that,

you know, cursed your friend. We know that for sure. Is that all just a coincidence? Yeah, we got confirmation from the Wild Mother. It's, yeah, I mean. We're going in the right direction. Fjord, talk to the Wild, oh, I'm sorry, your Caduceus. Get them mixed up sometimes, because they're so similar.

It's bothered me. I've been trying to think of a way to help you for a long while, not what I can do to... Everyone else is easier to help with their struggles. You were complicated and it's been difficult. It's nice to finally have a path forward as a way to help you. Yes, plus, what if this is not the only hold

that she has over you? I mean, she prevented a tremendously powerful spell from taking effect. What if there's something else? We have to find out what this leads to. We don't have to confront your dad or even involve you if you're really uncomfortable about it. We're not forcing anyone to do anything,

but I think we need to clear your ledger. You do have access to the library, to research if you want. In Zadash? Well, in pretty much any of the Koboltsal libraries, but that's the nearest one there. It's all we have been working toward. I know, but, you know, if I'm being honest,

we got so close and, I mean, I had a little bit of a cold, cold feet. What do you mean? How do you feel now? You got really close, you committed to it. I know. Do you feel relieved? A little bit, yeah. Sometimes when you play Eenie, Meenie, Minie, Moe,

because you don't know which choice you want, and then you get to the moe, and then you know at the end if you wanted the thing or if you didn't want the thing by what you land on. You know what I mean? It kind of makes the choice for you when you find out what you can and can't do. I know what you mean. I do know what you mean.

Yeah. I'm looking for something. But. Well put. I mean, I have to pursue it. I do want to be me again. It just, it was happening so fast. It was a little scary. I mean, Caduceus, you said you're not ready yet.

I don't know if I'm ready yet. I don't know if I'm ready yet. I don't know if I'm ready to see my dad yet, but that's a bunch of us waiting for something to happen to us. I've accepted the inevitability that when we head towards Traveler, that we're going to be right where I need to be. That's inevitable.

That's gravity pulling me there. I don't, I think we have to spend the time before that doing as much as we can for everybody. How long has it been, Beau, since you've seen your father? How many years? Two, three? Close to three years. Three?

What can happen in that amount of time? How would we get there? Teleport. Teleport to Zadash. It's still days away. A couple days. Yeah, a few days, but then it would take us to Nicodranas. It's not that far on horseback. I know, I've done the trek.

Yeah, we ride. Has he reached out to you since? I got a letter from my mother about six months or so, maybe more, being at the Cobalt Soul, saying that they had been granted their greatest wish and had a son. Named him Thoreau Jr. after my father.

How many years ago? I guess he's like two now. You have never met your brother? Do you want to? It's hard to even think of him as my brother. Why? No connection or context for the kid. He's just a name and a letter.

I wonder if when you see him, you'll feel that way. Maybe. You said that the woman told your father that he would have a bow, and that that would do what? That that would complete the spell, or what is that? Young Beau to take on his name, continue his bloodline, and take over his family business, and all of those things, and.

Beau means like your boyfriend or something. Or boy. Beau is just a boy. I think so. It has a few different interpretations. He thought he was getting a boy. So as soon as my mom got pregnant, he got really sad on that son. You know, for a long time,

I tried to bid my life to what he wanted. I was willing to take over the family business. I just wanted to do it my way. And he didn't want that. What did your way look like? I liked traveling and fighting and talking to people. So I wanted to take the Lionette Wine and take it to neighboring cities

and expand it into Zadash and make it this big name. And I tried to convince him several times to load up a cart and a couple of horses and give me a few crates and let me take off and see what I could do, selling crates to different taverns, if anyone who would take it. He thought that that was a useless waste of time and that I would get hurt,

something would happen to me, and that it was best if I just learned how to crunch numbers and do accounting and balance books. He didn't want me to leave. He never wanted me to leave because he was terrified that fate was going to come knocking at his door. And then one day I realized that I was fate was going to come knocking at his door.

And then one day I realized that I was building my whole life around what someone else told him his life was going to be. And that it was in this fucking cycle of everyone chasing a destiny. Empire fathers do love their sons. Yes, they do. Sounds like he was very protective of you. He was.

It always felt selfish. Like if something happened to me, his entire fucking dynasty would come crumbling down around him. I have a picture of your family now. They're very successful in this area. Does that mean that you lived on an estate? Is there security?

Does your father have men? Or is it as simple as walking up and knocking on the door? Pretty big winery, big house, few stories. Very upper class life that he built. Does my dad have any men when he had Brawnyguards? Might be a couple. He'd probably have a couple of folks that worked to both just watch the premises they lived at

and to keep watch on storage of their wines, as well as the process. I relay the message. Does he know how capable you are in Battle Bow? Because you're one of the best fighters I've ever seen. I don't know what he knows. Hmm. Him giving me away was the greatest thing

that ever happened to me. He led me to all of you. We should let them know that. Let them see what got away. We have to speak to him. Even if we don't go trudging into the mountains or into the middle of a goblin camp, we need to find out.

We have talked about it for ages. Yeah, I know, I know. Yes, you're right. You're right. We have the time now. We can follow this trail as far as we want and Beau can lead. Yes, and I suppose even after we find this woman,

we don't have to do the thing right away. Exactly. If I'm not feeling it right, we can. It is an open offer. We go find the woman, we destroy her, or we destroy the curse, whichever. At least we take a step in that direction. And then you can be free to do whatever you want to. If we destroy her or destroy her magic,

does that somehow mean that Beau's father will lose everything? Hmm. I don't think so. Possible. I don't think so. Possible. I don't think so, either. Like, he won't die or anything, right? Won't be sort of like a back to the future situation? Maybe we'll protect him,

because whatever deal he made with her, I'm sure she traded something pretty valuable for it. I don't know if there's any way to know. I threw the sword and the lava and that was it. I'm sure if we did your Fjord, right? That was it for Uk'otoa. Uk'otoa. Sorry, Trump, I'm staff again.

You got to stop doing that. It's getting tighter and tighter each time. It's splintering into pieces. Should get a new one. Thank you, thank you. It's nunchucks now, dope! I don't know, I think that if we did destroy this woman, it would not undo time, it would,

maybe at worst, spoil the land, if that. Well, it's evening now? No, it's after all the work and preparing for the ritual, what you guys did, it's afternoon. I mean, do we go now? I say we go now. Let's go. If we're going through Zadash

and we're going through the Cobalt Soul, we can do a little bit of research first before we leave. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Sweet, sweet, sweet, sweet, sweet, sweet. So we go now and then get horses and leave in the morning from? Yeah, we can always do the night in my room. Oh yeah, all of us just pile in.

Yeah. This is exciting. Totally serious, but exciting. Yeah, yeah, no, yeah, it's exciting, yeah. Yep. Doing it? We're doing it? Let no, yeah, it's exciting, yeah. Yep. Doing it? We're doing it? Let's do it, we're on our way. All right.

All right, hang on, everyone make sure everything's unplugged. Let's turn off the hot water heater. Oven's off. All right. I'm going to go upstairs, check everything. There's some fruit over here, should we just throw it out? Just take it, just no, put it in my bag, put it in the bag, I need the fruit. You can bring it.

I mean, what are we going to do with 12 oranges? Take them with us. Really? Yeah, I will eat that shit. Caleb goes to their shared laboratory and just does 90% of what is required to travel to Sadaash and waits till everyone's ready. Fair enough. Drain the hot tub.

You drain your hot tub. Mom, that is going to take forever to fill back up. If you don't want to come back to the green water, it's terrible. Best for everything. Yeah. All righty. Is there anything specific that we need to prep

before you make your way towards Caleb's teleportation circle? You ready? I feel pretty good. I know. Did we need to prep anything? Suck yourself up, son. That gets really sweaty. Suck yourself up. We don't need to tell Essek we're leaving.

We don't need to do anything. No. I'm going to tell Essek we're leaving. Yeah, last thing I said to him is that we would see him soon, so. Okay, yeah, I'm going to send Essek a message. All right. Hey, Essek, I'm going to send Essek a message. All right. Hey, Essek, we're going to find that evil laughing lady,

so that means we'll be back, I don't know when. We'll be at the negotiations, though, don't worry. Breakfast was fun. He got most of that. Okay. I'm ready to go. He responds. Very well. I have my own business He responds. Very well. I have my own business to attend to as well. So good luck, and we shall cross paths again very soon.

He says he loves you so much, Caleb, and he'll miss us. What? You did? Yeah, he was like, Caleb is so little. Yeah, yeah, yeah, inside check, yeah. That was great. That is a 23. Aw.

Make a deception check, Jester. Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah, roll for his roll. Oh, boom! Oh! Seven. All righty. You've gathered your things from the Xhorhaus.

Fuck me. You go and meet Caleb in the laboratory as he completes the majority of the teleportation circle with the central sigil that leads you towards Zadash. Zadash. He finishes the final marking. You see it light up in the familiar sense. The doorway is open.

You rush through one after another. Will people see what they're becoming? Shit! Oh my god! Ocean stuff. Yep. We are the worst. Oh. So much to track, man. So much to track.

We turn to the familiar underground teleportation nexus of the Cobalt Soul, where two of the guards, suddenly spin around. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to do the last marking on the floor. I got a little overexcited. It's all right, it's all right.

Keep reading the protocol. It's my bad, I should remember. I'm the one that does it. I should have sent him. It was a Sunday, I wasn't thinking of people and being in on office hours. What's a Sunday? What's a Sunday? There's sun every day.

That's hitting the mind real hard. It's fun. It's hard. It's fast. Oh, it's fast. Where's the energy? Then you lose track of the days. Then your ears fall off. You're the old prone, it's you. Let's research some shit.

All right. So you have access to the kobold itself. If there's anything you want to specifically try and research, now's the time to do so. Is there a book on old women who can grant wishes? There's got to be, right? Like myths in the local myths? Yeah, yeah.

Well, what is it you're trying to research, I guess is more the question. Otherworldly deal makers? Old ladies in woods. Women that trade in fortune. The mysterious women who grant wishes who live in the forest calendar of this year. It's got to be a calendar.

There are no titles matching their search. I found a calendar for men with plants this week. Not kidding, it's just pictures of men with plants. They've got a calendar for everything. Don't Google that. Don't Google it. Nattelus and Endurus. Who wants to research what?

What preparation are you doing? Who's looking for what? I'm going to hit local myths. Local myths. Like that sound like old hags in here. Yeah, fairy tales in Komoda. I will assist Beauregard. I'm going to do some research, too.

I'm going to do any books about goblin movements around goblin shit. Go ahead and make, if you're assisting, go ahead and make an investigation check with advantage. Yay for advantage! 24. 24. 23.

23, still pretty damn good. That's actually good. Okay. So what you end up finding is a record of somewhat, I'd say known, but at least spoken about soothsayers and hermits that fits similar to the realm of what you're looking for

within the region of the Marrow Valley. There's a number of them. There's some that are up north. There's some that wander through the Sirius Mountains, like on the Menagerie Coast side. There's a talking of one hermit that lives way, way out in the Menagerie Coast, this female protector of the island creatures.

All these different unique stories and stuff. There's two that you find that are local to the area you're looking in the Marrow Valley. One is Isharnai the Prism Sage. Isharnai the? Isharnai the Prism Sage. Do I dare ask you to spell that? I-S-H-A-R-N-A-I.

Ishtar. The Prison Sage? The Prison Sage. A woman who lives alone among the Sirius Mountain woods north of the Bromkin Hills. She wields strange magics, weaving boons and hexes for those who make the journey to find her, demanding high prices for her deeds,

sometimes beyond mere coin. You also find Old Maskier. Old? Old Maskier. Mas. M-A-S-Q-I-E-R. Oh. Yeah, that's a better spell. Old Maskier is a gnarled gnome of terse temperament

who migrates through the Siren Green Forest. Known to take sides with the forest over civilization, he has both been a healer and an adversary to some over the decades, depending on the disposition when encountering them. That's a man? That's a gnome? A gnome-ish man? Yes. That sounds like Nottelreiter.

What was his name? Old? Old Maskir. Old Maskir. Siren Green Forest, is that his name? Correct. Where is that? Oh, I don't know. The Siren Green Forest is here. Okay.

Okay. And the other is north of the Bromkin Hills. North of the Bromkin Hills. Love that. I'm excited by both of these options. Well, it's not all Masky Air. It's got to be Ishar and I. Is that it, or are those the other ones?

Those are the two that you find that match what you're looking for loosely, as far as hermited sages and soothsayers, people that deal in the sort of stuff that you're looking for in the region. Any other detail on Ysharnai? She's old, doesn't say how long these stories go back, anything?

The stories go back about 50 or so years. I feel right. And they're just kind of, they're just loose mutterings of people who had encounters with both of them. Here's another snack, try these. Okay. All right, that's my roll. Okay. That's pretty good.

Right? Yeah. Hey, maybe I can try scrying on Ysharnai. Describe what she looks like again. That's pretty good. Right? Yeah. Hey, maybe I can try scrying on Ysharnai. Describe what she looks like again. Well, she's a human, so sort of like Beau, except way older. Okay. And not strong like Beau, and also with a hood, and also not looking anything like Beau, and also with a hood,

and also not looking anything like Beau in any way. So basically just human. Like a human. Like an old-ass human. Yeah, yeah, like saggy jowls and... Are you sure it was a human and not a half-elf? You know what, I'm really not, no. Humanoid, old-ass humanoid.

