Critical Role - C3E47 The Fey Key

Episode Date: February 9, 2023

Bells Hells carefully traverse the shadowy side of the Fey Realm and dodge numerous dangers in their attempt to destroy the first Malleus Key… Due to the improv nature of Critical Role and other RPG content on our channels, some themes and situations that occur in-game may be difficult for some to handle. If certain episodes or scenes become uncomfortable, we strongly suggest taking a break or skipping that particular episode.Your health and well-being is important to us and Psycom has a great list of international mental health resources, in case it’s useful: http://bit.ly/PsycomResources Watch Critical Role Campaign 3 live Thursdays at 7pm PT on https://twitch.tv/criticalrole and https://youtube.com/criticalrole. To join our live and moderated community chat, watch the broadcast on our Twitch channel. "It's Thursday Night (Critical Role Theme Song)" by Peter Habib and Sam RiegelOriginal Music by Omar Fadel and Hexany Audio"Welcome to Marquet" Art Theme by Colm McGuinnessAdditional Music by Universal Production Music, Epidemic Sounds, and 5 AlarmCharacter Art by Hannah Friederichs Twitch subscribers gain instant access to VODs of our shows like Critical Role, Exandria Unlimited, and 4-Sided Dive. But don't worry: Twitch broadcasts will be uploaded to YouTube about 36 hours after airing live, with audio-only podcast versions of select shows on Spotify, Apple Podcasts & Google Podcasts following a week after the initial air date. Twitch subscribers also gain access to our official custom emote set and subscriber badges and the ability to post links in Twitch chat!

Oh, hey there! Laura Bailey here to tell you all about the glorious goods we create inspired by our stories. Our stores are filled with the basics, like character-inspired t-shirts, dice sets and pins, as well as more specialty items like fancy jackets, puzzles featuring gorgeous artwork, the comfiest joggers and pajamas ever, and much, much more. There's also a few special items that support charity efforts, like our dedicated Critical Role Foundation merch. You can check out all of our regional online stores by visiting the Shop tab on CritRole.com, or

head straight to the U.S. store at shop.critrole.com. Every purchase helps support our shows and the stories we tell. Speaking of which, let's get back to the story. Hello, everyone, and welcome to tonight's episode of Critical Role, where a bunch of us nerdy-ass voice actors sit around and play Dungeons & Dragons.

We're the nerdy-ass villains! Uh, before we get to our episode tonight, we do have some announcements to get to, beginning with our first sponsor, which is NordVPN. Boy, it's been a while since we've done one of these. Ashley, can you refresh us, please? Sure thing, Matt. The TLDR is Blackwillow69 is sliced. The cast is de-booted.

Balloon animals are still awesome, and I have assumed my final form. I've shed my weak human body and become pure computer virus. All because Marisha Ray didn't install NordVPN on our fancy new Critical Role set. Ha ha ha ha ha! Are you sure about that? Who said that?

I did! BlackWillowMotherfucking69 at AOL.motherfucking.com! But how? Why? Where? How? It's simple, Ashley. Or should I say, Seti. You made the same mistake thousands have made before. You misunderstood Marisha Ray. So she did install NordVPN on the set? No! She's got a ton of shit on her plate. But she didn't have to!

Because on this set, she installed a code far more complex. It's the code of friendship. She knew that when she forgets something, her friends are there to back her up. Because hackers click together. Oh! Ooh! Yeah. Who installed NordVPN, you ask? together. Who installed NordVPN,

you ask? I installed NordVPN. I installed NordVPN. I installed NordVPN. I installed NordVPN. I installed NordVPN. Oi, wait!

Marisha, you did? Uh, no. No, I got a ton of shit on my plate. So you're all saying... I forgot I had an accident. The glitch didn't stream. All right, so you're all saying that my cube has been cleaned by the power of friendship?

Yes, that. And when you touched Laura, we slipped a backdoor botnet into your command line, which installed a Mac and Me protocol that tracked your keystrokes, predicted your moves, and regenerated my body using the extra rubber from your precious balloon animals. Hold up! You're only made of rubber now? Very interesting line reads. Yes! I'm made of rubber now! Every inch of me, even my loins! And you would have detected it if you would have used NordVPN, which provides

the highest quality encryption for your internet traffic and hides your IP at the single location. Available on Windows, iOS, Android, and Linux. With one simple click, it's easy to get high speed. High speed and protection. Try to resupply this. Are the balloons leaking?

No, man. Ah, shoot. If I had just gone to NordVPN.com slash Critical Role or used code Critical Role, I could have gotten a two-year plan, plus a bonus gift with a huge gift cap. But instead I got... Mega hacked. Oh, you may have defeated me, with a huge stiff tap, but instead I got Mega hacked. Aw!

You may have defeated me, but you'll never defeat my family! Johnson Corp shall rule for eternity. I'll come back, and when I do, I shall fire you! Consider yourself sliced, Glitch. That was amazing, Black Willow. Yeah, I know. What now?

You're the only man I've ever loved. Can we be together at last? Megatronic, Cryptonic Override. You belong with number two. Search your heart drive. You know I'm right. If you'll have me. Sure, whatever.

Oh shit. And you meant what you said. You really think people underestimate me. Positronic. That's why I'm putting you in charge of all the Nord VPN ads from now on. Oh, I have a ton of shit on my plate. Yeah, I know.

What about us? Yes, you were also in this skit. Now, with the power vested in me by the entire worldwide world, Matt, back to you. Wow. Thank you, Sam. Thank you, NordVPN. Well-oiled something. We are well-lubricating a thing.

That was so rough! That was harsh. We crossed the Elated. That was brutal. That was harsh. We crossed the Elks in a blizzard. We didn't know we were going to get to do this. It was just like a fractal tunnel and just kept going and going. Editor. I'm sure we'll get you one.

Yep, we'll work on it. Next up, we do have announcements for, while we're here, Sam and Travis. Oh! The Legend of Vox Machina! Episodes one through six of The Legend of Vox Machina season two are available right now on Prime Video! Woo-hoo!

Episodes seven, eight, and nine will drop on Prime Video worldwide tomorrow, February 3rd, and our next watch party for episodes seven through nine will be live next Tuesday, February 7th at 7 p.m. Pacific. We hope you guys have been loving it! It gets crazy! Go watch it right now!

And also. You might have heard that we dropped a casual little announcement a few weeks ago, and we are thrilled, excited, over the moon to finally say that an animated series is in the works for The Mighty Nein! Such an unbelievable dream for us. Thank you again to all of you that made this madness

happen in the first place. We hope it's going to rock your world. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm! Speaking of animated series goodness, just a reminder that there will be a new episode of Foresighted Dive next week as we continue our weekly watch parties for The Legend of Vox Machina.

We will return with episode 11 of the Foresighted Dive in March. Also! What? What! What? Oh, what? It's weird. You may have heard, if you didn't. Let's go. Oh my god, oh my god.

Let's go. Yours truly here is going to be fighting in a creator clash, too! Ooh! Oh, that's stupid. Don't. I'll be a what? Don't miss underestim be a what? Don't miss underestimate her. That's right.

Don't miss underestimate her. I'm going to put that on the back of my robe. Don't miss underestimate her. Later. I will be fighting Haile Sharpe. I'm sure she's lovely. I have no beef with her. I do plan to beat her ass, though.

That's right. I have beef for her. Yeah. This is a charity boxing event that will take place in Tampa at the Amelie Stadium on April 15th. So good. You know, where it's all for a good cause, it's all good vibes, and the Critical Role Foundation

is going to be one of several organizations that the proceeds will be going to this year. Super stoked and super proud that CRF is going to have a little place in this amazing event. Tickets can be purchased at thecreatorclash.com. Nice. Woo! Wow!

Also. Oh! We officially launched our TikTok last month. Yo! The tip to the top, you know. That's what we're doing, the TikTokers. And yeah, so you may start to see some behind. Oh no. Oh no, no, no, no, no.

No, no, no, no, no, no. Just let the algorithm wash over you. That's only three years old. It's okay. People still use it. People still use it. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Just let the algorithm wash over you. That's only three years old. That's okay. People still use it. People still use it. You may see some behind-the-scenes content

or some stuff around the table that you don't normally get to see. And if you're into that sort of thing, you can go check it out. You can find us at our usual hashtag handle, at Critical Role. At Critical Role. At Critical Role. This is going great, guys.

Wow. Check us out. All right. We'll do a great start. I'm going to go ahead and cut us off there. Oh. About 10 minutes too late. Took us too long to get to the possibly Michigan reference, but I'm glad we got there eventually. I think that concludes our announcements,

and so would that. Let's go ahead and jump into tonight's episode of Critical Role. Critical. Critical. It's Thursday night. One by one we climb until we reach the top. Two by two we climb until we reach the top Two by two we fall Will we meet our end or meet our destiny?

Hold your breath and roll How do you want to do this? It's Thursday night All ye critters come join us It's time to continue our flight. There is magic and mystery, who knows what will happen in life. But one thing's for sure, we never give up on the fight. From the healer to the renegade, we all share the same goal.

Adding more allies, taking more chances, hold your breath and roll. You can certainly try. It's Thursday night. All ye critters come join us, it's time to continue our fight. It's Thursday night! There is magic and mystery from darkness, our friendship will rise! But one thing's for sure, we never give up on the fight! Oh, get ready!

It's Thursday night! And welcome back. So. So loud. Bells Hells. As the time before the apogee solstice grows ever closer, in fact, just about 13 or so days away. Oh! Okay. That's correct. Indeed. Oh boy.

You went to the City of Flowing Light, Eos, to seek information about the Grim Verity and some of the missing pages of the history of Ruedas in the study that was surrounding it, the Omen Archive. Upon looking about this, you learn some things about yourselves, some things about FCG, some things about your mother through some visions,

and an encounter with some of the Ruby Vanguard, a group or a faction that is working underneath or with certain elements of the Cerberus Assembly and Ludinus D'leth, which surprised you while you were talking to one of the professors at the seminary. After that brief encounter and returning back to your recently acquired ally, Planewriter Ryn,

you decided to head to one of the three locations of these Malleus Keys that are all seemingly aligned in some way to trigger at some point during this apogee solstice. You decided to head towards the Fey Realm, where Fearne is from, and where the first of these keys was seemingly constructed a number of years back. With Planerider Rin's help,

you were transported to the Fey Realm, deep into the Holofen, Holofen, Holofen something or other. Can't remember. Holo-call Fens. There you go, thank you. Holo-call Fens. Holo-call Fens, I had it.

I was getting them backwards. But wait, what's the Hero-call Veils? Hero-call Fens? Hero-call. Hero-call Fens. There it is. I think. Do you know what it's a go? You sound right. You got it.

Fucking suck it up. My brain went, no, forget the word. No, no, no. Indeed. Wow. Where are you? Sorry.

You traveled a short distance to the interior of Fearne's abode under Morrigan, the Fate Stitcher, within her home known as the Ligament Manor, a beautiful, mostly shrouded treehouse where you stayed the night, learned a bit about her history, the source of her jovial personality,

and acquired a bit of information heading towards where this key may be. As you begin to hike towards the Sablecast Grounds, where a location known as the Shiver Keep exists. And there, floating somewhat ethereal in the sky above it, is the out-of-place image of Ruidus. You push through these swamps. You briefly, not really had a conversation with,

but quickly destroyed and set aside a group of centaurs that were plotting upon finding you to bring you back to the Unseelie Court and continue your journey towards this ominous keep. So here we are now, past the twisting web of tethered trees, now unveiling the broken mountainscape of jaw-like gray stone spires

that are wreathed in nightmarish patchy vines and black needles with winding giant bramble forests that completely entwine and tangle the middle of this valley for an almost endless distance before you see the distant mountains cresting up. This, before you, is the sablecast grounds. You can see shifting lights amongst the now very dark and shadow enshrouded canopy,

moving bands, villages, who knows? But what you do have to guide you, at least in a specific direction, is that faint little beam of red and the glowing orb of a ghostly Ruidus. You do also know that the gate, the nearest gate to this event that could bring you back to Exandria

is due west from where it is, should you be looking at it where you are now, which is the direction you traveled from. But that's all you have to go off of. So do you continue onward? And I still have a fog cloud spewing from my mouth. Indeed. That's right.

That's right. You know, in hindsight, I bet those centaurs would've done a good job of, yeah. Would've done a good job of getting us to the court. Oh yeah. But they hated us. Yeah, no, they probably would've destroyed us, but at least it would've gotten us there.

How did I not see your shirt before? Oh. Oh my god. This is, yeah. Oh wow. Vibrant. So bright. Okay. Is Imogen's fog stack rising into the sky here? Or is it keeping it?

Or is it doing the dry ice thing where it rolls down? Yeah. Is it like light lavender? It's swirling around you, and you can step outside of the cloud to look up. It is not causing a column or necessarily a mass beacon that is drawing the attention of any aerial entities or distant scouts.

It's just obfuscating us. Yes. Nice. That's the one. Very good. Misunderestimate. But glancing past the fog cloud, which it does prevent you from seeing where you're going. Great.

But as long as one of you is guiding beyond that shroud of fog, you can get the others to follow with your voice. I'd be happy to. I have incredible vision and very keen senses. All right. I mean, Fearne is from here. Well, fuck!

I guess. Sure. I mean, I probably know best where to go. Take the lead. I'm just kidding. I really don't. Really? Oh, you don't? Well, you said that you haven't really been outside of the tree house much. Yes, I didn't realize it was quite a dome situation.

Yeah, but I could try, maybe I could. Yeah, it's like riding a bike, give it a shot. A what? What's that? A BK. Ah, yes, that I know. Fearne, are you guiding them on this length of the journey?

Mm. Oh yes, please. Well, what would it take to guide? No, just answer the question. What would it take to guide? There are many things that it can take to guide. There are many things that it can take to guide. You go ahead and negotiate.

Yes, yes, yeah, I'm trying to negotiate. Yes. Okay. I'm guiding. As as you move past the fog and look over this still descending walk into this bramble thicket, this dense, dark forest that fills this valley, you can see there's that faint silver rim light

that seems almost sourceless. Above, you can just see the drifting wisps of gray and purple and green clouds. You need to make either a survival or a nature check, your choice. Okay. You got this, Fearne. I got it.

I know exactly where to go. Didn't we also learn that the keep or the key, or maybe both, are under the visage of Ruidus here? That was what you were told is probably the likely guide. So we can also use that to a degree. Indeed. 12. 12, all righty. Did you guide yourself?

Did you guide yourself? No, I didn't. I forgot about that. Can't guide the guide. Yes, yes, yes. Next time I will. You wander deep into this thicket, following the footsteps and very keen directive of Fearne Calloway.

The next hour or so is a harrowing period of traversing a very torn and unwelcoming landscape. You push past these bent over, smaller gnarled trees than the ones you had passed deeper in the fens, but they seem to be almost willing themselves in your way. As you push forward, you swear you can hear the creaking of bark and trunk. As you push forward, you swear you can hear the creaking of bark and trunk. As you push past the fog that you're still billowing.

After an hour, it goes away. Indeed. So by the end of this first hour of the leg, of the journey, you will be free and clear of your smokestack self. I'm starting to drool. Oh boy. So it doesn't,

you feel yourself getting lost a couple of times, at least a little bit distracted before you get back onto the path. You don't end up completely lost and you do eventually conditioner yourselves, but a beeline towards your destination was not made through this treacherous portion of the valley. Because of the fog cloud,

I was also going to have you all roll stealth checks, but have advantage because of the fog cloud, I was also going to have you all roll stealth checks, but have advantage because of the fog. Hey, look at that. Natural 20. Oh boy. Nice. Oh boy. I rolled a one and a five. All right, Nott and Karrie.

23. 23. 25. Oh. Okay. One. 12. With advantage? Well, I get disadvantage on stealth, so that's a single roll. That's right. It was a one.

Okay, that's bad. And you're exhausted. Yeah, that's right. So that's disadvantage. So. Or just a straight roll. A straight roll. Both of them were balls. Both of them were balls. Average it out to three.

I'll take the one. Oh! That sounds fair. I'll take the one. Oh! That sounds fair. I'll take the one. Great. Fearne, what did you roll again? 12. 12, okay. I got a 19. Yeah.

And a 19, phew. Even, thank goodness for the benefits of your unexpected fog enchantment, as it seemed to have obscured your passageway through, narrowly avoiding some deep growling hoot noises that seemed to be emanating from some unseen nests that clamber up in the nearby canopy. This hoot.

Hoot. Oh, that's way scarier than what I've been hearing. Oh shit, that's way worse. Hoot. Oh, uh-uh. Hoot, hoot. But push on until the descent along this valley path

becomes fraught with small cliffs and the occasional bit of a slick mudslide. Because of Fearne's passable roll, you did not end up falling into some sort of a Goonies-style slide trap. But right as the fog billowing begins to subside, you begin to notice a number of spire-like towers, these thin, needle-like towers

that poke beyond the brambles. You see one of them not too far from you, a few hundred feet, and another that's a little further past. These are these very thin, tall, pointed towers. At the top, it's like a polished white marble that is set onto the top. How wide are they at the base? Make a perception check for me,

because you don't see the base right now. It's too far away. The trees are thick, you just can barely see it now approaching from above the breaks in the canopy. Eight. Eight, no idea. Is it too wibbly wobbly here to guesstimate how far away? Is it 200 feet away? 200 feet? Is that what you said?

It's a few hundred feet, you could guess. By the time you can see it. You take a few steps and you can gauge the distance. It's just a pillar with a marble on top? Yep. No doors, no? A black pillar? It's like a dull gray-purple coloration. A white marble top.

That's unusual. Fearne, what is that? Your guess is as good as mine. Appreciate the honesty. Is there any one? Yeah. Like, there's no windows of any kind. Light sources. Make perception check. Natural 20.

Ooh! Four total of? That would be? 600. I like how he doesn't celebrate it. 29. He's going to get the 20. 29.

I worked at it. Keep it in your core. I aim for it, and I got it. Don't Mr. Underester Demeter me. Mr. Demeter. There are no windows. There's no ladder. It's just a smooth, thin tower.

With the Denshal 20, you can tell. It is making sounds. That's what happens when he rolls a 20. There's no ladder. It's just a smooth, thin tower. With the dash of 20, you can tell. It is making sound. That's what happens when he rolls a 20. There you go. That's how you celebrate a critical. With a xylophone. It's true. With the dash of 20, you can tell.

It's about 400, 500 feet from where you currently stand. It is about 10 feet wide at its base at the most. And the majority of the tower is no more than maybe three feet wide, just going to a gradual point. It probably stands about 60 or so feet in the air. Whoa. Okay.

That's no moon. Can we assume that that's the Shiverkeep? It's so thin, though. I mean, what if it's a creature? Right? Or it could be some way of transmitting or receiving signal. Everything out here is really weird.

Maybe it's just bigger on the inside, or maybe it goes underground. I also think you got to at least assume everything here is a creature at first. Right. Wow, that's very fair. Well, we got to go check. Well, actually, I don't know. What are our options here?

We can just go walk right up to it, or? We got Pâté. It's true. Good, thanks for telling me. Yeah, maybe Pâté. You can go check it out. All right. Fearne? Yes?

What would be a non-assuming version of Pâté? Maybe an owl, maybe like Dr. Nesbitt, to make him look like that. Oh, yes. All right. Yes, just like a polite little bird. Polite little bird. That'll be a little bit unassuming.

All right, all right. Polite Pâté. Oh, hey, hey, what we doing? All right, you're going to go on another little field trip. Well, where are we going? Just you. I need you to scalp for me. Sure, sure, yeah.

But first, I want you to take on the form of a cute, unassuming little bird. We're great with words tonight, all of us. Okay, hold on. You watch bones pop, pop, and it's almost just using the same parts Pat-Tay is now trying to transform her into a bird-esque shape.

Oh, it's sucking in on its own body? Good boy. This feels a little weird. I love the way you're telling it. How'd he do? Yep. I did all right. All right. At a distance of about 15 or 20 feet,

it might work quickly. Yeah, come on. What's your little, do a little songbird chirp. What's your little like... Doesn't have lips. All right. Yes, you're dead. It's a skull. Hush! Okay, just don't have lips. All right. It's a skull. Hush! Okay, just don't say anything.

You see that big pointy thing with the big giant marble on top of it? Yeah. I want you to go check that out. Okay. I'm going to look through your eyes. Okay. Don't get caught.

Okay. Don't say anything. Let's see how you fly. Ha! Pfft! Yeah! Sit still for a second. It's like the heaviest bird you've ever seen. The wings are just like,

and just. It's like, like... Weight to thrust ratio's alpha. It looks like it's about to drop a payload or something. It's just carrying the body. Like a Junebug. Yeah. Dumbass Junebug. Bumblebee just

makes it off that direction. You glance through Pate's eyes. Yes. As you focus and hold on to Imogen. Concentrate on the vision. About 200 or so feet away from this tower, suddenly the vision through Pâté begins to sparkle a bit.

This faint purplish light seems to just put a filter over his vision. The rest of you notice, as Pâté cruises off, suddenly you see this bright glow of faint purple energy. Around him. Almost like someone had lit a lantern, like a purple flame lantern. Emanating from Pâté?

The direction that Pâté went. Does it look like fairy light or something? Yeah, like he got hit with a... It looks exactly like fairy light. It looks so pretty. It's like wearing really cool glasses. Well, no, I think whatever is in that tower is looking through that tower,

can definitely see Pate at this point. Yeah, should I tell him to come back? Oh. No. Straight to us. Let's not do that. All right. Keep going, buddy. Okay. Maybe he'll just look like a dumb bird

or something, Flyn. I mean, yeah, yeah, yeah. Dumbest drone ever. Yep. I'm doing good! No one sees me! Cruises past the tower. From your vision perspective, like, dodges past and continues through

and weaving over the trees and the heavy, twisted thickets, these heavy roots that bend up out of the ground and tangle and knot over each other with six to eight inch long thorn spikes that seem to protrude from them and heavy clusters around sections. The further in this forest goes, the more dangerous and unwelcoming it seems to be coming. It was already pretty unwelcoming. As Patay picks up a little bit to try and crest over some of

the bush and thicket, you can see there are a number of these towers, probably a few dozen or so. They don't really emit any light, but in the faint bit of source, the silver light that's washing across the top of this valley, you can see the polished marble tops. They definitely stand out texture-wise from the rest of the forest. There's a bunch of them. How about their sentries? Sentry towers. It also looks like the bramble in the brush

gets incredibly daunting and thick, the closer that it gets. Great. Well, that means it's important if they're protecting it, right? About this time, you also hear a sound that pierces the somewhat stillness, the quiet air that encompasses the valley, kind of pierces the somewhat stillness,

the quiet air that encompasses the valley. This Had she had? Probably. Just echoes and fades out. Yeah! Did it come from a particular direction? You can make a perception check. Didn't we get something that made us invisible? Did it come from a particular direction? You can make a perception check. Didn't we get something that made us invisible?

We get some invisible things. Oh, right. From Mori. She gave us invisible things. Eight. Oh yeah, what'd she give us? Little nets or... Like the cloaks. Used once a day, like...

Yes. We can't move when wearing them. Horotol veils. Yes, that's it. Oh, that's why I wrote down veils. I know. That's right. I wasn't fucking wrong. Single swatch can be placed over three medium

or small-sized creatures and activated when the creatures are not moved beneath it. The game plus 10 to stealth checks. Lasts for one hour. How many do we have? Three. Three. So we can use two now. So when we're not moving, so we can move

and then freeze and we still get it for an hour? Three people. For an hour, but then once you're done, it doesn't have the magic anymore. So you could use it once. So when we're not moving, so we can move and then freeze and we still get it for an hour, basically? For an hour, but then once you're done, it doesn't have the magic anymore. So you could use it once and it lasts for an hour and then you're good. But we can't move and stop and move and stop for an hour? Yeah, we can move and stop.