Old-ass humanoid. In robes. Yeah, that day. Okay. And she said, debt paid, and her voice sounded like this, I debt paid. Sounded like you. Yeah. Okay. If you want to roll an intelligence check for me.

Just a straight intelligence? 13. 13, okay. You have a fairly decent recollection of what she looks like from the brief moment you encounter. You actually have a pretty good mental image. Can you make yourself look like her? I can try. I will cast whatever that is.

Disguise Self. Disguise Self, thank you. And do my best. There's some blurry bits. Okay. Yeah. There's no hood beyond the one that Nott has, so there's no clothing element to it, but from the face that you can see, you see what appears to be a humanoid woman,

elongated features, very high cheekbones that ride the side of the face and back far, jowls that sink very deep but then hang below and almost like a droopy dog-type aesthetic, though far less adorable. Though you see it. These dull green eyes.

Does she look human to me or does she look otherworldly to me? It rides a line. Because I didn't see her hair, I'm going to just make it a mohawk. And because I didn't see her body very much, I'm just going to make it look like three kobolds. I'm going to focus on the face.

Okay. But it is quite a sight for the rest of it. Okay, okay, okay, okay, okay. I'm going to try to scry on her. Okay, so you're sitting around to attempt a scry ritual. Yeah, in the library. Okay. As you're sketching it up, one of the monks goes like,

I'm sorry, miss? Huh? There with me. What? I'm not, what? Nothing, continue. No, just shut up. That with me. One. Another what? Nothing, continue. No, just shut up and leave. That's awesome.

Yeah. You finish the spell, you close your eyes, reach your consciousness out to the Traveler to take you where it needs to be. Hello. Mm. Uh-oh. Uh-oh.

There's another one over there. The Traveler, you see the sleeves emerge from the ether around you, like the imagery of the arms touching and framing yours, like a papa bear over the cub. Kind of like matching my tattoo? A little bit, yeah. As you do, you feel your consciousness drift

out of the library, brought up into the clouds once more, rushed through the darkened, rain-bearing sky until eventually you're brought down rapidly through fog and through mist into the treetops. You come through bramble forests and dark, dangerous wood and rocky mountainside cliffs before you come to rest in what seems like the interior of some sort of a house. Small, dense, cluttered, organized.

In a way, everything has its place, but it is very, very jam-packed filled. You see at the radius what looks like the outline of many collected books, papers, broken lanterns in pieces, elements of animal bone. You can see a large collection of jars and vials of things that you can't quite make out

the details of what's inside. You see, just in the corner, what looks to be a collection of stones that are arranged in a pattern. Then in the center of the chamber, you see a woman wrapped in heavy, tattered robes with these long elements of gold trim rope wrapped around,

shoulder to side, shoulder to side, holding it on in a very unique, ready-to-travel pattern. You see the familiar face of her, currently looking down and grasps some of these arranged runes in the side. What are her arms? Are her arms long?

Her arms are long, the fingers extending outward, reminding you of Keona the Keen, though with a physicality that matches. Ooh. The movement seems, while you were debating the human aspect of her with the visual element of the illusion, the human aspect of her with the visual element of the illusion,

the physicality of her definitely scatters any idea of your standard human soothsayer. Unable to really gauge size, it's hard to tell, but the movements themselves are sweeping unnatural grace to rapid grasps and then snatching as she takes some of these arranged runes. And you can see to the ground in front of her,

there are these unique sketches with what looks almost like charcoal of some kind that give these small circles. She takes the runes and scatters them onto the ground as they all scatter and then arrange, almost like there are magnets holding them to place. Do the runes look familiar to me at all? They're just outside of the range to make any detail,

but you can see them hitting and scattering into place. Okay. At which point, her eyes go. Oh! Hello. Ocean. Who's this I see? Um, Fiona Fancypants.

You can't converse through it. Oh no. But she just slowly stands up, very aware of the scrying arcane bobble that you've sent there, and just puts the arms almost wrapping around it, and just goes, Ah.

Ah, my curiosity is piqued. I hope this means I'm having visitors. And it slams out. Ah! Oh, are you okay? What happened? Oh my god, she's so scary, she's so scary! She knew I was there, she knew I was crying on her. Oh my god! Did she threaten you?

Did she see you? Did she know who you are? I don't know. I don't know if she saw me. I don't know if she saw who I was. I don't know, I don't know. She just said that she thought she was going to have company because she saw that I was looking at her. She had really long hands and long arms and she's scary as fuck.

There goes the element of surprise. Oh my god. Oh my god. She must be very magical. Her face was so close to my scrying eye. It was so close. Did you see up her nose? I mean, I saw hair coming out of it. I saw a booger hanging on the side of her nostril.

That's how close she was. Did she say anything? She said, What is this curiosity? See, I told you she sounded like that. Yeah, she sounds good. Can you disguise yourself and make it look like her? Oh my god, I just cast Disguise Self,

and I do it so everyone can see how scary she was. Ooh! Oh! And she goes like that. Oh, with the fingers? And then she would go like this, and I'm like. What is that? You can see the gnarled clumps of hair

that drift out of the sides of the robe themselves, tangled and knotted into these large gathered rats' nests. I walk up and start dancing next to Fjord. Oh! Please, please no. There are now four members of the Cobalt Soul Library that are about 25 feet away going.

It's all right. A few others are coming to join. We are the Mighty Nein. Put one of us here. Can we get bubble service over here? What's wrong with you? Are you okay? I'm okay. Does that ring any bells, that visage? Wait, have you seen this person?

No! What's wrong with you? Does this look familiar? Does this look like, this looks like the woman, yeah? Am I traumatizing you or not? Do you want me to drop it? No, I mean, I just looked like her a second ago. That's true. So it's fine.

But then you can't see that part, you know, Demian? That's true. Are you all right? No, it's fine. You do look super creepy, though. Wait, you said she was laughing at you? She was laughing, yes, and she seemed delighted that whatever she did to me worked and that she'd created something horrifying.

You said you were hoping what? Do you know something about her as well? No, I was just going to say if maybe. Because everyone seems to be connected all of a sudden. Oh man, she's really smart. What if she connects the dots that it's you, that it's something about you that was crying on her because she just laughed at you.

How could she do that? What? Because was scrying on her because, you know, she just laughed at you. How could she do that? What? Because she just laughed in your head, you know? That could have been from ages ago. That's true, but maybe she gets senses when it happens, because she's really powerful. Let's go get some drinks. Oh, that's not a bad idea.

We done looking up everything? I think so. Let's go. I take down all of the information on where to find. I draw. Shut up. A D. Yeah, it says,

Sirius Mountain Woods, north of the Bromkin Hills. Some Kama Sutra within the Kobold Soul Books before we leave. Roughly. Okay, goodbye. She drew something in some books. Make a sleight of hand check. Give me guidance. Really? Guide me. For this.

I'm going to guide myself. Sleight of hand. 19. 19? Oh wait, I got a d4 too, and hold on, hold on, I guided myself. I'll remind you that you guided, but I'm not going to guide for you.

20. 20, okay. You proceed to leave a series of Sand in the butter. And as tightly watched as you are, Beau's presence leaves them a little more comfortable with the fact that they're not having to look over your shoulder for the research you're doing. You manage to leave a few of these sketches

within the books you find and put them away without being called on it. You're uncertain if you've been noticed, but you certainly weren't called out or publicly punished for it. We're going to go get a drink. Are we staying in Beau's house tonight, or are we going to stay at Dad's place?

Dad's is a bit ways off. Yeah, we're in Sardache. We probably need to find a place to stay for the evening and set out in the morning. Beau's house was the plan. Beau's house is... I mean, Beau's place. You're talking about the gentleman. The gentleman, my mama, my dad.

Yeah, the evening nip, the gentleman. We got the room there, too, you know? Wherever we want to go. Maybe we'll see where we end up after we drink. But Beau's room is nicer. But gentleman's house is your dad, right? Yep. Dad sees the theme of the day. That is my dad.

Should we go get drinks out of the leaky nip and then... It's the evening nip. And then see if you... Have you told us that before? Have you told us that dad bit? I mean, I suspected it, right? You have confirmation? Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, I'm assuming that I told you. Okay, yeah. Little roommates, that's assuming that I told you. Okay, yeah.

Little roommates, that's all. This is Jester to Marisha. Yeah. But yeah, you guys, he definitely told me. He is definitely, totally my dad. Yasha, my dad is the gentleman. The blue guy? The water? The moisture?

The moist guy. He's, yeah, it's, yeah. I'll drink a water. Who has all of our blood on file. Yeah, but now we know he's going to be cool about it, because he's my dad, he's not going to do anything fucked up. That's really cool. He seemed really cool.

He is. I really, I liked him. I feel weird that he has some of my blood, but I really like him. I think it's very cool that you found your dad. I feel like the moral of the last couple months is dads can do some messed up things. I don't know if my daddy's not going to do anything uncool

is really the moral we're supposed to walk away with. I'm pretty sure that's what it is. Okay. Well, we have options. We can go to the Leaky Tap. We can go to the Evening Nip. We can go to the Song and Supper Inn. It's a karaoke bar.

We can go up to the Pillow Trove. We can go to Chastity's Nook Porn Shop. We can go to Pumat Souls. Did we have anything? Is he making us anything? No. There's a porn shop? No, no, it was really poor.

It was more like cheap. Tusk glove, Yasha. Does anyone got a player's handbook? Oh, that's right. Nope. There's one right there. I don't think I have one. Are we going to go to the karaoke place?

No, it's too loud a karaoke place. Let's go to the gentleman's. People sing. Yeah, let's go to the lady. That's not what singing is, singing is nice. When people do karaoke, they try too hard. No, you have your song that you go, you have a song that you always sing, and you're good at it. Do you have a song

that you always sing? What do you sing? Sweet Caroline. How does it go? Well, it's in, it's in abyssal. I happen to speak abyssal, so I don't know if that's what you're saying. It goes like this.

Wow, I feel like a lot of those, you said you had sentences that sometimes didn't make sense. I learned it like third hand, you know, and I think all the people, you know, they had a selection of songs, and some of them were in Abyssal. I think they got their book from like an Abyssal karaoke bar. Yeah, yeah. That's weird that that's your go-to, though.

Well, I mean, nobody sang those songs, so I felt like those were more open game. Everyone kept singing the same songs all the time. Yeah, because you said something like, good times never felt so flute. Mm-hmm. It was like wrong. I don't get it.

Conjugation. No, I think it's good times never felt so good, I don't get it. Conjugation. No, I think it's Good Times Never Felt So Good, I think. That makes a lot more sense. That doesn't make any sense. Good Times Never Felt So Good? What's the lyrics? Stupid lyrics. Good times never felt so good. No, that's stupid.

No, I think it's flute. It's flute. Good Times Never Felt So Flute. The shit is going on. So karaoke or leaky nip? Oh no. Leaky nip. Yeah, we already got some music from that.

There's the leaky tap and there's the evening nip. Where are you going? Evening nip. We open our own tap. In between the two places. We're going to the Gentleman's. I've got him in the list. Okay. All righty. We should got him in the list. Okay.

All righty. We should save money for the list. That's a good idea. All righty. Both businesses hate us. So, make your way to the familiar dive bar that is the Evening Nip. Remember, you get the password,

now let down within the subterranean bar. It's a bit empty at the moment. At this point, not entirely sure whether people are busy or have other business to take care of. The gentleman is not immediately in the bar, but you are recognized upon arrival and are allowed your use of the space. There is a bartender there who's in the process

of half sleeping in the corner, that as soon as you approach and speak with the familiar ogre bodyguard of the interior, he's like, All right. Looks at you and the bartender shoots up and, Can I get you drinks? Yeah, my dad said give us whatever we want.

Oh, she's a wild and crazy guy. What would you want then? Whatever they want! Whiskey. Whiskey? Oh, whiskey all around. Whiskey. Juice. Whiskey juice? Milk.

I really hope he brings you a whiskey juice. What's a whiskey juice? Exactly. Just like that? Brings around shots. Shot of whiskey, shot of whiskey, shot of whiskey, shot of whiskey, shot of whiskey, milk, juice, whiskey. All right, bottoms up.

That is a very, very terrible tasting, strong, pungent juice. Very strong bite to it. I got something for this, hold on. Same with the milk. Mm! That's a whiskey to it. I got something for this, hold on. Same with the milk. That's a whiskey milk. Ooh. That's a whiskey milk.

I'm going to put a little, just a tiny bit of that. I've been saving some of that hallucinogenic fruit that I've now preserved as best I can. I'm just going to use it like nutmeg and see if I can fix this a bit. Put some in here, too. Okay, there we go. Okay. Upgrading this night.

You're making a white shrapasian again? It helps with the sting of the flavor. Oh, I want that. Yeah. So you enjoy some drinks, you have a space, you know, to relax for a bit. Can I ask around for your pops or no? Yeah, I'm going to go find my dad's office, go say hello.

Okay. I'm going to cast Disguise Self to still look just like me, except for in my clothes with my hair. I knew it! Aw, what a little little dude. Just try and be off in the periphery, sitting next to you. But you're super tall now. No, I can actually, yeah, I can do that.

Jester, have you ever had alcohol before? Yes. You have? Yeah. But not many times. Not many times. I didn't down my milk. You can have my milk, whiskey milk, if you want it. I feel like I'm, okay.

It's got some lumps in it, that's, you know. Oh, it would curdle. Those are the good parts. Yeah, it'd curdle. It'd got some lumps in it. That's, you know. Oh, it would curdle. Those are the good parts. Yeah, it'd curdle. It'd curdle. Oh. It's chewy. That's a very interesting taste. It's got chunks.

Yeah, I feel like I would just get the whiskey next time, maybe. Yeah. You're starting to feel a little funny. Yeah. Hello, I'm Fjord. I'm trying, wait, wait. Hello, I'm Fjord. I'm trying, wait, wait. You're asking for accents? Hello, I'm Fjord.

Yeah, that's. Are you being old Fjord or current Fjord? Trying to do your accent. It's hello, old. That's pretty good. That's not bad. Say this. I don't know, I can't remember. I don't know, I can't remember. It's just like don't know, I can't remember. I don't know, I can't remember.

It's just like him. No, I can't remember. I can't remember. Hit us with an Eldritch Blast. Eldritch Blast! Ooh, that's hard to say. Blast, Blast. You got caught up in the moment,

and you're just going like, just, Eldritch Blast. It's really cool when you do that, though. I just wanted to, you know, it's pretty cool when you do that. As you come to the office door. Dad! Dad! Dad, it's me. Yes?

Dad, it's Jester, I'm here to say hi. Open the door. Okay. Hi. As you walk inside his office, you can see his desk currently is strewn with some papers and he's putting something away and turning in his chair to read.

Ah, I had no idea you'd be joining me. Well, I didn't either. We just found out. Well, welcome. Are your friends here as well? They are, they're drinking. I told them it's on the house. Sure.

So, what have you been up to? Business. What have you been up to? Oh my god, you don't, I tell him everything, just like a launch into the whole thing. As it progresses, he just leans further and further back in his chair, until he hits the back of the chair. Yeah, so anyway, we got to find this weird,

creepy lady who totally saw me scrying on her. We got to find out what the deal with it is, we can break the curse, then we got to go to the negotiations, then Traveler Con, and somewhere we're fitting into that Clay's family stuff. One of these days, I'm going to have to teach you something I've learned at a very young age, which is how to not have to do everything yourself.

It's much easier. Okay, I'm okay with that. Teach me your ways. In time. Have you called Mom? Have you sent her a letter? Have you gone to see her? Have you been like, oh my gosh, I miss you?

No, there's been a lot to take care of here. There's, in the midst of, well, conflict, if done right, in the Empire, can be a very profitable endeavor, but one has to be very on top of their organization to maintain it. So I've been working a lot. Will you make me, well,

will you do me a favor? Possibly. If by any chance, when people offer you things or whatever, you come across smuggled items that resemble the beacons that I told you about. Right, right. If you come across anything like that, will you let me know before you try to sell it

to another person? For you, yes. Thank you. I'll send you messages every once in a while, just so you can get it to me if you, you know. Because we travel around a lot, you won't know where I am, so. Of course. Okay. If I don't respond, don't take it personally,

I might be indisposed. Like how? Many things. Okay, okay, okay, okay, here's the thing. What if I send you a message, and you should have a way to communicate with me that you're in the spouse, so that I can know you're not just in trouble,

but you're boning somebody, or you're in a meeting or something. You could be like, or you could be like, what if you just cough when I send, or you say like... A cough, a cough will do well. I'll cough, and we'll pick it up another time. All right, all right, all right.

Look at us, we have a code. Can I sleep in the room tonight that you said we could have? Sure, sure. Thank you, Dad. I'll arrange it. He laughs in spite of himself. You can see him trying to organize being in a deep moment of thought

and the whirlwind of chaos that is Jester just blowing in like a storm. And in spite of his momentary frustration, he can't help but crack a smile. Well, say hello to your friends for me. Okay. Close the door on your way out. I smile. Well, say hello to your friends for me. Okay. Close the door on your way out. I will. We have a room!

So do you have to say Eldritch Blast every time, or is that part of the spell, or do you just do it because it's just like, I've always wondered, is it just like a- Showmanship, right? It's like going whoosh. It's also like stay clear, because shit's about to go down.

Oh, so it's for art. Hail to itch Bly-as. You could try it for other things. You could say, magicians judge, and be really like, judge. I'm going to hit you. Maybe work that phrase more, it's kind of ordinary. I'm going to kill you.

I'm going to kill you. Yeah. Ooh, that's good, too. kind of ordinary. I'm going to kill you! I'm going to kill you! Yeah. Ooh, that's good, too. I like that. Here it comes! You're okay. Sometimes, though, it's also good not to telegraph what you're about to do before you do it, because then you surprise them more.

What if you go, I'm going to heal you, and then you magicians judge? You know, branding's very important, so maybe instead of I'm going to hit you, what about I'm going to judge you? Ooh! Wow. You have been judged!

Oh, that's good. That's good, that's after you killed Caduceus. The jury's going to deliberate. And Caduceus could be like, I'm going to drop a deuce on you. Ooh! I'm going to do the deuce. Yep.

Jester, how did it go with your dad? Oh my god, you guys, he loves me so much. Of course he does, what's there not to love? What's not to love? He said we could have a room. He said that we could have free drinks. He said that if he runs across any beacons, he'll let us know.

Oh, that's nice. Do you happen to ask him about any magical women in the woods or anything? No, I mean, we already know what exactly we're looking for here. Maybe he's interacted with her in the past. Oh my god. I'll pick up my drink and head over to where Beau is.

Mm. How are you doing? I'm great. Your histamine reactions are going again. Yeah. I've been away from Zadash for a little bit, so the pollen is kicking a little, you know? I take it you don't fully, fully hate your dad.

It's got to be hard to hear this. Everyone wants to make their dad proud, you know? She's open he could... He could show some of that. You don't know that he can't. It's been years. You've grown, you've changed. I'm sure you were even more of an unbearable shit before.

I'm not saying he deserves a second chance, but he is your father, and you do have a mother and brother that you've never met. I guess it's hard when the word inevitable has been brought up several times the past 24 hours amongst us. I feel like I've found my family with Mighty Nein. I don't like looking at my past because

it doesn't have the Mighty Nein in it. I think I put off the inevitable because I'm afraid it's going to be like my past. I don't think one contaminates the other. You've got good, solid footing here. I mean, shit, if we want to run, we run. If we want to kick his ass, we'll kick his ass. Yeah. I don't want to kick his ass.

And I don't want to run. Could I ask you, in your wildest dreams, and feel free to say if you don't want to tell me, what would you have happen when we go there? I think I've worked so hard because I scripted this day in my inevitable future, that I would go back to him,

successful woman, respectable member of society, cobalt soul, an expositor, the thing he threw me away to and I embraced. And then I would get mad at myself because I felt like I was doing exactly what he was doing to me my entire life, scripting me to be something else. And I'm still doing it. I haven't seen him in three years

and I'm still trying to be something. And I think what's scary is that I like this and what I found and I don't think it was until Nott started talking about having to go home and go away

that truly started terrifying me. Because for the first time, I'm happy. And what if that goes away? Could always go away. Could go away tonight. The gentleman's debtors could come calling. And I think I know that, and I think I say things to Nott like,

you don't have to put those stipulations on yourself, because I've convinced myself that destiny or the inevitability won't come knocking. If you ignore it, it won't exist, and that's not true. True. It'll be interesting either way. Your face is leaking. I hate it. I won't tell anyone. Don't tell anybody. Yeah.

You're a good friend. You're a good friend. You're a good trainer. We're still working out tomorrow. Suddenly, I feel like your focus arms are here. Fair enough. Thank you. Cool. You're still my captain.

Ball eater or no. Okay. Back to the start. Thank you. As you guys finish your drinks, wind down for the night, share a bit of a rousing toast with the gentleman as he emerges from his work for the day

to congratulate you on the multitude of things that he seems to know about every detail of your travels. Hey! What did I miss? How does he? What did I miss? Just have it ready. Okay. You're all very talented, it seems, or extremely stupid, or both.

Yeah, it's a bit of both. That's a rare combination. It'll keep you alive. Listen to her. What? Listen to Jester? Always. Good. She's got good blood in her.

Now, rest up. Apparently you've got a bit of travel to do in the morning. I sort of told him what we were doing. That's okay, he's your dad. You can trust him. Yeah. I need to go off some steam. Do. Don't message me for a while. Oh, he I need to go off some steam. Do. Don't message me for a while.

Oh, he's going to go bounce and will they grow? Oh, if you're going to, maybe you might want to just, you're schvitzing still. So. His face just goes. So just do a little dab. Don't wipe, just dab and then go.

A little dab will do't wipe, just dab. A little rump dab. A little dab into you. Good night. And he leaves. I need to dab a little in. Goddamn it. You find a way to your quarters to rest for the night. Asleep takes you. Thoughts of early morning travel

towards whatever strange direction and destination calls you. We'll get to that when we come back from the break. Oh shit. Ooh. So. Pick some spells for tomorrow. We'll return shortly, yep. Make sure you get your spells prepared,

those of you who do that, for the next morning. We have our giveaway. Long rest. From our friends at Wyrmwood tonight, we have the Lapodoc Dice Vault, the bright orange awesome coloration. Lapodoc Dough. It's very cool. The keyword for tonight for whoever

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So, Mighty Nein. After the evening's rest, in the morning you come to, and underneath the evening nip within the confines of the gentleman's private, I would say, organizational base, the day is early and yours. What would you like to do?

How early are we talking? You would know, I'd say, you guys probably went to bed relatively early, knowing you'd probably be traveling fairly quickly. So unless you want to get up any earlier, I would say naturally around like, probably 7, 8 in the morning. That should make the most of the day, yeah.

Travel? We got horses, though. Yeah. We got some horses. I suppose we could ask on the way out, if your, yeah, did your father have a if your, does your father have any steeds? Anyone he knows? That's a good question. I should go ask him.

Okay. He's early, he's in the chambers. Hey. Are you naked? It's your daughter. Oh my god. It's Jester, are you awake? Making's your daughter. Oh my god. It's Jester. Are you awake? I'm waking up for the last time.

Are you awake? You hear the iron handle like. You see a half-asleep half-elf woman come to the door and be like, Hello? Hello. Is the gentleman in here? He's in this...

You hear a voice go, Just leave, it's go. Leave, go. Goes and puts the robe over and walks out through the chamber. You can see one of the other guardians, the area guides her upstairs to leave. The door's ajar.

I walk in. She is not that great. Well, you don't know her. What can I do for you? Do you have any horses? I take it this is for your journey. I don't own horses. I keep debts, and there is a livery that...

Let me write something for you. He throws his robe on, heads over to this little in-table desk he has in the corner, pulls out a sheet of paper and writes something down, folds it, goes and takes one of the small candles off the side and gets a wax seal and presses it in, closes it, hands it to you. While he's off doing that.

Okay. Ransack the room. I'm going to get down to my special paints and I'm going to paint a ruby. About this big. It doesn't turn into a real ruby, but it'll be like a glass ruby when about this big. Whoa. It doesn't turn into a real ruby, but it'll be like a glass ruby. Okay. When it's done.

It'll look like a ruby. And I'm going to place it right next to his bed so he sees it when he wakes up in the morning and when he goes to sleep. Okay. Make a stealth check for me. Yeah, this would be you just not getting his attention. As a child with a divorce, I'm so into this right now.

Ooh, wow, 22! Okay. He seems engrossed in his letter and does not notice. You quickly, deftly, artistically create this ruby and place it. By the time he finishes, the envelope turns around, you're already right back where you started and it goes right into your grasp.

Thank you. Look for Kiefer's Stables. Kiefer is the proprietor. Just hand him the letter and tell him how many horses you need. He should take care of it. Thank you so much. This is in the south of the city?

Hmm? Is the stables in the south of the city? This would be on the western side. Oh, so it would not be Keith of the Southern Lands. Oh boy. No, no. Wow. Oh boy. I'll go now. No, please don't.

Thank you for letting us stay here last night. Yes. Thank you. I felt dirty. Happy to provide when in need. Thank you for being nice to me and being nice to my friends and stuff, and it's really good to see you again. I hug him and give him a kiss on the cheek.

It's good to see you as well, Jester. Call Mom. Whenever, you know, just to remember she's, you know, she's there, she's really pretty, and she's really great and talented. Okay, bye. Door closes. I'm too little ruby.

I know, I should've left a little sapphire next to it. All right. How'd you go, we have horses? Well, we maybe have horses. We're going to the Keeper Staples, and they owe Dad a debt or something, and they'll give us some horses or something. Your dad is hooking us up.

I know. Free lodging, free food, free booze, free horses. I mean, he loves the shit out of you. Do we have to let go and rough anyone up? I think he's probably hooking us up for the whole time, you know what I mean? Yeah, of course. Do it what?