You can, but it doesn't give you the benefit while you're moving. Yeah, you have to freeze. Once you freeze, it goes opaque. The three of us. Laudna, do we want to use Pâté, like, not bait, but have Pâté be more obvious and we, you know, so we see what we're dealing with?

We could do that. He's pretty obvious already. He's pretty obvious. I didn't want to tell him, you know, break his spirit. I mean, I guess we'll see. Keep, keep circling, buddy. Okay. Starting to hurt, buddy. Okay. Starting to hurt my ribs. What'd you roll for perception?

Oh, just eight. Just eight? Okay, yeah, eight's from everywhere. Who knows the distance? The range is terrifying. What are the plants doing? From this area, you can see the trees themselves still creak slightly as you walk through.

It's almost like they're leaning in your direction. Branches seem to cross over and try and bar the way. It's inconvenient. No more than that at the moment. Okay. But occasionally, you come to some of the Bramble Thicket elements and you have to crawl down and get low

and scratch your arm as you push through. You start to get scuffs. It's not a comfortable journey forward. Is that screeching ongoing? You only heard it twice. How close to the tower was Pate before he sparkled? It was about 200 or so feet. Oh gosh, so it's a big radius.

Yeah. Shit. I'm going to just really quickly close my ocular receptors and just say, Changebringer, if you're out there, please tell us, is that creature a danger to us? And I will flip my coin. No spell cast, it's just a coin flip. We're good.

I think we can just go. Really? Well, yeah. I mean, yeah. I've been trying to, for a long time now, I've been trying to figure out, what am I, right? What's my killer? Am I a healer?

What's my past? What am I made of? You know, am I human? Or am I dancers? You know, what am I? But now I realize, I got a thing already. The Changebringer gave me a thing, and that should be my guide.

I should look forward into the future. You should just use a coin and flip. You can tell us if one thing is their personality. This is what I am. Yeah, but did you hear something or feel something? That makes a choice, that's all I am. It doesn't make a choice, though. How could you not care about that?

So you're making the choice, not the coin. You're making the choice? The goddess is. Oh boy. Well, but. And she said, I said, in my head, I said heads were fine, tails were bad, and this is heads, so we're going.

So are we just? I mean, I'm going. You guys can do what you want. I'm saying, oh! What? I don't trust him. Did you trust him? Letters. I know you're, I'm very excited for this.

I think this is really good for you. I really do. I think you got to slow your roll, not metaphorically. And you know, there might be a cue for a proper answer. A lot of people are talking to the goddess and maybe it's not that that was the answer. Maybe it was please hold. And we should wait for a little bit more of an obvious sign

and just in the meantime, trust in those around you. I do trust. All right. I think in faith, could we test it out on a race or something or something more low stakes first? Like potato sacks or something. Turtles.

Right. I love a turtle race. I mean, if you don't trust it, then that's not faith, right? That's true. Well, there's a lot of... I think it also, you know, it doesn't mean you should discount your own

intelligence and wisdom and experience that's come before this. You know, this is a great thing to consider, but it shouldn't maybe become your entire personality. I'm comfortable with this. So, you know, if you guys, I'm just saying I feel good about the way forward. All right.

I feel pretty good, too. Actually, that's the sort of information that I feel is great to have. Maybe the change-breaker is, you know, with heads up, is saying, trust in your own head. Trust in yourself. Don't depend on this fucking coin. Use your own brain, which you have.

Silly Imogen. That's not how it works. It's not how this flat world works. No. Are we trying to depend on it? Oh my god, I didn't even think about it. Oh, you said it. You had to say it.

I was thinking we could get away with it. I'm so sorry. It's like a symbol of the earth of Exandru. Thanks, Fearne. Fuck, Fearne. It works on so many different levels. It's a sign. Fuck it all agreed to not bring it up.

Yes! They had to. They had to push it up. Are we trying to power down this field and gain access to those little spires? Wait, are the spires blocking our path to get to the Ruidus? Yeah, if we're trying to make a beeline for Ruidus,

are they across it? If it's a direct line, it looks like there's at least two that are in the path, but you can try and weave through if you want to try. If someone wants to go ahead and guide a path through the forest in hopes of avoiding them. Survival. Survival or nature? I will say. I have good survival, Survival or nature? I will say.

I have good survival, but. All right. I will say, Laudna, about 10 minutes since you sent Pâté into that field and he began to glow like a purple torchlight, it fades. And so you begin to ascertain that whatever magic took hold in him lasted about 10 or so minutes. 10 or so minutes.

Okay. Anyway, I'm assuming he's still going, right? Or is he circling? I told him to circle. All right. Does he see anything else? Did he just see the two? Make a perception check. Maybe he used up all the magic

and now we can go and we won't get it. Because you're looking through his eyes. Go ahead and roll your perception. I feel great. I feel like we should listen to Using, this is, because you're looking through his eyes. Go ahead and roll your perception. I feel great. FCG, I feel like we should listen to you. This is it. You get the Familiar's perception. We're not going to be dumb about it.

We're still going to go. That's right, it's the Familiar's perception. No, it's good. Yes, it is. Natural 20, natural 20. All right, so with Pat Tate, with the imp's perception, that would be, sorry, it is actually the Familiar's perception. Oh, it's his perception.

It's still a natural 20. It is still a natural 20. A pumpkin always eats shit. Oh, it's his perception. It's still a natural 20. Fuck that. It is still a natural 20. Frumpkin always ate shit. No, it's because you rolled a 20. With what? His wisdom? 21. 21. Ooh! All righty.

Doesn't he have something... Eyes of the bone. Magical. Bone eyes. Darkness doesn't impede his vision. That's great. So he's got that. So, okay. As Pâté is keeping a keen eye

above the forest path that lies ahead of you, you do see the scattering of these towers. What you gather through his vision is they run a ring-like perimeter around where this keep is now visible to you. From this upper perspective, from this view, you can see that ghostly image of Ruidus held aloft roughly a mile or so above the center of the floor

of the valley, and that single thread-like red beam that holds it there like a still balloon in the sky. The spires are scattered in a ring-like formation around the outside, so if anything were to try and rush the center of this valley, it would have a hard time getting to the keep quickly without itself being seen by many sentries or scouts that likely exist throughout the center of the forest. By the time you also see a large winged shadowed entity

that is circling above the keep and around. Awesome. You know it's serious when he says winged. You watch it slowly descend and circle around and then vanish within the exterior walls of the keep. Awesome. That's awful. All right, I relay that information. Appears to be a ring, big winged shadowy thing.

Probably its patrol, making sure that dark it is. This is not our final destination that we got to navigate around. We got a dark way. Dark way. We can't see the keep from our spot on the ground. It was from Pate's POV. Yeah, you could see the keep from up when you first started to descend into the valley,

when you just began to enter this part of the swamp, and then you've lost your vision of it since then, you're just using the Ruidus image to guide you. But it's big. We're talking thousands of feet between these things. Hundreds of feet. Hundreds of feet between the spires. So we might be able to find a little,

it's to keep large groups of things coming at him from all sides at once. Or to catch anyone who's not paying close attention. And you said there was, the thing went behind a wall. So there's these spires. Yeah, loosely arranged, and a ring-like pattern around the center

of where the keep and its walls are. And then a keep with a big wall. Ask Pate to see which spires are farthest away from each other. Okay, yeah, can I, as he does a circle, see if there's some that have a bigger gap than others that we might be able to just squeeze through? Sure, he goes,

I mean, there's maybe a couple. You internally, speak internally with your mind. I don't know how. Just think it. Poof. You fly on the windmiller. Yeah, we'll boost. We'll hot air.

Very fire lights up anew. Yeah. Just the whole camera's in a lair. Oh god, I forgot about this camera. You, um. I remember it too. That's epic. Indeed. He loosely conveys,

there's maybe a pattern. If you go this way, and you turn right, and maybe just thread the needle. You keep saying thread the needle. It's one thing you say to it. Make sure you stay between them and thread the needle. All right, do I get an idea of what he means by the east side, west side?

Not really. You're looking through his eyes. So he's trying to describe it. You can get a perspective here, but what this will allow you to do is you could help somebody who is making a survival roll, which normally, if they're guiding it, would be on their own for this. So with your vision and with his help, you can do that.

I would like you to roll a stealth check for Pate. Ha! Okay. SAM and LAURA, ROARING Floating wood quacker. I roll with his, what, dex? Dex, yeah. 13. 13.

Hey! Hey! Doing okay. Uh-oh. You're walking through. How about you? So, yeah, if you just go around this way and there's this sudden impact sound,

and all you hear is and you lose the connection. Oh no. I don't think he got eaten. Are you okay? Do you need to talk about it? Oh no, he's fine. He just goes back to wherever he came from. I can get him back.

All right. Nice. Although it would suck to have him right now. We were going to use him to guide us, weren't we? Well, we sort of did. We kind of got doing now. We were going to use him to guide us, weren't we? Well, we sort of did. We kind of got an idea. We wanted to do it together. We wanted to saw some, right? I did. I did.

Let me look at my find. How long does it take me to cast that? One hour, right. Fucked. So next time we rest, I'll get it back. All right, sure. We're going around, right? We got this. We're going to thread the needle. All right, sure. We're going around, right? We got this.

We're going to thread the needle. Thread the needle. So I'm pretty sure, by what he mentioned, we should go, and I describe. I describe. Right, but the best you could through your vision, and a more direct and understandable means of communication.

All right, so who's going to helm this next leg of the journey? We've got a great, we's got a big nature stat? Nature? Fearne, I thought you said you were good. Who's got good survival? I don't have good nature. I have good survival.

Like how good? Like pretty good, but I don't know. What are you at? I'm okay. I'm not healthy. You're getting a big fucking number, Ashley. Don't come with this being fucking plus two or some shit. I'm going to fucking say it's pretty good.

It's all good. We're not, we're not. Well, listen, I rolled the survival for the last one and it didn't go well. I think just go. You wanted to lead it. I'm going. You're leading the SCG. My god is not in me. Do it, do it.

This is all you. I will guide myself. All right. And then I can either give him advantage or? Or you can roll yourself if you want. Well, you have Guidance, so you roll with advantage. Does that mean I roll twice with Guidance or just once with Guidance?

Yeah, you add it to whatever the roll is. Oh, okay, to the better of the roll. Yep. Terrible. But much better. Ooh, good, good, good. Okay. 24. Yo! Great. Great better. Okay. Oh, good, good, good. 24. Yo! Great.

Great, all right. So, yeah, you changed my life. My survival's better than that. Really? That's as good as your survival is? My survival is guided by the ever-flowing light of a change printer. Oh boy. Ever-flowing light. Wow. I don't think that metaphor,

oh boy, we're going to have to get you a book or two or something. Whoa. It's like the coin is magnetically pulling me forward. Okay. All those flat pulls. All right. In following the extremely confident Eormaton

at the front of your party, and using the guidance that you were able to ascertain from Pâté's vantage point, you begin to maneuver through what you hope to be enough of a distance from the outer radius of some of these towers. Three of them in particular, you get anxiously close to and can almost, you don't know whether

if you're tricking yourself through anxiety or there is an actual sense to the air of proximity, but you almost feel like a vibration in the air as you're afraid to get too close. At a certain point, you're uncertain between two of them, if you're going to be able to athread the needle. But through your care and keen vision, you all carefully emerge through this invisible boundary

between the two of them and begin to delve closer and closer to the exterior of Shiverkeep. It's about this time that you, Orym, pick up what looks to be some lights ahead. At first, you're going to glance over and see them, and it could be a village window light. Then right as you begin to focus, you see them move, and you see them getting brighter.

Hold up. Are they coming toward or in a different direction? It sounds like they're coming in a nearby proximity. You're uncertain. Actually, roll perception for me. You'll be able to tell if you roll high enough. That's 21. 21, pretty good, pretty good. It's getting louder, so you assume it's coming loosely in your direction.

Pass without a trace. I don't know what we want to get. What about those? Did we use those veils already? No. Something's coming. Let's do it. All right. On top of pass without a trace or no? Can you go? I think it'd be good to get as much as all of us.

It's the same, right? We would get plus 20. Would we get? With them both overlapping, it'd be the same, right? We would get plus 20, would we get? With them both overlapping, it'd be plus 20. Oh. All right. That's pretty impressive. Or, you know. Go for it. No, I'm up for it.

I pop the password. Depends on when you want to. Mine lasts, we can move with mine, so. How long does yours last? You know, it's hilarious, because it's even funnier to read when I have my glasses. Two really good buffs and stuff. One hour.

Okay. Should we use all of them? Or just one of them? I think just my Pass of the Outer Trace. Well, we need to use two veils to get six of us under. That's true, so maybe just Pass of the Outer Trace. Oh, we need to use all three. Yeah, you have to use them all to get the whole group going. Then maybe let's just use the Pass of the Outer Trace for now.

Save them, and then we'll do Pass for now, and then we'll use the rest. Okay. chase them. Save them, and then we'll do pass for now, and then we'll use them. Okay. All right. So now we roll, right? Okay. So I would like the entire group to make a stealth roll with plus 10 to whatever your result is. Come on, baby.

Thank you, change bringer. Okay. Thank you for guiding me. Yes! Start over here with you, Ashton. 34. 34, okay. Jesus. Yeah, I rolled real good. 27.

27. 21. 21. Fearne? 20. 20, okay. 28. 28. 19.

19. 34. Ooh! Son of Some bitch. So you all scatter in the moderate clearing that you had seen the lights coming towards and pull out of that opening to find nearby tree roots and branches

and wherever the nearby part of the space that you feel the most helpful to staying out of sight, you feel pretty confident in your ability to do so as a troop. Then you begin to hear the sound of hoof as well as and a voice goes,

Denark! Denarkt! Denarkt! Does anyone here speak Silvan? I had tongues, but. I do. You do? Oh! She better. I do, I do, I do. You speak Silvan.

I'm useful here. You. The voice says. I know what to do. It's fine, it's fine. The voice says, I thought I saw them around here. Oh, oh, okay. Be very quiet.

I think they're talking about us right now. You're saying into my head, I assume. Yes, inside Imogen's head. No, to everybody, to everybody. Very quietly. That's firm. Nearby, you watch as this tangled wall of thick 12 to 15-foot tall thorned vines and brambles

un-entwine and open up, revealing a pathway. There you see, coming from beyond that natural gateway, a warband of about 15 figures. You see them dressed in intricate, dark metal plates and leathers with almost a shining silver inlay across it in places. You see some of them are larger, hulking, with almost a shining silver inlay across it in places.

You see some of them are larger, hulking, with elements of dark red or brown fur poking underneath where the plates themselves separate. You can see smaller, stockier figures. You can see tiny winged ones with their own little tiny sets of armor, and they're all wickedly armed. And where their helmets sit, there are these wild masks, these intricately carved wooden masks

that cover their faces, with all manner of horns and antlers that just protrude from the helmet in different directions, with different decorations and beads and odd little bones that are tethered to them as decoration. And as they move, you watch the things clang, but still make no sound.

Like something is preventing the, what would you assume to be loud armor from sounding loud at all. As they shift through, you see one figure who's in the center of the war band on the back of a black stallion, of jet black fur, but its eyes glow with a deep red

and its mane is a burning flame. Just glides about six or so inches above the ground. Yeah. You see it lifts up a little and then it picks up and glides across the ground a bit. Sick. The rider's in the same kind of armor. Doesn't look like they're holding

any immediate extensive station, but they definitely seem to be guiding the center of the warband. Oh god. This figure looks to be... There's no fur. The skin is a deep red from where you can see under the neck

and the shoulders and what few bits you can see beneath. You can't see beneath the mask. So yeah, that's all you can say. It's almost like a thick reddish hide. Okay. But as you all stay there, carefully, quiet, and hidden, they scatter about the wood nearby.

You can watch as they move. They tend to weave between the trees and through the bushes, the handful of sprite-like entities that flutter around, head up into the branches and scoot through the trees. You get the sense that this is a very practiced hunting band as they begin to peek through all the usual spots

in which people would tend to hide. At a few moments, some of them get uncomfortably close to some of your faces, but thankfully, due to the magical enchantment that had been instilled within you by the earth-connected nature of Ashton, the shadows still maintain your shroud and they move past without gleaning your shape. Watching them pass through and keeping an eye

on the figure on horseback, can I get a sense of their strength in comparison to mine as well as their total HP compared to mine? You may. The one that's on the horseback, the nightmare back, if you will, they are stronger than you, definitely. Like strength, physical strength.

Their hit points, not as high. But they are well armored. And they are well accompanied. That poem was terrible and it makes me unhappy. When they left, when they came out of the gate, did the gate close behind them? No, it remained open. Ooh.

Are there still people stationed at the gate, or is it? Well, it's less of a gate. It's more, it's just plants that pulled open and left an opening that was previously closed on. I'm nervous. That's what I'm thinking. Would you like a run for it? As you're glancing over and looking, it is slowly closing up in here like that.

We could probably, do we want to make a roll? I'll flip a coin. It says go! What? It does! You could all make an active stealth roll again to try and move past as the war bandit's heading outward. They're just about passing your space here, but you either can wait, close, and find another path,

or you can try and take the path that's still open. Let's take it. I'll get everyone to make another group stealth door. Who sucks at this? All right, here we go. I know we still have Ashes. You do it, last for an hour. Me, but don't we have? Bless her.

You do, too, yeah. Bless me? Guidance. Oh yeah, you can pass some treats on, right? I'll Guidance you. Okay. All right. Oh, thank god, because I'm running out of shit.

So on this side, we have Chetney. Nice. 34. Jeez. All right. Still, we have Chetney. Nice. 34. Jeez. All right. Still feels good. Laudna. Same thing, 19. All right.

13. Okay. Plus a plus 10? Fearne. Ooh! 29. Okay. Imogen. 23. 23, all right.

20. Whoa, cutting it close. Ashton. I got a... He blessed you. I don't think he can bless. No, I didn't bless. I was telling him to, I was telling Sam to do some...

Natural one for 17? Tracer's blessing like I do. It's a natural one. Yeah. Natural one. I did. Uh-oh. Fuck, shit, this.

Anything but a one in this would have initiative? I did. Uh-oh. Fuck. Shit. You were like, I'm... Anything but a one in this would have succeeded. I know. Demolished. Stop everybody stretched. So as you all begin to detach from your different alcoves and nooks and crannies and bits of shadow and rooted, sunken pockets, you all quickly.

Do I see it happen? Do I see, do I hear? Can I use reaction? Well, here's what happens. You all begin to scatter forward. The quickest of you on foot is Ashton, and Ashton carries the enchantment around them anyway, so there is a proximity.

So as you all begin to dart towards this and head upward, Ashton is guiding the path forward, and it's about that moment that the ground begins to shift beneath your foot for a second. And almost like you're hitting solid forest, but then suddenly one part of it becomes almost like a mud or a quicksand. And you sink down to one knee into it.

As soon as that happens. Okay, because, oh, you know, carry on. I just had a second of, technically speaking, I should be able to ignore effects of earth terrain getting weird. It's difficult terrain, right? It's, hold on, hold on. I can, I should, I'm going to look this up

because it's interesting. This is also fake. Earthwalk. You can move across difficult terrain made of earth or stone without expending extra movement. I don't know if that applies. Indeed, not for this. Because this is a special effect of an enchanted landscape. I was just very excited.

No, of course, of course. No worries. This is a consequence of the one, unfortunately. So as you get stuck into it, it's less the pain, more than the instinctive yelp you give out as it almost hyperextends your knee and you catch yourself. In that moment, you don't hear anything.

All that happens is those glowing little lanterns that all the soldiers were carrying, the little motes of light that seemed to burn from the inside of their helmets behind the masks, all turn back in the direction of your troop. Oh boy. So what do you do? Can we keep running? So we're under light now?

You're not under light. It's just the warband that had scattered and was wandering, they all just heard that noise and looked back in your direction. Is Ashton stuck? Ashton is down to one, up to the knee is currently swallowed by the ground. But it's currently the-

Top of his leg, let's go. But the, you need a chisel for that. I'm going to run, as I'm running forward. It's still up, though. Yeah, so it passed all the space, it's still up. As I'm running forward, I'm just going to touch his arm and cast Invisibility. I was just going to do this thing!

Oh my god! Oh my god! All right. You vanish. The rest of you scatter off to the sides. Right, with your positive self checks. Ashton, as you stand there, the warband begins to scatter back

into the nearby spaces where you all had hidden. Some of the other areas where you had previously kept yourself out of sight, you can see them now discovering these hollows and inspecting within. You can hear some of them to where you hear Fearne say, Ah, they were here.

You can see some of them getting within 15 to 10 feet of where you stand, Ashton. Your leg is slipping deeper into the ground and you can feel this constriction against your ankle. Like the floor is slowly eating your leg. You do take four points of piercing damage. Fine. As you stand there still, invisible,

feeling your legs slowly sinking in further, your other foot, which is up in the land, begins to sink in as well. And the warband is now upon us? You guys have pushed through the opening of the gateway or up nearby the bramble tethers that created that barricade. So you are hiding and watching this

as the warband has returned to this region and is now carefully combing over and through the trees and boughs. Did everybody else start to make it through that, or no? Or no? I haven't noticed. I would say you haven't noticed. Can you mean they landed, caught yourself, looked back, and saw the lights turn, and you've just been quiet as you can,

while you're just... The last thing I saw was... Imogen touch you and turn you into a zombie. So I'm going to stealth up as slowly as possible, if they're not right on top of me right now, start slowly trying to quietly, not even stand up, but just push myself out of this trap. Okay.

Make a strength check for me. All right. Do I get a thing off a strength check? You do if you're raging. Oh, just raging is the? Ah! Cops do it. Still three.

All right. Strength check. 13. 13. No, it's a check, not, okay, sorry. 10. 10. You try and pull, and you don't get much elevation.

Then as soon as you stop tensing, your body sinks about seven inches deeper. You can feel the constriction on both of your legs now. You take another five points of piercing damage. Okay. You can hear it now. The ground, it's almost like. Do we still have an opening?

I'm going to think help? I'm going to cast Invisibility on myself, and I'm going to use my Boots of Elvenkind to silently start creeping out from my hiding spot and moving behind the war party. If I can get, let's say, 20, 30 feet from the position that I was in, I'm going to take a handful of ball bearings,

invisibly, and go and just throw them in the direction that's opposite of where Ashton was in that pit. Okay. Roll a stealth check with advantage for me. Because they are now pretty much upon you. And you are up to your thighs, almost like- Yeah, I'm pushing.

Mm-hmm. 25. 25. 25. You dart past the band and you can see them. The nightmare is now turned back around and is reentering this small pathway where everyone is standing. Most of them are still scattered around

because they're not quite sure the direction it took, but they're the ones that are closest to where Ashton is invisibly swallowed partially by the floor. They're definitely closing in and they did not notice your movement. You throw it? I throw it. Ryda's all those impacts across. Heavy bits of wood and stone and brush scatter across. All the

figures in the warband shift over in that direction. The nightmare rides off in an arch, out of sight as a flame arc is left behind it that slowly vanishes behind it. Does any of that make noise? Like them moving quickly like that and attacking and pursuing? Or is it magically silent still? It's pretty quiet. Like what you hear. Shit has to spill.

What you hear is the or the flames of the nightmare, but the rest of the bardi moves pretty, pretty quietly. But they all begin to scatter and swarm in the direction of where that is. Oh, so they're briefly distracted. Mm-hmm. Okay. How's the bramble wall?

It's closing. I'm going to give a good, solid push, now that I know that they're not acting. After they left, or as they were leaving or distracted, I was going to cast Dispel Magic on the goo that he's stuck in. I don't know if it's a magical effect or a creature, but I'm going to try.

Okay. You go ahead and look over in the direction of where the ground is. As you come up to, because you're still invisible at this point in time, you all can see in the ground, there are these two odd openings in the dirt. Where it is, the dirt around him is shifting and moving,

almost like it's trying to reach up further, almost like a mouth, like a snake that's slowly swallowing its prey. The ground itself is extending, reaching and pulling him deeper in, and just undulating as it does so. It's grotesque. You cast Dispel Magic in the direction of the ground.