Do we have to rough anyone up? Do we have to be intimidating? I don't think so, I just have to give him this piece of paper. Maybe it says somebody's going to kill them if they don't give them what we need, you know? All right, now let's walk in. We'll follow your lead, yeah.

You don't want to read it? No, no way. It's sealed. Yeah, there's a wax in it. Is there a wax seal on it? Yes. Beau's the queen of mail fraud over here. She could probably do it.

You could easily pop that and reseal it. Spoilers, it says give these people some horses. Yeah, right. Let's go get the fucking horses. Tell these people to leave their bodies in a ditch. Let's go full Hamlet here. What's the stamp? The stamp is just a simple,

like, it's just a simple G, but it's a very meticulously carved G to almost look like a, for lack of a better term, a detailed, intricate lock. There's not a lot of filigree around it, but it has like a... That's cool. Yes.

With my background. Oh, Jesus. No, fuck. Can't you get some goddamn horses? If I, like, I want to lift it, and I want to peel it, and I want to start, like, kind of seeing how hard it might be to separate the wax with a knife. I mean, it's going to be hard, but it's probably doable.

I hold it up to the light. Can I see through it? Can I read it in a little bit? This is act two. Make a perception check. Oh, that was almost good. Eight. Eight. Unfortunately, it's very, very solid material.

It's all right, Beau. We'll find out soon enough. We can just be there when they're ready. We make our way to the Kiefer Stables. All right. Heading westward through Zadash, you make your way to the west, asking a few questions, keeping an eye out.

You hadn't quite, yes, you hadn't quite spent a lot of time on this far end of the city, necessarily, so it takes a little bit to find out where the kefir stables are. But upon arriving, they're not small, they're not big. They're just a standard medium-sized livery. There are two individuals that are in the process

of providing feed for the, excuse me, they have mostly horses. There are a couple of beasts of burden there as well. Look like they also sell those types of creatures to big ox-looking beasts. But you enter the front and there is one man you see probably in his late 50s, early 60s or so, extremely curly, poof red hair around the back

and sides of a bald head, five o'clock shadow all across his chin with a bit of a double chin, just in the process of organizing stuff for the day, putting tools in the walls and setting things up this early in the morning, and as soon as you walk in, he turns around. Oh, hello. it's, um,

we're, sure, we're open. How can I help you? Is this all right? I know it's early. It's, you've got here in time. What can I do for you? Do you run this place? I am Kiefer, yes. I've got a note for you, Kiefer.

Thank you. It's not as ominous as it seems. Or maybe it is. Or maybe it is. All right. Excuse me a moment. He walks over to the side of a desk and pulls out a little knife and you can see him.

His movements are a bit erratic and quick and he opens it. What do you need? Wow. I'm going to make you a lot for your care reviews. We need some, oh. Caleb, do you want to take care of this? This is your father's.

I mean, no, but we need some horses. How many? Not for all of us. Yeah. One each. Well, I don't know. One each! Take your pick. Seven horses, yours. Need a horse. Yes. If things go well, Vasa, I'm sure we will.

We might rather someone else drive. All right, fine. Only going to need the horses for this one leg of the journey, I'm sure we can. How do we get them back to you when we're done with them? They are yours to keep. One-way rental!

Okay. Wow. Fantastic. Thank you, Kiefer. You're welcome. We will have them prepared for you. Just tell them which ones you want and we'll have them outfitted with saddles and extra feed.

What's the leather say? It's... I will provide his... That's so bad. He's basically saying, we'll provide feed and everything you require, we'll load you up, whatever you need. We'll meet you outside, then. Thank you. Of course.

So much. Sometimes it is just that easy. I go up to him. I'll give you 50 gold for that letter. Jesus. Who are you, people? I'll take it with me. It'll be gone. 50 gold.

You'll never see it again. How much would the horses have cost for 50 gold? Ha ha ha! I want to know what it is. What's Crystal roll about? Horses are a little pricey. She's got a head right here. Oh shit. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

Okay. Okay, you look at the letter. Wow. I'll wait till we leave. Okay. I don't want to embarrass the man. I'm a tactful woman. Of horses. Of about, say, 18 or so horses

that are currently kept here, some of them are healthier, and some are older, some younger. say, 18 or so horses that are currently kept here. Some of them are healthier, and some are older, some younger. There are a number to pick from that all function and work well. You find the ones that befit your personalities and have them outfitted. A week's worth of feed is provided

within saddlebags and other elements there, weighing them for a longer journey. Uncertain of how long you'll be going. You're given the full package. My horse keeps chasing Fjord's horse. Oh. It's a joke that no one will get. I find a Mustang named Caddy.

There you go. Yeah. Goddamn it! Leave me alone! Don't listen to Sam, listen to me. You have your horses, you have your materials. The day is still young. No problems, no questions. You are free to go and make your way westward.

That's when. Really, really well. A's when. Really? Really? Wow. Terrifyingly smoothly. Yeah, you're outside, you're on horseback, you're making your way towards the outer perimeter of the city walls. I pop the seal and I try really hard.

I'm going to take out a little tag. It's super easy, it's already open. Oh, right. Is the seal broken? Did he crack it? He read the letter, so he had to open it, right. Ha ha ha! Is the seal broken? Did he crack it? He read the letter, so he had to open it, yes. The wax is broken. Whatever. Okay, okay, yeah.

What's on the letter? All it says is... Oh, come on. Give me some. All it says is, give them many gifts, whatever they ask, gentlemen. There it is, the Sieger of the Luxon, unmasked.

As he said, though. Got his handwriting, though. Does 50 gold or something. That's good. Maybe you could learn it, forge something. Send a letter to my mom saying, oh my gosh, I miss you so much. You can parent trap them! Oh, I was worried I miss you so much. You can parent trap them. Oh, I was worried that we were going to get

a parent trap. You can parent trap them. We got the parent trap. Oh no. Meet me here, because I still love you, and then you send a letter to him, because you probably know your mom's handwriting. Yeah, obviously. I want to meet you at this place, at this time.

Oh my gosh. And we'll be waiting in the bushes. Then we can watch them reunite and fall back in love. Can we get Patti Ducon to play the ruby? Oh, stop, okay. We're going to Parent Trap your parents. I can't wait. It's going to be so great, you guys.

Start playing, man. Do it at Traveler Con. You'll have the Traveler there to guide you. Kill both of them. That's cool. That's true. I wonder if he would help me. This is a noble pursuit. I'll work with the dangle plane.

I bet he would. This seems like exactly what he does. He plays pranks and tricks on people for a greater good. This is a trick that is for the greater good. What could go wrong? I feel like we need to do this. Is this one of those ones that we interview on or we just let it go?

I'm not really sure at this point. All right. Yeah! Oh, are we going? Whoa! And wipe. Steam transition. Oh my god. Turn!

Turn! Turn! Use your foot, use your outside foot. I am! And the trap montage starts. Did we get one per Mighty Nein? Are you riding a horse for the first time ever, solo? I think so, yeah, unless he goes poorly. Yeah, I'd like to think he's a pony.

I will say, because this is technically your first time handling a horse, make an animal handling check for me. Oh no. That's a two plus one. I will say your pace is slightly lessened for the first hour or so that you're trying to get Nott's horse to do anything correctly. So familiar. Yeah, yeah.

Checks out. So, where are you going? Nott's horse just takes off in a gallop. East. This is... Art imitating life. But nevertheless, eventually, riding yourselves and finding the path,

you continue westward, eventually to the, I believe it's the Amber Crossroads, and then continuing westward towards the Truscan Vale on the western side of the Marrow Valley. At fast pace on horseback, it's 36 miles a day. I'll say it'll take you about two and a half, three days. You can try and push your horses further if you want,

but you risk exhaustion both for yourselves and the horses. Let's do it. No, we're not dying for time. No, we're not. Okay. First day travel is relatively uneventful. This side of the veil, or this side of the Empire is not extremely eventful, this side of the Vale, or this side of the Empire is not extremely eventful,

especially in the open fields, in comparison to some of the places you've been. Especially after going to Xhorhas and traveling that dangerous landscape. The return to the Marrow Valley and these open roads and green rolling grass and mild hills in the distance with the framing of the valley mountains on each side,

it's almost comfortable and picturesque to be in a place where you're not completely left in the unknown of what's trying to hunt or eat you. As the night grows darker around, look at the map one more time. You have the region here. I'm keeping my eyes open for anything unusual along the route as well.

Correct. So I'd say you... Yeah, so continue westward. Are you heading along the Bromkild Byway or are you just cutting right across the valley? I could cast my sixth-level spell. Which is what? Find the path? Find the path.

That's a straight line, right? I don't know, it finds the shortest route, but... That might take us, you know. It's the worst spell ever, by the way. It's a pretty, it's a tenet ways. It's basically ways. This finds the shortest, most direct physical route to a specific, fixed location. It's a line.

Jesus Christ. Do you want to cast it? I mean, should I cast it? Sure, why not? You know what? This is a spell we're never going to cast. We might as well cast it. It's so highly situational, yeah. It's super useful in the very rare circumstances where it is useful.

Otherwise, it's kind of... Yeah. Let's see what happens. Do it! Do it. Yeah, sure. Well. Let's cast it. I kind of agree with Taliesin. It's either this or in a maze in the abyss. Go for it. Here we go.

Oh, true. Yeah. All right. So as you shrug as part of casting the spell, that's part of the somatic components of it, it's. Sorry. You focus and the wind blows by. You can see the waves of grass and grain

across the field shift with it. As it does, you see a portion of the grass seems to almost grow brighter and taller than the rest rapidly. It continues in a direct line in a direction slightly north of where you were already heading, but that direction, you can see it carrying that way. We go that way.

All right, let's go. All right. It is getting dark, if you guys want to set camp or push through. Oh, all right. You're now diverging If you guys want to set camp or push through. Oh, all right. You're now diverging from the byway to do this, so. Well, you just began it, so follow it a little longer. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Something crates out? It is for a day, but I have to concentrate on it. Do I have to, can I sleep when I concentrate? Generally, no. I should have cast this in the morn. All right, we'll get a few hours out of it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Followed a bit. Okay.

When we find a place that looks nice for setting up camp. Okay. So as you pull off into this space here, there's patches of trees and little elements of scattered woodland. You wait as the last bit of the sunlight begins to escape from the sky, and the golds and reds of sunset begin to vanish

into the purples and blues of night. You begin to find a place to camp, and you see a distant fire, maybe about a half mile or so away from you. What kind of fire, big fire? Or campfire? Like a standard campfire. Can you see any figures, any shapes?

Not from this distance. No. You have to get a lot closer. I'm going to go check it out. Are we on the Flylands, or is it a descent down to that fire? Right here, there's hills to the north and south sides of it right now.

It's in the middle of a small valley between this hilly portion. Let's go. All of us? No. Well, we can just make camp. Just ignore it? Yeah. I mean. They stay over there, we stay over here.

Nott goes, checks it out, finds out what it is. I know what I'm checking out, for sure. Let's get the lead. Well, I was going to say, if we can make camp close enough that everything, we could checks it out. I know they're checking it out, for sure. I was going to say, if we can make camp close enough that everything, we could check it out. Yeah.

Sleep near the unknown quantity. Yeah. Well, we can, we don't even have to. Because you have a hut. Yeah, we have a hut. We can just be wherever. They don't, they can fuck off. Yeah, but why? Okay, I am a team player.

Is this where we want to be? Um, yeah, but why? Okay, I am a team player. Is this where we want to be? How is this? It's fine. It's fine. All right. Definitely fine. Muddled, Caleb starts to do what he needs to do to put the dome up, and it will be the same color green as the grass that is growing all around.

All righty. You guys bundle up for the night. If you feel safer than the dome, you can keep watch if you'd like, or you can all just take a night's rest. It lasts for eight hours, so. I want to go check out that campfire, or no? Yeah, we'll do that. Do you want to go

check out that campfire? I mean, I feel like we all want to check out the campfire. I think it only matters what you want to do in this situation. Yeah, I'll go check it out. Well, all right then. Do you want me to come close? Of course. Okay, I'll follow,

but at the distance. I'm going to remove the rocks from the dome. The rocks? Oh, good idea. Yeah. I'm going to sit outside the dome until you guys come back, just so that there's somebody who can hear it if you signal for help.

And while they're away, Caleb will also turn Frumpkin into Air Raven. Okay. Just go ahead and mark off the other components. You got it. I'm going to, as we get close, I'm going to cast Enhance Ability on Nott. I'm going to cast Cat's Grace so that you have advantage on dexterity checks.

Okay. I don't know. Sam's never seen one. Yeah. I don't know. Oh yeah. We didn't see it. As we get closer, I'll cast,

well, when we get close enough, I'll cast Invisibility on myself. Okay, we'll go ahead and roll a stealth check as you approach. Oh, you already get advantage on stuff. Yeah, we've managed on it already. 28. 28.

You feel fairly confident that no one has seen you get within a safe distance of the campfire. I'll go In and creep ever closer, looking for. Okay, as you're looking, you can see the source of the fire, it appears like there is a few bundles around it. There's a few figures sitting in the bundles looking into the fire.

You can see there's, between the hillic pace here, there's a little gap and there's some, it looks like a carcass has been left in the outskirts between you and the campfire, a little bit southward, I guess. They're not cooking it, it's just a dead thing? Correct, so it's a ways away. But there it is.