It's no effect. It's a creature. As I push up, I'm going to push up with a punch to try and actually almost launch myself, and at the same time, maybe punch the ground to see if just sending a bit of a shock through it will piss it off. Roll another strength check for me, please. Fearne. Yes? Do recall some of the advice

that you were given by Mori as you were leaving. Oh, right. It was something about the ground creature. What was it? I've got it. My round is there, so. Oh, iron tithe. The iron tithe.

Wanting to pay the iron tithe. It's going to take your armor and shit. Yay. Do we have old equipment? Wait, we do. We have an old sword that's in the portal. I'm made of iron, I'll go. No, just throw something in the portal.

Throw something in the portal. Throw your coin in, throw your coin in, FCG, it's time. My coin? No, that's the symbol of my god, no! God, I have almost nothing. I'm going to throw in, I've got a bag of jacks, I don't know. A bag of jacks? You take another four points of piercing damage. We have old swords in the book.

Then it releases you. Oh god. It releases you? It releases him. As you pull up out of it, you can see your legs are soaked in blood. Jacks, really? Just fucking jacks? You could have asked for the fucking jacks. legs are soaked in blood. Jax, really? Just fucking Jax?

You could have asked for the fucking Jax. Let's go, come on, go, go, go. 15 points of damage, right? Wow. I think he's still in there. No, he's out, he's out. You can see him. How do you know? Because he just told me he's out.

He did? Uh-huh. Okay. Okay. Go, go, go. Through the hole? Yeah, we're going through the bramble. In a sphincter. Yeah. All right. Fuck.

Who is guiding this last leg of the journey? Okay, so we're going to do the Bramble. In a sphincter. Yeah. All right. Fuck. Who is guiding this last leg of the journey? Okay, so we're going to be inside the keep. You're not at the keep, yeah. Is this still survival? But inside the walls, right? We're just closer to the keep. No, you're closer to the, you haven't gotten to the outer walls yet.

This is just tangled. Correct, this is just tangled mass of the forest. I'll try. Bramble Forest. Okay, guide me. I will guide you. All right, thanks. May you travel with the spirit of the change bringer behind you. Can I give her assistance?

Quick. Trying to use what I had from Pate? Sure. Say a quick prayer with me. Message is me. May you ever be faithful and, all right. All right. Looks good, she just made you ever be faithful. All right. All right. Looks good, looks good.

Okay. Reaching too far too quick. Too far too quick. All right, well. 19. 19. You can hear the distant sounds of shifting as the warband still stalks the forest, not too far behind you.

Normally they move quietly, but you can hear the occasional whoop. They're giving these different calls to themselves as they move through, and you're uncertain if they're getting further away, closer, or just keeping a distance, but it permanently keeps you at a space

of anxiety and focus. Moving through the still heavily knotted foliage, you push through trees and dipped clusters of jagged roots, unnatural points and thorns. You almost step into the radius of one wayward spire and manage to dodge around the exterior, unlit by its enchantment. And then a short time later,

you begin to see the treeline break. You can see brightly above, almost entirely directly above you, the odd image of a spectral Ruidus. Here you stand at the exterior gate of the Shiverkeep of the Shadow Court. Shiverkeep. She did it.

Shiverkeep. She got us here. Shiverkeep.. She did it. Shiver and keep. She got us here. Shiver and keep. She got us here. Didn't you just see that? Boy. Yeah. Look, I feel like,

amen or peace be with you, I need some sort of a... I told you so. Keep the chain. What? Or... Oh, wow. No. Or bring it on.

No. No. What I hear guys like? Is if you challenge them to manifest results for you, since you're in so good now. Yeah, if you throw out something, like, show me your power, and then they do. Like a demand. Yeah! Boy, I don't know if I'm there yet.

I hear that's how it works. Now we found the client. I'll keep it in my back pocket if I have pockets. At the exterior of these 20-foot walls, you can see the smooth slate stone that rises with almost bits of chitinous texture. At times, it's just flat and very brutalist, and in others, it seems to have almost

a curved organic feel towards the top and the peak at the lips of the wall itself. There are towers that rise up. Goddamn it, Little Bailey. I did it, he did it! Sorry, Liam! Liam anticipating her grossness. The layers get deeper.

I felt all eyes. I also thought about it. Ongoing list of words I can never use. Tell us more about the labia wall, please. Yes. Well. But here amongst the core of the shadow-touched wilds of the Sablecast grounds,

the exterior of these walls that rise up, there are parapets and corner tower areas where sentries look over and parade around. You can see there are armored, varying sizes and shapes, armored, unseelie soldiers and sentries that keep watch above. You can see a large, odd-looking ballista

that are affixed to some of the walls. You cannot quite see what's beyond them. They're too tall, but you do see, walking along one of the parapets, a creature that is unfamiliar to all of you. It is walking alongside one of the sentries who is just guiding it with a chain. And it stands from foot to shoulder. It is a quadruped, that its height would be

at roughly five and a half, six feet. It has a thin, almost stretched dog-like body, like a greyhound. It's spindly with a glorious puffy mane around its neck of turquoise and reds and oranges, this multicolor mane. It has a lengthy horn that emerges from the back or the top of the mane that curls backward to a point.

It has standing fox-like ears that are long and have little tufts at the end. Where its face would be, there is a black, vacuous void. Just a hole of shadow. A faceless wibbit. That's cool. It walks along the top of the wall. Take that, Westminster. No, not looking. Glancing around.

Not glancing. Take that, Westminster. Ashley and Zayla would appreciate it. I mean, it's dog stuff. They're going to get me. Okay. Now, Fearne. Wait, what time? It's nighttime.

It's all dark right now. Oh, and it's always dusk, right? It's always dusk in this region. Okay, okay. Fearne, because you are from here, you can make an arcana or a very high nature check to try and ascertain the nature of these beasts. Okay.

Boy, this little thing is just so darn cute. All right, nature, what was the other one? I'm allowing you to use nature, or you can use arcana because of your presence growing up here. If anybody else is proficient in arcana, they can roll as well. Oh, I am.

You are? I am. Wow. I know, I never. You are? I am. Wow. I know, I never get to use it. That tracks. Do-do-do-do. Uh, 16. 16. Eee.

Is that arcana or is that nature? That was nature. Mine was arcana. Arcana is actually a better roll on this because it is not a purely natural beast. Unfortunately, Fearne, you've never really encountered one of these things. So it is quite adorable

in its own unique nightmarish way. Yeah. I fucking love it. You've heard of something like this before, Laudna. Whether it be a children's book you read or some sort of a, from a long time ago, you're not quite sure the source,

but the name Eramad comes to mind. Eramad? Eramad. And something about, can't hide from the Eramad. Oh no. That's all you can remember. Oh no. It's almost like used to scare and SAM and SAM That's all you can remember. Oh no. It's almost like you used to scare kids.

Oh, fine. Wandering out in the forest too long that you can never hide from the Eramad. All right. What about... We're all aware that there was a winged creature flying about the tower? I mean, I assume that Laudna had shared that information

as it seemed rather important. I do, yes. Do we? I also share this information. You know how I love my spooky stories, so. Spooky stories. Can we hear or see that creature in the air? It's a perception check. You can't hide from the air? Make a perception check.

Your grand-died friendly cat. 18. 18? You do not see anything currently flying in a winged shadow like was described to you, nor is the screeching returned since that moment earlier. Okay. I just picture a really creepy children's song.

Yeah, about the Aramad. And the sentry and the Aramad is up on the wall. Like right around the rosary. Yeah, exactly. It's running a perimeter. And it's a wall, right? It's not a bridgeway or anything? It's a wall with a walkway across the top of it that hits the different tower tops.

And there is a large gate, and it looks like there are some variations to the height. There are some walkways with stairs. It looks like there are rope ladders or anchors for rope ladders, but there's nothing visible. She said that he could not hide from the anger. Oh, I'm going to have so much fun. Sorry.

I'm going to write some poems later. Carry on. What do we do? I mean. We're trying to get in there? Yeah. Yeah. Right? If we can't hide from this thing, maybe we should make it see something.

Like distract it. Trick it. Maybe. Trick it. Oh. That's all I got. Make an illusion. How many figures roughly can we see from here? Will it even notice? You did some perception earlier.

You can see from this side of the wall that you're at, and the keep outer wall, it isn't a perfect circular shape. It's an oblong, varying perimeter shape. But from what you can see here, you can see four different tower points with the rising and falling parapets between. And you can see four sentries

and currently just one Eramad that is walking aage around this side. And do we see, I mean, that's dumb, but can we see any kind of opening along the ground or anything along the wall? There's a gate visible on this. Direction's a little odd here, but based on the direction you went to, the symbol of Ruidus in

the sky, considering that a northward direction, the gate being westward from where this keep would be, you assume, this gate would be in a southwestern direction, so a little bit to your left from where you're facing. Is it a guarded open portal? It is not open. The gate is closed. You do not see any sentries, but you're facing. Is it a guarded open portal, or is it? It is not open, the gate is closed. And you do not see any sentries, but you're not directly looking into the gate space either. Shit.

You have to get closer to look. MATT and LAURA, in a daze, You know, um. What the shit are we going to do with this? Like you said, I could make an illusion, but I feel like. I don't know if that's really going to work. It might see through the illusion

if you can't hide from it. But I wonder if one of your little creepy red guys that you can just summon from your brain. Right. Because they're real, right? They are. Or if it's not an illusion, if it's actually in its head,

because if it's in its head, it's not an illusion. It's just a thought. We've also got Verney who could turn into some sort of animal and I don't know. They're like dogs on chains, right? Like it's like a- Yeah, it's a very large greyhound-like beast. Long curling tail that kind of whispers behind it.

How comfortable do the guards seem walking these things around? Are these things, do they seem like they're having to rein in a little bit? Is it a, I don't want to say friendly, necessarily, but does it seem like a reasonable bond between? Make an insight or animal handling check. Your choice. Dogs hate cats

and they hate mailmen. So Fearne could be a cat mailman. But if it's a fox, it likes hounds. 12? You are not sure. Okay, I can't tell. You can't tell from this distance. It's just, I don't know.

I mean, I can conjure it up to 90 feet away from me. Which is good. The red thing? Yeah. You can control those? I mean, they're an ally, so he'll help us. Okay. It was a little feisty the last time you brought one. Well, it hurts anything in its vicinity. I don't know how much control it has over that.

And what's the plan? Yeah, we distract, but then we still got to get over or get through. And it'll only be 100 feet. That's not that far from us. We still have a closed gate or a wall. Do we see any gates? There is a gate. There's a gate to the left, but it's sunken into the wall,

and there's not much light to where you can actually see the mechanism of which it's closed, unless you head over and want to inspect it. What about the wall around the gate? Does it just keep stretching out and around? Keeps stretching out and curves around a bit. You can see it straightens for a bit and then bows outward on the northeastern direction. And it's rock. It's not plants intertwined.

It's not bramble. It's rock. It looks to be stone or marble, but like I said, in some areas, it's very starkly flat and just heavy stone, and then others, it seems to almost naturally curve. It was partially, almost a bone-like feel to it, how it goes from a hard, flat surface to a smooth, organic shape,

and then cusps at the end. Kind of like Mori's furniture? More or less, yeah. So are we in cover, and there's a distance from where we are to the wall? Correct, you are still within the forest, and the forest comes almost directly up against the wall. There's a slight gap and in some cases

it does come close to it, but where you are now, you can just see what elements of the wall spread out from where you're standing. Like this. Oh, sorry, no. You can do Dimension Door, right? Uh, do you have a Dimension Door? Somebody did.

No? Is that not us? Is that another campaign? That's another campaign, I think. I don't have dimension doors. I thought somebody did. I have Misty Step. Oh.

Which is 30 feet. That's not the same as 500 feet. No, it is not. Well, Mister can, if you're close to him, he can bamf you, but not that far. Is it worth it to- I think it was a spell I could have taken, but, but not that far. Is it worth it to- I think it was a spell I could have taken,

but I did not take. To creep around and find a better entry point? Yeah, we could try, or I could invisibly try to pick the gate, but the gate is probably super fortified, so we'll know real fast. I mean, and the longer that we try to do a perimeter search, the more we risk getting caught.

I'm invisible, I can just try and skip to Maloo. How far away does the gate look like it is? It's about 40 or so feet from where you're standing. I'll give it a go. Imogen! Sink your mind with mine. The last few notes were echoing in my brain.

I take off stealth. You're invisible? Yep. He's going to do a quick perimeter search. Doesn't mean I'll be invisible to Amon. Amon, Amon, Amon. Eremad. Yeah. Eremad.

Eremad. You get the sense your invisibility is, because you cast it a little while back in the journey, if I remember. Not that long ago. No, he cast it. Correct, which I'd say was about 40 or so minutes ago. Oh shit, it was that long ago? You guys are traveling stealthily through the forest.

Yes, we have. So I'd say you have about 20 or so minutes on that, just so you're aware. Fair. Which means 10 more minutes, it would mean about 10 more minutes on Password Trace, too. Yes.

Write that down, write that down. So yeah, go make a stealth check for me. Okay. I'm creeping, though. I'm going to write a thing. All that for you. Okay. I'm creeping, though. I don't know why I think. All that for you. Not great. 17. 17.

Okay. You coast over to the base of the wall. The Aramad, its keeper, has moved on the other side of the wall and is continuing its perimeter out of sight. You do notice that another one is beginning to approach the perimeter. They have two that are doing a rotating perimeter on the wall. You can scoot over to the gate, and there you can see there are two armored figures. There are two unsealy guardians that are sitting within the alcove where the gate sits.

It's this archway that comes to a gathered church point, and two double doors that open inward. You don't see if they're sealed. There's no sign of, you know, you don't barricade it from the outside, normally, nor do you, at an immediate glance, see if there's any lock, but there are two guardians standing. And closed gates.

Correct. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Prepare to die. This sucks. Yeah, what the fuck? He's still on patrol, right? We should've gotten captured,

and that would've got us in. I mean, that was the path. The day is young. The evening is eternal. We could just try to attack the creature. I mean, that seems reckless. I don't know, if we all just unleashed attacks at once. They've probably got an entire army

of people inside of there. Maybe it's just a portal to the void where its face should be. It won't just get sucked into another dimension. That's terrifying. Yeah. I could, ooh! I do have Banishment. That seems, I could banish it for a minute.

Is there a world where maybe we could just pretend we're here to bring goods and just walk right in? Oh, just talk our way in. I mean, this is the Feywild. Just talk our way in. Fey realm, right? Like, we can just be weird and make it work?

I mean, she has a point. It's either come bearing gifts of some kind, or we need a diversion. You mean we could be as charming as Josh Gad to get by the evil Aromad? I love this game. I love you all. The negative modifiers.

I will say, it appears that the patrol is already on alert, that there's something dubious happening, according to Fearne. They're like, they're looking, they're like, they're over here. So it feels already bad. Against us if we try to fake it, that we're just random. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I could be wrong, but just throwing that out there. Trying to get into a stronghold in the Fey Realm quietly. I know. Let's think outside the box here.

We got spells, come on! You got 10 minutes left on Pass Without a Trace. You're still invisible for 20 minutes, and you haven't used your veils yet. Those are some things you have at your advantage, but the rest is up to you. Put him on and then as soon as they pass by us, we run through.

Any time, we just hold still any time anybody comes by. We could go right up to the gate and be invisible while he's futzing with the loss and stuff. There are two people up there. Yeah, Solid Snake it. But I could turn, wait, let me see. Wait, hold on. How many people can I turn invisible?

When you cast this using a third or higher, you can target one additional above second. So if I cast it at fourth, I could turn three of us invisible for an hour. He has invisible, you already used yours. I got 10 minutes left. But you have the spell.

You could cast the spell if you want. But we don't even need it, because we got the cloaks! We got the cloaks! Yeah. We should just use them. Cloaks are only plus 10, so I mean, you know. Yeah. How many times can you cast Pass Without a Trace? I'm done. Oh shit. But also, once again,

apparently we can't hide from the Aromad. Right. I don't know if it's invisible. It's a children's room. Where do you go, Jett? Did you go up to the one invisible gate that we can all see? Or did you keep going to see what else there was? Right under him, because we made a run right after him.

I mean, think about it. Thank you. We think about labyrinth. What if we just push along the wall and maybe there's openings and we just don't even know? Can we make a hole in the wall? Can we tunnel under? Wait, do I have stone shape or something?

Do you have stone shape? I've been, I wish Keyleth were here. It's something that I could have taken, but I did not choose that spell today. Why didn't you? Why would I need stone shape in the Fey Realm? It's all forest and shit. Do we want to talk our way in,

or do we want a diversion? I'm not going to talk our way in. No one ever likes it when I try and talk my way into anything. Hold on, hold on, hold on. Maybe I can wait. Maybe I can. I could banish it. Maybe I can, maybe we'll go to sleep or something.

Let me see what I have. We can't disguise ourselves to look like anybody, right? Do we have any time? Your idea's bad and you should feel bad. Thank you. I'm sorry, I don't know. Season two, out now. Deep move on.

No, no! I'm willing to be a diversion. I'm just putting it out there. Go, I think go, go take a look. Yeah, we don't have any dress us up to look like something else. No, we don't. No, we should go take a look at the lock and then come back as quickly

as you can with the timid. I didn't see a lock. The door's just closed. Just do a sentry, then. Do you want to look for any lock and then come back as quickly as you can with the 10 minutes. I didn't see a lock. The door's just closed. You just entered them. Yeah, do you want to look for any details of a lock? Yes, please. Make a perception check. You would work your way through. Chisel, motherfucker.

12. Whittle. Hyper Whittle. Thank you. It looks like there is a locking mechanism. Yes. It's a larger one. Is it a lock on the outside? I'm asking. It is visible.

It looks like there are two mechanisms of which there are openings where an odd-looking lock, it's not a normal key, it has a weird shape to it. Let's at least give him some cover with the cloaks. Wall is invisible. The wall is 20 feet high? The wall is about 20 to 25 feet high, yeah. I have spider climb, so I could theoretically spider climb over the wall.

That's fine. Okay. You could open the door from the other side. Yeah, you could be invisible. Maybe if you're invisible, you time it with the air med, like one passes by and you go up and over, but then there are two still stationed. We just have to take out those sentries.

What if we put a veil on you and you just go and wait and wait and don't move, right? When nobody's looking? You're uncertain how powerful the sentries are. Two of them there are armored. You could take a look at them if you want. You sure? I'll take a look at the sentries

and see if they're covered in armor and weapons. What are you saying, Ashley Johnson? Try it. I'm just frumfuring over here. That's okay. Does this situation make you want to say E. Gadd? Well, we've been here for a while, right? So can I say that I've looked at

one of the sentries long enough to get a hit point vibe, a hit point vibe and a levels vibe. Okay. They both have heavy shields. Maybe a high. It looks to be some sort of hooked ax, like a battle ax they have slung to the side.

They are well-armed, well-armored, but not as strong or as powerful as you, by a margin. Ooh, we can take them. Yeah. All right,. Ooh, we can take him. Yeah. All right, so I share that. They don't look that capable to me, but we still have to get up there and... We fight them the whole place, I'm sure.

Unless we can silence them really fast. Okay, okay, okay. What if I make myself invisible? It doesn't have ears around the mouth. Sorry, it has ears. Oh, it, okay. What if, what if I make myself invisible? You're a dog! It doesn't have ears or a mouth. Sorry. It has ears. Oh, it has ears. It doesn't have a mouth. How far away are the sentries from where we are right now?

About 40 feet, which is the same distance to the gate. Could Chet piggyback on Laudna under the veil and get over there and let us in? You mean on the other side? Yeah. I mean, sure. I don't know, I'm just doing it.

But we still have to take out the sentries. We just have to get the sentries out. If we're going to open the doors, we have to get rid of the sentries. Is Orym's plan good? Yes! Okay, great. Then we need to take out the sentries, and then? So I'm standing right in front of the sentries.

Yeah, they don't notice you. You're maybe about 10 feet from the gate. Everybody get ready to react. So I'm standing right in front of the sentries. Yeah, they don't notice you. You're maybe about ten feet from the gate. Everybody get ready to react. So I'm standing right in front of the sentries. I go, hey, over here! And I take off, running as loud as I can, running through the grass. Oh, god. Just to try and pull him away from the door.

Okay. Away from the door? You're the guy who picks the locks! Good luck. All right. So we heard that. I want to go over and see if I can open it. Well, wait, wait, wait.

Because there's two figures at the door. We heard Chetney's voice over by the gate. So we're watching them react, right? Yeah. We'll see if they react. So the two sentries immediately react to that. They both take a few steps before one goes like, Now you stay here.

I'm going to go see what that was. And I will turn into a werewolf, which drops my invisibility and be like, You should come too. And just start running. That's not suspicious. Make an intimidation check. Don't be suspicious.

Don't be suspicious. Oh. Oh. 13. You transform into a werewolf, and these beings who exist in the Fey Realm, who are used to strange creatures and lycanthropy. Like werewolves. The one on the left, who was standing behind,

just goes, and stays at the door. My brush. While the other one comes charging after you and pulls his hooked axe out and dives into the brush. I'm just serpentine, just running. He's probably faster than me.

Give and chase, give and chase. So there's one sentry still there at the door while it's racing from you. And what's up top? Where are the aramats? The aramat seems to be passing by. There's just one with its sentry keeping it. Is there one that can see us if we get to,

like right now, if we made our way to the gate right now, would it see us? Back and face, face and towards us. If it's facing your direction, it would. Are you spider climbing? I guess so. I'm going to invisible you. Okay.

Who's going? You're going too, right? Who's going to the gate? If you time it to when it's not facing your direction with its lack of face, it's possible. Right on my back. You're going to go spider climb up? Sure. Okay. I'm invisibling you both. Go.

Do we see the aromads? Yeah, well, there's one aromad that's passed by, and you see it, as it walks, it scans and looks over, and there's a moment where it's looking away as it's currently curling in the direction away from where you're currently standing. Here we go. All right.

So bony. So you're both invisible. You climb onto Laudna's back, and you just up the wall over the top. Okay, you both get onto the parapet, and you can see to the right of you, you can see the back of the aromat as it's moving away from you.

It's not quite scanning in your direction. It's curved tail whipping behind it. To your left, about 100 or so feet from that direction, 120 or so feet, along the other side of the perimeter, you can see the other airman that's slowly making its way around in your direction. We're going to the top. And we're at the top?

You're on the top of the parapet. You can look down into the courtyard. Yeah, what are we seeing down below? Here within the courtyard of the keep, you can see the massive structure, this multi-towered, multi-spired fortress. It's a small fortress. It's compact. It's not a massive encampment. This is a keep, but it is taller than it is wide. It is almost like an ever-growing, like evil Disney castle type presentation to it. You can see all manner of windows and balconies and twisted bits of metal fence that pierce out of each

balcony and almost hold it like a cage, or like a metallic hand at its base. But within the courtyard, there are all manner of trees, some that are twisting upward like their own fingers, reaching towards the sky with bursts of multicolored leaves on them. So there's this smattering of trees around. There are materials and other sentries walking about. Towards the center back wall, to the right of where the keep is, you see a familiar device, larger than the one that was the tangled scrap that you encountered in the Calloway hideout.

But there you see a completed Malleus Key, reminiscent to the unique, almost telescope-like shape and design as to what you encountered there. But this one is sleek. It is polished dark stone with metal cabling and numerous carefully embedded arcane cores that just pulse and thrum at different patterned timing.

It stretches up about 15, almost 20 or so feet, almost to the height of the exterior walls. You can see the elements that have been fashioned to it, some older, some newer, and there are a number of other sentries and armored figures that currently mark a perimeter around that, keeping an eye. Make a perception check for me.

How many individuals are walking around in here? That's pretty good. That's 26. 26 is great. You see, directly around the Malleus Key, there are six armored figures that are in that portion of the courtyard. There are four running a perimeter around the keep.

Are they garbed similar to the ones I watched above? Three of them appear to be heavily armored with the shields, and there are three that are more lightly armored. Okay. You also see there are two aromads that are walking the interior of the keep's courtyard. Yes. I hate all of them.

There's so many aromads. Although one of them, it looks like it's just laying down and is scratching the side of its them. There's so many Aramads. Although one of them, it looks like it's just laying down and is scratching the side of its neck. No face. They're so cute. No face. Scratching the side of its no face. Yeah.

I picture it's just a costume that a dog would wear, but it's just not on the dog yet. Right, right. It's waiting to find its wearer. Oh, J'Kal. Do you clamber into the courtyard before the other aramad and the walking sentry begins to get within a proximity to you.

It's a huge hole. You have to go down the other side. You have to. Just continue to be my eyes. You scoot down on the opposite side and you come down to the base. Now, here within the courtyard, it's an open glade-like appearance, but there are bushes and thick trees,

and it itself, I'd say half as densely wooded as the exterior of the wall. You would almost assume it had been partially retaken by nature if it wasn't so intentional in the way that it's allowing the keep to be part of the landscape. Almost like it grew from it a long time ago. But here you stand here amongst the thick bushes and ferns,

the glowing, fey plant life and oddly large flowers that themselves give off a faint bioluminescence. What do you do? The gate, is it like a- Yeah, where are we in relation to? You went pretty much just right up around on the side of it, over the top and down. So you are right next to it.

Am I able to spider climb and stick ourselves to the roof of the gate to be even further like... Yeah, you can definitely do that. So you're now hanging upside down from Laudna, actually up to the top of the inside of the gate hollow. And it indeed is barricaded from the inside. There is a heavy wooden beam

that is currently set on the opposite side. So that's a physical lift. Indeed. While that's happening, you are running with this other figure that is after you. Kind of acts out, glances around, and seems to slow the chase. Begins to like... Turns around and like,

I'm a big deal. Come on. I could brag to all your friends if you caught me. Ah. You're not worth my time. Ooh. Ears down. You all hear this howl from the nearby wood.

Does it sound mournful? It sounds mournful. Oh no, Chet got caught. Oh no. Then you're. Oh, Chet got embarrassed. Some of the other wall-top sentries glance over in the sound of the howl

and their attention focused a little bit that direction for the moment. Do we hold? Mm-hmm. Who has the fucking cloak? We all have the... Who did take the cloaks? I didn't take them. I don't have them.

Fearne has one. Fearne always keeps our stuff. Fearne's our stuff keeper. Fearne's got a big club. Well, I was. Until? But then I stopped because I'm not good at keeping track. But you have to assign that to a new person. Well, no, Ashton has the hole. Oh. He doesn't have the hole.

I don't have the hole anymore. No. The hole. Okay. I'm going to do a side corner of the hole and see if I can just reach in and grab the cloaks. Kind of do the 90 degree, if that makes sense. It has to, unfortunately, lay out entirely

for it to become a hole. Do we have room to do this? Is there a gap under the door? Would we have put, did we put? We would have pulled it out. Like a half an inch. That's it. We can hole it. We can hole it. Okay.

Under the door. Let's go for it. Get everybody in the hole! Wait, how are you going to communicate that to us? I'm whispering this into Laudna's ear. Okay, you're always, you and Imogen are on each other's head all the time. Are she in there now? There's still the guard at the front. Okay, you're always, you and Imogen are in each other's head all the time. Are she in there now? There's still the guard at the front.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. What do we do about him? We take him out. Sorry, I'm not there. We can just say, can we do something between, like, garrote him through the bars or something? That'd be cool.

Ask you, you do all kinds of crazy shit. Can you silently take this fool out in one go? I can, but it's going to make a lot of noise. All right, maybe I can scare him. Okay, first, deliver the message. But wait, you, wait, the sentry is on our side, just so you can, so you guys can't take him out from your side.

Unless we try to open. I think I can find him, but first. No, I don't. Oh, Imogen oh Imogen. What do you see? How's it going? Um, alright. Six cards on the inside. Six, six, six.

Like the 13 year old in 1990s. And now, don't be mad. What? But there are two more Aromads. Fuck. Off they ride. Thank you. That's good. All right.

This gate looks impossible, but we think if you all jump in the black hole, we can pull the black hole under the gate. Oh, that's smart. But first, I'm going to try and scare away this guard. Wait, how? But I'm going to figure it out in real time. All right, guys, mess up my toolbox order. Okay.

I'm going to. You are going to communicate this to us. Yes, I'm telling all of y'all. Do a good old-fashioned Laudna trick and hope that it works. Hopefully I time it with Chetney's spooky howl. And I'm going to cast an illusion to have...

What are people in the Feywild afraid of? Mori. Lawyers. I was going to say something normal, right? Desk jobs. Desk jobs, okay. I'm afraid of Maury. Lawyers. I was going to say something normal, right? Desk jobs. Desk jobs, okay. I am going to make it look like like a taxman coming for you to tithe,

but like a ghostly taxman. And I'm going to cast an illusion through the wall. He's going to be holding court summons and he's going to reach through the wall and I'm going to cast Unsettling Presence on him. Okay. Stop, Jaden. No, I'd...

But you're on the other side of the wall. So you're on the other side of the wall and you have to see where the illusion is. You'd have to go back over the top. Can I not peek through the gate and see him a little bit? Oh boy. From where I am? Skitter?

To where I get, you know, vantage? Sorry, to clarify, I guess I should say, the gate is like a double door gate. Oh, it's not like bars? It's not like bars. Hmm. Okay, okay. That's all right, rewind.

But you can clamber back up on the other side if you want to try and do that stealthily while invisible. You see it? Yes, I do. Just tell us what to do. Hmm. We, you know, I, okay. Hmm.

Fuck, I don't want this back. The guards on our side? One guard. I can just banish the guard. Yeah. I mean. Do it. Yeah, maybe that's easier. If't want to risk that. The guard's on our side? One guard. I can just banish the guard. Yeah. I mean. Do it. Yeah, maybe that's easier. One minute. Yeah. For a minute, that's enough time.

One minute's all we need. Hey, will you message Chet and tell him what's going on? Banish! The guard? Yeah. Okay, what's the save on that one? Yes, he does have to save. He's going to use charisma, I believe. Is it a touch or is it?

Oh, it's a 4th-level. It is 60 feet, charisma 14. 14, that is going to be a 11. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. Okay, as we're doing that. Soon, they're scratching the side of his armor, like, here's the howl. Huh.

And just vanish. All right, let's go. And if everything's clear, looking left, looking right, anything? Who knows? We're going either way. I know. It's one minute. Yeah. Left, right, okay knows? We're going either way. It's one minute. I know. Left, right. We're just going. Okay.

Doing a double check to see if anything's watching us. Make a perception check. Thank you. Maybe you can catch him and beat his ass in the hole. That's my other plan. Beat his ass in the hole? Put the hole under where he is. Everything's great.

Everything's great. Yeah, just so you can tell, it's a nine, so. Okay. Yeah, I'm running. I've got the whole run. Stealth run towards the gate? Stealth. Yeah, stealthy run. Everyone who's stealthing to this doorway,

go ahead and do so. And I'm going to roll a stealth check? Roll a stealth check. Are you coming back yet? Are we still under the hood? I can see all of you guys. I'm closer to the door than you are. For a minute longer. The other guard is still returning. He chased you. You guys are both returning from the wood, but he hasn't returned yet. He's about maybe 15, 20 feet ahead of you, marching back.

The rest of them don't know that. Are we still under the influence of Pass Without a Trace? This is your last stealth check to be able to use it. All of us are doing this? Yep. Jesus. Do I get advantage first All of us are doing this? Yep. Jesus. Do I get advantage first and pass without a trace? No.

Add 10. Add 10, yeah. Okay. 18. Return as well? I'm going to stand by the edge and just wait for Chetney. I'm way far away from you, so just go. Yeah, you don't see him at all. You can if you want to, your call.

All right, so. Nah, I'll go, I'll go. So you all carefully dart up to the inside of the alcove. Guidance. Yep. Guidance. All right, stealth check. 32. 32.

16. 16, okay. 18. 18, okay. And Fearne? 12. Plus 10. Plus 10? Oh, plus 10, 22!

Yeah! All right, there we go. So you all dart off into the alcove. You don't hear any noises. And I'm going to say to Chet, let him know we're trying to go in. You got to get back here fast. Of course, there's just the corners left. I'm going to slip the whole thing

almost rolled out under halfway through and wait. And then I'm going to try and flatten it. You flatten out and the hole appears. Hop in, hop in. There's a guard walking back right now. And then, yep. It's about now, as you're arriving, the other guard is now about to emerge from the wood.

Can we see it? Can I see it? As you lay it out, you guys turn back and there's a guard who just emerges from the wood and goes, and sees the cluster of you within there. Oh fucking hell. Fuck. He's going to reach you. How far away is he? He's about 20 feet from you. Okay. He's going to reach you. How far away is he? He's about 20 feet from you.

Okay, I'm going to use a sorcery point and I'm going to cast Inflict Wounds on him. Inflict Wounds, okay. Just to clarify, did you push the edge of the fact Yeah, it's right there. It's your roll to hit. Yeah, there's like half a month's on the other. Yes, I'm going to do it at second level.

This is a roll to hit. Come on. I've done this do it at second level. This is a roll to hit. Come on. I've done this with a piece of paper. That is a 15. 15, unfortunately does not hit. He's a very well armored figure with a shield. So you go to cast Inflict Wounds and he ducks out of the way

and you feel the essence of your energy reach out and grasp nothing in the space. We're hopping in the hole. Nost is doing what? Can I run up behind him, seeing all the spell myths? I'm just going to try and grapple him, just hold his arms to the side. If I can, I'd try and cover his mouth.

Yeah, yeah, go ahead and roll a strength check. We can throw him the hole. Can I assist and cast Hold Person? Yes, you can. Natural 20. Oh! Oh! Let the bone die.

Yeah, you definitely, immediately, your woven form quietly, just out of the shadow, as you see the guard duck out of the way and reach for the side, and you can see there's a horn hanging on the side of his belt. And as he goes to reach for it, out of the shadow, this pale, woven form just grabs and pulls him partway into the shadow. His mouth held the mask that he wears. He has a mask over the face, and the mask breaks from beneath the grip as he holds it. You're casting Hold Person on him?

Well, I don't know if I need to now. Okay, you don't have if I need to now. You don't have to. We'll take it, because you can struggle against something else. We can get him in and throw him in the- Get him into the hole and then close the hole. All right, Hold Person.

Hold Person. That is going to be a 14. What's your spell DC? 16. 16, it's a failure. So he seizes in you quickly. I start walking forward. Yeah, it's like carrying a mannequin.

Come on, come on, come on. So all of us jump in the hole. Yep. You all jump into the hole, pull him down with you, and he's just like. And then we can all, I will all. Do we want to leave the hole so that when the banishment goes, the guy just falls back in the hole when he comes in?

We could. We should just get out. Sure, yeah. Well, that's true. That's true. He's going to really stink when he comes in? We could do it. We should just get out. Sure, yeah. Well, that's true. That's true. He'll just stink when he comes back. That's true, that's a good point. So we just, that's a great idea.

Can I release banishment now? Yeah, I think you can. Can I undo it, or does it always last a minute? No, you can cancel the spell if you want to. I'll cancel it. Just position it to where he was. Yep. Okay. Which is the same place where he said it before.

Okay, great. Off! The guard falls in the hole. We're all. Off! The guard falls in the hole. We're all out. You all are there in the hole. You all climb out and then yank it and fold it. Both the guards are now locked into the hole with it closed. Yeah! That's a great plan!

That was a good plan! And now we are in the bushes. You are on the inside of the courtyard in the gate alcove. There are bushes and trees around it, and you can see the Malleus are on the inside of the courtyard in the gate alcove. There are bushes and trees around it, and you can see the Malleus Key across the way. The glowing tether of red energy you can see occasionally as the,

it looks almost like a thick red laser, and occasionally a burst goes up the beam in the direction of the ruidous, ghostly image above. And there was a sleeping aramatt or a lazing aramat maybe somewhere in this quarry you described. Somewhere around. Correct, yeah.

This one would be across the way to the left. And there's one that's patrolling loosely on the far right side. It's circling to the back gate, closer to where the Malleus Key is right now. And last question, did you describe shrubbery around this side? Yeah, there's thick brush.

Along the walls, there's quite a thick bit of tree and brush. It gets thinner towards the center. Okay. That plan went smoother than a mattress pad. Have no fear. Against the Aromads. Thank you. No, no.

It's also Aromat with a T or Aromad? Aromad. The D. The D, okay, good to know. All right, that opens up some rhyming. No, no. It's also Aromat with a T or Aromad? Aromad. The D. The D, okay, good to know. All right, that opens up some rhyming. Some new rhymes. Okay. Working on it. Yeah, now what?

Fuck. So we're all inside now and we're... You're all inside of the courtyard, yes. Hiding in the shrubs. You are hiding in the nearby brush. At this point, the large fortress itself, the front gates, would partially open open, open up even heavier, and you see two figures stepping down the large set of stairs

that leads into the front of the keep. Oh shit. One of them, you see at this distance, it's hard to make out details, but they are themselves wearing similar armor to the others, but a heavier, dark coloration to them. The shoulders themselves curve up wider, and the helmet adornment itself is extremely tall. This one definitely has a higher station than any of the other ones you've seen within the fortress. To the right of it is a

female figure with shortish shoulder-length gray hair and a red cloak shawl across the shoulders, walking alongside them. This is Orohan. Oh, mother. Oh shit. I almost looked at my, wait, wait. I look at my scribble. Oh. You see a faint glow in the direction of Orohan.

She still has an honor! Oh my god. The one time we don't fucking look. What's the matter with you? I know! I thought about it earlier, too, and I was like, meh, that's stupid. Fuck, fuck! You see them both walk over

towards the direction of the Malleus Key, and they're in a conversation. Shit. Shit. What are they saying? This is a bit of a predicament. Make a perception check for me. I am observant. I can read lips.

That's true. I knew it. Make a perception check to see if you can read lips. There's still quite a distance from you. Oh! Tuck him away! That die. Okay. I got a vibe from that die.

Okay. Lips. Well, first off, the Natural 20. So you can see this figure. They remove the helmet as they're talking, and you can see this figure is maybe seven feet tall. Pale skin with elongated ears, black brows that extend into a thick hairline, a thick, wavy black hair that almost hits the shoulders.

You can see a magical tattoo-like markings that adorn the temples, the cheeks, the jaw, and the chin, framing the face like that. The eyes themselves are a dark gray with black, wide pupils in the center. The chestplate, the dark armor, has some sort of hollow in it. You read the lips of the figure looking towards Otohan and says, Seminar sits at the end of their, I'll just give the voice because why not? You can't even hear it, but it's fine. Seminar sits at the end of their patience.

I would have few reminded Ludinus of our arrangement and the expediency in which we can remove his place in it. Otohan looks back and says, I assume you are of sound enough intelligence to know what must be done, and that there is no place for pleasantries or ego-stroking in the scale of what we are doing. They pause as they step to the outside of the Malleus Key.

They're like mates talking to each other, but also staring at the device. Looks back towards her. Your continuous lack of respect is noted, human. She cocks a grin. When you finally step from the shadow of the Moonweaver, I guarantee you'll be forgiving. And quietly stands there for a second.

She nods, looks to the key, pulls something from the side of her arranged belts and pouches, reads from a scroll, and you watch as a flame, a weird green-blue flame rises up and consumes her and she's gone. Just her. Just her. Good. The other figure reaches off to his side

and pulls up what looks to be a deep, cerulean blue and black marbled, almost like an ocarina or a whistle of some kind. And blows it and places the helmet back on his head. The voice goes, Glomglart, come! Glomglart? Glomglart? The thing in the sky.

And you watch, crawling over the top of the wall from the opposite side, from the outside, this massive serpent-like creature, itself probably head to tail, about 45, 50 feet in length. It looks like a dragon, but its limbs are long and thin. Its wings are membranous and somewhat see-through. It's almost like a stretched frog dragon, if you will. Its eyes at the front of its face, its jaw and nose snubbed, its eyes bulging and white,

almost cloudy and milky. Sounds kind of cute. I mean, I want one. You can see where its jaw hangs open, there are rows and rows of shark-like teeth on the inside. As it crawls over the wall and scoots down and slithers in the inside of the courtyard, the armored figure then climbs atop it,

where you can now see there is a saddle. There is a full mounted getup on this entity. At which point, once it settles in, its dark-plated armor now resting within the saddle, it tugs in the creature. Oh, this is what we saw. Yeah, this is the wingy wings. As it streaks off, and begins to curl above,

and then vanish on a wide perimeter over the surrounding forest. And the male elf got on top of it? Correct. Raised its mount, and then took off? Elf or? Archfey. Archfey. Seven foot tall. That's Archfey.

Seven foot tall, face tattooed. Face, wavy hair. Fae brow. Big eyebrows, big ears. The first phrase that the figure in armor said was, seminar. Seminar sits at the end of their patience. Seminar sits.

Seminar? Seminar. Seminar? So seminar is like their organization? Sits at the end of their patience. Well, it could be an individual, it could be an organization. Yeah, it could be an organization.

Seminar. Orm whispers this. Is anybody here proficient with arcana? Yes. Technically, history would work as well, but you'd have to roll very high on history. I've got history. Go for it. I've got arcana!

Who could ask for it? Okay. Ooh. 15. I'm not certain who this figure is, or what Seminar is, necessarily. You know, every library on maybe Continent, maybe there's nobody babysitting anymore.

If Otohan's gone and Archfey's gone. I mean, if those were my bosses and they just took out, I'd be taking a huge sigh of relief for the next 10 minutes. This is no joke. You're not wrong. I have to pee so bad. So bad.

Go for it. Go, Imogen, go. I'm going, go. I'm hiding in the bushes. Yeah, I know, I'm hiding in the bushes and I'm taking a pee. I mean, cast Piss Without a Trace. You know what? Here, how about this? How about, since you have to pee and we just watched this flying entity take off into the distance, the ominous silence that falls across the interior of this, we're going to go to break.

Laura needs to pee real bad. Because she's afraid of the aromat. Could there be ominous silence, and then after a beat, the sound of pittle, pittle, pittle, pittle, and a leaf? It's been a running gag today. All right, piddle, piddle, and a leaf. That's been a running gag today. All right, we'll go ahead and take a break here. We'll be back here in a few minutes. We'll see you shortly.

We interrupt this Critical Role Podcast Network broadcast to bring you news of dangerous treasures that lie sealed within the Critical Role shops. Only the heartiest of adventurers should dare seek them out. In all seriousness, though, I'm Matthew Mercer, and we've made some very cool things that we really like and hope you will, too.

If you'd like to support the show, please consider visiting any of our Critical Role online shops through the Shop tab at critrole.com and see if anything catches your eye. Okay, back to the show. And welcome back. So, Bells Hells, here you sit on the southern side of the inside courtyard of Shiverkeep. You have a visual range beyond the fortress

to the north side across from you, to the right of the actual keep itself, you can see the Malleus Key guarded, and there are a number of sentries as well as a few aramad within the courtyard. The well-armored figure that spoke with Otohan, who appears to be the figure in the lead of this location at the time,

seems to have absconded with its flying fey dragon mount and is somewhere in the nearby sky. What do you want to do? Hmm. Okay. Just lay it out for us again. in the nearby sky. What do you want to do? Oh. Okay. Just lay it out for us again. How many guards? How close to us are they?

Six guards. There are six guards within the interior of the courtyard that you can see. Three of them appear to be fairly well armored with shields and hooked axes. And there are some that are lighter armored with sheathed weaponry that are keeping an eye out. Heavy three light.

You see two aramad within the courtyard, and this does not count the ones that are walking and viewing the far perimeter. None of them have seen us, but they're within 100 feet or so? I'd say, from where you are now, you're roughly 150 to 200 feet from the other side. So I'd say there are a few that are within 100 feet,

but the actual Malleus Key is probably about 150 feet from you. And there were two air mat within the courtyard and two air mat on the walls. Yes, there are four total. And they're walking around the perimeter or they're walking through the courtyard? There's two that are walking in a continuous

counterclockwise motion across the walls. The parapet? The parapet. And then there are two within the courtyard, one that looks partially asleep or asleep, and one that is just keeping an eye out and existing. Okay, so it's not scoping. Has Imogen finished tinkling yet? Oh, that's right. I'm asking the DM.

Yes. I feel so much better, sorry. Okay, what the hell? Oh. I do think it may be a good idea to have a few of us try and focus efforts on the key. Yeah. While others try and keep us off of that. Distract or destroy the guards?

Well, I mean, y'all could try to make it to the key without being seen, see what you can do, and if stuff starts going bad, let us know and we'll cause a distraction. The folks going to the key should have some way of disrupting, destroying it. I have Dispel Magic. That's about it.

I have... I can hit it with things. Yeah, that makes noise. What are the chances that invisibility means shit to the Aramad? Pretty high. Yeah, that makes noise. What are the chances that invisibility means shit to the Aramat? Pretty high. Yeah, pretty high, right? But if you go, that one over there is just chilling out and looking around.

That one over there could be asleep. So if you make your way around, then maybe you won't get in their vision. Maybe the one over by the key is actually sleeping. Oh yeah, yeah. So I was about toimb up to an outlaw. Yeah, so maybe y'all invisible people just spider climb around the wall.

Spider climb around the wall, get over to the key, do some shit to it, break it, and then we'll all freak out about trying to get out of here. Ashton, do you need any healing? Your legs got chewed up pretty bad by that mud. I mean, it doesn't feel good, but I'm actually more concerned

that we didn't actually take a little nap before our last encounter. How would we have done that? I don't know. Just to check, there's no group spell or teleport or getting out of here. We're going to try and damage a telescope and then figure it out.

Well, we can always go back in the hole. We'll just close ourselves in the hole. And then wait seven minutes. Maybe. Okay, you know what? Wait. I completely didn't. Let's divide up those cloaks. Let's divide up the cloaks. Did you think we were just?

No, I didn't, for sure. I wanted to hijack that giant frog dragon and just fly away on it, but I realize it's already gone. Yeah, no other animals or vehicles. You're way out of here. We're going to do this thing. We have no fast paths out of here. Can any of us just teleport themselves really fucking far? I can Misty Step myself 30 feet.

Orym hands you a flower. What the fuck am I supposed to do with this? Burn. Damn it. Anything from you? Any big transportation? I'm looking. Transportation-wise, let's see. Can move you or people? Even just you will be in trouble.

Well, you know, Mister can move me around. Nope, I don't give a shit about your monkey. No, well, hold on. I know you don't, but wait, hang on. If he's my only way out of here, I gotta go with it. Wait, how is Mister your only way out of here? What can Mister do? Oh, he's looking up something.

He's looking up something. Mister can bat for 60 feet or something like that What can Mister do? He's looking up something. He's looking up something. We've got to start doing shit. Mister can bear for 60 feet or something like that. No, I think it's smaller than that. I think it's like 15. You're 8th level, which means you can wild shape into a flying creature. Oh, that's new! No, I can't! I can't yet, because I'm 7th into a monorub. Oh, that's right. You multiclassed it. That's right. Next level you can.

I multiclassed because I'm a denigrat. No,. That's right, next level you can. I multi-classed because I'm a denigrate. No, no, it's all right, next level you can do that. Um, yeah. Okay. 60 feet's the best we have, apparently. But, but, but. But. I did, but, give me two seconds to find it.

I did, I can polymorph. Into a horse? Whatever we need. Any creature of equal level or lower. So something that could fly, possibly. Oh yeah. That's why I took it just in case. Giant eagle?

Okay, so you could get probably two people on your back. I can cast Fly on two people. That's five. Worst case scenario, if we're running fast and hard, we can have a couple people jump in the hole and hope to god they don't get shot down. But could Chet, Laudna, and I ride on the, we weigh 20 pounds altogether.