Towards me or on the other side? Towards you. I'm going to go look at that carcass. Okay. As you get closer to the carcass, you can see it. It looks to be a hunt. You can see there are arrows in it, and elements of it have been butchered and left open.

Only a little bit of the meat has been cut off, and the rest of it's been left there. But do I recognize the animal? You have to get closer to probably take a look. I'll get closer. Okay. You get right up next to the carcass and look at it, and right as you do, you hear this. Oh shit.

Go ahead and make a dexterity saving throw for me. But you get a damage. No, that's a saving throw. I do? No, it's a saving throw. Dex save, 12. 12. You got a 12 on your dex save. I rolled a three.

Oh no. Oh no. Oh no. Oh no, he rubbed his hands together. He's doing the hands. You see suddenly from just over the hill, there was a thin, tall tree that had been ratcheted down and held. You go and arch upward, and suddenly your ankle pulls out from under you and you get

flung through the air for a second and thrung down and hang for a second. Eh, eh. I'm still invisible, though. You are. Okay, but they know that something's there. Fucking Ewoks. Okay, you got Looney Tunes.

Suddenly the figures all stand up, look over in the direction of the tree. One of them goes ahead and grabs a bow and knocks an arrow. I start getting closer, sneaking as close as I can to the tree. You've been following that? Well, yeah, that's why I was able to see him. Yeah.

Oh yeah, you see the tree go. All right. Okay. I guess if they haven't seen me, let's see, what will lose my invisibility? Attacking anything, right? Or fire? Attacking, casting a spell.

Casting a spell, attacking. But using a weapon to cut a rope, is that an attack? That won't break it, no. Okay, okay. Cerrit, I'm going to say, Traveler, be with me as I'm going. I will. I'll get out my dagger

and I'll start cutting the rope a bit. Okay, easy enough to cut it, and your foot comes loose. 23. It's not a very intricate knot, nor is it a head. It's a thick piece of rope, but this blade is easy enough to cut through. 23, you go ahead and approach, and you can see the figures rushing towards the tree.

You get the sense that at the moment, they do not notice you, because they are focused more on what has just transpired at the south of their camp. Okay. How high off am I? Dangling now, I'd say you're about 10 feet up. Oh god, I don't know what to do. I'm going to wait until they get closer.

Actually, you'd be about 15, because your weight is so minimal compared to what this trap was designed for. Are they around me at this point, or are they approaching? They're approaching and looking up now, and they're like, one of the, you can see the back of their head, well, actually, you have darkvision, right, as a goblin,

so you can see an element of them. They appear to be human, simple leather armor, like caps on, some hunting gear and weapons, and they look up at the rope and go, oh shit, it broke. Where the fuck did it go? Shit. I'll just wait a bit, see if they run off.

Okay. What are you? Well, I'm waiting to see if they attack at Nott or anything. They don't. They scatter a bit around the space and begin looking in the area. One of them goes over back to the carcass and looks around and...

Are you doing anything, Nott? I'm still just waiting. They're still around the vicinity, right? Like, they're starting to scatter a bit and scan, and from this position, you can see there are a few different corpses of other creatures that have been hunted. You can see they've cooked up elements of some of them,

and they've been eating them at the fire in the center, and elements have been left out. You can see now from this perspective, actually make a perception check for me. Does it feel like it's just a hunting party? For sure it does. 18 plus one, 19. 19. You can see near some of these other corpses,

there are a few other contraptions similar to this. Sometimes one of them's a little more of a net type thing, but these are very, very basic hunting traps that have been set up around here. I shouldn't kill them all. Not like that. All right. I will, as deftly as possible,

drop from my location. Okay. And try to land without making too much noise. Go ahead and make a stealth check with advantage. Natural 20. You don't even take any fall damage. You just. This little bit of dust goes.

Super quiet. no notices. You can see them looking around, and they look a little jittery and nervous as whatever it was broke their trap, and they see nothing moving around, and they're in a really unfortunate space right now of trying to figure out what happened. Poor people.

I feel like they're... As far as I know, Nott is still up in the tree. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Should I rob them first, or just go? All right, I'm going to try to slip between them and keep heading out. Head back to our camp.

Okay. They do not notice you in the middle of the night with your invisible self, who's also super stealthy. They are, you know, you don't really take a moment to see anything other than just darting through the gap of where they are. Is there a tiny piece of rope that's just scattering through the,

is the rope visible that's still around his ankle? Well, no, the rope had been cut in a way where it released. Darn, I was really hoping a tiny little rope. Which is fine. Yeah. What are you doing, Jester? I'm going to wait until they get far enough away from the tree, and then I'm going to go try to get Nott out of the tree.

Okay. Oh god. Okay. They eventually begin to circle around the northern side, doing their perimeter, and you see a moment where you can scoot through. Yeah, I go up to the trap. You rush up and look up in the tree, and the rope is just dangling loose.

Nott. Nott. I've left that area. Yep. Nott. Shit. No. I'm going to cast Sending.

Jester? I'm going to cast Sending to Nott. Nott, are you still, are you in the tree? No, no, I'm not in the tree. You can't respond, I'm still talking. Wait till I finish talking, and then you can respond. Just let me know where I am. That's way over the words.

I'm not in the tree. I've gone, oh shit. Where are you? Are you both invisible? No, but not back at camp now. I point in a direction where I think she might be, and I cast Message. Can you hear me?

Jester, where are you? At this point, you're just out of, you're a little out of, was it a 500 range? No, it's 120, I think. 120? Yeah. Oh no. Double check, I thought it was shorter than that. 120. Yeah, so yeah. Nothing.

Got to go back. Shit. I'll run back to camp. Hey, hey, hey! Hi. They're not bad at all, they're fine. Did Jester come back? Nope.

Okay, it's fine, it's fine. Wait. No, it's fine, it's fine. She's, I'll be right back. I'm going to start stealthily making my way back to our camp. Okay. Both of you make perception checks. Oh my god!

I'm so excited! Oh no! Five? Seven! You guys say seven. All right, I'm back to the trap. Jester! Jester, where are you? You see one of them go,

I heard something. I peek my head into the bubble. Hey! Oh, he's not back then? She was just looking for you. She was looking for me? She just went to go look for you. For me?

Probably just past each other. Okay, okay, okay. Don't worry about it. I'll be right back. Oh, you can just stay here. Two of them now have bow and arrows knocked. I'm going to start stumbling back to get to Nott. The third one has two short swords at the ready,

and you can see now, they're both like, earlier they were little spooks, now they're like, fuck, something's here. So wait, you are running backwards. I'm going back to their camp now. Make another stealth check. Oh! Hello.

23. Okay. I'm just scanning around their camp, looking for her. Have they captured her? Is she in a trap? I start looking at all the carcasses. Okay.

Shove her in an axe. Well, I assume there's traps near the carcass. Yeah, you don't see any of the traps set off. But you see them ready to go for a fight. Shit. Shit. Um. Okay. I'll go halfway back towards our camp.

Okay, both of you guys make protection checks. No, no, no. Is this perception? Yeah. 13. 15. You keep running back to their camp and you stop halfway, you don't see each other, because you're both being stealthy at night.

Oh my god, I'm so stealthy! You both just and you both just see each other. I'm going to say a silent prayer, load up my crossbow with a flare bolt and shoot it straight up. Okay. Jester, as you're running, all of a sudden,

this bright light fills up the space around you and you look up at this flare bolt leading this trail of burning flame. Jester! Jester! Did I hit you? Yasha. I'm preparing charm. Should we?

Persons. You see three figures now rushing in your direction, and as you're preparing, you glance over and hear, . Pretty tired. Yeah. Does an 18 hit you? Pass me that rock that's under you.

Pass this way. Shit! Let's go! No, no, no, no, no, no, no. What are you going to do? How far away are they? At this point, about 70 feet. Shit. I'm going to, I'm going to... Another arrow comes at you.

It would've ducked. Actually, the two arrows come at you now. That's a 22. Shit. And a 19. Uh-huh. Okay. Is she getting pelted with arrows? Yep. Wait, wait! and 19. Uh-huh. Okay. Is she getting pelted with arrows? Yep.

Wait, wait, wait! You take four points of piercing damage and you take three points of piercing damage. Let's get out of here! I'm saying wait. What do you mean wait? Wait! Are they close?

No, the two of them are there just loading arrows and firing. I'm going to zigzag towards them. Zigzag towards them? Okay. I drop a cross zigzag towards them. Zigzag towards them? Okay. I drop the crossbow. What are you doing? Wait!

You guys can hear this, by the way. Okay, I'm getting better at this. You guys saw this flare go up in the sky and started hearing yelling in the distance. I'm walking that direction. I'm going to cast, how many are there? There are three of them. I'm going to cast Charm B are there? There are three of them. I'm going to cast Charm Barsanate!

Third level! Okay. You're using it. 19 on the first one. Shit, scare tactics. Natural one on the second. Wow, two of them will play well. And 17 on the third one.

17 is the wisdom trick. Okay, so two of them save, one of them doesn't. So one of them, the one who has both of the swords at the sides stops and goes, Oh, don't worry about it. And the other one's like, what the fuck are you talking about? It's your friend, Jester, it's your friend! What are you doing, Jester? Let's run!

Why? You guys are approaching now at this point. I'm walking towards, yeah. We walk out and the dome just goes. Yeah, sure. I've lit up my staff and I'm walking towards this. Can we just have a drink and watch from the hill? Sure. All right.

Yeah, I'm not going to do that. Think of this. All right, the two that aren't charmed rush up, singing, put your hands there, and they have their arrows knocking. The light doesn't hit me, it's your friend! Did it work? The two? No, only one of them.

I didn't know they were asking them. Oh, you're asking them? They both look at each other. You guys currently have, the flare is gone, so there's no real light source. They don't have as good of eyes as you. So one of them goes and like, the one who's charming in the back goes,

hold on, hold on! Lights a torch and approaches. Don't worry, they're friends! We're friends! The two see as they approach and they look at you and they go, fuck. Fuck. They look at each other

and they both drop their weapons and go, we didn't know, we're so sorry. Wait. We're so sorry. Who are you? We're just, we're, look, we're hunters. You fuckers, yell again, you fuckers. I shoot one in the leg. Roll attack.

Oh. I was hoping so hard. 22! So hard. It's in the margins, so we can go down there, but I think this is a great show. Eight point, I don't get sneak attack. Eight points of damage. Okay, which one do you shoot?

The one who's holding the torch, or the two that have the bows? The bow, the bow guys. Okay, so like, Ah! Shit, no, please, don't! Don't incinerate us! We didn't know!

Look, we're not thieving! We're just hunting! They were just hunting, Nott. Yeah, but they're assholes! No, no, no! We're listening to you! What's happening? Have you been stealing in general? No, no, no, we haven't!

I swear to god! We didn't mean to! She can read minds, read their mind. Is that on the tree? Oh, oh, I don't have it prepared, but I'm going to. Just can't read! You can read minds, read their mind. Zone of Truth. Oh, oh, I don't have it prepared, but I'm going to. Just say that you're doing it. I'm passing Zone of Truth on them, but I'm not actually. Make a deception check

with advantage. Okay, good. Oh, oh, oh, 19 plus. Stuff. 19 plus five, 424. She can tell the truth. She can tell if you're telling the truth. I'll get it, that's fine. Have you been stealing?

No. I don't know if they're telling the truth. Well, why haven't we been robbing? What does that mean? What does that mean? What does that mean? Meaning we're not doing the, it's like, shut up. No, I can tell. We can't lie.

She got the magic on us. Well, we're not robbing people on the road anymore, and we couldn't afford everything, so we took a couple things and they weren't looking. It wasn't a big thing. That's not bad, that's not bad. As long as you're not attacking people or stealing things, right?

We're selling pouches and stuff. Oh, okay, that's really good. I'm proud of you for making an honest living. We were just checking up on you to make sure that you were on thees and stuff. Oh, okay, that's really good. I'm proud of you for making an honest living. We were just checking up on you to make sure that you were on the straight and narrow. The guy with the torch goes, I believe him. A giant red ape lumbers slowly past the castle.

They just run. They just run, screaming into the night. Come back, you have all your pouches. And the ape starts picking through their camp and just looking through shit. Well. You know what, I'm really proud of them. They have made a change.

They've turned over a new leaf. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. They look healthier, they're clothed. Yeah, they looked like they were eating good. I'm really proud of them. I assumed I'd have to cure somebody. I heard terrible screaming and... Nah, we got it handled.

Cut off lots of little pieces of meat to feed the Sprinkle. You've got a little arrow. Oh yeah, they hit me a couple times. Oh yeah. Look at that. Yeah, it's sticking out of my... Can I eat with their camp? Yes, you can. Okay.

Hey, Blue Moon. Feces. A, this would be what we... Investigation check, we're using the... Right, that's a nine. Nine, blue moon. Feces! Yeah, this would be what we? Investigation check, we're using the... Right, that's a nine. Nine, all right. There are the carcasses, in which you instinctually grab one and.

Yeah. There's a collection of pelts, actually. Oh! And you can see the remnants of other hunting jobs they're bringing with them. You get the sense, based on what they had, they were in the process of heading back into some town to sell their wares.