Yes, I'm made of paper. It's true. Yeah, I bet. Wait. She might fly a little slower, but I bet you could do it. Could I turn into one of those creatures? That big creature? Or that's too much? I can't do that yet, right? The one you just saw?

Yeah. No, that one's a little bit out of your range. That means a lot. But if you can carry three, and you can do fly on three, including yourself? Two people. Including yourself? No, including myself, two people. You plus two.

No, just one other person. So that is one out. Well, then in that case, I mean, I can carry someone that can fly, or I can cast Fly on you, and you're strong. You could carry someone. Oh yeah, that's right, you could carry me. That's true. There's also the hole.

There's the hole. There's also the hole. That's true. That would be faster, probably. It the hole. There's also the hole. That's true. That would be faster, probably. It was just risky. Okay, we got a way out. Well, you don't breathe, do you, FCG? And then, what? Do you breathe?

No, I don't. I actually don't. So you could go in the hole and you would probably be fine. You can stay in the hole indefinitely. I could. That Poke-hole. How have we never thought of that?

Because I'm not a real person. No, you are, but that's not true. We say all this, we're saying all this very quietly. Yeah. Chet, what were you going to say? If all this works and if we survive and if we can fly out of here, the rally point, the place where we're heading,

the place of refuge and sanctuary is? The gate. Straight west from here. No, the gate that they said to get out of here. We're supposed to find where the brambles get the most tangled to the west of this location. That seems like a very nebulous location. Maybe should have tried to find that first

so that it was a simplified thing. We could have done. Yeah. That's why I was asking about where we're going. We're being divinely guided right now, so we're going to be... Oh my. Not good.

You should listen to that. I think she's left us. Can you divine intervention anything? I do have that. Can I? Oh no, sorry. Oh. And I... Okay.

All right, well, this feels like a plan. Sort of a plan. I can't Divine Intervention. If shit goes real bad, are we just going to go full throttle? Is that the plan? I mean, we fight our way out if everything goes dog shit, yeah.

This has a 95% chance of going tits up incredibly fast. I think that's a low number. Yeah. And keep in mind, too, if we can wreck this thing, and even if we lay waste, everyone's here, and we get the fuck out, giant eagle, however we do it,

Fade, Fae... Fae boy. He might be way gone. Maybe. There's also, once we fly out, we're going to be flying through those fairy fire balls. Well, maybe we go up and over, but I'm worried about eyes in the sky

and then getting run down by a dragon. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Okay. I know that all of this conversation and then getting run down by a dragon. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Okay. I know that all of this conversation has happened in less than six seconds and super quietly, but also, when we destroy

or attempt to destroy this object, this key, we got to do, it's not just like, oh, we shake it up a little bit. Like, it's got to be unrepairable. We got to do, it's not just like, oh, we shake it up a little bit. Like, it's got to be unrepairable. We got to steal something important from it. We got to take some bits and. Do you think it has a little lens, like the one that we tried to do?

Probably. Gosh, I hope so. Yes. You've broken those before, haven't you? I know how to do it again. Okay. Do you think the armor's clean by now? It's been six seconds. It's been a little longer than six seconds. How long has it been that we've just been sitting here talking?

Well, I mean, the conversation that has transpired here, I'd say it's probably been anywhere from five to ten minutes. You tell me. We could look in there and see. We could just look down in the hole. No, but we can see into it. They can't see out of it, right? I mean, no, they can't see out of it.

They might want to give it just a few more minutes. They can't hear out of it. But they can't hear out of it and they can't make noise out of it. It's like nine minutes of oxygen and then assuming they need a few more minutes to slowly pass on. You just drop some dynamite on there.

Boom. Yeah, we can open it a little. You can just barge in. Some river fish in there. You can just hop in and finish the work. Just hotbox them. I'm going to take in some hits if we don't have to. They'll be practically unconscious. It'll be super...

They'll go to sleep. They'll go to sleep. All right, and that's so that if you want to, someone wants to change real quick? Wait, wait, wait, wait. Can any of you witches produce any kind of acid in any way to throw at this machine? Oh, that kind of acid. Shit.

We have poison. I don't know. Not poison. I mean, I'm thinking of something they could eat through. I have nothing. Okay. I can freeze things. I can electrocute things.

I can shock it. I can shock it. It is machinery. I can make a bunch of termites to just slowly over time wreak havoc on its insurance policy. I got some dynamite. Dynamite's probably better than termites. I also have dynamite, but dynamite's gonna be loud. That's gonna bring back.

Just make sure you have something to light it with. I could turn into something very small and get in there and wreak a little havoc. Shoo its wires. Shoo its wires like my aunt. Maybe, Fearne, you should go with Laudna and Orym. I feel better. Or invisible.

Can you, do you want to, oh, so. Okay, wait, question. If she wild shapes, okay, if she wild shapes into like a hamster and hides like inside my shirt, will you still just be able to see like a floating hamster as I crawl through? Will she go invisible as soon as she's in Latinas Clubs? I think if you're holding.

Or if I hide her in my clothes will she be invisible, yeah as she's in the Latinx gloves? I think if you're holding Inventory. Or if I hide her in my clothes will she be invisible, yeah. That's an interesting question. I would say, because you are separate creatures, equipment and things you wear are different than a creature, so I think it would be a floating hamster. What if she ate the hamster?

Then it'd be a very unhappy floating hamster. What if I just made it go to her mouth and then popped her in my mouth? Yeah. And just held her in my mouth. I was just going to say that. The old classic move. Lord. Just don't.

No. Just don't do that. I love it. I love it. You know what? Just don't. What could possibly go wrong? You can certainly try.

I was about to say, let's just let this happen. Please injure the mouse enough so she explodes inside your body. Yeah. And we can just say goodbye. Like one of those little group bomba. I wouldn't swallow her. Like the beginning of the last boy season.

Oh my god. Oh my god, she's so cute. Beginning of boys. She just rips my jaw off, yes. All right, we're going on a plan. Three, two, one. Let's do it. All right, go. What are we doing a plan. Three, two, one. Let's do it. All right, go. What are we doing?

They're going over to the thing and we're all just sitting around. Who's doing breakage? Are you coming with us? That's the ultimate question. I can turn more people invisible. You can also join me in a little bit of armor if you think, walking around,

if you want some of this armor. We could at least try to go take a look at the machine. Oh no, Fearne could fit in the arm. I'm going to take out Turmoil and out of the word, turn it into a scythe, and I'm going to apply one vial of Skirath poison to the blade of it. You got it. It has been applied.

Fenn, are you rolling with us? Yes, okay, I have a question. Yes. So if I were to, say, turn into a poisonous frog situation, could that be considered a little bit of acid or something that I could destroy? I don't know. I'm trying to bargain here.

I know, I understand. Because it would be stronger than a frog mouth. I would say any beasts that naturally produce an acidic digestive fluid or some sort of a reverse fluid, the time it would take for it to do significant damage to the innards of a machine like this would take a long time. If I were to say,

offer you the Brooklyn Bridge for sale, do you think maybe you would purchase it? I'm going to say maybe it's time to check on our friends down there. Okay. I'm going to roll out Justin a little bit and I'm going to lay it down just to see what's happening in there.

We'll put your invisibility at about 40 minutes left at this point. Okay. Who's invisible? Laudna and Orym. So we're going to Luke and Yota backpack over to it on the walls. Indeed, they have suffocated within the hole. Hey!

I'm going to hop in and start going through their stuff and probably, I'm going to try and, will some of that armor fit me? Yes, not in the most comfortably, but it'll fit. Will it fit? Who else will it fit? He's got a big deal now, bitch. I feel bad for them. Can I stabilize them? They're dead now. They're dead.

They're dead. We're about to kill a whole bunch more people. I think I would probably kill them in any werewolf form. Any werewolf form? It's possible. Looking at different members of the team, there are various shapes. There are bugbears, there are hobgoblins, there are different beings of different sizes.

So like, you know, the- Sure. You got one of them. That could work. And yeah, the other one. So the application of armor takes a little bit of time and it is generally a not quiet scenario. Oh, we can do it in the hole. Oh, in the hole, then yes, you can do that.

And I'm going to help them get dressed. Yeah. Okay. And is there what, yeah, it's, well, wearing armor fucks me up, but. Taking the armor off of them, putting the armor on you, yes, it mucks your AC, but you do get the AC bonus of the armor then, which will put your armor to 16.

18 if you use a shield. How do you use that hammer? Shit. Does it come with a helm or a helmet? It does come with a helmet. And mask. And mask. Cool. And it fits okay? Yeah, it fits okay.

It's a little tight, but it'll work. I'll make a note that my AC's at 16. If you were to wear it for a number of hours, your posture would not be great and you'd feel a little sore. Do they have anything in their pockets? Anything interesting? Do you want to take some time to look through them? Really quick. Yeah.

Make an investigation? Just really quick, while we're getting dressed. Why am I doing this? No, I can't roll with shit right now. Looking at them, it looks like they aren't carrying much for journeying. They're not on a path. And so, like a lot of soldiers that are on guard duty, most of their important things are locked away

in their quarters. But they both have a shield, both have an axe, and armor upon them. Rolls carrying a sword of Kaz. Yeah, just in his back pocket. Shield and an axe. Yeah, okay. I want to keep my fucking hammer, but I know I can't do that right now

because I'll be caught, it'll look suspicious. So unless anybody has something else to do, I'll just put it in the hole and I'll open the hole if things get weird. Put it in the Bag of Holding, too. There's a Bag of Holding. Who's got a Bag of Holding? We have a Bag of Holding? No, the hole is what you have.

Yeah. That's right. There are two campaigns. Sorry, yeah, we got to get one. He's like, what? So yeah, I'll just have it ready to go if things go wrong. So I'll take this, just tuck it in the shield. Okay. Fold it up, put it in the shield. You got it it up, put it in the shield.

You got it. My axe, which I would love to know what I'm holding. An axe plus a, like, what does an axe do? It's a battle axe, essentially. It's a battle axe plus one. All right. I will put that in my thing. All right, let's set this shit in motion.

So what's the plan? Who's on team break? Break the key? And Fearne. And me? No. Well, if Fearne's coming team break? Break the key? And Fearne. And me? No. Well, if Fearne's coming, how? You're not invisible.

I don't know. You can't get over there. Fearne's not invisible either. But Fearne can turn into a bug, or a mouse or something to get over there. Yeah, I think I'm going to turn into... They're little creatures. They look like they're called slow loris,

and they're like little tiny monkeys, but they wreak a lot of havoc. I know what you're talking about. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They're like bug-eyed, and they can dexterous and can tear things apart. Okay, you got it. Oh, cute. So this is going to run across the course.

Does that fit in Laudna's mouth? I feel like this means we'll go one way and you go the other, maybe swinging through the trees or some shit. Those are actually different. I know, they're cute. They are. All right, so you transform into this tiny monkey beast.

Yeah, there's a little tiny thing. You got it. From Shattership? Yep. All right, here we go. Here we go. Here we go. Interesting. So the three of us are converging on the,

Orym is on Laudna's back, and we're invisible, and we're spidering on the wall, and Slow Loras here, you're going over in a separate trajectory, but converging in the same spot? Not that you'll see us. That's you, Fearne. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I'm just going to run on over. Great, because I can't, I'm not invisible. No, you're not invisible. I can't, yeah, yeah, yeah. Sure, if you would like to make a stealth check for me using the statistics of... There's lots of trees. Use the trees. There are. The DC is not terribly high,

because you are a natural creature. Using the trees, going through the bushes. Tree tops. All right, go ahead. The size of a little rat. Yeah, they're teeny. They're very teeny. Little.

Especially little baby ones. Dope. Let's go ahead and say a dex plus two. So just a stealth check, go ahead and just roll a d20, add a two, but you'll have an advantage because you're small and it is a fairly wooded area. Okay, okay, okay, okay. Here we go. Come on, come on, come on. Can you Guidance? Guidance. Okay. Can you Guidance her? To me?

Yeah, to help her stop. I can Guidance myself, but I didn't do it on the first round. I'll Guidance you. I think the first roll was pretty good. Can I take it? Yeah. I'm Guidancing. You have advantage, so. What was the first roll? The first roll was 14.

Okay. So that's plus two, 16, plus a one for Guidance. 17. 17, that's not bad at all. That was advantage, right? Yep. Okay, the other roll was super low. Okay. So you dart from bush to bush to tree branch to bush, making a soft, scattered beeline so as not to draw immediate attention, but also to keep your goal in sight, while the two

of you skitter along the wall carefully, you clutching onto your spider-like companion as you rapidly ring crawl along the interior of the courtyard. I'd like you both to roll stealth checks with advantage. All right. No, I can't do it. Stop. Natural 20. Damn! Natural 20, okay.

Woo-hoo! Four total of? 25, I believe is my number. 25, you got it. 23. 23, okay. Four total of? 25, I believe is my total. 25, you got it. 23. 23, great. You arc up and over the sight range, it seems, of the currently, not napping, but just chilling Eramad,

who's just glancing at the inside of the courtyard, keeping a visual range outward as you pass above it and around and along to the opposite end. Let me go ahead and show you what the inside of this is. Oh my god! A visual range. Guys, this match showing us what it looks like

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and your local game store. Dot what? Dot io. Oh. Ow! Ow! Whoa! Whoa! No! Oh my god. What the shit?

Oh my god, it's so cool, Matt! Do you need help? Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh god. Thank you. Oh god. Oh god. And there we go.

Whoa. Whoa. Holy shit. Damn. That's heavy. Oh my god, that thing is so much bigger than I thought. Oh. Uh-oh.

This is scarier than I pictured. Yes. This here is the Malleus Key. That's beautiful. It's big. This over here is one of the resting aromats. The other is way over here and is the napkin. Why did I picture them with a,

oh, that's not exactly what they look like. These aren't exactly them, these are a bunch of proxies. I've always got a resting Matt face. We've got here. Oh no. Some heezy guys. And then up on here.

This is so hard. This is going to be a beautiful. This is so much more intense now. Chetney, want to get up on the parapet? Wave hello and do a little throw. A little throw? Like, grab them, throw them to the left. Let them fall outside the wall.

The guard up there? Yeah. So much rhyming. Is there one up there? There's a guard there. There's two guards on the parapet right now. Right currently, there are none immediately visible up there? There's a guard there. There's two guards on the parapet right now. Right currently, there are none immediately visible. Okay.

Parapets and Aramats is the episode title. Parapets and Aramats? Yeah, it's pretty good. It is good. You could say that there's one up here that's looking in this direction. Okay. It's armor is some kind of stealth.

Oh my god. We can walk right up to people. looking in this direction. Armor is its own kind of stuff. Oh my god. We can walk right up to people. What is this shit? Surprise. So a grapple on the front and the left. That's just one of the towers around the wall. What do you know? Or you knock them unconscious.

Oh. Maybe wait and see if things start to go, you know what I mean? Are those the? Is that just deco? These here, this is just decoration. Oh, okay. They're just pretty. Or so we think.. Oh, okay. They're just pretty.

Or so you think. They are really pretty, though. I know, it's hard to concentrate. Look at how cool that looks. Hey, where are we? Yeah, where are we? Are we off the map over here? Indeed. We'll say,

Fearne, I'm just going to use your mini so you know where you are. You have basically darted over to this tree in the middle of the space here. You have a visual range on it. You have Laudna and Orym. Good job, Liam. You've known me for so long. Drop the shock. Okay. You are both over onto the wall from this point.

You've gone around the outer perimeter wall and have found your way over here above where you saw the top, you asshole. Can I get some good TikTok content? Oh, stop. The rest of you are far that way. Okay. You are on the opposite end of the courtyard

over that direction. How have we seen the guards moving around? What direction would make sense? Well. The ones on the inside of the courtyard are pretty stationary. They just occasionally look around and just check stuff. They're not on a perimeter, just the inside.

It's on the walls here, there's the ones that are. Hugging the walls might be, or at least walking the walls might be the way to... To be reasonable. And then where are you? You are all on the opposite end of the court and way away from the walls. Like 150 feet away? Yeah.

Okay. Oh, and that's me and Laura. So they're trying to sneak in. Are we trying to distract these guards and bring them over to us? I mean, maybe. It's just me and Chetney, right? No, Chetney and Ashton are in armor. Me and you are just chilling out like idiots.

In the bushes. With nothing to do. I think you and I should have one of the cloaks, because we're just chilling. Maybe we can cause distractions if all hell starts to break loose. Okay. We're waiting around if shit gets weird. We're going to make some early, early hits that don't cause an alarm quite too quickly. We're still moving. We're still moving. As they walk away, I'm goinginding. Okay. With Lautna, Orym, and Ash.

And Ash. Ash. So three of them, you've done this. Ida's there about to leave. Yeah. Okay, so you can mark that. This is as close as you two can get on the outer wall. And we don't see any guards on the nearby vicinity. Oh, we see that one. Well, there's one here.

Yeah, and that one. And one in the front. Could we go spider right down the wall? And then there's really, I'm whispering to you, there's really interesting machinery on both sides, over there, or this. But this one's got a good view of that, so maybe we could start over there and see. What do you think is on the inside?

I have no idea. We could try and just go from the inside. We'll just go to the back of it and see what we see up close. Let's do that, let's do that. Head to the back. Little stealth check for you. Oh, you stealth check.

Do we still have advantage? Yeah, because you're both invisible. Indeed. So you guys move down. Natural 20 for Orym. Wow. For a total of 25. Yes.

Woo! Natural 20. Oh no, where's the image? Okay, okay, okay, okay. Mm, mm. Okay. 16. Okay, okay.

Okay, not bad. Okay. So. Mm. Mm. I'm talking about natural 20. Don't use the image inis. Throw it away. Okay. You dart down the wall, and on your back, you climb up to the edge, and as you climb over

the top, you do step on one of the crates that rocks a little bit, makes noise. Nobody seems to notice. But you both now sit at the base of this machine. You can hear the whirring sound. There is this low and the sound of metal churning on the inside, very faintly. The exterior of it is this smoothed obsidian-like texture to it. It looks like it's been built with an amalgam of metals layered on top of each other. This is much more refined than the one that you had encountered in the hideout. And it is mostly contained. There are pieces and devices that glow, and you can see at first glance, that a lot of the arcane cores are affixed to it in a different way, or at least not part of its original design.

Almost like an initial power source went missing. Is there any holes or gaps large enough for a dead woman with a halfling on her back to crawl into on this backside? There is an open one, but you could certainly try to make one. I see a window up here on the front. Is that a window?

Is that really there? Is that really there, or is that an approximation? That window is an approximation. This was cobbled together from other trading fields. So that window more just marks a possible panel entryway. You just have to get around. So similar panel entryways

that we could also access from behind? Possible. What about the top? The arc that the telescope is in. We could just go right in. You want to spider us up there? Yeah, we could try that. Okay, clamber up to it.

You can see where the large telescope device is. It looks like there might be some gaps that could possibly be squeezed through, but you're uncertain what lies within. I would say you could attempt to squeeze through, one you, or both of you, if you'd like, with a possible acrobatics check. Well. You're really good at that.

I am, but you stick to things. I do. So it's kind of a toss-up. You're not going to slip, because you're not going to slip. Do you want me to try and go first? You're not going to slip, because you're not going to slip. Do you want me to try and go first? I think in this one instance that makes sense. All right. I'm going to get real flat and see what happens. Okay. You can have your battery checked for me.

Oh god. She doesn't have any junk. Mm-mm. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. 18. Great. 18. You slip in, with you left on the top lip of it, just standing there. You squeeze in, and as you do, you can feel now the metal.

You can feel the vibrations of the movement on the inside. You can also feel a slight arcane energy just occasionally pulsing through. And the pulses are in time with, you see those red flash pulses, up that red laser-like tether that marks that ruidous connection above. You squeeze into that space, and it's extremely uncomfortable, and you get maybe a foot or so, and you can continue to push forward, but it's going to grow more difficult the further in you go, and you're uncertain, really, what parts of the devices are.

Most of it just looks metal, like hard metal, but you could attempt to search throughout and try and find a sensitive, ascertain what would be a sensitive and necessary piece of the inside of the machine, if you'd like. Do you even know what you're looking at in there? I haven't a fucking clue. Do you have arcane knowledge? I do have arcane knowledge.

It would be an arcane check to try and ascertain that. The challenge of it, based on how deep inside you go. It's going to be really quite a tight squeeze. The further we get, this might be more of a Fearne job, but maybe I can suss something out and then give her directions. I'm going to search, see what I see. Okay.

Well, as you mentioned Fearne, Fearne, what are you up to? You've darted across most of the courtyard and you have a visual range there from the bushes at the base of the tree. You can see the device. All right. I'm going to keep making my way

very discreetly. And then very discreetly, you know, going under things, in little cracks, and I'm going to try to just get to the device. Okay. Using the same stealth that we had earlier, you're able to move to the base of the device, and you can see all the glowing lights and flickering arcane energy cores. You can see the pulses of elements of arcane sparks occasionally arcing up the side of the machine. You can see that pulse of light that continuously pushes upward. Okay. I'm going to try to climb up the top and look for a way in. Okay.

Go ahead and make an athletics or acrobatics check using the same plus two to a d20 roll is what it would be. So go ahead and roll a d20, add a plus two. Okay, guidance. I don't think you can cast a spell while you're in monkey form. Ooh. I, yeah, I don't, oh yeah, duh.

That's a rules player over here. I'll let you cast it before you transform for an interest, but now that you're in the form. Seven. Seven. You clamber up a little bit and slide off and hit the ground a bit. You try and clamber up a little more, and you end up knocking over a tool that's hanging on one piece. It goes like, King, king, king! You hold there. You can see, currently, as the impact sound hits, this Aramad suddenly wakes up a little bit and looks over in that direction and begins to step slowly towards the machine. The guardian with it begins talking to it and Sylvan quietly and follows alongside, holding the chain

that's around its neck. I'm going to try to get somewhere hidden and small, somewhere as close to the machine as I can get. Okay, make a stealth check with advantage for me. There's nothing out here. What's the matter?

What's the matter? Come on. There's nothing out here. I say it to Amar all the time. Rolled a natural 19, 21. 21, great. You vanish into the nooks and crannies of the machine, like deep in the middle of it all. You clamber up partway, and you are wedged

between some of it, at which point the Eramad and the guardian come over and start sniffing about. It doesn't seem to make notice of you, but you do get a good look at the inside of this vacuous hole where its face would be. You can see the edges, it curves inward into darkness. Gross. It's terrifying.

As its head moves around, you think you hear a sniffing sound, but it's more of a. No. Do I have anything in your butt? No. What is it? All right.

I'm just going to keep surveying the base and looking for any little ways I can get in. Okay. Coming back to you, Laudna. Arcane check. Also a natural 19 for a 23. 23 is great. Okay. Well, you made it there. 23 is great. Okay. Yes! Well, you made it there. Fine. There are two distinct ways, looking at this machine, where you can see possible weaknesses in here. They all, like, anything that you disable from the inside

that's just mechanical can likely be easily repaired. Unless you can find something that is kind of like the crown that was originally taken, absolutely necessary for its function. Yeah. So you do think that that is a way to do it. You would have to dig deeper into it and through investigation,

find something that looks that important. The other option is to overcharge the arcane cores and have it detonate. Yeah. That's right. Kill me, too. The arcane cores being the ones that are floating on the outside. Correct. They've all been affixed to it

from different sides. And overcharging them could be with electricity spells? With a high enough arcana, it could be... Fuck ton of magic. It could be essentially pumping spell slots into them to cause them to overcharge and detonate. It could be rupturing them with enough damage in a short period of time that they end up

just cracking and detonating, which could cause a chain reaction. Rolled a pretty decent arcana, so you figured those things, looked at what you've noticed in Joe's shop back in Vassaris, and your rudimentary knowledge of arcana, and then being around FCG

and learning a little bit of how he takes, you can see that consistency in the design. Okay. I tap Orym's foot. Yeah. I'm going to send a message to Imogen. Listen to me. Okay.

I send a message to Imogen. You will lose invisibility if you do that. But she is inside the machine. For the most part. We are inside the machine. And thus you would remain inside the machine unless you have invisibility to cast it. Shit. Unbossed. Shut up. Shit. Shit. We are inside the machine. And thus you would remain inside the machine unless you had any visibility to capture it.

And thus, I'm shutting up. Shit. Shit. Okay. Who was the last person I talked to? Yeah, did we have any? It was Chet, I think. No, but we talked.

You two talked. We chatted? No, you two talked, because you were, when you were on the wall, you let us know what you saw. That is true. So we might have still had the mental bond. I don't know who the last person I talked to was. I will, without sending a spell, without spending a spell slot, just try and check in with Imogen and see if it works.

Okay. I'll save the purposes of planning and knowing that you were going to dart off, that this connection could have been the last one that you maintained. Okay. So yeah, good. Sure. Okay, I relay the message. All right. I think there are two viable options here.

I look for the power source on the inside, but I'm not going to lie, very tight. Uh-huh. on the inside, but very tight. Or we overcharge the power cores on the outside. Those are ball-y looking things. I believe so. Lots of magic damaging it. Those are our only two options here.

And as a note, overcharging the power cores, that is going to be the, um... The loud option. The loud option. So, try and relay that. I'm going to do one more scan and see if I happen to find something equivalent to the Tidecrown.

Or Tidecrown. Otherwise, maybe I can just give everybody a cue and we all launch in at the same time. Correct. But also, Fearne could fuck this up in a matter of five seconds, so we should be aware of that. So Fearne, what are you up to right now?

You can see there are a number of small platforms and pieces of the device that you can try and leap up if you want to make a quick acrobatics check to just dart from platform to platform. Yes. I'm going to do that. I'm going to lick my fingers so they're real sticky. Okay. And I'm going to start bobbing and weaving and trying to make a leap for the top. Roll a d20, add two to the final result. Come on.

17. 17, much better than the last one. You leap up and manage to make it up to the top, and right when you stand up there, the two of you immediately see the tiny monkey scramble up to the very top of the device. Fearne doesn't see them, but indeed you are there. We saw her.

Did you change yourself before we split up? Yeah, you saw her. Yeah, you know who it is, but she doesn't see you. Right. Fearne. We're here. We're here. Be here. We're figuring stuff out.

Try to keep quiet. The rest of you, what are you doing? We're hunkering down on the side. We're just hunkering. Okay, so two of you are dressed in armor. We've got the cloak, so we were planning to activate it if. And we're 150 feet away?

Yeah, that's pretty far. Should we be slowly inching towards? Maybe we can hide in some trees, hunkering. A hunkering? A hunkering like 100 feet away. You got to hunker up in some hunkering. We're going to try to mosey to hunker closer. Okay, which direction are you going?

This way or this way? That's not a way. At this point, they've patrolled this way a little bit. We would be aware of which way they were going, so we would avoid them. It's probably around this way? Yeah. Okay. The four of you, roll a stealth check for me, please.

Four. Well, it's just me and FCG, because they're in armor. So I don't know what they're doing. All right, so we're stealth checking. Plus 10. I want to make my post. I know soldier's responsibilities. We would be up on the parapet.

Are you up on the parapets, then? Do you want to head up there and just keep an eye on things and start doing the round like we were doing, these guys were doing before? Well, that would. Well, the two guys that you took the armor out from were posted outside of the front gate. Oh.

Yeah, I mean, that's the only thing is, I don't want anybody to miss the people at the posts. So we're sitting at the front gate waiting to be called. I think so, yeah. On the inside, but yeah. Yeah, because if, and then if we go up there, then we're actually going by people. 19. 21.

21, look at those good rolls. The two of you carefully move a little bit, and then stay in the bushes, carefully move a little bit, and just start nudging your way that direction. As you're carefully doing so to stay out of the sight of the nearest Aramad, you watch it come to consciousness and you pucker up for a minute, and then watch it begin to make a path

over towards the center, and as it curves around you, you see that as an opportunity, and then watch it begin to make a path over towards the center. As it curves around you, you see that as an opportunity, and you dart over to this area of the bush right there, where it was resting. Okay. Great. That's where you both are staying, hidden and low. I'll say, look at the hidden bushes. Oh, look, we're so pretty. You're so hidden. Magical ghillie suit, there you go. All righty.

Imogen, what are you doing? I'm hiding, shut up. All right, while you're both post at that point, the two of you are posted across the courtyard. Those of you on top of the device, what's the plan? I would have relayed what I said to Imogen, to Orym in this time. Hopefully Fearne hears that as well, give them the update,

and then I'm going to try and slink down even more and see if I can find anything that feels like some sort of arcane battery for this. Okay, so you're going deeper into the machine to look for something that's necessary for its function. Yeah, like the crown would have been. Make another... Is this arcana?

No, arcana was to ascertain the means of possibly disabling it. Now, if you're pushing deeper into the machine, it's going to be an acrobatics check to squeeze through. Okay. Like, into the core, and then investigation to find something. If she's spider climbing, though, is acrobatics needed?

This is going into the machine, you said, right? Yeah, this is slipping into the middle of an engine. There's a lot of moving, whirring, dangerous pieces. That's where you want to go, is in the middle of it. Yeah, I don't think it's smart, but here we go. Why is this here? Oof. 10.

Oh no, wait, that's worse. That's way worse. Five. Five. So you push about eight or so feet back to where you were and continue to move past. As you push through, you feel your wrist it doesn't break, but it gets caught on something. You're like, that's not good.

And then it begins pulling you further into it, and you feel your body being pulled and grinded deeper into the machine. Cut off the arm. I need you to make a strength saving throw for me, please. Okay. Oh fuck. My strong suit. Ooh, that's actually not terrible.

Hang on, wait, don't I have something? I got a plus one on my save. Well, that doesn't do shit for me. 10. 10, okay. That's bad. It is bad. You said it wasn't bad.

It wasn't that bad, but it was bad. Well, for me, who has a minus three to her strength? You take 16 points of slashing damage as your body is being dragged through the interior mechanisms of the device. Eventually, you get pulled, basically rung through, and almost get stuck. Car washed. Yep.

Before eventually, she gets shunted back out to where you started, just hurt, and none the wiser of a better step forward. Is she visible or invisible? Still invisible. Still invisible. You just see. Just drips of blood. You guys hear.

Oh, I think she's doing it. There's that again. How was it in there? I'm not doing that again. Is it completely pitch black down in there? Every now and then, every few seconds, there's an arc of arcane energy through and little blue sparks that give

just a quick flash of vision, but that's it. I hate all of this. God. All right, nope, nope. I think I got to charge the core, unless you want to try it, didn't you? You got anything to give me a little steady light in there? Light?

Light's not really my thing. Hang on, wait, that's not true. I might be able to press a digitation or something. Can I press a digitation, like a little bit of, yeah, a light bit of a light? Like a small candlelight. A small candlelight. About as good as you can do with that.

That's pretty good. All right, yeah, I'll give it a little candlelight. Okay, you are no longer invisible. Oh, fuck! Are you in? Are you just standing up there? You're in the machine. You're past the exterior. You are no longer invisible. Can I get down in there with her? Okay.

There's enough room for me to slink. Make an acrobatics check. Sure. You're past the exterior. You are no longer in the... Can I get down in there with her? Okay. Is there enough room for me to slink and make an acrobatics check? Sure. The DC is higher because you're fitting two. Natural 20 plus eight, 28. 28. No fucking way. That's my fourth acrobatics check.

You're both pushed in quickly, but you find all the bits of open space around where she is, and so you're both friendly of like, you know, friendly cradled in this death trap, essentially, but you are both hidden beneath the surface. Okay. I'm going to slip through and jump down.

Okay. You're small enough that you don't have to roll forward. Now that I see Laudna. Yeah. Okay. Now that I see Laudna, I'm just going to go over to, like, on her shoulder. Okay. So you're see Laudna, I'm just going to go over to, like, on her shoulder. Okay, so you're down on, oh, okay. Whatever you do, do not take damage.

This will be really bad for you right in the mirror. Oh my god. So you went through like a wheel. Don't go that way. You're just trying to turn me into like hamburger meat. Felt like I was in a Pink Floyd music video. All right, so how do I have this light is, did you light something up, or?

It's a little candlelight, like a little flame. In her hand? No, like, well. Like in the vicinity of her hand, yeah. Can I take it somehow? No. I don't know.

Just hold it. All right. I'm going to try to slink in there. Oh god. And I'll start to crawl down. Okay, and by the way, acrobatics check for me. Just to be clear, we have targets

on the outside of this thing. I rolled a 19. Fuck my life. Plus eight, 27. 27, you squeeze down your halfling. Your lithe halfling form allows you to press into less dangerous spaces, learning from Laudna's mistake, and find a better route below. You narrowly avoid being ground through the same spinning gear that she was. Oh, damn.

And slide about ten feet deeper into the guts, the innards of this machine. You'll never see her again. You have very little light, because even the light that she's holding, she can only hold so far. You're ten feet below. Your eyes have to adjust for it. You do have to make an investigation roll. Still occasionally those vvv of light going by? Yeah, those help. You have to almost wait for them to happen to take in the scenery for just a moment before it all goes black again with that little bit of rim light from the globe that she's holding below. You feel anxious even putting your arm down there again, but you're not even

looking at him. You're looking at the moving machinery the whole time. I wish that monkey could guide me, but she can't. I'm making a brochure PSA. All right, we're going to start to look around. I need you to make an investigation check with disadvantage because of the low light. Disadvantage? I do not have a big boost on that either.

Aw. Aw. Could have been good. Could have been good, seven. Seven. You look around here and you realize you have no idea what any of this does. You're in the belly of the machine, but you don't know machines, and around you it just looks like cables

and gears and pulleys and occasionally sparking bits of energy, and you are terrified. I think we got it. It's catchy. We can't do this with them inside of it. It'll blow them up, too. Is there... Here it comes.

Since I held on to the crown for so long, I'd be able to recognize it. Is there anywhere that I see it? Well, the crown, you know, is no longer in this machine. It was taken a long time ago and is currently held by Ira, the Magoth. Maybe not the, okay, okay. I thought this one, I understand.

No worries, yeah. This once was powered by the crown, but when it was stolen, they've affixed all of these arcane cores, welded them to it to try and make up for its lack of power. Okay. I message Orym, or can I just whisper to him? Yeah. He's not far.

Be a stage whisper, because there's like around you. I think it's going to be plan B. Stick a dynamite down here, be any use. Ooh, that's fun. I mean, we can try, but it's... I don't know, it's just mechanical. I think we're going to have to fuck it up

in an arcane sense with these cores. It's up to you, could work, could not. Could try it and then just do both for safety. Are you still in touch with Imogen? Let me check. Imogen? Yeah? Yeah, still in touch with her. Maybe when... What?

Hold, please. Hold, please. Maybe you hand me some dynamite, I stick it in and get the hell out, and their cue to start letting arcane blasts go is the explosion, so it's all at once. I'm fine with that. Okay.

I pass him. Do you have a means of lighting it? Can you druidcraft that or something? No. Small flame wouldn't be a druidcraft thing. I don't think it's just more natural. Let me check. I can light it real quick and then toss it down to you. I can make fire just from my belongings. Like a flint? Yeah.

Okay. Can you get out? How long is it going to be lit before it explodes? I can instantly light or snuff out a candle, which I think would be the same sort of energy as lighting a piece of dynamite. Yeah. Longer the wick. All right, let me message Imogen.

Much more dangerous candle. Yeah, but you guys, all of us, need to get the fuck up and off right away as soon as I light it. And they have to be ready to go. All right. Okay. I message a mission.

We're about to drop a stick of dynamite up in this bitch. Oh, so totally covert, great. Yes. But I think we still need to override or overpower the course. All right, so shall I take the explosion as our cue, I assume, right? You got it.

All right. Our communication's going to go dark because I got to let Chet and Ashton know the deal. All right. All right, I'll see you on the other side. You got it. Be safe. You too. Okay.

All right. Pass the stick of dynamite to Orym. I'm going to glance over. Do I see? Just the one, right? Just the one. Chet or Ashton? You talking to yourself again, Imogen? I obviously am telling you all of this. I'm relaying it to you. But do I see Chet or Ashton around the courtyard?

I don't know where they are. Exactly where you left us. Yeah, they're back at the other gate in the armor, kind of posting up on the opposite side of the door where the guards were. And I will let Ashton know all of that and say, as soon as that explosion goes off, I'm going to hit it with some spells,

but y'all might need to, I don't know if you want to rush in and attack it physically as well, or see how it all goes. You can rush in and- Maybe before you leave, before you leave that gate, you open it up so that we can make a fast exit if we need to on foot.

Let's break the lock when it comes time. I think it's just a barricade. It's just like a lift. You make it hard to re-barricade. There was a two-sided lock-looking thing on the other side, which is where the guards were. So I think it's barricaded on this side and there's a lock that they were probably.

Well, fingers crossed, it's just a barricade. We'll get started on the barricade now, and maybe I can work on the lock. All right. All right. All right, I'm going to prep. I'm going to prep a spell and be ready when I see it drop. How close are we? How far away?

You are about... Double check, no one's watching. Because we were 150 feet before, so I assume we're... You're about 75 to 80 feet from the closest of these exterior areas. So I would be within 100 feet of the other one? Dogs and guards, right?

You have to get a little bit closer to get within 100 feet of the opposite side. I would have to get basically my angle, so if I moved over this much, I'd have an angle on both. You would. Okay. You would. Okay. You might have to get a little bit closer. I mean, depending on the range of the spell, honestly.

It's 100 feet. 100 feet? 100 feet, you'd have to be perimeter, which would put you out in the middle of the courtyard. That gold ball? Mm. No, I'm aiming at the two crystal, the clear. Oh, the crystals. That's right, right? I'm aiming at the two crystal, the clear. Oh, the crystals. That's right.

Right, I'm aiming at the clear ones, based on what Laudna told me, or am I aiming at the gold ball? Any of them. These are all different power cores that are all just a face, too. Oh, they are? So yeah, it's just different jumbles of them. It's almost like they added some,

it wasn't enough, they added more. Okay, so I'll stay where I am if I'm within 75 feet of these two, and I'll just keep a visual on these. You can do that. These are both looped around, and they're now starting to look towards the perimeter, starting to make a path back to where it was sleeping. I'm going to go ahead and do a Form of Dread. Okay.

And life. What do you look like inside this machine? form of dread. Okay. And... What do you look like inside this machine? I imagine you know when nature starts taking over industry and destruction as branches and vines almost start to try and find a place to grow on the inside. Like a rapid urban decay. Yeah, the urban decay aesthetic, exactly. Want to make sure I can get out, and then I'm also going to do a mirror image,

but I'm going to wait till right as that boom goes off. How are you getting off this thing? I self-spider climb. Okay. You want to do that in advance of me blowing this thing? Go down the back? Are you going to be all right? Yeah. All right, where's Fearne? Fearne is next to me. We got to go, Fearne.

Just because I'm here, I want to make one last look-see to just see if there's any pieces here that look super important. Okay. You're not that deep in the machine. You could attempt to get deeper into it or make an investigation check at a very high difficulty. Your choice. You can go deeper or make it here at a high difficulty. Don't die. I'll make it here. I'll just make it here. I'm not going to go deep. Please don't go.

Make an investigation check with your intelligence modifier, your investigation skill, since you're a druid. Investigation balls. Net 20, net 20, net 20. Natural one. That's the sign. That's just right.

Damn it! Good try. All right, the vines and the branches that Laudna made, I'm just gonna start crawling up to the top. Okay, so you're using her as a stepping platform to get towards the top of the device. Okay.

I'm gonna go ahead and try and just hang towards the back and go the way we came. Okay. I'm not to go ahead and try and just hang towards the back and go the way we came. Okay. I'm not invisible anymore. You are not invisible. I need you to make a stealth check out in the wild. Before she does all that shit, while they were prepping after Imogen talked to us. Valid. Ready to take action here? Okay. We're going to look at the beam bracing the gate. Are we able to lift the brace off of the

gate, just from a physical perspective? You go ahead and turn around and covertly test it. Yeah, it lifts. You're both pretty strong, so the two of you could lift it off pretty easy from the side. Okay. We'll try to quietly lift the brace off and just place it to the side or on the ground. Okay. I'll say for this, go ahead and make a strength check, both of you. This is less to lift it, but to lift it and then in a very controlled way, put it on the ground without making too much noise. This is the gate over here somewhere?

Yeah, it's on the opposite side of the courtyard. 10 for me. 23. Okay, so it's a little rough for you, but the 23 makes up for it slightly. At one point, you're about to lose the side, and Ashton slides and catches, and makes up for the difference. And the two of you manage to just barely lift it

and set it onto the ground. From this side of the gate, now with the potential locks being, are there any signs of locks on this side that can be manipulated in any way? Indeed. The same large, weird, crooked-shaped lock that you see there, it's about that tall.

It looks almost like an upside-down sickle in its shape. It's not a key design that you've seen before, but locks usually are just locks. You can give it a shot. I'd like to. All right, go ahead. Is this dirty or okay? I should be... If you want to give me a sleight of hand advantage.

I'll give you sleight of, because I'm proficient at sleight of hand. All right. 31. Are you sure you got this? Let me do it, let me do it. Get away, I'm just going to break it. Okay, so the DC on this was 25.

It's a very, very difficult lock, because it was designed for a very specific Okay, so the DC on this was 25. It's a very, very difficult lock because it was designed for a very specific key, and the interior of the mechanism is not like a lot of mundane locks are. This has almost like sliding ball bearings that glide into different grooves based on how it turns. But with your locks, you tap and hold each one, and it takes every piece of your locking kit

to hold them all back at the same time. And then the final piece slides through and pushes up and it locks over, and the door opens on one side ever so slightly. And just to be paranoid, any traps around this door? I know it's unlocked and it has moved now, so I don't think there is, but can we just check? No sign of traps at the moment,

but make an investigation check if you'd like. 20, 22. 22. Does not appear to be trapped at the moment. Great. How much, how hard is it, how big is the lock? Could you get something inside the locker now?

Could you stick your fingers in the lockers? It's a little bit too thin for your fingers, but you could get a utensil in there. We'll just leave it in a drawer. I was just thinking about fucking it up, so it's really hard to, sticking something in there, so it's hard to lock, if anyone tried. You know, gum.

I don't think I have anything like that, anyway. Oh shit. I might. I have a whole bunch of fucking, I apologize. I have a whole bunch of pasta dough sitting. Pasta dough? I mean, yeah, I do have a whole bunch of food that I want. I'm gonna go in, I'm gonna come out with a nice handful

of nice, ready to go pasta dough. Is it still malleable? Oh yeah. It's in a container, man. I'm not a savage. I'm just going to start, while we're sitting there, getting as much of that into the lock as possible. Cramming the dough. Cramming dough into it. You are doughing the locking mechanism.

I am. Go ahead and make a sleight of hand check for me. This cramming dough into it. You are doughing the locking mechanism. I am. Go ahead and make a sleight of hand check for me. All right. Because you are doing, this is a lot of overt movement to not be looking like a couple of weird guards doing weird shit. Show it over in the camera. 10. Do it into a lock.

Oh god. I don't think that's very weird. 10, okay. You go and pull the dough out of the hole you had to open up briefly, go back in, pull it out, manipulate it, and start putting it in there as you're finishing the lock. You finish and turn around and look. Across the way, this aramad and that guard, which has been rotating around, stop. The guard has

noticed the two of you and seems to have stopped. It's holding the chain. The aramad keeps walking and the chain goes taut and stops stops, and its vacant face turns back, and the other armored sentry, the other unseelie guardian, is looking in the direction of the two of you, and just standing. In the interim, Orym, what are you doing? Well, I'm waiting for the ladies to leave.

I start scurrying out. Let's go. All right, so your stealth was? I don't know if I rolled it yet. I don't think you rolled it yet, yeah. Okay. Okay, 15. Well, it was a good thought. 15.

15. You scurry down, down the side of the wall. You going along with her, Fearne, as you are kind of... No, I am going to lay down on my belly and wrap my hands around the side and just watch Orym just to make sure he gets out. You got it. Okay, so you stay on top. This guardian over here glances over, and you hear a voice speaking a language that you don't understand.

It's going, Hutt. Huttun. Huttun! And a voice begins to raise. If they're out, as soon as I hear that in the distance, I'm going. Druidcraft.

All that little bit of Ashari teachings that you've gained, that little bit of focus on a flame, that little spark. It flashes a few times and it's not enough. Then finally, it begins to ignite the dynamite. I slide it real fast into a bunch of cables and junk that I don't understand, and I start to climb like a motherfucker. I can buy it for you. All right.

I'm going to prepare my bolt for a little bit. As he's making his way out, I'm going to just crawl up his leg. Okay. Just lodge in there. You got it. Okay, I got a 23. Okay.

And if she hops onto me, she hops on just as he leaps off the top, because this thing's going to blow, and I jump off and start an arc down towards that guard who's at the bottom and I'm going to attack him as I land. All righty. Oh boy.

After jamming the piece in there, you stick it in and for a quick second, you're afraid it's going to get a finger. You feel something rapidly hit your knuckle and you pull back in time, climb up and climb up and climb up and get to the top. You're uncertain how long this fuse is. It had a decent amount of length,

and when you buy them, they're meant to be trimmed, so you can gauge the time, but you've not used a lot of dynamite in your time here, so you're like, I hope it's enough. You leap off, land right next to the guy, while this guy up here takes a heavy crossbow shot at Laudna. Uh-oh. Laudna. Let's go!

That is going to be a 14 to hit. 14, no, wait. Mirror image. Mirror image. Wait, I have to roll over a certain thing, right? Hang on. It's been a minute. How do those rolls work?

I think the opponent rolls, isn't it? Actually, you know what? Scratch that shield. Instead of mirror image? Mirror image is still up. So shield. The Crestlebolt deflects and flies off. There's a flash of arcane energy, and this guy looks over and sees where the flash comes from after hearing the noise and shouts. These guys over here are starting to pay attention to this fellow beginning to turn as well. Most attention is starting to pay attention to this fellow beginning to turn as well. I just think in my head to Imogen, no.

All right, Orym, you land onto the ground as you're coming down. Yeah, I'm stabbing as I land. Go for it. Megan, two strikes on the way down. Okay. All right, that is a, woo! Woo! That is a, woo!

That is a 16. 16. For the first. A 16 on him just misses. Okay. Here we go. All right, so I will then slide down his back with a monkey on mine, and then I will immediately recoil off my ankles

and stab and go again and try to push him or them towards the device. You got it. That is higher. So that is a 21. That does hit. Go ahead and roll damage. So this is a pushing attack.

They have to make a strength save. Strength save. Versus my... Natural five. Oh, so that's a fail. Yeah. So I'm shoving him right up the stairs into the wall. And I take...

Just 10 points of damage. Got it. Just push back, slams into the side of the machine. You can see the energy arcing up the side of the machine. And you're there with Fearne sc of just scurrying up your leg, kind of holding on, and you have no idea when the device is going to explode. And I've been holding my spell for a visual cue,

which I imagine I see now. You do, you also see Orym right next to it. Yeah, that's what I mean. And I saw him attack the guard, so I'm going to let my spell go. At what? I'm doing a twin spell lightning bolt at the two orbs that I can see.

Nice. As a note, lightning bolt cannot be twinned because it does not have a particular target, it's a line. Just be aware of that. However, lightning bolt is, at the right proper angle, can hit multiple things in a line. Yes. So you'd have to move further out of range to do it.

Would I be able to get there in this time? Then I'm going to get my sorcery points back, because. Yeah, I guess you're just here for that. But you can twin spell a Witch Bolt, which has a singular target. Right. But you can twin spell a witch bolt, which has a singular target. Right. But a lightning bolt is a line spell,

so it can't be twinned. However, it can hit everything in the line. To get multiple things in a line like that, you would have to run out of your cover, which will expose you for a moment. Right, right, I don't. I guess I don't need to go. I can hold the witch bolt.