Caplib puts a bunch of pelts on his head like a hat and then just lumbers back to their campsite. Okay. We're back! How did that go? It was fine. Oh my gosh, we ran into some old friends. It was super fun.

You defused the situation pretty well. It was great. We knew you had it gosh, we ran into some old friends, it was super fun. You defused the situation pretty well. It was great. We knew you had it, so we ran into you. Did you guys see us? Yeah, no, we thought about intervening and then we realized we didn't want to. Do you remember the Valley Bandits? We do. We met them again. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Caleb was an ape. Caleb was there. What's on his head? Hot. Skin. Drapes it all the way over forward so you can What's on his head? Hot. Skin. Drapes it all the way over Fjord so you can't even see his head anymore. Just a big, bare pelt that's mostly tanned,

it's still a little damp in places. Very warm and disgusting. Mm. You know, every time we see them, they're doing a little better. Maybe next time we see them, they'll be running a business or? They have a store or something?

How many of them were there? Well, we saw three, so it could have been more. Oh, and you let them go. You didn't injure them or kill any. Well, not sort of hurt one of them. Oh. No. I shot one with a... We did see them running away from you, so.

That was because of Caleb. Oh. Well, that's good. I'm glad you probably stopped them from thieving, right? They were probably doing something illegal. They said they actually freely admitted to have done some bad things. Right, but no more than we do bad things, you know?

Yes, they were just, this was an honest thing that they were doing here tonight, that we scared them away from doing. Yeah, and stole their pelts that they were part of. But it's like the Scared Straight program. You know, we just keep scaring them, and eventually they'll go straight. Okay.

Does that? I don't, yeah. I feel like I read records about that never working. Well, we're trying. Can we go up to the ground? Yes, yes, feel free. Sorry about that, Fjord. All right.

And Caleb starts recreating the hut. Fair enough. This evening's rest is far more uneventful, as the campfire in the distance slowly peters to darkness. They probably would have wandered in here, you know? For sure. Tried to see what was going on. They would never have noticed us.

They're not that talented. Well, I mean, in case they would've noticed us, you certainly took care of the problem. That's true. You know, well done. We do have, you know, lots of horses sitting right outside of our bubble, so. They could've taken our horses.

I really felt like there was a lesson here, and I'm pretty sure we haven't learned it. I'm going to protect Toilet Jr. and Crapper Jr. Oh, that's right! John Jr. Old WC. No, good old WC, J.R. Are those the horses' names? I didn't get them. They are now.

It's canon. Evening is eventful, rest comes easy. The next morning, bright and early, the warmth of the sun would hit you if you weren't inside the dome when it begins to grow warm, but however, the dome does eventually fade, and you all come to have your morning meal

before stepping onto your horses and continuing again. Are you casting Find the Path again? Oh man, it's a six-level spell, what do you guys think? Yeah, do it. Oh, man. All right, where is it leading you to now? To the Issharnai's Pri- Okay.

No, wait, we're going straight to her? We're not going to go to Beau's dad? Camarda. Oh, I just figured if we could go straight to her. We know where she is, we don't know where she is. We're going to- The spell will probably take you. Oh, I thought it had to be a place that you know.

Does it hit him? I think it does. No, it says that you're familiar with. You don't know where she lives, right? She's great on it, so she wouldn't know. You know the location? I'm familiar with it. Oh, with the place. Oh, cool. Shortcutting us.

Great. I thought we were going there just to get a little more data on what was up. We should probably do that first. Up to you. Yeah. Beau? I mean, if we need further confirmation,

we only have the same Beau. Because not necessarily that we need confirmation. Fjord is going to make a choice for us. Go to Beau's house. Yeah. Yeah, because we are assuming that that woman is the same woman. We're pretty sure, but I would also like to know

what we're really dealing with, which we don't really know. To Maison Leonet! Yeah, let's go to it. We need some first-hand information. So we don't need to find a path where you know where we're going. Yeah, more or less. We are out in the middle of nowhere right now.

That way's north, so where do we go if that is north? E-west! E-west. You've made this journey in a number of times in your youth, you know how to guide them to Komorda. Ew. If it's a 405, it's all muscle. All right.

101 West, north, west. A-dun-a-one. A-dun-a-one. We You know. A dun-a-wum. We get it, you have a baby. Sorry. No, it's fine. Dang it. Yeah!

The horses just take off running without one of them at all. Yasha! Goddamn it, we're not even ready to go! I love it, I love it. Lost an hour. We're going to picked up the food! Second day of travel along the path guided by Beauregard. Also uneventful.

You do see occasionally some couriers on horseback riding quickly across the southern road, most of them travel upon the Bromkin Byway, but you guys have taken the path separately that heads to the Bromkin Hills and Kamordah directly, based on the direction that the spell took you to cut off a little bit of time. You can take the road.

The road is generally considered safer for people that can't defend themselves, but you guys generally don't have to worry too much about that. So cutting the corners on this, you come to the second night's rest. You set up a camp. And the evening comes to claim you for a night of sleep.

In the middle of the night, Caleb is not sleeping too well and looks over at Yasha. I don't like sleeping. You don't sleep easy? I seem to be not very good at it lately. Some nights have been easier, but I sometimes don't like to go to sleep and possibly dream, you know? You have not been yourself for a while.

Yeah. I guess I'm trying to figure out what that is right now. Things just feel a little weird, but I'm getting through it. That's fresh. Yeah. I hope I'm not being too forward in asking you this, but

how do you deal with it? I. Is it that obvious? I guess from someone who knows. I've only heard things about... your past, but... I've only heard things about your past, but we don't have to talk about it. I just... Nott?

Yeah, I don't remember, actually. Not. Sometimes I feel like two people. I'm better with them. One of me is... My thing is old. So I guess I'm accustomed to it. I thought that we were similar when we first met.

It's not just, it's not just Obann. You have blood in your eye. Yeah. I'm sorry. Why are you sorry? I see hesitation and regret in you.

And it is like a mirror. I know regret, and I regret. I regret. And unless my intuition is very off, you have no regret. So it never goes away? No. by the way? No. But

it's easier with people around you to make you feel more like you. I feel a little bit like the forgiveness is almost harder to deal with. I feel like anger is an emotion that I know how to deal with because that's where I live. But I feel like

with everyone being so nice and accepting, I don't know how to handle it. I know I'm not handling it well, but I'm trying. Caleb is spinning a diamond over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over in his hand. I don't think we can. But, while we are never going to wash our hands,

we can use them to leave something better in the world. Maybe the curtain never rises from our eyes, but what else do we do? You either lose yourself to it and forget, or you do your part. They're pretty. He looks around at them all. They're pretty great.

I don't deserve them. Do you love her? Who? I don't need to tell you who. Ah, I'm sorry, I... As someone who has lost someone that they love very much. I know how important it is to say things before it is too late.

It's too late, Ash. It's still there. Maybe not, I don't know. Reach out just a hand and just look away and pat the top of her hand and then curl up and face the outside of the dome. I just sort of stay sitting up and watching him. There's a flash in the distance. Another one of normal hair.

There's a storm brewing. It's comforting. I close my eyes and I try to sleep. The morning eventually comes for you all. As the spell fades and the morning sun does not peek through as the previous morning did. Instead, as the dome begins to fade, the wet rain begins to suddenly fill the space and you all rapidly grab your things

and start bundling it up quickly. Cool, cool, yep. Are we almost there, Beau? Are we almost there? We're going to be riding in this shit all fucking day. Yep. It's going to take the rest of the day, okay? For the most part. All right, this is going to suck, let's go.

Hyah! Hyah! Getting back on the horseback, continuing following Beauregard's lead across the Trescan Vale, ignoring the roads onward towards the Bromkin Hills. Most of the day progresses, all of you keeping bundled with your cloaks

and materials close to maintain heat and as much dryness as you can, though elements of the rain seep into your boots. You can feel the moisture causing your skin to clam within. Looking up ahead, you can see the mountain range of this side of the Sirius Mountains beginning to grow larger and larger until you begin to see the greenish, grassy plains

of the Truscan Vale begin to give way to a different coloration. The grasses begin to become duller, brown and yellow in places. As you reach the beginning of the Bromkin Hills themselves, you can see already, not beyond, just the hills getting larger and oddly shaped, but the landscape go from patches

of complete lack of vegetation where it's just cracked ground and mud to areas where you can see all manner of strange colored earth and mud and minerals beginning to emerge from what look almost like small steam vents that rise from the ground. As you begin to make your move.

This is where you grew up? It's shitty, right? Doesn't look like farmland. Exactly. Heading towards the outskirts of Komorda, as you crest one of the hills, begin to see in the later hours of the day, not quite nearing sunrise yet,

but dark enough with the clouds and rain overhead that you can see the lights of all the interior-lit homes of the village just begin to make their way to your eyes on the horizon. All around you, the smell changes, too, as opposed to wet earth and grass. You can smell strange minerals. Some smell sweet and have almost a jasmine-type

pleasant smell to it, and then waves of heavy sulfur and other deep earth minerals emerging from the, what you can now see around you, pockets of very heavy geothermal activity that seem to be brewing through the nearby landscape. You can see dozens and dozens of some of these vents, just this gentle white mist, and every now and then you'll see all the small little geyser

emerge from spots. Oh, is that a volcano around here? I think one that used to be active a long time ago in the mountains, when this whole landscape is just filled with geothermal activity and steam vents. Don't stick your hands into any of the water. It will melt, it will slough right off your bones.

What, have you seen it happen? No, just heard stories. That sounds, Beau, have you seen it happen? You lived around here. We used to throw in snails and shit in there and see what would happen. That was fun. That's really fucked up.

Yeah. We were kids. Yeah, let's keep going, though. How does Beau seem compared to how she's, you know, normally? Totally good. Doing great. Beau. Awesome.

Yeah, blue skies. How do you seem, Beau? Anxious? Yeah. Barricaded behind emotional walls. Trapped in a glass case of emotions. There you go. So more close off than she's been in a while. Yes, definitely.

If anything, it's shades of the first time you guys met coming through. Heading towards the outskirts of the city, as you approach the actual town proper, there are wrought iron gates and small stone walls about waist to chest high in places. The ground itself gives way to mud, a combination of the recent weather and just probably the

strange ashen ground that makes up a lot of the town here. Vineyards, you know? You know that and have heard that fine wines come from here. This is not like a landscape that would be kind to any sort of standard vineyard. At the front of the city, there are a few of the townsguard posted that just keep an eye as you approach, careful and untrusting, but keeping to their space,

just looking over each of you intently as you go. How's the weather today? Is it still rainy? Oh, it's still rainy. Yeah, okay. It's gray. It is not sunny. Yeah, the thunder and the lightning

that rolled through the night seems to have faded through the day, but it is still raining pretty hard. Heading inward, you can see this is a town built largely of pale rock and dull, petrified wood. What you know is a lot of the forests in the mountains surrounding here, some of it's very lush from how rich,

how mineral rich a lot of the earth is, and other areas are just died off since whatever altered this mountain range happened. The lush forest that once carried it all, patches of them just withered up. And that becomes very cheap wood to build with. So it's funny, for as much as you hear about wealth and the Trescan Vale is known to be a rich area,

Diasdok in particular, to the south, this town, the elements that you're seeing upon arriving seem a little more ramshackle, and in some ways remind you of Shadycreek Run, though not as seedy, necessarily, but definitely built for function over aesthetics. A lot of the people you can see bringing their workloads through the streets,

themselves, hoods and cloaks up, looking miserable in the weather, shouting to each other and pulling materials through. You can see carts exiting past you, heading towards the southern side of the city as they leave. A number of them carrying what look to be large barrels. Some of these exports on their way out, and well-armed guards watching them as they go.

See how miserable everyone looks? I mean, they're probably drunk. Everyone's drunk on wine, right? It's a wine place. It just sucks. Caduceus, your homeland, you said it was dying, right? The nature was dying. Is it like this? Is this natural?

No. No. There are... This is different, but it's still very alive. It's just a different kind of life. This is not the same. Farmlands here passed from hand to hand and farmer to farmer, and they kept selling it off, trying to get shit to grow,

and of course they couldn't get anything to grow until my dad and maybe a couple other farmers came in, threw down some grapes, and it turns out that the mineral-rich soil and the shitty weather from all the ocean mist makes for some great fucking grapes. Grapes, some great fucking grapes. Mm.