Sure, fuck it, I'll do that. I'll still do Twin Spell, a Witch Bolt, the two orbs. What level? At second level. At second level, you got it. Okay, so go ahead and roll an attack for each. That's why I didn't want to do it, because the other one says dexterity. Natural 20!

Cool! Nice! Double my hit on it. 16. 16 hits, too, yeah. Sweet. Okay. So both of these strikes there. D12s, 2d12. No, yes.

Whoa. Now, do note, Witchbowl has a 30-foot range, so you'd really have to get closer to get it. Fucking hell. Fucking hell, okay? It's okay, you've been playing this forfoot range, so you'd really have to get closer to get into it. Fucking hell. Fucking hell, okay? It's okay, you've been planning this for a bit, so the spells you know you could use, you could prepare yourself and get to that point.

So yeah, I would've run in, I guess, the minute Orym started to leap down. Where'd you come from? So you would've probably moved. Oh! That's all right. Dogs and cats. Living together. Living together.

Oh, oh, wait. Okay. So put it about there. Okay. We'll be able to hit both of those at 30 feet, we'll say. So 12 on one, and 11 on the other. That was with the crit as well?

Oh, no! I didn't measure which one was the crit, so. The first one. The first one. So that would have been 22 points of damage on the first one. All righty. Nice, nice, nice.

Nice. So the witch bolt that hits the second one, it hits it, You watch as the exterior of one of the arcane cores cracks, and it flashes with bright blue-purple energies. But it still pulls itself in place. The other one over there cracks like a spider crack across the surface, but it still holds. But you can see it's heavily cracked and it pulses and you can see around the crack, light is pushing through brightly

and it looks like it's shaking in place. Okay. All right. So, at this point in time, I think we need to roll initiative. Yeah, we do. Oh yeah. All right.

Um, okay. Okay. We're in a fight. A battle. With a lot of creatures. No problem. We just got to hit. A battle. With a lot of creatures. No problem, we just got to hit two orbs. All righty. Well. 25 to 20.

21. 20. 20. Nice. All right. I would say Chet probably has it over Lott now. Sure. We can fight you guys.

I'm very excited. I want to blow some shit up. Don't forget about a possible little arrival. Light machines? Come on. Yes, this is great. Okay, 20 to 15. 15! 16. Fresh cut grass.

16 for Ash? Ash and grass. Ash to 16. Ash and grass. Ash to grass. Oh no. All right. Ash and grass. Ash to grass. Oh no. All right. 14. Don't ruin my... There was, after the centaurs, there was...

I got 10. No comment. You got test, all right. Yeah. There was no rest after those centaurs. No, there was not. No, which is really awful, but it is what it is. And then... that's it. That's it, all righty.

So. As we landed, could I, I wanted to drop my wild shape as we landed so I could land on my hooves. Yeah, I'll allow it. But I can do that in the turn. No, we can do that. Okay. You land under your hooves, that's where we start. Top it around.

Okay. Orym, you're up. Oh, jeez, I don't know how big the explosion's gonna be or what's happening, but I'm going to rush up to the fool that I started on and continue. Really? Yeah, and I'm just gonna take two quick slashes at his ankles. Go for it.

Nothing fancy. 15 plus nine is 24. That hits. And the second attack is even higher, so that is going to be... First one is seven, second slash is 12. Okay. So, yes. Got it.

Yep. All righty. Takes both hits. The the weapon strikes through, the armor is strong, but you still manage to find between the blades where to strike, and it has taken some heavy hits. They're looking a little hurt. I'm going to stand my ground and keep them pinned against this thing.

Okay. That's it. You got it. Finishing your turn, it is now this fellow darts up. He's going to get about there and darts around after seeing the movement and the crossbow bolt being shot. That way, the flash runs around and gets an eye line on you. Took their move in action to dash to get there,

so they can't do anything, but they have two blades out. They draw, and you see them glancing at you. The weird wood-carved mask having a toothy underbite, and the open eyes wide and shadowed. This one here is going to move over to this space, and it's going to see you, and it's going to throw two daggers towards you.

Four. 12. Miss. And a natural one. Jesus Christ. Miss. Yes. Taking one. Jesus Christ. Miss! Yes. Taking what I can get. When you say you're standing there and the shield

just goes like, fling fling. No impact on you whatsoever. The one that's over here with this fellow is going to go ahead and run back. He's going to dart over to you, Fearne. Actually, no, he's going to stay back. Okay. And pull both his daggers out and throw both to you, Fearne. Actually, no, he's going to stay back and pull both his daggers out and throw both at you, Fearne. Two dagger strikes against you. That's going to be a 16

to hit? No. No? Okay. Off of your new gloom plate that you got from your Nana. Oh, yeah. And then a 12. No impact. So they're a shitty opening round for those guys. But that brings us to Chetney with Laudna on deck. I'm just going to start running towards the action

that my fellow comrades seem to be noticing. We have a guard and a beast right in front of us. Well, they've turned now. Oh, they've turned. After hearing the combat. So we have the backside of a guard and a beast. How far away from us, though? Like 10 feet.

Oh, I thought we were. Not 10 feet, you guys were further that way. Oh, okay. All right, they were a little further away. So if you move and dash, what's your movement? 35. 35, so if you move 70 feet this round, you could get about here.

That's a move and a dash. I'll stay behind them. So I'll just... Like over here? No, I'll just move, and I'll use my bonus action to do my Crimson Ride on the scythe. You got it, and just holding your action then? Your action was the dash? No? Oh.

Oh, I thought you had to use... It's a movement, and then an action is to dash. It gets you double movement. Yeah, then I'll dash and I'll stay behind him, then I won't use the full, yeah. Okay, got to get you right there. Yep. All righty, and then Ashton?

I'm further down, yeah. Laudna, you're up. So you have two of these figures that come around the corner, and they're ready to rush in towards you, and then one figure up here that is firing from over the top of the tower. Yes, I do have lots of bitches on me.

I'm going to... I'm near this, I still have Spider Climb. Can I Spider Climb my way into this tree? Spider Climb your way? Oh yeah. You can up onto this. And I'm going to Quicken and Eldritch Blast and go bam bam into these cores. Into the cores here? Yeah.

Yeah, go for it. Those are the power cores, right? Yep. Two of them? Am I seeing two of them? You see one here. Yeah, I'll say that there's multiple ones. They're all clustered together and then over here as well.

So yeah, you can do it to both of those. All right, I'll just do one to each. Ooh, hopefully 14 for one and 21 for the other. 14 is the AC. 14 is the AC, great, great, great, great, great, great. So for each of those, we'll say for the first one, it's okay, that's nine damage. Nine damage.

For the next one, it is six damage. Six damage. Okay, so both impact, cracks start to show on them, they're looking damaged. Okay. Push forward. And then I will go ahead and do another Eldritch Blast. That's true, because you can do two more. So I'm going to do two more, and fuck it,

I'm going to do it at the cores again. Go for it. These guys don't have the same shields that the other guys did? Yeah, those are both a 14 and a 13. That's great. A 14 and a 13 on the dice. On the dice. Yes, yes.

And then, so for each of those on one, okay, so we'll say on that first one, that is 12 damage, and on the next one, it's another nine damage. Okay, both the cores crack even further. The flashes of energy inside, you see them shaking. The energy within is extremely unstable.

They're not looking great. Was she hitting the same ones I was? No, on this side. Okay, awesome. Yeah, yeah, yeah. All right, so finish your turn? Yep. Ashton, you're up with FCG on deck.

Okay, I'm going to drop and do the same thing. I'm going to follow Chet. So you can move and dash? I'm going to, well, let's see. You're moving to 40? 40, so how close can I get at 40? At 40, that'll get you about there. What if I were heading directly toward Chet?

That's like there. All right, then I'll dash and put 10 feet between us. About there? Well, yeah, like 10 feet apart, so that if there's a ranged attack, we won't get too coned. You got it. Okay. Don't cone me, bro.

Yeah. Do I want to rage? I mean, it feels appropriate. Fuck it. I know I can't make an attack yet, but fuck it. I'm going to start the rage. Go for it. Go ahead and roll. Actually, that may have changed things, it appears to me. So let's see what the fuck's up. Ew, David.

That's goddamn rage. We are? Interesting. Okay. No one can see, because I'm wearing this weird armor, so no one knows what the fuck's going on right now. You got it, okay. All right.

All right, that finishes your go, Ashton. FCG, you're on deck with, or you're up with Imogen on deck. I'll move in as far as I can. All right. All right, that finishes your go, Ashton. FCG, you're on deck with, or you're up with Imogen on deck. I'll move in as far as I can. 30 feet. Can. 30 feet. 30 feet.

Boop. Oh boy, I'm stuck in the grass. 30, yeah, you can drag him behind you. My old name is coming to haunt me. That's it? Yeah, that's 30 feet. I can't go straight over? No, okay. I mean, you could go over the terrain if you want to,

but you'd move even less. Oh god. I will unleash a bolt thrower, crossbow bolt sort of a thing action. Okay. The one that Orym is engaged with. What's the range on that? It's 8320 or whatever, or 80, 160.

Do you have a sharpshooter? I don't have a sharpshooter. I'll shoot at anyone within 80 feet of me, basically. This guy would be fine, too. Yeah, the guy's within range. Go for it. Okay, and I get advantage because someone who got a natural 20, probably Orym. I didn't know it was Laudna.

Oh, nice. That's right. What is that? That's terrible. No, it's only a 13. Terrible. 13 is not hit. No, I missed. Oh no. Yep. Wait, going for the Orby? The figure's holding a heavy shield,

and as you fire off, it sees at the last second something streaking across the middle of the courtyard, and it puts the shield up, and your bolt just ricochets off, it sees at the last second something streaking across the middle of the courtyard and it puts the shield up and your bolt just ricochets off of it. Then bonus action, I will cast Spiritual Weapon. Okay. And make it appear in front of the closest orb.

All right, the range on that is 60 feet. 60, am I close enough? Yeah, you can do it right here. Okay, great. And I will try to hit the orb with the spiritual weapon, which manifests in something that machinery hates, which is a cup of coffee that's going to spill on me. So stupid. Okay.

And I will roll to attack. Yeah, 22. 22 hits, go ahead and roll it. Okay. Just a spiritual splash of coffee. Terrible, four points of damage. But that's the one I damaged a lot, I think. Or maybe it was the other one I damaged.

No, that was when you did. Oh, okay, okay. One. So four points, but still, it cracks, or it smacks the side of it, and where the cracks are, it spills a little bit of coffee and it's all shunny inside. I'm not using it, it's sticky. Put lots of creamer in it. Yeah. Exactly.

Is that your turn? That's my turn. All right, Imogen, you're up with Fearne on deck. All right, I'm going to just send another set of damage into both the orbs. Okay. Right, because I'm already doing it, so I don't have to re-attack them.

It just does it. Mm. Yes. Okay, so that is five points at one and six points at the other. Okay. Why do we all love dice we can't see? I know, they're just pretty.

That's right. Both of them charge into them. You see the cracks emanate even further, and on both sides, the cores are now shaking almost. You see sparks around them, and the humming noise is going loudly from it. They are extremely unstable. You don't know what that means?

I remember this goes boom. Yes, yeah. Can I use my bonus action to telekinetic push the guard that's next to one of the orbs and try to slam him into it? Nice. I can push him five feet. Yeah, I'll love it.

Go ahead and roll. Ah! Oh! I don't remember how this works anymore. I know, it was a long break. Uh. I love this so much. I love this stage.

So much. No, that's not it. I love it. Oh wait, hold on. No, that doesn't work. Ah, where is it? I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. It's okay. And then I do this. She went to feats, it? I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. It's okay.

And then I do this. She's going to defeat, right? I don't have to roll. They have to roll. Oh, gotcha. They're trying to beat my DC. Natural one. Sweet.

Yes. That's a fan. And yes, it is. And because it's a natural one, he's about to step off and come down after Orym, and then suddenly he's like, pulled back and slams into the side of the core. The core cracks slightly more, and the sound just gets louder and louder. You see him turn around and

look towards it. The light is shining what is normally the dark holes of the mask that's being worn, and you see the mortal eyes, the whites of the eyes on the inside go wide with a, oh no. Does that finish your turn? Yeah. All right, Fearne, your go. And the dynamite hasn't gone yet? Not yet, no. Oh my gosh. How long is the fuse on that fucker?

You put a five minute fuse on it. I know! It's been six seconds. It's been six seconds. Well, it's been a little more. It's been 12 seconds. Because it was the exit leap and then the first combat round, so.

All right, I have a little bit of a wild idea. Okay. So, is there anybody within 10 feet of the radius of the machine? A lot. My allies. Yeah, you and Orym. Okay, just the two of us?

Just the two of you, yeah. All right, so I was thinking of maybe casting something called Wall of Fire where you can make it into a circle. Oh, I see, I see. How big a radius is a circle? 20 feet in diameter? Got you.

That might be too small. If this doesn't work, I have a backup. Are you trying to use it to protect the space or to? No, I was trying to use it to destroy and place it on top of all of the orbs. Oh, all of them, like all around? Yeah, that'll get them all. Nice. That was cool.

So we'll say this slides into here. All around, light orbs. Oh. I love how you make this sound. I can't not make this sound. No, you've got to. I'm forever a child with this. That's why we can never be in a sci-fi film,

because we go pew, pew, pew. No, I had that problem child with this. That's why we can never be in a sci-fi film, because we go pew, pew, pew. No, I had that problem before. Yeah. All right, so you encircle the entirety of this machine with flames. Fire sounds like paper crumbling. Indeed. Orym, you might want to back up a little bit.

So you create it. Each creature within its area. Actually, yeah, well done. On the side of the wall, selected by you, which side of the wall do you want it facing, inward or outward? You could heat the thing, or you could hurt people outside.

Okay, so that will protect you from actually taking the damage. It is now focused inside toward the machine. Nice. So now the entirety of the Malleus Key is now engulfed in flames that rise about 20 or so feet above. You can barely see the top of the machine peeking through.

The fire just enshrouding it. So, go ahead and roll 5d8 fire damage. Now, it takes half damage because it is resistant to fire, because it is a metallic machine, but it still takes damage. Nice. It automatically fails its dex save because it can't dodge.

It's a machine. All right. Hey, watch what you say about machines. So just roll 5d8, and then we'll have it. Ooh! Okay. So we're absolutely just, abandons us. Why a father? Why are you hurting him? He's just a sweet boy.

25. 25, draw down to 12, right? Yeah. Wow. Okay. That's pretty good. Yeah. The flames engulf the space and you hear what sounds like the loud, high-pitched,

sharp crack of deep glass, like. That heavy sound dissipates. No. Oh, that's okay. No, it's fine. Yep, there we go.

Suddenly, the flames go blue and are blown to the side as all the cores detonate in the immediate vicinity. All of them? All of them. The ones that were even remotely damaged are triggered by the explosions next to them. Oh no. Everyone within a 20-foot radius of this

needs to make a dexterity saving throw. Ooh! Yeah, I want to run hard. Yeah. Probably should have moved further away. Fearne, what are you doing? I didn't think it was going to go that fast. The dynamite hasn't even gone yet.

Yeah. It's going to be like. Pew! Birthday sparkler. It totally is. It's going to be like,. Because of those temps. Because of my temp hit points. How'd you get those temps? But you are thrown. Make a strength saving throw for me, please. Well, once again. You know. Oh my god. Uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, seven.

You are thrown from the top of the tree and hit the ground. The fall deals. Feather fall, feather fall, feather fall. You take no damage from the fall. I got a little. I got a little. I. You take no damage from the fall. Holy shit! I'm in panic. Fail.

Ooh, jeez. Hoo doggy. Fail. Both of these armored, unseemly soldiers just are scattered across the back wall of the interior of the Force Blast. They just were a visual mystery. Could have ended up in the hole

and quietly died at peace, but well, not that. That guy over there fails. Oh boy. Yeah, they don't get the usual fae-ance, or the ones that have the fae-ance, just a bonus to this, because they are just, this is an explosion. This guy, scattered.

Whoosh! The fight. Vaporized. Over there. Seven. Vaporized! Yeah! What about you, Ben? Holy fuck. The one that you're fighting?

He doesn't even roll, because he's already taken so much damage. Vaporized. He is scattered. I need both Fearne and Dexter. I roll a 22. A 22? So you take 22 points of fire damage.

Okay. Fearne? I rolled a seven. You take 45 points of fire damage. Ooh! Okay. Even as a fire eight? I need you both to make strength saves for me, please. Oh, that's not going to go well.

Do you not have natural fire resistance? Do you have fire resistance or no? Oh, stop it. A nine, 20? No. It's 21. It's just irritating. You rolled a natural 21?

My strength is balls, but I rolled an 18. So when it detonates, you get low with your shield and the blast pushes you into the ground. You actually feel your legs push a couple inches into the dirt. And as it passes by the force of it, you get low with your shield and the blast pushes you into the ground. You actually feel your legs push a couple inches into the dirt, and as it passes by the force of it, you're like, getting back onto your feet. Fearne, strength save? 15. 15.

You are blown and knocked prone. Hi! Knocked 25 feet away from the blast. Hey, girl! Hey, girl! Hey, girl! Hey, girl, hey. This is gone. Oh! This is just a haze.

Wait, but the dynamite still hasn't gone? Did that not automatically? You now hear. Yes! Dynamite! I love it when a plan comes together. It was one stick. Now, here's the thing. A little struggle. Yeah.

Whatever possible salvageable pieces within that may have remained are now completely destroyed. Yeah! Hey! Let's get the fuck out of here. Okay, we got to run. Let's get the fuck out. There's still these doggos that we don't want to fuck with. Fearne, can you make a concentration check for me?

Deer's face, nice doggos. And also, Laudna, can you make a concentration check for me? Oh, because of my- And you have, is it spider climb or mirror? 20 total? Spider climb is what I would place. Is it 20 total?

Oh. 20 total. 20 total, not enough. 22 is the DC, because it's half the damage you sustain. Dang! Oh my god. Okay. Wait, do you add something to the roll? It's your constitution saving throw.

Your con. Okay, so 19? 19's a fail. So you lose your Spider Clamp. Which, that does suck, actually. So I'll keep these here. It just won't mark your wall of fire. This is instead just the flames of the fire.

It's just burning. Burning. Yep. That checks out. All righty. And it burns, burns, burns. Finishing that go, the massive sound and explosion just detonates out this giant plume, and you watch as that one red tether blinks away,

and the somewhat incorporeal form of Ruid is in the sky. Whoa! We made the moon go away? The spectral image of it here in the Feyro. Wouldn't that be great if we were doing the wrong thing? Oh shit, they know something's wrong now. We got to get the fuck out of here. Immediately here in the sky.

Whirr! Yeah! Yeah, we got to run! We're tearing the world apart, you fools. No, don't. Don't. Now the rest of these you fools. No, don't. Don't. Now the rest of these guys go. Yep. There are none.

Well, no. The faceless dog goes. There's this guy up here. And a couple dogs. And a couple dogs here. This one's going to go ahead and going to run. No! You're at 40, 50 feet. So you can get up here.

Were they close enough to us that we could have made a reaction there? No, you were both 10 feet away from it, by the way, you said. Okay, yeah, that's fair. This one here is going to run. I didn't see Laudna hit the explosion. That's where we can get there. The one that's in front of you

is going to go ahead and use, it's going to hit once with its claws and then once with its void jaws. Void jaws. Void jaws. It's a 20 to hit once with its claws and then once with its void jaws. Void jaws! It's a 20 to hit. That hits, yes, very much so. You take 10 points of slashing damage as it rears up and its claws strike across your body. 10?

Do you have 10 points of damage? Okay. That's a 23 to hit. It strikes you twice and you rear back. As you do, it lands. As you're pulling back, where that empty hole in its face is, it lunges forward until your hand gets pulled into it. It pulls you almost up to your shoulder within its mouth. You hear this sound as you do. Oh no. Oh man. You take take immediately on your arm,

you feel like it's being crushed on the inside by just an unstoppable, dangerous magical force. You take 12 points of force damage. And I need you to make a strength saving throw. I'll take half of that. Okay. Strength saving throw. I'll take six points away.

Take six. Oh, oh! 19? 19. It pulls your arm up to the elbow, and you feel like it's still pulling on you. I have 20! And you pull your arm out of that gaping void in its face and pull back.

You can see your hand is bloody from just the crushing damage that it took, and now you look up at it, and you you can see that black void and hear that sound. Gross. All right, that finishes their go. Top of the round. Orym, you're up. That one, it did a double move. I'm going to run straight towards Imogen. Five, 10, 15, 25, 30, and here I'm going to use Bait and Switch

and yank her away from the doggo and take her place. I'm going to give Imogen, hold on one sec. He goes, oh yeah. Bait and Switch. Roll the superiority die, sorry. You have an additional eight to your AC until the end of my round. I'll take two slashes of Void Doggo.

Go for it. That is a 19 for the first strike. That hits? Yeah. Okay, so that is five to six is 11, and second attack might not hit. That's a 16 to hit. 16 just misses. Just misses, okay.

Holding my ground. Okay, so how much damage for the first one? It was... I don't remember. I think this is, well, I'm going to roll again because I don't remember. One plus six is it. Well, I'm going to roll again because I don't remember. One plus six is seven. I think it was seven.

Seven points of damage. Oh no, I wrote it down here. Okay. All right, cool. What was it? I had down here. I think it was higher. It was 10, I think. Oh, okay. That sounds right.

I guess I had done this a long time. Well, we'll go with 10, it's fine. Okay. All right, that finishes your goat orem. This guy up here now just pulls a horn from his side and you hear echoing over the top there. I learned. Just waiting for it.

The minute I try and do any sort of horn, an anxiety comes over my neck. I'm like, oh god, immediately flashback. I'm just going to take another shot from the top down at you. No! Why you do this to me? That's an 18 to hit you.

I have a 21 AC now, so. That's right, so no. Orym's shield deflects it out of the air, no impact. He's going to turn up here and begin grabbing a torch off the side and swing it into the air like this. Fuck. All right, that brings us to Chetney with Laudna on deck. I'm going to sprint towards this faceless doggo in front of me, near the tree, 35 feet.

35 exactly to get there. And then I'm going to swing off-center on it, and I'm going to aim it towards the doggo that's fighting Orym and Imogen, and I'm going to cast Shatter with the scythe, 60 feet right on the tail side of it for a 10-foot sphere. 10-foot sphere? Yep. 10-foot radius, you mean?

I'm sorry, it's a 10-foot sphere, but it goes 60 feet, so right on his butt. On this guy here? Yeah. You got it. So it just hits him. Nice. All right, and that's a constitution save? Yes.

That is going to be 13? 14. 14's a DC? Yes. Jesus. Oh, nice. You missed three DCs, but I won this battle. That's 19 points, sorry, 21 points of thunder damage. Glorious.

You see as it's trying to suck forward, it gets strict by the blade of Orym. Orym pulls back, shield forward, deflects the blade behind it, and he's turned away. In that moment, the creature goes forward to try and pounce onto Orym. Suddenly, the blast hits from behind him. It's thrown in the air. It somersaults twice before landing and just curls dead.

Working these beasts like he's Chris Pratt. Chetney will end the era match. There's a D at the end. Not when I say it. Imperfect rhymes are welcome. Imperfect rhymes are welcome. Imperfect rhymes are welcome, and amazing. Sounds better than the original Zennian. And then I think with my bonus action, I'm going to do nothing.

That's it, that's my turn. Okay. Finishing check, let's go. That's my turn. Okay. Finishing check, let's go. Laudna, you're up. I stand. Yippee! Bonus agony. One curse of the agony on the dog right next to me. You got it. Loaded agony. Done and done.

What does that do again? It just, if he attacks more than once, that's what it does to ha. Got it. Cool. I'm going to take this health potion, because I got a... It's plus four, right? Yep. Plus four. It's plus four.

Pit, pit. I'm a healer! You're also 300 yards away. Smelly. Oh. Okay. I thought about it. Die, die. Die, die, die, die, die, die. Die, die, die, it. Die, die.