Grapes, a lot of grapes. So many fucking grapes. Right, all that stuff and some crazy old woman. Yeah. Passing through, you can see what you know as the Mudfields, which are an element of a lower-end residential town, though it's not like a slum per se,

but it's just the standard workers' homesteads here. The streets themselves, just brown and mucky, especially with all the water that's starting to flood in some places. You can see some folks are in the process of currently taking buckets and making sure that certain areas don't get too soggy. You can see situated greenhouses

that are arranged in places, that are enclosed entirely, where it seems some semblance of green is being maintained from the interior. You know these people have brought soil from other locations and have begun to try and find what other types of vegetation do take to the landscape here. And some do. Not as profitable as wine is,

and even then it's very selective with which patches of land do. Making your way through the mud fields, you eventually head towards what is called the Rainbow Vineyards, which is along the base of the mountains here that lead into the Sirius Range. There are these winding cliffs, and you can see where they've carved walkways

that go up the side, and there are buildings held in, there are heavy ropes dangling what looks to be where materials and goods are brought down to lower elevation or carried up on high, as well as donkeys and horses carrying things up these paths if need be. You can see clusters and clusters of oddly colored grapevines all set upon the entire mountainside here. When I say mountainside, it visually is a mountainside,

but none like what you've seen. There are layers and layers of the colors transition brightly from a dull gray to a bright yellow to almost like a dripping orange in some locales. There's areas where you can see pools of hot, hot water that are emerging in these puddles of mud where it's boiling, bubbling. You can see the coloration turning blue

at the edges, almost, and around that edge, you can see cultivating additional grapevines and other strange, odd plants that are starting to take in, and they're all very carefully under watch, very carefully guarded and well manned. You get the sense that there's probably a lot of the, well, at least a surprising section of this town makes its living tending to vineyards here.

As they've been traveling through here, Frumpkin, their raven, goes and lands on Beauregard's shoulder, and not sharp, or painful, or hard at all, but just, every once in a while, gives a little. Caleb doesn't look at all, he's just face forward. Okay. What, Frumpkin?

What's up? What's up? What's up? You can feel the muscles of your back and shoulders and neck tightening and nodding in a way that you can't remember experiencing. The heat that's building along the back of your neck and your spine is tremendous,

matching almost what you imagine the temperature of these steam pits that are just slowly releasing, the cold rain hitting and the hot steam being released from it. For a moment, you feel almost like you're matching that temperature. As you guys crest up on one side

of the Rainbow Vineyard section, and you can see the three-story estate of the Lionett family, lit from the inside. Whoa. look from the inside. Beau. Whatever happens, he was an asshole for being mean to you. You're a wonderful person. You are a wonderful person, Beau. Yeah, you're a wonderful person. Yeah, you're a wonderful person.

He was lucky to have you for a daughter. Hopefully he will realize that now. If he doesn't, remember what he told me. Fuck him. You have us, and we love you so much, okay? Thanks, Jester. You give her a hug. They added an arch.

It's even more pretentious now. Okay, let's go. Knock or call or? There is a heavy gate on the outside where the arch in the front gate is. It's replaced the familiar entrance to the house. There's a little courtyard where you can see there have been some trees and bushes

that are tended to there. The soil within the courtyard is different from the soil surrounding, though you can see even what's been placed supposedly to try and keep the transplanted greenery intact is still browning and graying, a failed experiment on making a nice grounds around their home. Are there any flowers?

No. This is a flowerless place. I was going to pick all of them. As we're approaching, is there anyone on the roof, guarding the wall, watching the grounds? 10. 10. It's hard to tell this distance, and as the light gets darker, at this point,

you can sense now from just the slow shift in brightness that you're probably about a half an hour from dusk. That's what that sulfur's named. But you would know that there's usually, at any given point in time, two folks patrolling the grounds just to ensure that nothing happens to the family or the business. The gate is there.

It's locked, but you know one of many tricks to get by it. So you just walk up to the lock. It's locked, but you know one of many tricks to get by it. So you just walk up to the lock. We'll say one of the pin materials that you often use to keep your hair up. You just quickly, and the lock just opens. I have a lock picking card. Probably. I'll have one, yeah. Blackbird sword. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Probably sorceress. Just give yeah, yeah. Probably sword. Just give it a condescending look. There is a hitching post just outside, or say three hitching posts right there for travelers who can leave the horses there. After you, Beauregard. If you want us to attack anybody at all,

just say Armadillo. Armadillo, got it. I'll think of Armadillo. Okay. Let's go. Do you want us with you? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I rolled deep. That looks fucking awesome.

That's impossible. You're in charge of us. You're the leader of the group. Cool, cool, yeah, yeah. I roll deep. That looks fucking awesome. That's impossible. You're in charge of us. You're the leader of the group. Cool, cool, cool, cool. It's fine, it's fine, it's fine. Okay, let's go. Okay. As you guys all begin to walk along the central pathway, where some of the first cobblestones you've seen, you, glancing up, can see on the second floor,

there is a railing and there is a cloaked hooded figure with a crossbow leaning on the edge, not aimed at you, but just watches you carefully, intentionally making his presence known as you approach in a way that guards do oh so subtly when they're hired hands. Coming to the familiar front door, you can see there's a frosted glass window

in the front that gives a little bit of light from the inside. The heavy metal knocker sits resting, familiar. here. You're close. Here, poof! It's on a delay. You need to change the batteries on the phone. Yeah. I don't know what I'm talking about.

A moment passes, and then you hear the door opens, and you see a woman standing there. Probably early 30s, hair just tied back. She's wearing not upper-class clothing, more just like a worker-servant outfit. Hello, can I help you? Do I know who she is? You do not recognize this woman.

Oh, okay. My mom is way more garish in the way she dresses. So lady or man of the house here tonight? Oh, may I ask you some inquiring? Beauregard Lyonet. Oh, um. I'm afraid the master is tending to the vineyards at the moment.

He'll probably be back shortly for dinner. But Miss Lionett is inside. Please, please, enter. Oh shit. She opens the door. What's wrong? Beau, what if your dad recognizes my voice? He probably will.

Just change your voice. I'm just going to change my voice. I'm just going to make it just until he doesn't realize what I'm saying. Yeah, don't worry about it. Just talk like this the whole time. She steps aside and just nods her head a little bit of like, I had no idea, I'm so sorry.

Looking inside, it is warm, it's inviting, especially in the cold rain, but as you step inside and kick off your muddy boots, or not, depending on how you feel about it, immediately here in this foyer area, you can see it has a beautiful rustic aesthetic. There are antlers on the wall. You can see it's a dark mahogany wood interior line

with a brighter wood used to set the walls apart. There is a staircase that goes to a second landing that wraps around the main foyer area, and there is a iron chandelier that sits in the middle that is circular with magically held candles that keep a constant nice glow there. This is nice. Yeah. The servant closes the door behind you

and then rushes off. Bob, just wait just a moment. Runs upstairs. Bob, just wait just a moment. Runs upstairs. Madam, madam. You can hear some giggling upstairs. She goes and leaves into another room. Over to the fireplace. Mm-hmm.

It's warm, the hearth is burning. Yeah, I mean, looks pretty awful here, right? No? Your family has done all right for themselves. How you are? How are you-are doing? How you are?

How are you-are doing? Huh? Beauregard! Huh? And you all turn and look, and partway down the stair landing, you see a woman, similar, darker olive skin, hair put up into this very, very tight bun

with a bit of ponytail that dangles behind, a really, really nice dress for just being casually at the house, but comfortable, of a deep green color. You can see she is leaning in a very startled way, just looking directly down at Beau. Hey, Mom. I'm sorry, I didn't know you were coming.

Yeah, it's kind of a trend that I have going on. Well, and she heads down the stairs at a brisk pace and approaches and steps up to you and then halts. and she heads down the stairs at a brisk pace and approaches and steps up to you and then halts, unsure how to greet you. Gives a somewhat warm, somewhat stilted hug and then pulls back a bit. I'm sorry to barge in.

I know you were wanting to keep me distant from the family, but I need to talk to Dad, it's important. And then we'll be gone, and you don't have to talk to me anymore. No, no, no. You can stay as long as you like. Who are your friends here? You hear a voice from upstairs go like,

Mommy? You see from around the corner, the servant's trying to catch up to him, but you see a young boy who, in many ways, looks like a young, boyish Beauregard. Longer hair that's in this wild curl. Looks like he just got out of a shower, so then it had his head briskly dried.

He's wearing these baggy pajamas that drag just past the fingers, and he begins running down the stairs. Or two. Woof. Time to kiss. Two and a half. Two and a half.

It's not, when I say tumbling down the stairs, it's. That sounds right, that sounds right. Yeah, and restore. All that good. There you go. It bounce back. Yeah. Well, no, it's the servant trying to catch up with him, and they both come down to join

as Clara still isn't breaking eye contact and reaches out and takes your hand and says, It's good to see you. Yeah? Yeah. Would you like to stay for dinner? Mm. That's most gracious of you. We are the Mighty Nein. Mm-hmm.

We are esteemed friends of your daughter. Well, many friends of Beauregard are friends of ours, so. Hi. Hi. How you are? I'm Clara Lionett, Beauregard's mother, but I assume you know that by now. I'll ensure some places are set. Hey, Mom, remember that year that we had

that mudslide that ended up happening and took out half of our stock and we only had a few bottles left from that year? Yes. Would you go grab one of those? Of course. We've been talking about it a lot, you know, I'd love to. Yes, yes, yes, of course.

Janine, could you get one of those bottles, please? I'm just going to go right away, and then darts out. Anyway. Oh, oh my goodness, oh my goodness. I didn't even beauregard, and she turns and clutching the side, holding onto the edge with a big smile, bright eyes. The little boy looks up at all of you.

Whoa. Thoreau Junior, I'd like you to meet your older sister, Beauregard. Beauregard, this is Thoreau Jr. The sister? Yes, it's your sister. He walks up to you. I crouch down.

And puts his arms around you. He has that smell to them. Like all the fucking kids in Kamordah. He pulls back a little bit, and he's still holding onto you a little bit, and he's looking at you, and he's just taking you in. As Claire goes, Uh, we were hoping you'd come by

sometime to meet him. Do you know, the timeline was always interesting to me. Do you know you were pregnant with him when you sent me away? The mantle is lovely. Jester, would you help me over here for a moment? Nott, perhaps everyone, if we could just... I lean down to TJ.

Hey, little man. Hey. What's your favorite color? And he points at his mother's dress. Green? Oh, here, you might like this, then. Give him the jade necklace. Put it around him.

Yeah. No. Duh, duh. It's been in some dank places, little man, so it'll really build up your immune system. He's just looking at you, you go, slobber coming off of it. Antibodies.

Ah, what? Oh. Tastes what? Oh. Tastes like indigo. Look, Beauregard. Things are challenging all around. I didn't, things are challenging all around. I didn't, your father didn't mean things to become so tense

when you went away. Well, it was a hell of a goodbye, you know? Not entirely sure why anyone would think that that was a good fucking idea to handle the situation. With a daughter that was clearly just wanting your fucking attention. I'm sorry. And that doesn't mean much. Your father was under a lot of stress, and... Things should have been handled differently, you're right.

You're absolutely right. Fuck, Mom. So you're just as passive as you were back in the day. Did you get that bottle of wine? Janine's, and you hear the footsteps coming from under the cellar. Janine! My hero. Passes the bottle. Janine, Janine, Janine, Janine.

Thank you. Thank you. I'll take care of it. Yeah. It's like one of our most expensive bottles of wine, so I'm enjoying it. How much of those cells are there, Mom? The front door opens and you can hear the rain from outside and you see a figure step in

with a heavy overcoat, hat on, step inside, kick off a bit, close the door, take the hat and the coat off, hang it on the side and turn. Then, as your father looks you directly in the face, and immediately just looks like he's seen a ghost. Beauregard. Hi.

Mom. I can see that. I was not expecting to see you today. Ah, that welcome, welcome. Friends of yours, I assume. Yeah, Mom, Dad, this is the Mighty Nein. He looks towards all of you and then looks to Nott and goes, Hi, how you are?

Hello. He's like, and looks to Clara and goes like, Dad, don't. You're cute, Jaina. Looks to Clara. Don't do that, Dad, don't. Clara looks back and picks up TJ and puts him in her arms. Oh, I'm fine. Fucking embarrassing.

Cute kid. He looks very tasty. By this point, TJ is looking right at Nott after seeing him, he goes like, Whoa! Cool, right? Fjord's like, I'm going to go put TJ to put him down.

Then takes off a little bit and throws his steps in a bit. Well, it's a pleasure to have you all. I am glad you've all been... been traveling, I assume. Just going to go start rifling around for some cups or something. I've been receiving updates about your work

with the Cobalt Soul. Apparently been doing quite some fine work. I guess I should say expositor, Beauregard. That's incredible, I mean. Still sending you those tuition updates, huh? Well, it's important for us to, you know, make sure we know how Beauregard's doing. Unparalleled, she is.

Mm-hmm. As she would be. Insight check. I want to know if he seems like he's genuinely proud of her or if... Go for it, my insight check. I want to know if he seems like he's genuinely proud of her or if... Go for it with your insight check. Come on, Jessie. Roll a high five.

Yeah. What is that, 23? 23? Wow, whispers, whispers. Whispers. This is intense family drama that you'll only get, you'll only get thanks to Hero Forge. Hero Forge, makers of minis and also supporters

of intense family dramas. Travis is, both of his fingers are in his nose right now. What do you mean allergies? It's winter, there's no allergies. In our own way. Late at night. I don't know. Wait, wait, wait.

Because the cocaine wears off. You need more. Now they know our secret. That's right. It's natural. I'm going to Get hit, man. Now we're back in. Found a couple cups. Oh, thank you.

Oh. For this, I will try a thing. Ooh, here you go. Well, I, um... I toast to Expositor Beauregard Lionict. Cheers. I know you well enough, Beauregard, to assume you haven't come

for the sake of pleasantries. I just go up and stand next to Beau and put my hand on her back and I'm going to whisper in her ear, do you want us to stay? Please. Yep, you know me, Dad. Wouldn't be here if I didn't want something.

Shit. Listen, that story that you love to tell at every family gathering and for bedtime and any chance you had, that old hag that you talked about, we need to find her. Is that story even real, or is that just meant to terrify me?

He finishes his drink and sets it down. Of course it's for your low regard. Look, I know you'd... Of course it's real, Beauregard. Look, I know you've had our differences. And I've not been the pinnacle of a father in the same way that you've been the pinnacle of a daughter. I accept my responsibilities and the things that I've maybe been a bit harsh on.

But look what you've become. It feels like a weird justification of your behaviors, but I'd like to hope that what I became had nothing to fucking do with you, but maybe I'd be lying to myself. Yeah, I was difficult. I had my onus on everything that happened. But I thought a dad was supposed to stay by their kid when they're having a fucking hard time.

You see his eyes. Mom already fucking mentioned that life gets difficult and it's hard. So you're right, maybe it's easy to justify the easy way out. Just get rid of the problem. That's not what this was about. You're on a self-destructive path.

We didn't know what to do. I've never been a... No one teaches you how to be a good father. I regret choices I've made and you don't think I don't hold myself responsible for... I thought I was doing what was best for you. Truly. You did. It was probably the best thing you could have done for me,

so thank you. Tell me the story again, and then I'll go. It's true. I haven't lied to you or made anything up. Why are you asking about this? She has information we need. You're trying to actually go to her? We need her. What for? Why are you afraid?

I'm not afraid, I'm just curious. We think she has something to do with why... We needed to break a curse, that's all. Oh, damn. Damn it. Judy Garland just showed up. Of course, yeah. Judy Garland just showed up. Yeah. Your daughter's trying to do what she always does, help a friend. Well, I mean, I just heard the stories

growing up about the Well, I mean, I just heard the stories growing up about the Witch in the Mountains. What was her name? I don't remember. She was just the Witch in the Mountains. Beau, you know how I grew up. We had nothing. It was in grew up. We had nothing. It was in the street. I had nothing else to lose.

I mean, if I was lucky, this would work. If I was not quite as lucky, she would have just chopped me up and eaten me. Didn't have anything else waiting for me. So I... I went and just wandered north, through the mountains, through the forests, and my shoes began to split,

and I was chased by wolves and worse, until eventually one day I just stumbled upon this little shack. There was the witch. Right when I began to think it was all a lie and I'd thrown myself to the wolves for nothing, there she was, with her crooked smile and hungry eyes and...

Did she have long arms? Longer than natural, yeah. She asked me how I'd come here and threw myself so withered before her, and I said I had nothing to lose, and heard that she can help people. She said she could. She said she was a fortune teller.

She said fortune was her specialty. So she threw her runes and played her cards and said that there was a way to get what I always wanted for just a fragment of my fortune. I said, well, I don't have a fortune. She said, not that fortune, your fortune. I agreed because I had nothing to lose.

I said, this woman I wanted to marry doesn't deserve an impoverished man, whatever it takes. And so, she said, I'll be a great craftsman, working in fine spirits, to pick a place in the mountain land, and wherever I picked,

the ground would grow. She said, a young Beau will take on the Great Name to continue this success until everything eventually will humble me by that which I desired most. And then she sent me on my way. SAM and LAURA say a few words. We came back. We built on land. With what last bit we could borrow from her family.

And she was right. And we had another blessing. And the fact that it all worked means I don't know what else she took, and I don't know what's coming to humble me. And I just want to protect my family. So if you intend to actually go and see this witch, just be careful.

For me or for you and yours? For us, Beauregard. SAM and LAURA say, Laura, I don't think for any moment your mother and I haven't loved you from the depths of our hearts this entire time. I'm sorry if we didn't show it properly. I don't know if I feel validated or vindicated or what. It's confusing. My apologies, I didn't realize this would be

the evening I think any of us was coming home to, I'm a bit caught off guard and unprepared. Yeah. Well, some things never change. Do they, Dad? Oh. I pull her aside. I'm like seconds away from losing my shit.

I know, I know you are. I just want you to know, you know, he looks like he's telling the truth. Beau, obviously he's telling the truth. Oh. Obviously, he was terrible to you. Obviously, they did terrible things, and they sent you away, and that's horrible. But I do believe they love you.

I do. And I don't expect you to forgive them right away by any means. But I would just encourage you to maybe, maybe listen to them the way that you listen to us, with open ears. How did you do it? Do what? Forgive your dad so quickly.

Well... I mean, he seemed pretty earnest, and there's not a lot to be gained from holding grudges. You know, it feels like poison inside of you. How much better would it feel if you could just be clean? I'm so good at holding crutches. I know, you're really good at it. Very good. Interesting point, though. What went over? This is an excellent wine.

Well, looking at the bottle, it's an extremely rare one that I would have preferred to have kept in the cellar, but it's a special occasion, so enjoy. The most special occasion, a reunion. Beauregard. I'm going to go find this woman that you based so much of our entire lives around. And hope that I can better understand why and where you're coming from.

Because while you and Mom didn't do a lot of the footwork into understanding me, it doesn't mean that I can't do my research to better understand where I came from. I've done a lot to reflect on what choices I've made

to put me in the position that I'm in. And I guess I'm just mildly disappointed to see that the same amount of work hasn't been done, or at least even remotely attempted. That's not entirely true, Beauregard. Not entirely wrong, either. I gave Thoreau Jr. the jade necklace. Make sure he doesn't choke on it.

Well, don't, don't, don't leave and go to this woman without any sort of protection. Hold on just a second. And he nervously runs past you and heads off into one of the side chambers. You're doing great. You're doing amazing.

You're doing a really good job, Beau. We all are here with you. Question, protection? He thinks that protects you? I told you he was incredibly superstitious. We never checked it out, though. It might have actually been really valuable. Detect good and evil. Okay, detect good and evil.

Fireball. The chaotic shows. Curious if this is a guy who's had things last cursed. Sure. How superstitious is he in this house? He walks so good. How fearful is he? Oh my god. Okay.

Well, Detect an Evil. All right. I know. I'm going to do a Detect Magic on top of it. Okay. He rushes back in his hands and you can see a different design, but there is another tighter jade necklace,

different carvings. He rushes over and goes, This is your mother's, but just please, please for me, if you're going to do this. I always go with an upgrade. You don't sense anything on the list. I'm going to attack magic just for fun, too. Just for the room, for everything.

Okay, the lights above, definitely. You know, the equipment you're wearing. The necklace he's granting is not magical. Mm. Super special. Yeah. He's like, as if after handing it to you, he withdraws and recomposes himself.

I only hope... I hope. I hope I can make up to you the missteps that I can plainly see behind me. It's rare that a child's damage at that age. And... behavior... doesn't reflect how I... misstepped in my parenting.

Thank you for that. Your grandfather was no peach, either. And there's... There's difficulty in realizing how much you intended to be different, and then to realize you've become so similar. So I hope with the company you keep, maybe you won't repeat the same mistakes I have. By treating the people around you.

I'm trying to do better. I'll let you know how it goes. Good, good. Are we staying? Are we going? What exactly are we doing? We're leaving now, yeah? We should go. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Tell Mom. Thank you.

Mom! You look back and she's actually looking out past the doorway, and then darts behind and then walks out. Yes? Going, Mom. Oh. Oh, all right.

She reaches behind and pulls TJ behind her as he comes up alongside her. She walks up to you and hands TJ over to your father and takes your hands and goes, Sorry, things are strained tonight, but it's good to see you. I lean in and I whisper, You're allowed to have an opinion, too, Mom.

I'll let you know how it goes. Of course. She squeezes your hand and lets go. Then she looks over and TJ comes up again. He looks up at you and holds the necklace back up again and starts sucking on it again. Claire's like, no, no, honey. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Your dad turns to you and goes,

Be safe. I will, I promise. Keep her safe. Always. Of course. You want to give her an awkward hug or anything? She's going to face a pretty powerful being. I think we're good. Right.

Okay, just checking. Good luck to you, too. Land we're good. Right. Okay, just checking. Good luck to you, too. Landmarks to look out for. If you hear noise, run. There was a thick, bramble, tangle, partially grayed and petrified,

like many of the woods there, that means you're close. If the ground begins to tar, it looks like, you're almost there. And if I recall, it's pretty straight north from here. Hi. Should we take horses there, or should we go on foot?

You can take horses as far as you want, but there'll be a point where you won't be able to bring them with you. Maybe we should leave the horses here? We'll take them a bit. All right. I don't even care about horses, just leave it. Well. The Mighty Nein, it's been a pleasure having you. Welcome to the Lionett estate, and travel safe.

We look forward to seeing you here again. And you too. Many years ago, I was granted a wish by that same witch, and I turned into this as a result, so I hope that doesn't happen to you. Bye. Bye, Dad. I swipe another bottle of wine

that they have on display on the way out. I will steal literally anything. If I don't see anything on the way out, I'll just take the cup I was drinking. The cup you still have, definitely. It's a nice cup. On the way out, there are these small square windows off to each side of the entryway,

and they have these little decorative tables with nice velvet over them, and you can see there's a couple of art pieces there that are relatively easy to grab. I'll grab one. Do you mean stealthily, or in touch? Stealthily. Roll a sleight of hand.

Gooooooooo hand. 28. I'm so disappointed. You glance down and it's this beautiful jade rabbit sculpture. Oh, and when our friend gets out of the shed or tell them to meet us outside. I sort of linger and hang back. You're one of the last ones to walk out.

Okay. Thoreau approaches to close the door behind. You should be very proud of your daughter. You are very lucky to have her. I agree. You should be very proud of your daughter. You are very lucky to have her. I agree. You should show her that more, then. If for some reason we end up killing this hag, will all of this go away?

I don't know. Well. Maybe that would help you remember what's important. Have a good night. As you leave, he just stands there with the door open, watching you all walk away, those words still echoing through his ears before the door slowly. As you all step back out

into the cold night rain, the sun now set, the sky darkened beneath the storm clouds as another distant flash of lightning brings the calming thunder to your ears, Yasha. I cry a little bit and then just grab everybody and huddle everybody in. You all come in for a cold, rainy hug here in the mud on the outskirts of the Lionett Estate here in Kamordah.

A union of support. Yeah. That's where we'll end tonight's episode. Ooh. Man. Whoa. Oof. Yeah.

Totally where you expected it to go, right? Totally expected. It's a good show. I've had all these battle maps for all the different directions for levels, and I don't care. This has all been great fucking role play, man. Travis, when you were gone,

was Fjord's stool solid or runnier or? Stony. Stony? Oh. Vegan milkshake stony, like that level? Whoa. Yeah. That's a rough one. Oh. Oh, guys, wow.

My eyes are puffy. Yeah. Can't imagine why. You're going to be exhausted. I'm going to sleep so good. Man, it's so weird playing your asshole dad. Yeah, it's kind of creepy. It's a very strange kind of disassociation exercise. I hope so.

Oh yeah. Touché. Man. Well, thank you guys for joining us. Yay! We're free! Yep, yep, that's still funny. We should have fun.

Oh yeah, we have. I'm sweating and was just stress eating. It was so stressful. The back of my neck is drenched. Oh. Did you have a tornado too? Oh man, this is, ugh. No, no.

There are NPCs that are challenging and such, Oh. Did you have a tornado? Oh man, this is, ugh. No, no tornadoes. There are NPCs that are challenging and such, but like, between your dad and Darian's dad, those are two NPCs that have been, like, the grossest to step into for different reasons. Challenging, certainly. Yeah. Well. Yeah. Well.

Yeah, but those syphilis bandits, though. That's just fine. Those syphilis, though. That's a depraval. You left an impression! Mm-hmm. I'm just like over here, I'm like, I'm looking down here, I'm like, rolling to see,

yeah, now they're going to run into him again. Yep, fun recurring theme. I felt that there was something in that fire that was worth, I'm so glad. Yeah. That was great. Fire? The bandit camp. The fire?

That's a holdup. There's a coincidence down there. I know. Anyway. Thank you guys for joining us for this extensively emotionally tense episode. We'll be back here next Thursday, looks like treading into the Sirius Mountain, surrounding Mount Mintyri.

You guys remember when we first started, we were like, witch hunt, witch hunt! We're going to witch hunt! Oh man. We were trying to get hot, we're like, there's a witch in it. Nope, yeah, there is. It's a troll.

Yeah, there's an actual witch hunt. We know, we're going to be prepared. We're going to have our stuff together. Sure, we'll be prepared. We're going to make some good choices. I've had some blessed ways. Hey! I'm going to take control water.

Everything's going to be fine. Yeah, you're right. All right, guys. Well, hope to see you next Thursday. In the meantime, be safe, take care of each other. Know that we love you very much. And is it Thursday yet? Woo hoo! Good night.

Good night. Thank you for listening to this episode of Critical Role. If you've enjoyed this ever weaving story, please consider rating and reviewing our podcast. You might just inspire someone new to hop on the wagon for the journey. We have plenty more stories to tell. Stay tuned, and we'll see you next time.