Die, die, die, die, die, die. Dye, dye, die, die, die, die, die, die, die. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. What is that? Brandon is to speak and communicate all of a sudden. Dye, dye, dye, dye, dye, dye, dye, dye, dye, dye. I love it so much. Okay, I really, man, okay, shit.

I'm going to just start trying to haul ass towards the rest of my party. So I'm going to run. Right. But I want to... 25, 30. Well, I stood up, so that's half distance, right? That's right, right there, yeah.

Can I, I want to do this strategically, hide behind those crates a little bit since I can't get far. Over here? The ones that are, yeah. Sure, you can do that. Crouch down while I get my bearings. Okay.

You got it. Does that finish your turn? Yeah, yeah, I guess so. Okay. Ashton, you're up. All right. I don't suppose, I assume I probably didn't work too hard to put this armor on. Can I use a bonus action to give a rip to the chest?

It takes more than that to take armor off, yeah. Even if I use a knife? Okay, never mind. Even if you use a knife. Just a little of it. Sorry. Let's run full speed at the butt of this little creature. You're going the wrong way, everyone. We got to get out of here! I know, we got to run.

Yep, but I ain't running until I'm faster than all of you. Those things are dangerous. I'm just going to take a swing right at its junk. Go for it. I'm going to do... Let's do Reckless. This will be fun. Over here. Oh, it's over here. I agree. Up here for your fun.

Oh, this way. 19? Oh shit I agree, up here for your fun. 19? Oh shit. I should have gone the other way. 19 hits? 19 hits. That's a... Retroactively change it, yeah. You only move like 15 feet.

I didn't go far. It's okay. Would you prefer to go this way? Yeah, I thought we were heading to that gate. I'm sorry, so I'll stand up and then just try and go this way and hide as much as I can. That's as best as you can do at move.

To hide is an action. Okay. 19 points of damage? 19 points of damage? 19 points of damage and... Great. Yeah, I'm not going to do that yet. Okay.

And I'm going to do it again. Go for it. Full attack. Full attack, reckless. Beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep. Yeah, 16, yeah, 25 to hit. That definitely hits. Uh, nine.

17 points of damage? 17 points of damage. As I come up and then I come back down. The first strike hits it heavily in the side and causes part of its ribcage to crack inward. The second hit does finish it. Yes! Oh, wow. This is going to be fun, then. Okay. I just take the hammer and reel it up. As I reel it up, it seems like the hammer

almost becomes translucent completely, except it seems like it's off-kilter a little bit. As I roll down and hit him again, as he cracks, I fall into the hole. Oh, okay, cool. Nice. Where do you go? They got theirs done. Where's the next guy? There's a guy up on top of here. There's a guy over by the door. There's a guy up on top of here. And there's a guy down by the gates.

I'm going to head 60 feet straight towards that guy. I'm going to get to him now. Jump to the gym. I'm going to head 60 feet straight toward that guy. He's just a page. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. We're going around White Ashton! You don't see me running.

You go up to here. You just bamf out right there? Yeah, and I just come right up. You could be blocked by the tower over here for me. Yeah, hop right up. He's been sitting there like, oh shit, oh shit, right! And he's getting his weapon out, like, it's stuck in my belt!

I'll say for my bonus action. Except it's all an elven. Run the fuck away! Make an intimidation point. Yes! I love it. Seeing what you just did, I'll allow that. Yeah, thank you.

That would be terrifying to all of a sudden have it bamf in front of you like that. Oh yeah. Yeah. That's, thank you. That would be terrifying to all of a sudden have it bamf in front of you like that. Oh boy. 25. 25. Much like the clown in the dream sequence from Brave Little Toaster, when you just say, Run away. He just, his knees buckle slightly. What a great reference. All right.

All right, that finishes your turn. FCG, you're up with Imogen on deck. Ooh. Gosh. Nice turn. So we don't know if he's running yet. I'll shoot a bolt at him, at that guy next to Ashton. You got it. Do you want to move or stay put?

No, I'll stay put for now. Go ahead and hold tight. Is it 80 feet away? He is within 80 feet, yeah. 17 to hit? 17 just hits. Okay. Actually, no, time. All right. Is it 80 feet away? He is within 80 feet, yes. 17 to hit? 17 just hits. Okay. Actually, no, 17 would miss him.

I'm sorry, I was looking at the wrong one. 17 misses him. Oh no. Just heal people! Oh no. Everyone needs healing. He puts up a shield reflexively whenever Ashton appears in front of him, he's like, and the shield up,

you just impact the shield, unfortunately. Are we still sympathetically bonded-ed-ed? We are, but you're so far away, I can't really do anything. Okay. I know. In that case, buddy boy, well, I instantly take six points of damage

because I couldn't get rid of it. La-di-da-di, we like to party. La-di-da-di. Boop. We don't cause trouble. Bonus action, I can't use my spiritual weapon because there's nothing to hit. I can heal somebody. Who needs some healing?

Right here, honey. So many people. I'll do some, some, um. Everybody. You're so far away, I can't even see you. No, you can't. Healing word goes 60 feet. I think I can reach Im see. No, you can't. Healing Word goes 60 feet. I think I can reach Image in.

Yeah, you can. I'm going fast. I'll Healing Word Image in it at second level. 2d4 plus three. Oh. That was not what. That doesn't count. Oh, I can't see it again! That's a three! Okay, so that's four plus three is seven. All right, so you take seven there.

Thank you. I got to get out. You got to go, run. And then I got to move, but which way? Out. Out! Praise be the changebreaker, let's go! I'm starting to believe. This went? Yeah. Allbreaker, let's go! They're starting to believe.

This way? Yeah. All right, so you go ahead. Praise be the changebreaker. Oh no. Put your feet that way. Come on, we're going! All right, finishing FCG's turn. That brings us now to Imogen with Fearne on deck.

Okay. I am going to run and try to get out as well. Cheese. I get you basically right up to where FCG is. Okay, great. That's move and dash. Anything else you want to do?

I think that's pretty much all I can do. Okay. Finishing Imogen's go. Fearne, you're up. You're on the ground. Ow! I'm going to get myself up and I'm going to book it. Okay, so it's 15 more feet from there. That's as far as you can get on movement. You still have your action. I'll dash, so 35 is my speed.

Oh, 35 will get you there, so fine. Yeah. 35 gets you right to the edge of that grass patch there, catching up and darting. Best it can. All righty. Did I finish your turn? I believe so. I can't also Banff outminster, can I? No. I think it's an action to bring him in, right? It's an action. That's my turn. Okay, got it. All right, finishing that.

Top of the next round. That horrible shriek once more. Yeah! Oh god. Oh no. Oh, for fuck's sake. Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck. Oh no!

No! No! No, it's like a giant wing! What is it? That is nowhere near as cute as what I drew, Matt. Oh man. No. Look at its neck.

Its neck, it's its, oh, it's a giant wing. I only, what is going on with its face? Does it land and eat the guard that's up there? No. No. The guard points down in your direction. It takes his whole turn to get there. It's just a full dash.

Once it heard the sound, it'll catch out. That's going to grab the edge of it and looks down upon all of you. That's going to finish its go. Uh-oh. Oh no. Oh man, this might be a continued. I know we got to get out of here and run. I do not see Laudna,

so I'm going to start running towards the gate, but look for her. I know that she must be over there somewhere, so I'm going to go five, 10, 15, use my Boots of Jumpiness and jump to my full range over these roots to here. That's 30. Do I see her?

I do, right? Grant, with your perception, yes, you will. Do I see her? I do, right? With your perception, yes, you will. I see a straight line. And she looks super fucked up? I mean, she's not looking great. I start running towards her. Five, 10, 15, 16, 25, 30, and I'll be there.

I can't do much anyway under the circumstances. I'm going to wait for her. That's it. I'm done. Okay. So noble. So foolish. All righty. Finishing your go. Chetney, you're up with Laudna on deck. I'm going to fucking, I'm going to run. I'm running to the sand, but I'm going to try and close within 10 feet of Imogen, yeah. So I put a little buffer. You got it, okay.

Then, yeah. We're grouping up, we're grouping up, and it can shoot things at us. Yeah, I know. Actually, and I'll dash and just put a little more, I'll veer to the left. You got it. Up here.

The other left. The other left. So with that, that brings us to Laudna with Ashton on deck. All right, seeing Orym, I'm going to try and, jeez, I guess for five, 10, 15. 15, 20, 25, 30 can get you right next to him. To him? Yeah.

Oh, Orym. Ha ha ha. Oh, Orym. And. Orym. And then he waited for me. I want to leave him, but I want to leave him. Dash. Yeah, I mean. Peace! Just high five him and keep going.

So, fuck, I don't know what else to do. Yeah, I'm just going to go. I'm going to literally tell him, let's go. Okay. 25, let's go. Okay. 10, 15, 20, 25, 30. Yeah. All righty. Okay.

So you draw it that way, that finishes your turn. Ashton. All right, I'm looking at this person's face. Do I get a vibe? Oh, yes, he can run. Actually, at this point, he turns and runs. Okay. So I'll say, I keep looking over there, I miss him over there. He just darts back to the gate and runs up into the tower.

I'm going to try and switch my rage. Okay. And so I'm burning another one. Yeah, I think I'm burning through three now. I'm going to pump you up. You have a pot of amethyst. Sick hits. Yeah, it doesn't help much, but I'm going to start. I'm going to take 80 feet towards the tree. Actually, I'll scoot the other side so that I don't want to be in the group.

You want to be over here? Yeah. You got it. I want to make some room. I also look like a'm, I don't want to be in the group. I'm nobody. You want to be over here? Yeah. You got it. Jotting off on the backspace. I want to make some room. I also look like a soldier, I might add. You do, you do. Just saying that. All right.

That finishes your go. That would now be FCG with Imogen on deck. I get to go again? Yeah. Holy moly. Yeah. I'll just win. We're just running, to be fair. I will pump four temporary hit points into you using our Sympathetic Bond.

Hell yeah. I'll take it. I guess that's a bonus action, right? And then, well, we're all clumpy. I could do some sort of mass healing thing, but maybe I'll wait until the dragon hurts us first. Well, the dragon could kill us first. Yeah, the dragon could kill us in one shot.

That's just a big risk. Drag, not dragon, fey dragon. What is it? Who knows? But seriously, one hit. You heard its name. Who is that? Who are you? Huh? Glomglut.

Glomglut. Glomglut. Glomglut. Glomglut. Glomglut. Glomglut. Glomglut. Glomglut. I can't dart it past you, Orym. Okay. Which means what, sweet peas? Sweet talker, yeah.

Well then, in that case, I'm going to take back your temporary hit points. Sorry. Wait, those are written. And I'm going to do a Mass Healing Word. Okay. I'm going to do Mass Healing Word. All right. It's not going to do a Mass Healing Word. Okay. I'm going to do Mass Healing Word. All right. It's not going to be

very much, guys. All right, you lose your temporary hit points. Wait, what? Why? Sorry, but you get five real hit points. Oh. Okay. Oh, thanks. But everyone gets five real hit points. Yes, all of you around that.

Except for you, Orym. Cool. But everyone else gets five hit points. Yes, all of you around that. Except for you, Orym. Cool. But everyone else gets five hit points, including me. Yeah. Nice, FCG. All righty, that finishes your go. I imagine you keep running, too. Yes, I'm going to keep running. Five hit points to you.

Oh, I took five? Oh, I got five. You healed five. Score. There's nothing to attack, right? Nothing immediately. By the way, there are figures on the parapets of the walls that are now, I've seen the explosion ducking for cover, are now getting up with their weapons ready

to start firing down into the courtyard. I'm going to shoot a shot back at the dragons. Oh god. Cool. At what range? I mean, it's at disadvantage. Okay, let's do it. Because it's up to 320 feet. Then yeah, let's go for it.

Are we still trying to stick to our same escape plan? That would be a cut. Fearne transforms. 12 to hit? Nice! Can't do that anymore. Scatters off of the hide of the creature. All right. Great, done.

Finishes your go. Oh, and move as far away as I can. You got it. So Imogen, you're up with Fearne on deck. Okay. Might have to get to the bramble, and then this is when we use the cloaks. And then we invisible ourselves, yeah.

We invisible and cloak these. Okay. It's not invisible, it's just a plus 10. It's not like we're gone. We could go in the hole. We're going to fly out of here, though, so we can turn into an eagle. Yeah. But that thing flies.

Oh shit. What? It does fly, doesn't it? Yeah, it flies. Air combat, baby. Air combat. You can't follow both of us, right? Both parties? Oh god. Diarrhea.

So? Well, okay. Mm. Diarrhea. Diarrhea. So? Well, okay. It's the brambles. I think, yeah, I think we just have to, we go invisible once we get to Brambles. Yeah. That's the best thing we can do at this point,

because if we fly, it's going to just kill us in the air. It's got to get to cover. It can outfly us, no problem. Got to get to cover. Boy, we're in a tight spot. Here we are. Okay, I'm going to... It's their son, everybody's spread out, but we need to be spread out,

but I also don't want to be spread out. I'm going to cast... Hemingaw. Shut up. Hemingaw. I'm going to cast Invisibility on me and FCG. Okay, so both of you turn invisible? Yeah, we're going to go invisible, and then I'm going to keep running. Okay, so note that, both of you. You both just keep running invisible. All right. And I'm going to tell Laudna, like, I've got my eye on you. I'm still here. I hear you.

Okay. And then, I'm finishing your go. That comes to Fearne. What are you doing, Fearne? All right, I'm booking it. I'm still running. Just running, bolting through. You got it, you got it.

Running, bolting through, you got it, you got it. Running, bolting through. Nice. Okay. Finishing your go, that brings us up to the top. Orym? Do you need to have a second? Okay, are there any trees off in this invisible area that I can't see? Yes, there are trees around that area.

Okay, so I'm gonna use my full movement and my action to move, and when I reach the end of as far as I can't see? Yes, there are trees around that area. Okay, so I'm going to use my full movement and my action to move, and when I reach the end of as far as I can go, I'm running with the group towards the gate, right? Is that where everyone's at? The gate's that way. Yeah, that's what I meant. I'm going this way.

So I'm asking, are there trees over here off the map? There's a couple of small trees, but most of the courtyard is the center of its open, and the trees and bush are really strong at the edges. So what I'm saying is, if I'm against this side of small trees, but most of the courtyard is the center of its open, and the trees and bush are really strong at the edges. So what I'm saying is, if I'm against this side of the machine, I would go a full 60 feet with my movement, and right when I got to the edge of my movement,

I would use Seedling to shoot out a Grasping Vine 30 feet and yank myself towards a tree 30 feet away. Yeah, if there's one that way, you can just go ahead and do that. So I Spider-Man myself an additional 30 feet. There you go. Pull yourself over there and land on that way. You can just go ahead and do that. So I Spider-Man myself an additional 30 feet. There you go. Pull yourself over there and land on that spot. You got it.

After that, you hear the voice echo across the center of the space. Gloomglot! God. Show them why no one crosses. Sorrowlord Zathuud. What was crosses, Sorrowlord Zathuda. What was it? Sorrowlord?

Sorrowlord Zathuda. That's cool. Sorrowlord Zathuda. Mm-hmm. Zah. Continues to fly up in the air right about here, I'll say for the sake of. Zathuda? Zathula?

Zathuda. Oh, fuck me. Zathuda-da? Zathula? Zathu-da. Oh fuck me, duh. Oh. Oh boy. I'm not with these people. He's going to actually fly over here. Oh boy, that's not good, Matt. Ugh. Wear him to the wall.

Yes, I know. We'll just know that he's there, Matt, but you don't have to move him. We'll say know that he's there, Matt, but you don't have to move there. We'll say, we'll say, Arks, watch as the large fey dragon, it's like milky white eyes looking down, its eyes go black, and its mouth opens. It hangs open, the rows of shark teeth,

the bottom of the jaw splits open in two, and its head pulls back, this energy begins to swirl in its mouth. It grinds this high-pitched whine sound as it just digs this beam like a laser across the ground. Oh shit. I'm going to need the only ones that it can really see in that range, I'll say, it's approximated in the space,

would be Orym and, no, it would be, from where it is, Fearne. Yeah, it would be Fearne, it would be you, Chetney, and it would be you, Orym. I need you to make Dexterity saving throw. Holy crap. Oh my god. Is this against magic?

It's Darkfire Gaze. It doesn't matter this against magic? It's Darkfire Gaze. It doesn't matter. No, this is. Darkfire Gaze. Jesus. Shadow. Might as well roll the Memento Mori dice. Ooh, not great. I was going to lot of dice.

Oh god. These are strong folk. Well, maybe not. 15. Fearne's dead. 15? 28 points of fire damage as it just burns through you. I don't think you can guide on a save. No, you can't guide a save. Oh, you can't. Okay, that's fine. That's fine. I don't think it would have mattered anyway.

12. 12, 28 points of fire damage to you, Fearne. I'm out. What? Fearne gets hit. I'm unconscious. I could have it, halve it, but I would lose my invisibility.

You just gave me. So I'll take 14 points of that. Okay, so Fearne, you take 14 instead of 28. Is that a spell? Okay. No, it's a reaction ability. It's a reaction. So yeah, that's not a spell or an attack. I don't think you would lose invisibility.

That's valid. Shit, what was I at? It does say spell or attack. It's technically a feature. I'll say for now I'll allow it. Why not? Yeah! So you can remain invisible and can take this. Only 14 to you, Fearne. Are you still standing? Yes. Barely. 14, you said?

14 points of fire damage to you. That's 14 to you. Thank goodness you did that last five points. Oh, yeah. Okay, good to know. Thank goodness you did that last five points. Oh, yeah. Okay, good to know. Because I would have been out. I failed as an eight. So 28 points of fire damage. Okay.

Why does this not let me do that? Okay. All right, that's going to finish its go. Now, everyone else has their next rotation of things here. There are a few shots going to be fired from above from the folks that are out there. So you can swarm. It's going to be 19 to hit. Hits. You take six points of piercing damage from one crossbow onto the side as the other soldiers on the sides of the walls are starting to fire down in the middle of the courtyard. So we're on the opposite side there.

It's going to be at you, Chetney. That's going to be a 16 to hit. Misses. Misses. Off to the side. One's going to be against you, Fearne. That's going to be a 15 to hit. Doesn't hit. Wow. You guys are getting real lucky.

Ooh! It's going to be one firing at you. Oh, okay. All right, that'd be Ooh! That's going to be one firing at you. Oh, okay. Why? That'd be great. It's going to be a 12. Oh. No! And then one last one at you, Laudna.

That's going to be a natural 20. Oh, come on! Mirror image. No, you're okay, you're okay. Yeah, six or higher. Mirror image hits the mirror image. Oh, thank god. Hits and knocks an image off to the side.

You are unhurt. Are the rest of you going in a full sprint? Yes. Yep. Other than... Not a full sprint. It's like a It's a fucking war of the worlds up in here.

I'm going to turn it into dust and shit. Yeah. So all of you can pretty much get to the gate at a full run, I'll say. Fearne and Laudna will be just outside of it before this entity gets to go again. Unless any of you have any way of helping. I'm going to burn one more round of my rage

and see what I get. Okay. Come on, come on, come on. You know what I need, you know what I need. 25% chance, you know what I need. And I don't get it, I get the exact same thing I'm still on. Fuck my life. Sorry.

My what sucks? Your hourglass sucks, right? Yes, it does. Would you say this, for Fearne and for Laudna, are either of them closer? Fearne is closer. Fearne is closer. Fearne is closer? For each of my runs, though,

can I be using my ability to pull Laudna five feet closer to me with each time I'm running so that she's getting, she'll have been 15 feet. I can also, I've got a gravity build. I can pull anyone within 15 feet of me 10 feet towards me with the gravity well. That will actually pull Fearne into the gateway. And with your telekinetic shove,

that'll pull Laudna just into his radius and then pull her into the gate. So I'm just getting more and more black and white. That's fucking awesome. That's awesome. So you all get pulled inside the Gatewell, which is a good 15, 20-foot block of hard stone, and you all are on the inside.

You now, as you step into the point, the door is still partially open from where you left it. The thing's on the ground, and the forest is beyond that way. Just as you all enter the inside, catching a second, you hear on the outside as the creature swoops down as Glomglut lands on the other side of the wall.

Burst off. He's getting his breath back. Yeah. It does not with a one. You are so lucky. Ooh, because we're all bunched together. Yep, you are so lucky. Zoom.

We can still do shit, though. But it does get one claw, or gets two claw reaches rend, which has a 10-foot reach, which the last two in there were Fearne and Laudna. So I used my action to dash there, but I still had a bonus action. Yeah.

So I'm going to throw a, because I have a bonus action, I'll drop Invisibility and throw a shield up on Fearne, unfortunately. That's okay. Also, if we're all through, something- So you get a plus two to your AC, Fearne. Ooh, okay.

And I'm using my last Seedling Vine to grab Laudna and yank her. Okay. Further out. You got it. So to grab Laudna and yank her. Okay. Further out. You got it. So you pull Laudna. Essentially, you're full-on, sticky hand, grabbing Laudna and then lobbing her back through the door as it's pushed open, which does throw her probably beyond the boundary

of the wall if you want to let her. Yeah, and get her out of danger. So you get full-on like. On my neck. Like wrist-rocketed, a little bit over to that side there. Don't keel with her, careful. Sorry. Oh, Gwen, no.

Low blow, low blow. Too soon. That does mean two rend attacks on Fearne. But the shield's up. The shield helps. She's got shield plus two to AC. That's going to be a 19 to hit. Two hit points. Silvery Barbs. That just going to be a 19 to hit. Two hit points.

Silvery Barbs. That just hits. Silvery Barbs? Silvery Barbs. Okay. That's going to be a 17 to hit. That doesn't hit! That doesn't hit with the shield!

That's the first hit. And Fearne, you have advantage on whatever your next shit is. The next red attack. Okay. That's going to be a 24. Oh! Oh no!

That hits. All right, you take, oh, this is nasty. Oh no, oh no. Come on, come on, come on. 25 points of slashing damage. Oh god. I'm out. Right through you.

The impact sends Fearne tumbling up past the door, unconscious. Outside of the door? Just beyond. Am I in the gravity thing? Ashton's gravity where he pulls me in? Yeah, the moment you're kept in the area, you just limply move further away from the creature.

Essentially, the impact throws you further from the scratch. I can pull people 10 feet. You watch as it's now holding the side, and it can probably squeeze through if it really tried because of its smaller snake form, but right now it's reaching and clawing through as you all begin to back through. You grab an unconscious fern,

and you all pull your way past out of the wall, and it's only about 10 or so feet before you hit the forest line, as you all break into the bramble expanse that surrounds the center of this keep. Immediately, I think we should throw the things over, right? Any invisibility area cloaking?

Yeah. You go and pull the cloaks over you just as you hear the Second wind on myself. above as it begins to search and hunt for its currently hidden prey. That's where Nott is at the same time. Fuck!

Oh my god! We got turned down! Ashley! We'll pick up there next week. You know, it could've gone worse. It can go a lot worse. It's still going worse. This is halftime. Oh man, that is Gluumgut's fucking bitch. That's not even dealing with the archfey on his back. It looks like he has a

fire sword? Yeah, hold on. The minion has a fire sword. This is Black Flame. Oh my god. Black Flame? Yeah. No, that's not allowed.

You're not allowed. Is that a fairy dragon or something? It's a fey dragon. It's a fey dragon? Oh, I guess. Sorrowlord, what was the name? Sorrowlord fey dragon. It's a fey dragon? Oh, I guess. Sorrowlord, what was the name? Sorrowlord Zathuda. Zathuda, thank you.

Indeed. Baratuda. Ooh, Baratuda. Well, we'll pick up there next week and see where it takes us. Okay. Oh my goodness. Oh my god.

Until then, thank you so much for coming along with us. Love you very much, and it's a Thursday out goodnight and that concludes this episode of Critical Role if you liked what you heard please leave a rating and review wherever you stream the Critical Role Podcast Network

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